As the news buzz worldwide is filled with the sound of vuvuzela’s and everyone turns their attentions to the World Cup in South Africa, the George Media team have thrown our hats into the ring and despite yours truly drawing Algeria in the office sweepstakes —seriously conflicting any sense of support for my native England ahead of tonight’s game—everyone is having a ball.

In order to tie in the tournament to all-things IRJ now is a good time to look beyond what is happening on the pitches and enjoy the dramatic backdrop for tonight’s game at Cape Town’s Green Point Stadium: Rustenburg’s  Magaliesberg mountains. They are some of the oldest in the world and span 120 kilometres from Pretoria’s Bronkhorstspruit Dam in the east, over to Rustenburg. They also play host to platinum mining which provides employment and industry to the locality.

The Magaliesberg mountains are a perfect example of the country behind the football frenzy, and the concerns regarding vital energy, industry and infrastructural investments which will still be around once the teams have picked up their kits and gone home. To date, R17.5 billion has been spent on the five stadiums built and five others renovated to house this mass sporting event. When you consider that this is the same nation who just borrowed US$3.7 billion from the World Bank to build a new much-needed power plant, you can’t help but question the financials. Did no one think that this money could have gone to the national electricity provider, Eskom? Now we see reports that industrial action —in which two thirds of Eskom’s 32,000 staff may walk out— could threaten power cuts for the World Cup.

This sporting event has brought a promise of tourism and global focus to many, but at what cost today? It doesn’t make for popularity to highlight the real needs behind the beautiful game, but between Dutch beer companies storming seats with beautiful women and players touting mega sponsorship deals, it seems like madness that this hasn’t been given more coverage. By all means enjoy the match, but learning about the host country and appreciating it won’t hurt.

A U.S. government task force called the Flow Rate Technical Group released new estimates which ostensibly double the amount of oil being spewed out of a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. The task force’s new estimates suggest between 20,000 barrels and 40,000 barrels of oil may have spilled out daily before the well was partially contained.

Whether it is 400 barrels or 40,000 barrels or more, which it very likely will end up being, the potential damage is frightening. What is more frightening still, is the very obvious prioritization on the part of BP to cover up the evidence of the damage ( by withholding video of the oil well for weeks ) over getting any and all relevant information to sciences as quickly as possible.

Back in April, when George Media attended the G8/G20 Business Summit in Gatineau (coverage can be found at www.cbj.ca) I witnessed some of the most enlightened business leaders in the world present the reasons to do business, together. It took me some time to let the real impacts of this event sink in, but alas, here we are and I’m really coming to grips with the messages conveyed at the Summit—just in time for the Leaders’ Summits later this month.

Along with other politicians, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the stage, for quite some time on the second day of events. Normally, Harper is a PM whom I’m fine to support—provided his platform is based on solid fact. For the most part, he did a great job in Gatineau. Harper was quick to illustrate, during his panel discussion with John Manley and Perrin Beatty, that Canadian society is just as well-balanced as its economy.

However, much to my chagrin, he also made a very contentious general statement about Canadian society. I count this as a massive PR mistake, despite the fact that I was likely one of only two or three people that took issue with Harper’s statement (if they heard it).

“I think something has to be said about the Canadian society itself. It’s not that we try to tell our foreign visitors that this country is perfect, but Canada has, in a sense, the first truly globalized population. It is a country where we have people from every background, for the most part successfully integrated, and we have none of the deep social tensions and cleavages that mark so many other societies” Harper said—surely much to the disappointment of anyone in the audience of First Nations origin, or anyone from Quebec. I’m sure there were other audience members who felt alienated…but who am I to say anything? I just think whoever prepped him did a half-baked job.

I had to ask myself, more than a few times, did he really just say that? Stay tuned for an article in CBJ about social tension and how it affects business relationships.

In the meantime, discuss.

Here I was, sitting at my desk trying to articulate for our readers how frustrating it is that no-one has really measured the amount of oil spilled off of the Gulf of Mexico in the last few weeks (one of the PR mistakes in this disaster), but I thought I’d point to another blog about this very same topic, which illustrates the exact point that bothers me.

Felix Salmon, a writer with Reuters, puts it perfectly when he says “So let’s get down there and measure this thing” since no-one has really reported a true figure of barrels of oil spilled.

Felix asks “Why release a point estimate? Well, if the NOAA had released a range — say 3,000 to 30,000 barrels a day — then the press would have gravitated to the higher number, and talked about a spill of “as much as 30,000 barrels a day” – which, true to his thoughts, is exactly what the media is going to do.

No matter which way you flip it, this is all very, very bad. And a difference of a couple of zeros isn’t going to change public perception that someone needs to pay for this accident.

See Felix’s piece:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/05/14/lies-damn-lies-and-oil-spill-statistics.

As the UK parliamentary election rollercoaster grinds, or rather smashes, to a halt, both the IRJ London and Toronto offices have been chatting about the influx of damning and dooming media reports flooding in.  Speaking to editor over at the American Business Journal, Antonia McGuire, it was interesting to hear that the Canadian press, “made it sound quite catastrophic.” On this side of the pond, reports took a different approach, with some election commentary indicating a hung parliament for a while now.
Aside from the fact that some polling stations were so ill-equipped that valuable potential voters were left queuing in the cold unable to take part, a lot of this entire campaign has appeared to be orchestrated in a manner that I can only describe as, well, ‘British’. Even now, as the process of allegiances, shot calling and blaming plays out, things run along in a rather civilised manner. That is, according to some stories. When people speak of ‘the media’ as one enormous and often sinister monolith, I can’t help but wince. I wonder if it is possible to apply standards and to regulate this force, but also to understand the canyon between tabloids, bias blogging, empty press releases, broadsheet reporting and investigative or ‘free press’ text.
Another great example of the wild scale we see in reporting has to be BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and subsequent major oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. Every angle from the millions upon millions BP will lose, to the wildlife, to offshore development in the future, needs to be picked apart and made sense of and in doing so not every writer will be on the same page. Ultimately, be it the elections, the oil slick or the old ‘cat stuck up a tree’ analogy for a fluffy story, opinion is a tricky visitor to keep out of reporting.

In this recent election, there is as much to be enjoyed by way of media critique, as there is in reading a story to your liking and wholeheartedly believing every word. Whilst sensational reporting is a necessary evil of free speech and the written word – you catch more flies with sugar, after all – ensuring that those words are read knowingly and a full spectrum of reports are available, is surely extremely important. It’s not what we read, it’s how we read it.

News of the oil slick at British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off of the coast of Louisiana, just keeps getting worse doesn’t it?
Last Thursday, April 22, reports talked of emotional reunions between stranded rig workers and their respective families, and said that although those 11 people (now presumed dead) were missing, the rescue effort was due to continue until every iota of hope had been exhausted.

By Monday April 26, BP hauled in Development Driller III; the secondary rig intended to assist in the clean-up alongside what remained of the burning Deepwater Horizon.

“We are attacking this spill on two fronts — at the wellhead and on the surface offshore,” Tony Hayward, CEO for BP, told press as news emerged that 400 square-miles was now festooned by the leaking oil.

“The team on the ground and those at sea have the group’s full resources behind them.”

This was about the point where hopes for recovering the missing 11 alive began to fade, and by Tuesday, April 27, the news continued to reveal equally gloomy developments. BP posted US$5.6 billion cost profits for the first quarter 2010, a fantastic surging result on the US$2.4 billion for 2009, however unfortunately swathed by the tragedy which continued to unfold. Speculation swirled over how these sorts of profit increases might suffer under the weight of the accident.

On Wednesday April 28, the notion of controlled burning or, “setting the sea on fire,” sparked off and investigations as to whether this might be the answer BP are looking for began. Unfortunately the next day, on Thursday April 29, damning aerial photographs revealed that a second leak existed, capable of making the accident five times worse than originally thought. The United States Coastguard announced that 5,000 barrels per day are flowing into the offshore location.

Today, the weight of a fortnight of tragic and trying news is on BP’s shoulders. Industries spokespeople are voicing their deep concerns (if they haven’t already) and what was originally deemed to be a terrible, yet containable, accident, now appears to have truly taken on a life of its own.

It appears that there’s no knowing if, and when, some semblance of a conclusion will take place. Latest reports state that the oil has shown up on shore around the mouth of the Mississippi river. It is time to question just how terrible and far-reaching this accident might prove to be, as the time for denial and down-playing has long passed.

It’s nearly that time again folks. Our IRJ team is wrapping up those final bits and pieces before our May magazine hits your screens and I think it’s fair to say that this one is quite a storming issue.
Speaking of storming, as the UK waits patiently under a cloud of volcanic ash, it’s been a pretty rocky read for mining news this month. We’ve been totting up the tragedies and between what has been going on in China and the USA, it’s certainly not been an easy April.
Worldwide calls for heightened health and safety standards for the industry are everywhere, but are we really about to see any drastic change? During this week following the deaths of 29 employees at Massey Energy’s Upper big Branch Mine, West Virginia, it emerges that the company has incurred approximately 130 other violations to its health and safety regulations across its various operations.
Almost a year ago, in late May/early June, 2009, we had the tragic mine fire at the Eland shaft of Harmony’s gold mine in Free State province, South Africa, where 82 died and in the weeks that followed, endless reports of further violations in Harmony’s operations cropped up.
This backlash in which the media and industry voices really take down an entire company is to be expected. In no way should any such violations be condoned, either, but does dragging one company into the firing line by way of example ever truly equate to operational and legislative development?
It appears that regardless of worldwide location, standards or media stances on mining, the same mistakes keep being made. What is it really going to take before significant change takes place and the health and safety of miners the world over picks up?

It’s been an oil-fuelled day for the British tabloids, as it emerges that Kyu-Sun Choi, head of the South Korean UI Energy Corporation, the firm which paid ex UK PM Tony Blair to do some consultancy work, was convicted of bribery in 2003.
As is so often the case, the direct implications of this grand reveal are a little hazy but the repute of the entire firm, including its work with Blair, is certainly called into question.
Reports state that Choi was named as a go-between for oil firms looking to bribe the government for coveted oil contracts back in 2003. He was fined £260,000 and served a prison sentence for these sins, before a later, perhaps more damning, investigation took place which alleged that he had attempted to buy into a governmental Iraq exploration group too. He was later cleared of this charge; however it appears that some damage from insinuation had already been done.
Blair’s involvement in the South Korean UI Energy Corporation has been kept under wraps for two years (beginning a mere 14 months after he hung up his hat as PM) because a government ruling viewed this news to be ‘market sensitive,’ of course that doesn’t exactly bolster public confidence in light of this new information.
Unsurprisingly, the first call has been Blair’s moves to make good from contacts he has acquired during his dealings on the Iraq war. It’s not an allegation which is easily swallowed, especially as many British tabloids tout headlines on MP’s being ‘up for sale’ today following further reveals where UK MP’s offered up their influence and advice for daily rates. This story runs in Channel 4’s Dispatches investigative journalism series on British television tonight and serves to further the air of distrust and propagandist surge as we approach the UK elections.
Is it all a matter for political back-stabbing and agenda-pushing ahead of the elections, a truth unearthed for Blair and his Iraq involvements or a snipe at the O&G industry or another calculated move by the press? Who knows? It is practically impossible to separate the truth from fiction when such sensational headlines are unveiled, but that doesn’t stop this news from being startling and uncomfortable.

It’s fair to say that Argentina and the United Kingdom share a bit of back history when it comes to the Falkland Islands and renewed tensions over rightful sovereignty for these lands could have been easily enough predicted.

The onslaught of appeal to international mediators is quite a spectacle. From appealing to the United Nations for discussions, to most recently, Hilary Clinton, USA Secretary of State, offering to step in and promising to be impartial, it becomes difficult to determine any one true ruling party.

“It is our position that this is a matter to be resolved between the UK and Argentina,” Clinton, the told press on Monday March 1 after embarking upon her tour of South America which, somewhat strangely, did not include visiting Argentina until she had a change of heart later into the journey.

In the tail-end of April, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and a notoriously outspoken leader, addressed the Queen of England directly from his weekly television show, asking the UK to return the Falkland’s to the rightful ownership of Argentina.

“The time for empires are over, haven’t you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine people,” he told her onscreen.

“The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then.”

All in all, it’s been a particularly outspoken debacle thus far, with the heat turned up by British plans to commence oil exploration making the Falkland’s or Malvinas’ (depending on which reports you read) much more economically lucrative for both parties. Britain claims that it has invested heavily and is poised to begin drilling, while Argentina pointedly states that this is a secondary issue to original ownership.

To summarise, it’s extremely difficult to identify a winner, loser, right or wrong party in this struggle. Despite being just 300 miles from Argentine mainland, the majority of Falklander’s choose to ‘live British’ and favour this means of identity, yet whether this bears upon international discussion today remains to be seen. The world waits with baited breath as further media reports of support and opposition flood in from all over, as it looks like we are some way off from finding a solution.

I haven’t been able to get the news about The National Trust’s plans to up its renewable energy portion out of my thoughts.

The National Trust is the largest private holder and preserver of the United Kingdom’s treasured stately homes, parks, castles and estates. If, like me, you have been ushered/dragged around the delights of Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire and Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland as an unwilling child, its work is an essential part of understanding and appreciating English history today.

On Wednesday 11th, the heritage-minded landholder announced a brand new scheme called Energy- Grow Your Own, which faces the seemingly insurmountable task of slashing its fossil fuel consumption by 50 per cent during this pivotal decade leading up to 2020.

The plan applies to 300 historic buildings, 360 holiday cottages and numerous offices and visitor centres. On hearing this, visions of England’s castles with solar water heating systems gleaming like newly-polished armour from the battlements flooded my mind.

This plan is certainly very exciting, but it is equally interesting to read about the 140 renewable energy systems which the Trust already has in place. There is already 2.3 Mega Watts of heating power and one mega watt of electricity nestled amongst our treasured English landmarks. These were put in place by the National Trust Green Energy map, in which 27 initiatives have been implemented and partnered on with electricity giants Npower.

“World leaders may not have provided a political solution to the climate change problem at Copenhagen, but that should not delay us from delivering practical solutions on the ground,” Fiona Reynolds, Director General of the National Trust said.

“The trust has a responsibility to look after the special places in our care for ever, requiring us to make long-term decisions that will protect them for future generations to enjoy.”

It transpires that the National Trust Green Energy efforts began back in 2007.

“Npower matches every unit of normal electricity that you use and feeds the same amount, generated from renewable sources, into the electricity network,” its website explains.

In April 2008 the renewable systems installations began when ground and air source heat pumps were installed at Morden Hall in South London. The notion to install renewable technology in this - a building dating back well into the 1700’s – with a view to being carbon footprint conscious and also preserving this site for the future, is a happy one.

Today solar panel installations have just been completed. There are plans to install over 50 wood-fuelled boilers and talks of going hydro where existing infrastructure might compliment the renewable source.

The National Trust has made, and will continue to make great progress in switching to renewable. Hopefully it won’t be long before many more in the UK are inspired to follow suit.