BP faces the wrath of Gulf Coast fishers and shareholders

By Sarah Morrison and Sarah Arnott

Chanting, raging arguments which escalated to scuffles, and shareholders carried out sideways by security – BP’s 2011 annual general meeting, held in London yesterday, broke corporate conventions.

The company’s first meeting with shareholders since last year’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst oil spill in history, saw its executives face questions over their own basic competence and high pay, as well as the company’s safety and environmental records.

In an unusual shareholder rebellion, there was a sizeable protest vote against the pay deals handed to the company’s top bosses. Seven per cent of BP investors voted against the re-appointment of the company’s unpopular chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, and 25 per cent voted against the re-election of Sir Bill Castell, the non-executive director who heads BP’s safety committee. Eleven per cent voted against the remuneration report.

Police use CS gas against protest over tax evasion

Police sprayed protesters with CS gas yesterday at a demonstration in central London against tax evasion.

Trouble flared as police arrested a member of the protest group UKUncut on suspicion of criminal damage during a sit-in at Boots on Oxford Street, which closed the shop for four hours. Protesters said the woman was placing leaflets in between the gaps of the store’s doors when she was accused of damaging the building.

Dawn Foster, 24, said: “She was asked to follow officers into an alley and when she refused, she was grabbed and pulled around the corner. Then everyone followed police into the alley, chanting: ‘Shame on you.’ An officer sprayed a bunch of people with the gas. They were screaming.”

Tuition fees: is this really all we are worth?

Injured police officers, bloodied teens, broken glass and that picture of Charles and Camilla are now all etched into our memories. The vote to treble tuition fees and scrap Educational Maintenance Allowance has passed, and a record nearly one million people under 25 are now unemployed. But while idealism might have waned, young people around the UK are gearing up to play their part in the next day of action against the cuts this Saturday, with a very clear (if not appropriated) message: “What Parliament can do the movement can undo!”

In fact, as the fight to save education is propelled into 2011, one thing is now more noticeable: young people are enemy No 1 as the distance between politician and protester deepens. Yes, the fight against the cuts began with the last government and the Independent Review of Higher Education and Finance, commissioned by Lord Mandelson to advise on the sector’s future funding. But while the Coalition seems intent on blaming Labour for every blow they have been dealt, the fondly called Browne review has been described as “a serious, paradigm-shifting publication” by Universities Minister David Willetts.  Now for the questions.

Protesters take to the street to save Whittington hospital

“Save Whittington A&E, Save Whittington Maternity,” demanded demonstrators the Saturday just gone.

Thousands marched from Highbury Corner to Whittington Hospital in North London on Saturday to protest against the possible closure of A&E departments across North Central London and rally against what they see as a systematic downgrading of public health services in the capital city.

Solidarity shown during UC walkout

“No cuts, no fees, education should be free,” chanted thousands of UC Berkeley faculty, staff, workers and students as they protested in Sproul Plaza against state budget cuts, increased fees, lay-offs, and poor management of the UC system during yesterday’s campus-wide walkout.

While the protests began at 7.15 am yesterday with strikes initiated by the University Professional and Technical Employees union (UPTE) and the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) throwing up a picket line at the campus, by midday the plaza was crammed full with an estimated 5000 protestors in a scene reminiscent of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.

Outlining how budget cuts have led to staff shortages, reduced pay, and a lack of vital university services, UC Berkeley professor of art history Timothy Clark, who has taught at the university for more than 21 years, stressed how the Berkeley community felt they had been let down by the UC Board of Regents and the California Legislature.