Word: texaco
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...battleground has even stronger parallels to Avatar. In the Ecuadorean Amazon, indigenous groups have been waging a decades-long fight against the international energy company Chevron, claiming that years of poorly managed oil drilling has all but destroyed their ancestral forest homes. (Most of the work was done by Texaco, but Chevron bought the corporation in 2000.) There's currently a $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron - perhaps the largest ever such case concerning pollution - making its way through Ecuadorean courts, and a ruling is expected soon...
...first experimental transmissions from the antenna atop the Empire State Building in 1931, and it started regular broadcasts in New York City in 1939, debuting in time for the opening of the World's Fair. The company minted the first TV star in comedian Milton Berle, whose Texaco Star Theater became a hit in 1948 - the same year that the number of televisions in America crossed the 1 million mark. NBC started broadcasting in color in 1954; its famed peacock logo was created in 1956 to highlight the medium's newfound richness. By 1965, 95% of NBC's TV broadcasts...
...laws. In any event, the scandal promises to delay the completion of a trial that has already spanned two decades and two continents. It began in the early 1990s in New York, after settlers and indigenous tribes in the Amazon oil towns of Coca, Lago Agrio and Shushufindi accused Texaco - which was bought by Chevron in 2002 - of recklessly dumping crude and wastewater into their lakes and rivers, seriously damaging the public health and livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. A court-appointed expert estimated the total damage to be a remarkable $27 billion, a figure Chevron says...
Ironically, Chevron in 2003 requested that the trial be moved to Lago Agrio, believing the conservative Ecuadorian government at the time would be more sympathetic. Indeed, in 1998 the government had declared that Texaco's $40 million cleanup of the sullied Amazon area was satisfactory. But three years later, Correa was elected, and Chevron has complained ever since that his administration has interfered in the case and prodded the judges overseeing it - including Nuñez, who took over last year - toward the plaintiffs...
Coca itself evokes an American western boomtown, with the equivalent of saloons and other entertainment for the Halliburton or Texaco employee looking to blow off steam. Across from the canoe dock stands a large military casino, funded by—no surprise—oil. A large amount of oil revenue (the local guides claim 40 percent) is funneled directly into Ecuador’s large military...