Oil companies are the biggest money makers on this year’s Global 500, including BP, Microsoft and Wal-Mart.

Australia’s top companies are BHP Billiton, Westfarmers, Woolworths, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australian Bank, Westpac Banking, ANZ Bank and Telstra.

China’s leading companies are Sinopec, State Grid and China National Petroleum.

Yet there are huge companies, with revenue greater than, or equal to the commonly known brand name companies.

Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls, founded in 1885, has 130,00 employees and a turn-over of $128b. It is the leading manufacturer of auto interiors for cars and light-trucks. The company designs components and systems that manager car systems, including door and overhead and door controls for companies like Toyota, GM, Volkswagen and Ford.

Ingram Micro

It is also the world’s leading battery manufacturer. In 2009 they received the largest grant awarded by the United States Department of Energy, $299.2m, for building batteries for electric vehicles.

Ingram Micro turns over $30b and has 13,750 employees. It was formed in 1979. It is the world’s largest wholesale technology distributor, including desktops, notebooks, PC’s, storage devices, printers and software. Its 1,300 vendors include IBM, Nokia, Microsoft and Intel. It delivers product to over 180,000 resellers around the world. Acting only as a middle-man it has no interest in public knowledge about the company.

Mainly teachers know of TIAA-CREF, the number one retirement system for employees in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. It is one of the largest financial services companies in the U.S., servicing around 3.7m people. The company was formed in 1918, had 7,000 employees and turns over $26b.

TJX, formed in 1956 has over 150,000 employees and turns over $20b through its numerous stores, in the United States, Canada and Europe. The company’s leading discount retailers include such names as Marshalls, J.J. Maxx, HomeGoods and A.J. Wright.

Aramark Corp

Aramark Corp was founded in 1936. Today it has 250,000 employees and turns over $12b. The company provides food to various institutions such as businesses, courts, educational institutions, armed forces and health care providers. The Correctional Services department provides 1m meals a day to over 600 correctional facilities.

KFC

Yum! Brands Inc was founded in 1997, employs 49,000 people and has an $11b turnover.

It is the world’s largest restaurant chain by brand, operating over 37,000 restaurants, in over 110 countries. Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC and Long John Silver all operate under the Yum! Brand banner.

The Coast Guard says it saw a tow boat, Pere Ana C, hit the wellhead. No injuries were reported.

The Coast Guard does not know who owns the small well, or how much oil has leaked, though a sheen has been spotted in the lake.

A helicopter has been dispatched to survey the area, which is accessible only by boat.

On the BP front, BP is reporting a $17b loss for the past quarter and looking for management changes.

Under current law, the economic liability for a company responsible for a spill is $75 million, or if the company has not made a profit in the past four quarters, it would be liable for $150m, or twice the current cap.

BP however, says it has set aside several billion into an escrow account, to assist the spill victims. Analysts now estimate the cost of clean-up operations in the Gulf, to top $30b. The relief well is nearly complete for the final stage, a “bottom kill” in which mud and cement are pumped in to the leaking well.

BP CEO, Tony Hayward, has announced he will step down from his post in October. However, he feels he has been ‘demonized’ in the U.S., according to U.K.’s Guardian. He may be “too busy” to attend the hearings on the Gulf Oil spill.

“I believe this tragedy will leave BP a different company. I believe for it to move on in the United States it needs new leadership and it is for that reason I have stood down as the CEO,” Hayward said.

Hayward will walk away with a payout of $1.6m, plus $11m pension fund, though there has been talk of a key job at TNK-BP, in Russia, for Hayward. The Russian venture accounts for a quarter of the company’s production.

An American, BP executive Robert Dudley, looks set to replace Hayward. After a dispute with the Russian shareholders, Dudley was forced to flee Russia in 2008.

Thirty metre high flames and the following crude oil spill closed China’s largest port, Dalian, once voted the most livable city in China. Fifteen hours elapsed before fire fighters were able to put the flames out.

One firefighter was dragged ashore by his colleagues, after drowning in the black goo. The body was completely coated in thick slippery oil. He had been attempting to fix an underwater pump, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks.

Forty oil skimming boats and around 800 fishing boats were deployed in the area to assist with the clean up. More than 15 kilometres of oil barriers have been set up.

“Our priority is to collect the spilled oil to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters,” Dalian’s vice mayor, Dai Yulin.

The oil has spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers). State media says no more oil is leaking into the ocean. It has been estimated around 400,000 gallons of oil has spilled, which is minor compared to the 84 – 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

While the China oil spill is dwarfed by the BP spill, the greater danger in the China spill is that officials, oil company workers and volunteers have no protective clothing, as they attempt to clean the blackened beaches.

“We don’t have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks and straw mats,” an official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, in apparent exasperation.

The cause of the explosion to the pipe line, owned by China National Petroleum Corp., is still not clear. CNPC is Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

Keywords:chinas worst environmental disaster,china oil spill,pipe line explosion in china,firmeman drowned in china oil spill

They believe the bottle is from the 1780s, as part of a cargo destined for the Russian court. About 20 bottles are thought to be aboard the sunken vessel.

Swedish wine expert Carl-Jan Granqvist said each bottle could bring $68,000 “iI the corks are intact and the sparkling drink is genuine and drinkable.”

A 1787 Chateau Lafitte, a Bordeaux was sold at Christie’s auction house in the 1980’s for 105,00 pounds, ($160,00). When the buyer, Christopher Forbes, proudly displayed his investment, the ancient cork shrank and fell into the bottle, of what proved to be the most expensive bottle of vinegar. The bottle of wine was supposedly once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

In 2009 a charred bottle of beer that had survived the explosion of the Hindenburg zeppelin, in 1937, was supposed to have been auctioned off for between $7,500 and $20,000. Much of its original contents had evaporated. “You wouldn’t want to drink it – it is probably quite putrid to taste,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.

A New Jersey fireman, Leroy Smith allegedly found 6 bottles of Lowenbrau and a pitcher intact at the scene of the crash. He is reported to have given 5 other bottles away to his colleagues.

Hindenburg Survivor

In 2002, an Australian company called Wineflyers International announced it had sourced and sold six bottles of wine from the Titanic to “a high profile customer in Asia.”

A Swedish freighter Jonkpoing was en route to Russia in 1916, carrying a full cargo of alcohol ordered by Tsar Nicholas II, when she was sunk by a German torpedo. The wreck was found in 1997, where a salvage company reportedly recovered 2000 bottles of 1907 Heidsiek & Co. The Burgundy and Cognac had not survived 82 years of submersion.

Laurent Davaine, Director of Exports at Heidsieck, said “The Champagne still shows an amazing balance and a beautiful golden hue with the effervescence still present.” As of late 2008 most of the bottles had already been sold at auction, but there were still ten bottles for sale at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow, priced at $35,000 each

The MV Republic was a proto-Titanic – the largest operating luxurious cruise ship of her day, owned by White Star Lines until she ran into another boat. In 1981 divers found a 1898 Moet & Chandon that still had “a robust, hearty taste with a pale color similar to ginger ale.” Unfortunately, after spending $10,000 per day to bring three hundred bottles to the surface, Wine Spectator reported that Christie’s “found no bottles in condition to be auctioned off.” They had all been “invaded by sulfur-producing bacteria that travel at the bottom of the sea,” according to Michael Davis, Vice President of Christie’s wine division.

“Before the M.V. Altavia initially docked, officers with the Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency boarded and gave clearance for the cargo to be unlocked for offloading,” said Bernadette Meno, marking administrator for the Port Authority of Guam.

The Guam Department of Agriculture said hundreds of large spiders and thousands of smaller ones were seen when stevedores began offloading from the ship. The insulation and beams for housing units were part of the $200 million contract with Korean construction firms.

The stevedores immediately notified Port police of the incident along with the ship’s agent. The Port police also notified officials at the Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency.

The cargo was returned to the ship and was sent back out to anchorage. Later the Agriculture ordered that the ship not be allowed to dock and was sent out to quarantine anchorage, in the outer Apra Harbour area. The ship was last ported in South Korea.

“When you get this many from this many various sizes, it’s definitely an infestation,” said Department of Agriculture Director Joseph Torres.

Agriculture officials said they didn’t know what type of spiders were on the ship, but it’s a type that is not normally found on Guam. There was concern the spiders could damage the island’s environment.

“It’s not on Guam,” Torres said. “We don’t want it here.”

If the species proves to be invasive, the contents of the container will be fumigated, paid for by the owner of the vessel. If more spiders are found the ship will remain in quarantine.

Vice President of Marianas Steamship Agencies Inc., Richard P. Sablan, said his agency is following the leads of officials from Customs, the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Coast Guard on the matter.

Infestations on ships are not uncommon, from insects, to mites, rats, cockroaches and fire ants. These can persist for years in ships, even after the initial infestation has been dealt with.

It shows BP’s ‘Command Centre’ in Houston, where ever-vigilant BP employees appear to sit in a dark room, monitoring a ten-screen display of oil-spill footage.

However, the photo on the website was allegedly Photoshpped by adding three extra images to it. The question is why was it necessary?

BP's Photoshopped images

The metadata on the superimposed photograph indicates that the image was photographed in March of 2001, which would point to BP ‘covering up’, once again. The company blames its photographer for any confusion.

In the meantime scientists are attempting to analyze date from the sea floor as to whether or not a leaking well cap is a sign of BP’s broken oil well is buckling. Oil and gas are once again seeping into the Gulf, though more slowly this time.

Seepage was also detected 2 miles from the Deepwater Horizon site. This may have nothing to do with the broken oil well, as oil and gas are known to ooze naturally from fissures in sea floor of the Gulf.

BP and the government had been at loggerheads over the company’s desire to leave the cap in place, until a relief well can be used to plug it permanently.

Governent point men on the disaster, Thad Allan, said his initial preference was to pipe oil through the cap to tankers on the surface, in order to reduce the chance that the buildup of pressure inside the well would cause a new blowout. That plan would require releasing millions more gallons of oil into the ocean for a few days during the transition.

However, with lower pressure readings from the well than expected, speculation is that either the reservoir of oil is dwindling, or there is an undiscovered leak somewhere in the well.

Both BP and the Coast Guard initially said no oil was leaking from the oil rig, after it exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers. Next the company and its federal overseers, drastically underestimated the size of the spill. Somewhere between 94m and 184m gallons have gushed into the Gulf.

Ronald Sepulvado, a BP drilling supervisor, has testified that he reported a leak of hydraulic fluid in a critical safety device, weeks prior to the explosion. This report could have diverted the worst U.S. ecological disaster ever.

Was it this report that nudged BP CEO, Tony Hayward, to sell his 1.4 million pound of shares in BP just a month before the Gulf spill?

BP says the cost of the clean-up has now reached $4billion, with around 300 law suits and 116,000 claims being made against the company.

Hayward is alleged to have sold his £1.4 million shares in BP, one month before the Gulf spill. This in netted him over £423,000, before BP’s share price plunged. Hayward’s pay package of £4 million a year may have been insufficient. It is rumoured his cashing out enabled him to pay off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent.

Other life-risking information withheld is that chemicals released have not been monitored. WMR (Wellness Management Recovery Program) colleague John Caylor, a Gulf Coast resident, reported “BP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which have stated that several hundred air quality monitors have been deployed around the Florida and Alabama coasts and have not detected any benzene levels that would be harmful to human health, are lying.”

The spewing oil and dispersant chemicals are toxic enough for so many people to become ill, evacuation may be the only option, especially before another hurricane blows the lethal cocktail over more Southerners.

The petrochemical-military-industrial operation is believed to be gassing Gulf Coast residents with poisonous Benzene and Corexit dispersant, at dangerously high levels, in the largest U.S. domestic military operation to date.

The military and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) are engaged in Emergency Plans for 36 urban areas, from Texas to Florida. Some people have already been advised to relocate.

A rapid military build-up and an unconfirmed road-block maneuvers are being conducted, along with a visible exodus of residents in the Barataria Bay area, of Jefferson Parish in South Louisiana. This news from Intel Hub, coincides with the unconfirmed new military rule, which has been gently broken to the public, of having to obtain from the military, carry papers in the region, starting with reporters and photographers.

South Louisiana residents, who have seen hurricane emergency operations for decades, say they have never seen anything like this type of emergency preparedness.

While people are still allowed to leave on their own accord, the road blocks are apparently for people attempting to travel in to the area, according to Project Gulf Impact’s unconfirmed reports. Removal trucks are no longer available in South Louisiana, due to the huge exodus.

Intel Hub Radio host, Shepard Ambellas, received calls reporting people have witnessed a massive build up of combat troops, heavy combat equipment and weaponry, including Active Denial Systems, after he asked for ‘intel soldiers’ to phone in information.

BP’s new cap being trialed could cause the well head to rupture, from extra pressure and cause even more devastation.

Adam Dillon, once contracted as a BP liaison officer was fired after taking photos that he believes were related to the use of dispersants and to the cleanup of the oil. Dillon was not even sure what he had photographed, but after passing the photographs on to his superiors, he was interrogated for nearly an hour, then within 12 hours he was fired.

Dillion had been instrumental in blatantly rebuffing reporters’ attempts, on his superiors’ instructions, to observe cleanup operations in Grand Isle.

“Money is the bottom line,” said Dillon. “What BP is doing to America is wrong.”

According to Gulf resident Kindra Arnesen, who turned full-time activist when she saw how many people were put out of work by the spill, BP will deduct money from individual payments on claims for lost income, if the claimant refuses to work in assisting the spill response.

Kindra Arnesen’s husband opted to work for BP in the clean up. She believes he was one of many who were sickened by the toxic vapours from the spilt oil. BP CEO Tony Hayward tried to pass off the multiple boats full of sick fishermen as ‘food poisoning’.

The company has since discouraged use of respirators because they don’t want the task to appear dangerous. However, RFK Center President Kerry Kennedy traveled to the Gulf Coast to talk to cleanup workers and found that BP’s active denial of proper safety equipment was having a serious health effect.

“In all three states that I’ve visited, fishermen said when they went out to work on the cleanup, that if they tried to bring respirators they were told it was unnecessary equipment and would only spread hysteria,” said Kennedy.

“When I went out with eleven people, we had respirators on and within half an hour, all of our eyes were burning and our throats were closing and we all had headaches,” she explained.

Tony Hayward has been sent to the Arabic states to raise funds for BP in order to stave off a takeover bid.

Russian Submersible

In the meanwhile BP reports it has had 120,000 different solutions presented to them by a wide variety of people. “We are looking through all of these to see which are viable.”

The skipper of one of two Russian owned Mir submersibles, which can dive to 6,000m, claims that there is still time for the subs to assist BP with the disaster.

A BP spokesman told BBC News “If the Russians want to contact us, or may have done so through some other channel, we can evaluate their idea.”

Two key nurseries were affected by the lethal dose of herbicide. The seedling nursery and a neighbouring hydroponic farm, where 16,000 mature tomato plants have also died, shared a joint irrigation system.

Karl Walker, growers association president said, “There is a estimated $50m loss to the region’s economy.” About 7 million plants, including 4 million tomato and 2 million capsicum seedlings, were poisoned.

Melon, eggplant, cucumber and pumpkin crops were also affected. Bowen’s Supa Seedlings nursery supplies seedlings for 30 of the region’s growers.

Acting Townsville police Detective Inspector, Dave Miles, says it appears to have been a deliberate act of sabotage. “The plants have received an application of water which has been mixed with the herbicide which has then led to the death of the plants.”

Farmers say crops in the area have been poisoned four times in the last eight years, 2002, 2006 and now 2010. However, none of the attacks have been on this scale.

“It may be as a result of competition, it may be a result of a grudge or vendetta or something, it could be directly related to another incident,” said Inspector Miles.

The Bowen region, about 200 kilometres south of Townsville, produces about 80 per cent of Australia’s fruit and vegetables during winter. Any price increases would not be felt until September, when the crops were due to appear on shelves.

Hugh Tobin, a spokesman for AusVeg, said the incident would disrupt the cycle of seasonal workers who follow the harvest through fruit-growing areas. There will also be flow on effects on the tourism and restaurant industry.

Whitsunday Regional Council Mayor Mike Brunker wants the Queensland Government to fund a reward to help lead police to whoever is responsible for the attack.

Ryan had been swimming in the ocean the day before. The following day she was treated by a local doctor for skin rash on her legs.

There had been 5 HazMat tents and around 24 HazMat workers on the Pensacola Beach, Florida. They wore yellow over-boots duct-taped to their long pants’ legs to minimize risk of contact with the water. They had all received hazardous waste training.

Children and adults happily plunged into the ‘contaminated’ ocean, without anyone trying to stop, or warn them. Most people are barefoot, even though shoe treads become weighed down with oily sand. Hotels have setup oil cleaning stations on their premises and signs saying that swimming is not advisable.

Contaminated Beaches

From Louisiana to Florida, people are reporting skin rashes and blisters, after going into the ocean. Not all the oil washing ashore is visible, as dispersed oil, encased in chemical dispersants, are in the water column.

There are complaints from people across all four Gulf States, with persistent coughs, stuffy sinuses, headaches, burning eyes, sore throats, ear bleeds and fatigue. The symptoms of respiratory problems, central nervous system distress and skin irritation are consistent with overexposure to crude oil.

Officials have sounded no alarm about a public health threat because three federal agencies – DHHS, EPA and OSHA – cannot find any unsafe levels of oil in air or water. The medical and scientific community however, widely recognize the toxic threat from crude oil.

BP officials stress that, by the time oil reaches the shore, it is “weathered” and missing highly volatile compounds such as carcinogenic benzene. BP fails to mention the threat from dispersed oil, ultrafine particles (PAHs) and chemical dispersants, which include industrial solvents and proprietary compounds, many hazardous to humans.

Workers at the spill site have suffered numerous health problems due to oil exposure.

The burn off fires , an easy and inexpensive fix to the oil spill, release volumes of toxic gases, of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogrn oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds of benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene.

Nearly 5 million gallons of oil have been burned at temperatures well above 2,000 degrees. No official air quality monitoring occurs because most of the burn sites are 50 miles offshore, well beyond the Environmental Protection Agency’s jurisdiction.

BP claims it is replacing the leaking cap with a tighter one and a skimming super oil tanker has finally been sent to the oil spill area.

Bp admits it did not use standard industry process to assess risk on any of its US wells, including the high –pressure Deepwater Horizon well. The safety case was developed in Britain after the catastrophic 1988 Piper Alpha oil rig explosion, in which 167 people lost their lives.