Given the fragmented nature of the shareholder base, and the ability of many holders to have already voted with their feet and exited the stock, the chances of 'no' votes crossing the 50 percent threshold, (are) extremely small in my opinion, as a result, for Shell management the next few weeks are really about minimising the embarrassment of high profile dissent.

Martin Walker

Categorized in : Energy

Today, journalists more than any other cohort of professionals, are responsible for the confusion that surrounds power and its criminality in contemporary society. As Janet Malcolm said in another context, 'Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.'

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So perhaps the most worrying single remark made by a responsible banking official during the current crisis came from Jochen Sanio, the head of Germany's banking regulator BaFin. He warned on Aug. 1 that his country could be facing the worst banking crisis since 1931 - a reference to the collapse of Austria's Kredit Anstalt, which provoked a wave of bank failures across Europe.

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I've just been writing a column about the way in which Fallujah and New Orleans are looking to be twin towns in effect. They're both been worked over by the Bush Administration.

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