• Gulf residents at BP meeting: We were treated like 'criminals'

    ITN

    Diane Wilson, from Seadrift, Texas, was arrested after protesting against BP at the entrance to a conference center where the company held its annual general meeting of its shareholders, in London on Thursday.

    By Marian Smith, msnbc.com

    LONDON - "It's humiliating! They treated us like we were criminals," said Tracy Kuhns, who had traveled from Barataria Bay, La. to attend BP's annual shareholder meeting in London on Thursday.

    She and her husband, Michael Roberts, had made the long trip with three other Gulf Coast residents hoping to address BP shareholders about their ongoing plight almost one year after the catastrophic oil spill began on April 20, 2010. But even with their proxy cards in hand, which they believed would allow their participation in the shareholders meeting, all five Gulf Coasters were denied entry.

    "They asked us where we were from, we said Louisiana, and they said you can't go in," Kuhns told msnbc.com outside the massive Excel Center convention hall in east London. She described how the guards had lowered a metal security gate to stop them from entering the event.

    One woman from their contingent, Diane Wilson from Seadrift, Texas, didn't even get that far – after smearing black paint on herself at the convention center's entrance, she was promptly arrested by police.

    For Kuhns and Roberts, however, it wasn't about protesting. "We wanted to tell the shareholders that all is not well in the Gulf of Mexico," explained Roberts, despite what BP says about the clean-up effort being a success. Before the oil spill he made a good living catching shrimp, crabs and fish, but today his family is living off the money he earned from  Vessels of Opportunity, the program that paid local boats to help with the clean-up. "And that's about to run out," he said.

    Roberts said he was frustrated by BP's claims process, which he says wasn't compensating people adequately. "From my $100,000 claim, they gave me $6,000," he said. "We thought they would take care of us."

    Another fisherman in the group of Americans, Byron Encalade, told a similar story. His small oyster fishing business in Pointe a la Hache, La. was devastated by the spill and time and time again BP denied his claims, he said. "I'm not out to destroy BP – they employ a lot of people. But they just need to keep their word," Encalade said.

    Victims of the BP oil spill traveled from the Gulf Coast to London on Thursday to drive home the point that almost one year after the country's largest-ever environmental disaster, many people are still dealing with the impact. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

    He had wanted to urge BP to pay the interim claims. "Who are you giving the money to?" he said, addressing the oil company. "We're not getting it."

    The group saw their trip to London, paid for by the Gulf Coast Fund charitable organization, as an opportunity to make sure BP's shareholders know that the disaster isn't over. "Everybody is sick, no one is talking about that," Kuhns said. She described the skin rashes people have and the respiratory difficulties – the "BP cough," as locals call it.

    "They're scared of us, that's why they didn't let us in," Kuhns said. "The executives are scared to death that the stakeholders are going to find out the truth."

    BP spokesman Robert Wine said the four Americans were turned away because they had been seen with Wilson, the woman who was arrested after staging the protest at the convention center's entrance. "The decision [to turn them away] was taken because of safety issues – because of the possible disruption," he said. "We weren't sure what might happen."

    The company is entitled under law to turn people away over "appropriate grounds," Wine said, even if they hold proxy votes as the four Americans did.

    About an hour into the meeting Kuhns, standing outside with the rest of her group, answered a call from someone inside the meeting. "He wants to know if we want to try to get in," she said to her husband. Roberts held up his proxy sheet, which he had torn into pieces.

    He laughed. "Tell him their proxy is in 150 pieces."

     

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  • Eco-warriors give London small taste of spill pain

    By F. Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com staff

    LONDON – As BP CEO Tony Hayward resigned under a cloud Tuesday, thousands of British motorists got an unexpected reminder of the oil spill that's wreaked havoc in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Protesters with the environmental group Greenpeace said they shut off fuel supplies at 46 BP gas stations across London just in time for the morning rush-hour. Small teams of activists used a standard shut-off switch to stop the flow of fuel oil at the targeted stations. The switches were then removed to prevent most BP outlets in the capital from opening.

    Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

    Demonstrators stand outside a BP petrol station, which they have barricaded with fences, in London on Tuesday.

    And to ensure there was no chance of drivers buying gas, demonstrators in fluorescent vests and helmets locked green metal fences around some sites.

    "What BP needs to do is not just change CEOs it needs to actually come up with a new strategy," Greenpeace U.K.’s chief executive John Sauven said at one of the shuttered stations in Camden, north London.

    Sauven said BP must live up to its pledge to move "beyond petroleum" and stop focusing on squeezing oil from places like the Gulf of Mexico, Canada's tar sands and the fragile Arctic wilderness.

    'Holding us to ransom'
    Anna Jones, who was one of the handful up at dawn to ensure gas stations were shuttered, took a harder line.

    "Big companies like BP are holding us to ransom, chasing profits at the expense of us," the 29-year-old part-time dance teacher said. "The generation before us is largely responsible and the next generation coming up will have to deal with the consequences."

    A BP spokesman described the group's protest as "an irresponsible and childish act which is interfering with safety systems." The firm claimed that only a handful of stations had been prevented from opening.

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    Londoners had mixed views on Greenpeace's actions.

    Daniel Watson, a 41-year-old teacher and tuba player, said BP should recognize the problems of global warming and dependence on petroleum products.

    "We are still living in the illusion that we can live on fossil fuels indefinitely," he added. "There is this kind of approach that it is somebody else’s problem."

    Golden handshake
    Big firms also need to stop handing out big packages to disgraced executives, he said. Hayward's golden handshake included a $1.6 million payoff and pension pot valued at about $17 million.

    "We need controls so that doing a bad job doesn’t get rewarded," Watson said.

    Steve, who has driven a London cab for 37 years and only gave his first name, said he wanted to do something to "save the whales" but branded the protests targeting gas station as "stunts."

    However, Hayward's payout and the behavior of many other executives left the cabbie annoyed.

    "Some of cleverest guys can be the stupidest when it comes to the real world – I see that in my job all the time."

    But not everyone thought Greenpeace was on the right track.

    "Is everybody going to skip driving cars, heating our houses, flying? Get a grip,” said Kathy Wallace, a Canadian who was on her way home to Scotland. “The environment is going to hell anyway, we've already ruined it. All we can do is control the situation."

  • Brits blame Obama as BP-linked pensions plummet

    By Jennifer Carlile, msnbc.com staff

    The oil polluting Louisiana’s marshes lies about 5,000 miles away from Britain’s coastline. But while wildlife, the fishing industry and tourism here are safe from the slick, the leak is hitting Britons’ pockets and their pride.

    By Wednesday night, BP's shares had lost more than half of their market value -- or at least $71 billion -- in the 52 days since the crisis began. Almost every pension fund in the U.K. owns shares in the energy giant, raising serious questions about the impact the firm's plummeting value will have on the retirement plans for millions of Britons. President Barack Obama's threat to block a BP dividend payment in order to ensure victims of the spill get compensation has also sparked widespread alarm.

    “Obama’s boot on the throat of British pensioners” read the front-page headline in Thursday's Daily Telegraph, which added that the president's "attacks on BP were blamed for wiping billions off the company’s value."

    'Aggressive rhetoric'
    “U.K. alarm over attack on BP” was the Financial Times' take on the crisis, which it suggested could damage transatlantic relations. The newspaper accused President Barack Obama of employing "increasingly aggressive rhetoric" against BP.

    Shares in BP hit their lowest level in 13 years on Thursday. According to the Telegraph, BP executives are so worried that Obama’s comments could continue to drive down BP's share price that the firm has asked Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene. Cameron is due to speak with Obama this weekend.

    Obama and U.S. officials have repeatedly referred to BP as “British Petroleum” -- despite the fact that the company officially changed its name in 2000. Some have interpreted this as an attack on the country's reputation.

    Last Friday, Obama declared “what I don’t want to hear is, when they’re spending that kind of money on their shareholders and … TV advertising, that they’re nickel-and-diming fishermen or small businesses here in the Gulf.”

    'Matter of national concern'
    Some are concerned about the battering the U.K.'s image is taking in the U.S.

    "I do think there's something slightly worrying about the anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America,” Boris Johnson, London's New York-born mayor, told the BBC on Thursday. “I do think that it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the international airwaves.

    "I would like to see a bit of cool heads and a bit of calm reflection about how to deal with this problem rather than endlessly buck passing and name calling."

    At London’s King’s Cross train station, Thelma Aengenheister echoed the mayor’s sentiments.

    “It’s easier for Obama to kick a British company than an American one; there will be fewer repercussions,” said the 80-year-old, who was on her way to Brussels. “It’s like kicking someone when they’re down. But I do feel for the people of Louisiana, it must be dreadful for them.”

    While making cappuccinos and lattes, coffee-stand owner Haroon admitted he was "worried" about the impact losing BP's dividend would potentially have on his pension plan.

    "A lot of pension funds will have invested in BP because of the dividend,” said the 34-year-old, who lives in south London.

    But despite fear over the value of their pensions, there is little sympathy for Tony Hayward, BP's gaffe-prone chief executive who has been criticized for his handling of the disaster.

    Kirsty Anthony, a 41-year-old teacher, said that she believed Hayward should be "sacked."

    “I’m worried about the wildlife and I think most British people think he should be held accountable; Obama would blame a U.S. company just the same,” Anthony added.

    Harsher treatment?
    However, some newspaper columnists have claimed that the language used against BP has been much harsher than the treatment of U.S. company ExxonMobil after the Exxon Valdez oil tanker sank off Alaska in 1989.

    Others have noted that when the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha exploded in 1988, killing 167 people, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did not verbally attack its American owners.

    Some pundits even claim Obama has a deep-seated dislike for Britain.

    Stephen Glover, a columnist for the right-wing Daily Mail tabloid, wrote: "The president's public evisceration of BP cannot merely be explained by his feelings of impotence or his political predicament.

    "I don't wish to sound paranoid, but it is pretty clear that Mr Obama does not much like anything that is British. There is an anti-British undertow throughout his book 'Dreams From My Father', with slighting references to the country and its citizens."

    Glover suggested that Obama’s allegation that his grandfather was tortured by British authorities in Kenya in the 1950s “helped to shape his feelings about Britain.”

    He added that Obama displays “no affection for, or interest in, this country and its history,” and noted how upon entering the Oval Office, he immediately returned a bust of Winston Churchill that had been loaned to George W. Bush.

    However, that view didn't find much support on the streets of London.

    IT consultant Paul Titley said that blame for such an environmental catastrophe had to be placed somewhere.

    “I don’t think Americans dislike British people,” he said. “Thankfully, I don’t have money tied up in BP. I don’t have a pension. … I live for today.”