Royal Dutch Shell, the number one company on Fortune’s Global 500 list, is threatening legal action against the Greenpeace network of environmental activists as the company forges ahead with plans to begin drilling for an estimated 90 billion barrels of Arctic oil in the next two decades.

Greenpeace, which is seeking to make the Arctic a global sanctuary from commercial and environmental exploitation, tweeted today, “As 1 million of you have signed up to #SavetheArctic, Shell threatens Greenpeace with legal action. http://act.gp/NGhcEg.”Continue reading...

New Zealand may be small but its government apparently has got a whole lot of chutzpah.

The government’s new law that all tobacco products cannot be publicly displayed went into effect Monday, and a plan to force all tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging — which NZ's Ministry of Health calls the "single biggest cause of preventable death and disease" — is still forging ahead. The government's new "Tobacco Available Here" sign for authorized tobacco retailers, in English and Maori with a sickening photo of a gangrene-infected foot, is also fairly grim.

The hope is that the entire country will be smoke-free by 2025, according to TV New Zealand. However, the government may need to pay a boatload of cash out in order to make it happen. “Ministry of Health officials have warned the Government that defending a case at the World Trade Organization could cost taxpayers between $1.5 million to $2 million,” the website reports. And that price could go up to $6 million.

One tobacco giant is already sounding like it is ready take the government to court.Continue reading...

Penn State players, alumni and other supports are in shock today following the NCAA's unprecedented actions in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal: a $60 million fine, a four-year college bowl ban and 40 scholarships axed, in addition to erasing all 14 seasons of victories under late coach Joe Paterno. The move follows a damning report by former FBI director Louis Freeh that accused the university of enabling former Penn State football coach Sandusky's crimes.

The NCAA's executive committee chair Ed Ray stated at a press conference, "The historically unprecedented actions by the NCAA today are warranted by the conspiracy of silence that was maintained at the highest levels of the university in reckless and callous disregard for the children. There is incredible interest in what will happen to Penn State football. But, the fundamental story of this horrific chapter should focus on the innocent children and the powerful people who let them down." Are the NCAA sanctions excessive in your opinion? Post a comment below. (Update: Click here for Penn State president Rodney Erickson's response.)

The latest move in Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign saw British eco-activists shutting down 74 of 119 Shell petrol stations in Edinburgh and London against the brand's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, leading to the arrests of 24 campaigners on Monday, according to the Guardian.

The campaign is targeting Shell as prepares to begin drilling in the Arctic with Russian oil company Gazprom, a plan that U.S. activists rallied to sue and spoof campaigns to pop up. Protesters scaled the roofs of Shell stations and deployed emergency shut-off switches to stop petrol going to the pumps, removing a fuse that delays it being switched on again, while posting a message on Twitter that, "We're being careful not to destroy property. Even the carefully removed components will go back to Shell."

Greenpeace UK website elaborated, "It's part of the global week of action against Shell that kicked off with the occupation of the head office in the Hague – as well as our live TV channel, follow #tellshell on Twitter for all the latest from around the world."Continue reading...

The horrific actions of former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky have gripped a nation since he was arrested last fall and found guilty of 45 counts of child abuse a month ago. Now it is Penn State’s turn.

The release of former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s independent report Thursday morning is a major blow to the PSU brand, with one immediate fallout: Nike immediately reversed its November decision to stand by Sandusky's former boss, the late Joe Paterno, whose name graces a childcare center at its global HQ.

Before the report's release, even with the Sandusky talk swirling before his trial and conviction, the University managed to raise millions of dollars. In fact, the 2011-12 fiscal year had the school bringing in the second-highest annual fundraising tally in its history: a whopping $208.7 million.

It remains to be seen how much money comes PSU’s way now that its former leaders are more in the public eye than Sandusky, who has now been entered into American criminal lore as one of the most clued-out offenders of all time — and protected. As the Freeh report on Penn State's role states in one damning sentence, "In short, nothing was done and Sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity."Continue reading...

The old saying goes that the Chinese word for "crisis" (危机) is composed of two characters representing both "danger" and "opportunity." Though fallacious, this old trope could not better describe the manner in which cosmetics brand Urban Decay turned a self-created crisis into a public relations windfall.

About a month ago, Urban Decay announced that it would be breaking into China's cosmetics market. And why not? In 2011, China's cosmetic sales hit 110 billion yuan ($17.8 billion), a increase of nearly 19 percent over 2010. According to a 2012 report by Li & Fung Research Centre, during one month in 2011, Urban Decay's competitors Estée Lauder and Clinique saw sales increase by almost 10 percent alone.

Looking at all that money, what Urban Decay lost sight of was its core mission, amongst other things, was all about refusing to test on animals. (China, meanwhile, required animal testing to certify Urban Decay's products.) No surprise, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) lambasted the brand's "Decaying Principles":Continue reading...

Now that former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is behind bars and listening to his fellow inmates serenade him with Pink Floyd (“Hey, Teacher, leave those kids alone!), all he has to do is sit and wait to see just how many hundreds of years he is sentenced to or if his lawyers can somehow pull off a modern legal miracle and get him out on some technicality.

As his image is erased from Penn State's property, Sandusky sits and waits and hopefully begins to realize what kind of complete turmoil he has left in the wake of a child sex abuse scandal. It's more likely that he will instead try to slow time down and have his legal team throw every possible barricade into the mix to keep him from being chucked into another prison’s general population just yet. However, Penn State University is on the opposite track, trying to speed things ahead, eager to get everyone over this massive PR hump, and back to thinking of Penn State as Happy Valley again.

In downtown State College this weekend, artist Michael Pilato replaced the image of Sandusky that once graced a mural there with “a blue ribbon — a symbol for awareness of child sexual abuse” – and “a depiction of Dora McQuaid, a poet and advocate for domestic and sexual violence victims and issues” as well as a PSU grad, according to the Associated Press. And in one small glimmer of a turnaround, Cars.com indicated today it would once again advertise during Penn State college football game broadcasts.Continue reading...

adidas is under fire after posting a picture of its upcoming JS Roundhouse Mids on the adidas Originals Facebook page. JS is short for Jeremy Scott, the provocative designer who has had a longstanding association with adidas Originals, while the shoe is part of his upcoming Fall/Winter collection for the brand, which is slated for release in August.

Unlike the uproar over Nike's Black and Tan shoe back in March, it's not the colors or name that's offending, but the rubber shackles attached to them that remind some observers (such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson) of the ankle chains that imprisoned African American slaves. That the "adidas" name is also part of the "shackles" is raising hackles (and heckles).

Even so, the brand defended the design and the designer.

"The design of the JS Roundhouse Mid is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott's outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery," a spokesperson for the brand commented about the Facebook photo, which has been removed. "Jeremy Scott is renowned as a designer whose style is quirky and lighthearted ... Any suggestion that this is linked to slavery is untruthful."

Scott, meanwhile, has deflected criticism of the so-called "slavery sneaker" on Twitter. Update: The designer later tweeted a link to a picture of "My Pet Monster," a plush toy wearing "magic cuffs" released by American Greetings in 1986 that spawned a one-season ABC cartoon series, as the inspiration for the shoe.

Nevertheless, despite initially defending the designer, adidas is pulling the shoe, stating: "We apologize if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace."

See Scott's Fall/Winter 2012 adidas Originals collection that included the shoe (along with a close-up) below, and let us know what you think in the comments.Continue reading...