TENS of thousands of Amazonians are suing Chevron, the American oil company, for poisoning their waterways in what is billed as one of the biggest environmental cases...

Few legal battles have been more exotic than the lawsuit tried over the past five years in a steamy jungle courtroom in Ecuador’s Amazon rain forest.

In 1993, a class action lawsuit on behalf of an estimated 30,000 Amazon residents was filed against oil giant Chevron, who at the time had recently purchased Texaco.

Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to...