Arrest made before BP AGM

AT LEAST one environmental campaigner was arrested before the start of BP's annual meeting today as hordes of police confronted protesters gathering for one of the biggest bunfights in the City calendar.

A woman was held for possessing scissors and obstructing a police search as pressure groups representing furious Georgians, Colombians and US workers massed outside the Royal Festival Hall in London.

A year on from protests about the Iraq war, BP was expected to come under fierce questioning today over its strategy for developing projects in ecologically sensitive parts of the world such as the Arctic wildlife refuge.

It is courting controversy through work on the Baku pipeline that is designed to link Turkey with Azerbaijan but cuts across a national park in Georgia.

A special shareholder resolution is calling for BP to prepare an exhaustive report on its approach to such world heritage sites in the future and although the move is likely to be voted down, the City institutions want BP to clarify its approach.

Representatives of American-trade union PACE voiced their anger before the meeting at BP's decision to cut medical benefits for retired workers on the other side of the Atlantic.

Ray Soliz, vice president of the union's Texas branch, said: 'They have played dirty ball. In our observation, there is not a friendly relationship between BP and its American workers.'