Tag Archives: Public Eye awards

Latest Developments, January 25

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In the latest news and analysis…

Drone investigation
The New York Times reports that a UN expert has launched an inquiry into the civilian impacts of “drone strikes and other forms of remotely targeted killing” used by Western powers to eliminate alleged militants:

“The immediate focus, [Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Ben] Emmerson said in an interview, would be on 25 selected drone strikes that had been conducted in recent years in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and the Palestinian territories. That put the panel’s spotlight on the United States, Britain and Israel, the nations that have conducted drone attacks in those areas, but Mr. Emmerson said the inquiry would not be singling out the United States or any other countries.
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‘This form of warfare is here to stay, and it is completely unacceptable to allow the world to drift blindly toward the precipice without any agreement between states as to the circumstances in which drone strike targeted killings are lawful, and on the safeguards necessary to protect civilians,’ [Emmerson said].”

Peacekeeping drones
Reuters reports that the UN Security Council has granted permission for blue helmets to use surveillance drones over eastern DR Congo:

“U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote to the 15-member council late last month to advise that peacekeepers in Congo planned to use unmanned aerial systems ‘to enhance situational awareness and to permit timely decision-making’ in dealing with a nine-month insurgency by M23 rebels in the mineral-rich east.
In a response to Ban, the president of the council for January, Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Masood Khan, said the body had taken note of the plans for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo to use drones – effectively approving the proposal.
But the council also noted that it would be a trial use ‘in line with the Secretariat’s intention to use assets to enhance situational awareness, if available, on a case-by case basis,’ Khan wrote in a January 22 letter that was released on Thursday.”

Quid pro quo
The Globe and Mail reports that Canadian police believe a Montreal-based engineering firm paid $160 million in bribes to a son of former Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi:

“The fortune that was allegedly funnelled to Saadi Gadhafi was used, in part, to buy two yachts, pay condo fees and renovate his luxury Toronto penthouse at a price tag of $200,000. One of the yachts, a champagne-coloured vessel known as the Hokulani, is 150 feet and features a private movie theatre.
The lavish gifts and payments were meant to help SNC land contracts in Libya, RCMP Corporal Brenda Makad alleged in the sworn statement. ‘It is alleged that these funds were paid to him as a reward for influencing the awarding of major contracts to SNC-Lavalin International,’ she stated.”

Hall of shame
Greenpeace Switzerland and the Berne Declaration have awarded the 2013 Public Eye Awards for “particularly glaring cases of companies’ greed for profit and environmental sins”:

“The US bank Goldman Sachs receives this year’s jury award. The public award goes, with a large winning margin, to the oil corporation Shell, in accordance with the wishes of 41,800 online voters.
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Michael Baumgartner, Chairman of the Public Eye Awards jury, adds: ‘Not only is Goldman Sachs one of the main winners of the financial crisis, this bank is also a key player in the raw materials casino: it has tapped into these markets as a new source of income and destabilised raw material prices. When food prices break all records, like in 2008, millions of people are plunged into hunger and hardship.’ ”

Less militaristic
The Los Angeles Times reports that US secretary of state nominee John Kerry told those present at his confirmation hearing that America “cannot afford a diplomacy that is defined by troops or drones or confrontation”:

“Kerry, a loyal ally and occasional diplomatic representative of the administration, was giving another signal that the White House intended to close the door on a decade of war, as President Obama said at his inauguration ceremony Monday. His comments veered from the administration script only in their implications about drones, which the White House has embraced as a low-cost counter-terrorism tool but which Kerry’s statement cast in an unflattering light.”

Western weapons
Reuters reports that Russia is largely blaming the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya for the current crisis in Mali that has drawn France and a number of African countries into the armed conflict:

“ ‘Those whom the French and Africans are fighting now in Mali are the (same) people who overthrew the Gaddafi regime, those that our Western partners armed so that they would overthrow the Gaddafi regime,’ [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov told a news conference.”

Boys’ club
The Guardian’s Jane Martinson writes that the World Economic Forum, currently underway in Davos, is very much a male event:

“Despite introducing a quota which insists that the biggest companies send at least one woman for every four men, the percentage of women attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos has stuck at 17% for the past two years. Many of the companies subject to the quota simply send exactly four men, thus avoiding the need for a woman delegate.
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Fernando Morales-de la Cruz, founder of ItiMa, points out that this puts the percentage lower than the 20% membership of Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Council.”

Challenging power
The World Development Movement’s Deborah Doane argues that the newly launched If anti-hunger mega campaign focuses too much on policy fixes and too little on the root causes of world hunger:

“I would never argue against the G8 and international community ending tax dodging; nor would I argue against stopping land grabbing, or stopping food crops being diverted to biofuels. I fully endorse the need to support smallholder farmers. And I’m a great advocate of corporate transparency.
However, the policy solutions in themselves don’t provide the impetus to address power in our unjust globalised food system and our politics. Ensuring everyone has enough to eat is a long-term project that demands far deeper and wide-ranging policy change than that proposed by If, and needs democratic change well beyond the power of the G8. By all means, support the campaign’s individual aims, but ending hunger demands that we go further.”

Latest Developments, January 4

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Absurd rationale
Responding to the surprise statement by “rogue Canadian minister” Julian Fantino that Canada has frozen new aid to Haiti, former Associated Press Haiti correspondent Jonathan Katz offered the following flurry of tweets:

“Fantino is demonstrating how aid works: Rich country dictates terms. When the program fails, the poor country gets blamed. #Haiti #Canada
Canada disbursed $657 million from the quake to Sept. 2012 ‘for Haiti,’ but only about 2% went to the Haitian government.
It hasn’t told the UN Office of the Special envoy where 66% of its recovery funds went. Another $192.7 million is pledged and not disbursed.
Canada has, however, been better than most countries in delivering its 2010 donors conference pledge.
But when you give, say, $18.2 million to UNDP for Champ de Mars housing, and two years later there isn’t adequate housing, who’s to blame?
Some argue freezing aid would be a good start. But Fantino’s rationale–that Haitians owe Canadians results–is absurd on its face.
Again, admitting that aid isn’t working in Haiti is fine. It’s accurate.
… But saying, ‘Well, we did all we could. It’s their problem now,’ IS the problem.
If Canada’s govt didn’t bother to tell Haiti’s govt it was freezing aid–and the Haitians didn’t even notice–that’s all you need to know.”

Border arming
Russia Today reports that a group of US troops have arrived in Turkey, marking the start of NATO’s Patriot missile deployment along the Syrian border:

“The batteries will be operated by troops of their respective countries: The US and Germany are sending about 400 troops each, while the Netherlands will have around 360 soldiers manning their Patriot [surface-to-air missiles].
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Critics of the Patriot deployment say that they can be used to create a no-fly zone in Syria, protecting rebels from government airstrikes. A NATO-imposed no-fly zone in Libya in 2011 eventually led to the downfall of the country’s longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.”

Gitmo renewal
Human Rights Watch criticizes US President Barack Obama for refusing to veto a defense spending bill that blocks the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison, even though he says the facility “weakens our national security”:

“However, he claimed the need to sign the legislation, saying the demand for funding was ‘too great to ignore.’ Obama issued a similar statement when signing the [National Defense Authorization Act] the previous year.
In fact, the NDAA authorizes funding for most Defense Department operations, but it is not essential for the US armed forces to function, Human Rights Watch said. It does not actually fund the Defense Department, but authorizes the allocation of appropriated funds. If Obama had vetoed the 2013 authorization act, last year’s NDAA authorization would still have been in effect. Four of five presidents preceding Obama vetoed a defense authorization act.”

Unwanted attention
Public Eye has announced Alstom, Coal India, G4S, Goldman Sachs, Lonmin, Repower and Shell as the 2013 nominees for the world’s worst company:

“Online voting for the worst offender of the year runs from today until midday January 23, 2013. This year’s shortlist features the seven most egregious cases of corporate crime selected by our newly conceived jury of internationally known business ethicists from 20 expert reports about potentially deserving candidates. The reports were compiled by the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St. Gall. More than 50 NGOs from all over the globe nominated companies.”

Investment disagreement
The Toronto Star reports that Canadian First Nations groups have announced they plan to take the federal government to court, alleging a lack of consultation over a proposed investment agreement with China:

“The Harper government says [the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement] will benefit Canada by increasing two-way trade and investment with China, which will be the world’s largest economy within a decade. Most importantly, according to the Conservatives, the deal will help protect Canadian investors from unfair or discriminatory treatment in China.
But opponents say the guarantees of equal treatment in these types of treaties give foreign corporations undue power to sue Canadian governments at every level if environmental, safety or other regulations are seen as unfair by foreign investors. ”

Economic mirage
Development consultant Rick Rowden argues that despite all the breathless reports of Africa’s rapid economic rise, “increased growth and trade are not development”:

“Though African countries desperately need the policy space to adopt industrial policies, the rich countries are pushing loan conditions and trade and investment agreements that block them from doing so, all the while proffering a happy narrative about ‘the rise of Africa.’ The very idea of industrialization has been dropped from the official development agenda. Yet there’s a reason why we all regularly refer to the rich, industrialized countries in the OECD as ‘industrialized.’
Despite the important gains in services industries and per capita incomes, Africa is still not rising, and services alone will not create enough jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed youth in Africa’s growing urban areas. Instead, steps must be taken to revise WTO agreements and the many trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties currently being negotiated so that Africa has the freedom to adopt the industrial policies it needs in order to make genuine progress.”

Amazing mea culpa
The Washington Post’s Howard Schneider examines the admission by IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard that the financial institution had not foreseen the impacts of the austerity measures it prescribed for Greece and other struggling European economies:

“But the paper includes some subtle and potentially troubling insights into how the fund works. Blanchard – effectively the top dog when it comes to economic science at the fund – writes in the paper that he could not actually determine what multipliers economists at the country level were using in their forecasts. The number was implicit in their forecasting models – a background assumption rather than a variable that needed to be fine-tuned based on national circumstances or peculiarities.
Heading into a crisis that nearly tore the euro zone apart, in other words, neither Blanchard or any one of the fund’s vast army of technicians thought to reexamine whether important assumptions about the region would still hold true in times of crisis.”

Latest Developments, January 30

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Future worth choosing
The BBC reports on a new UN Global Sustainability Panel document that makes 56 recommendations for a world where the “true costs to people and the environment” drive policy decisions.
“Governments would build the true environmental costs of products into the prices that people pay to purchase them, leading to an economic system that protects natural resources.
Goods would be labelled with information on their environmental impact, enabling consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions.
With UN support, governments would adopt indicators of economic performance that go beyond simple GDP, and measure the sustainability of countries’ economies.
Governments would change the regulation of financial markets to promote longer-term, more stable and sustainable investment.”

Sea traffic
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has released a new report that finds 61 percent of “reported cases of sanctions-busting or illicit transfers of arms, drugs, other military equipment and sensitive dual-use goods that could be used in the development of missiles and weapons of mass destruction” over the last two decades have involved ships with ties to EU, NATO or OECD member states.
“It is not surprising that companies based in the world’s richest maritime states and those that have historically played the greatest role in the development of maritime trade own the greater share of ships in the world merchant fleet. However, it is notable that companies subject to the laws of those states with the most developed legal systems, law enforcement, intelligence and foreign policy establishments are nevertheless over-represented among the beneficial owners of ships reported as involved in destabilizing military equipment, dual-use goods and narcotics transfers: the same group of states account for only 54.5 per cent of ships over 1000 [gross tonnes] in the world merchant fleet.”

French FTT
The Telegraph reports France’s embattled president has unilaterally pledged to implement a 0.1 percent financial transaction tax as of August if he is re-elected.
“President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is trailing heavily in the polls ahead of April’s election, said France would go it alone in a bid to “create a shock” and inspire other European countries to follow his lead. That is despite vocal opposition from other EU leaders, not least David Cameron.”

Drone creep
The New York Times reports Iraqi officials are angry that the US is using “surveillance drones” to provide security for its embassy, consulates and personnel.
“It foreshadows a possible expansion of unmanned drone operations into the diplomatic arm of the American government; until now they have been mainly the province of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.
American contractors say they have been told that the State Department is considering to field unarmed surveillance drones in the future in a handful of other potentially “high-threat” countries, including Indonesia and Pakistan, and in Afghanistan after the bulk of American troops leave in the next two years. State Department officials say that no decisions have been made beyond the drone operations in Iraq.”

Coward’s war
The Guardian’s George Monbiot argues the growing sophistication of drones allows the governments that use them to “snuff out opposition of any kind, terrorist or democrat” with ease and impunity.
“In October last year, a 16-year-old called Tariq Aziz was travelling through North Waziristan in Pakistan with his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed Khan. Their car was hit by a missile from a US drone. As always, their deaths made them guilty: if we killed them, they must be terrorists. But they weren’t. Tariq was about to start work with the human rights group Reprieve, taking pictures of the aftermath of drone strikes. A mistake? Possibly. But it is also possible that he was murdered out of self-interest. If you have such powers, if you are not held to account by Congress, the media or the American people, why not use them?”

Broken food system
Drought and Famine are both normal and predictable, given a global food system “built on inequality, imbalances and – ultimately – fragility,” according to UN special rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter.
“The solution is therefore twofold: we must plan adequately for the food crises that emerge within our broken food system, and we must finally acknowledge how broken it is. Only when we are honest about hunger will the world’s most vulnerable populations receive the short-term aid and long-term support that they need.”

Corporate responsibility
Speaking at the Public Eye awards ceremony, where UK finance giant Barclays and Brazilian super-miner Vale were named the worst companies of the year, Columbia University’s Joseph Stiglitz stressed how far we are from a world where the majority of companies behave ethically and sustainably.
“When I look at the finalists for this year’s Public Eye awards, two things immediately strike me. For one, it is remarkable how ubiquitous some of the firms with the most deplorable practices are in contemporary life. This year’s nominees are companies in fields as diverse as finance, energy, mining, and electronics. Even the most socially aware consumer would be hard pressed to avoid buying their products and services, directly or indirectly.
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What is needed is not just a recognition of what is wrong with, say, their environmental and labor practices, but systemic improvements—to incentive structures, legal frameworks, and our expectations and demands of corporations, as global citizens.”

Drugs in Africa
Former UN secretary General Kofi Annan argues the growing importance of West Africa as a transit point for the drug trade threatens to undo many of the positive developments of recent years in the region.
“We need to take action now before the grip of the criminal networks linked to the trafficking of illicit drugs tightens into a stranglehold on West African political and economic development. That can only achieved through a strong, well-co-ordinated and integrated effort led by West African states with the strong backing of the international community. In particular, the region needs more help from those countries that are producing and consuming these drugs.”

Colonial fantasies
Africa is a Country’s Sean Jacobs writes about a recent spate of media reports suggesting an upswing in nostalgia for colonial Africa.
“Two days ago, The Guardian (of all publications) put up a travel piece with this introduction: ‘I was alone in the middle of deepest, darkest Congo. Worse still, I was being chased by eight angry tribesmen in two dugout canoes – and they were gaining on me.’ We figured it must be a joke.”