Full Coverage: Corporations

29.11.2005 Campaigners welcomed Total Oil's "humiliating climbdown" on Tuesday ­in a case in which the company was being sued in French courts over its involvement in forced labour in Burma. In an out of court settlement, the company agreed to set up a £3.5 million humanitarian fund.

29.11.2005 Energy giant Shell has failed to meet the environmental and social standards set by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on its Sakhalin-II project in the Russian Far East.

29.11.2005 An effort to regulate drug prices in India, through measures “other than price control”, has been wasted. A task force set up under Supreme Court directions to find ways to reduce prices of life-saving drugs, could not come up with many viable solutions.

28.11.2005 The Guardian's fifth annual review of corporate responsibility shows cash giving going up and new partnerships being formed.
Giving dips to 0.87% of pre-tax profits

28.11.2005 In a move that could shut down one of Coca-Cola's largest bottling plant in India permanently, the Kerala government has notified the area as "over-exploited" where one of Coca-Cola's largest bottling plants is located in southern India. The government seeks to regulate the use of groundwater due to scarcity.

27.11.2005 The Coca-Cola company has been condemned across India for using up vital groundwater needed for agriculture, polluting remaining resources, and instigating dubious legal proceedings against its detractors. A large protest is expected in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh Wednesday.

25.11.2005 OneWorld South Asia and the Business Community Foundation are organising a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) meeting - CSR in Asia: Where are we and what's ahead? - on December 9-10, 2005 in New Delhi.

25.11.2005 The Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests has allowed two Indian oil companies to carry out offshore drilling on the country's east coast near the state of Orissa. The drilling will be carried out near a marine sanctary and a Ramsar site that harbour the endangered turtle as well as an endangered specie of dolphin.

22.11.2005 A coalition of NGOs has created a platform aimed at replacing the old model of what it means for a corporation to be socially responsible with a new business culture based on universal ethical values.

22.11.2005 Kimberly Clark, the makers of Andrex toilet tissue and Kleenex facial tissues, have been ranked bottom in a report assessing the impact tissue companies are having on the world's forests.

19.11.2005 NEW YORK, Nov 19 (OneWorld) - Despite strong opposition from giant telecommunications corporations, a growing number of cities across the United States are preparing plans to provide free, high-speed wireless Internet access to their low-income residents.

18.11.2005 Vedanta, a fast growing British mining and aluminium production company founded by a billionaire expatriate Bombay businessman, reportedly poses a threat to communities in India from environmental degradation and widespread pollution.

18.11.2005 SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 17 (OneWorld) - Some 400 non-governmental groups are rallying this week to oppose practices by the world's most profitable corporation, Wal-Mart, which may be feeling the effects of a mounting opposition.

16.11.2005 In the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by focusing its resources and efforts to vulnerable state and districts and by improving the condition of 20% of the total villages India will achieve the MDG targets—this view was express by Dr.Nilay Ranjan and Dr.B.Shadrach of Oneworld south Asia in a paper presented at 3rd International conference on Rural India: Achieving Millennium Development Goals and Grassroots Development, Hyderabad, 10-12th November 2005.

15.11.2005 NEW YORK, Nov 14 (OneWorld) - Multinational oil companies were ordered by Nigeria's highest court this week to stop engaging in a decades-old process that indigenous and environmental rights groups say has been poisoning the oil-rich area where Africa's Niger River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

09.11.2005 On the heels of the release of a new documentary detailing the misdeeds of the megaretailer Wal-Mart, over 400 organizations are taking part in a week of action to stand up to the company. Find out why Wal-Mart has become public enemy #1 to so many and learn how you can get involved.

08.11.2005 Join others at your local Ford dealership Saturday for a day of action, demanding that Ford increase the fuel efficiency of its automobiles, urges non-profit organizer Global Exchange. Ford vehicles today rank last of any automaker in fuel efficiency and travel fewer miles per gallon than Fords made 20 years ago.

07.11.2005 More than 2,000 companies from 66 countries engaged in malfeasance channeling almost $2 billion in illegal revenues to Saddam Hussein's regime, says the final report of the commission investigating the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program in Iraq. The regime took in another $11 billion through oil smuggling programs unrelated to the oil-for-food program.

04.11.2005 Sytex, a subsidiary of Lockheed, the world's largest military contractor, has emerged as one of the biggest recruiters of private interrogators deployed to the United States-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports Pratap Chatterjee.

03.11.2005 The Albanian Energy Corporation postponed the announced electricity price hike, originally planned to take place in January 2006. The current pricy for household consumers is 5.59 Lek/kWh, and AEC plans an 8% increase. AEC has decided to take postpone the price-change to the Summer of 2006.