Full Coverage: Corporations

29.04.2005 A new report from a coalition of UK campaigners presents evidence that British American Tobacco (BAT) co-sponsored a pan-African aids conference with the ulterior motive of undermining support for the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

28.04.2005 The trade unions continue their blockade of the gates of “Mother Teresa” Airport in Tirana. They protest the manner in which they were fired, without prior notification.

28.04.2005 Humberto Piaguaje, a Secoya indigenous leader from the Ecuadorian Amazon, faced ChevronTexaco's CEO, David O'Reilly, and other large shareholders this week to convey how the company's operations have affected his now dwindling and cancer-ridden community. Investors holding over $1 billion in stock are supporting a shareholders resolution calling on the company to disclose its environmental and human rights liabilities.

27.04.2005 Despite the criticism aimed at many water privatisation schemes across Africa, Senegal has provided a successful model of a public/private partnership in water management. Senegalaise des Eaux, a subsidiary of the French firm Saur, the fourth largest water company in the world, has contributed in reconstructing Dakar's ailing water system, with the government claiming that the city's needs are met until 2015.

27.04.2005 Is it possible to define the impact of business activities on human rights and set minimum standards? The UN is now mandated to appoint a special representative to find the answers, despite opposition from the United States.

26.04.2005 The National Commission on Prevention of Corruption will soon rule whether the management of “ESM” (Electric Power Supply Company) signed managerial agreements that could prove harmful to the public interest.

26.04.2005 Dr Suman Mehta, associate director of Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), who is responsible for providing policy and programme support on HIV/AIDS to countries in Asia, Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, speaks to Rajiv Tikoo of OneWorld South Asia about the 3 by 5 Progress Report and on the progress and the challenges in mainstreaming HIV/AIDS.

26.04.2005 An investigation by human rights organisation People's Union for Democratic Rights, in the east Indian state of Orissa, finds that a terror campaign has been unleashed by the government in villages where mining is taking place. The investigation found that people's consent has been taken in a fraudulent manner.

22.04.2005 WASHINGTON, D.C., Apr 22 (OneWorld) - The U.S. House of Representatives approved an energy bill Thursday--the eve of Earth Day--after beating back numerous attempts to minimize the environmental harm that critics said the measure would wreak.

21.04.2005 The 2005 Energy Policy Act now before Congress has been revised in the last two years to include incentives for renewable energy sources and create reliability standards for the national electricity grid, but it still does little to protect the environment or make the United States less dependent on foreign oil, says Moving Ideas.

20.04.2005 As Coca Cola shareholders convened in Delaware April 19 for their annual meeting, protesters spoke against the company's operations in India that have taken vital water and dumped toxic waste in areas around some bottling plants. They are demanding that Coca-Cola cease operations immediately and provide compensation to the affected communities.

20.04.2005 A Wal-Mart CEO gets paid 871 times more than a U.S. worker and 50,000 times more than workers in China or Bangladesh. The average Wal-Mart employee must rely on government healthcare, food and housing. The Institute for Policy Studies shows us how the world’s largest company perpertrates this wage gap.

20.04.2005 Representatives of SILA, association of laid-off workers from the energy sector in Macedonia, presented the association’s position on the announced sale and privatization of ESM (Public Electricity supply Company) at the press-conference they held yesterday at the NGO InfoCentre in Skopje.

19.04.2005 Udit Raj, who is the national president of the Indian Justice Party, says that reservations for dalits in the private sector will not affect the performance of the private sector. On the contrary, Raj says that the dalits are hardworking, laborious and honest.

18.04.2005 Approximately 60 percent of Macedonian companies have legalized the Microsoft Corp Software they use, which is the European average, says Ilijanco Gagovski, Director at Microsoft Skopje Office.

18.04.2005 American students launch a nation-wide protest against injustice meted out to people in Bhopal by American multinationals in one of the worst industrial disasters in which more than 22,000 persons were killed. The protests are to force the Indian government to take action against the erring corporations.

13.04.2005 WASHINGTON, D.C., Apr 13 (OneWorld) - The biggest backers of President George W. Bush's plan to privatize Social Security are those with the least at stake in the government retirement system, economic researchers and advocates said Wednesday.

13.04.2005 Norway recycles over 90% of aluminium cans. UK businesses manage a disgraceful 32%. How is your workplace or student environment performing?

12.04.2005 WASHINGTON, D.C., Apr 12 (OneWorld) - The chief executives of major U.S. corporations enjoyed double-digit pay raises last year, adding to a record of ''jaw-dropping'' compensation largely undisturbed by recent years' falling profits and share prices and a wave of scandals involving management chicanery, the country's leading labor federation said in a new survey.

12.04.2005 There appears to have been an imperceptible shift in the World Bank’s stand, away from privatisation being the only answer to the world’s water crisis, towards a more pragmatic approach of public-private investments. Read this analysis on Infochange India.