Full Coverage: Corporations

31.01.2006 As ExxonMobil announces record profits of US$32 billion in 2005, evidence that global warming is gathering pace is rapidly piling up. While most oil companies are making huge profits, what Exxon does -- and doesn't do -- with those profits is what marks them out as the world's number one climate criminal, says Greenpeace. Have a word with the new Exxon boss.

30.01.2006 At the World Economic Forum Meeting on Wednesday, Bono unveiled plans for a new brand of products known as Product Red. With companies including American Express, Converse, Giorgio Armani, and Gap on board, profits will go directly to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

27.01.2006 The country's shift to a market economy has been met by widespread protests over high inflation, rising living costs and now the government's decision to delay a 40% increase in basic wages, which it turns out only applies to employees of foreign firms.

25.01.2006 UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 (OneWorld) - Groups fighting for the rights of peasant communities are stepping up pressure on governments to ban the use of genetically modified ''suicide seeds'' at UN-sponsored talks on biodiversity in Spain this week.

25.01.2006 Corporate lobbyists have an undue influence on the current global trade talks, says a report unveiled on the first day of the World Economic Forum at Davos, where 25 trade ministers will meet for a "mini-ministerial" on 25-29 January.

24.01.2006 Environmental engineers have launched into the final phase of a public-private partnership to clean up the hazardous site of an abandoned pigment and dye manufacturing plant in urban New Jersey.

24.01.2006 Signing a climate saving agreement with WWF-Denmark, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk has pledged significant reductions in its global emissions. So far, ten corporations have become part of WWF's Climate Savers programme.

22.01.2006 A study based on the responses of over 10,000 executives in 117 countries, including about 100 in India, says just 7% of Indian companies expect HIV/AIDS to have any serious impact on their operations.

21.01.2006 Several civic associations reacted yesterday that the street-blocks set by “Glas na svetlina” in protest of the sale of ESM impede on the vital functions of the capital of Macedonia. “Glas na svetlina”, on the other hand, says that the blocks will stop when the Government gives up on its idea to sell ESM and not a moment sooner.

20.01.2006 BRUSSELS: An alliance of development groups is challenging the European Union and developed countries over their plans to promote water privatisation in developing countries at a key international meeting later this year.

20.01.2006 Just days before Evo Morales is inaugurated as President of Bolivia, US multinational Bechtel has backed down after a major international campaign and dropped a legal suit for $50 million against Bolivia.

19.01.2006 The Government of Albanian submitted a new, much stricter draft-Law on Tobacco and Smoking for Parliamentary review and debate. The draft will completely outlaw sale of cigarettes to children and minors younger than 18, and will present stricter rules for tobacco industry, regarding sale and advertising of tobacco products.

19.01.2006 Earlier this week, the Skopje Public Transportation Company (JSP) released for daily use the first 30 buses that use mixture of diesel and natural gas as fuel, to mark the company’s 58th Anniversary.

18.01.2006 The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture – sometimes called the ‘seed treaty’ – was adopted by UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) member states in 2001 and came into force in 2004. Governments that signed on are now working out implementation details. Far from its roots in the struggle to assert farmers’ rights as a counterforce to breeders’ rights, the Treaty has ended up being mainly about granting new privileges to industry. It will give seed companies free access to most of the world’s public genebanks without any obligation to share their own materials in return.

17.01.2006 Our lives are so polluted by politics that we seldom recognise the import of events beyond the strictly political. Last week, for example, America's prestigious Michigan University suspended all business with the Coca-Cola company. J. George writes in The Indian Express.

16.01.2006 The “Glas za svetlina” (Voice for Light) civic association started the blockades of several streets in Skopje, to protest the sale of Electric Power Company of Macedonian (ESM). The association will stop the protests only if the authorities cancel the sale of ESM, announced Marina Hristovska, the spokesperson of the Association, at the impromptu press conference held in front of the Government building.

16.01.2006 A leading environment group accused the oil giant Shell for blatant hypocrisy in seeking to link its brand with wildlife conservation, following the announcement that the company is the new sponsor of the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

11.01.2006 After the U.S. government missed a year-end deadline to respond to U.N. questions about its treatment of the Western Shoshone people, the indigenous group, who claim their land rights are being trampled in favor of multinational corporate interests, are raising the pressure on the government ahead of a key U.N. meeting on racism in March.

10.01.2006 Prof C.Raja Mohan shares his view with Indian Express. He mentions that the big chill that has descended on North India has also begun to engulf India’s relations with her key neighbours. India’s emerging difficulties in the neighbourhood also threaten to mar the big bash that New Delhi is planning for President George Bush in a few weeks’ time.

08.01.2006 Nine Croatian NGOs started a movement against discarded packaging, in response to the disobedience of the retail chains and store that produce the waste, who refuse to apply the Rules and Regulations on Packaging adopted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.