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By Andrew Newton on 14 Oct, 2009 - 02:37 UTC

Often when someone fights against accountability, they make their opponent's case for them.


Take three recent instances:


Attempts by British oil trading firm Trafigura to gag the Guardian newspaper from reporting on a question posed by a MP in Parliament about the company's existing secret gagging order preventing the newspaper from reporting on Trafigura's dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast. Had Trafigura succeeded in preventing reporting on the parliamentary question, it would have represented a stunning override of parliamentary privilege. The attempt was undermined effectively by people on twitter who took it upon themselves to make the question public.


Then there is the reaction of UK-listed and based Vedanta Resources to being told by the UK National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises that the company had failed to consult on or look out for the interests of local people regarding its plans to construct a bauxite mine in Orissa, India. According to India's Business Standard, Mukesh Kumar, chief operating officer of VAL's Lanjigarh project responded:


“We condemn the findings of the UK-based agency. Our bauxite mining project at Niyamgiri hills has been cleared by the Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in India. It is inappropriate for the agency of any other country to comment on a project being developed in India”


Even where that company is rooted in and takes advantage of capital markets in that other country?


Then there are the mounting attempts by corporations to shift their tax residence elsewhere from their actual base of operations in order to avoid tax (prompting this response from the UK tax authority) .


As corporations take ever greater liberties with the reach of democratic accountability, they make the case for global or at least extra-territorial regulation.

Now: a solar powered phone for 59 bucks
By A P Newton on 11 Jun, 2009 - 05:06 UTC

Cool. 

 

From Shanghai Daily:  "Samsung South West Asia headquarters President and CEO J.S. Shin and Indian Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah pose at the global launch of Samsung's first solar powered mobile phone, the Solar Guru 1107, priced at 2,799 rupees (US$59) in Noida, India, yesterday."

 

Starting in 2010, India will begin incorporating measures of natural resource depletion within their measure of national income.

 

According to the Economic Times, an official from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation stated that the calculation would incorporate:

 

"the cost of recovery of polluted resources, which has to be used as a deflator to real GDP. Our green GDP may be significantly lower than real GDP as economic growth is resource-intensive".

 

China tried to measure a green GDP in 2004, but abandoned it after it triggered infighting between government departments and the political establishment. Environmental degradation had lowered GDP into the red.

 

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Over $140bn (£85bn) was invested in solar, wind and other clean energy solutions, compared with $110bn for gas and coal electricity generation.

 

China,India and other developing nations claimed the prize for the biggest growth in renewables investment, according to the United Nations figures.

Bonn climate talks off to rocky start
By Andrew Newton on 03 Jun, 2009 - 06:00 UTC

India and China are objecting to the text drafted as a starting point for the first of five meetings preparing for the December meeting in Copenhagen.

 

The Copenhagen agreement will pick up where the Kyoto treaty left off. This time the US is taking a lead role in negotiations.

 

India and China are objecting to the fact that the starting is text does not replicate the output of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Bali Action Plan (BAP).

 

Among issues of substantive concern are "the merging of the key issues of direct financial support and technical transfer from rich countries to poor ones", according to the LiveMint report.

 

Developing countries including India are concerned that an equitable allocation of atmospheric resource should be linked to any discussions about stabilization of emissions or temperature rise.

A great profile from the Womens Feature Service about Kalpona Akter, the head of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS).

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An investigative report by Francine McKenna at re:The Auditors raises conflict of interest questions about PwC's IT implementation business.

 

Auditor independence is essential to audit work, but some of the Big 4 audit firms - or at least some of their partners - are not happy with their cosy oligopoly and want a piece of the more lucrative consulting and big project (especially IT) implementation market. That might be fine if they were not offering consultancy to clients they were also auditing, or auditing clients that they hoped to get consultancy work from.

 

Satyam, the Indian IT outsourcing company, housed one of the biggest accounting frauds discovered over the last year, and PwC was the auditor. In the report Francine reviews what appears to have been a strategic relationship between PwC and Satyam for the delivery of IT implementation services to PwC's IT consultancy clients.

 

Time to clamp down again on auditor independence?

Dell: If it IS broke, don't ditch it
By Andrew Newton on 13 May, 2009 - 12:05 UTC

Dell has introduced a company ban on the export of broken computers, monitors and parts to developing countries to tackle the e-waste problem.

 

According to India's Economic Times:

 

"lax enforcement of environmental and worker-safety regulations have allowed an informal and often hazardous electronic-waste recycling industry to emerge."

 

Dell's public stand on the issue has been lauded by environmental groups including the Electronics Takeback Coalition.

 

Question: as I understand it developing countries are pretty good at patching up broken electronics and putting them back into use, with bloth environmental and economic development benefits as people can get hold of workable IT for much less than it would cost to buy something new. Is Dell's position the right way to tackle the toxic waste problem (which is undoubtedly severe), or does it risk forcing people in developing countries to purchase expensive new kit?

Companies have been told by the police and municipality in Ajman to pay workers their wages or else send the workers back home.

 

Some firms have not paid wages to workers for periods of several months, prompting protests and a 40% increase over the last three months in reported incidents of theft, robbery and shoplifting.

 

Three quarters of the UAE's population comprises foreign workers.

 

Authorities have promised stiff penalties and closure if workers' wages are not paid on time or if workers' living conditions are not up to standard.

"It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40 percent of Indians do not have access to electricity".

 

The Indian government's line is that they want the heavily industrialised nations to commit to reduce emissions while aiding developing nations with money and technology to achieve sustainable development.

According to experts, widespread abuse of antibiotics and overprescription of medication across Asia is driven by doctors' profit motive, and will lead to disastrous mass drug resistance in long run.

 

Reuters: "Experts warn that driven by profits from selling medicine, some doctors from Indonesia to Hong Kong are overprescribing medicines, a practice they say will be disastrous in the longer term.

 

"Polypharmacy (overmedication) is very popular here, it means they use a lot of medicines which are unnecessary, like giving you many types of antibiotics for a cold," said William Chui, honorary associate professor at the Clinical Trials Center attached to the University of Hong Kong.

 

"Every time they sell a drug, they get a profit, it is a profit motive. When they give lots of medicine, parents feel happier, more happy than when they are told to go home to sleep."

 

The consumption of multiple drugs triggers drug reaction and unpredictable side effects. Worse, it gives rise to bacterial resistance."

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