Tribal peoples' water being destroyed by industry and governments

Survival International today releases a summary report which shows how tribal peoples are having their basic right to water denied.

The document is released to coincide with World Water Day (March 22). Taking examples from nine different tribes, it explains how industry and governments are destroying tribal peoples' water sources.

The traditional water sources of tribal peoples are being polluted, diverted, or sometimes simply removed, by industry and governments in pursuit of their own interests. Water, which once brought communities to life, has been hijacked by self-interested organisations whilst tribal peoples are left to sicken, and die, on the sidelines.

All tribal peoples rely upon the water in their land to sustain them. It is crucial to their health, to their independence, to their very existence. And it is disappearing.

To read the complete summary report, click here

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Online Polls Open for the Corporate Hall of Shame

Annual Voting Crowns the Worst Corporations of the Year

Candidates include ADM, Blackwater, Countrywide, Mattel, Nestlé,
Toyota, Wal-Mart and Wendy's

March 20, 2008

BOSTON — This year's election is all about the issues — global warming, war-profiteering, predatory lending — or at least that is the case in the annual Corporate Hall of Shame. Today online polls open at www.stopcorprateabuse.org for people to vote for the most abusive corporations of the year.

This year's nominees made headlines for breaking the law, influencing elected officials, undermining democratic decision-making and outright endangering the environment and public health. They include Blackwater Worldwide, ADM, Countrywide, Wal-Mart, Mattel, Nestlé, Toyota, and Wendy's.

The Hall is a creation of Corporate Accountability International, a membership organization that has worked to protect people from irresponsible and dangerous corporations for the last 30 years.

“Make no mistake, we believe all of the nominees deserve this infamous dishonor, but we look forward to seeing which corporations the voting public selects as the worst of the worst,” said Kelle Louaillier, executive director of Corporate Accountability International. “The ballot box is a way to call politicians to task. The Hall is now a way of calling corporations to account for major abuses of the public interest.”

Last year, more than 20,000 votes were cast to induct ExxonMobil, Haliburton and Wal-Mart. Other past inductees include Philip Morris/Altria, Columbia/HCA and waste disposal giant Waste Management.

The Corporate Hall of Shame has kept continuous pressure on inducted corporations to curb their abuses. In 2006, Waste Management worked its way out of the Corporate Hall of Shame by drastically reducing its national lobbying and political expenditures.

Corporate Accountability International expects record turn-out this election season before polls close on July 4th. The new inductees will be announced later that month.

This year's nominees include:

Ø ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), for helping make Indonesia the world's third worst contributor to global warming through its clearing of endangered forests and wildlife habitat for palm oil plantations.

Ø Blackwater Worldwide, for killing unarmed Iraqi civilians, hiring paramilitaries trained under military dictatorships, and using its close political and financial ties with the Bush Administration to secure lucrative contracts.

Ø Countrywide, for predatory mortgage lending to elderly and non-English-speaking borrowers, and for gouging minority borrowers with discriminatory rates and fees.

Ø Mattel, for producing tens of millions of lead-contaminated children's toys, and aggressively lobbying against bans on other highly toxic chemicals

Ø Nestlé, for numerous labor violations — including child exploitation — contributing to the obesity epidemic, and threatening community water supplies with its bottled water brands.

Ø Toyota, for aggressively lobbying against increased fuel economy standards and state measures to reduce global warming gas emissions while hypocritically spending millions to advertise its environmental “leadership” and popular Prius hybrids.

Ø Wal-Mart, for displacing local businesses, failing to cover employees under the corporation's health plan, and opposing legislation that would increase homeland security.

Ø Wendy's, for its contribution to the growing childhood obesity and diabetes epidemics, and for refusing to meet nutritional labeling regulations.

Voters are also encouraged to write-in candidates and submit commentary.

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The Corporate Hall of Shame is a project of Corporate Accountability International and its allies that allows people to vote online for the most abusive corporations of the year.

The Hall will continue to expose the abuses of inducted corporations until these abuses are addressed.

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FCC Airwaves Auction Sets Record

After 261 rounds of bidding, a government auction of airwaves ended yesterday, raising almost $20 billion from companies hoping to build new broadband wireless networks for next-generation phones and other devices.

It was a record haul but not a complete success for the Federal Communications Commission, which drew some criticism about conditions attached to some blocks of airwaves that might have resulted in lower revenue. One block to be shared with public-safety groups didn't sell and will have to be re-auctioned. Another block, which requires the winner to open its new network to devices or software supplied by any manufacturer, sold for little more than the minimum price.

A look at the winning bids suggests that the agency might have raised more money without those conditions. One block of airwaves, sold in small licenses, brought in a combined $9.1 billion, far more than the minimum $1.4 billion reserve price. The block of airwaves with open-access conditions sold for $4.75 billion, just slightly more than its $4.6 billion reserve.

The total raised was $19.6 billion.

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A Company Promises the Deepest Data Mining Yet

The company, called Phorm, has created a tool that can track every single online action of a given consumer, based on data from that person's Internet service provider. The trick for Phorm is to gain access to that data, and it is trying to negotiate deals with telephone and cable companies, like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, that provide broadband service to millions.

Phorm's pitch to these companies is that its software can give them a new stream of revenue from advertising. Using Phorm's comprehensive views of individuals, the companies can help advertisers show different ads to people based on their interests.

“As you browse, we're able to categorize all of your Internet actions,” said Virasb Vahidi, the chief operating officer of Phorm. “We actually can see the entire Internet.”

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David Kay: 'The biggest intelligence fiasco of my lifetime'

From German Intelligence Was 'Dishonest, Unprofessional and Irresponsible'

SPIEGEL: The argument made by the Germans for not providing access to 'Curveball' was not totally illogical. He claimed to hate Americans. It would have been a breach of trust if they had turned him over to the CIA.

Kay: We know today, of course, that it was all nonsense. First of all, we have people who speak 100 percent fluent German or Arabic. After the war, armed with the name from the British, we sought out his family. His mother and brother were very cooperative. They told us that he spoke English -- the language of instruction at his university was English. They also said he had plans to emigrate to the United States. My men saw his room and there were posters on the wall of American pop stars.

SPIEGEL: It sounds as though you were the first one who really had the chance to cross-check what 'Curveball' said…

Kay: … which is simply unbelievable. He was a defector for God's sake and the BND was convinced that his information was so valuable that they distributed over 100 reports on 'Curveball' to their allies. I stand by my criticism of the BND to this day: To not have checked up on the exile Iraqis in Germany who knew him, not to have made all the appropriate efforts to validate the source, is a level of irresponsibility that is awfully hard to imagine in a service like the BND. And then, the fact that they failed to provide direct access to him remains one of the most striking things. It was a blockade that made it impossible for any other service to validate his information. The German service did not live up to their responsibilities or to the level of integrity you would expect from such a service.

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Kay: I sent two of my best people over to Germany -- they were gone for a total of two weeks. But they were not allowed to interrogate him. They were allowed to provide some initial questions and then watch it all on video from another room. But they were not allowed to submit follow up questions that could be immediately asked, which is the very essence of an interrogation. They were mad and I was mad. Yet what they watched on video was enough to convince them that 'Curveball' was a fabricator.

SPIEGEL: Would it really have made a difference if 'Curveball' had been exposed as a fraud before the war? The Bush administration wanted to go to war no matter what.

Kay: Sure, the administration had that position. But don't underestimate the importance that the link to al-Qaida, the weapons of mass destruction and, specifically, the biological weapons labs played in Congress. You can be pretty certain it would have changed the congressional vote, the authorization. Let me just say, I do not believe it would have been easy to take this nation to war if you had not had the intelligence.

SPIEGEL: What can we all learn from the 'Curveball' disaster?

Kay: I feel disillusioned. I think that 'Curveball' was the biggest and most consequential intelligence fiasco of my lifetime. It shows how important effective civilian control of the intelligence services is, because non-transparency is extraordinarily dangerous for democracy. In an intelligence service, people who don't make waves are rewarded. I am worried that the same mistakes could be repeated all over again.