From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 December 2002 21:14
To: j.armitage
Subject: The TCO Newsletter, December 10, 2002
News, December 3-10, 2002
Food > Transgenic - GMO
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=2
GM pharmaceutical crops contaminate conventional crops
The government is ordering a biotechnology company to destroy 500,000
bushels of soybeans rather than sell them for food because they were
contaminated with genetically engineered corn once grown in the same field.
The announcement comes just weeks after Prodigene joined several biotech
companies in agreeing not to grow genetically engineered corn intended for
drug development in places where it could contaminate neighboring fields
planted with crops for human consumption. It also comes after a massive
recall two years ago when the StarLink brand of genetically engineered corn,
approved solely for animal feed, turned up in taco shells.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=574
Food > Tropical fruits
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=5
I pick cocoa beans but I've never taste chocolate
She works for just 50p a day, picking the beans that make the beloved
chocolate bars we all turn to for our comfort fixes. But cocoa farmer Dora
and her friends have never even seen or tasted the delicious fruits of their
labour.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=569
Real cost of a cup of coffee
Subsidies from rich nations cost poor countries $1 billion (#635 million) a
day in lost trade - six times more than incoming aid. For example,
Ethiopia's famine is exacerbated by the collapse in farm incomes arising out
of the global decline in coffee prices. 'The slumping price of coffee has
cost Ethiopia more than it gained from debt relief,'
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=559
Environment > Water
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=9
Muradnagar, Aug. 22: Armed with axes, hammers and sticks, thousands of
farmers converged on this township in the north Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh to prevent construction of the proposed water pipeline being laid to
fetch additional waters from the river Ganges to the New Delhi-situated
treatment plant operated by a subsidiary of water giant Suez Lyonnaise.
Construction was put to a halt.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=575
Finance > Rating - audit - accountancy
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=12
Five Brokerages Fined for Failing to Retain E-Mails
Five securities firms agreed to pay fines totaling $8.25 million for failing
to retain e-mails sought by regulators investigating analysts' conflicts of
interest. The fines are a fraction of those being sought by state and
federal regulators to settle allegations that 12 firms, including these
five, misled investors with their research. New York Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer and other regulators found e-mails in which analysts privately
disparaged stocks of banking clients that they publicly recommended and are
seeking penalties ranging from $50 million to $500 million to settle those
probes.
``It's rather ironic that preserved but unflattering e-mail brings a $100
million fine from the New York attorney general while destroying e-mail
results in a $1.6 million fine from market regulators,'' said former SEC
enforcement lawyer Jacob Frenkel, a partner at Smith, Gambrell & Russell in
Washington.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=535
News, December 3-10, 2002
Finance > Competition
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=13
Tip Top price fixing charge
George Weston Foods, one of Australia's largest bread and biscuit makers, is
being taken to court over alleged price-fixing by the Australian Competition
and Consumer Commission.
The company's brands include Tip Top bread, Westons biscuits and Ryvita
crispbread.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=622
Finance > Labor
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=15
HealthSouth plans job cuts
HealthSouth Corp. said Tuesday it would cut as much as 2 percent of its work
force to save money because of Medicare changes that were cited for a sharp
reduction in earnings.
Numerous shareholder lawsuits have been filed since HealthSouth announced in
August that Medicare changes in billing rules would reduce profits by $175
million. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=625
Humana to cut 2,300 jobs, close three call centers
Humana Inc. said yesterday it will cut about 2,300 jobs, or 17 percent of
its work force, as it relies more on technology to serve members.
Humana's technology advances in customer service enabled it to close the
three service centers, said Tom Noland, Humana spokesman.
Instead of calling service representatives, Humana customers have the option
of tapping the Internet to get health-plan information, or calling a number
to get a computer-generated, voice-activated response.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=624
IntesaBCI, Unions Agree on 6,900 Job Cut
Italy's largest bank, IntesaBCI SpA, signed an agreement with its unions to
cut about 6,900 jobs over the next three years.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=623
Gemplus Board Approves Plan to Cut About 1,030 Jobs, Unions
Gemplus International SA's board yesterday approved a plan to cut an
additional 1,030 jobs, or about 15 percent of the workforce, unions said, as
the world's largest smart-card maker seeks to return to profit. The company,
which had trimmed 854 jobs by the end of September of the 1,140 it expects
to cut this year, is seeking to lower costs as demand from phone makers
wanes.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=576
Black & Decker Cutting 1,300 Jobs
Black & Decker Corp. will close its Easton plant, eliminating 1,300 jobs and
leaving the toolmaker with virtually no manufacturing presence in its home
state. Most of the Maryland jobs will move to Mexico; others will shift to
Brazil and Fayetteville, N.C.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=533
Sikorsky Aircraft Plans 267 Layoffs
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. plans to cut 267 employees this month in the third
round of job cuts since October. The layoffs will affect aircraft assembly
and manufacturing employees across operations. Last month, the helicopter
maker laid off 150 salaried employees and 90 union workers in October.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=532
DaimlerChrysler to Cut 800 Jobs
DaimlerChrysler said Wednesday it plans to halt the production of cables for
commercial vehicles at a plant in Germany, eliminating 800 jobs by mid-2004
in order to cut costs.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=531
Finance > Corporate taxes - Subsidies
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=17
Profits before patriotism
As the war on terror shows troubling signs of becoming a war of error, the
Bush administration is waging a far more successful war on behalf of its
corporate backers. The latest victory comes courtesy of Congress' 11th hour
reversal of a provision in the Homeland Security Bill banning government
contracts for companies that move offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=538
Finance > Offshore
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=18
Liberia, Liechtenstein - and back
One subject covered in Gad Zeevi and Michael Chernoy's indictment on the
1999 acquisition of 19.6 percent of state-run phone company Bezeq, is the
additional $90 million in loans the banking consortium granted Zeevi. The
loans were made after the shares had already been bought and after the banks
had already given Zeevi $643 million for the purchase.
The indictment details how the loan money was transferred to bank accounts
worldwide, part of the money-laundering activity: from the bank consortium
to Zeevi, who transferred about $30 million to a company under his family's
trusteeship in Liberia; from Liberia the money was moved to a company owned
by Chernoy in Liechtenstein, and from Liechtenstein back to Israel, to an
Israeli company owned by Chernoy and Chernoy's business manager in Israel,
Zeev Rom. The indictment ascribes to Zeevi and Chernoy aggravated receipt of
goods under fraudulent pretenses and money-laundering offenses.
On December 6, 1999, Gad Zeevi bought British telecom giant Cable &
Wireless's stake in Bezeq using the $643 million loan and $143 million
equity Chernoy provided. Afterward, Zeevi asked for more loans from the
banks: $90 million. The banks agreed to grant the credit in light of the
rise in Bezeq's shares, which were the collateral for the loans.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=621
Money-laundering scheme squashed
Federal agents have smashed an $80 million international money laundering
scheme involving the diversion of illicit profits from Colombian drug
dealers through life insurance companies in the United States, the isle of
Man and other offshore locations.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=620
Information > Disinformation
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=21
Hype in Health Reporting
You've heard of junk science a term coined by corporations to describe
research they don't like but the real danger to public health might be
called "checkbook science": research intended not to expand knowledge or to
benefit humanity, but instead to sell products.
Every day it seems there's a story touting a "promising" new medical product
or treatment. Unfortunately, many of those news stories are based on public
relations spin machines going into overdrive on behalf of the company that
sells the product whether it's a pharmaceutical company, a chain of diet
clinics or a plastic surgery practice selling a new technique.
Do reporters know that so much medical news is actually unpaid advertising?
The most effective industry influence is so well-hidden that many reporters
and producers are totally unaware of it. The role of pharmaceutical
companies and other health care industry interests in shaping news coverage
of medical products and treatment is as invisible as it is pervasive.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=540
Making Reporters Toe the Big Board Line
After the bubble burst, the regulators decided that it was not nice for an
analyst to tout a stock without mentioning that he owned the stock or that
his employer was the company's investment banker. So they ruled that such
conflicts had to be disclosed.
Fair enough. But to whom? Many investors learn analysts' opinions not from
reading brokerage reports but from news media reports. So the Big Board said
that the firms had to make sure that broadcasters who quoted the analysts
had to pass on the disclosure. The broadcasters said, in effect, what about
the newspapers? And that is how the new rule came to be.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=542
Information > Education
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=46
State schools in private hands
Nine new public schools will for the first time be built and maintained by
the private sector in a $133 million deal that the teachers' union fears is
a precursor to privatising public education.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=536
Institutions > National
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=28
Oil fueling corruption in Africa
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=511
Berlusconi implicated in deal with godfathers
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=505
Supremacy > Latin America
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=43
Colombian journalist gets applause, but no coverage
Colombian journalist Ignacio Gomez told a roomful of America's most
influential journalists Tuesday how Washington-supported Colombian president
Alvaro Uribe is connected to drug traffickers and how U.S. military trainers
helped organize a massacre in his country.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=543
Bolivian Anti-Drug Unit Paid by Washington Accused of Abuses
The wary residents of this sweltering town in Bolivia's remote Chapare
jungle have a nickname for the uniformed newcomers: "America's mercenaries."
The Expeditionary Task Force, the official name for an armed unit of 1,500
former Bolivian soldiers, is paid, fed, clothed and trained by the U.S.
Embassy in La Paz, the Bolivian capital. Since setting up camp 18 months ago
on three bases around this town of 2,000 inhabitants, the troops and their
assault rifles have become a common sight on the local highway, putting down
protests along the steamy jungle road by peasants combating a sweeping,
U.S.-backed campaign to eradicate the area's biggest cash crop -- coca.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=449
Coup-making in Venezuela: the Bush and oil factors
As efforts to overthrow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez intensify, two
facts are inescapable: the power elite in the United States has never been
happy with democratically-elected Chavez, but it took the Bush
administration, with its corporate oil and energy connections, to turn up
the heat against him.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=454
Venezuela coup linked to Bush team
The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US
government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the
'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central
America at that time.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=444
Supremacy > Gulf wars
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=44
Iraqi oil building attacked by western planes
Western warplanes hit an oil company office block in Basra in southern Iraq
Sunday, killing four people and wounding 27
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=567
How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=458
Third-World > Structural adjustment
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewforum.php?f=39
Pakistan is to dismantle its support for agriculture
For the sake of a a World Bank loan of $300 million, Pakistan is to
dismantle its system of support for agriculture.
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=480
173 corporate profiles updated this week
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/etn.htm#update
To unsubscribe from this newsletter:
http://www.transnationale.org/association/bulletin_del.asp?Email=j.armitage@
unn.ac.uk
The Transnational Corporations Observatory
B.P. 96
13693 Martigues Cedex
FRANCE
************************************************************************************
Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion
list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic
study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html
*************************************************************************************
|
