-----Original Message-----
From: [transnationale.org]
To: john.armitage
Sent: 21/05/02 21:06
Subject: TCO Newsletter, May 21, 2002
Newsletter from the transnational corporations observatory
Monday, May 21, 2002
FILES > FOOD > PROCESSED
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/dossiers/alimentation/industrielle
.htm
Meat Production is Making the Rich Ill and the Poor Hungry
In June, agricultural ministers from around the world will gather in
Rome for the World Food Summit. The meeting will focus on how to create
a sustainable approach to development and get food in the mouths of the
nearly 1 billion who are currently undernourished. More interesting than
the agenda, however, will be the menu. At both the official dinners and
at NGO gatherings, expect to see the consumption of large quantities of
meat. And herein lies the contradiction.
Hundreds of millions of people are going hungry all over the world
because much of the arable land is being used to grow feed grain for
animals rather than for people. Cattle are among the most inefficient
converters of feed. In the US, 157 million metric tons of cereal,
legumes and vegetable protein suitable for human use is fed to livestock
to produce 28 million metric tons of animal protein for annual human
consumption.
The worldwide demand for feed grain continues to grow, as multinational
corporations seek to capitalize on the meat demands of affluent
countries. Two-thirds of the increases in grain production in the US and
Europe between 1950 and 1985, the boom years in agriculture, went to
provide feed grain.
In developing countries, the question of land reform has periodically
rallied peasant populations and spawned populist political uprisings.
But the question of how the land is used has been of less interest. Yet
the decision to use the land to create an artificial food chain has
resulted in misery for hundreds of millions around the world. An acre of
cereal produces five times more protein than an acre devoted to meat
production; legumes (beans, peas, lentils) can produce 10 times more
protein and leafy vegetables 15 times more.
The global corporations that produce the seeds, the farm chemicals and
the cattle and that control the slaughterhouse and the marketing and
distribution channels for beef are eager to tout the advantage of
grain-fed livestock. Advertising and sales campaigns geared to
developing nations are quick to equate grain-fed beef with a country's
prestige. Climbing the "protein ladder" becomes the mark of success.
Enlarging and diversifying their meat supply appears to be a first step
for every developing country. They start by putting in modern broiler
and egg production facilities - the fastest and cheapest way to produce
nonplant protein. Then, as rapidly as their economies permit, they climb
"the protein ladder" to pork, milk, and dairy products, to grass-fed
beef and finally, if they can, to grain-fed beef.
Encouraging other nations to do this advances the interests of American
farmers and agribusiness companies. Two-thirds of all the grain exported
from the US to other countries goes to feed livestock rather than to
feed hungry people.
Many developing nations climbed the protein ladder at the height of the
agricultural boom, when "green revolution" technology was producing
grain surpluses. In 1971 the Food and Agricultural Organization
suggested switching to coarse grains that could be more easily consumed
by livestock. The US government provided further encouragement in its
foreign aid program, tying food aid to development of feed grain
markets. Companies like Ralston Purina and Cargill were given
low-interest government loans to establish grain-fed poultry operations
in developing countries. Many nations followed the advice of the FAO and
have attempted to remain high on the protein ladder long after the
surpluses of the green revolution have disappeared.
The shift from food to feed continues apace in many nations, with no
sign of reversal. The human consequences of the transition were
dramatically illustrated in 1984 in Ethiopia when thousands of people
were dying each day from famine. At the very same time Ethiopia was
using some of its agricultural land to produce linseed cake, cottonseed
cake and rapeseed meal for export to the UK and other European nations
as feed for livestock. Millions of acres of third world land are now
being used exclusively to produce feed for European livestock.
Tragically, some 80% of the world's hungry children live in countries
with actual food surpluses, much of which is in the form of feed fed to
animals which will be consumed by only the well-to-do consumers. In the
developing world, the share of grain fed to livestock has tripled since
1950 and now exceeds 21% of the total grain produced.
The irony of the present system is that millions of wealthy consumers in
the first world are dying from diseases of affluence (heart attacks,
strokes, diabetes, cancer) brought on by gorging on fatty grain-fed
meats, while the poor in the third world are dying of diseases of
poverty brought on by the denial of access to land to grow food grain
for their families. We are long overdue for a global discussion on how
best to promote a diversified, high-protein, vegetarian diet for the
human race.
FILES > ENVIRONMENT > AIR - CLIMATE CHANGE
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/dossiers/environnement/air.htm
Expert Warns World is Warming Faster Than Forecast
Planet earth is warming up faster than previously expected, the head of
a leading climate research institute said on Monday.
Dying forests, expanding deserts and rising sea levels would wreak havoc
to human and animal lives sooner than anticipated as global warming was
accelerating, said Geoff Jenkins, head of the Hadley Center for Climate
Prediction and Research.
"It looks like it will be warmer by the end of the century than what we
have predicted," he told Reuters in an interview.
Jenkins said recent revisions showed much greater output of greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide(CO2) than earlier estimated. These gases
are blamed for global warming.
Warmer weather will generate more droughts, floods and rising sea levels
which many fear will create millions of refugees from drowning
island-nations and possible wars over increasingly scarce fresh water.
Economies are also likely to take a blow as farming, fishing and
business will be affected by the change in climate.
A 2001 United Nations' report on climate change forecast that global
temperatures will rise two to five degrees Celsius by the end of the
century.
But recent data suggest temperatures could rise even higher as a worst
case scenario shows four times as much emitted CO2 in the atmosphere
from today's levels which Jenkins said is significantly higher than
previously expected.
Carbon dioxide is blamed for two thirds of all global warming and is
largely produced when burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal.
Nature's Defenses Weakening
Despite efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent of 1990's
levels during 2008-12 under a global Kyoto pact, the amount in the
atmosphere is set to rise as warmer temperatures will curb nature's
capacity to absorb the gases, Jenkins said.
Half of all CO2 emissions last in the atmosphere for about 100 years,
while the rest is soaked up by seas, land and vegetation.
But the opposite effect may kick in as warmer weather and less rainfall
in some places will dry out and kill trees which emit CO2 as they
decompose, Jenkins said.
CO2-absorbing microbes in the soil are also set to boost emissions as
higher temperatures will fuel their activities which produce the
greenhouse gas.
"Instead of helping, they will make global warming worse," Jenkins said.
He echoed a warning from the Royal Society, Britain's national academy
of science, that present measures to cut greenhouse gases were not
sufficient to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
He said temperatures in the UK could rise by seven to eight degrees by
2080 compared with an expected four degree increase.
"We would have to cut emissions by 60-70 percent by the end of the
century to stabilize CO2 levels," Jenkins said.
The European Union has said it will ratify the Kyoto treaty this summer
and if Russia and Japan also do so the treaty can come into force
without the world's largest producer of man-made CO2 emissions - the
United States.
The U.S., which has the world's biggest economy, rejected the pact in
2001 over worries it would harm its industry.
US rejection of Kyoto climate plan 'risks uninhabitable Earth'
Angered by the US government's decision to rule out signing up to Kyoto
for the next 10 years, the environment minister, Michael Meacher, writes
in today's Guardian that the world is running out of time. "We do not
have much time and we do not have any serious option. If we do not act
quickly to minimise runaway feedback effects [from global warming] we
run the risk of making this planet, our home, uninhabitable."
The minister's intervention came after Washington's chief climate
negotiator, Harlan Watson, said in London earlier this week that an
independent US initiative to cut emissions of greenhouse gases would not
be assessed until 2012. "We are not going to be part of the Kyoto
protocol for the foreseeable future," he announced.
"The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change ... has forecast that
global average temperatures will rise by between 1.4 to 5.8 degrees
Celsius by 2100.
"That may not sound much. But it is worth remembering that the last ice
age, when much of the northern hemisphere was buried under an ice pack
thousands of feet thick, was triggered by a fall in temperature of only
some five degrees Celsius."
A rise in temperature of just 5.8C could melt glaciers and Greenland's
ice sheet, causing a rise in sea water that could submerge island
nations.
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/forums/environnement__air/showmess
age.asp?messageID=385
FILES > ENVIRONMENT > POLLUTION
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/dossiers/environnement/pollution.h
tm
The great red mud experiment that went radioactive
Quentin Treasure was a member of a local land-care group when he was
approached to take part in an unusual experiment by the West Australian
Agricultural Department.
The department wanted to spread a reddish substance over his farmland to
see if it would stop unwanted phosphorus from entering waterways.
The bonus, Mr Treasure was assured, was not just environmental. He could
look forward to vastly increased crop yields using a soil-improving
agent that would cost him just 50" a tonne.
But this was no ordinary product. It was industrial waste.
The trucks dumping tonne after tonne of the ochre-like material were
coming straight from settling ponds at the nearby Alcoa aluminium
refinery, which was co-funding the project.
"We never talked a lot about whether it was safe or not," Mr Treasure
said. "We were just told it was dirt from the hills that came from
Alcoa. And being a little bit naive at the time, that is all we assumed
it was."
The experiment, now being used to justify an extraordinary proposal for
large-scale use of industrial waste on West Australian farms, remains a
bitter memory for a small group of farmers that originally took part.
What Mr Treasure did not fully understand when he agreed to the proposal
was that, apart from having fertilising potential, the red mud was also
laced with dangerous materials.
Sprinkled over each hectare were up to 30 kilograms of radioactive
thorium, six kilograms of chromium, more than two kilograms of barium
and up to one kilogram of uranium.
On top of that there were 24 kilograms of fluoride, more than half a
kilogram each of the toxic heavy metals arsenic, copper, zinc, and
cobalt, as well as smaller amounts of lead, cadmium and beryllium.
And this was at the lowest application rate of 20 tonnes a hectare.
In one instance - when the red mud was applied at 200 tonnes a hectare -
the doses could be multiplied ten-fold, according to a West Australian
Environmental Protection Authority document.
Between 1991 and 1994 more than 7,600 tonnes of Alcoa red mud was poured
directly onto Mr Treasure's farmland at Yarloop, about an hour's drive
south of Perth. About 23,000 more tonnes were poured onto the lands of
12 neighbouring farmers.
"The thing that started to alert us that something might be wrong was
that we started to get sick animals," Mr Treasure said. "We started
getting very unusual sicknesses in the cows and some of them began to
die."
"But it seemed to us that all the department was worried about was
reducing the phosphorous running off into the estuary.
"There was nothing in their protocol to go and check animals. And at the
end of the day we are producing animals for people to eat. They had
already decided the stuff was safe and that they didn't need to do
that."
Concern turned to alarm when the farmers were given heavy metal
measurements of water running off their lands. They showed elevated
levels of toxic mercury, selenium, copper and lead.
"I rang the department up to question the figures and they sent me a fax
saying that someone had probably thrown a [car] battery in the water and
that is why there were excess levels in the water," Mr Treasure said.
"So my hackles began to rise. I said, 'Don't take us for fools'."
Graeme Moore, who also took part in the experiment, said the department
then tried to claim that the high readings were a result of run-off from
a quiet country road,
"They said, 'Oh you are only dumb farmers, you don't know what that
means'. "But we said, 'It is there in black and white that these levels
exceed what is supposed to be going down there'. That is when we started
to get angry about the whole thing."
Meanwhile, the department was hailing the experiment as a success. It is
a view it still vehemently holds. Early indications showed that the
primary purpose of the trial - to try to prevent algae blooms in the
Peel-Harvey estuary by reducing phosphorous run-off - appeared to be
working.
And Alcoa was happy.
Storing the material was costing a lot of money. It had been seeking
uses for it since the early 1980s and was more than happy to see it
being given away.
From the beginning both the department and Alcoa acknowledged the
potential pollutants in the waste.
But each maintained - and still maintains - that the increased levels of
heavy metals would remain tightly bound up in the soil and that the
radioactive materials would barely be noticed.
Alcoa said there was "more zinc in oysters, more selenium in brazil
nuts, more fluoride in toothpaste, more mercury in shark, more lead in
typical soil and more cadmium in fertiliser" than in the red mud.
The department maintained that a number of the high heavy metal readings
taken from the water run-off could be explained by other factors. "I
mean bin Laden is not going to go stealing this stuff to make atomic
bombs out of it," said an Agriculture Department research officer, Rob
Summers.
"That is what soils are made of - things like fluoride, aluminium, iron
and manganese. All those materials are of course extremely toxic but
when they are built into the matrix of a soil they are very very hard to
get out."
The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) also went along with the
experiment even though it had acknowledged as early as November 1993
that small amounts of highly poisonous arsenic, fluoride and aluminium
were leaching from the soil.
"Bauxite residue [red mud] ... contains traces of some elements which if
mobilised could pose environmental risks," one EPA report said. "There
are a number of issues associated with this proposal which need to be
addressed or considered by other agencies. These issues include health
issues such as the accumulation of heavy metals/radioactivity in
vegetables."
By 1995 the Agriculture Department was struggling to explain how samples
of drain water showed concentrations of aluminium, copper, lead, mercury
and selenium above the levels recommended for marine and fresh water. In
August 1995 and in September 1996 it acknowledged that arsenic levels in
waterways were being exceeded.
Although five years had passed since the material was first applied,
large plumes of red dust were still hanging over the farmers' fields.
This was not supposed to happen.
Pressed by the farmers, the department finally agreed in late 1996 to
undertake a limited test on the health of some of the animals.
"You should have seen the land with 20 tonnes to the hectare," Mr
Treasure said. "The poor old animals - if they wanted to eat grass they
had to physically eat red mud. They had no choice. Because we knew there
was heavy metals in it we wanted to know if it was going into their
system. Being farmers, we didn't want to contaminate our overseas
markets."
Although the department's investigation found "no obvious health
problems", it did find high chromium, fluoride and cadmium levels in
some cattle. The high chromium levels were linked to the dust and this
prompted fears for the farmers' health.
"Our animals were walking through it and they were covered in the
stuff," Mr Treasure said. "And we were doing the same. One day they
asked me to drive my cattle up through the paddocks wearing a dust
monitor. The monitor clogged up."
It took the department another year to repeat the dust tests, using
independent experts. Again they concluded there was no threat, but the
farmers were unconvinced.
"At the end of the day we are not qualified to say whether the red mud
is injurious to our health or benign ... but we don't believe they do
either," said Mr Moore. "I hope it is safe as hell and I hope it does
the job they say it does. But I am still sitting on the fence because I
am not happy."
Despite the fact that many of the original farmers raised concerns -
including that they were not getting the promised higher crop yields -
the department pressed ahead with the project.
Red mud was spread over 22 more properties and a fertiliser company was
enlisted to help mix the mud with a commercial fertiliser to try to
produce a slow-release phosphorus product.
In 1999 the department applied to the EPA to spread 360,000 tonnes of
red mud on farmlands across the entire Swan coastal plain.
Then came an unexpected twist.
Alcoa refused to release any more mud unless it got indemnity from any
environmental damage. It said this was simply to avoid the risk of any
"irresponsible or inappropriate" use of the product. The department
backed the request on the ground that it was not a commercial project.
"It costs us money to make the material available but we do that because
we have been convinced by the science," said an Alcoa spokesman, Brian
Doy. "We think that due diligence has been done to make sure this is a
safe product to use."
Certainly when the then state Liberal government granted Alcoa the
indemnity in September 1999 the move was unprecedented.
It cleared the way for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of red mud to be
made available to farmers, this time at $14 a tonne.
But Mr Treasure and his neighbours have their own theories about why
Alcoa sought an indemnity. He points out, with some justification, that
many of the independent studies used to rationalise the experiment were
paid for by Alcoa.
Mr Summers dismisses the implications. "You might actually find that the
people who work for Alcoa in Western Australia do consider that there
are some environmental problems that they would actually love to help
with."
Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America)
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/908898840.htm
EPA doublespeak: waste dumping in wetlands will enhance them
"The mining industry and scores of other industrial polluters received a
gift today from the Bush administration at the expense of our nation's
waterways. The administration reversed a 25-year-old Clean Water Act
rule that flatly prohibited disposal of mining and other industrial
solid wastes into the nation's waters. To avoid a citizen lawsuit aimed
at protecting Appalachian residents and the environment, the
administration has declared that all waters across the country are now
open to industry for waste disposal. This single act, described by the
Environmental Protection Agency with Orwellian perfection as a
'clarification' that will 'enhance environmental protection of our
wetlands and streams,' is the most significant weakening of Clean Water
Act rules since the act was passed in 1972."
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/forums/environnement__pollution/sh
owmessage.asp?messageID=401
Industry still failing on environment, says U.N. report
Advances in the recycling of key materials and in car efficiency were
still being outweighed by the effects of increased consumption,
including a trend toward disposable products, the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) found.
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/forums/environnement__pollution/sh
owmessage.asp?messageID=400
FILES > FINANCE > SPECULATION
FleetBoston Financial Corp. and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. were
among international banks defrauded of as much as $1 billion lent to
finance phony metals trades in one of the biggest bank scams ever, U.S.
prosecutors said.
FleetBoston Financial Corp. and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. were
among international banks defrauded of as much as $1 billion lent to
finance phony metals trades in one of the biggest bank scams ever, U.S.
prosecutors said.
Prosecutors charged four men with using metal trading companies in a
global Ponzi scheme to steal money from at least eight banks starting in
May 2000, according to a complaint unsealed today in federal court. The
companies falsely represented to the banks that they were arranging
shipments and needed financing for customers in India, Hong Kong and
elsewhere, prosecutors said.
"This was a very, very sophisticated operation," U.S. Attorney James
Comey said at a press conference. "These folks lined up people around
the world, places that could only be reached by rickshaw, to pose as
metal traders."
FleetBoston and PNC have said they lost a combined $120 million from the
fraud, and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said it lost $2.7 million, at a time
when banks are writing off an increasing amount of bad loans because of
bankruptcies and Argentina's financial collapse. Prosecutors said they
expect the losses will mount as the investigation expands and additional
banks beyond those named in the complaint come forward.
Other banks that were defrauded include: KBC Bank NV, Hypovereinsbank
NA, Dresdner Bank Lateinamerika AG, China Trust Bank, General Bank,
prosecutors said in the complaint.
Fake Documents
The banks were hoodwinked by fictitious purchase orders, invoices and
other documents sent from around the world, prosecutors said. Defendants
used new loans to pay off maturing credit to keep the fraud going, they
said.
The scam involved fake addresses and people posing as customers overseas
to greet bank investigators, prosecutors said. In one case, a
non-existent warehouse in the United Arab Emirates that was supposed to
contain "millions of dollars of inventory did not exist," Assistant U.S.
Attorney Marcus Asner told U.S. Magistrate Judge James Francis at a bail
hearing.
"It sounds as if none of the banks checked out the credibility of the
people they were doing business with or verified the transactions they
were financing," said J.W. Shockey, retired fraud division chief at the
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, where he investigated bank
scams for 25 years.
PNC spokesman Brian Goerke, FleetBoston spokesman Jim Mahoney and J.P.
Morgan spokesman Adam Castellani declined to comment.
Charged
The men named in the complaint are: Narendra Kumar Rastogi, Anil Anand,
Manoj Nijhawan, and Udha Shankar Balakrishna, three principals in and
the treasurer of a group of metal trading companies in Piscataway, New
Jersey. Those companies included Allied Deals Inc., Hampton Lane Inc.,
and SAI Commodity Inc., prosecutors said.
Virendra Rastogi, the brother of Narendra Rostogi, was arrested earlier
this month in London, where he owns a small metal trading company, RBG
Resources Plc. Police raided RBG on May 3 and found him shredding
documents, prosecutors said today.
The four men were arrested this morning at 6 a.m. Francis, the federal
magistrate, said Narendra Rastogi could be released on a $10 million
bond co-signed by 10 people. His lawyer, Jeremy Temkin, dismissed
allegations of fraud and said that matter represents a "legitimate
business dispute" between Rastogi and the banks.
Bail
Francis ordered Balakrishna released on a $500,000 bond secured by
$5,000 cash. Nijhawan was ordered held on a $2 million bond. Anand is
being detained while his court-appointed lawyer applies for bail.
The fraud first became apparent in September, when a representative of
J.P. Morgan walked to the lower Manhattan headquarters of Island Metals,
which received a $1.2 million loan, Comey said. At the address, the bank
representative found a door with a peephole and determined it wasn't a
sophisticated metals trading business, he said.
The Island Metals loan is only the "tip of an iceberg," Comey said.
Prosecutors said the defendants sometimes sent identical documents to
different banks as support for separate loans. Hundreds of people
probably were involved in the web of fictitious transactions, they said.
FleetBoston's Mahoney said the bank will write off a total of $70
million, which will be reflected in second quarter earnings. Comey put
FleetBoston's total losses at $130 million, a figure that Mahoney said
includes FleetBoston and PNC's combined losses as well as a $10 million
credit line extended by the Boston bank to Allied Deals.
Pittsburgh-based PNC already has taken a $50 million charge to earnings,
which was disclosed in first-quarter earnings, according to Goerke, a
spokesman for Pennsylvania's biggest bank.
FleetBoston Financial Corp
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/-1860896574.htm
PNC Financial Services Group Inc
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/1591489695.htm
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/-1462096222.htm
Alleged Metal-Trading Scam Is One of Biggest Bank Frauds: Table
A scam U.S. prosecutors say defrauded U.S. banks of as much as $1
billion through phony metals trades is one of the biggest in history.
Others include:
* In 1996, former Philip Morris Cos. employee Edward Reiners pleaded
guilty to charges he fraudulently obtained a $350 million loan from a
group of seven banks led by Signet Banking Corp. -- now part of Wachovia
Corp. -- by claiming he needed the financing for a top-secret
international project of the tobacco company. The government recovered
$200 million of the loan. His partner in the scheme, John Ruffo, skipped
bail and is on the U.S. Marshals' "Top 15 Most Wanted" list.
* In 1996, Minnesota cattleman John D. Morken pleaded guilty to bank
fraud for a check-kiting scheme that cost Firstar Corp., now part of
U.S. Bancorp, and Sprague National Bank $41 million. Morken's cattle
brokerage lost millions in the months before Firstar discovered in 1994
he was using the float between two checking accounts to borrow large
amounts of money.
* In 1994, a federal judge sentenced Roy "Will" Harris to 15 years and
eight months in prison for defrauding five banks that lent $245 million
to Arochem Corp., a Stamford, Connecticut, oil- trading company that
Harris owned. In 1992, a jury found that Harris lied about Arochem's
operations and fabricated documents to obtain loans from the banks,
including Chase Manhattan Corp., now a unit of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.,
and Swiss Bank Corp., now a unit of UBS AG.
* In 1992, a federal judge accepted the Bank of Credit & Commerce
International's guilty plea to charges of fraud, racketeering and
conspiracy. BCCI, which once had more than $20 billion in assets and
operated in 69 countries, was shut down by the U.S., Britain and other
countries in July 1991 after depositors' losses reached an estimated $15
billion.
* In 1986, a federal jury convicted Colombian-born Alberto Duque, whose
coffee empire once included Chase & Sanborn Co., of 60 of 61 charges of
conspiracy, wire fraud and misapplication of the funds of City National
Bank, which Duque controlled. The government accused Duque's coffee
companies of inflating inventory and faking financial statements to get
millions in bank loans from about 20 institutions in Miami and New York.
Philip Morris Cos
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/105.htm
Wachovia Corp
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/61223545.htm
US Bancorp
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/526890597.htm
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/-1462096222.htm
UBS AG
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/-145489079.htm
FILES > INFORMATION > DISINFORMATION - PUBLIC RELATIONS
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/dossiers/information/desinformatio
n.htm
Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the
internet
Persuasion works best when it's invisible. The most effective marketing
worms its way into our consciousness, leaving intact the perception that
we have reached our opinions and made our choices independently. As old
as humankind itself, over the past few years this approach has been
refined, with the help of the internet, into a technique called "viral
marketing". Last month, the viruses appear to have murdered their host.
One of the world's foremost scientific journals was persuaded to do
something it had never done before, and retract a paper it had
published.
While, in the past, companies have created fake citizens' groups to
campaign in favour of trashing forests or polluting rivers, now they
create fake citizens. Messages purporting to come from disinterested
punters are planted on listservers at critical moments, disseminating
misleading information in the hope of recruiting real people to the
cause. Detective work by the campaigner Jonathan Matthews and the
freelance journalist Andy Rowell shows how a PR firm contracted to the
biotech company Monsanto appears to have played a crucial but invisible
role in shaping scientific discourse.
Monsanto knows better than any other corporation the costs of
visibility. Its clumsy attempts, in 1997, to persuade people that they
wanted to eat GM food all but destroyed the market for its crops.
Determined never to make that mistake again, it has engaged the services
of a firm which knows how to persuade without being seen to persuade.
The Bivings Group specialises in internet lobbying.
An article on its website, entitled Viral Marketing: How to Infect the
World, warns that "there are some campaigns where it would be
undesirable or even disastrous to let the audience know that your
organisation is directly involved... it simply is not an intelligent PR
move. In cases such as this, it is important to first 'listen' to what
is being said online... Once you are plugged into this world, it is
possible to make postings to these outlets that present your position as
an uninvolved third party... Perhaps the greatest advantage of viral
marketing is that your message is placed into a context where it is more
likely to be considered seriously." A senior executive from Monsanto is
quoted on the Bivings site thanking the PR firm for its "outstanding
work".
On November 29 last year, two researchers at the University of
California, Berkeley published a paper in Nature magazine, which claimed
that native maize in Mexico had been contaminated, across vast
distances, by GM pollen. The paper was a disaster for the biotech
companies seeking to persuade Mexico, Brazil and the European Union to
lift their embargos on GM crops.
Even before publication, the researchers knew their work was hazardous.
One of them, Ignacio Chapela, was approached by the director of a
Mexican corporation, who first offered him a glittering research post if
he withheld his paper, then told him that he knew where to find his
children. In the US, Chapela's opponents have chosen a different form of
assassination.
On the day the paper was published, messages started to appear on a
biotechnology listserver used by more than 3,000 scientists, called
AgBioWorld. The first came from a correspondent named "Mary Murphy".
Chapela is on the board of directors of the Pesticide Action Network,
and therefore, she claimed, "not exactly what you'd call an unbiased
writer". Her posting was followed by a message from an "Andura
Smetacek", claiming, falsely, that Chapela's paper had not been
peer-reviewed, that he was "first and foremost an activist" and that the
research had been published in collusion with environmentalists. The
next day, another email from "Smetacek" asked "how much money does
Chapela take in speaking fees, travel reimbursements and other
donations... for his help in misleading fear-based marketing campaigns?"
The messages from Murphy and Smetacek stimulated hundreds of others,
some of which repeated or embellished the accusations they had made.
Senior biotechnologists called for Chapela to be sacked from Berkeley.
AgBioWorld launched a petition pointing to the paper's "fundamental
flaws".
There do appear to be methodological problems with the research Chapela
and his colleague David Quist had published, but this is hardly
unprecedented in a scientific journal. All science is, and should be,
subject to challenge and disproof. But in this case the pressure on
Nature was so severe that its editor did something unparalleled in its
133-year history: last month he published, alongside two papers
challenging Quist and Chapela's, a retraction in which he wrote that
their research should never have been published.
So the campaign against the researchers was extraordinarily successful;
but who precisely started it? Who are "Mary Murphy" and "Andura
Smetacek"?
Both claim to be ordinary citizens, without any corporate links. The
Bivings Group says it has "no knowledge of them". "Mary Murphy" uses a
hotmail account for posting messages to AgBioWorld. But a message
satirising the opponents of biotech, sent by "Mary Murphy" from the same
hotmail account to another server two years ago, contains the
identification bw6.bivwood.com. Bivwood.com is the property of Bivings
Woodell, which is part of the Bivings Group.
When I wrote to her to ask whether she was employed by Bivings and
whether Mary Murphy was her real name, she replied that she had "no ties
to industry". But she refused to answer my questions on the grounds that
"I can see by your articles that you made your mind up long ago about
biotech". The interesting thing about this response is that my message
to her did not mention biotechnology. I told her only that I was
researching an article about internet lobbying.
Smetacek has, on different occasions, given her address as "London" and
"New York". But the electoral rolls, telephone directories and credit
card records in both London and the entire US reveal no "Andura
Smetacek". Her name appears only on AgBioWorld and a few other
listservers, on which she has posted scores of messages falsely accusing
groups such as Greenpeace of terrorism. My letters to her have elicited
no response. But a clue to her possible identity is suggested by her
constant promotion of "the Centre For Food and Agricultural Research".
The centre appears not to exist, except as a website, which repeatedly
accuses greens of plotting violence. Cffar.org is registered to someone
called Manuel Theodorov. Manuel Theodorov is the "director of
associations" at Bivings Woodell.
Even the website on which the campaign against the paper in Nature was
launched has attracted suspicion. Its moderator, the biotech enthusiast
Professor CS Prakash, claims to have no connection to the Bivings Group.
But when Jonathan Matthews was searching the site's archives he received
the following error message: "can't connect to MySQL server on
apollo.bivings.com". Apollo.bivings.com is the main server of the
Bivings Group.
"Sometimes," Bivings boasts, "we win awards. Sometimes only the client
knows the precise role we played." Sometimes, in other words, real
people have no idea that they are being managed by fake ones.
Monsanto
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/919074417.htm
Jamming Citigroup's PR Message
In mid-April, Citigroup launched a $100 million global ad campaign
titled "This is Citigroup." Using images of elderly people, and people
from Hong Kong to Brazil, the ads portray a caring bank, committed to
local communities. But environmental group Rainforest Action Network
(RAN), which has waged a boycott against Citigroup for the past two
years, says the bank completely ignores environmental and social
concerns and is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. RAN
recently launched a counter campaign featuring photos that document
destructive Citigroup-funded projects.
Jennifer Bauduy interviews RAN's Ilyse Hogue:
What spurred RAN to launch the counter ad campaign?
Citi's objective with their ad campaign was to put a positive spin on
their global presence around the world. They use individuals from
different countries, in different geographical settings, holding the
happy red umbrella. They are trying to position themselves as the warm
fuzzy bank that cares about people.
They promote themselves as leaders -- as economic, environmental, and
social leaders. What RAN is saying is: if you want to be a leader, then
the progressive financial institutions are the ones that are getting out
of environmentally destructive investments like deforestation and other
activities that promote climate change.
If they are going to talk about their presence in South America or in
Asia without talking about their profiting off of eco-system
destruction, species extinction and deforestation, that is
irresponsible.
How exactly are they profiting from that?
Citigroup is the number one lender to the fossil fuel industry, and it's
in the top three lending directly to logging industries, number one to
mining. All of these activities have disastrous impact on the natural
world.
A lot of people don't understand that the capital investment that's
provided by Citibank is the fuel for the machine of destruction [around
the world]. The oil companies, the logging companies, they can't
function without the massive influx of investments that they receive
from Citibank and other big banks.
Can you give us a specific example?
In California, Citi underwrote the bonds for Maxxam Corporation, which
was responsible for logging the Headwaters Forest. Headwaters was
California's last big private stand of old-growth redwoods. The thing
that was unique about the Headwaters project is that Citi underwrote the
bonds using the trees as collateral. So, in order to pay back the loan,
the company had to log. It was a vicious circle of environmental
destruction.
What banks or financial institutions do you hold up as a positive model?
The one that we hold up is ABN/AMRO, which is the leading Dutch Bank.
They came out with a groundbreaking policy last year committing to cease
funding for all extractive industries in high-conservation-value
forests. It's the right thing to do. It's what we hold up to Citi as the
example that they must follow. It's also the economically wise thing to
do. Banks like ABN/AMRO are getting ahead of the curve in terms of
shifting their investments to sustainable alternatives.
The vast majority of Americans consider themselves environmentalists and
they want to know that the companies that they are doing business with
uphold those values rather than under cut them.
Citigroup might argue that changing its policies would hurt it
financially. Do you know if the Dutch company has suffered any
consequences?
As we talk to Citi and other leading investment banks, we need to point
out that this is an investment in the long-term future of the planet and
people. And so, to look at quarterly returns is disingenuous in terms of
the environmental and social profit we will reap next year, five years
from now, and seven generations from now.
I think that the ABN/AMRO commitment represents what consumers are
increasingly pressing for. As we say to Citi, "It's not if you change
your practices, but when." And we have to do it sooner rather than later
because we are still losing acres of forests at an unprecedented rate,
and we are still heating up the planet at an unprecedented rate.
How successful has your boycott been?
Now, in the second year of the campaign, I think we've built awareness
and we are seeing that awareness translates into credit card cut-ups and
students switching their loans and bigger [demonstrations]. I think we
are getting more attention and more awareness about Citibank as the
leading bank in destruction.
What will a credit card cut-up accomplish?
One of the slogans that's emerged from the campaign is people saying,
"Hey Citi, not with my money." More and more people understand that it's
their credit card balances, their savings accounts and their student
loans that often go towards these types of destructive activities. So
cutting up your Citibank card is a symbolic act to let Citibank know, "I
will not continue to do business with you because I don't agree with
your destructive environmental record."
What has Citigroup's response been?
They say that they are interested in what we are putting forward to
them, that they are interested in being social and environmental
leaders. And we continue to dialogue and negotiate. But as we have told
Citibank, we are interested in action, rather than words.
Citigroup Inc.
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/127.htm
ABN Amro NV
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/591347087.htm
Maxxam Corp
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/1657672784.htm
FILES > THIRD WORLD > LABOUR CONDITIONS - FREE TRADE ZONES
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/dossiers/tiersmonde/zones_franches
.htm
Saipan sweatshop lawsuit gets class action status
Foreign garment workers have gained class action status in a federal
racketeering lawsuit alleging sweatshop conditions in factories here
that supply U.S. retailers, including the Gap.
U.S. District Judge Alex R. Munson, who issued the ruling, also granted
preliminary approval of a settlement reached with 19 retailers named in
the original lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of some 30,000 garment workers from Asia
who allege they work 12-hour days in unsafe, unsanitary conditions in
this U.S. Commonwealth. Munson's Friday ruling granted class action
status to foreign workers who have worked in the factories since January
1989.
Michael Rubin, a San Francisco attorney for the garment workers, said
Tuesday in a telephone interview that under the federal Racketeer
Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, the retailers would have to pay
triple damages if the workers win their case. With more than 30,000
workers and a case that goes back 13 years, the damages could run in the
tens of millions of dollars, he said.
"The stakes are huge, the ruling is unprecedented," he said.
Notice of the class action will be posted in the factories in Saipan,
and published in newspapers in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and
the Philippines, Rubin said. He said most of the workers are women, and
most are from China.
John Keker, an attorney for San Francisco-based Gap Inc., one of eight
retailers and some 28 factories still named in the suit, said the
workers must still prove the allegations.
"They made some pretty broad allegations," Keker said. "We're confident
that once we get into the facts those allegations won't hold up."
Jeff Beckman, a spokesman for San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co.,
which stopped manufacturing its products in the Northern Marianas in
2000, said the allegations against Levi Strauss are unfounded and the
company has no plans to settle.
The Gap inc.
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/1877230584.htm
Levi Strauss & Co
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/fiches/-1297536333.htm
209 company profiles updated this week:
http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/etn.htm#update
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