Corporate Watch Newsletter 23 April/May 2005

DEMOLISHING THE COMMUNTY
What this country's poorest really need is higher house prices. That's the basis of the government's Housing Renewal Pathfinder schemes - demolishing 400,000 houses across the North of England to build more expensive homes.Read more...

NEW SCIENCE MINISTER ANOTHER INDUSTRY CRONY
As Lord Sainsbury's seven year tenure as Science Minister comes to an end GM Watch looks at the man tipped to be his successor. Read more...

QUEEN BACKS PR FRONT GROUP
Public relations, according to top spin-doctor Tim Bell, is the 'use of third-party endorsement to inform and persuade'. In seeking to improve its own image, the Institute of Public Relations has reached for the ultimate in third-party endorsement, a royal charter. On 9 February it became the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR): effectively now endorsed by the crown. The CIPR hopes that this endorsement will help it to deal with the industry's two-part image problem.
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AIRLINES IN DISREGARD FOR PILOT HEALTH SHOCKER
Surely not - with their reputation? The aviation industry is one of the most high profile, profitable and polluting in the world. It also appears that it may be one of the most stressful and dangerous places to work. While airline companies demand huge government bail outs to support their profitability, the safety of their own pilots seems to be less of a priority. Captain Peter Standing died of a heart attack after an incident aboard his Jumbo Jet in April 2002. Read more...

UK DEVELOPMENT AID FUELS CLIMATE CHANGE AND POVERTY
UK aid money is creating an 'oil curse' for developing economies, according to a new report from Plan B. 'Pumping Poverty: Britain's Department for International Development and the oil industry' (17 March, 2005). The report finds that taxpayers' money is being spent on supporting energy projects which benefit UK and US oil companies, but do little to help the countries where they are based. Read more...

EXPERTS: WHAT DO THEY KNOW?
Remember when doctors used to sell cigarettes? Those hilarious 1950s ads with father figures in white coats recommending Chesterfields for your throat? You can't get away with that now - Carol Vorderman got the sack from Tomorrow's World for trading on her flimsy scientific authority to shill for Benecol, and even the mildest medical claims have to be couched in ever more elaborate disclaimers to avoid opportunist litigation. There is, however, one place where no such constraints seem to apply - the world of medical communications agencies.Read more...

GOVERNMENT COMMISSIONS IGNORES NANOTECH REPORT
Last year's Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineers (RS/RAE) report Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties, although narrow in its remit, was far from glowing in its assessment of nanotechnology. The report was significant in that it was the first time that such pillars of the scientific establishment as the RS/RAE had urged caution about nanotechnology. '.Read more...

FIGHTING FOR OUR HOMES
Community resistance to Prescott's Pathfinder demolitions...Read more...

TAKING ACTION AGAINST PATHFINDER
Corporate Watch talks to Natasha LeaJones, secretary of Home Environments at Redearth Triange (HEART), one of the groups taking action against the Elevate East Lancashire Housing 'Pathfinder' scheme in Darwen, Lancashire. Read more...

THE GREAT COUNCIL HOUSING BLACKMAIL
Labour's current policy amounts to nothing less than the destruction of council housing as we know it. Cllr Matt Sellwood, Oxford City Council Green Group. Read more..

SAVING ICELAND: THE BUCK STOPS HERE
In March 2004, the government of Iceland held a conference in the capital Reykjavik. It was a private conference, attended by representatives of the top multinational corporations, Rio Tinto, Alcoa and Alcan among them, and the population were not told about it in advance. Iceland, a government spokesman informed its people afterwards, was now open for business. Read more...

‘SUSTAINABLE’ GREEN DESERTS
Vast eucalyptus monocultures are taking over giant swathes of the Brazilian landscape, feeding the pulp/paper and iron industries. Now 'forestry' corporations are claiming carbon credits for these green deserts, giving Western companies a license to burn more fossil fuels, at the expense of the indigenous people with a rightful claim to the land. Read more...

RESISTING THE ECONOMIC WAR IN IRAQ
Interview with Hassan Juma'a Awad, president of the Basra Oil Union By Greg Muttitt of Platform. Read more..

Review: The No-Nonsense Guide to World Poverty, Jeremy Seabrook (New Internationalist) Read more..

Diary

Babylonian Times
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The views expressed in this newsletter represent the views of the contributors, and are not necessarily the views of Corporate Watch itself.