"The Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq has officially opened a D.C. lobbying office, which is headed by Qubad Talabany," reports O'Dwyer's. "His goal is to mobilize grassroots support for Kurdish interests," including by establishing a Kurdish Congressional Caucus and a Kurdish-American business council. Talabany, the son of Iraq's president, will also "promote Kurdish educational and cultural links with the U.S." The regional government, through its public / private partnership the Kurdistan Development Corporation, previously launched "The Other Iraq," a PR and ad campaign to encourage investment and tourism in the region. That campaign was led by the Republican-associated PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers, as the Center for Media and Democracy and others noted. Back in 2004, the Kurdish Democratic Party hired the Barbour, Griffith and Rogers lobbying firm, "to ensure that Iraqi Kurdistan maintains its autonomy from Baghdad," according to O'Dwyer's.

"The biggest leveraged buyout in history was notable not only for its finances, but also for its unusual feature of having multiple PR firms advising both sides of the deal simultaneously," writes PR Week. The Dallas-based energy company TXU (mentioned in a previous Spin about the front groups campaigning for and against its proposed Texas coal plants) will be purchased by three equity firms for $45 billion. The PR firm Public Strategies, Inc. advised both TXU and its purchasers, as did the firm Kekst and Company. Texas Pacific, one of the purchasers, also used Owen Blicksilver PR. O'Dwyer's PR Daily notes that "the buyout is expected to face regulatory, political and environmental concerns and the parties involved immediately moved to head off any immediate fallout," including by securing endorsements from Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The companies promised "a $400M investment in conservation over the next five years," and appointed former Secretary of State James Baker as chair of an "advisory group on climate change."

Source: Happy Valley Coalition

A New Zealand government-owned coal mining company, Solid Energy, has lost a bid to suppress the publication of a spoof corporate social responsibility report by a coalition of environmentalists. The company sought an injunction from the High Court to have the two-part report removed from the website of the Save Happy Valley Coalition. The coalition opposes the company's move to build a new open-cut coal mine, which involves the relocation of critically-endangered snails. Earlier, Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder told a parliamentary committee hearing that the document was defamatory and could lead the community and regulators to make "wrong decisions." "We can't afford to let that happen," he warned. A spokeswoman for the coalition, Frances Mountier, said the company's bid to suppress the report revealed how they wanted "to keep it quiet about what they are doing to waterways, species and climate."