Philip Morris Pushing Smoking Hard in Foreign Countries

Anne Landman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:16:20 -0500

In the 1950s, more than half the U.S. population smoked. Now that number is down to just 21 percent of adults. As the domestic cigarette market shrinks, tobacco companies are taking their business to the developing world, where they don't have to deal with pesky things like advocacy groups that oppose industry activity, smoking bans, or a populace that is aware of the health hazards of smoking.

Now Philip Morris (PM) is playing hardball in lesser-developed countries to try and preserve their ability to market cigarettes however they want. On February 19, PM filed a lawsuit against Uruguay to try and force that country to withdraw a new law requiring 80 percent of each side of cigarette packs show graphic images depicting the health effects of smoking.

First Blackwater, Then Xe, and Now Paravant: Still Armed and Dangerous

Anne Landman — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:05:35 -0500

The private military contractor Blackwater -- which rebranded itself as "Xe" in February, 2009 to distance itself from negative incidents like the September, 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square that killed at least a dozen people -- has created a shell company called "Paravant" to try and keep winning lucrative government military contracts. Both Paravant and Xe are owned by Eric Prince, owner of Blackwater. Paravant won contracts to operate in Afghanistan without identifying its affiliation with Blackwater/Xe to the U.S. government. Paravant has been operating as a subcontractor to global defense contractor Raytheon, but the new name and hidden identity haven't changed Blackwater/Xe/Paravant's behavior. In September, 2008, a Paravant employee signed out more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles from a bunker in Afghanistan that held weapons designated for the Afghan National Police and Army. The employee signed the weapons out using the name "Eric Cartman," the racist, obnoxious character from the cable TV cartoon "South Park." The rifles were signed out even though employees had been denied permission to carry weapons on several occasions. Some of the weapons were still unaccounted for for months afterward. Two days after the rifles were taken from the bunker, a Paravant contractor shot another contractor in the head after his AK-47 accidentally discharged.

Saudi Prince, Now Part Owner of Murdoch's News Corp., Influences Fox News

Anne Landman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:38:56 -0500

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (from YouTube)Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal now owns a 7 percent stake in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, making him the company's largest shareholder outside of Murdoch's own family. Alwaleed is best known for going to Ground Zero after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and personally handing then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani a check for $10 million to help finance relief efforts. Afterwards, Alwaleed released a statement blaming the attacks not on the Saudi airline hijackers, but on U.S. policies in the middle east. As a result, Giuliani returned the prince's donation, gaining him praise from Fox News for doing so. Now that Alwaleed has a controlling ownership in News Corp., he is gaining influence over Fox News. In 2005, just months after Alwaleed acquired his first 5.4 percent stake in News Corp., Fox News covered riots in Paris under a banner saying "Muslim riots." Alwaleed allegedly called Murdoch and had him change the banner to say "Civil riots." Investigative journalist Joseph Trento also reported that a comment he recently made on a Fox Network morning news show, Fox and Friends, about Saudi Arabian money still financing Al Qaeda, was edited out of the show. Trento also reports that Alwaleed "has personally donated huge amounts of money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers." In a rare interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto in January, AlWaleed explained his personal reasons for seeking influence in American politics: the U.S. buys Saudi Arabia's oil, and the bulk of his country's gross domestic product (GDP) comes from oil. Fox News reliably broadcasts misinformation on clean energy, and aggressively fights efforts to move America away from being dependent on a fossil fuels.

Reflections on COP15, Looking Ahead to COP16

Alex Carlin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:40:57 -0500

Copenhagen Out of the Frying Pan, Part 8
Publisher's Note: I asked our guest blogger, Alex Carlin, to send along a wrap-up blog reflecting on his experience at COP15, and looking ahead to COP16 later this year. He graciously agreed, and here are his reflections on the conference and climate change. --Lisa Graves, Executive Director

U.S. Campaign Advisors Influence Ukraine's Election

Anne Landman — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:52:46 -0500

Citizens in the Ukraine are starting to see American-style campaign sloganeering and other tactics in the race between their Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, and her main rival, Viktor Yanukovich, for the office of President. Tymoshenko's banners, billboards and posters bear slogans like "They talk, she works," "They promise, she works," and "They betray, she works." The ad campaign is significant because it is the product of the American political consulting firm AKP&D Message & Media, the company founded by President Obama's chief advisor, David Axelrod. Axelrod's son, Michael, still works for the firm. Mr. Yanukovich is being advised by Paul Manafort, a Republican strategist from the firm Davis, Manafort & Freedman, Inc., which has advised several U.S. presidents. Ukraine's outgoing president, Victor Yushenko, received American-style help and campaign advice from Hillary Clinton's campaign strategist, Mark Penn, who was president of the big American PR firm, Burson-Marsteller. The Ukraine is a gold mine for big American political firms, since it is one of the largest countries in Europe, has obscure and weakly-enforced campaign laws, and the major Ukrainian political parties are backed by big businesses, with money to finance professional campaigns.

Luxury Cruises Resume to Haiti: Bad PR, Good Deed, or Both?

Anne Landman — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:05:01 -0500

Cruise purveyor Royal Caribbean stirred up a public relations storm last week after it resumed taking vacationing tourists to its luxury Haitian beach resort, Labadee, located just 100 miles from the shocking scenes of rubble, suffering and desperation brought by the earthquake. Cruise passengers could choose to lounge on the beach under palm trees, get a massage on tables screened from view with billowing curtains or order up a fresh mai tai from the waiter while just a few hours away, desperate Haitians were scrounging to find some food or a drink of clean water. From a PR standpoint, resuming the cruises so soon seems like a violation of good taste and decency, and makes Royal Caribbean look bad. The cruise company, however, points out that while passing Haiti up might have been the more sensible decision, keeping their ships away would hurt the hundreds of Haitians who depend on cruise line passengers for their livelihood, and would keep the ships from bringing in food and relief supplies for the people who need them. Still, advertising and PR executives say the cruise line has done lasting damage to its image by resuming its luxury cruises to Haiti. Some cruise critics who defend Royal Caribbean's move are urging people to go to Haiti, get off the ship, have a subdued day, spend and tip generously, and perhaps leave some unopened bottles of water, new T shirts, food and some brand new flip flops with the Haitians.

Credit Card Companies Profit Off Tragedy in Haiti

Anne Landman — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:39:01 -0500

Many relief organizations are soliciting donations to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti by using hotlines and Web sites that prompt people to use their credit cards. While most of the money people give will make it to the designated organizations, credit card companies are charging a two to three percent "transaction fee" or "charity processing fee" that gets subtracted from the donations. These hidden fees -- which are estimated to amount to hundreds of millions of dollars -- are helping credit card companies profit significantly from the Haitian tragedy. There are a few rare instances when credit card companies have waived this fee: American Express temporarily waived its charity processing fee after the 2004 tsunami disaster, and Capital One has a "No Hassle Giving Site" through which it waives transaction fees for holders of Capital One Visa or MasterCards, so that 100 percent of donations to go to charity. Charities are hesitant to protest credit card company fees, since they feel they have no choice but to accept credit cards and there is so much money at stake. There are currently no laws barring the fees. In fact, the government subsidizes credit card companies' profiting off of donations by making charitable contributions 100 percent tax deductible, even though only about 97 percent of the money given actually gets to the charity.

450 Parts Per Million of Greenwash

Bob Burton — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:34:32 -0500

Whatever the outcome of the final hours of wrangling at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, the odds are that the leaders of some of the world's richest countries will earnestly declare that they are working hard to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 parts per million (ppm) and ensure that global average temperatures don't exceed 2 degrees centigrade. Barring spectacular last-minute breakthroughs, such claims would be outlandish greenwash.

Will Copenhagen Resuscitate Carbon Capture and Storage?

Bob Burton — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:33:41 -0500

In a final end-game bid, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Australia are frantically trying to shoe-horn support for the experimental Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology into a final agreement from the COP15 conference in Copenhagen. By the end of the first week of negotiations, promoters of the technology failed to win support from one of the major committees of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

But just two days later, draft text prepared by the chair of one of the two 'tracks' of UNFCCC negotiations threw a lifeline to the coal and power generation industries by flagging that whether or not to include CCS in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as one of the most important issues requiring resolution. Including CCS projects in the CDM would provide a massive financial incentive for the development of trial CCS projects, most of which would be attached to massive new coal-fired power stations in developing countries. And this is just what groups such as the World Coal Institute and the International Emissions Trading Association have been lobbying for.

Polluters Pose as Saviors at Copenhagen

Bob Burton — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:48:20 -0500

Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), a European lobbying industry watchdog, notes that the largest non-government delegation at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen is the 486-strong squad from the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). IETA's delegation is headed by the group's CEO, Henry Derwent, and includes representatives from member companies such as the Russian gas giant, Gazprom, the global electricity and gas company, EON and the oil major, Shell. One of IETA's "key messages" for the COP15 conference is that "business must be engaged in the reform of existing and design of new" market-based mechanisms "so that investments can grow and a wider array of countries can benefit." IETA is one of the candidates for CEO's Angry Mermaid award for its role in promoting carbon offsets via the Clean Development Mechanism, a scheme established under the Kyoto Protocol. Offsets have been criticized for rewarding projects which don't reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond those which would have occurred without the scheme.

Recent posts about international