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Corporate Watch Latest News
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Commercial messages have colonised every part of our environment. Advertising is everywhere... Some of it is subtle, but most of it is strident, attention-grabbing, aiming to extract the maximum impact from each square inch of space or second of air time.
All the Rest is Advertising': The Public Relations Industry and the Decline of Trust provides a detailed account of the emergence of the British PR industry following its early development in the United States.
Kate Evans' comic, What's Wrong With the Public Relations Industry, wittily uses the metaphor of cosmetic surgery to describe the role of PR in providing a desirable, acceptable exterior to damaging corporate projects.
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The British government has given, through its Department for International Development (DFID), £100,000 to the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS), a management training institute in Ghana, to provide a "managerial framework for traditional leaders in a bid to maximize the benefits from natural resources specifically land in the oil and gas region of Ghana." |
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- We're nuked, after all
- Endangered species still at risk from BP oil spill
- GM crops found surviving in the wild
- PT SMART guilty of destroying peatland
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Shortly after Barclays' heavily branded bikes-for-rent appeared on London streets on 30th July, anonymous guerrilla teams targeted the 'shameless advertising' vehicles over night to raise awareness of the bank's role in the arms trade and other dodgy investments. Up to 4,000 stickers, in the same shade of blue and font that Barclays uses, were placed on bikes all over the city, carrying such messages as "Barclays does not give a shit about you" and "£20m investment in bikes, £7300m investment in bombs". |
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- Protests against Shell's drilling in Mayo continue
- Ahava Four acquitted of aggravated trespass
- Targeting the carbon trading business online
- Stop Vedanta
- Climate Camps in Wales and Scotland |
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Hadiklaim is an Israeli date growers cooperative which deals with several major supermarkets in the UK, including Sainsburys, Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose (although the Co Op and Marks and Spencer maintain that they only stock Hadiklaim products from 1948 Israel). The company boasts that it exports to 30 countries (see www.hadiklaim.com/company_customers.asp). Tesco and Marks and Spencer branded dates are Hadiklaim produce.
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A few weeks ago the Guardian’s G2 supplement ran a series of adverts for tourism in Israel. One of them, shown above, describes a holiday in Israel as a ‘unique experience’. Damn right its a unique experience; interrogation by surly airport security, sharing buses with hordes of armed to the teeth Israeli adolescents and the chance to see the old city of Jerusalem policed by racist goons with a quota of Palestinian residents to harass. For the more adventurous tourist there’s the deserted and terrorised streets of the old city of Hebron, daubed with xenophobic graffiti, the apartheid wall, collective puishmment, targeted assassinations, house demolitions, torture and repression – the possibilities are endless. |
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If you are a follower of Corporate Watch's work on Palestine you will have read a lot about the Jordan Valley -an area that comprises almost 30% of the West Bank. Because of its fertile land and border with Jordan, it is under urgent threat of annexation by Israel, who are issuing statements about their claim to the land with alarming frequency. In March this year Benjamin Netanyahu officially announced that “Israel will never cede the Jordan Valley” and since then the Palestinians there have been met with increasing repression. Only during the last few weeks, the Israeli Occupation Forces entered the Palestinian village of Al Farisiya and demolished 23 houses, leaving over 100 people homeless. When the villagers rebuilt some of the destroyed structures the army returned to the area and yet again razed it to the ground. |
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As part of Corporate Watch’s efforts to map settlement exports from the Jordan Valley, we visited the illegal Israeli settlement of Ro’i earlier this year.
Established in 1976, Ro’i is a “typical” Jordan Valley settlement in that it has a low population (of less than 150 settlers), but has stolen large areas of land from the indigenous Palestinian population. With its private security, army protection and rows upon rows of greenhouses, Ro’i poses a challenge to the existence of Bedouin communities such as nearby Al Hadidya and Ras-Al Ahmar, who are under constant threat of house demolitions and army harassment aimed at the ethnic cleansing of bedouin from the area. The Israeli’s described these communities as a “security threat” to the settlers. |
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Corporate Watch will be running a workshop on the unemployment business at the Shambala festival in Market Harborough on the 29th August. |
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19th August – 25th August: Camp for Climate Action
Occupy and set up the basecamp: 19th–20th August
Four days of training and direct action: 21st–24th August
Day of action against RBS and the fossil fuel industry: 23rd August
Return basecamp to nature: 25th August
Location: RBS HQ, Edingburgh
Info at: http://climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010
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