Bingo!

An interesting critique of NGOs.
"The focus of the big international NGOs (BINGOs) has been frequently directed to economic development activities that are occurring in the newly industrialising countries, commonly in Asia. But the well documented origin of many of the world’s major environmental problems is from the already developed countries in Europe and North America. For example, BINGOs have relentlessly attacked the palm oil industry in Asia. Greenpeace mounted a vigorous campaign against Nestle for using Indonesian palm oil, which resulted in Nestle dropping the use of the product and replacing it with alternative oil suppliers from developed nations. There is ample peer-reviewed research that is supportive of the palm oil industry in Indonesia. The market benefit is shifted from Indonesia to a rich nation. After the Asian financial crisis a decade ago, the new Indonesian democratic government was encouraged by the World Bank and IMF to develop a palm oil industry because it is a large employer. Rural employment was critical to Indonesia then, and remains so today. The population of Indonesia is approaching 240 million people with about 100 million of them living on less than US$2 per day. By 2050, the population is expected to grow to 300 million. The country can expect to lose as much as 20% of its land mass with predicted rising sea levels in the coming decades. The problem is that Indonesia is very good at growing palm oil, effectively shifting the economics of the world edible oil market. Palm oil is an incredibly productive crop, yielding substantially more oil per hectare than other oil-seed plants. Palm oil also has the advantage of being a long-term plant – a palm oil tree will produce seeds for almost 70 years. The long-term carbon sequestration opportunity of palm oil is well documented, compared to the negative carbon characteristics of other oil crops such as soya, corn or canola, which need to be stripped back to bare earth each harvest cycle. These crops are grown mostly in Western or developed nations. Recent research describes these crops as environmenally unsustainable. The demise of the palm oil industry in Asia is a human tragedy supported by Western-dominated BINGOs. Unless palm oil is being sourced from places like Indonesia, more land in Europe and North America will be cleared for soya, corn and or canola fields that are harvested using massive equipment employing very few people. If BINGOs were serious about sustainability and communities they would be looking to help develop a sustainable palm oil industry, not maintain poverty."

From here by Phillip Lawrence

Capitalism rips us off, NGOs soothe the pain

It's always a fine time to be an expatriate aid worker in Cambodia, where several thousand NGOs and aid organizations operate. By day, swarms of foreign do-gooders clog the streets of Phnom Penh in their company-provided SUVs, and by night they fill bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. Collectively, NGO workers represent a privileged caste, isolated and detached from the people who serve as the objects of their benevolence.

Scan the world's hot spots and disaster areas, and you'll invariably find NGOs and advocacy groups living high off the hog from donor money and hyping their causes with artfully presented information designed to prompt people to reach for their checkbooks. NGOs rushed in after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, but one survey of 60 U.S. relief organizations found that they had spent less than 40 percent of the $1.4 billion they raised during the first year. Many major projects are still stalled, and around 1 million Haitians live in squalid tent settlements.

Many billions of dollars of international aid have flowed into Cambodia since the U.N.-organized elections held in 1993, after a long civil war that followed the fall of the Khmer Rouge. The large sums provided by the United States and other Western donors is delivered through and controlled by international aid agencies and NGOs. Over the years, NGOs in Cambodia have cleared landmines and implemented programs to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS. There are many excellent international and local NGOs working in Cambodia. Yet many Cambodian NGOs have followed a path familiar to observers in other parts of the world. After arriving to provide immediate relief, they gradually transform themselves into survival-focused grant-proposal-writing shops chasing dollars and holding PowerPoint-heavy workshops on "empowerment," "governance," "capacity-building," and other empty buzz phrases.

A 2006 story in the Australian charged that a great deal of Australia's aid to Cambodia was wasted, because as much as 80 percent of it "goes straight out again in the form of high expatriate salary packages and running costs." The story said that country directors of prominent international charities in Cambodia received compensation packages worth as much as $250,000, which included large villas in Phnom Penh's upscale "NGO-ville" area, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and an assortment of other perks. A 2005 report by Action Aid said that in a single year, 700 top international consultants in Cambodia were paid an average of around $100,000. Their combined haul was roughly as much as the entire annual wage bill for 160,000 Cambodian civil servants. "Instead of transferring skills to Cambodian staff, their time is spent writing reports or doing jobs which they should be training local staff to carry out," the report said.

Lower-level NGO staffers, who often rotate through on short postings and spend a good chunk of their time partying, also do reasonably well. "Aid work is often much less about noble self-sacrifice and much more about getting hooked up with a dank salary and some pretty sweet perks," says a post at a website called Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like. "By 'dank salary,' we are talking by Western standards. By local standards, we might just call that a 'small fortune.' "

Among the more prominent (and best-paying) NGOs in Cambodia are the mainstream green organizations. They are also among the most powerful because government ministries dealing with environmental issues are typically underbudgeted and understaffed, so NGOs effectively fund and manage key agencies. During recent years, the Cambodian government has sold off vast swaths of land, some publicly owned, including protected areas, and some seized from the urban and rural poor. In the process, hundreds of thousands of people have been forcibly evicted from their homes. These deals have been a goldmine for Cambodian oligarchs and foreign investors, who have bought up some of the country's most beautiful areas and prime urban real estate. You'd expect that international green groups might have a lot to say about this tragedy. You'd be wrong. "The major environmental organizations have kept a near absolute silence over the ongoing land crisis, both in terms of human impact and impact on the protected areas they are working in," says a longtime consultant in Cambodia. Conservation International lauds the Cambodian government on its website for "investing in research and monitoring of protected areas." This was about the same time that Hun Sen's regime was awarding an Australian mining company exploratory rights to more than half of the park, one of Cambodia's two ASEAN Heritage Parks. Earlier this year, the government awarded another chunk of the park to a private company for a rubber plantation. In February, the government awarded a big concession in an environmentally sensitive area of Koh Kong province to a private company exploring for titanium. "Realistically, if it's economically really valuable, we should support it and make it happen in the best way possible," said David Emmett, CI's regional director.

Wildlife Alliance says on its website that it works with villagers who "once were forced to roam the forest as hunters and loggers, diminishing Cambodia's environmental heritage, and who now have legal jobs as guides and operators of sustainable trekking, mountain-biking, and river boat tours." In other words, people who once lived in the forest now hold low-paid jobs serving at the beck and call of foreign tourists who float down waterways and hike in woods that the villagers have long called home. "The wholesale destruction of Cambodia's environment is an important issue, but hunting and poaching by people eking out an existence in the forest isn't the problem," says a Western expatriate with extensive experience in land issues. "The primary causes are the government issuing massive land concessions to developers and wide-scale logging." Another WA mission involves protecting the rain forest of the Southern Cardamom Mountain Range. As part of that effort, the group's staffers have swooped in by helicopter with Forestry Administration officials who kick out destitute peasants living in the woods and in some cases dismantle and burn their homes. "They are not people-friendly," the longtime consultant says of WA, "but the trees and animals are all safe."

WA has herded peasants into community agriculture projects linked to its ecotourism ventures. Peasants at one community called Sovanna Baitong benefited with access to education and health care, but some told the Phnom Penh Post they felt "trapped in a state of indentured servitude" and had been threatened with expulsion if they refused to work on plots they had been allocated. "I experienced three years and eight months of the Khmer Rouge regime, and this is similar because they ordered us to work like we are in a totalitarian state," said one. "It is really miserable to live there."

In Sihanoukville, a coastal town whose beaches and islands have been sold off by the government to developers allegedly planning eco-friendly luxury hotel and condominium projects. "Those who lived or worked there were turfed out—some jailed, others beaten, virtually all denied meaningful compensation," said a 2008 story in the Guardian. The newspaper quoted a British property developer, Marty Kaye, who said, "Nowhere else in the world could you create your own kingdom from scratch. … It's fantastically exciting, the opportunity to zone a whole island, to see where the luxury exclusive villa plots will be, for the Brad Pitts, etc."

In 2008, a Hong Kong-based investment company called Lime Tree Capital was awarded a 99-year lease on an island near Sihanoukville called Koh Rung Sangleum, which it plans to fully develop with resorts and hotels. The only problem was that the island was home to a fishing village with 92 families. Lime Tree hired Fauna and Flora International and the NGO dispatched several staffers to the island. FFI provided Lime Tree with a development-friendly report, because the company subsequently filed a master plan saying there was little biodiversity on the island and hence not much to conserve. FFI staffers made a later trip to the island and told villagers they would be restricted to a tiny 12.3-hectare piece of land and ordered them to immediately stop cutting down trees and constructing any new buildings. Eighty villagers signed a document demanding the removal of FFI's lead staffer on the project, saying he had lied to them about how much forest and village land would be conserved under Lime Tree's proposal.

http://www.slate.com/id/2296334/pagenum/3
See also here http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/jul00/ngo.html

...to each according to their needs

"Ask people what they need and give it to them: it's the only way "
From The Independent's charity appeal

Gimme Shelter

Unite warned that a "wave of industrial unrest" was about to hit the voluntary sector. The balloting of housing charity Shelter's 450 workers in England and Scotland for strike action earlier this month suggests this was more than idle speculation. The dispute is over a new employment contract . Management are pressurising staff to accept:

* Abolition of incremental pay
* An extension of the working week which amounts to 3 working weeks per year at no extra pay
* Downgrading of posts throughout Shelter’s housing advice and support services with the same to come in non-service divisions
* Changes to redundancy policy involving a massive reduction in salary protection for redeployed staff.
Staff are now being told they must sign to ‘agree’ a reductionin their terms and conditions. If they refuse to sign, management are threatening to implement the changes without consent by sacking staff and offering re-employment on new contracts with reduced terms and conditions.

"Shelter staff feel betrayed by a senior management team who seem to care little about the services delivered to those who are homeless or badly housed. The cuts will severely undermine Shelter’s ability to retain staff and with them, essential and long standing expertise.Shelter staff, like many in the not-for-profit sector, haveover the years willingly made financial sacrifices to work in this field because it is important to them. We are extremely angry that our senior management team now tell us our pay and conditions are too generous.They earn top-tax bracket salaries and will be materially unaffected by these changes. What’s more, they refuse to deny rumours that they paid themselves anincrease just before announcing cuts to the rest of the organisation. Senior management claim they are only paid the market rate for what they do. And yet they are seeking to drive down the market pay rate for the restof us. Staff are genuinely astonished at this hypocrisy." ( see here )

The pressure to economise on staff terms and conditions stems, at least in part, from the rise of contracts as the dominant means of state funding of the voluntary sector. A diminishing proportion of the sector's work is now financed by grants. Charities, along with public and private sector bodies, must now compete for the right to deliver public services, bidding against each other to secure funding - a system which has been dubbed "contestability". Shelter says that high staff costs and lower than average working hours means that it is at risk of losing out in the contest to win contracts from the Legal Services Commission to provide housing advice.

False Economy, a 2007 report for trade union Unison by academics from Strathclyde and Oxford Brookes universities on the effect of contracting on social care third sector organisations, claimed workers were facing "an intensifying climate of competition". It found downward pressure on pay, the downgrading of many posts, an intensification of work stemming from staff-user ratios and greater administration duties, and even attempts to introduce zero-hour contracts.

Doug Nicholls, national secretary of Unite, says contracting is forcing charities to compete with each other as never before, to the detriment of their employees. He says
"The commissions for the contracts are put out to the market and the lowest common denominator prevails. Pensions are forgotten, pay rises are forgotten, inflation's forgotten, paying for workers according to nationally agreed terms and conditions - all that gets forgotten in the inevitable race to the bottom. That's happening everywhere in the voluntary sector."

The unrest at Shelter follows a strike over pay last April at Scottish social care organisation Quarriers. The charity blamed a derisory increase of 1% in its annual income from local authority contracts. Last year, a strike was averted at learning disability charity the Elfrida Society by a last-minute pay offer. The Children's Society is contemplating reducing salaries for nursery and creche workers because of a failure to win local authority contracts . Social care charity Turning Point has already abolished incremental pay increases for staff. Age Concern in Camden have issued redundancy notices .

What the Socialist Standard has said on charities :

"...it remains clear that much “charitable work” has become a way of engaging in state activities. Competition between charities and volunteers willingness to work cheap probably gives an incentive for that.Charities, as well as being tied up with the state, are substantial property owners in themselves, nearly £1.37 billion of their income comes from trusts (i.e. investments in property and the stock exchange) and a further £530 million comes from trading activities, The Salvation Army, for instance, has a profitable textile recycling business, from all those donated and unusable clothes they get, making £23 million last year. Charity emerges in the minds of capitalists as an alternative to the welfare state, one that has been tried before in the Victorian tradition of giving to the deserving poor. It is a way of checking democratic accountability, and controlling where the money will go in the interests of protecting the very social system that causes the poverty and problems charity is initiated to alleviate. "

We aren't such a selfish lot , after all

More than half of people have both volunteered and given to charity in the last 12 months.

Contrary to what many may think, are willing to help out, and nearly 60% have done so by formally volunteering in the past year , 39% had done so at least monthly , 69% had volunteered in the last five years.

81% of those questioned had donated to charity in the last four weeks. The average total amount donated in the last four weeks was £25 per adult .

Water and Doom and Gloom

With all the flooding being reported here in the UK , in India and in North Korea and elsewhere , a conference concentrates on the real problem with water supply - its scarcity .

Addressing the 17th annual World Water Week, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) Anders Berntell warned that 1.4 billion people now live in regions where there is a real, physical water scarcity, and an additional 1.1 billion live in regions where there is water stress due to over-consumption.

And the conference reports the real problem of solving the this water shortage .

"We are not prepared to deal with the implications this has for our planet. There is a security component in this that is not fully understood or addressed internationally yet.And I am not talking about water security," he said. "I mean political security."

Berntell blamed both international aid donors and governments for their skewed priorities on development spending -- with water and sanitation getting the least. He contrasted this with the phenomenal 37 percent increase in military expenditures globally during 1997-2006, reaching close to $1 trillion annually.
"When we look at these figures, I think it is time that we ask ourselves 'Why?'. Why don't governments in developing countries, donor agencies and financiers prioritise water higher? Why are other issues, other sectors higher on the political agenda?" he asked.

I think we know why - Capitalism

Every day 34,000 people die in diseases related to deficient water and sanitation. Today, more than 1 billion people are said to lack access to safe drinking water and more than 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation.

Irrigated farmland produces 40% of the world's food supply . less than 5% of all aid goes to water and sanitation projects .

It is not through well-intentioned declarations of human rights to access to the means of life .

We have :-

United Nations General Comment 12 clarifies the rights related to food in the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights similar obligations are stated in General Comment 15 in relation to the right to water. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) (article 1,3,11,12) . This treaty recognizes that "in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence." It requires states to take all steps within their ability to realize the rights set forth in the treaty. The treaty asserts that men and women should have equal realization of all rights. The treaty defines the right of all people to an adequate standard of living, including food, and the right to be free from hunger. The treaty commits states to developing specific programs and obligations to the people to ensure these rights. In the treaty, states are obligated to work toward reducing infant and child mortality and disease control.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (article 3, 21, 23, 25). The Universal Declaration not only asserts the human right to life, but also an adequate standard of living. This standard includes the right to food. Each person is also entitled to public services and social security.

Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) (article 24) .This treaty was drafted to identify and protect the best interests of the child. Article 24 of the treaty that recognizes "the right of the child to the highest attainable standard of health" is immensely important. State parties commit to taking steps toward ending child and infant mortality, and eliminate the circumstances that lead to child death including illness and malnutrition. Governments must provide children with food and water security. This treaty ties the rights of the mother to the well being of the child. Article 24 acknowledges the mother’s right to appropriate pre and post-natal health care, as well as access to information and education regarding child health and nutrition, the advantages of breastfeeding, hygiene and environmental sanitation.

Rome Declaration on World Food Security (1996). This declaration recognized the need to establish world food security. The participating heads of state reaffirmed "the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger." Following this affirmation the heads of state committed "an immediate view to reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015."

World Food Summit Plan of Action (1996) .The Plan of Action is comprised of seven commitments made by participating states to begin reducing the number of undernourished people in the world. Objective 7.4 of the plan calls for clarification and implementation of the right to adequate food in the CESCR.

The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food was appointed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2000. It is the Special Rapporteur’s job to receive information on violations of the right to food and identify emerging issues related to the right to food, including the right to clean drinking water. The Special Rapporteur visits countries, and makes reports to the High Commissioner for Human Rights and General Assembly every year. There is a Research Unit on the Right to Food that supports the Special Rapporteur with research and reports.

African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990) (article 14) .This treaty commits state parties to realizing, to the best of their ability and with all available resources, the child’s right to health, nutrition and safe water.

European Code of Social Security(1964) (article 42) .This article ensures the provision of food to children. Addendum 1 (Division 5) stipulates that states will provide water and sanitary services.

Charter of the Organization of American States (1948) (article 34) .This article guarantees access to proper nutrition by increasing production and availability, and diversifying production.

Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the area of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (Protocol of San Salvador) (1988) (article 12) Recognizes the human right to adequate nutrition. States must take steps to increase food supply through improved production and distribution.

Innocenti Declaration on the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding (1990). This declaration asserts that women have the right to breastfeed their babies, and infants from birth to 4-6 months have the right to be breastfed. World Declaration and Plan of Action on Nutrition (1992) .This declaration promotes food security and disease prevention for infants through support of breastfeeding.

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II) (1977) (article 14) .This protocol is part of humanitarian law, which protects people in situations of armed conflict. Article 14 prohibits "starvation of civilians as a method of combat".

Even , Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1955) (article 20) .Recognizes prisoners’ rights to food and water provisions.

In addition to all those well-meaning laws and treaties we have international organisations funded to solve the problem food and water access.

World Health Organization. The World Health Organization (WHO) was established in 1948 as a branch of the UN specifically committed to promote good health. The WHO’s Constitution states the agency's objective as to help "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health." There are 192 states represented in the governing body of the WHO, the World Health Assembly. Since good nutrition is imperative in the attainment of good health, hunger, water and nutrition issues are a large concern of WHO.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was founded in 1945 to raise nutrition standards and the standard of living globally. There are 183 member countries of the FAO, dedicated to providing services such as technical assistance projects; nutrition, food, agriculture, forestry and fishery information; agricultural and development planning. The Committee for Food Security (CFS) is responsible for monitoring member states’ level of commitment of and follow through with the World Food Summit Plan of Action of 1996.

United Nations Children’s Fund. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is the UN agency dedicated to protecting the rights of the child. UNICEF has implemented specific programs to improve child nutrition, water quality environment and sanitation. UNICEF works to improve nutrition standards by forming community based programs that supply information and education, as well as emergency care to women and children.

World Food Program. The World Food Program (WFP) was established in 1963. The WFP is the UN agency that provides food aid and relief to victims of natural and manmade disasters.

International Fund for Agricultural Development. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) branch of the UN was established in 1977 as a direct result of the 1974 World Food Conference. IFAD was created to provide the means to implement rural agricultural development projects. The fund provides loans and grants to help small, struggling agriculturists stabilize, develop and help themselves.

International Committee of the Red Cross. The independent and neutral entity of The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization that assists and protects victims of war. ICRC provides medical care to victims and also arrange exchanges of family messages. The ICRC provides protection and assistance to civilians, supervise visits to detainees, medical assistance, food aid and restoration of family links between persons separated by war.

CARE International. CARE is a non-governmental organization with a mission to reduce world poverty. CARE’s work includes programs that address issues that exacerbate poverty and attempt to identify sustainable solutions. They help families increase food production and proper management of resources, teach techniques and practices that help prevent malnutrition, provide food for relief in emergency situations and build and maintain clean water and sanitation systems.

Save the Children. Save the Children is a non-governmental organization that tries to fix the root causes of food insecurity to prevent hunger and malnutrition through increase in agricultural production, education and distribution of food in emergencies.

Foodfirst Information and Action Network. Foodfirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) is an NGO that works closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. FIAN receives and researches right to food violation claims. FIAN will intervene in cases of violations of the right to food. In doing so, FIAN holds governments accountable for ensuring the violation is rectified, and publicizes the violations.

Then , of course , all those myriads of charities from Oxfam to WorldVision and campaigns such as Red-Nose days and pop concerts like Feed The World .

So it has not been from the lack of trying that society has been unable to end hunger and thirst .

Yet , in Egypt and Peru, access to a flush toilet reduces the risk of infant death by 57% and 59% respectively.

About a third of people without access to an improved water source live on less than $1 a day. Twice this share lives on less than $2 a day. In sanitation, too, there is a strong association between poverty and access: Nearly 1.4 billion of people without access live on less than $2 a day. In Jakarta, Lima, Manila and Nairobi households living in slums and low-income settlements typically pay 5-10 times or more for their water than high-income residents of the same city. Moreover, poor people in urban areas of developing countries not only pay more for their water than high income residents of the same city –they also pay more than people in rich countries. Poor people living in the slums of Manila or Accra are paying more for their water than people living in New York, London or Rome.

The Human Development Report 2006 “Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis”, a title reflecting the view that poor governance lies behind water problems rather than any shortage of the resource , in an unusually hard-hitting analysis, the HDR asserts that the “global crisis in water……reinforces the obscene inequalities of life that divide rich and poor”, casting doubt about the appropriateness of “big centralised projects controlled by power”.

They know the problem but cannot solve it while continuing to support and and persisting to preserve this Capitalist System that has long ago exceeded it Use-By-Date .

It is time for a change

Philanthropy or Profits First ?

Warren Buffett along with Bill Gates have been commended by the media as most generous billionaire benefactors with their charitable contributions and their endeavours to pour cash into alleviating the world's problems . I have before casted a cloud upon Bill Gates halo here , now it is Warren Buffett's time to have his saintdom questioned .


The Guardian carries a report upon the annual shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway , Warren Buffett's conglomerate and if you had put $1,000 into Berkshire in 1965 it is now worth $7m. Last year, the firm achieved an 18% rise in the per-share value of its portfolio, which runs from Fruit of the Loom underwear to Dairy Queen cafeterias, Justin cowboy boots and Yorkshire Electricity.
A resolution criticising Berkshire Hathaway's stake in PetroChina, Berkshire Hathaway, holds 2.3 billion shares , or 1.3% of the foreign ownership of the oil company, a subsidiary of China's state oil company, CNPC, which has extensive interests in Sudan was put to a vote.
"CNPC is by far the most irresponsible and abusive oil investor in Sudan," said Jason Miller of the Sudan Divestment Taskforce. "At least 70% of the funds they provide to Sudan get funnelled into the Sudanese military."

A report in 2000 by a Canadian government commission said an airstrip at Heglig, operated by Sudan's Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., was a staging area for military attacks on civilians. CNPC owns 40% of Greater Nile . Chinese-made helicopter gunships, based at CNPC airstrips in the country, to conduct raids on civilians !!

according to the Harvard Corp., which manages Harvard University's endowment funds, oil production has become "essential to the government's capacity to fund military operations" — a view shared by the U.S. Department of Energy. For this reason, Harvard has divested from firms with ties to Sudan.

At Buffett's urging, a proposal that would have required the company to sell its $3.3-billion stake in PetroChina was defeated . Profit before principle .

Of course , this is not an isolated case of Buffett's disregard for social conscience .

According to the L.A. Times and also here , about $56.4 billion, or 87% of Berkshire's stock holdings, is invested in companies criticized by research groups for profiting from environmental irresponsibility, human rights violations and other activities that undermine good works or its goals of improving the lot of humankind that Buffett may intend .

The holdings of Berkshire Hathaway, totaling more than $4.6 billion in eight companies, came in dead last by a wide margin in a ranking of oil and gas holdings among the 100 largest investors in the United States. The ranking was based on social, environmental and governance performance ratings developed by the investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a related ownership analysis by Cary Krosinsky of CapitalBridge, a capital markets intelligence firm.More than any other large investor, Berkshire bought into oil companies whose records on greenhouse gas emissions, safety, business ethics, human rights and other issues significantly lagged those of their peers.

Berkshire holds about $64 million in pharmaceutical companies, for example, whose pricing policies have tended to keep antiretroviral drugs out of reach for HIV/AIDS patients in developing nations .

Berkshire also owns shares worth $28.5 billion in companies accused of human rights abuses, including $921 million in the Wal-Mart who have paid fines or lost rulings in regulatory and court cases accusing it of violating laws banning child labor and governing union organizing and adult working conditions.

A few years ago, Buffett said, he considered buying a tobacco company in Tennessee. He said he would invest in such companies in the future if he thought it would be profitable.Berkshire subsidiary General Re Corp. holds a small investment in Altria Group Inc., the nation's leading cigarette maker.

Among Berkshire's top 100 investments, 74 were evaluated for compensation problems by either KLD Research & Analytics, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., or Goldman Sachs. Of those, 35 were in companies flagged for overpaying chief executives and 50 in companies flagged for excessive rewards for board members.

Berkshire holdings worth more than $21 billion also fared poorly on overall corporate governance, including accounting procedures; transparency on environmental and social policies; and lawsuits or regulatory problems concerning harm to investors, employees, customers or local communities.

Also at that share-holders meeting , a woman from the Karuk Indian reservation in northern California who broke down in tears as she described how two hydroelectric dams operated by a Berkshire subsidiary, PacifiCorp, have destroyed her community's salmon-fishing livelihood.
"My people are a river people. Our entire culture, religion and subsistence is centred around the river," she said

Buffett conceded little ground. "The world runs on electricity and it wants more electricity," he told the Karuk representatives .

Charity for some , a cold-hearted business reply to others.

Buffett's philanthropy is based upon robbing Peter to pay Paul , and it is a policy that Paul is unlikely to decry.

"If I ate out of a dog bowl would you like me more?"

What's the more deserving ?

Enable Scotland , A charity for children and adults with learning disabilities , has launched a campaign highlighting that animal charities receive double the donations of disability charities .

Charities turning on one another . Deprived of the means to address their respective problems , charities now squabble amongst themselves for whatever spare change they can beg from the public's generosity . Choices that require the Judgement of Solomon and necessitates robbing Peter to pay Paul .

Is it not time that people and charities stood back and look at the root causes of their troubles are and see what the real solution is ?

Bill Gates , Charity , and Profits .

AT the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, making it the largest in the world. Then in June 2006, Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion in installments from his personal fortune. Not counting tens of billions of dollars more that Gates himself has promised, the total is higher than the gross domestic products of 70% of the world's nations.
Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation gives away at least 5% of its worth every year, to avoid paying most taxes. It invests the other 95% of its worth. This endowment is managed by Bill Gates Investments .
Monica Harrington, a senior policy officer at the Foundation, said the investment managers had one goal: returns -"that will allow for the continued funding of foundation programs and grant making."

The Los Angeles Times found that the Gates Foundation has holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices . Using the most recent data available, a Times tally showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments , 41% of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign government securities — have been in companies that countered the foundation's charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.

The Gates Foundation has put $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. Yet - it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the Niger Delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe. Hundreds of flares at oil plants in the Niger Delta have caused an epidemic of bronchitis in adults, and asthma and blurred vision in children. Many of the 250 toxic chemicals in the fumes and soot have long been linked to respiratory disease and cancer. The bright, sooty gas flares — which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium — lower immunity, and make children more susceptible to polio and measles — the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate him against.
The oil plants , whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, find it cheaper to burn nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas each day and contribute to global warming than to sell it.


Local leaders blame oil development for fostering some of the very afflictions that the foundation combats.Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the Foundation is fighting.Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is located, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The rivers, Enyidah said, "became breeding grounds for all kinds of waterborne diseases."

In South Africa , In 2002, a study found that more than half of the children at a school in Merebank , near Durban , suffered asthma — one of the highest rates in scientific literature. A second study, published last year, found serious respiratory problems throughout the region: More than half of children aged 2 to 5 had asthma, largely attributed to sulfur dioxide and other industrial pollutants. Asthma was not the only danger. Isipingo is in what environmental activists call "Cancer Valley." Emissions of benzene, dioxins and other carcinogens were "among the highest levels found in any comparable location the world .
The Gates Foundation is a major shareholder in the companies that own both of the polluting plants. As of September, the Foundation held $295 million worth of stock in BP, a co-owner of Sapref. As of 2005, it held $35 million worth of stock in Royal Dutch Shell, Sapref's other owner. The foundation also held a $39-million investment in Anglo American, which owns the Mondi paper mill.

Bill Gates and his much lauded anti-AIDS campaign .

Gel capsules of Kaletra , a second line anti-viral drug , melt in Nigeria's sweltering climate, where temperatures often top 100 degrees. A new version of Kaletra does not require refrigeration . A hospital helped by the Nigerian government, which gets money from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The fund has been awarded $651 million by the Gates Foundation. Yet the hospital does not offer the new Kaletra. It is too expensive.

Kaletra is made by Abbott Laboratories. As of this September, the Gates Foundation held $169 million in Abbott stock. In 2005, the Foundation held nearly $1.5 billion worth of stock in drug companies whose practices have been widely criticized as restricting the flow of key medicines to poor people in developing nations.On average, shares in those companies have increased in value about 54% since 2002. Investments in Abbott and other drug makers probably have gained the Foundation hundreds of millions of dollars.

Drug makers say they need price protection for research and development. The drug makers, with other research-intensive businesses, lobbied hard and successfully for the international Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which made it harder to move from costly brand-name drugs to cheap generics. The agreement protected new-drug monopolies for 20 years or more.This meant no low-priced generic for Kaletra. The pact locked in Abbott as its sole supplier, and Abbott set prices for the world.
"We also recognize that private industry needs adequate incentives to develop new drugs." states Monica Harrington for the Gates Foundation .

Some critics say the foundation's failure to use its own investments "to promote … public benefit in developing countries at reasonable cost" might trace back to the source of most of its money — Microsoft — which Bill Gates serves as chairman.Microsoft monopolies in computer operating systems and business software depend upon the same intellectual-property and trade-law approaches favored by drug companies.

"The Gates Foundation is in a position to change the dynamic, to make sure that drugs get first to the places they are most needed," said Daniel Berman, deputy director in South Africa for Doctors Without Borders. "But it conflicts with the interests of Microsoft."


On Tuesday 30 January 2007 at 20:00 in the Quakers Hall Victoria Terrace , Edinburgh , Tristan Miller , a research scientist in the field of computer science and digital information management will be offering a socialist analysis , Free Software dot.communism..? , that will be discussing patents and copyrights - so called "intellectual property" - that gives companies such as Microsoft the legal power to withhold computer software benefits from the public .