Greenwash & Public Relations

Conservation International is working to protect endangered species in Guyana, but in practice may have fomented conflict between tribes there. The Troubled Marriage of Environmentalists and Oil Companies Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero reports on CI's questionable partnerships. Read More

Bechtel has been awarded a contract by USAID for the reconstruction of Iraq's schools, as part of a deal worth up to $1.03 billion. But the question remains whether Bechtel, like the US army, is part of the solution or part of the problem. Read More

To the Mapuche Indians in southern Argentina, the Italian clothing manufacturer Benetton is the newest conquistador in 10,000 years of land struggles in Patagonia. Listen online here via FSRN! Read More

Bolivia has been rocked by protests against a proposed gas pipeline to be built by Pacific LNG. The consortium is made up of notorious British and Spanish multinationals, including BP and Repsol-YPF. Read More

The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable. Read More

Unicef and McDonald's have agreed ''to team up to raise money on behalf of the world's children.'' This perilous partnership is to be launched on November 20, 2002 -- a day that used to be known in Unicef circles as the anniversary of the 1989 adoption of United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Unicef now calls November 20th ''McDonald's World Children's Day.'' Read More

What are GM execs thinking? Their Saturn ad likens an SUV to endangered arctic species. Read More

As the Earth Summit closes in Johannesburg, we present this requiem for sustainable development. However, resistance to the big business agenda is alive and well in the streets. Read More

Negotiators for 191 countries attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development have agreed upon a Plan of Action to alleviate poverty and conserve the Earth's natural resources. Summit delegates are expected to adopt the action plan, with a political declaration, at the conclusion of the summit on Wednesday. Read More

Following a nine-month investigation, a Peruvian Congressional Subcommittee has issued its final report on the poisoning deaths by the organophosphate pesticide methyl parathion of 24 children in the remote village of Tauccamarca in October 1999. The Subcommittee concluded that there is significant evidence of administrative and criminal responsibility on the part of Ministry of Agriculture, and of criminal responsibility on the part of the agrochemical company Bayer. Headquartered in Germany, Bayer has been a principle Peruvian importer and distributor of both methyl and ethyl parathion. The report recommends that the government and Bayer indemnify the families of the dead children. Read More