Democrats block Keystone pipeline, as Greenpeace leaks PR docs
US Senate Democrats have blocked a move to compel construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The campaign fell one vote shy of passing legislation meant to force President Obama to approve the nearly 1,700-mile, $7.6 billion project, which opponents say would facilitate the harvesting of oil from environmentally dirty tar sands in Canada. Republicans, who will take majority control of the Senate in the next Congress, vowed to return to the fight next year.
The news comes as strategy documents drawn up by PR firm Edelman have been released by Greenpeace. The documents were prepared for TransCanada, the company behind both Keystone and its proposed alternative, Energy East. They propose an exhaustive strategy to push through Energy East, including mobilisation of 35,000 third-party supporters and opposition research against pipeline opponents. “Add layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources,” the documents advise. Edelman’s response was brief: “We do not talk about the work we do for clients,” a spokesman wrote. (Washington Post; Guardian)
International Development
10 million child deaths attributed to a lack of toilets
According to a new report from the international development organisation WaterAid, young people are suffering the worst of a health and development crisis that has claimed the lives of at least 10 million children under the age of five since 2000, as they have no access to a basic toilet. The United Nations, which designated today as World Toilet Day to highlight sanitation as a developmental priority, says about 35 percent – 2.5 billion of the planet’s 7 billion people – live without basic sanitation facilities. This is at a time when more people in the world have mobile phones than have a toilet. Medical authorities have blamed poor water, sanitation and hygiene conditions in communities for exacerbating the spread of Ebola in West Africa. The picture isn’t all grim though as Jack Sim, the Singapore-based founder of the World Toilet Organization, cites that 2.3 billion people gained access to improved drinking-water from 1990 to 2012. (Bloomberg)
Human Rights
World has 35.8 million slaves, report finds
The second annual edition of the Walk Free Foundation‘s Global Slavery Index has found that globally, almost 36 million people are subject to modern slavery. While incidences of slavery were found in every one of the 167 countries surveyed, five countries – India, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Russia – accounted for nearly 22 million people (61%) suffering in bondage. The worst offender, India, accounted for an estimated 14.29 million people. Human slavery, the report states, is defined as “human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, or commercial sexual exploitation”. “There is an assumption that slavery is an issue from a bygone era. Or that it only exists in countries ravaged by war and poverty,” said Andrew Forrest, Chairman and Founder of the Walk Free Foundation. “The first step in eradicating slavery is to measure it. And with that critical information, we must all come together – governments, businesses and civil society – to finally bring an end to the most severe form of exploitation.” (CNN)
Corporate Governance
Uber chief forced to defend culture and ethics
Uber’s combative chief Travis Kalanick has had to defend his company’s culture and ethics, after a senior executive at the driver-hailing service said it should consider hiring investigators to probe the “personal lives” of critical journalists. The comments were made by Emil Michael, Uber’s senior vice-president of business, at a private dinner in New York. Mr Kalanick called the remarks “terrible” and a “departure from our values”, adding that the burden was on Uber to show that the company and its employees were “principled and mean well”. Uber has also denied allegations that the company has monitored the journeys made by reporters and other individuals using its service. Such a move would be against its privacy policy, Uber said, and likely be in breach of data protection laws. (Financial Times*)
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