Anti-corruption group TI (Transparency International) has rated more than 40 energy companies on the transparency of their dealings, handing a low grade to ExxonMobil but praising Shell and Petrobras.
Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Brazil’s Petrobras, Norway’s StatoilHydro ASA and Petro-Canada were among the best performing companies. U.S.-based ExxonMobil Corp., Russia’s OAO Lukoil and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation — or CNOOC — fell into the lowest tier.
The report said that if 10 % of the estimated US$866 billion generated worldwide in oil revenues in 2006 was set aside, it would have been enough to cover the total cost of meeting the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The cost of meeting the set of development standards on education, health, literacy and poverty was estimated at US$73 billion in 2006, the report said. Read article.
About 60 former top Philippine government officials urged President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday to lift restrictions on information about a multi-million dollar telecoms deal tainted by corruption allegations.
The former state officials also called on her to suspend two Cabinet members, the head of the national police and four others for trying to stop a witness from testifying at a Senate inquiry into accusations of $130 million paid in kickbacks on the deal. Read article!
The “critical mass” that can lead to the forced resignation of Gloria M. Arroyo can only rise from the spectrum of diverse groups and personalities agreeing who or what will replace the widely-discredited president.
Most of the 80,000 people who converged at the interfaith prayer-rally in Ayala, Makati City on February 29 supported the call for Arroyo’s resignation or removal. The call was echoed by tens of thousands other rallyers who held similar protest actions during the same week in several cities throughout the country as well as in Hong Kong, the United States, Europe, and other countries.
The Arroyo regime is in red alert – in panic mode, if you will – since the February 29 rallies. The events showed the confluence of major advocacy groups, opinion leaders, and a big number of students in just two weeks following whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada’s corruption exposes’ with their resounding call for the president’s resignation. It was like the thunderbolt that sent waves of masses taking to Edsa 1 and Edsa 2 – a political combustion that could electrify more mass actions increasing in frequency and in bigger numbers until the final day of reckoning for Gloria M. Arroyo. CenPeg!
“We have suffered through scandal after scandal, scam after scam,” said the 70-year-old, wearing his trademark shades as the sun went down over a recent university rally in Manila.
“The Philippines has been branded as the number 2 most corrupt nation in the world and number 1 most corrupt country in Southeast Asia. Read article!
The outpouring of outrage generated by the abduction and expose’ of Rodolfo Jun Lozada, former president of state corporation Philippine Forest, in connection with the $329-million ZTE-NBN telecommunications scam speaks volumes. It can be likened to a spark that has triggered a vast field of fire, so to speak. The abduction of Lozada allegedly by presidential agents and police and his surfacing at De La Salle-Greenhills in Quezon City two weeks ago has unleashed a storm of street protests, prayer rallies, and public assemblies by tens and thousands of individuals from various sectors. These mass actions which are expected to peak to hundreds of thousands of souls along with coordinated protests in the provinces in the coming weeks have been sharpened by a renewed call for Gloria M. Arroyo’s resignation or removal from the presidency. Access CENPEG!
Philippine business leaders called Tuesday for the resignation of senior officials accused of trying to cover up a corruption scandal linked to the president’s husband and vowed to launch nonviolent protests to push for a change in government
Allegations by former government consultant Rodolfo Lozada Jr., praised by Roman Catholic bishops for exposing corruption, are the latest storm to hit President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s government.
The Senate has been investigating a corruption-tainted US$330 million (€225 million) government broadband contract with China’s ZTE Corp. Lozada was a government consultant for the 2007 project, which Arroyo has since scrapped due to the controversy. Read article!
