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The end of last year saw a tribunal rule that, under the North American Free Trade Agreement, a US hazardous waste company had been discriminated against by the Canadian government. The reason? Canada’s ban on the export of highly carcinogenic PCB waste. The ban is part of an international environmental protection treaty signed by over 130 countries who agreed to reduce their exports of hazardous wastes to a minimum and instead focus on reprocessing the wastes at home. Tough — the NAFTA treaty says it is a barrier to trade‚ and the company can expect compensation of up to $50 million.
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According to figures supplied by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, based in Birmingham, since coming to power in May 1997, up to the end of December 2000, New Labour have deported over 140,818 people (not including dependants).
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43 million Brazilians, or 28% of the population, live in extreme poverty — earning less than $9 per week, which is not enough to buy enough food to sustain themselves. At the same time Forbes business magazine estimated, at the end of last year, there were 590 billionaires worldwide (that’s people with at least $1,000,000,000 in their piggy banks). It includes nine kings, queens and dictators.
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In Ireland more than 95% of our bananas are imported from Latin America. Plantation workers can earn as little as 3% of the price we pay for a banana, often working a 12 or 13 hour day in miserable conditions.
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Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chair of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, said: "We are fully aware of the impact that the combination of high crude prices and high excise duties and taxes on fuel can cause to our customers". This didn’t stop him announcing that profits were up a massive 85% to $13.1 billion over the last year. Last year was also pretty good for BP Amoco, whose chairperson is former Irish Attorney General and Fine Gael politician Peter Sutherland. They doubled their profits to $14.2 billion. Topping the list of greedy oil companies is Exxon Mobil, who declared profits of $17 billion.