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- Posted January 6, 2013 by
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Palm oil, the European Commission and whistleblowers
Organizations behaving badly have become a chronic theme of late. In a clear sign, dozens of people gathered recently at City University in London for the launch party of a coalition called Whistleblowers UK. Well-known whistleblowers such as Ian Foxley, who questioned payments to Saudi officials made by aerospace defense firm EADS, want to share their experiences with others to make airing crimes by companies and governments easier. (Foxley’s allegations led to a probe by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, which is still in progress). The organization, which has been operating since March, features a 24-hour hotline, as well as lawyers and psychotherapists working pro-bono.
It’s been a big year for scandals. Let us unravel them one by one and celebrate the whistleblowers who have exposed the crooks.
First, a little fanfare is due Bradley Birkenfeld.
The former UBS banker reported a tax evasion scheme in which UBS bankers helped clients cheat the US government out of billions in tax revenue. This resulted in criminal charges against the bank. UBS paid $780 million to settle with the US Department of Justice. The US got $5 billion in back-taxes and in September this year awarded Birkenfeld $104 million (the largest federal payout in history) as a whistleblower’s award.
Another outfit whose whistleblowing should be celebrated is Italian civil libertarian group, Libertiamo. This group ran a brave expose of the European Commission (EC) and its sinister role in the anti-palm oil campaigns of the past decade that leaves us no illusions about the moral decomposition taking place in the EC!
Says Libertiamo: “Since 2005, the European Commission (EC) has provided nearly €5million (MYR 19.7 million) to the World Wildlife Fund and €4 million (MYR 15,8 million) to Friends of the Earth. Climate Action Network (CAN) also received nearly €1 million (MYR 3.9 million) in the past two years alone.
Worse, Libertiamo charges that the attacks are based on “manufactured and false evidence!”
The entire vile scheme is planned and executed by the EC’s green surrogates across regions to create the impression that the palm oil campaigns are unplanned, popular and spontaneous! A broad range of green NGO’s plus even zoos, girl scouts (or rather the adults behind the girl scouts) and politicians from across the globe are recruited to the cause.
This pattern of subterfuge and under the radar operations employed by the EC using green group surrogates and manufactured and false evidence against palm oil was already evident since 2005.
In 2005, the oddball Center for Science in the Public Interest published a “report” called “Cruel Oil: How palm oil harms health, rainforest and wildlife” in which they made wild and unsubstantiated claims against the palm oil industry.
The report was later exposed as having been prepared with the assistance of Aid Environment listed as partners with Hivos — a Netherlands based civil society group with direct links to campaigns in Indonesia. Hivos, in turn, is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for close to 70% of its annual 100m Euro budget.
More recently, an academic study by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti entitled “Friends of the EU.”(Vide: http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu) showed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of FOE EU which then engaged in heavy palm oil bashing!
Palm oil has had close to a decade to grasp a nettlesome truth that social researchers have been positing for some time now – that the two professions that attract the most sociopaths and psychopaths are politicians and environmental NGOs!
It is thanks to whistleblowers like Libertiamo that the cover has been blown for the little sociopaths and psychos that populate the halls of power of the Environmental Directorate of the EC and its green group surrogates!
Note: About Inc Society of PalmHugger: We are made up of professionals and individuals with a great passion for the truth.
We are biologists, creative designers, engineers, business men and women, professional tennis players, stay-at-home moms, retirees, college students, filmmakers, journalists, communication experts. You name it!
Our goals are all the same – to advance the cause of truth through better and wider dissemination of true palm oil environmental news and views, assisting in CSR initiatives, or developing programmes for advocacy and lobbying of palm oil environmental matters, always with an emphasis on truth.
Who we are not: We are not politically linked to any political parties. We are also not donor nor profit driven. Every single cent raised through our initiatives are channeled back to fund Palmhugger programmes that require financial assistance. www.Palmhugger.org
It’s been a big year for scandals. Let us unravel them one by one and celebrate the whistleblowers who have exposed the crooks.
First, a little fanfare is due Bradley Birkenfeld.
The former UBS banker reported a tax evasion scheme in which UBS bankers helped clients cheat the US government out of billions in tax revenue. This resulted in criminal charges against the bank. UBS paid $780 million to settle with the US Department of Justice. The US got $5 billion in back-taxes and in September this year awarded Birkenfeld $104 million (the largest federal payout in history) as a whistleblower’s award.
Another outfit whose whistleblowing should be celebrated is Italian civil libertarian group, Libertiamo. This group ran a brave expose of the European Commission (EC) and its sinister role in the anti-palm oil campaigns of the past decade that leaves us no illusions about the moral decomposition taking place in the EC!
Says Libertiamo: “Since 2005, the European Commission (EC) has provided nearly €5million (MYR 19.7 million) to the World Wildlife Fund and €4 million (MYR 15,8 million) to Friends of the Earth. Climate Action Network (CAN) also received nearly €1 million (MYR 3.9 million) in the past two years alone.
Worse, Libertiamo charges that the attacks are based on “manufactured and false evidence!”
The entire vile scheme is planned and executed by the EC’s green surrogates across regions to create the impression that the palm oil campaigns are unplanned, popular and spontaneous! A broad range of green NGO’s plus even zoos, girl scouts (or rather the adults behind the girl scouts) and politicians from across the globe are recruited to the cause.
This pattern of subterfuge and under the radar operations employed by the EC using green group surrogates and manufactured and false evidence against palm oil was already evident since 2005.
In 2005, the oddball Center for Science in the Public Interest published a “report” called “Cruel Oil: How palm oil harms health, rainforest and wildlife” in which they made wild and unsubstantiated claims against the palm oil industry.
The report was later exposed as having been prepared with the assistance of Aid Environment listed as partners with Hivos — a Netherlands based civil society group with direct links to campaigns in Indonesia. Hivos, in turn, is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for close to 70% of its annual 100m Euro budget.
More recently, an academic study by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti entitled “Friends of the EU.”(Vide: http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu) showed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of FOE EU which then engaged in heavy palm oil bashing!
Palm oil has had close to a decade to grasp a nettlesome truth that social researchers have been positing for some time now – that the two professions that attract the most sociopaths and psychopaths are politicians and environmental NGOs!
It is thanks to whistleblowers like Libertiamo that the cover has been blown for the little sociopaths and psychos that populate the halls of power of the Environmental Directorate of the EC and its green group surrogates!
Note: About Inc Society of PalmHugger: We are made up of professionals and individuals with a great passion for the truth.
We are biologists, creative designers, engineers, business men and women, professional tennis players, stay-at-home moms, retirees, college students, filmmakers, journalists, communication experts. You name it!
Our goals are all the same – to advance the cause of truth through better and wider dissemination of true palm oil environmental news and views, assisting in CSR initiatives, or developing programmes for advocacy and lobbying of palm oil environmental matters, always with an emphasis on truth.
Who we are not: We are not politically linked to any political parties. We are also not donor nor profit driven. Every single cent raised through our initiatives are channeled back to fund Palmhugger programmes that require financial assistance. www.Palmhugger.org
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