International mining companies, including some Australian companies, will now have to disclose all payments made to the governments of countries in which they operate, as the result of a new law passed by the US Congress yesterday.
No one likes to think of themselves as a fair-weather friend. Being flaky in a crisis is not, after all, an attractive quality.
But much as they might try to hide it when they meet in Canada this week, the world’s richest nations are proving themselves to be just that to the world’s poorest people: unreliable at a time when they are reeling from the economic crisis, climate change and food shortages.
The G20 is meeting this weekend at a crucial moment. Weighing on the minds of G20 leaders will be the European sovereign debt crisis, the continuing depth of the US recession and the lack of public financing following gigantic bail-outs to prop up the global finance sector.
International aid agency Oxfam Australia today called on Canberra’s politicians to step out of their offices and cross Lake Burley Griffin to experience life as a refugee in a mock refugee camp.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Mr Anand Grover, has raised concerns that efforts to close the gap in Indigenous health are still not supported by a comprehensive national Indigenous health plan.
A global tax on the world’s big banks to help poor countries survive the economic crisis must be urgently agreed, Oxfam said today ahead of the G20 meeting of Finance Ministers in South Korea.
Australia can advance the Copenhagen Accord and help re-build trust in the international process to fight climate change by committing climate finance to help poor countries deal with climate change at the UN climate negotiations which start in Bonn today (31 May), says Oxfam.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott must come clean on whether he is proposing to cut spending to Australia’s aid program, Oxfam Australia said today.
One good news story to come out of Tuesday night’s Federal Budget was the increase to $4.3billion for Australia’s international aid program. You might not have realised this was a good news story because it was yet another example of the Rudd Government’s failure to communicate its achievements to the Australian public.
Whether you believe them or not, threats by the mining sector of a mass exodus overseas as a result of the resource rent tax expose a glaring gap in how Australian companies conduct business around the world.