ngo-business

The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France -- the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.

Indeed, local leaders blame oil development for fostering some of the very afflictions that the foundation combats.

Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting.
Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation

So why is the Guardian promoting the Foundation (and the man) as a true friend of development? The article above identifies many more examples of the B&MG Foundation pouring money into companies which work against the poorest of the world.

Of course, the more the Gates Foundation funds the killers of development, the more there is to do to patch the sores created by those killers. And they - Bill Gates and Co. - will get the credit for their generosity (in giving away what they could not possibly need or spend themselves), and for the effectiveness with which they stick the sticking plaster onto sores they have themselves created.

At least - they will as long as people fail to make the links between the killing companies, and the Foundation Trusts set up by millionaires, which buy the killing shares and help the killing companies pour out their pollution and their GM seeds and toxic chemicals - as long as Gates, Buffet and Soros seem to be the ones mending the world, not funding its destruction. These men will be our liberal heroes, feted by the liberal press.

Letter to the liberal press

Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture...

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed...

Glenn Greenwald, The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention

And what does being held in such conditions do to you? According to the Istanbul statement on the use and effects of solitary confinement, adopted at the International Psychological Trauma Symposium in December 2007 -

UPDATED:
- letter to Oxfam

Oxfam has the following claim up on its website - under the rubric 'Bin the myth'.

Oxfam spends all its money on admin

This one's definitely not for recycling! The fact is we spend just 10p in every £1 donated to Oxfam on support and running costs – money vital to keeping an effective, professional organisation going. Everything we do depends on it – running efficient projects, getting people, equipment, supplies and funds to where they're needed. The whole life-saving shebang.

Bin the Myth: 'Myth' no 2

I wonder how most potential donors interpret that claim. They probably assume that 90 pence out of every pound donated goes towards direct assistance to those who need it most - perhaps on famine relief, medicines, building wells, buying tools or machinery. Some of them may also realise that part of the money will be used to train and build up the skills of local groups and individuals, and may therefore go towards the salaries of Western consultants or 'experts'. But most will probably assume that Western salaries are counted as 'support' and therefore come out of the 10 pence, rather than the 90. And most will probably assume that 'running costs' include those run-up in the local offices, as well as those incurred by staff employed at central office in the UK.

They would be wrong. The claim does indeed imply that all 'support and running costs' are covered by the 10 pence, not the 90. But support and running costs within each country in fact come out of the 90 pence, not the 10 - as we will see if we look at the small print, hidden away at the bottom of page 60 of Oxfam's 2009 Annual Report and Account, long, long after the pretty picture (on page 42) informing readers how the funds were used:

I came up with a cunning plan. Instead of working for a lower wage - which was rejected by the fluffy, corporocratic 'charity' which pays my wages - I would put in a voluntary day. The same wage, but spread over more days. Win-win, you might think: win for the charity, which gets more free labour than it receives already from its numerous unpaid interns - and win for me, because I get what I asked for, only by a different means.

In fact, ever since the charity informed me that it wouldn't contemplate 'paying people differently' - and even though that is exactly what they do already - I have been behaving (a bit) like an intern. And they know it. The cunning plan has been in force for the past 10 months: paid work for 3 days, another 1, or 2 or 3 days as unofficial intern - and fiddling the work plan to make it look as though the work that takes 4, 5 or 6 days can be done in 3. They know it's a lie.

But they won't formalise the lie. They are happy for the lie to lie there, unacknowledged: they get the 4 or 5 days that they wanted me to work, and bank the cash. They are even happy, generally, to take on volunteers, and add them to the balance sheet as 'contributions in kind' (some, not all). But they won't add this contribution; and more importantly, they won't allow the grant that has been allocated to pay for 4 days' of my work to be redistributed: to be used to pay for 3 days' work, with the rest fed back into the project (with the funder's agreement).

The same amount of time would be spent on the project, but the money would go further. It can't be done, apparently.

My colleagues at the human rights charity are in a frenzy of excitement about Nick Clegg. Cleggomaniacs, to add to their Obamamania (still!). Clegg's vision is even being posted round the office to illustrate the great white hopes of this great white well-educated, well-spoken and well financially endowed young man:

"I believe every single person is extraordinary. The tragedy is that we have a society where too many people never get to fulfil that extraordinary potential. My view – the liberal view – is that government’s job is to help them to do it. Not to tell people how to live their lives. But to make their choices possible, to release their potential, no matter who they are. The way to do that is to take power away from those who hoard it. To challenge vested interests. To break down privilege. To clear out the bottlenecks in our society that block opportunity and block progress. And so give everyone a chance to live the life they want."

So here are a few articles and nuggets to suggest the clear blue sea between the Deputy Prime Minister and his new coalition partner is not so very clear (though very blue):

Praise from the Torygraph:

the two main contenders for the Lib Dem crown are Nick Clegg, the party's home affairs spokesman, and Chris Huhne, the environment spokesman who was runner-up to Sir Ming at the last contest.

They, and indeed almost all the others whose names are now being dropped, both contributed in 2004 to the now celebrated Orange Book, a work of political philosophy of which I fear we shall be hearing a great deal in the weeks to come.

The book was about "reclaiming liberalism". It had a sensible and attractive theme running through it. This is, after all, the inheritor party of Gladstone, Cobden and Bright. In its DNA is to be found a belief in free trade and free markets. Tactfully, and with surprisingly little shock being caused, these ancient doctrines were dusted off, and suggestions made about their possible relevance to the future governance of Britain.

Mr Clegg is felt to be more of a "Tory" than Mr Huhne. This is not just because he once worked for Leon Brittan, but because his belief in traditional liberal values of the sort adopted by Margaret Thatcher in her economic programme is thought to be rather strong.

His detractors call him "Right-wing", an absurd phrase at the best of times, and probably ludicrous in his case.

From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643387/Lib-Dems-would-be-better-off-...