European Commission Building. Credit: Ida Karlsson

By Ida Karlsson
STOCKHOLM, Mar 20 2017 (IPS)

Despite the LuxLeaks scandal, the number of secret tax deals is skyrocketing. Such deals between companies and governments across Europe increased by almost 50 percent the year after the scandal broke.

Despite the controversy, the number of these individual secret agreements drawn up between European governments and multinational corporations in the EU have soared from 545 in 2013, to 1444 by the end of 2015, according to official data from the European Commission. It is an increase of 160 percent in just two years.

“This is obviously deeply concerning and shows that reforms in Luxembourg and elsewhere are a bit of a mirage, in particular since there is still no public scrutinity of these rulings yet,” Fabio De Masi, a politician from Die Linke in Germany and a Member of the European Parliament, told IPS.

The LuxLeaks scandal erupted in 2014 and sparked a major global push against generous deals handed to multinationals, which grew even stronger with new revelations such as the Panama Papers.

The two whistleblowers who exposed the profit-shifting of some multinationals such as Apple, Ikea and Pepsi were convicted again last Wednesday by Luxembourg’s court of appeal, but with reduced sentences compared to the first verdict. Antoine Deltour, a former PWC employee was given a 6-month suspended sentence and a 1,500 euro fine and Raphaël Halet, another PWC employee, was given a 1,000 euro fine.

“It is scandalous that those who did an invaluable service to society, risking their careers, have again been found guilty while the rich and powerful rob hundreds of billions of euros from citizens,” Fabio de Masi said.

Luxembourg’s finance minister, Pierre Gramegna, has described the leak as “the worst attack” his country has ever experienced.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager appeared to back the whistleblowers in comments last week.

“I think it was a good thing (the leaks),” she told a news conference in Brussels last Wednesday.

“I think it is important when people tell if they find that something is not the way it should be. Then authorities, law enforces, can do their job and do that in a better way. I think that a lot of people actually have benefitted from them telling what they knew.”

Developing countries lose an estimated 1,000 billion dollars annually to corporate tax dodging according to Global Financial Integrity.

For the first time, the group of countries in Europe in favour of transparency around the true owners of businesses is larger than the group against, according to the report “Survival of the Richest” by the European Network on Debt and Development, Eurodad. But there are still more governments against measures to show what multinationals are paying in taxes in the countries they operate in than those in favour.

Eurodad, the coalition of civil society organizations campaigning for greater tax transparency, analyzed European Commission data for 18 countries.

Eurodad also warned that European governments were signing controversial tax treaties with developing countries. The treaties were undermining taxations in those countries, it said. On average these treaties lower tax rates in developing countries by 3.8 percent, according to the coalition.

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Heat-tolerant beans at CIAT. Beans and other pulses are called superfoods of the future due to their vast geographical range, high nutritional value and low water requirements. Credit: Ida Karlsson/IPS

By Ida Karlsson
CALI, Colombia, Dec 6 2016 (IPS)

A global food watchdog works around the clock to preserve crop biodiversity, with a seed bank deep in the Colombian countryside holding the largest collection of beans and cassava in the world and storing crops that could avert devastating problems.

On a mission in Peru in the 1980s, Debouck narrowly escaped capture by guerillas.
Plants are the vital elements in our ecosystem that clothe us, feed us, give us the oxygen that we breathe and the medicines that cure us. But one in five of world’s plant species are at risk of extinction.

According to a report launched by experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in May, the biggest threats are the destruction of habitats for farming – such as palm oil production, deforestation for timber and construction of buildings and infrastructure. Global warming is also expected to reduce the areas suitable for growing crops.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 75 percent of the world’s crop diversity was lost between 1900 and 2000.

“We do not [even] know what we have, and we are losing what we have. Why not try to correct that a bit?” Daniel Debouck of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia told IPS.

Seed bank head Daniel Debouck at CIAT, Colombia. Credit: Ida Karlsson/IPS

Only about 30 crops provide 95 percent of human food energy needs, according to FAO. Dependency on a few staple crops magnifies the consequences of crop failure.

Botanists are already taking extreme measures to save those plant species deemed useful. Some 7.4 million samples are in seed banks around the world, but huge gaps exist.

Way up north, in the permafrost, 1,300 kilometers beyond the Arctic Circle, sits the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a so-called doomsday bank buried in the side of a mountain. Within the enclosure sit more than 860,000 samples, representing 5,100 different crops and their relatives.

And located among green sugarcane plantations near Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, a seed bank with the largest collection of beans in the world is housed in a former meat quality lab. The seed bank preserves some of humanity’s most important staple crops and contains over 38,000 samples of beans in all shapes colors, and sizes. Varieties developed at CIAT feed 30 million people in Africa. Every September there is a major shipment to Svalbard to keep copies at the seed bank there.

Beans can grow despite very tough conditions. They are cultivated everywhere except for the poles and infertile deserts. Credit: Ida Karlsson/IPS

The 300 scientists and support staff at CIAT have a mandate from the UN to protect, research and distribute beans and cassava, staple foods for 900 million people around the world. Altogether 500,000 materials have been distributed so far. After the war in Rwanda, CIAT put seeds back in the hands of farmers.

“The seeds from the Americas are absolutely critical for food security in Africa. Without cassava and beans, people would not manage,” Debouck told IPS.

The researchers have garnered seeds from around the world for their seed bank. On a mission in Peru in the 1980s, Debouck narrowly escaped capture by guerillas.

“But we came back with 300 varieties of popping bean and increased the CIAT collection significantly,” he said.

The popping beans can be prepared without cooking. It is enough if they are heated on a hot surface. This could be important in areas where fuel and kitchen facilities are lacking.

The seed bank also stores beans that can offer climate-friendly options for farmers struggling to cope with rising temperatures.

In the basement of an old lab near Cali, Colombia, there are 38,000 samples of beans stored in minus 20 degrees Celsius. Credit: Ida Karlsson/IPS

The heat-tolerant beans developed by conventional breeding by scientists at CIAT are crosses between the modern kind and the tepary bean, a hardy survivor cultivated since pre-Columbian times. Beans that can beat the heat could be essential to survival in many regions.

“The heat-tolerant beans may be able to handle a worst-case scenario of a temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius. Northern Uganda, southeast Congo, Malawi, and the eastern Kenya are not bean producing areas now because of the heat there. But what we have at present at CIAT could expand the bean production there,” Steve Beebe, a senior bean researcher at CIAT, told IPS.

The new findings would not have been possible without CIAT’s seed bank containing wild varieties and related species of the common bean.

Only 5 percent of the wild relatives of the world’s most important crops are properly stored and managed in the world’s seed banks, according a study published in March by the online journal Nature Plants.

Debouck says there is lack of education around food.

“We think we have food security but we are tremendously vulnerable. If the U.S. would experience drought and Europe would have excessive rains, we would all be in trouble,” Debouck said.

Agronomists used to act as a liaison between farmers and agricultural scientists. But during the last 20 years, many agronomists have disappeared and today mostly for-profit agribusiness firms reach out to farmers, according to Debouck. The companies are often interested in selling agrochemicals, he said.

Bean researcher Beebe pointed out that beans and other legumes are self-pollinated plants and seed need only be sold once.

“That is why the industry is not that interested in promoting them,” he told IPS.

The post Climate-Resistant Beans Could Save Millions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

With the United Nations’ post-2015 development agenda currently under discussion, civil society actors in Europe are calling for a firmer stance on human rights and gender equality, including control of assets by women.

“The SDGs are a unique opportunity for us. The eradication of extreme poverty is within our grasp. But we still face very major challenges. Business as usual is not an option,” Seamus Jeffreson, Director of Concord, the European platform for non-governmental development organisations, told at a meeting in Brussels with the European Parliament Committee on Development on September 3.

An Open Working Group has been set up by the United Nations to come up with a set of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education by the target date of 2015.“We need to address women's control over assets. The majority of farmers in the world are women but they do not own the land. There is legislation that prevents women from inheriting property" – Seamus Jeffreson, Director, Concord

Development organisations in Europe say a rights-based approach need to be strengthened in the proposed new SDGs or there is a risk these could be traded off in negotiations with major powers that are less committed to human rights.

“We do not see the spirit of a human rights-based approach infusing the other goals. It should underpin the SDGs. The connection is not made that people have rights to resources. We cannot have a development agenda without people’s rights being respected,” Jeffreson said.

Jeffreson’s complaint was echoed by Thomas Mayr-Harting, European Union Ambassador to the United Nations. “From our point of view, a rights-based approach and governance and rule of law need to be better represented in the SDGs.”

While Concord welcomes a specific goal on gender equality within the SDGs, “more details are needed for this to be a goal and not just a slogan,” Jeffreson told IPS. “We need to address women’s control over assets. The majority of farmers in the world are women but they do not own the land. There is legislation that prevents women from inheriting property.”

The European Union will produce a common position before inter-governmental negotiations start. Further input will come from a High-level Panel set up in July 2012 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise on the global development framework beyond 2015.

“We now look to Ban Ki-moon to play a core role in bringing this process together,” said Mayr-Harting, adding that Sam Kutesa, Ugandan foreign minister, who will chair the UN General Assembly from mid-September, will play also an important role.

Ajay Kumar Bramdeo, ambassador of the African Union to the European Union, who also attended the meeting in Brussels, said that more than 90 percent of the priorities in the common African position have been included in the proposed new set of development goals, including its position on climate change.

“The negative impact of climate change is already being felt in countries in Africa. The European Union has been an important historical, political, economic and social partner for Africa and would also feel the impact of climate change on Africa,” he added.

Kumar Bramdeo emphasised the need to mobilise financing from the developed countries through the Green Climate Fund of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), transfer new clean technologies, and enhance disaster risk management and climate adaptation initiatives.

Ole Lund Hansen, representing the UN Global Compact at the meeting, stressed that the SDGs would not be achieved without the active participation of the world’s business sector. “Some figures say we need 2.5 billion dollars per year in additional investments to achieve the SDGs. We clearly need to tap into the vast resources of the private sector.”

The proposed new SDGs, which will make amends for the shortcomings of the MDGs, will be an integral part of the United Nations’ post-2015 development agenda which, among others, seeks to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger from the face of the earth by 2030.

There are currently 17 new goals on the drafting board, including proposals to end poverty, eliminate hunger, attain healthy lives, provide quality education, attain gender equality and reduce inequalities.

The list also includes the sustainable use of water and sanitation, energy for all, productive employment, industrialisation, protection of terrestrial ecosystems and strengthening the global partnership for sustainable development.

The final set of goals is to be approved by world leaders in September 2015.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

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Iran, Syria, Sudan, Belarus and Zimbabwe - all widely condemned for human right abuses - are members of Interpol. Yemen is also a member and known for its human rights abuses. Pictured here are protestors in Yemen. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien/IPS

By Ida Karlsson
BRUSSELS, Aug 6 2013 (IPS)

The world’s largest international policing organisation Interpol is being used by governments to track down political opponents and human rights campaigners, an IPS investigation reveals.

The number of Interpol’s “wanted person” alerts have more than tripled over recent years, and those “wanted” are not just suspected criminals.

Interpol issues thousands of “wanted person” alerts, so-called red notices, every year. Criminal justice experts say that even though some of Interpol’s member states are nations with poor human rights records and corrupt legal systems, the organisation has no effective mechanisms to prevent countries, or even individual prosecutors, abusing its system.

Iran, Syria, Sudan, Belarus and Zimbabwe – all widely condemned for human right abuses – are members of Interpol, and each country has red notices listed on its website. A red notice is not an arrest warrant. National governments decide how to act on a red notice, and many consider it a sufficient legal basis for arrest.

“Interpol’s ‘wanted person’ alerts can have a catalogue of devastating effects,” Alex Mik at Fair Trials International told IPS. “People have had visas refused, separating them from family for months or years and causing them to lose their jobs and livelihoods. Businessmen can lose clients, and journalists their credibility. People hesitate to travel for fear of arrest.”

Fair Trials International assists individuals facing trial in a country other than their own. The organisation has worked on several cases, and raised questions over Interpol’s red notices.

“For example, the Russian activist and journalist Petr Silaev was arrested in a youth hostel, handcuffed for five hours in a police car and imprisoned for over a week at the request of an investigator in Moscow after a red notice,” Mik said. “Indonesia used Interpol’s systems to publicly brand Benny Wenda, a key figure in the West Papuan independence movement, a wanted terrorist and discredited his political campaign.”

People in this situation have no independent court they can turn to for redress; they can only request a review by a commission funded by Interpol. Those on the Interpol commission are government officials and not experts in human rights.

Protestors inside the Friends of Syria meeting, demanding an end to the bloody violence in their country. Iran, Syria, Sudan, Belarus and Zimbabwe – all widely condemned for human right abuses – are members of Interpol. Credit: Jake Lippincott/IPS

Fair Trials International has called for Interpol to protect itself against political abuse to ensure that genuine fugitives are targeted, and not those whose only “crime” is political opposition.

In 2011, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a non-profit investigative journalism project, analysed a snapshot of all public red notices on Interpol’s website, as on Dec. 10, 2010. More than 2,200 of the 7,622 red notices were from countries that provide no political rights or civil liberties, according to the organisation Freedom House. Nearly half the red notices studied, 3,600, were from countries Transparency International ranks among the most corrupt."Interpol's 'wanted person' alerts can have a catalogue of devastating effects.” -- Alex Mik at Fair Trials International

Interpol reports that it issued 2,343 red notices in 2005, 6,344 in 2010, and 7,678 in 2011. Until 2008 police agencies had to apply directly to Interpol for a red notice. Today, to save time and money, every red notice request is entered into the system directly by the police agencies themselves. Police around the world see those notices before Interpol reviews them.

In February 2013 the organisation Reporters Without Borders called for withdrawal of Interpol’s red notice against the French journalist Daniel Lainé. The red notice prevented Lainé from working as a reporter outside France. The organisation said the case had “all the signs of a frame-up, with charges based on written evidence from someone who had never appeared in court.”

On Jul. 1, 2012, a new resolution governing Interpol’s red notice system came into effect aiming to ensure that publication and circulation of red notices conform to high standards. But according to Fair Trials International, the reform does not go far enough.

Interpol is an organisation with 190 member states and an annual budget of almost 60 million euros. According to its constitution Interpol is required to comply with “the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

In the journal the International Enforcement Law Reporter, Interpol wrote in 2012 that its “comprehensive legal framework ensures that the processing of information via Interpol’s channels (including notices) conforms to Interpol’s rules.”

IPS requests to Interpol for a comment brought no response.

The post Interpol ‘Misused’ by Human Rights Abusers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At a shipbreaking yard in Dhaka. Credit: Mahmud/Map.

By Ida Karlsson
BRUSSELS, Jul 17 2013 (IPS)

Hundreds of European vessels are scrapped under hazardous conditions in South Asia every year. European parliamentarians have approved a new regulation to tackle the problem – but critics say it will have very limited impact.

The European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted last in favour of a proposal aiming to put an end to European ships being recklessly scrapped in developing countries.

“With this, we will have a safer disposal of ships. About 90 percent of the European vessels are scrapped illegally and the Basel Convention has failed to do something about this,” said Swedish Green MEP Carl Schlyter, who negotiated the agreement with the Council and guided the legislation through the European Parliament."Last year one European ship was sent to a substandard beaching yard in South Asia every day."

European Union-registered ships will now have to be recycled at EU-approved facilities that meet specific safety and environmental requirements and are certified and regularly inspected. The European Commission would be obliged to act if NGOs report irregularities.

Both EU ships and non-EU ships would also have to carry an inventory of hazardous materials when calling at ports in the EU. The regulation is likely to enter into force in the beginning of 2014.

Patrizia Heidegger from Shipbreaking Platform, a global coalition of organisations working for safe and sustainable ship recycling, is not pleased with the outcome.

“European shipping companies will continue to profit by having their ships scrapped on the beaches of South Asia. It is positive that the beaching of vessels is technically prohibited, but generally the new regulation won’t change much,” she told IPS.

She says that the regulation will not have a large impact since ship owners can easily flag out and circumvent the regulation if they don’t want to comply. The coalition wants the regulation to apply to all ships calling at European ports, instead of only the EU-flagged vessels.

“Last year one European ship was sent to a substandard beaching yard in South Asia every day. It has to be proven that the system is able to trace hazardous waste and make sure it is disposed properly. We remain skeptical until we see that the monitoring actually works.”

Heidegger also claims that the new regulation is in breach of the Basel Convention, an international treaty of environmental law ratified by the EU. This view is shared by Ludwig Krämer, an expert on EU environmental law. In his opinion the new regulation does not provide better protection than the Basel Convention.

Schlyter pushed for an EU fund to subsidise safe recycling of the ships. The fund would have been financed by fees on ships docked in EU ports, but the parliament rejected this part of the proposal.

“Without the ship recycling fund the new regulation won’t be effective. A ship recycling fund would put obligations on the ship owners beyond the flag,” Heidegger said.

“The fund was supported by all the political groups, but then the parliament voted it down after strong lobbying from ship owners and EU ports. The ports claimed that the arrangement would result in over 100 percent increase in fees, which is not true,” Schlyter told IPS.

Schlyter says that with a fund in place it would not pay to flag out. He says that the commission might propose creation of a fund later if the new regulation proves insufficient.

European ship owners dumped 365 toxic ships on South Asian beaches last year, according to the Shipbreaking Platform.

Of the top 10 European “global dumpers” in 2012, Greek ship owners were number one, dumping 167 ships on Asian beaches. German ship owners represented the second largest group of toxic ship dumpers with 48 ships, followed by ship owners from the UK with 30 ships, and Norway with 23 ships scrapped on beaches in South Asia.

According to the coalition most of the end-of-life ships sent by European ship owners did not fly an EU flag but flags from Panama, Liberia, the Bahamas or St Kitts-and-Nevis.

Bangladesh tops the list of countries having the greatest number of ships scrapped every year, with India and Pakistan trailing far behind. Unskilled and unprotected workers manually handle poisonous chemicals and are also exposed to the risk of explosion while dismantling old vessels.

The post New EU Rules ‘Fail’ Against Shipbreaking Dangers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The European Union Commissioner for Climate Action, has called for the European Investment Bank, the largest institutional bank in the world, to take a leading role in eliminating public support for fossil fuels. Pictured here is the Canadian Brandon Generating Station is a subbituminous coal- and natural gas-fired station. Credit: Bigstock

By Ida Karlsson
BRUSSELS, Jul 14 2013 (IPS)

The European Investment Bank, the largest institutional bank in the world, is facing criticism for its funding of fossil fuel projects and for weaker standards for lending to coal plants than currently proposed in both the U.S. and Canada.

The EIB now promotes clean energy more – but fossil fuels still constitute a great part of the bank’s energy portfolio. The bank lends more to the energy sector than to any other except transport.

Connie Hedegaard, the European Union Commissioner for Climate Action, has called for EIB to take a leading role in eliminating public support for fossil fuels. As a public bank, the EIB’s financial operations are guaranteed by European taxpayers’ money.

With lending greater than that of the World Bank – 52 billion euros in 2012 compared to the World Bank’s 40 billion euros for last year – EIB engages in investment projects in some 160 non-EU countries throughout the world, beside the lending it provides within the EU. EIB’s total assets in 2012 reached 508 billion euros, making the bank the largest multilateral financier.

The EIB announcement of a review of its lending policy in late June drew criticism from climate activists as running counter to the EU’s climate and energy policies. Critics claim that the bank’s continual funding of coal projects is not compatible with the EU’s low-carbon future.

The draft policy does tighten the lending conditions for all types of fossil fuel projects, but the restrictions proposed (500gCO2/kWh) on emission standards on coal power plants financed by the bank are weaker compared to what is proposed in the U.S. (440gCO2/kWh) and currently in place in Canada (420gCO2/kWh).

Climate activists warn that exceptions included in the draft policy could mean that all forms of energy production could be eligible for EIB financing in cases where a plant contributes to the security of supply, economic development or poverty alleviation.

The bank spends billions of euros every year on energy projects that have a big impact on the climate. In 2009-2010 the bank’s lending to fossil fuel projects was more than a quarter of the overall energy lending, according to EIB figures. In 2010, 18 billion euros of EIB lending was devoted to the energy sector.

“EIB is a long-time lender, and lends money where it is most needed,” president of the bank Werner Hower said at a meeting in Brussels earlier this week.

But CEE Bankwatch and fellow campaign group Counter Balance, a European coalition of development and environmental organisations, sharply criticise EIB priorities, urging the bank to clean up its energy lending portfolio.

Berber Verpoest, advocacy coordinator at Counter Balance points out that EIB invested 190 million euros in a new Ford factory in Turkey in 2012 and granted a loan of 500 million euros to the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) in 2011.

“The Climate Change Framework Loan in Brazil illustrates the absurdity and lack of a clear selection criteria for the EIB,” he told IPS.

Bankwatch reported in December last year that EIB granted the loan to the car giant for the company’s relocation of production to Turkey not long after Ford Europe announced a shutdown of its production sites in Genk in Belgium and in Southampton in England.

Under the headline “Half a billion of European public money well spent in Brazil?” Counter Balance question the investment where money intended for projects to stop climate change was granted as a loan to BNDES, a bank condemned by Brazilian civil society organisations such as the environmental law organisation Aida for lacking socio-environmental perspectives in its lending.

Hower said during the meeting in Brussels this week that the bank’s investments could and should be reviewed.

“We are developing our new energy policies now, one of the most touchy issues you can talk about. But we are doing it in a dialogue and open oriented process with the NGOs.

“Before the board of directors will address the issue in the end of July we will have a four-week dialogue mechanism with NGOs and civil society going on. EIB needs public scrutiny and supervision and it is necessary that we have NGOs who are having a very close look at what we are doing.”

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Ikea’s wholly owned subsidiary, Swedwood, cuts down about 1,400 acres of virgin forest a year. Credit: William Murphy/CC-BY-SA-2.0

By Ida Karlsson
STOCKHOLM, May 29 2012 (IPS)

The home furnishing giant Ikea, founded in Sweden in 1943, is facing heavy criticism for the logging and clear-cutting of old-growth forests in the north of Russian Karelia by its wholly owned subsidiary Swedwood. 

According to leading environmental organisations, such logging is destroying ancient and unique forests that have a high conservation value.

Wood is by far the primary raw material in Ikea’s products. Roughly 60 percent of the products stocked in the multinational’s 300 department stores around the world contain wood in any form.

For years, the company has used the “We Love Wood” slogan to promote the fact that Ikea only uses wood obtained in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable way.

But recent reports and studies prove that this proclamation is a myth.

An investigative report released last month by Swedish public service television found that Swedwood cuts down about 1,400 acres of forest a year.

“We have a (limited) amount of old-growth forest in the north of Russian Karelia with high conservation value. Ikea says they don’t operate in old-growth forests but it is not true,” Olga Ilina, head of the forest department of the NGO SPOK, the Karelia Regional Nature Conservancy, told IPS.

Now only about 10 percent of the ancient old-growth forests remain in Karelia, according to Ilina.

The Global Forest Coalition, an alliance of NGOs in more than 40 countries, strongly condemned Ikea’s activities in Russia.

Protect the Forest, Sweden, a nature conservation organisation, has documented that Ikea, through Swedwood, clear-cut areas of old-growth forest containing 200-600 year-old trees in the northwest of Karelia, near the Finnish border, a process that is having deep ramifications on the invaluable forest ecosystems.

The belt of virgin forest in Russia, together with the tropical rainforests along the equator, performs vital functions for life on earth: forest belts bind huge amounts of carbon dioxide and are home to hundreds of thousands of unique animal and plant species.

The report also stressed that Swedwood is certified by the international forestry organisation Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which claims to ensure “responsibly managed forests”.

On paper FSC has strict rules for certification that ensure protection of ancient forests. But in reality there are some gaps in regulation, according to Andrei Ptichnikov, general manager of FSC in Russia.

“You can’t say that FSC can protect all forests. If we (claimed) to protect every tree, no company would (register) with FSC. It is not realistic. It is always a compromise,” he told Swedish TV journalists recently.

Anders Hildeman, forest manager at Ikea, acknowledged the charges but stood by the company line that Ikea takes high conservation values into account when they plan their logging.

“We will continue to work according to the principles that we agreed on together with Russian environmental organisations like SPOK. Our goal is to develop and improve forest management. Swedwood has played an important role in the advancement of forestry in Karelia,” he told IPS.

Hildeman says Swedwood was the first FSC-certified company in Karelia back in 2006. According to him FSC certification is a good basis for responsible forest management.

Ilina said Swedish and Russian NGOs  had planned to meet with Ikea officials to discuss the situation in north Karelia but when the company only agreed to meet with the Russian organisations, the meeting was called off.

“Swedwood operates in a better way than local Karelian companies but we think they can do much better considering their resources. They could plan their forestry better and make it more ecologically friendly. They should log secondary forests that are not so valuable instead of virgin forestry. Ikea has the means to do this,” Ilina told IPS.

Ikea’s total profits between 2000 and 2008 amounted to some 30 billion dollars, according to the company’s annual financial reports.

(END)

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By Ida Karlsson
STOCKHOLM, Mar 9 2012 (IPS)

Confidential documents revealed this week show how Sweden has in secret been helping Saudi Arabia to plan the construction of an advanced arms factory to produce anti-tank missiles.

Saudia Arabia, one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world condemned for its human rights violations by organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, has nevertheless for several years been assisted by experts from the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI). The agency, which is an authority under the Ministry of Defence, has been involved in plans to develop Saudi Arabia’s weapons industry in cooperation with companies based in Sweden, the defence company Eurenco Bofors among others.

“It is extremely problematic that a government institutional authority assists in planning the establishment of a weapons factory in a dictatorship where gross human rights violations occur,” Anna Ek, head of the NGO Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS) tells IPS.

Classified government documents revealed by the public broadcaster Swedish Radio Tuesday show that FOI since 2007 has been involved in a project called Simoom that has been kept secret from the public.

Confidential documents show that the plans have been far-reaching though the construction of an advanced weapons factory – which would be the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia – has not yet begun.

According to the Swedish government’s website, Saudi Arabia is Sweden’s most important trading partner in the Middle East and North Africa. While Sweden has sold weapons to Saudi Arabia in the past, a classified government document from June 2008 says that the project Simoom “is something new for FOI and stretches the boundary for what is possible for a Swedish agency.”

FOI General Director Jan Olof Lind denies the existence of the project.

“We do not have a project agreement with that country. I do not wish to comment on discussions that may or may not have occurred between Sweden and Saudi Arabia. These discussions are classified,” he told the Swedish Radio.

However, in a document sent by Jan Olof Lind to the Ministry of Defence in March 2009 the planned project is explained in detail. The document reveals that the project’s worth is several hundred million dollars and that Sweden’s involvement would stretch over a five to six-and-a-half year period.

In the confidential document it is also revealed that a private company, Swedish Security Technology and Innovation (SSTI) was founded to take over the negotiations. In this way FOI was distanced from the project in order to avoid any direct links between itself and the Saudi government.

“That a company was created to bypass scrutiny and that it was approved by the government is a huge scandal,” Anna Ek tells IPS.

Several former FOI employees confirm the existence of the project in interviews in Swedish Radio, including Dick Sträng who led the project until 2010 and was one of Lind’s closest colleagues. He said the Swedish government has been fully aware of the plans.

In an interview to Swedish Radio, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, said the cooperation with Saudi Arabia is based on an agreement that the former Social Democrat government entered into in 2005. This agreement was assessed by the current centre-right government when they came into power a year later. According to Bildt their judgment at the time was that it was not in Sweden’s interest to terminate the agreement.

On Tuesday Sweden’s Green Party spokesperson Gustav Fridolin announced that he would report the Minister for Defence, Sten Tolgfors, to the Committee on the Constitution to review his role in the matter. Several MPs have now demanded the minister’s resignation.

At a press conference Friday Tolgfors said that the connection between FOI and SSTI was problematic and that FOI had acted on its own initiative. He also called the project “a dead duck” and said it had not been discussed for several years by FOI and the Saudi Ministry of Defence.

Jan Erik Lövgren, Deputy Director General of the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products (ISP), the authority granting permission for arms exports in Sweden, confirmed to IPS that there was an ongoing dialogue between FOI and Saudi Arabia as late as last year, regarding the Simoom project.

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