Institute of Business Ethics

5th January Grocer COCA COLA RUBBISHES FANTA PESTICIDE CLAIM Coca Cola has hit back at claims by researchers that its Fanta fizzy orange drink contains up to 300 times the levels of pesticides allowed in tap water. The drinks giant has been forced to defend the levels of pesticide residue found in the product, which are well within the levels allowed for fruit but far higher than the maximum permitted for bottled or tap water. Researchers in Spain had tested Coca Cola drinks from 15 countries in Europe for 100 different pesticides, with cans from the UK showing the highest levels of the chemicals.

5th January Financial Times ORIGINATIVE SIN John Plender asks "is financial innovation a blessing or a curse?"

5th January Financial Times TORIES TO UNVEIL PLANS FOR 'GREEN' START-UPS David Cameron, Conservative leader, will today set out plans to create a generation of world-beating "green tech" start-ups in Britain, which he claims will rival work in Silicon Valley. He will launch a consultation on plans for a Tory government to back green business "incubators", where every £150,000 of private sector investment would re-ceive up to £600,000 of additional public sector funding.

5th January Telegraph FSA TO LIFT BAN ON SHORT-SELLING BUT DISCLOSURE RULE WILL REMAIN A ban on the short-selling of financial shares will be lifted by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) this month, but compulsory disclosure will remain in place for a further six months, the regulator said.

5th January Telegraph BANKS ARE NOT YET OUT OF THE WOODS Traditional seasonal good wishes for a happy and prosperous 2009 may be a little too optimistic this year, given the parlous state of the economy. The focus, instead, both for individuals and companies, will be on survival.

5th January PWYP PUBLISH WHAT YOU PAY CONDEMNS ARBITRARY ARREST OF ANTI-CORRUPTION CAMPAIGNERS IN GABON AND CALLS FOR THEIR RELEASE Major Global NGOs Protest Gabon on Arrests of Civil Society Leaders, Including EITI/Publish What You Pay Activist Marc Ona. The Gabonese authorities should immediately release five leading members of civil society, including two journalists, who were arrested on 31st December. There are no formal charges or official warrants against them, said leading NGOs today. “We call on the international community to insist that they be released.” said Radhika Sarin, the international coordinator of the Publish What You Pay coalition. The arrests follows a campaign of official harassment against Ona and other activists who have raised concerns about management of public money in Gabon and called for more transparency and accountability in the country’s oil and mining sectors.

6th January Independent TESCO IN PROBE OVER 'CUT-PRICE' DRINK OFFER Britain's biggest supermarket, Tesco, is facing an official investigation over claims that it deliberately advertised cut-price alcohol as "bait" to lure bargain-hunters. The investigation highlights the growing pressure on retailers being scrutinised for the way that they bend guidelines designed to ensure that the public are not misled by bogus sales and money-off deals.

6th January Financial Times BEIJING HITS OUT AT GOOGLE IN WEB CRACKDOWN China's government has accused the country's leading internet search engines and web portals, including Google, of threatening public morals by carrying pornographic and vulgar content. The move comes as censors are currently blocking reporting and debate about Charter 08, an appeal for democratic reform that has attracted signatures from hundreds of prominent intellectuals. Other forms of dissent, such as demands for compensation in China's poisoned milk scandal, have also been organised via the web.

6th January New York Times COMING DOWN ON TOBACCO The new Congress plans to move aggressively against the tobacco industry in coming months by regulating cigarettes, raising per-pack sales taxes and ratifying an international antitobacco treaty, according to aides for key lawmakers and experts who expect the Obama administration to break a logjam on smoking issues. The measures, which even tobacco executives acknowledge as nearly inevitable, are ones that the Bush administration opposed, vetoed or declined to act upon but that President-elect Barack Obama, himself an intermittent smoker, supported as a senator.

6th January Times SKILLS DEVELOPMENT MORE CRUCIAL THAN EVER IN TOUGH TIMES High street store closures, profit warnings and the falling value of the pound - whether it's a story about slow sales or job losses, it is clear that managers and leaders have a lot to contend with. That doesn't mean that business models or structures, or the way in which we conduct day-to-day work, have to be altered overnight, but how you manage yourself, how you meet your customer needs and, as an employer, whether you are capable of leading your teams through the downturn are critical issues to consider for survival.

6th January Independent GRADUATES TURN THEIR BACKS ON CAREERS IN THE CITY The global economic crisis has led hundreds of elite graduates to eschew careers in finance in favour of lower-paid but "safer" jobs such as maths teaching, it emerged yesterday.

6th January Guardian COMPANY LEAGUE TABLES TO REVEAL MALE-FEMALE PAY GAP Companies could be "named and shamed" in league tables revealing pay inequalities between male and female employees under government plans to tackle the gender pay gap, the Guardian can reveal. The government's equalities office is drawing up an amendment to the equality bill that would force companies to publish figures in annual accounts showing the number of men and women in particular pay bands. The bill is due to be published early this year.

6th January Financial Times BOARDS WARNED OVER BACKLASH ON EXECUTIVE PAY UK boards must avoid the appearance of rewarding failure when approving executive compensation plans this year, lest they spark a political and regulatory backlash that could doom pay for performance, investor groups warned yesterday.

7th January Personnel Today MUSLIM BANK WORKER SUES HBOS FOR £16.7M FOR ALLEGED DISCRIMINATION Muslim bank worker Mona Awad is suing her former employer Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) for £16.7m for alleged sexual, racial and religious discrimination. The married 29-year old claims one boss accused her of sleeping her way to the top, while another said he'd watched her on holiday wearing a bikini. The same man is alleged to have mocked her while she fasted during Ramadan and to have said he did not want to work with Asians.

7th January Times CHINA FEARS YEAR OF CONFLICT AS MILLIONS STRUGGLE TO FIND JOBS China is bracing itself for a surge of violent protest this year when unemployed migrant workers try to find work after the Chinese New Year festival and millions of university graduates enter the jobs market. The country's rulers are anxious that celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule on October 1 should be unspoiled and are determined to avoid scenes of serious social unrest.

7th January Financial Times SATYAM CHIEF ADMITS TO FALSIFYING BOOKS The chairman of India's Satyam Computer Services has confessed to fixing the IT outsourcing company’s books for the past "several" years, the country’s first major fraud case to emerge following the global financial crisis. The systematic fraud over several years in a company listed in New York and Mumbai raises serious questions over governance and auditing, analysts said. PricewaterhouseCoopers was Satyam's auditor.

7th January Guardian BANKS AND POLICE AMONG MOST GAY-FRIENDLY EMPLOYERS The police service, banks and management consultants top the league table of gay-friendly employers in Britain, outperforming the public sector, the media and education, according to campaigning group Stonewall's latest workplace equality index. High street and investment banks fared particularly well, with Lloyds TSB rising from sixth in the 2008 table to take the number one slot this year, and Goldman Sachs winning 11th place. Professional services companies also performed impressively with KPMG, Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers all making the top 25.

7th January Telegraph LIB DEM LEADER NICK CLEGG WANTS FATHERS TO GET A YEAR OFF WORK Men should be given up to a year off work when they become fathers, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has said, as he prepares to take paternity leave himself. He says that men should be able to take over parental leave to allow their wives or girlfriends to return to work.

8th January Financial Times GAZPROM BATTLES TO RESTORE REPUTATION As the dispute between Russia and Ukraine appeared to be edging towards resolution, the cost of the showdown for Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas company, was already apparent. Gazprom has been caught in a very difficult position reports The Financial Times. In the short term, it needs to extract as much revenue as possible from Ukraine. In the long term, its tactics in the crisis could stand in the way of its ambition of becoming a leading global energy business.

8th January Financial Times D BANK DECLINED OFFERS TO INVEST WITH MADOFF Deutsche Bankwas approached dozens of times in the past two years to lend to hedge fund investors who wanted to funnel money to Bernard Madoff, but repeatedly turned down the opportunities because the money manager did not pass the bank's due diligence criteria. The approaches came from all over the world, from investors who were accessing Mr Madoff's funds through a wide variety of feeder funds, and continued into the last quarter, according to sources. The requests for leverage shared common threads, including refusals to allow any contact with the money manager and -references to "split strike" strategy - the language Mr Madoff used to describe his investing methods.

8th January Financial Times BURGER CHAIN BEEFS UP TRAINING RECIPE McDonald's, one of the first organisations other than exam bodies to be allowed to award its own qualifications, plans to follow this up by offering apprenticeships to all employees at the burger chain. Up to 6,000 of McDonald's 72,000 UK employees would be offered apprenticeships this year "providing staff with the opportunity to gain a valuable, nationally recognised qualification that is equivalent to five GCSEs grade A* to C", it said. It was among several businesses given the right last year to develop and award their own vocational equivalents to A-levels. Other companies included Network Rail and Flybe, the budget airline.

8th January Guardian RACE STILL A BAR TO BOARDROOM, REPORT SAYS The glass ceiling preventing talented black and minority ethnic managers from stepping up into top executive jobs is still rigidly in place despite a range of high-profile government diversity initiatives over the last few years, according to research. Boardrooms across the public and private sectors remain stubbornly white, says Business in the Community's Race for Opportunity report, 'Race to the Top', published today.

8th January Guardian SHOPPERS ADVISED TO TAKE ETHICAL LINE WHEN CHOOSING FISH SPECIES Britons are to be officially advised for the first time to eat ethically as well as healthily as the government tries to encourage people to adopt a more environmentally friendly diet. Fish eaters will be encouraged, by the Food Standards Agency, to turn to species not at risk from overfishing as well as to oily fish, consumption of which is less than half of what it would be if everybody followed official advice.

9th January Telegraph UK jobs market is getting tougher by the month, says Hays Recruitment company Hays has warned that "every month is getting harder than the last" for the job market, with a significant slowdown not just in the property and finance sectors but also IT, human resources and legal. Finance director Paul Venables said it is unlikely that the market will recover any time in 2009.

9th January Financial Times CHINA TIGHTENS GRIP ON INTERNET China has widened an internet crackdown on "vulgar" content to target 14 new sites, including Microsoft's MSN. The campaign, launched earlier this week, originally accused 19 sites including search engines Baidu and Google of undermining public morality. Late on Thursday it issued a progress update on the 19 sites originally targeted. Only three were deemed to have done a "relatively good" job cleaning up, and among those who "need to continue the clean up" is Google.

9th January Financial Times FINANCIAL BLOGGER ARRESTED IN SOUTH KOREA South Korea's officials stated that they had arrested an elusive blogger accused of undermining the country's financial markets with his doom-mongering, ending a case that has illustrated government unease with the growing influence of online gossip in the world's most-wired economy .The arrest and possible imprisonment of a web commentator will raise profound questions about freedom of speech in Korea, where bills that would crack down on civil rights are stirring tensions between lawmakers.

9th January Times AON IS FINED £5.25 MILLION AS FSA LAUNCHES CRACKDOWN The City's chief regulator signalled a crackdown on bribery on Thursday as it fined one of the biggest insurance brokers £5.25 million for anti-corruption failings. Aon Limited, a subsidiary of Aon Corporation, the risk management and insurance group, was found to have made numerous suspicious payments over a two-and-a-half-year period from early 2005 to late 2007. The fine was the first levelled against a company for failing to crack down on possible bribery and the sixth largest meted out by the Financial Services Authority.

9th January Guardian BILLIONS FACE FOOD SHORTAGES, STUDY WARNS Half of the world's population could face severe food shortages by the end of the century as rising temperatures take their toll on farmers' crops, scientists have warned. Harvests of staple food crops such as rice and maize could fall by between 20% and 40% as a result of higher temperatures during the growing season in the tropics and subtropics.

9th January Telegraph CHRISTIAN SEX THERAPIST 'REFUSED TO COUNSEL GAY COUPLES' A Christian relationship counsellor who was sacked after he refused to give sex therapy to homosexual couples has lost his case for unlawful discrimination. An employment tribunal ruled that the national counselling service Relate was entitled to dismiss Gary McFarlane after he said that encouraging gay sex went against his devout religious beliefs. The decision prompted Christian groups to demand a rethink of religious discrimination laws, following a string of other high-profile cases in which courts have found against Christians who claim they have suffered as a result of standing up for their beliefs.

10th January Times TWO MORE PONZI SCHEMES UNCOVERED The US Government moved to clamp down on fraudulent Ponzi schemes in the wake of the $50 billion (£33 billion) Bernard Madoff scandal, by charging two men for allegedly operating two similar schemes.

10th January Guardian LLOYDS FORFEITS $350M FOR DISGUISING ORIGIN OF FUNDS FROM IRAN AND SUDAN Lloyds TSB has agreed to forfeit $350m (£231m) to law enforcement authorities in the US after admitting breaking international sanctions by secretly channelling Sudanese and Iranian money into the American banking system. In the biggest penalty ever levied for a breach of US sanctions, the British bank has accepted responsibility for criminal conduct in a case involving the deliberate falsification of wire transfers to disguise their origin. The US justice department said last night that between 1995 and 2007, Lloyds routinely removed customer names, bank names and addresses from payments so that wire transfers would pass undetected through filters at US institutions.

10th January Times RAJU BROTHERS CHARGED WITH FORGERY IN $1BN SATYAM CASE B. Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced IT mogul behind India’s largest corporate fraud, was arrested yesterday on charges of cheating and forgery, according to an Andhra Pradesh state police chief. Mr Raju, the former chairman of Satyam, India’s fourth-largest out-sourcing company, was arrested with B. Rama Raju, his brother and co-founder, on charges of criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy, cheating, falsification of records and forgery. The Indian Government also disolved Satyam’s board yesterday and plans to appoint its own directors next week.

11th January Observer IRAQ VICTIMS SUE UK SECURITY FIRM Guards employed by Hampshire-based company are accused of opening fire on unarmed civilians and driving off, leaving them with severe injuries. One of Britain's largest private security firms is being sued over allegations that its men opened fire on unarmed civilians and then drove away, leaving an Iraqi brother and sister fighting for their lives. The case, the first of its kind brought by British lawyers against a private security contractor in Iraq, claims employees of Hampshire-based Erinys fired from a 4x4 vehicle at an approaching taxi in north Iraq.

11th January Sunday Times Lord Myners blasts investors
THE City minister Lord Myners has issued a “call to action” to institutional investors to police more effectively pay and risk in business. Myners, a former fund manager, has rebuked his former colleagues for failing to challenge some of the practices that became commonplace during the boom. He said: “Their ability to exercise an effective challenge on governance issues has not been as good as it should have been. Were they asking the right questions about strategy and risk appetite?” He added: “There are some big issues that the Association of British Insurers [ABI] should be speaking up about. The whole culture that the compensation structure was designed to encourage may not have been appropriate. There are issues around perceived fairness. It does not seem right that people in investment banking should be rewarded in the way – and the quantity – that they were.” http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5488943.ece

11th January Observer PRIMARK IN STORM OVER CONDITIONS AT UK SUPPLIER Britain's high street fashion giant Primark was at the centre of a storm last night over allegations that illegal immigrants in Manchester paid just over half the minimum wage had been employed to make fashionable knitwear for one of the firm's bestselling ranges. The firm agreed last night to remove all references to the Ethical Trade Initiative, the trade body that monitors Britain's top retailers, from its 140 storefronts across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The firm, as part of an agreement made with the ETI on Friday, must also remove ethical branding from thousands of tills and its corporate website while investigations continue.

11th January Independent on Sunday MPS TO PROBE REVOLVING-DOOR ADMINISTRATION A committee of MPs is set to grill Britain's top insolvency expert later this month over the use of so-called pre-packaged company administrations, amid concern the practice is being abused by ailing companies. Stephen Speed, head of the Insolvency Service, the industry regulator, will face the Business and Enterprise Regulatory Reform Committee on 27 January, with Tory chairman Peter Luff promising that pre-packs will be "at the top of our agenda". The revolving-door deals – where a buyer is lined up for a struggling business before it goes into administration – have hit the headlines lately with retailers Whittards, The Officers Club and USC – headed by Sir Tom Hunter – all using the facility. "There are growing concerns about the way some businessmen are using pre-packaged administrations as a way of getting out of their debts and other obligations," said Mr Luff.

12th January Ethics World SIEMENS AGREES TO LARGEST FINES FOR CORRUPTION IN THE HISTORY OF ANTI-CORRUPTION PROSECUTIONS Siemens AG of Germany, which is subject to U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation as its shares are publicly listed on the New York Stock exchange has agreed to pay the largest fines in SEC history. In total, Siemens has agreed to fines from U.S. and German authorities amounting to US$1.6 billion.

12th January The Telegraph PRIMARK NEEDS TO BE WHITER THAN WHITE Previous revelations about Primark suppliers exploiting workers overseas seem to have had little affect on the spending habits of the retailer's loyal shoppers. We will have to wait and see if claims that its suppliers are exploiting workers in Manchester (rather than Bangalore) and evading UK taxes prove more damaging.

12th January Financial Times BBVA MAKES CASE FOR SOLE EUROPEAN REGULATOR Francisco González, chairman of Spanish bank BBVA, has called for a single European financial regulator to manage the risks of cross-border banking and criticised greedy executives for focusing on their bonuses rather than the long-term future of their institutions.

12th January Management Today IS BUSINESS LOSING THE RACE BATTLE? Racial inequality in the UK workforce is actually becoming even more pronounced, according to a study of labour market figures by corporate governance charity Business in the Community. Although one in 10 people in the UK is from an ethnic minority group, the same is true of less than 7% of managers. Admittedly this proportion is on the increase – up 50% since the turn of the millennium, in fact – but the problem is, it’s increasing at a slower rate than the ethnic minority population.

12th January Management Today GOOGLE: SEARCH AND DESTROY? Research by Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University academic, has found that using the near-ubiquitous search engine to perform two searches produces ‘as much carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle'. The American physicist totted up the electricity a computer uses, as well as the power consumed by Google's army of data centres around the world, and worked out that the average Google search produces about 7g of carbon dioxide.

13th January Guardian FAST FOOD FIRMS TAKEN TO TASK AFTER SURVEY OF STREET LITTER Environmental campaign Keep Britain Tidy has called on fast-food companies to do more to tackle customers who drop their wrappers and drinks cartons in the streets. McDonald's material accounted for 29% of litter, Greggs 18%, KFC 8% and Subway 5%, according to the survey. Unbranded litter from fish and chip or kebab shops made up 21% of the fast food total, while other branded coffee rubbish totalled 5%.

13TH January Management Today TESCO FINDS INTSELF IN THE SLOW LANE Supermarket giant Tesco said today that UK like-for-like sales were up 2.5% in the seven weeks to 10 January – its slowest growth rate since the early 1990s, and well behind the 4.5% reported by Sainsbury’s last week. Tesco admitted that it was facing ‘challenging trading conditions in all of our markets’ – and although there was actually plenty to be positive about in today’s results (overseas and non-food sales, for example), the figures do suggest that its various promotions are having less impact on British shoppers than those of the other Big Four supermarkets.

12th January CSR Wire INVESTORS GIVE NEW TWIST TO "GOOD COP/BADCOP" A coalition of investors worth over USD 3 trillion has today launched an initiative to help police the corporate responsibility reporting of companies as diverse as Air France, GAP Inc and LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy). The 38 members of the international investor coalition have written to the CEOs of 130 major listed companies which are signed up to the United Nations Global Compact, a set of ten principles of corporate responsibility. By joining the UN Global Compact the companies commit to producing an annual corporate responsibility report known as a Communication on Progress (COP).

13th January Environmental Leader APPLE TRIES TO AVOID SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING Apple, praised for the environmental credentials of its latest products, has opposed to shareholder resolution that would require them to publish a corporate social responsibility (CSR) report. The resolution argued that many of Apple's direct competitors, including Dell, IBM, and HP, already publish CSR reports. Apple's board, however, has issued a proxy filing that asks shareholders to vote against this resolution, saying that the publication would be an unnecessary expense that would "produce little added value."

13th January Financial Times THINK-TANK TO SPUR REGULATORY DEBATE Leading regulators, central bankers and financiers will gather in the City tonight for the launch of a government-sponsored think-tank on the regulation of financial markets. The International Centre for Financial Regulation, which has backing from the Treasury and 19 financial institutions, was conceived in 2006 when a committee of politicians and financial executives were searching for a way to promote Britain's

13th January Financial Times WIPRO BAN DEALS BLOW FOR INDIAN IT India's outsourcing sector suffered a fresh blow on Monday when the World Bank revealed it had barred Wipro Technologies - the industry's third biggest outsourcing company by revenue - from doing business with it. The allegations against Wipro, which the bank accused of "providing improper benefits" to bank staff, come less than a week after news that the sector’s fourth largest operator, Satyam Computer Services, had been fixing its accounts in a fraud worth more than $1bn.

14th January Financial Times BARCLAYS HEADS GREEN 'LIST OF SHAME' Barclays and Citigroup attracted more criticism around their social and environmental records than any other financial institutions in 2008. The areas where the financial industry attracted most criticism were for its impact on ecosystems and landscapes; impact on communities; and global pollution, including climate change.

14th January Management Today SMALL FIRMS GET £20bn – BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BIG BOYS? Banks are increasingly withdrawing unused credit facilities from Britain's biggest companies, according to a new study by consultancy Roland Berger – and many believe that this will cause serious damage to their finances before the situation improves. On the day that the Government announced plans to guarantee £20bn of loans for small and medium-sized business, it's a timely reminder that their larger brethren are equally exposed to the slowdown in business lending…

14th January Management Today MANDELSON LAUNCHES £20bn FINANCE SCHEME FOR SMEs The Government has unveiled its plan to help small businesses get their hands on up to £20bn in loans. Business Secretary Lord Mandelson officially launched the Government plan this morning: it's promising to guarantee 50% of up to £20bn in loans from four UK banks, effectively pumping £10bn into the system to try and get credit flowing again. And there's more: there’ll also be an Enterprise Guarantee Scheme, in which the government will guarantee up to 75% of another £1.3bn in bank loans, and a £75m fund that allows heavily-indebted companies to swap debt for equity.

14th January Times GRADUATES LURED BY BUDGET STORE’S UNBEATABLE OFFER The discount retailer Aldi is named today as the best-paying graduate recruiter, offering a starting salary of £40,000, rising to £60,000 after three years, and an Audi 4 company car. The pay beats the £39,000 offered at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and the £38,000 at Slaughter and May, which top the list of law firms that make up most of the best-paying companies for graduates, according to a survey of graduate vacancies for The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers. It also compares favourably with the £38,000 offered by investment banks, which are cutting back on graduate recruitment.

14th January Financial Times GOVERNANCE CONCERNS EXTEND A REGIONAL THREAT In the aftermath of the capital flight from emerging markets sparked by the global economic crisis, investor groups have warned that a succession of corporate governance-related problems will make it harder for many markets to recover. Governance campaigners have remarked that the rapid pace of growth of the largest Indian and Chinese companies alone has placed enormous strain on the ability of Big Four accounting firms to ensure an even quality across audits.

15th January The Guardian GORDON BROWN LAUNCHES PACKAGE OF MEASURES TO BOOST SOCIAL MOBILITY Gordon Brown today said he was committed to giving everyone the opportunity to "achieve their potential" as he unveiled plans intended to improve social mobility.The proposals include offering the best teachers £10,000 bonuses to work in the worst-performing schools. The bonuses deal is intended to be a key plank of the reforms, which will also impose a duty on the public sector to narrow the gap between the rich and poor.

15th January The Guardian TESCO AND ITS BIZARRE CARBON ACCOUNTANCY The latest corporate responsibility report from Britain's biggest retailer admits to an 8.6% increase in its emissions in a single year, but says that it increased its "floor space" by 14%, so actually its carbon intensity "per square foot of net sales area" was down by 4.7%. Carbon intensity is the new gambit for companies trying to spruce up their green images. They're all doing it. And, sadly, last year the Advertising Standards Authority gave them a green light to carry on.

15TH January Management Today COOPER 'SORRY' FOR EQUITABLE LIFE A mere eight years after the near-failure of Europe’s oldest mutual society left over a million policyholders facing losses of about £4bn, Cooper told Parliament: 'I wish to apologise to policyholders on behalf of the public bodies and successive governments responsible for the regulation of Equitable Life between 1990 and 2001, for the maladministration we believe to have taken place.'

15th January The Telegraph PRIMARK HAS A BITTER-SWEET WEEK The chain, which sells cheap fashionable clothes that appeal to all shopper demographics, has today said that sales over Christmas were ahead of expectations - up 18pc, helped by an increase in retail selling space and very good like-for-like growth. On the downside, Primark has once again been criticised for its ethical standards. It has been claimed that one of the chain's suppliers allegedly breached all sorts of employment laws and ethical guidelines by employing under-paid foreign workers in a factory on Manchester. So what is better: profit or ethical standards?

15th January Times Online NEW HM REVENUE & CUSTOMS UNIT TO INVESTIGATE WEALTHY TAXPAYERS HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is creating a new unit to handle the tax affairs of the richest taxpayers as it steps up its drive against tax evasion. The unit will target high-net-worth individuals, particularly non-domiciles and multimillionaires, and will scrutinise their tax returns to ensure that all income is declared.

15th January Times Online SATYAM EXECUTIVES SOLD $2M IN SHARES BEFORE FRAUD REVELATION Senior executives of Satyam, the Indian outsourcing group, sold an unusually large number of shares in the company before it was revealed to be at the centre of India's largest corporate fraud, it emerged yesterday. News of the sales has raised further questions over who held suspicions about Satyam's affairs - and when.

15th January Financial Times SHOCK TACTICS: PFIZER USES BIG SCREEN IN COUNTERFEIT DRUGS FIGHT Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceuticals company, launches a hard-hitting cinema advertising campaign tomorrow to warn consumers of the medical dangers of counterfeits when illegally purchasing prescription medicines on the internet. The campaign reflects growing safety concerns - and commercial losses for the drug industry - caused by a rise in unregulated internet sales of medicines. Pfizer is one of the hardest hit by internet sales of medicines, since it produces a fifth of the top-selling prescription medicines in the UK by sales.

15th January Financial Times SOVIET SELL-OFFS LED TO DEATHS "Shock therapy", or rapid mass privatisation, in the former Soviet bloc in the first half of the 1990s was responsible for the early deaths of 1 million people that could have been prevented, according to a paper to be published in The Lancet medical journal. An analysis of the 3 million working age men who died across the former communist countries of eastern Europe suggests at least a third were victims of mass privatisation, which led to widespread unemployment and social disruption The study adds to growing research in recent years demonstrating how far the economic transition led to widespread suffering through death and physical and mental illness.

16th January Daily Mail DYING PATIENTS ARE DENIED DRUGS BUT THE OBESE GET £425 FROM THE NHS TO DIET The NHS is to pay fat people up to £425 to lose weight. Overweight men and women will get the handouts for meeting personal slimming targets. Ministers are backing the scheme amid warnings that the obesity epidemic could bankrupt the health service through soaring cases of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

16TH January Management Today UK PLC. FORCED INTO SERVICE A new study by the Institute of Customer Service has surprisingly found that satisfaction levels among British consumers are higher now than they were last year – and the ICS reckons it’s because companies are being forced to work harder to hang on to their customers. As the downturn bites, companies find themselves in a battle for dwindling custom – and they’re trying to improve their service to help themselves stand out from the crowd.

16th January Times Online POSTMAN TRICKED OUT OF £130,000 A postman spoke of his depression after losing £130,000 in an online fraud. Shane Symington, 32, formed a web friendship with an “American lady” and gave her £100,000 for fees so that she could inherit $2 million. He became suspicious and contacted what he thought was an FBI website, but it was another scam.

16th January Guardian WE CAN HAVE HUNDREDS OF EXTRA FLIGHTS A DAY AND STILL BE GREEN - MINISTERS BAA is expected to fast-track a third runway at Heathrow after the government yesterday backed expanding the airport as soon as possible after 2015.The government attached three green "sweeteners" to their proposal: The third runway would operate at half capacity when opened, raising the total number of flights from 480,000 a year to 605,000, rather than the 702,000 intended; aircraft using the new runway would meet strict greenhouse gas emissions standards; and carbon dioxide emissions from UK aviation would be limited to 2005 levels by 2050.

16th January Guardian MPS TO BE EXEMPT FROM PUBLISHING EXPENSES Ministers are poised to exempt all MPs and peers from having to publish details of their expenses, only weeks before MPs were due to be forced to disclose more than 1.2 million receipts covering claims for the last three years. Some have criticized the timing of the announcement regarding the proposed changes, released at the same time that as the government announced proposals to build a third Heathrow runway, compensate policyholders at Equitable Life and MPs debated the crisis in Gaza.

16th January Times CHEFS TO PUT CALORIE COUNT ON THE MENU Calorie counts are to appear for the first time on menus together with display boards in fast food outlets and restaurants in a new offensive to tackle obesity. With one meal in six now eaten outside the home, the Food Standards Agency is pioneering American-style calorie listings to help consumers to watch their weight. Pizza Hut, which has about 400 restaurants and 300 takeaways, has been the first to sign up to the voluntary scheme, which begins in the summer. McDonald's and Starbucks, which have calorie counts on signs and menus in the United States, are also expected to join.

16th January BBC News MAN REFUSES TO DRIVE ‘NO GOD’ BUS A Christian bus driver has refused to drive a bus with an atheist slogan proclaiming ‘There’s probably no God’. Ron Heather, from Southampton, Hampshire, responded with "shock" and "horror" at the message and walked out of his shift on Saturday in protest.

17th January The Independent WITH ETHICAL STOCKS STRUGGLING, IS IT TIME FOR SERIOUS INVESTORS TO DITCH THEIR MORALS? With energy companies, defence businesses and cigarette makers amongst the best performing companies last year, investors were forced to think twice about their itching consciences. But are ethical funds always a write off in a recession, or could now be the perfect time to rediscover your morals for a slice of significant long-term gains?

17th January The Telegraph CHURCH RAISES FEARS OVER HUMAN RIGHTS ACT The Church of England will open a new rift with the Government this week by expressing deep anxiety over its flagship Human Rights Act. In a paper published on Monday, the Church will voice concern over how the legislation is being interpreted and claim that it has been used by secularists to advance a liberal agenda. The document includes comments from Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who argues that the Act has encouraged individualism and intolerance.

17th January Times Online FIVE ADMIT DEFRAUDING INVESTORS OF £80M IN PROPERTY SWINDLE Five buy-to-let cheats have pleaded guilty to defrauding property investors of an estimated £80 million in a Ponzi-style scheme. The former directors of three Gateshead-based property companies used their victims' money to fund a lavish lifestyle in a scam that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) described as “simply staggering”.

18th January Times Online THINK TANK: THE FRAUD TAKING OUR FREEDOMS Common sense turned on its head — warped by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and magnified by Labour’s feckless Human Rights Act – allows human rights to be wielded to protect and compensate serious criminals rather than their victims.

18th January Times Online WARDERS OFFERED 51% PAY ‘BRIBE’ Thousands of prison officers have been offered pay increases of up to 51% as a “bribe” to surrender perks and reform working practices, a leaked Whitehall document has revealed. Critics believe the rises proposed by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, are misguided in view of the economic downturn.

18th January The Guardian TOP STORES CALL THEM ‘BUDGET FOOD LINES'. I SAY THEY ARE A DISGRACE Sales of supermarkets' 'value' products have soared in the recession. But, as Jay Rayner has discovered, the quality is dire. Here he asks why highly profitable supermarkets force the poor to buy and eat such low-grade food.

18th January Times Online POWER VACUUM AT REAL MADRID THE MOST valued footballer in history comes across as a benevolent young man, but it will not be held against Ricky Kaka if, listening to the extravagant offers made to him by his most recent suitors from Manchester City, he asks for thorough proof of their intentions. The last man to quote vast sums and unbounded enthusiasm for employing Kaka has just resigned from his job under a weight of evidence that he had been party to an act of fraud.

19th January Management Today TOUGH BREAK FOR KPMG STAFF The global accountancy giant has given its 11,000 UK employees the option to take a short period of leave or switch to a four-day week, in an effort to cut headcount costs - the hope being that it'll get enough volunteers to avoid having to make redundancies. KPMG apparently emailed all of its staff last week offering them the chance to take a four to twelve week sabbatical on 30% pay, or switch to a four day week (with the fifth day unpaid).

19th January The Telegraph BERHNARD MADOFF: HOW THE SCANDAL WORKED The story of exactly how Bernard Madoff kept a $50bn (£34bn) fraud silent for what could prove to be decades may never be fully known. But what is known is how he built up a core following of loyal investors who were all so willing to benefit from the promises of 10-12pc annual returns that they chose to ask few, if any, questions about how he was investing their wealthy.

19th January Financial Times BROWN ACCUSES RBS OF TAKING ‘IRRESPONSIBLE RISKS’ Gordon Brown on Monday unveiled a second bank rescue package including powers for the Bank of England to lend up to £50bn directly to businesses, as he accused the Royal Bank of Scotland of taking ”irresponsible risks” as the bank’s shares collapsed.

19th January Edie.net TOXIC FUMES LAND FIRM WITH FINE Veolia Environmental Services UK pleaded guilty to a total of eight charges of breaching health and safety and environmental protection laws. It admitted accepting waste it was not permitted to hold at its site in Bootle, on Merseyside, in April 2006, and storing it with another chemical substance, which caused the release of toxic fumes. The fumes left four employees needing medical treatment and caused side effects among people living nearby. The conviction was the result of a joint prosecution by the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive.

19th January The Guardian BRITAIN UNDER FIRE FOR FAILING TO JOIN RENEWABLE ENERGY LEAGUE Britain's attempts to position itself as a centre for the green power industry was dealt a blow yesterday when it emerged that ministers have refused to commit the country to a new international body set up to promote renewable power. The German environment secretary, who came up with the idea for the International Renewable Energy Agency, said he was disappointed countries such as the UK and America were dragging their feet. Britain is thought to be hesitant to put its name to the group because it is viewed with suspicion by the International Energy Agency established by the UK and the US after the 1970s oil shock.

19th January Globalethics.net POSSIBILITY OF TESTING FETUSES FOR AUTISM PROMPTS ETHICS DEBATE British scientists announced last week that they have developed a test that may enable a pre-birth screening for autism — a prospect that immediately sparked controversy in the European press. The condition is sometimes linked with high achievement; some worry that the test could screen out geniuses.

19th January Personneltoday.com HR JOBS SLASHED ACROSS UK The HR function as we know it is in rapid decline across local government, with further job cuts scheduled across the country. Last week councils nationwide announced scores of positions across management and back-office functions must go, following pressure to cut budgets accelerated by the credit crunch.

19th January Globalethics.net OBAMA'S ETHICS LANDSCAPE As Barack Obama takes the nation’s helm, his greatest challenge can be summed up in a single word: ethics. Really? Not economics? No. The nation’s economic crisis already has outgrown itself. The financial recession has morphed into an ethics recession. Increasingly, as the Madoff case makes clear, the core issue is no longer money and wealth, but character and integrity.

19th January Reuters MORE PEANUT PRODUCTS RECALLED, US PROBE CONTINUES US food companies recalled more products containing peanut butter as the US government continued its investigation into an outbreak of salmonella food poisoning that have may have contributed to six deaths. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it had traced a source of the contamination to a Blakely, Georgia processing plant owned by Peanut Corp. The FDA urged consumers to stop eating any commercially-prepared products made with peanut butter, or peanut butter served in institutional settings, saying it was still identifying products that should be recalled.

20th January Financial Times KENYA STARTS PROBE INTO MISSING OIL IMPORTS Kenyan authorities have launched an investigation into the disappearance of $100 million in oil imports as part of a corruption scandal that threatens to disrupt fuel supplies to east Africa. Among the institutions facing potential losses are Fortis, the troubled financial services group, and Glencore, the Swiss commodity trader. The case has revived concern among businessmen about graft in Kenya, which has been ruled by a fragile coalition government since last year's violent post-election crisis.

20th January Financial Times JJB SPORTS SUSPENDS CHIEF EXECUTIVE JJB Sports suspended Chris Ronnie, the retailer's chief executive, after launching an investigation into a transfer of shares he previously controlled. In a brief statement, the troubled company said Mr Ronnie had been suspended “pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation being conducted by its legal advisers into certain matters”.

20th January The Independent BLACK STAFF SACKED BY REFUGEE COUNCIL WIN DISCRIMINATION CASE The British Refugee Council has been ordered to pay one of its former employees £30,000 in compensation after a tribunal ruled that it was guilty of racial discrimination when it sacked the only two black people working at an immigration centre. The council must pay the amount to Zaina Ukwaju, who won a claim for unfair dismissal, victimisation and racial discrimination after losing her job as a detainee adviser at the Oakington immigration centre in Cambridge.

20th January The Guardian COMMONS 'TOO WHITE, STRAIGHT AND MALE', SAYS TREVOR PHILLIPS It cannot be right that the House of Lords is now more ethnically diverse than the House of Commons, the head of Britain's equalities watchdog warned yesterday. Trevor Phillips said that parliament might be the heart of Britain's democracy but its lifeblood remained "white, straight and male", with only 15 MPs from ethnic minorities. The chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission branded parliament "an outstanding example of racial, gender and disability exclusion", ahead of a "potentially historic" report by the Speaker's conference on representation in the House of Commons.

20th January Management Today NATIONALISATION CALLS MOUNT AS BANKS HAMMERED AGAIN As falling bank stocks increase the damage to the public purse, is nationalisation the least bad option? More grim news from the financial markets this morning, as Britain’s biggest banks took another pasting, and the pound sank to a seven-year low against the dollar. It’s increasingly clear that despite the latest Government bailout, investors have lost all confidence in banks – and they’re selling off their shares on both sides of the Atlantic.

20th January The Times SICK WORKERS ENTITLED TO FULL HOLIDAY PAY, EUROPEAN COURT RULES Workers on long-term sick leave are entitled to paid holidays, one of Europe’s highest courts ruled today. In a decision that clarifies the law after years of confusion, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that all workers are entitled to up to four weeks of holiday pay for each year they are on sick leave.

21st January The Guardian PRESIDENT OBAMA HAILS NEW 'AGE OF RESPONSIBILITY' President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address to the packed crowds on the National Mall in Washington DC, told his rapt audience that America needed a "new era of responsibility" to deal with both the financial and environmental crises his new administration faced. The new president's commitment to his environmental agenda shone through in his address with references to "rolling back" global warming through transforming the way America uses energy by harnessing "the sun and the wind and the soil". Obama hinted that the Bush administration's championing of fossil fuels had created grave problems - both climatic and geopolitical.

21st January Business Green UK GOVERNMENT POISED TO SET OUT CCS RULES The UK government will make an announcement in the next few weeks on what power companies must do to ensure their plants are ready to be fitted with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in the future, completing the groundwork for the long-anticipated decision on whether to approve plans for a new generation of coal-fired power stations, according to Business Green. The government has said previously that it will only grant approval for new coal-fired power plants, including the proposed plant at Kingsnorth Kent if they are "carbon capture ready".

21st January Edie.net DEPARTMENT FOR ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE SLAMMED FOR ENERGY PERFORMANCE RATING The Government department charged with making the UK more energy efficient has come under fire after its headquarters achieved the lowest possible efficiency rating. The Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) said it was just one example of "appallingly energy inefficient" public buildings which have come to light since October when all public buildings had to start displaying EPCs. ACE has urged Government to practice what it preaches when it comes to energy efficiency and set an example in all its buildings.

21st January The Times TESSA JOWELL’S ESTRANGED HUSBAND 'TOOK $600,000 BRIBE FROM SILVIO BERLUSCONI TO PAY OFF LOAN ON HOME' The estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, accepted a $600,000 (then £350,000) bribe from Silvio Berlusconi, a lawyer from the Italian Prime Minister’s office told a court. David Mills is alleged to have used the bribe to pay off a loan guaranteed by a home that he owned with Ms Jowell in London.

21st January Personneltoday.com UK unemployment hit 1.92 million between September and November 2008 UK unemployment hit nearly two million between September and November 2008, the highest total in more than a decade. The redundancies level for the three months to November 2008 was 225,000, up 78,000 over the quarter and up 101,000 over the year. This is the highest figure since comparable records began in 1995.

21st January The Independent FSA FINES WOLFSON MICROELECTRONICS FOR DELAY IN ANNOUNCING BAD NEWS The chip maker Wolfson Microelectronics has been fined £140,000 by the Financial Services Authority for improper disclosure after failing to immediately announce negative news last March. The FSA imposed the penalty for the breach, which it said led to a false market in the company's shares for 16 days, despite Wolfson having been advised initially by a PR firm that it did not need to disclose the news.

21st January The Times GORDON BROWN BACKS MOVE TO BLOCK FULL PUBLICATION OF MPS' EXPENSES Gordon Brown has imposed a three-line whip to force a move to block full publication of MPs' expenses through the Commons. According to The Times, Labour MPs could face sanctions if they rebel in tomorrow's vote on an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act that would exempt MPs from disclosing exactly how they have been spending their annual £22,000 second-home allowance. Public opposition is growing against the move, with almost 5,000 people signing a Facebook campaign led by mySociety, who run the "theyworkfor-you" website, to urge MPs not to push through the change.

22nd January The Times ETHICAL FIFE CHIPPY CROWNED FINEST UK FISH AND CHIP SHOP An ethically sound Scottish chippy has been crowned the UK's best fish and chip shop today. The Anstruther Fish Bar and Restaurant in Fife impressed the judges at the Fish and Chip Shop of the Year competition with its menu of ethically sourced North Sea haddock, Pittenweem prawns and Shetland organic cod from the world’s first sustainable solution to wild cod fisheries. The ten regional finalists were judged on areas such as customer service, and product quality as well as their commitment to building a sustainable future for the industry by sourcing their fish from well-managed stocks.

22nd January Reuters CHINA SENTENCES TWO TO DEATH OVER TAINTED MILK A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two men to death for their role in the production and sale of melamine-tainted milk that killed at least six children and made nearly 300,000 ill. The severity of the punishments handed down in the closed-door but closely watched trial appeared to be a nod to grieving parents and an outraged public just before the biggest Chinese holiday of the year.

22nd January Corporate Eye PRIMARK’S SWEATSHOPS: THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABILITY ASSURANCE Is Independent Sustainability Assurance The Solution? Bizarrely, this may be precisely where the problem lies. Independent auditing is widely recognised as a keystone in providing good quality assurance. However Corporate Responsibility Assurance is a very new field and like all the companies involved in the sector are still finding their way in it.

22nd January The Times ECOLOGISTS WARN THE PLANET IS RUNNING SHORT OF WATER A swelling global population, changing diets and mankind's expanding "water footprint" could be bringing an end to the era of cheap water. The warnings, in an annual report by the Pacific Institute in California, come as ecologists have begun adopting the term "peak ecological water" - the point where, like the concept of "peak oil", the world has to confront a natural limit on something once considered virtually infinite. A key element to tackling the crisis, say experts, is to increase the public understanding of the individual water content of everyday items.

22nd January The Independent SOMBRE MOOD AWAITS AT DAVOS “Chastened" is probably the word that best sums up the mood of participants preparing to travel to the annual World Economic Forum in the charming Swiss ski resort of Davos. What else could they be, after a year which has seen what the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has called the worst banking crisis since the First World War? And when one of their discussions, ominously, will be on "The Return of State Power"? No wonder some at Davos talk about the possibility of a code of ethics for bankers, similar to the doctors' Hippocratic oath.

22nd January The Guardian DOMINO’S JOINS RUSH OF CONFESSIONS TO HEAD OFF COLLATERAL DAMAGE Domino’s Pizza, JD Wetherspoon and Kazakhmys are among the latest companies to reveal that executives used company shares as security for personal loans. After news last month that Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross had used his stakes in four companies as collateral without telling his fellow directors, the Financial Services Authority has set a deadline of tomorrow for listed businesses to disclose whether shares have been used in this way.

22nd January Washington Post RUSSIAN TYCOON LEBEDEV BUYS LONDON'S EVENING STANDARD The Russian oligarch and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev signed a deal Wednesday to acquire a majority stake in the Evening Standard newspaper, London's largest regional newspaper. Other newspapers reacted cautiously, but not pessimistically, with some citing Lebedev’s history of journalistic independence in Russia and others noting that no one else was willing to buy the beleaguered Evening Standard.

23rd January Guardian SCHNITZEL OFF THE MENU AS GERMANS ARE TOLD TO CUT DOWN ON EATING MEAT Germany's federal environment agency has issued a strong advisory for people to return to prewar norms of eating meat only on special occasions and otherwise to model their diet on that of Mediterranean countries. Germans are among the highest meat consumers in Europe, obtaining around 39% of their total calorie intake from meat and meat products, compared with 25% in Italy. In its most recent Living Planet report the WWF said that a single kilogramme of beef requires 16,000 litres of water, taking into account a three-year lifespan for a cow, the grain it eats in its lifetime, and the water it drinks.

23rd January The Times BBC SCUPPERS TV FUNDRAISING APPEAL FOR GAZA VICTIMS A nationwide appeal for money to help the Gaza relief effort has been denied free television airtime because the BBC fears that it would damage confidence in the corporation’s impartiality. A 46-year-old agreement with overseas aid charities guarantees them a two-minute prime-time slot to broadcast appeals. But the BBC said that the risk of compromising confidence in its fairness, coupled with "question marks" about aid getting through, had led to its decision not to go ahead with this one.

23rd January The Guardian MERGER OF DATA IS A THREAT TO US ALL That careless fellow Jack Straw, who has just been ticked off for failing to list a donation with the register of members' interest, is no more diligent when it comes to the proposals contained in the coroners and justice bill that will allow government departments to sweep away laws that prevent sharing of people's data without their knowledge.

23rd January The Independent BRITAIN UNPREPARED FOR RECESSION CRIME WAVE Britain faces a "credit crunch crime wave", ministers were warned yesterday after figures showed increases in burglary, theft and knife robberies. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said there was "clear evidence" the recession was leading to increases in offences, while Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, insisted the Government was working to prevent the downturn leading to rises in criminality.

23rd January Financial Times INDIA'S OUTSOURCING CLIENTS ON THE LOOKOUT FOR RED FLAGS Indian outsourcing companies that typically manage highly sensitive client data, system hardware and business processes will now have to adhere to far more stringent governance checks in the wake of the Satyam scandal if they are to regain the trust of their global client base. Satyam's clients are already beginning the review process. Although most will not comment publicly, Nestlé says it is considering "alternative options" to Satyam and expects no disruption to its operations. Another, US-based State Farm Insurance, has terminated its contract with the outsourcing group.

23rd January The Times BT TAKES £340M WRITEDOWN AS IT ADMITS TO INFLATED PROFITS BT admitted yesterday that executives had overstated profits at the group's Global Services division for the past four years partly because of an overly aggressive policy for winning new business. The company was forced to take a £340 million writedown as it admitted that some of the contracts in the IT services unit were not as profitable as they had stated. Major BT shareholders said that yesterday's findings raised questions for the auditors, managers and possibly even previous senior management.

24th January The Guardian BAN ON US ABORTION FUNDING LIFTED AS BUSH IDEOLOGY IS ROLLED BACK President Barack Obama lifted the ban on US funding for international organisations that offer advice or perform abortions yesterday, as he expanded his project of rolling back George Bush's ideological agenda. Obama quietly signed an executive order late yesterday afternoon repealing the ban, called the "global gag rule" by family planning organisations because it prohibited groups from even discussing abortion. Christian and anti-abortion organisations were scathing.

24th January The Independent PASSPORT FACTORY THAT TOOK ORDERS BY TEXT MESSAGE Police have discovered what Scotland Yard described as one of the most sophisticated document forgery operations ever seen in the UK. Housed in the basement of a house next to Leyton Orient's football stadium in an unglamorous corner of east London, the workshop set up by Correa - a 24-year-old Brazilian immigrant - was capable of turning out thousands of virtually undetectable false European Union passports, identity cards, driving licences, national insurance cards and utility bills.

25th January Financial Times FUNDING DOUBTS FOR GIANT WIND FARM The economics of the world’s biggest offshore wind-farm project are "on a knife-edge", the chief executive of one of the companies behind it has warned, casting doubt on the UK government's energy strategy. Eon UK, the British arm of the German energy group, said the viability of its London Array project, a planned 1,000MW wind farm in the Thames estuary, had been called into question by the falling prices of oil, gas and carbon dioxide emissions permits. Energy companies are concerned about the cost of offshore wind power – roughly twice that of onshore wind because of the difficulty of installing and maintaining turbines at sea.

25th January The Financial Times WORLD WARNED OF ‘FOOD CRUNCH’ THREAT The world faces "the real risk of a food crunch" if governments do not take immediate action to address the agricultural impact of climate change and water scarcity, according to an authoritative report out on Monday. Chatham House, the London-based think-tank, suggests that the recent fall in food prices is only a temporary reprieve and that prices are set to resume their upward trend once the world emerges from the current downturn. Since December, wheat prices have risen 15 %, corn 17 % and soyabean 22 %.

25th January The Independent BRITAIN IS FACING RETURN OF THREE-DAY WEEK The prospect of the three-day week returned to haunt Britain yesterday as it emerged that ministers are considering paying firms to cut hours in order to survive the recession. Tens of thousands of businesses are already planning to scale back working hours this year in an effort to stay afloat. But as the country comes to terms with the reality of a recession, it emerged that the Government is looking at compensating employees, through their firms – thereby drawing comparisons with the shutdowns of the 1970s.

25th January The Times REVEALED: LABOUR LORDS CHANGE LAWS FOR CASH LABOUR peers are prepared to accept fees of up to £120,000 a year to amend laws in the House of Lords on behalf of business clients, a Sunday Times investigation has found. Four peers - including two former ministers — offered to help undercover reporters posing as lobbyists obtain an amendment in return for cash.

26th January Personnel Today FLEXIBLE WORKING RIGHTS SHOULD BE GRANTED TO PARENTS OF 18-YEAR OLDS SAYS TORY PEER
Flexible parental rights should be extended to parents of children who are aged 18 and under, said a Tory peer who has introduced a private bill on equality issues into Parliament. Currently only parents and carers who have children aged six or under have the right to request flexible working though the government plans to raise the age limit to 16.

26th January The Independent TESCO IN SECRET TALKS TO IMPROVE CHICKEN WELFARE
Tesco has been secretly meeting poultry farmers to discuss improving the life of its 200 million broiler chickens. Britain's biggest retailer, under fire for selling chickens for £1.99, attended its first meeting of a Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) group aimed at raising poultry welfare late last year.

26th January The Financial Times THANIN ADMITS OFFICE REVAMP A MISTAKE BUT DENIES SPEEDING UP BONUSES
John Thain on Monday said that spending $1.2m to redecorate his office last year was "a mistake", but rejected suggestions that he was solely responsible for speeding up bonus payments to Merrill Lynch employees ahead of its sale to Bank of America. In his first comments since being ousted from the combined group last week, Mr Thain also argued that Merrill had been "completely transparent" with BofA over the disclosure of a $15bn loss in the fourth quarter. Merrill's huge losses prompted Ken Lewis, BofA's chief executive, to ask for government aid to close the deal.

26th February The Financial Times CASH-FOR-LAWS CLAIMS PROMPT LABOUR REVIEW
Labour promised a review of the House of Lords' code of conduct on Monday as an MP wrote to the Metropolitan Police to demand an inquiry into allegations of improper lobbying by peers. An investigation by the Sunday Times claimed that four Labour peers would accept payment in return for trying to influence legislation. All the peers - Lord Taylor of Blackburn, Lord Truscott, Lord Snape and Lord Moonie - deny acting improperly. Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat frontbencher, said he had written to the Met demanding an investigation into two of the lords, Taylor and Truscott, because there was no way for the Lords to suspend or expel members itself.

26th January Computer Weekly BRITISH COUNCIL LOSES DATA ON 2,000 EMPLOYEES
A computer data disk containing the personal and financial details of around 2,000 members of the British Council has been lost. The data lost includes names, national insurance numbers and salary and bank account details of the Council's UK staff. The loss is the latest to embarass the government in recent months. Security experts have asked why the government doesn't send data over secure networks, rather than vans.

26th January Reuters RELIGIOUS LEADERS SEE ETHICS CRISIS
Many church leaders maintain that the world is facing not only an economic crisis but a meltdown of ethical values as well, according to a report from Reuters. "Honesty is honesty, the Rev. Jerry Johnson told Reuters. "It doesn't matter if you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever. A lot of these debacles we're seeing can be traced and sourced back to a lack of good old ethics."

26th January The Financial Times Watchdog says third runway is a mistake
The head of Britain's environmental watchdog has branded the third runway at Heathrow airport a "mistake", saying it is unlikely to be built because of the huge political uncertainty surrounding the project. Lord Smith of Finsbury, chairman of the Environment Agency, said there was "a very big chance" that the project would stall given the threat of legal action from campaigners and resistance from the Tories and Liberal Democrats. "I think they are making a mistake for a number of reasons," he said. "It [the opposition] will evidently make it much more difficult for BAA [the airports operator] to make the decision to proceed with extensive planning and design work," he said.

26th January Ethics Newsline MADOFF PROBE WIDENS, AND OTHER PONZI SCHEMES COME CRASHING DOWN
As economy tanks, so does influx of cash into financial scams - and there appear to be more scams than anyone imagined, according to reports. ABC profiled a variety of scams it called "Mini-Madoffs" that, while not on the same titanic scale, nevertheless involve millions of investors' dollars. The scams are being detected, reports ABC, as a result of the economic downturn: With a lack of money coming in, Ponzi schemes have no way to cover their machinations and are crashing left and right.

26th January The Financial Times Companies in UK pull out of wind projects
The UK is losing its attraction for renewable energy generators, putting future energy security and the government's climate change targets in jeopardy, Lord Smith has told the Financial Times in an interview. The chairman of the Environment Agency said he was concerned about several recent announcements from big energy companies that they were reconsidering plans for offshore wind farms.

26th January The Guardian HOSPITALS WILL TAKE MEAT OFF MENUS IN BID TO CUT CARBON
Meat-free menus are to be promoted in hospitals as part of a strategy to cut global warming emissions across the National Health Service. The plan to offer patients menus that would have no meat option is part of a strategy to be published tomorrow that will cover proposals ranging from more phone-in GP surgeries to closing outpatient.

27th January The Financial Times SHORTING RBS REAPS £270M FOR HEDGE FUND
Paulson & Co, one of the world's biggest hedge funds, has made a profit of at least £270m betting on a fall in the share price of Royal Bank of Scotland over the past four months. The scale of the profit is likely to reinvigorate the debate over short-selling, which has seen archbishops and politicians criticise the practice and the Financial Services Authority ban additional shorting of banks for months. Short sellers borrow and sell shares in the hope of buying them back for less and making profits after the price has fallen.

27th January Personnel Today MANDELSON IGNORES CALLS TO TOP UP CAR MAKERS' WAGES
The government has ignored calls from unions and car manufacturers to support workers during periods of reduced production because of falling demand. Although business secretary Peter Mandelson increased fnding for the Train to Gain scheme offered to the car industry to £100m, he did not address calls from unions and manufacturers to supplement the pay of workers who have had their hours cut during the economic downturn.

27th January The Guardian ENVIRONMENT AGENCY CRITICISES FINE AFTER THAMES WATER POISONED RIVER
Yesterday Thames Water was fined £125,000 for one of Britain's worst pollution incidents in recent years that occurred in south London in September 2007. However, the fine has been criticised by the Environment Agency as "not sufficient" to change company behaviour in future. The utilities firm was also ordered to pay £21,335 towards the clean-up and investigation. The company had already offered to donate £500,000 over five years to local angling and restoration groups.

27th January The Guardian BRITAIN'S BIG POLLUTERS ACCUSED OF ABUSING EU'S CARBON TRADING Scheme
Britain's biggest polluting companies are abusing a European emissions trading scheme (ETS) designed to tackle global warming by cashing in their carbon credits in order to bolster ailing balance sheets. The sell-off, largely thought to be by steel, concrete and glassmakers along with financial speculators such as hedge funds, has led to carbon prices plunging 60% - from over 30 to around 12 euros per tonne.

27th January The Independent PORTUGAL PM VOWS TO DEFEND HONOUR OVER MALL
Portugal's prime minister, Jose Socrates, is embroiled in an alleged corruption scandal over permission granted for a British development on protected land outside Lisbon. Police searched the home of Mr Socrates's uncle this week in connection with the affair, which is said to have taken place when Mr Socrates was environment minister in a previous socialist government. Britain's Serious Fraud Office is said to be investigating the unexplained transfer of some 4m euros to bank accounts in Portugal at the time of the deal, press reports say.

27th January Business Green.com STERN LAUNCHES UK CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH CENTRE
Lord Nicholas Stern, the influential author of the UK government's Stern Report on the economics of climate change, will today officially launch a new UK research centre, designed to undertake world-leading research on the economic and policy implications presented by climate change.

27th January The Financial Times COUNTRIES UNITE TO PROTECT GLOBAL TAX REVENUES
A concerted assault on the manipulation of tax losses by banks and other businesses will be spearheaded by Britain and other big countries in an attempt to limit the fall-out from the global downturn on public finances. The tax authorities will also launch a new focus on avoidance by mobile, wealthy individuals who make use of complex international structures, trusts and avoidance schemes.

27th January The Independent PLANS FOR SEVERN BARRAGE EMERGE
Britain's environmental movement was yesterday presented with its starkest choice yet: whether or not to support the world's largest-ever renewable energy project - a £20bn electricity-generating barrage on the river Severn - which will result in unprecedented ecological damage to one of the UK's most important natural habitats.

27th January The Independent DATA BILL 'WILL WIPE OUT PRIVACY AT A STROKE'
Sweeping new laws to allow ministers to release the private details of millions of people to a string of public bodies or private firms have been condemned as being "open sesame to a vast increase in government power". Under the proposals, ministers will be able to draw up new information-sharing orders that would allow them to release private data - such as tax returns, personal details or medical records - to any public or private body.

27th January The Times ORGANIC LOBBY ANGER AS SOIL ASSOCIATION BACKS FOOD BY AIR
The organic food watchdog has caved in to pressure from supermarkets to allow air-freighted produce to display the organic label. The Soil Association has retreated after being lobbied by supermarket chains including Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose and Asda, which want to continue selling air-freighted organic food.

27th January The Financial Times US 'READY TO LEAD' ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Barack Obama yesterday announced measures to reduce US dependence on fossil fuels but warned China and India they would not be excused from global efforts to tackle climate change. In a speech setting out his energy agenda, the US president vowed to push through tougher fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to consider allowing individual states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

28th January The Guardian AVIVA WARNS COMPANIES OVER PAY RISES
Aviva Investors, one of the City's largest investors, has warned companies that it does not expect any rises in boardroom pay this year at a time of heightened scrutiny of executive behaviour. The firm, which owns 2% of the stockmarket, said it wanted a "moratorium on pay rises" together with "considerable restraint and prudence" towards bonuses as the economy deteriorates rapidly and employees face redundancy.

28th January Edie.net FOOD FIRMS SIGN UP TO STOP FOOD WASTAGE
Some of the biggest names on the UK high street will be working together to stop shoppers wasting thousands of tonnes of food. The signatories of the Courtauld Commitment, including companies such as Asda, Warburtons and Waitrose, have signed up to work with WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) as part of its Love Food Hate Waste campaign. Fresh fruit and vegetables, bakery products, dairy, meat and fish products - the highest sources of household food waste - will be targeted by the initiative.

28th January The Times FRIENDLY FIRE FROM GREENPEACE E-MAIL BOMBING
Greenpeace is in trouble with some previously friendly Labour MPs after an e-mail campaign before today's Commons vote about the third runway at Heathrow collapsed some of their e-mail boxes. The group had asked the public to contact 57 Labour MPs who had indicated they would vote against the project. A Greenpeace spokesman responded: "This isn't an e-mail bombing, whatever that is. This is democracy."

28th January Workforce Magazine SABBATICAL PROGRAMS AID WORK/LIFE BALANCE SABBATICAL PROGRAMS CAN HELP EMPLOYEES REJUVENATE AS WELL AS SERVE AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO LAYOFFS.
In addition to family and medical leave programs, some employers offer their employees extended leaves of absence to pursue personal endeavors or just rejuvenate. Sabbaticals are a response in part to today's 24/7 work world, says Kathie Lingle, director of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Alliance for Work-Life Progress, a global human resources association. "We're just burning people out right and left," Lingle says. "Smart organizations are looking at how to keep people whole and sane with them."

28th January Ethos NOVARTIS: THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS REFUSES TO BACK ETHOS' RESOLUTION REQUESTING AN ADVISORY VOTE ON EXECUTIVE REMUNERATION
Ethos regrets that the Board of Directors of Novartis refuses to sponsor the resolution presented by Ethos and eight Swiss pension funds. The resolution resolves that the shareholders be given the right to cast an advisory vote on the remuneration report at the Annual General Meeting of 24 February 2009. This sharply contrasts with the decisions of the boards of Credit Suisse Group, Nestlé and UBS, which will proactively give a say on pay to shareholders at the 2009 Annual General Meeting.

28th January The Guardian RESULTS OF ANNUAL BRITISH SOCIAL ATTITUDES SURVEY RELEASED
The annual British social attitudes survey conducted by the National Centre for Social Research has found that voters are ready to accept a steep rise in air fares to reduce the environmental damage caused by flying and are more enthusiastic about the service provided by the NHS than at any time since 1984.

28th January The Financial Times BOA BONUS DEFERRAL ANGER
Bank of America is planning to defer bonus payments to some investment banking staff this year - a move certain to inflame tensions between its employees and officials of newly acquired Merrill Lynch, executives familiar with the matter say. Andrew Cuomo, New York attorney-general, is investigating Merrill's decision to accelerate the payment of nearly $4bn in bonuses - mostly in cash - to its employees, just days before the closing of its sale to BofA on January 1.

28th January The Financial Times PWC CHIEF IN INDIA AS POLICE STEP UP PROBE
The global head of PwC has rushed to Mumbai after police detained two of the firm's auditors over the scandal at Satyam Computer Services. Sam DiPiazza, chief executive officer of PwC, arrived in Mumbai as the firm's Indian arm suspended two of its staff, while police investigate the $1bn-plus fraud, India's worst corporate scandal.

29th January The New York Times WHAT RED INK? WALL STREET PAID HEFTY BONUSES
Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year. That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.

29th January The Independent FSA CHAIRMAN PULLS BACK FROM DIRECT REGULATION OF CITY PAY
The FSA chairman Lord Turner has said that although City pay structures had played a major role in the crisis, he was not sure direct regulation was the right approach. Lord Turner said the question was on how it was appropriate to intervene stating: "We may need to intervene to change the bonus culture and make remuneration within trading activities dependent on return over a long period of time."

29th January The Independent INTERNET USERS FACE BILLS FOR PIRACY CRACKDOWN
Broadband users could end up paying for a new body to tackle music and film piracy under Government plans to be announced today. Communications Minister Lord Carter will publish his Digital Britain report, which will outline plans to boost the internet and communications industries. The sector contributes more than £50bn to the UK, and the Government believes it will be the backbone of the nation's economy in the years to come. Dealing with the problem of people illegally copying and sharing music and films online is expected to be an important strand of the report.

29th January Environmental Leader INTEL AND PEPSI TOP EPA'S 2008 GREEN POWER LIST
Intel and PepsiCo topped the EPA's annual list of Green Power purchasers for the second year in a row, with Intel buying 1.3 million megawatt-hours - the largest renewable energy purchase in history. Overall, US businesses purchased record amounts of green power in 2008, with large commercial purchases driving the growth, according to the Center for Resource Solutions. Other top purchasers include Dell, Whole Foods, Johnson & Johnson, and Cisco.

29th January The Financial Times LONDON MADOFF COULD NOT HAPPEN, SAYS PRINCE
Bernard Madoff's alleged $50bn fraud could not have happened in London, according to Prince Andrew, who argued that the UK's system of "principles-based" regulation was not broken. "Madoff couldn't happen in London. It could never get to that scale," the Duke of York told the Financial Times at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The fact the UK had avoided the more rules-based US system meant that while fraud could still happen "we would have bowled something like that a lot earlier".

29th January The Independent SWITCHED ON: SUSTAINABILITY IS PLAYING AN INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE LAND AND PROPERTY BUSINESS
In the current economic climate, no one wants to waste money, and the priority for most businesses is making sure they're still around, and in a reasonably healthy state, whenever the recovery comes. Nowhere is this more true than in the land and property field, where the usual time frame for investment decisions is one of decades rather than months or years. So there's a powerful argument that this is a good time for those within the sector whose job it is to promote ideas of sustainability.

29th January The Financial Times PAID PEER WATERED DOWN LAW ON ALCOHOL
A peer who is paid by drinks companies presented amendments to water down proposed laws on making alcohol carry health warnings for pregnant women, according to the Financial Times. The private member's bill last year sought to impose mandatory rules on drinks labelling, including prison sentences of up to two years for executives of companies who failed to comply. Lady Coussins, a crossbench peer, opposed aspects of the proposals as "draconian" and submitted 27 amendments.

29th January The Financial Times UBS BANKERS FACE 80% BONUS CUT
UBS bankers were reeling on Thursday after the Swiss government said the bank would have to slash bonuses by more than 80 per cent after taking state assistance. One banker said employees were "shocked" at the news that the compensation pool would probably be less than SFr2bn (€1.34bn) - a fraction of the award for 2007 "No one in a rational world is saying we should be getting a bonus. But this is a realisation that we would have been better off working somewhere else," he said. The UBS cuts are the latest evidence of the extent of bonus cuts at investment banks.

30th January The Independent CRACKDOWN ORDERED ON FOOD LABEL LOOPHOLES
Supermarkets have been told by ministers to stop selling processed food containing cheaper foreign meat with labels suggesting it is British. A labelling loophole allows grocery chains to mark products as "Produced in the UK" if the last significant change to it took place in Britain, even if the main ingredient comes from abroad.

30th January The Financial Times TESCO TELLS SUPPLIERS TO CUT PRICES
Tesco's chief executive has told suppliers that they will have to bring down prices to help cash-strapped consumers in the latest salvo of what is shaping up to be a combative year for retailers and consumer goods makers. Sir Terry Leahy told the food industry this week that prices would have to come down on the back of falling commodity prices.

30th January The Guardian CARBON TRADING MAY BE THE NEW SUB-PRIME, SAYS ENERGY BOSS
The row over the working of the European Union's emissions trading scheme intensified last night when EDF Energy warned that speculators risked turning carbon into a new category of sub-prime investment. Green campaigners have long been critical of the way the emissions trading scheme was set up, but it is unusual for a leading industry figure to cast doubt on it, as power companies lobbied hard for a market mechanism to deal with global warming.

30th January The Financial Times CALL TO LIFT BASIC RATE OF REDUNDANCY PAY
The ceiling on statutory redundancy pay should be raised to ensure that sacked workers are properly compensated, union leaders said on Thursday. The government is under pressure to overhaul the maximum cap on legally required redundancy payments, which critics said has lagged well behind the growth in average earnings since its introduction in 1965. The maximum weekly amount used to calculate redundancy payments is due to rise from £330 ($470) to £350 from Sunday, but the TUC has called for this to be raised to £500 "to provide a financial cushion for the newly unemployed". It also wants the sum that people receive before they have to pay tax, which has been frozen at £30,000 since 1989, to be increased to £50,000.

31st January The Guardian I LOVE STRESS
Almost weekly there's a wellbeing survey, study or piece of research warning the nation's workforce that stress is coming to get them. It's the cloud on every employee's horizon. The Health and Safety Executive has calculated that work-related stress lies at the root of more than a third of all new incidences of ill health, while 13.5m working days are lost each year thanks to work-related stress, depression and anxiety. Could this national obsession with workplace stress be doing as much damage as it professes to prevent? If we tell ourselves that we are stressed at work won't we become just that, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

31st January The Guardian AS THE RECESSION BITES, WILL WOMEN BEAR THE BRUNT OF JOB LOSSES?
Ministers fear employers will cut female staff much more readily than male workers as the downturn accelerates. Some ministers have told Brown the government's recession package so far has been too masculine, pointing to greater job losses in the female-dominated sectors of retail and service industries than in the higher profile finance sectors and car industries that have received greater attention.

1st February The Financial Times BRITISH WILDCAT STRIKES CONTINUE
Britain faces a further round of wildcat strikes on Monday over the use of foreign labour, amid confusion over the government's response and threats of tit-for-tat recriminations from Italy. Ministers were working behind the scenes on Sunday night to stave off further action as the company embroiled in the dispute issued a statement stressing it was open to employing UK workers.

1st February The Financial Times INDIA TO FOLLOW $2,000 CAR WITH $20 LAPTOP
The Children's Machine, which received a cool reception in India, is the centrepiece of the One Laptop Per Child charity initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte, the computer scientist and former director of MIT's Media Lab. Intel launched a similar product, called Classmate, in response. India's "Sakshat" laptop is intended to boost distance learning to help India fulfil its overwhelming educational needs. However, some analysts are sceptical that a $20 laptop would be commercially sustainable and the project has yet to attract a commercial partner.

1st February The Financial Times NUMBER OF UK LONG-TERM JOBLESS SET TO SOAR
Long-term unemployment is set to rocket, with more than 300,000 people expected to join the ranks of those out of work for longer than a year, says the Department for Work and Pensions. The rise is so dramatic that officials have admitted that bidders for a flagship new £1.2bn welfare-to-work programme will have to revise radically their tenders for the contracts. The admission is a stark recognition by ministers of how rapidly the jobs market has deteriorated.

1st February The Financial Times STRAW PLANS TO TIGHTEN RULES IN LORDS
Peers are facing a clampdown on their behaviour in an effort to restore the "besmirched" reputation of parliament, under government plans that could see lords expelled for avoiding tax or breaking the law. Jack Straw, justice secretary, said he was planning to tighten rules to prevent a series of cash-for-influence allegations further damaging the standing of politicians.

Updated 2nd February 2009

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