The New York Times reports on how banks who have been kept afloat with public funds can afford to lobby legislators enough to prevent public interest legislation being passed:

The outcome left some Democrats frustrated and fuming. “This is one of the most extreme examples I have seen,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, shortly before the vote, “of a special interest wielding its power for the special interest of a few against the general benefit of millions of homeowners and thousands of communities now being devastated by foreclosure.”

PFI contracts have been less than transparent. The Guardian, 1 June 2009,  reports on a new study that helps to show the reality behind the spin:

As much as £2.4bn could be saved if the NHS bought out the private finance contracts signed by the government to build new hospitals, an economic study has claimed.

Leonard Doyle, writing in the Telegraph on 31 May 2009, reports on the US court case where Shell executives face accusations of complicity in the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa;

"If you call off the campaign, maybe we can do something for your brother." A New York court will claim this week that Brian Anderson, Shell's former top official in Nigeria, used those words when asked to intercede with the country's military regime to save activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa from being executed.

Jeremy Scahill, writing for Antiwar.com, considers the implications of Ralph Peters contention that:

Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts, and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.

Peter Preston, writing in the Guardian, argues that reform of Westminster must include looking at lobbying practice:  

We need greater transparency on members' interests and, most of all, independent scrutiny – and no more self-policing

Richard Silverstein, writing in The Guardian, believes that:

The Israel lobby is aiming to soften up US public opinion for an attack on Iran.

The Guardian reports that:

America's oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5m in the first three months of this year in an intense effort to cut off support for Barack Obama's plan to build a clean energy economy.

The New York Times reports that the fossil fuel industry knew as early as 1995 that their activities posed a significant risk:

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

The Guardian report that EDF, who now own British Energy, appear to have been caught spying on Greenpeace:

An EDF security executive, who previously worked as a police commander, is being investigated for conspiring to hack into Greenpeace France's computer system. Judges are investigating whether state-owned EDF, the world's biggest nuclear-reactor operator, hired a private detective agency run by a former member of the French secret services to illegally spy on environmentalists and infiltrate their ranks.

The Guardian reports on documents released by Whitehall, under pressure from the Information Commissioner, that detail insider access for the aviation industry to Government decision making:

Department for Transport civil servants repeatedly met aviation industry chiefs in advance of the decision to back a third runway at Heathrow, even though they told environmental groups that there was a blanket ban on meetings with any external bodies

Is the Fourth Estate doing its duty? Peter Wilby, in the Guardian, is scathing:

In America, the satirist Jon Stewart has been shredding the reputations of the country's top financial commentators by digging out TV clips of them from 2006 and 07 - before the world financial crisis took a grip - offering hilariously foolish advice. The BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, told the Observer that no such satire would be possible in the UK. "The evidence isn't there of a complacent, or self-satisfied, or lazy, or unduly optimistic media," he said. Oh, yeah?

 

Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

The Times Higher Educational website reports on how a booklet intended to promote the impartial discussion of GM technology fails to list contributors' links with industry:

For example, the guide's biography of Vivian Moses, emeritus professor of microbiology at Queen Mary, University of London, and visiting professor of biotechnology at King's College London, does not mention that he is also chairman of CropGen, a GM lobby group that receives funding from the biotechnology industry.

It says only that he has been "a full-time researcher in biochemistry and microbiology" and is now "primarily concerned with communicating science to the public".

An analysis conducted by the Financial Times shows that the House of Lords gives access to lobbyists under a scheme meant for genuine researchers or secretaries:

Lord McNally, leader of the Lib Dems in the Lords, told the FT he was “shocked” by the extent to which external organisations had passes.

“The process of giving out passes which are supposed to be for bona fide researchers or secretaries should stop,” he said.

Tom Griffin, 28 January 2009

With Labour peers facing growing scrutiny over cash for laws revelations, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency couldn't have hoped for a more propitious backdrop for its meeting at Westminster this morning.

Among the speakers were MPs Kelvin Hopkins and Gordon Prentice of the Public Administration Select Committee, which has made the case for a register of lobbyists in its report Lobbying: Access and Influence in Whitehall.

The New York Times point to a problem for President-elect  Obama's  new lobbying rules:

Mr. Obama’s selection of Mr. Daschle and Ms. Browner to high-level positions illustrates a potential loophole in his pledge of keeping special interests at a distance.

The ethics code that Mr. Obama imposed on his transition team takes a hard line against lobbyists.

People are disqualified from working on any matters they lobbied about within the past year, and currently registered federal lobbyists are barred from playing a significant role — regardless of the issues they lobby about. But Mr. Obama’s embrace of Mr. Daschle and his presumed choice of Ms. Browner suggest that he will take a softer line on lobbying by the spouses of the officials in his administration.

The novelist Arundhati Roy, in an essay published in the Guardian, argues for an honest response to the Mumbai  attacks. She advocates looking beyond the narrative presented by the media to see the real choices faced by all of us:

But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.