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Call for Danish and European regulators of the EU’s illegal timber ban to answer for potential failures to enforce rules against the Danish “conflict timber” trader

Sunday 8th February, 2015: HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, according to a huge cache of leaked secret bank account files. (The Guardian)   HSBC has bankrolled logging companies causing widespread...  

In a significant victory for press freedom, diamond billionaire Beny Steinmetz has failed in a bid to force Global Witness to hand over source material gathered in a corruption investigation after the UK’s data watchdog upheld statutory protections for public-interest journalism.

THE world has made enormous progress in recent decades in the fight against poverty. But, as 2014 draws to a close, 1bn people — one in seven— still live on less than $1 a day. Changing much-cherished bank- secrecy laws is worth the effort. Corruption, tax evasion, and the capture of natural-resource revenues undermine the rule of law, weaken the social fabric, erode citizens’ trust in...  

At the end of 2015, the nations of the world will meet in Paris and attempt to hammer out a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. And Pope Francis hopes that the world’s Catholics, as well as other major religions, will be a big part of serious climate action.

Forestry body Coillte has refused to tell the Irish Government how much it is paying its top executive.

The importation of illegally-logged timbers is unethical and also threatens Irish jobs: By William Merivale - Farming INDEPENDENT

Covert GPS surveillance of timber trucks by Amazon campaigners has shown how loggers evade the authorities. Much of the timber is laundered and sold to unwitting buyers in the UK, US, Europe and China, Greenpeace revealed this year.