Press office & press releases

New evidence that speculation on food by hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks is fuelling the rise of bread and other basic foods has been released by anti-poverty campaigners on World Food Day, October 16, 2010.

WDM condemns the link between public money and Cairn’s Arctic drilling. RBS underwrote loan to oil company one month before it acquired rig for arctic drilling.

The US Senate is expected to approve a landmark bill on Wall Street reform later today, covering bank bonuses, financial transparency of complex derivatives, regulation of hedge funds and food markets. This legislation will send shockwaves across the global financial sector, but WDM fears that proposals for a similar EU crack down of the banks may not be backed the UK government.

The World Development Movement reacted angrily to today's Royal Bank of Scotland's annual results and bonuses announcements.

WDM is campaigning for RBS to phase out its investments in mining companies like Vedanta and projects, like oil extraction from tar sands that are linked with controversial human rights violations. They are arguing that the bonuses awarded for investments that hurt the lives of ordinary people and the publically owned bank should be benefitting society in the UK and around the world.