The German Travel Association said that a growing number of tour operators are engaged in CSR in their businesses. A good example was Studiosus, which offers “study trip” holiday packages in cooperation with partners in local destinations. It is more up-market because the vacations tend to be expensive. A two-week vacation to Ethiopia, for example, would cost well over 2,500 euros ($3,400 dollars).

Another organization that offers “alternative” volunteer holiday packages is TravelWorks. It cooperates with local partners in different parts of the world. The company offers travelers a stay with a host family combined with social or environmental work in a local institution.

Nico Siegmund, a young German student teacher who participated in a TravelWork program in Ghana in 2009, was happy with his experience there. But he said he felt that it was too costly. Siegmund’s two-month volunteer holiday cost 960 euros without air fare, vaccinations, visa or other travel costs.

 ”It’s pretty expensive because you have to pay for everything yourself, so the flights, the vaccines, travel insurance and the stay,” Siegmund said.

The Greenpeace group calls Facebook’s use of coal powered plants, Facebook’s “dirty little secret” but honestly, there’s nothing secretive about it. As a Facebook spokesperson explained back in early February:

…Our new data center will be receiving our power through PacifiCorp, which like most utilities has a diverse generation portfolio including hyrdo, geothermal, wind and coal… When it comes online in early 2011, the new Facebook data center will also be one of the most energy efficient in the world, featuring an innovative cooling system created for the unique climate characteristics in Prineville, Oregon.”

In other words, it’s up to PacifiCorp as to what energy resources are used. Unfortunately it’s extremely easy to criticize a company for a poor energy policy because the majority of this country is still run on coal. Is it possible for Facebook to run off completely renewable resources? Possibly, but it doesn’t make financial sense right now.

Moldova is ranked 20th of the 20 countries in the Emerging Europe Region, a drop from 18th place in Q110 and is due to a significant drop in its limits of potential returns score. Moldova's placement is not expected to improve significantly in the short-term as the country is particularly vulnerable to the protracted economic downturn. Globally, Moldova is 67th of the 71 markets surveyed , below Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan and just above Venezuela and Nigeria. Moldova's pharmaceutical market was valued at US$208mn at the end of 2009 (up from US$199mn in 2008) and is expected to reach US$200mn in 2010. From 2009 to 2014, the pharmaceutical market is expected to post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.96% in US dollar terms, rising to a CAGR of 8.45% in US dollar terms to 2019. It is forecast that the drug market expenditure as a percentage of GDP will increase to 4.03% in 2010, up from 3.89% in 2009. This is expected to be the peak figure, before dropping steadily until the end of the forecast period. The EU has offered Moldova the prospect of closer ties in exchange for reforms within its Eastern Partnership program, which was launched in spring 2009. However, EU officials have made it clear that new association agreements with the six countries do not include a guarantee of full EU membership. Moldova started official association agreement discussions with the EU in January 2010. Moldovan Foreign Minister Iurie Leanca said that the country is entering a new phase in its European integration and that a new agreement with the EU would bring Moldova essentially closer' to the 27-member bloc. However, he admitted that his country has a lot of work to if it is to approach EU standards in many fields, primarily regarding the economy and in strengthening the rule of law. Unresolved issues include the failure to elect a new president following two rounds of elections in H109, further postponement of the new vote and the country's poor reputation for upholding of human rights. A major issue with the Moldovan healthcare system is the inequitable access to healthcare resources. Rural areas remain underserved with shortages of medicine and obsolete medical equipment causing quality of care concerns. Prior to its independence, Moldova had one of the most extensive healthcare delivery systems in Europe. However, following the 1991 proclamation of independence from the Soviet Union, the country was thrown into economic turmoil. In the late 1990s, the Moldovan government was forced to drastically reduce the number of healthcare facilities and hospital beds in the country, in response to the financial crisis that it faced at the time. Additionally, the Moldovan pharmaceutical distribution sector underwent a major process of privatisation in 1994 and today many pharmacies are now privatised Privatisation was undertaken to try to ensure an adequate and regulated drug supply in the face of an economic collapse as well as alleviating the state's consequent difficulties in running its own drug supply and distribution system.

Kalabagh dam which will increase the water resources of the country is being opposed while Thar coal project,which will consume huge amount of water and will contaminate all water,air and land resources of Pakistan is being adovcated by the governement Clean electricity produced by Kalabagh dam will be available to every one citizen of the country while thar coal project will pollute all water,air and land resources of Pakistan for every one.Thar coal will effect each and every living organism while Kalabagh will not only store water for the time of need but with the generation of electricity will increase the resources of water by sucking up the underground water resources and will provide the clean electricity . Coal is one of the most polluting sources of energy available, jeopardizing our health and our environment. While Kalabagh Dams will have multiple advantages and will act as electricity power house,water reserevoir and floods preventor generate electricity,Store water,will improve fertility of lands. The Effects of Coal on the Environment Coal as a source of energy is probably the most environmentally damaging of all the traditional sources of energy. One must keep in mind that a typical power coal plant generates 3 million tons of CO2 or 17 tons of carbon per megawatt and draws about 2.3 billion gallons of water per annum from nearby source while on land coal produces mercury which not only renders water useless for human consumption but also for irrigation purpose as well. Coal Power in a Warming World by Barbara Freese et al, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists in October 2008 states that “The underground mining of coal is a dangerous profession, and underground and surface mining are both highly damaging to landscapes, water supplies, and ecosystems”. The Natural Resources Defense Council paper entitled “Coal in a Changing Climate”, issued in February 2007 claims that “Coal mining—and particularly surface or strip mining—poses one of the most significant threats to terrestrial habitats in the United States.” Figures from “Key World Energy Statistics: 2008″ show that coal is responsible for 42% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. “Coal in a Changing Climate” shows that coal produces large amounts of airborne toxic chemicals, including sulfur dioxide, mercury, nitrous oxides, arsenic and lead. Coal is a highly polluting energy source. It emits much more carbon per unit of energy than oil, and natural gas. CO2 represents the major portion of greenhouse gases. It is, therefore, one of the leading contributors to climate change. From mine to sky, from extraction to combustion — coal pollutes every step of the way. The huge environmental and social costs associated with coal usage make it an expensive option for developing countries. From acid drainage from coal mines, polluting rivers and streams, to the release of mercury and other toxins when it is burned, as well as climate-destroying gases and fine particulates that wreak havoc on human health, COAL is unquestionably, a DIRTY BUSINESS. On one side China and India are planning to curb the Carbon emmision by curbing the use of oil,coal and other fossil fuels,and Bangladesh and Maldives are crying for taking measures against rise of seas due to global warming and on other side we Pakistanies are planning to use Thar coal which will not only pollute the whole environment of South Asia but will infact endanger the life of peoples living in Kashmir,Northern areas,NWFP,PUNJAB and Sind as the direction of smoke and dangerous gases will be from east to north west of Pakistan.And people of these areas will suffer from respioratory diseases such as Asthma,Bronchitis and cancer, and people of these areas will suffer from dangers and adverse effects of somking without somking the cigarrets. Already Polluted Atmosphere of South Asia South Asia is already suffering from the adverse effects of Brown cloud(Accumulation of Dirty gases in upper atmosphere of Subcontinent and is having negative effects on the heath of population of India and Pakistan ,Moreover there is already shortage of Ozone gas in the upper atmosphere of South Asia,due to which people of South Asia (India, Pakistan,Bangladesh and Sri Lanka ) are not having perfect healthy bodies as compared other reaces of the world.In view of such a bad condition of atmosphere burning the coal is just like to throw the people Pakistan into valley of death There are a number of adverse environmental effects of coal mining and burning, specially The glaciers of the Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindukush and Pamir ranges in Gilgit-Baltistan contribute significantly to the stream flow of the IBRS. More significantly, during the dry season these glaciers become the system’s only source. Impacts due to climate change on these glaciers have been studied in recent decades and vivid fluctuation of water flow in the Indus River Basin System has been reported. Conclusion: Due to flow of toxic gases and smoke from Thar Coal towards North and Western Pakistan,It is the responsibility of Jammu and Kashmir,Northern Areas,NWFP,Punjab and Sind Governments to review the adverse effects of Thar coal as it is the matter of life and death of the people of these areas.As unhealthy environment due to smoke and toxic gases will destroy the beauty of Vallies of Kashmir and Gilgit and Baltistan and will cause health problems such as cancer,asthma,bronchitis and other respiratory and genetic diseases due to environmental pollution in the people of Punjab,NWFP,Kashmir,Gilgit and Baltistan.

Conservation Groups Align with World’s Worst Polluters “Major environmental groups are coming under criticism from within their own ranks for taking positions that some say are antithetical to their stated missions of saving the planet. In the latest issue of The Nation magazine, the British journalist Johann Hari writes, “As we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world’s worst polluters—and burying science-based environmentalism in return…In the middle of a swirl of bogus climate scandals trumped up by deniers, here is the real Climategate.” (From Democracy Now) There is money in any issue in Washington, and global warming is no exception. No wonder climate change legislation has morphed into “green jobs and energy” legislation. John Kerry and others are working hard to pass a bill that will (likely) allow coal use to thrive and new oil to be drilled and lots of natural gas to be extracted and burned, at a very toxic cost. Our Congress just doesn’t get it. There should be a moratorium on taking any money from any fossil fuel industries, given what we are facing with global warming. (Yet Nancy Pelosi herself is a big investor in natural gas, for example). Climate change and global warming are the biggest issues humanity has ever faced, and governments are dropping the ball. However, it’s not just governments being corrupted by corporate cash — it’s also the very “Green” groups we depend on for climate action and Congressional pressure! Consider what we are facing already, according to Johann Hari, a columnist who wrote for The Nation — ‘The Wrong Kind of Green’: “I have spent the past few years reporting on how global warming is remaking the map of the world. I have stood in half-dead villages on the coast of Bangladesh while families point to a distant place in the rising ocean and say, “Do you see that chimney sticking up? That’s where my house was… I had to [abandon it] six months ago.” I have stood on the edges of the Arctic and watched glaciers that have existed for millenniums crash into the sea. I have stood on the borders of dried-out Darfur and heard refugees explain, “The water dried up, and so we started to kill each other for what was left.” Flooding in Bangladesh People don’t realize that flooding and other effects of climate change are already happening. That’s because the narrative, and the media, is focusing on human errors made in a few emails about some bad scientific practices at a little, obscure university that no one depends on for climate data anyway. We have other places where climate data is stored and gathered, including NASA, NOAA and places in Japan and Canada. Who needs East Anglia. The IPCC is now reviewing its practices of collecting data). The real Climategate is that big fossil fuel companies continues to foul the process of coming up with a real way to stop global warming by infusing environmental groups and scientific groups with their influential money. As Hari writes, “. . . . the addiction to corporate cash has changed the green groups at their core . . . . . . . This pattern was bad enough when it affected only a lousy household cleaning spray, or a single rare forest. But today, the stakes are unimaginably higher. We are living through a brief window of time in which we can still prevent runaway global warming.” I have noticed this myself. Some green groups are lowering their efforts on climate change and reducing their expectations. Also disturbing, see this article from Think Progress — ‘Grassroots’ Opposition To Clean Energy Reform Bankrolled By Foreign Oil, Petro-Governments If you are not someone who believes it is too late already to stop global warming, then you know we need to act very fast to stop the planet from further heating. However, even groups like the Sierra Club have been compromised by corporate cash. But wait, you say, why depend on environmental groups anyway — Democrats control most of our government. That’s true, but as green groups stop pressuring Congress as much as in the past, the people need to do it even more. If you haven’t already noticed, the Democrats get sidetracked by $$$ very quickly themselves. We need to convince them that we support strong action on climate change, because they don’t seem to know that. Here is more from the Hari article, which is definitely worth reading: While I witnessed these early stages of ecocide, I imagined that American green groups were on these people’s side in the corridors of Capitol Hill, trying to stop the Weather of Mass Destruction. But it is now clear that many were on a different path–one that began in the 1980s, with a financial donation. Environmental groups used to be funded largely by their members and wealthy individual supporters. They had only one goal: to prevent environmental destruction. Their funds were small, but they played a crucial role in saving vast tracts of wilderness and in pushing into law strict rules forbidding air and water pollution. But Jay Hair–president of the National Wildlife Federation from 1981 to 1995–was dissatisfied. He identified a huge new source of revenue: the worst polluters. Hair found that the big oil and gas companies were happy to give money to conservation groups. Yes, they were destroying many of the world’s pristine places. Yes, by the late 1980s it had become clear that they were dramatically destabilizing the climate–the very basis of life itself. But for Hair, that didn’t make them the enemy; he said they sincerely wanted to right their wrongs and pay to preserve the environment. He began to suck millions from them, and in return his organization and others, like The Nature Conservancy (TNC), gave them awards for “environmental stewardship.” Companies like Shell and British Petroleum (BP) were delighted. They saw it as valuable “reputation insurance”: every time they were criticized for their massive emissions of warming gases, or for being involved in the killing of dissidents who wanted oil funds to go to the local population, or an oil spill that had caused irreparable damage, they wheeled out their shiny green awards, purchased with “charitable” donations, to ward off the prospect of government regulation. At first, this behavior scandalized the environmental community. Hair was vehemently condemned as a sellout and a charlatan. But slowly, the other groups saw themselves shrink while the corporate-fattened groups swelled–so they, too, started to take the checks. Christine MacDonald, an idealistic young environmentalist, discovered how deeply this cash had transformed these institutions when she started to work for Conservation International in 2006. She told me, “About a week or two after I started, I went to the big planning meeting of all the organization’s media teams, and they started talking about this supposedly great new project they were running with BP. But I had read in the newspaper the day before that the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] had condemned BP for running the most polluting plant in the whole country…. But nobody in that meeting, or anywhere else in the organization, wanted to talk about it. It was a taboo. You weren’t supposed to ask if BP was really green. They were ‘helping’ us, and that was it.” She soon began to see–as she explains in her whistleblowing book Green Inc.–how this behavior has pervaded almost all the mainstream green organizations. They take money, and in turn they offer praise, even when the money comes from the companies causing environmental devastation. To take just one example, when it was revealed that many of IKEA’s dining room sets were made from trees ripped from endangered forests, the World Wildlife Fund leapt to the company’s defense, saying–wrongly–that IKEA “can never guarantee” this won’t happen. Is it a coincidence that WWF is a “marketing partner” with IKEA, and takes cash from the company? Likewise, the Sierra Club was approached in 2008 by the makers of Clorox bleach, who said that if the Club endorsed their new range of “green” household cleaners, they would give it a percentage of the sales. The Club’s Corporate Accountability Committee said the deal created a blatant conflict of interest–but took it anyway. Executive director Carl Pope defended the move in an e-mail to members, in which he claimed that the organization had carried out a serious analysis of the cleaners to see if they were “truly superior.” But it hadn’t. The Club’s Toxics Committee co-chair, Jessica Frohman, said, “We never approved the product line.” Beyond asking a few questions, the committee had done nothing to confirm that the product line was greener than its competitors’ or good for the environment in any way. The green groups defend their behavior by saying they are improving the behavior of the corporations. But as these stories show, the pressure often flows the other way: the addiction to corporate cash has changed the green groups at their core. As MacDonald says, “Not only do the largest conservation groups take money from companies deeply implicated in environmental crimes; they have become something like satellite PR offices for the corporations that support them.” It has taken two decades for this corrupting relationship to become the norm among the big green organizations. Imagine this happening in any other sphere, and it becomes clear how surreal it is. It is as though Amnesty International’s human rights reports came sponsored by a coalition of the Burmese junta, Dick Cheney and Robert Mugabe. For environmental groups to take funding from the very people who are destroying the environment is preposterous–yet it is now taken for granted. This pattern was bad enough when it affected only a lousy household cleaning spray, or a single rare forest. But today, the stakes are unimaginably higher. We are living through a brief window of time in which we can still prevent runaway global warming.. . . . “

So, without a doubt, nuclear power fails the safety, economic and reliabilitytests. Is it, however, flexible? Not so much. Over the last year it became much more clear that the problem with nuclear (and coal) power stations is that they are too inflexible to be able to fit in energy system with higher percentages of renewable sources. The nuclear industry responded by saying that reactors could ‘load-follow’ (which means they rapidly adjust their power output according to fluctuating demands for electricity). However this depends very much on the power plant design. French nuclear corporation AREVA’s so-called state of the art third generation EPR reactor design has already been criticised for lacking this flexibility. French utility EDF who are building an EPR at Flamanville in France have tried to prove the contrary and ordered design changes that would make the reactor able to respond to changing power demands. Unfortunately this ambition has been stymied by the EPR’s own safety system. The proposed design for the EPR’s reactor core means that it will not be able to rapidly increase or decrease its power output. That is, it won’t be able to ‘load-follow’. Countries looking to adopt the EPR may now face a choice: lots of centralised, inflexible electricity generation or decentralised flexible power generated by renewables. The two don’t go together at all well. Expect a lot of pressure from the centralised power industry in the coming months. The battle for the control of the grid is about to begin.

One of the most common criticisms leveled at Greenpeace is that it is too mainstream but that is the least of their worries. Paul Watson, who was kicked out of Greenpeace in the 1970s went on to set up Sea Shepherd. By then Greenpeace had summarily shut down its community-building operations, terminating more than 300 employees in the US alone. But that was only the start of a litany of events which has drawn critics from all sides of the political spectrum. In the 1990’s Icelandic filmmaker Magnús Guðmundsson, director of the documentary Survival in the High North and a prominent critic of Greenpeace spoke out against them. Gudmundsson’s criticism focused largely on the social impact of anti-whaling and anti-sealing campaigns, which according to him and many others have had disastrous affects on the native people of Iceland, Greenland and Canada, who depend on these activities for subsistence. After lobbying efforts by Greenpeace, Guðmundsson’s documentary was judged to be libellous by a Norwegian court in 1992, and he was ordered to pay damages to Greenpeace. Greenpeace also supports the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, a legally binding international agreement which aims to phase out substances such as DDT. However, both the Stockholm Convention and Greenpeace allow DDT to be used for malaria control. Libertarian critic Paul Driessen claims the permit process has been so elaborate that up to 85% of USAID toward Malaria control is spent on environmental consultants needed to comply with the convention. According to Roger Bate, a libertarian critic of Greenpeace, the organizations campaign to shut down the last major DDT factory in the world located in Cochin, India, would make the eradication of malaria more difficult for poorer countries. In 1994, an anti-nuclear newspaper advert by Greenpeace UK was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority because of false and unsubstantiated information. This included a claim that nuclear facilities Sellafield would kill 2000 people in the next 10 years, and an image of a hydrocephalus-affected child purported to be a victim of nuclear weapons testing in Kazakhstan. Greenpeace did not admit fault. Greenpeace have also recently been involved in another controversy when they attacked Facebook. At issue is the Web site’s planned new data center in Prineville, Oregon. The utility company that serves Prineville uses coal to get most of its power, and Greenpeace hates dirty burning coal. So it has stated a group on Facebook, oddly enough, to protest. It is not asking for Facebook to move the center but said in a statement: Facebook should change the terms of its power purchase agreement with (power company) PacifiCorp so that it is powered with renewables before the Oregon data center goes online. That they support a fraud such as man made global warming is hardly surprising. They have well and truly hopped on this bandwagon and it has become one of their most important sources of funding. Yet they still refuse to acknowledge the mounting evidence that it is a hoax often with embarrassing results. So for Greenpeace it is business as usual because ‘you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’ when there is so much money at stake. You have to wonder about a charity which is heavily funded (see financials) to the tune of many millions of dollars from the Turner Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Trust and other so-called ‘philanthropist’ organizations who use environmental groups such as Greenpeace not only as tax write offs nor because they are in touch with the earth. Historically the Rockefellers have always financed both sides in wars and this is no different to them. It is clear that this degree of funding has allowed Greenpeace to be hijacked by corporate interests and turned into controlled opposition. So next time you are accosted on the street by some ‘well meaning idiot’ don’t feel guilty for snubbing them. If you are feeling game you could always educate them on the fact that the funds given by gullible people but often honest people never go to where it is supposed to but they are funded by the likes of the Turners and the Rockefellers whom many claim are really the ones who pull the levers of power in the world.

The world's largest tourism fair ITB Berlin is on. One of the growing trends in this industry is corporate social responsibility. But more steps need to be taken for tourism to lastingly benefit developing countries. Africa is becoming increasingly popular as a tourist destination. Figures by the UN World Tourism Organization show the continent will show an average growth rate in tourism of over five percent per year by 2020. But Burghard Rauschelbach, head of the tourism and development program at the German Association for Technical Cooperation GTZ, said that such figures do not accurately reflect the realities of tourism in every African country. "Tourism activity for sub-Saharan Africa increased, but it's a matter of the destination and country," Rauschelbach told Deutsche Welle.Gambia, Senegal, the Seychelles and Swaziland saw a decrease in visitors, for example. On the other hand, tourism increased in South Africa, which captures about one-third of the 30 million visitors annually to sub-Saharan Africa.   Rauschelbach said South Africa's popularity was due its "variety for different target groups." The country offered safaris, adventure, cultural and beach holidays, as well as ecotourism.  Countries do not always benefit  It is not a coincidence that sub-Saharan Africa's most developed country also happens to be the leading tourist destination. The industry adds billions of dollars to the South African economy. It is expected to make up about 12 percent of the country's GDP by the time the World Cup in soccer kicks off there in June.  But even though tourism may boost economies, it has not always been beneficial to overall development. In large numbers, tourists can overwhelm local culture and traditions. Locals may not benefit much when the working conditions are bad, Rauschelbach said. More diversity in the products and services that are offered was needed in order for tourism to contribute to development. TourismWatch, an NGO affiliated to the Protestant Church's Development Service EED, studies the effects of tourism on development. Its head Heinz Fuchs said that tour operators should incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their concepts, that is companies integrating social and environmental concerns in their business operations. This would allow tourism to contribute to progress in poor countries, Fuchs told Deutsche Welle. This trend is one focus at the tourism fair ITB Berlin, taking place in the German capital this week. A CSR day is being held on Thursday.