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Barclays chief Antony Jenkins announced today that the bank would stop speculating on food, saying the practice is “not compatible with our purpose”. It is unclear whether the bank will continue to broker speculative deals for its clients. Campaigners have renewed calls for tough regulation to prevent speculation fuelling price spikes and contributing to the global hunger crisis.

Jenkins announced the move today as part of the bank’s strategic review. He said the end to the bank’s trading in agricultural commodities for speculative purposes was an example of Barclays “putting its words into action”. He told UK MPs last week that he would build a “socially useful” bank and “shred situations where we're short-termist, too aggressive and too self-centred.” But Jenkins made no commitment to change the bank’s speculation on other commodities, such as oil, which has a knock-on impact on food prices.

World Development Movement campaigners protesting outside Barclays' 2012 AGM

Until now, Barclays has been the leading UK bank involved in speculation on food including staples like wheat, maize and soy. The bank...

Goldman Sachs made up to an estimated £251 million (US$400 million) in 2012 from speculating on food including wheat, maize and soy, prompting campaigners to accuse the bank of contributing to a growing global food crisis.

Goldman Sachs is recognised as the leading global player in financial speculation on food and other commodities, and created the first commodity index funds which allow huge amounts of money to be gambled on prices.

Anti-poverty campaign group the World Development Movement released the estimate today following the publication of Goldman Sachs’ 2012 results. The group is calling for tough rules to curb financial speculation on food, to prevent banks and hedge funds driving up prices.

The US has passed legislation to limit speculation, but the controls have not been implemented due to a legal challenge from Wall Street spearheaded by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, of which Goldman Sachs is a leading member. Similar legislation is on the table at the EU, but the UK government has so far opposed effective controls. Goldman Sachs has lobbied against controls in both the US and the EU.

Christine Haigh, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said today:...

The 18th annual Conference of the Parties (COP 18) took place in Doha, Qatar between 26 November and 8 December. Like last year’s conference in Durban, the stakes were high, with the world coming ever closer to the point of no return on climate change and the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s only legally binding emissions reductions treaty, due to expire at the end of 2012.

In the event, despite an agreement to approve new extremely unambitious targets for a second commitment period for Kyoto running to 2020, the conference was characterised by inaction on emissions cuts on the part of the rich developed countries and increasing despair amongst poor countries.

For a start, big emitters Russia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand joined the USA in refusing to join the second commitment period for Kyoto at all, meaning that legally binding emissions targets will apply to the EU, Norway, Switzerland and Australia alone. But the target agreed (just a 20 per cent drop on 1990 levels) is nowhere near the 40-50 per cent cuts that developing countries were calling for and, once carbon offsets are factored in, translates to only a minimal reduction on current emissions. 

And while limits were placed on the carrying over of excess ‘hot air’ carbon permits from the first...

Barclays Bank has hinted it is considering pulling out of food speculation due to ‘reputational risk’. The World Development Movement is calling on the bank to commit to ending its involvement in commodity markets, and is urging George Osborne to back tough rules to curb speculation at a European level.

Rich Ricci, chief executive of Barclays’ corporate and investment arm, told the UK's Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards yesterday, “If I decided to stop trading soft agricultural products it is not driven by regulation. It is because it doesn’t sit socially well with the large constituent of our customers”, according to the FT newspaper.

Barclays is the biggest UK player in food commodity markets, making up to an estimated £500 million from speculating on food prices in 2010 and 2011.

The World Development Movement’s director Deborah Doane said today:

Barclays appears to be relying on the police force of public opinion to tell it that speculating on food prices is wrong, rather than acknowledging its own moral responsibility. This is precisely why it is essential that strong regulation is introduced. Food speculation has devastating consequences, and George Osborne and...

WDM has reacted with concern to international development secretary Justine Greening’s announcement today that no new British financial aid grants will be made to India with immediate effect, and that from now on UK aid to India will focus on private sector projects designed to help the poor while generating a return.

Responding to this news, Alex Scrivener, policy officer for the World Development Movement said:

“It is worrying that the UK government has decided to cut all financial aid to India, which is home to a third of the world’s poorest people. While there may be a lot of money within the Indian elite, the country remains a very unequal society, with around half a billion people living in extreme poverty.

“But what is more worrying, is that UK aid money will continue to be spent on private sector projects that support the interests of big business rather than the poor. In the Indian state of Orissa, UK aid has been used to draft a government policy giving free land and tax breaks to auto-component multinationals and promote public-private partnerships in health and education – a model that has served only to fill the pockets of big business at taxpayers’ expense here in the UK. In neighbouring Bangladesh, UK aid money has helped set up ‘...

A vote in the European parliament today failed to remove loopholes in new regulation to prevent banks driving up food prices through financial speculation.

MEPs voted in favour of limits to speculation, but allowed loopholes to remain which risk rendering the new rules ineffective.

Campaigners in the UK sent more than 14,000 messages to their MEPs this week, asking them to stop food speculation by banks and hedge funds pushing food prices beyond the reach of millions of the world’s poorest people.

World Development Movement campaigner Christine Haigh said:

Watertight regulation is essential if we are to stop excessive speculation fuelling devastating food price spikes. If it remains in its current form, the controls will be too weak to properly tackle speculation. Now it’s down to George Osborne and his fellow finance ministers to back strict rules.

George Osborne and other European finance ministers are due to vote on the proposed regulation on 13 November.

More detail

If the amendments to remove the loopholes had been passed, they would have:

• Ensured that the limits apply to all commodity contracts, for their full duration,...

The World Development Movement’s director Deborah Doane has responded to predictions that poor harvests in the UK will lead to rising food prices, warning that financial speculation could send prices soaring even higher. 

Deborah Doane said today: "Food prices are rising steeply due to poor harvests, and if the 2008 food price crisis is anything to go by, we may see financial speculation driving prices up even further in the coming months.

"In the absence of effective regulation of the finance sector, banks and hedge funds are effectively gambling on food prices.

"Here in the UK, the poorest people are already cutting down on fresh fruit and vegetables because they can’t afford them. In developing countries, where people spend up to 90 per cent of their incomes on food, price spikes force millions of people to go hungry.

"Banks like Barclays, which made an estimated £500 million on food prices in 2010 and 2011, are taking advantage of changing prices for their own gain. Unless we stop this by regulating the finance markets, speculation will turn the current price rises into an even greater crisis for people both in the UK and worldwide."

On the eve of the Tory party conference, photos of people holding messages asking George Osborne to regulate food speculation will be projected onto the wall of the Tory party conference.

On Saturday night, WDM's ‘photo petition’ will be projected onto Birminghan's International Convention Centre before moving it to a series of locations around the venue in Birmingham.

The World Development Movement is calling on the Chancellor to back European regulation to curb financial speculation in commodity markets. Speculation is fuelling price volatility and pushing food prices beyond the reach of millions of people in developing countries. 

Campaigners from WDM were joined today by Friends of the Earth Europe, Campact and SOS Faim to spell out ‘Stop food speculation’ using hundreds of pots and pans in front of the European parliament building.

The 925 pots and pans used represented the 925 million people facing hunger worldwide. The protest comes on the day of a key vote by MEPs on proposals to prevent banks and financial investors driving up food prices through financial speculation.

MEPs are voting today on a raft of proposed financial reforms known as MiFID (the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive). WDM is calling for strict rules to stop speculation driving food price increases and price volatility. 

Campaigners handed over a petition with over 100,000 signatures from across Europe on Wednesday to the lead MEP for the legislation, German Markus Ferber, and lead MEPs from the other main political groups.

The World Development Movement’s director Deborah Doane said: “We are experiencing the third food price spike in five years, and each one forces millions of people into poverty and hunger....

Deborah Doane, director of anti-poverty group the World Development Movement, has commented on Justine Greening’s appointment as international development secretary:  

“On Andrew Mitchell’s watch, UK aid policy took an alarming turn towards promoting the interests of business over the needs of the world’s poorest people. His admission last year that Britain’s foreign aid programme to India was partly designed to sell Typhoon fighter jets clearly showed this shift.

"Justine Greening’s previous support for tough climate change laws suggest a stronger commitment to justice than her predecessor. Her challenge will be to reverse the direction taken by Andrew Mitchell, and to ensure that aid is truly a contribution to global equity, not a business opportunity.”

The World Bank's latest Food Price Watch reveals stark rises in food prices. Among the most striking statistics are:

• In July, world food prices jumped 10 per cent.
• Maize prices hit a record level after rising 25 per cent in that month.
• The price of maize in Mozambique, where people spend over half of their income on food, more than doubled between April and July.
• South Africans faced a 27 per cent hike in wheat prices during those three months.
• Over the last year, maize prices soared by 174 per cent in Malawi.

The Bank identifies drought as the key driver of the price rises but the World Development Movement is warning that financial speculation is exacerbating the scale of the spikes.

On Sunday, David Cameron will attempt to capitalise on the international presence in London for the Olympics to convene a ‘hunger summit’ – but campaigners have warned that the prime minister’s big business approach ‘risks entrenching the root causes of hunger’.

Political and business leaders and humanitarian groups at the summit are expected to announce a new target to reduce child malnutrition by the next Olympic Games in Rio in 2016. Former England football captain David Beckham has presented a letter to David Cameron urging him to tackle deprivation of essential nutrients early in a child’s life, which causes stunted growth.

The World Development Movement’s food campaigner Amy Horton said today:

“It’s great that David Cameron is using the Olympics to focus attention on the need to reverse the rising incidence of child malnutrition. But by promoting the role of big business in developing countries’ food markets, his approach risks entrenching the root causes of hunger.  

“Increasing the power of multinational companies over the world’s food is not going to improve child nutrition. Instead of corporate land grabs, we need local control over the resources on which food production depends. We need governments to be able to regulate international...

On the final day of the Rio+20 summit, the World Development Movement has slammed the lack of commitment from rich industrialised countries in the Rio+20 agreement, and has condemned the UK government’s use of the summit to push for the privatisation of nature. 

Kirsty Wright, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said:

Rio+20 has produced a pathetically unambitious document devoid of solid commitments and packed with diplomatic fudges and ambiguous language. This will do nothing to solve the multiple crises we face.

The UK government, ignoring developing countries’ solid opposition to its plans to put a financial value on nature, has used the summit to push forward its ‘great nature sale’, which would see control of resources like water and biodiversity taken from the people who depend on them, and handed over to multinational companies.

Role of the UK government 

Kirsty Wright said:

The UK government has used the Rio+20 summit as a smokescreen for pushing forward the interests of bankers and multinational corporations. As we steamroll towards environmental destruction and ever growing gap between rich and poor, the UK and its allies are championing the same broken...

European proposals for the regulation of the commodity markets are inadequate to prevent excessive speculation from contributing to food price spikes, according to a new report released today.

Proposals discussed yesterday by the European parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) committee rely on a system of ‘position management’ or ‘position checks’ to prevent market manipulation and excessive speculation from distorting commodity prices. But the report, from the World Development Movement, argues that the proposals are doomed to failure and that a system of position limits is essential.

Financial speculation on the commodity markets is fuelling price volatility and contributing to price spikes, increasing food bills for consumers and driving up hunger and poverty.

The report, ‘Back to fundamentals’, shows that:

• Position limits are the international norm for regulating the commodity markets.

• Position limits have a track record of success - US markets functioned effectively for...

The UK’s financial regulator is compromised by corporate capture and is increasingly acting as a lobbying arm for the sector it is supposed to regulate, a new report reveals today.

The report, ‘Financial Services Authority: watchdog or lapdog?’, by the World Development Movement, documents how funding from the City of London, a board dominated by figures from the banking sector, and a rapidly revolving door have led to a close relationship between regulators and the financial sector. 

The report exposes the Financial Services Authority (FSA)’s use of its resources to influence financial reform legislation in the financial sector’s favour. It argues that the regulator is working to prevent effective regulation of the commodity markets, where financial speculation has contributed to sharp spikes in food prices.

A text drafted last week by an FSA secondee in the European parliament has proposed to severely weaken European Commission proposals to regulate the commodity markets, failing to reflect the concerns of many MEPs.

FSA staff have been seconded to every UK and EU institution involved in financial reform, and are lobbying MPs in the European...

Campaigners from the World Development Movement will protest at Barclays’ AGM tomorrow, exposing Barclays’ role in fuelling global hunger by betting on food prices.

Where: Entrance to the Barclays AGM, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London SE1 8XX

When: 10.30-11.30am, Friday 27 April

Two suited, blue masked Barclays ‘eagles’ on Barclays bikes will join protestors holding placards reading, ‘Barclays banks on hunger’.

The campaigners also staged an award ceremony outside Barclays HQ in Canary Wharf today to hand over a ‘shame award’, which the bank won for speculating on food prices.

The World Development Movement estimates that Barclays made up to £189 million from speculating on food in 2011. The bank is the biggest UK player in commodity markets, and claims to be in the global top three. Massive influxes of speculative money in food markets have been driving sharp price spikes, sending the cost of food soaring beyond the reach of the world’s poorest people.

Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, currently in the spotlight over his £17.7 million pay package, responded to the Occupy movement by telling the BBC in November that banks must be “better citizens”. Diamond...

A private equity fund backed by Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) is under criminal investigation by the European Union and Nigerian anti-corruption authorities for its alleged involvement in fraud and the laundering of millions of dollars looted by James Ibori, the ex-Governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State, according to an inquiry to be aired tonight by BBC Newsnight.

The revelations come on the day that Ibori faces sentencing at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to ten counts of money-laundering and fraud. Ibori, who is reported to have stolen up to US$3 billion from Delta State’s coffers, was extradited to the UK from Dubai, after fleeing Nigeria. 

The Metropolitan Police Service's Proceeds of Corruption Unit which successfully prosecuted Ibori is funded by DfID. 

But in a shocking revelation by BBC’s Newsnight, DfID’s wholly owned private sector development fund, CDC Group, has financed three Nigerian companies [1] that are said to have acted as money-laundering fronts for Ibori [2]. CDC’s investments in the companies were made through Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) [3], a US private equity fund [4]. 

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (a specialised police unit also funded by...

UK consumers are paying 3.7 per cent more for food than they did a year ago, leading to calls for the Chancellor George Osborne to tackle financial speculation on food prices. The rise has added more than £100 to the average household’s annual grocery bill.

Inflation figures released today reveal that food prices rose by 1.2 per cent from January to February this year, contributing to the 3.7 per cent annual rise, which is well above the government’s 2 per cent target for overall inflation. [1]

Ahead of tomorrow’s budget, the World Development Movement is calling on George Osborne to back European measures to stop financial speculation by banks and hedge funds driving up food prices. Real incomes in the UK are shrinking and almost a billion people face hunger worldwide, but curbing speculation would help prevent price spikes and would cost the Treasury virtually nothing, says the anti-poverty group.

High prices are also harming British businesses. Premier Foods, owner of Hovis, yesterday announced a £259.1 million pre-tax loss for 2011, partially due to rising wheat prices. The global price of cereals rose by 35 per cent from 2010 to 2011. [2]

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement...

WDM today welcomed the Scottish government's announcement of the setting up of a ‘climate justice fund’ for climate adaptation in developing countries, but warned that the scale of climate injustice suffered by countries in the south means that the SNP's £9 million manifesto pledge for the fund must be increased.

 Liz Murray, head of Scottish campaigns for the World Development Movement said:

“We welcome the Scottish government’s announcement of its ‘climate justice fund’ and its acknowledgement that Scotland owes a huge climate debt to the world’s poorest people.  Scotland got rich on fossil fuel energy at the expense of poorer countries who are now suffering the impacts of climate change.   And on a planet with limited capacity to absorb carbon, the rich world has left the rest of the world with little room to take the same development path. But the scale of climate injustice should not be underestimated, and if Scotland is going to make a fair contribution then the SNP government’s manifesto pledge of £9 million for this fund must be increased.

Cutting emissions here in Scotland is also a vital part of ensuring climate justice. That means the Scottish government must say no to a new coal-fired power station at Hunterston, to...

Barclays’ £1.5 billion investment banking bonus pool could pay for school meals for two years for the 23 million primary age children who attend school hungry across Africa, according to figures from the World Development Movement.  

The anti-poverty group has slammed the bank for its involvement in speculation on food prices which is fuelling global price spikes, incentivised by bonuses which it claims reward risky and socially damaging behaviour. 

The total bonus pool for the bank’s investment arm could pay for 9.6 billion meals, the campaign group said today.  

Barclays has been estimated to make up to £340 million a year from speculating on food, while almost a billion people go hungry worldwide. The World Development Movement is calling for tough regulation to curb speculation on food. The group has claimed today that big banks’ ‘bonus culture’ fuels gambling behaviour that risks people’s lives. 

Christine Haigh, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said today:

Big bonuses encourage bankers to take big risks, not only with financial stability through their debt-based investment, but also with people’s lives. The kind of ‘success’ Barclays has...

By the end of tomorrow (Friday 13 January 2012), the average person in Britain will have emitted as much carbon dioxide as the average person in Kenya will in an entire year, according to figures from the World Development Movement. 

The latest available data shows Kenya’s annual per capita carbon emissions at 0.293 tons, while the UK’s are 8.351 tons. Despite having such little responsibility for causing climate change, Kenyans are facing some of the worst weather related disasters globally. Last year, Kenya and neighbouring East African countries suffered their worst drought in 60 years, resulting in a severe food crisis.

By 2 January the average UK citizen had already emitted as much CO2 as the average person in Chad or Afghanistan will by the end of 2012.

By 16 January the average Brit will have emitted as much CO2 as the average Bangladeshi will all year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that Bangladesh will face an increasing number of disasters due to typhoons and tropical storms.

By 1 March a UK citizen will have emitted as much CO2 as the average citizen of India will do all year. An estimated 700...

Barclays Bank has been shortlisted for the 2012 Public Eye ‘shame award’ due to its financial speculation on food prices. Anti-poverty campaign group the World Development Movement, which nominated the bank, says its activity is fuelling hunger and poverty worldwide. 

Barclays is estimated to make up to £340 million a year from speculating in food ‘futures’ markets, making it the biggest UK player in the markets. Research by the World Development Movement shows that a massive influx of speculative money in food markets is driving sharp price spikes, sending the cost of food soaring beyond the reach of the world’s poorest people. Financial speculation on food nearly doubled between 2006 and 2011.

Barclays CEO Bob Diamond responded to the Occupy movement by telling the BBC in November that banks must be “better citizens”. But Barclays has ignored calls from campaigners to put the basic human need for food before the profits it makes from speculation.

Amy Horton, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said today:

Barclays is essentially gambling on food prices, at the expense of millions of people...

Durban, 16:45, 9 December 2011

As negotiations on the final outcome of the UN climate talks look set to continue late into the night, negotiators remain focused on the EU’s proposed roadmap to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a package that makes the same demands of poor developing countries as it does of rich industrialised countries. The talks have paid almost no attention to the two most urgent issues for developing countries: emissions reductions by developed countries, and finance to help people in poor countries cope with climate change.

On the last day of the talks, Murray Worthy, policy officer at the World Development Movement said:

“The UK and EU’s talk of a new global deal is little more than a distraction from their inaction. The EU is failing to take responsibility for its part in causing climate change.  It should be taking the lead through meaningful action. Instead, the EU ‘roadmap’ has been a smokescreen for developed countries’ failure to do what is needed. It is the world’s poorest people, those least responsible for this crisis, who will end up paying the highest price.”

The talks look set to result in a new Green Climate Fund to deliver finance to developing countries. But the World Development Movement...

Talk of a long-term climate deal to cut carbon emissions is allowing industrialised countries to delay taking action, says World Development Movement policy officer Murray Worthy, writing from Durban.

The main story coming out of the UN climate talks in Durban so far has been whether or not the summit can agree to start negotiations on a new long term deal. The EU doesn’t want to talk about much else, and many media reports are focusing on whether developing countries like China and India will come on board. However, lurking behind the positive spin of a new ‘comprehensive deal’ lies the truth – developed countries are ignoring their responsibility and failing to act, and the clock is ticking. Talk of a ‘Durban mandate’ is little more than a smokescreen.

Unless you’re Lord Monckton or Lawson, the science is clear. No one at this summit disputes that humans are causing climate change. At the climate talks in Cancun, countries pledged to keep temperature rises below 2C, thought to be a key...

A report launched today by the World Development Movement reveals that UK climate aid is being used to produce cheap electricity for the US multinational Walmart, through a project that violates the rights of indigenous people in Mexico.

The report, ‘Power to the people?’, details how money taken from the UK aid budget has been used by the World Bank to finance wind farms in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, built without the consent of the indigenous people who own the land. The project produces enough electricity to power 160,000 homes, but is instead being sold at a discounted rate to Walmart. The project is 99 per cent controlled by French electricity giant EDF.

The La Mata and La Ventosa wind park is part funded the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund, which receives 14 per cent of its money - or £385 million – from the UK overseas aid budget. The fund’s objectives include poverty reduction, but the wind park has done nothing to increase energy access among the seven per cent of Oaxaca’s population who have no electricity.

Local indigenous woman Bettina Cruz Velazquez told the World Development Movement:

With the pretext of advancing renewable energy, big corporations are occupying our...

• Chancellor George Osborne parodied by the World Development Movement and writers Hoot Comedy
• Comedy series calls on George Osborne to ‘do the right thing’ and back regulation of food speculation by banks
• Speculation is driving high food prices worldwide. High food costs have pushed the food bill for the average UK household up by £188 [1]in the past year, and are forcing  millions of people in developing countries into poverty and hunger

UK Chancellor George Osborne is being re-imagined in a brand new internet comedy series starring Rufus Jones (Holy Flying Circus) which premiers today (22 November) at www.therealgeorgeosborne.com. The Real George Osborne follows George and his long-suffering advisor, Vicki, as he tries to raise his political profile in a bid to become the next Prime Minister.

Filmed in 14 parts and airing between now and Christmas, The Real George Osborne sees George undertake a number of ill-advised PR stunts in order to compete with Boris Johnson as ‘the most recognised Tory’ and unseat David Cameron. Our bumbling Chancellor takes street-dance lessons, enlists a full-time reality TV crew and struggles with fad diets to try to improve his image.

The...

UK money will be used for a ‘climate loan’ to Jamaica, increasing its already heavy debt burden, following a decision by the World Bank this week.

Campaigners have condemned the loan, which will drive the Caribbean nation deeper into poverty. Jamaica’s foreign debt stands at $2,500 per person, and the country spends $1.2 billion a year on debt repayments. The government’s foreign-owed debts are 55 per cent of national income, making it's debt burden one of the heaviest in the world.[1]

The $10 million loan agreed this week is intended to help Jamaica adapt to the effects of climate change. But campaigners say countries like the UK should give climate funds as grants rather than loans.

Jubilee Debt Campaign spokesperson Tim Jones said today:

Debt has devastated lives across the world, bringing economic collapse and diverting money from essential public services. The Jamaican government already spends $450 per person annually on debt repayments, more than on education and healthcare combined. The World Bank and UK government should be cancelling Jamaica's debt, not adding to it with new unjust climate loans."

...

Plans for EU financial reform to be announced today are expected to be insufficient to tackle soaring global food prices, say campaigners from the World Development Movement.

Proposals to be released in Brussels today for a major overhaul of the EU’s financial architecture are set to include measures to increase regulation of commodity markets, where banks and hedge funds speculate on the price of food. But a leaked draft revealed a series of loopholes which campaigners say would make the proposed rules “completely ineffective” in preventing financial speculation from driving up food prices.

The US has already moved to curb excessive speculation on food prices, and on Tuesday American regulators voted to introduce limits on the largest speculators’ involvement in food markets. French President Nicholas Sarkozy is pushing for tough European regulation, but UK Chancellor George Osborne, influenced by the City of London, is understood to be blocking tighter controls.

European commissioner for the internal market, Michel Barnier, who is expected to announce the EU plans today, has spoken out in favour of regulation, telling the European Parliament in January last year, “Speculation in basic foodstuffs is a...

More than 450 economists from over 40 countries have called on the G20 finance ministers, who are meeting in Paris this week, to take urgent action to stop financial speculation in commodity markets driving up food prices and fuelling hunger. 

'Excessive financial speculation is contributing to increasing volatility and record food prices, exacerbating global hunger and poverty,’ say the economists in a letter to the finance ministers. ‘With around 1 billion people enduring chronic hunger worldwide, action is urgently needed to curb excessive speculation and its effects on global food prices.

Economists from top universities including Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley, Cornell and the London School of Economics have signed the letter, adding their voices to an escalating international campaign. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Pope, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz are among those who have already spoken out in favour of curbing speculation.

The G20 agriculture ministers have also called on their finance counterparts to introduce tighter regulation. Speculation is...

International financial regulators have called today for tighter controls on financial speculation in commodity markets, but anti-poverty campaigners the World Development Movement have branded the regulators’ rules as ‘too weak’, saying they will not tackle the growing hunger and poverty caused by speculation on food prices.

The International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), representing regulators from 115 countries, has recommended rules to control the amounts that traders such as investment banks and other financial players can hold in commodity markets.

The Pope, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the UN special rapporteur on the right to food and are among those who have blamed financial speculation in commodity markets for contributing to spiralling global food prices. The prices of basic foods such as wheat have jumped by over 30 per cent in the past year, while rising prices pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty in the last six months of 2010 alone.

The World Development Movement, while welcoming the regulators’ view that controls are urgently needed, has said that the degree of flexibility in the rules recommended by IOSCO could make them ineffective....

The World Development Movement has called for urgent measures to regulate financial speculation on food prices in the wake of the Horn of Africa famine, revealing that the price of food aid has doubled since 2001.

The World Food Programme paid $390 per tonne of food last year, compared with $200 in 2001. On Monday the organisation said it needed an extra $360 million in order to tackle the crisis now affecting more than 12 million people.

Speculation on food prices by investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital has dramatically risen in the last decade, pushing prices to record levels. Around $100 billion has poured into agricultural markets over the past ten years as financial players have looked for new areas to place their money, without a penny of this going to actual improvements in agriculture.

The US has already passed legislation aimed at preventing excessive speculation on food, and similar measures are being debated in the EU. But the UK government is set to block the European proposals. 

Deborah Doane, director of the anti-poverty campaign group the World Development Movement, said...

This Monday WDM campaigners came to the office with big smiles on their faces. Over the weekend, we’d heard that French Oil giant Total, subject to one of our latest online actions, had apparently cancelled its plans to mine tar sands in Madagascar.

High fives all around. Or?

As the story only seemed to have appeared on a mining industry website, we decided we needed to do some proper digging around. The first thing we did was get in touch with one of our allies in Madagascar. It can be just as hard for campaigners in Madagascar to get information as it is for us here, but their understanding is that Total isn’t going to pull out completely, but instead will extend its license to explore rather than moving on to full scale exploitation. 

This was also confirmed by Total’s business partner, ‘Madagascar Oil’ (based in Houston, not Madagascar), which announced last week that the two companies would not start full-scale mining, but will continue to test for the viability of both conventional oil and tar sands extraction.  

Basically, this means mining has been...

An action plan supposed to address food insecurity launched today by the G20 agriculture ministers has been criticised by campaigners, who say it fails to fully address the root causes of volatile food prices, including financial speculation, which is driving up prices.

Anti-poverty group the World Development Movement said that opposition from countries including the UK had led to the watering down of proposals that could have seen countries commit to setting limits on speculators’ share of the market.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said:

Without tackling excessive speculation, the G20’s efforts to rein in volatile food prices will be wasted. The agriculture ministers have ducked controversy, so it falls to G20 finance ministers to address speculation and the hunger and poverty it causes."

The anti-poverty group has called on the UK government to back EU and international efforts to regulate commodity markets. 

Ms. Doane continued:

The UK government’s stance in defence of excessive speculation is untenable. It must put its weight behind European plans for regulation, putting the needs of hungry people before the profits of banks like Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital.”...

A human rights campaigner from Madagascar is in the UK this week to demand that the Royal Bank of Scotland withdraw its financing of companies mining tar sands in her country.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has a long track record of financing companies operating in the Canadian tar sands, which are devastating the land and lives of First Nations people in Alberta. The bank has also financed French oil giant Total’s test mining of tar sands in Madagascar over the last three years. Total is expected to decide next month whether to go ahead with larger scale exploitation of tar sands in the country.  If it does, the water supply of more than 120,000 people in one of Madagascar’s poorest areas could be disrupted and poisoned and its unique biodiversity severely threatened.

Malagasy woman Holly Rakotondralambo, who represents a coalition of community organisations from Madagascar, will visit London, Edinburgh and Glasgow this week in a tour organised by the World...

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Press release, 19th April 2011

• Canadian First Nations representatives to voice opposition in person at RBS AGM
• New research shows that, since public bail-out in 2008, RBS has raised more than £5.6 billion for companies involved in controversial Canadian tar sands projects, £2.2 billion of which was in the last twelve months

Representatives from some of Canada’s First Nations are today preparing to demand in person that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) stops financing the controversial tar sands industry in Alberta, Canada, at the bank’s AGM today. [1]

The protest comes as new research, published by a coalition of UK and North American NGOs, shows that since being bailed out with public money in 2008, RBS has raised £5.6 billion in corporate financing to companies involved in Alberta’s tar sands extraction and pipeline development, £2.2 billion of which was in the last twelve months. [2]

The First Nations representatives are expected to arrive at the AGM at RBS’s global head quarters in Gogarburn, Edinburgh, at 1pm. They will take into the AGM a photo petition and motions from UK taxpayers angry that the bank is investing their money in tar sands extraction and use the meeting to call on the board to cease financing tar sands...

Kirsty Wright, climate campaigner

Today, WDM campaigners joined other organisations from the UK and around the world for a day of action targeting the World Bank. Actions were done outside World Bank offices from Washington and Paris to South Africa and India. The day was called because of concerns about the Bank’s lending for fossil fuels, which has been increasing even at a time of climate crisis, and in spite of the Bank’s lobbying to become the institution responsible for climate finance.

Despite the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change for the world’s poorest people, over the last five years World Bank funding for coal-fired power stations has soared 40-fold to hit a record high of £2.8 billion in 2010.

About a quarter of the world’s population, over 1.5 billion people across the global south, have no access to electricity. They have no light in the evening, limited access to radio and communications, no modern power for their work and no way to store medicines safely. This lack of energy is keeping people trapped in poverty. However, despite the World Bank’s pro-...

As bailed-out bank RBS publishes details of its 2010 financial results, campaigners call on the government to cure RBS of its high-risk oil addition. RBS’s results show that it is still not making a profit and today’s photo call highlights the unhealthy investments of an unhealthy bank.

Campaigners from the World Development Movement and Friends of the Earth Scotland are urging the government, as majority shareholder in the bank, to use its power to switch the investments of the Royal Bank of Scotland away from climate-damaging fossil fuels and instead to finance much-needed low carbon industries.

At the Treasury, campaigners delivered over a thousand postcards signed by taxpayers angry at the Government for letting RBS use their money to finance projects and companies that are worsening climate change and threatening human rights.

A campaigner dressed as an RBS banker, addicted to fossil fuels, lay 'unconscious' on the pavement outside the Treasury this morning, having overdosed on oil while another dressed as a doctor tried to cure the banker of his oil addiction.

RBS is the UK bank that has been most heavily involved in financing the global coal industry and companies mining tar sands in Canada. Since being bailed out in October 2008, RBS has...

Over 100 European and international organisations are calling on the G20 Finance Ministers, who are meeting this weekend, to rein in speculation on food prices by banks, hedge funds and pension funds.

The Finance Ministers will be discussing responses to the record food prices which are at ‘dangerous’ levels according to the World Bank with 44 million more people pushed into poverty since last June. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently the head of the G20, is pushing for tighter regulation of commodity markets in order to reduce food price spikes and volatility.

But there are concerns that some governments, including the UK, could try to block reforms in the EU and G20 due to fierce opposition from the banking industry. Strong statements have been made by key EU decision makers, including Commissioner Michel Barnier and the French Government, on curbing speculation, but it remains to be seen whether European financial reforms will deliver.

In a statement signed by the Fairtrade Foundation, Friends of the Earth Europe, New Economics Foundation, Corporate Europe Observatory and over a hundred more groups from around the world, political leaders are warned...