Nestle demands a compensation of 4,3 million dollars (I converted that from Norwegian money, so it might be a few off) from one of the poorest countries of the world. A country which now is fighting the worst hunger of twenty years.

The money is supposed to compensate for the governement taking over an Ethiopian company back in 1975. Nestle bought the mothercompany to the nationalized company elleven years afterwards, in 1986. This has therefore become a matter of principle for the foodproducer, writes the Guardian.

-It is good for foreign investment in developing countries that such conflicts are resolved according to international law, says a representative of Nestle, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe to the Newspaper.

The sum Nestle demands is enought to feed a million people for a month. So says Oxfam, which has involved itself in the matter. They have started a protest on the internet.

Ethiopias prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has earlier stated that six million people in the countri are in need of emergency aid in the form of food, and that the number might rise to 15 million.

The government has offered a settlement where they pay a fourth of the original demand, something Nestle has refused.

Norwegian peoples' aid is one of the organizations which have given Emergency aid and food to Ethiopia since 1984. They are quite upset over the demand.

-In solidarity with the Ethiopian people, we feel it is nescessary to appeal to your sense of decency. We therefore ask you to withdraw the claim and let the Ethiopian governement use the moeny to fight the hunger, writes general secretary Eva Bjøreng in a letter to Nestle.

Nestle is now moving, and has agreed to discussing the claim. They now say they are flexible on the size of the demand. In addition, they say the money will now go back to investments in the country and that some of the money will be given back in the form of emergency aid.

Oxfam still thinks the company should completely dismiss the claim, and therefore continues its protests.

Nestle has a long record when it comes to consumer protests. In more than 20 years different organizations have worked for bocots of the company. The main reason is the selling of artificial mothers' milk replacement in developing countries. It has been claimed that a series of children are dying from dirty bottles instead of getting clean mothers' milk. In 1981 a codex was made and signed by 118 countries, which was to make sure no woman who wanted to breatfeed her child should be convinced by advertisement to believe that breatmilk is not best.

The biggest life insurance company in Norway has chosen to boicot Nestle completely from the list of companies they can invest in. Nestle has been accused several times of breaking the convention of advertisement of childrens' food and breatmilk replacement, and of bribing doctors in Pakistan.

Looking into Western Africa, an article in the British Medical Journal concludes that the advertisement is as bad as ever. Many believe that breastmilk replacements on bottles are better than breastmilk, says the independent.

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Found this article in my newspaper. Needless to say, I am mad and will continue to boicott NEstle


It's like that old saying: A conservative is a liberal who's been attacked by aliens