[{"_id":"project-settings","settings":{"translateMetaTags":true,"translateAriaLabels":true,"translateTitle":true,"showWidget":true,"isFeedbackEnabled":false,"fv":1,"customWidget":{"theme":"dark","font":"rgb(255,255,255)","header":"rgb(0,0,0)","background":"rgba(0,0,0,0.8)","position":"right","positionVertical":"bottom","border":"","borderRequired":false,"widgetCompact":true,"isWidgetPositionRelative":false},"widgetLanguages":[],"activeLanguages":{"es":"Español","en":"English"},"enabledLanguages":["en","es"],"debugInfo":false,"displayBranding":true,"displayBrandingName":true,"localizeImages":false,"localizeUrls":false,"localizeImagesLimit":true,"localizeUrlsLimit":true,"localizeAudio":false,"localizeAudioLimit":true,"localizeDates":false,"disabledPages":[],"regexPhrases":[],"allowComplexCssSelectors":false,"blockedClasses":false,"blockedIds":false,"phraseDetection":true,"customDomainSettings":[],"seoSetting":[],"translateSource":false,"overage":false,"detectPhraseFromAllLanguage":false,"googleAnalytics":false,"mixpanel":false,"heap":false,"sdkAnalytics":true,"disableDateLocalization":false,"ignoreCurrencyInTranslation":false,"blockedComplexSelectors":[]},"version":8155},{"_id":"en","source":"en","pluralFn":"return n != 1 ? 1 : 0;","pluralForm":2,"dictionary":{},"version":8155},{"_id":"outdated","outdated":{"#). Proporcionamos fondos para el segundo evento anual de solidaridad entre Flint y Pittsburgh y materiales educativos en el último esfuerzo de la campaña. Estas reuniones demuestran que, cuando desafiamos juntos el poder corporativo, podemos ganar.":1,"#We need your permission before this content can load.":1,"#Viendo actualmente todo Democracia Publicaciones de blog":1,"#all Democracy Blog Posts":1,"#Currently viewing all Democracy Blog Posts":1,"#Torquoise timeline indicator":1,"#July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025":1,"#Paranaque City, Philippines":1,"#Ari BelatharAsistente secretaria":1,"#Brooklyn, NY":1,"#Michel LegendreVicepresidente":1,"#paige kirsteinPresidente de la Junta":1,"#Photo credit: Plataforma Latinoamericana y del Caribe por la Justicia Climática.":1,"#Annual Report
FY 2025":1,"#Youtube privacy policy":1,"#You can change your choice at any time.":1,"#This sets your consent for Content Personalisation on this website, not only for this content.":1,"#It will receive your IP address and may set cookies.":1,"#This content from Youtube is blocked":1,"#1977: Launching the Nestlé boycott":1,"#asistí a la junta de accionistas de McDonald's":1,"#Esta entrevista ha sido ligeramente editada para mayor claridad y fluidez.":1,"#Member spotlight: Pierce Delahunt - Corporate Accountability":1,"#It’s important for me to make sure that I’m not rolling over and giving in to despair, and that I am doing everything I can do to counter the terrifying ways that corporations, governments, and people in power are trying to control us. Beyond teaching, sometimes that looks like attending a protest, participating in mutual aid, or supporting organizing in another way—like Corporate Accountability’s work!":1,"#I try to stay grounded in community. As a teacher, that means engaging my students in material that I find to be very important right now: skills for non-violent communication and the inter-workings of politics and the economy.":1,"#It varies—sometimes getting through the day feels like a long slog, with a lot of doomscrolling on my phone. There are some days where I recognize that I need to rest and recharge. And other days where I am ready to show up.":1,"#How are you moving forward in this very challenging political moment?":1,"#It helped solidify my understanding of the modern corporation as an imperialist force that will seek profit at the expense of everything—people’s health, lives, and the planet.":1,"#One year, I attended McDonald’s shareholders’ meeting outside of Chicago with Corporate Accountability. It was both depressing and transformative to witness executives at the helm of one of the most harmful corporations in the world patting themselves on the back for reaping profits from their underpaid workers, unhealthy food, and harm to animals and the land.":1,"#What has been most memorable to you during your time with the organization over the years?":1,"#And from the beginning, I especially appreciated Corporate Accountability’s campaigns that challenge privatization. I believe the world that we need to live in is one where our most essential services and resources are managed as a public good and are available to everyone. Protecting people’s water systems from corporate control is a crucial part of that.":1,"#I made a connection with a staff member who invited me to join the Giving Circle, where we raised funds for the organization and allies across the globe, and learned more about corporate campaigning. The work aligned with my values and my desire to reject corporate power and authoritarianism.":1,"#What first got you interested in Corporate Accountability?":1,"#These are lessons I didn’t learn in school. History curriculums focus on recounting big historical events in a disparate way, without digging into the full story about how these different moments and rulers related to each other. I know now that this was on purpose: there is a reason why people in power don’t want us to see the origins of the unjust world that we’re living in now.":1,"#Over the years, I’ve learned and thought a lot about the role that corporations play in shaping our economy, government, and the systems that are meant to horde power and wealth for a small group of people at the expense of everyone else.":1,"#Wow—it’s hard to come up with just one concern. Corporations are the emblem of exploitation, capitalism, and colonialism. These massive entities cross international lines, drain the working class of their time and labor, and are destroying the biosphere with impunity.":1,"#What concerns you the most about corporate power?":1,"#Pierce Delahunt is a teacher of social emotional learning and the intersections of politics and the economy. Based in the California Bay Area, he has supported Corporate Accountability’s work for almost a decade. We sat down with Pierce to discuss how his analysis of power and class have evolved over time, why he believes challenging privatization is so critical to building a better world for people, and how he is moving through this political moment. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.":1,"#Not Olga ? Click here.":1,"#Welcome back, Olga !":1,"#TH":1,"#Executive Director Ari Belathar's response to Boston Globe article \"Mass General Brigham was talking about partnering with controversial data firm Palantir. Blowback was swift.\"":1,"#también es director":1,"#utilizó":1,"#incluidas":1,"#mayoría":1,"#desempeñó":1,"#indicios":1,"#pedía":1,"#están reduciendo,":1,"#están reduciendo":1,"#Not Jose Luis? Click here.":1,"#Welcome back, Jose Luis!":1,"#Not Ghassan? Click here.":1,"#Welcome back, Ghassan!":1,"#Not carmen? Click here.":1,"#Welcome back, carmen!":1,"#Nominamos un Palantir por estar en el centro de la alianza distópica entre las grandes empresas tecnológicas, la industria de la vigilancia y la detención, y el fascismo en auge, al facilitar y hacer más eficaz que sus clientes, incluido el gobierno estadounidense, vigilen, secuestren y maten personas en Estados Unidos y en todo el mundo.":1,"#Hemos nominado una IA abierta por aceptar proporcionar servicios de IA al Pentágono y por no ofrecer las salvaguardias adecuadas para su producto, ChatGPT, que supuestamente se ha utilizado para ayudar a planificar tiroteos masivos.":1,"#Nominamos un Meta por publicar anuncios de reclutamiento de ICE en sus plataformas, así como por despedir a 8.000 trabajadores, cerrar 6.000 puestos vacantes y rastrear los clics del ratón y las pulsaciones del teclado de sus trabajadores para entrenar su modelo de IA.":1,"#Hemos nominado una amazona por proporcionar servicios de computación en la nube que permiten a las agencias de inmigración localizar, detener y deportar personas, y por asociarse con el gobierno israelí en el Proyecto Nimbus, un proyecto de 1.200 millones de dólares que permite a Israel llevar a cabo su genocidio en Gaza.":1,"#Not Jose-Gines? Click here.":1,"#Welcome back, Jose-Gines!":1,"#a Palantir":1,"#Nominamos un oráculo por impulsar la construcción de algunos de los centros de datos de IA más grandes de EE. UU., incluido el Proyecto Júpiter, un proyecto de 567 hectáreas en el desierto de Nuevo México. Estos enormes centros de datos consumen grandes cantidades de electricidad y agua, lo que ha provocado un aumento desorbitado en las facturas de electricidad locales, una sobrecarga en los recursos hídricos locales y un mayor riesgo de contaminación atmosférica y del agua.":1,"#a Open AI":1,"#a Meta":1,"#An image of Corporate Accountability member Pierce Delahunt.":1,"#Pierce Delahunt discusses why he believes challenging privatization is so critical to building a better world for people.":1,"#Member spotlight: Pierce Delahunt":1,"#The collective can create change in a way that no single person can. As long as there have been abusive men at the helm, there have been women, trans, and nonbinary folks resisting and speaking up as they could.":1,"#The collective will always surprise us":1,"#May 28, 2026":1,"#a Oracle":1,"#Fundraising":1,"#Mandaluyong City, Philippines":1,"#Our work is powered people: 90% of contributions come from individual donors. Access Corporate Accountability's financial support.":1,"#Corporate Accountability spends 90 percent of all contributions directly on programs, while 10 percent provide essential support services, resulting in the highest marks from rating agencies.":1,"#The debate over taxing sugary drinks has turned into a ferocious global policy brawl. In Colombia, proponents faced intimidation and censorship.":1,"#The New York Times: She took on Colombia’s soda industry. Then she was silenced. - Corporate Accountability":1,"#More information about Coca-Cola Company":1,"#The article in La República, however, did not mention one key ingredient: sugar. According to the label on the drink, one juice box of it contains 13 grams of sugar, more than half the daily recommended level for children.":1,"#Postobón said it would spend $120,000 to evaluate the initiative, which would provide free Kufu each day to thousands of poor children in the region.":1,"#The battle over taxing sugar-sweetened beverages is becoming one of the world’s most ferocious policy brawls — a clash of science, politics and money in dozens of countries and cities.":1,"#Postobón lauded the drink’s added vitamins and minerals, saying they would “promote cognitive development, strengthen immunity and promote healthy bones,” according to a glowing account of the event published by the newspaper La República, acquired last year by Postobón’s parent company, Organización Ardila Lülle.":1,"#Last summer, Postobón began what it called “a new social strategy focused on nutrition.” The campaign, unveiled in Manaure, an impoverished city in Colombia’s far north, revolves around Kufu, a new mango-flavored beverage formulated for children. It is part of the industry’s goal of tackling public health through voluntary efforts.":1,"#“It was a great victory for free speech in Colombia,” Dr. Cerón said. “The only pity is it came too late.”":1,"#Dr. Cerón and her team got a Pyrrhic victory two weeks ago when the country’s Constitutional Court overturned the consumer agency’s decision to silence Educar and ordered the agency to “abstain from censoring any other ad related to public health in the future,” according to the ruling.":1,"#A New Drink":1,"#“The problem isn’t just sugar,” said Iván Duque, a senator from the right-leaning Democratic Center party and a contender in next year’s presidential race, who was a vocal critic of the tax. “We need a national plan to fight sedentary lifestyles, better product labeling and education efforts that teach people to eat more fruit, fish and vegetables.”":1,"#On the last day of 2016, opponents of the tax were victorious. Using a complex procedural maneuver, congressional leaders killed the soda tax, dropping it from the larger tax overhaul package.":1,"#A spokesman for Vice did not address the reasons for Mr. Maldonado’s resignation, but said, “The fact that all of the stories were published and were critical of the soda industry speaks for itself.”":1,"#The incident was part of what prompted Vice Colombia’s founding editor, Juan Camilo Maldonado, to resign. Mr. Maldonado declined to be interviewed for this article but colleagues with direct knowledge of the incident said he was dismayed the company would cave to pressure from advertisers.":1,"#At the Colombian branch of the online news site Vice, the editorial staff clashed with advertising executives over their efforts to squelch a column criticizing the soda industry. Vice had previously run two opinion pieces in favor of the soda tax and the disputed third column did ultimately run, though not on the home page, making it hard for readers to find.":1,"#The backlash was fierce. A Colombian government agency, responding to a complaint by the nation’s leading soda company that called the ad misleading, ordered it off the air. Then the agency went further: It prohibited Dr. Cerón and her colleagues from publicly discussing the health risks of sugar, under penalty of a $250,000 fine.":1,"#Other media outlets felt the industry’s pressure.":1,"#Reached by phone, the newspaper’s vice president for advertising, Mauricio Umaña, disputed Mr. Cano’s account, saying he had not received a call from Coca-Cola or any other soda company executive.":1,"#“Did they win?” Mr. Cano reflected. “Not really.”":1,"#The altered video went viral, drawing more than two million views and prompting a public discussion about censorship and the power of the soda industry.":1,"#Mr. Cano winced recalling what came next. With the prospect of litigation and lost ad revenue, he says he ordered the bottle edited out. In a small act of defiance, he allowed the Sprite advertisement tagline to remain.":1,"#The video was posted just before midnight on Dec. 15, quickly drawing 500,000 views. In the morning, Fidel Cano, the publisher of El Espectador and a nephew of the paper’s slain editor, said he had received a call from a senior advertising executive at the newspaper who told him a representative from Coca-Cola had called in protest and demanded that the Sprite bottle be removed.":1,"#With a tone both cheeky and indignant, La Pulla takes on the most contentious issues of the day. In the soda tax episode, the host, María Paulina Baena, with granules of sugar flecking her lips, skewered the industry and members of Congress for spreading misinformation about the proposed tax. She ended the video with the image of a Sprite bottle and a tagline from one of the popular ads for the drink: “That’s just the way it is.”":1,"#“Once we published the video, things got crazy,” the paper’s health and science editor, Pablo Correa, said.":1,"#Industry executives were not happy with the paper’s stance, but they got especially upset when it produced a video, part of a biweekly commentary called La Pulla, that lampooned tax opponents for ignoring scientific evidence about the risks of excess sugar.":1,"#El Espectador news editors said they sought to cover the soda tax fight evenhandedly in the news pages, even as the paper supported the tax in its editorials.":1,"#Their organization, Educar Consumidores, was the most visible proponent of a proposed 20 percent tax on sugary drinks that was heading for a vote that month in Colombia’s Legislature. The group had raised money, rallied allies to the cause and produced a provocative television ad that warned consumers how sugar-laden beverages can lead to obesity and diet-related illnesses like diabetes.":1,"#Three years later, a huge truck bomb shattered the newspaper’s offices, killing a reporter and wounding 83 others. During the 1980s and 1990s, violence claimed the lives of a dozen El Espectador employees — all victims of Colombian drug cartels angered by the newspaper’s unflinching coverage.":1,"#With its cordon of armed guards, bomb-sniffing dogs and airport-style X-ray machines, the headquarters of Colombia’s oldest newspaper, El Espectador, is among the most heavily fortified compounds in the country. The need for such measures is driven home by a sixth-floor display: showcased behind glass is a yellowing front page reporting the assassination of El Espectador’s editor, Guillermo Cano, who was gunned down on Dec. 17, 1986, as he drove home from work.":1,"#Pressuring the Media":1,"#Dr. Cerón stopped driving alone. And she pressed the local news media to cover the intimidation, but it was facing its own challenges from tax opponents.":1,"#A spokesman for the prosecutorial agency declined to comment on Dr. Céron’s complaints, citing privacy rules that bar discussion of cases with anyone not directly involved.":1,"#She reported both episodes to prosecutors.":1,"#In early December, Dr. Cerón was walking to the gym when a man, his face obscured by a hooded sweatshirt, accosted her with the same message. “Cállese,” he yelled before walking away, or, “keep your mouth shut.”":1,"#“Shut up, you old wench,” the caller yelled, according to a report she filed with the Fiscal General de la Nación, Colombia’s prosecutorial agency.":1,"#One morning in mid-November, Dr. Cerón was startled awake at 5 a.m. by a call to her cellphone.":1,"#An independent examination of Educar’s computers conducted for The New York Times by CSIETE, an internet security firm in Bogotá, did not turn up any malware. Giovanni Cruz Forero, the firm’s chief executive, said Educar employees had reformated one of the two office laptops the firm examined, which would have largely erased evidence of tampering. Mr. Cruz said it was also possible intruders took steps to erase their digital footprints. The firm did not examine cellphones of Educar employees.":1,"#The episode, which Dr. Cerón reported to federal investigators, was reminiscent of the intimidation often used against those who challenged the drug cartels that once dominated Colombia. But the narcotics trade was not the target of Dr. Cerón and her colleagues. Their work had upset a different multibillion-dollar industry: the makers of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.":1,"#Mr. Erazo urged Dr. Cerón to buy new cellphones but she refused. “If they’re listening to us, what are they going to hear?” he recalled her telling him. “We’re talking about a public health campaign!”":1,"#Called in to investigate, Andrés Erazo, Educar’s longtime tech consultant, said he discovered that antivirus software on workplace computers had been disabled. He also found spyware on the office router that gave an unknown outsider access to the organization’s web traffic and online communication. According to Mr. Erazo, three cellphones — including those used by Dr. Cerón and Ms. Vivas — had been compromised by spyware.":1,"#Ms. Lane of Bloomberg Philanthropies was so concerned that she stopped using email and the phone to discuss strategy with Educar. Instead, she moved communications to some of the same encrypted apps used after the surveillance of soda-tax advocates was discovered in Mexico.":1,"#It was around this time that employees at Educar’s offices began to complain about echoes and other voices on their cellphones. They suspected they might be under surveillance. Others found it hard to use the internet in the office. In October, Dr. Cerón’s office phone ceased functioning entirely. “Sometimes we could not work at all because our laptops would stop following orders and the mouse would just do what it wanted,” Diana Vivas, the group’s lawyer, said.":1,"#“If they win,” she said. “I will be financially ruined.”":1,"#An RCN lawyer demanded she delete the post, claiming it was intellectual property theft. She complied, but the network filed a complaint with federal prosecutors who, in turn, opened a criminal investigation. The case, still pending, carries a possible fine of $300,000.":1,"#In October, not long after she was censored by the government, Dr. Cerón found a tactic she thought might keep attention on the subject without running afoul of the government’s order silencing her. In a blog item posted on the Alliance for Food Health website, she made fun of an RCN soap opera from 1980s called “Azúcar,” or Sugar, that was set in Colombia’s sugar cane heartland. Scrawled across a publicity poster for the show, she wrote, “It’s one thing to watch Sugar; it’s another to drink it in excess.”":1,"#“The response was fierce,” Mr. Gaviria said. “I remember that, during one of the debates, a senator said to me: ‘In all my years in Congress I’ve never seen a lobbying effort like this.’”":1,"#That fall, at least 90 lobbyists worked to sway legislators, according to a tally of visitor logs obtained by Educar Consumidores. During committee hearings on the measure, lobbyists often sat next to lawmakers, a flagrant violation of congressional rules, said Óscar Ospina Quintero, a legislator from the Green Alliance party. Mr. Ospina said he protested the lobbyists’ presence in the chamber but was rebuffed by congressional leaders.":1,"#“In Colombia, the sugar industry and the main media companies belong to the same economic conglomerates,” Mr. Gaviria, the health minister, said. “They have an intimidating power. And they used it.”":1,"#“If you don’t keep your mouth shut,” one man shouted, she recalled in a recent interview, “you know what the consequences will be.”":1,"#Organización Ardila Lülle remained silent during the soda-tax debate, and company executives declined to be interviewed. Instead, Postobón, RCN and allies like the National Business Association of Colombia carried the message that the tax would cost jobs, decimate independent convenience shop owners and choke the economy.":1,"#Postobón is a storied brand that sells a rainbow of homegrown drinks. Among its best-known products are a cola called Colombiana and Manzana Postobón, a century-old apple-flavored drink that is something of a national icon.":1,"#Postobón is a unit of one of Colombia’s largest and most respected conglomerates, Organización Ardila Lülle. Founded in the early 1950s by Carlos Ardila Lülle, 87, Organización Ardila Lülle has helped define the country’s modern identity through a raft of companies that own a soccer team, an insurance company and the dealerships that sell Dodge, Jeep and Ford vehicles.":1,"#Criminal Inquiry Over a Blog Post":1,"#“We were completely shut down,” Dr. Cerón said. “Censored.”":1,"#The actions stunned legal analysts and health advocates. “It was unprecedented,” said Ch’uya H. Lane, regional director for obesity prevention efforts at the Global Health Advocacy Incubator, which is affiliated with Bloomberg Philanthropies.":1,"#The consumer agency did not respond to requests for comment.":1,"#The ruling went on to bar Educar Consumidores employees from speaking publicly about the links between sugar and obesity, an edict so sweeping it included the Health Ministry’s own research on the subject.":1,"#Borrowing almost identical language from Postobón’s complaint — which had been filed by a company lawyer who had previously led the agency — the superintendent’s office said consumers had the right to truthful information, not messages that were “misleading, imprecise and confusing.”":1,"#But the head of the Colombian consumer protection agency, a presidential appointee, sided with the industry petitioners. Just two weeks later, in a decision that Colombian legal experts described as unusually swift, the agency ordered the commercial withdrawn.":1,"#Then at dusk one day last December, Dr. Esperanza Cerón, the head of the organization, said she noticed two strange men on motorcycles trailing her Chevy sedan as she headed home from work. She tried to lose them in Bogotá’s rush-hour traffic, but they edged up to her car and pounded on the windows.":1,"#Dr. Luis Fernando Gómez, a professor of preventive medicine at Javeriana University in Bogotá who backed the tax measure, said Postobón’s allegations about the commercial were disingenuous. “Every fact and figure cited in that ad was backed up by mainstream science,” he said.":1,"#Nutrition experts countered that the ad was wholly consistent with established science showing the impact of excess sugar consumption on weight and metabolic diseases like diabetes, gout and heart disease. The Harvard School of Public Health has chronicled multiple studies backing up this assertion, including a point nutritionists make repeatedly: that sugary beverages lack nutritional value and add calories without leaving consumers feeling full.":1,"#Postobón, the soft drink company, promptly filed a complaint with the government’s consumer protection agency, the Superintendent of Industry and Commerce, claiming that the ad’s use of the teaspoon as a unit of measurement was imprecise and that it unfairly suggested that all sweetened drinks were unhealthy.":1,"#The debate escalated in August, with Congress still months from a vote, when television stations across the country began airing a public service announcement in support of the tax. The 30-second spot, produced by Dr. Cerón’s group, used data from the W.H.O. and featured a smartly dressed man drinking a series of sugary beverages throughout the day. Four sweetened drinks a day, the ad said, could deliver up to 47 teaspoons of sugar. Then it showed an overweight couple, a gangrenous foot and what appeared to be a man in cardiac arrest, followed by an admonition. “Better to drink water, milk or teas without sugar,” the narrator said. “Take care of your life. Take it seriously.”":1,"#Opinion polls showed that 70 percent of the public embraced the tax. Legislative backing was harder to come by, however: 42 legislators in the 268-seat Congress said they supported the measure.":1,"#They received crucial support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, a foundation created by Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, which dispatched experts from the United States. It also provided pivotal funding, including $260,000 for the public service ad — an amount nearly equal to Educar’s entire annual budget — and paid for enhanced security at the group’s offices.":1,"#The issue attracted the attention of Dr. Cerón, whose 10-employee organization had previously worked on climate change, smoking restrictions and the lack of potable water in poor communities. Encouraged by the health minister’s soda tax announcement, they formed a coalition of three dozen civic organizations they called the Alliance for Food Health.":1,"#The measure was designed to inject $340 million a year into Colombia’s chronically underfunded national health care system, but Mr. Gaviria had a larger goal: to dampen soda consumption in a country with an obesity rate that had tripled since 1980 to 19 percent of adults. The fastest growth had occurred among Colombian youth from ages 5 to 17. Each year, 4,000 people age 30 to 70 die from obesity-related illnesses like heart disease and diabetes, the Health Ministry said.":1,"#“For the first time in our lives, we thought we might become a normal country and be able to deal with issues other than violence,” said Diana Guarnizo, a lawyer with Dejusticia, a rights group that helped promote the soda tax. “Here we were, an organization that had dealt with peace, violence, land reform and gross injustice, and suddenly we had the luxury to talk about what mothers are putting in their children’s lunchboxes.”":1,"#In March 2016, the country’s health minister, Alejandro Gaviria Uribe, proposed a 20 percent tax on soda and sugar-sweetened beverages — the equivalent of about 10 cents on a liter bottle — that became part of a larger tax overhaul backed by Colombia’s president and the Ministry of Finance.":1,"#BOGOTÁ, Colombia — It began with menacing phone calls, strange malfunctions of the office computers, and men in parked cars photographing the entrance to the small consumer advocacy group’s offices.":1,"#In early 2016, Colombia, a nation of 49 million, was facing the unfamiliar prospect of stability and peace. After decades of civil war and narco-terrorism, Colombians were enjoying the fruits of an aggressive United States-backed military campaign that had largely decimated the country’s drug cartels. Unemployment was near historical lows, the poverty rate was dropping and millions were hopeful about the possibility of lasting peace with the country’s main rebel group, the FARC.":1,"#Showdown Over an Ad":1,"#The stage was set for a clash between a powerful industry and a stubborn public advocate.":1,"#Coke and Pepsi were far less visible in the Colombia battle, leaving the big national beverage company, Postobón, in the spotlight. Postobón, a drinks maker and distributor for Pepsi, is part of a huge conglomerate that includes sugar cane growers, sugar mills and the country’s biggest media company, RCN Televisión, which helped disseminate the anti-tax message. Postobón and RCN declined interview requests.":1,"#In Colombia, where soda is often cheaper than bottled water, the soda-tax fight took place in a key market for beverage makers. Sales volume of carbonated drinks here has climbed more than 25 percent over the past 15 years; during that same time in the United States, it fell 12 percent, according to Euromonitor, a market research firm.":1,"#The Australian Beverages Council wrote in its 2016 annual report that fighting a soft drinks tax “has been consuming vast amounts of resources,” and that “our learnings from other markets through our international network tells us that these types of threats must be constantly challenged before they get before a parliament for debate.”":1,"#Elsewhere in the world, soda companies have assiduously worked their government connections and economic clout. In internal company emails leaked to an American watchdog group last year, Coke executives described strategies for winning over government ministers and other officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, Portugal, and regions of Spain.":1,"#Last year, numerous advocates of a proposal to double Mexico’s tax to 20 percent received strings of upsetting and fraudulent texts from unknown numbers. One man got a message saying his daughter had been seriously injured; another found a text saying his wife was having an affair; a third received a link to a funeral home. Spyware was found on the phones. The proposal failed.":1,"#Mexico also showcased how dirty the fight could get.":1,"#Dr. Backholer and other experts said the turning point for soda tax proponents came in 2014, when Mexico — Coca-Cola’s biggest consumer market by per capita consumption — approved a 10 percent tax.":1,"#By Andrew Jacobs and Matt Richtel for The New York Times.":1,"#But public health organizations, including the W.H.O., cite soda taxes as one of the most effective policy tools for cutting consumption of what nutritionists call a “liquid candy” that has contributed to an epidemic of obesity and related health conditions around the world. Dr. Kathryn Backholer, an expert on the issue at Deakin University in Australia, said taxes on soda were “low-hanging fruit” in the fight against obesity, diabetes and other weight-related diseases because such drinks are easily categorized to tax and sensible to target because they “have little or no nutritional value.”":1,"#“Slapping a tax on our products and walking away won’t do anything about obesity in this country or globally,” said William Dermody, spokesman for the American Beverage Association, an industry trade group.":1,"#The beverage industry asserts that soda taxes unfairly burden the poor, cause higher unemployment by squeezing industry sales, and fail to achieve their policy goal: reducing obesity. Studies of soda taxes have shown they lead to a drop in sales of sugar-sweetened beverages — a 10 percent sales decline, for example, over the first two years of Mexico’s tax — however, such measures are so new that there is not yet evidence of their impact on health.":1,"#The battles have been particularly intense in emerging markets as the industry seeks to make up for falling soda consumption in wealthier nations. Latin America has surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest soft-drink market, according to the World Health Organization, with sales of carbonated soft drinks doubling there since 2000 while they declined in the United States.":1,"#Nevertheless, the idea is gaining momentum; such levies have been enacted in 30 countries, including India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Britain and Brunei. More than a billion people now live in places where such taxes have driven up the price of sugar-sweetened beverages.":1,"#The experience in Colombia may be the most extreme, but a juggernaut of industry opposition has killed or stalled soda tax proposals around the globe, including in Russia, Germany, Israel and New Zealand.":1,"#“We reject under any circumstance the improper influence or harassment of any individual or organization for any purpose, at any time, in any way,” Katherine W. Loatman, executive director of the organization, said in a statement.":1,"#The International Council of Beverages Associations, the parent organization of trade groups around the world fighting the taxes, would not directly answer the question about whether its allies in Colombia were connected to the alleged harassment, but it condemned such actions.":1,"#The harassment of Dr. Cerón and her colleagues was never proven to be carried out by the industry, and federal prosecutors declined to investigate. In response to questions from The New York Times, Coke and Pepsi said they were not involved, and Postobón, the soda company that filed the complaint about the organization’s ad, deferred comment to The National Business Association of Colombia. The association, which represented national and international beverage makers on the soda tax issue, said it had nothing to do with the episodes.":1,"#“The industry sees sugary-drink taxes as an existential threat,” said Dr. James Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America, which tracks beverage tax initiatives. In the United States, the industry has spent at least $107 million at the state and local levels since 2009 to beat back soda taxes and beverage warning labels, a new study found. Compared to the domestic tactics, Dr. Krieger said, overseas, “it’s much dirtier, much more bare-knuckled.”":1,"#The New York Times: She took on Colombia’s soda industry. Then she was silenced.":1,"#November 20, 2017":1,"#Accept":1,"#Not Jean-Charles ? Click here.":1,"#Welcome back, Jean-Charles !":1,"#In this episode, we mentioned our report, Cowboy Diplomacy, which you can find aquí.
Michél also mentioned War on Want and Red del Tercer Mundo. To learn more about Worth Rises, where Michél is now based, visit them aquí.":1,"#to support tenants; check out their social toolkit":1,"#act4southerntowers.org":1,"#, and be sure to follow @AfricansUS and #ACT4SouthernTowers on social channels.":1,"#Visit":1,"#urge Congress to bring its full power to bear on the fossil fuel industry":1,"#, Corporate Accountability’s Executive Director. Patti tells us about the organization’s involvement in developing the Global Tobacco Treaty, and how understanding the corporate playbook laid the foundation for decades of campaigning.":1,"#; Bert Bayou, Chapter Leader and Organizer with African Communities Together, and Chris Bohner, a labor and housing organizer and researcher supporting the campaign.":1,"#corporateaccountability.org/ProtectTheWater":1,"#. To learn more about Worth Rises, where Michél is now based, visit them":1,"#You can learn more about the":1,"#Guests on today’s show are Amaha Kassa, Founder and Executive Director of":1,"#here.":1,"#Check out our recent opinion piece":1,"#African Communities Together":1,"#In this episode, we mentioned our report, Cowboy Diplomacy, which you can find":1,"#Take action with us:":1,"#In the final episode of Season 1, Lena and Michél talk with":1,"#Big Oil hearings":1,"#Visit act4southerntowers.org to support tenants; check out their social toolkit here, and be sure to follow @AfricansUS and #ACT4SouthernTowers on social channels.":1,"#Michél also mentioned":1,"#In this episode, we mentioned our report, Cowboy Diplomacy, which you can find here.
Michél also mentioned War on Want and Third World Network. To learn more about Worth Rises, where Michél is now based, visit them here.":1,"#In this episode, Lena interviews Geoffrey Supran. He’s one of the researchers who brought to light that ExxonMobil and others knew about the climate impacts of fossil fuel extraction and covered it up. We discuss the implications of today’s":1,"#War on Want":1,"#In the final episode of Season 1, Lena and Michél talk with Patti Lynn, Corporate Accountability’s Executive Director. Patti tells us about the organization’s involvement in developing the Global Tobacco Treaty, and how understanding the corporate playbook laid the foundation for decades of campaigning.":1,"#Africa week of action against water privatization":1,"#Stand in solidarity with water justice organizers rising up to say no to water privatization at":1,"#Big Oil’s Big Tobacco moment":1,"#on the Big Oil hearings, co-authored by Geoffrey Supran and Corporate Accountability’s Patti Lynn.":1,"#is a podcast produced by the organization Corporate Accountability about the broad, global movement for corporate accountability. On this podcast, we’ll bring you stories from all over the world of organizers and movements fighting corporate abuse, advancing people-centered solutions, and building a world that prioritizes people over profits.":1,"#VOTE NOW!":1,"#Which Big Tech corporation
deserves to be inducted into
the Corporate Hall of Shame?":1,"#Portrait of Jamie Cerretti, Corporate Accountability board treasurer. Jamie is a white woman and she is wearing glasses and a striped shirt.":1,"#Head shot of Ari Belathar. They have dark brown, short hair, and they are wearing glasses and a gray sweater over a blue collared shirt.":1,"#For Gabby Gray, lead organizer at Pittsburgh United, the movement for water justice is personal. Learn more about their organizing.":1,"#Ally Spotlight: Gabby Gray":1,"#December 19, 2025":1,"#Portrait of Gabby Gray. She wears a gray cap and a vest, rests her chin in her hand, and smiles at the camera.":1,"#lea la historia completa":1,"#As federal investment in our water systems has declined precipitously, corporations like Veolia and Suez have marketed water privatization, including in the form of \"public-private partnerships,\" as a solution to cities' water woes. But case after case shows that privatizing public water is risky business for mayors, city governments, and residents.":1,"#Case after case shows that privatizing public water is risky business for mayors, city governments, and residents. Here's why.":1,"#As federal investment in our water systems has declined precipitously, corporations like Veolia and Suez have marketed water privatization, including in the form of “public-private partnerships,” as a solution to cities’ water woes. But case after case shows that privatizing public water is risky business for mayors, city governments, and residents.":1,"#THE CLAIM
PPPs bring money to projects that governments cannot.":1,"#Read on to find out the truth behind the World Bank’s claims.":1,"#We are exposing the danger of the World Bank’s water privatization plans and clearing the way for democratically accountable, publicly managed water systems. Most recently, we created an organizing tool (linked here, with most of the content below) to further debunk the World Bank’s myths from Lagos, Nigeria to Nagpur, India to Manila, the Philippines.":1,"#Like the earlier privatization model, PPPs are bad for people, water systems, and democracy. The private water industry and World Bank make several positive-sounding claims about PPPs—but the facts tell a different story.":1,"#Photo credit: Kuninori Takahashi As part of our campaign to challenge corporate control of water, we’re revealing the truth behind “public-private partnerships” (PPPs). The private water industry — and one of its largest supporters, the World Bank — use this term to avoid naming their projects for what they really are: forms of water privatization. Under ...":1,"#The truth about the World Bank's water privatization plans - Corporate Accountability":1,"#In Indonesia, the constitutional court revoked a 2004 water law allowing privatization on the grounds that it can interfere with the human right to water.":1,"#Under PPP contracts, private, generally for-profit corporation take over some aspect of a project or service that is traditionally provided by the government.":1,"#In Lagos, Nigeria, a World Bank-backed effort to secure a PPP included a campaign to “enlighten” Nigerians rather than seek their feedback.":1,"#After Argentina terminated an unsuccessful contract with Suez, the corporation brought a suit in the World Bank’s arbitration forum, winning more than $400 million for breach of contract after failing to meet its own infrastructure investment promise.":1,"#In the United States, the water industry has promoted legislation removing existing popular vote requirements before water system sales or leases.":1,"#THE TRUTH
The private water industry and World Bank-backed privatization efforts have eroded democracy, national sovereignty, and human rights.":1,"#THE CLAIM
PPPs don’t threaten democratic control or human rights.":1,"#Then, in Nagpur, multiple corruption allegations have been made against the private “partner”—a Veolia venture—including an inquiry into charges of accepting bribes to lower water bills.":1,"#In 2015, the former head of Veolia’s Bucharest operations was charged with bribing officials to grant rate increases. Veolia also allegedly paid media outlets to prevent negative coverage and hired spies to make sure its own employees kept its activities secret.":1,"#Corruption has been alleged even in PPPs called “successes” by the World Bank:":1,"#Public oversight is much weaker with a privatized system because of decreased access to records and decision makers.":1,"#Because people aren’t served by competing networks of piped infrastructure, water is considered a natural monopoly. Only public accountability and regulatory oversight can rein in abuses.":1,"#The private water industry — and one of its largest supporters, the World Bank — use this term to avoid naming their projects for what they really are: forms of water privatization.":1,"#The bidding process for long-term, multi-million dollar contracts is extremely vulnerable to corruption, meaning PPPs exacerbate the risk of malfeasance.":1,"#THE TRUTH
Governments do not have a monopoly on corruption; some corporations have been found to be highly corrupt.":1,"#THE CLAIM
PPPs protect against corruption.":1,"#In November 2015, a “massive disconnection drive” cut off scores of unregistered connections without regard to peoples’ access to water.":1,"#Private providers must generate profits and cannot use progressive rate structures to ensure that low-income communities have adequate access.":1,"#The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development found that “in most cases, it is found that prices increase” after private sector participation.":1,"#A World Bank study of 71 nations—from Latin America to Africa to East Asia—found “employment decreases” of 22 percent among water utility workers after a PPP.":1,"#PPPs bring price hikes, layoffs, shutoffs, and aggressive bill collection.":1,"#THE TRUTH
The “efficiency” PPPs deliver amounts to reckless cost-cutting and the extraction of profits at the expense of human rights.":1,"#THE CLAIM
PPPs are more efficient than public systems.":1,"#As part of our campaign to challenge corporate control of water, we’re revealing the truth behind “public-private partnerships” (PPPs).":1,"#The World Bank’s in-depth review of water public-private partnerships over the past 15 years found that private utilities have often failed to meet contractually agreed targets for expanded access.":1,"#Antoine Frérot, CEO of one of the world’s largest water corporations, Veolia, writes, “There are those who would like to count on large private operators to finance the vast infrastructure programmes that are needed around the globe, but they fail to grasp…an operator is not a banker! The mission of an operator is to manage the infrastructure for which he [sic] is responsible, not to finance it”":1},"version":8155}]