A new independent organisation dedicated to finding practical, progressive solutions to the problems and challenges facing rural communities has been launched.
The Rural Regeneration Unit (RRU), which is structured as a not-for-profit company, will be politically and financially non-aligned. It seeks to assist relevant government departments and agencies, public sector bodies and charitable foundations in translating public policy into grass-root action and self-help. It builds on work by the the Countryside Alliance, such as the food co-operatives that have been established throughout North Cumbria.
According to a survey published by Friends of the Earth, farmers feel that the government's Supermarket Code of Practice has had little effect on their dealings with the large supermarket chains.
The survey, which is based on the responses given by 161 farmers and growers, found that nearly half were not even aware of the code. More than half the respondents thought that the code had not made any difference to the way that supermarkets did business with them.
Supermarket companies Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Safeway and J Sainsbury have all scored in the top quintile of UK companies in Business in the Community's first annual Corporate Social Responsibility survey.
Big Food Group, owner of the Iceland store chain, is demanding £12 million from the government of the tiny, poverty-stricken South American country of Guyana.
The money is compensation for a sugar business that Guyana nationalised in 1975. The cash-strapped country, which is so poor that the international financial community has written off 90 per cent of its debts, has already paid back £6m of what was a £13m debt. But it defaulted on repayments in 1989 following the Latin American currency crisis. Now interest has swelled the debt to £12m.
Repaying it would cripple the country, a spokesman for the President's office said. 'It would have serious implications in our budget capacity. It would compromise our social services and economic obligations.'
