Archived News

28/01/2011 (Swiss Info.ch) - Finnish biofuel specialist Neste Oil and the AngloGold/Ashanti mining company have been given Public Eye Awards in Davos for social and ecological irresponsibility.

28/01/2011 (Mcot), Bangkok - Thirty-thousand tonnes of RBD refined palm oil (refined, bleached and deodorised) which the government ordered earlier were imported from Malaysia to be sold in the Thai market next week, according to the director-general of the Internal Trade Department.

26/01/2011 (Mongabay.com) - The commercial shows a typical office setting. A worker sits drearily at a desk, shredding papers and watching minutes tick by on the clock. When his break comes, he takes out a Nestle KitKat bar. As he tears into the package, the viewer, but not the office worker, notices something is amiss—what should be chocolate has been replaced by the dark hairy finger of an orangutan. With the jarring crunch of teeth breaking through bone, the worker bites into the “bar." Drops of blood fall on the keyboard and run down his face. His officemates stare, horrified. The advertisement cuts to a solitary tree standing amid a deforested landscape. A chainsaw whines. The message: Palm oil—an ingredient in many Nestle products—is killing orangutans by destroying their habitat, the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.

26/01/2011 (Jakarta Globe) - Palm oil declined for a second straight day on expectations that export demand from China, the world’s biggest user of cooking oils, may slow ahead of next week’s Lunar New Year holiday after buyers completed purchases.

26/01/2011 (AFP), Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia's Sime Darby, the world's largest listed palm oil producer, said Wednesday it will make its first foray into Africa, with plans to establish plantations in Liberia in April.

26/01/2011 (The Phnom Penh Post) - Mong Reththy Group’s palm oil exports nearly doubled in value in 2010, over the year previous, as the company plans to increase its plantations in the next 12 months.

26/01/2011 (Bangkok Post) - The continuing palm cooking oil shortage makes it likely the government will allow additional imports of raw palm oil, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Wednesday.

26/01/2011 (Bangkok Post) - Thai President Foods Plc, the manufacturer of Mama instant noodles, is threatening to reduce its production capacity by half next week due to the growing shortage of palm oil.

26/01/2011 (The Jakarta Post) - The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (Gapki) called on the government to reduce the export tax imposed on crude palm oil (CPO), which is set to be increased to 25 percent next month.

26/01/2011 (The Star Online), Putrajaya - The current and future expansion of oil palm plantations is limited due to the unavailability of suitable land and this problem is further compounded by campaigns by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to stop oil palm expansion, according to Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok.

26/01/2011 (The Star Online), Petaling Jaya - Sime Darby Plantation Sdn Bhd, already one of the biggest plantation companies globally, now wants to be the largest producer of “green” palm oil.

26/01/2011 (The Star Online), Putrajaya - Some of the eight palm oil entry point projects (EPPs) identified under the Palm Oil National Key Economic Area (NKEA) have started making progress despite their launch only three months ago, said Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) director of palm oil, agriculture and rubber industry, John Low.