Archived News

04/10/2009 (The Star Online), Kota Kinabalu - The Sabah government is determined to ensure the continued existence of its iconic orang utans by enforcing land laws that do not allow clearing of forests along riparian reserves for planting crops such as oil palm.

03/10/2009 (Mongabay.com) - In an unlikely—and perhaps tenuous—alliance, conservationists and the palm oil industry met this week to draw up plans to save Asia's last great ape, the orangutan. As if to underscore the colloquium's importance, delegates on arriving in the Malaysian State of Sabah found the capital covered in a thick and strange fog caused by the burning of rainforests and peat lands in neighboring Kalimantan.

03/10/2009 (Jakarta Post) - Amid the grief over the loss of more than 1,000 lives, the West Sumatra and Jambi earthquakes will mean enormous medium-term material losses with repercussions going beyond the borders of both provinces.

02/10/2009 (Manila Bulletin), Butuan City - Palm oil industry stakeholders are eyeing some 45,500 hectares of land in the Caraga Region to increase their production in the next five years, it was learned Friday.

02/10/2009 (Solomon Star) - THE Government says it will recruit four project managers as part of its commitment to boost oil palm plantations in the country.

01/10/2009 (The Star Online), Petaling Jaya - Palm oil, which accounts for 60% of the global vegetable oil trade, has come under fire from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. The non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are pressuring processors and consumers to boycott the oil and European Union (EU) governments to block its import based on the contention that palm oil damages the environment.

29/09/2009 (Bernama), Sibu - Another Sarawak timber and oil palm company has invested heavily in the oil palm industry.

29/09/2009 (Daily Times), Karachi - Country’s palm oil products import bill for September-October 2009 will increase by around 10 percent on higher demand and rupee-dollar parity, importers said Monday.

28/09/2009 (Environmental Leader) - Seventh Generation aims to exclusively use certified sustainable palm oil for its household products by 2012.

29/09/2009 (Bernama), Bangkok - The anti-palm oil campaign by environmental groups is unlikely to have immediate effect on leading Malaysian and Indonesian exporters but could lead to trade and aid restrictions in future, the crop's pro-campaign group said Tuesday.

29/09/2009 (The Daily Star) - Palm Olin (locally we call palm oil) is a low cost edible oil. It is very suitable for human consumption from health point of view. Its yield per hector is much higher than all other known vegetables edible oils. The palm tree originated from the African continent. But at present Malaysia and Indonesia produce the largest quantity of palm oil systematically and export it to different countries. Developed high yield variety of plants when cultivated in a scientific way, discovered by research and development, has produced even a few tons of oil from a hector of land in a year in Malaysia. It has been proved that palm oil tree plantation is suitable for Bangladesh soil and climate. In the last decade Bangladesh imported more than one million tonnes of palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia annually and the quantity is increasing with increase in per capita income over here. We have been consuming palm oil in the name of soybean oil as the traders sell palm oil as soybean oil. We knowthat palm oil is suitable for health and it also increases taste of food items.

28/09/2009 (Online Opinion) - In a major development, India and the ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Bangkok on August 13, 2009. The FTA, restricted only to goods, is India’s first with a trade bloc and will cover 11 countries with a combined Gross Domestic Product of over US$2 trillion.