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The world's only remaining male northern white rhino has died in Kenya, leaving only two females of the doomed subspecies alive on the planet.

Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy said in a statement that it decided to euthanize the 45-year-old rhino, named Sudan, due to untreatable and debilitating health problems. The rhino suffered from health complications which affected his muscles and bones, resulting in extensive skin wounds.

"His condition worsened significantly in the last 24 hours; he was unable to stand up and was suffering a great deal," Ol Pejeta said, as cited by Reuters. "The veterinary team from the Dver Kralove Zoo, Ol Pejeta and Kenya Wildlife Service made the decision to euthanize him."

The rhino refused to mate naturally, prompting conservationists to put Sudan on the dating app Tinder, in a last-bid attempt to raise $9 million for fertility treatment.

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Northern White Rhino doomed to extinction after last male dies in Kenya

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The world's only remaining male northern white rhino has died in Kenya, leaving only two females of the doomed subspecies alive on the planet. Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy said in a statement that it decided to euthanize the 45-year-old rhino, named Sudan, due to untreatable and debilitating health problems. The rhino suffered from health complications which affected his muscles and bones, resulting in extensive skin wounds.

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Volkswagen opposes key European laws that we need if we're going to save our planet from climate change. All is not lost. We feel the good in Volkswagen. Help us turn VW away from the Dark Side. JOIN THE REBELLION - http://vwdarkside.com/

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greenpeace - kitkat - Ask Nestlé CEO to stop buying palm oil from destroyed rainforest

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Nestlé is fighting a PR battle with Greenpeace over claims that it is continuing to source palm oil from Sinar Mas, the Indonesian company accused of illegal deforestation and peatland clearance.

Greenpeace alleges that plantation expansion by Sinar Mas is endangering orang-utans by encroaching on their habitat. Its latest campaign features a video of an office worker inadvertently biting into an orang-utan finger instead of a Kit Kat chocolate bar.

Ian Duff, a campaigner for the environmental NGO, said: "this is something we've brought up with Nestlé time and time again and they've failed to act."

In late 2009, Greenpeace released a report alleging that Sinar Mas was clearing rainforest and peatland without permits from the government. Unilever and Kraft both suspended contracts with Sinar Mas subsidiaries as a result. At the time, Nestlé said it would make its own investigations into the matter.

Nestlé was quick to respond to the latest campaign, saying it had found a new supplier. However, it admitted that it still sources palm oil from Sinar Mas through its supplier Cargill and that a full review of its supply chain would take until the end of April 2010.

Nestlé has committed to using only "certified sustainable palm oil" by 2015. Like fellow food manufacturers Unilever and Kraft, it is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a consortium of buyers and producers promoting sustainably produced palm oil.

RSPO membership entails certain obligations but most are directed at producers, and buyers claim the current supply of sustainable palm oil is not sufficient. Critics of the organisation say its demands are too vague and it lacks teeth. Ian Duff says the conditions of membership are "not strong enough and not policed".

"Unilever has gone beyond its commitments to the RSPO by cancelling contracts. That's what other companies need to do."

Palm oil is widely used in the production of food and cosmetics. Demand has expanded considerably in the last two decades and Greenpeace expects it to double by 2030. If the biofuel industry takes off, this could drive demand even higher.

Over the past 60 years Indonesia has lost an area of rainforest three times the size of the UK. The United Nations Environment Programme says palm oil production is the main cause of deforestation, which is occurring at a rate of about 2% per year. Indonesia is also the world's third largest carbon emitter, largely as a result of deforestation and the burning of peatlands.
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Nestlé stars in smear campaign over Indonesian palm oil

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Nestlé is fighting a PR battle with Greenpeace over claims that it is continuing to source palm oil from Sinar Mas, the Indonesian company accused of illegal deforestation and peatland clearance. Greenpeace alleges that plantation expansion by Sinar Mas is endangering orang-utans by encroaching on their habitat.

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Hard-hitting activist campaigns against big corporations have become part of the sustainability landscape. Some change the world. Some change little. Telling the difference between one and the other isn't easy.

Consider this example of a victory that is less than it seemed at the time: when the Breast Cancer Fund accused Revlon of using chemicals linked to cancer in its cosmetics, the company called the charges "false and defamatory", demanded a retraction and threatened to sue.

Instead, last month, Revlon for the first time published an ingredients policy. The activists declared victory. "It is now one of the most comprehensive cosmetic-safety policies," says Janet Nudelman of the Breast Cancer Fund. Renee Sharp of the Environmental Working Group, which also campaigned against Revlon, says: "They're definitely a leader."

So what happened? Not much, according to Revlon. The company reformulated some products to eliminate certain chemicals of concern - long-chain parabens and DMDM Hydantoin and Quaternium-15, which release tiny amounts of formaldehyde - but the company says the process was well under way before it began talking with the Breast Cancer Fund.

"This was happening," says Alexandra Gerber, vice president and assistant general counsel. "But [the critics] helped us to realize what a poor job we'd been doing in getting the message out. The change was just the transparency."

Transparency matters - without it, buyers of shampoo and nail polish can't make informed choices or avoid potential allergens. But Revlon, and regulators at the Food and Drug Administration, say its products, including those using the dispute ingredients, are safe, and always have been.

Then there are game-changing battles, like the decade-long campaign waged by green groups against Indonesia-based Asia Pulp & Paper. In 2013, AP&P, as it's known, committed to a no-deforestation policy. It went a step further last spring, promising to restore 1m hectares of natural forest and other ecosystems in Indonesia, where it is the biggest forest-products firm.

AP&P's efforts are being monitored by respected NGOs Rainforest Alliance and The Forest Trust. The Indonesian company's efforts have won cautious praise from Greenpeace and WWF. Rhett Butler, the founder of mongabay.com and a forestry expert, says: "The paper products giant may be abandoning business as usual for a very different approach - one that could change how forests are managed worldwide."

So far, the signs are encouraging. Following AP&P's commitments, Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (April), Indonesia's second-biggest paper company, promised to stop pulping that nation's natural forests. US food giant Cargill and Singapore-based Wilmar, the world's largest palm-oil trader, have also taken no-deforestation pledges. At the UN Climate Summit last September, more than 150 governments, businesses and nonprofits signed the New York Declaration on Forests, committing to do their parts to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030.

"I believe we got the ball rolling," says Aida Greenbury, Asia Pulp & Paper's sustainability director. "If we can deliver, other companies can deliver, too."

If the Revlon turnaround was mostly cosmetic (pun intended) and the AP&P commitments were earth-changing, what can we learn about NGO campaigns targeted at big brands? Some produce little more than press releases, intended to generate attention and funding for activists. Others set off important changes. Here's an admittedly subjective sampling, ranging from the important to the trivial.

Nike

It was the grandaddy of all activist campaigns. Throughout the 1990s, Nike was targeted by labor activists, campus organizers and anti-globalization forces for allowing its suppliers in poor countries to abuse and exploit workers.

At first, Nike said it couldn't be responsible for conditions in factories it didn't own. Protests and media reports proliferated. In 1996, Life magazine published a story headlined " Six Cents an Hour, " with a photo of a Pakistani boy sewing Nike soccer balls.

Phil Knight, who was then CEO, promised reform in a 1998 speech. "The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse," he said. "I truly believe that the American consumer does not want to buy products made in abusive conditions."

It was slow in coming but Nike eventually set up an extensive and expensive system for monitoring and remedying factory conditions in its supply chain - and the rest of the footwear and apparel industry followed.

Today, Nike is a corporate-sustainability leader. "Our greatest responsibility as a global company", it says, "Is to play a role in bringing about positive, systemic change for workers within our supply chain and in the industry". On the website of the Fair Labor Asociation, a coalition of brands, colleges and NGOs, Nike makes public inspection reports from its contract factories.

Some factories in poor countries still abuse workers, of course, but the Nike campaign transformed the debate about who's responsible, and how to make improvements.

Kimberly Clark

For five years, Greenpeace campaigned against Kimberly Clark, which makes Kleenex, Scott tissues, Huggies and Pull-Ups, accusing the company of destroying old-growth forests for throwaway products.

When they made peace in 2009, Greenpeace produced a clever video to mark the reconciliation. Today, K-C and Greenpeace continue to collaborate.

Lisa Morden, K-C's senior director of global sustainability, says the company was moving towards sourcing more recycled and certified fiber before the activists came along, but the campaign "really did accelerate our work and our progress". Kimberly Clark turned around when it faced defections from campus customers and reputational damage. "It was becoming challenging, commercially, for us," Morden says.

K-C increased its use of environmentally-preferred fiber, which includes recycled and Forest Stewardship Council-certified fiber, from 54 to 83% in its global tissue-products. Richard Brooks, director of the Canadian forest program for Greenpeace, says the company's actions have "had a ripple effect on other companies in the tissue-product sector". For example, Procter & Gamble, which makes Bounty, Charmin and Puffs, exceeded its fiber-purchasing goals a year ahead of schedule by achieving Forest Stewardship Certification for 54% of the virgin fiber used in its tissue.

Last fall, Greenpeace Canada launched a campaign accusing Best Buy of buying paper from Resolute Forest Products, the largest and most controversial logging company in Canada, according to Brooks. Within days, Best Buy agreed to move millions of dollars worth of business away from Resolute, Brooks says.

Lego

Under the headline Save the Arctic!, Greenpeace mounted a campaign to get toymaker Lego to stop distributing its toys at Shell gas stations. "Shell has launched an invasion of children's playrooms in order to prop up its public image, while threatening the Arctic with a deadly oil spill. We can't let Shell get away with it," the group said.

Greenpeace won, thanks in part to a wickedly clever YouTube video that has attracted nearly 7m views.

But to what end? Keeping Shell out of children's playrooms won't keep the oil giant out of the Arctic.

And while Shell's Arctic drilling plans are risky, if not foolhardy - particularly in today's environment of low oil prices - Shell is far from the worst of the fossil fuel companies. Shell says that CO2 emissions must be reduced to avoid serious climate change, it supports a carbon price and it is one of the very few fossil fuel companies to sign the Trillion Ton Communique.

Then again, if Shell someday judges that Arctic drilling is doing serious damage to its brand and reputation, it could decide to seek oil elsewhere.

General Mills

Anti-GMO groups like the Organic Consumers Association declared victory a year ago when General Mills announced that it would make GMO-free Cheerios. It was a small victory. Oats are the principal ingredient in Cheerios, and there are no GMO oats. General Mills made the shift by sourcing small amounts of corn syrup and cane sugar from GMO-free sources. Its Honey Nut Cheerios - which outsell the original Cheerios - continue to source GMO corn and sugar, and they are the next target of activists.

What did the Cheerios campaign accomplish? Very little. As the Cheerios website notes, General Mills makes a variety of organic cereals that are GMO-free - including Cascadian Farms Honey Nut O's - so consumers who want to avoid GMOs can do so.

As for the non-GMO Cheerios, they no longer contain vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, because vitamins fail the non-GMO test. In other words, Cheerios today are less healthy than they used to be.

The values-led business hub is funded by SC Johnson. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled 'brought to you by'. Find out more here. Topics

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Under pressure: campaigns that persuaded companies to change the world

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Hard-hitting activist campaigns against big corporations have become part of the sustainability landscape. Some change the world. Some change little. Telling the difference between one and the other isn't easy.

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Documentário realizado em 2009 por Chris Smith que entrevista Michael Ruppert acerca das suas visões sobre assuntos políticos, monetários e religiosos que terão estado na origem de um colapso da socidade moderna actual. Michael Ruppert foi um ex-polícia de Los Angeles que se tornou num investigador e aclamado autor de livros sobre as suas visões radicais de vários fenómenos mundiais.

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http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/fracking

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Greenpeace defends the natural world and promotes peace by investigating, exposing and confronting environmental abuse, and championing solutions. Learn more and join us!

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Activists from the Occupy movement held their latest campaign in London this weekend. The protest movement, now three years old, has global recognition. But how can its impact be measured?

The campaign started in New York, on 17 September 2011. They camped in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street, protesting against corporate greed. Celebrities visited - Kanye West and Susan Sarandon among them. Press coverage followed and President Obama said he " understood their frustrations".

The Twitter handle @OccupyWallSt has 205,000 followers. The @OccupyWallStNYC and @OccupyWallStNY have 185,000 between them. The Facebook page has 660,544 likes.

The initial action spawned hundreds of similar protests around the world. In London, a month later, activists erected tents at St Paul's Cathedral. Again it was the city's financial heart. For more than four months they camped, gave speeches, tweeted and networked before being removed forcibly by bailiffs following a court battle.

The protest was widely followed by the press and discussed in parliament. Again, celebrities got involved - Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Billy Bragg were among a number of musicians to play live for the protesters. @Occupy London has 54K followers on Twitter and 103,044 Facebook likes.

Occupy organisers said at the time that there would be protests in 951 cities in 82 countries. There have been many more since then, but has it made a difference?

Google searches of the word "occupy" spiked in October 2011, but quickly dropped back. They have not spiked since.

"Academics are always trying to find a way to measure the success of protest movements," says Sam Halvorsen an academic researcher from University College London who wrote his thesis on Occupy. "First you have to work out what it means to be successful. Some people in the protest think it is measured by the amount of media coverage. Others think people like Russell Brand getting involved is really important. Other people may think those things are quite superficial."

The true success of Occupy is hard to measure. It is, by design, a patchwork affair.

Occupy groups tend to have spin-offs and splinters - some are active while others are dormant. They all have their own social media identities and their own politics. There are no leaders and numerous causes - campaigns range from anti-fracking to keeping libraries open to this weekend's protest to "save the NHS".

In the month following the first Occupy Wall Street protest, more than 100,000 different hashtags were used in connection with it, according to Twitter. Up to 330,000 total hashtags about Occupy topics were tweeted each day from the start of the Wall Street protest to 21 October 2011. This included #Occupy, #OccupyWallSt #ows, as well as a few joke tags such as #OccupyTheBathroom.

"Having lots of Twitter handles or followers on Twitter doesn't actually mean much - so many of them are dormant accounts," says Prof Charlie Beckett, director of the London School Of Economics' media thinktank Polis. "It's very easy to follow something or like something. Measuring something like Google searches can be a much better gauge of reach and actual active presence."

For a conventional party-based political movement, like UKIP in the UK, it's easier to measure success. It comes in the form of vote share, election victories and movement towards the party's main goal - the UK's departure from the EU. For a movement without any tight list of goals, like Occupy, it's harder.

Press coverage has also dropped off. A crude search of the Nexis database of UK press articles on Occupy London shows there were 396 stories in October 2011, dropping to 43 in 2012, three in 2013 and 14 in October this year.

Research from YouGov published in September shows that 55% of Americans say that the Occupy Wall Street movement has had no impact on the country, 18% say that it had a positive impact, while 27% say that its impact was negative. But the same survey also shows that 49% believe that protests are an effective way to change society.

"Social media is really important to us but it all goes up and down very quickly - it's about newsflashes," says John Sinha, an activist with Occupy Democracy - one of the offshoots of Occupy London.

"Normally it's very low, but when we have an action it spikes. We were trending second on Twitter for our last action. We have an organic reach of a million on Facebook. We also have a newsletter which we distribute to a few thousand."

"We don't measure it [success] in those terms," adds Inka Stafrace, an activist with Occupy London. "We don't follow it overall as if we are a political party. We look at engagement per action. Seeing a spike during an action is what makes us feel satisfied."

Stafrace runs Occupy London TV, which features footage from their various protests. It has accumulated 80,000 views - 50,000 of which she says have been added this year.

Of course, for some protests, it is easier to measure effectiveness. Occupy Wall Street was inspired by the demonstrations in Egypt's Tahrir Square. Protests there led directly to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

The Spanish Indignados movement, which protested in 2011 and 2012 for a radical change in Spanish politics, led to the creation of left-wing political party Podemos (meaning "we can"). The anti-austerity party, led by a university lecturer, won five seats in the European Parliament in May.

Occupy have claimed victories. Activists in Buffalo, New York, successfully lobbied to have the City of Buffalo move $45m out of an account with JP Morgan Chase, and to transfer the money to a smaller regional bank. The New York Times attributed to Occupy a decision by Bank of America to scrap plans to charge additional fees for use of debit cards.

Occupy Sandy activists set up distribution sites for blankets, clothes and hot food to people affected by Hurricane Sandy. They ferried volunteers to the worst-hit areas and set up "construction teams and medical committees".

There are a number of less visible, local-level successes, supporters say.

"Protests have their big moments when they are in the media and people are talking about it," says Halvorsen. "That is success on one level. Occupy have branched out to small [and] very small campaigns and they are making a difference there. But actually changing things for good takes a very long time."

Occupy at St Paul's: A timeline

15 October 2011: Demonstrations which began with Occupy Wall Street, spread to London and other European cities. Protesters - including Wikileaks founder Julian Assange - settle outside St Paul's Cathedral

16 October: Canon Chancellor of St Paul's, the Reverend Dr Giles Fraser, talks to protesters and says he supports their right to protest

21 October: Dean of St Paul's, Rev Graeme Knowles, announces that due to health and safety considerations, the cathedral is closing its doors to the public for the first time since World War Two

26 October: Bishop of London calls for the protesters to leave, and says cathedral officials are considering legal action

27 October: Dr Fraser resigns from post because he disagrees with the authorities' course of action

28 October: Cathedral reopens to the public; City of London Corporation and cathedral announce plans for legal action to clear the camp

16 November: Corporation attaches eviction notices to some tents

18 January 2012: High Court backs eviction

22 February: Appeal bid by protesters dismissed

28 February: Police and bailiffs clear the site

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Activists from the Occupy movement held their latest campaign in London this weekend. The protest movement, now three years old, has global recognition. But how can its impact be measured? The campaign started in New York, on 17 September 2011. They camped in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street, protesting against corporate greed.

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Panorama investigates bribery and corruption at Rolls Royce

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Panorama investigates bribery and corruption at Rolls Royce

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BBC One - Panorama, How Rolls-Royce Bribed Its Way Around the World

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Investigating the secret network of shady middlemen who helped sell Rolls-Royce products.

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Stats and facts

Gas and coal-fired power stations produce about half of the UK's electricity. Coal-fired plants are being phased out to meet clean air rules set by the EU - and to help hit the UK's own strict climate change targets.

The UK, like much of the world, is predicted to face major environmental challenges associated with climate change, including heavier bursts of rain, hotter temperatures, rising sea levels and threats to wildlife habitats.

Until recently, the EU led the world on climate change policy. It set the electricity sector on a course towards energy efficiency, nuclear and renewables.

National boundaries don't apply to greenhouse gases - or to migrating birds, pollutants of the air and sea, ozone-eating chemicals and fish. This is often used to justify pan-EU energy and environment legislation.

What does the EU do?

The EU is a major global force on energy and the environment. It has the world's biggest body of environmental law. It has cleaned up the air, rivers, and bathing beaches - at a cost to bill-payers. It has encouraged increased recycling and reduced landfill.

It has done this by setting common standards so industries in member states can't undercut each other by making goods in a way that pollutes Europe's shared environment.

In 2007, national leaders agreed the EU would tackle climate change with a plan for 2020. It included a mandatory 20% cut in greenhouse gases, generating a binding 20% of energy from renewables and a non-binding commitment to improve energy efficiency by 20%.

Since then total energy consumption has begun to fall - a little-known historic achievement. This is largely the result of EU standards for goods from cars to fridges and vacuum cleaners.

EU standards have forced industries to invest in processes and cut pollution, which has often given them a global clean-tech lead. The EU also helps shape the global market by demanding many imported goods meet EU environment standards.

But the EU's leading position has increased energy costs for businesses and consumers - in the short term at least. And this has been one of several factors in industrial job losses.

...and what doesn't it do?

The EU has set a broad framework, but member states choose their own energy mix. Germany, for instance, is scrapping nuclear and investing heavily in renewables; while the UK wants to resurrect nuclear.

Investment in renewables is likely to slow in the UK after recent subsidy cuts. The UK persuaded the EU not to extend binding national renewables targets after 2020.

UK opt-outs?

The UK was given a lower target of generating 15% of energy from renewables by 2020 because it was coming from a low base, but is still struggling to meet that.

The argument for leaving the EU

Eurosceptics say the UK could reduce energy prices by leaving the EU, although it's not clear how this can be done without repealing the UK's Climate Change Act, which the current government has said it won't do.

The argument for staying in the EU

As the UK attempts to meet its own commitments to tackle climate change, it will need more co-operation to get clean energy, not less. What's more, if the UK relaxed its pollution laws, it would probably be obliged to match EU environment standards to export to Europe anyway.
All you need to know about the UK's EU referendum Full referendum coverage

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Gas and coal-fired power stations produce about half of the UK's electricity. Coal-fired plants are being phased out to meet clean air rules set by the EU - and to help hit the UK's own strict climate change targets.

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The European Commission has blocked Telefonica's sale of O2 to CK Hutchison, the owner of Three.

The planned deal was worth £10.3bn, and would have left the UK with just three major mobile phone network operators.

But Europe's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said she had strong concerns about the takeover, ruling that it would reduce customer choice and raise prices.

CK Hutchison said it was considering a legal challenge to the decision.

Concessions not 'sufficient'

"The goal of EU merger control is to ensure that tie-ups do not weaken competition at the expense of consumers and businesses," said Ms Vestager.

"We want the mobile telecoms sector to be competitive, so that consumers can enjoy innovative mobile services at fair prices and high network quality."

The decision ruled that concessions offered by Hong-Kong based Hutchison - including a five year price freeze and billions of pounds in investments - "were not sufficient to prevent" the hampering of innovation and network infrastructure development.

CK Hutchison responded to the decision, saying the acquisition of O2 from Spain's Telefonica would bring "major benefits to the UK not only by unlocking £10bn of private sector investment in the UK's digital infrastructure but also by addressing the country's coverage issues, enhancing network capacity, speeds and price competition for consumers".

O2 said the ruling had little impact on their UK operations. "We work in an industry of constant change and have learnt how to manage that change better than most," said an O2 spokesperson.

"Regardless of what happens next, we will continue to deliver for our customers as we always have."

Analysis: Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC Technology Editor

It was the deal that was supposed to be the final stage in the reshaping of Britain's mobile phone market. But now the O2/Three marriage has been blocked by Brussels, where does that leave phone users?

Better off, according to regulators. The UK's communications regulator Ofcom, in particular, had argued that allowing the number of players in the market to fall from four to three would inevitably lead to higher prices, poorer service or both.

This sounds convincing in the short term. But, says much of the telecoms industry - if you look at the longer term health of Europe's mobile market - today's move is bad news for everyone.

To read Rory's analysis in full, click here

Potential global interest

The commission points out that retail prices in the UK are currently amongst the lowest in Europe, with the four major network operators also including Vodafone and BT's Everything Everywhere, known as EE.

These four operators - who own infrastructure like telecoms masts - have cooperated to share the costs of developing that infrastructure. And it is the collapse of these cost-sharing deals that seriously worries the European commission.

Meanwhile Liberty Global - the owner of Virgin Media - has said it would not rule out an acquisition of O2 if CK Hutchison's bid was ultimately unsuccessful.

"It would be strange if we didn't evaluate that option," chief executive Mike Fries told analysts on a recent results conference call.

Liberty Global currently possesses a minimal share of the UK mobile market subsidiary Virgin, which acts as a so-called "virtual operator." That means it must pay wholesale prices to access the network operated by BT's EE. Tesco and Asda operate their own virtual networks in a similar manner.

Liberty Global recently ended negotiations for a major tie-up with Vodafone across Europe, settling simply for a Netherlands joint venture.

Competitive UK prices

Kester Mann, a mobile operators analyst at CCS Insight, said global telecoms giants like Japan's Softbank or Mexico's America Movil could also be plausible buyers of O2, but that the "most likely eventual outcome" was a sale to a private equity firm.

"The collapse of the deal leaves both Three and O2 in a precarious position with uncertain futures in the UK," Mr Mann said.

A spokesperson for the British telecoms regulator Ofcom said that it was the "right outcome" for mobile customers.

"Competition must be sustainable, and regulation should support it," said Ofcom. "We will aim to do so through tools such as market reviews or auctions of mobile airwaves."

The European Commission has intervened in several proposed telecoms deals recently.

A merger between the Danish operations of TeliaSonera and Telenor was abandoned last September after the commission investigated the deal.

And there is also an ongoing probe of CK Hutchison's proposed merger with Italian operator Wind, owned by Russian firm Vimpelcom, that would create Italy's largest mobile phone network.

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The European Commission has blocked Telefonica's sale of O2 to CK Hutchison, the owner of Three. The planned deal was worth £10.3bn, and would have left the UK with just three major mobile phone network operators. But Europe's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said she had strong concerns about the takeover, ruling that it would reduce customer choice and raise prices.

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For Rolls-Royce, the stakes are high.

One of Britain's most celebrated companies is facing potential prosecution over allegations it spent years hiring middlemen who paid bribes all around the world.

For the company, prosecution could mean tremendous reputational damage. For any individuals implicated, it could mean jail. It is a humiliating prospect for a £13bn company widely regarded as one of the jewels of British business.

Rolls-Royce is considered so essential to the UK's economic wellbeing that the government retains a so-called "golden share" that allows it to veto decisions it perceives to threaten the national interest.

Ministers have met with the company's representatives more than 200 times since May 2010, according to an analysis by the Campaign Against Arms Trade.

It also bears a proud history. Founded more than a century ago with ambitions to create the finest motorcars in the world, Rolls-Royce later supplied the engines for the single-seater Supermarine Spitfire, which repelled the Luftwaffe during the darkest days of the Battle of Britain.

Following the second world war, the company began supplying equipment to aerospace, energy and marine industries all over the world. The Rolls-Royce car has been manufactured by a different company for years.

So how could a company with such a stellar history find itself in such a precarious position?

The modern Rolls-Royce seeks to land big contracts in highly competitive industrial arenas. Billions of pounds in profit are at stake, with many companies seeking the same contracts. Corruption is part and parcel of doing business in many of the countries in which Rolls-Royce operates, and with so much riding on each and every contract firms can come under enormous pressure to secure an advantage.

At the heart of the allegations against Rolls-Royce is the suggestion that the company may have secured multimillion-dollar contracts in foreign jurisdictions by using agents who paid bribes.

Rolls-Royce acknowledges it hired agents - otherwise known as commercial advisers, intermediaries or middlemen - to help sell its products.

It is not illegal to hire them. These agents often market themselves to multinationals as an essential part of doing business, purporting to have exclusive access to key decision-makers or unique insights into how a bid for a contract should be structured. However, middlemen can also provide a convenient channel by which illicit cash can change hands at arm's-length.

Rolls-Royce has declined to comment in detail on the corruption allegations since they first emerged four years ago. In its annual report in 2014, the multinational revealed that it had " dramatically " cut the number of intermediaries through which it did business around the world, a tacit acceptance that such practices were either unnecessary or inappropriate.

As the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into Rolls-Royce is about to enter its fifth year, dozens of investigators continue to examine the evidence against the company.

A fresh leak of documents from a firm of agents, Unaoil, to investigative journalists at Australia's Fairfax Media only adds to the complexity. Unaoil represented Rolls-Royce in at least five countries, according to those documents. As such, any decision about whether or not to prosecute Rolls-Royce and its staff or executives is unlikely to be made before 2017, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Sue Hawley, policy director at the monitoring group Corruption Watch, said: "This decision will be a key test of the UK's ability, and willingness, to bring large and politically sensitive companies to book. If Rolls-Royce are found to have engaged in wrongdoing, they must also be barred from public procurement contracts for an appropriate length of time."

The British government decisively failed the last such test. An SFO investigation into alleged bribery in Saudi Arabia by Britain's biggest arms manufacturer BAE was halted by Tony Blair's government in 2006.

Though said to be motivated by fear that the Saudis would withhold counter-terrorism intelligence should the investigation proceed, few anti-corruption specialists saw the decision as the UK's finest moment.

So the Rolls-Royce inquiry is important for the SFO too.

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A Rolls-Royce seabed cutter. Photograph: Rolls-Royce plc

Theresa May was widely reported to view the agency as an unsuccessful anachronism while home secretary, and taken with the idea that its fraud and bribery functions might be folded into her new National Crime Agency.

However, anti-corruption campaigners oppose such a move, and the agency may have earned a reprieve after this year securing the convictions of bankers who manipulated the Libor rates. The agency also appears to have become more proactive, establishing a new intelligence unit that follows up reports from journalists or NGOs rather than waiting for tip-offs to present themselves.

Even if the SFO were to conclude it possessed sufficient evidence to prosecute Rolls-Royce, it could opt for a course of action that would inflict less collateral damage to the many entirely innocent employees and suppliers that depend on Rolls-Royce for their livelihoods.

A deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) would, instead of a full criminal prosecution of the company, entail the presentation of an agreed statement of facts to a court, laying out the details of the company's conduct, as well as a large fine.

Such an approach may be considered suitable for Rolls-Royce given the company's parlous financial health: it sold its energy business to Siemens in May 2014, and issued its fifth profit warning (paywall) in 20 months in September this year.

However, DPAs are controversial. After HSBC was awarded one, along with a record $1.9bn fine, in 2012 after it admitted laundering money for Mexican drug cartels, the New York Times damned the settlement as " a dark day for the rule of law" and an effective admission that the company was too big to prosecute.

As a less harsh outcome to a prosecution, such settlements are obviously attractive to companies that find themselves in the SFO's crosshairs.

But to be seen to treat a defendant with kid gloves could prompt the SFO's critics to accuse it of being soft on crime, and would raise questions around fairness were any of the company's agents to be subject to full prosecution.

If you would like to pass on any confidential information, you can send a message via the Guardian's SecureDrop service (see how here and here).

Panorama: Rolls-Royce will be broadcast on BBC1 at 8.30pm on Monday 31 October.

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Why the Rolls-Royce investigation is so important to the SFO

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For Rolls-Royce, the stakes are high. One of Britain's most celebrated companies is facing potential prosecution over allegations it spent years hiring middlemen who paid bribes all around the world. For the company, prosecution could mean tremendous reputational damage. For any individuals implicated, it could mean jail.

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Political Influence and Legal control of MNC's

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The five largest economies in the European Union have agreed to share information on secret owners of businesses and trusts.

It is a concerted attempt to show their leaders are responding to public concern over the Panama Papers leak.

The UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have agreed to the data exchange.

Treasury officials told the BBC the move would make it harder for businesses and wealthy individuals to operate without paying correct taxes.

Information on the ultimate "beneficial owners" of companies and trusts would now be automatically exchanged.

The five countries are now pushing for the rest of the G20 nations with the world's largest economies to follow suit.

That would mean data exchange on previously secret tax information between countries such as America, Saudi Arabia and China.

Some might see any such extension as unlikely.
Q&A: Panama Papers How assets are hidden and taxes dodged Panama leaks spur global investigations
The UK government has already announced that it will make its register of beneficial ownership public - and is privately urging the other four signatories of the deal to agree that the public can have access to the information.

"Today we deal another hammer blow against those who hide their illegal tax evasion in the dark corners of the financial system," Mr Osborne said at the annual International Monetary Fund spring meeting in Washington.

"Britain will work with our major European partners to find out who really owns the secretive shell companies and trusts that have been used as conduits for evading tax, laundering money and benefitting from corruption."

The exchange is unlikely to placate critics who say that not enough has been done to crack down on global tax avoidance and tax evasion, often via offshore trusts and companies based in tax havens.

'Working together'

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has suggested that some tax havens under British jurisdiction such as the British Virgin Islands should face direct rule from the UK if they do not reform their tax laws.

The move on data exchange comes ten days after the leak of 11.5 million documents known as the Panama Papers which revealed how some businesses and wealthy individuals avoided and evaded tax using complicated networks of highly secretive companies.

"It is Britain and our European partners setting the pace on beneficial ownership transparency of not just companies but also trusts with tax consequences - and I expect that the rest of the world will move to follow our example," Mr Osborne said.

"It shows the benefit of working together. No single country can tackle international tax evasion alone - and Britain should never fool itself into thinking that it can do this by itself."

The agreement was announced at an unprecedented joint press conference of the finance ministers of the five EU countries at the IMF.

Mr Osborne was joined by Wolfgang Schauble of Germany and Michel Sapin of France.

Also at the announcement was Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, and Angel Gurria, Secretary General of the OECD, the international body charged with setting new global tax rules on information sharing and transparency.

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The five largest economies in the European Union have agreed to share information on secret owners of businesses and trusts. It is a concerted attempt to show their leaders are responding to public concern over the Panama Papers leak. The UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have agreed to the data exchange.

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2 - Ethics and controlling MNCs case study - Question sheet

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2 - Ethics and controlling MNCs - Answers