What the papers (didn't) say about the RBS chief

Plenty has been written about the Royal Bank of Scotland chief's appearance at a UK Treasury Select Committee hearing this week and his acknowledgement that his parents wouldn't approve of his almost £10 million bonus package.

'If you ask my mother and father about my pay, they'd say it was too high,' Stephen Hester was quoted as saying in The Times.

Who else wouldn't approve? Try dozens of indigenous communities in Canada whose land and lives are being devastated by an RBS-financed project described by one Greenpeace campaigner as 'the biggest global warming crime ever seen'.

This is the 'tar sands', or 'oil sands', project in Alberta in which the RBS, according to the Rainforest Action Network, has invested more than £8 billion. None of the UK's national broadsheets managed to mention this.

To hear about the effects of the tar sands project, here is someone, Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, from the region being devastated: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/29/tarsands-oil-rbs-canada

As Eriel points out, UK taxpayers must bear some responsibility for the 'tar sands' project because 84% of the RBS is now owned by the state. For the guilty, 'look no further than the mirror,' she says.

Almost £10 million for overseeing the 'biggest global warming crime ever'? When the Head of the Select Committee told Hester 'the sheer size of your package seems to be out of synch with what is happening out there', he was more right than he knew.

For more information see: http://blog.newint.org/editors/2009/12/22/head-in-the-sand/