Charlie Rose

Burak_Gosgun  12/21/2009 04:37 AM Report

Wondering the People who are commenting here about Armenian Genocide if have any single idea about the history? Turkish government has sent to their president an offer in order to enlight every assestion about this issue just about a year ago. According to this offer, both countries will open government archieves and an independent historian grup will be created to study on that. But the answer from Armenian side was 'No'. You know why? Because they have scared to face with the reals so that they will have lost their followers around the world. However if there is anyone who like to see Armanian Massacre to Azerbaycan Turks in 1980's, there is no need to go to historians. Make google and search for it. Let's talk also this one.

Gustav  06/14/2009 11:24 AM Report

Turkey isn't getting closer to a EU membership, on the contrary it's moving further away from it. Bridging the gap between west and east may be vital, but my feelings are that they grasp for straws wherever they lay.

Dillingham  06/12/2009 07:28 AM Report

This is a fascinating look at the callous pride of a Turkish national. As a Jew, Muhtar Kent should be ashamed to breathe the word Turkey in a representational interview without mentioning the failure of that country to accept its perpetration of the Armenian genocide to the world in which they want so desperately to belong. Aside from the inability to take an objective and humble view of their horrible history, flagrant with the genocide of those 2 million Armenians, as well as Kurds and Greeks over hundreds of years, we should not be remiss to mention other human rights violations and duplicitous behavior regarding the needs of the west during the Bush and other US administrations. Always under the pretext of being a secular facilitator, there is no reason to believe that modern suits and business prospects can change the reality of Article 301, the complicit killing of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian editor of the bilingual weekly Agos, gunned down outside his newspaper’s Istanbul office on January 19, 2007. Further, Dink’s murder conjures back the memory of the killing of 18 Turkish journalists throughout the 1990s. A country who can not grow up and clean house, a country with no free press is in no estimation an acceptable candidate for EU membership or US partnership. As a consummate interviewer in all topics, particularly in politics, it is disappointing to see Charlie Rose never invoke this topic within this interview. This interviewee seems to have much to say, what would he say about this topic?

tartufe  06/10/2009 06:50 PM Report

Wow! 5 of 5 condemnations. Wonder if Pepsi and the rest would fare any better? Unhappily my water supply is not much better than coke.

CorpCamp  06/10/2009 04:39 PM Report

I'd like to add a couple of comments to those expressed earlier.

Coke’s labor abuses in China: Coca-Cola has come under fire in China based on undercover investigations at several Coke plants. Chinese press reported in December 2008 that Coke employees are “involved in the most dangerous, intense and tiresome labor, work the longest hours, but receive the lowest wages and face arrears and even cutbacks in their pay.” One investigator claimed that Coke violated Chinese labor laws and reported that workers “often worked 12 hours per day for an entire month without a single day off.”

BBC News (5/21/07) reported that Coca-Cola has been accused of benefiting from prison labor in China.

A recent book by British journalist and satirist Mark Thomas, "Belching Out the Devil" was reviewed in Newsweek, 6/15/09. http://www.newsweek.com/id/200890:

British satirist and TV host Mark Thomas's new book takes aim at Coca-Cola, alleging that the company's worldwide thirst-quenching isn't bringing smiles to everyone. Instead, he writes, the iconic white-and-red ribbon is a slick PR blindfold for child labor, union crackdowns and even violence, all to protect cash flow and the supply chain. The four best bits:

The company, Thomas contends, looked the other way as some bottlers in Colombia and elsewhere intimidated and attacked union organizers, who "walk with a gravestone" on their backs. Pressured to audit Colombian plants in 2005, Coke helpfully noted a substandard number of fire extinguishers at one, but didn't address the charges.

Coke often doesn't make its own Coke. It relies on a vast web of subcontractors, bottlers and distributors. Most have loose or no ties to the company, and are in countries where workplace laws are underdeveloped at best.

In India, Coke drained water from local villages but gave them fertilizer in return—which contained lead and toxins, according to a BBC investigation. A leading British poisons expert warned of "devastating consequences" for the local population, but Coke called the fertilizer "absolutely safe."

The concentrate for 70 percent of Coca-Cola's 1.5 billion drinks served each day originates in the tax haven of Ireland, where enough concentrate for 50,000 Cokes costs $2.60—including labor. The concentrate's main ingredient? Caramel.

Lromfried  06/10/2009 03:44 PM Report

A bit of conflict of interest in this interview. Coca-Cola is one of the "sponsors" of this show. So, there were no difficult questions for Kent to answer. In fact, almost every time Coke gets an award, a simple research shows a financial relationship between Coke and the organization giving the award.

First, no questions in this interview about Coke's bottlers in Colombia working with paramilitary death squads killing union leaders (SINALTRAINAL) to bust the union.

Nothing about Coke's overuse of water sources in drought areas of India and elsewhere, leaving farmers and communities with little potable water.

Nothing about the use of unhealthy chemicals in beverages helping to fuel an obesity and diabetes epidemic in the U.S.

Nothing about lawsuits regarding racial discrimination -- Coke had to pay $192.5 million in one settlement.

No question about Coke's benefiting from child labor in El Salvador.

How about union busting in Turkey and Russia...and California -- closing union plants and opening new ones without a union.

Perhaps one reason that Coke is doing better in Europe than the U.S. is the presence of a boycott of Coke in colleges, universities and labor unions.

Take a look at www.killercoke.org

kirchstr  06/10/2009 03:37 PM Report

Kent is not only a marketing man for Coca-Cola, but also for Turkey. His platitudes in support of EU membership do not survive complete analysis. Turkey as exemplary secular state in muslim world: There is no reason to believe it will continue to be secular. Non-secular tendancies are well-represented in public office at present. Remember PM Erdogan's performance at Davos? Erdogan & Co.s' brand of non-secular politics are by no means in the minority in Turkey. In the pusuit of EU membership Turkish interests emphasise their secular governance. Rather than repeatedly put forward empty rhetoric in pursuit of membership, how about substantive gestures such as recognising the Armenian Genocide as, well, genocide. Turkey as bridge between "west" and muslim world: It doesn't need EU membership to perform that role. In fact surely staying out of the EU would make it better positioned to adopt that east-west bridging role.

REMant  06/10/2009 02:10 PM Report

You can tell he's a mktg man. It's marketing channels he's referring to. I no longer drink that stuff, but when I did I bought the grocery store brand, which I thought was better than either Coke or Pepsi. Tho I realize the company, for whom my first mktg prof consulted, sells orange juice too, I think most ppl would be much better off health-wise if they never touched anything they make, and the health of the planet probably also. I suppose this is why the mkt has dropped off here, like it has for tobacco. The problem is not calories, but substance, sugar used elsewhere, but high fructose corn syrup here, which can only be viewed as a toxic substance, and which, if mfrs don't stop using it, may find them involved in some high profile lawsuits down the road. Recently some mfrs have gotten this message and removed it from their products, fir instance Arnold's bread, Log Cabin syrup and several brands of spaghetti sauce. There's a very long way to go, however. High fructose corn syrup, which is different from ordinary corn syrup and listed separately on labels, began being used in this country because sugar tariffs raised the price of sugar. It is made in an elaborate chemical process and has been found by USDA researchers to cause liver damage akin to alcohol abuse. Besides this, the phosphoric acid used to produce the bubbles is bad for your bones, and the caffeine in soft drinks causes calcium to be excreted, prevents absorption of vitamins and minerals, and has a host of other bad effects from kidney stones to heart disease and cancer. Only a little caffeine is found in the kola nut itself, which plays no part in most formulations anyway. The rest mfrs add using caffeine extracted from decaffeinating coffeee and manipulate levels the way cigarette mfrs manipulate nicotine levels. Coca-Cola products are among the highest in caffeine tho a can contains less than a cup of regular coffee. IMHO aside from the sugar and caffeine, Coke has always been a mktg phenomenon, and I used to see their ads everywhere, but I cannot remember when I last saw or heard one in or on any media. The Japanese may be quite finicky eaters, but they have a huge fascination with all things and fads Western, the youth in particular, which may account for the sales there, but I don't see how that transfers here. I see, BTW, that a tax on sugar and high fructose corn syrup is under consideration as a means of paying for healthcare reform. His "strategic" view is conventional enough but I don't think a certainty, because population declines with productivity growth, and increases in situations like the present when the increase in debt exceeds it, but it need not if we can get our finances under control. I presume he is not speaking about recovering the water in the bottles...