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 | Bolivia pushes back against Swiss commodities giant Glencore
by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, CorpWatch Blog
July 24th, 2012
Glencore corporation, the secretive Swiss commodities giant which has become one of the world's biggest trader of grain, oil and minerals, has hit an unlikely roadblock. The Bolivian government nationalized the Colquiri tin and zinc mine, the third Glencore asset to be seized by the state in five years. |
 | Private Hedge Fund "Alpha" Surveys Allow Wealthy Clients to Profit From "Insider" Views
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
July 17th, 2012
BlackRock and Two Sigma Investments – both major hedge funds - have been conducting regular private surveys of brokers for wealthy clients. The practice has raised red flags because of Morgan Stanley's role in the Facebook stock market flotation, as well as insider trading scandals at Goldman Sachs. |
 | Protestors Halt Copper Alloy Plant In Sichuan Province
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
July 11th, 2012
Protestors have forced Sichuan Hongda to cancel plans to build a $1.6 billion copper alloy plant in Shifang city in southwestern China, because of pollution concerns. The halt has been hailed as a major victory by environmental activists against corporate and government power. |
 | Greenwashing the Olympics
by Daniel Nelson, CorpWatch Blog
July 4th, 2012
Rio Tinto has been named as early front-runner for the Greenwash Gold award for the worst Olympic sponsor, with BP in second place and Dow Chemical third. The three corporations have paid millions to stick their names all over Olympic promotional material and activities. |
 | Monsanto Faces $7.5 Billion Payout to Brazilian Farmers
by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, CorpWatch Blog
June 28th, 2012
Monsanto, the largest seed corporation in the world, has long dealt out severe legal sanctions against farmers it suspects of "pirating" its seed. Now farmers in Brazil have turned the tables on the company which may have to pay out $7.5 billion. |
 | Spies in Africa’s Skies: New Contractors for the Pentagon
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
June 18th, 2012
Sierra Nevada Corporation from Sparks, Nevada, and R-4, Inc. from Eatontown, New Jersey - are two companies at the forefront of the covert war in Africa, where they operate small Swiss aircraft to spy on behalf of the U.S. Special Operations Command. |
 | Forgiving Siemens: Unraveling a Tangled Tale of German Corruption in Greece
by Lena Mavraka and Vasilis Papatheodorou, Special to CorpWatch
June 11th, 2012
To understand the pervasive corruption in Greek politics, it is necessary to examine the company that has probably paid the biggest bribes to both major parties: Siemens from Munich, Germany, a company with contracts in practically every ministry from culture to telecommunications. |
 | Coffee Colonialism: Olam Plantation Displaces Lao Farmers
by Beaumont Smith, Special to CorpWatch
June 4th, 2012
Olam International, a Singapore based multinational, is growing coffee for export in Paksong, southern Laos. The land for the plantation was seized by Sonesay Siphandone, the district governor, from the upland Nha Huen/Yahern community who have been left without food to eat. |
 | Faking Happiness: Activists Strike Back at Vedanta Ad Campaign
by Freny Manecksha, CorpWatch Blog
May 30th, 2012
Vedanta Resources, a UK based mining and metals company with numerous projects in India, is attempting to claim to be social responsible via a huge advertising campaign. However activists have struck back by effectively using social media tools to counter Vedanta's claims. |
 | CIA "Rendition" Contractors Data Cache To Be Released
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
May 22nd, 2012
Details of 6,500 "extraordinary rendition" flights conducted by CIA contractors to transport over 1,100 victims to and from prison sites around the world are to be released by NGOs Reprieve Access Info Europe working in collaboration with Kent University and Kingston University in the UK. |
 | CorpWatch 2010-2011 Annual Report: Occupying the Web for 16 Years!
May 15th, 2012
One year ago today, the Occupy movement was born when Los Indignados (The Outraged) gathered in Puerta del Sol square in Madrid to protest big business and government failure to respond to the economic crisis. Here is our report to you about what CorpWatch did to Occupy our small part of the World Wide Web and report on the outrageous stories of corporate malfeasance. |
 | Privatizing Asylum Housing: Serco and G4S Get UK Contracts
by Lily Smith, CorpWatch Blog
May 8th, 2012
G4S and Serco – two private security contractors - have just been awarded multi-million pound contracts by the UK Borders Authority to provide housing to asylum seekers, edging out charities for the work. Activists are protesting, saying that G4S has a history of abusing immigrants and providing poor quality housing. |
 | Sweatships at Sea: Carnival Cruises Pay Below International Standards
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
May 1st, 2012
Carnival Cruise staff on UK ships are paid $1.20 an hour or $400 a month in basic wages, according to the Guardian newspaper. These workers lose their tips, ie roughly 15 percent of wages, unless they get at least a 92 percent favorable rating from customers. |
 | Cashing in on Terrorism
by Anna Feigenbaum, CorpWatch Blog
April 24th, 2012
"Is Rioting a Form of Urban Terrorism?" The headline for a press release was a provocative introduction to the annual Counter Terror Expo in Olympia, London, which opens this week. (April 25 & 26) Eight thousand visitors are expected to descend on 400 exhibitions of counter-terrorism technologies and services. |
 | Glencore Allegedly Buys Copper From Ten Year Old Miners
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
April 17th, 2012
Children as young as ten in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, dig for cobalt and copper which they then sell to Switzerland-based Glencore, the world’s largest commodities company, according to a new BBC investigation. |
 | Renewable Energy Projects Generate Opposition in Puerto Rico
by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, CorpWatch Blog
April 8th, 2012
Puerto Rican citizen groups are protesting two renewable energy projects: a 30 megawatt solar energy project in Yabucoa by Western Wind Energy corporation from Vancouver and a 75 megawatt windmill array in Santa Isabel by Pattern Energy of San Francisco. The reason: these projects will threaten scarce farm land on the food dependent island. |
 | Chiquita Banana To Face Colombia Torture Claim
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
March 30th, 2012
Chiquita, the global banana producer, was ordered to face a federal court over their role in paying off right wing death squads in Colombia that are alleged to have used “random and targeted violence” against villagers in exchange for financial assistance and access to Chiquita’s private port. |
 | Emerald Energy Exploits Colombian Andes
by Elias Cabrera, Special to CorpWatch
March 18th, 2012
Emerald Energy, a UK company owned by Sinochem of China, is exploring for oil in the eastern Colombian Andes in the high altitude tropical mountain tundra ecosystem known as páramo. Local communities say that the company's underground explosions have caused landslides and ground collapses that have destroyed homes, crops and contaminated the local water supply. |
 | Thorny Business: Ethiopian Rose Exports To Europe
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
March 5th, 2012
Karuturi Global and Saudi Star have leased thousands of hectares of land from the Ethiopian government for agricultural development. Critics says these projects have displaced traditional farmers and subsistence crops. |
 | Green Deserts: The Palm Oil Conflict
by Melody Kemp, Special to CorpWatch
February 16th, 2012
Wilmar of Singapore, the world’s biggest global processor and merchandiser of palm oil, has come in for harsh criticism for the environmental and social impact of its Indonesian plantations. The allegations also raise serious questions about the role of WWF and the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil. |
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