CorpWatch Exclusives
 | Big Tobacco Battles Advertising Restrictions by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog August 30th, 2012 Big Tobacco is fighting a multi-pronged battle to defeat a global wave of laws to force them to use graphic warning labels and plain packaging. It has won a major legal battle in the U.S. this month but it has lost in Australia. |
 | Grey Market Drugs: Profiting from Poorly Managed U.S. Health Care by Terry J. Allen, Special to CorpWatch January 22nd, 2012 Scalpers are doing a booming business in key medical drugs by taking advantage of U.S. patients and hospitals when they are desperate for supplies from the poorly regulated $46 billion global contract-manufacturing industry. |
 | Asia Inhales While the West Bans the Deadly Carcinogen by Melody Kemp, Special to CorpWatch February 16th, 2010 Asbestos, a known carcinogen, causes 100,000 occupational deaths per year. Although banned in much of the world, asbestos is a common and dangerous building block in much of Asia’s development boom, and its export remains both legal and profitable -- to the health detriment of the region. |
 | The Enbridge Oil Sands Gamble by Andrew Nikiforuk, Special to CorpWatch December 14th, 2009 Patrick Daniel, the CEO of Enbridge Inc, is bullish about the future of unconventional oil from Canada’s massive tar sand deposits. His company not only operates North America’s longest crude oil and liquid pipelines, but transports 12 percent of the oil that the U.S. imports daily. Canada’s bitumen, or dirty crude, lies under a forest area the size of England and is arguably the world’s last remaining giant oil field. |
 | Bhopal: Generations of Poison by Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to CorpWatch December 2nd, 2009 On the night of December 2-3, 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India leaked poisonous methyl iso cyanate into its densely populated neighborhood, killing 8,000 people in the immediate aftermath. 25 years later, Dow Chemical (which purchased Union Carbide in 2001) still refuses to clean up the site. But a new generation of Bhopal survivors is taking on the fight. |
 | Uranium Corporation of India Limited: Wasting Away Tribal Lands by Moushumi Basu, Special to CorpWatch October 7th, 2009 In Eastern India's Jharkand State, tensions are mounting between Indigenous tribal communities and the Uranium Corporation of India Limited, or UCIL. Heavy security at a May public hearing in Jadugoda prevented many local activists and villagers from entering. But outside the hearing, activists from the Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation (JOAR) argued their case for protecting their health and the environment from horrific impacts of radioactive contaminated waste resulting from uranium mining. |
 | Damming Magdalena: Emgesa Threatens Colombian Communities by Jonathan Luna, Special to CorpWatch July 21st, 2009 Near the town of La Jagua, overlooking the Magdalena River, the landscape is dotted with concrete markers declaring the land, river, and everything else a “public utility” that Colombia has given to the energy company Emgesa as part of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project. A construction permit was granted in May, with the dam scheduled for full operation by 2014. |
 | The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report by Antonia Juhasz, http://www.TrueCostofChevron.com/ May 26th, 2009 Chevron's 2008 annual report is a glossy celebration of the company's most profitable year in its history. What Chevron's annual report does not tell its shareholders is the true cost paid for those financial returns, or the global movement gaining voice and strength against the company's abuses. This jointly-produced report documents negative impacts of Chevron's operations around the globe, in stark contrast to the message sent by the company's ubiquitous "Human Energy" advertising campaign. |
 | Goa Cursed By Its Mineral Wealth by Emily Bild, Special to CorpWatch April 23rd, 2009 Set on India's west coast, Goa is renowned as a beach paradise popular with Indian and foreign tourists alike. Just a few miles inland from the quaint restaurants and the pristine waves lapping the silver shores of India's smallest state, iron-ore mining is destroying the environment, say activists and locals. |
 | Ducking Responsibility: Entergy Spins Its Nukes by Shay Totten, Special to CorpWatch August 4th, 2008 Entergy Nuclear (part of the broader Entergy energy family) is spinning off its northeastern U.S.-based nuclear power plants into a related limited liability corporation, Enexus. Stakeholders in Vermont, home of the Yankee Nuclear power plant, are less than happy, with Entergy also reneging on prior commitments to cover eventual plant decommissioning costs, potentially stranding taxpayers with much of the bill. |
 | Crossing the Wayúu: Pipeline Divides Indigenous Lands in South America by Jonathan Luna , Special to CorpWatch June 5th, 2008 Touted as the first step in a major regional integration project, the 225-kilometer TransCaribe pipeline travels underground across Colombia's Guajira Peninsula to the gas refineries of Maracaibo, Venezuela. Protesting the mega project's impacts on the peninsula's indigenous communities, the Wayúu community of Mashiis-Manaa is leading the struggle against oil giant Petróleos de Venezuela. |
 | Suing the Smelter: Oklahoma Town Takes on Freeport by Eliza Strickland, Special to CorpWatch May 15th, 2008 Residents of the town of Blackwell, Oklahoma have brought a class action lawsuit against mining giant Freeport McMoRan. The plaintiffs say that the company's zinc smelter, which closed in 1974, left a toxic legacy in the town, including contaminated sand from the smelter that was given away for free. |
 | Smokestack Injustice? Toxic Texas Smelter May Reopen by Kent Paterson, Special to CorpWatch April 2nd, 2008 The old American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) copper smelter in El Paso, Texas, which has spewed out toxins for over a century, has been granted a new five-year permit. This is despite the fact that it violates international laws by polluting communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. |
 | Ecuador's Yasuni Park: Oil Exploration or Nature Protection? by Agneta Enström, Special to CorpWatch March 20th, 2008 Permission for Petrobras of Brazil to drill for oil in Yasuni National Park, one of the most biologically diverse places in the world, has been suspended, but some damage has already been done by Swedish construction giant Skanska. Unless new money is found to protect the forest, exploration may resume. |
 | Playing with Children's Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi by Pilirani Semu-Banda, Special to CorpWatch February 25th, 2008 Cigarettes may be damaging not only your own health, but also that of some of the world's poorest children. Much of Malawi's thriving tobacco industry rests on the backs of exploited children, some as young as five years old. |
 | Titanium or Water? Trouble brews in Southern India by Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to CorpWatch October 24th, 2007 Tata, India's largest conglomerate, wants to take 10,000 acres of land to mine ilmenite in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The plan has sparked protests by local villagers who say the project will destroy their traditional way of life and the environment. |
 | Mud and the Minister: A Tale of Woe in Java by Anton Foek, Special to CorpWatch July 20th, 2007 Over a year after a torrent of liquid mud at an Indonesian oil exploration site inundated four villages, killing almost 100 people, the local community is still awaiting clean-up and proper compensation. This is despite the fact that the drilling company is owned by the family of a senior Indonesian minister. |
 | Barrick's Dirty Secrets: Communities Respond to Gold Mining's Impacts Worldwide May 1st, 2007 A new CorpWatch report details the operations of Barrick Gold in nine different countries, focusing on the efforts on the part of the communities to seek justice from this powerful multinational. Download Spanish version of report |
 | Speaking Diné to Dirty Power: Navajo Challenge New Coal-Fired Plant by Jeff Conant, Special to CorpWatch April 3rd, 2007 A small, but growing, group of Diné indigenous peoples in New Mexico are protesting against a planned new huge coal-fired power plant. This is one of 150 similar plants scheduled to supply an anticipated boom in energy demand in the U.S. |
 | Merck's Murky Dealings: HPV Vaccine Lobby Backfires by Terry J. Allen, Special to CorpWatch March 7th, 2007 Merck's lobbying campaign for mandatory vaccination of school girls provided funding for a prominent women's non-profit. The ensuing uproar has created a backlash against the pharmaceutical giant. |
 | High-Tech Healthcare in Iraq, Minus the Healthcare by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch January 8th, 2007 Almost four years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s healthcare system is still a shambles. While most hospitals lack basic supplies, dozens of incomplete clinics and warehoused high-technology equipment remain as a testament to the failed U.S. experiment to reconstruct of Iraq. First in a series of CorpWatch articles. |
 | Vedanta Undermines Indian Communities by Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to Corpwatch November 15th, 2005 Vedanta, a fast growing British mining and aluminium production company founded by a billionaire expatriate Bombay businessman, threatens communities in India with environmental degradation and widespread pollution. |
 | Religious Right Discovers Investment Activism by Cynthia L. Cooper, Special to CorpWatch August 3rd, 2005 A tiny, but effective, religious right financial movement is using fundamentalist values and shareolder activism to push conservative evangelism into corporate suites. |
 | Adding Insult to Injury by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch May 24th, 2005 Many Halliburton contractors leave Iraq with debilitating injuries and deep psychological scars. Then they return home only to find that the insurance they need to rebuild their lives is out of reach. |
 | Exporting Cures, Importing Misery by By Stan Cox, AlterNet January 19th, 2005 The Kazipally industrial area – once good farm country – now accounts for more than one-third of India's pharmaceutical industry, meaning skyrocketing rates of cancer, heart disease and birth defects for its residents. |
 | Dynamite in the Center of Town by Joshua Karliner, Special to CorpWatch December 2nd, 2004 In 1984 the world's largest industrial disaster killed 8,000 people over night in Bhopal, India. Two decades later, some sort of closure might seem called for. But today survivors groups continue to struggle for justice, while the chemical industry promotes volunteer initiatives. |
 | Sweet and Sour by Jim Lobe, Special to CorpWatch June 23rd, 2004 A new report from Human Rights Watch reveals that American corporations such as Coca-Cola may be getting sugar from plantations in El Salvador that employ child labor. |
 | Barren Justice by Sasha Lilley, Special to CorpWatch May 13th, 2004 Nicaraguan banana workers have been struggling for compensation from Dole Fruit, Shell, and Dow Chemical for exposure to the pesticide DBCP. The obstacles to justice are many, including the US courts, powerful lobbies, and free trade agreements. |
 | Poison and Profits by Chris Thompson, East Bay Express April 7th, 2004 First California semiconductor firm AXT, Inc. exposed its workers to arsenic. Then it fired them and sent their jobs to China. |
 | The Smell of Money: British Columbia's Gas Rush by Shefa Siegel, Special to CorpWatch March 13th, 2004 In Canada's British Columbia, ExxonMobil, Talisman, Shell, and other energy giants are racing to tap the region's "sour gas". But the potential toxicity of the gas is being ignored. |
 | Bhopal Survivors Confront Dow by Helene Vosters, Special to CorpWatch May 15th, 2003 Almost 19 years after the Bhopal gas disaster in India, survivors still seek Justice. Recently they confronted the CEO of Dow Chemical at a shareholders' meeting. |
 | International Tobacco Treaty: Public Health Advocates Face an Uphill Battle by Clive Bates, Special to CorpWatch October 15th, 2002 Can public interest groups salvage an international treaty aimed at regulating Big Tobacco? The director of an anti-tobacco group says they have their work cut out for them. |
 | Trading in Disaster by Nityanand Jayaraman and Kenny Bruno, Special to CorpWatch February 6th, 2002 30,000 tons of possibly contaminated steel scrap from the twin towers has been exported to India. The shipments raise serious public health concerns. |
 | Bhopal's Legacy by Sandhya Srinivasan, Special to CorpWatch December 6th, 2001 Seventeen years after the Bhopal disaster, survivors still seek justice and environmental health regulations go unenforced. |
| MITSUBISHI: The Most Environmentally Destructive Corporate Force on Earth by Joshua Karliner, CorpWatch December 1st, 1997 The best known, most prestigious, and largest keiretsu, is the Mitsubishi Group of companies. Given the size and reach of its diverse activities, and due to the fact that it is more heavily focused in polluting industrial sectors than other keiretsu, the Mitsubishi Group may well be the single most environmentally destructive corporate force on Earth. |
| Tobacco's Global Ghettos: Big Tobacco Targets The World's Poor by Carol McGruder, San Francisco African American Tobacco Free Project June 30th, 1997 With daily reportage and media coverage chronicling the first chinks in the once seemingly impenetrable armor of Big Tobacco, the general public might get the very erroneous impression that Big Tobacco is going down for the count. Nothing could be further from the truth. To the average person the $300-$400 billion dollar ''global'' settlement that is currently being bandied about seems like an awful lot of money. To those of us in the tobacco control business, we know it is but a drop in the ocean to Big Tobacco, and a small price to pay to ensure that they will be able to continue business as usual in the rest of the world. The Tobacco Industry won't even flinch as they write the check. |