Reports indicate that the US  [the Out-Of-Control CIA] overthrew a democratically elected government and destabilized Honduras, creating violence.

This is simply another genuflecting act to International Corporate Bulldozing of the environment and human rights, much as the Dirty Pipelines are in the US.

Berta Caceres gave her life for her cause.

02 November 17 AM

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Berta Cáceres rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign 
that successfully pressured the world's largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.
 (photo: Goldman Environmental Foundation)

Findings: Hydro Electric Firm, Honduran Military Planned Berta Caceres Murder

By teleSUR

01 November 17

"DESA high-level directors, state agents and criminal elements” formed a criminal network to “assassinate Berta Caceres," said a lawyer with GAIPE.

 hydroelectric company that environmental activist Berta Caceres had fought plotted with Honduran military and security forces to kill the Indigenous leader in March 2016, an independent commission has found.

The investigation was carried out by the International Group of Advisors and Expert Persons, which is comprised of several lawyers from Guatemala, Colombia, Holland and the United States and was based on dozens of interviews, court records and partial access to evidence provided by government investigators.

The GAIPE found that high-level executives of Energy Development SA and government officials began planning the assassination of Caceres at least four months before they carried it out.

Roxana Althozt, a lawyer with GAIPE said, "DESA high-level directors, [Honduran] state agents and criminal elements” formed a criminal network to “assassinate Berta Caceres."

Honduran authorities have arrested eight people for the murder, however, the GAIPE investigation points to other suspects.

Caceres was an important and vocal activist within the Civic Council of Popular Organizations and Honduran Indigenous. For over two decades she worked to protect the lands of the Lenca Indigenous of Honduras, and successfully fought DESA’s construction of the hydroelectric dam, Agua Zarca on the White River despite continual death threats and militarization of the area by Honduran forces.

A year before Caceres was gunned down in her home in northeastern Honduras, she was the awarded the Goldman Environmental Award for her continued environmental activism against DESA and the hydroelectric dam, located close to Lenca tribe sacred space.

Caceres' family and COPIHN called for the creation of an independent panel in Nov. 2016 in order to investigate the activist's death. The team read through over 2,000 pages related to the case, including "communications intercepted by Honduran authorities,” according to Reuters.

Althozt said at the press conference that DESA and police officials collaborated to follow and plot Caceres’ death. They also reported other environmental activists in the area were followed.

The Honduran Ministry of Security and Government and DESA did not respond to Reuters request for an interview regarding GAIPE accusations. DESA has repeatedly denied any involvement in the assassination of Caceres.

In an interview Caceres gave to COPIHN when awarded the Goldman prize, she said the Lenca and all Honduran Indigenous are “confronted with a hegemonic project created by national and international ‘big capital’ based in the energy, mining and agro-industrial sectors, adding, "we formally denounced the [Honduran] state’s participation in dozens of hydroelectric projects, but haven’t had any positive response."

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/46615-findings-hydro-electric-firm-honduran-military-planned-berta-caceres-murder

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DESA Employees Arrested In Honduras For Murder Of Activist Berta Cáceres

by Pratap Chatterjee, Special To CorpWatch May 2nd, 2016

The daughter of Berta Cáceres speaking at a rally. Photo: Daniel Cima. Used under Creative Commons license Two employees of Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) have been arrested and charged with the murder of Berta Cáceres, an activist who was fighting the Agua Zarca dam on the territory of the indigenous Lenca people in Honduras. DESA was awarded a permit to build the 22 megawatt dam in 2011. The Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque River was initially supported with funding from the World Bank and Sinohydro of China. Construction began in 2012 and access to the river was cut off soon after, heavily impacting the local community who considered the river sacred, in addition to depending on it for food and water. In April 2013, the Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), led by its founder Berta Cáceres, organized a successful road blockade of the dam area that brought construction to a halt. "That project has been imposed with militarization, with very wicked maneuvers on the part of the company," Cáceres told Jacobin magazine. "They have threatened me with death. I have received threats by cell phone. Sexual harassment from the security guards of these companies. I have received threats against my family, against my daughters, against my son. I have been threatened with criminal charges. Accusations. Everything from the illegal possession of arms to coercion, usurpation, and continued damages." She reported 33 death threats against her including from the two DESA employees who were just arrested. The threat to her life was considered grave enough for her to be listed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as needing special protection. In late February of this year, Cáceres held a press conference to denounce those who wanted to kill her. A week later she was murdered on March 3 in her house in La Esperanza. Two months after her death, Honduran police released a public statement on Facebook announcing that Sergio Ramón Rodriguez, a DESA engineer, and Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, the former head of DESA's private security team, were identified as a result of an in-depth investigation dubbed 'Operation Jaguar.' Two other men - Mariano Chavez and Edilson Duarte Meza - were also arrested. Despite the arrests, activists have not been thrilled with the way that Honduras has pursued this investigation. "So far the Honduran-led investigation has been a tragedy of errors – with false accusations, suspected cover-ups, and a brazen conflict of interest at the public prosecutor’s office," Billy Kyte, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, said in a press statement. "The people who ordered Berta Cáceres’ murder must be held to account, not just the triggermen." Global Witness, a human rights organization based in London, simultaneously released a set of court documents from 2014 to demonstrate how DESA had intimidated Cáceres and her organization. In the lawsuit, DESA accused Caceres and COPINH of 'usurpation, coercion and continued damage.' "The company was harmed by the protests, which were not peaceful but instead violent," Juan Sanchez Cantillano, a former lawyer for DESA told the Associated Press. "The protesters invaded the terrain of DESA and burned the machinery and the offices. ... They destroyed everything." Local activists also say that the Honduran government also has a lot to answer for. “I want it to be absolutely clear. The government of Juan Orlando Hernández is responsible for the death of Berta Cáceres,” Padre Melo, a local Jesuit priest and radio journalist told the New Yorker magazine. Her daughter agrees. "It is the government who awarded the dam commission and the government who sent military and police to work with Desa’s private security guards, who threatened my mother," Laura Cáceres, tha daughter of Berta Cáceres told the Guardian. "If it wasn’t for our struggle and the international pressure for justice, my mother’s murder would already be extinct." Kyte says that the only way to ensure that the truth could be uncovered would be for the Honduran government to accept the offer by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to conduct an independent investigation.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16075

CorpWatch: Bangladeshi Government Cracks Down On Garment Workers Sweatshop Wage Protests

Bangladeshi Government Cracks Down On Garment Workers Sweatshop Wage Protests

by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
January 25th, 2017

Photo: New York University. Used under Creative Commons license

As many as 3,500 Bangladeshi workers are reported to have been suspended or fired for taking part in protests against sweatshop wages at garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka over the last six weeks. Dozens have been thrown in jail amid a major police crackdown on the organizers.

The garment industry in Bangladesh employs some four million people and contributes 82 percent of country's export income - a total of $28.1 billion last year, up 33 percent from three years prior. Despite the boom in business, Mark Anner, an associate professor at Pennsylvania State University, estimates that the real term price of a pair of cotton trousers made for export has dropped 9.3 percent over the same period of time.



"Economic growth has increased but workers’ rights are not improving. The economy could be growing even faster but this is holding it back," Nazma Akter, founder of the Awaj union for women garment makers, told the Financial Times newspaper.

Not surprisingly anger has been bubbling up the workers who have been struggling to make ends meet on wages that begin at 5,300 taka ($66 a month). A group of workerswent on strike on December 11 at the Windy Apparels Limited factory in the Ashulia industrial area, which houses some 350 factories. Another 25 factories quickly followed suit culminating in some 150,000 workers walking off work to support the demands.

The workers drew up a list of 16 new demands have been drawn up, chief of which is a an increase in minimum wages to 16,000 taka a month ($200).

Instead the Bangladeshi government sent in the police, the Rapid Action Battalion and the Border Guard Bangladesh to crack down and detain the leaders. "They used Special Powers Act to detain union leaders and workers," Babul Akhter, the head of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation told the Guardian newspaper. "Up to 3,500 workers have been sacked and 50 leaders have gone into hiding."

On December 26th, the factories were re-opened but management singled out a number of strike organizers, who were suspended, fired or arrested. Police also jailed Nazmul Huda, a local reporter for Ekushey television, for allegedly inciting the unrest.

One of the men arrested is Jahangir Alam. "We live hand to mouth, waiting for the paycheck at the end of the month," Jhorna Begum, his wife, told the New York Times. "I don’t know when he’ll get out — how am I supposed to run my family without him?"

The government reaction to the protests has been condemned by international observers. "Such situations damage the industry’s reputation and confidence levels, which we, together with the government and social partners, are all working so hard to bolster," Rob Wayss, the executive director of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, wrote in a strongly worded letter to Sheikh Hasina, the Bangladeshi prime minister.

Meanwhile an industry spokesman blames the cut throat competition among the factories for the low wages. "Retailers pay around $5 for a piece of denim clothing that would sell in the west for $60,” Mohammed Nasir, vice-president at the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told the Financial Times. "The buyers go to each factory and get a detailed quote for the work. Then they take the cheapest deal offered for each part of the work and demand that factories meet that overall price. Factories are desperate, so they agree."

Low wages are not the only problem in Bangladesh. Many of the factories routinely violate safety codes. In April 2013, the eight-storey Rana Plaza factory collapsed killing 1,134 people. In the wake of the disaster, Bangladeshi factory owners agreed to undergo safety audits and inspections. (Huda, the reporter who was arrested, was the only journalist to have pointed out the safety problems in the building before it collapsed. 

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16103

CorpWatch: Takata Fined $1 Billion For Hiding Information on Exploding Car Airbags

Takata Fined $1 Billion For Hiding Information on Exploding Car Airbags by Kavya Padmanabhan, Special to CorpWatch January 20th, 2017

Photo: Alexauto321. Used under Creative Commons license. Takata, the Japanese auto parts maker, will pay a $1 billion fine to the U.S. government after pleading guilty to hiding information about the likelihood that the company’s car air bags could accidentally explode. Takata air bags have been linked to at least 17 deaths around the world. Air bags use chemicals that are designed to help them inflate quickly in the event of sudden impact to cushion passengers from serious injuries or death. In 1991 the U.S. government passed a law requiring car makers to install air bags in all new vehicles made after 1998. Initially many air bag manufacturers used chemicals like guanidine nitrate and tetrazole to help inflate air bags. Takata, which was a small player in the market in the 1990s, discovered that it could replace tetrazole with ammonium nitrate, a much cheaper chemical. Unfortunately, ammonium nitrate is an unstable chemical that has a tendency to explode in high humidity climates, causing the air bags to burst and spray metal shrapnel. "Everybody went down a certain road, and only Takata went down another road," Jochen Siebert, managing director of JSC Automotive Consulting, told Bloomberg. Their rivals, like Autoliv of Sweden, refused to switch. "The gas is generated so fast, it blows the inflater to bits," Robert Taylor, Autoliv’s head chemist told the New York Times. But when Takata offered car manufacturers the cheaper bags, many agreed to switch to save money. Over the next few years, Takata did a booming business, supplying air bagsto brands like Acura, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota. Reports of injuries and deaths began to circulate soon after but they did not make major headlines until about seven years ago. On May 27, 2009, Ashley Parham, a teenager in Oklahoma, died when the airbag in her 2001 Honda Accord exploded. The following year Gurjit Rathore was killed in Virginia, when the airbag in her 2001 Honda Accord exploded. Initially Honda was seen at fault and the company issued a recall of 4,205 cars. As deaths and injuries continued to mount, the company expanded its recall eight times. Meanwhile Takata and the car companies quietly agreed to pay millions to settle individual death and injury cases out of court. U.S. regulators opened an investigation into Takata in 2009 and subsequently closed it a few months later, under the mistaken impression that the explosions were the result of manufacturing errors at the Takata plant in Moses Lake in Washington state. It was not until April 2013 that Takata finally announced that their air bags were at fault. The following year Mark Lillie, a former Takata employee, blew the whistle to say that the company had known about the problem since at least 2000. "Never any evidence, never any test results, never any test reports, nothing to substantiate they had overcome the phase stability problem," Lillie said in a testimony before the U.S. Congress. "I literally said that if we go forward with this, somebody will be killed," he told Bloomberg later. "Automotive suppliers who sell products that are supposed to protect consumers from injury or death must put safety ahead of profits," Barbara McQuade, U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Michigan said in a press release after announcing the $1 billion settlement last week. "If they choose instead to engage in fraud, we must hold accountable the individuals and business entities who are responsible." "Takata deeply regrets the circumstances that have led to this situation," Shigehisa Takada, the CEO and chairman of Takata said in a statement released at the same time. The U.S. government has indicted three Takata employees in Japan for their knowledge of the defects: Tsuneo Chikaraishi, Hideo Nakajima and Shinichi Tanaka. Documents released by the government state that Nakajima told his colleagues in a 2004 email that they had no choice but to rig data, urging them "to cross the bridge together." Chikaraishi was chief of airbag inflater operations for Japan and Asia and Tanaka was the company’s chief director of procurement. Critics say that the government failed to do its regulatory job. "My take is that if NHTSA had done the right thing and really probed Takata, they could have caught it a lot sooner and we wouldn’t have the crisis we have today," Clarence Ditlow, the director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington DC based NGO, told Bloomberg. "Takata made one of the most colossal blunders in the history of the industry." Part of the problem is that the car companies are allowed to police themselves and file their own reports about defective parts, say activists. "We know that regulation itself is not sufficient, because the regulators are underfunded, often too close to industry, and even in the best case scenario can’t be everywhere," Rob Weissmann, the president of Public Citizen, said in a press statement about the Takata case. "The executives responsible for this lethal corporate penny-pinching belong behind bars, both as a matter of justice for the victims and their families, and as a deterrent to executives who show similar disregard for the safety of their customers." So far the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued recall orders for 46 million vehicles that are affected, and another 42 million are expected to be recalled in coming years. But to this day only eight million of the potentially defective airbags have been replaced because the manufacturers cannot compel owners to come in and repair their vehicles. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16102

CorpWatch: Billionaires & Big Business Line Up To Help U.S. President Elect-Donald Trump

Billionaires & Big Business Line Up To Help U.S. President Elect-Donald Trump by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog November 14th, 2016

Photo: Gage Skidmore. Used under Creative Commons license. Billionaire businessmen and lobbyists are lining up to help Donald Trump after his victory in the U.S. presidential election. Trump appears to be welcoming them with open arms, despite his claim to bring change to Washington DC and get rid of special interests. "It is time to drain the swamp," Trump announced in a press release last month. "This is why I’m proposing a package of ethics reforms to make our government honest once again." (The reference to Washington as a swamp is based on a popular myth that the city was built on a swamp, which critics say is an unfair exaggeration.) For example, the Trump transition team is widely rumored to be considering a number of billionaires and corporate CEO for his new cabinet. These include: * Steve Mnuchin, a billionaire and former Goldman Sachs partner, is being considered for Secretary of the Treasury. * Wilbur Ross, another billionaire who founded a New York private equity firm named WL Ross, is being considered for Commerce Secretary. * Harold Hamm, another billionaire who founded Continental Resources, an Oklahoma oil company, is being considered for Secretary of the Interior  as is Forrest Lucas, another oil tycoon who founded Lucas Oil. The people Trump has invited to work with him to put together this cabinet are none less than the very DC lobbyists who typically work at big Washington laws firms, whom he attacked last month. For example Trump for America Inc. has been holding its regular planning meetings at the offices of Baker Hostetler, a major lobbyist, according to Politico, a news website. The Intercept website has drawn up a list of some of the top lobbyists advising Donald Trump's transition team. They include Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist for Koch Industries and the Walt Disney Company; Eric Ueland, who lobbied for Goldman Sachs; and William Palatucci, whose law firm lobbies for Aetna and Verizon. And many other lobbyists are chomping at the bit. "Trump has pledged to change things in Washington — about draining the swamp," Trent Lott, a former Republican senator from Mississippi, told the New York Times. "He is going to need some people to help guide him through the swamp — how do you get in and how you get out? We are prepared to help do that." Lott works at Squire Patton Boggs, another DC law firm that does a lot of lobbying work. Yet other lobbyists are looking down the road by drawing up "lists of outdated, ineffective regulations that can be reversed by executive order or, if necessary, legislation," Sam Geduldig of Clark Geduldig Cranford & Nielsen told the New York Times. “This is their opportunity to undo regulations that have been shackling them." Topping the list of beneficiaries of Trump administration are `the mining, oil and gas companies such as Trump's top two donors were Murray Energy and Alliance Coal, both major coal companies. Also knocking on Trump's door is TransCanada, the Canadian company which owns the Keystone pipeline that delivers crude oil from Alberta and hopes to expand it to refineries in Oklahoma. "We are evaluating ways to engage the new administration on the benefits, the jobs and the tax revenues this project brings to the table," TransCanada spokesman Mark Cooper told the Wall Street Journal. Analysts say that the Trump's Washington is shaping up to be business as usual. "Welcome to Trump Swamp. Join us on the glass-bottom boat as we gaze on the denizens below. Keep your hands inside the railings – and please don’t feed the [alli]gators," writes Richard Eskow for Alternet, a news website. "The claim by any national figure that they are free of [special interest] associations is ludicrous," Rogan Kersh, a political science professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina told NJ.com days before the election. "From bankers and developers to military contractors and energy companies, Trump has donors and close personal ties that will be viewed as influencing White House decisions, much as he complains Secretary Clinton does." http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16100

CorpWatch: Goodhope Asia Accused Of Land Grabbing In West Papua For Palm Oil

Goodhope Asia Accused Of Land Grabbing In West Papua For Palm Oil by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog November 7th, 2016

Flooding in Nabire as a result of logging. Photo courtesy of Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency The Yerisiam Gua indigenous community of West Papua filed a complaint six months ago against a Sri Lankan owned conglomerate for taking over their land to create a palm oil plantation. To this day, the industry body charged with oversight has yet to formally respond to their concerns. The charges were filed against PT Nabire Baru, a subsidiary of Goodhope Asia, which in turn is majority owned by a subsidiary of Carson Cumberbatch, a conglomerate based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In 2012, the company was reported to have cleared 32,000 hectares in Nabire province on the island of New Guinea on which they intended to plant four million palm trees. (One half of the island is the country of Papua New Guinea while the other half is the Indonesian province of West Papua, where Nabire is located) This PT Nabire Baru plantation encroaches on the customary lands of the Yerisiam Gua peoples, who have written letters and protested peacefully against the project for the last four years. On April 12, 2016, Enos Abujani, a member of the Yerisiam Gua community, spotted PT Nabire Baru bulldozers felling sago trees in the Manawari grove, which the indigenous people consider sacred. After Abujani informed the rest of the community, a small group arrived to protest. "I felt my stomach churning as I watched them work," Gunawan Inggeruhi, a community human rights advocate, told awasMIFEE!, an activist group based in the UK. "I feel sorrow, as if I have been stripped naked," Mama Yakomina Manuburi added. "[The grove] is our livelihood. If I pound the sago inside the trunk, I can get 100,000 Rupiah, I can buy the things I need, such as salt, MSG, soap." The bulldozers were accompanied by Brimob, the Indonesian police mobile brigade, whom the local community have often accused of violence against customary land owners. “We have never asked Brimob to come here. Actually their presence makes us feel nervous, not safe”, Karel Maniba told told awasMIFEE! "How could we have asked for them? How could bringing in Brimob to work as security guards be anything to do with us?" One week later, the community members filed an official complaint with the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industry group that PT Nabire Baru belongs to. (The RSPO was created in 2004, mostly by industry, to certify palm oil companies on mutually agreed standards including on responsible land management.) "To this day there is no clear agreement between the indigenous community and PT Nabire Baru, yet our forest continues to be transformed into bare earth as expansion continues. The company stubbornly and unilaterally cleared the sago grove, going against the community opposition," wrote Roberthino Hanebora, the secretary of the Yerisiam Gua Wider Ethnic Group. "The sago groves in question have existed naturally since ancient times, and are sacred sago groves which have provided food for the people of Sima village from generation to generation up to the present day." Goodhope staff say they have since met with the Yerisiam Gua community to discuss their complaints. "Not even point one percent we will abandon them if it is not personal but the interest of the whole community," Sanjaya Upasena of Goodhope Asia told community members, according to a company transcript. "100 percent support the community ... as long as they are not self-centered." Palm oil plantations have been a source of controversy for over 20 years, ever since agribusiness companies started to set them up in Indonesia and Malaysia. Many such plantations have set up on land carved directly out of primary rainforests in order to meet demand for the oil, which is a key ingredient in a number of household products from cosmetics like shampoo and lipstick to foods like icecream and snacks. "For an industry like palm oil, already known as controversial and high-risk in areas of environmental degradation and human rights violations, the need for RSPO to have a credible and transparent redress mechanism is simply magnified, if this organization wants to show that it is serious," Andrew Ng, a founder of the consultancy Grassroots, told the MongaBay website. "[But] in a secretariat of 60+ people they have one person handling complaints as the coordinator." The RSPO has often investigated member companies but it has only taken serious action once. Earlier this year the industry body suspended IoI, a Malaysian company following activist complaints. But five months later, the suspension was lifted. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16099

CorpWatch: Swiss Bank UBS May Be Suspended From Doing Business In Hong Kong

Swiss Bank UBS May Be Suspended From Doing Business In Hong Kong by Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch Blog October 31st, 2016

Photo: Martin Abegglen. Used under Creative Commons license. UBS, the Swiss bank, is being investigated by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) for failing to carry out adequate due diligence before working on share offerings for several Chinese companies. The bank's latest quarterly statement notes that it isat risk of being suspended from doing business in the city. Under Hong Kong law, banks that prepare initial public offerings of company shares, also known as IPOs, can be held liable for any false statements made to investors and the public. While the SFC has not named which IPOs are being investigated, the likely clients of UBS are China Forestry, China Metal Recycling and Tianhe Chemicals, all of whom have suffered from serious financial woes after going public. The announcement of the investigation in the bank's October statement was characteristically terse. "In October 2016, the SFC informed UBS that it intends to commence action against UBS and certain UBS employees with respect to sponsorship work in those offerings," UBS stated in its most recent quarterly report. "Such action could also result in suspension of UBS’s ability to provide corporate finance advisory services in Hong Kong for a period of time." Company officials have refused to divulge any more details. "We fulfilled our obligation in terms of disclosure," Sergio Ermotti, HSBC CEO told the media in a phone call. The SFC has already made public investigations into fraud at China Forestry, China Metal Recycling and Tianhe Chemicals. In June 2009, UBS helped China Metal Recycling list on the Hong Kong stock exchange and raise $200 million. The Guangdong based company claimed to be the largest recyclers of scrap metal in China at the time. Barely five months after the company went public, Wong Hok-leung, the company's chief finanical officer resigned saying that he was not being allowed access to records, and the company collapsed. In 2013, Chun Chi Wai, China Metal Recycling's CEO, was sued by the liquidators. In late December last year the SFC published a report that said China Metal Recycling had overstated its sales by about HK$8 billion or 46 per cent, and its gross profit by HK$1 billion or 72 per cent, between 2007 and 2009. "According to these findings, the company had implemented a fraudulent scheme to create accounts which significantly overstated its business and profits,” the SFC statement noted. China Forestry, an investment group based in Hong Kong, which raised $217 million from listing shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange in November 2009 with support from UBS,claimed to be one of China's largest private plantation-forest operators. The business was based on planting fast growing trees in Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces to trade for greenhouse gas credits. One year later, KPMG, the company auditor, reported financial irregularities and Li Han Chun, the CEO at the time, was arrested in Guizhou in February 2011 on charges of embezzling $4.6 million. Major investors, like the Carlyle Group, lost tens of millions of dollars. Tianhe Chemicals Group, which is based in Liaoning province and claims to China's biggest manufacture of lubricant oil additives, went public in June 2014 with a $748 million IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange. In September of the same year, a group that called itself Anonymous Analytics, released a report claimed that Tinahe was "one of the largest stock market frauds ever conceived" and that it was overstating sales and profits. The company hit back against the report immediately with a 55 page rebuttal. "This type of anonymous and hyperbolic market discourse has no accountability for truth," Tianhe said in a statement, claiming that the anonymous group had "twisted facts and intertwined fiction, including a combination of falsified information, forged signature of the company’s chairman and blatantly untrue statements." Despite this, investors pulled out and Tianhe was suspended, although not delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange. The SFC is currently conducting an investigation into the company. Meanwhile UBS has turned quite skittish about doing business in Hong Kong lately, pulling out of a project to delist Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties from the Hong Kong stock exchange.  The delisting went ahead anyway in August when shareholders approved billionaire founder Wang Jialin's offer to buy back the shares for $4.4 billion. UBS, whose origins date back to 1854, has often been embroiled in scandal, according to research by Phil Mattera of Good Jobs First. In an online profile of the bank, Mattera lists a 1988 controversy over money laundering of $1 billion by a Turkish-Lebanese drug ring; business activities in apartheid South Africa and with Nazi Germany. Among dozens of fines and financial settlements over fraud allegations, UBS has paid out $1.5 billion over the foreign exchange rate rigging scandal, $208 million for its role in financing Parmalat, the Italian dairy company charged with fraud and $150 million for its sale of auction-rate securities in the U.S. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16096

CorpWatch: Eli Lilly Raised U.S. Prices Of Diabetes Drug 700 Percent Over 20 Years

Eli Lilly Raised U.S. Prices Of Diabetes Drug 700 Percent Over 20 Years by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog November 2nd, 2016

Photo: rachellynnae©. Used under Creative Commons license. Eli Lilly, an Indianapolis based company, that has sold insulin products to diabetes patients since 1921, has quietly raised some U.S. prices 700 percent in the last 20 years by marketing so-called improved versions to consumers. Novo Nordisk, a Danish company, has also profited handsomely from this practice. Insulin is a $23 billion global business with over 75 percent of the revenue coming from such new and improved versions. A recent Washington Post analysis of the price increases has stirred up outrage. The newspaper noted that Humalog, an Eli Lilly brand of insulin that was sold for $21 per bottle in the U.S. 20 years ago, is now priced at $255, which represents a 700 percent markup, after adjusting for inflation. "People are dying or getting sicker because they can’t afford their insulin, just so Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk can make outrageous profits," Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator and former presidential candidate, tweeted. "The history of insulin captures one of the mystifying complexities of the pharmaceutical market — how long-standing drugs become more expensive with time and competition fails to hold down prices," writes Carolyn Y. Johnson in the Washington Post. "Companies point to improvements in their drugs, but medical experts say some of those changes are simply a strategy to keep prices high with new patent protections." "I don’t think it takes a cynic such as myself to see most of these drugs are being developed to preserve patent protection," David Nathan, a Harvard Medical School professor, told the newspaper. "The truth is they are marginally different, and the clinical benefits of them over the older drugs have been zero." In reality, part of the problem is also the private insurance system that controls most U.S. healthcare, under which new drug prices are set via deals struck between insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Most patients do not pay the full cost of a drug up front but absorb the cost eventually via an increase in their monthly healthcare premiums. This is because U.S. residents pay for healthcare via such monthly plans with private insurance companies, unlike other developed countries where the government provides or regulates healthcare costs. As a result pharmaceutical companies have the ability to charge as much as the U.S. insurance companies will let them. And since both parties profit from higher prices, the net effect is that prices continue to rise. Not surprisingly, the costs of insulin overseas is not quite as high because government led healthcare systems typically negotiate much lower rates because they need to control costs. Thus a prescription of Lantus, manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis, another major insulin manufacturer, costs $70 in France but $450 in the U.S.  However, most drugs cannot be legally imported from other countries, so U.S. consumers cannot take advantage of lower prices elsewhere. Sanders has pointed out the irony of this system. "If we can import tomatoes from Mexico, there is absolutely no reason why we cannot import affordable prescription drugs from Canada," he tweeted back in February. Eli Lilly says that they are only one player in a complex system where prices are set. "A permanent solution that gives everyone who uses insulin reasonable access will require leadership and cooperation across many stakeholders, including manufacturers, PBMs, payers, and policymakers," an Eli Lilly spokesperson told the media. Sanders tweet about Eli Lilly had an impact - investors began to dump the company shares, causing the stock price to drop some three percent. Meanwhile, the rising cost of insulin is also a major concern for patients in developing countries. This past April, the World Health Organization issued its first global report on the diabetes epidemic in which it noted that a month of insulin treatment costs government workers the equivalent of 20 days pay in Malawi and seven in Nepal. Indeed David Beran, a researcher at the University of Geneva’s division of tropical and humanitarian medicine, says that some 50 million people around the world have major problems paying for diabetes treatment. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16097

CorpWatch: Six Novartis Executives Charged In Illegal Drug Rebate Scheme In South Korea

Six Novartis Executives Charged In Illegal Drug Rebate Scheme In South Korea by Richard Smallteacher, Special to CorpWatch August 11th, 2016

Photo: 74-ant-ma. Used under Creative Commons license. Six executives of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis have been indicted in a South Korean bribery scandal. The indictments follow similar charges in China, Turkey and the U.S. and allegations of falsifying drug trial data in Japan. Korean prosecutors have recommended that Novartis sales be suspended for six months. One of the six executives charged in the scandal is Moon Hak-sun, who was first hired as a clinical test manger in 1994 and rose through the ranks to be appointed CEO of the South Korean subsidiary last September, the first Korean national to get the top position. "I will make utmost efforts to deepen my understanding about the Korean market and find ways to satisfy the needs of our customers," he announced at the time of his appointment. Less than a year later, the Seoul Western District Prosecutor’s Office charged that Moon was implicated in a scheme to offer kickbacks to doctors who attended seminars hosted by medical journals in return for recommending Novartis products. All told, 20 billion won ($18 million) was allegedly paid out. A total of 15 doctors and the heads of five medical journals were investigated for their role in the scandal in addition to the Novartis executives. "We have acknowledged and regret that certain associates in Korea conducted small medical meetings and other scientific-related activities through trade journals, in violation of our policies and inconsistent with our culture and the expectations society has for us and our industry," Klaus Ribbe, the CEO of the global company, said in an official statement. "However, we reject the implication that the alleged conduct was sanctioned by the most senior management of Novartis Korea." A financial analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Korean Times that Moon was probably 'a scapegoat for his non-Korean predecessors.' The South Korean government has not sought to detain Moon under the indictment but Novartis has suspended him from his job. Certainly the company has been accused of similar practices around the world. In 2015, Novartis paid $390 million to settle charges that it paid bribes to specialty pharmacies in the U.S. This past March, Novartis paid out $25 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that company employees paid bribes to doctors in China, in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. U.S. regulators say that Novartis flew 20 Chinese health care professionals and their spouses to a medical conference in Chicago in 2009. Company officials also allegedly provided the doctors $150 in “walking around” money, took them to strip clubs and to see the Niagara Falls. The month before Novartis settled charges in China, a whistleblower in Turkey came forward to say that the company paid Alp Aydin Consultancy $290,000 plus expenses in 2013 and 2014, to get sweetheart deals from government officials. The consultancy was accused of arranging for government hospitals to buy Novartis drugs as well as a successful effort to get government permission to rename two company drugs. The latter scheme helped Novartis win $50 million in orders because the new names no longer showed up in international price comparisons. The company has refused to comment on the Turkish allegaations. "As a matter of policy, we don't comment on such investigations even if the complainant decides to make them public," Eric Althoff, a company spokesman, told Reuters. "We take any allegation of inappropriate behavior extremely seriously and investigate all allegations thoroughly." Meanwhile in Japan, Novartis is battling charges of falsifying drug trial data. The company has been accused of altering clinical test results for Diovan, a blood-pressure drug.  Other employees have been accused of shredding documents and hiding severe side effects of a leukemia drug. "If some of them have destroyed documents, it's a pure violation of our code of conduct and that employee has to leave as soon as we discover that," David Epstein, head of the firm's pharmaceutical division, said at the time. "I'd like to once again apologize for Novartis' involvement in this issue." Epstein has since left the company. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16093

CorpWatch: Coke and McDonalds Host Carnival of Junk Food Marketing At Rio Olympics

Coke and McDonalds Host Carnival of Junk Food Marketing At Rio Olympics by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch August 15th, 2016

Photo: José Roitberg. Used under Creative Commons license Every four years, billions tune in to watch the Olympics on television. And every four years, major corporations pay millions for prime advertising opportunities as official sponsors. The 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are no different with Coca-Cola and McDonald's igniting a storm of controversy over their role. Cities that host Olympic games spend several billion dollars on new infrastructure, security and of course on pomp and glamor. The sponsorships are seen as a way to recoup as much as 40 percent of these costs by offering companies the opportunity to use the official logo on their products. "The Olympic Games are one of the most effective international marketing platforms in the world, reaching billions of people in over 200 countries and territories throughout the world," claims the official Olympics website. But by allowing fast food sponsors, the Olympics have effectively been turned a 'carnival of junk food marketing' says Malcolm Clark, coordinator of the Children’s Food Campaign in the UK. "We don’t think McDonald’s or Coca-Cola should be sponsoring the Olympics because of the way children are affected by the halo effect of their advertising," Clark told Campaign magazine. "It’s also completely false to claim the Olympics would suffer without this sponsorship money. It’s a small amount compared with TV and other media rights. The Olympics might be a little less shiny without it – and IOC delegates might not get to stay in luxury hotels." Media reports suggest that McDonald's paid £75 million ($97 million) in 2012 to sponsor the Olympics until 2020. Coca-Cola paid out £33.7 million ($44 million) to sponsor the Rio games. In comparison, NBC paid roughly $1.226 billion for broadcast rights, which equals roughly a quarter of the Rio Olympics $4.6 billion budget. (Ticket sales to date have brought in $323 million) Not surprisingly the food industry defends their association with the games. "Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are among the world’s most responsible companies. Being involved in the Olympic family and sharing its values allows both sides to benefit from the special value of such relationships," Ian Wright, director general of the UK Food and Drink Federation, told Campaign. "You also have to remember that the source of the controversy is invariably Western and metropolitan. Asian and Latin American countries have no problem with companies that behave responsibly." But Brazilian activists were outraged by Wright's comments. "We find the Food and Drink Federation’s comments to be offensive. In Latin America, these two companies—Coca-Cola and McDonald’s—represent one of the main vectors of the obesity and diabetes epidemic in our region," Alejandro Calvillo Unna from Consumer Power wrote in a statement to Newsweek. "They deny the scientific evidence about the harm their products generate, they manipulate children, use misleading advertising, and invest millions of dollars in lobbying to impede the development of policy measures in countries that are working to combat obesity and chronic disease." Indeed the majority of Brazil’s 210 million population is considered to be obese, including 39 percent of children, an astonishing 1000 percent increase in the last 40 years. "If these companies did indeed act responsibly they would not advertise to children," Dr Fabio Gomes, a Brazilian public health nutritionist and World Health Organisation regional adviser on nutrition told the Guardian newspaper. "They would not send their licensed clowns to Brazilian schools to hook children on their brands and products and they would not promote sugary drinks and energy-dense products that are not recommended by Brazil’s official food-based dietary guidelines." Meanwhile, McDonald's bought itself extra media promotion by giving away food to athletes in the Olympic village who unashamedly posted pictures of themselves bingeing on the company's products. "Now it's time to eat some junk food after months of eating clean!" wrote Sawan Serasinghe, an Australian badminton player, after he lost to Taiwan. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16092

CorpWatch: Panama Papers Leak Reveals Safari Companies In Africa Use Tax Havens

Panama Papers Leak Reveals Safari Companies In Africa Use Tax Havens by Richard Smallteacher, Special to CorpWatch July 25th, 2016

Cecil the lion at Hwange reserve. Photo: Vince O'Sullivan. Used under Creative Commons license. A number of safari companies in Africa used Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm, to evade taxes on income from foreign clients, according to data from the ‘Panama Papers’ a leaked cache of 11.5 million documents revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Safari tours to see elephants, rhinos, lions and zebras in Africa's wilderness are very popular among wealthy tourists who often pay tens of thousands of dollars to live in expensive private lodges and be guided by professionals. Three families named in the Panama Papers - the Carr-Hartleys of Kenya, the Pasanisis of Tanzania and Stevens of Zimbabwe - share more in common than  the fact they are white residents of Africa providing such luxury tours to foreigners: All of them route their income through offshore entities. 'Out of Africa, Into Tax Havens' - a report written by Will Fitzgibbon of ICIJ  recounts the story of John Stevens of Zimbabwe. "His financial universe is a classic creation of offshore globetrotting," writes Fitzgibbon. "Stevens’ financial affairs reveal how the poetry of Africa’s savannahs mixes with the day-to-day paper-pushing of offshore management." The Source, a Zimbabwean website, notes that the Panama Papers show that Stevens-owned Guided Safaris Africa Inc, a company that conducts tours in Zimbabwe, has ties to Hanoverian Ltd, which itself is connected to 35 entities, all registered in the British Virgin Islands, referred to as BVI in the documents. "In general, there is no legitimate reason why a tourism operator would need to route their transaction via a highly secretive jurisdiction such as the BVI," Savior Mwambwa, a tax reform campaigner at ActionAid International told ICIJ. "There is also nothing special about the tourism sector in Africa which would warrant offshore arrangements for payments from abroad. I can’t see any legitimate reason to channel bookings through the BVI and the Isle of Man apart from tax minimization." Gerard Pasanisi, a well known French safari guide in Tanzania, was revealed to have shares in four companies set up by Mossack Fonseca, registered in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. This Day, a Tanzanian newspaper, notes that Pasanisi is the chair of the Tanzania Hunting Operators Association (TAHOA) and "widely considered to be the kingpin of the local industry, with considerable influence both in the country and abroad." "Our survey has already established that ever since way back in the late 1970s, the industry as a whole has been monopolised by an elite group of foreign companies,consigning the bulk of the local citizenry to the role of mere spectators," writes a reporter for This Day. Likewise, the Carr-Hartleys, a white family that has lived in Kenya for four generations, describe themselves thus on their website: "Robert and William Carr-Hartley’s hunger for adventure and their passion for wildlife and conservation is inherited from their Grandfather Tom Carr-Hartley stemming from a long family history in East Africa." However, ICIJ says that the family passion for Africa stops at paying taxes. Instead the Carr-Hartleys routes their safari income through various companies in Panama, such as the Raw Foundation and Munga Munga Inc. as well as via Safariland Inc. in the British Virgin Islands. In a response to ICIJ, Mossack Fonseca, says there is nothing wrong with the services the firm provides. "We have not once in nearly 40 years of operation been charged with criminal wrongdoing. We’re proud of the work we do, notwithstanding recent and willful attempts by some to mischaracterize it," wrote Carlos Sousa, a spokesperson for the firm. "Our firm, like many firms, provides worldwide registered agent services for our professional clients (e.g., lawyers, banks, and trusts) who are intermediaries. As a registered agent we merely help incorporate companies, and before we agree to work with a client in any way, we conduct a thorough due diligence process. In providing those services, we follow both the letter and spirit of the law." http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16091

CorpWatch: Broadspectrum 'Violating' Human Rights At Australian Offshore Detention Centers

Broadspectrum 'Violating' Human Rights At Australian Offshore Detention Centers by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch August 3rd, 2016

Manus detention site. Photo: Sarah Hanson-Young. Used under Creative Commons license New reports accuse employees of Broadspectrum Limited, the company that has the operating contract to house asylum seekers to Australia in remote island detention centers, of providing appalling living conditions and neglecting the care of their charges. Broadspectrum, which was originally named Transfield Services, was awarded a A$1.5 billion (US$1.2 billion) contract by the Australian government in October 2012 to manage Australia’s detention centers on Manus and Nauru islands.  At the present moment, an estimated 847 people are being held on Manus and 466 people are being held in Nauru. A report issued last October by activist group No Business In Abuse (NBIA) in Melbourne found that Broadspectrum had been accused of a "whopping 47 violations of international law" at the detention centers. For example, the NBIA report quoted Natasha Blucher, a former Save the Children Australia employee, who stated that the company was reluctant to provide shoes to the 129 children living at the Nauru detention center despite the fact that temperatures frequently reached over 45 degrees Celsius. (113 F) The report also cited the unsanitary conditions at the detention center, noting that the tents that the detainees lived in had mold so thick that people could write messages in them. The report also cited the case of Hamid Kehazaei, an Iranian asylum seeker, who died after failing to receive treatment for a cut foot. Media organizations have also dug up other examples of abuse and neglect at the Broadspectrum managed camps. The Sydney Morning Herald uncovered data shows that showed there were 188 incidents of self-harm involving asylum seekers at Nauru, in the first six months of 2015. NBIA followed up their 2015 report with a list of investors in Broadspectrum and its owner, Ferrovial of Spain. "We are calling on (European banks) to remove support from Ferrovial given its likely complicity in gross human rights abuses," Shen Narayanasamy, executive director of NBIA, told the Sydney Morning Herald. Other recent human rights reports have confirmed the scale of abuse and neglect at Broadspectrum detention camps. In early August, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued a joint report after the two organizations spent 12 days conducting in person interviews with 84 detainees on Nauru. (Access to the detention centers is rare and media organizations are rarely allowed to visit the 21 square kilometer island.) "Australia's policy of exiling asylum seekers who arrive by boat is cruel in the extreme," Anna Neistat, senior director for research at Amnesty International, said in a statement. "Few other countries go to such lengths to deliberately inflict suffering on people seeking safety and freedom." "This is an astounding situation — astounding in the worst possible sense," Michael Bochenek, senior counsel for children's rights at Human Rights Watch, told the Washington Post. "It's difficult to come up with a parallel where a government has taken such steps to prevent people from seeking freedom by taking 'vulnerable people' and transferring them to a speck of land and saying that is an adequate response to the needs of refugees and asylum seekers." Meanwhile, an investigation by the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School suggests that Ferrovial could be held liable for the abuses. "Based on our examination of the facts, it is possible that individual officers at Ferrovial might be exposed to criminal liability for crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute," Diala Shamas, a lawyer at the Stanford clinic, told the Guardian newspaper. "We have raised our concerns with Ferrovial in a private communication to their officers and directors detailing our findings. We have yet to hear back." Broadspectrum has denounced the investigations into its affairs. "We are concerned with the potential impact that any misinformation may have on our investors and more than 25,000 employees across a range of sectors," the company said in an official statement. "No charges have been laid against any of our staff in respect to any dealings with asylum seekers on Nauru or Manus Provinces." However Ferrovial appears unnerved by the protests and the details that have emerged so far. "In relation to the provision of services at the regional processing centres in Nauru and Manus province, these services were not a core part of the valuation and the acquisition rationale of the offer, and it is not a strategic activity in Ferrovial's portfolio," the company said in a statement in May. "Ferrovial's view is that this activity will not form part of its services offering in the future." Narayanasamy says that the Spanish company is being smart. "It looks as if Ferrovial has seen the error of its ways and is trying to back away from the legal and financial liabilities that have been so apparent in the commercial operation of these illegal camps," she told the Sydney Morning Herald. Disclaimer: The author of this article is a member of the board of directors of Amnesty International USA