Articles by CorpWatch

We found 73 results.


Broadspectrum ‘Violating’ Human Rights at Australian Offshore Detention Centers
Pratap Chatterjee | CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Aug 2016

New reports accuse employees of Broadspectrum Limited of providing appalling living conditions and neglecting the care of their charges. Broadspectrum 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.

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Cairn Energy Demands India Pay $5.6 Billion or Drop Back Tax Claim
Pratap Chatterjee | CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Jul 2016

15 Jul 2016 – The Scottish oil exploration company has demanded compensation for losses it claims are a result of a tax assessment…. Vodafone also has another pending case on taxation of offshore transactions in India…. The Indian government lost a similar case against Shell in the Bombay High Court and chose not to appeal.

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Uruguay Defeats Philip Morris in Major Win for Anti-Smoking Advocates
Pratap Chatterjee | CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Jul 2016

11 Jul 2016 – Uruguay has defeated Philip Morris, the global tobacco giant, in a major international lawsuit over the country’s tough anti-smoking regulations. On March 26, 2010, Philip Morris filed a complaint against Uruguay at the World Bank arbitration tribunal. The action was intended to escalate the fight to an international level and to take advantage of trade laws that typically favor major corporations by allowing them to claim damages from laws that deny them profits from their investments.

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New Violation Tracker Tool Helps Public Track U.S. Corporate Misconduct
Pratap Chatterjee | CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Jul 2016

Bank of America leads with $56 billion in fines. Second on this list is JP Morgan Chase which has paid out $28 billion in fines and penalties to the U.S. government while BP comes in at third place with $25.4 billion. Conclusions from 110,000 cases and $270 billion in fines and penalties since the beginning of 2010 that have been added to Violation Tracker. Most surprising is that less than one half of one percent of the cases involve criminal charges.

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Zupta Scandal Causes South African Government to Intervene to Save Indian Investor
Richard Smallteacher | CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 May 2016

The South African government has intervened to support the Indian-born Gupta brothers, owners of a sprawling conglomerate with interests from mining to media, following a scandal that suggested that the brothers had accumulated so much power that they could dictate cabinet-level decisions in the country.

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World Bank Orders Venezuela to Pay Crystallex $1.4 Billion for Imataca Forest Reserve Gold Mine
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Apr 2016

Imataca, one of four major pristine forest reserves in the country, is home to the indigenous Akawaio, Arawako, Karina, Pemon and Warao peoples. It also sits above what geologists believe to be the largest gold deposits in the continent worth some $20 billion. The court decision marks yet another milestone in corporate victories against national governments using international trade treaties.

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Ovarian Cancer Victims Win Talcum Powder Lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Apr 2016

4 Apr 2016 – Johnson & Johnson has been sued by over 1,200 women who blame the company’s talcum powder products for their ovarian cancer. Not only are U.S. courts beginning to agree with them, juries have started to award victims millions of dollars in compensation.

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U.S. Air Force Hires Private Companies to Fly Drones in War Zones
Chris Thompson, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Dec 2015

The unprecedented move is in response to demands from the Obama administration to dramatically expand the drone war just as the Pentagon faces a critical shortage of military pilots. As a result, civilian pilots will directly participate in military operations for the first time since the drone wars began about a decade ago.

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Outsourcing the Kill Chain: Eleven Drone Contractors Revealed
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Aug 2015

3 Aug 2015 – Hundreds of private sector intelligence analysts are being paid to review surveillance footage from U.S. military drones in Central Asia and the Middle East, according to a new report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

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Tobacco Companies Ordered to Pay C$15.6 Billion to Quebec Smokers
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

4 Jun 2015 – Over one million people in the Canadian province of Quebec will receive a total of C$15.6 billion ($12.5 billion) in damages for smoking related diseases from three of the biggest tobacco companies in the country. The settlement is the result of a 17-year long court battle.

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Deutsche Bank Pays $2.5 Billion Fine for Interest Rate Rigging
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 May 2015

27 Apr 2015 – Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay out a record $2.5 billion fine to settle U.K. and U.S. government investigations into allegations of fixing global interest rates, just months after six other banks paid out $4.3 billion on similar charges. Activists say that the banks should have faced criminal charges.

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New European Commission Marred by Corporate Conflicts of Interest
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

Jean-Claude Juncker was elected as European Commission president after eight years as prime minister of Luxembourg, where he helped transform the country into the largest tax haven on the continent. “He has dedicated his career to ensuring that society becomes less fair; that wealthy institutions and individuals can avoid the taxes little people and small businesses must pay,”

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Major Banks Prepare to Pay Billions for Foreign Exchange Manipulation
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

1 Nov 2014 – Some 19 investigations of multinational banks in ten different legal jurisdictions are on their way to completion and the final tally may hit $41 billion to settle charges of foreign exchange manipulation.

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Data Secrecy Company [Whisper] Accused of Sharing Information with Media and Military
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Oct 2014

Whisper – a new social network that claims to provide anonymity – has been accused of secretly tracking users. The allegations were made by the Guardian newspaper, provoking renewed scrutiny of a multitude of data privacy claims made by software companies.

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Bank of America to Pay $16.65 Billion to Settle Mortgage Fraud Charges
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Aug 2014

Bank of America has agreed to pay the government $9.65 billion to settle charges of misleading investors over mortgage lending in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis. The bank will also pay out an additional $7 billion to help borrowers and communities affected by the loans.

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[More pornography] Hedge Fund Managers Still Making Billions
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Jun 2014

David Tepper was the world’s highest earning hedge fund manager for the second year in a row, according to the Rich List. Tepper earned $3.5 billion in 2013, a major increase on his $2.2 billion take home income in 2012. Critics say that these sky-high salaries are a major cause of increasing poverty.

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Big Pharma Abandons New Tuberculosis Drug Research
Fatima Hansia, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Apr 2014

Three major pharmaceutical companies – AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer – have recently delayed or canceled clinical trials for testing tuberculosis drugs in India and South Africa in a trend by Big Pharma to abandon research into diseases that affect poor people.

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Hacking Team Spy Software Identified on U.S. Servers
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Mar 2014

Two U.S. companies – Linode of New Jersey and Rackspace of Texas – have been hosting surveillance software designed by Hacking Team of Italy, according to a new report. The software was allegedly been used by governments in Ethiopia, Morocco, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to track dissidents.

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Fracking Siberia: Gazprom Teams Up With Shell
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Mar 2014

Gazprom of Russia has begun fracking in western Siberia with Anglo-Dutch giant Shell to tap a reserve of oil under a 2.3 million square kilometer expanse. Ironically Russia Today, a state run television station, has been actively broadcasting protests against the fracking industry in Europe, where companies like Chevron have been aggressively trying to get a toehold in countries like Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.

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Anglo Irish Bankers on Trial for Scheme That Led to National Collapse
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Feb 2014

Three top executives at Anglo Irish bank are on trial for a secret scheme to buy their own bank’s shares that eventually triggered the 2008 collapse of the Irish economy. The bankers allegedly hatched the plan to cover up bets made by Sean Quinn, once Ireland’s richest man.

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Bayer CEO Says Drugs Developed for “Western Patients Who Can Afford It”
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Feb 2014

Bayer, the German pharmaceutical giant, is in hot water after CEO Marijn Dekkers told a Financial Times conference that the company designed medicines “for western patients who can afford it” not for the “Indian market.”

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Climate Activists Slapped With Terrorism Charges for Devon Energy Protest
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jan 2014

10 Jan 2014 – Two climate activists who staged a protest at the headquarters of Devon Energy, a Fortune 500 company based in Oklahoma city, have been charged with a “terrorism hoax” after black powder drifted down from a banner that they unfurled.

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Chocolate Slavery Case against Nestlé Allowed to Proceed
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 20 Jan 2014

Eight years after they sued Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and Nestlé for allegedly forcing them to work as child labor on a Côte d’Ivoire cocoa plantation, three young men from Mali have won a small victory – the ability to be heard in a California court.

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The Jason Bourne Strategy: CIA Contractors Do Hollywood
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Dec 2013

Global Response Staff is a new unit set up by the CIA to hire private security contractors to accompany dangerous spying missions. Unlike Jason Bourne – the fictional character on which they appear to be modeled on – this gang cannot shoot straight.

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Canada Approves Genetically Modified Salmon Exports to Panama
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 2 Dec 2013

AquAdvantage salmon was created by taking genetic material from Chinook salmon and a seal eel to modify an Atlantic salmon to enable it to grow twice as fast as conventional fish. Canadian activists say, “It’s very experimental and the risks of anything going wrong are disastrous. They can wipe out the wild salmon population if these fish ever escape and their eggs end up in the wild rivers.”

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The Euro Zone Profiteers
CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Nov 2013

A new CorpWatch report shines a light on the role of six major banks in Greece, Ireland and Spain in the EuroZone crisis.

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Six Telecom Companies Face Formal Complaint for Collusion with UK Spy Agency
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 11 Nov 2013

Six global telecommunications companies – British Telecom, Interoute, Level Three, Verizon Enterprise, Viatel and Vodafone Cable – are the subject of a formal complaint by Privacy International for potential violation of human rights such as the right to privacy and freedom of expression.

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Turning the Table on the Trackers: WikiLeaks Sniffs out Spy Salesmen
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Sep 2013

What was Mostapha Maanna of Hacking Team, an Italian surveillance company, doing on his three trips to Saudi Arabia in the last year? A new data trove from WikiLeaks reveals travel details for salesmen like Maanna who hawk electronic technology to track communications by individuals without their knowledge.

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Halliburton Admits Guilt in Gulf of Mexico Cover-Up
Richard Smallteacher - CorpWatch, 29 Jul 2013

Halliburton has admitted that it destroyed evidence after the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The company has agreed to pay a $200,000 fine, make a donation of $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and accept three years of probation.

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Commodity Scams: Barclays, Goldman & JP Morgan under Fire
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 29 Jul 2013

JP Morgan Chase is expected to announce over $600 million in penalties and repayments for allegedly cheating customers in energy markets in California and Michigan. This just after Barclays bank paid out $470 million for manipulating electricity rates. Now Goldman Sachs is under scrutiny for possibly manipulating aluminum prices.

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GlaxoSmithKline Alleged to Pay Bribes in China
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 22 Jul 2013

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been accused of bribing doctors in China in order to boost sales. Chinese government officials say they have uncovered evidence of a bribery scheme involving 700 travel agencies who were used to funnel as much as three billion yuan ($480 million) in payments.

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Surveillance Contractor Bug in Ecuador Embassy Fails to Stop WikiLeaks
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 8 Jul 2013

3 Jul 2013 – Spy equipment from the Surveillance Group Limited, a British private detective agency based in Worcester, England, has been found in the Ecuadorean embassy in London where Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, has taken refuge.

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Monsanto Refuses to Testify on Genetically Modified Crops in Puerto Rico
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero – CorpWatch, 24 Jun 2013

Monsanto has refused to testify at a major government hearing about the development and sale of seeds in Puerto Rico. At stake is the research that the company conducts into genetic engineering on the island that critics say threaten the environment and can cause serious human health problems.

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Google & Facebook Discussed Secret Systems for U.S. to Spy on Users
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 17 Jun 2013

Google and Facebook have discussed – and possibly built – special portals for the U.S. government to snoop on user data, according to revelations sparked by an investigative series of articles by Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian.

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Verizon (and Google) Helped U.S. Government to Spy on Reporters
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 May 2013

Technology companies willingly provided information to U.S. government agencies to help the Obama administration snoop on reporters from the Associated Press (AP) and Fox news in order to ostensibly crack down on leaks that pose a “threat” to national security. This is not the first time that the Obama administration has asked telecommunication companies to turn over records on journalists.

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Guatemalan Lawsuit against Canadian Mining Giant May Set Precedent
Jennifer Kennedy - CorpWatch, 22 Apr 2013

A lawsuit against HudBay Minerals in Canada for human rights abuses in Guatemala is the next case to watch for corporate accountability activists after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a case against Shell for aiding and abetting human rights abuses in Nigeria.

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U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit against Shell in Nigeria
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 22 Apr 2013

In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against Shell in Nigeria for human rights abuses in the Ogoni region. The ruling effectively blocks other lawsuits against foreign multinationals for human rights abuse that have occurred overseas from being brought in U.S. courts.

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Monsanto Bullies Small Farmers Over Planting Harvested GMO Seeds
Puck Lo, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Apr 2013

Does Monsanto own all future generations of genetically modified seeds that it sells? The Missouri-based agribusiness giant wants farmers to pay a royalty to plant any seed that descended from a patented original. The legal decision has ramifications for other patented “inventions” that reproduce themselves like strands of DNA.

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Wall Street Giants – JP Morgan and SAC – Hauled Up On Fraud Allegations
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 25 Mar 2013

JP Morgan – the Wall Street investment bank – and SAC – a major hedge fund – were hauled up Friday [15 Mar 2013] for alleged fraud. JP Morgan was questioned at a U.S. Senate hearing about hiding trading losses while SAC agreed to pay $614 million to settle insider trading charges.

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Raytheon Video Claims Riot Software Can Track Users Via Social Networks
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 18 Feb 2013

Raytheon, a U.S. military manufacturer, is selling a new software surveillance package named “Riot” that claims to predict where individuals are expected to go next using technology that mines data from social networks like Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. Based just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, Raytheon sells $25 billion worth of equipment a year to military clients like the Pentagon.

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Medical Trial Data Activists Score Win Over Glaxo
Pratap Chatterjee - Corpwatch, 11 Feb 2013

7 Feb 2013 – All data on completed medical experiments are to be made available to the general public by GlaxoSmithKline, the biggest UK pharmaceutical company. The announcement is a major win for the AllTrials campaign mounted by healthcare activists as well as researchers that has gathered widespread support. “There is a fundamental lack of scientific progress because clinical trial evidence is being withheld.”

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“Cyberazzi” – Data Mining Companies Investigated for Invasion of Privacy
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 28 Jan 2013

The paparazzi hide in bushes and use telephoto lenses to snap pictures of celebrities. The “cyberazzi” parachute into web browsers and sneak up behind mobile phones to spy on ordinary people. Nine such data mining companies must report to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission by Feb 1, 2013 what personal information they gather for sale.

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Global Ambulance Chasers: Lawyers Profit from Suing States for Multinationals
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 24 Dec 2012

Dozens of highly paid international lawyers are pocketing millions of dollars in fees from multinational corporations to sue governments in secretive “arbitration tribunals” for profits they claim to be owed under international investment treaties, according to “Profiting from Injustice” – a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory & Transnational Institute.

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Smokeless Tobacco Lobbyists Set Off European Alarms
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 26 Nov 2012

A clandestine lobbying effort at the European Union (EU) by Swedish Match company to get legislators to lift a ban on a special kind of smokeless tobacco has forced the resignation of a top European bureaucrat and prompted renewed calls to strengthen rules on undue business influence in Brussels.

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Argentine Judge Freezes Chevron Assets to Pay $19 Billion Ecuador Fine
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 19 Nov 2012

Adrian Elcuj Miranda, a judge in Buenos Aires, has ordered the seizure of Chevron’s assets in Argentina, to force the company to pay a $19 billion penalty for polluting the Amazon in Ecuador. The plaintiffs are seeking similar legal action in Brazil, Canada, Colombia and other countries.

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Indigenous Population Targeted in Protest against UK Energy Company in Guatemala
Jennifer Kennedy - CorpWatch, 12 Nov 2012

Six demonstrators were killed and dozens injured when the Guatemalan military fired into a group of indigenous Maya-K’iche’ gathered to protest rising electricity charges from Energuate, a major national power company owned by a private equity firm created by the UK government.

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BP Wants To Blame Workers For Deepwater Horizon Spill, Says U.S.
Puck Lo - CorpWatch, 1 Oct 2012

BP, the British oil company, has been accused of attempting to blame “blue collar workers” in order to divert attention from management failures of “gross negligence” over the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. The allegations were made by the federal government in a recent legal filing by the U.S. Department of Justice that was initially kept partly secret.

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Private Prison for Asylum Seekers on Pacific Island
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 17 Sep 2012

Transfield Services, an Australian logistics company that provides services to the mining and oil industry among others, has won a A$24.5 million (US$25.9 million) contract from the government of Australia to run a detention center for asylum seekers in the Pacific island nation of Nauru.

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Cambodian Activists Call for International Sugar Boycott
Puck Lo – CorpWatch, 17 Sep 2012

Human rights monitoring groups and Cambodian activists are calling for an international boycott of Tate & Lyle and Domino Sugar, who do business with sugar suppliers accused of participating in government-sanctioned land grabs and illegal evictions throughout rural Cambodia.

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Stanford Organics Study “A Fraud” – Linked to Cargill & Tobacco Money
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 17 Sep 2012

A new study by Stanford University that suggests that organic food has no medical or health values is deeply flawed, say outraged activists. “Make no mistake, the Stanford organics study is a fraud,” says Mike Adams of Naturalnews.com and Anthony Gucciardi of Naturalsociety.org. “The mainstream media has fallen for an elaborate scientific hoax that sought to destroy the credibility of organic foods by claiming they are “no healthier” than conventional foods (grown with pesticides and genetically modified organisms).”

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Gazprom Arctic Oil Rig Blockaded By Greenpeace
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 3 Sep 2012

Last Friday [24 Aug 2012] climbers from the environmental group scaled the Prirazlomnaya rig and spent 15 hours holding up a banner that read “Save the Arctic.” On Monday [27 Aug 2012] the Greenpeace activists used four speed boats to block the Anna Akhmatova ship from bringing workers to the rig. Sailors turned water cannons on the boats to force them out of the way.

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Indian Supreme Court to Hear Novartis “Patents versus Patients” Case
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 27 Aug 2012

Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, will appear before the Indian Supreme Court Wednesday [22 Aug 2012] to appeal against a patent rejection for a popular cancer drug. A decision in favor of the company could have a devastating impact on cheap supplies of many kinds of generic drugs for poor patients.

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TrapWire Leaks Shine Light on New Video Tracking Technologies
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 20 Aug 2012

TrapWire, a company founded and run by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers, that offers to track “suspicious” activities from surveillance video, has been spotlighted in a new Wikileaks release.

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Chevron Face Opposition over Eastern Europe Fracking Plans
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 13 Aug 2012

Chevron – the Northern California-based oil and gas company – has been quietly acquiring rights to drill for natural gas in Eastern Europe using “fracking” technology – a controversial technique. However, grassroots opposition in Bulgaria and Romania has thwarted the company’s plans so far. Fracking can dramatically increase the likelihood of earthquakes, according to recent research in Youngstown, Ohio, where residents were hit last Christmas Eve and again on New Year’s Eve.

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Pfizer Admits Bribery in Eight Countries
Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch, 13 Aug 2012

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has agreed to pay a total of $60.2 million in penalties to U.S. government regulators to settle documented charges of bribery in eight countries: Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Serbia.

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Malaysian Water Company Claims To Have Run Dry
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 6 Aug 2012

Syabas, a private water company in Malaysia, has threatened to start water rationing in the state of Selangor after claiming that it had almost no water reserves left. “Here, we have a corporation holding a state government and public to ransom,” Charles Santiago, the coordinator of the Coalition Against Water Privatisation who is also a local member of parliament, told Free Malaysia Today.

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Bolivia Pushes Back Against Swiss Commodities Giant Glencore
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero - CorpWatch, 30 Jul 2012

Glencore corporation, the secretive Swiss commodities giant which has become one of the world’s biggest traders of grain, oil and minerals, has hit an unlikely roadblock: On June 22 [2012], the Bolivian government seized the company’s Colquiri tin and zinc mine. Colquiri was the third Glencore operation to be nationalized by Bolivia in the last five years.

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Court to Hear Challenge to Myriad’s Human Gene Patent
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 23 Jul 2012

Should a private company be allowed to patent isolated human genes? A lawsuit to be heard Friday [20 Jul 2012] pits Myriad Genetics of Utah against the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Myriad wants to be the exclusive U.S. commercial provider of genetic screening tests for breast cancer or ovarian cancer but the non-profit says the patent limits scientific research as well as health care options for women.

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Greenwashing the Olympics
Daniel Nelson – CorpWatch, 9 Jul 2012

Rio Tinto, the global mining company, has been named as early front-runner for the Greenwash Gold award for the worst Olympic sponsor, with BP, the oil and gas multinational, in second place and Dow Chemical third. The three corporations are banking on getting a good return on their purchase of the right to stick their names all over Olympic promotional material and activities.

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Rio+20 Ends in Failure, Corporate Capture
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 2 Jul 2012

The United Nations Rio+20 Conference in Brazil concluded this past weekend [24 Jun 2012] with no new government pledges. On the other hand, multinationals scored a public relations victory. Some activists say that the initiative is just “greenwash” and that the Sustainable Energy For All initiative proves that the UN has sold out to corporate interests.

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Spies in Africa’s Skies: New Contractors for the Pentagon
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 19 Jun 2012

The Pentagon and the CIA have long used private contractors for covert wars. Air America and Air Asia were the front companies used to bomb Cambodia and Laos for president Lyndon Johnson. Bigger, more established companies, like Northrop Grumman were used to spy in Colombia under president Bill Clinton.

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Fake Drug Plague or Pharmaceutical Industry Attack on Generics?
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 19 Jun 2012

Are Africa and South East Asia just suffering from a deluge of fake medicines that is causing disease resistance to rise? Or are they also suffering from a deluge of poorly informed media articles, encouraged by the pharmaceutical industry that wants to make war on generic drugs?

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Forgiving Siemens: Unraveling a Tangled Tale of German Corruption in Greece
Lena Mavraka and Vasilis Papatheodorou – CorpWatch, 11 Jun 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. On November 11, 2010, Siemens turned off 35 traffic lights in central Athens in protest against Greek government fines as high as €500 million ($650 million) to settle allegations of bribery to win contracts.

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Bailing out Germany: The Story behind the European Financial Crisis
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 4 Jun 2012

A large chunk of the Eurozone bailouts are for speculative schemes that were handed out by banks in just four countries Belgium, France, Germany and the UK. So why are Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain being blamed? And who is really getting bailed out? The Indignados in Madrid, Blockupy in Frankfurt and Occupy Wall Street have it right.

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Facebook Lobbies Washington to “Like” Spying on Users
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 30 Apr 2012

Facebook, the social network behemoth that is about to become a multi-billion dollar company, has been lobbying for a proposed new U.S. law called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) that would allow companies to share information with government agencies. On Friday [27 Apr 2012], when Congress gets to vote, we will find out which members “like” Facebooks plans.

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Johnson & Johnson Fined $1.2 billion for Drug Labeling Failure
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Apr 2012

Johnson & Johnson has been fined $1.2 billion in Arkansas over the sales of Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug. A circuit judge ruled that the company did not warn patients that the drug places elderly patients with dementia at an increased risk of major weight gain, possible diabetes and potential death.

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Chiquita Banana to Face Colombia Torture Claim
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Apr 2012

Chiquita, the global banana producer, was ordered this week to face a federal court over their role in paying off right wing death squads in Colombia. Villagers allege that the death squads used “random and targeted violence in exchange for financial assistance and access to Chiquita’s private port for arms and drug smuggling,” according to a lawsuit filed on their behalf by EarthRights International and Cohen Milstein.

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Emerald Energy Exploits Colombian Andes
Elias Cabrera – CorpWatch, 26 Mar 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.

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Chevron & Transocean Back in the Dock over Oil Spills
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 26 Mar 2012

Brazil has demanded that 17 Chevron and Transocean executives surrender their passports while they await the outcome of criminal charges brought against them for a spill that took place off the coast of Rio de Janeiro last November [2011]. The company has also been sued for $11 billion in damages by a Brazilian federal prosecutor. Both companies have been in trouble for similar problems in the past.

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India Ends Bayer Monopoly, Helps Slash Prices for Life-Saving Drugs
Pratap Chatterjee – CorpWatch, 19 Mar 2012

Bayer, a German multinational, has been selling Sorafenib, under the brand name of Nexavar, for $5,600 a month. (The average per capita income in India is a little under $100 ie two percent of the price of the drug) Natco Pharma, an Indian company which applied for permission to manufacture and sell the drug, will now be able to sell the drug for $176 a month.

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ASBESTOS: ASIA INHALES WHILE THE WEST BANS THE DEADLY CARCINOGEN
Melody Kemp, Special to CorpWatch, 17 Feb 2010

In parts of Asia, carrying 500 grams of one white powder can draw a death sentence, but importing 1,000 tons of another lethal white dust is both legal and profitable. Asbestos, a known carcinogen banned in much of the world, is a common and dangerous building block in much of Asia’s development and construction boom. […]

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BHOPAL: GENERATIONS OF POISON
Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to CorpWatch, 6 Dec 2009

Babu Lal Gaur is a much-reviled man in the slums that surround the derelict Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. As the Minister of Gas Relief and Rehabilitation in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, he is responsible for the welfare of the more than half a million survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy. […]

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A GLITTERING DEMON: MINING, POVERTY AND POLITICS IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Michael Deibert, Special to CorpWatch, 1 Nov 2008

In the heart of the war-scarred Ituri region in northeastern Congo, some 200 mud-covered men pan for traces of gold in the muddy brown waters. Working for the Congolese owners of Manyida camp, the miners are following a map of the site made by the Belgians, the country’s former colonial rulers. “It’s very difficult, punishing […]

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