Latest news with #BureauofInvestigativeJournalism
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
How China Uses Work to Reshape Uyghur Identity and Control a Strategic Region
The Uyghurs arrive in Chinese factory towns by train and plane, often in groups wearing matching caps or jackets. They are sent by the government to work where they are needed, whether it is molding rubber slippers, assembling automotive wiring or sorting chicken carcasses. A joint investigation by The New York Times, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Der Spiegel has revealed that Uyghurs are being sent out of their homeland, Xinjiang, on government work programs, more widely than previously documented. We found that workers are now involved in making a variety of goods for many well-known brands in factories across the country, presenting a challenge to international regulators looking to identify and purge forced labor from supply chains. Uyghur workers were traced to more than 70 factories in at least five major industries. MOnGOLIA Liaoning Xinjiang Tianjin Factories Shandong CHINA Jiangsu Anhui Hubei NEPAL Chongqing Hunan Jiangxi Fujian INDIA Guangdong MYANMAR MOnGOLIA Factories Xinjiang CHINA NEPAL INDIA MOnGOLIA Liaoning Xinjiang Tianjin Factories Shandong CHINA Jiangsu Anhui Hubei NEPAL Chongqing Hunan Jiangxi Fujian INDIA Guangdong MYANMAR MOnGOLIA Liaoning Xinjiang Tianjin Factories Shandong CHINA Jiangsu Anhui Hubei NEPAL Chongqing Hunan Jiangxi Fujian INDIA Guangdong MYANMAR Source: The LandScan Program, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Satellite Imagery by Esri; OpenStreetMap (OSM); Landsat Graphic by Pablo Robles Experts estimate that tens of thousands of Uyghurs have been transferred under these programs. While the precise conditions faced by these workers remain unclear, United Nations labor experts, academics and human rights advocates assert that the programs are coercive in nature. 'For these Uyghurs being forced and dragged out of their homes to go to work, it's hell,' said Rahima Mahmut, a Uyghur activist in exile and executive director of Stop Uyghur Genocide, a British-based rights group. A poultry processing plant in Dalian, Liaoning A poultry processing plant in Suizhou, Hubei 'Warmly send off Hotan migrant workers to transfer and work in the Chinese interior' 'Warmly send off Hotan migrant workers to transfer and work in the Chinese interior' 'Warmly send off Hotan migrant workers to transfer and work in the Chinese interiord' A sendoff ceremony for a group of migrant workers from the city of Hotan in Xinjiang in 2020. Source: Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Independent
01-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
HSBC accused of ‘bulldozing through' key climate policy with $1bn Glencore deal
HSBC has been accused of 'bulldozing' through one of its key climate pledges by helping raise $1 billion (£750bn) for the mining giant Glencore. Following pressure from climate-conscious investors, HSBC promised in December 2021 to stop funding companies that were increasing coal production. Yet new analysis from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent has found that the bank helped raise $1bn for Glencore in May 2023. Glencore had increased coal production in the two previous years. Epworth Investment Management, which is both a customer of HSBC and investor in its shares and bonds hit out at HSBC. Its deputy chief executive Andrew Harper said: 'If these reports are accurate, then HSBC hasn't just bent its coal policy – it has bulldozed through it.' He said the deal with Glencore 'goes against both the spirit and the letter of HSBC's policy'. 'This isn't a grey area. It's a clear line being crossed,' he added. 'This is a really shocking finding and it just goes to demonstrate how there is such a lack of accountability even within HSBC itself,' said Zahra Hdidou, senior climate and resilience advisor at ActionAid, a non-profit organisation that banks with HSBC. 'Despite its own 'green' rhetoric and what they would like the public to see and think about their ethics, HSBC is clearly falling short, neglecting its responsibility to the planet while keeping its customers in the dark about the true impact of its financing.' The $1bn funding for Glencore was found via new analysis of data on climate-focused bank switching platform which compares banks' lending with their public commitments around funding coal companies. Specifically, HSBC helped Glencore raise two $500 million corporate bonds that mature in 2028 and 2033. Glencore's coal extraction increased year-on-year between 2021 and 2023. The company extracted 94 million tonnes of coal in 2021, rising to 101 million in 2022, and 106 million in 2023, according to Glencore annual reports. As a point of comparison, the EU's 27 countries collectively consumed 128 million tonnes of hard coal in 2023. Anders Schelde, chief investment officer at AkademikerPension, a Danish pension fund that invests in HSBC and is part of a group of investors that has pushed the bank to strengthen its climate commitments. , said he took the alleged breaches in the bank's coal policy 'very seriously'. 'We do not believe there is room for backtracking as it would put HSBC's credibility on the line,' he said. Responding to these findings, HSBC said: 'We follow a clear set of sustainability risk policies which support our ambition to align the financed emissions in our portfolio to net zero by 2050. We do not comment on client relationships.' HSBC has rolled back some climate pledges in recent months. It has delayed its net zero targets by 20 years, introduced exceptions to its coal policy and dropped the chief sustainability officer role from its executive board. One of the mines that Glencore owns is the vast Cerrejón open-pit coal mine in Colombia, which is almost six times the size of Manchester. Glencore – which bought out the mine's previous co-owners in 2022 – intends to extract coal from the site until at least 2034. In 2020, a UN special rapporteur said that people living nearby suffered from headaches, breathing difficulties, burning eyes and blurred vision due to the machinery used to extract coal from the mine round the clock, seven days a week. Meanwhile, Grismaldo, an indigenous Wayúu man in his 20s, said that they used to use water from the Ranchería river – which passes through the mine site – for washing and bathing. 'Everyone here used to benefit. It changed a lot because of the mine. Some animals that drank from these waters became ill or died.' Glencore said in response: 'We aim to avoid harm to people from our activities, respect human rights, [and] contribute to the social and economic development of people and society more widely,' adding that it follows best business practices in line with international standards. The company said its activities do not negatively affect the Ranchería river's water quality or volumes, and that the flow rate increases as it passes through the mine. HSBC is due to hold its Annual General Meeting on Friday, with recent reports suggesting that the bank may move the meeting online in the future to avoid disruptions from climate protestors.
Arab News
18-04-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Queen Elizabeth's former solicitor linked to wealth management of alleged war criminal Rifaat Assad
LONDON: The private solicitor to the late Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain also helped manage the wealth of an alleged Syrian war criminal known as 'the Butcher of Hama,' according to a report in The Guardian newspaper. Mark Bridges, who was knighted for his services to the Queen in 2019, acted as a legal adviser to Rifaat Assad, the uncle of former Syrian president Bashar Assad. Bridges served as the Queen's solicitor between 2002 and 2019 and was a trustee of financial trusts linked to Rifaat or his relatives, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported. Assad, now 87, commanded an elite Syrian force accused of massacring up to 40,000 civilians during the brutal suppression of an uprising in the city of Hama in 1982. After leading a failed coup in 1984, he was exiled from Syria and went on to invest heavily in the UK, France, and Spain. Bridges' prestigious London law firm, Farrer & Co, said his work for Assad complied with regulatory standards and that he had received 'credible information' at the time that cast doubt on the war crimes allegations. Bridges served as a trustee for Assad between 1999 and 2008, and continued to provide 'ad-hoc and limited' legal advice until 2015. The Crown Prosecution Service began efforts to freeze Assad's British assets in 2017, obtaining a court order preventing the sale of a £4.7 million (SAR 23.39 million) Mayfair home. However, it came too late to block the £3.72 million sale of a seven-bedroom property in Leatherhead, Surrey. Assad's £16 million townhouse in Mayfair had already been sold. A 2018 ruling by a court in Gibraltar noted that Bridges had been a trustee of two financial trusts connected to Assad, the English Palomino Trust and the Oryx Trust. In 2020, Assad was convicted in France of embezzling Syrian state funds to build a French property empire valued at £80 million. Bashar Assad and his British-born wife Asma fled to Moscow after his regime collapsed late last year. Responding to the revelations, Farrer & Co. told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: 'Whether the same decision (to act for Rifaat) would be made today in light of further information now available and, arguably, the more stringent demands of the regulatory environment, is a point on which one might speculate.'
The Guardian
17-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Queen Elizabeth II's solicitor managed offshore wealth for Assad's uncle
Queen Elizabeth II's private solicitor spent eight years helping to manage the offshore wealth of the uncle of the recently deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, an investigation has established. Rifaat al-Assad became known as the 'butcher of Hama' after allegations he played a key role in a massacre of thousands of Syrians at the city of Hama in 1982. In 2024, Switzerland formally charged him with war crimes. Concerns about Rifaat's activities, including his record as the head of a feared Syrian paramilitary force known as the Defense Brigades, have been publicly raised in Europe and the US by the media, human rights groups and government officials since the 1980s. He left Syria for Europe in 1984 after a failed coup against his brother. Inquiries by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have established that Mark Bridges, also known as the third Baron Bridges, served as a trustee on at least five trusts holding assets in France and Spain on behalf of Rifaat al-Assad or his relatives between 1999 and 2008. During the same period, Bridges also held one of the most prestigious legal positions in Britain: private legal adviser to the British monarch. He was Queen Elizabeth's solicitor from 2002 to 2019. The findings raise questions about whether it was appropriate for the monarch's personal lawyer to take the ethical and reputational risk of working for an individual accused of human rights atrocities, in view of potential embarrassment to the queen had the connection been discovered while she was still alive. There is no suggestion of any regulatory wrongdoing by Bridges, who was knighted for his services to the queen in 2019. His firm, Farrer & Co, said the trusts were established on the advice of another leading law firm, that Bridges's work for Rifaat al-Assad was in complete compliance with regulatory requirements in effect at the time and that Bridges had been presented with evidence contradicting the allegations made against him. The property empire amassed by Rifaat al-Assad after his arrival in Europe spanned the most luxurious postcodes of Paris, London and the Costa del Sol. His acquisitions, which he claimed were part-funded by cheques worth millions of dollars from the king of Saudi Arabia, included Witanhurst in London's Highgate – the second-largest private residence in the capital after Buckingham Palace – and a seven-storey mansion near Paris's Arc de Triomphe. Assad held his property empire through offshore companies and trusts, obscuring his ownership. One trust was registered in the Bahamas, while some of the purchases used shell companies in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory, before transfer to Spanish and later Maltese companies. In 2014, prosecutors in France began investigating whether Rifaat al-Assad's wealth had in fact been obtained through corruption. Bridges had ceased acting as a trustee for Rifaat in 2008, his lawyers said, but continued to provide 'limited and ad-hoc' legal advice until 2015 'in circumstances whereby the regulatory requirements imposed on the firm were met'. Two of the trusts that Bridges had managed were said to own the Spanish portion of Rifaat al-Assad's real estate empire, including a deluxe villa with swathes of land near Marbella. In 2019, Spanish prosecutors alleged that these same trusts controlled shell companies holding more than 500 properties in Spain worth €695m (£595m). According to the Spanish prosecutors, the offshore setup was designed to 'hide the true ownership of the huge amount of real estate properties' and enabled the 'laundering [of] dirty money from abroad', referring to funds allegedly stolen from the Syrian state. In 2020, a French court convicted Rifaat al-Assad of tax fraud and laundering embezzled public money – primarily about $200m (£151m) stolen from Syrian state funds and $100m in fraudulent loan agreements from Libya. Assad was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He fled to Syria in 2021 while his conviction was under appeal. Though not the only trustee serving Assad, Bridges was by far the most eminent. In addition to his services to the queen, he led the private client team at Farrer, an elite law firm with a reputation forged through serving British royals and aristocrats as far back as 1769. There is no evidence Bridges knew or suspected that Rifaat al-Assad's money was stolen. Assad claimed his wealth came from benefactors, including the Saudi royal family, and in 2018 the Gibraltar supreme court concluded that it had been reasonable for Rifaat's trustees to believe this story. The question of Rifaat al-Assad's status as an alleged war criminal, however, is more complicated. In February 1982, armed militias affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood staged an uprising against the Assad regime in the town of Hama, in western Syria. To suppress the uprising, Syria's then president, Hafez al-Assad, Rifaat's brother, dispatched the Syrian army and a paramilitary group called the Defense Brigades. An Amnesty International report published in 1983 found that while 'it is difficult to establish for certain what happened', allegations against Syrian regime forces included 'collective execution of 70 people outside the municipal hospital' and 'cyanide gas containers … alleged to have been brought into the city, connected by rubber pipes to the entrances of buildings believed to house insurgents, and turned on, killing all the buildings' occupants'. It is estimated that 10,000 to 40,000 people may have been unlawfully tortured and executed. As head of the paramilitaries, Rifaat al-Assad was believed to have taken a leading role in the carnage. In a 1989 book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, the journalist Thomas Friedman described how, after initial skirmishes, 'Rifaat's tactic shifted from trying to ferret out nests of Muslim Brotherhood men to simply bringing whole neighbourhoods down on their heads and burying the Brotherhood and anyone else in the way.' Allegations of atrocities against Rifaat al-Assad were widely known by the point Bridges began working as a trustee for his offshore wealth in 1999. In 2013, Swiss prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Rifaat al-Assad's role in suppressing the Hama uprising. In 2021 it issued an international arrest warrant for Assad, and in 2024 he was formally charged with war crimes. Assad has always denied these charges. His whereabouts is unknown Farrer said Assad's trustees, including Bridges, 'were provided with credible information, when they were appointed and at different junctures thereafter, which fundamentally contradicted the claims being made in the media about Mr al-Assad'. The firm added that it and Bridges were restricted by a duty of client confidentiality from revealing what this evidence was, or commenting on whether it was appropriate for the queen's solicitor to also have represented Assad. However, it did share 11 French defamation judgments, dating from the late 1980s and early 1990s, that found in Assad's favour. The majority related to allegations made in various news outlets that Rifaat al-Assad's wealth was sourced from organised crime. In the case of the two judgments that substantially addressed allegations of human rights abuses, the courts found that the journalists had failed to reflect certain nuances of Amnesty International's report by glossing over uncertainties about whether the Assad regime directly ordered the atrocity. Public attitudes towards British lawyers acting for foreign politicians with questionable reputations have hardened in recent years. This month, a taskforce of senior lawyers and civil society experts said law firms must request more 'credible explanations' from their clients as to the source of their wealth, and that it was unsustainable to disregard reputational risks to the legal profession. 'Whether the same decision [to act for Assad] would be made today, in the light of further information now available and, arguably, the more stringent demands of the regulatory environment, is a point on which one might speculate,' Farrer said in its response.
The Guardian
01-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
JP Morgan's ‘sustainable' funds invested £200m in mining giant Glencore
One of the world's biggest banks, JP Morgan, has promoted environmental and 'sustainable' funds to customers which have invested more than £200m in the mining giant Glencore, it can be revealed. Ethical investing has become big business for JP Morgan and other financial giants, with worldwide 'sustainable' investing expected to surpass $40tn by 2030. But the industry now faces scrutiny over the rules around investments focusing on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Several of JP Morgan's 'sustainable' funds are investing in the London-listed commodity trader Glencore, which is under fire for its coal operations in South Africa, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the news website Voxeurop and the Daily Maverick, an online South African news publication, has revealed. JP Morgan's asset management arm has more than 500 funds promoted as environmental or sustainable investments, ranging from a climate change solutions fund to a global healthcare fund. Under current rules, some of these may still hold investments in firms criticised for environmentally damaging practices. For many of its funds that are promoted as sustainable, JP Morgan specifies that at least 51% of investments must have positive environmental and/or social characteristics. The remaining 49% can be invested without such restrictions. Jakob Thomä, chief executive of climate thinktank Theia Finance Labs, said: 'The overwhelming majority of retail investors, in my view, would feel misled if they knew that was the criteria for labelling something as a sustainable fund.' He said some sustainable funds may be breaking EU law, which says anything that 'deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer' is misleading commercial practice. JP Morgan's sustainable funds also exclude companies that make more than 20% of revenues from thermal coal extraction. Despite being one of the world's biggest coal companies, Glencore slips under this threshold in terms of revenues. In terms of actual profit, however, coal mining accounts for nearly half. The investments have angered campaigners who have highlighted environmental breaches in Glencore's operation in South Africa's coal belt. Glencore runs three mining complexes around the mining town of Phola, Mpumalanga, which is about 70 miles east of Johannesburg. According to a recent South African government report, obtained via a freedom of information request, one of those has been breaking environmental laws since 2017. The company's Tweefontein coalmine has been accused by the South African water and sanitation department of several breaches including seriously contaminating a local river, storing hazardous waste in open containers and failing to fix broken walls at a sewage facility. Residents at Phola say they don't trust the local water supply. Daisy Tshabangu, 52, moved to Phola because her family worked at the coal-fired power station that looms on the horizon. 'Most of the people, when they do drink this water they get stomach aches,' she said. Phola residents say they feel abandoned by the companies whose mines dominate the landscape. Unemployment is high and infrastructure is crumbling. 'We don't benefit from the mines,' said Tshabangu. 'There's a lot we don't have but we are surrounded by mines. So to us, it seems like we are being sidelined as a community.' Glencore says that its water treatment plant supplies clean water to Phola as part of its 'commitment to sustainable development'. It says it is not directly responsible for the overall supply of water and cannot comment on claims about water quality. It says it has had no complaints via a grievance procedure regarding the supply of water. Despite repeated requests to clean up its operations, the Tweefontein mine was still in breach of multiple environmental laws as recently as November 2023, an inspection report by the South African water and sanitation department reveals. Campaigners question why the company's licence has not been revoked. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion 'Our regulators are often compromised and give in to the pressure of the coal mining industry. [They] do not have the political will to enforce our laws,' said Mariette Liefferink, chief executive of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, a local campaign group. Angered that finance promoted as sustainable is supporting Glencore, Liefferink wrote to the former Labour MP Chuka Umunna in November last year about the environmental risk, ecological degradation and pollution associated with JP Morgan's investments in Glencore. Umunna is now head of sustainable solutions and head of green economy for investment banking at JP Morgan. However, the Observer understands that the former shadow secretary of state for business, who did not respond to the letter, is involved only in the activities of the investment bank, and is not involved in and does not have oversight over the sustainable policies of the asset management arm. Liefferink urged the bank to review its investments in Glencore due to the company's alleged breaking of environmental laws, as well as the pollution, wildlife damage and environmental risk its activities were causing. Liefferink's correspondence highlighted two JP Morgan funds with ESG in their name, both of which had millions of pounds invested in Glencore. After a rapid rise in popularity, ESG investing is the subject of increasing scrutiny around the world. Regulators are trying to settle on what it means, and create labels that are easy for investors to understand. The Mpumalanga mines form a small part of Glencore's global operations. It is the world's fifth biggest coal miner, selling more than 100m tonnes in 2023 – including from the Cerrejón mine in Colombia where there have been allegations of human rights abuses and environmental destruction. Glencore says it is committed to responsible engagement and the wellbeing of all workers, and that mitigating negative impacts of its mines is imperative to building trust with local communities, which it maintains through ethical and responsible business practices. The company said the water supply in Phola is a municipal service, but that it contributes to a reservoir that also receives water from other sources. It said it monitors the quality of the water provided by its treatment plant on a weekly basis to ensure it is suitable for consumption. The company said it has been taking action in response to Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) inspections since 2017 and that incidents identified in the 2023 audit have been addressed. 'Our industrial assets are closely linked to the communities and regions where they operate. We aim to avoid harm to people from our activities, respect human rights, and establish and maintain trusting relationships with stakeholders, through ethical and responsible business practices,' the company said. JP Morgan declined to comment. This investigation was supported by the Bertha Challenge fellowship; Stefano Valentino is a 2024 Bertha Challenge Fellow. Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard
