January 27, 2023 – California-based Chevron today announced a record 2022 profit of $35.5 billion – enough to cover the entire cost of losses from the devastating floods in the company’s home state. Chevron has said it made $6.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, building on a banner year that resulted in a […]
Global Witness
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Rubber is the European import that poses biggest threat to West and Central Africa’s tropical forests
Brussels, June 16, 2022 – A first-of-its-kind investigation reveals that industrial rubber plantations in West and Central Africa have been linked to an area of tropical deforestation 16 times the size of Brussels since 2000, establishing it as the leading European driver of deforestation in the region – despite being left out of proposed rules to tackle […]
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Myanmar jade mining disaster highlights coup’s deadly toll on Hpakant
The landslide that struck Hpakant yesterday highlights the devastating toll of the military coup on jade mining communities in northern Myanmar and the urgent need to prevent the junta using the country’s natural resources as a financial lifeline. Over 70 people are reportedly missing after the hillside of an old mine site collapsed near Tharyagone […]
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Flooding the zone: Hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists granted access to COP26
Today Global Witness, together with Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Glasgow Calls Out Polluters published an analysis of the UN’s provisional list of attendees at the crucial COP26 climate talks. Taking a data-led approach, we were able to sift through the whole 1,600-page document listing everyone admitted to the talks, using a mixture of automation and manual analysis to spot delegates who […]
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US real estate key vehicle for money laundering, and as the ‘FinCEN files’ reveal, anonymous companies are at the heart of it
Washington, D.C. September 24, 2020 – While the need for affordable housing is at an all-time high amid the pandemic and its economic fallout, the real estate sector is a key vehicle for criminals looking to stash cash, launder money, and buy up homes in a tight market, shows new Global Witness briefing, On The House. […]
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Global Witness today revealed the highest number of land and environmental defenders murdered in one year
July 29, 2020 – Global Witness today revealed the highest number of land and environmental defenders murdered on record in a single year, with 212 people killed in 2019 for peacefully defending their homes and standing up to the destruction of nature. The NGO’s annual report also shed a light on the urgent role land and environmental […]
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Second Mexican defender of monarch butterflies found dead
5 February 2020 – Days after the funeral of prominent Mexican butterfly conservationist Homero Gómez González, the body of a second environmental defender has been found at a butterfly sanctuary in Michoacán state, Central Mexico. Activist Raúl Hernández disappeared on 27 January and was last seen leaving his work as a tour guide at the El […]
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Financiers and masterminds of al-Assad regime stashing millions of dollars in Moscow property
Nov. 11, 2019 – New Global Witness investigation shows close relatives and accomplices of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad are funnelling money out of Syria into Russia, and possibly beyond. Several members of the Makhlouf family, once considered to be Syria’s richest family and second only to the al-Assads in power and influence, have purchased at […]
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Analysis: The US is set to drown the world in oil
August 20, 2019 – The sheer scale of this new production dwarfs that of every other country in the world and would spell disaster for the world’s ambitions to curb climate change – the effects of which we’re already witnessing through massive heat waves, flooding, and extreme weather. Earlier this year, we crunched the numbers […]
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$4.9 trillion oil and gas investment incompatible with Paris climate goal
April 24, 2019 – All of the $4.9 trillion the oil and gas industry is forecast to spend on exploration and extraction from new fields over the next decade is incompatible with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal, according to new analysis by Global Witness. The report, Overexposed, published today, is the first to compare the latest 1.5°C […]
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Global Witness: Why large-scale industrial timber harvesting won’t prevent forest fires
April 24, 2019 – Late last year, Northern California was ravaged by a wildfire that became the deadliest and most destructive fire on record in the state. At least 85 people died and 14,000 residences were destroyed. Now, months later, reports warn that the water in Paradise, California is tainted with cancer-causing chemicals that may be a result […]
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Trump Organization profited from tainted money used to buy an apartment at Trump’s flagship hotel in NYC
WASHINGTON, DC, April 10, 2019 – Claudia Sassou-Nguesso, the daughter of Republic of Congo’s President, paid for a luxury apartment at the Trump International Hotel & Tower (Trump International) in New York City with funds that appear to have been stolen from the Congolese treasury, Global Witness reveals today in a new investigation. Her front […]
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Paradise Lost: New Report Reveals China’s Destructive, Illegal Logging of Solomon Islands’ Rainforest
Oct. 18, 2018 – New evidence released today by anti-corruption NGO Global Witness shows that hugely unsustainable rates of logging and the high risk of illegal practices on the once pristine paradise of the Solomon Islands are putting China’s reputation as a global trading partner at risk. Using satellite imagery and drone photography, the Paradise […]
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US consumers are the largest buyers of talc helping fund insurgent groups in Afghanistan
May 22, 2018 – The Islamic State in Afghanistan (ISKP) controls major mining sites in eastern Afghanistan and has a strategic interest in the country’s rich mineral resources, new Global Witness research shows – a powerful example of the wider threat posed by armed groups and corrupt actors in Afghan mining. Read the entire report […]
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Ben Leathers: US Congress calls for action on Honduras in response to murders of land and environmental activists
April 10, 2017 – In two strongly worded letters to the new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, almost 80 United States legislators expressed their grave concern at the risks facing activists who defend their land and the environment in Honduras. A recent Global Witness report exposed how more than 120 land rights defenders have been […]
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Congress votes for corruption by overturning historic transparency law in gift to big oil
Feb. 3, 2017 – Today’s decision by the Republican-led U.S. Senate to overturn a rule designed to stop oil companies striking corrupt deals with foreign governments is a grave threat to U.S. national security and an astonishing gift to big oil, said Global Witness. The news comes just two days after Rex Tillerson, a longstanding […]