Category Archives: Business

US banana giant ordered to pay $38m to families of Colombian men killed by death squads

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Landmark verdict against Chiquita marks first time major US company held liable for funding human rights abuses abroad

A Florida court has ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay $38m to the families of eight Colombian men murdered by a paramilitary death squad, after the US banana giant was shown to have financed the terrorist organisation from 1997 to 2004.

The landmark ruling late on Monday came after 17 years of legal efforts and is the first time that the fruit multinational has paid out compensation to Colombian victims, opening the way for thousands of others to seek restitution.

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Australia news live: Dutton suggests Coalition won’t provide 2030 emissions target before election5; Qld state budget announcement today

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Opposition leader says Coalition will ‘make our announcements in relation to our targets in due course’. Follow today’s news headlines live

Murray Watt says the opposition has “started the new climate wars” after Barnaby Joyce and Keith Pitt, two senior Nationals, called for Australia to pull out of the Paris agreement. You can read more on this from Karen Middleton below:

Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Watt said:

We’re back to the same old climate wars in the Coalition. I saw overnight that [Joyce and Pitt] openly called for the Coalition to pull out of the Paris agreement. They’ve spent the last couple of days trying to paper over the cracks in the Coalition, saying that they can withdraw the target without withdrawing from the agreement. Now it’s out there in the open for everyone to see. And you can set your clock by Barnaby Joyce causing new climate wars within the Coalition. It’s seem like we’re back to the bad old days.

We’re on track to get to 42%, which is only 1% short of the 43% target.

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Bonza administrators sack airline’s staff ahead of announcement about its future

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Employees voiced frustrations at how the administration process had been conducted, sources say

Bonza appears almost certain to be wound up after the administrators determining the troubled airline’s future terminated its staff.

Guardian Australia understands administrators from the firm Hall Chadwick told staff during a meeting on Tuesday they had been sacked.

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One in three Asda staff have been attacked at work, survey finds

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GMB poll receives reports of workers being stabbed, punched and threatened with syringes

One in three Asda staff have been attacked at work, according to research that included reports of workers being stabbed, punched and threatened with syringes.

The poll of almost 1,000 members of GMB, one of the UK’s biggest unions, returned stories of delivery drivers being chased by people in cars, while store workers had food thrown at them. More than half (58%) of respondents said they had suffered injury or illness on the job.

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Post-Brexit ‘mess’ as Italian driver’s lorry held for 55 hours at UK border post

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Antonio Soprano says he was told to walk to a McDonald’s for food as there was none at Sevington

An Italian lorry driver has described the UK’s new post-Brexit controls as a “mess” after his lorry was held at a government-run border post for more than two days.

Antonio Soprano, 62, who was stopped while bringing plants into the country from central Italy, said he was offered nothing to eat during his 55-hour ordeal and instead was told by border officials that he should walk to a McDonald’s more than a mile away to get a meal.

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BP staff risk sack if they fail to disclose intimate relationships with colleagues

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New policy follows sacking of ex-CEO Bernard Looney with top managers given three months to report all relationships in past three years

BP employees will have to disclose intimate relationships with colleagues or risk losing their jobs, according to a new policy brought out after the dismissal of former boss Bernard Looney for failing to tell the board.

Employees must disclose “familial and intimate relationships at work” without exception, the FTSE 100 oil company said on Monday. That is a tougher stance than before, when they only had to disclose relationships if they thought there was a a conflict of interest risk.

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Vehicle damage claims in Wales fall 20% since speed limit cut to 20mph, says insurer

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Campaigners say lower speeds reduce casualties but scheme has since been amended to give people more choice to rescind limits

Vehicle damage claims in Wales have fallen by 20% at one leading car insurer since the nationwide 20mph speed limit was introduced there last September.

Wales was one of the first countries in the world, and the first nation in the UK, to introduce legislation for a default 20mph speed limit in built-up areas last year.

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Stop Shein listing on the FTSE, workers’ rights campaigners urge

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Groups issue call to next government amid criticism of online fashion retailer’s labour practices and accusations of copying

Workers rights campaigners have called for the UK’s next government to oppose the online fashion business Shein joining the FTSE, arguing that a London listing would be “yet another betrayal to working people everywhere and the planet”.

Alena Ivanova, campaigns lead at Labour Behind the Label, said it had heard the news of senior British politicians courting Shein’s £50bn listing “with dismay” given what she claimed was a lack of transparency about its supply chain and ethical concerns.

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EU expected to impose import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles

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Experts believe Beijing will retaliate with measures that could hit European exports from cheese to cognac

The EU is expected to notify China that it will impose tariffs on electric vehicle imports this week, firing the starting gun on a potential summer trade war with Beijing.

A formal pre-disclosure of tariffs could happen as early as Wednesday, after a lengthy investigation into China’s state subsidies for its car manufacturing, which is predicted to conclude that massive support continues to be concentrated on the EV sector.

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Badenoch urged to scrutinise business links of Royal Mail bidder Křetínský

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Business secretary is due to meet Czech tycoon to discuss a takeover the Guardian has raised questions about

The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, is being pressed to question the Royal Mail bidder Daniel Křetínský on his business links, after the Guardian raised questions about a series of controversial global property deals connected to the Czech billionaire’s longtime business partners.

Badenoch is scheduled to meet the tycoon next week to discuss his £3.57bn bid for the 500-year-old institution, which will be subjected to a review under the National Security and Investment Act.

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US adds 272,000 jobs as labor market holds unexpectedly strong amid high interest rates

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Figures show unexpected resiliency of job market as officials try to tamp down 3.4% inflation

The US economy added 272,000 jobs in May, a sign the labor market continued strong amid high interest rates, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.

The number of May jobs was far higher than the 190,000 economists had expected and topped April’s gains, when a revised 165,000 jobs were added to the economy. The unemployment rate rose to 4% for the first time since January 2022, up from 3.9% in April.

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Asda-owning Issa brothers go their separate ways amid family rift

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Union warns of risks to shoppers and staff after Zuber Issa sells 22.5% supermarket stake to private equity co-owners TDR Capital

The billionaire brothers who part-own Asda have gone their separate ways, with Zuber Issa selling his shares in the supermarket to the private equity firm TDR Capital amid a rift between the siblings.

Zuber owned 22.5% of the Leeds-based grocery chain after a £6.8bn takeover alongside his older brother Mohsin and TDR three years ago. The sale of his stake had been expected for months, but was thought to have been complicated by lock-in agreements.

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‘Greed’: John Deere rolls out hundreds of US layoffs and sends work to Mexico

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Agricultural equipment company plans to move production out of the country in move condemned by workers

US workers at John Deere plants have accused the company of acting on “greed” as America’s most famous agricultural equipment company plans to shift more production to Mexico.

The company – famous for its green tractors and leaping deer logo – has announced layoffs of several hundred workers over the last several months with more layoffs planned for later this year.

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Elon Musk may ‘step back’ if shareholders reject $56bn pay package, Tesla chair warns

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Robyn Denholm says electric carmaker’s CEO could spend his time elsewhere if biggest pay deal in US corporate history isn’t approved

The chair of Tesla has raised the prospect of Elon Musk stepping back from the electric carmaker if shareholders do not back the chief executive’s $56bn (£44bn) pay package, saying there are “other places” the entrepreneur could spend his time.

Robyn Denholm added in a letter to investors that next week’s vote on the biggest remuneration deal in US corporate history was “obviously not about the money” because Musk would remain one of the richest people on the planet regardless of the outcome.

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Shannon Fentiman referred to Queensland ethics committee over ‘cross your legs’ stoush – as it happened

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Max-Chandler Mather weighs in on Bandt’s potential legal action against attorney-general

Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather spoke to ABC News Breakfast earlier about the ongoing stoush between his party and Labor, with Adam Bandt threatening legal action against the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, over comments on pro-Palestine protests.

Asking me to comment on the specifics of a case like that – outrageous comments by the attorney general, completely baseless and without fact … this is an attempt to distract from the fact that the Labor government is complicit in a genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza.

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BAT subsidiary lobbies Pakistan to allow export of cigarettes to Sudan

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Exclusive: critics say British American Tobacco’s plan to ‘flood a country in crisis with cheap cigarettes’ is ‘shameful’

A subsidiary of British American Tobacco is lobbying the government of Pakistan to allow it to export 10-packs of cigarettes to war-torn Sudan, prompting criticism from a smoking campaign group.

Pakistan is among more than 80 countries that do not permit the sale or manufacture of 10-packs of cigarettes, which the World Health Organization has said make smoking more affordable for children.

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UK watchdog warns Tories over PM’s ‘£2,000 tax rise’ claim

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Rishi Sunak failed during TV debate to make clear how he had calculated Labour’s spending policies, says OSR

The UK’s statistics watchdog has warned the Conservatives over Rishi Sunak’s claim that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000, saying it failed to make clear how the figures were calculated.

In a rap over the knuckles for the prime minster, who made the claim during a leadership debate on ITV on Tuesday evening, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) said the case demonstrated how all party campaigners needed to offer the public a transparent view of tax and spending policies.

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Ex-BT boss pockets £3.7m final pay deal as group plans to axe 55,000 jobs

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Philip Jansen announced sweeping job cuts during same financial year covered by pay and bonus package

BT’s former chief executive Philip Jansen has been awarded his largest pay and bonus package, a £3.7m reward for the same year in which he announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs at the telecoms company by 2030.

The pay deal for Jansen, who was nicknamed Food Bank Phil after the company set up a “community pantry” for call centre staff struggling to make ends meet, was revealed in BT’s latest annual report.

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New Frank Hester race claims pile pressure on Tories over £15m donations

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Exclusive: Hester allegedly used term ‘token Muslim’, imitated people of Chinese descent and said a person was attractive for a black woman

The Conservative party is facing questions over its decision to keep more than £15m given by its biggest ever donor, Frank Hester, after former employees made a series of fresh allegations.

Hester is alleged to have referred to a staff member as the “token Muslim”, imitated people of Chinese descent and remarked that one individual was attractive for a black woman, according to former employees who spoke to the Guardian.

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Politics live: question time claims and counter-claims over Australia’s military ties with Israel

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Follow all the day’s news live

Going fully electric would save households more than $600 a year for next four decades, report says

Households would save an average of $608 a year for the next 40 years if new residential buildings in New South Wales were required to be fully electric, according to a report commissioned by climate organisation 350 Australia.

It cuts energy bills for local residents and small businesses during a cost of living crisis and reduces climate pollution, at almost no cost to councils. It will be low-income people and renters who will benefit most from council-led electrification.

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