Drivers for Amazon contractor allege safety and wage abuses

Exclusive: Testimony of HGV drivers from ex-Soviet countries raises fresh questions over supply chain

Haulage drivers delivering to Amazon distribution centres across Europe allege that safety records are being deliberately manipulated and wages withheld in a breach of the e-commerce multinational’s pledges about working conditions in its supply chain.

HGV drivers recruited from former Soviet-bloc countries have told the Guardian that they were instructed to cheat tachograph machines that log their working hours, so that they could drive illegally long and unsafe stints in western Europe.

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Amazon executive resigns over company’s ‘chickenshit’ firings of employee activists

Tim Bray’s departure comes as company faces increased scrutiny and employee activism around its Covid-19 response

Tim Bray, a top engineer and vice-president at Amazon, announced on Monday he is resigning “in dismay” over the company’s firing of employee activists who criticized working conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Bray’s resignation comes as Amazon faces increased scrutiny and employee activism surrounding its internal response to coronavirus. Amazon workers on Friday participated in a nationwide sick-out to, claiming the company has failed to provide enough face masks for workers, did not implement regular temperature checks it promised at warehouses, and has refused to give workers paid sick leave protest working conditions and inadequate safety protections.

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US lawmakers demand Jeff Bezos testify over Amazon’s ‘possibly criminally false’ statements

House lawmakers said they could subpoena CEO to testify in antitrust investigation if he doesn’t appear voluntarily

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers investigating Amazon for possible antitrust violations have demanded that Jeff Bezos testify before Congress to address statements by the company that “appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious”.

“Although we expect that you will testify on a voluntary basis, we reserve the right to resort to compulsory process if necessary,” seven leaders of the House judiciary committee, including the chair Jerry Nadler, wrote in a letter to the Amazon CEO on Friday.

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Amazon and other platforms allowing payments to far-right groups

Report by Center for Media and Democracy finds SPLC-designated hate groups receiving income via mainstream platforms

Dozens of hate groups and racist media outlets are receiving income via mainstream payment processors such as Amazon, Stripe and DonorBox, according to a new report by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).

The groups still receiving donations and sales via such platforms include promoters of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that motivated the Christchurch shooter, an organization cited as an inspiration by mass shooter Dylan Roof, and several groups that participated in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that ended in the killing of a protester.

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How to avoid Amazon: the definitive guide to online shopping – without the retail titan

Amazon’s sales have hit £8,800 a second, while concerns persist about its tax affairs, treatment of staff and effect on small retailers. Here’s how to buy everything from technology to beauty to books without it

With the shutters down on high streets and retail parks around the world, meaning that home delivery is the only option for almost anything other than food and medicine, it’s no surprise that Amazon is seeing business boom. The online retailer, already a one-stop shop for many people, has seen customers flock through its virtual doors in the weeks since coronavirus hit.

The site is experiencing an extended period of sales at the level usually reserved for the shopping frenzy of Black Friday, with reported surges reaching $11,000 (£8,800) a second. Its share price is booming, too, making its already rich founder, Jeff Bezos, even richer.

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Amazon given €294m in tax credits as European revenues jump to €32bn

Company says it made a loss last year due to investment and the competitive market

Amazon received €294m (£258m) in tax credits last year that it can deduct from future bills for its European business, as revenues at the online retailer rose significantly to €32bn.

The company said it received the tax credits because it made a loss last year due to its investment programme and the highly competitive retail environment across Europe and the UK.

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Amazon to close French warehouses over coronavirus concerns

Court decision has led to a five-day closure for deep cleaning and protective measures for staff

Amazon has ordered the temporary closure of all six of its French distribution centres, one day after a French court ruled it was not doing enough to protect its workers in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The online giant said in a statement that “this week, we are requesting employees of our distribution centres to stay at home. In the longer term, we will evaluate the impact of that [court] decision for them and our French logistic network”.

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Amazon to suspend non-essential shipments to UK and US warehouses

The company is prioritising five categories of goods which it classifies as essential products

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  • Online retail giant Amazon is stopping sellers from sending non-essential items to its UK and US warehouses until 5 April, to make space for vital items needed by its customers during the coronavirus outbreak.

    Amazon wrote to its third-party sellers, some of whom use the company’s logistics to store and dispatch their products, to inform them that stocks of medical supplies and certain household items are running low due to increased demand from online shoppers.

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    Concerns over safety at Amazon warehouses as accident reports rise

    Figures obtained by GMB show safety at its UK warehouses could be worsening

    More than 600 Amazon workers have been seriously injured or narrowly escaped an accident in the past three years, prompting calls for a parliamentary inquiry into safety at the online retailer’s vast UK warehouses.

    Amazon, whose largest shareholder is the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, recently launched an advertising campaign fronted by contented staff members, after a string of embarrassing revelations about working conditions.

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    Jeff Bezos buys lavish Beverly Hills estate for record $165m – report

    Amazon founder purchases nine-acre estate once owned by Warner Bros president, Wall Street Journal says

    Jeff Bezos has set a new property price record in Los Angeles with the purchase of a $165m Beverly Hills estate, the Wall Street Journal reported.

    The Amazon founder’s purchase of the home from the media mogul David Geffen is the largest amount paid for a single-family Los Angeles-area home. The nine-acre estate originally belonged to Jack Warner, the late former president of Warner Bros Studios. Warner built up the estate’s 13,600-sq-ft Georgian-style mansion in the 1930s, reportedly with the wood floor that Napoleon was standing on when he proposed to Josephine.

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    Amazon plans $1bn investment in India despite trader backlash

    Jeff Bezos pledges funds to help digitise small businesses as anti-Amazon protests spread

    Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has pledged to invest $1bn (£776m) in small businesses in India, despite a growing backlash against the online retailer by the country’s powerful local traders.

    During a three-day visit to India, where Amazon has its sights set on dominating the burgeoning e-commerce market, Bezos laid out his ambitious plans for Amazon’s investment in India over the next five years, including helping to digitise millions of small businesses.

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    Amazon threatened to fire employees for speaking out on climate, workers say

    Revealed: emails show group of employees who called for stronger climate action by the company were told they risked dismissal

    Amazon has threatened to fire employees for speaking publicly about the company’s role in the climate crisis, tech workers at the retail giant have revealed.

    Related: Trump campaign credits impeachment for helping to fundraise $46m – live

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    India primed: what Amazon’s vast new Hyderabad campus reveals about its plans

    Amazon have arrived in force in rapidly expanding Hyderabad, with designs on the currently almost non-existent Indian e-commence market

    The futuristic lobby of the new Amazon building in Hyderabad feels as though it should have a permanent orchestra blasting out Also Sprach Zarathustra. The scale is intended to awe. A large slogan on a wall suggests the company is “Delivering smiles”. The only sound that rises above the hush is a synthesised beep, coming from a giant screen playing a video of the campus at various stages of its construction.

    Built on nine acres in this Indian city’s financial district, it is Amazon’s single largest building globally and the only Amazon-owned campus outside the US. It can house over 15,000 employees, but its size is its main architectural feature: it resembles the same cube of glass steel and chrome seen in corporate offices across Hyderabad, though a flash of magenta reflected in one of the top floor windows, from a billowing sari across the road, is a nice Indian touch.

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    US considers putting Amazon overseas websites on counterfeit blacklist – report

    Amazon says in response it ‘strictly prohibits’ counterfeit products and invests heavily to protect customers from them



    The Trump administration is considering putting some of Amazon.com Inc’s overseas websites on a list of global marketplaces known for counterfeit goods, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

    The action would be taken by the US Trade Representative’s Office through its annual “notorious markets” list, the report said, adding that no decisions had been made and that similar proposals last year were eventually discarded.

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    Amazon pulls ‘disturbing’ Christmas ornaments bearing images of Auschwitz

    Move came after Auschwitz Memorial in Poland called on the e-commerce company to remove the ‘disrespectful’ products

    A Polish museum has criticised US e-commerce giant Amazon for selling Christmas ornaments decorated with images of the Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    The museum at the site of the former camp in southern Poland tweeted screenshots of the items showing train tracks and barracks and requested that Amazon remove them from their site.

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    How big tech is dragging us towards the next financial crash

    Like the big banks, big tech uses its lobbying muscle to avoid regulation, and thinks it should play by different rules. And like the banks, it could be about to wreak financial havoc on us all. By Rana Foroohar

    ‘In every major economic downturn in US history, the ‘villains’ have been the ‘heroes’ during the preceding boom,” said the late, great management guru Peter Drucker. I cannot help but wonder if that might be the case over the next few years, as the United States (and possibly the world) heads toward its next big slowdown. Downturns historically come about once every decade, and it has been more than that since the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, banks were the “too-big-to-fail” institutions responsible for our falling stock portfolios, home prices and salaries. Technology companies, by contrast, have led the market upswing over the past decade. But this time around, it is the big tech firms that could play the spoiler role.

    You wouldn’t think it could be so when you look at the biggest and richest tech firms today. Take Apple. Warren Buffett says he wished he owned even more Apple stock. (His Berkshire Hathaway has a 5% stake in the company.) Goldman Sachs is launching a new credit card with the tech titan, which became the world’s first $1tn market-cap company in 2018. But hidden within these bullish headlines are a number of disturbing economic trends, of which Apple is already an exemplar. Study this one company and you begin to understand how big tech companies – the new too-big-to-fail institutions – could indeed sow the seeds of the next crisis.

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    Unicef now accepting donations through bitcoin and ether

    Use of cryptocurrencies allows children’s agency to bypass fees of moving cash overseas quickly and increase financial transparency

    The UN children’s agency, Unicef, has announced it is accepting and disbursing donations through cryptocurrencies ether and bitcoin.

    Unicef’s new Cryptocurrency Fund is the latest in a series of efforts by aid organisations to experiment with “blockchain” currencies, which have the potential to transform charitable giving and increase financial transparency.

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    Asos issues third profit warning in seven months as shares fall

    Online fashion retailer blames glitch in rollout of European and US automated warehouses

    Shares in Asos tumbled on Thursday as the online fashion retailer issued its third profits warning in seven months, blaming problems with the rollout of its new automated warehouses.

    The group said sales were hit by the overhaul of warehouses in Berlin and Atlanta, which left the firm struggling to keep up with demand. It now expects to make profits of £30m to £35m this year, far below City forecasts of £55m.

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    $32m stolen from Tokyo cryptocurrency exchange in latest hack

    Bitpoint suspends services after apparent theft of virtual monies including bitcoin

    A cryptocurrency exchange in Tokyo has halted services after it lost $32m (£25m) in the latest apparent hack on volatile virtual monies.

    Remixpoint, which runs the Bitpoint Japan exchange, discovered that about ¥3.5bn in various digital currencies had gone missing from under its management.

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    Military drone crashes raise fears for civilians

    Safety warning as MoD pushes to fly the aircraft in Britain

    Two military drones are crashing every month on average, according to research that raises questions about the safety of the technology, both in conflict zones and civilian environments.

    Accidents Will Happen, a report published by the campaign group Drone Wars UK, reveals that there have been more than 250 crashes involving the large unmanned aircraft in the past decade. A Reaper drone has a maximum speed of 480kph, a range of 1,800km and is armed with up to four missiles and two 230kg bombs.

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