Guards at Del Monte pineapple farm in Kenya accused of killings

Posted on June 28, 2023 by Admin

An investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative journalism has uncovered claims from villagers in Kenya of violence and even killings linked to guards on a Del Monte pineapple farm. Emily Dugan reports

Emily Dugan, a senior reporter with the Guardian who has been working on a story with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for the past few months, tells Michael Safi how they uncovered claims from villagers living near Thika, in Kenya, of guards assaulting and killing people suspected of trespassing on one of the country’s biggest pineapple farms, owned by Del Monte.

The guards are typically armed with wooden clubs called rungus. Their use in security is legal and common in Kenya because of the risk of violent theft, including from young men who regularly go in organised groups to steal pineapples, but the claims suggest the guards’ use of violence has been excessive.

Russian spy network operating in North Sea, investigation claims

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Admin

Moscow using spy ships disguised as fishing vessels to monitor potential sabotage targets, say broadcasters

A joint investigation by the public broadcasters of several Nordic countries alleges that Russia has established a state-run programme using spy ships disguised as fishing vessels aimed at giving it the capability to attack windfarms and communications cables in the North Sea.

The investigation quotes a Danish counter-intelligence officer who claims the sabotage strategy is designed to be implemented in the event that Russia and the west enter a full-blown conflict.

Guardian Australia wins Quill award for investigation into concussion and the AFL

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Admin

Judges commended the ‘exemplary’ work of the journalists who ‘helped to trigger further inquiries and an apology’ from the league

Three Guardian Australia journalists have won the Grant Hattam Quill award for investigative journalism at the Melbourne Press Club awards for their investigation into concussion and the AFL.

Melissa Davey, Stephanie Convery and Emma Kemp picked up the award for their work on “the gaping hole in sport’s concussion policies” with judges describing it as “exemplary investigative journalism”.

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Labour asks why Treasury unit let sanctioned oligarch bring UK libel case

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Admin

Key Putin ally, who founded Wagner mercenaries, attempted to ‘subvert sanctions and silence journalist’

The Treasury must explain how the Russian founder of a mercenary army was given permission to circumvent sanctions, to attempt to silence a British journalist, Labour has said.

In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, seen by the Guardian, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Pat McFadden, said that No 11 had to say why it had granted the permission and whether similar allowances had been made for other sanctioned oligarchs to use libel lawsuits.

UK government ‘let lawyers bypass sanctions’ to help Putin ally sue journalist

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Admin

Documents seen by Open Democracy show UK firm got approval to engage with Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin

British lawyers were given government dispensation to bypass sanctions in order to help Yevgeny Prigozhin, the controversial Russian businessman and Wagner group founder, sue a journalist, according to documents made available to the website Open Democracy.

The documents concern a libel case brought by Prigozhin against Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative group Bellingcat, in 2021. The revelations will raise further questions about the abuse of UK libel law by the super-rich.

National security bill may have ‘chilling effect’ on investigative journalism in UK

Posted on January 11, 2023 by Admin

Guy Black, deputy chair of Telegraph newspapers, says draft legislation sets too low a bar on what constitutes spying

The UK’s proposed national security bill could have a “chilling effect” on investigative journalism because it sets too low a bar on what constitutes spying, the deputy chair of the Telegraph newspapers has warned.

Guy Black told the House of Lords that he was concerned the draft legislation could “potentially criminalise” reporters and whistleblowers because it says simply that a crime is committed if it “may materially assist a foreign intelligence service”.

Senior media figures call for law to stop oligarchs silencing UK journalists

Posted on November 28, 2022 by Admin

Editors urge ministers to end ‘endemic’ use of Slapps – legal cases designed to hinder investigations

A coalition of senior journalists and editors from across the political spectrum are calling on the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, to back a proposed law to tackle the global super-rich’s use of “abusive legal tactics to shut down investigations”.

More than 70 newspaper editors, publishers and media lawyers wrote to Raab on Tuesday demanding that the government take urgent action to stop oligarchs and kleptocrats from using their fortunes to exploit British courts, intimidating and silencing investigative journalists with strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps).

Russian editor auctions Nobel medal to raise money for Ukraine refugees

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Admin

Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov will sell 23-carat gold medal in US on Monday, donating proceeds to charity

The editor of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta is auctioning his Nobel peace prize medal, with the proceeds to go to helping children displaced by the war in Ukraine.

Dmitry Muratov led one of the last major independent media outlets critical of Vladimir Putin’s government after others either closed or had their websites blocked after the invasion of Ukraine. In March, Novaya Gazeta announced it was suspending operations for the duration of the war after it became a crime to report anything on the conflict that veered from the government line.

Obsessive, illuminating, high-stakes: why investigative journalism matters – video

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Admin

An ensemble cast of Guardian reporters and editors reflect on why investigative journalism is so important for a healthy democracy and what it feels like, on a more personal level, to be going up against powerful governments, tax-dodging billionaires, institutional racism, human rights abuses and more

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Oxygen firms accused of intimidating Mexican hospitals during pandemic

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Admin

Hospitals received letters threatening large fines after they installed their own onsite O2 plants in response to shortages

In March 2020, Benjamin Espinoza Zavala saw an entire floor of his small hospital in Guanajuato, central Mexico, converted into Covid-19 wards. The hospital’s need for oxygen soared.

Deliveries from CryoInfra, part of the Grupo Infra group, occasionally slowed to once every couple of days, and he had to buy in extra to cover the sudden gaps in supply. Prices increased.

Eliot Higgins: ‘People accuse me of working for the CIA’

Posted on February 20, 2021 by Admin

The founder of the online investigative collective Bellingcat talks about working with Alexei Navalny, open source reporting and the trouble with ‘cyber-miserablism’

Eliot Higgins launched Bellingcat in summer 2014, days after the Russian military shot down Malaysian Airlines MH17 over eastern Ukraine. The online outfit has broken a series of international scoops. In 2018 it discovered the identities of the two undercover assassins who poisoned Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Last year Bellingcat revealed extraordinary details of the plot by Russia’s FSB spy agency to poison the opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Higgins’s first book tells the story of how open source investigation has redefined reporting in the 21st century. He argues that the internet can still be a force for good, despite bad actors, complacent technology firms and an explosion in alternative “facts”. Higgins lives in Leicester with his wife, daughter and son.

Children as young as eight used to pick coffee beans for Starbucks

Posted on March 1, 2020 by Admin

Nespresso also named in TV exposé of labour scandal in Guatemala

High street coffee shop giant Starbucks has been caught up in a child labour row after an investigation revealed that children under 13 were working on farms in Guatemala that supply the chain with its beans.

Channel 4’s Dispatches filmed the children working 40-hour weeks in gruelling conditions, picking coffee for a daily wage little more than the price of a latte. The beans are also supplied to Nespresso, owned by Nestlé. Last week, actor George Clooney, the advertising face of Nespresso, praised the investigation and said he was saddened by its findings.

Loughinisland journalists told police investigation dropped

Posted on June 3, 2019 by Admin

High court judge rebukes police and quashes warrants over unredacted document

Police in England and Northern Ireland have dropped a controversial investigation into journalists who made a documentary about a Troubles atrocity, following a public outcry and a stinging rebuke from judges.

The Durham constabulary and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) announced on Monday night that they were no longer investigating Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey over their work on No Stone Unturned, a film about the murder of six Catholics in Loughinisland, County Down, in 1994.

Syria, Skripal and MH17: how Bellingcat broke the news – podcast

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Admin

In 2012, Eliot Higgins began blogging about the news from his front room in Leicester. Seven years later, his investigative website Bellingcat has been responsible for revealing key aspects of some of the world’s biggest stories. And: Jonathan Freedland on the result of Theresa May’s meaningful vote

Eliot Higgins first became known for his investigations into the Syrian civil war, which he published on his blog Brown Moses. Higgins then went on to found Bellingcat, an investigative website that uses open source tools to expose the truth behind global news stories.

Higgins, who is the subject of a new documentary, tells Anushka Asthana how he and his international team of volunteers have gone about investigating some of the biggest stories of recent times, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK. He examines the importance of this type of work in an era of fake news and the impact it has had on his professional and personal life.

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Category Archives: Investigative journalism

Guards at Del Monte pineapple farm in Kenya accused of killings

Russian spy network operating in North Sea, investigation claims

Guardian Australia wins Quill award for investigation into concussion and the AFL

Labour asks why Treasury unit let sanctioned oligarch bring UK libel case

UK government ‘let lawyers bypass sanctions’ to help Putin ally sue journalist

National security bill may have ‘chilling effect’ on investigative journalism in UK

Senior media figures call for law to stop oligarchs silencing UK journalists

Russian editor auctions Nobel medal to raise money for Ukraine refugees

Obsessive, illuminating, high-stakes: why investigative journalism matters – video

Oxygen firms accused of intimidating Mexican hospitals during pandemic

Children as young as eight used to pick coffee beans for Starbucks

Loughinisland journalists told police investigation dropped

Syria, Skripal and MH17: how Bellingcat broke the news – podcast