belize

<div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/hes-back-trumps-former-campaign-manager-resurfaces-at-the-heart-of-ukraine-inquiry">https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/hes-back-trumps-former-campaign-manager-resurfaces-at-the-heart-of-ukraine-inquiry</a></div><div>...</div><div>
</div><div>Let’s also remember where Manafort carried out the crimes that landed him in prison: Ukraine. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/giuliani-consulted-on-ukraine-with-imprisoned-paul-manafort-via-a-lawyer/2019/10/02/7a6dc542-e486-11e9-b7da-053c79b03db8_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">According to the Washington Post</a>, as part of a plea deal, “Manafort acknowledged that he made more than $60 million in Ukraine, laundering more than $30 million of it through foreign companies and bank accounts to hide it from the IRS and cheating the government out of $15 million in taxes. He also agreed that he had lobbied in the United States on behalf of Ukrainian officials without registering and that he conspired to tamper with witnesses in his case.”And where do we find ourselves today? Right back in Ukraine. This time it’s Manafort’s former boss, Donald Trump himself, who has been personally managing the campaign to get the Ukrainian government to help his re-election efforts. In fact, it was this week that we learned from George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of Ukraine, how Trump wanted Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden and the 2016 election. Kent told House impeachment investigators that Trump “wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to a microphone and say investigations, Biden and Clinton,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trumps-demands-of-ukraine-came-down-to-three-words-investigations-biden-and-clinton-officials-testimony-shows/2019/11/07/d5ffab54-0197-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">according to the Washington Post</a>.Even the minor characters are similar. In 2016, we had low-lifes like Kilimnik and “Professor” Joseph Mifsud running around on the fringes of Russia’s efforts to penetrate the Trump campaign and influence the presidential election. For 2020, we’ve got a couple of real jewels by the names of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, both born in the former Soviet Union, and you guessed it! Both are currently under indictment on federal campaign finance charges. In 2016, the connections to Trump were made through Manafort and campaign advisers like George Papadopoulos. This time, it’s Giuliani who is Trump’s cut-out to these foreign-born scam artists. And what was Giuliani using Parnas and Furman for? According to The New York Times, beginning in January of this year, “Mr. Giuliani had enlisted Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman to collect information and make connections in Ukraine that could be used to damage Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential contender, and to undermine the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.”Even the way they have been moving funny money around was reminiscent of 2016. Back then, Manafort had pulled in millions from his work for former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, which he laundered through shell companies and bank accounts in Cyprus. This year, Parnas and his buddies used a company called Fraud Guarantee, that apparently had no employees and no customers, to funnel money to Giuliani through a complicated deal with a Long Island lawyer and a shell company in Belize</div><div>
</div><div>...</div><div>Parnas and Fruman were tapped out, having recently made the illegal $325,000 contribution to America First Action, a super PAC supporting Donald Trump, for which they are now under indictment. But they wanted a connection to Giuliani they could use back in Ukraine to drum up business deals, and apparently the way you get connected to Giuliani is to give him money. So they got a Long Island lawyer named Charles Gucciardo, who was a Trump supporter and large-money donor, to invest in their company, and then used the good offices of Fraud Guarantee to funnel $500,000 to Giuliani.</div><div>...</div><div></div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/hunger-games-child-labor-poverty-and-terrible-working-conditions-lie-behind-all-sugar-you-eat" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/hunger-games-child-labor-poverty-and-terrible-working-conditions-lie-behind-all-sugar-you-eat</a>Reach for a packet of sugar in the café, browse the shelves at supermarkets, or take a look at the packaging of your favourite sweet treat, and you are likely to see <a href="https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/Buying-Fairtrade/Sugar" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">the Fairtrade label</a>. What’s more, the UK’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/modern-slavery-bill" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Modern Slavery Act</a> requires large companies to publicly report on the steps they take to ensure that forced labour is not a part of their products. The EU’s <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/non-financial-reporting_en" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">non-financial reporting requirements</a> broaden out from modern slavery to include many issues related to social responsibility and human rights.Provisions such as these, as well as a multitude of corporate social responsibility programmes and industry specific commitments, have been put in place as measures to correct the longstanding social risks and challenges faced by the people who produce the goods we consume. To deepen our understanding of the status of those risks and challenges, our team has, for the past nine months, taken a close look at the sugarcane consumed in the UK.<div id="TeadsNative" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">About <a href="https://www.absugar.com/sugar-markets/uk-sugar-sector" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">25%</a> of the UK’s sugar comes from sugarcane imported from outside the EU, while the rest comes from sugar beet grown in the UK and other EU nations. Consequently, given the prevalence of the Fairtrade mark and supply chain reporting requirements, most of us are likely to have the impression that sugar is produced in a socially responsible way.But unfortunately, serious problems including forced and child labour, poverty, and dangerous heat-related illnesses persist in today’s sugarcane industry.In 2014, Fairtrade International discovered that <a href="https://www.fairtrade.net/new/latest-news/single-view/article/belize-sugar-cane-farmers-aim-to-be-best-in-class-for-protecting-children-and-young-people.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">children were working during school hours</a> on certified farms in Belize, in direct violation of Fairtrade standards. Fairtrade suspended the certification of the entire Belize programme while the local industry worked to address the problem and the programme has since been reinstated. Belize, a Commonwealth country bordered by Mexico and Honduras, has long been a key provider of sugarcane to the UK market – in 2016 it <a href="https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/gbr/show/170111/2016/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">accounted for 14%</a> of UK imports of raw sugarcane. Yet, that same year, while the <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2017/06/fairtrade-farmers-spur-big-change-child-labor/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Belize sugar industry was already making considerable efforts</a> to eliminate child labour within sugarcane, <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/belize" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">the United States Department of Labor (US DoL) found</a> that the country as a whole had made minimal progress in eradicating the worst forms of child labour, including within sugarcane.Another report by the US DoL <a href="https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ilab/reports/child-labor/findings/TVPRA_Report2016.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">also documented child labour in sugarcane in Guatemala and El Salvador</a>, which together provided <a href="https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/gbr/show/170111/2016/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">14%</a> of the 2016 UK supply. This means that child labour was documented in countries that supply nearly one-third of UK sugarcane in 2016. Additionally, the US DoL found forced labour in Brazil (<a href="https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/gbr/show/170111/2016/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">12%</a> of the UK supply). <a href="https://ethicalsugar.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/ethical-sugar-violations-of-labour-and-environmental-law-5-0.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Previous research suggests</a>that this is a recurring problem in this nation, even among operations that are certified by the rigorous <a href="https://www.bonsucro.com/production-standard/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Bonsucro production standard</a>, which uses six principles to achieve environmental, social and economic sustainability in the production of sugarcane.The hunger cropSugarcane is known as “<a href="https://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/the-hunger-crop-poverty-and-the-sugar-industry-121196" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">the hunger crop</a>” due to the low prices paid to farmers and low earnings among workers. Because they earn so little, those producing the sugarcane we consume – and their children – are often forced to go without adequate food and nutrition.Our preliminary research indicates that even among Bonsucro-certified sugar mills in Minas Gerais, Brazil, =</div>