Human Rights

The family of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan refugee in the UK, has brought a civil lawsuit against G4S, the world's largest private security company. Mubenga died on October 12, 2010 while being restrained by G4S guards who were hired to help deport him from the country. Read More

Bugging equipment from the Surveillance Group Limited, a British private detective agency, has been found in the Ecuadorean embassy in London where Julian Assange, editor of Wikileaks, has taken refuge. The spy devices have so far failed to foil the whistle blowing group's daring exploits to support Edward Snowden. Read More

Myriad Genetics has lost its right to be the exclusive U.S. commercial provider of genetic screening tests for breast cancer or ovarian cancer. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which sued the company, claimed that the patent would limit scientific research as well as health care options for women. Read More

Charbel Nahas, the former Lebanese labor minister, is to appear before a court next month on charges of publishing incorrect information, slander and libel over the labor practices of Spinneys, the Dubai-based Middle Eastern supermarket chain. Read More

H&M (Hennes & Mauritz), a major Swedish "fast fashion" retailer, led 30 international companies this week to commit to a new $3 billion fund to improve the safety of garment factories in Bangladesh. Watchdog organizations say the companies acted only because of external pressure by activists and workers. Read More

Ranbaxy, a subsidiary of Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo, has paid a $500 million fine and pled guilty to selling adulterated drugs manufactured in India. The settlement comes 16 months after the company signed an agreement with U.S. authorities to change its ways. Read More

Multinationals like Benetton have tried to distance themselves from Rana Plaza, a Bangladeshi building housing five clothing factories, that collapsed last week killing over 400. Activists argue that change will only come when workers get more political support to challenge them. Read More

Boeing, the aircraft manufacturing giant from Seattle, helped defeat a Republican proposal in Washington state that would have forced government agencies to get approval to buy unmanned aerial vehicles, popularly known as drones, and to obtain a warrant before using them to conduct surveillance on individuals. Read More

Capita, a UK outsourcing company, sent text messages to thousands of people in the UK, asking them to leave the country, as part of a privatized deportation scheme. Unfortunately hundreds of people that they targeted were in the country legally. Read More

Raytheon, a U.S. military manufacturer, is selling a new software surveillance package named "Riot" that claims to predict where individuals are expected to go next using technology that mines data from social networks like Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. Read More