Word: myanmar
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...political wing, the Union Solidarity and Development Association, which has millions of members but only because state employees must join or lose their jobs. At one meeting in the ancient capital of Pagan, thousands of people "enthusiastically and unanimously" approved Khin Nyunt's scheme, reported the New Light of Myanmar. The newspaper's photos showed people sitting rigidly in perfect rows, looking miserable. Pagan is not a populous town, so to meet the Wagnerian standards set by meetings elsewhere in the country, people had to be ferried in from Mandalay in hundreds of minibuses requisitioned by order of the regional...
...which manages about $127 billion in assets, fund managers also think Total needs to do more. A September 2001 accident at a Total fertilizer plant in Toulouse that killed 30 people raised questions about the company's safety record, says Henderson's Nick Robins, and its continuing presence in Myanmar puts it off limits for some of Henderson's socially responsible funds. "We're looking for consistent year-on-year improvements," Robins says. "We recognize Total is trying to change, but we need another two to three years" to ensure that it is changing...
Total can use the time too. Back in Milan, Dairon spends 45 minutes talking about Myanmar, a continuing black mark on the company's international reputation. Total insists that it has done nothing ethically wrong in setting up a big gas project there--after all, there are no official U.N. sanctions. But the taint of working with an especially despotic regime and allegations about forced labor raise difficult questions. "Can a company invest in a country that is considered not democratic?" Dairon asks. "Should it substitute for international organizations in judging a country in the first place?" One manager suggests...
...firms appear more sensitive than they really are. Total, with sales of $125 billion, could certainly stand to burnish its image. Several former managers were just convicted in a sensational corruption case in France, and the company stands accused of using forced labor to build a gas pipeline in Myanmar, which it vigorously denies. Total's image at home was especially sullied by a devastating oil spill that polluted some of France's best-loved beaches...
...been battered at home and abroad over the past four years by a series of scandals: a high-profile corruption trial that last month sent former top managers to jail, allegations that in the mid-'90s, the company used forced labor to build a gas pipeline in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the regime) - which Total vigorously denies - and the 1999 wreck of the tanker Erika, which created a devastating oil spill that polluted some of France's best-loved beaches. "They had a lot of dodgy relationships [with governments] and the whole system was opaque," says Gavin Hayman...