{"id":2699,"date":"2008-08-24T14:54:42","date_gmt":"2008-08-24T13:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethicalquote.com\/index.php\/2008\/08\/24\/british-firms-trading-in-zimbabwe-refuse-to-sign-ethical-code\/"},"modified":"2008-08-26T15:19:33","modified_gmt":"2008-08-26T14:19:33","slug":"british-firms-trading-in-zimbabwe-refuse-to-sign-ethical-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/2008\/08\/24\/british-firms-trading-in-zimbabwe-refuse-to-sign-ethical-code\/","title":{"rendered":"British firms trading in Zimbabwe refuse to sign ethical code"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--proximic_content_off-->                      <!--proximic_content_on--><a href=\"http:\/\/images.google.ch\/imgres?imgurl=http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_F74vJj-Clzk\/R6HD4GYwsWI\/AAAAAAAABi4\/LuTTLR1bXjk\/s400\/no%252Bethics.jpg&amp;imgrefurl=http:\/\/www.zimbio.com\/Mental%2BPoo%2B-%2Brandom%2Bmusings\/articles\/57\/Got%2BEthics%2BRIGHT%2Bpoints%2Bcrotch&amp;h=293&amp;w=320&amp;sz=18&amp;hl=en&amp;start=3&amp;usg=__m6LMpeRq6qSQrjBO07P3KlYuwUM=&amp;tbnid=-FGBW7m_dDm1jM:&amp;tbnh=108&amp;tbnw=118&amp;prev=\/images%3Fq%3Dno%2Bethics%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"080826_shellbpbarclays.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ethicalquote.com\/newTemplate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/080826_shellbpbarclays.jpg\" title=\"080826_shellbpbarclays.jpg\" alt=\"080826_shellbpbarclays.jpg\" align=\"right\" \/><\/a>Ministers mounted a secret campaign to persuade huge British firms to adopt &#8220;an ethical approach&#8221; to their investments in Zimbabwe, amid concerns that some could be &#8220;silently complicit&#8221; in Robert Mugabe&#8217;s reign of terror, documents obtained by The Independent on Sunday have revealed.A clutch of internal Foreign Office (FCO) emails lay bare the Government&#8217;s deepening fears over the damage 16 companies trading with the pariah state could do to Britain&#8217;s reputation as it struggled to defuse the crisis over Mr Mugabe&#8217;s &#8220;stolen election&#8221;. But they also demonstrate how ministers were powerless to control the firms, including Barclays, Shell and BP, by persuading them to sign up to a voluntary agreement to uphold human rights in Zimbabwe. The FCO last night confirmed that ministers had failed to thrash out an &#8220;optional ethical code&#8221; with investors. Image source : bp3.blogger.com &gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/british-firms-trading-in-zimbabwe-refuse-to-sign-ethical-code-907221.html\" target=\"_blank\">Continue<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">News selected by Covalence | Region:<\/span><st1:place><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> Zimbabwe<\/span><\/st1:place><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> | Company<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">: <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ethicalquote.com\/newTemplate\/index.php\/ethicalquote\/?value=6\"> BP, Barclays, Shell<\/a><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> | Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/\" target=\"_blank\">the independent<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ministers mounted a secret campaign to persuade huge British firms to adopt &#8220;an ethical approach&#8221; to their investments in Zimbabwe, amid concerns that some could be &#8220;silently complicit&#8221; in Robert Mugabe&#8217;s reign of terror, documents obtained by The Independent on Sunday have revealed.A clutch of internal Foreign Office (FCO) emails lay bare the Government&#8217;s deepening&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":665,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_post_series":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57,26,48],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-2699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-barclays","tag-bp","tag-shell","entry","no-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2699"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=2699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}