Europe buys “bloody” Syrian phosphates
Europe’s growing trade in the key ingredient in fertiliser enriches the Assad regime and demonstrates how adept the Kremlin and its allies are at bypassing sanctions.
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“We were slaves”
People who cross the river Evros from Turkey to Greece to seek international protection are arrested by Greek police every day. They are often beaten, robbed and detained in police stations before illegally being sent back across the river. The asylum seekers are moved from the detention sites towards the river bank in police trucks […]
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Junk Science Underpins Fraud Scores
Crude software in the Netherlands scored 100,000s of people on benefits, in first reconstruction of this kind, we reveal prejudice and randomness
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Europe Threatens Popular Encryption
Trove of internal documents offers rare insight into how governments justify seeking to hack services like Whatsapp and Signal
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Biometrics and the Enslavement of African Elections
Technology has been pushed as a panacea for African democracies. As Kenya faces its third biometric election, a French multinational has made tens of millions from failed systems
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Frontex, the EU Pushback Agency
Frontex’s internal database suggests the EU border agency is involved in illegal pushbacks on a massive scale
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The Hunger Profiteers
Whilst food prices were already on the rise prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the outbreak of war in Europe’s breadbasket prompted them to skyrocket, pushing them out of reach of poor consumers. But at what cost? And who has profited?
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Putin’s Syrian Mercenaries
Documenting Russia’s exploitative foreign mercenary system sending Syrians to fight in Ukraine
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Turning a blind eye to Egypt’s violent navy
While Al-Sissi’s Egypt is known for repression and war crimes, its navy went on a buying spree for military goods, spending billions in Europe and bypassing arms export regulations.
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Syria’s Russian-Backed Demolition Campaign
Open source analysis reveals the scale of the destruction carried out by the Russian-trained Syrian military in the name of de-mining, undermining claims it is a humanitarian exercise.
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Ukraine Exodus
How to respond to the Europe’s rediscovery of compassion for refugees without ignoring damaging double standards
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Europe’s Black Seas
Discharging oily wastewater has been outlawed globally for decades. But despite a sophisticated satellite monitoring system the practice is still common today – with potentially devastating effects for the environment
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From Switzerland with love
Uncovering the reality behind Swiss arms exports: while sold as civilian goods or with a humanitarian purpose, their violent impact is felt by civilians from the Brazilian favelas to the marketplaces of Afghanistan.
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Aegean Pushbacks Lead to Drowning
Examining what whistleblowers claim is a new tactic of throwing asylum seekers overboard off Turkish coast
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Syrians fleeing Denmark
Mapping the desperate refugees and fellow EU countries facing the fall-out from Copenhagen’s decision to declare Damascus safe for returns
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Is Europol becoming a European NSA?
The most in-depth investigation to date of the EU police agency uncovers years of unlawful retention of personal data
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Who died at Europe’s border?
Using open source to restore some humanity to the death toll of nameless and faceless people in the Poland-Belarus standoff
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Unlocking a welfare fraud prediction algorithm
Rotterdam has deployed a predictive algorithm to flag welfare recipients for investigation; we obtained the source code.
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Vaccinating Europe’s Undocumented: A Policy Scorecard
The pandemic saw anti-migrant politics clash with public health needs, using data journalism to illuminate the outcome
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How Big Meat Sabotages EU Reforms
Investigating the industrial complex around cheap meat, how it exerts undue influence on EU policy and whose interests it really represents
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Fear and loathing in Spain’s slaughterhouses
Fear, racism and exploitation: Pork companies subsidised by Spain and the EU have been responsible for abusive labour practices inside Spanish slaughterhouses.
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Spanish pork: out of control
The eco-disaster in Europe’s largest salt lagoon gripped Spain, but we found one of its main culprits hiding in plain sight
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Unmasking Europe’s Shadow Armies
Getting the visual evidence that removes the layer of plausible deniability from illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers in the Balkans and Aegean
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Circumventing a Danish export ban
Denmark’s largest IT company, Systematic, is arming UAE forces active in Yemen, in direct violation of a Danish export ban
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Moria: After the Fire
Tracing a year in the life of asylum seekers who survived the blaze that destroyed Europe’s largest refugee camp
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EU Spy Tech Serves Myanmar Junta
While the military coup and deadly crackdown in Myanmar has drawn European condemnation, EU funds and technology have secretly aided the junta in spying on its own population
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Frontex in the Central Mediterranean
The EU borders agency plays a direct role in the Libyan coast guard’s interception operations contrary to previous denials
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Why did Denmark declare Damascus safe?
Investigation reveals multiple controversies over the way the Danish authorities reached the conclusion that refugees could return to the Syrian capital
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What is Palantir Doing in Europe?
The controversial US tech company is putting down roots in the EU’s security, public health and aviation sectors as well as its data infrastructure, raising questions
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Frontex Chapter III: Agency in Turmoil
Allegations of toxic culture at the EU’s border agency reveal a leadership under investigation over fraud and mismanagement.
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Europe’s Invisible Links to Burning Conflicts
Arms maintenance contracts perpetuate French involvement in proxy war in Libya, conflict in Yemen
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Frontex Chapter II: Complicit in Pushbacks
Illegal pushbacks in the Aegean aren’t rogue actions of the Greek national coast guard but operations undertaken with the support or connivance of an emerging EU super agency
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Recycling Lies
Delving into the plastic waste labyrinth to unveil how traders illegally ship Europe’s growing stockpile of plastic waste. And how it ends up in landfills and rivers far from the EU
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UK’s toothless arms control
The UK claims to strictly control its arms exports, but an investigation traced British-made sniper rifles to Yemen, Syria and Russian-occupied Ukraine
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Airbus maintaining Turkey’s war
How one of Europe’s most famous companies is helping Turkey sustain a military airbridge with war-torn Libya despite a UN arms embargo
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Invisible Workers
Europe-wide investigation reveals modern slavery conditions for migrant workers on Europe’s farms at height of pandemic
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Masked men
The most violent pushbacks at Europe’s external borders are done by men in balaclavas. Are they vigilantes or clandestine state forces?
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Pushbacks Chapter two
Greek coastguard employing more aggressive tactics in intercepting asylum seekers and towing them back on life rafts towards Turkey
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Torment in Turkey
Encouraged by Erdogan, thousands took to the Pazarkule border gate. But they soon realised they were pawns in a power game
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The Killing of Muhammad Gulzar
The death of a Pakistani man during a standoff at the Greek-Turkish border raised serious questions. We consider the evidence
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Pushbacks Chapter one
Documenting a new wave in Greece of extrajudicial deportations overland and at sea, a practice that came to be known as deep pushbacks
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Central Mediterranean
Revealing the EU’s role in the wholesale violation of international law and the creation of a refoulement by proxy off Libya
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Sheherezade Now: Iran’s Domestic Violence
An inside perspective on a high-risk attempt by Iranian activists to address an endemic issue with violence against women
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Sudan’s violent new rulers
A journey into uncharted territory in Sudan, with the perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur, reveals the true nature of its self-styled saviors
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Spain maintains war in Yemen
While Saudi Arabian bombs rain on Yemen, Spain’s national carrier Iberia and Airbus profit by helping Saudi fighter jets refuel
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Returns to Harm
Europe spends vast sums to return migrants and asylum seekers. We track the costs and consequences of this deportation machine
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Under the Scandinavian radar
Thousands of civilian casualties have not stopped Swedish and Danish companies from selling arms to the UAE and Saudi Arabia
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Shadow Population
Why has Europe stopped counting its undocumented population and what does this tell us about the possible failures of hardline migration policies
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Small country, big impact
Tracing Belgian arms: Air power for Saudi Arabia and ‘cop killer’ guns for drug cartels in Mexico
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French arms, and deception
France claims to have one of the world’s strictest arms exports regimes but its weapons go to warmongers and repressive rulers
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