SEC now listing companies with ties to State Sponsors of Terrorism

[Olav23]

State Sponsors of Terrorism

Iran has the most companies listed at 43, followed by Sudan at 32, Cuba with 22, 19 in Syria, and five in North Korea.

Only two companies _ U.K.-based HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe's largest bank, and Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland's second-largest bank _ had business activities in all five countries. But numerous firms, including Nokia Corp., Siemens AG and Total SA, disclosed activities in multiple countries.


"No investor should ever have to wonder whether his or her investments or retirement savings are indirectly subsidizing a terrorist haven or genocidal state," SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a release.


Federal law already requires companies to report on any material activities in a country on the Secretary of State's terrorism list and the SEC is now making that information "readily accessible to the investing public," Cox said.


But the existence of a disclosure does not mean that the company directly or indirectly supports terrorism or is otherwise engaged in any improper activity, the SEC said.

 

[justin]

Interesting that Cuba made the "state sponsor of terrorism" list.

I guess I should feel dirty. Approximately 1/2 of our household income comes from a company that has business activities in all five terrorism-sponsoring countries.

 

[bosco]

I'm actually surprised at some of the names on the list for the Sudan, and its seems to contradict a post I made on another thread.

However, it is not obvious to me that essentially banning the kind of benefits that companies might bring to a place like the Sudan discourages terrorism. In fact, it could be the opposite. I'm not sure what the "right" thing to do might be, but whatever it is I hope it doesn't involve making the suffering in a place like that any worse.

Although I haven't been there since the late 1970s (I slid in there between two bloody civil wars), I can assure you that most Sudanese are very poor, very curious, and want the same things that you and I do. So let's cut them off from all economic development and make them REALLY desperate? All that does is unites them around their bogus government (which most folks, at least when I was there, were cynical about).

Since I was in the Sudan, sharia was instituted. I've no doubt many chafe under it. Especially those in the south.