In April 2016, the OCCRP also had a hand in one of the largest leaks in journalistic history – the Panama Papers – which revealed the secretive offshore companies used by politicians, oligarchs, criminals and sportspeople to hide their wealth, evade taxes and commit fraud. The documents, obtained from offshore services provider Mossack Fonseca, again demonstrated that corruption and financial crime are widespread and systematic, and infiltrate governments, corporations and civil services – with the UK as no exception. Their prevalence is bolstered by an ability to operate with ease across many frontiers, and transparency remains their natural enemy.

On the eve of a Downing Street summit aiming to challenge cross-border organised crime and corruption, we will be joined by OCCRP co-founder and editor Drew Sullivan and others to discuss how best to report on – and combat – transnational organised crime and corruption, with a particular focus on the London link and recent Panama Papers leaks. We will be asking what the role of transparency and government data is in combating corruption, and what role journalism can play in preventing its occurrence and bringing those accountable to justice.

This event will be moderated by award-winning journalist Oliver Bullough – author of two books about Russian history and politics: The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame be Great; and expert guide for the Kleptocracy Tours initiative, which exposes money laundering via property in London.

The panel:

Daniel Balint-Kurti is a journalist and campaign leader of the Special Investigations team at Global Witness. He focuses on anti-corruption issues in Africa and has been at Global Witness since 2010, before which he worked on The Times foreign desk and as an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. He was based as a reporter in central and western Africa for seven years, from 1999 to 2006. At Global Witness he has investigated corruption scandals involving large Western companies in several African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea.

Meirion Jones is an investigative journalist and producer, and former head of investigations at BBC Newsnight. He won the London Press Awards Scoop of the Year prize for his part in the investigation on Jimmy Savile. He also received the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Daniel Pearl Award for his investigation into the dumping of Trafigura’s toxic waste in Africa. Meirion has conducted detailed investigations on vulture fund operations that diverted debt relief from some of the world’s poorest countries.

Drew Sullivan is co-founder and editor of OCCRP. His work has been awarded the Daniel Pearl Award, the Online Journalism Award for investigative reporting, the Global Shining Light Award for reporting under duress, the Tom Renner award for Crime Reporting and many other international awards. He worked as an investigative reporter for the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville and for the Special Assignment Team of the Associated Press in New York. He has also served on the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting.

Holly Watt has been on the investigations team at the Guardian for just over a year, spending the last eight months working on the Panama Papers. She previously worked at The Sunday Times and The Telegraph. She’s been nominated for Scoop of the Year at the Press Awards six times, and has received nominations for news reporter of the year and political journalist of the year. Holly was the Laurence Stern Fellow in 2008 and has reported from all over the world, including Afghanistan and Libya.

Desperate for a better life, men, women and children risk perilous journeys for the promise of prosperity in the UK, Europe or America. Those who manage to reach their destination will often find themselves sold into a life of sexual exploitation, forced labour, street crime and domestic servitude.

Trafficking affects every continent and every country, and yet we are often unaware that it is happening all around us.

Ahead of the Thomson Reuters Foundation Trust Women conference, at which this subject will be discussed extensively, we will be bringing together a panel of experts to examine how we can tackle the problem of human trafficking. They will be discussing the scale of the problem and the action that needs to be taken to make slavery a thing of the past.

Chaired by Prabha Kotiswaran is senior lecturer in Law at King’s College London. She practiced law for four years at the New York law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton. She is on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society and on the Advisory Board of an ILO-DFID anti-trafficking Project, Work in Freedom.

The panel:

Annie Kelly writes on global development, human rights and social affairs for The Guardian and Observer. She is currently working on The Guardian‘s Modern-day slavery in focus project.

Monique Villa is a journalist, business leader and advocate for women’s rights. She is the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Klara Skrivankova is an expert on human trafficking and forced labour in the UK and internationally. She is Europe programme and advocacy coordinator at Anti-Slavery International.

Sam Whyte is head of policy and advocacy at UNICEF UK. She is leading the development of public policy and cross-organisational advocacy strategy on UK children’s issues, currently focusing on child trafficking, migrant children, and children’s human rights.

Picture: Reuters

From the Second World War to the War on Terror, via Kenya and Northern Ireland award-winning investigative journalist Ian Cobain‘s new book Cruel Britannia explores Britain’s role in the development and use of torture. Drawing on previously unseen official documents, and the accounts of witnesses, victims and experts Cobain reveals some stark truths.

With the High Court judgement that a group of Kenyans can claim damages from British government for abuses suffered during the Mau Mau rebellion, and on-going enquiries into the abuse of terror suspects, we will be joined by Cobain and a panel of experts to discuss Britain’s record on involvement in the use of torture. We will be asking whether it is to time to challenge the official line that the UK does not ‘participate in, solicit, encourage or condone’ torture.

Chaired by Humphrey Hawksley, leading BBC foreign correspondent, author and commentator on world affairs.

With:

Ian Cobain, an investigative journalist with the Guardian and author of Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture. His inquiries into the UK’s involvement with torture since 9/11 have won the Martha Gellhorn Prize and the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. He has also won several Amnesty International Media awards and a Liberty award.

Clive Baldwin, the Senior Legal Advisor for the Legal and Policy office at Human Rights Watch, where he has been working on issues of international law since 2007. His areas of focus include the Middle East, north and west Africa and discrimination law.

Rt Hon David Davis MP, Member of Parliament for Haltemprice and Howden since 1997 and former Shadow Home Secretary. As a Minister in the last Conservative government he served in the Cabinet Office and the Foreign Office. In the latter, he was responsible for Security Policy and European Policy, overseeing the majority of the country’s international negotiations.

Dr Ruth Blakeley, a senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Kent. Her research focuses on state violence and terrorism, particularly by liberal democratic states. Her current project, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, focuses on analysing the global system of rendition and secret detention. She is the author of State Terrorism and Neoliberalism, and she has published widely on state violence and torture.

Peter Hitchens talks about the need for a new political compass in a world where traditional boundaries between the Left and Right no longer exist.
Left-wingers backed the invasion of Iraq and Tories campaign for civil liberties yet conventional wisdom insists on operating as if the age-old divisions between political parties still apply, argues journalist, author and broadcaster Peter Hitchens.
In his new book The Broken Compass How British Politics lost its way, Peter Hitchens, who writes for the Mail on Sunday, argues that the real divide is between politicians and the electorate and is both a threat to Parliament and to society.
Peter Hitchens takes on the “conformist media” for continuing to adhere to such obsolete notions of Left and Right and calls for the re-establishment of proper adversarial politics based on principle. 

Peter Hitchens is a journalist, author and broadcaster who worked on the Daily Express for most of his career. He resigned on principle in protest at the takeover by Richard Desmond and now writes for the Mail on Sunday.
Chair to be confirmed

MI5 says that some 4000 British Muslim extremists are a threat to national security and that another major terrorist attack is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’. The investigative journalist Richard Watson, who has been at the forefront of reporting terrorism and extremism for BBC Newsnight, presents the results of his major investigation into the rise of extremism in Britain, which has just been published by Granta.

London’s former ambassador to the UN and the first British envoy to Iraq talks about British foreign policy in the new world order.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock was a British diplomat between 1969 and 2004, serving in Paris, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Washington DC and New York.

He is a critic of the US and British approach to the war in Iraq and argues for a more calibrated approach towards the trans-Atlantic special relationship.

Greenstock sees terrorism as one a leading international issue which will remain in sharp focus for years to come.

He also believes, however, that issues such as nationalism, competition over energy resources, migration, natural disasters and nuclear weapons will continue to dominate world politics.

What should the role of Britain be in the years to come?

Moderated by Yahia Said – Director, Middle East Revenue Watch at the LSE .

As Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Brown showed great interest in international climate change, development and poverty, but his views on Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Russia, China and even relations with the US and the EU are less clear.

Our panel picks over the tea leaves to try and discern the outline of a new British foreign policy.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP – Conservative MP for Kensington and Chelsea and former Foreign and Defence Secretary.

General Mike Jackson – British general who commanded operations in Kosovo and Macedonia. Former Chief of Staff.

Gisela Stuart MP – Member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Selecto Committee (Labour).

Andrew Miller – Political Editor, The Economist.

Moderated by David Loyn – BBC Developing Word Correspondent.

Please note the later than usual start of the event.

Jon Snow is unfortunately unable to moderate this event, as was sent to Gloucester to present Channel 4 News from there tonight. We would like to apologise for  any inconvenience caused.

Galloway is known for his passionate rhetoric and his campaign to overturn economic sanctions against Iraq during the Saddam era. After leaving the Labour Party he went on to win a seat in the constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow as an independent.

Join us as we discuss Galloway’s stance in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the accusation of having private financial dealings with Saddam’s regime, and how politicians communicate in the age of Reality TV and You Tube. We examine his political achievements and whether his take on immigrants and their integration is feasible.

Moderated by Jon Sopel – BBC News 24 and The Politics Show presenter.

With Sinn Fein agreeing to support a united police force in Northern Ireland despite evidence of past complicity between Special Branch and loyalists paramilitaries, the Northern Ireland elections are due to go ahead in early March. Will they work this time?

Sinn Fein’s decision to support the police brings devolution a step closer. Sinn Fein’s president Gerry Adams called it ‘one of the most important decisions in the recent history of our country’.

But could the report by the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, which revealed the connections between Special Branch and loyalist paramilitaries still derail the move?

And will the DUP commit to power sharing?

Join us as we discuss what happens when power returns to Stormont.

Henry McDonald – Ireland Editor of The Observer and author of six books including three definitive works on Ulster’s paramilitary factions, INLA-Deadly Divisions,  UVF and UDA.  He is currently writing a book on the impact of the peace process on Irish republicanism.

John Ware – former Panorama reporter, who made a series of programmes about collusion in Northern Ireland culminating in a two part programme called Licence to Murder. Evidence from this programme was used in September 2005 at Belfast Crown Court to convict Ken Barrett, the Loyalist gunman who shot the Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane in 1989.

John O’Dowd – Chief whip of Sinn Fein Assembly team.

Moderated by Peter Taylor – award winning BBC reporter who has covered Northern Ireland for over 30 years and written six books on the conflict – including the definitive BBC trilogy, Provos, Loyalists and Brits. Awarded the OBE for services to broadcast journalism, primarily for his coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict.

Clare Short, the former cabinet minister who resigned over the war in Iraq, talks to Richard Beeston about Iraq, her time as Secretary for International Development and the role of Britain in the international arena.

Clare Short MP is currently the Independent Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood. She was first elected as a Labour MP in 1983.

Short was Secretary for International Development from 1997 until she resigned in May 2003 over the Iraq war.

In October 2006, Short announced she would give up the Labour whip in Parliament, although she did not resign as a member of the Labour Party.

Since she left the government, she has been fiercely critical of the Prime Minister Tony Blair for his role in taking the country to war.

Richard Beeston is the Diplomatic editor of The Times.