War on Want has been shortlisted for the consumer award in the world's first dedicated prizes for ethical fashion.

Judges have nominated the charity for this honour in the RE: Fashion Awards, organised by the group Anti-Apathy, the Ethical Fashion Forum and the communications agency Futerra.

The fair trade fashion company People Tree and the women's magazine Marie Claire are also on the short list.

The consumer prize is among the awards to celebrate action which has achieved positive change in the fashion sector.

War on Want is up for the honour through its campaign for a living wage for garment workers overseas producing clothes for British stores.

Its fashion push has also been shortlisted for the communications campaign prize in the magazine Third Sector's Excellence Awards.

This honour is for an innovative drive which has delivered its message to its target audience.

The others shortlisted are Help the Aged, Leonard Cheshire Disability, the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation, Sustrans and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: “Our campaign has exposed the scandal that workers producing clothes for high street retailers face poor wages and conditions. There is now growing support for UK government regulation to ensure a living wage for these workers.”

Earlier this year War on Want helped Guardian reporter Karen McVeigh win the press honour in the One World Media Awards for her story on Bangladeshis paid 4p an hour to make clothes for Primark, Tesco and Asda.

The RE: Fashion Awards will be presented tomorrow at Shoreditch town hall in London.

And London's Hurlingham Club will host the Third Sector Excellence Awards on 18 November.

Last month War on Want secured fifth place among Britain's 190,000 charities in Third Sector's Most Admired Charity award, won by the Children's Society.

CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media officer (+44) (0)20 7549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728

Ministers urged to regulate lenders.

NEWS HOOKS
Friday, 24 October 2008 - UN Disarmament Week begins
Monday, 27 October 2008 - Global week of action to ban cluster bombs starts

EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs BST, Friday 24 October 2008

New research today reveals that all of Britain’s main high street banks are using customers’ money to finance the weapons industry, including the sale of cluster bombs which kill and maim innocent civilians.

The report, launched by the anti-poverty charity War on Want as UN Disarmament Week starts, exposes for the first time how the lenders back the arms trade with billions of pounds from consumers’ savings and current accounts. War on Want says its evidence will increase public mistrust of banks, which has soared amid the current financial crisis.

The charity is calling on the British government to move towards regulation that would stop high street banks funding the arms trade. War on Want says banks are making a killing from a weapons industry which fuels conflict, poverty and human rights abuses around the world in countries such as Israel, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The study is drawn from databases AMADEUS and ORBIS that until now have only been seen by the financial sector and a select number of academics. Both HSBC and Barclays invest in companies that produce cluster munitions and depleted uranium. In the last decade HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and Barclays have provided loans to at least one producer of cluster munitions. According to HSBC's corporate social responsibility policy, the bank claims to "avoid certain types of business, such as financing weapons manufacture and sales".

Yet HSBC is main banker to UK arms firms BAE Systems and Meggitt, holds shares in the global weapons industry totalling £450.6 million and over the last 10 years has been part of 43 syndicated loans to the arms sector worth £27.1 billion. Each of the banks hold shares in all of Britain’s top arms firms, with Barclays’ holdings in the global arms sector worth £7.3 billion.

The Royal Bank of Scotland heads the lenders' funding of weapons companies, at £44.6 billion in the past decade. All five top lenders act as principal banker to at least two of the leading British arms manufacturers. Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are bankers to four of the biggest ten firms. Last year the UK topped the list of global arms exporters with a record £10 billion ($19 billion) in orders, more than any other country.

According to the UN, civilians represent nine in 10 people killed or wounded in armed conflict. Ruth Tanner, Director of Campaigns and Policy at War on Want, said: "People have seen the mess that the banks have made with customers' money. But few know they are using our cash to fund arms companies. The British government must introduce regulation to stop banks making a killing from the arms trade."

NOTES TO EDITORS

• The report – Banking on Bloodshed: UK high street banks’ complicity in the arms trade – can be downloaded here.
• Two people an hour are killed or injured by cluster munitions. One in four cluster munitions casualties are children. Cluster bombs have killed and injured tens of thousands of civilians in the last 40 years.

CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media office (+44) (0)20 7549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728

Former EU commissioner attacked on deregulation.

The anti-poverty charity War on Want expressed grave concern today at the appointment of former EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson as Britain's new business secretary.

The charity noted that the Global Europe strategy introduced by Mandelson during his time in Brussels had been based on the same deregulation of markets responsible for the current financial crisis, threatening jobs and livelihoods in Europe and across the developing world.

Mandelson had particularly championed the liberalisation of financial markets through the services negotiations at the World Trade Organisation, despite widespread recognition of the risks involved.

War on Want executive director John Hilary said: “Peter Mandelson has jeopardised the livelihoods of millions of working people through his reckless pursuit of deregulation. This is not the man we need to take over one of the UK's most important ministries at a time of such financial turmoil.”

Hilary continued: “Mandelson failed to deliver the trade justice agenda that he promised when taking on his post in Brussels. Instead he followed a dangerous path of market liberalisation which has exposed millions of people to unemployment and long-term poverty.”

During his time as EU trade commissioner Mandelson presided over the repeat collapse of WTO negotiations, which have failed to deliver the ‘development round' promised at their launch in Doha in 2001.

Mandelson's negotiations of economic partnership agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries brought claims that he was overbearing and secretive, with mass protests in dozens of countries.

And Mandelson's launch of a new generation of bilateral trade deals with the countries of Asia and Latin America under his Global Europe strategy have met with widespread criticism for threatening the livelihoods of millions.

War on Want urged Mandelson's successor in Brussels, Baroness Ashton, to abandon the free market policies introduced by him and to work instead towards a future of trade justice for the world's poor.

CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media officer (+44) (0)20 7549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728

'Pact threatens bid for tough curbs'

The charity War on Want today expressed concern that the British government would use a new international agreement to avoid strict legal controls on UK private military and security companies, despite many cases of abuse.

Representatives from 17 states, including the UK and the US, agreed a document in talks organised by the Swiss government in Montreux together with the humanitarian organisation the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The document outlines rules and good practice on private military and security firms’ operations in armed conflict.

But War on Want says the accord lacks any binding status and only reaffirms current international law, which has so far brought no prosecutions after hundreds of examples of abuse by mercenaries.

The charity issued this warning in the run-up to next month’s first anniversary of the wounding of two Iraqi civilians by mercenaries with the British firm Erinys International who fired on a cab near Kirkuk.

It also came just over a year since mercenaries working for the US private military company Blackwater randomly shot at and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

War on Want is calling for legislation, including a ban on private military and security companies’ use in combat and combat support.

Ruth Tanner, its campaigns and policy director, said: “This Montreux agreement must not be seen as a substitute to proper binding legislation on private military companies. There can be no more excuse for inaction. We call on the British government to start the process towards a new law as a matter of urgency.”

War on Want in July claimed that the UK government has mounted a political block against moves to regulate UK private military firms.

The charity announced that a government document acquired under freedom of information laws reveals ministers were close to launching pre-legislative consultation earlier this year. The government document listed issues for public consultation with parliamentarians, industry, non-governmental organisations and academics on proposals for a “twin-track regulatory system” for private military firms. The system would combine a register of authorised companies with contract licences.

This revelation followed a report by British MPs on the influential foreign affairs select committee that branded foreign secretary David Miliband’s failure to act “unacceptable”.

In a response to the Foreign Office’s annual human rights report, MPs expressed dismay that the government’s draft legislative programme for next year made no reference to private military and security firms. The committee urged the government to use the forthcoming Queen’s Speech to announce plans to introduce legislation. The MPs called for strict curbs on private security companies, with provision for firms to face prosecution in British courts for serious human rights abuse committed abroad.

CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media officer (+44) (0)207 549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728

NOTE TO EDITORS

In 2002 the UK government acknowledged the problems over private armies in a green paper which listed options for regulation. In its response to the paper later that year, the Commons foreign affairs committee recommended that “private companies be expressly prohibited from direct participation in armed combat operations, and that firearms should only be carried... by company employees for purposes of training or self-defence”. The committee also proposed that the government consider “a complete ban on recruitment for such activities of United Kingdom citizens by overseas-based or offshore PMCs”, while remaining activities be subject to licence. But since then the British government has failed to move towards regulation despite the United Nations, the British parliament and the industry itself calling on it to take decisive action.