British American Tobacco has secret North Korea plant

British American Tobacco, the world's second largest cigarette company, has secretly been operating a factory in North Korea for the past four years, the Guardian has learned. The company opened the plant in a joint venture with a state owned corporation shortly before the regime was denounced by George Bush as a member of the "axis of evil", and despite widespread concern over the country's human rights record.

BAT has never mentioned the factory in its annual accounts, and it is thought that many shareholders are unaware of its links with the country.

The discovery of the secret factory comes two years after BAT was forced to pull out of Myanmar, formerly Burma, under pressure from the UK government and human rights campaigners. The human rights record of the communist regime in North Korea is widely regarded as even worse than that of the brutal military dictatorship in Burma.

(...)

BAT confirmed that Mr Clarke, who has been on the company's payroll since 1998, was aware of the decision to invest in North Korea. The firm has also said that as chair of BAT's corporate social responsibility audit committee, Mr Clarke "would oversee human rights reports on all countries where we operate".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,16518,1593914,00.html

this was probably leaked to the media by Alistair Campbell to influence the Tories...

Seems to me it's just as likely to have been leaked by Cameron's camp. This is not the sort of information which would only have been known by our intelligence services: BAT themselves say that "the investor community" knew about it, and China will have been aware (because of BAT's lucrative smuggling to China). It's not only Labour who want to shoot Ken's fox.