NEW YORK - Swiss food giant Nestle is being sued in the United States for allegedly knowingly allowing its Fancy Feast cat food to contain fish from a Thai supplier that uses slave labour.
Pet food buyers who filed the class action lawsuit on Thursday in US federal court in Los Angeles seek to represent all California consumers of Fancy Feast who would not have purchased the product had they known it had ties to slave labour.
According to the lawsuit, Nestle works with Thai Union Frozen Products PCL to import more than 28 million pounds (13 million kilograms) of seafood-based pet food for top brands sold in the United States, and that some of the ingredients in those products came from slave labour.
Men and boys, often trafficked from Thailand's poorer neighbours Myanmar and Cambodia, are sold to fishing boat captains who need crews aboard their ship, the complaint said.
It spoke of shifts of up to 20 hours a day with little or no pay, and beatings or even death if the work is deemed unsatisfactory.
"By hiding this from public view, Nestle has effectively tricked millions of consumers into supporting and encouraging slave labour on floating prisons," said Steve Berman, managing partner of the Hagens Berman law firm.
"It's a fact that the thousands of purchasers of its top-selling pet food products would not have bought this brand had they known the truth -- that hundreds of individuals are enslaved, beaten or even murdered in the production of its pet food."
Nestle lists protection of human rights as one of its Corporate Business Principles.
But "Nestle has failed to uphold its responsibility to ensure the absence of slave labour in its supply chains -- and even worse, Nestle not only supported these human rights violations, but forced consumers to unknowingly do the same."
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An army of feral cats rules a remote island in southern Japan.
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The furry felines curl up in abandoned houses or strut about in a fishing village that is overrun with cats.
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Originally introduced to the mile-long island of Aoshima to deal with mice that plagued fishermen's boats, the cats stayed on - and multiplied.
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Now, cats outnumber humans on Aoshima by six to one.
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Cats beg for food on Aoshima Island in Ehime prefecture in southern Japan.
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More than 120 cats swarm the island with only a handful of humans for company.
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Most of the people living on the island are pensioners who didn't join waves of migrants seeking work in the cities after World War II.
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Aoshima, a 30-minute ferry ride off the coast of Ehime prefecture, had been home to 900 people in 1945.
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The only sign of human activity now is the boatload of day-trippers from the mainland, visiting what is locally known as Cat Island.
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With no restaurants, cars, shops or kiosks selling snacks, Aoshima is no tourist haven.
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But cat lovers are not complaining.
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"There is a ton of cats here, then there was this sort of cat witch who came out to feed the cats which was quite fun," said 27-year-old Makiko Yamasaki. "
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The cats of Aoshima are not too picky, surviving on the rice balls, energy bars or potatoes they cadge off tourists.
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In the absence of natural predators, they roam the island without fear.
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Not all the residents are admirers, though. One elderly woman shooed the animals away with a stick when they dug up her back garden.
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Locals are trying to keep the feline population in check - at least 10 cats have been neutered.
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Residents haven't taken too kindly to the tourists either. They don't mind them coming, but want to be left in peace.
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A cat sits on a wall of a derelict school on Aoshima Island.
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"If people coming to the island find the cats healing, then I think it's a good thing," said 65-year-old Hidenori Kamimoto, who ekes out a living as a fisherman.
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"I just hope that it's done in a way that doesn't become a burden on the people who live here," he says.
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A cat struts along an alley on Aoshima Island.
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A tree grows around a rusty sledge outside a derelict school on Aoshima Island.
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A woman is surrounded by cats as she walks along the embankment on Aoshima Island.
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Mrs Chen, 50, regrets buying Toa Payoh three-room flat because her neighbour is a hoarder.
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"We're all afraid of him as he shouts at us when we try to talk to him about his hoarding. I even offered to help him clean up but he refused," she said.
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Another neighbour, who wanted to be known only as Miss Tan, told TNP: "When you try to look into his home, he gives you a hostile stare."
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Miss Tan says she has seen him accumulating things for about 10 years.
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Speaking to TNP at the door, the hoarder, 71, who spoke in Mandarin, said he lives alone and is unemployed.
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Piles of plastic bags stacked on top of one another were spotted in the living room. Outside, the corridor was cluttered with bottles, chairs and plastic bags with flies circling around them.
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The clutter used to be so bad that Mrs Chen once took matters into her own hands. "I secretly threw his stuff away but when he found out, he threw away my clothes hangers," she claimed.
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The clutter also emitted a foul smell. Madam Chan, 83, who lives four units away from the hoarder, said: "When the wind is strong, I can smell the odour coming from his home."
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The elderly hoarder leaves his home with a trolley every morning, and returns with it full.
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Unfazed by his neighbours' complaints, the hoarder said: "I own the house so I can do whatever I like. It's not affecting them so they have no right to complain."
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Madam Siti, 32, has been living next to one of the filthiest flats around for the last eight years.
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But the last two years were especially hard, she said, with cockroaches constantly streaming out of the neighbour's flat into her unit at Block 195, Kim Keat Avenue.
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Madam Siti, her husband and their two children had to arm themselves with cans of insecticide and air fresheners, potpourri and even incense sticks.
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Madam Siti's seven-year-old daughter grew up with the stink from next door, and is rarely separated from her bottle of odour remover.
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Relief finally arrived on Thursday for residents when cleaners turned up to clear out the trash from the flat.
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Cleaners and officials armed with face masks and cans of insecticide. As they inspected the flat, they fought cockroaches and a musky smell that clung onto clothes.
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The cleaners and officials went through the filth and fought to open the door to one of the bedrooms, which was jammed because there was so much rubbish.
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Cleaners were even forced to use a shovel to remove the rubbish which had covered the entire floor of the kitchen.
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By 5pm yesterday, two cleaners had already amassed 50 bags of trash after more than 10 hours of work.
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Madam Siti, while sad because of her neighbour's death, said: "I can't explain how I feel right now. I'm just so happy that I can finally open my windows and breathe in fresh air."
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A notice was placed on the man's flat, requesting for the next-of-kin of Kamaludin Nazir Ahmad to contact the HDB.
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Residents living on the third storey of a Toa Payoh block thought things would get better after their hoarder neighbour died last month.
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But the stench from his flat, which they have put up with for more than 10 years, has remained.
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This is because the mess in his flat cannot be cleaned up until his next-of-kin can be located.
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The dead man, who was in his 50s, lived alone and mostly kept to himself.
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A concerned neighbour called the police after noticing that he had not been seen for a week.
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His decomposing body was later discovered in his squalid three-room flat at Block 195 Kim Keat Avenue, along with several cats.
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Nearly a month after the man's death, the stink remains.
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Cockroaches and flies can constantly be seen around the flat.
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"(At night), the cockroaches come out of the flat and the cleaner would have to sweep them away the next morning," said a neighbour.
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