A six-year-old girl who found a message from a prisoner in China inside a Tesco Christmas card has said she "thought it was a prank".
Florence Widdicombe told Sky News "it was really weird" to find the note in the charity card.
The message read: "We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation."
Image:Tesco sells the Christmas cards to raise money for UK charities
Image:Qingpu Prison is near to Shanghai
Tesco said it was shocked by the find and had started an investigation, and has also stopped working with the Chinese factory where the card - decorated with a kitten wearing a Santa hat - was made.
The message inside named the former journalist Peter Humphrey as a contact, who spent two years in the same prison.
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Florence, who lives with her family in Tooting, London, said: "I was sitting down at the table writing my cards to my friends when I opened one and started laughing because someone had already written in the card.
"Then I passed it on to my mum. It took an hour to get our heads round it because we thought it was a prank."
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Her father Ben Widdicombe said he was unsure of the veracity of the message, but contacted Mr Humphrey.
He told Sky News: "After some reflection we thought that if someone was genuinely desperate enough to write that card we should take it seriously. When I tracked Peter down on the internet, I came across this story and it became very serious and quite chilling in a way."
Image:Ben Widdicombe says he's glad to bring the card to the attention of people who can help
Mr Humphrey said the message from Mr Widdicombe took him back to the "painful two-year period" when he and his wife were imprisoned over "bogus charges".
Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Humphrey said he did not know who wrote the message but had "no doubt" they knew him during his time in the prison, which is 62 miles (100km) from the Zheijiang Yunguang Printing factory where the cards are supposed to be made.
He said ex-prisoners had confirmed that inmates in the foreign prisoner unit "are being forced into mundane manual assembly or packaging tasks" - including packing Christmas cards and gift tags for Tesco for at least the past two years.
Mr Humphrey said prisoners also make packaging and tags for Western clothing and that he had seen the names of other high street brands on the tags when he was in the prison.
Image:Peter Humphrey was jailed after being accused of breaching privacy laws
Tesco donates £300,000 a year to the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK from the sales of the cards.
A Tesco spokesman told Sky News: "We would never allow prison labour in our supply chain.
"We were shocked by these allegations and immediately halted production at the factory where these cards are produced and launched an investigation.
"We have a comprehensive auditing system in place and this supplier was independently audited as recently as last month and no evidence was found to suggest they had broken our rule banning the use of prison labour.
"If evidence is found we will permanently de-list the supplier."
Image:Tesco has halted production at the Zheijiang Yunguang Printing factory
Mr Humphrey said he did not believe British companies would "knowingly commission prison labour, but they may never be able to tell if their Chinese suppliers are sub-contracting production to the prison system".
He said auditors are not allowed into the prisons so there is "little chance of unravelling the secretive business arrangements that have turned the jail system into a lucrative profit centre for the Chinese state".
Image:The note allegedly came from prisoners in Qingpu's foreign prisoners' unit
A spokesperson for the British Heart Foundation Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK said: "Like Tesco, we're shocked by these allegations. We are in touch with Tesco, who have assured us that these particular cards have been removed from sale, and that the factory producing them has been suspended while they investigate further. We await the outcome of Tesco's full investigation."
In 2017, Jessica Rigby, from Braintree, found a message in a Christmas card from Sainsbury's which read in Chinese: "Wishing you luck and happiness. Third product Shop, Guangzhou Prison, Number 6 District."
And in 2014, a woman in Belfast said she had found a note written in Chinese and wrapped inside a prison identity card inside some trousers from Primark.
The note, which had SOS at the top, claimed inmates at Xiangnan jail in Hubei, China, were forced to work 15-hour days producing clothes.
Primark said it regularly inspected its factories and "no prison or other forced labour of any kind was found during these inspections".
The Carnival Glory was "maneuvering to dock" when it hit the Carnival Legend, which was already docked in Cozumel, Mexico, Carnival CruiseLine said. Six guests with minor injuries went to the Carnival Glory medical center for evaluation.
The vessel set sail from the Cozumel port late Friday. It is expected to arrive at the Port of New Orleans at 6 a.m. Sunday, the Port of New Orleans website says.
"The ship has been inspected by required authorities and there are no issues that impact our ability to sail safely back to New Orleans," the Glory's captain, Pero Grubjesic said in a letter obtained by CNN that was provided to the cruise ship's passengers.
A formal investigation is underway to determine the cause of the crash, Grubjesic said in the letter. The cruise line believes the collision "was due to spontaneous wind gusts and strong currents," he wrote.
Carnival (CCL) describes the incident as an allision between the two ships. An allision is a nautical term used to describe when a moving ship collides with a stationary object, such as another ship.
As a result of the crash, the cruise line provided passengers with a $100, per room, onboard credit, the captain's letter said.
CNN's Dave Alsup and Paul P. Murphy contributed to this report.
What you need to know about the Wawa data breach WGAL Susquehanna Valley Pa.View full coverage on Google News
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LndnYWwuY29tL2FydGljbGUvd2hhdC15b3UtbmVlZC10by1rbm93LWFib3V0LXRoZS13YXdhLWRhdGEtYnJlYWNoLW1hbHdhcmUtaGFja2VkLzMwMjk0MTIy0gFpaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2dhbC5jb20vYW1wL2FydGljbGUvd2hhdC15b3UtbmVlZC10by1rbm93LWFib3V0LXRoZS13YXdhLWRhdGEtYnJlYWNoLW1hbHdhcmUtaGFja2VkLzMwMjk0MTIy?oc=5
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
The S&P 500 just crossed 3,200 for the first time ever, hitting its seventh round-number milestone of 2019, a year that has a good chance at being one for the record books.
With less than two weeks left in 2019, the S&P 500 is up more than 27%, about 2% away from 2013's gain of 29.6%.
If it exceeds that, it would then be the best year in 22 years, when the benchmark jumped 31% in 1997.
The S&P 500 has only posted only one down week over the past 11 as the easing trade tensions between the U.S. and China led to a rush into equities. The two countries reached a "phase one" agreement that includes some tariffs rollback and more agriculture buying from China. Investors also shrugged off the impeachment of President Donald Trump by the House as chances are slim that he will be removed from office.
Based on the historic performance going back to 1950, the majority of December's gains in the S&P 500 have tended to happen towards the end of the month, according to Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist for LPL Financial. So if history is any guide, the market could have a shot at topping 1997's record.
"We still have time to believe in Santa," said Detrick. "December has been widely viewed as a strong month for stocks, with this year following suit so far."
Optimism is rising that the global economy will snap out of its trade-induced slowdown and that sluggish earnings growth will start improving. Wall Street analysts are seeing more room for stocks to run next year but at a much slower pace. The average 2020 year-end target of 3,330 represents a gain of about 4% from here, according to the CNBC Market Strategist Survey.
"The low interest rate environment continues to argue for favoring stocks over bonds," Savita Subramanian, head of U.S. equity strategy at Bank of America, said in a recent note. "Corporates will be in the driver's seat, and we think execution and delivering on earnings will be key to generating returns in 2020.
There’s a tendency for one year’s dogs to recover the following year
Shares of American Airlines are down 12% this year, but analysts expect a 31% rally for the stock over the next 12 months.
This has been an excellent year for U.S. stocks — so good, in fact, that among the S&P 500, only 57 have had negative returns. But it may be profitable to look among the losers for bargains.
Mark Hulbert recently pointed to a trend among stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA+0.49%
for one year’s worst performer tends to perform very well the following year. (Of course, he also warned that there have been exceptions to the trend.)
Looking at the year’s 57 losers among the S&P 500
SPX+0.45%
23 are down 10% or more (including reinvested dividends). Of course, a 10% drop for the best of this group may not seem like terrible performance, as stock prices are volatile. But it looks particularly bad when you consider that the S&P 500 has returned 30% this year through Dec. 18.
Among the 23 stocks, 10 have majority “buy” or equivalent ratings among the Wall Street sell-side analysts polled by FactSet. Here they are:
You can click the tickers for more about each company.
Based on the 12-month price targets, the analysts expect double-digit gains for the entire group.
If you are interested in any of the stocks on the list, do your own research before investing to determine your own comfort with the company’s strategy and prospects.
Here are other stock lists looking ahead to 2020 or back over 2019 and the past decade:
