 |
| US: Research Center Tied to Drug Company
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times
November 24th, 2008
Court documents reveal that Dr. Joseph Biederman, a renowned child psychiatrist, pushed Johnson & Johnson to fund a research center whose goal was “to move forward the commercial goals of J&J.” |
| US: Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times
November 21st, 2008
An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular NPR program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. |
| US: Court Says Shell Can’t Drill Near Alaska
by JAD MOUAWAD, The New York Times
November 20th, 2008
A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked Royal Dutch Shell from drilling oil wells off Alaska’s North Slope after finding that the Interior Department had failed to conduct an environmental study before issuing the company’s drilling permit. |
| US: Mark Cuban Is Charged With Insider Trading
by MICHAEL J. de la MERCED and FLOYD NORRIS, The New York Times
November 17th, 2008
On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit charging Mr. Cuban with insider trading for selling shares of a small Internet search company in 2004, just before its share price fell. |
| CHILE: Nearly 2,000 Carrying H.I.V. in Chile Were Not Notified
by PASCALE BONNEFOY and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO , The New York Times
November 13th, 2008
Chile’s health minister said Thursday that the country’s public health system had failed to notify at least 512 people that they were infected with H.I.V., and that private-sector services did not inform an additional 1,364 that they were carrying the virus, which causes AIDS. |
| US: PacifiCorp Agrees To Remove Dams
by Jim Carlton, The Wall Street Journal
November 13th, 2008
Electric utility PacifiCorp has tentatively agreed to remove four dams from the Klamath River, in a deal that would end one of the West's most rancorous water disputes and could serve as a settlement model for similar fights. |
| US: Justices Revoke Limits On Navy Use of Sonar
by Jerry Markon and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
November 13th, 2008
The justices voted 6 to 3 to lift restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar off the Southern California coast, backing the military in a longstanding battle over whether anti-submarine training harms marine mammals. |
| US: UBS Executive Indicted in U.S. Inquiry
by LYNNLEY BROWNING, The New York Times
November 12th, 2008
A senior Swiss executive at the banking giant UBS has been indicted in an investigation of the bank and its offshore private banking services for wealthy Americans, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday. |
| CHINA: Hong Kong Finds Tainted Chinese Fish Feed
by DAVID BARBOZA, The New York Times
November 12th, 2008
The Hong Kong government finding, reported late Tuesday, is the latest indication that melamine, a chemical used to make plastic and fertilizer, has seeped into large parts of China’s food and feed industry, posing potential health hazards to consumers. |
| VIETNAM: Vietnam Cracks Down on Polluters
by Martha Ann Overland, TIME
October 17th, 2008
Long before a government report confirmed it, villagers living along the banks of the Thi Vai river in the Mekong Delta knew full well that the waterway was dead. They had complained for years that industrial waste discharged into the Thi Vai had poisoned their wells, killed all the fish and was making them sick. Yet it wasn't until cargo companies refused to dock at the river's main port — saying that the toxic brew was eating through the ships' hulls — that Vietnam officials were willing to get tough on polluters. |
| US: Bank of New York Mellon Will Oversee Bailout Fund
by Eric Dash, New York Times
October 15th, 2008
The Bank of New York Mellon was named the master custodian firm overseeing the Treasury Department’s $700 billion bailout fund. It will hold and track the distressed assets that the government will buy as well as run and report on the auctions used to buy the assets. Government officials called it the “prime contractor of the purchase program.” |
| US: The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America
by Amy Goodman and James Bamford, Democracy Now!
October 14th, 2008
The Bush administration’s wiretapping program has come under new scrutiny. Two influential congressional committees have opened probes into allegations US intelligence spied on the phone calls of U.S. military personnel, journalists and aid workers in Iraq. James Bamford discusses the NSA’s domestic sprying, the agency’s failings pre-9/11 and the ties between NSA and the nation’s telecommunications companies. |
| US: U.S. May Take Ownership Stake in Banks
by Edmund L. Andrews and Mark Landler, New York Times
October 8th, 2008
In fresh efforts to stem persisting turmoil in the credit markets, the US Treasury Department is considering partial nationalization of numerous U.S. banks. Insurance giant A.I.G. will also receive a further injection of $37.8 billion. |
| US: More BP refinery doubts
Journal Gazette
October 7th, 2008
Smoke rises from the Whiting refinery now owned by BP. Federal regulators are questioning BP’s permit process. According to the EPA, the agency “now has information suggesting that BP may have begun a project to process Canadian crude oil at the refinery in 2005 without the proper permit.” |
| US: Eli Lilly settles Zyprexa inquiries in 32 states
by TOM MURPHY and MARLEY SEAMAN, Associated Press
October 7th, 2008
Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. cleared another legal cloud hanging over its top-selling drug Zyprexa when it announced a $62 million settlement Tuesday, but several other storms are still brewing for the antipsychotic medication. |
| US: California's Number One Inland Oil Polluter in Trouble Again
Enviroment News Service
October 3rd, 2008
An oil company that state and federal officials have called California's number one inland oil polluter has failed to meet multiple deadlines to clean up leaks from settling ponds on one of its leases, so the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week took over partial cleanup operations to ensure they are completed before the rainy season. |
| IRAQ: U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media
by Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, Washingtom Post
October 3rd, 2008
The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government. |
| US: Mosaic threatens $618 million lawsuit
by Frank Gluck, Herald Tribune
September 30th, 2008
Florida mining giant Mosaic Fertilizer said Monday it will file a $618 million lawsuit against Manatee County unless commissioners reverse a Sept. 16 vote that denied permission for Mosaic to mine phosphate on a property in Duette. |
| US: An Inconvenient Bag
by ELLEN GAMERMAN , Wall Street Journal
September 26th, 2008
It's manufactured in China, shipped thousands of miles overseas, made with plastic and could take years to decompose. It's also the hot "green" giveaway of the moment: the reusable shopping bag. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Apartheid lawsuit back in US court
SABC News
September 25th, 2008
After six years of battling, the plaintiffs must prove whether certain multinationals enabled the apartheid government to commit acts of gross human rights violations. Among the 21 defendants are oil, vehicle and financial companies which continue to operate in South Africa -- the likes of BP, Shell, Chevron Texaco, Barclays, Daimler Chrysler and Rio Tinto. They stand accused of supporting the former regime with arms and ammunition, financing, fuel, transportation and military technology. |
| US: Martinez Shell Refinery To Pay $300,000 Penalty For Spill
KTVU News
September 25th, 2008
The operator of the Shell refinery in Martinez has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a civil lawsuit charging that the refinery negligently caused about 10 barrels of oil to spill into the Carquinez Strait in Martinez in 2006, according to the Contra Costa District Attorney's office. |
| CONGO: Candidates Silent On Resource War In Congo
by Georgianne Nienaber, Huffington Post
September 25th, 2008
All politics is local, to paraphrase the venerable Bostonian and Democratic, Tip O'Neill. To human rights workers, journalists, writers, and humanitarians who have intimate knowledge of the Great Lakes Region of Equatorial Africa, this short email conjures a place, people, and tragedy that has been met with a wall of silence on the campaign trail. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama has addressed this great humanitarian breakdown, except in the context of political squabbling. |
| US: SEC Presses Hedge Funds
by Kara Scarnell, Wall Street Journal
September 25th, 2008
American International Group Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. are part of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into potential abuse in relation to the current financial markets meltdown. |
| ARGENTINA: Is GlaxoSmithKline Behaving Badly in Argentina?
by AINA HUNTER, ABC News
September 23rd, 2008
Michaela, a deceased 5 month old, is one of more than 13,000 Argentine children to participate in a clinical study implemented a little more than a year ago by the London-based GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest drug manufacturer. |
| CHINA: China Food-Safety Chief Resigns in Dairy Scandal
by Loretta Chao and Jason Leow, Wall Street Journal
September 23rd, 2008
China's top food-safety official resigned as a dairy contamination scandal brought more international recalls of Chinese products and heightened fears among dairy farmers that their livelihoods were in danger. Nestlé SA was among those manufacturers involved in the recall. |
| US: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Takeovers Cost U.S. Banks Billions
by John Hechinger, Wall Street Journal
September 23rd, 2008
About a quarter of the nation's banks lost a combined $10 to $15 billion in the wake of the federal government's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The losses are galling to small bankers because they took pains to avoid the exotic loans and loose underwriting standards that have hobbled Wall Street titans and some huge banks. |
| COLOMBIA: To die for
by Mark Thomas, Guardian (UK)
September 20th, 2008
Being a trade union organiser in bottling plants used by Coca-Cola in Colombia is a dangerous business - they are prime targets for death squads. Can Coke be held responsible? Mark Thomas follows the trail from Bogotá to New York |
| UK: UK government responds on Phorm
BBC News
September 16th, 2008
Clarifying how the system will be used in response to the EU request, the UK government said future trials must be done with consent from those being targeted. |
| US: Regulator Plans to Bar Big Severance
by JAMES R. HAGERTY, Wall Street Journal
September 15th, 2008
The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said Sunday that it won't allow the companies to make "golden parachute" severance payments to the mortgage companies' ousted chief executive officers. |
| US: Federal Oil Officials Accused
In Sex and Drugs Scandal
by STEPHEN POWER, Wall Street Journal
September 11th, 2008
Employees of the federal agency that last year collected more than $11 billion in royalties from oil and gas companies broke government rules and created a "culture of ethical failure" by allegedly accepting gifts from and having sex with industry representatives, the Interior Department's top watchdog said Wednesday. |
| US: UnitedHealth Ex-CEO Settles Pay Case
by VANESSA FUHRMANS , Wall Street Journal
September 11th, 2008
Former UnitedHealth Group Inc. Chief Executive William McGuire agreed to pay $30 million and forfeit 3.7 million stock options to settle shareholder claims related to options backdating, adding to what was already one of the largest executive-pay givebacks in history. |
| ISRAEL: U.S. approves $330 million in arms deals for Israel
by Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
September 9th, 2008
The U.S. government on Tuesday said it had approved up to $330 million in three separate arms deals for Israel, and sources tracking a much bigger deal for 25 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets said that agreement could be approved later this month. |
| US: 2nd Walkout at Boeing in 3 Years
by MICHELINE MAYNARD, The New York Times
September 6th, 2008
The Boeing Company, whose order books are bulging with demand for its planes, was hit by its second major strike in three years early Saturday, when the union that represents 27,000 machinists in Washington State, Oregon and Kansas walked off the job. |
| US: Judge to Unseal Documents on the Eli Lilly Drug Zyprexa
by MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, The New York Times
September 5th, 2008
A federal judge in Brooklyn decided on Friday to unseal confidential materials about Eli Lilly’s top-selling antipsychotic drug Zyprexa, citing “the health of hundreds of thousands of people” and “fundamental questions” about the way drugs are approved for new uses. |
| US: Altria Said to Be in Talks With Tobacco Maker UST
by ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and ANDREW MARTIN, The New York Times
September 4th, 2008
Altria Group is in advanced talks to buy UST, the maker of the popular Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco brands, for more than $10 billion, people with close knowledge of the negotiations said late Thursday. The terms could not be learned. |
| US: Halliburton Ex-Official
Pleads Guilty in Bribe Case
by RUSSELL GOLD, The Wall Street Journal
September 4th, 2008
In a wide-ranging foreign-corruption investigation, fired former Halliburton Co. executive Albert J. "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty to orchestrating more than $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian government officials. The bribes were used to win a contract to build a liquefied-natural-gas plant in Nigeria. |
| US: U.S. Drug Ads Questioned
by KEITH J. WINSTEIN and SUZANNE VRANICA, The Wall Street Journal
September 3rd, 2008
Consumer advertising for prescription drugs had a negligible impact on sales of products studied by Harvard Medical School researchers -- in a finding that may confound both advertisers and their opponents. |
| US: For Widely Used Drug, Question of Usefulness Is Still Lingering
by ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times
September 1st, 2008
About the only point on which both sides agree is that no one can judge ezetimibe’s safety and benefits for certain without more data, ideally from a clinical trial covering more than 10,000 patients and lasting several years, long enough to show that the drug actually helps patients live longer or avoid heart attacks. |
| US: American Airlines Hit
By $7.1 Million in Fines
by PAULO PRADA and ANDY PASZTOR, Wall Street Journal
August 15th, 2008
The Federal Aviation Administration, proposing one of its biggest penalties ever, said it plans to fine AMR Corp.'s American Airlines $7.1 million for allegedly violating employee drug- and alcohol-testing procedures and knowingly flying airplanes that broke maintenance regulations. |
| US: Files Show Governor Intervened With Court
by Ian Urbina, New York Times
August 13th, 2008
West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III filed a friend-of-the-court brief in June, arguing the State Supreme Court should review a $382 million judgment against DuPont. The case involves thousands of residents in the area of a DuPont-operated zinc-smelting plant, and the largest civil penalty ever levied against the company, for the dumping of toxic arsenic, cadmium and lead at the plant. |
| US: Collusion Inquiry Targets Ice Companies
by JOHN R. WILKE, The Wall Street Journal
August 7th, 2008
Federal prosecutors are investigating an alleged criminal price-fixing conspiracy in the $1.8 billion market for packaged ice, with the help of a former industry executive who told authorities the collusion was nationwide and forced up prices for consumers and businesses. |
| US: Inquiry Finds Under-Age Workers at Meat Plant
by JULIA PRESTON, The New York Times
August 5th, 2008
State labor investigators have identified 57 under-age workers who were employed at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, and have asked the attorney general to bring criminal charges against the company for child labor violations, Dave Neil, the Iowa Labor Commissioner, said on Tuesday. |
| US: Companies Tap Pension Plans
To Fund Executive Benefits
by ELLEN E. SCHULTZ and THEO FRANCIS, The Wall Street Journal
August 4th, 2008
In recent years, companies from Intel Corp. to CenturyTel Inc. collectively have moved hundreds of millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits into rank-and-file pension plans. This lets companies capture tax breaks intended for pensions of regular workers and use them to pay for executives' supplemental benefits and compensation. |
| UK-Zimbabwe: BAE linked to Zimbabwean arms dealer
by Christopher Thompson and Michael Peel , Financial Times/UK
July 31st, 2008
According to documents seen by the Financial Times, BAE Systems has been linked to Zimbabwean arms trader John Bredenkamp. BAE reportedly paid at least £20m to Bredenkamp via offshore entities in the British Virgin Islands between 2003 and 2005. The payments raise fresh questions about bribery in BAE's dealings. |
| US: FCC to Rule Comcast
Can't Block Web Videos
by AMY SCHATZ, Wall Street Journal
July 28th, 2008
The Federal Communications Commission will rule that the cable giant violated federal policy by deliberately preventing some customers from sharing videos online via file-sharing services like BitTorrent, agency officials said. The company has acknowledged it slowed some traffic, but said it was necessary to prevent a few heavy users from overburdening its network. |
| US: OSHA Seeks $8.7 Million Fine Against Sugar Company
by SHAILA DEWAN, The New York Times
July 26th, 2008
Imperial Sugar, the owner of a refinery near Savannah where 13 workers died in a sugar dust explosion in February, knew of safety hazards at the plant as early as 2002 but did nothing, and should pay more than $8.7 million for safety violations, the head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Friday. |
| US: Pentagon Auditors Pressured To Favor Contractors, GAO Says
by Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post
July 24th, 2008
Auditors at a Pentagon oversight agency were pressured by supervisors to skew their reports on major defense contractors to make them look more favorable instead of exposing wrongdoing and charges of overbilling, according to an 80-page report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office. |
| US: WellCare to Restate Years of Results
by THEO FRANCIS, The Wall Street Journal
July 22nd, 2008
By accounting for medical expenses improperly, the company said it failed to return about $46.5 million in premiums to state programs providing health care to low-income adults and children in Florida and Illinois, and understated liabilities by about $46 million. |
| IRAQ: Iraq Case Sheds Light On Secret Contractors
by Siobhan Gorman and August Cole, Wall Street Journal
July 17th, 2008
Court documents and interviews with whistleblowers shed light on persistent problems in the operations of private military and security company MVM, Inc., a top provider of secret security to U.S. intelligence agencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
| US: Menthol Dose Manipulated, Study Says
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
July 17th, 2008
A new Harvard study claims that the tobacco industry in recent years has manipulated menthol levels in cigarettes to hook youngsters and maintain loyalty among smoking adults. The report could further inflame a controversy over menthol in pending tobacco legislation. |
| US: Toxic Smoke and Mirrors
by Jim Morris, Mother Jones
Filed in federal District Court in Cleveland, their claim joined thousands of others pending against welding-products manufacturers in state and federal courts. (Employers have not been among the targets because lawyers generally concluded they were ignorant of the metal's dangers.) |
| FRANCE: Areva mishandled uranium leak: safety body
by Joseph Tandy and Muriel Boselli, Reuters
July 11th, 2008
France's nuclear safety authority (ASN) said on Friday that Areva-subsidiary Socatri had poorly managed a leak of liquid containing uranium that occurred in southeastern France this week. |
| US: FCC Chief to Seek Comcast Penalty
Associated Press
July 11th, 2008
The head of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday he will recommend that the nation's largest cable company be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet. |
| US: General Misled Lawmakers on KBR Work, Senator Says
by JAMES RISEN, The New York Times
July 10th, 2008
The senator, Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said at a hearing that Maj. Gen. Jerome Johnson, who was commander of the Army Sustainment Command until last year, made inaccurate statements to the Senate Armed Services Committee about problems with water supplied to American soldiers in Iraq by KBR, the largest defense contractor in Iraq. |
| INDIA: Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal
by Somini Sengupta, New York Times
July 7th, 2008
Residents of Bhopal, India continue to suffer from Union Carbide's toxic legacy, this time in the form of toxic waste that still languishes inside a shoddy warehouse on the old factory grounds. Ailments such as cleft palates and mental retardation are appearing in numbers of Bhopali children, raising questions about contaminated soil and groundwater, clean-up, and liability. |
| Iraq: U.S. Advised Iraqi Ministry on Oil Deals
by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times
June 30th, 2008
The Bush administration has disclosed that U.S. advisors in Iraq played a key role in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies. The no-bid contracts are expected to be awarded Monday to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron, as well as to several smaller oil companies. |
| UK: Are we falling out of love with Tesco?
by David Smith and Zoe Wood, The Observer, The Guardian
June 29th, 2008
As the biggest beast in the jungle, Tesco has been accused of monopolisation, exploitation and bullying anyone who dares to stand in its way. It has become a lightning rod for every critic of corporate power, homogenised high streets and the malign influence of multinationals in the developing world. |
| SWITZERLAND: Tax scandal leaves Swiss giant reeling
by Nick Mathiason, The Guardian (UK)
June 29th, 2008
Sending shockwaves through the Swiss financial industry, banking giant UBS is facing accusations from a former senior banker in US courts of massive fraud and corruption. UBS is alleged to have engaged in routine activities aimed at helping its high net worth clients evade hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, among other matters. |
| US: Airlines fined $504m in US probe
BBC
June 26th, 2008
Five airlines have agreed to pay fines totalling $504m (£253m) for conspiring to fix prices for air cargo rates, the US Justice Department says. |
| US: Massachusetts Charges UBS
In Auction-Rate Investigation
by DONNA KARDOS, The Wall Street Journal
June 26th, 2008
Marking one of the first sets of government-fraud charges filed since the market for auction-rate securities froze up earlier this year, regulators in Massachusetts charged UBS AG's UBS Securities LLC and UBS Financial Services Inc. with fraud and dishonest conduct in their sales of the securities |
| US: Mastercard in $1.8bn Amex payment
BBC
June 25th, 2008
In 2004 American Express filed a suit saying Mastercard, Visa and their member banks had illegally blocked it from the US bank-issued card business. |
| US: Arms Dealer Had Troubled History
by ERIC SCHMITT, The New York Times
June 25th, 2008
When the Army last year awarded a contract worth up to nearly $300 million to a tiny Miami Beach munitions dealer to supply ammunition to Afghanistan’s army and police forces, it was in spite of a very checkered past. |
| US: Former Customers Off Limits To Verizon
by Cecilia Kang, The Washington Post
June 24th, 2008
The federal government, speaking on behalf of former Verizon phone service customers, yesterday sent the communications company a stern message: Stop trying to woo back those consumers who have opted for a new provider. They've moved on. |
| US: Cover-Up Is Cited on Illegal Arms
by ERIC SCHMITT, The New York Times
June 24th, 2008
A military attaché has told Congressional investigators that the American ambassador to Albania endorsed a plan by that country’s defense minister to remove evidence of illegal Chinese origins on ammunition being shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a Miami Beach arms-dealing company. |
| US: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
by Ed Pilkington, Guardian (UK)
June 23rd, 2008
On June 23, James Hansen, a leading world climate scientist, called for the executives of major fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, to be put on trial for crimes against humanity and nature through actions like funding climate skeptics to undermine global consensus around combating climate change. |
| US: House Passes Bill on Wiretap Powers
by ERIC LICHTBLAU and DAVID STOUT, The New York Times
June 21st, 2008
The House on Friday overwhelmingly approved a bill overhauling the rules on the government’s wiretapping powers and conferring what amounts to legal immunity to the telephone companies that took part in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. |
| US: KBR stake under attack
by Jon Ortiz, Sacramento Bee
June 20th, 2008
Sacramento for Democracy and other groups presented CalPERS with what they said were the names of 20,000 petitioners asking the fund to shed its KBR holdings. CalPERS owns about $27 million in KBR stock. |
| US: Prosecutors Build Bear Stearns Case on E-Mails
by LANDON THOMAS Jr., The New York Times
June 20th, 2008
The two men, who were forced out of their jobs last year, are the first senior executives from Wall Street investment banks to face criminal charges stemming from the credit mess, and the investigation by federal prosecutors based in Brooklyn is likely to become a test case of the government’s ability to make successful prosecutions of arcane financial transactions. |
| KATRINA: Audit Faults KBR's Repairs of Hurricane Damage
by Derek Kravitz, The Washington Post
June 18th, 2008
Efforts by defense contractor KBR to repair hurricane-damaged Navy facilities were deemed shoddy and substandard, and one technical adviser alleged that the federal government "certainly paid twice" for many KBR projects because of "design and workmanship deficiencies," the Pentagon's inspector general reported in an audit released yesterday. |
| US: Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stir
by James Risen, New York Times
June 17th, 2008
Charles M. Smith, the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war, says he was ousted for refusing to approve payment for more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR. The Pentagon has recently awarded KBR part of a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq. |
| US: Big Penalty Set for Law Firm, but Not a Trial
by Jonathan D. Glater, New York Times
June 17th, 2008
The law firm formerly known as Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach agreed on Monday to pay $75 million to dodge a criminal trial. Misconduct at the firm has severely tarnished the reputation of lawyers representing shareholder claims against corporate corruption. |
| US: Mannatech Settles Holder Suits
by SUZANNE SATALINE, Wall Street Journal
June 13th, 2008
Dietary-supplements maker Mannatech Inc. said it settled several lawsuits with shareholders who accused the company of using improper sales tactics to boost the value of the stock. |
| EUROPE: Chemical Law Has Global Impact
by Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post
June 12th, 2008
Europe this month rolled out new restrictions on makers of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. The changes follow eight years of vigorous opposition from the U.S. chemical industry giants like DuPont, and the Bush administration. |
| TOBACCO: Profits in Hand, Wealthy Family Cuts Tobacco Tie
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
June 11th, 2008
Now, the next generation of Tisches has removed tobacco from the portfolio of the conglomerate they lead, the Loews Corporation, spinning off its tobacco unit, Lorillard, as a stand-alone business, with the Newport brand representing more than 90 percent of the new company’s revenue. The new stock began trading Tuesday, and analysts have said the new company might be a takeover target. |
| US: From a Whistle-Blower to a Target
by TIM ARANGO, The New York Times
June 9th, 2008
Mr. Ripp's journey from whistle-blower to defendant is another example of the long shadow cast by the AOL-Time Warner merger, now widely regarded as one of the most disastrous corporate marriages in history. It is also a cautionary tale for corporate executives who may illuminate fraudulent conduct to one government agency but then find themselves a target of another. |
| US: Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
by GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times
June 8th, 2008
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators. |
| US: Workers on Hunger Strike Say They Were Misled on Visas
by JULIA PRESTON, The New York Times
June 7th, 2008
The Indian workers say they were deceived by Signal International and labor recruiters when they paid as much as $20,000 for visas they believed would allow them to work and live permanently with their families in the United States. In fact, the H-2B visas are for short-term contracts. |
| US: Opposition to Menthol Cigarettes Grows
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
June 5th, 2008
The seven, from Democratic and Republican administrations, faxed a letter to members of the Senate and House of Representatives demanding that menthol-flavored cigarettes be banned just like various other cigarette flavorings the legislation would outlaw. |
| GLOBAL: Union Takes Anti-Buyout Campaign Worldwide
by MICHAEL J. de la MERCED, The New York Times
June 4th, 2008
Beginning Wednesday, the Service Employees International Union, one of the country’s biggest unions, will call upon people to attend protests on July 17 in 100 cities in 25 countries. The rallying cry will be: Take back the economy from buyout firms that the union says have exploited tax loopholes to amass great wealth at others’ expense. |
| US: Lockheed Faulted for Failure to Control Costs
by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post
June 4th, 2008
Lockheed Martin, the biggest U.S. defense contractor, failed to follow military guidelines to track and manage costs on major weapons programs, according to an internal Pentagon document released yesterday by a government watchdog group. |
| US: Former Colo. nuke plant contractors ordered to pay $925M
AP
June 3rd, 2008
Two companies that worked as contractors with the now-defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant have been ordered to pay $925 million to residents who claimed that contamination blown from the facility endangered people's health and devalued their property. |
| US: Concrete contractor cuts deal with prosecutors
by Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
June 1st, 2008
Substandard concrete from Ramirez's now-defunct company was poured into a half-mile stretch of the Bay Bridge's rebuilt western approach. Inferior, less-durable material also was used on a retrofit project at the Golden Gate Bridge, a wastewater treatment plant in Burlingame, the new parking garage in Golden Gate Park, the Municipal Railway's Third Street light-rail line and other projects. |
| FRANCE: Ex-EADS chief charged in French probe
by INGRID ROUSSEAU, Associated Press
May 30th, 2008
A former co-CEO of Airbus parent company EADS, Noel Forgeard, was hit with preliminary insider trading charges Friday in an extensive probe into stock sales by more than a dozen former and current executives at the European planemaker. |
| US: Exxon investors reject green initiatives
by Andrew Clark, The Guardian
May 29th, 2008
The world's biggest oil company emerged bruised but victorious from a bust-up with the billionaire Rockefeller family yesterday as an effort to foist green initiatives on ExxonMobil failed to capture wholehearted support from shareholders. |
| US: In Stock Plan, Employees See Stacked Deck
by MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, The New York Times
May 29th, 2008
Now that many U.S. Sugar workers are reaching retirement age, though, the company has been cashing them out of the retirement plan at a much lower price than they could have received. Unknown to them, an outside investor was offering to buy the company — and their shares — for far more. Longtime employees say they have lost out on tens of thousands of dollars each and millions of dollars as a group, while insiders of the company came out ahead. |
| US: Rockefellers Seek Change at Exxon
by CLIFFORD KRAUSS, The New York Times
May 27th, 2008
The family members have thrown their support behind a shareholder rebellion that is ruffling feathers at Exxon Mobil, the giant oil company descended from John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust. |
| GERMANY: Ex-Manager Tells of Bribery at Siemens
by CARTER DOUGHERTY, The New York Times
May 27th, 2008
A former manager of Siemens, the European engineering company, testified Monday about an intricate system of slush funds and bribery at the company as the first trial on allegations of corporate corruption in Germany began. |
| GERMANY: Phone Giant in Germany Stirs a Furor
by MARK LANDLER, The New York Times
May 27th, 2008
Germany was engulfed in a national furor over threats to privacy on Monday, after an admission by Deutsche Telekom that it had surreptitiously tracked thousands of phone calls to identify the source of leaks to the news media about its internal affairs. |
| IRAQ: Controversial Contractor’s Iraq Work Is Split Up
by JAMES RISEN, The New York Times
May 24th, 2008
For the first time since the war began, the largest single Pentagon contract in Iraq is being divided among three companies, ending the monopoly held by KBR, the Houston-based corporation that has been accused of wasteful spending and mismanagement and of exploiting its political ties to Vice President Dick Cheney. |
| US: 30 Former Officials Became Corporate Monitors
by ERIC LICHTBLAU and KITTY BENNETT, The New York Times
May 23rd, 2008
The Justice Department has appointed at least 30 former prosecutors and other government officials as well-paid corporate monitors in arrangements that allow companies to avoid criminal prosecution, according to government data released Thursday by Congress. |
| US: At One University, Tobacco Money Is a Secret
by ALAN FINDER, The New York Times
May 22nd, 2008
On campuses nationwide, professors and administrators have passionately debated whether their universities should accept money for research from tobacco companies. But not at Virginia Commonwealth University, a public institution in Richmond, Va. |
| UK: Shell 'selling suicide' by preferring tar sands to wind
by Terry Macalister, The Guardian
May 21st, 2008
Shell was accused yesterday of "selling suicide on the forecourt" by pressing ahead with tar sands operations in Canada and continuing to flare off excess gas in Nigeria while pulling out of renewable schemes such as the London Array - the world's largest offshore wind scheme. |
| US: Halliburton CEO says Dubai base the 'right decision'
by Brett Clanton, Houston Chronicle
May 21st, 2008
Shareholder John Harrington questioned Halliburton CEO David Lesar during the 2008 annual meeting of the company's shareholders Wednesday at the Houstonian Hotel, Club and Spa, over his motives to move to Dubai, suggesting it was designed to dodge paying U.S. taxes or escape blame for past wrongs. |
| US: Congress grills oil execs on record pump prices
by Chris Baltimore, Reuters
May 21st, 2008
Executives from the five biggest international oil companies on Wednesday claimed that they were victims of high oil prices along with U.S. consumers, but U.S. Senate lawmakers showed little sympathy. |
| US: Eight ex-AOL executives charged with fraud
by Joanna Chung in New York and Richard Waters in San Francisco, The Financial Times
May 20th, 2008
US regulators on Monday announced fraud charges stemming indirectly from the merger of Time Warner and AOL, the largest union in US corporate history and a symbol of the dotcom boom and bust of the early part of this decade. |
| US: BAE chief detained as US turns up heat in bribes case
by Nick Clark and Stephen Foley, The Independent (U.K.)
May 19th, 2008
BAE Systems admitted yesterday that American authorities investigating corruption claims over an arms deal with Saudi Arabia had issued a series of subpoenas to senior executives, as the investigation continues to gather pace. Two bosses of the defence giant were also detained after they landed at a Houston airport last week |
| US: Cigarette Bill Treats Menthol With Leniency
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
May 13th, 2008
Some public health experts are questioning why menthol, the most widely used cigarette flavoring and the most popular cigarette choice of African-American smokers, is receiving special protection as Congress tries to regulate tobacco for the first time. |
| RUSSIA: As Gazprom Goes, So Goes Russia
by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times
May 11th, 2008
Gazprom and the Russian government have long had a close relationship, but the revolving door between them is spinning especially fast this year. But Gazprom also epitomizes the risks of state capitalism: waste and inefficiency. |
| EUROPE: Stealth Lobbyists Creep In
by David Cronin, IPS
May 9th, 2008
The often cosy relationship between corporate lobbyists and the Brussels bureaucracy was illustrated in the past few weeks as several members of the European Parliament (MEPs) prepared to visit Peru. |
| NIGERIA: Ex-Halliburton unit in bribery probe
by Michael Peel in London and Matthew Green in Lagos, The Financial Times
May 9th, 2008
US anti-bribery investigators are targeting a former Halliburton subsidiary over its work on a key Royal Dutch Shell project in Nigeria, widening a corruption probe into the country’s troubled oil industry. |
| MEXICO: Pemex Oozes Corruption
by Diego Cevallos , IPS
May 7th, 2008
Funds belonging to the Mexican state oil monopoly, Pemex, have paid in recent years for liposuction treatment for the wife of the company's chief executive, a presidential candidate's campaign, contracts with firms facing legal action, and the whims of trade union leaders who are not required to account for their expenses. |
| UK: Retailers in tobacco price probe
BBC NEWS
April 25th, 2008
n the case of Gallaher, Imperial Tobacco, Asda, Sainsbury, Shell, Somerfield and Tesco, there was an indirect exchange of proposed future retail prices between competitors, it adds, allegedly between 2001 and 2003. |
| US: Working Life (High and Low)
by STEVEN GREENHOUSE, The New York Times
April 20th, 2008
Jean called it “a great deal for FedEx. They don’t have to pay for trucks, for the insurance, for fuel, for maintenance, for tires,” she said. “We have to pay for all those things. And they don’t have to pay our Social Security.” |
| US: Fannie Mae Ex-Officials Settle
by JAMES R. HAGERTY, Wall Street Journal
April 19th, 2008
The settlement, announced Friday, brings the government far less than it had originally sought over alleged violations of accounting rules. Fannie's regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, in 2006 sought to require the three former executives to pay back more than $115 million of bonuses and pay fines that it said at the time could total more than $100 million. |
| US: Report Finds Air Force Officers Steered Contract
by Josh White, Washington Post
April 18th, 2008
It was during that meeting in November 2005, according to the 251-page report, obtained by The Washington Post, that a controversial $50 million contract was awarded to a company that barely existed in an effort to reward a recently retired four-star general and a millionaire civilian pilot who had grown close to senior Air Force officials and the Thunderbirds. |
| US: Merck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
April 16th, 2008
The drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal. |
| US: Wall Streeter Converts to a Fan of Regulation
by Landon Thomas Jr., New York Times
April 15th, 2008
In the last two years, Robert K. Steel has been co-chairman of one commission that claimed heavy-handed regulation was stanching financial innovation and another that argued that hedge funds could police themselves.
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| US: In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Trials
by ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times
April 9th, 2008
In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years. |
| US: House panel questions Bear rescue plan
by James Politi , The Financial Times
April 8th, 2008
The rescue of Bear Stearns faced further scrutiny in Congress on Tuesday as a powerful Democratic lawmaker demanded more information on the selection of BlackRock as investment manager for $30bn in the bank’s mortgage assets. |
| US: America for Sale: 2 Outcomes When Foreigners Buy Factories
by PETER S. GOODMAN, The New York Times
April 7th, 2008
As foreign buyers descend upon the United States, capturing widening swaths of the industrial landscape and putting millions of Americans to work for new owners, these two cities offer sharply competing narratives for a nation still uneasy about being on the selling end of the global economy. |
| US: Drug Makers Near Old Goal: A Legal Shield
by GARDINER HARRIS and ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times
April 6th, 2008
The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted. |
| US: Reynolds Ads Oppose Move to Regulate Tobacco
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
April 1st, 2008
As legislation moves through Congress that would empower the F.D.A. to regulate the tobacco industry, Reynolds, whose brands include Camel cigarettes, is attacking what it views as the bill’s vulnerability: a weak, overextended F.D.A. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Arms for Afghans
by C. J. CHIVERS, The New York Times
March 27th, 2008
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces. Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials.
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| AFGHANISTAN: Missing: The £5bn aid needed to rebuild lives
by JEROME STARKEY AND ROSS LYDALL, The Scotsman
March 25th, 2008
Vast sums of aid are lost in corporate profits of contractors and sub-contractors, which can be as high as 50 per cent on a single contract. A vast amount of aid is absorbed by high salaries, with generous allowances, and other costs of expatriates working for consulting firms and contractors. |
| EUROPE: In Europe, widening probe targets tax haven
by Mark Rice Oxley and Jeffrey White, Christian Science Monitor
March 25th, 2008
Nearly two decades after taking the helm of Deutsche Post, Klaus Zumwinkel surrendered to police amid suspicion that he evaded €1 million in taxes. The next day, he resigned, becoming the first to fall in a massive probe that has broadened to nine other countries. |
| INDONESIA: Indonesia's Commodity Boom Is a Mixed Bag
by Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal
March 24th, 2008
Indonesia's economy is riding the recent wave of high global commodity prices. But local pressure is arising towards steel makers and power producers in China and India who have diverted coal supplies abroad by locking in 20-year supply contracts with Indonesian miners. |
| US: Study says diesel emissions raise cancer risk
by Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer, The San Francisco Chronicle
March 20th, 2008
The analysis by the California Air Resources Board, released Wednesday night, shows that the greatest health dangers related to toxic air emissions stems from diesel trucks traversing the freeways and other roadways around West Oakland and the Port of Oakland. |
| US: Eli Lilly E-Mail Discussed Unapproved Use of Drug
by ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times
March 17th, 2008
John C. Lechleiter, an Eli Lilly official who is about to become the company's top executive, wrote an e-mail message in 2003 that appears to have encouraged Lilly to promote its schizophrenia medicine Zyprexa for a use not approved by federal drug regulators. |
| US: Families Sue Chiquita in Deaths of 5 Men
by CARMEN GENTILE, The New York Times
March 17th, 2008
Last week, Ms. Julin, who has remarried, and the widows of the four other men filed a lawsuit against Chiquita Brands International Inc., saying the company contributed to their husbands’ deaths by financing the leftist group. |
| US: When a Corporate Donation Raises Protests
by STUART ELLIOTT, The New York Times
March 12th, 2008
But a coalition of children’s advocates contends that the hospital went too far by agreeing to name a new emergency department and trauma center after another locally based retailer, Abercrombie & Fitch, in exchange for a $10 million donation. |
| IRAQ: KBR Faulted on Water Provided to Soldiers
by Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post
March 11th, 2008
U.S. soldiers at a military base in Iraq were provided with treated but untested wastewater for nearly two years by KBR, the giant government contractor, and may have suffered health problems as a result, according to a report released yesterday by the Pentagon's inspector general. |
| US: Workers Sue Gulf Coast Company That Imported Them
by ADAM NOSSITER, The New York Times
March 11th, 2008
A group of 500 foreign welders and pipefitters brought in to work at Gulf Coast oil rig yards after Hurricane Katrina said Monday that they had sued their employer, claiming they were lured with false promises of permanent-resident status, forced to live in inhumane conditions and then threatened when they protested. |
| US: Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a 'Clean' Fuel
by BRENDA GOODMAN, The New York Times
March 11th, 2008
The spills, at the Alabama Biodiesel Corporation plant outside this city about 17 miles from Tuscaloosa, are similar to others that have come from biofuel plants in the Midwest. The discharges, which can be hazardous to birds and fish, have many people scratching their heads over the seeming incongruity of pollution from an industry that sells products with the promise of blue skies and clear streams. |
| CHINA: Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China
by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post
March 9th, 2008
The Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co. of Henan, China, is a green energy company, producing polysilicon for solar energy panels. But the byproduct -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards. |
| US: Chiefs’ Pay Under Fire at Capitol
by JENNY ANDERSON, The New York Times
March 8th, 2008
In pointed exchanges with Congressional lawmakers Friday, three prominent financial executives defended the multimillion-dollar pay packages they received even as their companies were brought to their knees by the spreading credit crisis. |
| US: Pesticide maker owned by political donor
by Matthew Yi, San Francisco Chronicle
March 8th, 2008
The company that makes one of the pesticides state officials are
considering spraying over the Bay Area to fight the light brown apple moth is owned by a wealthy California agribusinessman who has been a generous contributor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state officials.
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| CAYMAN ISLANDS: Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore
by Farah Stockman, The Boston Globe
March 6th, 2008
Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven. |
| US: Fidelity Settles After Employees Accepted Gifts
by Carrie Johnson, The Washington Post
March 6th, 2008
Mutual fund manager Fidelity Investments yesterday settled allegations that more than a dozen of its current and former employees, including star executive Peter Lynch, accepted such perks as sports tickets, tropical vacations and a $160,000 bachelor party from brokers seeking to win business. |
| CANADA: Native Leader Serving Six Months for Opposing Mine
by Chris Arsenault, IPS
March 5th, 2008
Algonquin community leader Robert Lovelace had never been charged with an offence, but when a uranium company began prospecting for radioactive ore on unceded native land without engaging in consultation, he decided to take action, organising a non-violent blockade. |
| US: Immigration Agency Accused of Illegal Searches
by N.C. Aizenman, The Washington Post
February 26th, 2008
A privately convened commission of labor and immigrant advocates held the first of several planned nationwide hearings yesterday to publicize allegations that U.S. immigration officials routinely violate constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure during workplace raids. |
| US: In Shift, Ashcroft to Testify on Oversight Deal
by Carrie Johnson, The Washington Post
February 26th, 2008
Former Attorney General John D. Ashcroft agreed last night to appear at a House hearing to discuss his lucrative arrangement overseeing a medical equipment company, averting a showdown with committee members who had planned to meet today to authorize a subpoena. |
| US: F.C.C. Weighing Limits on Slowing Web Traffic
by STEPHEN LABATON, The New York Times
February 26th, 2008
The head of the Federal Communications Commission and other senior officials said on Monday that they were considering taking steps to discourage cable and telephone companies from delaying the downloads and uploads of heavy Internet users. |
| US: Pfizer to End Lipitor Ads by Jarvik
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
February 26th, 2008
Under criticism that its ads are misleading, Pfizer said Monday that it would cancel a long-running advertising campaign using the artificial heart pioneer Robert Jarvik as a spokesman for its cholesterol drug Lipitor. |
| UGANDA: Privatization of Seeds Moving Apace
by Aileen Kwa, IPS
February 21st, 2008
The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. According to an inside government source, seeds companies including Monsanto have been lobbying for such intellectual property protection. |
| US: Inside the world of war profiteers
by David Jackson and Jason Grotto|Tribune reporters, Chicago Tribune
February 21st, 2008
Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand. |
| US: 12 Years for Contractor in Bribery Case
by ELLIOT SPAGAT, AP
February 20th, 2008
A defense contractor was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison Tuesday for bribing former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham with cash, trips, the services of prostitutes and other gifts in exchange for nearly $90 million in Pentagon work. |
| US: Holes in the Wall
by Melissa del Bosque, The Texas Observer
February 18th, 2008
As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security marches down the Texas border serving condemnation lawsuits to frightened landowners, Brownsville resident Eloisa Tamez, 72, has one simple question. She would like to know why her land is being targeted for destruction by a border wall, while a nearby golf course and resort remain untouched. |
| UK: BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince
by David Leigh and Rob Evans, The Guardian (UK)
February 15th, 2008
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE. |
| US: Court dismisses lawsuit on secret kidnapping
by Adam Tanner, Reuters
February 14th, 2008
A federal judge, saying the case involved a state secret, dismissed a lawsuit on Wednesday against a unit of Boeing Co that charged the firm helped fly terrorism suspects abroad to secret prisons. |
| GLOBAL: 2 Reports At Odds On Biotech Crops
by Rick Weiss, The Washington Post
February 14th, 2008
Dueling reports released yesterday -- one by a consortium largely funded by the biotech industry and the other by a pair of environmental and consumer groups -- came to those diametrically different conclusions. |
| US: Hewlett-Packard Settles Spying Case
by MATT RICHTEL, The New York Times
February 14th, 2008
Hewlett-Packard has agreed to a financial settlement with The New York Times and three BusinessWeek magazine journalists in connection with the company’s spying scandal that stemmed from surreptitiously obtaining private phone records. |
| CHINA: China Plant Played Role In Drug Tied to 4 Deaths
by ANNA WILDE MATHEWS and THOMAS M. BURTON, The Wall Street Journal
February 14th, 2008
A Chinese facility that hasn't been inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made the active ingredient in much of the widely used Baxter International Inc. blood-thinner that is under investigation after reports of hundreds of allergic reactions and four deaths among the drug's users, the agency said yesterday. |
| US: UnitedHealth Faces Suit Over Payment System
by VANESSA FUHRMANS and THEO FRANCIS, The Wall Street Journal
February 13th, 2008
The New York attorney general said his office plans to sue UnitedHealth Group Inc. as part of a broader investigation into the way the health insurance industry sets payment rates for hospitals and doctors outside of their networks. |
| US: Comcast Defends Role As Internet Traffic Cop
by Cecilia Kang, The Washington Post
February 13th, 2008
Comcast said yesterday that it purposely slows down some traffic on its network, including some music and movie downloads, an admission that sparked more controversy in the debate over how much control network operators should have over the Internet. |
| US: Limbo for U.S. Women Reporting Iraq Assaults
by JAMES RISEN, The New York Times
February 13th, 2008
Ms. Kineston is among a number of American women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq but now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or even significant compensation. |
| US: Bush Presses House to Approve Bill on Surveillance
by ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times
February 13th, 2008
The president’s remarks came the morning after the Senate handed the White House a major victory by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants. |
| US: U.S. jewelry retailers oppose large Alaska gold mine
by Mary Pemberton, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 12th, 2008
Just in time for Valentine's Day, five of the leading U.S. jewellers have sworn off gold that someday could come from the Pebble Mine, a huge deposit being scoped out by a subsidiary of a Canadian company near the world's most productive wild sockeye salmon stream in southwestern Alaska. |
| US: Committee Investigates Ad Tactics for Lipitor
by Stephanie Saul, New York Times
February 8th, 2008
A Congressional investigation revealed that Pfizer agreed to pay Dr. Jarvik $1,350,000 as a celebrity pitchman for the heart drug Lipitor, and wants to know how much stunt doubles in the ads may have also been paid. |
| US: Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyon
by FELICITY BARRINGER, The New York Times
February 7th, 2008
With minimal public notice and no formal environmental review, the Forest Service has approved a permit allowing a British mining company to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, less than three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon’s southern rim. |
| US: Drug Ads Raise Questions for Heart Pioneer
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times
February 7th, 2008
Celebrity advertising endorsements are nothing new, of course. But the Lipitor campaign is a rare instance of a well-known doctor’s endorsing a drug in advertising — and it has helped rekindle a smoldering debate over whether it is appropriate to aim ads for prescription drugs directly at consumers. |
| US: Some Campuses Decide Tobacco Company Money Is ‘Tainted’
by ALAN FINDER, The New York Times
February 4th, 2008
Across academia, universities and graduate schools are wrestling with whether to accept financing from tobacco companies for research or student activities. In the past few years, 15 public health and medical schools have turned away donations from the industry; McCombs’ move was unusual because of its longstanding ties to an array of corporations. |
| US: An Ex-President, a Mining Deal and a Big Donor
by JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr., The New York Times
January 31st, 2008
Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. |
| CHINA: Tainted Drugs Tied to Maker of Abortion Pill
by JAKE HOOKER and WALT BOGDANICH, The New York Times
January 31st, 2008
A huge state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company that exports to dozens of countries, including the United States, is at the center of a nationwide drug scandal after nearly 200 Chinese cancer patients were paralyzed or otherwise harmed last summer by contaminated leukemia drugs. |
| US: Contractor Abuses Rarely Punished, Groups Say
by Ali Gharib, IPS
January 21st, 2008
Out of the dozens upon dozens of reports of abuses by private contractors as part of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only one prosecution of a contractor has taken place. |
| US: Giuliani Had Ties to Company Trying to Sell Border Technology
by RUSS BUETTNER, New York Times
January 18th, 2008
On the presidential campaign trail, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani often promotes the installation of electronic monitoring devices at the border to stem illegal immigration, without mentioning that until a few months ago, he was partner in a company trying to market such technology. |
| US: Antidepressants Under Scrutiny Over Efficacy
by DAVID ARMSTRONG and KEITH J. WINSTEIN, Wall Street Journal
January 17th, 2008
The effectiveness of a dozen popular antidepressants has been exaggerated by selective publication of favorable results, according to a review of unpublished data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. |
| US: A Mission to Rebuild Reputations
by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post
January 17th, 2008
Now those promises -- and the public's perception of the Air Force's ability to spend its money prudently -- are being tested by new contracting and public relations challenges. The Air Force is about to award two key contracts worth a total of about $55 billion, and Boeing is in the running for both deals. |
| US: Corporate Fraud Lawsuits Restricted
by Robert Barnes and Carrie Johnson, Washington Post
January 16th, 2008
The Supreme Court yesterday strictly limited the ability of investors who lost money through corporate fraud to sue other businesses that may have helped facilitate the crime, a decision that could doom stockholder efforts to recover billions of dollars lost in Enron and other high-profile cases. |
| US: Protests Greet Nuclear Power Resurgence in US South
by Matthew Cardinale, IPS
January 14th, 2008
Residents and environmental activists are in a bitter dispute with large U.S. energy corporations and the federal government over the safety of nuclear power, as more than a dozen corporations plan to, or have filed, paperwork to open new nuclear power plants, primarily in the U.S. South. |
| CHILE: Copper Boom - Cui Bono?
by Daniela Estrada, IPS News
January 11th, 2008
According to global forecasts, the price of copper, Chile’s main export, will remain high in 2008 thanks to strong demand from China. But just who will benefit from this bonanza is up for debate. |
| NIGERIA: Inefficient Gas Flaring Remains Unchecked
by Sam Olukoya, IPS
January 10th, 2008
Some of the largest multinational oil companies in the world -- including the U.K. and Dutch owned Shell, the French company Total, and the American companies Mobil and Chevron -- are responsible for the bulk of the scores of gas flares burning in Nigeria. |
| IRAQ: 2005 Use of Gas by Blackwater Leaves Questions
by JAMES RISEN, New York Times
January 10th, 2008
In 2005 Blackwater accidentally dropped teargas on US soldiers, which has raised significant new questions about the role of private security contractors in Iraq, and whether they operate under the same rules of engagement and international treaty obligations that the American military observes. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Copper project tests Afghanistan’s resources
by Jon Boone, Financial Times
January 8th, 2008
The debris left over from previous attempts to extract some of Afghanistan’s colossal mineral wealth can be found just 35km south-east of Kabul. But in five years, the landscape in the Aynak exploration area may be changed into one of the world’s largest opencast mines, thanks to a $3bn (£1.5bn) investment by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC). |
| CHINA: In Chinese Factories, Lost Fingers and Low Pay
by DAVID BARBOZA, New York Times
January 5th, 2008
Nearly a decade after some of the most powerful companies in the world — often under considerable criticism and consumer pressure — began an effort to eliminate sweatshop labor conditions in Asia, worker abuse is still commonplace in many of the Chinese factories that supply Western companies, according to labor rights groups. |
| US: Cloned Livestock Poised
by Jane Zhang, John W. Miller and Lauren Etter, Wall Street Journal
January 4th, 2008
After more than six years of wrestling with the question of whether meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to declare as early as next week that they are. The food industry appears to be divided over the issue. |
| US: Suit says IBM dumped chemicals in New York state
by Dan Wilchins and Philipp Gollner, Reuters
January 3rd, 2008
Neighbors of a former IBM plant in New York state sued the company on Thursday, saying it released chemicals into the air, ground and water for nearly 80 years that caused birth defects and cancer. |
| JAMAICA: Regulators Mull Viability of Ferti-irrigation
by Patricia Williams, IPS News
December 26th, 2007
Appleton Estates seemed to have solved the centuries old problem of what to do with distillery waste when they started a new project eight years ago. However, they are yet to convince regulators and locals that it is a viable option. |
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