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| USA: Investors Say War Bad For the Economy
by Jim Lobe, Project Against the Present Danger
March 21st, 2003
As the war proceeds in Iraq, debates have already begun over the impact that the war will have on the economy. Perhaps lost amidst this debate is the key question raised by Business Week this week in a lead article headlined "The High Price of Bad Diplomacy." Citing growing fears about instability and the implications of an open-ended '"Bush Doctrine" to fight evil and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) wherever they raise their heads, it noted with characteristic understatement... |
| BRAZIL: South Could Become Stage for Water Wars
by Mario Osava, Inter Press Service
March 21st, 2003
Developing countries rich in water resources could become scenarios of war similar to what is happening today in Iraq if water continues to be privatized and sold like any other merchandise or "good", warned Leonardo Morelli, the organizer of the Social Water Forum, taking place in Brazil. |
| US: Family Farm Organizations Endorse Taco Bell boycott
Coalition of Imokalee Workers
March 19th, 2003
In what is a natural -- but all too rare -- partnership, farmworkers and family farmers have joined forces in the battle against the corporate domination and consolidation of agriculture, as several family farm organizations have endorsed the Taco Bell boycott! |
| USA: Inside Lockheed's $250 Billion Pentagon Connection
by Geoffrey Gray, Village Voice
March 19th, 2003
George Bush has said if he is fortunate enough to be elected president, he is going to look at our whole military situation, including the tactical air account. He's noted that the 3000 number [of planes] seems a bit much. |
| US: Bush May Use Trade Pacts for Iraq Leverage
by Paul Blustein, Washington Post
March 18th, 2003
Maybe it's just a coincidence that the Commerce Department announced decisions in recent days to confer "market-based-economy" status on Bulgaria and Romania, two Eastern European countries that support President Bush's tough stance on Iraq. |
| US: Government Seeks $289 Billion from Tobacco
by Jonathan D. Salant, Associated Press
March 18th, 2003
The nation's tobacco companies should forfeit $289 billion in profits for a scheme to deceive and defraud smokers and the general public, the Justice Department says in court filings. |
| USA: On Eve of War, Washington's Image Plummets in Europe and Russia
by Jim Lobe, InterPress Service
March 18th, 2003
With the launch of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as close as 24 hours, major surveys of eight key European nations have shown a sharp rise in critical attitudes towards the United States, focused particularly on President George W.. Bush's foreign policy. |
| USA: Judge Tosses Bhopal Lawsuit
by Larry Neumeister, Associate Press
March 18th, 2003
NEW YORK -- A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Tuesday that sought damages for those living near the deadly 1984 gas leak that killed thousands in Bhopal, India, saying Union Carbide Corp. had done enough and that too much time had passed. |
| BRAZIL: Weakened Trade Unions Look to Lula for Help
by Mario Osava, Inter Press Service
March 12th, 2003
Trade unions proliferated in Brazil from 1991 to 2001, but their power did not keep in step, says a report that is fuelling debate now that the nation's president is a man was a unionist himself, former metalworker Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. |
| ARGENTINA: Leap in Unsafe Abortions
by Marcela Valente, Inter Press Service
March 12th, 2003
Hospital admissions arising from unsafe abortions in Argentina rose 50 percent in five years, and multiplied by a factor of 2.5 in some provinces -- a lethal consequence of the economic crisis and soaring poverty. |
| USA: Pharmaceutical Company Whistle-Blower Tells of 'Illegal' Tactics
by Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe
March 12th, 2003
David Franklin, the drug company whistle-blower who has sparked federal and state investigations into the marketing of the top-selling drug Neurontin, said yesterday that he and his former colleagues engaged in a series of inappropriate tactics, including misleading doctors to persuade them to prescribe the drug for unapproved uses. |
| USA: Cheney is Still Paid by Pentagon Contractor
by Robert Bryce in Austin, Texas and Julian Borger in Washington, The Guardian
March 12th, 2003
Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney. |
| USA: Secret Bidding on Iraq Contracts Looks Bad
by Mark Tran, The Guardian
March 11th, 2003
The surreptitious way the process for inviting engineering companies to submit bids for the rebuilding of Iraq was handled could lead to more trouble for the Bush administration, writes Mark Tran |
| USA: Firms Set for Postwar Contracts
by Danny Penman and agencies, The Guardian
March 11th, 2003
The American government is on the verge of awarding construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is deposed. |
| World: Prior Informed Consent: Asbestos, Pesticides, Lead
Environmental News Service
March 11th, 2003
An international list of chemicals subject to trade controls will expand to include all forms of asbestos, three pesticides, and two forms of lead if recommendations made by a committee of government appointed experts is approved under the Rotterdam Convention. The international treaty requires exporting countries trading in a list of hazardous substances to obtain the prior informed consent of importing countries before proceeding with the trade. |
| Canada: War May Be Hell But It's Profitable
by Rick Westhead, Toronto Star
March 10th, 2003
The invasion of Iraq hasn't even begun and already Rubar Sandi is drawing up post-war plans to repair decrepit oil wells, overhaul the financial services sector and revamp its economy. |
| Mali: Doubts Grow About Debt Relief
by Emad Mekay, InterPress News Service
March 10th, 2003
International creditors of Mali have agreed to cancel $675 million of its debt over time under a controversial debt relief scheme, rewarding the West African nation for its pro-free market economic restructuring plan, they say. |
| WORLD: Water Privatization Under Fire
Inter Press News Service
March 10th, 2003
Privatization of water services has had negative consequences in many countries, says the environmental network Friends of the Earth International, which urges global resistance to the commercialization of this essential resource. |
| JAPAN: 10,000 at Water Forum to Seek Action, Not Talk
by Sanjay Suri, Inter Press News Service
March 10th, 2003
More than 10,000 delegates who will attend the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto next week will be under pressure to step up water flows, rather than just talk about it. |
| Ghana: Gold Discovered Beneath Forest Reserves
by Mike Anane, Environment News Service
March 4th, 2003
Dozens of bulldozers and excavators belonging to five multinational mining companies operating in Ghana are poised to tear apart thousands of hectares of forest reserves in the Ashanti, Western and Eastern Regions of the country, if the government gives them approval to haul out what they describe as rich deposits of gold beneath the forests |
| USA: Memo Exposes Bush's New Greenwash Strategy
by Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian
March 4th, 2003
The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable. |
| USA: Anti-smoking Measures Gain in Tobacco Country
by David M. Halbfinger, New York Times
March 4th, 2003
LEXINGTON, Ky., Feb. 26 The tobacco patches that cover the hilltops near here are dusted with snow, their sheds locked up till the spring thaw. But what is occupying farmers and politicians across Kentucky, the Carolinas and the rest of tobacco country seems as improbable as a blizzard in August. |
| Burma: Tobacco Giant under Pressure to Pull Out of Joint Venture
by Bob Burton, InterPress Service
March 4th, 2003
CANBERRA- Ahead of its mid-April annual general meeting, British American Tobacco (BAT) is facing increasing pressure from human rights groups in Asia and elsewhere to withdraw from a joint-venture partnership with the Burmese military regime. |
| USA: Group Blasts Dental Academy's Deal with Coca-Cola
by Amy Norton, Reuters
March 4th, 2003
A US interest group on Tuesday sharply criticized the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry's new partnership with soft-drink giant Coca-Cola, saying the deal will make the dental group a "captive" of Coke. |
| USA: Levis is Lone Hold Out in Saipan Suit
by Victor Narro, Sweatshop Watch
March 3rd, 2003
This month, an important event is taking place that should change the lives of workers on Saipan, an island in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and impact the way we address issues of sweatshop throughout the world. |
| USA: Republican "Clear Skies" Toxic to Democrats
Environmental News Service
February 28th, 2003
The Clear Skies initiative, an air quality plan architected by President George W. Bush, was reintroduced in Congress Thursday. It drew immediate criticism from Democrats who vowed to fight the administration's market centered approach to reducing air pollution from power plants. |
| WORLD: The Planet is Running Out of Fresh Water
by Maude Barlow, The Guardian
February 26th, 2003
The private sector was the first to notice: the planet is running out of fresh water at such a rate that soon it will be the most valuable commodity on earth. |
| USA: General/Defense Contractor to Rebuild Iraq
by David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle
February 26th, 2003
The retired general tapped by the Bush administration to oversee rebuilding of post-war Iraq was, until just a few weeks ago, an executive at a leading defense contractor working on missile systems that would be used to bomb Baghdad. |
| USA: Former EPA Chief Blasts "Clear Skies" Emissions Plan
by Christine Suh, United Press International
February 25th, 2003
A former head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday the Bush administration's Clear Skies initiative to cut power plant emissions could leave children vulnerable to mercury exposure. |
| BOLIVIA: Citizens, Media Excluded from Bechtel Trial by World Bank Tribunal
WTO Info
February 25th, 2003
Citizens excluded from $25 million suit against Bolivia for company's failed water privatization scheme Washington, DC- The Bechtel Corporation was handed a powerful victory last week, when a secretive trade court announced that it would not allow the public or media to participate in or even witness proceedings in which Bechtel is suing the people of Bolivia for $25 million. |
| USA: 12 Reasons to Oppose a War with Iraq
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation
February 24th, 2003
With the airwaves and op-ed pages dominated by war-mongers who mock and mischaracterize the burgeoning peace movement, there remains a need to continually reiterate the common-sense reasons to oppose a war. Here are a dozen. |
| USA: GOP Threats Halt GAO Cheney Suit
by Peter Brand and Alexander Bolton, The Hill
February 20th, 2003
Threats by Republicans to cut the General Accounting Office (GAO) budget influenced its decision to abandon a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, The Hill has learned. |
| MEXICO: Toll of Murdered Young Women Tops 300
by Diego Cevallos, IPS
February 20th, 2003
Three more young women were added this week to the list of over 300 like them who since 1993 have been murdered and mutilated in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. |
| USA: Bush Blocks Cheap Drugs for World's Poor
by Charlotte Denny, Guardian/UK
February 19th, 2003
George Bush's close links with the drugs industry were last night blamed for the failure of talks in Geneva aimed at securing access to cheap medicines for developing countries. |
| India: Bottled Water Firms Lose Licenses
Indo-Asian News Service
February 19th, 2003
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The Indian government Wednesday withdrew the licenses of eight bottled water units following reports there were massive doses of pesticides and other chemical contaminants in their products. |
| BRAZIL: Vivendi Moves to Keep Water Company
by Raymond Colitt, Financial Times
February 18th, 2003
Vivendi Environnement will today launch last-ditch negotiations to recover control of a Brazilian water company after a state government said it would take over management from the French utility. |
| Brazil: Hopes Lift at WTO Drugs Talks
by Bayan Rahman, Financial Times
February 17th, 2003
Brazilian proposal at the weekend has raised hopes of a breakthrough in the World Trade Organisation's deadlocked talks on poor ountries' access to essential medicines. |
 | The New Oil Order
by Michael Renner, Foreign Policy in Focus
February 14th, 2003
We take a look at the geopolitics of oil and the role they play in Washington's war on Iraq. |
| JAPAN: Tokyo Meeting Aims To Boost Flagging WTO
by Katharine Millar, Agence France Presse
February 12th, 2003
Trade ministers gather in Tokyo on Friday for a three-day meeting to try to step up the pace of flagging global trade talks, beset by failed deadlines and a lack of progress. Only 25 of the 145 members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have been invited to send ministers to the February 14-16 "mini-ministerial". Their task: to thrash out ideas for giving a boost to negotiations, mainly on greater market access in services, industrial goods and the traditionally-thorniest subject of agriculture. |
| US: Privatized Water Deal Collapses in Atlanta
by Douglas Jehl, New York Times
February 10th, 2003
Privatization has hit the water sector, which has remained mostly the bastion of public utilities. Over the last five years, hundreds of American communities, including Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Gary, Ind., have hired private companies to manage their waterworks, serving about one in 20 Americans. |
| Thailand: Returning Migrants Face Hard Times
by Chayanit Poonyarat, InterPress Service
February 9th, 2003
Many Thai migrant workers look forward to coming home after years of hard lives overseas, but not everyone finds a happy ending. |
| USA: Corporations, War, You
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation
February 6th, 2003
One thing is clear about the Bush administration's current rush to war: It has nothing to do with protecting U.S. security. |
| EL SALVADOR: World Trade Body Ignores Union Appeals Over Treatment of Workers
by Marty Logan, OneWorld US
February 6th, 2003
The World Trade Organization praised El Salvador Wednesday for taking steps to open up its economy, but ignored a damning report from a global grouping of trade unions that accuses the country of dismissing workers' rights, particularly in export processing zones (EPZs), known locally as 'maquilas.' |
| USA: The Kyoto Protocol and Iraq War
by Michael Renner, United Press International
February 5th, 2003
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- As discussion about the looming war in Iraq intensifies in the wake of George Bush's State of the Union address, one item conspicuously absent from news bulletins and pundits' pontifications is the Kyoto protocol. |
| EU: Trade Commission to Block Talks on Public Services Liberalization
by By Tobias Buck in Brussels and Guy de Jonquieres in London, Financial Times
February 5th, 2003
The European Union is expected to bow today to political and popular concern about public services, by ruling out talks in the Doha world trade round on further liberalization of its health, education, energy and water markets. |
| Turkey: Learning To Dance To Bush's Tune
by Adam McConnel, GVNews.Net
February 5th, 2003
ISTANBUL, Feb 05, 2003 -- Under heavy pressure from U.S. officials and the Turkish military, Turkey's leading politicians have signaled a distinct change in attitude towards the United States' Iraq plans. |
| VENEZUELA: Resumed Oil Production Marks Opposition's Defeat
EFE News Service
February 3rd, 2003
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez confirmed Sunday that petroleum production in the country had risen to 1.8 million barrels a day, which represents the "defeat" of the opposition's strike in this economic sector. |
| US: This Gun For Hire
by Dan Baum, Wired
February 1st, 2003
DynCorp has operated in the shadows of the capital for five decades. It is neither the most visible nor the most powerful of the companies that rely on government contracts. But it has thoroughly mastered the byways of Washington, and its purchase by CSC shines a spotlight on the modern military techno-industrial complex. |
| US: Air Force job to send 100 Sytex staffers to Asia
by Harold Brubaker, Philadelphia Inquirer
January 31st, 2003
A Doylestown information technology company signed a five-year, $98 million contract yesterday to provide communications support services to the Air Force in southwestern Asia.
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| South Africa: Mandela Condemns US Stance on Iraq
BBC
January 30th, 2003
Former South African president Nelson Mandela has criticised US President George W Bush over Iraq, saying the sole reason for a possible US-led attack would be to gain control of Iraqi oil. |
| SWITZERLAND: Police Ward Off Protesters at World Economic Forum
by Alan Cowell, New York Times
January 26th, 2003
DAVOS, Switzerland -- While participants in the World Economic Forum here debated the consequences of a possible war in Iraq, police officers with tear-gas grenades and water cannons mounted a huge security operation to keep protesters away from the delegates, who included Secretary of State Colin Powell. |
| USA: US Begins Secret Talks to Secure Iraq's Oilfields
by Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Julian Borger in Washington, Terry Macalister and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian/UK
January 23rd, 2003
The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze. |
| Kuwait: Poway man killed, San Diegan injured
by Bradley J. Fikes, North County Times
January 22nd, 2003
A North County software executive was shot and killed in Kuwait on Tuesday and a colleague injured by the same gunman in an ambush near an American military base.
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| US: Senator to Testify in Oracle/Logicon Inquiry
Los Angeles Times
January 15th, 2003
The grand jury investigating the Davis administration's ill-fated software contract with Oracle Corp. has subpoenaed a state legislator to testify, the first public indication that the state attorney general's office is continuing an active investigation of the matter. |
| INDONESIA: Protesters Challenge Price Increases
BBC News
January 15th, 2003
Hundreds of protesters in Palu, Central Sulawesi, threw rocks at the provincial headquarters of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's political party. Police fired off at least two rounds of warning shots. There have been daily protests since the government increased fuel prices by 22% a fortnight ago as part of a package of economic reforms approved by the International Monetary Fund. |
| Russia: While Washington Waits, Chechnya Threatens to Explode
by William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service
January 8th, 2003
The Republic of Chechnya is poised to explode, and the reverberations are likely to send shock waves throughout the world. Washington has chosen to do nothing about this, to the detriment of the United States and the globe. |
| USA: Unhappy Meals
by Barry Yeoman, Mother Jones magazine
January 6th, 2003
Every weekday at lunch, courtesy of the federal government, more than 27 million schoolchildren sit down to the nation's largest mass feeding. |
| US: Shooting the Messinger -- Report on Layoffs Killed
by David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle
January 3rd, 2003
The Bush administration, under fire for its handling of the economy, has quietly killed off a Labor Department program that tracked mass layoffs by U.S. companies. |
| USA: The Ten Worst Corporations of 2002
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Multinational Monitor
January 3rd, 2003
2002 will forever be remembered as the year of corporate crime, the year even President George Bush embraced the notion of "corporate responsibility." |
| USA: Hundreds of Species Pressured by Global Warming Say Researchers
Environment News Service
January 2nd, 2003
Hundreds of plant and animal species around the world are feeling the impacts of global warming, although the most dramatic effects may not be felt for decades, according to new research from a Stanford University team. They predict that a rapid temperature rise, together with other environmental pressures, "could easily disrupt the connectedness among species" and lead to numerous extinctions. |
| USA: M.I.T. Studies Accused of Covering-Up Flaws in Antimissile System
by William J. Broad, New York Times
January 2nd, 2003
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is looking into accusations that its premier laboratory lied to cover up serious problems with the technology at the heart of the administration's proposed antimissile defense system. |
| Italy: Police Arrest Parmalat Fraud Suspects
by John Tagliabue, New York Times
January 1st, 2003
The S.E.C. has filed a complaint against Parmalat, accusing the company and Mr. Tanzi of selling about $1.5 billion of securities to American investors while engaging in fraud. People close to the company said the investigation was increasingly focused on financial institutions. One institution, Bank of America, became involved in the case earlier this month after it declared that documents appearing to certify an account it supposedly held of a Parmalat subsidiary in the Cayman Islands with the equivalent of $4.2 billion in it were forgeries. |
| US: Seeking Nashville Kurds
Associated Press
December 31st, 2002
Kurdish immigrants in Nashville are among those being recruited in three cities to work as translators for Army troops and personnel in case of war in Iraq.
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| USA: INS Roundups Put Nation's Growing Ethnic Media in Bind
by Sandip Roy, Pacific News Service
December 30th, 2002
As editor of the San Jose-based Farsi monthly Pezhvak, Shahbaz Taheri says he strives to be a bridge between Iranian immigrants and American society. Now he fears he helped deliver some of his readers to jail. |
| US: Arms Factories Pollute Drinking Water
by Peter Waldman, Wall Street Journal
December 16th, 2002
Five years ago, the Voetsches learned that the home they bought in 1970 lies on the edge of a so-called plume of underground water polluted with waste from a nearby missile factory. Among the chemicals found in local drinking wells is perchlorate, the main ingredient of solid rocket fuel and a known toxin. The Voetsches believe it was in their water and, they suspect, their garden soil. "We lived off the land and never thought twice about it," Mr. Voetsch says. |
| Russia: Oil Giants Try to Beat US to Iraqi Reserves
by Nick Paton Walsh, The Guardian
December 11th, 2002
Russian oil companies are trying to secure new contracts with Baghdad in an attempt to dominate Iraq's huge reserves and hold Washington to its promise of respecting Moscow's economic interests in the event of a regime change. |
| Canada: Parliament Backs Kyoto Ratification Plan
by David Ljunggren, Reuters
December 11th, 2002
OTTAWA -- The Canadian Parliament voted Tuesday to support government plans to ratify the Kyoto protocol on cutting greenhouse gases, overriding opponents who say the treaty will hurt Canada's economy. |
| AUSTRALIA: Libel Case Could Change Internet Future
by David Fickling and Stuart Millar, The Guardian
December 11th, 2002
Once it was heralded as the last bastion of freedom of speech, a realm which transcended national law and the whims of the courts. But last night the internet was facing up to a harsh new reality after Australia's supreme court ruled that a local businessman could sue a website for libel in Melbourne even though it was based in the United States. |
| World: IMF Strong-Arms Debtors Despite New Lending Guidelines
by Emad Mekay, InterPress Service
December 10th, 2002
WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (IPS) -- Three months ago the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it had adopted a new set of lending guidelines that would permit borrowing countries to take control of their economies like never before. |
| LATIN AMERICA: Is FTAA Integration or Annexation?
by Cecilia Remn, Latin America Press
December 9th, 2002
"We don't want to be an American colony!" shouted demonstrators who staged massive protests in Quito, Ecuador, on Oct. 31, as the region's trade ministers held their seventh meeting on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Meanwhile, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets of So Paulo to protest the deal, set to take effect in 2005, which would create the world's largest free-trade zone, with a market of 800 million people. |
| USA: Groups Sue Government Agency Over Global Warming
by Jim Lobe, InterPress Service
December 5th, 2002
WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (IPS) -- Amid growing anger among environmentalists over the record and intentions of President George W. Bush, three major U.S. environmental groups said Thursday they are suing his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to curb global warming. |
| CHINA: Democracy Websites Censored
The Guardian
December 4th, 2002
Internet sites containing the words "democracy", "Tibet" and "Taiwan" are among those most frequently blocked by the Chinese government, a study of Chinese net access has revealed |
| Kazakhstan: Oil Money Threatens to Make Killing Fields
by Paul Brown, The Guardian
December 4th, 2002
ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN December 4, 2002 -- The largest oil find for more than 20 years -- almost the size of the world's biggest, the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia -- is being developed in the Caspian Sea amid growing anger from the local people. |
| INDIA: After Beatings, Activists Promised Access to Bhopal Site
by Ranjit Devraj, InterPress Service
December 4th, 2002
NEW DELHI, Dec 4 (IPS) -- After brutal beatings and police detention, environmental activists have been promised free access to the pesticides factory in central Bhopal city which 18 years ago was the scene of the world's worst ever industrial disaster. |
| France: Kyoto Remains a Distant Goal
by Julio Godoy, InterPress Service
December 3rd, 2002
PARIS, Dec 3 (IPS) -- France has made considerable progress in reduction of greenhouse gases, but will still fail to meet the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol if it does not intensify efforts to reduce emissions, according to a new official report. |
| USA: Appeals Court Blocks California Offshore Oil Drilling
by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service
December 3rd, 2002
SAN FRANCISCO, California, December 3, 2002 (ENS) -- For a second time, the courts have ruled against federal plans to resume oil and natural gas drilling off the California coast. A three judge panel from a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the government illegally extended 36 undeveloped oil leases off the central California coast, effectively blocking the renewal of the decades old leases. |
| EU: 'Rust Bucket' Tankers Blacklisted
by Gareth Harding, UPI
December 3rd, 2002
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The European Commission Tuesday published a list of tankers to be banned from EU waters after an aging vessel sunk off northwest Spain, dumping thousands of tons of oil into the Atlantic Ocean. |
| USA:Former El Paso VP Indicted on Bogus Trade Charges
Reuters
December 3rd, 2002
A former vice president and natural gas trader from El Paso Corp. will appear before a U.S. magistrate in Houston on Wednesday to face charges he reported bogus trades to an industry journal in 2001, the prosecutor said. |
| Mexico: NAFTA Equals Death, Say Peasant Farmers
by Diego Cevallos, InterPress Service
December 3rd, 2002
MEXICO CITY, Dec 3 (IPS) -- More than 2,000 peasant farmers from throughout Mexico staged a protest Tuesday in the capital to demand a freeze on the agricultural provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which they blame for most of their economic and social woes. |
| USA: Congress Rewards Corporate Tax Evaders With US Taxpayers' Money
by Arianna Huffington, AlterNet
December 2nd, 2002
As the war on terror shows troubling signs of becoming a war of error, the Bush administration is waging a far more successful war on behalf of its corporate backers. The latest victory comes courtesy of Congress' 11th hour reversal of a provision in the Homeland Security Bill banning government contracts for companies that move offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes. |
| UN: Water Deemed As Public Good, Human Right
by Gustavo Capdevila, InterPress Service
November 27th, 2002
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights issued a statement Wednesday declaring access to water a human right and stating that water is a social and cultural good, not merely an economic commodity. |
| WORLD: Labor Dispute at the WTO
by Andrew Casey, Labour News Network
November 21st, 2002
Staff employed by the World Trade Organisation have begun an industrial campaign against their bosses over a salary dispute. WTO staff met last week and unanimously decided that the Staff Council should formulate a strong action plan which would steadily escalate. |
| ARGENTINA: Workers Take Factories into Their Own Hands
by Pablo Waisberg, Latin America Press
November 21st, 2002
Last December, overwhelmed by debt and the countrys economic chaos, the Brukman brothers left their high-end suit factory in Buenos Aires and never returned. They also left more than 100 employees awaiting back pay. |
| US: Cosmetics Industry Approves Controversial Chemicals
by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service
November 20th, 2002
The U.S. Cosmetics Ingredients Review panel has approved the continued use of phthalates in cosmetics, concluding that the chemicals are "safe as currently used." Activist groups, noting that the European Union has just ordered the phase out of some phthalates in cosmetics, said the panel's decision leaves U.S. women at risk of exposure to chemicals that some tests suggest may be linked to birth defects. |
| BRAZIL: Debt Takes Precedence Over War on Child Labor
by Ricardo de Bittencourt, InterPress Service
November 20th, 2002
Child labor has not yet been eradicated in Brazil due to cutbacks in social spending aimed at ensuring payments on the foreign debt, Social Watch, an international network linking non-governmental organisations from 60 countries, said Wednesday. |
| US: AOL, Cendant Added to Homestore Pension Fund Suit
Reuters
November 17th, 2002
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- AOL Time Warner Inc. and Cendant Corp. were among 16 companies that contributed to the financial collapse of online real estate firm Homestore.com, a California retirement fund has alleged in a lawsuit. |
| INDIA: Microsoft Giveaway Drowns Out Open-Source Software Movement
Associated Press
November 14th, 2002
BANGALORE, India -- Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, visited this information technology hub earlier this month to try to persuade leaders that Microsoft and other purveyors of proprietary software are poison. |
| US: More Federal Web Sites Targeted for Shutdown
by William Matthews, Federal Computer Week
November 13th, 2002
Having persuaded the Energy Department to pull the plug on PubScience, a Web site that offered free access to scientific and technical articles, commercial publishers are taking aim at government-funded information services offering free legal and agricultural data. |
| USA: Apartheid Victims Sue Global Corporations
by Alison Raphael, OneWorld U.S.
November 13th, 2002
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in the New York District Court demands reparations from 20 banks and corporations that supplied critical support to the apartheid regime that ruled South Africa until 1994. |
| UK: Former Tobacco Executive Faces Embarrassment over Burma Link
by Alison Maitland and Jean Eaglesham, Financial Times
November 12th, 2002
Kenneth Clarke, former chancellor and deputy chairman of British American Tobacco, faces severe embarrassment today over revelations that he criticised companies investing in Burma -- where BAT has a joint venture with the military junta. |
| BOLIVIA: Time to Open Up Secret Trade Courts
by Jim Shultz, Pacific News Service
November 8th, 2002
Two years ago, rioters protesting increased water rates forced a Bechtel, U.S. company, in Bolivia to pack its bags and leave. Now, in a harbinger of the loss of local control through globalization, the corporation is striking back in secret proceedings. |
| US/China: Up Against the Firewall
by Ethan Gutmann, RedHerring.com
November 8th, 2002
Why are American corporations, which have labored hard to present positive global images, providing censorship and surveillance technologies to what many see as China's Big Brother Internet? The short answer: money. Building China's Internet means making lots of it, and companies that want access to this new market often must give the Chinese leadership what it demands. |
| USA: Drug Industry Poised to Reap Political Dividends
by Vicki Kemper, Los Angeles Times
November 8th, 2002
Few industries campaigned harder than pharmaceutical manufacturers to elect Republicans to the new Congress, and few industries are better positioned to reap the rewards of the election returns, analysts said Thursday. |
| ECUADOR: Anti-Free Trade Protests in Quito End on Positive Note
Food First
November 1st, 2002
The protests against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) --and the police violence that rocked Quito during the day yesterday--ended on a positive note for protesters in the evening, putting the Bush Administration's negotiator, Robert Zoellick, in an embarrassing and awkward position. |
| India: Dissent Clouds Delhi Climate Declaration
Environment News Service
November 1st, 2002
Negotiators at the United Nations conference on climate change emerged from last minute discussions today with consensus on a final resolution, but there is concern that the heated debate of the past 10 days has resulted in little progress |
| US: Is Google Power a Threat to the Web?
by Stefanie Olsen, ZDNet.com
October 31st, 2002
In the dot-com shakeout, Google has not only survived but reigns supreme. Web surfers have flocked to the service, effectively voting it the best search engine around. So powerful has Google become that many companies view it as the Web itself: If you're not listed on its indexes, they say, you might as well not exist. And if you don't advertise on Google or otherwise curry favor, critics add, you may never find out what it takes to get a prominent listing. |
| UK: BP Chief Fears US Will Carve up Iraqi Oil Riches
by Terry Macalister, The Guardian
October 30th, 2002
Lord Browne, chief executive of BP and one of New Labour's favourite industrialists, has warned Washington not to carve up Iraq for its own oil companies in the aftermath of any future war. |
| Iraq: Despite Embargo, Baghdad Gets Winstons; Who's to Blame?
by Steve Stecklow and Alix M. Freedman, The Wall St. Journal
October 30th, 2002
Immediately after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, billions of Winstons and other American-brand cigarettes began turning up inside Iraq. Even now,the flow continues.Under U.S. trade sanctions, companies that make cigarettes in the U.S. can't knowingly sell them in the Iraqi market -- either directly or through intermediaries -- unless they obtain a license from the U.S. government. |
| World: US Holds Back Agreement on Global Warming
Environment News Service
October 30th, 2002
NEW DELHI, India -- The refusal of the United States to support the Kyoto Protocol continues to hamper negotiations at the United Nations climate change conference. As the talks near completion, deep divisions remain between negotiators over the roles of the industrialized and developing worlds in the effort to address climate change. |
| INDIA: Activists Protest Stance at UN Climate Talks
by Kalyani, OneWorld South Asia
October 29th, 2002
Lambasting a United Nations-sponsored meeting on climate for failing to provide a platform for those communities already affected by pollution-related climate change, environmental groups said Tuesday that they would mobilize a global network to amplify these voices. |
| BRAZIL: Lula Wins Landslide Elections
by Scott Wilson, Washington Post
October 28th, 2002
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former union leader who never attended college, won a landslide victory today in a Brazilian presidential election that reflected the disenchantment sweeping much of Latin America after a decade of free-market reforms that have failed to deliver promised prosperity. |
| US: Thousands March on Capital to Condemn Iraq War
by Katherine Stapp, InterPress Service
October 27th, 2002
In the largest U.S. anti-war protest in recent memory, at least 75,000 demonstrators encircled the White House on Saturday to demand a diplomatic solution to escalating tensions with Iraq. |
| US: Tech Budget Cuts Gut IT Headcounts, Salaries
by Lisa Vaas, eWeek.com
October 25th, 2002
Reducing cost is now the No. 1 IT priority for U.S. businesses, according to a recent study from Meta Group Inc. But there's not much left to cut, what with the past few years' drastic staffing reductions and contract renegotiations. |
| USA: Feds Pushing Toxic Anthrax Drug?
by Elliot Borin, Wired.com
October 24th, 2002
Many veterans' advocates believe a certain anthrax vaccine to be a major cause of Gulf War sickness. The company manufacturing it has launched a massive lobbying campaign to persuade the Bush administration to stockpile the controversial drug so it can be administered to civilians. |
| US: The Breast Cancer Money-Go-Round
by Lynn Landes, Alternet
October 23rd, 2002
Most of the well-financed breast cancer organizations make little or no mention of the non-genetic causes of breast cancer. Go to their websites. Read their literature. These organizations don't focus on the environmental and pharmacological causes of this epidemic because it's a dank dark alley that leads right to their corporate sponsors. |
| World: Skepticism Hangs over Climate Change Meeting
by Ranjit Devraj, Inter Press Service
October 23rd, 2002
Another round of international talks on curbing global climate change began Wednesday in India, a country that sees the United States and the developed world as being part of the problem rather than the solution to global warming. |
| USA: Enron Election Fallout Expected to be Minor
by Michael Hedges, Houston Chronicle
October 22nd, 2002
WASHINGTON -- After Enron went through its high-profile collapse, elected officials trembled at the price they might have to pay this November. |
| Burma: Oil Giant Denies Workers' Claim of Forced Labor
by Kalyani, OneWorld South Asia
October 22nd, 2002
French oil giant TotalFina-Elf flatly rejected accusations by a global trade union body Monday that its investments in Myanmar (formerly Burma) were directly linked to forced labor used for road-building and other heavy work around the Yadana oil pipeline off the country's southwest coast. |
| WORLD: Law to Protect Migrant Workers Short One Vote
by Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service
October 22nd, 2002
A United Nations convention aimed at protecting the rights of migrant workers worldwide needs to be ratified by only one more country before it becomes international law. |
| US: Slowdown Sending Tech Jobs Overseas
by Jennifer Bjorhus, San Jose Mercury News
October 21st, 2002
The U.S. economy might be stalling, but at least one niche is hot: shipping technology jobs offshore. The economic slowdown is speeding up the export of jobs, experts say. As executives face smaller budgets and more pressure for profits, they find it much cheaper to send work to contractors overseas. More U.S. companies are following Silicon Valley's lead by shifting engineering and other technology-related jobs to places such as China, Ireland, India and the Philippines to cut costs. |
| UK: Tobacco Advertising Ban Passed
by Mike Peacock, Reuters
October 21st, 2002
LONDON -- Legislation to ban tobacco advertising in Britain cleared its last parliamentary hurdle on Monday and is set to become law. |
| WORLD: Call for Reparations to Indebted Countries
by Alejandro Kirk, Inter Press Service
October 21st, 2002
The external debt of developing countries should not just be cancelled but the debtors compensated, civil society activists told a meeting of international officials, business leaders, scientists and non-governmental organizations members in Prague Saturday. |
| World: AIDS Activists Mobilize Against Coca-Cola
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
October 17th, 2002
AIDS activists are preparing rallies and demonstrations Thursday in several cities around the world to protest against global soft-drink giant Coca-Cola, which they charge must do more to help and treat its HIV-infected workers and their families in sub-Saharan Africa. |
| World: WHO Chief Renews Attack on Tobacco
by Clare Nullis, Associated Press
October 15th, 2002
GENEVA -- Warning that delay means more deaths, World Health Organization chief Gro Harlem Brundtland urged governments Tuesday to agree to sweeping anti-smoking restrictions and tighter controls on the tobacco industry. |
| USA: Harken and Halliburton Back in the News
The Daily Enron
October 10th, 2002
First, the Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe let loose on W. Bush. The papers disclosed that while a director and paid consultant for Harken Energy Bush had actively participated in the creation of off-the-books accounting gimmicks to hide company debt and raise the company's stock price. The deal, which the company did in conjunction with Harvard Management, created an off-the-books partnership strikingly similar to the kind Enron used to accomplish the same goals -- and which Bush has condemned. |
| US: GAO Won't Touch WorldCom Defense Deal
by Renae Merle, Washington Post
October 10th, 2002
The General Accounting Office (GAO) dismissed protests by two competitors to WorldCom Corp.'s $450 million Defense Department contract, despite acknowledging that the agency "relied on grossly inaccurate financial information" in making the award. |
| USA: Bush Oil Firm Did Enron-Style Deal
by Greg Frost, Reuters
October 9th, 2002
BOSTON -- President Bush's former oil firm formed a partnership with Harvard University that concealed the company's financial woes and may have misled investors, a student and alumni group said in a report on Wednesday. |
| US: New Eco-Menace, Discarded Cellphones
by Anahad O'Connor, New York Times
October 8th, 2002
As the nation's fondness for cellphones grows, the environmental effects do, too. According to industry figures, cellphone use in the United States has surged, to more than 128 million subscribers last year from 340,000 in 1985. Typically, each phone is used for 18 months before being dropped for a newer model. |
| USA: Bush Intervenes in Port Lockout
by Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
October 7th, 2002
President Bush took the first step on Monday toward forcing an end to a lockout at West Coast ports, citing concerns about the fragile U.S. economy, but top Democrats and union officials blasted the move as heavy-handed and demonstrating anti-labor bias. |
| US: Copyright Bill Gives Power to People
by Michael Grebb, Wired.com
October 4th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- With talk of preemptive war all the rage on Capitol Hill, it seems that such posturing has extended into the world of digital copyright law. |
| US: Dockworker Lockout Shuts Down West Coast
by George Raine and Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle
October 3rd, 2002
West Coast dockworkers and the shippers who employ them agreed to federal mediation Wednesday, providing a glimmer of hope in the bitter labor lockout that has paralyzed trade at 29 ports from Seattle to San Diego. |
| Brazil: Will the Workers Party Win the Elections?
by Mark Tran, Guardian
October 2nd, 2002
Come Sunday, Latin America's biggest country could elect its first leftwing leader for 40 years, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers party. With 41% support in the polls and 20 points ahead of the next challenger - ruling party candidate Jose Serra - Lula, as he is commonly known, could win the presidency outright in the first round. |
| USA: Critics Detail Risks of Colombian Coca Spraying
by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service
October 1st, 2002
A U.S. State Department report on aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia fails to prove that the pesticide program does not harm the environmentor pose safety risks to humans, charge six independent reviews released Monday by scientists and advocacy groups. The groups argue that the U.S. cannot authorize more funds for the controversial program until it can rule out health and environmental risks from the spraying. |
| US: Lawsuit Seeks IPO Profits From Five Executives
Washington Post
October 1st, 2002
NEW YORK (September 30) -- New York's attorney general today sought to force five telecommunications executives to give up millions of dollars in profits they earned selling shares in companies going public during the Internet boom. |
| US: Activists Decry Police Tactics in Anti-Globalization Protests
Agence France Presse
October 1st, 2002
Police used unconstitutional tactics and abused their authority when they arrested hundreds during the weekend anti-globalization protests, activists charged. Police arrested more than 650 people in three days of protests coinciding with the annual World Bank and IMF meetings. |
| US: A Wartime Bonanza
by Michelle Ciarrocca, AlterNet
September 30th, 2002
President Bush's military budget increase and the war time "unity" on Capitol Hill have created an environment in which weapons makers can enjoy the best of both worlds – continuing to make money on the weapons systems of the cold war while reaping the benefits of a war time bonanza of new defense contracts. |
| UK: De Beers Changes Its Name to Element Six
Canada NewsWire
September 30th, 2002
CO. CLARE, Ireland (September 30) -- From October 1st, 2002, the De Beers Industrial Diamonds group of companies (Debid) including Drukker International, will become Element Six. The new corporate and brand name is derived from the fact that diamond is a form of carbon, and carbon is the sixth element in the periodic table. The companies feel that the choice of this name encompasses their several businesses in an imaginative and differentiating way, reflecting the modern industrial diamond industry. |
| US: Protestors Call for Environmenal and Economic Justice at World Bank Meeting
by Roxanne Khamsi, Environment News Service
September 29th, 2002
Dupont Circle was full to capacity this afternoon with several thousand people for a permitted rally protesting economic and environmental injustice, and the possibility of war in Iraq. The protest was part of a weekend of demonstrations timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. |
| US: Sweatshop Case Settles for $20M
by Alexei Oreskovic, The Recorder
September 27th, 2002
Three overseas sweatshop lawsuits involving dozens of the United States' largest retailers and a 30,000-member class of garment workers have settled for $20 million. |
| USA: Beach Banking Babylon
by Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate
September 26th, 2002
AUSTIN, Texas -- The economy is a mess. We are now in the second dip of a double-dip recession. (''Looks like a W,'' say the economists, another reason why economists are not famous for their humor.) Six and a quarter trillion dollars has disappeared from the stock markets. We have so far to go in cleaning up corporate corruption, it makes the Augean stables look like spilt milk. |
| US: Telecom Swap Meet
by Cynthia L. Webb, WashingtonPost.com
September 25th, 2002
Surprise, surprise. Some big telecoms, just like a variety of other New Economy firms, engaged in questionable accounting practices to inflate revenues. In the case of several brand-name telecoms, the companies swapped bandwidth capacity with each other and then booked the deals as revenue. Revelations of just how far many companies took this scheme -- including allegations of verbal agreements made in tandem with written contracts -- were highlighted at a congressional hearing yesterday. |
| AUSTRALIA: Police Seek to Shut Down WTO Protest Sites
Sydney Morning Herald
September 25th, 2002
New South Wales (NSW) Police Minister Michael Costa has asked the Federal Government to shut down websites with instructions to disrupt a World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Sydney. |
| PERU: Women to be Reckoned With
by Barbara J. Fraser, LatinAmericaPress.org
September 24th, 2002
In a remote mining camp, small businesses give women economic security -- and freedom. High on an arid western slope of the Andes, Santa Filomena is nearly invisible from a distance. The cluster of straw-mat shacks is barely distinguishable from the surrounding hills. There is no water or greenery, and until recently, there was not even an electric light. But for nearly 15 years, the village has attracted settlers from as far away as Piura, in the north, as well as the local department of Ayacucho. |
| JAPAN: Panel Adopts Outline for Intellectual Property Legislation
The Japan Times
September 20th, 2002
A government panel adopted on Thursday an outline for proposed legislation aimed at promoting and protecting intellectual property rights, such as patents and copyrights. The proposed law is designed to encourage the transfer of intellectual property from academic institutions to corporations, according to the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property. |
| USA: The Vast Sucking Sound of White Collar Crime
by Farai Chedeya, Pop and Politics.com
September 18th, 2002
The only paper I read with regularity these days is the Wall Street Journal. Although its editorial writers are patently insane, the news and feature writers have recently dedicated themselves to thoughtful pieces on what should be the most important story of our day: the collapse of our economy. |
| Canada: Firm Paid Bribes to Win Lesotho Dam Job
Environment News Service
September 18th, 2002
MASERU, Lesotho -- Advocates of corporate accountability are pointing to the sweeping implications of a landmark verdict delivered Tuesday by the High Court in the tiny kingdom of Lesotho that a Canadian multinational company was guilty of paying bribes to win contracts on a dam project. |
| USA: When It's Over, Who Gets the Oil?
by Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway, Washington Post
September 16th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- A U.S.-led ouster of President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and Iraqi opposition leaders. |
| Chad/Cameroon: World Bank OKs Pipeline
Environment News Service
September 16th, 2002
WASHINGTON, DC -- The construction of a 650 mile long buried pipeline to carry oil from landlocked Chad in central Africa to Cameroon's Atlantic coast is one step closer to reality over the objections of environmental and human rights groups. |
| US: Enron's Giant Bandwith Scam
by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron
September 13th, 2002
At some point it dawned on the wheeler-dealers at Enron that selling real things - like gas and oil - had it limits. What they needed were products that had no physical limits. Energy contract futures were their first discovery, and how sweet they were. No more messy oil or smelly gas to deliver - just electronic bookkeeping notations. That's when Jeffrey Skilling discovered a product so ephemeral it bordered on metaphysical - bandwidth. |
| US: Nuclear Reactor Guards Feel Vulnerable to Attack
by Cat lazaroff, Environment News Service
September 12th, 2002
Security guards protecting 24 of the nation's nuclear reactors, located at 13 power plants across the U.S., have little confidence that they could defeat a determined terrorist attack, finds a new report by a nonprofit nuclear watchdog group. The guards told interviewers that their morale is very low, and that they are under equipped, understaffed, and underpaid. |
| WORLD: International Criminal Court Unlikely to Prosecute Environmental Crime
Environment News Service
September 9th, 2002
The International Criminal Court is not likely to prosecute environmental crimes due to military actions, a new report prepared for the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute concludes. It examines the possibilities of environmental damage during military action becoming a criminal liability for military personnel and/or their contractors before the newly formed International Criminal Court (ICC). |
| MALAYSIA: Dark Twist in WTC Scraps' End
Associated Press
September 9th, 2002
In a twist of commercial fate, metal chunks from the World Trade Center are being melted down and recycled at a Malaysian factory -- an hour's drive from a spot where some of the Sept. 11 hijackers plotted. At the huge mill in Banting, outside Malaysia's largest city, Kuala Lumpur, shredded pieces of the fallen twin towers are among scrap headed for furnaces to be rolled into coils of flat steel used to make automobile panels and pipe, among other products. |
| South Africa: Earth Summit Plan of Action Adopted
Environment News Service
September 4th, 2002
Negotiators for 191 countries attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development have agreed upon a Plan of Action to alleviate poverty and conserve the Earth's natural resources. Summit delegates are expected to adopt the action plan, with a political declaration, at the conclusion of the summit on Wednesday. |
| USA: IRS Kicks Back Corporate Fines
by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron
September 4th, 2002
Ever wonder why it is that when a company gets caught lying to, and/or cheating investors that they so often settle the case quickly, agreeing to pay millions of dollars back but ''without admitting or denying'' they did anything wrong? |
| WORLD: New WTO Director Submits Plans for South
by Gustavo Capdevila, Inter Press Service
September 2nd, 2002
The new director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), economist Supachai Panitchpakdi, outlined a long-term assistance plan for developing countries and a project for opening of a branch office in Africa on his first day on the job Monday. |
| USA: What Do You Mean 'Us,' Boss?
by Steven Greenhouse, New York Times
September 2nd, 2002
Not long ago, before the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other companies, workers often saw themselves as management's best buddies. Gone was the old, us-against-them mentality in which workers viewed C.E.O.'s as robber barons intent on squeezing them for every last dollar. |
| South Africa: U.S., Saudis Oppose Summit Plan on Energy
Washington Post
August 28th, 2002
The United States, Saudi Arabia and other wealthy nations reportedly worked today to water down proposals at a U.N. summit to rapidly expand the use of clean, renewable energy technologies. |
| USA: Enron Puts Assets Up for Sale
CNN/Money
August 27th, 2002
NEW YORK -- Bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. started taking bids Tuesday for 12 assets, including electric utilities and natural gas pipelines, that make up a large portion of Enron's total holdings. |
| USA: Export Agencies Sued Over Global Warming
The Washington Post
August 27th, 2002
Two environmental groups and the city of Boulder, Colo.,plan to file a lawsuit today charging two federal agencies with contributing to climate change through their financing policies. |
| South Africa: Bhopal Tragedy Lives on at Earth Summit
by Maria Abraham, Reuters
August 27th, 2002
BOMBAY -- An exhibition of black-and-white photographs capturing the suffering of victims of the world's worst industrial accident is set to open in Johannesburg on Tuesday to coincide with the Earth Summit. |
| US: Government Secrecy and Corporate Crime
by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron
August 27th, 2002
What began with Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal 15 months ago to make his energy task force documents public expanded quickly to include policy making at virtually every level of government. And, after September 11, the blanket of secrecy - which had until then only covered the brass breasts of the DOJ's Lady Justice statue - darkened some of America's most valued constitutional protections. |
| US: Recasting the Web, Info Commons to Cash Cow
by Karen Charman, Extra!
August 26th, 2002
If the Bush administration lets large media conglomerates and local telephone companies have their way, the Internet as we know it -- that free-flowing, democratic, uncensored information superhighway -- could soon be a thing of the past. |
| USA: Holcim -- Global Greenwasher
by Lucy Komisar, Pacific News Service
August 26th, 2002
Along with environmentalists and community activists, big business has descended upon Johannesburg, South Africa, to tout its own "green" growth strategies in the summit on Earth-friendly development. But if the environmental record of one key corporate player is any indication, the overtures are pure "greenwash." |
| USA: What About Corporate Terrorism?
by David Moberg, Newsday
August 23rd, 2002
Until 1998 Sherri Bufkin happily worked as a manager for Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel, N.C. But in 1997, when workers in the giant meatpacking plant there began to organize a union, her superiors - she has testified - forced her to join their campaign to "do whatever was necessary to keep [the union] out." |
| South Africa: Business Role is Greeted with Some Suspicion
by Vanessa Houlder, Financial Times
August 23rd, 2002
Battle lines are being drawn up as delegates gather for the summit. For some governments, it is an opportunity to promote the role of business in sustainable development. But many campaigners have the opposite goal: to stem the tide of corporate influence over social and environmental policy. |
| South Africa: Working the Web--Johannesburg Summit
by Felicity Carus, The Guardian
August 22nd, 2002
108 heads of state from 172 countries were busy saving the planet at the earth summit Rio. It is difficult to say how the earth summit has improved the environment and helped those most in need. But it is much easier to say that in 1992, the web was a toddler in contrast to the speeding giant of mass communications it now is, giving a voice to all who can get online. |
| S. Asia: Leaders Need Fresh Approach to End Hunger, Say Experts
by Kalyani, OneWorld South Asia
August 22nd, 2002
Governments in South Asia are failing to make significant progress in reducing high levels of hunger in the region because they are not aware of the difficulties faced by farmers, a New Delhi-based campaigns group said Wednesday. |
| USA: Enron Exec Kopper Cops a Plea
by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron
August 22nd, 2002
Yesterday former Enron insider Michael Kopper copped a plea. The former assistant to former Enron CFO, Andrew Fastow, jumped the first deal-express leaving the Department of Justice. |
| Brazil: IMF Loan Leaves Next President Little Room to Maneuver
by Matthew Flynn, Americas Program
August 21st, 2002
The U.S. administration's backing of a $30 billion loan package arranged for Brazil by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) marks an abrupt change in President George W. Bush's policy of not bailing out developing countries, and its impact may be seen in the results of October elections in the hemisphere's biggest country. |
| India: Cadbury's Ad Outrages Citizens
by Claire Cozens, The Guardian, UK
August 20th, 2002
Confectionery giant Cadbury's has committed a gaffe of epic proportions after comparing a brand of chocolate to the disputed territory of Kashmir and describing both as "too good to share". |
| Pacific Islands: Climate Change, Radiation Concern Leaders
Environment News Service
August 19th, 2002
Government leaders of 16 Pacific Island nations expressed "deep concerns" about the adverse impacts of climate change, climate variability and sea level rise as the 33rd Pacific Islands Forum closed in Suva on Saturday. Many of these small and low lying island nations are already experiencing extreme hardship. |
| USA: Bush Turns His Back on Earth Summit
Environment News Service
August 19th, 2002
Secretary of State Colin Powell will lead the American delegation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa from August 26 through September 4. President George W. Bush made the announcement late today, giving no explanation as to why he will not be attending the summit to join 106 other world leaders on the speaker's podium. |
| Uruguay: Latest Country to Reel Under Latin American Crisis
by Andrs Gaudin, Latin America Press
August 19th, 2002
Uruguay, once the Southern Cone's financial paradise, found itself in the eye of a new political and economic storm stemming from the crisis that has rocked Argentina since December. |
| USA: Chief Economic Advisor Undermines Bush on SSI Reform
by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron
August 19th, 2002
Was I the only editorial writer that noticed the remarkable comment by President Bush's chief economic advisor Saturday? Lawrence Lindsey was doing his bit this weekend to put the best possible face on last week's embarrassingly vacuous Waco economic summit. One of his stops was CNN's Novak, Hunt & Shields. |
| ASIA: Globalization Critics Gain from US Corp Scandals
by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service
August 13th, 2002
The timing of the scandals is apt, say some critics from South and South-east Asia, who ended a three-day conference here Monday. The crisis in corporate America comes at a moment when the Anti-Globalization movement in the region is reasserting itself after losing some steam following the September 11th attacks on the United States, they add. |
| USA: Blowing the Whistle on West Nile and Pesticides
by Lynn Landes, CommonDreams.org
August 12th, 2002
I'm reminded of the 1950's...TV newscasts showing clouds of DDT sprayed on a clueless public, compromising their health and contaminating the environment for decades to come, as Rachel Carson writes "Silent Spring." But the time is now, other toxic pesticides have joined the ranks in our wayward war against mosquitoes, and the Rachels of today are drowned out by a media rushing to sound the alarm, rather than report the news. |
| S. Asia: Brown Cloud Threatens Health, Agriculture, Climate
Envirronment News Service
August 12th, 2002
A hazy brown cloud covering South Asia to a depth of three kilometers (two miles) is disrupting seasonal monsoon weather patterns, damaging agriculture, and risking the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the region, scientists working with an United Nations study said today. |
| Canada: Native Premier Stands Firm on Global Warming
by By Jim Bell, Environment News Service
August 9th, 2002
Premier Paul Okalik used a simple story about his children to help derail Alberta's attempt to forge an anti-Kyoto Protocol consensus among Canadian premiers meeting in Halifax. |
| Brazil: Stocks Surge After IMF Bailout, Problems Remain
by Peter Muello, Associated Press
August 8th, 2002
Brazil's currency and stock prices soared Thursday on optimism that a $30 billion aid package from the International Monetary Fund will calm skittish investors, although the underlying problems that fed market anxieties haven't gone away. |
| USA: Cheney Dodges Halliburton Questions
by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron
August 8th, 2002
Vice President Dick Cheney ventured out of hiding yesterday. It was his first public appearance since becoming embroiled in allegations that his former company, Halliburton, cooked its books during his tenure as CEO. |
| USA: State Department Tries to Get ExxonMobil Suit Dropped
by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service
August 7th, 2002
Weeks before the State Department told a trial judge that a lawsuit against oil giant ExxonMobil for alleged human rights abuses in Indonesia could endanger Washington's 'war on terror', Indonesia hinted the suit might put U.S. interests at risk, says Human Rights Watch (HRW). |
| US: Store Customer Cards a Source for FBI?
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, FoxNews.com
August 1st, 2002
WASHINGTON -- So you have a secret craving for Little Debbie peanut butter bars and a penchant for Kendall-Jackson merlot? While that customer loyalty card at the supermarket might perceivably save you a few pennies at the checkout counter, your buying habits could end up in the hands of government agents. |
| UN: Health Activists Ask UNICEF to Dump McDonald's
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
August 1st, 2002
An international coalition of public-health professionals and activists has asked the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to stop "lending its good name and endorsement to McDonald's" and cancel its participation with the fast-food giant in 'World Children's Day' on November 20. |
| USA: Hormone Replacement Only the Tip of the Iceberg
by Lynn Landes, AlterNet
July 31st, 2002
The HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) scandal is bigger than most think. It's not just about menopausal women, like me, getting bad information from their physicians and the pharmaceutical industry for over 40 years, while the federal government stood by and did nothing. The scandal is much bigger than that. |
| USA: Harken Had Offshore Tax Shelter
by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron
July 31st, 2002
The New York Daily News reported today in an exclusive story that Harken Energy Corp. set up an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to avoid US taxes during the time President Bush saton Harken's board of directors. |
| USA: Report Cites Surge in CO2 Emissions
by Eric Pianin, Washington Post
July 31st, 2002
U.S. cars and light trucks produce a fifth of all carbon dioxide in this country associated with problems of global warming, and those emissions have begun to surge after decades of steady decline, a new study says. |
| USA: Politics Cleared Way for Financial Scandals
by Molly Ivins, Boulder Daily Camera
July 31st, 2002
The New Yorker magazine published an amusing parody on recent business scandals last week, including this gem: "Mr. Cheney called for an end to innuendo about his activities in a now bankrupt Pitcairn Island firm that sold itself the air rights to a million acres of West Texas flatlands, deducted the transaction from its taxes as an entertainment expense, then borrowed $14 million interest-free from the Lichtenstein bank it owned, using its assets of company-acquired Callaway golf clubs as collateral, to finance the purchase of gifts for some Bessarabian oil prospectors who were then passing through Dallas." |
| US: ACLU Pushes for Open Access
by Troy Wolverton, ZDNet News
July 30th, 2002
The Internet's status as an open forum for ideas will come under attack if cable companies aren't forced to open up their broadband networks to rivals, civil liberties and consumer advocacy groups said Monday. |
| USA: Bush on Verge of Fast-Track Trade Victory
by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service
July 30th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President George W. Bush is on the verge of winning ''fast-track'' authority to negotiate new trade agreements, but at the expense of human rights and environmental protections, say die-hard critics. |
| Zambia: African Nation Accepts U.S. GM Food Aid
by Singy Hanyona, Environment News Service
July 29th, 2002
Zambia is expected to import genetically modified maize (corn) from the United States to feed its 2.3 million starving citizens, according to the Biotechnology Trust of Africa, a regional charitable trust. Zambia has decided not to follow in the footsteps of hungry Zimbabwe, which two months ago rejected 10,000 metric tons of genetically modified maize from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). |
| UK: Chief of United Technologies Talks About Truth and Accounting
by Oliver Morgan, Observer (London)
July 28th, 2002
George David, the quintessentially American chairman and CEO in question - at the head of US industrial combine United Technologies Corporation - expands the point. 'Accounting summarises the judgements of hundreds, if not thousands of people. UTC has activities at 500 locations in the world. People make judgements in all these locations.' He adds: 'I am choosing my words very carefully.' |
| PERU: Microsoft's Big Stick
by Agustin d'Empaire, Wired.com
July 27th, 2002
BUENOS AIRES -- Afraid that Peru may adopt a bill decreeing the use of open-source software in all government systems, Microsoft apparently enlisted the American ambassador in Lima to help try to convince the Peruvians to kill the legislation. |
| EGYPT: Protest Groups Boycott U.S. Products
by Khaled Hanafi, Islam Online
July 22nd, 2002
Environment and anti-globalization organizations worldwide called on all citizens suffering from 'U.S. injustice' to give up drinking American soft drinks, especially Coca-Cola, for the day of Monday, July 22, 2002. |
| Nigeria: Women Claim Victory in ChevronTexaco Oil Terminal Takeover
by D'Arcy Doran, Associated Press
July 19th, 2002
ESCRAVOS, Nigeria -- Hundreds of women carrying straw mats and thermoses abandoned ChevronTexaco's main oil terminal, ending a peaceful 10-day protest that crippled the oil giant's Nigeria operations and won an unprecedented company pledge to build modern towns out of poor villages. |
| Burkina Faso: Thousands March Against Privatisation and for Higher Wages
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
July 18th, 2002
Thousands of workers went on strike on Thursday and marched through the main streets of Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, to protest against privatisations and to press demands for salary increases. The procession and strike were organised by the country's trade unions. |
| USA: Tricky Dick
by Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate
July 17th, 2002
Vice President Dick Cheney has spent most of the past year in hiding, ostensibly from terrorists. But increasingly it seems obvious that it is Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the media and the public he fears. And for good reason: Cheney's business behavior could serve as a textbook case of much of what's wrong with the way corporate CEOs have come to play the game of business. |
| USA: Hormonal Outrage at Pharmaceuticals
by Sharon Lerner, Village Voice
July 16th, 2002
Last week, after its findings revealed that the combination of hormones taken by some 6 million women was doing more harm than good, causing an increase in heart attacks, breast cancer, blood clots, and strokes, a national study was halted mid-stream. Wyeth, which has raked in more than $2 billion a year from its top-selling hormone therapies is now watching its stock price dive. |
| India: Delhi to Host Climate Change Meeting
Business Line
July 15th, 2002
CHENNAI, July 14 -- India will host the Eighth Conference of Parties (COP-8) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at New Delhi between October 23 and November 1. |
| NIGERIA: Women Stick to Oil Demands
by D'Arcy Doran, Associated Press
July 13th, 2002
Oil company executives thumped the table and even offered concessions, but the women who took over a giant oil terminal and trapped hundreds of workers inside did not budge Saturday in their demands for jobs for their sons and electricity for their homes. |
| US: In Tough Times, a Company Finds Profits in Terror War
by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., New York Times
July 12th, 2002
The Halliburton Company, the Dallas oil services company bedeviled lately by an array of accounting and business issues, is benefiting very directly from the United States efforts to combat terrorism.From building cells for detainees at Guantnamo Bay in Cuba to feeding American troops in Uzbekistan, the Pentagon is increasingly relying on a unit of Halliburton called KBR, sometimes referred to as Kellogg Brown & Root. |
| USA: Corporate Misdeeds Foment Corruption in Developing Countries
by Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service
July 12th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The multinational firms recently fingered for corrupt practices in the United States may be practicing similar operations on a larger scale in developing countries, say long-time corporate watchdogs. |
| USA: Corporate Responsibility vs. Accountability
by Joshua Karliner and Kenny Bruno, International Herald Tribune
July 10th, 2002
The world has moved backward on environment and development since Rio. Governments surely bear primary responsibility for this failure. However, global corporations are at the root of many of the most intractable problems and have hamstrung governments preparing for Earth Summit II in Johannesburg, South Africa. |
| US: Tech Industry Pushes Homeland Security Legislation
by D. Ian Hopper, Associated Press
July 10th, 2002
The companies making new homeland security devices, such as bomb detectors and biological weapon alarms, want the government to pick up the tab if their products fail and they are sued. |
| USA: Bush Wall Street Road Show Flops
by Stephen Pizzo, The Daily Enron
July 10th, 2002
There was more than a little of the surreal to President Bush's speech yesterday. The speech, billed as a major policy address on Bush's get-tough-on-corporate-crime agenda, came amidst days of news revelations of President's own questionable behavior as an executive of Harken Energy. |
| USA: Can Bush Scold Wall Street with a Straight Face?
by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times
July 9th, 2002
For President Bush to pretend to be shocked that some of the nation's top executives deal from a stacked deck is akin to a madam feigning surprise that sexual favors have been sold in her establishment. Dubya may have gaps in his education, but ignorance of ''aggressive accounting'' techniques and other scams they don't teach in Biz 101 is not one of them. |
| USA: In Effort to Save Self Bush Undermines Reform
The Daily Enron
July 9th, 2002
Over the 4th of July weekend, stories about Bush's questionable behavior as an executive of Harken Energy became grist for the weekend talk shows. With today's Wall Street policy speech looming, the President and his men hoped that addressing the inevitable press questions about Harken the day before would take the steam out of the issue today. |
| World: Business Role Crucial at Global Summit, Leader Says
by Jodie Ginsberg, Reuters
July 5th, 2002
Big business, whose lust for profit is seen as anathema to sustainable development, must contribute to next month's global summit on poverty and the environment, the man leading corporate interests there said. |
| USA: Financial Scandals are Being Replicated on a Global Scale
by Joseph Stiglitz, Guardian of London
July 4th, 2002
Of late, there has been much discussion of corruption in the public sector of many developing countries. It was inevitable corruption of public servants that, in part, made it important to privatize in developing countries. Advocates of privatization also lauded the private sector's ability to compete. But I'm not sure these private sector advocates quite had in mind the abilities that American corporate capitalism has demonstrated so amply recently: corruption on an almost unfathomable scale. They put to shame those petty government bureaucrats who stole a few thousand dollars or even a few million. The numbers bandied about in the Enron, WorldCom and other scandals are in the billions, greater than the GNP of many countries. |
| USA: Cracking Down on Corporate Crime, Really
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, CommonDreams.org
July 4th, 2002
Here is one of the most remarkable aspects of the still-unfolding financial scandals swirling around Worldcom, Xerox, Global Crossing, Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco and a growing number of other companies: The fraud occurred in the most heavily regulated and monitored area of corporate activity |
| EU: HP, Compaq Job Cuts Total 5,900
Reuters
July 3rd, 2002
FRANKFURT -- U.S. computer giant Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday it plans to cut 5,900 jobs in Europe from a total of 15,000 already announced worldwide, as part of its merger with Compaq Computer Corp. |
| Africa: Commission Hands Down Significant Human Rights Decision
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
July 3rd, 2002
Groups hailed Tuesday a sweeping and unprecedented ruling by Africa's premier human rights tribunal that held that the former military regime of Nigeria violated the economic and social rights of the Ogoni people by failing to protect their property, lands, and health from destruction caused by foreign oil companies and the Nigerian security forces. |
| USA: Memo Cited Bush's Late SEC Filings
by Mike Allen, Washington Post
July 3rd, 2002
An internal Securities and Exchange Commission memo from 1991 says President Bush repeatedly failed to file timely reports of his business interests and transactions before his election as Texas governor. |
| USA: Northrop to Purchase TRW for $7.8 Billion
by Renae Merle, Washington Post
July 2nd, 2002
Northrop Grumman Corp. agreed to pay $7.8 billion in stock for TRW Inc. yesterday in a deal that would complete its transformation from a struggling defense contractor to the second-largest force in the industry. |
| World: Leaders Won't Commit to Earth Summit
by Dennis Bueckert, Canadian Press
June 28th, 2002
OTTAWA -- Protecting the planet for future generations just doesn't cut it any more, judging from the guest list for Earth Summit 2, the worldwide environmental pow-wow set for Johannesburg in August. The World Summit on Sustainable Development -- its official name -- is supposed to refocus international attention on the cause of sustainable development -- but it could be a summit in name only. |
| G8: Africa Aid is ''Peanuts,'' Say Activists
Agence France Presse
June 28th, 2002
Group of Eight leaders launched their long-awaited action plan for Africa, promising a new dawn for the continent, but aid activists said the promises amounted to peanuts. |
| World: Activists Oppose Public Financing of Caspian Oil Pipeline
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
June 26th, 2002
Sixty-four mainly European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from some 37 countries are asking international financial institutions (IFIs), like the World Bank, and bilateral export credit agencies (ECAs), including the United States Export-Import Bank, to deny funding for a multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline project to run more than 1,000 miles from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean. |
| USA: Seeking Justice For Apartheid Through the Courts
by Stan Winer, AlterNet
June 24th, 2002
Victims of apartheid are demanding $50 billion from American and Swiss banks in compensation for profiteering from the "blood and misery" caused by white South Africa. The lawsuit -- which was filed on June 16, the 26th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising -- accuses Swiss companies, Credit Suisse and UBS, and U.S.-based Citicorp of providing loans to the apartheid government in violation of UN-imposed economic sanctions. The suit is spearheaded by Ed Fagan, a U.S. lawyer who forced Swiss banks to pay $1.25 billion to World War II victims of the Nazi Holocaust in 1998. |
| Canada: Country Poised to Receive G-8 Leaders and the Alternative People's Summit
Environment News Service
June 24th, 2002
CALGARY -- Canada is committed to preserving and protecting the environment during all phases of the G-8 Summit which is set to open in Kananaskis, Alberta on Thursday and Friday, government environmental officials have pledged. A parallel peoples' forum, the Group of Six Billion, says theirs is the gathering that reflects full respect for the environment and human rights. |
| WORLD: New Survey Shows 2001 Grim for Trade Unions
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
June 18th, 2002
Labor unions around the world faced a difficult year in 2001 due both to direct and sometimes violent repression, as well as the continuing pursuit by major multinational corporations of cheap labor in poor countries, according to the latest in a series of annual reports by the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). |
| World: Climate Shift Feeds Desert Growth
Environment News Service
June 17th, 2002
Over the next 20 years some 60 million people in northern Africa are expected to leave the Sahelian region if desertification there is not halted, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today. June 17 is the day set aside each year by the UN as World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, twin problems that must be solved if world hunger is to be relieved, Annan said. |
| US: For Cruise Ships, A History of Pollution
by Edwin McDowell, The New York Times
June 16th, 2002
On April 19 the Carnival Corporation pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Miami to criminal charges related to falsifying records of the oil-contaminated bilge water that six of its ships dumped into the sea from 1996 through 2001. |
| USA: Poor Countries Reject GMO Food Aid
Environment News Service
June 14th, 2002
The controversy over genetically engineered crops is disrupting U.S. efforts to provide food aid to starving people. The government of Zimbabwe and citizens groups in Bolivia, Guatemala and Nicaragua are resisting U.S. supplied foods that contain transgenic corn, or maize. Citizen's groups say the GMO crops are not proven safe. |
| WORLD: The Blight of Eco-Tourism
by David Nicholson-Lord, Resurgence
June 13th, 2002
Tourism is by some estimates the world's biggest industry; it's certainly among the fastest-growing, and few believe the events of Sept. 11 will cause anything more than a downward blip on a steep upward curve. In 1950 there were around 25 million international tourist visits. Currently there are around 700 million. By 2020 there will be around 1.6 billion. |
| USA: EPA to Relax Pollution Rules for Power Plants
by John Heilprin, Associated Press
June 13th, 2002
The Environmental Protection Agency will relax air pollution rules to make it easier for utilities to upgrade and expand their coal-burning power plants, Bush administration sources said yesterday. |
| Australia: Backing Out of Climate Protocol
Environment News Service
June 6th, 2002
CANBERRA, Australia -- ''It is not in Australia's interests to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.'' With those words to Parliament Wednesday, on World Environment Day, Australian Prime Minister John Howard put the world on notice that Australia will not join other industrialized countries in the international treaty to limit global warming. |
| HUNGARY: Internet Users Take Action Against Telecom Giant
Association for Progressive Communications
May 31st, 2002
Matav, leading telecom company in Hungary, subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, responsible for the majority of internet connections in the country, at the end of Arpil declared they would withdraw their flat-rate dial-up access package (the ''Mindenkinek'' tariff package and the 150 HUF per session discount) from 1 July 2002, which would mean excluding a large number of Hungarians from using the net. The flat-rate packages, largely instrumental in spreading Internet use countrywide since 1999, were tolerable but not cheap. A rise in the prices would bereave many homes of Internet access, broadband connection being unaffordable for many of those who chose dial-up service. |
| Football Dreams Stitched with Children's Hands
Global March Against Child Labour
May 30th, 2002
Child labour and highly unfair labour conditions for adult stitchers in the football industry are still common practices, despite the fact that the contracts between FIFA and sporting goods companies promise the opposite. This was revealed by the Global March Against Child Labour in a presentation of three new reports on China, India and Pakistan. |
| USA: Dynegy CEO is Much Richer for Being Forced Out
by Floyd Norris, New York Times
May 30th, 2002
The chairman and chief executive of the struggling energy company Dynegy, whose departure was announced on Tuesday, is entitled under his contract to a huge severance check -- one that is about $33 million more than he would have made had the company allowed him to serve out the eight months remaining on the contract. |
| South America: Countries Worry Plan Colombia Will Spillover
by Lucien O. Chauvin, LatinAmerica Press
May 30th, 2002
In one highland city in the Andes, it's hard to walk a single block without coming across graffiti denouncing the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia: ''Stop spraying,'' ''Yankees go home,'' ''No military buildup.'' |
| USA: Trouble for School Inc.
by Rebecca Winters, Time.com
May 27th, 2002
Wendy Walsh's seventh-graders at Gillespie Middle School in North Philadelphia have something in common with investors in the for-profit education company Edison Schools. Both fear that Edison, the nation's largest private operator of public schools, may be failing them. ''The children ask me what's going on,'' Walsh says, ''and I don't know what to tell them. We're all facing the great unknown.'' |
| USA: Farm Bill Will Export Misery to Africa
by Warren Vieth, Los Angeles Times
May 27th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The White House and Congress are trumpeting their determination to bring economic opportunity to the people of Africa. But first, a few million sub-Saharan farmers will have to suffer. |
| Taiwan: Workers Link Cancer to RCA Plant
by Matthew Yi, San Francisco Chronicle
May 24th, 2002
While many laud the globalization of technology as a positive force that spreads the wealth and helps industry grow, a group of Taiwanese workers came to Silicon Valley Thursday to tell a different story. |
| EU: ''Enronitis'' Spreads
Toronto Globe & Mail
May 23rd, 2002
WASHINGTON, DC -- An Enron Corp. backlash is rolling across Europe, feeding skepticism about the United States as a financial role model as top U.S. and European Union market regulators prepare to meet here next week. |
| US: Energy Task Force Documents Show Industry Influence
by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service
May 22nd, 2002
Vice President Richard Cheney's energy task force met with industry representatives 25 times for every one contact with conservation and public interest groups, shows a review by the group whose lawsuit prompted the release of thousands of Energy Department documents. The review was released the same day that the energy agency delivered another 1,500 pages of previously withheld task force information. |
| EU: Genetically Engineered Crops Raise Costs, Says Supressed Study
Environment News Service
May 21st, 2002
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Farmers would face higher, and in some cases unsustainable, production costs if genetically engineered crops were commercially grown on a large scale basis in Europe, according to a secret European Union study leaked to Greenpeace. |
| US: Prisoners Go to Work for Dell
by Drew Cullen, The Register (UK)
May 19th, 2002
Dell rose to the top by cutting more corners than its rivals. The PC giant is cutting another corner by employing prisoners to handle its new consumer recycling scheme in the US. |
| Central Asia: World Bank Chief In Talks Over Pipeline
Agence France Presse
May 16th, 2002
KABUL -- World Bank chief James Wolfensohn said Wednesday he had held talks about financing a fuel pipeline to channel massive gas reserves from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to India or Pakistan. |
| Afghanistan: World Bank and Central Asian Pipeline
Agence France-Presse
May 15th, 2002
World Bank chief James Wolfensohn said Wednesday he had held talks about financing a fuel pipeline to channel massive gas reserves from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to India or Pakistan. Wolfensohn, who was in the Afghan capital to open the financial institution's offices here and to confirm 100 million dollars of World Bank grants for the interim administration, said a number of companies had already expressed an interest in the project. |
| World: Corporate Bribery on the Rise, Says Survey
by Anthony Stoddard, Inter Press Service
May 15th, 2002
JOHANNESBURG -- International conventions have not stopped multi-national corporations from trying to secure valuable contracts by bribing government officials in the world's emerging economies -- especially in the arms and defense, and public works and construction industries. |
| Costa Rica: Offshore Oil Drilling Scrapped
by David Boddiger, Latinamerica Press
May 15th, 2002
Environmentalists are praising Costa Rica's Ministry of the Environment and Energy for turning down a request from a US oil company to drill for oil along the Caribbean coast. |
| USA: Ex-Im Bank, Corporate Welfare at Its Worst
by Congressman Bernie Sanders, CommonDreams.org
May 15th, 2002
This country has a $6 trillion national debt, a growing deficit and is borrowing money from the Social Security Trust Fund in order to fund government services. We can no longer afford to provide over $125 billion every year in corporate welfare -- tax breaks, subsidies and other wasteful spending -- that goes to some of the largest, most profitable corporations in America. |
| US: Sex scandal still haunts DynCorp
by John Crewdson, Tribune
May 13th, 2002
Hoping to avoid a repeat of a sex scandal that marred the
presence of American police officers in Bosnia, U.S. law-enforcement personnel recruited to help reorganize Iraq's shattered police forces must acknowledge in writing that
human trafficking and involvement with prostitution "are considered illegal by the international community and are
immoral, unethical and strictly prohibited."
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| US: Wages Of Sin - Why Lawbreakers Still Win Government Contracts
by Christopher H. Schmitt, U.S. News & World Report
May 13th, 2002
Lockheed Martin is not the only big federal contractor that continues to do business with Washington despite repeated contract difficulties and other legal and regulatory trouble. In the past dozen years, 30 of the 43 largest federal contractors have racked up more than 400 enforcement cases, resulting in at least 28 criminal convictions, 286 civil settlements, and 88 administrative settlements, mostly involving their government contracts, according to data from the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit Washington, D.C. group that investigates government activities, and additional research by U.S. News. |
| US: Internal Memos Connect Enron to California Energy Crisis
by Mark Martin, San Francisco Chronicle
May 7th, 2002
Energy traders for Enron used elaborate schemes with nicknames like ''Death Star'' and''Get Shorty'' to manipulate California's electricity market and boost profits, according to internal company memos released by federal regulators Monday. |
| US: Court Says Nike Must Defend its PR
by Harriet Chiang, San Francisco Chronicle
May 3rd, 2002
The California Supreme Court delivered a stiff warning to businesses Thursday, ruling that a San Francisco man can sue Nike Inc. for false advertising for allegedly lying about working conditions at Asian factories where its athletic shoes and clothes are made. |
| Africa: Pact to End 'Chocolate Slavery'
BBC
May 2nd, 2002
Chocolate manufacturers, human rights groups and the Ivory Coast Government have signed pact aimed at ending the abuse of child labour in the chocolate industry. |
| US: Unjust Rewards
by Ken Silverstein, Mother Jones
May 1st, 2002
The government continues to award federal business worth billions to companies that repeatedly break the law. A Mother Jones investigation reveals which major contractors are the worst offenders. |
| USA: May Day, May Day
by Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange
May 1st, 2002
For many Americans, ''May Day'' brings to mind images of phalanxes of Soviet soldiers, goose-stepping through Red Square behind massive tanks, while millions of onlookers obediently cheer. (It's a process not too different from the obedient cheering that goes on here every July 4 -- but never mind.) For other people, ''May Day'' is a pagan holiday, Beltane, more known (and often loved) for maypoles or other fertility rituals than for political struggles. |
| USA: Bush Chokes Reactive Chemical Regulations
Environment News Service
April 30th, 2002
WASHINGTON DC -- Evidence that the Bush administration killed a proposal to tighten regulation of a group of hazardous chemicals is presented in a new report by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, DC based nonprofit group of investigative journalists. |
| Mexico: Legislation Strikes Blow Against Privatization, Secrecy
by Dan Jaffee, CommonDreams.org
April 28th, 2002
In less than 24 hours this past Wednesday, big advances for three major pieces of legislation indicated that Mexico -- for 20 years the ''model student'' of so-called free market policy reforms, and long noted for high levels of government secrecy and corruption -- may be charting a new, more independent course. At a moment when the Bush administration is chilling domestic dissent, restricting the free flow of information and promoting corporate deregulation, Mexico appears poised to do virtually the opposite. |
| USA: Feds Reject Andersen Settlement Offer
by Marcy Gordon, Associated Press
April 26th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has rejected a proposal from accounting firm Arthur Andersen for settlement of a criminal obstruction charge stemming from the shredding of Enron Corp. documents, an Andersen attorney said Friday. |
| AFRICA: Controversy Continues to Dog Major World Bank Projects
by Jim Cason, AllAfrica.com
April 25th, 2002
The World Bank president's June meeting could do worse than to consider Uganda's Bujagali Dam project and Tanzania's Bulyanhulu Gold Mine. The two large-scale projects are being supported by the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (Miga), as part of a broad strategy to increase economic growth and alleviate poverty. |
| Ecuador: Labor Abuses Rampant in Banana Plantations, Says Group
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
April 25th, 2002
Banana workers, including children as young as eight years old, suffer from a range of abuses on plantations in Ecuador whose government fails to enforce international labor standards or even its own national labor code, according to a report released in Washington Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW). |
| US: Senators Question AT&T-Comcast Merger
Reuters
April 23rd, 2002
U.S. senators on Tuesday raised concerns about the possible negative impact that Comcast's proposed purchase of AT&T's cable assets could have on diverse programming and Internet access. |
| UK: Report Says World Bank, IMF Policies Provoke Worldwide Protests
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
April 22nd, 2002
At least 23 countries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas experienced protests or civil unrest last year as a result of their governments' pursuit of policies backed by the International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) (IMF) and the World Bank, according to a report released this weekend. |
| USA: Environmental Groups Look Ahead After Vote Against Oil Drilling in Arctic Reserve
by Beth Bolitho, OneWorld US
April 22nd, 2002
Following a vote in the United States Senate last week to block changes to a bill which would have allowed oil exploration and development of a fragile wildlife habitat in the Arctic, activists are now planning their next steps to ensure that the area remains protected from future environmental threats. |
| US: IMF and World Bank Meetings Open as Protestors Gather
Reuters
April 20th, 2002
Chanting, singing and beating drums, tens of thousands of protesters converged on the U.S. capital on Saturday to demonstrate against the U.S.-led war on terror, Israeli military actions in the West Bank and globalization |
| US: Ellison, Ashcroft Win 'Big Brother' Awards
Reuters
April 19th, 2002
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and database billionaire Larry Ellison were named this year's most notorious American violators of personal privacy by leading advocacy groups on Thursday. The annual ''Big Brother Awards'' are presented to government, corporations and private individuals who allegedly have done the most to threaten personal privacy. |
| AFRICA: The Great Internet Robbery
BBC
April 15th, 2002
Africa is being ripped off -- to the tune of some $500m a year -- simply for hooking up to the World Wide Web, say Kenyan internet company chiefs. And this extra cost is partly to blame for slowing the spread of the internet in Africa and helping sustain the digital divide, they contend. |
| Venezuela: After the Counter-Coup
by Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com
April 15th, 2002
The past four days' coup and counter-coup in Venezuela leave Hugo Chavez in power, but the country on the brink of civil war. The chasm between Venezuela's poor masses and its oligarchs -- in particular, the rich, the generals and the oil companies -- is not going away any time soon. |
| US: Seeking Profits, Internet Companies Alter Privacy Policy
by Saul Hansell, New York Times
April 11th, 2002
Pressed for profits, Internet companies are increasingly selling access to their users' postal mail addresses and telephone numbers, in addition to flooding their e-mail boxes with junk mail. |
| USA: Government OKs Drilling in Alaska Oil Reserve
Reuters
April 11th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department on Thursday approved final rules to allow energy companies to share the costs and revenues from drilling for oil and natural gas on leased tracts in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. |
| Kenya: HIV Drug Shortages 'Critical'
IRINNEWS.org
April 9th, 2002
JOHANNESBURG -- A severe shortage of two antiretrovirals (ARVs) produced by leading pharmaceutical Bristol-Myers Squibb in Kenya, could have critical repercussions for patients, says Medecines sans Frontieres (MSF). |
| USA: Enron Suit Targets Wall St. Firms
by C. Bryson Hull and Andrew Quinn, Reuters
April 8th, 2002
HOUSTON/SAN FRANCISCO -- Enron Corp. shareholders on Monday charged some of the biggest players on Wall Street with fraud, saying investment banks and securities firms colluded with Enron executives to bilk investors out of at least $25 billion. |
| Colombia: World Bank, IMF Threw Economy Into Tailspin
by Tony Avirgan, Baltimore Sun
April 4th, 2002
WASHINGTON -- As the United States drifts deeper into the Colombian quagmire of drugs and war, policy-makers need to take a new look at the problems of poverty, joblessness and hopelessness that have made that country such a trouble spot. |
| USA: Andersen Operations Split
by Jane Merriman and Bill Rigby, Reuters
April 4th, 2002
LONDON/NEW YORK -- Andersen said most of its U.S. tax partners would join rival Deloitte and Touche on Thursday, as the world's No. 5 accounting firm, facing a criminal charge for its role in the Enron scandal, headed further toward disintegration. |
| USA: DeLay, Enron and the Marianas
The Daily Enron
April 4th, 2002
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) relishes in describing the Marianas as his personal Galapagos Islands. The 14-island chain of Pacific Islands has long been DeLay's image of a perfect business environment -- virtually devoid of business or environmental regulations. Only one other entity, Enron, curried more favor with DeLay. |
| US: New Hot Line Links CEOs to White House
by Tiffany Kary, CNET News.com
April 3rd, 2002
A high-security communications network linking government leaders to some of technology's biggest names in the event of a national disaster will be unveiled early next month, officials say. Inspired by the breakdown in communication on Sept. 11, when frantic calls overwhelmed phone lines, the so-called CEO Link will be used to shuttle high-priority news between government officials and executives. |
| US: Prophet Rushed to the Field For Intelligence Collection
by Elizabeth G. Book, National Defense Magazine
April 1st, 2002
The Army's tactical signals-intelligence and electronic-warfare system, the Prophet, has undergone a faster-than-planned development cycle, in order to meet operational needs in Afghanistan. The systems in the field today are not the full "100 percent solution," officials said, but they provide a sound foundation for the Army to plan future upgrades.
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| USA: The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business
by Tim Carvell, Adam Horowitz, Thomas Mucha, Business 2.0
April 1st, 2002
In a perfect world, a list like this would not exist. In a perfect world, businesses would be run with the utmost integrity and competence. But ours is, alas, an imperfect world, and if we must live in one where Enron, Geraldo Rivera, and Cottonelle Fresh Rollwipes exist, the least we can do is catalog the absurdities. |
| USA: Documents Show Bush Energy Plan Fuelled By Industry
by Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service
March 28th, 2002
The administration of President George W. Bush relied exclusively on the advice of energy companies - many of which donated large sums of money to the Republican Party - in formulating its controversial energy strategy, according to government documents released this week. |
| USA: Three Companies Sued for Role During Slavery
by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service
March 28th, 2002
A class-action lawsuit filed by some 35 million descendants of black slaves against three companies with ties to the slave trade is aimed as much at shaking up U.S. society as at winning financial returns, say lawyers and observers. |
| India: Government Approves Use of BT Cotton
by Hari Ramachandran, Reuters
March 27th, 2002
India said on Wednesday it had allowed production of three genetically modified cotton hybrids by a private company which has U.S. biotechnology giant Monsanto as its partner |
| Palestine: Restrictions leave Economy "Near Collapse" Says World Bank
by Alan Beattie, Financial Times
March 27th, 2002
Restrictions on the movement of goods and people in Israel and the occupied territories in response to the 18-month old intifada have brought the Palestinian economy close to collapse, according to a new report by the World Bank. |
| BRAZIL: Peasants Take Over Ranches of the Rich
EFE News Service
March 26th, 2002
Some 300 members of Brazil's Landless Peasants' Movement (MST) took over an estate belonging to an associate of the country's president in the state of Sao Paulo Monday, organization spokesmen said. |
| USA: Starbucks Beans Not So Green
by Shireen Deen, Valley Advocate
March 25th, 2002
By the end of the year, Starbucks will increase its ever-growing empire by opening a coffee shop in Mexico City -- the first Starbucks in Latin America. Ironically, Starbucks will soon be selling gourmet coffee to the very people who are under-paid for harvesting coffee beans. News of the Mexico City shop came as Starbucks was presenting its first Corporate Social Responsibility report at its annual shareholders' meeting in Seattle last month. The report emphasized the company's claimed commitment to doing business in socially, economically and environmentally responsible ways, to benefit the communities around the world where it does business. |
| World: Enron's Tactics Overseas Criticized
by Jennifer Autrey, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 24th, 2002
Ugly scenarios played out repeatedly on the world stage in the past decade as Enron emerged as the dominant force in the energy industry. While Enron built a reputation as a savvy deal maker and charitable giver in the United States, it has long been perceived quite differently abroad. |
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