 |
| LIBERIA: Hunting for Liberia’s Missing Millions
by Doreen Carvjal, New York Times
May 30th, 2010
How much money did Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, siphon out of his war-shattered country, and where is it? Investigators are developing a new strategy involving filing civil damage claims against companies, governments and international banks that they contend aided Mr. Taylor in illegal transactions. |
| US: Oil Hits Home, Spreading Arc of Frustration
by Campbell Robertson, Clifford Krauss and John M. Broder, New York Times
May 24th, 2010
More than a month has passed since the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up, spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico and frustrating all efforts to contain it. The disaster underscores the enduring laxity of federal regulation of offshore operations and has shown the government to be almost wholly at the mercy of BP and of Transocean, the company leasing the rig. |
| UK/CANADA: Tar sands crude is reaching British petrol stations, Greenpeace says
by Terry Macalister, The Guardian (UK)
May 9th, 2010
While City investors have begun to question the role of companies such as BP and Shell in the tar sands business, a new report by Greenpeace claims British motorists are unwitting users of diesel and petrol derived from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The carbon-heavy production methods involved make tar sands extraction particularly damaging to the environment. |
| US: BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act
by Campbell Robertson and Eric Lipton, New York Times
April 30th, 2010
The Obama administration began Friday to publicly chastise BP America for its handling of the spreading oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Officials initially seemed to underestimate the threat of a leak, just as BP did last year when it told the government such an event was highly unlikely. |
| US: Oil Spill’s Blow to BP’s Image May Eclipse Costs
by Clifford Krauss , New York Times
April 29th, 2010
BP says that the offshore drilling accident that is spewing thousands of barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico could cost the company several hundred million dollars. Nobody really knows whether the oil giant is being too conservative about the cost for the April 20 accident, which some experts say could end up as the biggest oil spill in history. |
| CANADA: Munk takes on mine protesters, defends capitalism
by John Spears, The Star
April 28th, 2010
Mark Ekepa journeyed from Papua New Guinea to tell the shareholders of Barrick Gold Corp. how police had burned down his house near the Barrick’s Porgera mine. Idolia Bornones travelled from Chile to say that Barrick operations are damaging local glaciers and rivers. But Barrick chairman Peter Munk was unrepentant as he faced the company’s annual meeting. |
| WORLD: Banks Making Big Profits From Tiny Loans
by NEIL MacFARQUHAR, New York Times
April 13th, 2010
In recent years, the idea of giving small loans to poor people became the darling of the development world, hailed as the long elusive formula to propel even the most destitute into better lives. But drawn by the prospect of hefty profits from even the smallest of loans, a raft of banks and financial institutions now dominate the field, with some charging interest rates of 100 percent or more. |
| CHINA/US: Google Partners Call For Clarity on China Plans
by Reuters, New York Times
March 17th, 2010
Chinese firms selling advertising space on Google's search pages have demanded clarity about the search giant's plans in China, as speculation increases over Google's future there. The demand comes amid signs that Google Inc may soon move to close Google.cn. |
| CANADA/CHINA: Canada looks to China to exploit oil sands rejected by US
by Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian (UK)
February 14th, 2010
Canada, faced with growing political pressure over the extraction of oil from its highly polluting tar sands, has begun courting China and other Asian countries to exploit the resource.
The move comes as US firms are turning away from tar sands because of its heavy carbon footprint and damage to the landscape. |
| US/IRAQ: U.S. Companies Join Race on Iraqi Oil Bonanza
by TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times
January 13th, 2010
American companies have been arriving in Iraq to pursue an expected multibillion-dollar bonanza of projects to revive the country’s petroleum industry. But there are questions about the Iraqi government’s capacity to police the companies. “These are for-profit concerns and they are trying to make as much money as they can,” said Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch. |
| US/CHINA: U.S. Holds Fire in Google-China Feud
by JAY SOLOMON, IAN JOHNSONAnd JASON DEAN, Wall Street Journal
January 12th, 2010
U.S. government officials and business leaders were supportive but wary of taking sides in Google Inc.'s battle with China, a sign of the delicate tensions between the growing superpower and the West. Google has threatened to bolt from China over censorship and alleged cyber spying. |
| NIGERIA: Ex-militant leader heads SPDC’s patrol team
by Chris Ejim, Nigerian Compass
January 8th, 2010
Authorities of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) have unveiled a new security strategy for securing oil pipelines and platforms within the Niger Delta region. Shell has appointed former MEND militant commander, Eris Paul, and his company, Eristex Pipeline Patrol, to secure oil facilities in the Southern Ijaw area of the Delta. |
| GHANA: Corruption probe into sale of Ghana oil block
by William Wallis, Martin Arnold and Brooke Masters, Financial Times
January 7th, 2010
US and Ghanaian authorities are investigating corruption allegations involving a Texas oil company and the local partner that helped it secure control of the Ghanaian oil block that yielded one of Africa’s biggest recent discoveries. The case risks complicating efforts by Texas company Kosmos to sell its stake in the Jubilee oil field to ExxonMobil in a deal valued at $4bn. |
| EUROPE: Europe’s Vast Farm Subsidies Face Challenges
by STEPHEN CASTLE and DOREEN CARVAJAL, New York Times
December 29th, 2009
The last time the European Union decided the future of its 50 billion euro agricultural aid program, in 2005, the deal was cut behind closed doors in a luxury suite at the five-star Conrad Brussels hotel. Now, 2013 is closer at hand and a new round of maneuvering has begun to reshape the richest system of agricultural handouts in the world. |
| CHINA: Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively
by Keith Bradsher, New York Times
December 26th, 2009
Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. Most of these come from China. “In many places, the mining is abused,” said Wang Caifeng, the top rare-earths industry regulator at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China. |
| US: Ex-UBS Banker Seeks Billions for Blowing Whistle
by Lynnley Browning, New York Times
November 26th, 2009
Bradley C. Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison for helping rich Americans dodge their taxes, his sentence reduced in turn for informing on Swiss banking giant UBS. Now, with the help of the National Whistleblower Center, he and his lawyers hope to use a new federal whistle-blower law to claim a multibillion-dollar reward from the American government. |
| US/ECUADOR: New nonprofit uses Web to pressure Chevron
by David A. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
November 16th, 2009
Retired retail executive Richard Goldman was astonished when he heard about the $27 billion pollution lawsuit against Chevron Corp. in Ecuador. SO he has created a nonprofit group, Ethos Alliance, that will use social-networking tools to spread word of the case and put pressure on Chevron. |
| UK: Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading
by Ashley Seager, The Guardian (UK)
November 5th, 2009
The world's carbon trading markets growing complexity threatens another "sub-prime" style financial crisis that could again destabilise the global economy, campaigners warn. In a new report, Friends of the Earth says that to date "cap and trade" carbon markets have done little to reduce emissions but have been plagued by inefficiency and corruption. |
| SOUTHEAST ASIA: Sizing up palm oil
by David Grant, Christian Science Monitor
November 2nd, 2009
While it doesn’t sound (and need not be) nefarious, activist groups worldwide like the Rainforest Action Network argue that the production of palm oil is currently harming rain forests in Southeast Asia, orangutans, and the environment. |
| IVORY COAST: Trafigura offers deal to 31,000 Africans over dumped waste
by Frances Gibb, The Times (London)
October 17th, 2009
British oil trader Trafigura has offered to settle a court case brought by 31,000 Africans who say that they were injured in the largest personal injuries class action mounted in an English court. The action resulted from the dumping of 400 tonnes of waste in the Ivory Coast by an oil tanker, the Probo Koala, in 2006 — one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history. |
| BRAZIL: Giants in Cattle Industry Agree to Help Fight Deforestation
by Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times
October 7th, 2009
Environmental groups hailed a decision this week by four of the world’s largest meat producers to ban the purchase of cattle from newly deforested areas of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Brazil has the world’s largest cattle herd and is the world’s largest beef exporter. It is also the fourth largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. |
| UK: Kingsnorth power station plans shelved by E.ON
by Mark Tran, The Guardian (UK)
October 7th, 2009
E.ON, the German energy group, has effectively thrown in the towel on its plans to build a new coal-power station at Kingsnorth, UK, blaming the recession. Kingsnorth has been shrouded in controversy ever since inception, with protests over several years including a high-profile Climate Camp protest. |
| US: E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection
by Michael Moss, New York Times
October 3rd, 2009
Tracing the chain of production of an E. Coli-contaminated hamburger made by Cargill, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe. |
| US: The Rights of Corporations (Op-Ed)
New York Times
September 22nd, 2009
The question at the heart of one of the biggest Supreme Court cases this year is simple: What constitutional rights should corporations have? The legal doctrine underlying this debate is known as “corporate personhood.” |
| ECUADOR: Chevron Offers Evidence in Ecuador Bribery Case
by Reuters, New York Times
September 7th, 2009
On Monday Chevron said it gave Ecuadorean authorities evidence of a bribery scheme linked to a $27 billion environmental damages lawsuit against the oil company. Last week, the judge hearing the case, Juan Núñez, recused himself. The Amazon Defense Coalition said the recusal did not “change the overwhelming evidence against Chevron.” |
| US: Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows
by Thom Shanker, New York Times
September 6th, 2009
Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study. |
| US: So You Squandered Billions --- Take Another Whack At It
by Steven Perlstein, Washington Post
September 2nd, 2009
During the heyday of the credit bubble, they were the financiers who earned huge bonuses for creating, trading and investing other people's money in those complex securities that resulted in trillions of dollars in losses and brought global financial markets to their knees. Now they're out there again hustling for investors and hoping to make another score buying and trading the same securities. |
| FIJI: Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle
by Anna Lenzer, Mother Jones
August 17th, 2009
Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won't sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool? |
| UK: Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant
by Danny Fortson, Sunday Times (UK)
July 19th, 2009
In Colchester, Essex, John and Alfred Donovan are compiling perhaps the world's largest dossier on Royal Dutch Shell, at royaldutchshellplc.com. It's an awkward position for Shell, this month crowned by Fortune magazine as the world’s largest company, as trying to shut the website down would draw even more attention to it. |
| UK: Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant
by Danny Fortson, The Sunday Times (UK)
July 19th, 2009
In Colchester, Essex, John and Alfred Donovan are compiling perhaps the world's largest dossier on Royal Dutch Shell, at royaldutchshellplc.com. It's an awkward position for Shell, this month crowned by Fortune magazine as the world’s largest company, as trying to shut the website down would draw even more attention to it. |
| US: Industry Takes Aim at Plan to Create Financial Protection Agency
by Brady Dennis, Washington Post
July 7th, 2009
Business and trade-group lobbyists are beating a path for the first major battle over the Obama administration's efforts to overhaul the financial regulatory system. Recent discussions have involved the American Bankers Association, National Auto Dealers Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Mortgage Bankers Association and other lobbyists. |
| US: IRS Steps Up Scrutiny of Offshore Funds
by Jenny Strasburg and Jesse Drucker, Wall Street Journal
June 26th, 2009
The Internal Revenue Service is demanding that hedge-fund and private-equity investors disclose hundreds of billions of dollars they have invested offshore, boosting scrutiny of accounts popular for tax advantages.
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| ECUADOR: Chevron's Amazon 'fake cleanup' trial
United Press International
June 25th, 2009
A report submitted this week to a court in Ecuador finding dangerous levels of contamination at oil wells Chevron says it cleaned up in the 1990s is expected to reinforce a fraud indictment against two Chevron lawyers in a $27.3 billion environmental lawsuit against the oil company. |
| IRAQ: Big Oil Ready for Big Gamble in Iraq
by Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal
June 24th, 2009
Next week, Iraqi officials will auction off oil contracts to foreign companies for the first time since Iraq nationalized its oil industry three decades ago. Some 120 companies expressed interest in bidding for the contracts, and thirty-five companies qualified. They include Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Italy's Eni SpA, Russia's Lukoil and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec. |
| IRAN: Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology
by Christopher Rhoads and Loretta Chao, Wall Street Journal
June 22nd, 2009
The Iranian regime has developed one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet. The Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection. The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company. |
| CHINA: China Disables Some Google Functions
by Edward Wong, New York Times
June 19th, 2009
After meeting with managers of the Chinese operations of Google on Thursday to warn them, the Chinese government disabled some search functions on the Chinese-language Web site of Google on Friday. Officials alleged the site was linking too often to pornographic and vulgar content. |
| NIGERIA: Shell to Pay $15.5 Million to Settle Nigerian Case
by Jad Mouawad, New York Times
June 8th, 2009
Royal Dutch Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle a case accusing it of taking part in human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, a striking sum given it has denied any wrongdoing. Ken Saro-Wiwa, Shell’s most prominent critic at the time in Nigeria, was hanged in 1995 by that country’s military regime after protesting Shell's environmental practices in the oil-rich delta, especially in his native Ogoni region. |
| INDONESIA: Scramble for coal assets in Indonesia
by Sundeep Tucker and John Aglionby, Financial Times
June 7th, 2009
Some of the world’s largest energy groups are scrambling to acquire coal mining assets in Indonesia as family-run conglomerates consider divestments to raise cash. Peabody Energy, the US coal miner, and Xstrata, the Anglo-Swiss miner, are believed to be among those interested. Industry analysts said Chinese, South Korean, Indian and Middle Eastern companies were also scouring Indonesia for assets. |
| GHANA: Energy groups lured by Ghana’s Kosmos
by Carola Hoyos, Financial Times
June 4th, 2009
Big international energy groups and state-owned oil companies from China and India are circling Kosmos Energy for its Ghanaian oilfield assets, which have been valued at $3bn-$6bn by analysts. The sale could open an oil corridor off the west African coast, stretching as far north-west as Sierra Leone. |
| US: Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S. Government
by CHRISTOPHER DREW and JOHN MARKOFF, New York Times
May 30th, 2009
The Obama administration’s push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts. Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies. |
| FINLAND: In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble
by James Kanter, New York Times
May 28th, 2009
As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site. The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. But things have not gone as planned. |
| US: Chevron annual meeting heats up over Ecuador suit
by Jordan Robertson, Washington Post
May 27th, 2009
In a combative and sometimes colorful annual meeting, Chevron's CEO and chairman exchanged barbs with activists over pollution in the Amazon rain forest and the company's human rights record. The nation's second-largest oil company is awaiting a verdict from a judge in Ecuador that could come with a $27 billion price tag. |
| FRANCE/UAE: Gulf base shows shift in France’s focus
by Ben Hall and Andrew England, Financial Times
May 25th, 2009
France's new naval base in Abu Dhabi, its first overseas military base in 50 years, has sparked a round of lobbying on behalf of lucrative business for French companies including Dassault, the military aircraft maker, and a consortium of Total, GdF-Suez and Areva, which is bidding to build two nuclear power stations in the UAE. Dassault is hoping to sell as many as 60 of its Rafale fighters to the UAE. |
| EUROPE: Greenpeace warns on Shell oil sands projects
by Carola Hoyos, Financial Times
May 18th, 2009
A study by Greenpeace and several other environmental groups has concluded that Royal Dutch Shell's carbon intensity will rise 85 per cent as it develops its oil and gas fields in the coming years. Campaigners warn Shell’s investors that this disadvantages the company vis a vis its peers as US and European policymakers move towards a broad cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions. Shell’s growing carbon intensity stems from its resource base, which is heavily made up of Canadian oil and Nigerian gas. |
| ECUADOR: In Ecuador, Resentment of an Oil Company Oozes
by SIMON ROMERO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS, New York Times
May 14th, 2009
Texaco, the American oil company that Chevron acquired in 2001, once poured oil waste into pits used decades ago for drilling wells in Ecuador's northeastern jungle. Texaco’s roughnecks are long gone, but black gunk from the pits seeps to the topsoil here and in dozens of other spots. These days the only Chevron employees who visit the former oil fields do so escorted by bodyguards toting guns. They represent one side in a bitter fight that is developing into the world’s largest environmental lawsuit, with $27 billion in potential damages. |
| WORLD: When Chevron Hires Ex-Reporter to Investigate Pollution, Chevron Looks Good
by Brian Stelter, New York Times
May 10th, 2009
When Chevron learned that “60 Minutes” was preparing a potentially damaging report about oil company contamination of the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador, it hired a former journalist to produce a mirror image of the report, from the corporation’s point of view. An Ecuadorean judge is expected to rule soon on whether Chevron owes up to $27 billion in damages. |
| NIGERIA: A Writer’s Violent End, and His Activist Legacy
by Patricia Cohen, New York Times
May 4th, 2009
A new novel, "Eclipse," by Richard North Patterson, is based on the case of the Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed in November 1995 by the government of General Sani Abacha. The circumstances, along with related incidents of brutal attacks, are getting another hearing. This month the Wiwa family’s lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell over its role in those events goes to trial in federal court in Manhattan. |
| WORLD: Skype’s iPhone application raises protests
by David Gelles, Financial Times
April 3rd, 2009
Skype’s application for the Apple iPhone is igniting network neutrality disputes around the globe after less than a week on the market. Free Press, asked the US Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether AT&T was violating US guidelines by preventing the app from running on its 3G network. An alliance of internet groups on Friday responded to Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile’s threat to block the Skype for iPhone application on its network. |
| IRAQ: Ex-Blackwater Workers May Return to Iraq Jobs
by Rod Nordland, New York Times
April 3rd, 2009
Late last month Blackwater Worldwide lost its billion-dollar contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq, but by next month many of its private security guards will be back on the job here. The same individuals will just be wearing new uniforms, working for Triple Canopy, the firm that won the State Department’s new contract. |
| CHINA: Banks Face Big Losses From Bets on Chinese Realty
by David Barboza , New York Times
April 3rd, 2009
Evergrande Real Estate Group, now mired in debt, has become a symbol of China’s go-go era of investing, when international bankers, private equity deal makers and hedge fund managers from Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and others rushed here hoping to cash in on the world’s biggest building boom. |
| UK: Shareholders vote against RBS pay
BBC Online
April 3rd, 2009
More than 90% of Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders voted against the bank's pay and pensions policy at its annual general meeting in Edinburgh. RBS does not have to make any changes as a result, saying it was a "substantive" protest at Sir Fred Goodwin's £703,000 a year pension. Sir Philip blamed RBS's difficulties on its acquisition of the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007. |
| UK: Residents challenge Google camera
BBC News Online
April 3rd, 2009
Google's Street View mapping project ran into local opposition in England, with angry residents in the village of Milton Keynes blocking a Google driver when he started taking photographs of their homes. Villagers accused the company of going too far, violating their privacy and possibly facilitating crime. |
| US: Banks Get New Leeway in Valuing Their Assets
by Floyd Norris, New York Times
April 2nd, 2009
A once-obscure accounting rule was changed Thursday to give banks more discretion in reporting the value of mortgage securities. Apparently under political pressure, the five-member Financial Accounting Standards Board approved a controversial change that makes it possible for banks to keep some declines in asset values off their income statements. |
| WORLD: The Jewel Trade's Fading Luster
by V. Dion Haynes and Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post
March 28th, 2009
The drop in U.S. demand for high-end jewelry in a slumping economy is having ripple effects around the globe as stores close, workers are laid off in mass in the diamond-polishing factories of Gujarat, and countries like Botswana experience a dramatic drop in diamond revenue. |
| AFRICA/CHINA: As Chinese Investment in Africa Drops, Hope Sinks
by Lydia Polgreen, New York Times
March 25th, 2009
As global commodity prices have plummeted and several of China’s partners in Africa have stumbled deeper into chaos, China has backed away from some of its riskiest and most aggressive plans. China has sought to secure minerals in Africa through agreements to build huge projects in exchange for minerals. African governments are now realizing that these deals are loans against future revenue, and falling prices could leave them saddled with debt. |
| US/CANADA: Alaskan lake’s fate could echo across continent
by Todd Wilkinson, Christian Science Monitor
March 24th, 2009
A landmark legal case now before the US Supreme Court holds huge implications for lakes across the continent. Nearly four decades the Clean Water Act was passed to protect waterways from industrial pollution, a proposal by Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. to dispose of tons of effluent in Alaska's Lower Slate Lake has sparked an international debate. |
| US/AFGHANISTAN: Unknown Afghanistan
by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com
March 17th, 2009
Want a billion dollars in development aid? If you happen to live in Afghanistan, the two quickest ways to attract attention and so aid from the U.S. authorities are: Taliban attacks or a flourishing opium trade. For those with neither, the future could be bleak. This piece take a look at the lack of reconstruction aid in areas like Bamiyan, Afghanistan. |
| INDIA: Pricewaterhouse Revamps Indian Unit
by Heather Timmons, New York Times
March 5th, 2009
The auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers is overhauling its operations in India two months after starting an investigation into fraud at Satyam Computer Services, a software and outsourcing firm whose chairman said in January that he had falsely claimed assets of $1 billion in cash and overstated operating margins. |
| US, GLOBAL: Layoffs Without Notice Sting Workers
by Steve Lohr, New York Times
March 5th, 2009
With the economy weakening, chief executives want Wall Street to see them as tough cost-cutters who are not afraid to lay off workers. Big companies also routinely carry out scattered layoffs that are small enough to stay under the radar, contributing to an unemployment rate that keeps climbing. I.B.M. is one such company. |
| IRELAND: U2 rattled by claims of tax dodging
by Michael Seaver, Christian Science Monitor
March 3rd, 2009
The band that loves to rail against global corporate malfeasance is being criticized at home over allegations of tax dodging. The controversy stems from 2006, when the band moved its publishing company to the Netherlands to avoid a potential multi-million-euro tax bill after the Irish government capped artists' tax-free earnings at €250,000 ($315,000). |
| ECUADOR/CANADA: Canadian Mining Firm Financed Violence in Ecuador: Lawsuit
by Jennifer Moore, Tyee Online
March 3rd, 2009
Three villagers from the valley of Intag in northwestern Ecuador are suing Copper Mesa Mining Corporation and the Toronto Stock Exchange. They allege not enough has been done to reduce the risk of harm being faced by farmers and community leaders who have faced violent threats and attacks for opposition to a large open-pit copper mine in their pristine cloud forests. |
| EUROPE: Europe to Allow Two Bans on Genetically Altered Crops
by James Kanter, New York Times
March 2nd, 2009
European Union governments delivered a blow Monday to the biotechnology industry, allowing Austria and Hungary to maintain national bans on growing genetically modified crops from Monsanto. The market for genetically engineered crops is worth several billion dollars worldwide. |
| CANADA: The Canadian Oil Boom: Scraping Bottom
by Robert Kunzig, National Geographic
March 1st, 2009
Once considered too expensive, as well as too damaging to the land, exploitation of Alberta's oil sands is now a gamble worth billions.
Syncrude and Suncor are two of the largest producers of bitumen; Canada is now the largest importer of oil to the United States, with tar sands exploitation slated to increase rapidly over the next five years. |
| CHINA: Morgan Stanley’s Chinese Land Scandal
by David Barboza , New York Times
March 1st, 2009
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Morgan Stanley said it had fired an executive in its China real estate division after uncovering evidence that he might have violated the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars American business people from bribing foreign officials. |
| SWITZERLAND: UBS Names Grübel as New CEO
by Carrick Mollenkamp, Wall Street Journal
February 26th, 2009
UBS AG, the Swiss bank battered by massive write-downs and its role in a U.S. tax-evasion scheme, announced the surprise departure of chief executive Marcel Rohner. Mr. Rohner's sudden departure comes after UBS agreed earlier this month to a $780 million settlement with the U.S. Justice Department of a criminal inquiry into the bank's role in the tax evasion. |
| US: Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests
by Leslie Kaufman, New York Times
February 25th, 2009
The U.S. obsession with soft toilet paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra. But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. |
| MEXICO: U.S. Is Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels
by James C. McKinley, Jr., New York Times
February 25th, 2009
Phoenix-based gun dealer George Iknadosian of X-Calibur Guns will go on trial on charges he sold hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers, knowing they would go to a drug cartel in the western state of Sinaloa. The guns helped fuel the gang warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died last year. |
| UK, ITALY: Italian business body hits at Brown
by Jean Eaglesham, Financial Times
February 9th, 2009
In the context of global debate around the unfettered free-market system, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown comes under fire from an Italian business association for not reining in wildcat labor strikes at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire. |
| JAPAN: Nissan to Slash Payroll, Pare Japanese Output
by John Murphy, Wall Street Journal
February 9th, 2009
Nissan Motor Co. Monday announced plans to slash more than 20,000 jobs world-wide, shift production out of Japan and seek government assistance from Japan, the U.S. and elsewhere, part of a broad new effort by the Japanese car maker to weather the economic downturn. |
| US/WORLD: Smokeless Tobacco to Get Push by Venture Overseas
by Kevin Helliker, Wall Street Journal
February 4th, 2009
Swedish Match AB and Philip Morris International Inc. announced a joint venture Tuesday to market smokeless tobacco world-wide. The venture combines a world-wide giant in smokeless, Swedish Match, with the world's second-largest purveyor of cigarettes, PMI, an Altria Inc. spinoff. |
| INDIA: Bail Opposed for Raju
by Eric Bellman and Jackie Range, Wall Street Journal
January 28th, 2009
Prosecutors pursuing the fraud at Satyam Computer Services Ltd. said Tuesday the Indian technology outsourcer's founder, B. Ramalinga Raju, should be denied bail because he could slow the investigation if released. |
| SWITZERLAND: Davos Scales Back Glitz
by Associated Press, New York Times
January 25th, 2009
The economic crisis that emerged out the collapse of securities based on shaky U.S. mortgages poses challenges for the Davos World Economic Forum, an arena that has championed market-driven approaches. |
| US: Rubin Leaving Citigroup; Smith Barney for Sale
by Eric Dash and Louise Story, New York Times
January 9th, 2009
Robert Rubin will resign from the beleaguered Citigroup. As Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made Citigroup's creation possible. He also helped beat back tighter oversight of exotic financial products during that time. |
| INDIA: Indian Outsourcing Giant Admits Fraud
by Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post
January 7th, 2009
The leader of one of India's largest technology outsourcing companies, Satyam Computer Services, on Wednesday admitted cooking its books and committing other grave financial wrongdoing to inflate profits over several years. The revelation shook India's stock market and sent shockwaves across the country's booming software industry. |
| US: Plea by Blackwater Guard Helps Indict Others
by GINGER THOMPSON and JAMES RISEN, New York Times
December 9th, 2008
On Monday, the Justice Department unsealed its case against five Blackwater private security guards, built largely around testimony from a sixth guard about the 2007 shootings that left 17 unsuspecting Iraqi civilians dead at a busy Baghdad traffic circle. |
| CANADA/IRAQ: Drill, Garner, Drill
by Anthony Fenton, Mother Jones
November 24th, 2008
In the history of the Iraq War, one name is perhaps synonymous with the collapse of the Bush administration's hopes for a post-Saddam world: Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner, who served as the first post-war administrator. This year, he and a small group of former US military leaders, officials, and lobbyists have quietly used their Kurdistan connections to help Canadian companies access some of the region's richest oil fields. |
| ARGENTINA: Is GlaxoSmithKline Behaving Badly in Argentina?
by AINA HUNTER, ABC News
September 23rd, 2008
Michaela, a deceased 5 month old, is one of more than 13,000 Argentine children to participate in a clinical study implemented a little more than a year ago by the London-based GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest drug manufacturer. |
| INDIA: Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal
by Somini Sengupta, New York Times
July 7th, 2008
Residents of Bhopal, India continue to suffer from Union Carbide's toxic legacy, this time in the form of toxic waste that still languishes inside a shoddy warehouse on the old factory grounds. Ailments such as cleft palates and mental retardation are appearing in numbers of Bhopali children, raising questions about contaminated soil and groundwater, clean-up, and liability. |
| SWITZERLAND: Tax scandal leaves Swiss giant reeling
by Nick Mathiason, The Guardian (UK)
June 29th, 2008
Sending shockwaves through the Swiss financial industry, banking giant UBS is facing accusations from a former senior banker in US courts of massive fraud and corruption. UBS is alleged to have engaged in routine activities aimed at helping its high net worth clients evade hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, among other matters. |
| US: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
by Ed Pilkington, Guardian (UK)
June 23rd, 2008
On June 23, James Hansen, a leading world climate scientist, called for the executives of major fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, to be put on trial for crimes against humanity and nature through actions like funding climate skeptics to undermine global consensus around combating climate change. |
| RUSSIA: As Gazprom Goes, So Goes Russia
by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times
May 11th, 2008
Gazprom and the Russian government have long had a close relationship, but the revolving door between them is spinning especially fast this year. But Gazprom also epitomizes the risks of state capitalism: waste and inefficiency. |
| US: America for Sale: 2 Outcomes When Foreigners Buy Factories
by PETER S. GOODMAN, The New York Times
April 7th, 2008
As foreign buyers descend upon the United States, capturing widening swaths of the industrial landscape and putting millions of Americans to work for new owners, these two cities offer sharply competing narratives for a nation still uneasy about being on the selling end of the global economy. |
| INDONESIA: Indonesia's Commodity Boom Is a Mixed Bag
by Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal
March 24th, 2008
Indonesia's economy is riding the recent wave of high global commodity prices. But local pressure is arising towards steel makers and power producers in China and India who have diverted coal supplies abroad by locking in 20-year supply contracts with Indonesian miners. |
| US: Families Sue Chiquita in Deaths of 5 Men
by CARMEN GENTILE, The New York Times
March 17th, 2008
Last week, Ms. Julin, who has remarried, and the widows of the four other men filed a lawsuit against Chiquita Brands International Inc., saying the company contributed to their husbands’ deaths by financing the leftist group. |
| UGANDA: Privatization of Seeds Moving Apace
by Aileen Kwa, IPS
February 21st, 2008
The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. According to an inside government source, seeds companies including Monsanto have been lobbying for such intellectual property protection. |
| GLOBAL: 2 Reports At Odds On Biotech Crops
by Rick Weiss, The Washington Post
February 14th, 2008
Dueling reports released yesterday -- one by a consortium largely funded by the biotech industry and the other by a pair of environmental and consumer groups -- came to those diametrically different conclusions. |
| CHINA: China Plant Played Role In Drug Tied to 4 Deaths
by ANNA WILDE MATHEWS and THOMAS M. BURTON, The Wall Street Journal
February 14th, 2008
A Chinese facility that hasn't been inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made the active ingredient in much of the widely used Baxter International Inc. blood-thinner that is under investigation after reports of hundreds of allergic reactions and four deaths among the drug's users, the agency said yesterday. |
| CHINA: In Chinese Factories, Lost Fingers and Low Pay
by DAVID BARBOZA, New York Times
January 5th, 2008
Nearly a decade after some of the most powerful companies in the world — often under considerable criticism and consumer pressure — began an effort to eliminate sweatshop labor conditions in Asia, worker abuse is still commonplace in many of the Chinese factories that supply Western companies, according to labor rights groups. |
| GLOBAL: 'MNCs Gaining Total Control Over Farming'
by Anil Netto, IPS News
December 7th, 2007
Food security campaigners are now more concerned than ever that farmers are turning dependent on large multinational corporations (MNCs) for seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and other inputs while also becoming more vulnerable to pressures to produce genetically engineered crops. |
| IVORY COAST: The Bitter Taste of Cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire
by Michael Deibert, IPS News
December 3rd, 2007
In addition to funding conflict, cocoa revenues are believed to have been defrauded for enrichment of persons in both the government and rebel camps. Article also mentions the following corporations: Lev-Ci and Cargill. |
| DRC: Six arrested in Congo radioactive dumping scandal
by Joe Bavier, Reuters
November 10th, 2007
Congolese authorities arrested six people in connection with the dumping of tonnes of highly radioactive minerals into a river near the southeastern town of Likasi. A report said some 17 tons of the minerals confiscated were destined for Chinese firm Magma. |
| UK: From $1 firm, Lord Ashcroft nets £132m
by Simon Bowers, Guardian (UK)
October 9th, 2007
The UK's Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative party deputy chairman and major donor, has agreed to sell his loss-making US janitorial business in a deal that will bring him a £132m windfall. |
| BURMA: Criticism of Total Operations Grows
by Michael Diebert, IPS
October 4th, 2007
The Yadana natural gas pipeline runs through the heart of the debate on corporate responsibility as to how foreign businesses should operate in a country ruled by a military dictatorship accused of widespread human rights abuses and violent suppression of dissent within its borders. |
| US: In Turnaround, Industries Seek Regulations
by Eric Lipton and Gardiner Harris, New York Times
September 16th, 2007
After years of favoring the hands-off doctrine of the Bush administration, some of the nation's biggest industries are pushing for something they have long resisted: new federal regulations. |
| CHINA: An Opportunity for Wall St. in China’s Surveillance Boom
by Keith Bradsher, New York Times
September 11th, 2007
China Security and Surveillance Technology, a fast-growing company that installs and sometimes operates surveillance systems for Chinese police agencies, jails and banks, has just been approved for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s listing is just a sign of ever-closer ties among Wall Street, surveillance companies and the Chinese government’s security apparatus. |
| INDIA: Indian Activists' Rising Clout
by Jackie Range, Wall Street Journal
August 16th, 2007
India's Supreme Court is poised to decide whether a British
company has the right to mine in a sacred tribal forest, a case that underlines the complexity of undertaking large-scale industrial projects here. The case's hearing by the court reflects the growing clout of activist groups in India. |
| INDIA: Novartis Patents Case Far From Dead
by Praful Bidwai, Inter Press Service News Agency
August 9th, 2007
Cancer patients in India have reason to be relieved at a high court ruling this week which dismissed a petition by Swiss pharmaceuticals multinational corporation (MNC) Novartis challenging an Indian law which denies patents for minor or trivial improvements to known drugs. |
| WORLD: We must count the true cost of cheap China
by Richard McGregor, Financial Times
August 2nd, 2007
In the wake of the multiple scandals over tainted Chinese food and drug exports in recent months, Chinese goods now have an indelible image of being not just cheap, but life-threatening as well. But the fact that wrongly labelled foods, liquor and pharmaceuticals have routinely sickened and even killed people en masse in China has been largely overlooked. |
| US: Mattel Recalls One Million Toys
by Louise Story , New York Times
August 2nd, 2007
Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, is recalling nearly one million toys in the United States today because the products’ surfaces are covered in lead paint. According to Mattel, all the toys were made by a contract manufacturer in China. |
| COLOMBIA: Suing Multinationals Over Murder
by Ken Stier, TIME Magazine
August 1st, 2007
Organized labor often complains of its treatment at the hands of corporate America, but its accusations pale in comparison to those made recently by the widows of Colombian mine workers in an Alabama courtroom. During a two-week trial, a Birmingham jury weighed charges that the local Drummond Coal Company bore responsibility for the murders of three union leaders who represented workers at its Colombian mine - the world's largest open pit mine. |
| MEXICO: Thousands of Unpaid Teens Bag Groceries for Wal-Mart
by Joseph Contreras, Newsweek
August 1st, 2007
Wal-Mart prides itself on cutting costs at home and abroad, and its Mexican operations are no exception. Wal-Mart is Mexico's largest private-sector employer in the nation today, with nearly 150,000 local residents on its payroll. An additional 19,000 youngsters between the ages of 14 and 16 work after school in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores, mostly as grocery baggers, throughout Mexico-and none of them receives a red cent in wages or fringe benefits. |
| COLOMBIA: Drummond Union: Govt Muffles Key Witness
by Frank Bajak, Forbes.com
July 24th, 2007
The union activists suing U.S. coal company Drummond Co. Inc. in Alabama in the 2001 murders of three labor leaders say deliberate foot-dragging by Colombian authorities is preventing the jury from hearing their star witness. Concerned by the delay, 12 Democrats in the U.S. Congress wrote Colombia's vice president last week asking him to intercede. |
| CHINA: Lead Toxins Take a Global Round Trip
by Gordon Fairclough, The Wall Street Journal
July 12th, 2007
High levels of toxic lead turning up in cheap jewelry from China are prompting recalls in the U.S. But some of the lead used by these Chinese manufacturers comes from an unconventional source: computers and other electronic goods discarded in Western countries and dumped in China. |
| UN: Global Compact with Business 'Lacks Teeth' - NGOs
by Gustavo Capdevila, Inter Press News Service (IPS)
July 6th, 2007
The U.N.'s Global Compact with international big business "at the moment is so voluntary that it really is a happy-go-lucky club," says Ramesh Singh, chief executive of ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation. The controversy has come to a boiling point because of the Global Compact Leaders' Summit being held in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, at which over 1,000 representatives of multinational companies are taking part, in addition to well-known civil society figures like Irene Khan, the secretary general of AI; Mary Robinson, president of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative; Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation; and Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International. |
| CHINA: The Growing Dangers of China Trade
by Jyoti Thottam, TIME Magazine
June 28th, 2007
Growing concerns over the safety of everyday goods manufactured in China and imported to the US have thrown into relief the problematic (and dangerous) differences in safety and regulatory standards between the two countries. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Globalization Brings South Africa Gains -- and Pains
by David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal
June 21st, 2007
Globalization has been both a boon and a bane for South Africa; it has helped along the country's integration into the global economy and strengthened its regional political position, but it has also contributed to the widening gap between a wealthy minority and the poor majority, something that is creating a whole new generation of disenfranchised citizens. |
| AFRICA: What Does Africa Need Most: Technology or Aid?
by Jason Pontin, The New York Times
June 17th, 2007
TED Global 2007 is one small skirmish in a larger ideological conflict between those who believe that Africa needs more and better international aid, and those who think entrepreneurialism and technology will lift the continent out of poverty and thus reduce its miseries. |
| THAILAND: Holding Big Pharma's feet to the fire
by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service
May 17th, 2007
For nearly a week, the advertising pages of Thai- and English-language dailies have been the stage for debates on Thailand's decision to break patents on anti-AIDS drugs in the interest of public health. A lobby championing the cause of the powerful pharmaceutical companies ran full-page spreads in the morning newspapers with an eye-catching warning in large, bold text, which said: "The Wrong Prescription for Thailand". |
| CANADA: Barrick Boss Gets Served
by Amy Chung, Now (Toronto)
May 10th, 2007
Protest Barrick, a network of aboriginal communities from Australia, the U.S., Latin America and Asia, converged on Barrick Gold Corporation's shareholder meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre May 2 to serve the company an eviction notice from First Nation land. |
| CONGO: New row over delay of Congo funds report
by Dino Mahtani, Financial Times
May 8th, 2007
The World Bank has withheld the findings of an inquiry into alleged
mismanagement of bank funds in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising fresh questions about the anti-corruption strategy of Paul Wolfowitz, the bank's president. |
| US: Halliburton to move headquarters to Dubai
by Brett Clanton, Houston Chronicle
March 11th, 2007
Halliburton Co. surprised the energy world, members of Congress and the city of Houston today by announcing it will open a new corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates and relocate its chief executive officer there. |
| US: BP/UC Deal Raises Concerns
by Richard Brenneman, Berkeley Daily Planet
March 2nd, 2007
The proposed agreement between one of the world’s largest oil companies, BP (formerly British Petroleum) and UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois has ignited a firestorm that promises to burn long and hot. |
| IRAQ: New Oil Law Seen as Cover for Privatisation
by Emad Mekay, Inter Press News Service (IPS)
February 27th, 2007
The U.S.-backed Iraqi cabinet approved a new oil law Monday that is set to give foreign companies the long-term contracts and safe legal framework they have been waiting for, but which has rattled labour unions and international campaigners who say oil production should remain in the hands of Iraqis. |
| US: Corporate Profits Take an Offshore Vacation
by Lucy Komisar, Inter Press Service
February 23rd, 2007
Last week, Merck, the pharmaceutical multinational, announced that it will pay 2.3 billion dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties in one of the largest settlements for tax evasion the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ever imposed. |
| NETHERLANDS: Gimme Tax Shelter
by Lynnley Browning, New York Times
February 4th, 2007
When it comes to attracting celebrity wealth seeking shelter from taxes, the Cayman Islands and other classic Caribbean tax havens are receding in favor, according to tax experts here and overseas. But for earnings derived from intellectual property such as royalties, the Netherlands has become a tax shelter of choice. |
| PERU: ‘Voluntary Payment' Instead of Taxes for Mining Firms
by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS)
August 25th, 2006
Peruvian Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo told Congress that private mining companies operating in Peru would make a "voluntary payment" of 757.5 million dollars over the next five years, to go towards fighting poverty. However, they will not pay the tax on windfall profits that new President Alan García had promised in his campaign. |
| WORLD: Has Coke become the new McDonald's?
by David Teather, The Guardian (UK)
August 18th, 2006
Welcome to the Coke side of life. Africa's planned legal action is just the latest in a litany of alleged human rights and environmental abuses in developing markets that has made Coca-Cola a cause celebre. |
| WORLD: Legalizing Human Trafficking
by Basav Sen, Dollars & Sense
June 28th, 2006
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), now being negotiated in the World Trade Organization (WTO), is likely to reduce migrant workers to the status of commodities. |
| VENEZUELA: For Venezuela, a Treasure in Oil Sludge
by Juan Forero, The New York Times
June 1st, 2006
This great, largely untapped treasure is pitting a leftist government aiming to use oil revenue for social programs against multinational corporations like Chevron, which were invited here a decade ago to develop the Orinoco Belt, a 54-square-mile area some 120 miles south of here. |
| US: Why Big Tobacco Loves Globalization
by Andrew Leonard, Salon.com
May 24th, 2006
Tobacco consumption in the developed world is flat or declining, but it is booming worldwide, boosted by the removal of tariffs and other restrictions on trade that have been an integral part of globalization. But, tobacco, as its critics like to point out, is not like most other products – it's "the only legal consumer product that kills half of its regular users." So, naturally, governments are wont to regulate it. |
| JORDAN: An Ugly Side of Free Trade - Sweatshops
by Steven Greenhouse and Michael Barbaro, The New York Times
May 3rd, 2006
Workers from Bangladesh said they paid $1,000 to $3,000 to work in Jordan, but when they arrived, their passports were confiscated, restricting their ability to leave and tying them to jobs that often pay far less than promised and far less than the country's minimum wage. |
| NIGERIA: Government Investigation Indicts Shell over Toxic Waste
by Yemie Adeoye, Vanguard (Lagos)
April 4th, 2006
THE Ministerial investigation committee into alleged dumping of toxic waste by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) at Igbeku and Ejekimoni communities of Sapele local government area of Delta State has come up with recommendations for the company to remove and treat in situ the "alleged buried waste" to acceptable statutory levels. |
| SOUTH AMERICA: Creating a Network Against Biopiracy
by Mario Osava, Inter Press Service News Agency
March 27th, 2006
Two patents granted in the United States between 2000 and 2002 and another for which an application has been filed have put "maca", a high altitude Andean plant that is used by indigenous people in Peru, at the centre of a new battle against biopiracy, which involves the construction of an international network against the misappropriation of traditional knowledge. |
| WORLD: Cleaning Up Its Reputation
by Rebecca Bream, Financial Times
March 6th, 2006
The mining industry has a worldwide image problem. In developing and developed countries alike, the public tends to regard mines as dirty, dangerous and disruptive — and those who stand to profit from them as greedy despoilers. |
| PERU: Substandard Peruvian Gas Pipeline Blamed for Spills
Environmental News Service
March 2nd, 2006
A pipeline crossing the Peruvian Amazon has spilled natural gas liquids four times since it opened 15 months ago because it was shoddily built by unqualified welders using corroded pipes left from other jobs, according to a new technical report by the nonprofit environmental consultancy E-Tech International based in San Diego. |
| INDIA: A Nation of Guinea Pigs
by Jennifer Kahn, Wired Magazine
March 1st, 2006
The market in India for outsourced clinical drug trials will hit $1.5 billion by 2010. Enticed by numbers like these, developing countries have been scrambling to catch Big Pharma's eye - India most aggressively of all. |
| US: Outsourcing Is Climbing Skills Ladder
by Steve Lohr, The New York Times
February 16th, 2006
The globalization of work tends to start from the bottom up. The first jobs to be moved abroad are typically simple assembly tasks, followed by manufacturing, and later, skilled work like computer programming. At the end of this progression is the work done by scientists and engineers in research and development laboratories.
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| WORLD: Hidden World Bank Whistleblower Report Made Public
Environmental News Service
February 10th, 2006
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) today released the Vaughn Report, commissioned by the World Bank as a guide to modernize the Bank's whistleblower protection policies. In the nine months since the Vaughn report was released on April 30, 2005, the World Bank has refused to publicly release the report, consult staff on Vaughn’s recommendations, or accept any offers from experts to help implement Vaughn’s analysis. |
| WORLD: Partying at Davos
by Jeff Faux, CommonDreams.org
January 23rd, 2006
The world’s rich and powerful are heading this week to their annual meeting in the plush mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland. Hosted by the great global corporations (Citigroup, Siemans, Microsoft, Nestles, etc.), some 2000 CEO’s, prominent politicians, pundits and international bureaucrats will network over great food, fine wine, good skiing and cozy evenings by the fire contemplating the world’s future. |
| BOLIVIA: Bolivia’s Morales rejects US domination
by Hal Weitzman, The Financial Times
January 22nd, 2006
Evo Morales was sworn in on Sunday as Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a historic and emotional ceremony that set the tone for his new government, promising to move much the profits of Bolivia's natural resources to the people of Bolivia. |
| MADAGASCAR: Gold Rush Attracts Foreign Interest
by Tim Cocks, Port Louis L'Express
January 17th, 2006
Though largely unexplored, mining experts think the Indian Ocean island has big untapped deposits of gold, platinum, sapphires, rubies, diamonds and emeralds. Each year, thousands leave their villages to dig for gold and precious stones in a country where three quarters of the 17 million-strong population live on less than a dollar a day. An increasing number of international mineral exploration companies are also setting up operations on the world's fourth largest island. |
| INDONESIA: The Cost of Gold: The Hidden Payroll
by Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, The New York Times
December 27th, 2005
Months of investigation by The New York Times revealed a level of contacts and financial support to the military not fully disclosed by Freeport, despite years of requests by shareholders concerned about potential violations of American laws and the company's relations with a military whose human rights record is so blighted that the United States severed ties for a dozen years until November.
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| AFRICA: Death By Dilution
by Robert Cockburn, American Prospect
December 20th, 2005
When fakes of a GlaxoSmithKline anti-malarial drug turned up in Africa, authorities assumed the drug giant would want to know. Instead, they learned about a huge, evil trade in fake drugs -- and about an industry that doesn’t want the truth to get out. |
| ARGENTINA: The War for Gold in Catamarca
by Darío Aranda, Página 12 Newspaper
December 18th, 2005
Water that is undrinkable. Air that is better left unbreathed. A community impoverished, living above mountains of gold. These are some of the contradictions of Andalgalá, a town of 17,000 inhabitants in Catamarca, Argentina, 240 kilometres from the provincial capital, home for ten years now to the largest gold and copper mine in the country, and one of the largest in the world. |
| WORLD: Social audits 'are failing to detect factory abuses'
by Alison Maitland, The Financial Times
November 2nd, 2005
Social audits of clothing factories in developing countries are failing to detect excessive and forced overtime, abusive treatment of workers and violations of freedom of association, says a report by the Clean Clothes Campaign, a coalition of trade unions and pressure groups, to be published today. |
| AFRICA: The Dark Side of Chocolate
by Kate McMahon, Alternet, Wiretap
October 28th, 2005
The truth behind the chocolate is anything but sweet. On the Ivory Coast of Africa, the origin of nearly half of the world's cocoa, hundreds of thousands of children work or are enslaved on cocoa farms. With poverty running rampant and average cocoa revenues ranging from $30-$108 per household member per year, producers have no choice but to utilize child labor for dangerous farming tasks. Some children, seeking to help their poor families, even end up as slaves on cocoa farms far from home. Slavery drags on and we are paying the slaveholder's wages. |
| INDIA: Health Minister: 'Coke Plant Will Not Be Allowed to Function'
The Hindu
October 25th, 2005
Health Minister K.K. Ramachandran on Monday said the Government "would not allow the bottling plant of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. at Plachimada to reopen against the will of the people." (Mr. Ramachandran is the first Minister to have visited Plachimada where the local people have been waging an agitation for the last three years demanding the closure of the company for allegedly exploiting the groundwater, leading to shortage of water for drinking and irrigation purposes.) |
| IRAQ: OPEC and the Economic Conquest of Iraq
by Greg Palast, Harper's/gregpalast.com
October 24th, 2005
According to insiders and to documents obtained from the State Department, the neocons, once in command, are now in full retreat. Iraq's system of oil production, after a year of failed free-market experimentation, is being re-created almost entirely on the lines originally laid out by Saddam Hussein.
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| WORLD: The Cost of Gold
by JANE PERLEZ and KIRK JOHNSON, The New York Times
October 24th, 2005
The price of gold is higher than it has been in 17 years - pushing $500 an ounce. But much of the gold left to be mined is microscopic and is being wrung from the earth at enormous environmental cost, often in some of the poorest corners of the world. |
| CANADA: MPs Call for Tougher Rules on Overseas Mines
by Paul Weinberg , Inter Press Service
October 22nd, 2005
A call by members of Canada's parliament for legally binding measures to govern the behaviour of Canadian mining companies around the world, and specifically to investigate the activities of a Calgary-based operation in the Philippines, has been turned down flat by the Canadian government's foreign affairs minister Pierre Pettigrew. |
| ECUADOR: Amazon Indians say Texaco left damage
by Gonzalo Solano, Associated Press
October 20th, 2005
About 50 Cofan Indians, some holding handkerchiefs over their faces to fend off an acrid chemical stench, gathered around two contaminated open pits they say were left behind and never adequately cleaned up by the former Texaco Corp. |
| US: US Companies Lag in Responsibility, Accountability
by Abid Aslam, OneWorld.net
September 25th, 2005
U.S. companies remain less accountable than European and Asian ones despite recent years' damaging revelations of management chicanery involving finances, labor relations, environmental performance, and consumer protection, a global survey said Friday.
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| MEXICO: Wal-Mart's Plans for Indigenous Areas Under Fire
by Diego Cevallos
August 25th, 2005
Wal-Mart, which last year opened a store near the ancient Teotihuacan pyramids of Mexico despite loud protests from local activists and small businesses, is now seeking a repeat of its earlier victory, this time in two heavily indigenous areas: in Pátzcuaro in the state of Michoacán and Juchitán, in the southern state of Oaxaca. But local opponents are set for a pitched battle. |
| VIETNAM: Golf helps drive economic modernisation
by Amy Kazmin, Financial Times
August 1st, 2005
When Hanoi opened its door to global capitalism in 1988, the Communist party frowned on golf as an irrelevant bourgeois indulgence. Today, the Communist elite has bestowed its full blessing on the game as both symbol, and tool, of Vietnam's economic modernisation. |
| UK: G8 Protesters Face Tasers
by Dan McDougall, The Scotsman
May 20th, 2005
Police dealing with civil unrest during the G8 summit in Scotland will have controversial weapons that have been blamed for the deaths of 104 civilians in the United States and Canada. |
| WORLD: Shell Outsourcing
by Mark Tran, Guardian (London)
April 28th, 2004
Royal Dutch Shell, the embattled oil giant, said today it will cut up to 2,800 jobs as it relocates its global technology division. IT operations, now concentrated in the UK, the Netherlands and the US, are to be shifted to India or Malaysia, where Shell already employs about 1,000 people in a technology support centre. |
| CHINA: For Tycoons, Formal Lessons in Capitalism
by Peter S. Goodman, Washington Post
November 28th, 2003
China may still be known officially as a People's Republic, but the recent class held here in the country's financial capital -- part of an executive MBA program run jointly by the government and the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University -- was a testament to how this supposed worker's paradise is increasingly defined by capitalist management techniques and demand for return on investment. The students, among them several high-ranking Communist Party and government officials, listened intently as their American professor lectured on the finer points of squeezing greater productivity from the workforce for less pay. |
| INDIA: White Collar Jobs Outsourced to South Asia
by Phil Reeves, Independent
August 29th, 2003
Processing tax returns filed in the United States is gradually becoming the latest service to be dispatched to India as the "outsourcing" of work from the First World to the Third - to the alarm of some Western trade unionists and politicians - moves increasingly into higher-skilled areas. The field embraces financial and legal research, employee recruitment, analysing balance sheets, processing insurance claims, programming software, producing technical drawings for architects and engineers, and more. |
| US: Corporations in Dire States
by David Usborne, Independent/UK
July 17th, 2003
Americans are used to resentment of their global dominance. Since the war on Iraq, however, this hostility has begun to hit them where it hurts: in corporate balance sheets. David Usborne reports on the backlash being felt in the boardrooms everywhere from McDonald's and Nike to Microsoft and Coca-Cola |
| WORLD: Factory Farms Growing in Developing Nations
Environmental News Service
April 22nd, 2003
Factory farms are expanding into developing countries, bringing these nations a wealth of environmental and public health concerns, finds a new paper by the Worldwatch Institute. |
| LIBYA: Shell Signs $200m Deal
by Mark Tran, Guardian (London)
March 25th, 2003
Shell today marked its return to Libya after an absence of more than a decade by signing a $200m (110.6m) gas exploration deal with the former pariah state. The agreement - described by the oil giant as a landmark deal - was signed in Tripoli, coinciding with the groundbreaking visit to Libya by the prime minister, Tony Blair. |
| 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: 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. |
| 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. |
| 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: 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. |
| 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: 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: 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Central America: Price of Free Trade is Famine
by Marc Edelman, Los Angeles Times
March 22nd, 2002
Central America is in the grip of famine, and if President Bush mentions it when he visits El Salvador on Sunday, he will likely suggest that free trade is the solution. Yet Bush's proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement is hardly going to remedy the worsening disaster in rural Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.Unregulated markets are a large part of the reason why 700,000 Central Americans face starvation and nearly 1million more suffer serious food shortages. |
| MEXICO: UN Summit Protesters Hit the Streets
by Julie Watson, Washington Post
March 19th, 2002
Even as world leaders kicked off discussions on how to alleviate poverty a theme anti-globalization activists have pushed for years a motley crew of corn farmers, masked students and rebel supporters took to the streets denouncing the gathering as more of the same. |
| MEXICO: Skepticism as UN Summit Opens
by Alejandro Ruiz, Washington Post
March 19th, 2002
One of the poorest towns in Mexico, El Porvenir last year signed a sister-city agreement with one of the richest, San Pedro Garza Garcia, on the outskirts of Monterrey in Nuevo Leon state. The pact signed last August with President Vicente Fox on hand was meant to be a model for a new vision of fighting poverty: an exchange of products, help with schooling and technical training, new investment for a town where fewer than one in five homes has electricity. |
| US: Students Campaign for Coffee in Good Conscience
by Jake Batsell, The Seattle Times
March 17th, 2002
Starbucks serves fair-trade certified drip coffee on campus through Sodexho, the food-services vendor. But with the school considering bids for a new 10-year food-services contract, McDonald and the group he leads, Students for Fair Trade, are pushing for all coffee including decaf and espresso drinks on campus to be fair-trade certified. To be certified, third-party monitors must have confirmed that farmers were paid a fair price for their beans. |
| CANADA: Feminist Calls for Anti-Globalization, Anti-Fundamentalism
by Judy Rebick, ZNet Commentary
March 12th, 2002
Whether or not women will be better off after the war against Afghanistan is an open question. But the claim that the United States is some kind of liberator is contradicted by the role that U.S.-led corporate globalization plays in creating the conditions that enable fundamentalists like the Taliban to gain power in the first place. |
| INDIA: Novelist Roy is Grassroots Hero
by Madeleine Bunting, The Guardian (UK)
March 7th, 2002
When Arundhati Roy woke up at 5.30am this morning in Tihar prison, New Delhi, it must have struck her that reality was proving stranger than any fiction. Over the past week terrible communal violence in India has claimed hundreds of lives while the forces of law and order stood by. This has now been juxtaposed with the spectacle of a diminutive, softly spoken novelist being sent to one of the country's most notorious prisons to uphold what the supreme court called the ''glory of the law'' because she dared to criticize it. |
| FRANCE: Activist Gets Jail for Ransacking McDonald's
Reuters
February 6th, 2002
France's highest court upheld on Wednesday a three-month jail sentence for anti-globalization activist Jose Bove over his ransacking of a McDonald's restaurant to protest U.S. trade barriers. |
| Brazil: Tobacco Makes Farmers Sick
by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
February 4th, 2002
Tobacco companies are jeopardizing the health of Third World tobacco farmers who are required to use dangerous pesticides under exclusive contracts that hook them to company credits, according to a report released Monday by a major development group. |
| USA: World Economic Forum Wraps Up
by Eileen Alt Powell, Associated Press
February 4th, 2002
NEW YORK -- Presidents, kings and moguls wrapped up five days of swanky parties, serious elbow-rubbing and weighty discussions on how to stop terrorism, resolve long-standing international conflicts and ease grinding poverty as the World Economic Forum came to an end on Monday. |
| BRAZIL: Porto Alegre Day One
by Martha Honey, Foreign Policy in Focus
January 31st, 2002
Under a strong summer sun and a broad political proclamation that "Another world is possible," tens of thousands of activists from around the world are arriving here for the second annual World Social Forum. The host, like last year, is Brazil's southernmost major city, capital of the state of Rio Grande de Sul. |
 | France: National Cartoon Character Promoting McBurgers
by Murray Campbell, Toronto Globe & Mail
January 24th, 2002
The McDonald's hamburger chain that occupies villages throughout modern-day France has commandeered a Asterix, a national cartoon character, to promote its food as part of a marketing campaign launched yesterday that pushes aside the venerable clown, Ronald McDonald. |
| INDONESIA: Man Shot at Australian Gold Mine
Environment News Service
January 23rd, 2002
An Indonesian man was shot by security police at an Australian gold mine in Indonesian Borneo. The gold mine is located in a remote area of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, inhabited mainly by indigenous Dayak people. |
| Africa: NGOs Preparing for the World Social Forum
by Brahima Ouedraogo, Inter Press Service
January 9th, 2002
BAMAK -- Pressure groups in Africa are preparing for the World Social Forum to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, at the end of the month. |
| South Africa: Reparations? 'Will an apology do?' asks Europe
by Robert E. Sullivan, Conference News Daily
September 6th, 2001
Although Europe and Africa are minimizing it in public, a wide gulf separates the two continents on the slavery issue at the World Conference against Racism (WACR), according to several inside sources. |
| EU: Secret Spy Network Formed to Track Protestors
by Stephen Castle, The Independent (UK)
August 20th, 2001
European leaders have ordered police and intelligence agencies to co-ordinate their efforts to identify and track the anti-capitalist demonstrators whose violent protests at recent international summits culminated in the shooting dead by police of a young protester at the Genoa G8 meeting last month. |
| US: Letter from Inside the Black Bloc
by Mary Black, AlterNet
July 25th, 2001
The following story was sent to us anonymously (Mary Black is a psuedonym) two days after a violent protester was killed in Genoa, Italy. While we may not share the author's opinion about Black Bloc tactics, it is a perspective that hasn't been fully covered, even in the progressive media, and as such deserves publication. |
| ITALY: Genoa Awaits Protestors
by Alessandra Stanley, New York Times
July 19th, 2001
British by birth, Ms. Brown is married to an Italian and works at a hair salon that will not open for business on Friday when President Bush and seven other government leaders arrive. Neither will almost all of the other shops and restaurants inside the so-called red zone, a secure six- square-mile area where leaders will meet from Friday though Sunday. Some anti-globalization groups have pledged to penetrate the zone. |
| MEXICO: Economic Downturn Deepens
by Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times
July 1st, 2001
From farms and automotive plants on the outskirts of Mexico City to the industrial heartland of Monterrey and the wineries and electronics firms in Tijuana and Guadalajara, signs are that this nation's recession is becoming more entrenched. |
| New Study: Mexicans Unable to Live on Sweatshop Wages
Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, et al.
June 28th, 2001
Workers in foreign-owned export assembly plants in Mexico are not able to meet a family's basic needs on sweatshop wages, according to a comprehensive study conducted in fifteen Mexican cities. |
| ITALY: Prime Minister Expects 100,000 Protestors at G-8 Summit
by Alessandra Stanley, New York Times
June 19th, 2001
Worried about a repetition in Italy of the violent protests that occurred at a European Union meeting in Sweden last weekend, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said today that he wanted to open a dialogue with demonstrators who are planning to march at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Genoa next month. |
| EL SALVADOR: Government Report Details Labor Abuses
by Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times
May 10th, 2001
A long-suppressed report by the Salvadoran government, made public yesterday by an American labor rights group, spelled out serious problems in the country's apparel factories, including unhealthy air and water, large amounts of forced overtime and the frequent dismissal of workers who supported labor unions. |
| US: Making World Trade Fair
by Doreen Hemlock, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
May 6th, 2001
They're often portrayed as obstructionists to trade and the global economy. But the social movement that mobilized thousands in Quebec last month -- and earlier in Seattle and Prague -- is maturing beyond street protests. |
| SRI Lanka: Overtime Law Hurts Sweatshop Workers
by Renuka Senanayake, Inter Press Service
March 2nd, 2001
Rights activists are unhappy with the Labour Ministry's plan to amend labour laws to introduce 80 hours of overtime every month for factory workers, including those in export processing zones (EPZ). |
| US: Nike Sued for Greenwash
SocialFunds.com
March 2nd, 2001
Marc Kasky, a self-described environmentalist, viewed the Ernst and Young audit as an opportunity. Enlisting the support of San Francisco attorney Alan Caplan, he filed a suit against Nike in April of 1998. The suit claims that Nike's assertions about the labor conditions in its Asia factories amounted to false advertising. |
| MEXICO: Rocks, Tear Gas at Cancun Protest
by Traci Carl, Associated Press
February 28th, 2001
Injured protesters were loaded into ambulances and tourists strolled past bloodstained streets in this beach resort after police charged a group of anti-globalization demonstrators,kicking and beating those they could catch. |
| Grave Danger Posed Under NAFTA by Unsafe Mexican Trucks
Public Citizen
February 6th, 2001
Although a trade panel is expected this week to order the United States to permit access to all U.S. roads by Mexican trucks, the U.S. should continue to limit access because of the grave dangers many Mexican trucks pose to motorists on U.S. highways, Public Citizen has concluded in a report released today. |
| SWITZERLAND: UN Chief Warns Business
by Orla Ryan, BBC News Online
January 28th, 2001
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on business to work harder on environmental and social issues. |
| US: Seattle WTO Protests Mark New Activist Age
by Luis Cabrera, Associated Press
November 25th, 2000
The protests that all but shut down last year's World Trade Organization meeting may have been a surprise, but they were no fluke, organizers and observers say. |
| USA: Outlook Bleak for Environment Cleanup
by Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service
November 23rd, 2000
If deterioration of the global environment over the past several decades is any guide, the coming century does not hold out much promise for reversing these trends, many environmentalists are warning as the millennium comes to a close. |
| BRUNEI: Clinton Urges Economic Globalization
by Dirk Beveridge, Associated Press
November 15th, 2000
President Clinton sought to nudge economic globalization forward Wednesday by calling for new world trade negotiations by 2001 -- a deadline developing nations are resisting. |
| FRANCE: José Bové a 'French Gandhi'?
by Charles Bremner, Times of London
July 1st, 2000
The anti-capitalist campaigner José Bové compared himself to Gandhi when he went on trial yesterday for demolishing a McDonald's restaurant in a southern French market town. |
| SRI LANKA: Massive Protest Against US Mining Project
Inter Press Service
March 30th, 2000
Scientists, trade unionists and priests joined farmers from a northeast Sri Lanka village on Thursday in a massive protest in the capital against government plans to hand over phosphate mines to a US-based transnational company (TNC). |
| Bordering Injustice
by Traci Griggs and Martha Valds, La Jornada
December 9th, 1998
Non-profit environmental justice groups such as the San Diego-based Environmental Health Coalition (EHC), are trying to remove the rose colored glasses and expose the harsh reality of the U.S/Mexico border in an attempt to protect public and environmental health. EHC's battle against an abandoned maquiladora turned toxic dump, serves as a microcosm of what's wrong with border health and how NAFTA, for the most part, has exacerbated the problem. |
| The Mexican Version of Pulpwood Plantations
by Alejandro Villamar, World Rainforest Movement Bulletin
August 1st, 1998
In response to pressure from the maquiladora industry, the Mexican government is now paving the way for the large-scale pulpwood plantations in order to provide industry with raw material to produce cheap pulp and paper. |
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