 |
| INDIA: Camera Obscura and the manufacture of happiness
by Aman Sethi & Priscilla Jebaraj, The Hindu
March 6th, 2012
An advertisement flooding airwaves across India would have you believe that a company called Vedanta is a creating a product called happiness. But London-based Vedanta Resources has attracted the ire of environmental activists and human rights groups like Amnesty International who have accused the company of exploiting indigenous communities — such as the Dongria Kondhs of Niyamgiri in Odisha — without due process. |
| SYRIA: US technology used to censor the Internet in Syria
by Pratap Chatterjee, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
October 23rd, 2011
Technology from a major Silicon Valley company, Blue Coat, is being used by the Syrian government to censor the Internet and monitor dissidents, according to activists. The equipment can be used to monitor users and block access to certain websites, such as social networking applications like Facebook and internet phone sites like Skype, which were key to the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia |
| LIBYA: Censorship Inc.
by Paul Sonne and Margaret Coker, The Wall Street Journal
August 30th, 2011
Amesys of France, VASTech of South Africa and ZTE Corp. of China provided technology to Libya that was allegedly used for the repression of Libyan citizens during the four decade rule of Colonel Gadhafi. |
| 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: FBI Probes Explosion in West Virginia Mine
by Kris Maher and Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal
April 30th, 2010
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a criminal probe of the deadly explosion at a Massey Energy Co. mine in West Virginia in early April that killed 29 miners, according to people familiar with the matter. In a statement on Friday Massey Energy said, "Massey has no knowledge of criminal wrongdoing." |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Lost in Limbo: Injured Afghan Translators Struggle to Survive
by Pratap Chatterjee, ProPublica
December 17th, 2009
Local translators are hidden casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military uses defense contractors to hire local residents to serve as translators for the troops. These local translators often live, sleep and eat with soldiers. And yet when they are wounded, they are often ignored by the U.S. system designed to provide them medical care and disability benefits, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Paying Off the Warlords,
Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption
by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com
November 17th, 2009
Among the dozens of businesses with lucrative Afghan and U.S. taxpayer-financed reconstruction deals are two extremely well connected companies -- Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid -- that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country's new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| SOUTH AMERICA: Plundering the Amazon
by Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro, Bloomberg.com
August 16th, 2009
Alcoa and Cargill have bypassed laws designed to prevent destruction of the world’s largest rain forest, Brazilian prosecutors say. The damage wrought by scores of companies is robbing the earth of its best shield against global warming. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| AFRICA: Blood diamond scheme 'is failing'
BBC News
June 24th, 2009
Officials are meeting to review the Kimberley Process, amid criticism that the scheme, set up to certify the origin of diamonds to assure consumers that by purchasing diamonds they are not financing war and human rights abuses, is failing. The Kimberley Process emerged from global outrage over conflicts in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, largely funded by the plundering of diamond resources. |
| 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. |
| 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: 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| IRAN/CHINA: Iranians and Others Outwit Net Censors
by John Markoff, New York Times
April 30th, 2009
The Internet is no longer just an essential channel for commerce, entertainment and information. It has also become a stage for state control — and rebellion against it. Computers are becoming more crucial in global conflicts, not only in spying and military action, but also in determining what information reaches people around the globe. |
| UK: Use of Web Tracking Tool Raises Privacy Issue in Britain
by Kevin J. O'Brien, New York Times
April 14th, 2009
The European Commission threatened Britain with sanctions on Tuesday for allowing use of a new advertising technology, created by Phorm, to track the Web movements of customers. The country’s largest service provider, BT, acknowledged last April that it used the tool without customers’ consent in 2006 and 2007. |
| US: Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead
by Jad Mouawad, New York Times
April 7th, 2009
The Obama administration seeks the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation. But Big Oil is not on board. Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. The list goes on. |
| 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. |
| 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/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. |
| CHILE: Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water
by Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times
March 15th, 2009
Nowhere is the system for buying and selling water more permissive than in Chile, where water rights are private property, not a public resource, and can be traded like commodities with little government oversight or safeguards for the environment. The small town of Quillaga is being swallowed up in the country’s intensifying water wars. |
| UGANDA/IRAQ: Why 10,000 Ugandans are eagerly serving in Iraq
by Max Delany, Christian Science Monitor
March 6th, 2009
Hired out to multibillion-dollar companies for hundreds of dollars a month, 10,000 Ugandans risk their lives seeking fortunes protecting US Army bases, airports, and oil firms in Iraq for as little as $600 per month. Many are looking to go to Afghanistan as the Obama administration increases contracts there. |
| 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. |
| US: 70 Youths Sue Former Judges in Detention Kickback Case
by Ian Urbina, New York Times
February 26th, 2009
More than 70 juveniles and their families filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday against two former judges who pleaded guilty this month in a scheme that involved their taking kickbacks to put young offenders in privately run detention centers. The two privately operated centers are run by PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| US/IRAQ: Indiana guardsmen sue defense contractor KBR
by Farah Stockman, Boston Globe
December 4th, 2008
Sixteen Indiana national guardsmen filed a lawsuit yesterday against military contractor KBR. The complaint alleges that several reservists contracted respiratory system tumors and skin rashes after guarding reconstruction work at the Qarmat Ali treatment plant, strewn with the toxin chromium dichromate. |
| CHILE: Nearly 2,000 Carrying H.I.V. in Chile Were Not Notified
by PASCALE BONNEFOY and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO , The New York Times
November 13th, 2008
Chile’s health minister said Thursday that the country’s public health system had failed to notify at least 512 people that they were infected with H.I.V., and that private-sector services did not inform an additional 1,364 that they were carrying the virus, which causes AIDS. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Apartheid lawsuit back in US court
SABC News
September 25th, 2008
After six years of battling, the plaintiffs must prove whether certain multinationals enabled the apartheid government to commit acts of gross human rights violations. Among the 21 defendants are oil, vehicle and financial companies which continue to operate in South Africa -- the likes of BP, Shell, Chevron Texaco, Barclays, Daimler Chrysler and Rio Tinto. They stand accused of supporting the former regime with arms and ammunition, financing, fuel, transportation and military technology. |
| CONGO: Candidates Silent On Resource War In Congo
by Georgianne Nienaber, Huffington Post
September 25th, 2008
All politics is local, to paraphrase the venerable Bostonian and Democratic, Tip O'Neill. To human rights workers, journalists, writers, and humanitarians who have intimate knowledge of the Great Lakes Region of Equatorial Africa, this short email conjures a place, people, and tragedy that has been met with a wall of silence on the campaign trail. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama has addressed this great humanitarian breakdown, except in the context of political squabbling. |
| COLOMBIA: To die for
by Mark Thomas, Guardian (UK)
September 20th, 2008
Being a trade union organiser in bottling plants used by Coca-Cola in Colombia is a dangerous business - they are prime targets for death squads. Can Coke be held responsible? Mark Thomas follows the trail from Bogotá to New York |
| US: Files Show Governor Intervened With Court
by Ian Urbina, New York Times
August 13th, 2008
West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III filed a friend-of-the-court brief in June, arguing the State Supreme Court should review a $382 million judgment against DuPont. The case involves thousands of residents in the area of a DuPont-operated zinc-smelting plant, and the largest civil penalty ever levied against the company, for the dumping of toxic arsenic, cadmium and lead at the plant. |
| 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. |
| US: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
by Ed Pilkington, Guardian (UK)
June 23rd, 2008
On June 23, James Hansen, a leading world climate scientist, called for the executives of major fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, to be put on trial for crimes against humanity and nature through actions like funding climate skeptics to undermine global consensus around combating climate change. |
| US: Workers on Hunger Strike Say They Were Misled on Visas
by JULIA PRESTON, The New York Times
June 7th, 2008
The Indian workers say they were deceived by Signal International and labor recruiters when they paid as much as $20,000 for visas they believed would allow them to work and live permanently with their families in the United States. In fact, the H-2B visas are for short-term contracts. |
| 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: Workers Sue Gulf Coast Company That Imported Them
by ADAM NOSSITER, The New York Times
March 11th, 2008
A group of 500 foreign welders and pipefitters brought in to work at Gulf Coast oil rig yards after Hurricane Katrina said Monday that they had sued their employer, claiming they were lured with false promises of permanent-resident status, forced to live in inhumane conditions and then threatened when they protested. |
| CHINA: Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China
by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post
March 9th, 2008
The Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co. of Henan, China, is a green energy company, producing polysilicon for solar energy panels. But the byproduct -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards. |
| UGANDA: Privatization of Seeds Moving Apace
by Aileen Kwa, IPS
February 21st, 2008
The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. According to an inside government source, seeds companies including Monsanto have been lobbying for such intellectual property protection. |
| US: Court dismisses lawsuit on secret kidnapping
by Adam Tanner, Reuters
February 14th, 2008
A federal judge, saying the case involved a state secret, dismissed a lawsuit on Wednesday against a unit of Boeing Co that charged the firm helped fly terrorism suspects abroad to secret prisons. |
| US: Limbo for U.S. Women Reporting Iraq Assaults
by JAMES RISEN, The New York Times
February 13th, 2008
Ms. Kineston is among a number of American women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq but now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or even significant compensation. |
| US: Giuliani Had Ties to Company Trying to Sell Border Technology
by RUSS BUETTNER, New York Times
January 18th, 2008
On the presidential campaign trail, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani often promotes the installation of electronic monitoring devices at the border to stem illegal immigration, without mentioning that until a few months ago, he was partner in a company trying to market such technology. |
| CHILE: Copper Boom - Cui Bono?
by Daniela Estrada, IPS News
January 11th, 2008
According to global forecasts, the price of copper, Chile’s main export, will remain high in 2008 thanks to strong demand from China. But just who will benefit from this bonanza is up for debate. |
| 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. |
| IRAQ: Sexual Violence: An Occupational Hazard -- In Iraq and at Home
by Marie Tessier, Women's Media Center
December 26th, 2007
Jamie Leigh Jones was just 20 in 2005 when she took a leap of faith to work in Iraq for her employer, military contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root, then a subsidiary of Halliburton. She went on a mission she believed in. Shortly after her arrival in Iraq, however, Jones' ambitions were dashed in an alleged gang rape by co-workers. |
| US: Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry
by Eric Lichtblau, James Risen and Scott Shane, New York Times
December 16th, 2007
The Bush administration is waging a high-profile campaign to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program. At stake is the federal government's partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism and crime. |
| CANADA: Gov't Urged to Rein in Mining Sector
by Am Johal, IPS News
December 7th, 2007
Canadian mining companies continue to come under scrutiny from civil society organisations for international human rights violations and environmental damage that critics say the Canadian government has done little to check. |
| 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. |
| US: Intel official: Say goodbye to privacy
by Pamela Hess , Associated Press
November 11th, 2007
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information. |
| 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. |
| US: US lawmakers plan squeeze on Chevron in Myanmar
AFP
October 24th, 2007
Proposed sanctions introduced in the US House of Representatives would pressure US energy giant Chevron to pull its investment from Myanmar, which rights activists say is helping prop up the ruling military junta. |
| RUSSIA: Siberian boom threatens traditions
by Tom Esslemont, BBC News
October 8th, 2007
Russia is forging ahead with ambitious energy projects in eastern Siberia, but the indigenous Evenk people are complaining that their age-old way of life is in danger. |
| 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. |
| CONGO: World Bank accused of razing Congo forests
by John Vidal, The Guardian (UK)
October 4th, 2007
The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts. |
| FRANCE: Total: No Capital Expenditures in Myanmar
Associated Press
September 27th, 2007
Total SA, reacting Thursday to comments by French President Sarkozy urging the oil and gas giant to refrain from new investment in Myanmar, said it had not made any capital expenditure there since 1998. The military junta that rules Myanmar this week escalated its efforts to repress pro-democracy demonstrations led by thousands of Buddhist monks. |
| US: Families Cannot Sue Firm for Israel Deaths
by Ed Pilkington, Guardian (London)
September 19th, 2007
The parents of Rachel Corrie, the US peace activist who was crushed to death four years ago in the then Israeli-occupied Gaza as she was protesting against the demolition of Palestinian homes, have been refused permission to sue the company which made the bulldozer that killed her. |
| US: U.S. Contractor Banned by Iraq Over Shootings
by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times
September 18th, 2007
Blackwater USA, an American contractor that provides security to some of the top American officials in Iraq, has been banned from working in the country by the Iraqi government after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead and involved an American diplomatic convoy. |
| 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. |
| CHINA: U.S. Group Accuses Chinese Toy Factories of Labor Abuses
by David Barboza , New York Times
August 21st, 2007
A workers’ rights group in the United States released a report on Tuesday detailing what it called brutal conditions and illegal practices in Chinese toy factories, many of which supply some of the world’s biggest brand-name toy makers, including Walt Disney and Hasbro. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| US: Blackwater supports inquiry into fatal shooting
by Bill Sizemore, Virginian-Pilot
July 25th, 2007
After one of his personal bodyguards was shot to death by a Blackwater USA security contractor last Christmas Eve, Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi assured the U.S. ambassador that he was trying to keep the incident out of the public eye. |
| 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. |
| CHILE: Gold rush threatens glacier
by Lucia Newman , Al Jazeera
July 8th, 2007
A new gold rush is under way as mining companies seek to supply the ever-increasing demand for the precious metal from emerging economies such as India, and with reserves dwindling all over the world they are going to extraordinary lengths to extract it. |
| 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. |
| BURMA: No End to Forced Labour
by Gustavo Capdevila , Inter Press Service News Agency
June 15th, 2007
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) expressed profound concern about the persistence of forced labour in Burma, while it is closely monitoring the implementation of a mechanism for victims to file complaints, which was recently agreed with the Southeast Asian country's governing junta. |
| IRAQ: Caught in Trafficking
by David Phinney, Inter Press Service News Agency
June 15th, 2007
A Filipino air conditioner repairman's life was turned upside down when promises of good pay and work in Kuwait were replaced with the harsh realities of corrupt recruiters, horrible living conditions and forced work in Iraq. |
| CHILE: Chile Must Pay US$5.4 Million to Aricans Living Amid Toxic Waste
by Mike Hager, The Santiago Times
June 1st, 2007
In a landmark case, Chile’s Supreme Court ruled this week that the state must compensate 356 residents of two slums in the northern mining city of Arica for health problems brought on by years of exposure to open deposits of toxic waste. Promel, the Swedish company responsible for the importation of the toxic materials, cannot compensate the plaintiffs because the company no longer exists. |
| IRAQ: Death Toll for Contractors Reaches New High in Iraq
by John M. Broder and James Risen, New York Times
May 19th, 2007
Casualties among private contractors in Iraq have soared to record levels this year, setting a pace that seems certain to turn 2007 into the bloodiest year yet for the civilians who work alongside the American military in the war zone, according to new government numbers. |
| 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. |
| NIGERIA: Shell to raise Nigerian oil production
by Jad Mouawad, International Herald Tribune
April 4th, 2007
A year after being forced to shut down more than half of its oil output in Nigeria because of militant violence, Royal Dutch Shell said it expected to resume full production within the next "five to six months," after agreeing with local communities that it could safely return to the Niger Delta.
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| NIGERIA: Shell to raise Nigerian oil production
by Jad Mouawad, International Herald Tribune
April 4th, 2007
A year after being forced to shut down more than half of its oil output in Nigeria because of militant violence, Royal Dutch Shell said it expected to resume full production within the next "five to six months," after agreeing with local communities that it could safely return to the Niger Delta.
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| BURMA: Shackles, torture, executions: inside Burma's jungle gulags
by Dan McDougall, The Observer
March 25th, 2007
There is no real dissent here in Rangoon. People are too scared to be members of any democratic movement. We are all just victims, people like me who are trying to get their lives back.' Ko Min, 47, his wife and two sons were swept up with hundreds of others in a military raid on their village close to the city of Bagan in 2005. The family were put to work, clearing jungle, digging latrines and an irrigation system for a military camp outside Mandalay. (mentions Zarubezhneft oil company) |
| PERU: Human Rights Commission May Examine Violations at La Oroya, Peru
Earthjustice Legal Fund and CIEL
March 21st, 2007
Public health and environmental organizations from throughout the Western Hemisphere today announced the filing of a petition with the human rights division of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. The petition accuses the Peruvian government of doing little to halt contamination from a metallurgical complex that is impacting the lives and health of the citizens of La Oroya, Peru. |
| COLOMBIA: Colombia May Extradite Chiquita Officials
by Simon Romero, New York Times
March 19th, 2007
Colombian officials said over the weekend that they would consider seeking the extradition of senior executives of Chiquita Brands International after the company pleaded guilty in United States federal court to making payments to paramilitary death squads. |
| US: Chevron gets part of suit dismissed
by Elizabeth Douglass, Los Angeles Times
March 15th, 2007
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a racketeering charge against Chevron Corp. brought by Nigerian villagers who believe the oil giant condoned human rights abuses carried out by the West African nation's militia. |
| US: Chevron wins partial dismissal in Nigeria case
Herald Tribune
March 14th, 2007
A federal judge in California threw out a racketeering claim against Chevron Corp. filed by Nigerians who claimed the oil company conspired with the military and police to gun down demonstrators protesting their operations in the African nation. |
| HONDURAS: Protests Mount Against Mining Giant
by Stephen Leahy, Mines & Communities
February 24th, 2007
Dangerous levels of lead and arsenic have been found in the blood of Honduran villagers living downstream from a controversial gold and silver mine owned by Canada's Goldcorp Inc., the world's third largest gold mining firm. |
| CONGO: All that glitters...
by Jean-Roger Kaseki, Guardian (UK)
February 13th, 2007
Decades of gold mining should have given Congo a ticket to prosperity. Instead, it is trapped in a cycle of violence and poverty. |
| NIGERIA: Oil Spill Displaces 10 Ijaw Communities
by Emma Arubi, Vanguard (Lagos)
February 13th, 2007
CHEVRON'S Abiteye flow station oil spill of over 1,500 barrels of crude has rendered over 10 Ijaw communities and 500 hundred persons homeless in Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri South West local government area of Delta State. |
| CHINA: Businesses help China's government abuse rights
by Chang Ching-hsi, Taipai Times
February 9th, 2007
Following the onset of reform in 1978, China has become the world's factory. By late February, its foreign exchange reserves had reached a total of US$853.7 billion, surpassing Japan's US$831.6 billion to become the largest in the world.
Meanwhile, the human rights of the Chinese people remain severely restricted. |
| US: Lawsuit accuses Connecticut nursery of human trafficking
by John Christoffersen, Associated Press
February 8th, 2007
A dozen Guatemalan workers filed a federal lawsuit Thursday accusing one of the nation's largest nurseries of engaging in human trafficking by forcing them to work nearly 80 hours per week, paying them less than minimum wage and denying them medical care for injuries on the job. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: MCC stalls new Aids drugs
by Belinda Beresford, Mail & Guardian Online
February 3rd, 2007
South Africans have been denied the “biggest advance” in antiretroviral therapy over the last few years because of a lack of urgency in the drug registration process in South Africa, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. |
| US: PUC Not Letting Verizon off Hook
by Ann S. Kim, Portland Press Herald (MAINE)
January 30th, 2007
The Maine Public Utilities Commission decided Monday to begin contempt proceedings against Verizon Communications for failing to affirm the truthfulness of statements the company made about its possible role in the government's warrantless surveillance program. |
| US: Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation
by Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders and Robyn Dixon, L A Times
January 7th, 2007
An ink spot certified that he had been immunized against polio and measles, thanks to a vaccination drive supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. |
| CHINA: Hundreds of workers protest company beatings
Asia News
January 5th, 2007
Hundreds of workers yesterday held a protest in Pingshan (Shenzhen) outside DeCoro, an Italian sofa company, accusing supervisors of severely beating three employees who dared to ask for respect of the minimum wage. In November 2005 disputes had already taken place between the employees and the company with mutual accusations of violence made. |
| US: OSHA Cites Tool Maker
Hartford Courant
December 27th, 2006
A West Hartford tool manufacturing plant has been cited for widespread safety and health hazards for the third time in six years by the Hartford office of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency said Tuesday. |
| CHINA: Net giants 'still failing China'
by Thembi Mutch, BBC News
December 18th, 2006
Earlier this year net giants Google and Yahoo came under fire from Human Rights Watch and Reporters Sans Frontieres, for their activities in China. But is the criticism warranted? |
| CHINA: Net giants 'still failing China'
by Thembi Mutch, BBC News Online
December 18th, 2006
Earlier this year net giants Google and Yahoo came under fire from Human Rights Watch and Reporters Sans Frontieres, for their activities in China. But is the criticism warranted? |
| US: Apple gets low score in Greenpeace e-waste report
by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld
December 6th, 2006
Environmental group Greenpeace on Wednesday issued the first quarterly update on the technology industry’s performance on environmental issues. While the group recognized many companies are improving Apple does not appear to be among them — Apple remains in last place. |
| GHANA: Ghana's gold inflicts heavy price
by James Haselip, People and the Planet
December 6th, 2006
Gold mining is Ghana�s most valuable export industry: in 2005, US$1.4 billion worth of gold was shipped from the country, dwarfing the value of its other major foreign currency earners - timber and cocoa. However, very little of the gold revenues stay in the country while damage to the physical environment by both large and small-scale mining is inflicting an incalculable cost to the economy with vast tracts of farming land permanently ruined, forests destroyed and water resources diverted and polluted. |
| WORLD: Controlling the Corporate Mercenaries
by Nick Dearden, War on Want, Zmag
November 7th, 2006
While Iraq represents bloodshed and death on a massive scale to most people, to Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) it has brought a boom time, boosting the revenues of British-based PMSCs alone from £320 million in 2003 to more than £1.8 billion in 2004. In the same year income for the industry worldwide reached $100 billion. |
| US: THE C.I.A.’S TRAVEL AGENT
by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
October 23rd, 2006
On the official Web site of Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, there is a section devoted to a subsidiary called Jeppesen International Trip Planning, based in San Jose, California. The write-up mentions that the division “offers everything needed for efficient, hassle-free, international flight operations,” spanning the globe “from Aachen to Zhengzhou.” The paragraph concludes, “Jeppesen has done it all.” |
| US: Critics attack Myanmar’s ‘blood gem’ auctions
by Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, Agence France Presse
October 18th, 2006
With up to 90 percent of the world’s rubies and many other precious gems mined in Myanmar, chances are that a vast proportion of the stones glinting in the windows of high-end jewelers worldwide originate in the military-ruled nation. |
| INDIA: 80,000 coal belt families face evacuation
Statesman News Service
October 10th, 2006
As many as 80,000 families living near the Jharia mine in Dhanbad coal belt face relocation. Officials say the coalfield area is, in effect, sitting on a “giant fireball deep inside the earth,” after they discovered at least six underground leaks of toxic fumes. Experts fear massive underground explosions followed by subsidence occuring at any moment. |
| IVORY COAST: Toxic dumpers face jail term
Reuters
September 24th, 2006
SUSPECTS charged in connection with the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast, which killed seven people and made thousands ill, could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted, a Justice Ministry official said. |
| AFRICA: War, Murder, Rape... All for Your Cell
by Stan Cox, Alternet
September 14th, 2006
Cassiterite, or tin oxide, is the most important source of the metallic element tin, and the DRC is home to fully one-third of the world's reserves. Some cassiterite miners work on sites operated directly by the country's military or other armed groups. Working in the same area are "artisanal" miners who are theoretically independent, like prospectors in America's Old West. But the cassiterite they extract is heavily taxed by the soldiers -- when it's not just stolen outright. |
| US: FBI, congressional panel open their own HP probes
by
Benjamin Pimentel, San Francisco Chronicle
September 12th, 2006
The scandal surrounding Hewlett-Packard Co. escalated Monday when members of Congress and federal law enforcement officials announced they would launch inquiries into the tech giant's practices during a controversial probe of media leaks that began last year. |
| INDONESIA: Newmont Exec to Defend Himself in Court
by Robin McDowell, Associated Press
August 25th, 2006
An American gold-mining executive was preparing Friday to defend himself in court for the first time against charges his company dumped millions of tons of mercury and arsenic-laced waste into an Indonesian bay, sickening villagers. |
| PERU: Beggar on a Throne of Gold
by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS)
August 23rd, 2006
Mining companies operating in Peru are seeing increasing millions in profits as a result of the surge in international prices for metals, but few are contributing what is needed to alleviate the poverty of the people living in mining areas. |
| THAILAND: Patent or patient? How Washington uses trade deals to protect drugs
by Alan Beattie, Andrew Jack and Amy Kazmin, The Financial Times
August 22nd, 2006
As the World Health Organisation's top man in Thailand, William Aldis knew Thai officials were hosting their US counterparts in the northern city of Chiang Mai to negotiate what to many outsiders might seem an entirely worthy objective: a bilateral free-trade deal. But he saw dangers - and decided to make his views public. |
| INDIA: Pesticide Charge in India Hurts Pepsi and Coke
by Amelia Gentleman, International Herald Tribune
August 22nd, 2006
When claims were first published on the front pages of Indian newspapers this month that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo beverages were contaminated with pesticides, executives at the two companies were breezily confident that they could handle the issue.
Three weeks later, though, they are still struggling to win back Indian consumers. One-quarter of India’s component states have imposed partial bans on their products, and a complex legal battle to overturn those bans is only just beginning. |
| 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. |
| NIGERIA: Shell to Pay Nigeria $1.5bn to the Ijaw people
African Echo
July 20th, 2006
A Nigerian court has ordered oil giant Shell's local operation to pay $1.5bn to the Ijaw people of the Delta region, who have been fighting since 2000 for compensation for environmental degradation in the oilrich region. They took the case to court after Shell refused to make the payment ordered by Nigeria's parliament in 2000. |
| INDIA: Petri Dish for Pharmaceutical MNCs
by Ann De Ron, Inter Press News Service
July 10th, 2006
Pharmaceutical multinationals, seeking to ramp up profits through cheap drug trials, are increasingly turning to India with its combination of a vast pool of poor, ignorant patients on the one hand and skilled medical personnel and fine research infrastructure on the other. |
| DRC: Minerals Flow Abroad, Misery Remains
by Emad Mekay, Inter Press News Service
July 5th, 2006
International companies and local elites in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are pocketing revenues from copper and cobalt production instead of sharing it with local communities or spending it to reduce poverty, a watchdog group charged Wednesday. |
| US: The 100 Worst Corporate Citizens
by Phil Mattera, The Corporate Research Project
July 1st, 2006
For the past 52 years, Fortune magazine has been publishing a list of the largest U.S. corporations, an annual chance for chief executives to brag that "my revenue is bigger than yours." For the past seven years, Business Ethics magazine has issued another kind of ranking -- a list of what it calls the "100 Best Corporate Citizens" -- that promotes virtue over size in the perennial game of corporate comparisons. |
| AUSTRALIA: Toxic cocktail released in fire
by
Jason Gregory, Michael Corkill and Margaret Slocombe , The Courier Mail
June 29th, 2006
A HIGH-LEVEL government report into toxic hazards at a notorious industrial estate north of Brisbane is expected to find several violations of chemical storage rules by businesses located on the site. |
| 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. |
| AUSTRALIA: Mt Isa Lead Risk For Children
by Michelle Wiese Bockmann, The Australian
June 21st, 2006
Children in the Queensland mining capital of Mount Isa have been put at risk by fallout from the city's copper and lead smelters because the state Government has failed to routinely test for lead poisoning. |
| US: Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure
by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian
June 17th, 2006
A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market. |
| US: Caterpillar Pressured Over "Weaponised Bulldozers"
by Emad Mekay, Inter Press News Service
June 15th, 2006
The parents of a U.S. peace activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer built by the global machinery giant Caterpillar confronted the company Wednesday for the first time and urged shareholders at its annual meeting to end sales of "weaponised bulldozers to Israel". |
| US: ATT: Wired News is a "Scofflaw"
by Ryan Singell, Wired News
June 13th, 2006
Wired News is a "scofflaw" full of "hot air" and should not be heard in a class-action lawsuit accusing AT&T of violating customers' privacy by cooperating with the National Security Agency in a warrantless internet wiretap operation, the telecommunications company said in a court filing Monday. |
| CONGO: Congo's Child Miner Shame
by Orla Guerin, BBC News
June 12th, 2006
To commemorate World Day Against Child Labour, BBC News has spent a day with child miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who work for about one dollar per day. At Ruashi mine, in the Eastern province of Katanga, almost 800 children dig for copper and cobalt. |
| CHINA: Google must obey China law
by Verne Kopytoff, San Francisco Chronicle
June 9th, 2006
China's government reiterated on Thursday that foreign Internet companies such as Google Inc. must abide by its laws, which require censoring online material that is considered to be politically sensitive. |
| US: Biggest pension fund boycotts Wal-Mart
by Terry Macalister, The Guardian
June 7th, 2006
Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and owner of the Asda supermarket chain, is being boycotted by the world's largest pension fund for alleged "serious and systematic" abuses of human and employment rights. |
| CANADA: Platinum Mine Sparks Lawsuits
Canadian Press
May 29th, 2006
The development of a potentially rare and lucrative platinum mine near a reserve in Northern Ontario has prompted a First Nation to sue the provincial government while it faces a $10 billion lawsuit from a Canadian exploration company. |
| NIGERIA: Ijaw Win $1.5 Billion Suit Against Shell
by George Onah, Vanguard (Lagos)
May 23rd, 2006
The Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has ordered Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, to pay $1.5 billion about N210 billion into the coffers of Central Bank of Nigeria, in favour of the Ijaw Aborigenes of Bayelsa State, between last Friday and noon tomorrow. |
| US: Uh-oh, it's the shareholders
by Bruce Meyerson, Chicago Sun-Times
May 21st, 2006
It happens only once a year, and yet so many headstrong corporate CEO's can't seem to cope with being in a room with shareholders for a few hours at the annual meeting.
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| US: AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence
Wired
May 17th, 2006
Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against the company, which alleges that AT&T illegally cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic-surveillance program. |
| 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. |
| NETHERLANDS: The Dutch Try One of Their Own Over Links to Liberia
by Marlise Simons, The New York Times
May 3rd, 2006
Mr. van Kouwenhoven, 63, is also charged with war crimes. He is accused of supplying Mr. Taylor with militia fighters from his lumber companies. He is further charged with violating a United Nations embargo by smuggling weapons into Liberia. His trial, held under a new mix of national and international law, is drawing attention because it is the second time a Dutch court is prosecuting a Dutch businessman for being involved with human rights abuses on another continent.
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| CHINA: Yahoo China is under fire again
by Ilya Garger, MarketWatch
April 28th, 2006
U.S. internet companies like Yahoo and Google may have gone to China hoping to find a gold mine. But it's also turned out to be a mine field of controversy over censorship and political rights. |
| US: Halliburton' Internment Camps
by Ruth Conniff, The Progressive
April 18th, 2006
KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary recently reprimanded for gross overcharging in its military contracts in Iraq, won a $385 million contract to build large-scale detention centers in case of an "emergency influx" of immigrants. |
| US: The Case Against Coke
by Michaeil Blanding, The Nation
April 14th, 2006
The Coca-Cola Company will hold its stockholders' meeting, an annual exercise designed to boost the confidence of investors. If the meeting is anything like last year's, however, it may do the opposite. |
| ARGENTINA: Bolivian Community Divided Over Sweatshops
by Marcela Valente, Inter Press News Service
April 6th, 2006
The Buenos Aires city government's new offensive against slave labour has resulted in the closure of 30 clandestine textile sweatshops in the Argentine capital. But it has also caused divisions in the Bolivian immigrant community: some denounce the exploitative labour conditions, while others desperately want to keep their jobs, however precarious. |
| 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. |
| INDONESIA: U.S. Aid to Corrupt TNI Risks More Rights Abuses
by Lisa Misol, The Jakarta Post
March 14th, 2006
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Jakarta follows the Bush Administration's controversial decision to reestablish full relations with the Indonesian Military (TNI). That move opens the door to renewed U.S. assistance, but pumping aid to an unreformed Indonesian military would serve only to encourage further rights abuses and undermine civilian governance. |
| 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. |
| UK: UK attacked for Uganda arms deal
by Karen Allen, BBC News
March 1st, 2006
The UK has failed to act on promises to plug loopholes that allow the sale of arms to countries with poor human rights records, aid agency Oxfam says. It says that military vehicles were sold to Uganda by a South African subsidiary of the UK firm BAE Systems. |
| BRAZIL: Indigenous People Fight for Their Rights
by Mario Osava , Inter Press Service
February 3rd, 2006
Land conflicts involving indigenous people have multiplied in Brazil over the last few months, generating greater tension and showing once again that the country's roughly 400,000 indigenous people still have a long way to go to win respect for their rights. |
| INDONESIA: Recklessness in Indonesia
The New York Times
January 9th, 2006
Freeport-McMoRan, an American company that operates a giant open-pit copper and gold mine in Papua, is a major contributor to Indonesia's economy. The company is also one of Indonesia's most reckless polluters and a source of hard cash -- cash the company concedes is protection money -- for the Indonesian military, which has one of the worst human rights records anywhere. |
| US: Wal-Mart Web Site Makes Racial Connections
by Ylan Q. Mui, Washington Post
January 6th, 2006
Wal-Mart apologized yesterday after its retail Web site directed potential buyers of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Planet of the Apes" DVDs to also consider purchasing DVDs with African American themes. |
| US: General Electric workers sue Monsanto over PCBs
by Carey Gillam, Reuters
January 4th, 2006
More than 500 General Electric Co. employees have sued Monsanto Co. along with two related companies, claiming they were exposed to toxic chemicals manufactured for decades by Monsanto, the company said Wednesday. |
| NIGERIA: Blood Flows With Oil in Poor Villages
by Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times
January 1st, 2006
For months a pitched battle has been fought between communities that claim authority over this village and the right to control what lies beneath its watery ground: a potentially vast field of crude oil that has caught the attention of a major energy company. |
| US: Insurance Redlining Rampant in California
by Brendan Coyne, The New Standard
December 21st, 2005
In many parts of California, moving merely across the street could cause drivers’ car-insurance rates to go up. This is especially the case if the new address is in a zip code with an even slight increase in the percentage of black or Latino residents, a study has found. |
| 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. |
| INDIA: Testing Drugs on India's Poor
by Scott Carney, Wired
December 19th, 2005
Multinational corporations are riding high on the trend toward globalization by taking advantage of India's educated work force and deep poverty to turn South Asia into the world's largest clinical-testing petri dish. |
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