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 | Smokestack Injustice? Toxic Texas Smelter May Reopen
by Kent Paterson, Special to CorpWatch
April 2nd, 2008
The old American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) copper smelter in El Paso, Texas, which has spewed out toxins for over a century, has been granted a new five-year permit. This is despite the fact that it violates international laws by polluting communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. |
 | Ecuador's Yasuni Park: Oil Exploration or Nature Protection?
by Agneta Enström, Special to CorpWatch
March 20th, 2008
Permission for Petrobras of Brazil to drill for oil in Yasuni National Park, one of the most biologically diverse places in the world, has been suspended, but some damage has already been done by Swedish construction giant Skanska. Unless new money is found to protect the forest, exploration may resume. |
 | Playing with Children's Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi
by Pilirani Semu-Banda, Special to CorpWatch
February 25th, 2008
Cigarettes may be damaging not only your own health, but also that of some of the world's poorest children. Much of Malawi's thriving tobacco industry rests on the backs of exploited children, some as young as five years old. |
 | Sunshine Laws to Track European Lobbyists
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
October 11th, 2007
Some 15,000 lobbyists work in Brussels where they meet secretly with European Union officials to try and influence the rules that govern the 27 countries that together form the world’s most powerful economic bloc. New guidelines will attempt to make this lobbying more public and reveal conflicts of interest. |
 | An Insider in Brussels: Lobbyists Reshape the European Union
by Elke Cronenberg, Special to CorpWatch
September 18th, 2006
In order to influence the new laws that encompass the 25 countries of the European Union, now the world's largest single economy, some 15,000 lobbyists have flocked to Brussels, its political heart. The public relations firm Burson-Mastellar is one of the most active among them. |
 | Intelligence in Iraq: L-3 Supplies Spy Support
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
August 9th, 2006
L-3 Communications, a little-known but gigantic military contractor, provides 300 contract intelligence experts to the Pentagon in Iraq to support operations ranging from interrogation to media analysis. The secretive $426.5 million operation, which is run out of Virginia, may be a recipe for disaster, say critics.
Also see related story, A Translator's Tale, by Pratap Chatterjee. |
 | Some Strings Attached: Cotton, Farm subsidies tie up global trade talks
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
December 13th, 2005
West African cotton farmers are among those hardest hit by government subsidized corporate agriculture. This week in Hong Kong, trade ministers from the 148 members of the World Trade Organization meet to discusss this and other global free trade issues. |
| Stalled Case Against ExxonMobil Sees Movement
by Jacqueline Koch, Special to CorpWatch
July 14th, 2004
After languishing in the courts for two years, a lawsuit that accuses ExxonMobil of complicity in human rights violations is beginning to move, thanks to the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the Alien Tort Claims Act. |
 | Not in Their Backyard
by Jacqueline Koch, Special to CorpWatch
July 14th, 2004
Legal experts, activists, and analysts weigh impact of Supreme Court decision to uphold the Alien Tort Claims Act, commonly used by human rights groups to try cases against U.S. corporations on American soil. |
 | Corporations Fight to Avoid Accountability
by Stephen R. Miller , Special to CorpWatch
July 7th, 2004
Two years after Congress enacted the sweeping corporate-accountability act known as "SOX," corporate officials are hoping their complaints will take the teeth out of the legislation's power to regulate. |
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