News Articles
| U.S.-E.U.: WTO rules Boeing got $5B in illegal US subsidies by John Heilprin, Associated Press March 12th, 2012 The World Trade Organization ruled that U.S. planemaker Boeing received $5.3 billion in illegal government subsidies over a quarter-century. Airbus and Boeing have both complained to the WTO that the other is receiving state aid. They are locked in a long-running trade dispute over a market believed to be worth more than $3 trillion over the next decade. |
| CANADA: Canadian Rail Engineers Begin a Strike by Ian Austen, New York Times November 28th, 2009 About 1,700 locomotive engineers with the Canadian National Railway went on strike early Saturday. The walkout followed a decision by Canadian National to impose a new contract on its workers, including a 500-mile increase in the distance engineers are required to cover each month. The union said that the increased distance would sometimes make engineers work seven-day weeks without overtime. |
| US: American Airlines Hit
By $7.1 Million in Fines
by PAULO PRADA and ANDY PASZTOR, Wall Street Journal August 15th, 2008 The Federal Aviation Administration, proposing one of its biggest penalties ever, said it plans to fine AMR Corp.'s American Airlines $7.1 million for allegedly violating employee drug- and alcohol-testing procedures and knowingly flying airplanes that broke maintenance regulations. |
| US: Airlines fined $504m in US probe BBC June 26th, 2008 Five airlines have agreed to pay fines totalling $504m (£253m) for conspiring to fix prices for air cargo rates, the US Justice Department says. |
| US: Study says diesel emissions raise cancer risk by Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer, The San Francisco Chronicle March 20th, 2008 The analysis by the California Air Resources Board, released Wednesday night, shows that the greatest health dangers related to toxic air emissions stems from diesel trucks traversing the freeways and other roadways around West Oakland and the Port of Oakland. |
| US: 73,000 U.A.W. Members Go on Strike Against G.M. by Michelle Maynard, New York Times September 25th, 2007 The United Automobile Workers union wielded its most potent weapon against General Motors yesterday, sending 73,000 workers to picket lines in its first national strike at G.M. since 1970. |
| US: Politics Forcing Detroit to Back New Fuel Rules by Micheline Maynard, The New York Times June 19th, 2007 This week, with a vote possible in the Senate on an energy plan, car companies retreated from their longstanding argument that any legislation to increase fuel economy standards would rob them of profits, force them to lay off workers and deprive consumers of the vehicles they wanted to buy. They are now lobbying for a modest increase in mileage standards, a position already adopted by Toyota, in the hopes of silencing calls for even tougher targets. |
| UK: UK class action starts over toxic waste dumped in Africa by John Vidal, Guardian (UK) January 8th, 2007 Lawyers will today begin preparing the ground for one of the largest class actions heard in the UK over 400 tonnes of allegedly highly toxic waste dumped in the Ivory Coast from a cargo ship chartered by a London-based company. |
| EU: Ryanair hits back in 'green' row BBC January 5th, 2007 Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has hit back at criticism from the climate change minister, saying his airline was "the greenest in Europe". |
| IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast Nabs 2 Execs in Dump Scandal Associated Press September 18th, 2006 Authorities arrested and charged two executives of a Dutch commodities company whose dumped toxic waste has caused seven deaths and widespread sickness in the Ivory Coast's largest city, a government official said Monday. |
| US: FedEx subpoenaed in US probe of cargo industry Reuters July 14th, 2006 FedEx Corp. (FDX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday that it has received a grand jury subpoena as part of a probe by the U.S. government into possible criminal violations of antitrust laws in the air cargo transportation industry. |
| US: Big Dig problems may date back to 1999 by Steve LeBlank, The Associated Press July 13th, 2006 Contractors knew as early as 1999 that there were problems with some of the bolts attaching massive concrete panels to the ceiling of the Big Dig highway tunnel where a woman was crushed by 12 tons of falling concrete, Massachusetts' attorney general said. |
| US: Ford Plans Shift in Focus Away From Hybrids by Micheline Maynard, The New York Times June 30th, 2006 Detroit auto companies, which have lagged far behind their Japanese rivals in developing and selling hybrid vehicles, are taking a new direction in a bid to emerge as leaders in their own right on environmental issues. |
| UK: Watchdog inquiry threat over rolling stock by David Teather, The Guardian (UK) June 28th, 2006 The companies supplying the trains and carriages that run on Britain's railways are facing the threat of a competition inquiry today amid allegations they are ripping off passengers by charging the rail-operating firms too much. |
| US: More Turbulence as BA Faces US Lawsuit Over Price-fixing Claims by Richard Wray, The Guardian (UK) June 26th, 2006 The turbulence surrounding British Airways, and allegations of its involvement in an alleged price-fixing cartel, strengthened over the weekend with news that a potentially expensive class action law suit has been filed in the US. |
| UK: Airlines Face Investigation for Price Fixing by Heather Timmons, The New York Times June 22nd, 2006 British and American regulators are investigating major airlines that operate long-distance flights to and from Britain, suspecting that they may have illegally conspired to fix the amounts of fuel surcharges they impose on passengers. |
| AUSTRALIA: Virgin Blue discrimination case flies again The Age June 8th, 2006 Virgin Blue has launched an appeal against a ruling that it discriminated against eight former Ansett flight attendants because they were not young and attractive enough. |
| US: Privately Funded Trips Add Up on Capitol Hill by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Washington Post June 6th, 2006 Over 5 1/2 years, Republican and Democratic lawmakers accepted nearly $50 million in trips, often to resorts and exclusive locales, from corporations and groups seeking legislative favors, according to the most comprehensive study to date on the subject of congressional travel. |
| CANADA: CN Rail Charged Over 2005 Lake Wabamun Spill CBC News June 5th, 2006 Canadian National Railway faces one charge under Alberta's environmental protection act in connection with a train derailment at Lake Wabamun last summer. |
| KATRINA: Trailer deals go to Fluor ally by James Varney, Times-Picayune May 9th, 2006 Through a partnership with a smaller, minority-owned company, a sprawling multinational firm whose federal contract for travel trailers was up for rebidding has landed four new deals that could be worth $400 million, federal records show. |
| US: Union says Wal-Mart opposed better US port security by Peter Szekely, Reuters April 5th, 2006 The largest U.S. labor federation accused Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday of using its lobbying muscle to oppose port safety measures because they would reduce profits. |
| US: Ford owners not told of ways to reduce fuel-tank fire risk by James Polk and Susan Candiotti, CNN January 23rd, 2006 The parents of three sisters burned to death in a rear-end crash are asking Ford Motor Co. to install the same gas tank protective devices in regular models as it did for its police cars. |
| KATRINA: Government overpaid $32 million for Katrina evacuation contract by Leslie Miller, Boston Globe January 20th, 2006 A bill for busing evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was $32 million more than it should have been, and the government paid it without question, the Transportation Department inspector general said Friday. |
| KATRINA: DOT Audit Probes Katrina Evacuation Fiasco by Tim Sharrock, Reconstruction Watch January 19th, 2006 The fed is looking into contracts for evacuation of New Orleans awarded to the FAA and a transportation company with ties to Bush. Did the agency and the company do anything at all post-Katrina? |
| US: Labor Objects to Executive Bonuses at American Associated Press January 9th, 2006 "It is absolute insanity to pay out seven-figure bonuses at a time when the company is suffering nine-figure losses, mired in eleven-figure debt, and seeking further help from its employees to survive for the long term." |
| JAPAN: An insider's dark view of Toyota by Matt Rusling, Christian Science Monitor January 2nd, 2006 In 1996, Darius Mehri, a wide-eyed young American engineer, went to Japan to work for Toyota's production system. What he found was an abusive environment where the company controlled every movement - inside and outside work - of its employees. |
| US: Seattle jury clears Boeing in racial lawsuit Reuters December 21st, 2005 A federal jury in Seattle on Wednesday cleared Boeing Co. in a lawsuit brought by 4,000 black salaried employees, who claimed they were passed over for promotions because of racial discrimination. |
| US: Airlines Use Unlicensed Contractors by Marilyn Adams, USA Today December 20th, 2005 Major U.S. airlines are using unlicensed, lightly supervised contractors to perform safety-critical work such as replacing jet engines, a new report finds. |
| US: Ford, Reversing Decision, Will Run Ads in Gay Press by Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times December 15th, 2005 Less than two weeks after the Ford Motor Company said it would all but eliminate its advertising in publications that cater to gays, the company reversed itself Wednesday. |
| GERMANY: Auditors Detail VW Corruption in India and Czech Republic Deutsche Presse-Agentur November 11th, 2005 Independent auditors confirmed Friday to Volkswagen's senior board many of the details published in news reports in recent months about corrupt dealings by managers in the car company's personnel department. |
| INDIA: Japanese Investors Learn Indian Labour Laws the Hard Way by Ranjit Devraj, Inter Press Service August 3rd, 2005 Japanese investors in India took a few hard lessons in India's tough labour laws when the automobile giant Honda Motors tamely resumed production at its plant outside the national capital this week, ending three months of labour disputes, including pitched battles between police and agitated workers. |
| UK: Aviation Industry Plans to Reduce Emissions BBC news June 20th, 2005 New targets to reduce the environmental impact of air travel - set to triple over the next 30 years - are being launched by the UK's aviation industry. |
| US: Cleanup Costs for Toxic Gas Additive Could be Billions
by Michael Gardner, Copley New Service June 15th, 2005 Staring at potential payouts in the billions of dollars, the U.S. oil industry is maneuvering to escape responsibility for cleaning up after MTBE, the now-banned toxic gasoline additive that has seeped into drinking water across the country. |
| BRAZIL: Homegrown Fuel Supply Helps Drivers Breathe Easy by Marla Dickerson , L.A. Times June 15th, 2005 Today about 40% of all the fuel that Brazilians pump into their vehicles is ethanol, known here as alcohol, compared with about 3% in the United States. No other nation is using ethanol on such a vast scale. The change wasn't easy or cheap. But 30 years later, Brazil is reaping the return on its investment in energy security while the U.S. writes checks for $50-a-barrel foreign oil. |
| UK: Backlash to Animal Testing Flight Ban Rattles British Airways by Andrew Clark, The Guardian June 6th, 2005 British Airways' decision to stop carrying animals bound for scientific experimentation, which was revealed in the Guardian last week, has delighted anti-vivisection activists who highlight the suffering of mice, monkeys and guinea pigs in transit for laboratories. |
| US: SUV Drivers Reconsider by Oliver Prichard, The Philadelphia Inquirer June 1st, 2005 Some vehicles aren't worth their weight. |
| US: Bicoastal Blues For G.M. and Ford by Danny Hakim, The New York Times April 23rd, 2005 Setting aside its home base in the Upper Midwest, Detroit has a blue state problem -- and it is about to get worse. Washington and Oregon plan to become the 9th and 10th states to adopt California's tough car emissions rules, forming an increasingly potent market for more fuel-efficient vehicles on the West Coast and in the Northeast. |
| US: Honda Offers At-Home Natural-Gas Fill-Ups by Chris Woodyard, USA Today April 21st, 2005 New device offers at-home natural-gas fill-ups |
| US: When Media Dogs Don't Bark by Norman Solomon, AlterNet April 18th, 2005 The recent decision by General Motors to pull its advertising from the Los Angeles Times has not gone over very well. |
| SINGAPORE: Rolls-Royce in Venture to Develop Fuel Cell-Based Power System by Siti Rahil, Kyodo News International April 6th, 2005 Luxury car maker Rolls-Royce plc signed an agreement Wednesday with a Singapore consortium that includes several Singapore government-linked entities to jointly invest US$100 million in a new venture to develop a commercially viable power system based on fuel cell technology. |
| CANADA: Automakers Agree to Emissions Reductions
by Ian Austen, New York Times April 5th, 2005 The Canadian government and nearly all the world's major automakers reached an agreement Tuesday under which the companies would voluntarily reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of their vehicles. The Canadian minister of natural resources suggested that the nation can be a model for the state of California. |
| GERMANY: Volkswagen forced to stop paying salaries to ex-workers in politics by Bertrand Benoit, Financial Times January 14th, 2005 Volkswagen, the German car maker, bowed to public pressure yesterday, saying it would abolish its controversial practice of paying salaries to employees who leave work for full-time politics. |
| IRAN: France Steps Up Its Investments in Iran by Borzou Daragahi , The New York Times June 23rd, 2004 Undeterred by Iran's pariah status in the United States and by the shortcomings of the country's commercial climate, French companies (many of them car companies) have been increasing their presence in the country in the last few years. |
| JAPAN: Former Mitsubishi Boss Arrested
BBC June 10th, 2004 Japanese police have arrested a former head of Mitsubishi Motors and five other executives as part of a probe into the death of a truck driver. |
| US: Bush Proposal May Cut Tax on S.U.V.'s for Business by Danny Hakim, New York Times January 21st, 2003 The Bush administration's economic plan would increase by 50 percent or more the deductions that small-business owners can take right away on the biggest sport utility vehicles and pickups. |
| US: For Cruise Ships, A History of Pollution by Edwin McDowell, The New York Times June 16th, 2002 On April 19 the Carnival Corporation pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Miami to criminal charges related to falsifying records of the oil-contaminated bilge water that six of its ships dumped into the sea from 1996 through 2001. |
| US: General Motors Protests Proposed Fuel Standards Associated Press February 25th, 2002 Fearing that increased fuel economy standards will doom the pickup trucks they produce, hundreds of General Motors Corp. workers chanted "Save our trucks, save our jobs," during a meeting Monday with union, company and political leaders. |
| US: Bostonians Outraged at Corporate Subway Sponsorship Plan by Pamela Ferdinand, San Francisco Chronicle February 26th, 2001 State transportation officials, looking for new revenue, are taking a cue from professional sports arenas and seeking corporate sponsors to purchase naming rights for subway stations here. |
| 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. |
| US: Ford/Firestone = Homicide? by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on Corporations September 12th, 2000 Matthew Hendricks is one of more than 150 deaths around the world linked to Firestone tread separations. The families and friends of those killed in these accidents want to know -- what did Ford and Firestone know about these tires and when did they know it? |
| JAPAN: Police Raid Mitsubishi Motors Business Recorder August 28th, 2000 Japanese police investigators raided the offices of Mitsubishi Motors Corp on Sunday on suspicion of concealing customer complaints and recalls from government inspectors for decades, Kyodo news agency reported. |
| GERMANY: DaimlerChrysler Facing SEC Investigation by David Mchugh, National Post (Canada) Automaking giant DaimlerChrysler AG said Thursday that it was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after a fired employee told labour officials he was dismissed for complaining that the company was using secret bank accounts to bribe government officials. |