Chemicals & Manufacturing

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the target of a criminal investigation over how it handled merchandise that is classified as hazardous waste, the company announced today. Read More

Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders. Read More

Runoff was harmful to humans and marine life, EPA says. Fines came in civil and criminal cases. Read More

After Nike's recent disclosure of the names and locations of 705 independent contract factories in its network, a plant visit reveals significant improvements since the 1990s. Read More

Unlike artificial sweeteners, Senomyx's chemical compounds will not be listed separately on ingredient labels. Instead, they will be lumped into a broad category - "artificial flavors" - already found on most packaged food labels. Read More

Cambodian riot police fired assault rifles and used electric batons on Tuesday to break up a protest by 1,300 workers demanding redundancy payment from a garment factory that shut down in January. Read More

The Kazipally industrial area - once good farm country - now accounts for more than one-third of India's pharmaceutical industry, meaning skyrocketing rates of cancer, heart disease and birth defects for its residents. Read More

Workers at Aura-Misr, a Spanish-Egyptian asbestos company in Cairo, have been laid off since Christmas, after a ban on asbestos took effect in the country. Many of the fired workers have been diagnosed with cancer and they worry that other workers may soon fall ill and die also. Read More

In 1984 the world's largest industrial disaster killed 8,000 people over night in Bhopal, India. Two decades later, some sort of closure might seem called for. But today survivors groups continue to struggle for justice, while the chemical industry promotes volunteer initiatives. Read More

Vietnamese Association of Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) filed a class action law suit in a New York court, against Monsanto and 36 other manufacturers of Agent Orange. Read More