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France has a long history of uprisings, but the latest social group to rebel was not previously known as troublesome - shareholders.

France's traditional brand of capitalism - dominated by a small elite with strong links to politicians - ensured that government-backed managers called the shots and shareholders suffered in silence.

But in recent months there has been a whiff of revolution in the air, and some boardrooms have looked like Bastilles ripe for storming by angry investors.

The Tata Group, one of India's biggest and oldest multinationals, has taken over tribal land to build an enormous steel plant in Orissa. A clash between the traditional owners of the land and the police has resulted in numerous injuries and deaths, calling into the question the prestigious family-owned company's philanthropic image.

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.

Trace amounts of a little-researched toxic metal have been found in bottled water brands in PET bottles across Europe and Canada, says new research from Germany.

Wristbands made to raise awareness of the Make Poverty History campaign have been produced in Chinese factories which violated ethical standards, it emerged today.

Employment in El Salvador's garment industry declined in 2004 for the first time in a decade. Thousands more jobs will be lost this year, threatening to drive up El Salvador's largest export to the United States: its people.

Four former employees of Polo Ralph Lauren filed a lawsuit today in San Francisco Superior Court against the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation, alleging that the company repeatedly violated the rights of its employees, according to Patrick Kitchin, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

For thousands of years, the Kitanemuk Indians made their home in the Elk Hills of central California. Come February 2001, the last of the 100 burial grounds, holy places and other archaeological sites of the Kitanemuks will be obliterated by the oil drilling of Occidental Petroleum Company.

Today, thanks to a slew of questionable concessions offered by the local government to global investors, Gurgaon is on the addresses of some the world's best-known names in garments, automobiles, and information technology (IT).

Earnest shareholder resolutions presented at company annual general meetings on everything from human rights to executive compensation are routinely shot down in flames. But shareholder resolutions may have an effect, even in defeat.

This month, an important event is taking place that should change the lives of workers on Saipan, an island in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and impact the way we address issues of sweatshop throughout the world.

Last December, overwhelmed by debt and the countrys economic chaos, the Brukman brothers left their high-end suit factory in Buenos Aires and never returned. They also left more than 100 employees awaiting back pay.

In a twist of commercial fate, metal chunks from the World Trade Center are being melted down and recycled at a Malaysian factory -- an hour's drive from a spot where some of the Sept. 11 hijackers plotted. At the huge mill in Banting, outside Malaysia's largest city, Kuala Lumpur, shredded pieces of the fallen twin towers are among scrap headed for furnaces to be rolled into coils of flat steel used to make automobile panels and pipe, among other products.

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