In the News

Top U.S. lawyer on Manila "Al Qaeda" blacklist group

Reuters
09/28/2007

By Manny Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines has put rights activists, including a former U.S. attorney-general and members of church groups, on an immigration blacklist drawn up ostensibly to stop terrorists from entering, a rights group said on Friday.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Manila was trying to stymie criticism at a time when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is in the spotlight because of political violence against her opponents.

Child Labour on the Rise in Cottonfields

Business Standard (India)
09/27/2007

By Ch Prashanth Reddy

More than 416,000 children under the age of 18, of whom almost 225,000 are younger than 14, are involved in child labour in India's cottonseed production. Most of them are girls.

They work in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which account for nearly 92 per cent of the cottonseed production in the country.

A recent report titled ‘Child bondage continues in Indian cotton supply chain’ reveals that the total number of working children in cottonfields has risen over 2003-04.

Charity towards trade unions begins - but not at home

Financial Times
09/10/2007

Excerpt from article:

Renato Pambid is a Filipino lawyer working with the Workers Assistance Committee, a local labour group, in the sprawling Cavite export processing zone outside Manila. His work has recently included representing employees at the Korean-owned Chong Won Fashion factory who had been sacked after forming a union.

Picketing workers have been attacked by local security staff and by armed masked men wearing military fatigues.

Report criticizes retailer's methods

Arkansas Democrat Gazette
09/06/2007

 

Excerpt from article: 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ’s lowcost, low-price business model leads to environmental damage, sweatshop conditions at suppliers’ factories and loss of jobs in communities, a coalition of labor, environment and community groups says in a report scheduled for release today.

The Big Box Collaborative, an umbrella organization encompassing two dozen groups, singles out the world’s largest retailer for business practices it says result in more harm than good.

Stop Firestone Coalition

Our Voices: The Youth Tax Justice Network Newsletter
09/01/2007

By Tim Newman

In response to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company’s abuses in Liberia, an international coalition of human rights, labor rights, environmental and African solidarity organizations have formed the Stop Firestone Coalition. The coalition is composed of both US and Liberian-based organizations that are in constant contact with each other to develop strategies to hold Firestone accountable.

Like Wages for Chocolate

YaleGlobal
08/21/2007


SOUFRE, IVORY COAST: In recent years the question of Africa has shifted from a moral and humanitarian challenge to a strategic one. Since the end of the Cold war in the early 1990s Africa has relied mostly on the free-market system for its economic development. But the continent has slipped backwards, and the UN estimates that between now and 2015 the number of those workers living with their families on less than US$1 a day will actually increase by 20 percent.

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