By Ryan Schuchard and Nicki Weston
Source: GreenBiz.com 25 June 2009.
Though climate change and human rights are important corporate responsibility issues on their own terms, they are increasingly interrelated. read more…
(Source: Democracy Now. 12 September 2008)
FLOW: For Love of Water is a new documentary premiering in New York and Los Angeles today that takes on the global water crisis. We speak with filmmaker Irena Salina and water rights activist, Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, founder of the Blue Planet Project and author of several books, including Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.
China expands trade, relations to Africa
By Greg Houl
Source: Washington Times. June 30, 2009.
China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing ©Washington Times
CHINA SAFARI: ON THE TRAIL OF BEIJING’S EXPANSION IN AFRICA
By Serge Michel and Michel Beuret
Nation Books, $27.50, 336 pages, illus.
REVIEWED BY GREG HOULE
It is well known that since China began to embrace capitalism in the late 1970s, its economy has, for the most part, raced forward at breakneck speed. Last year, China’s economy ranked second in the world, behind only the United States.
In order to keep up the frantic pace of economic growth to which it has become accustomed, the formerly isolationist nation has begun to spread its wings. And largely driven by an intense need for more sources of energy, China has been using some of its vast holdings of foreign currency to invest in new opportunities abroad. read more…
Pipelines to mines siphon water from some of the driest towns on earth, in northern Chile.
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Source: The New York Times. March 15, 2009.
QUILLAGUA, Chile — During the past four decades here in Quillagua, a town in the record books as the driest place on earth, residents have sometimes seen glimpses of raindrops above the foothills in the distance. They never reach the ground, evaporating like a mirage while still in the air. read more…
By Martinne Geller
©Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - At New York’s Del Posto, diners can share a $130 entree of wild branzino fish with roasted fennel and peperonata concentrato and a $3,600 bottle of Dom Perignon. They cannot share a bottle of Perrier or San Pellegrino water.
The Italian restaurant backed by celebrities Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich is one of several shunning bottled water, along with the city of San Francisco and New York state.
“The argument for local water is compelling and obvious,” said Bastianich, who is phasing out bottled water across his restaurant empire, which stretches to Los Angeles. read more…
Labour Rights in Global Production Networks. An Analysis of the Apparel and Electronics Sector in Romania
by Leonhard Plank, Cornelia Staritz and Karin Lukas
Owner: Chamber of Workers and Employees in Vienna
This report analyses how global production networks are configured and how the incorporation of firms into these networks impacts on the position of workers and their rights.
The apparel and electronics sector in Romania provide the empirical lens to study these questions taking into account broader dynamics in the Central and Eastern European region. Despite important differences (e.g. labour- versus capital-intensiveness, the complexity of the production process or the technology involved) both sectors have been increasingly organised in global production networks, with a global and a regional dimension, involve labour-intensive production steps which have been relocated to countries with lower labour costs and exhibit some similar industry dynamics such as high-competition and ‘fast fashion’-principles as well as labour rights issues.
The strategies of lead firms such as H&M and Zara or Hewlett Packard, Dell and Nokia as well as of powerful first-tier suppliers such as Li & Fung in the apparel and Flextronics in the electronics sector aptly illustrate these dynamics.
A Thirst for Distant Lands: Foreign investment in agricultural land and water
By: Carin Smaller, Howard Mann, IISD, 2009.
Paper, 26 pages, copyright: IISD
The paper, A Thirst for Distant Lands: Foreign investment in agricultural land and water, provides a synopsis of current trends in the expansion of foreign investment in agriculture. Drawing on current literature, media reports and a series of interviews, the paper looks at the causes, the mechanisms and the growth, in particular, of long-distance farming for home-country consumption.
The paper considers both the land and water issues that are involved. Much of the existing literature focuses on the investment in land, addressing water as an adjunct problem only. However, land without the water is of little value to the investors. In IISD’s view, the land and water issues are equally critical, raising similar problems to local communities and developing countries. The paper, therefore, examines some of the uncertainties and impacts relating to the commodification of land and water for long-distance agriculture.
In particular, the paper focuses on the linkage between domestic law, international investment contracts and international investment treaties. Each of these three sources of law can have positive and negative implications for community and individual rights to land, water and food. The initial scoping of issues reveals the potential for the international law sources to prevail over domestic law, providing foreign users with enforceable rights at the expense of local rights’ holders, particularly where domestic law is insufficient to identify and protect citizen rights. This situation can be addressed, but it requires specific and deliberate efforts.
Written by April Howard
Source: Toward Freedom. Wednesday, 06 May 2009
In the brine under a crust of blindingly white salt in Uyuni, Bolivia, lies nearly 50 percent of the world’s lithium reserves. Best known as a tourist attraction, the Salar is gaining fame as batteries made with this scarce element catch the attention of governments and auto-makers world wide. While on the campaign trail, President Obama promised that by 2015, there would be 1 million plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles on US roads, and, once in office, he allocated billions of economic stimulus package dollars toward battery technology and manufacturing. read more…
Million Dollar Gambling House Dismisses Unlawfully 14 Union Leaders Claiming Better Wages
2009 June 12
Trade union representatives use the comic to blame the Nagacorp (3918.HK) for laying off union leaders.
Chen Lip Keong is a Malaysian business tycoon with a keen interest in investing in Cambodia, where he is an economic advisor to the Prime Minister himself. Besides exploiting off-shore oil fields,1 he also set his eyes on a quick and easy profit-making business: gambling! Nagaworld is the name of one of the most prestigious hotels in Phnom Penh, located next to Hun Sen Park. But the hotel is but a side activity to the main business operation. 175 gaming tables and 351 gaming machine stations, of which 36 are dedicated to football betting, operate 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.
read more…
Edited by Anthony Yaw Baah and Herbert Jauch
Published by African Labour Research Network
Date: May 2009
The many problems associated with Chinese companies in Africa should not be seen in isolation from the broader challenge of dealing with the consequences of neoliberal globalisation, which places economic growth above all social considerations. The trade patterns that characterised Africa’s relations with Europe and the USA are replicated to a significant extent in the Sino-African relations. Thus the quality of the economic relations needs to be altered substantially if Africa is to benefit in future. The global economic crisis provides trade unions with an opportunity to intensify advocacy campaigns for alternative policies to the neo-liberal agenda with a view of placing redistribution and Africa’s development priorities at the centre of all external relations.
- Download the full report (PDF, 2.3MB)
- Download the executive summary (PDF, 41KB)
