Chemicals & Manufacturing

A primer on the development scheme that would turn southern Mexico and all of Central America into a giant export zone. Read More

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. Read More

The Methanex Corporation, a Canadian chemical company, stumbled today in its attempt to sue the U.S. government for almost $1 billion over a crucial California clean water law. The Sierra Club welcomes the decision by a tribunal under the North America Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (NAFTA). But we are concerned that the narrow procedural ruling left the door open for future anti-environmental decisions by this tribunal or by NAFTA tribunals in other cases. Read More

The Concerned Citizens of Norco (CCN) and Shell Chemical LP (Shell) have engaged in a series of frank and open discussions in an attempt to understand and resolve their differences regarding the Voluntary Property Purchase Program, a program designed to create greenbelt space along the fence lines of the Shell and Motiva Enterprises (Motiva) facilities in Norco, Louisiana that was offered to residents living on two of the four streets that make up the tight-knit and historic Diamond neighborhood. CCN and Shell also discussed the Shell and Motiva Good Neighbor Initiative, which contains several programs to enhance the quality of life for all of Norco, including the Diamond neighborhood. Read More

Child labour and highly unfair labour conditions for adult stitchers in the football industry are still common practices, despite the fact that the contracts between FIFA and sporting goods companies promise the opposite. This was revealed by the Global March Against Child Labour in a presentation of three new reports on China, India and Pakistan. Read More

The California Supreme Court delivered a stiff warning to businesses Thursday, ruling that a San Francisco man can sue Nike Inc. for false advertising for allegedly lying about working conditions at Asian factories where its athletic shoes and clothes are made. Read More

TORONTO, Ontario, Canada -- Canada's largest food distributor has made a public commitment to stop marketing chemical pesticides by next spring. Loblaw Companies Limited announced today that it will no longer sell chemical pesticides in all of its 440 garden centers across Canada by 2003. Read More

Millard ''Mickey'' Drexler, Gap's chief executive, on Tuesday admitted that the company had ''misread fashion tea leaves'' and violated its own principle of ''keeping things simple'' in making a series of fashion mistakes that led to its reporting a $34m loss. Read More

A WTO review of Guatemala's trade policies has prompted international labor to spotlight that government's total failure to uphold freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively. Read More

In Los Angeles, workers from six factories who sewed for the popular women's clothing line Forever 21 are calling for an official boycott. The workers are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in minimum wage and overtime pay. They worked long hours in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. And, some of the workers were fired for speaking out about the poor conditions. Read More