Global Trade

An arm of the Pentagon has come under fire for procuring large quantities of apparel from a Nicaraguan factory that labor rights groups say is a sweatshop and that the United States trade representative has voiced serious concerns about. Read More

Environmentalists in Zambia are concerned that a new free trade agreement will open the floodgates for dangerous imported products and industrial wastes. Read More

The protests that all but shut down last year's World Trade Organization meeting may have been a surprise, but they were no fluke, organizers and observers say. Read More

If deterioration of the global environment over the past several decades is any guide, the coming century does not hold out much promise for reversing these trends, many environmentalists are warning as the millennium comes to a close. Read More

President Clinton sought to nudge economic globalization forward Wednesday by calling for new world trade negotiations by 2001 -- a deadline developing nations are resisting. Read More

Toxic pollution that has mysteriously entered Canada's pristine Arctic region has now been linked to air emissions from specific municipal waste incinerators, cement kilns and industrial plants in the United States, Canada and Mexico, according to a new study released Tuesday. Read More

The African Growth and Opportunity Act has now been signed into American law as Title 1 of the US Trade and Development Act which received presidential assent in May 2000. The Act purports to grant certain benefits to Sub-Saharan African economies if African governments enact certain domestic laws, and pursue certain measures. Read More

This year's cause celebre was the campaign to end the use of sweatshop labor by the $2.5-billion collegiate apparel industry. Undergraduates nationwide demanded their colleges quit the Fair Labor Association (FLA) -- an industry-backed watchdog that opponents liken to a fox guarding the hen house -- and join the Worker Rights Consortium. Founded by students, academics, and labor unions last October, the WRC promises strict workplace oversight, free from industry influence. Read More

A new report today reveals that protests and riots against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its policies, are taking place in poor countries around the world. Since the Seattle protests ten months ago there have been at least 50 separate episodes of civil unrest in 13 poor countries, all directed at the IMF. Read More

This was Sunday, the day before the start of the three-day World Economic Forum in Melbourne, the same type of meeting that sparked riots in Seattle last year. The two players just happened to pass one of the demonstrations at a park. Read More