Tous les articles et traductions

In 2004 SOMO started researching labour issues in the supply chains of computer companies. This resulted in different reports, company profiles, the launce of the makeITfair campaign and extensive consultation with the computer industry. Now SOMO is looking at how companies have improved their (…)

Scientists trying to gauge the severity of the threat of a swine influenza pandemic face many important knowledge gaps.
Even the death toll from the outbreak, which is thought to have begun more than a month ago in Mexico, and has now spread to several continents, is open to question. Some 150 (…)

As the latest round of Asia’s longest-running guerrilla war winds down, scores of journalists here are experiencing intimidation and harassment for being critical of the military campaign against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The issues currently in focus are the (…)

The London G20 summit was as disappointing as expected. Several declarations were of course of interest insofar as they seem opposite to the policy principles of past years. Let us take note of them and not hesitate to remind the G20 about the promises on regulation. An initial question puts a (…)

The mass unemployment, lower wages and job insecurity created by the global economic crisis threatens the livelihoods of millions of Chinese workers, especially rural migrants who have little or no social security net to fall back on. Will the Chinese government and trade unions give workers the (…)

The realisation of the right to health for millions of people in poor countries depends upon a massive increase in health services to achieve universal and equitable access. A growing number of international donors are promoting an expansion of private-sector health-care delivery to fulfil this (…)

It is common knowledge that the African continent has been hit hardest by the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Over the past 25 years, Africa has been the prime victim of a small, but highly intelligent virus, which has infected and killed millions of people, and significantly hampered the growth and (…)

In the first of a two-part article exploring the implications of the US AFRICOM (the United States Africa Command) programme, Daniel Volman and William Minter discuss the growing strategic importance of the African continent to US interests. Arguing that shaping a new US security policy will (…)

In case after case around the world, water has been turned into a profit-making commodity – preventing people access to the most essential element on Earth. Private ownership of water and water delivery systems has severely compounded the abuse, neglect, mismanagement and exploitation of water (…)

In this report, makeITfair provides a critical analysis of the e-waste trade flows to developing countries and offers solutions to exacerbate the negative effects. As the consumption of electronics has increased rapidly the last years, so has the waste made up of discarded products. Waste from (…)

Moldova is the country known in the world as one of the poorest ex-Soviet states, like Armenia and Georgia. It is also one of the most multi-cultural and multi-lingual countries, with a long tradition of mixed marriages and hybrid identities. According to the latest census conducted in 2004, (…)

A new World Bank report looks at the state of reproductive health of poor women in five countries — Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — and makes a case for decentralised planning, delivery and expansion of health services, with a clear focus on enhancing inclusion
‘Sparing (…)

As the international financial crisis points to the collapse of laissez faire economics and discredits market fundamentalism, Africa and the global South should break free from failed neoliberal policies and the institutions that have promoted them and define their own paths to development, (…)

In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky’s international best-seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World Order which feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment, generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines the rights of (…)

Tom Cruise – “the world’s most powerful celebrity” according to Forbes Magazine – was unceremoniously sacked in 2006. His dismissal was particularly shocking for the fact that it was carried out not by his immediate employer, Paramount Studios, but rather by Paramount’s parent company, Viacom. (…)

Agrofuels, which rely on large scale industrial monocultures, are a cause of global warming, not part of a solution. Promoted as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they are in fact resulting in greater emissions because they promote deforestation and the destruction of other ecosystems (…)

In this 100th issue of the ETC Communiqué we update Oligopoly, Inc. – our ongoing series tracking corporate concentration in the life industry. We also analyze the past three decades of agribusiness efforts to monopolize the 24% of living nature that has been commodified, and expose a new (…)

There’s been an outcry in America about the financial rescue plan unveiled by the Obama administration under the leadership of Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner. The Obama administration plans to buy up $2 trillion in toxic financial assets. The plan is being denounced by economists in the (…)

Dee Torres sees history in the making in the West Texas borderlands. The elementary school teacher wants to be part of the history of the borderlands, and wants her grandchildren to remember these times.
Torres, a resident since a child of the border town of Ft. Hancock, is taking photos of (…)

A new report by the ITUC on core labour standards in Brazil, produced to coincide with the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) review of its trade policy, shows shortcomings in the application and enforcement of core labour standards, particularly with regard to violations of trade union rights, (…)