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Source: Working In These Times
Text published recently at the Huffington Post:
A 2006 study found that El Salvador's San Sebastian River contains 100,000 times more acid than uncontaminated bodies of water in the same region and levels of poisonous cyanide more than 10 times higher than the maximum allowed by the World Health Organization. In 2006 the Salvadoran government revoked the multinational mining company’s mining permits, following evidence that its operations were dumping highly toxic poisons into local water. In retaliation, Commerce Group filed a demand before a World Bank trade court (the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, ICSID) demanding not only payment for its investments but also for tens of millions of dollars in what it claims are 'lost profits.' In early June, a tribunal at the World Bank agreed to the case, potentially overturning the nation's domestic laws at the behest of a foreign corporation.A critical document from President Barack Obama’s free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online recently, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior...
ILWU Local 12 longshoremen protest the use of non-union labor in Coos Bay, Oregon, July 2012. Photo by The World.
About 25 Coos Bay International Longshore and Warehouse Union members gathered Monday outside Southport Lumber Co. to demand work.
Longshoreman Gene Sundet said Southport refused to hire union members
for barge work at its newly completed barge slip on the North Spit.
“The public needs to know what is going on. It is longshoremen’s jurisdiction.”
Read more at The World
Cai Mep International Terminal, Vietnam
Cai Mep International Terminal will handle close to 600,000 20-foot equivalent units in 2012, representing 50 percent of the containers moving through the Vietnamese port which has five other terminals.
The terminal is internationally competitive after only one year of operations, according to APM Terminals, the A.P. Moller-Maersk port unit, which owns 49 percent of the facility.
More at the Journal of Commerce
A pair of ospreys built their nest at the top of this crane at the end of Pier 80 in San Francisco. Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle
The birds were first spotted six weeks ago by Noreen Weeden, conservation manager at the Golden Gate Audubon Society, when she was at the adjacent Pier 94 working on a wetland clean-up project.
She immediately called the Port of San Francisco to inform the city of the boarders in one of the few operational container cranes along the waterfront, a bulk terminal used by, among other clients, the Oracle racing team preparing for the America’s Cup.
Port staff shut down the crane.
“We wanted to allow the birds to nest, so we held off the work schedule,” said David Beaupre, senior waterfront planner at the port. “It wasn’t interfering with the cargo business, and we wanted to make everyone happy.”
From Democratic Underground
A proposed Pacific trade region may capture an additional $3 trillion in economic output after Canada and Mexico were invited to take part in talks with nine other nations.
A final deal that includes Canada and Mexico would create the U.S.’s largest trade accord, linking its North American Free Trade Agreement partners with eight Pacific-region nations. The negotiations would cover trading among economies with an estimated $20.5 trillion in output, up from $17.6 trillion among the nine partners, according to the Canadian statement.
More in Business Week
Source: SF Gate
Source: Unions for Single Payer Health Care
Source: Washington Post
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