ISDS Case Map
US
Jordan's trade minister yesterday acknowledged that his country had failed to enforce its own labor laws in some instances. Mr. Zu'bi was in Washington to meet with the Bush administration, lawmakers and business groups after a May report by the National Labor Committee said the US-Jordan Free Trade Agreement encouraged sweatshop conditions in Jordanian garment factories.
Tens of thousands of foreign guest workers are stripped of their passports, trapped in involuntary servitude, sewing clothing for Wal-Mart, Gloria Vanderbilt, Target, Kohl's, Thalia Sodi for Kmart, Victoria's Secret, L.L.Bean and others.
"The fight to save the Korean screen quota isn't only for the benefit of the Koreans, but it is also for the global cultural movement."
An Asia Times Online investigation reveals that at the time of his death, World Health Organization (WHO) director general Lee Jong-wook, a South Korean national, had closely aligned himself with the US government and by association US corporate interests, often to the detriment of the WHO's most vital commitments and positions.
The US government is not only a step away from ratifying a new free trade agreement, but also from rewarding persistent and severe human rights abuses in Colombia, where each year more trade union leaders are murdered than in all other nations put together, a new report charges.
The American-backed FTA is certainly not designed to serve the interest of ordinary Malaysian or American workers (it may well lead to the practice of dumping and out-sourcing instead), but it will invariably open up the Malaysian economy to the rigours and discipline of the global market.
The government of President Evo Morales said Friday it hopes to negotiate a free trade agreement with the U.S., a policy turnaround apparently influenced by pressure from business groups.
The US is pleased with the progress of the first round of the US-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations, and expects it to conclude by the end of the year, after four more rounds.
A US source, close to the Free Trade Agreement negotiations, said it is likely the Bahraini US commercial agreement will go into effect in early August 2006 after Bahrain endorses all Intellectual Copyright Laws.
A senior US senator drew clear lines Wednesday on what the Congress will not accept in a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, including imports from an industrial complex inside North Korea.
