Archive
International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.
WET SEAL
BY PHILIP FINE
UNITED States private-label garment retailers will be asking themselves whether they should in future demand more stringent labour relations codes with external clothing manufacturers, after chain Wet Seal settled a case involving questionable third-party labour practices. Four garment workers had filed wage claims against their employer, DT Sewing, as well as Wet Seal, the 619-store national chain with which DT did business.…
GAP DEAL
BY PHILIP FINE
GAP has offered to settle out-of-court a dispute with a group of California employees who opposed paying for company clothing worn on the job, said a lawyer representing them. Their lawsuit alleged Gap had violated state law requiring companies to pay for workers’ uniforms.…
GAS HYDRATES ALASKA
BY PHILIP FINE
AMERICAN researchers are developing new technologies that should help the energy sector tap potentially huge reserves of natural gas currently locked underground in frozen inhospitable permafrost regions of the far north. The Hot Ice No. 1 project is now being wrapped up, and although its wells in northern Alaska did not yield commercial quantities of gas hydrates – a compound of water and methane (the major component of natural gas) that forms under pressure at cold temperatures – technological advances made have given cause for celebration.…
SAFE FOODS CORP
BY PHILIP FINE
A US manufacturer thinks an answer to controlling food pathogen outbreaks in meat production can be found in a spray using chemicals found in standard mouthwashes. With food processors finding it hard to eradicate listeria, E coli O157:H7, salmonella and campylobacter, they could now at least weaken their impact, claims Arkansas-based Safe Foods Corp.…
CARB DIET
BY PHILIP FINE
FEELING grouchy and hungry? Tempted to snack? Your low-carb diet could be to blame, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT researchers who have looked at carbohydrates and brain chemistry. Husband-and-wife researchers Judith and Richard Wurtman have discovered that carbohydrates, despite being demonised by some weight-loss advocates, are essential in regulating mood and suppressing appetite.…
NAIL PAINTING
BY PHILIP FINE
LOOKING to sport a mid-career Elvis or the Jamaican flag on your fingernails? A Florida company has begun marketing the NailJet Pro, a machine that can print thousands of available images onto your nails, using harmless ink-jet technology, ink-receptive coatings and image analysing software.…
ESTEE TV
BY PHILIP FINE
IT’S most employees’ fantasies to have the company CEO see how tough it is in the trenches – and maybe in the process see the Guccis scuffed and the Armani turn sweat-stained. Dan Brestle, group president at The Estée Lauder Companies recently participated in the new US reality-based show "Now Who’s Boss?".…
JUNK FOOD ADS
BY PHILIP FINE
CONFECTIONARY, cereals and fast food make up the majority of American television advertisements targeted to children, according to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It found the number of adverts US youngsters watch has doubled from 20,000 to 40,000 since the 1970s, the main way the media contributes to childhood obesity.…
TAX HAVENS
BY PHILIP FINE
US businesses are sheltering an increasing amount of money offshore from the taxman, with 46 per cent of the estimated US$233 billion earned abroad by American-owned multinationals in 2001 being held in foreign tax havens, up from 38 percent in 1999 and 23 percent in 1988.…
BELGIUM BOTTLES CASE
Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening Belgium with legal action at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over laws restricting the size of drinks bottles to a range of fixed quantities. The Commission considers these rules “an unjustified obstacle to the free movement of goods” under the country’s European Union (EU) treaty commitments and has given Belgium two months in which to say how it will reform the system, or maybe face an ECJ case.…