JAKARTA (Reuters) - Giant sportswear companies have been accused of foul play ahead of football's World Cup finals in Germany next month by the international aid group Oxfam for their treatment of Asian factory workers. An Oxfam report found that Asian factory workers making the clothes, shoes and other apparel that will be showcased at the world's biggest sporting event have been sacked or threatened with violence when they have organised unions to lobby for better pay and conditions.

The report said an Indonesian factory supplying shoes for the world's top

By Nicholas D. Kristof

WINDHOEK, Namibia

Africa desperately needs Western help in the form of schools, clinics and sweatshops.

Oops, don't spill your coffee. We in the West mostly despise sweatshops as exploiters of the poor, while the poor themselves tend to see sweatshops as opportunities.

On a street here in the capital of Namibia, in the southwestern corner of Africa, I spoke to a group of young men who were trying to get hired as day laborers on construction sites.

Legislation Blocked by DeLay Extends Controls Over U.S. Territory

By William Branigin

House Democrats led by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced legislation today to extend key federal controls over a U.S. territory in the western Pacific, renewing an effort that was blocked for years by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and once-powerful Texas Republican Tom DeLay.

Supermarkets and clothes chains alike have realised that shoppers view the ethics of sustainability and ecological responsibility as core to their buying decisions, writes Elizabeth Rigby

By Elizabeth Rigby

When Sir Terry Leahy stood up in May and declared that Tesco, the UK supermarkets group of which he is chief executive, was putting local and ethical sourcing, recycling and greener energy production at the heart of its corporate culture, the retail world's ears pricked up.

By Evan Clark

WASHINGTON -THE MANUFACTURING OF BLUE jeans, a quintessential partof the American clothing culture since the Fifties, has gone global along with the rest of apparel production.

Domestic producers in the last decade or so have focused on the high end, as production of basic, volume-oriented styles migrated primarily south of the border to Mexico and Latin America.