Carey L Biron

US De­part­ment of De­fence has au­tho­rised $641m worth of the con­tro­ver­sial weapons to be sent to Sau­di Ara­bia.

Fol­low­ing dead­ly fac­to­ry col­lapse in Bangladesh, ma­jor re­tail­ers want ‘opt-in’ rather than bind­ing safe­ty stan­dards.

World Bank re­port says de­vel­op­ing na­tions will con­trol about half of the world’s in­vest­ment cap­i­tal by 2030.

Hu­man rights groups say fo­cus on se­cu­ri­ty, rather than dis­crim­i­na­tion skews re­sults of long-await­ed gov­ern­ment re­port.

UN re­clas­si­fies tim­ber and an­i­mal traf­fick­ing as a se­ri­ous or­gan­ised crime, win­ning praise from en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists.

Prices now one per cent high­er than pre­vi­ous peak in Febu­rary 2011 “threat­en­ing the health and well-be­ing of mil­lions”.

Two months af­ter a free trade agree­ment be­tween the US and Colom­bia went into ef­fect, work­ers con­tin­ue to face at­tacks.