Clean Clothes Campaign says families of workers killed in factory collapse still awaiting compensation

Families of workers killed making European sweaters still awaiting compensation: Action demanded at six-month anniversary of factory collapse Amsterdam, October 11, 2005 - Adding insult to injury, survivors and families of the dead are STILL awaiting adequate compensation a full six months after the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh brought their lives to an abrupt and gruesome halt. From The Clean Clothes Campaign www.cleanclothes.org an international network of trade unions and NGOs that aims to improve conditions and empower workers in the global garment industry. Email me if you'd like me to forward the whole article.

How we can further develop balanced NZ economy

Came across an article about the economy of my home country New Zealand on csr-asia.com.
"Change course or crash" ; http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3430404a1865,00.html
It basically says we need to export more.
This makes sense. On my recent trip back I was overwhelmed by the affluence. Not that people are 'flashy' in any way, or materialistic, just that so many 'have it all' these days,...a comfortable standard of living and many people have great homes, cars, gadgets, cafe lifestyles.
New Zealanders do work hard though, so this article points out that we need to learn to work hard on creating goods for international markets. In my mind this says applying the scientific, creative and business intellectual talents I saw so much of. According to the article only 4% of New Zealand companies sell overseas. From what I could see, this seemed to be true with many selling in New Zealand, daily services (supermarkets etc), cafes etc, tourism (bringing in foreign exchange), but many more are foreign companies selling to New Zealanders,...imported goods and services, or foreign owned assets.
So rather than looking at socially responsible investment in Europe and the US, I started wondering what was available to invest in New Zealand. For my passion, solar, there were a few firms obviously with some expertise, although small, and I wondered if they'd be interested in investment. Under "social responsible investment new zealand" in Google, impressively I found the " Council for Socially Responsible Investment New Zealand ". http://www.csri.org.nz/
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to readily tell an investor how they can buy Socially Responsible Funds in New Zealand. Instead I found this: http://www.greenplan.co.nz which seems brilliantly laid out and seems to make things so simple and answer all the important questions like this http://www.greenplan.co.nz/Greenplan_The_Enviornment.asp
I guess my advice to other Kiwi (New Zealand) friends working abroad but wondering how they can contribute to the New Zealand economy would be maybe to take a look at this, start small, and see if we can help New Zealand grow its exports in the long run.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.