World News: allegedly

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Students allegedly being forced to work in Chinese tech factories

byEdgar Alvarez|@abcdedgar| 20 hours ago

Despite the efforts of major technology corporations, such as Apple and Samsung, to improve labor conditions in China, major problems are still slipping through the cracks. Now, as The Wall Street Journal writes, some Chinese students in their teenage years are reportedly being forced by their schools to work about 12 hours per day, six days a week, on factory assembly lines in that country. It gets worse, though. According to a 16-year-old student who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, she was told to either "spend summer making computers" for an HP supplier or wave goodbye to the chance of graduating from her vocational school. She's only one of thousands of teenagers going through this situation, per the report.

Of course, this only adds more fuel to the fire. Last year, a number of factories in China (and in other parts of the world) came under pressure after findings of child labor violations, unreasonable hours and extremely poor working conditions, so much so that companies like Apple went as far as dropping suppliers. Back then, tech firms promised to monitor the situation closely, along with the China Labor Watch, but it clearly hasn't been close enough to keep these factories from violating the rules.

[Image credit: Flickr/Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights]

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Tags: Cheap labor, China, China Labor Watch, ChinaLaborWatch, Factories, labor, Student labor, Tech factory Hide Comments 0Comments

Ex-NBAer Rex Chapman allegedly stole from Apple Stores by faking EasyPay

byRichard Lawler|@Rjcc|1 day ago

Remember when Apple introduced its EasyPay self-checkout feature in 2011, and everyone wondered "how can they really tell if a customer is buying something or just shoplifting?" According to the Scottsdale, AZ police, former college and professional basketball player Rex Chapman had the same thought and acted on it. They arrested the 12-year NBA veteran at 1:45 PM local time, after employees recognized him as a former player for the Phoenix Suns and tied him to a string of thefts. Chapman is accused of committing seven instances of theft over a few months, snagging gear worth more than $14,000 and selling it at a local pawnshop for cash. All of this was allegedly done by picking up the items, pretending to use the self-checkout feature in the iPhone's Apple Store app and then just walking out. Now Chapman is facing nine counts of Organized Retail Theft and five counts of Trafficking in Stolen Property -- all of which are felonies -- and we're wondering if Tim Cook has another security issue that could use some attention.

[Image credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS]

Since his playing days ended in 2000, Chapman has worked as an NBA front office exec and basketball announcer. The timing of the arrest is interestingly close to the iPhone 6 launch, but there's no word on what Chapman is alleged to have stolen. Most of the pricier items in Apple's stores are either stored in back or not eligible for EasyPay, and we're thinking $14,000 covers a lot of cases or charging cables.

Source: Scottsdale PD, KTAR News

Tags: apple, applestore, arrest, easypay, nba, rexchapman, self-checkout, stolen Hide Comments 0Comments

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Students allegedly being forced to work in Chinese tech factories

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Ex-NBAer Rex Chapman allegedly stole from Apple Stores by faking EasyPay