China’s notoriously dangerous mining industry has exacted a terrible toll in the first four months of 2003. A series of accidents reported in the press have resulted in the deaths of more than 200 miners through cave-ins, flooded mine shafts and gas explosions.
China’s notoriously dangerous coal mining industry claimed yet another 18 victims in the closing days of July when a methane gas explosion ripped through an unlicensed mine in the country’s southern province of Guizhou.
Pilots employed by the Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airlines voted overwhelmingly last week to take strike action if the company attempts to implement a plan to slash wages in exchange for stock options. The company's package will cut the wages of at least half the airline's 1,300 pilots by 22 percent.
Over the past two months spasmodic strikes and protests have erupted in some of South Korea's major conglomerates in opposition to large-scale restructuring plans that threaten 100,000 to 150,000 jobs.
