can APPLE shares keep levitating ?
first we had news of founder Steve Jobs leaving 'active duty' with the company for health reasons.
now we have this ( although so far not publicized in US mainstream financial media ) courtesy of the UK's Financial Times
(snip)"A group of 36 Chinese environmental groups has accused Apple of failing to address concerns over pollution and worker health issues in factories supplying components for its gadgets.
In a report to be published on Thursday, the groups rank Apple last in a list of 29 multinational technology companies based on how each company dealt with inquiries about pollution and occupational health hazard incidents at factories in their supply chain (snip)
(snip)The environmental groups’ condemnation of Apple is the result of a more than year-long attempt at influencing environmental and worker health protection practices at 29 multinationals (snip)
(snip)One of the health hazard cases the groups say Apple did not respond to was the poisoning of workers at Lianjian Technology, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Wintek, which produces touchscreen modules for Apple mobile devices.
In that case, 49 workers were hospitalised and diagnosed as having been poisoned with the chemical cleaning agent n-hexane in 2009, a case widely publicised in Chinese state media. The workers claim to have been left with debilitating illnesses and say they have not received any response to complaints they sent to Apple.
A spokesman for Wintek said the factory immediately stopped using the cleaner and has greatly improved working conditions at its factories since then.
When the Chinese environmental groups brought this and another case to Apple’s attention, the NGOs say the company refused to confirm or deny whether the polluting companies were their suppliers and would not respond further.
“Apple behaved differently from the other big brands and seemed totally complacent and unresponsive,” said to Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a well-known Chinese NGO and the main author of the report.(snip)
from
It would appear that Apple has still been successful in officially denying connections to worker deaths and illnesses etc., and has still been successful in shielding itself from liability via the use of foreign owned sub-suppliers, and has still been successful in shielding it's main customer bases in the US and Europe from news of such lower cost but unsafe production practices re their Apple products. However, the Chinese Environmental Groups are becoming increasingly organized, and are achieving increased worldwide press coverage as well. If such financial liability issues do catch up with Apple, a Union Carbide-esque financial disaster could result.