Nike employees continue to face poverty, harassment, dismissal and violent intimidation despite its pledge three years ago to improve conditions for the 500,000-strong global workforce.

A new report, Still Waiting For Nike To Do It, published by the San Francisco-based Global Exchange, says Nike workers still toil for excessive hours in high-pressure work environments while not earning enough to meet the basic needs of their children. he report's findings will further embarrass a company already discredited by consumer groups for exploitation of labour. 

In 1996 Nike was severely embarrassed when a US magazine featured a photograph of a young Pakistani boy sewing together a Nike football. The following year it was revealed that workers in one of its contracted factories in Vietnam were being exposed to toxic fumes at up to 177 times the Vietnamese legal limit. 

Still Waiting For Nike To Do It follows up the various promises made three years ago by Phil Knight, the company's chairman, to overhaul appalling conditions faced by the Nike workforce. 

Standing before the American National Press Club in Washington DC, Knight told journalists and trade union activists that he personally would ensure an improvement in conditions at Nike factories around the world. He promised six main improvements: 

• All Nike shoe factories would meet US air quality standards. 

• The minimum age would be raised to 18 for workers in Nike shoe factories and 16 those in for clothing factories. • Nike would include non-governmental organisations in factory monitoring, and the company would make inspection results public. 

• Nike would expand its worker education programme, with free secondary-school equivalent courses. 

• A loan programme would be expanded to benefit 4,000 families in Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand. 

• Research on responsible business practices would be funded at four universities. 

The Global Exchange report concludes, however, that the projects Knight announced have been of 'little benefit to Nike workers' or 'have helped only a tiny minority, or else have no relevance to Nike factories at all'. And while the report's authors find that 'the education programme has ex-panded, wages paid in Nike factories are so low that the great majority of workers cannot afford to give up overtime income in order to take one of the courses'. While its $9 billion turnover in 2000 was an increase of 2.5 per cent on the year before, sales of Nike products fell by nearly 8 per cent in 1999. And as rival shoemaker Reebok has seen its share price rise from $8 to $30 in the past year, Nike's stock has fallen by 15 per cent. 

In February, Nike issued a report confessing the company's role in facilitating worker exploitation. It uncovered the exchange of sexual favours for jobs at factories in Indonesia. The company - which sponsors sports celeb rities such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods - revealed that 30 per cent of the employees interviewed at Nike franchises in Indonesia had been abused verbally. 

Jason Mark, of Global Exchange, said: 'The key to solving many of Nike's problems would be to pay a living wage that allowed workers to save money, raise a family and move up to their society's middle class. Nike says they can't find a formula because it's different for every country. It's an assumption that's convenient for them, because it allows them to pay lower wages.

Primark was embroiled in a new row over the treatment of sweatshop workers today as shareholders gathered to celebrate record profits at the budget clothing chain.

According to new research by charity War on Want, workers stitching Primark clothes in Bangladesh earn so little that they cannot eat properly, and many end up "malnourished". In interviews with the charity, they claimed to be working up to 84 hours a week, and were subjected to verbal threats and banned from joining a trade union.

If true, the allegations would breach a code of conduct introduced by Primark to improve the treatment of workers amid allegations of exploitation. In 2006 and 2008 War on Want reports claimed Bangladeshi workers making clothes for Primark and other British retailers earned as little as 3p an hour for toiling around the clock. Last year, a six-month investigation by the BBC's Panorama found that children as young as 11 had been sub-contracted to sew beads and sequins on to Primark tops in India.

In the wake of that scandal – a flagrant breach of the £2bn-a-year retailer's regulations – Primark promised to redouble its efforts to end sweatshop labour, even setting up a website, Ethical Primark. But War on Want claimed its latest evidence showed that the improvements had not made a difference to the lives of workers. It timed its release to cause maximum embarrassment to Associated British Foods, Primark's parent company, as investors toasted an 8 per cent rise in operating profits to £252m at its annual meeting in London today.

Primark responded by criticising War on Want for not passing on the name of the factory, which it said would hamper efforts to tackle any abuses. The firm stressed that ethical behaviour was of the utmost importance to them and assured shoppers they could continue visiting Primark's 136 UK stores with a clean conscience.

A War on Want researcher interviewed 18 workers at one factory – which also makes clothes for high-street stores New Look and Zara – in Bangladesh in October. War on Want declined to name the factory to prevent reprisals or the cancellation of contracts, which might throw the workers out of a job.

The workers interviewed were making clothes only for Primark. Zara said it had a code of conduct and would look into any problems. New Look made no comment. According to Primark's code of conduct, workers should have a maximum 48-hour week, voluntary overtime, wages allowing them to meet basic needs, good sanitation and the right to join a union.

Employees claimed they earned as little as 2,200 taka (£19) a month before overtime – less than half the living wage in Bangladesh of at least 4,500 taka (£39 a month). Factory staff said they worked up to 84 hours a weeks, without access to clean drinking water. Female workers said they were subjected to "verbal threats" if they complained or asked for time off.

According to War on Want, most employees live in slum homes with up to three family members per room, without access to clean water or hygienic toilets. "Workers interviewed were exhausted and malnourished," it said. One employee, Madhovi, 21, said: "My mother is losing her sight in our family's village. The pay is so little that I cannot afford to send money for her treatment."

Khorshed Alam, War on Want's Dhaka-based researcher, said: "None of Primark's claims – so-called ethical staff, training and audits – have made any difference to the workers' poverty." Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: "Our research underlines the abuse which faces overseas garment workers producing high-street clothes. Shoppers cannot rely on retailers to police themselves." He called for new legislation to improve the lives of foreign workers making clothes for British stores.

Primark issued a robust response. It said: "Primark is greatly concerned that the campaigning group War on Want is claiming once again to have identified a factory owned by a third-party supplier in Bangladesh where working conditions fall below the standards expected both by this company and two other high street brands.

"Primark shares and recognises many of the concerns raised by War on Want, and has asked it to identify factories where it believes standards are not high enough."

Primark added that ethical business practices were of "paramount importance". The company said: "That is why we work tirelessly with our suppliers and other stakeholders, including those in Bangladesh, to raise standards and to ensure the welfare of the workers that depend on the orders placed at these factories."

Primark's code: And what the workers say

Wages

Primark's code of conduct says wages would be "enough to meet basic needs and to provide discretionary income".

Workers in Bangladesh claim to be paid as little as £19.42 a month – half a "living wage" of £39.74. War on Want says they cannot afford nutritious food, decent housing or adequate healthcare

Hours

Primark's code says "workers shall not be required to work in excess of 48 hours per week" and overtime must be voluntary.

Workers say they work up to 14 hours a day, six days a week. Overtime is "mandatory." The average week is 70 hours. Workers are "exhausted and malnourished"

Conditions

Primark says factories must provide a "safe and hygienic" working environment, clean toilets and potable water.

Workers say there is no safe drinking water and toilets are dirty

Abuse

The code bans physical and verbal abuse and sexual or other harassment.

Women say they suffer physical and verbal abuse for enquiring about pay and overtime.

A doctored photograph showing Ku Klux Klan hoods covering the faces of all but three black children at a New Mexico high school has left parents outraged.

A student at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque allegedly took the photo and with another pupil posted the image to social media on August 25, according to local ABC affiliate KOAT. 

The two students were suspended from school as a result.  One of them was also kicked off the football team due to the offensive photograph. The mother of one student not covered in the photograph called the incident 'disgusting,' saying she was concerned for her daughter's safety.

'It was appalling, disgusting. We felt like this was just a serious display of hate,' said Mary Morrow-Webb, who has two other daughters that attend Volcano Vista. 

'I was shocked, angry, afraid for my daughters. I just can't imagine what they feel like walking through the halls, having to deal with this,' the father, Lamont Webb told KOAT, adding that his children have complained about racist bullying before.

In fact, the Webbs say they have alerted the school to bigotry and bullying in the past, but have yet to see any results. 'We've been coming in with complaints of my daughter saying someone called her the N-word,' Morrow-Webb said. 'Someone called her a porch monkey and different things like that on a regular basis.' 

'And now they say they can't go back,' Morrow-Webb continued. 'And we can't afford to send our daughters to private school, so what options do they have? They finally have broken my girls. So what do we do?' 

The principal of Volcano Vista, Dr. Vickie Bannerman, sent a letter to parents saying the picture was 'repugnant and hateful,' adding that students 'shouldn’t use (a social media) platform to harass, tease or threaten others.'

Albuquerque Public School superintendent Raquel Reedy has called the photo unacceptable, and said the authorities have been alerted to the situation. We took this to our police department,' Reedy told the broadcaster.

'They came and investigated and are really looking very carefully at whether we should file charges for hate crimes. This is something we're looking at very carefully because it's this serious.' 

Asked about prior incidents of racism not being addressed by the school, Reedy said that the new administration at Volcano Vista will be pro-active in deterring such behavior.  

'The fact is that [Dr. Bannerman] is out to make sure that this doesn't happen again,' Reedy said. 

'She is adamant that the school is going to be safe for every single student that attends, and I would encourage any parent who has any concerns to contact Ms. Bannerman because she will look into it and they would be heard. 

North Korea has confirmed its test of a hydrogen bomb meant for an intercontinental ballistic missile was a 'perfect success'.

The country's sixth nuclear test - 10 times more powerful than its fifth - sparked a powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake which was detected in the northeast of the country where North Korea's test site Punggye-ri is located.

The hydrogen bomb test ordered by leader Kim Jong-Un was a 'meaningful' step in completing the country's nuclear weapons programme, state television said.

The statement read: 'Scientists in the nuclear field of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] successfully carried out a test of H-bomb for ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] in the northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK at 12:00 on September 2, true to the Workers' Party of Korea's plan for building a strategic nuclear force.'

It said radioactive material did not leak into the environment. 

The announcement was delivered by news anchor, Ri Chun-hee - who has been making announcements on Korean Central Television for more than 40 years. 

North Korean television also released photographs appearing to show Kim signing the order to carry out the country's sixth nuclear test. 

The test is a direct challenge to President Donald Trump, who hours earlier had talked by phone with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about the 'escalating' nuclear crisis in the region. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said in a statement its military has strengthened monitoring and readiness and is mulling a variety of possible responses that could be pushed together with its ally the U.S.

It says it detected a seismic wave from 12.34pm to 12.36pm Sunday around Punggye-ri.  

South Korea's weather agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff said an artificial 5.7 magnitude quake occurred at 12.29pm local time, in Kilju, northern Hamgyong province, the site where North Korea has conducted nuclear tests in the past. 

Seoul officials revised their earlier estimate of 5.6 magnitude quake. The U.S. Geological Survey called the first quake an explosion with a magnitude 6.3.

The US State Department had no immediate reaction. South Korea's presidential office said it will hold a National Security Council meeting chaired by President Moon Jae-in.

'It is absolutely unacceptable if North Korea did force another nuclear test, and we must protest strongly,' Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

China's earthquake administration detected a second tremor of magnitude 4.6 in North Korea minutes after the first. It described the event as a cave-in. South Korea's weather agency, however, said no second quake occurred. A US researcher told the BBC that if the earthquake was caused by a nuclear blast, it would be the largest atomic test conducted by North Korea.

Dave Schmerler, of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies: 'This would be the largest nuclear test that North Korea has ever conducted. We should definitely be alarmed.' 

Japan's Ministry of Defence has dispatched three military jets to test for radiation.  

Tremors caused by the nuclear test were at least ten times as powerful as the last time Pyongyang exploded an atomic bomb a year ago, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said at a briefing aired by public broadcaster NHK.

The previous nuclear blast in North Korea is estimated by experts to have been around 10 kilotons.

South Korea's defence committee says the blast was about 100 kilotons - powerful enough to destroy an entire city, BBC reports.

People in the Vladivostok in eastern Russia said they felt the tremors.

Black and ethnic minority people are much more likely to be jailed for committing a crime than white people, research has suggested.

The study, compiled as part of a landmark review into racism in the criminal justice system, found stark inequality in likelihood of sentencing for both black and Asian people, compared to white convicts. For every 100 white women handed custodial sentences at crown courts for drug offences, 227 black women were given prison terms. 

For black men, the figure was not as marked but still considerably higher, with 141 black men jailed for every 100 white men. The likelihood of receiving a custodial sentence also varied by crime. Regarding convictions for sexual offences, 208 black men and 193 Asian men received jail terms for every 100 white men.

The report has suggested that “unconscious racial bias” in criminal justice may exist and therefore require further investigation to establish how it shapes sentencing. Labour MP David Lammy who is leading the probe into racism in the criminal justice system said: “These emerging findings raise difficult questions about whether ethnic minority communities are getting a fair deal in our justice system.

“We need to fully understand why, for example, ethnic minority defendants are more likely to receive prison sentences than white defendants. These are complex issues and I will dig deeper in the coming months to establish whether bias is a factor. 

Mental health issues are costing Britain £70bn a year, the west's leading economic thinktank said on Monday, as it urged the government to help those with depression, stress and anxiety into work. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said mental health was the cause of 40% of the 370,000 new claims for disability benefit each year – the highest recorded among the 34 nations that belong to the so-called "rich man's club". An OECD study found that the bill to the UK from a failure to cope adequately with mental health issues was 4.5% of GDP each year, caused by productivity losses, higher benefit payments and the increased cost to the NHS. It added that around one million claimants on employment and support allowance (ESA), and as many on jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and other working-age benefits, had a mental disorder such as anxiety and depression that was hurting their prospects of finding work.

And it warned that those with mental health problems could be further disadvantaged by the welfare cuts unless the Government did more to help their work prospects.

"Some of the recent UK welfare reforms designed to tackle stubbornly high disability benefit caseloads go in the right direction. However, further improvements are needed to ensure that reforms live up to their promise to bring people into work. If welfare cuts are to be made, they need to be matched by increased efforts to address the barriers to finding and remaining in work," said the report. "The new Work Programme is struggling to place ESA and JSA claimants with mental health problems into work", the OECD said. "People with a mental illness continue to fare badly compared to their counterparts without such illness: their unemployment rate is more than double the overall rate; and the risk of falling below the poverty threshold is almost double the overall risk. Indeed, the risk of poverty among people with mental health problems is the highest in a comparison of 10 OECD countries including seven other European countries, Australia and the US."

Noting that prevention was better than cure, the OECD listed a series of recommendations for the UK, including a stronger focus of mental health in the workplace; an increase in resources for employment service providers to ensure more people with mental issues found jobs; better integrations of health and employment services: and increased access to psychological therapies for those with a common mental disorder. Norman Lamb, Care and Support Minister said: "People with mental health conditions can and do work and the vast majority want to. That's why last summer, working with the Department for Work and Pensions, we jointly commissioned a report to look at how we can better support people with mental health problems to get back to and stay in work. This could not only help them, but helps to build a stronger economy and reduce the strain on the benefits system.

"Progress has already been made — the expanding Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme has already helped over 80,000 people to move off sick pay and benefits. We are vigorously pursuing solutions and are working across Government to drive improvements. The OECD has recognised the successes we have had, but we want to go further."

Drug addiction  refers to the compulsive and repeated use of increasing amounts of drugs with the appearance of withdrawal symptoms when drug use ceases. While the specific causes of drug addiction are not known, genetic, psychological and environmental factors are thought to play a significant role. Rather than a single cause of drug addiction, it is likely multiple factors lead to drug addiction in any given person.  Some drug addicts also identify drug use and ignorance as a cause of drug addiction. Often, if a person is dealing with pain-management issues, the drug they receive, like oxycodone, can be very addictive. The ignorance of the drug's addiction potential, along with the physical pain of the condition, becomes a cause of drug addiction.  While biological causes of drug addiction have been suggested, many people still believe psychological factors comprise the bulk of what causes drug addiction. Some of the psychological causes of drug addiction appear to stem from trauma, often when the drug addict is young. Sexual or physical abuse, neglect, or chaos in the home can all lead to psychological stress, which people attempt to "self-medicate" (decrease the stress's pain through drug use). This self-medication becomes a cause of drug addiction.  A person's environment can be part of what causes drug addiction. Drug addiction is more common in environments where drug abuse is seen or where it's seen as permissible. Children who grow up in homes with drug addicts often become drug addicts themselves.

Because most drug use starts in adolescence (read: teenage drug abuse). Those with inattentive, abusive or neglectful parents are more prone to drug abuse. One cause of drug addiction can be the combination of drug experimentation with the lack of parental oversight.

Other environmental factors that can be causes of drug abuse include:

• Participation in a sport where performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged
• A peer group that uses or promotes drug use
• People of lower socioeconomic status are at greater risk of drug addiction
• Gender and ethnicity contribute to addiction of some drugs. Drug addiction tends to run in families, indicating genetics may have a role in causing drug addiction. In fact, in studies of twins it appears half of someone's risk of becoming addicted to drugs is genetic.2Genetic causes of drug addiction appear to involve multiple gene sequences and science has not yet been able to pinpoint all the genes involved. However, it is known some genes, like those involved in brain receptors of nicotine, contribute to the cause of drug addiction.