Category: Best of the Web

Tags: Counting, the, Cost, mining, glencore, geneva, human, rights, scandals, Gabriel, Elizondo, Evo, morales, commodity, trading, Swiss, commodities, industry, Vitol, group

From Switzerland to the world - they are the giants of commodity trading, but can they shake off the tag of 'modern day slave masters'? This week on Counting the Cost we examine the commodities industry - the very essentials, the raw materials and resources that we simply cannot live without. These are traded all over the globe - everything from oil to copper, sugar to precious minerals. A country normally associated with great lakes, political neutrality and the Red Cross can now be associated with the global commodities industry as Switzerland is home to some of the biggest commodities companies in the world. But why has that one region out surpassed the others in the commodities business? And is it possible to regulate the globalised, multi-billion dollar companies which operate within it? Published on Sep 29, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish

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