Apple Economy

Apple remains tight-lipped as its Chinese suppliers reportedly pollute and break environmental laws. Activists hope that putting pressure on the big brand will impact other Chinese polluters.

Apple has remained relatively quiet on accusations of unsafe working conditions and environmental concerns in China. But they have hired an outside company to look into the problems.

Apple is hammered by China's media for alleged air and water pollution. Will this negative coverage change the behavior of Chinese suppliers who actually run the factories?

A leading environmental group in China has released a report accusing Apple product manufacturers of polluting waterways.

Chinese factory owner Foxconn assembles iPads and iPhones and has now announced that in the next few years it will replace a portion of its workforce -- with robots.

After an audit of Apple's suppliers in China, the tech giant has found instances of underage labor, unsafe working conditions and improper handling of toxic chemicals.

Your smartphone, laptop, and other high-tech consumer electronics items were probably made in China by a company called Foxconn. It has almost a million employees spread over multiple facilities. But a recent undercover survey paints a picture of a pretty bleak life for Foxconn workers. We talk about the lives of the people who build the gizmos we've come to rely on.

A Bloomberg BusinessWeek story profiles the man who started the Chinese manufacturing company Foxconn, which was thrust into the spotlight after a string of suicides at one of its plants. Bloomberg BusinessWeek editor Josh Tyrangiel visited the facility and talks about what he found.

Pay is slowly improving for workers at Foxconn's Shenzhen plant. The market responded with a near-6% drop in Foxconn shares.

The electronics company tries to take measures to prevent more worker suicides. The companies working with Foxconn -- including Apple, HP and Dell -- have pledged to investigate further into the matter.