A new study has revealed that labour rights abuses remained rampant in major textile factories in major production hubs — Karachi and Faisalabad — manufacturing healthcare exports to Europe. The report was titled “Public money, private harm: The role of EU procurement in perpetuating labour violations: lessons from Pakistan and Sweden”. The 52-page study was conducted collaboratively by Swedwatch and local organisations, including AwazCDS-Pakistan and NowCommunities, building on testimonies of textile factory workers from Karachi and Faisalabad, where it revealed rampant labour rights violations, enabled by weak enforcement of EU procurement rules and labour laws. It revealed that using social audits and certifications as a way of ensuring compliance “repeatedly fail to capture or remedy these violations, raising serious concerns about their efficacy.” At the outset of the report launch in Karachi today, Executive Director NowCommunities, Farhat Parveen, outlined the issues faced by workers in both informal a...
In a recent Cointelegraph interview, James Check uses onchain data to challenge popular Bitcoin narratives and outline his thinking for 2026. Bitcoin’s price may look deceptively familiar, but according to onchain analyst James Check, the market beneath the surface has changed far more than most investors realize. In a new interview with Cointelegraph, Check revisits a question he was asked earlier this year: Are we in a bull market or a bear market? While Bitcoin (BTC) is trading near similar price levels, Check says that leverage, investor cost base, and sell-side behavior are now very different, and all those shifts matter. In fact, a majority of the capital currently invested in Bitcoin was acquired at higher prices, leaving many holders underwater and shaping a cautious sentiment. Read more
The company’s stablecoin infrastructure and USDC coin will be part of the deal, potentially to be embedded in Intuit’s financial platforms. Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks and Mailchimp, announced a “multi-year, strategic partnership” with stablecoin issuer Circle involving its stablecoin infrastructure and USDC (USDC). In a Thursday notice, Intuit said the agreement with Circle would allow “faster, lower-cost” payments through their platforms, which focus on business transactions, tax refunds and marketing. According to Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, the deal will “extend the speed, power and efficiency of USDC for everyday financial transactions.” USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, trailing Tether’s USDt (USDT) by more than $186 billion. According to data from Nansen, USDC’s market cap was more than $77 billion at the time of publication. Read more