your employees must sign pledges promising not to commit suicide. After a rash of suicides last summer, Taiwanese company Foxconn, component producer for Apple products, added the clause requiring employees to forego suicide as an option.

An option to what? Well while Foxconn execs claim ignorance as to the cause of the suicides, employees report a list of grievances, including:

• earning closer to CNY 950 ($146) per month as opposed to the CNY 1600 (about $246) promised
• forced and under/unpaid overtime
• living with up to six other people in a cramped dorm room
• hostile and military like work environments
• unhealthy and hazardous conditions

A 22-year-old woman who was interviewed about the conditions at Foxconn responded, “”Some of my roommates weep in the dormitory. I want to cry as well but my tears have not come out.”

Following the suicides, Apple went to Foxconn to monitor conditions. They found that appropriate measures had been taken to ensure worker safety.  But a report by the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) found that conditions at one of Foxconn’s manufacturing facilities don’t meet Apple’s own Supplier Code of Conduct standards.

Read SACOM’s full report here, and learn more about the conditions under which Foxconn employees are forced to work here.

So, what’s your iPod worth to you, and should we, as Apple consumers, be more concerned with where our gadgets come from?

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, dubbed “the great seducer” for his reputation with women, was taken into custody over the weekend and in court today, charged with attempted rape and criminal sexual contact. The charges stem from Strauss-Kahn’s alleged attack of a maid who entered  his penthouse suite at a New York hotel.

The 32-year-old maid who filed the report claims that when she entered Strauss-Kahn’s suite early Saturday afternoon, Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom, chased her, then pulled her into a bedroom where he sexually assaulted her. The woman eventually broke free, alerting hotel staff to the attack. Strauss-Kahn was gone by the time detectives arrived.

Less than 4 hours after the alleged assault the 62-year-old married father of four was removed from a Paris-bound flight at J.F.K. International Airport.

Today, a lawyer for a woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by Strauss-Kahn nine years ago said she now wants to file a legal complaint against him.

Read more about the arrest of the great seducer here.