Apr
18
2013
rotesters from around the world attacked mining company Rio Tinto for a string for alleged environmental and human rights breaches during a fiery meeting with shareholders in London on Thursday.
Native Mongolian herders claimed that a $5bn (£3.3bn) expansion of the company’s Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in the Gobi desert threatened the fresh water supply of hundreds of nomadic people and the area’s unique ecology.
Sukhgerel Dugersuren, executive director of Mongolian civil society organisation Oyu …
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Apr
18
2013
According to a report from Amnesty International, a seriously ill and pregnant El Salvadorian woman may face jail time if she goes forward with a life-saving and medically-recommended abortion. Abortion is illegal under all circumstances in El Salvador.
The 22-year-old mother of one, identified only as Beatriz, is four-and-a-half months pregnant, but her doctors have confirmed that the fetus has anencephaly (developing without a brain and certain parts of the skull) and that the pregnancy is …
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Apr
18
2013
The Obama administration has ignored over 23 requests from Congress for access to memos explaining the Executive’s legal authority to conduct Targeted Killings of ‘suspected terrorists.’ As former FDL’er Marcy Wheeler writes over at emptywheel.net, “Thus far, only the Intelligence Committees and the Senate — but not the House — Judiciary Committees have been able to see the memos, and they’ve not seen much more than the memo authorizing Anwar al-Awlaki’s killing.”
On April 10th, Chairmen …
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Apr
18
2013
DETROIT – The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan sent a letter to the Detroit Police Department and filed a complaint with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) today demanding an end to the Detroit police’s illegal and abusive tactics toward homeless individuals in the city. A yearlong ACLU investigation uncovered the disturbing practice of officers approaching individuals who appear to be homeless in the Greektown area, forcing them into police vans, and deserting …
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Apr
18
2013
CHICAGO — A Chicago-area transportation agency on Wednesday alleged that some of the nation’s largest and best known companies including AT&T, Sears Holdings Corp., Verizon and Target are running “sham” offices as part of a scheme with two small northern Illinois communities to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes in Chicago and Cook County.
The Regional Transportation Authority released the names of companies or their subsidiaries that it contends have dozens of small offices in …
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Apr
18
2013
An analyst says hunger strikers at Guantanamo perceive they have been forgotten by the world and this is a final message to say we’re still here and we should be released.
In the background of this seven more detainees in Guantanamo Prison have decided to go on hunger strike, joining the mass of 45 other inmates. The initial group of 13 has now surpassed their 70th day on hungers strike as the US ignores pleas from …
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Apr
18
2013
WASHINGTON — A panel of former senior American officials and outside experts, including several who recently left the Obama administration, issued a surprisingly critical assessment of American diplomacy toward Iran on Wednesday, urging President Obama to become far more engaged and to reconsider the likelihood that harsh sanctions will drive Tehran to concessions.
In a report issued by the Iran Project, the former diplomats and experts suggested that the sanctions policy, rather than bolstering diplomacy, …
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Apr
18
2013
A recent report by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) details the growing levels of poverty facing children in the major capitalist countries.
Compiled with information taken in the final two years of last decade (2009-2010), the report reveals a staggering level of child poverty in the “developed” world, with the standards of living in the United States, which has the highest gross domestic product, ranking near the bottom on all metrics.
Entitled “Child Well-Being in Rich …
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Apr
18
2013
About 30 migrant workers have been injured in a shooting on a strawberry farm in Greece after requesting salaries that had not been paid.
The migrants – mainly from Bangladesh – were shot at by at least one farm supervisor, in a Peloponnesian village in southern Greece.
Several of the workers have been taken to hospital but none are in a critical condition.
The owner of the farm in Nea Manolada and one foreman have been arrested.
Nea Manolada, …
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Apr
18
2013
SACRAMENTO — As Gov. Jerry Brown toured China over the last week, he repeatedly contrasted that nation’s speedy construction of modern transportation systems and other key public works with what he characterized as a lack of vision back home.
A pillar of his plan to let the “bulldozers roll” on big projects in California has been an overhaul of the state’s landmark environmental law, which can tangle development in litigation for years.
Yet before he even boarded …
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