Apr
05
2013
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
NEWCOMB: Our guest is Rainey Reitman Activism Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Tell us what is happening.
REITMAN: Well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit civil liberties law firm and advocacy center. We’re based in the San Francisco Area and I’m the activism director, so I deal with helping individuals speak out on issues related to civil liberties on the internet and in …
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Apr
04
2013
Bhopal: The extradition request of former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson, main accused in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy case, is still under examination as no decision has been taken by the US’ Department of Justice in this regard, the CBI said in its status report filed with a local court. The status report was submitted in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) following a petition filed by the organisations working for the cause of …
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Apr
04
2013
Insouciant New Yorkers—here is another pending disaster to shrug off with characteristic brio! There is a huge, ongoing gas leak beneath your very feet. A team of natural gas experts recently commissioned to survey the New York system has found vastly elevated levels of methane in locations all over Manhattan, a clear indication that Con Ed’s 4,320-mile network of pipes, dating back to the 1800s, is corroded, full of holes, and spewing methane into the …
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Apr
04
2013
Environmental Resources Management (ERM), the State Department consulting firm that claims TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline proposal is safe and sound, previously provided a similarly rosy approval for the expansion of a Peruvian natural gas project that has since racked up a disastrous track record.
On March 1, the U.S. State Department declared KXL’s proposed northern half environmentally safe and sound in its draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), part of TransCanada’s Presidential Permit …
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Apr
04
2013
The Alabama Legislature late Tuesday adopted stringent new regulations for abortion clinics that supporters called a step to protect women but that others called medically unnecessary and a disguised effort to force the closing of the state’s five abortion clinics.
The bill, like measures passed last year in Mississippi and Tennessee and last month in North Dakota, would require that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at local hospitals. Several of Alabama’s clinics rely on …
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Apr
04
2013
In a rare case of a cultural heritage claim arising from the sale of American artifacts abroad, the Hopi Indians of Arizona have asked federal officials to help stop a high-price auction of 70 sacred masks in Paris next week.
The tribe is receiving advice from the State and Interior Departments, but each agency says its ability to intervene is limited.
In many ways, the Hopi case illustrates a paradox in the way artifacts are repatriated …
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Apr
04
2013
Britain on Thursday urged Saudi Arabia not to carry out the “grotesque” punishment of paralysis for a man whose alleged crime took place when he was just 14 years old.
Ali al-Khawahir, 24, has reportedly been sentenced to “Qisas” (retribution) for allegedly paralysing a friend when he stabbed him in the back 10 years ago.
He could be paralysed from the waist down if he fails to pay compensation of one million riyals ($270,000), rights group Amnesty …
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Apr
04
2013
BRUSSELS, Belgium — Ever since they broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991, Slovenes have liked to present their country as a sober, Swiss-like Alpine land, nothing like their hot-tempered Balkan and Mediterranean neighbors.
So the wave of speculation that Slovenia is poised to follow Cyprus as the next victim of the euro zone crisis sweeping southern Europe has left them mortified.
“People here are very worried,” says Tanja Fajon, a Slovene member of the European Parliament. “If …
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Apr
04
2013
In the aftermath of Congress’ failure to reach a deal averting the sequester, President Obama described the automatic spending cuts as foolhardy, warning, “The pain will be real. The longer these cuts are in place, the greater the damage.” Those words are now coming to fruition, as local cancer clinics all across America are being forced to turn away thousands of senior citizens on Medicare and deny them their chemotherapy treatments as a consequence of …
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Apr
04
2013
(New York) – The Chinese government should immediately release four activists detained after calling for requiring government officials to disclose their assets publicly, Human Rights Watch said today. The detentions are the harshest action yet against activists involved in a grass-roots campaign to press the government to honor its promise to fight corruption.
“The detention of four anti-corruption activists calls into question President Xi Jinping’s commitment to get tough on graft,” said Sophie Richardson, China director, …
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