Jun
05
2013
Loliondo Region, Tanzania
Tens of thousands of Masai herders in northern Tanzania this spring are protesting a government plan to remove them from their grazing lands to make way for a private hunting firm from the Persian Gulf.
Tanzania plans a new “wildlife corridor” on 600 square miles of Masai village land in the Loliondo Region, which borders the Serengeti National Park. The move, which the government reaffirmed May 23, will evict 30,000 Masai – and allow …
Read more
Jun
05
2013
In six states, plus the District of Columbia, blacks are over five times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites are. The national average? Black Americans are arrested nearly four times as much. And it’s not because of increased use of the drug: according to the New York Times’s report, black and white Americans have about the same rates of marijuana use overall. So what’s going on?
Essentially, the Times explains, it’s …
Read more
Jun
05
2013
New federal data released today by an advocacy group reveals that in the last four years, at least 1,366 kids were locked up in adult immigration detention centers for more than three days. The majority were held in the jails for more than a week and 15 for more than six months. Federal rules require that minors be released from the facilities in less than three days.
The data, obtained by the National Immigrant Justice …
Read more
Jun
05
2013
A client sits before me, seeking help untangling his relationship problems. As a psychotherapist, I strive to be warm, nonjudgmental and encouraging. I am a bit unsettled, then, when in the midst of describing his painful experiences, he says, “I’m sorry for being so negative.”
A crucial goal of therapy is to learn to acknowledge and express a full range of emotions, and here was a client apologizing for doing just that. In my psychotherapy …
Read more
Jun
05
2013
SANTA FE, N.M., June 4 (Reuters) – Wildfires raged across the western United States on Tuesday, including one that saw flames crest a New Mexico peak that is sacred to Native Americans, while firefighters were getting a handle on a blaze in California.
In New Mexico, flames have been spotted atop Redondo Peak, which is sacred to the Jemez Pueblo tribe and other Pueblo Indians, said Jan Bardwell, a spokeswoman for the incident management team handling …
Read more
Jun
05
2013
The announcement last month of a long-awaited breakthrough in stem-cell research — the creation of stem-cell lines from a cloned human embryo — has revived interest in using embryonic stem cells to treat disease. But US regulations mean that many researchers will be watching those efforts from the sidelines.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which distributes the majority of federal funding for stem-cell research, prohibits research on cells taken from embryos created solely …
Read more
Jun
05
2013
Britain faces a “colossal bill” for child poverty with the cost of increasing rates of destitution calculated to reach £35bn a year by 2020, according to a report.
Donald Hirsch, an academic at Loughborough University, says that one-in-four children in Britain – 3.4 million – is forecast to be in relative poverty by the end of the decade.
At those levels about 3% of the country’s GDP would be consumed, as well as the longer term losses …
Read more
Jun
04
2013
Mexico City residents fear the nation’s vicious drug violence has seriously set up shop in town after the mysterious disappearance of 11 young people in broad daylight from a bar in the Zona Rosa district. Relatives believe they were kidnapped, and witnesses have reported seeing a group of armed men enter the bar. More than 26,000 people have gone missing in Mexico over the past six years.
Click here for the full post. …
Jun
04
2013
Connecticut is poised to become the first state to require labeling of genetically engineered food — in theory, at least.
On Monday, the state House of Representatives passed an amended version of a labeling bill that the state Senate approved two weeks ago, and Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) has said he’ll sign it. The bipartisan bill passed unanimously in the Senate and 134-to-3 in the House, with little debate in either chamber — a major contrast …
Read more
Jun
04
2013
Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of the biggest intelligence leak in US history, came face-to-face on Tuesday with the man who turned him in to military authorities.
Adrian Lamo, a former computer hacker, was giving evidence at the court martial of Manning, whom he had never met but whose life he changed dramatically by informing on him to counter-intelligence officers.
Manning’s defence lawyer used the cross-examination of Lamo to explore the soldier’s motivations and state of mind …
Read more