Jan
02
2013
As construction workers put the finishing touches to a waste water pipeline at the hilltop Martabe gold mine in North Sumatra, dozens of police and soldiers armed with machine guns and knives keep close watch nearby.
Like many other international mining companies in Indonesia, Hong Kong-listed G-Resources went to great lengths to win the support of the local community for a large gold project that had been 15 years in the making.
With nearly $1bn spent on …
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Dec
23
2012
Angry protests escalated into violence in India’s capital on Sunday, after thousands of people gathered to demand justice for the victim of a recent gang rape in New Delhi and improved safety for women.
Protesters flocked to the India Gate monument throughout the day, despite police attempts to deter them and a hastily enacted ban on protesting in New Delhi, where they taunted the police and attacked the car of a member of Parliament. The police, …
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Dec
22
2012
They said the demonstrators marched in the village of Diya near the capital Manama, chanting “Resign, Khalifa!” and waving Bahraini flags.
The Shi’ite opposition in the tiny Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom is led by al-Wefaq, which wants a government of technocrats to rule in a transition leading to a constitutional monarchy.
Since February last year, Bahrain has been shaken by opposition protests that the authorities accuse of being exploited by Shi’ite Iran across the Gulf.
At least 80 people …
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Dec
22
2012
(Beirut) – Saudi authorities should immediately drop all charges against the detained editor of a website created to foster debate about religion and religious figures in Saudi Arabia.
On December 17, 2012, the Jeddah District Court, which had been hearing the case against the editor, Raif Badawi, referred it to a higher court on a charge of apostasy, which carries the death penalty. The charges against him, based solely to Badawi’s involvement in setting up a …
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Dec
21
2012
Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) released a statement Friday apologizing for comments he made over a decade ago about a gay ambassadorial nominee.
Hagel, who is under consideration to be nominated as the next secretary of defense, came under fire in recent days for his 1998 comments, in which he called James Hormel, President Bill Clinton’s nominee for ambassador to Luxembourg, “openly, aggressively gay.”
Hagel’s statement, via the Washington Post:
My comments 14 years …
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Dec
21
2012
WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest gun-rights lobby is calling for armed police officers to be posted in every American school to stop the next killer “waiting in the wings.”
The National Rifle Association broke its silence Friday on last week’s shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school that left 26 children and staff dead.
The group’s top lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre, said at a Washington news conference that “the next Adam Lanza,” the man responsible for last week’s …
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Dec
21
2012
WASHINGTON — House Speaker John A. Boehner abruptly canceled a vote on his Plan B tax proposal late Thursday after failing to find enough GOP support, a stunning political defeat that effectively turned resolution of the year-end budget crisis over to President Obama and the Democrats.
The speaker had spent the last few weeks negotiating one-on-one with the president, establishing himself as the second-most powerful figure in Washington. But with his strategy imploding, Boehner conceded that …
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Dec
20
2012
While Canada has the world’s largest supply of fresh water, more than 100 aboriginal communities have tapwater so foul they are under continual boil alert. Aboriginal peoples constitute 3% of Canada’s population; they make up 20% of its prisons’ inmates. In the far north, the rate of tuberculosis is a stunning 137 times that of the rest of the country. And the suicide rate capital of the world? A small reserve in Ontario, where a …
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Dec
19
2012
Federal and state labor authorities Thursday announced the discovery of “widespread” labor violations by downtown garment manufacturers that help supply retailers like Aldo, Urban Outfitters and Forever 21, among others.
During an August sweep of a building at 830 S. Hill St., the U.S. Department of Labor and the California Labor Standards Enforcement division found that 10 garment businesses paid workers an average of $6.50 an hour, significantly below the federal standard of $7.25 an hour …
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Dec
19
2012
For Canada’s international human rights standing, 2012 was an annus horribilis.
This year three UN expert committees rated the country’s performance on meeting rights commitments — and returned a failing grade.
“These mandatory reviews are carried out every four or five years, and it just happened that this year Canada was the focus of three,” said Alex Neve, who heads Amnesty International Canada. “It’s a wake-up call that although we have things to be proud of, there …
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