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An anniversary that went almost entirely unnoticed in the US press this week marked a war that sought to legitimize humanitarian military intervention in the modern world. Ten years ago on Tuesday, forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO, began a 78-day bombing campaign targeted the Balkan nation, known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the name …

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Halliburton, the Kellogg, Brown, and Root Subsidiary is embroiled in a scandal involving bribery in Nigeria. Two British employees of the company were just indicted in a US district court in Texas of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Their actions took place at the time when former Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. Yesterday we heard part …

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A Congressional subcommittee held a hearing yesterday featuring testimony by a leading expert on sexual violence against Indigenous women in the U.S. Charon Asetoyer, executive director of the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center addressed a disturbing epidemic of sexual violence affecting one out of three Native American and Alaska Native women and stressed the need to create Sexual …

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Naturalization Act of 1790

Back in the day on March 26th, 1790, the U.S. Congress passed its first Naturalization Act. As the first immigration policy of its kind for the newly emerging nation-state, it tellingly laid down racial barriers for becoming a citizen. The text of the law read, “Any alien, being a free white person, …

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President Obama went on the defensive yesterday evening in his second prime-time news conference defending his Treasury Secretary’s plan to save the financial sector with $1 trillion of tax payer money. The President took questions from reporters for nearly an hour during a conference that almost entirely focused on the economy. He was grilled about the bonuses received by AIG …

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Halliburton, the subsidiary of Kellogg, Brown, and Root, is in the news again, this time being charged with attempted bribery in Nigeria to buy liquefied natural gas facilities. Two British citizens working for the company formerly headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, now face charges, according to the US justice department. Cheney’s leadership of Halliburton is only one among …

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The Obama administration recently selected Thomas Perez, Maryland’s Labor Secretary, to run the Department of Justice’s civil rights division. Though Perez, a first-generation Dominican-American, has served on the board of two immigration organizations, the President’s move is being called a “flinch on immigration,” by a New York Times editorial published yesterday. Criticism has centered on why the LA-based civil rights …

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The Scottsboro Nine

Back in the day on March 25th, 1931, nine African- American youths were removed from a Southern Railroad train and taken to a jail in Scottsboro, Alabama. Soon to be known around the world as the “Scottsboro Nine,” six of the youths were accused by Victoria Price, a white woman, of gang raping …

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Twenty years ago today, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez departed from the Alaskan fishing port of Valdez. The ship’s captain, Joseph Hazlewood, was under the heavy influence of alcohol when the the Exxon Valdez hit a reef off the coastline of Prince William Sound. The resulting oil spill, one of the largest and most catastrophic in …

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Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will visit Mexico this week in the first of a series of visits by top US officials, ahead of President Obama’s visit next month. Clinton’s visit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon comes at a time when news of violence by Mexico’s drug-cartel is dominating the news. Thousands of people have been killed …

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