Featured

News You Might Have Missed

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Important but underreported news from around the world — and your own backyard
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QUOTED: “I hope that people get so disillusioned that they really organize against the government and kick him out by a non-violent, popular, mass uprising.” — Archbishop Pius Ncube, on ousting Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe in Thursday’s election. (Story #07, below.)
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TOP STORIES
[o1] “Tsunami: EA coastline exposed to toxic waste dumped in Somalia”
[o2] “Unions take aim at Wal-Mart”
[o3] “Kenya ‘tortured terror suspects'”
AMERICA’S VETERANS
[o4] “Official urges better handling of veterans’ claims”
[o5] “Stresses of battle hit female GIs hard”
ZIMBABWE ELECTION
[o6] “Zimbabwe accused of jamming foreign radio stations”
[o7] “Zimbabwe cleric urges ‘uprising'”
POLLUTION ACTIVISM
[o8] “Citizens go it alone in bid to clear air”
[o9] “Outraged by herbicides, group applies prayer”
[10] “Lanxess, Addyston residents pursuing emissions solution”
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS
[11] “Study proves growing GM crops has negative impact on wildlife”
[12] “Tanzania: Involve other stakeholders in GMO plan”
[13] “Genetically modified crops: to use or not to use?” ENVIRONMENT: WATER
[14] “300 million rural Chinese lack clean drinking water”
[15] “Billion people face water shortages, warns UN”
[16] “Country faces disaster due to water diversion by India”
[17] “Argentina: Uranium-polluted water is legally safe to drink”
VIEWPOINT
[18] “BBC say ‘fake journalists’ will not be used again”

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TOP STORIES
Top
[o1]
“Tsunami: EA coastline exposed to toxic waste dumped in Somalia”
The East African (Kenya), March 21, 2005
The U.N. blames European companies for tons of nuclear and industrial waste dumped off the East African coastline. [o2]
“Unions take aim at Wal-Mart”
The Morning News (AR), March 23, 2005
Two unions protested Wal-Mart’s sponsorship of ABC’s “Only in America” series, saying it abuses its American employees.

Science

Focus: Agent Orange Aftermath

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Jodi Wynn, Newsdesk.org
Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, many seriously ill Vietnamese blame their conditions on exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange. The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) filed suit in February 2004 against 37 U.S. companies that produced the substance during the conflict in Vietnam, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto Company. Judge Jack Weinstein dismissed the case on March 10, ruling that there was no expressed rule against the use of herbicides or poisonous gases at the time. Plaintiffs in the suit told the Associated Press they planned to appeal. The drive to appeal was bolstered by a March 11 conference hosted in Paris by the France-Vietnam Friendship Association.

Featured

News You Might Have Missed

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Important but underreported news from around the world — and your own backyard
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QUOTED: “A lot of it is old, rusted material that’s bent up. They’re trying to guess what it was used for and then what it might be contaminated with.” –John Darby, one of the leaders of the Hanford nuclear site cleanup, on the vast array of unidentified and highly radioactive waste his crew has unearthed. (story #18, below)

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TOP STORIES
[o1] “Secret US plans for Iraq’s oil”
[o2] “‘One huge US jail'”
[o3] “Iran plans secret ‘nuclear university’ to train scientists”
TERROR PREPAREDNESS
[o4] “Railroad safety, security, secrecy”
[o5] “Va. nuclear plant’s plans raise fears”
[o6] “House of cards, bridge of steel”
WORLD
[o7] “Anti-Iran militants return home”
[o8] “G-20 demands end to farm subsidies”
U.K. AT WAR
[o9] “Shayler to stand against Blair in election”
[10] “‘Our views remain same today …

Culture

FOCUS: Bolivia — a Talent for Upheaval

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Newsdesk.org Staff Report
Natural gas, cocaine, water, racism, widespread poverty, and a legacy of almost 200 coups in almost as many years are the prime motives behind Bolivia’s perpetual political unrest. In the latest chapter, the current president, Carlos Mesa, faces exactly the same kind of populist protests that unseated his predecessor, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, in 2003. It was Lozada’s strict, World Bank-driven economic policies of privatization, government austerity and foreign investment that cost him his job. Fossil fuels dispute
Angry over what they saw as a giveaway of natural resources to non-Bolivian interests, a powerful coalition of impoverished Aymara Indians, labor unions, coca farmers and peasants, led by a charismatic socialist legislator, Evo Morales, undertook a series of protests, roadblocks and deadly riots that led to Lozada’s downfall. Mesa, at the time the vice president, took up the job as chief executive.

Culture

‘A Very Long and Very Bloody War’

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A former CIA analyst is critical of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism. But his solution — a re-evaluation of foreign policy and then even bloodier engagement — doesn’t endear him to the left or the right. Interview by Michael Stoll, Newsdesk.org
Michael Scheuer is the author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (Potomac Books, 2004). He headed the CIA’s Osama bin Laden task force from 1996 to 1999, and last summer published the book anonymously. Scheuer argues that Osama bin Laden is not a madman with an apocalyptic vision, but rather a sane and charismatic figure whose anti-American rhetoric appeals to large numbers of Muslims. In contrast to Bush administration pronouncements that America’s enemies despise our way of life, Scheuer says bin Laden has been quite clear that he is opposed to policies of the United States, not its character.

Culture

FOCUS: Troubles for Sinn Fein

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By Jodi Wynn, Newsdesk.org
Recent crimes linked to the Irish Republican Army have undermined support for the group, and Sinn Fein, its political wing, as Northern Ireland gears up for elections in May. “People no longer believe in [the IRA] or trust them,” a shopkeeper in Belfast told the Washington Post. The loss of faith comes after a series of IRA-linked crimes — the January 30 murder of Robert McCartney, the discovery of a money laundering scheme via a Bulgarian bank that has implicated a number of Irish citizens, and a $50 million Belfast bank robbery in December. The IRA further outraged many by offering to shoot the individuals involved with the murder of McCartney, a Catholic and IRA supporter who was killed outside a bar in a non-political brawl. The silence of roughly 70 potential witnesses to McCartney’s murder has been blamed on IRA intimidation.

Featured

News You Might Have Missed

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Important but underreported news from around the world — and your own backyard
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QUOTED: “During the five days we did not come, there were 25 deaths. This is five times above the acceptable rate.” –Patrick Barbier of Medecins Sans Frontieres, on the conditions at refugee camps in eastern Congo.(Story #05, below.)
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NEWSDESK.ORG EXCLUSIVE
[01] “The Dutch Grapple with Intolerance”
TOP STORIES
[o2] “New rules will cost dissidents at NIH”
[o3] “‘Clear Skies’ loophole could exempt 894 sites from emissions cuts”
[o4] “Parched village sues to shut tap at Coke”
WORLD
[o5] “Eastern Congo’s refugees face sickness and fear”
[o6] “Sacked minister Moyo forms ‘third force’ to fight Mugabe”
[o7] “China signals urgency in easing danger of mines”
[08] “Chavez says Washington plots his murder, U.S. denies”
[09] “Drug crime nourished in sleepy communities”
ELECTION 2004
[10] “Ohio wants judge to rule on presidential election conduct”
[11] “Task force finds ‘unacceptable’ flaws in state election system”
[12] “Voting commission hears complaints”
NATION
[13] “‘Counter-recruiters’ shadowing the military”
[14] “Anti-abortion activist loses battle against law again”
[15] “Bill would ban abortions of ‘gay unborn children'”
U.S. MEDIA
[16] “Another official bans contact with press”
[17] “Sinclair petitions high court on media ownership ruling”
[18] “Airwaves: the race for low-wattage stations”
ENVIRONMENT
[19] “Peasants in Peru near showdown on mercury spill”
[20] “A silent killer of rural women”
[21] “Ozone decline stuns scientists”

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NEWSDESK.ORG EXCLUSIVE
Top
[o1]
“The Dutch Grapple with Intolerance”
By Jennifer Hamm, Newsdesk.org, March 7, 2005
The debate on multiculturalism in the Netherlands is increasingly intolerant, and occasionally bloody.  – – – – – – – – – –
TOP STORIES
Top
[02]
“New rules will cost dissidents at NIH”
Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2005
Several government scientists opposed to limits on corporate gifts received stock options and consulting fees from biomedical companies. [o3]
“‘Clear Skies’ loophole could exempt 894 sites from cutting emissions”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 2, 2005
A proposed amendment to the Clean Air Act would create thousands of industrial exemptions to EPA emissions rules.

Culture

The Dutch Grapple with Intolerance / Race, religion spur immigration debate

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By Jennifer Hamm
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — After a 19-year-old man of Moroccan descent was run down and killed by a Dutch woman driver trying to recover her stolen purse, mourners blamed Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk for the death. Gathered at a makeshift memorial here earlier this winter, the mourners said Verdonk’s tough immigration reforms have increased Dutch xenophobia against Muslims, spurring the woman’s violent reaction against the alleged purse thief. Though the Dutch are famous for allowing euthanasia, gay marriage and soft-drug use, it is ironically their tolerance that may have laid the foundation for current ethnic tensions. “The problem is we have been tolerant of the intolerant and now we are paying the bill,” said Bart Jan Spruyt, director of the conservative Edmund Burke Foundation in The Hague. “That bill has to be settled first before we can become tolerant again.”

Democracy

FOCUS: Syria and Lebanon

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By Jodi Wynn, Newsdesk.org
The February 14 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has heightened tensions along the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Hariri was a longtime opponent of President Emile Lahoud, who welcomed the ongoing presence of 14,000 Syrian troops in his country. Hariri resigned as prime minister in October 2004 to protest efforts to extend Lahoud’s presidential term by three years. Omar Karami, who supported Lahoud’s pro-Syrian policies, was quickly appointed to fill Hariri’s position. Protestors blamed Lahoud’s government and Syria for Hariri’s death.

Featured

News You Might Have Missed

By |

Important but underreported news from around the world — and your own backyard
 – – – – – – – – – –
QUOTED: “It smells like someone put tar and gasoline and crap in a jar, mixed it up good and left in the sun all summer.” –Community activist Philip DePaolo on industrial pollution at New
York City’s proposed Olympic Village site(story #14, below).  – – – – – – – – – –
TOP STORIES
[o1] “Tensions high in Haiti after police violence”
[o2] “Cadre grows to rein in message”
[o3] “Scotland’s secret environmental shame revealed”
MEDIA
[o4] “Stevens vows cable-indecency crackdown”
[o5] “Russian press ask Bush: who says we’re not free?” [o6] “Terrorist TV?” [07] “New wave of Web writers arrested in Iran”
[08] “Nepalese bloggers, journalists defy media clampdown by king”
NATION
[o9] “It’s just a book”
[10] “Marriage ban goes forward in Assembly”
[11] “The side effects of drug promotion”
[12] “Generations are split over Social Security’s future”
ENVIRONMENT
[13] “The deadly air of Hong Kong”
[14] “Play at your own risk”
[15] “Ports’ pollution outpaces politics”
[16] “16 years later, pressure mounts to settle spill suit”
VIEWPOINT
[17] “Freedom of Information Act found wanting”
[18] “The Times sees no evil”

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TOP STORIES
Top
[o1]
“Tensions high in Haiti after police violence”
ISN Security Watch (Switzerland), February 03, 2005
Deadly political violence continues on the anniversary of the coup that brought Prime Minister Gerard LaTortue to power.