Durga Sob was just 10 when she realized she was from the Dalit, or 'untouchable', class of Nepal: 'I drank from a water pot that other people used, and by sharing this water, I'd made it 'unclean'. I was screamed at and chased away. I told my mother and she said: "God made us Dalit, that's just the way it is." It was then I knew the pain of being a Dalit, and had to do something to change things.' Durga Sob
Before the massive oil drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, experts and politicians confidently said that it couldn't happen. Or, if something did go wrong, the impacts would be swiftly contained with minimal leaking. Now that those assurances have been proven wrong, they claim that it was an accident that couldn't have been predicted, and meanwhile avoid the elephant in the room - how and why.The Oil Rig Explosion
"Everything we owned got smashed. We lost everything." Getro Nelio was not referring to the devastating earthquake of January 12. The unemployed, 24-year-old Haitian was speaking about losing his home a second time in three months, on this occasion due to the government. Since late March, armed Haitian police have been closing camps and destroying the shelters that quake victims created out of whatever supplies they could scavenge, from cardboard to small strips of tin. U.N. troops sometimes aid in the evictions.Getro Nelio, Top Tight
In her new book, Green Gone Wrong, Heather Rogers interrogates the efficacy of what is offered to consumers by the Green Marketplace: organic and fair-trade foods, eco-architecture, bio-fuels, hybrid automobiles, and carbon offsets. Going beyond the soundbytes and slogans of corporate greenwashing and inconvenient half-truths, Green Gone Wrong paints a vivid and disturbing reality of environmentalism in the 21st Century.
The 7.3 earthquake which struck Haiti on January 12 was only the start of Haiti's most recent catastrophe. It has been followed by an ever-deepening social and economic crisis for those whose survival was precarious before the quake, especially among the 1.3 million who were left homeless or displaced. Haitian Tent Camp
Not only do women experience a higher rate of unemployment compared to men, but women also make up about two of every three discouraged work seekers. The recent economic crisis has also disproportionately affected women, with the number of females who are no longer economically active rising sharply between 2008 and 2009.
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