Global News and Analysis Archives - Page 266 of 294

Linus, from Papua, said: “It doesn’t matter who the leader is, the dice are loaded against us.” For him, as for many others, the re-election in July 2009 of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (known as SBY) as Indonesian president was no surprise. Linus and his friend Agus are from Jayapura, the provincial capital of Papua, the western part of the island of New Guinea (1). They are studying to be civil servants in the city of Surabaya in eastern Java.

“Instead of independence we have ‘special’ autonomy,” said Agus. That status was won in January 2002. “It is so special nobody trusts it. All I know is I will at last get a job in a new district in the south of Papua. To separatist Papuans, I am a traitor. To most of our Javanese teachers, I am a monkey they are trying to lure down from the trees. I just want to feed my family.” read more

The Oil Spill That Energized a Movement

Rob Reynolds, Al Jazeera June 8, 2010 Rob Reynolds, Al Jazeera

Source: Al Jazeera

The pictures looked so familiar – the ruined rig, a spreading stain of oil, birds and wildlife dying, a massive effort to clean up the deadly spill.

But instead of depicting the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, the photographs I was looking at in the library of the Santa Barbara, California Historical Museum showed a spill that happened four decades ago.

It was an event that changed Americans’ attitudes toward the environment forever.

Today, Santa Barbara is an affluent, laid-back beach town set between the mountains and the sea, with hardly a piece of litter to mar its pristine beaches. read more

Gulf Oil Spill: America’s Chernobyl

Alejandro Nadal June 7, 2010 Alejandro Nadal

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

The Deepwater Horizon disaster has the familiar ingredients of deregulation, deception, and destruction that characterize the relations between governments and multinational corporations. It was a man-made disaster, like Chernobyl.

And like the global financial crisis, it all started with the explosion of a bubble, this time of methane gas.

The Wages of Deregulation

In 2008 the Bush-Cheney duo lifted the executive order banning offshore drilling, and the House of Representatives agreed to let a 26-year-old moratorium on offshore drilling expire. Deregulation was moving full speed ahead. read more

What Can You Do About the Gulf Oil Spill?

Riki Ott June 3, 2010 Riki Ott

GMO Trees Approved for U.S. South

Orin Langelle/Global Justice Ecology Project June 2, 2010 Orin Langelle/Global Justice Ecology Project

USDA Approves ArborGen’s Request to Plant 260,000 Genetically Engineered Eucalyptus Trees Across U.S. South

On May 12th the USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service issued its decision to approve the mass-release of over a quarter of a million GE eucalyptus trees across seven states in the U.S. South (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina), despite overwhelming public opposition.

"We are very disappointed but not surprised by the USDA’s decision, which is likely to have severe social and environmental impacts," stated Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. "The USDA’s final environmental assessment disregarded concerns raised by thousands of people in comments submitted opposing the release of GE eucalyptus trees." read more

Do It Yourself University: The Coming Transformation of Higher Education

Andrée Collier Zaleska June 1, 2010 Andrée Collier Zaleska

Source: Yes Magazine

Do you know a college student? Chances are, that person is going to graduate with an alarming amount of debt: Students in the class of 2008 graduated owing an average of $23,200 in student loans. It’s now a given that you “need” a college degree to achieve middle-class status in the United States. But we also know that the middle class isn’t what it used to be. So, is a college education worth the money?

The question plagues many Common Security Club members, whether we are students, graduates, parents, or grandparents. How can we save (or borrow) enough to pay for top level schooling, when private college tuition-plus room and board-now runs about $45,000 year? Parents wonder whether they should compromise their retirement savings; grandparents are shocked at the cost; teens have little to compare it to, and may be quite unprepared to make use of such an expensive investment. read more