Story Archives - Page 579 of 662

Our mainstream press is fond of celebrating the world's great heroes. You know, people (mostly men) who make the time to cross the globe solo in a hot air balloon (Go Steve Forbes), or hit more home runs in a single year than anyone else (Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?), or make more money in a single year than any other family on the planet (Thanks, Wal-Mart Waltons!).

But what about ordinary folks who do something extra-ordinary? Those who get out of bed in the morning and go to work, while simultaneously managing to raise children, those who discover that the world doesn't look quite right from the front porch or the wooden comfort of the Adirondack chair?

Forestry in Chile and the Myth of the Trickledown Theory

Gary Graham Hughes November 1, 2005 Gary Graham Hughes

Two years ago, in early November 2003, after a ferocious markets-based campaign in the US, an agreement was signed by US and Chilean environmental groups with the two largest wood products companies in Chile. The agreement, facilitated by Home Depot, was received as an important step forward in promoting collaborative resolution to international environmental conflicts. The agreements language binds the companies to a conservation focused solutions process with the environmental groups, and an end to the practice of the substitution of the native forest with exotic tree species plantations.

Freedom of Speech Under Fire in Nepal: Take Action!

Super User October 31, 2005 Super User

Nepal is a country which has been living under a so-called ‘state of emergency’ and its extended anti-constitutional aftermath decreed in Nov. 2001 by the corrupt and despotic monarchy, an absolutist regime which is now exercising control directly through the military and police while fighting (with great and indiscriminate, if ineffective, brutality) a Maoist insurgency which has de facto control of almost two-thirds of the country and the support of vast sectors of the rural poor.

Parliament was disbanded in the name of the ‘war on terrorism’ (which is how the fight against the insurgency is described) and now people who simply exercise Constitutional rights are arrested as ‘terrorist sympathizers’. Many who are merely critical –or thought to be critical — of the regime are jailed, tortured, killed in jail or summarily executed on the spot. read more

Unembedded Reporting From Iraq: An Interview with Dahr Jamail

Benjamin Dangl October 31, 2005 Benjamin Dangl

In 2003, tired of the US media's inaccurate portrayal of the realities of the Iraq War, independent journalist Dahr Jamail headed to the conflict himself. Instead of following in the footsteps of mainstream media's embedded, "Hotel Journalists," Jamail hit the Iraqi streets to uncover the stories most reporters were missing. His countless interviews with Iraqi citizens and from-the-ground reporting have offered a horrific look into the bowels of the US occupation. From covering the bloody siege of Falluja to breaking a story on Bechtel's failure to reconstruct water treatment plants, his writing and photographs depict an Iraq that is much worse off now than it was before the US invasion. As one Abu Ghraib detainee explained to Jamail, "the Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house."

Cellulose and Forestation: Two Sides of a Predatory Model

Raúl Zibechi October 27, 2005 Raúl Zibechi

The construction of two huge cellulose factories on the Uruguay River that threaten to pollute the binational stream illustrates how a model of forestry imposed by neoliberalism in the 1990s is gaining ground in the Southern Cone. Standing on a makeshift stage in the center of Montevideo, writer Eduardo Galeano addressed the crowd in a calm tone: "There are decisions that are made in 15 minutes but have consequences for centuries." It was May 27, 2005 during a demonstration against the construction of two huge cellulose factories on the shores of the Uruguay River. It was not the first time that environmental and social organizations had taken to the streets to protest the two megaprojects, which threaten to pollute the country's main river, shared with Argentina. But it was the first time that it was done under a progressive or leftist government.

Iraq: Fight for “hearts and minds” lost

Super User October 26, 2005 Super User

BAGHDAD – Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, according to a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers and released by The Sunday Telegraph in Britain.

The poll, commissioned by the British Ministry of Defense, shows that up to 65 percent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and less than 1 percent think allied military involvement is helping to improve security. It demonstrates for the first time the depth of anti-Western feeling in Iraq, more than two and a half years after the war commenced. read more