Story Archives - Page 589 of 662

Copper vs. Ecology in Ecuador

Stuart Schussler September 14, 2005 Stuart Schussler

Junín, a small town in the mountainous Intag region of northwestern Ecuador, is home for about 500 Ecuadorians. The community is rich in many ways. Fertile land produces organic coffee, sugar cane, and oranges for exportation. Junín is located next to the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve and the people of the village created their own community ecological reserve 8 years ago. These protected areas cover a large expanse of cloud forest and contain one of the world's most biologically diverse ecosystems. Public works projects like road maintenance or repairs on the school house are done with the traditional minga system, where members from each family volunteer to do a couple days of work for the common good. However, in the eyes of Ascendant Copper Corporation, a Canadian mining company, Junín's wealth isn't in its people or its diverse ecosystem-it's in its rocks.

Crossing the Rubicon: An Interview with Michael Ruppert

Rob Williams September 13, 2005 Rob Williams

Michael Ruppert

Most people I know have some intuitive sense that the stories told about the way the world works in our culture of daily "news" (and I use the term loosely) are suspect. The real stories about power and the ways power is exercised lie buried beneath the surface. But how deep, to quote The Matrix's Morpheus, does this rabbit hole go? For those willing to crawl down the hole, U.S. investigative journalism has its own Morpheus, and his name is Michael Ruppert.

Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”: A 100th Anniversary Retrospective

Bob Feldman September 12, 2005 Bob Feldman

Among the early 20^th century muckraking writers, Upton Sinclair had perhaps the most intense immediate impact on U.S. public opinion after his novel, "The Jungle", was published 100 years ago. His target was the Beef Trust that controlled Chicago's stockyards and its meatpacking industry. The problem that Sinclair wished to expose through his muckraking was the way the Beef Trust treated its workers under an economic system that Sinclair felt was a system of "wage-slavery." But the result of Sinclair's muckraking work was only effective in exposing the unsanitary way the Beef Trust packed meat for middle-class U.S. consumers. As Sinclair wrote in October, 1906:

Sri Lanka: Assassinations and a Fractured Peace Process

Rene Wadlow September 8, 2005 Rene Wadlow

Lakshman Kadirgamar

The assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar, Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka on August 12, 2005 is a serious blow to the stalled peace negotiations and to Tamil-Sinhalese reconciliation. Kadirgamar, an Oxford educated Christian Tamil from Jaffna, the Tamil heartland, was more than a token Tamil in an otherwise Sinhalese-led government. He was a symbol that ethnic identity is not the only factor that should determine policy, but rather that there are ways of working to develop the mutual interests of all communities. In fact, the armed conflict since 1983 has generated a momentum which exceeds its original ethnic causes and has invented new, hybrid, collective identities.

Global Notebook 9-7-05

Super User September 7, 2005 Super User

FEMA failed to follow disaster plan

WASHINGTON, DC – More than a year before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill that Ronald Castleman, then regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) called "a very good exercise." More than 1 million residents were "evacuated" in a table-top scenario as 120 mph winds and 20 inches of rain caused widespread flooding that supposedly trapped 300,000 people in the city. read more

Movement Control: Navigating the Checkpoints of Palestine

Mneesha Gellman September 7, 2005 Mneesha Gellman

Crossing between Jerusalem and Ramallah, West Bank

The desert sun slants down, filtering through the dust and car exhaust. We shift our weight from one foot to the next, babies from hips to shoulders. Packages are set on the ground in resignation. Women in brightly embroidered thobes, traditional Palestinian dress, discreetly loosen their headscarves to allow a little air to pass over their throats. We are trying to get from one place to the next, and have been bottlenecked into a checkpoint. There are more than fifty-seven checkpoints in Palestine's West Bank, each one with a series of metal detectors and narrow cattle-shoot passages that one must pass through to reach the Israeli soldiers who staff them. Leaning against their sandbags, guns and ammo hanging from their chests, the soldiers lazily flip through each person's passport or ID card and then make the decision; to be let through, to be questioned further, or to be pulled to the side for a full investigation. It is a wild card every time.