How 9-11 Configured in Pakistan’s Aspirations for Democracy
Some two decades may have separated President Gen. Zia ul Haq and President Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf’s military rule in Pakistan, but they had one person in common – Benazir Bhutto.
Lethal Weather: The Rise of Natural Disasters Due to Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned a few years ago that “It is very likely that heat extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.”
Honduras: Dying for the Land
(IPS) – The deployment of large numbers of troops in the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras is reviving the age-old conflict over land in an area torn between organised crime groups capable of undertaking armed actions, wealthy landowners and peasants demanding further land reform.
Violence grew in the second half of August in the fertile Bajo Aguán valley, in the country’s northeastern Caribbean region. Fourteen people were killed, including the leader of the Authentic Movement for Peasant Resistance (MARCA) and a leader of the United Campesino Movement of Aguán (MUCA).
Congo rape victims face slavery in gold and mineral mines
Source: The Guardian Unlimited
Rape victims in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are being forced to work in conditions of slavery in mines producing the gold, coltan and tin ore needed to manufacture jewellery, mobile phones and laptops, a Guardian investigation has found.
The girls and women fled their villages after being raped by one or more of the militias terrorising the region. Traditionally the women were engaged in farming but their fields are in forests occupied by rebels and growing food has become too dangerous. Instead they are forced into exploitative work in mines to survive.
Brazilian Women Press Rights of Rural and Forest Labor
Last month, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a self-proclaimed ally of rural women, promised them floating health clinics for rural rivers and stronger enforcement of labor standards.
Hurricane Irene and Climate Change
Hurricane Irene received a massive amount media coverage, but television reports made little or no reference to the role global warming played in the storm. We speak with someone with his eye on climate change and its impact. “We’ve had not only this extraordinary flooding, but on the same day that Hurricane Irene was coming down, Houston set its all-time temperature record, 109 degrees,” says Bill McKibben, co-founder and director of 350.org. “We’re in a new situation.” McKibben is among hundreds of people arrested last week during ongoing sit-ins outside the White House, protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. On Friday, the U.S. State Department’s final environmental review of the proposed pipeline found that the project will have “limited adverse environmental impacts.” Protesters will begin their second week of sit-ins today, and continue to demand President Obama veto approval for the pipeline. “There’s never been a purer test of whether or not we’re prepared to stand up to climate change or not,” says McKibben. [includes rush transcript]