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Anglo American Workers Strike Against Contract Labor Conditions in Chile

Pratap Chatterjee March 30, 2014 Pratap Chatterjee

Some 4,000 contract workers at Los Bronces copper mine in Chile went on strike against Anglo American, a UK-based mining multinational from South Africa. The strike is the latest in a series of protests against the Chilean copper industry, the world’s largest producers of the metal.

Copper is Chile’s most important product. One fifth of Chile’s gross domestic product is derived from copper and the metal makes up 60 percent of exports. As much as a third of global production of copper comes from Chile with the bulk shipped to China for manufacturing. (Copper is also extremely valuable in China, so much so that it is often used as a backing for bank loans) read more

Latin America Steps Up Resolve to End the Drug Wars

Wendy Call March 26, 2014 Wendy Call

On the heels of pot legalization in Washington and Colorado, the movement for less punitive drug policy is coalescing at every level. Its new leaders could come from the very countries that have suffered the most.

Institutionalizing Memory: The Creation of Sierra Leone’s First Peace Museum

Mneesha Gellman March 25, 2014 Mneesha Gellman

Joseph Dumbuya stands in the main room of Sierra Leone’s brand-new Peace Museum, surveying a large canvas painting of a war amputee and the blank space next to it, to be curated over the coming months. “We have to invest in peace,” he tells me.

Hooked on Commodities: A Look at the History of the Global Resource Curse

Wayne Ellwood March 25, 2014 Wayne Ellwood

The world’s rapacious appetite for raw materials has exploded over the last decade. But the benefits are hard to find. A look at the history of the ‘resource curse’.

Hog Wild: Factory Farms Are Poisoning Iowa’s Drinking Water

Ted Genoways March 23, 2014 Ted Genoways

Source: Mother Jones

Millions of pigs are crammed into overcrowded barns all across the state, being fattened for slaughter while breeding superbugs—all to feed China’s growing appetite for Spam.

Before I even stepped from my truck onto the gravel outside the New Fashion Pork hog confinement facility, Emily Erickson, the company’s animal well-being and quality assurance manager, handed me a pair of stretchy white plastic footies to put over my shoes. It was a blustery day in September, the sky threatening snow—the first hint of winter, when cold, dry air stabilizes viruses and biosecurity becomes a topmost concern. read more

U.S. Sailors and Marines Allege Fukushima Radiation Sickness

Amy Goodman March 23, 2014 Amy Goodman

Source: Truthdig

Three years have passed since the earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The tsunami’s immediate death toll was more than 15,000, with close to 3,000 still missing. Casualties are still mounting, though, both in Japan and much farther away. The impact of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown on health and the environment is severe, compounded daily as radioactive pollution continues to pour from the site, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO. read more