You searched for site - Page 237 of 337

How Tech Giants Outsource Labor on American Soil

John Lasker December 23, 2009 John Lasker

Bill Gates

Like a lot of American corporations that made mind-boggling profits over the last few decades, the Microsoft, IBM and Cisco technology companies have abandoned their own citizen workforce to exploit foreign workers. But this isn't happening in some far off sweat shop, this outsourcing is happening right on American soil. In this case, corporate power, channeled through high-paid lobbyists and fat campaign contributions, strong-armed elected officials into passing laws that surreptitiously squash the labor rights of both US citizens and foreign workers alike.

The Dangers of Nuclear Energy and the Need to Close Vermont Yankee

Frank Joseph Smecker December 22, 2009 Frank Joseph Smecker

Photo: Andy Duback/Greenpeace

With nuclear energy, uranium atoms split inside a reactor, and radiation heats water to its boiling point creating steam to spin a giant turbine. It all seems like ingenious, efficient, and clean energy production. So where's the mess? Now consider plutonium, a horribly carcinogenic and highly fissionable substance, radioactive for more than half a million years. If exposed to air, it will ignite. Like little pieces of confetti, very fine plutonium particles will disperse after ignition.

After the catastrophe in Copenhagen, it’s up to us

Johann Hari December 22, 2009 Johann Hari

Source: The Independent

Every coal train should be ringed with people refusing to let it pass

Buried deep in our subconscious, there still lays the belief that our political leaders are collective Daddies and Mummies who will – in the last instance – guarantee our safety. Sure, they might screw us over when it comes to hospital waiting lists, or public transport, or taxing the rich, but when it comes to resisting a raw existential threat, they will keep us from harm. Last week in Copenhagen, the conviction was disproved. Every leader there had been told by their scientists – plainly, bluntly, and for years – that there is a bare minimum we must all do now if we are going to prevent a catastrophe. And they all refused to do it. read more

Time for U.S. Senate to Act on U.N. Women’s Treaty

Linda Tarr-Whelan December 22, 2009 Linda Tarr-Whelan

Indian Women's Trade Union Rally

On Dec. 18, 1979, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, making it a watershed day for women around the globe. This international agreement was Eleanor Roosevelt's dream and is one of the pillars of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The global community went on the record to challenge every government to protect the human rights of women and girls by working together.

Corporate Profits and the Real Dangers Behind the H1N1 Virus

John Horvath December 16, 2009 John Horvath

As in most other areas of the world, Hungarians feel that the H1N1 virus is nothing more than a scare campaign in order to help generate profits for multinational pharmaceutical corporations. Sadly, this view is often reinforced by some sobering facts.

Obama Moves Ahead With US African Command

Daniel Volman December 15, 2009 Daniel Volman

Concerned over the supply of oil to the US and a supposed need to continue the global 'War on Terror', President Barack Obama has essentially maintained the militarised approach to Africa that was the hallmark of his immediate predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The escalation of AFRICOM (United States African Command) activities underlines a troubling commitment to an approach based on might and dominance, one entirely at the expense of promoting sustainable economic development and democracy.