Older News Stories
2008-11-24 Shoshone Indians Sue to Stop Barrick's Nevada Gold Mine. Environment News, USA.
The U.S. Department of Interior, through its Bureau of Land Management, has approved one of the largest open pit cyanide heap leach gold mines in the United States on Mount Tenabo.
The area is well-known for its spiritual and cultural importance to the Western Shoshone. Different tribal and public interest parties filed a complaint in federal court to halt the desecration.
Irene Fernandez (Malaysia, RLA 2005)
2008-11-24 Malaysia labor activist acquitted after long fight. International Herald Tribune.
The Kuala Lumpur High Court today acquitted migrant workers' activist Irene Fernandez, bringing an end to a 13-year court battle.
In 1996, Fernandez was arrested because of her reporting that illegal immigrants were tortured at detention centers. She remained free on bail while fighting her case. Seven years later, she was sentenced to one year in prison but appealed. Her case has become the longest-running trial in Malaysian history.
Swami Agnivesh (India, RLA 2004)
2008-11-21 Ideology of Hindutva is sheer facism: Swami Agnivesh. Mint, India.
An interview with Swami Agnivesh on terrorism.
Raúl Montenegro (Argentina, RLA 2004)
2008-11-16 Environmentalists decry Argentina presidential vote of bill that halted $2,4 billion mine with Chile. Latin American Herald Tribune.
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez decided to veto a glacier-protection bill that would have restricted mining and oil drilling.
Raul Montenegro is among various environmental groups that are dissappointed with the president's decision, who "has made it clear that she doesn't care about the people whose water supply comes from (glacier-fed) water basins (...)."
Fernandez had said in her decree that signing the bill would "give environmental considerations preeminence" over economic activities.
Survival International (UK, RLA 1989)
2008-11-14 Legal battle over forest is victory for Paraguayan Indians. CNN.
A Brazilian company bulldozing the forests of uncontacted Indians in Paraguay to clear land for cattle ranches has had its licence to work in the area withdrawn.
Sulak Sivaraksa (Thailand, RLA 1995)
2008-11-07 Arrest of Thai academic raises free speech fears. Reuters India.
Renowned scholar and social activist Sulak Sivaraksa has been arrested on charges of lèse majesté.
Sivaraksa was detained in connection with a university speech he made last December, when he criticised government spending on the lavish 2006 celebrations for King Bhumibol Adulyadej's Golden Jubilee. He was later released on bail.
Martín Almada (Paraguay, RLA 2002)
2008-10-31 Rights-Paraguay: New 'Archives of Terror' Unearthed. IPS.
Asunción: 16 years after the discovery of the so called "Archives of Terror", new files from the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner were unearthed.
Martín Almada, who discovered the first Archives in 1992 and who had been tortured for alleged communist activities under Stroessner's dictatorship, was first to enter the former torture chamber by then interior minister Sabino Augusto Montanaro.
Amy Goodman (USA, RLA 2008)
2008-10-29 Amy Goodman, une autre voix de l'Amérique. Le Monde, France.
Read Le Monde's portrait on Amy Goodman (in French)
Irene Fernandez (Malaysia, RLA 2005)
2008-10-28 Labour-Malaysia: Recession to hit migrant workers hard. IPS.
Irene Fernandez warns that those to suffer first and most from recession will be the migrant workers, who already live and work in a society very unfriendly to foreigners.
"There is an urgent need to develop a comprehensive policy that is respectful and humanitarian with payment of adequate retrenchment and other benefits," she told IPS.
For a summary on Irene Fernandez' court trial, which has now lasted for 13 years, read Suzette Standring's article, The Huffington Post, Oct 28th.
Trident Ploughshares (UK, RLA 2001)
2008-10-27 Dozens arrested at nuclear demo. BBC, UK.
A peaceful protest organised by Trident Ploughshares blocked entrances at the Atomic Weapons Establishmend in Berkshire, UK, to mark the start of World Disarmament Week.
Trident Ploughshares and its supporters fear that the facilities are used to build a new generation of nuclear warheads.
Maude Barlow (Canada, RLA 2005)
2008-10-21 Maude Barlow named 1st UN water adviser. CBC, Canada.
Canadian activist Maude Barlow has been appointed as the United Nation's first senior adviser on water issues. She will work with the current president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.
Vandana Shiva (India, RLA 1993)
2008-10-17 Crisis shows urgency of going organic - Shiva. Reuters India.
Vandana Shiva told Reuters that the financial crisis showed it was high time for countries to rebuild local, diverse farms and to invest in organic farming to become independent from global turmoil.
According to Shiva, industrial farmers are running short on funds to buy pesticides and fertilisers amid reduced lending and borrowing worldwide. Switching to small-scale, organic farming, instead, would eliminate the need to buy chemicals.
Ken Saro-Wiwa/MOSOP (Nigeria, RLA 1994)
2008-10-16 Shell to Go to Trial for Complicity in Death of Former UNPO Vice President Ken Saro Wiwa. UNPO.
13 years after the conviction and hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and several other oil industry opponents, their heirs filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood set 9 February 2009 as the date for the trial. The lawsuits accuse Shell of being complicit in decisions by Nigeria's military government to murder the activists fighting for human rights and environmental justice.
Irene Fernandez (Malaysia, RLA 2005)
2008-10-07 Malaysia: Emerging trend in trafficking tribal women. IPS.
"The trafficking of tribal people is rising across the South-east Asian region,’’ warns Irene Fernandez. "(...) tribal girls are duped into believing they are getting high-paid office and home jobs, but are forced into prostitution,’’ she told IPS.
2008-10-07 Herman Daly on the credit crisis, financial assets and real wealth. The Oil drum.
"The current financial debacle is really not a “liquidity” crisis as it is often euphemistically called", writes Herman Daly. "It is a crisis of overgrowth of financial assets relative to growth of real wealth—pretty much the opposite of too little liquidity."
2008-09-26 Witnesses pull out of human rights murder trial. Radio Netherlands.
Three witnesses in the trial concerning the murder of the Indonesian human rights activist Munir Thalib have retracted their statements.
2008-09-24 Patent system "stifling science". BBC, UK.
"In pharmacy, we no longer see much discovery - we see firms playing safe and holding onto their turf . Pat Mooney
Read more about what Pat Mooney has to say on international patent systems, pharmacy and nanotechnology.
2008-09-04 The frugal cornucopian. The Economist, UK.
Having been called one of the "Western world's most influential energy thinkers" many years ago, Amory Lovins continues to fascinate media, policy makers and the rest of us.
In its portrait, The Economist spans a bridge from Amory's early work until now. The article tells about his visions, his love for infinitely long showers and how and why he is critized.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia-Sarawak (Malaysia, RLA 1988)
2008-08-16 SAM alarmed over forest plunder in Sarawak. The Star, Malaysia.
SAM is worried by the widespread plundering of Sarawak's forest reserves.
Even protected forests and forest reserves are not spared from land clearing and have to give way to oil palm plantations and pulpwood estates.
SAM says that the Sarawak Forests Department licensed out some 2.8 million hectares of forested land to 40 plantation concessions.
Sugar mills charged with crimes against the environment.
In Pernambuco, a state in northeastern Brazil, all sugar mills are charged with crimes against the environment after having been denounced by the CPT. The sugar mills are responsible for the destruction of the Atlantic Forest and the contamination of water sources.
2008-07-08 Biofuels fuel global food crisis. Toronto Star, Canada.
Last week, a leaked World Bank report declared that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 per cent, far higher than previously estimated.
Some have speculated that the World Bank's findings have been kept under wraps to avoid embarrassing U.S. President George W. Bush, whose administration has argued that biofuels are responsible for only 3 per cent of the rise in food process.
Mordechai Vanunu (Israel, RLA 1987)
Vanunu's life continues to be restricted
The restrictions imposed on Vanunu still continue, so does his violations of them.
2008-07-08 Jerusalem court hears Vanunu appeal. Jerusalem Post, Israel.
Meanwhile, in Norway, pressure has been building for the government to grant Vanunu asylum and demand that Israel allows him to go free.
In a recent interview with Democracy Now, Hans Blix of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called Vanunu's treatment "unfair". In a comment in the Guardian, Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976, also called on Israel to let Vanunu go free, so did an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
2008-04-16 - It's time to free Vanunu. Haaretz, Israel.
2008-06-20 Wife of slain Indonesian activist praises arrest of official. Malaysia Star.
Suciwati, Munir's widow, hailed the arrest of a former official from Indonesia's intelligence agency suspected in the killing of her husband, a prominent Indonesian human rights activist.
Suciwati called the arrest an important step in ending the "culture of impunity.''
José Antonio Abreu (Venezuela, RLA 2001)
2008-06-15 Free instruments for poor children. The Observer, UK.
El Sistema, a programme developed by José Antonio Abreu, which provides free music lessons to children coming from Venezuela's streets and poorest quarters, has inspired the English to install a similar program.
Mycle Schneider (France, RLA 1997)
2008-06-03 The reality of France's aggressive nuclear power push. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.
In an article recently published in the renowned Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist Mycle Schneider takes a closer look at the French government's attempt to initiate a French-led global nuclear renaissance.
2008-06-04 Nigeria to give Shell Ogoni oil wells to another firm. Reuters.
15 years after Shell closed its operations in Ogoniland because of large protests against environmental destruction, the oil fields in this area will be given to another oil company, Nigeria's President announced.
MOSOP has commended the Federal Government’s decision to appoint another operator in place of Shell for the Ogoni area, describing it as a bold step that stands the brightest chance of quickening the resumption of oil activities in Ogoni.
Read more (Reuters article) & MOSOP's press statement
2008-05-30 The world torpedoes ocean fertilization. ETC Group, Canada.
An UN Convention on Biological Diversity ended last week with a ban on the controversial practice of seeding the ocean with nutrients to encourage growth of carbon-fixing algae.
This first-ever global decision on a geo-engineering technology should spell the end of commercial plans to sequester carbon dioxide by dumping nutrients into the open ocean.
Survival International (UK, RLA 1989)
2008-05-30 Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil. BBC, UK.
One of the world's few remaining indigenous communities without contact to the outside world has recently been photographed on a flight over the border region between Brazil and Peru.
Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, warned such tribes would "soon be made extinct" if their land was not protected.
