| AFRICA: Illegal Diamond Trade Funds War in Sierra Leone UMCOR April 19th, 2000 Peace cannot be sustained in Sierra Leone until controls are imposed on the illegal selling of diamonds used to finance its civil war, according to a recent study. |
| USA: Oxy CEO Confronted by U'wa Leader in Congresswoman's Office Environment News Service March 30th, 2000 A surprise encounter in the Congressional office of Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney today brought the vice president of Occidental Petroleum face to face with the president of the U'wa indigenous people who are fighting the company's oil drilling on their traditional land in Colombia. |
| Burma: US Oil Giant Pulls Out of Country Agence France Presse March 29th, 2000 Oil services provider Baker Hughes has become the latest United States firm to pull out of Burma, human rights campaigners and the firm's local partner said Wednesday. |
| US: High Court Considers Massachusetts Anti-Burma Law by Steven Mufson, Washington Post March 23rd, 2000 Tearing a page from the anti-apartheid movement, the two drew up legislation that penalized companies with ties to Burma when those firms competed for Massachusetts state contracts. Using the draft of an anti-apartheid bill, they crossed out South Africa and inserted Burma. Two years later, the measure became law. |
| Mexico: First Census of Street Working Children Child Labour News Service March 15th, 2000 Alejandro and Adrian are two of 14,322 children who work illegally on the streets of this city of 20 million people, according to the first survey Mexico City has conducted on the trend. Mexican law prohibits children younger than 14 from working. According to Isabel Molina, director of the federal System for the Whole Development of the Family, officials completed the study, supported by UNICEF, in order to draft policies to resolve the problem. |
| USA: Union Carbide CEO Fugitive in Bhopal Suit by Chris Hedges, New York Times March 7th, 2000 Warren M. Anderson, chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation during the 1984 chemical disaster at Bhopal, India, has apparently gone into hiding to avoid a summons to appear in a Manhattan federal court as part of civil proceedings against him and the company, say lawyers who have hired a private investigator to locate Mr. Anderson. |
| USA: Clinton Backs Multinationals Against States in Challenge to Burma Sanctions by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service February 16th, 2000 In a major boost for the forces of economic globalisation, US President Bill Clinton has decided to back multinational corporations in a key court challenge to a Massachusetts law designed to promote democracy in Burma. |
| USA: People of Color Battle Toxics in Communities by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service February 11th, 2000 Ten African American children are visiting Washington, D.C. this week, but they did not come to see the usual tourist attractions. They are here to illustrate the dangerous legacy of hazardous wastes, contaminated manufacturing sites, and polluting industries, placed predominantly in poor, non-White communities. |
| Canada: Oil Company Targeted for Ties to Sudanese Military by Mark Bourrie, Inter Press Service February 7th, 2000 An oil company headquartered in Alberta, Canada, is the target of a divestment campaign aimed at forcing the company to stop its partnership with the Sudanese government in the exploitation of oil fields in the war-torn southern region of Sudan. |
| Colombia: ILO to Investigate Alleged Rights Violations by Yadira Ferrer, Inter Press Service February 4th, 2000 Colombia has come under the scrutiny of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which begins Feb 7 to investigate alleged violations of the freedom to organise and of the human rights of workers. |
| India: Construction Industry Uses Toxic Waste by Nidhi Jamwal, Down to Earth January 31st, 2000 Ignorance is bliss. This seems to be the state of mind of the Indian government for several environment-related issues, including that of hazardous waste like phosphogypsum (PG). A byproduct of the fertiliser industry, PG is used liberally by the construction industry and its use is promoted by the government. |
| Peru: Isolated Amazon Tribes Threatened By Logging by Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service January 28th, 2000 The survival of four indigenous tribes of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest -- who have decided to live in voluntary isolation -- is being threatened by commercial logging, warned indigenous leaders who traveled here this week from the South American country. |
| USA: Prisoners Who Speak Out Receive Punishment, Suit Says by Peter Blumberg, San Francisco Daily Journal August 23rd, 1999 Two inmates allege in a lawsuit to be filed today that state corrections officials violated their civil rights by punishing them for helping the media expose a prison labor program as an illegal sweatshop, according to their lawyers. |
| MEXICO: Consumers Accuse Phone Company of Human Rights Violations by Kent Paterson, Borderlines August 11th, 1999 For more than four years, Graciela Ramos and Women for Mexico have been a thorn in Telmex's side. The group has waged a campaign to force Mexico's privately-owned, local phone service giant to cancel measured service, provide devices that track the number of phone calls made from a home, and ensure that economically disadvantaged groups have access to both public and private telephones. |
| US: History of U.S. sanctions shows most haven't worked by Michael Paulson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer May 11th, 1999 The U.S. regularly imposes economic sanctions -- generally defined as restrictions on foreign commerce -- for purposes of foreign policy or national security. But numerous studies show that many of the targets of U.S. sanctions -- countries such as Iraq, Iran and Cuba -- do not change their behavior in the face of sanctions. |
| US: US banks named in Holocaust suit BBC News December 24th, 1998 Lawyers acting on behalf of victims of the Jewish holocaust and their families have accused two US banks of seizing their wealth during the Nazi occupation of France. |
| Bordering Injustice by Traci Griggs and Martha Valds, La Jornada December 9th, 1998 Non-profit environmental justice groups such as the San Diego-based Environmental Health Coalition (EHC), are trying to remove the rose colored glasses and expose the harsh reality of the U.S/Mexico border in an attempt to protect public and environmental health. EHC's battle against an abandoned maquiladora turned toxic dump, serves as a microcosm of what's wrong with border health and how NAFTA, for the most part, has exacerbated the problem. |
| US: Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post September 30th, 1998 Three years after Swiss banks became the target of a worldwide furor over their business dealings with Nazi Germany, major American car companies find themselves embroiled in a similar debate. |
| Double Standards: Notes for a Border Screenplay by Debbie Nathan, Texas Observer June 6th, 1997 The case had been settled only minutes ago, and now jurors for Mendoza v. Contico were seated in a room outfitted with movie theater chairs and plugs for devices like VCRs. They were in the ''Ceremonial Court'' in El Paso, where victorious lawyers often hold post-trial press conferences. |
| INDIA: Creating dispensable citizens by Usha Ramanathan, The Hindu This is not merely about whether the dam should be constructed or not. It is about condoning state inaction and then blaming the victim. |