 |
| US: Holes in the Wall
by Melissa del Bosque, The Texas Observer
February 18th, 2008
As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security marches down the Texas border serving condemnation lawsuits to frightened landowners, Brownsville resident Eloisa Tamez, 72, has one simple question. She would like to know why her land is being targeted for destruction by a border wall, while a nearby golf course and resort remain untouched. |
| US: Jury Convicts HealthSouth Founder in Bribery Trial
by Carrie Johnson, The Washington Post
June 30th, 2006
An Alabama jury yesterday convicted HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard M. Scrushy -- acquitted last year of federal accounting-fraud charges -- of paying half a million dollars in bribes to former governor Don Siegelman in exchange for a seat on a state health-care board. |
| KATRINA: Mississippi developers' murky past includes fraud
by Mike Stuckey, MSNBC
June 29th, 2006
Two brothers involved in the biggest post-Katrina development on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were key figures in an Internet stock scam that federal authorities say bilked investors out of more than $12 million, MSNBC.com has learned. |
| CANADA: Corporate SLAPP
by Kim Petersen, The Dominion Paper
June 22nd, 2006
The Ontario-based mineral company Platinex has slapped the Ojibwa of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (Big Trout Lake) First Nation (KIFN) with a $10-billion damage suit for refusing the company permission to drill on territory the KIFN says is its own. |
| ARGENTINA: Kolla Indians Fight to Protect Their Land
by Marcela Valente, Inter Press News Service (IPS)
June 8th, 2006
"We are here to take care of the land, because we depend on it for a living," said Andrés Sajama, cacique (chief) of Queta, a Kolla indigenous community in the northwestern Argentine province of Jujuy. "We don't want to block mining projects, but we won't allow them to take away what little we have left," he told IPS. |
| US: Critics Wary of Development Plans for Utah Land
by Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
June 6th, 2006
The proposed Washington County Growth and Conservation Act would sell up to 40 square miles of federal land and use the proceeds to finance a multimillion-dollar water pipeline and other local projects. Utah Republican Sen.
Robert F. Bennett and Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson are expected to introduce the bill in coming weeks. Waiting in the wings are nearly a dozen similar bills for counties in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico where population pressure is fueling the demand for more developable land. |
| US: Privately Funded Trips Add Up on Capitol Hill
by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Washington Post
June 6th, 2006
Over 5 1/2 years, Republican and Democratic lawmakers accepted nearly $50 million in trips, often to resorts and exclusive locales, from corporations and groups seeking legislative favors, according to the most comprehensive study to date on the subject of congressional travel. |
| US: Report Says Fannie Mae Manipulated Accounting
Associated Press
May 23rd, 2006
Employees at mortgage giant Fannie Mae manipulated accounting so that executives could collect millions in bonuses as senior management deceived investors and stonewalled regulators at a company whose prestigious image was phony, a federal agency charged Tuesday. |
| PHILIPPINES: No new mining permits
by Gil C. Cabacungan Jr. , Blanche S. Rivera, Philippine Daily Inquirer
February 4th, 2006
PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo has offered to suspend the issuance of new mining permits to try to appease Roman Catholic bishops strongly opposed to the country's new Mining Act, a top Malacanang official said yesterday. |
| BRAZIL: Indigenous People Fight for Their Rights
by Mario Osava , Inter Press Service
February 3rd, 2006
Land conflicts involving indigenous people have multiplied in Brazil over the last few months, generating greater tension and showing once again that the country's roughly 400,000 indigenous people still have a long way to go to win respect for their rights. |
| US: Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
by Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon, The New York Times
September 26th, 2005
Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La. |
| US: Auditors investigate Katrina contracts
by Hope Yen, Associated Press
September 22nd, 2005
Government auditors are questioning whether several multimillion-dollar Katrina contracts” including one involving a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton Co.” invite abuse because they are open-ended and not clearly defined. |
| US: Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
by Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon, The New York Times
August 26th, 2005
Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La. |
| US: Ex-Cendant Executive Gets 10 Years in Prison
Associated Press
August 3rd, 2005
Former Cendant Corp. Vice Chairman E. Kirk Shelton was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for his role in an accounting scandal that cost investors more than $3 billion. |
| VIETNAM: Golf helps drive economic modernisation
by Amy Kazmin, Financial Times
August 1st, 2005
When Hanoi opened its door to global capitalism in 1988, the Communist party frowned on golf as an irrelevant bourgeois indulgence. Today, the Communist elite has bestowed its full blessing on the game as both symbol, and tool, of Vietnam's economic modernisation. |
| US: Clean-Energy Mega-Mall
by Amanda Griscom Little, Grist
May 20th, 2005
The developer of a new mall planned for Upstate New York vows that it will be the closest thing to an "Apollo Project" for renewable energy that America has ever seen -- one that grows the economy, strengthens national security by encouraging energy independence, and protects the environment. |
| US: New Law to Cut Down on Cruise Ship Waste
Associated Press
April 14th, 2005
While the Cruise Ship industry is installing equipment that one executive says makes sewage and other wastewater almost as "clean as Perrier," environmentalists, state officials and some members of Congress are pushing to toughen what they call outdated marine pollution standards. |
| CANADA: Natives' Land Battles Bring a Shift in Economy
by Clifford Krauss , The New York Times
December 9th, 2004
The Haida won a landmark case in November in Canada's Supreme Court obliging British Columbia to consult with them over land use anywhere on their traditional homelands on the Queen Charlotte Islands. The decision is expected to have a sweeping impact on similar Indian claims across Canada.
|
| UK: To Be a 'Clone Town,' or Not: That Is the Question
by Lizette Alvarez, New York Times
November 1st, 2004
To survive the approach to the home where William Shakespeare was born, a striking timber-frame house in the center of this bustling town, it would be wise to bid adieu to all bucolic notions of quaint old England and ready oneself for the onslaught of globalization. |
| IRAN: France Steps Up Its Investments in Iran
by Borzou Daragahi , The New York Times
June 23rd, 2004
Undeterred by Iran's pariah status in the United States and by the shortcomings of the country's commercial climate, French companies (many of them car companies) have been increasing their presence in the country in the last few years. |
| US: AOL, Cendant Added to Homestore Pension Fund Suit
Reuters
November 17th, 2002
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- AOL Time Warner Inc. and Cendant Corp. were among 16 companies that contributed to the financial collapse of online real estate firm Homestore.com, a California retirement fund has alleged in a lawsuit. |
| US: For Cruise Ships, A History of Pollution
by Edwin McDowell, The New York Times
June 16th, 2002
On April 19 the Carnival Corporation pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Miami to criminal charges related to falsifying records of the oil-contaminated bilge water that six of its ships dumped into the sea from 1996 through 2001. |
| WORLD: The Blight of Eco-Tourism
by David Nicholson-Lord, Resurgence
June 13th, 2002
Tourism is by some estimates the world's biggest industry; it's certainly among the fastest-growing, and few believe the events of Sept. 11 will cause anything more than a downward blip on a steep upward curve. In 1950 there were around 25 million international tourist visits. Currently there are around 700 million. By 2020 there will be around 1.6 billion. |
| COSTA RICA: Eco-Tourism Slump Endangers Wildlife
by Jamie K. Mccallum, Pacific News Service
January 30th, 2002
A decline in worldwide travel since Sept. 11 is putting in jeopardy Costa Rica's careful balance of preserving biodiversity through ecotourism. Poachers-turned-nature-guides may be forced to return to illegal hunting and harvesting in the country's last remaining wild places. |
|
|
