Prisoners earning 23 cents an hour in U.S. federal prisons are manufacturing high-tech electronic components for Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missiles, launchers for TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles, and other guided missile systems. We all may think that slavery has ended, but we soon forget about the prison system. Other prison produced materials [...]

Wired’s Smart List 2009 documented 12 Shocking Ideas That Could Change the World. Of the twelve ideas the most intriguing is “Thorkil Sonne: Recruiting Autistics.” With the gradually decreasing amount of jobs, it is expected that employers are looking for people with good communication and social skills. Although, some jobs require extreme concentration and total [...]

Five years in, 168 countries around the world have ratified the World Health Organization’s tobacco treaty to protect the public from the tobacco industry. After five years, the US is still absent from this list. “It’s time for the United States to join the global community and reclaim a leadership role in taking on the [...]

Over Twenty African countries are selling or leasing land for intensive agriculture in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era. Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13-million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 7.5 million acres of its most [...]

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency (IEA) who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the IEA to underplay the rate [...]

The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the world’s biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn  to firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing international efforts to ban them. HSBC, led by ordained Anglican priest Stephen Green, has profited more than any other institution from companies that manufacture cluster bombs. The British bank, [...]

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that “more than 3 million people–one in every three Haitians–were severely affected by the earthquake, of whom 2 million need regular food aid. Over 1.1 million people are homeless, many of them still living under sheets and cardboard in makeshift camps. The government of Haiti estimates [...]

The World Bank, funded by British taxpayers, has pledged an undisclosed amount of money to fund programs that avoid deforestation in the Amazon. However, it has recently been reported that the World Bank is also funding programs that are promoting the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which is the second leading cause of [...]

By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCAD). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve highlevel government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages [...]

President Obama used his sixth signing statement to negate provisions of US legislation that would have compelled the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards.  Obama also refused to require the Treasury department to report to congress on the activities of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  One section negated would have compelled US World Bank representatives [...]