Check out all of our coverage of the first coup d’etat in Central America in more than a quarter-century.
Filed under News
The first coup d’etat in Central America in more than a quarter-century occurred last Sunday in Honduras. It was led by a graduate of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, a military facility that has trained some of Latin America’s worst torturers, murderers and human rights abusers.
Filed under Weekly Column
Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them.
Filed under Weekly Column
The Environmental Protection Agency has declared a public health emergency in the town of Libby, Montana, where hundreds of people have died from asbestos contamination. It is the first time such a declaration has been made by the EPA. For decades, W.R. Grace and Co. mined asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in Libby.
See extended Democracy Now! coverage
Filed under DN Archives
As the Obama administration pushes for a vote on health-care reform before Congress recesses in August, has health-industry money too thoroughly polluted the process for anything good to come of it?
Filed under Weekly Column
Ken Saro-Wiwa and Alberto Pizango never met, but they are united by a passion for the preservation of their people and their land, and by the fervor with which they were targeted by their respective governments.
Filed under Weekly Column
Dr. Tiller was assassinated while in church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, targeted for legally performing abortions. His death might have been prevented simply through enforcement of existing laws.
Filed under Weekly Column
Profits are higher than ever at oil companies Chevron and Shell. Yet across the globe, from the Ecuadorian jungle, to the Niger Delta in Nigeria, to the courtrooms and streets of New York and San Ramon, Calif., people are fighting back against the world’s oil giants.
Filed under Weekly Column
More Blog Posts »
Adobe Flash Player version 9.0.115 or higher is required to watch video inline on this webpage, and JavaScript must be enabled. You can choose another option on the listen/watch page if you prefer.
President Bush is heading to China this week, where he will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics on Friday. The Games’ presence in Beijing have helped spotlight opposition to China on a number of policies, including its repression of the Tibetan independence movement, its support for the Sudanese government in Darfur and its crackdown on dissidents and civil liberties at home. In the latest issue of Harper’s Magazine, Ken Silverstein says many of the bipartisan experts who have advocated so-called “constructive engagement” with China are tied to major US multinational corporations that profit heavily from the Chinese market. [includes rush transcript]
Chevron is being accused of promoting geopolitical blackmail in its efforts to stave off a lawsuit accusing it of contaminating the Ecuadorian rain forest. Nearly 30,000 Amazon residents are seeking $12 billion from Chevron for dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste. According to Newsweek, the oil giant is urging the Bush administration to yank special trade preferences for Ecuador if the country’s government doesn’t force the Amazon residents to drop the case. If the White House agrees, it would be the second major lobbying victory for Chevron in just a matter of weeks. Last month, the Senate dropped an effort to penalize Chevron for maintaining extensive ties to the military junta in Burma. [includes rush transcript]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged it has drastically underestimated the number of people becoming infected with AIDS in the United States. The CDC had been reporting 40,000 people get infected each year, but now the agency estimates the figure is 56,000—an increase of 40 percent. The CDC reportedly knew about the increased number of cases since last year but waited to make the announcement until the opening of the International AIDS Conference in Mexico. We speak with Stephen Lewis, the former UN envoy on AIDS in Africa and and co-director of AIDS-Free World, who is taking part in the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. [includes rush transcript]