Alberto Rotondo, executive of Tahoe Mine, San Rafael in Guatemala, gave direct orders to assassinate members of the community San Rafael Las Flores. The investigation of the mining conflicts in San Rafael Las Flores, Santa Rosa, took a 180 degrees turn, after the Public Ministry submitted audio from wiretapping as evidence. In the audio it can be clearly heard how Alberto Rotondo, head of the San Rafael Mining Security outfit ordered to assassinate opponents of the mine. The newspaper Siglo.21 published today a report titled “Rotondo ordered: Kill those sons of B..”, the report documents how the Security Chief gave direct orders to assassinate mining protesters and opponents of the mining project.

Bees are essential for one out of three bites of food we eat. But last winter, beekeepers reported losses of 50-70 percent of their hives -- the worst year yet since the global bee die-off began! A growing body of scientific evidence is pointing to neonicotinoids (neonics) as the key factor in this crisis and the European Union has just imposed a two year ban on these toxic pesticides. These neonics are everywhere -- in commercial agriculture, on the shelf of your local garden stores, and in the plants and seeds we buy from nurseries.

Even after ALS had silenced her vocal chords, Barbara Brenner’s powerful voice continued to send tremors into the medical establishment.

Some of Europe's largest retailers agreed Monday to sign a legally binding agreement designed to improve safety conditions in Bangladesh's garment factories after a building collapse last month killed at least 1,127 workers and injured many more.

Nine big-name progressive groups, including MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club, and Daily Kos, announced Tuesday morning that they will yank their current paid advertisements on Facebook or cancel future ad buys in protest of FWD.us, the dark-money nonprofit that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg cofounded.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the April employment numbers, showing the economy added 165,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.5 percent. The following is a statement from BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster:

A new review of hundreds of scientific studies surrounding glyphosate—the major component of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide—sheds light on its effects within the human body. The paper describes how all of these effects could work together, and with other variables, trigger health problems in humans, including debilitating diseases like gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

After the Dhaka factory collapse, foreign clothing firms are under pressure to improve working conditions at Bangladeshi suppliers, or to go elsewhere. The fire that swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York in 1911, killing 146 people, was the catalyst for big improvements in industrial working conditions in America. The collapse on April 24th of Rana Plaza—an eight-storey complex of clothing factories, near Dhaka, Bangladesh—was far deadlier, killing at least 400. Although the tragedy has led to calls for safer factories in Bangladesh and other developing countries, it is far from certain that this will happen.

We celebrate recycling workers around the world, who build community resilience, replenish the earth’s natural resource base, and resist polluting corporations that threaten our common future. Millions of workers are part of this transformative economic path. While organizing to build recognition and respect for their critical ecological services, they labor to recover industrial society’s discards for reuse and remanufacturing, and rebuild the soil and local energy grids through composting and biogas. Recycling workers demonstrate what it takes to put theory into practice and create local living economies that protect livelihoods and the environment at the same time.

Our national parks are governed as public ecological trusts, not theme parks, and that's meant a legacy of conservation that matches any in the world. I think we should keep up the good work. Unfortunately, bottled water interests -- especially Coke -- disagree. Bottled water creates a great deal of waste, both in the production stream and as physical garbage. It has no place in our national parks. Arizonans know the value of water as well as anyone, and I know you need a good canteen to enjoy the outdoors. Bottled water isn't the answer. This week, in honor of Earth Day, I think it's time to talk about other options.

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

GILLETTE, WY– Peabody Energy shareholders affiliated with Powder River Basin Resource Council, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), CO-FORCE (Coloradans for Fair Rates and Clean Energy), and Forgotten People from Black Mesa/Big Mountain in Arizona converged in Gillette, Wyoming, on Monday, April 29, 2013, at Peabody’s Annual General Meeting. Peabody has always held its meeting near its headquarters in St. Louis, but moved it this year to avoid public scrutiny. After the meeting, an activist affiliated with MORE was arrested dropping a banner saying, “Peabody Attacks: Pensions, Diné Lands, Climate.” 2 other activists were arrested for holding up banner in the parking lot that said “Peabody Abandons Miners.”

Join us in calling on Walmart, H&M and Gap, the largest buyers of clothing made in Bangladesh, to make immediate safety improvements in their supplier factories by joining the legally-binding Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement. All three retailers have been involved in the scourge of factory disasters in Bangladesh.

Twenty years ago today, about 30 residents of Tofino were driving up and down the highway by Long Beach, communicating via handheld radios, tracking a helicopter carrying B.C.’s premier of the day and select media. A local guy listening in on emergency, aviation and boat communications was transmitting the play-by-play, while the helicopter sought a quiet landing spot where the premier could make a “contained” statement about the fate of Clayoquot Sound’s forests. Nothing that followed, however, in what was to become the Clayoquot Summer of 1993, could be construed as “contained.”

Protesters from around the world attacked mining company Rio Tinto for a string for alleged environmental and human rights breaches during a fiery meeting with shareholders in London on Thursday. Native Mongolian herders claimed that a $5bn (£3.3bn) expansion of the company's Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in the Gobi desert threatened the fresh water supply of hundreds of nomadic people and the area's unique ecology.

The notion of “externalities” has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs.

Nigella sativa -- more commonly known as fennel flower -- has been used as a cure-all remedy for over a thousand years. It treats everything from vomiting to fevers to skin diseases, and has been widely available in impoverished communities across the Middle East and Asia. But now Nestlé is claiming to own it, and filing patent claims around the world to try and take control over the natural cure of the fennel flower and turn it into a costly private drug. Tell Nestlé: Stop trying to patent a natural cure

On April 9, the City Council of Santa Monica voted 7-0 to adopt the state’s first ever Bill of Rights for Sustainability, directing the city to “recognize the rights of people, natural communities and ecosystems to exist, regenerate and flourish.” Santa Monica joins dozens of U.S. communities, the nations of Ecuador, Bolivia, and New Zealand in the fast-growing movement for Nature’s Rights.

On Monday, April 15, we celebrated six environmental heroes in front of an audience of 3,200 at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House. The ceremony was punctuated by powerful video profiles, energizing speeches from the recipients and overwhelming applause from the audience. Following the ceremony, guests were treated to a reception at San Francisco’s City Hall, where they had the opportunity to meet the Goldman Prize recipients and members of the Goldman family. Congratulations to the 2013 Goldman Prize recipients: Jonathan Deal, Azzam Alwash, Rossano Ercolini, Mama Aleta Baun, Kimberly Wasserman, and Nohra Padilla.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources has approved a massive groundwater pumping project that will drain the Upper San Pedro River in Southern Arizona. This decision comes despite opposition from the property owners along the river and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and ignores the project’s impact on the birds, wildlife, and local residents and businesses that are dependent on a healthy river.

Dustin McDaniel, the Arkansas Attorney General announced on Wednesday evening that a "22 foot long and 2 inch wide" gash along the Pegasus pipeline allowed crude oil to flood the town of Mayflower with thousands of gallons of tar sands oil on March 29. "The pipeline rupture is substantially larger than many of us initially thought." Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel speaks in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, April 10, 2013, about last month's oil pipeline leak in Mayflower, Ark. McDaniel says an ExxonMobil pipeline that burst last month, leaking oil into a neighborhood at Mayflower, has a hole in it that is 22 feet long and 2 inches wide. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston) "The pipeline rupture is substantially larger than many of us initially thought," McDaniel said at the press conference.

In 1996, Sylvester Johnson left his post as a commanding officer in the US Army and began a career managing logistics at Walmart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Once there, he received a series of rapid promotions, eventually overseeing the HR management of over 26,000 employees in five states. He became friendly with Walmart executive Mike Duke, who became CEO in 2009. In 2002, Johnson received the Sam M. Walton Hero Award, a prestigious company distinction. In 2003, he moved to North Carolina where he oversaw eleven Walmart Supercenters. The company fired him in 2009 for allegedly giving orders to manipulate inventory counts, a claim Johnson denies

When you buy organic, you should feel safe knowing that your food was raised without synthetic chemicals or genetic engineering. That's why we have the USDA organic label in the first place! But, in April, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will meet to decide whether they want to grant organic apple and pear growers yet another extension on ending the use of the antibiotic tetracycline. Sign the petition below demanding that the NOSB protect organic standards and take a stand against the use of tetracycline in fruit production today. Sign now and we'll deliver your petition signature to the NOSB.

Thomas Linzey of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) delivers the keynote address of the 31rst Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) held at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, February 28 through March 3, 2013. Linzey points out the folly of the traditional avenues of redress environmental law has pursued, offering a new model to return democracy to the people currently hi-jacked by a corporate friendly legal system.

The United Nations has demanded an immediate halt to the expansion of a major gas project in the Peruvian Amazon, over concerns that it poses a grave risk to the lives of uncontacted Indians living nearby. In a letter to the Peruvian government, the UN’s Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) requested the ‘immediate suspension’ of plans to expand the existing Camisea gas project further into the Nahua-Nanti reserve, as it ‘threatens the physical and cultural survival of the indigenous peoples living there.’

A group of law students from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) have established an advocacy network which aims to rival the Harvard Human Rights Clinic in its reach and power. The network, Banyan, allows students to work pro bono on cases which aim to further human rights, development or social justice and are committed to practical change. The group is offering its research skills and knowledge to civil society agencies, development groups and law firms.

On today's Your Call, we’ll talk about what corporate responsibility should look like for the plastics and packaging industry. Given the overwhelming amount of plastics that end up in the environment, what responsibility do the manufacturers of disposable plastic and packaging products have for limiting and cleaning up this waste? Join us at 10am Pacific Time or post a comment here. Do we need more legislation to hold corporations responsible? And who's really making the decisions in this industry? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar, and You.

WASHINGTON—When the State Department hired a contractor to produce the latest environmental impact statement for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, it asked for a Web-based electronic docket to record public comments as they flowed in each day. Thousands of comments are expected to be filed by people and businesses eager to influence the outcome of the intense international debate over the project. But the public will not find it easy to examine these documents.

Analysis of recent factory fires - Pakistan and Bangladesh

Loggerheads face threats from all sides, including from pollution, degradation of foraging areas, and serious injury and death from entanglement in fishing gear. They’re also faced with the loss of their nesting habitat due to coastal development as well as sea level rise. Loggerheads, which make some of the longest journeys of any sea turtle—across entire ocean basins—nest on beaches from Texas to Virginia, but 90 percent of U.S. loggerhead nesting occurs in Florida. This new protection means that any new beachside hotels, homes or commercial construction built on protected beaches that require federal permits would need to be reviewed to prevent harm to nesting areas.

Toxic flame retardant chemicals are saturated in the foam inside our furniture. These chemicals are linked to serious health effects and are worthless in preventing furniture fires. We need better regulation of these chemicals to address this problem.

None of the campaigning groups wants companies to stop buying minerals from eastern Congo. Global Witness and FairPhone, for example, point out that mining supports many families in a country where 82% are considered underemployed. But they also insist that the trade can be dissociated from violence: if, and only if, companies ensure they're not buying minerals which have passed through the hands of militias. Given the potential damage to their reputations, you might have expected these firms to take the issue seriously. With a few exceptions, you would be wrong.

You’ve probably seen them. Plastic bottles of water for sale … in some of our most pristine and naturally gorgeous places: our national parks. You’re not alone. Every year, hundreds of millions of park visitors get the message that the only place to get safe water is from a plastic bottle. This is just wrong, because bottled water is far less regulated than tap.

Good news for public health and water quality from Minnesota this week. By June of this year, state agencies and institutions will no longer be buying soaps and cleaning products containing the pesticide triclosan. Governor Mark Dayton made the shift with an executive order signed Monday. The new policy — the first of its kind in the country — comes in response to a combination of strong science and public concern about the chemical's prevalence and harms.

IATP has always argued that trade agreements need to respect and promote human rights, not drive a process of globalization that privileges commercial interests and tramples on public interests. In a new paper on land grabs, we reaffirm that position. “Land grabs” are large-scale purchases or leases of agricultural or forested land on terms that violate the rights of the people who live on or near that land. The problem has commanded enormous public policy and media attention for the last few years. In our paper, IATP sets some context for the land grabs phenomenon. We focus on two forces that have contributed significantly to the problem:

In the first jury trial stemming from an Occupy Wall Street protest, Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges yesterday after his lawyers presented video evidence directly contradicting the version of events offered by police and prosecutors.

With your help we had great success with our work in 2012 to expose the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a funnel for secret corporate money in U.S. elections. In addition to the guessers in our Guess What the Chamber Will Spend contest, working with several partners we had over 30,000 people sign our “tongue-in-cheek” birthday cards (Please insert a birthday card image) to the U.S. Chamber and scores join a rally to deliver the cards to the Chamber.

Oil sands investors, it turns out, should have listened to environmentalists after all. Placing a bet on the oil sands, once thought of as a sure path to riches, is looking like an over-hyped investment theme in the process of confronting a less glamorous reality. Stocks in companies involved in the industry have been taking on water, but they’re not yet cheap enough to make compelling buys.

Today, before opening remarks began in the "Environmental Trial of the Century" that will determine just how much BP and their partners must pay for the destruction they have wrought in the Gulf, I joined colleagues and activists to greet lawyers and media with a simple message: #MakeBPpay. Of course, the BP disaster is ultimately not something that can be 'fixed' with any amount of money. The oil, the dispersant and the taint of this historically horrific event can not be scrubbed away. The bell cannot be unrung and the ecosystem can not proceed as if it was never exposed to BP's crude and corexit.

Our new report, Secret Scents: How Hidden Fragrance Allergens Harm Public Health, finds that millions of people are affected by skin allergies caused by chemicals in fragrance. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible for consumers to avoid specific fragrance allergens because companies keep fragrance ingredients a secret. The solution is simple: Companies should disclose fragrance ingredients in products so that people have the choice to avoid harmful chemicals.

What if there were a really smart, knowledgeable, innovative guy who had dreams of curing cancer or writing a bestselling novel or recording an acclaimed album, but couldn't do any of the above because of a crippling cocaine addiction? Similarly, Congress's deadly addiction to corporate cash is the main reason Washington is unable to solve the myriad problems affecting our economy, environment and politics. If only we could help Congress kick the habit, our government could work for us again.

Roses are red, violets are blue, Columbia Sportswear: We luv U (for helping to stop tar sands, that is)! Columbia Sportswear is the latest of 19 companies that have committed to help stop the expansion of tar sands by pushing for tar sands free transportation. This growing trend is key to protecting the forests of North America and the communities near US oil refineries from the destructive and health threatening effects of tar sands. Join us in thanking Columbia Sportswear for their environmental leadership!

Citizen videos take us to corners of the world that reporters cannot access, and put us on the scene long before investigators arrive. Average citizens now have an unprecedented ability to record, upload, and share what they see. Citizen video was responsible for the rapid circulation of news of Oscar Grant's fatal shooting. Citizen video was responsible for the rapid circulation of news of Oscar Grant’s fatal shooting. Think of the death of Oscar Grant in California, where video taken by fellow passengers was used to instantly spread awareness of his shooting by a transit officer, and was submitted as evidence in his court trial. Or the war in Syria, where mainstream news is banned but civilians and soldiers have taken up cameras and YouTube accounts to document the uprising. Citizen video is changing the roles of reporters, editors, and audiences. And it’s raising new technical and ethical concerns for those covering the news.

In this episode, we speak with Vernice Miller-Travis, a longtime environmental justice advocate and co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a northern Manhattan community-based organization. Vernice believes that green groups and environmental justice groups must work together in order to build a more diverse and effective environmental movement. Vernice spoke with Jessica Knoblauch, content producer at Earthjustice, in January 2013.

The next time Chamber of Commerce lobbyists testify before Congress and claim fatuously on behalf of its contrived three million small business members that Wall Street reform law must be gutted, responsible senators and representatives should throw this in their face: a new poll showing overwhelming support among small business FOR the reform law.

If this policy is successfully implemented, it will be huge step towards reforming Indonesia’s paper industry, protecting its rainforests and the remaining Sumatran tigers that call that place home. Remember our recent victories with Mattel, Lego, IGA and KFC? When big companies like these started ditching their contracts with APP, it helped persuade the company to make this new commitment. Down here in Australia, we’ve played an incredibly important part of this win (our colleagues at Greenpeace HQ in Amsterdam often referred to us as the “secret weapon in the campaign!). As well as joining in international work against the likes of customers like Mattel, Paperlinx, KCF, Fuji Xerox and others, we’ve taken it right to the doorstep of APP subsidiaries, Solaris and Collins Debden. The loss of IGA led to a mothballing of their Australian factory.

While European policymakers are taking steps to protect bees from harmful pesticides, EPA is poised to approve yet another bee-toxic pesticide for use here in the U.S. Instead of following the science and protecting bees from known harms, the agency is set to conditionally register another new pesticide known to harm bees, sulfoxaflor, for a broad variety of uses. Sulfoxaflor is a cousin to imidacloprid and clothianidin, with shared mechanisms of action (all work on the same bee brain synapses — nicotinic acetylcholine receptors) We have between now and February 12 to send a clear message: Bees need protection from harmful pesticides, not more exposure. EPA decisionmakers, it's time to step up!

We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations, write to urge you to use the occasion of the historic second meeting of Arctic environment ministers to strongly encourage Arctic states to take significant action to reduce emissions of black carbon. Last year the Arctic experienced record melting of both summer sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet and land glaciers, with grave implications for Arctic peoples and biodiversity, and for low-lying nations and communities around the world. While deep cuts in CO2 remain the backbone of efforts to limit the long-term consequences of climate change, rapid reductions in emissions of short-lived climate forcers such as black carbon and methane have been identified as perhaps the most effective strategy to slow warming and melting in the Arctic over the next few decades. This is critical to give the cultures and biodiversity of the region more time to adapt and to slow sea level rise by reducing continental ice melting.

Free market idealists argue that capitalism works for anyone with a little initiative and a willingness to work hard. That might be true if job opportunities were available to everyone. But the facts reveal a lack of opportunity, largely because the very system of capitalism that's supposed to work for everyone is betraying its most productive members. It's a step-by-step process of hypocrisy disguised as free enterprise:

The U.S. isn’t just shoveling cash to stem the tide of narcotics in Mexico and Colombia. Quietly, it’s built up its drug war in Central America, too — spending nearly $100 million over four years on advanced gear for local forces. Not that Washington has any idea what it’s gotten for its money. A new report from the Government Accountability Office provides a rare glimpse into the Central American war on drugs. Between 2008 and 2011, the report finds, the government spent $97 million for gear and training for its Central American partners. On the plus side, it’s laughably low compared to the more than $640 billion (and rising) the U.S. has spent on the war in Afghanistan.

Will the Corps and the state of Louisiana starve the Delta at the whim of oil and gas? In 2011, a swollen Mississippi River re-connected itself with the marshes of Bohemia, without any help from the Corps--but it forgot to ask Shaw for a permit to restore our coast. After 2 years, the oil company that operates in this Wildlife Management Area, Sundown Energy LP, wants to fill in this new reach of the Mississippi with limestone and pipe culverts. Perhaps it would increase their margin, but it would destroy a new branch of the Mississippi River.

As the world's most powerful corporate leaders and richest individuals gather at the exclusive World Economic Forum in Davos, TNI offers a visual insight into who is dominating the planet at a time of systemic economic and ecological crisis.

The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC's) long history of influencing state legislators—sometimes even writing legislation for them—to pass laws and promote policies that advance a corporate profit agenda, and at times an extreme conservative agenda, is well documented.

The Mining Law of 1872 is famously generous to miners when it comes to granting them rights to the riches on public lands. But in northern Idaho, a scuffle between miners and the Forest Service hinges on a related, but lesser-known law: the Mining Claims Rights Restoration Act of 1955. And unlike the 1872 law, this law gives the public lands agency the upper hand in dealing with mining on public lands.

Today's ruling in the Netherlands which found the Nigerian subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell guilty of causing pollution, is a historic legal victory for oil producing communities in Nigeria and probably across Africa. 72 year old fish farmer Friday Akpan, from Akwa Ibom State, one of Nigeria's richest oil producing states, was one of four fish farmers who was able to prove that Shell Nigeria, the subsidiary of one of the world's most profitable companies Royal Dutch Shell, which made more than $30 billion dollars in profit in 2011, failed to properly maintain oil pipelines and other installations in Ikot Ada Udo community. Shell Nigeria's negligence led to oil spills that devastated Friday Akpan's 47 fishponds.

The state of California has ordered a Southern California warehouse that processes merchandise for Walmart and other retailers to pay 865 workers more than $1 million in stolen wages. The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement issued the citations Monday, Jan. 28 against Quetico, LLC, a large warehouse complex in Chino, California. Back wages and unpaid overtime total more than $1.1million and in addition the state issued about $200,000 in penalties.

Determined activists to press on with resistance to pipeline construction Eugene, OR–Twenty-nine individuals and organizations named in a civil lawsuit filed by the notorious Canadian pipeline company, TransCanada, agreed under duress today to settle, under threat of expansive injunction terms. The far-reaching Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) was filed on the heels of record numbers of non-violent protests in Texas opposing the controversial XL Pipeline construction.

When was the last time you contributed $1,000 to a political candidate or cause? If you’re like most people, the answer is “Never -- if I have that kind of money it’s in the college savings account.” Well, candidates for the U.S. Senate this election got nearly 64 percent of the money they raised from individuals in contributions of at least $1,000 -- from just four one-hundredths of one percent of the population.

Shareholders invest in publicly traded companies for many reasons, not least of which is to make decent returns. Generally speaking, investors hope their companies invest capital into productive channels: inventing, innovating, delighting customers with their products, and otherwise paving the road to growth, leading to fantastic financial results over the long haul.

A state Senator from St. Louis has introduced a bill requiring the labeling of genetically modified meat and fish in Missouri. State Sen. Jemilah Nasheed (D-St. Louis) introduced Senate Bill 155 this week. “While I understand that food production is an integral Missouri industry, I don’t feel the trend of biotechnology and genetically engineered foods is always apparent to the average citizen, “ said Sen. Nasheed. “I am merely asking for clarity in the sale of certain genetically engineered, or GE, foods to Missouri’s customers.”

Your daily dose of what's trending in money and politics: TECH LOBBYING: Google marked its place in the upper echelons of Washington's influence world this week when it filed its fourth quarter 2012 lobbying report. The filing brings its total spent on lobbying to $18.2 million for the year -- nearly double its $9.6 million spent in 2011, which in turn was nearly twice as much as the $5 million it laid out in 2010.

Writing in National Geographic in December 2012 about “small-scale irrigation techniques with simple buckets, affordable pumps, drip lines, and other equipment” that “are enabling farm families to weather dry seasons, raise yields, diversify their crops, and lift themselves out of poverty” water expert Sandra Postel of the Global Water Policy Project cautioned against reckless land and water-related investments in Africa. “[U]nless African governments and foreign interests lend support to these farmer-driven initiatives, rather than undermine them through land and water deals that benefit large-scale, commercial schemes, the best opportunity in decades for societal advancement in the region will be squandered.”

The first presidential election since Citizens United lived up to its hype, with unprecedented outside spending from new sources making headlines. Demos and U.S. PIRG Education Fund analysis of reports from campaigns, parties, and outside spenders to the Federal Election Commission found that our big money system distorts democracy and creates clear winners and losers.

Subsidizing Bad Behavior: How Corporate Legal Settlements for Harming the Public Become Lucrative Tax Write Offs, with Recommendations for Reform

As the world begins to wrestle with rising food insecurity associated with climate change, a report from Worldwatch points to the crucial role organic farming plays. Not only is organically produced food more nutritious, but it sustains livelihoods of millions of people in developing countries, because unlike conventional agriculture, it relies on labor. And it increases crop yields.

On September 18, international human rights and labor groups released at statement expressing support and seeking redress for some 200 garment workers locked in a dispute with Kingsland Garment Cambodia Ltd., a supplier of the global clothing brands Walmart and H&M. The workers are owed approximately $200,000 in wages and indemnity by Kingsland, a Hong Kong-based company.

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a “progress report” on its ongoing study of hydraulic fracturing and the impacts of fracking on drinking water. The progress report contains a lot of interesting information, but one particular map caught my eye. The map shows that fracking has occurred in more states than previously known, including places like Arizona, Nevada and Maryland. All in all, we now know that fracking has occurred in at least 32 states since 2005.

PUBPAT encourages the public to not buy any products made with corn, soy, sugar, canola, cotton or alfalfa (this includes milk, as dairy cows eat alfalfa) unless you are certain it was made without any use of genetically modified seed. If you're not sure, call the manufacturer and ask. If they can't or don't give you a straight answer, then don't buy their product. The proponents of genetically modified seed have vigorously opposed labeling of genetically modified food here in America (although Europe and Asia have such labeling), so to make this effort easier on your fellow Americans, once you know whether certain products are derived from genetically modified seed or not, spread that information so others know. Increasing consumer awareness and demand for food not derived from genetically modified seed, even slightly, will increase the supply of the food we want, which will reduce prices and increase availability. If you want to purge genetically modified food from society, you can help do so every time you go to the grocery store or a restaurant. It's your money, spend it as you see fit.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is not enough support among top U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officials to advance a proposal that would require companies to disclose their political spending, a Republican commissioner said on Wednesday. Daniel Gallagher said the agency had other priorities, and said the two Republican commissioners would not back such a measure. With the SEC currently divided between two Democrats and two Republicans, the lack of support effectively kills for now the measure which has been pushed by disclosure activists.

Houston based energy giant Kinder Morgan announced that they planned to further expand their proposed pipeline through the most densely populated areas of the province of British Columbia. The company's Canadian representative held a telephone press conference yesterday announcing that they planned to formally file a proposal with the National Energy Board in late 2013 which would result in 890,000 barrels per day of tar sands oil moving through BC bringing over 400 oil tankers a day to Burrard Inlet and the Salish Sea. This represents an increase of over 100 tankers a year over their previous announced proposal.

On January 10, Oklahomans marched on a section of the Keystone XL pipeline in Stroud, Okla., to launch a direct action campaign against the project. Just three days earlier, more than 100 activists stormed into the Houston headquarters of TransCanada, the corporation contracted to build Keystone. Meanwhile, a new tree-sit went up to block the path of the pipeline’s construction in Diboll, Texas. These actions represent the spirit of Blockadia—a vast but interwoven web of campaigns standing up against the fossil fuel industry and demanding an end to the development of tar sands pipelines.

What do we mean when we talk about the imminent threat of rapid and irreversible climate change? And what ethical responsibilities do we — especially those of us in the societies most responsible for the emission of destabilizing greenhouse gases — have in the face of that threat? Harvard chemist James Anderson and Northeastern philosopher Ronald Sandler examine the interplay of science and ethics as Cognoscenti and the Open Classroom kick off our series Climate Change. Challenges. Solutions.

Mystery donors poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2012 elections via nonprofits and shell corporations, despite widespread public support for disclosure and decades of legal precedent supporting the public’s right to know the sources of election-related spending. A new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Center for Media and Democracy found that contributions from phony for-profit corporations accounted for nearly 17 percent of all business donations to Super PACs.

National Garment Workers Federation ( NGWF ) today, January 9, threatened to launch greater agitation program if Tazreen Fashion’s owner were not arrested immediately for his responsibility in killing 112 workers in factory fire on November 24, 2013. The threat was issued from a Garment workers’ human chain that was held today in front of National Press Club in Dhaka city. Over 100 garment workers participated in human chain program that was took place from 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm.

Environmentalists are ready to give up on negotiations over the acclaimed Great Bear Rainforest conservation agreement, saying the forest industry is not moving quickly enough to achieve ecological and economic goals in the world’s largest temperate rainforest. Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Environmentalists+forest+industry+struggle+complete+Great+Bear+Rainforest+conservation/7776998/story.html#ixzz2HpU24Wve

I absolutely love this story: A Marin activist named Jonathan Frieman, who runs a small nonprofit corporation (the JoMiJo Foundation) was driving in the carpool lane on highway 101 in Marin when he was stopped by a cop and given a $478 ticket. Ah, but Frieman insists he wasn't driving alone; beside him in the car were the articles of incorporation and other relevant corporate paperwork for his foundation — and in the United States, corporations are considered people. In fact, the California Vehicle Code refers to “natural persons or corporations.”

Hunger strike by Chief Theresa Spence against new government legislation and long term denial of indigenous rights sparks nation wide movement

Every year on December 10th, human rights organizations mark International Human Rights Day. To highlight our 20th anniversary and Human Rights Day, we’re sharing 20 significant human rights video moments. Compiled by the entire WITNESS team and presented in chronological order, the list reflects instances where video (or film) made a difference: as evidence in a court or tribunal, galvanized mass mobilization or outrage, marked a turning point, a new use of technology for human rights, and more. This is not a list of ‘best’ or ‘worst’ moments. It is likewise not a complete list of important moments in human rights history. In fact, we’ve curated 19 moments and would like to hear from you: what is a human rights video moment that you would add to this list? We invite you to read, watch, share and comment.

Leading environmentalist and human rights champion Rebecca "Becky" Tarbotton, executive director of the organization Rainforest Action Network (RAN), has died at the age of 39. According to RAN, Tarbotton died Wednesday on a beach in Mexico while vacationing with her husband and friends. The coroner ruled cause of death as asphyxiation from water she breathed in while swimming.

As Americans experienced epic droughts, freakish hurricanes, and other extreme weather over the past few years, many are eager to see our nation secure a sustainable energy supply for the future that won’t break our climate. But others – most notably the polluting fossil fuel industries – are eager to double down on the same old technologies that are responsible for the climate crisis in the first place. Fossil fuel industry lobbyists descended upon the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) annual policy summit in Washington, DC last month. The Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force met again to discuss new ways to block renewable energy and encourage the burning of fossil fuels. On the docket, a new bill, that would end run the EPA and promote the development of new coal mines (or something like that that is much more specific).

Presenters: Alexis Baden Meyer, Organic Consumers Association, and Jim Riddell from the University of Minnesota Southwest Research and Outreach Center

The Stanford University study questioning the nutritional value of organic over conventional food touched off a firestorm, but did it really help consumers evaluate organics or just create controversy (as evidenced by Dr. Oz's recent flip flop on the subject)? How is the Stanford study holding up to a few months of analysis? What are other recent studies showing about the importance of organics, and are they gaining the same attention? What about the impacts of different farming techniques on our whole ecosystem as well as on our dinner table?

As a team, The Future 500 staff, board, and senior fellows believe passionately in the promise of corporations and NGOs coming together to advance systemic solutions to our most urgent sustainability challenges. Each Fall, we hold a series of strategic planning meetings where we synthesize the trends we see, outlining our core issues of focus for the coming year and beyond. From that promise, we identify what we anticipate are the Top 10 issues that activists and corporations will likely contend with in the coming. For 2013, we have expanded our focus beyond the top overarching issues to identify the key issues facing key sectors in which we work: Energy, Technology, and Consumer Brands.

With attendees from 44 states and over two dozen countries, come see why The Justice Conference has become one of the largest international biblical and social justice conferences and an annual pilgrimage for justice workers, students and learners from all over the world.

Earth: Too Big to Fail 31st Annual Public Interest Environmental Law Conference February 28 - March 3, 2013 New! Now accepting PIELC 2013 Panel Suggestions Return a PIELC 2012 Feedback Form

Maria Theresa Lauron, a water activist from the Philippines, strode across the stage at the World Water Forum and took a seat next to one of the most powerful men in the global corporate water industry: Gérard Payen, President of Aquafed, the private water trade association.

On the 22 April 2009, a protest was taking place at the site in Glengad, Co. Mayo where the Corrib Gas Pipeline is planned to come ashore. This site had been occupied by protesters for weeks, attempting to prevent the erection of fencing by Shell, despite the apparent lack of planning permission. Winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize and member of the Rossport 5 Willie Corduff lay under a Shell truck, preventing work from continuing. According to Mr. Corduff’s statement, in an attempt to remove him from beneath the truck, Gardaí threw stones and insulted him. At 11.30pm, what Shell to Sea describes as “a handful of protestors” unravelled some fencing surrounding the site. [1]

Colombian political prisoner David Ravelo, jailed since September 14, 2010, learned late in November, 2012, that he had been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in jail. His case, based on spurious evidence, reflects epic military, police, and judicial repression carried out under a regime of big landowners and the urban elite. After 50 years they are still intent upon military victory over insurgents defending agrarian rights. Ravelo’s case deserves attention: Colombia’s prison population has increased 30 percent during the tenure of President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombian jails now house 10,000 political prisoners, Ravelo’s human rights record is exemplary, and his case has taken on every sign of a judicial frame-up.

This is a guest post from Anne Pernick, Executive Director of Corporate Ethics International and the Business Ethics Network. The Business Ethics Network (BEN) is a project of Corporate Ethics International, a 501(c)(3) working to bring corporations back in service to and under the control of the citizenry. This year has brought quite a dust up about organic food. The controversy tells us much more about our need to be spokespeople about the issues we care about than it does about organics, however. Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/lets-keep-making-noise-about-why-organics-matter.html#ixzz2FBDST9Li

Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation's drinking water. In many cases, the Environmental Protection Agency has granted these so-called aquifer exemptions in Western states now stricken by drought and increasingly desperate for water.

Chevron has a lot of money. Which is a good thing, because lawyers are expensive, and Chevron has developed quite an affinity for lawyers. And if you’re a Chevron shareholder who dares speak out, expect to hear from them. The fossil fuel giant faces an $18 billion fine levied by a court in Ecuador stemming from massive pollution in the Amazon rainforest throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Chevron is understandably loathe to write a check for that amount, given that it constitutes almost nine months’ worth of 2011 profits (or, if you prefer, 25 days worth of revenue). Instead, it would rather unleash an army of esquires who are already on retainer.

Washington – The Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) historic 5th Reconsideration and Order, released on November 30, 2012, brings to a conclusion a decades-long struggle to fully legalize low-power (“pirate”) radio broadcasting and make unused space available to community groups for local radio services.

December, 13 2012 - Community organizations in nine states are hitting the streets to demand that elected public officials and financial institutions cut all ties to Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) and GEO Group (GEO), America’s largest private prison corporations which have profited from billions in taxpayer money.

This week, Republican lawmakers in Michigan -- birthplace of the United Auto Workers and, more broadly, the U.S. labor movement -- shocked the nation by becoming the 24th state to pass "right-to-work" legislation, which allows non-union employees to benefit from union contracts.

For residents in Assumption Parish, the boiling, gas-belching bayou, with its expanding toxic sinkhole and quaking earth is no longer a mystery; but there is little comfort in knowing the source of the little-known event that has forced them out of their homes. Located about 45 miles south of Baton Rouge, Assumption Parish carries all the charms and curses of southern Louisiana. Networks of bayous, dotted with trees heavy with Spanish moss, connect with the Mississippi River as it slowly ambles toward the Gulf of Mexico. Fishermen and farmers make their homes there, and so does the oil and gas industry, which has woven its own network of wells, pipelines and processing facilities across the lowland landscape.

The current formula, which was deceitfully labeled “formaldehyde-free,” contains up to 10% formaldehyde. It was also found to violate California’s air quality laws for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The company has 30 days to reformulate its product to make sure it meets CA air quality laws which should mean much lower levels of toxic formaldehyde. Read more and get the latest!

everyone is always GDP this and GDP that. But - is obsessing over our nation's gross domestic product really the best way to talk about the growth and state of the American economy? In 1968 - Kennedy said this of measures like GDP and GNP: "Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year...if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage...

This week’s World Toilet Summit offers an opportunity to contemplate how we curate our crap. Increasingly the calculus seems to be cash, generating contradictions ranging from local to global scales, across race, gender, generation and geography. Nowhere are they more evident than in the host city, my hometown of Durban. We’ve suffered an 18-year era of neoliberal-nationalist malgovernance including toilet apartheid, in the wake of more than 150 years of colonialism and straight racial-apartheid.

Thu, Nov 29 - Residents on Cortes Island are protesting the clear cutting of a parcel of land. Keith Baldrey reports. Read it on Global News: Cortes Island logging protest - News Hour - Videos | Global BC

One of our Russian allies urgently needs your help! Russian authorities shut down RAIPON, the main organization representing the indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East, Siberia, and the Arctic—because of a paperwork error. RAIPON has long been a strong voice against Russia’s policies toward the country’s indigenous peoples. This attack on RAIPON is only the latest in a series of governmental measures designed to gain greater control over the vast, fossil fuel-rich territories of the Far North. These areas are mainly populated by indigenous peoples and federal and regional actions are increasingly targeting traditional forms of economic activity like subsistence hunting and fishing to weaken local cultures and traditions and undermine indigenous opposition to the government’s Arctic development plans. Help us stop the attempts to silence Russia’s indigenous peoples who are fighting to maintain their traditional ways of life and to protect their communities from resource extraction projects, oil spills, and industrial pollution. Write to Russia’s President Putin today and demand that he ask Russian authorities to reinstate RAIPON and allow it to continue its important work both in Russia and internationally.