BREAKING NEWS: Activists Risk Arrest to Stop Mountaintop Removal

14 Activists Arrested in Peaceful Protest to Stop Mountaintop Removal scaled 20-story tall machinery to call attention to nation’s worst form of coal mining in first ever ascent of a mountaintop removal site’s dragline.

COAL RIVER VALLEY, W. VA –  At 5:00AM this morning 14 concerned citizens entered onto Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal mine site near Twilight WV. Four of them scaled a 150-foot dragline and unfurled a 15×150 foot banner that said, “Stop Mountaintop Removal Mining”.  The climbers were on the enormous dragline, a massive piece of equipment that removes house-sized chunks of blasted rock and earth to expose coal, and remained there for over three hours. Meanwhile nine others deployed a 20×40 foot banner on the ground at the site which read, “Stop Mountaintop Removal:  Clean Energy Now”.

Police arrested David Hollister, Melissa O’Neil, Chelsea Ritter Soronen, Lynn Stone, Charles Suggs, Rodney Webb, Jeanne Kirshon, John Johnson Greg Yost, Jessica Sue Eley, Lisa Ramsden, David Pike, Paul Brown, and Kurt Delano Mann. 

[...]More

A sensible youth?  Not when it comes to cocaine!

From l’Humanité.

According to an annual report, teens report a decrease in their use of tobacco and marijuana.  Contrarily, cocaine (though it remains on the fringe) increases in distribution.

Jean-Michel Costes, director of the French monitoring center for drugs and drug addiction, presents the results of the 2008 ESCAPAD survey.  Conducted with 40,000 French seventeen-year-olds, the survey allows us to examine the consumption habits of the nation’s youth.  

What trends did you notice in the habits of teenagers?
We noticed little change, not even a decline in regular usage of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol.  The report is generally positive despite some worrisome subjects, such as occasional drunkenness, which saw a slight increase in frequency from last year.

How can you explain this increase?
Pleasure and ease of use are the most widespread motives for [...]More

“The State must police distribution companies”

From La libération

While the French National Federation of Farmers' Unions plans to block supermarket supply entrances in order to protest the profit margins of mass distributors (particularly on milk and dairy products), an interview with Dominique Barrau, assistant secretary general of the agricultural labor association, aids in our analysis of the motives of the opposition.

What is the shape that you’re going to give to your protest?

There will be between one and two blocked sites per region for 48 hours.  The Grand-Ouest

[...]More

Sex Sells: A Tiny Nonprofit Uses Mass Media to Encourage Family Planning

By Jason Mark

Fikrite is a girl in trouble. Her grandfather has just died and now a neighbor, a man named Damte, has taken over the house and is trying to turn the place into a bar and brothel. Fikrite says she won’t allow it, so Damte starts spreading rumors about the girl and soon everyone, including her boyfriend, thinks that she is hiding a child born out of wedlock. Damte then seduces Fikrite’s stepsister, Lamrot, gets her hooked on booze and drugs, and knocks her up. When Lamrot tries to abort the pregnancy, she almost bleeds to death and lands in the hospital, where she finds out that she is HIV-positive.

If this sounds like overcooked melodrama – well, that’s the point. The story comes from “Yeken Kignit” (“Looking Over One’s Life”), a radio soap opera that gripped much of Ethiopia for 257 episodes beginning in 2002. The show had all of the elements that make serial dramas popular: sex, romance, mischief, betrayal,

[...]More

by Zach Carter, TMC MediaWire Blogger

The banking lobby still holds enough sway inside the Beltway to torpedo sensible consumer protection rules, even after releasing a flood of predatory mortgages that kicked off the current economic crisis. On issues ranging from payday loans to subprime mortgages, the banking industry continues to successfully defend itself against new regulations that would protect the consumer. As if that weren't outrage enough, the finance lobby has also joined other corporate interest groups to fund misinformation campaigns that smear unions and block wage growth.

As Mary Kane explains for The Colorado Independent, the push to rein in predatory mortgage lending appears to be losing steam on Capitol Hill. An extremely complex mortgage reform bill that is conciliatory to the finance lobby passed the House last month, angering consumer advocacy groups. Among the problems: the bill pre-empts many stronger state predatory lending laws and protects the Wall Street investment banks that gorged themselves on mortgage-backed securities.

Consumer protection shortfalls are not limited to messy mortgages. [...]More