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Le portail rinoceros d’informations sur les initiatives citoyennes pour la construction d’un autre monde a été intégré au nouveau site Ritimo pour une recherche simplifiée et élargie.

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Country index  > United States

United States

articles FR [17] EN [19] ES [6]
dossiers EN [3]
books and publications FR [1] EN [1] ES [2]
actors FR [12] EN [27]
campaigns FR [1] EN [6] ES [2]
recommended sites FR [2] EN [4]
revues FR [1]

articles

Common Dreams

The Campaign to Privatize the World

> By David Macaray

One of the biggest con games going on at the moment is the sustained attack on the U.S. public school system. It’s being perpetrated by predatory entrepreneurs (disguised as “concerned citizens” and “education reformers”) hoping to persuade the parents of school-age children that the only way their kids are going to get a decent education is by paying for something that they can already get for free. You might say it’s the same marketing campaign that launched bottled water. The profit impulse (...) read

date of on-line publication : 20 April 2012

Enough Project

California Passes First-Ever State Bill on Congo Conflict Minerals

> By Laura Heaton

It began with individuals, spread to campuses, was taken up by cities, and last Friday California became the very first U.S. state to take action on conflict minerals from Congo. By a vote of 67 to 11, the California state assembly passed a bill that prohibits state agencies from signing contracts with companies that fail to comply with federal regulations aimed at deterring business with armed groups in eastern Congo. The California bill builds off the momentum of the Dodd-Frank bill (...) read

date of on-line publication : 15 September 2011

Suspension of Belo Monte Called For by Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), part of the Organization of American States (OAS), has officially requested the Brazilian Government to immediately suspend the Belo Monte Dam Complex in the Amazonian state of Pará, pending proper consultations with potentially affected indigenous peoples living in the Xingu river basin. Belo Monte would negatively impact indigenous peoples and other traditional communities in the Xingu River basin, particularly those living along a (...) read

date of on-line publication : 18 April 2011

Truthout

US Adds 3.8 Million More to Ranks of the Poor as Poverty Rate Jumps

US poverty rate hit 14.3 percent last year, up from 13.2 percent in 2008. The jump bring the number of the poor to its highest level since 1959, five years before the Johnson-era War on Poverty. Read here and here read

date of on-line publication : 20 September 2010

Inter Press Service (IPS)

As Canada’s Democracy Trembles, a New Global Architecture Emerges

TORONTO, 28 Jun (IPS) - Nearly 600 people were arrested as global leaders and elites met behind a fortified perimetre during the G8 and G20 Summits in Huntsville and Toronto this weekend. Read more read

date of on-line publication : 1 July 2010

Giant salmon will be first GM animal available for eating

A salmon that grows at twice the normal rate is set to be the first genetically modified (GM) animal available for human consumption. Usually Atlantic salmon do not grow during the winter and take three years to fully mature. But by implanting genetic material from an eel-like species called ocean pout that grows all year round, US scientists have managed to make the fish grow to full size in 18 months. They hope that the sterile GM salmon can offer an efficient and safe way to breed (...) read

date of on-line publication : 1 July 2010

Truthout

US: With 2.4 Million Jobs Lost to China, New Trade Agreement Battle Begins

Concern about massive jobs losses due to unfair Chinese trade practices is reshaping the American political battle lines over trade, with labor winning new and sometimes unlikely supporters in its fight for stronger policies to protect American workers. Read more read

date of on-line publication : 27 March 2010

New America Foundation

The Year of the Drone: study shows one third of victims are civilians

New America Foundation study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to February 2010 have killed between 830 and 1,210 individuals, of whom around 550 to 850 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent. Data here and analysis (...) read

date of on-line publication : 12 March 2010

One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people, new figures show

One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies. Read more read

date of on-line publication : 5 February 2010

US: The Tide Is Turning on Healthcare Reform

Social movements are messy, so it is often difficult to know, in the midst of the battle, which side is winning. But in the past month, momentum on healthcare reform has unmistakably shifted as liberals and progressives have taken to the streets, the Internet, the airwaves and the halls of Congress to push for a bold public option, strong regulations on insurance abuses and a progressive tax plan to finance reform. Read more about these (...) read

date of on-line publication : 27 October 2009

Human rights in Syria : Pelosi’s silence

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Damascus this week caused quite a stir. Before she even landed in Syria, the White House was calling her decision a « really bad idea ». Pelosi’s spokesman was quick to defend the visit by saying that the speaker intended to use her trip « to discuss a wide range of security issues affecting the United States and the Middle East ». No one doubts that security is essential in the region. But Pelosi appears to have committed the same mistake as other (...) read

date of on-line publication : 6 April 2007

MAMDANI Mahmoud

The politics of naming : genocide, civil war, insurgency

> Essay first published by the London Review of Books on 8 March 2007

The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and (...) read

date of on-line publication : 21 March 2007

ExxonMobil’s tobacco-like disinformation campaign on global warming science

> Oil company spent nearly $16 million to fund skeptic groups and create confusion about global warming

A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, called Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air: how ExxonMobil uses big tobacco’s tactics to manufacture uncertainty on climate change, offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry’s disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled (...) read

date of on-line publication : 2 February 2007

Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS)

Somalia : the new frontier in the "war on terror"

Somalia has become the new frontier in the war on terror, joining the unpopular club of Afghanistan and Iraq, a situation that is worrying the rest of Africa. The only difference is that President George W. Bush sent U.S. troops to get rid of the Taliban in Kabul and Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, after Sep. 11. Bush is using the same soldiers to hunt down what he calls « terrorists ». In Somalia, Bush’s dirty work is being handled by Ethiopia. Ethiopian troops, backing Somalia’s weak (...) read

date of on-line publication : 19 January 2007

KHATIB Ghassan

Middle East crises : inextricable from each other

> Bitterlemons international, December 14, 2006, Edition 46, Volume 4

The double standard that has resulted from the US compromising international legality because of its relations with Israel is a major cause of the regional hostility toward America. To understand the different conflicts in the Middle East, it is important to understand their growing interrelation. This interrelation is growing to an extent that it is becoming nearly impossible to understand one conflict in isolation. Similarly, solving one requires dealing with the others. More and more (...) read

date of on-line publication : 20 December 2006

OTTOLINI Cesare

Katrina one year later: civil movements demand right of return

http://www.habitants.org/noticias/in (...)

2005 Katrina demolished the United States Golf Coast with catastrophic results, previously known only to residents of the poorest countries like Bangladesh, but with an unprecedented mass media impact: this time the first world was the victim.
After the emotion and the initial phase of confusion, everything seemed to be under control, so much that the Bush Administration declared that America was able to handle the catastrophe on its own, refusing the assistance of countries that, like Cuba, were ready to send urgently needed assistance. More than 110 billion dollars were immediately allocated for the reconstruction. The government, marking August 29th a National Day of Remembrance of Hurricane Katrina, today affirmed that in excess of 70% of the resources were either utilized or available.
This is not the truth. We are familiar with the dramatic images of those days, with survivors desperately clinging to their roofs in Louisiana and Missouri, the inferno of the Superdome transformed into a welcome center, and the army set to patrol to keep order and defend private property.
We know even less about what happened during the last 12 months: the solidarity initiatives, the marches, the protests, the lawsuits, the network proposals, the citizens’ organizations, the labor unions relegated to the local news.  read

date of on-line publication : 18 October 2006

STIGLITZ Joseph

Whatever is the IMF to do about the US?

STIGLITZ Joseph

> The US’ staggering trade deficit and continued borrowing threaten to undermine the relevance of the IMF

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit (...)

The IMF’s meeting this spring was lauded as a breakthrough, with officials given a new mandate for "surveillance" of the trade imbalances that contribute significantly to global instability. The new mission is crucially important, both for the health of the global economy and the IMF’s own legitimacy. But is the fund up to the job? There is obviously something peculiar about a global financial system in which the richest country in the world, the US, borrows more than US$2 billion a day from poorer countries — even as it lectures them on principles of good governance and fiscal responsibility. So the stakes for the IMF, which is charged with ensuring global financial stability, are high: If other countries eventually lose confidence in an increasingly indebted US, the potential disturbances in the world’s financial markets would be massive.  read

date of on-line publication : 20 June 2006

BORGER Julian

USA: The Pharmaceutical Industry Stalks the Corridors of Power

> CorpWatch, Feb 2001

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php (...)

Whilst now out of date in view of current developments, this article gives insights into the power the pharmaceutical industry yields within the White House, and consequently at a global scale also. Furthermore, it brings to attention the reality over the industry’s claims that it needs to protect itself financially to fund new R&D (Research and Development), by highlighting the US government’s role in R&D.  read

date of on-line publication : 13 December 2005

HERBKE Marcel

Alien Tort Claims Act: Developments on bill to supress ATCA

> OhmyNews, October 26, 2005

http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljust (...)

The following article (first appeared here) gives an update on the current developments to supress the Alien Tort Claims Act in the US through a new bill.
See also

 read

date of on-line publication : 30 November 2005

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