Some of Britain's best-known high street brands are selling "cheap chic" clothes at the expense of workers in Bangladesh who are paid 5p an hour despite pledges to protect basic labour rights, an investigation by War on Want will reveal today.
Employees in Bangladesh are forced to work excessive hours, refused access to trade unions and face abuse and sacking if they protest, says the report, Fashion Victims, based on interviews with 60 garment workers ... (more)
George W. Bush, who proudly claimed the mantle of “war president,” was keenly rebuked in the recent mid-term election. The event was notable, but it merely continued the surreal politics of premeditated war—a politics that has dominated the last six bizarre, hideous years of our nation’s history.
Two elements of the repudiation seem unreal, indeed. Not the fact of it, but the amazing length of its gestation period—those six years—and how tepi... (more)
Thousands of students across Durham Region face suspension if they don't get their immunization records updated.
The Durham Region Health Department has sent out final notices to 5,907 elementary students and 8,621 secondary school students and their parents.
Starting January 16, 2007, elementary students who don't have incomplete immunization records will be suspended from school until the information is recieved by the Health Department.
Senior gynecologists at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva published an article in a medical journal detailing studies on dozens of women, although according to anonymous complaints, the experiments were not carried out in the manner described. This is the third time in the past two years that Beilinson's Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) department has published false information about its research.
The article was published in an English-language journal that came out in honor o... (more)
CCTV cameras should be used to tackle anti-social behaviour, not pick on those trying their best to recycle in the borough of Broxbourne, a councillor said this week. Cllr Mark Mills-Bishop (Con, Goffs Oak) told the Mercury that he disapproved of the Big Brother tactics used by Broxbourne Council at recycling centres.
Well-meaning residents who have left goods beside over-flowing recycling banks at the centre in Hammondstreet Road, Cheshunt, have been fined. ... (more)
Allegations of FBI foreknowledge In the course of the trial it was revealed that the FBI had an informant, a former Egyptian army officer named Emad A. Salem. Salem claims to have i... (more)
On the December 5 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly asserted that "we may have to" "level cities like Tehran, kill hundreds of thousands of people," which, he explained, the United States has "already done in Germany and Japan." O'Reilly then argued that such a move would be necessary, for example, "[i]f Iran takes over Iraq and then fosters a revolution inside Saudi Arabia ... and gets control of all the oil and says we're not selling to the USA, we are going to lev... (more)
James Baker III and the seven dwarfs of the “Iraq Study Group” have come up with some simply brilliant recommendations. Not.
Baker’s Two Big Ideas are:
1. Stay half the course. Keeping 140,000 troops in Iraq is a disaster getting more disastrous. The Baker Boys’ idea: cut the disaster in half — leave 70,000 troops there.
But here’s where dumb gets dumber: the Bakerites wa... (more)
Microscopic particles of plastic could be poisoning the oceans, according to a British team of researchers.
They report that small plastic pellets called "mermaids' tears", which are the result of industry and domestic waste, have spread across the world's seas.
The scientists had previously found the debris on UK beaches and in European waters; now they have replicated the finding on four continents.
Scientists are worried that these fragments can ge... (more)
As if to finally dispel the myth there is a difference between Israel First neocons and Democrats, consider the upcoming “closed session” at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a “think tank” bankrolled by Israeli-American millionaire Haim Saban.
“Among the many officials attending are Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni; David Welch, the current top U.S. envoy to the region; Shimon Peres, Israelâ€&... (more)
A purported insurgent group in Iraq appears to have launched a weblog with regular updates of its attacks on Shi'ite and coalition forces in the country, RAW STORY has learned.
A post at the blog of journalist Eric Umansky pointed to a website for the "Islamic Army in Iraq." One terrorism database describes the group as "a significant Iraqi terrorist entity," which "has initiated a brutally violent campaign against ... (more)
On 14 November, Bridget Ash wrote to the BBC’s Today program asking why the invasion of Iraq was described merely as "a conflict." She could not recall other bloody invasions reduced to "a conflict." She received this reply:
Dear Bridget,
You may well disagree, but I think there’s a big difference between the aggressive "invasions" of dictators like Hitler and Saddam and the "occupation," however ba
In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals.
The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government.
Kids across America are warned to stay away from “nose candy” in anti-drug campaigns. But a Kanawha County student is fighting his suspension for pretending to put actual candy up his nose.
According to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court Monday, a student-athlete at Sissonville High School was given Smarties candy as a reward for good academic performance. In front of his teacher and fellow classmates, the student pretended to put one of the small candy discs up ... (more)
Hundreds of thousands of people will refuse to sign up to the UK Government's planned identity register, according to just-published research. Around eight per cent of those surveyed said they would refuse to sign up to the database even if they are fined. The survey was carried out by polling firm YouGov on behalf of the Daily Telegraph newspaper and in a sample of 1,979 people found that a significant proportion were prepared to defy the government over the database.... (more)
A key witness in the inquiry into the death of Britain's Princess Diana recently claimed police threatened him to change his evidence. Jeweler Alberto Repossi - who claims he sold Diana's lover Dodi Al Fayed an engagement ring the day before the couple were killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997 - alleges he was put under pressure by investigators to retract the statement he gave to Lord Stevens, who is leading the inquiry.
The question is why. Under Taliban rule, which began in the late 1990s, Afghanistan just about kicked the growing habit by 2001. After five years the Taliban is slipping back in, but poppy production has grown by leaps and bounds.
According to the Washington Post, “Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, broke all reco... (more)
Since early July, Israeli forces have been using a new weapon in the Gaza Strip that inflicts strange and deadly wounds. Doctors and medics say the unidentified device has significantly increased fatalities from Israel’s attacks. [1] [2]
In the first two parts of this article, we reviewed evidence that Israel’s new weapon may be Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), a “low collateral damage” ... (more)
With the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating," the United States must begin the process of shifting troops out of the country, members of a bipartisan panel said Wednesday. But at the same time, the group recommended, the Bush administration must make sure that it has sufficient civilian personnel in Iraq -- if necessary, by ordering some employees to serve there.
"The nature of the mission in Iraq is unfamiliar and dangerous, and the United States has had great difficulty ... (more)
Five major companies have joined forces and invested in what appears to be the ultimate personal medical-records database.
Applied Materials, BP America, Intel, Pitney Bowes and Wal-Mart Stores have sunk an undisclosed amount of money into the Omnimedix Institute, a nonprofit organization that developed and will manage the database, called "Dossia."
Dossia, which in 2007 will be made available to the companies' 2.5 million U.S. employees, dependents and retirees, wi... (more)
For all the frantic, unvaccinated citizens fearing the “upcoming” peak of flu season rest assured that coming down with a flu infection is the least of your worries.
Despite the government's statements urging individuals to vaccinate their children, the threat of an infantile influenza fatality is just about as serious as the dreaded hangnail.
Nonetheless, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently declared November 27 to December ... (more)
A semi-annual report filed this week by Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner showed a marked increase in arrests of department and other government employees, but contained no recommendations for security improvements, RAW STORY has learned. Media spokeswoman Tamara Faulkner of the Inspector General's office told RAW STORY that many of the arrests associated with the report, "were due to oversight associated with the inter-departmental oversight invol... (more)
