Motel Rooms Become Home for Some

New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
COSTA MESA, Calif. — Greg Hayworth, 44, graduated from Syracuse University and made a good living in his home state, California, from real estate and mortgage finance. Then that business crashed, and early last year the bank foreclosed on the house his family was renting, forcing their eviction.
Local officials [...]

EPA Halts Hundreds of Mountaintop Mining Permits

Common Dreams
by Dina Cappiello
WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency put hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits on hold Tuesday, saying it wants to evaluate the projects’ impact on streams and wetlands.
The decision, announced by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, targets a controversial practice that allows coal mining companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and [...]

The Inflection Is Near?

New York Times
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 7, 2009
Sometimes the satirical newspaper The Onion is so right on, I can’t resist quoting from it. Consider this faux article from June 2005 about America’s addiction to Chinese exports:

Zimbabwe: Hoping for a miracle

Pambazuka News
Mary Ndlovu (2009-03-12)
Human rights activist Mary Ndlovu considers the possible outcomes of a four-week-old ‘unholy alliance between Zimbabwe’s former ruling party Zanu PF (Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front) and the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) into a ‘Government of National Unity’ (GNU). Already the GNU has survived the arrest and incarceration of [...]

Archbishop defends doctors who performed abortion on raped nine-year-old

International Catholic News
Archbishop Fisichella, who heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life has said Brazilian doctors who carried out an abortion on a nine-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather, didn’t deserve excommunication, because they were saving her life.

Timothy Geithner’s toxic plan

guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 March 2009 19.00 GMT
The last-ditch effort to save Wall Street will hurt taxpayers and still require another big bailout down the line.
Dow Jones up almost 500pts – top “winners”:
bank of america – 26% +
jpmorgan chase – 24% +
citigroup – 19% +
amex – 18% +

Brazilian church agency welcomes court decision on indigenous lands

Follow-up call for action of August 18 from Becky Spires. Becky’s ministry is at the Indigenous Missionary Council.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNS) — A Brazilian bishops’ agency welcomed a Supreme Court ruling to maintain nearly 4.2 million acres in northern Brazil as a reservation for indigenous people.

Religious leaders urge G20 not to forget ‘promises to the poor’

Ekklesia
Religious Leaders Communiqué – G20
We write as religious leaders who share a belief in God and the dignity of human life. We wish to acknowledge with realism and humility the severity of the current economic crisis and the sheer complexity of the global and local challenge faced by political leaders. We pray for the leaders [...]

MINING-AFRICA: Help Yourself, There’s Plenty

By Joyce Mulama
NAIROBI, Mar 27 (IPS) – The African continent is rich in natural resources; but the terms under which multinational companies exploit these resources mean that governments – and Africa’s people – enjoy only a tiny fraction of the benefits.

Land boost for Brazilian Indians

BBC
A ruling by Brazil’s supreme court has boosted the efforts of the country’s disadvantaged indigenous groups to keep control of their lands.
By 10 votes to one, judges ruled to maintain an Indian reservation in the northern border state of Roraima as a single, continuous territory.