Full Coverage: United States

30.11.2004 Of the 21 major donor nations, the United States ranked 16th in the quantity and quality of the population and reproductive-health projects that are supported by its foreign aid program, according to a new study released Tuesday by Population Action International (PAI), a Washington-based research and advocacy group.

30.11.2004

30.11.2004 The Climate Stewardship Act would set the first binding limits on global warming emissions from the biggest polluting industries in the United States and is one of the country's best chances to begin slowing global warming, says the Worldwide Fund for Nature, urging support for the bill.

30.11.2004 The Bush Administration is quick to celebrate pro-democracy protestors in Ukraine, while it shows no respect for them at home, says Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel. But the Ukrainian situation is about more than a rigged election; it's become a power struggle that could damage fragile relations between Russia and its historical foe, the U.S.

30.11.2004 More than $1.6 billion has been spent on television advertisements in this year’s presidential election campaign in the United States. The Alliance for Better Campaigns, which released this figure, has reported that this amount is more than double the $771 million spent in 2000.

29.11.2004 Most of a $70 million cash payment from a DuPont Co. legal settlement will fund the largest-ever study of how the company's C8 chemical affects human health, according to new court filings.

29.11.2004 Covering Iraq, Haiti, Palestine, Cuba, Colombia, women's health, and more, the director of the global rights group Madre lays out a plan "to reassert the human rights priorities of the world's women and families over the corporate profiteering, macho unilateralism, and messianic militarism that have become the driving force of U.S. foreign policy."

29.11.2004 WASHINGTON, DC, November 24, 2004 (ENS) – The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) launched a campaign Tuesday to convince supermarkets in the United States to stop selling food, such as tomatoes, strawberries and nuts, grown or treated with the chemical methyl bromide.

29.11.2004 The Bush administration is facing an early test of its interest in easing tensions with traditional U.S. allies in the 2005 foreign-aid bill which bans some US$2.5 billion in economic assistance for friendly governments that have not ratified a “bilateral immunity agreement” (BIA) with Washington to shield U.S. nationals from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

29.11.2004 Toxic gas from a Union Carbide plant may have killed 20,000 people but the toll is still growing and the fight for compensation continues.

26.11.2004 Human rights and humanitarian groups are calling for a full-scale investigation into the death of an 81-year-old Haitian pastor taken into custody by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after requesting asylum. While Cuban asylum-seekers are usually released to relatives, Haitians are automatically detained and usually sent back, despite increasing political turmoil and violence in their country.

26.11.2004 The massive bill funding most of the U.S. government would also punish countries that have signed up to the International Criminal Court by denying access to some U.S. development and anti-terror aid. Democrats have moved to delay passage of the measure until early December over concerns that the 3,300 page bill was rushed through Congress in a matter of hours.

26.11.2004 Human rights and humanitarian groups are calling for a full-scale investigation regarding the November 3 death in a South Florida detention facility of an 81-year-old Haitian pastor four days after he had flown to the United States and asked for political asylum.

26.11.2004 Nearly 200 years ago on Thanksgiving, the great American orator Daniel Webster said "the freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless."

26.11.2004 The U.S. Justice Department under George W. Bush filed barely half as many criminal charges on civil rights violations in 2003 as it did under President Bill Clinton in 1998, although the number of complaints received remained constant, according to a new study of Justice Department statistics.

26.11.2004 In rejecting resolutions to condemn rights violations in Sudan, Belarus, and Zimbabwe, the UN General Assembly is not ignoring these situations so much as punishing the U.S. and European Union for their "unilateralism ... and selective standards of human rights," say UN diplomats and U.S. academics.

26.11.2004 The U.S. agreed under Ronald Reagan to phase out the use of methlyl bromide--the most potent chemical still in widespread use that depletes the ozone layer and also causes serious health problems--by January 1, 2005. Now, as the Bush Administration is asking for major exemptions to the phase-out, concerned activists are calling on supermarkets to stop selling foods produced with the chemical.

26.11.2004

26.11.2004 Investigative reporter Greg Palast says the blueprint for privatizing Iraq’s assets, especially its oil, is a “Christmas wishlist drafted by U.S. corporate lobbyists.” It imposes low taxes on big business while promoting quick sales of Iraq's refineries, pipelines, ports and other assets to foreign operators.

24.11.2004 The day after Arizonans passed Proposition 200, which requires individuals to show citizenship documents when voting or receiving government social services, the Phoenix early childhood Head Start program recorded a significant drop in attendance as fearful parents kept their children at home. Civil rights groups are preparing to challenge the legality of the measure.