Four soldiers and one civilian are facing charges for the murder of three union leaders. The international community, including the United States, are putting pressure on the South American country to respect human rights. The majority of the human rights infractions seem to come from the government’s militias committing attacks against civilians. The US has withheld $100 million in aid until progress is made on human rights, inclusing purging human rights violators from the armed forces. Source: New York Times July 15, 2005
Author: Adam Clare
Oiling the Squeaky Wheel
Venezuela has ordered Royal Dutch/Shell to pay almost $131 million in back taxes. The government is cracking down on tax evasions by oil companies and so they also confiscated financial data form Chevron. Hugo Chavez, the current president of Venezuela, is trying to tighten the government’s control over the lucrative and strategic oil industry. The government has said that they are going to alert two more oil companies in the coming weeks if they owe back taxes or not.
Rebels in Cote d’Ivoire to Disarm
After many failed attempts to get the rebels in Cote d’Ivoire to lay down their weapons it looks like there is now hope. In addition to the rebels disarming,All Africa is reporting that pro-government militias will also disarm. Both sides are ready to re-enter negotiations as early as the end of the month.
Hydrogen Made Efficiently?
There is a start up company that has researched a new way to produce hydrogen. Producing hydrogen is generally inefficient with (until now I guess) a energy loss of 70% on average when used in a car. So this is promising. Oddly enough the trick was to pour some salt on the wound
Do You Have a Cancer Phone?
C|net has an article up that lets you know how much radiation your cell phone is emitting. The thing with this research is that it only looks into how much your brain can handle at once, but it by no means looks into the long-term effects of chronic exposure to cell phones.
I plan to use this list when I upgrade my cell phone, which I should do soon since the battery casing is paper thin.