NYMHM: Girls and mining; water pollution made easy; dissent in Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:52:14 -0700 ============================================================================= NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED * October 17, 2007 * Vol. 6, No. 42 Important but overlooked news from around the world. NYMHM is a free service of Newsdesk.org. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Online this week: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004428.html - RSS: http://newsdesk.org/news/atom.xml - Donations: http://artsandmedia.net/contribute/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTED: "This permit is indecipherable. They tell me I'm going to get some answers, but I'm still waiting." -- Indiana physician John Crayton, on a plan to limit regulation of steel mill pollution in Lake Michigan (see "Environment," below). CONTENTS: *Top Stories* Families a casualty of Kashmir split New testimony in Indonesia activist death AIDS bias targets 11-year-old boy *Mining* Girls, pollution, poverty: The other mining disasters *Environment* U.S. water pollution laws routinely flouted: report *Iran* Dissent crackdown deepens ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOP STORIES ............................................................................. > Families a Casualty of Kashmir Split As many as 50,000 Indian-Pakistani families have been divided by the disputed Kashmir province since 1989. Among them are several hundred women who have not seen their husbands in decades, and are subject to harassment and worse. According to Women's E News, Hanifa Aktar has lived alone for years on the Indian-controlled side of the border, separated from her husband and daughter in nearby Pakistani territory. Although the official peace process has allowed some 2,000 people to reunite in Kashmir, Aktar's petitions to cross have been GET THE WHOLE STORY: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004429.html > New Testimony in Indonesia Activist Death A "massive" dose of arsenic in an airline meal took the life of a prominent critic of the Indonesian government, and now may send a former airline executive to jail for decades. The Times of London reports that an off-duty Garuda Air pilot was initially convicted of the "agonizing" mid-flight death of Munir Said Thalib in 2004, who was en route to Amsterdam to present a report on military abuses in Indonesia's Aceh and Papua provinces. The pilot made more than 40 phone calls to a director of Indonesia's spy agency immediately prior to Thalib's death, but was later acquitted by the Supreme Court for ... GET THE WHOLE STORY: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004430.html > AIDS Bias Targets 11-Year-Old Boy An 11-year-old who received "regular blood transfusions" for years was diagnosed as HIV-positive, and later kicked out of a school in West Bengal 20 days after being admitted. School authorities were reluctant to enroll him, and kept him on a separate bench from the other students ... GET THE WHOLE STORY: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004431.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- MINING ............................................................................. > Girls, Pollution, Poverty: The Other Mining Disasters Recent stories about workers trapped in mines often overlook an array of related labor, ecological and human rights issues. Most articles never mention the biggest growing mining sector workforce: young girls. A recent report by the International Labor Organization singles out Ghana, Niger, Peru and Tanzania as places where girls are increasingly doing dangerous small-scale mining work. Underground, they are exposed to toxic dust and metals and are forced to work long hours without proper safety gear, according to the report. Pollution is also rampant ... GET THE WHOLE STORY: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004432.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ENVIRONMENT ............................................................................. > U.S. Water Pollution Laws Routinely Flouted: Report For years, U.S. municipal governments, corporations, and even the EPA have circumvented Clean Water Act safeguards against industrial pollution. More than half of all city wastewater treatment plants and industrial facilities in the United States exceeded pollution limits, according to a national report released last week by the activist group U.S. PIRG. Fifty-seven percent of the 3,600 major facilities violated the Clean Water Act by ... GET THE WHOLE STORY: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004433.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- IRAN ............................................................................. > Dissent Crackdown Deepens Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government is in the midst of an unprecedented crackdown on civilians, criminals and dissenters. Experts suggest that the government is afraid a recent economic downturn will breed unrest across the country, and has resolved to "govern by fear." At least 60 criminals convicted of murder, rape, drug trafficking or abduction have been convicted and hung since May, including 21 people on one day alone. International human rights campaigners believe the trials are rigged, while the executions are carefully filmed and uploaded to the Web for all Iranians to see -- some suggest as cautionary tales engineered by ... GET THE WHOLE STORY: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004434.html ============================================================================= Editors: Julia Scott, Josh Wilson ............................................................................. SUPPORT PUBLIC-SERVICE MEDIA Newsdesk.org and News You Might Have Missed are commercial-free, and available at no charge. We welcome your tax-deductible contributions: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=695 ............................................................................. MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc: http://lists.artsandmedia.net/mailman/listinfo/nymhm/ ............................................................................. News You Might Have Missed and Newsdesk.org are free services of Independent Arts & Media: http://artsandmedia.net/ ............................................................................. 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