Archive - Jun 24, 2009

• Negotiations over climate change bill reach climax
• Climate change bill proponents make concessions to farm states
• First nations oppose oil drilling in Canada´s tar sands
• US drone attack kills scores of civilians in Pakistan
• Chile struggles to make public education a competitive choice

• Massacre at Baharestan Square in Iran
• Tiananmen protest leader formally arrested
• Potential natural gas pipeline agreement between Russia and Nigeria could tighten Russian control of Europe’s energy supply
• Department of Homeland Security ends controversial domestic spy satellite program
• US Senate impeaches jailed Federal Judge Samuel Kent

On Capitol Hill, final negotiations are underway for the climate change bill, which will move to the House floor on Friday.  Today, President Obama and environmental leaders called the possible passage of the bill “historic.”  FSRN’s Matt Pearson reports.

The report by FSRN´s Matt Pearson mentions the "concessions to industry and farmers" included in the climate change bill. Yanmei Xie, takes a closer look at this, and the concerns of US farm states about how the climate change bill could affect their economies.

The environmental group Forest Ethics, protested outside the State Department today, asking Secretary Hillary Clinton to deny permits for pipelines that would bring oil from Canada´s tar sands into the United States.

The tar sands lie under forests to the east of the Rocky Mountains, and they hold up to two trillion barrels of oil, making them the second largest oil deposit in the world after Saudi Arabia.  But getting to the oil means deforesting an area the size of Florida and creating the largest single CO2 contributor in North America.

In Pakistan, the US launched two drone attacks Tuesday, including one that killed between 50 and 100 people.  The second drone bombed a funeral procession, in an attempt to kill Baitullah Mehsud, a top Taliban leader in the South Waziristan district.

Mehsud survived the attack or according to Taliban source, he wasn´t even there. Most of the casualties were civilians according to local sources, angering the Pakistani government, which has repeatedly asked the US to stop these kinds of attacks.

In Chile this year, public education teachers went on strike for more than 40 days, demanding payment on a performance bonus for 2007 and 2008.  When teachers returned to classes, public high school students shut down schools for two weeks, demanding public education be managed by the central government and not municipal administrations.

As FSRN´s Jorge Garreton reports, parents are caught in a squeeze when seeking educational options for their children.