Archive - Apr 27, 2010

• Goldman Sachs execs come under scrutiny at hearing on financial crisis
• Students near end of 1,500-mile march for immigrant rights
• Military commissions in Guantanamo begin under new rules
• Senate takes up mine safety problems
• Residents of India use “right to information” laws to fight corruption

• Mexico issues travel advisory; DHS Secy Napolitano testifies about AZ immigration law
• DC coalition calls on Police Chief to cancel Secure Communities
• Former Kyrgyz president charges with mass killing and abuse of power
• Supreme Court hears first genetically modified crops matter
• Free Speech not so Free in San Antonio, Texas
• Students stage walk outs in New Jersey over slashes to education budget

In Washington, DC, Republicans managed to block debate Monday on a financial reform package. Democrats responded today with plans to bring it to another vote in the Senate. But while Congress stalls in its efforts to change the financial system, lawmakers are taking a closer look at alleged fraud by some of the biggest players in the system. In the latest hearing on the financial crisis, senators had some colorful language and harsh words for Goldman Sachs executives. Tanya Snyder has more.

As the immigration reform debate continues to take shape among lawmakers in Washington, four immigrant students are nearing the end of a one-thousand five-hundred mile walk to the capitol to deliver their own message to President Obama. They want him to allow undocumented students to pursue their education and to stop deportations and racial profiling. FSRN’s Karen Miller reports.

A hearing opens this week at Guantanamo Bay for a detainee named Omar Khadr. Khadr was taken into US custody in Afghanistan in 2002 at the age of 15. The hearing will be the first under new rules governing the military commissions that congress passed in late 2009 - and observers are watching the process to see how the changes will be implemented. Advocates point to violations in the rules of war governing children and Khadr's status as a minor when taken into US custody.

Also on Capitol Hill today, a Senate committee took up mine safety - just weeks after the deadliest mine blast in four decades killed 29 workers at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virgina. Since the April 5 explosion, many are pointing to Massey's poor record of safety, including more than 500 citations from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration or MSHA in 2009 alone. Senator Tom Harkin chaired today's hearing.
"That just today, MSHA just ordered today the withdraw of minors from three different Massey mines due to hazardous conditions."
Even federal mine officials say the system that regulates mining companies is broken. At today's hearing, MSHA Assistant Secretary of Labor Joe Main outlined the problems.
"MSHA's pattern of violations programs should be out most effective tool for holding bad actors accountable, but the policies that this administration inherited make it easy for operators like Massey to avoid the pattern of violation status."
Main also said some mine violations should be felonies, not misdemeanors.
Massey continues to defend its safety practices saying over the past 20 years the company has done its best to quote "engineer the dangers out of coal mining." Lawmakers also point to another problem hindering mine safety - a massive backlog of 16,000 cases and 82,000 violations at MSHA. At today's hearing, Senator Jay Rockefeller called for more funding for MSHA and said improvements to mine safety can't wait until the investigation in Massey concludes, which could take many months.

In India, widespread corruption often forces residents to pay bribes to get anything done. But the country also has one of the world's strongest “right to information” laws, giving citizens the ability to request government information at all levels. Five years after the country's transparency law passed, information requests are pouring in by the millions. But, in some cases, those in power are pushing back. Will Evans and Jocelyn Wiener report.