Archive - Sep 2012

• UN extends investigation into Syria abuses as fighting, protests continue
• US government increased surveillance of phone, email, Justice Dept documents show
• Greg Palast on the strategies behind voter suppression and blocking access to ballots
• Fight against child labor and slavery stalls as demand for cheap labor adds pressure
• Elections in Georgia test democratic reform as voters highlight joblessness, health care, infrastructure as top issues

• PA judge stays death row execution
• Louisiana exonerates death row inmate convicted on false confession
• FEMA trailer class action settlement approved
• Environmentalists push for focus on climate change in first presidential debate
• Austin becomes first city in Texas to support same-sex marriage
• Saudi Arabia deports Nigerian women on Hajj for lack of male escorts

In Syria protests and fighting continued across the country today. Activists said more than 120 people were killed, mostly from aerial shelling in Aleppo, Damascus, Hama, Homs and elsewhere, according to the Local Coordination Committees. Raids and arrests took place in Damascus as well, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, when Syrian regime forces swept through neighborhoods in the Barza area. People also took to the streets in protest in several cities.

The US government has drastically increased its use of warrantless surveillance of phone calls, e-mails and other communications over the past few years. That’s according to Justice Department documents obtained this week by the American Civil Liberties Union. It took months of lawsuits to make the documents public, but there is still a great deal the public doesn’t know about the spying activities of law enforcement agencies. FSRN’s Alice Ollstein has more.

In this year’s election, watchdogs and civil rights groups are raising concerns about the effects of restrictive voting laws and measures in key battleground states. One of the people closely watching these developments is Greg Palast, who covered Katherine Harris' purge of black voters from Florida's voter rolls in the 2000 presidential election. Palast’s new book is called "Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in Nine Easy Steps."

This week, the Department of Labor released its annual reports on child labor and slavery around the world. The studies, required by Congress, found three new countries that are using child labor: South Sudan, Suriname and Vietnam. Workers rights groups say the increasing demand for cheap labor and pressure to weaken labor protections overseas hampers efforts to eradicate child labor. FSRN's Andrew Oxford reports.

The country of Georgia is holding parliamentary elections next Monday. Some have described them as a litmus test for democracy and the presidency of President Mikhail Saakashvili, who has struggled to respond recently to videos showing abuse of prisoners in the country. But as FSRN’s MJ del Valle reports, some people in Georgia have expectations focused on much more basic issues, such as joblessness, poor health care and a lack of pensions.