FSRN Weekly Edition – November 25, 2016
- Indigenous activists mark Thanksgiving with ceremony on occupied sacred land
- Canadian opposition mounts to Kinder Morgan tar sands oil pipeline expansion
- Philippines mulls opening unused Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
- India struggles to deal with tons of black market e-waste
- Trump’s CIA director supports agency’s most controversial practices
- After Trump win, students brace for awkward Thanksgiving dinner conversation
- California’s Prop 64 goes beyond decriminalizing recreational marijuana
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Indigenous activists mark Thanksgiving with ceremony on occupied sacred land
As people around the U.S. celebrated Thanksgiving Thursday, indigenous rights activists and environmentalists moved to reclaim a site near the planned route of the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline. FSRN’s Shannon Young has more.
Canadian opposition mounts to Kinder Morgan tar sands oil pipeline expansion
Canadians held vigils in more than 45 locations across the country this week as opposition to an oil pipeline expansion project continues to grow. Activists say the Trans Mountain pipeline poses serious risks to the environment and tramples on Indigenous rights. FSRN’s Jillian Kestler-D’Amours reports from Toronto.
Philippines mulls opening unused Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has begun the process of reviving the never-used Bataan Nuclear Power Plant that was built by the late President Ferdinand Marcos in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The 621-megawatt atomic plant was never brought online over outcry following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. FSRN’s Madonna Virola reports.
India struggles to deal with black market e-waste
Electronic goods like flat screen TVs, tablets and smartphones are among the top-selling items on Black Friday, the busiest day of the year for retail sales in the United States. But increased access to technology, programmed obsolescence, and greater affordability of such goods mean more electronic waste. The United Nations estimates that India produces more than 2 million tons of e-waste a year, ranking fifth in the world. It’s also a destination country for the electronic garbage of more developed nations. FSRN’s Bismillah Geelani has more from New Delhi.
Analyst: Trump’s CIA director pick Mike Pompeo an apologist for agency’s crimes
The next presidential administration is beginning to take shape as President-elect Donald Trump signals his choices for key cabinet posts. In recent days he’s tapped South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He’s also nominated conservative billionaire activist and charter schools advocate Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary. Those follow his nomination of Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and Kansas Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo as CIA director.
Former senior CIA analyst Melvin Goodman told FSRN this week that while the Kansas Republican sat on the House Intelligence Committee, he vocally defended the CIA’s most controversial practices including torture, extraordinary rendition and the use of black sites to interrogate suspects without even the most basic legal protections.
Following Trump upset, college students brace for awkward Thanksgiving dinner conversation
This year’s election was the first in which voting age Millennials equaled their Baby Boomer counterparts. But the generational gap among white voters was striking, with most Millennials supporting Hillary Clinton and the majority of their parents’ age group casting ballots for Donald Trump. The steep ideological divisions over this year’s election met over Thanksgiving tables nationwide. Hannah Leigh Myers reports from Denver.
Scope of California’s Prop 64 goes beyond decriminalization of recreational marijuana
And finally, some 6,000 men and women incarcerated in California could be on their way home now thanks to a recently passed state ballot initiative. Proposition 64 was best known for decriminalizing recreational marijuana, but its legal scope goes beyond that. FSRN’s Lena Nozizwe explains.
