Q&A: “Sustainability Issues Are Economic Issues”

Fresh from a whirlwind tour of non-stop meetings at the World Economic Forum in Davos and a U.N .investor summit on climate risk attended by George Soros, Al Gore, and 500 of the world's most powerful institutional and private investors, Mindy Lubber has a full plate.

U.S.: Telecom Lobby Tests Pledge of Transparency

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge in his State of the Union address last month to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress," the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says the Obama administration has been "fighting hard to stop the release of the names of these representatives."

U.S.: Deportation System Called “Severely Flawed”

The number of people deported from the U.S. annually has grown from just over 69,000 to over 356,000 in the past eight years, while resource-starved immigration judges issue decisions without sufficient time to conduct legal research and analyse the complex cases they are asked to decide.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The Day After Tomorrow Might Have Been Yesterday

When the 2004 film "The Day After Tomorrow" depicted the northern United States buried under tens of feet of snow following an abrupt change in global climate patterns, it cemented the association in the public consciousness between climate change and extreme weather events.

FINANCE: Fighting Off Looters in the Ruins

Reckless greed on Wall Street is a dog-bites-man story. Still, the renewed feeding frenzy of the alpha dogs of finance in the embers of the bonfire of their own vanities has inspired amazement and disgust across the political spectrum.

CANADA: Khadr Case Raises Broad Questions on Child Combatants

Ottawa's refusal to repatriate a former child soldier, 23-year-old Omar Khadr, back to Canada to face justice in the country of his birth opens to the door to a trial before a controversial U.S. military commission process that has been challenged for its use of evidence gleaned from interrogation after torture.

CANADA: Foundation for “Political Warfare” Takes Cue from U.S. Strategy

Indicating further integration with its closest neighbour and ally's foreign policy priorities, the Canadian government is in the advanced stages of establishing a foundation to promote liberal democracy, akin to the controversial U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

U.S.: Ill Omens for Senate Climate Legislation

Delivering his State of the Union address before both houses of Congress and a global audience on Jan. 27, U.S. President Barack Obama asked for passage of "a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America."

U.S.: Obama Calls for More Development, Counterinsurgency Aid

U.S. President Barack Obama Monday called on Congress to approve major increases over the coming months in global health, development, and counterinsurgency assistance as part of a record 3.8-trillion-dollar 2011 federal budget.

U.S.: New Defence Strategy Envisions Multiple Conflicts

A report and budget request from the U.S. Defence Department released Monday reveal both new and old priorities for President Barack Obama's Pentagon.

U.S.: Landmark Case Could Restore Felon Voting Rights

A historic ruling earlier this month on behalf of felons who lost the right to vote could call into question the disenfranchisement of felons and ex-felons in the State of Washington and indeed across the United States.

U.S.: Obama Downplays Foreign Policy Agenda in Major Speech

In laying out his priorities for the coming year before a joint session of Congress and millions of viewers Wednesday night, U.S. President Barack Obama made it clear that the focus of administration would be, more than anything else, on domestic issues – and the vital mission of job creation in particular.

LABOUR: North America’s Long Winter of Discontent

In the wake of a blizzard of economic hardship across North America, native land of the financial crash of 2008 and ensuing Great Recession, the shapes of other possible worlds are emerging from the drifts. Some are frozen and dystopian, but others may harbour green shoots of hope.

U.S.: Obama Unveils Broad Banking Industry Reforms

U.S. President Barack Obama has delivered his plans for far-reaching banking and financial industry reforms, which mark a noticeable shift to the left in the administration's domestic policy and an acknowledgement of the public anger at Wall Street for its role in the financial crisis.

RIGHTS-US: Indefinite Detention “Defies Common Sense”

U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to detain 47 of the just-under 200 remaining prisoners at Guantánamo without trial indefinitely is drawing scorn from legal experts and human rights advocates, who charge that the government simply does not have enough evidence to convict the detainees it says cannot be tried but are "too dangerous to release."

RIGHTS: Whistleblower Challenges Guantanamo “Suicides”

Is the administration of President Barack Obama concealing evidence suggesting that three suicides at Guantanamo Bay were not suicides at all?

U.S.: Court Overturns Limits on Corporate Election Money

In a decision with profound implications for the U.S. political system, a bare majority of the Supreme Court Thursday ruled that the government cannot limit spending by corporations on advertisements in support of individual political candidates in federal elections.

POLITICS-US: By-election Seen as Rebuke to Obama

Tuesday's loss by the Democrats of their 60th Senate seat has raised serious questions about the outlook for the White House's policy agenda and spurred a rash of finger-pointing among Democrats over who bears responsibility for the very public rebuke issued by Massachusetts voters.

CANADA: Hunt for Oil Patch Bomber Takes New Twist

Looking increasingly desperate after a 15-month-long hunt for a saboteur who has blown up six natural gas installations in northern Canada, police arrested an outspoken oil industry critic and then set him free a day later without pressing charges.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: New and Old, US Groups Forge Broad Alliances

With civil society gearing up for the 2010 World Social Forum, and later this summer, the 2010 U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, activists here say new alliances created at the first USSF in 2007 are going strong.

U.S.: Community in Crisis Looks to its Agricultural Roots

Renowned for its historic Native American pueblo, cultural ties to Spain, bohemian artists, and world-class ski resort, Taos is also one of the many communities in the U.S. facing food insecurity.