Investigations: Flat-Screen TVs Might Rival Coal Plants For Emissions

A chemical used in the manufacturing of flat-screen televisions could have a greater climate-change impact than other chemicals covered by Kyoto or even the world's largest coal-fired power plants, according to this item from In These Times reporting on a June study in Geophysical Research Letters.

TAGS: investigations, environment, global warming

Legal: Aussie Privacy Reform Part of Wave Affecting Media

An international movement toward tighter privacy laws is raising concerns about free speech and has journalists worried about a wall of lawsuits. A proposed Australian privacy-law reform is sparking the latest dispute and has put bankers on the same side as journalists. Find out more in this item in The Australian.

TAGS: legal, privacy

Investigations: Karzai Protects Opium Barons... Including Reportedly His Own Bro

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is protecting allies involved in the opium trade - including reportedly his own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai (a prominent official in Kandahar) - and they benefit as much from the trafficking as the Taliban - if not more - says this interesting report in the New York Times Magazine from Thomas Schweich, a former top U.S. narcotics official in the country. What are the U.S. and other NATO countries (hello, Canada!) doing about it? Read the story to find out. (You can probably guess the answer! Hint: it rhymes with "shmothing.") In the wake of the allegations, David Emerson, foreign affairs minister of Canada, which is presently in command of the Afghan South region (home to most of the country's opium cultivation), dances a pretty dance of denials and obfuscations. (See a story on that here.)

TAGS: Afghanistan, investigations, Canada, drugs

Interesting: States Lobbied to Restrict Runaway Neighbourhood Associations

How would you like it if your neighbours could tell you stuff like whether you can put up a clothesline, how to water your lawn, what kind of air conditioning you can install and the colour of the trim on your house? That's the sorry lot of 20 percent of Americans who are subject to homeowners' associations, according to this piece from Stan Cox writing in the Prairie Writers Circle. Now, some folks are lobbying their state governments to enact laws restricting the powers of these neighbourhood mullahs.

TAGS: interesting, environment

Investigations: Most Popular Fertility Treatments Do Nothing

The two most popular fertility treatments don't work, according to this report on new scientific research published in the British Medical Journal. In Britain, the treatments cost between $400 and $1,000. Oops.

TAGS: investigations

Books: "Dark Heart of Putin's Russia"

As Vlad Putin's troops massacre the Georgians, a new book by Business Week chief foreign affairs writer Steve LeVine, titled Putin's Labyrinth: Spies, Murder and the Dark Heart of Putin's Russia, gives an in-depth account of how Russia has changed under the ex-KGD spymaster's rule. Find out more in this review.

TAGS: Russia, intelligence

The Biz: Travel Writing Rife With Corruption... But It's Okay

Travel writing and guidebooks are riddled with the kind of corruption that journalists salivate about exposing in other domains, says this item about the controversy sparked by a tell-all book by former Lonely Planet writer Thomas Kohnstamm, titled Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics and Professional Hedonism. Travel writers routinely take freebies, don't do their homework (or even in some cases visit the places they write about) and ignore the short-comings of their destinations, the piece says, noting how fewer and fewer newspaper travel departments are requiring that their contributors meet minimum standards on conflict-of-interest. The chief reason for all this, retorts John Masters, president of the Travel Media Association of Canada, in this letter to the editor: journalists aren't paid enough. I guess that makes it okay.

TAGS: corruption, the biz

Spies: Pentagon Closes Controversial Spy Outfit, But Reopens It In New Bureau

The Defense Department has closed its controversial Counterintelligence Field Activity office that illegally spied on the anti-war movement, but simultaneously it has opened a new espionage bureau at its Defense Intelligence Agency that includes the disbanded CIFA's work, reports this item from DissidentVoice.org. A straighter story on the new DIA bureau can be read here.

TAGS: intelligence

Awards: Paul Foot Entries Open to Sept. 1

The prestigious Paul Foot Awards (top prize: 5,000 pounds) are open for entries from UK sluggos until Sept. 1. Read more here.

TAGS: awards