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