ECM WORLD WATCH: GLOBAL AND NATIONAL NEWS

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June 21, 2012 --  (San Diego’s East County) – ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflecting all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:     
 
 
 
 
  
U.S. 
  • White House threatens veto on GOP energy bill (The Hill)
  • U.S. trafficking report reports ‘modern slavery’ toll (BBC)
  • Biotech leader covered up animal deaths from GM corn (RSN)
  • Could the Supreme Court’s healthcare ruling kill patient safety reforms? (Pro Publica)
  • Trans-Pacific Partnership:  leaked  trade document reveals corporate interests favored over public interest (OB Rag) 
WORLD 
  • Ousted Egyptian leader Mubarak close to death (BBC)
  • Japanese authorities sat on data showing radiation spread (Reuters)
 
Read more for excerpts and links to full stories.
 
U.S.
 
White House threatens veto on GOP energy bill (The Hill)
 
June 19, 2012 -- The White House is threatening to veto a broad House energy package that would mandate expanded onshore oil-and-gas leasing, limit environmental reviews of drilling projects and delay several Environmental Protection Agency air pollution rules.

The threat to veto the GOP measure is no surprise, and the bill won’t advance in the Senate after its expected House passage this week anyway.
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/233577-white-threatens-to-veto-house-energy-bill

 
U.S. trafficking report reports ‘modern slavery’ toll (BBC)
 
June 19, 2012 -- More than 42,000 adults and children were found in forced prostitution, labour, slavery or armed conflict in 2011, a US government report has found.
Some 9,000 more victims were identified around the world than in 2010,the state department report said.
But the number is just a fraction of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked across borders every year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18514626
Biotech leader covered up animal deaths from GM corn (RSN)
 
June 16, 2012 -- In a riveting victory against genetically modified creations, a major biotech company known as Syngenta has been criminally charged for denying knowledge that its GM Bt corn actually kills livestock. What's more is not only did the company deny this fact, but they did so in a civil court case that ended back in 2007. The charges were finally issued after a long legal struggle against the mega corp initiated by a German farmer named Gottfried Gloeckner whose dairy cattle died after eating the Bt toxin and coming down with a ‘mysterious' illness.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/11949-focus-biotech-leader-covered-up-animal-deaths-from-gm-corn
 
Could the Supreme Court’s healthcare ruling kill patient safety reforms? (Pro Publica)
 
June 15, 2012 -- In all the talk about the Supreme Court’s impending health care reform ruling, one question is often overlooked: What might happen to the many patient safety and quality of care provisions sprinkled through the Affordable Care Act?
They include a new Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, more reporting of infections, injuries and mistakes in hospitals, and incentives for doctors and other providers to improve the care they provide. Those among the nation’s 50 million uninsured who manage to get health coverage will also get better medical care than piecemeal or nonexistent version they now receive.
 
Trans-Pacific Partnership:  leaked  trade document reveals corporate interests favored over public interest (OB Rag)
 
June 18, 2012 -- A leak this week of one of the most controversial chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) reveals that extreme provisions have been agreed to by U.S. officials, providing a stark warning about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring under conditions of extreme secrecy without press, public or policymaker oversight, Public Citizen said.
“The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of TPP negotiations,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade and in a move that will infuriate left and right alike have agreed to submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don’t want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do.”
 
WORLD
 
Ousted Egyptian leader Mubarak close to death (BBC)
 
June 20, 2012 -- Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been moved from prison to an army hospital in the capital, Cairo, where he remains in a critical condition.
He is said to have had a series of strokes and to be on a life support machine. Reports that he was "clinically dead" were later denied. But there is no official statement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18515556
Japanese authorities sat on data showing radiation spread (Reuters)
 
June 19, 2012 -- Japanese authorities failed to disclose U.S. data about the spread of radiation spewing from a crippled nuclear plant last year, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday, leaving some evacuees fleeing in the same direction as the radioactive emissions.

News that Japan's nuclear watchdog and the science and technology ministry sat on the information collected by U.S. military aircraft - another sign of the chaos at the time - is likely to add to mistrust of nuclear power just days after the government approved the restart of two idled reactors.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/19/us-japan-nuclear-idUSBRE85I06Y20120619?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm

 

 


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