NewsRack: flenvcenter/Sustainability_National/Environmental-Justice/Access

Oxfam warns of health risks to Syria refugees as summer approaches - Press releases

Joel M Bassuk — Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

With temperatures set to soar up to 104ºF (40˚C) in the coming weeks, international agency Oxfam has warned that the warmer weather will increase health-related risks for Syrian refugees. With temperatures set to soar up to 104ºF (40˚C) in the coming weeks, international agency Oxfam has warned that the warmer weather will increase health-related risks for Syrian refugees. With high summer right around the corner, refugees living in poor sanitary conditions are facing serious risks of diseases. Rick Bauer Oxfam Regional Humanitarian Coordinator Notes to Editors Footage available to download: http://wordsandpictures.oxfam.org.uk/?c=13921&k=2bdfff1cd0 For photos (free of rights): http://wordsandpictures.oxfam.org.uk/?c=13913&k=e6932c57ca For more information about the humanitarian activities in the region: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php For more data from the Ministry of Public Health in Lebanon: ...

Cartel towns pose challenge for immigration reform - Seattle Times: Nation & World

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, stands a dormitory-style shelter filled with people recently deported from the U.S. and other migrants waiting to cross the border.

Oxfam charity says Syrian refugees face health risks, lack access to water, sanitation - Star Tribune: World

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Poverty hits home in local suburbs like S. King County - Seattle Times: Top stories

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

For the first time, there are more poor people living in American suburbs than in the nation’s big cities, according to new findings by the Brookings Institution. South King County is particularly “eye-opening,” the researchers say.

Insight: The fight for North Dakota's fracking-water market - Yahoo: Top Stories

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

By Ernest Scheyder WATFORD CITY, North Dakota (Reuters) - In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting." It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taking. Yet as the state's Bakken shale fields have grown, so has the fight over who has the right to tap into the multimillion-dollar market to supply water to the energy sector. North Dakota now accounts for over 10 percent of U.S. ... ...

Poverty hits home in local suburbs like S. King County - Seattle Times: Local

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Research morsels: Swallow with care - Seattle Times: Top stories

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Research reinforces an old idea: Whether you’re served food or ideas, it pays to be careful about what you ingest.

Research morsels: Swallow with care - Seattle Times: Local

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Research reinforces an old idea: Whether you’re served food or ideas, it pays to be careful about what you ingest.

Portland revisits issue of public fluoridation - Seattle Times: Local

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

While soaking up the rays in what's been an unusually sunny season, Portlanders have broken away from their polite chatter about food, wine and outdoor adventure to fight about whether to fluoridate the water supply.

Obama to address Morehouse College commencement - Politics on HuffingtonPost.com

AP — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is delivering the commencement address at Morehouse College, the historically black, all-male institution that counts Martin Luther King Jr. among...

Anwer Sumra: My visit to Minnesota - Twincities.com: Opinion

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

EDITOR'S NOTE For the past three weeks, the Pioneer Press has had the pleasure of hosting Anwer Hussain Sumra, 40, a reporter at The Express

Victims: Marines failed to safeguard water supply - Seattle Times: Top stories

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

A simple test could have alerted officials that the drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, long before authorities determined that as many as a million Marines and their families were exposed to a witch's brew of cancer-causing chemicals.

Approaching bipartisan solutions for nation’s housing woes - Seattle Times: Opinion

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Little has been done to revamp America’s housing-finance policy since rampant speculation and malleable regulations triggered the Great Recession. Now, writes Neal Peirce, a bipartisan commission has a plan to tackle this important issue.

Marine daughter seeks dignity for `Devil Dog pups' - Seattle Times: Top stories

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

As she flipped through the cemetery register, Mary Blakely's eyes filled with tears. On line after line, the entry read simply "Baby Boy" or "Baby Girl," followed by a surname and a burial date.

Private charity no match for federal poverty aid, experts say - Seattle Times: Nation & World

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

For years it’s been asserted that charity can replace the dollars spent by the federal government on hunger programs. But for the steady-state emergency that is hunger in America, no amount of charitable giving has been enough, say people doing the numbers.

Victims: Marines failed to safeguard water supply - Seattle Times: Nation & World

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Marine daughter seeks dignity for `Devil Dog pups' - Seattle Times: Nation & World

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

As she flipped through the cemetery register, Mary Blakely's eyes filled with tears. On line after line, the entry read simply "Baby Boy" or "Baby Girl," followed by a surname and a burial date.

PR: With Inga Dams, Donors Set to Repeat Past Failures - International Rivers News RSS Feed

Berklee Lowrey-Evans — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Date: Saturday, May 18, 2013 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Berkeley/Pretoria: The Congolese government will today announce plans to move forward with the Grand Inga Dam at a conference in Paris. World Bank President Jim Kim is expected to support the return to mega-dams on his visit to the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda on May 21-24. The proposed dam on the Congo River, which would be the largest hydropower project ever undertaken, will figure prominently on the agenda of his trip. NGOs warn that with such projects, donors are about to repeat the grandiose failure of past mega-dams. International financiers have invested billions of dollars in the Inga 1 and 2 dams and transmission lines on the Congo River over the past 40 years. The projects produce power primarily for the mining industry, while only 6-9% of the country’s population has access to electricity. The new dams proposed for the Congo River are again designed to serve the mining industry and export markets in South Africa, and would ...

David Pfeiffer takes yard from dull to dynamic (and great for kids) in Medina - Seattle Times: Real Estate

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The family hired the landscape architect to turn their yard into a nature sanctuary as well as a place for their two young girls to play.

Correction: Drunken Driving-Zero Deaths story - Seattle Times: Health

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

In a story May 17 about a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation on a blood alcohol threshold for drivers, The Associated Press incorrectly reported the definition of a drink. The standard definition of a drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine and 1.5 ounces of 80-proof alcohol.

Farm Bill Fiasco: What Next for the Food Movement? - Commondreams.org Views

andrea — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Christopher Cook

Deciding how America will nourish itself and sustain its farms would seem a top policy priority— yet as the US Farm Bill demonstrates, sustainably grown, healthy food and livable incomes for farmers and workers remain an afterthought in a process controlled almost entirely by agribusiness and a handful of farm-state legislators. Despite strong public opinion supporting local food, farmer’s markets, organic agriculture, food workers’ rights and access to fresh produce, agribusiness and commodity interests continue to dominate food and farming policy.

Biologist creates $325,000 burger - Seattle Times: Opinion

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Spend money on nutrition programs While the $325,000 cultured-beef burgers may eventually benefit the environment in terms of water, land and energy use, they will not help feed the 2.5 million children who will die this year because of hunger, nor it will they help revive the hunger-induced stunted

India Ink: Why Indian Elites Like to Call Themselves ‘Middle Class’ - NYT > World

By SAMBUDDHA MITRA MUSTAFI — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

India Ink: Why Indian Elites Like to Call Themselves ‘Middle Class’

Indian circuses struggle to adapt after court bans - Seattle Times: Top stories

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

In the early morning heat and dust, daily practice at the Rambo Circus is in full swing. A trapeze creaks as two performers perfect their throws. A Colombian daredevil shouts to his colleagues scrambling atop a giant set of spinning wheels called the Ring of Death.

Sunshine plus Puget Sound equals red algae - Seattle Times: Local

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

With the warm spring sunshine, a familiar sight is back in Puget Sound: red algae blooms. While experts at the state Department of Ecology could not confirm it without testing, this bloom, spotted by photographer Mark Harrison off the Edmonds ferry dock Thursday morning, is probably Noctiluca, said