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News & Features

New Data Reveals Poverty Levels in the U.S.

By Kat Aaron

 From New America Media and Investigative Reporting Workshop:  New numbers released Monday (Nov. 7, 2011) by the U.S. Census Bureau paint a fresh and complex picture of poverty in America. For the first time, the figures count the impact of benefits like food stamps, tax credits and housing assistance. The data also reflects not only income but spending, factoring in medical expenses and child-care costs.

 

 

Floods Show Bangkok Ill-Prepared for Climate Impacts

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

From New America Media and Inter Press Service: Bangkok's 8 million people are paying the price of ignoring warnings over many years concerning the city's climate vulnerability and the incapacity of its soggy foundations to handle flooding. [Since late October] large swathes of the Thai capital, built on a flat marshy delta with some sections below sea level, have been submerged by floodwaters.

Occupy Wall Street: The Politics of Subjectivity

By Nicholas F. Palmer

Seven weeks ago, protesters gathered in Zucotti Park in Manhattan to fight against “the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations”. The movement  has swelled since then, with as many as 15,000 people involved in an October 5th  demonstration, in addition to protests occurring in Madrid, Rome, and Berlin. But what do the protests really offer?

Escaping Iran, One University Graduate at a Time

By Behrouz Saba

From New America Media: When Washington announced recently that it had uncovered an Iranian plot that allegedly targeted the Saudi ambassador to the United States, efforts began in earnest to devise new ways to punish Tehran. Such efforts, however, overlook one glaring fact: Iranians have long been their own worst enemies, allowing their best and brightest to leave the country in droves to the sole benefit of corporate America.

 

Gulf Coast Politics Take a Dangerous Turn

By Henry Fernandez

From New America Media: In Mississippi, voters go to the polls today to decide whether the state constitution should be amended such that a human egg, at the point of fertilization, becomes a person. When combined with Alabama’s recently enacted HB 56, widely seen as the nation’s toughest anti-immigrant piece of legislation, the result is a uniquely bad situation for migrant women.

 

In Mexico, Social Media Turns Against Drug Cartel Los Zetas

By Louis E.V. Nevaer

From New America Media: MERIDA, Mexico -- In an unprecedented move, Mexican members of Anonymous, the renegade group of hackers responsible for breaching the security of banks, financial institutions and government agencies, have issued a direct challenge to Mexican narcos: Because we can’t fight you with weapons, we will destroy you by destroying your privacy.
 

African-American Buying Power Nears 1.1 Trillion Dollars

By Final Call Staff

From  New America Media and  Final Call: WASHINGTON – [African-American] buying power is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to The State of the African- American Consumer Report, recently released, collaboratively by Nielsen, a leading global provider of insights and analytics into what consumers watch and buy, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation of more than 200 Black community newspapers across the U.S.

Latino Organizations Defend Cecilia Munoz Amid Calls for Her Resignation

By Elena Shore

From New America Media: A Latino radio host and blogger is calling for Cecilia Muñoz to resign from the White House for her defense of the administration’s deportation policies. Presente.org, the immigrant rights group that led the petition to get CNN’s Lou Dobbs off the air, is demanding that Muñoz denounce the Secure Communities program. In response, a group of some of the nation’s leading immigrant advocacy organizations released a statement [this week] in support of Muñoz.