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Tag: capitalism

Human Rights Watch Rated Among Least Transparent Think Tanks In US

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

A nonprofit that studies global think tanks considers Human Rights Watch to be among the least transparent think tanks in the United States, at least in terms of its funding sources.

According to Transparify, think tanks around the world are becoming more transparent about the sources of their funding and how they put that funding to use. Starting in 2014, the NGO’s team has made yearly visits to think tanks’ websites and issued an annual report based on any publicly available information about major donors.

Published on June 29, Transparify’s 2016 report rated 200 major think tanks in 47 countries, and found that while 98 maintained reasonable standards of transparency, 102 are still relatively opaque about their funding. That’s an improvement from 144 non-transparent think tanks four years ago, when Transparify first began studying the issue.

Map Of Cannabis Genome Could Keep Greedy Corporations From Patenting Pot DNA

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

An innovative digital map of the cannabis genome could help deepen scientific understanding of the plant, and it may also protect it from greedy corporations.

That’s the hope of Phylos Bioscience, a Portland-based company which recently launched The Phylos Galaxy. The app offers a 3D visualization of the relationship of hundreds of strains of cannabis, from the popular varieties sold in Oregon’s legal dispensaries to indigenous varieties found globally known as “landrace strains.”

Types are linked by their hereditary sequences to ancestor strains and visually grouped into “tribes” by their chemical and genetic similarities.

On April 23, Carolyn White, sales and marketing manager at Phylos, told the Willamette Week that her organization “set out to bring more knowledge and transparency to the industry” with the Galaxy and other efforts to document the diversity of the cannabis genome.

WikiLeaks Founder Assange Demands Transparency In Panama Papers Release

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Speaking to the media from the Ecuadorean Embassy where he lives under political asylum, Julian Assange called for greater transparency in the Panama Papers leak.

In an April 9 interview with Al-Jazeera, the WikiLeaks founder praised the work of Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German newspaper that received the massive leak of financial data revealing the offshore tax havens of the world’s rich and famous.

“We’re very pleased about the work that SZ (Süddeutsche Zeitung) — did in the beginning in developing that source. We think that’s really good work. The work of the source of course is the most impressive and then pulling together that collaboration is also impressive work,” Assange said.

After receiving the leak, which contains 11.5 million documents, Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists organized a coalition of hundreds of journalists who collaborated to analyze the files over the course of over a year before publication began.

The praise hasn’t gone both ways, though. Gerard Ryle, director of ICIJ, seemed to cast aspersions on Assange’s work earlier this month, when he told WIRED magazine, “We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly.”

As Cannabis Becomes Big Business, Who’s Getting Smoked?

Posted in Journalism, MintPress News, and SXSW

Hundreds of people marched to the White House early this month to show their support for less restrictive federal marijuana regulations and nationwide legalization.

In an act of peaceful protest, many at the event organized by DCMJ, a local legalization group, smoked marijuana, puffed on vaporizers containing hash oil, or consumed cannabis edibles. Although the activists at the April 3 rally were prepared to risk arrest, CNN reported just two citations.

Although possession of up to 2 ounces of pot has been decriminalized within Washington, D.C., smoking marijuana could be considered an act of civil disobedience because public consumption remains prohibited.

As the group staged their 4:20 “smoke in,” they briefly inflated a 51-foot inflatable joint emblazoned with a clear message: “Obama, deschedule cannabis now.”

‘Starving The Beast’: Documentary Reveals How Wall Street ‘Disrupted’ Public Education

Posted in Journalism, MintPress News, and SXSW

Is education a right and a public good, or is it a commodity from which corporations can profit?

“Starving The Beast,” a documentary which premiered March 13 at the SXSW Film festival, reveals the struggle between these two paradigms for higher education taking place across the country at publicly funded universities.

From the University of Texas at Austin to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, decades of budget cuts have resulted in skyrocketing tuition alongside a simultaneous decline in the quality of education. Now Wall Street is moving into the gaps created by a largely Republican-created budget crisis, from the increasing reliance on private student loans as public funding falls to schemes to allow the accreditation of more for-profit universities, a move championed by Sen. Marco Rubio during his 2016 electoral campaign.

72 Percent Of Aid To Palestine Ends Up ‘In Israeli Hands’

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Aid money to Palestine ends up benefiting the Israeli economy, and may even help perpetuate the occupation, according to an analysis published last year.

Published by Aid Watch Palestine, a Palestinian NGO that scrutinizes the spending of foreign relief money, the September 2015 study by Shir Hever suggests that at least 72 percent of foreign aid actually ends up back in Israeli hands.

Palestine’s economy is dependent on foreign aid, although foreign nations sometimes pledge more than they actually give. The World Bank reported that of $3.5 billion pledged to Palestine in 2015, “only 35 percent has been disbursed, $881 million less than what was supposed to be disbursed so far” by September.

“[D]espite over two decades of sustained aid, the occupation has not come to an end and Palestinians are not yet sovereign in their own country,” Hever noted in the report. “The question that arises is not only whether aid is effective, but whether it also causes harm.”