var _NTW_file_metadata = {"listing_topic":"Human Rights","timespan":"","listing_type":"Most Recent Stories","listing_url":"http://www.newstrust.net/topics/human_rights/top_stories","sources_type":"","source_name":"","hdr_story_type":"","min_reviews":3,"title_prefix":"","local_site":null,"site_base_url":"http://www.newstrust.net/"}
var _NTW_stories = [{"rating":"4.0","num_reviews":"2","title":"What\u2019s He Got to Hide?","url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/kristof-whats-he-got-to-hide.html","date":"2012/01/28","id":8537210,"story_type":"Opinion","quote":"Ethiopia brutally imprisons journalists who champion free speech and an end to human rights abuses. That repression is only inviting more scrutiny.","authors":"Nicholas D. Kristof","source":{"rating":"3.6","name":"New York Times","framebuster":true,"id":"new_york_times","ownership":"ind","type":"newspaper","is_public":true}},{"rating":"4.0","num_reviews":"1","title":"Voter Photo ID Laws Hit Older Americans Hard","url":"http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-01-2012/voter-id-laws-impact-older-americans.html?intcmp=bubb4","date":"2012/01/05","id":8498138,"story_type":"News Analysis","quote":"Having a driver's license or photo identification card is commonplace for most Americans, but about 11 percent of adult citizens \u2014 more than 21 million people \u2014 lack a valid, government-issued photo ID, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.","authors":"Marsha Mercer","source":{"rating":"0.0","name":"AARP Bulletin","framebuster":false,"id":null,"ownership":"","type":""}},{"rating":"3.5","num_reviews":"3","title":"China Sentences Rights Activist to 9 Years' Jail","url":"http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/12/22/world/asia/AP-AS-China-Human-Rights.html","date":"2011/12/23","id":8479560,"story_type":"News Report","quote":"A Chinese court sentenced a veteran democracy activist Friday to nine years' imprisonment for inciting subversion, in what appears to be the most severe punishment handed down in a crackdown on dissent this year.","authors":"Associated Press","source":{"rating":"3.6","name":"New York Times","framebuster":true,"id":"new_york_times","ownership":"ind","type":"newspaper","is_public":true}},{"rating":"1.4","num_reviews":"0","title":"With Indefinite Detention Measure, Has Congress Also Expanded Rendition of U.S. Citizens Abroad?","url":"http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/22/with_indefinite_detention_measure_has_congress","date":"2011/12/22","id":8479554,"story_type":"News Analysis","quote":"The Obama administration is continuing to come under intense criticism from civil liberties groups for saying it will sign a controversial defense spending bill that some legal experts say would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial. While much of the media focus has been on the bill's provisions regarding indefinite detention, Mother Jones magazine has revealed the bill also contains text that could make it easier for the U.S. government to transfer American citizens to foreign regimes and security forces, a process known as rendition. We speak with Mother Jones national security reporter, Nick Baumann, who also details the cases of several U.S. citizens who have already been detained abroad by foreign security forces, interrogated, sometimes abused, and asked questions they believe could only have come from U.S. law enforcement. [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]","authors":"Amy Goodman","source":{"rating":"4.0","name":"Democracy Now","framebuster":false,"id":"democracy_now","ownership":"ind","type":"tv","is_public":true}},{"rating":"3.9","num_reviews":"4","title":"This bastardised libertarianism makes 'freedom' an instrument of oppression","url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/19/bastardised-libertarianism-makes-freedom-oppression","date":"2011/12/20","id":8474838,"story_type":"Opinion","quote":"It's the disguise used by those who wish to exploit without restraint, denying the need for the state to protect the 99% Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice? In the name of freedom \u2013 freedom from regulation \u2013 the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor. ...","authors":"George Monbiot","source":{"rating":"3.6","name":"The Guardian","framebuster":false,"id":"the_guardian","ownership":"ind","type":"newspaper","is_public":true}},{"rating":"1.6","num_reviews":"0","title":"Obama Prepares to Authorize Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens For First Time Since McCarthy Era - Glenn Greenwald on NDAA","url":"http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/19/obama_prepares_to_authorize_indefinite_detention","date":"2011/12/19","id":8473012,"story_type":"News Analysis","quote":"The $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress last week includes controversial provisions that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government by authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial. \u201cCongress, with the Democrats in control of the Senate and a Democratic president, is about to enact into law the first bill that will say that the military and the United States government do have this power,\u201d says Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com blogger and constitutional law attorney. \u201cIt's muddled whether it applies to U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, but it's clearly indefinite detention, and there's a very strong case to make that it includes U.S. citizens as well, which, as we know, the Obama administration already claims anyway, and that's what makes it so dangerous.\u201d [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]","authors":"Amy Goodman","source":{"rating":"4.0","name":"Democracy Now","framebuster":false,"id":"democracy_now","ownership":"ind","type":"tv","is_public":true}},{"rating":"3.9","num_reviews":"2","title":"Getting Detained and Gassed","url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/opinion/kristof-getting-detained-and-gassed.html","date":"2011/12/14","id":8466529,"story_type":"Opinion","quote":"There\u2019s nothing like getting tear-gassed and detained in Bahrain to be reminded that our close ally has a dark and repressive side.","authors":"Nicholas D. Kristof","source":{"rating":"3.6","name":"New York Times","framebuster":true,"id":"new_york_times","ownership":"ind","type":"newspaper","is_public":true}},{"rating":"4.8","num_reviews":"1","title":"Indigenous Activists From Canada Protest Tar Sands Oil at Durban Climate Change Summit","url":"http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/6/indigenous_activists_from_canada_protest_tar","date":"2011/12/06","id":8452127,"story_type":"News Report","quote":"This morning in Durban, South Africa, a group of youth and indigenous activists from Canada gave delegates to the U.N. climate talks mock gift bags containing samples of fake tar sands along with tourism brochures for Canada and Canadian flags. Kandi Mossett, one of the activists participating in the action, says Canada\u2019s reliance on tar sands oil \u201cis the largest catastrophic project that I am aware of on earth right now.\u201d Mossett, who is the Native Energy and Climate Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, notes that the tar sands extraction process is energy and water-intensive, emits immense amounts of pollution into the air, and destroys the landscape. \u201cTo even get to the tar sands they have to remove boreal forests \u2014 old growth forests \u2014 and they call it \u2018overburden.\u2019 They just scrape it off and get rid of that. And then they dig down and move so many tons of earth,\u201d Mossett says. \u201cThen they squeeze out the last little 10 percent of oil that\u2019s actually in the sand. And then they have to use chemicals to make it liquid enough to be able to put it through the pipelines \u2014 it\u2019s much more toxic than any other kind of, you know, sweet crude oil.\u201d","authors":"Amy Goodman","source":{"rating":"4.0","name":"Democracy Now","framebuster":false,"id":"democracy_now","ownership":"ind","type":"tv","is_public":true}},{"rating":"4.2","num_reviews":"3","title":"20 Ways the Obama Administration Has Intruded on Your Rights","url":"http://www.alternet.org/rights/153283/20_ways_the_obama_administration_has_intruded_on_your_rights/","date":"2011/12/04","id":8449550,"story_type":"News Analysis","quote":"Is there a fundamental difference between the Bush presidency and the Obama presidency in the area of domestic civil liberties?","authors":"Bill Quigley","source":{"rating":"3.7","name":"AlterNet","framebuster":false,"id":"alternet","ownership":"ind","type":"online","is_public":true}},{"rating":"3.8","num_reviews":"3","title":"Clinton offers small incentives for Burma\u2019s reforms","url":"http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/clinton-offers-small-incentives-for-burmas-reforms/2011/12/01/gIQARm7vFO_story.html?referrer=newstrust","date":"2011/12/01","id":8444719,"story_type":"News Analysis","quote":"The Burmese overture - and the U.S. response - are\nfreighted with risk for both sides.","authors":"William Wan","source":{"rating":"3.6","name":"Washington Post","framebuster":false,"id":"washington_post","ownership":"ind","type":"newspaper","is_public":true}}]