News stories by Carey L. Biron, page 18

WASHINGTON, Apr 24 (IPS) - A decades-long push to require the labelling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients in the United States received a significant boost Wednesday, when bipartisan bills on the issue were simultaneously proposed in the House and Senate.

WASHINGTON, Apr 23 (IPS) - Advocacy groups here are applauding the publication of new government concerns, formally expressed Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over a recent assessment of the environmental impact of a major oil pipeline that would run between Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

WASHINGTON, Apr 22 (IPS) - Civil liberties and human rights groups are applauding the White House's announcement Monday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the lone surviving suspect in last week's bombing in Boston, will not be charged as an enemy combatant, as some conservative politicians here had been urging.

WASHINGTON, Apr 20 (IPS) - Backed by the German government and prominent civil society voices, United Nations experts are calling for the World Bank to explicitly incorporate international human right standards into its "safeguards" to minimise negative impacts of bank financing on vulnerable communities and environments.

WASHINGTON, Apr 18 (IPS) - A long-awaited legislative proposal to reform the United States' immigration system is sparking frustration on both the left and right here, but is widely being seen as a centrist compromise bill that will now energise all sides as debate in Congress begins Friday.

WASHINGTON, Apr 18 (IPS) - Two of the world's largest multilateral institutions have released new data linking greater urbanisation with higher levels of human development, and are announcing that they will place greater priority on issues of urbanisation in coming decades.

WASHINGTON, Apr 16 (IPS) - Two new reports, put out by a cross-section of U.S. environmental and public interest groups, are attacking central rationales for the construction of a major new Canada-U.S. oil pipeline proposal, which has emerged as an emblematic cause for green groups who have angrily denounced a U.S. government approvals process.

WASHINGTON, Apr 16 (IPS) - The U.S. government's main watchdog on Monday reported that U.S. corporations are paying taxes on less than half of their declared income, largely due to dozens of tax breaks that have come under increased scrutiny in recent months.

WASHINGTON, Apr 13 (IPS) - The United Nations has unveiled a major framework aimed at, for the first time, coordinating worldwide efforts to work simultaneously to end childhood pneumonia- and diarrhoea-related deaths by 2025.

WASHINGTON, Apr 09 (IPS) - The new U.S. secretary of defence, Chuck Hagel, pushed Monday for reforms of the armed forces' judicial code that would roll back an archaic provision allowing high-ranking commanders to overturn military court verdicts, a move that would particularly impact on cases involving sexual assaults.