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Failure to pass US immigration bill puts on hold as well Filipino Veterans Family Reunification Act

WASHINGTON D.C. –In a series of procedural votes today that required the approval of sixty members, the U.S. Senate was unable to end debate on the substitute amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill (S.1348). U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) released the following statement in response:

?I am disappointed that the immigration reform our country needs is on hold for now. The bill?s momentum was killed by opponents who could not agree on what amendments to offer and vote upon. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did indicate that we will revisit this important legislation at a later time.

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Issuance of permits for huge commercial logging mocks tree-planting projects in Philippines

MANILA — Planting seedlings to combat global warming is useless if the Arroyo administration continues to promote the plunder of our forests with commercial logging permits, environmental activist organization Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) stressed.
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$1-billion mining investment eyed in Mati

According to officials from the mining inudstry, the Philippines's potential for growth in the sector remains good. In fact, BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, is interested in investing up to a billion US dollars in a nickel mine project in Mati, Davao Oriental, according to Benjamin Philip Romualdez, president of the Philippine Chamber of Mines. Romualdez said at the Asia-Pacific Mining Conference in Makati City this week that foreign companies have invested nearly $700 million in the Philippines in the past three years as a result, he said, of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Mining Act of 1997 that opened the industry to foreigners. But environmentalists, who protested the conference, have warned of environmental destruction. (Photo: arkibongbayan.org)

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Leading human rights groups name 39 CIA ‘disappeared’ detainees

Three groups file lawsuit seeking information about ?ghost? detention

Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve

LONDON/NEW YORK — In the most comprehensive accounting to date, six leading human rights organizations today published the names and details of 39 people who are believed to have been held in secret US custody and whose current whereabouts remain unknown. The briefing paper also names relatives of suspects who were themselves detained in secret prisons, including children as young as seven.
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