Carey L. Biron

Carey L. Biron is a former Washington correspondent for MintPress and for Inter Press News focusing on issues of equity and accountability, environmental and corporate regulation, and international development and governance from Capitol Hill.

Congress Urged To Investigate Role Of Medical Workers In CIA Torture

“It’s fairly easy to imagine that the U.S. will be challenged again in terms of terrorism and our response to it, and if we sweep these actions under the rug we have no hope for preventing them from happening again,” an advisor for Physicians for Human Rights tells MintPress.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron

A handcuffed Guantanamo detainee at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba. Photo: Brennan Linsley/AP WASHINGTON --- As the U.S. Congress prepares to begin a new session this week, rights advocates and some health workers are urging lawmakers to initiate a formal investigation into the role that medical personnel played in facilitating the CIA’s highly

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Fracking Industry Still “Failing” on Transparency

Keen to protect their investments, individual and institutional shareholders are putting more pressure on fracking companies to publicly disclose the social and environmental risks they’re facing — and what they’re doing to mitigate those risks.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
Fracking Water Recycling

A A jar holding waste water from hydraulic fracturing is held up to the light at a recycling site in Midland, Texas, Sept. 24, 2013. (AP/Pat Sullivan) WASHINGTON --- The oil and gas sector made little progress over the past year in publicizing more details about how companies are dealing with environmental, social and market risks in the

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Trafficking, Child Labor May Be Growing In Global Chocolate Industry

Labor advocates say failure to address the root causes of poverty among cocoa farming communities may be leading to both human trafficking and child labor along the chocolate industry’s supply chains.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
CHOCOLATE

A young boy builds a small storage house in a cocoa producing village close to town of Oume, Ivory Coast. (Photo: Schalk van Zuydam/AP) WASHINGTON --- Almost two decades of advocacy work and multi-stakeholder discussions have resulted in nearly universal acknowledgement of the crushing labor and inequity issues that characterized the

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U.S. Laws Criminalizing Homelessness Mount, Even As Courts Strike Them Down

Rather than redoubling efforts to address growing rates of homelessness and hunger since the 2008 financial crisis, many local governments seem intent on criminalizing aspects of homelessness such as panhandling and sleeping in cars.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron

Four homeless men warm themselves on a steam grate by the Federal Trade Commission, blocks from the Capitol, during frigid temperatures in Washington. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP) WASHINGTON --- Homelessness increased across the country over the past year even as substantial demand for emergency shelter was unmet, according to a major report

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Groups Push Obama To Clarify U.S. Abortion Funding For Wartime Rape

A ban of U.S. funding of abortion, even in cases of wartime rape, has many questioning the efficacy of such legislation.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron

A woman uses an umbrella to protect herself from the sun as people displaced by violence wait to receive food aid and household goods at a distribution point inside a makeshift camp housing an estimated 100,000 displaced people, at Mpoko Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014. (AP/Rebecca Blackwell) WASHINGTON -

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Congress Approves Secret Giveaway Of Sacred Apache Land To Foreign Mining Company

Few dispute the potential economic impact of a proposed copper mining operation on sacred Arizona lands. At issue is whether, and how, economics trumps environmental and cultural concerns, and how democratic processes balance these issues.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
Resolution Copper Mining

A copper mining head frame overlooking the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. (Photo Credit: Resolution Copper Mining) WASHINGTON --- The Senate on Friday approved a highly contentious, last-minute legislative provision that would force the federal government to allow for the creation of the continent’s largest copper mine in protected

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30 Years After Bhopal Gas Leak, Momentum Builds Toward Accountability

Dow Chemical is effectively being shut out of the critical Indian market, due to new public anger and legal action around the Bhopal catastrophe. Will the potential impact on the company’s bottom line force it to accept responsibility?

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
Partially blind gas victim waits for the verdict with other victims in the premises of Bhopal court in Bhopal, India, Monday, June 7, 2010. An Indian court convicted seven former senior employees of Union Carbide's Indian subsidiary of "death by negligence" for their roles in the Bhopal gas tragedy that left an estimated 15,000 people dead more than a quarter century ago in the world's worst industrial disaster. (AP Photo/Prakash Hatvalne)

WASHINGTON --- Three decades ago last week, in the middle of the night, the infamous U.S.-owned pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, started spraying toxic gas into the local community, killing more than 4,000 people almost immediately and directly impacting on hundreds of thousands to this day. At the time, the plant was owned by the Indian

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