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.

Government Under New Pressure To Release Guantánamo Videotapes

“On paper those things don’t seem terribly bad, but videotapes of them … have the potential to completely change the public debate,” one attorney says of force-feeding.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
Guantanamo

WASHINGTON --- The U.S. military and the Obama administration have come under increased pressure from the courts, lawyers, activists and the media in recent weeks to relax strict classification rules around videotapes showing what advocates allege is mistreatment of detainees at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The push for legal

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Obama Border “Surge” Restarts Family Detention, Fast-Tracks Deportation Of Children

Are children being pulled toward the U.S. due to lax U.S. policy, or is increased violence driving them from their homes? Either way, a crisis is unfolding that demands a solution.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
Yesenia Del Carmen

WASHINGTON --- President Barack Obama on Monday made two major immigration-related announcements that rights groups and immigration advocates say are not only incongruous but could violate multiple international rights obligations. On the one hand, the president expressed his exasperation with the House Republicans and announced that attempts at

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Wikileaks: Leaked TISA Text Shows US, EU Aggressively Rolling Back Regulations

“If these talks are in the public interest why are the public not being informed?” one advocate asks of expansive, but notoriously secretive, trade talks.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON --- A leaked negotiating text is offering the public its first glimpse into global trade negotiations, led by the United States and European Union, for a new agreement on the international trade in services -- data services, business services, financial services, insurance and the like. Civil society groups have been expressing

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Detroit Water Cut-Offs Could Be Rights Violation, UN Experts Warn

Amid its deluge of economic problems, Detroit turns off residential water service en masse for nonpayment. Could some level of privatization turn the spigot back on or make the problems worse?

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON --- Three U.N. experts warned Wednesday that the city of Detroit’s new mass disconnection of residential water service for delinquent payments could be a violation of multiple international human rights obligations. In March, Detroit officials announced that they would begin halting water service to customers that are two months

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U.S. Tying Aid To Agribusiness In El Salvador, Groups Warn

The U.S. State Department stands accused of conditioning development aid to El Salvador to benefit and boost foreign agribusiness in the Central American nation.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
ELSALVADOR

WASHINGTON --- Criticism has mounted in recent months against the U.S. State Department for pressuring the government of El Salvador to reform a popular domestic seed-distribution program, allegedly in favor of gaining greater access for U.S. agribusiness companies. Civil society concern over the issue culminated earlier this month, when farmers

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Delaware To Remain U.S. “Shell Corporation” Capital

Paper companies are the “getaway cars for global financial crime,” and new legislation is unlikely to do much to resolve the issue — especially not in Delaware.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron
Delaware

WASHINGTON --- Civil society groups are dismissing as inadequate proposed legal reforms in Delaware aimed at tightening transparency requirements in the state, one of the world’s most important homes to anonymous “shell” corporations. Delaware’s loose regulations, coupled with the state’s aggressive positioning of itself as corporation-friendly,

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Congress Makes “Zero Progress” On Corporate Accountability

In the face of continued corporate misconduct, “our legislators, courts and regulators have failed to restore the balance,” the Corporate Accountability Coalition reports.

Carey L. Biron
By Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON --- Congress made “zero progress” on corporate accountability last year, according to a coalition of watchdog groups, with not even a single bill to strengthen accountability measures receiving a vote in either the House or Senate. Indeed, the only accountability-related bill that went up for a vote was a House proposal to make it

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