In the most perilous reaches of Afghanistan where Taliban bandits roam, reporter Gregory Warner explores how an international aid program is helping to restore and develop the most rural and dilapidated areas of the war-torn country. So why is the United States slashing the program’s funding?
Warner’s article in the Washington Monthly describes how an internationally supported development initiative called the National Solidarity Program has helped Afghanistan rebuild and develop in a variety of ways, such as helping to construct a hydropower plant in the village of Dadi Khel. What the development initiative does is provide international funding to the Afghanistan government, which is responsible for managing the funds. Warner contrasts this approach to the United States Agency for International Development, which is providing the funds for a new highway project, but is being hampered because of insurgent threats.
Warner describes a situation in which the U.S. is contributing a relatively small amount to the NSP:
Washington's failure to support the NSP is also emblematic of its top-down approach to Afghanistan's reconstruction in general. Since 2002, the United States has given just 6.3 percent of its aid money through the Afghan government. Meanwhile, most of the international community is moving in the opposite direction. At a January 2006 meeting in London, representatives from the United Nations, major donor nations, and the Afghan government met to develop a new framework for reconstruction, known as the Afghanistan Compact. One of the principles of the agreement was that donor nations would give more generously to accounts over which the Afghan government has discretion, such as the trust fund that covers about a third of the National Solidarity Program's budget. The next year, most major donors' annual pledges to this fund rose significantly: Canada's contribution jumped from $59 million in 2006 to $121 million in 2007; Germany's went from $20 million to $67 million. The contribution from the United Kingdom, already a firm supporter of the program, rose from $128 million to $131 million. However, the annual U.S. contribution to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund fell, going from $74 million in 2006 to $50 million in 2007. Even as the Bush administration has increased overall funding for Afghanistan this year, it has resisted efforts to relinquish more control of the budget to the Afghan people themselves.
McClatchy is challenging the Bush Administration’s claims—again. For the past ten months, reporter Kevin G. Hall has examined President Bush’s assertions that North Korea is responsible for printing counterfeit U.S. dollars. According to this McClatchy report, the Administration’s claims are based on unsubstantial evidence.
In an investigation that crossed three continents, Hall found that many of the key sources pivotal in the Bush Administration’s claims that counterfeit money was being produced by North Korea, were in fact questionable and unreliable. For example, Hall writes that a major source used by the Administration has a shady past and posseses limited knowledge of American currency itself. In fact, the major source the Administration used to bolster its case against the regime did not know that Benjamin Franklin’s image was on the $100 bill.
There are plenty of things to look forward to when approaching old age: wisdom from life experience, frolicking grandchildren, senior discounts, and ... copious amounts of antipsychotic drugs? According to the Wall Street Journal’s Lucette Lagnado, as many as 30 percent of nursing-home residents in the U.S. are receiving antipsychotic medications, and in many cases, the drugs are used to treat patients who show signs of disruptive behavior related to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Lagnado’s piece addresses the root causes of what experts say is a harmful scenario in which seniors are being over-prescribed powerful medications at the risk of their health.
The article describes how antipsychotic medications with heavy sedative effects have in some ways replaced methods deemed inappropriate for dealing with rowdy seniors, such as physical restraint. Lagnado reports that in many cases the use of antipsychotic drugs are creating more health risks for patients, as the drugs “can trigger strokes, induce body tremors, fuel weight gain and affect an elderly person's gait, increasing their chances of falling.” Lagnado’s report also shows that any implied dangers of the drugs have not offset company earnings. Indeed, sales of the drugs have skyrocketed over the past five years. Drugs like Seroquel and Risperdal have become pharmaceutical “blockbusters” taking in $11.7 billion in sales just last year.
Lagnado also reports on the marketing campaigns behind the drugs, and the backlash by consumer advocates: Last month, the Arkansas attorney general filed suit against Johnson & Johnson for creating a “false and misleading campaign” to promote Risperdol to the elderly.
Here’s a hypothetical question based in reality: What happens if you accidentally get shot in the back by a cop in Chicago? The answer is, assuming you survive the initial blast, you may be charged by police and prosecutors and then ordered to serve in trial. That’s what an eight-month investigation by the Chicago Tribune found, including other details highlighting methods used by the Chicago Police Department to clear officers involved in civilian shootings.
Reporters Sam Roe, David Heinzmann, and Steve Mills analyzed more than 200 Chicago Police Department shooting cases and found astonishing evidence of law enforcement officials who “have failed to properly police the police” when it comes to civilian shootings.
It’s a truly detailed and informative piece that deserves to be read in its entirety, including this sidebar which details how the police department destroys evidence implicating any wrong doing.
During their research the reporters found:
On average, a civilian is shot by a member of the Chicago Police Department once every 10 days. In cases where full accounting and internal investigations of civilian police shootings occur, they are often a result of wrongful death lawsuits. Off-duty shootings have been viewed as “administrative issues” by the Chicago Police Department and officers “rarely face serious punishment.”
In conjunction with National Public Radio, the Center for Investigative Reporting helped research and report on one of the largest recipients of federal farm subsidies, the legendary King Ranch of Texas. As NPR’s Peter Overby reports, from 1999-2005 King Ranch raked in $8.3 million in subsidies for growing cotton.
Though family owned, King Ranch is probably not what most people would think of as a family farm. It is a politically savvy corporate conglomerate that has its own political action committee and a well-connected lobbyist to help shape this year’s Farm Bill. Out of King Ranch’s 1,200 square miles of land, only 23 are dedicated to growing cotton.
Additionally, powerful political figures sit on the ranch’s board of directors, including former Secretary of State James Baker, and Ray Hunt, a Texas oil tycoon with Washington connections who is ranked as one of the richest men in America by Forbes. The ranch’s CEO, Jack Hunt, was appointed to the Texas Water Development Board by then Governor George W. Bush of Texas.
Additional reporting by CIR shows that from 1997–2006, King Ranch made at least $960,000 in federal campaign contributions, including soft money. The contributions came from King Ranch’s PAC, executives, and board members.
Since 2001, King Ranch spent at least $850,000 on lobbying. To lobby for the Farm Bill, King Ranch hired Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch where Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot attorney Harry Whittington.
For all the lobbying power, however, Overby reports that King Ranch hardly cares about the cotton subsidies. The company says it applies for the subsidies because that’s how the cotton industry is set up. In any case, as CEO Jack Hunt tells Overby, “it’s just one piece of our company.”
Like most Boy Scouts, Adam and Ben Steed wanted to earn merit badges and go on camping trips. But the brothers’ camp experience would soon become a nightmare ...
In this episode of EXPOSÉ, reporters at the Idaho Falls POST REGISTER uncover a terrible secret kept hidden from the public: a pedophile was working as a camp leader within the local Boy Scouts. Reporter Peter Zuckerman and EXPOSÉ retrace the steps that lead to the incredible discovery, starting with the anonymous source that tipped him off to lawsuits documenting multiple cases of sexual abuse by a Boy Scout leader. The court records were kept hidden by powerful lawyers representing the Boy Scouts, but Zuckerman was not deterred and continued to press for the truth.
>> Read Zuckerman's original series, "Scouts' Honor," in the POST REGISTER.
Eric Nalder is no rookie when it comes to hard-hitting investigative reporting. A two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Nalder has a long track record of award-winning work:
Spare not the rod; nor the cattle prod. At the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, disciplining troubled students goes well beyond timeouts and calling one’s parents. Jennifer Gonnerman’s recent report for Mother Jones on the Massachusetts-based facility for developmentally and behaviorally challenged students documents horrific accounts of abuse that rival torture methods used on enemy combatants.
Dr. Matthew Israel, the Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. in Psychology who founded the center, started out in 1971 with a small school at which he tested "a large repertoire of punishments: spraying kids in the face with water, shoving ammonia under their noses, pinching the soles of their feet, smacking them with a spatula, forcing them to wear a 'white-noise helmet' that assaulted them with static.”
Later Israel moved on to electric shocks, which are disseminated by remote control via devices the children carry around in backpacks.
The state of Massachussetts has twice tried to shut Israel's center down because of lawsuits. But both times parents rallied to keep it open. The Rotenberg Center is often the last resort for parents of severely mentally disabled and emotionally challenged children. They turn no one away. And with an annual tuition of $220,000 per student, they can afford such luxuries.
What worries many critics is not only the severity of punishments applied at Rotenberg, but the "one punishment fits all" policy. The school boards both "low-functioning" children -- who are severely mentally disabled -- and those with more common disorders like OCD and ADD, considered "high functioning." Students are shocked for a wide range of "misbehaviors" ranging from extreme violence and self-abuse -- such as slamming one's head against the floor -- to minor infractions such as swearing and nagging.
When CBS's Connie Chung investigated the center in 1993, she was eviscerated by the other networks after a carefully planned media counterattack by Israel himself. Jennifer Gonnerman's piece in Mother Jones received a similar, though quieter, backlash. One glance at the article's comment section on MotherJones.com is evidence enough that Gonnerman touch a nerve. And a lengthy response from Israel, posted on the Mother Jones site, on the center's own website, and published in The Patriot Ledger of South Boston shows that Israel isn't going down without a fight.
After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, oil companies assured America accidents like that would never happen again.
But another accident did happen. On October 13, 2004, roughly 1,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the Puget Sound estuary, near Tacoma, Washington. The spill blackened the beaches and waters, threatening aquatic plants, seabirds and fish. Unlike the Exxon Valdez spill, it was not clear who caused the spill and nobody claimed responsibility for the accident.
Enter veteran journalist Eric Nalder. On March 22, 2005, the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER published the first article in a series detailing the safety concerns of oil tankers belonging to the international energy corporation, ConocoPhillips. Although ConocoPhillips denied responsibility, the Coast Guard had traced the oil to a tanker owned by ConocoPhillips’ subsidiary Polar Tankers as early as December 2004. Nalder’s reporting revealed systemic problems within the company that were undermining the very safety reforms implemented in direct response to the Exxon Valdez spill. Safety concerns included requiring crews to work long hours, ignoring possible alcohol abuse by crew members, and company efforts to diminish tug escort requirements in Washington State waters. Moreover, Nalder found evidence alleging that crewmembers aboard another Polar tanker had participated in an oil-spill cover-up.
In EXPOSÉ's "A Sea of Trouble," Nalder's doggedness and trademarked interview techniques help shed light on a murky situation.
>> Watch "A Sea of Trouble" online.
>> Read Nalder's original series in the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER.
You've probably never heard of SAIC before. That's okay. SAIC prefers you know nothing about how it -- one of the most powerful and highest paid government contractors -- operates. In the next episode of EXPOSÉ, the esteemed investigative reporting duo Donald Barlett and James Steele explore the inner workings of Science Applications International Corporation and reveal a world of Washington insiders moving smoothly between this mysterious company and the federal government.
>> The original reporting for "Friends in High Places" was published in a March 2007 VANITY FAIR article entitled "Washington's $8 Billion Shadow."
>> Read reports on SAIC at the Center for Public Integrity (part of their broader coverage of contractors working in Afghanistan and Iraq entitled “Windfalls of War”) and Sourcewatch.
The EXPOSÉ: America's Investigative Reports series is produced by Thirteen/WNET New York in association with CIR.