4. ICE’s secret detention centers The federal office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is confining people in 186

unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces that reveal no information about their ICE tenants. Reporting in The Nation, Jaqueline Stevens describes ICE’s jail network and the agency’s penchant for secrecy when it comes to withholding public information about the facilities.

“The absence of a real-time database tracking people in ICE custody means ICE has created a network of secret jails,” Stevens writes. “Subfield offices enter the time and date of custody after the fact, a situation ripe for errors ... as well as coverups.” As a result, detainees can literally be “lost” by attorneys or family members for days or weeks at a time after being transferred.

5. Blackwater in Pakistan The notorious private military contractor Blackwater has changed its name to Xe Services, but it hasn’t escaped scrutiny. According to a story that ran in The Nation in December 2009, the contractor is at the center of a covert program in Pakistan run by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Karachi. Xe is involved in planning targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, and helps direct a U.S. military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the U.S. military intelligence apparatus who spoke with The Nation. The Pentagon has disputed the claim, stating: “There are no U.S. military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.” More recently, the New York Times reported that Xe had created a web of more than 30 shell companies to win defense contracts, and specifically mentioned that the company employees had loaded bombs and missiles onto predator drones in Pakistan.

6. Cause of death: lack of health care As the health care debate raged on and Americans heard over and over again about supposed “death panels,” “Obamacare” and the government’s infringement on personal freedom, at least one important study was largely drowned out. Research led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center revealed that lack of health insurance may have figured into 17,000 childhood deaths among hospitalized children in the United States in the span of less than two decades.

The results of a study published in the Journal of Public Health compared more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005, and found that uninsured children in the study were 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance.

“Can we say with absolute certainty that 17,000 children would have been saved if they had health insurance? Of course not,” notes a co-investigator. “From a scientific perspective, we are confident in our finding that thousands of children likely died because they lacked insurance or because of factors directly related to a lack of insurance.”

7. The African land grab A “land grab,” according to this Project Censored story, is the purchase of vast tracts of land by wealthier nations from mostly poor, developing countries in order to produce crops for export. Throughout the African continent, an estimated 50 million hectares of land has been acquired or are in the process of being negotiated for purchase over the last several years, with international agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds and commodity traders leading the rush for cheap, undeveloped, arable land.

Ethiopia has approved at least 815 foreignfinanced agriculture projects since 2007, but the food produced there will be exported rather than used to feed the 13 million people in need of food aid in that country. “Rich countries are eyeing Africa, not just for a healthy return on capital, but also as an insurance policy,” notes researcher Devlin Kuyek. “Food shortages and riots in 28 countries in 2008, declining water supplies, climate change and huge population growth together have made land attractive. Africa has the most land and, compared with other continents, it is cheap.”

8. Massacre in Peruvian Amazon over Free Trade Agreement While the story highlighted by Project Censored is titled, “Massacre in the Amazon,” a later installment by Laura Carlsen, the translator, appeared in the Huffington Post titled “Victory in the Amazon.” The story centers on a movement standing its ground even with tragic loss of life as the consequence: On June 5, 2009, 50 or more Peruvian Amazon Indians were massacred after a 57-day protest against the implementation of decrees under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. Decrees that would have opened vast swaths of indigenous land in the Peruvian Amazon to private investment by gas, mining, and oil companies prompted Amazon peoples to block highways and gas and oil pipelines. But the conflict escalated when armed Peruvian government agents attacked the protesters with rifles and, according to eyewitnesses, burned bodies and threw them into a river. According to Carlsen’s account, Peru’s Congress voted 82 to 12 in the aftermath to repeal two of the decrees that the indigenous groups had been standing against. Daysi Zapata, a representative of the association of indigenous groups, celebrated the triumph: “Today is a historic day.

We are thankful because the will of the indigenous peoples has been taken into account, and we just hope that in the future, the governments attend and listen to the people, that they don’t legislate behind our backs.”

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