Human Rights Watch recently released a report that details brutal gang rapes and other abuses allegedly carried out by employees of Barrick Gold in Papua New Guinea. Barrick, a Canadian firm, is the world's largest gold producer and Porgera is one of the world's largest gold mines. Now the company is scrambling to put things right, investing in new mechanisms for oversight and accountability and firing some of its private security personnel while others are being hauled away by the police.

Private security personnel employed at a gold mine in Papua New Guinea have been implicated in alleged gang rapes and other violent abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Porgera mine has produced billions of dollars of gold in its twenty years of operation, and  is operated and 95 percent owned by Barrick Gold, a Canadian company that is the world's largest gold producer.

One year ago, in a groundbreaking speech, you declared the "freedom to connect" to be a Fifth Freedom, as important to human liberty as the Four Freedoms Franklin D. Roosevelt championed 70 years ago this month. The Internet will be what we make of it, you said, and you challenged governments and companies alike to ensure that a person' s access to information and opinion does not depend on where she lives.

Lead poisoning has killed more than 400 children in the state of Zamfara in the past six months. The tragedy unfolding in Zamfara is not a simple act of nature. Rather, it’s the latest testament to the Nigerian government’s failure to make the health of its citizens a priority.

The United States should press for greater transparency and accountability in the global financial system at the G20 Summit meeting in Seoul, a coalition of civil society organizations said today. The G20 Advocacy Coalition brings together varied organizations that share the view that increased transparency is essential to promoting economic development, alleviating poverty, and realizing enjoyment of economic and social rights.

It was not surprising that last week Stephen Harper's government defeated a modest opposition private member's bill that offered an opportunity to improve the human rights records of Canadian oil, mining and gas companies. But the apparently ambiguous stance of opposition leader Michael Ignatieff on the bill came as a surprise to many -- and leaves him with some explaining to do.

The UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences is named after and financed by the brutal and corrupt dictator of the oil-rich West African country of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Human Rights Watch is part of a global campaign working to abolish the prize, as its existence constitutes an unwarranted international endorsement of President Obiang and contradicts UNESCO’s mission.