Is New Orleans' housing crisis a human rights violation? United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing Raquel Rolnik will be in New Orleans this week gathering evidence. More...

The Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe announced that rising seas would force it to leave the Louisiana island that's been home for generations -- the latest indigenous community uprooted by climate disruption. Is the U.S. really doing all it can to honor its obligation under international human rights standards to protect against such displacement? More...

The United Steelworkers Union has called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to look into illegal anti-union activities at a Colombian coal mine operated by the Birmingham, Ala.-based Drummond Co., which has been dogged by charges of human rights abuses. More...

One year ago Hurricane Ike barreled toward Galveston. A new report details the human rights violations that occurred when the Galveston County sheriff decided not evacuate 1,000 inmates despite a mandatory evacuation order for the city and warnings that those who remained in the area faced "certain death." More...

This is the first year that Congressional leadership and the U.S. president did not travel to the Gulf Coast to honor the anniversary of our nation's largest disaster. Leaders in Washington still have much to learn from community leaders on the ground working every day to restore their neighborhoods, reports Jeffrey Buchanan. More...

As the health care battle continues, the Obama administration is starting to make a moral case for health reform. But on the ground, grassroots activists are already busy working to reshape the language of the debate -- they're pushing for the right to call health care a human right. More...

Immigrant rights activists are applauding the Obama Administration's plans to reform the nation's immigration detention system, including halting the detainment of immigrant families at the notorious T. Don Hutto detention center in Texas. More...

The recent hunger strikes at a Louisiana detention facility make the case for getting Immigration officials to be more accountable for the conditions at detention centers, something the Obama administration should be mindful of when pushing for immigration reform. More...

Immigrant detainees at a privately-run detention center in rural south Louisiana have waged a series of hunger strikes during the past four weeks to protest inhumane conditions and human rights violations at the jail. More...

An United Nations advisory group headed to New Orleans this week on a fact-finding mission to investigate housing issues related to the displacement of Gulf Coast residents following Hurricane Katrina. More...

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been systematically violating its own standards in governing the detention of undocumented immigrants, according to a new report released Tuesday. More...

Last week a UN special rapporteur on racism offered recommendations to the United States to address ongoing issues of racial discrimination, including the treatment of Katrina survivors. More...

Scholar-activist Aviva Chomsky recently traveled to Kentucky and Colombia as part of a Witness for Peace delegation to understand the coal mining's impact on local communities. In a conversation with independent journalist Hans Bennett, she discusses the challenges facing organizers in those areas, where big corporations are exploiting the marginalized. More...

Following protests from human rights and housing advocates, the Biloxi City Council voted unanimously this week to give FEMA trailer residents another six months to find permanent housing. More...

President Barack Obama decided to allow people still living in FEMA trailers to remain there while the federal government helps them find permanent housing, but the city of Biloxi, Miss. plans to kick them out. More...

Drummond Co. is facing a third lawsuit alleging serious human rights abuses at its South American mining operations. Will Congress keep the widespread anti-union terrorism in mind when it considers a free trade deal with Colombia later this year? More...

A federal appeals court has ruled that the insurance carrier for CACI International of Virginia is not obligated to defend the company, which is facing lawsuits alleging torture of prisoners in Iraq. Perhaps it could finance any payouts with the hundreds of millions of dollars in new contracts it got from the U.S. government this year alone? More...

The civil action against CACI International over its interrogations at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison could have important ramifications for other government contractors. More...

Details are still sketchy of an inmate uprising at a privately-operated federal detention facility in West Texas last Saturday. Reports in the U.S. and Mexican press suggest the revolt, involving hundreds prisoners at the Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, Tex., erupted after complaints of poor medical treatment went unheeded. More...

TUES 1/27 -- While President Obama promises to close Guantanamo, Facing South guest contributor Jordan Flaherty reports on a court proceeding in Louisiana that exposes brutality closer to home. More...