The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "FARC" ...
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The Guns of Opa-Locka: How US Dealers Arm the World
The Center for Investigative Reporting reveals "how terrorists can manipulate lax US gun laws in order to buy guns in the United States both for use within this country and for export to conflicts overseas." The center "uncovered numerous cases of groups on the US terrorist watch list -- such as the FARC and ELN guerilla movements in Colombia, the IRA of Ireland and the Hezbollah of Lebanon -- buying guns in the United States and illegally shipping them to their home countries to fuel the conflicts there." The story was released November 14 and published December 2 in The Nation.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; terrorism; gun laws; FARC; ELN; Colombia; Hezbollah; IRA; United States; loopholes
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Plan for Colombia
The Express-News looks at the United States' efforts to eradicate drug trade in Colombia by spending $1.3 billion on army operations aiming to destroy coca fields. The series questions the effectiveness of the plan. Coca farmers account for the majority of the population in Columbia, and the project would be more successful, if they were provided some alternatives. The reporter examines how the drug war combines with the civil war that has been going on for decades, and finds "that it's unlikely that any significant change will come in Colombia's status as a drug exporter until the civil war is ended."
Tags: kidnapping; assassinations; guerrillas; military; Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); right-wing militia; international politics; foreign affairs; crime; violence; drug trafficking; cocaine; heroin; Latin America; human rights
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Smoke Screen
New Times investigates the government smog fighting program, which attempts to clean the air by junking old cars. The story finds that the program is "an ineffective farce." The reporter quotes a top inspector for Southern California's smog-fighting agency, who says the project is mostly "a car-disposal program for people who have many cars, not an emissions reduction program." People who bring their cars to scrap yards, often use the newfound cash to fix other cars they have, or they come back and buy cheap parts of the car they have just turned in. "Meanwhile, industrial polluters are able to dodge any serious smog controls," The publication reports.
Tags: automobiles; cars; government; South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD); smog; industrial pollutants; environment; health; toxics; Northrop Corp.
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The Internet Filter Farce
Nunberg likens internet blocking software to airport security metal detector that miss 40 percent of concealed handguns and beeps at a third of the metal hangers in passengers' suitcases. In this article Nunberg writes how blocking software employed in homes, schools, libraries, and the workplace aren't able to work as promised. He even points out that in many cases blocking software screens out non-offensive or objectionable material such as websites on HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, the gay and lesbian community, and online sex offender registries. Nunberg writes that some of the problems with blocking software is that the software companies themselves filter sites with negative information about their service and that they aren't required to post a list of filtered words and sites, letting people know just how inadequate the software is.
Tags: Internet; blocking software; filters
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Plan Columbia
Colombia is now the third-largest recipient of US aid in the world after Israel and Egypt. The two-year, $3.2 billion aid package is to help fight "the war on drugs," by eradicating half of the nation's 300,000 acres of coca fields within five years. Yet others consider the escalating US military presence and its technological aid to the right wing paramilitary forces a thinly veiled military intervention, stabilizing the government in power against guerillas in the coca-producing regions. Kidnappings are up sharply, and others fear they'll increase even more if drugs profits are stymied.
Tags: Columbia; US Aid; War on Drugs; anti-narcotics; School of the Americas; U.S. military advisors; toxic herbicides; Plan Colombia; Pais Libre; kidnapping; FARC; ELN; death squads; human rights; Pentagon's Southern Command; Amnesty International; Paz Colombia; social inequality
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Cocaine Chaos
Reporter Stephen Rodrick discusses his month long stay in Columbia, depicting the country's substantial cocaine business as well as the U.S. influence to combat an new billion dollar anti-drug effort. In addition, Rodrick depicts the country's challenge for peace within, describing the on-going war between Columbia's two main guerrilla groups (FARC and AUC). Through his interviews with coca farmers, Colombian army commandos and widows of guerrilla warfare, Rodrick states ". . . I talk with more than a hundred Colombians. The poor and the rich agree on only two things: American aid will make an unspeakably horrible situation even worse. And Americans will die here."
Tags: Colombia; cocaine industry; anti-drug efforts. guerrilla warfare
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Work Farce
This story argues federal welfare reform will hurt low-wage workers not on welfare by flooding the economy with cheap labor. Roth says the move will not solve any social problems, but will only change who is on welfare and force some to work for employers that could not keep its employees because of poor or unhealthy working conditions.
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Cost of care centers skyrocket
Clarion-Ledger series on federally funded day care centers uses FOI requests to overcome official roadblocks, and finds waste, inefficiency and improper practices have turned a community service into a fun-and-profit farce, September 1979.
Tags: day care centers; federal dollars; waste; inefficiency; improper practices