Tunisia: Tens of Thousands Take to Streets to Demand Resignation of Government

Video: Iran’s President Ready to Talk with United States

Pro-life groups have had enough of what they call a "media blackout" when it comes to the abortion issue. So, they're coming together to hold a "March on the Media" this Thursday. The protest rally is being organized by Lila Rose, president of Live Action, an anti-abortion group. The event's targets are mainstream media outlets that some critics, including Rose, believe have been too silent about issues pertaining to life and the protection of the unborn.

"The media has flinched from the reality of abortion for decades," Rose said on a website announcing the event. "We call on the press to end the censorship of what abortion actually does to our smallest children and women, and end the lionizing of abortion advocates."

The protest will include many of the nation's most well-known pro-life advocates, including Rose, Christian Robey of the Media Research Center, Jill Stanek, a former nurse, and Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.

It will come just days after Live Action sent letters to ABC, NBC and CBS, demanding that these major outlets begin handling the issue of abortion with "honest reporting."

march on media

Photo Credit: Live Action

In an interview with TheBlaze on Tuesday, the pro-life activist said that the failure of the media to cover the Dr. Kermit Gosnell case (the Philadelphia abortion doctor who was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murder) was what helped spawn this massive response from the pro-life community.

"This is in the wake of the extreme lack of coverage during the Gosnell trial," Rose told TheBlaze on Tuesday.

She noted that the most recent example of bias can be seen in the fact that many outlets covered Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis, who is pro-choice, during and after her now-infamous abortion filibuster, while initially ignoring Gosnell's gruesome crimes.

Rose also referenced a recent study from the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog,which found the following disparity: "In the 19 days since her June 25 filibuster, ABC, CBS and NBC have devoted 40 minutes, 48 seconds of their morning and evening news programs to stories including Davis. That's more than three times the 13 minutes 30 seconds they gave Gosnell during the entire 58 days of the murder trial."

So, that's the reason that these outlets have come under fire.

TX State Senator Wendy Davis About Texas Abortion Bill In Washington

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 05: Texas State Sen. Wendy David (D) listens to questions after speaking at the National Press Club August 5, 2013 in Washington, DC. Davis, who entered the national spotlight after holding a filibuster on a Texas abortion bill, spoke on the political climate in Texas and Washington during her remarks. Credit: Getty Images

"The last couple of months, we've been hounding the media through Twitter, through social media -- and these letters are the culmination of that," Rose added, going on to discuss the rally. "We're expecting at least 100 people. It's the first time that anything like this has been done before."

For those who may not understand why pro-life groups as so frustrated, she added, "We're focusing on the media and their responsibility to tell the truth." It is this responsibility of conveying the right information, Rose said, that is at the center of the March on the Media Rally.

So far, she's received no response from the letter that was sent to NBC, CBS and ABC. But the rally, itself, will be held outside ABC's studios on Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A coalition of civic groups in Kosovo has asked the United States to lean on the World Bank to withhold funding from a new lignite coal-fired power plant proposed for the southeastern European nation.

The action by the Kosovo Civil Society Consortium for Sustainable Development will be the first test of new climate-focused lending policies of the bank, a major multilateral lending institution, and the Obama administration.

The ten-group consortium wrote on Wednesday to Secretary of State John Kerry, who as a senator was a vocal climate advocate, asking him to lead a U.S. government effort to identify clean energy sources as an alternative to the proposed 600-MW lignite coal-fired power station.

The project would replace another highly polluting coal plant, Kosovo A, which is due to retire in 2017.

The World Bank's board last month agreed to a new energy strategy that will limit financing of coal-fired power plants to "rare circumstances."

That move, in turn, followed a call by President Barack Obama in June for multilateral institutions and national development banks to end public financing of most coal plants.

"Lignite is the world's dirtiest form of coal, and moving forward on this project would negate the promise of the Climate Action Plan," the group wrote to Kerry.

The United States is the biggest donor country to the World Bank. KOSID said funding the project would cost U.S. taxpayers "millions of dollars" and would not use the best available technology to keep emissions down, as power plants in the United States will be forced to do under Obama's climate plan.

"There are viable alternatives to coal and we ask that you use your leadership on climate change to stop this project and instead seek alternatives that support Kosovo's energy efficiency and renewable energy sources," the group wrote.

Justin Guay, associate director of the Sierra Club's international climate program, said the Kosovan plant opponents sought Kerry's support, in part, because he objected to the project while he was the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Kosovar government is currently conducting an environmental and social impact assessment which will be presented to the World Bank's board of executive directors in 2014.

As part of the environmental assessment, the Kosovar government will also assess alternatives to the project, including energy efficiency and rewnewable energy.

The Kosovo case will be the first major coal project the bank's board has had to decide on since 2010, when it helped finance a controversial coal-fired power plant in South Africa. Then-Senator Kerry opposed that project.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici, editing by Ros Krasny and Jackie Frank)

In a move that surprised and delighted anti-captivity activists, the U.S. government on Tuesday denied a permit to the Georgia Aquarium, which also included requests from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and SeaWorld, to import 18 wild-caught beluga whales from Russia.

It was a blow to the captive display industry and, many observers say, emblematic of a turning tide in public and governmental attitudes toward keeping such intelligent, social creatures in tanks for human enjoyment.

“Following a number of public engagement efforts, NOAA Fisheries today announced it is denying the Georgia Aquarium’s request for a permit,” the agency announced in a written statement. It based the move on “the requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).”

Limited importation of some wild-captured marine mammals for public display is permitted under the MMPA. But according to the government, this was the first request for import in more than 20 years.

“The Georgia Aquarium clearly worked hard to follow the required process and submit a thorough application, and we appreciate their patience and cooperation as we carefully considered this case,” the statement from NOAA went on to say. “However, under the strict criteria of the law, we were unable to determine if the import of these belugas, combined with the active capture operation in Russia and other human activities, would have an adverse impact on this stock of wild beluga whales.”

The application to import the whales, which TakePart reported on last October and would have been divided between the Georgia Aquarium, Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and the three SeaWorld parks in Florida, Texas, and California, ultimately failed to meet “several” MMPA criteria. The government ruled:

The public pushback against the import permit has been formidable, with most of the 9,000 opinions submitted during a public comment period last year expressing dissent. “The comments that were most helpful to our decision-making process addressed the specific MMPA and regulatory criteria that we must use to make a decision and discussed why the commenter felt the application did or did not meet them,” the NOAA statement said.

Opponents, who had heard rumors that Georgia Aquarium executives were calling the import permit a done deal, were happily taken aback.

“This is a triumph of science over rhetoric,” Dr. Naomi Rose, of the Animal Welfare Institute, tells TakePart. “The industry talks the talk but does not walk the walk. We were able to provide them with solid science and information that confirmed that this import would violate the MMPA. Thank goodness the U.S. will not be a partner in this unsustainable trade.”

Courtney Vail, of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, is equally gratified. “The management of the wild populations where these belugas were taken in Russia is inadequate to protect them from the continuing assault of increasing capture quotas to supply the international aquarium industry,” she says. “And the Georgia Aquarium simply failed to demonstrate that this import is consistent with the requirements of the MMPA.”

Contrary to what the Aquarium and its partners had claimed, Vail adds, “the permit does not support conservation, but rather significantly jeopardizes belugas in the wild by perpetuating and instigating ongoing captures for display facilities. Even more appalling, they targeted vulnerable and depleted populations, including nursing mothers and dependent calves.”

Equally jubilant is Dr. Lori Marino, of The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy. “This decision should make it clear that the marine mammal captivity industry is not invincible and will be held to the same scientific and ethical standards we should all adhere to and expect of others,” she tells TakePart. Marino helped draft the “Scientists Statement Opposing Beluga Imports by the Georgia Aquarium,” signed by nearly 30 colleagues, and testified at NOAA’s public hearing last year. “This decision says that there are consequences to failing to meet those benchmarks,” she says.

The Georgia Aquarium called the decision “deeply disappointing,” in a prepared statement and, without presenting any evidence, warned that the rejection “places the long-term global sustainability of an entire species in limbo. The animals in question would help to ensure the sustainability of beluga whales in human care in the U.S. for the purposes of education, research, and conservation.”

Meanwhile, the government took pains to state that its decision “is not a statement by NOAA Fisheries against the applicant, public display, or the live-capture of animals for the purpose of public display.”

What happens next is not clear. The applicants could appeal. Failing that, these gentle white whales, now living at the Utrish Marine Mammal Research Station in Russia, may simply be put up for auction to the highest bidders in countries without MMPAs. But animal welfare activists want to see them rehabilitated for return to their natural pods off Russia.

“The world is changing,” Steven Wise, president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, tells TakePart. “The time is passing when the interests of such extraordinary nonhuman animals, and others cognitively complex, are routinely treated by government—legislative, executive, and judicial—as if their value is their amenity to human exploitation.”