Underreported from WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show

In late March and early April, a boat filled with dozens of African migrants drifted in the Mediterranean for 16 days with almost no food, fuel or water. Although the boat made contact with various European authorities, no rescue was attempted and 61 people died. On this week’s Underreported, Fred Abrahams, Special Advisor at Human Rights Watch, describes what happened aboard the ship and why an investigation has been launched into how NATO and its member states responded to the ship’s distress calls.

Charlie Ornstein and Tracy Weber, ProPublica senior reporters, discuss medical societies and their financial ties to drug and medical device makers. Ornstein and Weber are the authors of the article "Financial Ties Bind Medical Societies to Drug and Device Makers," part of ProPublica's series Dollars for Doctors.

Since last summer, there has been a sometimes violent standoff between students at the University of Puerto Rico and the government over an announced budget cut and an increase in tuition fees, but that may just be part of a wider pattern of First Amendment violations. Jennifer Turner, a Human Rights Researcher at the ACLU and Rosie Perez, who just returned from a fact-finding mission in Puerto Rico, describe how authorities have dealt with students, striking workers, journalists, and civilians in recent months.

On today’s Underreported segment, The Nation’s Kathryn Joyce explains how evangelical Christians are trying to increase the number of international adoptions.

Climate change is having dramatic effects on the world’s oceans as ice sheets collapse and the sea becomes more acidic. Warmer temperatures allow some deep sea predators, like King Crab, to expand their range into new areas—to the detriment of many other sea creatures. According to James McClintock, a Professor of Physiology & Ecology of Aquatic & Marine Invertebrates at the University of Alabama, an army of deep sea King Crabs are slowly working their way up the Antarctic slope, a habitat they have never been found in before, and are potentially decimating the extremely delicate marine ecosystem.

It has long been known that Chiquita Brands International made controversial payments to violent guerilla and paramilitary groups in Columbia in the 1990s and 2000s. The company was fined $25 million dollars in a 2007 plea-agreement for making payments to AUC, which was designated as a terrorist group by the US State Department in 2001. Michael Evans, chief researcher on Colombia at the National Security Archive, explains that a newly released trove of internal Chiquita memos obtained by the National Security Archive suggest that, contrary to company claims that the money was extorted, the payments often resulted in direct benefits for the banana giant.

Eighty-three-year-old Luis Posada Carriles is a former CIA operative. He has been connected to the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the funneling of U.S. money to the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s, a series of attacks on Havana hotels in 1997, and the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada was acquitted this month of charges that he lied to U.S. immigration officials when he entered the country in 2005. Jefferson Morley, a former editor at The Washington Post and the author of Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA, looks at Posada's background and his recent acquittal.

Concerns about seismic activity at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant are grabbing the headlines this week, but other issues have been raised in the debate over whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should renew the plant's license. WNYC’s Bob Hennelly looks at environmental concerns about 90-100 degree waste water coming out of the plant into the Hudson River.

Côte d'Ivoire has been rocked by a political and humanitarian crisis following the disputed presidential election in November. Adam Nossiter, New York Times West Africa Bureau Chief, and Renzo Fricke, an Emergency Coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, talk about the turmoil there.

The Stuxnet virus made headlines when it damaged computers at Iran’s nuclear program. On this week’s Underreported segment, Vanity Fair writer Michael Joseph Gross looks at who could have built Stuxnet and why Israel may not have been behind the computer worm as many initially assumed. Plus, we’ll look at what Stuxnet means for the future of cyber warfare.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, describes what’s driving the rise in food prices around the world – from the changing environment to population growth. Plus, find out how commodities prices are connected to the rising dissatisfaction in many developing countries.

In 1970, there were nearly 650,000 dairy farms in the United States. Today, there are only 54,000 farms—many of them run by large operators who dominate the industry. As milk prices have fallen—fetching half as much in 2009 per gallon as they did in 2008—small dairy farmers have taken a huge hit. Barry Estabrook explains the crisis facing small dairy farmers in the United States and efforts to pass a price-fixing agreement in Congress. Barry Estabrook’s article, "A Tale of Two Dairies," appears in Gastronomica.

Detainees held by the United States government at the Guantanamo Bay prison have been administered very high doses of the drug Mefloquine, according to a new report from Seton Hall Law School. While the drug is a powerful anti-malarial, it also has a number of adverse side effects, which include hallucinations, paranoia and depression. On today’s Underreported segment Mark Denbeaux, one of the reports authors and director of the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy & Research, discusses why administration of the drug to detainees (at five times the regular dosage) is controversial.

In 1972, Congress launched the nation’s most ambitious experiment in universal health care: virtually anyone diagnosed with kidney failure, regardless of age or income, was granted comprehensive coverage under Medicare for dialysis. Almost 40 years later, the costs of dialysis are the highest in the Western world--$77,000 per patient--as is the mortality rate. ProPublica's Robin Fields joins us to discuss her two-year investigation into the treatment options that dialysis patients face.

Dr. Ron O'Dor, Senior Scientist, Census of Marine Life, Consortium for Ocean Leadership, tells us about the first Census of Marine Life—a 10-year exploration carried out by scientists from 80 nations. It reveals what, where, and how much lives and hides in the world’s oceans. He’ll explain how the census was carried out and what it shows about life under water.