Earths.net

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-22-02.html

UN AGENCY APPEALS FOR FUNDS TO COMBAT NUCLEAR TERRORISM

VIENNA, Austria, March 22, 2002 (ENS) - The United Nations agency responsible for inspections and verifications of nuclear facilities around the world has approved an action plan to upgrade worldwide protection against acts of nuclear terrorism. The International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors is now calling on governments to contribute to funding of the plan "as a matter of urgency."

SNOWMOBILES TRESPASSING IN YELLOWSTONE WILDERNESS

By Jack Clinton

LARAMIE, Wyoming, March 22, 2002 (ENS) - Hundreds or perhaps thousands of snowmobilers have been trespassing deep in the heart of the Yellowstone National Park's wilderness, rangers there report. Aerial photographs taken by the National Park Service document acres of parkland crisscrossed with hundreds of snowmobile ruts.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-22-07.html

SENATE APPROVES WEAKENED RENEWABLE STANDARD

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, March 22, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to require utilities to generate more of their electricity from renewable sources including wind and solar power. However, the standard adopted by the Senate disappointed many conservation groups, who say the measure excludes so many electricity providers that it will have little or no effect on the nation's use of renewable energy.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-22-06.html

FATHER OF ECO-HYDROLOGY AWARDED STOCKHOLM WATER PRIZE

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, March 22, 2002 (ENS) - The winner of the 2002 Stockholm Water Prize is Venezuelan hydrologist Professor Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe of Princeton University in the United States. Announced today to mark World Water Day, the $150,000 Stockholm Water Prize is presented by the Stockholm Water Foundation for the 12th time.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-22-04.html

WORLD SECURITY DEPENDS ON AVERTING WATER WARS

NEW YORK, New York, March 22, 2002 (ENS) - More than five million people die each year from water related diseases - 10 times the number killed in wars. Today, on World Water Day, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned, "Fierce national competition over water resources has prompted fears that water issues contain the seeds of violent conflict."

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-22-01.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 22, 2002

One Year Deadline Holds for All Species Listings

Coalition Wants Toxic Wood Preservatives Banned

Underwater Chute Makes Longlines Safer for Birds

Clean Air Rules Proposed for Northwestern Tribes

$5.9 Million Helps New York State Recycle

$1.1 Million Supports Safer New England Beaches

Cleaner Engines Available to Boaters

Humane Society Recommends Nonlethal Wildlife Controls

Spring Cleaning Should Include Invasive Species

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-22-09.html

3/23/02
4:46:38 PM

The Nation

Two ex-Enron employees and a giant wood chipper, billed the "world's largest paper shredder and emblazoned with the words "Enron Democracy Shredder" -- helped kick off the Rolling Thunder Down-Home Democracy Tour this afternoon in the parking lot of Austin's local AFL-CIO branch.

The tour is the brainchild of Jim Hightower, whose rabblerousing stint as Texas's elected Commissioner of Agriculture in the 1980s and subsequent radio work identified him in the eyes of many as the nation's most aggressive progressive.

For a full report on this afternoon's proceedings, see the latest installment of John Nichols' Online Beat currently:

http://www.thenation.com/beat

Tomorrow, March 23, marks the launch of the RT Tour, a traveling extravaganza of grassroots activism, music, speakers, workshops, exhibitions and food. The daylong event takes place at the Travis County Expo Center in Austin and features an eclectic lineup of speakers including Hightower, Michael Moore, Jesse Jackson Jr., Granny D, Ben Cohen and Molly Ivins. There'll also be musical performances by Michelle Shocked, Marcia Ball and David Garza, among others.

The RT Tour is sponsored by scores of worthy groups, organizations and publications, including The Nation, many of which will be on hand exhibiting their wares and explaining who they are, what they do, and how you can help.

For more info on Austin and other national tour stops, see:

http://www.rollingthundertour.org

And for new reporting on the Enron scandal see Capital Games, David Corn's exclusive Nation online feature. It's regularly updated and always available at:

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames

3/23/02
4:44:44 PM

t r u t h o u t | 03.23

Dorgan, McCain, Hollings Hint of Enron Subpoenas

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23A.Enron.Subpoenas.htm

Aid for Poor Urged as a Tool to Fight Terror

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23B.Aid.Tool.htm

Scott Galindez | Dear George, Take the Next Step on Campaign Finance

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23C.SG.Dear.George.htm

UK Warns Saddam of Nuclear Retaliation

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23D.Nuclear.Retaliation.htm

White House Moves to Keep Ridge Testimony From Public

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23E.From.Public.htm

White House Stonewall: Day 28

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23F.Stonewall.htm

Minorities Get Inferior Care, Even if Insured, Study Finds

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23G.Inferior.Care.htm

Cobell Plaintiffs Seek Contempt Sanctions For Wholesale Destruction Of Evidence

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23H.Cobell.Seek.htm

Interior Department Says it Will Protect Sacred Indian Lands, But Tribal Leaders Skeptical

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23I.Leaders.Skeptical.htm

Muslim Groups Criticize Raids

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.23J.Muslim.Raids.htm

3/23/02
4:41:52 PM

"The important thing is not to think much,

but to love much;

and so,

do that which best stirs you to love."

Saint Teresa of Avila

3/23/02
4:30:24 PM

Senate Strikes a Blow in the Energy Battle Policy: Forcing utilities to move toward renewable sources, such as wind and sun, sends 'a strong message,' scientists say.

by Richard Simon

WASHINGTON -- The Senate moved Thursday to require utilities to generate a larger share of their electricity from sources such as solar and wind power, a potentially significant shift in national energy policy.

The requirement for investor-owned utilities to produce at least 10% of their power from renewable sources by 2020 handed environmentalists their first important victory in the debate about comprehensive energy legislation. An effort to strip the bill of the requirement was defeated by a 58-40 vote.

"It is a strong message from the Senate that the country needs a minimum renewable energy standard," said Alan Nogee, director of the clean energy program for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Gary Skulnik, a spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace, called the Senate vote a "step that has never been taken before" but said he is disappointed that lawmakers did not go further. A Sierra Club representative was unenthusiastic about the Senate action. "It's a pretty hollow victory," said Debbie Boger, senior Washington representative for the environmental organization. Because of exemptions and other provisions, she asserted that the measure would result in "only 4% to 5% of new renewables" by 2020.

"We might be able to do that without any federal legislation," Boger said.

For years, Congress has provided billions of dollars for tax subsidies and research to promote alternative energy sources, but it has never set such an aggressive goal for generating electricity from renewable sources, which include agricultural waste and geothermal energy.

Government-owned utilities and electric cooperatives, which produce about one-fifth of the nation's electricity, would be exempt from the requirement. The bill would allow investor-owned utilities to count their existing use of non-hydropower renewable sources toward the standard.

Opponents, who include the utility industry, warned that the requirement would drive up electricity costs and threaten power supplies in states that are not blessed with strong wind and bright sunshine.

Southern California Edison Co. said in a statement that the company has the largest portfolio of renewable energy sources, excluding hydropower, of any California utility and "is committed to doing more." But the company said the legislation should include a price cap "to ensure that the large mandated demand for renewables in the face of supply constraints does not cause price spikes."

Investor-owned utilities also objected that municipal-owned utilities, such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, would be exempt.

Many environmentalists disputed the dire warnings and predicted that the requirement would reduce power plant emissions, including the "greenhouse gases"--primarily carbon dioxide--blamed for global warming. And, they said, it would diversify the nation's energy mix, preventing the kind of price spikes that occurred last year in states that rely on a single source of fuel to generate electricity.

Most of the nation's electricity is generated using coal, nuclear power or natural gas. About 2% comes from renewable sources, excluding hydropower.

Whether the provision ultimately becomes law remains in doubt.

Any energy bill passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate will face difficult negotiations with the Republican-dominated House, which last summer approved a version that did not require the use of alternative sources.

It is uncertain whether the Senate will even be able to pass an energy bill. A week ago, it soundly rejected tougher vehicle fuel economy standards, a priority of most Democrats. And GOP efforts to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, a goal of President Bush, appear doomed.

On Thursday, the Senate continued to work on the legislation at a snail's pace, putting off any further action until after lawmakers return next month from their Easter recess.

A dozen states require a percentage of their electricity to be produced from renewable sources.

In California, Gov. Gray Davis this week endorsed legislation that would require the state's investor-owned utilities to produce 20% of their power from renewable sources by 2010, up from the 12% currently produced.

In an effort to gain broader support for the measure, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) modeled it after a Texas law signed by Bush when he was governor.

But the White House joined the majority of Senate Republicans in opposing the requirement, contending that the decision should be up to individual states.

During the three days of debate, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) branded the requirement a case of "Soviet-style command economy."

"This legislation is costly . . . [and] imposes a massive new regulation of what we can buy in this country. It is anti-American," he said. "Let the free market work."

But Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) responded: "The free market has allowed us to import 57% of our oil supply from overseas."

Without the increased use of alternative sources, Dorgan said, the United States is destined to live with an energy policy of "yesterday forever . . . just dig and drill."

Tom Gray, deputy executive director of the American Wind Energy Assn., said he is optimistic that a renewable portfolio standard--the official name for the requirement--can survive a House-Senate conference.

"It is unlikely that a major energy bill will win approval without some significant provision that is beneficial to the environment," he said. "And the [standard] is the main candidate at this point."

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000020912mar22.story

3/23/02
4:28:53 PM

DAILY GRIST

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/shaffer13.html

QUIT BEING MODEST

Enviros chalked up a small victory yesterday when the U.S. Senate threw its support behind a measure requiring that investor-owned utilities produce at least 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The Senate did so by rejecting, 58 to 40, an attempt by Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) to remove the requirement from the comprehensive energy bill before the chamber. Some enviros weren't satisfied with yesterday's win. The Sierra Club's Debbie Boger said the country would experience only modest gains in the production of renewable energy because of exemptions and other provisions in the measure. Currently, about 2 percent of the country's electricity is produced from renewables; last week, the Senate voted down a grander proposal that would have boosted that figure to 20 percent by 2020. The House has not approved a renewables measure.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Richard Simon, 22 Mar 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000020912mar22.story>

do good: Take action and plead for a world run on renewable energy <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily#positive>

NO ABSURD HEADLINE NECESSARY

The U.S. Department of Energy is preparing to claim that Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force did all it could to involve environmental groups in planning the Bush administration's energy plan. Last month, a federal court ruled in favor of the Natural Resources Defense Council and ordered the department to release as many as 14,000 documents relating to the task force. As it gets ready to file the documents next Monday, the DOE is spreading the word that it was the greenies, not administration officials, who were uneager to cooperate. "Several did not return our phone calls and messages," one DOE official wrote last August in a document that will be filed. Enviros said the latest administration spin was bosh. Elizabeth Thompson, legislative director of Environmental Defense, seemed to speak for many environmental groups when she said, "My voicemail wasn't full of a lot of requests from the administration."

straight to the source: Washington Post, Mike Allen, 22 Mar 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64826-2002Mar21.html>

only in Grist: Confessions of an Energy Task Force member -- diary of Dick Cheney's secretive group discovered! -- satire in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho062901.asp?source=daily>

ON THE WATER FRONT

More than 2.7 billion people will experience severe water shortages by 2025 if the world continues to consume water at the current rate, according to a U.N. report released today, which happens to be World Water Day. The report goes on to say that another 2.5 billion may be living in areas where it will be difficult or near impossible to meet their water needs. (Yep, two out of three people in the world could be up the creek with only a paddle, no water.) Semi-arid regions of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are most at risk. Already, 1.1 billion people in the world have no access to safe drinking water. The causes of the problem? Population growth, changing weather patterns, and mismanagement of existing water resources, the report says.

straight to the source: BBC News, 22 Mar 2002 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/newsid_1887000/1887451.stm>

only in Grist: Watership down -- the world is running low on H20 -- by Lester Brown <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho091900.stm?source=daily>

do good: Take action to give fresh water to those who need it <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/air.asp?source=daily#water>

APPLIANCE OF MY EYE

Meanwhile, drought conditions in parts of the U.S. are driving up sales of water-efficient toilets, faucets, laundry machines, dishwashers, and other appliances. Home Depot and Sears are among the companies benefiting from consumers' itch to shift away from water guzzlers. Sears spokesperson Larry Costello said water- and energy-efficient appliances now represent 17 percent of the company's appliance sales, compared to 10 percent a year ago. Shoppers appear to be motivated by new drought restrictions like those in New Jersey, where residents can be fined up to $5,000 per day for violating water-use limits.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Ellis Mnyandu, 22 Mar 2002 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15155/story.htm>

only in Grist: Wet's the matter -- fun with stats -- in our Counter Culture column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/counter/counter050300.stm?source=daily>

TRACK STARS

U.S. Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and Harry Reid (Nev.) yesterday proposed creating a national tracking system to monitor both chronic diseases and environmental pollution so that any correlations between the two could be more easily identified and studied. Last year, the two senators held hearings in Fallon, Nev., which is home to a cluster of childhood leukemia cases, and Long Island, N.Y., which is home to an above-average rate of breast cancer. Clinton said, "Whether these clusters are actual or perceived, the rates of chronic diseases in our country is, unfortunately, rising. And we don't know why." The findings of the proposed tracking system would be made public through a national environmental health report.

straight to the source: Long Island Newsday, Associated Press, 21 Mar 2002 <http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-cancer0322.story?coll=ny-nynews-reddots-headlines>

3/22/02
5:23:03 PM

EMS Update - March 22, 2002

Which Utilities Pollute the Most?

A report released on Thursday reveals wide disparities in air pollution emissions from the 100 largest electric generating companies. One key finding: among coal-fired plants, some companies had NOx emission rates twice as high as others, while SO2 emissions varied by a factor of four. The worst CO2 emissions rate for coal utilities was 34 percent higher than the best.

NRDC press release: http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020321.asp

Senate Passes Diluted Green Energy Policy

The Senate on Thursday passed a weak renewable energy measure that will do very little to help America cut its dependence on fossil fuels, according to the Sierra Club.

AP story: http://www.nandotimes.com/healthscience/story/316845p-2708551c.html

3/22/02
5:17:11 PM

Report warns of severe water shortages by 2025 if global consumption continues

VIENNA, Austria (AP) _ More than 2.7 billion people will face severe shortages of fresh water by 2025 if the world keeps consuming water at today's rates, the United Nations warned Friday in a new report to mark World Water Day.

Worldwide, about 5 billion people will be living in areas where it will be difficult or impossible to meet all their needs for fresh water, creating ``a looming crisis that overshadows nearly two-thirds of the Earth's population,'' the report said.

It was released in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a nuclear watchdog organization leading the United Nations' effort to draw attention to the world's water crisis and urge the launching of a ``blue revolution'' to conserve supplies and develop new ones.

``The simple fact is that there is a limited amount of water on the planet, and we cannot afford to be negligent in its use,'' said the IAEA's director, Mohamed ElBaradei. ``We can't keep treating it as if it will never run out.''

Already, an estimated 1.1 billion people have no access to safe drinking water, 2.5 billion lack proper sanitation and more than 5 million people die from waterborne diseases each year _ 10 times the number of casualties killed in wars around the globe, the report said.

Less than 3 percent of the world's water is fresh, and most of it is trapped in polar ice or buried underground in springs too deep to reach, it said. Freshwater lakes, rivers and reservoirs may seem numerous but provide just a drop in the bucket, the report said.

``Even where supplies are sufficient or plentiful, they are increasingly at risk from pollution and rising demand,'' U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement, warning that ``fierce national competition over water resources has prompted fears that water issues contain the seeds of violent conflict.''

The worst-affected areas are the deserts and semiarid regions of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where fresh drinking water is extremely scarce, in part because of the region's wildly variable climate and unfettered population growth, the World Meteorological Organization said.

Water ministers from 22 African countries have called for a regional and global alliance, backed by international funding, to tackle water and sanitation problems. Among the solutions, they say, are the development of desalination facilities that can turn salt water into drinking water.

Millions of women trudge long distances every day in search of water or send their children to look for it, meaning they miss opportunities to work, grow crops and attend school, the U.N. report said.

``Without adequate clean water, there can be no escape from poverty,'' said Klaus Toepfer, director of the U.N. Environment Program. ``Water is the basis for good health and food production. Mankind is always at its mercy.''

Source: http://www.waterday2002.iaea.org/

3/22/02
4:18:13 PM

Axis Of Evil -- In Washington, D.C.,

by Edward Herman

Coup d'etat president George W. Bush has designated three poor and unconnected states as an "axis of evil," reflecting this great moralist's sensitivity to good and evil. He has been subjected to a certain amount of criticism for this strong language even in the mainstream press, but nobody there has suggested that, as so common in this post-Orwellian world, such language might better fit its author and his associates.

There IS a political axis of evil running strong in the United States that underpins the Bush regime, which includes the oil industry, military-industrial complex (MIC), other transnationals, and the Christian Right, all important contributors to the Bush electoral triumph, and each of which has high level representation in the administration including, besides Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, O'Neill and Ashcroft.

This REAL axis of evil is using 9/11 and the "war on terrorism" to carry out its foreign and domestic agenda on a truly impressive scale, and so far without much impediment at home or abroad.

What is notable about their agenda is that it flies in the face of all of the requirements for peace, global democracy, economic equity and justice, ecological and environmental protection, and global stability. It represents the choice of an overpowerful country's elite, determined to consolidate their economic and political advantage in the short run, at whatever cost to global society.

They are accelerating all the ugly trends of militarization and globalization that have led to increasing violence, income polarization, and the vigorous protests against the World Trade Organization, IMF and World Bank.

Consider the following:

1. New arms race:

Even before 9/11 the Bush government was pushing for a larger arms budget and that gigantic boondoggle and offensive military threat, the National Missile Defense.

With 9/11 and the collapse of the Democrats, they are allocating many billions to anything the MIC wants, and with their more violent behavior and threats abroad, other countries will have to follow. This takes enormous resources from the civil society, and will exacerbate conflict based on cutbacks and pain for ordinary citizens. The same will be true across the globe.

Thus, the polarization of income effects of corporate globalization will be increased by this diversion of resources to weapons. As Jim Lobe notes, "Whatever hopes existed in the late 1990s for a new era of global cooperation in combating poverty, disease, and threats to the environment seem to have evaporated" (Dawn [Pakistan], Jan. 23, 2002).

The complete irrationality and irresponsibility of this arms budget surge is reflected in the fact that almost none of it has to do with any threat from Bin Laden and his forces. Weapons designed to combat Soviet tanks are going forward, as well as advanced new aircraft and a missile defense system that are hardly answering Bin Laden, but represent instead MIC boondoggles and a rush for complete global "full spectrum" military hegemony.

2. The new violence:

The Washington Axis has found that war and wrapping themselves in the flag is just what was needed to divert the public from bread and butter issues, inducing the public to revel instead in the game of war, rooting for our side while we beat up yet another small adversary, with perhaps others to follow.

As the great political economist Thorstein Veblen wrote with irony almost a century ago, "sensational appeals to patriotic pride and animosity made by victories and defeats...[helps] direct the popular interest to other, nobler, institutionally less hazardous matters than the unequal distribution of wealth or of creature comforts. Warlike and patriotic preoccupations fortify the barbarian virtues of subordination and prescriptive authority...Such is the promise held out by a strenuous national policy" (Theory of Business Enterprise [1904]).

The Bush team is threatening to beat up anybody who "harbors terrorists" or aims to build "weapons of mass destruction" without our approval. Israel is of course exempt from this rule and has been given carte blanche to smash the Palestinian civil society.

Bush and his handlers will decide who are terrorists, who harbors them, and who can build weapons. It is easily predictable that anybody who resists the corporate globalization process and tries to pursue an independent development path, will be found to violate human rights, harbor terrorists, or otherwise threaten U.S. "national security," with dire consequences.

Because the ongoing globalization process is increasing inequality and poverty, protests and insurgencies will continue to arise. The U.S. answer is spelled out clearly in the "war on terrorism" and simultaneous push for "free trade" and cutbacks in spending for the civil society at home and abroad.

The Washington Axis is also pursuing a "war on the poor" that will merge easily into the "war on terrorism," as the poor will be driven to resist and resistance will be interpreted as terrorism.

This is in a great U.S. tradition, brought to a high level in the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953 and installation of the Shah, the assassination of Guatemalan democracy by Eisenhower and Dulles in 1954, the war against Vietnam, and the U.S.-sponsored displacement of democratic governments by National Security States throughout South America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were wars allegedly against the "Soviet Threat," but really against the poor and the populist threat to "free trade.."

The Bush team obviously threatens even more violence than we witnessed in that earlier era. The military force they control is relatively stronger and without the Soviet constraint. With the help of the more centralized and commercialized media they have worked the populace into a state of war-game fervor.

They have brought back into the government some of the most fervent supporters of terrorism and death squads from the Reagan years in Otto Reich, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte, Elliott Abrams, and Lino Guterriez; men who can now work in a more killer- friendly environment.

3. Escalated support for authoritarian regimes.

The United States actively helped bring to power and supported large numbers of murderous regimes in the years 1945-1990, on the excuse of the Soviet Threat, but really because those regimes were suitably subservient to U.S. interests and willingly provided that crucial "favorable climate of investment" (especially, union-busting). With the Soviet Threat gone, for a while there was a problem finding rationalizations for the long-standing and structurally-rooted anti-populist and anti-democratic bias, but now we have the "war on terrorism," which will do quite nicely.

The Washington Axis has already leapt to the support of the military dictator of Pakistan, the ex-Stalinist boss of Uzbekistan, and it is clear that willingness to serve the "war on terrorism" will override any nasty political leadership qualities.

At the same time, as with Sharon in his escalated crackdown on the Palestinians and Putin in Chechnya, cooperation with the war will mean support for internal violence against dissidents and minorities, forms of state terrorism that will readily be interpreted as part of the "war on terrorism." Just as militarization and war do not conduce to democracy, the effects of mobilization of countries to support the Washington Axis of Evil's war will damage democracy globally.

4. Destabilization effects.

Corporate globalization has had a major destabilizing effect in the global economy, causing increased unemployment, civilian budget cuts, large-scale internal and external migrations, and environmental destruction. The more aggressive penetration of oil interests, in collusion with local governments in Nigeria, Colombia, and now Central Asia, and the new war on terrorism, should intensify destabilization trends.

5. The fight against democracy at home.

At every level the Bush team has fought against the basics of democracy and attempted to concentrate unaccountable governmental authority in its own hands. Militarization itself is anti-democratic, but the team has attempted to loosen constraints on the CIA and police, reduce public access to every kind of information, and constrain free speech.

They have put in place a secret government and are moving the country toward a more openly authoritarian government, and, if they can keep it going, their planned open-ended war on terrorism should serve this end well.

6. The Bush "vision" versus the "End of History."

This process does not comport well with Francis Fukayama's vision of the new peaceful, democratic order that would follow the death of the Soviet Union and triumph of capitalism.

Fukayama missed the boat on three counts. He failed to see that the end of the Soviet Union and termination of a socialist threat would also end the need to accommodate labor with social welfare concessions--in other words, that there could be a return to a pure capitalism such as Karl Marx described in the first volume of Capital.

Second, he failed to see that corporate globalization and greater capital mobility would make for a global "reserve army of labor" and weaken labor's bargaining power and political position.

Finally, he failed to recognize that without the Soviet Union's "containment" the United States would be freer to use force in serving its transnationals, forcing Third World countries to join the "free trade" nexus, and preventing them from serving the needs of their citizens (as opposed to the needs of the transnational corporate community).

As this entire process will involve further polarization and immiseration of large numbers, insurgencies are inevitable, justifying more militarization and an escalated war on "terrorism" in a vicious cycle.

What can be more frightening and dangerous to the world than facing the Washington Axis of Evil as the overwhelmingly dominant holder of "weapons of mass destruction," which it is seeking to improve and make more usable, with the elite's longstanding arrogance and self-righteousness at an all-time high, and with no countervailing force in sight? Bin Laden's threat is nothing by comparison.

What is more, the Bin Laden threat flows from U.S. actions, which played a crucial role in building up the Al-Qaeda network, and policies which have made a hell of the Middle East and polarized incomes and wealth across the globe. The cycle of violence will only be broken if the Washington Axis of Evil is defeated, removed from office, and replaced by a regime that aims to serve a broader constituency than oil, the MIC, the other transnationals, and the Christian Right.

Source: http://www.Zmag.org

3/22/02
4:00:33 PM

What Is Terrorism?

When does naivete segue into intellectual dishonesty? The current "War on Terrorism" - or is it officially "World War IV" as some of the neoconservative war lovers insist? - is providing an opportunity to examine this question. (...) A new Frankenstein monster - fashioned out of the entropic remains of previous and current wars conducted and/or supported by the American empire - was brought to life in the form of "international terrorism." (...) I have long been in favor of ending terrorism in the world, long before it became fashionable to war against only certain factions of it. But let us be more inclusive as to its sources. Let us put an end to terrorism, not with the use of bombs, tanks, nuclear weapons, and secret military trials, but bywithdrawing our support from that which makes terrorism not only possible, but necessary: political systems. Let us expand the front lines to include not simply the terrorist practices disapproved of by states, but the far more destructive, deadly, and dehumanizing practices of statism itself.

WHY BUSH IS ADDICTED TO PERPETUAL WAR

The more we go after Islamist extremists, the more they'll go after us, breeding a perpetual war that Bush hopes will usher him in another term come November 2004. (...) The Bushies have lifted their reelection strategy straight out of Orwell's "1984," and not just by creating ominous-sounding agencies like the Office of Homeland Security, the supposedly-closed Office of Strategic Information, and a "Shadow Government." As in "1984," the Bush regime tolerates zero dissent -- a two-party system in name only has been distilled to one in which only Republicans express acceptable opinions. And an absence of follow-up attacks has been met by endless alerts, advisors and empty hysterics in the name of security, most recently culminating with Tom Ridge's much-mocked color-code warning system.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12654

National Missile Defense: Blowing The Whistle On Bad Science

http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/031402.html

Geov Parrish: It's Our War, Too: America's Role in Israel Seen Abroad But Not at Home

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=12975

3/22/02
3:56:30 PM

TomPaine.com

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5284

"Independent, commercial-free, public affairs reporting."

SINS OF THE FATHERS

Cogitations Of A 'Comfortable Catholic'

by M. W. Guzy

Worldly parishioners endorse the spiritual mission of the church while evading particulars they find inconvenient. Over time, this benign neglect of specifics has created a chasm between lay reality and liturgical doctrine.

OPPORTUNITY IN ADVERSITY

Why A Political Consultant Celebrates Campaign Reform

by Kevin Reikes

Campaign finance reform has passed, and this political consultant says to Senator John McCain: "You don't want us to give you guys on Capitol Hill any more big money? We won't. We'll take our craft elsewhere."

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5288

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING AMERICAN

by Richard Blow

Just as the White House wants to expand the war on terrorism, it may be losing the public's attention -- because of it's censorship of combat coverage.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5287

Dispatch: Detroit

A DRIVE TOWARD FUEL EFFICIENCY?

Some Auto-Makers Push Forward Without The Governments Help

by Julie Halpert

Despite the recent defeat in Congress of a measure that would have raised fuel efficiency standards, carmakers feel pressured to design and produce less polluting vehicles. Some observers say what's at stake is nothing less than the future of the automobile.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5292

THE PERFECT STORM

Coming To A Coast Near You

by David Helvarg

Severe coastal storms are on the rise, and more homes than ever are in jeopardy. Will $520 billion in taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance become an unmanageable liability?

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/4068

Dispatch: Missouri

STOP STUDYING AND DO SOMETHING!

Charting A Course For The 'Big Muddy'

by Lester Graham

The government needs to stop studying problems along the Missouri River and do something about them, according to a report issued by the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5256

And from our CHECK IT OUT! department:

FAILURE, PUNISHMENT AND ANDREA YATES

Danielle Steel, whose 19-year-old son suffered from bipolar disorder and committed suicide, on the Yates trial:

"Every description of Yates' behavior, long before her devastating crime, shouts of deeply psychotic behavior," Steel says. Almost everyone agrees. The jurors showed compassion, and spared her life in a county where they have put the most people to death, in a crime that was as devastating as they come. She was too sick to put to death, but not sick enough to help? In grieving the deaths of five children, have we found solace in punishment (any kind we can bear to carry out), and thus failed justice and Andrea Yates? Why do we choose punishment over treatment? Why do we shout blame and show ignorance before we take responsibility and choose to help?

CHECK IT OUT! http://www.tompaine.com/check_it_out/

3/22/02
3:47:46 PM

Businessmen Make Boo-Boos

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Let us now take a walking tour of Washington, D.C., to see whether the Enron scandal has loosened corporate America's grip on our nation's capital. (Okay, the answer is no.)

At the White House yesterday, President Bush announced a 10-point plan that he said will "improve corporate responsibility and help protect America's shareholders."

It will not.

In fact, a quick analysis shows that the federal government already has the authority to implement Bush's proposals. No new laws are needed. It's merely a question of will power.

Even the toughest of the Bush ideas (#5 -- CEOs or other officers who clearly abuse their power should lose their right to serve in any corporate leadership positions) can be executed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today, right now, with no law changes.

But given that the top cop on the securities fraud beat in Washington is the accounting industry's former top lawyer -- that would be current SEC chair Harvey Pitt -- we may conclude this: there is no will, and there is therefore no way this Bush's 10-point proposal will "improve corporate responsibility."

It's all smoke and mirrors.

Let's remember that when Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, last month proposed that corporate executives be held liable for their negligent wrongdoing, he was quietly sent packing.

Why?

When asked about why O'Neill's proposal was shot down, a senior administration official told reporters yesterday morning at the White House: "Businessmen can make boo-boos. When you invest in a company in which a businessman makes a mistake, a business judgment mistake, no one wants to have to have anyone be guaranteed for those returns." (Translation: can't hold the executive responsible for mistakes under the "business judgment rule.") "And we're trying to be very careful to steer away from that issue and still leave investors on the hook for the choices businessmen make about business." (No that is not a typo. According to the White House transcript, he said "on the hook.")

Let us now proceed across the street, to the Treasury Department annex, where the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has for years been engaged in a kind of protection racket -- enforcing the law against large corporations for alleged violations of the Trading with the Enemy Act, allowing the companies to settle those cases for a few thousand dollars, and yet never informing the public about those settlements.

Until last week, that is, when as a result of a lawsuit we filed last year, OFAC began releasing the documents detailing about 100 to 150 such cases from 1998 to 2000.

But still, the Treasury Department says it won't inform the public, in a timely manner, about which of our giant corporations are "trading with the enemy."

Let us now proceed cross town to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where it is the tenth anniversary of the sentencing guidelines for corporate criminals.

These guidelines were drafted in 1991. They created a carrot-and-stick approach. If a corporation had a strong ethics program, an 800-number for whistleblowers, a compliance officer with teeth, but despite all of that, was still convicted of crime, a judge would give that "good" convicted corporation a lighter sentence.

If a corporation didn't have a strong ethics program and wantonly violated the law, the judge, under the sentencing guidelines would give that "bad" corporation a harsher sentence.

The result of the guidelines: there are now 800 corporations with ethics officers. The officers even have their own trade group -- the Ethics Officers Association.

But have the corporate crime sentencing guidelines reduced corporate crime? We doubt it.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission says it wants to know the answer, so it has announced the creation of a 15-member ad hoc panel to study the effect the guidelines have had on corporate crime.

But get this: 12 of the 15 members are corporate white collar criminal defense attorneys or others from the corporate sector. Why no one from the public interest community? Why no lawyers who sue corporations alleging wrongdoing? Why no legal scholars critical of corporate influence over our democracy? (The grip is tight.)

Let us now proceed to Capitol Hill, where Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is introducing legislation that would create a Federal Bureau of Audits.

Today, corporations hire their own auditors. If the auditors find something wrong and try to get it fixed, a corporation can lawfully fire the auditor and hire another more to its liking.

Kucinich's bill would require that publicly held companies go to the Federal Bureau of Audits and be assigned a government auditor.

It's one of the few reforms we've seen floated in recent months that has a chance of preventing future Enrons.

And yet, at the press conference where Kucinich announced his legislation, there were two reporters. And no co-sponsors.

The Democrats, who like the Republicans, are marinated in corporate cash and culture, see Kucinich's bill as too hot to handle.

The reason: accounting firms stand to lose tens of millions of dollars in auditing business to the federal government.

Let us now proceed down Pennsylvania Avenue, to the J. Edgar Hoover building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is about to release it's yearly "Crime in the United States Report."

If history is a guide, the report will document all kinds of street crimes, but not even mention the wave of corporate crime and violence sweeping over our country -- this despite the well documented reality that corporate crime and violence inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined.

Let us now proceed uptown, to the K street corridor, where we find thousands of corporate lobbyists working diligently late into the night to ensure that whatever citizen energies were released from the Enron earthquake are contained within reasonable bounds.

After all, businessmen make boo-boos.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of Corporate Crime Reporter.

Robert Weissman is editor of Multinational Monitor, http://www.essential.org/monitor.

They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999;

http://www.corporatepredators.org

Source: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2002/000108.html

3/22/02
3:40:25 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

BUSINESSMEN MAKE BOO-BOOS

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Multinational Monitor

-- The Enron scandal hasn't taught corporations anything about being responsible businesses; it has taught them to better protect themselves.

THE ORPHANAGE OF CAST-OFF MASCOTS

by James Lileks, Lileks.com

-- Meet some of advertising's failed mascots at Lileks.com - like Deep Sea Dave, Plywood Pete, and Kraut King - and then adopt one for use on your own Web site.

SLOW FOOD PLANET

Web site review by Madeleine Baran, SlowFood.com

-- Looking to avoid McDonald's and expensive tourist traps on your next vacation? Check out Slow Food's guide to the world's best restaurants, hotels, and stores. From the Czech Republic to New Orleans, the folks at Slow Food have diligently researched and reviewed the best each location has to offer.

Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch

3/22/02
3:35:34 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-21-04.html

RADIOACTIVE DISCHARGES CONFOUND NORTH SEA MINISTERS

BERGEN, Norway, March 21, 2002 (ENS) - A conflict over radioactive discharges has overshadowed this week's ministerial conference on the protection of the North Sea. Environment ministers from nine countries bordering the sea reached agreement on a wide range of issues during their two day meeting. But they failed to make any progress in resolving a long standing dispute over discharges from nuclear reprocessing facilities in the UK and France.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM HEADED FOR PRESIDENT'S SIGNATURE

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, March 21, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to radically overhaul the nation's campaign finance rules, sharply limiting the amount of money that corporations and special interests will be able to contribute to candidates. The bill, already passed by the House, now heads to the desk of President George W. Bush, who has said he will sign the legislation.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-21-06.html

FEW UTILITIES PRODUCE MAJORITY OF POLLUTING EMISSIONS

WASHINGTON, DC, March 21, 2002 (ENS) - Just 20 electric utilities in the United States are responsible for half the carbon dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide pollution emitted by the 100 largest power generating companies in the nation, a new report finds. The study by a coalition of environmental and public interest groups found that between four and six companies account for 25 percent of the emissions of each pollutant.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-21-07.html

BRITAIN HUNTS FOR SOLUTION TO FOX HUNTING BAN

LONDON, United Kingdom, March 21, 2002 (ENS) - The British Parliament is once again bitterly divided over fox hunting with dogs. In non-binding opinion votes this week, the British House of Commons chose Monday for a third time to ban the hunt, but the House of Lords Wednesday night voted to let the hunt continue.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-21-02.html

TANZANIA'S NEW NATIONAL PARK PROTECTS EDIBLE ORCHIDS

BRONX, New York, March 21, 2002 (ENS) - The New York based Wildlife Conservation Society has succeeded in persuading the government of Tanzania to safeguard a unique area known for its diversity of orchids, many found nowhere else on Earth. It will be the first protected area in tropical Africa protected primarily for its floral significance.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-21-01.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 21, 2002

Mercury Contaminates Polar Regions

Jet Ski Ban Could Be Delayed

New York Lakes Fail to Freeze

California Senator Fights Landfilling of Radioactive Waste

Sunlight, PCB Exposure Raise Skin Cancer Risk

Legislators Endorse Health Tracking Network

$90 Million Supports Safer Water Systems

729 Buildings Earn Energy Star Label

Sea Fans Help Regenerate Damaged Coral Reef

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-21-09.html

3/22/02
3:30:51 PM

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'

http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html

Missing the Point on Campaign Finance

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21191

Shays-Meehan trashes 1st Amendment

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21150

911 & social sciences study

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21188

Air Traffic Controllers Concerned Over Chemtrails

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21187

Kangaroo Courts in Guantanamo (Newsday)

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21183

U.S. spurns renewed calls for world tax

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21182

FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD: FROM HARVARD TO ENRON

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21100

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE!

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21154

PENTAGON POLICE GRAB TAPE FROM FOX NEWSMAN

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/pp.htm

Re: Flight 77 - Toner/Eastman

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=21189

We are Not saying, that was was NO plane, Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. We are saying, Where IS Flight 77, at the CRASH SITE?

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/flight77.htm

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do." - Edward Everett Hale

http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm

3/22/02
3:03:27 PM

The "Liberal Media" Myth That Will Not Die

by Norman Solomon

You've probably heard a lot of spooky tales about "the liberal media."

Ever since Vice President Spiro Agnew denounced news outlets that were offending the Nixon administration in the autumn of 1969, the specter has been much more often cited than sighted. "The liberal media" is largely an apparition -- but the epithet serves as an effective weapon, brandished against journalists who might confront social inequities and imbalances of power.

During the last few months, former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg's new book "Bias" has stoked the "liberal media" canard. His anecdote-filled book continues to benefit from enormous media exposure.

In interviews on major networks, Goldberg has emphasized his book's charge that American media outlets are typically in step with the biased practices he noticed at CBS News -- where "we pointedly identified conservatives as conservatives, for example, but for some crazy reason didn't bother to identify liberals as liberals."

But do facts support Goldberg's undocumented generalization? To find out, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg searched a database of 30 large daily newspapers in the United States. He disclosed the results in an analysis that aired March 19 on the national radio program "Fresh Air."

Nunberg discovered "a big disparity in the way the press labels liberals and conservatives -- but not in the direction that Goldberg claims." Actually, the data showed, "the average liberal legislator has a 30 percent greater likelihood of being identified with a partisan label than the average conservative does."

When Nunberg narrowed his search to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times -- three dailies "routinely accused of having a liberal bias" -- he learned that "in those papers, too, liberals get partisan labels 30 percent more often than conservatives do, the same proportion as in the press at large."

And what about Goldberg's claim that media coverage is also slanted by unfairly pigeonholing stars of the entertainment industry? His book declares flatly: "If we do a Hollywood story, it's not unusual to identify certain actors, like Tom Selleck or Bruce Willis, as conservatives. But Barbra Streisand or Rob Reiner, no matter how active they are in liberal Democratic politics, are just Barbra Streisand and Rob Reiner."

Again, Nunberg found, the facts prove Goldberg wrong: "The press gives partisan labels to Streisand and Reiner almost five times as frequently as it does to Selleck and Willis. For that matter, Warren Beatty gets a partisan label twice as often as Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Norman Lear gets one more frequently than Charlton Heston does."

The results are especially striking because the word "liberal" has been widely stigmatized, observes Nunberg, a senior researcher at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information. "It turns out that newspapers label liberals much more readily than they do conservatives."

So, while Goldberg hotly contends -- without statistical backup -- that conservatives get a raw deal because they're singled out for ideological labeling more than liberals are, Nunberg relies on empirical evidence to reach a very different conclusion: "If there is a bias here, in fact, the data suggests that it goes the other way -- that the media consider liberals to be farther from the mainstream than conservatives are."

It's unlikely that factual debunking will do much to slow the momentum of those who are intent on riding the "liberal media" poltergeist. It has already carried them a long way.

Not surprisingly, President Bush displayed Goldberg's book for photographers at the White House a couple of months ago. For a long time, GOP strategists have been "working the refs" -- crying foul about supposed media bias while benefitting greatly from the efforts of an unparalleled national media tag-team that includes the likes of Rush Limbaugh, a slew of corporate-funded think tanks and plenty of rightward pundits in print and on television.

It doesn't hurt that -- during the last 70 years -- the Republican presidential candidate has received most of the daily newspaper endorsements in 16 out of 18 elections. How's that for "liberal media"?

But, like a ghost that long ago assumed corporeal form in the minds of millions, "the liberal media" cannot die. That's mostly because its image keeps being pumped up by huge media outlets.

In its first edition of this year, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy lead editorial lauding Goldberg's new book -- even showcasing a photo of the cover at the center of the editorial, which declared that "a liberal tilt in the media" is among the "facts of life so long obvious they would seem beyond dispute."

Overall, Goldberg's book is a muddled hodgepodge. While bashing journalists as excessively sympathetic to the homeless, laid-off workers and poor people, he attacks the media establishment as elitist. With variations of faux populism, he expresses indignation that low-income people are rarely heard or seen in mass media -- yet he lambasts advocates for striving to widen the range of media coverage to include the voices of such people.

On bedrock issues of economic power, what passes for liberal-conservative debate in news media is usually a series of disputes over how to fine-tune the status quo. In the process, the myth of "the liberal media" serves as a smokescreen for realities of corporate media.

Norman Solomon's latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media."

His syndicated column focuses on media and politics.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12667

3/22/02
2:51:25 PM

Killing The CAFE Standards

by Carl Pope

I am ashamed.

Monday, thousands of watts of light from 88 searchlights pierced through the New York haze to make the 6 month anniversary of the tragedy of the World Trade Center. This, New York seemed to say, was the moment to remember, and honor, the thousands who struggled, and those who lost, heroically, on September 11.

But already, as the beams thrust skyward, a stain of fear and deceit was spreading across America. Powered by the transmitters of dozens of television stations across rural America -- a few hundred watts in Fargo, North Dakota, or a few thousand in Omaha, Nebraska, or perhaps a thousand in Butte, Montana, television station by television station, a superbly orchestrated, sleekly packaged campaign of dishonesty was telling rural Americans that at this moment, six months after the war on terrorism began, their government was coming to take away their pick-up trucks.

Earnest farming faces stared out from the ads -- millions of dollars worth of ads, saturation in places like Rapid City, South Dakota -- and declared, "It's awfully hard to load the hay in a subcompact." Only the analysis in The New York Times business section alerted us that the anxious farming faces were from "stock photos" and the quotes from family farmer General Motors.

Who, actually, was coming to repossess the family pick-up? Two war heroes, in fact -- Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator John Kerry, Democrat, of Massachusetts, who on Friday, had come together to say that Americans deserved to drive cars, and SUVs, and yes pick-ups, engineered with the very best technology Detroit could muster, engineered to reduce our dependence on oil, to weaken the connection that deprives our foreign policy of freedom of action in the Middle East, to ease the consumption of carbon dioxide and other pollutants that threatens both our lungs and the climate of the planet.

Kerry and McCain had offered a compromise -- one that gave the auto industry time, ample time, and flexibility, perhaps a tad too much. They said, "Enough is enough. We want to drive cars that don't threaten our national security, give asthma to our children, or threaten the world with global warming. You have the technology to do it. Fifteen years is long enough to install it in the vehicles you sell in your showrooms." Kerry and McCain wanted the Ford Explorer improved so that instead of getting 19 miles to the gallon it earned 34. They wanted better transmissions, more efficient tires, a wider choice of hybrid vehicles, more streamlined hoodlines, multi-valve engines.

They had suffered in our wars, and knew that when it came time to fight, America demanded the very best for its troops. They simply thought that if technology could make fighting less likely, and less necessary, we owed that to our troops as well.

I am ashamed.

Detroit had a choice. It could follow Henry Ford, and lead the world with a new way of making cars. Or it could follow the path of the 1970s, conclude that beating the Japanese auto companies in improving technology was just too hard. It could luxuriate in the fat $20,000 mark-ups it makes on that 19 mpg Explorer, profit margins bloated by the lack of investment in new technology and better cars.

And it could cover up its laziness by proclaiming that only Detroit was defending the hard-working plumber, the farmer, the window-glass installer, who otherwise would be reduced by Kerry and McCain to loading their tools onto a -- well perhaps the Ford Aspire that I drive, since I don't have to carry anything bulkier than a briefcase to my office.

Six months after the assault on the World Trade Center, as American troops died closing in on yet one more al Qaeda stronghold in Paktia Province, as American emissaries traveled the Middle East trying to figure out how to keep the oil flowing while stanching the bloodshed, Detroit decided. It chose the past.

In an unprecedented blitz the auto industry set out to terrify rural America, claiming that if fuel-efficiency standards were increased, SUVs and pick-ups would vanish from their production lines. Enough voters were panicked to produce the requisite "flood" of telephone calls to senators from rural states. (Polls had previously showed that pick-up owners in states like Nebraska strongly favored higher fuel economy standards -- after all they pay the gas bills. But a few hundred panicked phone calls are emotionally a lot more frightening than a poll.) Those senators who on Friday were patriotically prepared to stand with Kerry and McCain and defend America's long term energy, security, economic and environmental interests, suddenly found a higher calling -- defending soccer moms.

Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland rose and said, "American women love their SUVs and minivans ... because of their safety." (Mikulski has met in her career with insurance industry actuaries. She knows better.) Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri proclaimed, "about the only way we could get there is to put everybody into glorified golf carts." (Bond knew that everyone listening to him knows better.)

I am ashamed.

Panicked, the Senate voted, overwhelmingly, to defeat Kerry and McCain.

A great victory for the American auto industry? Not everyone thought so. One thoughtful lobbyist for the industry emerged, ashen, like a man given a death sentence. He knew that his bosses had just opted for a short, profitable future for Detroit -- until the foreign manufacturers take over the SUV and pick-up market with better technology (and fuel economy). They'd opted for a future long-enough, like Enron's, to secure executive pensions, but one with fewer and fewer opportunities for American workers.

So, I am ashamed. I am ashamed that six months after the attack on the World Trade Center the U.S. Senate caved in, not to Osama bin Laden, but to lies from the auto industry. But while I am ashamed, I am not going to despair. I am also angry. And today, talking to my 31-year-old son, or a friend's 16-year-old daughter, I know that millions of other Americans are angry. Listening to the fury in the voice of that auto executive, or the determination in the lobbyist who told the Sierra Club, "We still have to talk. We have to make this happen," I believe Americans must, can, and will demand leadership from our leaders. We cannot let our future be shaped by those who care only about their present. One by one, neighbor to neighbor, letter to the editor by letter to the editor, post card by post card, and finally, vote by vote, we can shape an energy future that will make our grandchildren proud -- not ashamed.

Carl Pope is the Sierra Club's executive director.

http://www.SierraClub.org

3/22/02
2:36:12 PM

Book Banning In The 21st Century

by Marjorie Heins

The time-honored practice of banning and burning books is alive and well in America's education system today, albeit with a 21st century twist. In an effort to shield innocent minds from online "smut," the Children's Internet Protection Act -- or CIPA -- has mandated that all public schools and libraries using federal funds for Internet use or connections must install a filtering system by this July or risk losing the aid altogether. Not only does this directly impinge upon the free expression rights of youth and adults, it subverts the education process as a whole.

Last fall, the Free Expression Policy Project examined more than 70 studies on the effectiveness of filters and concluded that the systems are inherently flawed. Multiple programs -- including Net Nanny, SurfWatch, CYBERsitter, and BESS -- blocked House Majority Leader Richard "Dick" Armey's official Web site upon detecting the word "dick." I-Gear blocked a United Nations report on "HIV/AIDS: The Global Epidemic," while Smartfilter blocked Marijuana: Facts for Teens, a brochure published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In hundreds of cases, filters censored artistic sites, public health information, and communications dealing with sexuality education, largely because the technology relied on key phrases like "over 18," "sex," "breast," and "pussy" (hence, X-Stop's blocking of "pussy willow" searches). Moreover, the political agendas of some manufacturers were reflected through their censoring of such topics as human rights, criticism of filtering systems, and homosexuality. Nancy Willard at the University of Oregon's Center for Advanced Technology in Education also discovered an unsettling relationship between some prominent filtering companies and conservative religious groups. Several filtering systems with a major presence in public schools have a history of functioning as religious Internet Service Providers and/or espousing conservative philosophies. This delegation of educational decisions to companies with religious agendas poses a great danger to the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.

To make matters worse, most filtering systems refuse to publicize the list of sites they block, which in effect prevents school districts from the ability to detect these hidden biases. Congress has essentially forced public schools to turn over major decision-making power to private companies with profit and/or ideological motives.

In the year and a half since CIPA was enacted, our organization has received letters from disgruntled teachers across America. A California high school teacher who called filters a "frightening" form of "modern day censorship" noted "I have been unable to ask questions about filtering policies without being made to feel that I must be looking up porn sites on my lunch break." Students have also written to express their frustration. Among their research topics rendered virtually impossible by many filters are school violence, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, AIDS, mental illnesses, and -- in one case -- the asexual reproduction of mushrooms. For privileged students, these filters are more an annoyance than anything else: They simply wait until they get home to their personal computers to conduct their research. But that's not an option for everyone. While 86.3 percent of households earning $75,000 and above annually had Internet access in the United States in 2000 (according to a Department of Commerce study), only 12.7 percent of households earning less than $15,000 did. This so-called "digital divide" puts black and Latino students at a distinct disadvantage, as they are only half as likely to have Internet access at home as whites.

Across the nation, school districts, libraries, city councils, and free speech organizations have rallied together to fight CIPA. On March 25, the federal court in Philadelphia will hear the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union's challenge to the law's library provisions. At least one school district in Eugene, Oregon, has refused to install filters altogether, relying instead on stringent student monitoring and a well-enforced acceptable use policy. Indeed, there are countless better ways to keep students from sites that are inappropriate in school, including training in media literacy, instilling critical thinking skills, and quality sex education. Such methods will prove far more effective in preparing youngsters for adult life in a democratic society than attempting to censor society through a filter.

The Internet has widely been touted as a revolution in democratic communication, but that doesn't quite apply to students and adults who rely on public schools and libraries for access. Perhaps what's really needed is a more contemporary version of A. J. Liebling's famous quote: "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." With filtering systems, "Freedom of the Internet is guaranteed only to those who own a computer."

Marjorie Heins is executive director of the Free Expression Policy Project in New York City.

Her insightful new book: Not In Front Of The Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth

http://www.ncac.org/store/notinfront.html

Source: http://www.ncac.org

3/22/02
1:27:05 PM

Why Bush Is Addicted to Perpetual War Ted Rall, AlterNet March 19, 2002

I began working on a graphic-novel update and parody of "1984" a few years ago. An awful lot had changed since Orwell posited his dystopian vision of the future from his late-1940s deathbed, and I accounted for those differences in my own version, 2001's "2024."

In order to acknowledge the collapse of Soviet Communism and the failure of fascism to reemerge as a potent political force, I ditched Orwell's oppressive totalitarian state in favor of an entertainment-fueled nihilism in which dimwitted citizens frittered away their lives watching web TV and working at slightly overpaid jobs to buy worthless junk ... on web TV, natch. Where Orwell envisioned endless rows of soldiers marching in perfect unison to the strains of the Two-Minute Hate, I saw a world where nations had been replaced by trading blocs and the objects of hatred were the immigrants in our midst.

The six months following The Really Bad Thing That Happened have made clear that I wasn't the only guy boning up on Orwell.

In "1984," the elite Inner Party rules the rattled and irradiated citizens of Oceania through three conduits of fear and intimidation: surveillance, terrorism and perpetual warfare.

The Oceanians had their two-way telescreens; we suffer a 10,000-employee National Security Agency that relies on automated voice-recognition and keyword software (Echelon, not to be confused with the more picayune and widely-reported Carnivore system) to monitor millions of e-mails, faxes and phone calls each day. But few Americans give much thought to this wholesale violation of their privacy; only those who are doing something wrong, they tell themselves, have anything to worry about.

The first eight months of the Bush Administration were characterized by political insecurity. Bush, widely derided as unintelligent and oafish, had carried less than half of the popular vote in 2000, and many Democrats believed that he had bullied his way into the Oval Office. Jim Jeffords' defection from the GOP, partially a reaction to Bush's hard turn to the right after his inauguration, cost Republicans control of the Senate. Most analysts expected big Democratic gains in the 2002 Congressional elections, due both to the stagnating economy and to historical trends against incumbency in mid-term.

The White House saw September 11 as a golden opportunity. The first catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil sparked an unprecedented case of leadership projection: desperate for protection and answers (why do they hate us? can we kill them before they kill us?), Americans wishfully compared Bush to FDR and Churchill. Approval ratings hit 92 percent. But Bush's political advisors knew that peaking early wouldn't guarantee reelection in 2004. Bush's father had been turned out of office just 20 months after the Gulf War ratcheted his score up to 91.

The Bushies have lifted their reelection strategy straight out of "1984," and not just by creating ominous-sounding agencies like the Office of Homeland Security, the supposedly-closed Office of Strategic Information, and a "Shadow Government." As in "1984," the Bush regime tolerates zero dissent --a two-party system in name only has been distilled to one in which only Republicans express acceptable opinions. And an absence of follow-up attacks has been met by endless alerts, advisors and empty hysterics in the name of security, most recently culminating with Tom Ridge's much-mocked color-code warning system.

But Americans don't seem to miss their Democratic Party very much; after all, Clinton spent more time sucking up to big business than worrying about the fact that ordinary people can't afford to see a doctor. And unless Bush resorts to the Orwellian tactic of setting off bombs to kill his own citizens, the passage of time will inevitably yield to the complacency that could cost him '04.

That leaves "1984's" most potent political tool: perpetual warfare. Just as Oceania was always at war with Eurasia or Eastasia -- who could keep track? -- the "war on terror," we are told, will continue indefinitely.

Indefinitely is just another word for forever.

Thus hundreds, possibly thousands, of American troops are headed to the Philippines to fight a rag-tag outfit of 80 jungle bandits. Our boys are scouring the back hills of far-flung Yemen in search of Al Qaeda fighters on the lam from our ongoing war in Afghanistan. We've set up bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to fight Central Asia's Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan -- never mind that the world hasn't heard from them since they kidnapped four American mountain climbers in 2000.

China, Indonesia, the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the Axis of Evil, you name it ... we're targeting alleged terrorists in 50-to-60 countries with tens of thousands of soldiers and tens of billions of dollars. "So long as there's Al Qaeda anywhere, we will help the host countries root them out," Bush says. "If we expect to kill every terrorist in the world, that's going to keep us going beyond doomsday," responds Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV).

Best of all for Bush, the more we go after Islamist extremists, the more they'll go after us. The war on terror begets more terror begets more war.

The truth is that Bush isn't considering his post-apocalyptic future -- at this point November 2004 will do nicely. But by '04 Cheney or some other GOP big-wig will be gearing up for '08, and after that there'll be a reelection campaign in '12 ... old George Orwell, it turns out, wasn't that far off the mark.

Ted Rall's new book, a graphic travelogue about his recent coverage of the Afghan war titled "To Afghanistan and Back," will be published in April.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12654

3/22/02
1:15:46 PM

Once-Secret "Nixon Tapes" Show Why the U.S. Outlawed Pot

by Kevin Zeese

Thirty years ago the United States came to a critical juncture in the drug war. A Nixon-appointed presidential commission had recommended that marijuana use not be a criminal offense under state or federal law. But Nixon himself, based on his zealous personal preferences, overruled the commission's research and doomed marijuana to its current illegal status.

This newly revealed information comes from declassified tapes of Oval Office conversations from 1971 and 1972, which show Nixon's aggressive anti-drug stance putting him directly at odds against many of his close advisors. Transcripts of the tape, and a report based on them, are available at http://www.csdp.org.

Congress, when it passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, temporarily labeled marijuana a "Schedule I substance" -- a flatly illegal drug with no approved medical purposes. But Congress acknowledged that it did not know enough about marijuana to permanently relegate it to Schedule I, and so they created a presidential commission to review the research and recommend a long-term strategy. President Nixon got to appoint the bulk of the commissioners. Not surprisingly, he loaded it with drug warriors. Nixon appointed Raymond Shafer, former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, as Chairman. As a former prosecutor, Shafer had a "law and order," drug warrior reputation. Nixon also appointed nine Commissioners, including the dean of a law school, the head of a mental health hospital, and a retired Chicago police captain. Along with the Nixon appointees, two senators and two congressmen from each party served on the Commission.

The Shafer Commission -- officially known as the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- took its job seriously. They launched fifty research projects, polled the public and members of the criminal justice community, and took thousands of pages of testimony. Their work is still the most comprehensive review of marijuana ever conducted by the federal government.

After reviewing all the evidence, these drug warriors were forced to come to a different conclusion than they had at first expected. Rather than harshly condemning marijuana, they started talking about legalization. When Nixon heard such talk, he quickly denounced the Commission -- months before it issued its report.

As a result of Nixon's public rebuke, Shafer met with the President. The Commission was upset, and the purpose of the meeting was to reassure them. But Nixon didn't budge. Instead, he warned Shafer to get control of his commission and avoid looking like a "bunch of do-gooders" who are "soft on marijuana." He warned Shafer that the Commission would "look bad as hell" if it came out with recommendations different from the direction of Congress and the President.

During their meeting, Shafer reassured the President that he would not support "legalization," even though there were some on the Commission who did. He told Nixon they were looking for a unanimous recommendation. Nixon warned Shafer that he "had very strong feelings" on marijuana. Nixon and Shafer also discussed Shafer's potential appointment to a federal judgeship.

But in the end, the Shafer Commission issued a report that tried to correct the "extensive degree of misinformation," to "demythologize" and "desymbolize" marijuana. They reported finding that marijuana did not cause crime or aggression, lead to harder drug use or create significant biochemical, mental or physical abnormalities. They concluded: "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

The most important recommendation of the Commission was the decriminalization of possession or non-profit transfer of marijuana. Decriminalization meant there would be no punishment -- criminal or civil --under state or federal law.

Nixon reacted strongly to the report. In a recorded conversation on March 21, the day before the Commission released its report, Nixon said, "We need, and I use the word 'all out war,' on all fronts ... we have to attack on all fronts." Nixon and his advisors went on to plan a speech about why he opposed marijuana legalization, and proposed that he do "a drug thing every week" during the 1972 presidential election year. Nixon wanted a "Goddamn strong statement about marijuana ... that just tears the ass out of them."

Shafer was never appointed to the federal court.

Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun."

He also saw marijuana as part of the culture war that was destroying the United States, and claimed that Communists were using it as a weapon. "Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general," Nixon fumed. "These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us." His approach drug education was just a simplistic: "Enforce the law. You've got to scare them."

Unfortunately, Nixon did more than just "scare them," whoever they were. His marijuana war rhetoric led to a dramatic increase in arrests. One year after his "all out war" comments, marijuana arrests jumped to 420,700 a year -- a full 128,000 more than the year before. Since then, nearly 15 million people have been arrested for marijuana offenses.

For thirty years, the United States has taken the path of Nixon's prejudice and ignored the experts. We now have the largest prison population in world history, and drug problems are no closer to solved. Indeed, plenty of evidence indicates that drug-related problems are worse than ever.

It did not have to be this way. At the same time that the Shafer Commission issued its report, the Bain Commission in Holland issued a report that made similar findings and recommendations. In Holland, they followed the advice of their experts. Thirty years later Holland has half the per-capita marijuana use as the U.S., far fewer drug-related problems and spends much less on drug enforcement. With statistics like that, it's no wonder that most of Europe is going Dutch. Just last week a British Commission issued a Shafer-like report, indicating that the U.K. is moving in the Dutch direction.

It is not too late for the U.S. to move to a more sensible path. We are approaching three quarters of a million marijuana arrests annually. Every year that the U.S. fails to adopt a policy based on research, science and facts we destroy millions of lives and tear apart millions of families.

Where will we be in another thirty years if we don't change course and make peace in the marijuana war? Now that we know the war's roots are rotten --and after we've lived through the decades of damage and failure it has produced -- we should face the facts. The thirty-year- old recommendations of the Shafer Commission are a good place to start.

Kevin Zeese is the president of Common Sense for Drug Policy

http://www.csdp.org

3/22/02
1:04:08 PM

The Globalizer Who Came In From The Cold

by Greg Palast

"It has condemned people to death," the former apparatchik told me. This was like a scene out of Le Carré. The brilliant old agent comes in from the cold, crosses to our side and in hours of debriefing, empties his memory of horrors committed in the name of a political ideology he now realizes has gone rotten.

And here before me was a far bigger catch than some used Cold War spy. Joseph Stiglitz was chief economist of the World Bank. To a great extent, the new world economic order was his theory come to life.

I "debriefed" Stiglitz over several days, at Cambridge University, in a London hotel and finally in Washington in April 2001 during the big confab of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Instead of chairing the meetings of ministers and central bankers, Stiglitz was kept exiled safely behind the blue police cordons, the same as the nuns carrying a large wooden cross, the Bolivian union leaders, the parents of AIDS victims and the other "antiglobalization" protesters. The ultimate insider was now on the outside.

In 1999 the World Bank fired Stiglitz. He was not allowed quiet retirement; US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, I'm told, demanded a public excommunication for Stiglitz having expressed his first mild dissent from globalization World Bank-style.

Here in Washington we completed the last of several hours of exclusive interviews for the Observer and Newsnight about the real, often hidden, workings of the IMF, World Bank and the bank's 51 per cent owner, the US Treasury. And here, from sources unnamable (not Stiglitz), we obtained a cache of documents marked "confidential", "restricted" and "not otherwise [to be] disclosed without World Bank authorization".

Stiglitz helped translate one, a "Country Assistance Strategy", from bureaucratese. There's an Assistance Strategy for every poorer nation, designed, says the World Bank, after careful in-country investigation. But according to insider Stiglitz, the Bank's staff "investigation" consists of close inspection of a nation's five-star hotels. It concludes with the Bank staff meeting some begging, busted finance minister who is handed a "restructuring agreement" pre-drafted for his "voluntary" signature (I have a selection of these).

Each nation's economy is individually analyzed, then, says Stiglitz, the Bank hands every minister the exact same four-step program.

Step 1 is Privatization -- which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called "Briberization". Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders -- using the World Bank's demands to silence local critics --happily flogged their electricity and water companies. "You could see their eyes widen" at the prospect of 10 per cent commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.

And the US government knew it, charges Stiglitz, at least in the case of the biggest "briberization" of all, the 1995 Russian sell-off. "The US Treasury view was this was great as we wanted Yeltsin re-elected. We don't care if it's a corrupt election. We want the money to go to Yeltzin" via kick-backs for his campaign.

Stiglitz is no conspiracy nutter ranting about Black Helicopters. The man was inside the game, a member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.

Most ill-making for Stiglitz is that the US-backed oligarchs stripped Russia's industrial assets, with the effect that the corruption scheme cut national output nearly in half, causing depression and starvation.

After briberization, Step 2 of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all rescueyour- economy plan is "Capital Market Liberalization". In theory, capital market deregulation allows investment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, as in Indonesia and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out. Stiglitz calls this the "hot money" cycle. Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation's reserves can drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation's own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30 per cent, 50 per cent and 80 per cent.

"The result was predictable," said Stiglitz of the hot money tidal waves in Asia and Latin America. Higher interest rates demolished property values, savaged industrial production and drained national treasuries.

At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step 3: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and domestic gas. This leads, predictably, to Step 31/2: what Stiglitz calls "The IMF riot."

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is "down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up" -- as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other examples -- the Bolivian riots over water prices in April 2000 and, in February 2001, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in domestic gas prices imposed by the World Bank. You'd almost get the impression that the riot is written into the plan.

And it is. Stiglitz did not know about the documents the BBC and the Observer obtained from inside the World Bank, stamped over with those pesky warnings "confidential", "restricted", "not to be disclosed". Let's get back to the "Interim Country Assistance Strategy" for Ecuador. In it the Bank several times states -- with cold accuracy -- that they expected their plans to spark "social unrest", to use their bureaucratic term for a nation in flames.

That's not surprising. The secret report notes that the plan to make the US dollar Ecuador's currency has pushed 51 per cent of the population below the poverty line. The World Bank "Assistance" plan simply calls for facing down civil strife and suffering with "political resolve" -- and still higher prices.

The IMF riots (and by riots I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks and tear gas) cause new panicked flights of capital and government bankruptcies. This economic arson has its bright side -- for foreign corporations, who can then pick off remaining assets, such as the odd mining concession or port, at fire sale prices.

Stiglitz notes that the IMF and World Bank are not heartless adherents of market economics. At the same time the IMF stopped Indonesia "subsidizing" food purchases, "when the banks need a bail-out, intervention [in the market] is welcome". The IMF scrounged up tens of billions of dollars to save Indonesia's financiers and, by extension, the US and European banks from which they had borrowed.

A pattern emerges. There are lots of losers in this system, but one clear winner: the Western banks and US Treasury, making the big bucks from this crazy new international capital churn. Stiglitz told me about his unhappy meeting, early in his World Bank tenure, with Ethiopia's new president in the nation's first democratic election. The World Bank and IMF had ordered Ethiopia to divert aid money to its reserve account at the US Treasury, which pays a pitiful 4 per cent return, while the nation borrowed US dollars at 12 per cent to feed its population. The new president begged Stiglitz to let him use the aid money to rebuild the nation. But no, the loot went straight off to the US Treasury's vault in Washington.

Now we arrive at Step 4 of what the IMF and World Bank call their "poverty reduction strategy": Free Trade. This is free trade by the rules of the World Trade Organization and World Bank. Stiglitz the insider likens free trade WTOstyle to the Opium Wars. "That too was about opening markets," he said. As in the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans today are kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin American and Africa, while barricading their own markets against Third World agriculture.

In the Opium Wars, the West used military blockades to force open markets for their unbalanced trade. Today, the World Bank can order a financial blockade that's just as effective -- and sometimes just as deadly.

Stiglitz is particularly emotional over the WTO's intellectual property rights treaty (it goes by the acronym TRIPS, of which we have more to say later in this chapter). It is here, says the economist, that the new global order has "condemned people to death" by imposing impossible tariffs and tributes to pay to pharmaceutical companies for branded medicines. "They don't care," said the professor of the corporations and bank ideologues he worked with, "if people live or die."

By the way, don't be confused by the mix in this discussion of the IMF, World Bank and WTO. They are interchangeable masks of a single governance system. They have locked themselves together by what are unpleasantly called "triggers". Taking a World Bank loan for a school "triggers" a requirement to accept every "conditionality" -- they average 111 per nation --laid down by both the World Bank and IMF. In fact, said Stiglitz, the IMF requires nations to accept trade policies more punitive than the official WTO rules.

Stiglitz's greatest concern is that World Bank plans, devised in secrecy and driven by an absolutist ideology, are never open for discourse or dissent. Despite the West's push for elections throughout the developing world, the so-called Poverty Reduction Programs "undermine democracy". And they don't work. Black Africa's productivity under the guiding hand of IMF structural "assistance" has gone to hell in a handbag.

Did any nation avoid this fate? Yes, said Stiglitz, identifying Botswana. Their trick? "They told the IMF to go packing."

So then I turned on Stiglitz. OK, Mr Smart-Guy Professor, how would you help developing nations? Stiglitz proposed radical land reform, an attack at the heart of "landlordism", on the usurious rents charged by the propertied oligarchies worldwide, typically 50 per cent of a tenant's crops. So I had to ask the professor: as you were top economist at the World Bank, why didn't the Bank follow your advice?

"If you challenge [land ownership], that would be a change in the power of the elites. That's not high on their agenda." Apparently not.

Ultimately, what drove him to put his job on the line was the failure of the banks and US Treasury to change course when confronted with the crises --failures and suffering perpetrated by their four-step monetarist mambo. Every time their free market solutions failed, the IMF simply demanded more free market policies.

"It's a little like the Middle Ages," the insider told me. "When the patient died they would say, 'Well, he stopped the bloodletting too soon; he still had a little blood in him'."

I took away from my talks with the professor that the solution to world poverty and crisis is simple: remove the bloodsuckers.

Joe Stiglitz survived his sacking from the World Bank and complaints about our interviews. In September 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.

This is an excerpt from Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

For more information visit http://www.GregPalast.com

3/22/02
12:42:06 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

KEANUS 2001: AND THE WINNER IS ...

You came, you saw, you voted -- by the thousands! Did J-Lo beat Russell Crowe for the biggest ego award? Was "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" more homoerotic than "Lord of the Rings?" Check out the winners of AlterNet's First Annual Keanu Awards.

http://www.alternet.org/keanus.html

THE ONLY ONE: BEING BLACK IN THE WHITE WORKING WORLD

Camille Jackson, New Haven Advocate

While the folks here at my job are pretty progressive, I often feel like that lone black kid who was Photoshopped onto the cover of his Midwest college's recruitment brochure.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12661

THE GLOBALIZER WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

Greg Palast, AlterNet

One of Britain's top investigative journalists interviews Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank, about how corporate globalization has gone horribly wrong.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12652

ONCE-SECRET "NIXON TAPES" SHOW WHY THE U.S. OUTLAWED POT

Kevin Zeese, AlterNet

Lumping marijuana, homosexuality, Jews and Commies into one grand conspiracy, a paranoid Richard Nixon launched America's "war on pot" 30 years ago. Here are the tapes to prove it.

* In Drug Reporter: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=17

WHY BUSH IS ADDICTED TO PERPETUAL WAR

Ted Rall, AlterNet

The more we go after Islamist extremists, the more they'll go after us, breeding a perpetual war that Bush hopes will usher him in another term come November 2004.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12654

BOOK BANNING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Marjorie Heins, AlterNet

The Children's Internet Protection Act mandates that all public schools and libraries using federal funds for Internet use must install a filtering system by this July or risk losing the aid altogether.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12677

MERCHANTS OF MORALITY

Clifford Bob, Foreign Policy

The global injustices that gain attention are not always the most worthy -- just the most marketable. For every Tibetan on television, countless other worthy causes languish in obscurity.

* In Global Affairs: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=31

THE SELLING OF 9-11

Chris Fitzpatrick, PopMatters

The recent CBS documentary on 9-11 is damning proof that a national tragedy has been turned into a marketing bonanza for profit-hungry corporations.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12675

CONSOLIDATE THIS!

with host Laura Flanders

The 'Angels of Public Interest' descend on the FCC on the Working Assets Radio Friday media roundtable. Tune in from 10-11am PT/1-2 ET; to join in, call 866-798-TALK.

http://www.workingassetsradio.com

--> For more information about the DC Protests:

http://www.americanresurrection.com/FCCinfo.htm

ANDERSEN "PROTESTERS" EXPOSED!

David Turnley, AlterNet

Employees of Arthur Andersen took to the streets Wednesday in a '60s-style "protest" designed to look spontaneous. Our reporter slipped into the protest "planning sit-in" and heard this...

* In EnronGate: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30

KILLING THE CAFE STANDARDS

Carl Pope, TomPaine.com

Buckling under pressure from the auto industry, the Senate terminated an important bill which would have reduced our dependence on oil.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12665

PUTTING THE PARTY BACK IN POLITICS

This Saturday, the nationwide Rolling Thunder Down-Home Democracy Tour -- a traveling extravaganza of grassroots politics, music, speakers, food and fun -- will kick off in Austin. Watch out: its coming soon to a town near you!

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12660

INVISIBLE WOMEN AT THE OSCARS

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon

Sure, Denzel and Will and Eddie have conquered Hollywood. But as Halle Berry's lonely Oscar nod makes all too clear, black actresses still get no respect in the movie biz.

* In MediaCulture: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=19

SOLOMON: THE "LIBERAL MEDIA" MYTH THAT WILL NOT DIE

Norman Solomon, AlterNet

You've probably heard a lot of spooky tales about "the liberal media." Of course, this scary apparition is a specter much more often cited than sighted.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12667

SEX ED IN EUROPE VERSUS IN THE U.S.

Melissa Harris, WireTap

Young writer Melissa Harris joined 42 American "experts" on a trip to examine Europe's approach to teen sexuality, and learned that a little knowledge goes a long way. Part 2 of the insightful WireTap series, Teens and Sex in 2002.

http://www.alternet.org/wiretapmag/story.html?StoryID=12644

BURIED DESIRE

Jason Gay, Nerve

The greatest merit of HBO's latest series, Six Feet Under, is its portrayal of sex -- both for its sexual realism and its unwillingness to draw attention to the act itself.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12680

DURST: ADDITIONS TO TOM RIDGE'S SECURITY COLOR WHEEL

Will Durst, AlterNet

What icons should we add to Tom Ridge's Color Wheel of Doom? Church icon: Praying at this point could not hurt. Beer icon: Time to drink heavily. Lips icon: Kiss your butt goodbye.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12659

3/22/02
12:31:35 PM

t r u t h o u t | 03.22

Ken Starr Will Lead Legal Fight to Defeat Campaign Finance Reform

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22A.Kenneth.Starr.htm

Statements | McCain-Feingold Shays-Meehan

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22B.Statements.MFSM.htm

William Rivers Pitt | Bush Cornered by Campaign Finance Reform

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22C.WRP.Cornered.htm

Conyers Calls Ashcroft Report Wartime Propaganda

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22D.Conyers.Ashcroft.htm

t r u t h o u t | Statement; US Representative Pete Stark

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22E.Statement.Stark.htm

White House Stonewall: Day 27

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22F.Stonewall.htm

The $2,000 Answer

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22G.2000.Answer.htm

Bush Proposal Would Use Child Support Program to Create Pro-Marriage Programs

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22H.Bush.Proposal.htm

Federal Government vs The Last American Wild Buffalo Herd | Update 03.21.2002

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22I.BFC.Update.htm

Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegrating

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.22J.Ice.Shelf.htm

3/22/02
12:21:36 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Vietnam says no nitrofuran in its shrimps - VIETNAM http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15161/story.htm

Focus - Uzbek east suffers man-made famine - UZBEKISTAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15162/story.htm

UPDATE - Daschle says he may fail to block nuclear dump - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15146/story.htm

US prairie states build to avert power shortages - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15147/story.htm

United Tech sells fuel cell plants to Verizon - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15148/story.htm

FEATURE - Drought lifts US sales of new washers, toilets - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15155/story.htm

POLL - Reuters survey of US senators on Arctic drilling - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15157/story.htm

Bush oil drilling plan facing Senate defeat - survey - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15158/story.htm

North Sea states urge halt to plundering of fish - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15149/story.htm

UPDATE - Norsk Hydro sees Iceland smelter decision in Sept - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15151/story.htm

North Korea asks Russia to build nuclear plant - RUSSIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15145/story.htm

Lithuanian govt says needs EU help on nuke - LITHUANIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15144/story.htm

Jakarta to seek parl't ratification on mining deals - INDONESIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15152/story.htm

Olympics - No thirsty trees for Athens please, water board asks - GREECE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15150/story.htm

German deposit on drinks cans may boost aluminium - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15159/story.htm

Activists stop Sellafield nuclear fuel train - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15153/story.htm

Finland says has suspected second mad cow case - FINLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15160/story.htm

Canada optimistic that deer disease didn't spread - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15156/story.htm

Brazilian farmers ignore ban on GM crops - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15154/story.htm

3/21/02
5:24:53 PM

Public Citizen issued the following three press releases today:

March 21, 2002

Research Council Withholds Seal of Approval of Radioactive Recycling but Avoids Key Questions

Council Insists That Nuclear Regulatory Commission Overcome "Legacy of Institutional Distrust"

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A long-awaited report rightly admonishes the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for ignoring the public's concerns about a proposal to widely recycle radioactive materials into industrial and household goods.

The report, issued by the National Research Council, properly calls for the NRC to alter its approach in dealing with solid radioactive wastes. It outlines how the nuclear agency has done little to seriously address the legitimate concerns of citizens while simultaneously advancing a scheme that would reduce costs and liabilities for the nuclear industry. It also details the NRC's past betrayals of public trust on the radioactive release and recycling, and points out that support for the practice generally comes from the nuclear industry. The report reviews the history of NRC efforts to deregulate radioactive materials so they could be treated as if they were not radioactive.

Still, the report, entitled "The Disposition Dilemma: Controlling the Release of Solid Materials from Nuclear Regulatory Commission-Licensed Facilities," fails to address a key issue: whether it is responsible to allow nuclear waste to be widely dispersed. It also avoids the question of what should be done with radioactive wastes from nuclear power and weapons facilities, even though the council had been given a clear license to make a detailed recommendation. The National Research Council is a nonprofit group that is part of the National Academies and advises the government.

"Fortunately for the American public, the report states the obvious," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "People with very legitimate concerns have not been treated seriously by the NRC, and the primary supporter of this scheme is - you guessed it - the nuclear industry, which could save billions or even make millions in profits by recycling large quantities of nuclear waste into frying pans and zippers. If the NRC were to listen to the public rather than the industry, this practice would cease."

Radioactive materials are currently released for recycling on a case-by-case basis. However, the government is considering standardizing this practice, which would greatly increase the amount of waste released.

As the NRC and the nuclear industry have faced strong resistance to the "recycling" of nuclear waste from consumer and environmental groups, unions, and the steel and concrete industries, it has dismissed the concerns as "public perception" problems. The NRC likely had counted on a positive report from the council to provide a green light for recycling and to lend an air of credibility to the project. That the council did not place its imprimatur on the project is a significant setback for the NRC and the nuclear industry, Hauter said.

In fact, the Research Council essentially told the NRC to again re-examine recycling - but this time with the involvement of a "broad range" of groups.

Today's report redirects the NRC in fundamental ways. Four of its seven recommendations call for the NRC to change the way it deals with solid radioactive wastes by doing such things as developing a new decision-making process, covering an expanded range of alternatives and significantly revising technical support documents.

However, the council did not address whether it is prudent to disperse radioactive materials instead of isolate the waste from the public.

David Ritter, policy analyst with Critical Mass questioned why the committee did not go further. "The Research Council committee's report doesn't recommend that these wastes not be released or recycled," he said. "For an organization that claims to promote science 'for the general welfare,' one would think that preventing radiation exposures to the public would be a priority. Better yet, if the wastes are presenting such a dilemma, why not consider halting further waste production?"

While today's report could put up a significant roadblock for the NRC's plans to boost recycling, it remains to be seen whether the NRC will begin to take the concerns of the public and non-nuclear industries seriously. Thus far, this ill-advised practice is based solely on economic concerns and has disregarded greater questions of sound science, public health and rational public policy, Ritter said.

###

March 21, 2002

Public Citizen Calls for Water Conservation, Responsible Management on World Water Day

Water Should Not Be Treated as Commodity, Traded for Profit

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In recognition of the United Nations' World Day for Water 2002, Public Citizen urges people and governments to conserve more water, better curb pollution and employ prudent development practices. In addition, Public Citizen calls for an end to efforts to treat water as a tradable commodity rather than a resource necessary for human life.

Increasingly, communities have been dealing with water shortages and deteriorating water infrastructure - the pipes through which water and wastewater run. This has rekindled interest in water resources, the availability of clean water for consumption and the adequate treatment of wastewater to curb contamination of waterways.

"We expect an ample supply of clean water when we open our taps," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, "However, we need to ask what it takes to bring that water into our homes and what consequences our consumptive habits have on water resources."

The United Nations in 1992 established March 22 as "World Day for Water" to promote public awareness of water conservation and the development of water resources.

The ominous reality is that the world's available fresh water supply is dwindling. Even though there is an abundance of water on the planet, less than one-half of one percent of it is available for human uses. Meanwhile, global consumption is surging at a rate higher than the population growth. More than one billion people around the globe lack access to safe drinking water; 2.5 billion people lack access to proper sanitation; and more than 5 million die annually from water-borne diseases, according to the United Nations. The United Nations projects that by 2025, two-thirds of the world population will face water shortages or a lack of clean water. The World Bank's vice president predicts that wars of this century will be over this resource.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have promoted the commodification and privatization of water by pushing governments to raise consumer rates and privatize water utilities. In Ghana, where the majority of the population earns less than a dollar a day, World Bank loan conditions required a doubling of water fees last May. According to a report by Christian Aid, this meant that the urban poor were paying as much as 70 percent of the daily minimum wage to buy 50 litres of water. In the Philippines, the Asian Labor Network on International Financial Institutions condemned a recent increase in water rates by the privatized water companies and stated that "to poor families who can only afford instant noodles, the rate increase might mean that they will not eat for two days."

Many regions in the United States are currently facing water problems that are likely to get worse. In Texas, the shortages are expected to increase from 782 billion gallons per year today to 2.5 trillion gallons per year in 2050. In California, shortages could be as high as 2 trillion gallons per year by the year 2020. In South Florida, recent lack of precipitation necessitated significant restrictions on water use.

Some view the looming water crisis as a chance to profit. Private companies and individuals have aggressively entered into the water business.

In California, the water development company Cadiz, Inc. wants to sell groundwater to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, making a high profit while overdrawing an aquifer that also lies under federal lands. In Texas, oil investor T. Boone Pickens is shopping for a municipal buyer for 65 billion gallons of water per year to which he has rights. And at a March 2002 water investor conference, the CEO of a Los Angeles water resource development company touted water rights as a low-risk investment offering high returns.

Facing mounting costs to repair aging pipes, a number of local governments have hired private companies to operate their water systems, and some are even selling their entire systems to private enterprises. However, companies are out to make high profits, pay high executive salaries and provide shareholders with dividends - goals at odds with serving the public. Some cities where water systems have been privatized have seen higher water rates and less-than-adequate performance by the company.

In addition to urging an end to the commodification of water, Public Citizen calls for water conservation measures, which often can eliminate the need for expensive and environmentally damaging water infrastructure such as dams, reservoirs and canals. More efficient irrigation and reuse of municipal water also carry a great conservation potential.

Further, replacing aging pipes and upgrading water and wastewater treatment systems would prevent a significant amount of water from being lost due to leakage. A lack of adequate public subsidies, as well as unreasonably low water rates in some communities prevent municipal water departments from making necessary capital improvements and implementing conservation programs.

###

March 21, 2002

Delayed Decision on International Food Irradiation Standard a Positive Step

Controversy and Safety Concerns Deter Government Delegations

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The delay of a standard that would allow companies worldwide to irradiate food at unlimited doses is a positive sign for consumers.

Last week, government, industry and consumer delegates participating in the 34th Meeting of the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC) in the Netherlands postponed until next year a proposal to amend a 23-year-old international food irradiation standard. The decision to postpone it was in response to widespread controversy and concerns over safety.

A draft revision of the standard includes removal of the current 10 kiloGray (kGy) dose limit on food irradiation, a drastic measure opposed by consumer groups, the European Community (EC) and concerned scientists.

The Codex Commission sets global food safety standards for more than 170 nations, and its rulings are enforceable by the World Trade Organization (WTO). If Codex were to approve the proposed changes to the standard, it is conceivable that trade disputes could arise that challenge national standards for food safety.

Current U.S. regulations allow certain foods to be irradiated at doses ranging from 1 to 7.5 kGy. The maximum 10 kGy limit set by Codex is the equivalent of about 330 million chest X-rays. Food exposed to higher levels of ionizing energy can suffer significant changes in flavor, texture, odor, nutritional integrity and chemical composition.

"Until the risks involved with food irradiation are resolved, governments should be wary of allowing a free-for-all," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The approval of this proposal could result in an international health scandal of untold proportions. This is not about food safety. The irradiation industry is lobbying for this change because high-level irradiation is more cost-effective for it. Once again, the bottom line is being valued over the health and safety of citizens around the globe."

Poland and the European Community (EC) have objected to the proposed deletion of the 10 kGy limit, citing concerns over the safety of irradiated foods. Many new and unknown chemicals are created as by-products of food irradiation, and one class of them, cyclobutanones, has been found to cause cellular and genetic damage in human and rat cells.

The EC opposes the draft revision while further scientific advice is pending and to this end has commissioned research on the toxicity of these chemicals. The EC's Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) is currently evaluating the recently finished report. A summary of the study indicates that cyclobutanones "exhibit some toxic effects including promotion of colon carcinogenesis in rats." When Public Citizen requested the entire study, it was told that the report is confidential and that there are no plans for it to be published or peer-reviewed.

The Codex Commission failed to discuss the food irradiation standard proposal at its annual meeting last July and transferred responsibility to the Executive Committee, which endorsed the proposal behind closed doors in September and advanced it to the next step in Codex's adoption procedures.

The SCF met this February, two weeks before CCFAC convened to discuss the cyclobutanone study but delayed issuing a scientific opinion to allow for further review. This acknowledgment of the complex scientific concerns involved, coupled with the numerous and divergent comments submitted to CCFAC, forced the committee to freeze the approval process for this standard. Delaying approval should allow CCFAC the opportunity to investigate the wider ramifications it could have on the health of the world's population as well as the credibility of the governments and parties that sponsor such a controversial standard.

###

Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

For more information, visit http://www.citizen.org

3/21/02
5:23:13 PM

Activists from Around the Country Join Campaign to End Genetically Engineered Food!

>From Alaska to Florida, True Food Network activists, Greenpeace, and members of the GE-Free Markets Coalition held events at targeted supermarkets last week to demand an end to GE food.

The launch began on the East Coast on Tuesday and continued on in the Midwest and the West on Wednesday and Thursday.

Get the highlights the launch:

http://www.truefoodnow.org/inside_scoop/

3/21/02
5:21:52 PM

MOJOURNAL

http://www.motherjones.com/

* Whitman Warms the Bench * - Opinion: Christine Todd Whitman insists that she is a key player on the Bush team -- even as she is isolated and undercut by her administration colleagues.

http://motherjones.com/web_exclusives/commentary/essays/whitman.html

* Religion and Justice in Nigeria * - Popular discontent with a faltering justice system fueled the adoption of Islamic law in northern Nigeria, but the legal deck remains stacked against the region's poor and uneducated.

http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/islam_nigeria.html

* Out of Jail, In the Spotlight * - Arundhati Roy's decision to pay a fine in order to leave a New Delhi jail is drawing criticism from some, but the award-winning novelist and outspoken activist says that remaining behind bars would have accomplished nothing.

http://motherjones.com:8080/web_exclusives/features/news/roy_qa.html

* News Beat * - A Poultry Dispute; More Troops for Afghan War; The Healthcare Divide; more ...

http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/news_beat.html

* Capitol Beat * - Down on the Farm Bill; Post-Pickering Partisanship; Endangering Species; more ...

http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/capitol_beat.html

* Updates * - Human Rights and Aid in Colombia; Coral Reef Crisis; De-Enronizing a Resume; Al Qaeda in Court, more ...

http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/updates.html

3/21/02
5:10:34 PM

DAILY GRIST

http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/documents/sgpanel_note_502.doc

NOT-SO-SUPER POWER

Amid heated controversy over the Bush administration's plans to weaken air pollution regulations, two environmental organizations and a large New Jersey utility are releasing today a new study ranking the worst polluters in the power industry. The study, "Benchmarking Air Emissions of the 100 Largest Electric Generation Owners in the U.S. -- 2000," tracked company emissions records for four of the sector's most toxic compounds: sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide (which contribute to acid rain and haze), mercury (which is toxic to humans), and carbon dioxide (which contributes to global warming). It concluded that a handful of companies account for at least half of all those emissions. The three largest U.S. electricity companies (American Electric Power, the Southern Company, and the Tennessee Valley Authority) together produce 17 to 24 percent of the industry's total emissions -- and the last two have heavily lobbied the Bush administration for looser clean air standards.

straight to the source: New York Times, Neela Banerjee, 21 Mar 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/business/21POLL.html>

do good: Take action to preserve the Clean Air Act <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/air.asp?source=daily#grandfather>

do good: Take action to clean up Southern Company <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/air.asp?source=daily#southern>

ECOTOUR DE FORCE

On Jan. 28, the U.N. officially declared 2002 the International Year of Ecotourism. Ecotourism promises to unite environmental conservation with cultural preservation and economic benefit, and for some Maasai people in East Africa, it is doing just that. The traditional Maasai way of life, which is highly nomadic, is being threatened by pressure from Kenya's government to divide land into ever-smaller parcels; in some communities, the Maasai have responded with ecotourism projects to demonstrate the economic viability of land preservation. Grist diarist Costas Christ takes readers on a tour of some of these ecotourism ventures, only on the Grist Magazine website.

only in Grist: A week in the life of Costas Christ, Conservation International <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/christ031802.asp?source=daily>

GET THE LEAD OUT

Residents of northern Idaho are fiercely resisting a plan by the U.S. EPA to expand a 21-square-mile area into one of the country's largest Superfund sites. That's not so unusual -- many towns resist Superfund designation, fearing that the stigma will drive away tourists and businesses. But some northern Idaho towns have filed a lawsuit to block expansion of the cleanup. The EPA has been working in the area since the 1980s, after tests showed that residue from giant silver smelters and mine tailings were causing sharply elevated levels of lead in residents. Lead poisoning can cause developmental, mental, and behavioral problems in children. EPA spokesperson Bill Dunbar said the contamination was too severe to ignore, and noted that if the agency did not pursue the expansion, "We'd get sued by the good number of people there who do want a cleanup." A final decision by the EPA is expected later this spring.

straight to the source: New York Times, Sam Howe Verhovek, 21 Mar 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/national/21IDAH.html>

I SING THE GARBAGE ELECTRIC

Maybe President Bush can learn a thing or two about environmental policy during his visit today to Monterrey, Mexico's third-largest city and home to an innovative program to turn rotting garbage into electricity. The city government is working with a local energy company to construct an electricity plant at the Salinas Victoria Landfill; the plant will turn methane produced by decomposing organic waste into energy, which will then be sold to local municipalities at 10 to 15 percent below the market rate. The project will be the first of its kind in Latin America, and its proponents say it has tremendous promise for impoverished and off-the-grid regions. Such regions are prime candidates for methane-based electricity generation, because the majority of trash from these areas is organic.

straight to the source: Christian Science Monitor, Cheryl Smith, 21 Mar 2002 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0321/p07s01-woam.html>

3/21/02
5:06:50 PM

The Earth Charter as an Education Campaign by the School Sisters of Notre Dame

The School Sisters of Notre Dame have decided to have an educational campaign focused on the Earth Charter in the coming year. Sisters throughout North America will receive copies of the Earth Charter so that they may study it and implement it into the work they are already doing. The SSND's have a long-standing tradition of working for justice and peace, and the themes of economic and social justice within the Earth Charter easily resonate with their current endeavors. In addition, many of the sisters work in formal education settings and may be able to introduce the Earth Charter to their students in future curriculum.

Caring for the Earth is also part of the School Sisters of Notre Dame's mission to serve. The hope of the Inter-Provincial Planning Committee is that focusing on the Earth Charter will help the SSND's take next steps in more actively working for the Earth through their ministries. For more information on this please contact Sr. Eileen Reilly at eileenssnd@aol.com

Pax Christi International officially endorses the Earth Charter after Pax Christi Germany and Pax Christi USA

11 March -- Pax Christi International Executive Committee members voted to endorse the Earth Charter at a meeting that took place in Belgium, 8 - 10 March 2002. According to Pax Christi International, endorsement of the document builds support for environmental protection and development of a just, sustainable, and peaceful world.

Pax Christi International is a non-profit, non-governmental Catholic peace movement that began in France at the end of World War II. Today, it is comprised of autonomous national sections, local groups, and affiliated organizations spread over 30 countries and 5 continents, with over 60,000 members worldwide. The movement works in all areas of peace but has a specific focus on demilitarisation, security and arms trade, development and human rights, and ecology.

For more see: http://www.paxchristi.net

Synthesis report of the Earth Dialogues held in Lyon is now available

The Earth Dialogues addressed the question “Globalization and Sustainable Development: Is Ethics the Missing Link?” and welcomed the Earth Charter as a peoples’ document providing an ethical framework equally applicable to guiding the choices of individuals, companies and states. This forum recommended the use of the Earth Charter as an educational tool at all levels and agreed that the Charter provides the ethical basis necessary to support a sustainable development agenda and must be promoted as a guide for negotiations at the WSSD and beyond. The Forum convened by Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong brought together over 1000 participants. The full synthesis report is available at www.earthdialogues.org

U.N. SG Advisory Panel for WSSD strongly supports the Earth Charter

The second meeting of the Secretary General’s Advisory Panel for the World Summit on Sustainable Development took place in New York on 5 February 2002. One of the key points emerging from the Panel discussion, was a strong support for the Earth Charter, Members of the Panel agreed to help mobilize support among all constituencies for the Charter to be recognized and formally endorsed by the Summit. According to the Panel, consideration of the Charter should be linked with discussion on private versus public goods.

Based on their own experience, panel members felt that the following issues should be included in the political deal and the implementation programme to be agreed at the Summit: the Earth Charter, corporate accountability, governance, women in decision-making, meeting the millennium targets, participation of civil society, access to information, access to & ownership of genetic resources, and peace as a proactive approach. For the complete meeting report see:

21 March 2002

Earth Charter International Secretariat

San Jose, Costa Rica

http://www.earthcharter.org

Betty McDermott Executive Assistant Earth Charter Initiative

email: bmcdermott@ecouncil.ac.cr

webpage: http://www.earthcharter.org

Fax: 506 249 4187

3/21/02
5:02:57 PM

A New Form of Matter

NASA Science News for March 20, 2002

Scientists have created a new kind of matter: It comes in waves and bridges the gap between the everyday world of humans and the micro-domain of quantum physics.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/20mar_newmatter.htm

3/21/02
4:53:26 PM

ALEX JONES' MOST SHOCKING AND POWERFUL FILM EVER NOW RELEASED!!!!

The government not only had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks of 9-11 and allowed them to happen, the national security dictatorship publicly funded, trained and shepherded the terrorists into the United States -- and went so far as to protect them from the FBI and Defense Intelligence. Now the government is going to use SCAREorism to turn America into a cross between Communist China and Nazi Germany. It is an absolute imperative that you order this bombshell special report now and show it to every opinion-maker in your community before it's too late. Remember, Hitler seized power by burning the Riechstag, and it's happening again!

See also the introduction to 5 other documentary films by Alex Jones at

http://www.infowars.com/videos.html#tyranny

3/21/02
4:49:43 PM

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

-- Martin Luther King Jr.

It is easy to point an accusatory finger at a smokestack or other corporate polluter as the source of environmental problems. And it is true that industries put out millions of pounds of toxic substances into our world every year. It is harder, however, to flush out the destructive indifference that many people practice on a daily basis in our disconnected world.

Explore with me the idea that we must find the way - and the will - to end this indifference and challenge the assumptions we all hold dear in this week's Healing Our World commentary, "Toxic Indifference," on the Environment News Service at

http://www.ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-15g.html

Learn the truth, for example, behind the assumption that companies around the U.S. are recycling computers. It is estimated that between 1997 and 2007, 500 million pieces of electronic equipment will be discarded, containing 1.5 billion pounds of lead, 632,000 pounds of mercury, and three million pounds of cadmium, all toxic substances.

The United States cannot handle all of this waste, so this hazardous waste is recycled by selling it to countries like China and India. In New Delhi, India, children are routinely employed to burn circuit boards. In Karachi, solder is removed from circuit boards by children with blowtorches, a process that is usually done indoors with no ventilation. The children breathe the highly toxic fumes.

We have to do something to reestablish our connection with the natural world and the truth or the environmental onslaught will continue until there are no functioning ecosystems left on the planet.

I wish you peace and look forward to your comments.

Jackie

Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

http://www.ens-news.com

http://www.healingourworld.com

3/21/02
4:46:49 PM

Cheney fails to win Arab endorsement

By Robert Fisk

Rarely can a US Vice President have met such a devastating rebuff from America's Arab allies; not a single Arab king, prince or president has been prepared to endorse a US attack on Iraq. Even in Kuwait - where Dick Cheney arrives today before going on to Israel - an opinion poll suggests that more than 40 percent of its citizens are hostile to Washington's policies. In every Arab capital, Cheney has been politely but firmly told to turn his attention to the bloody Palestinian-Israeli war, and to forget the "axis of evil'' until President Bush brings Israeli allies into line.

All Cheney's efforts to pretend that the conflict in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, are separate from Iraq - or "two tracks" as the American cliche would have it - have failed. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah met Cheney at the end of a long red carpet at Jeddah airport, but the Saudi press were not so polite. Editorials in other Gulf papers uniformly condemned any assault on Iraq. Prince Abdullah has gone out of his way to explain to American television audiences why he opposes military action against Saddam Hussein, while Americans have been told that they cannot use the massive Prince Sultan airbase in the Kingdom for any war against Baghdad.

Repeatedly, Arab leaders have turned Cheney's arguments about America's "war on terrorism'' around. For them, the terror is being inflicted upon the Palestinians by the Israelis, and Cheney's reminders of Saddam's brutality carry little weight. If Saddam is overthrown, Iraq could break apart, the US Vice President was told several times, with incalculable effects on Iraq's Muslim neighbors.

Even the small United Emirates had no time for the Cheney argument. The Vice President's spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise, said that Cheney "made the point that Al-Qaeda can't be allowed to reconstitute'' in the Middle East, a remark that was smartly followed by a statement from UAE President Sheikh Zayed Ibn Sultan Al-Nahayan. He was, the government said briskly, opposed to military action in Iraq.

The Arabs might be forgiven their confusion over Cheney's objectives. If America wishes to pursue its "war on terror'', what has Iraq got to do with it? Where is the evidence that Saddam was involved in the crimes against humanity on Sept. 11 last year? There is none. So, Cheney has invented a new dogma for the Arabs - and for the US servicemen, who gathered to listen to him aboard the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis in the Gulf. "The United States will not permit the forces of terror to gain the tools of genocide'' he announced.

Saddam has "weapons of mass destruction'' - though that is not the view of some members of the old UNSCOM inspection team - and they could fall into the hands of Osama Bin Laden. Since Bin Laden hates Saddam and has gone on record as saying as much, just how the Iraqi weapons, if they exist, would reach America's nemesis is unclear.

And the Arabs have been asking themselves what this new "genocide" is supposed to be. Who is threatening genocide in the Middle East? Who is being attacked? The Kuwaitis, of course, still believe that Saddam threatens them, but their government has been shocked at the opinion poll which showed such anti-American sentiments amid a population that was liberated by a US-led coalition only 11 years ago.

It is symbolic that the one Middle East nation that supports a strike at Iraq is Israel - whose own war with the Palestinians has so angered America's Arab allies. Destabilization is the word the US Vice President has been hearing from the Arabs. Cheney will, therefore, hear what he wants to hear from Sharon, the man whose reoccupation of Palestinian territory has done so much to destroy Cheney's mission. (The Independent)

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=13578&ArY=2002&ArM=3&ArD=18

3/21/02
4:17:16 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS)

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-20-02.html

EUROPE LAUNCHES SPACE PROGRAM FOR ENVIRONMENT AND SECURITY

BRUSSELS, Belgium, March 20, 2002 (ENS) - For the first time, the European Union is developing its own autonomous capacity to monitor the global environment, detect natural catastrophes and manage mass movements of refugees using satellite observation and remote sensing.

GREENHOUSE GAS TRADING GROWING MORE POPULAR

WASHINGTON, DC, March 20, 2002 (ENS) - Emissions trading has become the policy of choice for addressing climate change in nations around the globe, finds a new report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The report Concludes that, while the greenhouse gas emissions market remains fragmented, trading activity has increased around the world over the last five years.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-20-07.html

MEXICAN POWER PLANTS PLAN TO AVOID U.S. REGULATIONS

SAN DIEGO, California, March 20, 2002 (ENS) - Two planned power plants are stirring controversy along the U.S.-Mexico border in southern California. Conservation groups have filed suit against the U.S. government challenging permits granted to utilities for electrical transmission lines that would carry power from the electrical generation plants being built three miles inside of Mexico to homes and businesses in the United States.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-20-06.html

NORTH SEA MARINE LIFE TRASHED, WWF WARNS MINISTERS

BERGEN, Norway, March 20, 2002 (ENS) - European environment ministers were confronted by a giant set of scales outside their meeting here today symbolizing the tons of marine creatures that are accidentally caught only to be thrown back dead or dying into the North Sea.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-20-03.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 30, 2002

Star Wars Sites to Get Environmental Reviews

Navy Bombing Violates Migratory Bird Treaty Act

Klamath Tribes Could Recover Reservation Lands

Pennsylvania Seeks Action on Interstate Waste

California Plans Boost in Renewable Portfolio

River Traffic Creates Air Pollution

Prototype Snowmobile Cuts Pollution

Researcher Helps Increase African Farm Yields

Rescue Dogs, Handlers Studied for Health Effects

Star Wars Sites to Get Environmental Reviews

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-20-09.html

3/21/02
4:14:03 PM

Denver Officials, Citing Civil Rights, Decide to Bow Out of War on Terror

DENVER -- The local government here officially threw its lot in with Portland, Ore. and a handful of other municipalities around the country, passing a resolution Monday night discouraging police from enforcing new anti-terror legislation if doing so would interfere with peoples' civil rights.

A non-binding resolution passed by the city council in response to the federal USA Patriot Act discourages Denver police from investigating groups or individuals based on their country of origin or immigration status. The resolution bars police from assisting in parts of the federal government's anti-terrorism campaign.

Councilwoman Kathleen MacKenzie, who co-sponsored the resolution, said the measure urges police not to go too far in the wake of Sept. 11.

"In this city, it's not a crime to have dark skin," she said. "It's not a crime to be from a different country. It's not a crime to express unpopular views."

The move comes a week after revelations that Denver police officials have been keeping secret files on protest groups like Amnesty International, anti-globalization protesters and the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which revealed that the files were being kept, said the police department had some 3,200 files on individuals and 208 files on organizations dating to about 1999. Following the revelation, Mayor Wellington Webb reprimanded police officials and said they had interpreted city policy too broadly.

Targeting some citizens for surveillance and ignoring others because of their race or national origin didn't sit well with everyone on the council, however. The resolution passed by a 7-4 margin after nearly two hours of debate in front of a standing-room-only audience.

Among the opponents of the resolution was Councilman Ed Thomas, who said the new police powers are needed for public safety and that it would unnecessarily tie the hands of Denver police.

"If you think this is the last terrorist act in this country you are sadly mistaken," said Thomas, a former police officer. "I think it's inappropriate to not remember the people who died 9/11 and that's exactly what we are doing."

Councilwoman Cathy Reynolds called the measure ³poppycock,² and complained that people around the country would view Denver in a "bad light" if it passed.

A handful of other cities, including Portland, Ore., have questioned the scope of the USA Patriot law, which expands law enforcement's surveillance and investigative powers in order to combat domestic and international terrorism. Portland officials refused to help federal authorities interview people about the terrorist attacks.

Although Denver's resolution doesn't have the force of law, supporters on the council said Mayor Webb has indicated he likely will make it part of the police operations.

The resolution was proposed by the All Nations Alliance, a group that made a name for itself protesting the city's annual Columbus Day parade as a celebration of genocide against Native Americans.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48270,00.html

3/21/02
4:09:42 PM

t r u t h o u t | 03.21

Campaign Finance Becomes Law | 60-40

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21A.60-40.htm

t r u t h o u t | Statement; House Democratic Leader Richard A. Gephardt

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21B.Gephardt.Statement.htm

Carlyle Group Cashing in Again

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21C.Carlisle.Group.htm

U.S. Troops Come Under Attack in Afghanistan

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21D.Under.Attack.htm

Surprises Lurking in Finance Overhaul

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21E.Finance.Overhaul.htm

Some Democrats Wary of Bush's Colombia Aid Plan

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21F.Bush.Plan.htm

S.E.C. Had Sought $500 Million in Failed Talks With Andersen

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21G.Failed.Talks.htm

Feds Seek Death for Moussaoui

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21H.Seek.Death.htm

White House Stonewall

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.21I.Stonewall.htm

3/21/02
4:08:05 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Daschle says he may fail to block nuclear dump - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15120/story.htm

UPDATE - Greenhouse trading takes off, US on sidelines - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15107/story.htm

Chrysler tests parts from recycled plastic - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15133/story.htm

UPDATE - Pentagon agrees to new missile test impact studies - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15127/story.htm

Companies, EPA near deal on Alabama PCB cleanup plan - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15124/story.htm

Ohio nuclear plant corrosion raises concerns - NRC - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15114/story.htm

Green protesters target Morgan Stanley meeting - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15128/story.htm

Ethical index-tracker funds pose extra risks - study - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15125/story.htm

CORRECTED - Ice shelf collapse reignites global warming fears - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15121/story.htm

Consumers to pay for UK govt's green power plan - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15115/story.htm

BP says to cut UK emissions by 350,000 T in 5 yrs - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15109/story.htm

Don't use banned chemical, Thai shrimp farmers told - THAILAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15108/story.htm

China to lend pandas to Thailand - THAILAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15132/story.htm

Korea nuclear workers call off strike vote - union - SOUTH KOREA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15117/story.htm

Korea's KEPCO nuclear unit signs pact with Romania - SOUTH KOREA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15113/story.htm

Britain under fire over radioactive emissions - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15134/story.htm

Lithuania needs energy sector focus pre-EU - EBRD - LITHUANIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15116/story.htm

Japan task force draws up emission cut framework - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15131/story.htm

Global market growth seen failing to feed poorest - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15119/story.htm

UPDATE - UN agency fighting child starvation in Guatemala - GUATEMALA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15123/story.htm

Olympics-Athens 2004 organisers uproot 600 olive trees - GREECE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15129/story.htm

UPDATE - Repower IPO 75 pct subscribed - sources - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15111/story.htm

German Econmin, RWE slam EU emissions trading plan - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15136/story.htm

Germany introduces deposit on one-use cans, bottles - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15135/story.htm

FACTBOX - EU assembly beefs up energy reform plans - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15110/story.htm

INTERVIEW - Energy reform must mean more than fat salaries - MEP - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15112/story.htm

UPDATE - EU issues new warning to Paris over beef ban - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15118/story.htm

Chinese lion couple set to capture Kabul hearts - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15130/story.htm

China drags feet on GMO certificates, markets fret - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15122/story.htm

China details spending for "special" bond issue - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15126/story.htm

Brazil farm fair stresses environment, small farmer - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15106/story.htm

IAEA approves action plan against nuclear terrorism - AUSTRIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15137/story.htm

3/21/02
4:06:21 PM

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?

Expediency asks the question - is it politic?

Vanity asks the question - is it popular?

But conscience asks the question - is it right?

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it BECAUSE it is right.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

3/21/02
4:04:33 PM

British opposition to war grows

by Adam Johannes, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom

As an encouragement to activists in the U.S., I am writing to report on the massive anti-war movement that has developed in Britain. Across the UK in every town there are peace vigils, teach-ins and marches since 9/11.

Despite the British media (more "objective" than CNN, but still distorted) and its attempts to ignore our movement (and even pretend that it doesn't exist,) we have had three massive demonstrations in London: In October, 50,000 people marched; in November 100,000, and this month 20,000. What has been encouraging about these demonstrations has been their diversity: Peaceniks, socialists, Quakers, trade unionists, members of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), Muslims, students, Palestinian solidarity organisations, Colombian solidarity organisations, and ordinary people - black and white, young and old - have all united to try to stop the war.

At the most recent rally in Trafalgar Square, speaker after speaker spoke out clearly against possible attacks on Iraq and Somalia. Quoting from memory, George Galloway MP [Minister of Parliament] said, "There IS an axis of evil! It begins at the White House and runs down to Jerusalem." Tony Benn (retired MP and Christian socialist) made an inspiring call for militant civil disobedience and direct action in the event of an invasion of Iraq. He said, "I am an old man. I don't want to die thinking, 'I could have done more.' We have a minute of silence every year to remember those who died in World War I; we could be on the the brink of World War III. Starting on the day of a major attack on Iraq or Somalia, I want everyone to engage in one hour of nonviolent resistance to the government every week. If you're working when they invade - stop working. I want to see trains and buses stop running. If you're at school - walk out of school. Walk into the middle of the road and stop traffic carrying peace banners. Chain yourself to the Houses of Parliament.... I've never said this before!"

All the other speakers at the rally were surprised at Tony Benn's call, but it has now been generally accepted as a new strategy in our movement. If Bush and Blair escalate this war, we will escalate our protest.

xox

Congress on threshold of major reform

By the time you read this, the Senate will have voted on the most important campaign finance reform legislation in a decade to break the link between big money and power in our democracy.

We are at this point in large part because this nation's religious leaders and congregations put their hearts and energies into a historic effort that required great faith to achieve - breaking the nexus between big money and political influence in this country. Church Women United, the Episcopal Church, the National Council of Churches, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, NETWORK, the Catholic social justice lobby, the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church all were part of our Americans for Reform coalition.

For the latest information, visit http://www.commoncause.org.

3/21/02
3:59:18 PM

Public Citizen issued the following two press releases today:

March 20, 2002

At Last, Reform Has Come

Statement of Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook

It has been 28 years since enactment of the last major campaign finance reform. Our opponents said this day would never come. They said reform of the corrupt political system would be "Armageddon." But after years of struggle, today democracy has triumphed with our bipartisan legislative teamwork. We urge President Bush to sign this reform legislation into law immediately.

Of course, the long struggle for comprehensive campaign finance reform is far from over. Given past history, we will have to be vigilant to ensure this law is enforced. Armies of political lawyers will surely try to carve out new loopholes. Our goal for both state and national elections is to curb the power of very wealthy donors and adopt a framework modeled after the presidential system of small matching contributions and public funding.

Reform opponents will seek a court challenge to stall reform and enable politicians to continue riding the soft money wave. We are confident the court will sustain the measure approved today.

Today all those who love democracy can be proud of the U.S. Congress and the stellar leadership of our reform champions - Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, as well as Reps. Chris Shays and Marty Meehan and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. All Americans owe them a deep debt of gratitude for helping us achieve this victory.

###

March 20, 2002

Public Citizen Calls on Babbitt, Villaraigosa to Oppose Controversial Water Project

Cadiz Hired the Two Prominent Politicians to Help Push Water Project Through

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Public Citizen today called on two prominent politicians recently hired by a California water developer to denounce the company's controversial water project.

In separate letters, Public Citizen asked former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa to oppose Cadiz Inc.'s storage and groundwater mining project in the Mojave Desert.

Cadiz recently added the two high-profile former politicians as it struggles to obtain federal approval for the project, which is key to the company's survival. Babbitt, a former Arizona governor, was hired to head a Middle East subsidiary of Cadiz. Villaraigosa's role as a consultant for the company appears to be limited to lobbying for support for the project. Villaraigosa enjoyed widespread support from many environmentalists in his recent Los Angeles mayoral bid.

Cadiz is seeking approval for the project from, among other agencies, the Interior Department. The massive enterprise calls for storing Colorado River water in an underground aquifer during wet years and using this and native groundwater to supplement supplies during dry years. The Cadiz project has been opposed by environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club.

"By hiring Mr. Babbitt and Mr. Villaraigosa, Cadiz is attempting to give a patina of respectability to this project and company," said Jane Kelly, director of Public Citizen's California office. "Although Mr. Babbitt claims he will work solely on Middle East projects, we find it hard to believe he won't pick up the phone and contact his former colleagues to help Cadiz out."

The hirings come on the heels of an announced bailout from a member of the Saudi royal family that will be indispensable in Cadiz's efforts to stay out of red ink - a goal that the firm has not been able to achieve for years. In January, the firm announced a pending deal to sell 49.75 percent of its wholly owned subsidiary, Sun World International, to Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud. (It was this prince's $10 million contribution for post-Sept. 11 reconstruction that was rejected by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.)

Cadiz is on shaky financial footing; documents show the company has significantly more debt than assets. According to The New York Times, Cadiz lost $22.5 million in 2000 and $17 million in the first nine months of last year.

Babbitt also was a chief architect of the Clinton administration's plan to reduce California's take of Colorado River water from 5.5 to 4.4 million acre-feet by 2015. That planned reduction is one reason the metropolitan water district has had to consider the Cadiz water project.

Cadiz owns land atop an aquifer in the Mojave Desert and could sell as much as 20 billion gallons a year. Environmental groups, members of the scientific community and Public Citizen oppose the Cadiz project on grounds that the rates of water extraction that Cadiz has determined necessary for profitability are unsustainable and therefore not in the public's interest. In particular, the project threatens to deplete the aquifer underlying the Mojave National Preserve and several federal wilderness areas, causing massive dust storms, drying out mountain springs and further imperiling the threatened desert tortoise and other sensitive species.

It would be much better for officials to pursue conservation and water efficiency, Kelly said. Also, there are water storage projects that don't require pulling water from the ground.

Added Diego Valencia, an organizer for Public Citizen, "With the recent addition of these two politicos, the battle over Cadiz is truly becoming one of big names versus the people."

Copies of the letters are available on the Web at

http://www.citizen.org/california/water/cadiz/articles.cfm?ID=7311

http://www.citizen.org/california/water/cadiz/articles.cfm?ID=7312

Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.

For more information, please visit http://www.citizen.org

3/21/02
3:50:34 PM

DAILY GRIST

http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#culture

SCAREY LARSON

An enormous section of Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf collapsed and splintered into thousands of icebergs this week after one of the region's warmest recorded summers. The section, designated Larsen B, was 650 feet thick and about the size of Rhode Island. Although scientists stopped short of attributing the collapse to global warming, they did say the area disintegrated with astounding rapidity and noted that it had survived 12,000 years of natural climate change before human activity began altering the environment. Temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula, where the ice shelf is located, have been gradually increasing for 50 years, and the area is considered an early indicator of the impacts of global warming. In 1995, the northernmost part of the shelf, Larsen A, collapsed in a similar event; the shelf is now about 40 percent of its original size.

straight to the source: New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 20 Mar 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/20/science/physical/20ICE.html>

straight to the source: Chicago Daily Southtown, Associated Press, Joseph B. Verrengia, 20 Mar 2002 <http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dsnews/2012nd1.htm>

only in Grist: An iceberg thanksgiving -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha112299.stm?source=daily>

do good: Take action on climate change issues <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily>

I GLUM FROM THE LAND DOWN UNDER

Meanwhile, in other news from the Southern Hemisphere, a committee composed of more than 100 representatives from Australia's government agencies and the private sector has issued the country a damning environmental report card. The committee, which reports on the state of the Australian environment every five years, said there had been little progress since its last publication. Although the nation's biodiversity was better protected and the air in urban areas was cleaner, those gains were offset by damage to coral reefs, vegetation loss, a nearly 17 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 1998, and worsening salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin, a key agricultural area in the nation. Australia has come under fire from international environmental groups recently for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, 20 Mar 2002 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15091/story.htm>

WHAM, BAM, NO THANK YOU, GRAHAM

The Bush administration has announced plans to hire more scientists for its regulatory review office, seek more input from citizens and businesses, and adopt cost-benefit analyses for rulemaking. The White House's point person on regulatory reform, John Graham, said the plan reflected the administration's "commitment to science-based quality regulation." Industry reps, who know they have a friend in the White House, found reason to rejoice in the plan, which was released in a 2002 draft report to Congress yesterday. But critics say the cost-benefit framework under consideration would greatly underestimate the value of rules protecting the environment and public health. Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown University law professor, called the overhaul of the regulatory process "unprecedented" and "a wholesale shift away from environmental protection."

straight to the source: Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima, 20 Mar 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53222-2002Mar19.html>

only in Grist: Beating around the Bush -- a look at the president's first year in office -- in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/gross021202.asp?source=daily>

MIND THE GAP

Environmentalists and public-health advocates in California are upset over a new state regulation that allows low-level radioactive waste to be dumped in municipal landfills instead of federally regulated nuclear waste storage facilities. Citing the possibility of increased cancer risks, the Sierra Club and a nuclear policy group, the Committee to Bridge the Gap, are backing legislation to rescind the regulation. The California Department of Health Services currently recognizes 25 millirems per year as the acceptable limit of residual radioactive waste. In other words, if one of the state's 2,100 licensed radioactive sites shuts down and tests at 25 millirems or less, it can be used for other purposes and debris from the area can be taken to an ordinary landfill. The U.S. EPA objects to that standard and wants the state to adopt stricter exposure limits.

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Greg Lucas, 19 Mar 2002 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/19/MN102156.DTL>

REALLY ENDANGERED SPECIES

In a sweeping policy shift that has environmentalists deeply worried, the Bush administration is urging federal judges to roll back legal protections for almost two dozen populations of endangered species. Government officials say the rollbacks are necessary because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which both enforce the Endangered Species Act, are facing nearly a dozen lawsuits from developers. Last May, a U.S. appeals court invalidated protection for nearly 600 miles of streams and rivers because the government did not fully review the economic implications of protecting them. Because a similar standard of review was used in other protection decisions, the feds say they are unlikely to win any of the other cases that have been brought against them. Species that could be affected by the rollback include whipsnakes, fairy shrimp, salmon, spotted owls, red-legged frogs, and others.

straight to the source: New York Times, Greg Winter, 20 Mar 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/20/politics/20HABI.html>

do good: Take action to stand up for endangered species protections <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/species.asp?source=daily#esa>

3/21/02
3:42:49 PM

THE COMMODITIES OF EUROPE'S CULTURE How can Europe protect its cultural diversity against the global monoculture of Americanization and free trade media?

BIG MEDIA AND THE POWERS THAT BE As media deregulation faces challenges in Congress and the courts, many voices warn that the industry may be abusing its mighty political power. Reports, analysis, advocacy, actions and issue guides from our affiliates.

http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#bigmedia

ZIMBABWE: AFTER THE COUNT In the aftermath of an election filled with stories of fraud and bias, Zimbabwe's journalists face a restrictive media bill and the new Zimbabwe Independent Media Center offers uncensored voices.

http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#zim

YOUR DAILY DISSECTOR Join Danny Schechter as he reads between the lines and looks beyond the screen. The News Dissector's Web log includes media comments from around the world, including yours.

http://www.mediachannel.org/weblog

3/21/02
2:58:44 PM

TomPaine.com

http://www.tompaine.com/op_ads/opad.cfm/ID/5281

"Independent, commercial-free, public affairs reporting."

Our latest OP AD:

TOXIC DECEPTION

When TODAY show host Katie Couric asked EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman about the Bush administration's delay of Clean Air Act rules, Whitman said, "We are continuing to enforce the Clean Air Act, we're continuing to meet deadlines."

Sounds great. Too bad it isn't true.

In fact, the administration is rolling back or undermining scores of environmental laws, including core parts of the landmark Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act that protect public health and the nation's natural heritage.

Check out out op ad:

And check out these Op-Ad Features:

THE NEW EPA: PROTECTING POLLUTERS

EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman's Tenure Is Marked By Rollbacks and Missed Deadlines

by James Pew

George W. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency is postponing anti-air pollution laws in ways that benefit private industry and endanger public health.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5279

DOWNWIND DIALECTICS

Voices From Threatened Communities

by Jill Van Vorrhis, Deb MulCahey, Cynthia Babich, and Dorothy Felix

The Bush administration's environmental rollbacks have real impact in communities nationwide. Here are some voices from threatened communities.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5282

BUSH APPOINTMENTS: PERSONNEL IS POLICY

The President has put lobbyists and lawyers for polluters, miners, loggers and developers in crucial environmental posts throughout his administration. Guess what kind of policy they're making (and unmaking)? by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5261

THE ROLLBACKS ROLL ON

George W. Bush Wages War On Public Health And The Environment

by David Case

Environmentalists assert that George W. Bush rivals Ronald Reagan as the environment's fiercest presidential opponent since green issues came to the forefront in the late 1960s.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5283

Dispatch: Buenos Aires

LOSING HOMES AND GAPING WOUNDS

Citizens Rise Up For Democracy And Accountability

by Naomi Klein

Reading the reckless advice that the international business community is hurling at the IMF and Argentina's government, perhaps a little personalizing is in order.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5276

NORMAN MAILER BITES GEORGE WILL

What Ernest Hemingway and Jackie Susann Have to Do with George W. Bush

by Michael Ryan

"Did a sense of shame ever reside in our Republican toadies?"

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5278

Dispatch: Londonistan

Could An Attack on Saddam Fuel British Unrest?

by Patricia Zengerle

Experts say the real heartland of violent Islamic extremism is nowhere near President Bush's "axis of evil" -- it's in Western Europe, mainly Britain.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5277

THE CORRUPTING INFLUENCE OF POWER

World Bank Opposes Changing Loans to Grants for Poor Countries

by Mark Weisbrot

What good can come of an arrangement that delivers the economic fate of hundreds of millions of people to the hands of a small, unaccountable group of men?

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5280

3/21/02
2:54:39 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

COMING TO AMERICA

by Dan Baum, Monterey Coast Weekly

-- Operation Gatekeeper, a program that has doubled the size of the Border Patrol on the U.S.-Mexico border, has helped cultivate the underground industry of immigrant smuggling.

COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT

by Heather Hamilton, Dooce.com

-- A Web designer who complained about her employer on her personal Web site is fired.

TACOS OF THE TUNDRA

by Deborah J. Myers, Moxie Magazine

-- Twenty years ago, Fran Tate decided to open a Mexican restaurant in the most unlikely of places: Barrow, Alaska - a remote town north of the Arctic Circle. After writing $11,000 in bad checks to open its doors, Pepe's North of the Border won over a town full of skeptics,

Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch

3/21/02
2:42:55 PM

Who was really behind 9/11 attacks?

There is MUCH conflict within the global intelligence cartel. The "GO order" for the 9/11 attacks, which was given by a small rogue group within the 7 cartels, has caused a fragmenting among the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, and the British MI6.

The Mossad is heavily denying any involvement in the GO order. But it is clear that at least one Mossad member was part of that GO order. Not because it would provide an excuse for Israel to move further into its war against the Palestinians, but because that member is dedicated to the violent overthrow of all international order in financial systems, in systems which give some semblance of order in international affairs.

In other words, this Mossad member has ANOTHER agenda entirely. Destroy the current world order and build on the ashes a new and more fascist structure.

MI6 is complaining that its agenda of destroying England (Foot and Mouth, Mad Cow, eliminating family farms, bankrupting the Brit economy) has actually suffered a blow because of 9/11. England now has new cash sources from the US to build up its armed forces to combat terrorism. England is now moving closer to being a viable military state whereas MI6 has the mission of gutting England entirely and making it a weak sister member of the NWO in the coming years. Blair is happy about England's new military status. He sees the coming years as an opportunity for England to use all its secret financial powers to rebuild The Empire in certain respects.

If none of this sounds exactly logical, don't worry. Logic is not the point. What people in power BELIEVE is the truth; that's the point. And they act on what they believe.

MI6, which is reputed to be at the beck and call of the Queen, is really quite a different animal. It is, in the most important respects, an enemy of the Queen and the Empire. MI6 is tasked with ripping apart that secret Empire, and making England a very minor and decimated member of the NWO. Why? Because England, for several hundred years, has made many enemies among true power players all over the world. The Royal House has tried over and over to re-establish its secret control over vast areas of the planet through financial dealings. MI6 is an agency which has been co-opted completely by globalist forces which are sick and tired of England as the secret master.

In the same way, the CIA has been co-opted by the cartels, as a tool to dismantle US power.

A few CIA members stood aside and let the 9/11 attacks occur. The CIA is closely aligned with the energy cartel, the oil bosses. It is tasked with working out the Afghanistan quagmire so that the oil/gas pipeline will be built on the ashes of a decimated country.

But now the CIA and MI6 are at each other's throats, when by cartel standards, they should be on the same page. What has happened? MI6 believes that the CIA took an active role in ordering the 9/11 attacks, and the last thing that MI6 wants is an active Brit army roaming all over the world putting down conflicts, which is exactly the feared result of 9/11. So MI6 is working to minimize England's future military role in such campaigns. MI6 is tasked by the cartels with the dangerous and problematic job of destroying Brit power in every sense of that word ultimately turning England into a Third World country. In this job, not everyone at high levels in MI6 is in agreement to begin with. (Of course, most people in MI6 don't even know that this is MI6's secret mission.)

On to the Mossad. One faction favors the 9/11 fall-out, because they think it will provide more international support for Israel in its war against the Palestinians. But cooler heads at Mossad believe that 9/11 will make it more difficult for that Israeli war to go forward, since the administration in Washington must oppose such a war on the grounds that it will further "increase terrorism. Furthermore, the cooler heads are searching to discover who, among the Mossad, may have participated in giving the 9/11 GO order. This internal search has caused a number of internal rifts within that agency.

OVERALL RESULT? THESE 3 INTELL POWERS ARE SCRAMBLING TO COVER THEIR ASSES WHILE THEY ARE ALSO CARRYING OUT THEIR CARTEL-BASED GOALS. THEREFORE, A FRAGMENTATION AND SUSPICION HAVE DEVELOPED WITHIN THE INTELL CARTEL.

In addition, the Russian secret intell agencies are playing several sides. They are cooperating with the CIA in the goal of getting that pipeline built in Afghanistan, but certain Russian intell chiefs are looking forward to a partitioning of Afghanistan between the US and Russia much like the dividing of Germany after WW2. These Russian cold warriors love the "divide and stalemate" strategy. They work well within that system. They are used to it. The CIA is opposed to it, on the grounds that it will give the Russians too much. So rifts and cooperations are happening simultaneously between the CIA and the Russian intell people. MORE FRAGMENTING.

Meanwhile, the medical cartel chiefs are furious over the handling of the anthrax OP in the US. This anthrax scare was launched and implemented within the inner circle of med/intell cartel people, through a variety of low-level cutouts.

But the CDC and other US medical agencies have botched the PR aspect. The med cartel wanted anthrax to be handled by a central medical authority at the CDC that has failed. This OP has exposed weaknesses and fragmentation within the med cartel PR apparatus. Every doctor who can get in front of a microphone, and every US Dept. of Justice "expert" who can get face-time on TV, has given his own version of the science behind the anthrax problem. Therefore, the American people have not succumbed to the desired degree to the medical emergency. The med cartel hoped the anthrax OP would signal a new level of centralized med control of the populace with pronouncements flowing very uniformly out of the CDC.

This has not happened.

In fact, little internal wars have broken out between the US Dept. of Justice and the CDC. Ashcroft at DOJ has a big fat ego, and he is determined to make anthrax a law enforcement issue. People are talking to him behind the scenes, but to no avail.

So the med cartel has re-cast this OP into "a learning experience. Reports are being issued secretly, and preparations are underway for a better uniform PR approach in future medical OPS.

The insufferable arrogance of the med cartel vis-a-vis the other cartels has taken a hit. You people can't even keep your own house in order.

In the eyes of the other 6 cartels, the medical cartel has been partially discredited. What does this mean? It means that the med cartel assurances about the reachability of its goals have begun to be doubted. The med cartel has asserted that it can, through brain research, drug research, electromagnetic research, genetic research, usher in a New Age of complete citizen control at the level of perception of reality. But now the sentiment from the other 6 cartels is, If you can't even run a decent PR program re anthrax, why should we believe your assurances about these much more complex and problematic research programs?

If you want a VERY loose analogy, watch the movie Boys From Brazil. The Gregory Peck character goes ballistic over doubts about his scheme to re-create little Hitlers through genetic experiments.

Well, now the med cartel biggies ARE going ballistic. There is all sorts of in-fighting, accusations are flying right and left among these supremely arrogant vultures.

Nevertheless, the anthrax OP is actually achieving, to a degree, the aim of INDUCING FEAR IN THE POPULACE.

Certain MKULTRA types within the CIA apparatus of present and former bigshots are blaming the med people for their bad handling of the anthrax scare. So more fragmentation.

THIS ANTHRAX BUSINESS WAS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT A GIANT LEAP FOR MEDICAL CONTROL OVER THE POPULACE, AND THE DEGREE OF ITS SUCCESS IS FAR LESS THAN EXPECTED. SO FAR.

THERE ARE PLANS ON THE DRAWING BOARD TO LAUNCH A NEW SMALLPOX OP THAT WILL TRULY SCARE THE HELL OUT OF THE POPULACE.

But even here, there is already a large amount of info-leakage, which has to do with the danger of the smallpox vaccine. The vaccine is the central part of the OP, because it, as opposed to the smallpox germ, does reliably cause all sorts of grave disease among many people. And you don't have to add any secret ingredients to the vaccine to make that disease happen. All by itself, this vaccine can maim and kill lots of people.

The CDC and other US med agencies are already conceding, for example, that the vaccine can be very dangerous to immune-suppressed people. Under that category, we have around 4% of the population. In the US that would be 12 million people or so.

The med cartel is trying to figure out a way to mask all that damage and call it something else. Intell cartel biggies are watching this figuring and are appalled that the med boys haven't already worked this OP out.

More conflict, more name-calling, more fragmentation.

Meanwhile, the government cartel is afraid that if too much smallpox vaccine gets loose, there could be too much sudden chaos, and the resultant effort to bring order would unleash a martial-law state before the cartels are ready to handle that. In fact, the energy cartel biggies are very leery of all this. For them, there must be business as usual on the planet, so that the oil can flow and so that there will be plenty of customers.

Cracks along the 7-cartel structure which have always existed are becoming more pronounced. Imminent reality has a way of doing that.

In the crisis within the cartels, certain major heads are being brought in to modulate OPS and keep things moving smoothly. Rockefeller reps are among these heads. The sentiment is, if anyone can achieve a balance between oil and medical OPS, Rockefeller powers can. After all, they own a lot of that territory to begin with.

David Rockefeller, who built the WTC, is being asked, "Did you okay this OP to destroy your own pet project?" So far he is cryptically answering, "An incident (WTC attacks) is an incident, but an overall goal is something much larger." As in, any building can be destroyed if it pushes forward the big agenda.

But people at the highest levels of the cartels know that David is a professional liar of the first order. They're more interested in his advice than his veracity.

David, however, is plenty pissed off these days. He believes the overall OP is going much too fast. He is for gradually extending the power of the controlling elite, without massive destruction. He views the 9/11 OP as the work of madmen. Which would appear to indicate that he is willing to make any personal necessary sacrifices, but he is NOT willing to see events spin out of his control.

DAVID IS ONE OF THE MAJOR (THOUGH QUIET) CONTROL FREAKS ON THE PLANET.

He has led the way to the transforming of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission (which he created in 1973) into the WTO and the globalist apparatus--which apparatus is the current major storefront for the organically evolving 7 cartels.

But now David is opining that these cartels may have developed too quickly and with too many basic structural disagreements. He is gathering up forces to stabilize the situation.

The military cartel is acting like a cocaine addict who has just been given access to a major stash of his favorite drug. It's all systems go. Form up more global alliances of armies to fight the endless war on terrorism. Emphasis on ENDLESS.

The vision? One giant global army that is under complete command control from a central point, with the most advanced weapons deployed. Wars waged from that central point. Nuclear? If necessary. There is some restraint on this, but within the cartel there are madmen who believe that it's time to pacify the whole planet into a total obedient state in the wake of a nuke incident or exchange. Dr. Strangelove.

New rifts on top of old rifts are developing between the military and intelligence cartels. Military wants top control of all intell. Intell wants a major hand in the endless war. Military does not trust intell provided by other people. Military wants its own people to gather the intell and control the major satellites.

The media cartel is also having a field day, because lots of viewers and readers who had deserted the mainstream for alternative sources of info are "coming home" like obedient dogs. But the media cartel is aware that this crisis also creates a vast opportunity for end runs around the major news sources.

To a degree, the military, intell, government and energy cartels are upset with the media cartel in the same way that they are angry with the medical cartel: TOO MUCH UNCOORDINATED INFO IS GETTING OUT TO THE PUBLIC.

"Why can't you just control the damn news and give people one coherent picture of things?"

An unrealistic demand at this moment, but it doesn't stop the criticism. And top media cartel people are feeling the pressure to sculpt a coordinated view of events in the wake of 9/11. Some reporters for major outlets are being silenced. The thing is, as sheep-like as most reporters are, they don't like overt censorship. They prefer to do it to themselves and labor under the delusion that they are independent minds.

CLIP

Military men with lots of salad on their uniforms have orgasms criticizing "loose lips" in the media. It's a tradition. This tendency is causing more little internal splits in the military-media cooeprative apparatus. Egos on parade.

The money cartel has its hand inside Bush's shorts with this economic-stimulus package, which is in part an effort to re-balance the stock and other trading markets of the planet. $100 billion stimulus. These financial wizards are steaming from their ears in the wake of 9/11. They want to right their ship through much more subtle means. They don't want utter destruction to throw national economies into oblivion. They want to paper over all sorts of money problems with more and more credit, issued under cover. They want their usual brand of secrecy. They're not getting it.

Some major exposure is occurring in this area. Unwanted exposure. For example, more and more people are realizing that one of the prime training grounds for mid-level high-IQ androids on the planet HARVARD has been working a huge scam as a non-profit 501C3 by taking in donations and multiplying their value GIGANTICALLY by investing them in all sorts of semi-clandestine projects. Using ex-students who are positioned quite well within major institutions that have insider knowledge.

Don't ask me why, but my typeface has suddenly turned red. I can't shut it off. So I'll finish out in red. Maybe it'll be transmitted to you in black...hmmm.

The money cartel is trying to stave off a total money collapse on the planet. The small group that launched 9/11 wants that money collapse. Now. So there is a battle being waged there.

The military cartel is insisting that all money problems can be solved by simply going on to a full and permanent war-time economy.

Other big players are saying that won't work in the long-run.

This whole area is a swamp. Money cartel players are buying into companies at bargain prices. There are several upsides and downsides for the money cartel, and no one is providing a coherent solution that will ensure both stabilization of trading markets AND CONTINUED MONEY CARTEL CONTROL OF THE WHOLE MONEY SCENE ON THE PLANET. WITHOUT CHAOS. AND THE MONEY CARTEL, AS A GROUP, DOES NOT WANT CHAOS. IT DOES NOT WANT A 1929-STYLE DEPRESSION RIGHT NOW.

So, you can see that the cartels are having their problems.

An important health note. As we move deeper into this "biowar" insanity, you would be well advised to move your personal health up into higher levels... because a strong immune system is your best defense.

JON RAPPOPORT Investigative Reporter

http://www.jonrappoport.com/

http://www.hiddenmysteries.com/item100/item149.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/boycott.html

3/21/02
2:06:05 PM

HIGH-RISE EVACUATION EXPERT QUESTIONS 9.11 DEATH TOLL

by William Thomas

Saddened that so many families lost loved ones in the destruction of the World Trade Center, a Canadian expert in evacuating high-rise buildings nevertheless questions why there were not many more casualties from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

In his capacity as government consultant on fire safety and physical security in government buildings faced with fire or bomb threats, Eamonn O'Brien journeyed to San Paulo, Brazil in 1972 to examine the aftermath of the largest high-rise fire in the world up to that time. In at least one stairwell O'Brien reports, "people were getting crushed." Initial televised reports from Manhattan estimated early casualty figures from the two aircraft strikes on the Twin Towers at 22,000 dead. In the week's following attacks that stunned the world, the World Trade Center death toll was steadily revised downward to a final official figure around 3,300 fatalities.

O'Brien says the number of exits and the volume of people, including disabled, per floor would determine the maximum number of evacuees in a given amount of time.

"Remember," says O'Brien, " at the first alarm, the automatic elevators would have been shut down." Looking at official occupancy figures, O'Brien says there should have been 38,500 people in both Trade Towers by 8:30 that morning. That early, he adds, there would have been at least 10 percent additional visitors in those buildings for a total occupancy he estimates around 41,000 people. This figure does not include the thousands of tourists and New Yorkers exposed to flying glass on the streets directly below.

In Ottawa, O'Brien was in charge of evacuation procedures for a five-building government complex. Occupied by 27,500 people, the tallest building in Place du Portage is less than 25 stories tall. One Wednesday afternoon in the late 1970s, O'Brien pulled the fire alarm to all five buildings without prior warning.

Though he had permission from his superiors to conduct a snap drill, O'Brien did not inform them in advance of the test. Instead, he quietly notified all disabled persons to clear the buildings 20 minutes before he pulled the alarm. They did so without attracting attention.

"We didn't even notify the fire department," O'Brien says. "When we want to test the system we don't tell anybody." Instead, fire safety staff members inconspicuously placed on every floor monitored the drill, which O'Brien directed from a nearby security personnel control center.

"With no smoke, no fire," O'Brien recounts, "it took 48 minutes to evacuate buildings one-third the size with one-third the number of stairwells available as the World Trade Center."

Struck by a jumbo jet at 9:06 am with an impact explosion estimated to be the equivalent of 480,000 pounds of TNT, the south tower of the WTC collapsed within 40 minutes. Though the north tower had been hit 20 minutes before, evacuation of its "twin" adjacent tower was delayed by a security message urging everyone to return to their desks. There was also a natural reluctance to run out into streets exposed to a blizzard of broken glass. "The walls of those buildings were glass," O'Brien recounts. "A penny falling from 50 stories can kill. A large pane of glass can cut a car in half."

A Morgan Stanley executive was in the foyer on the 44th floor near the express elevator of the South Tower (Two) when Security came over the loudspeaker. "Remain calm, damage is in Tower One. We appear to be okay." Everyone was joking, he recalls, repeating the word, "appear" when the second plane hit his building.

"We heard the engines of the plane and felt the shock after it hit. But there was no urgency, even though the building continued to shake for five minutes afterwards," Dr. Alan Sokotow remembers. "I only first started to get nervous when we could begin to smell jet fuel in the air conditioning ducts."

Based on his findings in San Paulo and his experience in Ottawa, O'Brien says of the Manhattan terror attacks, "There should have been eleven-and-a-half to 16,000 dead for that occupancy, the size of the towers, the damage incurred, and the response."

He should know. O'Brien worked on a committee responsible for drafting the procedures currently in place for evacuating high-rise buildings across Canada. He says that on the morning of the attacks, the World Trade Center must have been "less than 30 percent occupied." Yet those buildings housed global financial trade centers. There is no way, O'Brien says, those buildings happened to be largely unoccupied by a" slow day" at work. He pauses. "Those sons of bitches knew."

Somebody knew of the attacks in advance. In 1974, after the first FBI-assisted bombing of the World Trade Center, the head of the FBI's Anti-Terror Division promised Congress that corporations would be notified if any terror threats to their employees or buildings were received by the FBI.

On Aug. 28, the FAA sent a warning to airlines and airports that passengers with links to terror networks intended to fly on U.S. airlines. Also that week, a Pakistani student at Brooklyn's New Utrecht High School pointed at the Twin Towers during a heated political argument and declared, "Look at those two buildings. They won't be here next week."

Several days before the attack, a Jersey City student of Middle Eastern origins also warned classmates not to travel into lower Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11. Members of a Bronx mosque were also warned to stay out of lower Manhattan on Sept. 11.

Corporations and U.S. federal departments were also tipped by a "worldwide warning" issued by the State Department. A copy of the Sept. 7 memo received by former Secretary of State George Schultz at his San Francisco office warned that Americans "may be the target of a terrorist threat [from] extremist groups with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization". An even more timely bulletin reached airports, where at least one prestigious passenger was warned off. When San Francisco's mayor called on Sept.10 to check the status of a flight he was planning to take into New York the following day, a return call from a person Willie Brown described as an "airport security man", told him to be "extra cautious about air travel" on Sept. 11. In Tokyo the day before Sept. 11, the giant Goldman Sachs investment firm circulated a memo advising employees to avoid government buildings because of a possible terrorist attack. Goldman Sachs was the second biggest tenant in the World Trade Center, occupying some 22 floors. On Sept. 11, a Goldman Sachs vice-president decided to take the day off to go surfing. The firm suffered only 17 casualties.

Morgan Stanley, the World Trade Center's biggest tenant, reportedly lost none of its 3,500 employees spread over some 50 floors. Neither did Oppenheimer Funds. SEC officials are still probing why Morgan Stanley, with a daily average of 27 "put" contracts betting on the movement of its share prices, saw 2,157 "put" options purchased three days before "Black Tuesday". These financial futures contracts bet the company's stock would fall by October. Benefiting from advance knowledge of the WTC attacks, their purchasers stood to make at least $1.2 million.

If thousands of employees were sent to seminars or on spurious errands, or asked to stay home 'Äì why have no survivors spoken up? "If you and I were friends, and you died and I didn't, it would be difficult for me to come forward," O'Brien observes.

Photographs taken in the stairwells during evacuation of the World Trade Center show stunned office workers exiting in an orderly single-file, leaving room for firefighters hauling bulky equipment past them up the stairs. At least 350 firefighters and emergency response personnel died in the sudden collapse of the Twin Trade Towers. Each of New York city's tallest office buildings came down in 15 seconds.

Eamonn O'Brien shakes his head. "There is no way only 3,300 people died if those buildings have been fully occupied," he says.

The former security expert is haunted by a scene in the movie "Independence Day", which shows an alien spacecraft blowing up a big building. A huge dustball rushes down the street as panicked people run toward the camera. "It's the same street," says O'Brien. "The same street as the WTC."

---

Excerpted from All Fall Down: The Politics of Terror and Mass Persuasion, and interviews with Eamonn O'Brien.

A veteran investigative journalist with 32 years experience reporting "under-reported" events, William Thomas is the author of Bringing The War Home, Chemtrails Confirmed and All Fall Down: The Politics of Terror and Mass Persuasion.

http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/Willthomas/Evac%20Expert/evac.htm

http://www.lifeboatnew.com

willthomas@telus.net

http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/Willthomas/will/will.htm

3/21/02
2:03:28 PM

The Dreadful Imposture

The US Authorities have tried to make believe that the dammage caused to the Pentagon, on September 11, 2001 was caused by the crash of a hijacked Boeing airliner on the building. This lie was meant to hide the fact that a bombing attack was in fact carried out by a group of people who had authorized access to the Pentagon and that the target was not the Departement of Defense in general but the new Navy Command Center.

The US authorities have also lied in order to hide the existence of a secret CIA base within the World Trade Center and its illegal activities. But most of all they have put great efforts into concealing the negotiations carried out between George Bush and the conjurors on September 11, as well as the agreement that was reached on that day. With the help of their hired agent, Osama Bin Laden, they have channeled the sadness and the anger of the US public opinion towards foreign scapegoats.

In his book "L'Effroyable imposture" (The Dreadful Imposture), Thierry Meyssan reveals the secrets behind 9-11. He analyses the power shift within the US political establishment and the rocketing of the military expenses. He denounces the hidden agenda behind the war in Afghanistan and the secret aims of the "War on Terrorism". A must read if you want to understand where the US leadership is leading its country.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/03/118668.php

3/21/02
1:40:11 PM

WAR, THE PENTAGON AND THE MEDIA

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=20937

Raw exposure of government cover-up of no-airliner in Pentagon

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=20936

The rule of law is dead.

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=20939

When U.S. Joint Chiefs Planned Terror Attacks on America

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=20944

FLIGHT 77 - WHERE IS THE PLANE?

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/flight77.htm

911 - TERROR IN AMERICAN - PARTS 1 – 4

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/WTC.htm

WHO'S TRULY BEHIND THE ATTACK ON AMERICA?

http://www.ecologynews.com/cuenews43.html

3/21/02
1:38:04 PM

An agenda for aid - Money is needed as well as words

Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain is prepared to spend "significantly" more of its wealth on helping poorer countries is a welcome affirmation of the chancellor's devotion to overseas development. Especially as he has committed the Treasury, in parsimonious times, to an increase not only in cash terms but as a percentage of national income, so that it rises in line with growing national prosperity. Cynics could say that Mr Brown has plenty of room to be generous because Britain's current aid contribution of 0.31% of gross domestic product (GDP) is less than France's and considerably less than half of the UN's long-term target of 0.7% of GDP. That may be true, but we do not live in an ideal world. We live in one where the biggest economy, the United States, is planning a $48bn increase in defence spending, yet gives a paltry 0.1% of GDP in aid. The US is entering a protectionist phase that could have devastating effects on poor countries that rely on income from commodities and farming, products most vulnerable to tariffs. It would have been better if Mr Brown could have persuaded the US to fulfil its humanitarian as well as military duties, but the US is in no mood to compromise. It has shrugged off its responsibilities under the UN's Millennium Declaration to - among other things - halve the number of the world's poor living in poverty by 2015 and to achieve universal primary education. Over 20% of the world's population still earns under $1 a day and about half gets less than $2 a day, according to the UN.

One of the threadbare excuses used by the US to justify this month's steel tariffs was that Europe and Japan were not expanding fast enough to help the US out of its current slowdown. The US must accept that there is no better way of kick-starting global recovery than reflating the economies of the developing world. This would create jobs and economic activity where they are most needed and generate demand for western, and American, goods. If the running sore of world poverty is to be cured there must be simultaneous action on a number of fronts, including debt relief, increased capital flows, lower tariffs, better education, reduced infant mortality and improved conflict resolution. Some past approaches to aid only served to line the pockets of ministers or was wasted in other ways. The aid agencies and western governments have done much to improve things by targeting aid to the people and institutions, like schools, that would benefit, rather than channelling it through dubious intermediaries.

If governments are reluctant to raise existing taxes to fund aid, then they could at least look favourably on special levies like a tax on foreign exchange transactions devised by Professor James Tobin, the Nobel laureate, who died this week. Some of the proceeds of a Tobin tax of about 0.5% on short-term currency transactions could be used to help developing countries. A standard objection to the tax is that it would have to be imposed by all countries simultaneously to stop cash draining to the weakest offshore link. But a recent German government study suggests that it may be possible for a single big entity - like the European Union (plus Switzerland) - to operate such a tax because the concentration of business in one centre, aided by time zones, may prevent transactions migrating to tax havens. This may or may not be possible in the long term. In the short term there is no alternative to leading by example. Gordon Brown is doing just that. He should now move from words to deeds by publishing an annual programme for increased UK aid.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,666319,00.html

3/21/02
1:36:35 PM

60 millions face death if West fails to provide aid

Fears that UN summit will provide only rhetoric

Nearly 60 million children in the developing world, the equivalent of the population of the UK, will die needlessly over the next 15 years unless rich countries start to deliver on their promises to increase international aid spending, development campaigners warn today.

Amid mounting fears that next week's UN summit, in Monterrey, Mexico, on boosting aid to the poorest countries will deliver empty rhetoric rather than cash, Oxfam said ambitious international goals set for tackling poverty by 2015 would be missed by a huge margin.

The aid agency said that the world's richest countries needed to provide an extra $100bn (£70bn) a year - three times the current level of assistance - to ensure that the targets of halving world poverty, putting every child into school and reducing infant mortality by two thirds are met.

Aid campaigners are disappointed that the chancellor, Gordon Brown, who last autumn called for a doubling of aid spending, has decided not to go to Monterrey after it be came clear that opposition from the US and leading EU nations had made the conference a non-event.

Although the government had reversed the 20 year declining trend in Britain's aid spending, Oxfam said its record "falls far short of the standards required for a country seeking to provide leadership".

Oxfam said rich countries' failure to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid will result in millions of child deaths. Using UN data on child mortality, the agency predicts that, on current trends, by 2015 10m children a year will be dying before their fifth birthday, compared with a target of 4.2m.

"These figures show that more empty words on aid in Monterrey will cost children's lives," said Kevin Watkins, policy adviser at Oxfam.

The extra spending needed to meet the UN target would add $11bn to the US budget - a quarter of the sum president George Bush has pledged to add to the Pentagon's budget in the aftermath of September 11, according to the agency. The EU could reach the target by allocating an extra $35bn to aid - the amount it spends annually subsidising farmers through the common agriculture policy.

"The current political background gives little cause for optimism," the agency warned. "Several major donors - including Italy, France, Germany and Japan - have been cutting aid. Others, notably the US, are allowing aid programmes to stagnate at exceptionally low levels."

Although President Bush is expected to attend the summit, the US has, in effect, neutered any chance of the summit delivering radical pledges on aid, by insisting that all mentions of the UN target be removed from the draft declaration.

Hopes that the EU might embarrass Washington by agreeing substantial increases of its own have also foundered. Oxfam is calling for a four point programme under which developed nations would agree to meet the 0.7% target within five years, developing countries would clear plans to ensure money was well spent, donors would ensure that the $10bn global fund to fight Aids and malaria was properly financed and that no child would be kept out of school for lack of money.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,666348,00.html

Related articles 13.03.2002: 60m face death if West fails to provide aid

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,666332,00.html

13.03.2002: Brown pledges rise in overseas aid

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,666283,00.html

13.03.2002: Leader: An agenda for aid

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,666319,00.html

3/21/02
1:34:10 PM

Let Love Ring!

Purpose of Event

1. To have millions of people focusing on love for a 24 hour period in order to replace fear with love.

2. To have bells ring around the world for 24 hours.

3. To empower caring people with an avenue to make a difference in our world.

4. To inaugurate a new era of peace, unity, and cooperation on planet earth by accepting and celebrating our diversity and sharing our love.

5. To invite and include children as key leaders in events everywhere. A coloring book of children's artwork is being produced to give to the children of New York City and Washington, D.C. on 9/11/02. Plans are to also create one for children in the Middle East.

Mission Statement

To "Let Love Ring!" through service, music, and the arts-to each other, the earth, and all upon it."

A grass-roots project, the 9/11/02 event began with a group of concerned women in Nashville, Tennessee and has captured the hearts and minds of persons around the world. People of all faiths and backgrounds are participating.

As a result, the not-for-profit organization, "Let Love Ring!" was formed. Contributions exceeding costs of this event will go into ongoing projects with the same mission.

"Let Love Ring!" is devoted to the following purposes:

- To raise awareness of the power of love and increase participation in its flow.

- To create an opportunity for citizens worldwide to offer a service of love and thereby promote worldwide peace.

- To aid children in coming forward as equal partners in world leadership.

More details at http://www.letlovering.com

Send mail to:

"Let Love Ring!"

1808 West End Ave., Suite 1411

Nashville, TN 37203

Phone: Arzella Kay-Wheeler (615) 366-6994

email: admin@letlovering.com

3/21/02
1:30:42 PM

Thousands at Defense Dept. on 'Shopping Spree'

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000018836mar14.story

WASHINGTON -- More than 700 military officers are among 46,000 Defense Department employees who have walked away from $62 million in debt against their government-issued credit cards, and one civilian employee who charged thousands in personal expenses has been promoted to the office that oversees Army finances.

3/21/02
1:27:06 PM

THE WAR ON DISSENT WIDENS

A powerful group of neo-conservative war hawks is launching a bold new public relations campaign attacking anyone who disagrees with Bush's war on terrorism.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12612

Enron's Shadow Government

http://www.thedailyenron.com/documents/20020312063231-70155.pdf

Enron's alliances, connections and entanglements with the Bush Administration run wide and deep. A new report from The Daily Enron (http://www.thedailyenron.com/), a site by journalist Stephen Pizzo dedicated solely to unraveling the scandal, has a new report detailing just how wide and how deep. Never in modern times has a single private entity been as successful as Enron in penetrating and ultimately compromising U.S. political and regulatory institutions. In its short sixteen-year life span Enron and its operatives burrowed their way deeply into energy and securities regulatory agencies, Congress and finally the Oval Office. Is a Special Counsel necessary?

MORE ENRON-GATE NEWS AT http://www.alternet.org/issues/index.html?IssueAreaID=30

A PALESTINIAN VIEW: This time is different

http://www.bitterlemons.org/issue/pal2.html

We have to understand why the Americans want to hit Iraq, which is to redraw the map in the Middle East and get rid of all who oppose American policy in the area.

Check also If the US attacks Iraq at http://www.bitterlemons.org/

Saudis to take hard line with Cheney against war on Iraq (March 15, 2002)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,667729,00.html

Saudi Arabia is to deliver an uncompromising message to the US vice-president Dick Cheney that it opposes attacking Iraq and will not cooperate in military efforts to remove Saddam Hussein. The Saudi move - which represents a huge groundswell of Arab opinion against a looming war with Iraq - will be a blow for Mr Cheney, who is touring the Middle East to drum up support for an extended "war on terrorism".

3/21/02
1:23:07 PM

HURRICANE FLOODS POSE RISK TO ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH, NEW RESEARCH ON 1999 STORM REVEALS

Flooding from hurricanes such as Floyd, which dumped up to 20 inches of water on parts of eastern North Carolina, poses a significant threat to both environmental and human health by washing industrial animal operation wastes into areas with vulnerable populations, according to a new study.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020311080304.htm

AIR POLLUTION CAUSES HEALTHY BLOOD VESSELS TO CONSTRICT

For the first time researchers have shown that air pollution negatively affects the blood vessels of healthy humans, according to a study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020312073632.htm

CREATION OF TINY MAGNETS MAY LEAD TO BIG CHANGES

Researchers Guy Bertrand and David Scheschkewitz of the University of California, Riverside, and colleagues are opening new doors to understanding magnetic properties. On the other side of these doors lies the potential for developing new medical imaging devices and implants, efficient electrical conductors and non-metallic magnets.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020311075940.htm

MEDICINES, CAFFEINE AND ANTIBACTERIAL SOAP AMONG CONTAMINANTS FOUND IN AMERICAN STREAMS

A national survey of U.S. streams across 30 states has revealed a list of compounds that looks like a sample from our national medicine cabinet. Among them are the painkillers acetaminophen and ibuprofen, prescription medicines for cardiac disorders and hypertension, and female sex hormones used in birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020313074342.htm

TREATING EYE PAIN MAY REMOVE OTHER MIGRAINE SYMPTOMS

Eye pain is an oft-accompanied symptom of migraine sufferers. Researchers have found that treating inflammation in the eye's trochlea tendon can relieve the headache pain associated with migraines, or prevent the triggering of full-blown migraine attacks. The study of five migraine patients with trochleitis (inflammation of the trochlea tendon) is reported in the current issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020312073743.htm

SCIENTISTS LEARN SOMETHING NEW ABOUT ONE OF THE MOST STUDIED CHEMICAL REACTIONS

The simplest and best-studied chemical reaction - the collision of a hydrogen atom H with molecular hydrogen H2 - is still unveiling its mysteries to scientists.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020307074621.htm

COLOR OF THE UNIVERSE CORRECTED BY ASTRONOMERS

The universe has come in for a color correction, and home decorators may approve. Astronomers who announced in January that theyd determined the color of the universe will publish a paper on their broader results in April. When they do, the footnote describing the color of the universe finding will cite beige, not the originally announced turquoise.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020311080051.htm

RESEARCHERS DEMONSTRATE DIRECT, REAL-TIME BRAIN CONTROL OF COMPUTER CURSOR

It is the stuff of science fiction: Researchers at Brown University have used a tiny array of electrodes to record, interpret and reconstruct the brain activity that controls hand movement - and they have demonstrated that thoughts alone can move a cursor across a computer screen to hit a target.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020314080832.htm

UCLA SCIENTISTS, COLLEAGUES SUBSTANTIATE BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF EARLIEST FOSSILS

UCLA paleobiologist J. William Schopf and colleagues have substantiated the biological origin of the earliest known cellular fossils, which are 3.5 billion years old. The research is published in the March 7 issue of the journal Nature. Schopf and a team of scientists at the University of Alabama, Birmingham have devised a new technique using a unique laser-Raman imaging system that enables them to look inside of rocks and determine what they are made of, providing a molecular map.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020313080230.htm

EVIDENCE BEHIND CLAIM OF RELIGION-HEALTH LINK IS SHAKY, RESEARCHERS SAY

Popular claims that religious activity provides health benefits have virtually no grounding in the medical literature, according to an article in the March issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. This conclusion sharply contradicts assertions that a large body of evidence indicates that religious people enjoy better physical and mental health.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020314080021.htm

U.S. FORESTS MAY BE PRODUCTS OF POLLUTION

Studies of pristine forests in South America found that the cycling of nitrogen, an essential nutrient, was quite different than expected, and it suggests that many forests of North America and Europe actually have an unnatural ecology driven largely by air pollution, acid rain and artificial nitrogen fertilization.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020315072153.htm

RESEARCHERS CAPTURE UNUSUAL SPRITE-LIKE BLUE JET

Deep in the Puerto Rican tropical jungle surrounding the Arecibo Observatory, a team of stalwart researchers captured an elusive blue jet on video tape and found the first evidence of a connection between the ionosphere and cloud top in these events. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020314080637.htm

PORTABLE UNIT CREATED TO TREAT WASTEWATER IN REMOTE LOCATIONS

A compact unit designed to treat wastewater in remote locations, such as the countryside of Afghanistan, will receive a trial run at a local pump station in June. The unit was designed as part of a half million dollar Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project awarded to UDT Inc. of Manassas, Va., and Virginia Tech by the U. S. Army. Virginia Tech serves as the academic partner for this project.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020314080228.htm

TECHNOPHOBES MAY BE RIGHT AFTER ALL

Those who dispute the claim of universal benefits from new information and communications technologies are often called technophobes, but the evidence shows they may be right after all, says a Penn State researcher. The prevailing view that the more technology we have, the better off we are, just isn't borne out by the evidence, says Dr. Steven Sawyer, associate professor of information science and technology. "It's like claiming that owning a personal digital assistant will automatically make you more organized."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020315071654.htm

3/20/02
6:02:37 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-19-02.html

ENVIRONMENT, FISH BROUGHT TO THE WORLD'S TRADING TABLE

GENEVA, Switzerland, March 19, 2002 (ENS) - Reducing the subsidies that governments pay to their nations' fishing fleets which then strip the oceans bare, is one of the topics on the table when the Committee on Trade and the Environment of the World Trade Organization starts formal negotiations in Geneva on Friday.

TRAWLER BAN NEEDED NOW, SCIENCE PANEL REPORTS

WASHINGTON, DC, March 19, 2002 (ENS) - Bottom trawling, a method of fishing that drags big, heavy nets across the sea floor, is killing vast numbers of marine animals, warns a new report from the National Academy of Sciences. The panel responsible for the report recommends that the government close some areas to all trawlers, and limit trawler access to other regions.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-19-06.html

PACIFIC ISLAND LEADERS URGED TO PROTEST U.S. MISSILE TESTS

SUVA, Fiji, March 19, 2002 (ENS) - Pacific island countries must speak out against the United States for using the Pacific Ocean as a testing ground for their missile defense system, the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) said Monday.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-19-01.html

GIANT ANTARCTIC ICE SHELVES SHATTER AND BREAK AWAY

BOULDER, Colorado, March 19, 2002 (ENS) - The accelerating break up of Antarctic ice shelves has reached a new peak, with the dramatic loss of two huge pieces on separate sides of the continent.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-19-03.html

BIG TIME SHAHTOOSH TRADERS ARRESTED IN INDIA

DELHI, India, March 19, 2002 (ENS) - Shahtoosh shawls made from endangered Tibetan antelope worth about US$400,000 were seized in Delhi Monday and two well connected traders were taken into custody by police.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-19-04.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 19, 2002

California Delays MTBE Ban by One Year

Hole in Nuclear Reactor Vessel Prompts Inspections

Parasites May Signal Ecosystem Changes

Groups Sue to Protect Santa Ana Sucker

Fresh Water Mapped Under the Sea

Natural Antifreeze Promises Medical Advances

Wild Birds Unlimited Honored for Conservation Work

Rock Band REM Seeks Protection of America's Forests

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-19-09.html

3/20/02
6:00:14 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

UPDATE - US farm bill talks slow, April finish looms - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15094/story.htm

US ethanol industry bashes California MTBE ban delay - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15086/story.htm

Californian governor seeks to boost renewable energy - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15087/story.htm

UPDATE - EPA backs voluntary power plant emissions cuts - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15099/story.htm

Bush to fill number two spot at Energy Department - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15097/story.htm

FACTBOX - Land stewardship issues in US farm bill talks - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15096/story.htm

Britain gives 4 million stg to grow solar energy - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15090/story.htm

Antarctic ice sheet breaks up - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15103/story.htm

Korea's KEPCO nuclear unit signs pact with Romania - SOUTH KOREA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15088/story.htm

Indian panel mulls total ban on cow slaughter - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15101/story.htm

"Gene banks" seen vital for future food, health - EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15100/story.htm

Biotech industry seen failing to explain benefits - EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15098/story.htm

FEATURE - How to save threatened Costa Rican wilderness? - COSTA RICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15084/story.htm

Australia to grow paper exports to China - ABARE - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15092/story.htm

Weyerhaeuser says will work with Haida on logging - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15095/story.htm

RFK Jr. warns Alberta against hog industry expansion - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15085/story.htm

Bangladesh army seeks permission to kill elephants - BANGLADESH http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15102/story.htm

UN says nuclear plants' vulnerability unclear - AUSTRIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15089/story.htm

Salt ravages Australia's environment - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15091/story.htm

Sydney's bats not easily scared off - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15093/story.htm

3/20/02
5:58:32 PM

t r u t h o u t

Leahy Moves for Robert Ray Investigation

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20A.Ray.Investigation.htm

Bush-Senate Fight Brews Over Extent of U.S. Secrecy

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20B.Fight.Brews.htm

Wellstone Presses for Rx Drugs, Education Funding Priorities in Federal Budget

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20C.Wellstone.Presses.htm

Rangel-Neal on Bush Tax Proposals | Letter to Joint Committee on Taxation

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20D.Rangel.Neal.htm

Democrats Grill Judicial Nominee

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20E.Grill.Nominee.htm

Action on Ashcroft Complaint Sought

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20F.Ashcroft.Complaint.htm

Ex-Enron Executive Related A Dispute

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20G.Enron.Related.htm

The Watchdog Of Ocean Parkway

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.20H.Watchdog.htm

3/20/02
5:55:10 PM

DAILY GRIST

http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=19

BARNS AND IGNOBLE

"Factory farms" -- huge, mechanized corporate operations -- are a far cry from the American pastoral image (that little red barn on the hill). But such farms are becoming ever more common, and not just in the Midwest. In Pennsylvania, for example, large-scale hog farms have doubled in the last decade, provoking environmental, agricultural, and legal battles across the state. Those battles are coming to a head in southwestern Pennsylvania's Belfast Township, whose prohibition on corporate involvement in farms has been challenged in court. Belfast says it's acting in the public interest to protect the environment and small farmers; the industry, which says factory farms are a modern, efficient way to meet consumer demand, clams the township has no right to regulate farm ownership and is unfairly discriminating against corporations.

straight to the source: Philadelphia Inquirer, Tom Avril, 18 Mar 2002 <http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2883578.htm>

do good: Take action to stop dirty hog farming <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/food.asp?source=daily#hogs2>

TRAWL IN A DAY'S WORK

Bottom trawling, or dragging nets along the ocean floor to catch fish, is so devastating to the marine environment that the practice should be banned from fragile areas, according to a U.S. National Academy of Sciences report released yesterday. The report, which was requested by the National Marine Fisheries Service, recommended protecting areas along the Pacific Coast, the North Atlantic, the Gulf Coast, and the Alaskan coast, reducing trawling elsewhere, and requiring modifications to equipment to minimize damage. The recommendations were welcomed by environmentalists, some of whom compare bottom trawling to clear-cutting. A bipartisan group of Congress members plans to introduce legislation today to restrict bottom trawling.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Kenneth R. Weiss, 19 Mar 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000020106mar19.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dscience>

I'LL TELL YOU WHAT I WANT, WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT

Jennifer Ferenstein, president of the Sierra Club, has got a new plan for one of the nation's oldest and most politically influential environmental groups. Ferenstein wants the Sierra Club to emphasize not just what it's against (e.g, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, air pollution, global warming) but also what it supports (restoring wild salmon, better fuel efficiency, campaign finance reform). According to Executive Director Carl Pope, the shift is necessary because of the post-Sept. 11 focus on national unity. For her part, Ferenstein says she wants her organization to provide reliable, unexaggerated information and occasional respite from the gloom and doom that often characterize the environmental movement. Is this just spin or will Ferenstein land herself in the Grist Hall of Fame? (We're accepting volunteers to monitor the tone of club press releases from here on out.)

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, John Heilprin, 16 Mar 2002 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/03/16/national1326EST0524.DTL>

LAND O' FLAKES

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has got a blueprint for implementing the Bush administration's energy plan, and it involves speeding up approval for petitions to drill for oil and gas, creating easier access to petroleum deposits, reducing royalty payments by industry to the government, and easing environmental restrictions. All that, without harming the environment, BLM Assistant Director Peter Culp announced yesterday. But one former head of the BLM, Jim Baca, begged to differ: "I've never seen such an assault on public lands," he said. Ninety percent of BLM lands are already open to energy exploration, and a number of the existing drilling projects on such lands do not comply with environmental regulations.

straight to the source: Denver Post, Theo Stein, 19 Mar 2002 <http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E471342,00.html>

GRAZE UNDER PRESSURE

Erosion, salinization, urbanization, and unsustainable agricultural practices are causing desertification in many parts of the planet, according to delegates at a weekend conference in Egypt. Desertification is the process by which the water and nutrients needed to sustain diverse plant and animal life are drained from the soil. British scientist Brian Johnson blamed the problem in part on intensive farming methods such as overgrazing, which reduces the capacity of soil to retain water. About 1 billion people -- many of them impoverished -- live in the world's dry areas in Central and West Asia and North Africa, where desertification is most intense, and that number continues to grow. Crops that have been genetically modified to withstand drought and salinization could help reduce hunger problems stemming from desertification and population growth. But many environmentalists see that solution as leaping from the frying pan into the fire, arguing that GM crops haven't been adequately tested and may have unintended dire consequences for the environment.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, David Brough, 19 Mar 2002 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15066/story.htm>

only in Grist: Another one bites the dust -- China's dust bowl is growing at an alarming rate -- by Lester R. Brown <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/brown052901.stm?source=daily>

3/20/02
5:48:38 PM

Public Citizen

FDA Should Immediately Ban Dangerous Diet Drug Meridia

Risks of Heart Problems Far Outweigh Benefits, Public Citizen Petition Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should immediately remove the prescription diet medication Meridia from the market because it has been associated with 29 deaths and hundreds of serious adverse reactions since it was introduced in 1998, Public Citizen said in a petition filed today. The FDA knew prior to approving the drug that it significantly increased blood pressure and heart rates in many people and is only minimally effective, Public Citizen said.

Just two weeks ago, the Italian government pulled Meridia, the brand name for sibutramine, from the market following two deaths associated with its use there. Other European governments also are reviewing the drug, including France and the United Kingdom, where there have been more than 100 serious adverse reactions and two deaths.

"Not only does this drug contribute to major cardiovascular problems, but its effectiveness in lowering obesity is meager," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, which filed the petition. "The FDA is aware of this and must take it off of the market."

Even before it approved the drug, the FDA was concerned about the safety of Meridia. An FDA advisory committee in 1997 voted 5-4 that the benefits of the drug did not outweigh its risks. The FDA medical officer who reviewed it recommended that it not be approved because research showed the potential for heart problems.

Data obtained by Public Citizen through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that from the time it was introduced in February 1998 to Sept. 30, 2001, there were almost 400 serious adverse reactions in patients taking Meridia. This included 19 cardiac deaths, including 10 in people under the age of 50, three of whom were women under 30. The average yearly weight loss for patients taking a standard 10 mg dose was only six and a half pounds more than the loss in those taking a placebo.

"There is no evidence that this drug has prolonged the life of a single patient, or reduced the risks of strokes or heart attacks tied to obesity," Wolfe said. "Instead, it has left patients with only higher risks of injury or death from using it and high drug bills."

Further, the FDA must raise the standard for approval of diet drugs and require drug makers to show an actual health benefit, rather than relying on short-term studies that merely demonstrate astatistical superiority over a placebo.

Since 1996, Public Citizen has petitioned for the removal of four other FDA-approved drugs - the diet drug Redux, the diabetes drug Rezulin, the antibiotic Trovan and Lotronex, a drug for irritable bowel syndrome. Redux, Rezulin and Lotronex have been banned and Trovan severely restricted. In all of these drugs, as with Meridia, there was clear evidence of danger before their FDA approval.

To view the petition, please visit www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7160.

Public Citizen is a nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C.

For more information, please visit htttp://www.citizen.org

3/20/02
5:47:23 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

--> March 22 Media Protest <--

To protest the FCC's anti-consumer, pro-monopoly policies, media activists calling themselves "Angels of the Public Interest" will descend upon D.C. on this Friday, March 22. Learn more on AlterNet's MediaCulture page:

SOUNDBYTE PATRIOTS

David Corn, AlterNet

Conservatives like the new group AVOT have conniptions whenever anyone dares to differ with -- or even ask questions about -- the war on terrorism. What are they afraid of?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12637

GETTING OUT OF GRIDLOCK

Jim Motavalli, E Magazine

Thanks to America's powerful highway lobby, we're stuck in more traffic than ever before. Here's how can we make getting around a whole lot saner.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12636

A VISIT TO THE TOWN THAT BANNED SATAN

Morris Sullivan, Weekly Planet

A media firestorm has blown through the tiny town of Inglis, Florida, after its fiesty mayor "banned Satan" within town limits. Was it divine inspiration or political heresy?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12642

DESMOND TUTU'S RENEWED CALL FOR PEACE

Nathan Gardels, New Perspectives Quarterly

Drawing the links between events in Israel, Afghanistan and South Africa, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize talks about the power of forgiveness and the need for justice, not war.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12638

SEX AND WHAT CITY?

Arin Greenwood, PopPolitics.com

Cable's hippest and most popular show is set in New York -- a city that apparently has no blacks, Hispanics, or Asians and maybe five Jews.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12632

CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER CELIBATE

Eugene Kennedy, Salon

A former priest, now married, thinks celibacy should no longer be an absolute condition for the priesthood.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12640

BAD EGGERS! BAD MOODY! BAD SONTAG!

Dennis Loy Johnson, Moby Lives

A group of writers and zine publishers have formed a new group -- The Underground Literary Alliance -- hellbent on harassing successful literary figures.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12643

IS THE DIGITAL DIVIDE REALLY A "BLACK THANG"?

Robert Jackson, Jr., River Cities Reader

The cliche of minorities not having equal access to technology could discourage computer makers from targeting blacks -- ultimately making the Digital Divide a self-fulfilling prophecy.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12641

ARMY OF GOD MARCHES TOWARD GAYS

Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange.com

The Army of God, a radical group closely connected to the anti-abortion terrorist underground, are now including gays and lesbians within their ever-widening orbit of hate.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12620

MEDIA MASH: BONO ROCKS, ENRON HEADBANGING AND SEXY UNDERWEAR

The Masher, AlterNet

This week from the Masher: Rock's Man of the Year... FCC at It Again... Victoria's Reach... Enron Headbanging ... and much more.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12635

TECHSPLOITATION: NEW, NEW WAVE

Annalee Newitz, AlterNet

Since the days of computer-generated New Wave music, we have lost our irrational fear of computers, only to replaced it with something far stupider: unconditional love.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12639

3/20/02
5:44:10 PM

FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) presents

WTC Pollution: What are the real health risks, and why the media silence?

a talk by Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News & "Democracy Now!" & Alyssa Katz, City Limits

Thursday, March 28, 6:30 PM Housing Works Used Book Café 126 Crosby St (between Prince and Houston), New York Free and Open to the Public

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, city and federal officials assured New Yorkers that our air and water were safe. Now, however, many downtown residents, and especially rescue workers and firefighters, are battling serious respiratory ailments, and it's become clear that officials knew more than they told. Yet most New York media have kept quiet about the story, even though out-of-town papers have described the WTC fires as one of the worst environmental and health disasters the country has ever seen. Virtually the only local reporter to aggressively, independently cover the story is Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News.

Please join FAIR as Gonzalez discusses what his reporting has uncovered and the barriers he's encountered pursuing the story, and Alyssa Katz of City Limits magazine shares her analysis of how other New York media have covered-- or failed to cover-- this crucial issue.

Juan Gonzalez is a columnist for the New York Daily News and co-host of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now!". A founding member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Gonzalez has won numerous honors, including the George Polk Award.

Alyssa Katz is editor of City Limits, a monthly urban affairs magazine examining New York City politics and economics. Her article "Toxic Haste: New York's media rush to judgment on New York's air" recently appeared in the American Prospect:

http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/4/katz-a.html .

3/20/02
5:42:38 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-18-03.html

TRADE SANCTIONS MOTIVATE CHANGE IN WILDLIFE MAVERICKS

GENEVA, Switzerland, March 18, 2002 (ENS) - Trade suspensions have succeeded in prompting the United Arab Emirates, the Russian Federation, Fiji, and Vietnam to move towards more effective and sustainable management systems for a number of endangered species.

GLOBE 2002 SHOWED THE SUSTAINABLE SIDE OF BUSINESS

By Greg Helten

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, March 18, 2002 (ENS) - A growing number of governments and corporations around the world are evolving to include environmentally and socially friendly components in their policies, plans, and products.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-18-02.html

9,000 ACRES PROTECTED IN WESTERN VIRGINIA

HOT SPRINGS, Virginia, March 18, 2002 (ENS) - More than 9,000 acres on and around Warm Springs Mountain will be permanently protected through the Nature Conservancy's single largest land purchase ever in Virginia. The property, bought for $6.2 million, lies next to The Homestead, the famed National Historic Landmark resort in the Allegheny Mountains of western Virginia.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-18-06.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 18, 2002

Colorado Red Lights Radioactive Shipments from New Jersey

Ferro Corp. Settles Clean Air Act Claims for $3.8 Million

Gorbachev Honors Global Green Award Winners

Biodiesel to Fuel Buffalo Buses

Dept. of Energy Awards Biomass and Methane Contracts

Researchers Explore Capture and Storage of Carbon Dioxide

Comment Sought on Irradiation of Imported Fruits, Vegetables

Heavy Fines Levied in First Tortugas Reserve Violations

EPA Offers $10 Million for Beach Health

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-18-09.html

3/20/02
5:41:17 PM

TomPaine.com

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5269

"Independent, commercial-free, public affairs reporting."

WHO'S A BUBBLE HEAD?

From The Dare To Speak Your Mind During The War Club

by Jill Rachel Jacobs

When "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin called the president a "bubble head" the reaction was swift and vicious. Has anyone heard of the First Amendment?

VERMONT: TAKIN' IT TO TOWN Citizens Vote Against Biotech Foods; Mobilize Grassroots by Brian Tokar

Vermont's town meetings have taken an ethical -- and powerful -- stand against genetically modified foods, among other issues.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5253

TAKE THIS MONEY AND BE QUIET

Bush Offers Tax Credits To Buy Health Insurance

by Jennifer Bauduy

The number of uninsured Americans is on the rise, and President Bush's proposal will reduce those numbers by only 5 percent. According to one analyst, that's tax policy, not health-care policy.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5275

3/20/02
5:39:18 PM

t r u t h o u t

Reid | Bush "Not King George"

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19A.King.George.htm

Daschle Showdown With Ridge Shaping Up

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19B.Daschle.Ridge.htm

A Colombian Town Caught in a Cross Fire | A case For Reconsidering US Policy

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19C.Columbia.Policy.htm

BUSH To Weaken Enforcement of Clean Air Act

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19D.Clean.Air.htm

Daschle Digs in for Around-the-clock Fight to Ban Soft Money

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19E.Soft.Money.htm

Saudis Warning Against Attack by U.S. on Iraq

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19F.US.Iraq.htm

Slain Rebel's Wife to Plead Case Before High Court

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19G.Slain.Rebel.htm

Aid Organizations call UN Poverty Summit "Window Dressing"

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19H.Window.Dressing.htm

White House Stonewall

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.19I.Stonewall.htm

3/20/02
5:38:10 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

EPA to ease coal plant rules, pollution suits - Post - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15071/story.htm

River pollution threatens English fertility - paper - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15077/story.htm

France's Bove warns Spain on strict police control - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15075/story.htm

FEATURE - Returning rhinos herald revival of Kenyan park - KENYA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15072/story.htm

UPDATE - Japan truckmaker Hino talks with Scania on tie-up - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15070/story.htm

Japan poll - majority supports commercial whaling - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15076/story.htm

ANALYSIS - German Greens shed pacifism in bid to keep power - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15068/story.htm

Desertification seen ravaging farming and wildlife - EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15066/story.htm

UK geneticist sees worry over GM foods persisting - EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15069/story.htm

OECD chief urges rich nations to open markets - EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15073/story.htm

Egypt researches biotech crops, sees income - EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15074/story.htm

Poor states urged to research biotech, fight hunger - EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15078/story.htm

Australia Townsville decision key for PNG project - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15067/story.htm

Australia electricity group urges speedy review - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15079/story.htm

3/20/02
5:36:46 PM

DAILY GRIST

http://www.hiddenwars.com/synopsis.htm

BOISE IN THE HOOD

Timber giant Boise Cascade said quietly last week that it would phase out old-growth logging in the next two years. Almost all the old growth cut by Boise Cascade in recent years has come from federal land, and the company said its plan reflected a shift in federal forest management away from felling the big trees. The company said enviro protests had had little impact on the decision to change its logging practices. In turn, enviros who have been campaigning against the practices for years remained skeptical. They said Boise Cascade's definition of old growth -- forested areas that are at least 5,000 acres in size with trees at least 200 years old -- would exclude most of the remaining unprotected stands of trees. Jennifer Krill of the Rainforest Action Network said her group would continue to target the company.

straight to the source: Idaho Statesman, Ken Dey, 15 Mar 2002 <http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/daily/20020315/LocalNews/240152.shtml>

BEET IT

Some genetically modified crops are likely to crossbreed with organic crops or wild plants, jeopardizing farms that are certified as GM-free, according to a European Union study. The Europe Environment Agency found that rapeseed, sugar beet, and maize had a medium to high probability of transferring genetic materials, while potatoes, wheat, and barley were unlikely to crossbreed. In related news, a British organic farming group is contending that GM crops are threatening 111 organic farms in the U.K. even though the crops were planted at a distance from the farms, as mandated by the U.K. government. Last week, the government revealed the locations of 35 new sites where experimental GM maize will be grown this spring.

straight to source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Robin Pomeroy, 18 Mar 2002 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15036/story.htm>

straight to the source: BBC News, 15 Mar 2002 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1875000/1875284.stm>

do good: Take action to fight against Frankenfoods <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/food.asp?source=daily#frankenfood>

REMOTE CONTROLS

After months of internal debate, the Bush administration has decided (surprise, surprise) to replace pollution lawsuits with voluntary incentives to encourage coal-powered utilities and oil refineries to clean up their acts, according to U.S. EPA officials. The Clinton administration sued dozens of the country's worst polluting power plants for violating New Source Review rules, which require that companies install state-of-the-art pollution controls when upgrading power their facilities. Energy behemoths like Southern Co. launched a huge lobbying effort to stop the lawsuits and gave millions of dollars to Republican political campaigns. The Bush administration is expected to announce its formal plan to revamp the rules in the next few weeks.

straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin and Dan Morgan, 18 Mar 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42310-2002Mar17.html>

only in Grist: Voluntary complicity -- Bush's global warming plan is just the tip of the iceberg -- satire in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/colin031402.asp?source=daily>

do good: Take action to clean up Southern Company <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/air.asp?source=daily#southern>

LENT ILLS

In the midst of Lent, the conservation group Wildcoast is asking Pope John Paul II to declare that sea turtles are meat, not fish. The group, which focuses on the protecting coastal resources in California and Baja California, says sea turtle populations are hit especially hard during Lent because many Catholics give up meat for the 40-day period. Eating sea turtles during Lent is a longstanding tradition in parts of Mexico; last month, Mexico increased the penalty for poaching turtles from three years to a maximum 12 years in prison.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Kenneth R. Weiss, 14 Mar 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-000018738mar14.story

3/20/02
5:29:45 PM

War on the Third World

by George Monbiot

Those of us who opposed the bombing of Afghanistan warned that the war between nations would not stop there. Now, as Tony Blair prepares the British people for an attack on Iraq, the conflict seems to be proliferating faster than most of us predicted. But there is another danger, which we have tended to neglect: that of escalating hostilities within the nations waging this war. The racial profiling which has become the unacknowledged focus of America's new security policy is in danger of provoking the very clash of cultures its authors appear to perceive.

Consider the story of Adeel Akhtar, a British Asian man who flew to the United States for an acting audition. When his plane arrived at JFK airport in New York, he and his female friend were handcuffed. He was taken to a room and questioned for several hours. The officials asked him whether he had friends in the Middle East or knew anyone who approved of the attacks on September 11. His story will be familiar to hundreds of people of Asian or Middle Eastern origin.

I have just obtained a copy of a letter sent this month by a 50-year-old British Asian woman to the US immigration service. At the end of January she flew to New York to visit her sister, who is suffering from cancer. At the airport immigration officials found that on a previous visit she had overstayed her visa. She explained that she had been helping her sister, who was very ill, and had applied for an extension. When the officers told her she would have to return to Britain, she accepted their decision but asked to speak to the British consul.

They refused her request, but told her she could ring the Pakistani consulate if she wished. She explained that she was British, not Pakistani, as her passport showed. The guards then started to interrogate her. How many languages did she speak? How long had she lived in Britain? They smashed the locks on her suitcases and took her fingerprints. Then she was handcuffed, chained and marched through the departure lounge. "I felt like the guards were parading me in front of the passengers like their prize catch. Why was I put in handcuffs? I am a 50-year-old housewife from the suburbs of London. What threat did I pose to the safety of the other passengers?"

Recently a correspondent for the Times found 30 men and a woman camped in a squalid hotel in Mogadishu in Somalia. They were all African-Americans of Somali origin, who had arrived in the US as babies or children. Most were professionals with secure jobs and stable lives. In January, just after the release of Black Hawk Down (the film about the failed US military mission in Somalia), they were rounded up. They were beaten, threatened with injections and refused phone calls and access to lawyers. Then, three weeks ago, with no charges made or reasons given, they were summarily deported to Somalia. Now, without passports, papers or money, in an alien and frightening country, they are wondering whether they will ever see their homes again.

All these people are victims of a new kind of racial profiling which the US government applies but denies. The US attorney general has called for some 5,000 men of Arab origin to be questioned by federal investigators. Since September 11 more than 1,000 people who were born in the Middle East have been detained indefinitely for "immigration infractions".

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has recorded hundreds of recent instances of alleged official discrimination in the US. Muslim women have been strip-searched at airports, men have been dragged out of bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night. It reports that evidence which remains shielded from the suspect, of the kind permitted by the recent US Patriot Act, "has been used almost exclusively against Muslims and Arabs in America". In the US people of Middle Eastern and Asian origin are now terrorist suspects. Some officials appear to regard them as guilty until proven otherwise.

Similar policies appear to govern the judicial treatment of detainees. During his press conference on December 28, President Bush initially misunderestimated a question, and provided a revealing answer. "Have you decided", he was asked, "that anybody should be subjected to a military tribunal?" Bush replied, "I excluded any Americans." The questioner pointed out that he meant to ask whether Bush had made any decisions about the captives in Guantanamo Bay. But what the president had revealed was that the differential treatment of those foreign fighters and John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" currently being tried in a federal court in Virginia, is not an accident of process, but policy. He couldn't treat a white American like the captives in Camp X-Ray and expect to get away with it.

These attitudes predate the attack on New York. Patterns of Global Terrorism, a document published by the US counter-terrorism coordinator in April, appears to define international terror as violence directed at US citizens, US commercial interests or white citizens of other nations. Non-whites are the perpetrators of terror but not its victims.

There is, of course, vicious racism on other sides as well. Osama bin Laden threatened a holy war against Jews. The men who kidnapped the journalist Daniel Pearl forced him to announce that he was a Jew before cutting his throat. I have lost count of the emails I've received from Pakistan and the Middle East, claiming that 4,000 Jews were evacuated from the World Trade Centre before the attacks.

This makes security policies based on racial discrimination even more dangerous. By treating non-white people as if they are the natural enemies of the US, the government could generate conflict where there was none before. At the same time this policy establishes splendid opportunities for terrorists with white skins, as they become, to the eyes of officials, all but invisible.

This is the morass into which Blair is stepping. "These are not people like us," he said recently of,the Iraqi leadership. To persuade us that we should go to war with Iraq, Blair must first make its leaders appear remote from ourselves.

The attack on Iraq, when it comes, could in a sense be the beginning of a third world war. It may, as hints dropped by the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, suggest, turn out to be the first phase of a war involving many nations. It may also become a war against the third world, and its diaspora in the nations of the first.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/GWeekly/Story/0,3939,666574,00.html

3/20/02
5:28:28 PM

Public Citizen

Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to EPA Rule for Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump

Environmental, Public Interest Groups Contend Standard Is Too Lenient

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) controversial standards for a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada has survived a critical hurdle.

In a March 12 order, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear the merits of three lawsuits challenging the standards. Last June, a coalition of national and Nevada-based environmental and public interest organizations filed a lawsuit charging that EPA's rule was too lenient because it allows the U.S. Department of Energy to permit radioactive waste to leak from the dump rather than ensure it is contained. The case was later consolidated with lawsuits from the state of Nevada and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

In November, the EPA asked that the case be dismissed on the grounds that approval had not yet been granted to construct the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. The petitioners countered that the EPA rule sets the standard by which the project's suitability is assessed and that officials were already relying on the rule to make decisions.

In last week's order, the court decided not to dismiss the case. Instead, it ruled that the question of dismissal should be taken up when the court considers the merits of the case.

"This is a victory, although it's only the first step," said Geoff Fettus, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We will ask the court to overturn the weakest aspects of EPA's Yucca Mountain radiation protection standards in order to protect the environment and public health."

Added said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, "The EPA's inadequate standards provided a basis for Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation in favor of the proposed repository. This clear example of undercutting environmental regulations to allow a fundamentally flawed project to move forward sets an unacceptable precedent."

It is unlikely that the case will be resolved before Congress votes on the Yucca Mountain proposal later this year.

http://www.Citizen.org

3/20/02
5:26:06 PM

Who Profited From 911 Financial Windfall?

German computer experts are trying to find the truth behind an unexplained surge in financial transactions made just before two hijacked planes crashed into New York’s World Trade Center on September 11. And they’re finding the evidence inside the ruins of the Twin Towers themselves.

There was a sharp rise in credit card transactions moving through some computer systems at the WTC shortly before the planes hit the twin towers. This could be a criminal enterprise—in which case, did they get advance warning? Or was it only a coincidence that more than $100 million was rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded?

The German-based firm Convar, a world leader in retrieving data, is trying to answer those questions while they help credit card companies, telecommunications firms and accountants in New York recover their records from computer hard drives that have been partially damaged by fire, water or fine dust.

They are using a pioneering laser scanning technology to find data on damaged computer hard drives and main frames found in the rubble of the World Trade Center and other nearby collapsed buildings. So far, they have recovered information from 32 computers that support suspicions that some of the 911 transactions were illegal.

“The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start,” says Convar director Peter Henschel. “Of course it is also possible that there were perfectly legitimate reasons for the unusual rise in business volume. It could turn out that Americans went on an absolute shopping binge on that Tuesday morning. But at this point there are many transactions that cannot be accounted for. Not only the volume but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that. There is a suspicion that these were possibly planned to take advantage of the chaos.”

There are several data retrieval companies in the United States and Europe, but Convar is doing most of the World Trade Center work because of its laser scanning technology. Convar developed a laser scanner two years ago that makes it possible to retrieve data from badly damaged computers.

Inside the Convar building in Germany, many of the doors have code-operated door locks for security reasons. In the center of the facility is a large dust-free “clean room” where the damaged computer drives are coaxed back to life. The raw material they retrieve is sent immediately by satellite or courier back to New York.

Companies pay between $20,000 and $30,000 for each computer recovered. The high recovery costs are one reason why only a limited number of hard drives are being examined. “We have been quite surprised that so many of the hard drives were in good enough shape to retrieve the data,” Henschel says. “The contamination rate is high. The fine dust that was everywhere in the area got pressed under high pressure into the drives. But we’ve still been able to retrieve 100% of the data on most of the drives we’ve received.”

Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at the company, says illegal transfers of more than $100 million might have been made immediately before and during the disaster. “There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million,” he says. “They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.”

Henschel says, “We’re helping them find out what happened to the computers on September 11 as quickly as possible. I’m sure that one day they will know what happened to the money.”

Source: http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=1087

3/20/02
5:22:17 PM

Another Silent Spring

Maryland's Baltimore orioles could vanish altogether in this century due to dramatic changes in migration patterns influenced by global warming.

A new study due out soon from the National Wildlife Federation and the American Bird Conservancy suggests that the effects of global warming may be robbing Maryland and other states of an important piece of their heritage by hastening the departures of their state birds. The report says the Earth’s rising temperature is changing songbird ranges, altering migration behavior and diminishing some species’ ability to survive.

The ranges of some state birds could shrink or shift entirely to areas outside the states they represent. That could mean Iowa and Washington state would eventually lose the American goldfinch, New Hampshire would lose the purple finch, California would lose the California quail, Massachusetts the black-capped chickadee, Georgia would lose the brown thrasher and Maryland would lose its beloved Baltimore oriole.

Baltimore orioles were once so common that the painter John Audubon wrote about the delight of “the melody resulting from thousands of musical voices that come from some neighboring tree.”

Ornithologists and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have long warned that many common songbird species, including blue jays, wood thrushes and Baltimore orioles, have been steadily declining. Scientists have always blamed the Baltimore oriole’s gradual decline on the destruction of its breeding habitat and forests both in North America, where the bird spends its summers, and in Central and South America, where it winters. Now they also blame global warming.

“Climate change on top of fragmented habitat is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” says Patricia Glick, an expert on climate change with the National Wildlife Federation.

The life cycles and behavior of birds are closely linked to the changing seasons. For migrant species such as the Baltimore oriole, changes in the weather help signal when they should begin their long flights southward in the fall and back again in the spring. Variables such as temperature and precipitation also affect the timing and availability of flowers, seeds and other food sources for the birds when they reach their destination.

Research on migratory birds in North America shows that the arrival dates of 20 species were up to 21 days earlier in 1994 than in 1965, while only a few species were later. The new study shows that as regional temperatures rise, the ranges of a number of species in the Northern Hemisphere could shift north as they seek habitat and food to which they have become adapted. The eastern Midwest and Great Lakes region could be the hardest hit, with up to a 30 percent net loss in the number of migrant species that summer in the region.

“Imagine Baltimore without the Baltimore oriole,” says Mark Van Putten, president of the National Wildlife Federation. “Left unchecked, global warming could cause the birds we love to watch and even celebrate on state emblems to disappear from places they’ve lived for eons.”

Source: http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=1354

3/20/02
5:19:38 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

BANISHING ACT

by Morris Sullivan, Weekly Planet

-- A Florida mayor who banned Satan meets heavy opposition from the ACLU and her town council, which didn't approve the declaration.

THE BEAR NECESSITIES

Web site review by Kate Garsombke

-- In The Bear Necessities game, players become a bear in Yellowstone National Park trying to stop snowmobilers from destroying and polluting their habitat.

ANGELS OF PUBLIC INTEREST FIGHT MEDIA HOMOGENIZATION

from AmericanResurrection.com

-- This Friday, if you happen to be in D.C., you can be one of the Angels of Public Interest that FCC Chairman Michael Powell believes doesn't exist.

Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch

3/20/02
5:17:17 PM

They're Playing Your Song

By Alan Cohen author of "Living from the Heart."

When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else.

When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child's song to him or her. Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child's song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song.

Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person's bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life.

When I have shared this story in my lectures, a fair amount of people in the audience come to tears. There is something inside each of us that knows we have a song, and we wish those we love would recognize it and support us to sing it.

In some of my seminars I ask people to verbalize to a partner the one phrase they wish their parents had said to them as a child. Then the partner lovingly whispers it in their ear. This exercise goes very deep, and many significant insights start to click. How we all long to be loved, acknowledged, and accepted for who we are!

In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called

to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.

The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

A friend is someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it. Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.

One summer when I was a teenager I went to visit my cousin and her family in Wilmington, Delaware. One afternoon she took me to the community pool, where I met a man who changed my life. Mr. Simmons talked to me for about ten minutes. It wasn't what he said that affected me so deeply; it was how he listened to me. He asked me questions about my life, my feelings, and my interests.

The unusual thing about Mr. Simmons was that he paid attention to my answers. Although I had family, friends, and teachers, this man was the only person in my world who seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say and valued me for who I was.

After our brief conversation I never saw him again. I probably never will. I'm sure he had no idea that he gave me the gift of a lifetime. Maybe he was one of those angels who show up for a brief mission on earth, to give someone faith, confidence, and hope when they most need it.

If you do not give your song a voice, you will feel lost, alone, and confused. If you express it, you will come to life. I have also done a workshop exercise in which everyone in the room is given a piece of paper with the name of a simple song on it, such as "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." In the whole group there are perhaps eight different songs, and a half-dozen people have the same song named on their paper.

Each person is then asked to mill around the room while they whistle or hum their song. When they find someone else playing the same song, they stay together until they find everyone who is singing that song. Thus they create small groups that serve as touchstones for the duration of the program. Life is very much like this exercise. We attract people on a similar wavelength so we can support each other to sing aloud. Sometimes we attract people who challenge us by telling us that we cannot or should not sing our song in public. Yet these people help us too, for they stimulate us to find greater courage to sing it.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn't. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you'll find your way home.

3/20/02
5:15:24 PM

Hidden Wars of Desert Storm

http://hiddenwars.org/

Free-Will Productions

* Grand-Prize winner at the 2000 Cine Eco International Film Festival in Seia, Portugal

* Selected among the ten best documentaries at the 2000 Vancouver International Film Festival.

"Hidden Wars" emerges as an uncommonly sober, well researched film of its type." - The New York Times

"Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" looks at the origins of the Gulf War crisis and challenges the official Western "party-line" view of a spontaneous crusade for "Freedom & Democracy".

Instead, the documentary exposes the White House and US State Department's hidden agenda in the Gulf as well as the Pentagon's use of radioactive ammunitions made of uranium 238.

>Synopsis

A 60 min. video-documentary on the Gulf War & embargo over Iraq

On August 2nd, 1990, Saddam Hussein launched his troops against Kuwait, triggering the first major international crisis of the post-Soviet Union era. But was this invasion a surprise in the first place? Were all diplomatic means really utilized to try to resolve the issue peacefully? Was there any threat from the part of Iraq against Saudi Arabia or against any of the other Gulf states? Why wasn't Washington's rhetoric against Saddam ever matched by any real support to the Iraqi opposition groups? What purpose can the embargo over Iraq serve if it is not to weaken Saddam Hussein, a result it has evidently failed to achieve to this day? What is true behind this mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome" that goes on affecting hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans and local populations and more and more of them every day?

A two-year investigation, "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" brings answers to all of these questions, basing itself on documents never seen before on television and backed by interviews of such prominent personalities as Desert Storm Commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former UN Iraq Program Director Denis Halliday, former UNSCOM team-leader Scott Ritter and many others. A large selection of archival footage, moving images recently brought back from Iraq, an original soundtrack scored by acclaimed composer Fritz Heede and the narration by two-time British Academy Award-winner, actor John Hurt, all contribute to making "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" a fast-paced, informative documentary while resolutely accessible to a general audience.

http://www.hiddenwars.com

3/20/02
5:13:59 PM

Hidden Wars of Desert Storm

http://www.unaff.org/2000/F-Hidden.htm

(63 minutes 45 seconds) USA Directors/Producers: Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy UNAFF screening schedule

Description:

Ten years after Saddam Hussein launched his troops against Kuwait, The Hidden Wars of Desert-Storm, a self funded digital video-expose, explores some of the more controversial questions of the war. Were all diplomatic means really utilized to try and resolve the issue peacefully? What are the facts behind "Gulf War Syndrome"? And, what are the alternative purposes behind the embargo against Iraq that still persists? The result of two years of investigating, The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, narrated by actor John Hurt, uses documents never before seen on television, and interviews with prominent figures such as General Norman Schwarzkopf, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and former UN Iraq Program Director Dennis Halliday, among others, to answer these and other questions.

Biography:

Co-producer and director Gerard Ungerman served several years as an infantry platoon-leader before starting Free-Will Productions with his wife Audrey Brohy. Ms. Brohy, who also shared production and direction credits on of Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, studied film directing at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Past Free-Will documentaries include Peru: Between the Hammer and the Anvil and Confessions of a New York Call Girl.

Contact Information:

Gerard Ungerman, Director/Producer

E-mail: freewillprod@prodigy.net

3/20/02
5:13:03 PM

Let's Talk About Iraq

From: <meriaheller@aol.com> Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002

Last night I had the "pleasure" of seeing a video of the film "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" by Gerard Ungerman. I am pursuing the filmmaker for an interview on my show.

With Bush and the rest of "uninformed" America pushing for war against Iraq, this film is timely to understand the first Bush war there to prevent the 2nd Bush war there.

At a time where so many listeners are writing me about: the police action in their home states, harassment, intimidation from the police state being put into motion for "our own good", we all need to know WHY the rest of the world hates us so much and what exactly is going on here? Bush now wants megabucks for his war signed and on his desk a.s.a.p. Bin Laden is no longer a "threat", but Hussein has been revived in his role as "Planet Bad Guy".

This is an old ploy of the Bush hierarchy who was once very much in bed with Mr. Hussein. They knew damn well they were leaving a dictator/madman in power when they suddenly pulled out and called OFF the war in Iraq eleven years ago.

Stan Goff said it best in his book "Hideous Dream" -- the flag follows the money, and the troops follow the flag. Stan said he took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and in 24 years not ONE time was he called on to do that. The situation in Iraq is now and has been and will forever be about OIL. Since WW1 it has been about oil. It was about oil during the war on the Persian Gulf "Desert Storm" and will once again be about oil NOW in 2002.

This film "The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" has gotten awards, and rave reviews from papers all around the world, including the NY Times and The Village Voice. Yet, it is not shown anywhere I know of. Luckily the film-maker sent me a copy.

This is no fly-by-night, homemade anti-America movie. This is factual, real, and has interviews with top players of that war. The filmmaker took his life in his hands to make it, and comes away with a stunning portrayal of the systematic genocide of a race of human beings as beautiful as any you have ever seen. Why? Oil. Money. Oil.

It exposes the C.I.A.'s early support of Mr.Hussein as a stabilizing force in that region after an untidy and immediately exit and aftermath of U.S. troops. We got what we wanted, a permanent presence in that country to protect the PRICE of OIL.

Large portions of the country was left with radioactive (for five billion years, give or take)rounds of depleted uranium. The U.S. knew six months in advance of using this weapon (against the Geneva conventions) that it would leave this deadly material around to finish off that race of humanity for generations to come. They KNEW the depleted uranium was radioactive six months before sending our troops there to use it, touch it, breathe it, yet DID NOT tell our G.I.'s about it. Since then 10,000 of our veterans have DIED. almost 2/3 of the servicemen that fought in Desert Storm have developed cancers and disease which they attribute to the depleted uranium, yet our GOVERNMENT will do NOTHING for them. No treatment, benefits, retirement, nothing. They choose to IGNORE it in the hope it will go away. Well it hasn't and our people are still dying from it. Worse - the people, the innocents (not spared bombing as the Geneva convention spells out for civilians) are dying. Their children are born with HUGE birth defects or DEAD. That means their food, water and air is highly radioactive too. Think about that.

Remember that last year dust from a dust storm in China reached Arizona, U.S. causing people to get ill, myself included. Where do you think that depleted uranium mess will end up? Regular Iraqi citizens, and I must say I saw plenty of dead little babies in the streets, baby food factories being blown up, infrastructure deliberately destroyed to starve out the people, have been dying in huge numbers thanks to the fact that human beings either in the service or in the fields are COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

The film also covers in depth, the other tool which I'm sure Hitler himself would be jealous of, something called "SANCTIONS", which the U.S. now wants to put in place against Zimbabwe (another dark skinned race). The purpose of sanctions is to stop the sale of weapons, so they say. Yet the U.S. heavily armed both sides of that conflict in Iraq (Iran) with weapons of all kinds including biological and chemical. Why? Because it's good for business. The sanctions have been imposed instead on food, medicine and water purification chemicals - necessary for human life to continue in that region. Quiet, methodical genocide.

What about our "no fly zone" bombings? We are still bombing infrastructure to stop the people from being able to get back on their feet. Madeline Albright when told of the 500,000 children killed there said basically that it was worth it. I don't know about you, but one dead baby isn't acceptable to me. One mother crying over her dead child is not "worth it". Yet, now almost a dozen years later, they are still burying their dead. Fresh dead. From depleted uranium. What a great way for the U.S. to dump their toxic waste, eh?

The same story is happening in Vietnam today with children having 206 times the acceptable amount of dioxin in their blood from the Agent Orange we defoliated their jungles with. How many of our vets have suffered and died as a result of agent orange too? What will be the fate of the people of Zimbabwe now with other countries issuing sanctions? Be reasonable. The big boys, the fat cats, the political dictators aren't going to suffer. It's the populace, the regular moms and dads and kids who are suffering, going to suffer with these "sanctions".

The film showed that in the short war in the Gulf, more fire power was used (four times as much) than at Hiroshima. Figure it out, the math is not fuzzy on this one. When our Gov't goes against international law, the U.N., the Geneva Convention and uses weapons of mass destruction; sells weapons of mass destruction to the "bad guys"; creates sanctions intended to wipe out an entire population for decades to come, how can the rest of the world LOVE us?

To believe that we are hated for our lifestyle is the biggest joke and insult on the intelligence of the average American. We have a government that considers the little guy, the soldier on the front line, the taxpaying citizen COLLATERAL DAMAGE, they don't even say "dead people".

Mr. Bush called the election in Zimbabwe a "flawed election" justifying his sanctions to come against Zimbabwe, forgets that HIS ELECTION WAS MORE THAN FLAWED, it was a coup d'etat. He is without a mandate from the people. He WANTS war in Iraq (the world is running out of oil and he knows it). Without proof that Hussein had anything to do with the WTC attack; has any weapons of mass destruction (I guess that's separate from the ones we sold them when his Dad was prez); and with total disregard for the people of Iraq (as the thousands of citizens we have killed in Afghanistan and still came up empty handed, no Bin Laden) or our servicemen & women.

The entire world has warned us NOT to go into Iraq. He has threatened to use nuclear power against anyone he wants basically. Do we as Americans, paying our taxes, supporting our government who supposedly work for US, agree with this madness? When will we stand up and say "War No More". It is now considered an act of terrorism to speak of the U.S. Constitution too often.

The U.S.Patriot act has made it seem "Unamerican" to speak out against war or this administration. What happened to "we the people, for the people, and by the people"? What about the people here in America who don't want to be attacked by nuclear waste, nuclear bombs in retaliation for our actions? What about the "people" of the rest of the world? I'm not including politicians and world leaders/rulers in that word. They have already made provisions for themselves to be safe. I mean the PEOPLE.

This great country of ours was founded on the systematic genocide of another people, the beautiful natives we discovered when Europeans landed with their Bibles, their diseases and their guns. Will we continue to be the genocide capital of the globe now in 2002? How many more Hitlers, Husseins, Bin Ladens will we train in genocide before it comes back on us BIG time? Fellow Americans, THINK. FEEL. Don't be afraid to think and feel while we still can. To do nothing, say nothing is doing something. It is silently giving your permission for the merciless killings to continue. It is destroying the planet for children for future generations, mine, yours, theirs.

Don't fall for what you see on television, do the homework.

Gandhi said

"Violence only creates violence"

and

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

Peace can be achieved, but it's the people who have to want it. May peace be with you and all true citizens of the planet who appreciate and value LIFE and LIBERTY for ALL people.

Meria

Now in Over 60 Countries

www.meria.net

Nominated for the 2001 Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting

http://www.meria.net

3/20/02
5:11:18 PM

The Nation

"It may well be easier to preach corporate responsibility than to practice it. At least for George W. Bush. Earlier this month, Bush released a 'plan to improve corporate responsibility.' When he unveiled his proposal, during a speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel, he did not refer to Enron. But, clearly, this was part of his ongoing Enron-inoculation campaign. The ten planks of his plan are each related to the Enron scandal. For instance, Bush noted that every investor in a publicly owned company 'should have quarterly access to the information needed to judge a firm's financial performance, condition and risks' and that 'corporate leaders should be required to tell the public promptly whenever they buy or sell company stock for personal gain.' When he proposed the latter point, his hotel audience applauded.

Too bad Bush only has his words, and not his own experience, to offer as inspiration while crusading for corporate responsibility. When he was in the private sector, he and his corporate colleagues violated several of the principles he now champions, including both mentioned above."

For the full story read the latest installment of David Corn's Capital Games. Exclusively available at:

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/

3/20/02
5:09:15 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

NRC releases nuclear plant status report on Web site - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15043/story.htm

In Ohio, word of spring arrives on buzzard wings - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15051/story.htm

US farm subsidy bill faces make-or-break session - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15047/story.htm

UPDATE - Arctic oil would save 1 cent on gasoline cost - report - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15056/story.htm

Boise Cascade cuts down its name - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15057/story.htm

UPDATE - Calif. governor postpones ban on MTBE fuel additive - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15049/story.htm

Papal ruling could save turtles' lives - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15058/story.htm

EPA emission cuts hang in balance with TVA verdict - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15040/story.htm

Monsanto seeks USDA approval for new Bt corn - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15059/story.htm

Train derails in Georgia, releasing toxic chemical - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15060/story.htm

UPDATE - Senate votes for state-level role over power grid - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15045/story.htm

UK govt sets new gene crop sites, despite protests - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15042/story.htm

Depleted uranium may cause kidney damage - study - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15061/story.htm

Poor countries hit by subsidised fishing, UN says - SWITZERLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15052/story.htm

INTERVIEW - Whale body head sees no change in talks - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15054/story.htm

Irish nuclear protesters plan postcard blitz on UK - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15062/story.htm

Philippines eyes regulations on GMO imports - PHILIPPINES http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15053/story.htm

Norwegian Hydro denies shelving plan for Iceland aluminium - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15050/story.htm

Norway to halt oil leaks, urges UK nuke closure - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15041/story.htm

UN's Annan urges rich countries to listen to poor - NICARAGUA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15055/story.htm

UPDATE - Forest fires ring Malaysia Grand Prix track - MALAYSIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15037/story.htm

Vestas to build US wind turbine plant - DENMARK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15046/story.htm

Big players to spark wind power consolidation - DENMARK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15044/story.htm

Western Canada warmer, ocean level rising - study - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15039/story.htm

Britain's Prescott pushes for Kyoto pact backing - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15048/story.htm

GM crops pose risk to organic farms - EU scientists - BELGIUM http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15036/story.htm

Climate change costs Sthrn Ocean oxygen - Australia - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15038/story.htm

3/20/02
5:07:43 PM

Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge

by Vandana Shiva, 1997

Cambridge: South End Press; Toronto: Between the Lines; 148 pages

Review by Elisa Peter

Five hundred years after Columbus, the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) treaty of the final act of GATT represents the ultimate phase of colonization.

In her latest book Biopiracy, environmentalist Vandana Shiva, describes a tree in India that has been used for centuries as a biopesticide and a medicine for its anti-bacterial properties. Indigenous communities have invested centuries of care, respect, and knowledge in propagating and protecting the Neem tree. Today, this heritage is being stolen: since 1985, over a dozen patents have been taken out by U.S. and Japanese firms on Neem-based formulas and toothpastes, granting the companies exclusive rights to the products of the tree.

Patents, and Intellectual Property Rights in general, are theoretically property rights to products of the mind. When property rights to life forms are claimed, it is on the basis of their being new, novel, not occurring in nature. However, Shiva shows how TRIPs are based on a highly restricted concept of innovation and Eurocentric notions of property, that favor TNCs to the detriment of citizens in general, and Third World peasants, indigenous people, and women in particular.

The main argument used to promote TRIPs is to improve the use of natural resources through the financial reward and stimulation of creativity. But for Shiva, TRIPs negate the creativity of nature that has no or low instrumental value to humans. They also hinder the free exchange of ideas and knowledge as secrecy and competition are introduced to science. In a word, TRIPs only recognise innovation when it generates profits, not when it meets social needs. Seventy-five percent of the 120 active compounds isolated from plants and used in modern medicine were known to indigenous people--a market estimated at $43 billion.

Moreover, Shiva demonstrates how patents are less concerned with innovation than with territory. TRIPs are recognised only as private, not common property. The mere ability to modify and alter (shifting genes, making a toothpaste out of a tree, etc.) is seen as creation and translated into the power and right to own. The appropriation of natural resources and traditional knowledge by corporate power ranges from medicinal plants to the interior spaces of human beings. In 1996, Myriad Pharmaceutical (U.S.) patented the breast cancer of women, in order to get a monopoly on diagnostic and testing. The cell lines of the Hagahai of Papua New Guinea and the Guami of Panama are patented by the U.S. Commerce Secretary. The list goes on and on.

The creation of monopoly rights generates tremendous profits for the corporate business who gain exclusive commercial rights over products, methods of production, living beings, and their future generations. Not only are TRIPs a gold mine, but they also represent the path to global market domination since they reinforce the concentration of the agribusiness sector (most of the patents are currently being claimed by chemical and seeds corporations). For instance, soya beans have been made resistant to Ciba-Geigy's Atrazine herbicide, which triggered an increase of its annual sales by $120 million.

Shiva goes further: as biodiversity is being converted from a local common into an enclosed private property, the western company is increasingly seen as the only source for medical and agricultural uses of biodiversity. As a result, local knowledge is being devaluated and local rights are being displaced. The cultural and intellectual contribution of non-western knowledge systems are being systematically erased and lost forever. This is what Shiva calls bioimperialism.

Farmers rights as breeders and innovators are also undermined. Shiva gives the example of the Dunkel Draft of GATT that--if implemented--will make the farmer who saves and replants the seed of a patented plant a violator of the law. Through patent protection, the farmers are turned into mere suppliers of free raw material for a centralized global corporate culture, who swallows up biodiversity and cultural diversity to the benefit of a few. Farmers become totally dependent on industrial supplies for vital inputs such as seeds, and have to pay royalties for products that they have used and protected for centuries. The incentive for on-farm conservation is undone, which leads to rapid genetic erosion.

For cultural and biological diversity are interdependent. Shiva explains how biodiversity has been protected through the flourishing of cultural diversity and decentralized systems of production. Only economies based on diversity produce diversity. The danger of confining, commodifying, monopolizing, and homogenizing knowledge and nature are obvious and Shiva spells them out: spread of monocultures, increase in chemical pollution, new risks of biological pollution, undermining of the ethics of conservation and undermining of the traditional rights of local communities.

However, Shiva offers some hope. Resistance to globalization and patent protection is spreading all over the world. In 1992, the movement Seed Satyagraha was launched by farmers in India, to resist the alienation of farmers rights to seed and agricultural biodiversity through the TRIPs treaty. NAVDANYA is another initiative in India for setting up community seed banks to protect indigenous seed diversity and strengthening farmers' seed supply. The Third World Network, a group of Southern NGOs, has also launched a movement asking for common intellectual rights. For Shiva these networks are the best way--indeed the only solution--to cultivate diversity and promote peace with nature and between diverse people.

3/20/02
5:02:40 PM

t r u t h o u t

TO Interview : Kucinich | "In Terms of a Democracy"

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17A.Kucinich.Interview.htm

Lott-McConnell Block 9-11 Probe, In Retaliation for Pickering Defeat

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17B.Lott.McConnell.htm

New Enron Whistle Blower Implicates Paine Webber

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17C.Enron.Link.htm

Senators Pressing Ridge to Testify

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17D.Pressing.Ridge.htm

U.S. Seeks More Money for Colombia

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17E.Columbia.Money.htm

Longtime Clients Abandon Andersen

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17F.Abandon.Anderson.htm

Scott Ritter | Blinkered Bush Has Got It All Wrong

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17G.Bush.Wrong.htm

U.S. Using New Law on Secret Evidence

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.17H.Secret.Evidence.htm

3/20/02
5:01:35 PM

The website for Clean Energy Now! has recently been updated to better inform you about our current goals. Find out about some of our campaigns currently underway - including: a San Diego bond initiative for solar power; clean energy goals for buildings in the University of California system; impeding Sempra's exploitation of Mexico; and opposing investments by Edison International in coal-fired power plants in Thailand. Stop by our website at

http://www.cleanenergynow.org

3/20/02
5:00:20 PM

Truth is Stranger than Fact

Einstein's Theory Of Relativity Must Be Rewritten

By Jonathan Leake, Science Editor The Sunday Times - London

A group of astronomers and cosmologists has warned that the laws thought to govern the universe, including Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, must be rewritten.

The group, which includes Professor Stephen Hawking and Sir Martin Rees, the astronomer royal, say such laws may only work for our universe but not in others that are now also thought to exist.

"It is becoming increasingly likely that the rules we had thought were fundamental through time and space are actually just bylaws for our bit of it," said Rees, whose new book, Our Cosmic Habitat, is published next month. "Creation is emerging as even stranger than we thought."

Among the ideas facing revision is Einstein's belief that the speed of light must always be the same - 186,000 miles a second in a vacuum. There is growing evidence that light moved much faster during the early stages of our universe.

Rees, Hawking and others are so concerned at the impact of such ideas that they recently organised a private conference in Cambridge for more than 30 leading cosmologists.

Cosmology - the study of the origins and future of our universe - became popular in the early 20th century for physicists who wanted to think the unthinkable about creation.

Einstein's theory of relativity, which describes how gravity controls the behaviour of our universe, was one of cosmology's greatest triumphs. But Einstein said there was an even deeper issue, which he described as whether God had any choice. In other words, could the laws that governed the way our universe formed after the big bang have worked any differently? He concluded that they could not.

In the past 40 years, however, the increasing power of astronomical instruments has turned cosmology from a theoretical science into a practical one and forced scientists to re-examine Einstein's conclusions. Among the most striking claims is that our universe only exists because of a fine balance between several crucial factors.

One is the rate at which nuclear fusion releases energy in stars such as the sun by squashing hydrogen atoms into helium and then other elements. Astronomers have found that exactly 0.7% of the mass of the hydrogen is converted into starlight and that if this figure had been just a fraction different then carbon and other elements essential to life could never have formed.

Another puzzle is the so-called "smoothness" of our universe, by which astronomers mean the distribution of matter and radiation. In theory, the big bang could have produced a universe where all the matter clumped together into a few black holes, or another in which it was spread out evenly, forming nothing but a thin vapour. "It could be that the laws that govern our universe are unchangeable but it is a remarkable coincidence that these laws are also exactly what is needed to produce life," said Rees. "It seems too good to be true."

What he, Hawking and others such as Neil Turok, professor of maths and physics at Cambridge, are now looking at is the idea that our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, with different laws of nature operating in each.

Some universes would have all their matter clumped together into a few huge black holes while others would be nothing more than a thin uniform freezing gas.

However, Hawking and his colleagues increasingly disagree over how this "multiverse" could work. At the conference Hawking dismissed the idea of a series of big bangs on the grounds that it extended into the infinite past and so could never have a beginning.

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/

3/20/02
4:55:20 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS)

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-15-07.html

POPE ASKED TO HELP SAVE SEA TURTLES

LOS ANGELES, California, March 15, 2002 (ENS) - A California based conservation group has written to the Vatican asking that turtle meat be declared red meat, and therefore off limits to practicing Catholics during Lent. The group says that consumption of illegally caught turtles is one of the major threats to sea turtles in southern California and Mexico.

MINE WORKERS CHIEF NABBED AT SITE OF COAL SLURRY SPILL

INEZ, Kentucky, March 15, 2002 (ENS) - United Mine Workers president Cecil Roberts was one of 11 people arrested Thursday at the site of a huge coal sludge spill as they demonstrated against the environmental performance of Massey Energy.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-15-03.html

SENATE REJECTS MANDATORY FUEL EFFICIENCY PROPOSAL

WASHINGTON, DC, March 15, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to reject a plan to force automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of their passenger vehicles. Republican Senate leaders used the support of Democrats from auto industry states to defeat a proposed amendment to the Senate energy bill that would have required a 36 mile per gallon (mpg) average fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks by 2015.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-15-06.html

AUSTRALIA'S PROMOTION OF LOGGING PAPUA NEW GUINEA CONDEMNED

By Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Australia, March 15, 2002 (ENS) - Support by an Australian government agency for a Papua New Guinea (PNG) trade fair promoting the logging industry has angered environmentalists but been welcomed by the timber industry's peak lobby group.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-15-02.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 15, 2002

Senate Jettisons Renewable Energy Standard

CFC Smugglers Plead Guilty

Major Drought Expected to Continue

Massachusetts Debates $625 Million Bond

Physicist to Direct Office of Science

Isotope Monitors Track Hexavalent Chromium

Hunting, Fishing Taxes Fund Environmental Projects

Emerald Mountain Protected Through Land Swap

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-15-09.html

3/20/02
4:51:51 PM

t r u t h o u t

Lott to Retaliate for Pickering Defeat

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16A.Lott.Retaliate.htm

Ashcroft Moves to Crush Dissent in Civil Rights Division at DOJ

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16B.Crush.Dissent.htm

Amnesty International | USA: Post 11 September Detainees Deprived of Their Basic Rights

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16C.Deprived.Rights.htm

ANWR and Peas

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16D.ANWR.htm

Depleted Uranium In Bunker Bombs

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16E.Uranium.Bombs.htm

National Missile Defense: Blowing The Whistle On Bad Science

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16F.Missile.Defense.htm

Law Firms Role At Enron Draws Fire

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16G.Vinson.Fire.htm

Tipper Gore Mulls Tennessee Senate Run

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.16H.Tipper.Senate.htm

3/20/02
4:47:45 PM

DAILY GRIST

MUTTS AND JEFFORDS We hate to be the bearer of still more bad tidings, but what can we say? It's been a rough week for the environment on Capitol Hill. One day after declining to support tougher fuel-efficiency standards, the Senate yesterday voted down a measure that would have required 20 percent of the nation's electricity to be produced from wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources by 2020. Currently, less than 2 percent of U.S. electricity comes from renewable resources. The measure that could have changed all that, which was sponsored by Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), was defeated by a disheartening 70 votes to 29. Opponents claimed it would have caused dramatic increases in the price of electricity. Advocates remain optimistic that the Senate will pass a less ambitious proposal for 10 percent of U.S. electricity to be generated by renewables. How did your senators vote on the Jeffords measure? Odds are, badly -- but see for yourself, only on the Grist Magazine website.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Richard Simon, 15 Mar 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000019090mar15.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dscience>

only in Grist: Is that a lawmaker in your pocket, or ... ? -- a breakdown of the renewables vote in the Senate -- in our Muckraker section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/muck/muck031502.asp?source=daily>

MILITARY UNINTELLIGENCE

The House Subcommittee on Military Readiness held a hearing yesterday to discuss whether environmental regulations are impeding the full functioning of the U.S. military. Subcommittee Chair Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) said his goal was to "find a balance between the need to protect national security and the environment." He then proceeded to criticize "ever-increasing limitations and restrictions on land and waters" as interfering with military training exercises. Among the examples he cited: Troops at some Army bases need environmental permission before digging trenches, and $2.4 million of the San Clemente Island Navy base budget goes toward protecting a nearby bird colony. Environmentalists counter that the Defense Department already enjoys partial exemptions from the Clean Water Act, Oil Pollution Act, and Superfund program.

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Miguel Llanos, 14 Mar 2002 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/724064.asp>

GROSS OUT

Grist readers aren't exactly known for beating around the bush, so it's no surprise that the response to Matthew Gross's piece by the same name was, shall we say, candid. Gross argued that President Bush's abysmal environmental record proves that Al Gore would have been a far different -- and better -- president, notwithstanding the claims of Ralph Nader supporters. That charge clearly touched a nerve with our readers. From eulogies to Rush Limbaugh comparisons, Gross got it all; for a sampling, check out our letters to the editor, only on the Grist Magazine website.

only in Grist: Beating Bushes and dead horses -- Grist readers write letters to the editor <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/letters/letters031402.asp?source=daily>

DRUG BUST

A federal survey that found trace levels of medications in rivers and streams throughout the U.S. could prompt the Food and Drug Administration to revitalize its environmental investigations into drug safety. The first-of-its-kind survey of more than 100 waterways found low levels of dozens of antibiotics, hormones, painkillers, cough suppressants, disinfectants, and other products excreted by humans and animals. Many of these substances fall through regulatory cracks, because they are not defined as pollution under clean water laws, and the FDA has not examined the environmental impact of most drugs since 1997. As a result, the long-term health effects of exposure to the contaminated water are unknown. The hydrology program of the U.S. Geological Survey is studying whether any contamination reaches drinking water, but the program is slated to be eliminated under proposed Bush administration budget cuts.

straight to the source: New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 14 Mar 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/health/14POLL.html>

3/20/02
4:41:38 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-14-01.html

BOISE CASCADE MUST CUT AIR POLLUTION BY 95 PERCENT

WASHINGTON, DC, March 14, 2002 (ENS) - The first pre-litigation use of mediation by the United States in a Clean Air Act enforcement action has achieved a settlement between wood products industry giant Boise Cascade Corporation and the federal government.

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PUSHES FOR POWER SOURCE TRANSPARENCY

STRASBOURG, France, March 14, 2002 (ENS) - Europe's electricity companies have condemned a European Parliament vote to make them tell consumers about the exact fuel mix behind the power they sell and the associated pollution and waste.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-14-02.html

CLIMATE CHANGE SPREADS DROUGHT ACROSS AUSTRALIA

PERTH, Australia, March 14, 2002 (ENS) - The southwestern part of Australia has been bone dry for 27 years, and Australian government scientists say the lengthy drought could be a foretaste of future experiences across the nation due to the greenhouse effect.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-14-03.html

ANTARCTIC ICE CORE OVER 500,000 YEARS OLD EXTRACTED

CAMBRIDGE, UK, March 14, 2002 (ENS) - Ice more than half a million years old has been taken from deep below the East Antarctic ice sheet, setting what is believed to be a new record.

http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-14-04.html

3/20/02
4:39:34 PM

Talk of New Drilling Raises Doubts on Alaska Pipeline

By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK

LIVENGOOD, Alaska < More than 13 billion barrels of oil have coursed down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline since it opened in 1977, and still the oil comes < from the Arctic Ocean, across the tundra, through mountains and forests and over or under hundreds of rivers and streams, south to the Gulf of Alaska through the 800-mile-long, 4-foot- wide pipe.

But even as Congress discusses a plan for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that could yield billions of gallons more, another debate is looming as the pipeline approaches the end of its 30-year lease on federal, state and native lands.

Regulators are examining whether the aging structure can be safely operated beyond that period. At the same time, with two big spills in the pipeline caused by sabotage, including one a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the regulators are also wondering about something else: how vulnerable is the structure to attack?

Though down from a peak of two million barrels a day in the late 1980's, the pipeline still moves a million barrels a day, nearly a fifth of the country's domestically produced oil. The North Slope has enough oil to keep the pipeline busy for years, and perhaps for decades if Congress yields to President Bush's desire to open the Arctic refuge to drilling.

The company that operates the structure, the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, says that though some engineers thought the pipeline would operate for 25 to 30 years there is no reason to impose such a deadline.

"Bit by bit, piece by piece, we can maintain it virtually forever," said Elden Johnson, an engineer on the pipeline and one of its designers.

The pipeline spills, the company likes to say, represent just 0.0000025 percent of the oil delivered < less than a teaspoon in a swimming pool.

But with the pipeline constantly subjected to corrosion, shifting in the permafrost and other factors that could damage the pipe or the 78,000 vertical pilings that support it, environmental groups and some current and former pipeline workers, express fear that its relatively good safety record may not hold.

"With proper maintenance, yes, the pipeline could last forever," said Ross Coen, executive director of the Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility. "But are they really willing to spend billions of dollars for maintenance when there may not be all that much oil left to send down the pipeline?"

In 1999, six employees of the company who did not give their names wrote to federal officials arguing that neglect and maintenance cuts on the pipeline could lead to disaster.

"It won't be a single gasket, or valve, or wire, or procedure, or person that will cause the catastrophe," wrote the employees, who said they all had at least 10 years of experience on the pipeline. "It will be a combination of small, perhaps seemingly inconsequential events and conditions that will lead to the accident that we're all dreading and powerless to prevent."

The Anchorage Daily News, the state's biggest newspaper, though an editorial proponent of drilling in the Arctic, has raised concerns about aging equipment on the pipeline and elsewhere in the Alaskan oil fields.

"There's a pattern here that looks chillingly close to the inattention and neglect that preceded the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989," the newspaper said in November.

Alyeska said that the pipeline was designed to minimize spills or damage from sabotage. Computers can shut the line down if an unexpected drop in pressure is detected, limiting the size of any spill.

But the pipeline's vulnerability was demonstrated here last Oct. 4, when, authorities say, Daniel Carson Lewis, 37, fired his hunting rifle at the pipeline, causing a leak that forced 6,800 barrels (about 285,600 gallons) onto the tundra and that has cost at least $7 million to clean up. Mr. Lewis was convicted on a federal weapons charge.

The incident caused the second- largest spill in the pipeline's history. It was the first time that bullets had punctured the double-steel-walled pipeline, though it has been fired at at least 50 times, according to company records. The largest spill took place in 1978, shortly after the pipeline opened, when vandals blew up a section, spilling 700,000 barrels of oil. No one was ever arrested.

Although the October incident was not considered a terrorist act, officials fear that the pipeline is an inviting target. In testimony to Congress, R. James Woolsey, a former director of central intelligence, said the pipeline could be "easily disrupted" and posed "a very vulnerable situation indeed."

Alyeska says it will not discuss specific security measures. Though it conducts regular ground and helicopter inspections, the company concedes that there is no way to monitor every foot of the pipeline.

Alaska's budget problems recently raised a new concern. Officials said they had to cut back operation of the Dalton Highway security checkpoint, near the Yukon River north of here, from 24 hours a day to 12. The highway parallels the pipeline for much of the way to the North Slope.

The Joint Pipeline Office in Anchorage, a consortium of state and federal agencies that oversees pipeline operations, says its safety and security record is good.

"This is probably the most monitored pipeline in the world," said Rhea DoBosh, a spokeswoman for the office. "The pipeline is being operated safely, and it is in good shape."

A report released by the office recently generally praised Alyeska's response to the October shooting.

But Richard Fineberg, an environmental consultant in Fairbanks, said the report went too easy on the repair operation. Among other things, he said, it should not have taken 36 hours for crews to stop oil from coming out of the bullet hole.

"The authors of this toothless report are clearly too close to see the forest for the oil-blackened trees they were supposed to protect," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/11/national/11PIPE.html?todaysheadlines

3/20/02
4:01:19 PM

TomPaine.com

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5251

"Independent, commercial-free, public affairs reporting."

ANOTHER STORY IGNORED BY THE BUSY MEDIA

A Cement Factory For The Rhineland Of North America

by Michael Ryan

"Just for fun, why not build a 40-story high smokestack that would dwarf Olana and send plumes of smoke through at least three states?"

SHAME ON THE SENATE

Killing CAFE Standards

by Carl Pope

I am ashamed that six months after the attack on the World Trade Center the U.S. Senate caved in, not to Osama bin Laden, but to lies from the auto industry.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5258

THE NEW BOTTOM-LINE FOR HIGH-TECH TRASH

States May Finally Hold Industry Accountable

by Ann Hancock

As lawmakers in key states grapple with what to do about high-tech leftovers -- old compupers and electronic equipment -- common sense economics and responsible environmental policy seem to be converging.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5242

THE GREAT ALASKAN SNOW JOB

Alice In ANWR-land

by M. W. Guzy

If we drill in ANWR, Interior Secretary Norton promises "more than 700,000" jobs will be created, with every state in the union benefiting. If all this seems a little too good to be true, that may be because it is.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5250

A FRONTIER COMMISSION

What Will Become Of Our Oceans?

by David Helvarg

The oceans are now being decimated just as the Great Plains were during the 19th Century. So guess who President Bush appointed to the new Oceans Commission.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/4088

GRIEF IN THE HEART OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

In Memory Of Dean Erica Wonnacott

by Gary Margolis

"Who knows when/We breathe in that numbered breath/And who will hold us when we do ... "

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5252

3/20/02
3:54:15 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

SEXUAL ABUSE AND ILLUSIONS OF INNOCENCE

Michael Bader, AlterNet

Why does sexual abuse elicit more rage than any other kind of child abuse, even though emotional neglect or social hardships can damage a child far more than inappropriate sex?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12625

THE WAR ON DISSENT WIDENS

Jim Lobe, AlterNet

A powerful group of neo-conservative war hawks is launching a bold new public relations campaign attacking anyone who disagrees with Bush's war on terrorism.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12612

LICENSES FOR ILLEGALS

Gustavo Arellano, Pacific News Service

After calling the cops on an illegal immigrant who ran into his car -- which likely resulted in the man's deportation -- the author reflects on the how a driver's license helped his own father, who was also an illegal immigrant.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12618

ENRON'S SHADOW GOVERNMENT

Stephen Pizzo, The Daily Enron

Enron's alliances, connections and entanglements with the Bush Administration run wide and deep. A new report details just how wide and how deep. Is a Special Counsel necessary?

* In EnronGate: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30

SHOULD KIDS USE "ENERGY DRINKS?" SHOULD ANYONE?

Todd Morman, Spectator Magazine

As energy drinks like "Red Bull" and "Whoopass" gain in popularity, some health officials are sounding alarms about their potential dangers for young people.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12616

MARCH MADNESS

with host Laura Flanders

Is Andrea Yates insane? Is George Bush insane? Is ABC insane? Discuss the headlines of the week on the Working Assets' Friday media roundtable, from 10-11am PT/1-2 ET; call 866-798-TALK.

http://www.workingassetsradio.com

BRAND USA

Naomi Klein, AlterNet

When the White House decided it was time to address the rising tides of anti-Americanism around the world, it hired one of Madison Avenue's top brand managers.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12617

TOTAL PATRIOT LIVE: ASHCROFT WRITES, SINGS PATRIOTIC JINGLES

The Attorney General has a new hobby -- writing hyper-cheesy patriotic songs, singing them in public and asking his staff to do the same. Watch the video here (if you can stomach it.)

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12601

TECHSPLOITATION: HUMAN COPYRIGHTS

Annalee Newitz, AlterNet

New legislation would make it illegal for companies to sell software or hardware that isn't fitted out with copy-protection technology.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12604

HUFFINGTON: BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON BAD SCIENCE

Arianna Huffington, AlterNet

It recently came to light that military contractor TRW faked the results of their "Star Wars" system tests. How many more failed tests will it take to prove that NMD won't work?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12628

CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT? YOU TOO MAY BE A TERRORIST!

David Case, TomPaine.com

Nick Nichols sees the environmental movement as a "$22 billion conspiracy" fomented by "eco-fascists." So why do Congressmen like him so much?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12626

COLIN POWELL'S LIST

Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation

The Secretary of State now has a new list and you better not be on it. Multiplying lists of "terrorist" groups have emerged as a handy tool to suppress dissent.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12622

HUTCHINSON: NAACP'S CONFEDERATE FLAG OBSESSION

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet

The NAACP's appalling inattention to the big-ticket issues that sledgehammer the black poor is no surprise. Instead the group focuses on the old flag.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12615

3/20/02
3:38:34 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Bush flatly refuses to hand over energy papers - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15023/story.htm

Settlement talks in Alabama pollution case fail - WSJ - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15018/story.htm

Boise agrees to $22 million clear air settlement - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15019/story.htm

UPDATE - Senate rejects huge hike in vehicle fuel standards - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15020/story.htm

Big Three win with fuel economy break for pickups - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15032/story.htm

UK firms bid in auction to cut 4 mln T of CO2 - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15021/story.htm

UK group urges retailers to reduce pesticide levels - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15029/story.htm

ANALYSIS - US nuclear plan sends shivers around Mideast - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15027/story.htm

Spain's mobile firms to monitor signal emissions - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15031/story.htm

Forest fires spreading haze across Southeast Asia - SINGAPORE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15017/story.htm

Booming German wind power seen shifting offshore - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15026/story.htm

Enercon says to launch world's biggest wind turbine - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15025/story.htm

EU lawmakers vote on catering waste in feed curbs - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15030/story.htm

WRAPUP - EU nearing summit deal on energy deregulation - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15024/story.htm

FEATURE - China's poor pick profits from toxic tech trash - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15028/story.htm

EnergyAustralia seeks national greenhouse action - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15022/story.htm

3/20/02
3:37:17 PM

t r u t h o u t

Bush Flatly Refuses to Hand Over Energy Papers

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15A.Bush.Refuses.htm

Daschle: Ridge Must Inform Congress on Security

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15B.Daschle.Ridge.htm

Senate Judiciary Panel Rejects Pickering | Major Defeat for Bush

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15C.Bush.Defeat.htm

Arthur Andersen Charged With Obstruction of Justice

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15I.Justice.Anderson.htm

Bush says bin Laden no Threat

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15D.No.Threat.htm

Palestinians Rule Out Cease-fire ... Israel Rolls Tanks Into Bethlehem

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15E.No.Ceasefire.htm

3,000 Forgotten Taliban, Dirty and Dying

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15F.3000.Taliban.htm

The Federal Government vs. The Last American Wild Buffalo Herd | Update 03.14.2002

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15G.BFC.Update.htm

Senator Lectures Justice Rehnquist

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.15H.Senator.Rehnquist.htm

3/20/02
3:35:21 PM

U.S. Works Up Plan for Using Nuclear Arms

Military: Administration, in a secret report, calls for a strategy against at least seven nations: China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations, according to a classified Pentagon report obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The secret report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or "in the event of surprising military developments."

A partial copy of the report was obtained by defense analyst and Times contributor William Arkin. His column on the contents appears in Sunday's editions.

Officials have long acknowledged that they had detailed nuclear plans for an attack on Russia. However, this "Nuclear Posture Review" apparently marks the first time that an official list of potential target countries has come to light, analysts said. Some predicted the disclosure would set off strong reactions from governments of the target countries.

"This is dynamite," said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear arms expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "I can imagine what these countries are going to be saying at the U.N." Arms control advocates said the report's directives on development of smaller nuclear weapons could signal that the Bush administration is more willing to overlook a long-standing taboo against the use of nuclear weapons except as a last resort. They warned that such moves could dangerously destabilize the world by encouraging other countries to believe that they, too, should develop weapons.

"They're trying desperately to find new uses for nuclear weapons, when their uses should be limited to deterrence," said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World. "This is very, very dangerous talk . . . Dr. Strangelove is clearly still alive in the Pentagon."

But some conservative analysts insisted that the Pentagon must prepare for all possible contingencies, especially now, when dozens of countries, and some terrorist groups, are engaged in secret weapon development programs.

They argued that smaller weapons have an important deterrent role because many aggressors might not believe that the U.S. forces would use multi-kiloton weapons that would wreak devastation on surrounding territory and friendly populations.

The report says the Pentagon should be prepared to use nuclear weapons in an Arab-Israeli conflict, in a war between China and Taiwan, or in an attack from North Korea on the south. They might also become necessary in an attack by Iraq on Israel or another neighbor, it said.

The report says Russia is no longer officially an "enemy." Yet it acknowledges that the huge Russian arsenal, which includes about 6,000 deployed warheads and perhaps 10,000 smaller "theater" nuclear weapons, remains of concern.

Pentagon officials have said publicly that they were studying the need to develop theater nuclear weapons, designed for use against specific targets on a battlefield, but had not committed themselves to that course.

Officials have often spoken of the advantages of using nuclear weapons to destroy the deep tunnel and cave complexes that many regimes have been building, especially since the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Nuclear weapons give off powerful shock waves that can crush structures deep in the Earth, they point out.

Officials argue that large nuclear arms have so many destructive side effects, from blast to heat and radiation, that they become "self-deterring." They contend the Pentagon needs "full spectrum deterrence"--that is, a full range of weapons that potential enemies believe might be used against them.

The Pentagon was actively involved in planning for use of tactical nuclear weapons as recently as the 1970s. But it has moved away from them in the last two decades.

Analysts said the report's reference to "surprising military developments" referred to the Pentagon's fears that a rogue regime or terrorist group might suddenly unleash a wholly unknown weapon that was difficult to counter with the conventional U.S. arsenal.

The administration has proposed cutting the offensive nuclear arsenal by about two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200 missiles, within 10 years. Officials have also said they want to use precision guided conventional munitions in some missions that might have previously been accomplished with nuclear arms.

But critics said the report contradicts suggestions the Bush administration wants to cut the nuclear role.

"This clearly makes nuclear weapons a tool for fighting a war, rather than deterring them," said Cirincione.

http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-030902bombs.story

3/20/02
3:32:56 PM

Bush administration confirms plans for war against Iraq

In an appearance by Secretary of State Colin Powell before a Senate committee, as well as through selected leaks to the press, the Bush administration has confirmed plans to launch a war with Iraq in a matter of months.

Powell's statements to a Senate Budget Committee hearing Tuesday were the most categorical by any top US official and scotched any illusions-apparently common in European governments-that the secretary of state would serve as a restraining force on psychopaths like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz.

Clearly distinguishing between Iraq and the other two countries that Bush included in his State of the Union "axis of evil" diatribe, Powell said, "With respect to Iran and with respect to North Korea, there is no plan to start a war with these nations."

The unmistakable implication was that there is a plan to start a war with Iraq, and Powell added, "With respect to Iraq, it has long been, for several years now, a policy of the United States government that regime change would be in the best interests of the region, the best interests of the Iraqi people.... And we are looking at a variety of options that would bring that about."

The secretary of state barely stopped short of a public declaration of war, allowing that Bush "does not have a recommendation before him that would involve an armed conflict tomorrow."

A policy of reckless aggression

This decision, with the most far-reaching and potentially disastrous consequences for the people of the Middle East, the United States and the world as a whole, has been taken without even a pretense of consideration for the American constitutional process-which requires a declaration of war-or for international law-under which "planning an offensive war" is a war crime.

The pace of American military action continues to accelerate-from bombing to invasion of Afghanistan, and now to the targeting of Iraq for what will inevitably become a much bloodier campaign. It is impossible to understand this drive to war as simply a response to the September 11 attacks. Rather, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon serve as a pretext, increasingly threadbare, for a program of militarism which has been in preparation for many years.

Iraq is a case in point. The United States savagely bombed Iraqi military forces and most of the country's cities and towns in 1991, in response to the occupation of Kuwait. The US and Britain continue to bomb Iraq more than a decade after the supposed end of the war, while the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations, at US instigation, are responsible for a modern holocaust, the death of as many as one million Iraqis, mainly children, the elderly, the sick and the poor.

The claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and that war against Iraq is justified on the grounds of "self-defense"-as US officials declared last week at a NATO strategy conference in Munich-is a cynical lie. No evidence has been presented that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks, and even the American CIA no longer makes such claims.

The recklessness of American foreign policy has sent shudders through the world, most notably in Europe, where there are growing concerns among the ruling classes-as well as among broader masses of the population-that they confront in the Bush administration something radically new and dangerous. European Union external affairs chief Christopher Patten, a former general secretary of the British Tory Party, warned that the US military success in Afghanistan "has perhaps reinforced some dangerous instincts: that the projection of military power is the only basis of true security; that the US can rely on no one but itself; and that allies may be useful as optional extras."

The whole structure of international relations is being destabilized. Any government that comes into conflict with American foreign policy now risks being targeted for a military attack in the name of the "war on terrorism."

Scenarios for war

Statements outlining various scenarios for a US war with Iraq were leaked to three American newspapers over the past week. The Los Angeles Times, in an article February 10, said that the Bush administration was now engaged in "serious planning" for war with Iraq, and that Vice President Richard Cheney would convey the US decisions to client states in the Middle East during a nine-nation tour next month. Cheney will visit Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, all of which could play a role in a US military onslaught on Baghdad.

The Times reported that the administration has made "two strategic decisions.... First, the Iraq problem has to be solved, not simply managed as it was during the two previous U.S. administrations.... Second, Washington is prepared to push beyond the limitations imposed by international sentiment, Arab public opinion and even the original U.N. resolutions that opened the way for Operation Desert Storm 11 years ago to force Iraq out of tiny oil-rich Kuwait."

The language used is particularly ominous. Not since Nazi Germany - with Hitler's demands for immediate liquidation of "the Czech problem" or "the Polish problem" - has a world power spoken in such terms, or acted with such blatant disregard for international opinion.

On February 12, both the Philadelphia Inquirer and USA Today reported that a decision leading to war with Iraq had been made. The Inquirer quoted "a senior administration official" who told the newspaper that current discussion in the White House, Pentagon and State Department was not over the pros and cons of attacking Iraq, but how to do it. "This is not an argument about whether to get rid of Saddam Hussein," he said. "That debate is over."

The CIA has presented Bush with plans for a full-scale campaign of subversion, sabotage, covert action and bombing in the "no-fly" zones of northern and southern Iraq, in preparation for overt military action, the Inquirer said.

Officials told the newspaper that Cheney's trip, while portrayed publicly as consultation with Mideast leaders, was to deliver an ultimatum. "He's not going to beg for support," one senior official told the newspaper. "He's going to inform them that the President's decision has been made and will be carried out, and if they want some input into how and when it's carried out, now's the time for them to speak up."

USA Today cited Bush administration officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Powell's closest aide, as its source for reporting that a decision for war had been made. The newspaper said that diplomatic and political options for dealing with Baghdad would be advanced as well, but largely for the purpose of creating a pretext for military action.

The administration will seek the imposition of much tighter economic sanctions on Iraq when the current regime comes up for renewal in May by the UN Security Council, as well as placing demands on Baghdad to permit reentry of UN weapons inspectors who were expelled at the end of 1998. US spokesmen have openly declared that the real purpose of these demands is to provoke an Iraqi rejection and subsequent breakdown in the inspection process which can then be used to set a deadline for military attack.

The military scenarios being considered, according to USA Today, range from targeted bombing of the principal Iraqi ground force, the Republican Guards, in an effort to provoke a military rebellion, to arming local opposition forces such as the Kurds in the north and the Shi'ites in the south, to a full-scale invasion by up to 200,000 US troops.

Troops and spies on the move

There are a number of concrete indications that the preparations for war against Iraq are even more advanced than these reports suggest.

* US and British warplanes have intensified their bombing of Iraqi air defense facilities. The most recent air raids took place January 22 and 24 near the town of Tallil, 170 miles southeast of Baghdad.

* Thousands of Marines and other combat-ready troops are moving toward the region, although the military operations in Afghanistan have been sharply cut back.

* A delegation of State Department and CIA officials visited Kurdish-held territory in northern Iraq last month to make an on-the-spot survey of the forces available for military action against Baghdad.

* More than 1,000 military command-and-control personnel have been shifted from US bases to locations in the Persian Gulf, where they would be in position to direct a much larger force of combat troops.

* The commander of Marine forces for the US Central Command moved his headquarters from Florida to Bahrain, joining commanders for the Army, Navy and Air Force already in the region.

Meanwhile intense pressure is being brought to bear on the countries that occupy the most important strategic positions for a US war on Iraq: Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Iran was included in the "axis of evil" characterization, in part because of a growing conflict with the US over influence in western Afghanistan, which is predominately Persian-speaking. The more important motive, however, is to keep Teheran on the sidelines during a US attack on Iraq. The principal concern cited by US officials in halting the war with Iraq in 1991 was the fear that Iran would emerge as the dominant power in the Persian Gulf if Iraq's military forces were completely destroyed.

Saudi Arabia has been the subject of a press campaign, particularly in the Washington Post and New York Times, suggesting that the US may withdraw its support from the monarchy-which would be a death sentence for the regime-and support some other form of rule, such as a military dictatorship, because of Saudi reluctance to serve as a base for a US invasion of Iraq.

In the case of Turkey, bribery rather than intimidation is the main US tactic. Earlier this month the IMF approved a $16 billion loan to prop up the regime in Ankara, a bailout backed by the US despite its opposition to any similar measure for Argentina. There have been suggestions in the American and international press that Turkey is being given other incentives for supporting a war, ranging from an outright share of Iraq's oil wealth-the Mosul oilfield is less than 100 miles from the Turkish border-to US aid for the construction of an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

In return, Turkey may be asked to supply tanks and ground troops for the northern half of the war against Iraq. A columnist in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet recently called for the government to order the Turkish army to march on Baghdad rather than permitting a Kurdish uprising or waiting for an anti-Saddam military coup.

In a speech to his parliamentary caucus, Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz warned the United States against any unilateral strike on Iraq, declaring, "We do not tolerate the development, outside our knowledge and initiative, of a process that will have close impact on us, nor our priorities being disregarded and our national interests being trampled on."

The Turkish regime is fearful that a war in Iraq could lead to the creation of an independent Kurdistan in the north, which would become a magnet for millions of Kurds in southeastern Turkey who are presently denied their national rights. In addition to reassurances on that issue, Yilmaz was demanding-if one translates the diplomatic jargon-that Turkey receive its share of the spoils in the coming carve-up of Iraq-a territory which was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for centuries, until it was seized by Great Britain during World War I.

Timetable for aggression

According to a report appearing in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on February 6, citing sources in Russian military intelligence, the US government is "preparing to launch a series of wars in the Middle East," with the attack on Iraq to begin in September. The newspaper said that the US has begun concentrating the necessary forces in the region using the war in Afghanistan as a cover. Steps have also been taken to recruit Kurdish leaders to the plan, and to restore landing strips in the Kurdish-held region in northern Iraq.

The Russian report said that at least one scenario envisages the destruction of the Hussein government in the space of eight weeks through a combination of air strikes and ground assault by proxy forces. This would be followed by similar attacks on Iran and Syria if they offer any resistance to US domination in the region.

The timetable suggested in the Russian press may prove accurate, since there are practical reasons which could delay ground action against Iraq until late summer:

* Summertime temperatures in the Mesopotamian desert would make ground operations difficult for American troops.

* The Pentagon needs more time to move troops to the region and improve air bases and logistical support.

* The US arms industry requires some months to rebuild the Pentagon's stocks of precision weapons, depleted first by the Kosovo war and now by Afghanistan.

* Ground action would be preceded by a period of heavy bombing, which could begin as soon as the necessary weapons are ready for use.

There is, however, a more fundamental reason for supposing that US action will begin no later than late summer, and even earlier, one that has nothing to do with logistics, geography or, indeed, any military considerations at all. A US war against Iraq would then unfold in the midst of the 2002 election campaign, creating the conditions for the Bush administration and the Republican Party to wrap themselves in the flag and portray domestic opposition as virtual treason.

Despite the attempts of the media to present Bush as a politically powerful and enormously popular president, he heads an administration which only took office thanks to an antidemocratic coup by a 5-4 majority of the US Supreme Court, and his domestic policies-huge tax cuts for the wealthy, slashing social spending, promoting the agenda of the fundamentalist Christian right-are deeply opposed by the vast majority of working people.

Without September 11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, this administration would today face mounting popular opposition, as it was held responsible for the deepening recession, the continuing wave of mass layoffs, and the criminal activities of its closest business supporters, such as Enron. Even with the confusion created by the terrorist attacks and the full support of the congressional Democrats-and Bush's 2000 opponent Al Gore, who called in a speech Wednesday for a "final reckoning" with Iraq-this is a regime in crisis.

War is the means chosen by American imperialism to establish a dominant position in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia. But more fundamentally, the drive to war is a manifestation of the deepening class antagonisms within the United States. War has become a political necessity for the survival of the Bush administration. As one of the principal media apologists for the administration, Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley, declared hopefully in a TV appearance after Bush's State of the Union speech, "This Enron story isn't going to last very long if we invade Iraq."

The Bush administration represents the emergence, at the highest levels of American capitalism, of a criminalized, gangster element. Its attitude to democracy was shown in Florida, its attitude to working people is shown in Enron, its attitude to the world is being displayed in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the more Bush & Co. threaten war, the more they become compelled to translate words into action, regardless of the consequences. The deepening crisis of American imperialism is dragging the world towards a catastrophe.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/feb2002/iraq-f16.shtml

European foreign ministers attack Bush's policy

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/feb2002/euro-f15.shtml

International Security Conference in Munich exposes growing NATO tensions

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/feb2002/mun-f07.shtml

Billions for war and repression: Bush budget for a garrison state

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/feb2002/mili-f06.shtml

State of the Union speech: Bush declares war on the world

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/bush-j31.shtml

3/20/02
2:52:02 PM

If you never gave a look there, and have a couple minutes to explore the tons of amazing and very revealing articles archived at this site, go at

http://Whatreallyhappened.com

Bush's Stealth Policy on Nuclear Arms

http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.13H.Bush.Stealth.NMD.htm

DEPLETED URANIUM IN BUNKER BOMBS; America's big dirty secret

The US has admitted that it has used depleted uranium weaponry over the last decade against bunkers in Iraq, Kosovo, and now Afghanistan.

http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/03/03uranium

Bush Puts Nuclear Use in 'Options Available'

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday defended a politically charged Pentagon proposal to create new types of nuclear weapons and expand the nation's list of potential nuclear targets, saying that a commander in chief "must have all options available."

http://www.latimes.com/la-000018822mar14.story

For Bush, secrecy is a matter of loyalty (About the Shadow Government)

"I have a duty to protect the executive branch from legislative encroachment." !!!

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=20650

Death of a true terrorist

(...) the selectiveness of the U.S. "War on Terrorism" was grimly demonstrated this past week by the long-overdue death of one of the world's most notorious terrorists: 67-year-old Jonas Savimbi, a man almost single-handedly responsible for plunging Angola into 27 years of civil war that has cost at least 1.5 million lives. (...) But Savimbi has never been called a terrorist by American media, because for much of his career, he was our guy.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=12873

The empire strikes forward

America is trying to take over the world, and no one can stop us except us.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=12906

3/15/02
12:00:24 AM

Public Citizen

Did Anyone Lose a Cesium Rod?

Disaster Narrowly Averted in Taiwan Incident

Meanwhile, U.S. Government Intentionally Releasing Radioactive Materials Into Market

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A recent incident in Taiwan, in which a 62-pound rod of cesium was pulled from a pile of scrap metal prior to being melted in a steel works furnace, is yet another sign that nuclear materials and waste are being handled improperly and that nuclear regulatory agencies are not safeguarding the public, Public Citizen said today.

Further, the incident should be noted by U.S. government agencies charged with regulating nuclear waste, because they are now attempting to introduce additional radiation sources into consumer products and the environment by permitting radioactive waste to be recycled, Public Citizen said.

Wednesday's Taipei Times reported that the cesium rod, which was highly radioactive, was discovered mixed with non-radioactive metal scraps on a truck at a steel foundry that operates a melting furnace. Taiwan officials said they didn't know where the rod came from.

Had the rod been melted in the foundry's furnace, there would have been an extremely hazardous radioactive emission, creating an immediate health hazard and seriously polluting the environment. The cesium rod emitted more than 270 times the radiation per hour than recommended by the International Commission on Radiation Protection.

Similar incidents in the United States have not always had such a fortunate ending. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reported that at least 26 accidental meltings of radioactive material have occurred in the United States since 1983. This number accounts for more than half of the 49 accidental meltings worldwide that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had tallied as of 1998.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is notified of approximately 200 lost or stolen radioactive sources each year. While some radioactive materials are found in or near scrap yards, metal foundries, factories or recycling facilities, others are handled unknowingly by non-nuclear workers or even sold in stores. In the United States in the past six months:

· A foreign shipment of iridium, delivered from overseas by standard couriers and with no detection by the U.S. Customs Service, arrived in New Orleans by truck before it was determined that the package was leaking high doses of radiation. · Radioactive tools were stolen from a Utah nuclear waste facility and sold to at least one local pawn shop. The pawn shop was unaware that the tools were radioactive and subsequently sold the tools to a third party. Some of the tools are still missing. · The U.S. Army detected cesium-137 and cobalt-60 throughout a wooded area within the city limits of Anniston, Ala., a short distance from a community center. · An industrial radioactive device used to measure soil density was found on the steps of a pawn shop in Prichard, Ala.

"The government should heed the warnings provided by these incidents and the Taiwan episode," said David Ritter, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "This ought to make them change their minds about the very bad idea of putting radioactive materials on the common market."

These incidents include only accidents and thefts, however. Authorities are simultaneously sanctioning the intentional releases of radioactive wastes from nuclear facilities operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors, or licensed by the NRC. This is done on a case-by-case basis. The wastes are released without restriction and can be dumped in a municipal landfill, incinerated, sold or donated "as is," or even recycled into a plethora of everyday consumer products and industrial materials.

Now, the DOE and NRC are pushing nuclear industry-friendly policies to standardize and increase the release and "recycling" of radioactive wastes.

"These agencies are truly captured by the nuclear industry, and the industry is trying to greenwash their latest scheme with terms like 'recycling' and 'beneficial reuse,' " said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "If the 'recycling' practice doesn't lead to major savings or profits for those who make the mess, it's still a handy way for them to evade liability for their waste. But the American public doesn't want to come in contact with nuclear waste. They don't want their kids to ride bicycles made of nuclear waste. We need to ban this practice once and for all."

Ritter noted that people would never opt to buy products made from "recycled" radioactive waste.

"If you were in a store, and could choose between the non-contaminated frying pan or the one with the label that said "slightly radioactive," which one would you pick? If the nuclear industry had to tell us which products their nuclear reactor and weapon waste goes into, we know the practice would stop immediately. Unfortunately, labels aren't required."

Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

For more information, please visit http://www.citizen.org

3/14/02
11:57:42 PM

DAILY GRIST