5/12/02
4:39:05 PM

Instant Messages To Israel Warned Of WTC Attack

By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes, September 27, 2001

Officials at instant-messaging firm Odigo confirmed today that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks.

Citing a pending investigation by law enforcement, the company declined to reveal the exact contents of the message or to identify the sender.

But Alex Diamandis, vice president of sales and marketing, confirmed that workers in Odigo's research and development and international sales office in Israel received a warning from another Odigo user approximately two hours prior to the first attack.

Diamandis said the sender of the instant message was not personally known to the Odigo employees. Even though the company usually protects the privacy of users, the employees recorded the Internet protocol address of the message's sender to facilitate his or her identification.

Soon after the terrorist attacks on New York, the Odigo employees notified their management, who contacted Israeli security services. In turn, the FBI was informed of the instant message warning. FBI officials were not immediately available for comment today.

The Odigo service includes a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact others based on certain interests or demographics. Diamandis said it was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message.

In addition to operating its own messaging service network, Odigo has licensed its technology to over 100 service providers, portals, wireless carriers, and corporations, according to the company.

Odigo is online at http://www.odigo.com

Reported by Newsbytes, http://www.newsbytes.com

5/12/02
4:35:14 PM

Mr. O'Neill, Dir of Security, WTC Sat May 11 22:57:03 2002 207.192.218.30

Mr. O'Neill was an FBI agent for 25 years; suddenly FIRED in April 2001. He got the job with the WTC and started to work on September 11, 2001. He had tried for the last week to get some one, anyone to listen. There was to be an attack on the WTC. Few listened, except for the hundreds of workers who did NOT show for work on 9-11.

Both the governments of France and Germany had tried to contact US officials about the coming attack. Bombings in both Berlin and Paris were stopped by those governments. Documents seized there gave flight numbers and departure times from Boston's airport for September 11.

7 of the 19 suicide bombers who crashed planes on September 11, had received pardons from Bill Clinton. These were Hamas members from the early 90's attack on the WTC.

Mr. O'Neill should be made an American HERO, not just a forgotten statistic. Even though he couldn't get anyone

to listen, he showed up for work and died there trying to lead more people to safety. He was inside when the building went down!

5/12/02
3:48:14 PM

Kill The Messenger

Public Reaction to Rep. McKinney's Call for 9-11 Investigation Quashes Intended Media Massacre

by Michael Davidson, FTW Staff Writer

May 6, 2002, 12:00 PM PDT (FTW)

-- It's not a good idea to go up against the powers that be with an idea that calls into question generally accepted wisdom. Galileo contradicted the Roman Catholic Church when he said the Earth revolved around the sun. He was put in jail, and it took a few hundred years for the church to exonerate him and admit he was correct.

Hopefully, a fate similar to Galileo's will not befall Cynthia McKinney.

McKinney is the representative from the 4th district of Georgia. The district includes Decatur, just outside Atlanta.

McKinney is a Democrat, black, and, obviously, a woman. Three strikes in an area that has sent the likes of Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr to Congress.

On March 25 McKinney was interviewed by telephone on Flashpoints, an independent radio program produced and hosted by Dennis Bernstein and broadcast on Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley, Calif. The congresswoman read a roughly 10-minute statement, then answered questions and chatted with Bernstein for another 16 or so minutes. A major portion of McKinney's statement concerned U.S. actions in Africa, and contained stinging attacks of the Clinton administration, particularly former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She also discussed the high incarceration rate of blacks, their treatment by the police, and the actual mechanics of the massive voter fraud in Florida that benefited George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential election. Rep. McKinney also pointed out how the current administration has created a climate in which elected officials need to censor themselves lest their patriotism be questioned. Only a few sentences in the almost 30-minute segment were her comments about the need for an investigation into what the Bush Administration knew prior to the events of 9-11. Two-and-a-half weeks later on April 12, an article appeared in the Washington Post about McKinney's appearance on Flashpoints. The article was written by Juliet Eilperin, a Post staff writer who says a colleague received the show's transcript in an anonymous e-mail, and passed it along to her. Eilperin's article was headlined, "Democrat Implies Sept. 11 Administration Plot."

What McKinney actually said was the American people deserve a full, complete and no-holds-barred investigation of the events involving 9-11, and what the Bush administration knew and when they knew it. Every single question McKinney raised was based on information readily available from mainstream media sources. Among the issues McKinney raised regarding 9-11 were: - The warnings from several foreign governments to the highest levels of the U.S. government that were ignored; - The huge profits made in sophisticated stock transactions involving several airlines, brokerages and insurance firms whose stock prices were affected dramatically by 9-11; -The relationship between the oil company Unocal and the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan; - The relationship between the administration and the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with major defense holdings for whom the president's father works; - The requests by both the president and vice president that any congressional investigations into 9-11 not be particularly intense or lengthy; - The huge profits persons close to the administration will make thanks to increased defense spending.

Let the games begin

Almost immediately after the Washington Post article, the administration, the mainstream media and its pundits shifted into overdrive, floored the pedal, and wound the smear engine right to the redline. Interestingly, no one has challenged the accuracy of a single word McKinney said. What has been said, in a variety of ways, is that her call for a complete investigation is an indication that McKinney is either "crazy" or "treacherous."

In the original Washington Post article, Bush spokesman Scott McLellan was quoted as saying "The American people know the facts, and they dismiss such ludicrous, baseless views." Carlyle Group spokesman Chris Ullman posed the question "Did she say these things while standing on a grassy knoll in Roswell, New Mexico?"

That same day, April 12, "Representative Awful" was posted on National Review Online by Jonah Goldberg, son of Lucianne Goldberg -- literary agent, Linda Tripp crony, and former Nixon dirty trickster. National Review was founded by William F. Buckley, whose family fortune was made in the oil business. Goldberg dismissed McKinney's suggestion for an investigation, saying "I am not aware of any evidence that Ms. McKinney has murdered several children or that she personally profited from sleeping with the entire defensive squad of the Atlanta Falcons." He then goes on to say that the congresswoman is suffering "paranoid, America-hating, crypto-Marxist conspiratorial delusions."

Anyone who remembers the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings will remember Anita Hill was described as "a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty." Apparently, Goldberg has learned some big words to repeat the easy smear used against any black woman to the left of Condoleezza Rice. Keep in mind that in an Oct. 29 attack piece on McKinney Goldberg wrote, "Taking black politicians seriously pays them a compliment." Next, McKinney's hometown newspaper took up the charge. An April 13 Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) article by staff writer Melanie Eversley reported that Democratic Georgia Sen. Zell Miller issued a "bristling" statement saying her on-air comments were "dangerous and irresponsible."

Not being content to dismiss the legitimate, American ideas of dissent and question, Miller made a sarcastic comment about McKinney attempting to get kissed by President Bush. Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, is quoted: "All I can tell you is the congresswoman must be running for the hall of fame of the Grassy Knoll Society." Interesting that the "grassy knoll" allusion was made twice by people connected to the administration, yet they will not dispute her facts. The AJC article also quotes Emory University political scientist Merle Black: "It reinforces the view among serious people in her district that she's a very ineffective representative if this is how she chooses to spend her political capital." Apparently there are very few "serious" people Black will be able to "reinforce" with his totally "unscientific" opinion, as McKinney has won five elections in a row, with her lowest margin of victory being 58 percent.

Along with Eversley's article, AJC put up a poll on its website asking the question, "Are you satisfied the Bush administration had no advance warning of the Sept. 11 attacks?" A visitor could vote "Yes," "No, I think officials knew it was coming" or "I'm not sure. Congress should investigate."

Big mistake

Within hours, the "No, I think officials knew it was coming" vote led the "Yes" vote 51 percent to 47 percent, with two percent "Not sure." The ultra-conservative website FreeRepublic.com alerted its viewers and encouraged them to vote against McKinney, to no avail. The vote seesawed back and forth across the 50 percent mark, each side holding a slim lead at various points throughout the day. By mid-afternoon 23,145 people had voted. "Yes" (anti-McKinney) had 52 percent, "No" (pro-McKinney) had 46 percent, and "Not sure" had one percent. Forty-seven percent of voters do not believe the story the world has been told by the Bush Administration. Then, the poll vanished. Gone. Disappeared. Not there.

People signed on to vote, but there was no poll to vote at. The article was there, but the poll was gone. There was no explanation. On April 21, AJC columnist Mike King explained what happened.

"The responses broke down the tabulator we use to keep track of the votes." So can we assume, then, when Mr. King gets a flat tire he throws the entire car away and abandons his trip?

King goes on at great length to inform the reader that even if the poll had not been taken down due to "mechanical problems," the poll was meaningless anyway because "groups and people who believe there is evidence of a conspiracy in the attacks urged friends to vote on ajc.com to send Congress a message of the need to investigate."

This undoubtedly occurred, as did urging from the other side which King makes no mention of. He also says that voters were not "scientifically" chosen to represent a broad cross-section of views and that "most online polls are really just opportunities to register an opinion." How registering an opinion differs from a vote will be left for Noah Webster to explain. Another online poll has been running regarding McKinney's call for a thorough investigation. This one is at truthout.com, an online digest of articles being published in the mainstream media. While truthout readers are undoubtedly more open to McKinney's ideas than the general public, at press time, the poll shows 5,616 supporting the congresswoman versus 80 opposing her. Truthout also reports McKinney's call for a 9-11 investigation is supported by two additional members of the House --Democrats Loretta Sanchez of California and Major Owens of New York.

Interestingly, while truthout is a non-profit organization entirely dependent on donations, it has had no problems keeping its poll functioning, while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a major for-profit entity, claims they could not.

WHERE ARE THE CLOWNS?

With the AJC poll having turned into a debacle, the forces arrayed against McKinney became desperate, and the smear became vicious. On April 16, the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) released a report claiming 21 percent of McKinney's 1999-2000 campaign contributions of over $101 came from Arab or Middle-Eastern-connected individuals and organizations. The report states among the organizations donating to McKinney's campaign are "the American-Muslim Council and the Council on American/Islamic Relations, both of which maintain ties or have expressed support for terrorist organizations."

Phil Kent, SLF president, is quoted in the report: "If we are to give any credence to her baseless claims, the American people deserve to know that McKinney's financial 'relationships' -- her campaign contributors -- are heavily represented by Arab and Middle Eastern-connected individuals, as well as organizations which have expressed sympathy for terrorist organizations." Here we have examples of how McKinney's call for an investigation morphs into "claims," and how an investigation into her is acceptable, while one into the Bush Administration is not. The SLF report flew around the Internet, and was posted on several conservative websites. It was generally headlined to the effect, "McKinney Supported by Terrorists."

SLF was founded in 1976 and has received major financial support from Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire reactionary who funded the 10-year effort to destroy President Bill Clinton. In 2000 the Democratic National Committee accused the SLF of sending a quarter-million deceptive pieces of mail designed to interfere with that year's census and result in inaccurate congressional representation. In issue after issue during its 26 years, SLF has consistently taken vehement anti-black, anti-environment, anti-worker, anti-gay, and anti-public education positions. They are currently preparing litigation to invalidate portions of the Bush-signed McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan campaign reform legislation. Some in the Atlanta area believe SLF's long-range goal is overturning the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

SLF describes itself as "an Atlanta-based public interest law firm which advocates limited government, individual economic freedom, and the free enterprise system in the courts of law and public opinion." SLF's website includes links to other reactionary groups including the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, Federalist Society, and the Conservative Caucus Foundation. Along with links to expected conservative media outlets such as WorldNetDaily, Drudge, and the Conservative News Service, SLF links itself to Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Matthew Glavin was SLF president and chief executive from 1994 to 2000, and devoted a tremendous amount of energy, and Scaife's money, trying to get Bill Clinton disbarred in Arkansas for his alleged perjury in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Glavin, however, was forced to abandon these efforts, and resign after he was arrested for fondling himself in public. According to an Oct. 4, 2000 report on CNSNEWS.com, an affiliate of the above-mentioned Conservative News Service, an undercover federal officer found Glavin masturbating near a parking lot in the Chattahoochee National River Park in Atlanta, an area said to be popular with homosexual cruisers. The arresting officer says that he, himself, was fondled lewdly when he spoke to Glavin on Oct. 13, 2000. The AJC reported Glavin had pled guilty and was sentenced to a year's probation.

On April 22 SLF sent a letter to House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt demanding McKinney be removed from her seats on both the House Armed Services and International Relations committees, citing the above-mentioned campaign donations from Middle Eastern contributors. That same day, an identical request using virtually identical language was made by the African-American Republican Leadership Council (AARLC). Like SLF, AARLC also requested an ethics investigation of McKinney. Additionally, AARLC has also asked the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Eddie Bernie Johnson, D-Texas, to suspend McKinney from that group. This is a transparent ploy to intimidate and divide black members of Congress, lest their patriotism be questioned.

Also on April 22, an article was posted on the website of Human Events, the National Conservative Weekly. Written by David Freddoso, it's headlined "Feds Searched Offices of Seven McKinney Donors." Many Arab names are listed as well as several organizations, some of which have names with Arab or Islamic references. Going into excruciating detail, Freddoso lists names of individuals, organizations, dollar amounts, dates of search warrants, judges signing search warrants (interestingly, copies of search warrants were allegedly obtained by Human Events), and the connections between all these details. Then, Freddoso writes, "None of the McKinney contributors has been charged with any crime, a Customs spokesman said." Apparently, Freddoso finds not being charged with a crime to be news.

HYSTERICAL BLINDNESS

Britain's The Guardian reported March 25 on a recent FBI raid. The Republican Party was accepting sizeable donations to a political action committee called The Islamic Institute from an alleged terrorist support group, the Safa Trust. It seems that the Safa Trust had been sending money to both the Republican Party and to terrorist groups at the same time. This reported direct linkage between terrorist funding and the Republican Party was conveniently ignored, while McKinney was attacked with much weaker allegations. These backfired too.

SLF's report, AARLC's letter, and Freddoso's article all specifically discuss donations to McKinney from Abdurahman Alamoudi, founder and executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC). According to an April 24 article at onlinejournal.com, AMC supported George W. Bush in the 2000 campaign and donated money to him. Bush also invited Alamoudi to the Sept. 14 prayer service for the 9-11 victims at the National Cathedral. Additionally, long-time Bush associate Grover Norquist has been doing business with Alamoudi, and is a registered lobbyist for the Islamic Institute. According to the Oct. 4 issue of the Boston Phoenix, Norquist's firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies LLC, has been paid over $20,000 by Alamoudi.

Despite Alamoudi's Republican connections, his donation to McKinney is used as the "smoking gun" in the April 22 column by nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker. Parker has been one of the most prolific members of the "get McKinney" team, jumping into the smear campaign with all four paws. Parker wrote about McKinney's radio comments on April 17 and 22. She's very upset. In the April 17 column, Parker dreams of inaugurating "The McKinney Award -- for people too stupid to serve in public office." Further on, Parker, like everyone participating in the smear campaign, claims that McKinney said Bush knew of the impending 9-11 attacks, and accused the president of mass murder. She also picks up Jonah Goldberg's pathetic attempt at sarcasm, writing "A complete investigation also might prove that McKinney has been dropping acid and living with cross-dressing dental hygienists under the Brooklyn Bridge." What is it about outspoken black women that makes right-wing nut jobs attribute unusual sexual behavior to them?

In her April 22 column, Parker reiterates her lie as to what McKinney actually said. She goes on: "She's black, which means people give her a pass lest they be perceived racist." Parker quotes an unnamed "e-mailer" who quotes a friend in Ramallah: "If you see 'Cynth,' kindly tell her that Arab TV networks appreciate her comments for they now have the needed 'proof' that their paranoia is rational." Parker closes: "None of which is to suggest that Cynthia McKinney is a terrorist, or a terrorist sympathizer, or even a socialist rabble-rouser who despises her own country. On the other hand, using McKinney's own talent for inferential dot-connecting, she just might be."

Despite finding nice ways to call McKinney a terrorist and traitor, Parker strenuously defends her independence and complete lack of bias. In her April 24 column, which is about so-called "conspiracy theories," Parker wrote, "I'm told, for instance, that I'm paid by the right-wing propaganda machine, given my support of most Bush policies in the wake of 9-11 and my rejection of current conspiracy theories.'You're being paid to lie to the American people,' wrote one of my new friends. Here's the truth: I know of no reporter, editor or columnist in the Western hemisphere who wouldn't sell his mother's honeymoon pictures for a good story, no matter whose life gets ruined.

No one, especially a president, is off limits when truth is at stake, not to mention Pulitzers." Perhaps Parker found a new dedication to Truth after writing two consecutive columns filled with lies, innuendo and character assassination. The story about McKinney's comments on the Flashpoints radio show traveled around the media for about 12 days, then just petered out. Several newspapers ran editorials condemning her, including the AJC and the New York Post. Comments and asides were made about her on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Generally, she was described as crazy, pro-Iraqi, a conspiracy theorist, irresponsible or dangerous, but it didn't seem to work. The public wasn't responding with the sense of outrage the media is used to being able to create.

On April 17 ABCNews.com ran a piece by Dean Schabner headed, "What Consensus? Conspiracy Theorist Immune to the Widespread Support For War on Terror." First line: "When the government said evidence pointed to Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, other voices wondered why investigators weren't looking in other directions." The article, about three pages, lays out many of the beliefs that, apparently, a lot of people have, and discusses them in a calm, measured manner. While Schabner does eventually get around to dismissing everything but the official story as "conspiracy theories," his words and the words of the "experts" he quotes don't have the wild-eyed hatred and anger that the stories about McKinney generally do. Schabner comes close to giving the "non-believers" a degree of respect.

TRUE GRIT

The acceptability of alternate explanations for 9-11 may be growing for a very simple reason. According to a poll taken in late-April by Scott Rasmussen Public Opinion Research, 36 percent of Americans believe Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election. Over a third of America's citizens believe the man occupying the White House to be a fraud! With such a large portion of the country believing George W. Bush is not really the president, it's not hard to understand why almost half of the voters in the AJC poll indicated they do not believe the Bush Administration's story about 9-11, and support McKinney's call for a full investigation. Whenever Bush allies try to impose new police-state tactics on Americans, such as warrantless searches, random drug tests, racial profiling, or stop-and-frisk laws, they always say, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. It's just a minor inconvenience for the public good."

If the Bush Administration keeps repeating that mantra, then they should have no trouble supporting McKinney's call for a full and complete investigation into 9-11.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/050702_killthe.html

xoxox

THE STORY OF THE CENTURY AND THE EFFORT TO DERAIL IT - egarris@antiwar.com THE McKINNEY CONSPIRACY THEORY

http://etherzone.com/2002/raim051702.shtml

Intended Rep. McKinney's Call for 9-11 Investigation

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=26029

911- What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=26009

Instant Messages To Israel Warned Of WTC Attack - Brian McWilliams

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=26010

Proclamation of Liberty

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=25952

POWERFUL SPEECH BY REP. RON PAUL

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=24626

5th Annual Sovereignty & Your Rights Seminar - Jay Walley

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=25962

THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT: A PRINCIPLE IN NEED OF RENEWAL

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=25994

My implant is guarnteed for life! - APFN

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=25804

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Find elected officials, including the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, local officials, and more.

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

5/12/02
3:41:56 PM

WildAlert

Thousands of folks within the WildAlert community have taken action to help keep Yellowstone free of snowmobiles. Your letters are enormously helpful. If you haven't yet participated in this campaign, it's not too late. You can send a letter to the Park Service, urging a phase out of snowmobiles, at:

http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2&item=1092

or, ask your Representative to support long-lasting protection by co-sponsoring the Yellowstone Protection Act:

http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2&item=1429

This issue of WildAlert contains news and updates on:

-- California Wild Heritage Act

-- Energy legislation and Arctic Refuge drilling

-- Powder River Basin

CALIFORNIA WILD HERITAGE ACT

Next week, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is expected to introduce the "California Wild Heritage Wilderness Act of 2002," designating 2.5 million acres of Wilderness and 400 miles of Wild & Scenic Rivers.

During the past several years The California Wild Heritage Campaign, a statewide coalition of over 200 organizations and businesses, have inventoried the state's unprotected wilderness and wild rivers and have been building support from local, state and federal elected officials and within rural communities.

Among the special areas that would gain permanent protection:

--The King Range of Northern California, the longest undisturbed coastline in the country.

--The Ventana Wilderness Additions, home to the California Condor.

--The White Mountains of the Eastern Sierra, the 2nd largest roadless area in the US and home to the oldest living trees in the world.

--The Avawatz Mountains in the California Desert, a spring-watered stronghold for desert bighorn sheep.

--The Upper San Diego River, one of the most remote areas in Southern California, and key to protecting water quality for San Diego.

Future WildAlerts will keep you posted about how you can help advance this campaign. In the meantime, learn more about the California Wild Heritage Campaign at:

http://www.californiawild.org/coalition.html

ENERGY BILL AND ARCTIC REFUGE DRILLING

Citizens' outcry helped to keep the Senate Energy Bill (passed a few weeks ago) free of measures to open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and other wild and sensitive areas in the lower 48 to oil drilling. But the House bill **did** include such measures, so threats remain to both the Arctic and places like the Rocky Mountain Front in the American West. (For more on threats to the lower 48 states, see: Big Oil's Energy Plan, a report by The Wilderness Society, at:

http://www.wilderness.org/eyewash/energy/index.htm)

The Senate and House bills now must be "reconciled" in Conference Committee. House Conference Committee members have not yet been announced, but Senate Conference Committee members are:

Sens. Baucus (D-MT); Bingaman (D-NM); Breaux (D-LA); Craig (R-ID); Domenici (R-NM); Grassley (R-IN); Hollings (D-SC); Jeffords (I-VT); Kerry (D-MA); Lieberman (D-CT); Lott (R-MS); Murkowski (R-AK); Nickles (R-OR); Reid (D-NV); Rockefeller (D-VA) and Thomas (R-WY).

The Conference Committee is unlikely to meet until after the Memorial Day recess. A future WildAlert will have a call to action urging conferees to keep energy legislation clear of drilling within America's special wild places, so stay tuned.

Powder River Basin

Your comments on the Bureau of Land Management's proposals to dramatically increase oil and natural gas drilling in the spectacular Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana are making a huge difference. To date, at least 17,000 comments have been sent regarding the Wyoming environmental impact statement, and well over 11,000 have been sent regarding the Montana impact statement.

Due to this outpouring, BLM was forced to extend the comment deadline on the Wyoming EIS by a month, to May 15. Another factor in BLM's decision to extend the comment deadline was the fact that EPA has preliminarily given the Wyoming impact statement its worst possible rating, which may delay -- and hopefully will modify -- this destructive project. Since the Senate rejected oil drilling in the arctic wilderness, attention has shifted to the Rockies, and places like the Powder River Basin has become ground zero in the energy debate.

You can still take action on this at:

http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2&item=1375

For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal. -Thomas Jefferson

For a full list of Action Items, visit

http://www.wilderness.org/whatcan/takeaction.htm

5/12/02
3:24:06 PM

The Solution Is The Problem

The US Presents Itself as the Peace-Broker in the Middle East. The Reality is Different.

by Noam Chomsky, May 11, 2002

A year ago, the Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling observed that "what we feared has come true - War appears an unavoidable fate", an "evil colonial" war. His colleague Ze'ev Sternhell noted that the Israeli leadership was now engaged in "colonial policing, which recalls the takeover by the white police of the poor neighborhoods of the blacks in South Africa during the apartheid era". Both stress the obvious: there is no symmetry between the "ethno-national groups" in this conflict, which is centered in territories that have been under harsh military occupation for 35 years.

The Oslo "peace process", begun in 1993, changed the modalities of the occupation, but not the basic concept. Shortly before joining the Ehud Barak government, historian Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote that "the Oslo agreements were founded on a neo-colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other forever". He soon became an architect of the US-Israel proposals at Camp David in 2000, which kept to this condition. At the time, West Bank Palestinians were confined to 200 scattered areas. Bill Clinton and Israeli prime minister Barak did propose an improvement: consolidation to three cantons, under Israeli control, virtually separated from one another and from the fourth enclave, a small area of East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian communications. The fifth canton was Gaza. It is understandable that maps are not to be found in the US mainstream. Nor is their prototype, the Bantustan "homelands" of apartheid South Africa, ever mentioned.

No one can seriously doubt that the US role will continue to be decisive. It is crucial to understand what that role has been, and how it is internally perceived. The version of the doves is presented by the editors of the New York Times, praising President Bush's "path-breaking speech" and the "emerging vision" he articulated. Its first element is "ending Palestinian terrorism" immediately. Some time later comes "freezing, then rolling back, Jewish settlements and negotiating new borders" to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state. If Palestinian terror ends, Israelis will be encouraged to "take the Arab League's historic offer of full peace and recognition in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal more seriously". But first Palestinian leaders must demonstrate that they are "legitimate diplomatic partners".

The real world has little resemblance to this self-serving portrayal - virtually copied from the 1980s, when the US and Israel were desperately seeking to evade PLO offers of negotiation and political settlement. In the real world, the primary barrier to the "emerging vision" has been, and remains, unilateral US rejectionism. There is little new in the current "Arab League's historic offer".

It repeats the basic terms of a security council resolution of January 1976 which called for a political settlement on the internationally recognized borders "with appropriate arrangements ... to guarantee ... the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of all states in the area". This was backed by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states and the PLO but opposed by Israel and vetoed by the US, thereby vetoing it from history. Similar initiatives have since been blocked by the US and mostly suppressed in public commentary.

Not surprisingly, the guiding principle of the occupation has been incessant humiliation. Israeli plans for Palestinians have followed the guidelines formulated by Moshe Dayan, one of the Labour leaders more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight. Thirty years ago Dayan advised the cabinet that Israel should make it clear to refugees that "we have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave". When challenged, he responded by citing Ben-Gurion, who said that "whoever approaches the Zionist problem from a moral aspect is not a Zionist". He could have also cited Chaim Weizmann, first president of Israel, who held that the fate of the "several hundred thousand negroes" in the Jewish homeland "is a matter of no consequence".

The Palestinians have long suffered torture, terror, destruction of property, displacement and settlement, and takeover of basic resources, crucially water. These policies have relied on decisive US support and European acquiescence. "The Barak government is leaving Sharon's government a surprising legacy," the Israeli press reported as the transition took place: "the highest number of housing starts in the territories since Ariel Sharon was minister of construction and settlement in 1992 before the Oslo agreements" -funding provided by the American taxpayer.

It is regularly claimed that all peace proposals have been undermined by Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel (the facts are quite different), and by terrorists like Arafat who have forfeited "our trust". How that trust may be regained is explained by Edward Walker, a Clinton Middle East adviser: Arafat must announce that "we put our future and fate in the hands of the US" - which has led the campaign to undermine Palestinian rights for 30 years.

The basic problem then, as now, traces back to Washington, which has persistently backed Israel's rejection of a political settlement in terms of the broad international consensus. Current modifications of US rejectionism are tactical. With plans for an attack on Iraq endangered, the US permitted a UN resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from the newly-invaded territories "without delay" - meaning "as soon as possible", secretary of state Colin Powell explained at once. Powell's arrival in Israel was delayed to allow the Israeli Defense Force to continue its destructive operations, facts hard to miss and confirmed by US officials.

When the current intifada broke out, Israel used US helicopters to attack civilian targets, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, hardly in self-defense. Clinton responded by arranging what the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz called "the largest purchase of military helicopters by the Israeli Air Force in a decade", along with spare parts for Apache attack helicopters. A few weeks later, Israel began to use US helicopters for assassinations. These extended last August to the first assassination of a political leader: Abu Ali Mustafa. That passed in silence, but the reaction was quite different when Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi was killed in retaliation. Bush is now praised for arranging the release of Arafat from his dungeon in return for US-UK supervision of the accused assassins of Ze'evi. It is inconceivable that there should be any effort to punish those responsible for the Mustafa assassination.

Further contributions to enhancing terror took place last December, when Washington again vetoed a security council resolution calling for dispatch of international monitors. Ten days earlier, the US boycotted an international conference in Geneva that once again concluded that the fourth Geneva convention applies to the occupied territories, so that many US-Israeli actions there are "grave breaches", hence serious war crimes. As a "high contracting party", the US is obligated by solemn treaty to prosecute those responsible for such crimes, including its own leadership. Accordingly, all of this passes in silence.

But the US has not officially withdrawn its recognition that the conventions apply to the occupied territories, or its censure of Israeli violations as the "occupying power". In October 2000 the security council reaffirmed the consensus, "call[ing] on Israel, the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations..." The vote was 14-0. Clinton abstained.

Until such matters are permitted to enter mainstream discussion in the US, and their implications understood, it is meaningless to call for "US engagement in the peace process", and prospects for constructive action will remain grim.

chomsky@MIT.edu

Source: http://www.Guardian.co.uk

5/11/02
6:08:21 PM

t r u t h o u t | 05.12

Blair Says No Attack on Iraq Without UN Assent

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12A.Blair.Iraq.htm

Israel Postpones Gaza Operation

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12B.Israel.Gaza.htm

White House Attempts to Prevent Questioning of Cheney Aide

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12C.Lundquist.Qs.htm

Bernard Weiner | Why Is America Behaving This Way?: A Letter to European Friends

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12D.BW.EU.Friends.htm

Daschle Hands Bush Recommendation for Election Commission Post

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12E.Daschle.Weintraub.htm

Senators Debbie Stabenow And Jean Carnahan | Deliver The Weekly Democratic Radio Address

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12F.Stabenow.Carnahan.htm

Paul Krugman | Smoking Fat Boy

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12G.PK.Fat.Boy.htm

Governor of Maryland Declares Moratorium on Executions

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12H.MD.Executions.htm

Famine Sweeps Southern Africa. Millions Suffering in Crisis Created by Nature, Exacerbated by Man

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.12I.Africa.Famine.htm

5/11/02
6:06:39 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

UN: POLLUTION KILLS THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN

NEW YORK, New York, May 10, 2002 (ENS) - About 5,500 children die each day around the world from diseases caused by polluted air, water and food, concludes a new study released Thursday by three United Nations agencies. The report details the deadly threat that environmental degradation poses to the Earth's most vulnerable citizens.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-10-06.html

ENVIRONMENTAL PROSECUTOR WINS CASE AGAINST JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

By Jim Crabtree

CLEVELAND, Ohio, May 10, 2002 (ENS) - For the first time a federal prosecutor has won a case against the Department of Justice for harassment stemming from attempts to prosecute environmental crimes. In a decision Thursday, a U.S. Department of Labor court ruled that the Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot retaliate against its own prosecutors for investigating crimes.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-10-05.html

SPECIAL PLACES, SPECIAL BIRDS HIGHLIGHT A SPECIAL DAY

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, May 10, 2002 (ENS) - Doppler radar, nets as fine as spider's webs, and experienced eyes and ears are just some of the tools that biologists and bird enthusiasts will employ this weekend in the study and celebration of migratory birds. This Saturday is International Migratory Bird Day, and both private groups and public institutions will be offering educational programs on these international ambassadors.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-10-07.html

MADAGASCAR REVEALS NEW SPECIES OF FISH, CORALS

WASHINGTON, DC, May 10, 2002 (ENS) - Three new species of fish and nine species of coral new to science have been discovered in the waters around the African island country of Madagascar.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-10-02.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MAY 10, 2002

DOE Delays Plutonium Shipments to South Carolina

U.S. - Russia Task Force Tackles Dirty Bombs

House Defense Bill Approves Environmental Exemptions

10 Miles of California Coastline Protected

Ship Pollution Treaty Headed for Ratification

Fishing Buybacks Fail to Help Fisheries

DEET Linked to Neurological Damage

Week Long Survey Targets Davidson Seamount

Cleaning Air Could Cost Just Pennies

New York Bans Lead Sinker Sales

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-10-09.html

5/11/02
6:04:58 PM

AlterNet proudly presents an exclusive report by Stephen Pizzo, longtime investigative journalist and best-selling author of "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans."

In a five-part series, Pizzo takes an in-depth look at House Majority Whip Tom Delay, reviewing a political career filled with contradictions and questionable relationships. From his deep ties to Enron to South Pacific sweatshops, Tom DeLay has built a well-financed and ruthless axis of influence.

"Tom DeLay has become the Teflon Don of the radical right of his party," Pizzo writes. "Undamaged by criticism, legal challenges and ethical complaints, DeLay has only grown bolder over the years. While few in Congress respect Tom DeLay, most fear him -- and with good reason. Anyone who crosses Tom DeLay quickly learns there is a price to pay."

Tom DeLay on the well-documented abuses in sweatshops on the Mariana Islands: "I saw some of those factories. They were air-conditioned. I didn't see anyone sweating."

Tom DeLay on the separation of church and state: "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church."

Tom DeLay on Darwin: "Give me one example that proves evolution. One example! You can't."

Visit http://www.alternet.org on Monday, May 13 for the first installment.

Stephen Pizzo's book "Inside Job," is now available in ebook format. "Inside Job" chronicles the savings and loans debacle from beginning to end and features a familiar cast of characters, including Arthur Andersen, doing for the S&Ls what it later did for Enron. Available for $8.50 at: http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook2072.htm

http://www.alternet.org

5/11/02
5:58:40 PM

TAKE ACTION: PROTEST THE ICC PULL-OUT

On Monday, the Bush Administration decided to pull out of the International Criminal Court. If it weren't such a heavy blow against the enforcement of human rights and international justice, it would be ironic. In the midst of the most sweeping campaign against war criminals in world history, the US is undermining the only international body whose sole mission is to bring these people to justice. As the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch said, "The administration is putting itself on the wrong side of history."

Please help to spread the word about this grievous mistake by writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

Sample letters, talking points, and some newspaper addresses can be found at:

http://9-11peace.org/icc.php3

5/11/02
5:57:30 PM

SOME HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF US INVOLVEMENT IN DIRTY WARS

Over the years, the US government has supported coups that brought a number of repressive and brutal regimes to power, as well as the dirty wars which followed. Chile, Djakarta, El Salvador, Iran - the list goes on. In many cases military regimes replaced democratically elected leaders, and the killing sprees which followed were justified by the US government as necessary to wipe out communism--while being quietly covered up. The following links are meant to provide an introduction to the many notorious incidents that occurred from the 60's to the 80's. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should begin to shed some light on the long history of questionable US foreign policies.

A CIA-backed coup and massacre in Indonesia in the 1960's may have taken the lives of up to a million people.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54b/032.html

Thousands of declassified CIA documents reveal that the CIA aided in the overthrow of democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende in the 70's, thus putting Augusto Pinochet into power. You may have heard Pinochet's name before: his infamously brutal regime saw thousands killed, tortured, and "disappeared."

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=194

Henry Kissinger played a key role in the overthrow of Allende. This article explains his involvement (which he denies in his memoirs), and details the many instances of direct US and CIA involvement in the situation, such as setting up a fascist organization run by a former PR person for the Ford Motor Company.

http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/oct1998/kis-o21.shtml

This article on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Argentina's dirty war describes how it began with a coup and led to the disappearance of thousands of people during the 70's.

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=195

Evidence shows that US approval was also expressed for Argentina's dirty war, again through the influence of Henry Kissinger.

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=196

Reagan-era support for brutal counterinsurgency operations in Guatemala and Nicaragua has generally not received the coverage in the States that it deserves. This article details the former President's complicity in Guatemala, in order to make the argument that the US must face up to its own history.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/052699a1.html

This article lives up to its title, "What everyone should know about Nicaragua." The author provides a clear and concise explanation of how the US used brutal contras (rebel groups) to try to overthrow the democratically elected Nicaraguan government in the 80's, including how this history led to the adamant US support for one candidate rather than the other in the post-Sept. 11 Nicaraguan elections.

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-11/09weisbrot.cfm

Senator Jesse Helms has praised Pinochet and a former military officer who ran death squads in El Salvador, and was involved in supporting anti-communism actions during the Cold War. In fact, his efforts to eliminate communism led Senator Helms to support a Nicaraguan rebel group that has turned out to be one of the contra groups most heavily involved in narcotrafficking.

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0797/helm01.htm

US support of groups in Colombia have helped contribute to deaths and human rights violations there.

http://www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/colombia/tdeath.htm

5/11/02
5:54:26 PM

THE 1995 SREBENICA MASSACRE

This is a brief and informative case study of the notorious massacre that resulted in the deaths of thousands of male Bosnian Muslims, despite the fact that the area had been designated a UN "safe haven." It is enriched with maps, pictures, and quotes. Learn what happened, why, and who was to blame.

http://www.gendercide.org/case_srebrenica.html

The horror of this massacre is perhaps best expressed through the grief of those who lost their husbands, sons, and fathers. This article gives voice to some of the survivors, such as a mother who shares her memories of losing her husband and her son. It also details the grim work being done to examine and identify the bodies of the victims, both through DNA evidence and the "Book of the Missing," a collection of photographs of the articles of clothing found along with the bodies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/yugo/article/0,2763,684450,00.html

In April, the entire Dutch Parliament resigned over the conduct of Dutch peacekeeping troops in Srebenica.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/yugo/article/0,2763,685635,00.html

According to the Guardian, the Dutch report that prompted the resignation of the parliament also describes how the US used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims: "In the 1980s Washington's secret services had assisted Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. Then, in 1990, the US fought him in the Gulf. In both Afghanistan and the Gulf, the Pentagon had incurred debts to Islamist groups and their Middle Eastern sponsors. By 1993 these groups, many supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, were anxious to help Bosnian Muslims fighting in the former Yugoslavia and called in their debts with the Americans. Bill Clinton and the Pentagon were keen to be seen as creditworthy and repaid in the form of an Iran-Contra style operation - in flagrant violation of the UN security council arms embargo against all combatants in the former Yugoslavia. The result was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia." The government, however, seems unwilling to address American complicity in the issue.

5/11/02
5:52:01 PM

THE VENEZUELAN "VICTORY FOR DEMOCRACY"

Shortly after it occurred, President Bush praised the coup in Venezuela as a "victory for democracy." Shortly thereafter, the people of Venezuela returned the elected President to power -- a real victory for democracy.

Before the coup in Venezuela, John Pilger noted that a coup seemed likely, and wondered whether Venezuela would become the next Chile.

http://www.zmag.org/content/MainstreamMedia/PilgerVenezuela.cfm

The mainstream press in America reported that Venezuela's President Chavez was "unpopular" and "resigned," which was simply not true.

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=192

This article from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) gives very specific examples of how the coup was treated in the American media.

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/venezuela-editorials.html

President Bush's response to the coup has been criticized by Latin Americans, who say that the US ignored democratic ideals.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0417-01.htm

President Bush's administration has been implicated in the coup.

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=193

The US Navy is also alleged to have assisted with the coup.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0429-01.htm

William Blum, an expert on CIA military interventions, provides a list of reasons that the US would have a vested interest in getting rid of Chavez, including the fact that Chavez criticized the war on Afghanistan as "fighting terrorism with terrorism" and condemned the deaths of civilians.

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum0414.html

This article, also written before the coup actually happened, notes: "The spark . . . might have been Sept. 11, but the dark clouds gathering over Venezuela have much more to do with enduring matters--like oil, land and power--than current issues like terrorism. The Chavez government is presently trying to change the 60-year old agreement with foreign oil companies that charges them as little as 1 percent in royalties, plus hands out huge tax breaks. There is a lot at stake here. Venezuela has 77 billion barrels of proven reserves, and is US's third biggest source of oil. It is also a major cash cow for the likes of Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. If the new law goes through, U.S. and French oil companies will have to pony up a bigger slice of their take."

http://www.zmag.org/content/Colombia/hallinanchavez.cfm

Otto Reich, who is notorious for his part in the dirty wars of the Reagan era, is also known to have advised the businessman who seized the Presidency in the Venezuelan coup. Reich has now been appointed to the Board of Visitors at WHISC (formerly the School of the Americas, and an institution widely discounted by human rights groups for the methods it teaches).

http://www.counterpunch.org/reich0503.html

5/11/02
5:48:25 PM

"More dangerous by far than US isolationism is the unilateral demolition of the world's agreements, forcing every nation to live by its own rules."

This excellent article summarizes the events that demonstrate the recent US tendency to destroy international cooperation, and hypothesizes that these actions could be meant to pave the way for war in Iraq.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0423-05.htm

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Dr. Robert Watson was voted out of the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will be replaced by one of the current vice-chairs, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri. Environmentalists fear that Dr. Pachauri will not take the same strong stance on global warming that Watson did.

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=191

Although it was written before Watson was actually ousted, this excellent article describes the possible reasons for the US wanting the chair of the IPCC removed, including a connection to ExxonMobil. The bulk of the article is an interview with Watson himself.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/05/global_warming/?x

An ExxonMobil memo targeted Watson for removal: "It's bad enough that ExxonMobil controls White House energy and climate policies," said Daniel Lashof, science director of the NRDC Climate Center. "Now they want to control the science too."

http://www.corpwatch.org/bulletins/PBD.jsp?articleid=2192

Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)

The US led a successful effort to depose Jose Bustani, the man in charge of ridding the world of chemical weapons. Bustani advocated inviting Iraq into the OPCW (which would entail serious weapons inspections), and such a move would jeopardize the supposed basis for the US' campaign to oust Saddam Hussein. Bustani apparently had an excellent record--US Secretary of State Colin Powell called his work "very impressive" in a letter last year--but he was still targeted in what the Guardian calls a "chemical coup d'etat."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,685155,00.html

This coup marks the first time that the Director General of a United Nations agency has been fired midterm. This fact, coupled with the firing of the aforementioned UN scientist, is raising concerns in the international community about the US' ability to silence any opposition.

http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1761

Bustani's ouster is an example of the brutish nature of US politics: "This is how thugs operate. If you don't play ball, don't toe the line, if you give them any lip, they cut you off at the knees. Bare fists, brass knuckles, cold steel, hot lead -- it doesn't matter, they'll get you sooner or later. It's all about power: brute, blustering, rapacious power. The way apes do it. The way dogs do it. The way hyenas sort out the pack."

http://www.tmtmetropolis.ru/stories/2002/04/26/120.html

UN Human Rights Commission

The US was ousted from the UN Human Rights Commission last year. It has now regained its seat in the human rights body by pressuring other countries to withdraw their candidates.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0430-01.htm

Human Rights Watch has stated that the Human Rights Commission now counts many abusers as its members. These countries are more concerned with protecting themselves than with protecting human rights, compromising the abilities of the commission to "name and shame" offenders. The US is specifically mentioned for undermining efforts to protect human rights in the "war on terrorism."

http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/04/unhchrfinal.htm

The International Criminal Court (ICC)

The ICC also bears mentioning since the US has not only refused to ratify it, but is has also unsigned the treaty that makes the court possible. The court has received all of the ratifications it needs to come into existence, and will gain jurisdiction in July, but the historic unsigning could set a dangerous precedent for multilateral treaties in general. If other countries follow the precedent and begin to unsign, international law could be threatened across the board. The unsigning also raises doubts about the validity of any future American signatures to new treaties. Amnesty International calls this action a historic low point in America's human rights history.

http://www.amnesty-usa.org/news/2002/usa05062002.html

5/11/02
5:42:58 PM

Greenpeace's Positive Energy Newsletter May 5 - 12, 2002

Time for Greenpeace's CLEAN ENERGY NOW! campaign's weekly good news update!!!

Inside this edition:

- Stop the CPUC from Killing the Renewable Energy Industry

- Use Auto Lobby's Own Free Service to Curb Global Warming

- G8 Gathering: What's Going on Behind the Closed Door?

xoxox

Stop the CPUC from Killing the Renewable Energy Industry

Help stop the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) from killing the renewable energy industry in California! The CPUC is currently discussing the possibility of charging "exit fees" to "departing load" customers. This means that the CPUC are debating whether or not to charge people who invest in renewable energy systems for their homes and businesses an extra $0.04-$0.06 per kilowatt hour. These extra charges would derail the renewable energy market at the retail level in California, which is just now starting to boom.

Send a fax now to the commissioners telling them not to kill renewable energy in California, by going to:

http://www.cleanenergynow.org/bin/takeaction.fpl?action_id=127

xoxox

Use Auto Lobby's Own Free Service to Curb Global Warming!

The auto industry's smear campaign of deception has reached a new low. Bill AB1058, which passed the Senate and is now headed back to the Assembly for concurrence, will require California's Air Resources Board to adopt regulations that achieve maximum feasible reduction of global warming emissions by passenger vehicles. But not if the auto industry lobby has its way!

Recently, there has been a full-page advertisement running in major newspapers featuring auto dealer, Cal Worthington, claiming he is scared to death of the bill. The ad makes completely false claims about bill AB1058. But we can turn the tables and use their dirty tactics against them. Simply call their toll-free number, 1-800-988-2588, and follow the automated instructions or bypass them by saying your assembly member's name. You will be connected to your legislator's office, whereby you can tell the person answering the phone that you want your assembly member to vote for AB 1058. You can also call back and ask to be connected to Governor Davis' office to ask him to support the bill. Remember that this is the auto lobby's toll-free number, so they will thank you for calling to oppose the bill, but really, thanks should go to them for supplying an easy way for supporters of the bill to communicate that support to their local representatives.

To learn more about bill AB1058, visit:

http://www.bluewaternetwork.org

xoxox

G8 Gathering: What's Going on Behind the Closed Door?

Energy ministers from the G8 nations - the Group of Eight: Japan, France, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada and Russia -- convened last week during a two-day summit with a focus on energy policies. This gathering took place in Detroit, the home base of auto giant General Motors. Although, Loyola de Palacio, the European Commissioner for Energy, urged all the policy-makers to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, G8 members continued to ignore a report issued by its own task force last year to be more aggressive in developing non-polluting renewable energy sources. Rather than investing heavily in clean energy now, he agreed with other members that along with other renewable energy sources, there's a need to use more nuclear energy in order to enhance the security and stability of our energy supply. Ironically, even though he stated that "we cannot simply drill our way out of oil dependency," in a separate statement, G8 members were urged to refill their nations' emergency supply. On a better note, the G8 members emphasized the need to make the latest "clean and efficient" energy technologies available to developing nations.

To sign the global petition asking governments to choose clean energy over nuclear energy and the mining, drilling, damming and pillaging of the Earth's resources, go to:

http://www.cleanergynow.org.

Articles on this summit can be found at http://www.washtimes.com

and http://www.reuters.com.

The "Positive Energy" newsletter and our website, http://www.cleanenergynow.org, will give you good news about ways to achieve clean air, climate justice, and renewable energy solutions to our ongoing energy crisis.

5/11/02
5:31:26 PM

Settlement With Predatory Lender Cheats Borrowers A Second Time

Public Citizen, May 10, 2002

Class Members Would Be Worse Off Under Settlement Than If Lawsuit Had Not Been Filed, Public Citizen Tells Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A proposed class action settlement with the notorious predatory lender Delta Funding Corporation would release the company and its brokers from responsibility for years of fraudulent and deceptive practices through which thousands of homeowners were bilked into illegal mortgages and foreclosures, Public Citizen argued in an objection filed today with a U.S. District Court in New York. The settlement is subject to court approval and should be rejected, Public Citizen said.

Delta and its brokers allegedly targeted low-income and minority neighborhoods and pressured homeowners to take loans that they could not afford, writing illegal fees and penalties and high interest rates into the loans, according to lawsuits filed in 1999 and 2000 by the New York Attorney General's office and the U.S. Department of Justice. When borrowers were unable to keep up with payments, the company often foreclosed on their homes. Delta settled those lawsuits, denying wrongdoing but agreeing to close scrutiny from the agencies.

The class action settlement would award the approximately 10,000 class members an average of $50, although the vast majority could expect only between $5 and $20. Although it provides more significant awards to certain class members, that category is so narrowly defined as to be almost empty.

The settlement also would bar class members from suing over predatory lending practices in future foreclosure proceedings - effectively releasing Delta from responsibility for its illegal actions. This is particularly damaging because so many low-income and elderly class members are at serious risk of foreclosure.

"This settlement is appalling. It puts class members in an even worse position than if the lawsuit had never been brought," said Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney Amanda Frost, who wrote the objection. "These people were victimized already by Delta's illegal mortgages. They should not be victimized again through this unfair settlement."

Public Citizen filed the objection to the lawsuit on behalf of several class members who have chosen to opt out of the settlement, including Lucille Hardin, an 84-year-old widow who entered into a series of mortgages with Delta and was unable to keep up her loan payments, and the New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), many of whose members are class members who would be harmed by the settlement.

Another serious flaw with the settlement is that it lets Delta decide what type of relief each class member deserves, the objection said. For example, Delta can choose whether class members' awards should be paid out of two different funds, one of which is capped at $1.15 million and a second that is not capped. It is in Delta's financial interest to categorize as many class members as possible under the capped fund.

The class counsel did the borrowers a disservice in agreeing to the settlement, in part by arguing that the borrowers would not have done well in court litigation against Delta. But the U.S. District Court found in 1998 that the plaintiffs' case was strong, and Delta's illegal practices have been well-documented by advocacy groups such as South Brooklyn Legal Services that work in the low-income communities the company targets.

"If the court allows this settlement, the only winners are Delta and its brokers," Frost said. "They've made millions by deceiving borrowers, and this lets them off with barely a slap on the wrist."

A copy of the filing is available at

http://www.citizen.org/documents/DeltaObjections.pdf

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

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

5/11/02
5:19:52 PM

FAIR Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Media analysis, critiques and activism

MEDIA ADVISORY: What Happened in Jenin? May 10, 2002

As violence continues in Israel and Palestine, so does debate over what exactly happened during Israel's invasion of the Jenin refugee camp. Israel barred journalists and aid workers alike from the camp during the invasions, but as access restrictions have eased, human rights groups have issued graphic reports detailing evidence of human rights violations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and possible war crimes.

Some media accounts, too, have vividly described the damage across the West Bank: One New York Times story (4/11/02) reported that "it is safe to say that the infrastructure of life itself and of any future Palestinian state-- roads, schools, electricity pylons, water pipes, telephone lines--has been devastated." Lately, however, much U.S. coverage and commentary has passed over investigations of whether the IDF committed widespread rights abuses in favor of narrower-- and less meaningful-- wrangling over whether or not the IDF committed a "massacre."

Amnesty International has emphasized that "there is no legal definition in international law of the word 'massacre'," and that using the term in reference to Jenin "is not helpful" for determining whether the IDF violated human rights there (AI press release, 4/29/02). Nevertheless, the "massacre" question has become central to many journalists' approach to the story-- even when they don't have a working definition of the word.

One illustration of how poorly media have thought through the concept came when CNBC's Chris Matthews (Hardball, 4/16/02) asked chief PLO representative to the U.S. Hasan Abdel Rahman whether he had evidence of a massacre in Jenin. Rahman turned the tables, asking, "Well, first of all, what's a massacre?" With disquieting vagueness, Matthews replied, "Oh, a couple hundred people or civilians or ten or 20 civilians."

Most early estimates in the U.S. press of the number of Palestinians killed in Jenin ranged from 100 to 200. Media were caught up in the implications for Israel's image, declaring Jenin a "diplomatic and public relations minefield" (CBS Evening News, 4/24/02). As initial excavation work got underway, however, those original figures were downgraded, and the question for many news outlets became whether Palestinians had manufactured "massacre" claims. In fact, many of those early casualty figures had been provided by Israeli officials. "The Israeli army estimates that it killed 100 to 200 people in eight days of fighting," reported CBS Evening News on April 12. On ABC's Nightline (4/11/02), Dave Marash reported that Israeli defense forces "estimate 100 Palestinian fighters were killed there, but refused to say where the bodies are, and they continue to bar news people from the camp."

Once Human Rights Watch (HRW) gained access to the camp, the group was able to document 52 people killed by the IDF, including 22 civilians, many of whom "were killed willfully or unlawfully" (press release, 5/3/02). HRW's report on Jenin didn't focus on the sheer numbers of dead, however. Instead, the bulk of the report catalogued a pattern of serious human rights violations in Jenin, some of which the group says may be war crimes. The abuses include attacking and killing medical personnel, using civilians as human shields, failing to distinguish between military targets and civilian homes, and causing "extensive and disproportionate destruction of the civilian infrastructure"-- so much so that more than a quarter of Jenin's population is now homeless.

Amnesty International announced similar findings in a May 4 report, "The Heavy Price of Israeli Incursions," which condemned the IDF invasions of the Occupied Territories as collective punishment of Palestinians. The report documents "unlawful killings, destruction of property and arbitrary detention [and] torture and ill-treatment" by the IDF, and states that many of these actions violated human rights and international law.

The HRW and Amnesty reports were very direct in their conclusions, but some journalists nonetheless managed to miss the point. On NPR's May 4 "Weekend Edition," anchor Scott Simon asked NPR analyst Daniel Schorr to explain what the newly released reports said about Jenin. Schorr said:

"Human Rights Watch has found that there was no massacre as such. Yes, there were a couple of things that were not very nice. They found Israelis destroyed more buildings than they absolutely had to. The Israelis say they had to 'cause they thought they were booby trapped, but Human Rights Watch says sometimes human beings were used as human shields. Maybe. Some things happened which were not terribly, terribly nice, and I'm sure they happened a lot. But if the question is raised that 'Was there a deliberate massacre of civilians in Jenin?' the answer seems to come out no. "

It's hard to imagine a mainstream U.S. commentator characterizing civilians being "killed willfully or unlawfully" as "a couple of things that were not very nice"-- if the perpetrators were an official U.S. enemy, like Serbia or Iraq. And, of course, in large part it's up to Schorr and his media colleagues to decide which questions are raised about Jenin.

Some of those colleagues gave up even on the narrow question of a massacre, taking the troubling stance that the facts may never be known, or might not even matter. As CBS Evening correspondent Mark Phillips put it on April 18, "Did a wholesale massacre take place here? In terms of the hostility between Palestinians and Israelis, it almost doesn't matter. Perceptions are what count, and Jenin has already become another reason for mistrust, hatred and revenge."

The following night, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reached a similar conclusion: "Jenin will remain for the Palestinians a place of myth and legend and perhaps even a place of revenge." The same day, NPR's Julie McCarthy commented that "The story of Jenin is set to live on in memory and myth." On April 20, CBS's Phillips still didn't know who to trust: "What happened in Jenin depends on who you believe."

Of course, the job of a journalist is to separate myth from fact, and to investigate conflicting claims to see which are true. Even when journalists did try to report what happened at Jenin, however, that reporting was sometimes sanitized beyond recognition. Consider this description from the New York Times on April 21: "As Israeli forces pursued militants, civilians continued getting in the way and dying as a result."

Source: http://www.FAIR.org

5/10/02
4:12:59 PM

Do you care about

Human Rights Civil Rights Ecology World Peace

Do you wish you had more time to write to our leaders?

Visit: http://www.ProgressiveSecretary.org

To see the modern efficient way to make your opinions known.

With Progressive Secretary, you receive well written letters for your consideration. Each letter is addressed to your legislators and will detail a progressive stance on a current issue.

It is easy. With just a couple of clicks of your mouse, you can send persuasive letters to the policymakers that matter.

EASIER, FASTER! If you request it, Progressive Secretary's computer will write and send the letters for you. Each letter will be individually written and sent with your return email address.

Click reply or visit http://www.ProgressiveSecretary.org to learn more about the modern way to let the government know how you feel, or reply to me and I'll forward your name.

There is no cost, no advertisement, no catch and no obligation. Your personal information is never given out.

Sincerely

Mike Smith

mailto:Mike@webintellects.net

5/10/02
4:07:59 PM

Big Sur Deal Will Save Nearly 10,000 Acres Coast:

Conservation groups arrange $38-million purchase of wildlife corridor.

by Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times

A pair of conservation groups on Thursday announced they had bought nearly 10,000 acres in northern Big Sur to preserve the 10-mile stretch of mountains, old-growth redwood forest, oak woodlands and coastal terraces.

The Nature Conservancy and the Big Sur Land Trust amassed enough interim financing to buy the land from cellular telephone pioneer Craig McCaw for about $38 million. The plan is to sell it to the state and a regional park district, which will maintain it as parkland and protected wilderness.

"We are going to buy this land and manage it for wildlife and for people," said Mary Nichols, secretary of the California Resources Agency. "It was the missing link to create a 70-mile-long wildlife corridor from the Carmel River in the north to San Luis Obispo County in the south," she added. The deal was announced Thursday at a news conference on the northern tip of the property, attended by a group of state officials including actor Clint Eastwood, a newly appointed state parks commissioner.

"This is the northern gateway to Big Sur," said Bill Leahy, director of the Nature Conservancy's Monterey project. "It's the first thing you see when you drive down from Carmel. It continues for another 10 miles."

Much of the 9,898 acres rests high in the Santa Lucia Mountains that drop into the Pacific Ocean, creating possibly the most dramatic section of the state's signature coastline.

This jigsaw-puzzle-shaped parcel, assembled one piece at time by McCaw and named the Palo Corona Ranch, will link 13 wilderness areas and parks including Point Lobos State Reserve, Garrapata State Park and the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest.

As a conduit to existing parklands, conservationists said the former ranch will preserve a valuable wildlife corridor for mountain lions, bobcats and other animals.

McCaw, who founded McCaw Cellular and is a primary shareholder of Nextel Communications, has long been involved in conservation efforts. He has bought timber concessions and retired them to protect forests from logging. In 1998, he and his ex-wife, Wendy, paid to fly Keiko the killer whale to Iceland to prepare the star of the movie "Free Willy" for release into the wild.

When McCaw bought the first piece of the ranch in Big Sur in 1996 from the heirs of Stuyvesant Fish, he promised to safeguard the stands of old-growth redwoods. The Fish Ranch has its own storied history. It was the location for the movie adaptation of John Steinbeck's "Flight," a story about a fugitive in Big Sur.

McCaw subsequently bought seven other parcels to build his ranch, with an idea that the land would eventually end up in public hands, said his spokesman, Bob Ratliffe.

"Nothing is more satisfying than to see majestic and important pieces of our country like this one preserved for generations," McCaw said through Ratliffe.

Part of the property had been a working cattle ranch. It includes a barn and tack shed that will be preserved. "It's in beautiful shape," said Corey Brown, executive director of the Big Sur Land Trust. "We find very few properties in this pristine condition."

Gov. Gray Davis on Thursday pledged $32 million toward the purchase from Proposition 40, the bond measure approved by voters in March. The Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District has committed $5 million to help buy the ranch.

The two nonprofit conservation groups said they will mount a fund-raising campaign to make up any financial shortfall and will establish an endowment to maintain the land.

Money from the state must be approved by the Legislature as part of the budget, and is subject to state-approved appraisals of the land. The final disposition of the property has not been decided. Nichols said the plan is to carve up the ranch and add parts of it to adjacent state parks.

Some of the land is likely to end up in the hands of the Monterey Peninsula park district.

Nichols said the purchase will ensure that most of the Big Sur coastline, which attracts millions of tourists a year, will never be developed.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000033057may10.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dscience

5/10/02
4:04:10 PM

DAILY GRIST

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

DUTCH TREAT

Confess: You've played more than one hand of solitaire on company time. Maybe it's time to look for work with the Dutch Ministry of the Environment, where playing computer games could be part of your job description. The Netherlands is home to intense agriculture and industry, and is -- not coincidentally -- one of the world's hot spots for nitrogen pollution. A couple of Dutch enviro-heads decided the solution to the problem was to design a computer game that brought together policy-makers, farmers, industry reps, and plain old civilians to tackle the problem of nitrogen pollution. The result, NitroGenius, was unveiled last fall at the Second International Nitrogen Conference in Washington, D.C. Grist correspondent Erik Ness plays, wins, and tells all, only on the Grist Magazine website.

only in Grist: The Netherlands tackles nitrogen pollution with a game -- in our Main Dish section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/ness051002.asp?source=daily>

GO EAST, YOUNG CONSUMER

In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the Iron Curtain came up, signaling the end of the Cold War, the fall of communism -- and a new era for the environment in Central and Eastern Europe. Popular belief holds that the curtain rose to reveal a bleak landscape of environmental degradation wrought by unchecked industrial activity. In many cases, that was true. On the other hand, the constraints of communism -- limited freedom of motion, economic stagnation, and the chronic lack of goods -- kept certain environmental problems at bay. In the last decade or so, that's all changed: Although air and water quality have dramatically improved in the former communist bloc, a rapid rise in consumerism now threatens the environment. Environmentalists in the region are watching in dismay as malls, sprawling housing developments, and SUVs become ever more common. They say preaching sustainable lifestyles and anti-consumer messages to a people long deprived of basic goods is proving to be an uphill battle.

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Heather Maher, 09 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=89>

only in Grist: The Cold War shifts to the living room -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/ha/ha071999.stm?source=daily>

FIRE WALK WITH ME

Fires being deliberately set all across Africa are having a dire effect on the continent's ecosystems, a wildlife expert warned during a recent U.N. Environment Programme conference on African mountains. Many different groups are responsible for setting the fires, said Kenya Wildlife Service warden Bongo Woodley. These include arsonists hoping the government will give them the scorched land; squatters seeking to clear vegetation for grazing; honey-gatherers trying to smoke bees from the trees; and people who believe that starting fires will bring rain. The fires destroy forests that are critical to soaking up water from Africa's mountainous regions; without them, rivers can flood in the rainy season and stop flowing entirely in the dry season.

straight to the source: BBC News, Alex Kirby, 10 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=90>

do good: Take action to protect forests and people in Kenya <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/forests.asp?source=daily#ogiek>

PAPER TIGER

Todd Paglia might not have agreed to be a diarist for Grist if it weren't an online magazine. As a campaign director at ForestEthics, Paglia spends much of his time battling something you probably seldom think twice about: paper. If the thought of old-growth trees being cut down all over the world isn't bad enough for you, consider that the paper industry also uses more energy than almost any other in the U.S. -- not to mention tons of bleach. And a whole lot of greenwash: Paper companies love to tout their recycled products, but these often include as little as 10 percent recycled fiber, meaning the other 90 percent is virgin. ForestEthics is taking on the industry with market campaigns, designed to get corporate attention by targeting the bottom line. Might not sound as thrilling as, say, chaining yourself to a tree, but Paglia's line of work has him running undercover missions into Staples and rubbing shoulders with R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe. Read about these and other adventures, only on the Grist Magazine website.

only in Grist: The making of a radical environmentalist -- a week in the life of Todd Paglia, ForestEthics <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dearme/paglia050602.asp?source=daily>

SUR PRIZE

Almost 10,000 acres of California's Big Sur, encompassing mountains, old-growth redwood forests, and dramatic vistas on the coast, will be protected in perpetuity thanks to a land purchase sealed yesterday by the Nature Conservancy and the Big Sur Land Trust. The land connects 13 wilderness areas and parks, and was the missing link in a 70-mile-long wildlife corridor for mountain lions, bobcats, and other animals. The two organizations paid about $38 million to buy the land from Craig McCaw, founder of McCaw Cellular, primary shareholder of Nextel Communications, and a long-time conservationist. (In 1998, he and his then-wife paid to fly "Free Willy" star Keiko to Iceland for his release.) The land will be sold to the state and a regional park district; Gov. Gray Davis (D) pledged $32 million toward the purchase from a parks bond measure approved by voters in March.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Kenneth R. Weiss, 10 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=91>

5/10/02
4:01:08 PM

The Big Guns

by Holly Bailey

May 09, 2002 | In recent years, some of the Defense Department's biggest wars haven't been fought on the battlefield, but rather inside secluded conference rooms at the Pentagon or on Capitol Hill, where the nation's annual defense budget is crafted.

It's an annual rite of passage that has often prompted military brass to butt heads with members of Congress and the administration and, in some cases, with each other, as different branches of the nation's defense fight to preserve budget dollars that in turn pay for big-ticket weapons.

Even in the aftermath of Sept. 11, this year has been no exception. After weeks of speculation, the Pentagon on Wednesday formally notified Congress of its plans to cancel the Crusader, an $11.1 billion, 70-ton artillery gun system that has been in development for the Army since 1994.

Almost since its inception, the Crusader has been in trouble at the Pentagon. Some critics say the massive high-tech cannon is too heavy and cannot be easily deployed, while others balk at its price tag. The Army, in response, has argued the Crusader is essential to its future. That doesn't seem to have changed the mind of one of its major critics: President Bush, who spoke on the campaign trail in 2000 of a military noted "not by mass or size, but by mobility and swiftness."

But as the battle over the Crusader shifts to Congress, the lobbying dynamic is certain to change. Lawmakers with a vested interest in keeping the program alive have vowed to preserve the Crusader program, but even those efforts could pale in comparison to the potential lobbying prowess of the Carlyle Group, the Washington-based investment firm that owns United Defense—the defense contractor building the Crusader. After all, the firm has been working to save its prized program for years.

Who's on the payroll at Carlyle? President Bush's father, for starters. Secretary of State James Baker, who represented Bush during the Florida recount, is a managing director. William Kennard, who recently headed the Federal Communications Commission, recently joined Carlyle, as did Arthur Levitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. And that's just a few of the dozens of former Cabinet secretaries and other administration officials that are listed as employees of the firm. Their boss is Frank Carlucci, the former Secretary of Defense whose best friend and former college roommate, Donald Rumsfeld, now runs the Pentagon.

While it is not unusual in Washington to see former public officials take their connections and insight to the private sector, the Carlyle Group appears to have unprecedented access to the current administration. According to the New York Times, Carlucci met with Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney last year to talk about military matters—at the same time Carlyle was in contention for several billion dollars worth of defense projects, including the Crusader.

Carlyle officials have been particularly sensitive to reports about potential conflicts of interest, insisting that none of their employees lobby the federal government. "I have never mentioned the word 'Crusader' in (Rumsfeld's) presence," Carlucci told Fortune magazine last month. Indeed, the Carlyle Group is not registered as a lobbying agent in Washington, though according to records filed with the U.S. Senate, many of its subsidiaries, including United Defense, boast lobbyist payrolls of more than $1 million annually.

At the same time, Carlyle has been a prolific contributor to federal campaigns during the last two election cycles. During the 1999-2000 campaign, Carlyle and its employees contributed roughly $800,000 in soft money, PAC and individual contributions to federal parties and candidates, 62 percent to Republicans. (Of that total, more than $20,000 went to the Bush-Cheney ticket, not including the several thousand dollars Carlucci and others contributed to the Bush’s Florida recount expenses.) So far in 2001-02, the group has contributed $265,000, more than two-thirds to Republicans.

Of course, that money is peanuts compared to the dollars Carlyle stands to lose if the Crusader program is ultimately nixed. Prior to this week's announcement, the administration had requested $475 million for the program during the 2003 budget year.

Source: http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=18

5/10/02
3:56:21 PM

Jamming Citigroup's PR Message

An Interview With Ilyse Hogue Of Rainforest Action Network

Jennifer Bauduy is the associate editor at TomPaine.com

In mid-April, Citigroup launched a $100 million global ad campaign titled "This is Citigroup." Using images of elderly people, and people from Hong Kong to Brazil, the ads portray a caring bank, committed to local communities. But environmental group Rainforest Action Network (RAN), which has waged a boycott against Citigroup for the past two years, says the bank completely ignores environmental and social concerns and is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. RAN recently launched a counter campaign featuring photos that document destructive Citigroup-funded projects. Jennifer Bauduy interviewed RAN's Ilyse Hogue for TomPaine.com.

TomPaine.com: What spurred RAN to launch the counter ad campaign?

Hogue: Citi's objective with their ad campaign was to put a positive spin on their global presence around the world. They use individuals from different countries, in different geographical settings, holding the happy red umbrella. They are trying to position themselves as the warm fuzzy bank that cares about people.

They promote themselves as leaders -- as economic, environmental, and social leaders. What RAN is saying is: if you want to be a leader, then the progressive financial institutions are the ones that are getting out of environmentally destructive investments like deforestation and other activities that promote climate change.

If they are going to talk about their presence in South America or in Asia without talking about their profiting off of eco-system destruction, species extinction and deforestation, that is irresponsible.

TP.c: How exactly are they profiting from that?

Hogue: Citigroup is the number one lender to the fossil fuel industry, and it's in the top three lending directly to logging industries, number one to mining. All of these activities have disastrous impact on the natural world.

A lot of people don't understand that the capital investment that's provided by Citibank is the fuel for the machine of destruction [around the world]. The oil companies, the logging companies, they can't function without the massive influx of investments that they receive from Citibank and other big banks.

TP.c: Can you give us a specific example?

Hogue: In California, Citi underwrote the bonds for Maxxam Corporation, which was responsible for logging the Headwaters Forest. Headwaters was California's last big private stand of old-growth redwoods. The thing that was unique about the Headwaters project is that Citi underwrote the bonds using the trees as collateral. So, in order to pay back the loan, the company had to log. It was a viscous circle of environmental destruction.

TP.c: What banks or financial institutions do you hold up as a positive model?

Hogue: The one that we hold up is ABN/AMRO, which is the leading Dutch Bank. They came out with a groundbreaking policy last year committing to cease funding for all extractive industries in high-conservation-value forests. It's the right thing to do. It's what we hold up to Citi as the example that they must follow. It's also the economically wise thing to do. Banks like ABN/AMRO are getting ahead of the curve in terms of shifting their investments to sustainable alternatives.

The vast majority of Americans consider themselves environmentalists and they want to know that the companies that they are doing business with uphold those values rather than under cut them.

TP.c: Citigroup might argue that changing their policies would hurt them financially. Do you know if the Dutch company has suffered any consequences?

Hogue: As we talk to Citi and other leading investment banks, we need to point out that this is an investment in the long-term future of the planet and people. And so, to look at quarterly returns is disingenuous in terms of the environmental and social profit we will reap next year, five years from now, and seven generations from now.

I think that the ABN/AMRO commitment represents what consumers are increasingly pressing for. As we say to Citi, "it's not if you change your practices, but when." And we have to do it sooner rather than later because we are still losing acres of forests at an unprecedented rate, and we are still heating up the planet at an unprecedented rate.

TP.c: How successful has your boycott been?

Hogue: Now, in the second year of the campaign, I think we've built awareness and we are seeing that awareness translates into credit card cut-ups and students switching their loans and bigger [demonstrations]. I think we are getting more attention and more awareness about Citibank as the leading bank in destruction.

TP.c: What will a credit card cut-up accomplish?

Hogue: One of the slogans that's emerged from the campaign is people saying, "Hey Citi, not with my money." More and more people understand that it's their credit card balances, their savings accounts, and their student loans that often go towards these types of destructive activities. So cutting up your Citibank card is a symbolic act to let Citibank know, 'I will not continue to do business with you because I don't agree with your destructive environmental record.'

TP.c: What has Citigroup's response been?

Hogue: They say that they are interested in what we are putting forward to them, that they are interested in being social and environmental leaders. And we continue to dialogue and negotiate. But as we have told Citibank, we are interested in action, rather than words.

The Rainforest Action Network: http://www.RAN.org

The Multinational Monitor: http://www.MultinationalMonitor.org

Source: http://www.TomPaine.com

5/10/02
3:47:24 PM

TomPaine.com on C-SPAN!

Don't miss TP.c Editor John Moyers on C-SPAN

Monday, May 13, from 9-10am, EDT

He'll share the hour with ultra-conservative lip-flapper

Laura Ingraham, and the flying sparks will be moderated

by C-SPAN's Peter Slen. Tune in, call in.

TomPaine.com

http://www.TomPaine.com

ANOTHER REASON TO HATE SUVs

Driving Up Insurance Rates For Every Driver

by James Welborn

"When a Ford Expedition runs a light and turns a Geo Metro into an interestingly-shaped cocktail table, everybody pays."

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5624

The Loyal Opposition

TALKING IRAQ WITH THE 'PRINCE OF DARKNESS'

Our Columnist Imagines A Talk With Richard Perle

by David Corn

"Perle, full of confidence and hubris, makes it sound as if Mission Iraq could be a breeze. I wonder if anyone in the Pentagon is listening when the Prince of Darkness says, 'Trust me.'"

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5631

PARADISE LOST?

High-Risk Island Ecosystems

by Duane Silverstein

Although islands conjure up images of pristine tropical paradises, they are actually among the world's most threatened ecosystems -- endangering half of our planet's marine biodiversity and one in 10 people.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5585

MAKE THE PLANET SAFE FOR WALL STREET

A Satire In Song

by Peter Kastner

"Dumbed down schools, our kids can't read, and don't get sick, no national health... Make the world more safe for Wall Street."

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5590

JAMMING CITIGROUP'S PR MESSAGE

An Interview With Ilyse Hogue Of Rainforest Action Network

by Jennifer Bauduy

"Citigroup is the number one lender to the fossil fuel industry, and it's in the top three lending directly to logging industries, number one to mining. All of these activities have disastrous impact on the natural world."

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5613

CAPITAL EYE ON THE PRIZE

The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics has launched a new Web site dedicated to news and analysis of money-in-politics issues –

http://www.capitaleye.org

For nine years, the Center's "Capital Eye" newsletter has educated its readers about the role of money in our political system. Now Capital Eye is on the Web and will be updated regularly with original news stories that closely examine fundraising by politicians and parties and the special interests that are funding U.S. elections.

5/10/02
3:32:09 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

UNDERMINING EFFECTIVE REPORTING: NEW FCC PROPOSALS

by Jeffrey Chester, Media Alliance

-- The 9/11 attacks may also change journalism as we know it, if the FCC sympathizes with major media companies' pleas for deregulation.

IS TAKING PSYCHEDELICS AN ACT OF SEDITION?

by Charles Hayes, Tikkun Magazine

-- Imagining world peace might be a little easier if clinical use of psychedelics were an option.

PROTESTERS DETAINED IN MILWAUKEE

by Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive

-- Are you on the no-fly list? If you're a peace activist, non-U.S. citizen, or just have a "foreign-sounding" last name, you could find yourself missing a flight. Matthew Rothschild probes the secrecy and mystery surrounding "The List," and finds out that recent fears about a return to McCarthyism might not be misplaced.

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

5/10/02
3:30:36 PM

D0 It Anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centred; love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives; do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies; succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow; do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable; be honest and frank anyway.

People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs; fight for some underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you help them; help anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth; give the world the best you have anyway.

Author Unknown

5/10/02
3:28:57 PM

U.S. Renounces International Criminal Court

Globe and Mail, May 6, 2002

Washington - The United States, flouting the advice of major allies and enraging human-rights organizations, renounced Monday legal obligations toward the treaty that set up the International Criminal Court.

The decision, made formal in a letter to the United Nations, means the United States reserves the right to ignore the orders of the court, the first permanent world tribunal to prosecute people for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Canada and the European Union expressed disappointment and regret over the decision by the administration, which had already angered some allies by walking out on the Kyoto climate accord and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

In Ottawa, Foreign Minister Bill Graham took a swipe at the United States for refusing to allow its troops to come before the court while at the same time feeling free to unilaterally apply its own laws around the world.

But Ottawa said it does not believe the U.S withdrawal has dealt a death blow to the court.

"I wouldn't hide from you that I'm extremely disappointed," Mr. Graham said. "One can always hope that, in the future, they will see things differently. ... I didn't see the international criminal court as a threat to the United States."

Speaking to reporters outside the Commons, he said: "I think there's a certain irony in the fact that the United States - which tends to extraterritorially apply its laws and jurisdictions rather widely - is not willing to participate in a truly international consensus for (the World Criminal) court.

"So I'll continue to argue with (U.S. Secretary of State Colin) Powell or with anybody I can, whether in the Senate or anywhere else in the United States, that ultimately this is an important institution for global governance ... which both needs the United States and which (will ultimately) benefit."

The administration of former president Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 2000 so that the United States could take part in talks on the setting up of the court.

But both the Clinton administration and George W. Bush's administration said they did not intend to ask the Senate the ratify the treaty, for fear it could be used for politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. officials or military personnel.

"The United States has no legal obligations arising from its signature on Dec. 31, 2000," U.S. undersecretary of state John Bolton said in the letter delivered at UN headquarters in New York on Monday.

"The United States requests that its intention not to become a party, as expressed in this letter, be reflected in the depositary's status lists relating to this treaty," added the letter, addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said it is up to the countries that ratified the treaty to decide how to deal with the U.S. move. The court will be independent of the United Nations.

Deputy Prime Minister John Manley earlier rejected the idea that Washington had dealt a death blow to the court.

"We've recently passed the 60 countries required for the (court) coming into force and I think we move forward with that," Mr. Manley said. "It doesn't absolutely have to have the United States in it to be an important contributor to the global judicial dynamic."

Pierre-Richard Prosper, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war-crimes issues, said the letter to the United Nations makes clear that "we are not going to be a party to the process."

"It neutralizes the signature. ... It frees us from some of the obligations that are incurred by signature. When you sign, you have an obligation not to take actions that would defeat the object or purpose of the treaty," he added.

For example, the United States could reject an extradition request from the international court and decide to send the suspect back to his or her home country, he said.

"That could be construed as inconsistent with the objects and purpose of the treaty, since you are not co-operating. What we are saying is we have no obligations," he added.

Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Monday, restated the U.S. objections about the treaty and the court.

"The ICC (International Criminal Court) could have a chilling effect on the willingness of states to project power in defence of their moral and security interests," he added.

Most of Washington's major allies, including Canada and 14 of the 15 nations of the European Union, have signed and ratified the 1998 treaty and are strong supporters of the campaign for a system of international justice.

The United States says it prefers to rely on ad-hoc arrangements for particular conflicts, such as the international tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia.

But the issue that dominated domestic debate in the United States was that the court could claim jurisdiction over some of the 200,000 U.S. military personnel who serve abroad. The United States tried but failed to obtain airtight guarantees that they would be not be liable to political prosecutions.

Canada, one of the prime movers behind the creation of the court, said it was disappointed by Washington's decision.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, speaking in Madrid, said: "The European Union is an organization that tends to respect multilateral agreements, and we would very much like to see the United States joining this effort, and we regret that it is not so."

Human Rights Watch, the international rights organization, said Monday that renouncing the treaty was "an empty gesture that will further estrange Washington from its closest allies."

"The administration is putting itself on the wrong side of history," executive director Kenneth Roth said. "'Unsigning' the treaty will not stop the court. It will only throw the United States into opposition against the most important new institution for enforcing human rights in 50 years."

"The timing ... couldn't be worse for Washington. It puts the Bush administration in the awkward position of seeking law-enforcement co-operation in tracking down terrorist suspects while opposing a historic new law-enforcement institution for comparably serious crimes," he said.

A consortium of 23 other organizations, includes Amnesty International USA, the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights and the Rainbow Push Coalition also criticized the Bush administration's decision on the tribunal treaty.

"It undermines American leadership and credibility at the worst possible time," they said in a joint statement. "This rash action signals to the world that America is turning its back on decades of U.S. leadership in prosecuting war criminals since the Nuremberg trials."

Source: http://www.globeandmail.com

5/10/02
3:09:26 PM

Bush's Bay Of Piglets

If the US was the villain in the Venezuelan coup, Latin America's much-derided leaders were the heroes

by Duncan Campbell, The Guardian

Viva democracia! said the slogan scrawled on the bus offloading passengers near the presidential palace in Miraflores in Caracas this week. And so far democracy seems to be surviving in Venezuela, if only barely. The overthrow of the radical Hugo Chavez in a military coup on April 11 followed by Chavez's return to power within 48 hours was spectacular even by Latin American standards.

President Bush said after Chavez's return that he hoped he had "learned the lesson", but the main lessons need to be learned further north in Washington itself. The precise part played by the US in the coup remains unclear. What is known is that in January Mr Bush appointed, against the advice of the senate foreign relations committee, a man with a shabby record of covert meddling in Latin American politics: Otto Reich. Reich, a Cuban-American who was once the US ambassador to Venezuela, is now the assistant secretary at the state department for the western hemisphere and as such calls the shots for the US - almost literally - in Latin America.

In the Pentagon, the man with responsibility for Latin America is Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, who was the aide to the head of the Contras when they were waging their US-backed war against the elected leftwing Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Two of the Venezuelan military who supported the coup, General Efrain Vasquez and General Eddie Ramirez Poveda, are graduates of the US Army School of the Americas in Georgia, where many members of the Latin Ameri can military have been trained in how to deal with troublesome lefties.

The tycoon who led the media onslaught that preceded the coup and whose television station announced it, Cuban-American Gustavo Cisneros, is an old fishing pal of Bush senior.

While the US may not have been involved in the final timetable for the coup, it knew that one was imminent and clearly gave it a green light. While the world's attention was on the Middle East, the coup was greeted with speedy acceptance by the White House. One wonders if a Zapatista force had overthrown the elected Mexican President Fox whether Mr Bush would have responded by saying that he hoped Mr Fox had "learned his lesson".

It was President Fox and the often derided Latin American heads of state who behaved like statesmen. They have little love for Chavez or his policies, but they recognise a military takeover when they see one. Fox swiftly condemned it and said he would not recognise an unelected government. The secretary general of the Organisation of American States, the Colombian Cesar Gaviria, did the same.

This prompt action, combined with the angry pro-Chavez crowds on the street and the ill-advised dissolution of the national assembly and the supreme court by the newly installed president-for-a-day Pedro Carmona, changed wavering minds in the military. Chavez was returned to the palace. Only then, having realised their diplomatic gaffe, did the White House alter its stance. The lessons are plain. The leaders in Latin America know only too well what can happen if coups in democracies are allowed to succeed.

Bush was warned that by allowing this old discredited crew back into power he would be undermining the delicate relations between the US and her southern neighbours. He ignored that advice under heavy pressure from the powerful Cuban lobby in Florida, where his brother, Jeb, is running for re-election this year.

By doing so, he created an atmosphere whereby plotters must think they have carte blanche from the White House. As Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd said drily this week, those responsible for Latin America within the administration need more "adult supervision". Even the deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, who wrote to the Guardian in defence of Reich last year, admitted that the "formulation of the US statement wasn't what it should have been". This has been President Bush's Bay of Piglets.

It would be wrong to suggest that the coup was all got up by the United States. Chavez, who himself tried to seize power in a coup in 1992, has made many mistakes and many enemies. But he still enjoys a hard core of support of at least a third of the country, in particular the dispossessed who voted for him. He appears now to be trying, maybe too late, to repair some broken bridges.

On May Day, Chavez faces another test when a rally organised by the country's largest confederation of workers will be held in the capital. The good news is that the Latin American nations upheld the democratic position and recognised that it is still a chilling sight to see on television a bunch of burly men in uniform talking a little too closely into the microphones and announcing to the people that their president has "resigned".

Viva democracia! has to be more than a slogan on a bus. Perhaps a translation should be sent to the Latin American section of the US state department for them to stick above their desks: "It's the democracy, stupid!"

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4400202,00.html

5/10/02
2:56:04 PM

Some beautiful work coming to a theater near you

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Documentary filmmaker William Gazecki, known for his Oscar-nominated work on "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," has launched his own production shingle.

Focusing on documentaries, Los Angeles-based OpenEdge Media is in production on three projects and has more than 12 in development. Already slated for release is "Crop Circles: Quest for Truth," which opens in theaters this August. Gazecki plans to follow up with "Into the Mystic," a study of psychotropic plants and psychedelic use throughout history, and "God's Truth: The Orphans of Duplessis," a historic Canuck story of injustice and coverup by the Catholic Church.

5/10/02
2:54:16 PM

Spielberg to direct feature based on Palestinian Uprising

By Scott Tom Smittey

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- In an announcement from Dream Works, Director Steven Spielberg announced that his latest project documents the current uprising of Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza (Intifada).

Spielberg, who has previously documented the horrors of the Holocaust in Schindler's List and World World II in the HBO series Band of Brothers, hopes that his new project would break the silence on a subject that until now has been taboo. In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter Spielberg said: "As an American Director who also happens to be Jewish, I can no longer stay silent about what the Israelis and the Zionist movement have been doing in the name of Judaism and with our tax money." He added "For years, the Hollywood community known to embrace progressive issues has been reluctant to tackle the issue of Palestine for fear of reprisal by what is perceived as a blind Jewish support to Israel in Hollywood. This needs to change; the sad history of the holocaust is being repeated again in Palestine at the hands of those who claim to do it in the name of Judaism. We should not remain silent."

The project is sure to create a huge controversy in an industry that has been known to shun any pro-Palestinian activities. Actress Vanessa Redgrave was all but blacklisted from the Hollywood system after speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights in the seventies.

5/10/02
2:51:23 PM

About that same The Writing On The Wall Series #5 compilation Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org> wrote:

At last you write about nuclear issues. I devote my life to eliminating nuclear weapons, power, and waste, and educating people about them. I've enjoyed your messages, but never felt inspired to respond until today.

Sincerely,

Ellen Thomas

Proposition One Committee

http://prop1.org

BAN ALL RADIOACTIVE BOMBS

* depleted uranium, fission, neutron *

Please Sign Online Petition! - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html

Write Letter to Congress - http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm

NucNews - http://prop1.org/nucnews/

5/10/02
2:49:11 PM

INTERNATIONAL PEACE CAMP PLANNED

The Institute for Global Peace Work has organized an International Peace Camp titled "Peace in Palestine and Israel" in Tamera, Portugal from the 19th of August to the 6th of September. The IGPW has invited leading forces of the peace movement in Israel and Palestine, as well as engaged youth of this area of conflict. For more info, follow the link above.

http://www.tamera.org/english/igf/Israel/index.html

Israeli cabinet approves retaliation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,712421,00.html

Sharon eyes option of large-scale military offensive

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,712249,00.html

Boycott of US firms catching on in Middle East

High-visibility American food chains are being hit hardest. Branch managers of McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Egypt have conceded sales falling by 20 to 50 percent since the outbreak of the intifada, or uprising, 19 months ago.

http://www.dawn.com/2002/05/08/int7.htm

UAE: May 11 world day to boycott USA products and services

http://arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020506/2002050602.html

POLL: BUSH MIDEAST POLICIES OUT OF TOUCH WITH US PUBLIC

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0509-01.htm

Israel's "Book of Terror" Purporting to Show Arafat's Role in Suicide Attacks is 'Riddled With Omissions and Falsehoods' (May 9)

(...) In reality the documents portray Mr Arafat's military impotence. The papers the Israeli intelligence service have so far produced - assuming that most of them are genuine - paint a vivid, pathetic picture of his loss of power within the Palestinian community over the past 12 months, the suborning of his lieutenants and the gradual recruitment of his men by Hamas and Islamic Jihad opponents. (...) What the paper does show - yet again - is the huge amount of money available to the men who run the suicide squads. (...) It provides a startling contrast between the cash available to the suicide squads and the penny-pinching amounts that Mr Arafat apparently doled out. (...) The last thing they prove is that Mr Arafat is behind the wave of suicide bombings that continued in Israel even yesterday.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0509-03.htm

QUESTION: Where is all this money coming from?

Suicide Bomber Kills 16 In Israeli Nightclub Blast - Dozens Hurt

(...) Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack in a message to the Al Manar television station in Lebanon. But Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza City, said he could not confirm the claim. "We do not have any clear evidence or information except what we are seeing on TV.

http://www.rense.com/general24/su.htm

QUESTION: Could they have pulled a 9-11 on themselves to justify going after Gaza? Are you connecting the dots?

Invasion of Iraq: It's Sooner Than You Think (May 7)

(...) Among the more telling signals not discussed yet in the mainstream media is the revelation that a number of MASH units are being called up to report for duty in July. These same units will be committed up to a 6 month period from the July (...) Also, Pentagon hawks see Israel as the key ally in the war of terror in the Middle East. Hence, it's just as likely that Sharon's visit to Washington will consider Israel's role in the invasion of Iraq since Israel's military power may be required to keep the Arab states occupied during a US full-scale attack on Iraq. In fact, a recently published story by an Israeli military analyst suggests that Sharon would attempt to capitalize on the war against Iraq to settle scores with other Arab states and even to begin a horrific "transfer" of Palestinians to Jordan. (...) Of course, there should be no illusions that an invasion of Iraq would be an easy "victory." One Pentagon study pointed to an "acceptable" death rate of 20,000-30,000 US soldiers. The arrogance of such chilling scenarios is further compounded by the lack of estimates of the number of "acceptable" Iraqi deaths.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0507-04.htm

U.S. Envisions Blueprint on Iraq Including Big Invasion Next Year

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/international/middleeast/28MILI.html

U.S. Arms Sales to Israel End Up In China, Iraq

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0509-07.htm

ANDDOVUS Nations Authorize "Regime Change" for USA

Pro-Democracy Coup to be Staged No Later Than Next Spring BUENOS AIRES -- The Association of Nations Destroyed, Destabilized or Otherwise Violated by Uncle Sam, or ANDDOVUS, has authorized the ouster of the current U.S. administration by no later than March 2003. Foreign ministers of the 123 nations that make up ANDDOVUS met earlier this week in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they agreed to appropriate $42.8 billion for what they termed "regime change in the United States."

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0507-07.htm

5/10/02
2:46:14 PM

"We hear now of the Gaia hypothesis, of the interdependence of all inert and living matter, that we are part and parcel of a living planetary organism. Each of us is a cell, a perceptive nervous unit of the Earth. We have now a world brain: the United Nations and its agencies, and groups and networks around the world, are part of the brain. We are in the process of becoming a global civilization."

Robert Muller, Former Assistant UN Secretary-General - Visit Robert Muller's website which includes 4000 Ideas for Peace and Decide To poems plus how to order his books and links to other beautiful websites for a better world:

http://www.robertmuller.org/

Robert Muller gave a speech entitled "World Peace Is Inevitable" in San Diego on May 9 - details at:

http://peace.sandiego.edu

5/10/02
2:41:06 PM

More Than 76,000 Underground Fuel Tanks Leaks Go Unseen

WASHINGTON DC, May 9, 2002 (ENS), More than 76,000 leaking underground storage tanks across the country are polluting the nation’s groundwater, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can do little to solve the problem.

The leaks could be eliminated if Congress and the EPA would improve inspections and provide the necessary authority to bring tank owners into compliance with existing regulations, according to a top Congressional watchdog.

In testimony given Wednesday before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, John Stephenson, director of natural resources and environment of the General Accounting Office, provided evidence to show that more clout and funding from Congress could bring states into compliance with law.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) is the investigative branch of the U.S. Congress. Independent and nonpartisan, it studies how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars.

Recent studies have shown that underground tanks across the country are leaking hazardous substances, Stephenson told the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics, Risk and Waste Management.

In fiscal year 2000, more than 14,500 leaks or releases from regulated tanks were reported.

A leaky underground storage tank is unearthed. (Photos courtesy EPA)

As an example, Stephenson told the lawmakers of a school in Roselawn, Indiana, that discovered the children had been using and drinking water with 10 times the EPA’s recommended safe limit of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).

MTBE, an oxygenate added to fuel for reducing emissions and raising octane, has been found in drinking water sources due to leaks in underground storage tanks. MTBE poses health risks including damage to kidneys, livers and, in some cases even cancer, Stephenson testified.

A two year GAO sponsored survey determined that approximately 1.5 million tanks have been permanently closed since the EPA Underground Storage Tank (UST) program was created in 1984. This left about 693,000 tanks subject to UST requirements and left the states' programs to deal with these tanks.

The EPA has provided funding, about $187,000 per state, for dealing with the problem tanks, Stephenson said. The EPA retains authority for a small number of tanks mostly on Indian lands.

In addition, the Congress created a trust fund in 1986 to help EPA and the states cover tank cleanup costs that owners and operators could not afford or were reluctant to pay. The fund is replenished partly through a $.001/gallon tax on gasoline and other fuels. At the end of fiscal year 2001, the fund had a balance of about $1.7 billion.

Based on the states' responses to the GAO survey, the agency estimated that about 89 percent of the tanks had the required protective equipment installed. But more than 200,000 tanks were not being operated or maintained properly, increasing the chance of leaks.

Nineteen states reported frequent problems with corrosion prevention equipment, and 15 states reported that leak detection equipment was frequently turned off or improperly maintained. Of the remaining 76,000 tanks that had not been retrofitted with the required equipment, EPA and the states speculated that the tanks were probably inactive and empty.

Leakage apparent once the tank is revealed.

Even though the tanks may have leaked in the past, the contamination, which poses health risks, is often not discovered until the tank is dug up for removal. Most states and the EPA do not know if all inactive tanks are empty because those tanks have not been inspected. Over half of the states do not inspect all of their tanks frequently enough to meet the minimum EPA rate, which is at least one inspection every three years.

The ability to block deliveries has proven to be one of the most effective tools for ensuring compliance with program requirements, but 27 states lack the authority to prohibit fuel deliveries to stations with problem tanks.

"EPA believes, and we agree," said Stephenson, "that the law governing the tank program does not give the agency clear authority to regulate fuel suppliers and therefore prohibit their deliveries."

State agencies with insufficient money, staff or authority must rely instead on issuing citations and fines.

From the survey it is apparent that few government agencies know the status of underground tanks located in their jurisdiction, Stephenson told the subcommittee. Fourteen states reported some tank leaks, 17 said their tanks never leaked and 20 states did not know if leaks occurred.

The EPA and some localities have studies underway to obtain better data on leaks from upgraded tanks. The EPA is also considering whether it needs to set new tank requirements, such as double-walled tanks, to prevent further leaks.

Stephenson said the statistics show that improved inspection, an expanded staff and broader authority to enforce regulations are the keys to remediation of the health hazards posed by the tanks.

To address these problems, the GAO report recommends that the EPA should work with the states to determine training needs and ways to fill them. More specifically, there is a strong need to address the estimated 76,000 tanks that have not yet been upgraded, closed, or removed as required.

The report contains recommendations to the EPA and suggestions to the Congress on ways to promote better inspections and enforcement. Resource shortfalls can be overcome by expanding the use of the $1.7 billion tank cleanup trust fund to also cover additional inspection and enforcement activities, Stephenson explained.

Empty or inactive tanks appear to pose less risk than leaky tanks still in use. But even given a lower priority, the inactive noncompliant tanks can cover up contamination from earlier leaks. It is not until those tanks are removed that contaminated soil is discovered, because while a tank is in place there is no reliable method for testing the earth surrounding it.

Some states reported operators turning off leak detection equipment, particularly at tanks owned by small, independent businesses, such as cab companies and local governments. The states attributed these problems to a lack of training for tank owners, operators, and inspectors, Stephenson told the subcommittee. Smaller businesses and local governments find it more difficult to afford adequate training, especially given the high turnover rates among tank staff, he said.

Almost all the states reported a need for additional resources to keep their own inspectors and program staff trained. Forty-one states requested additional technical assistance from the federal government to provide such training.

The EPA is in the process of implementing its compliance improvement initiative, which involves actions such as setting the targets and providing incentives to tank owners, but it is too early to gauge the impact of the agency's efforts on compliance rates.

Excavated tanks are hauled away for disposal

According to EPA's program managers, only physical inspections can confirm whether tanks have been upgraded and are being properly operated and maintained. But most states do not meet the EPA's recommendation to inspect all tanks every three years nor do they have the enforcement tools needed to identify and correct problems.

Only 19 states physically inspect all of their tanks even at the minimum rate that EPA considers necessary for effective tank monitoring. Ten states inspect all tanks, but less frequently.

The remaining 22 states do not inspect all tanks, but instead generally target inspections to potentially problematic tanks, such as those close to drinking water sources.

Under current staffing levels inspectors in 11 states would each have to visit more than 300 facilities a year to cover all tanks at least once every three years. But EPA officials estimate that a qualified inspector can visit at most 200 facilities a year. Because most states use their own employees to conduct inspections, state legislatures would need to provide them with additional hiring authority and the funding to hire more inspectors.

Officials in 40 states said that they would support a federal mandate requiring states to periodically inspect all tanks. Such a mandate would provide them with the needed leverage to convince their state legislatures to fund an adequate inspection staff, they told the GAO.

Source: http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-09-05.html

5/10/02
2:35:17 PM

Cleanup Offered To Residents Near World Trade Center

by Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, May 9, 2002 (ENS) - Nearly eight months after the September 11 terrorist attacks that toppled the World Trade Center towers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided to launch a comprehensive inspection and cleanup to ensure that apartments near the fallen towers are not contaminated by toxins.

On Wednesday, the EPA announced it will collaborate with other federal, state and city agencies to ensure that apartments impacted by the collapse of the World Trade Center have been "properly cleaned." The project will include professional cleaning, by certified contractors, of affected apartments at the request of the residents or property owners.

The plan, which covers all Manhattan residential units south of Canal Street and the Manhattan Bridge approach, river to river, was developed by the multi-agency Task Force on Indoor Air in Lower Manhattan. It represents a marked change in the attitudes of the federal agencies involved.

Since the September 11 attacks, the EPA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have argued that indoor spaces are the responsibility of their owners and residents. Cleaning those spaces, even after a disaster like a terrorist attack, is not the job of the government, the agencies have said.

EPA regional administrator Jane Kenny said the cleanup plan is an effort to assure local residents and visitors that they are not being exposed to pollutants from the World Trade Center collapse at levels that might pose long term health risks.

"We understand the concerns of Lower Manhattan residents and we know that they are looking to us for reassurance," said Kenny. "While we cannot undo the events of September 11, we can provide the assurance that people's homes have been cleaned properly."

Kenny pointed out that tests conducted since September 11th have indicated that there is no evidence of "significant" long term health risks to residents and office workers from the air quality in Lower Manhattan.

"While the scientific data about any immediate health risks from indoor air is reassuring, people should not have to live with uncertainty about their futures," Kenny added.

The shift in official policy comes after months of criticism by local residents, non-governmental organizations and even some EPA officials.

Former EPA national ombudsman Robert Martin resigned from his post on Earth Day last month, shortly after raising questions about EPA Administrator Christie Whitman's potential conflict of interest in downplaying the public health risks of the World Trade Center collapse. For many years, Whitman's husband worked for Citigroup, the banking, insurance and financial services giant that owns Traveler's Insurance Co.

Traveler's Insurance could face millions of dollars in health claims from lower Manhattan residents if their ailments can be linked to the terrorist attacks. Whitman's husband now works for a Citigroup spinoff that manages about $800 million of Citigroup's investments.

Some citizens from lower Manhattan contacted Martin after September 11, complaining that they were experiencing breathing problems and other symptoms, despite statements released by Whitman assuring the public that the air in the region was safe to breathe.

The Department of Justice has begun an inquiry into whether Whitman erred in offering such reassurances, and whether her husband's employment created a conflict of interest.

At a public hearing in New York City in February, Hugh Kaufman, then chief investigator for the EPA's Ombudsman Office, told a group of scientists, residents, and small business owners that he believed the EPA was deliberately not testing the air quality in the World Trade Center area properly and covering up the reasons why.

"I believe EPA did not do that because they knew it would come up not safe and so they are involved in providing knowingly false information to the public about safety," Kaufman said at the hearing.

This week, the EPA changed course. Under the Task Force initiative announced Wednesday, FEMA will provide a grant to New York City that will pay for professional cleaning and testing of affected lower Manhattan homes.

The FEMA grant will fund certified cleanup contractors for residents who wish to have their homes professionally cleaned, and pay for follow up testing for asbestos in the indoor air.

"Today's announcement is a welcome step forward, and if properly carried out, it can help residents of lower Manhattan breath easier at home, in school or at work," said Senator Hillary Clinton, a New York Democrat. "People deserve to know that the air they breathe is safe - indoors and out. That's why I held a hearing on the subject in February. I am pleased that the task force for indoor air quality which I called for at that hearing has become a reality."

Households that do not wish to undergo a cleanup may request to have the asbestos testing alone. If those residences are found to contain asbestos, the occupant can then request professional cleaning. If no asbestos is found, the occupants will have forfeited their right to a cleanup funded by the government.

The Task Force will make available high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter vacuum cleaners to residents who wish to do their own cleaning, and to those whose apartments were professionally cleaned who wish to do their own cleaning on an ongoing basis.

A new hotline, to be made available by June 1, will provide information and take cleanup and testing requests, and residents will also be able to request these services via the EPA's website at: http://www.epa.gov/wtc/. The website is also the primary distribution site for all health and cleanup information related to the World Trade Center collapse.

All remaining unoccupied, uncleaned buildings will undergo a thorough professional cleanup, the Task Force said. The EPA is preparing to test various cleanup techniques in a still unoccupied building near the World Trade Center site to confirm their effectiveness.

Many workers from FEMA, New York fire fighters and Urban Search and Rescue teams wore no protective masks during the aftermath of the World Trade Center collapse.

The EPA also plans to collect samples of some pollutants associated with the collapse of the World Trade Center in New York apartments that were not affected by the terrorist attacks. The agency will use the data to determine the pre-existing or background levels of these pollutants in New York City's interior spaces.

"As New Yorkers rebound from 9/11, Mayor Bloomberg is committed to ensuring that the health and safety of residents and workers is of the highest priority," said Christopher Ward, commissioner of the New York Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). "New Yorkers deserve to know that their environment is safe from health risks."

The DEP will supervise the cleaning of a small group of heavily impacted buildings that have remained unoccupied since September 11. Some of these buildings have not been cleaned thoroughly, and most have not been cleaned at all.

The DEP has already begun contacting building owners to start cleaning up any residual debris on rooftops and building facades in lower Manhattan. The city is developing a database of the results of samples taken indoors and outdoors by federal, state and local agencies as well as building owners and contractors.

"This is a huge task," added the EPA's Kenny. "But I can assure you that we will not consider our job complete until residents and the business community of Lower Manhattan have regained a sense of comfort in the place that they call home."

Source: http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-09-06.html

5/10/02
2:30:20 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

CLEANUP OFFERED TO RESIDENTS NEAR WORLD TRADE CENTER

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, May 9, 2002 (ENS) - Nearly eight months after the September 11 terrorist attacks that toppled the World Trade Center towers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided to launch a comprehensive inspection and cleanup to ensure that apartments near the fallen towers are not contaminated by toxins.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-09-06.html

JUDGE, CONGRESS MEMBERS OPPOSE MOUNTAINTOP MINING RULE

CHARLESTON, West Virginia, May 9, 2002 (ENS) - For a second time, a federal judge in West Virginia has ruled that mountaintop mining permits that allow the dumping of mine wastes into streams and valleys are illegal. The ruling comes within a week of a decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency that would expand approval for such mining operations.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-09-07.html

THOUSANDS OF UNDERGROUND FUEL TANKS LEAK UNSEEN

WASHINGTON DC, May 9, 2002 (ENS), More than 76,000 leaking underground storage tanks across the country are polluting the nation's groundwater, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can do little to solve the problem.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-09-05.html

BREAKAWAY BERGS DISRUPT ANTARCTIC ECOSYSTEM

WASHINGTON, DC, May 9, 2002 (ENS) - Another large iceberg has newly calved from the Ross Ice Shelf, the National Ice Center has confirmed. Iceberg C-18 is the latest in a series of bergs to break away from the warming Antarctic ice mass.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-09-01.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MAY 9, 2002

EPA Enforcement Nominee Called Unqualified

Farm Bill Headed for Bush Signature

Commission: Damaged Reactor Cap Needs Replacing

Asthma Awareness Month Marked with Awards

Turning Lights Off Saves Bird Lives

Fuel Cells Demonstrated in 10 California Homes

Most Horseshoe Crabs Survive Medical Bleeding

Stranded Dolphin Returned to the Sea

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-09-09.html

5/10/02
2:27:21 PM

Gov't Mfg of Aids

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

Inquiry of Intelligence Failures Hits Obstacles Sept. 11: The lawmakers leading the investigation voice concerns that the CIA and Justice Department are undermining efforts.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000031609may04.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dnation

Aldous Huxley: The Ultimate Revolution, March 20, 1962 Berkeley Language Center - Speech Archive SA 0269

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html#huxley

REAL AUDIO: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/VideoTest/hux1.ram

GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN THE 9/11/01 TERRORIST ACTS

http://www.patriotsaints.com/News/911/Conspiracy/Collapse/uniform_demolition.htm

Welcome to the Stanley for Senate Web Site! 5 ways to prevent the next Timothy McVeigh

http://www.stanley2002.org/mcveigh.htm

Public Citizen is an independent voice for citizens in the halls of power. We take NO government or corporate money.

http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7171

`In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.' Find elected officials, including the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, local officials, and more.

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

5/10/02
2:21:55 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Old mobile phones pose growing waste issue - report - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15901/story.htm

US clean air rules blamed for high rural power costs - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15889/story.htm

Earth no passive victim of solar storms, NASA says - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15890/story.htm

US, Russia plan joint effort against dirty bombs - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15891/story.htm

Business, environmentalists spar over NY nuke - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15892/story.htm

FEATURE - Farmers' hopes dry up as drought plagues US Plains - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15895/story.htm

Europe's sweetmakers dismiss US toxic chocolate claims - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15895/story.htm

New bid to clean up London canals targets tourists - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15903/story.htm

Taiwan orders crippled supertanker out to sea - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15896/story.htm

Thailand "postpones" coal-fired plants - sources - THAILAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15897/story.htm

Canada will not ratify Kyoto without clarification - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15888/story.htm

South Africa moves to weed out ugly "national flower" - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15894/story.htm

Mexican truckers want to block US cargo trucks - MEXICO http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15902/story.htm

Japanese rally to resume whaling before IWC meet - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15887/story.htm

Japan lawmakers munch whale away from foreign eyes - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15899/story.htm

FEATURE - Whale burgers may be hazardous to your health - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15900/story.htm

INTERVIEW - Green factor to fuel aluminium use in cars - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15898/story.htm

5/10/02
2:15:40 PM

Corporate America's New Bottom Line

by Arianna Huffington, AlterNet, May 6, 2002

Every day the morning paper brings a fresh example of the flotsam bubbling to the surface following the collision of corporate greed and post-Enron reality: golden boy executives forced to walk the plank, formerly high-flying companies "restating" fraudulently inflated earnings, internal emails exposing the depths to which Wall Street firms have sunk to boost their bottom lines.

Yet the word emanating from on high -- from the well-appointed congressional committee rooms of Washington to the elegant dining rooms of L.A. -- is that the worst is behind us. Yes, they say, Enron was a bit of a wake-up call, but let's not overreact. We've learned our lesson, so please pass the truffle sauce and let's move on.

And, more than likely, that's exactly what we'd be doing were it not for Eliot Spitzer, the crusading attorney general of New York, whose investigation into conflicts of interest in the investment banking world is ruffling feathers from Wall Street to Capitol Hill.

His probe has so far uncovered shocking evidence that analysts at Merrill Lynch gave investors misleading stock recommendations in order to help promote companies their firm's investment bankers were doing business with. It has also forced the sheep-in-wolf's-clothing Securities and Exchange Commission to actually begin to do its job and launch its own inquiry into the matter.

The result? Well, surprise, surprise, Spitzer is now being told to back off and leave the matter to the big boys in Washington. While being careful not to cross jurisdictional swords, SEC chairman Harvey Pitt gently reminded Spitzer that "only the federal government can set nationwide standards." And Rep. Richard Baker, whose Capital Markets subcommittee held hearings on conflicts of interest on Wall Street, cautioned Spitzer: "It is essential that the SEC now lead the concluding phase of this inquiry." Concluding phase? Baker thinks the inquiry is wrapping up while Spitzer, who is after fundamental reform, knows it has barely begun.

So now he's having to both take on the bad guys -- and the guys who are supposed to protect the public from the bad guys. If Congress and the SEC had done their jobs, there would be no need for Spitzer.

The good news is that he is a man on a mission and won't be easily deterred. "Nobody can force me to pull back," he told me, "and I have no intention of doing so." As for the urgings of Messrs. Pitt and Baker, Spitzer doesn't pull any punches: "The hearings conducted by Mr. Baker were pointless. They didn't ask the right questions and they didn't produce the kind of evidence necessary to bring about real reform. As for the SEC, it clearly didn't step up and prevent these abuses from occurring."

Spitzer is savvy enough to realize that he won't be able to overhaul the way Wall Street does business without the support of the public -- and its outrage. That's why he released those damning Merrill Lynch emails, in which the firm's analysts privately trashed companies as " a piece of crap" (and other, less publishable, synonyms) while publicly urging investors to buy shares in the same companies. The emails also show that the highly touted "Chinese Wall" between Merrill Lynch's stock researching analysts and its stock promoting investment bankers was more of a wide-open gate. "The whole idea that we are independent from banking," wrote one analyst "is a big lie."

Spitzer's gambit has paid immediate dividends, shaming Merrill Lynch's CEO, David Komansky, into offering a mea culpa -- albeit a mealymouthed one. "Anything that happens on my watch," said Komansky, "I'm responsible for. Those emails were embarrassing to me.and I truly regret that they ever happened." Notice that he doesn't regret the out-and-out fraud the emails reveal; he regrets the emails. How much do you bet that the newest Merrill Lynch employee training session is something on the lines of "Making the Delete key your new best friend"?

Komansky's carefully calibrated contrition was the very model of the latest in PR-approved damage control: apologize quickly, accept responsibility, and put the past behind you. Only you don't really apologize, and you don't really accept responsibility. It also doesn't hurt to hire high-profile power players to help guide you through the crisis. To that effect, Merrill Lynch has retained Rudy Giuliani as an advisor. Maybe he can give Merrill Mike Milken's number.

But all the apologies and damage control in the world won't make this problem go away. Too many people were lied to and financially devastated along the way. Since the Merrill Lynch emails were made public, lawyers across the country have been inundated with calls from angry investors looking for restitution.

"Merrill Lynch used to be the gold standard for how an investment banker should do business," Philip Aidikoff, president of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, told me. "Now, at my firm alone, we're getting 40 to 45 calls a day from Merrill customers who feel they've been duped."

So Merrill Lynch has gone from gold standard to "crap" pusher. And it's not alone. To pull our corporate culture out of the muck, it's going to take more than public contrition and non-stop mea culpas on CNBC, which, given the current volume, may have to turn itself into the Self-Flagellation Channel. It will take some CEOs paying a real price for fraud, and securities regulations with real bite.

Stay tuned, this one is far from over.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13051

5/10/02
2:13:42 PM

What About The Trade Deficit?

by Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet, May 7, 2002

The much-feared federal budget deficit is back in the news: the latest projections show it could be twice as high in the coming year as previously thought. Should anyone be worried?

One way to put this borrowing in perspective is to compare it to a much more glaring example of spending beyond our means: the U.S. trade deficit, which is piling up debt at more than three times the rate of our federal government's deficit spending. This orgy of borrowing has been breaking records for several years now, but it hasn't gotten a tenth of the attention that the federal budget deficits has received.

Of course, most people don't know the difference between our federal government budget deficit and the trade deficit, so let's get that straight first. The federal government runs a deficit when it spends more than it collects in revenue (mostly taxes). When this happens, it adds to our national debt.

The trade deficit is another story. When we (mostly the private sector) import more than we export, we run a trade deficit. When that happens, it adds to our foreign debt. (Think of a household that is spending more than it earns: it must borrow or sell assets to pay for the difference).

Which is the bigger problem? While many a politician has bolstered his conservative credentials by railing against the federal government for "mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren," this slogan is more meaningful as a description of the foreign debt.

Here's why: future generations of Americans may inherit the debt that our government is accumulating, but they will also be holding the interest paying bonds. So it is somewhat misleading to make the national debt look like a huge transfer of income from the innocent generations of the future, to the profligate present.

On the other hand, our foreign borrowing really does place a burden on future generations. As they make payments on the debt we are now accumulating at a record pace, their standard of living will be reduced from what it otherwise would be.

Now let's do the numbers: the worst projections show a federal budget deficit of about $140 billion -- about 1.4 percent of our GDP (or national income). Coming out of a recession, even a mild one, this is not bad: in 1992, following the last recession, we ran a deficit of 4.7 percent of GDP.

The present rate of federal borrowing is still small enough to be sustained indefinitely, without increasing our national debt as a share of the economy. This is the number that matters; just as Bill Gates can afford to borrow more than the rest of us, a bigger economy can afford more debt than a smaller one.

On the other hand, our foreign borrowing is running at more than $420 billion a year (4.2 percent of GDP), including a $342 billion trade deficit. This is clearly not sustainable for very long.

So why is the federal budget deficit front page news while you have to dig deep in the business section to find the latest numbers on the trade deficit? This is a matter of political power and ideology, for which -- as usual --economics and arithmetic are no match. The big financial interests are always looking to cut government spending, since that is good for the bond markets. They have developed a conservative (and sadly, even liberal) following among politicians who find it demagogically useful to stoke public fears about our very modest and harmless national debt.

As for the ballooning trade deficit, to even raise the issue is to risk being called a "protectionist." In the post-Seattle climate of pro-globalist McCarthyism, most pundits and politicians would rather be seen as "economically correct."

At the same time, powerful financial and multinational corporations have an interest in keeping the U.S. dollar overvalued. (It is the overvalued dollar that causes our trade deficit, since it makes our exports more expensive and our imports artificially cheap). The strong dollar makes foreign investment -- and overseas sweatshop labor -- a bargain. And the cheaper imports help keep inflation down, which is always a plus for the big bondholders.

Those hurt by the trade deficit -- the majority of workers whose wages are pushed downward, or even worse, those who lose their jobs -- have little voice in the American political system. So the next time you hear a politician ranting about how the federal budget deficit is stealing from our children's future, just ask him: what about the trade deficit?

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington D.C.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13065

5/10/02
2:11:23 PM

Bush's Hit List At The United Nations

by Ian Williams, Foreign Policy In Focus, May 9, 2002

Quietly, and without the fanfare that accompanies the campaign in the mountains of Afghanistan, the administration has begun a long march through multilateral institutions. At the UN and elsewhere, the U.S. has mounted a campaign to purge international civil servants judged to be out of step with Washington in the war on terrorism and its insistence that the U.S. have the last word in all global governance issues.

The first and most prominent to go was Mary Robinson, the former Irish president whose work as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been acclaimed by human rights groups across the world. Officially, she retired after a one-year renewal of her contract. In fact, the U.S. ferociously lobbied against here reappointment. UN officials and Western diplomats also said she was "difficult to work with" -- the usual euphemism for not willing to be dictated to. Most human rights activists see this as precisely her strength in an organization where not rocking the boat seems to be genetically engineered into many officials.

The U.S. could not forgive her for her stands on the Middle East issues or for her endorsement last year of the results of the UN's Durban Conference on Racism, which both the U.S. and Israel walked out of. The rest of the world stayed and adopted a toned-down document, and subsequently Washington began its campaign to force Robinson out.

Another recent victim of the U.S. campaign was Robert Watson, the much-respected chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On Apr. 19, the U.S. administration succeeded in replacing him with Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian economist. The panel is (or perhaps was is the correct tense) an independent scientific body established to assess the degree of climate change and the contribution made by human activities such as burning fossil fuels. The panel's work had come to a consensus, not shared by the Bush administration, that human activity is a factor in climate change.

A leaked memo from ExxonMobil had previously asked the White House, "Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the U.S.?" The memo goes on to recommend that the administration "restructure the U.S. attendance at upcoming IPCC meetings to assure none of the Clinton/Gore proponents are involved in any decisional activities." Apparently, the administration heeded ExxonMobil's recommendation. Pachauri himself attributes his selection to being the developing world candidate, but environmental NGOs ascribe it to U.S. lobbying.

A few days later, on Apr. 22, the U.S. right achieved a new level of success with the deposition of Jose Mauricio Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a mere year after he had been unanimously elected for a second five-year term. The voting was 48-7 with 43 abstentions. The OPCW was created by the Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws the production of chemical weapons. It arranges regular inspections of member countries' facilities to ensure that no one is cheating. Bustani, a Brazilian, has headed it from its creation five years ago, and his inspectors have overseen the destruction of 2,000,000 chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon facilities in the past several years. They have carried out 1,100 inspections in more than 50 nations.

From the beginning of 2002, however, the U.S. has treated Bustani almost as if he were some form of bureaucratic Bin Laden. Bush administration officials accused him of "ongoing financial mismanagement, demoralization of the Technical Secretariat staff, and ill-considered initiatives." Only last year he had been reelected unanimously, with plaudits from all, including Colin Powell. Moreover, his staff pointed out that the organization's finances and management were controlled not by Bustani but by a U.S. government appointee.

So what had changed? Not Bustani, but Washington. His main persecutor was John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton earned his right-wing credentials when he served as the house UN-basher for the Heritage Foundation. But his anti-UN convictions have never stopped him taking money from the organization himself. Most recently he served as assistant to James Baker on the failed Western Sahara mission. For years, Bolton had argued that the U.S. should get out of the United Nations. At the same time, however, Bolton served as a consultant to Taiwan advising the government how it could get into the UN, according to The Nation. Although Bolton may have flexible principles, like many of Bush's hard right entourage he has a rigid line in grudges and he soon developed a major one against Bustani.

Having Bolton in charge of disarmament is like letting a pyromaniac have the run of a fireworks factory -- as his recent hardnose attitude to nuclear limitation talks with Russia, and staunch advocacy of the "Star Wars," Strategic Defense Initiative suggests. Bustani first started running into problems when he resisted American efforts to dictate the nationality of the OPCW inspectors assigned to investigate American facilities. What's more, he had opposed a U.S. law allowing the president to block unannounced inspections in the United States and banning OPCW inspectors from removing samples of its chemicals.

Diplomats suggest that Bustani's biggest "crime" was trying to persuade Iraq to sign the convention, which could mean that OPCW inspectors would inspect Iraqi facilities. The hawks in the administration resented these "ill-considered initiatives." If Iraq would sign the convention and allow UN inspectors, it would deprive Washington of a quasi-legal justification for military action against Baghdad.

Earlier this year the U.S. asked Brazil to recall him, but the Brazilian government pointed out that Bustani was not a Brazilian appointee but rather was elected unanimously by the entire OPCW. Then Bolton, personally, asked Bustani to resign. After he refused, the U.S. then attempted to have the OPCW Executive Council sack him. Failing that, Washington called for a special session of member states to fire him, threatening that the U.S. would not pay its dues if he were reappointed. Faced with losing an effective and popular disarmament agency, a majority of states succumbed to this blackmail. This acquiescence to Washington was in stark contrast to the willingness of so many countries to defy the U.S. by ratifying the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court only two weeks before.

In the end, it seems most members of the OPCW, with varying degrees of pragmatism and reluctance, decided that the survival of one of the most successful disarmament organizations was more important than the fate of its director. However, they set an ominous example -- and possibly gave the hawks in Washington a strong scent of blood to follow. As Bustani presciently told the kangaroo court, "By dismissing me … an international precedent will have been established whereby any duly elected head of any international organization would at any point during his or her tenure remain vulnerable to the whims of one or a few major contributors. They would be in a position to remove any Director-General, or Secretary-General, from office at any point in time."

To Play, U.S. Must Get Its Way

The right wing has long had a reflex hostility to international and multilateral organizations. But during the Reagan administration, which was the first time that the right wing exercised such control over U.S. policy, there was the fear that the U.S. could not pull out of the UN and leave it in the hands of its cold war enemy. Today, however, the U.S. has no counterweight at the UN, and the Bush administration officials are unabashedly insisting on exercising the influence that comes from being the world's only superpower. Playing upon its indispensability in this unipolar world, the Bush team is playing hard ball at the UN-in effect, threatening to render the multilateral organization impotent unless it gets its way.

It bodes ill for global affairs the way the administration has managed to achieve these recent coups with little or no public awareness, let alone discussion. In the case of Mary Robinson, the U.S. did fear that any open campaign to unseat her would upset Irish American voters. Instead of tapping its public diplomacy, the administration used stealth tactics against Robinson. Human rights organizations complained, but this administration has successfully sidelined these organizations from foreign policy decisionmaking and now routinely dismisses the concerns of these organizations.

Who is the next target? It may be Hans Blix, who heads UNMOVIC, which is the UN organization established at the end of the Persian Gulf War to inspect Iraqi arms facilities. It's been reported that Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense, ordered a CIA investigation of Blix. One reason that the administration is concerned is that under the framework supported by Powell, if Blix's team goes into Iraq and gives the regime a clean bill of health, then the sanctions regime against Iraq will be largely terminated. For Wolfowitz and other hardliners, this eventuality would remove another main causus belli against Baghdad. Deposing the highly respected Blix, who formerly headed the International Atomic Energy Authority, would facilitate the administration's case for launching a war on Baghdad.

It's also likely that included on the administration's hit list are the individuals on the proposed fact-finding mission to Jenin that have found disfavor with the Sharon government. One was Mary Robinson, who has already been ousted. The others were Terje Roed Larsen, one of the main agents in establishing the Oslo channel that led to what was once the peace process, and currently the UN's special coordinator for the peace process. Although half-heartedly defended by Shimon Peres, it will be difficult to keep him in position when he has "lost the trust" of Sharon, and presumably his allies in the U.S. administration.

The third person the Israelis regarded as biased is Peter Hansen, the recently reappointed Commissioner General of UNRWA, the U.S.-funded agency that helps Palestinian refugees. Hansen was appointed by the Secretary General Kofi Annan, who angrily sprang to the defense of all three individuals criticized by Israel. But Annan may find it hard to stand behind monitors criticized by the U.S. and Israel, especially if the U.S. would threaten to cut off its funding of UNRWA, which would likely result in starvation in the Palestinian refugee camps.

Kofi Annan, himself, may also be targeted soon. Even though he has only just started his second term, and even though he is immensely popular, Kofi Annan has recently become stronger in his public exasperation with Sharon's behavior. Given the recent pattern of arrogant American diplomacy, one cannot help but suspect that, but for Colin Powell and Shimon Peres -- who have a strong rapport with the secretary-general -- the anti-Iraq and pro-Sharon hardliners in the Bush administration will soon begin a campaign to invite Annan to retire.

It's likely that they will first suggest that he could retire with honor and that this decision would be for his own good. If that strategy doesn't work, they will likely accuse him of managerial incompetence and inability to work well with member states combined with yet another threat to withhold dues.

If the U.S. purges continue and rise to higher levels, other UN member nations may regret their pandering to Washington as they see the entire post-World War II framework of multilateralism start to disintegrate.

Ian Williams (uswarreport@igc.org) writes for Foreign Policy In Focus and is the author of "The UN for Beginners."

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13088

5/10/02
2:07:14 PM

Coming Out Of The Cannabis Closet

by Ann Harrison, AlterNet, May 7, 2002

Jodi James is a 34-year-old single mother of two, a Democratic candidate for the Florida House of Representatives and a marijuana smoker. James, who made a point of disclosing her marijuana use at the Florida state Democratic convention, is one of a growing number of people who believe it's time for pot smokers to step forward and challenge their negative stereotype.

"If many prominent people come out of the closet, it will change the idea that we have to hide, that we have to be ashamed," James says. "Coming out on this issue will change what will be okay for other politicians to do."

Some politicians have already been forced out of the closet, or have come out on their own. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, was revealed to be a marijuana smoker by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which ran a series of advertisements featuring Bloomberg's reply to a reporter who asked him last summer if he had smoked marijuana, "You bet I did," said Bloomberg, "and I enjoyed it."

Other people who have voluntarily chosen to reveal their cannabis use include Don Topping, a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii and Norm Kent, an attorney from Ft. Lauderdale and a recovering cancer patient. Kent uses marijuana for medical relief, as does James who became permanently disabled after a fall in 1987. But Kent hopes to move the cannabis debate beyond the question of medical use. He notes that the vast majority of the estimated 12 million American cannabis users are not lighting up to ease an ailment.

According to Kent, healthy cannabis smokers need to become a political constituency, much like gays and lesbians who built a political movement by shedding the "shame" of being homosexual. "It is about your right to be free and make decisions without the government telling you what you can do with your body," said Kent who publishes Express, the largest gay and lesbian newspaper in the state of Florida. "The rights you fight for can keep someone from going to jail."

Cannabis Consumers Campaign

A group of outspoken cannabis users, including James and Topping, are uniting to support the newly launched Cannabis Consumers Campaign -- a California-based movement that lobbies for the civil rights of marijuana smokers. "Are you tired of being treated like a second-class citizen, denied the same rights in society that our alcohol and tobacco-consuming peers enjoy?" reads a letter sent by the Campaign to prospective activists.

Campaign director Mikki Norris points out that cannabis smokers could have their children, jobs, public housing, drivers licenses, student loans and even their freedom taken away from them at any moment. "This is not just about the right to get high, it's about equal rights," said Norris in a recent address to the annual NORML conference in San Francisco. "I pay taxes, I earn a living, I recycle, I am a good neighbor, and at the end of the day and at the end of work, I like to smoke a joint."

The Cannabis Consumers Campaign asserts that marijuana prohibition is based on the false presumption that pot smokers are a detriment to society who lack a moral compass and fail to achieve their potential. The Campaign is conducting a survey that intends to clarify who cannabis consumers are and how they use the plant. Norris says the Campaign will culminate in an advertisement featuring 100 prominent cannabis smoking celebrities who will "come out" together.

"We need to present ourselves with dignity and stand up to the persecution and harassment that we live with," said Norris. "I would love to see a time when we are judged not by the contents of our urine, but by our characters."

Bill Maher, host of the television show Politically Incorrect, told attendees at the NORML conference that it's time Harrison Ford and Ted Turner stood up and acknowledged their cannabis use. Spokespersons for Ford and Turner did not return calls seeking comment on Maher's statement.

Norris acknowledges that coming out of the closet is not entirely without risk. The first wave of people that the Campaign is seeking to reach are self-employed professionals or entrepreneurs who are less likely to lose their jobs by coming out of the cannabis closet. Norris also cautions that such admissions could be used against parents who are involved in child custody disputes.

According to San Francisco criminal defense attorney Anthony Feldstein, a public statement of cannabis use is constitutionally protected speech. But Feldstein says there is no guarantee that law enforcement investigators will not use such an admission in support of a search warrant. Much depends on where the person making the admission lives and on the attitudes of the local judges. In general, he says, prosecutors in the San Francisco area have not been aggressive in pursuing cannabis possession cases. "The risk would be radically different from one county to the next," Feldstein says.

Feldstein adds that there also is a big difference between saying that you have smoked cannabis and admitting that there is a bag of cannabis presently in your house.

Should the Campaign create a critical mass of public cannabis smokers, Feldstein says the resulting publicity would also decrease the chances of arrest. "There is safety and strength in numbers," says Feldstein. "The more people who take the risk, the less risk there is for other people doing the same."

Speaking Out and Coming Out

Washington D.C. DEA spokesman Will Glaspy says federal authorities that prosecute drug traffickers will not target outspoken cannabis smokers. But Glaspy argues that the Campaign undermines the government's warnings about marijuana. "If we try to convince kids that smoking marijuana is safe, it is the wrong message and not the message that should be put out," said Glaspy.

Nick Spadafino, owner of Pacific Park Recovery Center, in Tustin, Calif., says he is concerned that those who proudly smoke marijuana increase their chances of addiction to other substances. "I started smoking pot at a very young age and I didn't think anything was wrong with it," says Spadafino. "But it led me to smoking cocaine and I smoked cocaine every day for 13 years. That almost destroyed me."

Spadafino adds that he does not believe that all cannabis use leads to addiction or self-destructive behavior. Many cannabis smokers now coming forward say that marijuana has not been damaging, but instead has enhanced their quality of life. "I get stoned and I listen to Mahler -- classical music with weed is fabulous," said 80-year-old Arthur B. Waugh who attended the recent Cannabis Freedom Day Rally in San Francisco.

The Cannabis Freedom Day Rally also drew San Francisco immigration attorney Steve Baughman who strolled through the crowd handing out a leaflet entitled "Vital Stats On One Pot Smoker." Among the items listed were "Number of persons in my employ who will lose their jobs if I go to jail: 15."

"I think it's important for mainstream, day-job people like myself to show up at events like this to get the word out that this is not just potheads wanting a bigger party," said Baughman, who wore a neatly pressed business suit. "This is a fundamental civil liberties issue."

Ann Harrison is a freelance writer in San Francisco.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13059

5/10/02
1:50:02 PM

United Nations: Every Day 5,500 Children Die From Diseases Caused By Polluted Food And Water

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ Every day 5,500 children die as a result of consuming polluted water and food, with those under 5 years old the most vulnerable, according to a U.N. study released Thursday.

One billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population, do not have access to clean drinking water, said the study prepared by three U.N. agencies.

More appalling, 2.4 billion people lack access to even a simple latrine, said the report, ``Children in the New Millennium.''

``Children are healthier (today). There is more access to clean water, but these disturbing figures show we have barely started to address the problem,'' said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund.

After respiratory infections, the greatest killer of children is diarrhea, carrying off 2 million a year, the vast majority in the poorest countries, said the study by UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Program.

Other examples of food and water-borne diseases include cholera, typhoid, polio and roundworm.

``Children in developing countries are some 13 times more likely to die before they reach their fifth birthday than their counterparts in developed countries,'' it said.

One-third of global diseases are caused by eating tainted food, drinking unclean water and breathing polluted air. Forty percent of those getting such diseases are children under 5, or 600 million children, the study said.

``Children in developing countries are some 13 times likely to die before they reach their fifth birthday than their counterparts in developed countries,'' it said.

The 140-page report, focusing on how a degraded environment affects children.

Millions of children work in agriculture, puting them at the risk of pesticide poisoning, the report said.

``How sanitary can conditions be when 90 children are sharing one toilet, or when half of the toilets are not functioning,'' the study asked.

Source: http;//www.AP.org

5/10/02
1:37:16 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT CATO

Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet

The libertarian think-tank Cato Institute has been anathema to the Left since the early '90s -- but today, liberals are finding themselves increasingly on the same side of the political fence as their arch-enemy.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13083

SUMMER LOVIN' AT THE MOVIES

Michelle Chihara, AlterNet

Summertime's almost here -- and the blockbuster movie pickin' ain't easy. AlterNet saves the day with a sneak preview list that feeds our jones for action, schmaltz and starpower.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13067

COMING OUT OF THE CANNABIS CLOSET

Ann Harrison, AlterNet

"I pay taxes, I earn a living, I recycle, I am a good neighbor, and at the end of the day and at the end of work, I like to smoke a joint." A new campaign says it's high time that responsible pot smokers went public.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13059

BUSH'S HIT LIST AT THE UNITED NATIONS

Ian Williams, Foreign Policy in Focus

The U.S. has mounted a systematic campaign to oust top United Nations officials opposed to the war on terrorism.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13088

ENOUGH BLUE-GREEN BICKERING

David Moberg, In These Times

Labor organizers and environmentalists often bump heads over energy issues. But with Bush and Cheney in the White House, the two must make friends and focus on their mutual opponent.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13061

GREENSPAN FOR DUMMIES

James A. Thompson, AlterNet

None of the scandals mounting on Wall Street have drawn more than glancing criticism from Maestro Alan Greenspan. Instead he's happy to paint consumers as financial ignoramuses.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13084

GIVING HOLLYWOOD THE 'BUSINESS'

Sarah Phelan, Metro Santa Cruz

Author Sherman Alexie makes his directorial debut with "The Business of Fancydancing," a wry portrait of a rich, famous, gay Indian poet.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13066

WHAT ABOUT THE TRADE DEFICIT?

Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet

The latest projections show that the federal budget deficit could be twice as high in the coming year as previously thought. But for an even more glaring example of spending beyond our means, check out the U.S. trade deficit.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13065

FRIDAY MEDIA ROUNDTABLE

Discuss the week's headlines with Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Stephanie Salter of the San Francisco Chronicle and investigative reporter Pratap Chatterjee on Friday's Working Assets Radio with Laura Flanders. Listen online from 10-11amPT/1-2pmET, or call in: 866-798-TALK.

http://www.workingassetsradio.com

HUFFINGTON: CORPORATE AMERICA'S NEW BOTTOM LINE

Arianna Huffington, AlterNet

Crusading attorney Eliot Spitzer has uncovered evidence that Merrill Lynch gave misleading stock tips to help promote companies its bankers invested in.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13051

JOHN ADAMS, MENSCH OF NEW ENGLAND

Marty Jezer, AlterNet

In the pantheon of founding fathers, John Adams is the least appreciated. But this forgotten President was one of our country's great visionaries, a brave and incorruptible public servant.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13060

A QUIET REVOLUTION IN BURMA

Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com

The release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is a triumph for non-violent movements everywhere.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13068

White House Stonewall: Day 76

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10I.Stonewall.76.htm

5/10/02
1:33:15 PM

t r u t h o u t | 05.10

Israeli Tanks Move Towards Gaza

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10A.Tanks.Gaza.htm

34, Including 12 Children, Killed as Bomb Rips Military Parade

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10B.Chechnya.Bomb.htm

Senator Bob Graham : On 911 DOJ, CIA Uncooperative

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10C.Graham.911.htm

William Safire | Mr. Atta Goes to Prague

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10D.Safire.Atta.htm

Colombian War Brings Carnage to Village Altar

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10E.Colombo.Dead.htm

Debate Sharpens on What to Do With Arafat

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10F.Debate.Arafat.htm

Andersen Shredding Trial to Start

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10G.Andersen.Trial.htm

Kuwait Sends Lawyers to Help Guantanamo Prisoners

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.10H.Kuwait.Guantanamo.htm

5/10/02
1:31:03 PM

"Saving" Afghan Women

by Sonali Kolhatkar

As I got ready to be interviewed by Helen Caldicott, the famous Helen Caldicott, activist and feminist, I remarked to my fellow interviewee how exited I was to be speaking with one of my heroes. I had heard Helen on the radio and read articles about her and her brave campaigns to fight nuclear weapons and environmental degradation. Helen was late but it didn't matter - I was elated about being interviewed by her. About forty five minutes after we were suppose to begin, we finally did. She began by asking me about my work with the Afghan Women's Mission and Afghan women's rights. Despite my nervousness, I answered calmly, but Helen wouldn't let me finish my sentences. She kept asking me to talk about why Afghan men treated women in the way they did. I tried to talk about the US empowerment of misogynist fundamentalists in Afghanistan and how US support had raised a generation of men who abused the power of their guns on women. But she angled for another answer and kept pushing me to try to read her mind and tell her what she wanted to hear. Thrown off balance by her aggressive questioning, I finally gave up and she proceeded to tell me all about female genital mutilation which the Feminist Majority had apparently told her, took place among Afghan women. Aghast at this information, which in my years of carefully studying the issue of Afghan women's rights, I had never come across, I mumbled that it was not something I was aware of. The interview ended as I took the headphones off and walked out, angry and frustrated with Helen ranting about the barbarity of women's vaginas being sewn up and that Afghan men did not want women to be able to have orgasms.

I raced over to my computer to do some research. Could I have been wrong? Was FGM really prevalent among Afghan women? I couldn't imagine it. I had known of it happening to women in some African countries. Surely I would have heard of it happening in a country geographically and culturally close to my home country of India, a country I had studied closely?

Well it turns out Ms. Caldicott was wrong. Female Genital Mutilation is not practiced in Afghanistan. I learned two lessons from my experience: 1) No pedestal is well deserved - greatness is an overrated perception, and, 2) Feminists like Helen Caldicott and the Feminist Majority, approach the women of the Global South with short sighted preconceptions of feminism and their superiority. Helen Caldicott, was more interested in exploring the fascinating desire of Afghan men to treat women like dirt, than in examining those forces (most often Western male dominated governments) that have fostered misogynist religious extremism at the expense of women's rights.

It is easy to condemn the "barbaric" men of Afghanistan and pity the helpless women of Afghanistan. It is this very logic that drives the Feminist Majority's "Gender Apartheid" campaign for Afghan women. Far more interested in portraying Afghan women as mute creatures covered from head to toe, the Feminist Majority aggressively promotes itself and it's campaign by selling small squares of mesh cloth, similar to the mesh through which Afghan women can look outside when wearing the traditional Afghan burqa. The post card on which the .swatch of mesh is sold says, "Wear a symbol of remembrance for Afghan women", as if they are already extinct. An alternative could have been "Celebrate the Resistance of Afghan Women" with a pin of a hand folded into a fist, to acknowledge the very real struggle that Afghan women wage every day, particularly the women of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), who are at the forefront of that struggle. Interestingly enough, 50% of all proceeds go toward helping Feminist Majority in promoting their campaign on "Gender Apartheid" in Afghanistan.

On almost every image of Afghan women in the Western mainstream and even alternative media, images of shapeless blue clad forms of Afghan women covered with the burqa, dominate (Amnesty International's poster of Afghan women, the cover of Cheryl Bernard's new book on RAWA, etc.). We all know and understand the reactions which the image of the burqa brings, particularly to Western women and feminists. That horror mixed with fear and ugly fascination like knowing the site of a bloody car wreck will make you want to retch but you do it anyway. Whose purpose does this serve? How "effective" would the Feminist Majority's campaign be if they made it known that Afghan women were actively fighting back and simply needed money and moral support, not instructions? It if for this reason, I have gathered, that the Feminist Majority is not interested in working with RAWA - RAWA is too independent and politicized. What good is it to flaunt images of Afghan women marching militantly with fists in the air, carrying banners about freedom, democracy and secular government? Those women wouldn't need saving as much as the burqa clad women seem to. We may realize that groups such as the Feminist Majority are not necessary to tell Afghan women how to help themselves from their oppression. We may gather that Afghan women are perfectly capable of helping themselves if only our governments would stop arming and empowering the most violent sections of society. After all, it was the US CIA which armed and trained the likes of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the 1970s, even back then famous for mutilating women with acid for failing to cover themselves up. Hekmatyar was known by the CIA for being a "fascist". Where is the criticism of the CIA's barbarity in Helen Caldicott's remarks on Afghan women?

It is not just white women feminists in the US who seek to control the message of women's movements in the Global South. This March, I excitedly obtained the endorsement of the board of the Afghan Women's Mission for the Global Women's Strike which happens each year on International Women's Day. This was a three-year movement spanning tens of countries where women walked out of their homes and jobs to demand equal pay and compensation for child rearing among other things. This year's theme was "Invest in Caring, not Killing" and, appropriately, the strike was dedicated to condemning the US War in Afghanistan. The local organizer, Margaret Prescod, was initially pleased that the Afghan Women's Mission was signing on. However, Prescod and the main organizers of the strike who resided in England, objected to the language of our flyer only two days before the planned march in downtown Los Angeles. The main message on the front of the flyer was a condemnation of fundamentalism and an indictment of the US support for it, embedded in a quote by a RAWA member. It included the following sentence: "We welcome the combat against terrorism. In fact, this combat should have started years ago in terms of preventing incidents like September 11. But this combat against terrorism cannot be won by bombing this or that country. It should be a campaign to stop any country that sells arms or supports financially the fundamentalists' movements or fundamentalist regimes". Undoubtedly the bombing of Afghanistan was and is a large concern to the Afghan Women' Mission and RAWA in whose support we work (AWM and RAWA have both released public statements condemning the bombing), but fundamentalism and the very real terrorism of the Taliban and Northern Alliance is a large part of the on-going problem that Afghan women live with every day, that kills them every day, before and after the bombing. Perturbed that our anti-war message was not clear enough, the organizers of the strike threatened to not allow AWM's endorsement. This coalition of women was condemning the bombing while demanding equal pay and compensation for child rearing but could not fathom or appreciate that some women on the other side of the world had slightly different problems. Afghan Women's Mission ultimately participated in the march while leaving our flyer largely intact.

RAWA has also faced some consternation from the progressive left. Upset at RAWA's criticism of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, groups like the International Action Center, a.k.a. the Workers World Party, have silently ignored RAWA's contribution. A friend at the Worker's World Party claimed some years ago how she had seen pictures of Afghan women being beaten by Afghan fundamentalists in the 1970s and was so relieved when the Soviet Union went in to save them. Sounds similar to George Bush's claim to have "saved Afghan women". If one examines the various propaganda methods used to justify invasion of Afghanistan in past decades, a similar pattern emerges: saving Afghan women has been cited by the Russian, the US backed Mujahadeen fundamentalist war lords as well as the Taliban (!). In fact, the entire US war against Afghans has been made more palatable to Americans who were told by the President that it was those Afghan women we were going to be saving by bombing. First Lady Laura Bush developed a sudden interest in Afghan women's rights and began spouting Feminist Majority-like rhetoric. George Bush claimed that we had saved Afghan women from oppression as he showed off his poster child, Sima Samar, the new head of the Women's Affairs Department in Afghanistan. And the US State Department used RAWA's images from their website without their permission, in their propagandist leaflets that were scattered over Afghanistan, to justify the bombing.

Of course, it's not just women in the US who have exploited or misunderstood RAWA's message. At a recent anti-war forum, I spoke alongside well known activist and writer Michael Parenti, who claimed that the Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan in 1979, that it didn't really invade. After I contradicted him in my speech, citing that the vast majority of the Afghan population were fairly united against the foreign domination and imperialist motives of the Soviet Union, Michael angrily asked me after the talk why RAWA does not concede to some of the good that the Russians did in Afghanistan. Wow. Do we ever dwell on the good that the US may have done in Vietnam? How could he ask this of a group whose leader was brutally assassinated by a Russian KGB operative in collaboration with an Afghan Mujahadeen, for being outspoken against the occupation and fighting for women's rights?

Today, as the US sponsored government in Afghanistan which legitimizes the same Afghan fundamentalist war lords supported by the US throughout the 1980s, gets ready to convene a government, over a thousand Afghan refugee women have applied for a scant number of seats reserved for them in the Afghan grand assembly! Clearly Afghan women are tirelessly struggling. in the face of a fundamentalist tilted government which has already promised Islamic Sharia law, misogynist in its formulation, even before the assembly has met.

>From Helen Caldicott to Michael Parenti, isn't it imperative and a little bit obvious that when we speak of Afghan women and their rights, we must listen carefully to what they themselves have to say about it? As the admirable struggles of women of color, particularly in the Global South, come to the knowledge of the West, we must remind ourselves of the validity of their views and hopes, over our perceptions of what they should say and do, how they should dress and whether or not their oppression stems from being able to have an orgasm.

Sonali Kolhatkar is the Vice President of the Afghan Women's Mission. She has spoken out about Afghan women's rights at college campuses and community forums all over the country and her latest paper, "The Impact of US Intervention on Afghan Women's Rights" is in publication with the Berkeley Women's Law Journal. Sonali is also the host and co-producer of a daily two hour drive time Morning Show on politics and public affairs at KPFK Radio in Los Angeles, part of the Pacifica Network. She has a Master of Science in Astrophysics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Source: http://www.zmag.org

5/10/02
1:24:55 PM

Friedman: Head Cheerleader For The Boss's Team

by Anthony Arnove

It's hard to turn on the television or pick up a newspaper or go into a bookstore without seeing Thomas Friedman blaring at you.

Friedman writes a nationally syndicated column for the New York Times. His books on globalization and the Middle East are bestsellers--and are often praised by politicians and scholars. "Nobody understands the world the way he does," NBC's Tim Russert recently said of Friedman.

In April, Friedman won his third Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious award in journalism, "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat [after September 11]." He shared a Pulitzer in 1983 for the New York Times' international reporting and won another in 1988 for his coverage of Israel.

So you might think that the much-praised Friedman had something interesting or challenging to say--or that he was an exceptional journalist.

You would be wrong. In truth, Friedman is a hack--who specializes in popularizing a set of ideas that have destroyed the lives of millions of people around the world.

Over the past few years, he's become the main establishment apostle of "globalization"--the spread of the unhindered free market and pro-business government policies around the globe. What Friedman calls the "golden straightjacket" of U.S.-style capitalism may be restraining for countries that put it on.

But for him, there's no alternative to adopting neoliberalism and letting the free market rip. Like the "hired prize fighters" of capitalism that Karl Marx wrote about in 1873, for Friedman, the devastation of workers, peasants and the environment by global capitalism is so much "collateral damage" in the necessary pursuit of high productivity rates and profit.

His book The Lexus and the Olive Tree reads like a love letter to corporate power--which is why it's no surprise that Friedman has cozied up to businesspeople and politicians around the world in pursuit of his stories.

But Friedman is at his worst when writing about U.S. imperialism--especially in the Middle East. Serving as both an armchair general and a cheerleader urging on more destruction, he routinely advocates committing war crimes--as long as the U.S. or its allies are pulling the trigger.

In 1998, Friedman advocated "bombing Iraq, over and over and over again." In an article titled "Craziness pays," Friedman explained that "the U.S. has to make clear to Iraq and U.S. allies that.America will use force, without negotiation, hesitation, or UN approval." He went on to add, "We have to be ready to live with our own contradictory policy. Sure, it doesn't make perfect sense."

Friedman never tires of using "we" when describing the actions of the U.S. military. In 1997, he wrote: "[I]f and when Saddam pushes beyond the brink, and we get that one good shot, let's make sure it's a head shot." Two years later, Friedman suggested that the U.S. should "[b]low up a different power station in Iraq every week, so no one knows when the lights will go off or who's in charge."

Friedman couldn't care less that every power station targeted in Iraq means more food and medicine that will spoil without refrigeration, more hospitals that will lack electricity, more water that will be contaminated--and more people who will die.

The U.S.-led NATO war on Yugoslavia found Friedman repeating himself: "It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted.You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too."

Friedman has never tried to camouflage his strong support for Israel--even when he feels that he sometimes has to criticize the "excesses" of settlers or the Israeli right wing to defend Israel's best interests.

And he was an unabashed supporter as the Pentagon crushed Afghanistan--at the cost of thousands of civilian lives--in "self-defense." "My motto is simple," he wrote. "Give war a chance."

But because of his proximity to power, Friedman sometimes tells the truth. In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he gives one of the most honest descriptions of the relationship between the U.S. military and corporate power.

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist," he wrote. "McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas.And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."

Of course, Thomas Friedman sees nothing wrong with the U.S. military making the world safe for U.S. capitalism--and destroying everything in its wake. In his tiny corner of the world, Friedman has been amply rewarded for aligning himself with that kind of power.

Source: http://www.zmag.org

5/10/02
1:19:50 PM

Public Citizen issued the following three press releases today:

1) Texas Newspaper Attempts to Stifle Free Speech; Dallas Morning News Claims Copyright Infringement Where Hyperlinks Bypass Advertising-Laden Home Page

2) Reduce the Costs of Traffic Casualties: Boost NHTSA's Budget; Statement of Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen President

3) Midnight Oil and Oregon Activists Condemn Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump as Environmentally Unsafe; Activists and Musicians Urge U.S. Sens. Wyden and Smith to Oppose Dangerous Plan for Nuclear Waste Transport Through Oregon

May 9, 2002

Texas Newspaper Attempts to Stifle Free Speech Dallas Morning News Claims Copyright Infringement Where Hyperlinks Bypass Advertising-Laden Home Page

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Dallas Morning News' claim that hyperlinks allowing Web users to bypass its home page violate copyright laws is entirely without merit, Public Citizen told the newspaper in a letter sent to its attorney today. The newspaper's contention that links to articles violate copyright laws threatens the viability of the Web itself, since it specifically allows users to move to sites of interest by following such links.

Dallas Web activist Avi Adelman received a letter from an attorney for The Dallas Morning News' parent company Belo Corporation in late April. It complained that certain "deep" hyperlinks on his site, www.barkingdogs.org, that connect to the newspaper's site could not be made without the newspaper's permission. The hyperlinks accompanied Adelman's coverage of a fire at a bar in the Lower Greenville neighborhood and allowed Web users to see what The Dallas Morning News had reported about the fire.

The lawyer's response to an inquiry from Adelman suggested that Belo Corporation would not have objected had Adelman linked to the newspaper's home page, because users would have seen much more advertising while following links to the story Adelman had cited. However, directing Internet users to an exact Web page is no more a copyright violation than is listing the page number of a story in a print edition of a newspaper, Public Citizen's letter points out.

"It's easy for these companies to try to intimidate an Internet user with copyright laws, but their complaint doesn't have any weight," said Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney Paul Alan Levy, who wrote the letter and has been involved in many cases defending free speech on the Internet. "When they try to justify this claim, they will fall short."

A copy of Levy's letter is available on the Web at http://www.barkingdogs.org

xoxox

May 9, 2002

Reduce the Costs of Traffic Casualties: Boost NHTSA's Budget

Statement of Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen President

The report released today by the government revealing the $230.6 billion annual economic impact of traffic casualties is chock full of numbers - injuries, property damage, alcohol- and speed-related crashes and more. But it is missing one statistic that is sure to shock: 94 percent of transportation-related deaths are traffic fatalities, yet the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) receives just 1 percent of the Department of Transportation's (DOT) budget.

One percent is woefully small. Unfortunately, it shows where priorities lie. When adjusted for inflation, NHTSA's budget today is just a third of what it was in 1980, when I was administrator. The lack of resources hamstrings the very agency responsible for improving traffic safety nationwide. With additional resources, NHTSA could reduce these exorbitant costs to society.

NHTSA needs money so it can better pinpoint what safety improvements both automakers and the government should pursue. We need better data on such things as auto defects and new safety technologies such as side impact air bags, on-board crash recorders and driver assistance systems. Without this information, it is difficult to clearly demonstrate the benefits of, for instance, window glazing or the value of an early warning system for auto defects.

Amazingly, the $230.6 billion annual cost of crashes amounts to 2.3 percent of the GDP. We urge the DOT to allocate more money to NHTSA. Even if DOT doesn't act, Congress should appropriate more money to this cash-strapped agency. If we want to lower fatality numbers, we need to give NHTSA more resources.

Still, we must remember when diving into the sea of numbers that statistics don't tell the complete story. We can never put a dollar figure on a human life or even come close to finding a number that represents all the human suffering caused by traffic crashes. Numbers describing the cost of crashes don't put a face on those killed and injured.

*Note: Joan Claybrook was NHTSA administrator from 1977-1981.

xoxox

May 9, 2002

Midnight Oil and Oregon Activists Condemn Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump as Environmentally Unsafe

Activists and Musicians Urge U.S. Sens. Wyden and Smith to Oppose Dangerous Plan for Nuclear Waste Transport Through Oregon

PORTLAND, Ore.-- Peter Garrett, lead singer of the Australian band Midnight Oil, and other band members teamed with Portland environmental and public interest groups today at the Benson Hotel to emphasize the dangers associated with the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

At a press conference prior to their show at the Roseland Theatre, the band denounced the dangerous plan to transport 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste across the country via highway, rail and barge shipments. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that 3,324 truck shipments and 649 train shipments alone would travel through Oregon on I-84 and rail lines through Portland.

Garrett, a fiery environmental activist in his native Australia, urged U.S. activists to write and call their senators to tell them to oppose the Yucca Mountain proposal.

"Mass transport of large amounts of highly dangerous radioactive waste through Oregon is a very dumb idea, dangerous for people and their environment," Garrett said. "We oppose it in Australia and we oppose it here. Our fans and the Oregon public deserve a lot better than this harebrained recipe for hell."

Participants at today's event included members from Oregon Peaceworks, National Environmental Trust, Oregon Sierra Club, Oregon State Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG), Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Heart of America Northwest, Hanford Action, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Local activists have expressed concern about the safety of transporting waste as well as about the site itself. Yucca Mountain is located 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev. It sits on an earthquake zone and lies atop a fresh water aquifer that supplies local residents with drinking water.

"We are sending a clear message to our congressional delegation that Oregonians do not want nuclear waste transported through Oregon to Yucca Mountain," said Michael Carrigan, program director of Oregon Peaceworks. "Senators Wyden and Smith have already received a letter to that effect signed by 22 groups with tens of thousands of members in Oregon. They will continue to hear from us right up until they vote."

Speakers praised Oregon U.S. Reps. Darlene Hooley, David Wu, Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio for voting against the proposal in yesterday's vote on HJ Resolution 87. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 306-117 to approve the Yucca Mountain dump. U.S. Rep. Greg Walden voted in favor of the proposal. The next step is the U.S. Senate, which is more evenly divided on the issue and is expected to vote this summer. Representatives of Oregon Peaceworks traveled to Washington, D.C., in April to meet with Oregon senators to urge their opposition to the Yucca Mountain project.

The following are quotes from the four lawmakers who voted against Yucca Mountain:

Hooley: "Currently there are so many questions surrounding the geology of Yucca Mountain, the adequacy of the containers that will house the nuclear waste, and the methods of transporting this high-level nuclear waste to the site, that I could not in good conscience vote for this proposal."

DeFazio: "The president and the Republican House leadership, supposed defenders of states rights, jammed through legislation to override Gov. Guinn's veto and allow millions of tons of nuclear waste to be shipped to Nevada, a state that has no nuclear power plants. Instead of acting responsibly and addressing the dangers of nuclear energy or finding viable sources of alternative energy, Congress has chosen to pass the buck to Nevada and say, 'not in my back yard.' "

Blumenauer: "The approval of Yucca Mountain will set a dangerous precedent for other potential sites such as Hanford. When Yucca Mountain failed to meet repository guidelines, the Department of Energy rewrote those guidelines to avoid disqualifying the site. I don't want this same low standard to be applied to Hanford or any of the other potential sites."

Wu: "The nuclear waste will be with us for at least another 10,000 years, and it's only common sense to take additional time to ensure that public health and safety will not be jeopardized."

For more information on Yucca Mountain: http://www.Citizen.org/CMEP

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

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

5/10/02
1:15:55 PM

In the past weeks, I have asked "Why? Why? Why?" more than I have in recent years. Volume 19 provides viable explanation and answer. Ask and ye shall receive takes on new perspective and karma is instant.

Welcome to the Year Of Choice.

Love, Lynn

If this update has reached you in error and you wish to be removed from this list, please hit "REPLY" and in write "REMOVE" in the subject line. Your email address will promptly be removed.

Canada Peace 2002 - A World Vision Kids and Music for Peace

Unity through Diversity * Understanding from Diversity.

http://www.lennontask.com

Literally Connected to John Lennon Volumes

5/10/02
12:51:34 PM

Greenpeace True Food Network

May 2002 Newsletter

Inside this Edition:

Supermarket Campaign National Day of Action: June 8th

Safeway CEO Awarded #1 Food Polluter Award (check out the video!)

Send a Mother's Day Card to Supermarket CEOs

Town Passes Resolution Against Genetically Engineered Agriculture

Supermarket Campaign National Day of Action: June 8th

Tired of supermarkets using untested, secret genetically engineered food in their store brand products?

Take action this summer to end the genetic experiment!

On June 8th, Greenpeace, the Organic Consumers Association and the GE-Free Markets Coalition will host the second "Day of Action for the National Supermarket Campaign." Join us in demanding that supermarkets like Safeway and Shaw's/Star Markets end their use of GE foods!!!

Want to know how can you get involved?

Send us an email if you would like to gather people in your area to pass out leaflets and petitions at a supermarket near you. In your email, please tell us:

- where you live

- if we can pass on your email to fellow activists in your area

- where you would like to leaflet on the 8th (include the name of the store)

If you would like to serve as a point person in your community, we can send you campaign materials. It's easy. We send you the materials, you pick the store and gather a few fellow concerned shoppers to pass out literature.

If you would like to participate on June 8th, but can't be a point person, send us an email telling us where you live and we will try to connect you with an event in your area. We will also post events on our new community center:

http://www.truefoodnow.org/communitycenter

Send your emails to: geteam@truefoodnow.org

Safeway CEO Awarded "#1 Food Polluter" award

On April 23rd, Safeway CEO Steven Burd was interrupted during a speech at a global business conference when Greenpeace and GE-Free LA arrived to present him with the "#1 Food Polluter" award. At the time of the impromptu award, Burd was addressing an audience gathered for a panel entitled "Retail: Consumers in the Driver's Seat." Oh, the irony.

Check out the video from the conference at:

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

Send a Mother's Day Card to Supermarket CEOs!

Mother's Say is May 12th and a great time to let supermarket CEOs know that "Moms Say No to GMOs!"

Below is sample text for your card. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area or in Boston, MA, come to one of Greenpeace's "Moms Rally Against GMOs" events in these cities.

For more information about the Boston rally on May 11, 2002 send e-mail to:

kim.foster@dialb.greenpeace.org

For more information on the San Francisco Bay Area rally on May 10, 2002 -- or to let us know if you get a response to your Mother's Day card by emailing us at:

geteam@truefoodnow.org

Sample text for Mother's Day card:

Dear CEO (Name),

I am writing to wish you and your family a Happy Mother's Day. For this Mother's Day I ask that you honor mothers who want to feed their children safe food by stopping (company name)'s use of genetically engineered ingredients.

As a shopper at your stores and concerned (parent, mom, consumer, etc.), I do not want my family members to be guinea pigs in this genetic experiment with our food. Genetically engineered food can introduce new food allergies, novel toxins and it creates living pollution, all with no warning to the consumer.

On Mother's Day, send a message to moms everywhere that (company name) cares about moms and their families. Remove genetically engineered food from your store brand products.

Sincerely,

Name

Send your cards to:

CEO Steven Burd Safeway (also owns Genuradi's, Vons, Dominicks, and Randalls) 5918 Stoneridge Mall Rd. Pleasanton, CA 94588

CEO Ross McLaren Shaw's/Star Market 750 Center Street West Bridgewater, MA 12379 You can also send a fax online to the CEOs of Safeway and Shaw's at:

http://truefoodnow.org/bin/takeaction.fpl?action_id=126

If you do not have one of these stores in your area, you can get local with our Do-It-Yourself Supermarket Campaign at:

http://www.truefoodnow.org/take_action/supermarket2002-map.html

Town Passes Resolution Against Genetically Engineered Agriculture

At their recent town meeting, the community of Leverett, MA passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on genetically engineered agriculture. This brings the total number of municipalities in the U.S. with resolutions against genetically engineered agriculture to 44. On March 5, 2002, 28 towns in Vermont voted for resolutions against genetically engineered crops. For more information on this growing grassroots movement, check out:

http://nerage.org/phpweblog/

Want to do more? Become a Greenpeace Member today!

https://www.greenpeaceusa.org/join/tfn.htm

5/10/02
12:48:19 PM

DAILY GRIST

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

UN-FORTUYN-ATE

Dutch prosecutors are accusing an animal rights activist with the murder on Monday of Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing candidate for prime minister. The suspect, Volkert van der Graaf, opposed factory farming and fur farms and worked for the little-known group Environment-Offensive, which uses legal tactics to advances its cause (rather than the in-your-face, direct-action methods of groups like the Animal Liberation Front). Roger Vleugels, a lawyer for the group, described van der Graaf as normally a "calm, restrained" individual who didn't engage in politics. In his campaign to head the government, Fortuyn made clear that he didn't think much of green issues. He told some environmentalists last year: "Environmental policy in the Netherlands has no more substance. And I'm sick to death of your environmental movement." The news that Fortuyn may have been murdered by an environmentalist has led to a wave of email and telephone threats against mainstream green groups in the country.

straight to the source: New York Times, Marlise Simons, 08 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=80>

straight to the source: New York Times, Marlise Simons, 09 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=81>

MOUNTAIN MAMA'S DAY

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday to stop allowing coal companies to deposit tons of dirt and rock from their mountaintop-removal mining operations into streams and valleys. U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II in Charleston, W.Va., also said a move by the Bush administration last Friday to make the "valley fills" legal violated the Clean Water Act. He wrote in his decision, "The agencies' attempt to legalize their long-standing illegal regulatory practice must fail. ... The regulators' practice is illegal because it is contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Clean Water Act." A spokesperson for the U.S. EPA, which worked with the Corps on the rule change, said the agency would seek a stay of the ruling pending an appeal. The judge's decision was a win for the group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, but some enviros warned that the victory was not yet decisive. Haden issued a similar ruling in 1999, but an appeals court later overturned it on jurisdictional grounds.

straight to the source: Charleston Gazette, Ken Ward, Jr., 09 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=82>

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Shogren, 09 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=83>

do good: Take action to keep waste out of our waters <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/mining.asp?source=daily#solidwaste>

TOXICS: AUSTRALIAN FOR FERTILIZER

Businesses across Australia are legally disposing of their industrial waste by selling it as fertilizers for farms and home gardens, according to an investigative report by the Sydney Morning Herald. The fertilizers often contain such toxic metals as arsenic, mercury, chromium, and lead. In western Australia, radioactive material from aluminum refineries is being used at cattle ranches; in other parts of the country, waste from zinc smelters, power stations, and cement kilns is spread on farms and gardens. The country doesn't regulate the content of fertilizers, and environmental and agricultural officials contend that the levels of the metals in the fertilizers are harmless -- though they rarely do the testing themselves, instead taking companies at their word that the products are safe. (Warning: American readers should not conclude that the situation is out-of-whack only in the land Down Under; most states in the U.S. also do not regulate the levels of toxic metals in regular fertilizers.)

straight to the source: Sydney Morning Herald, Gerard Ryle, 06 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=88>

do good: Take action keep pesticides out of compost <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/waste.asp?source=daily#compost>

MR. YUCCA

The U.S. House voted 306 to 117 yesterday to move forward with the Bush administration's plan to store the nation's nuclear waste under Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The overwhelming vote -- which overrode the veto of the plan by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (R) -- was expected. Now the battle moves to the Senate, where Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have promised to derail the plan, despite long odds. Opponents argue that the science in support of the plan is faulty, that the feds have misled citizens on nuclear issues many times in the past, and that transporting tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste to Nevada from nearly 40 other states would risk hijacking by terrorists.

straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 09 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=84>

straight to the source: Las Vegas Sun, Benjamin Grove, 09 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=87>

only in Grist: Yucky Mountain -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/ha/ha030402.asp?source=daily>

METALS IN YOUR MOUTH, NOT IN YOUR HANDS?

The American Environmental Safety Institute (first we've heard of it) sued Nestle, Hershey, Mars, and other chocolate manufacturers yesterday for not disclosing that their products contain toxic metals such as lead and cadmium, as required under California law. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the group said that the levels of the metals in the chocolates like M&Ms posed a health threat, especially to children. California's Proposition 65 requires that companies warn individuals before they are exposed to dangerous chemicals. But a lawyer for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association said the lawsuit was frivolous and alarmist. She said the two metals are naturally present in chocolate -- as they are in other foods -- at levels too low to pose any danger.

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, Andrew Bridges, 08 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=86>

5/10/02
12:39:49 PM

CIA admits foreknowledge of 9/11

by Larry Chin, Online Journal Contributing Editor

May 6, 2002—On April 11, 2002, CIA Deputy Director James Pavitt delivered an address to the Duke University Law School Conference. This speech was covered by AgenceFrance-Presse (AFP) on Sunday April 28, 10:59 AM in an article titled "Top CIA official warns next terror attack unavoidable." The CIA has released the transcript of Pavitt's speech, which is posted at the CIA web site.

The following are excerpts taken directly from Pavitt's address.

In this speech, Pavitt states clearly that the CIA had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks. My emphasis are in bold and my comments are in italics, followed by the initials "LC."

Jim Pavitt, CIA Deputy Director for Operations Excerpts from Address to Duke University Law School Conference April 11, 2002

We had very, very good intelligence of the general structure and strategies of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. We knew and we warned that al Qaeda was planning a major strike. There need be no question about that. [my emphasis—LC]

[After seven months of CIA, the Bush administration and the mainstream corporate media aggressively pushing the idea of an "intelligence failure" and that the CIA was "caught unaware" by the September 11th attacks, the Deputy Director of the CIA is clearly admitting foreknowledge.—LC]

What didn't we know? We never found the tactical intelligence, never uncovered the specifics that could have stopped those tragic strikes that we all remember so well.

[This is flatly contradicted by what Pavitt states in another part of this address, which is detailed below. It is also contradicted by credible and extensive reports of successful pre-9/11 penetration of the bin Laden operation by the US intelligence community, including CIA and National Security Agency, and the significant technical expertise possessed by the US government, including Echelon and Promis software. It is also contradicted by the fact that intelligence agencies throughout the world had specific information on the attacks, and that these agencies issued specific warnings. Certain segments of Wall Street and US financial community knew of the pending attacks. An extensive accounting of these reports can be accessed at From The Wildnerness publications (www.copvcia.com) and at http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/042202_bushk nows.html—LC]

And as a reality of that difficult and often frustrating fight against terror, the terror cells that we're going up against are typically small and all terrorist personnel in those cells, participating in those cells, perpetrating the acts of terror, all those personnel were carefully screened. The number of personnel who know vital information, targets, timing, the exact methods to be used had to be smaller still.

Against that degree of control, that kind of compartmentation, that depth of discipline and fanaticism, I personally doubt, and I draw again upon my 30 years of experience in this business, that anything short of one of the knowledgeable inner circle personnel or hijackers turning himself in to us would have given us sufficient foreknowledge to have prevented the horrendous slaughter that took place on the 11th.

[Pavitt is inflating the operational capabilities and fanaticism of Osama bin Laden and al Queda , which to a large degree are creations of CIA, while deflecting focus on the extensive penetration and capabilities of CIA and its terrorist surrogates (Pakistani ISI, etc.).—LC]

Some of you out there may have heard bin Laden himself speak about this on that shocking videotape that we recovered in Afghanistan. On that tape when he was speaking to friends as he sat around in a little room, he talks about the fact that some of the hijackers, indeed, some of the most senior members of his inner circle had been kept in the dark about the full extent of that destruction operation that took place in New York and in Washington on the 11th of September.

[The authenticity and relevance of the "notorious smoking bin Laden video" has not been confirmed. In fact, questions abound.—LC]

While we did not stop the awful carnage that day our years of preparation and our experience allowed us to respond to the challenges of war quickly and effectively. From the moment the second tower was hit in New York, CIA began to shift resources to both collection and analysis. We knew from the start that our key contribution would come not in now numbers but in expertise.

Teams of my paramilitary operations officers trained not just to observe conditions but if need be to change them, were among the first on the ground in Afghanistan. With a small logistical footprint they came with lightning speed. We were on the ground within days of that terrible attack.

They came with knowledge of local languages, whatever you heard to the contrary notwithstanding, terrain, and politics.

None of this came easy. You cannot learn Pushtan overnight, and you can't truly understand the complexities of tribalism, regionalism, and personalism in Afghanistan by reading the newspaper or a learned book. My people learned about this by years of study and years of practice often in difficult, hostile places and yes indeed, on the ground in Afghanistan itself.

If you hear somebody say, and I have, the CIA abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets left and that we never paid any attention to that place until September 11th, I would implore you to ask those people how we were able to accomplish all we did since the Soviets departed. How we knew who to approach on the ground, which operations, which warlord to support, what information to collect. Quite simply, we were there well before the 11th of September. [my emphasis—LC]

[Pavitt is stating clearly that that, contrary to arguments by some current and former CIA operatives such as Reuel Marc Gerecht and Robert Baer (who have published articles and books about the CIA's lack of human intelligence in the Middle East and Central Asia), that CIA had never left Afghanistan in the wake in the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from the country.

Pavitt is in fact lauding CIA capability, penetration and presence. He also confirms here that existing CIA penetration in the region was vital to the speed and success of Operation Enduring Freedom, an operation of a magnitude that requires months—not weeks—of planning. Contrary to Pavitt's assertion that CIA "responded within days" to the 9/11 attacks with "lighting speed," it is impossible to build an intelligence network of such scope in a short period of time. Bottom line: CIA was already there, and has been for decades.—LC]

In a run-up to the millennium celebrations the CIA warned the President of the United States of serious terrorism conspiracies around the world. We predicted, we told the President, that there would be between five and 15 serious attacks against on U.S. soil. But we did much much more than warn. With our allies and our partners around the world we launched immense efforts to counter those threats. Hundreds of terrorists were arrested, multiple cells of terrorism were destroyed. One terrorist cell planned to blow up a hotel, buses and holy cites in both Israel and Jordan. It had also planned to use chemical weapons.

We knew then just as we know now that al Qaeda and those who would continue its mission of murder were nothing if they're not resilient. Remember, the World Trade Center was attacked once before.

[Particularly in light of the years of information gathered in the investigations of the prior World Trade Center bombings by FBI and CIA, claims of a dearth of sufficient intelligence are implausible. LC]

Because the networks of terror are fluid and dynamic, because they learn from their past and from ours—from our past, from our action—I'm not at liberty tonight to describe to you every thing we've done against them. You would not want me to do that.

Today, the year 2002, I have more spies stealing more secrets than at any time in the history of the CIA. [my emphasis—LC]

[Which means what was already powerful is now super powerful, and nightmarishly so. In with all due respect, Mr. Pavitt, we do want you to come clean with the citizens you work for.—LC]

Now for the hard truth. Despite the best efforts of so much of the world, the next terrorist attack—it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. With so many possible targets and an enemy more than willing to die, the perfect defense isn't possible. [my emphasis—LC]

[Without providing any specifics, Pavitt is announcing that new "terrorist attacks" are "unavoidable" and even "impossible" even before they have occurred——as in "CIA can't and/or won't do anything about whatever happens." Why is he issuing this vague and very public warning?—LC]

If I knew any society that would mount such a perfect defense devoid as it would be of the liberties that makes us great, is not worth defending. [my emphasis—LC]

[Pavitt is suggesting that mounting foolproof countermeasures against terrorism would require sacrificing civil liberties and, as a result, would produce a system that, in his view, "is not worth defending." This statement is disingenuous. It is an inarguable fact that civil liberties, and the Bill of Rights, have already been gutted post-9/11. America is already a virtual police state. Pavitt knows this. In order to get "foolproof" protection, Americans should and will relinquish what little is left of their civil liberties and accept a full dictatorship. In the wake of another major "terrorist atrocity," Americans would be frightened enough to do so.—LC]

After the deep, debilitating cuts of the 1990s [my emphasis—LC], when any thought that the end of the Cold War would bring us a safer, more predictable world, one in which intelligence was not important, a world in which intelligence officers were no longer as necessary, we now continue to rebuild, back to essential strength where we can continue to do what you and others ask me to do. In the Directorate of Operations alone, since just five or six years ago, we are training more than 10 times as many operations officers. [my emphasis—LC]

[The CIA budget, which has been estimated at approximately $35 billion, has been increased post 9/11. That is not counting untold amounts funneled through budgets of other government agencies.–LC]

Larry Chin is a freelance journalist and an Online Journal Contributing Editor.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Chin050602/chin050602.html

5/10/02
12:12:57 PM

US Wants To Oust Saddam Even if He Makes Concessions

by Brian Whitaker, Guardian, May 6, 2002

The US may try to remove Saddam Hussein from power even if he agrees to new weapons inspections, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, said yesterday.

His remarks came less than 48 hours after the Iraqi foreign minister met the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, for talks aimed at resolving the impasse over inspections.

"US policy is that, regardless of what the inspectors do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be better off with a different regime in Baghdad," Mr Powell said. "The United States reserves its option to do whatever it believes might be appropriate to see if there can be a regime change."

He told ABC television the issue of inspectors is a "separate and distinct and different" matter from the question of Saddam Hussein's leadership.

President George Bush has declared an intention to remove President Saddam from power. He has said all options are open, including a military campaign to overthrow the Iraqi leader if he continues to reject the inspectors.

The row over UN weapons inspectors, who left in 1998 when Iraq withdrew its cooperation, had until now formed the centrepiece of the US argument for "regime change".

In the hope of averting an attack, Baghdad recently began diplomatic moves towards a formula that would allow the inspectors' return. But Mr Powell's latest comments give Iraq no incentive to relent.

Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, yesterday dodged a question on whether the inspections issue provides justification for US military action against Iraq. She said that Saddam Hussein "is not likely to ever convince the world, in a reliable way, that he is going to live at peace with his neighbours, that he will not seek weapons of mass destruction, and that he will not repress his own people".

US efforts to link the Iraq issue to the "war on terrorism" have failed to bear fruit. Even the alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta, believed to have led the September 11 hijackers, and an Iraqi intelligence officer has been debunked in the US media.

Last Friday, Mr Annan reported progress from his talks with the Iraqi foreign minister, Naji Sabri, on the return of inspectors. Mr Sabri described the talks as positive and useful.

Iraq removed another potential irritant yesterday when it announced that it would resume oil exports, which had been suspended last month. The move was designed to put pressure on the United States to stop Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4408022,00.html

5/10/02
12:07:43 PM

Israeli Rebel Reservists Tell Why They Refuse To Go To The Territories

'WE NEED TO STRENGTHEN IMAGE OF OUR SOCIETY'

by Harvey Morris, April 27, 2002

Reserve staff sergeant Amit Mashiah is a self-proclaimed patriot and committed Zionist who is proud of what he calls one of the most moral armies in the world. That, he says, is why he is prepared to court accusations of treachery and cowardice by publicly refusing to serve in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip.

Mr Mashiah is one of 436 Israeli reserve officers and men who have announced their intention to refuse to serve in the territories, an almost tenfold increase since the movement was launched three months ago.

"We believe it works against Israel society to maintain the occupation and that we have to push to end it," says Mr Mashiah.

On the eve of the planned arrival of a UN fact-finding mission into events at the Jenin refugee camp, the rebel reservists have decided to break a self-imposed silence towards the outside world by talking for the first time to the foreign press.

"We didn't want to be a stick with which to beat Israel," says Mr. Mashiah. "But now we really need to strengthen the image of Israeli society."

The last month has been a difficult time for the reservists' movement. Israeli passions were inflamed by a series of devastating Palestinian suicide bomb attacks and by the war that followed in the West Bank.

A majority appeared to accept the argument of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, that the invasion of the West Bank was part of a war to safeguard the existence of Israel.

The reservists' movement has turned that argument on its head.

"If Israeli society, more than any other society in the world, abandons its core values, it won't be able to continue," Mr Mashiah says. "That's why we feel the country has left us no option but to refuse to serve in the occupied territories. As patriots we won't do it."

Mr Mashiah, who has served in the artillery in Lebanon and the occupied territories, says the army sets great store by morality in its training. It is the occupation that is immoral.

The 30-year-old former advertising man, who now works full-time as the reservists' spokesman, says: "The situation of an army in a populated area is an impossible reality."

He plans to reject his next reserve call-up papers in May, if it means service in the territories, and join 42 reservists already serving 28- day jail sentences.

The rebels firmly refuse to engage in politics - Mr. Mashiah says most are centrists and some even voted for Mr Sharon. "We go into the army, we fight, we go to university, we work, we pay taxes. But we can't sit aside and do nothing any more."

However, with feelings in Israel so raw, it looks like being an uphill struggle. In a mounting mood of intolerance in Israel, Limor Livnat, the education minister, this week raised the prospect of indicting Hebrew University lecturers who supported the rebel reservists.

An opinion poll published yesterday indicated 58 per cent of Israelis believe that journalists who criticise the army's role or government policy in the territories are damaging national security.

But, yesterday's poll in the Ma'ariv newspaper also indicated that most Israelis were not so far removed from the reservists' thinking 52 per cent supported a regional conference based on the principles of Saudi Arabia's peace proposal - full withdrawal from the territories in exchange for peace with all the Arab states.

Source: http://www.ft.com/mideastcrisis

5/10/02
12:04:45 PM

The US Congress Not Stopping The Cycle Of Violence

In case you missed it here is the list of senators and representatives who voted against the resolutions endorsing the Israeli military action in the West Bank. Human Rights Watch has documented numerous acts by the Israeli Defense Forces which, in their opinion, constitute war crimes. They include the use of human shields, the destruction of houses with civilians inside, the prevention of adequate medical care to wounded civilians who are allowed to die in the streets, and gratuitous attacks on civilians (including children) and civilian infrastructure that cannot be justified by military necessity.

If you can't find your representatives on this list that voted against supporting such military incursions against the Palestinian people and humanity, contact them and ask why they are supporting such policies that only continue the cycle of violence and threatens everyone.

Senators voting no. Byrd, Dem, W. Va, Hollings, Dem. S.C.

Senators not voting:

Bennett, Rep. Utah; Bunning, Rep., Ky.; Helms, Rep. N.C.; Torricelli, Dem, NJ.

House of Representatives, Voting No.

Democrats: Abercrombie, Hawaii; Bonior, Mich; Boucher, Va.; Condit, Calif.; Conyers, Mich.; DeFazio, Ore.; Dingell, Mich.; Hilliard, Ala.; Inslee, Wash.; Jackson, Ill.; Kleczka, Wisc.; Lee, Calif.; McKinney, Ga.; Miller, Calif.; Obey, Wisc.; Rahall, W. Va.; Stark, Calif.

Republicans: Paul, Tex.; Petri, Wisc.; Rohrabacher, Calif.; Nick Smith, Mich.

Please consider calling and thanking these above Senators and Representatives who voted against the resolution in support of Israeli military policies that can only continue the cycle of violence and suffering in the Mid East. And if you can't find your elected representatives on this list, please call and ask them why they support policies that makes the situation worse. Not seeing Dennis Kucinich's name on the list, we called and discovered that he (and perhaps others) voted "present" which is registered neither as a "yes" or a "no" vote.

"It is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners."

Albert Camus

The Congressional Switchboard telephone number is 202-224-3121 Additional Congressional Contact Information:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/index.html

5/10/02
12:01:23 PM

Sharon Puts Washington On The Spot

US blocked UN mission, says Israeli leader

Julian Borger in Washington for the Guardian, May 8, 2002

The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, went out of his way to embarrass the divided US administration yesterday, openly thanking the Americans for scuttling the proposed UN investigation of Palestinian deaths in the West Bank town of Jenin.

His remarks were made only hours before he met George Bush in the White House.

There are sharp differences between Israel and the US about the role of Yasser Arafat and Saudi Arabia in future peace negotiations.

The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, played an important part in setting up the Jenin mission, in response to Palestinian claims of a massacre. It collapsed last month, because of Israeli opposition, before it even reached the West Bank.

Addressing the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish American pressure group, Mr Sharon hinted heavily that the Bush administration had ultimately helped block the inquiry. "No nation in the world has the right to bring Israel to court," he said.

"I would like to thank the American administration and its leadership that helped us, understood us, and supported us to get out of this trap."

The speech put the administration in an awkward situation by suggesting that the US had acted privately to thwart a mission it supported in public.

Denying Mr Sharon's claim would anger the fervently pro-Israel Congress, which is currently debating whether to increase the annual $2.8bn (£1.9bn) subsidy to Israel.

There was no immediate US response to Mr Sharon's comments yesterday, but a diplomat watching the speech said that state department officials present turned "dour" when they heard them.

UN officials said the US had initially proposed a fact-finding mission principally as a means of heading off a security council resolution establishing a full investigative commission. But as opposition in the Israeli defence force became clear and the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, dropped his initial support, the US envoy to the UN, John Negroponte, distanced himself from the idea.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, was left "holding the baby", a UN official said. "He read the writing on the wall and pulled the plug."

Another diplomat at the UN headquarters in New York agreed. "I don't think the US were out to get Sharon off the hook, but once it was clear he was not going to accept the mission, they may have tried to use it to get a package out of him."

Mr Sharon used his visit to Washington and his fifth meeting with Mr Bush to press for Mr Arafat's future exclusion from the peace process, arguing that he had supported terrorism.

The Israeli delegation arrived brandishing documents which it claims prove Mr Arafat's sponsorship of terrorist attacks.

Mr Sharon advocated a regional peace conference which he would attend, but not the Palestinian leader.

Mr Powell, meanwhile, is making plans for an international meeting of foreign ministers this summer, which would exclude Israeli and Palestinian leaders and therefore sidestep the personal animus between them.

Mr Bush and Mr Sharon were reported to have discussed the reconstruction of the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the Israeli offensive, but once again Mr Arafat's role was at the heart of the discussion.

The US accepts the Palestinian leader as indispensable to peace, but the Israeli prime minister has made it clear that he envisages a reconstructed authority without him.

"A responsible Palestinian Authority that can advance the cause of peace should not be dependent on the will of one man," he said.

The Israelis angered their American hosts by accusing Saudi Arabia of funding suicide bombers and the Islamist militant group Hamas, while the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, was holding talks with the US administration, which has en thusiastically backed the regional peace proposal put forward by the Saudi leadership.

"We can't figure out what they're up to," the US press quoted a senior administration official as saying. "We need the Saudis right now. They need the Saudis right now. This doesn't make sense."

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US, called the allegations "totally baseless and false" and accused Israel of trying to distract attention from the peace process.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4409055,00.html

5/10/02
11:42:49 AM

To Win, Palestinians Must Adopt A Nonviolent Strategy

by Mubarak Awad, April 12, 2002

The Palestinians need to pursue a conscious, organized strategy of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Violence, fiery speeches and threats of war against Israel are counterproductive. Instead, Palestinians should organize massive peaceful marches to demand an end to Israeli settlements and occupation, which are violations of morality and international law.

Such a strategy must involve Palestinians, the Arab world, the international community and committed Israelis. It must be grounded in broad public discussions involving unions, students, civil-society institutions and the local media.

The role of the Arab and Muslim worlds is crucial. Nonviolent resistance in the form of boycotts, protests and diplomatic pressure must be applied to translate the support of the various Arab populations into pressure on Israel.

The international community should focus on ending the Israeli settlements and occupation. Every opportunity should be taken to frame the question in moral and legal terms and to challenge Israel's war crimes. We must insist that the United Nations take action on these issues, regardless of U.S. opinion.

Boycotts of Israeli products should be linked to specific individuals or policies hurting Palestinians.

The Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims should view acceptance of Israelis as an acceptance of the humanity of other people who were born in the land and have a right to stay.

As a consequence of this new way of thinking, Arabs and Palestinians would accept the economic need for open borders between Palestine, Israel and the Arab world. Jews would be accepted as a minority in the Middle East and would not have to rely on the protection of the United States and Europe. Instead, they would be protected by a regional security arrangement such as the one put forth in the recent Saudi initiative.

This proposal has the potential of becoming a solid building block.

How can Israelis born in Israel, who possess the right to live there as citizens, coexist with the neighboring Arab and Islamic communities, especially the Palestinians, with equality and dignity for all?

The answer does not consist of believing in Israeli superiority or the power of military might. Salvation lies in Israel's relationship with the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim community. Israel has no future as a colonizing power without being seen as an apartheid state. Whites in South Africa, despite their power, were not able to enforce their rule forever. The sooner Israel reaches this conclusion, the sooner we will see an end to this conflict, which has taken a devastating toll on Palestinians and Israelis.

It is important for Palestinians to focus on nonviolent struggle. Many Israelis, who truly yearn for a just peace, can be enlisted in this nonviolent struggle against occupation and settlements, whereas there is almost no chance of enlisting them in any armed Palestinian activity. Palestinians will choose nonviolence only if they are convinced of its efficacy.

The Israelis know well how to fight an armed antagonist, yet they have little understanding of how to deal with massive nonviolent resistance. They expect and, in fact, need for Palestinians to be either submissive or violent.

A nonviolent approach would neutralize much of Israel's military might and disrupt its actions. We need to embark on this course now.

Mubarak Awad is founder and director of Nonviolence International, a nonprofit organization that helps those seeking nonviolent means to achieve their social and political goals.

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com

"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. Destruction is not the law of the humans. Man lives freely by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause is a crime against humanity."

Mahatma Gandhi

5/10/02
11:25:05 AM

"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. Destruction is not the law of the humans. Man lives freely by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause is a crime against humanity."

Mahatma Gandhi

5/10/02
11:23:12 AM

Tooth Fairies and Suicide Bombers or "Hi, my name is Abudla. I'll be your suicide bomber this evening . . . "

by Carol A. Valentine

May 9, 2002 -- People, let's use our noggins. The suicide bombers are not what they seem to be.

For many months now, I have been reading stories about alleged "suicide bombers" in the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Within a short time after the attack, not only is the suicide bomber identified by name, but we have nice colored photos, almost portrait quality shots, of the dead culprits.

For example, on April 27, 2002, the Washington Post ran an article in the Style section, "Female Suicide Bombers: the New Factor in Mideast's Deadly Equation." Shown at the top of the article are four color photos of the faces of four Palestinian (?) women, face to the camera, posed for the photographer.

How thoughtful of the suicide bombers to have those photos taken. How thoughtful of the suicide bombers to leave the photos behind to be conveniently found by the Zionist-owned press. And what a public service the Zionist-owned press is doing the whole world by publishing these photos.

SUICIDE BOMBER MIRACLES

Typically, stories about suicide bombers tell us that the bomber went to a public place such as a bus stop, market, restaurant, pool hall, etc., and blew himself/herself up along with one, two, or many Israelis.

Funny, they rarely hit military targets. I wonder why?

The general story line is that the bomber had explosives attached to his/her person. The story goes on to describe the carnage in grisly detail - dismembered bodies, etc. But, remarkably, the suicide bomber himself/herself is not blown to smithereens. The bomber's body is left in sufficiently good shape to be identified immediately, and of course the Israeli authorities do just that.

But even more remarkable: The Israelis come up with these nice portraits of the culprits. And what is most remarkable of all? Everything is coordinated, bombers ID'd, photos gathered, stories written -- and published all over the world by the Zionist press -- within a few hours or days after the event.

SUICIDE BOMBING NOT TOO SMART

Why would a Palestinian bent on vengeance commit suicide? Far better to go to the bus stop, market, restaurant, pool hall, etc., with a shopping bag or backpack full of explosives, casually discard the package in some inconspicuous place, and leave. BOOM! Lots of Israelis die, and the bomber walks away to bomb another location next week. But no, we are asked to believe that the suicide bombers blow THEMSELVES up, too.

"Why would the bombers do that?" we ask. "Because they are fanatics, that's why," is the response.

Well, if you are a Palestinian fanatic you would surely would want to kill as many Israelis as possible. You would want to extend your life as long as possible to do that job. Committing suicide unnecessarily would be a very dumb thing to do.

WHY NO IRA SUICIDE BOMBERS?

In all the years of IRA activity in Northern Ireland and Britain, the IRA never used suicide bombers, did they? Wonder why the "Palestinians" have to?

IT'S THE QUR'AN! THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY'RE MUSLIMS!

There's another variation to these inane suicide bomber stories.

"The suicide bombers are not just fanatics, they are MUSLIM fanatics. Allah will reward them for their deeds. They want to go to heaven to be rewarded."

Yet I have NEVER seen one cite from the Qur'an that justifies suicide, under any conditions. Quite the reverse. I have seen cites from the Qur'an which clearly prohibit suicide.

Now doubtless there are passages in the Qur'an say eternal bliss will be endowed upon those brave souls who lose their lives while fighting God's war. Big deal. We have chaplains in the US military who, give or take, give our soldiers the same kind of message. That's their job.

If the Israelis want us to believe that the suicide bombers are fanatic Muslims, they need to come up with Qur'anic scriptures to prove their point. They don't. They can't. The Israelis are lying. What else is new?

SUICIDE BOMBERS AND SUICIDE BOMBERS

The Palestinian suicide bombers have been compared to the Japanese Kamikazee pilots who purposely flew their bomb-laden planes into American war ships at sea during world War II.

The Japanese knew they were in danger of losing the war, and they wanted to reverse the trend. So they arrived at a strategy which would inflict maximum American damage for minimum Japanese damage. The Kamikazee strategy was very successful. For each Japanese killed, 10 Americans were killed and many ships were sunk or badly damaged. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the Kamikazee strategy was not successful enough. The US had the A-bomb.

The Kamikazee pilots' purpose was not to commit suicide. Their deaths were the necessary by-product of a heroic attempt to defeat a military enemy, an enemy who threatened the life of the Emperor, their God. Of course the Kamikazee pilots thought they'd go to Heaven, too, but that seems to be a common denominator for all who fight in the Good War.

THE HAMAS JOKE

And what of the Hamas, claiming responsibility for these suicide bombings? The reports that the Hamas takes responsibility comes from the Israelis, and we know they never lie.

There is almost no chance the Hamas is a real Palestinian operation. It almost certainly is an undercover Israeli mockingbird operation.

Before me on my desk are two color photos of -- can you believe -- students who attend "suicide bomber" schools. The schools are either run by the Hamas, or Hamas "sympathizers."

One dramatic front page color photo appeared in the Washington Times of December 10, 2001 with this caption:

"Ready to Die: At an anti-Israeli demonstration commemorating Hamas's 14th anniversary yesterday, suicide bombers with fake dynamite strapped to their chests paraded near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. "

The photo is attributed to Associated Press, and shows at least 10 people, whose faces and bodies are entirely covered by white sheeting, facing the camera.

Another dramatic front page color photo appeared in the Washington Times on March 4, 2002. The caption reads:

"Humas activists, dressed as 'suicide bombers' with fake explosives strapped to their waists, rallied yesterday in the West Bank."

There are at least 11 white-garbed clowns in this photo, which is again attributed to Associated Press.

Juxtaposed beneath the photo of the 11 suicide bomber students is a photo of four young Israelis, two of them boys dressed in black with black hats and side curls. The boys wear mournful expressions on their faces. The caption reads: "Blast site: Ultra-Orthodox Jews watched volunteers clean the Jerusalem site Sunday where a suicide bomber killed nine persons."

"Gee, how sweet and nice those young boys look. Fancy having to put up with suicide bombers . . ." that's what we are supposed to think.

Israel has declared on many occasions that assassination is its official policy. How many times have we heard of Palestinian leaders summarily shot dead on the spot by Israeli hit men? That being the case, how realistic is it that the Israelis would permit these young "suicide bombers" to train openly, and march down the street openly? How likely do you think it is that Israel would permit REAL suicide bomber schools to exist?

And how do you think that Associated Press found out about the demonstrations and showed up to take photos? Next we'll be told the suicide bomber schools have public relations departments and send out press releases.

How dumb do they think we are, that we'd believe all this? Well, you can speak for yourself. But I ain't THAT dumb.

THE PUBLIC RELATIONS WAR

I believe Israel runs a suicide bomber campaign. The suicide bomber campaign serves at least four purposes.

* Sharon the Madman needs an insane foe. An insane foe makes Sharon and those behind him look good, or at least not so bad.

* In May, 2001, world public opinion was moved to sympathy for the Palestinian cause. We were enchanted at "The Return of the Knight."

http://www.ukar.org/shamir09.shtml

The heroism of this young Palestinian boy swept the world's imagination. Obviously, the Israelis were losing the PR war. Shortly thereafter, a new rash of suicide bombers broke out and continues to this day. The suicide bomber campaign was in part an attempt to reverse a growing Israeli PR disaster.

* By September 11, 2001, Muslim fanatics committing suicide had to be firmly planted in the public mind as a common-place event. That paradigm made the fantastic stories of the "suicide pilots" -- those Muslims accused of crashing the United and American passenger jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11 -- easier to swallow.

* Depicting the Palestinians are irrational fanatics justifies their extermination. Proof?

This from the mouth of Richard Cohen, columnist for the Washington Post. On February 5, 2002, Cohen wrote a column "Why the Turn to Suicide?"

"NEW YORK -- On my first visit to Israel, the government supplied me with a guide -- a former army officer and combat veteran renowned for his hawkish views. We disagreed about almost everything, including the nature of the "enemy." I found his views simplistic and repulsive. Recently, though, I have begun to wonder if he wasn't right . . ."

Cohen then moves on to talk about suicide bombers.

" It [Palestine] is now behaving as the Japanese did toward the end of World War II when, in desperation, they sent pilots crashing into U.S. ships. These kamikaze attacks were both effective and terrifying, but they were also a clear sign that Japan had gone nuts.

"The kamikaze attacks were an important element in the dehumanizing of Japan. They encouraged, maybe the right word is "permitted," the use of the atomic bomb. After all, the enemy was not rational. It was barbaric. It would never surrender. It would fight to the last square inch. Better to incinerate them all.

"In a similar manner, suicide bombings have transformed the image of Palestinians. Now, in the view of many, they are similar to the people my guide once so excoriated and insulted -- so different, so primitive, so cruel and indifferent to human life that they celebrate the suicide of a loved one and the simultaneous murder of innocent people. "

There you have it. The PR payoff of the suicide bomber campaign is to convince world public opinion that any barbaric act against the Palestinians is justified. Nuke them, burn them alive, decapitate every last man, woman, and child. Do whatever you wish.

"BUT I SAW THE FAMILY BEING INTERVIEWED ON TEE VEE . . . "

If I were the director of an Israeli dirty trick intelligence organization, I could think of a number of ways to pull off "suicide" bombings.

* Send an agent to a public place, have him inconspicuously drop off his package and leave. BOOM! Meanwhile, simply abduct and murder some unfortunate Palestinian and blame it on him or her.

* Create a false ID for the Israeli agent, have him establish that persona in real time, send him into a public place, have him inconspicuously drop off his package and leave. BOOM! Then disappear the agent.

* With effective Israeli control of hospitals, mental hospitals, and prisons, Israeli intelligence people have a plentiful supply of the walking wounded at their fingertips -- Palestinians who are human ruins, shellshocked, brain-damaged and drugged to the gills. How easy it would be to send one of these unknowing unfortunates out on an errand. "Here, strap this money belt around your middle to make sure you don't lose the money." Tell the poor sap to meet someone in a pool hall, and detonate the "money belt." BOOM!

I'll allow you to come up with other possible scenarios. It's not hard to do.

And as for the interviews with the bereaved family members -- we don't know the people being interviewed from Adam. They could have come straight from Central Casting. Or they could be genuinely bereaved family members of real victims -- people who have been watching too much Tee Vee and believe the "suicide bomber" media campaign.

Expect more "suicide" bombings, but believe them less. Thank you.

Source: http://www.Public-Action.com

5/9/02
11:52:16 PM

YUCCA MOUNTAIN NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP: What else can you do with nuclear waste?

Concerned citizens,

Imagine a UFO in a hundred years flying over the earth. It sees all the oceans choked with vegetation and on land, a writhing tangle of mutant life. Over the horizon it sees a plume of radioactive jetsom, coming from Yucca mountain and others across the planet. This may be our legacy.

There IS a viable, cost effective alternative to burying high level nuclear waste. Dr. Radha R. Roy, professor of physics emeritus, Arizona State University, released the Roy Process to the press in 1979. See orginal AZ Republic newspaper story on this web site: http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess

High level nuclear waste can be transmuted into non-radioactive elements on site, using existing infrastructure, commercially available machinery and current supporting technology. In addition, as the treated isotopes rapidly decay into stable elements, heat is produced, which can make steam to power the existing electric generators at each nuclear power plant where nuclear waste is stored in cooling ponds. Dr. Roy estimated costs in 1979 at $80 million dollars to construct the Roy Process pilot facilities and should take three years to complete.

Transmutation would also guarantee international security by eliminating bomb grade elements.

There are several touted transmutation methods. There is a neutron method that only partially reduces half-life, creates more nuclear waste to be buried for an uncertain future. The Roy Process uses photons and with repeated treatments will transmute plutonium into non-radioative lead.

Nevertheless, politics has put this important new science in limbo. The future of all life on earth is at stake. Before Dr. Roy died in 1994, he asked me to keep promoting the Roy Process as there will not be a more cost effective method to neutralize high level nuclear waste.

Sincerely Yours, Dennis F. Nester

5/9/02
11:33:54 PM

Energy Trading on the Sly

Christian Science Monitor May 08, 2002

California's rolling blackouts and other power emergencies in 2000 and 2001 weren't solely the result of the state's faulty deregulation plan. Memos just divulged by Enron indicate that market manipulations by energy traders also contributed, aggravating the problems if not causing them.

To its credit, Enron's new management gave the memos to government regulators soon after they were discovered, though they could have been held as privileged lawyer-client communication. The company, say its current lawyers, wants to cooperate with ongoing investigations.

Thus new light is thrown on practices that until now were mainly a matter of speculation by state officials who were sure they'd been conned by Enron and other traders. The memos detail strategies such as artificially creating congestion on power lines so traders could collect fees to relieve it, or buying power at a capped price in California, then selling it much higher out of state, then reselling it back to California. The Enron memos say other energy traders were engaged in similar strategies.

This constant gaming of the market, by the Enron memos' own admission, probably deepened power-shortage crises in the state. The manipulations certainly violated state regulatory rules, though they were not clearly detected at the time. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California suspects they also may have violated federal fraud statutes, and she is urging a Justice Department probe.

For now, the memos should spur federal energy regulators' investigations, with an eye to curbing such practices in the future.

California had unique energy problems, largely of its own making. But that didn't justify a free-for-all by crafty traders.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0508/p08s02-comv.html

Enrob Annual Report 2001

http://www.enrobreport.com/

At last -- all the gonzo political corruption and lunatic optimism of Enrob Corporation is revealed in the Annual Report that they would have written themselves, if they¹d had the nerve!

5/9/02
11:31:47 PM

How Enron Got California to Buy Power It Didn't Need

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., NY Times

WASHINGTON, May 7 -- Fat Boy. Death Star. Get Shorty. These were the cocky nicknames that Enron traders gave the complex trading strategies they employed in 2000 and 2001 to maximize gains in California's wholesale electricity market.

Enron is no longer in the trading business, and today its interim chairman, Norman P. Blake Jr., condemned the company's old tactics as "seemingly gaming the system" and "very offensive," in testimony before a Senate panel. Advertisement

But documents released this week by federal regulators and interviews with California officials indicate that when Enron was flying high, its trading tactics exploited weaknesses in the state's energy markets to the hilt.

One set of strategies -- which traders called Death Star and Load Shift -- involved creating the appearance of congestion on California's power grid and then arranging for the state to pay Enron to relieve the congestion.

This could be done in a variety of ways, Enron lawyers explained in internal memos. One method called for traders to schedule power deliveries over lines already known to be heavily congested. Meanwhile, they would keep loads light in another part of the state.

This tactic, the lawyers explained, would often result in the state power-grid operator increasing the amount it was willing to pay to electricity traders who were willing to alter their deliveries to reduce congestion in the busier region. And that is just what Enron did, collecting money for "reverting back to its true load."

Describing a related maneuver, the lawyers wrote, "Enron gets paid for moving energy to relieve congestion without actually moving any energy or relieving any congestion."

The lawyers added that such congestion deals could be quite profitable. "Because the congestion charges have been as high as $750 per megawatt-hour, it can often be profitable to sell power at a loss simply to be able to collect the congestion payment," they wrote. By comparison, when markets are functioning normally, electricity often costs no more than $30 to $40 a megawatt-hour.

The lawyers acknowledged that the money collected by Enron came at the expense of utilities and consumers in California.

"By knowingly increasing the congestion costs, Enron is effectively increasing the costs to all market participants," they said, noting that one related tactic generated $30 million in profit in 2000.

A second set of strategies involved buying power in the state at capped prices and then selling it for much more elsewhere.

With power costs soaring as the energy crisis developed late in 2000, California imposed price caps that for much of the time set the maximum price for power sold within the state at $250 a megawatt-hour.

But the price limit could easily be defeated by a crafty trader, because it did not apply in surrounding states, where power could be bought and sold at prices up to five times the price cap.

Federal regulators fixed this problem in June 2001, when they imposed broad price restraints throughout the Western United States. But for a time, as federal regulators refused to take action, Enron traders reaped huge profits, the memos from the Enron lawyers indicate.

One approach was to simply take power bought in the state and resell it in a nearby state. The documents describe this as traders taking "advantage of arbitrage opportunities."

On Dec. 5, 2000, one Enron memo noted, "Traders could buy power at $250 and sell it for $1,200." Doing so, it said, "appears not to present any problems, other than a public relations risk arising from the fact that such exports may have contributed to California's declaration of a Stage 2 Emergency yesterday."

In a Stage 2 alert, which is declared when grid managers see that power reserves are declining below 5 percent of the system's capacity, California officials ask that power consumers voluntarily curtail their use of energy.

Enron also engaged in what energy traders call "megawatt laundering," a tactic labeled Ricochet in the Enron documents.

While the price caps prevented power from being sold in California for more than $250, power brought in from out of state could be sold for a higher price if the seller could justify the costs -- by explaining, for example, that it had been acquired at a very high price.

As described in the lawyers' memos, Enron bought electricity in California and scheduled it "for export." The electricity, they wrote, "is sent out of California to another party, which charges a small fee per megawatt, and then Enron buys it back to sell the energy" to the state's grid operator.

The third maneuver -- the one called Get Shorty -- involved a strategy much like short selling shares of stock. Betting that the price of a company's stock will fall, short sellers borrow shares they do not own and then sell them in the open market. If all goes well, they buy the shares back later at the lower price and pocket the difference.

Enron was essentially doing the same thing in the California market, according to the internal documents and state officials. Its traders shorted so-called ancillary services -- the term that is used to describe commitments by energy companies to maintain idle power-generation capacity for a set time, to be called on as needed.

"The profit is made by shorting the ancillary services, i.e., sell high and buy back at a lower price," the Enron lawyers wrote.

But there were risks to this strategy, the lawyers wrote, as illustrated on one occasion when a trader failed to cover a short position and the state's grid operator called on Enron to fulfill its standby commitment to provide power.

The Enron lawyers also noted that the state grid operator's rules required that sellers identify the specific source of the power that would be provided, if the ancillary services were called on.

"As a consequence," the lawyers wrote, "in order to short the ancillary services it is necessary to submit false information that purports to identify the source of the ancillary services."

In the documents, the Enron lawyers said that many of the same tactics were used by other energy companies doing business in California. Both state officials and federal energy regulators said today that they would question other companies about whether that was true.

Whether any or all of the tactics are legal will be the focus of considerable debate. But today, the Washington trade group that represents the nation's independent power traders, the Electric Power Supply Association, distanced itself from the activities that were described in the Enron documents.

"Practices designed to manipulate customer prices, create unfair advantages for specific market participants or threaten the reliability of the electricity grid cannot be condoned," the group said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/08/business/08POWE.html?todaysheadlines

5/9/02
11:28:00 PM

Californians Call Enron Documents The Smoking Gun

by Joseph Kahn, NY Times

LOS ANGELES, May 7 -- Documents showing that Enron manipulated California's power market were described today by politicians, lawyers and consumer groups as the smoking gun they needed to help recover billions of dollars they say the state was overcharged by Enron and other companies for electricity in 2000 and 2001.

The documents -- Enron memorandums released by federal regulators on Monday -- were hailed as a windfall by state officials who have used regulatory and legal means to try to force half a dozen power-generating and marketing companies to refund at least part of the profits they made during a yearlong energy shortage. Advertisement

Federal regulators also said today that they would investigate whether other energy-trading companies used the manipulative trading strategies described in the documents by lawyers for Enron, which is now in bankruptcy. Duke Energy, Dynegy, the Williams Companies, Mirant and Calpine were among the companies the regulators "put on notice that they must preserve all material that discusses such trading strategies, or similar trading strategies."

Enron is no longer in the trading business, but the documents and interviews with California officials indicate that when Enron was flying high, its trading strategies exploited weaknesses in the state's energy markets to the hilt.

The disclosure that Enron and perhaps some other trading companies used techniques that Enron code-named Death Star, Fat Boy and Get Shorty to inflate prices artificially in California's deregulated energy market appeared to vindicate a long campaign by Gov. Gray Davis. Mr. Davis, a Democrat, battled the Bush administration and federal authorities for months last year before regulators agreed to put caps on skyrocketing electricity prices.

"About $30 billion was extorted from this state," Mr. Davis said in an interview today. "Those who claimed that there was no price manipulation here were just plain wrong."

Mr. Davis said the state intended to press federal officials to use their jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act to order power companies to give back profits made from selling power and renegotiate long-term contracts signed with the state during the heat of the crisis. "I don't see how they can turn a deaf ear to our claims in light of these memos," he said.

Mr. Davis also joined California's two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, in calling on Attorney General John Ashcroft to start a separate criminal inquiry into Enron's trading activities. The company is already under investigation for the accounting fraud that led to its collapse late last year.

Other companies uniformly denied today that they had engaged in Enron-style trading practices. Spokesmen for several companies said that Enron was unique because it acted purely as an energy trader while other companies had made long-term commitments to build power plants in the state.

"We are confident our practices are well within all of the parameters and tariffs of the market rules," Duke said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Williams said, "Enron and Williams are two entirely different companies."

But the Enron memos, written by an outside lawyer for the company's energy trading group, called the company's price manipulation "the oldest trick in the book" and said that "other market participants" had followed Enron's lead to inflate prices. And an official of the agency that operates California's power grid said the strategies described in Enron's memos matched suspicious behavior by many participants in the market that the agency has documented and submitted to federal regulators.

Joseph Dunn, a California state senator whose committee is investigating energy price manipulation, called the Enron memos "a jailhouse confession" and said that he would demand to see any similar memos at other companies. He said he now had fresh ammunition to refute the common claim by companies that such information must be protected under lawyer-client privilege.

Overlapping state and federal investigations and lawsuits and the possibility that regulators could order companies to return past profits sent share prices of energy companies tumbling. Shares of Dynegy, one of the largest traders and generators, fell more than 17 percent.

The major power marketers have struggled over the last few months to restore their reputations and shore up their finances, mainly by selling unprofitable assets and disclosing more about their often-opaque finances. But the Enron memos seem to have stirred doubts once more about the integrity and longevity of the industry -- and the way energy is traded.

"The whole reason for the existence of traders is to make as much money as possible, consistent with what's legal," said R. Martin Chavez, a former head of risk management in energy trading at Goldman, Sachs and chief executive of Kiodex, a risk management firm. "I lived through this: if you didn't manipulate the market and manipulation was accessible to you, that's when you were yelled at."

It was not immediately clear, however, how the Enron documents would help the state recover the billions it says it is owed. The state says its power bill rose fourfold in 2000 compared with 1999 and stayed artificially high in 2001, largely because of price manipulation.

UBS Warburg, the investment bank that bought the Enron trading operation in February, said it had no liability for any violations committed under former management.

"We did not inherit the liabilities," said David Walker, a spokesman for UBS Warburg. "What was pre-Feb. 11 is an Enron issue."

Moreover, some traders said today that the line between price manipulation and exploiting legitimate market opportunities was thin, particularly in California's nascent and flawed electricity trading market. The rules governing most electricity markets are enormously complex because they are intended to keep the power grid reliable at all hours of the day as well as to ensure low prices. Traders routinely seek to maximize their profits during periods of high demand.

"People are coming out and triangulating that through these memos the markets were manipulated," one former Enron trader said. "It's much more complex than that. California set the rules."

In fact, the California State Senate's investigation of price manipulation has uncovered evidence that traders who work for the state agency that handles the power grid, the Independent System Operator, also took advantage of market rules to move prices artificially.

"The bogeyman here is not just Enron and the power companies, but the system itself," said Jim Battin, a Republican state senator who has participated in the inquiry.

Still, people pursuing claims against the power companies greeted the Enron memos as hard, written evidence of the circumstantial suspicions that had guided their lawsuits for months.

"There has been a glacial change not only in the litigation but in the whole idea of deregulated energy markets," said Michael Aguirre, who is handling lawsuits against power companies on behalf of California's lieutenant governor and all state ratepayers. The legal actions are intended to force the return of at least $40 billion from power companies, he said.

More broadly, the Enron memos cast doubt on the skeptical approach that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney took to the state energy problems last year. Mr. Bush and his top aides repeatedly attributed high prices to regulatory and environmental barriers that they said made it difficult for energy companies to serve the market properly. They opposed any regulatory intervention to curb prices.

California's troubles were used as a prime exhibit in the administration's energy strategy, which was focused primarily on increasing the supplies of energy and which strongly endorsed deregulated markets for electricity.

Likewise, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission long played down the possibility that power generators had engaged in systematic price manipulation. The commission did two investigations of California's energy markets that produced no evidence that the companies manipulated the market.

Under its new chairman, Pat Wood, the commission began a new inquiry that has yet to reach conclusions.

Mr. Davis said today that Mr. Cheney and many other officials treated Enron "as the mothership of deregulation" and refused to look into allegations of abuse. Mr. Cheney was right that California made some mistakes in the way it managed its energy markets, Mr. Davis said. But he said that the administration took a laissez-faire approach to power markets for too long, worsening the blow to California's economy.

"It turns out we were right," Mr. Davis said. "Enron was manipulating prices to a fare-thee-well."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/08/business/08ENRO.html?todaysheadlines

5/9/02
11:19:44 PM

1. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.

2. No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won't make you cry.

3. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

4. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.

5. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.

6. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

7. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.

8. Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

9. Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.

5/9/02
11:17:37 PM

BioDemocracy News #39 (May 2002)

Exposing Biotech's Big Lies

By: Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association

www.organicconsumers.org

5/9/02
11:13:55 PM

OPERATION 911 COUP AND COVERUP UPDATE: 5-9-02

BLOWING THE LID OFF THE OFFICIAL COVERUP STORY:

THE EVIDENCE IS OVERWHELMING!!!!

THE MASSIVE INTELLIGENCE "FAILURES" AND COVERUPS OF PRIOR KNOWLEDGE CAN ONLY BE ORCHESTRATED FROM THE TOP!

9-11 beginning of long-term plot? Group analyzes attacks, says CIA needs 'truckload of pink slips'

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27520

Inquiry of Intelligence Failures Hits Obstacles Sept. 11: The lawmakers leading the investigation voice concerns that the CIA and Justice Department are undermining efforts. Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to discuss the committee's concerns with the CIA and the FBI in detail but said: "There are problems we are going to have to address." The flare-up centers on obstacles congressional investigators say the agencies have strewn in their path. The CIA, for example, has refused

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000031609may04.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Judge Rejects Jailing Of Material Witnesses Ruling Imperils Tool in Sept. 11 Probe

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11562-2002Apr30.html

Official Bungling Claimed in 9-11 Intelligence

http://www.americanfreepress.net/02_17_02/Official_Bungling/official_bungling.html

Questions for Mueller, FBI and others

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=24767

THE PROOF OF A 9/11 FRAME-UP IS RIGHT BEFORE YOU

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/frameup.html

FBI Warned on Flight Schools in July

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-attacks-fbi-memo0503may03.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dpolitics%2Dheadlines

The Case for Bush Administration Advance Knowledge of 9-11 Attacks

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/042202_bushknows.html

INVESTIGATION: Sept 11th - Unanswered Questions

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0202/S00079.htm

Scandal Inside the FBI: Did G-Men Miss the Boat on 9-11?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/13/94339.shtml

LT DELMART MIKE VREELAND - Homepage

http://members.freespeech.org/ltvreeland/

"The Great Deception" Part 1 of a multi-part series (Part 2 airs Jan 28) (Part 3 airs Feb 4) Transcript of Mon., Jan. 21 2002 Broadcast What really happened on Sept. 11th? "9/11 -- Part 1."

http://www.visiontv.ca/programs/insight/mediafile_Jan21.htm

An argument for explosive demolition at the South Tower.

http://www.911-strike.com/demolition.htm

THE MOTIVES:

How the Pentagon Learned to Love the Weapon No One Wanted The Carlyle Connection

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0218/gray.php

PENTAGON PSYOPS - AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 77.

http://www.nerdcities.com/guardian/SeptemberEleventh/WhatHitThePentagon/index.html

THE AFTERMATH:

Post-9/11 Pain Found to Linger in Young Minds: Thanks to the CFR globalists

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/02/health/02SCHO.html?todaysheadlines

Strange Cluster Of Microbiologists' - Deaths Under The Microscope

http://www.rense.com/general24/exk.htm

Congressman Ron Paul, House of Representatives, November 29, 2001 Keep Your Eye on the Target

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2001/cr112901.htm

THE HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS

Operation Northwoods And The Reichstag Fire

http://www.rense.com/general24/operationnorthwoods.htm

AN OVERVIEW OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM by Jim Marrs

http://www.jimmarrs.com/view/view102301.html

"U.S. GOVERNMENT PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF EMERGENCY" by Sherman H. Skolnick 09/11/01 AMERICA'S REICHSTAG FIRE

http://www.skolnicksreport.com/pkem.html

BOOGYMAN FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER

Book alleges attempts to arrest Osama bin Laden blocked by the US

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/1119/wor8.htm

Former Afghan President Doubts Osama Behind WTC Attack

http://www.rense.com/general24/formerafghan.htm

America's Reichstag Fire Osama bin Laden as Useful Idiot

http://www.thetexasmercury.com/articles/weber/PW20020317.html

911: The Road to Tyranny -- Watch the Entire Film Online

http://www.infowars.com/

CLICK HERE - to view now:

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/the_road_to_tyranny__34kbps_.ram

Cover-up: CIA and the Justice Department Actively Impeding Lawmakers' Efforts in 9-11 Probe MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEES ARE SO FRUSTRATED WITH THE TACTICS, SOURCES SAID, THAT THEY INTEND TO COMPLAIN DIRECTLY TO CIA DIRECTOR GEORGE J. TENET AND ATTY. GEN. JOHN ASHCROFT

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000031609may04.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dnation

Listen to Alex Jones tomorrow - for special show on 911-Govt prior knowledge: The Alex Jones Show Airs Live Twice a Day Mon-Fri from 11AM-2PM and from 9PM to Midnight (All Times US Central Standard) -- In the UK GMT 5PM-8PM and 3AM-6AM)

http://www.infowars.com/

5/9/02
11:09:14 PM

The Nation

Army Secretary Thomas White appears to be inching closer to becoming the first Bush Administration casualty of the Enron scandal. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to launch a criminal probe into Enron's role in manipulating California's electricity market, after Enron memos released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission showed how Enron boosted electricity prices in California and created shortages.

For the full story on White's role, read "White Must Go-Now," Jason Leopold's editorial from the forthcoming May 27, 2002 issue of The Nation.

Currently available at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=leopold20020507

In a recent installment of Capital Games, David Corn showed how White, a former Enron executive, was responsible for one of the bankrupt company's most ethically problematic divisions, how he failed to divest his Enron stock in a timely manner, and how he subsequently misled members of Congress about all this.

As Corn shows in his most recent Capital Games article, White's problems have now been compounded by a new Bush family melodrama -- a story of personal connections, backstabbing and multiple intrigues relating to an 80-ton artillery system dubbed the Crusader -- in which he finds himself on the wrong side of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Read all about it now at:

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=53

And check out these three recent Nation reports for more background on White's Enron ties and ethical problems:

DAVID CORN: W's Biggest Enron Liability, March 29, 2002 (Web only)

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=41

ROBERT BOROSAGE: White--It Gets Worse, April 22, 2002 (Nation mag)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&s=borosage

ROBERT BOROSAGE: White Must Go, March 11, 2002 (Nation mag)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020311&s=borosage

You can also find related material at The Nation's special Enron page, where you can read numerous Nation reports, articles, editorials and columns by Corn, Leopold, Borosage, Robert Scheer, William Greider, Michael Moore and John Nichols, among many others. All available at:

http://www.thenation.com/special/2002enron.mhtml

We also wanted to tell you about The DailyEnron, an innovative, regularly-updated website, sponsored by American Family Voices, which was founded in 2000 to be a strong voice for middle and low-income families on economic, health care, and consumer issues:

http://www.thedailyenron.com/

And, while you're at it, don't miss your chance to tell the "forgotten victims" of Enron, Kenny's Kids, those members of Congress who took Enron's money, did its bidding and are now bereft of Ken Lay's largesse, what you think of their sacrifice:

http://www.KennysKids.org

5/9/02
10:49:19 PM

ARE WE MAKING OUR CHILDREN SICK - MAY 10

KIDS AND CHEMICALS, A SPECIAL REPORT

BILL MOYERS TRACKS THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR ANSWERS ABOUT HOW ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS AFFECT AMERICA'S CHILDREN

Premiers Friday, May 10 at 9:00 (ET) on PBS (check local listings)

It is a medical mystery marked "urgent." Across America growing numbers of children are suffering from asthma, childhood cancers like leukemia, as well as learning and behavioral disabilities. Scientists are searching for clues to the causes of these illnesses, and a growing body of research suggests that everyday environmental toxins-what kids eat, drink, and breathe-may put them at risk. Equipped with new technology and more sophisticated analysis, these scientists are asking compelling questions about the health risks to children growing up exposed to an ever-increasing number of untested chemicals in our environment.

Kids and Chemicals, a special edition of NOW with Bill Moyers to be broadcast on PBS, Friday, May 10 at 9 p.m. (ET), features medical investigators and health officials engaged in the latest research on links between childhood illness and environmental contamination. The program looks at families around the country who are coping with the consequences to their children of potentially toxic exposures.

"The disturbing increases in childhood illness in America cannot be ignored," says Bill Moyers. "How does the exposure affect children's health? The new research is studying how chemicals enter the human body, and posing questions that they could never ask before: Do chemicals affect children, babies and unborn fetuses more than adults? What factors increase toxicity, and how can we protect children from harm?"

Kids and Chemicals' producers Gail Ablow and Greg Henry go to Fallon, Nevada, a small desert town that has had 15 recorded cases of childhood leukemia in just five years. Alarmed, Dr. Mary Guinan, who was one of Nevada's top health officials, called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate the potential links between this childhood cancer and the environment. Could toxic substances in water, food, air, schools, homes or the ground in Fallon be responsible for this "cancer cluster"? If so, which chemicals? Without clear evidence of a specific cause, everything-from jet fuel emissions to pesticides to naturally occurring arsenic in the water -- is suspect.

As Moyers and his team learn in Fallon, research on cancer clusters once focused mainly on gathering environmental samples because investigators simply didn't have tools sensitive enough to measure which toxins had been absorbed into people. Dr. Richard Jackson, the director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, explains how his laboratories are using the latest instruments. His research scientists are using sophisticated blood and urine analysis to test for minute traces of toxins in the bodies of the sick children and their families in Fallon.

This work is part of a larger movement in children's environmental health unfolding nationwide. Dr. Phillip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City works with scientists around the country to understand how kids are affected by exposure to chemicals. "Of the 3000 high production volume chemicals in use in this country today, only 43% have been even minimally tested," he tells Moyers. "Only about 10% have been thoroughly tested to examine their potential effects on children's health and development."

Speaking with Landrigan, Moyers learns that children are potentially more vulnerable to chemicals than adults. "First of all they're more heavily exposed pound for pound," says Landrigan. "They eat more food, they drink more water, they breathe more air. Then, of course, kids play on the ground. They live low, they put their hands in their mouth and so they transfer more toxic chemicals into their body than we do."

Traveling to Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Moyers meets Dr. Linda Sheldon of the Environmental Protection Agency's National Exposure Research Lab. Sheldon demonstrates how her team of scientists is gathering evidence of exposure to everyday chemicals in nursery schools, homes and daycare centers.

In New York City, a groundbreaking study led by Dr. Frederica Perera at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, follows more than 500 expectant mothers. These women are wearing air quality monitors in backpacks to trap the environmental toxins they breathe. As their children are born and as they grow, Dr. Perera and her team will look for links between the chemicals that the mothers were exposed to while their babies were developing in the womb and asthma, cancer risk, and learning disabilities.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a biologist at Cornell University, joins Dr. Landrigan in asserting that exposure during pregnancy doesn't, by itself, mean a child will get ill. What matters is the intensity of the exposure and when it occurs during fetal development. A chemical exposure occurring early in pregnancy might cause a miscarriage, argue the researchers. If it occurs later on, it might cause physical birth defects. Later still, it might damage brain cells. Scientists are trying to precisely identify these "windows of vulnerability." Says Dr. Steingraber: "Maybe certain problems that we understand . . . as attention deficit disorders, hyperactivity, the inability to pay attention, aggressive and violent behaviors, might have their origins during those windows of vulnerability during pregnancy and these questions are just being asked. Data is just beginning to come in." Dr. Perera's team at Columbia is also studying the way that chemicals can actually bind to human DNA in the womb and cause a mutation called an "adduct." Work by Dr. Perera has shown that the greater the number of adducts, the greater the risk for cancer. "And that's the missing link in all of this," says Dr. Steingraber. "That's the link we're beginning to fill in."

To place the current studies in a public health policy context, Moyers revisits the firestorm over lead research; recalling the revolutionary work of Dr. Herbert Needleman, who correlated low-level lead exposure to lower IQ's in children in 1979. Twelve years later, Needleman's work was attacked by the lead industry as it tried to protect its economic stake in lead products. Ultimately, the validity of Dr. Needleman's work was fully vindicated, and new public policy required unleaded gasoline and restrictions on lead paint. And many scientists believe that, as a result, children's IQ scores have risen, on average, three points. Yet, as Moyers points out, lead remains the number one environmental threat to children's health; many old houses and even many school buildings are still testing positive for lead today.

In Herculaneum, Missouri, lead contamination is a very current issue. The community is up in arms about the astonishingly high levels of lead to which their families have been exposed because the town's primary industry, the Doe Run lead smelter, failed to comply with EPA standards. "Doe Run played a really good game," Robyn Warden, a mother, tells Moyers. "They told people everything was under control and we were safe. And people weren't educated enough to know any different. It took people actually investigating lead to figure out that we were being lied to."

Dr. Steingraber knows the importance of informed parenting. Even in a seemingly pristine environment in rural New York, she knows there are possibilities of risk. "Just because there are no smoke stacks visible around us, just because you live a long way from the source of these chemicals, doesn't mean that nature won't bring them to you in some way," she says. A mother who breast feeds her infant son, Dr. Steingraber also realizes that she passes toxins directly to her baby every time she nurses. "No woman has uncontaminated breast milk on this planet," she states. Dr. Steingraber tries to reduce her children's exposure at home by using non-toxic products. "But we can't shop our way out of our current situation," she warns. "We still need to take action. It's time that our public policy takes action to get our kids out of harm's way."

There are unknown answers to many questions. Moyers reports on a proposed new project called "The National Children's Study," which will track 100,000 children from the womb to age 18 if it receives full funding from Congress. This long-term study may provide the definitive answers necessary for new regulations and laws protecting children from exposure to toxins. "Without conclusive science," Moyers says, "it is a constant fight to protect children's health."

Find out more about how scientists are studying environmental toxins and join the ongoing discussion about the critical issues covered in NOW online at

Source: http://www.PBS.org/now

5/9/02
12:54:04 PM

Proposed Proclamation for Global Peace & Love Day on June 15th, 2002

Dear Tyrone Jue,

We are coordinating The Miracle of Love event to inspire, delight, heal and enlighten those in attendance at the Rotunda in City Hall on June 15th, 2002. On that date, we will be bringing together many of the City's most talented musicians, artists, performers and producers to launch San Francisco's 35th anniversary celebrations of the Summer of Love.

As per your recent conversation with Da Vid, you will find below the text for a proposed proclamation to have June 15th, 2002 declared to be Global Peace and Love Day in San Francisco by the Hon Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr. We wish to cordially invite the Mayor to sign the proclamation and to read it at City Hall on this auspicious occasion.

Your and the Mayor's support for this wonderful event and inspiring proclamation is deeply appreciated.

In Peace and Love,

Julia Carter Executive Producer, The Miracle of Love Director, Sacred Dance Society and World Peace Through Technology Organization

Da Vid Co-Producer, The Miracle of Love Director, Global Peace Foundation

PROCLAMATION City And County Of San Francisco

WHEREAS, San Francisco, A City Sanctified And Consecreted To The Spirit And Memory Of St.Francis Of Assisi, A Champion Of Peace, Love And Forgiveness...

WHEREAS, San Francisco is The Birthplace Of The United Nations And is Home To Many Organizations Dedicated To Peace, Love And Unity..

WHEREAS, The Summer Of Love, a Global Source of Inspiration Which Heralded the Awakening of New Consciousness, Began In San Francisco 35 years Ago...

WHEREAS, An Visionary Global Grassroots Movement Has Been Initiated To Create A Majestic Global Peace Center On Alcatraz Island In The San Francisco Bay...

WHEREAS, "The Miracle Of Love" Event at City Hall on June 15th Acknowledges And Celebrates 35 Years Of Creative Culture And Artistic Expression In San Francisco...Now...

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, That I Willie L. Brown, Jr. Mayor Of The City Of San Francisco And County Of San Francisco Do Hereby Proclaim June 15th, 2002 As...

GLOBAL PEACE AND LOVE DAY

In San Francisco

5/9/02
12:28:31 PM

Court records in New York confirm that during the Sept. 11 tragedy a cameraman, anxious to document the events at Ground Zero, put on the garb of a firefighter in order to gain access to off-limits areas. New York Supreme Court papers show that the photographer, Steven Ferry, has agreed to give the Library of Congress about 20 rolls he shot at the site of the former World Trade Center Towers. The court has agreed to drop any charges against him for impersonating a firefighter.

Ferry reportedly admitted taking the uniform and protective wear from a fire truck parked near the disaster. He had said he wore the clothing not in to get special privileges but to protect himself while on his photographic mission.

He was sentenced to five years on probation and will spend more than 1,000 hours doing community service.

5/9/02
12:25:21 PM

The Palestinian Side Must Be Told

Is there media bias against Israel?

by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times

The claim, hotly expressed in thousands of angry e-mails and subscription cancellations, that the U.S. media are anti-Israel is so absurd as to suggest hysteria. Are American Jews in such deep denial about the brutality of Israel's recent actions that they would damn those who report the truth?

Certainly the American media are far more sympathetic to Israel than publishers and journalists in the rest of the world. This is particularly true in Western Europe, perhaps reflecting the widespread public sympathy there for the Palestinians, as measured in recent polls. Not that sympathy for Israelis, bloodied repeatedly by a merciless bombing campaign targeting civilians, is not equally warranted. It is my view that the prime historical responsibility for the failure to make peace in the Mideast lies with the refusal of the Arab nations to accept the justifiable existence of the Jewish state. However, the traditional absence of acknowledgement in U.S. news reporting of the ongoing victimization of the Palestinians, powerless from the beginning of their displacement half a century ago, is callously immoral.

Moreover, no group is so safely denigrated in the mass media of this country, particularly in film, as "the Arabs," who became the enemy of choice in post-Cold War movie-making in such films as "True Lies." And no group is as underrepresented in the media work force; there are more than 3 million Arab Americans, yet it is exceedingly rare to find one working as a newspaper reporter or TV news personality.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors doesn't even include Arabs or Muslims in its annual monitoring of groups underrepresented in the nation's newsrooms. Surely, if there were even a sprinkling of people in the news biz who were hearing from relatives in Ramallah or Jenin, it would influence the way events are interpreted.

Jews are not underrepresented in the U.S. media ranks, and it is a testament to their professionalism that their coverage is balanced. Odd, though, that other Jews deem their work prejudiced against Israel and at times even anti-Semitic; the convenient denigration is that a Jewish journalist who dares disagree with the more hawkish actions of Israel must be consumed with self-hate.

Full disclosure: I am Jewish and I daily converse with Jewish friends and acquaintances whose relatives, including their children, are living through the hell that suicide bombers have brought to the heart of Israel's civic life. Meanwhile, I have not a single acquaintance who is personally connected with anyone on the Palestinian side of events.

I would hazard to guess that most Jewish editors and reporters living in the United States are in a similar situation. Shouldn't that make us less likely to be deeply affected by the traumas visited upon Palestinian civilians by Israeli tanks and helicopters because they have not been recounted by our own friends and family?

It is to the immense credit of U.S. journalists of whatever background that they stand broadly accused of being sympathetic to the Palestinians--not because the charge rings true, but because it indicates they have somewhat succeeded in humanizing the face of an otherwise alien people. To humanize a people does not mean to apologize for the behavior of murderous individuals, movements or institutions representing the dark revenge fantasies of a people's consciousness, of course. But to blindly endorse the outrage of one side while ignoring the pain of the other does both a disservice.

It would have been irresponsible for the media, Jewish or not, to fail to report the depressing accounts of United Nations and other observers that the Israeli onslaught was aimed at destroying all signs of civic life as well as the stated purpose of rooting out terror. Or to treat Palestinian civilian deaths as a necessary evil made legitimate because they are caused by U.S.-supplied tanks and choppers rather than by suicide bombers.

There was a time when the Zionist pioneers did not have tanks and helicopters and also placed bombs to get rid of the British occupiers.

The truths on both sides of this war are unfathomably ugly; the media have performed a great service in alerting the world to them. Now, it is up to all of us to demand that the powers of the world intervene to halt the tragic carnage and push both sides toward negotiations for a lasting peace.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-000028852apr23.story

5/9/02
12:12:59 PM

The Real Aim

by Uri Avnery, Testimony of Israeli Journalist in Ramallah

The real aim of "Operation Defensive Shield" was not to "destroy the infrastructure of terrorism".

This was merely a good slogan for uniting the people of Israel, who are angry and afraid after the suicide bombings. It is also a good political device, allowing Sharon to ride on the bandwagon of President Busch's "war against international terrorism". Under the umbrella of "destroying the infrastructure of terrorism" one can do practically anything.

If Sharon had really intended to "destroy the infrastructure of terrorism", he would have acted very differently. He would have given the Palestinian masses hope of achieving their national freedom in the near future. He would have fortified the position of Yasser Arafat, the only effective partner for peace. He would have strengthened the Palestinian security forces and radically improved economic conditions in the Palestinian territories. But destroying the infrastructure of terrorism is not Ariel Sharon's aim. His program is far more radical: to break the backbone of the Palestinian people, crush their governmental institutions, turn the people into human wreckage that can be dealt with as he wishes. This may entail shutting them up in several enclaves or even driving them out of the country altogether.

As Sharon sees it, this would be finishing off the job started in 1948: to establish the real Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river; a state inhabited solely by Jews. It was no accident that he openly supported Slobodan Milosevic, the inventor of "ethnic cleansing".

When I wrote this a year ago, it sounded like malicious slander. Sharon was still pictured as a man determined to fight terrorism, not as a person using the fight against terrorism as a means to achieve quite different aims. No more.

Four days ago I was in Ramallah. I sneaked into the town (Israelis are forbidden by the military commander from entering the Palestinian territories) in order to see it for myself. I visited the Palestinian ministries. A shocking sight, indeed. Take, for example, the Palestinian Ministry of Education. It is housed in an imposing building, probably going back to British times, a mixture of neo-Classic European and oriental styles. In front of it there was a rose garden - "was", because a tank has crisscrossed it, for no apparent reason, leaving only one purple rosebush in all its glory. Just so. To teach them a lesson.

On the upper floor, where the archives and computers were housed, the destruction was total. The computers were taken apart and thrown on the floor, the safe blown open, the papers strewn around, the drawers empty, the telephones crushed . Some of it was just plain vandalism. The money in the safe was stolen, the furniture upturned, the papers dispersed. But when one looked closer, the real aim of the operation became clear. All the hard disks were taken from the computers, all the important files taken away. Only empty shells remained. All the important contents of the ministry were taken: the lists of pupils, examination results, lists of teachers, the whole logistics of the Palestinian school system. The Ministry if Health suffered the same fate. The hard disks that contained all the information, state of diseases, medical tests, lists of doctors and nurses, the logistics of the hospitals had been taken.

Even the people most critical of the Palestinian Authority admitted that these two ministries - Education and Health - had been functioning well. They have been utterly destroyed.

This happened to virtually all the Palestinian government offices. Gone is the information pertaining to land registration and housing, taxes and government expenditure, car tests and drivers' licenses, everything necessary for administrating a modern society. The lists of terrorists were not hidden in the land registration books, the inventory of bombs was not tucked away among the list of kindergarten teachers. The real aim is obvious: to destroy not only the Palestinian Authority, but Palestinian society itself: to push it back with one stroke from the stage of a modern state-in-the-making to the primitive society of Turkish times.

This is true for the civil society, and even more so for the security system. The headquarters of the security services were destroyed, files burned, computers crushed, the information concerning armed underground organizations and all other details pertaining to the war against terrorism were obliterated. There is no better evidence of the aims of this operation: not war on terrorism, but destruction of organized Palestinian society. By the way, on that day I passed, with a group of Israeli peace activists, through the center of Ramallah - from the mass-grave in the hospital parking lot to the besieged headquarters of Yasser Arafat. We carried Hebrew posters and encountered much sympathy and not a single sign of hostility. Even at this time, the Palestinians know the difference between the Israeli peace camp and those who are responsible for this brutal attack. Here, perhaps, lies the only glimmer of hope.

Full transcript of the war crimes panel available on the Gush site

http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/forum_eng.html

For more about Gush Shalom see at http://www.gush-shalom.org

5/9/02
12:06:40 PM

To: Crossfire & Guests, May 8th, 2002

From: Russell D. Hoffman, Concerned Citizen

Re: Your lame Yucca Mountain debate today

AFTER nuclear fuel has been used in a reactor, it's about a million times more radioactive and dangerous than when it goes in. Instead of just a few radioactive isotopes (mainly U-235), spent fuel contains over two hundred different kinds of radioactive "daughter" isotopes, all of which are dangerous in varying degrees, and have varying half-lives. The fuel is also very hot (temperature-wise), causing thermal embrittlement of everything around it. It even is susceptible to spontaneous combustion if it comes in contact with AIR. It's nasty, useless, dangerous stuff.

Despite these vast differences, on your show Wednesday, May 8th, 2002, John Sununu equated transportation of spent fuel OUT of a reactor to transportation of unspent fuel INTO the reactor. This comparison shows that he is either blissfully (and dangerously) unaware of the enormous difference, or he's a liar. He also stated there would be about 5,000 shipments of spent fuel -- this was off by about 100,000 shipments.

Yucca Mountain is bad science and bad politics. Keeping the plants open and the nuclear fuel on site is suicidal.

So, ALL OF YOU should stop labeling those you don't understand as "activists" or, as Tucker Carlson put it, members of the "environmental industry" -- whatever that is -- and get an education about the facts. Three of you could have corrected Sununu on his comparison of incoming fuel to spent fuel, or on his figure for the number of shipments, but apparently none of you knew any better.

Obviously, you all have a long way to go. As the Senate debates Yucca Mountain in the upcoming months, YOU FOLKS need to know the facts. That way, when you jabber back and forth, the public gets educated.

Even the DOE admits that the Yucca Mountain plan has nearly 300 unresolved technical issues. The outstanding technical points are very fundamental questions, from corrosion issues to security threats. It's obvious, from the recent Davis-Besse near-catastrophe, that the NRC and DOE don't really know a whole lot about corrosion, and it's obvious from 9-11 that the Federal Government can't properly assess terrorist threats, either. Even today, more than six months later, our nuclear power plants are STILL not properly secured BECAUSE THEY CAN'T BE. But we CAN shut them down, which would make them safer, although they would still require protection.

One of the insidious problems with "let's just move forward" is that it increases the vested interest in an option, because we've already spent X billions of dollars on it (this was mentioned in today's House debate, which it appeared none of you watched).

The Yucca Mountain debate is not new -- it's decades old, actually, and these unresolved issues are very, very complicated -- or more precisely, they are intractable. What is new is that all of America is looking at the whole nuclear issue in a new, post-9-11 light. It's about time! Here's an essay I wrote in June, 2001 on Yucca Mountain, terrorism, and related issues:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cass2001/bigegg1.htm

The REAL PLAN -- the "master plan" that has been going on for decades, is well-entrenched, and is unlikely to change REGARDLESS of the outcome of the Yucca Mountain Senate vote coming up soon. That plan is to just keep the debate going, keep the issue alive, keep building the repository as slowly but inexorably as possible, and not STOP to consider that America MUST get off the nuclear juggernaut. You have served that plan well today.

But can America really live with that solution? I don't think so, although we keep trying. After 50 years of research (and billions of dollars) there is still no accepted scientific solution to the waste problem for GOOD REASON. But humanity has to accept the reason!

The reason? The reason is that a half-life is an unstoppable nuclear "explosion", a very tiny one, yes, but absolutely unstoppable and unpredictable in individual cases -- that is, we can't say when a particular atomic breakdown will occur, or which direction the "ray" (alpha, beta, gamma, or x-ray, depending on the radioactive particle's particular properties) will head out in when it is ejected when the radioactive atom breaks down. For their size, these "rays" have extremely high kinetic energy compared to most things in our universe, because of the great speed at which they are ejected. So high is this energy, that these "rays" can destroy things they hit after they are ejected.

Cells, protein molecules, and even the nuclei of other atoms can be damaged by this "radiation".

Sure, it's a simple word. Radiation. It sounds like something almost magical. "Nuclear Power!" sounds good -- looks good on paper, or in a computer animation of a power plant, with one little box labeled "pump", another labeled "valve", another labeled "reactor pressure vessel", and so forth. But in real life, you can't reboot a city. You can't even rebuild it after a meltdown. If the Great Lakes are poisoned by a transport accident or a plant meltdown, or if the Mississippi River becomes the "ultimate heat sink" for one of the many reactors that get their cooling water from the Mighty Miss and her tributaries, America will be forever changed by that little, unstoppable atomic breakdown. Radioactive particles in deadly quantities are tasteless, odorless, colorless and can be way too small to see. Yet nevertheless, radiation is very real. It destroys human flesh, it destroys steel, it destroys the environment, and it's very hard to contain because it destroys the very containers built to contain it!

That's precisely why, originally, Yucca Mountain was supposed to use an entirely "natural" containment system. Because we had already figured out that we couldn't build a containment system for a reasonable price, if at all! Yet here we are again, decades later, pretending we've designed 100-year safe "dry cask storage" systems we dare not even open to find out if they're actually working properly, or degrading inexorably, like Davis-Besse did! Six months after 9-11, all our spent fuel pools, dry storage casks, and nuclear reactors remain vulnerable to terrorism, human error, and natural calamities. Nearly 300,000 spent fuel assemblies are to be stored at Yucca Mountain -- if ONE of them catastrophically fails, it could wipe out a city or even a State, but worse, it could cause the spent fuel assemblies near it -- 20 or so in a dry cask, hundreds in a spent fuel pool -- to catastrophically fail as well, wiping out a whole region of the globe and forever changing history towards a more painful, sadder time.

Self-inflicted terrorism, one might call it. The only way out is to close the nukes NOW. Before they are attacked. Before they fail catastrophically all by themselves. Before we fill up Yucca Mountain, and discover the next day that we still have a nuclear waste problem. Before Osama's followers find a spent fuel load being moved over a major waterway or through a major city. Before a tsunami strikes a coastal plant, before an earthquake, or a tornado, or an accidental 747 airplane strike (it can happen!), or anything else, goes wrong.

We are heading for a heartache, with much pain and suffering, and great cost. The only way to stop it is to shut down the nukes, and that only MIGHT work. But it's not the best chance we've got -- it's the only chance.

That is why Yucca Mountain is a hollow debate.

Yucca Mountain is NO solution. Continuing to run the reactors until they melt down, like Davis-Besse nearly did, is NO a solution. Why don't you debate shutting all the reactors down instead of where to put the waste? Is it because there really is NO logical debate left on that subject (yet still, somehow, the reactors remain open -- perhaps it's that $3 million dollars in campaign contributions to the Bush campaign which was mentioned on your show, but who knows, because it's been going on a lot longer than that)?

There are reasons both FOR and AGAINST Yucca Mountain. But to categorize those outside Nevada who oppose Yucca Mountain as simply being "anti-nuclear" is lame indeed. OF COURSE most of us also oppose nuclear power -- for VERY GOOD REASONS. A bad idea doesn't get better if you move it around the country. The creation of nuclear waste in America was, and remains, a bad idea. 2,000 tons a year is being created right now (a figure expressed (and unopposed) during today's House debate) -- Yucca Mountain or no Yucca Mountain. Only a fool would think Yucca Mountain should ever open. Only a fool would think our nuclear plants are safe from terrorists. Only a fool would debate whether the rain will fall some day. Or whether there will be a meltdown if we continue our present course. There will be rainy days, and just as surely, there will be a meltdown. Davis-Besse was mighty, mighty close to a meltdown, but didn't even get MENTIONED on today's show. Why not?

As one of you pointed out, moving the waste to Yucca Mountain would not eliminate the waste at most of the existing sites. Nobody had a response to that point, so the rest of you just ignored it and you all went on shouting at each other. That's no way to conduct a debate. It's a crucial point. Only shutting down the nuclear power plants can prevent a meltdown, and it still takes a minimum of about five years for the nuclear waste to cool before anyone -- even a nuclear power plant owner eager to get rid of it -- dares to move it. But we have to start by shutting down the plants. That makes them less vulnerable and it increases the likelihood of leaving our country reasonably clean and safe for our progeny.

So wake up, all of you! You have a job to do, and it's not prove your own ignorance before a national audience. You've all done that now. Now it's time to honor your profession and learn the facts.

Please visit my Nuclear Power Plants in America web page:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist.htm

Here's a web page for my newsletters on Davis-Besse:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/besse/index.htm

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman

Concerned Citizen

Carlsbad, CA

5/9/02
12:02:42 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Finance - Gardening for dollars, Americans go green - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15878/story.htm

Coalbed methane permits could be in jeopardy - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15885/story.htm

US House backs Bush on Yucca nuclear project - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15873/story.htm

Cargill to acquire abandoned US phosphate plant - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15881/story.htm

Chocolate makers sued for lead content of products - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15876/story.htm

Animal parts trafficking rife in Britain, says WWF - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15880/story.htm

Australians plan GM warfare against invading carp - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15877/story.htm

EU still far from deal on energy taxation - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15882/story.htm

South Africa hints at easing plastic carrier-bag ban - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15879/story.htm

Russia says will abide Strasbourg Chernobyl ruling - RUSSIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15874/story.htm

UPDATE - Dutch eco-activist charged with Fortuyn murder - NETHERLANDS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15875/story.htm

Floods kill 20 Kenyans, displace 150,000-Red Cross - KENYA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15884/story.htm

Activists lose first round in German gas plant row - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15871/story.htm

Shell buys stake in bioethanol fuel firm Iogen - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15883/story.htm

Australia blocks toxic China fertiliser exports - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15886/story.htm

Fines for NSW power retailers greenhouse failures - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15872/story.htm

5/8/02
10:23:53 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

DUTCH ANIMAL ACTIVIST CHARGED IN POLITICIAN'S MURDER

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands May 8, 2002 (ENS) - Pim Fortuyn, 54, a candidate for the Dutch Parliament, was murdered here on Monday shortly after giving a radio interview, by a man known to be an animal rights activist.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-08-05.html

EAT NO SEA BASS CAMPAIGN A HIT IN NATION'S CAPITAL

WASHINGTON, DC, May 8, 2002 (ENS) - Chilean sea bass is tender and delicious, a high value item on restaurant menus, but the fish is facing commercial extinction within the next five years unless pirate fishing is ended.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-08-03.html

AUSTRALIA, UNESCO SIGN PACT ON PACIFIC ISLANDS WORLD HERITAGE

CANBERRA, Australia, May 8, 2002 (ENS) - Potential World Heritage sites in the Asia-Pacific region will receive more attention from now on, following a new agreement signed Tuesday between the government of Australia and UNESCO.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-08-01.html

TAIWAN NUCLEAR WASTE COULD GO TO UNSTABLE SOLOMON ISLANDS

TAIPEI, Taiwan, May 8, 2002 (ENS) - Taiwan is discussing dumping low-level nuclear waste in the politically troubled Solomon Islands, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA).

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-08-04.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MAY 8, 2002

House Approves Nuclear Dump at Yucca Mountain

Wisconsin Legislature to Hold Special Wasting Disease Session

Organic Foods Shown to Have Less Pesticide Residue

California Conserves Power for Second No Blackout Summer

Idaho National Lab Chosen for Wildland Fire Trials

Groups to Sue Army Corps over Endangered Sturgeon

Research Ships Investigate Southern Ocean Food Chain

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-08-09.html

5/8/02
10:13:45 PM

Suing Greenwashers

by Josh Richman, May 3, 2002

The California Supreme Court has ruled that sports powerhouse Nike Inc. can be sued for deceptive advertising if it makes misleading claims as part of a public relations campaign designed to burnish its corporate image.

The 4-3 ruling could mean trouble for scores of corporations that engage in such "greenwashing" campaigns. The court's ruling establishes that such campaigns amount to advertising -- not free speech, as Nike had argued -- and are therefore subject to the same legal controls as advertising.

"Such representations, when aimed at potential buyers for the purpose of maintaining sales and profits, may be regulated to eliminate false and misleading statements because they are readily verifiable by the speaker and because regulation is unlikely to deter truthful and nonmisleading speech," Justice Joyce Kennard wrote in the court's majority ruling.

Under California's broad consumer-protection laws, a company can face penalties and restitution claims if it is found to have knowingly included false or misleading information in its commercial speech.

"It lets advertisers know their products can't be promoted with false statements ... under the guise of, 'This is a matter of public debate,' " says Alan Caplan, an attorney for Marc Kasky, a San Francisco-based activist who brought the suit considered by the state's high court. "The statements are going to have to be truthful or they can be sued."

Kasky says the decision is "a signal to a lot of corporations that might not have the resources Nike has to challenge something like this" to think carefully before playing fast and loose with the truth in their corporate communications. But Ann Brick, an attorney for the Northern California ACLU who filed a legal brief backing Nike, says the ruling "disregards the basic First Amendment principle that we allow the people, not the government, to decide who's right and who's wrong on issues of public dispute."

"It could easily trigger a flood of lawsuits and for that reason it can have a huge chilling effect on the ability of businesses to speak out on important public issues that directly affect them," Brick argues. David Brown, an attorney for Nike, says the Oregon-based corporation may ask the US Supreme Court to consider the decision.

The question of whether Nike actually presented false information in its public relations campaign must still be determined by a lower court. Kasky filed suit against Nike after reading the company launched a public relations campaign responding to news reports about conditions at plants making Nike shoes in Southeast Asia.

The news reports alleged dangerous chemical exposure, physical abuse, and substandard wages in the Asian factories under contract to Nike. The company penned press releases and letters to newspapers and sponsors claiming it had cleaned up its act. But an audit commissioned by the company itself and leaked in 1997 indicated the abuses had not abated.

While a lower state court threw out Kasky's suit, ruling that Nike was simply exercising its right to free speech, the high court's decision has given new life to the case. If Nike is found to have lied in its public relations efforts, the company could be forced to turn over millions in profits it has made in California.

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

5/8/02
10:10:22 PM

MOJOURNAL

http://www.motherjones.com/

You may notice that the links included in this week's MoJournal look different. There's a good reason for that. The newsletters sent out by MotherJones.com are now being produced and distributed using the Topica email management tools. The advantages of using the new service are numerous, but it essentially boils down to faster, better delivery of the newsletters and more reliable handling of subscriber requests.

Rest assured, the links will continue to work, connecting you to the same great Mother Jones content you've come to trust and value. If you have questions about the email service, please feel free to contact us directly at ahughes@motherjones.com.

Alexander Z. Hughes Product Manager, MotherJones.com

Will Tacy Editor, MotherJones.com

NEW ON MOTHERJONES.COM

* The Politics of Victimhood * - Opinion: Victimhood has become a default position for Jews and Palestinians alike, and both people have become enmeshed in the bloody consequences of a politics predicated on that victimhood.

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6pla4pkFbb/

* Bush's Mideast Lessons * - Opinion: The Bush administration's recent strides in the Middle East illustrate two important points the White House cannot ignore -- particularly if it expects the recently-announced summer peace summit to succeed.

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6pma4pkFbb/

* Nigeria's Vigilante Justice * - News: Fed up with soaring crime and ineffective police, Nigerians are embracing vigilante groups -- despite their murderous methods.

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6pna4pkFbb/

* Suing Greenwashers * - Update: The California Supreme Court has ruled that companies can be sued for deceptive advertising if they make false statements in public relations campaigns designed to burnish their corporate image.

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6poa4pkFbb/

* Antiabortion Ambush * - From the Magazine: Is putting photos of abortion-clinic patients on the Web an invasion of privacy? Or protected free speech?

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6ppa4pkFbb/

* Stirring Up Arafat * - Cartoon: Cooking up one very unappetizing Middle Eastern dish.

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6pqa4pkFbb/

* News Beat * - An Uncertain Step in Burma; Gasping for Hope; Continental Drift; Oregon's "Dr. Feelgood;" more ...

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6pra4pkFbb/

* Capitol Beat * - Nixon Flashbackss; White's Nine Lives; Patriot Act, Take Two; Bush's Band-Aids; more ...

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6psa4pkFbb/

* Has Bush Learned His Lesson * - Discuss: Will Bush's recent diplomatic success earn him the credibility on the Arab street and the trust of European leaders he needs to negotiate a lasting peace in the Middle East?

http://click.topica.com/maaamfgaaR6pta4pkFbb/

5/8/02
10:07:40 PM

t r u t h o u t | 05.09

Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. | Peace Is Possible In The Middle East

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09A.JJJ.Peace.htm

Daschle: Fast Track DOA in Senate

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09B.TPA.DOA.htm

Jennifer Van Bergen | Ashcroft Gives Detainee Information to Foreign Consulates, But Not to the American People

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09C.JVB.Detainees.htm

William Rivers Pitt | Five Questions

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09D.WRP.5.Qs.htm

RNC Sues Over Campaign Finance Law

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09E.RNC.Sues.htm

U.S. Mood Hits Low Point of Bush's Term, Bloomberg Poll Finds

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09F.Bloom.Poll.htm

US Agrees to New Set of Iraqi Sanctions

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09G.NU.Irq.Sanct.htm

Official: Iran Developing Missile Capable of Striking at EU

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.09H.Iran.Missile.htm

5/8/02
10:03:49 PM

The War On What?

by Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times

JAKARTA, Indonesia

Spend a few days in Indonesia and you'll find many people asking you a question you weren't prepared for: Is America's war on terrorism going to become a war against democracy?

As Indonesians see it, for decades after World War II America sided with dictators, like their own President Suharto, because of its war on Communism. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, America began to press more vigorously for democracy and human rights in countries like Indonesia, as the U.S. shifted from containing Communism to enlarging the sphere of democratic states. Indonesians were listening, and in 1998 they toppled Mr. Suharto and erected their first electoral democracy.

Today Indonesians are still listening, and they're worried they're hearing America shift again from a war for democracy to a war on terrorism, in which the U.S. will judge which nations are with it or against it not by the integrity of their elections or the justice of their courts, but by the vigor with which their army and police combat Al Qaeda. For Indonesia, where democracy is still a fragile flower, anything that encourages a comeback by the long-feared, but now slightly defanged, army and police the tools of Mr. Suharto's long repression is not good news.

"Indonesian democrats have always depended on America as a point of reference that we could count on to support us," said the prominent Indonesian commentator Wimar Witoelar. "If we see you waffling, whom do we turn to? It is like the sun disappearing from the sky and everything starts to freeze here again."

There is a broad feeling among Indonesian elites that while some of their more authoritarian neighbors, like Malaysia or Pakistan, have suddenly become the new darlings of Washington as a result of the war on terrorism, Indonesia is being orphaned because it is a messy, but real, democracy.

"We sometimes fear that America's democratization agenda also got blown up with the World Trade Center," says the Indonesian writer Andreas Harsono. "Since Sept. 11 there have been so many free riders on this American antiterrorism campaign, countries that want to use it to suppress their media and press freedom and turn back the clock. Indonesia, instead of being seen as a weak democracy that needs support, gets looked at as a weak country that protects terrorists, and Malaysia is seen as superior because it arrests more terrorists than we do."

Indeed, many people here believe that retrograde elements in the army and police have helped stir up recent sectarian clashes in Aceh and the Maluku islands to spur Parliament to give the security services some of their old powers back.

Says Jusuf Wanandi, who heads a key strategic studies center here: "I just spoke with some senior military people who said to me: 'Why doesn't the government give up all this human rights stuff and leave [the problem] to us?' They said the Americans should normalize relations again [with the Indonesian Army] 'and we'll do the job for them.' That is not the right approach, because we do not trust yet that the reforms of the military here have been adequate."

In fairness, the Bush team has kept aid for Indonesia at $130 million and made it the official policy in all diplomatic contacts that Indonesia should continue fighting its war for democracy, while contributing what it can to the war on terrorism. (It's not clear if there are any Qaeda cells here.)

Nevertheless, some top Pentagon officials are definitely pushing to let the Indonesian military make a comeback and to restore ties with the Indonesian military that were suspended after the army ran amok in East Timor in 1999. Indonesia is just beginning to try military officers involved in those killings. If there is any hope of senior army officers being held accountable for East Timor, it will certainly be lost if America signals that all it cares about now is that the new antiterrorism laws being debated by the Indonesian Parliament give the army anything it wants.

America needs to be aware of how its war on terrorism is read in other countries, especially those in transition. Indonesia is the world's biggest Muslim country. Its greatest contribution to us would be to show the Arab Muslim states that it is possible to develop a successful Muslim democracy, with a modern economy and a moderate religious outlook. Setting that example is a lot more in America's long-term interest than arresting a few stray Qaeda fighters in the jungles of Borneo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/08/opinion/08FRIE.html?todaysheadlines

5/8/02
9:58:16 PM

Governor turns away plutonium-hauling trucks?

TheState.com South Carolina's Homepage, May. 06, 2002

Hodges' war on plutonium move igniting political, PR meltdown

U.S. plan to dispose of six tons of toxic bomb-making residue threatened as governor balks

by Charles Seabrook, Cox News Service

ROCKY FLATS, Colo. - At the peak of the Cold War, 8,000 workers labored around the clock in top-secret buildings west of Denver to build the deadliest devices ever invented - thermonuclear bombs.

Now, with Russia and the United States cutting their nuclear arsenals, the Rocky Flats site - once one of the world's most dangerous bomb plants - will shut down by 2006. Its grounds will become a wildlife refuge.

First, though, the government must level hundreds of buildings and remove huge volumes of highly radioactive material left from decades of making hydrogen bombs.

Crews are sending tons of this waste to disposal, storage and recycling sites around the country.

However, the most dangerous material - more than six tons of heavily guarded plutonium suitable for use in H-bombs - is destined for the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, near Aiken. There, if all goes according to plan, it would be recycled into fuel for electric generating reactors.

Plutonium shipments to SRS could begin anytime after May 15.

But getting the substance across the South Carolina border is becoming a political and public relations headache.

Gov. Jim Hodges vows to use state troopers - even lie down in the road himself if necessary - to turn away plutonium-hauling trucks, unless he is convinced the feds won't leave the plutonium in his state permanently.

At the U.S. Justice Department, lawyers are looking at whether to send federal marshals along with the shipments to South Carolina, and studying the law about whether Hodges can block the shipments.

So far, the Energy Department's promises have left Hodges unconvinced. "The federal government is asking us to take them at their word," Hodges said. "Given their track record, that's not good enough."

On Wednesday, the governor sued the Energy Department, asking a federal court to block the plutonium shipments until Washington studies the impact on public health and the environment.

Hodges' stance has thrown the Energy Department, and some people in Colorado, into a tizzy.

If the plutonium does not begin moving out of Colorado soon, the department will miss its 2006 deadline for closing Rocky Flats, the agency says.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham says he fears the Russians might lose interest in cutting weapons if the United States cannot show it is making progress in getting rid of its nuclear material.

In Colorado, Denver's newspapers have called Hodges "silly" and likened him to a Confederate rebel. U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who introduced the bill to make Rocky Flats a wildlife refuge, says Hodges will be to blame if plans fall apart.

His press secretary has referred to Hodges, a Democrat, as an "Elmer Fudd."

Allard and Hodges are running for re-election, raising the possibility that their battles have as much to do with politics as protecting their states from nuclear hazards.

STATES CHALLENGE FEDS

The plutonium from Rocky Flats is just the first part of more than 34 tons of the radioactive metal - enough to make thousands of H-bombs - that will be shipped to SRS from Energy Department sites over the next several years. Much of the plutonium is from dismantled bombs. Russia has agreed to dispose of a similar amount of the material.

The plutonium shipped to SRS would be reprocessed into a fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. When that fuel is spent, it would be disposed at a planned repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

To reprocess the plutonium, the Energy Department plans to spend $3.8 billion to build and operate two massive structures at SRS. Hodges' fear is that the structures won't be built, and the plutonium will sit indefinitely.

RAIDED BY THE FBI

The cleanup and closure of the 6,500-acre Rocky Flats facility, once one of the world's filthiest bomb factories, will set the tone for other such projects to come, nuclear experts say.

At a cost of more than $7 billion, the Rocky Flats effort is one of the biggest public works projects in the nation's history and the first of its kind - the complete dismantling of a major nuclear weapons plant - in the world.

The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission began building Rocky Flats in 1951. The facility took plutonium, produced by reactors at SRS and the government's Hanford plant in Washington state, and turned it into plutonium "pits," or triggers for nuclear bombs.

A hollow sphere that varies in size from a grapefruit to a soccer ball, a plutonium pit explodes with the power of the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima during World War II. But in thermonuclear weapons, the pit serves mainly as a starter - the pit is a compact atomic bomb that detonates the larger hydrogen bomb. Pits made at Rocky Flats can trigger weapons 600 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Declassified reports reveal that Rocky Flats made about 70,000 pits in 36 years. Manufacturing at the site halted in 1989, when the FBI raided the factory for alleged environmental crimes. An Energy Department contractor paid more than $18 million in fines.

Because of the numerous environmental and safety deficiencies, Rocky Flats never resumed operations. In 2000, the Energy Department signed a contract with Kaiser-Hill, an environmental restoration company, to clean up the site, tear down its hundreds of structures, and close it down by the end of 2006.

Energy Department officials say they are now about a third of the way through the cleanup. Grassy areas and piles of rubble now mark the spots where some of the plant's support buildings and laboratories once stood.

Nearly every day, tractor-trailer rigs loaded with radioactive waste in huge shipping casks depart for the various storage sites around the country.

"We have more than 700 buildings here, large and small, and every one of them will be decontaminated and torn down," said Pat Etchart, a Rocky Flats spokesman as he drove a visitor through the complex recently.

Some of those buildings cover the equivalent of three football fields and have walls more than 5 feet thick. Tearing down such massive structures would be a major feat under even ordinary circumstances.

But the dismantling job becomes immensely more complex when workers must dress out in bright yellow moon suits and follow precise, detailed safety steps to protect themselves from nuclear materials and radiation.

Source: http://www.thestate.com/mld/state/news/3207533.htm

5/8/02
9:47:48 PM

Can Navy Sonar Hurt Whales?

Activists poised to block new device seen as harmful to marine mammals

Can Navy sonar hurt whales?

by Emily C. Dooley

A high-tech sonar system unveiled by the Navy could harm whales, dolphins and other marine mammals, environmentalists say. The new sonar uses sound waves and microphones to detect submarines at distances 10 times farther away than standard sonar equipment. Environmentalists believe the noise could affect whale health and behaviors, such as migratory patterns and breeding.

Acknowledging the system could affect "small numbers" of marine mammals, the Navy has filed for a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service to use the technology for the next five years. If the system is approved, the Navy would have the right to "incidentally harass or harm marine species."

A decision by the Fisheries Service is expected within the next few weeks, according to agency spokeswoman, Connie Barclay. Military officials and environmental activists, meanwhile, are debating the risks involved with the new technology.

"It's virtually impossible to know what the baseline response behavior will be," said Joe Johnson, civilian project manager for the Navy's new sonar program.

The Navy's Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System, or SURTASS, has a string of underwater microphones that detect noise from submarines and other underwater hazards. The new system uses Low Frequency Active (LFA) enhancement, which broadcasts sounds so the Navy can listen to underwater echoes bouncing off vessels.

Activists worry the decibel levels will hurt marine life. "(The Navy) said, 'We tested it and it's safe,' but they never tested at the full level," said Marsha Green, a professor with Albright University and a member of Ocean Mammal Institute. "I think they were clearly trying to deceive people.."

..Environmental exemption sought Meanwhile, a bill to exempt the Department of Defense from several environmental laws, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act, is being discussed on Capitol Hill.

"It's very disturbing," said Peter Borelli, executive director of the Center for Coastal Studies. "I think (the military is) trying to see how far 9/11 carries them.'

The environmental provisions are part of a House bill that authorizes fiscal 2003 spending for the Department of Defense. A committee on Tuesday removed exemptions from Superfund and Clean Air acts, but other exemptions remained. The Armed Services Committee debated the bill yesterday. The Cape's lawmakers are not encouraged by the measure.

"It's an attempt to undo a great deal of progress in a wholesale way," said Steve Schwadron, a senior aide for U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, who represents the Cape and islands.

"We need to defend the nation - period," Schwadron said. "We just need to do that in a responsible fashion. There is no need to sacrifice the environmental protection aspects of this in order to ensure we have proper training."

When it comes to marine mammals the act makes it harder to file lawsuits, Schwadron said. It also changes definitions, making it harder to prove something is harassment, Young said. "That's a pretty potent combination," Schwadron said. "The last thing we need is a whole statutory overhaul that releases everybody from their obligations."

If approved, the proposed legislation could clear the way for the sonar program. "Without it, the Navy cannot proceed," Schwadron said. "With it, the Navy can get through this obstacle."

For the complete article, posted at the Cape Cod Times, 02 May 2002, see

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/may/2/cannavy2.htm

5/8/02
9:43:38 PM

Like Harry Truman, We Should Investigate The Pentagon

by Gary Ferdman and Myriam Miedzian

Fact: Pentagon and General Accounting Office analysts agree that year after year the Department of Defense loses track of a quarter of its budget-an amount in excess of the entire annual federal budget for education.

Fact: No congressional investigation of the Pentagon budget is planned.

Fact: President Bush's 2002 Pentagon budget calls for a $48 billion increase which would bring the total 2003 budget to $396.8 billion.

Fact: Our 2002 defense budget is much larger than the defense budgets of Russia and China plus all potential adversaries combined.

Fact: Since the 1960's we have spent $130 billion on missile defense. The proposed 2003 budget includes another $7.7 billion. Pentagon plans call for hundreds of billions to be spent in future years.

Fact: According to our intelligence community the least likely means of delivery of a weapon of mass destruction is long range missile. A substantial number of scientists many of whom have worked for the Pentagon believe that a missile defense system would be ineffective and would lead to a new escalation of nuclear weapons. Our allies are opposed to it and to the breaking of the ABM treaty that it requires.

Fact: For decades the Pentagon has spent $30 to $35 billion annually to maintain a nuclear arsenal of at least 10,000 warheads.

Fact: Experts such as Paul Warnke, Chief negotiator of the 1979 Salt II treaty, and Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense have taken the same position as Richard Garwin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a key contributor to the first U.S. hydrogen bomb that "no conceivable threat requires the U.S. to keep more than a few hundred survivable warheads."

Fact: The Pentagon still spends tens of billions on Cold War weapons systems such as F-22 fighter jets and new nuclear weapons.

Fact: The cold war with the USSR has been over for more than twelve years.

Fact: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing and other weapons manufacturers are amongst the largest contributors to political candidates; for years they have spent even more than Enron to buy political influence.

Fact: The above facts are well known to members of Congress, but a vast majority of Americans are unaware of them.

Question: Why has not one Democratic Senator taken real leadership in opposing any increase in Pentagon spending and exposing the waste and political pork that perpetuates a bloated budget bearing little relationship to our nation's true military needs?

Conventional Wisdom: President Bush's popularity has soared since 9/11. Polls show that the American people support the War on Terrorism and increases in the military budget. Democrats' silence is due to fear of not getting reelected.

Fact: Senator John McCain's enormous popularity even among many Democrats demonstrates that the American people place the highest value on honesty, integrity, and courage in a politician.

Historical Fact: During WWII, then Senator Harry Truman dedicated himself to rooting out waste, mismanagement, and fraud in the military buildup. His Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program (known as the Truman Committee) continued its work throughout the war. It saved the nation hundreds of billions of dollars and catapulted Truman to the Vice Presidency in 1944 and the White House a year later.

Conclusion: Any Democrat who chooses to follow in Truman's footsteps would save our nation billions in Pentagon waste; increase our national security by forcing the Pentagon to focus on true needs. These include ensuring it has weapons to meet today's threats; preventing the sale of former Soviet nuclear , biological, and chemical weapons to rogue states; and developing top notch intelligence sources. This courageous stand would free up funds desperately needed for health care, education, and environmental protection. The Democrat willing to emulate Truman would win the overwhelming admiration of voters and pave his or her way to the White House.

Gary Ferdman is executive director of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.

http://www.businessleaders.org

Myriam Miedzian, a New York-based researcher, is the author of "Boys will be Boys: Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence." From Anchor Books: http://www.randomhouse.com/anchor/

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0507-08.htm

5/8/02
9:34:20 PM

Are you on the "No Fly" list?

by Matthew Rothschild

Alia Kate, 16, a high-school student in Milwaukee, wanted to go to Washington, D.C., for the protests Saturday, April 20. She was looking forward to demonstrating against the School of the Americas and learning how to lobby against U.S. aid for Colombia.

She had an airplane ticket for a 6:55 p.m. flight out of Milwaukee on Friday the 19th, and she got to the airport two hours ahead of time. But she didn't make it onto the Midwest Express flight. Neither did many other Wisconsin activists who were supposed to be on board. Twenty of the 37 members of the Peace Action Milwaukee group - including a priest and a nun - were pulled aside and questioned by Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies. They were not cleared in time for takeoff and had to leave the next morning, missing many of the events.

What tripped them up was a computerized "No Fly Watch List" that the federal government now supplies to all the airlines. The airlines are required to check their passenger lists against that computerized "No Fly" list.

To read the entire feature story, link to:

http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc042702.html

5/8/02
9:32:18 PM

How smart does your religion make your children?

The top 10 SAT scores of college-bound seniors by religious affiliation:

Rank -- Religion -- Average SAT score

#1 Unitarian/Universalist 1209

#2 Judaism 1161

#3 Society of Friends (Quakers) 1153

#4 Hinduism 1110

#5 Mennonite 1097

#5 Reformed Church of America 1097

#7 Episcopal 1096

#8 Evangelical Lutheran Church 1094

#9 Presbyterian Church (USA) 1092

#10 Baha'i 1073

National Average 1020

Source: College Board

5/8/02
9:29:12 PM

Help the poor and homeless get through the next winter

The Survival Two Event will take place across the USA on Saturday Nov. 30, 2002. The purpose of the event is to save lives this winter by preparing the poor and homeless with the materials they need to survive. It's also a chance for each city to take care of their own by getting personally involved with their poor and homeless brothers and sisters.

To get involved, check out the Care of Poor People website:

http://www.coppinc.com

5/8/02
7:11:54 PM

"The peace of one individual is small. The peace of many people together is big. When we see ourselves as separate from each other, our community, and from nature, then violence and strife arise. It is only when we understand our part in an overall unity that there is the possibility of peace on a large scale."

Deng Ming Dao

5/8/02
7:11:11 PM

DAILY GRIST

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

CELL OUTS

If you count yourself among the cell-phone-hating masses (and doesn't almost everyone at least claim to, even if owning one on the sly?), here's more fuel for your fire: Within three years, Americans alone will discard about 130 million cellular telephones annually, generating 65,000 tons of toxic trash, according to a recent report. On average, cell-phone-owning Americans (135 million of them and counting) hang on to their hi-tech toys for 18 months before tossing them in the garbage, according to Inform, the environmental organization that released the report. Into the garbage with them (and from there into the landfill) goes an entire alphabet soup of toxins, from arsenic to zinc, that have been associated with cancer and neurological problems, especially in children. The report urges the cell phone industry to expand "take-back" programs so phones and batteries can be recycled, as well as to standardize technical and design features so users don't have to throw their phones away when they switch services.

straight to the source: CNN.com, Associated Press, 08 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=73>

only in Grist: Death calling -- is your cell phone killing you? -- and other gems from assorted magazines in our Best of the Rest section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/best/best082900.stm#cellphones?source=daily>

BAGLADESH

Now consider a less sophisticated but equally troublesome form of trash -- plastic bags. Polyethylene-based bags are hazardous to produce and, once discarded, can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. The bags are all but omnipresent: Consumers in the U.K. go through 8 billion per year; four out of five shoppers in the U.S. use plastic bags over paper or cloth; and the bags are so commonly seen tangled in trees and fence posts in South Africa that they've been called the national flower. Some countries, however, have drawn the line. In March, Bangladesh banned polyethylene bags after they were shown to have blocked drainage systems and contributed to severe flooding in 1988 and 1998. Taiwan hopes to prohibit free distribution of plastic bags, Singapore is launching an awareness campaign, and the Irish have slapped a hefty tax on their use. The latter was so effective that plastic bag distribution at one of the nation's biggest chains has fallen by 97.5 percent.

straight to the source: BBC News, 08 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=74>

THE LION SLEEPS BETTER TONIGHT

A new economic model that uses cost-benefit analyses to predict the fate of endangered species has been unveiled by New Zealand economist Robert Alexander and researcher Chris Fleming. The model analyzes the socio-economic pressures that push animals to the brink of extinction and could be used to assess the probable success or failure of conservation programs. For example, the model can weigh the economic benefits (in tourism dollars, say) of preserving an elephant in Africa against the expensive havoc the animal can wreak on nearby villages, which often spurs poachers into action. The model is not the first of its kind, but it is one of the first to look at multiple species and their habitats, rather than just individual species. The distinction is critical, say the researchers, because otherwise, the costs associated with preserving an elephant appear to be extremely high. By contrast, the new model takes into account that land preserved for elephants is also used by lions, leopards, rhinos, and so forth. Happily, that change yields some good news: While a single-species economic model predicted the extinction of the elephants, the multi-species model, when looking at both rhinos and elephants, predicted the survival of both species.

straight to the source: BBC News, Kim Griggs, 08 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=75>

only in Grist: Alternatives to elephant poaching -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/ha/ha042800.stm?source=daily>

do good: Take action for endangered species <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/species.asp?source=daily>

THE BIG O

Consumers of organic produce, take a moment to feel good about yourselves: A study published today shows that organically grown foods contain a fraction of the pesticides found in conventionally grown foods. Organic foods were less likely than their conventional counterparts to have any pesticide residues; what residues they did have were from fewer sources and at lower levels. On average, the study found, organics contain only a third as many pesticide residues as conventional foods. The study was published in the Food Additives and Contaminants Journal, based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, California Department of Pesticide Regulation, and Consumers Union. The conventional food industry, which holds that low levels of pesticides do not harm human health, was unimpressed by the findings. Gilbert Ross, a scientist with the American Council on Science and Health, which is heavily funded by the industry, said, "So what?"

straight to the source: New York Times, Marian Burros, 08 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=76>

only in Grist: Strawberry field endeavor -- a former stock trader learns how to really pick 'em -- in our Main Dish column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/lavendel102199.stm?source=daily>

do good: Take action on food and agriculture issues <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/food.asp?source=daily>

MAYBE HE MAKES A GOOD CUP OF COFFEE

John Suarez, the Bush administration's pick for the job of enforcing the nation's environmental laws, used to work closely with U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, back when she was governor of New Jersey. Trouble is, that appears to be about his only qualification for enforcing EPA rules. That was the concern expressed by Democratic members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who saw Suarez's nomination as another indication of President Bush's lack of commitment to upholding strict environmental laws. Suarez spent three years as commissioner for New Jersey's Division of Gambling Enforcement and seven as an assistant U.S. attorney, where he focused on white-collar crimes like mail fraud. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and James Jeffords (I-Vt.) said they feared that his experience would not qualify him to enforce complex environmental protections. A coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, sounded an even stronger note, saying Suarez was the least qualified person to be considered for the position in 15 years.

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Reuters, 08 May 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=77>

5/8/02
7:08:30 PM

Public Citizen issued the following two press releases today:

1) Memo Shows Enron Division Headed by Army Secretary Thomas White Manipulated California Electricity Market

2) Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act (GAAP) Will Save Consumers Billions by Making Less-Costly Generics Available

May 8, 2002

Memo Shows Enron Division Headed by Army Secretary Thomas White Manipulated California Electricity Market

Public Citizen Calls on White to Resign, Justice Department to Launch Criminal Probe

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In light of a memo indicating that Army Secretary Thomas White's former Enron division was involved in market manipulation and price-gouging during the California electricity crisis, Public Citizen today called for White to resign immediately and the Justice Department to initiate a criminal probe.

The internal company memo describes how White's division, Enron Energy Services, lied to California officials, enabling the company to charge prices far higher than should have been allowed. As a direct result of his division's fraud, White is a multimillionaire and California consumers still are paying far too much for their electricity.

The Dec. 6, 2000, memo from Enron attorneys describes how Enron Energy Services deliberately sought from the state's power broker far more electricity capacity than it needed. By doing so, Enron Energy Services, which was colluding with other Enron divisions, deceived the state into thinking that transmission capacity was full, enabling Enron to charge prices far higher than if capacity was not full.

That and other memos, released this week as a result of an ongoing investigation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), confirm charges Public Citizen has made for more than a year in reports and in testimony before Congress. The memos are available on the FERC Web site,

http://www.ferc.gov

"These documents show manipulation and deception so extreme that it borders on maniacal," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "Thomas White was in charge when California was being gouged by Enron. If he directed this activity, he shouldn't be head of the Army. And if this was going on under his nose and he didn't know, he's a terrible manager and also shouldn't be head of the Army. He should resign immediately."

When the memos are combined with data available in Power Marketer Quarterly Reports that Enron filed with FERC, it is clear that White's division was colluding with Enron's power marketing divisions to fool state and federal regulators. In the first three months of 2001 - the height of skyrocketing prices and rolling blackouts - White's division traded more than 11 million megawatts of electricity in the California market alone, making nearly 98 percent of these trades with other Enron divisions at astronomical prices up to $2,500 a megawatt hour (the standard price at the time was less than $340 a megawatt hour).

By selling power to itself at inflated prices, Enron helped cause prices to skyrocket in California's deregulated market. Economists refer to this manipulation as transfer pricing.

By trading such large volumes of electricity at such high prices with other Enron divisions, White's division was able to accomplish two things. First, it allowed the company to charge California utilities and consumers astronomical prices, thereby contributing to the Western electricity crisis. Federal and state regulators found it very difficult to trace Enron's trades because the company had four separate divisions interacting in the wholesale and retail markets, and with each other.

Second, engaging in transfer pricing allowed these various Enron divisions to overstate revenue and contribute to the accounting gimmickry that inflated the company's share price.

It is important to note that at the same time that Enron Energy Services was manipulating the California energy market, Enron paid the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates more than half a million dollars in the first seven months of 2001 to lobby the "Executive Office of the President" on the "California electric crisis" according to the lobbying disclosure report filed with Congress on April 10, 2001.

The firm's co-founder, Ed Gillespie, was the former communications director at the Republican National Committee and a top Bush campaign advisor, and he ran the U.S. Department of Commerce for the first 30 days of the Bush presidency. Enron was lobbying against bipartisan efforts to re-regulate the Western electricity market by imposing price controls. As Enron was spending this money lobbying Congress and the White House against price controls, the Bush administration aggressively took Enron's position. On numerous occasions, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, their various spokespeople and Cabinet officials took an aggressive stance against price controls.

White served as vice chairman of Enron Energy Services from 1998 until the Senate confirmed him as Army secretary in May 2001. When Bush nominated White for the post, he cited White's 11-year experience as a top Enron executive as a primary qualification. White earned tens of millions of dollars in salary, incentive-based bonuses and stock options during his Enron career. He earned $5.5 million in salary and cash bonus his last year alone.

As vice chairman, White was in charge of running day-to-day operations, including managing and signing retail energy contracts. During White's tenure, Enron Energy Services became one of Enron's fastest growing subsidiaries by using questionable accounting practices, with revenues climbing 330 percent from 1998 to 2000 (from $1 billion in 1998 to more than $4.6 billion in 2000). Using "mark-to-market" bookkeeping, Enron booked much of the revenue for long-term retail contracts up front - providing the company with inflated revenues.

White's former employees have publicly stated that he knew of the fraudulent accounting employed by the division. Glenn Dickson, an Enron Energy Services director laid off in December 2001, has been quoted in media reports as saying that both White and Vice Chairman Lou Pai "are definitely responsible for the fact that [Enron Energy Services] sold huge contracts with little thought as to how we were going to manage the risk or deliver the service."

xoxox

May 8, 2002

Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act (GAAP) Will Save Consumers Billions by Making Less-Costly Generics Available

Bill Would Close Loopholes in Hatch-Waxman Act That Allow Drugmakers to Keep Generics Off the Market

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A measure being considered today by Senate lawmakers would provide consumers with more timely access to lower-priced generic drugs, ultimately saving people billions of dollars in prescription drug costs.

The bill, the Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act (GAAP), S. 812, is being heard by the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Its original sponsors are Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

"This legislation will close loopholes that brand name drug companies exploit to extend their lucrative patents and deny consumers access to lower-cost generics," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch. "This will translate into billions of dollars of savings for consumers. We applaud Senator Kennedy for holding this hearing."

The GAAP Act closes loopholes in the Drug Price Competition and Patent Restoration Act of 1984 (Hatch-Waxman Act) that have allowed brand name drug companies to keep generic drugs off the market.

Hatch-Waxman was designed to increase timely access to generic drugs while ensuring that drug manufacturers have adequate patent protection to justify their investment in research and development. But loopholes in the act have allowed drug companies to delay generic drugs from coming to market by doing such things as paying firms to withhold generic drugs from the market and filing nuisance lawsuits that automatically delay the introduction of generics. Although the Hatch-Waxman Act has succeeded in opening the prescription drug market to generic competition, generics now constitute less than 10 percent of the dollar value of all prescription drugs sold in the United States.

Solutions in the Schumer-McCain bill include:

· Eliminating the automatic 30-month stay in current law that has allowed brand name drug companies to keep generic drugs off the market by filing nuisance suits. The bill would require that brand name drug companies, just like patent holders in any other industry, prove in court why they ought to be granted a temporary restraining order preventing a competitor's product from coming to market;

· Limiting collusion between brand name companies and generic firms that agree to withhold their drugs from the market. The bill would deny 180-day exclusivity to a generic company if it does not aggressively attempt to bring a generic version of the brand name company's product to market; and;

· Requiring entities filing citizens petitions to disclose if they are acting on behalf of a brand name drug company to keep a generic off the market. Such petitions can be filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by anyone seeking to prevent a drug from being marketed. Brand name drug manufacturers increasingly use these petitions to keep generic competition at bay. Such petitions can delay the introduction of a generic alternative for a long time because the FDA is required by law to consider each one.

The brand name drug companies claim that by eliminating the automatic 30-month stay, this legislation would reduce their incentives to develop new medicines, because they would be denied the ability to defend their intellectual property. This is inaccurate. The GAAP Act is not a threat to drug companies' legitimate patents. By eliminating the automatic 30-month stay, this legislation would make it more difficult for companies to hide behind weak patents. Under this legislation companies would still be able prevent a generic, which is infringing on a well-founded patent, from coming to market. The only difference is that instead of automatically receiving 30 months of protection from competition, under GAAP, brand name companies will have to prove to a judge why a competitor's generic drug should be kept off the market.

"The passage of this legislation will be a boon for research in the pharmaceutical industry," said Clemente. "If drug makers know that they will not be able to extend their monopolies with frivolous patents and legal shenanigans they will be forced to invest in real innovation."

The new legislation comes at an important time. Brand name drug companies often charge U.S. consumers nearly twice as much as they charge consumers in other industrialized nations for the same prescription drugs. In the next five years, prescription drugs with annual sales of approximately $20 billion will be coming off patent. Given that generic drugs cost, on average, less than a fifth of what brand name drugs cost under the Medicaid program, the potential savings to taxpayers, consumers and patients from the timely availability of generic drugs is substantial.

Despite the Hatch-Waxman Act's loopholes, the legislation has been successful in saving consumers huge amounts of money by increasing their access to generic drugs. The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that Americans saved $8 billion to $10 billion in 1994 alone by purchasing generic drugs. But if the act's loopholes were closed, consumers would save even more, Clemente said.

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

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

5/8/02
7:06:34 PM

DAILY GLOBAL MEDIA NEWS

http://www.mediachannel.org/news/today/

EXCLUSIVE: Globalvision News Network's Daily News And Views

http://www.gvnews.net

EXCLUSIVE: News Dissector's Daily Weblog Danny Schechter critiques what's reported - and what's not featuring reader input.

http://www.mediachannel.org/weblog

NEW FEATURES: MAY 8, 2002*

VIRTUE AND VISION: THE JOURNALISM WE NEED

What citizens deserve from journalists? And what can and should we do if we those rights are abused or ignored?

PLUS:

*A "fair practices code" for Mideast conflict coverage.

*Idealism, Struggles and Press Freedom. . and more.

http://www.mediachannel.org

BETTER THAN CENSORSHIP

To protect kids from porn and other menacing media, media literacy education may be the best solution

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

THE NEW UK COMMUNICATIONS BILL

Public-interest groups warn that the new rules will undermine media accountability, diversity and quality programming.

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

AIDS: SLICK MEDIA, SERIOUS MESSAGE

The best way to promote AIDS/HIV prevention is with media that tap into a country's pop culture, says the editor of AIDSChannel. PLUS: News Dissector: Late AIDS activist Nkosi Johnson receives the "Children's Nobel Prize"

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

IN DEFENSE OF FICTION

Fiction, as much as journalism, can bear witness - by adding dignity to facts and articulating dreams, writes novelist A. L. Kennedy.

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

MEDIACULTURE

A collaboration between MediaChannel and Alternet exploring the Media's currents, crises and cultures.

Featured this week:

* The Pollution Of The ".us" Internet Domain

* Women, Work And The White House

* Langston Hughes: A Poet In The Sun .And much more...

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

5/8/02
7:03:05 PM

This Is What Mind Control Looks Like

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=25746

5/8/02
6:50:22 PM

SOME HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF US INVOLVEMENT IN DIRTY WARS

Over the years, the US government has supported coups that brought a number of repressive and brutal regimes to power, as well as the dirty wars which followed. Chile, Djakarta, El Salvador, Iran - the list goes on. In many cases military regimes replaced democratically elected leaders, and the killing sprees which followed were justified by the US government as necessary to wipe out communism--while being quietly covered up. The following links are meant to provide an introduction to the many notorious incidents that occurred from the 60's to the 80's. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should begin to shed some light on the long history of questionable US foreign policies.

A CIA-backed coup and massacre in Indonesia in the 1960's may have taken the lives of up to a million people.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54b/032.html

Thousands of declassified CIA documents reveal that the CIA aided in the overthrow of democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende in the 70's, thus putting Augusto Pinochet into power. You may have heard Pinochet's name before: his infamously brutal regime saw thousands killed, tortured, and "disappeared."

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=194

Henry Kissinger played a key role in the overthrow of Allende. This article explains his involvement (which he denies in his memoirs), and details the many instances of direct US and CIA involvement in the situation, such as setting up a fascist organization run by a former PR person for the Ford Motor Company.

http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/oct1998/kis-o21.shtml

This article on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Argentina's dirty war describes how it began with a coup and led to the disappearance of thousands of people during the 70's.

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=195

Evidence shows that US approval was also expressed for Argentina's dirty war, again through the influence of Henry Kissinger.

http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?r=196

Reagan-era support for brutal counterinsurgency operations in Guatemala and Nicaragua has generally not received the coverage in the States that it deserves. This article details the former President's complicity in Guatemala, in order to make the argument that the US must face up to its own history.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/052699a1.html

This article lives up to its title, "What everyone should know about Nicaragua." The author provides a clear and concise explanation of how the US used brutal contras (rebel groups) to try to overthrow the democratically elected Nicaraguan government in the 80's, including how this history led to the adamant US support for one candidate rather than the other in the post-Sept. 11 Nicaraguan elections.

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-11/09weisbrot.cfm

Senator Jesse Helms has praised Pinochet and a former military officer who ran death squads in El Salvador, and was involved in supporting anti-communism actions during the Cold War. In fact, his efforts to eliminate communism led Senator Helms to support a Nicaraguan rebel group that has turned out to be one of the contra groups most heavily involved in narcotrafficking.

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0797/helm01.htm

US support of groups in Colombia have helped contribute to deaths and human rights violations there.

http://www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/colombia/tdeath.htm

5/8/02
6:37:39 PM

FAIR -- Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Media analysis, critiques and activism

ACTION ALERT:

Newsweek Exposes Use of Child Soldiers Abroad, But Turns Blind Eye to U.S.

May 8, 2002

Newsweek's May 13 issue features a story about the use of child soldiers and "how the international community can roll back the growing exploitation of children in war," but does not mention the United States' own recruitment of child soldiers, nor the U.S.'s obstruction of international efforts to curb the practice.

The centerpiece of the article, "Voices of the Children: 'We beat and killed people.'," is a series of heart-wrenching interviews with four child veterans from Sierra Leone. Newsweek presents the boys' stories as part of its coverage of the United Nations' Special Session on Children, a conference where the U.N. will address "how to muster the will to enforce longstanding international conventions and three new resolutions on children and armed conflict." Graphic and passionately written, the article seems meant to raise awareness about how kids "have become the cannon fodder of choice," and describes the experiences of child soldiers of Sierra Leone as a lesson in "the unthinkable inhumanity of those who coerced them into combat."

The moral outrage that Newsweek brings to the story of child soldiers makes its omission of the U.S. role all the more bizarre.

The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world-- the other being Somalia-- not to have ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the primary legal instrument available to stop the use of child soldiers. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the CRC makes it illegal for militaries to enlist people under the age of 15. Newsweek doesn't mention the CRC by name, but it is certainly among the measures the magazine is referring to when it says the U.N. must "muster the will to enforce" existing laws.

Even though it has not ratified the CRC, the U.S. has worked to water down an Optional Protocol to the Convention which raises the minimum age for combat service to 18. Originally, the Protocol sought to raise the age for "voluntary recruitment" to 18 as well, a move endorsed by human and children's rights groups as crucial for building a real global ban on child combat. But the U.S. recruits soldiers at 17. After six years of heavy pressure from the U.S. and U.K. (which also recruits minors), the Protocol was negotiated to allow militaries recruit children as young as 16 (London Times, 2/13/02).

None of this information is included in the Newsweek article. A table and map accompanying the article show "where the young soldiers are," listing 36 countries that are currently using people under the age of 18 as soldiers in combat. By not including countries that recruit minors, but are not currently using them in combat, Newsweek created a graphic that excluded the U.S. and the U.K., countries which also in fact have "young soldiers."

The U.S.'s attempts to weaken the CRC have become a key issue for rights groups (Human Rights Watch press release, 5/7/02), yet the only time the Newsweek article mentions the U.S. is to note that the chief prosecutor for the Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal is American.

The magazine's silence on the U.S. role becomes most deafening, however, as the article wraps up by recommending that "the West" make aid to the developing world conditional on compliance with child rights conventions.

"Finally," writes Newsweek, "the victimized societies need to look inward, to ask themselves hard questions about what they have done to encourage the treatment of people as commodities. A nation like Sierra Leone will cheat itself if it expects foreigners alone to deliver a cure." It's too bad Newsweek's coverage won't prompt American readers to ask those hard questions about their own government's role in the exploitation of child soldiers.

ACTION: Please encourage Newsweek to return to the important issue of child soldiers, but next time with an article that tells the whole story, including the U.S. government's role in the controversy.

CONTACT: Newsweek Phone: (212) 445-4000

mailto:letters@newsweek.com

To send feedback using Newsweek's web form, go to:

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/Newsweek/feedback/nwfeedback.asp?cp1=1

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone.

Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.

Read the full Newsweek article:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/746985.asp?cp1=1

5/8/02
6:36:22 PM

TomPaine.com

http://www.TomPaine.com

"Independent, Commercial-Free"

Read our latest Op Ad online or on the op-ed page of today's New York Times:

HIDING BEHIND A CURTAIN

The NRA Plays The Wizard of Oz

The National Rifle Association loves tough-talking spin. It wants you to think -- and the nation's political class apparently does -- that it's all-powerful and that politicians oppose it at their peril. But the NRA, like the Wizard of Oz, is hiding behind a curtain of bluster and bravado. Just take a look at its weak showing in the 2000 elections, among other things.

http://www.tompaine.com/op_ads/opad.cfm/ID/5614

Read the full essay that inspired our Op Ad:

HIDING BEHIND A CURTAIN

The NRA Plays The Wizard Of Oz

by Steve Cobble

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5608

Don't miss these Op-Ad features:

PROFILE OF A POWERHOUSE

Today's NRA

An excerpt of a report by The Violence Prevention Campaign

The NRA had a bad year at the ballot box in 2000, but it's still a powerful outfit. Maybe that's because it's picked up the Christian Coalition's slack in waging an ideological "culture war."

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5596

WE ARE THE NRA

A Look At The NRA's Board Of Directors

An excerpt of a report by The Violence Prevention Campaign "All men are not created equal" says hard rocker and NRA Board member Ted Nugent. This seems to be a common sentiment among the NRA's board of directors, as these profiles show.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5597

A MILLION MOMS vs. 200 MILLION Guns

by Dick Dahl, from IN THESE TIMES

The NRA's decline in the 2000 elections was matched by the ascendance of a powerful, grassroots gun-safety movement. In the face of this power shift, why has Congress kept the gun-show loophole wide open?

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5612

A 'FREE-MARKET' DEBACLE CONTINUES

California's Energy Crisis Is Far From Over

by Mindy Spatt

Deregulating California's energy markets has already cost consumers tens of billions of dollars and -- despite new proof of Enron's market meddling -- there's no end in sight.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5616

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ATTACKS CLEAN WATER ACT

The Most Damaging Change In Decades

A release from Earthjustice

The administration finalized changes to Clean Water Act regulations that would -- for the first time in 25 years -- allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to permit waste to fill and destroy the nation's waters.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5594

5/8/02
6:34:11 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

U.S. MEDIA INTERESTS: CHAMPIONS OF PROFIT, PROPAGANDA AND PUFFERY

by John Stanton and Wayne Madsen, CounterPunch

-- Though mainstream media may have numbed our minds with their repetitious and banal reporting, Stanton and Madsen urge that now is not the time to become complacent.

FALLOUT OVER DISNEYLAND

by Amy Davis and Gar Smith, Earth Island Journal

-- With loud explosions and smoke clouds filling their neighborhood nightly, Anaheim residents seek some governmental response to the Disneyland fireworks.

IT'S NOT EASY BEING MEAN

by Sage Stossel, The Atlantic Online

-- Where do despots come from? Stossel's interview with Mark Bowden--an author who traced the early and current life of Saddam Hussein--ponders whether they are made or born.

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

5/8/02
6:32:14 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

COURT UPHOLDS CLEANER TRUCK, DIESEL RULES

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, May 7, 2002 (ENS) - A federal appeals court has upheld a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation that requires reduced emissions from diesel trucks and buses and lower sulfur level in diesel fuel. The rule, issued in the final days of the Clinton administration, was challenged in court by a coalition of trucking, manufacturing and oil industry groups.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-06.html

AMERICAN PLANTS BANNED TO PROTECT BRITISH OAKS

LONDON, United Kingdom, May 7, 2002 (ENS) - The UK government has placed a ban on imports of plants from parts of the United States and added controls on wood to protect native trees and shrubs from an American plant disease that has not become established in the British Isles.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-03.html

FISHERMEN OF THE AMAZON FLOODED FOREST TO SET LIMITS

MANAUS, Brazil, May 7, 2002 (ENS) - Representatives from over 30 communities across the Brazilian Amazon Region have gathered at the First Amazon Community Fishing Management Meeting being held in Manaus this week. Delegates from four states are planning actions to prevent overfishing and to assure that fishing is sustainable in the rivers and freshwater lakes of Brazil's Amazon Flooded Forest.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-02.html

DRY SEASON GRIPS THRISTY KATHMANDU

By Deepak Gajurel

KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 7, 2002 (ENS) - Sunita Sharma is up with the larks to fill all the buckets in her home in the Nepali capital so that her family of six has water to drink, water for household chores and, if they are lucky, water to bathe with.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-01.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MAY 7, 2002

Congress Considering Solutions to Plutonium Controversy

BP Switches to Ethanol in California

Governments Prepare for Tough Fire Season

Roadless Protection Act Gathering Steam

Jet Ski Industry Claims Partial Victory

Waste Characterization Could Speed Hanford Cleanup

American Wetlands Month Sees New Protection Efforts

Toxic Algae Blamed for Marine Species Deaths

Vermont Utility Customers Can Fund Renewable Projects

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-09.html

5/8/02
6:30:14 PM

"Love is beauty and beauty is truth, and that is why in the beauty of a flower we can see the truth of the universe."

Gautama Buddha

5/8/02
6:29:37 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

US gov't seeks to improve greenhouse gas reporting - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15865/story.htm

EPA probing emissions from ethanol industry - WSJ - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15851/story.htm

World Wrestling Federation body-slams its own name - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15863/story.htm

US government seeks to improve greenhouse gas reporting - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15853/story.htm

Californian governor unveils energy conservation plan - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15854/story.htm

Bush's pick for EPA enforcement called unqualified - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15856/story.htm

Rocky Mountain methane opens new US energy fight - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15849/story.htm

Brigadier raps UK foot-and-mouth crisis leadership - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15861/story.htm

British Energy, BNFL huddle for warmth - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15857/story.htm

British farmer in court over foot-and-mouth - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15869/story.htm

Bid to end fish subsidies hits opposition at WTO - SWITZERLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15858/story.htm

Fortuyn suspect is animal rights activist - source - NETHERLANDS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15860/story.htm

Japan activists warn against Norway whale imports - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15862/story.htm

Some IWC members urge Japan not to expand whaling - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15850/story.htm

German SolarWorld expects 25 pct growth in 2002 - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15868/story.htm

European court raps Russia over Chernobyl damages - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15867/story.htm

Finnish parliament nudges nuclear project ahead - FINLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15866/story.htm

EU still far from deal on energy taxation - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15859/story.htm

New fishing plan aims to save Galapagos wildlife - ECUADOR http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15864/story.htm

Ottawa casts more doubt on Kyoto ratification - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15855/story.htm

Australia uranium mine reports more leaks - AUSTRALI http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15852/story.htm

5/8/02
6:28:21 PM

t r u t h o u t | 05.08

Palestinian Authority Strikes Killing 15 Israelis

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08AA.Letzion.htm

Italy Blocks Deal to End Nativity Standoff

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08AA.Italy.No.htm

Enron | 'The Smoking-Gun Memo'

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08A.Enron.Memo.htm

Kennedy-Leahy-Boxer: Restore Patients' Right to Privacy | Their Letter

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08B.Ken.Lea.Box.htm

Paul Krugman | True Blue Americans

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08C.PK.True.Blue.htm

UN Suspects Afghan Mass Graves Cloud be Work of US Backed Northern Alliance

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08E.Afghan.Graves.htm

Slain Dutch Rightist Candidate was Openly Gay

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08F.Pim.Fortuyn.htm

Taking On Offshore Tax Havens

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08G.Offshore.Tax.htm

White House Stonewall: Day 74

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.08H.Stonewall.74.htm

5/8/02
6:26:45 PM

Public Citizen issued the following two press releases today:

1) Do or DYE Time for Textile Trade Promises

2) Activists, Legislators Urge Congress to Reject Fatally Flawed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump

May 7, 2002

Do or DYE Time for Textile Trade Promises

"Next" Trade Bill Comes to House Floor Wednesday Without Textile Language; Will NC Reps. Hayes, Ballenger, Burr, Myrick, Etheridge Get What Was Promised?

WASHINGTON, D.C. - With the first trade vote since Fast Track coming to the U.S. House of Representatives as early as tomorrow, North Carolina Reps. Robin Hayes, Cass Ballenger, Sue Myrick, Bob Etheridge and Richard Burr will be looking for promised language on textile trade. When these five textile caucus members voted for Fast Track last December, they were promised by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) that a U.S. customs rule change protecting U.S. textile manufacturing would be in the next piece of trade legislation that was brought to the House floor. As of Tuesday morning, Wednesday's expected resolution on steel tariffs fails to contain any textile language.

"The very economic viability of textile communities is at stake with these trade deals," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "Despite the damage these trade deals are causing textile districts, these members switched from "No" to "Yes" on Fast Track to expand NAFTA because they were promised there would be a textile fix on the very next trade bill that came before the Congress. Well, the bill is here and the fix is not."

The trade vote scheduled for Wednesday, Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson's (D-La.) resolution H. J. Res. 88, concerns the impact that tariff changes can have on local economies, namely port communities suffering sudden decreases in the volume of steel imports being shipped through local ports. The textile language Speaker Hastert promised would be fixed in the "next" trade vote as would the changes and inconsistencies in the Customs Service evaluation of apparel imports. Hastert promised to eliminate a unilateral change the Customs Service imposed on apparel imports from Andean nations and the Caribbean. The change would ensure that preferential import treatment would only be granted to apparel made with fabric dyed and finished in the United States.

"The North Carolina members who trusted the Speaker to address their concerns at a later date knew that past promises to get textile votes for NAFTA expansion were never kept," Wallach said. "Now the time has come to keep the latest Fast Track promise and - surprise, surprise - it is being broken."

Fast Track trade authority to expand NAFTA to 31 more nations passed the House in December by one vote (215-214). Along with promising the changes in customs rules, the House leadership and the president promised to refuse to accelerate the phase-out of the MultiFibre Agreement, not to expand Pakistani textile and apparel quotas and to increase funding for country-of-origin inspections. These promises have been ignored as well: The president authorized negotiations over apparel at the World Trade Organization; Pakistani apparel quotas have risen by one third; and no new inspectors were funded.

"The old adage says, 'Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me,' but is unclear on the third and fourth foolings," Wallach said. "How many textile promises will be broken before North Carolina's representatives stand up for their constituents, instead of party leaders, on trade?"

xoxox

May 7, 2002

Activists, Legislators Urge Congress to Reject Fatally Flawed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump

WASHINGTON, D.C. - National environmental, public interest, taxpayer and consumer groups joined members of Congress at a press conference today to discuss the importance of the upcoming vote on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and urge lawmakers to reject the dangerous plan. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote Wednesday on the repository (H.J. Res. 87).

"Stopping Yucca is a huge priority for the major national environmental, consumer and safe energy organizations because of the grave threat to public health and the environment that this project poses," said Debbie Sease, legislative director of the Sierra Club.

Added Jill Lancelot, legislative director at Taxpayers for Common Sense, "The Yucca Mountain proposal is a bad solution to a very real problem. Support of Yucca is a roadblock to finding a cost-effective solution to the nation's nuclear waste problem."

Speakers raised concerns about the safety of transporting nuclear waste through 44 states and the District of Columbia to the Nevada facility.

"A crash involving just one of these deadly shipments could be catastrophic," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "This is an unnecessary risk that should not be imposed on communities along the nation's roads and rails."

Added Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., P.H., executive director and CEO of Physicians for Social Responsibility, "Even without an accident, transporting nuclear waste poses health threats. Each transport is like a portable X-ray machine that cannot be turned off. We are asking Congress to put the safety and health of the American people ahead of the interests of the nuclear industry."

The groups also questioned the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site.

Environmental and public interest groups, as well as the state of Nevada, have charged that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) illegally manipulated standards for protecting groundwater around the site from radioactive contamination. They want the EPA to rewrite the groundwater standards it established specifically for Yucca Mountain.

"Everyone knows Yucca Mountain leaks like a sieve," said Alys Campaigne, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "EPA has committed outright scientific fraud in constructing its drinking water compliance boundary around the Yucca Mountain site. The agency's proposal will permit a radioactive septic field in a region that relies solely on groundwater for drinking water and irrigation."

Added Deb Callahan, League of Conservation Voters president, "Storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is an issue that raises more questions than answers, but two things are certain: It's neither smart policy nor smart politics. Candidates in 350 congressional districts this fall will have to tell voters whether they are willing to risk their communities by allowing thousands of tons of dangerous nuclear waste on their highways and rail lines."

U.S. Reps. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.), and Jim McDermott (D-Nev.) spoke at the press conference.

League of Conservation Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG track lawmakers' voting records on environmental/public interest scorecards.

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

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

5/8/02
6:25:24 PM

EMS Update

Japan to Expand Scientific Whale Hunt and Seek End to Commercial Ban The United States and other nations on Tuesday condemned Japan's plan to expand its scientific whale hunt and begin harvesting sei whales -- a species that hasn't been hunted in more than two decades. Delegates from fifteen countries formally denounced the plan at the 54th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) taking place this month in Shimonoseki, Japan.

Go to http://www.ems.org for more news and to read new EMS fact sheets about whales, toxicity and contamination of whale meat and issues at the IWC meeting.

5/8/02
6:24:29 PM

DAILY GRIST

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

CONVENTIONAL STUPIDITY

Almost a decade ago, 183 countries signed the Convention on Biological Diversity to guard against exploitation of their genetic resources. Now scientists say the treaty, although well intentioned, effectively prevents scientists from studying the natural bounty it is designed to protect. The many national bureaucracies spawned by the treaty do not easily distinguish between bioprospecting and basic science, and the system of permits that must be obtained is so daunting that many scientists have simply given up trying to work in species-rich areas. The problem is particularly acute in South America, where researchers have sometimes been chased out of forests by locals, been detained by the police, or had their work destroyed. In February, 13 countries that control about 70 percent of the world's biological diversity formed the Group of Allied Mega-Biodiverse Nations, which plans to draw up clearer guidelines for studying and possessing biological materials.

straight to the source: New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 07 May 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/earth/07TREA.html>

CHANGING THEIR TUNA

Ecuador unveiled a plan yesterday that could help protect marine and bird species native to the Galapagos Islands, whose unique wildlife inspired Charles Darwin to formulate his theory of natural selection. At present, Galapagos fishers are legally allowed to ply their trade in the waters around the archipelago, to the dismay of conservationists. Now the government plans to pilot a program that would encourage anglers to accept a voluntary two-mile, no-fishing zone around the islands, which lie about 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. In exchange, the government would offer to help the 400 licensed local fishing boats sell their catches from the outer reaches of the Galapagos marine reserve to industrial tuna fleets. Tuna is the country's fifth-biggest export, and industrial fishers have long clamored for fishing rights in the reserve. Environmentalists have said that letting in the fleets would be a disaster for marine and bird life. The government said its compromise plan would placate the industry, help local fishers, and protect the ecology of the Galapagos.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, 07 May 2002 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15841/story.htm>

only in Grist: Galapagos rush hour -- a week in the life of Roslyn Cameron, Charles Darwin Research Station <http://www.gristmagazine.com/week/cameron043001.stm?source=daily>

PC-BEWARE

A female killer whale that washed up on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula earlier this year has been found to have off-the-charts levels of PCBs in its blubber, according to tests in federal labs. The levels were so high that the first time scientists tested the orca, their machine could not read the results and the equipment had to be recalibrated. With 1,000 parts PCBs per million parts of fat, the killer whale tested dramatically above the 58 ppm found to be common for female orcas in the most comprehensive study to date. The reading is also much higher than the concentrations of PCBs known to adversely affect the growth, reproduction, and immune system of the harbor seal, another marine mammal. Although PCBs have been banned since 1977, they are extremely persistent and continue to be found throughout the marine food chain. The radically high levels in the dead killer whale add new urgency to questions about water quality in the West Coast's oceans and bays.

straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Robert McClure, 07 May 2002 <http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/69418_whale07.shtml>

only in Grist: Whale of a time -- a review of "A Whale Hunt" -- in our Books Unbound section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/books/books030701.stm?source=daily>

only in Grist: To know a whale -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/ha/ha011601.stm?source=daily>

GREENER PASTURES

New Zealand is home to a staggering 45 million sheep and 8 million cattle, which together produce 90 percent of the country's methane emissions -- or about 43 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. To meet the terms of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, New Zealand has to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels -- but legislation proposed by the government last week would exempt the agricultural sector from any taxes levied to control the problem. The government has made clear, however, that the agricultural sector should focus on R&D to control methane emissions. New Zealand scientists say they know where to start: by altering the pastures in which sheep and cattle graze to include more of the legume lotus. According to the scientists, lotus contains tannin compounds that reduce methane emissions from ruminant animals by as much as 16 percent. The finding is a promising development in the effort to control agricultural contributions to global warming, which generally receive less attention than industrial pollution sources.

straight to the source: BBC News, Kim Griggs, 07 May 2002 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1972000/1972621.stm>

do good: Take action to tell President Bush to tackle global warming <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily#kyoto>

5/8/02
6:21:19 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

OIL, NUCLEAR FUSION OCCUPY G-8 ENERGY MINISTERS

DETROIT, Michigan, May 6, 2002 (ENS) - Energy ministers from the world's eight largest economies have formally recognized the critical importance of being prepared to respond to oil disruptions. Ministers from the Group of Eight (G-8) meeting here Thursday and Friday agreed that net oil importing countries must maintain emergency oil stocks and commit to coordinating their use during significant disruptions.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-06-04.html

WHO CALLS URGENT EXPERT CONSULTATION ON ACRYLAMIDE IN FOOD

GENEVA, Switzerland, May 6, 2002 (ENS) - The World Health Organization has undertaken an investigation of acrylamide, a known carcinogen in animal tests, that has been found in elevated levels in high starch foods cooked at high temperatures, such as potato products and bread, staples of the human diet the world over.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-06-02.html

WORLD'S BIGGEST MINING FIRMS CONFRONT THEIR BAD REPUTATION

GENEVA, Switzerland, May 6, 2002 (ENS) - Some of the world's largest mining companies are looking at what sustainable minerals development would entail. An independent survey of opportunities for the global mining industry to move towards sustainability launched Saturday by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) said mining companies should pledge a declaration of sustainability backed by a complaints and dispute resolution mechanism.

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-06-05.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MAY 6, 2002

West Virginia Flood Victims Get Emergency Funds

Gulf War Vets Ill from Anthrax Vaccination, Medication

Chronic Wasting Disease Puts Wisconsin Deer in Hunters' Sights

Illegal Brazilian Mahogany Remains Impounded at 15 Ports

EPA Distributes $21.5 million in Brownfields Grants

Arkansas Shuts Down Waste Management's Tontitown Landfill

Recreational Town of Lake Tahoe to Run CNG Buses

Creosote Bush Could Be the Oldest Living Thing on Earth

http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-06-09.html

5/8/02
6:17:37 PM

Bush Administration Approves Most Damaging Change To Clean Water Act In Decades Allows Waste Dumps in Streams Nationwide

by EartJustice.org

Washington, DC-- The Bush administration today finalized changes to Clean Water Act regulations that would for the first time in 25 years allow the US Army Corps of Engineers to permit waste to fill and destroy the nation’s waters. In an attempt to appease the coal mining industry and in a rush to avoid additional Congressional and public scrutiny, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman signed the rule change.

“It says something when an administration takes an action like this late on a Friday -- that they hope no one sees it," said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice. "This is a ‘Friday Night Massacre’ for our nation's waters and it’s the biggest threat to our nation’s waters in decades, perhaps since the Clean Water Act passed 30 years ago. Allowing masses of industrial wastes to be dumped in streams, lakes, rivers, and wetlands is contrary to the very purpose of the Clean Water Act and represents a major weakening of current clean water law.”

EPA’s press release states this will “enhance environmental protections” for waters. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Mulhern. “Anyone who has ever seen what happens when a stream is buried under 900 feet of mining rubble would not conclude that this is a good thing for water quality. More than 1000 miles of streams already have been destroyed in Appalachia by the coal companies that have been flouting the Clean Water Act for years while the EPA and the Corps looked the other way.”

“Now that citizens have taken state and federal agencies to court to ensure our environmental laws are enforced, coal companies have sought – and been granted – legal relief from the Bush administration. Their lavish contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign have just been paid back,” Mulhern added.

In recent days, dozens of members of Congress have sent letters to President Bush highlighting their concerns about this. US Senators James Jeffords (I-VT) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) sent a letter on Wednesday to President Bush asking him to stop immediately his administration’s efforts to overturn this important Clean Water Act rule. The Environment and Public Works Committee Chair and the Wetlands Subcommittee Chair, respectively, expressed concern that the rule change would allow industries – such as coal mining and hardrock mining companies – to fill the nation’s waters with waste material.

“The proposed rule would jeopardize the health of the nation's streams, wetlands, lakes, rivers and other waters,” the Senators’ letter states. “We ask that your administration not take any further action to finalize this rulemaking, including sending it to the Office and Management and Budget for review, until the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has had an opportunity to review the effects that this rulemaking will have on the health of our nation's waterways.”

“It is outrageous that the EPA ignored this request from the Senate committee that oversees the Clean Water Act and most EPA programs,” said Mulhern.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of 57 members of the House of Representatives, led by Frank Pallone (D-NJ), sent a letter to Administrator Whitman conveying their “strong opposition” to the proposed rule. “This rule change is a clear attempt to legalize the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, where coal companies literally blow the tops off of mountains and dump the waste into nearby valleys and streams,” stated the House letter.

In March, a dozen senior House Republicans led by Representative Chris Shays (R-CT) also wrote to President Bush, urging him to reconsider “this ill-advised and dangerous rulemaking” to allow waste disposal in waters.

“The bipartisan opposition to this waste dumping rule has been significant and growing as Senators and Representatives have learned about the threat it poses to waters in their districts,” said Mulhern. “While this rule is being motivated by the administration’s desire to legalize the illegal waste dumping practices of the coal industry, its effects will be nationwide. Every stream, wetland, river, and lake in the country will be placed at risk of becoming a dumping ground for mining waste, construction debris, even garbage.”

Copies of the Senate and House letters are available by contacting Ken Goldman 202.667.4500 x 233

Source: http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5594

5/8/02
6:11:33 PM

TomPaine.com

http://www.TomPaine.com

DOES KAREN HUGHES PROTEST TOO MUCH?

Or Is Her Resignation Really A Rare Moment In Washington

by Laura Flanders

What we should be questioning is all this sappy coverage. Bush's anti-communications director may have had the last laugh after all.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5562

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ATTACKS CLEAN WATER ACT

Approves Most Damaging Change to Clean Water Act in Decades

by Earthjustice

The administration finalized changes to Clean Water Act regulations that would for the first time in 25 years allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to permit waste to fill and destroy the nation's waters.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5594

MCDONALD'S AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY?

A Ronald McDonald Fantasy

by Paul Hawken

The McDonald's Corporation issues its first report on its record of social responsibility and noted businessperson, author and eco-thinker Paul Hawkens isn't impressed.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5554

The Loyal Opposition:

COMMERCIALIZING THE E-COMMONS

The Bush Commerce Department Puts .us Domain On The Auction Block

by David Corn

The .us Internet domain was mainly virgin territory -- and territory that belonged to the public. Yet, in a case of e-privatization run amok, much of this turf was sold off to Internet profiteers, without consideration of the public interest.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5589

5/8/02
6:09:20 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

US study uncovers thermometer disposal dilemma - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15835/story.htm

Six dead, six missing in Appalachia floods - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15837/story.htm

Democrats criticize Nevada nuclear waste site plan - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15839/story.htm

BPA delays Washington state power line project - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15840/story.htm

US gov't urged to set emission rules for coal - study - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15843/story.htm

Salomon says no ease in US drought until late 2002 - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15844/story.htm

Taiwan Grain-Buying normal despite foot-and-mouth jitters - TAIWAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15836/story.htm

Chinese water shipment arrives in parched Taiwan - TAIWAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15838/story.htm

EU seeks to boost tourism and protect environment - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15832/story.htm

South Korea KEPCO unit to build 8 new nuclear power plants - SOUTH KOREA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15834/story.htm

German Grafenrheinfeld n-plant ready to return - government - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15833/story.htm

ANALYSIS - EU coal, diesel subsidies clash with green ideals - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15845/story.htm

New fishing plan aims to save Galapagos wildlife - ECUADOR http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15841/story.htm

Chilean rescuers dig for dead buried in mudslide - CHILE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15842/story.htm

5/8/02
6:04:46 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

Watch "Our Heroes, Ourselves" airing at 7pm et/pt on May 16 on Lifetime, for a glimpse at four extraordinary women, including mom-turned-environmental activist Diane Wilson. Wilson's shrimp boat was sabotaged and her dog was shot while she dug up the truth behind her community's chemical waste problem. Hosted by Marlo Thomas.

COLOMBIAN TRIBE TOPPLES MIGHTY OIL GIANT

Gabrielle Banks