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2006-05-31T10:23:00.000-04:00

Dear Visitors,

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This site will not be maintained or updated, and new shows and other audio content will now be available only from http://blackboxradio.wordpress.com.

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BLackBox Radio for May 23, 2006

2006-05-23T17:49:00.000-04:00

On this week's show: Max Sussman discusses the links between the immigration debate, the US economy, and the war in Iraq with two local activists.
Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines:
17-year-old Dies in Adult Detention Facility
Far Right Protest Immigration in Grand Rapids
English as the "official language" of Michigan

National and International Headlines:
Largest Urban Community Farm at Risk
UN urges US to Take Appropriate Action on Police Torture
Increased Food Insecurity Exacerbated by Decreased Food-Stamp Participation

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Local Headlines

The family of a young man who died while in the Wayne County Jail is demanding an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.

The Michigan Citizen reports that McClain, a 17 year old African American from Inkster, died April 29 while serving a one-year sentence for escaping from juvenile boot camp, where he had been incarcerated for an unarmed robbery at age 14.

Jail officials told his family that he had committed suicide. However, McClain’s mother is suspecting foul play. She says that when she viewed his body, she saw bruises on his face, bruises which had not been there when she saw him a few days before he died. A family member stated, “if it was suicide they would have shown us pictures. They did not show us any picture.”

McClain’s family is also demanding an explanation about why Maurice was transferred from his earlier detention facility, where underage inmates are confined, to the Wayne County jail, an adult detention facility.

Ron Scott, of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality who has taken up the case, also told the Michigan Citizen that police and jail officials have offered several different versions of how McClain died.

Earlier, the detective who informed the family of the death told them that Maurice McClain was found hanging in his cell. A later version said he was found outside his cell. “The family saw bruises on his face. That does not reflect a simple suicide,” Scott said. “Judges must stop the practice of sending juveniles to adult detention facilities.”

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On May 6, a protest was held in downtown Grand Rapids against quote “illegal” immigration. Media Mouse reports the protest was organized with assistance from a variety of far right and racist groups including the Michigan chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (a white supremacist organization) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

Reports show connections between these organizations and the Minutemen, an extremist vigilante anti-immigrant group that has received attention for it’s racist and violent “border patrols” along the US/Mexico border.

Though it has received much less media attention, the Minutemen’s program of patrolling the US/Canadian border in Michigan has been happening since April of 2005. The project is called the Michigan/Ontario Minutemen Border Neighborhood Watch and is under the leadership of the Outreach Vice Chair for the Michigan Republican Party, Kevin Fobbs.

It is also worth noting that the Minutemen have ties to neo-nazi groups and that the organized anti-immigrant movement is becoming increasingly violent with several different armed vigilante groups operating in the United States.

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The Michigan House of Representatives passed legislation last Thursday that makes English the “official language” of the state of Michigan.

The bill, which passed by a vote of 73 to 32, makes the English the official language of the state and exempts state agencies from being obligated to provide documents, publish written materials, or provide website content in any language other than English.

Media Mouse reports that the effort to make English the “official language” has deep roots in Michigan, with Michigan native and resident John Tanton founding the group “US English” in 1983. This organization has close ties to the anti-immigration movement, and counts among its victories the passage of “English-only” laws in 27 states.

The bill must now pass the Senate and gain the support of Governor Jennifer Granholm before becoming law.

In the national arena, an amendment to make English the national language was approved by the US Senate last week.

Media Mouse reports that the amendment would effectively ban federal government ordinances and services in any language other than English. Proficiency requirements in English and United States History would also increase while no additional funding would be provided for English as a second language (ESL) classes.

The measure passed the Senate by a vote of 63 to 34, with the majority of Republican Senators voting for the measure and the majority of Democrats voting against it, including Michigan Senators Stabenow and Levin.

Currently 43 million Americans speak a language other than English in their homes and 336 languages are spoken throughout the United States. Critics see the recent focus on English as an official language as part of the larger campaign of racism and xenophobia being directed against immigrants and people of color in the US.

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National and International Headlines:

Farmers of the largest urban community farm in the country stand to lose their rights and see their land bulldozed this week unless popular protests and fundraising are successful in thwarting their eviction. South Central Farm in Los Angeles, a 14-acre urban plot, was bought by city fiat in the 1980’s from developer Ralph Horowitz for use as a waste incinerator. Local opposition quashed the incinerator project. Following the 1992 riots caused by the acquittal of white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, the city of Los Angeles dedicated the land as a community farm for the use of the area’s poor residents.

In the 14 years since that decision, over 350 families have turned the barren plot into a rich and productive community farm where individual families can grow vegetables and sell their extra produce. In addition to raising the living standards of the community, the farm also provides a place for area youth that is free from drugs and gang violence.

Horowitz, who wants to raze the farm and build a large warehouse on the property, says the city had no right to retain the land after deciding not to build the incinerator there. After years of legal pressure from Horowitz, the city agreed to resell the land to him in a closed meeting without notifying the community. Community activists were able to get a temporary injunction against the sale, but it will run out this week, opening the way for the immediate destruction of the farm. Community members and celebrities, including anti-war veteran Ron Kovic, author of Born on the 4th of July, have organized protests, hunger strikes, and fundraising drives in order to save the farm. To learn more and see how you can help, visit www.southcentralfarmers.com.

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In addition to calling on the US to denounce torture and close the prison camp at Guantanamo, the UN has also called on the US to investigate thoroughly and take appropriate action on police torture in Chicago, reports Infoshop News. A preliminary investigation uncovered at least 67 cases of physical abuse and forced confessions conducted by Police Commander John Burge and other officers and detectives in his and a neighboring police unit. Torture apparently included suffocation techniques and mock Russian Roulette.

After a 1993 Illinois Supreme Court ruling conclude that Burge and others had carried out years of systematic torture, the city of Chicago forced Burge to retire. Neither Burge bnor any of the other officers have faced any criminal liability, and every attempt to reopen cases, including murder verdicts, based upon forced confessions, has failed.

In a victory for activists working for justice in these cases, Chief Criminal Courts Judge Paul Biebel last week ordered the release of a 2002 report investigating the alleged torture of 192 black men by Chicago police. However, a UN anti-torture panel called on the government to do more to ensure that such abuse cannot occur and to bring the perpetrators to justice. The report also criticized American policies in its war on terrorism.

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According to the US Department of Agriculture, the rate of US homes facing food insecurity has risen from 10 percent in 1999 to almost 12 percent currently. Food insecurity means that these homes were" at times, uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food for all household members because they had insufficient money and other resources for food." The federal government's primary response to this growing problem is the food-stamp program. The NewStandard reports that to qualify for food stamps, citizens and immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years must earn a net monthly income that is no higher than 130 percent of the federal poverty line – currently $20,000 for a family of four. Unless they are children, elderly or disabled, food stamp recipients must also be working or training for a job.

But according to a recently released study by the California Food Policy Advocates (CPFA), the state does not reach out to people who may be unaware of their eligibility, and long lines and inconvenient hours of operation make the process burdensome to working people. These combined factors result in tens of thousands of residents not receiving food stamps. The California Department of Health Services estimates that only 45 percent of residents who meet eligibility requirements receive assistance, with 2 million eligible residents doing without. The NewStandard reports that these numbers represent a drop in statewide food-stamp participation rates in recent years, even though food insecurity has risen in the state at the same time. The CPFA study's major recommendation to make applying easier is to offer "out of office" applications online or by telephone.

The director of food-stamp outreach for the California Association of Food Banks, Jessica Bartholow, said that requiring office visits, among other state policies, reduce the number of people who apply for and receive benefits. "The process isn't really set up for the people we're providing outreach to," Bartholow said. "It's about punishing poor people for being poor."

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BlackBox Radio for May 16th 2006

2006-05-16T13:25:00.000-04:00

On this week's show: Highland Park residents struggle to retain control of their water and keep a Coca-Cola plant out of town (producers: Kate McCabe & Max Sussman), an examination of anti-oppression trainings (producer: Homefries), and a report about the latest campaign by the Immokalee tomato pickers to secure fair treatment of farmworkers (producer: Ariel Perez for LaborNews.) Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines:
Michigan Senate Excludes Undocumented Immigrants in Congressional Distribution
Granholm Proposes Bill to Increase Healthcare Coverage
Protestors Call Out National City Bank for Racial Redlining

National and International Headlines:
Military Neglects Mental Health, Troops’ Suicide Rate Hits Record High
Big Phone Companies face Lawsuits for Collusion with NSA
New Autopsy Shows Juvenile Inmate was Killed by Boot Camp Guards
Korean Farmers Brutalized for Resisting US Military Base Expansion

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Local Headlines

On Thursday May 11, the Michigan State Senate passed resolution 105, which recommends amending of the U.S Constitution to base the number of congressional seats on only the number of legal citizens living in each state. The number of seats in the House of Representatives is fixed at 435 and the number of members from each state is distributed
according to population. Michigan lost one congressional seat after the 2000 census.
Foreign national and undocumented immigrants were calculated to be 18.6 million in the 2000 census about 70% of which live in 6 states. Nine seats were re-distributed because of changing numbers of foreign nationals, 6 of which went to California.
The resolution passed 30-7. Those voting against the measure were Democrats who felt that it was fair to include undocumented immigrants in the congressional distribution since these immigrant’s pay-taxes and use government sponsored services. Whether this includes temporary resident’s remains controversial.
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Gov. Jennifer Granholm proposed a plan on Thursday to find a way to provide insurance for Michigan's residents which are currently uninsured. the 1.1 million residents of Michigan who are uninsured. Jennifer Granholm said at Lansing's Sparrow Hospital that ”This plan will provide a quality product at an affordable cost, create incentives for business and help bring down health care costs for everyone," Michigan has currently 1.1 million people who are uninsured. According to the Associated Press, 85 percent of Michigan's uninsured have incomes that are below 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
More than 60,000 Michigan households that are eligible for employer-based health coverage don't take it because they can't afford their share of the cost.
According to the Traverse City Record-Eagle, the plan would work with private insurers to cover half of the states uninsured non-elderly residents living 200% below the poverty line. It would also offer options to people living 200% above the poverty line. People would be charged on a sliding scale, with poorer residents paying little out-of-pocket costs. It would include primary and preventive care as well as prescription
drug costs.Chief Executive Officer Dennis Swan of Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital was supportive of the plan. .Last year, The Hospital provided for $48 million in uncompensated care.
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On Tuesday, May 11, demonstrations were held outside of a National City Bank Headquarters in Troy, Michigan, protesting “racial redlining” or not accepting loans for small businesses with large African-American populations. On April 25, the New Galilee Missionary Baptist Church and Pleasant Hill Baptist Church filed a lawsuit against the bank, and since then many other parties have joined the suit. According to RNewswire, the plaintiff’s allege that the bank manager, Philip Peake, turned down 12 loan applications for over 7 million dollars from neighborhoods that were predominately African American. Because the regions were not, quote, “desirable based upon National City criteria.” end quote. All of the loan applications were later accepted by other
banks.
According to PRNewswire the demonstrations were intended to raise awareness of the banks racist practices and lack of commitment to the City of Detroit. The news service quotes David L. Rose, of Rose & Rose in Washington, D.C., attorney for the group as saying that quote "These laws exist to ensure banks make loans based on legitimate
business reasons; not on an applicant's skin color or whether an applicant chooses to live or operate a business in a predominately African-American community." end quote. More demonstrations are scheduled.
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National and International Headlines:

This Sunday's Hartford Courant reported that the military has failed to follow its own regulations in screening, treating and evacuating mentally unfit troops from Iraq. Records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act and more than 100 interviews of families and military personnel showed that some service members were kept on even when their superiors knew about their illnesses.
Since 1997 Congressional demand has required the military to assess the mental health of all deploying troops. Yet Pentagon statistics show that fewer than 1 in 300 service members were referred to a mental health professional before shipping out. Commanders, not medical professionals, determine whether a troubled soldier must continue their duty in a war zone. Last year Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq, the highest suicide rate since the war started, the Hartford Courant said. Army regulations caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments." However, some troops in distress were prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring.
Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the Army's top mental health expert, said that some service members diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome have been sent back into combat due troop shortages.
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Truthout.org reported Saturday that big phone companies such as AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon now face lawsuits for helping the National Security Agency increase its surveillance capabilities after the Sept. 11 attacks. The companies and the NSA built a vast database of calling records, without warrants. Intelligence analysts say that the database assembled by the NSA could allow for "link analysis," a statistical technique for investigators to identify calling patterns in a seemingly impenetrable mountain of digital data.
Citing communications privacy legislation stretching back to the 1930's, Legal experts now say that the companies face the prospect of billion dollar lawsuits over damages resulting from their cooperation with the government. Recently in Manhattan a federal lawsuit was filed seeking as much as $50 billion in civil damages against Verizon on behalf of its subscribers. The suit seeks damages and an injunction against the security agency to stop the collection of phone numbers. Verizon said that it protected customer privacy but that it could not comment on any relationship with a national security program that was "highly classified."
The Communications Act, first passed in 1934, has historically tightly regulated wiretapping. Though legal standards are generally lower for government and police agencies obtaining calling records, legal scholars say legal restrictions still hold in the face of new computer databases with decades' worth of calling records.
Qwest stands alone as the one telephone company to have resisted the requests to cooperate with the government effort. A statement made by Quest claims that a Quest executive determined that no legal process had been secured to support the government's post 9-11 request, and that Qwest therefore refused to comply with the NSA.
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In a follow up to a story we reported on earlier this year, Florida’s St. Petersburg Times reports that a new autopsy of Martin Lee Anderson, the fourteen year old boy who died while in juvenile boot camp, proves he was killed by boot camp guards. The latest autopsy showed that he died after he was forced to inhale ammonia fumes while someone held his mouth shut.
This evidence contradicts an earlier medical examiner’s ruling, that the boy died of complications from sickle cell, a blood disorder.
The new ruling is a vindication for Martin Lee Anderson’s family, as well as human rights observers, who were outraged by the original assertion that the guards’ brutal treatment of the teen was not related to his death. This claim was especially outrageous given the fact that a security videotape clearly shows several guards beating and abusing the
fourteen year old hours before he died.
Currently, the criminal investigation is ongoing, and no charges have been filed against the guards.
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Daechuri, South Korea has been a site of extreme military violence the past two weeks, as residents have resisted eviction by the South Korean military to make room for the expansion of a US military base.
The impending expansion of the military base would destroy the farming communities of Daechuri, Doduri, and others. The rice farmers who live in this region, have chosen to resist the occupation of their homeland and stand up to the Korean government and the United States military. On February 7th of this year, the farmers declared autonomy and
renounced their Korean citizenship. They have since been organizing the daily life and the defense of their land and community through general councils, independently of the local government.
On May 4th, thousands of villagers clashed with police and soldiers, as the Korean Ministry of National Defense made its fourth attempt to occupy the villages of Daechuri and Doduri and crush the resistance to U.S. military base expansion. Global Indymedia reports that around 13,000 riot police, and 2,000 Korean soldiers invaded the village and
overran the fields. While the protesters were barricaded inside the local school grounds, troops erected some 30 kilometers of barbed wire around the rice fields and set up military tents. Road blockades were been placed around the village to prevent anyone from entering or exiting.
Over the next several hours, riot police charged the school where protestors were gathered, beating and arresting the unarmed protestors. By nightfall, over 400 people had been arrested and hundreds more were hospitalized for injuries.
Since then, the people of Daechuri have continued to protest the expansion of the military base, dismantling the military’s roadblocks and barbed wire fences. The police have responded by imposing a curfew on Daechuri and the surrounding area and instituting a policy of door to door searches and sweeping arrests.
Outrage at the actions of the police has sparked solidarity rallies in Seoul, South Korea’s capital city.
Residents cite community displacement, the detrimental environmental impact, the violent crimes committed by US troops stationed there, the massive issue of human trafficking and forced prostitution which surrounds the bases, and issues of national sovereignty as reasons for opposing the US military base.
For more information and updates see: www.savePTfarmers.org

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BlackBox Radio for May 9th, 2006

2006-05-09T20:26:00.000-04:00

On this week's show we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strikes. Kate McCabe takes us to Detroit for a program on the legacy of the hunger strikes and excerpts from an interview with Laurence McKeown, an Irish republican ex-prisoner who particpated in the historic hunger strikes (producer: Megan Williamson).

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

Check back soon for transcripts of local, national & international headlines. They will be posted shortly.

BlackBox Radio for May 2, 2006

2006-05-01T22:29:00.000-04:00

On this week's show: Ben Chodoroff reports on the Nazi March in Lansing, Megan Williamson interviews Elena Herrada, founder of Centro Obrero/Latino Workers Center, Clara Hardie talks to young men about to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and Kris Kaul brings us a report on local Mayday activities.

Plus, more local, national, and international headlines (after the ‘read more’ link).

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines:
Elbow Room cancels neo-Nazi show
600 sleep outside City Hall to bring attention to child soldiers in Uganda
Advocates push for health care to cover contraceptives

National and International Headlines:
Greenpeace demonstrators arrested outside Ontario Kleenex factory
Cornell expert: Ethanol inefficient energy source
Mainstream media ignores massive protests against Iraq war
Southern Poverty Law Center files suit against Del Monte
U.S. actively interfering in Nicaraguan elections

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Local Headlines

This week in Ypsilanti the musical venue the Elbow Room cancelled a scheduled performance by the neo-Nazi band Nocturnal Fear. According to the National Women's Rights Organizing Coalition, Nocturnal Fear has an established history in the white power music scene, and every label that sells their CD is a white power record label. In a recent Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center stated that Elegy Records, one of the distributors of Nocturnal Fear's music, has become one of the biggest distributors of racist black metal.

The Elbow Room cancelled Nocturnal Fear's performance after receiving messages of protest and concern from various community members. This outcome evoked relief for some, while other individuals expressed concerns about censorship, as well as unease regarding the Elbow Room's motives in this situation.

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The Ann Arbor News reports that around 600 people spent last Saturday night sleeping outside Ann Arbor’s City Hall, in an effort to raise awareness of the 18-year long civil war in Northern Uganda and the war’s affects on children in the region. Participants marched from Pioneer High School to City Hall and slept in the parking lot, symbolically enacting the plight of children in Northern Uganda who must flee outlying villages each night, to sleep in the relative safety of major towns and avoid abduction by rebels.

According to United Nations reports, Ugandan children are being abducted by rebels and forced to become soldiers. Current reports estimate that 80 percent of the rebel fighters are minors.

The sleep-in was part of a national action called “Global Night Commute” that over 130 other cities participated in last Saturday. These coordinated actions have been sparked by the recent dissemination of a documentary about the Northern Ugandan conflict called "Invisible Children: Rough Cut.''

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In Michigan, family planning advocates are currently campaigning to require employers' health plans to cover all federally approved contraceptive drugs and devices. Currently, some drug plans will cover the cost of Viagra, taken by men to treat sexual impotence, but not cover women's birth control costs. Due largely to this inequity, women in Michigan of childbearing age spend two-thirds more than men on out-of-pocket health care.

Despite bipartisan sponsorship, the bills supporting equal reproductive health coverage haven't gotten a vote in the GOP-controlled Legislature since they were first introduced in 1999.After being blocked in the Michigan state Legislature, women's rights groups are preparing to take their case to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. They want the eight-member panel to decide that employers who don't cover all federally approved contraceptive drugs and devices are violating the state's civil rights law. Many insurers and businesses oppose mandated benefits, arguing that contraceptive coverage should be negotiated. The Michigan Catholic Conference calls the bills a "direct assault" on the rights of religious employers.

The Michigan civil rights commission will hear arguments in May and can set a precedent to be followed by employers - though courts likely will have the final say.
The panel agreed to rule following a request from the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and other groups, including some health organizations.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found that Title VII - which applies to companies with 15 or more workers - bars the exclusion of contraceptive coverage when other drugs and devices are covered. But 60 percent of Michigan businesses employ fewer than 15 people, according to the ACLU.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive rights think tank, twenty-four states require coverage of contraceptives approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration if other prescriptions are covered - though 17 of those states have exceptions for certain employers, usually religious organizations.

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National and International Headlines:

Police arrested two Greenpeace demonstrators outside a Kimberly-Clark Kleenex factory in Ontario on Sunday. Greenpeace, which has about 30 demonstrators at the plant and also sent representatives to the company’s annual general meeting in Texas, is protesting Kimberly-Clark’s clear-cutting of ancient forests for use in its products. The two protestors had chained themselves to the railroad tracks immediately outside the factory, halting production. Two other protestors remain chained to the track.

Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council are calling on the company to increase its use of recycled and sustainably produced fiber. Currently, only 19% of fibers are recycled, and no recycled content goes into disposable Kleenex products.

In addition to distributing a brochure describing the company’s practices to shareholders, activists also educated consumers and employees. A truck resembling a giant Kleenex box made stops at company headquarters and 2 nearby malls, where activists handed out information about the company’s involvement in boreal forest destruction.

Over 40,000 concerned citizens around the world have written Kimberly-Clark urging the company to adopt more sustainable practices. The boreal forest, often called “the Amazon of the North”, accounts for 25% of the world’s remaining forests.

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David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has found that the energy required to produce one gallon of ethanol exceeds the energy contained in the ethanol itself. In other words, according to Health and Energy.com, it takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces. Ethanol is being promoted as the “answer” to America’s fossil fuel dependence by President Bush and large agribusiness producers.

131,000 BTUs of energy are needed to produce a gallon of ethanol, which has an energy value of 77,000 BTUs, thus leading to a net waste of 54,000 BTUs of energy for each gallon produced. Furthermore, an acre of grain produces 328 gallons of ethanol but requires 140 gallons of fossil fuels to grow using modern farming methods.

Pimental also found that the 11 acres of cropland required to grow the grain from which to power a single automobile for one year could grow a year’s supply of food for 7 people. According to Pimental, quote: "Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning".

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On Saturday, an estimated 350,000 people marched in New York to protest the Iraq War, making it one of the largest anti-war marches in the recent years. It was attended by many well-known anti-war figures, including Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon, and NYC Transport Workers Union leader Roger Toussaint.

The march, organized by a multitude of organizations including NOW and United for Peace and Justice, contained the largest contingent of labor anti-war protestors in history and stretched for over a mile, according to the New York Times. The Times, however, did not feature the march on the front page, but instead relegated it to the New York section.

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A class action lawsuit has been filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project against food giant Del Monte. The suit, filed in Miami, claims the company underpaid migrant farmworkers who were working for a Del Monte subsidiary in south Georgia.

Plaintiffs include both domestic migrant workers and Mexican guestworkers, who are brought into the US on special H-2A visas that restrict them to working only for the employer who has requested them. Guestworkers are entitled to the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, set by the Department of Labor each year to ensure that foreign workers do not adversely affect wages paid to domestic workers. The suit alleges that the workers, after spending large sums to travel to Georgia to work for Del Monte, were consistently denied these wages.

IJP director Mary Bauer says this is an increasingly common practice, in which corporations try to bypass the wage law by having middlemen submit the H-2A applications. According to attorney Greg Schell of the Migrant Farmworkers Justice Project, Del Monte and other large companies then claim the workers are solely the repsonisibility of the middlemen, when in fact the workers quote “live in housing provided by Del Monte, and are Del Monte's employees in every important respect."

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The US is actively interfering in democratic elections in Nicaragua in an attempt to ensure the defeat of candidate Daniel Ortega, according to an article in Znet. Ortega, President during the Sandinista revolution against the US-supported Somoza dictatorship, has consistently been opposed and vilified by Washington.

In April, US Ambassador Paul Trivelli sent letters to opposition parties in which he offered to fund primaries in which parties advanced only one candidate, thus increasing their chance of defeating Ortega. Trivelli then met with leaders of the Liberal Constitutional Party, many of whose members have been stripped of their US visas, and asked them to withdraw their candidate and join the effort to defeat Ortega. When they refused, Trivelli publicly denounced the Party, calling it undemocratic.

When interviewed in the Nicaraguan News magazine Confidencial, Trivelli defended his actions by stating that quote “…in this country, in the electoral process, there are antidemocratic forces and there are democratic forces” and stated that he would support anyone quote “elected democratically, who governs democratically, with a sensible economic policy and who is ready to cooperate with the United States on security issues.” Trivelli then announced that Eduardo Montealegre is the democratic choice for President. Montealegre supports neoliberal policies and is the US choice for presidential candidate.

The urgency to defeat Ortega stems in part from his support by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the fear that another country may join the growing leftist consensus in Latin America. Chavez recently spearheaded a three-way trade agreement between the countries of Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia which is aimed at reducing US influence in the region.

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BlackBox Radio for April 25th, 2006

2006-04-24T13:12:00.000-04:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: a synopsis of a project commemorating the history of the Frieze building, and an interview with activist Andrea Smith. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Detroit water plan
DPS students protest school conditions
Michigan wind power

National and International Headlines:
Re-segregation of Omaha’s schools
Non-violent Palestinian protest in Bil’in

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Local Headlines

An initial agreement was reached this month for an affordable water plan for Detroit, reports the Michigan Citizen. The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and the Detroit Water and Sewage Department presented a plan to the Detroit City Council.

The plan will collect the necessary $5million from late fees and customer contributions.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has voiced approval of the plan and there is optimism about it, although it met resistance when it was first presented in 2004. Detroit has been named the “water shut off capital of the world”. In Detroit, about 45,000 homes do not have water at some point each year.

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The police arrested several Detroit Students when they walked out of their schools in protest of a lack of toilet paper and textbooks. Later that week, the Detroit Police stated that they would enforce the Parental Responsibility Ordinance, the Michigan Citizen reports.

The Ordinance charges parents with responsibility for their children’s “delinquent behavior.” Parents may be ticketed if their children create public safety concerns or disrupt the community.

Detroit Public Schools are split on this issue. Some Board members say it is the school’s fault for poor conditions, and that the school becomes responsible for its students. They also dispute the superintendent’s claims that the School Board supports the Police. Board members assert that the district needs to create support systems for students with emotional problems and struggling families.

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Huron County, Michigan, is erecting 32 wind turbines this summer, says the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service. Noble Environmental Power is preparing almost 5000 acres of land for the 1.5 megawatt, 400 feet tall turbines. This is the first large-scale project of its kind in Michigan and more turbines may be installed nearby.

Michigan is the 14th windiest state and there are many locations with good opportunities for this alternative energy source. It is estimated that turbines could power half of Michigan’s households on a windy day. This new project comes as Governor Granholm proposes research into Michigan’s alternative energy production potential.

Wind farms are often controversial, as residents object to the sightlines and fear for wildlife safety. This may be a problem in Michigan especially as there are few regulations covering turbine operation.

However, farmers and other residents whose land is affected will welcome the additional revenue. Most of the profit from this project will remain local, and the construction process will provide temporary jobs. Such projects should also help Michigan’s economy, if they are properly managed. Some propose cooperative style projects, which would further help to keep revenue local.

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National and International Headlines:

The New Standard reports that new legislation may re-institute racial segregation of Omaha, Nebraska's school system. A plan by Nebraska legislators contains language allowing for huge disparities in funding of the newly designated districts.

Educators, community members and students in Omaha's black and Latino neighborhoods are opposed to a bill that could "reorganize" the Omaha public-school district, comprised of 45,000 students, into three separate districts: one predominately white, one largely if not mostly Latino and one mostly black.

Nebraska lawmakers passed the bill 31 to 16 on April 13, and Governor Dave Heineman signed it into law the same day.

The legislation came as the final answer to a nearly yearlong struggle by Omaha Public Schools (OPS), ostensibly intended to determine how to create equitable education opportunities within the city's expanding borders. The "One City, One School District" bill that was under consideration would have enabled the Omaha school district to annex majority-white schools just outside the city, where the majority of students are people of color.

In the end, lawmakers opted to not only dissolve the One City, One School District plan, but to dismantle and split OPS. Each new school district will have its own school board, its own superintendent, and presumably, when the lines are drawn, its own defining racial identity.

Critics of the bill charge that it will effectively re-segregate the city, and some question its constitutionality. Although the legislation's text does not mention race, even proponents acknowledge that it will essentially define districts along color lines.

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While the mainstream media focused this week on a Palestinian suicide bomber, the violent Israeli occupation of Palestinian land continued, and the Middle East Media Center reports that Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza organized non-violent protests to challenge this 39-year illegal occupation of their land, and to demand the release of the over 9,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, many of them without trial.

In Bil'in, in the West Bank, Palestinians, Israelis and international supporters gathered for a protest Friday, April 21, at one of the many sites where the Israeli army is constructing the Annexation Wall through Palestinian land. The protest followed the Israeli High Court's decision to allow the Wall to be completed around Jerusalem, thus isolating nearly 250,000 Palestinians into 'ghettoes'. Demonstrators were also calling attention to Israeli products flooding the Palestinian marketplace that are replacing locally produced goods.

Abdullah Abu Rahma, Coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall, said that the protesters called on the residents to buy and use local products in order to support the local economy instead of supporting the Israeli products and economy and the Israeli occupation that surrounds and isolates the Palestinian territories and residents.

During the protest, the protesters collected Israeli products from local shops in the village and burnt them in front of the soldiers; the owners of the shops were compensated for the products taken away from their stores.

After burning the Israeli products, the protesters headed towards a construction site of the annexation Wall and broke several locks that the soldiers placed on the main gate of the Wall in an attempt to reach the orchards that became isolated behind the Wall.

Troops attacked the protesters and fired rubber-coated bullets and gas bombs at them; at least ten residents were injured; one resident required hospitalization.

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BlackBox Radio for April 17th, 2006

2006-04-16T23:56:00.000-04:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: Aidan Delgado, an Iraq War veteran who was stationed in Abu Ghraib prison, describes US soldiers’ treatment of Iraqis that led him to become a conscientious objector, and a report from New York city’s recent immigrant rights march, where over 125,000 people took the streets to protest HR 4437. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Edward C. Weber, curator of UM Labadie Collection
Delphi to invest $10m in India
Coke back on campus
Michigauma to reform, change name

National and International Headlines:
Texas plans to execute organizer Hasan Shakur
Police assault UC Santa Cruz protestors
SOA protestors begin sentences
NYC bill would allow legal residents to vote
Israeli military assassinates leader with car bomb

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Local Headlines

Edward C. Weber, who served for forty years as Curator of the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan, died April 11, 2006, at the age of 83. The Labadie Collection, started in 1911, was originally concerned with anarchist materials and its scope was later widened considerably to include a great variety of social protest literature together with political views from both the extreme left and the extreme right. It is the second largest collection of its kind in the world.

Ed Weber was remarkable for the breadth of his knowledge and comprehension of Western civilization, as well as for his avid interest in radical social issues. During his tenure at the library, which lasted from 1960 until 2000, the size of the Labadie Collection increased six-fold, and he inaugurated important holdings in civil rights, campus unrest, and anti-war movements. He also saw the commencement of courses devoted to the social movements of the 1960s, which encouraged undergraduates to examine the material he collected firsthand during that time.

###

US auto component giant Delphi Corp, which has filed for bankruptcy protection back home, said on Wednesday that it planned to invest $10 million during the next two years to increase production capacity at its plant in Bangalore.

Delphi was spun off from General motors in 1999, and is the second largest automotive parts manufacturer in the world. In October, 2005 it declared bankruptcy and declared it would sell or close 21 out of 29 plants in the United States. In Michigan workers have had to battle against Delphi for wages, retirement, benefits, and jobs since the Bankruptcy declaration in the fall.

###

Last week, the University of Michigan reinstated its contract with Coca-cola after they agreed to instating so-called independent investigators in Columbia and India to review the human rights allegations there.

According to the UM Coalition to cut contracts with Coca-Cola, "he University of Michigan's decision to immediately reinstate the Coca-Cola contracts is nothing short of an affront to democracy, justice, and accountability. Not only was the decision made without the mandatory consent of students as required by the Dispute Review Board recommendation; but by making this decision with a complete lack of transparency the administration violated its own established due process."

Members of the coalition point out that the investigating board has financial ties to the Coca-Cola Corporation, including one board member who is also a Coke employee. The University’s actions caused many students to protest last week for both student rights and the rights of workers in Columbia and India.

###

Last week in the Michigan Daily, Michigauma announced the names of its 2005 and 2006 graduating class members and promised to rename the organization. Michigauma is a secret society at the University of Michigan that has a legacy of racism against Native Americans. In 1989 the organization agreed to end all references to Native American Culture in its meetings and ceremonies. 11 years later, however, the Students of Color Coalition discovered that Michigauma had failed to implement the promised reforms and occuppied the Tower of the Michigan Union until a second agreement was reached.

The list of names released last week included MSA President Nicole Stallings and LSA Student Government President Andrew Yahkind. To see the complete list visit goodspeedupdate.com .

###

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National and International Headlines:

Portland Indymedia reports that the state of Texas plans to proceed with the execution of death row inmate Hasan Shakur, also know as Derrick Frazier, on April 27th. Shakur was found guilty of the murder of mother and son Betsy and Cody Nutt in 1998. Supporters are pushing the state for a stay of execution and a new trial, citing a lack of physical evidence tying Shakur to the case, a forced confession, and an incompetent trial attorney among other reasons.

Since being sent to prison, Shakur has spent his time organizing events to end violence in communities, fundraising, and publishing newsletters about prison issues, and the liberation of black people. Supporters are asking people to write and call the governor to ask for a stay of execution. For more information, please visit www.hasanshakur.com.

###

On April 11th, Students Against War organized over 150 students to march from the center of UC Santa Cruz to the campus job fair, where they peacefully prevented access to military recruiters through sit-ins and other measures. After about an hour and a half of negotiations and students' refusing to back down, military recruiters left the job fair.

The students' first victory appeared early in the day, as administrators separated military recruiters from other employers, allowing the protesters to block access to the military, while the remainder of the job fair continued.

University administrators hired, at great cost to the school, a number of police from other UC campuses. These police, local officers, and a top local official, physically assaulted multiple students without provocation. Police also repeatedly refused to provide identification when requested. Students were pushed, punched, choked, and a student's hand was slammed in a door. One student, acting as a legal observer, was pushed and arrested for documenting police surveillance, but was released soon after when other students protested the arrest.

###

According to the School of the Americas Watch, on April 11th, twenty nine SOA Watch human rights advocates from around the United States reported to federal prisons to begin serving sentences of one to six months for their acts of nonviolent civil disobedience opposing the controversial U.S. Army's School of the Americas, or SOA. The 29 advocates, ranging in age from 19 to 81, are among the 37 people who were arrested at Fort Benning last November and later sentenced in a federal court. They join four others already serving prison time for the same action.

The protesters were part of a demonstration of 19,000 people who gathered in Georgia last November to call for the closure of the school. The 29 – including Delmar Schwaller, an 81-year-old World War II veteran –- peacefully crossed onto the Fort Benning military base and were subsequently arrested.

The SOA, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the facility has ever taken place. New research confirms that the school continues to support known human rights abusers. Despite having been investigated by the United Nations for ordering the shooting of 16 indigenous peasants in El Salvador, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to SOA in 2003.

Last month, Argentina and Uruguay sent a strong message of support for human rights and military accountability by ceasing all military training of their troops at the controversial school. The two South American countries became the second and third to announce a cessation of training at the SOA. In January of 2004, Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuela would no longer send troops.

###

The New Standard reports that a coalition of human rights groups in New York City has won the re-introduction of a bill that would give more than a million legal residents the right to vote in city elections. The measure is the result of a long campaign to gain citywide support for noncitizen voting by the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights. The coalition represents around 70 immigrant-rights, labor, religious and other advocacy groups. Coalition members worked with Brooklyn Councilor Charles Barron to re-introduce the Voting Rights Restoration Act in City Council. If passed the bill would enfranchise approximately 1.3 million immigrant residents age eighteen or older who are not yet citizens. Advocates are currently working on gaining co-sponsors and pushing a council hearing on the bill.

Under the measure, immigrants who have resided legally in New York City for at least six months would be eligible to vote in all city elections. While the coalition originally sought to extend voting rights to undocumented immigrants as well, members said they ultimately restricted the bill to legal residents in order to make the measure more politically viable, and out of concern that undocumented immigrants whose names showed up in voter-registration rolls could be discovered and deported by authorities. Under the measure, immigrants who have resided legally in New York City for at least six months would be eligible to vote in all city elections.

###

On Friday, the Israeli military assassinated Abu Yousef Al-Quqa, 44, leader of the Popular Resistance Committees. The International Middle East Media Center reports that Israeli military personnel remotely detonated a car fifty meters from Al-Quqa's home in Gaza City, killing him instantly.

Later that night, three Palestinians were killed and twenty injured, in an exchange of fire between fighters of the Popular Resistance Committees and an unknown armed group. This exchange of fire came shortly after a spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees accused Palestinian security figures of planning the assassination.

Also in response to the assassination, Palestinian factions in Gaza
fired homemade shells at Israeli targets with no damage reported. The Israeli military shelled Gaza, killing two and injuring 8 others, including a mother and her six-month-old child.

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BlackBox Radio for April 11th, 2006

2006-04-09T22:08:00.000-04:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: Christian Parenti on the prison industrial complex, and a report on healthcare barriers faced by transgendered people. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Students protest inadequate school conditions
Native American health care neglect
Telecom companies to restrict Internet access
Homeless allegedly beaten in Greektown

National and International Headlines:
Mine waste dumping
Voting in Peru

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Local Headlines

In Detroit, 32 students protesting deteriorating conditions at MacKenzie High School were handcuffed and arrested by police, the Michigan Citizen reports. Students cited leaking roofs, lack of textbooks and toilet paper, and generally filthy conditions. Eight students are charged with disorderly conduct, punishable by up to 90 days in jail. One student is charged with inciting a riot, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in jail. Because of their children’s behavior, several parents have also been charged $500 dollar fines under the Parental Responsibility Ordinance.

Principal Bernard Bonam defended the March 29 arrests. Bonam claimed the students were protesting the uniform policy, a charge denied by students. Markell Donaldson, a sophomore said, quote, “this protest is about how the school is run.” Corey Williams, a junior, noted that three students share one book for classwork.

Several School Board members voiced support for the students’ protest and stated that the conditions at the school had been brought to the attention of the principal in January, when over 180 parents raised similar concerns. Board member Marie Thornton noted that 45 new computers acquired by the school are still sitting in their boxes after suffering water damage from leaking ceilings. “The kids have a right to protest,” she said. “The school should have addressed this issue.”

###

The UM Clinical Law Program, led by David Santacroce, has filed a class action suit in Federal District Court on behalf of Native Americans living in the Detroit area. According to the Free Press, the suit charges the Federal government with defaulting on its obligation to provide health care to all Native Americans and, if successful, would set a precedent that could affect Native Americans across the United States.

Santacroce and his students researched legislation and found that the federal government is obligated to provide health insurance to all Native Americans. A 2004 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report, “Broken Promises”, found that Native Americans are more than 7 times as likely to die from alcoholism, more than 6 times as likely to die from tuberculosis, four times more likely to die from diabetes, and have the poorest cancer survival rates of any racial group. Santacroce says that continued discrimination and neglect have deprived Native Americans of access to health care.

Metro Detroit has one health care clinic providing basic medical care for over 38,000 Native Americans, of which 27,000 have no health insurance. Patients needing more than basic services are either referred to specialists, which they cannot afford, or put on a waiting list to receive treatment on their tribe’s home reservation. Many patients die before receiving treatment.

Lucy Harrison, Director of the American Indian Health and Family Services of Southeast Michigan, says the issue is especially relevant in the Detroit area. She insists this is an issue of justice, not charity, noting that Native Americans gave up over 95% of their lands under duress in exchange for very few promises by the federal government, most of which have not been kept. President Bush’s 2007 budget, while cutting taxes for the wealthy, eliminates funding entirely for the southwest Detroit clinic and 33 others like it in urban settings across the country.

###

The idea of the Internet as a public commodity accessible to all citizens may be on its way out. US Telecommunication companies have introduced a series of bills at both the state and federal levels that would restrict Internet access based on fees, remove corporate “build out” obligations that mandate providing service to all customers within an area, and remove local franchise agreements that currently fund local cable stations and local services. These proposals arise as telecom companies are poised to offer video over the Internet which would allow TV to be delivered over DSL phone lines.

According to Michigan Citizen, US Representative Joe Barton of Texas, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s telecommunications and Internet subcommittee, has introduced a bill that would create a national franchise agreement for cable providers. Under this bill, providers could choose individual neighborhoods in which to provide service while bypassing others. AT&T, for example, has promised its investors that they intend to serve 90% of “high-value” customers but only 5% of what it considers “low-value” customers, namely low-income and rural residents.

Amazon, Yahoo, Google, and other Internet companies have sent a letter to Barton criticizing the bill, saying it would fail to protect the Internet from discrimination and would limit the power of the FCC to oversee fair access. The bill is similar to many state-level bills that have been introduced in Michigan and 20 other states. In Indiana, where a similar measure passed last year, local franchises have been eliminated completely and Public Educational and Government cable access is under State control. Local politicians, including the Detroit City Council, Wayne County Commission, and the Michigan Congressional Black Caucus have passed resolutions denouncing the Michigan bill. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has offered to fast-track local franchise negotiations with AT&T, but has not as yet received a response.

###

Attempts to rid Greektown of homeless people has resulted in several beatings, according to victims interviewed by the Michigan Citizen. After the city cut back on the number of police officers on duty, restaurant and casino owners hired a private security force composed of 8 laid-off police officers. Otis Jones, a lifelong Detroit resident, claims he was beaten by the officers and was subsequently prevented from filing a complaint. The Detroit police Department liaison denies the charges and claims that Jones has filed two false reports previously.

On February 16th, Jones says he attempted to stop two security guards from beating a homeless man when they assaulted him. He attempted to file a report with a nearby officer, but was told to go to the station. Upon arrival at the station, the desk clerk refused to take the report, stating that Jones had been interfering with the guards. It is unclear what powers private security guards have over citizens.

Jones states that all of the police he spoke with were familiar with the two officers involved in the beating. He says at least 8 other homeless men have been beaten by the security force. Two other victims confirmed Jones’ accusations.

###

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National and International Headlines:

On Wednesday, Environmentalists in Alaska renewed a court battle against government regulators, seeking to upend a mining permit they say would enable mining companies to fill water bodies with toxic byproducts. Last week, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Forest Service reinstated a permit allowing a gold-mining company to dump some 4.5 million tons of waste products into Southeast Alaska's Lower Slate Lake over a ten-year period. The plaintiffs – the Sierra Club, Lynn Canal Conservation and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, say the move would undermine the federal Clean Water Act and could open yet another channel for big business to legally destroy water bodies and habitats. Federal and state regulators' environmental-impact report on the mining project anticipates a loss of the lake's entire aquatic habitat during the operation period, along with a total loss of major fish and invertebrate species.

The report also predicts that the project would lead to an irrevocable loss of cultural resources, including relics of old mining areas at over a dozen designated historic sites. Federal law restricts the gold-mining industry from contaminating local waters with chemical wastes. Yet the Bush administration's recent tweaking of Clean Water Act rules effectively frees mining companies from restrictions on toxic dumping in the nation's water bodies.

The company and regulatory bodies contend that the project would have a minimal long-term impact. Army Corps spokesperson Tom Findter acknowledged that "there will be a temporary loss of aquatic life in the lake as a result of the mine tailings discharge," but told The NewStandard the damage would be offset because the sludge-filled lake would eventually be reclaimed, and the filling would force it to sprawl out and in effect become a larger aquatic environment. But in their legal complaint, the environmental groups expressed skepticism that environmental engineering could fully reincarnate a habitat after a decade of deadening pollution. The groups pointed out that the EPA's limited tests on local waterborne organisms had offered no comprehensive evidence that the residual mine sediment would not negatively impact survival rates.

Earth Justice and other groups fear that the enactment of this permit will enable the mining industry to invoke similar strategies at other sites in Alaska. Environmentalists say that water pollution from mining could devastate the area's diverse ecosystem, including major salmon spawning grounds that have provided sustenance for local residents' for thousands of years.

###

Peruvians have begun voting in national elections after a bitter campaign that reflected intense divisions in the country. Officials have said 53,000 police and soldiers are being deployed to make sure the election goes smoothly. None of the 20 presidential candidates is expected to obtain the 50% of votes needed for victory in the first round.

A key candidate is former army officer Ollanta Humala, a nationalist who has vowed to spend more money on the poor. His closest rivals are Lourdes Flores, a market-friendly conservative, and an ex-President, Alan Garcia, who had a disastrous record in office. Outgoing President Alejandro Toledo leaves office with a low popularity rating. Despite the country enjoying sustained economic growth, little of the wealth appears to have reached the more than 50% of Peruvians living below the poverty line.

On the eve of the poll, Mr Toledo - who, under the constitution, is barred from running for re-election - urged Peruvians to "vote constructively". Be sure the person [you vote for] doesn't represent the authoritarianism and the instability of the past," he said, in what correspondents say was a veiled reference to Mr Humala. Mr Humala first came to public attention when he led a military rebellion against the government of Alberto Fujimori in 2000. His talk of rewriting the constitution in order to "stop the process of neo-colonialism in Peru", and blocking the signing of a free trade agreement with the United States, has reportedly led some foreign firms to put investment plans on hold.

The business sector is widely said to favour Ms Flores, a former congresswoman who is hoping her chances will be boosted by Michelle Bachelet's recent win in Chile. She will also be hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2001 election, when she was edged into third place by the left-leaning Mr Garcia. Mr Garcia's 1985-1990 administration was marked by hyperinflation and rebel violence, but he remains popular among many Peruvians and has focused much of his campaign on attracting young voters. If no candidate obtains an outright victory, Peru's 16.5 million voters will go to the polls again on 7 May to choose between the two leading candidates.

###

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BlackBox Radio for April 4th, 2006

2006-04-03T22:29:00.000-04:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: the controversial interrogation camp at Guantanamo Bay, and the women’s movement against toxic waste in Mexico. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Mistrial declared in Reverend Pinkney case
Animal killings in Superior Township
Detroit plans to lay off 5% of city water & sewerage workforce

National and International Headlines:
High School students protest immigration bill
Israeli Separation Wall causes flooding, killing Palestinian man
French students and trade unions protest labor law
Wages raised in Vietnamese foreign-invested firms after strikes

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

Last Friday, the judge in the trial of Reverend Pinkney declared a mistrial after over 20 hours of deliberation. Pinckney was accused of illegally influencing voters to support the recall campaign of City Commissioner of Benton Harbor Glenn Yarborough in February of last year. He was charged with four felonies and one misdemeanor, and faced a long prison sentence had the jury convicted him.

According to the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization, Pinkney is declaring this a victory, saying "I am truly happy about the outcome of this trial. I was innocent from the start... it was a victory for the people. We have to teach people to stand up and fight."

The prosecution has not decided whether or not to retry the case. In the meantime, Pinkney plans to get back to "business as usual." He is planning to revive his efforts to bring jobs to Benton Harbor and to continue to monitor the activities at the courthouse.

###

According to the Associated Press, two dead dogs were found in rural eastern Washtenaw County on March 26. Authorities say the killings may be linked to a series of animal slayings that have occurred since January.

Nearly 40 domestic and wild animals have been found dead in the same general area of Superior Township since January. The dead animals include six dogs, and the rest were coyotes and foxes.

The two most recent slayings were of a cocker spaniel and a pit bull puppy that were found near each other. Some of the animals were shot and others were decapitated, hogtied or skinned.

The Humane Society is offering a $6,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

###

Beginning April 10, Detroit plans to lay off 5% of the city's water and sewage workforce, according to the People's Weekly World Newspaper. A rally was held by the employees of the Detroit Water and Sewage Department to protest the cut-backs.

Members of Michigan Welfare Rights joined the protest as well, saying that the cutbacks will cause higher bills for Detroit residents due to higher bills and more leaks, as well as a lessened ability to repair water main breaks.

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick further angered the workers when he said the city must continue to make cutbacks and privatize "any and all city services" at his State of the City Address. Many fear that the privatization of the city's water resources will cause water access and quality to become dependent on wealth.

###

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National and International Headlines:

US Indymedia reports that tens of thousands of high school students walked out of their classes last week in protest of HR 4437, the anti-immigrant legislation pending in Congress. The bill would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally, criminalize individuals or organizations who assist illegal immigrants, and authorize the construction of a 700-mile fence along a portion of the border with Mexico.

Massive walkouts began in Los Angeles on Friday March 24th and continued on the 27th, when according to the School District's count, 24, 580 walked out in protest. Similar walkouts were soon in effect across California, with scattered walkouts taking place at high schools across the country.

By last Wednesday, authorities were cracking down. Reports from San Diego, Los Angeles, and Watsonville indicate that police are dealing harshly with students, and some districts are working with local police to prevent students from leaving campuses.

###

The International Middle East Media Center reports that one Palestinian man was killed, and another injured last Saturday when hundreds of acres of farmland in the northern West Bank were flooded. The flooding occurred when waters from a seasonal rainstorm were blocked from draining by the Israeli Separation Wall.

Since 2002, environmental groups and municipal authorities have warned about the problem of drainage caused by the Wall, which acts as a 'dam' during times of heavy rain. The Annexation Wall has also previously caused sewage to backup onto people's homes in the city of Qalqilia.

Citizens of Kherbitha village have called the Palestinian Police to ask them to contact the Israeli side to open water passages in the area to avoid more losses in their fields, which continue to be covered by water.

###

The BBC reports that French Union leaders will press ahead with a general strike this week, after President Chirac vowed last Friday to uphold a controversial new law that makes it easier for employers to hire and fire people under 26.

After weeks of protest, Chirac still refuses to withdraw the new youth jobs law. He has made two key concessions: that the controversial two-year trial period for the under-26s would be reduced to one year, and that firms would have to justify their reasons for firing young people. However, under the new law, workers under 26 would have no recourse if they are unjustly fired, nor would they be able to present their case before any review boards, as older workers are able to.

Students and trade unions continue to organize against the legislation, and Paris Indymedia reports that protestors are adopting highly effective, non-violent tactics such as the short-term blocking of building entrances and railway stations.

One popular tactic, called "l'escargot"-or ‘the snail’-consists of groups of protestors walking or driving slowly, causing gridlock on major roads and effectively shutting down parts of Paris.

###

On April 1st, a new minimum wage went into effect for workers in Vietnam’s foreign-owned factories. The wage increase was the direct result of months of massive protests by workers in southern Vietnam’s export processing zones.

During December and January of last year, some 40,000 workers participated in a wave of wildcat strikes protesting low pay and poor working conditions. After the strikes, the government agreed to raise the minimum wage in foreign-invested factories by nearly 40 percent.

Despite this victory, Vietnamese workers have said that their fight is not over. They cite inhumane factory conditions and the fact that some foreign companies have compensated for the wage increase by cutting worker stipends and bonuses.

CorpWatch reports that the Vietnamese government is ‘walking a tightrope’ by trying to meet workers demands while staying competitive with China, where low wages are a huge draw for international companies. Already, some factories impacted by the wildcat strikes have threatened to leave Vietnam and take their business to China, despite the fact that China’s minimum wage is still 13 percent higher than Vietnam's.

###

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BlackBox Radio for March 28th, 2006

2006-03-26T23:08:00.000-05:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: On this week’s show, an update on the trial of Reverend Pinkney in Benton Harbor, and D’Lo, a gay Sri Lankan performance artist discusses her work.
Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Michigan Groups Mobilize Against Anti-Immigration Bill
Student Charged with Urinating on Asian Students Pleads Guilty
Update: Residents Oppose Detroit Water Rate Increase
Rev. Pinkney Awaits Verdict in Benton Harbor Case

National and International Headlines:
Voting Disenfranchisement of Displaced New Orleans Residents
South Dakota Indian Reservation to Provide Abortions if Ban Passes
Belarus Police Brutalize Protestors after Corrupt National Election
Inhuman Detention Centers in Malaysia
China Uses Psychiatry for Political Repression of Dissidents
National Protests Against Immigration Legislation

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

Michigan organizations are mobilizing against a proposed new law that would expand the definition of "alien smuggling" to include those who assist a person in attempting to remain in the US if they are not legally allowed to be here. Under this new law, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, refugee agencies, churches, and social and legal service agencies would be classified as smuggling organizations. Stiff criminal penalties would be the result of providing such assistance.

Under current law, presence in the United States without valid status is a civil violation, not a criminal act. HR 4437 would create a new federal crime of "unlawful presence" and would define immigration violations so broadly as to effectively classify every violation, no matter how minor, as a federal crime. The law would charge immigrants who commit minor crimes with aggravated felonies, which are usually reserved for violence crimes including murder and rape. The law would effectively criminalize the entire undocumented population, which currently includes including 1.6 million children.

University of Michigan students have begun an educational campaign around HR 4437, and MOSES, a faith-based community organization in Detroit, held a march this week to protest HR 4437. Stay tuned to BlackBox Radio for updates on the growing grassroots opposition to HR4437.

###

As the Ann Arbor News reports that Asians now make up the city's largest minority population, a U of M student charged with urinating on two Asian students in a racially-motivated crime pled guilty to two counts of assault and battery last Tuesday. The student, Stephen Williamson, was accused of shouting ethnic slurs and urinating off his balcony on an Asian couple in September, writes The Michigan Daily.

The incident spurred a campaign by Asian/Pacific Islander students to pressure the University to consider the needs of students who still face discrimination in the campus community. The campaign included a discussion organized by the United Asian American Organizations at which students expressed outrage and criticized the University for what they viewed as an inadequate response to the incident.

Critical Moment reported in September that some Asian/Pacific Islander students feel that "it is not enough for the University to promote 'diversity' and 'tolerance' on campus," and that they demand a "radical transformation of the campus climate into a place where such incidences...will no longer occur."
###

Last week, BlackBox Radio reported on the Detroit City Council's decision to rate water rates for residents of the city and its suburbs. While the City Council had originally said they would hold off on the rate increase until a plan was put in place to help the city's poor pay for water, they ended up going ahead and approving the rate increase without a plan.

The Call'em Out Coalition, a grassroots group that includes members of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and other Detroit residents and activists, has been publicly calling attention to the needs of Detroit's poor residents, 45,000 of whom had their water shut off in 2005. The Coalition demands include the creation of an affordable water plan that will help the poverty-stricken city of Detroit, reports the Michigan Citizen.

Last week, Detroit residents and supporters gathered at the home of Council member Kwame Kenyatta, who voted to increase the rates without a plan for Detroit's poor. The Coalition picketed outside, and tried to draw attention to the situation and promote the proposal put forward by Michigan Welfare Rights.

Under this proposal, prepared by attorney Roger Colton, who has devised similar plans across cities in the country, residential customers would be charged a yearly meter fee of $12, commercial users $24, and industrial users $3,300.

###

In Benton Harbor, Michigan, Rev. Edward Pinkney’s trial ended on Wednesday. Pinkney is on trial for election fraud after he led a successful recall campaign in 2005 to remove City Commisioner Glenn Yarbrough. The vote was eventually overturned by Judge Paul Maloney, who reinstated Yarbrough as Commissioner. Pinkney was later charged with paying $5 to individual citizens to cast their ballots for the recall; charges that Pinckney and other Benton Harbor residents decry as "completely fabricated."

According to Pinkney’s organization BANCO, Black Autonomy Network Community Organization, Rev. Pinkney testified that: 1) he was not present when anyone voted their absentee ballot in last February's election to recall corrupt city commissioner Glen Yarbrough 2) he did nothing to influence anyone while they were voting and 3) he never had possession of anyone's ballot

On Friday, March 24, after two days of deliberation, the jury sent a note out to the judge saying they were at an impasse on all five charges, and asking what they should do now. The judge, who is openly in support of the prosecution, sent them back to continue deliberations. As of Sunday, March 26th, the jury is still deliberating on all five felony charges.

If convicted, Pinkney faces up to 20 years in prison. Pinkney said he belives he would have already been convicted if not for the outpouring of public support he has received from across the state and nation. For current updates on the trial, visit the BANCO blog at http://bhbanco.blogspot.com

###

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National and International Headlines:

On March 16th, the US Justice Department authorized plans for carrying out the New Orleans primaries on April 22. In votes postponed from February 4, the city will vote on mayoral, city council and other local primary races. Polling stations will be set up throughout Louisiana, but remote balloting will not be available in other states with high concentrations of hurricane survivors.
The New Standard reports that even Southern cities like Atlanta and Houston, which host high numbers of Katrina refugees, will not host polling stations for displaced New Orleans residents.
Under the voting plan, displaced New Orleanians scattered in other states would still be able to send in absentee ballots. But opponents of the plan say absentee ballots are unfairly cumbersome. Would-be voters must request a ballot ahead of time, sign it in front of a notary or witnesses, and send it back before April 21. Voting-rights advocates say they fear the complexity of the process will lead to the disqualification of many absentee ballots.
Many critics of the current plan also worry that candidates will not have an opportunity to present their platforms to constituents without reliable lists of addresses for registered voters. The Urban League is urging FEMA to make its comprehensive lists of hurricane survivors addresses available to registered candidates.
NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon wrote to the governor: "Historically, the extension of voting rights to black citizens in Louisiana has been strongly resisted, whether through literacy tests, poll taxes or other formal and informal practices combined to keep black voting rates in the state low. The impact of Hurricane Katrina now threatens Louisiana's African-American citizens' voting right in equally devastating ways."

###

According to Infoshop News, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Cecelia Fire Thunder says a clinic on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation could provide abortions if South Dakota’s new abortion ban goes into effect. The new South Dakota law bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother — with no exceptions for rape or incest. President Fire Thunder said the state law would not apply to the reservation because of the tribe’s sovereignty.

Some experts in Indian law have agreed that Fire Thunder’s proposal of an abortion clinic on Indian land was “potentially workable” — especially if doctors were Indians and if the clinic were on Indian trust land.

The new law banning abortion is set to go into effect July 1, but a court challenge almost certainly will delay it, and opponents of the law are already gathering signatures to put it on the ballot in November. President Fire Thunder predicts a federal court will rule it unconstitutional. But she said if the law did go into effect, she will work to open a clinic, that could serve South Dakota’s women. “We’ve got lawyers working on it right now,” she said.

###

The March 19th election results where the President of Belarus,
Alyaksandr Lukashenka, was elected for another five years sparked much scrutiny, including remarks from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, which has stated that the elections did not meet international standards. Furthermore, an estimated 400 demonstrators who were protesting the election results have been arrested and many beaten by the police forces of Belarus. Heather McGill, of Amnesty International, commented that, "The Belarusian authorities have yet again demonstrated a total disregard for freedom of expression. All those that have been detained for the legitimate and peaceful expression of their views must be released immediately."
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/blr-230306-action-eng
###

Under the Internal Security Act, or ISA, prisoners are being held at
the Kamunting Detention Centre in Malaysia without charge or trial.
With striking similarities to Gauntanamo, detainees are first held in
secret locations in solitary confinement for up to 60 days under ISA;
afterwards, the government is able to transfer the detainees to
Kamunting Detention Centre, where they might remain indefinitely.
More than 70 of the hundreds that have been arrested for suspected terrorist connections, now remain detained under the ISA, which the Malaysian government justifies as necessary to fight terrorism.
Prisoners at the Detention Centre have been subjected to assault,
forced to strip, sleep deprived, starved, and threatened with harm to their families. Malaysian human rights groups are now calling on the Prime Minister Abdullah A Badawi to either abolish or reform the ISA.
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/stoptorture-220306-features-eng
###

Dutch psychiatric experts recently reported that Wang Wanxing, a Beijing dissident who was locked up in a Chinese psychiatric hospital for 13 years "was not suffering from any mental disorder that could justify his admission." The inmates of Ankang, the police-run mental hospital where Wang was held, have no access to lawyers, court hearings, or any right to appeal. Entirely under the police psychiatrist and officials' control, most inmates are kept at Ankang for five to twenty years. Wang's own release was a result of German diplomatic efforts. Brad Adams, director of the Asia division of Human Rights states that, "China has been repeatedly accused of using psychiatry as a tool of political repression, but until Wang left China, it was impossible to verify the accusations." Both the Global Initiative on Psychiatry and the Human Rights Watch are calling on China to stop their political abuse of psychiatry.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/03/17/china13010.htm

###

Last Saturday, more than 500,000 immigration rights advocates marched in downtown Los Angeles demanding that Congress stops it anti-immigration agenda. This march followed a similar one of an estimated 15,000 people in Phoenix on Friday. The protested bill that faces Congress this week would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally. It also calls to build fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border, mandate that employers verify the immigration status of all their employees, and require that churches check the immigration status of the people they help. Javier Rodriguez, part of the group that organized the L.A. march, said, "We have got to stop the approval of anti-immigrant reforms, demand a migration reform that is humane and fair, and not racist." Similar rallies in Denver, Milwaukee, Charlotte, and Atlanta have also drawn thousands of protestors. April 10th will be the culmination, a "National Day of Action" organized by immigration, labor, civil rights, and religious groups.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-5711724,00.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/940FC56D-B1F3-4709-8E0D-6893683DE17E.htm

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BlackBox Radio for March 21, 2006

2006-03-22T16:25:00.000-05:00

On this week's show, Max Sussman takes us to the Michigan Peaceworks antiwar rally for a critical take on the antiwar movement, Allison Harris brings us Hip-Hop 101, and poetry from the PCAP Spoken Word and Poetry event. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality
Subscribe to Podcast

Local Headlines:
US Senate to Make Canada Pay For its Trash
Detroit Proposes Moratorium on Life Sentencing for Juveniles
Pinkney Trial Begins in Benton Harbor
Chicago Employers Crack Down On Pro-Immigrant Employees

National and International Headlines:
Republicans Introduce Repressive “Terrorist Surveillance” Act
1.5 Million Strong Protests Against French Loosening of Labor Rights
Events Commemorate Deaths of Two Basque Separatists
Campaign against Caveiraos escalates in Rio de Janeiro

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

As cited in the Detroit News, the U.S. Senate approved a measure written by Michigan Senators Stabenow and Levin to make Canada pay the inspection costs of the trash they export into the U.S.

Michigan accepts over 400 trucks of trash each day, and all of it must be inspected before entering the state. This new bill could transfer the costs of the inspection process from Michigan taxpayers to the Canadian Government.

Michigan currently only charges 21 cents per ton of trash accepted, and past garbage loads have been found to hold illegal drugs and medical waste.

The state of Michigan has tried to restrict dumping and raise fees as well, but the trans-national waste transfer is protected under NAFTA trade laws.

###

According to The Michigan Citizen, Detroit City Council's Human Rights
Task Force is working on drafting a resolution regarding The Second
Chance Initiative, a statewide initiative that calls for a moratorium on life without parole sentencing for juveniles. The Second Chance initiative also calls for an end to enhanced parole procedures for those who were sentenced before the age of 18. The Task Force will soon present a resolution to the City Council, in hopes of adding the City Council's voice to the growing support for the initiative.

The Second Chance group plans to hold briefing sessions with state legislators in late April and early May. In these sessions experts will explain details of the legislation and family members of juveniles serving life sentences will present testimony about the effects of the current laws.

However, a representative for the Initiative acknowledged that it will be an uphill battle to gain support from state legislators who may be afraid of being seen as 'soft on crime.'

To find out more about the specific legislation or to sign petitions in support of ending life sentences for juveniles, visit www.secondchancelegislation.org

###

The trial of Reverend Edward Pinkney, leader of the Black Autonomy
Network of Community Organizers (or BANCO), began last week in Benton
Harbor.

Rev. Edward Pinkney is fighting four felony charges that were leveled
against him by the Berrien County Prosecutor’s Office after he led a
successful recall campaign in 2005 to remove City Commisioner Glenn
Yarbrough. The vote was eventually overturned by Judge Paul Maloney,
who reinstated Yarbrough as Commissioner. Pinkney was later charged
with paying $5 to individual citizens to cast their ballots for the
recall; charges that Pinckney and other Benton Harbor residents decry as
"completely fabricated." If Reverend Pinckney is found guilty he faces up to 20 years in prison.

According to a recent article on the Pan-African News Wire, Rev.
Pinkney is being targeted because of his outspoken criticism of
Whirpool Corporation, which dominates the politics and economics of the
Benton Harbor area. Pinkney has called out Whirlpool for attempting to
gentrify Benton Harbor and uproot the predominantly poor and Black residents.

This trial will be monitored by people all over the United States. Stay
tuned to BlackBox Radio for future coverage of Reverend Pinckney's
trial.

###

The Chicago Tribune reports that employers retaliated against workers who joined the massive pro-immigrant march in Chicago last week. Over two dozens employees at the Universal Form Clamp factory were fired after participating in the rally, which drew over 100,000 people. With help from the Interfaith Workers’ Rights Center, the employees filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against the company on Thursday. Workers were initially told they could attend the rally, but managers later spoke to individual workers and told them not to bother to return to their jobs if they attended. They claim that the dismissals are the latest in a pattern of discrimination against Mexican workers at the factory, many of whom are illegal immigrants. Later in the day the company agreed to reinstate 33 workers who were dismissed for being absent without leave the day of the rally.

The rally was in response to new immigration laws being considered in the House and Senate. The current version of the bill criminalizes illegal immigration as well as any actions taken to aid illegal immigrants, for example by churches or social organizations. Although one possible amendment would offer at least hope of eventual citizenship, another version in effect creates a new form of American slavery by relegating immigrant workers to a lower pay scale and offered no pathway to citizenship. Such workers, while required to pay taxes and social security, would have no rights to collective bargaining or redress of grievances.

According to the Financial Times, illegal immigrants make up almost 5% of the work force, and are the backbone of essential sectors such as Agriculture and Services. Unrecognized in the Congressional debate is the fact that many of the migrants are forced here due to the loss of job security and decrease in wages in their home countries, issues that are brought on by multilateral trade agreements such as NAFTA. Such laws set up a dynamic in which capital can freely cross borders to lower-wage workers, but workers are not allowed to cross to better-paying jobs. Last month, the Army Corps of Engineers announced they had awarded a $385 million dollar contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Root, and Brown to build massive “temporary immigrant detention facilities”. On October 1st the Department of Homeland Security plans to end its current “catch and release” policy and begin indefinitely detaining entire families of illegal immigrants until they can be returned to their nation of citizenry.

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

The “Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006” being introduced by Republican Senators Mike DeWine, Olympia Snowe, Lindsey Graham, and Chuck Hagel effectively removes the 4th amendment from the U.S. Constitution. Largely overlooked in the mainstream press, the law enables warrantless surveillance of Americans and officially removes actual oversight power from Congress and the Courts, allowing the President to indefinitely reauthorize the spying every 45 days. Ironically, the Bush administration signaled that it did not want Congress to introduce a law “legalizing” its activities since one of its main defenses has been to allege that its activities were already legal.

In fact, Glenn Greenwald, a former First Amendment attorney, argues that it is unclear what the purpose of such a law is since the President has stated that he has the right to break any such laws for reasons of national security. Even if the Intelligence committee disagreed with the President’s decision, their only recourse to halt the surveillance would be to convince a 2/3 majority of Congress to amend the law. Furthermore, the law makes it a criminal offense for any member of the committee to publicize illegal or abusive eavesdropping by the Administration.

###

More than 1.5 million people gathered in over 150 French cities on Saturday to protest a new youth labor law that will allow companies to fire employees under the age of 26 without cause during their first 2 years of employment. The government claims that the law, called the First Employment Contract, or "CPE", was designed to end high unemployment rates among the youth. According to the BBC, over 20% of 18 to 25 year olds are unemployed, which is more than twice the national average. In many of the poorest communities in France, youth unemployment rates are as high as 40%.

Many employers are in favor of the law because it would allow them to overcome difficulties associated with terminating workers who are unsuitable or no longer necessary. Students, teachers, labor union leaders and politicians have come out in record numbers this weekend to oppose the law, which they claim would erode employment rights and benefits and would make it harder for young people to find permanent employment. Demonstrators argue that the law discriminates against young people and was pushed through Parliament without debate.

Saturday's protests come at the close of a week of demonstrations that have closed down many universities throughout the country. In an interview with the New York Times, Bernard Thibault, head of the popular left-wing labor union CGT, said, "If they don't listen to us, we are going to have to think about moving to a general strike across the entire country."

###

Last week, events were organized in the Basque Country to commemorate and pay tribute to Igor Angulo and Roberto Saiz, two Basque independence activists who recently died in prison custody. ASKATASUNA, the political prisoner and exile support organization, has released a statement to inform the international community of these deaths and of the violation of civil rights created by the governmental ban on tribute events. According to their statement:

The Spanish and French penitentiary policy is criminal. It seeks to destroy the men and women in the Basque Political Prisoners' Collective as well as their relatives. In order to do so, they are dispersed and held far from the Basque Country, they are isolated inside the jails, they do not receive healthcare, they are forbidden to study in their own language or at the University of the Basque Country, and there is an attempt to prevent them from taking part in the political process in their country. Despite the obstacles, they manage to participate. All in all, they are deprived of basic rights.

The recent demonstrations were all banned by the Interior Ministry of the Basque Autonomic Executive, a government that includes only three of the seven Basque provinces. The Basque Autonomic police, the Ertzaintza, brutally charged against demonstrators, causing a large number of broken bones and rubber-bullet injuries, as well as legal proceedings against demonstrators.

Askatasuna has released this call for support to the international community in the hopes that those who receive the message will take action against the penitentiary policy implemented against the Basque Political Prisoners' Collective by the Spanish and French states.

###

Monday, March 13th, marked the beginning of the campaign against the use of Caveirao in Rio de Janeiro. Caveiraos are six-wheeled armored personnel carriers that have been used by the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro in the favelas, or slums, for the stated purpose of fighting off drug traffic. The black vehicles are painted with the emblem of Rio's special operations police: a skull impaled on a sword. An Amnesty International report last week claims that Rio's communities are suffering from such military tactics. Tim Cahill, Amnesty International’s research on Brazil, said that "By deploying a vehicle to aggressively and indiscriminately target whole communities, the authorities are using the caveirao as a tool of intimidation.” He reports of hearing that "people are scared to leave their homes, that they are too frightened to send their children to school in case they get caught up in a shoot out." Although 11 killings have been attributed to the caveirao, the state security department defends the use of the vehicles, stating that they protect the population and the police.

Mitchell McLaughlin, MLA, Sinn Féin General Secretary

2006-03-18T17:02:00.000-05:00

Download full audio 55 minutes.

A Saint Patrick's Day Reception with Mitchell McLaughlin, MLA and Sinn Féin General Secretary. Sponsored by Friends of Sinn Féin Canada. Recorded on March 18, 2006 at Patrick O'Ryan's Irish Public House, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

McLaughlin discusses topics such as the Irish peace process, power-sharing in the 6 Counties, and the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. Audio file of full discussion plus Q and A.

BlackBox Radio for March 14th

2006-03-14T12:18:00.000-05:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: A report from from last weekend’s water rights protest in Detroit, just days after the City Council approved a hike in residents’ water rates, and interviews with Prison Creative Arts Project founder Buzz Alexander and Detroit writer Brandon Gatson. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Local Democratic Party seeking impeachment resolution
Detroit to hire ex-cops to patrol schools
$2.6 million in military contracts for Grand Rapids
WUOM probe tied to alleged corruption

National and International Headlines:
Florida legislators pushing for probe in murder of juvenile
Bush proposes to sell National Forest land
UN: River depletion “a disaster in the making”
Hundreds of physicians condemn Guantanamo medical practices
Abortion discouraged for rape victims in Mexico

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

According to the Ann Arbor News, the Ann Arbor Democratic Party wants the City Council to pass a resolution supporting the impeachment of
President Bush. On Saturday, the Ann Arbor Democratic Party passed a resolution saying President Bush and Vice President Cheney broke the law and should be impeached. The resolution cited the war in Iraq, secret surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency, and government acts of torture as grounds for impeachment. Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje has said he wants to speak with Congressman John Dingell about the resolution before making a decision. On March 2nd, a similar resolution was passed in San Francisco.

###

The Michigan Citizen reports that Detroit Public Schools is aiming to hire armed laid-off Detroit police officers in a pilot program to quell an alleged outbreak of violence at the schools. On March 6th, the school board voted 10-1 to hire up to 48 recently laid-off police officers.

Detroit Public Schools Superintendent stated that the hiring of the Detroit police, who will have arrest authority, is a temporary move. However, he also stated that long-term plans to hire both Detroit police officers and Wayne County deputy sheriffs are being considered.

Many parents are concerned about having cops walking the halls of their children’s schools, pointing also to the fact that these officers will probably be non-residents of the neighborhoods in which they are patrolling. Parent Stephanie Mason also voiced concern that most of the officers would be white, while the student populations are mostly Black. She said, “They may not understand our culture and may be more hostile based on stereotypes. I feel that we need to re-hire laid-off school officers, not intimidate our children with guns.”

Officers are scheduled to begin patrolling schools by the end of March.

###

According to Media Mouse, Grand Rapids Independent Media Center, over $2.6 million in military contracts were awarded to companies in the Grand Rapids area last month alone. While the amount was not particularly large as far as military contracts are concerned, it highlights the fact that local companies continue to profit from the occupation of Iraq as the war nears the three-year point.

###

The Detroit Free Press reported on Monday that WUOM is being investigated in a criminal probe, relating to fundraising practices by two former development staff members: Jeremy Nordquist and Justin Ebright. Allegedly merchandise and meals were given to station staff in exchange for on-air announcements. Donovan Reynolds, Michigan Public Media director, who resigned March 1, said he reported "suspicious business practices" to U-M administrators and the U-M Department of Public Safety on Nov. 15, launching the criminal probe. Reynolds has declined to give details but said his resignation was not tied to the investigation.

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

According to the Westside Gazelle, the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators, in conjunction with the NAACP, are pressing for an independent probe of a 14 year-old’s suspicious death while at a juvenile boot camp.

On January 5th, Martin Lee Anderson entered the Bay County Sheriff’s Office Boot Camp, one of five such Florida camps under the jurisdiction of the Department of Juvenile Justice. The 14-year-old had been remanded to boot camp for trespassing on school property, a probation violation on an earlier charge. His earlier conviction was for ‘grand theft’ after which he took his grandmother’s Jeep to go joyriding with friends.

Anderson died during his second day at boot camp, after he was severely beaten by guards for refusing to cooperate during the intake process. A surveillance videotape of the beating shows six to eight guards wrestling the 140-pound teen to the ground and striking his torso repeatedly. The videotape was made available only after a lawsuit was filed demanding its release to the public. Family members and their attorneys stated that the videotape has been tampered with. They note that parts that have been spliced together and sections of the original tape have clearly been deleted.

Anderson’s parents, who saw their son at the hospital after medical personnel rushed him there, said his body was so battered and swollen that he looked twice his normal size. His internal organs were damaged beyond repair.

In a statement that has been called “totally preposterous” by medical experts, the District Medical Examiner who conducted the autopsy, ruled that the 14-year-old died a natural death. The Medical Examiner claimed that Anderson’s death was due to “excessive exercising” and a previously undiagnosed Sickle Cell Trait, and was not related to internal injuries resulting from the beating by guards.

Florida state legislators are also outraged by Anderson’s brutal death, which came not long after the deaths of two other young men while in detention centers. “We expect some answers why our Black young men are dying,” asserted State Rep. Audrey Gibson. Of the roughly 600 detainees in juvenile detention facilities across the state, nearly half are Black in a state where the entire Black population is roughly 15 percent.

###

In President George W. Bush’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget, unveiled last month, the Bush administration proposed selling some 300,000 acres of National Forest land. Media Mouse reports that of the land that has been proposed for sale, 5,580 acres are in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. While the plan has been touted as a way to offset the cost of the Secure Rural Schools Act of 2000 and guarantee funding for rural school districts located in remote areas like the Upper Peninsula, advocacy organizations working on rural education are questioning the efficacy of the plan. The proposal is part of a series of Bush administration changes in forest policy that promote a transfer of publicly owned land and resources into the hands of private corporations. The proposal has drawn widespread opposition from environmentalists, conservationists, and legislators across the United States. The Forest Service is allowing public comment on the sale until March 30, 2006. Comments can be emailed to SRS_Land_Sales@fs.fed.us

###

This week, the UN's triennial World Water Development Report will warn
that more than half of the world's 500 biggest rivers have been
seriously depleted. Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the
United Nations Environment Programme calls the state of the world's
rivers "a disaster in the making". Dams and global warming have
largely contributed to the drying of the rivers. Over 45,000 dams now
block 15% of all the water that used to flow to the sea. In recent
years, the United States has dismantled 465 dams, but a recent bill
that passed in Washington State will allow the federal government to
build a series of dams on the West's largest river, the Columbia.
With increasing temperatures, even undammed rivers have been affected,
leaving dead salmon in the Yukon and a record draught in the Amazon
basin last autumn.

###

In a letter in medical journal The Lancet this week, a group of about 260 physicians describe the force-feeding of Guantanamo detainees as violating international medical codes. They cite the Declarations of Tokyo and Malta, which both specifically prohibit force-feeding. The American Medical Association has also officially recognized a prisoner's right not to eat. However, according to a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, potential Guantanamo Bay health care workers are screened before deployment to ensure that they are not ethically objected to "assisted" feeding. Physicians have also expressed concern about the restraining chairs used for the procedure. In the past, these chairs have been reported to cause circulatory and respiratory complications. Ultimately, David Nicholl, a British neurologist, argues that "the issue is one of patient consent" as prisoners who risk their lives by going on hunger strikes are making informed decisions.

###

Abortion in Mexico, while generally illegal, is allowed in rape cases. Yet, the Human Rights Watch has found that rape victims face numerous difficulties when seeking abortion services. Aggressive strategies used by government agencies, public hospitals and family services include inaccurate information about abortion risks and anti-abortion videos. As Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of the Human Rights Watch states, "pregnant rape victims are essentially assaulted twice. First by the perpetrators who raped them, and then by public officials who ignore them, insult them and deny them a legal abortion."

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Blackbox radio for the week of March 7th 2006

2006-03-05T22:45:00.000-05:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: an analysis of what South Dakota's abortion ban could mean for the future of Roe v. Wade in the U.S., and activist & musician Joe Carr speaks and sings about his recent experiences in Iraq & Palestine.. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Fraud charged in Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Developers challenge Clean Water Act
Medicaid to provide affordable contraceptives
Bill will make it illegal for MI communities to ban GMOs

National and International Headlines:
Winter of Our Discontent faster and protesters arrested in DC
Detention of women and girls in Libya
East Africa drought
Discrimination impeding treatment of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative is a controversial ballot referendum that would outlaw all forms of affirmative action in the state of Michigan. Last year during its development, fraud charges surfaced when it was found that MCRI petitioners led voters to believe the proposal would help to strengthen affirmative action, not take it away entirely.
Since then, individuals and organizations on either side of political party lines have spoken up against the initiative.
The most recent action against the MCRI comes in the form of a letter sent out by a group of Michigan corporate leaders on March 3rd. Detroit News reports that the sending group includes the chairman of DTE energy company Anthony Early and former Detroit Mayer Dennis Archer. The letter urges citizens to help preserve diversity by opposing the MCRI.
This is not the first time that big business has supported affirmative action in the state of Michigan; two major auto manufacturers filed briefs of support when the University of Michigan defended its practices before the U.S. Supreme Court.

###

The power of the 1972 Clean Water Act is currently being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court by two Michigan developers who claim the government has no right to regulate private use of “isolated” wetlands. According to the Toledo Blade, one developer wanted to build condominiums on his land but was stopped when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found the land to be too ecologically viable. The other developer didn’t even seek approval before he filled in over 50 acres of wetlands on his property.
Attorneys for the defendants argue that the Clean Water Act only applies to navigable bodies of water and their tributaries. The opposition includes senior U.S. House Representatives John Dingell and John Conyers, both from Michigan and both co-sponsors of the Clean Water Act. They assert that the Act was meant to protect all wetlands, even landlocked ones.
Wetlands are necessary to absorb rainfall, prevent flooding, and filter out pollutants before runoff can get into major water supplies and threaten the safety of our drinking water and fishing.

###

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm recently announced a plan to use Medicaid money to provide birth control to low-income women. According to the Detroit News, the plan will provide affordable contraceptives and education on birth control. Although critics complain that this is a misuse of government money and will promote promiscuity, Granholm contends that by reducing the amount of unwanted pregnancies the plan will save Michigan millions in welfare costs.
###

Last week on BlackBox, we reported on agro-giant Monsanto and their quest for U.N. approval to internationally market terminator technology. Terminator seeds become sterile after one harvest and force farmers to buy new seed every year. At a national level, the U.S. department is being sued for allowing Monsanto to sell a biotech, herbicide-resistant alfalfa without properly assessing the risks. Now, the State of Michigan’s House of Representatives is poised to further support bio-tech agricultural companies like Monsanto by banning citizen’s rights to restrict genetically engineered crops.
In recent years communities around the U.S. have banned G.E. crops, including counties and towns in California and New England. Globally, 40 nations have mandatory labeling of all Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO’s. But in the U.S., Monsanto, with the support of the Farm Bureau, is pressing State Legislators to pass preemptive bills that eliminate the right for citizens to object to GMO’s. These bills make it illegal to regulate seeds, restrict trade on biotech products, or label food that contains G.M.O.’s.
The farm bureau claims that fears on the dangers of biotech products are unfounded and that not having access to biotech seeds will harm farmers. The opposition, comprised of small farmers, concerned citizens, and environmentalists, states that much of biotech has not been fully tested and poses many risks to human and eco-system health. They were recently able to stop a senate bill through a citizen’s letter writing campaign, but now members of Michigan’s house are quickly trying to pass a similar bill. The bill will make Michigan the 15th state to make local bans on G.E. crops illegal.

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

Since February 14th, four activists have been engaged in a 34 day fast for peace in front of the U.S. Capitol, as part of the Winter of Our Discontent campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

According to email updates sent by Mike Ferner, one of the activists participating in the fast, seven peace activists were arrested on February 28th in front of the White House, in a civil disobedience protest against the war in Iraq.

The seven arrested were all from Catholic Worker communities. They were charged with the federal misdemeanor of demonstrating without a permit. The action was part of a series of worldwide demonstrations taking place in the month leading up to the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20.

Mike Ferner also reports that on March 1st, fifteen people were arrested in front of the White House after protesting against U.S. sanctioned torture of detainees in military prisons.

Members of Witness Against Torture, many of whom are part of the catholic Workers Movement, began their protest at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, continuing to the Capitol and the Department of Justice. Escorting six fellow protesters dressed in bright orange jumpsuits, hands tied and hoods over their heads, the marchers proceeded along busy sidewalks to the White House, carrying signs that read, “You can deny it’s torture, but the world knows,” and “Ban all torture – no exception for Bush.”

The march took place on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, an annual period when Catholics pray and fast to repent for sins.

Several weeks into the 34 day fast, Mike Ferner had this to say,
“We are fasting with the realization that at best we may get a few members of Congress to think briefly about what they’re doing; with no real hope we can actually get them to stop funding this war.”

###

Human Rights Watch reports that Libyan women and girls are being held indefinitely in government facilities for "social rehabilitation." They are kept in locked quarters without any opportunity to legally contest their confinement.
A researcher for the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, Farida Deif, says "these facilities are far more punitive than
protective." Yet, many of the women and girls being held at the
facilities have not committed any crimes and some are there because they were raped and have been ostracized by their families. The women and girls can only get out of the facilities if they are taken custody by a male relative or agree to marriage, often to strangers who go there looking for wives.

###

A two-year drought, the worst in decades, threatens over 11 million people across East Africa with starvation. The U.N.'s World Food Programme launched an appeal for an emergency response on Saturday, warning that aid will run out in April unless help arrives in the next 10 days. "We will urgently need more help in the next 10 days because it takes time to buy, ship, and distribute food," said James Morris, executive director of the WFP. Of the $225 million that is needed, WFP has only received $28 million.
###

A recent report from the Human Rights Watch documents how discrimination and abuse are impeding Ukrainian government's efforts to fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Injection drug users, the population at highest risk of infection, are subject to routine police abuse and discrimination from healthcare workers, who frequently refuse to provide care. The common disclosure of HIV status by healthcare workers also further propagates discrimination and abuse. Rebecca Schleifer, a researcher with Human Rights Watch's HIV/AIDS program, states that "the HIV/AIDS policies that Ukraine has put in place are generally good ones. But until the government addresses the chronic abuses of people at highest risk of HIV/AIDS, it will have little hope of stemming its HIV epidemic."
###

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BlackBox Radio for the week of February 28th

2006-02-27T21:14:00.000-05:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: On this week’s show we’re focusing on young people. First we hear from Telling It, a creative writing program for kids. Next, interviews and music from the local record label, Youth Owned Records. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
’Michigan Needs A Raise’ Campaign
Local Citizens Organize for Dioxane Clean-Up
Bus Service to Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor Under Threat

National and International Headlines:
Farmers, Environmentalists Challenge GMO-Giant Monsanto
Anthropologist Reveals Human Evolution Based on Cooperation
U.S. Refuses to Meet with Lebanon’s Pro-Syrian President
Attempted Coup in Philippines

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Local Headlines

The Michigan Citizen reported earlier this month that a new petition drive started in Detroit for a measure to increase Michigan’s minimum wage. The “Michigan Needs a Raise” coalition is collecting 350,000 signatures by this summer to get the proposal on the November ballot.
This proposal would increase the minimum wage to $6.85 on hour--up from $5.15, which has been the federal minimum wage for the last 9 years.
State Senator Irma Clarke-Coleman states: “A full time worker at the minimum wage makes $10,700 a year, which is actually $5,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of 3.”
18 other states including Ohio have already raised their wages above the federal minimum. However, in Michigan, there are working families that cannot afford rent and have been forced into homeless shelters.
Some small business groups are concerned that they will not be able to hire workers at the new rates. However, the Michigan Needs a Raise Campaign asserts that businesses will actually benefit, as more consumers will be able to afford their goods.

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The Ann Arbor news reports a newly formed group to oversee the clean-up efforts to remove dioxane from local groundwater. The Coalition for Action on Remediation of Dioxane, or CARD, is based on former citizens groups that formed after dioxane contamination was discovered in the 1980’s. The dioxane comes from Gelman Sciences Inc. in Scio Township, who watered their lawns with their manufacturing byproducts.
Since then, despite clean-up efforts, the chemical has spread to the west side of Ann Arbor, forcing the closing of wells.
CARD facilitates the clean-up process by connecting government and company officials with neighborhood groups and citizens, who often have the most effective ideas. The City Council is also considering participation with CARD; a resolution is due to be passed in the upcoming weeks

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The Ypsilanti City Government has proposed reductions or even eliminations of the bus service between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. This will hurt hundreds of workers and students who depend on the bus for a ride to work or class. The routes between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor are currently some of the busiest in the entire busing system.
The proposed cuts come in response to budget deficits in the Ypsilanti government, and involve dropping the city’s seven bus routes by 2009. Ypsilanti currently pays the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority around $170,500 a year for this service.
A petition is being circulated online to protest the proposed cuts at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/preserveypsibus

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National and International Headlines:

Agbiotech giant Monsanto is facing resistance to its push for introduction of genetically engineered plants. In one case, a coalition of farmers, consumers and environmental activists have sued the U.S. government over its approval of a Monsanto-developed biotech alfalfa (http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9901). The lawsuit charges the US Dept of Agriculture with improperly allowing Monsanto to sell the herbicide-resistant seed without completing a full review of its public health, environmental, and economic consequences. Alfalfa, the 4th most widely grown crop in the US, is easily cross-pollinated, and as a perennial, persists in the ecosystem. The suit states that the genetically modified alfalfa will likely contaminate conventionally-grown alfalfa at a rapid pace. This would eventually force farmers to pay Monsanto for the crop whether they had wanted the technology or not, and potentially lead to eradication of the conventional alfalfa industry entirely.

On another front, over 300 global grassroots organizations, including farmers and indigenous peoples’ groups, are challenging Monsanto’s renewed attempts to get Terminator technology approved by the UN next month (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=56&ItemID=9800). Terminator seeds are deliberately engineered to be sterile so that farmers cannot collect seeds for the next years’ crop, making them dependent on purchasing their seeds from Monsanto each year.

In 1999, in response to widespread opposition, Monsanto pledged not to attempt to commercialize terminator technology. However, new language which Monsanto intends to introduce at next month’s UN Convention on Biological Diversity revokes the pledge on non-food crops and opens the way for terminator use in cotton, tobacco, pharmaceutical crops, and grasses. The text recommends Terminator applications be approached on a “case by case” like any other genetically modified crop, examining its health and environmental impacts. Opposition groups contend this approach would ignore the potentially severe economic and societal impacts of genetic seed sterility, especially in agricultural communities in developing countries.

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Humans actually evolved to be peaceful, cooperative and social animals and not dangerous predators, states Duke University anthropologist Robert W. Sussman (http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Early_Humans_On_The_Menu.html). Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of the Science's Annual Meeting, Sussman argues that primates, including early humans, evolved not as hunters but as prey of many predators, including wild dogs and saber-toothed cats, hyenas, eagles and crocodiles.

Since the 1924 discovery of the first early humans, most scientists theorized that early humans were hunters and possessed a killer instinct. Sussman theorizes that this view, quote, “developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive and a natural killer. In fact, when you really examine the fossil and living non-human primate evidence, that is just not the case."

In studying Australopithecus afarensis, an early hominid that lived 2-1/2 to 5 millions years ago, Sussman and his co-researcher discovered that the species was dentally unequipped to eat raw meat, yet lived long before the regular use of tools and fire made hunting and cooking meat possible. Not only were early hominids small, but predators then were far more numerous and much larger than today’s predator species. Further study of the afarensis fossil record showed that between 6 and 10% of early hominids were preyed upon, a rate identical to predation rates of similar edge-living primates today. Sussman concludes that like other prey species, early hominids lived in large groups and that the intelligence, cooperation, and many other features of modern humans evolved as a way to survive and out-smart the predator.
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chose to not meet with Emile Lahoud—the pro-Syrian president of Lebanon—when she made an unannounced visit to the country Thursday.
Explaining that she had “already met him” when she last visited six months ago, Rice
convened with Christian and Muslim political leaders of the country, instead. There to
give “support for the Lebanese people and the Lebanese government as they continue to
recover their sovereignty,” Rice often sites Lebanon’s recent separation from Syria as a
Bush administration success in bringing democracy to the Middle East.

The anti-Syrian majority Lebanese Parliament is discussing whether to remove Lahoud from presidency. Rice did not indicate to eager Lebanese reporters whether or not the United States would support a pro-Syrian President, but her refusal not to meet with Lahoud wa sa clear indicator of her position. Rice also did not put any real pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm the Hezbollah militia that is in control of southern
Lebanon. Over the pass two years, the United Nations created resolutions demanding that the Lebanese government disband Hezbollah. In her statements to the media, Rice was in no hurry to encourage Lebanon to abide by the resolutions.

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President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines declared a national emergency in efforts to
stop a coup plot involving security forces commanders. Giving the army and police
“extraordinary powers,” Arroyo called for all planned demonstrations to be withdrawn and all schools to be shutdown. Rumors of a coup—timed to coincide with the 1986 anniversary of the rebellion against a former president—led to heightened security throughout lastweek. With 12 coup attempts in the last two decades, this unrest is not new to the Philippines.

The leader of the Scout Rangers—an elite regiment in the army—is accused of being the
head of the coup plot. He and 10 other top military officials are under arrest for
involvement in the coup attempt. In September 2005 President Arroyo survived an impeachment attempt. She also withstood an army mutiny in July 2003. In recent months, opponents accused Mrs. Arroyo of vote rigging and corruption.

###
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Sweatshop Workers Speak Out

2006-02-25T12:27:00.000-05:00

Download the feature with worker and union organizer Branice Musavi from Kenya 16:37 minutes.

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Download full audio 1 hour 12 minutes.

Sweatshop Workers Speak Out: A panel sponsored by University of Michigan student organization SOLE. Recorded on Feb 16 in the Michigan Union.

Featuring:
-Phannara Duangdet, Lian Thai Factory, Thailand
-Branice Musavi, Protex Factory, Ahti River Free Trade Zone, Kenya
-Siti Malikhah, PT Kolon Factory, Indonesia

Sweatshop workers are some of the most exploited workers on earth. Regularly forced to work 12 hour shifts, often exposed to dangerous chemicals with no protections, many have their passports stolen and live trapped in the factory compound, or may be forced to take pregnancy tests before entering the factory and risk losing their jobs for getting pregnant. Workers are often physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by management, in addition to pitifully low-wages. Workers everywhere are fired or harrassed for trying to form unions and having a voice on the job.

This panel intends to bring the stories of three workers who have courageously stood up for human rights around the world to students at the University of Michigan.

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Superbowl Analysis from the Detroit Summer Collective

2006-02-20T22:03:00.000-05:00

Download the feature

9 mins 48 sec. Produced by Jenny Lee and Ilana Weaver.

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BlackBox Radio for Feb 21st, 2006

2006-02-19T23:35:00.000-05:00

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Blackbox Radio thanks listeners for donating to WCBN’s annual on-air fundraiser. Listener support keeps us on the air!

On this week's show, Blackbox reporter Max Sussman attends a Spy-In in Ann Arbor, and Andalusia Knoll from Rustbelt Radio covers the current political situation in Bolivia with the election of Evo Morales. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Washtenaw Community College Killer Coke Coalition
Detroit Public School debt

National and International Headlines:
Elections in Haiti
United Arab Emirates to purchase company controlling US ports
US-Venezuelan tensions hit new high

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Local Headlines

At the start of this academic semester, student activists at Washtenaw Community College organized The Killer Coke Coalition, a campaign to end the sale of all Coca Cola products on campus. Responding to reports of the organized kidnapping and murdering of Union leaders at Coca Cola bottling plants in Columbia, the WCC chapter of Amnesty International initiated a movement to create a code of ethical conduct for campus purchasing. By focusing on human and environmental rights, The Coalition plans to use this campaign as a stepping stone for ensuring that the campus only purchases products from vendors that require the respect of human rights, appropriate labor standards for employees, the environment, and international laws. The Campaign’s list of demands include ending the sale of Coca Cola products on campus and removing all Coca-Cola products from campus vending machines, which are the property of AVI foodsystem. The Coalition is immediately working to challenge and eliminate AVI foodsystem’s contract with Coca Cola, and will alternatively contest WCC’s contract with AVI. The Coalition has already met with the College’s administrators,and has begun petitioning on campus. Striving to further the achievements of the international labor movement, Coalition members also plan to recruit other human rights groups, as well as the Teacher’s Union and the worker’s union that stocks AVI machines.

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During a seven hour meeting of the Detroit Public School’s Board last week, newly elected board members succumbed to pressure from hundreds of enraged DPS teachers, agreeing to postpone raises for school administrators. Teachers cited their September agreement to loan the district five days of pay to help cope with DPS’ deficit, and demanded a cancellation of either their compromise, or a cancellation of the raises for the DPS’ principals. The district will likely need a supplemental loan to the $520.1 million already borrowed from the Michigan Municipal Bond Authority, just to make it through August.
Factors contributing to the districts debt include a $6.8 million increase in administrative expenses in the current fiscal year, and a deficit acquired during the recent 5-year state takeover of Detroit schools. Since winning back local control of the district, DPS board
plans to eliminate the deficit owed to the state have included closing up to 110 schools, nearly half of the district’s facilities, and laying off thousands of teachers and workers. While the DPS board struggles to cope with financial pressure, a state trustee will set aside $376.2 million from the schools’ aid fund to ensure that money due on loans is repaid, including payments to bondholders such as J.P. Morgan Chase.

###

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National and International Headlines:

The US-installed interim government in Haiti has officially declared Rene Preval the winner of the Presidential elections after more than a week of disuputed vote tallying and rising tension. Preval led early estimates of the poll with over 64% of the vote, reflecting his popularity among Haiti’s poor majority and his perceived alignment with the policies of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom he served as Vice President. His closest rivals in the poll, Leslie Manigat and US-supported sweatshop owner Charles Henry Baker, were able to garner only 12 and 6% of the vote, respectively.
However, following the departure of many election observers, Preval’s lead began to shrink, until it fell below the 50% needed for an outright win. Included in the count were tens of thousands of blank votes, which in some districts accounted for a third of ballots counted. Most of the blank ballots came from outside Cite Soleil, where over 95% of the population voted for Preval’s part Espoir. Also, on Wednesday, thousands of ballots were found smoldering in a garbage dump outside Port-au-Prince. Most of those inspected were marked for Preval.
According to Kevin Pina of Flashpoints radio, negotiations regarding the vote were then conducted behind closed doors with members of the US, France, Canada, Brazil, and Chile meeting with Preval and the interim Haitian government. A high ranking official close to the Preval campaign has stated that the US, Canada and France tried to force Preval to make major concessions in return for not having to face a second round of voting. Demands included that Preval agree not to drop the US-instigated lawsuit against Aristide for “corruption”, accepts IMF- World Bank policies of limiting spending on social programs and open Haitian assets to foreign investment, ensures that Aristide not be allowed to return to the country, nominates a member of the opposition to the position of Prime Minister, and not allow a general Amnesty for Lavalas political prisoners. According to Pina, this campaign is being led by Timothy Carney the charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Port au Prince.

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In a bill introduced Friday by Democratic Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the U.S. may prohibit foreign government owned or controlled companies from buying US port operations. The intention of the bill is to obstruct the multi-million dollar sale of a US port operating company to a United Arab Emirates controlled firm. Menendez said that “ports are the front lines of the war on terrorism,” with Clinton stating that port security should not be in the hands of foreign governments. Additional Congressmen called for a bipartisan hearing on the purchase by DP World –UAE’s port company—of a company that controls ports major cities in the US. Currently, the Bush administration plans to go ahead with the port sale, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claiming that it went through a “thorough review” and the administration “decided that this could be done and done safely.” Rice also stated that UAE is “a very good friend” of the United States, despite two of the 9/11 hijackers being UAE citizens and the country’s financial system helping to transfer money to terrorist plotters. The sale would give DP World control over operations at ports in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, and New Orleans.

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US-Venezuelan tensions hit a new high last week, when Condoleezza Rice called for a united front against the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, asserting that he is trying to spread a “Latin brand of populism that has taken countries down the drain.” The democratically elected and popular president Chavez dismissed Rice’s criticism as “crazy” and that the US is merely acting out of aggression. With the US purchasing over 60% of Venezuela’s oil output, the Bush Administration disapproves of Chavez’s initiative to publicize Venezuela’s oil industry in order to alleviate the poverty that affects the majority of the country. The Administration also disagrees with Venezuela’s relationship with Cuba, and Chavez’s suspected control over the country’s media. The statements made by Rice and Chavez dismantle recent efforts by Venezuelan diplomats to better communication with the US holding talks in Washington, in light of the recent expulsion of a Venezuelan diplomat by Washington officials in retaliation for the expulsion of the US naval attaché.

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BlackBox Radio for Feb 14th, 2006

2006-02-14T19:12:00.000-05:00

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On this week’s show, Mikey Barringer talks to a student producer of the Vagina Monologues at the University of Michigan, and Jenny Lee and Ilana Weaver of the Detroit Summer collective report from Detroit on the Superbowl. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Ann Arbor homeless man found dead
lawsuit filed against the University of Michigan and Michigauma

National and International Headlines:
threat of eviction in Brazil
thousands of evacuees become transients in New Orleans
Malaysia’s response to cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammad
”last resort” bomb raids on Iran are in the planning phase
Elections in Haiti

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Local Headlines

A homeless man was found dead inside his tent last week on the west side of Ann Arbor, reports the Ann Arbor News. The 51-year-old man, whose name has not been revealed as police attempt to contact his relatives, was discovered by two other homeless people in a lot behind the old Moose Lodge on South Maple road, next to the Kroger store.

His friends, who went in search of him after he did not appear Monday morning, had warned him not to camp in the swampy area as heavy rains were expected. The man was found in 6-8 inches of frozen water.

Two other Ann Arbor homeless men have been found dead in recent years. City Council member Chris Easthope syas the recent death higholights the need to implement a proposed countywide initiative to end homelessness in the county through offering more affordable housing and a support network that would include drug and alcohol abuse counseling and treament.

###

According to the Ann Arbor News, Christopher Bell, a local lawyer, and an unnamed UM alumnus have filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan and the secret society Michigauma. The plaintiffs are claiming that the organization failed to abide by an agreement reached in 1989 which stated that Michigauma would no longer demean Native Americans.

Michigauma has a notorious history of racist practices within their organization as well as a lack of transparency about their activities and affiliations. In a recent report for BlackBox, Clara Hardy and Sigh Slobin reported on these issues after many local blogs reported that two University activists were members of Michigauma.

The plantiffs are seeking class-action status on the suit and are claiming an uspecified amount of damages for civil rights violations.

COOR1: Happy Valentines Day from Black Box Radio and WCBN – return the love by pledging during our on-air fundraiser. Call now! The number is 734-763-3500. Now, here is Mikey Barringer, looking at the Vagina Monologues performance coming up this Sunday at the University of Michigan.

###

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National and International Headlines:

The "Prestes Maia" -located in Brazil- is the largest squatted highrise building on the South American continent and is under threat of eviction. With its 468 families, accounting for more than 1600 previously homeless people, including children, elderly and disabled, the building will shortly be returned to its supposed owner. The owner has failed to pay municipal taxes for 15 years and has accrued a debt worth more than the building. This enormous debt, together with long years of abandonment, legally and morally justifies a claim for the building to become public property, but it will be returned to its owner, putting hundreds of people back onto the streets.
The 468 families, united in the Downtown Roofless Movement of São Paulo, have lived in the 22-storey high-rise since 2002. The building had been abandoned for years and left in deplorable condition. The new residents cleaned out tons of trash and litter, organized it, expelled drugs and other criminal turning it into a home.
The eviction is planned somewhere between the 15th and 21st of February. An exact date was not given for ‘strategic reasons’ and the police mentioned that the ‘”troops will be prepared for the worst”. Residents have already engaged in road blocking actions, but it is unclear what further responses may take place.

###

A similar story is taking place in New Orleans. On Monday, FEMA’s short-term hotel-program expired for most of the thousands of displaced hurricane survivors. The Short Term Lodging program is required to provide shelter until transitional housing is provided. For those few lucky enough to have gained access to FEMA's long-term resources, many have been told they must live far from their jobs, far from homes needing repair, and out of reach of their communities. However, the majority of the temporary hotel residents have not been provided with transitional housing or local long-term housing options.

Hundreds of FEMA trailers have arrived in New Orleans, yet they sit in train yards unoccupied. City officials continue to bicker over where the trailers should be placed. Many public housing developments also lie vacant, despite remaining virtually unscathed through the storm. The only solution the Governor has offered is a thirty day shelter program in either Baton Rouge or Lafayette. This is not an option for those who maintain jobs or are fixing up their homes within New Orleans.

Meanwhile, thousands of evacuees became transients again on Monday, wheeling their entire lives onto the street on luggage carts or dragging bulging garbage bags through hotel lobbies.

###

Delegates at an international conference Malaysia entitled 'Who Speaks for Islam? Who speaks for the West', blamed the ferocity of reactions against the cartoon controversy, which gripped the world this past week, on the 'war on terror' in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cartoons, depicting Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist and first published in a Danish newspaper, dominated the two-day conference which ended Saturday.

While Malaysian newspapers were full of the rage that swept the Muslim world over the week, none of the anger was reflected in this country's many mosques.

Leading Malaysian Islamic thinker Chandra Muzaffar, credits the quietness in his country to a lack of fear and insecurity among Malay Muslims.

''Unlike the other Muslim countries caught in the eye of the storm, Malaysia is free of the hegemonic consequences of big powers that are experienced by Afghanistan and Iraq for example”

Muzaffar said social justice, religious harmony and reasonably good governance in Malaysia are the key reasons why the sense of loss and deep grievances, seen in other Muslim societies, is absent here.

''Muslims here don't feel dispossessed or have the same fear that Islam is under threat as Muslims in other countries like Palestine or Afghanistan and Iraq,'' he said.

Muzaffar agreed with the Malaysian Prime minister’s view that the war on terror has aggravated Muslim insecurity. ''Western media images and commentaries have reinforced the erroneous equation of Islam with terror. This explains why some of the offensive cartoons of the Prophet published in the Jyllands-Posten made that link,''

''What Muslims have been witnessing in recent years is the stark consequences of global hegemony reflected in the slaughter of innocent Muslims in Palestine and Iraq, the humiliation of occupation and subjugation, the treachery of double standards and the machinations of exclusion and marginalisation,'' he said.

''It explains to a great extent the explosion of violent fury in different parts of the Muslim world over the abusive cartoons. It is anger that is driven by more than their boundless love for Mohammad,''

The Malaysian deputy prime minister dismissed talk of a 'clash of civilizations', saying this need not happen if fundamental fault lines between the Muslim and the Western worlds were adequately addressed.

###

In related news, the Sunday Telegraph/UK has reported that strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation.
"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."
The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear program.

Sen John McCain, the Republican front-runner to succeed Mr Bush in 2008, has advocated military strikes as a last resort. He said recently: "There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, has made the same case and Bush is expected to be faced by the decision within two years.

###

On Wednesday, Haiti had it’s first elections since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a February 2004 in a U.S. supported coup. Critics have argued that the conditions in Haiti make a mockery of democratic process. Only a few hundred registration and polling sites were created to serve eight million people (compared with 10,000 provided by the deposed Aristide government) and some large, poor neighborhoods—with few government supporters—had no registration sites at all.
Additionally, many Haitians were denied the right to campaign: the government's potential challengers were jailed on questionable charges or no charges. And Haitians were also denied the right to organize when the government outlawed political demonstrations. Anti-government protesters have been repeatedly attacked by the Haitian National Police. The Bush Administration fueled this repression by sending $1.9 million worth of guns and police equipment just in time for the election season.
Far from supporting constitutional democracy in Haiti, the US has twice helped to overthrow Aristide, who resisted Washington's prescriptions for Haiti's economy by insisting on social spending for the poor.
Secretary of State Rice has hailed Haiti's election as "a precious step on the road to democracy."

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It's WCBN's Annual Fundraiser!

2006-02-12T18:24:00.000-05:00

February 10 - 19
Call 734-763-3500
Or donate online using WCBN's secure webserver.

Pledge, and get a fun gift in thanks! Check out our hot Blackbox Radio t-shirt below, hand screened on American Apparel shirts, or look at other WCBN premia here.

WCBN-FM is Ann Arbor Michigan's community & student freeform radio station. WCBN has been broadcasting a genre-less overview of music, news, and public affairs for over 30 years.

WCBN affords BlackBox Radio full editorial control over our show's content, allowing our collective to broadcast uncensored political perspectives and analysis. For this reason, and so many others, WCBN is a diamond in the rough!

We thank our listeners for their continued support in keeping us on air!

Haunani-Kay Trask at SCOR Conference

2006-02-11T12:12:00.000-05:00

Haunani-Kay Trask is one of Hawai'i's best known Native leaders and scholars and was a featured speaker at this year's Students of Color of Rackham (SOCR) conference. Her grandfather, a Hawai'i Territorial Senator, and her father, a lawyer and advocate for Hawaiians, were among the political figures known for their speechmaking and political contributions toward securing Native land rights in Hawai'i. Today, she is widely considered an authority on Hawaiian political issues, as well as an internationally known indigenous human rights advocate.

This recording is split into two files: the full lecture and the q & a that followed. The talk was recorded on Thursday, February 9 in the Rackham Hall Amphitheatre.

BlackBox Radio for Feb 7th, 2006

2006-02-06T23:33:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: Andrea Smith, author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, discusses the efforts of Native American boarding school survivors to find justice, as well organizing strategies for women and people of color. And a piece produced by Active Voices Radio: an interview with historian James Loewen about the existence of all-white ‘Sundown Towns’ in the United States. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
African American Students File Complaint Against U-M
Ann Arbor City Council Proposal to Protect Public Breastfeeding
Ballot Iniative Seeks to Eliminate Michigan Senate

National and International Headlines:
Scientist’s Research on Climate Change Censored by NASA
Bush Threatens Iran in State of Union Address
More Flu Strains Resistant to Medication

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Local Headlines

A group of 13 African-American students, known as the Coalition for Action Against Racism and Discrimination, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of civil Rights. They claim that the University of Michigan demoralizes and abuses its
black graduate students by telling them they are not PhD bound and recommending that they leave after achieving their master’s. The Coalition also claims that undergraduates are misguided, segregated and alienated within the University, which accepts black students solely to raise enrollment statistics and does not give the financial or academic support needed to graduate. University officials have contacted the Coalition, claiming that they are addressing their concerns.

###

Last week, BlackBox reported on the 'nurse-in' protest against the YMCA's policy on breastfeeding. Currently, the Ann Arbor Y does not allow women to breastfeed their infants in the pool area, and this policy has drawn heated opposition from local mothers
and community members. YMCA Executive Director Cathi Duchon has said the YMCA will not be pressured into changing its policy.

The debate is now headed to the floor of the Ann Arbor city council. Last week, Council Member Joan Lowenstein introduced resolutions stating that women should be able to breastfeed anywhere in public.

According to the Ann Arbor News, Lowenstein said a city ordinance on breastfeeding is necessary because state law on this issue is unclear. She said passing the resolution would make it clear to police that breastfeeding can't be considered indecent exposure even if a complaint is made.

Lowenstein has also proposed a second resolution that would amend the city's non-discrimination ordinance to include breastfeeding mothers.

###

Unicameral Michigan—an initiative formed in Hastings, Michigan, started its signature collecting campaign for its ballot proposal to abolish the state’s bicameral legislature. The organization claims that a one-chamber Legislature would save taxpayers money, make it more efficient, and lead to more open proceedings. Switching to a unicameral system means eradicating the Michigan Senate, which Unicameral Michigan claims is a clone of the Michigan house, having the same responsibilities.
The organization estimates that the state would save over $50 million if the ballot initiative passes in this coming election, making Michigan the second state to adopt a Unicameral system like Nebraska’s. Bipartisan opposition to the initiative claim that doing away with the Senate would do away with the system of checks and balances and have a detrimental effect of the democratic process. Unicameral Michigan needs 317,000 legitimate signatures in order to have the proposal on the November ballot.

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National and International Headlines:

A leading authority on global climate change claims that he is being censored by NASA officials due to remarks made regarding America’s ability to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.
On December 6, James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, gave a speech in which he called for policy makers to recognize that current technology is sufficient to lessen the amount of greenhouse gasses being put into the atmosphere and that action needs to be taken immediately. Hansen claims, in a January 30th New York Times column that NASA officials have begun keeping members of the media from interviewing him and reviewing all of his pending published material.
The censorship of Dr. Hansen and other NASA scientists is raising concerns that the space agency is engaged in an active campaign to censor scientific research with political implications.

###

In last Tuesday’s State of the Union address, George W. Bush verbally attacked Iran, saying that it was “now held hostage by a small clerical elite.” He warned that unless Iran’s government cooperated with demands set out by certain Western
governments, most prominently the United States, regarding their nuclear power program, America would deal with what Mr. Bush called “these threats”. Iranian officials maintain that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful in nature and is not breaking Non-Proliferation
Treaty regulations.
Mr. Bush also took time to address Hamas, the leading political party in Palestine’s recently elected parliament, saying that it needs to “recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace”. On January 30th Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice declared that the Hamas-led Palestian Authority will likely not receive aid from the United States based on its political stance.

###

Researchers have documented a dramatic increase in flu strains resistant to popularly prescribed drugs. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows a nine percent jump since 2004 in strains that show signs of resistance to at least one of the two most regularly prescribed flu medications.
These findings have caused alarm in the medical community and the researchers have called for a moratorium on the prescription of these drugs. Unnecessary prescriptions and misuse are being blamed for this increase in the virus’s resistance.

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Blackbox radio for Jan 31st, 2006

2006-01-30T21:34:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: The Real State of the Union with Professor Sharon Howell, and the nurse-in at the Ann Arbor YMCA. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
New Detroit Council members to be elected by Council
Changes in Michigan adoption law

National and International Headlines:
Senator Lugar supports release of Father Jean-Juste in Haiti
US Army admits to holding fugitives’ wives hostage
Agent Orange manufacturer forced to pay compensation
President’s arguments in defense of spying not valid
Executive branch in power grab

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

The Michigan Citizen reports that Detroit Council member Kwame Kenyatta and Council President Ken Cockrel, Jr., are hoping to pass a resolution which will have a major effect on Detroiter's voting rights.

The resolution was introduced last week, and, if passed, it would allow new council members to be chosen by current ones, rather than by voters. Kenyatta believes it will be save costs and will be a more efficient method of electing new members.

DeAmo Murphey, a partner with the political consulting group Blocker Associates, is worried that the resolution will take power away from Detroit voters. "I don't like it at all for the city. It usurps the people's will to be able to elect their own representatives."

Murphy compares this situation to the recent discovery of President Bush's domestic spying program. "Likewise with that situation," he says, "if you put cost savings over the people's right to select their own representatives, it's wrong."

###

The Metro Times reports that adoption law may undergo large changes in Michigan.
Under current law, if an unmarried couple — whether they are gay or straight — want to adopt, only one parent is granted legal custody.

Last December, state Rep. Paul Condino of Southfield introduced House Bill 5399, which would allow two single adults to have joint legal custody over a child.

Second-parent adoption rights are currently recognized in nine states and Washington, D.C., according to the National Center for Lesbian Rights. A spokeswoman for the group says that second-parent adoption rights are crucial for the child's health. A child who loses his or her only legal guardian is in jeopardy of losing their financial security and health benefits. In some cases, a child who loses its biological parent may be sent to a foster home, even if their second parent is still invloved in their life.

The bill is supported by many organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics who said "children deserve to know that their relationships with both of their parents are stable and legally recognized. This applies to all children, whether their parents are of the same or opposite sex."

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

The Republican Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has called for the release of imprisoned Haitian priest Gerard Jean Juste. In a letter to interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, Republican Senator Richard Lugar wrote: "I am very concerned that father Gerard Jean-Juste, who is imprisoned in Haiti, is seriously ill... Medical experts are saying that if [he] contracts an infection, then the effects could be fatal. Without appropriate treatment, which is unavailable locally in Haiti, his life could be in jeopardy." Jean-Juste was jailed in July for a murder that occurred while he was out of the country. He's vehemently denied the charges, and the Haitian government has failed to provide any evidence. This week, the Haitian government announced it was dropping those charges but keeping Jean Juste on two new charges of illegal weapons possession and criminal conspiracy. Supporters of Jean-Juste have argued the priest is a political prisoner being detained because of his close ties to the ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Amnesty International has declared him a prisoner of conscience.

Meanwhile, the Haitian government has announced it will not permit voting inside Haiti's largest poor community, Cite Soleil. The announcement comes just one day after hundreds of Cite Soleil residents took to the streets to demand polling stations. Between 250,000 and 600,000 people live in Cite Soleil. It is widely known as a stronghold for the Lavalas movement of ousted President Jean Bertrand Aristide. Haitian officials said the neighborhood is too dangerous for voting. But a UN official told Reuters voting is feasible in Cite Soleil, pointing out thousands of voters have been registered without incident. Rene Lundi, a local community leader, said: "It is clear they want to prevent us from voting, because they know our vote won't go their way."

###

Military documents show that the U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and
jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands
into surrender. The Associated Press reports that in once case the wife was a nursing mother with
an infant. In the second case, an American colonel suggested that they pin a note
to the fugitive’s door telling him, quote “to come get your wife”. In a memo by a Pentagon intelligence officer, the task force conducting the operation that if the wifer were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target’s surrender. These reports, and the
apparent outright acceptance of this technique by the US military, has provoked
outrage among bloggers and progressive journalists.

Not only is this practice illegal under the Geneva conventions, it is also illegal under domestic law. Section 3 of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War clearly
states that non-combatants may not be taken hostage. Although the Bush
administration has flaunted the Geneva Conventions on numerous occasions, this
particular provision is explicitly included in domestic law. US Title 16
specifically states that anyone found violating the laws against taking hostages
shall quote “be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of
years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the
penalty of death.”

This law makes it clear that holding the wife of a wanted fugitive is a war crime
under American law.

###

In South Korea, two US manufacturers of Agent Orange have been ordered to pay compensation to thousands of South Korean veterans who fought with the US in the Vietnam War. Dow Chemical and Monsanto, which supplied the US during the war, were ordered to pay up to $61 million in damages. The case marked the first ruling in a favor of Agent Orange Victims in South Korea. Last year, a US federal judge dismissed a similar class action lawsuit against the two companies brought by a group of Vietnamese citizens. The U.S. military sprayed over 3,000 Vietnamese villages with Agent Orange during the war, affecting between two and five million people with cancer, birth defects, and other consequences of chemical poisoning.

###

The domestic spying scandal, in which the National Security Agency has eavesdropped on thousands of Americans’ emails and international phone calls since at least 2002, is being presented by President Bush as both legal and vital to national security.

However, the Washington Post reports that in 2002, the White House dismissed a
Congressional move to lower the threshold for obtaining FISA warrants, stating
that the current system was working well and that it might be unconstitutional to
lower the legal standard. This contradicts current claims by the President that
such increased powers are essential in the fight on terrorism. Also contradicting
the President’s claims that such powers might have prevented 9/11, the blog
flogging the simian reports that at no time has FISA prohibited surveillance
without a warrant on people who are either in the United States illegally or are
here on temporary (legal) visas. This means that all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers
could've been under NSA surveillance legally with no warrant necessary.

Furthermore, Truthout.org reports that a previous domestic spying program, named
“suspicionless surveillance” and developed by the Pentagon's controversial Total
Information Awareness department, was explicitly shut down by Congress in 2003
after Republican and Democratic lawmakers feared it amounted to domestic spying.
It was shortly after this that President Bush authorized the NSA program, in
effect overruling Congress and ignoring its authority. Bush has personally
renewed the authorization every 45 days since that time. The ACLU has brought suit
against the NSA in an attempt to halt the controversial program.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for one of two US Muslims jailed on terrorism charges has filed a motion to dismiss the entire case on the grounds their prosecution originated in the Bush administration’s domestic spy program. In August 2004, Mohammed Hossain and Yassin Muhhiddin Aref were arrested in a sting operation on their mosque in Albany, New York. The case may set the stage for a constitutional challenge to the NSA program as part of the case.

###

The Bush administration is engaged in an unprecedented consolidation of power in
the executive branch which may change the face of our country’s government
forever, say numerous articles appearing last week. Consortiumnews.com states
that the theory of the “unitary executive”, whose chief architect is Supreme Court
nominee Samuel Alito, places almost unlimited powers in the hands of the
president, allowing him to determine whether laws passed by Congress are
constitutional, and makes the claim that the President’s interpretation of a law
is as important as Congress’s intent in writing it.

The possibility of Alito altering the balance of the Supreme Court has awoken some
Democracts to the dangers inherent in the extreme views of executive power held by
this administration. For example, a new provision in the Patriot Act would create
a permanent federal police force, to be known as the ’United States Secret Service
Uniformed Division’, which will be under direct control of the Department of
Homeland Security and will have the authority to bypass the bill of rights in any
situation deemed “a special event of national significance”.

Executive power in foreign affairs is also being expanded. The Washington Post
reports that the Pentagon has announced it intends to increase its “special ops”
forces by thousands, and has obtained permission to operate militarily in foreign
countries without Congressional approval. The Army has also changed the rules for
execution of detainees, making it easier to carry out military executions and
allowing them to take place in numerous locations. Previously, only Fort
Leavenworth was approved as a site for military executions. Some theorize that
the move may be preparation to allow executions at Guantanamo Bay.

___________________________________________________

BlackBox Radio for Jan 24th, 2006

2006-01-25T14:58:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: Clara and Sigh explore the role local activists play in U of M’s secret society Michigauma and Jen brings us an update on the Zapatistas’ new campaigns in Mexico. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Civil and Housing rights violations in Detroit
privatizing Michigan state parks
MCRI update

National and International Headlines:
World Social Forum: Bamako, Mali
Guantanamo Bay hunger strikers close to death
Evo Morales: first indigenous leader of Bolivia
Police murder in Georgia

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

The Detroit Free Press reports that two Taylor men were responsible for setting a fire meant to drive away an African American family from their neighborhood. In July of 2002, Wayland Mullins and Michael Richardson started a fire in the home just purchased by the Doster family in order to scare them and prevent them from moving in.

The men are charged with violating the Dosters' civil and housing rights and with conspiring to lie to investigators. Each of the counts carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Richardson is currently serving a 4-year prison sentence for misleading investigators in an attempt to prevent Mullins from being charged. The investigation is still ongoing, however Mullins has been charged and was due to appear in court last Friday.

The Doster family put up with years of racial harassment, including racially charged graffiti, arson and insults. In August 2005, Reginald Doster, a computer administrator, and his wife and daughter moved out and left the neighborhood.

###

According to the Grand Rapids Press, the Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy has proposed to privatize 14 Michigan state parks in order to increase revenue for the state.

According to the Mackinac Center, the “liquidation of these properties would allow state park managers to focus their limited resources on protecting the state’s truly outstanding natural and historic sites.”

Thomas Bailey of Harbor Springs, the executive director of
the Little Traverse Conservancy, a land conversation nonprofit group says that the plan doesn’t make sense. "As our manufacturing takes it on the chin, it's going to be more
important to rely on (tourism) to help get through these tough times.”

###

At a hearing last week called by the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, about two dozen people testified that they believed the signatures gathered by Ward Connerly's Michigan Civil Rights Initiative were collected fraudulently, reports the MetroTimes

The testimony, along with about 180 affidavits making the same claim, states that Signature gatherers asked people to sign a petition "for" civil rights or "in support" of affirmative action. However, the initiative the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative seeks to put on the November 2006 state ballot that would ban public institutions from using affirmative action practices in hiring.

Martha Cuneo, a Warren attorney and board member of the National Lawyers Guild who said she signed a petition handed to her outside a Royal Oak post office, told the commission, quote, "I was never informed that the aim of the petition was to ban affirmative action. I implore you to take my name off this petition. It's an embarrassment to me." Ruthie Stevenson, president of the NAACP's Macomb County branch, told the commission she believes that institutional racism was one of the reasons the claims of petition fraud were not being looked into until now. Another hearing in the same vein is to be scheduled in the coming weeks.

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

The 2006 World Social Forum opened Thursday in Bamako, Mali. The World Social Forum is an alternative to the World Economic Forum, a yearly meeting of business and political elites in Switzerland.

The World Social Forum is a space for exchanging information and experiences of fighting neo-liberalism. The past decade has seen a wide range of popular resistance in Africa. The Forum will offer an opportunity for dialogue and reflection on those fights and the alternatives they offer in the global project to build a better world based on solidarity and common struggle, not competition and war.

The themes of the Bamako WSF include: Militarization and War, the outcomes of the Hong Kong WTO meeting, UN reform, and Migration.

This year's World Social Forum is also being held simultaneously in Caracas (Venezuela), and Karachi (Pakistan). Approximately 30,000 activists from across the region and the world are expected to attend. This is the first World Social Forum to be held in Africa

###

According to Sunday’s London Times, several hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay may be close to death despite force feeding by the American military,
The condition of two emaciated Yemeni hunger strikers who have been refusing solid food since August is causing particular concern. There are also fears for the life of a hospitalised Saudi prisoner.
The Yemenis, identified as Abu Bakah al-Shamrani and Abu Anas, are said by detainees to be gravely weak. Shamrani weighs only 70 pounds.
The military said last week that the number of hunger strikers had declined to 22 after a peak at Christmas and that 17 were being fed by “tube”.
The prisoners being force fed have a permanent tube in the nose, which descends to the stomach and is attached to another tube for feeding. If they do not rip it out, the US military say they are consenting to be fed even if the tube was inserted under duress.
One of the hunger strikers, Shaker Aamer , has vowed to continue his hunger strike until he is given a fair trial or released.
Aamers lawyer has commentd the “inevitable spectre of a Muslim prisoner dying on Guantanamo soil will cause greater outrage than even the desecration of the Koran”.

###

Evo Morales was sworn in on Sunday as the first indigenous leader of Bolivia, South America's poorest nation.
Along with Bolivian politicians, and invited dignitaries, 11 presidents and government leaders from Latin America and Europe attended his swearing in.
Among those present at the ceremony were Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil.

In his inaugural speech, Morales declared that "the 500 years of Indian resistance have not been in vain".
"From 500 years of resistance we pass to another 500 years in power," he said. "We're going to put an end to injustice, to inequality."
Morales blamed neo-liberal economic policies of the past and the "looting of our natural resources" for the widespread poverty in the country.

###

According to NBC Atlanta news a group of community members in Marshallville, Georgia, attacked police officers with rocks and then looted and burned down Police Chief Stephen Stewart's home after an African American man, Clarence Walker, was murdered by the police on Sunday.
Police claim that they only used "minimal force" to subdue Walker who was wanted on outstanding charges, but witnesses claimed otherwise. “They had him down, and kept spraying him with mace. And one of the largest ones was sitting on him,” said Walker’s brother, James Jackson. At some point, after they handcuffed Walker, he stopped breathing. After he was transported to a hospital, the watching crowd started to throw rocks at the police.
Marshallville is a small town of 1,300 people about 90 miles south of Atlanta.

###

___________________________________________________

Voices Left Behind: Hurricane Katrina and the Prison Epidemic

2006-01-19T15:22:00.000-05:00

The Prisoners Creative Arts Projecs presented this event, which was recorded on January 16, 2006. Louisiana prisoners and their families faced a unique circumstance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Prisoners were literally left behind and forgotten when tragedy struck. This event featured a unique panel of individuals who offer first-hand accounts of what it means to be left in flooding prisons; to live for days without food or water; to go weeks without contact from family or friends.

Part 1: Tammy Williams | Part 2: Megan Garvey

Blackbox Radio for Jan 17th, 2006

2006-01-18T19:19:00.000-05:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show, in recognition of Martin Luther King Day, we take an in-depth look at race, class and injustice in New Orleans almost five months after Katrina.

A report about home demolitions taking place in the Lower 9th Ward, a fair housing activist describes how the city is eliminating public housing, an account from Tammy, a New Orlaens resident, who was arrested with her daughters and held in makeshift prisons for 60 days without being charged, & Dr. Beverly Wright of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice describes the implications of the hyper gentrification plan for rebuilding New Orleans. :. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
State Trooper Acquitted for Murder of Homeless Man
Detroit’s Homeless May be Targetted During Super Bowl
Toxic Chemicals Accumulating in Great Lakes

National and International Headlines:
US Marines Arrested for Rape of Woman in Philippines
Global Warming Set to Accelerate
Bush Receives Mainstream Media Scrutiny
South Carolina Teens Plead Guilty to Lynching
US Government May be Weighing Invasion of Iran

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

Jay Morningstar, the state trooper who was on trial for the murder of a Detroit homeless man named Eric Williams, was acquitted on January 5th. A mostly white jury aquitted Morningstar, despite a videotape admitted as evidence which showed Williams, who is black, being shot at point-blank range by the state trooper. The Michigan Citizen reports that the jury returned with a 'not guilty verdict' after less than four hours.

Morningstar’s defense team was led by attorney Richard Convertino, who repeatedly
referred to Williams in terms usually reserved for animals, saying he was “down on all fours, growling and snarling.” Convertino is himself under investigation by the federal government for his role as a federal prosecutor in a faulty case against four Detroit men accused of being terrorists.

The family of Eric Williams, says they will not give up their fight for justice. They
have filed a $15 million lawsuit against Morningstar and his partner Theresa Malone.
Lawyers in the case explained that Malone is cited as a co-defendant in the lawsuit
because she failed to protect Williams by cautioning her partner against immediately
shooting him, instead of using other means such as pepper spray.
###

The Michigan Citizen reports that as the Super Bowl draws near, Detroit's homeless population may be targetted by police. In reponse to reports that homeless people are routinely rounded up during Super Bowl events, homeless advocates and some elected officials have expressed concern.

The NFL requires host cities set up 'entertainment zones' in the weeks leading to the
Super Bowl game to encourage a festive mood. 'ENtertainment Zones' are public areas such as parks where certain local laws are loosened and public alcohol consumption is allowed. Critics say these zones benefit those attending Super Bowl festivities, but they can be manipulated to discriminate against the poor.

A director for Neighborhood Service Organization, said a poll that was recently taken by his group showed a majority of the homeless served by their program want to take part in the Super Bowl events.

To curb arrests and harassment of homeless people, the city's Bureau of Substance Abuse, Prevention & Treatment plans to offer Detroit Police Officers hotline numbers to call when they encounter homeless people near the downtown area during the event. “Should the police run into somebody who needed mental health service we want to come out and service them, instead of seeing them arrested,” a spokesperson said.
There are plans to continue this crisis prevention service even after the Super Bowl.

###

A year ago, Blackbox Radio covered the hazards of a little-known fire
retardant that has been accumulating in Great Lakes sediment and game
fish for decades without detection. This story has just broken into
the mainstream press in a Detroit Free Press article.

Federal regulators are suprised to learn that there may be toxic
effects from the chemical Dechlorane Plus, which has been produced since 1964.

Dechlorane Plus has been used for more than 40 years as a coating for
electrical wires and computer cables. The chemical's only U.S.
manufacturer, Occidental Chemical Corporation, or OxyChem, says it is
safe for people and other animals and has no plans to conduct testing
on the product.

The Detroit Free Press writes that the a recent study at Indiana University found DechloranePlus in the sediment of lake Erie and lake Michigan, present in air
samples throughout the region and in the tissues of walleye, a popular
game fish, in Lake Erie.

For decades, state officials have issued advisories to anglers to
limit their consumption of some Great Lakes fish because of
contaminants such as PCBs and mercury. The greatest risk is eating game fish from polluted water. The chemicals become increasingly concentrated as they move through the food chain beginning with microscopic plants and ending in humans.

Federal regulators say that because Dechlorane Plus preceded regulations
designed to screen out dangerous chemicals, it was never rigorously
tested.

The study could lead to a renewed effort to determine whether it is a
danger to wildlife, including its potential to cause cancer. Many
substances in the same chemical family which were sold under the brand name
Dechlorane have been banned because of their cancer-causing
potential and toxicity to wildlife.

Mirex and Dechlorane were manufactured at the same facility, which was
formerly known as the Hooker Chemical Co. which was responsible for the Love
Canal chemical disaster in Niagara Falls in the late 1970s that
spawned the federal Superfund toxic cleanup program.

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

This week in South Carolina, five white teenagers pleaded guilty to charges of
lynching. The youths, ages 17 and 18, entered the pleas before
their trial was set to begin. They were given sentences ranging
from two and a half to six years in state prison. The surviving victim,
17-year-old African-American Isaiah Clyburn, said through his lawyer that
he forgave them. The five teens attacked Clyburn as he walked along a
rural road in Cherokee County, South Carolina on July 7. According to
prosecutors, the teens shouted racial slurs at Clyburn and beat him
repeatedly as he tried to escape.

###

According to The Independence, Global warming is set to accelerate due to a sharp jump in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article338689.ece)

Preliminary figures from the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, taken at the summit of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, show that the level of carbon dioxide has risen abruptly in the past four years. Carbon dioxide is the main cause of global warming. Scientists fear that warming is entering a new phase, and may accelerate even further.

The measurements have been taken regularly since 1958. For the past 50 years the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen by an average of 1.3 parts per million per year. In the late 1990s this figure rose to 1.6 parts per million, and then to 2 parts per million in 2002 and 2003. Preliminary figures for the first 10 months of this year have already shown a rise of 2.2 parts per million.

Scientists believe this may be the first evidence that climate change is starting to occur. Rising temperatures have altered natural systems causing the Earth to release more carbon dioxide.

Some of the most polluting countries in the world refused to set targets for reducing their carbon dioxide emissions last week during a summit assembled by the Bush administration. Instead, they focused on the voluntary development of cleaner technologies. The summit was set up in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, which the US refuses to sign, and was attended by Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea as well as the United States.

###

In an update of a story we've covered previously: In the Philippines last
week, a judge issued an arrest warrant for four US Marines accused in the
rape of a 22-year old Filipino woman near a former US Navy base in
November. The soldiers are currently detained at the US embassy, and the
US government has not indicated whether the soldiers will be returned. The
soldiers allegedly gang raped the woman in a rented van and then dropped
her onto a busy road, where she was found and hospitalized.

###

A host of new information this week reveals the extent to which the President and the Bush administration have rendered the judicial and congressional branches of government impotent and assumed limitless power for the executive branch.

A New York Times editorial entitled “The Imperial Presidency at Work” (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/opinion/15sun2.html) notes that President Bush in effect countermanded laws that were passed by Congress in order to place limits on the abuse of power by the executive branch.

In the first instance, the President made the McCain bill irrelevant by outlawing torture by the government by issuing a “signing statement” which effectively exempted him from the law in his position as commander in chief.

Bush also sidelined the judiciary branch by scrapping the Levin-Graham amendment that allowed suits already filed by Guantanamo detainees to continue through the courts. Last week, the solicitor general informed the Supreme Court that it no longer had jurisdiction over detainee cases and demanded that the court drop an existing case in which a Yemeni man challenged the military tribunals created by Bush after 9/11. Few of the 500 plus men at the Guantanamo facility have been charged with a crime.

In addition, the President personally authorized domestic spying shortly after he was sworn in 2001 and well before 9/11 (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Z.shtml). This directly contradicts the President’s claim that the surveillance was a necessary response to the threat posed by terrorism after 9/11. The information was revealed by James Risen who first broke the story about the NSA domestic surveillance program.

###

Recent news has been dominated by Iran’s decisions regarding the
use of nuclear power, particularly its removal of UN seals on uranium
enrichment equipment. The United States seems to be pushing for Iran
to be brought before the UN Security council where it would likely
face sanctions or even armed action. Knowledge that Iran made public in June has been widely obscured in the media.

Beginning in March 2006, the Tehran government has plans to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE in the field of
international oil trading by using a euro-based mechanism. According to
Information Security Analyst William Clark, the proposed Iranian oil
bourse, or securities exchange, indicates that the euro would establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade without US intervention.

The upcoming course will introduce new dynamics to the biggest market
in the world - global oil and gas trades. In essence, the U.S. will no
longer be able to effortlessly expand its debt-financing by issuing U.S.
Treasury bills. Accordingly, the dollar’s international demand and liquidity value
will fall. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project
of U.S. geo-political security, Tehran’s objective constitutes an obvious
challenge to dollar supremacy in the crucial international oil market.

Leaks of Pentagon planning for a potential Iranian invasion have been
covered since 2004 in mainstream publications such as Newsweek.
In August of 2005, The American Conservative published an
article by intelligence analyst Philip Giraldi, entitled “In Case of
Emergency, Nuke Iran.” According to The American Conservative, the US
military command has drawn up a contingency plan under instruction of
the vice-president. This command would follow another serious terrorist attack on
the US with a broad air assault on Iran, “employing both conventional and
tactical nuclear weapons.” This is apart from Iranian involvement in
such an attack.

___________________________________________________

Blackbox Radio for Jan 10th, 2006

2006-01-10T16:25:00.000-05:00

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

On this week's show: UAW Delphi workers and supporters form a picket line outside the Detroit auto show and discuss the Delphi bankruptcy and workers’ rights. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Ann Arbor mayor favors wind power
Black businesses left out of Super Bowl benefits
GM to cut more jobs
Wal-Mart superstore for Grand Rapids

National and International Headlines:
New Orleans police shoot mentally-disabled man
DNA test ordered for executed man
New Medicaid ID requirements

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

According to ArborUpdate.com, Ann Arbor's Mayor is looking to meet the city's electricity needs with wind power from Michigan’s Thumb:

Mayor John Hieftje, who has said he would like to see city government using 20 percent renewable energy by 2010, wants to add wind power to the city's energy portfolio.

The city's energy commission will discuss how realistic those goals
are and how the city might meet them during a working session of the City Council on Feb. 13.

The Noble Environmental Power company is now building 32 windmills in Michigan's Thumb, with plans to build 218 more. Energy from those first 32 will be purchased by Consumers' Energy as part of its renewable energy program.

###

Detroit business owners were promised that hosting the Superbowl would bring lots of money into the city in the form of contracts with the NFL, but so far black business owners are being left out of the deal.

They argue that the Superbowl Host Committee, the official liason
between the NFL and metro Detroit, has denied millions of dollars
worth of contracts to even very prominent black businesses, sometimes preferring to bring in businesses from out of town to render services. The Host Committee created a subcomittee for Emerging Businesses, which was supposed to help minority and women-owned businesses get contracts.

The Michigan Citizen reports, however, that many, who have now been denied contracts, claim that the committee is a charade and a waste of time. Though the Host Committee refuses to divulge how much money has been awarded to different businesses, they claim that 30% of their total contracts have been awarded to Black businesses, and that African American businesses in Detroit have gotten a lot of special attention. Valenca Cade, who runs Big Fellows restaurant, won a catering contract but turned it down when she realized how low her profit margins would be, calling the offer "insulting."

###

Despite having already announced 30,000 job cuts, General Motors Corporation Chairman, Rick Wagoner, says the slumping automaker will cut even more jobs, possibly starting this year.

Wagoner declined to give any numbers during an interview on Friday. But he didn't rule out more plant closings if GM continues to shed market share in 2006.

GM said in November that it would eliminate manufacturing jobs, close 12 plants and parts facilities, and trim health care benefits for hourly workers and retirees. The automaker said those moves will cut its structural costs by $6 billion this year.

GM’s U.S. sales fell 4 percent in 2005 as sales of its
large sport-utilities plunged in the wake of higher gasoline prices.

Ironically, GM is counting on a revamped lineup of full-size SUVs to
help it restore profitability.

###

Media Mouse reports that Wal-Mart is planning to build a new store in the Grand Rapids area.

The new store will be located directly behind the existing Wal-Mart on Alpine Avenue. In order to build the new larger Supercenter, which will replace the current one once construction is completed, Wal-Mart will first buy the property behind the current store and get the property rezoned from agricultural to commercial use.

Last month, the first national poll on the public's view of Wal-Mart
found that 56% of respondents agreed that while Wal-Mart does provide low prices, it is ultimately bad for America due to the high moral and economic cost associated with the company.

Despite substantial holiday sales, there has been a considerable amount of negative press for Wal-Mart over the past few weeks with the company being ordered to pay $172 million for violating California labor laws, a criminal investigation of how it handled merchandise classified as hazardous waste, and its destruction of a turtle habitat in south Florida.

Locally, the community group Pittsfield First has called on Wal-Mart to make a new year’s resolution not to build any more stores next to schools. Pittsfield Township residents continue their fight to keep a Wal-Mart from being constructed next to Harvest Elementary School.

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

New Orleans Indymedia reports that a man known to be a friendly, mentally-disabled individual was shot last Monday afternoon by Sixth District New Orleans Police. Witnesses reported at least ten bullet casings on the ground after police opened fire on the man. Although the police spokesman said that the man lunged at a police officer with a [three inch] knife before he was shot, witnesses all say that the man was backing up when he was shot numerous times by police. Staff at the Burger King nearby say that the victim was a daily customer there, and had never hurt or threatened anyone.

Onlookers expressed anger at the police for responding with excessive force to the situation, and for taking this man's life unnecessarily. One shouted at police, "Are your officers not trained to disarm a man with a knife without using lethal force?"

Sixth District officers are already under fire for their excessive behavior in several incidents, including harassment of relief volunteers and unlawful search of peoples' homes. This incident calls into question the legitimacy of a police force known both historically and recently for corruption and brutality.

###

Virginia Governor Mark Warner ordered a post-execution DNA testing be performed to determine once and for all the guilt or innocence of Roger Coleman, a Virginia coal miner convicted of the rape and murder of Wanda McCoy in 1981. Coleman, who was executed by electric chair in 1992, maintained his innocence until the end, and gained the support of New Jersey-based non-profit Centurion Ministries, an investigative agency that works to overturn wrongful convictions. Governor Warner was prompted to reverse the state's long-term opposition after a series of appeals from Centurion Ministries.

If Coleman is in fact exonerated of the crimes for which he was put to death, it will be the first time that anyone in the United States has been proven innocent after they have been executed.

Ira Robbins, a criminal law professor at American University predicts that the test's outcome could be the point in death penalty abolition. Robbins said, "Let's assume it comes back that he was proved innocent. Here is the case that the death penalty opponents have been looking for for a long time--that we have executed an innocent person."

The results of the tests are expected sometime this week before Governor Warner leaves office.

###

The New Standard reports on a new trend toward citizen identification requirements. A new budget bill coming up for vote in February would require Medicaid beneficiaries to show two different forms of official identification before receiving any benefits. This is a requirement that opponents of the measure say will likely affect minorities and people with low incomes disproportionately.

According to language approved for the budget, beginning July 1, all Medicaid recipients, whether they are applying for the first time or reapplying for continued benefits, would have to show a passport or Birth Certificate as proof of citizenship, in addition to presenting a driver's license or other proof of identity.

The new rule, which is buried in the bill's 800-plus pages, purports to prevent ineligible immigrants from gaining access to Medicaid benefits reserved for citizens and certain categories of immigrants. But the progressive think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) warns that the rule could deny or seriously delay healthcare coverage for millions of society's most vulnerable citizens.

CBPP said that because poor, homeless and mentally ill people are the least likely to possess or have easy access to passports and birth certificates, they are in danger of missing out on coverage. Additionally, the new barrier could prove insurmountable to people born outside of a hospital, those in nursing homes and victims of natural disasters, the report found.

Most likely to be affected of all groups are blacks, CBPP said, citing a half-century-old study that found that as many as 20 percent of black women born between 1939 and 1940 lack a birth certificate because they "were born in a time when racial discrimination in hospital admissions, especially in the South, as well as poverty, kept their mothers from giving birth at a hospital."

###

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Blackbox Radio for Jan. 3rd 2006

2006-01-03T18:13:00.000-05:00

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CMRN Live Broadcast 12-31

2005-12-31T15:29:00.000-05:00

This month's one-hour show features a retrospective of the year 2005, revisiting several stories produced by blackbox and seeing what has happened since they were first reported. Our stories include last year's Coca-Cola’s water privatization scheme in Highland Park , the exoneration of wrongfully convicted prisoners, Hurricane Katrina, and construction of a massive dam in Iceland.

We also do a round-up of some of the most under-reported stories of the year, the worst corporate evildoers, and the top reasons why 2005 wasn’t all bad.

Find out more about the Critical Mass Radio Network here.

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Every year, Project Censored presents a compilation of the 25 most important news stories not covered in the corporate media. This year’s top spot goes to the Bush administrations’ ongoing efforts to eliminate open government.

These efforts include tightening and revising laws governing the release of information, making it more difficult to declassify government documents, reclassifying many previously declassified documents, and assuming unprecedented authority to conduct government operations in secret, with little or no judicial oversight. Congress has even been shut out, forced to go to court in attempts to compel the administration to release information Congress is legally entitled to.

On a positive note, the recent New York Times story revealing massive illegal spying on American citizens may be the wedge that brings these other stories out into the national dialogue and energizes popular resistance to these policies.

The next story on Project Censored’s most under-reported list also concerns a natural disaster: the Asian Tsunami. At the same time that U.S. aid was widely publicized domestically, our coinciding military motives were virtually ignored by the press. While supplying aid, we simultaneously bolstered military alliances with regional powers and began expanding our bases throughout the region, including in Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, and especially in Indonesia, despite its history of ongoing human rights issues.

Another story that made the top 25 most list concerns the distorted coverage of election results from the November 2004 elections.

According to exit poll data, John Kerry was projected to win the election by over 5 million votes, but the actual results showed George Bush with a 3 million vote win. This discrepancy of 8 million votes is orders of magnitude larger than the margin of error, yet the mainstream press called questions about the results “sour grapes” and refused to cover the information seriously.

In fact, a discrepancy between exit poll results and actual vote counts is the method used around the world – including by US observers – to gauge the authenticity of elections in other countries.

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies hired to do the exit polling, waited until the eve of the inaugural to state their conclusion: that the discrepancy arose due to Kerry voters participating in exit polls at much higher levels than Bush voters. These findings were widely reported in the press as “proving” the veracity of the election results. How such an anomaly could have occurred, or why it had never occurred in any previous election in the nation’s history, were questions apparently not considered worth investigating by the mainstream media.

Global Exchange has released its list of the “14 Worst Corporate Evildoers of 2005”.
This list of "MOST WANTED" corporate criminals gives you information about the abusive behavior of this year's top fourteen worst corporations, tells you who is responsible, and how to connect with and support people who are doing something about it. The more you know, the less these corporations can continue their abuses out of public eyesight: so share this information with your friends, get on the phone with the CEOs themselves, and exercise your rights as a citizen and consumer today.

Caterpillar, Chevron, Coca Cola and Dow Chemical have made the top of the list. Find more information about the other 10 corporations in Global Exchange's list of Corporate Human Rights Violators at globalexchange.org.

The Coca Cola Company made the Global Exchange list of 2005’s worst corporate offenders for their crimes against workers and the environment.

Union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices and hundreds of others workers have been kidnapped, tortured, or otherwise intimidated to prevent them from unionizing.

Coke has also been responsible for environmental destruction in India. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, causing water shortages in thousands of communities and destroying agriculture activity.

In Turkey, 14 Coca-Cola truck drivers and their families were beaten severely by Turkish police hired by the company, while protesting a layoff of 1,000 workers from a local bottling plant in 2005.

The worldwide campaign against Coca Cola has also seen several victories this year, as major colleges and universities, such as New York University, have cut their contracts with Coke, demanding full investigations into allegations against the company.

The University of Michigan was the latest to sanction Coca Cola, by temporarily suspending University purchasing of Coke products effective January 1. U of M’s Dispute Review Board has recommended that the contract with Coca-Cola be permanently cut if reforms are not made by certain deadlines. Stay tuned to BlackBox Radio for future developments.

And here’s a more in-depth peek at some of the other companies on the corporate evildoers list.

First, Caterpiller. For years, the Caterpillar Company has been providing Israel with bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes. Despite worldwide condemnation, Caterpillar has refused to cut off sales of specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military. In 2003, a Caterpiller bulldozer crushed and killed peace activist Rachel Corrie as she tried to defend a Palestinian home.

Meanwhile, petrochemical giant Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. For almost 30 years, Texaco, now part of Chevron, unleashed environmental devastation in Ecuador by leaving over 600 unlined oil pits in the pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic water into rivers used for bathing water.

Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful opposition to oil extraction in Nigeria, and is accused of hiring private military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors there. In Burma, Chevron settled a lawsuit filed by 15 villagers who accused Chevron of complicity in human rights violations ranging from forced labor to summary execution.

And now for some good news from Katha Pollitt at The Nation magazine on “Why 2005 wasn’t all bad”:

First, the seemingly invincible Bush administration is on the defensive, and the Republican machine that runs Congress is showing similar signs of decay. Most Americans don’t believe the President on why we went to war in Iraq and want the troops brought home as speedily as possible.

Second, there are signs that the mainstream media is finally waking up. The New Yorker revealed the role that doctors and psychiatrists played in the torture of enemy combatants. The Washington Post exposed the existence of secret prisons in Eastern Europe.

Civil liberties may also be making a comeback. The Senate failed to permanently reauthorize expiring sections of the Patriot Act.

And the left is alive and well in Latin America. Evo Morales has just been elected president of Bolivia on a platform of Indian and poor people's rights, opposition to US-backed privatization schemes and support for coca farming. Socialist candidate Michelle Bachelet--pediatric surgeon, single mother, agnostic, feminist, former political prisoner--is the frontrunner in Chile's presidential runoff.

The world is becoming more gay-friendly. Gay marriage was legalized in Spain, South Africa and Canada, and Britain and Connecticut now permit civil unions, joining Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Iceland, Luxembourg and Sweden.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives went down in flames. And perhaps most heartening of all: hardly anyone believes that global warming isn’t happening.

BlackBox Radio for Dec 27th 2005

2005-12-28T21:02:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: a piece about the Labadie Collection, a radical archive housed at the University of Michigan. And a report about a new U.S. to Canada bridge slated to be built in SouthWest Detroit and the environmental justice concerns of local residents.. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
farmland preservation in Michigan
controversial anti-affirmative action proposal on '06 ballot
hunger strike in Grand Rapids
funding for fuel cell research center

National and International Headlines:
labor and human rights issues on the gulf coast
37,000 NYC transit workers strike
U. S. state department suspends publication of Hi Magazine
lawsuit against Blackwater Security Consulting
death penalty abolished in Mexico, but continues in US

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Local Headlines

Last week Governor Jennifer Granholm awarded more than $1.3 million to support farmland preservation under a match program begun this year. Five communities and townships in the counties of Eaton, Grand Traverse, Kent, Macomb and Washtenaw qualified for the grants under the Agricultural Preservation Fund.

The Agricultural Preservation Fund Board selected communities from among grant applications submitted this fall. The selection was approved by the Michigan Commission of Agriculture at a public meeting held earlier this month.
“Michigan has more than 16,000 acres permanently protected, with thousands of preservation agreements being renewed and entered into every year,” said Mitch Irwin, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture, which oversees the board. “The value of agriculture and open space has been recognized at all levels of government and this support from the top down will ensure that agriculture remains a vital and viable industry.”
To be eligible, local governments were required to develop and adopt a local ordinance governing development rights, update a community master plan to include farmland protection and provide matching funds of at least 25 percent.
For more information on farmland preservation, visit the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

###

Last Tuesday, the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) be placed on the 2006 state ballot.

The controversial proposal that would prohibit affirmative action programs in university admission and government hiring was originally denied a place on the ballot when the Board of State Canvassers refused to put the issue on the ballot despite a previous court order.

Two main organizations opposing the initiative—One United Michigan and BAMN, are likely to pursue an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court. They claim that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative engaged in fraud while collecting the 500,000 signatures necessary to get the initiative on the ballot. Members of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative are alleged to have told voters that the initiative would protect affirmative action, as a ploy to convince voters to sign the petition.

###

In Grand Rapids, Makoi Welken has gone on a hunger strike.
The Grand Rapids Press reports that Welken came to the United States seven years ago from the Sudan, where he was a doctor certified by the University of Cairo.
Welken and other refugees say the conflict in the Sudan blurs the line between war and genocide. Since 2003, the Arab forces confiscated land and driven off much of the male population in what has cost an estimated 180,000 lives due to the war and the associated disease and famine. An estimated that 1.9 million people in southern and central Sudan died of war-related causes since 1983.
Welken was able to bring his mother and daughter to this country, where they joined a growing Sudanese population. Michigan has the largest number of Sudanese refugees in the country.
Now in his third day of the hunger strike, he says he doesn't know how long it will go. Welken said the world needs to be shocked into action and to understand the plight continues.
"I'm not on a suicide mission," he said. "But as long as people are trying to avoid the issue, I will be here."

###

From the Flint Journal - Kettering University is $1.62 million closer to its planned fuel cell research center. The Department of Commerce will contribute to help build an Advanced Technology and Renewable Energy building in Kettering's new research park - a move that's expected to bring jobs and investment.
The center will manufacture fuel cells and develop fuel cell-related projects. Hydrogen fuel cells convert oxygen and hydrogen into water, producing electricity.
K. Joel Berry, director of the school's Center for Fuel Cell Systems and Powertrain Integration, estimates 20-30 jobs will be created in the first year of the 20-year project.
He says, "Naturally, I'm ecstatic about the future of Flint and the future of this project," he said. "It's another building block in helping the economic situation of Flint - one of many collaborations between Kettering and other entities. (But) it's not the only answer. Other entities in Flint must step up."

###

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National and International Headlines:

The Baltimore Sun reported that an immigrant advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit last week against a Howard County contracting company, saying it refused to pay 35 Maryland laborers hired for cleanup projects along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The claims are similar to complaints filed around the country by advocacy groups and labor organizers, who say that firms doing post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction have taken advantage of immigrant workers.

In the clean-up efforts following the devastation of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, many undocumented workers and homeless people were recruited to the area to work under large companies contracted by the federal government. Companies such as Haliburton, Kellog-Brown & Root- a Haliburton subsidiary, and EEC Operating Services.

They were lured to the [Gulf Coast] region by promises of work and good pay. But it turns out that many of those workers have never been paid and have little recourse in collecting their promised checks. Some undocumented workers were even threatened with deportation when they demanded their pay.

An article on Salon.com, Gulf Coast Slaves, stated that the problem is "a shadowy labyrinth of contractors, subcontractors and job brokers, overseen by no single agency, that have created a no man's land where nobody seems to be accountable for the hiring-and abuse of these workers."

The federal government has yet to respond to these criticisms or attempt to set up oversight committees.

###

37,000 New York City transit workers walked off the job last Tuesday morning as talks broke down between their union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last Tuesday morning. The MTA has sought to create a two-tier wage system between new hires and transit veterans, while asking greater health care contributions and an older retirement age.

Apart from economic issues, Transit Workers Union Local 100 members on the picket line listed the MTA’s disciplinary system and working conditions as reason for striking. Some bus operators talked about not having enough time to use the bathroom on the job, urinating in glass bottles and cups, and MTA officials making unannounced house visits on sick days. Others said that managers have great leeway in determining and deciding punishment. According to union officials, the MTA issued 15,000 disciplinary actions against TWU members last year.

The strike effectively shut the way business is run in the city, taking an estimated $400 million away from the economy each day. While transit workers see this strike as a fight for dignity and respect, public officials saw the TWU rank and file as lawbreakers. Both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki used harsh language that many see as coded race baiting. The mayor called TWU President Roger Toussaint “thuggish” and played up the illegal aspect of the strike, threatening Touissant with jail time.

The strike ended on Thursday afternoon. According to reports on New York Indymedia, TWU officials showed up on picket lines throughout the city and instructed workers to return to work without any explanation of what had been accomplished. This generated considerable anger among many workers who had struck for three days and willingly accepted the loss of thousands of dollars in wages under the anti-union Taylor Law.

The sudden calling off of the strike was followed by a news blackout on ongoing negotiations between the TWU and the transit authority. It is being widely reported that the TWU has offered to impose greater out-of-pocket expenses for health care on their members in exchange for management curtailing its demand for the rolling back of pension protections.

###

According to Friday’s Toronto Star, the U. S. state department announced that it is suspending publication of its Hi Magazine, a monthly magazine established after September 11. The magazine is sponsored by the US state department and was distributed internationally in an effort to counter anti-Americanism in countries such as Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and others.

Announcing its creation in 2003 the company said the magazine was aimed at promoting an understanding of American values.

The magazine had been derided by commentators in the Arab world as "schlock'' or "brainwashing'' and one had dubbed it the CIA's official publication.

Shortly after it hit the Arab street, the Al-Ahram Weekly in Egypt wrote, "many critics think the magazine is too naive to be anything other than an exercise in brainwashing.''

"Like other parts of our new diplomatic effort, it was not seen as something credible,'' said Steven Cook, a Middle East expert at the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations.

When the magazine was launched, Christopher Datta of the state department said it would counter disinformation or distorted images of America in the Arab world.

Along with Al-Hurra TV and Radio Sawa, Hi was a three-pronged $62 million (U.S.) annual effort to counter anti-Americanism.

Some critics argue that this is part of a broader U.S. strategy to control perceptions both inside and outside of Iraq. The LA times reported in late November that the Pentagon had been helping to feed news articles to various independent newspapers in Iraq in addition to paying off reporters who wrote pieces favorable to U.S. interests. Similar types of media manipulation were uncovered in the U.S. when it was reported in January that various federal agencies were distributing videos and news stories to US television stations and newspapers without identifying the federal government as their source and for paying U.S. journalists to promote administration policies. The Government Accountability office has labeled these actions as “covert propaganda”. Critics further argue that these examples of media control and distortion are not isolated but rather demonstrate a deeper systemic agenda by the Federal government to control both domestic and internationals populations opinions and understandings of U.S. policies.

###

Corpwatch.org reports that an unprecedented lawsuit has been filed, concerning the deaths of four American civilians in Iraq.

The suit was brought by the families of four civilian contractors shot last year by Iraqi insurgents, who burned their bodies and hung the charred remains from a bridge across the Euphrates river in the city of Falluja.

The four men worked for Blackwater Security Consulting LLC, one of the companies fielding armed civilians in Iraq under contract with the Pentagon. The suit against Blackwater says the company broke explicit terms of its contract with the men by sending them to escort a food convoy in unarmored cars, without proper briefings, and in teams that were understaffed.

Alleging wrongful death and fraud, the suit is the first of its kind in the U.S. The way it is resolved, experts say, could have major implications for the future of military contracting and result in more rules and regulations.

Civilian military contractors now perform scores of functions once restricted to regular troops, and the trend toward "privatizing war" has been accelerating steadily.

###

Counterpunch.org reports that even as the United States celebrated its 1,000th execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, Mexico has finally wiped its own death penalty off the books. On December 9th, President Vicente Fox signed off on constitutional amendments that abolished capital punishment in both civil courts and military codes. Executions in Mexico have been suspended for decades - the last Mexican to be executed went before a military firing squad in 1961.

However, there are still has 46 Mexican citizens awaiting imminent execution on Death Row in the United States. U.S. death row inmates include approximately 120 foreigners from 29 countries.

Mexicans arrested in the U.S. are routinely kept in the dark about their Vienna Convention rights, including the right to contact their country’s consulate for legal assistance.

In the past, when Vienna Convention rights have been denied and Mexicans have later been executed, the U.S. response has been merely to apologize and argue that the denial of consular contact had no impact on the final judgment.

In 2003, President Fox took the cases of 51 Mexicans on U.S. death rows who had been denied Vienna Convention protection to the World Court in the Hague. By a 14 to 1 decision, that tribunal, which operates under the auspices of the United Nations, called upon Washington to review or reopen all 51 cases.

Of the 51 Mexican death row residents whose cases were decided by the World Court, two had been kidnapped from Mexico by private bounty hunters and brought to the U.S. to stand trial, a practice explicitly outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since the World Court decision was handed down March 31st, 2004, six Mexicans have been removed from U.S. death row rosters.

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BlackBox Radio for Dec 20th 2005

2005-12-23T00:17:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: Max Sussman brings us information from both inside and outside the World Trade Organization meetings in Hong Kong. And Megan Williamson talks to Sheri Wander of Nonviolent Peaceforce about the organization’s international peacekeeping work in conflict zones. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Twelve Year-Old Student Arrested for Bomb Threat
Pittsfield Group Calls for Recall of Township Officials
Two Cent Gas Increase in Michigan to Fund Fuel Spill Cleanup
Videotape Shows State Trooper’s Murder of Homeless Man

National and International Headlines:
March for Human Rights / Right to Return for Katrina Survivors
Pentagon Listing of Suspicious Incidents
Former Sinn Fein Leader Exposed as British Agent
Colombian President Uribe Condemns Plot Against Chavez

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Local Headlines

A 12-year-old girl was arrested Thursday in connection with a threat at a Clinton Township middle school. The bomb threat for Wyandot Middle School was made over the Internet last weekend, Local 4 reported.

Several students received information about the threat, which was allegedly sent via instant message. A parent learned of the messages and contacted police. Police sent bomb-detecting dogs to the school, but nothing was found. Classes were held Monday, but the approximately 600 students who attend the school were searched at the entrance.

The student who was arrested will face felony charges of using a computer to commit a false report for threat of terrorism. She could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge the girl as a juvenile or as an adult.

###

A group of concerned citizens called “A New Pittsfield” have initiated the process of recalling the Pittsfield Township Treasurer, Supervisor, and Clerk. The recall is due in part to the citizen's concern over the way Township officials have failed to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens in their handling of a proposed Wal-Mart development.

FOIA documents revealed that the Washtenaw County Road commission staff “urged” the officials to consider changing the main entrance to the proposed Wal-Mart away from Campus Parkway. Hundreds of citizens and the Saline Schools Superintendent have also requested this change, but the township officials refused.

Local citizens are demanding that their voice be heard in regard to the new store location and its distance from local schools, to ensure the safety of young students. The proposed parking lot for the Walmart is currently zoned to lie within 1,000 feet of school property.

If you are a registered voter of Pittsfield Township, you can support the recall by signing the petition. Email anewpittsfield (at) yahoo (dot) com if you want to sign the petition or distribute it around your neighborhood.

###

Drivers could be asked to pay more per gallon at the gas pump to fund cleanup of little known fuel spills occurring underground all over the state Michigan. More than 7,000 leaking underground storage tank sites in Michigan are contaminating the ground and water sources almost 20 years after federal laws were passed to clean them up.

The state's goal is 600 cleanups a year, but only 265 were completed during the past year due to lack of money. An advisory council is proposing a 2-cent-a-gallon fee on the wholesale price of gasoline to the state Legislature.

Petroleum can enter storm sewers and foul streams and rivers, contaminating drinking water. Spills also enter homes and businesses, creating dangerous vapors.

Even without the threat of fires and explosions, DEQ officials say LUST sites should be cleaned up to protect Michigan's drinking water, half of which comes from groundwater. Measures must be put in place to ensure money set aside for cleanups is used for what it's intended, said Kenneth Vermeulen, chairman of the advisory council. The Michigan state legislature habitually dips into the fund to pay the state's bills, he says.

###

Following up on the trial of State Trooper Jay Morningstar, who is charged with the murder of a homeless man named Eric Williams, the Michigan Citizen reports that new evidence has been introduced.

A Detroit police car videotape of the killing of Williams shows the homeless man, with his pants down at his ankles, being shot at point-blank range by Morningstar only five seconds after the trooper exited his patrol car.

A witness testified that just prior to the incident, Williams had been physically thrown out of the Detroiter Bar after aggressively begging customers for money, and had then pulled his pants down to moon the bar workers.

A Detroit police officer was summoned to the scene. That officer stated he did not draw his gun because he felt that Williams was not a threat. It was at this point that State Trooper Morningstar and his partner accidentally happened upon the scene.

Morningstar is white, while Williams was Black. The jury has only three African- American members. Eleven white jurists comprise the remainder.

###

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National and International Headlines:

New Orleans Indymedia reports that last Saturday, Fifteen hundred people gathered in New Orleans for the March for Human Rights and Right to Return for Katrina survivors. The March followed the Gulf Coast Survivors Assembly in Jackson, Mississippi, where Katrina victims drafted a People's Declaration entitled Survivor's Assembly Demands.

The list of demands included: a demand for temporary housing and access to healthcare and education, an end to price gouging and evictions, the demand that local residents must take the lead in the rebuilding of their communities and must be hired to do the work, and a demand for representation on all boards that are making decisions about relief and reconstruction. Marchers delivered the list of demands to City Hall at the end of the march.

Both events were co-ordinated by the People's Hurricane Relief Fund. One of the major aims of this coalition is to “initiate an action plan to rescue the Black population and all oppressed populations from their dependency on racist and incompetent governments.” A full copy of the Survivors Assembly demands can be found at their website.

###

According to a document obtained by NBC News, the Pentagon has been spying on 1,500 “suspicious incidents,” including anti-war and counter-recruitment meetings and actions throughout the nation over the past 10-months. This averages to a cataloguing of 150 incidents per month.

William Arkin, the former Army intelligence officer, who obtained these secret Pentagon documents, commented that: "This is just one tiny picture of the actual amount of information which is collected by the F.B.I. and the intelligence community. We know that there are dozens of these [domestic] databases.”

###

A surprising development in the North of Ireland occurred this week after the disclosure that top republican Denis Donaldson, former head of Sinn Fein's administration offices at Stormont, had been working as a paid British agent since the 1980s. The disclosure comes just a week after charges were dropped against Donaldson and two co-defendants for their alleged participation in an "IRA spy ring" at the Parliament buildings. The allegations against them, which have been referred to as the "Stormontgate" affair, led to the ending of the power-sharing executive in the North of Ireland three years ago.

In a public statement on Friday, Donaldson said, "I was not involved in any republican spy ring in Stormont. The so-called Stormontgate affair was a scam and a fiction, it never existed, it was created by Special Branch." Donaldson's exposure as a spy working for British intelligence has sent shock waves through the nationalist community, and leaves many suspicious over the role of British intelligence in the spy-ring allegations and its impact on the current state of the peace process.

###

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe announced at a public press meeting on Sunday that former Venezuelan soldiers had plotted against the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at a Colombian military building in Bogota. Uribe said that intelligence efforts against the Venezuelan government were conducted in the building, and took full responsibility for the affair. Seven Venezuelans involved in the April 2002 coup against Chavez have been linked to the new plot.

Uribe’s disclosure lends support to long-standing allegations by Chavez that the United States was involved in the coup attempt against his government. The Colombian military has close ties to the Bush Administration, which has given not only 1.2 billion dollars in military aid to the Colombian government but also funds private forces to guard American energy investments in the country. Colombian paramilitary forces have been implicated in numerous human rights abuses, including the killing of 22 farmers last week who were suspected of being leftist sympathizers.

In making the announcement, President Uribe stated: “I took responsibility before President Chavez and I took it in public, because the government of Colombia, which suffers from terrorism, cannot permit anyone to plot conspiracies, especially against a brother country," he said.

###

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BlackBox Radio for Dec 13th 2005

2005-12-14T20:33:00.000-05:00

This week's show is dedicated to the life and work of Stanley Tookie Williams, who was executed on the 13th of December, 2005, after being denied clemency by the state of California.

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On this week's show: a report on last weekend’s Neo-Nazi rally in Toledo, where anti-fascist protestors faced police brutality. Also, Building Bridges Radio speaks with UAW President Ron Gettelfinger about Auto Workers Resistance and a possible strike against Delphi. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Great Lakes near ecological breakdown
Janitors protest in Detroit
Martin Luther King Day march and rally on January 16th in Detroit
city of Detroit’s bond ratings are BBB- one step above junk level

National and International Headlines:
Iraq round up
high school student suspended for speaking Spanish
Police fire on Power Plant protestors in China
FBI/police crack down on activists
NYU cuts Coke

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

A group of 75 scientists has stated that the Great Lakes are near ecological breakdown due to stresses from numerous threats. The statement came days before the release of a final plan for preserving the Great Lakes by a task force made up of federal agencies, Congress, local government officials and regional Indian tribes.

The body's preliminary report in July recommended $20 billion in federal, state and private funding to upgrade antiquated municipal sewer systems, restore 500,000 acres of wetlands, and clean polluted harbors and bays. However the plan was scrapped by the White House on the recommendation of a federal oversight group which said the budget was too tight to allow additional funding.

Threats to the Great Lakes are converging, scientists who worked on the report said. These range from overfishing, toxic substances, invasive species, and global climate change. Alfred Beeton of the University of Michigan said,

"These have been dealt with individually. What we need to do is look at the ecosystem - the combination of stresses. Historical sources of stress have combined with new ones and we have arrived at a tipping point. What we mean is that ecosystem changes will occur rapidly and unexpectedly."

The report emphasized the need for preserving or restoring shoreline "buffer zones," such as wetlands and lake tributaries to help the lakes heal themselves.

###

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, hundreds of janitors and their supporters occupied the lobby of 1001 Woodward Avenue Dec. 1, reports the Michigan Citizen.

They were protesting Sky Development’s summary discharge of the building’s unionized janitorial staff in April. Service Employees International Union Local 3 members from as far away as Pennsylvania and Ohio joined Detroit janitors and workers from other unions in the protest.

Pete Hanrahan, president of SEIU Local 3, told the demonstrators, “We’re not going to let our tax dollars go for parking lots for buildings that screw janitors. We want the people’s money to go for union-building.”

Eight women who sat down and linked arms in the lobby were arrested and carted off by Detroit police, but later were released without charges. Dana Sevakis, one of the arrested women and an SEIU staffer, said the company has refused to re-hire the three janitors fired from the building. In the meantime, another company, Farbman Associates, has discharged unionized janitorial and skilled trades workers at the First National and Penobscot Buildings.

###

The Pan-African News Wire reports that this year's plans for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and rally on January 16th in Detroit are well underway. This is the third consecutive year that a demonstration has been organized to specifically honor the peace and social justice legacy of Dr. King.

The theme for 2006 is "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty" and is intended to highlight the growing socio-economic crisis in the country as well as the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Organizers state,

“The growing budget deficit in Detroit, the attacks on the standard of living of working people by the corporate structures, the efforts to outlaw affirmative action in Michigan and the total neglect of hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf region, illustrates clearly the necessity of the majority of the population to take control of their own destinies."

The rally will serve as an opportunity to connect with other progressive people and to build networks aimed at fostering change. Volunteers are needed to assist in a variety of ways. For more information, contact the MLK Planning Committee by phone at (313) 680-5508 or by email at mlkdetroit (at) comcast.net.

###

Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the city of Detroit’s bond ratings to BBB-, one step above junk level, according to the Michigan Citizen. The move comes despite Mayor Kilpatrick’s lay-offs of almost 1,400 city workers since June and recently disclosed plans to close most of the city’s recreation centers. In its report, S&P noted “The administration’s hesitancy to cut positions, as well as the inability to adjust union contracts to gain savings” as major reasons for the downgrading.

The situation is eerily similar to that of indebted countries in the Global South who fail to meet the drastic structural adjustment program regulations imposed by the IMF and World Bank. Under these programs, countries must agree to neo-liberal prescriptions to cut social programs, privatize services, and weaken worker’s rights. Countries that fail to meet their obligations have their financial status downgraded and are no longer able to attract foreign investment or be eligible for loans.

In the case of the city of Detroit, the prescriptions include forcing workers to pay a larger share of their health care, and imposing a 10% pay cut in the form of a shortened work week. The city also plans to close 22 of the city’s 33 recreation centers, leaving only 11 such centers for a population of almost 1 million. In addition, the city is considering proposals to turn the City Zoo and Eastern Market over to private management, leaving the fate of the over 45 union jobs currently at the zoo in question.

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

Violence in Iraq reached unprecedented levels this week, as insurgents led multiple attacks and bombings just days ahead of the national elections.

The AP reports that insurgents killed four American soldiers in separate attacks Saturday. Two soldiers were killed southwest of the capital, and the others died in a roadside bombing in Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah.

The U.S. military also said an American soldier was killed and 11 others wounded Friday in a suicide car bombing in the Abu Ghraib district of western Baghdad.

In a different attack, insurgents killed 19 Iraqi soldiers and wounded four in a coordinated ambush northeast of Baghdad.

No news has been heard regarding peace activists kidnapped by a group called Swords of Truth. The group accused the activists of being spies, and it said each would be killed if all prisoners in Iraq were not released by Saturday, reports the BBC.

Analysts expect the violence to continue to increase in anticipation of the elections on December 15. The White House has launched a public relations campaign in an attempt to regain public favor regarding the Iraq war, however the continued violence and inability to maintain oil production has left many still extremely critical of the US occupation.

###

A student was suspended for speaking Spanish in the hallway of a Kansas City high school, reports the Washington Post. 16-year old Zach Rubio is fluent in English and was replying to a question in Spanish from a schoolmate in the hallway, when he was overheard by a teacher who sent the two students to the principal's office.

The students' suspension became a local news sensation, and the school has officially rescinded his punishment. The Rubio family has retained a lawyer and is considering a civil rights lawsuit.

The suspension and subsequent debate in the community reflect some of the issues arising as the Hispanic population in the US continues to increase. Some report increasing prejudice against Hispanics.

Regarding the lawsuit, Rubio's father said, "I'm mainly doing this for other Mexican families, where the legal status is kind of shaky and they are afraid to speak up. Punished for speaking Spanish? Somebody has to stand up and say: This is wrong."

###

Witnesses and Chinese authorities differ on how many people were killed after police fired on protesters in a confrontation over demands for higher compensation for the loss of land to make way for the construction of a power plant.

The official reports say that three demonstrators were killed after "170 armed villagers" used weapons and explosives to launch an attack on a wind power station last week.

After the initial demonstration was cleared with tear gas and a number of villagers detained, the protesters regrouped, obstructed the police and threatened to blow up the power plant, the official account says.

Other witnesses, however, say that at least 20 demonstrators were killed and that police opened fire on them indiscriminately.

The prime cause of rural unrest across China has been the confiscation of farmland by local governments for use in industrial and real estate projects, says the Financial Times Online.

The commander of the police force that fired on the demonstrators has been detained for questioning by the Chinese government.

###

New York Indymedia reports that federal marshals arrested six environmental activists in a series of coordinated raids in four states on December 8. The arrests were in apparent response to a string of arsons in Oregon and Washington attributed to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), including simultaneous attacks in 2001 at the University of Washington's Urban Horticulture Center and the Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon.

Daniel McGowan, 31 was arrested in New York City. Authorities have also stated that there will be more arrests, with at least one indictment immediately outstanding.

Bail has been denied in all of these cases.

Two Portland activists, Frank Winbigler and Shannon Urick, were also served with papers ordering them to be a witness for a federal Grand Jury, and were advised that they are both a target of the Grand Jury's investigation.

According to spectators at McGowan's hearing, prosecutors read through posts on the NYC Indymedia newswire and mentioned them as part of the bail hearing.

###

New York University, the largest private university in the country, has banned the sale of Coca-Cola products on campus because of the company’s human rights abuses in Colombia. NYU’s decision, which was released last Thursday, was the result of a lengthy campaign by students and faculty.

Shortly before the decision was announced, a Coca-Cola spokesperson expressed concern regarding the possible removal of Coke products from NYU. She told the Washington Square News: “NYU is a trendsetting university, and that could greatly harm our reputation.”

The ban at NYU comes at a time when pressure is mounting from various groups — both in the U.S. and abroad — for Coke to address concerns of human rights abuses in India, Turkey, Pakistan, and Guatemala as well as Colombia.

New York University is the 12th college or university in the United States, and at least the twentieth worldwide, to have banned the sale and marketing of Coke products on campus.

###

___________________________________________________

Blackbox Radio for Dec 6th 2005

2005-12-07T01:16:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: a report on the School of the America’s Protest and proposed zoning changes in Northfield Township, MI. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
harnessing the wind in east Michigan
GM cuts jobs around the world
state trooper tried for murder
neo-nazis return to Toledo

National and International Headlines:
ruling may make toxic polluting easier for corporations
controversial technologies monitoring public school students
Declasified info on 25-year occupation of East Timor by Indonesian forces
Starbucks workers in New Zealand strike
Parlimentary elections in Venezuela
stability in the Middle East will come from leaving Iraq
ACLU takes the CIA to court

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

The Bay City Times reports that about 50 farmers have agreed to place windmills on their land in Huron County in the thumb of Michigan

One farm owner said her family expects to take in $8,000 to $10,000 a year per turbine. They'll still be able to farm the land around the turbine pads, which will be about 16 feet in diameter.

Noble Environmental Power, the company building the windmills, already has signed a contract with Consumers Energy for renewable energy from the windmills. Each of the 32 General Electric turbines can generate up to 1.5 megawatts of energy. That's enough to power 16,000 homes; Huron County has about 20,000.

Noble plans to hire 200 workers to build the park, including local contractors. The park also will create about 10 permanent local jobs for operations, maintenance and office duties.

Opponents to the windmill project want the towers located farther from homes and other property lines than a current county ordinance allows, due to concerns over noise and that the turbine locations will restrict future growth.

###

The Times of India reports that within days of announcing it would cut 30,000 jobs from its US workforce, General Motors unveiled plans in India to immediately increase its workforce there by nearly 30%, including both manufacturing and executive positions. GM also has plans to build a second manufacturing plant in India.

In late November, GM announced that it would lay off workers and close 8 of its 77 US facilities. Michigan is one of the states that will be most heavily affected, with an engine plant in Lansing, engine facilities in Flint and Lansing, and Service and Parts facilities in Ypsilanti among those slated for closure. The closings and workforce cuts occurred despite a landmark agreement wrested by GM from its UAW workers for drastic reductions in health care benefits reached last month.

The union responded angrily to GM's latest announcement, saying the company needs to design attractive and exciting vehicles to regain its prosperity. "Workers have no control over GM's capital investment, product development, design, marketing and advertising decisions. But, unfortunately, it is workers, their families and our communities that are being forced to suffer because of the failures of others," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Richard Shoemaker said in a joint statement.

###

The trial of state trooper Jay Morningstar, who is charged with the murder of Eric Williams, a homeless man, began in Detroit last Monday.

Morningstar faces charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter for shooting Williams once in the chest on April 14, as Williams approached him in a state of disarray outside the Detroiter Bar near Greektown.

According to the Michigan Citizen, defense attorneys for Morningstar plan to present testimony from bar patrons who claim they repeatedly had "aggressive" run-ins with Williams.

However, Williams' long-time friends and acquaintances from the downtown Detroit community, strongly dispute that portrayal. Nathan Owens, a worker at a local convenience store who had known Williams for 10 years, said "Everybody that knew him knows he's a non-violent person. That was nothing but cold-blooded murder."

Williams' incarcerated brother, Johnnie L. Williams, is still facing threats from guards in the Alger Maximum Correctional Facility in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Williams wrote The Michigan Citizen in August, saying guards had threatened to kill him if Morningstar is convicted. Assistant prosecutor Gonzalez sent a letter to the warden expressing concern, but to date, Williams has not been moved to another facility.

Officer Morningstar is currently on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the trial.

###

The National Socialist Movement, America's largest Neo-Nazi organization, plans to march in Toledo, Ohio this Saturday, December 10th.

The NSM drew international attention in mid October, when they attempted to march through a residential Toledo neighborhood. This march was aborted when about 700 counter demonstrators shut down the event. The situation escalated as police began firing tear gas into the crowd and trampeling counter-protestors with horses. The events drew international attention.

According to a post on Michigan Indymedia, The National Socialist Movement has since released a list containing the names of local activists to be targeted for violence during this Saturday's demonstration. They have also been trying to recruit for a larger turnout, calling on members of other White Separatist movements including the Ku Klux Klan.

Anti-fascists from around the Midwest and the country, including anarchists, communist groups, anti-racism activists, and Toledo community members will also be converging to send the message that White Supremacism is not welcome in Toledo neighborhoods. Many counter-demonstrators plan to once again shut down the march entirely.

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

A report by the National Environmental Trust warns that nearly 1,000 communities across the United States will lose access to data detailing the release of toxic chemicals in their areas under new regulations being proposed by the EPA. The Trust claims that the proposed cuts pose a risk to communities and to first responders such as police and firefighters.

Under existing rules, companies that release 500 or more pounds of toxic substances annually must reveal how much of each chemical is released into the air and water or disposed of at landfills. The new regulations raise the threshold to 5,000 pounds. Data collected by zip code show that in some states up to half of all zip code areas will lose data from at least 50% of currently reporting facilities.

According to Kim Nelson, an assistant administrator at the EPA, the new regulations will help, quote "tiny businesses, mom-and-pop shops operating on main street". However, according to the LA Times, the agency's own data show that many of these small businesses are owned by large corporations, for example Pepsi Bottling Company and Raytheon.

###

The New Standard reports that the US Justice Department is quietly accelerating efforts to get schools to implement controversial technologies to monitor and track students.

Although school violence is at its lowest rate in a decade, the Justice Department's "School Safety Technologies" grants will be distributed to schools that develop proposals in four broadly defined areas: integrated physical security systems, bus-fleet monitoring systems, low-level force devices and school safety training.

Pilot programs are already in place in several school districts. 16,000 elementary students in the Spring Independent School District north of Houston, Texas, for example, wear radio frequency identification tags, embedded with chips that indicate their locations on a computerized map. The school also has 750 surveillance cameras mounted throughout its facilities, with plans to install 300 more.

Critics fear these programs will normalize electronic surveillance at an early age, conditioning young people to accept privacy violations while creating a market for companies that develop and sell surveillance systems.

###

Newly declassified documents show that British diplomats in Jakarta and the Foreign Office lied about their knowledge of Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor and worked with the Unites States and Australia to cover up details of the atrocities committed by Jakarta's troops during the attack, writes the Guardian

According to a top secret 1975 telegram sent by the embassy, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger listed East Timor high on his list of places the US would not get involved in, and the British decided to follow suit.

The documents detail how the British embassy in Jakarta and the Foreign Office lied about their knowledge of atrocities, particularly the killing of three Australian and two British newsmen in a house in the town of Balibo shortly before the main invasion. John Ford, the ambassador in Jakarta, said in a December 24th, 1975 telegram that, quote "If asked to comment on any stories of atrocities, I suggest we say that we have no information."

Relatives of the British journalists, Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters, were told they were killed in crossfire.

The invasion and brutal 25-year occupation of East Timor by Indonesian forces resulted in the deaths of over 200,000 Timorese. No member of the Indonesian military has ever been prosecuted.

###

From New Zealand Indymedia:
Workers from stores across Auckland walked off the job on November 23rd to join the world's first Starbucks strike. What began as a small protest by workers from one store became a city-wide strike when Starbucks workers heard that managers would be brought in to cover the shifts of the striking workers. More than 30 workers spontaneously walked out from 10 different Auckland Starbucks stores to join KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds employees, and around 150 other supporters.

One union organizer had this to say: "Our campaign isn't just about fair pay at work, it's about social justice…. The majority of low paid and minimum wage workers are women, Maori, pacific islanders, disabled, youth, students and new migrants." ?The Starbucks strike is part of a larger campaign aimed also at fast-food establishments and other low-wage service sector jobs.

###

Parliamentary elections were held in Venezuela this past Sunday. Analysts have uniformly predicted that left-leaning representatives supporting Cesar Chavez would increase their slight majority, perhaps to the two-thirds necessary for consitutional amendments, which would facilitate more direct social reform and economic redistribution.

In recent days, several opposition parties have pulled out of the election in an attempt to discredit it, almost guaranteeing the two-thirds majority. Mr Chavez has condemned the boycott as the latest of many attempts to destabilise his administration, which include a 2002 military coup that temporarily seized power, and last year's failed recall. In response to the election boycott, Chavez stated that "there is no political crisis here, as they want to make it seem".

The National Electoral Council said 556 out of 5,500 candidates have pulled out of the congressional vote. Opposition leaders accused the electoral body of favouring pro-government candidates.

The government has deployed thousands of soldiers nationwide to maintain order during the vote. Three small explosive devices were detonated at a government office and an army base in Caracas, on Friday. No-one has claimed responsibility for the incidents, but the government described it as an attempt to "disturb" the voting process. The poll with be monitored by observers from the EU and the Organisation of American States.

###

From United Press International:
The former head of the National Security Agency says the only way to stabilize the Middle East is to leave Iraq. Retired three star Lt. Gen. William Odom, wrote last week that while President George W. Bush wants to bring democracy and stability to the Middle East, the only way to achieve that goal is for the U.S. armed forces to pull out of Iraq now.

Odom, one of the most respected U.S. military analysts and a prominent figure at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington, wrote, "Iraq is the worst place to fight a battle for regional stability. Whose interests were best served by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place? It turns out that Iran and al-Qaida benefited the most, and that continues to be true every day U.S. forces remain there."

###

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is taking the CIA to court to stop the transportation of terror suspects to foreign countries to be tortured, saying that the intelligence agency has broken both US and international law. The ACLU is representing a man allegedly flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.

The ACLU also wants to name corporations which it accuses of owning and operating the aircraft used to transport detainees secretly from country to country.

The highly secretive process is known as extraordinary rendition, where intelligence agencies move and interrogate terrorism suspects outside the US, where they have no American legal protection. A number of individuals claim that the CIA flew them to countries including Syria and Egypt, where they were tortured.

The US government and its intelligence agencies maintain that all their operations are conducted within the law and they will no doubt fight this case vigorously.

___________________________________________________

BlackBox Radio for November 29, 2005

2005-11-28T22:55:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: Michigan's Northern Food Service and Falung Gong. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Making Mott Children's Hospital Green
Ann Arbor School Redistricting
Confused Detroit Police
Starving For Access

National and International Headlines:
Resisting Thanksgiving
Starbucks Charged With Anti-Union Activity
US Government Charges "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla
Border Reopened Between Gaza Strip and Egypt

___________________________________________________

Local Headlines

Since April of this year, plans have been underway to build a new Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan. The building plans have drawn criticism, however, due to environmental and health concerns. On fliers that have been circulating throughout Ann Arbor, opponents of the building plans explained that “the hospital system is the largest consumer of power in Ann Arbor. Emissions from the U of M power plant blow east over low-income Ypsilanti and Detroit Neighborhoods, where asthma rates are through the roof. Our children’s hospital has a special responsibility to provide healthcare without harm.”

The flier went on to explain the benefits of a greener facility, such as cleaner indoor air and natural light to help kids heal while they are hospitalized.

Mott’s peer institution in Pittsburgh, which is currently planning on a green built facility for about $200 per square foot less than U of M’s proposed structure, was also cited as evidence of green building’s economic feasibility. Residents are urged to contact Mott leaders and show their support for an environmentally friendly Mott Children’s Hospital.

###

The Ann Arbor School District will hold a series of community meetings to discuss the redistricting process. All are from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The meeting dates and locations are:
Dec. 1, Clague Middle School, 2616 Nixon Road.
Dec. 6, Tappan Middle School, 2251 E. Stadium Blvd.
Dec. 8, Slauson Middle School, 1019 W. Washington Road.
Dec. 13, Scarlett Middle School, 3300 Lorraine St.

###

Randy Kales, a twenty-one year old man, is suing the city of Detroit on charges of false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Kales was pulled over last month for a traffic violation. The Detroit Police immediately arrested him and imprisoned him for eleven days, saying that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

They were wrong. The Detroit Police Department was actually looking for his cousin, who had used Kales’ name when arrested on a fleeing and eluding charge. The man never appeared in court for the charges and a warrant was issued for his arrest. According the Detroit Free Press, Randy Kales is seeking more than $25,000 in damages.

###

In Flint, students are entering a 2nd week of protest outside the Michigan School for the Deaf. Ryan Commerson, a former teacher at the school, began his hunger strike named "starving for access" last week to call for better education for students, the hiring of a deaf principal, and employing staff members who are fluent in American Sign Language. The local protest has gained national attention and has been joined by a deaf and blind man from Minnesota and a deaf school counselor from Washington, D.C.

On Monday, 43 out of the 160 students at the school were suspended for participating in the protest. Senior-class President Tar Burt says the school needs to change but is resistant to calls for better conditions. Earlier in the week school officials said they had offered to talk with Mr. Commerson but that he canceled a meeting. Commerson has been on a diet of juice and water since last Monday. Updates of the ongoing protest can be found at starvingforaccess.blog.com

###

___________________________________________________

National and International Headlines:

While many Americans celebrated Thanksgiving weekend with feasting, family, and
shopping, others used the holiday as a time for resistance.

In Denver, Colorado, reports the Rocky Mountain News, the American Indian Movement
held a Thanksgiving fast, in which over 60 people vigiled outside the Colorado capitol building. Many of them fasted from sunrise to sundown to honor their ancestors and to show solidarity with other American Indians who are struggling against commercial development of sacred tribal lands

Cindy Sheehan and 200 others celebrated Thanksgiving by returning to President Bush's ranch outside Crawford, Texas, where they protested the war in Iraq as well as recent laws enacted against camping or parking alongside public roads.

The day after Thanksgiving, many communities also celebrated Buy Nothing Day, an anti-capitalist holiday that attempts to counter hyper-consumerism by encouraging people to opt out and buy nothing on the biggest shopping day of the year.

###

The National Labor Relations Board has charged 15 Starbucks officials with an extensive array of anti-union acts including the discharge of two union members for organizing activity, according to New York City Indymedia (http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/11/60882.html).

The NLRB complaint alleges that Starbucks fired NYC union member Sarah Bender to discourage employees from engaging in protected union activity. Other alleged unlawful actions include the surveillance and interrogation of employee Anthony Polanco, and the issuing of a negative performance evaluation to employee Laura De Anda due to her union membership.

Stuart Lichten, the Union's attorney from the labor law firm Schwartz Lichten and Bright, said quote "The sheer breadth of Starbucks' anti-union activities is remarkable. The company has simply been breaking the law with impunity."

In New Zealand, the world's first strike at a Starbucks has spread to 10 other stores as employees spontaneously walked out to join over 150 fellow workers from KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonalds.

Daniel Gross, co-founder of the Starbucks workers union in New York, said the strike was an important step towards changing working conditions for those in the fast-food sector all over the world.

###

The US government has charged "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla with a crime, three and a half years after apprehending him, reports the New Standard. The charge came days before the Justice Department was required to file legal arguments in the Padilla’s Supreme Court appeal of his detention.

Padilla was charged with providing and conspiring to provide aid to terrorists, and for conspiring to murder people overseas. These charges are far different from the allegations Padilla was originally picked up on: planning to detonate a radioactive device in a major US city.

According to Amnesty International, he was barred from seeing his family or an attorney until February of last year and the military continued to restrict his access to outside information and people - including his attorney - throughout his imprisonment.

"It is long past time for Mr. Padilla to have his day in court," Human Rights Watch added. "It remains to be seen whether it is possible now to repair the damage done to the rule of law and the cause of justice by the past years' worth of indefinite detention, incommunicado interrogation, and denial of the most basic due-process rights."

###

Thousands have passed through a recently reopened border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, reports the Associated Press. Opened for the first time this last weekend, the Rafah Terminal is now under Palestinian control.

Before the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Israeli security checks at Rafah, meant to stop militants and weapons smuggling, often caused delays of hours or days. During the past five years of fighting, Israel also imposed travel restrictions on Gazans between ages 18 and 45, and most couldn't leave.

In mid-December, Palestinians also will be able to travel between the West Bank and Gaza for the first time in five years, at first in Israeli-escorted bus convoys.

___________________________________________________

CMRN Live Broadcast 11-26

2005-11-27T23:58:00.000-05:00

This month's one hour live show features:

Radio Insurgente, Thanksgiving as civil religon, and an excerpt of a talk by Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center.

listen to the show

Find out more about the Critical Mass Radio Network here.

Blackbox Radio for November 22, 2005

2005-11-22T00:42:00.000-05:00

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On this week's show: excerpts from the International Tribunal on Haiti, and 826 Michigan. Plus, the following local, national, and international headlines:

Local Headlines:
Westboro Baptist Church Anti-Gay Protest Outnumbered
Advertising in Ypsilanti School Buses
National Conference to Reclaim Our Cities - Detroit
Emergency Situation at the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan
Kalamazoo Promises a College Education
UM Campaign to Cut Coke Update

National and International Headlines:
Is the Senate Curbing Torture, or is it a PR Stunt?
Human Rights TV Programming in Brazil
The American Medical Association's Position on Torture
Multi-Lingual Mercury Warnings"

Local Headlines

This past weekend a production of the Laramie Project was staged in Ann Arbor at the Mendelsohn Theatre. The play, which recounts the 1998 hate-crime murder of Matthew Shepard and denounces anti-gay bigotry, attracted members of the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, who came to protest the event.

The Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka Kansas, is a hate group led by the infamous Fred Phelps. The group is well known for picketing Matthew Sheppard's funeral and staging hateful counter demonstrations at LGBT Pride events.

About a dozen members of the Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside productions of the Laramie Project on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, carrying signs with bigoted messages such as "God Hates Fags." They trampled gay pride flags and seemed intent on inciting violence, although they did not succeed.

There were several children among them, including a girl of about 7 years old. She stood on a gay pride flag and held a sign that read "Fags are Worthy of Death." The children's presence deeply concerned many observers, including a member of the Michigan Peace Team who stated, "It is very disturbing to see these young children being indoctrinated with such hate."

The anti-gay protestors were greatly outnumbered by a coalition of over 400 counter-demonstrators, comprised of various local community and student groups. One counter-demonstrator said, "We wanted to come out and show that our city does not tolerate hatred. We have a strong queer community here, and we support that community."

###

Last week, officials with Ypsilanti Public Schools signed a three-year contract with InSight Media to sell advertising space in its school buses. For the contract's first year, the district will get 50 percent of the advertising dollars; in the years following, it will receive 40 percent, leaving a profit of 60% for the advertising company. The ads will mainly target middle and high school students.

###

One week ago, activists from around the United States gathered at Wayne State University in Detroit to work on a program to reverse the growing crises in urban areas. The National Conference to Reclaim Our Cites attracted delegates concerned about the $500 billion annual defense budget which is draining resources from the vast need for housing, healthcare, quality education, employment, infrastructural development, food, access to water and utilities, environmental safety and community control of police.

Under the theme: "feed the cities, starve the Pentagon," the event took a strong position against the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also called for mass actions commemorating the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott on December 1. More information about the actions and the conference's resolutions can be found at reclaimourcities.org.

###

This fall at the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, more than 200,000 pounds of food ordinarily distributed to local pantries was instead sent south for Katrina victims. As a result, shipments from food suppliers were low. The food bank's organizers are calling this an "emergency situation." Besides Katrina, the food bank is also expecting more demands from Delphi Corporation workers and retirees hurt by the company's bankruptcy.

According to President Bill Kerr, this is the emptiest the warehouse has ever been in the past 11 years. He said, "I don't in any way say that product shouldn't have gone to New Orleans, but in the same breath I'm not going to diminish the need here in our community."

Thirty-year Delphi employee Vernita Coleman, of Flint, predicts all local charitable organizations are going to be hit hard because of the corporation's bankruptcy. Coleman believes that those who can’t retire or put away money will desperately need the help. She hopes to retire soon and is worried about her Delphi pension, adding, "It's not an 'if this will happen,' it's a 'when.' "

Adding to the food bank's crisis is a possible cut in food stamps. There is an effort in the U.S. House to cut $844 million from the program, which would eliminate about 300,000 participants nationally. According to Sarah Waelde, director of programs and agency relations in the food bank, Michigan is one of the top ten states for distributing food stamps. In early 2004, more than 915,000 people were receiving them in the state.

###

Starting this June, anonymous donors are offering to pay for virtually all Kalamazoo School District graduates to attend any Michigan public college or university. According to The Detroit Free Press "Experts say it's the first such scholarship program in the country that's aimed at virtually all graduates of an entire school district, no matter what their grades and test scores.”

The exact amount each student will receive under the plan, called the Kalamazoo Promise, depends on how many years the child attended Kalamazoo schools, which enroll roughly 11,000. Students must have attended schools in the district since kindergarten in order to qualify for a full scholarship.

Because its donors are anonymous, and district officials are not commenting on the plan's financing, it's difficult to figure out how to replicate the Kalamazoo Promise in other districts, says the Detroit Free Press. "Whoever is doing this has to be seriously rich, that's for sure," said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Bank in Detroit.

The scholarship program is also expected to benefit property owners in the Kalamazoo Public Schools district, which includes most of the city of Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo Township, as well as parts of Oshtemo and Texas townships. Brent Smith, a real estate and economic development professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and former assistant professor at Western Michigan University, said it's reasonable to expect home prices in the Kalamazoo Public Schools district to increase by 10 percent in the near future.

###

A letter criticising Ed Potter, Coca-Cola's Global Labor Relations Director, is being circulated by email by students hoping to cut their the University of Michigan’s contract with Coca-Cola for it's international human rights abuses. The letter was sent on Monday and written by Terry Collingsworth, one of the head lawyers in a Miami court case against Coca-Cola. The International Labor Rights Fund lawyer defends the Latin American food and beverage union, SINALTRAINAL, that has lost 9 Colombian Coke workers alleged due to paramilitary murder directed by Coca-Cola bottling plant managers to bust the union.

In September, Coca-Cola demanded that an inadmissibility agreement be made by all litigants which would bar evidence in a pending independent investigation of Coca Cola plants. However, in the letter, Colingsworth refused to "prejudice" his clients by making such an agreement. He wrote:

"If you know the facts will exonerate Coca-Cola, Ed, then let's do the investigation and agree that the final report, and the supporting evidence, is admissible in court. In fact, let's agree to split the cost of publishing 10,000 copies and sending the report to every university in the world."

Collingsworth will visit the University of Michigan within the next 2 months as part of a university tour to "correct the record" about Coca-Cola's actions. December 31st marks the U of M deadline for Coca-Cola to agree to a third party investigator to assess the company's business practises in Colombia and India.

###

National and International Headlines:

Twin amendments passed in the Senate this week, ostensibly designed to halt torture and hailed by the mainstream media as re-establishing the moral high ground for the United States, are in fact nothing more than PR stunts that will allow torture to continue unabated, says the Moscow Times.

The original amendment, sponsored by Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, permanently removed foreign captives in US custody the right of habeus corpus. This amendement denied them the right to challenge any aspect of their detention in court. The measure was strongly supported by the Justice and Defense Departments who wished to stop lawsuits by Guantanamo Bay detainees. Democratic Senators then pushed for an amendment written by Senator Carl Levin, which would grant detainees the right to appeal the verdict of a military tribunal after they had been convicted.

This, however, would still allow years of incarceration without rights or legal protection, and the amendment expressly prohibits the Supreme Court from jurisdiction over any aspect of this process.

American citizens can also be held indefinitely without charge or trial, but would be allowed to appear briefly in court prior to their conviction. However, all evidence against them can be classified.

Additionally, the Bush administration has redefined torture to allow almost any interrogation technique and has written orders expressly absolving the President and anyone committing crimes under his order of legal liability. The reach of these laws has become apparent. The US has already detained more than 83,000 people in its war on terror. According to the UN, the US is currently detaining people faster than it can process them.

###

In Brazil, independent human rights groups and collectives have been invited to create television programming that "uphold human rights." This comes after the Brazillian open-broadcasting channel, Rede TV, was cut off due to offensive content. According to the Independent Media Center, the public civil action was signed by the Federal Public Ministry and six other entities, after the show Tarde Quente (Hot Afternoon) displayed scenes offensive to marginalized groups including women, blacks, homesexuals, and the disabled.

Following the suspension, Rede TV refused the ruling that called for alternative broadcasting, so the signal was cut off by Brazil's National Agency of Telecommunications. Now, however, the broadcaster has recognized the civil action, and, in place of Tarde Quente, programs upholding human rights will be shown. In this unprecedented event, entities involved in human rights activism have been given 30 one-hour time slots to occupy Rede TV's programming.

###

An article in the November/December issue of Clamor magazine reveals the American Medical Association’s complicity in the military’s use of torture.

At the AMA’s annual meeting last June, a resolution was introduced which cited the fact that physicians in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq failed to report injuries and deaths caused by beatings and in some cases collaborated with guards in the torture of detainees. The resolution called on the AMA to condemn doctors’ participation in physical or psychological torture and to encourage medical schools to teach ethical conduct.

However, after hours of debate, American Medical Association members voted to re-write the resolution. In the final version, all language related to torture was removed.

Shortly after the diluted resolution was adopted, the American Medical Association released a memo containing the military's deliberately ambiguous policy on treatment of detainees. By all accounts, the military's policy is in opposition to the principles of the Hippocratic Oath, which first asserts that a physician should 'do no harm'.

###

Earlier this month, San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring grocery stores and restaurants to post warnings in English, Spanish, and Chinese regarding mercury in seafood. This is the first ordinance of its kind in the United States.

Public health and environmental groups support the new law as a step toward giving Latina and Chinese mothers the right to know about mercury in seafood, which has been proven to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm. Previously, mercury warnings have only been posted in English.

Because some fish contain more mercury than others, it is important for women to select seafood carefully. According to the EPA, one in six U.S. women of childbearing age has unsafe blood levels of mercury. However, the FDA estimates that only 30 to 50 percent of women are aware of the risks.

BlackBox Radio for November 15, 2005

2005-11-15T00:25:00.000-05:00

On this week's show, local, national and international headlines, as well as an in-depth look at:

Mea Tavares reveals the trials and tribulations of coming out as transgender as told to producer Richie Duchon. Events observing this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance including a film screening and a vigil will commence this Sunday, November 20th at 5:30pm in the University of Michigan’s Rackham building.

Megan Williamson reports on the Icarus Project.

Listen to the show: lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines 11-15

2005-11-15T00:15:00.000-05:00

The Ann Arbor proposal to raise property taxes to pay for the removal of over 10,000 ash trees dead or dying from the invasive species Emerald Ash Boar was defeated last Tuesday. Both property owners and the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club opposed the millage, saying that this was not the most effective way to address the problem. 57 per cent of voters agreed.

###

In Detroit, incumbent mayor Kwame Kilpatrick won over Freman Hendrix in a surprising defeat that defied the predictions of most poll watchers and media outlets. The Michigan Citizen reports that his victory was partially attributed to the young, black vote, which turned out in high numbers on Tuesday. Hendrix, on the other hand, won 90 per cent of the white vote.

###

Wayne County election judge Mary Beth Kelly granted federal investigators an injunction to have all absentee ballots, that were cast last Tuesday, preserved for evidence in their voter fraud investigation, which is centered on outgoing city clerk Jackie Currie.

Judge Kelly also gave the investigators authority to look into all payroll checks of Project Vote, which employs workers known as election ambassadors. For years, Project Vote workers have been accused of coercing seniors, or incorrectly marking the senior's ballots in order to swing the vote in their favor. In this election, Project Vote workers are accused of manipulating seniors' ballots to support Currie.

On Sept. 1, Judge Kelly ruled that the city clerk’s office can no longer mail tens of thousands of unsolicited absentee voter ballot applications to Detroit voters. Several days later, voters called in to talk shows saying they had received AV ballot applications in the mail despite the judge's ruling. Currie was later ordered to pay a fine of $200.00 and subsequently lost Tuesday's election to political novice Janice Winfrey.

###

Remarks made by some Livonia residents during a city planning commission meeting are propelling one white pastor to action. Their assertions that building a Wal-Mart store in their city would attract Black Detroiters and eventually turn their neighborhood into a ghetto has made headlines.

The Rev. Skip Wachsmann is pastor of the predominantly Black, Genesis Evangelical Lutheran Church on Detroit's eastside. He said the remarks were racist and challenged all honest thinking people, especially the clergy in Livonia, to condemn them.

Waschsmann wants churches in Livonia—tagged America's whitest city—to begin deeper discussion on racial issues.

###

As a result of pressures from the city fire department, Ann Arbor is going to reopen the controversial issue of the couch ban. The potential ban upset college students in August 2004 before the city tabled the topic due to lack of support.

The Ann Arbor fire department claims that two recent house fires started on porch couches. Assistant Fire Chief Chris Brenner told the Ann Arbor News that "it is only a matter of time before someone dies."

According to the New West Side Association, there is no evidence that these fires began on porch couches. This group is raising questions as to the underlying reasons for the claims and may file a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate the motives behind these claims.

National and International Headlines 11-15

2005-11-15T00:08:00.000-05:00

Human rights organizations are condemning a last-minute amendment inserted into a Pentagon finance bill that passed in the US Senate last Thursday. The Guardian reports that the measure would permanently remove all legal rights from detainees at Guantanamo Bay and every other similar US facility on foreign or American soil if it is approved in the House.

The amendment, brought forth by republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, reverses last June’s Supreme Court decision which stated that detainees had the right to bring habeus corpus petitions in American courts. Over a third of Guantanamo detainees have filed such cases under the ruling, challenging both their detention and labeling as “enemy combatants”. Such labels are often decided by junior military intelligence personnel who rely on allegedly unskilled interpreters.

The Supreme Court ruling also allows detainees the right to challenge their trial by military tribunal, which does not follow the normal rules of evidence or due process. The new amendment would effectively halt all such cases.

Perhaps the most serious consequence of the new measure would be the resumption of preventing detainees from access to lawyers. Most of the evidence of abuse at US military facilities has emerged from lawyers’ discussions with their clients.

###

A push by Republicans and mining industry advocates to overturn the ban on the patenting of mining claims appears headed for success. The patenting, or selling, of public lands to the public has been banned since 1994 after mining claims were bought at discount prices and then resold at market rate as real estate. Up to 6 million acres of public lands in national parks and national forests, where over 300,000 mining claims already exist, are at stake.

Currently, mining interests must spend up to $15,000 per acre conducting studies for
the Department of the Interior to show the land could be mined at a profit. The
land must then be used only for mining and cannot be resold as private property—a
ban the bill’s sponsors want removed.

National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich says the changes would help
boost rural Western economies by drawing investment "in areas where mining companies
are clearly the high-wage employers."

###

According to the Moscow Times, a documentary shown on Italian state television has confirmed long-standing claims that the US military has used chemical weapons in Iraq. "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre" uses filmed and photographic evidence, eyewitness accounts, and the direct testimony of American soldiers who took part in the attacks to expose the illegal use of white phosphorous and an improved form of napalm against civilians. Both substances kill by burning skin down to the bone. Napalm has been banned by every country in the world except the United States.

The Pentagon claims phosphorous was used only to illuminate the battlefield. However, the film clearly shows phosphorous rounds detonating on the ground. Visual evidence finds numerous cases of civilians, including women and children, burned to death in their homes and on the ground.

Accusations of US use of chemical weapons surfaced soon after US troops left Fallujah in 2004 and medical personnel were allowed to enter. An inquiry ordered by the
pro-occupation Iraqi government last March arrived at identical conclusions, which
they announced in a press conference attended by over 20 international news organizations. Not a single major English-speaking publication reported the findings.

###

New historical data on the seas indicate that current commercial fishing practices
will exhaust them within two decades, and that they may never recover. The findings are the result of a five-year study by several hundred historians and marine biologists involving over 300 years of historical and research data.

The major findings reveal that fishing has caused major decreases in the body size, range, and diversity of almost all major fish species, and that many species thought to have only recently been fished out were in fact commercially extinct by the early part of the last century. Furthermore, most of these species have not recovered.

The study augmented fisheries data with over 200,000 restaurant menus dating back to
the 1860’s. At that time, 20-lb lobsters were so common that they were canned and
rarely served in restaurants. By the 1920’s, lobster size had dropped to one-half
pound, and prices had risen to $24 a pound, the same as today.

A related finding of the study was the change in perception that occurred among humans regarding what constitutes a natural state of the environment. Fishermen over 55 could name 5 times as many depleted sites and 5 times as many fish species that had disappeared, compared to the average 30-year-old fisherman. Such changes in perception could have a dramatic effect on conservation efforts.

BlackBox Radio for November 8, 2005

2005-11-08T00:40:00.000-05:00

What environment do we need to learn? And if schools aren't providing that environment, then what are they doing? Kris interviews Pat Montgomery, homeschooling pioneer and founder of Clonlara homescooling program.

And an update from Max and Kate on the work of the Student Coalition to Cut the Coca-Cola Contract at the University of Michigan.

lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines 11-08

2005-11-08T00:39:00.000-05:00

As Detroiters go to the polls today to elect a new Mayor, they will likely be met with poll challengers sent by the Republican party, despite objections by the NAACP. As reported by The Michigan Citizen, GOP officials said recently that they would be sending poll challengers to Detroit, Ecorse, and Kentwood in Grand Rapids mayoral elections as a training exercise ahead of the 2006 statewide elections.

But the Detroit chapter of the NAACP said the move is symptomatic of the GOP strategy to intimidate Black voters and has asked the state Republican Party to back off its plan to send challengers to Detroit’s mayoral election.

During the 2004 presidential election, Detroit experienced Republican challengers interfering with voters by asking them for their driver’s licenses and dispensing false information. For instance, some poll challengers reportedly told people that if they owed child support or were late on their rent, they could not vote.

Many critics connect the GOP’s current tactics to Jim Crow era policies that were also designed to discourage African Americans from voting. One Detroiter said,
“The poll taxes of the 50’s and 60’s, which served as a measure to suppress the Black vote, have now been shifted to a voter challenge to suppress the Black vote in the 2000s.”

###

Detroit will host the National Conference to Reclaim Our Cities November 12, under the theme “Money to Rebuild New Orleans and all U.S. Cities, Not for War.”

Expected to attend and address the conference are Curtis Muhammad of the New Orleans-based Community Labor United, which is mobilizing support for a people’s reconstruction of that city, Clarence Thomas of the Million Workers March movement, Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council, Larry Holmes of the Troops Out Now Coalition, Detroit City Council write-in candidate Maureen Taylor, and many others.

Dave Sole, president of United Auto Workers Local 2334 in Detroit and conference organizer said. “Our leaders need to be mobilizing people against the war, because the Detroit city deficit could be wiped out with one or two days of spending on the war in Iraq.”

Plenaries at the conference will deal with rebuilding New Orleans, the crisis affecting all U.S. cities, and the anti-war struggle, the Michigan Citizen reports. There will also be workshops on topics such as utility shutoffs, police brutality and immigrant rights.

The main session of the National Conference to Reclaim Our Cities will take place this Saturday, Nov. 12, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Student Center Ballroom on the Wayne State University campus. For more information, call 313-680-5508.

###

Last Tuesday, state senator introduced legislation to bar Michigan juveniles from being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Noting a study showing Michigan is the second-most aggressive state in imposing life-without-parole sentences on juveniles, Sen. Liz Brater of Ann Arbor, announced a four-bill package she said would give children who commit violent crimes a second chance at life.

According to a report issued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, 306 prisoners in the state are serving life sentences without a chance of parole for crimes committed before the age of 18. Almost half of them, committed their crimes before age 16.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International released a study earlier this month showing that at least 2,225 juvenile offenders are serving life sentences without chance of parole in the United States, compared to a total of 12 elsewhere in the world. Michigan had the second-highest rate of giving youths life sentences without a chance of parole.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has said she is open to considering changes in the current law.

###

During a recent keynote address in Battle Creek, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Deborah Thomas called for the state’s Black population, and working and poor people of all colors, to surround the state capitol building on May 1 to protest laws that bar felons from living in public housing, getting a college education, serving on juries, and voting, among other deprivations. She designated May 1 as the target date because it is Law Day.

Last year, Judge Thomas ordered a study of the race and ethnicity of Wayne County juries, noting that Black jurors appeared to be deliberately excluded from jury panels. The study showed that only 27 percent of Wayne County jurors are Black, in a county that is 42 percent Black, and in a city, Detroit, that is at least 81 percent Black.

One of the factors contributing to the exclusion, said Thomas, was a state law enacted in 2003 that barred all convicted “felons” from serving on juries. Previously, only those “under current sentence” for a felony were barred.

In response to Thomas’ order, and to allegations that other Black Wayne County judges were seeking to seat more Black jurors through the voir dire process, the State Supreme Court has proposed a rule that would bar efforts to balance juries to more adequately represent the population.

National and International Headlines 11-08

2005-11-08T00:33:00.000-05:00

CIA torture

News broke last week that the CIA is operating secret interrogation
centers in sites around the world, including Afghanistan, Thailand,
Jordan, several Eastern European countries, and a secret facility at
Guantanamo Bay. The purpose of these facilities is to hold prisoners
outside of the reach of both national and international law. The
International Red Cross, which is supposed to be allowed to visit
prisoners under the Geneva Conventions, has not been afforded access to these secret
locations because the prisoners were arrested by law enforcement rather
than captured during combat.

This was reported by several media agencies including the Washington
Post and The Independent. However, The New Standard also reported that
major news outlets including the Washington Post and CNN refused to
reveal the names of these locations, upon request by "senior US officials."

###

KATRINA - Speakers Decry Out-of-State Firms in Louisiana

Residents of New Orleans continue to struggle to rebuild their city with
a focus on economic justice, amidst attempts by the federal government
to sell out contracts and jobs to out of state firms. Truthout.org
reports that over 500 people gathered to protest decisions to bring in
outside companies when they feel that priority should be given to the
residents of New Orleans, who are already struggling economically.

President Bush only recently reversed a decision that allowed workers to
be paid wages below the federal minimum wage. At the rally, AFL-CIO
president John Sweeny said that the reversal of this policy was a
victory, but that it was shameful that it took Bush so long to act.

Other speakers called out war-profiteering firms like Halliburton and
Bechtel for getting governments contracts while New Orleans companies
are shut out of the process.

###

FRANCE

In the primarily immigrant suburbs of Paris, France, youths have been
fighting with police for over a week. Following the death by
electrocution of two African teenagers who thought they were being
chased by police, thousands of people took to the streets, burning cars
and throwing petrol bombs in a decentralized rebellion that quickly
spread to other areas.

After the death of the two boys, riot police began filling the
neighborhood. The following day, police teargassed a women´s prayer room
at a mosque, and then proceeded to verbally accost the women as they
stumbled out of the building.

French interior minister Nicolas Sarzoky inflamed the situation when he
referred to the rioting youth as "scum." Sarkozy's position has divided
the cabinet, with Prime Minister de Villepin apparently rebuking Mr
Sarkozy.

According to Indymedia.org, in a press conference held on Monday,
community-based activists named the causes of the continuing unrest:
"Clichy is one of the poorest municipalities in France and community
groups have less and less money to work with."

African, Muslim, and Arab residents of France face racism in French
society and from police in their day to day to lives. On the BBC, one
resident of the neighborhood said, "I do see racism every day. People's
faces change as soon as they see a black or Arab face. The death of
those boys was the straw that broke the camel's back," and another, "I
don't approve of the violence but it's the only way of sounding the alarm."

###

ARGENTINA

The proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, is in deadlock
again following the Summit of the Americas in Argentina. The FTAA is
intended to be a trade agreement between all countries in North and
South America. The agreement would ban tariffs and make it difficult for
individuals countries to enforce labor and environmental regulations.
The FTAA would be an extension of the NAFTA, which led to the exodus of
jobs from the US and to reduced wages and increased pollution in Mexico.

In Argentina, over 10,000 people marched against President Bush and the
proposed trade agreements. The Christian Science Monitor writes that
Bush did not find the victory for the FTAA that he expected. Instead,
the agreement was held off, in large part due to the popular opposition
that it faces. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez spoke against the
agreement and against US imperialism to a crowd of 25,000 in a People´s
Summit that was focused on how to bring jobs and prosperity to the
region. Brazil´s President Lula was also opposed to the agreement.

###

PAKISTAN

Viewed through the lens of Arab media, world relief efforts for the
earthquake in Northern Pakistan were far less than other natural
disasters because the victims are Muslims, reports the Pacific News
Service.

The article goes on to say that many European countries did not
contribute any funds towards relief efforts, and the main country that
did help was India. Al Jazeera published a cartoon that drew attention
to the discrepancy between international aid to New Orleans following
Katrina and aid given to Pakistan.

Over 73,000 people are reported to have died so far following a
devastating October 8 earthquake.

BlackBox Radio for November 1, 2005

2005-11-01T21:52:00.000-05:00

lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines 11-01

2005-11-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday, student representatives pulled out of a commission of students, labor rights experts, and university administrators who were planning an independent investigation of the Coca Cola Company’s human rights abuses in Colombia and India.

The student members of the commission, including Clara Hardie from the University of Michigan, said Coca-Cola was blocking the commission from beginning the independent investigation. They also claimed Coke was hiding behind the commission as new cases of human rights violations surface in Turkey, Indonesia, Guatemala, and Peru. Administrators on the commission say they will continue negotiating with Coca-Cola. But Hardie says that any investigation that results from the corrupt process will not be seen as legitimate in the eyes of students who initially brought the complaints about Coca-Cola to Michigan administrators.

The Coca-Cola Company failed to meet the University of Michigan's deadline of agreeing to an independent investigation of allegations which violate U of M's ethical code of conduct for vendors. While the University administration ignored the missed deadline, student activists continue to work to hold both the company and the university accountable.

Tuesday, witnesses of Coca Cola’s crimes will be speaking at the School of Social Work building at 6PM.

###

Last Wednesday October 26, over 55 people attended a vigil in front of the Ann Arbor Federal building to commemorate the 2,000th soldier's death in Iraq, in conjunction with nation-wide vigils held called by MoveOn.org, United for Peace and Justice, and International ANSWER. The names of the 62 servicepeople from Michigan who have died in Iraq were read aloud.

Susan Wright, a Research Scientist at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender) also circulated a petition to be sent to Congress pushing for withdrawal.

The "People's Petition for an Iraq Process" is being circulated by two national organizations, Peace Action and Progressive Democrats of America, both of which are members of United for Peace and Justice, a huge coalition of hundreds of national and local peace and justice organizations.

National and International Headlines 11-01

2005-11-01T17:41:00.000-05:00

LIBBY INVESTIGATION

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Friday's indictment of vice-president chief of staff I. Lewis Libby focuses not on his outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, but rather on his false testimony during the investigation. Just as in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the cover-up is worse than the crime.

On July 14, 2003, Valerie Plame was referred to as a CIA operative by columnist Robert Novak. This outing was understood as an attack on Plame’s husband Joseph Wilson, who had disputed the Bush Administration’s position on Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Libby now faces a five-count indictment, which charges him with obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to FBI agents. This is a substantial blow to a politically weakened administration. The Christian Science Monitor notes that Libby was not just a chief of staff, but "was the closest aide to the most powerful vice president in history, a neocon stalwart who helped shape US foreign policy and pushed for the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein."

###

DEHLI BOMBINGS

Three bombs exploded in Delhi on Saturday, killing 59 people and injuring 210. The attack was claimed by Inqilabi, a group with ties to the Kashmir separatist and Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba. According to the BBC, police investigations into the bombings have concluded that it is likely one group carried out all three attacks, which caused major damage to places visited by people of all religions. The bombs exploded nearly simultaneously, including two at crowded markets, where people were out shopping and gathering for the upcoming Hindu Diwali festival and Muslim Eid celebration. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has visited victims in hospitals, where medical staff are struggling to treat more than one hundred people, some of whom are in critical condition.

###

"DOCTOR DEATH"

According to Reuters, a Nazi referred to as Doctor Death has been hiding in Spain for the last twenty years. A perpetrator of heinous crimes within concentration camps in Nazi Germany, Albert Heim, 91, was initially freed from an internment camp by allies in 1948. Later, when his past came to light, he fled Germany and moved between Egypt and Uruguay before finally settling in Spain in 1985. There, it is believed, he was sheltered by a secret group called Odessa, which has helped hide and protect Nazi war criminals. During his tenure at a concentration camp in Augstria, Heim used poison injections, torture, and unnecessary surgery on the Jewish inmates. German authorities are currently hunting for Heim in the Marbella area of the southern Spanish coast.

###

ABUSE IN AFGHANISTAN

According to the BBC, two US soldiers have been charged with beating Afghan detainees in southern Afghanistan. The charges come just a week after allegations of military forces in Iraq burning insurgents’ bodies, a practice considered sacrilegious in Islam. The US military called for an immediate investigation of the two officers' conduct, and has charged them with conspiracy to maltreat, assault, and dereliction of duty.

Human rights groups have accused the US military of several instances of abuse in detainment centers in Afghanistan. Last month, a US military interrogator who killed an Afghani prisoner, received a sentence of five months in prison. At least eight Afghani prisoners have died in US custody since 2001.

###

MARCH IN CHICAGO

On October 22nd, over one-hundred family members and friends of Walter Armstrong led a march from the scene of his murder on Chicago's South Side to the police headquarters. Armstrong was murdered by police on October 10th, and family members were angry when they gathered for the march only to find that the police had cleared away their makeshift memorial. One officer allegedly punched one of the women protesters who was leaving the area of the closing rally.

The 25 block march went past the office of local alderman Toni Preckwinkle, who was absent from the event. Community leaders denounced his silence regarding the killing, and drew connections between gentrification and police abuses in rapidly changing neighborhoods like the one in which Armstrong was killed. The killing of Armstrong is the 30th shooting, and 10th fatal shooting by Chicago police this year.

The police continue to conceal the name of the officer who killed Armstrong from his family, preventing a public examination of his or her record.

Special Critical Mass October broadcast

2005-10-31T20:34:00.000-05:00

This month's theme for the Critical Mass Radio Network is self-reliance as communities and individuals.

On this show: Dr. Ivette Perfecto, professor in the school of natural resources at the university of Michigan. Dr. Perfecto talked with us about sustainable agriculture in Cuba and Brazil.

We also talked to Christina Snyder, an architect who specializes in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Links:
Zero-energy home competition
Washtenaw County Solar tour
Community Supported Agriculture
Solar cooking

A short interview with our engineer, Jason Voss, on the local music scene in Ann Arbor.

And Beth Barclay and Gaia Kile were in the studio talking about the practice of co-counseling.

Download the show in mp3 format (53MB).

BlackBox Radio for October 24, 2005

2005-10-24T14:27:00.000-04:00

The University of Michigan Labadie Collection celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Industrial Workers of the World, and an interview with Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor.

lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines 10-24

2005-10-24T13:53:00.000-04:00

As expected, the UAW concessions to GM on health care costs are serving as ammunition for other automobile manufacturers to press for similar concessions. David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said that Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Group will demand similar deals on health care from the UAW and will likely get them.

Meanwhile, GM’s spinoff auto-parts company, Delphi, which declared bankruptcy two weeks ago, has asked for further concessions from its union employees while refusing to reduce expensive golden parachutes for executives. According to the Free Press, in addition to a pay cut that will make Delphi wages comparable to those at McDonald’s, Delphi is also proposing ending cost of living increases and claiming the right to close, sell off, or consolidate most of its US plants in the next 3 years.

###

The Detroit News reports that the FBI will build a new $65 million dollar headquarters in downtown Detroit, tripling its office space when the 11-acre facility opens in 2008. In the 4 years since September 11th, 2001, the FBI headquarters in Detroit has more than tripled the number of agents assigned to counterterrorism, becoming one of the nation's largest anti-terror units.

Most of the investigative efforts are focused on Metro Detroit's large Arab-American population. More than 100 agents, analysts and task force officers are assigned to terror-related squads.

In recent weeks, the FBI has interviewed at least 20 Arab-Americans and immigrants in Michigan, questioning them about donations they made to the Missouri-based charity Islamic American Relief Agency. Last year, Treasury Secretary John Snow claimed the group's international office in Sudan was providing direct financial support to Osama bin Laden and other terrorist groups and froze the charity’s assets. The FBI in Detroit -- which covers all of Michigan -- is currently working on more than 300 terror investigations.

###

A recent article in the Ann Arbor News touted Ann Arbor’s acquisition of a prototype hydrogen fuel-cell car manufactured by the Ford Motor company. Ann Arbor is one of 6 cities nationwide chosen to field-test the million dollar vehicles.

In describing the supposed benefits of fuel cell cars, the article said the vehicles will be quote “Quiet, pollution-free and run on the most plentiful element in the universe”, and goes on to say the prototype vehicle could be laying the groundwork for transportation in a time when fossil fuels are depleted.

However, these claims may be premature. In addition to being prohibitively expensive, cars run on hydrogen fuel cells as currently envisioned may end up creating as much pollution as current vehicles and will actually prolong Americans’ dependence on fossil fuels.

At present, renewable sources of hydrogen, such as solar energy and windpower, exist only in a few demonstration experiments that are decades away from commercial use. That means that the hydrogen used in fuel cell cars will be generated through other means. Currently, 95% of hydrogen in this country comes from natural gas.

Most of the interests in hydrogen technology are owned by oil and energy companies. Energy companies have also received the lion’s share of funding for hydrogen research, employing scientists at many universities including, as the News article points out, the University of Michigan.

John Heywood, director of MIT's Sloan Automotive Lab, says a system that extracts hydrogen from oil and natural gas and stores it in fuel cells would actually be no more energy efficient than America's present gasoline-based system. "If the hydrogen does not come from renewable sources," Heywood says, "then it is simply not worth doing, environmentally or economically."

###

The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital Advocacy Initiative, TAKE FIVE FOR KIDS, recently sent an alert concerning the proposed spending cuts being deliberated in the US House and Senate.

Included is a requirement to potentially cut $10 billion dollars from Medicaid, a move that poses a substantial threat to the health of Michigan’s children. Most of the cuts are to preventive and diagnostic programs, a shortsighted move that may result in larger emergency care costs. The cuts will also require cost-sharing, or copays, for services and prescription drugs. Even nominal copays can be unaffordable for a low-income family, says the group.

29% of Michigan’s children are enrolled in Medicaid. It costs Michigan just over $1,000 dollars per year for each Medicaid-eligible child, compared to almost $5,000 dollars per year per adult. It is estimated that 1 in 13 Michigan children is
uninsured.

The organization is asking concerned citizens to contact their Senators and Congresspeople and encourage them to keep children in mind before making decisions on Medicaid cuts. For more information, contact the Children’s Advocacy Initiative at 734-615-5379.

National and International Headlines 10-24

2005-10-24T13:52:00.001-04:00

Columbus Indymedia has published a request for bail money for those arrested at the anti-Nazi demonstration in Toledo, OH. Over 114 people were arrested, and 12 of those are still being held with bail set at $10,000. Charges of those arrested ranged from misdemeanors to felonies.

Donations can be sent to: Kent ARA, Box 8 Office of Campus Life, 226 Kent
Student Center, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242.

###

The Hurricane Katrina crisis continues in New Orleans, where landlords are
serving illegal eviction notices to residents of publicly-funded housing. The
New Orleans government is colluding with these landlords to prevent African-American residents from returning to their homes, according to a group of New Orleans residents and activists.

The Forest Park Tenants Association released a statement accusing the Department
of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans of
using allegations of storm damage as a pretext for expelling former residents.

The Tenants Association states that the government housing organizations are
preventing tenants from returning in order to sell the homes and property to
developers who will build high-priced housing. This would effectively bar
African-Americans and working class people from returning to their homes and
communities in New Orleans.

The coalition of residents is demanding that "any tenant whose place of resident
is still legally inhabitable be allowed to stay," that there will be no raises
in rent, and that housing management must assist tenants in finding alternative
temporary housing while their property is being renovated.

###

Democracy Now! reports that hunger-striking detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been force-fed by guards and medical staff. Attorney Julia Tarver, who is representing detainees at Guantamo Bay, said that feeding tubes were forced into their noses and stomachs, and that guards used the same feeding tubes on different detainees.

Over 100 detainees have been hunger-striking for the past three months to protest their conditions in prison and their indefinite detention. Some prisoners have been held for almost four years without charge. The BBC reports that due to US legal restrictions, the detainees are in many cases not permitted to reveal why they are hunger striking.

Besides the force-feeding of hunger strikers, there have been many reports of abuse and mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees at the hands of US guards. In the BBC, Aamani DeGhayes whose brother is being held at Guantanamo, described the conditions. She said that his lawyer had revealed that he was being denied water and had been blinded in one eye.

###

The US Senate voted down measures that would have increased the federal minimum wage for the first time in nine years, reports the New Standard. The bills would have raised the minimum wage by $1.10, in a small attempt to combat the widening gap between rich and poor in the US.

The current federal minimum wage is $5.15/hr, and in 2003 there were 40 members of the US Senate who were millionaires. The annual Senate salary is over $150,000/yr., while, according to Senator Edward Kennedy who supported the bill, a single worker earning $5.15/hr would earn $10,700 per year, still $4500
below the poverty line.

###

The Federal Communications Commission said it is going to require universities,
companies, and cities to allow law enforcement agencies to monitor email and
online communications, according to an article in the New York Times.

Many universities, however, have threatened lawsuits, arguing that it will cost
them over $7 billion. The Times reports that the requirement will also apply
to cities that provide Internet access to residents. Both San Francisco and
Philadelphia have plans to build their own wireless networks.

While the main opposition has been universities who are concerned with the
financial burden of complying with the order, the Center for Democracy and
Technology, a civil liberties group, is drawing up a separate lawsuit that
would focus on invasion of privacy and government control over the Internet.

###

BlackBox Radio for October 18, 2005

2005-10-17T22:21:00.000-04:00

Kris Kauls interviews William Blum, and Enemy Combatant Radio speaks with Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor.

lower quality | high quality

Local Headlines 10-18

2005-10-17T22:08:00.001-04:00

The results of globalization are being felt by 15,000 Michigan employees of Troy-based Delphi Corporation, who may lose their jobs and a substantial portion of their life savings after the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week.

Delphi, the world’s largest car parts supplier, was it paid handsome dividends to investors and large salaries averaging $1.1 million to each executive. According to the Dayton Daily News, the day before he declared bankruptcy, CEO Steve Miller extended the golden parachutes being offered to Delphi executives to 18 months’ full pay and benefits.

Delphi’s 50,000 hourly employees, meanwhile, are being asked to accept a 63% reduction in salaries under bankruptcy, from $27 to $10 dollars an hour.

It was revealed separately last week that Delphi’s pension fund has been underfunded by $10.8 billion dollars, raising the question of where the large executive salaries and investor dividends came from. Miller, who was brought in just 3 months ago, has presided over 10 similar bankruptcies, euphemistically called corporate restructurings. His last position was with United Airlines, which defaulted on the largest pension fund in history after declaring bankruptcy earlier this year.

Delphi’s pension fund will most likely be turned over to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, which will be able to repay only 40 cents on the dollar of what is owed Delphi pensioners. In fact, the North Carolina Times reports that the federally-guaranteed pension corporation has absorbed so many defaulted pension funds that it has a deficit of $23 billion dollars.

In effect, according to the Dayton Daily Times, the combination of offshore outsourcing and bankruptcy restructuring has allowed GM, through Delphi, to get rid of highly-paid union positions and to divest itself of its pension obligations while passing these costs on to American taxpayers.

The Free Press reports that the UAW will be filing a formal complaint with the court. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and UAW Vice President Richard Shoemaker, in a written statement to the press, said quote "Once again, we see the disgusting spectacle of the people at the top taking care of themselves at the same time they are demanding extraordinary sacrifices from their hourly workers".

###

According to an email from Michigan Peaceworks, MPW director Phillis Engelbert and U-M School of Social Work interns Joe Kuilema , Laura Russello, and Natalie Holbrook of the Washtenaw County ACLU and Huron High parent Andy Buchsbaum, met with three Ann Arbor Public Schools administrators about student privacy vis-a-vis military recruitment in the Ann Arbor public high schools. At issue was "opting out" - the process that removes students from the lists given by the schools to military recruiters.

In the two largest Ann Arbor high schools, the present military opt-out process results in omission of the student's name from the school directory. This method has the unintended consequences of socially penalizing the opted-out students and removing students from the directory used by colleges, universities, and employers. These consequences are preventing some students who do not wish to be contacted by the military from opting out.

In the meeting, MPW members explained to the administrators the problems with the current opt-out process and encouraged the un-linking of the opt-out process with the directories. They proposed that schools create separate lists of students, minus those who opt-out, to be given to recruiters. The administrators were very receptive to this idea and said that beginning next fall, opt-out information will be mailed to all high school students prior to the start of the school year. The administrators took the separate-list matter under advisement and promised to reply to Michigan Peaceworks in a few weeks.

###

Arborupdate reports that the New West Side Association has launched a lease renewal watch. Although area landlords claim that they don’t put pressure on tenants to renew leases early, several management companies have already begun asking for renewal commitments.

According to blog ann arbor is over-rated, Oppenheimer Properties, one of the area’s largest landlords, sent a letter to local tenants claiming to have received calls from interested parties about leasing for the 2006-2007 school year. Although the letter admits it is early to start thinking about next year’s living arrangements, it ends by stating, quote “IF WE DO NOT HEAR FROM YOU BY 10/21/05 IT WILL BE ASSUMED YOUR APARTMENT/HOUSE WILL BE AVAILABLE TO LEASE FOR THE 2006/2007 SCHOOL YEAR.”

New West Side is asking renters to send in the details of their renewal requests, including the landlord, size of unit, dates of current lease expiration and of renewal request, and changes in rent. Please send the information to director at newwestside.org or visit the New West Side blog webpage at newwestside.org/blog.

###

A dispute between neighbors, one black and one white, caught the attention of a
white supremacist group and led to a neo-Nazi march and violent confrontations between police and local residents in Toledo on Saturday.

Tom Szych, who is white, has a long-standing feud with his neighbor, Amelia Gray, who is black, and with her landlord who lived in the apartment previously. Syzch has also complained to police about disturbances he blames on local “gangs” of black youths.

This caught the attention of the National Socialist Movement, a white supremacist movement from Virginia which calls itself “America's Nazi Party”. The Movement decided to hold a protest march against the alleged black violence and victimization of white people in Mr. Szych’s North Toledo neighborhood. The Szych family said they did not contact the group and are not racists.

According to reports by Michigan Indymedia and the Toledo Blade, the proposed march ignited reactions among many groups: white supremacists in the Ohio-Michigan area, who determined to join the march; members of “Erase the Hate”, a collaborative effort of 20 area educational, religious, and community organizations, who arranged a peaceful counter-rally some distance from the march; local African-Americans who reacted with resentment to the march and to recent events like the hurricane Katrina response; and the Toledo police, who mobilized over 150 officers, along with helicopters, cruisers, tear gas, and officers mounted on horseback to quell any public disturbance.

Not surprisingly, the mix of emotions and the show of police power sparked violence, including protestors throwing rocks at police forces, at which point police canceled the neo-Nazi march and began firing tear-gas canisters and arresting anti-racist demonstrators. At least 65 people were reported arrested by early Sunday, and a car and local bar had been set on fire.

Infoshop News reports that most of the violence happened when residents, who had pelted the Nazi marchers with bottles and rocks, took their anger out on police. Chief news photographer for CNN affiliate WTVG Brian Jagodzinski said quote "The crowd was extremely agitated at the police for doing this, making arrests in the community when they should be doing this to the Nazis".

Toledo mayor Jack Ford declared a state of emergency Saturday afternoon and issued a citywide curfew.

The National Socialist Movement webpage blames the violence on what they call communists, who they claim handed out weapons to blacks and incited them to riot, on the blacks themselves, whose actions they say exemplified the violence they were protesting, and on the police, who they claim double-crossed them and deliberately led them into the opposition’s counter-rally.

National and International Headlines 10-18

2005-10-17T22:08:00.000-04:00

On October 11th, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Stanley "Tookie" Williams,' co-founder of the Crips gang who is on death row in California, to investigate the discrimination at the heart of his case, as well as his innocence. One issue highlighted was the fact that the prosecutor in his original case removed all Black jurors from the jury, leaving an all-white jury to deliberate the case. During Tookie's trial, this prosecutor also made racially-coded remarks during his closing argument, comparing Tookie in South Central Los Angeles to a Bengal tiger in its natural habitat. The California State Supreme Court had twice censured this prosecutor for equally discriminatory behavior.

The Supreme Court's refusal to investigate racism in this case establishes as precedent for the nation the right for prosecutors to exclude jurors on the basis of race and to denigrate minority defendants in front of all-white juries. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals posited in 2002 that Tookie's prison writings, in which he renounces his former life as a gangster, could be grounds for the California governor to grant him clemency. If he is not granted clemency, he will be executed on December 13th of this year.

###

A grand jury hearing took place Monday and Tuesday of this week in Oregon, regarding the police killing of an Oregon man. Last month, one officer each from the Sandy and Clackamas Police Departments murdered a 27-year-old man named Fouad Kaady in the area surrounding Portland.

According to sources close to the case, Kaady was transporting fuel to a friend whose car had died. The gas ignited through unknown means, catching Kaady's clothes on fire. He lost control of the car and hit another vehicle (whose occupant was minorly injured) before pulling over and jumping out. After ripping his burning clothes from his melting flesh, he ran around in shock.

When the police arrived, and not an ambulance or fire truck, they tasered him as many as ten times. In an official statement, police representatives referred to Kaady as "the naked and combative male subject." After determining that he was "totally unresponsive to the audible law enforcement commands to comply, [and] the Tasering deployed by both officers on the scene," the police shot him five times, including once in the head.

###

From the Tennessee IMC:
For three decades, public access TV has provided thousands of communities around the nation with a place where ordinary people can make and air media that matters to them. It’s estimated that over 1.2 million people volunteer on a regular basis at public access TV stations, producing one of the richest ‘marketplaces of ideas’ in the nation – but all of this is under immediate threat from three Bills now pending in Washington. If passed, the bills could end or severely limit the operation of public, educational and governmental access TV (PEG TV) nationwide.

Anthony Riddle, the Executive Director of The Alliance for Community Media - a Washington based national organization representing access TV, says this is the most serious crisis facing access TV in its thirty-year history. Riddle describes these Bills as a “national video disenfranchisement act” that will “undo years of progress in connecting the people of our communities to important local institutions and services.”

The central issue is that the phone companies want to get into the business of providing ‘video service,’ but they don’t want to negotiate local ‘franchises’ with the communities they serve. ‘Franchises’ are agreements between local governments and cable TV companies. At the heart of a franchise is ‘rent’ for use of the ‘public rights of way’. This means that in exchange for using the publicly owned infrastructure – such as running cables under public streets - a cable TV company must pay rent to the community, such as providing channel space on the cable system for access TV, as wellasfunding for facilities, equipment and staff so access TV stations can operate.

According to community media consultant Lyell Davies, critics of these measures have noted that the bill co-sponsored by Senator John McCain is so drastic, it could dismantle existing franchises and literally end PEG TV on the day it’s enacted. Others speculate that it may be a ‘stalking horse’ or ‘marker’ Bill which is unlikely to pass, but meanwhile pushes the debate far to the right so that the other only slightly less damaging Bills can pass in its wake.

###

Also this past Saturday, many thousands of people attended the Millions More March in Washington D.C., organized ten years after the famous Million Man March. Unlike the 1995 event, the Millions More March welcomed women to the African-American event.

Minister Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, called for people to build alternative infrastructure, including a health ministry that could have accepted Fidel Castro's offer for 1500 trained medical personnel to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. He spoke out against the Iraq war, saying, "What are our young men fighting for?... They should be cleaning up our communities and preventing white police from shooting us." Criticizing government spending priorities, he said, "The neocons are raping the treasury of 340 billion on a war with no end in sight, but there was no 14 million to rebuild the levees. I firmly believe if the people on those rooftops had blond hair and blue eyes and pale skin, something would have been done in a more timely manner," he said. "We charge America with criminal neglect."

The march was, however, somewhat tarred by a rescinded invitation to the Board President of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) to address the march. NBJC is an LGBT/Ally organization that dedicates itself to combatting racism and homophobia, the latter being a charge often levied at Farrakahn and his organization.

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From the BBC:
The leader of Pakistani-administered Kashmir has called for the opening of the border with Indian Kashmir to help earthquake relief operations, telling the BBC the Pakistani government should overcome any reservations about such a move. The leader of the ruling party in Indian-administered Kashmir said she would try and persuade India to do the same. This remarkable development has taken place after 58 years of disagreement over the right to rule Kashmir, with each country claiming the mostly-Muslim area as its own, and many Kashmiris demanding self-determination.

Pakistan says more than 38,000 people were killed by the earthquake a week ago, most of them in Kashmir. The number of injured is said to have risen to more than 60,000, with hundreds of villages still cut off, and bad weather that has hampered relief efforts. At least 1,400 died in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The Pakistani Interior Minister told reporters that the number of homeless had now risen to around 3.3 million. He said the quake had cost Pakistan five billion dollars in infrastructure losses.

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Makhbuba Zakirova told a courtroom in Uzbekistan that she saw government troops open fire on unarmed civilians during protests in the capital of Andijan in May. She told the court that she saw soldiers shooting at people waving a white flag. "Even Hitler did not do such things," she said.

Mrs Zakirova was interrupted by the prosecutor, who asked: "Do you realise what you are saying? Are you sure?" She replied: "Are you going to arrest me now? I was telling only the truth, and you yourself asked me to give a truthful testimony... I am only saying what I saw."

Her testimony came at the show trial of 15 men who allegedly conspired to overthrow the government. All of them have given long, detailed confessions in a country well-known for its frequent use of torture. (Uzbekistan is a country used by the United States in its practice of "rendition," where a suspect is flown abroad to be tortured.)

The Uzbek government says nearly 200 people, mostly "terrorist organisers", died when security forces put down an armed Islamic uprising. Human rights groups say 500 or more civilians may have been killed.

###

Human rights investigator Jean Ziegler, a senior United Nations official, has accused US-led coalition troops of depriving Iraqi civilians of food and water in breach of humanitarian law. A US military spokesman in Baghdad denied the allegations.

"A drama is taking place in total silence in Iraq, where the coalition's occupying forces are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population," Mr Ziegler told a press conference last week in Geneva.

He said coalition forces were using "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare."

"This is a flagrant violation of international law," he added.

Interview with William Blum

2005-10-17T13:46:00.000-04:00

BlackBox Radio reporter Kris Kaul interviews William Blum, author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, and Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower.

Format: MP3, Size: 8.8MB, Time: 9:34