UNDERNEWS
Sam Smith
July 31, 1999
The Progressive Review
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KLA TAKES OVER KOSOVO
A lead New York Times story supports TPR reports that far from producing
democracy in Kosovo, the NATO war and invasion has turned the province over
to the KLA which "has taken sweeping control .... establishing a network of
ministries, seizing businesses and apartments, and collecting taxes and
customs payments in the absence of a strong international police presence."
Despite the fact that the KLA "has no legal standing, they have created a
fait accompli, and these days they talk not of ceding power to the United
Nations but of cooperating as if they were equals." The KLA has ousted
moderate Kosovo leaders, tried to assassinate at least one of them, and has
been closely linked to Europe's major drug trafficking operations.
JUST CURIOUS
The State Department has inquired of at least one major progressive group
what events it has planned during the World Trade Organization meeting in
Seattle this fall. It said it was planning an events calendar. Says one
progressive, " I think they know there will be a large protest and want to
know who is involved and in what capacity." The WTO meeting is shaping up to
be a major target of the anti-corporatist movement.
LOW POWER RADIO
Low Power FM radio service will not lead to a significant increase in
interference with current, full-power stations says a report commissioned by
LPFM advocates. The Federal Communications Commission is considering the
creation of a new, low power radio service. The receiver engineering study
was conducted by Broadcast Signal Lab. Copies of the executive summary may
also be obtained by fax by leaving a message with the National Lawyers Guild
Committee on Democratic Communications at (415) 522-9814.
THE REVIEW LIST
Reasons the DEA has given
in court for targeting individuals
(As reported by David Cole in Insight)
Arrived in the afternoon
Was one of the first to deplane
Was one of the last to deplane
Deplaned in the middle
Purchased ticket at airport
Made reservation on short notice
Bought coach ticket
Bought first class ticket
Used one-way ticket
Used round-trip ticket
Carried no luggage
Carried brand-new luggage
Carried a small bag
Carried a medium-sized bag
Carried two bulky garment bags
Carried two heavy suitcases
Carried four pieces of luggage
Dissociated self from luggage
Traveled alone
Traveled with a companion
Acted too nervous
Acted too calm
Walked quickly through the airport
Walked slowly through the airport
Walked aimlessly through the airport
Suspect was Hispanic
Suspect was black female.
SWEATSHOPS
The Take Pride In America Coalition has produced 535 individual video ads --
one for each congressmember -- focussing on Saipan sweatshops and urging
reform action. This unprecedented approach may be working -- co-sponsorship
of reform bills has leaped in recent weeks.
TAKE PRIDE IN AMERICA http://www.takepride.org
FARM PRICES PLUNGE
CONSUMER FOOD PRICES INCREASE
CORPORATE PROFITS MULTIPLY
Al Krebs, Agribusiness Examiner
While the USDA was reporting that retail food prices have risen 7.6% over
the past three years as the cost of commodities like wheat, corn and cattle
has fallen 10.7% corporate agribusinesses like IBP and Philip Morris were
sizeable profits. IBP, the nation's leading meatpacker, announced that its
second quarter earnings totaled $77 million, up 126% during the second
quarter of 1998 ....
Likewise, Philip Morris Cos., the nation's leading food manufacturer,
reported a 17% increase in net income, citing stronger food sales in the
U.S. and higher cigarette prices .... Kraft Foods North America unit rose 7%
to $946 million, while revenue rose about 2%, to $4.63 billion.
.... At the same time corporate agribusiness is prospering the nation's
farmers are looking at still another price depression as the USDA recently
lowered its projected prices for wheat by 15 cents a bushel from a month ago
and for corn and soybeans by five cents. Soybean prices will be the lowest
they've been since the early 1970s.
.... While farmers get 21 cents of each dollar Americans spend on food,
Philip Morris gets ten cents of every American food dollar and ConAgra, the
nation's second largest food manufacturer gets an estimated six cents of
every food dollar.
AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CONSPIRACY COLLAPSES
The neo-liberal media made much of alleged payments to Whitewater witness
David Hale, pointing to them as evidence of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
So special prosecutor Kenneth Starr ordered an independent investigation
into the matter by Michael Shaheen, former director of the Justice
Department's office of professional responsibility. Here's what he found, as
reported by Robert Kaiser of the Washington Post:
"A special investigation into whether conservative critics of Bill and
Hillary Rodham Clinton gave support or cash payments to witness David Hale
to influence his testimony has concluded that many of the allegations of
such payments were 'unsubstantiated' and 'in some cases, untrue,' and that
no criminal prosecution should be brought.
"These conclusions--brief excerpts from a 168-page report--were released
yesterday by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, effectively closing a
case that some Clinton supporters had hoped would offer proof of a
"right-wing conspiracy" against the first couple."
DRUG BUSTS
The nation's largest, federally funded teen anti-drug program, DARE, has no
long-term effect on adolescent drug use, a new study to be published in the
August issue of the American Psychological Association's Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology found. Researchers tracked over 1,000
students who participated in the DARE program in sixth grade. They
re-evaluated the students at age 20, ten years after receiving the drug
prevention education. The study found that the program initially influenced
the students' perceptions toward drug use, but concluded that these changes
did not persist over time.
CLINTON SCANDALS
CARL LIMBACHER, NEWSMAX: An Arkansas parole board has recommended early
prison release for Sharlene Wilson, the onetime Little Rock drug dealer who
told a federal grand jury in 1990 that she witnessed then-Arkansas Gov. Bill
Clinton use cocaine on multiple occasions .... Wilson has been incarcerated
for most of the Clinton presidency as part of what many believe is a
political vendetta by Clinton allies in his home state, who fear she knows
too much about the Mena drug-running scandal .... The federal drug probe
witness testified that she began selling cocaine to Clinton's brother Roger
as early as 1979. Wilson has told reporters that she sold two grams of
cocaine to Clinton's brother at the Little Rock nightclub Le Bistro, then
witnessed Bill Clinton consume the drug.
"I watched Bill Clinton lean up against a brick wall," Wilson revealed to
the London Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in 1995. "He must have had an
adenoid problem because he casually stuck my tooter up his nose. He was so
messed up that night, he slid down the wall into a garbage can and just sat
there like a complete idiot."
NEWSMAX STORY: http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover.shtml
LOOSE CHANGE
Mississippi is no longer the biggest cheapskate in the country when it comes
to welfare benefits. That honor now goes to Alabama where a single mother of
two children in need of support gets $164 a month.
HUMANITARIAN HYPOCRISY
Robert Hayden Director,
Center for Russian & East European Studies
University of Pittsburgh
In October 1998 NATO faced a dilemma: while its member states were
threatening air attacks against Yugoslavia in response to Yugoslav attacks
on Kosovo Albanians, they also recognized that Kosovo is clearly within the
sovereign territory of Yugoslavia. On March 24, 1999, NATO resolved this
dilemma by committing the first unprovoked, opposed military aggression in
Europe since Soviet troops invaded Hungary in 1956. The attacks were clearly
contrary to international law and to the UN charter. The aggression took the
form of intensive bombing of the Yugoslav "infrastructure," the first such
massive use of air attacks in Europe since World War II. As of May 23, after
60 days of bombing, NATO had mounted 7,000 air attacks on more than 500
targets, with munitions alone costing about $20 million per day. While
Yugoslav military casualty figures in the first 60 days of the attacks were
estimated at being "in the hundreds," NATO had in that time killed as many
as 1500 civilians. Further, in the third week of May NATO began to commit
textbook war crimes, aimed at depriving the civilian population of Serbia of
water and electrical power, and explicitly not aimed at military forces in
Kosovo ....
INFO WARS
WASHINGTON TIMES: The Clinton administration begins work today on a new
International Public Information group designed to "influence foreign
audiences" in support of U.S. foreign policy and to counteract propaganda by
enemies of the United States .... The aim is "to enhance U.S. security,
bolster America's economic prosperity and to promote democracy abroad,"
according to the IPI Core Group Charter. However, the charter also says that
IPI control over "international military information" is intended to
"influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the
behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups and individuals." The
charter makes clear that IPI activities "are overt and address foreign
audiences only." But it also says domestic information should be
"deconflicted" and "synchronized" so as not to send a contradictory message.
THE MAGICAL BUDGET SURPLUS
Taxpayers for Common Sense
The extra $1 trillion in federal surpluses over the next decade that has
magically appeared in recent presidential and congressional budget
projections are real only if you believe three unbelievable things:
-- First, to believe in the surplus, you have to think that Congress will
sharply cut federal spending. The budget projections coming out of
Washington assume that lawmakers will honor the caps on discretionary
spending enacted in the 1997 budget deal. Congress would then have to defy
history and slash spending by almost $600 billion over 10 years.
-- Second, you must assume that no "emergency spending" will occur, despite
the fact that Congress has averaged $8 billion in emergency spending per year.
-- Third, you have to believe that it is possible to predict what the
economy will be like for the next 10 years. The trillion that has turned up
since the president submitted his last budget is the result of the economy
growing more rapidly this year than economists anticipated. Just as this
year's unexpected growth pushed up the projected surplus, unpredictable
future economic events -- a stock market crash, a farm crisis, a war --
could eliminate it altogether.
TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE: http://www.taxpayer.net
TWA 800
PHILIP WEISS, NEW YORK OBSERVER: [The "30-knot track"] is the official radar
designation of the boat that was closest to the plane when it crashed --
three to four miles away in the Atlantic Ocean. After the crash, this boat
behaved bizarrely. At a time when many mariners saw the fireball in the sky
and rushed to give assistance, this boat went straight out to sea at a fast
clip even as debris fell behind it. According to the last known radar
reading, the boat reached speeds of more than 40 miles per hour, on a
south-southwest course, into the night. The government has tried to will
this boat away. When the FBI closed its criminal investigation into the
crash, two years ago, then-assistant director James Kallstrom said
repeatedly that it had left no stone unturned. Of greatest concern, he said,
were boats near the crash .... One critic says this boat was a "getaway
car." .... The NTSB's explanation of the radar track has been lame. Goelz
of the NTSB told me it is reasonable to conclude that no one on the vessel
was aware of the crash because it happened behind them, over their right
shoulder. But the explosion in the sky rattled windows in Center Moriches,
10 miles away. It would have thumped a boat three miles distant and caused a
sun-like radiance in the twilight sky.
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