UNDERNEWS Sam Smith September 7, 1999 The Progressive Review 1739 Conn. Ave. NW Washington DC 20009 202-232-5544 Fax: 202-234-6222 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INDEX: http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS: http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINE NEWS: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW FORUM: http://prorev.com/letters.com DONATIONS AND ORDER FORM: http://prorev.com/order3.htm UNSUBSCRIBE: Reply with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. For a free subscription to our e-mail updates send your postal address with zip code. Copyright 1999, The Progressive Review. Matter not independently copyrighted may be reprinted provided TPR is paid your normal reprint fees, if any, and is given proper credit. Because of its quantity, TPR's mail is not always answered, but it is always read. The editor is cheered or remorseful as appropriate and posts some of the more interesting messages at http://prorev.com/letters.htm ---------------------------------------------------------- THE MEDIACRATS Those in New York and Washington raised on the anti-Arab biases of their media may have been a bit surprised to find above the fold in their morning paper news that the Israeli Supreme Court had, in the New York Times' wording, "unexpectedly outlawed the security service's routine practice of using physically coercive interrogation methods, which critics have long denounced as torture." This carefully crafted sentence is quite accurate for while the NYT has undoubtedly long known about such methods, it has not long denounced them as torture. The Times did not explain why it has not considered this practice newsworthy nor what forms of physical coercion it still doesn't consider torture. Even more interesting, it managed to get through the entire front page portion of the story without mentioning who the victims were, which is to say, Arabs. Now that the Israeli Supreme Court has scooped the NYT and the Washington Post, perhaps these papers would like to play catch-up by determining to what extent American dollars and expertise played a role in the torture of Arabs. Were we as active in the Middle East as we were, say, in Latin America? Finally, we might all reflect on how much such criminal activities on the part of the Israelis have contributed to the violent response by Arab guerillas as well as to the loss of democracy in this country in the name of defending ourselves from retribution by those allied with the torture victims. HEY, IT'S NOT EUROPE, AFTER ALL GUARDIAN: In New York, the security council was preparing yesterday to send a five-member mission to Jakarta, but it has made no move toward approving a peacekeeping force because of strong US reluctance and firm Chinese opposition - a general reflection of UN weakness and a specific legacy of disagreements over Kosovo. But signs last night were that the pace of events could force a rethink. Any intervention is likely to be mounted by a "coalition of the willing" led by Australia, though continuing insistence by the US and other big powers that it have Jakarta's agreement remained a major stumbling block to a UN resolution mandating involvement. GUARDIAN STORY http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,,79996,00.html CORPORATE CRIME WATCH Russell Mokhiber of Corporate Crime Reporter has compiled an impressive list of the top corporate criminals of the 1990s. CCR used the most narrow and conservative of definitions -- corporations that have pled guilty or no contest to crimes and have been criminally fined. It's a pretty impressive rap sheet, which we've posted. CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] TOP CORPORATE CRIMINALS http://www.prorev.com/corpcrime.htm ECO NOTES GUARDIAN, LONDON: Alarm bells started ringing over the widespread use of antibiotics in agriculture almost as soon as they made their entry into livestock farming in the US 50 years ago. By 1969 scientists in Britain were warning of the "real and potential danger" that overuse in animals would help speed the rate at which bacteria in humans developed resistance to the medicines. In 1999, when use of antibiotics on farm animals and pets had increased by at least 3 times, another group of scientists was predicting "calamitous consequences" if the control of infection in human populations by antibiotics became ineffective. They said there was conclusive evidence of a link between humans, animals and food, even if the extent to which it contributed to the overall problem of resistance was still uncertain .... Today nearly all UK broilers are given these drugs to feed Britain's hunger for cheap meat. In the last week Britain's biggest producer has recanted on accepted practice and decided to phase out growth promoters by the end of the year. Most pigs are routinely fed antibiotics too. Their use has been common in the US since 1949 and Britain since 1953. GUARDIAN, LONDON: A potentially lethal bacterium resistant to every known antibiotic has been detected in a British hospital, accelerating fears that medicine could be facing a return to the dark, pre-penicillin days when all surgery carried the risk of infection and death. Two cases at Glasgow Royal Infirmary prompted alarm in the medical community this summer and a hunt for all those who had come into contact with one of the infected patients after he left hospital carrying the dangerous bacterium. The patients were found, after blood tests, to have MRSA - the so-called hospital superbug that can kill the sick and fragile - but Visa, another form of streptococcus aureus bacterium that has evolved to resist even the antibiotic of last resort, vancomycin. It is still possible to treat Visa with high doses of the antibiotic, but it is only a matter of time before the bug develops complete resistance. The discovery of the first Visa cases in Britain comes at a time of serious concern at the weakened powers of antibiotics and the rise of infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. GUARDIAN STORY http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,79958,00.html MORE GUARDIAN NEWS http://www.prorev.com/altnews.com CLINTON SCANDALS NEW YORK POST: Terry McAuliffe, the wheeler-dealer who slapped down $1.35 million to let the Clintons buy their New York dream house, could be called as a witness in a Teamsters corruption trial next month. McAuliffe, a Washington lawyer and deal-fixer who owns a title-insurance company, is an unnamed player in the indictment of Teamsters political director Bill Hamilton .... Hamilton has been charged with conspiracy, embezzlement of union funds, mail fraud, wire fraud, making false statements to an election officer and perjury before the grand jury. Prosecutors say Hamilton illegally schemed with McAuliffe to swap union money for Democratic cash. At the time, McAuliffe - who hasn't been charged - was the top money man for the Democratic Party. McAuliffe's lawyer, Richard Ben-Veniste, acknowledged that McAuliffe could be called as a witness in the trial, but he insisted McAuliffe has never been a target or a subject of the investigation. McAuliffe denies he agreed to an alleged scheme to find Democratic donors who would give money to top Teamsters officials running for re-election. NEW SECURITY RULES? BEN FENTON, TELEGRAPH, LONDON: America's nuclear weapon scientists have been given permission to have sexual relations with foreigners - as long as they make their excuses and leave after just one night. New security guidelines drafted by the Department of Energy, which oversees all nuclear weapons development, dictate that "close and continuing contact" with members of the opposite - or indeed same - sex from a list of 25 countries must be reported to security officers within five days. But the rules, drawn up in the wake of an espionage scandal that apparently gave China the secrets of all American nuclear weapons, specifically exempt one-night stands "if there is no expectation of future contact". If an employee has a second sexual encounter, even months later, that must be reported. WACO AGENCE FRANCE PRESS: Women and children among the 80 dead in the FBI siege at Waco, Texas in 1993, faced the choice of being burned alive in an inferno or shot to death by FBI agents blocking their escape, critics of the siege alleged Sunday. Michael McNulty, producer of a new film on the siege of the Branch Davidian compound, told "Fox New Sunday" talk show he had evidence that FBI sharpshooters were blocking the only exit from the burning building. He said he had footage of "individuals at the back of the building engaged in a gunfight" who were blocking the only escape route unmolested by tanks. "Once that building caught on fire, the women and the children and the adults inside that building had no way out," he said. "They had a choice of being shot to death or burning to death." DRUDGE REPORT: A former government officer has told investigators that members of the secret Army unit Delta Force said they participated in a shoot-out during the final assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. The witness, according to congressional sources, has already named names -- and will soon offer his account under oath. JUST POLITICS Bradley is finally showing some movement, winning a statistical tie with Gore in the latest NH poll. Here is how Gore's lead has dwindled in NH polls: ooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooo oooooooooOoooooo oooooooooOooooooo ooooooo oooo TPR'S MORNING LINE http://www.prorev.com/amline.htm It's looking more and more like one of Gore's biggest problems are his alleged allies, the Clintons. HRC is grabbing the money and the media spotlight and when she isn't in the news, WJC makes sure he is. In such ways do sociopaths hurt friends and foe alike, for in their world they are the only inhabitants who really matter. AMERICANS WORK LONGEST HOURS US workers put in the longest hours on the job in industrialized nations, clocking up nearly 2,000 hours per capita in 1997, the equivalent of almost two working weeks more than their counterparts in Japan where annual hours worked have been gradually declining since 1980, according to a new statistical study published by the International Labor Office. The long working hours of US and Japanese workers (whose 1995 total was 1,889 annual hours worked versus 2,121 in 1980, a decline of more than 10%) contrasts most sharply with those of European workers, who are logging progressively fewer hours on the job, particularly in the Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden where hours worked in 1997 were, respectively 1,399 and 1,552 per year. ILO REPORT http://www.ilo.org/public/english/60empfor/polemp/kilm/kilm.htm). INFOWARS: Pacifica Crisis BERKELEY DAILY PLANET: Expenses from the crisis at KPFA, including armed guards and public relations, totaled about $500,000, said Pacifica Executive Director Lynn Chadwick, in a letter addressed Friday to Assembly member Scott Wildman. "Security for the station and transmitter cost over $390,000. Boarding up the windows and doors cost nearly $7,000. Support for public relations came to some $58,000," Chadwick wrote, noting at the end of the letter, "While these expenses are exceptional, they will not bankrupt KPFA nor Pacifica." [THE FOLLOWING WAS POSTED TO OUR WEB SITE ON SATURDAY] WACO LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A federal judge was forced to intervene Friday after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to block Texas Rangers from searching a Waco storage facility for evidence that pyrotechnic devices were fired at the Branch Davidian complex. The brief skirmish came as FBI officials in Washington released the second of two newly discovered aerial videotapes that include conversations between FBI commanders about the use of combustible tear-gas canisters. WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD: When the FBI took over the government's standoff with the Branch Davidians, it quickly asked for and got a store of equipment from the military. The list was extensive: 10 Bradley Fighting Vehicles; 4 Combat Engineering Vehicles; 2 Abrams tanks; an M88 tank retriever; helicopters; Humvees; tents, generators, video equipment; gas masks, night vision goggles and concertina wire. What the FBI didn't get was tear gas. An FBI spokesman told the Tribune-Herald that the agency's Hostage Rescue Team in 1993 carried military tear gas as a regular part of its inventory. NEW YORK TIMES: The Pentagon's elite Special Operations Command sent observers to the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas more than a month before the final assault on the compound, suggesting that military commandos had a far longer and closer involvement in the disastrous 1993 operation than previously divulged, according to declassified government documents. The documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also show for the first time that officials at the highest levels of the Defense Department, including Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were briefed by the Special Operations Command about the events near Waco. The command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, oversees the military's most secretive commando squads, including the Army's Delta Force and the Navy Seals, and the documents suggest that the command was monitoring the situation virtually from the start of the 51-day siege. The command's spokesmen did not return calls for comment on the documents. ECO NOTES THE INDEPENDENT, LONDON: Top executives of Monsanto, the world's leading biotechnology firm, are pressing the board to pull out of genetically modified crop trials in Britain, because public hostility is damaging its business. Senior company sources have told the Independent on Sunday that a powerful group within management is arguing that the trial plantings should cease entirely. Although the Monsanto chairman, Bob Shapiro, is insisting that the trials must continue, the company has already drastically scaled back its planting in Britain. Senior managers are deeply frustrated by the success of anti-GM campaigners in disrupting them. The Independent on Sunday has also learned that the Clinton administration is so concerned at Monsanto's troubles in Britain that it is putting heavy pressure on ministers to allow a new GM maize, developed by the company, into British shops and supermarkets. Monsanto's withdrawal would be a devastating blow, both to the GM industry and to Tony Blair who has made support for biotechnology an integral part of the New Labour "project" for Britain. FEEDBACK Sam, Is it the biracial thing (I'm black and I'm green!), or the effect of the Long Island elevator thing that created instant fluency in Ebonics in today's ProRev? I enjoyed reading that "The new DC Statehood Green Party be a member of the Association of State Green Parties." I'm delighted about the merger, and extend thanks to ProRev's editor for his ongoing role in the creation of viable third parties in the Plantation District. You be da man, Sam! --Lea [Is that really a black thing? Gee, I always thought that was just the way us DC natives were meant to talk. -- Sam] MAIL ON MARIJUANA AND WACO AT OUR READERS' FORUM http://www.prorev.com/letters.htm THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW 1739 Connecticut Ave NW Washington DC 20009 202-232-5544 202-234-6222 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] Editor: Sam Smith INDEX : http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS : http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINES: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW FORUM: http://prorev.com/letters.htm For a free trial subscription to both our bi-monthly hard copy edition and our regular e-mail updates send e-mail and terrestrial address to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To order "Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual" (WW Norton) direct from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0393316270/progressiverevieA/
