>
> WW News Service Digest #30
>
> 1) Washington action broadens support for Mumia
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 2) Job cuts loom with AOL and Time-Warner merger
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 3) Supreme Court ruling protects cops
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 4) Social crisis deepens in Ecuador
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 5) Albright in Colombia: Is U.S. aggression in the works?
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 6) 100,000 honor Luxemburg-Liebknecht
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
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>Message-ID: <007301bf6511$758a23a0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Washington action broadens support for Mumia
>Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 14:47:03 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
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>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Jan. 27, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>WASHINGTON ACTION BROADENS SUPPORT FOR MUMIA
>
>By John Catalinotto
>
>Representatives of a growing movement of internationally
>known personalities and organizations came together Jan. 12
>at a news conference in Washington to support the fight for
>a new trial for death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-
>Jamal.
>
>Members of parliament and legislative bodies from several
>countries joined union leaders and human rights activists to
>ask President Bill Clinton to stop the threatened execution
>of Mumia Abu-Jamal and instruct the Justice Department to
>conduct an investigation into the violation of Abu-Jamal's
>civil and constitutional rights.
>
>Among the organizations supporting the imprisoned former
>Black Panther and journalist was the Southern Christian
>Leadership Conference. Roxanne Gregory read a message from
>SCLC president Martin Luther King III.
>
>King said, "Conscience compels me to unite with Nelson
>Mandela, Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbelton, elected
>representatives of the European Parliament, the
>Congressional Black Caucus, Amnesty International, Harry
>Belafonte, Paul Newman, Ossie Davis, Danny Glover,
>Archbishop Desmond Tutu and millions of others around the
>globe to fight for the life of our brother in `the
>struggle,' Mumia Abu-Jamal. _
>
>"First of all, at the Southern Christian Leadership
>Conference we are unequivocally opposed to capital
>punishment. The conductors of the evil system of injustice
>made Abu-Jamal a political prisoner and now they have
>planned his execution. As `conscience-raising members' of
>the global society, we cannot afford to sit back and let an
>innocent man die.
>
>"The world must know that the judge purposely withheld
>crucial evidence from Abu-Jamal's case. Experts say this
>evidence alone could have brought an acquittal. We can no
>longer afford to allow bias in the criminal justice system
>to continue.
>
>"We must stand by Abu-Jamal's side just as we stood by the
>sides of Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Ben Chavis and Joann
>Little.
>
>"I do not believe it is incidental that I find myself
>protesting for the life of this innocent man, one month
>after my family and I received the verdict from a
>multicultural jury that said my father's assassination was
>part of a conspiracy. Martin Luther King Jr. was brutally
>murdered because he spoke out against social injustices.
>
>"Today _ we must unite together in the name of justice to
>stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a young man who was
>respected in the community for reporting stories about
>economic and social injustices."
>
>Abu-Jamal sent the following statement to the delegation.
>
>"Many are unfamiliar with the reality of death row," he
>wrote, "for the corporationist press paints a picture of
>death row as the abode of the worst of the worst, while a
>truer picture is of those who are the poorest of the poor,
>or even the weakest of the weak. How so, you ask?
>
>"Well, look: Of all the kinds of killings that people do,
>what can be more horrific than murder for hire? In
>Philadelphia alone, dozens of people have been slain in the
>streets as local Mafia wars raged over a decade. Which leads
>to another question: How many Mafia hit-men are on
>Pennsylvania's Death Row? The answer? Zero. Not one.
>
>"How can this be, you ask, and the answer is simple. Real
>Mafia guys are able to afford the best lawyers that money
>can buy, while the poor schmuck is left with court-appointed
>lawyers, hardly the best in the craft. So, guess who goes to
>death row? Death row is the prerogative of the poor. _
>
>"Death Row is not just a poor place, but a predominantly
>Black place, with most from Philadelphia. Again, we see the
>politics of death; of prosecutors and judges who seek
>political advancement on the basis of their fierce
>allegiance to the death penalty."
>
>Also at the press conference were Manuel Camara, a senator
>and unionist from Spain, Ossie Davis, Daniel Gluckstein and
>student leader Romance from France, Dick Gregory, Sam Jordan
>from Amnesty International USA, West Coast Longshore union
>legislative representative Lindsay McLaughlin, Martha Osamor
>of Britain's People of Color Coalition, and Lothar Ott from
>the GEW teachers' union in Germany.
>
>The French organizers had gathered more than 100,000
>signatures on an open letter demanding a new trial for Abu-
>Jamal.
>
>OTHER EVENTS FOR MUMIA
>
>In December, 25 members of the Japanese parliament signed
>petitions calling for a new trial and to stop the execution
>of Abu-Jamal. The petitions have been filed with
>Pennsylvania Tom Ridge and Federal Judge William Yohn, who
>will make the decision on Abu-Jamal's appeal for a new
>trial.
>
>In the United States, the next big organizing event is a
>Feb. 19 Emergency Conference at the Synod Hall of the
>Cathedral of St. John Divine in New York. Organizers plan to
>bring broad sectors of labor, community, religious and
>political organizations together to build a nationwide
>strategy for spring 2000. This is planned to be a "working
>conference," according to organizers.
>
>Readers can contact the organizers in New York at (212)
>633-6646; in Philadelphia at (215) 476-8812; in San
>Francisco at (415) 821-6545; or email
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <007901bf6511$8afc4060$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Job cuts loom with AOL and Time-Warner merger
>Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 14:47:40 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
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>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Jan. 27, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>JOB CUTS LOOM WITH AOL AND TIME-WARNER MERGER
>
>By Key Martin
>
>As Time Warner and AOL corporate executives giddily
>announced the biggest corporate merger so far, their
>subordinates were already writing the epitaph for the
>editorial and research staff of Time Life Books. Job cuts in
>other divisions are still to come.
>
>The announcement shocked workers who had been producing
>the serial books for 40 years. Half the staff is to be laid
>off by February. The rest will go by August from their
>brand-new building in Alexandria, Va.--not far from where
>all the merger news conferences took place.
>
>Books will now be produced by subcontractors, usually with
>workers receiving no benefits or job security. No one
>worried how to harness their creative talents to make
>"content" for the newly merged company. They were just
>booted out the door.
>
>When the financial analysts from Wall Street come in to
>examine these corporate mergers they are looking for how
>many workers can be "downsized." Under the cover of
>"efficiencies"--staff cuts and migrating work to lower-paid
>areas--they give their "nod" or not, driving stock prices
>one way or the other.
>
>A decade ago when Time and Warner merged there were big
>staff cuts that provoked a confrontation between unionized
>workers and management at the annual stockholders' meeting.
>The cutting knives went through the staff slicing hundreds
>of journalists and production workers from the magazines.
>
>These publications were among the most highly profitable
>in the world. They had no economic need for these cuts.
>
>When 67,000 Time Warner or AOL workers hear "merger" their
>first worry is not their retirement savings plan. This plan
>is in company stocks that went up, and then went down again.
>They worry more about whether or not they will still have
>their jobs or reach retirement when it is all over.
>
>The grim tale of Time Life Books received scant attention
>in all the hoopla. Yet it is bound to be repeated as the
>consolidation of the two media giants spreads.
>
>All the appropriate statements were made about preserving
>integrity and jobs of journalism. Still CNN, acquired by
>Time Inc. several years ago, has a reputation for ruthless
>low-wage approaches, leaving workers in "freelance" dead
>ends, never gaining benefits or job security. It satisfies
>the bosses' dream of "disposable" workers.
>
>The pressure to push labor costs downward into information
>sweatshops is inevitable as the backers of this deal seek to
>recoup their investments.
>
>The answer for workers is organizing. They need to
>unionize on a wide scale instead of leaving only the
>isolated departments and divisions now organized. Then
>workers would have an effective voice at the table to say
>"no" to the disposable-worker concept management has in
>mind.
>
>[Key Martin is the former chairperson of the Newspaper Guild at
>Time Warner.]
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <007f01bf6511$a242cf00$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Supreme Court ruling protects cops
>Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 14:48:19 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
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>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Jan. 27, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>SUPREME COURT RULING PROTECTS COPS
>
>By Anya Mukarji-Connolly
>
>On Jan. 12 the Supreme Court ruled in an unanimous
>decision that police officers may sometimes stop and frisk
>any person who flees from the sight of a police officer.
>This ruling gives the police more power by expanding the
>rules that allow a police officer to stop and frisk someone.
>It comes at a time when police brutality runs rampant in the
>poorest and most oppressed communities.
>
>The decision stems from the case of Illinois v. Wardlow,
>in which a young Chicago man ran when he saw four police
>cars approach. The court stopped short of allowing the
>Illinois blanket rule, which said that the police could stop
>anyone who fled at the sight of an officer. This rule is in
>place in 17 other states.
>
>Still, the court expanded police power. This latest ruling
>said that a person fleeing at the sight of the police is an
>important factor that creates enough suspicion, along with
>other factors, for a police officer to stop and frisk him or
>her.
>
>According to the court, however, merely running away from
>an officer is by itself not enough to allow an officer to
>stop and search that person. People in the poor and
>oppressed communities know that this technicality will have
>little effect on how police treat them. The ruling was made
>to protect the police, not to help the people.
>
>The police rule the streets. They have to answer to no
>one. They shoot and then explain. Only where a mass protest
>greets police outrages are police even brought into court
>for their blatant brutalities.
>
>Justice John Paul Stevens and three other justices
>concurred in their opinion that there are some individuals,
>particularly people of color, who are innocent but have
>reason to fear the police and as a result may flee from a
>police officer believing that contact with an officer may be
>dangerous. These four justices, however, also joined the
>chief justice in his opinion that allows flight to be an
>important factor in an officer's decision to stop someone.
>
>Had these justices actually understood the terror felt in
>most communities towards the police, they would not have
>joined the majority in this decision, which adds more fuel
>to the police terror that already runs the streets.
>
>In oppressed communities, fear of the police is well
>understood. In Riverside, Calif., police shot Tyisha Miller,
>a young Black woman, 27 times in December 1998. Miller's
>friends had called 911 because Miller was suffering from a
>seizure.
>
>New Jersey is famous for state troopers' bias in stopping
>non-white drivers for violations. People even said the crime
>there is DWB, or "driving while Black," after one study
>showed more than three-quarters of those stopped were people
>of color.
>
>In one case in April 1998 troopers stopped four young
>Black men on their way to a North Carolina basketball clinic
>and fired into their van after they pulled them over on the
>New Jersey Turnpike.
>
>This latest Supreme Court ruling fails to account for the
>relationship between the police and oppressed communities.
>Police have shot youths on the street, in their cars, and in
>front of their families, in these communities--all for
>looking "suspicious."
>
>Now the Supreme Court has declared that "reasonable
>suspicion" is enough for stopping a suspect. What do the
>police consider "suspicious"? Being poor, being a person of
>color and fearing the terrorist police that control their
>communities.
>
>
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>
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