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Following Years of Protests, U.S. & G8 Nations Agree
To Cancel Debt For 18 of the World’s Poorest Countries
FBI Whistleblower: White Supremacists Are Major Domestic
Terrorist Threat
Iraqi Oil Workers Fight Privatization and Occupation
Following Years of Protests, U.S. & G8 Nations
Agree To Cancel Debt For 18 of the World’s Poorest Countries
The agreement comes after years of protests by activist
groups because the debt has economically crippled dozens of
nations in Africa and Latin America. While the Jubilee Debt
Campaign praised the move as a needed first step, it said
there are more than 40 other nations that need total debt
cancellation.
On Saturday, the finance ministers from the Group of 8 industrialized
nations agreed to cancel the debt of 18 (eighteen) of the
world’s poorest countries. Finance ministers from the
U.S, Britain, Japan, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy and France
signed off on the package to cancel $40 billion dollars of
debt during a two day meeting in London. The U.S and Britain
presented the proposal on the heels of meetings in Washington
last week between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President
Bush.
The agreement will scrap 100 percent of the debt owed to
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African
Development Bank by 18 countries including Benin, Bolivia,
Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana and Mali. An additional
20 countries could be eligible if they submit to strict structural
adjustment programs mandated by the international financial
agencies.
Joining us in our D.C studio is Neil Watkins. He is the national
coordinator of Jubilee USA Network.
And in New York is Andre. He is with Indymedia in the UK
and has been working with organizers who are planning protests
at the upcoming G 8 summit in Scotland.
- Neil Watkins, National Coordinator of Jubilee USA network
- Andre, working with organizaitons in the UK to protest
the G8 summit in Scotland.
FBI Whistleblower: White Supremacists Are Major Domestic
Terrorist Threat
We speak with Mike German, an ex-FBI agent who resigned
from the agency last year in protest of what he saw as continuing
failures in the FBI counter terrorism program. German had
worked for years going under cover to infiltrate domestic
terrorist organizations like white supremacist skinhead groups
and anti-government militias.
While terrorism in the U.S has been synonymous with Al Qaeda,
for most of this country's history, domestic white supremacist
organizations like the Klu Klux Klan were the greatest terrorism
threat. Some believe they still may be today. Today, In Mississippi,
the trial begins of Edgar Ray Killen in connection to the
murder of three civil rights workers 41 years ago. Michael
Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney -- were shot dead
allegedly by the Ku Klux Klan. And in Washington, the Senate
is scheduled to vote today on a resolution to apologize for
its failure to enact anti-lynching legislation. An estimated
4,700 people -- mostly African-Americans -- were lynched between
1882 and 1968.
Another whistleblower just took on the FBI's approach to
domestic terrorism. Mike German worked for the agency for
more than 15 years and quit last year. On June 5th, he wrote
an editorial in the Washington Post advocating that law enforcement
pay more attention to organizations that produce so-called
lone wolf extremists like Timothy McVeigh who was executed
for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and Eric Rudolph who planted
bombs at the Atlanta Olympics, abortion clinics and a gay
nightclub. German writes that “lone extremists pose
a challenge for law enforcement because they are difficult
to predict. It's like searching every haystack for a needle.
Perhaps we'd have better luck if we paid more attention to
the needle factories.”
- Mike German, ex-FBI agent who resigned from the agency
last year in protest of what he saw as continuing failures
in the FBI counter terrorism program. German had worked
for years going under cover to infiltrate domestic terrorist
organizations like white supremacist skinhead groups and
anti-government militias.
Iraqi Oil Workers Fight Privatization and Occupation
Public sector unions in Iraq were outlawed by Saddam Hussein
in 1987. Now, the Iraqi labor movement is protesting plans
by U.S. occupation authorities to privatize state owned industries.
We speak with the president of the General Union of Oil Workers.
[includes rush
transcript]
Though we don't often hear about the labor movement in Iraq,
the country has a long history of union activism that dates
back to the 1920’s when the British first began exporting
oil from the country. Saddam Hussein banned unions for public
workers in 1987 because he feared a progressive movement would
topple his dictatorship. When the U.S occupation of Iraq began,
the U.S authorities refused to repeal that law. Instead in
September of 2003, Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official overseeing
the Iraqi occupation, issued an order to privatize the country’s
state owned industries, which include its oil industry.
But the Iraqi people are speaking out against privatization.
At the end of May, a large conference was held in Basra that
focused on the threat of privatization of Iraq’s oil
fields. Oil workers voiced their opposition to privatization
and to selling their oil to foreign companies at discounted
prices. They also called for an end to the occupation and
a withdrawal of foreign troops.
- Hassan Juma'a Awad al-Asade, president of the General
Union of Oil Workers in Iraq. He is touring the U.S. along
with five other trade unionists from Iraq. He joins us in
our studio in D.C. Mohamed Taam is translating.
- David Bacon, a veteran labor journalist who recently
returned from Basra. He has an op-ed piece about Iraqi unions
in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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