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> Tues., July. 1, 2003
FSRN
FREE SPEECH RADIO NEWS
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Today's lead stories:
Aceh Situation Worsens
California Is Budget-Less
Murder In Gujarat
Workers Demand Preservation of Labor Standards
Deadline in US Exemption Pact for ICC
Free Speech Radio News Headlines
300-Thousand People in Hong Kong Protest Anti-Subversion
Laws
United Nations Treaty Protects the rights of Migrant Workers
- Susan Wood
Police in Nigeria React to General Strike - Sam Olukoya
New Generations of US Weapons - Pamela Barnett
EPA censored Clean Air proposal - Ellen Ratner
Aceh Situation Worsens (3:39)
Reports are emerging today that the Indonesian army has
begun aerial strikes on the province of Aceh where the population
has been living under martial law for close to two months
now. While the BBC and Reuters today place the death toll
at 300, Acehenese say there are many bodies in refugee camps
and in the jungle that are not being counted. This as today
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri advocated the use
of East-Timor style militia groups saying such groups of civilians
deserved “fair space” to defend themselves. As
Deepa Fernandes reports, the Indonesian military has been
providing these militia groups with weapons and other support.
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California Is Budget-Less (3:55)
Today marks a new fiscal year, and several states are without
a budget. Lawmakers in Oregon, New Hampshire and Connecticut
approved short-term spending plans allowing their governments
to operate while debate continued, while residents in Nevada
and New Jersey began the year without a new budget. In California,
which has the largest state budget deficit in the history
of the United States, lawmakers have reached an impasse in
negotiating whether to raise taxes or cut further in state
spending to level out a 38 billion dollar budget deficit.
Without a budget, the state’s community colleges may
have to shut their doors, k-12 education will lose up to 400
million dollars, and almost 300 thousand state employees could
have their wages reduced to minimum wage until a budget is
agreed upon. As Mitch Jeserich reports, it will likely be
the poor and the non-profits that serve the poor who will
most acutely feel the effects.
[top]
Murder In Gujarat (4:12)
After the worst religious violence in India since Partition
between Hindus and Muslims that occurred in March 2002, where
more than a thousand, mostly Muslims, were killed, a court
ruled this past weekend that in one particular case where
some 14 Muslims were burned alive in a bakery, that no one
was guilty. All the accused were acquitted and in what could
become a precedent for other cases being investigated, human
rights groups say the eyewitnesses were bought off to change
their stories. As Binu Alex reports from Vadodara, in the
western Indian state of Gujarat, Muslims fear this decision
will set a precedent whereby no one is brought to justice
for the massacres.
[top]
Workers Demand Preservation of Labor Standards
(3:46)
Yesterday 200 workers took to the steps of the Labor Department
in Washington DC to demand the government preserve the Fair
Labor Standards Act. In 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, outlawing child labor,
establishing a minimum wage, and enshrining into law the forty-hour
work week. Since then, generations of Americans have qualified
for time-and-a-half pay whenever their employers required
them to work overtime. But as John Hamilton reports, that
could soon change for millions of workers if the US Department
of Labor proceeds with its plans to revise the Act.
[top]
Deadline in US Exemption Pact for ICC (3:50)
Today is the US imposed deadline for countries to sign immunity
pacts for US citizens before the International Criminal Court.
Under the "American Service members Protection Act"
(ASPA), the US has threatened to cut military assistance to
non-US allies if they do not sign a exemption pact. Several
Balkan countries are finding themselves caught between the
EU and the US in the row over the International Criminal Court,
which came into being last July. The Hague based ICC is the
world’s first permanent court to try cases of genocide,
war crimes and crimes against humanity, and has been ratified
to date by 89 countries. The US has been stepping up a worldwide
campaign seeking exemption deals for its citizens from prosecution
by the ICC, apparently for fear of politically motivated prosecution.
At their recent Washington summit, the EU and US agreed to
disagree on the ICC issue – while a US deadline for
Serbia and Montenegro to sign an agreement exempting US citizens
from ICC provisions runs out on today. Sputnik Kilambi reports.
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