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> Wed., Nov. 26, 2003
FSRN
FREE SPEECH RADIO NEWS
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Today's lead stories:
Congress Breaks with Issues Pending
FSRN Exclusive: Under Trial Prisoners Perish in Indian Jails
FBI Goes after Saudi Doctoral Student
Black youth unemployment skyrockets in Chicago
Mumia Abu Jamal Commentary: "The Sellers and the Sold"
FSRN Headlines by Randi Zimmerman
Government Workers Lose Protections
Government workers, who must now compete with private contractors,
will be denied key protections in the latest appropriations
bill. John Hamilton has more from the Worker’s Independent
News Service.
Mexicans Caravan for Sovreignty
Mexican workers from rural agricultural organizations and
urban labor unions have been on a march called the “Caravan
in Defense of National Sovereignty.” Caravan riders,
expressing their opposition to the privatization of public
services, will end their ride tomorrow at Mexico’s legislature.
Vladimir Flores reports from Mexico City.
Hunger on the Rise
The United Nations Food Agency says world hunger is on the
rise again after falling a decade ago. Susan Wood reports
from the U.N.
Buy Nothing Day
People around the nation and the world are refusing to participate
in the traditional rush to the mall the day after Thanksgiving.
Eileen Sutton explains from New York.
[top]
Congress Breaks with Issues Pending
The U.S. Congress is out for its winter break. Though it
spent many hours debating energy policy and controversial
judicial nominations, it fell far short in completing its
work before lawmakers went home. Extending unemployment benefits
for people who are about to lose them or extending the child
tax credit for low income families have been put on hold until
next year. Mitch Jeserich has the story from an empty Capitol
Hill.
[top]
FSRN Exclusive: Under Trial Prisoners Perish in Indian
Jails
At midnight last night, what some are calling a milestone
in India-Pakistan relations came into effect with the beginning
of a ceasefire along the demarcation line of disputed Kashmir
state. While people in the region have voiced skepticism over
the ability of both sides to maintain a ceasefire, many acknowledge
it is a good step towards peace. However the Indian army is
receiving criticism for its practices of denying prisoners
their internationally recognized rights—including the
right to a fair trial, which the Geneva convention and many
other international humanitarian laws say constitute a war
crime. From the East Asian landmass, at the tri junction of
India, China and Myanmar, our correspondent Vinod K. Jose
files this exclusive report on the Indian army’s continuing
custodial deaths and the conditions of Under Trial Prisoners,
or UTPs.
[top]
FBI Goes after Saudi Doctoral Student
The attorney for the wife of a Saudi doctoral student awaiting
trial for visa fraud in Idaho believes her client was the
victim of an FBI document dump that has destroyed her reputation.
Widely publicized FBI summaries of intercepted phone conversations
paint a picture of Maha al-Hussayen as a woman sympathetic
to terrorism, but her attorney and a friend say the conversations
may have been misinterpreted or mistranslated. Authorities
have publicly pointed the finger at husband Sami al-Hussayen,
who they believe funneled money for the Islamic assembly of
North America, which is being investigated for ties to al-
Qaida. They’ve also implied ties to pre-war Iraq and
even 9-11. Leigh Robartes has more.
[top]
Black youth unemployment skyrockets in Chicago
Last month, Chicago's Small Schools Network presented a
Northeastern University study showing that more than 5.5 million
of the nation's youth between the ages of 16 and 24 are out
of work and out of school. Those numbers include almost one
hundred thousand young people in Chicago - and close to half
of the population of black men in Chicago in this age category.
And while federal funding for youth employment and training
has been gutted in recent years, U.S. corporations are increasingly
either outsourcing higher wage jobs to cheaper labor markets
abroad, or importing so-called 'guest workers' that groups
like Jobs With Justice have called "low-wage indentured
servants" with few legal protections under U.S. labor
law. Researchers argue that these policies undercut living
wage jobs for workers around the world, and have dire implications
for working class and minority youth in the United States.
Chris Geovanis reports from Chicago.
[top]
Mumia Abu Jamal Commentary:
"The Sellers and the Sold", Racism and Classism
in the American public school system
[top]
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