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> Thur., Dec. 4, 2003
FSRN
FREE SPEECH RADIO NEWS
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Today's lead stories:
Lawyers Granted to Two Gitmo Prisoners
Refugee Crisis on Iraq-Jordan Border
Strike Averted at UC Campuses
AIDS Special: Indonesia
Colombia’s AUC Disarms
Free Speech Radio News Headlines by Randi
Zimmerman
Bush Caves on Steel
Today President Bush caved in to international pressure and
threats of billions of dollars in fines by finally announcing
the lifting of U.S. tariffs on steel imports. After raising
nearly a million dollars in a fundraising sweep through steel
producing states, Bush asked U.S. trade representative Robert
Zoellick to break the news. According to the Forbes, steel
production in the United States continued its downward trend
even while the tariffs were in place.
US Major Exporter of Torture Tools -- Haider Risvi
The United States is a leading exporter of weapons of torture
according to Amnesty International.
Random Drug Testing at Catholic School -- Rita Sand
A Catholic high school in Chicago will randomly test all students
for some illegal drugs beginning next fall.
CA Increases Penalties for Protestors Who Trespass -- Kellia
Ramares
California joins other states in creating stiffer penalties
for animal and environmental rights activists by calling them
terrorists.
Conference and Study on Global Warming --
Russian officials, in an apparent flip, are signaling they
may support the Kyoto protocol at a climate meeting now taking
place in Milan, Italy. The protocol requires as much as 55-percent
of the world’s carbon dioxide producers to sign on to
the pact before it goes into effect. Russia accounts for an
estimated 17-percent of green house global gas production.
But, President Bush is adamantly refusing to sign on, even
though the United States is the largest single polluter of
the gas attributed to rapid global warming. Bush believes
signing on to the Kyoto pact will hurt the financial interests
of U.S. big business. And, two U.S. scientists confirm that
green house gases produced by people, especially in the manufacturing
sector, are responsible for accelerating global warming. The
government scientists will have their findings published in
the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Science on Friday.
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Lawyers Granted to Two Gitmo Prisoners (4:14)
In a brief filed yesterday to the U.S. Supreme Court, the
Bush administration said that the courts should not be involved
in any review of Presidential power to detain so called enemy
combatants. The brief is due to a case brought by the father
of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen who has been detained
for two years after being captured in Afghanistan. In the
brief the Bush administration says it will allow Hamdi to
have a lawyer. The administration also announced the Australian
detainee David Hick will be appointed a military lawyer for
a pending military tribunal. But it warned the moves are not
a precedent for other detainees. Mitch Jeserich reports.
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Refugee Crisis on Iraq-Jordan Border (3:15)
President Bush held a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah
today at the White House where the leaders were expected to
discuss the situation in Iraq as well as Israel-Palestine
issues. The meeting comes as today the United Nations Refugee
Agency expressed concern about the fate of some 1,800 refugees
who have been stranded for seven months in camps near the
border between Iraq and Jordan. Jordan said it would close
the camp last month and the deadline for the people to leave
passed two days ago. And as the camp is now closed, as Oula
Farawati reports from Amman, no country is accepting the refugees.
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Strike Averted at UC Campuses (3:53)
An expected strike today by teaching assistants, readers
and tutors at the University of California has been averted.
UC’s graduate student employees had planned to strike
all 9 campuses statewide, and other unions representing staff
employees had pledged their active support. While the usual
issues of pay, benefits, and workload were on the table, the
central dispute was over a principle: the right of unions
to support each other’s strikes. From Berkeley, Vanessa
Tait has more.
[top]
AIDS Special: Indonesia (3:57)
South Asian religious leaders are meeting in Nepal today
to discuss how to tackle the rise of AIDS in the region. Organized
by the United Nations agency for children, UNICEF, more than
100 leaders from five major faiths are at the conference.
The Asian continent is home to a large percentage of those
affected with the HIV virus, and as we continue our special
series focusing on HIV/AIDS, today we look at Indonesia where
the situation is critical. Indonesian society continues to
stigmatize people with HIV / AIDS who are often discriminated
against because they’re seen as both a threat to public
health, and to public morals. Yet in the face of this marginalization,
AIDS is spreading at an alarming rate throughout the country
and critics charge that Indonesia’s government isn’t
providing the resources needed to counter this spread. Radio
68 has this report from Jakarta.
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Colombia’s AUC Disarms (4:09)
Last week in Colombia’s second largest city of Medellin,
more than 850 right-wing paramilitary combatants disarmed.
This controversial ceremony was the first step in a peace
process between the nearly15,000-strong illegal army of the
United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC and
the Colombian government. Last year, the AUC initiated secret
talks with the government that culminated in the signing of
the Santa Fe de Ralito agreement last July when top AUC commanders
agreed to demobilize 13,000 combatants by 2006. From Medellin,
Nicole Karsin has more.
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