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> Wed., Feb. 18, 2004
FSRN
FREE SPEECH RADIO NEWS
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Today's lead stories:
Dean Drops Out;
Haiti Crisis Escalates: Focus on Gonaives;
More on Mad Cow;
US Attorney Sues Ashcroft;
Outlawing Offshore Outsourcing?;
Mass Detentions in Colombia;
FSRN Headlines
Red Cross Criticizes Israeli Wall
Abandoning its neutral stance, the International Committee
of the Red Cross on Wednesday sharply criticized the Israeli
barrier under construction in the West Bank, saying that it
illegally expropriated Palestinian land and effectively cut
thousands of Palestinians off from the rest of their community.
Federal Office Removes Protection for Gays
The recent Republican appointee to the Office of Special Counsel,
Scott J. Bloch, has acted to remove all references to sexual
orientation from the agency's materials, from discrimination
complaint forms, educational materials, its website and other
documents. Jenny Johnson has our story.
No Charges in NY Police Shooting of Teen
A grand jury declined to indict a police officer in the fatal
shooting of an unarmed teenager on a Brooklyn rooftop. From
NY -- Ama Buadi reports.
No More Water for Coke Plant in India
Officials in the Kerala state of India says that a CocaCola
manufacturing plant uses 400,000 gallons of well water daily
leaving local farmers with parched fields and ordered them
to stop. The CocaCola company today called the decision "unwarranted
and unjustifiable." Binu Alex reports from Ahmedebad.
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Dean Drops Out (2:21)
It’s now official, former Vermont Governor Howard
Dean has dropped out of the race to become the democratic
presidential candidate. Dean’s decision comes one day
after he polled third in the Wisconsin primary. An aide says
Dean will be launching a ‘campaign for change’
within the Democratic party, even as he ends his presidential
campaign. Deepa Fernandes reports.
[top]
Haiti Crisis Escalates: Focus on Gonaives
(4:11)
Following calls yesterday by the Dominican Republic for
the international community to help the tiny Caribbean nation
of Haiti, Canada and France today announced they will send
policing troops to Haiti to back up the island’s 4000
member force. Meanwhile hundreds of Haitian Red Cross volunteers
have been mobilized to provide life-saving first aid, run
an ambulance service in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and distribute
humanitarian goods to people in need. This as several major
towns are now controlled by the rebels, including Gonaïves
and Saint Marc. And while the humanitarian crisis escalates,
particular concern is being focused on Haiti’s fourth
largest city of Gonaives, which earlier this month was seized
by an armed anti-government gang demanding the resignation
of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Last Friday, the gang
announced it had joined forces with former military and paramilitary
leaders, an ominous sign for the besieged government. Reed
Lindsay reports from Gonaives, Haiti.
[top]
More on Mad Cow (2:51)
The Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Committee
on Government Reform are calling on the Department of Agriculture
to reopen its probe into the mad cow disease. In a letter
to the Department’s Secretary Anne Vennemon, the committee
leaders said that three witnesses have testified that the
Washington cow that had the disease was able to stand and
walk, contradicting previous claims that the animal was a
downer cow. Mitch Jeserich has more from Washington DC.
[top]
US Attorney Sues Ashcroft (2:26)
In a landmark lawsuit filed Friday, 14-year veteran assistant
U.S. attorney, Richard Convertino, is suing his boss John
Ashcroft and the Justice Department accusing them of interference,
mismanagement and compromising a confidential informant. The
lawsuit is being described as the latest blow to the one-time
showcase terrorism trial - now on the verge of falling apart
- of an alleged "sleeper cell.". Stephen Kohn is
with the Whistleblowers Center and is the lead attorney representing
Convertino. WBAI’s Wake Up Call program spoke to Kohn
this morning.
[top]
Outlawing Offshore Outsourcing? (3:52)
Washington State could be the first to sign legislation
to help stem the tide of exporting jobs. Two proposals before
the state's House Commerce and Labor Committee would ban all
state business from being sent offshore and mandate that employers
notify employees before compelling them to train foreign replacements.
Offshore outsourcing, the practice of sending information
technology and other traditionally white-collar service jobs
overseas, has contributed to an implosion of the state's technology-based
labor market. The state has lost as many as 10,000 jobs since
2001. Last year, Gartner, Inc predicted that at least one
in ten technology jobs in the US would be moved offshore by
the end of the year. FSRN’s Martha Baskin has our story.
[top]
Mass Detentions in Colombia (4:02)
Following last week’s announcement by Colombian President
Uribe that his hard-line regime is both democratic and popular
and that he is improving his country's human rights record,
the British ambassador in Bogotá insisted that there
had been a "vast improvement" in human rights in
Colombia, and that the Blair government is one of Uribe's
staunch supporters. But this optimistic assessment is fiercely
contested in Colombia by human rights groups and members of
Colombia's battered civil society. One issue sited is the
government practice of mass detentions which has been in place
for the past 16 months as part of its security strategy to
crush the country’s 40-year-old insurgent groups. Police
and security forces are rounding up and detaining thousands
of campesinos and people in provincial towns who are being
pinned as rebel supporters, or in the words of president Alvaro
Uribe Velez, ‘terrorists’. According to Colombia’s
Defense ministry, security forces arrested nearly 7,000 suspected
leftist rebels in mass roundups in 2003, an 85 percent increase
from the year before. However, it was not clear how many of
those charged were later released for lack of evidence. Nicole
Karsin reports form Bogotá.
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