Global Research, March 17, 2008
Title: “Why the Bush Administration ‘Watergated’ Eliot Spitzer”
Author: F. William Engdahl

Student Researchers: Rob Hunter, Elizabeth Rathbun, and Rebecca Newsome

Faculty Evaluator: Mickey S. Huff, MA

The exposure of New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s tryst with a luxury call girl had little to do with the Bush administration’s high moral standards for public servants. Author F. William Engdahl advises that, “in evaluating spectacular scandals around prominent public figures, it is important to ask what and who might want to eliminate that person.” Timing suggests that Spitzer was likely a target of a White House and Wall Street operation to silence one of its most dangerous and vocal critics of their handling of the current financial market crisis.

Spitzer had become increasingly public in blaming the Bush administration for the subprime crisis. He testified in mid-February before the US House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee and later that day, in a national CNBC interview, laid blame squarely on the administration for creating an environment ripe for predatory lenders.

On February 14, the Washington Post published an editorial by Spitzer titled, “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers,” which charged, “Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

In this editorial, Spitzer explained:

The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.”

The editorial appeared the day after Spitzer’s ill-fated rendezvous with the prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel. With that article, some Washington insiders believe, Spitzer signed his own political death warrant.

On March 4, 2008, Spitzer furthermore proposed legislation that would have imposed penalties for mortgage fraud and predatory lending.1

Curiously, Spitzer, who had been elected governor in 2006, defeating a Republican by winning nearly 70 percent of the vote, has been not charged with any crime. His case went into the hands of Washington and not those of New York State authorities, underscoring the clear political nature of Spitzer’s “offense.” New York Assembly Republicans immediately announced plans to impeach Spitzer or put him on public trial if he were to refuse resignation. Although prostitution is illegal in most US states, clients of prostitutes are almost never charged, nor are their names typically released while a case is in process.

Spitzer’s editorial concluded, “When history tells the story of the sub-prime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably . . . it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. The administration was so willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.”

Citation

1. “Governor Spitzer Proposes Legislation to Address Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis,” New York State website, March 4, 2008.

The post # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer appeared first on Project Censored.

Student Researchers: Kyle Corcoran, Alan Scher, Bill Gibbons, and Elizabeth Rathbun

Faculty Evaluator: Mickey S. Huff, MA

Testimony in the Japanese parliament, broadcast live on Japanese television in January 2008, challenged the premise and validity of the Global War on Terror. Parliament member Yukihisa Fujita insisted that an investigation be conducted into the war’s origin: the events of 9/11.

In a parliament Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee session held to debate the ethics of renewing Japan’s “anti-terror law,” which commits Japan to providing logistical support for coalition forces operating in Afghanistan, Fujita opened the session by stating, “I would like to talk about the origin of this war on terrorism, which was the attacks of 9/11, . . . When discussing these anti-terror laws we should ask ourselves, what was 9/11? And what is terrorism?”

Fujita pointed out that, “So far the only thing the government has said is that we think it was caused by al-Qaeda because President Bush told us so. We have not seen any real proof that it was al-Qaeda.” He reminded parliament that twenty-four Japanese citizens were killed on 9/11, yet the mandate of a criminal investigation by the Japanese government never followed. “This is a crime so surely an investigation needs to be carried out,” said Fujita (Censored 2008, #16).

Fujita went on extensively to ask “about the suspicious information being uncovered and the doubts people worldwide are having about the events of 9/11.”

The Japanese parliament viewed several slides from the Pentagon and World Trade Center (WTC) sites as Fujita explained each. The slides showed evidence inconsistent with official explanation: damage in and around the Pentagon was not consistent with the damage a 757 airplane would cause. Fujita noted, “Also, there were more than eighty security cameras at the Pentagon, but officials have refused to release the footage. In any case, as you have just seen, there is no picture of the airplane or of its wreckage in any of these photographs. It is very strange that no such pictures have been shown to us.” A US Air Force official corroborated the fact that the plane executed a U-turn and avoided the Defense Secretary’s office, a feat that would be impossible for an unskilled first-time pilot to maneuver; and no air defense was made in the ninety-minute interval between the initial impact of the planes at the WTC and the Pentagon. Fujita added, “It is baffling that no flight records were found at any of four sites.” On the ground at the WTC sites, both sounds and visual evidence from explosions were verified. Flying debris shot out as far as 150 meters consistent with buildings exploding. A New York fireman during rescue operations confirmed that a series of explosions resembled a professional demolition, and a Japanese survivor heard explosions while fleeing the site. The World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7), forty-seven stories high and located one block away, collapsed into its footprint, seven hours after the main WTC buildings were attacked, in five or six seconds, although no plane struck it and it had minimal fire damage. Not only did the 9/11 Commission fail to mention WTC 7, but the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) made no mention of it in their reports.

Fujita went on to detail proof of insider trading from September 6 through 8, when investors executed “put options” to sell stock in United and American Airlines at a fixed price. Finance specialist Keiichiro Asao responded with confirmation that such complex transaction would be the work of insiders rather than al-Qaeda.

Fujita then addressed Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, “I would like to know why the Prime Minister thinks it was the Taliban who was responsible for 9/11.” He continued, “We need to go back to the beginning and not just simply and blindly trust the US government explanation and indirect information provided by them. . . . We need to look at this evidence and ask ourselves what the war on terrorism really is. . . . We need to ask who the real victims of this war on terrorism are. I think the citizens of the world are its victims.”

“Prime Minister,” Fujita continued, “what about the origin of the War on Terror and the idea of whether it is right or wrong to participate in it? Is there really a reason to participate in this War on Terror?”

Fujita received support for concluding that the reason for participating in the US War on Terror needs to be investigated and analyzed. Opposition blocked the extension of Japan’s anti-terror law and colleagues acknowledged his bravery with congratulatory phone calls.

This came to an end in mid-January when, after months of parliamentary debates and the opposition of at least 50 percent of the Japanese public, Fukuda rammed the anti-terror bill through parliament. After the bill was voted down by opposition in the Upper House plenary session on January 12, the government resubmitted it later that same day to the Lower House, where the ruling conservative party holds the majority, and turned a bill into a law. Thus, they overturned a veto in the Upper House.

This is the first time in half a century that a Japanese government has resorted to such tactics—deemed a drastic measure by Japanese standards.1

According to Christopher W. Hughes, professor of politics and international studies at University of Warwick, “Fukuda’s government was under a lot of US pressure to re-deploy ships, and even if he was always somewhat doubtful about the importance of the mission in military terms and the whole US War on Terror, he perceived passing the bill as very important to US-Japan relations. This was also impressed upon him by a personal meeting with US President Bush.”

Citation

1. Axel Berkofsky, “Japan: The Deployment Dilemma,” International Relations and Security Network, January 24, 2008.

UPDATE BY BENJAMIN FULFORD

If you still believe that the English language corporate media is free, take a look behind the scenes at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (FCCJ) and think again.

I was a member of that club for over two decades, but I had no clue about what it really represented until I tried to stage a press conference about 9/11. From that point on all sorts of nasty things started to happen and I suddenly realized the place seemed more like a nest of spies than a club for journalists.

For example, people I did not know tried to have me evicted from the club, e-mails vanished from my inbox before I got to read them, and people started to spread the word that I had mental issues.

The list of insults to press freedom at the club since that initial conference is too long to write about in detail here, so I will merely cite the most recent example.

Yukihisa Fujita, a member of parliament for the opposition Democratic Party, in a parliamentary debate broadcast nationwide on NHK, asked Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda about many of the glaring discrepancies in the official US government explanation of what happened on 9/11. A member of parliament in Japan, a US ally, showed powerful evidence on national TV that the US government murdered 3,000 of its own citizens as well as people from Japan and many other nations. I suggested we call him for a press conference, and nine working journalists—representing a potential audience of billions—agreed. Usually, only three or more yes votes from working journalists is enough for an event to go ahead. Despite this, the Wall Street Journal’s James Sims, head of the Professional Activities Committee (PAC), in confederation with FCCJ President Martyn Williams, vetoed the event even though it was subject matter that they, as technical journalists, do not cover. They vetoed it in violation of Article 3 of the club bylaws that call for press freedom. Not only that, they kicked me off the PAC in a blatant attempt to shut me up.

Fujita has since been invited to speak to the EU parliament and many other venues. Fujita has been given a chance to ask more questions in parliament, and many Japanese news magazines have written about his activities. Books about 9/11 are also selling well in Japan. A growing group of Japanese politicians has become aware of what really happened on that day. The Japanese government itself actually knows the truth and is starting to affect the US–Japan alliance in fundamental ways. The Japanese government’s formal replies to Fujita’s questions show it is becoming increasingly suspicious that the US government murdered over twenty Japanese citizens. The long-term repercussions for US security could be huge.

The post # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror appeared first on Project Censored.

Student Researchers: Lauren Anderson, Corey Sharp-Sabatino, and Marie Daghlian

Faculty Evaluator: Noel Byrne, PhD

While the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) turns a blind eye, drug companies are making false, unsubstantiated, and misleading claims in their advertising, often withholding mandated disclosure of dangerous side effects. Though companies are required to submit their advertisements to the FDA, the agency does not review them before they are released to the public. A Government Accountability Office report released November 2006 found that the FDA reviews only a small portion of the advertisements it receives, and does not review them using consistent criteria.

Claiming lack of funds and resources necessary to impose effective regulations on drug marketing, the FDA is asking Congress to charge drug companies fees in order to fund FDA review of advertisements before they go public as part of renewing the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA). PDUFA has come under fire from consumer advocates who say it gives the pharmaceutical industry too much leverage over the FDA and has resulted in rushing drugs to market. But the FDA hopes that if Congress approves the plan, it will raise more than $6 million annually through “user fees” to review advertisements.

Although Congress may approve the plan, author Shreema Mehta says a range of public-interest groups, from ad critics at Commercial Alert to senior advocates at Gray Panthers, want an outright ban on all prescription drug advertisements. Public Citizen and Consumers Union warn that the FDA review of drug advertisements will likewise be tainted if funded by the very companies the FDA is charged with scrutinizing. Critics are calling for stricter regulations over drug companies and they say eliminating the financial ties between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry should be the first step.

But the pharmaceutical industry is not the only industry that benefits from inconsistent FDA reviews and inadequate investigations of advertising claims. One of the nation’s biggest infant bottled water companies, Nursery Water, is misleading parents with erroneous information and false health claims on its website and in advertising materials, touting the safety and benefits of fluoride in infant bottled water, in clear violation of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and FDA rules.

A letter sent from scientists at the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to officials at the FDA and FTC uncovers EWG’s extensive review of Nursery Water’s claims that both misrepresent the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which states, “supplementary fluoride should not be provided during the first six months of life” (AAP 2005), and contradict the official position of the FDA, which states, “the health claim [for fluoride] is not intended for use on bottled water products specifically marketed for use by infants” (FDA 2006).1

Mehta reports that representatives from the food and pharmaceutical industries say banning ads would violate the First Amendment. “In our system of jurisprudence we have a very high threshold that protects the right to free speech, whether it’s political or commercial,” Jim Davidson, attorney for the drug-company-funded Advertising Coalition, told the Associated Press.

Mehta warns of the increased leverage food and drug companies may have over the FDA should Congress approve the fee plan. She reports that in 2005, pharmaceutical companies spent about $4.2 billion in advertisements aimed at the public, known as “direct-to-consumer” ads, up from about $2.5 billion in 2000 and $1.1 billion in 1997. And the promoting of drugs to physicians, with almost $7.2 billion spent in 2005, dwarfs advertising to the public. At the same time, public spending on prescription drugs has steadily increased, reaching about $140 billion in 2001, more than tripling since 1990.

Meanwhile, Mehta reports that it’s not clear whether the FDA reviews most advertisements at all. The agency can direct drug companies to change their advertisements after they are released to the public if it finds they violate regulations, but does no screening before the release of ads that may be dangerously deceptive.

Citation

1. Anila Jacob, M.D., M.P.H. and Jane Houlihan, “EWG calls for Investigation of Nursery Water,” Environmental Working Group, February 1, 2008.

UPDATE BY SHREEMA MEHTA

Americans are taking more prescription drugs than ever before, leading the world in drug consumption and reaping huge profits for pharmaceutical companies. America is also one of the few countries that allow public advertising of prescription drugs. This is not a coincidence. Many doctors and consumer advocates have criticized advertisements featuring beaming people explaining how Valtrex changed their lives as deceptive, inaccurate, and invasive to the doctor-patient relationship. Many activists favor an outright ban on prescription drug ads; others call for strict regulation. This article dealt with the FDA’s ties to the pharmaceutical industry and its proposal to regulate what critics feel is dangerously deceptive advertising by charging drug companies to review their commercials.

A few months after this article ran, President Bush renewed the Prescription Drug User Fee, which includes the industry-funded review process of drug advertisements, putting into effect what critics argue is yet another conflict of interest in the agency.

Though the Washington Post ran several articles on PDUFA, few explored the importance of the new proposal for company-funded advertisement regulation. Though press coverage of the problems of drug advertising is slim, advocacy groups remain active on the issue.

Commercial Alert runs a prescription drug ad campaign that is currently working to raise support for the Public Health Protection Act, which would ban drug ads designed for the public. They are on the web at http://www.commercialalert.org/. The Consumers Union also supports this bill. Learn more about their campaign at https://secure.consumersunion.org/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr009=vjqvq0rk51.app44a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1889.

The post # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drug appeared first on Project Censored.

Revolution Magazine, October 1, 2007
Title: “Starvation, Aid Agencies and the Benevolence of the Imperialists”
Author: Revolution Cooperative

Student Researchers: Susanna Gibson, Cedric Therene, and Chris Armanino

Faculty Evaluator: Keith Gouveia, JD

In August 2007, one of the biggest and best-known American charity organizations, CARE, announced that it was turning down $45 million a year in food aid from the United States government. CARE claims that the way US aid is structured causes rather than reduces hunger in the countries where it is received. The US budgets $2 billion a year for food aid, which buys US crops to feed populations facing starvation amidst crisis or enduring chronic hunger.

The organization’s announcement prompted argument about the forms and objectives of the aid given by the US and other big powers to third world countries and the role that most charity organizations are playing. The reasoning behind CARE’s decision is part of a years-long debate that has influenced everything from US trade and domestic legislation to the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization talks.

CARE’s 2006 report, “White Paper on Food Aid Policy,” points out that the current food aid program is motivated by profit rather than altruism. The policy, which dictates that donated money be used to purchase food in the home country, results in a program driven by “the export and surplus disposal objectives of the exporting country” and not the needs of people in hunger.

The US policy implements the practice of monetization, a food aid policy in which the US government buys surplus food from American agribusinesses that have already been heavily subsidized, and ships it via US shipping lines (generating transport costs that eat up much of the $2 billion annual food aid provided by the US government) to aid organizations working around the world. The aid organizations then sell the US-grown crops to local populations, at a dramatically reduced cost. The aid organizations use proceeds from these sales to fund their development and anti-poverty programs. But several groups, with CARE at the forefront, have pointed out that this policy has the effect of undermining local farmers and destabilizing the very food production systems that aid organizations are working to strengthen.

A policy that puts local farmers out of commission and undermines agriculture in developing countries becomes part of a process by which those countries lose the means to develop—and thus grow more dependent on the stronger and more dominant nations. These countries become more vulnerable in every sphere, not only economically but politically as well. The result is likely to be more hunger and less sovereignty as countries are tied ever more tightly to the world market.

“We are not against emergency food aid for things like drought and famine,” CARE spokeswoman Alina Labrada said, “but local farmers are being hurt instead of helped by this mechanism.”

The European Union has also been critical of the US food aid program. European countries all but phased out the practice of monetization in the 1990s. Only 10 percent of their budgeted food aid is reserved for crops grown in Europe. Suspicions remain that the US uses monitized food aid programs to avoid limits on its universally contested farm subsidies.

The UN World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid in the world, has rejected the practice of monetization and does not allow its grain to be sold by NGOs.

The past two US congressional farm bills presented proposals to shift portions of the food aid budget from grain to cash donations, to be made available for people in need to buy locally grown crops. Both attempts were voted down.

The post # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid appeared first on Project Censored.

Student Researchers: Stephanie Smith and Sarah Maddox

Faculty Evaluator: Robert McNamara, PhD

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials are considering a first strike nuclear option to be used anywhere in the world a threat may arise. Former armed force chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France, and the Netherlands authored a 150-page blueprint calling for urgent reform of NATO, and a new pact drawing the US, NATO, and the European Union (EU) together in a “grand strategy” to tackle the challenges of an “increasingly brutal world.” The authors of the plan insist that “the first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.” The manifesto was presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to NATO’s secretary general in mid-January 2008. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008.

The authors—General John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and NATO’s ex-supreme commander in Europe; General Klaus Naumann, Germany’s former top soldier and ex-chairman of NATO’s military committee; General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff; Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff; and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defense staff in the UK—paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the West in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope. The five commanders argue that the West’s values and way of life are under threat, while the West is struggling to summon the will to defend them.

They claim that the following are key threats:

• Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism
• The “dark side” of globalization, meaning international terrorism, organized crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction
• Climate change and energy insecurity, entailing a contest for resources and potential “environmental” migration on a mass scale
• The weakening of the nation state as well as of organizations such as the UN, NATO and the EU.

To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of NATO decision-making methods, a new “directorate” of US, European, and NATO leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU “obstruction” of, and rivalry with, NATO. Among the most radical changes demanded are the following:

• A shift from consensus decision-making in NATO bodies to majority voting, resulting in faster action through an end to national vetoes
• The abolition of national caveats in NATO operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign
• No role in decision-making on NATO operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations
• Use of force without UN Security Council authorization when “immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings.”

Reserving the right to initiate nuclear attack was a central element of the West’s Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union. Critics argue that what was once a method used to face down a nuclear superpower is no longer appropriate.

UPDATE BY IAN TRAYNOR

I was the only person to write about this and nothing much has really happened since.

The post # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option appeared first on Project Censored.

National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, September 24, 2007
Title: “Marijuana Arrests for Year 2006—829,625 Tops Record High”
Author: Paul Armentano

Student Researchers: Ben Herzfeldt and Caitlyn Ioli

Faculty Advisor: Pat Jackson, PhD

For the fourth year in a row, US marijuana arrests set an all-time record, according to 2006 FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Marijuana arrests in 2006 totaled 829,627, an increase from 786,545 in 2005. At current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every thirty-eight seconds, with marijuana arrests comprising nearly 44 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. According to Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges during the past decade, while arrests for cocaine and heroine have declined sharply.

The number of arrests in 2006 increased more than 5.5 percent from 2005. Of the 829,627 arrests, 89 percent were for possession, not sale or manufacture. Possession arrests exceeded arrests for all violent crimes combined, as they have for years. The remaining offenders, including those growing for personal or medical use, were charged with sale and/or manufacturing.

A study of New York City marijuana arrests conducted by Queens College, released in April 2008, reports that between 1998 and 2007 the New York police arrested 374,900 people whose most serious crime was the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana offense. That number is eight times higher than the number of arrests (45,300) from 1988 to 1997. Nearly 90 percent arrested between 1998 and 2007 were male, despite the fact that national studies show marijuana use roughly equal between men and women. And while national surveys show Whites are more likely to use marijuana than Blacks and Latinos, the New York study reported that 83 percent of those arrested were Black or Latino. Blacks accounted for 52 percent of the arrests, Latinos and other people of color accounted for 33 percent, while Whites accounted for only 15 percent.1

Over the years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested nationally have been under the age of twenty. The Midwest accounts for 57 percent of all marijuana-related arrests, while the region with the fewest arrests is the West, with 30 percent. This is possibly a result of the decriminalization of marijuana in western states, such as California, on the state and local level over the past several years.

“Enforcing marijuana prohibition . . . has led to the arrests of nearly 20 million Americans, regardless of the fact that some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives,” says St. Pierre.

In the last fifteen years, marijuana arrests have increased 188 percent, while public opinion is increasingly one of tolerance, and self-reported usage is basically unchanged. “The steady escalation of marijuana arrests is happening in direct defiance of public opinion,” according to Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, DC, “Voters in communities all over the country—from Denver to Seattle, from Eureka Springs, Arkansas to Missoula County, Montana—have passed measures saying they don’t want marijuana arrests to be priority. Yet marijuana arrests have set an all-time record for four years running . . .”

Meanwhile, enforcing marijuana laws costs between $10 and $12 billion a year.

Citation

1. Jim Dwyer, “On Arrests, Demographics, and Marijuana,” New York Times, April 30, 2008.

UPDATE BY BRUCE MIRKEN

This story was essentially a subset of a larger annual story, the FBI’s yearly Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), and the 2006 report, released in September 2007, marked the fourth year in a row that marijuana arrests set a new record. While the UCR, as usual, got wide mainstream coverage, the only major mainstream outlet to note the marijuana arrest record was the Reuters wire service. Marijuana Policy Project staffers also did two or three local radio interviews, and the story was picked up in one form or another by a handful of other outlets—most notably Bill Steigerwald’s column in the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, an article on AlterNet, and Andrew Sullivan’s blog, The Daily Dish.

This is typical of the mass media tendency to view marijuana policy through the lens of Cheech-and-Chong stereotypes—as a trivial story of minor importance, more a curiosity than serious news. But the sheer numbers suggest it deserves more attention. Nearly 830,000 marijuana arrests are made annually, about 89 percent of them for simple possession, not sales or trafficking. That’s one marijuana arrest every thirty-eight seconds, and more arrests for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined. Put another way, it’s the equivalent of arresting every man, woman, and child in the state of North Dakota plus every man, woman, and child in Des Moines, Iowa, in one year—and doing the same thing every year, year after year. All of this comes at a total cost to taxpayers estimated at anywhere from $14 billion to $42 billion per year.

New national arrest statistics won’t be out until about the time this book is published, but scientific data continue to emerge that demolish the intellectual underpinnings of marijuana prohibition. Studies continue to find marijuana far less toxic or addictive than such legal drugs as alcohol and tobacco, while in Britain, where most marijuana possession arrests were discontinued in January 2004, marijuana use has steadily declined since arrests stopped, according to official government surveys. Sadly, even though the British government’s scientific advisors urge continuation of the no-arrest policy, as of this writing in May 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears determined to launch a new crackdown.

In the US, the clearest signs of progress have come from efforts to permit medical use of marijuana. Twelve states now have medical marijuana laws, and a medical marijuana initiative on Michigan’s November 2008 ballot was ahead by nearly two to one in the only public poll released so far. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has indicated he would end the federal war on these state medical marijuana laws, and fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton has also indicated some willingness to rethink federal policy. Republican John McCain has expressed support for current federal law.

Extensive information about marijuana policy and efforts to change our current laws is available from the Marijuana Policy Project, http://www.mpp.org or (202) 462-5747. A more wide-ranging newsletter on drug policy issues is the Drug War Chronicle, at stopthedrugwar.org.

UPDATE BY PAUL ARMENTANO

Since beginning my tenure at NORML in the mid-1990s, I’ve observed the growth of the annual number of Americans arrested for minor marijuana violations from a low of 288,000 in 1991 to a record 830,000 in 2006. Yet despite this nearly 300 percent increase in minor pot busts (nearly 90 percent of all marijuana arrests are for possession offenses), mainstream media coverage of these skyrocketing arrest rates remains nominal.

The media’s disinterest in this subject is uniquely troubling, given that the arrest data is derived from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, and that other aspects of this report (for example: has the violent crime rate risen or fallen?) traditionally generate hundreds of major news stories each year. Equally troubling is the media’s habit of improperly attributing these marijuana arrest figures to NORML rather than to the FBI, the law enforcement organization that actually tracks and reports said data.

Arguably, the most disturbing result of these rising arrests is that record numbers of Americans are now being ordered by the courts to attend ‘drug treatment’ programs for marijuana—regardless of whether they require treatment (most don’t) or not.

According to the most recent state and national statistics, up to 70 percent of all individuals in drug treatment for pot are now placed there by the criminal justice system. Of those enrolled in treatment, more than one in three hadn’t even used marijuana in the thirty days prior to their admission. Yet, disingenuously, the White House argues that these rising admission rates justify the need to continue arresting cannabis users—despite the fact that it is the policy, not the drug itself—that is actually fueling the spike in drug treatment.

Finally, it must be emphasized that criminal marijuana enforcement disproportionately impacts citizens by age—an all too often overlooked fact that has serious implications for those of us who work in drug policy reform. According to a 2005 study commissioned by the NORML Foundation, 74 percent of all Americans busted for pot are under age thirty, and one out of four are age eighteen or younger. Though these young people suffer the most under our current laws, they lack the financial means and political capital to effectively influence politicians to challenge them. Young people also lack the money to adequately fund the drug law reform movement at a level necessary to adequately represent and protect their interests. As a result, marijuana arrests continue to climb unabated, and few in the press—and even fewer lawmakers—feel any need or sufficient political pressure to address it.

(Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML and the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.)

The post # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record appeared first on Project Censored.

La Via Campesina, September 11, 2007
Title: “Wilderswil Declaration on Livestock Diversity”
Authors: Representatives of pastoralists, indigenous peoples, and smallholder farmers

Student Researchers: Maureen Santos, Andrew Kochevar, and Stephanie Smith

Faculty Evaluator: Nick Geist, PhD

The industrial model of livestock production is causing the worldwide destruction of animal diversity. At least one indigenous livestock breed becomes extinct each month as a result of overreliance on select breeds imported from the United States and Europe, according to the study, “The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources,” conducted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Since research for the report began in 1999, 2,000 local breeds have been identified as at risk.

The industrial livestock breeding and production system that is being imposed on the world requires high levels of investment in technology and receives subsidies and other resources that have distorted the market.

Consequences of the livestock industry’s globalization include the threat to sustainable development and global food security, destruction of the livelihoods of over one billion people worldwide, smallholder bankruptcies and suicides, and the extinction of some of the world’s hardiest breeds of animals.

The FAO report, which the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) contributed to, surveyed farm animals in 169 countries, and found that nearly 70 percent of the world’s entire remaining unique livestock are bred in developing countries. The findings were presented to over 300 policy makers, scientists, breeders, and industrialized livestock keepers at the First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources, held in Interlaken, Switzerland, from September 3 to 7, 2007.

In response to these findings, scientists from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, ILRI’s supporting organization, have called for the rapid establishment of gene banks to conserve the sperm and ovaries of key animals critical for the survival of global animal populations. Over the past six years, ILRI has built a detailed database, called the Domestic Animal Genetic Resoures Information System, containing research-based information on the distribution, characteristics, and statuses of 669 breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens indigenous to Africa and Asia.

Meanwhile, concurrent with the Interlaken summit, around 300 representatives from thirty organizations of pastoralists, indigenous peoples, smallholder farmers, and NGOs from twenty-six countries met in a parallel conference, to establish opposition to globalized industrial livestock production. The Livestock Diversity Forum to Defend Food Sovereignty and Livestock Keepers’ Rights met in Wilderswil, Switzerland, and presented an alternative Declaration on Livestock Diversity on September 6, 2007.

The Wilderswil Declaration maintains that while the FAO report contains good analysis and squarely points to the industrial livestock system as one of the main forces behind destruction of diversity, the FAO Global Plan of Action contains nothing that addresses these causes.

The Declaration states:

It is totally unacceptable that governments agree on a plan that does not challenge the policies that cause the loss of diversity . . .

Defending livestock diversity is not a matter of [privatized] genes but of collective rights.

The social organizations of pastoralists, herders, and farmers have no interest in participating in a plan which does not address the central causes behind the destruction of livestock diversity, but rather provides crutches and weak support for a collapsing global livestock production system. Because the Global Plan of Action does not challenge industrial livestock production, we reinforce our commitment to organize ourselves to save livestock diversity and to counter the negative forces bearing on us.

This peoples’ proposal asserts that it is not possible to conserve animal diversity without protecting and strengthening the local communities that currently maintain and nurture such diversity. These livestock keepers maintain that governments should accept and guarantee collective rights and community control over natural resources, including communal grazing lands and migration routes, water, and livestock breeds.

The Declaration further states:

Local knowledge and biodiversity can only be protected and promoted through collective rights. Collective knowledge is intimately linked to cultural diversity, particular ecosystems, and biodiversity, and cannot be dissociated from any of these other three aspects. Any definition and implementation of the rights of livestock keepers should take this fully into account. It is clear that the rights of livestock keepers are not compatible with intellectual property rights systems [i.e., gene banks] because these systems enable exclusive and private monopoly control. There must be no patents or other forms of intellectual property rights on biodiversity and the knowledge related to it.

The organization maintains that they want livestock keeping that is on a human scale, based on the health and wellbeing of humankind not industrial profit. They point out that the dominant model of production is based on a dangerously narrow genetic base of livestock that is propped up by the widespread use of veterinary drugs. Yet this risky and high-cost system is providing more and more of our food: globally, one third of pigs, one half of eggs, two thirds of milk, and three quarters of the world’s chickens are produced from industrial breeding lines.

The post # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction appeared first on Project Censored.

Student Researcher: Sarah Maddox

Faculty Evaluator: Barbara Bloom, PhD

In states across the country, child advocates have harshly condemned the conditions under which young offenders are housed—conditions that involve sexual abuse, physical abuse, and even death. The US Justice Department (DOJ) has filed lawsuits against facilities in eleven states for supervision that is either abusive or harmfully negligent. While the DOJ lacks the power to shut down juvenile correction facilities, through litigation it can force a state to improve its detention centers and protect the civil rights of jailed youth.

Lack of oversight and nationally accepted standards of tracking abuse make it difficult to know exactly how many youngsters have been assaulted or neglected.

In a nationally conducted survey, the Associated Press contacted each state agency that oversees juvenile correction centers and asked for information on the numbers of deaths as well as the numbers of allegations and confirmed cases of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by staff members since January 1, 2004. According to the survey, more than 13,000 claims of abuse were identified in juvenile correction centers around the country from 2004 through 2007—a remarkable total given that the total population of detainees was about 46,000 at the time the states were surveyed in 2007.

The worst physical confrontations have ended in death. At least five juveniles died after being forcibly placed in restraints in facilities run by state agencies or private facilities with government contracts since January 1, 2004.

The use of restraint techniques and devices and their too-aggressive application have long been controversial and came under intense scrutiny last year after the death of fourteen-year-old Martin Lee Anderson. A grainy video taken at a Florida boot camp in January 2006 showed several guards striking the teen while restraining him. On October 12, 2006, six guards and a nurse were acquitted of manslaughter charges after defense attorneys argued that the guards used acceptable tactics.

In Maryland, seventeen-year-old Isaiah Simmons lost consciousness and died after he was held to the floor face down at a privately owned facility that was contracted by the state. Prosecutors say the staff waited forty-one minutes after the boy was unresponsive to call for help. An attorney for one of the counselors said the men were only trying to prevent Simmons from hurting himself or someone else. A judge dismissed misdemeanor charges against five counselors. The state has appealed.

Other restraint-related deaths involve three boys—seventeen, fifteen, and thirteen years of age—in facilities in Tennessee, New York, and Georgia, respectively. At least twenty-four other juveniles died in correction centers between 2004 and 2007 from suicide and natural causes or preexisting medical conditions.

A drive to reform California’s juvenile justice system follows successful landmark litigation against the California Youth Authority (CYA) in April 2006. During litigation, advocates learned that conditions in many California county juvenile halls were as bad as those in the state CYA facilities. Yet as the appalling conditions in the CYA were revealed, officials shifted much of the population from the CYA facilities to the county juvenile halls.

In 2006, reported conditions in California juvenile halls included severe overcrowding, with teenagers sleeping floors; nonexistent educational opportunity; nonexistent mental healthcare or rehabilitative programs; isolation for over twenty-three hours a day for months straight; use of excessive force, including beatings and pepper sprayings; and inappropriate administration of medications.

Attorney Richard Ulmer states, “California law expressly requires that a juvenile hall not be regarded as a penal institution, but rather be a safe and supportive homelike environment. But many juvenile halls in the state are more like penitentiaries than homes.”1

Similar crises of institutional abuse against troubled youth are occurring in states across the nation.

Citation:

1.  Richard Ulmar, “California Juvenile Justice System in Crisis; Lawsuits to End Abuses Against Children,” PR Newswire, April 19, 2006.

The post # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers appeared first on Project Censored.

BSNorrell.blogspot.com, December 11, 2007
Title: “Indigenous Peoples Protest World Bank Carbon Scam in Bali”
Author: Brenda Norrell

Common Dreams, December 12, 2007
Title: “Indigenous Peoples Shut Out of Climate Talks, Plans”
Author: Haider Rizvi

Forest Peoples Programme, November 30, 2007
Title: “NGO Statement on the World Bank’s Proposed Forest Carbon Partnership Facility”
Author: Tom Griffiths

Student Researchers: Jessica Read, Andrea Lochtefeld, and Christina Long

Faculty Evaluator: John Wingard, PhD

In September 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The resolution called for recognition of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and control over their lands and resources. The adoption of this resolution comes after twenty-two years of diplomatic negotiations at the United Nations (UN) involving its member states, international civil society groups, and representatives of the world’s aboriginal communities.

The declaration emphasizes the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their institutions, cultures, and traditions, and to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and aspirations. The declaration was passed by an overwhelming majority vote of 143–4. Only the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand voted against the resolution, expressing the view that strong emphasis on rights to indigenous self-determination and control over lands and resources would hinder economic development and undermine “established democratic norms.”

Three months following the passage of the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, however, a delegation of indigenous peoples were forcibly barred from entering the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali, despite the fact that the delegation was invited to attend. Indigenous peoples from around the world protested the exclusion from the climate negotiations.

The indigenous delegates went to Bali to denounce what they contend are false solutions to climate change proposed by the UN—such as carbon trading, agrofuels, and so-called “avoided deforestation.”

The World Bank initiative, Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), was launched in Bali as part of the discussions on Reducing Emissions Through Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD), despite indigenous disapproval and the fact that 18–20 percent of annual global carbon emissions are caused by deforestation. The initiative, which allows tropical forests to be included in carbon offsetting schemes, fails to combat climate change, the groups say, because it allows industrialized countries and companies to buy their way out of emission reduction. The bank, which has a vested interest in carbon trading, has a particularly appalling track record in relation to funding deforestation and carbon emission projects.

The nongovermental organization (NGO) Statement on the World Bank’s proposed FCPF, endorsed by eighty-four organizations on November 30, 2007, pointed to shortcomings in the World Bank’s proposal: “As the World Bank Group positions itself to become a lead agency on climate change mitigation and the central administrative body of the proposed FCPF, we are concerned that the Bank risks losing sight of its central mission of reducing poverty as it adopts a narrow focus on carbon accounting. We note also that the Bank continues to undermine its own climate change mitigation efforts by persisting in funding fossil fuel industries on a global scale and enabling deforestation.”

The statement continues, “We are alarmed that to date the FCPF plans have been developed in a rushed way with little public discussion. Only weeks before it proposes to launch the FCPF at the 13th COP [Conference of Parties] of the UNFCCC in Bali, potentially affected forest peoples in tropical and sub-tropical countries have not been properly consulted about the design and objectives of the FCPF. It remains unclear who benefits from this accelerated timeline . . . The proposed governance mechanisms confine decision-making to governmental and commercial participants. They do not allow opportunities for civil society and affected forest peoples to take part in decision-making regarding readiness plans, packages and implementation, eligibility, and REDD strategies and transactions.”

Jihan Gearon, of the indigenous Environmental Network, responded to the ban on Indigenous participation by stating, “Our communities and livelihoods are the first affected by climate change. We are also the most affected by the unsustainable solutions being proposed to solve climate change. . . . This past September 13, the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which protects the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories, and environment. Yet through the faulty process and false climate change solutions of the UNFCCC, these fundamental human rights are being violated.”

Sandy Gauntlett of the Global Forest Coalition and chairman of the Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition said, “With this proposal, the World Bank is violating the principle of Prior Informed Consent, which is enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous peoples should not just be consulted on this facility. Without their full and prior informed consent this facility should be disbanded.”

UPDATE BY BRENDA NORRELL

Indigenous peoples continue to expose carbon credits as a scam for profiteering corporations and the World Bank, fueled by the easily manipulated news media. While carbon brokers become millionaires, the reality of the carbon credit scheme hits indigenous peoples around the world with full force, particularly in South America, India, and Africa.

While the carbon credit scam is designed to be vague and lack accountability, Tom Goldtooth, Navajo and executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), said the carbon scheme serves as a means of relieving guilt for the rich, but is a fictional concept.

“It allows the polluter to continue to pollute and actually pays them to pollute,” said Goldtooth, while continuing IEN’s education campaign on carbon credits in 2008.

While the goal of carbon credits is reduction of greenhouse gasses, Goldtooth said there is no assurance that the schemes ever become reality. For example, Goldtooth said there is no guarantee that a tree planted today will live until maturity, without being chopped down, and then offset deforestation and fossil fuel gasses.

The promotion of carbon trading was a focus of caucuses of the 7th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in April 2008.

At the United Nations in New York, many indigenous peoples voiced outrage when the Permanent Forum’s final report praised the World Bank funded carbon trading, including the Clean Development Mechanism, without exposing human rights violations and environmental destruction.

Florina Lopez, coordinator of the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network of Abya Yala, urged the forum to affirm the rejection of carbon trading mechanisms and concerns over specific implementations. Over thirty organizations called for the final report to include a section outlining their concerns.

The grave problems with carbon trading include violations of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. For example, those objecting to carbon trade promotion said the Wayuu people in Colombia did not give free, prior, and informed consent for construction of the Jepirachi Wind Project in their sacred territory. In fact, they were unaware of the project.

More than 200 Wayuu were assassinated prior to clearing the land for implementation of wind projects in the area, according to indigenous peoples at the forum. Further, the energy generated from the wind farm is used to power the mega coalmine, Cerrejon mine.

Goldtooth said the carbon market is a huge contradiction, which ultimately funds the nuclear power and fossil fuel industries. Citing human rights violations, Goldtooth said indigenous peoples do not want to be “seduced by the World Bank’s money.”

“In promoting the clean development mechanism projects and carbon trading, the Permanent Forum is allowing oil companies, who are the biggest emitters for greenhouse gases, to continue to pollute,” Goldtooth said. “Promoting the commodification of the air is a corruption of our traditional teachings and violates the original instructions of Indigenous Peoples. We have to make the transition to alternative energy solutions.”

For more information, see the Indigenous Environmental Network (http://www.ienearth.org), Censored News (http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com), and Earthcycles (http://www.earthcycles.net).

UPDATE BY TOM GRIFFITHS

Since the NGO statement expressing serious concerns about the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) presented to the World Bank forest carbon team and several governments in a World Bank meeting in Washington, DC, in November 2005, things have gone from bad to worse.

First, the bank ignored the plea to withhold activation of the facility until public concerns were addressed. The bank plowed ahead with the public launch of the facility at the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bali in December 2007, generating a storm of loud protest by indigenous peoples and civil society representatives outside the meeting room. Inside the meeting room, Vicky Corpuz, chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, made a strong statement condemning the bank’s failure to consult properly with indigenous peoples about global climate and forest initiatives that may affect their communities and lands directly.

In response to these intense criticisms, the bank announced that it would conduct “retroactive consultation” with indigenous peoples on its FCPF plans. Bank meetings with indigenous peoples’ representatives went ahead in February and March 2008 through three meetings in Asia (Katmandu), Africa (Bujumbura) and Latin America (La Paz).

In Asia, indigenous participants presented a series of concerns about rights and accountability problems in the FCPF charter and proposed governance structure that bank staff could not address and only agreed to take away to study further. Some replies given to the participants were arguably misleading, suggesting that the bank’s safeguards would apply to the FCPF when the bank’s legal department in November had already confirmed that the safeguards do not apply in any binding way to FCPF activities unless monies are to be disbursed to specific projects through the facility (while much of its work will not be based on bank-funded projects, but rather policy making and strategy formulation).

In Africa, the same potentially confusing information on the bank’s safeguard policies was presented to meeting participants, and many answers to concerns raised were vague or very general.

In Latin America, some national indigenous organizations have complained that they were not invited to the bank meeting, and those that did attend on the first day rejected the meeting as a non-consultation and obliged the bank to acknowledge that the meeting was only an “information sharing” activity (as dissemination of complete information prior to the meeting, to properly prepare participants, had not taken place). In the same meeting, a statement by indigenous leaders was read aloud, condemning top-down climate change mitigation policies that have not been developed with indigenous peoples, like REDD and the FCPF.

Forest People’s Programme asked for clarification on the vital safeguards issue in May 2008, and was advised by the bank’s FCPF team that this issue is “still being discussed internally within the Bank.” The draft FCPF charter likewise remains inside a black box in the bank, and it is not clear if FPP and civil society concerns about the draft charter have been taken up in any revised legal instrument establishing this controversial forest carbon fund.

In short, the whole question of proper safeguards and accountability of the FCPF to affected citizens and communities and whether or not there will be guarantees for full FCPF conformity with international human rights and environmental law remains unresolved.

At the same time, the bank has pushed forward with even bigger plans on forest and climate change and now proposes to establish a mega forest funds called the Forest Investment Fund (FIF) with a possible budget of $2 billion USD.

It seems that the World Bank just cannot learn lessons: this new FIF is being developed in 2008 without meaningful consultation with forest peoples in developing countries and is coming under increasing public criticism for the lack of transparency in its formulation.

For further information on this news topic in briefings issued by FPP in February 2008, seehttp://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/forest_issues/bases/forest_issues.shtml. Check this website for more news and ongoing controversy over the bank’s forest carbon funds.

Also contact tom@forestpeoples.org and amarantha@forestpeoples.org, or call 44 1608 652893, for more information.

Other useful sources for information include http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/,http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/, http://www.ifiwatchnet.org/, http://www.sinkswatch.org/,http://www.foei.org/en/campaigns/climate, and http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/paginas/view/32.

The post # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights appeared first on Project Censored.

Student Researchers: Carmela Rocha and Elizabeth Allen

Faculty Evaluator: Robert Girling, PhD

The first Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights to be published by the year-old International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) documents enormous challenges to workers rights around the world. The 2007 edition of the survey, covering 138 countries, shows an alarming rise in the number of people killed as a result of their trade union activities, from 115 in 2005 to 144 in 2006. Many more trade unionists around the world were abducted or “disappeared.” Thousands were arrested during the year for their parts in strike action and protests, while thousands of others were fired in retaliation for organizing. Growing numbers of trade union activists in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific are facing police brutality and murder as unions are viewed as opponents of corporatist governments.

Colombia is still the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists. In 2006, seventy-eight people were murdered because of their union activities, an increase of eight from the previous year. There is strong and disturbing evidence of government involvement in these killings. Of 1,165 recorded crimes against trade unionists in Colombia, just fifty-six went before the courts, and only ten resulted in sentences.

In Mexico, two miners died and forty-one were injured when 800 police officers were sent to confront 500 striking miners and began a brutal evacuation of the mining company’s premises. Violent scenes erupted in Ecuador when police and the army aggressively repressed a union-organized protest against the negotiation of a free trade agreement with the US, leaving fifteen seriously injured.

Employers in the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) of Central America have managed thus far to thwart workers’ efforts to organize.

In the United States, a National Labor Relations Board ruling deprived millions of the right to organize by expanding the definition of the term “supervisor.”

Across Africa, the use of disproportionate force and mass dismissals in retaliation for strike action were a frequent occurrence in 2007. In Kenya, over 1,000 workers on a flower plantation were dismissed after going on strike over workplace injuries and discrimination. Mass dismissals were also reported at a diamond mine in Botswana and at a road-construction site in Cameroon. In Egypt, Libya, and Sudan, the single trade union system prohibits effective bargaining or representation, while in Equatorial Guinea the dictatorship is too absolute to allow organizing.

In the Middle East, some governments took steps towards the recognition of trade union rights, but overall, workers in the region still have fewer rights than anywhere in the world. For example, in Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, and Syria, laws impose an ineffective single trade union system. In Palestine, hostilities with Israel have made the organizing of trade unions virtually impossible. Migrant workers still make up the most vulnerable group in the region. At least twenty migrant workers at two factories in Jordan were arrested and deported for demanding improved wages and working conditions. In Saudi Arabia, the total lack of workers’ rights and protection means that migrant workers, particularly women, are frequently subjected to blatant abuse, such as nonpayment of wages, forced confinement, rape, and other physical violence.

There were more mass dismissals and arrests in response to collective action in Asia than in any other region in the world in 2007. In Bangladesh, the phased introduction of (limited) trade union rights in EPZs got off to a poor start, as employers routinely harassed, suspended, and fired leaders of Workers’ Representation and Welfare Committees during the year. In one incident, police opened fire on strikers at an EPZ garment factory, killing one worker and injuring others. In Malaysia police used batons, dogs, and water cannons to disperse a workers’ protest. The Philippines stand out as the most violent country in the region. In an attempt to crush popular protests against the president’s rule, labor leaders were among those targeted as “enemies of the state.”

There was no change in China where the law does not allow for any independent trade union activity. Over one hundred workers were arrested and detained for involvement in collective protest, while the official “trade union” did nothing to protect them.

A recent report published by the social audit company Vigeo, based on a study of 511 enterprises in seventeen European countries, shows that less then 10 percent of European companies are committed to freedom of association and the promotion of collective bargaining. Changes in labor legislation in several countries added to existing restrictions on trade union rights. The most serious change was announced in Belarus, where a draft trade union law would make it virtually impossible to establish trade unions outside the state-controlled Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus.

Despite all these difficulties, millions of women and men remain firm in their commitment to, or are discovering the benefits of, trade union action.

The post # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights appeared first on Project Censored.