Todays Top Storiesddd
Monday, February 23, 2004
-Under-reported Japan stories
The Asahi Shimbun has a really ridiculous article on the Kisha Club system, implying that the only criticism is that of foreign news organizations.
http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200402210203.html
What is totally lacking is any sense that the Kisha club system helps to promote censorship.
A site that sheds light on this is that of Ken’ichi Asano, journalism professor and former reporter for Kyodo Tsushin
ENGLISH only
http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/%7Ekasano/FEATURES/Eindex.html
ENGLISH And JAPANESE (more articles)
http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/%7Ekasano/
Also:
Why Japan Remains a Threat to Peace and Democracy in Asia
by Kenichi Asano
Kenichi Asano is a Professor of Communication Studies at Doshisha
University, Kyoto, Japan.
from Censored 2004
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P719_0_2_0_C
-----------------------------------------
On this page, and throughout the TokyoProgressive web site, there are links to unreported and underreported news stories, as well as coverage of self-censorship by the media, Japan-included.
Many stories NOT covered by the Japanese press
Includes:
Government Media Censorship on Mad Cow Disease and many more....
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/link2.html
And try this, for other underreported issues:
http://japanfocus.org/
More links here:
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/index.php#todaysnews
And here
http://www.japan-press.co.jp/
And here:
http://www.jca.apc.org/jca-net/jpd/issues-ja.html
http://www.kinyobi.co.jp/Recent
And here:
http://www.zmag.org/japanwatch/
And here:
http://www.zmag.org/japanwatch/archive.html
-One of the ongoing battles against global sweatshops (Sara Lee)
http://www.communitiesunitedforpeople.org/enlace/Images/Action-Alerts.jpg
http://www.nonviolenceworks.com/snv/photos00/D2k4.jpg
(See below for how YOU can help support the victims of Sara Lee)
More than a year later, Leonor Castillo is still a very angry woman. She sits at the kitchen table of her two-room cinderblock house and talks in a gentle voice that mutes the rage about her six years at the plant: the sudden reorganization of the production system with the result that everyone seemed to be working just as hard and maybe even harder but taking home less pay; the day she was running a 102-degree fever and they wouldn?ft give her a pass to go home; those awful two months she was pregnant and kept asking for a change of assignment from the operation that required her to toss bundles of clothing over her shoulder from a sitting position.
Sorry, she was told, there was no lighter work available in the factory of more than 1,000 workers engaged in a dozen different operations.
?gWhen I miscarried, the doctors asked if I lifted anything heavy,?h she says. ?gThey had to do a Caesarean to clean me out,?h Leonor, who is 32 and childless, adds softly.
Then there was the aguinaldo battle in November 2001. The aguinaldo is a legally mandated annual bonus. For years workers had suspected they had been short-changed. They circulated a petition requesting a $60 increase in the aguinaldo and chose Leonor and four other workers to deliver it to management. The petition, signed by almost half the workers in the factory, couldn?ft have been more polite.
Leonor remembers the plant manager complimenting the delegation for presenting the request in this responsible manner and not resorting to a strike or other disruptive tactics.
The company?fs answer came in two parts. Ten days later all workers in the factory received an additional $30 with their annual bonus. A week after that Castillo and the other four members of the delegation were fired.
Within days workers were leafleting in front of the plant. Leaflets condemned the firings; they explained the legal limits on compulsory overtime; they decried inadequate health and safety precautions; they denounced the wages that were not enough to feed their families; they exhorted the workers to stand together and fight for their rights. Some of the leaflets urged workers to contact an organization called Sedepac for more information.
As a result four more women were fired for insisting that the labor laws of their country be obeyed. Before long the leafleting had begun again, one of the thousands of ongoing battles in the global sweatshop that never make it to the nightly news.
The country in this instance is Mexico and the company is the Sara Lee Corporation, but on any given day a variation of this scenario unfolds in dozens of other countries with equally familiar corporations playing their assigned roles.
The apparel industry has been called the canary in the mineshaft of America?fs de-industrialization, the first to move most of its manufacturing facilities offshore. For all its technological advances, the apparel industry has yet to invent a machine more efficient than human hands and eyes. Nor has the economic logic of the industry changed that much in the past 100 years. Costs are pushed down through a pyramid of retailers at the top and below them layers of manufacturers, contractors, and sub-contractors, with a massive base of workers at the bottom. A corollary of this arrangement is that garment workers, as cheap and easily exposable assets in a volatile and labor-intensive industry, must remain powerless.
?gThey get nervous when journalists come around asking questions,?h explains a Sara Lee spokesperson at U.S. corporate headquarters, politely denying permission for an interview with the plant manager who fired Leonor Castillo and her co-workers. ?gWe have people here in headquarters who are very well informed and can answer all your questions.?h
Well, not really.
Sweatshop scandals are bad for business. The strategy generally is to try to suppress them and, failing that, to ride them out. Sooner rather than later the public?fs attention is directed to more urgent matters and the system slides safely back into its mode of hidden production and lavish promotion.
Sara Lee is not just cheese cakes. Producing, distributing, and selling an astonishing variety of foods, beverages, apparel, and household goods from pork chops to shoe polish, wheeling and dealing with its 30,000 trademarks, constantly divesting and acquiring businesses to tweak the bottom line, it is a diverse, sophisticated, and thoroughly modern corporation.
Within this sprawling mix is one of the largest and most profitable apparel businesses in the world (Hanes, L?feggs, Playtex, Bali, Wonderbra, Champion, Polo Ralph Lauren, DKNY), which owns and operates manufacturing and distribution facilities in 8 U.S. states and 24 countries and sources its goods from sweatshops on 5 continents. Of course Sara Lee, like all the other big names in the industry, denies that it runs or uses sweatshops, even though anyone with a working knowledge of the industry knows it is impossible to produce clothing on the scale Sara Lee does under the current rules of the game without using sweatshops. Nevertheless, to prove its virtue, Sara Lee displays a corporate code of Global Business Standards claiming that the company complies with all labor laws wherever it operates, supports fundamental human rights for all people, including the right of its employees to free association, and is committed to a safe and healthy work environment. Nobody pays much attention to this boilerplate, which came into vogue after the Kathie Lee Gifford child labor scandal in 1996, but Sara Lee?fs presumptive ethical standards are notable in one respect.
?gWe feel a special responsibility to women?fs causes?not just because women make up more than half the world?fs population,?h its statement on Corporate Citizenship explains. ?gWomen are important to Sara Lee because: Sara Lee Corporation is the world?fs largest company named after a woman; about half of our employees are women; and women are the primary purchasers of Sara Lee branded products.?h
It is difficult to verify the accuracy of these statements because Sara Lee will not disclose the locations of its factories or permit independent inspections of them. Sara Lee is one of the few remaining big apparel manufacturers that still owns some of its overseas factories, rather than the more common practice of sourcing goods from local contractors. This gives Sara Lee complete control over the production process?and total responsibility for what occurs in these facilities.
That is the case of the plant where Leonor Castillo worked, one of two Hanes T-shirt factories that Sara Lee opened in the early 1990s in Monclova, an old industrial city in Mexico?fs northern desert, and the adjacent town of Frontera, about 150 miles southwest of Laredo. It was regarded as another of Sara Lee?fs astute, strategic moves, streamlining its corporate structure by closing down plants in the U.S. and moving production, a step ahead of its competitors, slightly into the interior of Mexico where wages were even lower than in the older maquila zones right on the border.
Almost everyone agreed that Monclova needed this new investment with the 2,500 jobs it would provide. For much of the last century the regional economy had been driven by Monclova?fs huge Altos Hornos steel complex, until it was hit by some of the same global trends that have reduced the U.S. steel industry to a shadow of its former self. Monclova and the surrounding state of Coahuila struggled with Depression-level unemployment rates, falling wages, and the social disintegration that invariably flows from economic decline of this magnitude.
While local governments everywhere compete to attract and retain these factories, national governments?pressured by international financial institutions and powerful corporate lobbies?keep pushing industries toward poorer areas on the theory that this type of investment will raise wages and promote development. Like most theories that serve to rationalize privilege and power, this one is full of holes and slightly ridiculous. Multinational corporations do not normally seek out lower wages in order to raise them, which only happens when workers have the strength to extract such gains. One study by the International Labor Organization found that real wages of apparel workers had decreased in three out of four countries where investment in the industry had increased.
Sure enough, ten years later in Monclova none of those social or economic indicators has improved, some have deteriorated, and there are constant rumors that Sara Lee will soon pick up and move to some more congenial place where wages are even lower and workers less assertive.
But they will not do this without a fight.
?gA lot of these women come from families of unionized steelworkers,?h says Betty Robles. ?gThey?fre not going to be rolled over so easily.?h
Betty Robles is a local leader of Sedepac, which stands for Servicio, Desarollo y Paz (Service, Development and Peace), a 20-year-old non-profit organization with branches in other states around the country. Mexico?fs political landscape is dotted with hundreds of like-minded groups that spring from student, worker, and other popular movements searching for new strategies to contend with the entrenched, unresponsive, and often repressive Mexican state.
Betty Robles went to work in the maquila when she was 14 and spent a dozen years on assembly lines making auto parts and thermostats. ?gBrutal,?h she says, ?gthey treat you worse than one of the machines.?h
We are sitting in Sedepac?fs cluttered storefront office on Frontera?fs main commercial street, a few blocks beyond the packed sidewalk market and a ten-minute drive from the factory. Several women meet around a desk toward the rear of the office, away from the window and prying eyes.
Last October they discovered that a lawyer who had been volunteering his services at Sedepac was being paid by the company to spy on them. Among other services rendered, he wrote an article ?gexposing?h Sedepac?fs participation in a network of U.S. and Mexican NGO?fs called Enlace and denouncing the workers?f activities as a nefarious plot to put Sara Lee?fs factories out of business. It was a full-scale attack. Thugs began shadowing Betty and some of the other activists, staking out the office and parking in front of their houses at night.
One woman unwinds a bandage from her wrist to display swollen tendons and bulging nerve cysts, another the scar from her Carpal Tunnel Syndrome operation, then more hands with a variety of disfig- urations as the meeting turns into a spontaneous testimony of the walking wounded: pain that begins in the hands and seems to work its way up the arms; pain in the lower back that spreads to the shoulders and then down into the arms; headaches from the dust and noise; skin rashes, coughs, and runny eyes. They are still covered with the lint that is thick in the air of the factory. But mostly it?fs the crippling pain.
Maria Ramirez (not her real name) looks strong and healthy, but her back and shoulder have been aching for the past two years and now everything hurts? back, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers. When she went in to see the company doctor, he wrapped a tape around her thumb and two fingers.
?gBut I can?ft work like this,?h she said.
?gI can give you a pill,?h the doctor replied.
?gI don?ft know what?fs in it.?h
?gSuit yourself.?h
?gBut I can?ft work with my fingers taped like this.?h
?gIt?fs nerve damage. There?fs nothing you can do about it. Take the pill, I take off the tape.?h
Of course there?fs a lot you can do about it.
?gIt?fs an ergonomic problem and it?fs extensive in the maquilas,?h says Dr. Jorge Hernandez, who has an occupational health practice in Frontera. ?gThere are all kinds of studies that demonstrate these injuries can be reduced and prevented. The employer, the government, the union, nobody does anything. But it?fs the employer?fs responsibility.?h
Ramirez took the pill. When the pills didn?ft help any more, she went to Seguro, the public health clinic. Workers believe that the doctors at Seguro are in cahoots with the company, reluctant to make diagnoses that might require the company to cover work-related injuries. In Maria?fs case, the Seguro doctors don?ft agree on the diagnosis. One says Carpal Tunnel, another a herniated disk in her neck, and still another a twisted spinal column due to the long hours sitting.
Dealing with their pregnancies at work is a sensitive subject for these women. Many have stories like Leonor Castillo?fs. Title 5 of Mexico?fs federal labor code explicitly prohibits employers from requiring pregnant workers to lift weights that endanger their health. Companies in Mexico do not like to employ pregnant women because one of the few consistently enforced provisions of the labor code is three months paid maternity leave. When pregnant workers aren?ft screened out with pre-employment pregnancy tests?an illegal but widespread practice?the normal wear and tear of the job can hold down maternity benefits when expectant mothers quit or miscarry.
We are talking about a virtually unregulated global industry in which millions of workers put in 12-hour days and longer for as little as $2.50 a day, reports of indentured servitude are verified with regularity, and the U.S. Supreme Court cannot decide whether Nike has the constitutional right to lie about the conditions in its factories. Sara Lee could argue that compared to what?fs out there, its Monclova factories are not that bad. They are probably right, which will give you an idea of how rotten the industry is.
The production system in the Monclova factories is modular, typically teams of 12 workers, each performing a different operation?hemming various parts of the garment, attaching sleeves, finishing seams, tying and inspecting the bundles. A supervisor is assigned to each team, monitoring the flow of work and pushing everyone to meet their quotas.
Ana Velasquez stitches the hem that runs around the bottom of the T-shirt. Her quota is based on a time and motion study that has broken down every operation and is used as the template in all Sara Lee factories producing this garment. Ana?fs movement through the five separate motions of her operation is so rhythmic, fluid, and quick it seems almost effortless.
Getting the garment from the pile on her left, folding it, smoothing the fabric for the stitch, maneuvering it through the machine with her right hand while turning it over with her left, placing it on the pile in front of her for the next worker in the team, and then beginning again?a complete cycle every 9.4 seconds to meet her quota of 32 dozen T-shirts an hour. The more efficient she is, the higher the bar is set.
These workers are paid around 70 cents an hour plus incentive bonuses for making quotas. In a typical week of 45 to 49 hours worked, gross pay ranges between $50 and $80, but there are numerous deductions, many for loans facilitated by the company. It is not at all unusual for weekly take home pay to be as low as $25 or $30. Most of these workers are in debt, their income keeping them below the poverty line. Contrary to popular belief, the cost of living in places like Monclova is not light years away from that of more developed economies. Maquila workers further north regularly cross the border into El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville for groceries and other basic goods because they?fre cheaper there than on the Mexican side of the border.
?gIf you make the payment on the furniture, you can?ft buy shoes,?h Velasquez says. ?gIt?fs pathetic what they pay us, don?ft you think??h
They could pay more. The company estimates that a worker like Ana costs $1.68 an hour in ?gfully loaded?h wages, which include bonuses, benefits, and payroll taxes. At that rate, Ana?fs team of 12 workers are paid a total of $20.16 for the 384 T-shirts they produce in an hour. These T-shirts sell at retail from $5 to $12, which means that the Moncolva workers are paid between 1.1 percent and 4/10 of 1 percent of the retail price. If you doubled their pay, it would add a staggering 5.3 cents to the cost of that T-shirt.
Whether these additional pennies were passed along to the consumer or absorbed somewhere along the line between Monclova and retailers like WalMart (2002 profits: $8.04 billion), one of Sara Lee?fs largest customers, it does not seem like an amount that would ruin any business. In the meantime, consider the difference it could make in the lives of these workers and their families.
We sit around Laura Garcia?fs living room with half a dozen other workers from the plant. To minimize risk for the workers, Betty Robles and the two other full-time Sedepac organizers hold house meetings in the ejidos and barrios where most of the Sara Lee workers live. Some neighbors are afraid to attend because word has gone out that anyone connected to Sedepac will be fired. But the room is soon filled.
They go around the room with stories about sick children, the guilt at not being to care for them, the fines for missing work when they do, the hundreds of dollars in doctors?f fees and medicine.
?gWhen one of my kids gets sick, I don?ft go to work,?h a woman says firmly. ?gBut it?fs a problem. They never want to give you permission.?h
?gYou can always bring it up with the union,?h someone says and gets a big laugh.
Officially, there is a union and perhaps even a collective contract in Sara Lee?fs Monclova factories. Perhaps, because when workers question some policy or other they are often told, ?gIt?fs in the contract.?h But when they ask the union delegate to see the contract, they are told to get it from management who tells them to get it from the union. Last October eight workers filed a legal complaint asking the state labor board in Monclova to make a copy of the contract available to them. They are still waiting and the prospects are not good.
?gIt is judically impossible for me to comply with that request,?h explains Juan Carlos Maldonado, president of the board. ?gOnly the parties to the contract?the company and the union?have a right to the contract. Either is free to make it available.?h
The local office of the union, the Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM), is on the same street as the Sedepac office, but several blocks away in a nicer section of town, befitting the CTM?fs status as a major political player in the state. On a morning in mid-March the secretary general of this CTM region, the elderly, plain-spoken Jose Dimas Galindo, laments the terrible state of the economy and vents his fury at Mexican President Vicente Fox for not supporting the U.S. war in Iraq.
?gThe Sara Lee workers say they can?ft even get a copy of the contract.?h
?gIt?fs not mine. You have to talk to the big guy in Saltillo.?h
?gThere?fs nothing the workers can do??h
?gIf they try to do anything, it?fs goodbye T-shirts.?h
The big guy in Saltillo is Tereso Medina, the secretary general of the state CTM and a deputy in the state legislature, who confirms that he controls this particular contract. The problem isn?ft the contract, he explains, it?fs Betty Robles and Sedepac. ?gIt happens everywhere, these local NGO?fs supported by unions in the United States to stir up trouble, destabilize the industry here to discourage firms from leaving your country. Their own lawyer admitted it. We need these jobs and everyone knows they?fll take off overnight to find cheaper labor.?h
He suggests that the U.S. unions would be better off working with the CTM on the basis of its seven-point program: jobs, labor peace, productivity linked to salaries, education, housing, health, and social security for all the workers of the world.
?gUnder this program, do the Sara Lee workers get to see their contract??h
?gIt costs money to print them,?h he says. ?gWe?fll have to collect dues.?h
?gWe?fre obviously not opposed to foreign investment here,?h Betty Robles says. ?gWe?fre doing everything we can to keep these factories in Monclova. But these companies come and go. All we ask is that they respect our rights while they?fre here.?h
?gWhat about the charges of stirring up trouble with the gringo unions??h
Betty laughs. ?gYou mean it?fs a crime for workers to organize internationally to deal with an international company? Besides, it isn?ft just gringo unions. It?fs students, women?fs groups, churches, labor rights organizations, and not just in the United States. We have allies, this new global justice movement, and it?fs a good thing we do. Given the size and power of this corporation, how can we win without them??h
One of those allies weighed in recently when the $30 billion New York City pension fund, concerned about the company?fs performance and reports from Monclova, filed a shareholder?fs proxy resolution with Sara Lee urging it to establish a program of independent monitoring of its global human rights standards.
?gA poor record on labor and human rights abuses can damage the reputation of the company and the long-term interests of shareholders,?h says Michael Musaraca, chair of the fund?fs proxy committee. ?gWe have a fiduciary responsibility to prevent that from happening.?h
The pressure is building and not a moment too soon. ?gThere is a widespread impression here,?h Robles wrote, ?gthat these factories will be closed to punish workers for speaking out against conditions that are clearly inconsistent with Sara Lee policy and in some cases are illegal?c. We are aware that some multinational corporations have recently left Mexico for countries where wages are even lower than in Mexico. It is neither necessary nor wise for such a large and well-run company like Sara Lee to engage in practices that are increasingly repudiated by both expert and public opinion?c?h
Three weeks later the plant manager in Frontera told the workers, though he did not put it in writing, that there were no plans to close in the near future. Perhaps this is true, but only a month earlier Sara Lee announced it was expanding its apparel business in China and ?glooking at India as a sourcing hub for our products in the U.S. market.?h Stay tuned.
Alan Howard is former assistant to the president of UNITE. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Nation, and public television. The names of current Sara Lee workers have been changed.
Originally appeared in Z Magazine
Please consider subscribing:
http://www.zmag.org/ZMagSite/zmagsubscribe.htm
COMPANY LINKS IN JAPAN
http://www.rakuten.co.jp/saralee/
BRANDS
ƒ`ƒƒƒ“ƒsƒIƒ“(Champion)
ƒwƒCƒ“ƒY(Hanes)
ƒvƒŒƒCƒeƒbƒNƒX(Playtex)
ƒ?ƒ“ƒ_?[ƒuƒ‰(Wonderbra)
ƒfƒBƒ€(DIM)
ƒ|ƒ??Eƒ‰ƒ‹ƒt ƒ??[ƒŒƒ“(Polo Ralph Lauren)
ƒLƒBƒEƒC(KIWI)
ƒAƒ“ƒr ƒsƒ…ƒA(Ambi Pur)
ƒuƒ ƒ‹ƒNƒ ?[ƒ€(BRYLCREEM)
ALERTS
http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/alerts/saralee.htm
The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) has received an urgent request from one of our Mexican partners, SEDEPAC, a local human rights group that has been providing support and legal advice to maquila workers in Coahuila, Mexico. Garment workers in Coahuila, who are employed by the Sara Lee Corporation, are attempting to form an independent union after facing a long campaign of management intimidation and firings of several union supporters. Given the difficult history at the plant, SEDEPAC is calling on Sara Lee to sign an agreement pledging to respect internationally recognized labour rights in all of its Mexican facilities.
Workers have come to expect the worst from factory management at Sara Lee. In 2001, when the workers formed a worker committee to petition for holiday pay that they are entitled to under Mexican law, management retaliated by firing several of the committee leaders.
As the workers attempt to win recognition of their new independent union, SEDEPAC and its partners in the ENLACE coalition are calling on supporters around the world to put pressure on shareholders of the Sara Lee Corporation in their respective countries and demand fair treatment for the Sara Lee workers in Coahuila.
About Sara Lee
With global sales last year of US $17.6-billion, Sara Lee is a corporate giant in the apparel and intimate wear, food and beverages, and household products industries. The company has operations in 55 countries and markets its products in close to 200 countries worldwide. Its clothing brands include familiar names like Hanes, Champion, Playtex and Wonderbra.
REQUESTED ACTION:
Please write to Sara Lee and send a copy of your letter to Franklin Templeton Investment Corp. in Toronto, one of the largest Canadian shareholders of Sara Lee. Tell Sara Lee to make a commitment to respect workers’ rights and bargain in good faith by signing an agreement with SEDEPAC. Please see below for a sample letter.
Write to:
SARA LEE CORPORATION
C. Steven McMillan, President and CEO
Sara Lee Corporation
Three First National Plaza
Chicago, IL 60602-4260
USA
Fax: 312-345-5782
E-mail :
JAPAN---.
http://www.saralee.co.jp/contact/index.html
OUTSIDE JAPAN:
MAJOR CANADIAN SHAREHOLDER IN SARA LEE
Franklin Templeton Investments Corp.
Attn: Donald F. Reed, CFA and President
1 Adelaide St, Suite 2101
Toronto, ON M5C 3B8
Fax: 416-364-1163
E-mail:
Please also send a copy to MSN: )
Past alert
http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/alerts/saralee_past.htm
The labor union in Mexico
http://www.sedepac.org.mx/english.htm
Other organizations working for workers’ rights
http://www.communitiesunitedforpeople.org/enlace/articles/AboutUs/OurAffiliateOrganizations.html
Buy Songs
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jlrbr
Sunday, February 22, 2004
-Tell Koizumi: Stop Japanese Funding and Construction of Ebara Corporation’s
Below is the global petition against Japan’s export of incineration
technology to developing countries in South East Asia or other areas.
Currently, we at the GAIA network are concerned about Ebara’s huge
gasification incinerator in Malaysia which is planned for construction in
the middle of a tropical forest with water catchment providing clean water
to about to 200 million people. Such incineration of waste causes many
environmental hazards.
Please consider the situation and kindly forward this mail to your friends.
You can access from here :
http://www.no-burn.org/action/broga2let.html
Learn more about GAIA at this English website:
http://www.no-burn.org/about/index.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global Appeal to Stop Japanese Funding and Construction of Broga
Incinerator in Malaysia
---------------------------------------------------------------------
His Excellency Junichiro Koizumi
Prime Minister
Government of Japan
Dear Prime Minister Koizumi,
GLOBAL APPEAL TO STOP JAPANESE FUNDING AND CONSTRUCTION OF BROGA INCINERATOR
IN MALAYSIA
As members of the global community, we write to you, Mr. Prime Minister, to
put across our strong disapproval for the use of Japanese yen loans, grants,
export subsidies and guarantees to promote and/or fund the export of
Japanese incinerators to countries in Asia and elsewhere.
Incineration-focused ?gsolutions,?h from our standpoint, will only put the
lives of citizens and their communities at risk instead of helping them
prevent and reduce waste, scale up recycling, generate jobs and work towards
Zero Waste.
Of particular concern to us is the suspected plan to use Japanese taxpayers
?f money for building a gigantic 1,500 tonne/day incinerator for municipal
solid waste in Broga, Selangor, Malaysia - a hilly, forested zone and a
water catchment area supplying drinking water to over 333 residential
housing estates of about 2 million people. We are appalled that a monstrous
waste burner will be constructed in an environmentally-sensitive area
despite objection and protest from concerned citizens. This, we hope, is
not the kind of development cooperation that Japan would want to subscribe
to and promote to its neighbors.
Ebara Corporation holds the contract to design and construct the
gasification-type incinerator that is disturbingly on a pilot stage in Japan
and in much smaller capacities. Concerned community members and civil
society groups are opposed to the plan because it employs unverified
technology to be built by a controversy-ridden firm, it contravenes laws and
polices, and imperils the society with enormous environmental, health,
safety and financial costs. The high disapproval of 85 per cent among
residents should compel your government to critically review any Japanese
financing of this controversial project. Japan should be sensitive to the
sentiments of affected communities and should not be seen as imposing a
project that is not welcomed by the local people.
We find it exceedingly outrageous that Japanese companies, with backing from
the government, are seeking new markets outside Japan for their
incinerators, deceivingly selling them as ?gsustainable?h and
?genvironment-friendly?h solutions for handling waste. Incinerators,
including those depicted as ?gstate-of-the-art,?h endanger public health and
the environment with toxic emissions, destroy huge quantities of valuable
resources, burden importing countries with unbearable debts, weaken
recycling, hinder job creation and community development and concentrate
financial gains in the hands of big businesses.
Government promotion and funding of Japanese incinerator projects abroad is
a blatant disrespect to the ongoing efforts by the global community to
reduce and eliminate releases of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to the
environment. The Stockholm Convention on POPs, which Japan has already
ratified, calls for the “minimization with the ultimate goal of elimination”
of 12 priority POPs, four of which are by-products of waste combustion:
dioxins, furans, hexachlorobenzene and polychlorinated biphenyls. The
Convention further calls for the use of substitute processes to prevent the
formation and release of these byproduct POPs. Constructing new
incinerators in Japan or offshore is akin to creating new sources of POPs
and thus violates the spirit and purpose of the Convention, denying the
people their right to a healthy environment and a sustainable future.
We urge you, Mr. Prime Minister, to ensure that any Japan-assisted projects
overseas observe the fundamental principle of the ?gcommunity right to
know.?h As the world?fs top donor of ODA, we urge you to guarantee that
affected communities and population groups are fully informed and consulted.
We particularly would like to see national governments entering into a free
and open dialogue with the civil society and giving stakeholders full access
to information on projects that will affect their health, livelihood and
future. As to the proposed Broga incinerator, we urge you to ensure that
the voices of concerned communities are duly listened to and respected by
decision makers in both Japan and Malaysia.
We call upon you, Mr. Prime Minister, to act upon our demands:
1. That the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Japan International
Cooperation Agency and other related offices stop promoting and funding the
construction of waste incinerators in Asia and the Pacific and the rest of
the world.
2. That Japanese incinerator companies desist from exporting their harmful
and unsustainable products.
3. That Japan withdraws any funding commitment for the Broga incinerator
project in Malaysia in view of the broad citizens?f opposition.
Add your message here:
CC:
IN JAPAN
Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Economy and Industries, Nippon
Keidanren, Democratic Party, Komei, Social Democratic Party, Japan Communist
Party, Midorinokaigi
IN MALAYSIA
Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Science, Technology and
Environment, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Ministry of Finance ,
Office of the Chief Minister of Selangor, Director General of the Department
of Environment, Director General of the Department of Local Government,
Director General of the Economic Planning Unit, Embassy of Japan
*Name:
*Organization:
*Position:
* Country:
* Email Address:
-Power Struggles in Haiti and Venezuela: Interviews Available
BILL FLETCHER, ,
http://www.transafricaforum.org Executive director of TransAfrica, Fletcher said today: “In recent weeks, the Haitian crisis has been deepening. In addition to mass protests against President Aristide, demanding his resignation, there have been military assaults in several cities and what
appears to be a move toward insurrection. The alleged rebels have been described in different ways, but they appear to be the armed wing of at least a section of the opposition.... President Aristide was duly elected by the Haitian people. In fact, he was elected twice.... We believe that there are legitimate criticisms of President Aristide.... Given the association of the so-called
rebels with the old regime, are we not on a slippery slope toward a Duvalier-ist future if President Aristide is driven from office? In fact, given the strong support that President Aristide continues to enjoy in much of Haiti, is not the scenario of civil war more likely than civil peace if President Aristide is compelled to step down due to extra-legal (if not illegal) pressure? ... Since 1804 the USA has done what it could to undermine efforts at genuine independence, including through military
interventions, threats, and the support of corrupt puppet regimes. When Haiti has attempted to stand, its legs have been cut from under it by its arrogant northern neighbor.... The multi-year restriction on the release of badly needed loans worsened the internal situation in the Western
Hemisphere’s poorest country. Now the Bush administration is implying that
it is time for President Aristide to leave, while at the same time having Secretary of State Powell state that a coup would not be acceptable. One gets the feeling of a ‘good cop/bad cop’ scenario. None of this should come as a surprise to us in light of world events as well as the policy and
practice of hostility by this administration toward President Aristide since the beginning.”
EVA GOLINGER, , http://www.venezuelafoia.info,
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com
An attorney and executive director of the Venezuela Solidarity Committee, Golinger said today: “The certification process of the signatures obtained in the petition drive requesting a recall referendum against President Chavez has revealed massive fraud.... Recently declassified FOIA documents show that after the 2002 coup, the State Department awarded the National Endowment for Democracy with a special $1 million fund to dispense on Venezuela-related projects. One of the beneficiaries of this fund is the group Sumate, which has spearheaded the recall referendum campaign. The FOIA documents further evidence substantial U.S. financing of various opposition groups in Venezuela and may show a direct link between the groups that led the April 2002 coup against President Chavez and the U.S. government.... An opposition march on Saturday, February 14, 2004,
demonstrated that they no longer have a significant base of support amongst Venezuelan people. The opposition movement is being sustained by the money from the U.S. government, evidenced through the increase in NED grants and the frequent visits made by opposition leaders to Washington, D.C. The FOIA results have clearly shown that the only Venezuelan recipients of NED
funding are members of the opposition, and in many cases, the most extremist sectors. This demonstrates a clear pattern of ongoing financing and support for groups that are notoriously undemocratic in their actions and have acted on several occasions well beyond constitutional limits in
Venezuela. It’s notable that as the administration cites fostering democracy around the world, it has systematically undermined the elected government of Venezuela.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
-Jewish Voice for Peace: Cecilie Surasky on “Anti-Semitism” at the World Social
(Cecilie Surasky is the Communications Director for Jewish Voice
for Peace and a New Voices fellow with the Academy of
Educational Development.)
(plus other recent articles from A JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE)
It is my first morning at the World Social Forum in Mumbai,
India and I am at a workshop on Palestinian women and the
occupation. In the audience is a woman who I first think might
be Israeli. She could easily be one of my friends and I feel an
immediate kinship with her. She tells me she is 34 and has lived
her whole life in Gaza except for college. I ask her if I can
interview her.
She cautiously eyes my card, on which I have purposely
written in thick, visible letters: Jewish Voice for Peace. “I
don’t know, she says. “Do you support the occupation?” It seems
such a surreal question. How could anyone support an occupation?
The very word evokes domination, a kind of cruelty. No, I say,
we want to end the occupation. We want a peace that is just.
I ask about the checkpoints. She describes sitting in her
car. The young Israeli soldiers are in sniper posts. You can’t
see them, but they can see you, she explains.
They signal it’s time to go by shooting their guns. She
waits a long time until the soldiers yell, “OK, now the dogs can
go!” You think, “Do I want to be called a dog, or do I just want
to go?”, she tells me. “I don’t care, so I start my car and they
yell ‘No! Not you, I said dogs!” So she turns her car off, and
sometime later they say, “OK, now humans can go!”. She starts
her car and they look at her and the others and say “No! I said
humans.” And she turns her car off and waits until finally this
category of Palestinian, neither human nor animal, is allowed to
pass.
“This,"she says,"is my only contact with Israelis.” And
this, I think, is my first contact with someone from Gaza.
The WSF and the new anti-Semitism
The World Social Forum (WSF) is the populist answer to the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Instead of a
gathering of the world’s mostly wealthy, white, and male heads
of state and captains of industry in Davos, the WSF is a
cacophony of anti-globalization/human rights activists from all
over the globe.
The roughly 100,000 participants represent every imaginable
cause --from Indian untouchables and Bhutanese refugees to child
trafficking and sexual minorities. They are visible in the
regular marches that seem to appear out of nowhere down the main
thoroughfare, at the 500 information booths, in more than 1,000
workshops, and on the political posters filling every inch of
available wall space.
I have come because my New Voices human rights fellowship
has decided to send the fellows to the WSF. But I have an
additional reason for being here. The Simon Wiesenthal Center
(SWC) has cited the WSF as one of the centers of what it and
others refer to as the “new anti-Semitism”, and these charges
have been picked up by various journalists as evidence of a
dangerous new trend on the left.
Upon closer reading, most of these accounts make little if
any distinction at all between anti-Semitism and criticism of
Israel, or even anti-Zionism. The SWC description of the
“anti-Jewish” atmosphere at last year’s WSF in Brazil is one of
these accounts.
And yet, their description of the WSF is so disturbing,
even frightening, that I am prepared to encounter at minimum
silent hostility, and possibly even physical attacks from my
fellow attendees. I have come to the WSF to be loudly and
visibly Jewish, to make a presentation that deconstructs the
theory that Jews single-handedly dictate U.S. policy in the
Middle East, and to see for myself this purported new tidal wave
of Jew-hatred from the rest of the global left.
The conference is not what I expected
It is therefore a bit surprising to find that the
Israel-Palestine conflict and the occupation are not more
prominently featured at the conference. Out of hundreds of
ongoing marches, I witness only one small pro-Palestine march,
which includes a prominent Israeli leftist marching in the front
row.
Out of about 500 information stalls, only two represent
Palestinian human rights groups: PENGON, which is working to
tear down the wall Israel is building through Palestinian land,
and Al-Haq, which is launching a campaign identifying collective
punishment as a war crime. Of the thousands of political
posters, I see only one series, Al-Haq’s powerful posters on
collective punishment, related to the issue.
I attend most of the workshops I can find on the
Israel-Palestine issue. What I also do not hear (or see) is
anything I would consider anti-Semitic. In a global conference
of 100,000 people, one expects to hear an enormous range of
political perspectives, including the occasional extreme or
intolerant remark. Given that I am prepared for the worst, I am
shocked that the overwhelming majority of what is said in
workshops is milder than the articles and essays one can read in
Israeli newspapers on any given day.
Two realities, one anti-Semitism industry
After I return home, the Wiesenthal Center publishes an
alarming piece entitled “Networking to Destroy Israel” in the
Jerusalem Post. The article claims that this year’s WSF was
“hijacked by anti-American and anti-Israeli forces” and leads me
to wonder whether we attended the same conference. In this
piece, and for the second year in a row, they strangely declare
themselves the only Jewish NGO to attend the WSF.(I personally
saw participants from Brit Tzedek and Yesh Gvul, to name just a
few, and Jewish Voice for Peace is listed in the official
program.)
They go on to cite a litany of statements, including mine,
as proof that the WSF is a place where people who want to
destroy Israel meet to plot and recruit. Employing a form of
twisted logic that would make Donald Rumsfeld proud, they
essentially claim that absence of any blatant anti-Semitism is
not proof that there was none, but merely an indication of a
more sophisticated kind of anti-Zionism in which sympathetic
Jews such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) play a starring roll.
The account is so riddled with errors—I am misquoted,
JVP is described as “campus-based”, all of my colleagues are
given the wrong attributions, and quoted either inaccurately or
out of context—that it is pointless to list them all. It
contains bits of truth but strings together isolated statements
to make them sound like a tidal wave of hatred at worst, part of
what they call an “orchestrated” campaign to destroy Israel.
All this begs the question of why a group such as the SWC
would want to fuel hysteria about anti-Semitism in general,
especially in regard to the left. The SWC has an important
history of hunting down former Nazis, exposing the activities of
neo-fascists and other right-wing hate groups, and fighting
genuine anti-Semitism.
But the SWC is like many other mainstream Jewish
organizations in the United States that have expanded their
mission from fighting the oppression of Jews by others to
attempting to silence critics—including other Jews—of
Israel’s human rights record. These organizations’ new role as
arbiters of acceptable opinion --effectively protecting some
Jews from the criticisms of other Jews and non-Jews—is a far
cry from their proud past.
In the strange parallel reality reflected by these
organizations and in the SWC op-ed, the mere mention of the
heartbreaking reality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians
is proof of an insidious plan supported by other Jews to wipe
Israel off the face of the earth. In their world, it is evidence
of bias simply to point out causality—that groups like JVP or
Al-Haq exist not because we are anti-Jewish or anti-Israel, but
to end the injustices of Israel ‘s occupation and treatment of
Arabs.
To even the most casual observer, this is shocking for a
community with a long tradition of protecting free speech, and
an even longer tradition of embracing debate. It is also
confounding given the now commonly held opinion in Israel and
the U.S. that the occupation and militarization of Israeli
culture is bad not just for Palestinians, but also for Israelis.
More insidious, by fueling the fires of fear through
hyperbolic statements, (an easy thing to do with a people with
our history of suffering and persecution) these groups who say
they represent all Jews play a critical role in giving the
current Israeli government permission to violate virtually every
moral and ethical standard central to the Jewish tradition in
its effort to put down the Palestinians.
They make peace ever more distant by perpetuating the myth
that Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, have nothing to
say to each other and are incapable of recognizing each other as
full human beings with similar wants and needs. They get under
our skin and make Jews believe that indeed, the world is out to
get us and we can trust no one.
Acts of Lovingkindness at the WSF, the untold story
In my own experience as a very out Jew at the conference, I
felt no hate. Instead, I met a number of Palestinians and Arabs
who, on some fundamental level, expressed the pain of
separation. “I am Muslim, and we were raised to respect the
Jewish tradition, “ a Palestinian woman living in Jordan told
me. “We used to live next door to Jews, and we were friends.”
After I spoke at a session about suspending military aid to
Israel until it ends its occupation, and identified myself as a
member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Palestinian woman thanked me
and a distinguished Lebanese man from Jordan came up and gave me
a huge hug and a kiss.
Two of the Arabs that the SWC op-ed quoted most prominently
in their description of what they called a campaign to destroy
Israel were environmental scientist Rania Masri and activist
journalist Ahmed Shawki.
Thirty minutes after meeting me for the first time at the
Forum, Ahmed Shawki offered to loan me the new digital camera
given to him by his wife. He knew I was eager to take pictures
and the airline had misplaced my luggage. Knowing nothing of my
politics, only that I was from a Jewish peace group, he gave me
his digital camera.
The next day, the bag containing my passport, credit cards,
and his camera was stolen. Our mutual friend and colleague from
Lebanon, Rania Masri, handed me a hundred dollars from her
wallet and absolutely insisted I take her ATM card and PIN
number so I would have money for the rest of the trip. And
Ahmed? To this day, Ahmed refuses to accept payment for the
camera that was stolen.
This is the real story of Jews, Arabs, and the World Social
Forum that needs to be told; that is, the ways in which we so
quickly and easily recognize each other’s fundamental humanity.
As one young Arab-Israeli woman—who will never be quoted in
an article about the rising tide of anti-Semitism—said so
eloquently and passionately the last night of the conference,
“Yes, I experience discrimination in Israel. But my friendship
with Jewish Israelis is proof that it is a lie when both sides
tell us we can’t live together. We can live together. You must
not believe the lie.”
Separation Wall Hearings, Academic Freedom
The Senate had scheduled hearings on the Israeli
“separation wall”, and the only speakers were to be from the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a distinctly
pro-Israel think-tank. After receiving many calls, e-mails and
faxes in protest, in response to a call from the US Campaign to
End the Occupation, JVP has learned that the Senate plans to
schedule a second hearing, with a wider variety of speakers.
The Senate will soon be considering a bill which has
already passed the House, HR 3077, which would set up a
governmental advisory board to monitor Middle Eastern Studies in
universities, and would tie Title VI funding to the
recommendations of this board. Please contact your
representatives and oppose this major threat to academic
freedom.
Join Jewish Voice for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace now has a global e-network of over 7,500
Jews and allies working for a just peace in the Middle East.
Become an official member of Jewish Voice for Peace and help
create a U.S. foreign policy that promotes peace, democracy,
human rights and respect for international law.
State Department Representative Condemns Settlements
In a keynote address at a State Department-sponsored
conference on the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, U.S. deputy assistant
secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs David Satterfield
issued one of the administration’s harshest statements to date
on Israel’s settlements.
“The fact is that settlements continue to grow today,
encouraged by specific ongoing government policies and at
enormous expense to Israel’s economy. And this persists even as
it becomes clearer and clearer that the logic of settlements and
the reality of demographics could threaten the future of Israel
itself as a Jewish democratic state,” Satterfield
said."Settlement activity must stop, because it ultimately
undermines Israeli as well as Palestinian interests.”
“As Israeli settlements expand, those settlements that
began immediately after June 10th, 1967 and their populations
increase, it becomes ever more difficult to see how two peoples
can be separated into two states.”
All People Are Chosen
Alan Senauke
Alan Senauke is a Zen Buddhist priest and teacher in the
tradition of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Alan serves as head of
practice at Berkeley Zen Center in California, where he lives
with his wife, Laurie, and their two children, Silvie and
Alexander. Since 1991 Alan has been a leader of the Buddhist
Peace Fellowship, where he continues to work on national and
international issues of peace, human rights, structural
violence, and the development of a Socially Engaged Buddhism. In
another realm, Alan has been a student and performer of American
traditional music for forty years.
All people are chosen. All lands are holy. In the middle of
the journey of life I have come to this unreasonably naive
position. My naivete may be the fruit of twenty years of Zen
Buddhist practice. It may be a late blooming genetic trait,
seeds planted deeply by grandparents and teachers: Eastern
European Jews who fled pogroms and Japanese priests came here
after a World War II to work in the fresh soil of America. They
all struggled in this barely friendly country and found a way to
thrive.
All people are chosen. I believe it in my bones. This
began as a meditation on Israelis and Palestinians, but it is
just as true for Americans and Iraqis, Sinhalese and Tamils,
Burman and Karen. It goes beyond all religious, cultural, or
tribal teachings. Because all people are chosen, there are no
Chosen. Jews, Christians, and Muslims see the image of God in
our human form. The Buddha spoke of unique opportunity of human
birth. Because we have a body and mind, because we all taste
suffering, we can also free ourselves from suffering, and help
others.
From earliest memory I was told that Jews (like me) were
chosen. Chosen for gifts of intelligence and creativity; chosen
for unwanted gifts of hatred and discrimination. My parents and
grandparents were careful to distinguish between things Jewish
and things gentile. Then Lenny Bruce came along in the 60s and
deconstructed the whole deal. I heard his Jewish/Goyish
monologue when I was a kid. At one point he says, “All Italians
are Jewish.” This puzzled me until I went to Italy. Lenny Bruce
was exactly right. Since then, having traveled and encountered
various cultures, I would add Tibetans, Armenians, Lebanese,
Indians, and Cajuns are Jewish. The list goes on and on,
drifting into meaninglessness.
For several years I’ve been involved in a local
Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group. Members come from a variety
of backgrounds. We have vast differences in personal history.
But our urgent words, worry for the future, and passion for
peace, transcend all difference.
All lands are holy. Two Zen sayings come to mind. The
first is: “There is no place in the world to spit.” If we are
aware that every place and every being is as precious as we are
to ourselves, there is no room for thoughtless action dividing
us from each other. We take equal care of every place.
The second saying is: “If you create an understanding of
holiness, you will succumb to all errors.” Just as all lands are
holy, we can see that elevating one place, one people, or one
practice as holy, splits the world in two. Holiness plants
poisonous seeds of us and them. From such seeds war and hatred
grow. In the name of what is holy, the soil of the Holy Land has
endlessly absorbed the blood of crusaders, defenders, martyrs,
and countless ordinary people.
Holiness becomes a cover for hatred and hunger for power.
It causes people to do strange things: some people drive others
from their homes and fields; some strap explosives around their
body and turn themselves into bombs; others create a wall
scarring the earth for hundreds of miles in an foolish effort
for security that echoes the imaginings of Franz Kafka. From his
own experience. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this mechanism
of hate and delusion all too well.
...hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate
and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit
you back and you hit me back ...that goes on ad infinitum. It
just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense,
and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person
who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that
is the tragedy of hate, it only intensifies the existence of
hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion
enough and morality enough to cut it off, and inject within the
very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element
of love.
The Buddha said “I teach about suffering and the end of
suffering.” He also taught that we co-create reality. Prophets
of the Bible and Koran taught about justice and generosity. As
we consider the history of Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, we
can see this. If we meditate deeper on a history based on my
tribe and your tribe, my religion and your religion, and so on,
we see this is a terribly dangerous delusion spiraling into
hatred and killing. But as King said, “Somewhere somebody must
have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.”
My one visit to Israel was brief, just a few months after
the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada. It was impossible to ignore
the tensions, but I loved the ethnic stew of Jerusalem of Jews,
Eastern European, Middle Eastern, African, American. I soaked up
the street energy in the narrow streets and crowded souks. I
walked quietly through Mea-arim, and imagined myself in my
hometown. Our group of peace activists was warmly welcomed in
the homes of Jews and Arabs. We sat in a weekly circle of
peace-activist Jews, Muslims, Christians, and on a small plaza
overlooking the Western Wall and the great mosques. Mostly I
walked and talked with people. Despite the tensions, the
presence of heavily armed Israeli military everywhere, I felt
connected to the weathered rocks and to the people living and
working among them.
It’s naive I know, but Jews and Arabs don’t seem all that
different to me. Both people are chosen. They love their
families above everything, work hard, and tend to wear their
passions on their sleeves. Warm of heart and quick to anger.
More related than either wants to admit. This seemed so clear.
But can they live together? There must be a path of justice to
end killing and violence that is both open and hidden. Justice
involves renunciation--letting go of holiness...and letting go
of privilege, of power over others. If all people are chosen one
must treat each person as no different than oneself. Despite
precepts, commandments, and wars, the basic fact is that human
identity goes deeper than tribal or national identity. And that
identity as yet remains out of reach for Israelis, Palestinians,
for Americans, and several billion other beings. This is just
where we should dig in and do the difficult work of peace.
Take Action!
Protect Academic Freedom
The Senate is considering a frightening bill, already passed by
the House, that threatens to put academic freedom in danger.
The bill would create an unprecedented seven-person
International Education Advisory Board, appointed by members of
Congress, which would have oversight over the content of course
materials and even the hiring of faculty in international area
studies and foreign language programs. The purpose of the board
is to stifle and censor legitimate criticism of US foreign
policy in America’s universities.
Go here to tell your representatives to say NO to this new form
of academic McCarthyism.
Following are links to highlights from Jewish Peace News, the
free news service offered by Jewish Voice for Peace. Get
pre-selected stories from global news sources sent to your email
box regularly, with incisive explications prefacing each
article. Go to your personal subscriptions page to sign up now.
Hamas calls for wave of suicide attacks after 15 Palestinians
die(UK Guardian) Hamas Vows Retaliation After Gaza Attack
(http://ga3.org/ct/r1aVtZK1lBtP/)
Analysis: What was the purpose of the IDF’s operation?(Ha’aretz)
Ze’ev Schiff On Why Israel Chose to Attack Gaza Now
(http://ga3.org/ct/qpaVtZK1TB5M/)
The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism (The Nation) A Jewish
Deconstruction of Collapsing Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism
(http://ga3.org/ct/a1aVtZK1TB5N/)
Send questions, comments or concerns to the JVP staff at
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--------------------------------------------------
-Mokhiber-Weissman / The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003 / Feb 18
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003 February 18, 2004
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
2003 was not a year of garden variety corporate wrongdoing. No, the sheer
variety, reach and intricacy of corporate schemes, scandal and crimes was
spellbinding. Not an easy year to pick the 10 worst companies, for sure.
But Multinational Monitor magazine cannot be deterred by such complications.
And so, here follows, in alphabetical order, our list for Multinational
Monitor of the 10 worst corporations of 2003.
Bayer: 2003 may be remembered as the year of the headache at Bayer. In May,
the company agreed to plead guilty to a criminal count and pay more than
$250 million to resolve allegations that it denied Medicaid discounts to
which it was entitled. The company was beleaguered with litigation related
to its anti-cholesterol drug Baycol.
Bayer pulled the drug—which has been linked to a sometimes fatal muscle
disorder—from the market, but is facing thousands of suits from patients
who allege they were harmed by the drug. In June, the New York Times
reported on internal company memos which appear to show that the company
continued to promote the drug even as its own analysis had revealed the
dangers of the product. Bayer denies the allegations.
Boeing: In one of the grandest schemes of corporate welfare in recent memory,
Boeing engineered a deal whereby the Pentagon would lease tanker planes --
767s that refuel fighter planes in the air—from Boeing. The pricetag of
$27.6 billion was billions more than the cost of simply buying the planes.
The deal may unravel, though, because the company in November fired for
wrongdoing both the employee that negotiated the contract for Boeing (the
company’s chief financial officer), and the employee that negotiated the
contract for the government. How could Boeing fire a Pentagon employee?
Simple. She was no longer a Pentagon employee. Boeing had hired her shortly
after the company clinched the deal.
Brighthouse: A new-agey advertising/consulting/ strategic advice company,
Brighthouse’s claim to infamy is its Neurostrategies Institute, which
undertakes research to see how the brain responds to advertising campaigns.
In a cutting-edge effort to extend and sharpen the commercial reach in ways
never previously before possible, the institute is using MRIs to monitor
activity in people’s brains triggered by advertisements.
Clear Channel: The radio behemoth Clear Channel specializes in consuming or
squashing locally owned radio stations, imposing a homogenized music play
list on once interesting stations, and offering cultural support for U.S.
imperial adventures. It has also compiled a record of “repeated
law-breaking,” according to our colleage Jim Donahue, violating the law --
including prohibitions on deceptive advertising and on broadcasting
conversations without obtaining permission of the second party to the
conversation—on 36 separate occasions over the previous three years.
Diebold: A North Canton, Ohio-based company that is one of the largest U.S.
voting machine manufacturers, and an aggressive peddler of its electronic
voting machines, Diebold has managed to demonstrate that it fails any
reasonable test of qualifications for involvement with the voting process.
Its CEO has worked as a major fundraiser for President George Bush. Computer
experts revealed serious flaws in its voting technology, and activists
showed how careless it was with confidential information. And it threatened
lawsuits against activists who published on the Internet documents from the
company showing its failures.
Halliburton: Now the owner of the company which initially drafted plans for
privatization of U.S. military functions—plans drafted during the Bush I
administration when current Vice President and former Halliburton CEO Dick
Cheney was Secretary of Defense—Halliburton is pulling in billions in
revenues for contract work—providing logistical support ranging from oil
to food—in Iraq. Tens of millions, at least, appear to be overcharges.
Some analysts say the charges for oil provision amount to “highway robbery.”
HealthSouth: Fifteen of its top executives have pled guilty in connection
with a multi-billion dollar scheme to defraud investors, the public and the
U.S. government about the company’s financial condition. The founder and CEO
of the company that runs a network of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imagery
and rehabilitative healthcare centers, Richard Scrushy, is fighting the
charges. But thanks to the slick maneuvering of attorney Bob Bennett, it
appears the company itself will get off scot free—no indictments, no
pleas, no fines, no probation.
Inamed: The California-based company sought Food and Drug Administration
approval for silicone breast implants, even though it was not able to
present long-term safety data—the very thing that led the FDA to restrict
sales of silicone implants a decade ago. In light of what remains unknown
and what is known about the implants’ effects—including painful breast
hardening which can lead to deformity, and very high rupture rates—the
FDA in January 2004 denied Inamed’s application for marketing approval.
Merrill Lynch: This company keeps messing up. Fresh off of a $100 million
fine levied because analysts were recommending stocks that they trashed in
private e-mails, the company saw three former execs indicted for shady
dealings with Enron. The company itself managed to escape with something
less than a slap on the wrist—no prosecution in exchange for “oversight.”
Safeway: One of the largest U.S. grocery chains, Safeway is leading the
charge to demand givebacks from striking and locked out grocery workers in
Southern California. Along with Albertsons and Ralphs (Kroger’s), Safeway’s
Vons and Pavilion stores are asking employees to start paying for a major
chunk of their health insurance. Under the company’s proposals, workers and
their families will lose $4,000 to $6,000 a year in health insurance
benefits.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter, http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com Robert Weissman is editor
of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor,
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org They are co-authors of Corporate
Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe,
Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org)
Original Article, in more detail is here
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03december/dec03corp1.html
