BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2006

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Protest at San Quentin on the night of the
scheduled execution of Michael Morales!!!!

San Quentin East Gate Monday, February 20 8:00 pm
You can park on E. Francisco Blvd but expect to walk
1.2 miles to get to the prison. Please dress warmly
and bring a flashlight.

Contact: Stop Executions CA, 510-333-7966,
stopexecutionscalifornia@yahoo.com

For car pool information please call 650-271-2854

California is on a Death Row Killing Spree?.
Stanley Tookie Williams: Murdered Dec. 13th, 2005
Clarence Ray Allen: Murdered Jan 17th, 2006
Michael Morales: Death Date is set for Feb 21st, 2006

The death penalty is dead wrong. Knowing that is only
the beginning of stopping it. We have to organize.
In 1972 the death penalty was temporarily abolished --
mainly because the public climate had shifted against it.
It isn't an accident that all this happened at the same
time people were protesting for civil rights and fighting
for social justice. Stopping the death penalty once and
for all is going to take a lot of work -- but if we're going
to do it, we have to start organizing now -- just like
the social justice movements of the 1960s.

Join the fight!

More information about Michael Morales:

Two men were responsible for the murder of young Terri Winchell. Only
Michael Morales received a sentence of death. That sentence was passed
because the jury believed that Morales was a cold-blooded killer who
had planned the murder and shown no remorse for his crime.

We now know that the jury's sentence was based on a lie. The jury was
misled by the poisonous testimony of a jailhouse informant who was
secretly rewarded by the prosecutor for the lies he told.

The truth is that Morales never intended to kill Terri Winchell and
expressed regret just hours after the murder. In the 25 years since,
he has continued to accept responsibility, seek atonement for his
actions, and affirm his sincere and unquestioned remorse for the
anguish he caused the victim and her family.

Now even the judge who passed sentence has stepped forward to say that
executing Michael Morales would constitute "a grievous and freakish
injustice." Had the informant's lies been exposed at trial, Judge
Charles R. McGrath writes, he would have set the death sentence aside.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has already denied clemency four times.
Four times he has washed his hands and refused to intervene. This
time, the courts are powerless to fix their mistake. And no excuse can
conceal the shameful injustice that will take place if the Governor
lets a lethal injection take the life of Michael Morales.

CONTACT GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Call: 916-445-2841; Fax: 916-445-4633

It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need,
and the airforce has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.

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TELL BUSH AND CONGRESS: STOP THE WAR
ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS!
Please join the online campaign to
STOP THE WAR ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS!
YOUR EMERGENCY ACTION IS NEEDED NOW!
Send emails to President Bush, Vice President
Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, U.N. Secretary-
General Annan, Congressional leaders and
the media demanding NO WAR ON IRAN!
http://stopwaroniran.org/

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Help Us Tell CYA's Chief Warner:
Close Chad Now!!

Join Books Not Bars, Escuelas Si, Pintas No,
and Youth in Focus on February 22 for
a press conference and picket at the office
of CYA Chief Bernard Warner in Sacramento.
We will call on Chief Warner to close Chad
immediately -- our youth need action now!

Please come and show your support!

Press Conference and Picket to close Chad

Wednesday, February 22, 2006, 4:30 p.m.

Where: Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
1515 S. Street
Sacramento, CA
RSVP: Contact David at: 510.428.3939 x243 or
david@ellabakercenter.org

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WHY WE FIGHT
A film by Eugene Jarecki
[Check out the trailer about this new film.
This looks like a very powerful film.]
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

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Hear: CC Campbell-Rock
'Venezuelans are getting their 40 acres
and a mule, and more'
Friday, February 24th, 7PM
Centro Del Pueblo
474 Valencia Street
(near 16th Street one block west of
16th & Mission Bart Station)
CC Campbell-Rock, the new editor of the San Francisco
Bay View newspaper, has just returned from Venezuela.
Read her article, 'Venezuelans are getting their 40 acres
and a mule, and more' at
www.sfbayview.com/020806/eyewitness020806.shtml .
Hear her report back as an eyewitness
to the Bolivarian Revolution.
She attended last week's World Social Forum and
toured the Venezuelan countryside, with other
delegates from Global Women's Strike, to meet
the grassroots revolutionary leaders who are
making the kind of miracles in education, health,
housing, economic development, etc., that could
revive and transform the inner cities of the United
States. Prior to working for the SF Bay View, CC was
a prominent pre-KATRINA journalist and activist
in New Orleans.
This meeting is jointly sponsored by the San
Francisco Bay Area Hands Off Venezuela! committee
and the San Francisco Bay View .
San Francisco Bay View
(www.sfbayview.com)
San Francisco Bay Area Hands Off Venezuela!
sfbay@ushov.org 415-786-1680
Donation $5.00 (Students, unemployed, and Seniors $3.00)

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ANTIWAR MEETING OPEN TO ALL
THOSE WHO DEMAND:
STOP THE WAR NOW! U.S. OUT OF IRAQ!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2006, 10:00 A.M.
Local, 34, the ILWU Shipclerk's Hall
4 Berry Street (behind the ballpark)

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Please help spread the word:

Counter Recruitment
Presenters Mobilization!

The military recruits in most Bay Area high schools,
Let's make sure students hear the other side!

This will be a training/organizing kick off for:
 youth to youth presentation teams,
 veterans and non-veteran classroom presenters, and
 anyone who wants to learn, share and help support this effort!

Saturday, February 25th, 2-5pm
War Veterans Memorial Building, Room 219
401 Van Ness, San Francisco
West of City Hall, near Civic Center BART
Snacks will be provided, donations will be accepted.

For more information, please contact
Paul Cox (510) 528-1975
or Susan Quinlan moos-bay@riseup.net

This event is co-sponsored by Veterans for Peace and
Alternatives to War Through Education/
Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors

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Welcome to BANG4CHANGE 2006 !

Bang4Change 2006 !
We Poor People are called "Gang Bangers" & "Thugs"
Challenge the Hype ! Bang with Peace, Courage & Solidarity!

End US War on Poor, Black & Brown, NOW !

Saturday February 25th,
Noon to 6 P.M.
CIVIL RIGHTS REVIVAL FEST
In front of SF City Hall
iolmisha@cs.com
(415) 595-8251

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Postering for March 18 Anti-war Protest - Volunteer Now!
A.N.S.W.E.R. ACTIVIST MEETING
TUESDAYs, 7PM
2489 Mission St. Room 24 (at 21st St.) SF,
near 24th St. BART
Now more than ever, the anti-war movement needs
to reach out to the thousands of people who are turning
against the war and occupation of Iraq. Your help is needed.
Call the ANSWER office for the schedule to go out in teams to poster
for an hour or two. Pick up flyers, posters and stickers
at the ANSWER office at 2489 Mission St. Room 30. Join us
for a political update on the recent election in Haiti and
developments in the Middle East. Also, an eyewitness report
back from the Atlanta appeal court hearing of the case
of the Cuban Five. After the meeting, we will team up and
go out postering for March 18. Your help is needed!
Call 415-821-6545 for hours.


ANSWER ANTI-WAR TEACH-IN:
The expanding U.S. War Drive & the forces resisting it
Sat, March 4, 1-4pm
San Francisco Women's Building
3543 18th St. (btwn Valencia & Guerrero)
near 16th St. BART station

Topics Include:
-Iraq, Iran and Syria: U.S. Strategy for Domination in the Middle East
-The Elections in Palestine and the Struggle for Self-Determination
-Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia: The Rising Tide in Latin America
and Danger of U.S. Intervention
-The War at Home, from New Orleans to Bayview-Hunter's Point
-Washington Global Strategy and What It Means for the
Anti-War Movement

Speakers include:
Mazda Majidi, ANSWER Coalition
Nora Barrows-Friedman, Palestine correspondent,
Flashpoints/KPFA
Pablo Serrano, progressive photo journalist and
Colombian human rights activist
Gloria La Riva, Coordinator, National Committee
to Free the Cuban Five
Richard Becker, Western Region Coordinator,
ANSWER Coalition
Pierre Labossiere, Haiti Action Committee
Representative, Free Palestine Alliance

Hear first-hand reports from Palestine, Venezuela, Iran,
Syria, Colombia and Haiti, and analysis of the growing U.S.
war drive and the forces resisting it. Time for discussion
will follow panel presentations.

$3-10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Wheelchair accessible. Call 415-821-6545 to reserve
free childcare.

Sponsored by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545

Make a tax-dedctible donation to A.N.S.W.E.R.
by credit card over a secure server, 
learn how to donate by check.

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PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FAR AND WIDE!! A CALL TO ACTION!!
STOP EVICTIONS IN BAYVIEW-HUNTERS POINT
TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 4:00 p.m.
ROOM 416, CITY HALL, S.F.
Companeros/companeras:
Below please find an editorial by Willie Ratcliff,
publisher of SF Bay View, about a March 7 hearing
before Redevelopment Authority, which will seal the
fate of Bayview Hunter's Point. Many of us have been
saying for years that the Bayview will be the new
Fillmore. March 7 is, as Ratcliff says, an eviction
notice for the residents of Bayview Hunters Point. Not
long after coming into office, Mayor Gavin Newsom did
photo ops with young black men on a basketball court
in Bayview (he was lavished with praise by our
mindless media for that), but he knew damn well then
that their displacement was imminent. It's all part of
San Francisco's hypocrisy about racism and classism.
"Oh, we're a liberal city, we oppose racism and
classism..." people and politicians say, even as they
stand idly by while more and more poor, working-class
and people of color are pushed out of the city by
Ellis Act evictions for TICs for the upper middle
class and Redevelopment Authority's "negro removal,"
as it was called by black activists in the 60s.

Why is it that removing "urban blight" from our cities
means giving poor, working-class and people of color a
one-way ticket to another city? Why can't
Redevelopment work on building communities from within
(with no-interest business loans and subsidies to
homeowners and landlords to fix up their properties,)
instead of declaring "eminent domain" and stealing the
land from folks who have nothing else? If
Redevelopment wants to do some real cleaning of urban
blight why not confiscate the mansions in Pacific
Heights and do a little redistributing of the wealth!
But that's not the game in America. Redevelopment is a
tool of the real-estate interests that want to
gentrify all of our neighborhoods. It's about removing
poor folks so that middle-class and upper-class folks
can have their homes. It's a time-honored American
tradition. Native Americans were pushed from their
land as wagon trains of settlers, driven by manifest
destiny, spread westward. Similarly, the new Bayview
is not for the folks who live there now. As former
Mayor Willie Brown himself said before he left office,
the new Bayview will be market-rate condos with the
best views in town.

Your help is desperately needed.

Come to the hearing on March 7 at City Hall room 416,
4pm. It is imperative that we stand with the residents
of Bayview. It is imperative that people from all
communities and struggles come together to oppose the
annexing of 1300 acres of land next to the shipyard.
No more Fillmores! No eviction notice for Bayview! No
more gentrification! Redistribute the wealth, don't
steal our homes! The land does not belong to the
realtors or the rich! Nuestra tierra, nuestro mundo!
Our land, our world!

Estamos juntos en la lucha...we are together in the
struggle--or we all go down separately!

tommi avicolli mecca

Read:

Eviction notice served on Bayview Hunters Point
Editorial by Willie Ratcliff
http://www.sfbayview.com/020806/evictionnotice020806.shtml

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NATIONAL WEEK OF CAMPUS ACTION
Week of March 13-17
Students Say NO to War in Iraq!
College Not Combat, Troops Out Now!

(*Spring break alternative: Schools on spring
break during March 13-17
will hold events the week of March 20)

Student week of action coordinated by the
Campus Antiwar Network
http://www.campusantiwar.net
RecruitersOut@yahoo.com

Charles Jenks
Chair of Advisory Board and Web Manager
Traprock Peace Center
103A Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
413-773-7427
fax 413-773-7507
http://www.traprockpeace.org

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Third Anniversary of "Shock and Awe"
Saturday, March 18, 2006, 11:00 a.m.
CIVIC CENTER
San Francisco

Monday, March 20, 2006
Youth and Student Day
of Resistance to Imperialism

http://www.answercoalition.org/

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Major Mobilization Set for April 29th

Dear Friends,

We are pleased to announce the kick-off for the organizing
of what promises to be a major national mobilization on
Saturday, April 29th. Today, each of the initiating groups
(see list below) is announcing this mobilization. Our
organizations have agreed to work together on this
project for several reasons:

The April 29th mobilization will highlight our call for an
immediate end to the war on Iraq. We are also raising
several other critical issues that are directly connected
to one another.

It is time for our constituencies to work more closely:
connecting the issues we work on by bringing diverse
communities into a common project.

It is important for our movements to help set the agenda
for the Congressional elections later in the year. Our
unified action in the streets is a vital part of that process.

Please share the April 29th call widely, and please use
the links at the end of the call to endorse this timely
mobilization and to sign up for email updates.

April 29th Initiating Organizations
United for Peace and Justice
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
National Organization for Women
Friends of the Earth
U.S. Labor Against the War
Climate Crisis Coalition
Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund
National Youth and Student Peace Coalition

A war based on lies
Spying, corruption and attacks on civil liberties
Katrina survivors abandoned by government

MARCH FOR PEACE,
JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY

End the war in Iraq -
Bring all our troops home now!

SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006
NEW YORK CITY

Unite for change - let's turn our country around!

The times are urgent and we must act.

Too much is too wrong in this country. We have a foreign
policy that is foreign to our core values, and domestic
policies wreaking havoc at home. It's time for a change.

No more never-ending oil wars!
Protect our civil liberties & immigrant rights. End illegal
spying, government corruption and the subversion of
our democracy.

Rebuild our communities, starting with the Gulf Coast.
Stop corporate subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy
while ignoring our basic needs.

Act quickly to address the climate crisis and the
accelerating destruction of our environment.

Our message to the White House and to Congress
is clear: either stand with us or stand aside!

We are coming together to march, to vote, to speak
out and to turn our country around!

Join us in New York City on Saturday, April 29th

Click here to endorse this mobilization:
http://unitedforpeace.org/modinput4.php?modin=119
Click here to sign up for email updates on plans for April 29th:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email

April 29th Initiating Organizations
United for Peace and Justice
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
National Organization for Women
Friends of the Earth
U.S. Labor Against the War
Climate Crisis Coalition
Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund
National Youth and Student Peace Coalition

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ANSWER Coalition: All Out for April 29 in New York City!
End Occupation from Iraq to Palestine, to Haiti, and Everywhere!
Fight for workers rights, civil rights and civil liberties - unite
against racism!

300,000 Came to Washington on Sept. 24

In recent weeks the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has been in the final
stages for planning a national demonstration in Washington DC on April
29, 2006. This action was to follow the local and regional
demonstrations for March 18-19 and youth and student actions scheduled
on March 20 on the 3rd anniversary of the criminal bombing, invasion
and occupation of Iraq.

On September 24, 2005 more than 300,000 people surrounded the White
House in the largest mobilization against the Iraq war and occupation
since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This demonstration was
initiated by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition in May 2005 and we urged a
united front with other major anti-war coalitions and communities. We
marched demanding immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq. We
also stood in solidarity with the Palestinian and Haitian people and
others who are suffering under and resisting occupation. Coming as it
did following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we changed the demands of
the September 24 protest to include the slogan "From Iraq to New
Orleans, FundPeople's Needs not the War Machine."

During the past several years, and as demonstrated in a powerful
display on September 24, the anti-war movement has grown significantly
in its breadth and depth as the leadership has included the Arab and
Muslim community -- those who are among the primary targets of the
Bush Administration's current war at home and abroad.

The anti-war sentiment inside the United States is rapidly becoming a
significant obstacle to the Bush Administration's war in Iraq. The
anti-war movement has the potential to be a critical deterrent to the
U.S. government's aspirations for Empire. At this moment the White
House and Pentagon are issuing threats and making plans to move
against other sovereign countries. Iran and Syria are being targeted
as the U.S. seeks to consolidate power in the Middle East.

Simultaneously the Bush administration is working to undermine the
gains of the people of Latin America by working totopple the
democratically elected president of Venezuela and destroy the
revolutionary process for social change going on in that country.
Likewise it is intensifying the economic war and CIA subversions
against Cuba.

We believe that our movement must weld together the broadest, most
diverse coalition of various sectors and communities into an effective
force for change. This requires the inclusion of targeted communities
and political clarity. The war in Iraq is not simply an aberrational
policy of the Bush neo-conservatives. Iraq is emblematic of a larger
war for Empire. It is part of a multi-pronged attack against all those
countries that refuse to follow the economic, political and military
dictates of the Washington establishment and Wall Street.

This is the foundation of the political program upon which the
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has organized mass demonstrations in the recent
years. The fact that many hundreds of thousands of people
havedemonstrated in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, New
York and other cities is a testament to the huge progress that has
been made in building a new movement on this principled basis.
The people of the United States have nothing to gain and everything to
lose from the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti and
the threats of new wars and intervention in Syria, Iran, Venezuela,
Cuba, the Philippines, North Korea and elsewhere. It has been made
crystal clear in recent weeks that Washington is aggressively
prosecuting its strategy of total domination of the Middle East. U.S.
leaders are seeking to crush all resistance to their colonial agenda,
whether from states or popular movements in the region. The
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition andthe anti-war movement is raising the demand,
"U.S. Out of the Middle East."

At its core, the war for Empire is supported by the Republican Party
and Democratic Party alike, which constitute the twin parties of
militarism and war, and this quest for global domination will continue
regardless of the outcome of the 2006 election. In fact, leading
Democrats are attacking Bush for being "soft" on Iran and North Korea.
Real hope for turning the tide rests with building a powerful global
movement of resistance in which the people of the United States stand
with their sisters and brothers struggling against imperialism and the
new colonialism.

On the home front the Bush administration is involved in a
far-reaching assault against working class communities as most
glaringly evidenced by its criminal and racist negligence towards the
people of New Orleans and throughout the hurricane ravaged Gulf
States. While turning their backs on these communities in the moments
ofgreatest need, the U.S. government is now working with the banks and
developers who, like vultures, are exploiting mass suffering and
dislocation to carry out racist gentrification that only benefits the
wealthy. The administration is also working to eviscerate hard-fought
civil rights and civil liberties, engaging in a widespread campaign of
domestic spying and wiretapping against the people of the U.S. and
other assaults against the First and Fourth Amendments.

In early December 2005, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition filed for permits
for a national march in Washington DC on April 29, 2006. We were
preparing to announce the April 29 action but in recent days we have
heard from A.N.S.W.E.R. organizers in a number of unions that U.S.
Labor Against the War was seeking union endorsements for a call for an
anti-war demonstration on the same day in New York City. Having two
demonstrations on April 29 in both Washington D.C. and New York City
seems to us to be lessadvantageous than having the movement unite
behind one single mobilization. As such, we decided to hold back our
announcement. Subsequently, the New York City demonstration has been
announced by a number of organizations. Underscoring the need to have
the largest possible demonstration on April 29, the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition has decided to fully mobilize, in all of its chapters and
organizing centers, to bring people to the New York City demonstration
on April 29. The banners and slogans of different coalitions may not
be the same, but it is in the interest of everyone to march
shoulder-to-shoulder against the criminal war in Iraq and the Bush
administration's War for Empire, including its racist, sexist and
anti-worker domestic program.

All out for a united, mass mobilization on April 29 in New York City!
Click here to become a transportation center in your city or town for
the April 29 demonstration.

Click here to receive updates on A.N.S.W.E.R.'s mobilization for the
April 29 NYC demonstration.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Click here to unsubscribe from the ANSWER e-mail list.

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Welcome to the Official Push for Peace Site!
http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=
The Push for Peace logo shows a Navy veteran in a wheelchair with
a peace sign on the wheel, with people marching behind him.
It can be seen at:
http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=node/71
Push For Peace is a collective of veterans, progressive activists, and
everyday citizens working together through education, motivation,
and truth to bring America's troops home from the war in Iraq and
to help bring healing and peace to our nation. The Push For Peace
movement is geared to combine the efforts of able-bodied activists
to those with special needs or challenges, so that all people can
participate and be counted. The Push For Peace effort will include
organized rallies and marches, as well as appearances and
performances by high-profile speakers and entertainers,
to rally the American people and show them we stand united
with our fellow citizen and soldier. It is our goal to grow the
base of participants each day resulting in a cross-country Push
culminating at the gates of the White House on July 4, 2006.
Events will be scheduled across the country leading up to the
big Push in July. So keep checking the Push calendar for events
near you.
Mapping it all out...[Website shows map of stops in US en route
to DC on July 4, 2006...bw]
This is a tentative and unfinished P4P route and is only a work
in progress. The Push is set to leave Golden Gate Park on
Memorial Day 2006 (currently working on permits) and then
we will Push our way across the country to arrive in DC across
from the White House gathering at Lafayette Park (currently
working on permits) on July 4th, 2006.
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California
Las Vegas Nevada
Phoenix, Arizona
Denver, Colorado
Crawford, Texas
New Orleans, Louisiana
more states pending...
Pushing real Democracy!
http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=

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ARTICLES IN FULL:

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1) UCSC Military Recruitment Debate Reportback
by bob fitch (photos) & josh sonnenfeld (words)
Saturday, Feb. 11, 2006 at 4:32 P
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1801777.php

2) Outrage Spreads over New Images
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
Visit the Dahr Jamail Iraq website
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

3) Delphi, Passing Deadline, Will Continue to Seek Union Deal
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/business/17cnd-delphi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

4) Welfare Agencies Seek Foster Children's Assets
By ERIK ECKHOLM
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/national/17foster.html?
hp&ex=1140238800&en=8cf8e9d6ee24846a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

5) Citations for Mines Where Workers Died
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/national/17mines.html?pagewanted=all

6) For Want of Money, Remains of Some Hurricane
Victims Are Not Collected
By SHAILA DEWAN
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/national/nationalspecial/17bodies.html?
pagewanted=all

7) The Shame of the Prisons
NYT Editorial
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/opinion/18sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

8) American Davis Makes History at Speedskating Oval
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-OLY-SPE-Mens-1000-TR2.html?
hp&ex=1140325200&en=62984900ae160546&ei=5094&partner=homepage

9) Videotape Shows Camp Guards Hitting Teenager Who Later Died
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/national/18camp.html?pagewanted=all

10) Recruiting Hispanics for Kentucky Coal Mines Raises Debate
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19miners.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

11) 21 Feet
Patrick Doherty
February 17, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/17/21_feet.php

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1) UCSC Military Recruitment Debate Reportback
josh sonnenfeld
Saturday, Feb. 11, 2006 at 4:32 P
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1801777.php

On Wednesday, Feb. 8, UCSC's Colleges 9 and 10 hosted a tightly-
controlled debate on the issue of military recruitment. The two
speakers were William Griffin, in charge of Army recruitment for
the Monterey Bay area, and Mario Ramirez Hardy, a long-time
counter-recruitment organizer and GI Rights Hotline counselor.

The issue of military recruitment at UC Santa Cruz and in the
community as a whole has been prominent for years. Due to
creative student protests, all branch of the military have been
prevented from any form of recruiting on campus for more than
a year. After multiple successful local campaigns, the majority
of Santa Cruz County high school parents haveopted their
children out of contact lists sent to recruiters. Santa Cruz
County now has the lowest recruitment rate in the state
of California.

On Wednesday night, Colleges 9 and 10 organized a debate
on the issue of military recruitment. William Griffin, the top
dog for Army recruitment in the area, faced off against Mario
Ramirez Hardy, who has been helping GIs get out of the
military for over a decade, in addition to a wide array
of counter-recruitment activities.

The night was very tightly controlled by Colleges 9 and
10 (c9/10) staff, headed by Wendy Baxter, and moderated
by Professor Paul Roth. There were fears of protests from
students, possibly by Students Against War (SAW), as military
recruiters are known not to be welcome. Due to these fears,
c9/10 staff taped a 'do not cross' line on the ground outside
the Multi-Purpose Room, where the debate was held. Protesters
and leafletters were not to cross the line. Nonetheless,
important flyers found their way in the hands of almost
all the student attendees. No protests were planned,
as no military recruitment was to take place.

During the debate, Mario Ramirez Hardy and William Griffin
calmly answered a few questions that they had received before
hand. Students with questions were asked to write them on
cards, which Roth and Baxter screened. No questions relating
to foreign policy were allowed. Due to all these restrictions,
the debate wasn't overly exciting, although there was
a good deal of information presented.

Mario Ramirez Hardy systematically dispelled the myths
about military recruitment - using facts provided from
military or governmental sources. He spoke about how
military recruiters, under the enlistment agreement
(see: http://quakerhouse.org/documents/enlist.html)
can change anything at any time, with or without notice
to the enlistee (i.e. recruiters can't make any promises).
He noted that 57% of enlistees don't get a dime for college,
that 90% of women in the military reported harassment
(1/3 of which were raped), the high rates of discrimination
against people of color, and the violent heterosexism and
homophobia of the military, seen by their 'Don't Ask, Don't
Tell' policy and the consistent harassment of enlistees found
to be queer. These statistics were backed up by more than
a decade of personal experiences counseling GIs.

William Griffin, the Army recruiter, attempted to claim that
'statistics can be made to say anything,' although did not
address the fact that these statistics were from the military
and government themselves. He attempted to appeal to people's
assumed nationalism - suggesting that the military is there
to defend freedom. Many students rolled their eyes with these
remarks, as the Pentagon was recently found to be spying
on UCSC students, directly threatening these freedoms that
they claim to protect. Griffin further claimed that the military
'treats everyone the same' and protects enlistees from physical
harm. However, he did not have any statistics to back his claims,
except for the one time that he claimed over 100% of enlistees
receive something.. making many students scratching their
heads at how anyone could arrive at more than 100%. Overall
though, Griffin was very calm and composed, with slick answers
for all the questions - just like a recruitment commercial.

On the hot topic of a possible military recruitment ban from
campus, Griffin relied on the Solomon Amendment, a federal
bill which threatens to take away university funding if they
don't allow recruiters. He consistently claimed that the military
just does what they're told - including discriminating against
queers and women (as Hardy added). In contrast, Hardy
suggested that students and communities should have the
right to determine who visits their schools and that if they
wanted to ban military recruiters, no one should stand
in their way.

Once the debate was over, students clapped (the first time
they were allowed to all night - except for one impromptu
clapping for Hardy) and a few milled around to talk to the
speakers, but most walked home with some questions
answered, but many more remaining.

While the debate was not riddled with excitement, its
existence signified the growth of UCSC's counter-recruitment
movement and the prominance of the issue on campus,
as the event was completely organized by college officials,
not activists. It offered an opportunity for a wider audience
to inform themselves on some of the issues related to military
recruitment, which will hopefully transfer into more solidarity
with counter-recruitment actions and campaigns in the future.
It should also lead to a greater ability for student attendees
(many of which were from SAW) to break down the fallacious
arguments widely circulated by military recruiters -
or 'salesmen' as Hardy called them.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

2) Outrage Spreads over New Images
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
Visit the Dahr Jamail Iraq website
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

*BASRA, Feb 16 (IPS) - New footage of British soldiers beating up young
Iraqi men in Amarah city in 2003, and the release of more photographs of
atrocities by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison
has spread outrage across Iraq.*

The timing of the new images is potent, in the wake of violence
spreading through Iraq and much of the Muslim world over cartoons of
Prophet Mohammed carried by a Danish newspaper and then other European
publications.

"We in Basra have decided not to cooperate in any way with the British
troops," 43 year-old food merchant Ali Shehab Najim told IPS. "These
occupiers of Basra are invaders and we will not sell them any of their
requirements."

Najim added, "None of us will work with them any longer either. My
cousin used to work with them inside their base, but not any more. He
refuses to go to work, and we have decided to show our contempt for them
in every way possible."

Najim said people are particularly angry over the Danish military
presence in Iraq.

He said he had first accepted the presence of occupation forces, but now
"I think it's about time to tell them we do not respect them since they
are behaving in a very bad way."

After footage of British troops beating young Iraqis with fists and
batons was aired earlier, the Governorate of Basra announced it has
severed ties to the British military. This included cancellation of
joint security patrols.

"We condemn any of those actions by British and American troops in
torturing our young people," former head city councillor of Basra
governorate Qasim Atta Al-Joubori told IPS.

"Iraqis suffered a lot during the past 35 years, but now they are
tortured by foreigners who invaded our country," said Al-Joubori, who
was a city councillor in Basra for 40 years. "We can't accept having
them any more."

Far from cooperating, people in Basra are now prepared to fight the
occupation forces, he said. "What these beatings and torture show is
that the occupiers are both assaulting and insulting all of the Iraqi
people."

Similar views are being echoed around Basra, a relatively quieter area
in the south under charge of British troops.

"We are looking to the day we see those bastards out of our country," 55
year-old factory owner Abdullah Ibraheem told IPS. "Now they are
torturing the citizens of Basra, Baghdad and Amarah, so they have not
only lost the support of the Iraqi Sunnis but the Shias in this country
as well."

He said most Iraqis know someone who has been in a military detention
centre, but said the new video footage and photographic evidence of
torture have "demolished whatever credibility may have remained for the
occupiers."

The Australian television network Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)
aired previously unpublished video footage and photographs Wednesday of
abuse of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers inside the infamous Abu Ghraib prison
in 2003.

The images are similar to those published in 2004 that led to furore
across the Middle East. But many of the new images show a brutality and
extent of sexual humiliation that many news outlets found too shocking
to carry.

The American Civil Liberties Union had obtained the photographs from the
U.S. government under a Freedom of Information request, but its members
said they were not aware how the SBS came to air its new footage and the
photographs.

There could be yet more photographs to come. "I believe major newspapers
in the U.S. like the Washington Post have scores more photos which are
evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, but they won't publish them due to
pressure from the U.S. government," an attorney at the Centre for
Constitutional Rights in New York City told IPS.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, "The
abuses at Abu Ghraib have been fully investigated." He added, "When
there have been abuses, this department has acted upon them promptly,
investigated them thoroughly and where appropriate prosecuted individuals."

He said the Pentagon believes that releasing of the new images would
trigger greater violence, and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq.

(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

3) Delphi, Passing Deadline, Will Continue to Seek Union Deal
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/business/17cnd-delphi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

DETROIT, Feb. 17 ˜ The Delphi Corporation, which is operating
in bankruptcy, said today it would keep talking with its unions and
General Motors in a bid to reach a deal on lower wage and benefit rates.

But without a deal, Delphi, which is the country's biggest auto parts
company, set a new deadline of March 31. If there were no deal
by then, Delphi said it would ask a judge for permission to reject
its labor contracts with its six unions, and also ask to terminate
its employee pension plans.

There had been extensive speculation in Detroit that Delphi might
file those court motions today.

"This deadline should provide us sufficient time to deal with the
complexities inherent in fashioning practical and workable solutions,
and an effective agreement that works for all of us," Delphi's chief
executive, Robert S. Miller, said in a statement this morning.

Delphi has twice delayed asking a bankruptcy court for the ability
to void its contracts, in order to continue negotiations. It previously
had said it would not file the motion any sooner than today.

Delphi's biggest union, the United Automobile Workers, has
threatened to strike the parts company if Delphi seeks
to terminate its contracts. Other unions could follow suit.

In its own statement, the U.A.W. said that there were "many
significant issues" to be resolved in the negotiations between
Delphi, G.M. and the union.

But they said Delphi's decision not to file the court motions
"provides the opportunity for that process to work and
is certainly a positive action."

Companies operating in bankruptcy can ask a judge to set
aside their contracts and impose less-generous deals,
if they can prove that the company's ability to operate
is jeopardized by existing contracts.

Generally, a judge requests that the two sides try to first
reach a deal, but can convene a trial on the matter if no
agreement can be reached. It takes up to 60 days after
a company files a request to terminate contracts for
a judge to rule.

So if there is no deal by March 31, or during discussions
after that, a judge could issue a ruling by May 31.

Delphi, which was part of G.M. until 1999, filed for Chapter 11
protection in October. Soon afterward, Mr. Miller, who joined
Delphi in July after leading restructurings at a number
of other companies, said Delphi could not survive without
sharply lower wage and benefit rates.

Initially, Mr. Miller said members of the U.A.W. should earn as
little as $9.50 an hour, compared with the $27 an hour paid
at U.A.W.-represented plants. Overall, U.A.W. members earn
as much as $67 an hour in wages and benefits, the same as
their counterparts at G.M.

The union reacted angrily to Mr. Miller's initial proposal, which
Delphi subsequently withdrew, and workers threatened to strike
the company if it asked a judge for the ability to void its labor
agreements.

A strike at Delphi, which is G.M.'s biggest supplier, would
probably cripple G.M. within days, and would come at a time
when G.M. is struggling.

G.M. lost $8.6 billion in 2005, and it announced a plan in
November to close all of part of 12 plants, and cut 30,000 jobs.

About 4,000 workers at Delphi have the right to return to G.M.
if there were jobs for them, meaning G.M. would be liable for
pension and health care payments. The company has estimated
that Delphi's bankruptcy could cost it up to $12 billion.

The new deadline would fall on the eve of the U.A.W.'s constitutional
convention in June. The union's president, Ron Gettelfinger,
is seeking re-election, and has vowed repeatedly to fight for
Delphi workers' rights.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

4) Welfare Agencies Seek Foster Children's Assets
By ERIK ECKHOLM
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/national/17foster.html?
hp&ex=1140238800&en=8cf8e9d6ee24846a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

GREENSBORO, N.C. ˜ In 2004, at the age of 14 and at his own desperate
request, John G. became a ward of North Carolina.

His mother abandoned him for crack when he was 3, and his adoptive
father died of cancer a year later. A succession of guardians beat him,
made him sell drugs and refused to buy him toys.

When he finally arrived at a county-financed group residence,
he was wearing outgrown clothes. On the plus side, he was receiving
Social Security survivor benefits and he held title to a modest house,
willed to him by the adoptive father 10 years earlier and an asset
that might give him traction, or at least a place to live, when he
"ages out" of foster care at 18.

Now, the fate of the house ˜ and the insistence of Guilford County
officials on taking all of John's Social Security benefits to help pay
for his foster care ˜ are at the center of a legal battle with
potential repercussions around the country.

The dispute is the latest in a continuing struggle between children's
advocates and money-starved welfare agencies. They are wrestling
over the proper use of more than $100 million in Social Security
benefits that the states are taking on behalf of foster children
with disabilities or a dead or disabled natural parent.

Determined to extract as much federal aid for social programs
as the law will permit, some state welfare agencies even hire
private companies, working for contingency fees, to help them
reap more federal money by identifying foster children who
are eligible for Social Security benefits. The money is then
routinely used to help offset the cost of foster care.

Advocates for children question the wholesale takeover of money,
accusing agencies of repaying themselves for care they are
obligated to provide and of failing to use the windfall to meet
children's individual needs, whether extra tutoring or counseling
or, as in John's case, something more unusual.

Guilford County officials refused to release any of John's money,
even when they learned that his last guardian had stopped making
the $221 monthly mortgage payments on his house and that he
faced its imminent loss. A local court has ordered the county
to make payments for now, but the county has appealed and
said it might appeal to the United States Supreme Court
if necessary.

For John, who as a foster child may not be fully identified,
it was clear as he visited the house recently that it represented
not just money but also a precious link to his troubled past
and an unknown future.

"This is my childhood," John, now 15, said as he climbed through
a broken window to explore the boarded-up structure for the
first time since he fled it two years ago. On the floor of the
bedroom, he found a brown teddy bear and clung to it, saying
softly, "My mother gave this to me before she left."

John has no idea how he will support himself, but he wants
to live in the house he inherited, a property valued at $80,000.
"It will be a good place to be," he said.

John's court-appointed volunteer protector found out about
the threat to his house and enlisted a Legal Aid lawyer to help
him fight for it.

"For the state to pocket a child's money and allow his home
to go into foreclosure just doesn't make sense," said his Legal
Aid lawyer, Lewis Pitts. "No one can say it's in the best interests
of the child."

The benefits that states routinely take include both Supplemental
Security Income, or S.S.I., and other Social Security money for
children whose parents have died or are disabled. The payments
are often close to $600 a month, and usually end when children
reach 18 or 21.

"The practice is not the result of deliberative policy discussions
regarding how to best serve children in foster care," said Daniel
L. Hatcher, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who
is the author of an article on the subject that is to be published
in The Cardozo Law Review. "It is simply an ad hoc reaction
by underfunded state agencies."

"The Social Security benefits are treated as a funding stream,"
Mr. Hatcher said, rather than as an opportunity to provide any
special services or to give children savings for the perilous
months after they turn 18, when many fall into crime
or homelessness.

A Supreme Court decision in 2003, overturning a decision
by courts in Washington State, affirmed that states could legally
use children's Social Security benefits to offset current "maintenance
costs." But it did not address a deeper question: does that always
serve the child's "best interests," as federal rules require,
or the longer-term interests of the public for that matter?

In the case of John G., a Guilford County district court ruled
last Dec. 29 that the state must pay up the mortgage and cover
repairs so the house could be saved for the youth. Reviewing
John's rough history and uncertain prospects, Judge Susan E.
Bray declared that "any reasonable person would see the fiscal
wisdom" of helping him keep the property.

The county has appealed to a higher state court, arguing that
the state courts have no jurisdiction over the matter, that the
county is legally entitled to use John's benefits to cover his
care and that it has no responsibility to exhaust public
resources so a child can own property.

"The federal regulations say that the funds are to be used for
current needs and expenses," said Lynne Shifton, an assistant
county attorney. "His house payments are not, in our opinion,
to meet his current needs."

For now, the county must pay up the arrears on John's house
and for needed repairs. A private group hopes to rent it as
a transition home for foster children until John is able to move in.

State governments around the country stoutly defend their
use of foster children's benefits.

Twenty-six states filed a supporting brief to the Supreme Court
in the 2003 Washington case, noting that the practice had been
approved by the Social Security Administration and arguing that
barring it "could leave the states in a position of economic peril."

If states cannot devote money to current care, the brief added,
children will ultimately suffer because the states will not help
eligible children sign up for benefits.

Many advocates for children agree with that point: preserving
an incentive to enroll more children is good for them because
the benefits will continue if the child is adopted or returns
to his birth family.

"If you tinker seriously with incentives of the child welfare agency,
you can wind up doing a lot of harm," said Bruce Boyer, director
of the child law clinic at Loyola University in Chicago.

Mr. Boyer led a lawsuit that stopped Illinois from using benefits
to cover, in addition to direct care expenses, the overhead costs
of foster agencies.

Mr. Boyer said state governments had an inherent conflict
of interest, serving as creditors trying to recoup the cost of
their programs and also as trustees of children's money.
As a first step, he said, agencies should try harder to find
relatives or volunteers to serve as official recipients of benefits.

A new law in California, passed with the support of advocates
for children, requires counties to evaluate each foster child for
Social Security eligibility. But it also demands new scrutiny
of how benefits are used and modest savings to help aging-
out children become independent.

"We are moving toward an individualized system, requiring
counties to stop and think about the child at every stage of
the process ˜ in choosing a payee, determining how to spend
the money, and accounting for how the funds are spent," said
Angie Schwartz, a lawyer at the National Center for Youth Law
in Oakland, Calif.

During John G.'s recent visit to his house, it became clear that
the property may offer John more than shelter.

Its yard overgrown, its front plastered with a "condemned" poster
because the utilities were cut off, the vacant house is an eyesore
in a tidy cul-de-sac of similar homes, all built by Habitat for Humanity.

But neighbors poured forth with hugs and joy when John showed
up unexpectedly and said that he hoped to move back.

"He's had it real tough, but he's a good kid," said a mother
from across the street.

As he left to return to his foster home ˜ he has recently moved from
the group facility to a private home ˜ John vowed that he would
return to the house in a few weeks, to mow the lawn.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

5) Citations for Mines Where Workers Died
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/national/17mines.html?pagewanted=all

CHARLESTON, W.Va., Feb. 16 (AP) ˜ Federal regulators have issued
safety citations at the West Virginia coal mines where 14 miners died
last month, records show.

The regulators, at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, cited
the Sago Mine in Upshur County, where 12 men died after an explosion
on Jan. 2. The mine's owner, International Coal Group, was cited
on Jan. 19 and Feb. 6 for improperly testing and maintaining
electrical equipment; failing to notify the agency within 30 days
of a change in the legal entity operating the mine; and violating
an order prohibiting entry into the mine without an inspector.

International Coal plans to contest the latter two citations, said
Roger L. Nicholson, the company's senior vice president and
general counsel.

The agency issued four citations at the Alma No. 1 mine in
Melville, where two men died in a conveyor belt fire on Jan. 19.
The citations, issued Feb. 2 and Feb. 9, said the mine owner, the
Massey Energy Company, violated rules concerning ventilation
and explosives. A spokesman for the company did not immediately
return calls seeking comment.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

6) For Want of Money, Remains of Some Hurricane
Victims Are Not Collected
By SHAILA DEWAN
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/national/nationalspecial/17bodies.html?
pagewanted=all

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 16 ˜ There are no longer corpses in plain sight,
as there were for days after Hurricane Katrina hit. But nearly six months
after the storm, officials believe there are still dozens of unrecovered
bodies in New Orleans. They even have a pretty good idea where they are.

But no one is looking for them.

Instead, they have been left in muck-filled houses or piles of debris
for family members to stumble upon. Last Saturday, for example,
Alicia and Herman Robertson found their nephew, Kendrick Smith,
in the bedroom where he had lain face down since the storm.

Family members, scattered to Houston, San Antonio and Ville Platte,
La., said they had repeatedly asked the authorities to go by the house,
at 2305 Flood Street, to look for Mr. Smith, 31. "The city never done
nothing," Mr. Robertson said. "It was horrible to see one's loved
one laid out like that."

Based on reports from family members, officials have compiled
a list of 225 addresses in the Ninth Ward whose residents are still
missing. But the search has become snarled in yet another tangle
over agency jurisdiction and cost.

The New Orleans Fire Department's urban search and rescue
team began combing the Ninth Ward in early October, but
stopped two months later when money for overtime ran out,
Steven P. Glynn, the chief of special operations for the department,
said. "The superintendent had to decide whether to continue
that operation or provide adequate fire protection," he said.

The process of "clearing" a house from the list is not simple,
Chief Glynn said. Even if the house is still standing, furniture
must be removed and as much as two feet of mud shoveled out
before searchers can be certain no body is there. For those houses
that have collapsed, the current plan is to have a search-and-
rescue team work alongside the Army Corps of Engineers, which
is charged with debris clearance and cleanup.

Chief Glynn said that he had explained the situation to at least
half a dozen officials from the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, but that he had yet to get a promise of money for
more searches, which would cost about $400,000 for three
months.

Nicol Andrews, a spokeswoman for FEMA, said the Fire
Department had not filled out a "formal project worksheet"
requesting money. But, Ms. Andrews said, "by all accounts,
this is something FEMA absolutely would pay for."

The wait is maddening, said Chief Glynn, a third-generation
New Orleans firefighter. "It's really not the dead, because you
can't do much for those people," he said. "It's the families,
who are living with this."

Some of those families have given DNA samples to the state,
called the police and tried to search themselves. Lamont Marrero,
26, believes his mother, who was partly paralyzed, is still in her
Ninth Ward home, but when he tried to enter, he found the iron
security doors rusted shut.

"We don't have any answers at all," Mr. Marrero said. "We don't
know anything. That's the only thing left to do, is search the house."

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

7) The Shame of the Prisons
NYT Editorial
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/opinion/18sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Who needs sophomoric cartoons to inflame the Muslim world when
you've got the Bush administration's prison system? One reason
the White House is so helpless against the violence spawned by
those Danish cartoons is that it has squandered so much of its
moral standing at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. This week,
the world got two chilling reminders of why both prisons must
be closed.

On Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Commission
issued a scathing report on the violations of democratic principles,
human rights and the rule of law at Guantánamo Bay: indefinite
arbitrary detentions, hearings that mock fair process and justice,
coercive and violent interrogations, and other violations of laws
and treaties.

The Bush administration offered its usual weak response, that
President Bush has decided there is a permanent state of war
that puts him above the law. And that is exactly the problem:
by creating Guantánamo outside the legal system for prisoners
who, according to Mr. Bush, have no rights, the United States
is stuck holding these 500 men in perpetuity. The handful who
may be guilty of heinous crimes can never be tried in a real
court because of their illegal detentions. A vast majority
did nothing or were guilty only of fighting on a battlefield,
but the administration refuses to sort them out.

Some members of Congress tried to exert control over
Guantánamo Bay late last year. But their efforts were hijacked
by Bush loyalists, who made matters worse by stripping the
prisoners there of the basic human right to challenge
their detentions.

Now the only solution is to close Guantánamo Bay and
account for its prisoners fairly and openly. The United States
then needs a prisons policy that conforms to the law and
to democratic principles.

The U.N. report followed a broadcast by an Australian
television station of previously unpublicized photographs
taken at Abu Ghraib in 2003. Many were similar to the pictures
the world saw two years ago when the scandal of abuse,
humiliation and torture first broke. Others show even worse
abuses and degradation.

All are a reminder that the Bush administration has yet
to account for what happened at Abu Ghraib. No political
appointee has been punished for the policies that led
to the atrocities. Indeed, most have been rewarded.

The prison was a symbol of the worst of the Hussein regime. Now
it's a symbol of the worst of the American occupation. Congress
should order it replaced. And perhaps John Warner, chairman
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, could keep his
promise to dig out the truth about Abu Ghraib.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

8) American Davis Makes History at Speedskating Oval
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-OLY-SPE-Mens-1000-TR2.html?
hp&ex=1140325200&en=62984900ae160546&ei=5094&partner=homepage

TURIN, Italy (AP) -- Shani Davis knew what he was doing.

Davis became the first black to win an individual gold medal in Winter
Olympic history on Saturday, capturing the men's 1,000-meter
speedskating race. Joey Cheek made it a 1-2 American finish,
adding a silver to his victory in the 500.

Erben Wennemars of the Netherlands captured the bronze.

Chad Hedrick, skating the weakest of his individual events,
put up an early time that stood until Davis bested it in the
19th of 21 pairs with a time of 1 minute, 8.89 seconds.

Four other skaters passed Hedrick as well, leaving the Texan
in sixth place -- still an impressive showing considering he
was skating the 1,000 for only the seventh time in his career.

Davis came under scrutiny for skipping the team pursuit --
especially when the Hedrick-led squad was knocked out in
the quarterfinals, doomed by a slow skater who might not
have been on the ice if Davis was available.

But Davis, world record holder in the 1,000, wanted to focus
on his signature event. It certainly paid off.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

9) Videotape Shows Camp Guards Hitting Teenager Who Later Died
[This is straight up murder of an already incarcerated
fourteen-year-old!...bw]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/national/18camp.html?pagewanted=all

PANAMA CITY, Fla., Feb. 17 (AP) ˜ A teenager who died a day
after entering a juvenile-detention boot camp was kneed and hit
by guards while being restrained the day before his death,
a videotape released Friday showed.

The scenes from the tape outraged the parents of the boy,
Martin L. Anderson, 14. Martin's mother, Gina Jones, said the
tape proved that the guards killed her son, despite a medical
examiner's ruling that he died from internal bleeding unrelated
to the confrontation.

Martin, who entered the camp Jan. 5 because of a probation
violation, complained of difficulty in breathing and collapsed
during exercises that were part of the entry process.
He died the next day at a hospital.

The Bay County Sheriff's Department, which runs the camp,
said Martin was restrained after he became uncooperative.

On the surveillance videotape, which lasts 80 minutes and
has no sound, as many as nine guards can be seen restraining
Martin. Guards kneed him and wrestled him to the ground,
where he was repeatedly hit by one guard. He was limp
throughout most of the videotape.

The videotape shows that a woman in a white coat was present
while the guards restrained Martin and at one point used
a stethoscope to check him. Near the end of the confrontation,
guards appeared to become more concerned, and several began
running in and out of the scene. Emergency medical personnel
later arrived and took the boy away.

Dr. Charles Siebert, medical examiner for the district that
includes Bay County, said the boy's body had some bruises
and abrasions, but he attributed them to efforts to resuscitate
the youth. Dr. Siebert said Martin suffered internal bleeding
because he had sickle cell trait, a disorder that caused his
red blood cells to change shape and produce "a whole cascade
of events" that led to hemorrhaging.

Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for Martin's family, expressed doubt
that the sickle cell trait, if it existed, could cause such extensive
damage to the teenager's internal organs.

The Justice Department has said it will investigate the case,
along with the F.B.I. Federal officials planned to focus on whether
camp guards violated Martin's rights through use of excessive
force or indifference to serious medical need.

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10) Recruiting Hispanics for Kentucky Coal Mines Raises Debate
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19miners.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

COAL RUN, Ky., Feb. 18 (AP) ˜ Charlie Bearse, the president of Sidney
Coal, was expressing an opinion that many in these mountains secretly
share. The problem was, he put that opinion in writing.

"It is common knowledge that the work ethic of the Eastern Kentucky
worker has declined from where it once was," Mr. Bearse wrote
to the state mining board. Bad attitudes and drug abuse, he argued,
were affecting attendance "and, ultimately, productivity."

Mr. Bearse's appeal to the board: Relax an English-only policy in
the mines so he could bring in Hispanic workers.

American companies often say they need migrant workers
to do low-paying, menial tasks that many Americans will not.
But at $18 an hour and up, plus benefits, mining jobs are
some of Appalachia's best.

In a part of the country where Hispanics make up less than
1 percent of most counties' populations, Mr. Bearse's comments
caused a stir.

Shannon Gibson, who recently took the state test for the
"green card" that would allow him to work underground,
said: "They're just looking for more workers who will work
cheaper and work longer."

Mr. Bearse has acknowledged that his choice of words could
have been better. And his timing could not have been worse.

Less than two weeks after he made his request in late
December, 12 miners died in an accident in West Virginia.
By the time his proposal became public this month, five
more coal miners had died.

A generation of layoffs and migration has left a suddenly
booming industry with a shortage of experienced miners.
Labor officials put that deficit at more than 6,000 miners
in West Virginia and Kentucky. "For all kinds of reasons,
the labor pool is smaller," said Bill Caylor, president
of the Kentucky Coal Association.

But Tim Miller, a United Mine Workers union organizer,
said that was nonsense, calling the supposed miner
shortage "the biggest farce out there right now."

In the past two years, Kentucky has issued nearly 13,000
work permits for inexperienced miners. In a recent week,
state labor officials counted 7,187 people actively seeking
coal mining work, 5,390 of whom claimed prior mining
experience.

Mr. Miller said there were 1,400 laid-off union miners
in Western Kentucky alone who could go to work today.
He echoed the sentiments of many who believe the industry
was simply hoping to exploit Hispanics and drive down wages.

"They want people who don't have the ability to protect
themselves," Mr. Miller said. "If they can flood the market
with Hispanic workers, if they can get away with paying
a guy $8 an hour, the next guy will be willing to work for $7."

Mr. Bearse said more than a third of his 800 employees
had been hired in the past year. Sidney, a subsidiary of
Massey Energy of Richmond, Va., has recruited miners
from out West and advertised as far away as Charlotte,
N.C., but still cannot fill its rosters, it says.

So Mr. Bearse turned to Hispanic workers on his payroll
and asked if they had relatives or friends who might consider
taking part in a "pilot program." He emphasized they would
get the same wages and benefits as the company's other miners.

"It would be administered by qualified bilingual supervisors,"
he said in a telephone interview. "They would need to have
legal worker status."

Mr. Miller said his objections were because of safety,
not immigration.

"What if that interpreter is the one who gets covered up in
a rock fall?" he said. "I'm outside of the mine screaming
they've got smoke coming their way and they don't have a
ny idea what I'm trying to say. They're just sitting ducks."

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11) 21 Feet
Patrick Doherty
February 17, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/17/21_feet.php

Diane Sawyer, anchoring ABC's " World News Tonight," simply
repeated the most stark statistic from her network's report
yesterday on the increasing melt rate of the Greenland ice
sheet. "Twenty-one feet," she said. Twenty-one feet. That's
how much the world's sea levels will rise when Greenland's
ice fully melts.

Catastrophic melting will do more than just inundate the
nation's coastal cities. California's Imperial Valley will flood,
as levees are overcome by the rising waters. That will mean
the devastation of one of America's great agricultural
breadbaskets and the loss of Southern California's main source
of freshwater. California may both drown and dry up before
the big earthquake ever hits.

Melting will also change the world's weather patterns,
especially in the northern hemisphere. Massive amounts
of cold freshwater will likely shut down the Atlantic Ocean
currents that bring the warm waters from the tropics up to
heat Europe. Ironically, Northern Europe will get colder as
a result of global warming, increasing its energy needs and
devastating its agricultural cycles. For some powerful
renderings of what that world will look like, visit:

http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/06-1om/McKibbenRockman.html

But until now, politicians in Washington have preferred to
ignore or reject the real threats posed by global warming.
The reason is simple. The solutions to this problem are too
disruptive to vested interests. Our communities must be
redesigned to use far less energy. Our markets must value
labor over resources. Our transportation patterns must
increase mobility while decreasing vehicle miles traveled.
Automakers, homebuilders, utilities, oil companies and
many of the unions that provide the labor for these core
components of the S&P 500 are resisting the calls for
a major economic adaptation.

Instead, these same groups have realized that it is much
easier to build a consensus around a different energy-related
threat: economic independence and gas prices. When addressed
without consideration of global warming, the solutions to our
energy security situation are much more palatable. Without
the need to reduce carbon emissions drastically in terms
of volume and timetable, solutions like more efficient cars
and a shift to nuclear power are all that is needed. We can
preserve the suburban American dream, trust us.

But it's not only "21 feet" that puts the lie to that rear-guard
action. It's also China. China's economy is growing at
9.9 percent, increasing demand for every major industrial
resource˜especially energy. And that demand growth is
happening with only 200 million people in its modern
economy. More than 1 billion Chinese are still waiting to
get their own bite of the apple. Oh, and then there are
3.4 billion people in the rest of the developing world also
waiting in line. We'd need many more planet Earths
to satisfy them all.

The big challenge in Washington, therefore, is to figure
out how to make this stark economic reality politically
advantageous. Two-thirds of Americans think the country
is headed in the wrong direction. They're exactly right.
The question is whether they will ever get a plan for the
right direction before we lose cities, valleys and all the good options.

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LINKS:
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At a Scientific Gathering, U.S. Policies Are Lamented
By CORNELIA DEAN
February 19, 2006
ST. LOUIS, Feb. 18 ˜ David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning
biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology,
is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific
findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow
researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, "I shrug and
say, 'What do you expect?' "
But then, Dr. Baltimore went on, he began to read about the
administration's embrace of the theory of the unitary executive,
the idea that the executive branch has the power or even the
obligation to act without restraint from Congress. And he began
to see in a new light widely reported episodes of government
scientists being restricted in what they could say in public.
"It's no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression
of scientific freedom," he said. "It's part of the theory of
government now, and it's a theory we need to vociferously oppose."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19science.html

Mexico's Maritime Mystery: What's Killing All Those Whales?
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/international/americas/19mexico.html

Bush's Chat With Novelist Alarms Environmentalists
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19warming.html

Drug Traffickers Find Haven in Shadows of Indian Country
By SARAH KERSHAW
February 19, 2006
Investigators described Mr. Oakes as an intimidating trafficker who
concentrated on stealing drugs and cash from a prosperous and
growing cluster of criminals who, like Mr. Oakes, have built
sprawling mansions near worn-down trailers on this reservation
straddling the Canadian border.
Law enforcement officials say Mr. Oakes and the drug lords he
is accused of stealing from are part of a violent but largely
overlooked wave of trafficking and crime that has swept through
the nation's Indian reservations in recent years, as large-scale
criminal organizations have found havens and allies in the
wide-open and isolated regions of Indian country.
Drug Traffickers Find Haven in Shadows of Indian Country
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19smuggle.html?
hp&ex=1140411600&en=69dc2430fac56f7d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Rights Group Asks Government to Postpone New Orleans Elections
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Department of Justice should postpone coming elections
in New Orleans until displaced voters have been located,
N.A.A.C.P. officials said Saturday.
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/nationalspecial/19naacp.html

Glaciers Flow to Sea at a Faster Pace, Study Says
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/science/17climate.html

Clot Risk for Birth-Control Patch Is Found to Be Double That of Pill
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/health/18patch.html?pagewanted=all

Report on Impact of Federal Benefits on
Curbing Poverty Reignites a Debate
By ERIK ECKHOLM
"Yes, the E.I.T.C. means a family has more money, and that's good,"
said Timothy Smeeding, an economist at the Maxwell School
of Syracuse University, referring to the Earned-Income Tax Credit,
which can pay thousands of dollars to a low-income worker.
"But going to work can also mean high new expenses for travel
and child care, for example, and these aren't included."
"They've added in the extra benefits people get, but not the
extra costs," Mr. Smeeding said of the Census Bureau, adding
that the report gave an overly optimistic figure of living conditions
on the bottom.
The new Census Bureau report is online at
www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/effect2004/effect2004.html .
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/national/18poverty.html

You Think 401(k)'s Are Hard to Manage? Try Health Accounts
By DAMON DARLIN
February 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/business/yourmoney/18money.html?
pagewanted=all

Tapping Fears of Big Business
[John M. Perkins, Economic Hit Man...bw]
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
Chicago
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/business/yourmoney/19confess.html?
hp&ex=1140325200&en=c8da2eac62ed9404&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Content of Soil Causes Concern in Levee Repair
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/nationalspecial/19dirt.html?
hp&ex=1140325200&en=2a87cb6f34f9360b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Drug Plan's Start May Imperil G.O.P.'s Grip on Older Voters
By ROBIN TONER
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/politics/19older.html?
hp&ex=1140325200&en=ba570f76cbb36948&ei=5094&partner=homepage

As Property Values Rise, Homeowners Feel Pinch
By RICK LYMAN
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/realestate/19property.html?
hp&ex=1140325200&en=84f9d5c4af04e2dd&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The "Teen Sex Slave" Scams
ABC's Primetime Fakery
By DEBBIE NATHAN
February 17, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/nathan02172006.html

Diverging Views of Californian at Terror Trial
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
SACRAMENTO, Feb. 16 ˜ A federal terrorism trial opened here on
Thursday with wildly diverging views of a 23-year-old Californian
who traveled to Pakistan either for terrorism training, as the
government contends, or to help his ailing mother, study religion
and marry, as his lawyer asserts.
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/national/nationalspecial3/17trial.html?
pagewanted=all

On Private Web Site, Wal-Mart Chief Talks Tough
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO
February 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/business/17walmart.html?
hp&ex=1140238800&en=6faf297fa60aec04&ei=5094&partner=homepage

SOS: Why you need to join the Soldiers of Solidarity now!
By Melodee Hagensen
February 2006
http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com/id151.html

Iraq 'Death Squad Caught in Act'
Iraq has launched an investigation into claims by the US military that
an Iraqi interior ministry "death squad" has been targeting Sunni Arab
Iraqis. The probe comes after a US general revealed the arrest of 22
policemen allegedly on a mission to kill a Sunni
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021606A.shtml

The Torture Photos Congress Didn't Want You to See
Pictures That Missed the Exhibition
By LILA RAJIVA
February 16, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/rajiva02162006.html

Iraq: the forgotten victims
Military under fire for 'abandoning' more than
1,000 veterans with mental problems
By Kim Sengupta and Terri Judd
Published: 16 February 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article345709.ece

A Deal Is Reached to Name a Victor in Haiti's Election
By GINGER THOMPSON
February 16, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/international/americas/16cnd-haiti.html?
hp&ex=1140152400&en=fc29068844f31494&ei=5094&partner=homepage

British Clinic Is Allowed to Deny Medicine
[The best life-saving drugs money can buy. Don't have money?
Start saving for your funeral...bw]
By SARAH LYALL
February 16, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/international/europe/16cancer.html

U.N. Report Calls for End to Guantánamo Detentions
By WARREN HOGE
February 16, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/international/16cnd-gitmo.html?
hp&ex=1140152400&en=44f61e793b9e79a6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Whistleblower Alleges Second Wiretap Program
A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret
surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans'
Constitutional rights. Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic
surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the
warrantless wiretapping.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021506A.shtml

We Have Created the World's First Truly Global Empire
John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," joins
us in our firehouse studio to talk about his former work going into
various countries to try to strongarm leaders into creating policy
favorable to the U.S government and corporations. Perkins describes
himself as an economic hit man.
Democracy Now!!, February 15th, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/15/1436221

2 Major Construction Unions Plan to Leave A.F.L.-C.I.O. Unit.
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
February 15, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/national/15union.html?pagewanted=all