From: "Janet M Eaton" <•••@••.•••> Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 14:54:16 +0000 Subject: Most censored stories of 1999 ca. TNC's, NATO , IMF, WB Definitely worth reading and forwarding !! Note - many of the stories focus on Globalization and its ironfist Militarism - many of which we first read about on GSN - stories about profligate profits of major energy transationals profiting from brutality; pharmaceuticals profiting from Viagra while ignoring diseaases rampant in developing world; The Hague Appeal for Peace (HAP) Conference Setting World Agenda for Peace; American Sweatshops Sewing U.S. Military Uniforms; NATO Defending Private Economic Interests in the Balkans; The US and NATO Deliberately Starting the War with Yugoslavia as Rambuillet and later lack of evidence of pre-war genocide showed; and most topical with the April 16th protests [...] in Washington TWO STORIES on the IMF and WORLD BANK: about the IMF and World Bank Contributing to Economic Tensions in the Balkans; and World Bank's Resettlement Programs Displacing Millions !! Remember - 1998's most censored story - the MAI !! all the best, janet ======================================= ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 13:26:13 -0300 (ADT) From: Peace Action Group <•••@••.•••> Subject: Most censored stories of 1999 To: •••@••.••• Reply-to: Peace Action Group <•••@••.•••> Hi folks, This just in. Please forward widely. The whole thing is 37k, so I deleted the write-ups for several of them. For the whole listing, check out: http://www.projectcensored.org or directly at: http://www.projectcensored.org/cyearbook.htm I also recommend their listserv. Peace, Daniel. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2000 12:14:24 -0700 From: Project Censored <•••@••.•••> Reply-To: •••@••.••• To: •••@••.••• Subject: Press Release Embargoed Until March 29th Project Censored Press Release Censored 2000 Stories to be released March 29th For twenty-four years, Project Censored has been compiling a list of the top 25 undercovered news stories in the United States. 1999 was an international year for the United States and for Project Censored. The most under-covered "censored" news stories for 1999 have a strong international flavor, with an emphasis on untold stories of Kosovo (6, 10, 12, 20, 22), foreign policy (5, 17, 21, 23), and international corporate power abuse (1, 13). Emerging this year are a number of stories on the mainstream media itself (7, 14, 16). With the advancement of spin techniques, mainstream media now tends to place emphasis on particular perspectives of news stories to enhance their entertainment value. In some cases, today's media may also be deliberately spinning stories for their own political/commercial purposes. Many of our old favorites are present as well, including stories on the environment (9, 11), race issues (9, 16), labor (4), US military (8, 21, 25), and health concerns (2, 3, 15, 19). Project Censored students and staff screened several thousand stories from 1999, and selected some 500 to be evaluated by faculty and community experts. The top ranked 200 stories were then researched for national mainstream coverage by the Media Censorship class in the Fall. A final collective vote of all students, staff and faculty occurred in early November, and finally, the top 25 stories were ranked by our national judges. This year we have a short 200-300 word synopsis on each of the 30 runners-up. As the media consolidates, we are finding a significant increase in news stories that are left uncovered by the corporate press. These runners-up deserve notice as well as the top 25. In many cases only a few votes separated the two groups. While selection of these stories each year is a subjective, judgmental process. We have grown to trust this collective process as the best possible means of fairly selecting these important news stories. This we believe gives us an annual summary list of the most important under-covered news stories in the United States. We hope you agree. #1 Multinational Corporations Profit from International Brutality Source: Dollars and Sense, May/June 1999 In the name of commerce, huge multinational corporations collaborate with repressive governments, and in the process, support significant human rights violations. Corporations often argue that their presence and investment will improve human rights. This practice is referred to as "constructive engagement". Major international energy corporations such as Mobil, Exxon, Enron, and UNOCAL have engaged in major business ventures in countries known as major human rights violators. Major U.S. governmental grants, as well as corporate capitol investment, have funded the suppression of media, political opposition, and personal rights in Turkmenistan, India and Burma. The myth of "constructive engagement" has failed to improve human rights, and yet has been endorsed both by international corporations and the U.S. government. Since the release of this information, BP Amoco and Statoil have taken positive steps toward addressing human rights issues. Programs are being developed in the U.S. and abroad to deal with the conduct of energy companies globally. For more information contact author: Arvind Ganesan, Human Rights Watch, 1630 Connecticut Ave, NW Suite 500, Washington, DC 20009 Tel:(202)612-4329, Fax: (202)612-4333, Email: •••@••.••• #2 Pharmaceutical Companies Put Profits Before Need Source: The Nation Multinational pharmaceutical companies focus their research and development on high profile, profit-making drugs like Viagra instead of developing cures for life threatening diseases in poorer countries. Viagra earned more than one billion dollars its first year, for instance. Though representatives of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America claim that some funds are directed toward eliminating tropical diseases, neither they nor individual firms are willing to provide statistics. Research into Third World tropical diseases is not being extensively considered or produced. A recent and effective medicine for African sleeping sickness was pulled from production, while older remedies are no longer available because they are not needed in the US. AIDS continues to receive the most attention in the Third World, mainly because the disease also remains a threat to the First World. Since the release of this story, Doctors Without Borders won the Nobel Prize and announced an international campaign to increase access to key drugs. For more information contact author: Ken Silverstein Tel: (202) 462-3130, Email: •••@••.••• #3 Financially Bloated American Cancer Society Fails to Prevent Cancer Source: International Journal of Health Services, Volume 29, #3, 1999 The American Cancer Society (ACS) is growing increasingly wealthy, thanks to donations from the public and funding from surgeons, drug companies, and corporations that profit from cancer cures. More than half the funds raised by the ACS go for overhead, salaries, and fringe benefits for its executives and other employees, while most direct community services are handled by unpaid volunteers. The value of cash reserves and real estate totals over $1 billion, yet only 16 percent of funds go into direct services for cancer victims. Conflicts of interest affect ACS's approach to cancer prevention. With a philosophy that emphasizes faulty lifestyles rather than environmental hazards, the ACS has refused to provide scientific testimony needed for the regulation of occupational and environmental carcinogens. The Board of Trustees includes corporate executives from pharmaceutical industries with a vested interest in the manufacture of both environmental carcinogens and anti-cancer drugs. For More information contact author: Samuel Epstein, School of Public Health, University of Illinois, Chicago Medical Center, 2121 W. Taylor Chicago, IL 60612-7260, Tel: (312)996-2297, Fax: (312)996-1374, Email: •••@••.••• #4 American Sweatshops Sew U.S. Military Uniforms Source: Mother Jones, May/June 1999 The Department of Defense (DoD) has $1 billion invested in the garment industry, making it the country's fourteenth largest retail apparel outlet. Lion Apparel contracts with the DoD to produce military uniforms, yet the company's workplace conditions are dismal and remain virtually unregulated by the U.S. government. Lion employees are mostly women who are paid as little as $5.50 per hour. According to records obtained by Mother Jones, through a Freedom of Information request, OSHA cited Lion Apparel 32 times for safety and health violations in the past 12 years. Employees in a Kentucky plant are subjected to formaldehyde fumes that cause shortness of breath, headaches, and skin rashes. Efforts to unionize workers have failed because, union leaders claim, the company managed to evade a federal law prohibiting the threat of plant closures. The military continues to refuse to sign the garment industry's anti-sweatshop code of conduct. Despite the coverage provided by this article, the author estimates that there are still 10,000 American women sewing government uniforms, often in unsanitary, unsafe conditions. For more information contact author: Mark Boal, 43 Fifth Avenue #114, New York, NY 10003, Tel: (212)366-4348 #5 Turkey Destroys Kurdish Villages with U.S. Weapons Source: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, March/April 1999 In 1995, the Clinton Administration recognized that the Turkish government used American arms in domestic military operations where human rights abuses occurred. In fact, Turkey has forcibly evacuated, leveled and burned more than 3,000 Kurdish villages in the past decade. Most of the atrocities, which have cost over 40,000 lives, took place during Clinton's first term in office. As an ally of the U.S. through NATO, Turkey receives U.S. weapons, from dozens of companies, including Hughes, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. Despite a horrifying report of violent abuse by Amnesty International, the State Department passed arms deals with Turkey. The war in Turkey represents the greatest use of U.S. weapons in combat anywhere in the world today. For more information contact: Kevin McKiernan, Access Productions, 1216 State Street #304, Santa Barbara, Ca 93101 Tel: (805)966-9770, Email: •••@••.••• #6 NATO Defends Private Economic Interests in the Balkans Sources:Women Against Military Madness, November 1998; Because People Matter, May/June 1999 (Reprinted fromWorkers World July 30, 1998); San Francisco Bay Guardian, 12/16/99 As a result of NATO's success in the military conflicts of Bosnia and Kosovo, its member nations have been provided the political and economic opportunities to partake in the exploitation of the significant mineral resources in the Balkans. In addition, Western multinational corporations are now well positioned to access the lucrative oil refining industry needed at a terminal end of the pipeline agreement, formally signed last November by President Clinton and the presidents of four key Caspian-region nations. Proposed pipeline routes will divert oil and gas from the oil-rich Caspian sea to either Mediterranean or east European terminals for export to the Western nations, thus avoiding competing interests of either Russia or Iran. Successful reestablishment of NATO's military presence in the Balkans has made real the goal of a leaked 1992 document of a Pentagon plan to preserve NATO as the primary instrument for Western security interests as well as the channel for U.S. influence and participation in European affairs. For More Information contact authors: Diana Johnstone, Paris Tel: (011)33-1-4223 5211, Email •••@••.•••; Sara Flounders, International Action Center, 39 West 14th Street, Rm 206, New York, NY 10011, Tel: (212)633-6646, Email: •••@••.•••; Pratap Chatterjee, PO Box 14175, Berkeley, CA 94712, Tel: (510)705-8970, Email: •••@••.••• #7 U.S. Media Reduces Foreign News Coverage Source: American Journalism Review, November 1998 Coverage of foreign news by the U.S. media industry reflects a continuing downward trend, despite evidence that the American public wants more international information (and at a time when the U.S. has become the world's only superpower). Pollsters reveal that most Americans rely on TV for national and international news. Unfortunately, major network coverage of foreign news is currently 7-12 percent, and dropping -- a sharp contrast to the at least 40 percent during heyday of Cronkite, Chancellor, and Reynolds. Coverage in print media is also down in large metro-area news markets. An example is the drop in coverage by the Indianapolis Stars from 5,100 column inches within a 30-day period in November 1977 to 1,170 column inches in 1997 -- a 23 percent drop over those two decades. Despite a critical examination by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and the continued campaign of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, major market editors seem to continue to focus on the production of a media diet of crime news, celebrity gossip and soft features in an effort to gain more market share and an increase in profit margins. For more information contact author: Peter Arnett, Foreign TV Com Inc., 162 Fifth Avenue, Suite 105A, New York, NY 10010, Tel: (703)847-9374, Fax: (703)356-1268, Email: parnett348@aol #8 Planned Weapons in Space Violate International Treaty Sources: Earth Island Journal, Winter/ Spring 1999; Toward Freedom, September/October 1999 #9 Louisiana Promotes Toxic Racism Source: Southern Exposure, Summer Fall 1998 #10 The US and NATO Deliberately Started the War with Yugoslavia Source: The Village Voice, May 18, 1999; Extra, July/August 1999; In These Times, August 8, 1999; Covert Action Quarterly, Spring-Summer 1999; Democracy Now, Pacifica Radio Network, Summer 1999 The US and NATO pushed for war with Yugoslavia by demanding full military occupation of the entire country as a condition of not bombing. Belgrade could not accept the U.S. drafted two-part Rambouillet ultimatum, not only because it was a thinly veiled plan to detach Kosovo from Serbia, but also because it contained provisions even worse than loss of that historic province, provisions no sovereign country in the world could possibly accept. Unreported in the mainstream media was the fact that, when Serbia rejected the treaty, they also passed a resolution declaring their willingness to negotiate Kosovo's self management. For months, the Serbian government offered to negotiate. High level government teams made many trips to Pristina to hold talks with Ibrahim Rugova and other non-violent ethnic Albanians. The Albanians refused to negotiate, for fear of going against the rising rebel movement, the Kosovo Libertarian Army (KLA), which was hostile to any compromise and ready to assassinate "traitors" who dealt with Serbs. For more information contact authors: Diana Johnstone, 65 rue Marcadet, 75018 Paris, France, Tel & fax: 011-33-1-4223 5211, Email •••@••.•••; Jason Vest, 1805 Belmont Road NW, #305, Washington, DC 20009, Tel: 202-518-9023, Email: •••@••.•••; Seth Ackerman, FAIR, 130 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001, Tel: 212-633-6700; Amy Goodman, Tel: 212-209-2812. #11 America's Largest Nuclear Test Exposed Thousands Sources: Terrain, Fall 1999; In These Times, August 8, 1999 #12 Evidence Indicates No Pre-war Genocide in Kosovo and Possible US/KLA Plot to Create Disinformation Source: Covert Action Quarterly, Spring/Summer 1999; The Progressive Review, June 1999; El Pais, 9/23/99 According to the New York Times, the "turning point" in NATO's decision to wage war on Yugoslavia occurred on January 20, 1999, when U.S. diplomat William Walker led a group of news reporters to discover a so-called Serb massacre of some 45 Albanians in Racak, Kosovo. This story made international headlines and was later used to justify the NATO bombings. The day before the "massacre," Serb police had a firefight with KLA rebels that was covered by an AP film crew. At the end of day, the village was deserted. William Walker arrived at noon with additional journalists, and expressed his outrage at a "genocidal massacre" to the world press. Walker's story remains shrouded with doubt. "What is disturbing," remarks war correspondent Renaud Girard, "is that the pictures filmed by the AP journalists radically contradict Walker's accusations." Belarussian and Finnish forensic experts were later unable to verify that a massacre had actually occurred at Racak. For more information contact authors: Mark Cook, 33 Indian Road #1F, New York, NY 10034, Tel & fax: 212-567-5724; Email •••@••.•••: Sam Smith, Tel: 202-835-0770, fax: 202-835-0779, Email: •••@••.••• #13 U.S. Agency Seeks to Export Weapons Grade Plutonium to Russian Organization linked to Organized Crime Sources: In These Times, Oct. 17, 1999; Counterpunch, Vol. 6, No. 16, September 16-30, 1999 The Washington-based Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT) proposes that the US sell nuclear waste to Russia. NPT's plan would make Russia the world's dumping ground for nuclear waste including weapons-grade plutonium. NPT's partner in this endeavor is MinAtom, Russia's ministry of atomic energy. NPT is headed up by Daniel Murphy (former deputy director of the CIA), Bruce Demars (former head of the Navy's nuclear program), and William Webster (former director of the CIA and FBI). Although NPT is set up as a non-profit organization, its principals stand to make huge profits off consulting and sub-contracting. On the list of potential sub-contractors is Halter Marine in Gulfport Mississippi, a company to which U.S. Senator Trent Lott has close links. Yevgeny Adamov, the head of MinAtom, estimates that the operation could produce $150 billion in revenue, making it the most lucrative operation in Russia. MinAtom is also alleged to have links to corrupt government officials and the Russian Mob. For more information contact authors: Alexander Cockburn, Tel: 800-840-3683 Email: •••@••.•••; Jeffrey St. Clair, Tel: 800-840-3683, Email: •••@••.••• #14 U.S. Media Ignores Humanitarian Aspects of Famine in Korea Source: Peace Review, June 1999 #15 Early Puberty Onset for Girls May be Linked to Chemicals in the Environment and Increases in Breast Cancer Source: Environmental Health Monthly; Pediatrics, Dec. 1998, Vol 11, No 3 #16 Media Distorts Debate on Affirmative Action Sources: News Watch, Summer 1999 #17 World Bank's Resettlement Program Displaces Millions Source: World Rivers Review, December 1998 The World Bank funds large dam projects, but does little to help the displaced millions who are forced to relocate. A recent report by the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED) shows the Bank's failure to implement its own resettlement policy. The most recent data available indicate that 1.9 million people are being displaced by projects in the Bank's current portfolio and that these numbers continue to grow. One of the biggest concerns aroused by the authors of the OED report is the Bank's inability to restore the incomes of those resetteled. The report recommends that the Bank move away from its policy of offering replacement land for lands lost to a project. "In reality, resettlers lose the best land in the area, river valley land, and it's replaced with the most awful land around, because that is what is left." For more information contact: Lori Pottinger, 1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94703, Tel: 510-848-1155, Fax: 510-848-1008, Email: •••@••.••• #18 Minors of California Being Tried as Adults in the Criminal Justice System. Source: The San Francisco Bay Guardian, January 27, 1999 #19 Bacterium in Cow's Milk May Cause Crohn's Disease Source: Cleveland Free Times, June 16-22, 1999 #20 IMF and World Bank Contributed to Economic Tensions in the Balkans Source: THIS, July/August 1999 The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were leading contributors to economic tensions in the Balkans that stimulated the break-up of Yugoslavia. Declassified documents from 1984, reveal that a U.S.. national security decision directive, entitled "United States Policy Towards Yugoslavia," set a policy for destabilizing the Yugoslavian government. In the early 1980s, the World Bank and IMF provided loans to the former Yugoslavia to supposedly "fix" the economic hardship of the region. The loans from these two organizations included mandated macroeconomics restructuring that rather than helping, in fact, destroyed the industrial sector and dismantled the welfare state. In 1990, the IMF and the World Bank delivered a new "financial aid package" that required new extensive expenditure cuts by the federal government. The IMF and World Bank involvement led to the impoverishment of the population, which in turn led to hatred, confusion, and divisiveness. For more information contact author: Michel Chossudovsky, 81 1st Avenue, Terrasse Vaudrevic, J7V3T5, QE, Canada, Tel: 613-562-5800 x1415, Fax: 514-425-6224 #21 The Vatican's UN Status Challenged Source: Ms. Magazine, October/November 1999 #22 US and Germany Trained and Developed the KLA Source: The Progressive, August 1999 Since the early 1990s, Germany and the US collaborated in supporting the development and training of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to deliberately destablized a centralized socialist government in Yugoslavia. Undercover support of Kosovo's rebel army was established as a joint endeavor between the CIA and Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). Since the mid-1990s there has been a small handful of Pentagon contractors, or private military companies providing support to the KLA. One of these contractors is the Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI). The MPRI employs more than 400 personnel and can access the resumes of thousands of former U.S. military specialists. There has also been a blurring of law enforcement and military activities of companies like Dyncorp and Science Application International Corporation (SAIC). One of Dyncorp's UN police monitors was wounded by pro-Indonesian East Timorese militiamen in the post-referendum violence that swept the territory. Others, providing police services in NATO-occupied Kosovo, were attacked by both Serb and Albanian militia groups. For more information contact author: Wayne Madsen, 2001 N. Adams St. #227, Arlington, VA 22201, Tel: 703-841-5425, Fax: 703-841-5425, Email: •••@••.••• #23 International Conference Sets World Agenda for Peace Source: Toward Freedom, July, 1999 The Hague Appeal for Peace (HAP) Conference, which took place in the Netherlands in May 1999, set a "Global Agenda" for world peace in the next century. Ten thousand peace activists, Nobel peace prize winners, and celebrities from a hundred different countries met for four days in May of 1999 to voice their suggestions on how to make international peace possible. One campaign launched at the conference was the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), which will encourage tracking, protesting, and publicizing the sales and shipments of weapons. Referring to the fact that the US sold $119 billion in arms, (some 45 percent of the world's total) from 1989 to 1996, Pierre Sane of Amnesty International stated at the conference that the US is "becoming the arsenal of the world." The Hague Global Agenda calls for recognition and enforcement of World Court rulings that over one hundred and fifty countries have endorsed. The United States has been unwilling to submit to the international jurisdiction of the World Court. A long-term project put in motion at the conference is the Global Action to Prevent War. Its purpose is to establish a coalition of organizations that will build a permanent body of NGOs, individuals and eventually governments to support world peace. For more information contact author: Robin Lloyd, Tel: (802)658-2523, Email: •••@••.••• #24 U.S, Nuclear Weapons Controlled by Unstable Personnel Source: Mother Jones, November, 1998 Mentally unstable individuals may be in control of U.S. nuclear devices. A screening process called the Personnel Reliability Program (PRP), set in place after a near-disaster in 1959, is supposed to guarantee that only competent, stable, and dependable individuals have access to America's nuclear arsenal. PRP is a two step process consisting of an initial screening and post-approval monitoring. Screening includes a cursory medical evaluation, review of the candidate's personnel file, and a background check of professional, educational, and personal histories. However, no routine psychological testing is done, and an expelled PRP Marine claimed that heavy drinking and depression are overlooked. In certain cases, individuals still had their PRP clearance while in prison for a felony conviction. In several cases, PRP-certified people have gone on to commit murder or suicide, assault, rape, and other serious crimes, exposing unstable mental conditions in their past and present. For more information contact author: Ken Silverstein, Tel: (202) 462-3130, Email: •••@••.••• . #25 U.S. Military Trains Solders to Kill and Eat Tame Animals Sources: The Animals' Agenda, July/August l999 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) estimates that more than l0,000 animals, including chickens, rabbits and goats are used each year at military installations around the country in military training classes. "Survival Skills" teaches soldiers to hunt, kill, cook and eat the tame animals. Transported to training grounds by truck, the soldiers stage an ambush of the vehicle and release, chase, capture, and kill the animals. They are "required to stroke the rabbit to calm it, then bash it on the head - and the rabbits don't always die with the first blow." Two Air Force bases alone used more than l,500 rabbits each year at a cost of more than $l0,000, and according to a l997 Department of Defense
