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TOP STORIES * Jan. 17, 2006

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“Eco-Mafia” Targets Eastern Europe
Hungarian police say that 10 illegal toxic waste dumps are the work of a German “eco-mafia” that offers a cheap but hazardous alternative to incineration. The Budapest Times reports that a local mayor, his wife and several companies are suspects in a dumping scheme that has also struck the Ukraine. Peru: The New Colombia
Resurgent Shining Path militants protect Mexican drug cartels that bypass Colombia to bring an efficient and ruthless cocaine trade to Peru. Speaking to El Universal, some analysts blamed prohibition for creating the cartels, and said coca eradication isn’t offsetting market growth worldwide. Canada Brainwash Lawsuit
Montreal resident Janine Huard won $66,000 from the CIA for trauma from an electroshock and brainwashing program it sponsored with Canada from 1950-1965.

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News You Might Have Missed * Vol. 6, No. 3

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Important but overlooked news from around the world. THIS WEEK:
A German “eco-mafia” is dumping toxics in Eastern Europe, Peru cocaine revives the Shining Path, Shiites and Sunnis are at odds in Detroit, the Gates Foundation retreats on principle, women take strides in Yemen and Zimbabwe, and a newspaper pushes a peace plan for Iraq. QUOTED:
“[I]t is naive to suggest that an individual stockholder can stop that suffering. Changes in our investment practices would have little or no impact on these issues.” — Patty Stonesifer, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on oil investments linked to pollution and health problems in the African nations it serves (see “Global Giving,” below).

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News & Commentary: "Declassified" Documents Withheld

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Numerous exemptions built into the Bush Administration’s historic declassification of government files at least 25 years old means very little of it will ever reach the public. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, history professor Jon Weiner says the exemptions cover any information obtained from confidential sources and foreign governments, or through wiretaps. Source:
“Government documents are declassified in name only”
Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2007

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Migrant Workers Abused, Praised in Different Countries

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Rebels in India’s impoverished Northeast are targeting migrant workers to stir anger over high unemployment there. According to the Associated Press, 67 workers were killed or wounded in the space of a week, the latest violence in a region home to “dozens” of insurgent groups and long-simmering ethnic conflict. A human rights advocate says foreign maids in Bahrain have been “specifically excluded” from labor protections, leading to widespread abuse. The Gulf Daily News reports that maids from South and Southeast Asia are frequently overworked, beaten, sexually abused and driven to attempt suicide. Contrary to public fears, 500,000 workers from Poland, Hungary and other former Soviet countries have reduced unemployment and boosted production in the U.K., a study finds.

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CENSORSHIP: Student Magazine, Venezuelan TV Shut Down

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The Art Institute of California-San Francisco has fired a part-time professor who claimed the school’s confiscation of a student magazine was a First Amendment violation. The former professor and his students claim that the Institute has censored other works in the past. Administrators say the magazine, which included criticism of the school’s corporate funders, has since been approved for publication. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has come under fire from the Organization of American States and Reporters Without Borders for closing Venezuela’s oldest and largest TV network. He accuses network operators of supporting a failed 2002 coup against him, an event they claim to have covered as a news event only.

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Rape Victims' Voices Unheard

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Although up to 500,000 women in Rwanda alone were estimated to have been raped, U.N. tribunals prosecuting genocide there and in the former Yugoslavia have had only 34 successful convictions for rape as a weapon of war. Source:
“International justice failing rape victims”
Institute for War & Peace Reporting, January 5, 2007

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Kalahari Homeland Denied … Again

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A group of Basarwa Bushmen returning to their ancestral homeland were turned away at the border of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, despite winning a court case against the government. Officials claimed only the plaintiffs and their children would be allowed back in. Source:
“Khoisan denied entry to Kalahari reserve”
Independent Online (South Africa), January 5, 2007

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WEAPONS TRADE: U.S., Russia, Israel Follow the Money

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In Washington, emergency supplemental budgets have sparked a “feeding frenzy” for weapons contractors, a military official told the Wall Street Journal. Case in point: The Pentagon’s request for an additional $99.7 billion to buy weapons that won’t be ready for years, and aren’t intended for Iraq or Afghanistan. Overseas, the United States ended sanctions against a Russian military firm that’s working with Boeing, but imposed new ones against other weapons companies that sell to Iran and Syria. Russia condemned the move as “illegal,” and said the U.S. is denying itself economic opportunity. Israel has taken its place among the world’s top five weapons exporters with $4.4 billion in sales last year, primarily to India and the United States.

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Afghans Unarmed and Dangerous

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NATO-led forces will shoot small children pointing replica guns at them if they look real enough, warned officials. The force already mistook about 1,000 civilians for insurgents and killed them in the past year. Source:
“Kids with toy guns worry NATO troops in Afghanistan”
PakTribune.com (Pakistan), January 06, 2007

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Iran's Cell Phone Spies

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A member of Iran’s parliament has criticized a new group of plainclothes officials who seize and erase citizens’ cell phone if they contain independent news, political jokes, and other “illegal” messages, according to ADNKronos. This follows other bans on satellite TV and 10,000 Web sites. Source:
“Iran: Special police corps charged with controlling cell phones”
ADNKronos International (Italy), January 4, 2007