Friday, 19 July 2002
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President Bush raised nearly $4 million in one fund-raising appearance in Alabama. In response to a speech by Bush about the economy and corporate crime, Senate Majority Leader Daschle said, "I thought the President spoke loudly but he offered a very, very small stick". John Walker Lindh pleaded guilty to a charge of willfully supplying services to the Taliban, agreeing to a plea bargain and 20 year prison term. Lindh said, "I provided my services as a soldier to the Taliban last year...I carried a rifle and two grenades. And I did so knowingly and willingly...". AG Ashcroft called Lindh's plea "an important victory in America's war on terrorism". The Bush administration said it would execute Zacarias Moussaoui, the only alleged conspirator of the September 11 attacks to be indicted, if he is convicted of conspiracy to commit terrorism. The White House OMB released new projections which showed a $165 billion budget deficit this year. Bush lectured Congress about "excessive spending" and pressured the Senate to quickly pass a $40 billion increase in the Pentagon budget for 2003. Congressional investigation revealed widespread abuse of military charge and travel cards, including 200 Army personnel spending nearly $40,000 at off-base strip clubs, fraudulent charges for computers, fine china, cigars, wine, cruises, trips to Las Vegas, and pictures of Elvis Presley purchased at Graceland.
Military investigators arrived in Bagram, Afghanistan, to probe the July 1 U.S. air strike which killed 48 civilians, including 25 at a wedding party, and wounded 117 when an AC-130 gunship fired upon villages in the Uruzgan province. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said that U.S. military aims at "liberation, not occupation" and that the attacks on the villages were justified because "bad guys" were hiding there. The U.S. demanded full immunity, and threatened to veto ongoing U.N. peacekeeping missions, from the International Criminal Court but settled for a one year exemption from prosecution. Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel criticized the compromise as a "blow to the credibility of international law". U.N. Ambassador Negroponte said, "Should the ICC eventually seek to detain any American, the U.S. would regard this as illegitimate -- and it would have serious consequences. No nation should underestimate our commitment to protect our citizens". President Bush intends to recruit one of every 24 Americans to participate in a domestic informant program known as TIPS. The USPS announced that letter carriers would not participate in the TIPS program. The editor of an Arabic newspaper in London claimed that Osama bin Laden was wounded in the U.S. carpet bombing of Tora Bora in December but is alive and remains in good health. The head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service said he believes Osama bin Laden is alive and hiding in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The FBI's counter-terrorism head, Dale Watson, said that bin Laden is "probably dead". President Bush said he does not know whether bin Laden is alive or dead.
Yasser Arafat rejected pressure from the U.S. that he leave office; "I have been elected by the people. I am not a coward". Secretary of State Powell said that he would consider a plan which allowed Yasser Arafat to stay on as a "symbolic leader" of the Palestinians. President said that "Mr. Arafat would like the whole issue to be about him - that's the way it's been in the past. Except when you analyze his record, he has failed the Palestinian people. He just has. That's reality". Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan began pressuring the U.S. for the creation of a Palestinian state after elections in January, followed by a two-year period of negotiations to set the final borders of the new state; it would have a written constitution, an elected Parliament, and a prime minister and could be recognized by early 2003. Egypt offered to train Palestinian police if Israel withdraws its forces from the West Bank, conditioned on a full Israeli withdrawal.
The Irish Republican Army issued a statement of apology for the deaths of noncombatants, signaling its "acceptance of past mistakes and of the hurt and pain we have caused to others". Israeli air force aircraft fired missiles at buildings in the southern Gaza Strip, injuring 10 Palestinians. A Palestinian teenager was killed in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, by Israeli forces as he walked through a farm. Two Palestinian children were killed and 11 others were wounded while playing with ordnance left by Israeli forces at a Ramallah refugee camp. Near Emmanuel, an ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement, in the first attack on civilians since June, gunmen wearing Israeli army uniforms exploded a bomb near an armored bus and fired automatic weapons at civilians. Seven people were killed, including a 2 year old and a pregnant woman, and more than 12 were wounded. Two suicide bombers killed at least seven people and injured 30 in Tel Aviv. Two other suicide bombers struck outside a convenience store in a working-class immigrant neighborhood in Tel Aviv, resulting in the deaths of three and injury to 40. In the past 21 months, 1,758 Palestinians 572 Israelis have been killed.
A.P.J Abdul Kalam, a missile scientist and advocate of nuclear deterrence, was elected president of India. Islamic militants disguised as Hindu holy men killed 24 civilians and wounded 20 in a slum in Jammu, Kashmir. A state of emergency, and the suspension of the right to demonstrate, was declared in Paraguay in order to control widespread, violent anti-capitalist protests. Police have dispersed protests in Asuncion with rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannon. About 180 miles west of Kampala, Uganda, more than 60 people, including 10 United Nations workers, were killed Thursday when a fuel truck struck a passenger bus and exploded. World Bank president James Wolfensohn proposed cancellation of more than 80 percent of Congo's external debt, reducing it from $12 to $2 billion. In southeast Nigeria 500 unarmed women hold hostage 700 ChevronTexaco refinery workers, effectively shutting down the terminal, and threatened to go naked in order to shame those being held; they're demanding that profits from the region's oil reserves be used to improve their impoverished villages. In an attempt to smuggler her Kurdish lover into Italy, a Belgian woman packed him into her suitcase; upon discovery, he was promptly deported to Greece. The UK foreign secretary, Jack Straw, rejected the asylum applications of two young boys, either Pakistani or Afghan, aged 13 and 11, who escaped from the Woomera refugee camp in Australia after activists tore down parts of the camp's wall. Immigrant rights advocates said that Straw's decision was a breach of an international convention on the rights of children.
The former CFO of WorldCom, Scott Sullivan, has implicated Bernie Ebbers, saying that he was "fully aware of the bookkeeping tricks that allowed WorldCom to hide costs of nearly $4 billion". Rep. Billy Tauzin said that WorldCom's illegal accounting practices date back to 2000. Harvey Pitt, former private securities lawyer and current SEC chairman, refused calls to resign and claimed that the SEC has been more aggressive against corporate illegality than ever before: "I'm the right person for the job". Pitt also vowed to "vigorously investigate" Halliburton, VP Cheney's former company. But "guilt by occupation", Pitt added, "is really a needless diversion". Current CEO of Halliburton David Lesar defended its bookkeeping practices and added that VP Cheney was aware that it counted projected cost-overrun payments as revenue. A division of Halliburton known as Kellogg Brown & Root has profited from increased business from the federal governement since the September 11 attacks. KBR is the exclusive logistics supplier for the Army and Navy and provides cooking, construction, power generation, and fuel transportation services. Congressional Republicans quiety made it known that they want Army Secretary Thomas White to resign, despite the White House's continued support of White, who left Enron after selling $12 million in stock just before its collapse. In volutary testimony before Congress White called the Enron collapse "an absolute terrible tragedy".
During a Bastille Day parade, an "emotionally disturbed neo-Nazi" shot at French President Chirac with a rifle taken from a guitar case. A court in Lahore, Pakistan, sentenced Anwar Kenneth, a man with a history of psychiatric problems, and who claimed to be Jesus Christ, to death for blasphemy. A House subcommittee found Rep. Jim Traficant guilty of ethics violations as a result of his conviction for fraud, tax evasion, and bribery. Traficant maintained that witnesses in his criminal trial perjured themselves under threat of reprisal from the FBI and IRS. Five Republican legislators sent a letter opposing the creation of an HIV-positive character on PBS's Sesame Street children's program, calling it "unwelcome". The legislators said, "we look forward to working with you to ensure that only age and culturally appropriate programs air on PBS". The U.S. House passed, 385 to 3, a bill which provides for life prison sentences for severe computer break-ins. The bill expands the right of police to conduct surveillance without a court order; "a mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb", Republican Lamar Smith said. WorldCom, Microsoft, and other tech corps endorsed the bill.
Scientists learned that breast-feeding and the number of full-term pregnancies are factors which reduce a woman's lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. West Nile Virus was found in Louisiana, where three men were hospitalized, and in Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Scientists in London discovered a gene, CEM15, which may be used to create therapies to fight off HIV in infected cells. A government study said that three million U.S. teenagers have seriously considered or attempted suicide, more than 13 percent of those between 14 and 17 years of age. Girls were twice as likely as boys to report that they have thought about suicide. GHB, a drug used to incapacitate women for rape and sexual assault, was approved by the FDA for use in treating cataplexy, a muscle-weakness condition which plagues those who suffer from the sleep disorder narcolepsy; it will be sold under very severe restrictions. Two Inglewood police officers, Jeremy Morse and Bijan Darvish, both white, were indicted on felony charges for beating a handcuffed 16 year old African American boy. Morse was charged with assault under the color of authority, and Darvish was charged with filing a false police report. Al Unser Jr., arrested for hitting his girlfriend, will not be prosecuted because the recorded 911 call, statements, and photographs provided insufficient evidence to win a conviction. "There is not a jury in the world", prosecutor Scott Newman said, "that would treat this as a criminal case".
Famed international photographer Yousuf Karsh died at the age of 93. Organizers of a judo tournament in Tokyo disqualified six high school students for shaving their eyebrows thinly in order to intimidate their opponents. A jury found that Katie Sierra could start an anarchist club, which her high school had formerly disallowed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, subsequently suspending Sierra for wearing t-shirts with political slogans. Editors of TV Guide named "The Jerry Springer Show" the worst TV show of all time.
See also WEEKLY REVIEW <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/820>
This is WEEKLY REVIEW <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/821>