NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/10223

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From: [e-mail] (New Liberation News Service)
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Subject: NLNS: Kicking Enemy Ass
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Date: 21 Jan 93 17:04:17 GMT
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/* Written  6:28 pm  Jan 18, 1993 by [e-mail] in igc:nlns.news */
/* ---------- "NLNS Packet 3.7 *** 1/18/93" ---------- */

Kicking Enemy Ass
Compiled by Linda Greene, NLNS Environmental Editor

Cocaine Chemistry
(NLNS)--The South American cocaine industry--what's in
it for U.S.  petrochemical companies? Quite a bit, says
Russell Salmon,  director of Indiana University's Center
for Latin American and  Caribbean Studies. Cocaine
production, he notes, requires hundreds  of thousands of
synthetic chemicals--including ether, acetone,  kerosene
and sulfuric acid--to be smuggled into the jungles. "The
government of the U.S.," Salmon observes, "is not about to
clamp  down on and regulate these companies."
Furthermore, many of the  synthetic chemicals cocaine
manufacturers use are, Salmon says,  "complete
defoliants, like Agent Orange." (Herald-Times,
Bloomington, IN)

Sexual Equality
(NLNS)--The Muslim fundamentalist government of
Sudan has issued one  decree prohibiting women from
working in public places after 5  p.m. and another
ordering women to sit only at the front of buses.  The
order restricting women to the front came after women's
organizations protested the government's original decree
confining
women to the back of buses. In Seoul, South Korea,
commuter trains  are now carrying coaches reserved for
women passengers only to  protect them from molesting
men on crowded rush-hour trains.  (Herald-Times,
Bloomington, IN)

Wisdom from the Courts of Justice
(NLNS)--On November 11 the Indiana Court of Appeals
reversed a probate  judge's ruling because of comments
the judge made during a hearing  in May. Both the 16-
year-old defendant and the man he was alleged  to have
shot are African American; the judge, Peter F. Nemeth, is
white. The defendant's attorney said the hearing had
proceeded  routinely until Judge Nemeth began to
express his opinions on  African Americans. The judge
stated that African American leaders  were at fault for
leading their people to believe that "somebody  owes
them something for 300 years of slavery. Nobody owes
anybody  in this world anything. It is a free world, and
you are entitled  to go out and support yourself and
improve yourself, and you have  the opportunity to do it.
The only reason [African Americans]  don't is because you
believe that fried chicken will fly in your  window and
settle on your plate." Judge Nemeth also offered the
courtroom his opinion that  "the majority of [African
Americans]  are still looking for the slave master, only
they don't want a slave master, they want the federal
government to take the place of a slave master." The
appellate court's reversal of Judge Nemeth's ruling will
not help the defendant, who, having been convicted of
the crime, has nearly completed his term at reform
school. (Herald-Times, Bloomington, IN)

On Trial for Baking Brownies
(NLNS)--Police arrested Mary Rathbun, Santa Rosa, CA,
for baking 2 pounds of marijuana into brownies for
patients attending San Francisco General Hospital's AIDS
outpatient clinic. A judge's ruling permits her to testify
that the brownies were for medical purposes. (Herald-
Times, Bloomington, IN)

Hazwaste Incineration in North Carolina
(NLNS)--For 10 years in Lenoir, NC, a Caldwell Systems
hazardous waste incinerator burned mainly used torpedo
fuel (chief constituent, propylene glycol di-nitrate) from
the U.S. Navy. During that period cattle died of unusual
types of cancer, flies and mosquitoes were absent, and
thousands of worms died after every rain. When the state
biologist said the incinerator was emitting chlorine-
containing air pollutants, his bosses sent him to a
psychiatrist, shut down his greenhouse and made him a
data-entry clerk. A local physician found that people
were suffering from phosgene poisoning. Designed to
burn 1,882 pounds of hazwaste per hour, the incinerator
had a state permit to burn 4,018 pounds. A 27-year-old
man whose job had been to unload 5,000-gallon tankers
and 55-gallon drums of hazardous waste for the
incinerator has suffered permanent, irreversible brain
damage and has severe headaches, nausea, balance and
memory problems, severe rashes, very severe tremors,
joint problems, muscular aches, numbness, organic mood
changes and blood pressure that fluctuates widely within
any 15-minute period. Twenty-five other Caldwell
workers are experiencing serious illness from exposure to
chemical poisons from the incinerator. The workers' out-
of-court settlements will not provide enough money for
their medication, hospital stays and doctor bills. (Waste
Not)

Condoms, Safe Sex and Fashion
(NLNS)--Administrators at an Elmira, NY, high school
informed junior Thursa Hargrove that she would have to
leave class for wearing a dozen packaged condoms on her
clothes and in her hair as a statement about preventing
AIDS through safe sex. According to school principal
Joseph Nikiel, "When you get a girl or boy wearing a
condom in their hair, it's distracting to the other
students." (Herald-Times, Bloomington, IN)

Multinational Traffic in Third World Women
(NLNS)--Professional traffickers in women run a
prostitution system that exploits young South American
women and operates from South America, Asia and
Africa to Portugal. For introducing a woman into the
network or trading her in her at one of the brothels lining
Spain's national highways, the pay is $1,560. For his
maximum of 20 minutes with such a prostitute, a
customer pays $52. At the helm of this business are
syndicates connected to South American drug cartels,
most notably the Cali Cartel of Colombia. The brothels are
outlets for hard drugs, which make their way easily past
Portugal's and Spain's poorly policed coasts. Expresso,
Lisbon's largest newsweekly, estimates that syndicates
from Galicia, Spain, passed drugs worth $2.6 billion
through Portugal in the last 10 years. The traffickers use
recruiters in the source countries who receive a
commission for delivering suitable women. The recruiters
make a special point of seeking out poor women, but
those with family and psychological problems or from
war zones are considered prime candidates. Many are
lured with the promise of "respectable" employment in
Europe; others are beaten up and sold. Under the
watchful eyes of pimps, who threaten some prostitutes
with death if they don't follow orders, the women have
minimal chances of escaping the protitution trap, and
police and other public officials are indifferent. (The
European)

Corporate Reasoning
(NLNS)--Lake County, in northwest Indiana, produces
more toxic waste than every other U.S. county except for
seven. All by itself its neighbor, Porter County, produces
more such waste than do seven other states. Patrick J.
Kiely, president of the Indiana Manufacturers
Association, looks on the bright side. "At some point the
deterioration of the economic base [in northwest Indiana]
will do more harm to the environment than anything
else," he says. "If all those [polluting] companies go out of
business tomorrow, there will never be a cleanup."
(Herald-Times, Bloomington, IN)

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