June 26, 2002
WorldCom Faces Enron-like Scandal (3:12)
Yet another corporate accounting scandal involving the Arthur Anderson Firm has seventeen thousand American workers looking for new jobs. And world financial markets are reeling. Communications giant WorldCom says its earnings were overestimated by some three point eight billion dollars last year. President Bush says the government is doing what it can to prevent accounting fraud, but some in Washington say the scandals will continue as long as the accounting industry has a say in enforcing the rules. Joshua Chaffin reports.
Inside the G8 (4:33)
Heads of state and ministers from the eight most powerful nations in the world started their meetings this morning. The Group of Eight faced one of the largest recent economic justice protests last year in Genoa, Italy. The G8 indirectly controls most of the world’s major economic and political institutions. Access for journalists to the summit is restricted and under tight security. And closed door sessions only hint at the unofficial agenda. On Monday, the US won a case against Canada in the WTO over Canada’s dairy subsidies. Thatcher Collins reports from Calgary.
Protesting the G8 (2:48)
Fearing a repeat of violence that rocked last year’s G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, leaders of the eight industrial powers have set up a three-and-a-half mile security zone around this year’s remote summit site in the Alberta Rockies. Those in the area opposed to G8 hegemony over the world economy are left to find protest targets seventy miles away in Calgary. Leigh Robartes files this report.
Police Brutality Case in NJ (4:14)
The retrial of police officer Charles Schwarz began in a Manhattan court this week. Schwarz was convicted in 1998 on civil rights charges of being the second attacker when Abner Louima was sodomized by another white police officer. But a federal appeals court threw out his conviction earlier this year and ordered a new trial, saying that Schwarz’s lawyer did not defend him adequately and that the jury was tainted by news reports. Meanwhile, in another police brutality case, a federal appeals Court in Philadelphia has reinstated conspiracy convictions against five police officers in Orange, New Jersey who were found guilty in the beating and pepper spraying of Earl Faison, who died in their custody in 1999. After the predominantly white jury’s guilty verdict against the officers, then-presiding judge John F. Liflin had dismissed the convictions. Faison’s death was also part of what some called a manhunt in Orange’s black community after the shooting of a police officer. Three innocent men–including Faison–were arrested before a fourth man pled guilty to the shooting. Dred Scott Keyes has more from New York.
27th Anniversary of Pine Ridge Shootout (5:02)
Today marks 27 years since the shootout between the FBI and the American Indian Movement that resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents and what many call the wrongful conviction of Leonard Peltier for their murder. Marches and vigils to call for clemency for Peltier are happening around the world, including the dusty hills of Pine Ridge, South Dakota where activists will come together for a ceremony. FSRN’s Charles Michael Ray takes a look at the issue, and the effort to create healing on the reservation so many years later.
