May 16, 2003
Tax Cuts Pass Senate (4:03)
President George W Bush announced his 2004 reelection bid today. The campaign will focus on Republican plans to boost the economy, namely the president’s proposed multi-hundred-billion dollar tax-cut plan. With a close vote in the Senate last night, that plan got one step closer to reality. Josh Chaffin spoke to economists today who warn the proposed tax cuts benefit the wealthy at the expense of working people.
Portland in Economic Crisis (3:34)
Economists say that while tax cuts and job creation are not linked, in the years to come there may be more jobs available in the US. But in some parts of the US, there may not be any time to wait. The state of Oregon, has the highest rate of unemployment, and the highest rate of hunger. In the year 2000, money magazine named Portland, Oregon the most livable city in America, but less than three years later, Oregonians on all sides of the political spectrum agree that the word crisis is a appropriate term to describe the present situation, and there do not seem to be any answers on the horizon. Andrew Stelzer files this report from Portland.
Mass Graves in Iraq (2:16)
Poland today sought the support of NATO for its proposed Iraq Peace Force, this as the US is pushing strongly to have the UN sanctions on Iraq dropped, today Colin Powell, visiting Berlin, said it was time to “come to closure” on the issue with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder saying the sanctions now “make no sense”. France, Germany and Russia want sanctions suspended — not lifted — until the U.N. inspectors certify that if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction that they have been eliminated. Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting that after 10 days of digging, a grave site near Baghdad has turned up 3,100 sets of remains of people killed after the 1991 Shiite revolt against Saddam. Our reporter in Iraq, Aaron Glantz has more.
From Florida to Latin America: ChoicePoint’s New Job (4:51)
ChoicePoint, an Atlanta-based information gathering company, involved in the contested Florida 2000 election scandal, is receiving millions of dollars from the Bush administration to collect personal information on the citizens of Latin American countries. Nan McCurdy has more from Managua, Nicaragua.
Wal Mart Goes After Hactivists (3:52)
There have been protests in India after the Textile minister announced this month that US giant Wal Mart plans to make India their sourcing hub, with $5 billion worth of Wal Mart sourcing to come from India by 2010. This as in the US, a proposal to build a Super Wal Mart shopping center in a Utah County community met with steep community resistance last night. Wal Mart wants to build a 158- -thousand square foot store in an empty lot which residents say would destroy their neighborhood’s small town feel and kill local business. Meanwhile, in a case that seems to have the giant corporation quaking, a few young people decided to create a website modeled on Priceline.com where they told visitors they could name their own price for Wal Mart goods and create their own Wal Mart bar codes. While the activists say they were not a corporation trying to make money, as Brendan Sweeney reports, Wal Mart along with other large corporations have teamed up to shut the activists down.
