June 26, 2003
Headlines: Produced by Randi Zimmerman.
Supreme Court Turns Down Nike Case Jay Tamboli reports.
Medicare in Congress Josh Chaffin reports.
EU on Farm Subsidies Salil Sarkar reports.
Little Bighorn Memorial Jim Kent reports.
Rumors of Palestinian Ceasefire
Rumors are circulating about a potential Palestinian truce agreement between the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, but so far no official declaration has been made. This as the Israeli army is intensifying it’s military operations in the West Bank and Gaza, leading to the killing of 4 Palestinians in the last 24 hours. Awad Duaibes reports Ramallah.
Supreme Court Strikes Down Sodomy Law
A closely-watched High Court decision involving the right to privacy was handed down today. The Texas sodomy law, rarely enforced but affecting the lives of many, has been struck down by the Supreme Court. Pokey Anderson reports from Houston, where the case originated.
UN on Reconstruction
The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors today to discuss humanitarian needs in Iraq and the phasing out of the oil-for-food program on which most Iraqi’s depend. Today’s meeting capped several days of tightly guarded discussions focusing on reconstruction and aid to the war-torn country. A daylong conference on Tuesday for the first time brought together representatives from 52 countries, UN agencies and the US-led coalition now running Iraq. In a victory for the Bush administration, the European Union, whose members were bitterly divided over the war, agreed to co-sponsor an international pledging conference in the fall. But the Europeans insisted on keeping control of the purse-strings. Susan Wood reports from the UN.
NGOs and Africa
The Bush administration has been berating US NGOs for not enthusiastically endorsing US foreign and domestic policy over the past few days, while holding up the work of some nonprofit corporate interest groups as the model for others to follow. This week, almost every branch of the Bush administration came out to the 4th biennial business summit of the corporate council on Africa in Washington, DC. The council, a tax exempt nonprofit organization, was created in 1993 by major corporations like Cargill, Exxon Mobil and Coca Cola. It seeks to bring together business leaders and government officials for enhancing trade and investment ties between the United States and African nations. Ingrid Drake reports from Washington, DC how groups who don’t share the Bush agenda for the African continent view the corporate events.
SEIU Merging Locals
While hospital workers in Las Vegas and janitors in Boston, organized under the Service Employee International Union, the SEIU, have been staging labor strikes over the past weeks and months, the spotlight is now on the SEIU’s national policy of merging smaller locals into bigger locals, despite the fact that they maybe hundreds of miles away, by imposing a trusteeship. The current conflict within the SEIU Local 36 reflects this national trend, as Dante Toza reports from Philadelphia.
