From: nlns@igc.apc.org (New Liberation News Service)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: NLNS: Kicking Enemy Ass
Date: 21 Jan 93 17:04:17 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: ?
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu

/* Written  6:28 pm  Jan 18, 1993 by nlns@igc.apc.org 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)

--- 30 ---
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive