Thursday, January 3, 2002

• Afghan Journey: The Last Day

  
  

  Masuda Sultan is a young Afghan-American woman who returned to her native Kandahar for the first time since theUnited States began bombing on October 7. We spoke to her last week, just after she met with surviving family membersof a US bombing that had killed 19 other members of her family.

• Top Eleven Worst Corporations of 2001

  
  

  The Washington-based magazine the Multinational Monitor has just released its list of the ten worstcorporations of 2001. They are: Abbott Laboratories, Argenbright, Bayer, Coke, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Philip Morris,Sara lee, Southern Co. and Wal-Mart. The magazine-which was founded by Ralph Nader— accuses the corporations ofripping off the public, polluting the environment and abusing their workers.

• Activist Philip Berrigan Released From Prison, Confronts Bush at Church

  
  

  Since September 11th, President George W Bush and his administration have threatened the world with warnings that nations that do not fall in line with Washington’s so-called war on terror will pay a price-you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists he says. His attorney General John Ashcroft has pushed through a series of repressive decrees and laws, aimed at slashing civil liberties and basic constitutional rights. Ashcroft has said on a number of occasions that to criticize his detention of more than a thousand people here in the US—or any of his edicts for that matter-is supporting what he calls the terrorists. In fact only one member of the Senate, Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against the repressive anti-terrorism bill.

• Pentagon Downplays Number of Military Deaths and Injuries in Afghanistan

  
  

  Afghanistan’s rulers said today they were negotiating the surrender of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar as American paratroopers flew into the country to search for remnants of Osama bin Laden’s networks. And as the Bush administration increases US troop presence in Afghanistan, it maintains that less than 10 American soldiers have died inside the country. But a recent report from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting alleges that the number may be much higher.

• Palestinian Activist and Physician Arrested, Beaten Twice by Israeli Forces

  
  

  Israeli police arrested leading Palestinian human rights activist Dr. Mustafa Barghouti yesterday and then released him on the edge of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, where he was then rearrested by the Israeli Army. Barghouti was severely beaten by the Army, first on the street and then in a car. Among his injuries was a fractured knee.Barghouti is president of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees.

• International Civilians Defy Israeli Army with Direct Action, Dismantling Checkpoints in Theoccupied Territories

  
  

  Scores of international civilians are defying the Israeli military and engaging in direct action in the OccupiedTerritories right now. New York labor organizer Jordan Flaherty has been in the territories for two weeks now, andin that time has helped to dismantle Israeli checkpoints in Palestinian villages around Nablus, and a massivecheckpoint at Birzeit University near Ramallah. He has also met with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

• United Nations: Governments Are Using the U.S. "War On Terrorism" to Justify Repression Athome

  
  

  U.N. officials and independent human rights advocates are charging that demands by the Security Council that U.N.members act against global terrorism are being used by some regimes to justify repression of domestic dissent.