Issue 57 Table of Contents

Issue 57
Table of Contents

	U.S. Pushing Widspread Use Of Experimental "Drug Fungus" To Kill Pot Plants	by Erin Sullivan Fungi would be introduced to the soil in U.S. and South America, where they would damage the root systems of host plants and cripple drug crops before they could be harvested. Although the federal government has insisted that the fungi will be harmless to other plants and animals, critics say the plan could backfire
	State Takes Over Bear Lincoln Case at Request of Defeated Prosecutor	by Nicholas Wilson With Bear Lincoln's community of supporters crowding the courtroom and hallways, the Native man and his lawyers learned that the state Attorney General's office has taken control of the case and is considering a retrial of Lincoln on manslaughter charges
	Canada Rejects Bovine Growth Hormone	by Mark Bourrie Canada's Health Ministry's refusal to approve the sale of the bovine growth hormone, rbST, in Canada is being seen here as a landmark test for biotechnology
	IMF Admits it Mishandled Asia Crisis	by Abid Aslam Report follows a growing barrage of criticism of the agency's handling of the crisis in Asia and the 'contagion' effects felt in Russia, which took a tumble last year, and Brazil. One critic blamed the crises on an international economic order which has championed the freedom of international investors at the expense of local populations
	Driving Republicans Around The Bend	by Steve Chapman Regardless of how the impeachment battle turns out, historians a hundred years from now are likely to scratch their heads and wonder: What was all that about?
	Henry Hyde's Last Harrumph	by David Corn You know desperation has been reached when conservative pundits rush to defend impeachment and its GOP advocates by conceding that, yes, trying to oust Clinton may cost the Republicans, but, dammit, it's the right thing to do
	Playing to a Y2000 Audience	by Allan R. Andrews At the risk of sounding more cynical than Daniel Schorr, the senior news analyst for NPR, a majority of the speeches of the House managers prosecuting the impeachment of the president dripped with patriotic references and self-righteous memoirs. These were speeches for the stump. Rep. Hyde even invoked the words of Gen. Douglas MacArthur
	No Tears for Bob Barr	by TJ Walker Clinton's critics accuse him of being shameless; they know of what they speak. For the last several weeks, the right-wing media establishment led by Drudge have been pushing a seven-year-old discredited story that Clinton fathered a child via a black prostitute. When DNA testing vindicated Clinton, did the conservative establishment issue mea culpas to Clinton or the public? Far from apologizing, Drudge issued a release congratulating himself: "The Drudge Report was first to reveal the DNA chase that captured the attention of official Washington in a series of exclusive reports." Huh?
	Nixon's Forgotten Impeachable Crime	by Steve Chapman With a prime-time national TV audience watching, the 1974 House Judiciary Committee turned to the final article, dealing with Nixon's underpayment of federal income taxes and acceptance of government-financed improvements on his homes in California and Florida. This was no small matter
	Today Clinton, Tomorrow the Judges	by Randolph T. Holhut It's not just President Clinton that House Majority Whip Tom DeLay is after. Two years ago, DeLay declared war on the federal judiciary. "As part of our efforts against judicial activism, we are going after judges," said DeLay
	In Crisis, Clinton Hides Behind Pentagon	by David Corn For all their Clinton rah-rahing, these progressives have gotten little from the President. Instead, he's doing what he has done so often: kicked his friends on the left in the teeth and bowed to the right. It's amazing that his conservative antagonists despise him so thoroughly
	Lott's Little White Lies	by David Corn If you had one mud pie to toss, and the targets were a man who may have perjured himself about a consensual one-sided sexual affair and a fellow who lied about his association with white supremacists, who would you splatter?
	State Of Union Shows Clinton As Reagan-FDR Hybrid	by Franz Schurmann Clinton's way is a combination of the earlier two re-makings. He calls for a return to an activist state to assure the general prosperity, as did Roosevelt. But, like Reagan, he wants to do it through the markets
	Nearly 100 Million Indonesians Now Below Poverty Line	by Andreas Harsono Growing number of poor people are being hit hardest in the crisis as demand for their labor falls, prices for basic foodstuffs rise and social services --their ragged, gaping "safety net" -- are cut. According to Indonesia's Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of people living below the poverty line -- those who consume a minimum 2,100 calories a day -- has soared to 95.8 million or about 48 percent of Indonesia's total population
	Catch 20	by Bruce Ackerman Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University and author of many books on the Constitution, Ackerman insists that we are blundering our way to the creation of a damaging precedent whose full destructive force will only make itself clear over the next few decades
	Swiss Plan to Dump Nuke Waste in Russia	by Danielle Knight Swiss nuclear power companies plan to send highly radioactive waste containing uranium originally from the United States to Russia, according to a confidential document leaked to the environmental group Greenpeace International. Swiss nuclear industries also asked Russians to store up to 550 cubic meters of highly radioactive material until year 2030
	Australia Seeking New Laws for Sex Slavery	by Andrew Nette A proposed law in Australia aims to curb trafficking in women for the sex industry, but activists and critics say it would harm the very people it is designed to protect. As it is, the draft law, released by Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone on Jan. 5, has run into controversy even before it reaches Parliament
	Japan Tries to Sink Whale Sanctuary Plan	by Andrew Nette Japan's government is attempting to scuttle an Australian plan to create a new sanctuary for whales in the South Pacific, say environmentalists and Australian government officials. The plan, which has won the island states' backing, is viewed by many experts as a crucial step to protecting the ocean's whale populations, many of whose species which have been hunted close to extinction
	Quayle Sounding Like Candidate Again	by A.C. Szul Calling Clinton and Gore "new-age socialists," former VP Quayle told the Conservative Political Action Conference last week that "very soon I will be making a final decision about my political future," implying that he will run for president in Y2000. On the Larry King show, Quayle added, "I've thought about this for a long time. I've wanted to be president for a long time, and the year 2000 is looking like my opportunity"
	The Politics of Water	by Jeff Elliott One dire prediction appeared January in an obscure scientific journal, and was hedged in a diplomat's careful language. Beneath it, the message was frightening: Someday soon, there will be wars over water
	A World of Thirst	by Robert Downes If, as environmentalists say, water serves as the "oil" of the 21st century, one has to wonder if a global thirst for H2O will spark future wars, just as the U.S. plunged into the Gulf War to protect the oil of Kuwait
	Unique Lawsuit Ties River Damage To Urban Growth	by Jentri Anders A lawsuit filed recently by a coalition of individuals, conservation organizations and Native American groups shifted the focus in a longtime Northern California water battle from the general to the very specific
	The Pathogens in our Water	by Dr. Neal D. Barnard and A.R. Hogan All too often, doctors must treat the severe symptoms brought on by exposure to the virulent strain of E. coli, fecal coliform, cryptosporidium and other microbes commonly spread by livestock manure contaminating water supplies. Sometimes those patients die
	Paradise Lost	by Sally Deneen In cold, hard, economic terms, each acre of wetland is worth 58 times more money than an acre of ocean in the benefits it provides. Wetlands act like sponges: The porous, jet-black peat function like kidneys, filtering out dirt, pesticides and fertilizers before the unwanted runoff reaches lakes and streams
	Where It Goes, Nobody Knows	by Laura Helmuth While scientists have models that can predict how water seeps from the earth's surface to the water table below, it's only accurate when it involves only a single type of soil, like sand. Only rarely is the ground so consistent. Researchers are now attempting to use chaos theory to explain the unpredictable flow water might take through typically rocky and mixed-consistency soil
	Boats A Source Of MTBE In Water	by Marvin Coyner Boats and other motorized watercraft are likely to be the primary source of MTBE contamination in lakes and reservoirs, according to a recent ten-month study
	Error 404: News Not Found in Your Daily Paper	EPA boondoggle creates expensive consumer pamphlet; Indonesian Army rapes confirmed; gasoline subsidies far higher than earlier thought; U.S. takes step to keep "Mad Cow" disease from blood supply; Silicon Valley millionaires funding racist hate groups
	Dying Coral Could Be Environment Warning	by Roger Segelken The dying corals of the Florida Keys could be an early warning of tough times ahead for the planet's environment, ecologists worry. The reason: Hundred-year-old corals are succumbing to diseases they previously survived
	How the Butterfly Got its Spots, and Other Mysteries	by Sean B. Carroll How the elephant got its trunk, the deer its antlers and the rattlesnake its rattles may seem like disparate questions of developmental biology, but the origins of these novelties, according to the genes of butterflies, may have much in common
	What Social Security Crisis?	By Mark Weisbrot Stories are beginning to surface in the press, stating what everyone who has looked at the numbers has known for years: Social Security is financially sound for the foreseeable future. Proposals to "reform" the system are driven by politics -- including Wall Street's enormous interest in privatization
	Reno Faces Tough Decisions in Pinochet Case	By Andrew Reding Attorney General Janet Reno faces a tough choice. The Justice Department is considering whether to file charges against former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet for a 1976 car bombing in the District of Columbia that killed a U.S. citizen. If she decides to proceed, she risks further exposing U.S. complicity in the 1973 military coup that brought Pinochet to power. But if she doesn't, she risks making a mockery of Washington's official policy of relying on the rule of law to combat international terrorism
	Mexicans Living in U.S. Denied Voting Rights in Mexico	by Jesus Martinez Mexicans living in the United States argue that they have a constitutional and moral right to participate in elections. With the estimated $6 billion they send home per year, migrants support millions of relatives, boost economic activity in their home regions, create jobs, reduce political tensions, and help provide the government much needed foreign currency. The need for greater accountability is particularly evident to migrants at the turn of the year, when they return home on vacation -- and are subjected to systematic abuse by representatives of numerous government agencies as they become prime targets for unscrupulous customs, transit, police, judicial, and even army officers
	Gold Miners Creating Sand Dunes in Jungle	by Warief Djajanto Basorie Forest, swamp and rivers are major features of this huge island non-Indonesians know as Borneo, but a trip upriver to a south central area of Kalimantan leads travelers to think they are in a desert in the thick of the jungle
	Enough With the Responsible Journalism!	by Ted Rall "I am, like, so tired of this whole thing," spat Rhonda Bertelson of White Plains, NY, speaking of heavy media coverage of the House Foreign Relations Committee calling for an investigation of the situation in the Congo. "The economy's good for well-educated white men, the country's at peace in the suburbs. Why do the media have to keep harping on all this ugliness?"
	U.S. Laws Behind Sweatshop Boom	by David Bacon Selective INS enforcement of U.S. immigration law has created a sweatshop crisis and has become a key weapon in the proliferation of those conditions, undermining the ability of immigrant workers to fight for better pay and treatment, and the effectiveness of unions which try to help them
	The Punditry Missing From Prime Time	by Norman Solomon After the president's State of the Union speech the other night, the usual pundits were all over the airwaves -- smooth and glib -- mostly lauding Bill Clinton's boffo performance. But many commentators are never eligible for prime time. Political analysts outside the conventional range of media wisdom are rarely on the TV networks
	The FDA's Guinea Pigs	by Alexander Cockburn We're awash with drugs, sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration, which are ongoing "experiments" carrying great risks and costs. Take methadone, originally formulated in Nazi Germany and initially named "Dolophine" in honor of Adolf Hitler
	No Future For Congressional GOP	by Alexander Cockburn The Republicans are clearly in dire straits. To watch them these days is like observing a gambler mortgaging everything in one rash bet. In the Republicans' case, it's the hope that after a year of steadily mounting evidence to the contrary, some new disclosure, some toxic affidavit from Jane Doe, an appearance by Monica Lewinsky as witness at the impeachment hearings will turn the tide
	The Corruption of Justice	by Alexander Cockburn The cops abuse your Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure and arrest you; you are either denied bail or have it set at a prohibitive level; so you sit in jail for a year, after which a jail-house snitch tells the prosecutors you confessed to him; you go up before a jury and are convicted on the basis of false testimony; and mandatory sentencing puts you away for 15 years
	Letters	The importance of the Walter Nixon impeachment; reaction to David "Gypsy" Chain case; BGH in milk; sweatshops; bumper stickers too close for comfort
	What You're (Not) Missing On Daytime TeeVee	by Ted Rall Back in the '70s, I was a kid when being a kid wasn't cool, and I was sick a lot. I watched a lot of daytime teevee. The commercials were all for cleaning products and gizmos designed to make the life of the prototypical American housewife a tad less torturous. So who's home now? Accident victims
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