Lege' targets human rights commission
BY CHARLES SNIDER
...Texas House lawmakers on Wednesday voted to cease funding for the Texas State Commission on Human Rights, an agency whose job is to investigate claims of housing or job discrimination.
...
Republican Representative from Canton, Texas, Dan Flynn sponsored the amendment that would shift the entire agency's 4.5 million dollar budget to education.
More.
Eating fish? Pass the mercury
BY PHIL JACKSON
... For years now, Texas fishermen have known that mercury pollution in The Gulf has made some fish unsafe to eat. But what about the fish in Texas' lakes, streams and rivers? And what about the fish sold in our markets and restaurants?
...Although the level of mercury pollution in East Texas has risen to the third highest in the United States, there is no systematic testing of Texas fish. More.
Library recommends budget cuts
BY MIKE REED
...At least one of the city's departments - the library - says its budget cut recommendation of closing eight branches - as trumpeted on the front page of today's Houston Chronicle - isn't really what it recommended.
...Library spokeswoman Sandra Fernandez said the plan to save $1.6 million came at the direction of the city's budget committee and only as an alternative to the department's actual recommendation, which is still very much alive.More.
Walker changes voting locales with scant notice
BY ERICA HALL
... The Department of Justice has been called to investigate what a Huntsville voting advocacy group sees as a sudden change in voting venue for their upcoming May 3 school board elections.
...The Walker County Voter's League voiced concern that polling places were changed without sufficiently informing the public. While the school district complied legally by placing an ad in the Huntsville Item in last Sunday's edition, the group argued that this was not enough to ensure voters made it to the polls.
...Historically used polling venues in precinct 203 were booked for other events before the board contacted them to reserve the spaces. Precinct 204, which has more than two thousand minority voters and many elderly, typically shares its boxes with 203.
...Huntsville ISD representatives said they never intended to hinder anyone from voting, yet conceded they could have given public notice sooner. More.
Protestors disrupt Texas City Wal-Mart
BY ERICA HALL
... In Texas City, the new Wal-Mart Super Center's "isles of smiles" are being frowned upon by union and community members. For the third day, protesters are organizing around the store's entrances to educate shoppers about Wal-Mart's unfair business practices. United Food & Commercial Workers International Union member Miles Anderson is leading the demonstration as part of the People's Campaign for Justice at Wal-Mart. More.
Watchdogs name two Texas rivers 'endangered'
BY JACKSON ALLERS
... The Lone Star State has yet another thing to put on its list of top honors. Only in this case, the honor isn't much of an honor at all.
... According to the [Washington] D.C.-based river conservation group, American Rivers, two Texas waterways are in the top ten lists of most endangered Rivers. More.
Wartime 'media crimes' insult audience
Media Criticism
BY LEN HART
...Media coverage of the U.S. War on Iraq runs the gamut of abuses from jargon to photo-op. While it is clear that Iraq is yet to be "liberated", the media seems "liberated" from its responsibilities to truth, fairness and accuracy:
... Now is a good time to assess the disgusting media coverage of the U.S. war on Iraq. It seems embarrassingly obvious and repetitive to say that North American media and U.S. television in particular merely aped the Pentagon line. Yet no other description applies.
... The worst offenders seem to have been Fox -- for its blatant war commercials -- and CNN who tried to compete with Fox for the same audience.
... Russell Smith writing for the Globe and Mail, however, finds Fox the less offensive of the two. Fox, he claims, was at least up-front about its bias, while CNN pretended to be objective. More.
|
|
 |
|
DynCorp secures Iraq policing contract
BY KAREM SAID
... This afternoon, DynCorp announced that it has secured a State Department contract to deploy law enforcement to Iraq. The contract, worth at least $50 million, is currently a one-year agreement. The bidding process that led to the contract remains shrouded in secrecy. DynCorp, a multi-billion dollar private military company, began online recruiting for the mission as early as last weekend. No other companies announced recruitment efforts.
...DynCorp does tech work for a variety of federal agencies. But the company is most recognized for military efforts such as defoliating Columbian coca fields and monitoring Bosnian inter-fighting as UN police officers. It was in Bosnia that DynCorp officers engaged in a sex-ring whereby teenage girls were bought and sold through mafia connections.
...DynCorp's American recruitment all happens through one office, located in Fort Worth.
...Fort Worth Representative Lon Burnam who issued a human-trafficking bill last March, believes DynCorp's track record does not bode well for a mission in Iraq.
..."DynCorp has a horrendous track record, has not addressed these abuses that their employees were involved with in Bosnia, and basically these are un-convicted criminals and now we're going to put them in a role of protecting the safety of women in Iraq? This is going to end up in a humongous backlash against us." More.
No more letters between prisoners
BY RENEE FELTZ
...Starting May 1, prisoners under the watch of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice can no longer correspond with each other by mail.
...The change comes after TDCJ's board heard complaints from the Mailroom Committee that budget cuts have left fewer staff hours to screen inmate male for gang correspondence.
...A memo announcing the unpopular policy notes most other states and the Federal government do not allow prisoner correspondence.
...Legal assistant and prisoner rights watchdog, Chuck Hart, says the decision is unfair and may actually create the need for more staff monitoring of gang activity:
..."TDC has had a ready way of monitoring the gang member's correspondence through the mail room. And now they can't correspond, but they're going to continue to communicate. It's going to make it more difficult for TDC to screen what gang members do. And that price is put on the shoulders of all the other guys who don't misbehave in the mail" More.
AFSC closes Houston office
BY ANNA NUNEZ
...A nationwide organization working to bring the "light of hope to places darkened by violence, injustice and despair," closed its Houston office this week. Once part of the American Friends Service Committee's diversity-rich 11-state Central Region, the office closed with a protest by local immigration rights supporters. Anna Nunez was there . . . she files this report:
...The immigrant rights movement suffered a severe blow this week when the Houston office of the American Friends Service Committee closed its doors.
...Human and immigrant rights leaders gathered in silent protest at American Friends to express their sadness and offered their support to national immigrant and human rights activist, Maria Jimenez, who was fired from American Friends upon voicing her opposition to the Houston closure.
..."This was an office that didn't have to close. The institution could have done fundraising, had people waiting to do it freely, because the state does very important work in the fourth largest city of the United States with 28 percent of the population being foreign born... More.
Elsayed talks about Iraq occupation
BY RENEE FELTZ
...How are American Muslims in Houston responding to the Bush Administration's appointment of controversial Middle East commentator Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace?
...Communications Director for the Council on American Islamic Relations, Najat Elsayed says the appointment reinforces the misconception the U.S.-led attack on Iraq is a war on Islam.
...Elsayed welcomes calls made by thousands today in the streets of Bagdhad for unity between Shiite and Sunni Muslims:
..."We are deeply concerned about the loss of life in Iraq, and we hope that our troops make it home safely and with that quick withdraw of American presence in Iraq that the unity lasts." More.
Air monitors point to plant flarings
BY ERIKA MCDONALD
... An emergency plant flaring in Port Arthur Monday highlighted the importance of citizen pollution monitoring. The Motiva Enterprises refinery emitted more than five tons of sulfur and 200 pounds of other chemical compounds including bezene, nitrogen oxide and ethylene. The flaring resulted from an electrical failure, the causes of which are still unknown.
... By the time investigators arrived on the scene, pollution levels did not reach what the state considers a nuisance. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will determine what - if any - penalties will be assessed based on evidence reported by Motiva, said a TCEQ Beaumont manager Keith Anderson. More.
Spy nightclub killer-cop acquitted
BY SHANNON YOUNG
... Last Tuesday a Harris County grand jury acquitted Freddie Castillo, the off-duty Precinct 6 constable responsible for the January 5 shooting death of Truyen Pham outside of the Spy [night]club in downtown Houston. Multiple eyewitnesses testified that after shots were fired into a crowd outside of the club, 23-year-old Truyen Pham tackled the gunman, and - after getting up from the ground - was shot repeatedly in the back by officer Castillo, who claims he had reason to believe that Pham was about to use deadly force against his partner.. More.
'Bait and switch' on TV Web sites
Media Criticism
BY LEN HART
...Part of every KPFT News broadcast is devoted to examining what issues are presented in the local corporate mainstream media. This week, Len Hart brings us a report card on war coverage... and the media flunks.
... A recent CBS story --attributed to the U.S. Central Command --raises important questions about the role of media and journalism in general. Specifically: CBS carried the headline: "Civilians Turning on Saddam!" It is significant that this headline seemed to have come at the end of several days in which an overwhelming number of stories would have led dispassionate observers to the opposite conclusion: that instead of rallying to the American "liberators," the Iraqi people were instead stiffening their resistance, even as revulsion throughout the Middle East seemed to rise with each new story involving the deaths of Iraqi civilians, rifts between Rumsfeld and the Pentagon brass and British soldiers refusing to carry out orders certain to result in civilian deaths. Iraq". More.
|
