Democracy Now! April 29, 2003

8:00-8:01 Billboard 8:01-8:06 Headlines 8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break 8:07-8:20: Prosecutors yesterday announced a $1.4 billion settlement with the nation s largest investment firms. At firm after firm, brokers and analysts convinced investors to buy billions of dollars worth of stock in companies they knew were going to do badly. Some investment houses received secret payments from companies when they gave a strong recommendation to buy stock in that company. The SEC accused three firms in particular of fraud: Citigroup s Saloman Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston. The settlement bars Citigroup s CEO, Sanford Weill, from even communicating with his firm s stock analysts without a lawyer present. Citigroup is Wall Street s biggest bank. Soloman Smith Barney and First Boston were accused of spinning - selling terrific stock offerings to senior executives who turned around and sold the shares for a guaranteed profit. Today we will look at the connection between war and economic globalization. In our firehouse studio we are joined by three of the leading voices in the global justice movement all of whom have helped write the new book Alternatives to Economic Globalization -- A Better World is Possible. The book is being billed as an answer to the critics who assert that the anti-corporate globalization movement has failed to put forward alternative proposals. * John Cavanagh, Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, Vice President of the International Forum on Globalization Board. He worked as an international economist for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (1978-1981) and the World Health Organization (1981-1982). He directed IPS's Global Economy Project from 1983-1997. He is the co-author of 10 books and numerous articles on the global economy. * Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, founder and executive director of the Philippines-based Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education. She is also a member of the International Forum on Globalization * Martin Khor, Director of Third World Network / International Forum on Globalization Links: Forum on Globalization: http://www.ifg.org Institute for Policy Studies: http://www.ips-dc.org/ Third World Network: http://www.twnside.org.sg/ Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education: http://www.tebtebba.org/8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break 8:21-8:40 ALTERNATIVES TO ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION CONT D 8:40 - 8:41 One Minute Music Break 8:41-8:58: Stanford University professor David Palumbo-Liu spoke on April 23 at New York University. He discussed the difference between preventive and preemptive military policies. * David Palumbo-Liu, Professor of Comparative Literature, and Director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University 8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits 9:00-9:01 Billboard 9:01-9:12 Headlines 9:12-9:13 One Minute Music Break 9:13-9:25: This news just in from Nigeria: Nearly 100 foreign oil workers - including 21 Americans and 35 Britons - were being held hostage by striking Nigerian workers aboard offshore installations. This according to company officials and union workers said Tuesday. The strikers have been holding 97 foreign counterparts aboard four offshore drilling rigs owned by Houston-based Transocean since April 19. The action in a remote area off the West African nation's coastline became known only recently. The rigs were drilling wells on behalf of oil multinationals Royal/Dutch Shell and TotalFina Elf. In other news from Nigeria, It has been 10 days since voters there went to the polls but the results are still in dispute. Sitting Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has claimed victory but international election monitors reported widespread voting fraud. Nigeria's main opposition parties had called on the international community not to recognize the election results. Obasanjo's main challenger, Muhammadu Buhari vowed to challenge the results. Buhari is the head of the All Nigeria Peoples Party. The opposition parties have also rejected the April 12 legislative election results citing vote rigging on behalf of Obasanjo s party. * Sowore Omoyele, Nigerian student leader who is now enrolled at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University 9:25-9:37: Canadian immigration officials are attempting again to deport Charlie Wolf Smoke to the U.S. Smoke claims he is an aboriginal Indian and that his ancestors were in North America long before white settlers. He says he can float freely across the border without proof of citizenship. These are his words: My "Americanized" name is Charlie Smoke. My ancestry is Lakota & Mohawk. I am neither American nor Canadian - I am an aboriginal member of Turtle Island. Both "Pre-American" & "Pre-Canadian". An Indigenous person from the Western Hemisphere. A Native North American. A member of the Red Race. An Ikce Wicasa. A Lakota National. Ambiguity surrounds Smoke s citizenship because his birth was never registered and he was never registered as a status Indian. He says he was born in his family s house on the Akwesasne reserve, which straddles the borders of Quebec, Ontario and New York State. Smoke was escorted to the U.S. border in January of last year but was refused entry when U.S. officials said there was not sufficient paperwork to prove he is an American. After months of digging, Canadian immigration officials say they can prove Smoke is an American. They say there s a birth certificate and fingerprints showing he s really Roger Adams, a lost boy from Memphis, Tennessee. We join Charlie Wolf Smoke at his home in Regina where he is scheduled to be deported in a couple of hours. Charlie Wolf Smoke, native American who denies US or Canadian citizenship. Link: http://charlie_smoke.tripod.com/indigenousawakening/index.html 9:37-9:55: Operation End Extremism This is the name of the campaign started by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to combat what it sees as a new threat to the US military: environmental regulations. Last month, the Defense Department asked Congress to clarify environmental regulations. The Pentagon s basic complaint is that laws governing air pollution, toxic waste dumps, endangered species and even marine mammals interfere with training and readiness exercises necessary for national security. Employing an unusual tactic for a committee, periodic emails are sent to journalists offering sentence-by-sentence rebuttals of environmental groups criticisms of the Pentagon s request. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has imposed a gag order on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from publicly discussing perchlorate pollution. This comes as two new studies reveal high-levels of the rocket-fuel component, which the Pentagon uses, may be contaminating the nation s lettuce supply. The studies, commissioned by the Environmental Working Group, found perchlorate in samples of lettuce traced to growers in Southern California and Arizona. High-level exposure of perchlorate in young children can produce deficits in brain function and motor skills. * Bill Walker, Vice President for the West Coast office of the Environmental Working Group. * Demetri Sevastopulos, reporter for the Financial Times. Link: Environmental Working Group: http://www.ewg.org 9:55-9:58 Listener Comments From Democracy Now! Listeners and Viewers Listeners and viewers have been flooding us with calls about what they are doing to protest. Call us at (212) 209-2999 and tell us what you are doing in your area. 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer. Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Emily Kunstler, Orlando Richards, Simba Rousseau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Karen Ranucci, Fatima Mojadiddy, Denis Moynihan and Jenny Filipazzo.