Human Rights Watch: gay teens not safe in US schools

The United States gets a failing grade when it comes to protecting gay teens from harassment in school, according to a new report from the group Human Rights Watch.

The study says gay teens often face so much bullying that it affects their emotional and physical health, not to mention their academic performance. It alleges that some teens are bullied so often that they are barely able to get an education. Sixteen-year-old Dominick Halse said that he arrives at his school in Castleton-on-Hudson, NY, before all the other kids every day in order to avoid some of the torment he’s faced over the years as a gay teen.

“There was boys that said they would like to kill me and drag me behind a car, or take me to an island with all the other gays and shoot me,” he says. “You don’t need death threats as a child… it’s hard.”

The HRW report suggests that high school can indeed be a terrifying experience for gay teens. Based on interviews with more than 250 students and teachers and parents in seven states, the study finds that treatment of gay students in American public schools constitutes a human rights issue.

Getting it from all sides

“You’ve got 2 million kids dealing with this,” says Widney Brown of Human Rights Watch. “You’ve got their peers harassing them because they’ve gotten the message that it’s OK. And you’ve got the adults in their lives — teachers, administrators, politicians and their communities — totally failing to protect them.”

As a result, gay teens may devise their own methods for avoiding such abuse.

Halse says he’s come up with different ways to protect himself against physical abuse from other students during the school day. “I cannot use the boys’ restroom,” he said. “I go to the bathroom in the nurse’s office… or there’s a single restroom in the cafeteria that I go to, because you live in fear.”

Though he is an excellent student and a talented musician, Halse spends as little time in school as possible. In fact, he plans to graduate a year early.

At home, however, he says the taunts still ring in his ears. “‘Are you too good for us? Are you too good for us, faggot?’” he recalls being asked. “And they would push me into a locker.”

His mother, Angela Halse, says she is frightened to send her son off to school every day. “He couldn’t even walk down the hall,” she says. “He came home one day and his flute was in pieces. There were times when he thought he just wanted to go home and hide.”

Halse says he sometimes skipped classes and hid out for the day. “It just gets to the point where you’re afraid to even wake up, to open your eyes,” he says.

At one point three years ago, the taunting became too much to bear and Halse attempted to kill himself.

“It just came to a breaking point and I could not take it anymore,” he said.

Abuse of gay teens widespread

The suicide attempt proved to be a turning point for Halse: With the help of his parents and local gay support groups, he accepted his sexuality and confronted his school to demand better treatment.

“I give him a lot of credit for opening up like that,” says Ralph DiMarino, principal at Halse’s High School. “Letting us know, ‘I have a problem. I need some help in dealing with this, and it’s not just for me, it’s for all students.’”

According to Human Rights Watch, abuse of gay teens is not regional or gender-based. It happens to young men and women from all over the country.

Jesse Fuenes says when she attended a Los Angeles high school, she was forced to deal with the same kind of daily abuse described by Halse.

“I had pebbles thrown at me for a week and a half,” she says. “That ended up in rock throwing and I was bleeding.”

Fuenes said she is still angry with one teacher who ignored her suffering.

“He saw the taunting, the teasing, the pushing, the shoving in the hallways, and never ever said anything,” she says. “At the end, he would just laugh.”

“Last bastion of intolerance”

One school singled out for praise by Human Rights Watch is Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, which has counseling programs and education about tolerance from the top down.

“I think that gay-bashing is probably the last bastion of intolerance that is still supported by society at large,” says Fairfax Principal Heather Daims. “So it’s difficult for people to come forward.”

Many gay students do manage to overcome the abuse with a little help.

Halse is following his dreams and looking forward to graduating from high school. He plans to study social work in college. Though he is still scared at times, he hopes that his successes may help others win their battles for fair treatment.

“All my pain and all my struggle will be worth it if it makes a difference for even one person,” he says.

Source: ABC News via Grassroots Media Network

AIDS drugs: US vs. the world

By Paulo Rebelo

Recife, Brazil, May 31— The Brazilian health system is a model to the world when it comes to fighting AIDS. But it faces the wrath of labs in the United States, which want to regain control of their patents on generic medicines used to fight the disease.

Brazil is the only Latin American nation providing free triple therapy, which almost pays for itself by reducing the costs for hospitalization and drugs.

Nevertheless, US labs are trying to stop the production of the generics used in Brazil — known as antiretroviral drugs — since they derive from formulas developed and patented in the United States. The Brazilian manufacturers do not pay royalties.

In 1998, moved by the high cost of AIDS-fighting drugs, Brazil’s government decided to analyze trademarked drugs and produce its own generic antiretroviral drugs.

From the standpoint of being an effective strategy, it worked. According to Far-Manguinhos lab, located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil imports the ingredients from Asia and produces 12 drugs that keep AIDS under control for 200,000 Brazilians.

“Our task is purely social,” says Eloan Pinheiro, director of Far-Manguinhos. The lab produces dozens of drugs used against diseases, like malaria, that have largely vanished from developed countries.

Reports from Brazil’s health ministry say that the current program has reduced AIDS deaths by half. It has improved the quality of life for thousands of people living with the disease, from the richest to the poorest.

“Brazil can only afford the producing expenditures because we dont pay market prices,” says Health Minister Josi Serra. Actually, drugs produced in Brazil are 79 percent cheaper to make, according to Far-Manguinhos.

The trademark issue flared when the United Nations encouraged other countries to follow Brazil’s example and begin manufacturing their own drugs based on patented formulas. The move was opposed by the US.

Brazilian patent law recognizes the primacy of compulsory license over trademark in cases deemed national emergencies, and AIDS fits that description easily.

The ethical issue — whether labs should refuse to lower the cost of their drugs for developing countries — also strikes a deep chord in Brazil.

In April, the United Nations agreed with Brazil’s position, with 52 of 53 nations voting to accept the notion of ignoring patents in favor of developing badly needed drugs. The lone holdout was the United States, which voted to protect the patents of pharmaceutical products.

Source: MainLine News

Record oil company profits underscore market consolidation

Washington, DC, May 31— Oil companies are collecting record profits while consumers get drilled at the gas pumps, underscoring the iron grip the companies have over virtually every aspect of the oil market, a Public Citizen analysis shows.

In the first three months of this year, profits for the five largest oil companies operating in the US rose nearly 40 percent over the same period last year, data show. The companies are involved in all facets of the industry, from exploration, production and refining to distribution and retail sales.

In the wake of recent oil company mergers, the five companies — Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, BP Amoco-Arco, Phillips-Tosco and Marathon — control more than two-fifths of domestic production, nearly half of the domestic refining and more than three-fifths of the domestic retail market. These top five oil companies are so big that they produce more oil than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Yemen combined. Public Citizen’s report is entitled “No Competition: Oil Industry Mergers Provide Higher Profits, Leave Consumers With Fewer Choices.”

“Consumers are getting hosed when they go to the gas pumps this summer because a handful of corporations control our oil and gas market,” Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said. “There is no petroleum crisis, so opening up wilderness areas to oil drilling, as the Bush-Cheney energy plan envisions, will do nothing to help consumers. What we are seeing is the predictable result of a monopoly market. It allows the oil companies to artificially control prices.”

When companies get this large, they have little incentive to engage in price wars to compete for business, Claybrook said. Instead, the Big Five simply add to their profits by taking advantage of consumers.

Solutions include a windfall profits tax, which would dissuade companies from price gouging; stronger federal anti-trust laws to ensure that consumers have access to competitive markets; routine investigations of market manipulation; a requirement that oil companies maintain minimum reserves to protect consumers from price volatility; and a federal oil reserve to counteract marketplace price gouging.

But according to Public Citizen, a key remedy must also be conservation, particularly improved fuel economy standards for sport utility vehicles, light trucks and cars. Increasing average fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon would save 1.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2010 — more than double what could be extracted from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if drilling were allowed there.

Source: Public Citizen: www.citizen.org

Welfare reform increases poverty, study says

Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 29— Welfare reform, as mandated under federal law in 1996 and now under the jurisdiction of the states, is leading to serious hardship for many low income families and is placing children at greater risk, according to a major study released today by a leading human rights organization.

“The welfare rolls have declined, but at the expense of the neediest families among us and at grave risk to their children,” said Valora Washington, executive director of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC).

“The reality of the recent changes in state and federal laws is that welfare rolls have declined but there has been no corresponding decline in poverty. In fact, extreme poverty is on the increase,” she said.

The UUSC Welfare and Human Rights Monitoring Project found that recent welfare reform laws and regulations – commonly viewed as a collection of support programs to move people from welfare into gainful employment – are instead forcing many deeper into poverty.

The two-year study by the nonprofit, nonsectarian human rights organization was based on interviews with more than 2,500 welfare recipients and social workers in Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, and Washington state.

The fact that welfare rolls are declining provides a “dangerously misleading” picture of the status of many of the nation’s poorest families, Washington said.

She pointed out that the research found that more than 50 percent of former welfare recipients were employed in temporary, minimum wage jobs. “With the downturn of the economy, many of those jobs are the first to go and getting back onto welfare has become increasingly difficult,” she said.

The study’s sampling presents personal stories and candid testimonials that complement others’ statistical analysis about the new welfare programs administered by states. The key findings point to what the study calls “major flaws” in the system:

Welfare reform is punitive for many recipients, with rules too often administered by caseworkers who don’t provide sufficient information or won’t apply reasonable standards to support successful transition off welfare.

Harsh sanctions (reduced aid) against parents unable to comply with bureaucratic and burdensome rules are having a profound impact on children who receive over two-thirds of the welfare system’s cash assistance.

Mandatory job-training programs are not adequately preparing recipients for the competitive job market. Rather, parents often are pushed into low-skill temporary jobs that do not support families or hold any promise for the family’s future.

Recent changes in federal and state welfare laws have led to an increase in housing instability and homelessness.

Among the recommendations in the study:

Require states to track families that reach the five-year limit on cash assistance.

Strengthen the safety net for children through increased child care and health care options, more frequent and more flexible family assessments by caseworkers and a streamlined process for applying for benefits and renewal of benefits.

Promote strategies to combat housing instability and homelessness, both within and outside the welfare system.

Improve skill-building services that will lead to jobs that provide a living wage. States should accept the time recipients spend in career education and job training as a fulfillment of the work requirements of their welfare assistance programs.

Measure the success of welfare reform by calculating the number of families who move out of poverty, not simply off the welfare rolls.

Encourage congressional reauthorization of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants by 9/30/02, the expiration date of the current appropriation.

Source: IGC: www.igc.org

Wackenhut: prisons, profits and golf umbrellas

By Arun Pradhan

“Set against the richly variegated backdrop of history, this is the story of a unique American who started with virtually nothing and built a worldwide security empire. An extraordinary life story spanning over seven decades, as well as a compelling — and often humorous — love story that proved to be the most powerful catalyst behind his success.”

Sounding like a particularly bad late night movie, this is an extract from the authorized biography of George Wackenhut, entitled The Quiet American. George Wackenhut was a former FBI agent, the man behind the US-based Wackenhut Corporation.

All of Australia’s detention centers are owned and run by Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), a subsidiary of Wackenhut Corporation.

In a documentary screened on SBS last year, George Wackenhut welcomed Australia’s policies saying, “[Australia is] really starting to punish people, as they should have done all along.” Shortly after he added, “This year we are going to make $400 million.”

In fact on May 4, 2001 the Wackenhut Corporation reported a 12% increase in first quarter revenues to $663.5 million. At the close of 2000 the company had received contracts to develop and manage 55 detention facilities spanning the United States, Australia, Britain, Puerto Rico, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and the Caribbean island of Curacao, with a total of over 40,000 beds.

Conditions in the camps

One ACM worker has described the company’s Woomera Immigration Detention Center as “like a concentration camp.” Complete with razor wire, barbed wire, steel fences and patrolling officers, it is hard to deny the comparison.

The detainees themselves are treated as criminals and are dehumanized. They are assigned numbers corresponding to the prefix of the boat they arrived on, such as “Don 27” or “Rap 180.” These were the same people who in August last year staged a desperate protest at Woomera, waving signs saying “save us from ACM.”

Other detainees are used as cheap labor by ACM. According to reports in the Sydney Morning Herald last year, inmates work in kitchens and clean toilets, often working 12 hours a week in return for a $15 or $20 phone card.

Throughout 1999 a series of scandals damaged Wackenhut in the US. In Texas, Wackenhut was stripped of a $12-million-a-year contract and fined $625,000 for failing to live up to promises in the running of a state jail.

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, five guards at a Wackenhut work-release facility were fired or punished for having sex with inmates. In April 1999 the state of Louisiana took over the running of Wackenhut’s 15-month-old juvenile prison after the US Justice Department accused Wackenhut of subjecting its young inmates to “excessive abuse and neglect.”

In the same year a New Mexico legislative report called for a near-total revamp of prison operations, including two run by Wackenhut.

US journalist Gregory Palast commented on the case: “New Mexico’s privately operated prisons are filled with America’s impoverished, violent outcasts — and those are the guards.” He catalogued lax background checks before hiring guards, which led to several alleged cases of guards physically and sexually abusing inmates.

In the US, Wackenhut has appeared in Federal Court 62 times since 1999, largely resulting from prisoners’ claims of human right abuses.

The company has been accused of trying to maximize profits in its private prisons at the expense of drug rehabilitation, counselling and literacy programs. In 1995 Wackenhut was investigated for diverting $700,000 intended for drug treatment programs at a Texas prison.

Diversification

According to the Wackenhut Corporation website (www.wackenhut.com),the company is not just about private prisons. Other areas of service include “physical security, alarms, cash-in-transit, cargo tracking, fire fighting and prevention, background checks and emergency protection.”

Wackenhut provides cheap labor for corporations: in Austin, Texas, a company which produced circuit boards initially closed down only to re-open within one of Wackenhut’s prisons. Prisoners now work in this factory producing goods for companies including IBM and Microsoft.

Wackenhut’s surveillance service has made it the target of civil liberty groups. In March 1999 a federal district court in Alabama fined Wackenhut Corporation and its client, an aerospace company, $8 million dollars over allegations of illegal wire tapping, theft of business documents and corporate sabotage.

Wackenhut’s surveillance history can be traced back to the company’s founding in 1954. A hard-line right-winger, George Wackenhut made his money during the McCarthy period, building up and selling dossiers on suspected communists.

Frank Donner, the author of Age of Surveillance, claims that the Wackenhut Corporation added to its files after the McCarthyism hysteria had ebbed and by 1966 Wackenhut maintained files on over four million suspected dissidents.

Several Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives have become Wackenhut executives upon retirement, but some claim this overlap to be more extensive.

William Corbett, who worked for the CIA for 18 years, told the US-based Spy Magazine, “For years Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organisations. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandestine operations.”

He also said that Wackenhut would supply intelligence agencies with information, and that it was compensated for this “in a quid pro quo arrangement”.

Retired FBI agent William Hinshaw also told the magazine about Wackenhut’s ease in snaring lucrative governmental contracts as being governments’ way of “pay[ing] Wackenhut for their clandestine help."

“It is known throughout the industry that if you want a dirty job done, call Wackenhut,” Hinshaw said.

Wackenhut has successfully moved into the niche market of protecting nuclear power plants. Now servicing 26 nuclear plants, Wackenhut’s advertising material is quick to remind us of the national service they provide “in an age when threats of random vandalism, premeditated sabotage and terrorism are ever-present”.

This has put them directly at odds with anti-nuclear groups who are potential victims of Wackenhut’s “intelligence-gathering” ventures.

And of course, keep Wackenhut in mind for Christmas with its large range of products that can be bought online: George Wackenhut’s biography, golf umbrellas, swiss army knives and a complete clothing line, all proudly bearing “Wackenhut” branding.

Source: Green Left Weekly: www.greenleft.org.au

US army introduces hi-tech assault SUV

May 31— US army truck designers have gone gadget-crazy to produce a pick-up that would leave James Bond’s cars standing.

Bulletproof glass, grenade launcher, laser gun and the ability to foil pursuers with oil slicks and smoke screens, are all part of the fully-loaded SmarTruck.

An onboard personal computer, built-in night-vision, and even a spike dispenser to help throw off pursuers means the SmarTruck might even outsmart Bond’s most accessory-laden machines.

“Actually, the idea did stem from the James Bond concept,” said Germaine Fuller, project engineer at the National Automotive Center (NAC), which developed the Ford F-350 pickup as a 125.

But rather than going into the battlefield, Michigan-based NAC designed the SmarTruck with urban warfare in mind - against enemies such as terrorists and criminals.

“The reason we were thinking about urban warfare is because the army increasingly is being pulled into policing duties,” said Fuller.

It might even see duty as a super-secure ferry for dignitaries and diplomats.

But the army claims that the truck’s weapons - the laser and percussion grenades - are designed more to clear obstructions and temporarily stop enemies than to cause serious bodily harm.

It also has front-and-back dazzling lights, which are so bright that the NAC says “the enemy” cannot look directly at the vehicle.

In addition, the SmarTruck has door handles that can stun with a high-voltage electric shock.

Source: BBC News

Polygraph supports Abu-Jamal’s innocence

May 31— Results of a lie detector test given to Arnold Beverly corroborate his confession that he shot police officer Daniel Faulkner, and that Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent. On Tuesday, May 29, 2001, Jamal’s new legal team filed the affidavits of eminent polygraph expert Charles Honts, Ph. D., who took a polygraph examination of Arnold Beverly.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner on death row in Pennsylvania. He was convicted of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in a trial marred by prosecutorial and judicial misconduct.

Dr. Honts is Department Head of the Department of Psychology at Boise State University. He is a noted authority in the field of polygraph examination. With twenty years experience as an expert witness, he has been published extensively in numerous scientific journals.

At the time that Beverly’s declaration was filed earlier this month, the new defense team requested authorization from the district court to depose Arnold Beverly, their own witness. The District Attorney filed objections to the deposition.

On Tuesday, the defense filed a response to the District Attorney’s opposition. The defense response states, “If the District Attorney’s Office believed its own representation to the District Court and the media that Beverly’s confession is a ‘patently outrageous story’ and a ‘lie,’ they would welcome, rather than oppose, being given the opportunity to cross-examine the witness under oath.”

Although Arnold Beverly has admitted to the killing, Mumia Abu-Jamal remains incarcerated at S.C.I. Greene on death row. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is currently pending in a Habeas Corpus action before Judge William H. Yohn in a US District Court of Pennsylvania. The defense team has urged Judge Yohn to grant the deposition of Arnold Beverly in their response.

For more information: www.mumia.org

Bush’s budget endangers endangered species act

Washington, DC, May 31 (ENS)— World famous primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall joined religious leaders, conservationists and celebrities on Wednesday in calling for a halt to the Bush administration’s plan to weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“We do not have much time left. We must act now,” Goodall said.

The critics said Bush would cripple the Endangered Species Act through funding cuts and policy changes that would undermine citizen oversight and leave species listing decisions in the hands of the Secretary of Interior.

At news conferences held in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, California, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and St. Louis, Missouri, speakers urged the Bush team to fund species protection and drop its proposals to restrict citizens’ rights to hold the federal government to reasonable timelines for protecting species at risk. These proposals could spell doom for several species now hanging in the balance, the critics said.

The heart of the matter is a small paragraph embedded deep within the President’s fiscal year 2002 budget proposal. Dubbed the “Extinction Rider,” the legislation would negate the rights of citizens to sue to protect endangered species and would give Interior Secretary Gale Norton almost complete discretion over when and whether to list threatened and endangered species.

“Today, the American people remind Congress that endangered wildlife must be protected in order to restore the balance of nature. It is Congress’s duty to ensure that the visionary Endangered Species Act is fully implemented,” said Brock Evans, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition. “Most Americans want their endangered species to be protected - so that’s why the Bush administration is now seeking to gut the Endangered Species Act in secret back rooms, with no votes taken and no one held accountable. The American people deserve better government than that.”

Entertainers Wendie Malick, Betty White, Ed Begley Jr., and Bonnie Raitt spoke out in Los Angeles to demonstrate the popularity of America’s Endangered Species Act.

Exxon Mobil shareholders hit with banner drop

Dallas, Texas, May 30 (ENS)— The Exxon Mobil Corporation’s annual shareholders meeting at the Myerson Symphony Center in Dallas today was interrupted by two activists from the Seattle based non-profit organization Pressurepoint who unfurled an enormous banner.

The banner read, “ExxonMobil: Stop Killing for Oil” in blood red lettering. It was unfurled from the top level of the amphitheater while CEO Lee Raymond spoke about Exxon Mobil’s support for the controversial Chad-Cameroon pipeline. Activists Chris Doran and David Cobb chanted “Exxon Mobil stop killing for oil,” drowning out Raymond’s speech on the company’s human rights record. Both activists were escorted out of the meeting by police and released. A crowd of about 200 people protested outside the meeting.

“This action is a declaration of independence from corporate rule,” said Texas Green Party State Secretary David Cobb.

“Exxon Mobil is the most profitable corporation in the world, but it is morally bankrupt,” said Doran. “Exxon Mobil is the target of world outrage over its abuse of corporate power, and this banner serves notice that their safe haven of wealth and privilege no longer exists.”

Earlier in the meeting, Raymond limited the speech of Acehnese activist Radhi Darmansyah to the standard two minutes. Darmansyah pleaded with the corporation to acknowledge its complicity in human rights atrocities occurring in the Indonesian province of Aceh and to take immediate steps to end them.

Doran told the shareholders that they are the target of an International Day of Action on July 11 as part of an ongoing campaign on climate change and corporate power. Pressurepoint has confirmed 100 protests at Exxon Mobil gas stations in 15 countries. A representative from the UK Stop Esso campaign told shareholders about the growing Exxon Mobil boycott in Europe.

Shareholders also heard from a number of individuals speaking to resolutions designed to make the corporation more accountable for its actions. These included people of color living near the corporation’s refineries, opponents of the corporation’s plans to drill in the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and some who are angry at what Pressurepoint calls “the corporation’s intentionally misleading comments on climate change.” Others objected to what they see as the company’s influence on President George W. Bush, which has resulted in the administration’s reliance on fossil fuels in its new National Energy Policy, and Bush’s retreat from the Kyoto climate change protocol.