January 16th, 2006: Rustbelt Radio

Intro

Welcome to this week's edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of the news from the grassroots, news overlooked by the corporate media. The show airs live every Monday from 6-7pm on WRCT 88.3FM in Pittsburgh, every Thursday from 11am to noon on WARC Meadville from the campus of Allegheny College, and every Saturday from 5-6pm on WVJW Benwood, 94.1 FM in the Wheeling, West Virginia area.

As always, we're also available on the internet, both on W-R-C-T's live webstream at W-R-C-T dot ORG and for download, stream or podcast at radio dot I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot org.

On today's show...

• local lawyer Dan Kovalik (ko-VALL-ik) speaks about US military aid to Colombia and human rights violations against trade unionists
• we'll hear from Pennsylvania state representatives about the impacts of the Iraq war on two districts in Pittsburgh.
• local news reports on treatment of the city's homeless, students' voting rights, and nurses' organizing for affordable health care
• and global news reports on critical mass, journalists' rights, pirate and low power radio, GE crops, and the struggle for justice in post-genocide Rwanda

Headlines

Local News

[1:00] Pittsburgh on the list of Meanest Cities towards Homeless

Pittsburgh is 20th on a new list of meanest cities towards homeless people, according to a report released on January 11th by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. The national ranking is based on a number of factors, including the number of anti-homeless laws in the city, the enforcement of those laws, the general political climate toward homeless people in the city, and the city’s history of criminalization measures.

Pittsburgh’s ranking on the list was due in part to a new ordinance passed by City Council in October of 2005. The ordinance places time and location restrictions on panhandling, and was strongly backed by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. Complaints from downtown business owners about aggressive panhandlers led to the new ordinance.

Police Officer Charles Bosetti, who patrols Downtown Pittsburgh's Market Square area, said that businesses were demanding that police drive “grubby looking” people from the area. This statement has been echoed by homeless people who say they have been kicked out of Market Square. Other top cities on the list were Sarasota, Florida; Lawrence, Kansas; Little Rock, Arkansas; and also four cities in President Bush’s home state of Texas.

[2:30] Students and youth rally for voting rights in upcoming local election

Last week a hastily called demonstration for the voting rights of students became a victory rally, when plans to hold an election during the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University spring break were quickly abandoned. Pittsburgh City Council President Luke Ravenstahl announced and then changed the date of the upcoming special election to city council, which would fill the 3rd district seat vacated by Gene Ricciardi. That district includes the student-heavy neighborhoods of South Oakland and the South Side.

Ravenstahl's first announcement, on Tuesday, put the election on March 7th, a date in the middle of Pitt and Duquesne spring break which students said would disenfranchise many young voters. Councilman Bill Peduto, who also opposed the March 7th dates, explained why these voters were particularly important to the third district:

• peduto-quote.ogg: Bill Peduto on 3rd district - (0:08) - 1 of 5 citizens in district 18-24

A rally was immediately announced for Thursday to oppose the spring break election date. But as approximately 50 students gathered outside Hillman Library, organizers announced that Ravenstahl had already agreed to change the date to March 14th, one week later. The March 7th date was supposed to save the city election expenses, but officials revealed that the difference was less than one thousand dollars.

Khari Mosley led the rally, with the League of Young Voters and several Pitt student organizations, and told Rustbelt Radio what effect he thinks young voters could have on Pittsburgh:

• mosley.ogg: Khari Mosley - (0:28)

Mosley also said that the league of young voters will be in Oakland daily to register students to vote.

[:30] SEIU protest at Charles Morris Nursing Center

Today, Monday, 100 members of SEIU Local 1199P and their supporters turned out for a loud and lively picket at the Charles Morris Nursling Center in Squirrel Hill. According to SEIU organizers, the Nursing Center's administration is threatening to raise the cost of family health insurance beyond the reach of most workers. As many as 200 employees of the Nursing Center would be affected. Organizers say that management's plan would instantly turn a living wage into a poverty wage, compound a pre-existing problem of staffing shortages, and thus lower the quality of care for seniors residing at the nursing home. SEIU representatives are meeting with management this week and if their concerns aren't addressed they vow to continue to protest the Nursing Center.

[:30] Correction on Library Closing

Rustbelt Radio reported on the January 2nd show that the Martin Luther King Jr Reading and Cultural Center had closed it doors. We would like to correct that report. The Hill District Reading Center, which is operated under the Carnegie Library system, received a 45 day extension on December 31st and so the center will remain open until at least February 18th. In the meantime, the group Friends of the Reading Center are working to take over the lease and continue operating the center under new management.

Wrapup

For more on local news, you can visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot org.

[ HMB BREAK RUSTBELT - 0:20 (fades down 0:10 in to start global intro) ]

Global News

Intro

You are listening to Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news overlooked by the corporate media. We turn now to news from other independent media sources around the world.

[2:00] NYC Critical Mass: Parade permit law unconstitutional

Last week, a New York City Criminal Court Judge gave critical mass bicycle riders some good news. In a decision in favor of bikers, Judge Gerald Harris wrote that New York City’s parade permit law is “hopelessly overbroad” and “constitutes a burden on free expression that is more than the First Amendment can bear.”

Judge Harris’s written verdict dismissed the parading without a permit charges against all of the 8 people who were arrested on the night of the January 2005 Critical Mass bicycle ride, but held each guilty of disorderly conduct.

The Attorney for the cyclists, Gideon Oliver, said that the City has arrested over 2,000 people since August of 2004, all for the violation of a law that this decision clearly deems unconstitutional. Oliver challenged the city to reconsider its aggressive stance toward policing First Amendment activities in general, and Critical Mass bicycle rides in particular, in light of the 17-page Verdict.

According to Bruce Bentley of the National Lawyers Guild, the vast majority of the 1,806 people arrested at the Republican National Convention in 2004 were charged with parading without a permit. Since the RNC, the City has also arrested almost 350 bicyclists for parading without a permit, and sought injunctions in State and Federal Courts that would subject participants in future Critical Mass rides to criminal penalties of up to a year in jail.

[2:30] Reporters Without Borders Annual Report

In 2005, at least 63 journalists and five media assistants were killed while doing their job or for expressing their opinions, according to the Press Freedom report published by Reporters without Borders. This the highest annual toll since 1995, when 64 journalists were killed, 22 of which took place in Algeria.

2005 marks the third year Iraq was the world's most dangerous country for the media, with 24 journalists and 5 media assistants killed. Seventy-six journalists and media assistants have been killed there since the start of fighting in March 2003, more than in the 1955-75 Vietnam War. Terrorist strikes and Iraqi guerrilla attacks were the main cause of these deaths. The United States Army was responsible for three of the killings.

In addition to the killings, at least 807 journalists were arrested, and over 1300 were physically attacked or threatened. While arrests decreased from 2004 to 2005; threats and attacks on journalists increased. Also the number of media outlets censored nearly doubled from 622 to 1006. Nepal is responsible for over half of theses cases of censorship. Since the state of emergency declared by King Gyanendra on February 1, there has been a ban on FM radio stations broadcasting news, blocking of Web sites, seizure of equipment and politically inspired distribution of government advertising.

As of January 1, of this year, 126 journalists and 3 media assistants were being held in 23 countries. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, China, Cuba, Eritrea (err-a-TREE-a) and Ethiopia put the most journalists in jail in 2005, together accounting for two-thirds of the 125 editors, writers and photojournalists imprisoned around the world. The United States, which is detaining journalists in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rose to sixth among countries jailing journalists, with five in custody.

And just earlier today, Reporters Without Borders voiced relief at yesterday’s release of Majeed Hameed, a correspondent for the pan-Arab TV station Al-Arabiya, and Reuters cameraman Ali Omar Al Mashadani, who had been held by the US military since September 15th and August 8th respectively. Both were held without any charges being brought against them in the Camp Bucca detention center.

[3:00] Update on Radio Free Brattleboro

This week we have an update on Radio Free Brattleboro. RFB is unlicensed community radio station in Brattleboro, Vermont, that Rustbelt Radio first covered on October 5th, 2004 in a feature story on FCC raids on stations around the US.

On that show we reported on the ballot initiative in which nearly two-thirds of the town voted to support the station. Then when the FCC asked for a court injunction to take the station off the air, the request was denied. Federal District Judge J. Garvan Murtha suggested instead that the agency and station enter into talks to try to figure out a compromise whereby RFB might broadcast legally.

Instead the FCC went to a Federal Magistrate and got a warrant to execute a station raid in June 2005. An estimated $15,000 of equipment was seized by the Federal Government, taking RFB off the air.

Last week Radio Free Brattleboro's attorney formally announced the collapse of all dialogue, as civil actions still wind their way through two courts in Vermont.

But the FCC has since granted an Low Power FM construction permit to another group in Brattleboro. Some microradio activists have criticized the LPFM program as an attempt by the government to co-opt so-called "pirate" community radio stations. However, other former unlicensed radio groups like the Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project have switched their focus to legal, licensed low power radio. But the FCC's LPFM program has also come under criticism for being too stingy in granting low power radio licenses, as the agency made the rules governing LFPM more restrictive in response to pressure from the radio industry's lobby group, the National Association of Broadcasters.

The new LPFM group in Brattleboro says it plans to live up to the ideals of Radio Free Brattleboro.

In other low power radio news, pirate radio station 106.9FM in San Diego was recently given a Notice of Apparently Liability for a $10,000 fine for illegal broadcasting. The station calls itself Teenage Mutant Ninja Radio and says the FCC is attacking free speech, and points out that the FCC claims there are no available frequencies in the San Diego area for a legal LPFM station, leaving no room for legal community radio.

For much more on microradio news, check the website DIYMedia (dot) net

[2:00] Inspector General Report on GE crops

The US Inspector General has issued a new report on genetically engineered crops and the way these crops are monitored by the US Department of Agriculture. The report concludes that the Department of Agriculture has failed to adequately monitor thousands of acres of experimental crops.

Experimental genetically engineered crops are tested by field trials to determine if they are safe enough for the Agriculture Department to allow them to be sold like other seeds and crops.

The report found that regulators did not notice violations of their rules, did not properly inspect planting sites, did not guarantee the destruction of genetically engineered crops after the field trial, and approved field test sites without basic information, such as their location.

The Agriculture Departments has stricter requirements for genetically engineered crops used to produce pharmaceuticals or industrial chemicals. The Inspector General report found that the Agriculture Department often failed to enforce these stricter regulations.

Such unregulated use of genetically engineered crops risks unintended environmental consequences. For example, a gene for resistance to herbicide could spread and affect other plants, including weeds. A crop engineered to produce an industrial chemical could inadvertently enter the food supply, which might be a danger to public health.

The report found that the Department of Agriculture's laxity in regulations and internal controls increase the likelihood that genetically engineered organisms will spread and grow without regulation before judged to be safe. The report additionally found that the Department's policies (QUOTE) do not go far enough to ensure the safe introduction of agricultural biotechnology. (UNQUOTE)

In their response to this report, the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said they have already started to adopt 23 of the 28 recommendations in the report, and plan to make more changes.

[2:00] Community service sentence for genocide in Rwanda

During the 12 years since the Rwandan genocide, national and community courts - and an international tribunal - have tried to bring about justice for victims of the ethnic killings and rights abuses that took place in the central African nation in 1994. But genocide survivors have been angered by some of the sentences that only involve community service.

Almost 900 people have been sentenced to community service under an initiative started last year. The service is referred to by its French acronym T-I-G, short for 'works of general interest', while those involved in it are known as tigistes.

Emilienne Mukabutera, a Rwandan genocide survivor, asked "how can you expect me to live in the same community with murderers who exterminated my family?" She also fears renewed attacks from those convicted in the genocide.

Mukabutera lost her husband and six children in 1994, when all seven were killed in front of her. She was also raped by Hutu militiamen known as Interahamwe. The genocide saw hardline members of the Hutu ethnic groupic group target minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus over a period of about three months.

Upwards of 800,000 people are believed to have died in the massacres, which were also carried out by members of the armed forces. While many survivors of the genocide are opposed to this form of punishment for genocide perpetrators, Justice Minister Edda Mukabagwiza strongly supports it. He said the T-I-G initiative established in September 2005 allow the tigistes to acquire new professional skills that will help facilitate their reintegration into society. He also noted that they will receive training in human rights.

Those doing community service are housed in two work camps. Inmates work at crushing rocks, mostly to make paving stones, build and renovate homes for orphans and widows, as well as schools, hospitals and water tanks. In addition, they participate in environmental work to prevent deforestation and soil erosion.

Wrapup

And, you can read more independent global news stories by visting indymedia: I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.

Features

Intro

Welcome back to Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.

[18:00] Steelworkers Attorney Dan Kovalik Discusses Anti-Union Actions in Colombia

On Friday, Dan Kovalik (ko-VALL-ik), a lawyer for United Steelworkers of America, spoke at the Pittsburgh Mennonite Church about US military aid to Colombia, human rights violations against trade unionists there and United Steelworkers lawsuits against companies that have been working with paramilitaries to murder union activists. The following was excerpted from his speech.

• kovalikv1.ogg: 17:52

That was attorney Dan Kovalik of United Steelworkers. More information about the cases Steelworkers is pursuing against crimes in Colombia can be found at their website steelworkers-usw.org. Information on Coca-Cola's involvement in Colombian attrocities as well as details on actions being taken against the company can be found at killercoke.org. Mr. Kovalik's enitire speech including a question and answer session is available on the Pittsburgh Indymedia website.

You're listening to Rust Belt Radio.

[20:30] Impact of the Iraq war on 19th and 24th PA legislative districts

• [4:15] Intro+preston
• [13:10] Wheatley
• [3:15] Dell+vo

Ending

[1:00] Calendar of events

And now we present the Indymedia calendar of events:

• Tonight, in honor of Martin Luther King day, a concert for Peace will be held at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern, located on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield. This event will begin at 8pm.

• This Saturday January 21st, from 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM, the Black and White Reunion will hold their 8th Annual Summit Against Racism. This event will feature The documentary "Enough is ENOUGH: The Death of Jonny Gammage" and workshops on Police brutality and misconduct. The summit will take place at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Penn and Highland Avenues. For more information contact: 412-758-7898

Outro

[ Outro music ]

Thanks for tuning in to Rust Belt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh, WARC Meadville and WVJW Benwood.

Our hosts this week are [ ______ ] and [ ______ ] with contributions from [ ______ , ______ ]. This week's show was produced by [ ______ ]. Special thanks to all of our hosts, producers, and contributors.

You can get involved with Rustbelt Radio! To contact us, or to send us your comments, email RADIO at I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot ORG. All of our shows are available for download or podcast on our website at RADIO dot INDY-P-G-H dot ORG and this show can be heard again Tuesday morning on WRCT at 9 AM after Democracy Now!

Tune in next week at this time for another edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.