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NEWS
HEADLINES
Story: VICE
PRESIDENT CHENEY WOULD SAVE OVER $100,000 UNDER PRESIDENT
BUSH'S $674 BILLION TAX CUT PLAN, BUT WHAT WILL IT DO FOR THE
POOR?
President Bush unveiled his $674 billion tax cut plan
yesterday.
He called for the acceleration of across the board tax cuts
and a $400-per-child increase in tax credits for families with
children.
The centerpiece of his plan is the scrapping of taxes
investors pay on dividends.
The White House claims 92 million Americans would gain an
average tax cut this year of around $1,000 under the plan.
But Democrats attack the proposal as a windfall for the
wealthy. Reuters reports Vice President Dick Cheney would have
saved over one hundred thousand dollars in 2001 under the
plan. (Cheney himself is expected to promote the proposal in a
speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Friday.) President
Bush would have saved $16,000.
The Los Angeles Times reports the huge tax cuts
could reshape the federal government's role in society as
profoundly as the tax and spending plans President Reagan
drove into law more than 20 years ago.
By proposing nearly $700 billion in additional tax cuts
when the government is already facing large budget deficits
and projecting steady increases in military spending, Bush has
laid out a fiscal blueprint that could constrict spending for
years to come on the domestic priorities Democrats favor.
The New York Times reports Bush's proposal is
raising alarm among state and local officials. Budget experts
say scrapping taxation of corporate dividends will cost state
and local governments tens of millions of dollars a year.
States are already facing their largest shortfall in half a
century, as much as $85 million for 2004.
Tape:
- President Bush unveils his tax plan, 1/07/03.
Guest:
- Robert Greenstein, executive director of the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Related
link:
Story: UN
ESTIMATES A US ATTACK ON IRAQ WILL CAUSE 500,000 IRAQI
CASUALTIES IN THE INITIAL STAGES
The United Nations is predicting that there will be as many
as half a million Iraqi casualties in the early stages of a
war on Iraq.
The total includes some 100,000 expected to be injured as a
direct result of combat and a further 400,000 wounded as an
indirect result of the devastation.
The confidential U.N. assessment was drafted a month ago.
The U.N. staff has been quietly planning for months how to
cope with the humanitarian fallout from a conflict in Iraq.
In addition, the UN predicts U.S. war against Iraq would
cause 2 million Iraqis to become refugees and a total of 10
million would be put at risk of hunger and disease. And as
many as 500,000 Iraqis could be seriously injured in the early
stages of an invasion.
The impact of a U.S. invasion in Iraq would likely be far
worse than the humanitarian crisis caused by the Gulf War in
1991. A decade of U.N. sanctions has made the Iraqi population
almost totally dependent on government handouts for survival.
Guest:
- Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian
Coordinator in Iraq and former Assistant Secretary-General.
He is speaking to us from Baghdad.
Story:
SURVIVORS
OF THE BHOPAL INDUSTRIAL DISASTER THAT KILLED 20,000 IN INDIA
TRAVEL TO EUROPE TO RETURN TOXIC WASTE TO DOW CHEMICAL
A group of 15 Greenpeace activists and survivors of the
Bhopal industrial disaster were arrested yesterday in
Amsterdam while giving something back to Dow Chemical: a few
barrels of waste the chemical giant refuses to clean up.
The action comes 18 years after a chemical plant owned by
Union Carbide which was bought by Dow -- leaked gas into
the Indian city of Bhopal killing 20,000 and injuring half a
million.
Yesterday the activists unloaded four barrels of waste
transported from India aboard the Greenpeace ship "Arctic
Sunrise" and delivered it to Dow's largest chemical plant in
Europe, near Terneuzen, the Netherlands.
The poisonous waste is only a fraction of hundreds of tons
that have been strewn around the derelict pesticide plant in
Bhopal since 1984.
For nearly two decades chemicals have leaked into the soil
and ground water in and around the factory site. According to
Greenpeace children born to survivors are still suffering
health problems and 150,000 people are in urgent need of
medical attention.
The action comes a week after Dow Chemical filed a lawsuit
against a group of female survivors of Bhopal as well as
Greenpeace for demonstrating against the company in Bhopal,
India last month.
The lawsuit asks for $10,000 in damages from protesters who
participated in the peaceful two-hour protest, claiming the
women caused Dow employees "loss of work." The lawsuit also
asks that activists be restrained from holding future
demonstrations within 100 yards of the Dow offices.
In other Dow news, a month ago the Yes Men posted a parody
press release of Dow Chemical on the 18th anniversary of the
Bhopal disaster. The deadpan statement, which many people took
as real, explained that Dow could not accept responsibility
for the disaster due to its primary allegiance to its
shareholders and to its bottom line.
Within hours Dow successfully forced the Internet company
Verio to shut down the Yes Men's website as well as dozens of
other unrelated websites on the New York server run by
thing.net. That was in early December. Earlier this week Verio
announced it was permanently terminating its contract with
thing.net potentially leaving dozens of websites without a
provider.
Guests:
- Ganesh Nochur, campaign director for Greenpeace
India in Delhi. He was arrested in the Netherlands on
Tuesday.
- Rashida Bi, leader of India's largest group of
Bhopal survivors. Her organization, a women's trade union,
was recently sued for protesting by Dow in Bombay. On
Tuesday she was arrested.
- Andy Bichlbaum, member of The Yes Men which
developed a mock Dow Chemical site where it posted a press
release explaining Dow's inaction on the Bhopal disaster.
Related links:
Story: CHARLES
RANGEL INTRODUCES A BILL IN CONGRESS TO REINSTATE THE DRAFT: A
DEBATE BETWEEN BILL CO-SPONSOR JOHN CONYERS AND DAVID HARRIS,
WHO SPENT 20 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR REFUSING TO FIGHT IN
VIETNAM
Rep. Charles Rangel introduced a bill in Congress yesterday
to reinstate the military draft.
The New York Democrat says his goal is two-fold: to ensure
that America's fighting forces more closely match the class
and racial makeup of the nation. And to help people think more
personally about the consequences of going to war. As he wrote
in a The New York Times op-ed last week, "I believe
that if those calling for war knew that their children were
likely to be required to serve and to be placed in
harm's way there would be more caution and a greater
willingness to work with the international community in
dealing with Iraq."
He told reporters yesterday, "Those who love this country
have a patriotic obligation to defend this country… For those
who say the poor fight better, I say give the rich a chance."
Almost no member of Congress has a son or daughter in the
military. Most recent presidential candidates from the Vietnam
generation managed to avoid the draft. President George W.
Bush sat out the war with the Texas Air National Guard.
Rangel is backed by Rep. John Conyers Jr., (D-MI), who has
also opposed a pre-emptive strike against Iraq.
Guests:
- Rep. John Conyers, (D-MI).
- David Harris, author who served 20 months in
prison for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War. He recently
published two books: The Last Stand, which is the story of
the takeover of the Pacific Lumber Company, and Our War, a
personal memoir of the Vietnam war period in the U.S.