Call for International Tribunal, Regardless of Indonesian Court Verdicts

May 26, 2003 More than ninety leading religious leaders and organizations from across the U.S. released a statement today urging the U.S. government to support the establishment of an international tribunal for East Timor. The statement follows the last week's acquittal by an Indonesian court of former Indonesian military commander Brigadier General Tono Suratman for crimes against humanity committed in East Timor in 1999.

The religious figures called the Indonesian ad hoc Human Rights Court for East Timor a "sham" and said: "The U.S. and other governments must not pretend the Indonesian judicial process is in any way acceptable. We call on the U.S. Mission to the UN to actively work with its Security Council colleagues to pass a resolution establishing an international tribunal for East Timor. The world's powers must not again turn a blind eye to East Timor's suffering."

"The Indonesian court's recent acquittal of Brigadier General Suratman dramatically highlights the failure of the process to meet international

AUSTIN, Texas -- It was horrible and sickening, but I could not stop watching the final days of the Texas Legislature. Fellow Texans, the ripple effects of this disaster will come to haunt us all.

Just for starters, this budget is going to cost about 144,000 jobs. Perhaps its most serious effect is on public hospitals. A health-care system so fragile that it is almost overwhelmed now -- turning away ambulances for hours at a time, unable to admit a single patient -- will be swamped after this. The counties will be desperate, the cities not much better. Every area of social service has been cut, not because we have a $9 billion deficit but because House Republicans do not believe government SHOULD help people.

We are watching government morph into something very strange. Benito Mussolini said, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." The real driving force behind this session is something I bet most of you have never heard of -- ALEC. ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded,

Dallas, TX - We are pleased to announce the completion and premiere of the documentary project, "HEMPSTERS: Plant the Seed," a passionate, outspoken and sometimes fiery treatise on industrial hemp and, specifically, on seven activists who, although separated by economics, geography and lifestyle, are allied in the fight to legalize the growing and utilization of Industrial Hemp. A project that has been in the works for seven years.

This film recently screened rough cuts of the project at The Santa Monica Film Festival and The Deep Ellum Film Festival in Dallas and is premiering in The Maui Film Festival June 11th-15th, 2003.

Woody Harrelson, Willie Nelson, Stephen Jenkins (Lead Singer of Third Eye Blind), Merle Haggard, Gatewood Galbraith, and Ralph Nader, Craig Lee, Donna Cockrell, Andrew and Jake Graves, Alex White Plume, Julia "Butterfly" Hill, Milos Yellow Hair, Tom Cook and Joe American Horse are the notables speaking out in "HEMPSTERS: Plant the Seed," each with a vested interest in championing this cause.

Nearly fifteen months after uncovering unspeakable cruelty at Ohio’s largest egg factory farms, Mercy For Animals investigators have again gone undercover behind closed doors to shed light on the inherent cruelties of battery cage facilities. The investigation began in December, 2002 after Weaver Brothers Egg Farm, located in Versailles, Ohio, failed to respond to a certified letter requesting a tour and expressing concern over the farm’s treatment of hens. Following stringent industry-guideline bio-security measures, and armed with video and photo equipment, MFA investigators made nighttime visits to the factory documenting case after case of animal neglect and abuse.

MFA investigators discovered hens caked in feces packed into crowded, filthy wire cages so small they could not spread a single wing, diseased hens suffering from untreated growths and infections, hens trapped in the wire of their cages without access to food or water, dead bodies left to rot in cages with birds still producing eggs for human consumption, and a live hen thrown away in a trash can filled with rotting corpses.

This legislation seeks to move most state court class actions into federal courts, posing a threat to basic civil rights and unfairly blocking the disadvantaged members of society, including women and racial minorities, from obtaining relief from discrimination and unlawful practices. Class action litigation is one of the most important tools that women and people of color can use to help level the playing field. We must do everything we can to oppose this bill and to encourage senators to do the same.

Civil rights laws are intended to protect victims of discriminatory policies, ensuring that they can obtain relief from unlawful practices. The so-called Class Action “Fairness” Act of 2003 threatens to unfairly prevent victims of discrimination from seeking legal justice. If this bill is enacted, women’s ability to seek redress in a court of law will be severely restricted.