- Senator Paul Wellstone Demands Albright Investigate "Killing Frenzy" in Colombia
Last week, President Clinton signed a $1.6 billion military aid bill for Colombia, allegedly to be used in the so-called war on drugs. This aid package comes at a time when numerous massacres committed by forces linked to the U.S.-backed Colombian military, are being uncovered. It’s interesting that The New York Times ran a front-page article on one of these massacres that took place in February. The piece ran a day after Clinton signed the aid package
- Drug Control Or Bio-Warfare Against Colombia?
Under pressure from the United States, Colombia has reluctantly agreed to take the first step toward developing a powerful biological herbicide. But scientists and environmentalists say it is virtually a biological weapon. They say that along with killing coca plants, the toxic fungus may pose serious dangers to the environment and human health. These threats are so serious that Florida has suspended plans to test the fungus for its own anti-drug efforts.
- Big Losses for Big Tobacco Or Not?
It is a number that has captured the attention of the nation–$145 billion. It’s big enough that it sounds like a tax bill being debated in Congress or some new Pentagon project. But, in fact, it is the amount that a Florida jury has ruled that tobacco companies have to pay for damage caused to smokers in the state–and it’s raising a fundamental question: Can Big Tobacco survive it?