Author
arthur
this is a rough draft of the script has: sudan, mellinum, trent, and colombia
Trent Univesity in Peterborough Ontario, eight students
have been baricaded inside of the Vice Presidents office
suite for more than 24 hours. Students entered the offices
at 8:30 Monday morning, with demands which included: no
renewal of contracts with corporations advertizing on
the Trent Campus without a student refrendum on
advertizing and the creation an offical policy
which makes all corporate and private relationships
with university subject to review by the student
senate with criteria for ethical and environmental
standards.
Sarah Pardosh, a second year student at Trent University, spoke with us about the protests from inside the baricade.
Trent University's administration has been unwilling to negotiate with the students so far.
Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc was granted a US patent related to a gene which may have links to treatment of heart disease. The patent, which was announced on Tuesday, covers the use of the gene for developing therapeutic and predictive medicine. Millenium will use the gene to develop drugs for cardiovascular disease. The patent now protects them from competitors using it to develop their own treatments.
In a related story, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's stock fell on Tuesday after a published report revealed grand-jury suponenas have been sent seeking information on the marketing of its anticancer drugs. The company claims its pricing practices comply with the law and is working with investigators. Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reported investigators are interested in whether Bristol-Myers Squibb bribed oncologists to purchase their drugs using free drugs and devices. They are also looking into possible encouragement of doctors to improperly bill Medicaid and other programs serving the poor
In the sudan, an operation to airlift more than 2,500 demobilized child soliders
out of a combat zone is almost complete. In an operation that began last friday, children are being moved by plane to be rehabilitated and have their families found.
The former soldiers, who range in age from 8 to 18, were demobilized from
military camps run by the rebel Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army based on a personal commitment made by an SPLA commander in October 2000.
The UN, estimates that 9,000 child soldiers are serving in various armed groups in the area.
On Tuesday, Columbian President Andres Pastrana met with President Bush to discuss Plan Columbia, the $1.3 billion US aid package intended aid the Columbian government’s war on drugs. Critics claim Plan Columbia focuses excessively on military support and not enough on the social and economic needs of rural Columbians who are financially dependant on the drug trade.
Meanwhile, concern is building that the United States is not holding it’s own “hard line.” Columbia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Alfonso Valdivieso, was outraged this week when he learned that former President Bill Clinton had pardoned Harvey Weinig, a US lawyer sentenced to 11 years in prison in 1996 and who is scheduled to be released this coming April. Weinig was charged with money laundering and failing to report a kidnapping; he also admitted his association with the Cali drug cartel. Valdivieso, a former prosecutor referred to Clinton’s actions as quote “sordid” on national radio. Former Foreign Minister Rodrigo Pardo told the Associated Press, “This gives us the notion that the anti-drug fight is asymmetrical. The United States demands more from Columbia than it is disposed to do itself.”