WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives

Producers/Hosts: Meredith DeFrancesco & Amy Browne

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Segment 1: This past Friday, October the 17th, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, announced that it had dismissed energy developer Quoddy Bay LNG’s application fro a liquefied natural gas terminal on the Passamaquoddy tribe’s residential land at Pleasant Point.  FERC stated the company had still not provided them with the information they had requested, which had prompted them to suspend review in April. FERC’s letter states the dimissal is without prejudice, if Quoddy Bay LNG re files an application with complete information.  The Save Passamaquoddy bay 3-Nation Alliance , comprised of organized residents of the Passamaquoddy tribe, the US (in Maine) and Canada, have strongly opposed Quoddy bay LNG’s proposed terminal for its’ precarious siting and for safety, environmental and cultural reasons. In Tuesday, the 3 Nation Alliance filed a request to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection asking that the states dismiss Quoddy BayLNG’s pending application with the BEP, as well.
We will follow up on this story in greater detail in the following weeks. We spoke briefly before air time with Robert Godfrey of the Save Passamquoddy Bay 3 Nation Alliance

Segment 2: On October 27th, 2006, New York City based activist and independent journalist Brad Will was shot and killed in Oaxaca City, Mexico. He was covering the popular uprising born out of the suppression of teacher demonstrations in Oaxaca by Governor Ulisis Ruiz.  Two others were shot and killed by paramilitaries the same day; 5 others were wounded, and another disappeared. Despite the documentation of paramilitaries from the local police and municipal government, the Mexican government immediately blamed the death of US resident brad Will on the activists. Now, 2 years later, the Mexican government has not investigated the paramilitaries, and instead, on October 16th, arrested members of the Oaxacan social movement for will’s murder.  This follows on the heels of the US Congress summer passage of the Merida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico, which will provide at least $1.6 billion to Mexico, for armaments, training and resources for Mexican police and military under the mantle of the War on Drugs.
We spoke yesterday with independent journalist John Gibler, who has been following issues in Oaxaca closely over the past 3 years. He is a Global Exchange Media Fellow. His latest article was published in the New York paper The Indypendent. It’s title-“The Rule of Impunity: Mexican Government Ignores Overwhelming Evidence, Charges Oaxacan Activists with Brad Will’s Murder.”  Later we’ll get an update from Rob Jerewski, a friend of Brad’s who, along with others, is engaged in a fast and protest at Senator Hillary Clinton’s New York office.

For more information on Oaxaca and the Brad Will case, and to read John Gibler’s October 21st article published by The Indypendent, go to www.indypendent.org. Links to a number of John Gibler’s published articles can be found at the Global Exchange website, www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/mexico/dispatches . Gibler’s book Mexico Unconquered : Chronicles of Power and Revolt, will be published by City Light Books in January.
For more information on the movement to bring justice for the murders of Brad Will and Oaxacan activists, you can go to .hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma } http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5118  or  www.friendsofbradwill.org