There's bad news this week. Last week, Governor Ridge of Pennsylvania signed a new death warrant for imprisoned African-American journalist Mumia Abu Jamal. An execution date has been set for December 2nd, in spite of the fact that his legal team has just filed a habeus corpus petition with the federal district court in Philadelphia. Ridge is notorious for signing death warrants while defendants are still going through the appeals process. Notably, both the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Bar Associations have recently called for a halt to executions until the death penalty has been proven nondiscriminatory. For example, 62% of Pennsylvania's death row inmates are African-American, compared to only 9% of the total population in Pennsylvania--the largest such racial disparity in the nation. Jamal's habeus corpus petition contains at least 30 allegations of Constitutional violations surrounding his trial and subsequent appeal. But now that a death warrant has been signed, Mumia may be moved from his current cell into Phase II or "deathwatch," which would mean near total isolation from the outside world, including the loss of possessions, correspondence, and legal materials. To find out about Mumia's case and to volunteer to help, contact the Seattle Mumia Defense Committee at 206-333-4290 or smdc@speakeasy.org. Nationwide contacts includes: the International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal at 215-476-8812 or http://www.mumia.org.

There is a bit of good news this week, too: after months of pressure from community activists, Northwest Hospital has finally agreed to permanently shut down its medical waste incinerator. Last year under pressure from the Beacon Hill community and the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, the Veterans Administration hospital decommissioned their incinerator on Beacon Hill. But Northwest Hospital, which had shut down its incinerator because of air quality concerns, decided to fire it up again. After numerous demonstrations and lots of hard work, activists have forced the closure of the Northwest Hospital incinerator, too. Good work!

Last week the FBI put pressure on the Paramount Theater to cancel a reservation made by anti-WTO groups for November 28. Three groups--Global Trade Watch, the Humane Society, and the Animal Welfare Institute (not exactly a bunch of extremists, here)--had a confirmed reservation to hold a pre-WTO conference at the Paramount. They were told by Paramount management, however, that they were being booted for "security reasons"; it seems the WTO has reserved the Paramount for the following two days: November 29-30. This kind of harassment goes beyond what I'd typically expect from the elitist WTO. In spite of Bill Clinton's comments about opening up the WTO to input from labor, environmentalists, and grassroots concerns, we're likely to see a lot more such extreme paranoia in the weeks ahead.

Last week's vote by the U.S. Senate to reject the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was predictable and sleazy. It sent the wrong message to the world: it's okay to fuck around with the most dangerous substances known to man. But the sleaziest part was the Clinton administration's total abandonment of the treaty--the administration did absolutely nothing to lobby Senators or gain a single vote in favor of the treaty.

It also marks an alarming normalization of nuclear technology worldwide--part of a reversal of the hard work activists did throughout the '80s to make the U.S. government and other First World nations acknowledge the enormous human and environmental costs associated with nuclear testing and nuclear waste. The energy industry and big business in general are beginning once again to tout nuclear energy as a "clean" alternative--a way to minimize the costs of giving up coal and oil-burning technologies that contribute to global warming. While Russia is getting ready to accept shipments of our nuclear waste, the growing worldwide movement against the construction of dams has made nuclear power more attractive to developing nations, too. Clearly, the fight is not over.