Judge Orders Philly DA to Disclose All Evidence in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case. Could It Lead to New Trial?

Supporters of imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal are celebrating a decision by a Philadelphia judge on Friday to order the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to share all of its files on the case with Abu-Jamal’s defense team. Judge Lucretia Clemons gave prosecutors and the defense 60 days to review the files, including many that Abu-Jamal’s team has never seen. The judge is then expected to rule on whether to hold a new trial for the former Black Panther, who has been imprisoned for over 40 years for his 1982 conviction in the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. His supporters have long claimed prosecutors withheld key evidence and bribed or coerced witnesses to lie, and documents found in the DA’s office in 2019 show Abu-Jamal’s trial was tainted by judicial bias and police and prosecutorial misconduct. 

For more on the case, we speak with Johanna Fernández, an associate professor of history at CUNY’s Baruch College and one of the coordinators of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home. “We have enough evidence here to clearly give Mumia at least an evidentiary hearing, a new trial or set him free,” says Fernández. She is the executive producer and writer of the film “Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal” and is also the editor of “Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

Media Prescribe More ‘Pain’ for Workers as Inflation’s Only Cure

LUCA GOLDMANSOUR

DECEMBER 19, 2022

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is profit’s prophet and the corporate media are his cultish devotees, joining hands to sacrifice working people. In this cult, profit is sacrosanct.

When inflation hits, this is because of the conditions upon which profits are made. It’s not the fault of profit-making itself. The problem is a “labor shortage,” or “too much demand,” which forces the invisible hand to raise prices—and not a shortage of dignified work, or a surplus of people living paycheck to paycheck. Maximal profits are a given, and scarcity for ordinary people is a requirement.

'A Moral and Political Disgrace': Just 11 Senators Vote No on $858 Billion Military Budget

JAKE JOHNSON

December 16, 2022

"At a time when we spend more than the next 11 nations combined on defense, we should invest in healthcare, jobs, housing, and education—not more weapons of destruction," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

In an overwhelming bipartisan vote late Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation authorizing $858 billion in military spending for Fiscal Year 2023, a sum that drew dissent from just a handful of lawmakers and outrage from watchdogs who said the money should be spent on fighting the climate emergency, poverty, and other pressing crises.

The $858 billion budget amounts to a roughly 10% increase from the previous year and $45 billion more than the historic sum President Joe Biden requested, and it was approved even after the Pentagon failed yet another audit, unable to account for more than 60% of its assets.

Ryan Grim on Railroad Workers’ Rank-and-File Union Organizing

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

Earlier this month, President Biden signed into law a bill prohibiting a rail strike and imposing a deal rejected by over half of unionized rail workers over its lack of paid sick leave. Labor activists have condemned Biden and Democratic Party leaders for failing to secure paid time off for workers who become ill.

Joe Biden is meeting African leaders - why free trade is a major talking point

 James Thuo Gathii, Loyola University Chicago

African leaders face a dilemma over trade relations with the United States. Should they push for the extension of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) or for each country’s bilateral trade deal with the world’s biggest economy?

AGOA was the signature economic policy of the Bill Clinton administration. It provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the US market for over 1,800 products. It is set to expire in 2025 but is up for discussion at the annual forum on AGOA taking place alongside the US-African Leaders Summit (13-15 December 2022).

The Trump administration preferred to negotiate bilateral trade deals with African countries.

A free trade agreement negotiation with Kenya in early 2020 was supposed “to serve as a model bilateral deal for other African countries”.

I have been studying Africa’s trade deals and trade blocs for over 25 years. I was one of the zero-draft authors of the Africa continental free trade area, and have assessed regional blocs, the World Trade Organisation and the AGOA.

My view is that African leaders should seek a renewal of AGOA. The individual bilateral trade agreements would undermine the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. One of the goals of the continental market is to boost intra-Africa trade and encourage production of higher value exports.

US trade preferences

The Biden administration’s trade agenda continues to be greatly influenced by US multinational corporations that want access to African markets.

For example, in July 2022, the US launched a US-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Although the agenda is less ambitious than the Trump administration’s, it poses many risks for Kenya. For example, the proposed regime may require lifting of tariffs on agricultural imports from the US, exposing Kenyan farmers to an onslaught of highly subsidised US exports.

The proposed deal’s call for “good regulatory practices” imply rollback of public-interest administrative processes in favour of foreign corporations. For instance, African governments may have to give up regulations on environment, labour, consumer and public health whenever deemed to be barriers to foreign investments.

Likewise, the “digital trade agenda” is likely to be harmful. This agenda requires governments to protect the interests of the biggest technology companies. That often happens at the expense of smaller domestic firms and their workers. The digital agenda is therefore likely to entrench the ability of big-tech companies to undermine national laws on competition and data privacy. These are all undesirable consequences that Africa should avoid.

Africa’s agenda

A high proportion of exports from Africa to the US have been precious stones and metals, such as platinum and diamonds, as well as mineral fuels and apparel. These exports reflect the continued inability of African economies to move away from primary products to industrial production.

Moving African products onto higher rungs of the global value chain requires at least two things: increased intra-Africa trade and international market policy support.

More intra-African trade would produce savings that could be reinvested into producing higher value products. For example, billions of dollars invested in buying food from outside Africa could be reinvested in agro-processing firms if intra-African food trade became successful, as contemplated under the continental market.

Similarly, countries like the US can reorient their trade and investment policies to support the development of productive capacities and value addition of African agriculture, trade and services.

Unless African economies are able to produce higher value exports, they will continue to earn minimal returns from global trade.

One of the complicating factors for Africa is the sheer diversity of interests in each of the 55 member states of the African Union. There are the least developed economies like Burundi, on one hand, and sub-regional powers like South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, on the other. Balancing the competing interests among these countries has been one of the stumbling blocks to realising the vision of a continental market. These differences have also manifested themselves in negotiations of the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union.

Pursuing bilateral trade deals with the US will probably burden African economies with trade obligations that disproportionately favour highly subsidised US industries.

The US, for example, heavily subsidises agriculture. Bilateral trade deals will likely overwhelm Africa’s agricultural sector. This will in turn undermine the continent’s industrialisation goals.

AGOA has a price

Going for the extension of AGOA beyond 2025 isn’t an easy route. This is because, as the US has pointed out, few African countries that qualify for AGOA benefits have used them fully. Of 36 African countries eligible to bring in their exports to the US duty free, almost none fully utilises this preferential access.

Choosing AGOA could also mean having to give up the aim of growing domestic industries that can export products of high value. For example, Rwanda’s apparel AGOA benefits were suspended in July 2018 after Rwanda banned imports of secondhand clothes to support its own apparel industry. Kenya faced the same dilemma but chose AGOA benefits.

So, supporting renewal of Agoa may under certain conditions come at a price: the ability to become makers and exporters of high-value products.

What works

There is one issue where African countries should speak in one voice. US-Africa trade relations must be designed in a way that does not undermine the African continental free trade area’s goal of increasing intra-African trade.

This goal could save Africa billions of dollars annually by buying goods produced within the continent.

African countries should not sacrifice their collective goal of promoting intra-African trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area, and other sub-regional groups like the East African Community, by negotiating bilateral trade deals that will disproportionately favour US industries while hurting African firms.

James Thuo Gathii, Professor of law , Loyola University Chicago

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.