15 more best-censored stories of 1998.

The top 10 most-censored stories selected in a nationwide search sponsored by Project Censored of the Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif. were published in the previous issue of SJR. Following are 15 additional stories which were only published in a few of the mainstream news media.

11. Private prison expansion becomes big business. Private prisons are one of the fastest growing sectors of the prison industrial complex. Under contract by the government to run jails and prisons, and paid a fixed sum per prisoner, corporate firms operate as cheaply and efficiently as possible to insure a profit. This means lower wages for staff, no unions, and fewer services for prisoners. Substandard diets, extreme overcrowding, and abuses by poorly trained personnel have all been documented as practices of this private business approach to incarceration.

Source: TURNING THE TIDE, "The Prison Industry and The Global Complex," Summer 1998.

12. Millions of Americans received contaminated polio vaccine between 1955 and 1963. The once hailed 'miracle' vaccine was contaminated by a virus called Simian Virus 40 (SV40) between the years of 1955 and 1963. The virus hid in the renal cells of the monkeys which were used to make the vaccine. SV40 has been linked to rare, incurable cancers such as ependymomas (brain tumors), mesotheliomas (pleural tumors, usually of the lung), and osteosarcomas (bone malignancies).

Sources: CHICAGO LIFE, "Ticking Time Bomb," October 1997 by Vicky Angelos, and http://www.sightings.com/health/salk.htm, "The Forty Year Legacy of Tainted Polio Vaccine," May 14, 1998 by Harold Stearley.

13. China violates human rights in Tibet. Throughout most of history, Tibetan women have enjoyed greater equality with men than have their Asian neighbors. Since China's invasion of Tibet in 1959, they have been at the forefront of the nonviolent struggle for independence - nearly half of the protests staged over the last decade have been led by nuns. During that time, however, thousands of Tibetan women have been arrested, incarcerated, sexually abused, tortured, and publicly executed.

Source: TOWARD FREEDOM, "China's War on Women." March/April 1998 by Natasha Ma.

14. Political contributions compromise American judicial system. America's justice system is being compromised by campaign contributions to judges from special interest groups and Corporate Political Action Committees (PACS).

Source: THE NATION, "The Buying of the Bench," January 26, 1998 by Sheila Kaplan.

15. Swat teams replace civilian police: Target minority communities. In the 25 years since the creation of the first Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams in Los Angeles, police forces across the United States have become increasingly militarized. Paramilitary police teams originally only operated in urban areas, but in recent years the number of special task forces throughout the country, including rural police departments, has dramatically increased.

Source: COVERT ACTION QUARTERLY, "Operation Ghetto Storm: The Rise In Paramilitary Policing," Fall 1997 by Peter Cassidy.

16. Mercenary armies in service to global corporations. In many countries, multinational corporations have paid directly for private policing services from the local army; or have hired outside security companies to harass nationals who protest against the environmental impact of their operations. The firms involved represent a growing number of new corporate security operations around the world, linking former intelligence officers, standing armies, and local death squads.

Sources: CAQ, "Mercenary Armies & Mineral Wealth, Fall 1997, No. 62 by Pratap Chatterjee, and MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, "Guarding the Multinationals," March 1998 by Pratap Chatterjee.

17. U.S. media promotes biased coverage on Bosnia. A visit to the camps of Omarska and Trnopolje by a British team from Independent Television (ITN) on August 5, 1992 gave rise to the image of the Serbs as the new Nazis of the Balkans. A widely published photo taken by ITN pictured an emaciated Muslim behind barbed wire with comrades imprisoned behind him. ITN's photo was not, however, as accurate as it seemed. The men in the photo were not standing behind barbed wire. In fact the Hague Tribunal confirmed that there was no barbed wire surrounding the Belesn 92 at Trnopolje. The emaciated Muslim shown with his shirt off was in fact a very ill man selected to be featured in the photo. Trnopolje was not a concentration camp, it was a refugee and transit center. Many Muslims traveled there for protection and could leave whenever they wished.

Sources: CAQ "Misinformation: TV Coverage of a Bosnian Camp," Fall 1998, No. 65 by Thomas Deichmann, and CAQ "Seeing Yugoslavia Through A Dark Glass," Fall 1998, No. 65 by Diana Johnstone.

18. Manhattan Project covered up effects of fluoride toxicity. Recently declassified government documents have shed new light on the decades-old debate over the fluoridation of drinking water, and have added to a growing body of scientific evidence concerning the health effects of fluoride. Much of the original evidence about fluoride, which suggested it was safe for human consumption in low doses, was actually generated by "Manhattan Project" scientists in the 1940s. New evidence shows that researchers were ordered to cover-up evidence of the dangers of fluoride and irs levels of toxicity to avoid lawsuit by exposed civilians.

Source: WASTE NOT, "Fluoride, Teeth and the Atomic Bomb," September 1997 by Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson.

19. Clinton's administration lobbied for retention of toxic chemicals in children's toys. The Clinton Administration and the Commerce Department have lobbied on behalf of U.S. toy and chemical manufacturers against proposed new European Union (EU) restrictions which would prevent children's exposure to toxic chemicals released by polyvinyl chloride (PVC) toys such as teething rings.

Source: MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, "Out of the Mouths of Babes," June 1998 by Charlie Gray.

20. Developers build on flood plains at taxpayers' expense. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), some 10 million people in the U.S. currently live on floodplains, and developers are rapidly building more homes in these areas. Of these households at risk of flooding, only one fourth actually carries insurance; the rest will rely on federal disaster relief funds if their homes are flooded. Many of these people face repeated flooding, and the American taxpayer is paying the tab.

Source: MOTHER JONES "Rain Check," March/April 1998, vol. 23 issue 2 by Marc Herman.

21. Global oil reserves alarmingly overestimated. Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrere, two independent oil-industry consultants, predict that global production of conventional oil will start to decline within the next ten years, and be unable to keep up with demand thereafter. Their analysis contradicts oil-industry reports which suggest we have another 50 years worth of cheap oil to sustain us. As the independent report points out, economic and political motives cause oil-producing companies and countries to publish the inflated figure, and this affects all of us.

Source: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, "The End of Cheap Oil," March 1998 by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrere.

22. Academia at risk as tenured professors vanish. The bedrock of higher education, the tenured full-time faculty, have become an endangered species. According to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the number of tenured full-time faculty is rapidly decreasing on college campuses. Full-time faculty are being replaced by part-time faculty who are paid two-thirds what tenured professors earn, and receive substandard benefits. At least 43 percent of college instructors nationwide are now part-time faculty. The hiring of part-time lecturers increased by 266 percent between 1979 and 1995.

Source: ON CAMPUS, "The Vanishing Professor," September 1998 by Barbara McKenna.

23. Bureau of land management charged with human rights violations against the Shoshone nation. A decades-old dispute with the Bureau of Land Management has led the Western Shoshone tribe to take the conflict to an international level. The OAS' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has asked the United States to "stay" all actions pending further investigations; but, according to News From Indian Country (NFIC), the BLM has "not responded" to documents supporting Western Shoshone land rights.

Source: NEWS FROM INDIAN COUNTRY: THE NATION'S NATIVE JOURNAL. "BLM fines Western ShOshone $564,000 Despite OAS Request," May 1998, Vol. 12, No 9 by pat Calliotte.

24. Coca-Cola fails to meet recycling pledge. In 1990 Coca-Cola made a promise to use its recycled plastic bottles in new production as it has successfully done in Europe and numerous other countries. Eight years later they have yet to follow through with that promise. This failure to act has kept the price of recycled PET bottles low in the market place and discouraged expanded PET recycling programs nationwide.

Source: EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL, "Coca Cola: Recycling Outlaw," Winter 1998 by Marti Matsch.

25. ABC broadcasts slanted report on Mumia Abu-Jamal. On May 7 and 8, 1998, KGO-TV, an ABC affiliate in San Francisco, broadcast a two-part series attacking the international movement to prevent the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Mumia, a black activist, has been on death row in the state of Pennsylvania for 16 years for the killing of a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. KGO claimed to do an objective review of the case. The final broadcast presented a very one-sided story.

Source: REFUSE AND RESIST, "A Case Study in Irresponsible Journalism," by C. Clark Kissinger and Leonard Weinglass.