The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Monday met with the family of a man fatally shot by police just hours before his wedding, promising a thorough federal investigation of the incident.
Three New York police detectives were acquitted Friday on all counts in the case of Sean Bell, an unarmed man killed in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a strip club on November 25, 2006. Bell's two friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were wounded in the shooting.
"We are going to be putting together the federal strategy," said Rep. John Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a Michigan Democrat. "This is important."
"We want to make sure that justice is served and that a message is sent out, not just to law enforcement but to the young people of this country, that these kinds of tragedies have to end in this country," he said.
The Justice Department said it was conducting an independent investigation to determine if the trio's civil rights were violated.
The Detectives Endowment Association, the union representing Detectives Gescard Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper, said they were trying to set up a meeting with Conyers as well because they believe the committee should "hear both sides of the story."
"That's what's fair to the detectives and the American people," said Michael Palladino, president of the association.
Bell's family, the New York chapter of the NAACP and civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton condemned the verdicts on Friday, with Sharpton calling the rulings "an abortion of justice."
"Every one of you and everybody in this country and people all over the world knows that an injustice has been done," said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, who also attended Monday's meeting.
Conyers, Rangel, members of Bell's family, Guzman, Benefield and Sharpton met at the office of another New York congressman, Rep. Gregory Meeks. Meeks said the meeting also included a conversation with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton via telephone.
After the meeting, the group traveled to the strip club Kalua, then to the spot where Bell was killed.
Witnesses said that around 4 a.m. on November 26, 2006 -- closing time -- an argument broke out as Bell and his friends left the club. Believing Guzman was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the detectives followed the men and called for backup.
Bell, Guzman and Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police. Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives, according to their lawyers, thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed their lives were in danger and started shooting.
Oliver, who reloaded his semiautomatic in the middle of the fray, fired 31 times, while Isnora fired 11 times and Cooper, whose leg was brushed by Bell's moving car, fired four times, the NYPD said.
No gun was found in or near Bell's car. None of the detectives had been involved in any similar cases before -- and Oliver had never fired his weapon in the line of duty before.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
'Noose' Leads to Federal Agent Suspension
A U.S. Secret Service agent was suspended after admitting responsibility for tying what an African American agent reportedly said was a noose hanging in the agency's Beltsville, Md., training facilities.
Eric Zahren, a spokesman for the Secret Service, confirmed Monday that "an employee observed a rope tied in a loop, which was interpreted as a noose, in one of the training buildings," he said.
The alleged noose was first reported by Cox Newspapers, which reported the rope was discovered by an African American agent April 14. The agent is a member of the Secret Service's uniformed division, which protects the White House and its environs, the service reported.
The employee who admitted to tying the rope, Zahren said, had been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. The rope was typically used for dog training, according to Zahren.
"The Secret Service does not and will not tolerate racial, cultural or religious bias of any kind," said Zahren.
The incident comes at an inconvenient moment for the agency, and not only because Americans are contemplating whether to elect their first African American president with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
The Secret Service is in the middle of an epic eight-year discrimination suit in which an African American agent charges the agency systematically discriminates against African American agents. Fifty-eight African American agents have given statements in support of the suit filed by agent Reginald G. Moore.
Currently, a federal judge is weighing whether to sanction the service for a fourth time, for failing to turn over evidence during the trial's discovery phase, Cox reported.
The Secret Service has denied Moore's charges.
USSS spokesman Zahren said that the alleged noose incident was being investigated by the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility.
By JUSTIN ROOD for ABC news
Eric Zahren, a spokesman for the Secret Service, confirmed Monday that "an employee observed a rope tied in a loop, which was interpreted as a noose, in one of the training buildings," he said.
The alleged noose was first reported by Cox Newspapers, which reported the rope was discovered by an African American agent April 14. The agent is a member of the Secret Service's uniformed division, which protects the White House and its environs, the service reported.
The employee who admitted to tying the rope, Zahren said, had been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. The rope was typically used for dog training, according to Zahren.
"The Secret Service does not and will not tolerate racial, cultural or religious bias of any kind," said Zahren.
The incident comes at an inconvenient moment for the agency, and not only because Americans are contemplating whether to elect their first African American president with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
The Secret Service is in the middle of an epic eight-year discrimination suit in which an African American agent charges the agency systematically discriminates against African American agents. Fifty-eight African American agents have given statements in support of the suit filed by agent Reginald G. Moore.
Currently, a federal judge is weighing whether to sanction the service for a fourth time, for failing to turn over evidence during the trial's discovery phase, Cox reported.
The Secret Service has denied Moore's charges.
USSS spokesman Zahren said that the alleged noose incident was being investigated by the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility.
By JUSTIN ROOD for ABC news
T.I. Stands Strong in Midst of Legal Troubles
In case anyone had counted T.I. out, the self proclaimed King of the South wants everyone to know he's back and he's here, "No Matter What."
Earlier today (April 29) the first official track from Tip's highly anticipated upcoming album Paper Trail leaked and the squeaky, guitar laden song sounds like a victory anthem, as Tip proclaims he can get through anything.
"I ain't dead, I ain't done/ I ain't scared, I ain't run / Still I stand, no matter what / Here I am, no matter what," he rhymes in the chorus.
The song, produced by longtime associate DJ Toomp, heavily references the rapper's latest legal troubles, having just escaped a hefty jail sentence with what critics have called a "sweetheart deal." After pleading guilty to federal weapons charges and getting off with thousands of hours of community service, a year in a home confinement program, a $100,000 fine and a year in jail.
Considerably less than what Tip says the media predicted.
"Facing all kinda time / but I smile like I'm fine," Tip rhymes. "Let the blog sites and the magazines tell it / I'm sure to be in jail till 2027."
The whole song doesn't come off quite as braggadocios as those couple of lines, though. Tip actually apologizes for the situation to his listeners."Apologies to the fans, I hope you can understand it / Life can change your direction even when you didn't plan it," he raps.
The inner strength that got him through this latest ordeal is the same will that pushed him through the tragic still birth of a child as well as the highway murder of his personal assistant and friend, Philant Johnson in 2006.
"I lost my partner and my daughter in the same year / Somehow, I rise above my problems and remain here," he raps
Tip goes on to give listeners a little insight into how he overcomes the obstacles in his life.
"Wonder how I face years and I'm still chillin'? / Easy to let go and let God deal with it."
Paper Trail is due on shelves sometime in September.
by Brandi Hopper from SoHH.com
Earlier today (April 29) the first official track from Tip's highly anticipated upcoming album Paper Trail leaked and the squeaky, guitar laden song sounds like a victory anthem, as Tip proclaims he can get through anything.
"I ain't dead, I ain't done/ I ain't scared, I ain't run / Still I stand, no matter what / Here I am, no matter what," he rhymes in the chorus.
The song, produced by longtime associate DJ Toomp, heavily references the rapper's latest legal troubles, having just escaped a hefty jail sentence with what critics have called a "sweetheart deal." After pleading guilty to federal weapons charges and getting off with thousands of hours of community service, a year in a home confinement program, a $100,000 fine and a year in jail.
Considerably less than what Tip says the media predicted.
"Facing all kinda time / but I smile like I'm fine," Tip rhymes. "Let the blog sites and the magazines tell it / I'm sure to be in jail till 2027."
The whole song doesn't come off quite as braggadocios as those couple of lines, though. Tip actually apologizes for the situation to his listeners."Apologies to the fans, I hope you can understand it / Life can change your direction even when you didn't plan it," he raps.
The inner strength that got him through this latest ordeal is the same will that pushed him through the tragic still birth of a child as well as the highway murder of his personal assistant and friend, Philant Johnson in 2006.
"I lost my partner and my daughter in the same year / Somehow, I rise above my problems and remain here," he raps
Tip goes on to give listeners a little insight into how he overcomes the obstacles in his life.
"Wonder how I face years and I'm still chillin'? / Easy to let go and let God deal with it."
Paper Trail is due on shelves sometime in September.
by Brandi Hopper from SoHH.com
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Verdict in Sean Bell Case Draws a Peaceful Protest, but Some Demand More
The circle of people was thin but spread wide, looping an intersection in the heart of Harlem on Sunday and blocking long lines of cars and buses in four directions. In the middle of the circle stood a cluster of angry people, and in that cluster stood a young man with a bullhorn and a question.
“Why isn’t everyone else out here with us?” the man, Robert Cuffy, 22, asked. The circle of people, roughly 150 strong, stared back. It was two days after a judge acquitted three New York City detectives in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died on the morning of his wedding day 17 months ago after the detectives fired a total of 50 bullets at his car.
Unlike some previous verdicts in police shootings, the acquittals in the Bell case have so far been largely met with a muted response. Thousands of protesters did not fill the streets, no unrest ensued. Still, on Sunday, some protesters and advocates around the city demanded federal investigations into the case and greater oversight of the police, while others puzzled over why the verdict had not yielded a stronger response.
At a news conference at the Harlem headquarters of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Mr. Sharpton and other activists, politicians and community leaders praised the overall peaceful response that followed the verdict, and vowed to fight the judge’s decision in strategic rather than bellicose ways.
“Some in the media seemed disappointed, they wanted us to play into the hoodlum, thug stereotypes,” Mr. Sharpton said. “We can be angry without being mad.” And while many onlookers shouted their support, others admitted restlessness and a yearning for something more.
“People are hungry for leadership that’s not there,” said Calvin B. Hunt Jr., who listened to the news conference and joined the protest that followed, marching down Malcolm X Boulevard and blocking the intersection at 125th Street. He spoke longingly of prominent black activists in the 1960s and 1970s, among them Malcolm X, Angela Davis and Huey Newton. “After the Amadou Diallo verdict, we marched till we had corns on our feet, and nothing changed,” he said. “In this verdict, there was no justice. So why should there be peace?”
His sentiments were shared by some others in the crowd. A poet who gave his name as Thug Love said gang members from the Bloods and Crips should unite to “police and protect their own community” the way the Black Panthers did decades ago. A concert promoter, who goes by the name Goddess Isis, said that the news conference sounded to her like “politics as usual,” and that the community needed grass-roots leaders with concrete solutions to ongoing problems, like police harassment.
“We are on our own here,” she said.
But Nkrumah Pierre, a banker who lives on Long Island and who marched in the protest on Sunday, said: “We’ve progressed to the point where we don’t need to act out in violence. This is an intelligent protest, and a strategic protest.”
Still, others on Sunday called for changes within the system, in particular the ways in which the city’s police are monitored.
At a news conference outside Police Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan, civil rights advocates and lawmakers — including Norman Siegel, the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union; State Senator Eric Adams of Brooklyn; and Marq Claxton of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care — called for the appointment of a permanent statewide special prosecutor, to supersede district attorneys in cases of police shootings or alleged police brutality.
Too often, the advocates said, district attorneys have close relationships with the police, muddying prosecutorial independence. The advocates also said the timing of the proposal was influenced by the ascension of David A. Paterson to governor.
“For the first time we realistically have someone in the governor’s seat that understands the need for these reforms,” Mr. Siegel said.
The proposal, Mr. Siegel said, was loosely patterned on the former Office of the Special State Prosecutor for Corruption, created under Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller in the early 1970s on the recommendation of the Knapp Commission, which uncovered corruption in the Police Department. That office was disbanded in 1990.
Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Paterson, said the governor would review the recommendation. “Like all New Yorkers, the governor takes the issue of police wrongdoing very seriously, but he also believes that the overwhelming majority of police officers perform their duties honorably and conscientiously,” Ms. Heller said.
In Harlem, one of the protesters, Melanie Brown, who is 29 and lives near the street in Queens where Mr. Bell was killed and two of his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were wounded, said she believed that every response, no matter how seemingly small, helped.
“What happens next happens,” she said, as protesters chanted and hoisted aloft Pan-African flags, striped in red, black and green. “Right now this is a unity thing.”
By CARA BUCKLEY and THOMAS J. LUECK from NY Times
“Why isn’t everyone else out here with us?” the man, Robert Cuffy, 22, asked. The circle of people, roughly 150 strong, stared back. It was two days after a judge acquitted three New York City detectives in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died on the morning of his wedding day 17 months ago after the detectives fired a total of 50 bullets at his car.
Unlike some previous verdicts in police shootings, the acquittals in the Bell case have so far been largely met with a muted response. Thousands of protesters did not fill the streets, no unrest ensued. Still, on Sunday, some protesters and advocates around the city demanded federal investigations into the case and greater oversight of the police, while others puzzled over why the verdict had not yielded a stronger response.
At a news conference at the Harlem headquarters of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Mr. Sharpton and other activists, politicians and community leaders praised the overall peaceful response that followed the verdict, and vowed to fight the judge’s decision in strategic rather than bellicose ways.
“Some in the media seemed disappointed, they wanted us to play into the hoodlum, thug stereotypes,” Mr. Sharpton said. “We can be angry without being mad.” And while many onlookers shouted their support, others admitted restlessness and a yearning for something more.
“People are hungry for leadership that’s not there,” said Calvin B. Hunt Jr., who listened to the news conference and joined the protest that followed, marching down Malcolm X Boulevard and blocking the intersection at 125th Street. He spoke longingly of prominent black activists in the 1960s and 1970s, among them Malcolm X, Angela Davis and Huey Newton. “After the Amadou Diallo verdict, we marched till we had corns on our feet, and nothing changed,” he said. “In this verdict, there was no justice. So why should there be peace?”
His sentiments were shared by some others in the crowd. A poet who gave his name as Thug Love said gang members from the Bloods and Crips should unite to “police and protect their own community” the way the Black Panthers did decades ago. A concert promoter, who goes by the name Goddess Isis, said that the news conference sounded to her like “politics as usual,” and that the community needed grass-roots leaders with concrete solutions to ongoing problems, like police harassment.
“We are on our own here,” she said.
But Nkrumah Pierre, a banker who lives on Long Island and who marched in the protest on Sunday, said: “We’ve progressed to the point where we don’t need to act out in violence. This is an intelligent protest, and a strategic protest.”
Still, others on Sunday called for changes within the system, in particular the ways in which the city’s police are monitored.
At a news conference outside Police Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan, civil rights advocates and lawmakers — including Norman Siegel, the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union; State Senator Eric Adams of Brooklyn; and Marq Claxton of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care — called for the appointment of a permanent statewide special prosecutor, to supersede district attorneys in cases of police shootings or alleged police brutality.
Too often, the advocates said, district attorneys have close relationships with the police, muddying prosecutorial independence. The advocates also said the timing of the proposal was influenced by the ascension of David A. Paterson to governor.
“For the first time we realistically have someone in the governor’s seat that understands the need for these reforms,” Mr. Siegel said.
The proposal, Mr. Siegel said, was loosely patterned on the former Office of the Special State Prosecutor for Corruption, created under Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller in the early 1970s on the recommendation of the Knapp Commission, which uncovered corruption in the Police Department. That office was disbanded in 1990.
Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Paterson, said the governor would review the recommendation. “Like all New Yorkers, the governor takes the issue of police wrongdoing very seriously, but he also believes that the overwhelming majority of police officers perform their duties honorably and conscientiously,” Ms. Heller said.
In Harlem, one of the protesters, Melanie Brown, who is 29 and lives near the street in Queens where Mr. Bell was killed and two of his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were wounded, said she believed that every response, no matter how seemingly small, helped.
“What happens next happens,” she said, as protesters chanted and hoisted aloft Pan-African flags, striped in red, black and green. “Right now this is a unity thing.”
By CARA BUCKLEY and THOMAS J. LUECK from NY Times
The Game, Fellow Rappers Sound Off for Sean Bell
The Game isn't playing with this one. In light of the shooting death of 23-year-old Sean Bell and the subsequent acquittal last week of the NYPD officers who fired the fatal shots, the SoCal-bred rapper has penned a musical response that in no uncertain terms lets us know where he stands.
911 Is a Joke," which doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to the issue of police brutality, is set to debut tomorrow on the Game's website.
"I'm outraged and speaking out for my generation that are afraid to speak out against police brutality and murder," the Game said in a statement. "I grew up in Compton and had to stay silent because of the fear that was prevalent in my community, but now that I have a voice I'm speaking out.
"This could have easily been me, my brother, my family. So this song is for Sean Bell from my heart. My deepest condolences goes out to his family and wife Nicole Bell."
Bell was shot Nov. 25, 2006, outside a Queens strip club, where his bachelor party had just taken place, the night before he was to be married. One of the detectives charged had been working at the club undercover when he witnessed a confrontation between Bell and a stranger and heard a friend of Bell's say, "Get my gun."
After Bell got into his car, he refused to stop when one of the plainclothes detectives flashed his badge, and then he ran his Nissan Altima into an unmarked minivan being driven by one of the other officers.
The three cops fired more than 50 bullets at Bell—who, the defense argued, they thought was carrying a gun—and his two friends, both of whom were wounded. None of the men was armed.
The local response to their acquittal has been largely peaceful, minus a few scuffles that broke out on Friday, the day the verdict was announced, but the varied reactions of activists such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and, thanks to the Internet, anyone with an opinion, can be heard loud and clear.
And, while there are at least two sides to every debate, the Game isn't the only member of the hip-hop community who has spoken out on what he perceives to be a gross injustice.
Ice Cube— who as a founding member of N.W.A. rapped against police brutality on the seminal "F--k the Police"— called the verdict "just another example that the justice system in America views a black life as worthless."
"First of all, rest in peace to Sean Bell and I want to send my condolences to his wife, kids, family and friends and all the Sean Bell boys—hold your head," Mobb Deep rapper Prodigy, who's currently behind bars on a gun-possession rap, said in a statement.
"We lost a lot of battles, but we will win the war. The decision in the Queens courtroom on Friday, April 25 was simply a display of power. The NYPD is just a branch of corruption connected to a giant corrupt tree called the United States government. This tyrannical corrupt tree has its roots planted deep into the United Kingdom."
"The Sean Bell murder itself was a reflection of how expendable black men are in the eyes of many," Queens MC Cormega said. "The verdict was a far worse crime because it stripped a dead man of his rights and it stripped a community of hope. We came so far as a people yet gained little momentum, but I would like to thank society for re-opening my eyes to the myth called equality and the justice that eludes just us."
Meanwhile, UGK rapper Bun B, whose other half, Pimp C, died earlier this year of an accidental Rx overdose, added: "The verdict is almost as tragic as the incident. I've already lost [a] life, and now we've got a loss of justice and loss of reciprocation for what's happened. And it cuts you on so many levels."
Natalie Finn fron E! Online
911 Is a Joke," which doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to the issue of police brutality, is set to debut tomorrow on the Game's website.
"I'm outraged and speaking out for my generation that are afraid to speak out against police brutality and murder," the Game said in a statement. "I grew up in Compton and had to stay silent because of the fear that was prevalent in my community, but now that I have a voice I'm speaking out.
"This could have easily been me, my brother, my family. So this song is for Sean Bell from my heart. My deepest condolences goes out to his family and wife Nicole Bell."
Bell was shot Nov. 25, 2006, outside a Queens strip club, where his bachelor party had just taken place, the night before he was to be married. One of the detectives charged had been working at the club undercover when he witnessed a confrontation between Bell and a stranger and heard a friend of Bell's say, "Get my gun."
After Bell got into his car, he refused to stop when one of the plainclothes detectives flashed his badge, and then he ran his Nissan Altima into an unmarked minivan being driven by one of the other officers.
The three cops fired more than 50 bullets at Bell—who, the defense argued, they thought was carrying a gun—and his two friends, both of whom were wounded. None of the men was armed.
The local response to their acquittal has been largely peaceful, minus a few scuffles that broke out on Friday, the day the verdict was announced, but the varied reactions of activists such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and, thanks to the Internet, anyone with an opinion, can be heard loud and clear.
And, while there are at least two sides to every debate, the Game isn't the only member of the hip-hop community who has spoken out on what he perceives to be a gross injustice.
Ice Cube— who as a founding member of N.W.A. rapped against police brutality on the seminal "F--k the Police"— called the verdict "just another example that the justice system in America views a black life as worthless."
"First of all, rest in peace to Sean Bell and I want to send my condolences to his wife, kids, family and friends and all the Sean Bell boys—hold your head," Mobb Deep rapper Prodigy, who's currently behind bars on a gun-possession rap, said in a statement.
"We lost a lot of battles, but we will win the war. The decision in the Queens courtroom on Friday, April 25 was simply a display of power. The NYPD is just a branch of corruption connected to a giant corrupt tree called the United States government. This tyrannical corrupt tree has its roots planted deep into the United Kingdom."
"The Sean Bell murder itself was a reflection of how expendable black men are in the eyes of many," Queens MC Cormega said. "The verdict was a far worse crime because it stripped a dead man of his rights and it stripped a community of hope. We came so far as a people yet gained little momentum, but I would like to thank society for re-opening my eyes to the myth called equality and the justice that eludes just us."
Meanwhile, UGK rapper Bun B, whose other half, Pimp C, died earlier this year of an accidental Rx overdose, added: "The verdict is almost as tragic as the incident. I've already lost [a] life, and now we've got a loss of justice and loss of reciprocation for what's happened. And it cuts you on so many levels."
Natalie Finn fron E! Online
Mozambique Police Killing with Impunity: Amnesty
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Mozambique police of killing and torturing people with impunity as the country struggles to deal with growing crime.
Amnesty International said police officers have used "excessive force" to deal with criminals because of public pressure to crack down.
"Police in Mozambique seem to think they have a licence to kill and the weak police accountability system allows for this," Michelle Kagari, deputy director of Amnesty's Africa programme, said in the report.
"In almost all cases of human rights violations by police -- including unlawful killings -- no investigation into the case and no disciplinary action against those responsible has been undertaken," the report said.
The report, entitled 'Licence To Kill', also noted that Mozambican police faced "numerous challenges stemming from high crime rates, a backlog of criminal cases in the judicial system, and occasional violence against police".
It said that these incidents had led to the police dealing with suspects and criminals violently and at times killing suspects.
The report mentioned the killing in February of protesters who were demonstrating in Maputo against hikes in transport fees.
At least three people were killed and 30 others were injured, some of them seriously, by stray bullets.
"The police have generally been unresponsive to the public, providing very little information to those who have lodged complaints against the police for human rights violations. Victims virtually never receive compensation for these violations," the report said.
Kagari said it was vital that any officer suspected of involvement in human rights violations be held to account.
"Police officers must be made aware that they cannot torture, beat and kill with impunity," she said.
"They must be held responsible for their actions if policing is ever going to change for the better in Mozambique."
Amnesty's report comes one day after Alice Mabota, the head of Mozambique's leading human rights organisation, Liga dos Direitos Humanos (League for Human Rights), said that the human rights situation in Mozambique had deteriorated in the past few months.
Mabota said a lack of resources for the justice system in Mozambique has contributed to the problem.
"Our police officers work without necessary resources," she said.
Mabota said the public has also resorted to meting out extrajudicial beatings against suspected criminals because of low confidence in the police force.
Violent crime is said to be on the increase in Mozambique.
"Our prison system now is an academy to criminals... After prison, they come out with the capacity to commit serious crimes," Mabota said.
The Mozambican police declined to comment on the report.
From AFP
Amnesty International said police officers have used "excessive force" to deal with criminals because of public pressure to crack down.
"Police in Mozambique seem to think they have a licence to kill and the weak police accountability system allows for this," Michelle Kagari, deputy director of Amnesty's Africa programme, said in the report.
"In almost all cases of human rights violations by police -- including unlawful killings -- no investigation into the case and no disciplinary action against those responsible has been undertaken," the report said.
The report, entitled 'Licence To Kill', also noted that Mozambican police faced "numerous challenges stemming from high crime rates, a backlog of criminal cases in the judicial system, and occasional violence against police".
It said that these incidents had led to the police dealing with suspects and criminals violently and at times killing suspects.
The report mentioned the killing in February of protesters who were demonstrating in Maputo against hikes in transport fees.
At least three people were killed and 30 others were injured, some of them seriously, by stray bullets.
"The police have generally been unresponsive to the public, providing very little information to those who have lodged complaints against the police for human rights violations. Victims virtually never receive compensation for these violations," the report said.
Kagari said it was vital that any officer suspected of involvement in human rights violations be held to account.
"Police officers must be made aware that they cannot torture, beat and kill with impunity," she said.
"They must be held responsible for their actions if policing is ever going to change for the better in Mozambique."
Amnesty's report comes one day after Alice Mabota, the head of Mozambique's leading human rights organisation, Liga dos Direitos Humanos (League for Human Rights), said that the human rights situation in Mozambique had deteriorated in the past few months.
Mabota said a lack of resources for the justice system in Mozambique has contributed to the problem.
"Our police officers work without necessary resources," she said.
Mabota said the public has also resorted to meting out extrajudicial beatings against suspected criminals because of low confidence in the police force.
Violent crime is said to be on the increase in Mozambique.
"Our prison system now is an academy to criminals... After prison, they come out with the capacity to commit serious crimes," Mabota said.
The Mozambican police declined to comment on the report.
From AFP
Monday, April 28, 2008
Cynthia McKinney Statement on teh Sean Bell Verdict
Cynthia McKinney
Statement on the Sean Bell Verdict
April 26, 2008
"[T]he legislation and histories of the time, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . [A]ltogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
And with that, the United States Supreme Court ensured that the 20th Century would be defined, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote, by the color line. So, while we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs; men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.
Interestingly, according to Attorney Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement's International Secretariat, the criminal justice system in this country "always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people." Indeed, police officers seem to know that they can kill certain people with impunity.
Just in New York City alone, Wareham rattles off the murders that have defined police-"communities of color" relations over two generations:
Clifford Glover, 1972
Louis Baez, 1978 shot (22 times)
Randolph Evans, 1979
Eleanor Bumpers, 1985 (a grandmother)
Amadou Diallo, 1999
Patrick Dorismond, 2003
Sean Bell, 2006
Sadly, New York City isn't the only city, with this plague. In 2001, the Dayton Daily News reported that Cincinnati topped the list of police killings of Blacks, having had 22 people shot, 13 fatally. All black men. Three unarmed. Plus two additional deaths due to police use of chemical irritants.
The 2001 "Cincinnati Intifada" lasted for three nights after a white police officer murdered an unarmed black teenager. Timothy Thomas was the fifteenth black male killed by Cincinnati police over a six-year period. I traveled with Ron Daniels and others to Cincinnati to support the call by black residents, including Reverend Damon Lynch III and 36 other ministers, for a boycott of that city. Still reeling from the effects of the boycott, Cincinnati made headlines again in 2003 when the world watched as one black and five white police officers repeatedly beat Nathaniel Jones with batons and then left him in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, only to be pronounced dead later at the hospital.
The "Benton Harbor, Michigan Intifada of 2003" lasted two nights after the murder of an unarmed black motorcyclist by white police officers. Adding insult to injury, the residents of majority-black Benton Harbor are reeling under an attempted takeover of the last "undeveloped" beachfront property on Lake Michigan. The residents are under attack by the Whirlpool Corporation, that wants to develop "Benton Shores" and move all of the residents completely out of the town. The purported goal of the development is to turn Benton Harbor into one of the "hottest vacation destinations in the country," to include a members-only indoor water park, and a Jack Nicklaus golf course. According to Reverend Edward Pinkney, the valiant leader who is trying to save Benton Harbor for the people, Harbor Shores will result in a complete takeover of Benton Harbor, a city that is 96% Black. Reverend Pinkney has been in jail since December 14, 2007 on trumped- up charges including violation of probation, for writing an article calling the chief judge racist. Mrs. Pinkney called the Office of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to ask for justice for the residents of Benton Harbor and for her husband. Shockingly, Chairman Conyers refused Mrs. Pinkney's plea to get involved in this heroic struggle of a 96% Black community in his own state. When I visited Benton Harbor, it was clear to me that Reverend Pinkney has the full support of the area's residents, black and white, as they struggle to maintain the character of their community. Reverend Pinkney is recognized by the people as true hero and occupies a jail cell because of it.
Finally, however, someone broke the silence and admitted it. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper wrote in his book, "Breaking Rank," that white police officers are afraid of Black men. He develops this theory in a chapter of the book entitled, "Why White Cops Kill Black Men." Finally: a hint of truth coming from the other side. In a June 16, 2005 interview with the Looking Glass News, Stamper says that he personally believes "that white cops are scared of black men. The bigger or darker the man, the more frightened the white cop. I can't shake that; it's a belief I will take to the grave."
So while the corporate press would have us believe that reporting on what a former Vice Presidential nominee says about a Presidential candidate is a discussion of race, the prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people. That fear apparently extends to the larger community because juries construct ways to let murderous police officers escape just punishment.
Roger Wareham, and the December 12th Movement International Secretariat raise, inside the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, the details of the type of police abuse in which a 92-year old grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, is murdered by police in Atlanta, Georgia and her family still has not seen justice or been made whole. Or where a young black male, also in Atlanta, can be sitting in his mother's car and is murdered because the police presume that the car is stolen.
The December 12th Movement has asked for United Nations Rapporteurs to come to the U.S. on fact-finding missions so that the U.S. can finally be listed as a major human rights abuser and a Rapporteur assigned to this country.
Already, the Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance is coming to the U.S. from May 18 - June 6 and will be in New York City on May 21st and 22nd. The December 12th Movement is scheduled to have a hearing for him at the Schomberg Center where the issue of police killings will be raised. The Rapporteur is also scheduled to visit DC, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Summary and Arbitrary Executions, Mr. Phillip Alston, is conducting a Mission to the U.S. in June. The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is also interested in reports of police abuse. If a consistent and systemic pattern of abuse exists (which it clearly does in the United States), the United Nations General Assembly can pass a resolution which helps creates international public opinion and perhaps the political will to stop it.
Certainly, doing the same thing--a cycle of protest without punishment--will net the same results. Something different must be done. That's why I authored legislation to deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people it is organized to protect and serve. Imagine if we had the laws on the books and the apparatus of enforcement. Imagine if juries wouldn't grant impunity to killer cops.
Some of you have written to me suggesting that we do something different: perhaps a full-scale boycott. Perhaps a full-scale, all-out political response--something many in this generation have never done before.
Bobby Kennedy always said, "Some men dream of things that are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not."
It is not impossible for us to have justice. We don't have to lose any more people to police abuse, brutality, or murder. But, in order to change things, we're going to have to do some things we've never done before in order to have some things we've never had before.
Are you willing to entertain that idea? Today? Right now? If we demand more of our elected representatives, I'm convinced we will get it. And it should be clear exactly what is needed if we don't get what we demand.
Statement on the Sean Bell Verdict
April 26, 2008
"[T]he legislation and histories of the time, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . [A]ltogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
And with that, the United States Supreme Court ensured that the 20th Century would be defined, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote, by the color line. So, while we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs; men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.
Interestingly, according to Attorney Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement's International Secretariat, the criminal justice system in this country "always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people." Indeed, police officers seem to know that they can kill certain people with impunity.
Just in New York City alone, Wareham rattles off the murders that have defined police-"communities of color" relations over two generations:
Clifford Glover, 1972
Louis Baez, 1978 shot (22 times)
Randolph Evans, 1979
Eleanor Bumpers, 1985 (a grandmother)
Amadou Diallo, 1999
Patrick Dorismond, 2003
Sean Bell, 2006
Sadly, New York City isn't the only city, with this plague. In 2001, the Dayton Daily News reported that Cincinnati topped the list of police killings of Blacks, having had 22 people shot, 13 fatally. All black men. Three unarmed. Plus two additional deaths due to police use of chemical irritants.
The 2001 "Cincinnati Intifada" lasted for three nights after a white police officer murdered an unarmed black teenager. Timothy Thomas was the fifteenth black male killed by Cincinnati police over a six-year period. I traveled with Ron Daniels and others to Cincinnati to support the call by black residents, including Reverend Damon Lynch III and 36 other ministers, for a boycott of that city. Still reeling from the effects of the boycott, Cincinnati made headlines again in 2003 when the world watched as one black and five white police officers repeatedly beat Nathaniel Jones with batons and then left him in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, only to be pronounced dead later at the hospital.
The "Benton Harbor, Michigan Intifada of 2003" lasted two nights after the murder of an unarmed black motorcyclist by white police officers. Adding insult to injury, the residents of majority-black Benton Harbor are reeling under an attempted takeover of the last "undeveloped" beachfront property on Lake Michigan. The residents are under attack by the Whirlpool Corporation, that wants to develop "Benton Shores" and move all of the residents completely out of the town. The purported goal of the development is to turn Benton Harbor into one of the "hottest vacation destinations in the country," to include a members-only indoor water park, and a Jack Nicklaus golf course. According to Reverend Edward Pinkney, the valiant leader who is trying to save Benton Harbor for the people, Harbor Shores will result in a complete takeover of Benton Harbor, a city that is 96% Black. Reverend Pinkney has been in jail since December 14, 2007 on trumped- up charges including violation of probation, for writing an article calling the chief judge racist. Mrs. Pinkney called the Office of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to ask for justice for the residents of Benton Harbor and for her husband. Shockingly, Chairman Conyers refused Mrs. Pinkney's plea to get involved in this heroic struggle of a 96% Black community in his own state. When I visited Benton Harbor, it was clear to me that Reverend Pinkney has the full support of the area's residents, black and white, as they struggle to maintain the character of their community. Reverend Pinkney is recognized by the people as true hero and occupies a jail cell because of it.
Finally, however, someone broke the silence and admitted it. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper wrote in his book, "Breaking Rank," that white police officers are afraid of Black men. He develops this theory in a chapter of the book entitled, "Why White Cops Kill Black Men." Finally: a hint of truth coming from the other side. In a June 16, 2005 interview with the Looking Glass News, Stamper says that he personally believes "that white cops are scared of black men. The bigger or darker the man, the more frightened the white cop. I can't shake that; it's a belief I will take to the grave."
So while the corporate press would have us believe that reporting on what a former Vice Presidential nominee says about a Presidential candidate is a discussion of race, the prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people. That fear apparently extends to the larger community because juries construct ways to let murderous police officers escape just punishment.
Roger Wareham, and the December 12th Movement International Secretariat raise, inside the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, the details of the type of police abuse in which a 92-year old grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, is murdered by police in Atlanta, Georgia and her family still has not seen justice or been made whole. Or where a young black male, also in Atlanta, can be sitting in his mother's car and is murdered because the police presume that the car is stolen.
The December 12th Movement has asked for United Nations Rapporteurs to come to the U.S. on fact-finding missions so that the U.S. can finally be listed as a major human rights abuser and a Rapporteur assigned to this country.
Already, the Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance is coming to the U.S. from May 18 - June 6 and will be in New York City on May 21st and 22nd. The December 12th Movement is scheduled to have a hearing for him at the Schomberg Center where the issue of police killings will be raised. The Rapporteur is also scheduled to visit DC, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Summary and Arbitrary Executions, Mr. Phillip Alston, is conducting a Mission to the U.S. in June. The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is also interested in reports of police abuse. If a consistent and systemic pattern of abuse exists (which it clearly does in the United States), the United Nations General Assembly can pass a resolution which helps creates international public opinion and perhaps the political will to stop it.
Certainly, doing the same thing--a cycle of protest without punishment--will net the same results. Something different must be done. That's why I authored legislation to deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people it is organized to protect and serve. Imagine if we had the laws on the books and the apparatus of enforcement. Imagine if juries wouldn't grant impunity to killer cops.
Some of you have written to me suggesting that we do something different: perhaps a full-scale boycott. Perhaps a full-scale, all-out political response--something many in this generation have never done before.
Bobby Kennedy always said, "Some men dream of things that are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not."
It is not impossible for us to have justice. We don't have to lose any more people to police abuse, brutality, or murder. But, in order to change things, we're going to have to do some things we've never done before in order to have some things we've never had before.
Are you willing to entertain that idea? Today? Right now? If we demand more of our elected representatives, I'm convinced we will get it. And it should be clear exactly what is needed if we don't get what we demand.
Congressman to Visit Bell's Family, NYC Shooting Scene
Three days after a judge exonerated three police officers in the killing of unarmed groom-to-be Sean Bell, Rep. John Conyers was scheduled to travel to New York City Monday to meet with the victim's family.
Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also planned to visit the scene in Queens where five officers fired 50 shots at Bell and his two friends, who were wounded in the shooting, the Rev. Al Sharpton and National Urban League President Marc Morial said.
Conyers' scheduled visit comes a day after national and local civil rights leaders and elected officials repeated calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to bring federal charges against the three officers. Also Sunday, other critics of the acquittal proposed a permanent state-level special prosecutor to investigate police misconduct and brutality cases.
Civil rights leaders and local elected officials spoke Sunday before about 200 people and a bevy of reporters and television cameras at Sharpton's National Action Network in Harlem.
The speakers expressed outrage and disappointment over Queens State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman's verdict Friday clearing the three undercover officers in the Nov. 26, 2006, shooting near a nightclub where Bell had just left his bachelor party.
The officers said they believed Bell and his friends had a gun and feared for their lives; Bell and his friends were unarmed.
Sharpton, who criticized state elected officials who haven't spoken publicly about the verdict, said he and others were organizing a response to the verdict but didn't elaborate.
Sharpton, Morial and others said they planned to write U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his assistant for civil rights to request a meeting.
Some at Sunday's meeting noted that Bell was only one on a long list of victims of police shootings across the country in recent years.
"The scales of justice are out of balance," Clarke said to applause as some in the audience hissed that the scales were never balanced to begin with. "We will not see another generation of African-American men being shot down without there being justice. We will be focused like a laser until justice rains down."
Other speakers said the officers' acquittal gave urgency to the need for younger generations to pick up the mantle of civil rights advocacy.
"This is our lunch-counter moment for the 21st century," the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus in Washington, D.C., said of police misconduct.
"Their Emmit Till is now our Sean Bell," he said of the 14-year-old black Chicago boy who was brutally murdered in 1955 by white men in Mississippi for supposedly whistling at a white woman. "We must rise up now."
Steele said he was "sick and tired of being sick and tired of injustices in our society."
"We can't sit idly by and let this inhumane treatment continue," Steele said. "You still must march and raise hell and go to jail. You can't expect this country that enslaved you to save you."
Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, and father, William Bell, also attended the meeting.
Earlier Sunday, former New York Civil Liberties Union head Norman Siegel and the co-founders of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, proposed a permanent state-level special prosecutor with the power to investigate allegations of police misconduct, brutality and corruption.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, whose office prosecuted the Bell shooting case, had said there was no basis for the appointment of a special prosecutor.
The advocates also said the NYPD's 13-member Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency that investigates allegations against police officers, needed a massive overhaul.
In order to become more effective, they said, department attorneys should be replaced with the board's own legal unit and the statute of limitations on its probes should be extended from 18 months to three years, the same time frame for federal civil rights cases.
They said they expected Gov. David Paterson to support their proposals. A spokeswoman for Paterson said Sunday that the governor recently learned of the recommendations through press reports and would review them carefully.
By MARCUS FRANKLIN
The Associated Press
Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also planned to visit the scene in Queens where five officers fired 50 shots at Bell and his two friends, who were wounded in the shooting, the Rev. Al Sharpton and National Urban League President Marc Morial said.
Conyers' scheduled visit comes a day after national and local civil rights leaders and elected officials repeated calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to bring federal charges against the three officers. Also Sunday, other critics of the acquittal proposed a permanent state-level special prosecutor to investigate police misconduct and brutality cases.
Civil rights leaders and local elected officials spoke Sunday before about 200 people and a bevy of reporters and television cameras at Sharpton's National Action Network in Harlem.
The speakers expressed outrage and disappointment over Queens State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman's verdict Friday clearing the three undercover officers in the Nov. 26, 2006, shooting near a nightclub where Bell had just left his bachelor party.
The officers said they believed Bell and his friends had a gun and feared for their lives; Bell and his friends were unarmed.
Sharpton, who criticized state elected officials who haven't spoken publicly about the verdict, said he and others were organizing a response to the verdict but didn't elaborate.
Sharpton, Morial and others said they planned to write U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his assistant for civil rights to request a meeting.
Some at Sunday's meeting noted that Bell was only one on a long list of victims of police shootings across the country in recent years.
"The scales of justice are out of balance," Clarke said to applause as some in the audience hissed that the scales were never balanced to begin with. "We will not see another generation of African-American men being shot down without there being justice. We will be focused like a laser until justice rains down."
Other speakers said the officers' acquittal gave urgency to the need for younger generations to pick up the mantle of civil rights advocacy.
"This is our lunch-counter moment for the 21st century," the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus in Washington, D.C., said of police misconduct.
"Their Emmit Till is now our Sean Bell," he said of the 14-year-old black Chicago boy who was brutally murdered in 1955 by white men in Mississippi for supposedly whistling at a white woman. "We must rise up now."
Steele said he was "sick and tired of being sick and tired of injustices in our society."
"We can't sit idly by and let this inhumane treatment continue," Steele said. "You still must march and raise hell and go to jail. You can't expect this country that enslaved you to save you."
Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, and father, William Bell, also attended the meeting.
Earlier Sunday, former New York Civil Liberties Union head Norman Siegel and the co-founders of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, proposed a permanent state-level special prosecutor with the power to investigate allegations of police misconduct, brutality and corruption.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, whose office prosecuted the Bell shooting case, had said there was no basis for the appointment of a special prosecutor.
The advocates also said the NYPD's 13-member Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency that investigates allegations against police officers, needed a massive overhaul.
In order to become more effective, they said, department attorneys should be replaced with the board's own legal unit and the statute of limitations on its probes should be extended from 18 months to three years, the same time frame for federal civil rights cases.
They said they expected Gov. David Paterson to support their proposals. A spokeswoman for Paterson said Sunday that the governor recently learned of the recommendations through press reports and would review them carefully.
By MARCUS FRANKLIN
The Associated Press
NYPD Probing Police Union Prank Call to Bell Family
The NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating a cruel prank call to the family of Sean Bell's fiancée that originated from the Manhattan offices of a prominent police union, The Post has learned.
"Ha, ha, ha," someone said in a 1:15 p.m. Friday phone call to the home of Nicole Bell's father Les Paultre, according to a police source.
The number for the Sergeants Benevolent Association came up on the caller ID.
"It was just horrible to get that phone call after coming back from the cemetery," said Nicole Bell.
Her father said, "The guy was taunting us, laughing. It was horrible because we had just come back from the court and the cemetery."
The president of the union, Edward Mullins, said, "If the accusations are true, we will deal with it."
from NY Post
"Ha, ha, ha," someone said in a 1:15 p.m. Friday phone call to the home of Nicole Bell's father Les Paultre, according to a police source.
The number for the Sergeants Benevolent Association came up on the caller ID.
"It was just horrible to get that phone call after coming back from the cemetery," said Nicole Bell.
Her father said, "The guy was taunting us, laughing. It was horrible because we had just come back from the court and the cemetery."
The president of the union, Edward Mullins, said, "If the accusations are true, we will deal with it."
from NY Post
Haiti Names New PM Amid Food Crisis
Haiti on Sunday named a new prime minister two weeks after his predecessor was ousted over rocketing food and fuel prices that sparked violent demonstrations claiming several lives.
President Rene Preval chose Ericq Pierre, 63, a respected Haitian economist with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, to be the country's prime minister, Senate President Kelly Bastien and Chamber or Deputies president Pierre-Eric Jean-Jacques told AFP.
Pierre, whose nomination must now pass a vote in parliament, would succeed former premier Jacques-Edouard Alexis, who was forced to resign on April 12 after a no-confidence vote followed food riots that killed six people and wounded around 200.
It was the first major political crisis to seize the country since Preval was elected president of the impoverished nation in February 2006, after two years of turmoil sparked by the departure of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Thousands of people took to the streets around Haiti earlier this month due to the latest jump in food and fuel prices, in sometimes violent demonstrations that forced United Nations troops deployed here to intervene.
One Nigerian peacekeeper was killed in the riots and three Sri-Lankan peacekeepers were wounded.
In a bid to quell the frustrations, Preval announced a plan to bring down rice prices by cutting the cost of a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of rice that had doubled to 70 dollars within a week, by eight dollars, or 15 percent.
He defended Alexis as having done what he could in the face of global increases in food prices, and said it was "unfair" to place all the blame on him.
However, pressure had grown on the government in the current crisis, felt around the world and particularly in Haiti, where 70 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars per day.
Half of the Haitian population of 8.5 million people is unemployed.
Pierre, who lives in Washington and works as an advisor on Haiti to the IDB, was named in 1999 by Preval to serve as prime minister, but did not receive enough votes in parliament to be confirmed.
This time, however, several lawmakers said they believed his nomination would pass muster.
"The Lavalas party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in exile in South Africa, is ready to vote for the nomination of Mr. Pierre," Senator Rudy Heriveaux told AFP.
"I believe that he (Pierre) perfectly matches the profile that all the sectors have recommended. I hope though that he will listen to their demands," said Heriveaux, who met Sunday with Preval hours before the official announcement of the Pierre nomination.
"We are going to hold a meeting of party leaders to decide our position," said the social-democratic Fusion party, a center-left grouping of around 20 parliamentarians.
One diplomat said "Preval was without doubt assured of (Pierre's) approval by political forces within Parliament before he made his choice."
"He had time to consult all the sectors of the chamber and in the Senate, and one can assume that the choice will be accepted," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers were called in to protect the presidential palace, using tear gas and firing into the air to repel demonstrators at the height of the unrest.
Among the six people killed in the disturbances was a 36-year-old, out-of-uniform UN police officer from Nigeria.
The 10,000-strong United Nations Stabilization Force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) launched a joint investigation with Haitian police into the killing.
From AFP
President Rene Preval chose Ericq Pierre, 63, a respected Haitian economist with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, to be the country's prime minister, Senate President Kelly Bastien and Chamber or Deputies president Pierre-Eric Jean-Jacques told AFP.
Pierre, whose nomination must now pass a vote in parliament, would succeed former premier Jacques-Edouard Alexis, who was forced to resign on April 12 after a no-confidence vote followed food riots that killed six people and wounded around 200.
It was the first major political crisis to seize the country since Preval was elected president of the impoverished nation in February 2006, after two years of turmoil sparked by the departure of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Thousands of people took to the streets around Haiti earlier this month due to the latest jump in food and fuel prices, in sometimes violent demonstrations that forced United Nations troops deployed here to intervene.
One Nigerian peacekeeper was killed in the riots and three Sri-Lankan peacekeepers were wounded.
In a bid to quell the frustrations, Preval announced a plan to bring down rice prices by cutting the cost of a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of rice that had doubled to 70 dollars within a week, by eight dollars, or 15 percent.
He defended Alexis as having done what he could in the face of global increases in food prices, and said it was "unfair" to place all the blame on him.
However, pressure had grown on the government in the current crisis, felt around the world and particularly in Haiti, where 70 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars per day.
Half of the Haitian population of 8.5 million people is unemployed.
Pierre, who lives in Washington and works as an advisor on Haiti to the IDB, was named in 1999 by Preval to serve as prime minister, but did not receive enough votes in parliament to be confirmed.
This time, however, several lawmakers said they believed his nomination would pass muster.
"The Lavalas party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in exile in South Africa, is ready to vote for the nomination of Mr. Pierre," Senator Rudy Heriveaux told AFP.
"I believe that he (Pierre) perfectly matches the profile that all the sectors have recommended. I hope though that he will listen to their demands," said Heriveaux, who met Sunday with Preval hours before the official announcement of the Pierre nomination.
"We are going to hold a meeting of party leaders to decide our position," said the social-democratic Fusion party, a center-left grouping of around 20 parliamentarians.
One diplomat said "Preval was without doubt assured of (Pierre's) approval by political forces within Parliament before he made his choice."
"He had time to consult all the sectors of the chamber and in the Senate, and one can assume that the choice will be accepted," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers were called in to protect the presidential palace, using tear gas and firing into the air to repel demonstrators at the height of the unrest.
Among the six people killed in the disturbances was a 36-year-old, out-of-uniform UN police officer from Nigeria.
The 10,000-strong United Nations Stabilization Force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) launched a joint investigation with Haitian police into the killing.
From AFP
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Bell's Fiancée: 'They Killed Sean All Over Again'
A day after three New York police detectives were acquitted on all counts in the case of Sean Bell -- an unarmed man killed in a hail of 50 police gunshots -- his fiancee told supporters that the justice system let her down.
"On April 25, 2008, they killed Sean all over again," Nicole Paultre Bell told supporters at a rally organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
"That's what it felt like to us," she said Saturday. "Yesterday, they -- the justice system -- let me down. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I'm still praying for justice, because it's not over. It's far from over."
Bell spoke after Sharpton criticized the judge who acquitted the three officers, saying the case should have been heard by a jury.
"If people are on the public payroll, doing their public duty, they should be required to face a public jury," Sharpton said at the National Action Network headquarters.
The officers chose to have a judge decide the case instead of a jury.
Sharpton said the victims were unfairly portrayed as dishonest.
"These three families have had to endure and have had to abide through the most, in my judgment, scandalous denigration of victims that I've seen in my lifetime," he said.
On Friday, Justice Arthur Cooperman cleared Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell.
Detective Marc Cooper was cleared of reckless endangerment.
Bell, 23, died in November 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage -- 31 fired by Oliver -- hours before he was to be married. Two of his companions were wounded in the gunfire outside a Queens nightclub.
Alexander Jason, an expert witness for the defense, produced a video demonstrating how quickly Oliver could have fired off 31 rounds, including a pause to reload. iReport.com: Watch the video
The three officers made brief statements more than four hours after the verdict.
"I want to say sorry to the Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper said.
Isnora thanked the judge "for his fair and accurate decision today."
Oliver praised Cooperman "for a fair and just decision."
Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners; there's no losers" in the case.
"We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said.
But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts.
In announcing the verdict, Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
"At times, the testimony just didn't make sense," Cooperman said, according to a transcript released by his office.
He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.
Bell was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.
Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.
What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting, according to their lawyers.
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.
No gun was found near Bell or his friends.
Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial.
Federal prosecutors will conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations, Brown said.
Soon after Bell's death, his fiancee changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell. She is now raising the couple's two daughters, ages 5 and 1
From CNN
"On April 25, 2008, they killed Sean all over again," Nicole Paultre Bell told supporters at a rally organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
"That's what it felt like to us," she said Saturday. "Yesterday, they -- the justice system -- let me down. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I'm still praying for justice, because it's not over. It's far from over."
Bell spoke after Sharpton criticized the judge who acquitted the three officers, saying the case should have been heard by a jury.
"If people are on the public payroll, doing their public duty, they should be required to face a public jury," Sharpton said at the National Action Network headquarters.
The officers chose to have a judge decide the case instead of a jury.
Sharpton said the victims were unfairly portrayed as dishonest.
"These three families have had to endure and have had to abide through the most, in my judgment, scandalous denigration of victims that I've seen in my lifetime," he said.
On Friday, Justice Arthur Cooperman cleared Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell.
Detective Marc Cooper was cleared of reckless endangerment.
Bell, 23, died in November 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage -- 31 fired by Oliver -- hours before he was to be married. Two of his companions were wounded in the gunfire outside a Queens nightclub.
Alexander Jason, an expert witness for the defense, produced a video demonstrating how quickly Oliver could have fired off 31 rounds, including a pause to reload. iReport.com: Watch the video
The three officers made brief statements more than four hours after the verdict.
"I want to say sorry to the Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper said.
Isnora thanked the judge "for his fair and accurate decision today."
Oliver praised Cooperman "for a fair and just decision."
Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners; there's no losers" in the case.
"We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said.
But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts.
In announcing the verdict, Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
"At times, the testimony just didn't make sense," Cooperman said, according to a transcript released by his office.
He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.
Bell was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.
Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.
What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting, according to their lawyers.
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.
No gun was found near Bell or his friends.
Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial.
Federal prosecutors will conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations, Brown said.
Soon after Bell's death, his fiancee changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell. She is now raising the couple's two daughters, ages 5 and 1
From CNN
Sharpton Vows to 'Close This City' After Officer Acquittals
Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.
"We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell."
Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell — a black man — and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.
The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!"
Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.
Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week "to plan the day that we will close this city down" with the kind of "massive civil disobedience" once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"They never accused Sean Bell of doing anything. Then why is he dead?" Sharpton asked, his voice roaring with anger. Authorities "have shown now that they will not hold police accountable. Well, guess what? If you won't, we will!"
"Shut it down! Shut it down!" the crowd chanted, standing up and applauding wildly.
Sharpton didn't say exactly how they would protest the acquittals of the officers who fired the 50 shots. He said Bell's supporters could demonstrate all over the city, from Wall Street to the home of Justice Arthur Cooperman, who on Friday acquitted the three detectives after a nonjury trial.
Sitting behind Sharpton as he spoke were Bell's parents, his sister and Nicole Paultre Bell, who took her fiance's name after his death.
"The justice system let me down," Paultre Bell told the crowd in a soft voice. "April 25, 2008: They killed Sean all over again. That's what it felt like to us."
It was her first public comment since she stormed out of a courtroom Friday after the NYPD detectives were cleared in Bell's killing as he left his bachelor party.
One of Bell's companions, Joseph Guzman, also spoke briefly on Saturday, saying: "We've got a long fight."
By VERENA DOBNIK from AP
"We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell."
Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell — a black man — and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.
The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!"
Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.
Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week "to plan the day that we will close this city down" with the kind of "massive civil disobedience" once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"They never accused Sean Bell of doing anything. Then why is he dead?" Sharpton asked, his voice roaring with anger. Authorities "have shown now that they will not hold police accountable. Well, guess what? If you won't, we will!"
"Shut it down! Shut it down!" the crowd chanted, standing up and applauding wildly.
Sharpton didn't say exactly how they would protest the acquittals of the officers who fired the 50 shots. He said Bell's supporters could demonstrate all over the city, from Wall Street to the home of Justice Arthur Cooperman, who on Friday acquitted the three detectives after a nonjury trial.
Sitting behind Sharpton as he spoke were Bell's parents, his sister and Nicole Paultre Bell, who took her fiance's name after his death.
"The justice system let me down," Paultre Bell told the crowd in a soft voice. "April 25, 2008: They killed Sean all over again. That's what it felt like to us."
It was her first public comment since she stormed out of a courtroom Friday after the NYPD detectives were cleared in Bell's killing as he left his bachelor party.
One of Bell's companions, Joseph Guzman, also spoke briefly on Saturday, saying: "We've got a long fight."
By VERENA DOBNIK from AP
The Educated Guesswork of Estimating Darfur Deaths
When a top UN official released a new estimated death toll of 300,000 for Darfur this week, he reignited a lively debate about just how accurate such statistics are.
John Holmes, the UN emergency relief aid coordinator, told reporters that as many as 300,000 people may have died from the combined effects of war, diseases and famine over the past five years in the western Sudanese region.
This was significantly up from the widely used 200,000 figure cited by his predecessor, Jan Egeland, and based on a World Health Organization (WHO) study.
"It's a reasonable extrapolation from the previous figures," Holmes said. "I am not trying to suggest this is a very scientifically-based figure."
But Eric Reeves, a Sudan scholar at Smith College in Northhampton, Massachusetts, said Holmes' figure was "very, very conservative."
"I think that if we include violent mortality, the number approaches 500,000, based on data coming from the Coalition of International Justice (CIJ) suggesting that over 200,000 had died violently by the end of 2004," he told AFP Friday.
Meanwhile Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem dismissed those figures as "wildly exaggerated" and told reporters: "In our own calculation, the total number (of deaths from fighting) does not exceed 10,000."
He said this tally did not include those who died from diseases and malnutrition, which have generally been the main causes of civilian deaths in most of the major conflicts of the past two decades.
Chasing mortality statistics in Darfur is a daunting task and aid workers reported harassment and intimidation from Sudanese authorities while conducting field surveys.
Some experts have questioned the credibility of some Darfur advocay groups who are accused of inflating their mortality statistics to rally public support for their cause.
In an Op-Ed to the Financial Times in 2005, Professor Debarati Guha-Sapir, head of the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and a professor of epidemiology at Louvain's Catholic University in Brussels, warned that "sensational numbers do not help the Darfur cause."
She was specifically referring to a 400,000 death toll figure then used by Reeves and the CIJ.
CRED, a Brussels-based WHO collaborating center widely viewed as the authority on Darfur fatality rates, points out that the 200,000 figure cited by Egeland since 2005 was based on a 2004 WHO mortality survey which showed around 10,000 dead per month when the conflict was most virulent.
The typical mortality rate for sub-Saharan African countries is around 16 dead per 1,000 people per year. In order to assess deaths due to the Darfur conflict, experts calculate the differences between the current mortality rate there and this reference rate of 16 per 1,000 a year.
"In 2005, we estimated the deaths due to the Darfur conflict to be about 125,000, of which about 25 percent were due to direct violence for (the period) 2003 - June 2005," said CRED researcher Olivier Degomme.
"The UN estimated about 200,000 deaths due to the conflict for about the same period," he added.
"Since 2005, there has surely been many more deaths in Darfur. Basic health services do not function, children do not get vaccinated nor fed adequately, drought is a pervasive problem, there are sporadic attacks of civilian populations," Guha-Sapir told AFP.
"Given our estimations until 2005 and a rough analyses of the additional surveys we have received, the UN estimation of 300,000 deaths from the start of hostilities until present time seems to us to be in the realms of reality," she added. "This means for epidemiologists that this figure would fall within the confidence interval of the new estimate that we hope to release shortly."
Most deaths in Darfur are due to malnutrition and preventable childhood diseases such as measles, diarrhea and respiratory infections, all of which can be controled and cured very cheaply, according to CRED.
Since actual deaths due to combat related violence are typically few, Guha-Sapir said it would therefore be misleading "to use that statistic as it gives the impression that the conflict is not very significant because combat related deaths are small."
CRED monitors and analyses health and mortality data from more than 20 conflict-affected regions in the world. Its researchers collect field surveys and provide mortality estimates using statisitcs methods such as meta-analyses and triangulation.
More than 2.2 million people are also believed to have fled their homes in Darfur since the conflict broke out when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and Khartoum-backed Arab militias.
From AFP
John Holmes, the UN emergency relief aid coordinator, told reporters that as many as 300,000 people may have died from the combined effects of war, diseases and famine over the past five years in the western Sudanese region.
This was significantly up from the widely used 200,000 figure cited by his predecessor, Jan Egeland, and based on a World Health Organization (WHO) study.
"It's a reasonable extrapolation from the previous figures," Holmes said. "I am not trying to suggest this is a very scientifically-based figure."
But Eric Reeves, a Sudan scholar at Smith College in Northhampton, Massachusetts, said Holmes' figure was "very, very conservative."
"I think that if we include violent mortality, the number approaches 500,000, based on data coming from the Coalition of International Justice (CIJ) suggesting that over 200,000 had died violently by the end of 2004," he told AFP Friday.
Meanwhile Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem dismissed those figures as "wildly exaggerated" and told reporters: "In our own calculation, the total number (of deaths from fighting) does not exceed 10,000."
He said this tally did not include those who died from diseases and malnutrition, which have generally been the main causes of civilian deaths in most of the major conflicts of the past two decades.
Chasing mortality statistics in Darfur is a daunting task and aid workers reported harassment and intimidation from Sudanese authorities while conducting field surveys.
Some experts have questioned the credibility of some Darfur advocay groups who are accused of inflating their mortality statistics to rally public support for their cause.
In an Op-Ed to the Financial Times in 2005, Professor Debarati Guha-Sapir, head of the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and a professor of epidemiology at Louvain's Catholic University in Brussels, warned that "sensational numbers do not help the Darfur cause."
She was specifically referring to a 400,000 death toll figure then used by Reeves and the CIJ.
CRED, a Brussels-based WHO collaborating center widely viewed as the authority on Darfur fatality rates, points out that the 200,000 figure cited by Egeland since 2005 was based on a 2004 WHO mortality survey which showed around 10,000 dead per month when the conflict was most virulent.
The typical mortality rate for sub-Saharan African countries is around 16 dead per 1,000 people per year. In order to assess deaths due to the Darfur conflict, experts calculate the differences between the current mortality rate there and this reference rate of 16 per 1,000 a year.
"In 2005, we estimated the deaths due to the Darfur conflict to be about 125,000, of which about 25 percent were due to direct violence for (the period) 2003 - June 2005," said CRED researcher Olivier Degomme.
"The UN estimated about 200,000 deaths due to the conflict for about the same period," he added.
"Since 2005, there has surely been many more deaths in Darfur. Basic health services do not function, children do not get vaccinated nor fed adequately, drought is a pervasive problem, there are sporadic attacks of civilian populations," Guha-Sapir told AFP.
"Given our estimations until 2005 and a rough analyses of the additional surveys we have received, the UN estimation of 300,000 deaths from the start of hostilities until present time seems to us to be in the realms of reality," she added. "This means for epidemiologists that this figure would fall within the confidence interval of the new estimate that we hope to release shortly."
Most deaths in Darfur are due to malnutrition and preventable childhood diseases such as measles, diarrhea and respiratory infections, all of which can be controled and cured very cheaply, according to CRED.
Since actual deaths due to combat related violence are typically few, Guha-Sapir said it would therefore be misleading "to use that statistic as it gives the impression that the conflict is not very significant because combat related deaths are small."
CRED monitors and analyses health and mortality data from more than 20 conflict-affected regions in the world. Its researchers collect field surveys and provide mortality estimates using statisitcs methods such as meta-analyses and triangulation.
More than 2.2 million people are also believed to have fled their homes in Darfur since the conflict broke out when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and Khartoum-backed Arab militias.
From AFP
New Alarm Sounded on Plight of Black Women
When a foundation starts to crumble, it’s not long before the entire building starts to bow and sway, finally collapsing into a heap.
In the National Urban League’s new report, “The State of Black America: In the Black Woman’s Voice,” there are indications that the black woman — the foundation of the black family — is in danger of being overwhelmed by problems manifesting in the family structure, economics and serious health disparities such as the AIDS epidemic.
Stephen Jenkins, president and CEO of the Greater Stark County (Ohio) Urban League, said the troubles afflicting many Americans in general are doubly burdensome for black women, who suffer what the report calls “The Invisible Blues.”
American nightmare
Jenkins said black women have been encouraged to achieve the American dream of homeownership, only to find themselves in an American nightmare.
According to the Consumer Federation of America, black women homeowners are five times more likely to receive subprime mortgages than white men. With a combination of inexperience and a lack of education in what can be a bewildering process, black and Latino women accounted for 48.8 percent of subprime mortgages in 2006.
“When we talked about wealth-building, we encouraged people to buy their own homes,” Jenkins said. “But what kind of picture does it paint for the future?”
The league advocates passage of a homeowner’s bill of rights and has published the “Opportunity Compact,” a blueprint for economic equality.
Though employed black women outnumber black men by 1 million and outnumber black men enrolled in college by 3-to-1, black women stand on the bottom rung of earnings among nearly all ethnic groups.
According to the report, even when a black woman does the right thing by graduating from college (150,000 hold degrees), she earns less than her white counterpart.
The backbone
“I have four sisters,” Jenkins said. “I can’t help but wonder, where did we miss the mark?”
Then, there are the self-inflicted wounds. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks is 70 percent. Single women head 60 percent of black households.
Black women are 24 times more likely to contract AIDS than white women. In sheer numbers, black AIDS cases have outnumbered whites since 1996.
Jenkins said the report is a good indicator of the work left to be done and the need to uplift black women, “especially those struggling the hardest to keep their families together and their dreams on track.”
”African-American women have been the power and the backbone of the community; we know that,” he said. “They need support and encouragement. They are our mothers, our sisters, our aunts and grandmothers. Talk to any black man and ask him who was paramount in his raising.”
By Charita Goshay
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In the National Urban League’s new report, “The State of Black America: In the Black Woman’s Voice,” there are indications that the black woman — the foundation of the black family — is in danger of being overwhelmed by problems manifesting in the family structure, economics and serious health disparities such as the AIDS epidemic.
Stephen Jenkins, president and CEO of the Greater Stark County (Ohio) Urban League, said the troubles afflicting many Americans in general are doubly burdensome for black women, who suffer what the report calls “The Invisible Blues.”
American nightmare
Jenkins said black women have been encouraged to achieve the American dream of homeownership, only to find themselves in an American nightmare.
According to the Consumer Federation of America, black women homeowners are five times more likely to receive subprime mortgages than white men. With a combination of inexperience and a lack of education in what can be a bewildering process, black and Latino women accounted for 48.8 percent of subprime mortgages in 2006.
“When we talked about wealth-building, we encouraged people to buy their own homes,” Jenkins said. “But what kind of picture does it paint for the future?”
The league advocates passage of a homeowner’s bill of rights and has published the “Opportunity Compact,” a blueprint for economic equality.
Though employed black women outnumber black men by 1 million and outnumber black men enrolled in college by 3-to-1, black women stand on the bottom rung of earnings among nearly all ethnic groups.
According to the report, even when a black woman does the right thing by graduating from college (150,000 hold degrees), she earns less than her white counterpart.
The backbone
“I have four sisters,” Jenkins said. “I can’t help but wonder, where did we miss the mark?”
Then, there are the self-inflicted wounds. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks is 70 percent. Single women head 60 percent of black households.
Black women are 24 times more likely to contract AIDS than white women. In sheer numbers, black AIDS cases have outnumbered whites since 1996.
Jenkins said the report is a good indicator of the work left to be done and the need to uplift black women, “especially those struggling the hardest to keep their families together and their dreams on track.”
”African-American women have been the power and the backbone of the community; we know that,” he said. “They need support and encouragement. They are our mothers, our sisters, our aunts and grandmothers. Talk to any black man and ask him who was paramount in his raising.”
By Charita Goshay
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Acquittals in Sean Bell Shooting Spark Outrage
Nicole Paultre Bell bolted from the courtroom Friday as a judge acquitted three New York City detectives of all charges in the shooting death of her fiance.
"I've got to get out of here," Paultre Bell said.
Justice Arthur Cooperman was announcing the verdict clearing Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell.
Detective Marc Cooper was cleared of reckless endangerment.
"What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice," the Rev. Al Sharpton said on his radio program.
"Justice didn't miscarry," he said. "This was an abortion of justice. Justice was aborted."
Sharpton, who has been advising Bell's family, had called for calm Wednesday.
Bell, 23, died in November 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage -- 31 fired by Oliver -- hours before he was to be married. Two of his companions were wounded in the gunfire outside a Queens nightclub.
Alexander Jason, an expert witness for the defense, produced a video demonstrating how quickly Oliver could have fired off 31 rounds, including a pause to reload. iReport.com: Watch the video
The three officers made brief statements more than four hours after the verdict.
"I want to say sorry to Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper said.
Isnora thanked the judge "for his fair and accurate decision today."
Oliver praised Cooperman "for a fair and just decision."
That's not how one community leader viewed it.
"This case was not about justice," declared Leroy Gadsden, chair of the police/community relations committee of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. "This case was about the police having a right to be above the law. If the law was in effect here, if the judge had followed the law truly, these officers would have been found guilty.
"This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color."
Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners; there's no losers" in the case.
"We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said.
But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts.
Many people outside the courthouse saw it differently.
You can't be proud of wearing that hat. You can't be proud of wearing that badge," a black woman shouted at a black police officer. "You must stop working for the masters! Stand down! Stop working for the masters!"
"Fifty shots is murder. I don't care what you say. That's what it is," another woman said.
Despite the evident anger and a brief fistfight, the crowd remained generally orderly.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement saying, "An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer."
However, he said, the legal system must be respected.
"America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority."
Bloomberg also said he had spoken briefly with Paultre Bell on Wednesday and agreed with her on the need to ensure that similar incidents would not occur in the future.
Queens County District Attorney Richard A. Brown echoed the mayor's sentiments.
"I accept his verdict, and I urge certainly that all fair-minded people in this city to the same," Brown said.
"The bottom line is that all of us working together -- the law enforcement community, our elected public officials, our individuals who are involved -- have got to make certain that that which occurred ... is never again repeated."
In announcing the verdict, Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
"At times, the testimony just didn't make sense," Cooperman said, according to a transcript released by his office.
He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.
Bell was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.
Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.
What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting, according to their lawyers.
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.
No gun was found near Bell or his friends.
Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial.
Federal prosecutors will conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations, Brown said.
From Deborah Feyerick
CNN
"I've got to get out of here," Paultre Bell said.
Justice Arthur Cooperman was announcing the verdict clearing Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell.
Detective Marc Cooper was cleared of reckless endangerment.
"What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice," the Rev. Al Sharpton said on his radio program.
"Justice didn't miscarry," he said. "This was an abortion of justice. Justice was aborted."
Sharpton, who has been advising Bell's family, had called for calm Wednesday.
Bell, 23, died in November 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage -- 31 fired by Oliver -- hours before he was to be married. Two of his companions were wounded in the gunfire outside a Queens nightclub.
Alexander Jason, an expert witness for the defense, produced a video demonstrating how quickly Oliver could have fired off 31 rounds, including a pause to reload. iReport.com: Watch the video
The three officers made brief statements more than four hours after the verdict.
"I want to say sorry to Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper said.
Isnora thanked the judge "for his fair and accurate decision today."
Oliver praised Cooperman "for a fair and just decision."
That's not how one community leader viewed it.
"This case was not about justice," declared Leroy Gadsden, chair of the police/community relations committee of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. "This case was about the police having a right to be above the law. If the law was in effect here, if the judge had followed the law truly, these officers would have been found guilty.
"This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color."
Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners; there's no losers" in the case.
"We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said.
But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts.
Many people outside the courthouse saw it differently.
You can't be proud of wearing that hat. You can't be proud of wearing that badge," a black woman shouted at a black police officer. "You must stop working for the masters! Stand down! Stop working for the masters!"
"Fifty shots is murder. I don't care what you say. That's what it is," another woman said.
Despite the evident anger and a brief fistfight, the crowd remained generally orderly.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement saying, "An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer."
However, he said, the legal system must be respected.
"America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority."
Bloomberg also said he had spoken briefly with Paultre Bell on Wednesday and agreed with her on the need to ensure that similar incidents would not occur in the future.
Queens County District Attorney Richard A. Brown echoed the mayor's sentiments.
"I accept his verdict, and I urge certainly that all fair-minded people in this city to the same," Brown said.
"The bottom line is that all of us working together -- the law enforcement community, our elected public officials, our individuals who are involved -- have got to make certain that that which occurred ... is never again repeated."
In announcing the verdict, Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
"At times, the testimony just didn't make sense," Cooperman said, according to a transcript released by his office.
He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.
Bell was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.
Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.
What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting, according to their lawyers.
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.
No gun was found near Bell or his friends.
Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial.
Federal prosecutors will conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations, Brown said.
From Deborah Feyerick
CNN
Activists, Rappers React to Sean Bell Verdict
Seventeen months to the day since the November 25, 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, a queens judge found three undercover detectives involved not guilty on all charges today (April 24).
Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora who faced the most charges, were both acquitted on first and second degree manslaughter, which carries a possible sentence of 25 years in prison.
They were also acquitted of first and second degree felony assault, and reckless endangerment. Detective Marc Cooper was also acquitted on the two counts of reckless endangerment he was charged with.
"The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network expressed today its profound dismay in the wake of the not guilty verdicts for the New York City police officers who were involved in the killing of Sean Bell," HSAN President and CEO Dr. Benjamin Chavis told AllHipHop.com. "Hip-Hop is an inclusive cultural phenomenon that represents the highest aspirations of all youth of the human family. The injustice that is so evident in the case of Sean Bell reminds us of the old America at a time when millions of young people are raising their voices and votes for a new America. Police brutality is not a new phenomenon, but unfortunately, the system of justice, particularly in New York City, appears to be incapable of rendering equal justice without the taint of racial bias and prejudice."
The verdict came in just after 9:00 am, after nearly two weeks of deliberation.
The detectives opted out of a trial by jury and instead the seven weeks of testimony was heard by State Supreme Court Justice Arthur J Cooperman.
"This case was not about justice. This case was about the police officers having the right to act above the law… Justice was not here today. This court is obviously bankrupt of justice when it comes to people of color," added Leroy Gadsden of the NAACP.
According to Judge Cooperman, he had a hard time finding the testimony of the victims credible. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in shooting the victims, Cooperman said.
"What happened in that case is a f***ing travesty," outspoken Atlanta rapper Killer Mike told AllHipHop.com. "What is the police trying to force the underclass to do? The police maintain jobs when they have something to police. By agitating the people you just create a bigger need for police. So instead of the police protecting and serving the community, the community becomes a commodity for the police force."
Steele of pioneering Hip-Hop duo Smif-N-Wessun expressed his anger with the verdict, as well as the police.
"There’s a war against us waged by the so-called powers that be and their first infantry are these murderous pigs they use to keep us in place by harassment and murder," Steele said. "We must stand together and defend ourselves and be smart. We are all under surveillance. It’s time to stand up."
Sean Bell, 23, was killed in the early morning hours of November 25, 2006 after leaving Kalua, a Queens strip club where he'd just wrapped up his bachelor party.
An NYPD undercover investigation unit looking to make arrests in their prostitution case witnessed an argument between one of Bells friends and another man.
Detective Isnora told the grand jury that he believed that Bells friend Joseph Guzman was going to get a gun out of Bells car.
That's when he followed the men and called for back up. Bell, along with his two friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield got into his Nissan Altima.
Then with Bell behind the wheel, officers approached the car and drew their weapons without identifying themselves as police, according to the testimony of Guzman and Benefield.
Detective Oliver was the only one who reloaded his 9mm semi automatic weapon firing 31 shots, while Detective Isnora let off 11 shots, and Detective Cooper fired 4.
No gun was found in Bells car. Dr. Chavis urged the Hip-Hop community to remain calm and channel any anger into positive, constructive energy to bring forth change.
"The anger and disgust that the Hip-Hop community certainly feels today should not be permitted to develop into anything negative, as a response," Dr. Chavis noted. "Sean Bell's death will not be in vain, to the extent to which millions of youth work even harder to demand equal justice, and to fundamentally change the current system of injustice."
By Jamile Karout
Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora who faced the most charges, were both acquitted on first and second degree manslaughter, which carries a possible sentence of 25 years in prison.
They were also acquitted of first and second degree felony assault, and reckless endangerment. Detective Marc Cooper was also acquitted on the two counts of reckless endangerment he was charged with.
"The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network expressed today its profound dismay in the wake of the not guilty verdicts for the New York City police officers who were involved in the killing of Sean Bell," HSAN President and CEO Dr. Benjamin Chavis told AllHipHop.com. "Hip-Hop is an inclusive cultural phenomenon that represents the highest aspirations of all youth of the human family. The injustice that is so evident in the case of Sean Bell reminds us of the old America at a time when millions of young people are raising their voices and votes for a new America. Police brutality is not a new phenomenon, but unfortunately, the system of justice, particularly in New York City, appears to be incapable of rendering equal justice without the taint of racial bias and prejudice."
The verdict came in just after 9:00 am, after nearly two weeks of deliberation.
The detectives opted out of a trial by jury and instead the seven weeks of testimony was heard by State Supreme Court Justice Arthur J Cooperman.
"This case was not about justice. This case was about the police officers having the right to act above the law… Justice was not here today. This court is obviously bankrupt of justice when it comes to people of color," added Leroy Gadsden of the NAACP.
According to Judge Cooperman, he had a hard time finding the testimony of the victims credible. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in shooting the victims, Cooperman said.
"What happened in that case is a f***ing travesty," outspoken Atlanta rapper Killer Mike told AllHipHop.com. "What is the police trying to force the underclass to do? The police maintain jobs when they have something to police. By agitating the people you just create a bigger need for police. So instead of the police protecting and serving the community, the community becomes a commodity for the police force."
Steele of pioneering Hip-Hop duo Smif-N-Wessun expressed his anger with the verdict, as well as the police.
"There’s a war against us waged by the so-called powers that be and their first infantry are these murderous pigs they use to keep us in place by harassment and murder," Steele said. "We must stand together and defend ourselves and be smart. We are all under surveillance. It’s time to stand up."
Sean Bell, 23, was killed in the early morning hours of November 25, 2006 after leaving Kalua, a Queens strip club where he'd just wrapped up his bachelor party.
An NYPD undercover investigation unit looking to make arrests in their prostitution case witnessed an argument between one of Bells friends and another man.
Detective Isnora told the grand jury that he believed that Bells friend Joseph Guzman was going to get a gun out of Bells car.
That's when he followed the men and called for back up. Bell, along with his two friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield got into his Nissan Altima.
Then with Bell behind the wheel, officers approached the car and drew their weapons without identifying themselves as police, according to the testimony of Guzman and Benefield.
Detective Oliver was the only one who reloaded his 9mm semi automatic weapon firing 31 shots, while Detective Isnora let off 11 shots, and Detective Cooper fired 4.
No gun was found in Bells car. Dr. Chavis urged the Hip-Hop community to remain calm and channel any anger into positive, constructive energy to bring forth change.
"The anger and disgust that the Hip-Hop community certainly feels today should not be permitted to develop into anything negative, as a response," Dr. Chavis noted. "Sean Bell's death will not be in vain, to the extent to which millions of youth work even harder to demand equal justice, and to fundamentally change the current system of injustice."
By Jamile Karout
Africa Urged to Step Up Malaria Funding
African leaders were urged Friday to show political commitment by increasing funding towards the fight against malaria, one of the major killer diseases on the continent.
Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, said malaria continues to kill millions in Africa because of poor funding and lack of access to medicines.
"The strong political commitment and leadership of endemic countries, resulting in substantially increased demand for international funding, will be required for continued success," she said.
"Many countries are asking for resources short of their full needs for national coverage," she added during the commemoration of World Malaria Day in Zambia's southern tourist town of Livingstone.
Roll Back Malaria, formed in 1998, is a network of key agencies, including the World Health Organisation, World Bank, United Nations Development Programme and UNICEF.
The event was attended by health ministers from southern Africa.
"Donors can only respond to country demands and priorities," Coll-Seck said.
Recent experiences have shown that malaria cases can be reduced by half in a matter of years if bold actions against the disease are made urgent, she added.
Malaria is prevalent among pregnant women and children under five years.
Roll Back Malaria said it will engage the G8 leading industrialised nations and other rich countries to show solidarity with endemic countries by providing multiple funding towards the fight against malaria.
Malaria kills more than a million people worldwide every year, with 90 percent of them in Africa, Roll Back Malaria said.
Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, said malaria continues to kill millions in Africa because of poor funding and lack of access to medicines.
"The strong political commitment and leadership of endemic countries, resulting in substantially increased demand for international funding, will be required for continued success," she said.
"Many countries are asking for resources short of their full needs for national coverage," she added during the commemoration of World Malaria Day in Zambia's southern tourist town of Livingstone.
Roll Back Malaria, formed in 1998, is a network of key agencies, including the World Health Organisation, World Bank, United Nations Development Programme and UNICEF.
The event was attended by health ministers from southern Africa.
"Donors can only respond to country demands and priorities," Coll-Seck said.
Recent experiences have shown that malaria cases can be reduced by half in a matter of years if bold actions against the disease are made urgent, she added.
Malaria is prevalent among pregnant women and children under five years.
Roll Back Malaria said it will engage the G8 leading industrialised nations and other rich countries to show solidarity with endemic countries by providing multiple funding towards the fight against malaria.
Malaria kills more than a million people worldwide every year, with 90 percent of them in Africa, Roll Back Malaria said.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Police Found Not Guilty Sean Bells Death
A judge acquitted three New York Police Department detectives of all charges Friday morning in the shooting death of an unarmed man in a 50-bullet barrage, hours before he was to be married.
Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora were found not guilty of charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two of his friends.
Detective Marc Cooper was acquitted of reckless endangerment.
Justice Arthur Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.
As the judge read his decision, Nicole Paultre Bell -- Sean Bell's fiancee before his death -- ran from the courtroom, saying, "I've got to get out of here."
The announcement immediately sparked anger among some in the crowd outside the courthouse, but the protests were generally orderly. Watch the commotion outside the courthouse »
One woman shouted at a black police officer, "How can you be proud to wear that uniform? Stand down! Stop working for the masters!" Sean Bell was black.
Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners, there's no losers" in the case.
"We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said.
But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts.
"This case was not about justice," said Leroy Gadsden, chair of the police/community relations committee of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. "This case was about the police having a right to be above the law. If the law was in effect here, if the judge had followed the law truly, these officers would have been found guilty. ...
"This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color." Watch Gadsden denounce the verdict »
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been advising Bell's fiancee and family, left the courthouse about an hour after the verdict without making a public statement. He had called for calm Wednesday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement saying, "An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer."
However, he said, the legal system must be respected.
"America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority."
Bloomberg also said he had spoken briefly with Paultre Bell on Wednesday and agreed with her on the need to ensure similar incidents would not occur in the future.
Bell, 23, was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.
Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.
What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, according to their lawyers, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting.
In a frantic 911 call, police can be heard saying, "Shots fired. Undercover units involved."
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.
Oliver, who reloaded his semiautomatic in the middle of the fray, fired 31 times, Isnora fired 11 times, and Cooper, whose leg was brushed by Bell's moving car, fired four times, the NYPD said.
No gun was found near Bell or his friends.
Soon after his death, Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre, legally changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell. She is raising the couple's two daughters, ages 5 and 1.
"I tell [them] that Daddy's in heaven now," she said. "He's watching over us. He's our guardian angel. He's going to be here to protect us and make sure nothing happens to us."
Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said forensic and scientific evidence presented during the seven-week trial contradicts the testimony of prosecution witnesses.
But Paultre Bell's father, Lester Paultre, said, "For those naysayers who say the police was doing their job, they should imagine their child in that car being shot by the police for no reason."
Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial. Guzman was shot 16 times, and four bullets, too dangerous to remove, remain in his body, according to his lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein.
Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have been monitoring the trial. In the event of an acquittal, it is likely authorities would conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations.
CNN.com
Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora were found not guilty of charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two of his friends.
Detective Marc Cooper was acquitted of reckless endangerment.
Justice Arthur Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.
As the judge read his decision, Nicole Paultre Bell -- Sean Bell's fiancee before his death -- ran from the courtroom, saying, "I've got to get out of here."
The announcement immediately sparked anger among some in the crowd outside the courthouse, but the protests were generally orderly. Watch the commotion outside the courthouse »
One woman shouted at a black police officer, "How can you be proud to wear that uniform? Stand down! Stop working for the masters!" Sean Bell was black.
Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners, there's no losers" in the case.
"We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said.
But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts.
"This case was not about justice," said Leroy Gadsden, chair of the police/community relations committee of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. "This case was about the police having a right to be above the law. If the law was in effect here, if the judge had followed the law truly, these officers would have been found guilty. ...
"This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color." Watch Gadsden denounce the verdict »
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been advising Bell's fiancee and family, left the courthouse about an hour after the verdict without making a public statement. He had called for calm Wednesday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement saying, "An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer."
However, he said, the legal system must be respected.
"America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority."
Bloomberg also said he had spoken briefly with Paultre Bell on Wednesday and agreed with her on the need to ensure similar incidents would not occur in the future.
Bell, 23, was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.
Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.
What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, according to their lawyers, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting.
In a frantic 911 call, police can be heard saying, "Shots fired. Undercover units involved."
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.
Oliver, who reloaded his semiautomatic in the middle of the fray, fired 31 times, Isnora fired 11 times, and Cooper, whose leg was brushed by Bell's moving car, fired four times, the NYPD said.
No gun was found near Bell or his friends.
Soon after his death, Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre, legally changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell. She is raising the couple's two daughters, ages 5 and 1.
"I tell [them] that Daddy's in heaven now," she said. "He's watching over us. He's our guardian angel. He's going to be here to protect us and make sure nothing happens to us."
Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said forensic and scientific evidence presented during the seven-week trial contradicts the testimony of prosecution witnesses.
But Paultre Bell's father, Lester Paultre, said, "For those naysayers who say the police was doing their job, they should imagine their child in that car being shot by the police for no reason."
Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial. Guzman was shot 16 times, and four bullets, too dangerous to remove, remain in his body, according to his lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein.
Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have been monitoring the trial. In the event of an acquittal, it is likely authorities would conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations.
CNN.com
Led by U.S. Representative Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) today urged President Bush to take immediate and decisive action on the dire crisis in Haiti.
In a letter to the President authored by Representative Hastings, the 43 Members of the CBC expressed their concerns over the current economic and political instability that has ensued in Haiti and urged President Bush to drastically increase U.S. efforts to help Haiti - the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Members of CBC called on President Bush to provide Haiti with immediate debt relief and extend Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals currently in the U.S.
The Caucus also requested a meeting with the President to discuss the current situation in Haiti.
"Haiti, already suffering from extreme poverty, environmental destruction, and political instability, must now also contend with sky-rocketing food costs and civil unrest. In recent days, thousands of Haitians have flooded the streets in desperation to protest rapidly increasing food prices," wrote the Members of the CBC. "How desperate must the humanitarian crisis in Haiti become before the United States is willing to offer this deserving nation the compassion and generosity that it has bestowed upon other countries?"
Representative Hastings is a leader in the fight to end double-standard immigration practices as they pertain to Haitian migrants. He is the author of H.R. 522, the Haitian Protection Act, legislation which would designate Haitian nationals in the United States as eligible for TPS.
Last week, during consideration of H.R. 2634, the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2008, the House unanimously adopted an amendment authored by Representative Hastings calling for the expedited cancellation of Haiti's international debt.
Haitians continue to flee Haiti in search of safety and opportunity in the U.S. Last week, the Coast Guard intercepted and turned back a boat carrying 247 Haitians who had fled Haiti and were trying to reach the United States.
According to press accounts, twenty or more Haitians are presumed to have drowned over this past weekend when a boat carrying them to the U.S. capsized off the coast of the Bahamas.
from EURweb.com
In a letter to the President authored by Representative Hastings, the 43 Members of the CBC expressed their concerns over the current economic and political instability that has ensued in Haiti and urged President Bush to drastically increase U.S. efforts to help Haiti - the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Members of CBC called on President Bush to provide Haiti with immediate debt relief and extend Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals currently in the U.S.
The Caucus also requested a meeting with the President to discuss the current situation in Haiti.
"Haiti, already suffering from extreme poverty, environmental destruction, and political instability, must now also contend with sky-rocketing food costs and civil unrest. In recent days, thousands of Haitians have flooded the streets in desperation to protest rapidly increasing food prices," wrote the Members of the CBC. "How desperate must the humanitarian crisis in Haiti become before the United States is willing to offer this deserving nation the compassion and generosity that it has bestowed upon other countries?"
Representative Hastings is a leader in the fight to end double-standard immigration practices as they pertain to Haitian migrants. He is the author of H.R. 522, the Haitian Protection Act, legislation which would designate Haitian nationals in the United States as eligible for TPS.
Last week, during consideration of H.R. 2634, the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2008, the House unanimously adopted an amendment authored by Representative Hastings calling for the expedited cancellation of Haiti's international debt.
Haitians continue to flee Haiti in search of safety and opportunity in the U.S. Last week, the Coast Guard intercepted and turned back a boat carrying 247 Haitians who had fled Haiti and were trying to reach the United States.
According to press accounts, twenty or more Haitians are presumed to have drowned over this past weekend when a boat carrying them to the U.S. capsized off the coast of the Bahamas.
from EURweb.com
Tennessee Freedom Riders Denied Degrees
With a 7-5 vote, members of the Tennessee Board of Regents, during a recent meeting, denied a proposal to award honorary degrees to14 former TSU students who participated in the civil rights movement.
These former students, popularly known as the Freedom Riders, 47 of years ago were expelled from TSU (then known as Tennessee A&I) and unable to attain degrees in their prospective fields.
The board, during its March 28 meeting, decided the former students would not be given honorary degrees; however, they will receive a special recognition ceremony in which they may be awarded a medallion.
According to TSU President Melvin N. Johnson, TSU submitted a request for the students to be awarded the degrees because they have been an inspiration to faculty, staff, administrators, alumni and members of the local, national and world communities.
"The committee met on this and there was a discussion," said Mary Morgan a representative from the regents board. "There was a difference of opinion to recognize the Freedom Riders. We even discovered that some of the Freedom Riders were in academic trouble and on the verge of being expelled."
The Freedom Riders were students from TSU as well as Fisk, who conducted sit-ins at restaurants in which they were not allowed because of segregation laws. The students were beaten, taken to jail, and some were even killed. Ultimately, they were responsible for the integration of downtown Nashville in the 60's.
"Freedom Riders are very important and we want to recognize them, but not with degrees," Morgan said.
The Freedom Riders from TSU were suspended during the university presidency of Walter S. Davis after being arrested in Mississippi in 1961 for participating in the Freedom Rides, a non-violent act of civil disobedience.
While still jailed in Mississippi, some of the students received letters from TSU that stated they were being expelled; however, not all of them received the same letter.
"I never received a letter from TSU while in jail in Mississippi," said Allen Cason, a Freedom Rider who was not only arrested in Mississippi, but also in Georgia. "I went back to school when I was let out of jail and I went to register for summer school because I knew I had hours that I needed to complete. From that point, I was expelled, but I was never told why."
Five of the members who sat on the deciding governing board voted for the Freedom Riders to receive their degrees.
"They gave up a lot to do what they did. It is important that they be recognized," said Paul Montgomery, a member of the board who voted for awarding the degrees.
Members of the board who voted against the proposal said they respect the sacrifice of the Freedom Riders but the TBR's rules limit the number of honorary degrees that can be given.
"Voting the way that I did was no way to demean the Freedom Riders," said Jonas Kisber. "I admire them and what they did. However, the rule is two degrees per school per year."
A special event is now being prepared for the Freedom Riders so that they may be recognized.
"We are forming a committee under the direction of Provost Robert Hampton," Johnson said. "I anticipate that we can do a lot of planning, but not much in the way of an actual event in the spring because we are so close to the end of the academic year."
The final decision of the resolution in the awarding of the honorary degrees stated, "It is unquestionable and unequivocal that we desire to honor the TSU students who became known as the Freedom Riders.
"We appoint TSU President Dr. Melvin Johnson to lead and organize a celebration, recognition and honor where this state, the Board of Regents and the Tennessee State University community can honor all of the students who became known as the Freedom Riders and preclude the necessity that this board has to waive its policy 2:06:00:00."
On Friday, April 4, four of the 14 Freedom Riders were honored at the 23rd annual Great Debate hosted by the Great Debate Honor Society and the Nashville Chapter of the TSU Alumni Association.
"I think that it is tragic for them not be honored," said Patrick Walker-Reese, a junior history education major from Nashville, "especially for so much they did. I hope that TSU can find some way to honor them.•
By Acquanetta Donnell -- Black College Wire
These former students, popularly known as the Freedom Riders, 47 of years ago were expelled from TSU (then known as Tennessee A&I) and unable to attain degrees in their prospective fields.
The board, during its March 28 meeting, decided the former students would not be given honorary degrees; however, they will receive a special recognition ceremony in which they may be awarded a medallion.
According to TSU President Melvin N. Johnson, TSU submitted a request for the students to be awarded the degrees because they have been an inspiration to faculty, staff, administrators, alumni and members of the local, national and world communities.
"The committee met on this and there was a discussion," said Mary Morgan a representative from the regents board. "There was a difference of opinion to recognize the Freedom Riders. We even discovered that some of the Freedom Riders were in academic trouble and on the verge of being expelled."
The Freedom Riders were students from TSU as well as Fisk, who conducted sit-ins at restaurants in which they were not allowed because of segregation laws. The students were beaten, taken to jail, and some were even killed. Ultimately, they were responsible for the integration of downtown Nashville in the 60's.
"Freedom Riders are very important and we want to recognize them, but not with degrees," Morgan said.
The Freedom Riders from TSU were suspended during the university presidency of Walter S. Davis after being arrested in Mississippi in 1961 for participating in the Freedom Rides, a non-violent act of civil disobedience.
While still jailed in Mississippi, some of the students received letters from TSU that stated they were being expelled; however, not all of them received the same letter.
"I never received a letter from TSU while in jail in Mississippi," said Allen Cason, a Freedom Rider who was not only arrested in Mississippi, but also in Georgia. "I went back to school when I was let out of jail and I went to register for summer school because I knew I had hours that I needed to complete. From that point, I was expelled, but I was never told why."
Five of the members who sat on the deciding governing board voted for the Freedom Riders to receive their degrees.
"They gave up a lot to do what they did. It is important that they be recognized," said Paul Montgomery, a member of the board who voted for awarding the degrees.
Members of the board who voted against the proposal said they respect the sacrifice of the Freedom Riders but the TBR's rules limit the number of honorary degrees that can be given.
"Voting the way that I did was no way to demean the Freedom Riders," said Jonas Kisber. "I admire them and what they did. However, the rule is two degrees per school per year."
A special event is now being prepared for the Freedom Riders so that they may be recognized.
"We are forming a committee under the direction of Provost Robert Hampton," Johnson said. "I anticipate that we can do a lot of planning, but not much in the way of an actual event in the spring because we are so close to the end of the academic year."
The final decision of the resolution in the awarding of the honorary degrees stated, "It is unquestionable and unequivocal that we desire to honor the TSU students who became known as the Freedom Riders.
"We appoint TSU President Dr. Melvin Johnson to lead and organize a celebration, recognition and honor where this state, the Board of Regents and the Tennessee State University community can honor all of the students who became known as the Freedom Riders and preclude the necessity that this board has to waive its policy 2:06:00:00."
On Friday, April 4, four of the 14 Freedom Riders were honored at the 23rd annual Great Debate hosted by the Great Debate Honor Society and the Nashville Chapter of the TSU Alumni Association.
"I think that it is tragic for them not be honored," said Patrick Walker-Reese, a junior history education major from Nashville, "especially for so much they did. I hope that TSU can find some way to honor them.•
By Acquanetta Donnell -- Black College Wire
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Chicago's Violent Spring Continues, with 5 Found Dead
Authorities found the bodies of five young people Wednesday inside a ransacked house on Chicago's South Side, raising the body count in an already violent spring, police said.
It appeared the three men and two women had been shot, but investigators were waiting for the Cook County medical examiner's office to confirm a cause of death, said Chief of Detectives Thomas Byrne. Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday, the medical examiner's office said.
"This is very serious," Byrne said at a news conference near the two-story house. "There's five victims. There's five families right now that are grieving over this."
All the victims were in their 20s, and they all knew each other, said Deputy Chief Eugene Williams. There were signs of forced entry into the house, which appeared to have been ransacked, Williams said.
A woman visiting the house found the bodies Wednesday afternoon, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
Police did not have offenders in custody but did not believe a killer was on the loose, Bond said. It was possible the victims knew the offender, she said.
"We don't think that the neighbors need to worry," she said. "We believe that it's been contained inside this residence."
Police declined to comment on whether the scene was a murder-suicide.
They cordoned off a section of the residential street as neighbors milled around, talked in groups and watched.
Vanessa Mathis, whose mother lives across the street, said the neighborhood has many older residents and is not a crime-ridden area.
"We've never had anything like this to happen before," Mathis said.
The discovery comes on the heels of a spate of violence in Chicago. Nine people died in 36 shootings over the past weekend.
One man died and three others were wounded, including one of the alleged offenders, in shootings late Monday in a McDonald's restaurant parking lot on the South Side.
The recent violence followed a six-month period during which more than 20 Chicago public school students were shot to death.
By KAREN HAWKINS, Associated Press Writer
It appeared the three men and two women had been shot, but investigators were waiting for the Cook County medical examiner's office to confirm a cause of death, said Chief of Detectives Thomas Byrne. Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday, the medical examiner's office said.
"This is very serious," Byrne said at a news conference near the two-story house. "There's five victims. There's five families right now that are grieving over this."
All the victims were in their 20s, and they all knew each other, said Deputy Chief Eugene Williams. There were signs of forced entry into the house, which appeared to have been ransacked, Williams said.
A woman visiting the house found the bodies Wednesday afternoon, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
Police did not have offenders in custody but did not believe a killer was on the loose, Bond said. It was possible the victims knew the offender, she said.
"We don't think that the neighbors need to worry," she said. "We believe that it's been contained inside this residence."
Police declined to comment on whether the scene was a murder-suicide.
They cordoned off a section of the residential street as neighbors milled around, talked in groups and watched.
Vanessa Mathis, whose mother lives across the street, said the neighborhood has many older residents and is not a crime-ridden area.
"We've never had anything like this to happen before," Mathis said.
The discovery comes on the heels of a spate of violence in Chicago. Nine people died in 36 shootings over the past weekend.
One man died and three others were wounded, including one of the alleged offenders, in shootings late Monday in a McDonald's restaurant parking lot on the South Side.
The recent violence followed a six-month period during which more than 20 Chicago public school students were shot to death.
By KAREN HAWKINS, Associated Press Writer
Boeing Gives Smithsonian $5M for Black History Museum
The Smithsonian Institution began a push Wednesday to raise corporate funds for a new museum dedicated to black history, announcing a $5 million gift from Boeing Co.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is scheduled to open in 2015 on the National Mall near the Washington Monument. It will be the Smithsonian's 19th museum.
"This is a museum for all of us. ... This is all our history," said Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, a Boeing vice president and the granddaughter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. "We have to know this story in order to build a nation that is solidly committed and successful at creating a free society."
Boeing, citing its commitment to diversity, will give $5 million over five years to support the museum's development, officials said. The Chicago-based aerospace and defense company has been a longtime supporter of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
The new museum's director, Lonnie Bunch, is working to raise half the project's $500 million cost with the rest of the money coming from Congress. The gift from Boeing is the museum's largest to date, Bunch said. He would not reveal how much the museum has raised in its silent phase of fundraising.
Bunch said he hopes Boeing's gift will help generate more corporate funding for the museum as well as similar black history programs in local communities - even during a downturn in the economy.
"We're really trying to help rather than come in as the big guerrilla and take everything (from smaller museums)," he said. "I want the corporate community to know that this is on their radar screen."
Also Wednesday, the black history museum unveiled recent acquisitions for its collection, including items donated by a Chicago woman who attended a preservation workshop recently put on by the museum. One piece that excites curators is a white Pullman Porter cap that was worn by one of the top-ranked train car attendants between the 1920s and 1940s. The Pullman company had been the largest single employer of black men in the 1920s. The museum is planning an exhibit with a Pullman car to tell part of that story, curator Michele Gates Moresi said.
Other acquisitions include hundreds of items from New York's one-time Black Fashion Museum founded by Lois K. Alexander Lane, which was later moved to Washington in 1988 and operated as a mobile mini-museum. Two items came from the Broadway production "The Wiz," an all-black 1970s adaptation of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
The museum also has acquired a segregation sign from the 1950s transit system in Nashville, Tenn. Such objects tell a story that's both "difficult and is unbelievably optimistic," Bunch said. "These are the kinds of things that are so important because our kids, my kids, really don't understand what segregation was."
By BRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press Writer
--
On the Net:
National Museum of African American History and Culture: http://nmaahc.si.edu/
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is scheduled to open in 2015 on the National Mall near the Washington Monument. It will be the Smithsonian's 19th museum.
"This is a museum for all of us. ... This is all our history," said Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, a Boeing vice president and the granddaughter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. "We have to know this story in order to build a nation that is solidly committed and successful at creating a free society."
Boeing, citing its commitment to diversity, will give $5 million over five years to support the museum's development, officials said. The Chicago-based aerospace and defense company has been a longtime supporter of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
The new museum's director, Lonnie Bunch, is working to raise half the project's $500 million cost with the rest of the money coming from Congress. The gift from Boeing is the museum's largest to date, Bunch said. He would not reveal how much the museum has raised in its silent phase of fundraising.
Bunch said he hopes Boeing's gift will help generate more corporate funding for the museum as well as similar black history programs in local communities - even during a downturn in the economy.
"We're really trying to help rather than come in as the big guerrilla and take everything (from smaller museums)," he said. "I want the corporate community to know that this is on their radar screen."
Also Wednesday, the black history museum unveiled recent acquisitions for its collection, including items donated by a Chicago woman who attended a preservation workshop recently put on by the museum. One piece that excites curators is a white Pullman Porter cap that was worn by one of the top-ranked train car attendants between the 1920s and 1940s. The Pullman company had been the largest single employer of black men in the 1920s. The museum is planning an exhibit with a Pullman car to tell part of that story, curator Michele Gates Moresi said.
Other acquisitions include hundreds of items from New York's one-time Black Fashion Museum founded by Lois K. Alexander Lane, which was later moved to Washington in 1988 and operated as a mobile mini-museum. Two items came from the Broadway production "The Wiz," an all-black 1970s adaptation of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
The museum also has acquired a segregation sign from the 1950s transit system in Nashville, Tenn. Such objects tell a story that's both "difficult and is unbelievably optimistic," Bunch said. "These are the kinds of things that are so important because our kids, my kids, really don't understand what segregation was."
By BRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press Writer
--
On the Net:
National Museum of African American History and Culture: http://nmaahc.si.edu/
Atlanta Schools Ban T.I. From Speaking
T.I. has been banned from speaking to students at two metro-Atlanta school districts, leading officials to cancel an upcoming appearance featuring the popular rapper.
According to Atlanta’s WSB-TV Channel 2, an upcoming appearance featuring T.I. at Pebblebrook was canceled due to recent gang activity involving students, as well as the recent death of a student.
Officials with the Cobb County school district said there was no permanent ban on the rapper in their district, but admitted that the timing for his appearance was off.
Representatives with The Fulton County school district said T.I. was banned from speaking to students due to his gun conviction.
In March of 2008, T.I. , real name Clifford Harris Jr., pleaded guilty to possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers, unlawful possession of machine guns and possession of firearms by a convicted felon.
He was ordered to complete 1,000 hours of 1,500 hours community service speaking to youth about gangs, drugs and violence, Additionally, the rapper was sentenced to one year in prison, starting in 2009 and fined $100,000 dollars.
By Roman Wolfe from AllHipHop.com
According to Atlanta’s WSB-TV Channel 2, an upcoming appearance featuring T.I. at Pebblebrook was canceled due to recent gang activity involving students, as well as the recent death of a student.
Officials with the Cobb County school district said there was no permanent ban on the rapper in their district, but admitted that the timing for his appearance was off.
Representatives with The Fulton County school district said T.I. was banned from speaking to students due to his gun conviction.
In March of 2008, T.I. , real name Clifford Harris Jr., pleaded guilty to possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers, unlawful possession of machine guns and possession of firearms by a convicted felon.
He was ordered to complete 1,000 hours of 1,500 hours community service speaking to youth about gangs, drugs and violence, Additionally, the rapper was sentenced to one year in prison, starting in 2009 and fined $100,000 dollars.
By Roman Wolfe from AllHipHop.com
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
UN Warns Darfur War Worsening, with Perhaps 300,000 Dead
The conflict in Darfur is deteriorating, with full deployment of a new peacekeeping force delayed until 2009 and no prospect of a political settlement for a war that has killed perhaps 300,000 people in five years, U.N. officials said Tuesday.
In grim reports to the Security Council, the United Nations aid chief and the representative of the peacekeeping mission said suffering in the Sudanese region is worsening. Tens of thousands more have been uprooted from their homes and food rations to the needy are about to be cut in half, they said.
"We continue to see the goal posts receding, to the point where peace in Darfur seems further away today than ever," said John Holmes, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
The conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Many of the worst atrocities in the war have been blamed on the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads allied with the government.
A joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force took over duties in Darfur in January from a beleaguered 7,000-man AU mission. But only about 9,000 soldiers and police officers of the authorized 26,000 have deployed.
"We are late and we are trying to speed up the deployment of this mission, and we facing many obstacles," said the U.N.-AU force's envoy, Rodolphe Adada. "But eventually, with the help of some donors, we could be in a position to achieve maybe 80 percent of the force by the end of this year."
The mission faces major problems in putting troops into a very hostile environment, Adada said. It still lacks five critical capabilities to become operational — attack helicopters, surveillance aircraft, transport helicopters, military engineers and logistical support.
Holmes said further progress in deploying the joint peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, would help protect civilians and possibly humanitarian convoys.
"But only an end to all violence and concrete steps towards a political settlement will make the fundamental difference needed, as the rebel movements themselves above all need to recognize," Holmes said. "Otherwise the reality is that the people of Darfur face a continued steady deterioration of their conditions of life and their chances of lasting recovery."
The U.N. and AU have tried for months to open new peace talks between Sudan and rebel groups following the failure of a 2005 agreement to stem violence. But most rebel chiefs are boycotting the negotiations, and security in Darfur has further deteriorated in recent months.
Adada told the council that "unfortunately, it is commonly understood today in Darfur that peace is not at all attractive — neither economically nor politically."
Darfur's main rebel chief said Tuesday he told Security Council representatives last month that no peace talks can be held until security is restored.
"Wrong negotiations will only complicate the matter and prolong the suffering of the people of Darfur," Abdulwahid Elnur, head of the Sudan Liberation Movement, told The Associated Press during an interview in Paris, where he lives in exile.
When former U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland brought the Darfur conflict to the Security Council's attention in April 2004, he said approximately 750,000 people were in danger.
Today, Holmes told the council, "of Darfur's estimated 6 million people, some 4.27 million have now been seriously affected by the conflict."
He said nearly many of them have had to flee their homes — some 2.45 million people are sheltering elsewhere in Sudan and 260,000 more in neighboring countries. Some 100,000 civilians have been forced to flee just this year, Holmes said. Some 60,000 of them were displaced in West Darfur, which has seen an upsurge in violence.
"Those in the camps feel helpless and voiceless," Holmes said. "The fear of never being able to return to their areas of origin, and the pressure by government authorities to return when conditions are clearly not right, lead to increasing tension, polarization, politicization and even militarization."
The U.N. World Food Program announced last week that it will have to halve the amount of food provided to Darfur's needy next month because humanitarian convoys are being attacked. The cut "could not come at a worse time ... as the rainy season approaches," Holmes said.
Egeland, the former U.N. humanitarian chief, estimated in 2006 that 200,000 people had lost their lives because of the conflict, from violence, disease and malnutrition. He said this was based on an independent mortality survey released in March 2005 by the U.N. World Health Organization.
"That figure must be much higher now, perhaps half as much again," Holmes said Tuesday.
Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed countered that "in our own calculations, the total number does not exceed 10,000."
He said his government counts only people killed in fighting, saying there are no dead from malnutrition and starvation "because in Darfur there is no epidemics, no starvations."
"The exaggerated number given is to serve political ends," Mohamed said. "It is only to give the impression that the government is not doing much in the peacekeeping to save its own people."
Queried by reporters, Holmes said the estimate of 300,000 dead "is not a very scientifically based figure" because there have been no new mortality studies in Darfur, but "it's a reasonable extrapolation."
"What I'm saying is if that figure of 200,000 was anything like right in 2006, then that figure must be much higher now," he said.
Egeland told AP last month that he estimated the toll had risen to around 400,000.
South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, the current Security Council president, said he was especially concerned that "there's absolutely nothing (moving) on the political process."
Asked if the council consider sanctions against those obstructing peace efforts, Kumalo said: "Well, the people who are obstructing the peace process are sitting in the nice capitals of Europe, so what can we do? And Europe is represented in the council."
He was clearly referring to Elnur, the rebel chief living in Paris.
Sudan's ambassador said one message came through "loud and clear" from Tuesday's meeting.
"We should give priority again to the peace process, because even peacekeeping with the maximum number is not a substitute to the political process," Mohamed said.
Western officials have blamed Sudan's government for the delay in deploying peacekeepers and key military equipment. Sudan denies that, but it has vetoed troop contributions from some non-African or non-Muslim nations.
"Contributors have to come from the whole world. It's the only guarantee that the force works on the ground, with neutrality," Elnur told AP.
EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
In grim reports to the Security Council, the United Nations aid chief and the representative of the peacekeeping mission said suffering in the Sudanese region is worsening. Tens of thousands more have been uprooted from their homes and food rations to the needy are about to be cut in half, they said.
"We continue to see the goal posts receding, to the point where peace in Darfur seems further away today than ever," said John Holmes, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
The conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Many of the worst atrocities in the war have been blamed on the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads allied with the government.
A joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force took over duties in Darfur in January from a beleaguered 7,000-man AU mission. But only about 9,000 soldiers and police officers of the authorized 26,000 have deployed.
"We are late and we are trying to speed up the deployment of this mission, and we facing many obstacles," said the U.N.-AU force's envoy, Rodolphe Adada. "But eventually, with the help of some donors, we could be in a position to achieve maybe 80 percent of the force by the end of this year."
The mission faces major problems in putting troops into a very hostile environment, Adada said. It still lacks five critical capabilities to become operational — attack helicopters, surveillance aircraft, transport helicopters, military engineers and logistical support.
Holmes said further progress in deploying the joint peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, would help protect civilians and possibly humanitarian convoys.
"But only an end to all violence and concrete steps towards a political settlement will make the fundamental difference needed, as the rebel movements themselves above all need to recognize," Holmes said. "Otherwise the reality is that the people of Darfur face a continued steady deterioration of their conditions of life and their chances of lasting recovery."
The U.N. and AU have tried for months to open new peace talks between Sudan and rebel groups following the failure of a 2005 agreement to stem violence. But most rebel chiefs are boycotting the negotiations, and security in Darfur has further deteriorated in recent months.
Adada told the council that "unfortunately, it is commonly understood today in Darfur that peace is not at all attractive — neither economically nor politically."
Darfur's main rebel chief said Tuesday he told Security Council representatives last month that no peace talks can be held until security is restored.
"Wrong negotiations will only complicate the matter and prolong the suffering of the people of Darfur," Abdulwahid Elnur, head of the Sudan Liberation Movement, told The Associated Press during an interview in Paris, where he lives in exile.
When former U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland brought the Darfur conflict to the Security Council's attention in April 2004, he said approximately 750,000 people were in danger.
Today, Holmes told the council, "of Darfur's estimated 6 million people, some 4.27 million have now been seriously affected by the conflict."
He said nearly many of them have had to flee their homes — some 2.45 million people are sheltering elsewhere in Sudan and 260,000 more in neighboring countries. Some 100,000 civilians have been forced to flee just this year, Holmes said. Some 60,000 of them were displaced in West Darfur, which has seen an upsurge in violence.
"Those in the camps feel helpless and voiceless," Holmes said. "The fear of never being able to return to their areas of origin, and the pressure by government authorities to return when conditions are clearly not right, lead to increasing tension, polarization, politicization and even militarization."
The U.N. World Food Program announced last week that it will have to halve the amount of food provided to Darfur's needy next month because humanitarian convoys are being attacked. The cut "could not come at a worse time ... as the rainy season approaches," Holmes said.
Egeland, the former U.N. humanitarian chief, estimated in 2006 that 200,000 people had lost their lives because of the conflict, from violence, disease and malnutrition. He said this was based on an independent mortality survey released in March 2005 by the U.N. World Health Organization.
"That figure must be much higher now, perhaps half as much again," Holmes said Tuesday.
Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed countered that "in our own calculations, the total number does not exceed 10,000."
He said his government counts only people killed in fighting, saying there are no dead from malnutrition and starvation "because in Darfur there is no epidemics, no starvations."
"The exaggerated number given is to serve political ends," Mohamed said. "It is only to give the impression that the government is not doing much in the peacekeeping to save its own people."
Queried by reporters, Holmes said the estimate of 300,000 dead "is not a very scientifically based figure" because there have been no new mortality studies in Darfur, but "it's a reasonable extrapolation."
"What I'm saying is if that figure of 200,000 was anything like right in 2006, then that figure must be much higher now," he said.
Egeland told AP last month that he estimated the toll had risen to around 400,000.
South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, the current Security Council president, said he was especially concerned that "there's absolutely nothing (moving) on the political process."
Asked if the council consider sanctions against those obstructing peace efforts, Kumalo said: "Well, the people who are obstructing the peace process are sitting in the nice capitals of Europe, so what can we do? And Europe is represented in the council."
He was clearly referring to Elnur, the rebel chief living in Paris.
Sudan's ambassador said one message came through "loud and clear" from Tuesday's meeting.
"We should give priority again to the peace process, because even peacekeeping with the maximum number is not a substitute to the political process," Mohamed said.
Western officials have blamed Sudan's government for the delay in deploying peacekeepers and key military equipment. Sudan denies that, but it has vetoed troop contributions from some non-African or non-Muslim nations.
"Contributors have to come from the whole world. It's the only guarantee that the force works on the ground, with neutrality," Elnur told AP.
EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
The Attack on Black Theology
It began last year with Fox TV commentators Hannity and Combs calling the theology followed by Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s church a “cult.”
But it continues with recent news articles calling Black Theology a “strange religion” and a “separatist” concept. All of these characterizations are distorted in that they emanate from a perspective outside of the Black community attempting to perceive the fundamentals of a culture that honors the dignity of Black people in its religious practice.
Rev. James Cone was interviewed by National Public Radio in March and he was repeatedly referred to as the father of Black Theology. That may be true in the sense of his composition of the theology, but he would be the first to say that its practice grew out of the historical religious experiences of Black people. I recall that in the book by Professor V. P. Franklin, “Black Self Determination,” he comments on a scene on a plantation where slaves were being preached to by their White master. When the master cited several passages in the bible meant to support his view that slaves should obey their master, they arose and moved to the other side of the room!
The notion had come to Blacks early in their engagement with Christian religion that there was a contradiction between the theological interpretation of their masters, and their own understanding of the message of Amos that the mission of Christians was justice which should “roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream,” or that Jesus ordered his disciples such as the prophet Jeremiah to “preach good news to the poor,” or that the basic duty of Christians was to care for the oppressed and despised. In other words, the mission of Christianity appeared to speak powerfully to their own liberation.
In the 1960s, Malcolm X contributed to Black Theology by his demand that Blacks love themselves and in doing so, validate their own humanity before the world. He noted that many Blacks existed in the mental slavery of loving their modern masters and their theology more than they loved their own or themselves. This was a profound observation of a Muslim that many Blacks had received Christianity uncritically and had not interpreted it in the context of their own identity and life challenges. This would all change with the coming of the ideology of Black Power which affirmed the Black self and led to Rev. Cone’s seminal book, “Black Theology and Black Power.”
The view that a people whose humanity had been debased through slavery and civic oppression could express a positive view of their identity was received by many Whites, however, as “separatist.” This, however, represents the perspective of the dominant group (separation from who?) rather than a focus on the empowerment of Black humanity and not a prescription for hating Whites. Moreover in the hands of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. even when it was not recognized as a formal theology, Black religion was a moral force that provided an alternate definition of freedom and liberation and the material and spiritual dimensions of life in confrontation with the evils of war, poverty and racism.
Most important, many Blacks were challenged to reinterpret the Christianity they practiced in terms of their own history and identity, leading to the blackening of religious images, the reconceptualization of the identity of Jesus as a White man and the African origins of Christianity by Howard University’s Professor Cain Hope Felder and others. And why not? In every civilization, the evolution of the highest spiritual force is rendered in the context of the culture of the people who are supplicants to it. The Christian religion is an exception only because it was spread with the sword through the Crusades and colonialism. But even then, it has rarely eclipsed indigenous religions, rather, they have merged in a syncretistic dance that allows the indigenous religions to be practiced under the shell of Western religions.
Surveys by Professors Lincoln and Mamiya have found that Black Theology is practiced least by the Black working class Church of God In Christ churches, and most by Black churches with more highly educated and affluent populations and, in any case, it is not the dominant theology of the Black church in general. Nevertheless, the extent to which it opened a window for the exercise of the prophetic exegeses that evaluate the quality of American life, and especially the condition of Black people, in terms of the application of Christian principles of liberation, makes it exceedingly precious and worthy of defense.
Dr. Ron Walters, director of the African-American Leadership Center and professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park, is the author of “The Price of Racial Reconciliation.” This commentary was distributed by NNPA.
From Final Call
But it continues with recent news articles calling Black Theology a “strange religion” and a “separatist” concept. All of these characterizations are distorted in that they emanate from a perspective outside of the Black community attempting to perceive the fundamentals of a culture that honors the dignity of Black people in its religious practice.
Rev. James Cone was interviewed by National Public Radio in March and he was repeatedly referred to as the father of Black Theology. That may be true in the sense of his composition of the theology, but he would be the first to say that its practice grew out of the historical religious experiences of Black people. I recall that in the book by Professor V. P. Franklin, “Black Self Determination,” he comments on a scene on a plantation where slaves were being preached to by their White master. When the master cited several passages in the bible meant to support his view that slaves should obey their master, they arose and moved to the other side of the room!
The notion had come to Blacks early in their engagement with Christian religion that there was a contradiction between the theological interpretation of their masters, and their own understanding of the message of Amos that the mission of Christians was justice which should “roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream,” or that Jesus ordered his disciples such as the prophet Jeremiah to “preach good news to the poor,” or that the basic duty of Christians was to care for the oppressed and despised. In other words, the mission of Christianity appeared to speak powerfully to their own liberation.
In the 1960s, Malcolm X contributed to Black Theology by his demand that Blacks love themselves and in doing so, validate their own humanity before the world. He noted that many Blacks existed in the mental slavery of loving their modern masters and their theology more than they loved their own or themselves. This was a profound observation of a Muslim that many Blacks had received Christianity uncritically and had not interpreted it in the context of their own identity and life challenges. This would all change with the coming of the ideology of Black Power which affirmed the Black self and led to Rev. Cone’s seminal book, “Black Theology and Black Power.”
The view that a people whose humanity had been debased through slavery and civic oppression could express a positive view of their identity was received by many Whites, however, as “separatist.” This, however, represents the perspective of the dominant group (separation from who?) rather than a focus on the empowerment of Black humanity and not a prescription for hating Whites. Moreover in the hands of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. even when it was not recognized as a formal theology, Black religion was a moral force that provided an alternate definition of freedom and liberation and the material and spiritual dimensions of life in confrontation with the evils of war, poverty and racism.
Most important, many Blacks were challenged to reinterpret the Christianity they practiced in terms of their own history and identity, leading to the blackening of religious images, the reconceptualization of the identity of Jesus as a White man and the African origins of Christianity by Howard University’s Professor Cain Hope Felder and others. And why not? In every civilization, the evolution of the highest spiritual force is rendered in the context of the culture of the people who are supplicants to it. The Christian religion is an exception only because it was spread with the sword through the Crusades and colonialism. But even then, it has rarely eclipsed indigenous religions, rather, they have merged in a syncretistic dance that allows the indigenous religions to be practiced under the shell of Western religions.
Surveys by Professors Lincoln and Mamiya have found that Black Theology is practiced least by the Black working class Church of God In Christ churches, and most by Black churches with more highly educated and affluent populations and, in any case, it is not the dominant theology of the Black church in general. Nevertheless, the extent to which it opened a window for the exercise of the prophetic exegeses that evaluate the quality of American life, and especially the condition of Black people, in terms of the application of Christian principles of liberation, makes it exceedingly precious and worthy of defense.
Dr. Ron Walters, director of the African-American Leadership Center and professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park, is the author of “The Price of Racial Reconciliation.” This commentary was distributed by NNPA.
From Final Call
As Verdict in 50-Shot Killing Nears, NYC Ready for Protests
When police killed an unarmed African immigrant in a hail of 41 bullets in 1999, outrage filled up the streets of New York.
About 1,200 people were arrested, including elected officials and celebrities, during a month of daily protests. Thousands more marched after four white officers were acquitted in Amadou Diallo's death.
Nine years later, three officers will learn their fate Friday in a case over another heavy police barrage — 50 shots aimed at an unarmed black man outside a nightclub on the morning of his wedding. The city is bracing for more protests if the officers are acquitted.
This time, however, the mood is muted.
The New York Police Department has downplayed reports that 1,000 officers will be deployed outside the courthouse in Queens and near the spot where Sean Bell was killed in 2006. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne declined to specify any plans. The department, though "always ready for any eventuality," doesn't expect serious trouble, he said.
The mood has been tempered by several factors. Racial tensions in the city are low compared to the Diallo era, when then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani had poor relations with the black community. And in the Bell case, two of the officers are black, making it less racially lopsided.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he believes calm will prevail after the verdict.
"My expectation is that no matter what the decision is, everybody will act in a dignified manner no matter what they think," the mayor said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton plans to show up Wednesday on the steps of City Hall with two friends of Bell who were seriously injured in the shooting "to call on the community to give the criminal justice system a chance to work."
Bell, 23, and the two companions were shot Nov. 25, 2006, after a bachelor party at a seedy strip club in Queens that police had targeted for an undercover vice operation.
The defense claims that undercover officer Gescard Isnora, who was posing as a club patron, believed a gunfight involving Bell and his friends was brewing when he confronted them as they entered Bell's car and identified himself as an officer. He and the other officers opened fire after Bell violently pulled away and crashed into an unmarked police van.
The prosecution has portrayed the defendants as trigger-happy cowboys who shot first and made up a reason for it later when they realized no gun was in the car. The surviving victims testified they were shocked when a stranger in street clothes — Isnora — confronted them and began shooting without warning.
The three detectives are charged with manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment. They opted to have a judge decide their case instead of a jury; state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman plans to deliver the verdict Friday.
If convicted, Isnora and Michael Oliver face up to 25 years in prison; Marc Cooper faces up to one year on the lesser endangerment count. If acquitted, the officers still could be hit with departmental charges and possible dismissal from the force, and the city still must contend with multimillion-dollar lawsuits.
The slaying of Bell has drawn comparisons to that of Diallo, who was on his doorstep reaching for his wallet when he was shot. Both were young black men shot by officers who claimed their targets were acting suspiciously and that deadly force was necessary.
The onslaught of pretrial publicity in the Diallo case persuaded an appeals court to move that trial to Albany, where a jury acquitted them in 2000. The news prompted protesters to take to the streets in Manhattan and elsewhere in New York, resulting in about 100 arrests.
After Bell's killing, there was a peaceful march involving several thousand people as Sharpton rallied support for the victim's grieving fiancee and parents. Demonstrations after that were small, sporadic and uneventful.
By TOM HAYS, AP
About 1,200 people were arrested, including elected officials and celebrities, during a month of daily protests. Thousands more marched after four white officers were acquitted in Amadou Diallo's death.
Nine years later, three officers will learn their fate Friday in a case over another heavy police barrage — 50 shots aimed at an unarmed black man outside a nightclub on the morning of his wedding. The city is bracing for more protests if the officers are acquitted.
This time, however, the mood is muted.
The New York Police Department has downplayed reports that 1,000 officers will be deployed outside the courthouse in Queens and near the spot where Sean Bell was killed in 2006. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne declined to specify any plans. The department, though "always ready for any eventuality," doesn't expect serious trouble, he said.
The mood has been tempered by several factors. Racial tensions in the city are low compared to the Diallo era, when then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani had poor relations with the black community. And in the Bell case, two of the officers are black, making it less racially lopsided.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he believes calm will prevail after the verdict.
"My expectation is that no matter what the decision is, everybody will act in a dignified manner no matter what they think," the mayor said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton plans to show up Wednesday on the steps of City Hall with two friends of Bell who were seriously injured in the shooting "to call on the community to give the criminal justice system a chance to work."
Bell, 23, and the two companions were shot Nov. 25, 2006, after a bachelor party at a seedy strip club in Queens that police had targeted for an undercover vice operation.
The defense claims that undercover officer Gescard Isnora, who was posing as a club patron, believed a gunfight involving Bell and his friends was brewing when he confronted them as they entered Bell's car and identified himself as an officer. He and the other officers opened fire after Bell violently pulled away and crashed into an unmarked police van.
The prosecution has portrayed the defendants as trigger-happy cowboys who shot first and made up a reason for it later when they realized no gun was in the car. The surviving victims testified they were shocked when a stranger in street clothes — Isnora — confronted them and began shooting without warning.
The three detectives are charged with manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment. They opted to have a judge decide their case instead of a jury; state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman plans to deliver the verdict Friday.
If convicted, Isnora and Michael Oliver face up to 25 years in prison; Marc Cooper faces up to one year on the lesser endangerment count. If acquitted, the officers still could be hit with departmental charges and possible dismissal from the force, and the city still must contend with multimillion-dollar lawsuits.
The slaying of Bell has drawn comparisons to that of Diallo, who was on his doorstep reaching for his wallet when he was shot. Both were young black men shot by officers who claimed their targets were acting suspiciously and that deadly force was necessary.
The onslaught of pretrial publicity in the Diallo case persuaded an appeals court to move that trial to Albany, where a jury acquitted them in 2000. The news prompted protesters to take to the streets in Manhattan and elsewhere in New York, resulting in about 100 arrests.
After Bell's killing, there was a peaceful march involving several thousand people as Sharpton rallied support for the victim's grieving fiancee and parents. Demonstrations after that were small, sporadic and uneventful.
By TOM HAYS, AP
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Black Enterprise Magazine Offers Green Business Guide
Like so many other publications, Black Enterprise is going "green." The magazine, kicking off a yearlong theme with its April edition, is featuring a step-by-step guide for entrepreneurs eager to nurture a green business.
"Overall, the green economy is worth more than $209 billion annually and is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2020," Black Enterprise says.
If every green claim is counted, those figures could be very conservative. As the magazine points out, more than 100 million consumers make buying decisions guided by health and environmental concerns every year.
Green businesses are more wide-ranging than dot-coms and require a close look at where an entrepreneur can apply his or her skills, editor Trevor Delaney said. And the green space comes with plenty of government contracts including some set-aside work for minority-owned businesses.
"Overall, the green economy is worth more than $209 billion annually and is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2020," Black Enterprise says.
If every green claim is counted, those figures could be very conservative. As the magazine points out, more than 100 million consumers make buying decisions guided by health and environmental concerns every year.
Green businesses are more wide-ranging than dot-coms and require a close look at where an entrepreneur can apply his or her skills, editor Trevor Delaney said. And the green space comes with plenty of government contracts including some set-aside work for minority-owned businesses.
Africa Plans Most Powerful Hydroelectric Dam in the World
A plan to build the largest and most powerful hydroelectric dam in the world is being discussed in London.
Financiers and African politicians will look at how to finance the $80bn (£40bn) cost of the Grand Inga project.
The plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo would generate twice as much energy as China's Three Gorges dam.
It is hoped it will boost Africa's electricity supply by a third, but opponents doubt it will help the poorest Africans without electricity.
The World Energy Council, (WEC) which is hosting the two-day meeting in London, says the Grand Inga project will help the estimated 500 million Africans without access to electricity.
"We have to raise the level of access to commercial energy all through Africa and other parts of the world, where this poverty is faced," WEC secretary general Gerald Doucet told the BBC.
"We can't do it without building these projects, but of course, on a sustainable basis that takes into account the social, civil and environmental issues.
"And I can say that in the past, mistakes have been made, but WEC is here to make sure those mistakes are not repeated," Mr Doucet said.
New grid
Power would be transmitted to other countries via a giant new distribution system to Egypt in the north, Nigeria in the west and to South Africa.
In order that construction can start as planned in 2014, the World Energy Council is calling for finance for a feasibility study to be done as soon as possible.
The Grand Inga project would be built on the Congo river alongside two existing hydroelectric plants and is expected to begin operating between 2020 and 2025.
The plans include a 205m-high dam, 15km-long reservoir and a plant with a capacity to produce 320 terawatt hours of electricity annually.
The idea for the project was first conceived in the 1980s, but political turmoil in the DR Congo meant that the plans could not proceed.
Financiers and African politicians will look at how to finance the $80bn (£40bn) cost of the Grand Inga project.
The plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo would generate twice as much energy as China's Three Gorges dam.
It is hoped it will boost Africa's electricity supply by a third, but opponents doubt it will help the poorest Africans without electricity.
The World Energy Council, (WEC) which is hosting the two-day meeting in London, says the Grand Inga project will help the estimated 500 million Africans without access to electricity.
"We have to raise the level of access to commercial energy all through Africa and other parts of the world, where this poverty is faced," WEC secretary general Gerald Doucet told the BBC.
"We can't do it without building these projects, but of course, on a sustainable basis that takes into account the social, civil and environmental issues.
"And I can say that in the past, mistakes have been made, but WEC is here to make sure those mistakes are not repeated," Mr Doucet said.
New grid
Power would be transmitted to other countries via a giant new distribution system to Egypt in the north, Nigeria in the west and to South Africa.
In order that construction can start as planned in 2014, the World Energy Council is calling for finance for a feasibility study to be done as soon as possible.
The Grand Inga project would be built on the Congo river alongside two existing hydroelectric plants and is expected to begin operating between 2020 and 2025.
The plans include a 205m-high dam, 15km-long reservoir and a plant with a capacity to produce 320 terawatt hours of electricity annually.
The idea for the project was first conceived in the 1980s, but political turmoil in the DR Congo meant that the plans could not proceed.
US Coast Guard Recovers 20 Bodies Near Bahamas
The bodies of 20 people, believed to be Haitian migrants, have been found off the coast of the Bahamas after their boat capsized, the US Coast Guard says.
Three survivors were found in the sea some 24km (15 miles) from Nassau.
A search operation was launched on Sunday after fishermen heard people screaming for help, news reports said.
Every years, thousands of Haitians try to leave their impoverished nation, where recent riots over rising food and fuel prices have led to several deaths.
The US Coast Guard said a fishing crew alerted the Bahamian authorities after hearing cries in the sea early on Sunday.
The US and Bahamas launched a major search effort, deploying an airplane, helicopter and three boats to the area.
The three survivors said their boat was carrying 24 people when it capsized.
Faced with grinding poverty at home, some Haitians opt to board rickety boats to try to make the dangerous sea crossings to the US or to other Caribbean islands.
Reports of drownings are common. Last year, 61 people died when their boat capsized.
Most Haitians earn no more than $2 a day, and they have struggled to feed themselves as the prices of rice, beans and fruit have risen by 50% in recent months.
From BBC
Three survivors were found in the sea some 24km (15 miles) from Nassau.
A search operation was launched on Sunday after fishermen heard people screaming for help, news reports said.
Every years, thousands of Haitians try to leave their impoverished nation, where recent riots over rising food and fuel prices have led to several deaths.
The US Coast Guard said a fishing crew alerted the Bahamian authorities after hearing cries in the sea early on Sunday.
The US and Bahamas launched a major search effort, deploying an airplane, helicopter and three boats to the area.
The three survivors said their boat was carrying 24 people when it capsized.
Faced with grinding poverty at home, some Haitians opt to board rickety boats to try to make the dangerous sea crossings to the US or to other Caribbean islands.
Reports of drownings are common. Last year, 61 people died when their boat capsized.
Most Haitians earn no more than $2 a day, and they have struggled to feed themselves as the prices of rice, beans and fruit have risen by 50% in recent months.
From BBC
Many African-Americans Have A Gene That Prolongs Life After Heart Failure
About 40 percent of African-Americans have a genetic variant that can protect them after heart failure and prolong their lives, according to research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions.
The genetic variant has an effect that resembles that of beta blockers, drugs widely prescribed for heart failure. The new study offers a reason why beta blockers don't appear to benefit some African-Americans.
"For several years a controversy has existed in the cardiovascular field because of conflicting reports about whether beta blockers helped African-American patients," says senior author Gerald W. Dorn II, M.D., professor of medicine, associate chairman for translational research and director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at Washington University.
"By mimicking the effect of beta blockers, the genetic variant makes it appear as if beta blockers aren't effective in these patients," he explains. "But although beta blockers have no additional benefit in heart failure patients with the variant, they are equally effective in Caucasian and African-American patients without the variant."
Co-author Stephen B. Liggett, M.D., professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of its cardiopulmonary genomics program says the discovery adds to the accumulating evidence that genetic differences contribute to the way people respond to medications and should encourage the use of genetic testing in clinical trials to identify people who can benefit from therapy tailored to their genetic makeup.
About 5 million people in the United States have heart failure, and it results in about 300,000 deaths each year. Beta blockers slow heart rate and lower blood pressure to decrease the heart's workload and prevent lethal cardiac arrhythmias.
While Caucasians with heart failure participating in clinical studies of beta blockers have shown clear benefit from the drugs, the evidence for benefit in African-Americans has been ambiguous. The current study, reported online April 20, 2008, in Nature Medicine, identified one particular race-specific gene variant that seems to account mechanistically and biologically for these indeterminate results.
The gene codes for an enzyme called GRK5, which depresses the response to adrenaline and similar hormonal substances that increase how hard the heart works. Adrenaline is a hormone released from the adrenal glands that prompts the "fight-or-flight" response -- it increases cardiac output to give a sudden burst of energy.
In heart failure, decreased blood flow from the struggling heart ramps up the body's secretion of adrenaline to compensate for a lower blood flow. Overproduction of the hormone makes the weakened heart pump harder, but eventually worsens heart failure.
Beta blockers alleviate this problem by blocking adrenaline at its receptor in the heart and blood vessels. GRK enzymes mimic this effect by serving as "speed governors" that work like the governor in an engine to prevent adrenaline from over-revving the heart, says Dorn.
The researchers -- including three equally contributing co-authors: Liggett, Sharon Cresci, M.D., assistant professor of medicine in the Cardiovascular Division at Washington University and a cardiologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and Reagan J. Kelly, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan -- found that 41 percent of African-Americans have a variant GRK5 gene that more effectively suppresses the action of adrenaline than the more common version of the gene. People with the variant gene could be said to have a natural beta blocker, Dorn says. The variant is extremely rare in Caucasians, accounting for its predominant effects in African-Americans.
The researchers showed that African-American heart failure patients with this genetic variant have about the same survival rate even if they don't take beta blockers as Caucasian and African-American heart failure patients who do take beta blockers.
"That doesn't mean African-Americans with heart failure need to be tested for the genetic variant to decide whether to take beta blockers," Dorn says. "Under the supervision of a cardiologist, beta blockers have very low risk but huge benefits, and I am comfortable prescribing them to any heart failure patients who do not have a specific contraindication to the drug."
"This is a step toward individualized therapy," Cresci says. "Medical research is working to identify many genetic variants that someday can ensure that patients receive the medications that are most appropriate for them. Right now, we know one variant that influences beta blocker efficacy, and we are continuing our research into this and other relevant genetic variants."
The human heart has two forms of GRK: GRK2 and GRK5. The researchers meticulously searched the DNA sequence of these genes in 96 people of European-American, African-American or Chinese descent to look for differences. They found most people, no matter their race, had exactly the same DNA sequence in GRK2 or GRK5. But there was one common variation in the DNA sequence, a variation called GRK5-Leu41, the variant that more than 40 percent of African-Americans have.
To determine the effect of the GRK5-Leu41 variant, the team studied the course of progression of heart failure in 375 African-American patients. They looked for survival time or time to heart transplant, comparing people with the variant to those without. Some of these patients were taking beta blockers and some were not.
In patients who did not take beta blockers, the researchers found that those with the variant lived almost twice as long as those with the more common version of the GRK5 gene. Beta blockers prolonged life to the same degree as the protective GRK5 variant, but did not further increase the already improved survival of those with the variant.
"These results offer an explanation for the confusion that has occurred in this area since clinical trials of beta blockers began," Dorn says. "Our study demonstrates a mechanism that should lay to rest the question about whether beta blockers are effective in African-Americans -- they absolutely are in those who don't have this genetic variant."
Other institutions collaborating in the study are the University of Cincinnati, Thomas Jefferson University and the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Liggett SB, Cresci S, Kelly RJ, Syed FM, Matkovich SJ, Hahn HS, Diwan A, Martini JS, Sparks L, Parekh RR Spertus JA, Koch WJ, Kardia SLR, Dorn II GW. A GRK5 polymorphism that inhibits beta-adrenergic receptor signaling is protective in heart failure. Nature Medicine April 20, 2008 (advance online publishing).
Funding from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute supported this research.
Adapted from materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
From sciencedaily.com
The genetic variant has an effect that resembles that of beta blockers, drugs widely prescribed for heart failure. The new study offers a reason why beta blockers don't appear to benefit some African-Americans.
"For several years a controversy has existed in the cardiovascular field because of conflicting reports about whether beta blockers helped African-American patients," says senior author Gerald W. Dorn II, M.D., professor of medicine, associate chairman for translational research and director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at Washington University.
"By mimicking the effect of beta blockers, the genetic variant makes it appear as if beta blockers aren't effective in these patients," he explains. "But although beta blockers have no additional benefit in heart failure patients with the variant, they are equally effective in Caucasian and African-American patients without the variant."
Co-author Stephen B. Liggett, M.D., professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of its cardiopulmonary genomics program says the discovery adds to the accumulating evidence that genetic differences contribute to the way people respond to medications and should encourage the use of genetic testing in clinical trials to identify people who can benefit from therapy tailored to their genetic makeup.
About 5 million people in the United States have heart failure, and it results in about 300,000 deaths each year. Beta blockers slow heart rate and lower blood pressure to decrease the heart's workload and prevent lethal cardiac arrhythmias.
While Caucasians with heart failure participating in clinical studies of beta blockers have shown clear benefit from the drugs, the evidence for benefit in African-Americans has been ambiguous. The current study, reported online April 20, 2008, in Nature Medicine, identified one particular race-specific gene variant that seems to account mechanistically and biologically for these indeterminate results.
The gene codes for an enzyme called GRK5, which depresses the response to adrenaline and similar hormonal substances that increase how hard the heart works. Adrenaline is a hormone released from the adrenal glands that prompts the "fight-or-flight" response -- it increases cardiac output to give a sudden burst of energy.
In heart failure, decreased blood flow from the struggling heart ramps up the body's secretion of adrenaline to compensate for a lower blood flow. Overproduction of the hormone makes the weakened heart pump harder, but eventually worsens heart failure.
Beta blockers alleviate this problem by blocking adrenaline at its receptor in the heart and blood vessels. GRK enzymes mimic this effect by serving as "speed governors" that work like the governor in an engine to prevent adrenaline from over-revving the heart, says Dorn.
The researchers -- including three equally contributing co-authors: Liggett, Sharon Cresci, M.D., assistant professor of medicine in the Cardiovascular Division at Washington University and a cardiologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and Reagan J. Kelly, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan -- found that 41 percent of African-Americans have a variant GRK5 gene that more effectively suppresses the action of adrenaline than the more common version of the gene. People with the variant gene could be said to have a natural beta blocker, Dorn says. The variant is extremely rare in Caucasians, accounting for its predominant effects in African-Americans.
The researchers showed that African-American heart failure patients with this genetic variant have about the same survival rate even if they don't take beta blockers as Caucasian and African-American heart failure patients who do take beta blockers.
"That doesn't mean African-Americans with heart failure need to be tested for the genetic variant to decide whether to take beta blockers," Dorn says. "Under the supervision of a cardiologist, beta blockers have very low risk but huge benefits, and I am comfortable prescribing them to any heart failure patients who do not have a specific contraindication to the drug."
"This is a step toward individualized therapy," Cresci says. "Medical research is working to identify many genetic variants that someday can ensure that patients receive the medications that are most appropriate for them. Right now, we know one variant that influences beta blocker efficacy, and we are continuing our research into this and other relevant genetic variants."
The human heart has two forms of GRK: GRK2 and GRK5. The researchers meticulously searched the DNA sequence of these genes in 96 people of European-American, African-American or Chinese descent to look for differences. They found most people, no matter their race, had exactly the same DNA sequence in GRK2 or GRK5. But there was one common variation in the DNA sequence, a variation called GRK5-Leu41, the variant that more than 40 percent of African-Americans have.
To determine the effect of the GRK5-Leu41 variant, the team studied the course of progression of heart failure in 375 African-American patients. They looked for survival time or time to heart transplant, comparing people with the variant to those without. Some of these patients were taking beta blockers and some were not.
In patients who did not take beta blockers, the researchers found that those with the variant lived almost twice as long as those with the more common version of the GRK5 gene. Beta blockers prolonged life to the same degree as the protective GRK5 variant, but did not further increase the already improved survival of those with the variant.
"These results offer an explanation for the confusion that has occurred in this area since clinical trials of beta blockers began," Dorn says. "Our study demonstrates a mechanism that should lay to rest the question about whether beta blockers are effective in African-Americans -- they absolutely are in those who don't have this genetic variant."
Other institutions collaborating in the study are the University of Cincinnati, Thomas Jefferson University and the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Liggett SB, Cresci S, Kelly RJ, Syed FM, Matkovich SJ, Hahn HS, Diwan A, Martini JS, Sparks L, Parekh RR Spertus JA, Koch WJ, Kardia SLR, Dorn II GW. A GRK5 polymorphism that inhibits beta-adrenergic receptor signaling is protective in heart failure. Nature Medicine April 20, 2008 (advance online publishing).
Funding from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute supported this research.
Adapted from materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
From sciencedaily.com
Monday, April 21, 2008
France Pays Tribute to Late Poet Aime Cesaire
France paid tribute on Sunday to the poet and statesman Aime Cesaire, a fierce critic of colonialism and a father of the "negritude" movement that celebrated black pride and consciousness.
Cesaire, who died on Thursday at the age of 94 was commemorated at a state funeral in his native Martinique attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy, government ministers and senior figures from the opposition Socialist Party.
Thousands of ordinary Martinicans had already paid their own homage as Cesaire's body lay in state in the football stadium of the Caribbean island's main town Fort-de-France.
"All French people today feel Martinican in their hearts," Sarkozy said in a short speech before the ceremony. "Martinicans should know and understand that the 7,000 kilometres that separate them from the mainland have never counted so little."
In mainland France, the ceremony was followed by a crowd in front of the Paris city hall where it was broadcast onto a giant screen and television stations also carried the proceedings.
In deference to Cesaire's lack of religious belief, the ceremony in the packed stadium took the form of a "cultural homage" with readings from his works.
The interest with which the funeral was followed in France underlined the respect accorded to Cesaire, who was a fixture in Martinique and who regularly received a stream of visiting politicians and writers from the mainland.
The firmness with which he defended his ideas was underlined in 2005 when he refused to meet Sarkozy, then interior minister, over the ruling party's support for a law which proposed to recognise the positive legacy of France's colonial rule.
After study at the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, Cesaire won prominence in 1939 with his "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land", in which he celebrated "negritude" ("blackness") and his relationship with his own land.
A member of the French Communist Party until the Soviet forces bloc crushed Hungary's Communist reformers in 1956, his anti-colonial writing, continued through the 1950s and 1960s, did not prevent him having a long political career.
As well as his literary activities, Cesaire also served as mayor of Fort-de-France for more than half a century and was a member of the French National Assembly.
After early suggestions that Cesaire's remains would be transferred to the Pantheon in Paris, the traditional resting place for France's most honoured heroes, it was finally decided to inter them in Martinique.
Cesaire, who died on Thursday at the age of 94 was commemorated at a state funeral in his native Martinique attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy, government ministers and senior figures from the opposition Socialist Party.
Thousands of ordinary Martinicans had already paid their own homage as Cesaire's body lay in state in the football stadium of the Caribbean island's main town Fort-de-France.
"All French people today feel Martinican in their hearts," Sarkozy said in a short speech before the ceremony. "Martinicans should know and understand that the 7,000 kilometres that separate them from the mainland have never counted so little."
In mainland France, the ceremony was followed by a crowd in front of the Paris city hall where it was broadcast onto a giant screen and television stations also carried the proceedings.
In deference to Cesaire's lack of religious belief, the ceremony in the packed stadium took the form of a "cultural homage" with readings from his works.
The interest with which the funeral was followed in France underlined the respect accorded to Cesaire, who was a fixture in Martinique and who regularly received a stream of visiting politicians and writers from the mainland.
The firmness with which he defended his ideas was underlined in 2005 when he refused to meet Sarkozy, then interior minister, over the ruling party's support for a law which proposed to recognise the positive legacy of France's colonial rule.
After study at the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, Cesaire won prominence in 1939 with his "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land", in which he celebrated "negritude" ("blackness") and his relationship with his own land.
A member of the French Communist Party until the Soviet forces bloc crushed Hungary's Communist reformers in 1956, his anti-colonial writing, continued through the 1950s and 1960s, did not prevent him having a long political career.
As well as his literary activities, Cesaire also served as mayor of Fort-de-France for more than half a century and was a member of the French National Assembly.
After early suggestions that Cesaire's remains would be transferred to the Pantheon in Paris, the traditional resting place for France's most honoured heroes, it was finally decided to inter them in Martinique.
Human Wave Flees Violence in Zimbabwe
Sarah Ngewerume was driven to the river by despair.
She said she had seen gangs loyal to Zimbabwe’s longtime president, Robert Mugabe, beating people — some to death — in the dusty roads of her village. She said Mugabe loyalists were sweeping the countryside with chunks of wood in their hands, demanding to see party identification cards and methodically hunting down opposition supporters.
“It was terrifying,” said Ms. Ngewerume, a 49-year-old former shopkeeper.
Last week she waded across the Limpopo River, bribed a man fixing a border fence on the other side and slipped into a nearby South African farm.
She was among the latest desperate arrivals in what South Africa’s biggest daily newspaper is calling “Mugabe’s Tsunami,” a wave of more than 1,000 people every day who are fleeing Zimbabwe across the Limpopo to escape into South Africa.
When a shallow, glassy river and a few coils of razor wire are the only things separating one of Africa’s most developed countries from one of its most miserable, the inevitable result is millions of illegal border jumpers. But South African and Zimbabwean human rights groups say that the flow of people into South Africa has been surging in the three weeks since Zimbabwe’s disputed election and during the violent crackdown that followed. One Zimbabwean named Washington, who goes back and forth across the border ferrying Super Sure cake flour and Blazing Beef potato snacks, said the government was now using food as a weapon and channeling much of the United Nations-donated grain to supporters of the ruling party.“As we speak,” he said, “people are starving.”
He seemed more defeated than anything else. “People hate the government,” he said. “But they are too scared to fight it.”
Commercials are now running on Zimbabwean TV showing grainy images of captives from the liberation war in the 1970s and reminding citizens not to disobey their leaders, recent arrivals said.
In the past, countless Zimbabwean men escaped to South Africa to drive cabs or work on construction sites and send money home. But these days, many of the Zimbabweans fleeing are women and children willing to take considerable risks to get out for good.
“We were hoping for change and waiting to see what would happen in the election,” said Faithi Mano, one of more than a dozen Zimbabweans interviewed after they had crossed the border last week. “Now, I have decided to quit that place.”
It does not look as if Mr. Mugabe, an 84-year-old liberation hero who has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years, will leave office without a fight. After early election results from the March 29 vote indicated he was losing to the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, the election commission put the brakes on announcing results. The presidential results still have not been released, and a recount begun Saturday in 23 Parliament races is now threatening to drag things out further — the opposition has deemed it “illegal.”
If there is a runoff between Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai, many fear it could get even bloodier. Human Rights Watch issued a report on Saturday saying members of Mr. Mugabe’s party were running “torture camps” where they took opposition supporters for nightly beatings.
On Sunday, the leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said more than 400 supporters had been arrested, 500 attacked, 10 killed and 3,000 families displaced. The party released a detailed, day-by-day chronicle of violence that listed huts being burned, people getting cracked in the head with bottles and farms being invaded. The party blamed Mugabe supporters and sometimes government soldiers.
The government has denied any wrongdoing and accused opposition leaders of treason. Mr. Tsvangirai has said it is too dangerous for him to stay in Zimbabwe and has been spending time in South Africa.
The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe stretches about 150 miles, and it is headache-hot out here. “Beware of crocodile” signs shimmer in the sun, the grass is yellow and crisp, and at night, the trees churn with clouds of heat-crazed insects.
For the people who make it through, there is a pipeline of sympathy waiting on the other side. Fellow Zimbabweans living in South Africa — often perfect strangers — have taken in border jumpers, giving them a safe house and a warm cup of porridge, and helping them along their way to Messina, about 10 miles south, and then onward to the bigger cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Joyce Dube, director of the Southern African Women’s Institute for Migration Affairs, which tracks the border issue, said the only reason more people were not crossing was the recently beefed-up security on the South African side. “It’s getting tougher to get through,” she said.
South African military helicopters thunder over the Limpopo and soldiers prowl the border roads, searching car trunks for human cargo. Crews of men in red jumpsuits drip with sweat as they fix the fences. But it is a cat-and-mouse game. No sooner have they patched a hole than it is punched through again.
The fence runs for miles, a shining metal snake going up and down the tawny hills. It used to be deadly, electrified by a high-voltage current. That was in the 1980s, when South Africa and newly independent Zimbabwe were practically at war. Back then, many people were going the other way, fleeing South Africa’s repressive apartheid government to escape to Zimbabwe.
At the time, Zimbabwe was one of Africa’s stars. Mr. Mugabe had turned a relatively small, landlocked country into an economic powerhouse that produced beef, grain and tobacco.
“Bob Mugabe was my hero,” said a white Zimbabwean farmer who drove into Messina the other day for supplies. He did not want to give his name because he went on to criticize Mr. Mugabe’s more recent policies and said he was afraid he could be evicted from his farm for doing so. “I know it sounds funny, but it’s true. You have no idea how beautiful Zim was.” Zim is the affectionate nickname for Zimbabwe.
But in the late 1990s, Mr. Mugabe felt he needed to deliver on long-promised land reforms, and Britain, the former colonial ruler, was stalling on paying for them. Mr. Mugabe then encouraged blacks to seize white-owned farms. Whites fled, industrialized agriculture crashed, and today the inflation rate is more than 150,000 percent. Supermarkets often have no food, and 80 percent of the people have no jobs.
The Movement for Democratic Change ran on these woes, and in 2002 it nearly won power, though the elections were marred by violence and intimidation.
This time there was hope that things would be different. Recent arrivals say that a few weeks before the vote, the bullying suddenly seemed to let up — perhaps, some thought, because the ruling party was sure it would win. But when the first results showed Mr. Mugabe losing badly, the government went silent. There were some talks about Mr. Mugabe stepping aside. Then the crackdown began.
Ms. Ngewerume, the escaped former shopkeeper, said opposition supporters in her village in central Zimbabwe became easy targets because they had danced and sung in the streets after early results were tacked up on polling station doors. When the final results did not come, they went into hiding. But the thugs found them anyway, she said.
“I can’t see how Mugabe could win again after all this,” she said.
But, she added, many opposition supporters probably would not take the chance again to cross “the old man,” as Mr. Mugabe is often called.
Ms. Ngewerume was visibly pained just talking politics as she stood under a tree on a farm near the border. “I just want to go there,” she said, stabbing her finger vaguely south, in the direction of Johannesburg. “I’m just struggling to go forward to get something better.”
From New York Times
She said she had seen gangs loyal to Zimbabwe’s longtime president, Robert Mugabe, beating people — some to death — in the dusty roads of her village. She said Mugabe loyalists were sweeping the countryside with chunks of wood in their hands, demanding to see party identification cards and methodically hunting down opposition supporters.
“It was terrifying,” said Ms. Ngewerume, a 49-year-old former shopkeeper.
Last week she waded across the Limpopo River, bribed a man fixing a border fence on the other side and slipped into a nearby South African farm.
She was among the latest desperate arrivals in what South Africa’s biggest daily newspaper is calling “Mugabe’s Tsunami,” a wave of more than 1,000 people every day who are fleeing Zimbabwe across the Limpopo to escape into South Africa.
When a shallow, glassy river and a few coils of razor wire are the only things separating one of Africa’s most developed countries from one of its most miserable, the inevitable result is millions of illegal border jumpers. But South African and Zimbabwean human rights groups say that the flow of people into South Africa has been surging in the three weeks since Zimbabwe’s disputed election and during the violent crackdown that followed. One Zimbabwean named Washington, who goes back and forth across the border ferrying Super Sure cake flour and Blazing Beef potato snacks, said the government was now using food as a weapon and channeling much of the United Nations-donated grain to supporters of the ruling party.“As we speak,” he said, “people are starving.”
He seemed more defeated than anything else. “People hate the government,” he said. “But they are too scared to fight it.”
Commercials are now running on Zimbabwean TV showing grainy images of captives from the liberation war in the 1970s and reminding citizens not to disobey their leaders, recent arrivals said.
In the past, countless Zimbabwean men escaped to South Africa to drive cabs or work on construction sites and send money home. But these days, many of the Zimbabweans fleeing are women and children willing to take considerable risks to get out for good.
“We were hoping for change and waiting to see what would happen in the election,” said Faithi Mano, one of more than a dozen Zimbabweans interviewed after they had crossed the border last week. “Now, I have decided to quit that place.”
It does not look as if Mr. Mugabe, an 84-year-old liberation hero who has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years, will leave office without a fight. After early election results from the March 29 vote indicated he was losing to the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, the election commission put the brakes on announcing results. The presidential results still have not been released, and a recount begun Saturday in 23 Parliament races is now threatening to drag things out further — the opposition has deemed it “illegal.”
If there is a runoff between Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai, many fear it could get even bloodier. Human Rights Watch issued a report on Saturday saying members of Mr. Mugabe’s party were running “torture camps” where they took opposition supporters for nightly beatings.
On Sunday, the leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said more than 400 supporters had been arrested, 500 attacked, 10 killed and 3,000 families displaced. The party released a detailed, day-by-day chronicle of violence that listed huts being burned, people getting cracked in the head with bottles and farms being invaded. The party blamed Mugabe supporters and sometimes government soldiers.
The government has denied any wrongdoing and accused opposition leaders of treason. Mr. Tsvangirai has said it is too dangerous for him to stay in Zimbabwe and has been spending time in South Africa.
The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe stretches about 150 miles, and it is headache-hot out here. “Beware of crocodile” signs shimmer in the sun, the grass is yellow and crisp, and at night, the trees churn with clouds of heat-crazed insects.
For the people who make it through, there is a pipeline of sympathy waiting on the other side. Fellow Zimbabweans living in South Africa — often perfect strangers — have taken in border jumpers, giving them a safe house and a warm cup of porridge, and helping them along their way to Messina, about 10 miles south, and then onward to the bigger cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Joyce Dube, director of the Southern African Women’s Institute for Migration Affairs, which tracks the border issue, said the only reason more people were not crossing was the recently beefed-up security on the South African side. “It’s getting tougher to get through,” she said.
South African military helicopters thunder over the Limpopo and soldiers prowl the border roads, searching car trunks for human cargo. Crews of men in red jumpsuits drip with sweat as they fix the fences. But it is a cat-and-mouse game. No sooner have they patched a hole than it is punched through again.
The fence runs for miles, a shining metal snake going up and down the tawny hills. It used to be deadly, electrified by a high-voltage current. That was in the 1980s, when South Africa and newly independent Zimbabwe were practically at war. Back then, many people were going the other way, fleeing South Africa’s repressive apartheid government to escape to Zimbabwe.
At the time, Zimbabwe was one of Africa’s stars. Mr. Mugabe had turned a relatively small, landlocked country into an economic powerhouse that produced beef, grain and tobacco.
“Bob Mugabe was my hero,” said a white Zimbabwean farmer who drove into Messina the other day for supplies. He did not want to give his name because he went on to criticize Mr. Mugabe’s more recent policies and said he was afraid he could be evicted from his farm for doing so. “I know it sounds funny, but it’s true. You have no idea how beautiful Zim was.” Zim is the affectionate nickname for Zimbabwe.
But in the late 1990s, Mr. Mugabe felt he needed to deliver on long-promised land reforms, and Britain, the former colonial ruler, was stalling on paying for them. Mr. Mugabe then encouraged blacks to seize white-owned farms. Whites fled, industrialized agriculture crashed, and today the inflation rate is more than 150,000 percent. Supermarkets often have no food, and 80 percent of the people have no jobs.
The Movement for Democratic Change ran on these woes, and in 2002 it nearly won power, though the elections were marred by violence and intimidation.
This time there was hope that things would be different. Recent arrivals say that a few weeks before the vote, the bullying suddenly seemed to let up — perhaps, some thought, because the ruling party was sure it would win. But when the first results showed Mr. Mugabe losing badly, the government went silent. There were some talks about Mr. Mugabe stepping aside. Then the crackdown began.
Ms. Ngewerume, the escaped former shopkeeper, said opposition supporters in her village in central Zimbabwe became easy targets because they had danced and sung in the streets after early results were tacked up on polling station doors. When the final results did not come, they went into hiding. But the thugs found them anyway, she said.
“I can’t see how Mugabe could win again after all this,” she said.
But, she added, many opposition supporters probably would not take the chance again to cross “the old man,” as Mr. Mugabe is often called.
Ms. Ngewerume was visibly pained just talking politics as she stood under a tree on a farm near the border. “I just want to go there,” she said, stabbing her finger vaguely south, in the direction of Johannesburg. “I’m just struggling to go forward to get something better.”
From New York Times
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Black Colleges Seek More Support from Alumni
Making money, administrators at Virginia State University have learned, takes money.
The majority black school has spent millions of state dollars renovating buildings, in part, to heighten school pride among alumni they hope will respond with their wallets.
It's working: Alumni support has risen from 7 percent five years ago to 10 percent, and individual gifts have increased from hundreds of dollars to thousands, said development vice president Robert Turner as he showed off libraries and academic buildings recently.
"This," Turner said, surveying the hilltop campus, "obviously converts to good will."
Black colleges are refreshing outdated efforts to solicit former students, adding specialized staff, crafting personalized "asks," improving campuses and increasingly using Internet outreach to augment shrinking state and private funds with alumni dollars.
They're targeting a wider base — more blacks are graduating — and younger alumni who've moved into a broader range of careers from what are no longer mostly teachers colleges.
At VSU, efforts as subtle as adding a donor recognition dinner have heartened alumni like Anthony Spence, 41.
"If I'm going to give my money to a university, I want to be sure that it's used for the very best," said Spence, a Miramar, Fla., entrepreneur who's given some $60,000.
Administrators plan computer network upgrades allowing for more targeted online giving at Atlanta's prestigious Morehouse College, where alumni contributions dipped from about $3.1 million in 2006 to $1.3 million last year.
And at Wiley College, in east Texas, officials will use a nearly $840,000 grant from the United Negro College Fund to help scout 200 major gift prospects a year, create new online giving opportunities and beef up staff.
The school, featured in Denzel Washington's 2007 film, "The Great Debaters," has nine staffers focused on institutional advancement.
"At some of the larger, predominant institutions, they may have an advancement staff of say 20, 30, 50 people," said Karen Helton, vice president for institutional advancement. "That's how the Harvards and the Stanfords and the UCLAs generate billions."
The measures are commonplace at some mainstream institutions.
But they represent a major investment at the nation's more than 100 historically black colleges and universities, where resources often are stretched.
It foreshadows an expected slowdown in levels of state higher education funding, which averaged a roughly 8 percent increase nationwide in the past fiscal year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Meanwhile, predominantly white universities are pushing harder to attract high-achieving black students. Often, it's with the type of scholarships alumni dollars fund.
"There is an urgency about this as we look at our network of institutions and look at trying to sustain them," said Elfred Pinkard, executive director of the Institute for Capacity Building, part of the United Negro College Fund that represents 39 private historically black schools.
Since 2006, the institute has granted more than $8.1 million to 29 member schools for projects that include increasing alumni support.
"There was a recognition that alum of these institutions represented a very important constituency that had not been tapped in any systematic way," Pinkard said.
Founded to serve blacks amid segregation, the colleges have kept tuition low to help underprivileged students.
That leaves little extra cash for things like fundraising, said University of Pennsylvania assistant professor Marybeth Gasman, author of "Supporting Alma Mater: Successful Strategies for Securing Funds from Black College Alumni."
When she studied the colleges in 2001, "there were still some small black colleges that had one person in a room with a card file and that's how they were keeping track of their alumni."
The colleges have historically been reluctant to ask former students, already paying off loans, to give more money; black alumni, meanwhile, haven't always had the income of graduates from predominantly white schools, Gasman said.
"Their alumni have had more access to income, to assets, and thus could give back," Gasman said, adding blacks also tend to give more to churches.
But at Norfolk State University, alumni giving has grown from 2 percent to 8.2 percent since 2000, nudged, officials say, by graduates who are more moneyed at younger ages.
"A lot of folks who may have graduated from Norfolk State in the traditional programs, like education (or) social work went on to practice in those fields," said Phillip Adams, interim vice president for university advancement.
"As we get some of the majors that we have now, for example the optical engineering, there are individuals leaving college with decent salaries," he said.
And there are potentially more of them: 142,420 bachelor's degrees were conferred to blacks in 2005-2006, up from fewer than 92,000 a decade earlier, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Hampton University is directly targeting the young alumni base.
Last fall, the school launched a Facebook-like online community where alumni can find peers, and later, click to donate to the private school.
Harriet Davis, assistant vice president for development, said officials even tweaked the language of gifting for business-minded young alumni: They're encouraged to "invest" rather than "give."
But among black colleges' top resources, say some, is the loyalty alumni feel to these schools known for opening their arms to all.
"Many of our alum respond to our institutions as providing an opportunity when many other institutions would not have. So they give back," Pinkard said.
By DIONNE WALKER Associated Press Writer
The majority black school has spent millions of state dollars renovating buildings, in part, to heighten school pride among alumni they hope will respond with their wallets.
It's working: Alumni support has risen from 7 percent five years ago to 10 percent, and individual gifts have increased from hundreds of dollars to thousands, said development vice president Robert Turner as he showed off libraries and academic buildings recently.
"This," Turner said, surveying the hilltop campus, "obviously converts to good will."
Black colleges are refreshing outdated efforts to solicit former students, adding specialized staff, crafting personalized "asks," improving campuses and increasingly using Internet outreach to augment shrinking state and private funds with alumni dollars.
They're targeting a wider base — more blacks are graduating — and younger alumni who've moved into a broader range of careers from what are no longer mostly teachers colleges.
At VSU, efforts as subtle as adding a donor recognition dinner have heartened alumni like Anthony Spence, 41.
"If I'm going to give my money to a university, I want to be sure that it's used for the very best," said Spence, a Miramar, Fla., entrepreneur who's given some $60,000.
Administrators plan computer network upgrades allowing for more targeted online giving at Atlanta's prestigious Morehouse College, where alumni contributions dipped from about $3.1 million in 2006 to $1.3 million last year.
And at Wiley College, in east Texas, officials will use a nearly $840,000 grant from the United Negro College Fund to help scout 200 major gift prospects a year, create new online giving opportunities and beef up staff.
The school, featured in Denzel Washington's 2007 film, "The Great Debaters," has nine staffers focused on institutional advancement.
"At some of the larger, predominant institutions, they may have an advancement staff of say 20, 30, 50 people," said Karen Helton, vice president for institutional advancement. "That's how the Harvards and the Stanfords and the UCLAs generate billions."
The measures are commonplace at some mainstream institutions.
But they represent a major investment at the nation's more than 100 historically black colleges and universities, where resources often are stretched.
It foreshadows an expected slowdown in levels of state higher education funding, which averaged a roughly 8 percent increase nationwide in the past fiscal year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Meanwhile, predominantly white universities are pushing harder to attract high-achieving black students. Often, it's with the type of scholarships alumni dollars fund.
"There is an urgency about this as we look at our network of institutions and look at trying to sustain them," said Elfred Pinkard, executive director of the Institute for Capacity Building, part of the United Negro College Fund that represents 39 private historically black schools.
Since 2006, the institute has granted more than $8.1 million to 29 member schools for projects that include increasing alumni support.
"There was a recognition that alum of these institutions represented a very important constituency that had not been tapped in any systematic way," Pinkard said.
Founded to serve blacks amid segregation, the colleges have kept tuition low to help underprivileged students.
That leaves little extra cash for things like fundraising, said University of Pennsylvania assistant professor Marybeth Gasman, author of "Supporting Alma Mater: Successful Strategies for Securing Funds from Black College Alumni."
When she studied the colleges in 2001, "there were still some small black colleges that had one person in a room with a card file and that's how they were keeping track of their alumni."
The colleges have historically been reluctant to ask former students, already paying off loans, to give more money; black alumni, meanwhile, haven't always had the income of graduates from predominantly white schools, Gasman said.
"Their alumni have had more access to income, to assets, and thus could give back," Gasman said, adding blacks also tend to give more to churches.
But at Norfolk State University, alumni giving has grown from 2 percent to 8.2 percent since 2000, nudged, officials say, by graduates who are more moneyed at younger ages.
"A lot of folks who may have graduated from Norfolk State in the traditional programs, like education (or) social work went on to practice in those fields," said Phillip Adams, interim vice president for university advancement.
"As we get some of the majors that we have now, for example the optical engineering, there are individuals leaving college with decent salaries," he said.
And there are potentially more of them: 142,420 bachelor's degrees were conferred to blacks in 2005-2006, up from fewer than 92,000 a decade earlier, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Hampton University is directly targeting the young alumni base.
Last fall, the school launched a Facebook-like online community where alumni can find peers, and later, click to donate to the private school.
Harriet Davis, assistant vice president for development, said officials even tweaked the language of gifting for business-minded young alumni: They're encouraged to "invest" rather than "give."
But among black colleges' top resources, say some, is the loyalty alumni feel to these schools known for opening their arms to all.
"Many of our alum respond to our institutions as providing an opportunity when many other institutions would not have. So they give back," Pinkard said.
By DIONNE WALKER Associated Press Writer
Zimbabwe Launches Ballot Recount
Election officials in Zimbabwe have started recounting some of the votes cast in disputed polls held last month.
The recount in 23 of 210 constituencies could overturn the parliamentary result which saw Zanu-PF lose its majority.
Results of the presidential poll, which the opposition MDC says it also won, have not been released. It is thought the recount may lead to a run-off vote.
Meanwhile, a Chinese ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe has left a South African port after workers would not unload it.
The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, is adamant he won the presidential election outright.
His party has said Mr Tsvangirai will not contest a run-off unless certain conditions are met - such as a secure environment, with thorough international monitoring.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says it cannot release the results until it investigates anomalies.
The MDC's secretary general, Tendai Biti, said the party would not accept any recount in respect of parliamentary seats "because ballot boxes have been stuffed".
"Those ballot boxes have become pregnant and reproduced," he said.
Suspicion of bias
On Friday, the high court rejected an application by the MDC to stop a partial recount taking place this weekend.
"I find no merit in the application," said Justice Antonia Guvava. "Accordingly, the application is dismissed with costs."
The ruling paved the way for all presidential, parliamentary, senate and council votes cast in 23 out of 210 constituencies to be recounted.
A change in the parliamentary result by nine seats could see President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party regain its lost majority in the assembly.
The BBC's Will Ross said the independent electoral commission's decision to withhold the results and then recount the ballot papers has led to widespread suspicion of bias, especially as Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF complained about the initial count.
On Friday, Mr Mugabe gave his first speech since the disputed elections.
Thousands of people gathered at the Gwanzura Stadium in Highfield, a suburb of Harare, to hear Mr Mugabe speak at a rally celebrating the anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence from Britain and the end of white minority rule.
The 84-year-old played a key role in the 1970s war of independence and took power as Zimbabwe's first prime minister in 1980 on a wave of popular support.
Dockers intervene
Mr Mugabe took to the stage to rapturous applause to celebrate what he described as the day on which the "nation finally shook off the chains of British racist settler colonialism".
In his speech Mr Mugabe denounced both the opposition MDC and Britain and called on Zimbabweans "to maintain utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations and the machinations of our other detractors, who are allies of Britain".
Meanwhile, Chinese cargo ship the An Yue Jiang was forced to move after a South African court refused to allow the weapons destined for Zimbabwe which are on board to be transported across the country.
Dock workers had refused to unload the weapons shipment from the vessel, which had been anchored off the port of Durban for four days.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union had said it did "not agree with the position of the government not to intervene".
Reports say the An Yue Jiang is carrying three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds.
From BBC
The recount in 23 of 210 constituencies could overturn the parliamentary result which saw Zanu-PF lose its majority.
Results of the presidential poll, which the opposition MDC says it also won, have not been released. It is thought the recount may lead to a run-off vote.
Meanwhile, a Chinese ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe has left a South African port after workers would not unload it.
The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, is adamant he won the presidential election outright.
His party has said Mr Tsvangirai will not contest a run-off unless certain conditions are met - such as a secure environment, with thorough international monitoring.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says it cannot release the results until it investigates anomalies.
The MDC's secretary general, Tendai Biti, said the party would not accept any recount in respect of parliamentary seats "because ballot boxes have been stuffed".
"Those ballot boxes have become pregnant and reproduced," he said.
Suspicion of bias
On Friday, the high court rejected an application by the MDC to stop a partial recount taking place this weekend.
"I find no merit in the application," said Justice Antonia Guvava. "Accordingly, the application is dismissed with costs."
The ruling paved the way for all presidential, parliamentary, senate and council votes cast in 23 out of 210 constituencies to be recounted.
A change in the parliamentary result by nine seats could see President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party regain its lost majority in the assembly.
The BBC's Will Ross said the independent electoral commission's decision to withhold the results and then recount the ballot papers has led to widespread suspicion of bias, especially as Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF complained about the initial count.
On Friday, Mr Mugabe gave his first speech since the disputed elections.
Thousands of people gathered at the Gwanzura Stadium in Highfield, a suburb of Harare, to hear Mr Mugabe speak at a rally celebrating the anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence from Britain and the end of white minority rule.
The 84-year-old played a key role in the 1970s war of independence and took power as Zimbabwe's first prime minister in 1980 on a wave of popular support.
Dockers intervene
Mr Mugabe took to the stage to rapturous applause to celebrate what he described as the day on which the "nation finally shook off the chains of British racist settler colonialism".
In his speech Mr Mugabe denounced both the opposition MDC and Britain and called on Zimbabweans "to maintain utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations and the machinations of our other detractors, who are allies of Britain".
Meanwhile, Chinese cargo ship the An Yue Jiang was forced to move after a South African court refused to allow the weapons destined for Zimbabwe which are on board to be transported across the country.
Dock workers had refused to unload the weapons shipment from the vessel, which had been anchored off the port of Durban for four days.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union had said it did "not agree with the position of the government not to intervene".
Reports say the An Yue Jiang is carrying three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds.
From BBC
Black Community Takes Stand: 'Harlem is Not for Sale!'
Hundreds of Black activist lined Harlem’s 125th Street on April 13 in a protest against real estate developers and banks that are forcing out the people of this historic Black neighborhood.
The protesters formed a human chain, called Hands Across Harlem, from east to west along this major and famous street, the backbone of the community.
Led by the Coalition to Save Harlem, Black community and political leaders—including revolutionaries with many decades in the struggle—insisted that Harlem has been and will belong to the people, not to greedy landlords or billionaire mayors.
Housing activist Nellie Bailey told WW, “Hands Across Harlem is in the best tradition of our long-standing history of resistance against exploitation and encroachment—including legendary tenant activist Jesse Gray, who organized hundreds of rent strikes in the 1950s and 1960s; Queen Mother Moore, who led a march across Harlem up to the Audubon Ballroom in 1966; the 2000 Anti-Gentrification march across 125th Street organized by the Harlem Tenants Council, and the 2005 anti-war march that started on 125th Street. In the final analysis the question is, how do we sustain a movement, what is movement building and how do we come together to form a united front despite our differences.”
A rally followed at the Harlem State Office Building, where Harlem tenants and supporters denounced rezoning plans and gentrification. Even the first Black-owned Harlem store, a record shop right off 125th Street, is threatened.
Speakers demanded the means to build and maintain affordable housing in order to preserve this oppressed community’s vital culture, history and self-determination.
by Anne Pruden from emergingminds.org
The protesters formed a human chain, called Hands Across Harlem, from east to west along this major and famous street, the backbone of the community.
Led by the Coalition to Save Harlem, Black community and political leaders—including revolutionaries with many decades in the struggle—insisted that Harlem has been and will belong to the people, not to greedy landlords or billionaire mayors.
Housing activist Nellie Bailey told WW, “Hands Across Harlem is in the best tradition of our long-standing history of resistance against exploitation and encroachment—including legendary tenant activist Jesse Gray, who organized hundreds of rent strikes in the 1950s and 1960s; Queen Mother Moore, who led a march across Harlem up to the Audubon Ballroom in 1966; the 2000 Anti-Gentrification march across 125th Street organized by the Harlem Tenants Council, and the 2005 anti-war march that started on 125th Street. In the final analysis the question is, how do we sustain a movement, what is movement building and how do we come together to form a united front despite our differences.”
A rally followed at the Harlem State Office Building, where Harlem tenants and supporters denounced rezoning plans and gentrification. Even the first Black-owned Harlem store, a record shop right off 125th Street, is threatened.
Speakers demanded the means to build and maintain affordable housing in order to preserve this oppressed community’s vital culture, history and self-determination.
by Anne Pruden from emergingminds.org
Friday, April 18, 2008
South African Unions Protest Mounting Food Prices
Hundreds of trade unionists marched in South Africa's largest city on Thursday in a protest over rising food prices and the country's electricity crisis.
Around 1,500 demonstrators marched on a branch of retail chain Pick'n'Pay in Johannesburg city centre to demand a hold on food prices and an end to price-fixing.
"We call for a moratorium on food prices," said Violet Seboni, second vice-president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, as she handed over the petition.
Senior general manager Kevin Korb said the company shared the concern among all South Africans. "This is not just a South African issue, it is a global issue," he told the protesters.
Rising inflation, which increased from 9.3 percent to 9.8 percent in February, and petrol costs have caused prices for basic goods such as bread, oil and milk to increase in South Africa in recent months.
Violent riots have broken out in other countries in recent weeks over similar rising food costs, including Argentina, Haiti, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal and Egypt.
Demonstrators also visited the offices of national power supplier Eskom to protest at ongoing power cuts and the threat of major price hikes being considered to fund infrastructure improvement.
From AFP
Around 1,500 demonstrators marched on a branch of retail chain Pick'n'Pay in Johannesburg city centre to demand a hold on food prices and an end to price-fixing.
"We call for a moratorium on food prices," said Violet Seboni, second vice-president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, as she handed over the petition.
Senior general manager Kevin Korb said the company shared the concern among all South Africans. "This is not just a South African issue, it is a global issue," he told the protesters.
Rising inflation, which increased from 9.3 percent to 9.8 percent in February, and petrol costs have caused prices for basic goods such as bread, oil and milk to increase in South Africa in recent months.
Violent riots have broken out in other countries in recent weeks over similar rising food costs, including Argentina, Haiti, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal and Egypt.
Demonstrators also visited the offices of national power supplier Eskom to protest at ongoing power cuts and the threat of major price hikes being considered to fund infrastructure improvement.
From AFP
UN to Step Up Food Aid for Haiti Following Riots Over Prices
United Nations programs will distribute 8,000 tons of food and other help for Haitians in coming days as part of efforts to confront unrest over rising prices that set off recent rioting, officials said Thursday.
U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said food provided by the World Food Program will focus on children, pregnant women and nursing mothers in the north, west and central regions of Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Anger over surging food prices has threatened stability in the Caribbean nation, which has long been haunted by chronic hunger. Haitian lawmakers fired Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis over the rioting.
Mamadou Bah, spokesman for the U.N. country team in Haiti, said the 8,000 tons are available stock and will be distributed over the next two months starting Thursday.
The U.N. Children's Fund will double its child feeding program to combat malnutrition and spend some $1.6 million on water and sanitation projects in the northwest and Artibonite regions, Montas said.
Globally, food prices have risen 40 percent since mid-2007.
Haiti is particularly affected because it imports nearly all of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice. Once productive farmland has been abandoned as farmers struggle to grow crops in soil devastated by erosion, deforestation, flooding and tropical storms.
Protests and looting in Port-au-Prince left at least seven dead last week, including a Nigerian officer in the 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force who was pulled from a car and killed Saturday. Three Sri Lankan peacekeepers were injured by gunfire early last week.
Brazilian members of the U.N. peacekeeping force distributed 14 tons of rice, beans, sugar and cooking oil to 1,500 families in the capital's sprawling Cite Soleil slum Tuesday.
The World Food Program and the U.N. mission in Haiti continue to support various projects aimed at creating jobs, Montas said. Some 2,500 Haitians are already employed by these projects which have a combined budget of $2.3 million, she said.
By CARLEY PETESCH
U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said food provided by the World Food Program will focus on children, pregnant women and nursing mothers in the north, west and central regions of Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Anger over surging food prices has threatened stability in the Caribbean nation, which has long been haunted by chronic hunger. Haitian lawmakers fired Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis over the rioting.
Mamadou Bah, spokesman for the U.N. country team in Haiti, said the 8,000 tons are available stock and will be distributed over the next two months starting Thursday.
The U.N. Children's Fund will double its child feeding program to combat malnutrition and spend some $1.6 million on water and sanitation projects in the northwest and Artibonite regions, Montas said.
Globally, food prices have risen 40 percent since mid-2007.
Haiti is particularly affected because it imports nearly all of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice. Once productive farmland has been abandoned as farmers struggle to grow crops in soil devastated by erosion, deforestation, flooding and tropical storms.
Protests and looting in Port-au-Prince left at least seven dead last week, including a Nigerian officer in the 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force who was pulled from a car and killed Saturday. Three Sri Lankan peacekeepers were injured by gunfire early last week.
Brazilian members of the U.N. peacekeeping force distributed 14 tons of rice, beans, sugar and cooking oil to 1,500 families in the capital's sprawling Cite Soleil slum Tuesday.
The World Food Program and the U.N. mission in Haiti continue to support various projects aimed at creating jobs, Montas said. Some 2,500 Haitians are already employed by these projects which have a combined budget of $2.3 million, she said.
By CARLEY PETESCH
Probes Wanted on Sludge Research in Poor Neighborhoods
Three more lawmakers are seeking investigations of federally funded research in poor, black neighborhoods that resulted in sewage sludge being spread on several families' lawns in attempt to determine whether it could combat lead poisoning in children.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Elijah Cummings, both D-Md., wrote to departing Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson on Thursday asking why and how HUD picked nine Baltimore families for the study and whether they got adequate information about the potential harm. Jackson's last day in office is Friday.
"We are strong supporters of federal efforts to abate the damage caused by lead paint. Yet this study has raised serious questions about the safety of the families who participated in the study," they wrote.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also wants the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of which he is a member, to pursue an investigation into the sludge research.
Cummings also asked for a hearing by the oversight committee's domestic policy subcommittee that would include looking at the role played by two private Baltimore institutions involved in the research, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
He said he was alarmed "that researchers did nothing to assess the potential negative health outcomes of children ingesting and living near the sludge. The health risks associated with such a study are clear to even the most casual observer."
The Associated Press reported Sunday that the mix of human and industrial wastes from sewage treatment plants was spread on the lawns of nine low-income families in Baltimore and a vacant lot next to an elementary school in East St. Louis, Ill.
Researchers were trying to show whether lead in the soil from chipped paint and car exhausts would bind to the sludge.
"This article raises serious allegations that federal grants may have been used for unethical research as well as questions about the wisdom of using taxpayer dollars for these grants," Issa wrote in a letter Tuesday to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the committee.
The research conducted in 2001 and 2002 was funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Researchers said the families were assured the sludge was safe, but were not told that there have been some health concerns over heavy metals, pharmaceutical residues, chemicals and the use of sludge.
The study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the ability of soil to trap more harmful metals, including lead, cadmium and zinc, causing the combination to pass safely through a child's body if eaten. Other researchers disputed that finding. An AP review of grant documents found no evidence of any medical follow-up.
Mikulski and Cummings said in their letter to Jackson that they also wanted to know what safeguards HUD put in place in awarding contracts for the research and how the government monitored it.
Earlier in the week, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that she chairs would convene a hearing before the end of summer to investigate the research, the health impacts of using sludge as a fertilizer and the government's promotion of the practice over the past three decades.
The head of the Maryland chapter of the NAACP also has asked Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler to investigate the circumstances of the research and whether participants in the Baltimore study gave informed consent. Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Gansler, said the attorney general's office would look into the matter.
By JOHN HEILPRIN from the AP
Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Elijah Cummings, both D-Md., wrote to departing Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson on Thursday asking why and how HUD picked nine Baltimore families for the study and whether they got adequate information about the potential harm. Jackson's last day in office is Friday.
"We are strong supporters of federal efforts to abate the damage caused by lead paint. Yet this study has raised serious questions about the safety of the families who participated in the study," they wrote.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also wants the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of which he is a member, to pursue an investigation into the sludge research.
Cummings also asked for a hearing by the oversight committee's domestic policy subcommittee that would include looking at the role played by two private Baltimore institutions involved in the research, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
He said he was alarmed "that researchers did nothing to assess the potential negative health outcomes of children ingesting and living near the sludge. The health risks associated with such a study are clear to even the most casual observer."
The Associated Press reported Sunday that the mix of human and industrial wastes from sewage treatment plants was spread on the lawns of nine low-income families in Baltimore and a vacant lot next to an elementary school in East St. Louis, Ill.
Researchers were trying to show whether lead in the soil from chipped paint and car exhausts would bind to the sludge.
"This article raises serious allegations that federal grants may have been used for unethical research as well as questions about the wisdom of using taxpayer dollars for these grants," Issa wrote in a letter Tuesday to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the committee.
The research conducted in 2001 and 2002 was funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Researchers said the families were assured the sludge was safe, but were not told that there have been some health concerns over heavy metals, pharmaceutical residues, chemicals and the use of sludge.
The study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the ability of soil to trap more harmful metals, including lead, cadmium and zinc, causing the combination to pass safely through a child's body if eaten. Other researchers disputed that finding. An AP review of grant documents found no evidence of any medical follow-up.
Mikulski and Cummings said in their letter to Jackson that they also wanted to know what safeguards HUD put in place in awarding contracts for the research and how the government monitored it.
Earlier in the week, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that she chairs would convene a hearing before the end of summer to investigate the research, the health impacts of using sludge as a fertilizer and the government's promotion of the practice over the past three decades.
The head of the Maryland chapter of the NAACP also has asked Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler to investigate the circumstances of the research and whether participants in the Baltimore study gave informed consent. Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Gansler, said the attorney general's office would look into the matter.
By JOHN HEILPRIN from the AP
Thursday, April 17, 2008
No Apology or Regret for Slavery to Be Issued by Nebraska
A resolution that expresses "profound regret" for slavery and condemns racial discrimination against African Americans, but doesn't include an apology, won't be considered by lawmakers this year.
Senator Dwite Pedersen of Omaha asked the Legislature to pass over his resolution, partially because he said he could no longer support it. He had wanted the resolution to include an apology.
Members of a legislative committee decided last week to remove the resolution's reference to an apology. They pointed out that the Nebraska Territory banned slavery in 1861, the year the Civil War started.
Senator Ernie Chambers of Omaha said that the way the resolution was handled showed "the depth and breadth of racism in this state."
From AP
Nebraska Legislature: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov
Senator Dwite Pedersen of Omaha asked the Legislature to pass over his resolution, partially because he said he could no longer support it. He had wanted the resolution to include an apology.
Members of a legislative committee decided last week to remove the resolution's reference to an apology. They pointed out that the Nebraska Territory banned slavery in 1861, the year the Civil War started.
Senator Ernie Chambers of Omaha said that the way the resolution was handled showed "the depth and breadth of racism in this state."
From AP
Nebraska Legislature: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov
Kenya Set for Coalition Cabinet
Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga has officially become prime minister at the swearing-in of a coalition cabinet.
There was applause at State House after Mr Odinga read out his oath of office to be "faithful to the president of the Republic of Kenya".
His cabinet post is a key element of the power-sharing deal with President Mwai Kibaki to end a post-poll crisis.
Some 1,500 people died and 600,000 fled their homes in violence after a disputed presidential poll in December.
Mr Odinga, whose Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is the largest party in parliament, said the presidential election was rigged in favour of Mr Kibaki.
The rivals signed a deal in February which prescribed an equal share of power.
Doubts
After a short piece of ceremonial music, there were Muslim, Christian and Hindu prayers before Mr Odinga came forward to take his oath of office in Swahili.
"I, Raila Amolo Odinga, do swear that I will be faithful to the president of the Republic of Kenya and to serve it with all my heart and that I shall preserve, protect and defend the constitution of Kenya by law established. So help me God."
He said the cabinet's top priority would be to resettle those still living rough because of the violence and paid tribute to the "patience" of the Kenyan people while the negotiations were conducted.
He promised a "new, inclusive" Kenya.
"We can now consign Kenya's past failures of grand corruption and grand tribalism to our history books."
The ceremony was presided over by President Kibaki at State House, his official residence.
Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga were allies in the 2002 election but fell out when the president did not name Mr Odinga prime minister after taking office, as they had reportedly agreed.
Some question whether the two men and their supporters can work together after such a bitter dispute.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who mediated the deal, was among the dignitaries who witnessed the ceremony in the capital, Nairobi.
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and other East African leaders were also in attendance.
The crisis in Kenya had an impact across the region.
Mr Annan said much work remained to be done, but he hoped the new government would form a "cohesive, effective and productive team".
The government includes 40 ministers and 52 deputy ministers, with posts evenly divided across the country's ethnic communities.
It is the largest cabinet that Kenya has seen since independence.
Big team
There has been criticism of its size and the cost to Kenyan taxpayers, says the BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi.
Each minister is to be paid about $16,000 a month and entitled to two officials cars and five security personnel - and in the case of Mr Odinga, 45 security personnel.
Mr Odinga has said that he knows people would have preferred a leaner cabinet, but it was a price that had to be paid to balance everyone's interests.
Our correspondent says that other than resettling the displaced, longer term challenges will be constitutional change and land reform.
The political violence ignited land disputes between rival ethnic groups.
Another challenge will be to curb corruption which has blighted Kenya's government for many years.
Mr Kibaki was first elected on a pledge to tackle corruption but donors say little has changed.
From BBC News
There was applause at State House after Mr Odinga read out his oath of office to be "faithful to the president of the Republic of Kenya".
His cabinet post is a key element of the power-sharing deal with President Mwai Kibaki to end a post-poll crisis.
Some 1,500 people died and 600,000 fled their homes in violence after a disputed presidential poll in December.
Mr Odinga, whose Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is the largest party in parliament, said the presidential election was rigged in favour of Mr Kibaki.
The rivals signed a deal in February which prescribed an equal share of power.
Doubts
After a short piece of ceremonial music, there were Muslim, Christian and Hindu prayers before Mr Odinga came forward to take his oath of office in Swahili.
"I, Raila Amolo Odinga, do swear that I will be faithful to the president of the Republic of Kenya and to serve it with all my heart and that I shall preserve, protect and defend the constitution of Kenya by law established. So help me God."
He said the cabinet's top priority would be to resettle those still living rough because of the violence and paid tribute to the "patience" of the Kenyan people while the negotiations were conducted.
He promised a "new, inclusive" Kenya.
"We can now consign Kenya's past failures of grand corruption and grand tribalism to our history books."
The ceremony was presided over by President Kibaki at State House, his official residence.
Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga were allies in the 2002 election but fell out when the president did not name Mr Odinga prime minister after taking office, as they had reportedly agreed.
Some question whether the two men and their supporters can work together after such a bitter dispute.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who mediated the deal, was among the dignitaries who witnessed the ceremony in the capital, Nairobi.
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and other East African leaders were also in attendance.
The crisis in Kenya had an impact across the region.
Mr Annan said much work remained to be done, but he hoped the new government would form a "cohesive, effective and productive team".
The government includes 40 ministers and 52 deputy ministers, with posts evenly divided across the country's ethnic communities.
It is the largest cabinet that Kenya has seen since independence.
Big team
There has been criticism of its size and the cost to Kenyan taxpayers, says the BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi.
Each minister is to be paid about $16,000 a month and entitled to two officials cars and five security personnel - and in the case of Mr Odinga, 45 security personnel.
Mr Odinga has said that he knows people would have preferred a leaner cabinet, but it was a price that had to be paid to balance everyone's interests.
Our correspondent says that other than resettling the displaced, longer term challenges will be constitutional change and land reform.
The political violence ignited land disputes between rival ethnic groups.
Another challenge will be to curb corruption which has blighted Kenya's government for many years.
Mr Kibaki was first elected on a pledge to tackle corruption but donors say little has changed.
From BBC News
Black Churches Shun Stigma of AIDS, Take on Job of Testing
When the Rev. Bernard Smith started offering HIV screenings on church premises, the stigma of the disease followed him to his pulpit.
"People would call you the AIDS preacher," the Largo pastor said. "But I wasn't interested, and listened to a higher power."
But after seven years and after hundreds of people entered his sanctuary to get tested for the virus, more people are listening to what Smith preaches. In fact, churches across the state are following his lead, launching a joint initiative between the state Department of Health and the African Methodist Episcopal Church to establish at least one AIDS testing site in a place of worship in every county.
InVolusia County alone, 12 churches have signed up to do testing. In Orange County, an Oakland church is hoping to become a site. In Polk County, a site in Winter Haven is set to start testing at the end of the summer.
James O. Williams Sr., one of the regional leaders of the AME church, said that his community can't hide from the disease that has affected a disproportionate number of blacks: Last year in Florida, blacks made up 54 percent of the AIDS cases reported, but just 14 percent of the population, according to the state health department.
"In the past it's been standoffish as far as the churches are concerned," he said. "But these are our family members, and the church should be part of the healing process."
Now, church leaders say people have to look past the stigma that links AIDS to drug use and homosexuality and understand that everyone is at risk. The disease is the top cause of death among black men and women from 25 to 44 years old, according to the state health department.
Street talk in church
And so, on Saturday, Williams found himself at a testing training session, discussing street terms for sex and drugs, along with volunteers such as Harriett Nelson, a 59-year-old church member who is more accustomed to organizing choirs and senior-citizen aerobics classes than talking about condoms.
Nelson, who said she got involved because she has family members with the disease, found herself laughing as volunteers practiced saying some less-than-polite words so they wouldn't be shocked when people said them during actual counseling sessions.
"That was pretty different," she said after the training in the basement of New Bethel AME Church in Ormond Beach. "But these are the real facts. We do need to be familiar with the slang words."
Nelson could begin testing at her church, Mount Zion AME in Daytona Beach, within a month.
Reaching beyond clinics
For years, AIDS outreach workers have tried to offer AIDS testing in environments outside of sterile and impersonal health clinics.
"African-Americans were not exactly breaking down the doors of the health department to be HIV-tested," said Mellita Mills-Kendrick, a regional AIDS coordinator for the state.
Polk County health workers have set up shop in laundromats, convenience stores and beauty salons, launching a campaign several years ago to train beauticians as outreach workers. The Daytona Beach-based Stewart-Marchman Foundation teams with restaurants to offer coupons for free meals to people who agree to have their cheeks swabbed for the test.
The disease's spread has slowed, but with medical advances people are living longer.
"We're dealing with three generations of people now that are impacted by HIV/AIDS," said the Rev. Ronald Weatherford, who co-authored Somebody's Knocking at Your Door: AIDS and the African-American Church. "For the mainstream churches it is just now becoming something that they are willing to do."
A growing trend
AIDS is becoming a part of religious life at black churches across the country.
According to The Balm in Gilead, a Virginia-based group that has fought AIDS for nearly 20 years, churches that offer AIDS and HIV outreach now number in the thousands. A growing number, said the Rev. Makeba D'Abreu, director of the group's domestic program, are offering on-site testing.
Recently, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, took an AIDS test in front of churchgoers.
Warnock has been targeting what he calls the unholy trinity of silence, shame and stigma.
"Stigma has to do with culture and values," he said. "Ministers can do more to undermine the stigma piece than anybody else."
That unholy trinity has been fading at Smith's church, Green's Chapel AME, where HIV testing continues, and where he says the congregation has "seen the light."
By Rachael Jackson Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
"People would call you the AIDS preacher," the Largo pastor said. "But I wasn't interested, and listened to a higher power."
But after seven years and after hundreds of people entered his sanctuary to get tested for the virus, more people are listening to what Smith preaches. In fact, churches across the state are following his lead, launching a joint initiative between the state Department of Health and the African Methodist Episcopal Church to establish at least one AIDS testing site in a place of worship in every county.
InVolusia County alone, 12 churches have signed up to do testing. In Orange County, an Oakland church is hoping to become a site. In Polk County, a site in Winter Haven is set to start testing at the end of the summer.
James O. Williams Sr., one of the regional leaders of the AME church, said that his community can't hide from the disease that has affected a disproportionate number of blacks: Last year in Florida, blacks made up 54 percent of the AIDS cases reported, but just 14 percent of the population, according to the state health department.
"In the past it's been standoffish as far as the churches are concerned," he said. "But these are our family members, and the church should be part of the healing process."
Now, church leaders say people have to look past the stigma that links AIDS to drug use and homosexuality and understand that everyone is at risk. The disease is the top cause of death among black men and women from 25 to 44 years old, according to the state health department.
Street talk in church
And so, on Saturday, Williams found himself at a testing training session, discussing street terms for sex and drugs, along with volunteers such as Harriett Nelson, a 59-year-old church member who is more accustomed to organizing choirs and senior-citizen aerobics classes than talking about condoms.
Nelson, who said she got involved because she has family members with the disease, found herself laughing as volunteers practiced saying some less-than-polite words so they wouldn't be shocked when people said them during actual counseling sessions.
"That was pretty different," she said after the training in the basement of New Bethel AME Church in Ormond Beach. "But these are the real facts. We do need to be familiar with the slang words."
Nelson could begin testing at her church, Mount Zion AME in Daytona Beach, within a month.
Reaching beyond clinics
For years, AIDS outreach workers have tried to offer AIDS testing in environments outside of sterile and impersonal health clinics.
"African-Americans were not exactly breaking down the doors of the health department to be HIV-tested," said Mellita Mills-Kendrick, a regional AIDS coordinator for the state.
Polk County health workers have set up shop in laundromats, convenience stores and beauty salons, launching a campaign several years ago to train beauticians as outreach workers. The Daytona Beach-based Stewart-Marchman Foundation teams with restaurants to offer coupons for free meals to people who agree to have their cheeks swabbed for the test.
The disease's spread has slowed, but with medical advances people are living longer.
"We're dealing with three generations of people now that are impacted by HIV/AIDS," said the Rev. Ronald Weatherford, who co-authored Somebody's Knocking at Your Door: AIDS and the African-American Church. "For the mainstream churches it is just now becoming something that they are willing to do."
A growing trend
AIDS is becoming a part of religious life at black churches across the country.
According to The Balm in Gilead, a Virginia-based group that has fought AIDS for nearly 20 years, churches that offer AIDS and HIV outreach now number in the thousands. A growing number, said the Rev. Makeba D'Abreu, director of the group's domestic program, are offering on-site testing.
Recently, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, took an AIDS test in front of churchgoers.
Warnock has been targeting what he calls the unholy trinity of silence, shame and stigma.
"Stigma has to do with culture and values," he said. "Ministers can do more to undermine the stigma piece than anybody else."
That unholy trinity has been fading at Smith's church, Green's Chapel AME, where HIV testing continues, and where he says the congregation has "seen the light."
By Rachael Jackson Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Comcast to Launch New Black News Network
Washington D.C.-based Black Television News Channel (BTNC) announced Tuesday it has reached a multi-year carriage agreement with Comcast Cable for distribution in several of the MSO’s urban-based systems beginning in 2009.
The network, created by former U.S. congressman J.C. Watts Jr., will launch in 2009 and will provide original news programming with a distinctively African-American perspective, according to a network press release.
The network would be the first cable service to offer 24-hour news targeted to African-Americans. Prior attempts to launch a full-time news channel have failed, mostly due to the high cost of developing news. Neither African-American targeted Black Entertainment Television nor TV One offer daily news shows, instead relying on short news briefs throughout the day.
“Our unique and vast content partnerships with African American newsmakers will provide our viewers live access to the stories and people in whom our viewers have a special interest,” said Watts in a statement. “With this agreement, Comcast continues to demonstrate its commitment to working with independent programmers with diverse points of view.”
Comcast representatives could not be reached for comment at press time.
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News
The network, created by former U.S. congressman J.C. Watts Jr., will launch in 2009 and will provide original news programming with a distinctively African-American perspective, according to a network press release.
The network would be the first cable service to offer 24-hour news targeted to African-Americans. Prior attempts to launch a full-time news channel have failed, mostly due to the high cost of developing news. Neither African-American targeted Black Entertainment Television nor TV One offer daily news shows, instead relying on short news briefs throughout the day.
“Our unique and vast content partnerships with African American newsmakers will provide our viewers live access to the stories and people in whom our viewers have a special interest,” said Watts in a statement. “With this agreement, Comcast continues to demonstrate its commitment to working with independent programmers with diverse points of view.”
Comcast representatives could not be reached for comment at press time.
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News
Jay Z's $150M Deal Shocks Label Execs
Remember a few months ago when there were rumors about Jay-Z looking for a $100-million contract to start a new label, and many in the music industry snickered at the possibility of anyone paying that?
So-called "experts" were talking about how Jay, 38, was too old to command such a price, pointing out how his recent American Gangster album only went platinum, despite being critically acclaimed. They crowed that the days of the massive music contracts were over, because struggling music sales mean that artists can't command those prices any more. They jeered that such demands from Jay were 10 years too late.
Well, who's laughing now, chumps?
Word leaked out earlier this month that Hova will get $150 million U.S. from Live Nation for a 10-year partnership for all of his music-related businesses and possibly a piece of other new ventures.
Jay-Z's Live Nation labelmates are no slouches, either. There's Madonna, who landed $120 million for a 10-year deal for her music-related businesses after the release of her Hard Candy album on Warner Bros. later this month. And U2 has signed with the company in a reported $100-million deal for a 10-year partnership.
So has Live Nation grossly overpaid for these artists? Perhaps, though, when you add in all the touring and merchandising revenue that Madonna and U2 generate, it doesn't seem nearly as crazy, especially since it most likely locks all three artists into the new ticketing company it will launch next year to take on Ticketmaster.
Major labels have been saying for years now that the 360-degree deal, where the company partners with artists for a share of revenue from all their music-related businesses, was the wave of the future. It turns out they may be right, but they didn't really do anything about it.
They were counting on companies like Live Nation to partner with them because they were so big and powerful. Instead, Live Nation turned around and invested in new companies and big-name executives and artists to beat the labels at their own game. It's similar to how Apple took the sale of music on the Internet away from the music industry.
That was an uppercut the music industry still hasn't recovered from. What Live Nation and its flurry of deals may deliver is the knockout blow for the current major-label model.
Newsday
So-called "experts" were talking about how Jay, 38, was too old to command such a price, pointing out how his recent American Gangster album only went platinum, despite being critically acclaimed. They crowed that the days of the massive music contracts were over, because struggling music sales mean that artists can't command those prices any more. They jeered that such demands from Jay were 10 years too late.
Well, who's laughing now, chumps?
Word leaked out earlier this month that Hova will get $150 million U.S. from Live Nation for a 10-year partnership for all of his music-related businesses and possibly a piece of other new ventures.
Jay-Z's Live Nation labelmates are no slouches, either. There's Madonna, who landed $120 million for a 10-year deal for her music-related businesses after the release of her Hard Candy album on Warner Bros. later this month. And U2 has signed with the company in a reported $100-million deal for a 10-year partnership.
So has Live Nation grossly overpaid for these artists? Perhaps, though, when you add in all the touring and merchandising revenue that Madonna and U2 generate, it doesn't seem nearly as crazy, especially since it most likely locks all three artists into the new ticketing company it will launch next year to take on Ticketmaster.
Major labels have been saying for years now that the 360-degree deal, where the company partners with artists for a share of revenue from all their music-related businesses, was the wave of the future. It turns out they may be right, but they didn't really do anything about it.
They were counting on companies like Live Nation to partner with them because they were so big and powerful. Instead, Live Nation turned around and invested in new companies and big-name executives and artists to beat the labels at their own game. It's similar to how Apple took the sale of music on the Internet away from the music industry.
That was an uppercut the music industry still hasn't recovered from. What Live Nation and its flurry of deals may deliver is the knockout blow for the current major-label model.
Newsday
US Lawmakers Urge Action on Haiti
A group of U.S. lawmakers is urging the Bush administration to do more to help alleviate food shortages in Haiti, where riots linked to rising food and fuel prices left six people dead. VOA's Dan Robinson reports, the members of Congress were joined by a prominent civil rights leader at a news conference on Capitol Hill.
President Bush recently ordered $200 million of food released from a special reserve in response to appeals from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, amid rising global food prices and riots in countries in Asia and Africa.
In the Caribbean nation of Haiti, the impact was seen in the virtual shut down of the capital Port-au-Prince, while discontent over food and fuel prices contributed to the dismissal of Haiti's prime minister by the country's parliament.
While members of Congress have welcomed the Bush administration response to a general appeal from World Bank President Robert Zoellick, they say more needs to be done for Haiti.
Among the steps, says New York Democrat Gregory Meeks, must be debt relief:
"International financial institutions should relieve Haiti of all of its debt, so it could focus its money on providing food to its people," said Gregory Meeks. "And in the event that it can't just relieve it, it should suspend the payment of the debt by Haiti so it can deal with this humanitarian crisis."
The World Food Program requested $96 million specifically for Haiti, but as of recently only about 13 percent of that had been received.
Carolyn Kilpatrick, a Democrat from Michigan, heads the Congressional Black Caucus:
"We call on President Bush today, help the people of Haiti, feed the children," said Carolyn Kilpatrick.
Democrats Jan Schakowsky of Illinois,congresswoman Yvette Clarke of New York contrasted U.S. spending in Iraq and Afghanistan with needs in Haiti:
SCHAKOWSKY: "Ninety six million dollars is [worth] about seven hours of what we spend right now in Iraq. I think we might be able to scrape up the money to relieve the immediate crisis right now in Haiti."
CLARKE: "To have this level of economic instability so close to our border is not in our best interests. And we are looking at strategic partnerships around the world, I think we need to start down south."
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and others concerned about Haiti appealed recently to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on debt relief for Haiti, which is estimated to owe more than one billion dollars to various international financial institutions.
Joining the lawmakers at their news conference was the American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson:
"We can't just look at the Haitian crisis, and people roaming the streets in desperation [and] political upheaval and shrug our shoulders and make this part of the bureaucratic rhythm [and say] this is the way life is," said Jesse Jackson. "Life doesn't have to be this way. We are the number one agricultural producing system in the whole world, and [here] in our hemisphere [is] the most starvation."
Against the background of 40 percent global food price increases since the middle of last year, the World Food Program recently appealed to donors to work harder to eliminate a $500-million gap in funding for food supplies.
Dependent on food imports, and with high unemployment, Haiti remains one of the world's poorest countries, with most of its people living on only a few dollars a day.
By Dan Robinson for VOA News
President Bush recently ordered $200 million of food released from a special reserve in response to appeals from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, amid rising global food prices and riots in countries in Asia and Africa.
In the Caribbean nation of Haiti, the impact was seen in the virtual shut down of the capital Port-au-Prince, while discontent over food and fuel prices contributed to the dismissal of Haiti's prime minister by the country's parliament.
While members of Congress have welcomed the Bush administration response to a general appeal from World Bank President Robert Zoellick, they say more needs to be done for Haiti.
Among the steps, says New York Democrat Gregory Meeks, must be debt relief:
"International financial institutions should relieve Haiti of all of its debt, so it could focus its money on providing food to its people," said Gregory Meeks. "And in the event that it can't just relieve it, it should suspend the payment of the debt by Haiti so it can deal with this humanitarian crisis."
The World Food Program requested $96 million specifically for Haiti, but as of recently only about 13 percent of that had been received.
Carolyn Kilpatrick, a Democrat from Michigan, heads the Congressional Black Caucus:
"We call on President Bush today, help the people of Haiti, feed the children," said Carolyn Kilpatrick.
Democrats Jan Schakowsky of Illinois,congresswoman Yvette Clarke of New York contrasted U.S. spending in Iraq and Afghanistan with needs in Haiti:
SCHAKOWSKY: "Ninety six million dollars is [worth] about seven hours of what we spend right now in Iraq. I think we might be able to scrape up the money to relieve the immediate crisis right now in Haiti."
CLARKE: "To have this level of economic instability so close to our border is not in our best interests. And we are looking at strategic partnerships around the world, I think we need to start down south."
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and others concerned about Haiti appealed recently to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on debt relief for Haiti, which is estimated to owe more than one billion dollars to various international financial institutions.
Joining the lawmakers at their news conference was the American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson:
"We can't just look at the Haitian crisis, and people roaming the streets in desperation [and] political upheaval and shrug our shoulders and make this part of the bureaucratic rhythm [and say] this is the way life is," said Jesse Jackson. "Life doesn't have to be this way. We are the number one agricultural producing system in the whole world, and [here] in our hemisphere [is] the most starvation."
Against the background of 40 percent global food price increases since the middle of last year, the World Food Program recently appealed to donors to work harder to eliminate a $500-million gap in funding for food supplies.
Dependent on food imports, and with high unemployment, Haiti remains one of the world's poorest countries, with most of its people living on only a few dollars a day.
By Dan Robinson for VOA News
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Prosecutor: Sean Bell Had 'Right to Use Deadly Force'
A prosecutor described the shooting death of Sean Bell in simple, stark terms as the trial of three detectives came to a close yesterday.
"We have a situation where armed men confronted a group of civilians," a Queens assistant district attorney, Charles Testagrossa, said.
The armed men were undercover detectives who failed to adequately identify themselves when approaching a car carrying Bell and two of his friends, prosecutors say. In the next seconds, 50 bullets were loosed on that car, killing Bell and severely injuring the other two.
Bell and his friends "not only had the right to flee," Mr. Testagrossa said, they had the "right to use deadly force to defend themselves."
When the shooting is viewed in that framework, Mr. Testagrossa suggested, Bell's final decisions — to step on the gas, sideswiping a detective and crashing into a police van in the process — made sense.
For much of the seven-week trial, lawyers have focused on the mind-set of the three detectives, particularly that of Gescard Isnora, who first confronted and opened fire on the Nissan Altima bearing Bell. The question that has received perhaps the most attention during the trial has been whether Detective Isnora had good reason to be so fixed in his mistaken belief that a passenger with Bell, Joseph Guzman, had a gun.
Mr. Testagrossa yesterday largely ignored that question during a dramatic summation that lasted three hours. He tried to recast attention away from whatever the detectives may have been thinking to experiences of the three men who came under fire. Throughout the trial, the defense has painted Bell's companions that night as thugs.
Mr. Testagrossa focused on a seemingly minor detail: that no bullet holes had been found in the back of the passenger's seat of Bell's car, where Guzman, shot 16 times that night, had sat. Mr. Testagrossa said the absence of bullet holes in the fabric meant Guzman had been shot repeatedly in the back as he struggled to squirm away.
"You have a man getting shot in the back as he tries to avoid gunfire," Mr. Testagrossa said. "That is excessive force in anybody's mind."
The case is being heard by a judge instead of a jury; a verdict is expected April 25. The judge, Arthur Cooperman, listened to seven hours of closing arguments yesterday with a stern expression that did not change as the day wore on.
A defense lawyer for Detective Isnora, Anthony Ricco, made a gloomy prediction about what would follow after the verdict, regardless of what Judge Cooperman finds.
"I would imagine this court will be vilified one way or the other," Mr. Ricco said.
Detective Isnora, who fired 11 shots, and another detective, Michael Oliver, who fired 31 shots, both face manslaughter charges that can carry lengthy prison terms. A third detective, Marc Cooper, faces the far lesser charge of reckless endangerment for firing wildly and aimlessly that night. He is not charged with the killing of Bell or the wounding of Guzman or the third man, Trent Benefield.
Lawyers for the defendants spent much of their closing arguments yesterday assailing the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses. They spent less time than the prosecution reconstructing the shooting of November 25, 2006, which occurred on a street near a topless bar in the Jamaica section of Queens. Bell, who was to be married later that day, had been celebrating with his friends at the bar.
A lawyer for Detective Oliver, James Culleton, called the witnesses, who had included many of Bell's friends, "a parade of convicted felons, crack dealers, and men who are not strangers to weapons."
Mr. Culleton read aloud from Mr. Oliver's grand jury testimony, in which the detective described being sure that Guzman had a gun.
"I didn't want to die," Mr. Oliver had said in describing why he kept shooting.
"It's a sad case," Mr. Culleton said at one point. "But in reality no crime was committed."
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the NY Sun
"We have a situation where armed men confronted a group of civilians," a Queens assistant district attorney, Charles Testagrossa, said.
The armed men were undercover detectives who failed to adequately identify themselves when approaching a car carrying Bell and two of his friends, prosecutors say. In the next seconds, 50 bullets were loosed on that car, killing Bell and severely injuring the other two.
Bell and his friends "not only had the right to flee," Mr. Testagrossa said, they had the "right to use deadly force to defend themselves."
When the shooting is viewed in that framework, Mr. Testagrossa suggested, Bell's final decisions — to step on the gas, sideswiping a detective and crashing into a police van in the process — made sense.
For much of the seven-week trial, lawyers have focused on the mind-set of the three detectives, particularly that of Gescard Isnora, who first confronted and opened fire on the Nissan Altima bearing Bell. The question that has received perhaps the most attention during the trial has been whether Detective Isnora had good reason to be so fixed in his mistaken belief that a passenger with Bell, Joseph Guzman, had a gun.
Mr. Testagrossa yesterday largely ignored that question during a dramatic summation that lasted three hours. He tried to recast attention away from whatever the detectives may have been thinking to experiences of the three men who came under fire. Throughout the trial, the defense has painted Bell's companions that night as thugs.
Mr. Testagrossa focused on a seemingly minor detail: that no bullet holes had been found in the back of the passenger's seat of Bell's car, where Guzman, shot 16 times that night, had sat. Mr. Testagrossa said the absence of bullet holes in the fabric meant Guzman had been shot repeatedly in the back as he struggled to squirm away.
"You have a man getting shot in the back as he tries to avoid gunfire," Mr. Testagrossa said. "That is excessive force in anybody's mind."
The case is being heard by a judge instead of a jury; a verdict is expected April 25. The judge, Arthur Cooperman, listened to seven hours of closing arguments yesterday with a stern expression that did not change as the day wore on.
A defense lawyer for Detective Isnora, Anthony Ricco, made a gloomy prediction about what would follow after the verdict, regardless of what Judge Cooperman finds.
"I would imagine this court will be vilified one way or the other," Mr. Ricco said.
Detective Isnora, who fired 11 shots, and another detective, Michael Oliver, who fired 31 shots, both face manslaughter charges that can carry lengthy prison terms. A third detective, Marc Cooper, faces the far lesser charge of reckless endangerment for firing wildly and aimlessly that night. He is not charged with the killing of Bell or the wounding of Guzman or the third man, Trent Benefield.
Lawyers for the defendants spent much of their closing arguments yesterday assailing the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses. They spent less time than the prosecution reconstructing the shooting of November 25, 2006, which occurred on a street near a topless bar in the Jamaica section of Queens. Bell, who was to be married later that day, had been celebrating with his friends at the bar.
A lawyer for Detective Oliver, James Culleton, called the witnesses, who had included many of Bell's friends, "a parade of convicted felons, crack dealers, and men who are not strangers to weapons."
Mr. Culleton read aloud from Mr. Oliver's grand jury testimony, in which the detective described being sure that Guzman had a gun.
"I didn't want to die," Mr. Oliver had said in describing why he kept shooting.
"It's a sad case," Mr. Culleton said at one point. "But in reality no crime was committed."
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the NY Sun
Fire at Ugandan School kills 19 Students
An overnight fire in dormitory at a Ugandan junior school near the capital, Kampala, has killed at least 19 girls.
The BBC's Joshua Mmali at the scene says distraught parents are wailing as rescuers work to retrieve bodies.
"Preliminary investigations indicate that it was homicide," Police Inspector General Kale Kaihura said, reports AP news agency.
Our reporter says it has been established that the hostel's doors were locked from the outside.
Two adults are also reported to have died in the fire, which police say started at 2200 local time (1900 GMT) on Monday.
It is not clear how many children were in the room, which had 63 beds.
Hospital
A Red Cross worker told the BBC that it is difficult to identify the bodies as sometimes only pieces of bodies are being found.
Our reporter says it is possible that more than 70 girls were in the building as sometimes pupils sleep on mattresses on the floor.
"Several students who survived the incident have been taken to hospital with minor injuries but we are yet to know how many were in the dormitory at the time of the fire," Police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba told the BBC News website.
Our reporter says Buddo Primary School, 12 km from Kampala, is one of Uganda's top performing private schools.
School staff had recently been on strike over unpaid salaries.
This is the third deadly school fire in Uganda in two years.
From bbcnews.com
The BBC's Joshua Mmali at the scene says distraught parents are wailing as rescuers work to retrieve bodies.
"Preliminary investigations indicate that it was homicide," Police Inspector General Kale Kaihura said, reports AP news agency.
Our reporter says it has been established that the hostel's doors were locked from the outside.
Two adults are also reported to have died in the fire, which police say started at 2200 local time (1900 GMT) on Monday.
It is not clear how many children were in the room, which had 63 beds.
Hospital
A Red Cross worker told the BBC that it is difficult to identify the bodies as sometimes only pieces of bodies are being found.
Our reporter says it is possible that more than 70 girls were in the building as sometimes pupils sleep on mattresses on the floor.
"Several students who survived the incident have been taken to hospital with minor injuries but we are yet to know how many were in the dormitory at the time of the fire," Police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba told the BBC News website.
Our reporter says Buddo Primary School, 12 km from Kampala, is one of Uganda's top performing private schools.
School staff had recently been on strike over unpaid salaries.
This is the third deadly school fire in Uganda in two years.
From bbcnews.com
Alicia Keys' Journey to the Motherland
It starts and ends with the actions of people. We are witnessing the complete annihilation of entire communities of people. Human beings, like you and me, infected with the deadliest virus known to man: HIV/AIDS. The virus has led to the deaths of millions of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. The most affected are children. This devastating disease has created over 13 million orphans in Africa alone. In fact, before AIDS hit Africa the word ‘orphan’ did not even exist. Africa has been called the cradle of civilization, where all life began. It is where our roots are. You could call it “Mother Africa”. The tragic irony is what the continent needs most is ‘Mothers’ fighting to keep their children alive in a place where one child dies every minute. This has become a race against time, not just for Africa, but for the entire human race.
AND YET THE VIRUS CAN BE STOPPED. Through the use of life-saving antiretroviral drugs easily available in the West, but badly needed in Africa. These drugs provide treatment that has transformed the lives of people with HIV / AIDS in the West, returning them from sickness to health. But in Africa, fewer than 5% of children with HIV / AIDS. have access to these life-saving drugs. And parents are dying mercilessly in front of their children.
Keep A Child Alive also recognizes that to keep a child alive you need to keep their moms and dads alive and that’s our mission. We also provide food and support and a whopping dose of LOVE and RESPECT to all our patients in our care.
For the countless AIDS Orphans that are left without hugs, guidance, security or parental protection, we are there for them too. We provide the support they need by funding organizations caring for them: sending them to school, providing them with clothes and food, giving them the sense of pride that they need to survive and thrive.
By donating as little as one dollar a day, we can provide life-saving medication, support and orphan care to keep these children and families alive. 100%* of your donation will go directly to this cause. To make a donation, please go to keepachildalive.org or text ALIVE now to 90999. Then pass this message on and spread the word. The more people we can reach, the more lives we can save. It starts and ends with the actions of people. You can give a human being just like you, a new start in life. Are you ready?
Go to Aliciainafrica.com for more details and a video of her travels.
AND YET THE VIRUS CAN BE STOPPED. Through the use of life-saving antiretroviral drugs easily available in the West, but badly needed in Africa. These drugs provide treatment that has transformed the lives of people with HIV / AIDS in the West, returning them from sickness to health. But in Africa, fewer than 5% of children with HIV / AIDS. have access to these life-saving drugs. And parents are dying mercilessly in front of their children.
Keep A Child Alive also recognizes that to keep a child alive you need to keep their moms and dads alive and that’s our mission. We also provide food and support and a whopping dose of LOVE and RESPECT to all our patients in our care.
For the countless AIDS Orphans that are left without hugs, guidance, security or parental protection, we are there for them too. We provide the support they need by funding organizations caring for them: sending them to school, providing them with clothes and food, giving them the sense of pride that they need to survive and thrive.
By donating as little as one dollar a day, we can provide life-saving medication, support and orphan care to keep these children and families alive. 100%* of your donation will go directly to this cause. To make a donation, please go to keepachildalive.org or text ALIVE now to 90999. Then pass this message on and spread the word. The more people we can reach, the more lives we can save. It starts and ends with the actions of people. You can give a human being just like you, a new start in life. Are you ready?
Go to Aliciainafrica.com for more details and a video of her travels.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Black College Tour Offers Inspiration
E.J. Wilson's first year at Westhill High School didn't go as planned.
When his grades slipped, his father figured the quickest way to get him to pick up his books was to show him the college experience firsthand.
The 16-year-old, who said he would like to be a police officer, is one of 42 teens spending spring vacation this week on a bus tour of a dozen historically black colleges and universities.
"I just want him to be inspired and pursue education beyond high school because, as we know, you need education beyond high school - especially if you want to live in Stamford," said E. J.'s father, Eduardo Wilson. "Hopefully, he'll be inspired to go to college after this trip because he's not quite there. I am just trying to give him something to work for."
For 19 years, the William E. Edwards Academic College Tours has introduced about 1,000 teens from the Stamford area to historically black colleges in the South.
It offers two tours a year - one in the spring for high school students, and one in July for middle and high schools students and their parents.
"We find that a lot of our students are first-generation students, so this gives a parent the opportunity to see some of the campuses as well, speak to admissions, and see how far they are," said Angela Edwards, president and chief executive officer of the William E. Edwards Academic College Tours, named in memory of her father.
The idea is to present students with options, including smaller,
lesser-known schools where they might have a better chance at a scholarship, Edwards said. Too often teens rate a school by its sports teams, she said.
This week's tour, which left Friday, will take students to a dozen schools in five states and the District of Columbia, including Tennessee State University, which is Oprah Winfrey's alma mater, Spelman College in Atlanta and Benedict College in Columbia, S.C. There are more than 100 historically black colleges in the United States.
It's an exciting tour because, for the first time in the program's history, boys will outnumber girls, Edwards said.
"Usually it's the other way around," she said.
Of the 24 boys and 18 girls, 38 are black, two are Hispanic and two are white.
The trip costs $800 per student, which includes transportation, lodging and food. The costs are subsidized by corporations, churches and black fraternities and sororities. Scholarships also are available.
From 65 percent to 75 percent of the participants attend a college they see on the tour, Edwards said.
All three of Jack Bryant's children went to schools they visited on the tour. His youngest daughter, Brittany, is a sophomore at Howard University in Washington, D.C.; his oldest daughter, Jasmine, is a senior at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Va.; and his son, Jamar Greene, a Stamford teacher, graduated from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Va.
Bryant, president of the Stamford NAACP chapter and vice president of Edwards' organization, said that in high school, his children seemed to be steered toward state schools and community colleges. There was little opportunity to learn about historically black schools because they often are not represented at college fairs in Connecticut, he said.
"I think they would have applied to them, but I don't think it would have been a priority to go there if they hadn't visited and talked to the admissions people," Bryant said.
Stamford-area students on the tour see black students getting a quality education, which helps them envision themselves doing the same, he said.
"It gives them the inspiration," Bryant said. "That's what we stress to them - that the next time we take a bus load of kids there, we want them to give the tour."
By Donna Porstner from the stamfordadvocate.com
When his grades slipped, his father figured the quickest way to get him to pick up his books was to show him the college experience firsthand.
The 16-year-old, who said he would like to be a police officer, is one of 42 teens spending spring vacation this week on a bus tour of a dozen historically black colleges and universities.
"I just want him to be inspired and pursue education beyond high school because, as we know, you need education beyond high school - especially if you want to live in Stamford," said E. J.'s father, Eduardo Wilson. "Hopefully, he'll be inspired to go to college after this trip because he's not quite there. I am just trying to give him something to work for."
For 19 years, the William E. Edwards Academic College Tours has introduced about 1,000 teens from the Stamford area to historically black colleges in the South.
It offers two tours a year - one in the spring for high school students, and one in July for middle and high schools students and their parents.
"We find that a lot of our students are first-generation students, so this gives a parent the opportunity to see some of the campuses as well, speak to admissions, and see how far they are," said Angela Edwards, president and chief executive officer of the William E. Edwards Academic College Tours, named in memory of her father.
The idea is to present students with options, including smaller,
lesser-known schools where they might have a better chance at a scholarship, Edwards said. Too often teens rate a school by its sports teams, she said.
This week's tour, which left Friday, will take students to a dozen schools in five states and the District of Columbia, including Tennessee State University, which is Oprah Winfrey's alma mater, Spelman College in Atlanta and Benedict College in Columbia, S.C. There are more than 100 historically black colleges in the United States.
It's an exciting tour because, for the first time in the program's history, boys will outnumber girls, Edwards said.
"Usually it's the other way around," she said.
Of the 24 boys and 18 girls, 38 are black, two are Hispanic and two are white.
The trip costs $800 per student, which includes transportation, lodging and food. The costs are subsidized by corporations, churches and black fraternities and sororities. Scholarships also are available.
From 65 percent to 75 percent of the participants attend a college they see on the tour, Edwards said.
All three of Jack Bryant's children went to schools they visited on the tour. His youngest daughter, Brittany, is a sophomore at Howard University in Washington, D.C.; his oldest daughter, Jasmine, is a senior at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Va.; and his son, Jamar Greene, a Stamford teacher, graduated from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Va.
Bryant, president of the Stamford NAACP chapter and vice president of Edwards' organization, said that in high school, his children seemed to be steered toward state schools and community colleges. There was little opportunity to learn about historically black schools because they often are not represented at college fairs in Connecticut, he said.
"I think they would have applied to them, but I don't think it would have been a priority to go there if they hadn't visited and talked to the admissions people," Bryant said.
Stamford-area students on the tour see black students getting a quality education, which helps them envision themselves doing the same, he said.
"It gives them the inspiration," Bryant said. "That's what we stress to them - that the next time we take a bus load of kids there, we want them to give the tour."
By Donna Porstner from the stamfordadvocate.com
Ruling on Zimbabwe Vote Due Monday
Zimbabwe is anxiously awaiting a key court ruling which may end more than two weeks of election deadlock -- or could send the troubled nation into further turmoil if its government further delays announcing the results of the vote.
The High Court is expected to decide at around 1230GMT Monday whether President Robert Mugabe must publish the outcome of the presidential election held more than two weeks ago.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has declared victory over President Robert Mugabe in the March 29 vote, but has been forced to ask the court to order the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the results.
Tsvangirai is now in South Africa following the weekend's summit of the region's leaders in Zambia to discuss the situation, and is trying to seek further support for his cause, The Associated Press reported Monday. Sound Off: Have your say on the situation in Zimbabwe
Meanwhile, the electoral commission's chairman said over the weekend that it would recount ballots this week in at least 23 of 210 voting districts because of questions raised by Mugabe's party, the Zanu-PF.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has said any recount -- even before the first count is announced -- would be illegal, and it has called for a general strike to start Tuesday.
The MDC got little help from the southern African leaders, who issued only a weak declaration calling for the quick release of voting results.
Tsvangirai already has declared victory based on vote counts posted at polling stations in Zimbabwe's 210 voting constituencies.
Mugabe, 84, is the only ruler Zimbabwe has had since British rule of the former Rhodesia came to end in 1980. He has been re-elected several times, often either running unopposed or in elections that prompted charges of fraud and state-sponsored terrorism against opponents.
Zimbabwe's state-run newspaper, The Herald, has indicated that neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai received enough votes in the election to avoid a runoff. A candidate must receive 50 percent plus one vote to win without a runoff.
The Sunday summit in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, was seen by many as a test of the Southern African Development Community's willingness, capability and resolve to sort out Zimbabwe's election.
The 14-member group has failed in the past to condemn Mugabe for alleged electoral fraud and human rights abuses. The summit did not come up Sunday with any concrete solution to the impasse.
Instead, the group released a two-page report that said the elections were free and that the current government is legitimate because all the results have not yet been counted. It also said the group would send observers if a second round of elections was warranted.
The report did not mention Mugabe by name. It also did not condemn the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's decision to recount some votes even before it released the results of all the votes cast.
From CNN.com
The High Court is expected to decide at around 1230GMT Monday whether President Robert Mugabe must publish the outcome of the presidential election held more than two weeks ago.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has declared victory over President Robert Mugabe in the March 29 vote, but has been forced to ask the court to order the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the results.
Tsvangirai is now in South Africa following the weekend's summit of the region's leaders in Zambia to discuss the situation, and is trying to seek further support for his cause, The Associated Press reported Monday. Sound Off: Have your say on the situation in Zimbabwe
Meanwhile, the electoral commission's chairman said over the weekend that it would recount ballots this week in at least 23 of 210 voting districts because of questions raised by Mugabe's party, the Zanu-PF.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has said any recount -- even before the first count is announced -- would be illegal, and it has called for a general strike to start Tuesday.
The MDC got little help from the southern African leaders, who issued only a weak declaration calling for the quick release of voting results.
Tsvangirai already has declared victory based on vote counts posted at polling stations in Zimbabwe's 210 voting constituencies.
Mugabe, 84, is the only ruler Zimbabwe has had since British rule of the former Rhodesia came to end in 1980. He has been re-elected several times, often either running unopposed or in elections that prompted charges of fraud and state-sponsored terrorism against opponents.
Zimbabwe's state-run newspaper, The Herald, has indicated that neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai received enough votes in the election to avoid a runoff. A candidate must receive 50 percent plus one vote to win without a runoff.
The Sunday summit in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, was seen by many as a test of the Southern African Development Community's willingness, capability and resolve to sort out Zimbabwe's election.
The 14-member group has failed in the past to condemn Mugabe for alleged electoral fraud and human rights abuses. The summit did not come up Sunday with any concrete solution to the impasse.
Instead, the group released a two-page report that said the elections were free and that the current government is legitimate because all the results have not yet been counted. It also said the group would send observers if a second round of elections was warranted.
The report did not mention Mugabe by name. It also did not condemn the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's decision to recount some votes even before it released the results of all the votes cast.
From CNN.com
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Haitian Prime Minister Ousted Over High Food Prices
Haiti's Parliament has voted to dismiss Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis after deadly protests over rising food prices.
Senator Gabriel Fortune said that 16 of Haiti's 27 senators voted in favor of the dismissal in Saturday's session.
The vote reflects widespread frustration over the rising cost of living in the impoverished country that sparked deadly clashes between protesters and U.N. peacekeepers earlier this week.
Earlier Saturday, President Rene Preval had pledged to support any decision the lawmakers make on Alexis.
Alexis survived a no-confidence vote over the government's handling of the economy in February. He was nominated to be prime minister in May 2006.
After the prime minister's dismissal, a U.N. soldier was shot and killed in Port-au-Prince, mission spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe said.
U.N. troops did not exchange fire with anyone after the shooting, de la Combe said. The soldier was a member of a 1,000-strong unit that deals with riots, she said.
Fellow peacekeepers said the Nigerian soldier was on his way to buy food. As he drove through the marketplace, he was ordered out of the car and executed, according to accounts from two women who were traveling with him, U.N. police spokesman Fred Blaise said. The two women were not injured, he said.
Preval announced a drop in the price of rice Saturday in a bid to defuse anger over rising food prices. Watch how expensive food can destabilize a country »
After meeting with food importers in the national palace, Preval said the price of a 50-pound bag of rice will drop from $51 to $43, a reduction of 15.7 percent.
The Haitian president said that the government will use international aid money to subsidize the price of rice and that the private sector has agreed to knock $3 off the price of each bag.
Preval did not say when the price reduction would go into effect.
He also said he would ask Venezuela for help, especially in providing fertilizer for struggling farmers.
The announcements come in the wake of looting and clashes between hundreds of protesters and U.N. peacekeepers this week.
Protesters blame the government for failing to create jobs and control soaring food prices, and some demonstrators called for Preval's resignation. The violence left at least five people dead.
On Saturday, U.N. military commander Maj. Gen. Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz said that calm was returning across the country, with some transportation resuming and people going back to work.
The U.N. commander said that several social, economic and political changes are still needed in Haiti to maintain the present calm and address the increased cost of living. Cruz did not provide specifics.
"It is important for the people to have a peaceful life in Haiti," he said.
Globally, food prices have risen 40 percent since mid-2007. Haiti, where most people live on less than $2 a day, is particularly affected because it imports nearly all of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice.
Much of Haiti's once-productive farmland has been abandoned as farmers struggle to grow crops in soil decimated by erosion, deforestation, flooding and tropical storms.
from cnn.com
Senator Gabriel Fortune said that 16 of Haiti's 27 senators voted in favor of the dismissal in Saturday's session.
The vote reflects widespread frustration over the rising cost of living in the impoverished country that sparked deadly clashes between protesters and U.N. peacekeepers earlier this week.
Earlier Saturday, President Rene Preval had pledged to support any decision the lawmakers make on Alexis.
Alexis survived a no-confidence vote over the government's handling of the economy in February. He was nominated to be prime minister in May 2006.
After the prime minister's dismissal, a U.N. soldier was shot and killed in Port-au-Prince, mission spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe said.
U.N. troops did not exchange fire with anyone after the shooting, de la Combe said. The soldier was a member of a 1,000-strong unit that deals with riots, she said.
Fellow peacekeepers said the Nigerian soldier was on his way to buy food. As he drove through the marketplace, he was ordered out of the car and executed, according to accounts from two women who were traveling with him, U.N. police spokesman Fred Blaise said. The two women were not injured, he said.
Preval announced a drop in the price of rice Saturday in a bid to defuse anger over rising food prices. Watch how expensive food can destabilize a country »
After meeting with food importers in the national palace, Preval said the price of a 50-pound bag of rice will drop from $51 to $43, a reduction of 15.7 percent.
The Haitian president said that the government will use international aid money to subsidize the price of rice and that the private sector has agreed to knock $3 off the price of each bag.
Preval did not say when the price reduction would go into effect.
He also said he would ask Venezuela for help, especially in providing fertilizer for struggling farmers.
The announcements come in the wake of looting and clashes between hundreds of protesters and U.N. peacekeepers this week.
Protesters blame the government for failing to create jobs and control soaring food prices, and some demonstrators called for Preval's resignation. The violence left at least five people dead.
On Saturday, U.N. military commander Maj. Gen. Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz said that calm was returning across the country, with some transportation resuming and people going back to work.
The U.N. commander said that several social, economic and political changes are still needed in Haiti to maintain the present calm and address the increased cost of living. Cruz did not provide specifics.
"It is important for the people to have a peaceful life in Haiti," he said.
Globally, food prices have risen 40 percent since mid-2007. Haiti, where most people live on less than $2 a day, is particularly affected because it imports nearly all of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice.
Much of Haiti's once-productive farmland has been abandoned as farmers struggle to grow crops in soil decimated by erosion, deforestation, flooding and tropical storms.
from cnn.com
BLACKS LEAD INCREASE IN UNEMPLOYMENT
*Lingering doubts as to whether the nation was moving into a recession appeared to have disappeared last week when the Labor Department reported that during the month of March businesses cut 80,000 jobs - the largest one month reduction in five years.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate jumped from 4.8 percent in February to 5.1 percent last month.
Minorities appeared to be bearing the brunt of the job losses. Joblessness among Hispanics jumped to 6.9 percent in March - the highest level in four years.
For African Americans, the unemployment rate stood at 9 percent - the highest in two months.
Overall, the economy has lost 232,000 jobs in the last three months. And while the 5.1 percent unemployment rate is actually low by historic standards, it is still the highest jobless rate since September 2005. (source: Taylor Media Services)
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate jumped from 4.8 percent in February to 5.1 percent last month.
Minorities appeared to be bearing the brunt of the job losses. Joblessness among Hispanics jumped to 6.9 percent in March - the highest level in four years.
For African Americans, the unemployment rate stood at 9 percent - the highest in two months.
Overall, the economy has lost 232,000 jobs in the last three months. And while the 5.1 percent unemployment rate is actually low by historic standards, it is still the highest jobless rate since September 2005. (source: Taylor Media Services)
Spike Lee Honored 'Behind the Lens'
After Spike Lee received grand honors as the recipient of Chrysler's sixth annual Behind the Lens Award recently, and he commented on the state of African-Americans in the film industry-both behind the scenes and in acting roles.
Lee, one of the most prolific directors today, was honored at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif., before a ballroom filled with some of the most notable celebrities. Among them were Laurence Fishburne, Bill Duke, Damon Wayans, Debbie Mazar, Margaret Avery, along with Director John Singleton and rapper Snoop Dogg.
Lee is noted for his cutting-edge methods in filmmaking, daring to tackle tough topics, and producing films as social commentaries, such as the two for which he received Oscar nominations-"Do The Right Thing" and "Malcolm X."
The Behind the Lens Award was first introduced in 2002 to recognize and celebrate the outstanding achievements of people of color who worked behind the scenes in the entertainment industry and to deepen Chrysler LLC's presence among ethnically diverse communities.
Even when major studios didn't embrace Lee, often shunning him, he sought support from his many celebrity friends, including Oprah Winfrey.
Even with his success, Lee says of African-Americans and their roles in the industry, "We've got a long way to go to catch up to where we are in sports and music."
Lee says that he is still not embraced by studios in Hollywood and can't get much of the funding for projects either. Lee looks to Europe and elsewhere abroad to investors more open to backing the level of work he produces.
Chrysler LLC Senior Vice President of External Affairs and Public Policy, Frank Fountain, stated: "Spike Lee epitomizes the ideal of the Behind the Lens Award. His thoughtful films and activism in Hollywood have inspired a generation of filmmakers, encouraged actors, challenged basic assumptions and expanded the field to include many more African-Americans in key roles behind the lens. We are thrilled to have him as the awards latest honoree and to celebrate his commitment and passion."
In addition to the award, Chrysler Foundation donated $25,000 to Lee's alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta, in recognition of his accomplishments. The donation will benefit the college's School of Sports Journalism, the program created to expand that field for African-American students.
Emcee Soledad O'Brien, CNN news anchor, introduced Rosie Perez, Best Supporting Actor in 1993 for her role in "Fearless." Perez paid homage to the honoree and told the audience how she met Lee when he sought her parents' approval for her appearance in the film.
The evening's highlights included a performance by trumpeter great Terence Blanchard, a close friend of Lee's who writes most of his movie themes. Blanchard's musical tribute to New Orleans was the soundtrack for Lee's documentary, "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts."
Patti Austin was guest singer on Blanchard's moving rendition of Sam Cooke's classic "A Change is Going to Come," earning a standing ovation.
Choreographer and tap dancer Savion Glover performed to Public Enemy's song "Fight the Power," featured in "Do the Right Thing."
Celebrity Scene News spoke with some of Lee's admirers.
Among them was actor and Director Bill Duke, memorable for his role in "Commando," "Predator," "Action Jackson" and for shows he directed, such as "Miami Vice," "Hill Street Blues," and "Cagney and Lacey."
"Spike is a pioneer and is responsible for the careers of old and young directors and actors," Duke said. He pointed out that Lee helped escalate the career of Wesley Snipes, employed extraordinary actors, such as Denzel Washington and the great Ossie Davis.
Duke spoke about the recently ended writer's strike: "It's a paradigm in a lot of ways. It's positive: the strike is about seeing the future," Duke said, adding, "It's a great opportunity for new filmmakers if they become business people and understand the digital content opportunities it represents in creating content and distribution. You got to study the business."
Keith David gave his personal insights on being an actor. He was nominated for an Emmy for both the "The Tiger Woods Story" and "Gargoyles." He won an Emmy for his voiceover in "Unforgettable Blackness," and is remembered for his roles in "Platoon" and "The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson."
In an exclusive interview, David recalls, "I used to want to be a minister. Now, I think my ministry is acting."
He added, "If I play a character, and you have an identification with that character, and it makes you want to be like that person, or recognize that person as somebody you don't ever want to be like, then that is sort of a ministry to the spirit. It is indirect, for the most part. That's how the theater, in fact, informs our society. Because it is the one place-the theater and movies-that we still have to examine. The better informed you are, the better human being you have the potential of being."
Other accolades about Lee include:
"I owe my entire career to Spike Lee," said Hill Harper who Lee cast in his 1996 "Get on the Bus."
Another Spike Lee actor recruit, Elise Neal ("Malcolm X") said, "It's an honor to be here."
Actor, singer and song writer Vanessa Williams calls Lee "awesome" and considers him among the greatest filmmakers.
By Pete Allman from newsblaze.com
Lee, one of the most prolific directors today, was honored at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif., before a ballroom filled with some of the most notable celebrities. Among them were Laurence Fishburne, Bill Duke, Damon Wayans, Debbie Mazar, Margaret Avery, along with Director John Singleton and rapper Snoop Dogg.
Lee is noted for his cutting-edge methods in filmmaking, daring to tackle tough topics, and producing films as social commentaries, such as the two for which he received Oscar nominations-"Do The Right Thing" and "Malcolm X."
The Behind the Lens Award was first introduced in 2002 to recognize and celebrate the outstanding achievements of people of color who worked behind the scenes in the entertainment industry and to deepen Chrysler LLC's presence among ethnically diverse communities.
Even when major studios didn't embrace Lee, often shunning him, he sought support from his many celebrity friends, including Oprah Winfrey.
Even with his success, Lee says of African-Americans and their roles in the industry, "We've got a long way to go to catch up to where we are in sports and music."
Lee says that he is still not embraced by studios in Hollywood and can't get much of the funding for projects either. Lee looks to Europe and elsewhere abroad to investors more open to backing the level of work he produces.
Chrysler LLC Senior Vice President of External Affairs and Public Policy, Frank Fountain, stated: "Spike Lee epitomizes the ideal of the Behind the Lens Award. His thoughtful films and activism in Hollywood have inspired a generation of filmmakers, encouraged actors, challenged basic assumptions and expanded the field to include many more African-Americans in key roles behind the lens. We are thrilled to have him as the awards latest honoree and to celebrate his commitment and passion."
In addition to the award, Chrysler Foundation donated $25,000 to Lee's alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta, in recognition of his accomplishments. The donation will benefit the college's School of Sports Journalism, the program created to expand that field for African-American students.
Emcee Soledad O'Brien, CNN news anchor, introduced Rosie Perez, Best Supporting Actor in 1993 for her role in "Fearless." Perez paid homage to the honoree and told the audience how she met Lee when he sought her parents' approval for her appearance in the film.
The evening's highlights included a performance by trumpeter great Terence Blanchard, a close friend of Lee's who writes most of his movie themes. Blanchard's musical tribute to New Orleans was the soundtrack for Lee's documentary, "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts."
Patti Austin was guest singer on Blanchard's moving rendition of Sam Cooke's classic "A Change is Going to Come," earning a standing ovation.
Choreographer and tap dancer Savion Glover performed to Public Enemy's song "Fight the Power," featured in "Do the Right Thing."
Celebrity Scene News spoke with some of Lee's admirers.
Among them was actor and Director Bill Duke, memorable for his role in "Commando," "Predator," "Action Jackson" and for shows he directed, such as "Miami Vice," "Hill Street Blues," and "Cagney and Lacey."
"Spike is a pioneer and is responsible for the careers of old and young directors and actors," Duke said. He pointed out that Lee helped escalate the career of Wesley Snipes, employed extraordinary actors, such as Denzel Washington and the great Ossie Davis.
Duke spoke about the recently ended writer's strike: "It's a paradigm in a lot of ways. It's positive: the strike is about seeing the future," Duke said, adding, "It's a great opportunity for new filmmakers if they become business people and understand the digital content opportunities it represents in creating content and distribution. You got to study the business."
Keith David gave his personal insights on being an actor. He was nominated for an Emmy for both the "The Tiger Woods Story" and "Gargoyles." He won an Emmy for his voiceover in "Unforgettable Blackness," and is remembered for his roles in "Platoon" and "The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson."
In an exclusive interview, David recalls, "I used to want to be a minister. Now, I think my ministry is acting."
He added, "If I play a character, and you have an identification with that character, and it makes you want to be like that person, or recognize that person as somebody you don't ever want to be like, then that is sort of a ministry to the spirit. It is indirect, for the most part. That's how the theater, in fact, informs our society. Because it is the one place-the theater and movies-that we still have to examine. The better informed you are, the better human being you have the potential of being."
Other accolades about Lee include:
"I owe my entire career to Spike Lee," said Hill Harper who Lee cast in his 1996 "Get on the Bus."
Another Spike Lee actor recruit, Elise Neal ("Malcolm X") said, "It's an honor to be here."
Actor, singer and song writer Vanessa Williams calls Lee "awesome" and considers him among the greatest filmmakers.
By Pete Allman from newsblaze.com
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Worries About Bell Verdict Spur Meetings in Queens
With a verdict on the horizon in the Sean Bell trial — one that has the potential of sparking outrage throughout the city — Mayor Bloomberg yesterday met with leaders of the black community in Queens to discuss the need for leadership in the aftermath of the decision.
If Judge Arthur Cooperman acquits the three officers charged in the shooting of Bell, an unarmed man who was killed in barrage of 50 bullets, civil unrest could resemble that following the 2000 acquittal of four white police officers in the shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black man fatally shot in the Bronx. Then, about 100 people were arrested for participating in various protests on charges that included reckless endangerment and inciting a riot.
Some of the leaders who met with Mr. Bloomberg yesterday at New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Jamaica were adamant that only a guilty verdict for the detectives, Gescard Isnora, Michael Oliver, and Marc Cooper, would demonstrate justice, but they downplayed the plausibility of any violence.
"If there is no justice, then we absolutely will be calling for a peaceful, law abiding, responsible, but militant demonstration," a City Council member who represents parts of Queens, James Sanders, said after meeting with the mayor.
Closing statements in the case against the police officers charged with shooting Bell outside of a strip club in Queens on the night before his wedding day are expected to take place on Monday. It is then that Judge Cooperman, who will decide the case — not a jury — is likely to announce a date for when he will reach a verdict, several defense lawyers said.
"My expectation is that no matter what the decision is, everybody will act in a dignified, appropriate manner no matter what they think, and understand that this is a country of laws and that we have to make sure that we work within the law," Mr. Bloomberg said.
Several defense attorneys said Judge Cooperman could take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to reach a verdict.
"With the city on pins and needles, I would say he might lean towards doing it sooner rather than later," a defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, said of Judge Cooperman. "He is a consummate professional, so he'll do things the best way conceivable."
A City Council member who has been outspoken in his criticism of the police department in the wake of the shooting, Charles Barron, said the mayor should have more important concerns than protests.
"He needs to curb his police and not worry about what the people are doing after the Sean Bell case," Mr. Barron said.
Considering the case is under such a microscope, a defense attorney, Kenneth Montgomery, said he thinks Judge Cooperman will likely take several weeks to deliberate before coming to a decision.
If Judge Cooperman were to decide to acquit the officers next week, protests could coincide with the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, which would undoubtedly place strains on an already short-handed police force.
When Commissioner Raymond Kelly was asked yesterday if there were security concerns over protests occurring during the pope's visit or if concerns had been discussed with Judge Cooperman, he said "no and no."
By CHRISTOPHER FAHERTY from the NY Sun
If Judge Arthur Cooperman acquits the three officers charged in the shooting of Bell, an unarmed man who was killed in barrage of 50 bullets, civil unrest could resemble that following the 2000 acquittal of four white police officers in the shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black man fatally shot in the Bronx. Then, about 100 people were arrested for participating in various protests on charges that included reckless endangerment and inciting a riot.
Some of the leaders who met with Mr. Bloomberg yesterday at New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Jamaica were adamant that only a guilty verdict for the detectives, Gescard Isnora, Michael Oliver, and Marc Cooper, would demonstrate justice, but they downplayed the plausibility of any violence.
"If there is no justice, then we absolutely will be calling for a peaceful, law abiding, responsible, but militant demonstration," a City Council member who represents parts of Queens, James Sanders, said after meeting with the mayor.
Closing statements in the case against the police officers charged with shooting Bell outside of a strip club in Queens on the night before his wedding day are expected to take place on Monday. It is then that Judge Cooperman, who will decide the case — not a jury — is likely to announce a date for when he will reach a verdict, several defense lawyers said.
"My expectation is that no matter what the decision is, everybody will act in a dignified, appropriate manner no matter what they think, and understand that this is a country of laws and that we have to make sure that we work within the law," Mr. Bloomberg said.
Several defense attorneys said Judge Cooperman could take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to reach a verdict.
"With the city on pins and needles, I would say he might lean towards doing it sooner rather than later," a defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, said of Judge Cooperman. "He is a consummate professional, so he'll do things the best way conceivable."
A City Council member who has been outspoken in his criticism of the police department in the wake of the shooting, Charles Barron, said the mayor should have more important concerns than protests.
"He needs to curb his police and not worry about what the people are doing after the Sean Bell case," Mr. Barron said.
Considering the case is under such a microscope, a defense attorney, Kenneth Montgomery, said he thinks Judge Cooperman will likely take several weeks to deliberate before coming to a decision.
If Judge Cooperman were to decide to acquit the officers next week, protests could coincide with the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, which would undoubtedly place strains on an already short-handed police force.
When Commissioner Raymond Kelly was asked yesterday if there were security concerns over protests occurring during the pope's visit or if concerns had been discussed with Judge Cooperman, he said "no and no."
By CHRISTOPHER FAHERTY from the NY Sun
Black Male Summit Draws 700 in Ohio
As Richard Davis listened to a speech at the University of Akron on Friday about the plight of black men in America, he quickly jotted down notes to make sure he didn't miss any key points.
He nodded his head in agreement for most of the lunchtime session, and didn't squirm or get uncomfortable when the speaker, Na'im Akbar, a Florida State University psychology professor, talked about slavery and systemic racism, and how it affects black men in the 21st century.
In fact, the 24-year-old apprentice carpenter from Akron, who is white, said most of the lecture was right on because Akbar "kept it real."
Davis was one of more than 700 people, predominantly black junior high, high school and college students, who attended the university's first ever Black Male Summit, a conference where the students listen to speakers and panelists and participate in roundtable discussions about problems black men face in the region.
The two-day conference, which ends today, was set up to help deal with issues men in the black community face such as violence and low graduation rates in both high school and college.
At the keynote address, Akbar talked to the students about the three C's: confidence, consciousness and courage, and cited presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama as an example of what they could become.
"He's a consequence of a whole tradition that has been trying to restore manhood in black males, as opposed to the model of thugs, self-destructiveness . . . and gang banging being used as models of what we can be. If those images [Three Cs] can permeate our community, that would solve a lot of the problems we have."
Derrick Bivins, 19, of Akron, said he attended because he wanted to listen to what educators had to say about violence.
"I think some of the problems brothers have isn't because they want to sell drugs or be violent, but it ends up being all they know because nothing else is around," Bivins said.
During a workshop intermission, Nicole Fowler of Akron looked at a scheduling book to make sure she took her teenage son and nephew to the right session.
She made the two attend despite being out of school for spring vacation.
"I can tell them to do the right thing all I want, but I can't teach them how to be black men," Fowler, 35, said. "I wanted to give them exposure to positive influences, and this is good for them."
The Black Male Summit continues today from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the University of Akron. The event will feature lectures and discussions about black student athletes, education, religion and more. Hill Harper, an actor and author, is scheduled to deliver the closing address at the conference.
By Stan Donaldson
Plain Dealer Reporter via Clevland.com
He nodded his head in agreement for most of the lunchtime session, and didn't squirm or get uncomfortable when the speaker, Na'im Akbar, a Florida State University psychology professor, talked about slavery and systemic racism, and how it affects black men in the 21st century.
In fact, the 24-year-old apprentice carpenter from Akron, who is white, said most of the lecture was right on because Akbar "kept it real."
Davis was one of more than 700 people, predominantly black junior high, high school and college students, who attended the university's first ever Black Male Summit, a conference where the students listen to speakers and panelists and participate in roundtable discussions about problems black men face in the region.
The two-day conference, which ends today, was set up to help deal with issues men in the black community face such as violence and low graduation rates in both high school and college.
At the keynote address, Akbar talked to the students about the three C's: confidence, consciousness and courage, and cited presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama as an example of what they could become.
"He's a consequence of a whole tradition that has been trying to restore manhood in black males, as opposed to the model of thugs, self-destructiveness . . . and gang banging being used as models of what we can be. If those images [Three Cs] can permeate our community, that would solve a lot of the problems we have."
Derrick Bivins, 19, of Akron, said he attended because he wanted to listen to what educators had to say about violence.
"I think some of the problems brothers have isn't because they want to sell drugs or be violent, but it ends up being all they know because nothing else is around," Bivins said.
During a workshop intermission, Nicole Fowler of Akron looked at a scheduling book to make sure she took her teenage son and nephew to the right session.
She made the two attend despite being out of school for spring vacation.
"I can tell them to do the right thing all I want, but I can't teach them how to be black men," Fowler, 35, said. "I wanted to give them exposure to positive influences, and this is good for them."
The Black Male Summit continues today from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the University of Akron. The event will feature lectures and discussions about black student athletes, education, religion and more. Hill Harper, an actor and author, is scheduled to deliver the closing address at the conference.
By Stan Donaldson
Plain Dealer Reporter via Clevland.com
Africa Calls for Indian Investment Throughout Continent
African leaders have made a strong pitch for investment in their resource-rich continent with Indian business leaders. Anjana Pasricha has a report from New Delhi, where senior leaders of 14 countries attended an India-Africa summit recently.
Tanzanian president, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, told Indian business leaders that the perception of Africa is often colored by turmoil in a handful of countries such as Somalia and Darfur, although the continent's economy is growing strongly.
"Besides those two or three isolated cases, the rest of Africa is stable, the economy is doing well, the policies are right, the market for Africa is huge, over 800 million people with a sizeable middle class," he said.
Indian companies are no stranger to Africa. From Botswana to Nigeria, they are involved in sectors ranging from mining and manufacturing, to communications and horticulture. In recent years, Indian oil companies have clinched deals in Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Nigeria. Two-way trade now totals $25 billion.
But both India and Africa agree that is far below potential.
Africa wants Indian businesses to establish manufacturing units, so that it can process its rich resources such as minerals, rather than export them as raw materials. It needs infrastructure such as roads and railways so that it can transport goods easily within the region. It wants help in developing human resources and its health sector.
African leaders also want farm technology from India. The continent has rich soil and water resources - but many countries are plagued by food shortages.
Tanzanian President Kikwete, who is also the head of the African Union, says Africa has the potential to turn into the world's breadbasket.
"Currently Africa's agriculture is peasant agriculture, traditional, plagued with low levels of production," he added. "If we are able to increase productivity in African agriculture, Africa would not only be able to feed itself, but have huge surpluses to sell to the world. India has the technology, has the skills, which if made available to Africa certainly it will help implement the African Green Revolution."
African leaders say investors will not be disappointed, and point to a recent World Bank report, which said many African countries are emerging as top reformers.
With growth in many Western countries slowing down, Indian businesses say they are ready to increase their footprint across Africa.
But analysts say, India will have to ensure it is not left far behind by China. Beijing's trade with Africa is more than double that of India's, and Chinese companies have made rapid inroads into the continent in the last decade.
By Anjana Pasricha from Voice of America
voanews.com
Tanzanian president, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, told Indian business leaders that the perception of Africa is often colored by turmoil in a handful of countries such as Somalia and Darfur, although the continent's economy is growing strongly.
"Besides those two or three isolated cases, the rest of Africa is stable, the economy is doing well, the policies are right, the market for Africa is huge, over 800 million people with a sizeable middle class," he said.
Indian companies are no stranger to Africa. From Botswana to Nigeria, they are involved in sectors ranging from mining and manufacturing, to communications and horticulture. In recent years, Indian oil companies have clinched deals in Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Nigeria. Two-way trade now totals $25 billion.
But both India and Africa agree that is far below potential.
Africa wants Indian businesses to establish manufacturing units, so that it can process its rich resources such as minerals, rather than export them as raw materials. It needs infrastructure such as roads and railways so that it can transport goods easily within the region. It wants help in developing human resources and its health sector.
African leaders also want farm technology from India. The continent has rich soil and water resources - but many countries are plagued by food shortages.
Tanzanian President Kikwete, who is also the head of the African Union, says Africa has the potential to turn into the world's breadbasket.
"Currently Africa's agriculture is peasant agriculture, traditional, plagued with low levels of production," he added. "If we are able to increase productivity in African agriculture, Africa would not only be able to feed itself, but have huge surpluses to sell to the world. India has the technology, has the skills, which if made available to Africa certainly it will help implement the African Green Revolution."
African leaders say investors will not be disappointed, and point to a recent World Bank report, which said many African countries are emerging as top reformers.
With growth in many Western countries slowing down, Indian businesses say they are ready to increase their footprint across Africa.
But analysts say, India will have to ensure it is not left far behind by China. Beijing's trade with Africa is more than double that of India's, and Chinese companies have made rapid inroads into the continent in the last decade.
By Anjana Pasricha from Voice of America
voanews.com
Friday, April 11, 2008
UN Fears New Ethiopia-Eritrea War
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that a new war could break out between Ethiopia and Eritrea if UN peacekeepers are withdrawn.
Mr Ban urged the UN Security Council to make a swift decision on the future of the forces, which have been monitoring a buffer zone in the region since 2000.
The UN has already withdrawn most of its peacekeepers after Eritrea cut off fuel and food to the UN mission.
Eritrea accuses the UN of allowing Ethiopia to occupy Eritrean territory.
Tens of thousands of people died in the two countries' 1998-2000 border war.
There had been 1,700 UN troops monitoring the buffer zone, but now only 164 remain at the base in Eritrea.
Speaking to the BBC, Eritrean Ambassador Araya Desta dismissed Mr Ban's report, saying it was for the UN Security Council to resolve the remaining dispute over the Ethiopian occupation of Eritrean territory around the town of Badme.
He also accused the UN of politicising its decision to withdraw most of its troops from the buffer zone.
He said Eritrea was not planning to attack Ethiopia, but added that his country was prepared to fend off any invasions into Eritrean territory.
"If the Ethiopians invade us, we'll be forced to defend ourselves," Mr Desta told Reuters news agency.
Dangerous precedent
The BBC's UN correspondent, Laura Trevelyan, says a complete withdrawal of UN troops could undermine future deployments elsewhere.
In the report released on Wednesday, Mr Ban outlines options for the future of the mission.
He says one option is that the mission could return to its full strength, liaison offices in the Ethiopian and Eritrean capitals could be established, or a small observer mission could be deployed in the border area.
Our correspondent says diplomats are concerned about the precedent which could be set by the UN's complete withdrawal - fearing it will show that governments can bully UN peacekeepers and win, which in turn could deter countries from offering up their troops to serve as peacekeepers.
From BBC News
Mr Ban urged the UN Security Council to make a swift decision on the future of the forces, which have been monitoring a buffer zone in the region since 2000.
The UN has already withdrawn most of its peacekeepers after Eritrea cut off fuel and food to the UN mission.
Eritrea accuses the UN of allowing Ethiopia to occupy Eritrean territory.
Tens of thousands of people died in the two countries' 1998-2000 border war.
There had been 1,700 UN troops monitoring the buffer zone, but now only 164 remain at the base in Eritrea.
Speaking to the BBC, Eritrean Ambassador Araya Desta dismissed Mr Ban's report, saying it was for the UN Security Council to resolve the remaining dispute over the Ethiopian occupation of Eritrean territory around the town of Badme.
He also accused the UN of politicising its decision to withdraw most of its troops from the buffer zone.
He said Eritrea was not planning to attack Ethiopia, but added that his country was prepared to fend off any invasions into Eritrean territory.
"If the Ethiopians invade us, we'll be forced to defend ourselves," Mr Desta told Reuters news agency.
Dangerous precedent
The BBC's UN correspondent, Laura Trevelyan, says a complete withdrawal of UN troops could undermine future deployments elsewhere.
In the report released on Wednesday, Mr Ban outlines options for the future of the mission.
He says one option is that the mission could return to its full strength, liaison offices in the Ethiopian and Eritrean capitals could be established, or a small observer mission could be deployed in the border area.
Our correspondent says diplomats are concerned about the precedent which could be set by the UN's complete withdrawal - fearing it will show that governments can bully UN peacekeepers and win, which in turn could deter countries from offering up their troops to serve as peacekeepers.
From BBC News
Atlantan Jermaine Dupri to Head P&G-Def Jam Hip-Hop Label
Procter & Gamble Co. has partnered with record label company Island Def Jam Music Group to launch a music company tied to its TAG men's deodorant and body spray.
Jermaine Dupri, an Atlanta-based rapper and music producer, will act as president of the New York-based venture and will play a key role in identifying and developing its musical talent.
The label, called TAG Records, is an effort by the brand to connect with the urban market by providing opportunities for aspiring hip-hop talent. Those artists will merge their music with brand marketing for TAG, and will be promoted through a multimillion-dollar campaign, including television, print, radio, computer and event marketing.
"Today, we make history in the music industry with TAG Records," Dupri said in a press release. "This label is going to provide new artists with a chance of a lifetime. New artists will receive 10 times the typical marketing support - a first in the industry. I'm hand-selecting and molding these artists to make history in hip hop."
The first artist will be announced in May. In addition to an album release, TAG will showcase the artist and Dupri across various TAG brand advertising and marketing programs throughout the year.
"We're confident the partnership will make a positive impact and bring opportunities to undiscovered urban creativity and vision," Alex Keith, general manager of P&G Deodorants, said in the release.
While the record label is unique, it is not Cincinnati-based P&G's first effort to partner with the entertainment industry to promote its brands. It has, for instance, partnered with several reality show programs, including "America's Top Model" and "Survivor."
P&G (NYSE: PG) is the world's largest consume products maker, with brands including Charmin, Crest and Tide.
Jermaine Dupri, an Atlanta-based rapper and music producer, will act as president of the New York-based venture and will play a key role in identifying and developing its musical talent.
The label, called TAG Records, is an effort by the brand to connect with the urban market by providing opportunities for aspiring hip-hop talent. Those artists will merge their music with brand marketing for TAG, and will be promoted through a multimillion-dollar campaign, including television, print, radio, computer and event marketing.
"Today, we make history in the music industry with TAG Records," Dupri said in a press release. "This label is going to provide new artists with a chance of a lifetime. New artists will receive 10 times the typical marketing support - a first in the industry. I'm hand-selecting and molding these artists to make history in hip hop."
The first artist will be announced in May. In addition to an album release, TAG will showcase the artist and Dupri across various TAG brand advertising and marketing programs throughout the year.
"We're confident the partnership will make a positive impact and bring opportunities to undiscovered urban creativity and vision," Alex Keith, general manager of P&G Deodorants, said in the release.
While the record label is unique, it is not Cincinnati-based P&G's first effort to partner with the entertainment industry to promote its brands. It has, for instance, partnered with several reality show programs, including "America's Top Model" and "Survivor."
P&G (NYSE: PG) is the world's largest consume products maker, with brands including Charmin, Crest and Tide.
Judge Denies Motion to Dismiss Criminal Charges in Bell Trial
A Queens judge on Thursday refused to drop the charges against three detectives accused of killing Sean Bell in a 50-bullet barrage on his wedding day.
Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman's ruling was expected and it came after prosecutor John Castellano insisted that cops shouldn't get special treatment under the law.
"That's very much what this case is about," he said. "The rules apply to everyone."
Defense lawyer Steven Kartagener conceded earlier that his motion was a longshot.
"We know that in 99% of the cases, these trial orders of dimissal are denied," Kartagener said. "But we still make it."
Another defense lawyer, Anthony Ricco, reminded Cooperman that the undercover detectives were not legally required to identify themselves before they fired.
"There is nothing in the penal law that requires such a finding," Ricco said. He said the only requirement was the officers had reason to believe they were in danger.
Cooperman cut Ricco off. "I will follow the law," he said. "New York State law."
The issue of whether Detectives Gescard Isnora, Marc Cooper and Michael Oliver let the victims know they were cops before they opened fire is key to the case.
Closing arguments are set for Monday. Cooperman is expected to take at least two weeks to render his verdict.
Bell, a 23-year-old father of two, was killed on Nov. 25, 2006, near the Kalua Cabaret, a jiggle joint in Jamaica, Queens, where he'd just had his bachelor party - and where the detectives were doing a prostitution sting. Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, who were in Bell's car, were badly wounded.
In their bid to dismiss the charges, defense lawyers attacked the eight counts against the detectives starting with the two most serious charges against Isnora and Oliver - first-degree manslaughter for killing Bell and seriously injuring Guzman, and second-degree manslaughter, for recklessly killing Bell.
Ricco said prosecutors used a legal precedent aimed at Brooklyn gang-bangers when they accused the detectives of acting in concert by firing on Bell's car.
"Detective Gescard Isnora is not a gang banger," Ricco said. "He is a New York City police officer."
Ricco also questioned why the detectives were accused of acting in concert when two other cops also shot at Bell. And he asked why Isnora was charged with recklessly assaulting Benefield when none of his bullets struck Benefield.
Defense lawyers said the detectives fired in self-defense because they believed Guzman was reaching for a gun when Isnora stepped in front of Bell's car and declared, "Police, show your hands!"
No gun was found and none of the detectives took the stand, though their accounts were read at trial.
The defense won a legal round Thursday when they got prosecutors to vouch for the accuracy of testimony that buttresses their argument that the cops had reason to believe that Guzman had a gun.
Fabio Coicou, the mysterious "man in black" who argued with Bell outside the club, told prosecutors before the trial that one of Bell's pals threatened him with a gun. On the stand, he changed his story and denied hearing Guzman say "Go get my gat." Now, Cooperman also will consider Coicou's first version of what happened.
By NICOLE BODE and CORKY SIEMASZKO
NY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman's ruling was expected and it came after prosecutor John Castellano insisted that cops shouldn't get special treatment under the law.
"That's very much what this case is about," he said. "The rules apply to everyone."
Defense lawyer Steven Kartagener conceded earlier that his motion was a longshot.
"We know that in 99% of the cases, these trial orders of dimissal are denied," Kartagener said. "But we still make it."
Another defense lawyer, Anthony Ricco, reminded Cooperman that the undercover detectives were not legally required to identify themselves before they fired.
"There is nothing in the penal law that requires such a finding," Ricco said. He said the only requirement was the officers had reason to believe they were in danger.
Cooperman cut Ricco off. "I will follow the law," he said. "New York State law."
The issue of whether Detectives Gescard Isnora, Marc Cooper and Michael Oliver let the victims know they were cops before they opened fire is key to the case.
Closing arguments are set for Monday. Cooperman is expected to take at least two weeks to render his verdict.
Bell, a 23-year-old father of two, was killed on Nov. 25, 2006, near the Kalua Cabaret, a jiggle joint in Jamaica, Queens, where he'd just had his bachelor party - and where the detectives were doing a prostitution sting. Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, who were in Bell's car, were badly wounded.
In their bid to dismiss the charges, defense lawyers attacked the eight counts against the detectives starting with the two most serious charges against Isnora and Oliver - first-degree manslaughter for killing Bell and seriously injuring Guzman, and second-degree manslaughter, for recklessly killing Bell.
Ricco said prosecutors used a legal precedent aimed at Brooklyn gang-bangers when they accused the detectives of acting in concert by firing on Bell's car.
"Detective Gescard Isnora is not a gang banger," Ricco said. "He is a New York City police officer."
Ricco also questioned why the detectives were accused of acting in concert when two other cops also shot at Bell. And he asked why Isnora was charged with recklessly assaulting Benefield when none of his bullets struck Benefield.
Defense lawyers said the detectives fired in self-defense because they believed Guzman was reaching for a gun when Isnora stepped in front of Bell's car and declared, "Police, show your hands!"
No gun was found and none of the detectives took the stand, though their accounts were read at trial.
The defense won a legal round Thursday when they got prosecutors to vouch for the accuracy of testimony that buttresses their argument that the cops had reason to believe that Guzman had a gun.
Fabio Coicou, the mysterious "man in black" who argued with Bell outside the club, told prosecutors before the trial that one of Bell's pals threatened him with a gun. On the stand, he changed his story and denied hearing Guzman say "Go get my gat." Now, Cooperman also will consider Coicou's first version of what happened.
By NICOLE BODE and CORKY SIEMASZKO
NY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The War Over Kings Legacy
On the eve of his murder, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream was turning dark. Worried about poverty and Vietnam, he was growing more radical--and that, his family says, is why he was killed. Was the real King a saint, a subversive--or both?
The sun was about to set.
On Thursday, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. had retreated to room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, worrying about a sanitation strike in Memphis and working on his sermon for Sunday. Its title: "Why America May Go to Hell." For King, whose focus had shifted from civil rights to antiwar agitation and populist economics, the Dream was turning dark. He had been depressed, sleeping little and suffering from migraines. In Washington, his plans for a massive Poor People's Campaign were in disarray. In Memphis, King's first march with striking garbage men had degenerated into riot when young black radicals--not, as in the glory days, angry state troopers--broke King's nonviolent ranks. By 5 p.m. he was hungry and looked forward to a soul-food supper. Always fastidious-a prince of the church--King shaved, splashed on cologne and stepped onto the balcony. He paused; a .30-06 rifle shot slammed King back against the wall, his arms stretched out to his sides as if he were being crucified.
The Passion was complete. As he lay dying, the popular beatification was already underway: Martin Luther King Jr., general and martyr to the greatest moral crusade on the nation's racial battlefield. For most Americans the story seems so straightforward. He was a prophet, our own Gandhi, who led the nation out of the darkness of Jim Crow. His Promised Land was the one he conjured on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, a place where his "four little children... will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Now, 30 years after his assassination, that legend is under fresh assault--from King's own family and many of his aging lieutenants. His widow, Coretta, and his heirs are on the front lines of a quiet but pitched battle over the manner of his death and the meaning of his life. They believe James Earl Ray, King's convicted assassin, is innocent and that history has forgotten the real Martin Luther King.
To his family, King was murdered because he was no longer the King of the March on Washington, simply asking for the whites only signs to come down. He had grown radical: the King of 1968 was trying to build an interracial coalition to end the war in Vietnam and force major economic reforms--starting with guaranteed annual incomes for all. They charge that the government, probably with Lyndon Johnson's knowledge, feared King might topple the "power structure" and had him assassinated. "The economic movement was why he was killed, frankly," Martin Luther King III told NEWSWEEK. "That was frightening to the powers that be." They allege there were political reasons, too. "RFK was considering him as a vice presidential candidate," says Dexter, King's third child. "It's not widely known or discussed, [but] obviously those watching him knew of it. They [Kennedy and King] were both considered powerful and influential in terms of bringing together a multiracial coalition."
So who was the real Martin Luther King Jr.--the integrationist preacher of the summer of 1963 or the leftist activist of the spring of 1968? The question is not just academic.Its competing answers shed light on enduring--and urgent--tensions between white and black America over race, class and conspiracy. Most whites want King to be a warm civic memory, an example of the triumph of good over evil. For many African-Americans, however, the sanitizing of King's legacy, and suspicions about a plot to kill him, are yet another example of how larger forces--including the government that so long enslaved them-hijack their history and conspire against them. In a strange way, the war over King's legacy is a sepia-toned O.J. trial, and what you believe depends on who you are.
The Kings, a family still struggling to find its footing personally and politically, are understandably attracted to the grander theories about King's life and death. A government conspiracy to kill a revolutionary on the rise is more commensurate with the greatness of the target than a hater hitting a leader who may have been on the cool side of the mountain. The truth, as always, is more complicated than legend. People who were around Robert Kennedy say it is highly unlikely that there was serious consideration of an RFK-King ticket. "I never heard Kennedy talk about any vice presidential possibilities," says historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a Kennedy aide. And though there was almost certainly some kind of small-time plot to kill King, 30 years of speculation and investigation has produced no convincing proof that James Earl Ray was part of a government-led conspiracy.
The real King was in fact both radical and pragmatist, prophet and pol. He understood that the clarity of Birmingham and Selma was gone forever, and sensed the tricky racial and political terrain ahead. He knew the country was embarking on a long twilight struggle against poverty and violence--necessarily more diffuse, and more arduous, than the fight against Jim Crow. Jealousies among reformers, always high, would grow even worse; once the target shifted to poverty, it would be tough to replicate the drama that had led to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in 1964 and '65. "We've got some difficult days ahead," he preached the night before he died.
King was an unlikely martyr to begin with. On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks declined to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. King was not quite 27; Coretta had just given birth to their first child, Yolanda. E. D. Nixon, another Montgomery pastor, wanted to host a boycott meeting at King's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church--not because of King but because the church was closest to downtown. When the session ran long, a frustrated minister got up to leave, whispering to King, "This is going to fizzle out. I'm going." King replied, "I would like to go, too, but it's in my church."
He took up the burden, however, and his greatness emerged. He led waves of courageous ordinary people on the streets of the South, from the bus boycott to the Freedom Rides. Behind his public dignity, King was roiled by contradictions and self-doubts. He wasn't interested in money, yet favored silk suits; he summoned a nation to moral reckoning, yet had a weakness for women. He made powerful enemies: J. Edgar Hoover obsessed over King. The FBI, worried that he was under communist influence, wiretapped and harassed the preacher from 1962 until his death.
Hoover may have been overestimating his foe, particularly after 1965. On the streets, the black-power movement thought King's philosophy of nonviolence was out of date. Within the system King fared little better. "The years before '68 were a time when people in Detroit would call us to march for civil rights--come to Chicago, come to L.A.," Jesse Jackson says. "But by the '70s, you had mayors who were doing the work every day." King felt this chill wind in Cleveland, when he campaigned for Carl Stokes, the city's first successful black mayoral candidate. The night Stokes won, King waited in a hotel room for the invitation to join the celebrations. The call never came.
King took the change in climate hard. He told his congregation that "life is a continual story of shattered dreams." "Dr. King kept saying," John Lewis recalls, " 'Where do we go? How do we get there?' " According to David J. Garrow's Pulitzer Prize-winning King biography, "Bearing the Cross," he had found one answer while reading Ramparts magazine at lunch one day in 1967. Coming across photos of napalmed Vietnamese kids, King pushed away his plate of food: "Nothing will ever taste any good for me until I do everything I can to end that war."
Look at this from the eyes of King's family. He is attacking the war and poverty. He is planning to "dislocate" daily life in the capital by bringing the nation's impoverished to camp out in Washington. "He was about to wreck this country," says Hosea Williams, "and they realized they couldn't stop him, and they killed him." But it did not seem that way to Williams--or to King--in real time. The Poor People's Campaign was having so much trouble turning out marchers that one organizer, James Gibson, wrote Williams a terse memo just two weeks before King was to die. "If this is to be a progress report," Gibson told Williams, "I can stop now; there has been none!" The march was to be a model for multiethnic protest--a forerunner to the Rainbow Coalition. The early returns--and King knew this--were not good. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was riven as the calculus changed. "I do not think I am at the point where a Mexican can sit in and call strategy on a Steering Committee," one SCLC aide said.
What would have become of King? His lieutenants do not believe he could have kept up the emotional and physical pace of the previous 13 years. They doubt he would have run for office despite speculation about RFK or a presidential bid with Benjamin Spock. Nor do they think he would have pulled a Gandhi and gone to live with the poor. ("Martin would give you anything, but he liked nice things," says one King hand. "He would not have put on sackcloth.")
A more likely fate: pastoring Ebenezer Baptist Church and using his Nobel platform to speak out--on war and peace, the inner cities, apartheid. King would have stood by liberalism: conservatives who use his words to fight affirmative action are almost certainly wrong. "At the end of his life," says Julian Bond, "King was saying that a nation that has done something to the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something for him." Had he lived, King might have been the only man with the standing to frame the issue of the ghettos in moral terms. On the other hand, he might have become a man out of time, frustrated by preaching about poverty to a prosperous country.
The fight over King's legacy resonates beyond the small circles of family and historians. To the Malcolm X-saturated hip-hop generation, "by any means necessary" is a better rap beat than "I have a dream." "For kids outside the system, King has no relevancy," says Andre Green, a freshman at Simon's Rock College in Massachusetts. "But for the upwardly mobile, assimilated black youth, King is a hero because he opened the doors." That is true of older African-Americans as well, though there is a rethinking of integration, too. Some black mayors now oppose busing even if it means largely all-African-American schools.
On the last Saturday of his life, sitting in his study at Ebenezer, King fretted and contemplated a fast--a genuine sacrifice for a man who joked about how his collars were growing tighter. He mused about getting out of the full-time movement, maybe becoming president of Morehouse College. Then his spirits started to rise. "He preached himself out of the gloom," says Jackson. "We must turn a minus into a plus," King said, "a stumbling block into a steppingstone--we must go on anyhow." Three decades later, he would want all of us to do the same.
By Vern E. Smith and Jon Meacham from The washingtonpost.com
The sun was about to set.
On Thursday, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. had retreated to room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, worrying about a sanitation strike in Memphis and working on his sermon for Sunday. Its title: "Why America May Go to Hell." For King, whose focus had shifted from civil rights to antiwar agitation and populist economics, the Dream was turning dark. He had been depressed, sleeping little and suffering from migraines. In Washington, his plans for a massive Poor People's Campaign were in disarray. In Memphis, King's first march with striking garbage men had degenerated into riot when young black radicals--not, as in the glory days, angry state troopers--broke King's nonviolent ranks. By 5 p.m. he was hungry and looked forward to a soul-food supper. Always fastidious-a prince of the church--King shaved, splashed on cologne and stepped onto the balcony. He paused; a .30-06 rifle shot slammed King back against the wall, his arms stretched out to his sides as if he were being crucified.
The Passion was complete. As he lay dying, the popular beatification was already underway: Martin Luther King Jr., general and martyr to the greatest moral crusade on the nation's racial battlefield. For most Americans the story seems so straightforward. He was a prophet, our own Gandhi, who led the nation out of the darkness of Jim Crow. His Promised Land was the one he conjured on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, a place where his "four little children... will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Now, 30 years after his assassination, that legend is under fresh assault--from King's own family and many of his aging lieutenants. His widow, Coretta, and his heirs are on the front lines of a quiet but pitched battle over the manner of his death and the meaning of his life. They believe James Earl Ray, King's convicted assassin, is innocent and that history has forgotten the real Martin Luther King.
To his family, King was murdered because he was no longer the King of the March on Washington, simply asking for the whites only signs to come down. He had grown radical: the King of 1968 was trying to build an interracial coalition to end the war in Vietnam and force major economic reforms--starting with guaranteed annual incomes for all. They charge that the government, probably with Lyndon Johnson's knowledge, feared King might topple the "power structure" and had him assassinated. "The economic movement was why he was killed, frankly," Martin Luther King III told NEWSWEEK. "That was frightening to the powers that be." They allege there were political reasons, too. "RFK was considering him as a vice presidential candidate," says Dexter, King's third child. "It's not widely known or discussed, [but] obviously those watching him knew of it. They [Kennedy and King] were both considered powerful and influential in terms of bringing together a multiracial coalition."
So who was the real Martin Luther King Jr.--the integrationist preacher of the summer of 1963 or the leftist activist of the spring of 1968? The question is not just academic.Its competing answers shed light on enduring--and urgent--tensions between white and black America over race, class and conspiracy. Most whites want King to be a warm civic memory, an example of the triumph of good over evil. For many African-Americans, however, the sanitizing of King's legacy, and suspicions about a plot to kill him, are yet another example of how larger forces--including the government that so long enslaved them-hijack their history and conspire against them. In a strange way, the war over King's legacy is a sepia-toned O.J. trial, and what you believe depends on who you are.
The Kings, a family still struggling to find its footing personally and politically, are understandably attracted to the grander theories about King's life and death. A government conspiracy to kill a revolutionary on the rise is more commensurate with the greatness of the target than a hater hitting a leader who may have been on the cool side of the mountain. The truth, as always, is more complicated than legend. People who were around Robert Kennedy say it is highly unlikely that there was serious consideration of an RFK-King ticket. "I never heard Kennedy talk about any vice presidential possibilities," says historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a Kennedy aide. And though there was almost certainly some kind of small-time plot to kill King, 30 years of speculation and investigation has produced no convincing proof that James Earl Ray was part of a government-led conspiracy.
The real King was in fact both radical and pragmatist, prophet and pol. He understood that the clarity of Birmingham and Selma was gone forever, and sensed the tricky racial and political terrain ahead. He knew the country was embarking on a long twilight struggle against poverty and violence--necessarily more diffuse, and more arduous, than the fight against Jim Crow. Jealousies among reformers, always high, would grow even worse; once the target shifted to poverty, it would be tough to replicate the drama that had led to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in 1964 and '65. "We've got some difficult days ahead," he preached the night before he died.
King was an unlikely martyr to begin with. On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks declined to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. King was not quite 27; Coretta had just given birth to their first child, Yolanda. E. D. Nixon, another Montgomery pastor, wanted to host a boycott meeting at King's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church--not because of King but because the church was closest to downtown. When the session ran long, a frustrated minister got up to leave, whispering to King, "This is going to fizzle out. I'm going." King replied, "I would like to go, too, but it's in my church."
He took up the burden, however, and his greatness emerged. He led waves of courageous ordinary people on the streets of the South, from the bus boycott to the Freedom Rides. Behind his public dignity, King was roiled by contradictions and self-doubts. He wasn't interested in money, yet favored silk suits; he summoned a nation to moral reckoning, yet had a weakness for women. He made powerful enemies: J. Edgar Hoover obsessed over King. The FBI, worried that he was under communist influence, wiretapped and harassed the preacher from 1962 until his death.
Hoover may have been overestimating his foe, particularly after 1965. On the streets, the black-power movement thought King's philosophy of nonviolence was out of date. Within the system King fared little better. "The years before '68 were a time when people in Detroit would call us to march for civil rights--come to Chicago, come to L.A.," Jesse Jackson says. "But by the '70s, you had mayors who were doing the work every day." King felt this chill wind in Cleveland, when he campaigned for Carl Stokes, the city's first successful black mayoral candidate. The night Stokes won, King waited in a hotel room for the invitation to join the celebrations. The call never came.
King took the change in climate hard. He told his congregation that "life is a continual story of shattered dreams." "Dr. King kept saying," John Lewis recalls, " 'Where do we go? How do we get there?' " According to David J. Garrow's Pulitzer Prize-winning King biography, "Bearing the Cross," he had found one answer while reading Ramparts magazine at lunch one day in 1967. Coming across photos of napalmed Vietnamese kids, King pushed away his plate of food: "Nothing will ever taste any good for me until I do everything I can to end that war."
Look at this from the eyes of King's family. He is attacking the war and poverty. He is planning to "dislocate" daily life in the capital by bringing the nation's impoverished to camp out in Washington. "He was about to wreck this country," says Hosea Williams, "and they realized they couldn't stop him, and they killed him." But it did not seem that way to Williams--or to King--in real time. The Poor People's Campaign was having so much trouble turning out marchers that one organizer, James Gibson, wrote Williams a terse memo just two weeks before King was to die. "If this is to be a progress report," Gibson told Williams, "I can stop now; there has been none!" The march was to be a model for multiethnic protest--a forerunner to the Rainbow Coalition. The early returns--and King knew this--were not good. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was riven as the calculus changed. "I do not think I am at the point where a Mexican can sit in and call strategy on a Steering Committee," one SCLC aide said.
What would have become of King? His lieutenants do not believe he could have kept up the emotional and physical pace of the previous 13 years. They doubt he would have run for office despite speculation about RFK or a presidential bid with Benjamin Spock. Nor do they think he would have pulled a Gandhi and gone to live with the poor. ("Martin would give you anything, but he liked nice things," says one King hand. "He would not have put on sackcloth.")
A more likely fate: pastoring Ebenezer Baptist Church and using his Nobel platform to speak out--on war and peace, the inner cities, apartheid. King would have stood by liberalism: conservatives who use his words to fight affirmative action are almost certainly wrong. "At the end of his life," says Julian Bond, "King was saying that a nation that has done something to the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something for him." Had he lived, King might have been the only man with the standing to frame the issue of the ghettos in moral terms. On the other hand, he might have become a man out of time, frustrated by preaching about poverty to a prosperous country.
The fight over King's legacy resonates beyond the small circles of family and historians. To the Malcolm X-saturated hip-hop generation, "by any means necessary" is a better rap beat than "I have a dream." "For kids outside the system, King has no relevancy," says Andre Green, a freshman at Simon's Rock College in Massachusetts. "But for the upwardly mobile, assimilated black youth, King is a hero because he opened the doors." That is true of older African-Americans as well, though there is a rethinking of integration, too. Some black mayors now oppose busing even if it means largely all-African-American schools.
On the last Saturday of his life, sitting in his study at Ebenezer, King fretted and contemplated a fast--a genuine sacrifice for a man who joked about how his collars were growing tighter. He mused about getting out of the full-time movement, maybe becoming president of Morehouse College. Then his spirits started to rise. "He preached himself out of the gloom," says Jackson. "We must turn a minus into a plus," King said, "a stumbling block into a steppingstone--we must go on anyhow." Three decades later, he would want all of us to do the same.
By Vern E. Smith and Jon Meacham from The washingtonpost.com
Black Voter Registration Surges in NC
As polls continue to show Barack Obama maintaining a double-digit lead over Hillary Clinton in the May 6 North Carolina primary, The Associated Press reports that voter registration among blacks is soaring in the Tar Heel State.
Blacks have traditionally accounting for about a third of all voters in past North Carolina Democratic primaries, but Clyde Frazier, a professor of political science at Meredith College in Raleigh, told the AP, "I think everybody's expecting it to be higher than that this year."
The AP reports that over 45,000 blacks registered to vote in the first three months of this year, while about 106,000 whites signed up to vote during the same period. Those numbers are both way up from 2004, when just over 11,000 blacks and 47,000 whites registered during the first quarter of that year, but the percentage increase of new black registrants was much higher than new whites.
If Obama continues to generate the kind of enthusiasm among black voters he has garnered in other southern primaries, North Carolina looks to be his state to lose.
From CBSNews.com
Blacks have traditionally accounting for about a third of all voters in past North Carolina Democratic primaries, but Clyde Frazier, a professor of political science at Meredith College in Raleigh, told the AP, "I think everybody's expecting it to be higher than that this year."
The AP reports that over 45,000 blacks registered to vote in the first three months of this year, while about 106,000 whites signed up to vote during the same period. Those numbers are both way up from 2004, when just over 11,000 blacks and 47,000 whites registered during the first quarter of that year, but the percentage increase of new black registrants was much higher than new whites.
If Obama continues to generate the kind of enthusiasm among black voters he has garnered in other southern primaries, North Carolina looks to be his state to lose.
From CBSNews.com
Zimbabweans Flock to Border Amid Crisis
The mother of six from Zimbabwe doesn't want to have to cross the border to South Africa for essentials like soap and cooking oil, so she voted for change in last month's elections.
What she got was a death threat.
Priscah Godzamutsipa sits next to a few sacks of nuts she it trying to sell at this busy border post linking South Africa to its troubled neighbor. She says she worries about going home, where militants loyal to President Robert Mugabe are intimidating villagers who voted against the longtime leader.
"They say: 'We are going to kill you,'" said Godzamutsipa, 55. "We are worried about them. They say: 'Why did you vote for Tsvangirai?'"
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, says he won Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential elections; no official results have been released. His party has accused Mugabe of unleashing a campaign of violence against opposition supporters, especially in former rural strongholds of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu called the claims lies, saying the country is peaceful, with "no violence whatsoever."
Godzamutsipa lives in Masvingo, a cattle-ranching area where ruling party militants began invading white-owned farms last weekend. By Wednesday, dozens of white farmers had been driven off their land.
Across Zimbabwe, only a few hundred remain of the 4,500 white farmers who once grew enough food to feed the nation and export to neighbors.
Godzamutsipa farms 10 acres of family land with her husband and was once a staunch supporter of Mugabe, who led a seven-year bush war that helped end white rule and bring independence to Zimbabwe.
But now she "wants change," the refrain of many Zimbabweans.
"Before Mugabe was very good. I could pay school fees. There was food in the supermarkets," she said. "Now the shops are empty. You can have a billion dollars, but you can't buy anything."
A lack of rain and fertilizer and only two oxen for tilling mean Godzamutsipa can barely produce enough food for her six children as well as the six nieces and nephews she looks after.
So, every month she makes the two-day bus journey to South Africa, hoping to sell enough nuts to pay school fees and buy essentials such as cooking oil and soap.
The Beitbridge border post, set in a dusty, scrubby landscape marked by giant Baobab trees, has become a hive of trade and activity.
A stream of cars and small trucks laden with goods head north from South Africa, destined for Zimbabwe's black market. At the gas station, a mass of plastic drums lie waiting to be filled with fuel — a scarce commodity across the border.
In the market, women sell tomatoes and sodas in the hot sun, while men with minibuses do a roaring business ferrying day-trippers and shoppers. In a darkened hut, a money changer counts out wads of U.S. dollars and South African rands.
As Zimbabwe's economic and political woes have intensified, an increasing number of Zimbabweans are fleeing to South Africa and other neighboring countries.
There are few reliable figures, but estimates consistently put the number of Zimbabweans in South Africa at 3 million — nearly a quarter of Zimbabwe's total population.
The International Organization for Migration office in Zimbabwe says people are crossing into South Africa at a rate of more than 1,000 a day.
Some cross legally but then let their visas expire; others get truck drivers to smuggle them in.
"Most of the truck drivers do it now," said Tom Karonga, 34, who has been waiting on the Zimbabwean side of the border for a week while his cargo of luxury cars is being cleared, crossing daily into South Africa on foot for supplies.
"We know they are doing it for the better of their families or themselves," he said, adding that he had been approached by Zimbabweans on both sides of the border desperate for a lift to "anywhere."
Some Zimbabweans choose to brave the crocodiles of the Limpopo River, often paying exorbitant fees to guides.
The poorly patrolled border stretches for miles, with barbed wire marking out a rocky patch of no man's land a few feet wide. Holes cut into the bottom of the fence are large enough for adults to crawl through. In some areas, there is no fence at all.
Once through, "border jumpers" make a dash across a narrow strip of tarmac, duck through some more ripped fencing and disappear into the bush, leaving behind an odd shoe or cap.
In the warm glow of the late afternoon sun, a man in a khaki shirt rushed from the fence back into shadow on the Zimbabwean side. Disturbed by the cars on the South African side, he made one more attempt to reach the fence before retreating to wait for another, safer time to cross.
By CELEAN JACOBSON, Associated Press Writer
What she got was a death threat.
Priscah Godzamutsipa sits next to a few sacks of nuts she it trying to sell at this busy border post linking South Africa to its troubled neighbor. She says she worries about going home, where militants loyal to President Robert Mugabe are intimidating villagers who voted against the longtime leader.
"They say: 'We are going to kill you,'" said Godzamutsipa, 55. "We are worried about them. They say: 'Why did you vote for Tsvangirai?'"
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, says he won Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential elections; no official results have been released. His party has accused Mugabe of unleashing a campaign of violence against opposition supporters, especially in former rural strongholds of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu called the claims lies, saying the country is peaceful, with "no violence whatsoever."
Godzamutsipa lives in Masvingo, a cattle-ranching area where ruling party militants began invading white-owned farms last weekend. By Wednesday, dozens of white farmers had been driven off their land.
Across Zimbabwe, only a few hundred remain of the 4,500 white farmers who once grew enough food to feed the nation and export to neighbors.
Godzamutsipa farms 10 acres of family land with her husband and was once a staunch supporter of Mugabe, who led a seven-year bush war that helped end white rule and bring independence to Zimbabwe.
But now she "wants change," the refrain of many Zimbabweans.
"Before Mugabe was very good. I could pay school fees. There was food in the supermarkets," she said. "Now the shops are empty. You can have a billion dollars, but you can't buy anything."
A lack of rain and fertilizer and only two oxen for tilling mean Godzamutsipa can barely produce enough food for her six children as well as the six nieces and nephews she looks after.
So, every month she makes the two-day bus journey to South Africa, hoping to sell enough nuts to pay school fees and buy essentials such as cooking oil and soap.
The Beitbridge border post, set in a dusty, scrubby landscape marked by giant Baobab trees, has become a hive of trade and activity.
A stream of cars and small trucks laden with goods head north from South Africa, destined for Zimbabwe's black market. At the gas station, a mass of plastic drums lie waiting to be filled with fuel — a scarce commodity across the border.
In the market, women sell tomatoes and sodas in the hot sun, while men with minibuses do a roaring business ferrying day-trippers and shoppers. In a darkened hut, a money changer counts out wads of U.S. dollars and South African rands.
As Zimbabwe's economic and political woes have intensified, an increasing number of Zimbabweans are fleeing to South Africa and other neighboring countries.
There are few reliable figures, but estimates consistently put the number of Zimbabweans in South Africa at 3 million — nearly a quarter of Zimbabwe's total population.
The International Organization for Migration office in Zimbabwe says people are crossing into South Africa at a rate of more than 1,000 a day.
Some cross legally but then let their visas expire; others get truck drivers to smuggle them in.
"Most of the truck drivers do it now," said Tom Karonga, 34, who has been waiting on the Zimbabwean side of the border for a week while his cargo of luxury cars is being cleared, crossing daily into South Africa on foot for supplies.
"We know they are doing it for the better of their families or themselves," he said, adding that he had been approached by Zimbabweans on both sides of the border desperate for a lift to "anywhere."
Some Zimbabweans choose to brave the crocodiles of the Limpopo River, often paying exorbitant fees to guides.
The poorly patrolled border stretches for miles, with barbed wire marking out a rocky patch of no man's land a few feet wide. Holes cut into the bottom of the fence are large enough for adults to crawl through. In some areas, there is no fence at all.
Once through, "border jumpers" make a dash across a narrow strip of tarmac, duck through some more ripped fencing and disappear into the bush, leaving behind an odd shoe or cap.
In the warm glow of the late afternoon sun, a man in a khaki shirt rushed from the fence back into shadow on the Zimbabwean side. Disturbed by the cars on the South African side, he made one more attempt to reach the fence before retreating to wait for another, safer time to cross.
By CELEAN JACOBSON, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Searching Debris of Katrina for Memories Left Behind
Kierstyn Cyrus cracked open the front door of her ruined home, a single goal in mind, just one precious thing she wanted to rescue. It was October 2005, the first time since Hurricane Katrina that she had stepped inside the brick ranch at 2455 Deslonde Street in the Lower Ninth Ward. The morning before a levee burst four blocks away, Kierstyn, her mother and grandmother had fled 250 miles inland.
On this mockingly sunlit afternoon, as Kierstyn entered the house, she spotted a kitchen chair perched atop the roof. Inside, the refrigerator lay sideways across the living room. In Kierstyn’s bedroom, her Tweety Bird doll was wedged amid the rafters, where the flood waters had pressed it, and all her church dresses were gone from the closet, swept away.
“Mom, where’s my book?” Kierstyn called out to her mother, Melanie. “Where’s my portfolio?”
Ms. Cyrus was standing outside, doctor’s orders. She was in the middle of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and she had been warned not to expose herself to the filth, germs and mold in the house. But she knew which book Kierstyn meant, and she shouted back to look under the radio on the bedroom dresser.
Kierstyn was searching for a loose-leaf binder, filled with every award and honor from her academic career. Her mother, a teacher, had begun keeping the book when Kierstyn was in Rock-a-Bye nursery school and continued all the way to the eighth-grade year interrupted by the hurricane.
The pages held all of Kierstyn’s report cards, the honor-roll ribbons, the snapshots of classmates, the certificate good for a free meal at Shoney’s in recognition of high marks. Ms. Cyrus and Kierstyn had put every page in a plastic sleeve, as if smudged fingers or spilled coffee were all the book had to be guarded against.
In the bedroom on that October day, the dresser and the radio were both toppled and askew. Kierstyn kept rummaging through the clutter until her mother said it was time to leave. On the way out, Kierstyn found a little statue of a girl with the inscription “Jesus Loves Me,” part of her grandmother’s collection. But she did not find the scrapbook.
“That’s what hurt my heart,” Ms. Cyrus said recently. “I liked that I could look back and see what Kierstyn had done. I’m a math teacher, so I always like to see the hard data. And I wanted her to be able to look back, too, so someday when she has kids and they’re giving her grief, she can say, ‘Here’s what I did.’ ”
Kierstyn, too, struck a wistful note. “All those pictures,” she said. “All the pages I glued into place. I am mad, and I am sad.”
In such emotions, mother and daughter tell a story common to the Lower Ninth. Even amid the epic wreckage of the neighborhood — a barge crashing into a house, cars flipped onto their hoods, homes swept off their foundations — the uprooted residents often feel the sharpest cravings for the smaller keepsakes.
“Baby books, photo albums, wedding portraits,” said Tom Pepper, the director of operations for Common Ground Relief, which has been deeply involved in cleaning up and trying to resettle the Lower Ninth. “Pictures were the nearest and dearest things people were talking about, even a year or two after the storm.”
In some ways, the Cyrus family fared better than most. Ms. Cyrus’s mother, Ophelia Green, still owned a frame cabin just outside the hamlet of Dodson in the piney woods of northern Louisiana. Ten relatives lived there in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, and Kierstyn, her mother and grandmother still do.
Ms. Cyrus went a full year before finding a job near Dodson. Her ex-husband, Harvey, Kierstyn’s father, lost his principal’s job in New Orleans when the city decided not to reopen his high school. Kierstyn’s classmates landed in San Jose, Houston, Jonesboro, Ga. A friend named Allison, Kierstyn said, “was in Idaho or Iowa or something.”
Kierstyn and her mother made another trip to the Lower Ninth in early 2006, after their house had been gutted. The belongings spilled across the front yard. Again, Kierstyn searched for the scrapbook. Again, she could not find it. When she thought about the book, she relived the morning her family evacuated, the way she had grabbed just a few days’ worth of “raggedy country clothes,” certain she would be back home soon.
Life in Dodson, though, instilled its own routines. Kierstyn completed eighth and ninth grades and started 10th. She scored in the 82nd percentile on a national standardized test, the ACT Explore. Ms. Cyrus began to put together a new scrapbook for Kierstyn, with her Dodson report cards, as a kind of sequel to the vanished portfolio.
And then, last March, a sophomore from Marquette University, Joel Volkert, was volunteering for Common Ground, cleaning out debris from houses in the Lower Ninth. He went into the Cyruses’ house to make sure none of his co-workers had left anything behind. There, on the bare floor, he noticed a blue loose-leaf binder, bearing the name Kierstyn Cyrus.
Mr. Volkert called over several Marquette classmates, and one shot a couple of photos of the book. Then they turned it in at Common Ground’s headquarters, hoping the group could find the Cyrus family and return the book to Kierstyn.
Nobody at Common Ground, though, knew where the Cyrus family had ended up. Their old phone number had been disconnected. Relief workers were worried that the book had been contaminated by the toxic chemicals in the floodwaters. It was stored for a time amid ever-growing piles of personal effects discovered by cleanup crews. Eventually, in all likelihood, the scrapbook was thrown away, Mr. Pepper said, although even that fate is not certain.
Kierstyn and her mother did not know that the book had resurfaced, or that it had disappeared again until late last month when at last they saw the photos of the scrapbook, all that is left.
As they sat on their screen porch in Dodson on a rainy Sunday night, Kierstyn remembered that just before Katrina, she had bought some purple tie-dyed fabric to cover the portfolio. Ms. Cyrus recalled that she had made a photocopy of Kierstyn’s school skirt so she could use that exact plaid pattern as the backdrop for a new page of awards.
“We were going to do all those things,” Ms. Cyrus said. “All those things we were going to do.” She paused as some rain blew in through the screen. “When I thought we had all the time in the world.”
by SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN from The New York Times
On this mockingly sunlit afternoon, as Kierstyn entered the house, she spotted a kitchen chair perched atop the roof. Inside, the refrigerator lay sideways across the living room. In Kierstyn’s bedroom, her Tweety Bird doll was wedged amid the rafters, where the flood waters had pressed it, and all her church dresses were gone from the closet, swept away.
“Mom, where’s my book?” Kierstyn called out to her mother, Melanie. “Where’s my portfolio?”
Ms. Cyrus was standing outside, doctor’s orders. She was in the middle of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and she had been warned not to expose herself to the filth, germs and mold in the house. But she knew which book Kierstyn meant, and she shouted back to look under the radio on the bedroom dresser.
Kierstyn was searching for a loose-leaf binder, filled with every award and honor from her academic career. Her mother, a teacher, had begun keeping the book when Kierstyn was in Rock-a-Bye nursery school and continued all the way to the eighth-grade year interrupted by the hurricane.
The pages held all of Kierstyn’s report cards, the honor-roll ribbons, the snapshots of classmates, the certificate good for a free meal at Shoney’s in recognition of high marks. Ms. Cyrus and Kierstyn had put every page in a plastic sleeve, as if smudged fingers or spilled coffee were all the book had to be guarded against.
In the bedroom on that October day, the dresser and the radio were both toppled and askew. Kierstyn kept rummaging through the clutter until her mother said it was time to leave. On the way out, Kierstyn found a little statue of a girl with the inscription “Jesus Loves Me,” part of her grandmother’s collection. But she did not find the scrapbook.
“That’s what hurt my heart,” Ms. Cyrus said recently. “I liked that I could look back and see what Kierstyn had done. I’m a math teacher, so I always like to see the hard data. And I wanted her to be able to look back, too, so someday when she has kids and they’re giving her grief, she can say, ‘Here’s what I did.’ ”
Kierstyn, too, struck a wistful note. “All those pictures,” she said. “All the pages I glued into place. I am mad, and I am sad.”
In such emotions, mother and daughter tell a story common to the Lower Ninth. Even amid the epic wreckage of the neighborhood — a barge crashing into a house, cars flipped onto their hoods, homes swept off their foundations — the uprooted residents often feel the sharpest cravings for the smaller keepsakes.
“Baby books, photo albums, wedding portraits,” said Tom Pepper, the director of operations for Common Ground Relief, which has been deeply involved in cleaning up and trying to resettle the Lower Ninth. “Pictures were the nearest and dearest things people were talking about, even a year or two after the storm.”
In some ways, the Cyrus family fared better than most. Ms. Cyrus’s mother, Ophelia Green, still owned a frame cabin just outside the hamlet of Dodson in the piney woods of northern Louisiana. Ten relatives lived there in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, and Kierstyn, her mother and grandmother still do.
Ms. Cyrus went a full year before finding a job near Dodson. Her ex-husband, Harvey, Kierstyn’s father, lost his principal’s job in New Orleans when the city decided not to reopen his high school. Kierstyn’s classmates landed in San Jose, Houston, Jonesboro, Ga. A friend named Allison, Kierstyn said, “was in Idaho or Iowa or something.”
Kierstyn and her mother made another trip to the Lower Ninth in early 2006, after their house had been gutted. The belongings spilled across the front yard. Again, Kierstyn searched for the scrapbook. Again, she could not find it. When she thought about the book, she relived the morning her family evacuated, the way she had grabbed just a few days’ worth of “raggedy country clothes,” certain she would be back home soon.
Life in Dodson, though, instilled its own routines. Kierstyn completed eighth and ninth grades and started 10th. She scored in the 82nd percentile on a national standardized test, the ACT Explore. Ms. Cyrus began to put together a new scrapbook for Kierstyn, with her Dodson report cards, as a kind of sequel to the vanished portfolio.
And then, last March, a sophomore from Marquette University, Joel Volkert, was volunteering for Common Ground, cleaning out debris from houses in the Lower Ninth. He went into the Cyruses’ house to make sure none of his co-workers had left anything behind. There, on the bare floor, he noticed a blue loose-leaf binder, bearing the name Kierstyn Cyrus.
Mr. Volkert called over several Marquette classmates, and one shot a couple of photos of the book. Then they turned it in at Common Ground’s headquarters, hoping the group could find the Cyrus family and return the book to Kierstyn.
Nobody at Common Ground, though, knew where the Cyrus family had ended up. Their old phone number had been disconnected. Relief workers were worried that the book had been contaminated by the toxic chemicals in the floodwaters. It was stored for a time amid ever-growing piles of personal effects discovered by cleanup crews. Eventually, in all likelihood, the scrapbook was thrown away, Mr. Pepper said, although even that fate is not certain.
Kierstyn and her mother did not know that the book had resurfaced, or that it had disappeared again until late last month when at last they saw the photos of the scrapbook, all that is left.
As they sat on their screen porch in Dodson on a rainy Sunday night, Kierstyn remembered that just before Katrina, she had bought some purple tie-dyed fabric to cover the portfolio. Ms. Cyrus recalled that she had made a photocopy of Kierstyn’s school skirt so she could use that exact plaid pattern as the backdrop for a new page of awards.
“We were going to do all those things,” Ms. Cyrus said. “All those things we were going to do.” She paused as some rain blew in through the screen. “When I thought we had all the time in the world.”
by SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN from The New York Times
Slavery Suit Rekindles Controversy in Niger
In a historic first a former slave is suing the state of Niger for failing to implement anti-slavery laws, rekindling a row between the authorities who deny the practice still exists and activists who say that Niger is home to some 800,000 slaves.
The community court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is expected to hand down a verdict in the case brought by 24-year-old Adidjatou Mani Koraou.
Koraou was sold to a Tuareg slave trader when she was 12 for the equivalent of 366 euros (567 dollars) and then sold to be the fifth wife of a traditional healer in central Niger, said Ilguilas Weila, who heads Timidria, Niger's only local anti-slavery group.
"He used to beat me, mistreat me and was constantly reminding me that he'd bought me," Koraou told the court.
Niger in 2003 adopted a law making the possession of slaves a crime.
But the Niamey authorities are accused of not only failing to protect Koraou from slavery, but also of legitimising this practise through Niger's customary law -- in direct conflict with its own criminal code and constitution, according to Anti-Slavery International, a London-based group that supports Timidria.
The taboo surrounding slavery in Niger was broken only in 2001 at an International Labour Organisation forum in Niamey where local chiefs admitted that slavery does still exist in several regions of their landlocked, mainly arid nation, and committed to fighting it.
"For more than 10 years we have been alerting the authorities about this degrading practice," Weila said.
"To say that the Niger government is responsible for slavery goes against common sense," retorted Mossi Boubacar, one of the government's lawyers, even as he repeated "slavery is a historical phenomenon".
The ruling by the court, which has been hearing the case since Monday, is vital for the future of Niger's anti-slavery campaigners, analysts say.
If the court rules in favour of Koraou it will have a negative impact on the reputation of the Niger government, which has always denied that slavery still exists; if it rules against her it will likely spell the end of Timidria, they say.
The Niger authorities have often tried to muzzle Timidria, whose name means "fraternity" in the local Tamashek language, used for centuries by the Tuareg nomads of the deep Sahara.
Timidria's Weila was thrown in prison from April to July 2005 for attempting to organise a liberation ceremony for 7,000 slaves at Inates, a Tuareg camp in western Niger close to the border with Mali.
The authorities said that the ceremony, which had the support of Anti-Slavery International, would harm the image of Niger in the outside world.
"Even if the court rules in favour of the state of Niger that does not mean slavery does not exist in Niger. There are laws against theft but there are still thieves in circulation," said Moustapha Kadi, the author of "A Taboo broken", a work on slavery in Niger.
In 2003 Niger amended its penal code to outlaw slave possession and exploitation. Those found guilty now face up to 30 years' imprisonment, at least in theory.
A survey carried out the same year by Timidria counted more than 870,000 slaves in Niger.
The government rubbished those findings and launched its own survey in November 2007. Its results have not yet been published.
The ECOWAS community court of justice is based in Lagos, Nigeria but can sit in any one of the ECOWAS member states if the plaintiff's financial means and other factors make this necessary.
From AFP
The community court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is expected to hand down a verdict in the case brought by 24-year-old Adidjatou Mani Koraou.
Koraou was sold to a Tuareg slave trader when she was 12 for the equivalent of 366 euros (567 dollars) and then sold to be the fifth wife of a traditional healer in central Niger, said Ilguilas Weila, who heads Timidria, Niger's only local anti-slavery group.
"He used to beat me, mistreat me and was constantly reminding me that he'd bought me," Koraou told the court.
Niger in 2003 adopted a law making the possession of slaves a crime.
But the Niamey authorities are accused of not only failing to protect Koraou from slavery, but also of legitimising this practise through Niger's customary law -- in direct conflict with its own criminal code and constitution, according to Anti-Slavery International, a London-based group that supports Timidria.
The taboo surrounding slavery in Niger was broken only in 2001 at an International Labour Organisation forum in Niamey where local chiefs admitted that slavery does still exist in several regions of their landlocked, mainly arid nation, and committed to fighting it.
"For more than 10 years we have been alerting the authorities about this degrading practice," Weila said.
"To say that the Niger government is responsible for slavery goes against common sense," retorted Mossi Boubacar, one of the government's lawyers, even as he repeated "slavery is a historical phenomenon".
The ruling by the court, which has been hearing the case since Monday, is vital for the future of Niger's anti-slavery campaigners, analysts say.
If the court rules in favour of Koraou it will have a negative impact on the reputation of the Niger government, which has always denied that slavery still exists; if it rules against her it will likely spell the end of Timidria, they say.
The Niger authorities have often tried to muzzle Timidria, whose name means "fraternity" in the local Tamashek language, used for centuries by the Tuareg nomads of the deep Sahara.
Timidria's Weila was thrown in prison from April to July 2005 for attempting to organise a liberation ceremony for 7,000 slaves at Inates, a Tuareg camp in western Niger close to the border with Mali.
The authorities said that the ceremony, which had the support of Anti-Slavery International, would harm the image of Niger in the outside world.
"Even if the court rules in favour of the state of Niger that does not mean slavery does not exist in Niger. There are laws against theft but there are still thieves in circulation," said Moustapha Kadi, the author of "A Taboo broken", a work on slavery in Niger.
In 2003 Niger amended its penal code to outlaw slave possession and exploitation. Those found guilty now face up to 30 years' imprisonment, at least in theory.
A survey carried out the same year by Timidria counted more than 870,000 slaves in Niger.
The government rubbished those findings and launched its own survey in November 2007. Its results have not yet been published.
The ECOWAS community court of justice is based in Lagos, Nigeria but can sit in any one of the ECOWAS member states if the plaintiff's financial means and other factors make this necessary.
From AFP
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
FAMU Places Record Number of Students on Wall Street
More than 40 students from the Florida A&M University (FAMU) School of Business and Industry (SBI) are bound for Wall Street internships.
“This is a record number of Wall Street interns for the university,” said Karl Lawrence, Ph.D., a finance professor, who is coordinating the project. “This is an especially impressive achievement given current recessionary market conditions. Our previous record was 30, which occurred during the summer of 2004.”
Lawrence said that catalyst for the up-tick in Wall Street opportunities is attributed to SBI’s, recently implemented, the Wall Street initiative. He met with SBI Dean, Lydia McKinley-Floyd, in fall 2007 and presented her with a Wall Street Initiative, which has a goal of placing 100 students in internships with Wall Street firms during the summer of 2010.
“We are ecstatic about our initial accomplishment and look forward to establishing ourselves as the pre-eminent institution for Wall Street opportunities and other challenging careers,” he said. “Having a permanent President and Dean, who make it a priority to invest resources in cultivating opportunities for our talented students, is a tremendous help.”
Sean Mitchell, FAMU’s executive director of the Chief Financier Organization (CFO), a student organization, said he is excited about the opportunity he will get this summer.
"It's truly amazing what this year means to all of us,” said Mitchell. “Last year, we had only 12 interns on Wall Street.”
Mitchell, a junior business administration and mathematics major and a returning investment banking intern at JPMorgan Chase, wants to someday run his own derivative boutique shop.
“It's speaks volumes to the value of ambition and hard work,” said Mitchell. “CFO has been able to educate and connect many of us this year. More than 85 percent of this year's interns are CFO members with the help of Professor Karl Lawrence. It's been a great experience to see such an accomplishment out of everyone and for FAMU."
Dean McKinley-Floyd, now in her second year on the job, attributes much of the current success to the school’s talented students, an enthusiastic alumni base, and faculty members who are dedicated to preparing students for the marketplace.
“We've been able to significantly improve our Wall Street placements in one of the toughest financial markets,” said McKinley-Floyd. “Firms understand that diversity, as a portfolio risk management principle, equally applies to the workforce.”
According to Lawrence, students who are able to secure permanent placement positions with Wall Street firms can expect to make $90,000 to $100,000 during their first year.
“The 10-week Wall Street internships at firms such as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Barclays are quite challenging,” said Lawrence. “Student interns are expected to contribute and work long hours like other employees. Their experiences are important because it is intended to lead to permanent placement offers. Moreover, it gives both the firm and the students an opportunity to determine whether a fit exist. An equally important feature of these internship experiences for the school is that students often return to campus invigorated to learn and their enthusiasm is quite contagious.”
From Emergingminds.org
“This is a record number of Wall Street interns for the university,” said Karl Lawrence, Ph.D., a finance professor, who is coordinating the project. “This is an especially impressive achievement given current recessionary market conditions. Our previous record was 30, which occurred during the summer of 2004.”
Lawrence said that catalyst for the up-tick in Wall Street opportunities is attributed to SBI’s, recently implemented, the Wall Street initiative. He met with SBI Dean, Lydia McKinley-Floyd, in fall 2007 and presented her with a Wall Street Initiative, which has a goal of placing 100 students in internships with Wall Street firms during the summer of 2010.
“We are ecstatic about our initial accomplishment and look forward to establishing ourselves as the pre-eminent institution for Wall Street opportunities and other challenging careers,” he said. “Having a permanent President and Dean, who make it a priority to invest resources in cultivating opportunities for our talented students, is a tremendous help.”
Sean Mitchell, FAMU’s executive director of the Chief Financier Organization (CFO), a student organization, said he is excited about the opportunity he will get this summer.
"It's truly amazing what this year means to all of us,” said Mitchell. “Last year, we had only 12 interns on Wall Street.”
Mitchell, a junior business administration and mathematics major and a returning investment banking intern at JPMorgan Chase, wants to someday run his own derivative boutique shop.
“It's speaks volumes to the value of ambition and hard work,” said Mitchell. “CFO has been able to educate and connect many of us this year. More than 85 percent of this year's interns are CFO members with the help of Professor Karl Lawrence. It's been a great experience to see such an accomplishment out of everyone and for FAMU."
Dean McKinley-Floyd, now in her second year on the job, attributes much of the current success to the school’s talented students, an enthusiastic alumni base, and faculty members who are dedicated to preparing students for the marketplace.
“We've been able to significantly improve our Wall Street placements in one of the toughest financial markets,” said McKinley-Floyd. “Firms understand that diversity, as a portfolio risk management principle, equally applies to the workforce.”
According to Lawrence, students who are able to secure permanent placement positions with Wall Street firms can expect to make $90,000 to $100,000 during their first year.
“The 10-week Wall Street internships at firms such as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Barclays are quite challenging,” said Lawrence. “Student interns are expected to contribute and work long hours like other employees. Their experiences are important because it is intended to lead to permanent placement offers. Moreover, it gives both the firm and the students an opportunity to determine whether a fit exist. An equally important feature of these internship experiences for the school is that students often return to campus invigorated to learn and their enthusiasm is quite contagious.”
From Emergingminds.org
G8 to Double Aid to Africa by 2010
The Group of Eight rich nations vowed Sunday to step up cooperation with emerging donors such as China and India and said they remained committed to a goal to double their own aid to Africa by 2010.
Underscoring the growing role of fast-growing developing economies in global aid efforts, Brazil, China, and India and other emerging donors were invited to talks here that aim to lay the groundwork for the G8 summit in July.
The G8 agreed on the need for "concrete cooperation with emerging donors," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told a news conference wrapping up the two days of talks here.
G8 nations hope to see more transparency in aid policies by new donors along with efforts to encourage good governance, sustainability of aid and consideration for democratisation, officials said ahead of the talks.
China has made major diplomatic and economic inroads in mostly resource-rich nations in Africa and Latin America by giving aid without imposing any conditions.
This strategy contrasts with that of the United States, the European Union and Japan, which usually use aid as leverage to improve human rights and implement other reforms in recipient nations.
"This new aid is at the same time a hope and a difficulty," said Alain Joyandet, France's junior cooperation minister.
He said it was a good thing that new donors who had received aid in the past now wanted to help other countries, but at the same time new donors should respect international guidelines on awarding aid.
The goal of the talks with emerging donors "is to have a common understanding about the question of standards for investment and regulations," said German development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul.
"The goal always has to remain that everybody is devoted to the millennium goals," she said, referring to a 2000 UN agreement on poverty reduction.
The Millennium Development Goals aim to achieve targets including halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS in impoverished areas by 2015.
A report published last week by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that aid to developing countries fell last year and most donors are falling behind on their pledges to boost assistance.
The G8 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- expressed concern at the decline and vowed to strive to fulfil their pledge made in 2005 to double aid for Africa by 2010.
"Each G8 country is determined to strengthen development aid," said Komura.
In order to improve the situation in the fields of poverty, health care, education and water in impoverished countries, "the G8 needs to continue strengthening development aid both in quality and quantity," he said.
The meeting also discussed the impact on developing countries of surging food prices and the growing threat of climate change, ministers said.
"The increase in consumer prices, particularly in Africa, is a concern for us," said France's Joyandet.
"We hope that this issue will be taken up at the G8 summit" on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in July, he said.
Humanitarian activists said that rich nations should deliver more financial aid to help poorer nations fight the effects of rising greenhouse gases.
The aid money which has been pledged is to be used for "education and health care systems," said Takumo Yamada of British-based charity Oxfam. "Paying for the damage from climate change is the responsibility of rich nations."
The G8 ministers stressed the importance of economic growth and the private sector as the drivers of growth in Africa.
Shinichi Takeuchi, an African specialist at Japan's Institute of Developing Economies, said: "Investment in Africa needs to be accompanied by good governments, which are not corrupt and that can address rich-poor gaps in their countries."
from AFP
Underscoring the growing role of fast-growing developing economies in global aid efforts, Brazil, China, and India and other emerging donors were invited to talks here that aim to lay the groundwork for the G8 summit in July.
The G8 agreed on the need for "concrete cooperation with emerging donors," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told a news conference wrapping up the two days of talks here.
G8 nations hope to see more transparency in aid policies by new donors along with efforts to encourage good governance, sustainability of aid and consideration for democratisation, officials said ahead of the talks.
China has made major diplomatic and economic inroads in mostly resource-rich nations in Africa and Latin America by giving aid without imposing any conditions.
This strategy contrasts with that of the United States, the European Union and Japan, which usually use aid as leverage to improve human rights and implement other reforms in recipient nations.
"This new aid is at the same time a hope and a difficulty," said Alain Joyandet, France's junior cooperation minister.
He said it was a good thing that new donors who had received aid in the past now wanted to help other countries, but at the same time new donors should respect international guidelines on awarding aid.
The goal of the talks with emerging donors "is to have a common understanding about the question of standards for investment and regulations," said German development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul.
"The goal always has to remain that everybody is devoted to the millennium goals," she said, referring to a 2000 UN agreement on poverty reduction.
The Millennium Development Goals aim to achieve targets including halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS in impoverished areas by 2015.
A report published last week by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that aid to developing countries fell last year and most donors are falling behind on their pledges to boost assistance.
The G8 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- expressed concern at the decline and vowed to strive to fulfil their pledge made in 2005 to double aid for Africa by 2010.
"Each G8 country is determined to strengthen development aid," said Komura.
In order to improve the situation in the fields of poverty, health care, education and water in impoverished countries, "the G8 needs to continue strengthening development aid both in quality and quantity," he said.
The meeting also discussed the impact on developing countries of surging food prices and the growing threat of climate change, ministers said.
"The increase in consumer prices, particularly in Africa, is a concern for us," said France's Joyandet.
"We hope that this issue will be taken up at the G8 summit" on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in July, he said.
Humanitarian activists said that rich nations should deliver more financial aid to help poorer nations fight the effects of rising greenhouse gases.
The aid money which has been pledged is to be used for "education and health care systems," said Takumo Yamada of British-based charity Oxfam. "Paying for the damage from climate change is the responsibility of rich nations."
The G8 ministers stressed the importance of economic growth and the private sector as the drivers of growth in Africa.
Shinichi Takeuchi, an African specialist at Japan's Institute of Developing Economies, said: "Investment in Africa needs to be accompanied by good governments, which are not corrupt and that can address rich-poor gaps in their countries."
from AFP
Nas: Barack Obama Is The 'Face Of America'
US rapper Nas has described Presidential hopeful Barack Obama as the “face of America”.
"There's no two ways to look at it, man. The man's got what it takes. He's serious,” the rapper told MTV.
Obama is currently locked in a head-to-head battle with fellow Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Despite leading his opponent in the number of delegates won, Clinton’s experience is still seen as one of the biggest threats to Obama’s challenge to become the country's first Black President.
Nas said he believed that the US election was the best thing America could ask for following two terms of George W. Bush.
“As a kid, you always think, 'We'll never see a black president,' you know? 'There'll never be a black president.' And you always feel that way. Everybody's always grew up that way, black and white.
“So I think now, with Obama having a great chance of winning, I think [with] black and white, there's been something lifted off their shoulders.
“It's like, 'This can happen. This can be great.' And it's about time,” he said.
The next key stage in 2008 American Presidential campaign will be the Pennsylvania primary on April 22nd.
The outcome will see either Obama or Clinton take another step towards becoming the Democratic representative in the Presidential election race in November.
The Republican Party has already chosen the experienced politician and former Vietnam veteran John McCain as their candidate.
by Jason Gregory from gigwise.com
"There's no two ways to look at it, man. The man's got what it takes. He's serious,” the rapper told MTV.
Obama is currently locked in a head-to-head battle with fellow Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Despite leading his opponent in the number of delegates won, Clinton’s experience is still seen as one of the biggest threats to Obama’s challenge to become the country's first Black President.
Nas said he believed that the US election was the best thing America could ask for following two terms of George W. Bush.
“As a kid, you always think, 'We'll never see a black president,' you know? 'There'll never be a black president.' And you always feel that way. Everybody's always grew up that way, black and white.
“So I think now, with Obama having a great chance of winning, I think [with] black and white, there's been something lifted off their shoulders.
“It's like, 'This can happen. This can be great.' And it's about time,” he said.
The next key stage in 2008 American Presidential campaign will be the Pennsylvania primary on April 22nd.
The outcome will see either Obama or Clinton take another step towards becoming the Democratic representative in the Presidential election race in November.
The Republican Party has already chosen the experienced politician and former Vietnam veteran John McCain as their candidate.
by Jason Gregory from gigwise.com
Monday, April 7, 2008
Rich, Emerging Nations Discuss Poverty Reduction in Africa
Ministers from the richest nations and the fastest growing economies started talks Sunday on bolstering aid measures to reduce poverty in Africa and other areas under a 2000 UN agreement.
The talks are the second day of meetings between development ministers from the Group of Eight industrialised nations and emerging donor nations -- Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa.
The ministers late Saturday pledged to further work together to meet the Millennium Development Goals which include halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS in impoverished areas by 2015.
"The ministers discussed development and Africa as one topic," said a Japanese foreign ministry official.
"In terms of development in Africa, many countries pointed to the importance of building infrastructure" and using private sector investment as a tool for development, he said.
The ministers hunkered down on Sunday to attempt to develop measures to meet the goals, which also include providing primary education in the poorest countries, and were agreed by countries in the United Nations in 2000.
This year marks the halfway point of the 2015 target year.
But the latest progress reports show poverty has not reduced in areas of Africa and in some cases the situation has deteriorated, in a stark contrast with Asia where some countries have already achieved some of the goals.
The head of the G8 nations is expected to issue a summary later Sunday on the talks on development aid to Africa, an issue expected to be high on the agenda at the next G8 summit in July in northern Japan.
The ministers also agreed late Saturday on "increasing the credibility and transparency of aid policy," officials said.
Officials have privately admitted that G8 nations hope to coax China and other emerging donors to place greater emphasis on human rights when awarding aid.
Cashed-up China has recently made major diplomatic and economic inroads in mostly resource-rich nations in Africa and Latin America by giving aid without imposing any conditions.
This strategy contrasts with that of the United States, European Union and Japan as well as the World Bank and the IMF, which usually use aid as leverage to improve human rights and implement other reforms in recipient nations.
The Tokyo talks come as aid to developing countries fell last year and most donors are falling behind on their stated commitments to increase the amount of money they give, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report last week.
The meeting on Saturday also discussed the growing threat of climate change, particularly to developing countries.
Humanitarian activists said that rich nations should deliver more financial aid to help poorer nations fight against rising greenhouse gases.
"The aid money which has been pledged is to be used for traditional fields of aid such as education and health care systems," said Takumo Yamada, an advocacy manager of Britain-based charity Oxfam.
"Paying for damage from climate change is rich nations' responsibility," he said.
from AFP
The talks are the second day of meetings between development ministers from the Group of Eight industrialised nations and emerging donor nations -- Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa.
The ministers late Saturday pledged to further work together to meet the Millennium Development Goals which include halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS in impoverished areas by 2015.
"The ministers discussed development and Africa as one topic," said a Japanese foreign ministry official.
"In terms of development in Africa, many countries pointed to the importance of building infrastructure" and using private sector investment as a tool for development, he said.
The ministers hunkered down on Sunday to attempt to develop measures to meet the goals, which also include providing primary education in the poorest countries, and were agreed by countries in the United Nations in 2000.
This year marks the halfway point of the 2015 target year.
But the latest progress reports show poverty has not reduced in areas of Africa and in some cases the situation has deteriorated, in a stark contrast with Asia where some countries have already achieved some of the goals.
The head of the G8 nations is expected to issue a summary later Sunday on the talks on development aid to Africa, an issue expected to be high on the agenda at the next G8 summit in July in northern Japan.
The ministers also agreed late Saturday on "increasing the credibility and transparency of aid policy," officials said.
Officials have privately admitted that G8 nations hope to coax China and other emerging donors to place greater emphasis on human rights when awarding aid.
Cashed-up China has recently made major diplomatic and economic inroads in mostly resource-rich nations in Africa and Latin America by giving aid without imposing any conditions.
This strategy contrasts with that of the United States, European Union and Japan as well as the World Bank and the IMF, which usually use aid as leverage to improve human rights and implement other reforms in recipient nations.
The Tokyo talks come as aid to developing countries fell last year and most donors are falling behind on their stated commitments to increase the amount of money they give, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report last week.
The meeting on Saturday also discussed the growing threat of climate change, particularly to developing countries.
Humanitarian activists said that rich nations should deliver more financial aid to help poorer nations fight against rising greenhouse gases.
"The aid money which has been pledged is to be used for traditional fields of aid such as education and health care systems," said Takumo Yamada, an advocacy manager of Britain-based charity Oxfam.
"Paying for damage from climate change is rich nations' responsibility," he said.
from AFP
Conference Encourages Leadership Among African-American Students
"You're not going to leave this world taking back the very dreams and potential that God has buried inside of you."
Those words from a motivational speaker were designed to give listeners a little push at the African American Student Leadership Conference. More than 500 students and parents from the Sacramento City Unified School District gathered at the confab at CSU, Sacramento.
Among the students was 14-year-old high school freshman Malik Hudson. "I'm doing very well in school actually," he said. "I'm doing great. It's fun because I learn a lot of new things."
He's also aware many African-Americans students lag behind white and Asian students. "I think they just need to try to little harder," Hudson said. "I sit around them all the time they're very smart."
Malik's parents Joe and Dana Hudson took the day off from work to come to the conference with their son. They say parents can help their children by working harder to keep them focused on academics.
"The schools are going to do what they do," said Joe Hudson. "You have to work with the kids. You have to work with your schools, but the ultimate responsibility rests with the parent. We're our child's first teacher."
Dana Hudson said her job includes setting up family rules. "We really say to him do your homework first," she said. "Sometimes when we're not there, he wants to watch television, but he knows when we get home, we're going to be asking questions about that homework."
She explained there also has to be a consequence if Malik doesn't do his homework. "He likes to socialize with his friends. So, he knows that can get taken away," she said. "There have been times when there has been a problem. And I go up to the school and I check in with his teacher."
In his defense, Malik pointed out, "Everybody slips. We're all human." He also admitted occasionally teachers can be a problem. "Sometimes I do feel like they have some prejudice toward me or African-American students in the class. And you can feel like the way they talk to you."
But he added students can't use a conflict with a teacher as a reason for not doing their school work. "You've got to prove them wrong by doing your work and showing you're capable."
Right now, he attends Sacramento's School of Engineering and Sciences, where he tutors other classmates who need help with math and engineering classes.
He wants to be an architect and hopes other African-American will also get on the path to academic success. He said, "I hope they see that going to college is not an easy thing and if they're going to follow their dreams they're going to have to work really hard."
The day-long leadership conference included workshops for students and parents focusing on relationships with family, friends and teachers, life struggles, college and how to set goals and following their dreams.
Written by Karen Massie, Reporter from news10.net
Those words from a motivational speaker were designed to give listeners a little push at the African American Student Leadership Conference. More than 500 students and parents from the Sacramento City Unified School District gathered at the confab at CSU, Sacramento.
Among the students was 14-year-old high school freshman Malik Hudson. "I'm doing very well in school actually," he said. "I'm doing great. It's fun because I learn a lot of new things."
He's also aware many African-Americans students lag behind white and Asian students. "I think they just need to try to little harder," Hudson said. "I sit around them all the time they're very smart."
Malik's parents Joe and Dana Hudson took the day off from work to come to the conference with their son. They say parents can help their children by working harder to keep them focused on academics.
"The schools are going to do what they do," said Joe Hudson. "You have to work with the kids. You have to work with your schools, but the ultimate responsibility rests with the parent. We're our child's first teacher."
Dana Hudson said her job includes setting up family rules. "We really say to him do your homework first," she said. "Sometimes when we're not there, he wants to watch television, but he knows when we get home, we're going to be asking questions about that homework."
She explained there also has to be a consequence if Malik doesn't do his homework. "He likes to socialize with his friends. So, he knows that can get taken away," she said. "There have been times when there has been a problem. And I go up to the school and I check in with his teacher."
In his defense, Malik pointed out, "Everybody slips. We're all human." He also admitted occasionally teachers can be a problem. "Sometimes I do feel like they have some prejudice toward me or African-American students in the class. And you can feel like the way they talk to you."
But he added students can't use a conflict with a teacher as a reason for not doing their school work. "You've got to prove them wrong by doing your work and showing you're capable."
Right now, he attends Sacramento's School of Engineering and Sciences, where he tutors other classmates who need help with math and engineering classes.
He wants to be an architect and hopes other African-American will also get on the path to academic success. He said, "I hope they see that going to college is not an easy thing and if they're going to follow their dreams they're going to have to work really hard."
The day-long leadership conference included workshops for students and parents focusing on relationships with family, friends and teachers, life struggles, college and how to set goals and following their dreams.
Written by Karen Massie, Reporter from news10.net
UN Chief Urges Action on Darfur
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored "alarming levels" of violence in Darfur Friday, saying that the suffering of millions in the Sudanese region may have gotten worse in recent years.
Ban said the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force now being deployed in Darfur "can only be effective when there is a peace to keep." He urged the Sudanese government, rebel groups and other interested party to immediately focus on what can be done to end the hostilities, protect civilians and start negotiations.
Recalling the Security Council's first meeting on Darfur in April 2004, the secretary-general said "the situation remains grim today, as then, if not worse."
"Violence targeting civilians, including women and girls, continues at alarming levels with no accountability, or end, in sight," Ban said in a statement.
"Some 4.27 million civilians, including 2.45 million internally displaced, continue to suffer," he said. "As a result of ongoing attacks by armed forces and groups, more than 100,000 civilians have been forced to flee from violence this year alone, at a rate of 1,000 per day."
In a monthly report, Ban cited a dramatic deterioration in the security situation in some areas and increased hostilities, especially in Western Darfur which led to the displacement of thousands and civilian deaths. The situation is complicated by the presence of rebels from neighboring Chadian in Western Darfur "who continue to regroup," it said.
In the report, Ban called for "all means possible" to be used to deploy the AU-U.N. force quickly to protect the people of Darfur. Only 9,200 troops and police of the 26,000 authorized are on the ground and earlier this week the United States said it wants 3,600 new African troops in Darfur by June.
He said the U.N. is accelerating deployment of Egyptian and Ethiopian battalions. But the Sudanese government has not yet given a green light for Thai and Nepalese troops, insisting it wants all African forces on the ground first.
"Four years on, the conflict in Darfur persists at extreme and unacceptable levels," Ban said in the statement. "But continued suffering is both unforgivable and preventable, and the potential for peace and progress is great."
He called on all parties trying to end the fighting to "immediately focus on what can be achieved by ending the hostilities, protecting civilians and coming to the negotiating table."
The U.N. believes that far more than 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Fighting has raged in Darfur since 2003, when ethnic African tribesman took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese Arab-dominated government. Khartoum has been accused of unleashing janjaweed militia forces to commit atrocities against ethnic African communities in the fight with rebel groups.
By EDITH M. LEDERER from AP
Ban said the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force now being deployed in Darfur "can only be effective when there is a peace to keep." He urged the Sudanese government, rebel groups and other interested party to immediately focus on what can be done to end the hostilities, protect civilians and start negotiations.
Recalling the Security Council's first meeting on Darfur in April 2004, the secretary-general said "the situation remains grim today, as then, if not worse."
"Violence targeting civilians, including women and girls, continues at alarming levels with no accountability, or end, in sight," Ban said in a statement.
"Some 4.27 million civilians, including 2.45 million internally displaced, continue to suffer," he said. "As a result of ongoing attacks by armed forces and groups, more than 100,000 civilians have been forced to flee from violence this year alone, at a rate of 1,000 per day."
In a monthly report, Ban cited a dramatic deterioration in the security situation in some areas and increased hostilities, especially in Western Darfur which led to the displacement of thousands and civilian deaths. The situation is complicated by the presence of rebels from neighboring Chadian in Western Darfur "who continue to regroup," it said.
In the report, Ban called for "all means possible" to be used to deploy the AU-U.N. force quickly to protect the people of Darfur. Only 9,200 troops and police of the 26,000 authorized are on the ground and earlier this week the United States said it wants 3,600 new African troops in Darfur by June.
He said the U.N. is accelerating deployment of Egyptian and Ethiopian battalions. But the Sudanese government has not yet given a green light for Thai and Nepalese troops, insisting it wants all African forces on the ground first.
"Four years on, the conflict in Darfur persists at extreme and unacceptable levels," Ban said in the statement. "But continued suffering is both unforgivable and preventable, and the potential for peace and progress is great."
He called on all parties trying to end the fighting to "immediately focus on what can be achieved by ending the hostilities, protecting civilians and coming to the negotiating table."
The U.N. believes that far more than 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Fighting has raged in Darfur since 2003, when ethnic African tribesman took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese Arab-dominated government. Khartoum has been accused of unleashing janjaweed militia forces to commit atrocities against ethnic African communities in the fight with rebel groups.
By EDITH M. LEDERER from AP
Friday, April 4, 2008
What If Martin Luther King Had Lived?
The preacher in him would have continued speaking out against injustice, war and maybe even pop culture. He would likely not have run for president. He probably would have endured more harassment from J. Edgar Hoover.
Four decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. fell to an assassin's bullet, colleagues and biographers offer many answers to the question: What if he had lived?
For his children, however, the speculation is more personal. They know their lives would have turned out differently had they had their beloved father to guide and teach them.
Instead, history moves on, remaking the world in myriad ways. The nation has grappled with issues of race and inequity without the benefit of King's evolving wisdom. A generation has come of age celebrating him in a national holiday, like other figures of the frozen past.
But given the trajectory of his life -- from his appearance on the national scene during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955 to his death on a second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 -- some of those closest to him have a good idea what King might be doing now, and where we might be as a country.
In the months before his death, King was speaking out against the growing U.S. involvement in Vietnam and was working with other civil rights leaders on a Poor People's Campaign, with a march on Washington scheduled for that May. He was in Memphis that spring day to support striking sanitation workers.
Were King alive today, the disciple of Mahatma Gandhi would most certainly be speaking out against the Iraq War, says King biographer David J. Garrow. However, citing the famous "Drum Major Instinct" sermon King delivered from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta just two months before his death, Garrow says people might be surprised to hear echoes of presidential candidate Barack Obama's controversial former pastor.
"God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war," King said of the fighting in Vietnam. "And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it."
While King didn't go as far as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in suggesting that God "damn America," he predicted that the almighty might punish this country for "our pride and our arrogance."
"And if you don't stop your reckless course," he imagined the deity admonishing, "I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."
Garrow and others feel comfortable saying that King would not have sought elective office.
In 1967, King was being courted by the "New Left" to make a third-party run for president on an anti-war ticket with the renowned pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Spock. FBI wiretaps reveal that King gave serious thought to running, but ultimately decided that his role lay outside the political arena.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King and marched alongside him, doesn't think time would have changed his friend's mind.
"I think Martin was a preacher, and I doubt very much if he would have wanted to subject himself to the need to compromise and play certain games that are requisite to political candidacy," says Lowery. "I think he would have preferred to do what he did best, and that was point out to ALL candidates and ALL officials ... `Thus sayeth the Lord."'
Had he chosen that path, his enemies -- chief among them FBI Director Hoover -- would have laid bare potentially embarrassing details of King's personal life.
Then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the wiretapping of King's home and offices in a campaign to ferret out communists. The secret recording campaign failed to prove that King was a communist, but it did provide evidence of the civil rights leader's extramarital affairs.
William C. Sullivan, head of domestic intelligence under Hoover, told a congressional committee that King was subjected to the same tactics used against Soviet agents and, "No holds were barred."
Hoover's office was unable to marginalize King with his supporters or cow him into silence with threats of exposure. But how might King have fared in the Internet age, when every peccadillo is exposed and every word parsed in a 24-hour news cycle?
The late Hosea Williams, one of King's chief lieutenants, once told Martin Luther King III that his father was "unstoppable" because he had conquered the two things that made men most vulnerable: the fear of death and the love of wealth.
Some, however, feel King's influence was on the wane and that at the time of his death he had already reached the zenith of his public career. He had "run out of things to do," the late Chauncey Eskridge, a King attorney, told Garrow.
"The painful truth is that in his last two months or so before he was killed, King was so exhausted -- emotionally, spiritually, physically -- that a lot of the people closest ... to him were really worried about his survival, his survival in the sense of would he have some sort of breakdown," Garrow says. "It would be expecting something truly superhuman, literally superhuman, for King to have continued the pace of life he had lived over those 12 years for another 12 years, never mind for another 20 or 40 years."
Journalist, author and commentator Juan Williams wonders whether King would be able to connect in a meaningful way with today's youth.
Although he was just 39, the 1964 Nobel Peace laureate's insistence on nonviolence was bumping up against the burgeoning black power movement, says Williams, author of "Eyes on the Prize" and more recently "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It."
"The big issue would be whether or not when he spoke out against the excesses of the rappers, for example, or when he spoke out on the high number of children born out of wedlock, whether or not he would be lumped in with the Bill Cosbys of the world ...," Williams says.
But he has no doubt King would be a force on the international stage.
"I don't think he'd be in the petty fray in the way that we think of some of these civil rights guys who are kind of ambulance chasers," says Williams. Instead, he sees an elder King as a man of "some standing, some stature, that people wait to hear from him... I think of Nelson Mandela in this way."
Lowery says that when King died, part of the nation's conscience died with him. Four young children lost something much more personal.
To Marty, Yolanda, Dexter and Bernice, the baby, Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't the icon or the dreamer. He was Daddy -- the man who smelled of Magic Shave and Aramis and chlorine from the YMCA pool where he taught his sons to swim, and of the long-stemmed green onions that somehow fell outside the prohibition against eating before the evening blessing.
One of Bernice King's fondest memories is of the ritual she and her father shared when he'd return from a trip, like the time he came home for her fifth birthday party on March 29, 1968 -- a day late because of a march in Memphis. She would jump into his arms for the "kissing game," in which each member of the family had a different spot on his face. Bernice's "designated spot" was his forehead.
Had her father lived, the 45-year-old minister is fairly certain she would be married and have children by now. But his graphic death and ponderous legacy, she fears, have made her a less than "viable candidate" for domestic bliss. Part of the problem is that her father set the bar so high. She remembers something her mother often said.
"She said, `I didn't marry a man. I married a mission,"' the daughter says. "So for me, a spouse is more than just a companion. It's someone to fulfill your destiny with. And I think in my case, because the destiny is so great, because you had a man whose life was cut short and there was some work that had to be completed, that you now have a responsibility to participate in, that makes it a little more difficult."
Martin III, likewise, feels he wouldn't be having his first child at age 50 had his father not been killed. "I wasn't clear that I even wanted to bring a child into the world," he says.
Both siblings are quite certain, however, that their father's death did not determine their career paths.
"I don't feel like I could have been exposed to what my father and mother were doing without being involved in this movement," says Martin King, president of the nonprofit group Realizing the Dream.
Each year as the assassination anniversary approaches, legions flock to the Lorraine Motel, which now houses the National Civil Rights Museum. Among those who made the pilgrimage last week were two lions of the civil rights movement -- U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
If King were alive today, Lewis has no doubt he would be speaking just as forcefully and with as much authority as ever about the issues that matter most to Americans, old and young.
"He would be the undisputed leader," the Georgia Democrat says. "Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years later would still be speaking out against poverty, hunger, against violence, against war."
Jackson, then 26 years old, was in the parking lot of the Lorraine that day, talking up to King when he was shot. During his recent visit, the aging activist stepped over a low wall meant to keep out ordinary tourists, climbed the stairs to the balcony where his mentor lay dying, and wept.
King would be 79 now, but Jackson feels his power to move would remain undiminished.
"He might not be leading the marches, but he would have set the frame of reference," says Jackson. "His voice would be a voice of great moral authority."
Of all the "might be's" and "what if's," MLK III feels sure of one thing. Had his father lived, the country would be closer to realizing the "beloved community" he'd envisioned.
Still, he feels his father's guiding force pulling us inexorably in that direction.
"From my perspective, his light still shines," he says. "His voice, his message, we're living every day. We're embracing more and more. We're not as close to it as I would like to see us, but we're still living it. We're still moving toward it."
So, in that way, he lives.
From Cnn.com
Four decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. fell to an assassin's bullet, colleagues and biographers offer many answers to the question: What if he had lived?
For his children, however, the speculation is more personal. They know their lives would have turned out differently had they had their beloved father to guide and teach them.
Instead, history moves on, remaking the world in myriad ways. The nation has grappled with issues of race and inequity without the benefit of King's evolving wisdom. A generation has come of age celebrating him in a national holiday, like other figures of the frozen past.
But given the trajectory of his life -- from his appearance on the national scene during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955 to his death on a second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 -- some of those closest to him have a good idea what King might be doing now, and where we might be as a country.
In the months before his death, King was speaking out against the growing U.S. involvement in Vietnam and was working with other civil rights leaders on a Poor People's Campaign, with a march on Washington scheduled for that May. He was in Memphis that spring day to support striking sanitation workers.
Were King alive today, the disciple of Mahatma Gandhi would most certainly be speaking out against the Iraq War, says King biographer David J. Garrow. However, citing the famous "Drum Major Instinct" sermon King delivered from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta just two months before his death, Garrow says people might be surprised to hear echoes of presidential candidate Barack Obama's controversial former pastor.
"God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war," King said of the fighting in Vietnam. "And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it."
While King didn't go as far as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in suggesting that God "damn America," he predicted that the almighty might punish this country for "our pride and our arrogance."
"And if you don't stop your reckless course," he imagined the deity admonishing, "I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."
Garrow and others feel comfortable saying that King would not have sought elective office.
In 1967, King was being courted by the "New Left" to make a third-party run for president on an anti-war ticket with the renowned pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Spock. FBI wiretaps reveal that King gave serious thought to running, but ultimately decided that his role lay outside the political arena.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King and marched alongside him, doesn't think time would have changed his friend's mind.
"I think Martin was a preacher, and I doubt very much if he would have wanted to subject himself to the need to compromise and play certain games that are requisite to political candidacy," says Lowery. "I think he would have preferred to do what he did best, and that was point out to ALL candidates and ALL officials ... `Thus sayeth the Lord."'
Had he chosen that path, his enemies -- chief among them FBI Director Hoover -- would have laid bare potentially embarrassing details of King's personal life.
Then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the wiretapping of King's home and offices in a campaign to ferret out communists. The secret recording campaign failed to prove that King was a communist, but it did provide evidence of the civil rights leader's extramarital affairs.
William C. Sullivan, head of domestic intelligence under Hoover, told a congressional committee that King was subjected to the same tactics used against Soviet agents and, "No holds were barred."
Hoover's office was unable to marginalize King with his supporters or cow him into silence with threats of exposure. But how might King have fared in the Internet age, when every peccadillo is exposed and every word parsed in a 24-hour news cycle?
The late Hosea Williams, one of King's chief lieutenants, once told Martin Luther King III that his father was "unstoppable" because he had conquered the two things that made men most vulnerable: the fear of death and the love of wealth.
Some, however, feel King's influence was on the wane and that at the time of his death he had already reached the zenith of his public career. He had "run out of things to do," the late Chauncey Eskridge, a King attorney, told Garrow.
"The painful truth is that in his last two months or so before he was killed, King was so exhausted -- emotionally, spiritually, physically -- that a lot of the people closest ... to him were really worried about his survival, his survival in the sense of would he have some sort of breakdown," Garrow says. "It would be expecting something truly superhuman, literally superhuman, for King to have continued the pace of life he had lived over those 12 years for another 12 years, never mind for another 20 or 40 years."
Journalist, author and commentator Juan Williams wonders whether King would be able to connect in a meaningful way with today's youth.
Although he was just 39, the 1964 Nobel Peace laureate's insistence on nonviolence was bumping up against the burgeoning black power movement, says Williams, author of "Eyes on the Prize" and more recently "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It."
"The big issue would be whether or not when he spoke out against the excesses of the rappers, for example, or when he spoke out on the high number of children born out of wedlock, whether or not he would be lumped in with the Bill Cosbys of the world ...," Williams says.
But he has no doubt King would be a force on the international stage.
"I don't think he'd be in the petty fray in the way that we think of some of these civil rights guys who are kind of ambulance chasers," says Williams. Instead, he sees an elder King as a man of "some standing, some stature, that people wait to hear from him... I think of Nelson Mandela in this way."
Lowery says that when King died, part of the nation's conscience died with him. Four young children lost something much more personal.
To Marty, Yolanda, Dexter and Bernice, the baby, Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't the icon or the dreamer. He was Daddy -- the man who smelled of Magic Shave and Aramis and chlorine from the YMCA pool where he taught his sons to swim, and of the long-stemmed green onions that somehow fell outside the prohibition against eating before the evening blessing.
One of Bernice King's fondest memories is of the ritual she and her father shared when he'd return from a trip, like the time he came home for her fifth birthday party on March 29, 1968 -- a day late because of a march in Memphis. She would jump into his arms for the "kissing game," in which each member of the family had a different spot on his face. Bernice's "designated spot" was his forehead.
Had her father lived, the 45-year-old minister is fairly certain she would be married and have children by now. But his graphic death and ponderous legacy, she fears, have made her a less than "viable candidate" for domestic bliss. Part of the problem is that her father set the bar so high. She remembers something her mother often said.
"She said, `I didn't marry a man. I married a mission,"' the daughter says. "So for me, a spouse is more than just a companion. It's someone to fulfill your destiny with. And I think in my case, because the destiny is so great, because you had a man whose life was cut short and there was some work that had to be completed, that you now have a responsibility to participate in, that makes it a little more difficult."
Martin III, likewise, feels he wouldn't be having his first child at age 50 had his father not been killed. "I wasn't clear that I even wanted to bring a child into the world," he says.
Both siblings are quite certain, however, that their father's death did not determine their career paths.
"I don't feel like I could have been exposed to what my father and mother were doing without being involved in this movement," says Martin King, president of the nonprofit group Realizing the Dream.
Each year as the assassination anniversary approaches, legions flock to the Lorraine Motel, which now houses the National Civil Rights Museum. Among those who made the pilgrimage last week were two lions of the civil rights movement -- U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
If King were alive today, Lewis has no doubt he would be speaking just as forcefully and with as much authority as ever about the issues that matter most to Americans, old and young.
"He would be the undisputed leader," the Georgia Democrat says. "Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years later would still be speaking out against poverty, hunger, against violence, against war."
Jackson, then 26 years old, was in the parking lot of the Lorraine that day, talking up to King when he was shot. During his recent visit, the aging activist stepped over a low wall meant to keep out ordinary tourists, climbed the stairs to the balcony where his mentor lay dying, and wept.
King would be 79 now, but Jackson feels his power to move would remain undiminished.
"He might not be leading the marches, but he would have set the frame of reference," says Jackson. "His voice would be a voice of great moral authority."
Of all the "might be's" and "what if's," MLK III feels sure of one thing. Had his father lived, the country would be closer to realizing the "beloved community" he'd envisioned.
Still, he feels his father's guiding force pulling us inexorably in that direction.
"From my perspective, his light still shines," he says. "His voice, his message, we're living every day. We're embracing more and more. We're not as close to it as I would like to see us, but we're still living it. We're still moving toward it."
So, in that way, he lives.
From Cnn.com
Washington's Black Community Remembers 1968 Riots
Marshall Brown was in the streets when the tidal wave of anguish swallowed Washington. He remembers the shooting of Martin Luther King, 40 years ago today, as "gasoline poured on a burning fire".
That fire raged for four days on the streets of the US capital in 1968, forcing army troops to guard the White House from a black community roused to looting and arson.
But Brown doesn't call it a riot, no matter what the history books say. To him, the violence was a rebellion.
"America is as racist now as it was then," Brown said. He was 23 that year, when "white people in general thought [King] was a militant rabble-rouser. Now, all of a sudden, they talk about him as if he was a saint."
Today Brown is a grandfather of five, with a son on the city council. He can still buy lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl, spared from destruction by the rowdy crowds of 1968 after its black owner scrawled "Soul Brother" on the window in soap.
But the neighbourhood Brown sees 40 years on – now called U Street, but once dubbed "Black Broadway" - would be unrecognisable to his younger self.
The corner where the match was lit after King's death, starting that burning fire that spread through 110 other US cities, is in the midst of a glossy new redevelopment.
Across the street from an Italian restaurant selling designer pasta, the former stomping grounds of jazz legend Duke Ellington have been turned into a pricey apartment building, The Ellington.
The spot where angry young men threw the first brick through a store window in 1968 is now a chain pharmacy.
Leon Leftwich, a private bus driver who watched the city's black areas explode after King was assassinated, doesn't begrudge the development that has sent middle-class whites pouring in.
"When the riots happened, unfortunately, we destroyed our own restaurants and businesses," Leftwich said.
"It's a welcome sight. This [neighbourhood] used to be all johns and prostitutes. I can walk the streets and feel safer."
Leftwich remembers growing up in an era of urban segregation, when some residents of predominantly black northeast Washington spent their lives without travelling across town to the wealthier northwest, where the president lives and tourists flock.
At the height of the unrest, president Lyndon Johnson ordered thousands of troops into Washington to keep the peace. Tanks rolled through shady, tree-lined streets. Order was not restored until April 8.
But the black community needed something to cool its pain – and they found healing in the late soul singer James Brown. Leftwich was there at the free concert Brown gave to help stop the rioting. "We had a ball," he remembered.
Robert Rollins was only four years old in 1968. His aunt and uncle, Ben and Virginia Ali, stayed behind the counter at Ben's Chili Bowl selling food to the soldiers and police who occupied U Street.
Rollins has kept the family business going, dishing out chocolate milkshakes and French fries to the hungry masses. Ben's "belongs to the community", he said, referring as much to the black community as the Washington community.
"We're like a little time capsule," Rollins added. "A dilapidated building is no good … but we need to preserve some of the legacy, the history [from before 1968] with the business."
Indeed, Ben's remains a touchstone of the black experience in America. The wall is lined with photos of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Chris Rock stopping in for a meal at Ben's. A sign hanging over the stove holds a warning: "People who eat free at Ben's – Bill Cosby. Nobody else."
Jerry Coleman, who was a college student in New Jersey 40 years ago, said "institutional racism" is still very much alive for him.
"It starts from the top, from the government on down," Coleman said, finishing up his hot dog at the Ben's lunch counter. "They won't enforce the changes they need to enforce."
Change is the watchword of Barack Obama, who stands closer to the presidency than any African American in history. Yet Coleman does not know if the ultimate change - total comity between whites and blacks - is possible everywhere.
Citing areas of the far southern US that still struggle with integration, he said, "You can talk until you're blue in the face. They're never going to accept the races living together".
Even Marshall Brown admits progress has been made in the four decades since King fell to that assassin's bullet. Still, like Coleman, he can't help but list the losses for black Americans: 1.5 million men in prison, collapsing schools, the epidemics of drugs and Aids.
"I thought [1968] was going to be a revolution," he said. "The revolution never came. So I had to mess around in a house in the suburbs."
Elana Schor from guardian.co.uk
That fire raged for four days on the streets of the US capital in 1968, forcing army troops to guard the White House from a black community roused to looting and arson.
But Brown doesn't call it a riot, no matter what the history books say. To him, the violence was a rebellion.
"America is as racist now as it was then," Brown said. He was 23 that year, when "white people in general thought [King] was a militant rabble-rouser. Now, all of a sudden, they talk about him as if he was a saint."
Today Brown is a grandfather of five, with a son on the city council. He can still buy lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl, spared from destruction by the rowdy crowds of 1968 after its black owner scrawled "Soul Brother" on the window in soap.
But the neighbourhood Brown sees 40 years on – now called U Street, but once dubbed "Black Broadway" - would be unrecognisable to his younger self.
The corner where the match was lit after King's death, starting that burning fire that spread through 110 other US cities, is in the midst of a glossy new redevelopment.
Across the street from an Italian restaurant selling designer pasta, the former stomping grounds of jazz legend Duke Ellington have been turned into a pricey apartment building, The Ellington.
The spot where angry young men threw the first brick through a store window in 1968 is now a chain pharmacy.
Leon Leftwich, a private bus driver who watched the city's black areas explode after King was assassinated, doesn't begrudge the development that has sent middle-class whites pouring in.
"When the riots happened, unfortunately, we destroyed our own restaurants and businesses," Leftwich said.
"It's a welcome sight. This [neighbourhood] used to be all johns and prostitutes. I can walk the streets and feel safer."
Leftwich remembers growing up in an era of urban segregation, when some residents of predominantly black northeast Washington spent their lives without travelling across town to the wealthier northwest, where the president lives and tourists flock.
At the height of the unrest, president Lyndon Johnson ordered thousands of troops into Washington to keep the peace. Tanks rolled through shady, tree-lined streets. Order was not restored until April 8.
But the black community needed something to cool its pain – and they found healing in the late soul singer James Brown. Leftwich was there at the free concert Brown gave to help stop the rioting. "We had a ball," he remembered.
Robert Rollins was only four years old in 1968. His aunt and uncle, Ben and Virginia Ali, stayed behind the counter at Ben's Chili Bowl selling food to the soldiers and police who occupied U Street.
Rollins has kept the family business going, dishing out chocolate milkshakes and French fries to the hungry masses. Ben's "belongs to the community", he said, referring as much to the black community as the Washington community.
"We're like a little time capsule," Rollins added. "A dilapidated building is no good … but we need to preserve some of the legacy, the history [from before 1968] with the business."
Indeed, Ben's remains a touchstone of the black experience in America. The wall is lined with photos of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Chris Rock stopping in for a meal at Ben's. A sign hanging over the stove holds a warning: "People who eat free at Ben's – Bill Cosby. Nobody else."
Jerry Coleman, who was a college student in New Jersey 40 years ago, said "institutional racism" is still very much alive for him.
"It starts from the top, from the government on down," Coleman said, finishing up his hot dog at the Ben's lunch counter. "They won't enforce the changes they need to enforce."
Change is the watchword of Barack Obama, who stands closer to the presidency than any African American in history. Yet Coleman does not know if the ultimate change - total comity between whites and blacks - is possible everywhere.
Citing areas of the far southern US that still struggle with integration, he said, "You can talk until you're blue in the face. They're never going to accept the races living together".
Even Marshall Brown admits progress has been made in the four decades since King fell to that assassin's bullet. Still, like Coleman, he can't help but list the losses for black Americans: 1.5 million men in prison, collapsing schools, the epidemics of drugs and Aids.
"I thought [1968] was going to be a revolution," he said. "The revolution never came. So I had to mess around in a house in the suburbs."
Elana Schor from guardian.co.uk
Alcohol More Available in Poor, Black Areas
A University of Minnesota study of 10 cities, including Boston, has found that alcohol, especially malt liquor, is more widely available in poor, black neighborhoods.
more stories like thisThe study, released yesterday, found that poor neighborhoods with high concentrations of African-Americans had significantly greater than average numbers of liquor stores, 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor in coolers, and storefront ads promoting malt liquor.
"It wasn't overly surprising, as I think there's been anecdotal evidence to suggest that," said Rhonda Jones-Webb, the study's principal investigator. "We are one of the first to systematically document that."
Some local activists said yesterday that liquor stores are preying on the poor. "Start at the intersection of Dudley Street and Blue Hill Avenue and go all the way to Mattapan. . . . There's more liquor stores than churches," said the Rev. Shaun Harrison, who works to keep youths out of gangs at Project GO (Gang Out).
A spokesman for the state's liquor store industry disputed the findings and pointed out that applications for new stores are reviewed by state and local agencies.
Malt liquor is of particular concern, the university researchers said, because of its high alcohol content and the fact that its 40-ounce containers are sold cold for immediate consumption at a low price. The study found the average 40-ounce bottle cost just $1.87, less than a gallon of milk.
"It's cheaper than pot, cheaper than crack," said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, which has offices in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.
Small said malt liquor sales are a contributing factor to the myriad problems that impoverished communities face. "You're more prone to have a chip on your shoulder when you've got two bottles of that ... in you," he said.
While upper- and middle-class neighborhoods are likely to organize against such businesses, Harrison said, poor and minority communities, long ago disenfranchised, are not likely to put up much of a fight.
"It's a setup," he said. Policy makers "know they're poor; they know there's violence. Why do they have to put another liquor store in there?"
In the early 1990s, Small organized efforts to combat drug- and alcohol-related nuisance problems in inner-city Philadelphia. He said he would like to see the same happen here in Boston.
"We've got smoking cessation programs, sex awareness programs, but no one is focusing on fortified liquor consumption and its impact on communities," he said.
"This should be the kind of thing the City Council should at least hold a hearing on."
Peter Kessel, president of the Massachusetts Package Stores Association, said he does not believe that poor neighborhoods in Boston have more liquor stores than some more well-to-do neighborhoods. He stressed that as state and local agencies review applications for new liquor stores they consider the number already operating in that neighborhood, as well as input from residents during public hearings.
"Discretion is exercised to protect the public from an overabundance of stores" in considering a store's application, Kessel said. "We are very proud of the system we have here in Massachusetts - it's based on public need."
Kessel, a liquor store owner himself, also questioned whether malt liquor is more problematic than other alcoholic beverages, pointing out that hard liquor, such as vodka, has a higher alcohol content. He also said the types of liquor sold in a package store reflect the tastes or preferences of residents in that particular neighborhood. "You're not going to market a $100 bottle of Dom if no one is going to buy it," he said.
Dorothy Joyce, spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said she was unaware of the study and declined to comment.
By Tania deLuzuriaga Boston Globe
more stories like thisThe study, released yesterday, found that poor neighborhoods with high concentrations of African-Americans had significantly greater than average numbers of liquor stores, 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor in coolers, and storefront ads promoting malt liquor.
"It wasn't overly surprising, as I think there's been anecdotal evidence to suggest that," said Rhonda Jones-Webb, the study's principal investigator. "We are one of the first to systematically document that."
Some local activists said yesterday that liquor stores are preying on the poor. "Start at the intersection of Dudley Street and Blue Hill Avenue and go all the way to Mattapan. . . . There's more liquor stores than churches," said the Rev. Shaun Harrison, who works to keep youths out of gangs at Project GO (Gang Out).
A spokesman for the state's liquor store industry disputed the findings and pointed out that applications for new stores are reviewed by state and local agencies.
Malt liquor is of particular concern, the university researchers said, because of its high alcohol content and the fact that its 40-ounce containers are sold cold for immediate consumption at a low price. The study found the average 40-ounce bottle cost just $1.87, less than a gallon of milk.
"It's cheaper than pot, cheaper than crack," said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, which has offices in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.
Small said malt liquor sales are a contributing factor to the myriad problems that impoverished communities face. "You're more prone to have a chip on your shoulder when you've got two bottles of that ... in you," he said.
While upper- and middle-class neighborhoods are likely to organize against such businesses, Harrison said, poor and minority communities, long ago disenfranchised, are not likely to put up much of a fight.
"It's a setup," he said. Policy makers "know they're poor; they know there's violence. Why do they have to put another liquor store in there?"
In the early 1990s, Small organized efforts to combat drug- and alcohol-related nuisance problems in inner-city Philadelphia. He said he would like to see the same happen here in Boston.
"We've got smoking cessation programs, sex awareness programs, but no one is focusing on fortified liquor consumption and its impact on communities," he said.
"This should be the kind of thing the City Council should at least hold a hearing on."
Peter Kessel, president of the Massachusetts Package Stores Association, said he does not believe that poor neighborhoods in Boston have more liquor stores than some more well-to-do neighborhoods. He stressed that as state and local agencies review applications for new liquor stores they consider the number already operating in that neighborhood, as well as input from residents during public hearings.
"Discretion is exercised to protect the public from an overabundance of stores" in considering a store's application, Kessel said. "We are very proud of the system we have here in Massachusetts - it's based on public need."
Kessel, a liquor store owner himself, also questioned whether malt liquor is more problematic than other alcoholic beverages, pointing out that hard liquor, such as vodka, has a higher alcohol content. He also said the types of liquor sold in a package store reflect the tastes or preferences of residents in that particular neighborhood. "You're not going to market a $100 bottle of Dom if no one is going to buy it," he said.
Dorothy Joyce, spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said she was unaware of the study and declined to comment.
By Tania deLuzuriaga Boston Globe
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Nearly 40,000 Katrina Families Still in Mobile Homes
Almost three years after Hurricane Katrina, nearly 40,000 families still are living in vulnerable mobile homes and trailers across the U.S. Gulf Coast with another hurricane season just two months away, the top U.S. disaster official said on Wednesday.
The number is down from about 100,000 families, or some 300,000 people, in April 2006. At one point following the devastating 2005 hurricane season, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency was housing 143,000 families in mobile homes and trailers.
FEMA Administrator David Paulison said the agency, which was heavily criticized for its hapless response when Katrina swamped New Orleans, is moving about 800 families a week into hotels, motels or apartments.
The families are either living at group sites or in trailers in the driveways of their homes as they rebuild.
The six-month Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1. Forecasters are expecting above-average storm activity.
"As far as rebuilding, I did expect it to take this long," Paulison told a small group of reporters at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando. "But as far as housing people, I did not foresee that they would be there almost three years later."
Katrina killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion in damage when it swept ashore in late August 2005 near New Orleans, shattering the levees protecting the low-lying city and swamping entire neighborhoods.
The three worst storms of 2005 -- Katrina, Rita and Wilma -- together caused about $110 billion in damages. The record-shattering season produced 28 tropical storms.
The presence of so many people in the flimsy temporary housing complicates preparations for the hurricane season because those families must be evacuated in the event of a threatening storm.
Paulison said the agency was on target to move everyone from the group sites by June 1 but was having "a lot of trouble" getting some of those displaced by Katrina to move again, even from cramped mobile homes that are often reduced to rubble in big storms.
"People simply don't want to move," he said. "It hasn't been as easy a task to get people out as we thought it might be."
Reuters
The number is down from about 100,000 families, or some 300,000 people, in April 2006. At one point following the devastating 2005 hurricane season, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency was housing 143,000 families in mobile homes and trailers.
FEMA Administrator David Paulison said the agency, which was heavily criticized for its hapless response when Katrina swamped New Orleans, is moving about 800 families a week into hotels, motels or apartments.
The families are either living at group sites or in trailers in the driveways of their homes as they rebuild.
The six-month Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1. Forecasters are expecting above-average storm activity.
"As far as rebuilding, I did expect it to take this long," Paulison told a small group of reporters at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando. "But as far as housing people, I did not foresee that they would be there almost three years later."
Katrina killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion in damage when it swept ashore in late August 2005 near New Orleans, shattering the levees protecting the low-lying city and swamping entire neighborhoods.
The three worst storms of 2005 -- Katrina, Rita and Wilma -- together caused about $110 billion in damages. The record-shattering season produced 28 tropical storms.
The presence of so many people in the flimsy temporary housing complicates preparations for the hurricane season because those families must be evacuated in the event of a threatening storm.
Paulison said the agency was on target to move everyone from the group sites by June 1 but was having "a lot of trouble" getting some of those displaced by Katrina to move again, even from cramped mobile homes that are often reduced to rubble in big storms.
"People simply don't want to move," he said. "It hasn't been as easy a task to get people out as we thought it might be."
Reuters
Zimbabwe's Mugabe Has Conceded Defeat
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has admitted to his family and advisers that he has lost the most important election of his 28-year rule, South African financial daily Business Day reported on Thursday.
Mugabe lost control of parliament for the first time since independence in 1980 and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said he had also been defeated in a presidential election last Saturday and should concede defeat.
Business Day said Mugabe had privately conceded defeat and was deciding if he should contest a run-off vote needed because MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai failed to secure a clear majority.
"Mugabe has conceded to his closest advisers, the army, police and intelligence chiefs. He has also told his family and personal advisers that he has lost the election," Business Day quoted an unidentified source as saying.
The newspaper said hardliners in Mugabe's government wanted him to see the contest through to the bitter end, but that personal advisers and his family want Mugabe to quit.
The ruling ZANU-PF and Mugabe's spokesman were not immediately available for comment.
Mugabe, known for his fierce and defiant rhetoric, has not been seen in public since the vote.
In final results of the election for parliament's lower house, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won 99 seats, while Mugabe's ZANU-PF won 97 seats and a breakaway MDC faction won 10. One independent candidate won a seat.
Results for parliament's upper house, the senate, will be issued next.
No official results have emerged in the presidential vote.
Widely blamed for economic collapse of his once prosperous nation, Mugabe has faced growing discontent with the world's highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent, a virtually worthless currency and severe food and fuel shortages.
The opposition and international observers said Mugabe rigged the last presidential election in 2002. But some analysts say discontent over daily hardships is too great for him to fix the result this time without risking major unrest.
The mainstream MDC faction said its Tsvangirai had won 50.3 percent of the presidential vote and Mugabe 43.8 percent according to its own tallies.
Reporting by Marius Bosch; Editing by Catherine Evans from Reuters
Mugabe lost control of parliament for the first time since independence in 1980 and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said he had also been defeated in a presidential election last Saturday and should concede defeat.
Business Day said Mugabe had privately conceded defeat and was deciding if he should contest a run-off vote needed because MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai failed to secure a clear majority.
"Mugabe has conceded to his closest advisers, the army, police and intelligence chiefs. He has also told his family and personal advisers that he has lost the election," Business Day quoted an unidentified source as saying.
The newspaper said hardliners in Mugabe's government wanted him to see the contest through to the bitter end, but that personal advisers and his family want Mugabe to quit.
The ruling ZANU-PF and Mugabe's spokesman were not immediately available for comment.
Mugabe, known for his fierce and defiant rhetoric, has not been seen in public since the vote.
In final results of the election for parliament's lower house, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won 99 seats, while Mugabe's ZANU-PF won 97 seats and a breakaway MDC faction won 10. One independent candidate won a seat.
Results for parliament's upper house, the senate, will be issued next.
No official results have emerged in the presidential vote.
Widely blamed for economic collapse of his once prosperous nation, Mugabe has faced growing discontent with the world's highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent, a virtually worthless currency and severe food and fuel shortages.
The opposition and international observers said Mugabe rigged the last presidential election in 2002. But some analysts say discontent over daily hardships is too great for him to fix the result this time without risking major unrest.
The mainstream MDC faction said its Tsvangirai had won 50.3 percent of the presidential vote and Mugabe 43.8 percent according to its own tallies.
Reporting by Marius Bosch; Editing by Catherine Evans from Reuters
Racial Profiling Lawsuit Settled in Md.
A 10-year-old lawsuit alleging racial profiling by state police was resolved Wednesday when state officials approved a $400,000 settlement for six victims.
The six will receive $20,000 each, and $180,000 will go toward legal fees. Another $100,000 will pay for an independent consultant to advise Maryland State Police on how well policy changes have worked.
Lt. William Berry, a plaintiff pulled over in 1996, said he hoped the settlement and its stipulations will send a message that racial profiling won't be tolerated.
"It's been a long time coming," said Berry, a member of the North Carolina National Guard. "I think it's wonderful. I look forward to a number of the things that they have agreed to."
Reggie Shuford, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's Racial Justice Program, said the settlement "presents a model for how to seriously deal with an issue of this nature."
"All eyes were on Maryland — and have been on Maryland — since this case was filed ten years ago, and Maryland has stepped up and done the right thing," Shuford said.
Maryland's Board of Public Works, which includes Gov. Martin O'Malley, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot, approved the settlement.
"We believe it represents a reasonable resolution of remaining claims," David Moore, an assistant attorney general, told the board.
Martin Price, an attorney who has been working on the case since 2003, said the stipulation about the consultant "is the part of the settlement that really has teeth." The consultant will make recommendations to the state police superintendent.
"It provides great relief, not only for our clients, but more importantly for the citizens of Maryland at large," Price said.
The case was filed by the ACLU, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and several black motorists in 1998, alleging that troopers used race to determine when to stop drivers and sometimes searched their cars illegally. A ruling by a federal judge eliminated the NAACP and some of the motorists as plaintiffs.
The settlement includes a joint statement by the parties that emphasizes the importance of taking preventive steps against racial profiling. A mediated forum will be held with plaintiffs, state police officials and representatives from the state attorney general's office. The settlement also stipulates that state police will make training materials and orders relating to a 2003 consent decree available to the plaintiffs.
The decree required state police to make changes aimed at preventing troopers from pulling people over because of their race, including the installation of cameras in police cars.
State police have not admitted engaging in racial profiling in either one of the agreements.
A trial had been scheduled in May, but all remaining counts will be dismissed.
"This is the end of the case," Moore said.
By BRIAN WITTE for AP
The six will receive $20,000 each, and $180,000 will go toward legal fees. Another $100,000 will pay for an independent consultant to advise Maryland State Police on how well policy changes have worked.
Lt. William Berry, a plaintiff pulled over in 1996, said he hoped the settlement and its stipulations will send a message that racial profiling won't be tolerated.
"It's been a long time coming," said Berry, a member of the North Carolina National Guard. "I think it's wonderful. I look forward to a number of the things that they have agreed to."
Reggie Shuford, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's Racial Justice Program, said the settlement "presents a model for how to seriously deal with an issue of this nature."
"All eyes were on Maryland — and have been on Maryland — since this case was filed ten years ago, and Maryland has stepped up and done the right thing," Shuford said.
Maryland's Board of Public Works, which includes Gov. Martin O'Malley, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot, approved the settlement.
"We believe it represents a reasonable resolution of remaining claims," David Moore, an assistant attorney general, told the board.
Martin Price, an attorney who has been working on the case since 2003, said the stipulation about the consultant "is the part of the settlement that really has teeth." The consultant will make recommendations to the state police superintendent.
"It provides great relief, not only for our clients, but more importantly for the citizens of Maryland at large," Price said.
The case was filed by the ACLU, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and several black motorists in 1998, alleging that troopers used race to determine when to stop drivers and sometimes searched their cars illegally. A ruling by a federal judge eliminated the NAACP and some of the motorists as plaintiffs.
The settlement includes a joint statement by the parties that emphasizes the importance of taking preventive steps against racial profiling. A mediated forum will be held with plaintiffs, state police officials and representatives from the state attorney general's office. The settlement also stipulates that state police will make training materials and orders relating to a 2003 consent decree available to the plaintiffs.
The decree required state police to make changes aimed at preventing troopers from pulling people over because of their race, including the installation of cameras in police cars.
State police have not admitted engaging in racial profiling in either one of the agreements.
A trial had been scheduled in May, but all remaining counts will be dismissed.
"This is the end of the case," Moore said.
By BRIAN WITTE for AP
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Injured Friends Share Moments Before Sean Bell's Death
As Sean Bell lay dying in his car after getting shot by police, his friend -- also wounded -- had something to tell him, the friend testified Tuesday in a Queens courtroom.
"S, I love you," Joseph Guzman said to Bell, using a nickname, as both lay wounded in Bell's Nissan Altima.
"I love you, too," Bell whispered before dying, said Guzman.
It was an angry Guzman, shot 16 times, who testified before state Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Cooperman about the events of Nov. 25, 2006. Bell died after police opened fire on his car following a party at the Kalua Cabaret strip club.
Testifying as one of the last prosecution witnesses in the trial of three detectives charged in the case, Guzman -- a beefy man with close cropped hair -- related the story of the shooting during understated questioning by prosecutor Charles Testagrossa.
But Guzman was quarrelsome, impatient and confrontational when he was cross-examined by lawyers for the three detectives -- Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper.
"You didn't do your homework," Guzman, 32, snapped when he was asked questions he didn't like from the defense team, particularly Isnora's lawyer, Anthony Ricco.
When Cooper's lawyer, Paul Martin, asked how Bell could have spoken after his vocal cords had been damaged by bullets, an irritated Guzman was cut off from answering by an objection by Testagrossa.
"In my nearly 281/2 years in the NYPD, I have never seen a court demeanor such as his," said Michael Palladino, head of the Detective Endowment Association. "Just think of what he was like outside the club at four in the morning with his goombahs," said Palladino, using Italian-American slang for friend.
But Guzman's attorney said his demeanor was irrelevant.
"There really was no justification for this shooting to start, -- 50 shots -- there was no justification for Joe to get shot whatsoever," said his attorney, Sanford Rubenstein.
In more than five hours on the witness stand, Guzman, an admitted drug dealer with a weapons conviction, said that neither he nor anyone in Bell's group made a remark outside the Kalua Cabaret during an argument about wanting to get a gun, contrary to what others have testified.
Defense attorneys say the gun comment was overheard by Isnora and another undercover cop, leading police to believe that someone in Bell's group had a gun, thus setting up the deadly confrontation. No gun was recovered.
Once he was in Bell's Nissan Altima, Guzman said that he never saw Isnora standing in front of the vehicle pointing a gun, as other witnesses have stated. Instead, Guzman said he remembered seeing Isnora, whom he referred to as a "kid," when the officer started shooting after Bell's car collided with a police van.
"This car hit, this dude come out and shot me," said Guzman.
After the collision, Guzman said he told Bell "Yo, let's do it, let's go."
Guzman said he didn't hear any police commands or see any badge. He tried to crawl out the driver's side window and came to rest on top of Bell. He also denied being driven to the club in a friend's Mercedes-Benz, despite earlier testimony to the contrary. Defense attorneys suggested the Mercedes could have contained a gun.
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO from Newsday.com
"S, I love you," Joseph Guzman said to Bell, using a nickname, as both lay wounded in Bell's Nissan Altima.
"I love you, too," Bell whispered before dying, said Guzman.
It was an angry Guzman, shot 16 times, who testified before state Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Cooperman about the events of Nov. 25, 2006. Bell died after police opened fire on his car following a party at the Kalua Cabaret strip club.
Testifying as one of the last prosecution witnesses in the trial of three detectives charged in the case, Guzman -- a beefy man with close cropped hair -- related the story of the shooting during understated questioning by prosecutor Charles Testagrossa.
But Guzman was quarrelsome, impatient and confrontational when he was cross-examined by lawyers for the three detectives -- Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper.
"You didn't do your homework," Guzman, 32, snapped when he was asked questions he didn't like from the defense team, particularly Isnora's lawyer, Anthony Ricco.
When Cooper's lawyer, Paul Martin, asked how Bell could have spoken after his vocal cords had been damaged by bullets, an irritated Guzman was cut off from answering by an objection by Testagrossa.
"In my nearly 281/2 years in the NYPD, I have never seen a court demeanor such as his," said Michael Palladino, head of the Detective Endowment Association. "Just think of what he was like outside the club at four in the morning with his goombahs," said Palladino, using Italian-American slang for friend.
But Guzman's attorney said his demeanor was irrelevant.
"There really was no justification for this shooting to start, -- 50 shots -- there was no justification for Joe to get shot whatsoever," said his attorney, Sanford Rubenstein.
In more than five hours on the witness stand, Guzman, an admitted drug dealer with a weapons conviction, said that neither he nor anyone in Bell's group made a remark outside the Kalua Cabaret during an argument about wanting to get a gun, contrary to what others have testified.
Defense attorneys say the gun comment was overheard by Isnora and another undercover cop, leading police to believe that someone in Bell's group had a gun, thus setting up the deadly confrontation. No gun was recovered.
Once he was in Bell's Nissan Altima, Guzman said that he never saw Isnora standing in front of the vehicle pointing a gun, as other witnesses have stated. Instead, Guzman said he remembered seeing Isnora, whom he referred to as a "kid," when the officer started shooting after Bell's car collided with a police van.
"This car hit, this dude come out and shot me," said Guzman.
After the collision, Guzman said he told Bell "Yo, let's do it, let's go."
Guzman said he didn't hear any police commands or see any badge. He tried to crawl out the driver's side window and came to rest on top of Bell. He also denied being driven to the club in a friend's Mercedes-Benz, despite earlier testimony to the contrary. Defense attorneys suggested the Mercedes could have contained a gun.
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO from Newsday.com
CNN's 'Black in America' Opens with a Look Backward
An ambitious multipronged, multiplatform, big-deal initiative from CNN has great potential to really amount to something. Maybe even a multisomething.
"CNN Presents: Black in America" is intended as an overarching TV and digital project for the news network's brand, a four-month push beginning on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., including six hours' worth of documentaries and additional reports.
The project is supposed to reveal "the real lives behind the stereotypes, statistics and identity politics that frequently frame the national dialogue about black America."
You've seen nightly news reports about inner-city violence, and you've heard analysis of how blacks voted in specific primaries. Now CNN intends to look beyond all that. Supplementing the documentaries, weekly updates are scheduled for April and June on topics including childbirth and marriage rates among blacks, high rates of HIV/AIDS, achievement gaps in education, careers, and disparities in life-expectancy rates between blacks and the general population.
All worthy and potentially informative topics.
But the opening volley of "Black in America" is distinctly backward-looking at a time when America may be on the verge of historic change.
Maybe they should have started in the multimiddle.
Soledad O'Brien anchors the first documentary, "Black in America: Eyewitness to Murder -- The King Assassination," on Thursday. Reviewing the era and the case, looking beyond the initial suspect, James Earl Ray, to a range of conspiracy theories, FBI spying and J. Edgar Hoover's personal hatred of King, the documentary revisits the questions that "have festered for 40 years," according to O'Brien.
Another question festers as we watch. What is happening for black America right now, when 2008 brought the most historic speech on race since King's?
O'Brien reviews the era when blacks were dying at twice the rate of whites in Vietnam, when an FBI memo described King as the country's "most dangerous Negro," when FBI phone taps and other surveillance of the civil rights leader were not even subtle.
In a recent interview, Andrew Young, one of King's close associates, concludes that it was determined "in very high places" that the movement had to be stopped. The FBI, the Memphis police and the U.S. military are all suspect, Young suggests.
Was the Mafia involved? Was Ray framed by the still unknown "Raoul" who provided the rifle and who may have manipulated Ray? It's a compelling mystery, complete with an interview with Ray's younger brother -- a creepy high point of the film.
But this mystery is old news (at times it feels like a "Dateline" melodrama) compared with what's happening in the country today, with the first viable black presidential candidate making history.
It's a fine retrospective with some good interviews and educational value, but there are more pressing concerns -- or at least parallels -- that deserve attention now. Am I the only one who, while watching the King documentary, has Obama on the brain?
Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN Productions, responded: "If that were the only thing that CNN were doing, you'd be smart to ask that question."
When CNN President Jon Klein and Nelson discussed how black men are portrayed in the mainstream media, "It occurred to us that so much of what we report is drugs, gangs, leaving family, welfare, crime and prison," Nelson said. "It's got to be more than that." They determined to undertake a network initiative.
" Nelson's long-range goal is not to do the individual documentaries in a vacuum. As the marketing process begins, he said, viewers will recognize that this is just one component.
By JOANNE OSTROW
THE DENVER POST
"CNN Presents: Black in America" is intended as an overarching TV and digital project for the news network's brand, a four-month push beginning on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., including six hours' worth of documentaries and additional reports.
The project is supposed to reveal "the real lives behind the stereotypes, statistics and identity politics that frequently frame the national dialogue about black America."
You've seen nightly news reports about inner-city violence, and you've heard analysis of how blacks voted in specific primaries. Now CNN intends to look beyond all that. Supplementing the documentaries, weekly updates are scheduled for April and June on topics including childbirth and marriage rates among blacks, high rates of HIV/AIDS, achievement gaps in education, careers, and disparities in life-expectancy rates between blacks and the general population.
All worthy and potentially informative topics.
But the opening volley of "Black in America" is distinctly backward-looking at a time when America may be on the verge of historic change.
Maybe they should have started in the multimiddle.
Soledad O'Brien anchors the first documentary, "Black in America: Eyewitness to Murder -- The King Assassination," on Thursday. Reviewing the era and the case, looking beyond the initial suspect, James Earl Ray, to a range of conspiracy theories, FBI spying and J. Edgar Hoover's personal hatred of King, the documentary revisits the questions that "have festered for 40 years," according to O'Brien.
Another question festers as we watch. What is happening for black America right now, when 2008 brought the most historic speech on race since King's?
O'Brien reviews the era when blacks were dying at twice the rate of whites in Vietnam, when an FBI memo described King as the country's "most dangerous Negro," when FBI phone taps and other surveillance of the civil rights leader were not even subtle.
In a recent interview, Andrew Young, one of King's close associates, concludes that it was determined "in very high places" that the movement had to be stopped. The FBI, the Memphis police and the U.S. military are all suspect, Young suggests.
Was the Mafia involved? Was Ray framed by the still unknown "Raoul" who provided the rifle and who may have manipulated Ray? It's a compelling mystery, complete with an interview with Ray's younger brother -- a creepy high point of the film.
But this mystery is old news (at times it feels like a "Dateline" melodrama) compared with what's happening in the country today, with the first viable black presidential candidate making history.
It's a fine retrospective with some good interviews and educational value, but there are more pressing concerns -- or at least parallels -- that deserve attention now. Am I the only one who, while watching the King documentary, has Obama on the brain?
Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN Productions, responded: "If that were the only thing that CNN were doing, you'd be smart to ask that question."
When CNN President Jon Klein and Nelson discussed how black men are portrayed in the mainstream media, "It occurred to us that so much of what we report is drugs, gangs, leaving family, welfare, crime and prison," Nelson said. "It's got to be more than that." They determined to undertake a network initiative.
" Nelson's long-range goal is not to do the individual documentaries in a vacuum. As the marketing process begins, he said, viewers will recognize that this is just one component.
By JOANNE OSTROW
THE DENVER POST
Zimbabwe Run-Off Poll Predicted
Zimbabwe could be heading for a presidential run-off within three weeks, according to the state-owned Herald newspaper.
The first official indication of the result of Saturday's election says that neither President Robert Mugabe nor his main challenger gained 50% of the vote.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won the poll but denies discussing Mr Mugabe's departure.
Election officials say the verification of presidential results has begun.
They say that the votes are being verified and collated in the presence of the presidential candidates' chief polling agents in the capital, Harare.
'Sensitive'
Mr Tsvangirai said he would not claim victory until the official count was known and added that no negotiations would take place until such time.
The BBC's Southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says it is widely believed that President Mugabe would not want to face the humiliation of a run-off, should neither he nor Mr Tsvangirai obtain an absolute majority this time.
Correspondents say Mr Mugabe would be unlikely to win a run-off, as those who voted for independent candidate Simba Makoni would be expected to vote against the president.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga also rejected reports of discussions paving the way for Mr Mugabe to step down.
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) sources had earlier told the BBC the outline of an agreement had nearly been reached for Mr Mugabe to leave office.
The BBC's Ian Pannell in Zimbabwe, despite a ban on BBC reporters there, says the process is so sensitive that nobody wants to conduct it in public.
In the separate parliamentary race, results released so far show that the MDC has 96 seats, including five for a breakaway faction of the party, against 93 for Zanu-PF, with 21 still to come.
Roadblocks
In his first public appearance since the election, Mr Tsvangirai told a news conference on Tuesday evening there was "no way the MDC will enter in any deal before ZEC [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission] has actually announced the result".
But he said the MDC would issue its own tally of presidential results if ZEC continues to withhold the official figures.
They would be based on the figures which had to be posted by law outside each polling station after counting was completed.
Many results have been available since Sunday.
Quoting analysts, The Herald newspaper said on Wednesday that the "pattern of results" indicated by the parliamentary tight race showed a re-run would be necessary.
The Herald is generally seen as reflecting government thinking.
Independent observers had previously said Mr Tsvangirai seemed to have taken the most votes in the presidential race.
More than 50% of the vote is needed to avoid a second run-off vote, which would have to be held three weeks after the 29 March election.
Transparency
While the atmosphere on Zimbabwe's streets remains peaceful, if tense, there are fears that prolonging the declaration of results could lead to violence.
Roadblocks have been set up around the capital, Harare, and there has been a marked increase in the presence of paramilitary police on the streets of major cities.
As pressure grew around the world for final results to be declared, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for calm.
He urged the "utmost transparency be exercised so that the people of Zimbabwe can have full confidence in the process".
The White House said it was clear the people of Zimbabwe had "voted for change".
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the results of the presidential election to be published as soon as possible.
"What we want to see is that the whole of the Zimbabwean people can be guaranteed that the elections are fair and are seen to be fair, and we get the democratic outcome that the people of Zimbabwe have chosen," he said.
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the BBC the fact that results had not been announced was very significant.
"Even the dumbest of us would say that results would not have been held back... had it not been the fact that Mr Mugabe has not won," said the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Earlier the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of civil society organisations, said its random sample of poll stations indicated Mr Tsvangirai had won just over 49% of the vote and Mr Mugabe 42%.
Mr Makoni, a former Mugabe loyalist, trailed at about 8%.
Two senior ruling party sources had told Reuters news agency that their projections were similar - indicating a run-off would be needed.
Mr Mugabe, 84, has not been seen in public since the election but Mr Matonga has denied rumours the president had left the country.
He came to power 28 years ago at independence but in recent years Zimbabwe has been plagued by the world's highest inflation, as well as acute food and fuel shortages.
From BBC News
The first official indication of the result of Saturday's election says that neither President Robert Mugabe nor his main challenger gained 50% of the vote.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won the poll but denies discussing Mr Mugabe's departure.
Election officials say the verification of presidential results has begun.
They say that the votes are being verified and collated in the presence of the presidential candidates' chief polling agents in the capital, Harare.
'Sensitive'
Mr Tsvangirai said he would not claim victory until the official count was known and added that no negotiations would take place until such time.
The BBC's Southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says it is widely believed that President Mugabe would not want to face the humiliation of a run-off, should neither he nor Mr Tsvangirai obtain an absolute majority this time.
Correspondents say Mr Mugabe would be unlikely to win a run-off, as those who voted for independent candidate Simba Makoni would be expected to vote against the president.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga also rejected reports of discussions paving the way for Mr Mugabe to step down.
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) sources had earlier told the BBC the outline of an agreement had nearly been reached for Mr Mugabe to leave office.
The BBC's Ian Pannell in Zimbabwe, despite a ban on BBC reporters there, says the process is so sensitive that nobody wants to conduct it in public.
In the separate parliamentary race, results released so far show that the MDC has 96 seats, including five for a breakaway faction of the party, against 93 for Zanu-PF, with 21 still to come.
Roadblocks
In his first public appearance since the election, Mr Tsvangirai told a news conference on Tuesday evening there was "no way the MDC will enter in any deal before ZEC [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission] has actually announced the result".
But he said the MDC would issue its own tally of presidential results if ZEC continues to withhold the official figures.
They would be based on the figures which had to be posted by law outside each polling station after counting was completed.
Many results have been available since Sunday.
Quoting analysts, The Herald newspaper said on Wednesday that the "pattern of results" indicated by the parliamentary tight race showed a re-run would be necessary.
The Herald is generally seen as reflecting government thinking.
Independent observers had previously said Mr Tsvangirai seemed to have taken the most votes in the presidential race.
More than 50% of the vote is needed to avoid a second run-off vote, which would have to be held three weeks after the 29 March election.
Transparency
While the atmosphere on Zimbabwe's streets remains peaceful, if tense, there are fears that prolonging the declaration of results could lead to violence.
Roadblocks have been set up around the capital, Harare, and there has been a marked increase in the presence of paramilitary police on the streets of major cities.
As pressure grew around the world for final results to be declared, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for calm.
He urged the "utmost transparency be exercised so that the people of Zimbabwe can have full confidence in the process".
The White House said it was clear the people of Zimbabwe had "voted for change".
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the results of the presidential election to be published as soon as possible.
"What we want to see is that the whole of the Zimbabwean people can be guaranteed that the elections are fair and are seen to be fair, and we get the democratic outcome that the people of Zimbabwe have chosen," he said.
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the BBC the fact that results had not been announced was very significant.
"Even the dumbest of us would say that results would not have been held back... had it not been the fact that Mr Mugabe has not won," said the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Earlier the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of civil society organisations, said its random sample of poll stations indicated Mr Tsvangirai had won just over 49% of the vote and Mr Mugabe 42%.
Mr Makoni, a former Mugabe loyalist, trailed at about 8%.
Two senior ruling party sources had told Reuters news agency that their projections were similar - indicating a run-off would be needed.
Mr Mugabe, 84, has not been seen in public since the election but Mr Matonga has denied rumours the president had left the country.
He came to power 28 years ago at independence but in recent years Zimbabwe has been plagued by the world's highest inflation, as well as acute food and fuel shortages.
From BBC News
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
HUD Chief Resigns Amid Ethics Investigations
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson resigned Monday, amid multiple ethics investigations and criticism from top lawmakers.
Jackson, who said his resignation would take effect April 18, did not mention the allegations in his brief statement Monday, saying only he needed to focus on "personal and family matters."
The resignation came after criticism from members of Congress that Jackson has refused to respond adequately to allegations of impropriety.
President Bush said in a statement, Jackson "made significant progress in transforming public housing, revitalizing and modernizing the Federal Housing Administration, increasing affordable housing, rebuilding the Gulf Coast, decreasing homelessness, and increasing minority homeownership."
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who recently called for Jackson to resign, welcomed his decision to step down.
"I hope this change in personnel will be matched by a change in policy that brings real solutions to the housing crisis that has triggered this economic recession," Dodd said.
No names have been floated as candidates to replace Jackson, a long-time friend of President Bush from their days in Texas.
One possibility would be to promote from within the department, given the short time remaining in the president's term and the hostility he faces from the Democratic-controlled Senate, which must confirm Jackson's replacement.
Dodd and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, demanded Jackson's resignation 10 days ago, saying the ethics allegations have distracted from the secretary's ability to handle the nation's housing crisis.
"Secretary Jackson has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not in the position to provide the type of leadership that is necessary during these trying and difficult times," Dodd said in the statement. He said an inspector-general's report recently stated that Jackson had advised staffers to "take political affiliation into account in awarding contacts," and "serious allegations about his impropriety" are under investigation in three cases, although Dodd did not name them.
Dodd is chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Murray is chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
Jackson has recently been accused in a lawsuit of retaliating against housing officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for blocking a land deal with one of Jackson's friends. The FBI has been investigating allegations that Jackson steered a federal contract to a golfing buddy based in South Carolina.
The secretary has denied wrongdoing and White House officials have said for months that the president still has confidence in Jackson. No charges have been filed against him.
Jackson has been a key player in the Bush administration's efforts to handle the national housing and mortgage crisis.
Before coming to Washington, Jackson ran Dallas' housing authority for seven years and then led a Texas power company. He also was head of the Federal Housing Administration. His announcement of his resignation comes four years to the day after he was confirmed as secretary.
Speaking to reporters at HUD headquarters in Washington on Monday, Jackson said he had devoted his career to improving housing opportunities.
"As the son of a lead smelter and nurse midwife, and the last of 12 children, never did I imagine I would serve America in such a way," Jackson said about his Cabinet post. "I am truly grateful for the opportunity."
"We have helped families keep their homes, we have transformed public housing, we have reduced chronic homelessness, and we have preserved affordable housing and increased minority homeownership," he said.
A Jackson adviser told CNN earlier that the secretary has been privately talking about resigning since late last year because he's grown weary over multiple ethics investigations and allegations that he cannot focus full time on the nation's housing crisis.
From CNN
Jackson, who said his resignation would take effect April 18, did not mention the allegations in his brief statement Monday, saying only he needed to focus on "personal and family matters."
The resignation came after criticism from members of Congress that Jackson has refused to respond adequately to allegations of impropriety.
President Bush said in a statement, Jackson "made significant progress in transforming public housing, revitalizing and modernizing the Federal Housing Administration, increasing affordable housing, rebuilding the Gulf Coast, decreasing homelessness, and increasing minority homeownership."
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who recently called for Jackson to resign, welcomed his decision to step down.
"I hope this change in personnel will be matched by a change in policy that brings real solutions to the housing crisis that has triggered this economic recession," Dodd said.
No names have been floated as candidates to replace Jackson, a long-time friend of President Bush from their days in Texas.
One possibility would be to promote from within the department, given the short time remaining in the president's term and the hostility he faces from the Democratic-controlled Senate, which must confirm Jackson's replacement.
Dodd and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, demanded Jackson's resignation 10 days ago, saying the ethics allegations have distracted from the secretary's ability to handle the nation's housing crisis.
"Secretary Jackson has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not in the position to provide the type of leadership that is necessary during these trying and difficult times," Dodd said in the statement. He said an inspector-general's report recently stated that Jackson had advised staffers to "take political affiliation into account in awarding contacts," and "serious allegations about his impropriety" are under investigation in three cases, although Dodd did not name them.
Dodd is chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Murray is chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
Jackson has recently been accused in a lawsuit of retaliating against housing officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for blocking a land deal with one of Jackson's friends. The FBI has been investigating allegations that Jackson steered a federal contract to a golfing buddy based in South Carolina.
The secretary has denied wrongdoing and White House officials have said for months that the president still has confidence in Jackson. No charges have been filed against him.
Jackson has been a key player in the Bush administration's efforts to handle the national housing and mortgage crisis.
Before coming to Washington, Jackson ran Dallas' housing authority for seven years and then led a Texas power company. He also was head of the Federal Housing Administration. His announcement of his resignation comes four years to the day after he was confirmed as secretary.
Speaking to reporters at HUD headquarters in Washington on Monday, Jackson said he had devoted his career to improving housing opportunities.
"As the son of a lead smelter and nurse midwife, and the last of 12 children, never did I imagine I would serve America in such a way," Jackson said about his Cabinet post. "I am truly grateful for the opportunity."
"We have helped families keep their homes, we have transformed public housing, we have reduced chronic homelessness, and we have preserved affordable housing and increased minority homeownership," he said.
A Jackson adviser told CNN earlier that the secretary has been privately talking about resigning since late last year because he's grown weary over multiple ethics investigations and allegations that he cannot focus full time on the nation's housing crisis.
From CNN
Supreme Court Won't Intervene in Jefferson Raid Case
The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it won't overrule a decision that FBI agents violated the rights of a Democratic congressman during a search of his office, a decision the Bush administration says will hamper future public corruption investigations.
The justices declined to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that the FBI was wrong to confiscate legislative files from the office of Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, who faces bribery charges involving $90,000 found in his freezer.
It marked the first time that federal law enforcement agents had ever searched the office of a member of Congress and prompted a clash between Congress and the administration over its constitutionality.
The appeals court ordered the FBI to give Jefferson back all privileged legislative files and copies of files taken from his office during the 18-hour raid in May of 2006.
The appeals court said FBI agents should not have viewed documents in the office without first giving Jefferson the opportunity to say the material involved legislative business.
Jefferson was charged last year with racketeering, soliciting bribes for himself and his family, fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
He was accused of soliciting millions of dollars in bribes from nearly a dozen companies while using his office to broker business deals in Africa. In a search of his home, FBI agents said they found $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer.
Jefferson, a member of Congress since 1991 whose district includes New Orleans, has pleaded not guilty. Continued...
His trial has been delayed while he appeals a judge's ruling that rejected his argument to dismiss the indictment on the grounds it unconstitutionally infringed on his privileges as a lawmaker.
In appealing to the Supreme Court, administration lawyers said the appeals court's ruling would effectively prevent any searches of congressional offices and threatened to impede searches of lawmakers' homes, vehicles or briefcases.
Jefferson's lawyers said the appeals court correctly concluded the Constitution bars compelled disclosure of legislative material to the executive branch during a search. Allowing review of such material would impair legislative activities, they said.
The Supreme Court sided with Jefferson and rejected the administration's appeal without any comment.
By James Vicini from Reuters
The justices declined to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that the FBI was wrong to confiscate legislative files from the office of Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, who faces bribery charges involving $90,000 found in his freezer.
It marked the first time that federal law enforcement agents had ever searched the office of a member of Congress and prompted a clash between Congress and the administration over its constitutionality.
The appeals court ordered the FBI to give Jefferson back all privileged legislative files and copies of files taken from his office during the 18-hour raid in May of 2006.
The appeals court said FBI agents should not have viewed documents in the office without first giving Jefferson the opportunity to say the material involved legislative business.
Jefferson was charged last year with racketeering, soliciting bribes for himself and his family, fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
He was accused of soliciting millions of dollars in bribes from nearly a dozen companies while using his office to broker business deals in Africa. In a search of his home, FBI agents said they found $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer.
Jefferson, a member of Congress since 1991 whose district includes New Orleans, has pleaded not guilty. Continued...
His trial has been delayed while he appeals a judge's ruling that rejected his argument to dismiss the indictment on the grounds it unconstitutionally infringed on his privileges as a lawmaker.
In appealing to the Supreme Court, administration lawyers said the appeals court's ruling would effectively prevent any searches of congressional offices and threatened to impede searches of lawmakers' homes, vehicles or briefcases.
Jefferson's lawyers said the appeals court correctly concluded the Constitution bars compelled disclosure of legislative material to the executive branch during a search. Allowing review of such material would impair legislative activities, they said.
The Supreme Court sided with Jefferson and rejected the administration's appeal without any comment.
By James Vicini from Reuters
Teams Search Flooded Tanzania Mine After Bodies Recovered
Rescuers dug through sludge and rock Tuesday in their search for dozens of miners trapped for the fourth day in northern Tanzania as hopes dimmed of finding any survivors.
Rescue teams retrieved 10 new bodies from the flooded mines on Monday, bringing the total number to 16 bodies recovered since Saturday when water swept a tanzanite concession in Mirerani, near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, police said.
"So far we have recovered 16 bodies. We are continuing with the operation to look for more bodies," police commissioner Venance Tossi, who was commanding the operation, told AFP on Monday.
Mine owners ruled out the chances of finding any survivors.
"There is no hope of finding anybody alive," said state-run Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) radio, quoting the owners. The teams were now targeting some 50 people or bodies still trapped in the pits.
Officials gave diverging counts of the number of miners who escaped or were rescued from the pits, where thousands dig to find the precious purple-blue mineral named after the country.
State radio, quoting the mine owners, said 93 people close to the surface escaped the flooding. Other officials said 35 escaped.
In June 2002, at least 39 tanzanite miners died after inhaling carbon monoxide produced from a dynamite explosion, one of the many fatal accidents linked to mining in Tanzania.
Tanzanite, a purple-blue shimmering stone, has been found only in northern Tanzania and in 2005 a leading gemstone miner said it unearthed the world's largest tanzanite stone weighing about three kilograms (6.6 pounds).
The lure of the gem has drawn thousands of miners to Mirerani, which resembles a gold-rush town dotted with hardware stores, bars and brothels.
Small-scale miners such as those affected by the latest disaster only get food rations from their employers and are paid only if they hit tanzanite. Some of them work months without pay.
Many dig in highly unsafe and unstable mines using primitive tools and garden implements.
Tanzanite is believed to be limited to east Africa's Rift Valley region and the pits where the accident happened are located in the heart of Maasai land, a short distance from Mount Kilimanjaro.
The gemstone was discovered by Maasai tribesmen in 1967 and gained fame when it was launched by New York's Tiffany & Co. the following year.
Tanzania is the continent's third-largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana and is also rich in diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
The mining sector contributes less than three percent of the nation's GDP but that should reach 10 percent by 2025 according to a development plan outlined by the government.
From AFP
Rescue teams retrieved 10 new bodies from the flooded mines on Monday, bringing the total number to 16 bodies recovered since Saturday when water swept a tanzanite concession in Mirerani, near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, police said.
"So far we have recovered 16 bodies. We are continuing with the operation to look for more bodies," police commissioner Venance Tossi, who was commanding the operation, told AFP on Monday.
Mine owners ruled out the chances of finding any survivors.
"There is no hope of finding anybody alive," said state-run Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) radio, quoting the owners. The teams were now targeting some 50 people or bodies still trapped in the pits.
Officials gave diverging counts of the number of miners who escaped or were rescued from the pits, where thousands dig to find the precious purple-blue mineral named after the country.
State radio, quoting the mine owners, said 93 people close to the surface escaped the flooding. Other officials said 35 escaped.
In June 2002, at least 39 tanzanite miners died after inhaling carbon monoxide produced from a dynamite explosion, one of the many fatal accidents linked to mining in Tanzania.
Tanzanite, a purple-blue shimmering stone, has been found only in northern Tanzania and in 2005 a leading gemstone miner said it unearthed the world's largest tanzanite stone weighing about three kilograms (6.6 pounds).
The lure of the gem has drawn thousands of miners to Mirerani, which resembles a gold-rush town dotted with hardware stores, bars and brothels.
Small-scale miners such as those affected by the latest disaster only get food rations from their employers and are paid only if they hit tanzanite. Some of them work months without pay.
Many dig in highly unsafe and unstable mines using primitive tools and garden implements.
Tanzanite is believed to be limited to east Africa's Rift Valley region and the pits where the accident happened are located in the heart of Maasai land, a short distance from Mount Kilimanjaro.
The gemstone was discovered by Maasai tribesmen in 1967 and gained fame when it was launched by New York's Tiffany & Co. the following year.
Tanzania is the continent's third-largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana and is also rich in diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
The mining sector contributes less than three percent of the nation's GDP but that should reach 10 percent by 2025 according to a development plan outlined by the government.
From AFP
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