and the occupation of Iraq; you may see friends, and maybe yourself!
http://www.traprockpeace.org/antiwar_march_012707/
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The next meeting of Bay Area United Against War is TONIGHT:
Thursday, February 1, 7:00 P.M.
474 Valencia Street, First Floor, rear
(415) 824-8730
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Film/Song about Angola
http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/
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"Good Dolls" and "Bad Dolls"
http://www.komotv.com/home/video/5001856.html?video=YHI&t=a
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"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]
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MARCH AND RALLY IN SAN FRANCISCO
SUNDAY, MARCH 18, 2007
(The annual St. Patrick's Day Parade is taking
place on Sat., March 17 in SF.)
ASSEMBLE 12:00 NOON
JUSTIN HERMAN PLAZA -
MARCH TO CIVIC CENTER
For more information:
http://www.actionsf.org/#local4
answer@actionsf.org
Phone: 415-821-6545
Fax: 415-821-5782
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) HOW THE FORCES OF CAPITAL GOT US WHERE WE ARE
[Col. Writ. 1/14/07] Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal
2) NO MATTER WHAT
[Col. Writ. 1/10/07] Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal
3) Lt. Ehren Watada
Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches
January 28, 2007
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
4) A New Castro?
By DAVID RIEFF
January 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28wwln_lead.t.html?hp&ex=1170046800&en=2b1df82ab315da48&ei=5094&partner=homepage
5) More Than Antiwar
By BOB HERBERT
Washington
January 29, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/opinion/29herbert.html?hp
6) In Los Angeles, Antigang Efforts Start on the Street
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
January 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/29gangs.html?ref=us
7) On a Trip Through History, Students Join Freedom Riders
By THEO EMERY
January 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/29freedom.html?ref=us
8) Jordan Becomes a Doubtful Refuge
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
Think Dahr's work is vital? We need your help. It's easy!
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/donate/
(c)2007 Dahr Jamail
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
Read story from website
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000533.php#more
9) ** FY 2007 INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION BILL ADVANCES
** SPECIAL FORCES FREE FALL OPERATIONS
** ARMY CIVIL AFFAIRS OPERATIONS
** VARIOUS RESOURCES
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 10
January 29, 2007
Secrecy News Blog:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
10) Restoring Dignity to Sitting Bull, Wherever He Is
By DAN BARRY
STANDING ROCK RESERVATION, S.D.
January 28, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/us/28thisland.html
11) Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
January 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30iran.html?hp&ex=1170219600&en=d0c65b478050ef58&ei=5094&partner=homepage
12) Admiral Calls for ‘New and Different’ Approach in Iraq
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
January 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30cnd-fallon.html?hp&ex=1170219600&en=9c7ca12e311af0ec&ei=5094&partner=homepage
13) Bolivia's Home-Grown Democracy
WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 30, 2007; Page B6
[VIA Email from: Walter Lippmann
walterlx@earthlink.net]
14) Coca Democracy
WALL STREET JOURNAL
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
January 8, 2007; Page A16
[VIA Email from: Walter Lippmann
walterlx@earthlink.net]
15) Incredible Words Of Inspiration From Bill Moyers & Marge Piercy
[VIA Email from: Kwame Somburu,
kwamesom@gmail.com]
16) Wall Street Finds a Lot to Like About Tobacco
By ANDREW MARTIN
January 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/business/31tobacco.html?hp&ex=1170306000&en=dd704550f8368d4d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
17) Salvadoran’s Death in Iraq Leaves His Mother Fuming
By MARC LACEY
January 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/world/americas/26salvador.html
18) Migrants Stream Into South Mexico
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
January 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/world/americas/28mexico.html
19) Chavez Gets Powers to Remake Venezuela
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:55 p.m. ET
January 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Venezuela-Chavez.html?hp&ex=1170306000&en=934c81a5e021f99e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
20) Alleged bid to abort leads to baby's death
By Brian R. Ballou and Raja Mishra, Globe Staff
January 25, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/25/alleged_bid_to_abort_leads_to_babys_death/
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1) HOW THE FORCES OF CAPITAL GOT US WHERE WE ARE
[Col. Writ. 1/14/07] Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Quite recently, I offered some thoughts on the startling warm winter
weather we're having.
While I talked about the probable impact of global warming (greenhouse
gases), I didn't directly address the sources of much of it.
Let's be clear. Much of it, perhaps most, is cars. Some folks may be
thinking -- 'uh oh -- here he goes again with that back-to-nature, John
Africa talk again. He actually wants us to give up our cars!'
But how many of us know that in the good old days -- say, in the
19-teens, and the '20s, cars were electric cars -- run on batteries?
In the early third of the 20th century, most American mass transit
was an electrical affair -- relatively quiet, with far fewer pollutants
being belched into the air.
What happened? Greed happened. Corporate crime happened. Then
mass pollution happened.
Writer and researcher Mark Zepezauer, in his brilliant 2004 book,
*Take the Rich Off Welfare* (Cambridge, Ma.: South End Press) tells the
story with brevity and clarity, as he writes:
"The extent to which automobiles dominate our lives didn't just happen
by accident -- at least part of it was the result of a criminal conspiracy.
Back in the early 1930s, most people living in cities got around on
electric streetcars. Concerned that this wasn't the kind of environment
in which they could sell a lot of buses, General Motors (GM), using
a series of front companies, began buying up streetcar systems,
tearing out the tracks, buying buses from itself, and then selling the
new, polluting bus systems back to the cities -- usually with contracts
that prohibited the purchase of 'any equipment using fuel or means
of propulsion other than gas.' Sometimes the contracts required that
the new owners buy all their replacement buses from GM.
"GM was soon joined by Greyhound, Firestone Tire and Rubber, Standard
Oil of California (also called Chevron), and Mack Trucks. In 1949 -- after
these companies had destroyed more than 100 streetcar systems in over
40 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco,
Oakland, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City -- GM, Chevron, and
Firestone were convicted of a criminal conspiracy to restrain trade.
They were fined $5,000 each, and the executives who organized the
scheme were fined $1.00 each." [p. 139]
Boy -- what does that tell you about 'equal justice under law?'
(Speaking of John Africa, I'm reminded of the opening words of his
*The Judges Letter*, which reads, "The courts are the tools of industrial
plague, granting big business privilege to poison our earth.")
There are some 520 million cars in the world today; 200 million
(38.5%!) are driven in the U.S. The U.S. has only 5% of the world's
population, and drives nearly 40% of the cars.
When we are faced with the chilling spectacle of global warming,
with the rising of the oceans along with temperatures, and with
the very real threat to coastal cities and populations all around
the world, there's a reason for it.
And some big U.S. businesses made plenty of money off it. The
pollution in our lungs, the warming air currents melting the arctic
snow and creating rising sea levels, the very same man-made
temperature changes that have spawned stronger, more destructive
hurricanes was translated into billions of dollars in U.S. corporate
coffers, amassed over decades. It is the very essence of capitalism.
It didn't have to be this way. It could've been very different.
Only people, awake and aware -- and determined to build a new world,
can begin to change it.
Time is running out for over 1/2 a billion people, whose living space
is seriously threatened with flooding.
It's not too late to reverse this monstrous trend. But, it can't be kept
for later.
Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal
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2) NO MATTER WHAT
[Col. Writ. 1/10/07] Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal
I did not wait with baited breath for the President's long-anticipated
speech on a "new strategy" for Iraq.
For I knew, with chilling certainty, that no matter the 'strategy',
it would hardly be 'new.' I knew that more didn't mean new -- just
more. And I knew that this president was incapable of little more,
than more of the same.
More troops -- more war -- more death -- more disaster.
There may be a new phrase -- but after "Bring 'em on!", "We're
winnin'!", or "War Against Terror", what can a new phrase mean,
but more b.s.?
Wars aren't fought with phrases; they're used to sell wars; to stir
the blood; to quicken the pulse; and to enliven the bloodlust in men.
This is no different.
I fought my journalistic urge to watch the President's press conference.
It's a lot like watching Elmer Fudd stuttering something about catching
that 'wascally wabbit' (Bugs Bunny). I can actually hear Bugs laughing
at Elmer's latest antic, saying, between guffaws, "What a maroon!"
Madness!
And yet, as is often the case, the journalistic urge wins out, so as
a compromise, I turned on the local NPR affiliate, and listened to
the speech. And despite advance billing by party and PR flacks about
the contents, Bush managed to do it again.
Within moments of his latest offering came appeals to the events
of Sept. 11th, which he blamed on "extremists." Like Iraq had
a damned thing to do with 9/11! Once again, he sprinkled his
speech with calls to supporting 'liberty', and essentially said the
problem was 'too few U.S. and Iraqi troops, and too many restrictions.'
And the solution? 21,000 more troops.
With each twist and turn of administration policy, I've scoffed. This
'new strategy' evoked the same old emotion.
This too is destined for failure. Why?
Because the U.S. Army hasn't an ounce worth of trust in the Iraqi
forces. Because Iraqi "insurgents" (or dead-enders" -- or "extremists",
or whatever we're calling them now) have seeded themselves within
the Ministry of the Interior -- the Army, the police -- you name it.
If the U.S. delivers new arms to the Army, it will be in the hands
of the so-called 'insurgents' by dawn.
And what is this American antipathy against 'extremists' or 'insurgents',
anyhow? The U.S. was formed by armed groups of insurgents -- and yes,
'extremists.' Those who stood against the British King in 1776 were
opposing the biggest, baddest superpower of the era. The Crown was
the seat of legality, order, and power. To dare to challenge them --
to fight the mighty British Empire, was -- well, extreme.
The U.S. did it, and at least one 'founding father' -- Thomas Paine, had
to flee Britain, or face time in the Tower awaiting the national noose.
(It was just his bad luck that he fled to France, where the Robespierre-led
National Assembly tried to feed his head to the guillotine -- but that's
another story.)
The point? A war against extremities, or terrorism, is misleading and
stupid. It's a war against an idea.
It's now approaching 4 years of this madcap and illegal war -- now
is hardly time for a 'new strategy.' Failure leads to failure. Disaster leads
to disaster. This 'new strategy' is kinda like putting lipstick on a pig.
Its other flaw is its obvious tilt towards the Shia, with Sunnis targeted
by the U.S.-Iraqi forces for a kind of 'super-occupation.' What will
this lead to?
*Every*thing that the administration has done -- from Day One --
has made *more* enemies, not less. It has made the threats facing
the U.S. *more* dangerous -- not less.
Good work, Elmer ( or should I say, Daffy -- as in 'Lame' -- Duck?).
Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal
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3) Lt. Ehren Watada
Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches
January 28, 2007
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
I would like to bring your attention to a story I covered last August
about 1st Lt. Ehren Watada. The story covered his decision not to deploy
to Iraq and a speech he gave at the Veteran's for Peace National
Convention in Seattle last August. The full text of his speech can be
read here
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000453.php
In the weeks following that speech, I was contacted by the prosecuting
attorney from his court-martial and informed I was on the witness list.
I took up my own legal counsel, and while I remain on the prosecution’s
witness list, I have not been subpoenaed to testify against him in the
trial, which is set for February 5th.
Watada's case is critical for two main reasons.
If he is convicted for his speech charges, it sends a message to other
war resisters that they will be penalized for their speech more harshly
than even their decision not to deploy to Iraq. In addition, this sends
a chilling message to journalists who wish to cover their story – that
as a journalist you may be used as an arm of the prosecution to testify
against your sources.
This case has the potential to set precedent which would deleteriously
affect both free speech rights of service members of the U.S. military,
as well as journalists’ ability to cover those stories. It is important
to note that the Democratically controlled Congress has chosen NOT to
take a stand on either of these issues, when they could intervene on
both counts.
This, despite public outcry from countless media organizations and
mainstream organizations, like Military Reporters and Editors, who wrote
this statement:
"Army prosecutors have subpoenaed two journalists, Honolulu
Star-Bulletin reporter Gregg Kakesako, and Oakland,Calif., freelancer
Sarah Olson, to testify during a January pre-trial hearing at Fort
Lewis, Wash., in the case of an Army officer who denounced the war and
refused orders to deploy to Iraq."
"Responding to the situation, Military Reporters and Editors President
James W. Crawley said, "Trying to force a reporter to testify at a
court-martial sends the wrong signal to the media and the military."
"Reporters and photographers who cover the military have developed a
level of trust with America's fighting men and women to tell their
stories honestly, fairly and completely. Having military prosecutors
abuse that trust by forcing them to testify about matters that can be
ascertained by other witnesses and evidence, stifles that trust and
relationship between the media and military."
In addition, the National Press Club has issued this statement of support:
"The National Press Club today announced its opposition to the U.S.
Army's subpoenas of Oakland, Calif., freelance journalist Sarah Olson
and Honolulu Star Bulletin reporter Gregg Kakesako."
"The subpoenas call for the reporters to testify at the Feb. 5 court
martial of Army Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to deploy to Iraq and made
several disparaging remarks about the conduct of the war. A petition
calling for the dismissal of the subpoena has been posted on the web."
Supporters of Sarah Olson and myself have set up this website
I urge you today, one week before the court-martial trial of Lt. Watada
begins, to go there and take action by signing the aforementioned
petition
Think Dahr's work is vital? We need your help. It's easy!
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/donate/
(c)2007 Dahr Jamail
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4) A New Castro?
By DAVID RIEFF
January 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28wwln_lead.t.html?hp&ex=1170046800&en=2b1df82ab315da48&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Policy analysts and pundits have been predicting for some time that
the so-called unipolar moment, in which the United States stands
unchallenged as the sole superpower, will soon come to an end. The
debacle in Iraq has hastened this reckoning and sharpened the anxieties
about America’s role in the world — perhaps especially among those
who believe that the United States is a benign hegemon and that the
real choice is between a Pax Americana and anarchy. But it is the
recent conduct of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s firebrand president,
that offers the starkest evidence yet of the changed circumstances
that American policy makers are starting to confront around the world.
In many ways, Chávez is an unlikely figure to assume the mantle of
leadership of this brewing, if slow-burning and incoherent, global revolt.
A paratroop officer who instigated a failed coup attempt against the
corrupt government of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, Chávez would
seem to conform more to the Latin American stereotype of the military
man turned populist (Juan Perón of Argentina being the prototypical
example) than to that of a world revolutionary à la Fidel Castro.
As his hold on power has tightened, however, Chávez’s rhetoric has
increasingly embraced the most ossified traditions of left-wing
sectarianism. Echoing Che Guevara’s insistence that the Cuban
revolution was creating a “new man,” Chávez has spoken of what
he calls his Bolívaran revolution inaugurating the “moral regeneration”
of Latin America. He has compared his own regime with the Paris
Commune, and boasted of sending a copy of “Das Kapital” to the
bishop of Caracas. In speeches, he invokes the tutelary idols of the
antiglobalization left — Noam Chomsky (whom he cited in a speech
at the United Nations); Pierre Bourdieu, the French social theorist;
and Antonio Negri, the erstwhile theorist of the Italian Red Brigades.
Such rhetoric is commonplace at antiglobalization events like the
annual World Social Forum but not in the public declarations
of heads of state.
Now Chávez’s deeds have begun to catch up with his rhetoric. Re-elected
overwhelmingly to a second term in December, Chávez subsequently
announced that he would consider nationalizing, among other things,
the assets of some foreign oil companies and the largest phone company,
which is partly owned by Verizon.
To non-Latin Americans, these statements seem incomprehensible.
And given Chávez’s outlandish rhetoric, it is tempting to dismiss him
as a madman — as many in Washington were doing until quite recently.
After all, Chávez had endorsed the theory that the attacks of 9/11 were
planned and carried out by the Bush administration as pretext for going
to war. And he has repeatedly praised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, making
five visits to Iran — visits that President Ahmadinejad reciprocated
with a recent tour of Latin America that began in Caracas.
The general sense that Chávez must be unhinged derives even more,
perhaps, from his enthusiastic support of a Soviet-style command
economy. He rejects out of hand what has become the received wisdom
of our time, which is that every country, like it or not, must participate
in a globalized world economy. But Chávez declares that he is going
to construct a socialist Venezuela in a socialist Latin America,
globalization be damned. To many, this seems as quixotic as trying
to bring back feudalism and the divine right of kings.
In moving from rhetoric to action, Chávez may indeed have set the
stage for the end of his rule. But the Chávez phenomenon should not
be dismissed. Not only is he still immensely popular within Venezuela,
but he also has become an iconic figure for many people across the
world who see the United States as the principal threat to world
peace, not its benevolent guarantor. In fact, he has come to play
the same role in 2007 that Fidel Castro played in 1967. Perhaps,
globalization or no globalization, the world has changed less than
most people thought.
Of course, it is anything but clear that communism in Cuba will
survive the death of Castro. Indeed, Cuba hangs on economically
only because Venezuela provides it with subsidized oil in much
the way the Soviet Union did before it collapsed. At the same
time, however, the left-wing surge throughout Latin America
continues unabated. Ecuador’s new president, Rafael Correa,
joins not only Chávez but also Evo Morales of Bolivia and Daniel
Ortega in Nicaragua. It’s significant that President Ahmadinejad
— who, it should be noted, is not a Socialist or particularly hostile
to capitalism of the crony kind — met with all of them. More
significant still is that all these men were swept into power
by an electorate for whom globalization is an epithet, not the
collective economic destiny of humanity in the 21st century.
In all likelihood, the chances of a lasting unipolar world were
always slight. History teaches that any time one power
predominates, a coalition forms to oppose it. Many people
expected such a coalition to be led by China (American naval
war planners still do). But the coalition that seems to be arising
first as an “antiprinciple” to U.S. power is one that unites
a Castroite Latin American left, hard-line Shiite parties like
Hezbollah, Iran and at least some extreme elements of the
antiglobalization movement. Note that at Hezbollah’s so-called
victory rally in Beirut after the summer war with Israel, many
participants held up placards with Chávez’s face pictured
alongside that of Sheik Nasrallah. It is the oldest of foreign-
policy instincts, after all, to hold that the enemy of my enemy
is my friend.
Perhaps we were kidding ourselves when we imagined that
when Castro died, the yearning in many parts of the world
for a figure like Castro would die as well. If Hugo Chávez
proves nothing else, it is that such dreams are alive and well.
David Rieff is a contributing writer for the magazine.
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5) More Than Antiwar
By BOB HERBERT
Washington
January 29, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/opinion/29herbert.html?hp
It was a few minutes after 11 a.m. when the scattered crowd began
moving slowly toward the stage at the end of the Mall. The sky was
a beautiful sunlit blue and the Capitol building, huge and white and
majestic, offered the protesters an emotional backdrop that seemed
almost close enough to touch.
“It’s so big,” said a woman from Milwaukee, who was there with her
husband and two children. “It’s lovely. Makes you want to cry.”
You can say what you want about the people opposed to this wretched
war in Iraq, try to stereotype them any way you can. But you couldn’t
walk among them for more than a few minutes on Saturday without
realizing that they love their country as much as anyone ever has.
They love it enough to try to save it.
By 11:15 I thought there was a chance that the march against the
war would be a bust. There just weren’t that many people moving
toward the stage to join the rally that preceded the march. But the
crowd kept building, slowly, steadily. It was a good-natured crowd.
Everyone was bad-mouthing the Bush administration and the war,
but everybody seemed to be smiling.
There were gray-haired women with digital cameras and young girls
with braces. There were guys trying to look cool in knit caps and
shades and balding baby boomers trading stories about Vietnam.
And many ordinary families.
“Where’s Hillary?” someone asked.
That evoked laughter in the crowd. “She’s in Iowa running for
president,” someone said.
When a woman asked, “What’s her position on the war?” a man
standing next to her cracked, “She was for it before she was against it.”
More laughter.
The crowd kept building. There were people being pushed in
wheelchairs and babies in strollers. There were elderly men and
women, walking very slowly in some cases and holding hands.
The goal of the crowd was to get the attention of Congress and
persuade it to move vigorously to reverse the Bush war policies.
But the thought that kept returning as I watched the earnestly
smiling faces, so many of them no longer young, was the way
these protesters had somehow managed to keep the faith. They
still believed, after all the years and all the lies, that they could
make a difference. They still believed their government would
listen to them and respond.
“I have to believe in this,” said Donna Norton of Petaluma, Calif.
“I have a daughter in the reserves and a son-in-law on active duty.
I feel very, very strongly about this.”
Betty and Peter Vinten-Johansen of East Lansing, Mich., said they
felt obliged to march, believing that they could bolster the resolve
of opponents of the war in Congress. Glancing toward the Capitol,
Mr. Vinten-Johansen said, “Maybe we can strengthen their backbone
a little bit.”
Even the celebrities who have been at this sort of thing for decades
have managed to escape the debilitating embrace of cynicism. “How
can you be cynical?” asked Tim Robbins, just before he mounted the
stage to address the crowd, which by that time had grown to more
than 100,000.
“This is inspiring,” he said. “It’s the real voice of the American people,
and when you hear that collective voice protesting freely it reminds you
of the greatness of our country. It gives you hope.”
When Jane Fonda said, “Silence is no longer an option,” she was doing
more than expressing the outrage of the crowd over the carnage in Iraq
and the president’s decision to escalate American involvement. She was
implicitly re-asserting her belief in the effectiveness of citizen action.
Ms. Fonda is approaching 70 now and was at the march with her two
grandchildren. It was very touching to watch her explain how she had
declined to participate in antiwar marches for 34 years because she
was afraid her notoriety would harm rather than help the effort.
The public is way out in front of the politicians on this issue. But the
importance of Saturday’s march does not lie primarily in whether it
hastens a turnaround of U.S. policy on the war. The fact that so many
Americans were willing to travel from every region of the country to
march against the war was a reaffirmation of the public’s commitment
to our peaceful democratic processes.
It is in that unique and unflagging commitment, not in our terrifying
military power, that the continued promise and greatness of America
are to be found.
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6) In Los Angeles, Antigang Efforts Start on the Street
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
January 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/29gangs.html?ref=us
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28 — At twilight on Friday, in the heart of the
territory of the latest notorious Los Angeles gang, a woman in
a passing car calls out a tip to Officer Dan Robbins, sending him
racing toward a corner and a man he believes is a member of the
204th Street gang.
As Officer Robbins’s black-and-white patrol car speeds forward,
the man, Jose Covarrubias, 20, turns away and drops what appears
to be a small pipe.
“Come here! Get your hands up!” Officer Robbins of the Los Angeles
Police Department shouts as he jumps out of the car and handcuffs
Mr. Covarrubias, arresting him on suspicion of possessing drug
paraphernalia, a methamphetamine pipe.
“You arresting all the black people here on Harvard Boulevard, too?”
Mr. Covarrubias asks, now seated on a curb, making plain the racial
tension in this neighborhood, Harbor Gateway, that has commanded
the city’s attention.
They know each other, this gang unit officer and Mr. Covarrubias,
who Officer Robbins says is a relatively new member of 204th Street,
a Latino gang that gained notoriety last month when two members
were charged in what the police said was the racially motivated
killing of a 14-year-old black girl, Cheryl Green.
The crime stunned the city as a sign of growing violence among
blacks and Latinos in some struggling neighborhoods and brought
renewed promises from the mayor, the police chief and the F.B.I.
director to reverse a surge of gang violence. They have promised
more officers chasing the worst gang members, more school and
community counselors and more cooperation among agencies.
In the department’s Harbor Division, far from the worst in gang
crime but the focus of political and news media attention since
the killing, officers have started joint patrols with other police
agencies. A deputy city attorney, Panagiotis Panagiotou, has
ridden with Officer Robbins for part of his shift in an effort
to broaden prosecutors’ gang knowledge.
Crucial to the effort are the knowledge and wherewithal of gang
unit officers like Officer Robbins, whose focus is tracking gangs
operating in and near Harbor Gateway, a compact 12-square-block
collection of apartment houses and single-family homes in a narrow
sliver of Los Angeles 20 miles from downtown.
Officer Robbins, 36, has been on the force for 12 years, the last two
with the Harbor Division gang unit.
He embodies in many ways the newest incarnation of the gang
enforcement detail, which has a storied but troubled past.
Los Angeles has long been a model for other cities in gang
enforcement. Police officials from across the country and Latin
America will gather here on Feb. 7 to share information and
strategize. Chief William J. Bratton, visiting Washington this week,
plans to meet with members of Congress and federal officials
to advocate for more sharing of intelligence on gangs, terrorists
and organized crime groups.
Yet as much as gang crime has bedeviled Los Angeles, so has
controversy over tactics to fight it, most notably a scandal in the
Rampart Division that came to light in 1999. A gang unit officer
who had been charged with stealing cocaine from an evidence
locker said officers had beaten, shot and framed innocent people,
leading to the reversal of scores of convictions and $70 million
in legal settlements.
The police abolished an elite antigang unit known as Crash, and
a federal consent decree was imposed requiring a more stringent
system of checks and balances among gang enforcement units.
The effect of that order is immediately evident in Officer Robbins’s
attire. He wears a standard uniform and drives a marked squad car,
albeit without lights on top, making him and other gang officers
more visible, for better or worse.
Gang officers also generally serve in the new units, known as
Gang Impact Teams, or GIT, for three years, with extensions
requiring layers of approvals.
“We do lose some of the institutional knowledge,” said Lt. Roger
Murphy, who commands the Harbor Division’s gang officers.
“It takes two to three years to get to know a gang. But we have
to follow these strict protocols.”
With a reporter and photographer allowed to accompany him for
several hours of his nearly 12-hour shift, Officer Robbins offered
a primer on the 204th Street gang.
He knows its history, how it broke long ago from Tortilla Flats,
now a bitter rival.
He knows its numbers: more than 100 members, with about
30 hard-core devotees, relatively small for a Los Angeles gang,
some of which number into the thousands.
He knows that it earns money dealing marijuana and methamphetamine,
but that the income is not enough for several members, who
have legitimate day jobs.
He knows that members of 204th Street dislike blacks, who are
the newer arrivals in the neighborhood, and he has learned from
members that their disdain arises from racial hatred and rivalry
with black gang members they accuse of dealing drugs on their turf.
And he knows Mr. Covarrubias, who has been arrested and jailed
for burglaries and other offenses and has been a suspect in other
gang-related crimes.
It was Officer Robbins, his commanders said, who put months of
“gathering intel” on the gang to good use by recognizing instantly
that the car described by witnesses to Cheryl’s killing was connected
to certain gang members.
That was a major break, said Capt. Joan T. McNamara of the Harbor
Division, that led to the arrest and murder charges against two
of the gang’s members.
And so Officer Robbins and Mr. Covarrubias kept up a running
banter, sometimes friendly, sometimes adversarial, for the few
hours it took to complete paperwork at a nearby stationhouse
and book Mr. Covarrubias into a holding jail at another division.
“I don’t have anything on me, sir,” Mr. Covarrubias said shortly
before the drive to the stationhouse.
“Jose,” Officer Robbins replied with a smirk, “it’s not worth
arguing about.”
On the drive to booking, Officer Robbins pumped Mr. Covarrubias
for information about his intentions this Friday night and about
gang life.
Mr. Covarrubias offered clipped answers if any at all. A wave of
paranoia has swept through the gang over talking to the police,
officers said, and the killing of one of their members, stabbed
75 times and left on a dead-end street miles from the neighborhood,
is being investigated for connections to Cheryl Green’s death.
“You run into Stranger?” Officer Robbins asked, part of a stream
of cryptic queries laced with gang members’ nicknames that
Mr. Covarrubias nevertheless seemed to understand.
He was most forthcoming with his plans to move to another state,
to make an effort to break from the danger of the streets.
As he escorted Mr. Covarrubias into the station, Officer Robbins
quipped, “Here you are again, Jose.”
“Yeah, and I hope it’s the last time I see this place, too,”
he replied.
To Officer Robbins, it was a good arrest. Though a misdemeanor
charge, it kept Mr. Covarrubias in jail and off the streets for the
weekend, since the next opportunity to see a judge was not until
Monday.
Knowing that gang members can readily identify him or his car,
he sometimes parks around a corner and walks into the neighborhood,
hiding in bushes to observe gang members or jumping fences
to surprise them.
He drove the streets in and around Harbor Gateway for hours
on Friday night, watching men he said were gang members
hanging out on driveways and in front yards. He read fresh graffiti
for signs of tensions. He noticed two young boys on a bike and
a skateboard who seemed to trail him as he made the rounds.
“They are probably ones or twos, maybe lookouts,” he said, using
a code he has devised to rate the longevity and intensity of membership,
with five being the highest.
When fighting broke out at a rap concert in the San Pedro District,
he rushed to the scene with other gang officers, donning riot gear
and helping disperse the crowd, which he said included a number
of Harbor-area gang members.
But all in all, the focus on 204th Street has largely driven gang
members inside apartments and “underground.” That has made
it more difficult to catch them red-handed in street crime, making
the arrest of Mr. Covarrubias something of welcome surprise.
“With all that’s been going on,” Officer Robbins told him at one point,
“I can’t believe you are out here.”
Mr. Covarrubias stared blankly at the street.
[Could it be he has a drug dependency problem and needs
treatment?...bw]
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7) On a Trip Through History, Students Join Freedom Riders
By THEO EMERY
January 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/29freedom.html?ref=us
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Jan. 28 — More times than he remembers,
La’Markus Cook has traveled south on Interstate 65 from Nashville,
where he attends American Baptist College, to his home outside
Montgomery, Ala. But never, he said, as he did this weekend.
Air brakes hissing and motors rumbling, four buses retraced segments
of the 1961 Freedom Rides on Saturday and Sunday, giving students
aboard a front-seat view of a pivotal moment in civil rights history.
On the rides 46 years ago, activists armed with only their convictions
braved white mobs to defy segregation of interstate bus travel.
There have been many previous expeditions to locations where
riders were beaten, bloodied and jailed, but this weekend’s was
probably the largest and most ambitious attempt to keep the
history alive.
“I don’t know that any students have ever had this opportunity
before,” said Raymond Arsenault, the author of the 2006 book
“Freedom Riders,” considered an authoritative history.
About 100 students from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee State
University, Fisk University and American Baptist College accompanied
veterans of the civil rights movement, some of whom came close
to death in the bloody confrontations over interstate travel
in the South.
The buses served as rolling classrooms, leaving Nashville early
Saturday for Montgomery and arriving in Birmingham on Saturday
evening. The students, along with faculty members, historians
and others, returned to Nashville on Sunday.
Along the route, speakers rotated among buses to describe their
experiences and answer questions. Several came from the “Nashville
movement” of brash activists, many affiliated with the same
colleges and universities as the students.
Among them were Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia,
who was beaten and jailed on the rides; John Seigenthaler, an aide
to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy during the crisis; James
Lawson and C. T. Vivian, ministers who advised many of the students;
and Diane Nash, who in the early 1960s led sit-in movements
to desegregate lunch counters in Nashville and became one
of the founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
“Maybe, just maybe,” Mr. Lewis said, “this trip will help renew and
inspire and encourage people to take a page from the past and
apply it to your own life.”
Though the Supreme Court had ruled that Jim Crow segregation
in interstate travel was unconstitutional, the Justice Department
had little appetite for enforcement. In 1947, an interracial
“Journey of Reconciliation” in the upper South had done little
to break travel segregation, Mr. Arsenault wrote.
In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality decided to challenge
travel segregation again with nonviolent civil disobedience.
When one group of interracial passengers reached Anniston, Ala.,
a Ku Klux Klan-organized mob firebombed the bus and beat the
passengers. Passengers on another bus were badly beaten when
they reached Birmingham.
Attorney General Kennedy intervened. The riders, some badly hurt,
wanted to press on, but the trip was scuttled and the riders flew
instead to New Orleans.
Nashville activists pledged to continue. Mr. Seigenthaler pleaded
with the students, but Ms. Nash said riders had signed their wills
and were prepared to die if necessary.
In Montgomery, a mob met the new wave of riders, severely beating
Mr. Lewis and another rider, Jim Zwerg. In the melee, Mr. Seigenthaler
was clubbed and left unconscious.
The crisis mounted with riders’ imprisonment in Mississippi.
Eventually, more than 400 riders would board segregated buses
and trains, taxing courts throughout the South. Then, in September,
the Interstate Commerce Commission prohibited all discrimination
in interstate busing.
Sherrae M. Hayes, a 20-year-old junior at Tennessee State, said
the trip gave the lesson new meaning. “You can definitely learn
it from a textbook,” Ms. Hayes said, “but I don’t think it means
half as much, or a quarter as much, as being there.”
Outside Montgomery’s old Trailways station on Saturday, riders
craned to see the building’s facade. A few minutes later, as rain
pattered on the roof of the bus, Mr. Zwerg, 67, described the
eerie quiet before the crowd set upon him 46 years ago. “I knew
whether I lived or died,” he said, “it was going to be all right.”
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8) Jordan Becomes a Doubtful Refuge
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
Think Dahr's work is vital? We need your help. It's easy!
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(c)2007 Dahr Jamail
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
Read story from website
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000533.php#more
*AMMAN, Jan 29 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands have fled the violence in
Iraq to seek refuge in Jordan, but refugees are now beginning to find
its borders closing.*
Jordan and Syria are the only two countries where fleeing Iraqis can
hope to find shelter. Western countries have shut their doors to Iraqi
nationals - even to refugees.
And now much the same is happening with Jordan too.
"I had major eye surgery in Jordan, but my doctor told me it failed and
so I need to have it re-operated," Ahmad Khalaf of Saqlawiya, 62 km west
of Baghdad told IPS. "I arrived at the Iraqi-Jordanian crossing point
with my medical reports and a letter from the hospital in Jordan
demanding my arrival in Amman on a certain date in order to remedy the
damage of the previous operation."
Khalaf found what tens of thousands of Iraqis are now finding when they
attempt to enter Jordan. "The Jordanian boarder authorities turned me
back without telling me why, leaving me to face the unknown."
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that 100,000
Iraqis are fleeing the country every month. UNHCR estimates that
approximately 700,000 Iraqis are currently living in Jordan and another
600,000 in Syria -- although many experts believe the real numbers are
higher, given the numbers leaving every month.
The UNHCR estimates also that there are more than 1.5 million internally
displaced people within Iraq itself.
Several Iraqis told IPS that Jordanian authorities had shut their doors
tight since the day Saddam Hussein was executed. Many believe this was
requested by the Iraqi government.
Border authorities in Jordan have been getting progressively tougher
over recent months.
"When Prime Minister (Nouri) al-Maliki visited Jordan last year,
Jordanian authorities became stricter, and half of those who intended to
cross the border were refused entry," a grocery merchant who usually
buys his merchandise from Jordan told IPS. "After (Iraqi Minister of
Interior) Jawad Bolani visited Jordan near the end of 2006, they
practically rejected 95 percent of Iraqis."
Earlier in 2006 Jordan shut its border to Iraqi men between the ages of
17 and 35, as well as to a growing number of Palestinian refugees who
had been living in Iraq under the protection of former president Saddam
Hussein. Most Palestinians living in Iraq have been evicted by Shia
death squads. The massive influx of Iraqis into Jordan before border
controls were tightened has severely strained the infrastructure of
Jordan, which was already suffering economically. Schools and hospitals
in particular have felt the weight of hundreds of thousands of new
residents.
"Our small country cannot afford to take in more Iraqis," 30-year-old
Jordanian Ahmad Trawne from Amman told IPS. "We sympathise with our
Iraqi brothers, but they are now a burden on our poor country."
Jordanian citizens are complaining that rich Iraqi immigrants have
brought inflation to Jordanian markets. The real estate business has
flourished, but prices have increased to levels that make it difficult
for most Jordanians to buy or even rent properties in central areas of
capital Amman.
Areas like the Gardens, Shmaissani and western Amman saw an almost 200
percent increase in value in 2006. Prices of food and basic services
have also risen considerably.
Nevertheless, many Iraqis still feel it is the duty of Jordanians to
allow in refugees.
"This country was built by our money," a 60-year-old Iraqi teacher in
Amman told IPS. "Saddam gave Jordan free oil and opened the Iraqi
borders for them, and now they are not allowing us to live in their
country. We are not asking them for any financial help because all
Iraqis bring their own money with them. Many sold their properties in
Iraq so that they could live in dignity."
Iraqis who fail to cross the border are forced to go back because there
are no hotels near the border. They cannot travel inside Iraq after
sunset for fear of U.S. patrols, so they have to stay overnight in
parking lots of highway restaurants, where it can be very cold at night.
It is becoming increasingly difficult also to find room for the hundreds
of thousands moving to another location within Iraq. The UNHCR issued a
warning Jan. 9 that the scale of internal displacement of Iraqis was
beyond the capacity of humanitarian agencies, including the UNHCR. It
declared that a humanitarian crisis looms in Iraq beyond that
anticipated by aid agencies at the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion in
2003.
The UNHCR added that the longer the displacement continues, the more
difficult it would become as the internally displaced and their host
communities in Iraq run out of resources.
(Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent, recently in Amman. Dahr
Jamail is our specialist writer who has spent eight months reporting
from inside Iraq and has been covering the Middle East for several years.)
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9) ** FY 2007 INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION BILL ADVANCES
** SPECIAL FORCES FREE FALL OPERATIONS
** ARMY CIVIL AFFAIRS OPERATIONS
** VARIOUS RESOURCES
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 10
January 29, 2007
Secrecy News Blog:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
FY 2007 INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION BILL ADVANCES
After two years without an annual intelligence authorization and
more than three months into Fiscal Year 2007, the FY 2007
intelligence authorization bill (S. 372) has been reintroduced in
the Senate and reported out of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
See the January 24 Committee report here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_rpt/srpt110-2.html
"This is a critically important piece of national security
legislation, and the fact that our intelligence agencies have
operated without authorizing legislation for two years represents
an unfortunate failure of Congressional oversight," wrote
Senators Ron Wyden and Russ Feingold, who noted that they
nevertheless had concerns about some of its provisions.
Among its positive features, the Senate bill would require
disclosure of the amounts requested, authorized and appropriated
for the National Intelligence Program (Section 107). It would
further mandate consideration of disclosure of the agency budgets
of each of the 16 elements of the intelligence community, as
recommended by the 9-11 Commission.
Declassification of the intelligence budget is the sine qua non
for establishing a sensible national security classification
system.
Some other provisions of the Senate bill are controversial, and
should require referral of the bill to the Senate Judiciary
Committee for further deliberation, argued Kate Martin and
Brittany Benowitz of the Center for National Security Studies in
a January 11, 2007 assessment.
The bill, they wrote, "would permit the Intelligence Community to
access vast troves of personal information on Americans collected
by the FBI or other agencies while limiting application of the
Privacy Act to that information (section 310); it would limit
application of the Privacy Act to records maintained by the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (section 416); it
would exempt enormous numbers of files of the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence from even the search and review
requirements of the FOIA (section 411); [and] it would permit NSA
and CIA protective personnel to make warrantless arrests for
offenses not committed in their presence (section 424 and 432)."
Last week the bill was referred to the Senate Armed Services
Committee for a ten-day period.
SPECIAL FORCES FREE FALL OPERATIONS
The safe performance of parachute entries into hostile territory
by Special Forces personnel is addressed in a U.S. Army manual.
Military free-fall (MFF) parachute operations "are used when enemy
air defense systems, terrain restrictions, or politically
sensitive environments prevent low altitude penetration or when
mission needs require a clandestine insertion."
"This field manual presents a series of concise, proven techniques
and guidelines that are essential to safe, successful MFF
operations."
See "Special Forces Military Free-Fall Operations," Field Manual
FM 3-05.211, April 2005 (295 pages, 14 MB):
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-211.pdf
The unclassified Special Forces manual has not been approved for
public release, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
Before posting the document on the Federation of American
Scientists web site, we turned to M, a friendly parachutist who
is attuned to national security classification concerns, and
asked whether there was any reason not to do so.
"I reviewed the manual carefully and consulted with a couple of
people and I didn't see anything that would suggest that any
portion of the report requires special protection," he said.
ARMY CIVIL AFFAIRS OPERATIONS
"Civil Affairs" has recently been elevated to a branch of the U.S.
Army by order of Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey on January 12,
2007.
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/go29.pdf
The role of civil affairs is to support "the interaction of
military forces with the civilian populace [in or around the
battlefield] to facilitate military operations and consolidate
operational objectives."
According to an Army manual on civil affairs operations (pdf), "A
supportive civilian population can provide resources and
information that facilitate friendly operations. It can also
provide a positive climate for the military and diplomatic
activity a nation pursues to achieve foreign policy objectives."
Conversely, "A hostile civilian population threatens the immediate
operations of deployed friendly forces and can often undermine
public support at home for the policy objectives of the United
States and its allies. When executed properly, civil-military
operations can reduce friction between the civilian population
and the military force."
The Army manual has not been approved for public release, but a
copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
See "Civil Affairs Operations," U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-05.40,
September 2006 (184 pages, 4 MB PDF).
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-40.pdf
VARIOUS RESOURCES
In the latest ruling in the prosecution of two former officials of
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for allegedly
mishandling classified information, Judge T.S. Ellis III said
that press leaks regarding the case did not constitute a
violation of court rules because the leaks apparently derived
from law enforcement sources and not from a sealed grand jury
proceeding. On January 26, he rejected a defense motion for a
hearing on the leaks. See:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/rosen012607.pdf
Legal aspects of the conflicts between freedom of the press and
national security secrecy are freshly examined in a study by
University of Chicago Professor Geoffrey R. Stone and colleagues
for the First Amendment Center. See "Government Secrecy vs.
Freedom of the Press," December 2006:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/PDF/Govt.Secrecy.Stone.pdf
And some recent scraps from the Congressional Research Service
include "Unmanned Vehicles for U.S. Naval Forces: Background and
Issues for Congress," updated October 25, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS21294.pdf
and "Privatization and the Federal Government: An Introduction,"
December 28, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33777.pdf
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10) Restoring Dignity to Sitting Bull, Wherever He Is
By DAN BARRY
STANDING ROCK RESERVATION, S.D.
January 28, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/us/28thisland.html
Here, on a snow-dusted bluff overlooking the Missouri River, rests
Sitting Bull. Or so it is said.
Stand before the monument and see the pocks left in the granite
by bullets. Notice where the nose was replaced after vandals with
chains and a truck yanked the bust from its pedestal. Spot where
the headdress feather was mended after being shot off. And wonder,
along with the rest of the Dakotas:
Is Sitting Bull here?
The 12-foot monument rises where Sitting Bull is supposedly buried
and where he certainly once felt at home; where the steel-blue clouds
of winter press down upon the hills of dormant grass; where nothing
moves but a solitary bird in flight, and the whinnies of a distant horse
sound almost like an old man’s rueful laughter.
It all seems fitting, even the vandalism, given how this world-famous
American Indian has never received the respect in death that was often
denied him in life. Now two men are trying to pay that respect, in late
but earnest installments.
As one of them, Rhett Albers, collects another beer bottle discarded
near the base of the monument, the other, Bryan Defender, gazes
up at the bust of Sitting Bull. As always, the face of stone gives
away nothing.
Maybe in the end it does not matter where the holy man actually rests,
says Mr. Defender, who is Hunkpapa Sioux. Like the man whose
history he honors.
Sitting Bull. Distinguished as a warrior against rival tribes and
American soldiers. Served as spiritual leader for the Indian victory
at Little Bighorn. Refused to accept white encroachment. Surrendered.
Was imprisoned. Toured briefly with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
Then, at age 59, was killed during a botched arrest in 1890, an arrest
rooted in the belief that he supported a growing movement of
resistance among the Sioux.
The government buried him in Fort Yates, on the North Dakota
side of this sprawling reservation that straddles the Dakotas. There,
in what was then a predominantly white military community, his
grave site became little more than a weedy lot.
Then, in 1953, some Chamber of Commerce types from the small
South Dakota city of Mobridge executed a startling plan. With the
blessing of a few of Sitting Bull’s descendants, they crossed into
North Dakota after midnight and exhumed what they believed were
Sitting Bull’s remains. One photograph from that strange night
depicts a Mobridge mortician supervising the exhumation; he
holds a cigarette in one hand and a human femur in the other.
The men raced back 55 miles to bury the remains on this bluff,
across the river from Mobridge. They scoffed at North Dakota’s
contention that they had taken the wrong bones, and justified
their actions by saying that Sitting Bull had been born near here
and that the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski would soon create
a more fitting monument to him. And would having Sitting
Bull’s remains help tourism in Mobridge? Well, of course.
Up in Fort Yates, the state eventually unveiled a plaque that left
vague the whereabouts of Sitting Bull’s remains (“He was buried
here but his grave has been vandalized many times”), while on
this bluff across from Mobridge, the area around the monument
became a place to dump used tires, to have a beer party, to shoot
off a gun — sometimes into the granite.
“People would say, ‘Party at Sitting Bull!’ ” Mr. Albers recalls.
“It was a joke.”
The site’s poor condition vexed Mr. Albers, 45, an environmental
consultant, and Mr. Defender, 35, who runs the reservation’s solid-
waste-removal operation. That irritation turned to embarrassment
when a visiting foreign-exchange student asked Mr. Albers to see
the monument dedicated to the famous Sitting Bull.
So, two years ago, the men bought the monument and its 40-acre
parcel from a private owner for $55,000. They mowed the grass,
trucked away 50 cubic yards of debris and established a nonprofit
corporation with plans to recoup their expenses and establish
a cultural and educational center.
They also came up against the still-emotional question of where
the great Indian leader truly rests. Not long ago, someone scrawled
a message across the granite pedestal: “Sitting Bull is not buried here!”
A drive through the reservation, from Mobridge to Fort Yates, is
a drive through an undulant moonscape of stillness, disturbed only
by the dance of an occasional horse. Here, unemployment among
the 11,000 people is nearly 80 percent, and the challenge of restoring
a sense of self-identity cannot be addressed alone by revenue from
the two modest casinos.
In an office in Fort Yates sits Ron His Horse Is Thunder, the chairman
of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a great-great-great grandson
of Sitting Bull. A lawyer by training, tall and lean, he expresses support
for the Mobridge effort to honor his ancestor in a manner befitting the
man. But when asked whether he believes Sitting Bull is buried on that
bluff, he slowly shakes his head no.
Then where is Sitting Bull?
LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a tribal historian and storyteller who is
overseeing improvements to the Fort Yates grave site, tries to explain.
“A person like Sitting Bull was never meant to just die and disappear,”
she says.
Yes, but where is he?
Smiling patiently, the woman opens her arms and spreads her hands.
RELATED:
Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.
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11) Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
January 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30iran.html?hp&ex=1170219600&en=d0c65b478050ef58&ei=5094&partner=homepage
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — European governments are resisting Bush
administration demands that they curtail support for exports to Iran and
that they block transactions and freeze assets of some Iranian companies,
officials on both sides say. The resistance threatens to open a new rift
between Europe and the United States over Iran.
Administration officials say a new American drive to reduce exports
to Iran and cut off its financial transactions is intended to further
isolate Iran commercially amid the first signs that global pressure
has hurt Iran’s oil production and its economy. There are also
reports of rising political dissent in Iran.
In December, Iran’s refusal to give up its nuclear program led the
United Nations Security Council to impose economic sanctions. Iran’s
rebuff is based on its contention that its nuclear program is civilian
in nature, while the United States and other countries believe
Iran plans to make weapons.
At issue now is how the resolution is to be carried out, with Europeans
resisting American appeals for quick action, citing technical and
political problems related to the heavy European economic ties
to Iran and its oil industry.
“We are telling the Europeans that they need to go way beyond
what they’ve done to maximize pressure on Iran,” said a senior
administration official. “The European response on the economic
side has been pretty weak.” The American demands and European
responses were provided by 10 different officials, including both
supporters and critics of the American approach.
One irony of the latest pressure, European and American officials
say, is that on their own, many European banks have begun to cut
back their transactions with Iran, partly because of a Treasury
Department ban on using dollars in deals involving two leading
Iranian banks.
American pressure on European governments, as opposed to banks,
has been less successful, administration and European officials say.
The main targets are Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, the
Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, all with extensive business dealings
with Iran, particularly in energy. Administration officials say, however,
that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the current head of the
European Union, has been responsive.
Europe has more commercial and economic ties with Iran than does
the United States, which severed relations with Iran after the revolution
and seizure of hostages in 1979.
The administration says that European governments provided
$18 billion in government loan guarantees for Iran in 2005. The numbers
have gone down in the last year, but not by much, American
and European officials say.
American officials say that European governments may have facilitated
illicit business and that European governments must do more to stop
such transactions. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has said the
United States has shared with Europeans the names of at least 30 front
companies involved in terrorism or weapons programs.
“They’ve told us they don’t have the tools,” said a senior American
official. “Our answer is: get them.”
“We want to squeeze the Iranians,” said a European official. “But there
are varying degrees of political will in Europe about turning the
thumbscrews. It’s not straightforward for the European Union to
do what the United States wants.”
Another European official said: “We are going to be very cautious about
what the Treasury Department wants us to do. We can see that banks are
slowing their business with Iran. But because there are huge European
business interests involved, we have to be very careful.”
European officials argue that beyond the political and business interests
in Europe are legal problems, because European governments lack the
tools used by the Treasury Department under various American statutes
to freeze assets or block transactions based on secret intelligence
information.
A week ago, on Jan. 22, European foreign ministers met in Brussels
and adopted a measure that might lead to laws similar to the economic
sanctions, laws and presidential directives used in the United States,
various officials say. But it is not clear how far those laws will reach
once they are adopted.
The American effort to press Iran economically is of a piece with its
other forms of pressure on Iran, including the arrest of Iranian
operatives in Iraq and sending American naval vessels to the
Persian Gulf.
American officials refuse to rule out military action. On Monday,
President Bush said in an interview with National Public Radio that
the United States would “respond firmly” if Iran engages in violence
in Iraq, but that he did not mean “that we’re going to invade Iran.”
Several European officials said in interviews that they believe that
the United States and Saudi Arabia have an unwritten deal to keep
oil production up, and prices down, to further squeeze Iran, which
is dependent on oil for its economic solvency. No official has
confirmed that such a deal exists.
The Bush administration has called on Europe to do more economically
as part of a two-year-old trans-Atlantic agreement in which the
United States agreed to support European efforts to negotiate
a resolution of the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program.
Typically, American officials say, European companies that do
business with Iran get loans from European banks and then get
European government guarantees for the loans on the ground that
such transactions are risky in nature.
According to a document used in the discussions between Europe
and the United States, which cites the International Union of Credit
and Investment Insurers, the largest providers of such credits in
Europe in 2005 were Italy, at $6.2 billion; Germany, at $5.4 billion;
France, at $1.4 billion; and Spain and Austria, at $1 billion each.
In addition to buying oil from Iran, European countries export
machinery, industrial equipment and commodities, which they say
have no military application. Europeans also say that courts have
overturned past efforts to stop business dealings based on secret
information.
At least five Iranian banks have branches in Europe that have engaged
in transactions with European banks, American and European officials say.
The five include Bank Saderat, cited last year by the United States
as being involved in financing terrorism by Hezbollah and others,
and Bank Sepah, cited this month as involved in ballistic missile
programs.
A directory of the American Bankers Association lists Bank Sepah
as having $10 billion in assets and equity of $1 billion in 2004.
It has branches in Frankfurt, Paris, London and Rome. The United
States Embassy in Rome has called it the preferred bank of Iran’s
ballistic missile program, with a record of transactions involving
Italian and other banks.
Bank Saderat had assets of $18 billion and equity of $1 billion
in 2004, according to the American Bankers directory. Three other
Iranian banks — Bank Mellat, Bank Melli and Bank Tejarat — have
not been cited as involved in any illicit activities, but many European
officials say they expect the Treasury Department to move against
them eventually.
European officials say that the European Commission will meet in
mid-February and approve a measure paving the way for freezing
assets and blocking bank transactions for the 10 Iranian companies
and 12 individuals cited in an appendix of Security Council Resolution
1737, adopted in December.
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12) Admiral Calls for ‘New and Different’ Approach in Iraq
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
January 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30cnd-fallon.html?hp&ex=1170219600&en=9c7ca12e311af0ec&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The admiral who has been nominated to be the next head of the
United States Central Command said today during a Senate
confirmation hearing that a “new and different” course of action
was needed in Iraq and he warned about Iran’s “support” for
terrorism beyond its borders.
The officer, Adm. William J. Fallon, is currently in command
of all American forces in the Pacific. The Bush administration’s
decision this month to recommend him as the next head of the
United States Central Command reflected a wish for experienced
eyes on both vast land areas and strategic waterways through
which oil supplies, contraband and suspected terrorists can
pass, senior Pentagon civilians and military officers have said.
If he is confirmed, it would be the first time a career naval officer
has been made the top commander of American military forces
across a region where they are engaged in two ground wars.
“I am under no illusions regarding the magnitude of the task
and the challenges we face in this region of the world,” Admiral
Fallon said at the start of the hearings by the Senate Armed
Services Committee. “From Beirut to Kashmir, conflict and
areas of instability abound.”
The Central Command region stretches from Kenya in the
southwest through all of the Middle East to Kazakhstan in the
northeast. While it now encompasses the two combat theaters
of Afghanistan and Iraq, the fact that Admiral Fallon, with his
extensive naval aviation experience, was picked showed the
increasing focus of the Bush administration on putting
pressure on Iran.
Sen. Carl Levin, the committee chairman, said that the head
of central command would need to provide “straightforward
independent advice” on the most effective course of action
for deterring Iran’s attempts to “acquire nuclear weapons
and to dominate its neighbors.”
Mr. Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, also warned that Syria
poses a challenge to security in the region.
Today, as the hearings got under way, Admiral Fallon said that
“new and different actions” were needed in Iraq using not only
military means but economic development and political action.
“I believe the situation in Iraq can be turned around, but time
is short,” he said.
He said in Afghanistan, the situation was “fragile” for a government
that has made “significant progress” but faces a resurgence
of the Taliban in the south. And he touched on what he called
Iran’s “support for terrorism” and sectarian strife beyond its
borders, calling it destabilizing and troubling.
“In addressing these and other challenges in the region, I would,
if confirmed, solicit the opinions and suggestions of our allies
and partners in the region and the world,” he said. “There is
no doubt that other nations in the region could be helpful
with the situation in Iraq.”
For Iraq, President Bush this month approved the deployment
of 21,500 troops over the next five months. Asked to give his
assessment about the flow of additional American troops into
Iraq, and whether it would actually prevent Iraqis from doing
more, Admiral Fallon said it was his assessment that current
efforts have not been working, but he added that he has not
been involved in the details of how the additional troops would
be used.
“As you know, I’ve got a full-time job in Pacific Command,
and I’ve tried to stay away from the detail of Central Command
until such time as I might be confirmed,” he said. “Then I intend
to dive into it.”
“I’m surprised that you don’t have that understanding going in,
frankly,” said Senator Levin.
Admiral Fallon said that he was also unable to give an assessment
of whether the Iraqi government was up to the task of embarking
on a new strategy. But he added that a major challenge would be
to identify Iraqi military leaders and units that would be effective.
As the top American military officer in the Pacific, Admiral Fallon
has had broad experience in the diplomatic and traditional
military fields with the Japanese, Chinese and South Koreans.
In 2001, Admiral Fallon apologized to Japanese officials and families
of those killed in the accidental sinking of a fishery school ship
when it was struck by an American submarine, the Greeneville,
off the coast of Hawaii, even though a final military inquiry into
the incident had not been completed.
Late last year, he took the unusual step of calling off an annual
exercise with the Philippines over a local judge’s failure to honor
the bilateral treaty governing protections for American military
personnel. At the time, he said he was not taking a stand on the
guilt or innocence of an American marine convicted of rape,
but was demanding that the Philippines adhere to its treaties.
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13) Bolivia's Home-Grown Democracy
WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 30, 2007; Page B6
[VIA Email from: Walter Lippmann
walterlx@earthlink.net]
In regard to Mary Anastasia O'Grady's Jan. 8 Americas column "Coca
Democracy1": Bolivia is about to mark its 25th year of uninterrupted
democracy. Seven consecutive national elections, a like number of
local polls, a first and historic referendum, and the recent election
of departmental prefects and representatives to the constitutional
assembly are an indication of how far democracy has come in Bolivia.
For the first time in nearly 200 years as a republic with an
indigenous majority, an indigenous person now leads the country in
this process of economic, political and social change. President Evo
Morales was elected by 54% of the vote.
It is wrong to call Bolivia's a "Coca Democracy." Yes, coca farmers
participate, but so do many indigenous people, agriculturalists,
small businessmen, artisans and white-collar professionals. It
includes the previously disenfranchised and the poor, and excludes no
one.
In contrast to what Ms. O'Grady wrote, President Morales named four
new justices to the Supreme Court in the interim, and in strict
compliance with both the Constitution and an order from the
Constitutional Court. The final election of these justices is the
responsibility of the National Congress.The ongoing Constitutional
Assembly is not a whim of the president, but the result of more than
10 years' effort by the Bolivian people, particularly indigenous
groups and social movements. The final document, a new Constitution
written by the assembly of elected representatives, will be approved
by a two-thirds majority.
Ms. O'Grady also says President Morales has "broken contracts with
energy investors." This is not so. Under the previous administration,
contracts signed by petroleum companies operating in Bolivia were
never approved by the National Congress, which is required by law.
In an action that was both legal and in the interest of national
sovereignty, as well as a promise made during his campaign, President
Morales issued an executive decree to return control over natural
resources to the state. This decree required petroleum companies to
adapt their operations to comply with the Bolivian constitution. All
foreign petroleum companies -- Brazil, Spain, France, Britain and the
U.S. have operations in Bolivia -- signed new contracts with the
Bolivian state last October. The contracts respect these enterprises
and also assure nearly $3 billion of investment in coming years.
Comparisons of Bolivian politics and leaders to those of Venezuela
and Cuba strike me as naive. Bolivia is experiencing a process of
democratic change that is not only authentic, but its own, born of
our history and culture. It has never needed the tutelage of others
to be a dignified and sovereign nation.
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14) Coca Democracy
WALL STREET JOURNAL
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
January 8, 2007; Page A16
[VIA Email from: Walter Lippmann
walterlx@earthlink.net]
Evo Morales is an anti-American extremist who wants to turn Bolivia
into another Venezuela. That naturally alarms Washington, but not
enough to halt its war on drugs, which is aiding the president -- and
leader of Bolivia's coca-growing peasant movement -- in his bid to
become a dictator.
In a recent interview with the Bolivian Catholic radio station Fides,
Mr. Morales explained that in 2003, when he was at a conference in
Havana, Fidel Castro told him "not to stage an armed uprising" but to
"make transformations, democratic revolutions, what [Venezuelan
President Hugo] Chávez is doing."
The process Fidel advised requires the slow dismantling of
institutions that act as checks on the executive while maintaining
the guise of democracy. This calls for healthy poll numbers even
while the rule of law is being trampled. Mr. Chávez had oil revenues
to keep the masses happy while he put a noose around democracy. But
Evo isn't so fortunate and he can't push through a constitutional
coup without popular backing. So to generate support he has relied
heavily on his defense of coca growers against a U.S. policy that
presses countries in Latin America to destroy their crops.
Since his inauguration last January Mr. Morales has been dutifully
complying with the Cuban dictator's instructions. He has purged the
military leadership, broken contracts with energy investors to signal
his control over the sector, and pushed through an election for a
constituent assembly that is charged with rewriting the highest law
of the land.
So far so good. But the assembly election didn't turn out the way he
had hoped. In the event, Mr. Morales's Movement Toward Socialism
(MAS) party won only 53% of the seats. Since the law requires a
two-thirds majority to approve the new document, the president's
party is looking at compromise with his political opponents in the
drafting process.
Apparently this is the sort of thing Fidel did not counsel. So now
the Morales government is insisting that ratification of the new
constitution should require only a simple majority vote in the
assembly or a simple majority in a national referendum.
To win on this point, Mr. Morales will have to run roughshod over the
law and he has already begun. Over the Christmas holiday he
unilaterally named four new justices to the Supreme Court's 12-seat
bench. The president says these are legal recess appointments, but
the opposition is crying foul because the MAS-controlled congress
never initiated the nomination process that would have safeguarded
the independence of the court. Bolivian democrats are worried that
Mr. Morales will also try to alter the makeup of the constitutional
court and the electoral council to favor his own objectives.
Things looks grim for democrats who believe that Mr. Morales is
trying to remake the constitution in the image and likeness of Mr.
Chávez's Venezuela, but they're not going down without a fight.
The center of the opposition movement is based in the energy-rich,
agricultural lowlands of the eastern part of the country, where there
is a long history of agitation in favor of more decentralized
government. The Morales presidency, with its promise to expropriate
and redistribute land, its heavy-handed intervention in the natural
gas sector, and now its attempt at a constitutional coup, has
heightened that sentiment and provoked a strong backlash against La
Paz. In July, when Bolivians voted on the constitutional assembly,
they also answered another ballot question regarding departmental
(state) autonomy. In Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni and Tarija, autonomy won
hands down.
More recently the east took to the streets. On Dec. 15 the opposition
organized a "townhall meeting" in Bolivia's largest city, Santa Cruz,
to rally against Mr. Morales's power grab. Pro-Morales supporters
blockaded a highway outside of the city so that buses carrying
protestors could not get through. As many as 60 people were injured
and most of the buses had to turn back. But the rally was a success.
An estimated 800,000 people congregated under the city's Christ the
Redeemer statue to demand that a new constitution be ratified only
with a two-thirds vote in the assembly, and that the call for
autonomy be respected.
Mr. Morales, who badly needs to maintain the appearance of public
support so that the international community tolerates his takeover,
had to be embarrassed by this outpouring of democratic opposition. He
is trying to spin the constitutional crisis as a confrontation
between races and economic classes. But he has to worry about places
like the poor and largely indigenous city of El Alto, just above La
Paz, where there is evidence to suggest that many who voted for him
are unhappy with his unlawful intervention in the constitutional
process and growing impatient with his failure to deliver on economic
promises.
This is where U.S. drug policy comes in. Railing against the Yankees
who want to destroy peasant income has proven extremely effective in
keeping the Morales base -- the country's indigenous coca growers who
brought him to power -- energized and his numbers afloat.
He reaffirmed this last month. As his opposition swelled he suddenly
announced that he would authorize a near doubling of the number of
hectares that may legally produce coca. Then last week he inaugurated
a coca industrialization plant in the province of Cochabamba,
financed by his government along with Cuba and Venezuela. According
to press reports, Mr. Morales told the Cochabamba crowd that coca
"never killed anyone" and that the U.S. "should have a law to do away
with drug addicts."
Mr. Morales shouldn't wish too hard for that. If Washington policy
makers ever decide to tackle the demand for cocaine and stop blaming
supply, Mr. Morales's political career would be in jeopardy.
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15) Incredible Words Of Inspiration From Bill Moyers & Marge Piercy
[VIA Email from: Kwame Somburu,
kwamesom@gmail.com]
Courtesy of Bill Moyer:
As my plane was circling Memphis the other day, I looked out across those
vast miles of fertile soil that once were plantations watered by the
Mississippi River and the sweat from the brow of countless men and women
who had been forced to live someone else's story. I thought about how in
time they rose up, one here, then two, then many, forging a great movement
that awakened America's conscience and brought us close to the elusive but
beautiful promise of the Declaration of Independence. As we made our last
approach to land, the words of a Marge Piercy poem began to form in my
head, and I remembered all over again why we were coming here:
What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.
From The Moon Is Always Female, by Marge Piercy
Copyright 1980 by Marge Piercy
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16) Wall Street Finds a Lot to Like About Tobacco
By ANDREW MARTIN
January 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/business/31tobacco.html?hp&ex=1170306000&en=dd704550f8368d4d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
There are plenty of reasons cigarettes would seem to be a terrible business.
The number of American smokers usually drops about 1 or 2 percent
a year. Government agencies keep adding cigarette taxes and outlawing
smoking in restaurants, workplaces and even on public sidewalks.
And tobacco companies continue to pay billions of dollars in legal
settlements, money that is used in part to produce antismoking ads.
For all the industry’s apparent troubles, however, the future of cigarettes
appears to be brighter than ever.
That at least is the message investors are sending as the Altria Group
— the company once known as Philip Morris and the maker of the world’s
most popular cigarette, Marlboro — prepares to split itself by spinning
off its Kraft Foods division to shareholders and become, once again, primarily
a tobacco company. Today, Louis C. Camilleri, the chief executive of Altria,
is expected to set a timetable for completing the spinoff.
It is a move that Wall Street is responding to with the equivalent of
a standing ovation, but it is not because Kraft Foods, the world’s second-
largest food company, after Nestlé, will finally shed the taint of tobacco.
Investors are glad that Altria will finally be rid of Kraft Foods, the maker
of Oreo cookies, Velveeta and Tang. Since October, when the company
announced its plan for the move, its shares have risen 10 percent.
“Something that is forgotten in all of this is people like to smoke,”
said David Adelman, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, who noted that
United States tobacco stocks have beaten the Standard & Poor’s
500-stock index in each of the last six years. “It’s enjoyable and
there’s not an alternative product.”
He added: “If frozen dinners get too expensive, people will try something
else. That’s not true with cigarettes — you are not up at night worried
about that product that is going to make cigarettes obsolete.”
In the five and a half years since Altria sold 280 million shares of Kraft
at $31 each in an initial public offering, the stock has remained relatively
unchanged, closing yesterday at $34.83. Altria owns 88.6 percent
of Kraft’s stock.
By contrast, shares of Altria have nearly doubled during that period,
moving from $47 to yesterday’s price of $87.54.
It is a remarkable turnabout, considering that in late 2001, Philip Morris
announced its plan to change its name to the Altria Group (drawn from
the Latin word altus, meaning high, to suggest high performance). At the
time, executives said the name change was intended to reduce the damage
to the company’s reputation that cigarettes were causing, reflected
in the long-depressed share price at the time.
Now, it is Kraft that is seen by many investors as a hindrance
to the company.
Why is Wall Street so infatuated with cigarettes? Cigarettes have certain
advantages over other consumer products, not the least of which is that
they are addictive. They are inexpensive to make, require almost
no innovation, there is a global market for them, and cigarette makers
can raise prices without seeing much of a drop in business.
On top of all that, a recent string of court decisions has convinced
investors that the worst of the litigation against tobacco companies
is over.
That, in turn, has allowed Altria to move forward with a revamping that
begins with cutting Kraft loose and will ultimately allow Altria to use
the huge amounts of cash generated by cigarettes to buy back stock
or acquire other tobacco companies, particularly overseas.
“You take away Kraft out of Altria and you are left with a balance sheet
that is extremely strong,” said Charles Norton, portfolio manager at the
Vice Fund, a mutual fund that invests in tobacco, gambling, alcohol
and military contractors. Altria is the fund’s biggest holding. “It’s just
a cash cow. The free cash flow on this business is just tremendous.”
The future prospects are particularly attractive in developing countries,
where smoking has not yet declined as it has in more developed parts
of the world like the United States and Europe.
In China, for instance, the Philip Morris International unit of Altria signed
a deal in 2005 that allows it to manufacture and sell Marlboro cigarettes
to the country’s 350 million smokers. There are an estimated 1.3 billion
smokers worldwide.
But even in the United States, with 45 million smokers, the Philip Morris
USA unit of Altria continues to generate sizable profits by raising prices.
It also hopes eventually to lure consumers with new tobacco products,
including a small tea-bag-like pouch that is smoke-free, spit-free and
tucks into the cheek.
It says it is also working on developing cigarettes that are less harmful.
“The exciting part for me,” said Bonnie Herzog, an analyst at Citigroup,
“is that tobacco use today will evolve. It’s unlikely that there will ever be
a 100 percent safe cigarette, but we feel that a reduced-risk cigarette is
on the horizon.”
But some health advocates say that the diminished social acceptability
of cigarettes will hurt the long-term prospects of companies like Altria.
“The industry knows that its days of successfully selling their product
in this country are limited,” said Dr. David A. Kessler, who called for
regulating the tobacco industry as commissioner of the Food and Drug
Administration in the 1990s and is now dean of the medical school
at the University of California, San Francisco.
“They may be finding favor on Wall Street, but they’re not finding favor
in the public arena,” he added. “There are fewer and fewer places that
you can go and smoke in public.”
Still, on Wall Street, analysts are much less enthusiastic about the future
of an independent Kraft Foods — which makes a wide range of well-known
food products — compared with Altria’s prospects.
Kraft has struggled for several years to find its way in a rapidly changing
marketplace, and Irene B. Rosenfeld, the chief executive, is expected
to lay out her plans for a turnaround next month.
While many analysts say that Kraft is better off without the taint of tobacco,
it still faces formidable challenges in repositioning its products at a time
when consumers are less loyal to brands and more attracted to natural
products, analysts said.
Investors in Altria are expected to get 0.695 share of Kraft for every
share of Altria they own, said Ms. Herzog, who predicted that Altria
would distribute the shares early in a 120-day period between the
announcement and the distribution.
There is, however, a possibility that the distribution could be delayed
by a legal challenge.
Michael D. Hausfeld, a lawyer in a pending class-action lawsuit against
tobacco companies, said he might file an injunction to stop a spinoff
of Kraft. The lawsuit, first filed in 2004 and known as the Schwab case
after the lead plaintiff, Barbara Schwab, contends that cigarette
manufacturers defrauded consumers by marketing light cigarettes
as safer than regular cigarettes.
The idea behind seeking an injunction is that a judgment could be
so enormous that Altria might need Kraft — with a market capitalization
of $57.25 billion — to pay off the damages.
“Apparently at this point they have decided to spin Kraft off because
they believe there’s a diminishment in their legal exposure,” Mr. Hausfeld
said. “We disagree. If anything, the light’s fraud presents the strongest
legal merit claims against the industry and Philip Morris.”
He estimated that a judgment in the case could be “several hundreds
of billions of dollars” because 30 million to 50 million people who
smoked light cigarettes made by several different tobacco companies
were affected over more than 30 years. Asked to comment on Wall
Street’s affection for tobacco stocks, Mr. Hausfeld said: “Wall Street
loves money. And cigarettes are money. You are clearly earning
huge returns at the expense of people’s lives.”
Several analysts who track Altria have dismissed the chances of an
injunction’s success, and in an October conference call with investors,
Mr. Camilleri, the Altria chief executive, said, “We believe that such
an action would not have merit and that we would ultimately prevail.”
Altria’s plan to spin off Kraft is part of a long-term revamping plan
that may ultimately split the domestic and international tobacco
businesses into two companies because Altria thinks they would have
more value as independent companies.
For example, Philip Morris International would no longer be dragged
down by problems associated with smoking in the United States, like
diminished demand and government intervention.
“At times, as a tobacco investor or a tobacco analyst, it seems like an
unending stream of negative news,” Mr. Adelman of Morgan Stanley said.
“You hear about smoking bans, a new piece of legislation. You hear
about criticism from the World Health Organization.
“And then lo and behold, manufacturers release their results,” he said.
“And they are good.”
Nick Bunkley contributed reporting from Detroit.
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17) Salvadoran’s Death in Iraq Leaves His Mother Fuming
By MARC LACEY
January 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/world/americas/26salvador.html
SAN SALVADOR, Jan. 21 — From her hillside home in western El Salvador,
Herminia Ramos sobbed and sobbed the other day as she recalled
her fallen son.
In some ways, Ms. Ramos is like the thousands of other Salvadoran
mothers who lost children in the 12-year civil war here that ended
in 1992. But Ms. Ramos’ grief is fresher than the rest, the result
of a more recent conflict.
El Salvador is the only country in Latin America with troops in Iraq,
a point of pride for President Antonio Saca, who is a gung-ho
supporter of the Bush administration, but extremely unpopular
among the war-weary population.
“Our army should be at home,” said Ms. Ramos, 48, fuming against
a war she said she did not know the first thing about until smartly
dressed officers showed up at her home in 2004 to inform her
that her son, Natividad, had become the first Salvadoran to die
in combat in Iraq.
The United States has been debating for years the reasons for
the war in Iraq and whether the invasion and continued presence
of troops there are justified. Was there reason to believe that
weapons of mass destruction were there? Was Saddam Hussein’s
despotism enough reason to topple him? Did links between Iraq
and Al Qaeda exist?
El Salvador, which has been involved in the war since August 2003
and currently has 380 troops in Iraq, has been having its own
discussion. Ms. Ramos, for one, can find no justification. Those
other mothers can say that their children fell while fighting for their
country, either for the Marxist guerrilla movement or the American-
backed government. But Natividad Ramos, 20, died in Najaf in
a clash with armed followers of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
“I got through our war without losing any family,” she said of El
Salvador’s civil war, which took an estimated 75,000 lives. “And
now my son was sent to fight in someone else’s war.”
Officially, Mr. Saca’s government says the deployment of what is
called the Cuscatlán Battalion is a way to thank the world for its
assistance in helping stop the civil war here a decade and a half ago.
Salvadoran officials say their country is an active part of the United
Nations and believe in the world body’s effort to rebuild Iraq.
They stress the humanitarian dimension to their soldiers’ work
there, like building roads, health clinics and schools, while
acknowledging the dangers that have resulted in the deaths
of five soldiers and the wounding of about two dozen more.
They proudly note that El Salvador’s army, once linked to right-
wing death squads, has been purged of its bad elements and
is now one of the most respected institutions in the country.
But those arguments have not been enough to sway local critics.
A newspaper opinion poll put opposition to El Salvador’s involvement
in Iraq at 81 percent. In 2004, masked protesters briefly took over
the country’s main cathedral and demanded an immediate withdrawal
of troops. For the most part, though, Salvadorans have been
preoccupied with local concerns, such as their economic woes
and the insecurity that causes strains in their own country.
Every time a new contingent is sent, though, the legislature splits
along party lines, with the right-wing government and its allies
backing the plan and the leftist opposition voting no.
“It’s the gringos’ war,” said one critic, Olga Serrano, who is executive
secretary of a group of wounded veterans from the war in the 1980s.
“What are we doing over there?”
Behind the scenes, government officials sell the plan differently.
They point to all the benefits they believe they are receiving from
Washington as a result of their assistance, even as the Bush
administration insists that it is not giving El Salvador special favors
for its troop presence.
“We’re doing this to help the Iraqis but we’re also doing this for
our own people,” said Carlos Rolando Herrarte Rivas, a legislator
from the center-right Christian Democratic Party who went to Iraq
in December as part of a government delegation to visit the troops.
“The president can’t say that but that’s why we’re doing it.”
Mr. Herrarte, a retired colonel, said the Bush administration had
been treating Salvadoran migrants well despite strong anti-immigrant
sentiment in the United States. He pointed to the Bush administration’s
decision in January 2005 to grant a one-year extension of temporary
protected status for about 250,000 Salvadorans living in the United
States. The status gives them a reprieve from deportation because
of natural disasters or political turmoil at home.
Mr. Herrarte also cited the $461 million in antipoverty funds that El
Salvador was awarded last fall by the Millennium Challenge Corporation,
an American foreign aid agency, as being another outgrowth of the
war effort.
“When I go to my town, they yell,” he said of his vociferous antiwar
constituents. “They want to know why we are there. They say, ‘Get
them out.’ Then I start explaining how this is helping our people
in the United States.”
To say that El Salvador and the United States are joined at the hip
is an understatement. Nearly a third of native-born Salvadorans are
living in the United States, including relatives of President Saca, Defense
Minister Otto Alejandro Romero Orellana and many other decision
makers. Those Salvadorans abroad send home about $2.5 billion
every year, which represents about 17 percent of the country’s gross
domestic product.
Former President Francisco Guillermo Flores Pérez, who was
considered especially close to the White House, sent the first
troops to Iraq in 2003. The issue came up in the presidential
campaign the following year when Mr. Saca, a pro-American
businessman, defeated Schafik Handal, a former Communist
guerrilla.
Mr. Handal had pledged to withdraw Salvador’s 380 soldiers from
Iraq immediately. Mr. Saca said a victory by Mr. Handal ran the
risk of cutting the flow of money from Salvadoran migrants in
the United States.
Mr. Saca has continued sending troops even though the governing
Nationalist Republican Alliance party, known as Arena, lacks a majority
in the legislature. Mr. Saca’s party has had to strike deals with two
smaller parties to come up with the 43-vote simple majority.
The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, an outgrowth of the
guerrilla movement that fought the government in the 1980s, has
consistently voted against the war.
Critics of decision to send Salvadoran troops point out that Nicaragua,
Honduras and Dominican Republic continued to have strong relationships
with Washington, even though they pulled their troops out of Iraq
in the spring of 2004.
They point out that Hondurans and Nicaraguans also have the same
preferred immigration status that Salvadorans do. Honduras and
Nicaragua also received Millennium grants, albeit smaller ones
than El Salvador’s, critics note.
Salvadoran officials are not speaking of an increase in troops to
quell the Iraqi insurgency. But when they are asked how long the
country plans to involve itself in the war, they do adopt President
Bush’s language: as long as it takes.
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18) Migrants Stream Into South Mexico
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
January 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/world/americas/28mexico.html
TAPACHULA, Mexico — Four Salvadoran men in jeans and T-shirts
trudged along the railroad tracks under a hot sun, their steps carrying
them steadily toward a fuzzy but seductive dream.
They had been in Mexico for only a few hours and already federal
police officers had forced them to strip and had taken almost all their
cash, they said. They had some 1,500 miles to go to reach the United
States border, with no food or water and $9 each.
They intended to walk along the Chiapas coast for the first 250 miles
through a dozen towns where migrants are regularly robbed or raped.
Then they planned to clamber aboard a freight train with hundreds
of other immigrants for the trip north, a dangerous journey that has
left hundreds before them maimed after they fell under the wheels.
“It’s dangerous, yes, one risks one’s life,” said one of the men, Noé
Hernández. “One risks it if you have a family member in the States
to help you. It’s not just for fun we go through Mexico.”
A month ago, Mexico’s new president, Felipe Calderón, announced
measures to slow the flow of illegal immigrants across Mexico’s
southern border and reduce crime in this lush but impoverished
region. He stepped up the presence of soldiers and federal police
here, told of plans for a guest worker program and promised joint
state and federal operations to catch illegal immigrants.
But much remains to be done to stop or deter the migrants, and
for now the measures have had little effect. Social workers and
volunteers who aid the migrants say they keep coming.
Every three days, 300 to 500 Central Americans swarm the freight
train in Arriaga, strapping themselves with ropes or belts to the
tops of cars or riding between the wagons, they say.
The migrants still wade across the Suchiate River between
Guatemala and Mexico with little hindrance. Corruption is rampant.
Soldiers and police officers on the Mexican side extort money
from the migrants but seldom turn them around, aid workers
and migrants said.
“It’s an open border,” said Francisco Aceves Verdugo, a supervisor
in the government agency, Grupos Beta, that gives food, water
and medicine to illegal migrants. “We are confronting a monster
so big in the form of corruption that we aren’t doing anything.”
The federal authorities do catch and deport illegal immigrants
from Central America on their trek north — about 170,000 last
year, according to Leticia Rodríguez, a spokeswoman for the
National Migration Institute.
On the evening of Jan. 19, as part of Mr. Calderón’s new get-
tough policy, about 400 federal police officers stopped the
freight train just after it left Arriaga and arrested more than
100 immigrants who had climbed aboard.
Still, aid workers say a majority gets through. The biggest
deterrent, migrants say, is not federal authorities but armed
thugs who waylay them along the railroad tracks or on paths
through the countryside used to avoid the immigration posts
along the main highway.
This month, Misael Mejía, 27, from Comayagua, Honduras,
was awaiting the train in Arriaga with nine other young men
from his town. They had walked for 11 days after wading
across the Suchiate to get to the railhead in Arriaga.
None of them had a dime after being ambushed a week before
by three men in ski masks in daylight near Huehuetán.
Two of the men carried machetes, the third a machine gun.
“They told us to lay down and take off our clothes,” Mr. Mejía
said. “I lost my watch, about 500 Honduran lempiras, and
40 Mexican pesos,” about $31.
Mr. Mejía said he would press on. He has a brother in Arizona
who has promised to pick him up if he can run the gantlet
through the United States border patrol. He left a $200-a-month
job as a driver behind, along with his wife. His brother makes
$700 a week as a carpenter.
“I felt hopeless in Honduras,” he said. “Because I could never
afford a house, not even a car. There is nothing I could have.”
Down the street from the tracks, at the Hearth of Mercy shelter,
where illegal immigrants can get a free hot meal and medicine,
Juan Antonio Cruz, 16, hunched over a bowl of rice and told how
he had left El Salvador after members of the Mara Salvatrucha
street gang had threatened to kill him. “They wanted me to
join them,” he said.
It was his second attempt to reach Arizona, he said. The first
time he had endured eight freezing nights and sweltering days
aboard the train by strapping his belt to bar atop a tanker car.
The border patrol caught him as he crossed into Nogales, Ariz.,
and sent him back home to Usulután, where the gang members
threatened him again.
“When I think about the train, I feel fear and panic, for the thieves
who attack you, and also for falling off,” he said softly.
For some, that is how the dream ends, with a fall under the
train’s heavy, whirring wheels.
At the Shelter of Jesus the Good Pastor in Tapachula, Donar Antonio
Ramírez Espinas rubbed the bandaged stumps of his legs, sheared
off above the knee, as he recalled the night of March 26, 2004,
when he dozed off while riding between cars, lost his grip and
fell onto the tracks.
“I fell face down, and at first I didn’t think anything had happened,”
he said. “When I turned over, I saw, I realized, that my feet didn’t
really exist.”
Back in Honduras, he had been working menial jobs in a parking
lot and at a medical warehouse, making about $120 a month. Then
he and a few buddies decided to try their luck in the States.
“You make the decision to look for a better life, not to continue
with the life your father led, and for this you risk your life,
without knowing that you could end up like this,” he said.
“An amputee.”
After the accident, he spent two years at the shelter in Tapachula,
wrestling with depression and thoughts of suicide. When those
black days finally passed, he returned home for five months,
only to find his parents, his former wife and even his three
children had trouble accepting his disability. “My 9-year-old
said, ‘Papa, why did you come back like this?’ ” he remembered.
“I didn’t dare answer him.”
Mr. Ramírez has returned to the shelter here, where he hopes
to learn a trade — fashioning prosthetic legs and arms for other
victims of the train. Others at the shelter told similar stories.
Some doubted they would be able to make a living in their
home countries, where even getting a wheelchair is hard.
But some of those with lesser injuries insisted their accident
was just a temporary setback. Minor Estuardo Cortez, 33, from
Guatemala, lost his left foot under a train wheel while climbing
aboard in Oaxaca State. At the shelter, he has healed and learned
to walk with a prosthetic foot. He intends to continue his journey.
If he reaches Houston, he says, he has relatives who can get him
a construction job.
“If something happens to me, I don’t scare easy,” he said. “I’ll do
it again to see who wins, the train or me. Only thing is I can’t run,
so I’ll have to wait until it’s stopped to get on.”
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19) Chavez Gets Powers to Remake Venezuela
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:55 p.m. ET
January 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Venezuela-Chavez.html?hp&ex=1170306000&en=934c81a5e021f99e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- A congress wholly loyal to President Hugo
Chavez approved a law Wednesday granting him authority to enact
sweeping measures by decree.
Meeting at a downtown plaza in a session that resembled a political
rally, lawmakers unanimously approved all four articles of the law
by a show of hands.
''Long live the sovereign people! Long live President Hugo Chavez!
Long live socialism!'' said National Assembly President Cilia Flores
as she proclaimed the law approved. ''Fatherland, socialism or death!
We will prevail!''
Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, says the legislation
will be the start of a new era of ''maximum revolution'' during which
he will consolidate Venezuela's transformation into a socialist society.
His critics are calling it a radical lurch toward authoritarianism by
a leader with unchecked power.
Hundreds of Chavez supporters wearing red -- the color of Venezuela's
ruling party -- gathered in the plaza, waving signs reading ''Socialism
is democracy,'' as lawmakers read out passages of the law giving the
president special powers for 18 months to transform 11 broadly
defined areas, including the economy, energy and defense.
''The people of Venezuela, not just the National Assembly, are giving
this enabling power to the president of the republic,'' said
congresswoman Iris Varela, addressing the crowd.
Lawmakers discussed the law by each of its four articles, approving
one after the other by a show of hands. At the end, they stood
and cheered.
Chavez, a former paratroop commander who easily won re-election
in December, has said he will use the law to decree nationalizations
of Venezuela's largest telecommunications company and the electricity
sector, slap new taxes on the rich, and impose greater state control
over the oil and natural gas industries.
The law also allows Chavez to dictate unspecified measures to
transform state institutions; reform banking, tax, insurance and
financial regulations; decide on security and defense matters such
as gun regulations and military organization; and ''adapt'' legislation
to ensure ''the equal distribution of wealth'' as part of a new ''social
and economic model.''
Chavez plans to reorganize regional territories and carry out reforms
aimed at bringing ''power to the people'' through thousands of newly
formed Communal Councils, in which Venezuelans will have a say
on spending an increasing flow of state money on neighborhood
projects from public housing to road repaving.
Chavez's opponents, however, argue the law dangerously concentrates
power in the hands of single man.
''If you have all the power, why do you need more power?'' said Luis
Gonzalez, a high school teacher who paused to watch in the plaza,
calling it a ''media show'' intended to give legitimacy to a repugnant
move. ''We're headed toward a dictatorship, disguised as a democracy.''
Chavez supporters said the law will help align the government and
economy for a swift move toward a more egalitarian society.
''That law is going to allow the president to accelerate the process
so that government becomes more efficient,'' said Ruperta Garcia,
a 52-year-old university professor in the crowd.
Vice President Jorge Rodriguez ridiculed the idea that the law is an
abuse of power and argued democracy is flourishing. He thanked
the National Assembly for providing ''gasoline'' to start up the
''engine'' of societal changes.
''What kind of a dictatorship is this?'' Rodriguez asked the crowd,
saying the law ''only serves to sow democracy and peace.''
''Dictatorship is what there used to be,'' Rodriguez said. ''We want
to impose the dictatorship of a true democracy.''
Historian Ines Quintero said that with the new powers, Chavez
will achieve a level of ''hegemony'' that is unprecedented in
Venezuela's nearly five decades of democratic history.
Chavez has requested special powers twice before, but for
more modest legislative changes.
In 1999, shortly after he was first elected, he was only able to push
through two new taxes and a revision of the income tax law after
facing fierce opposition in congress. In 2001, by invoking an
'enabling law'' for the second time, he decreed 49 laws including
controversial agrarian reform measures and a law that sharply
raised taxes on foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela.
This time, the law will give Chavez a free hand to bring under
state control some oil and natural gas projects that are still run
by private companies -- the latest in a series of nationalist
energy policies in Venezuela, a top oil supplier to the United
States and home to South America's largest gas reserves.
Chavez has said oil companies upgrading heavy oil in the Orinoco
River basin -- British Petroleum PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron
Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Total SA and Statoil ASA -- must submit
to state-controlled joint ventures, as companies have already done
elsewhere in the country.
The law gives Chavez the authority to intervene and ''regulate'' the
transition to joint ventures if companies do not adapt to the new
framework within an unspecified ''peremptory period.''
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20) Alleged bid to abort leads to baby's death
By Brian R. Ballou and Raja Mishra, Globe Staff
January 25, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/25/alleged_bid_to_abort_leads_to_babys_death/
LAWRENCE -- An 18-year-old Dominican immigrant was charged
yesterday with illegally taking prescription anti-ulcer pills to induce
an abortion, a risky technique common in her native land that resulted
in the death of her premature baby.
Despite taking the pills, Amber Abreu gave birth on Jan. 6 to
a 1 1/4-pound girl named Ashley, who clung to life for four
days at Tufts-New England Medical Center before dying.
Prosecutors said that Abreu may be charged with homicide.
Yesterday, the teenager stood silently in a gray hoodie in Lawrence
District Court as she was arraigned on one count of procuring
a miscarriage, a felony that carries a punishment of up to seven
years in prison. However, Abreu's unusual case -- a collision
of medicine, law, and culture -- could soon become far more serious.
"The medical examiner is inclined to rule it a homicide, and she
could be facing more substantial charges," Assistant Essex District
Attorney Jessica Strasnick said in court yesterday.
Abreu's fate hinges on how far along her pregnancy was when she
took the pills, a point the state medical examiner's office is trying
to determine in an autopsy. Prosecutors said they believe it was
between 23 and 25 weeks. Abortion is illegal in Massachusetts
after 24 weeks, and any action intended to cause a miscarriage
after that threshold could prompt homicide charges, prosecutors said.
In court papers, Lawrence District Judge Michael Brooks wrote:
"Death believed by [medical examiner] to be homicide -- further
charges anticipated."
Abreu was held yesterday on $15,000 bail. Her public defender,
Amanda Barker, could not be reached for comment after the
arraignment.
Abreu has admitted taking three Cytotec pills, a brand name
for the prescription drug misoprostol, in the two days before
giving birth, prosecutors said. In addition to preventing ulcers,
the drug, which causes uterine contractions and widens the cervix,
can be combined with mifepristone (commonly known as the
emergency contraceptive RU-486) to induce abortions. That
combination method is approved by the US Food and Drug
Administration as late as the eighth week of pregnancy.
Pfizer Inc., the maker of Cytotec, includes a warning with the
drug: "Cytotec may cause abortion (sometimes incomplete),
premature labor, or birth defects if given to pregnant women."
Prosecutors said Abreu showed up in the Lawrence General
Hospital emergency room on Jan. 6 complaining of stomach
pains. She gave birth, but abruptly left about three hours later.
Hospital officials contacted authorities, who sought her arrest.
The baby was rushed to Tufts-New England for specialized
care, and tests of the baby's urine found traces of Cytotec.
Strasnick said that when confronted by investigators, Abreu
told police, "I killed my baby."
Prosecutors did not name the father, but said he lives in the
Dominican Republic.
Abortions using Cytotec occur among Latina immigrants,
according to advocates for reproductive health, because most
Latin American nations, including the Dominican Republic,
prohibit abortion. As a result, women seeking to end pregnancies
turn to Cytotec as a cheap alternative, they said. And many
women who emigrate bring knowledge of the technique with them.
"We find that Latina immigrants, particularly those new to the
country, don't understand the abortion system in the US; they
assume it's illegal here," said Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, director
of policy and advocacy for the National Latina Institute for
Reproductive Health.
She said there are no reliable statistics for the frequency of
Cytotec abortions. A 2000 study of Dominican women in New
York City found that 37 percent were familiar with the technique.
Prosecutors said Abreu obtained the drug from a friend, visiting
from the Dominican Republic, who has returned home.
Abreu arrived in the United States from the Dominican Republic
16 months ago, prosecutors said. She attended high school there,
but earned a high school equivalency degree in Lawrence. Abreu
had been working at a Macy's store until December. She was also
enrolled in English as a Second Language courses.
Abreu lives with her two brothers and mother in an apartment on
High Street in Lawrence. She has no prior criminal convictions,
said authorities.
Abreu's aunt, Ana Rosario of Lawrence, said her niece is well
behaved and hardworking.
"We're all very upset and surprised," Rosario said. "We don't
know what's happened. We didn't know she was pregnant ."
Abreu's landlord, Kemnia Lantigua, said Abreu is a "nice girl."
Lantigua herself gave birth last week and recalled yesterday that
Abreu gave her a stack of baby clothing from Macy's as a present.
Her lawyer said Abreu's "intentions are to make a life here." After
Barker said Abreu's family could not afford to post the $25,000
bail sought by prosecutors, Brooks reduced it by $10,000, but
Abreu remained in jail last night. A pretrial hearing is scheduled
Feb. 23.
Prosecutions for Cytotec abortions are extremely rare.
In 2004, 22-year-old Mexican immigrant Gabriela Flores was
sentenced to four months in a South Carolina prison for taking
Cytotec during the 16th week of pregnancy and miscarrying.
Gonzalez-Rojas said Latino immigrants take the drug if they
cannot afford medical abortions. In the Dominican Republic, Mexico,
and other countries, it is readily available over the counter for
as little as $1 a pill, she said.
"A lot of time it's sent here by family members in their home country,"
she said. "It's actually quite effective and safe, but we don't want
to endorse it."
However, she said most women take the drug far earlier in
pregnancy than Abreu allegedly did.
"There are no good statistics on this," said Gonzalez-Rojas. "We
only hear stories and anecdotes. It all occurs under the radar."
Brian R. Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com, and Raja
Mishra at rmishra@globe.com.
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a Page One story yesterday
about a Lawrence woman charged with illegally procuring a miscarriage
incorrectly referred to RU-486 as emergency contraception.
It is an abortion pill.
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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German Court Seeks Arrests of 13 C.I.A. Agents
By MARK LANDLER
January 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/world/europe/31cnd-germany.html?hp&ex=1170306000&en=aecc440b89d021dc&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Jury Decides Against Seattle in 1999 Arrests
"A federal jury on Tuesday found the City of Seattle liable for the
unlawful arrests of about 175 protesters during the World Trade
Organization meeting here in 1999, a ruling that could cost the
city millions of dollars."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/us/31wto.html
Mexico’s Latest War on Drug Gangs Is Off to a Rapid Start
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
January 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/world/americas/27mexico.html
Canada to Pay $9.75 Million to Man Tortured in Syria
By IAN AUSTEN
OTTAWA, Jan. 26 — Maher Arar, the Canadian software engineer
who was detained by American officials in 2002 and deported
to Syria, where he was jailed and regularly tortured, will receive
11.5 million Canadian dollars ($9.75 million) in compensation
from the Canadian government, under a settlement
announced Friday.
The compensation ends a lawsuit brought by Mr. Arar and
follows a recommendation from a judicial inquiry into his case.
That inquiry said the expulsion to Syria was caused by false
assertions made by the Canadian police to United States
officials, saying that Mr. Arar was an Islamic extremist
linked to Al Qaeda.
January 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/world/americas/27canada.html
Cuba: Castro Looking Stronger in New TV Images
By REUTERS
President Fidel Castro was shown on state television for the
first time in three months, standing with President Hugo
Chávez at a two-hour meeting said to have taken place in
Havana on Monday. Mr. Castro, 80, looked stronger but still
frail in the images. He dropped from public view six months
ago after undergoing emergency surgery for intestinal
bleeding and was last seen in an Oct. 28 video clip looking
very frail and walking with difficulty. His illness is a state secret.
January 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/world/americas/31briefs-castroimage.html
Anti-War Marches Draw Hundreds of Thousands
By Aaron Glantz
Inter Press Service
Sunday 28 January 2007
VIDEO: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013007A.shtml
Two Charges Dropped Against Watada
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013007J.shtml
Anti-War Marches Draw Hundreds of Thousands
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0129-03.htm
New Climate Report Too Rosy, Experts Say
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0129-04.htm
13% of Americans Have Not Heard of Global Warming: Report
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0129-07.htm
Poor Are Priced out of Healthful Eating
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0129-06.htm
Veteran Peace Protester Sent to Jail Despite Prisons Crisis
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0129-05.htm
Injury count in Iraq disputed
Some say Pentagon hides full impact of the war toll
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Stephen Koff
Plain Dealer Bureau Chief
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/116997684835860.xml&coll=2
Two Charges Dropped Against Watada
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013007J.shtml
Viva Fidel's death, Miami says
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
MIAMI - The City of Miami is planning an official celebration at the
Orange Bowl whenever Cuban President Fidel Castro dies.
City Commissioner Tomas Regalado, a Cuban-American, said the
Orange Bowl was the site of a speech by President John F. Kennedy
in 1961 promising a free Cuba.
"Basically, the only thing we're trying to do is have a venue, a giant
venue ready for people, if they wish, to speak to the media, to show
their emotions. It's not that we're doing an official death party,"
he said yesterday. Castro became ill last summer and turned over
power to his brother Raul.
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007
http://www.nydailynews.com/01-30-2007/news/wn_report/story/493074p-415303c.html
It's HUD's job to help house Katrina survivors,
not sue them.
"Instead of helping displaced Katrina survivors return to their homes
in New Orleans, HUD has repeatedly gone out of its way to keep
them out.
After residents of the St. Bernard Housing Development returned
home to clean up and reoccupy their apartments—units which have
proven to be livable—HUD (Department of Housing and Urban
Development) responded with a lawsuit. HUD claims that residents
are "damaging" the units and is not only asking a judge to throw
the residents out, but is seeking monetary damages against them!
It's unbelievable and shameful.
Help the residents who are standing up for their housing rights,
today, by calling on HUD to drop its lawsuit and asking Congress
to investigate HUD's plans to destroy public housing in New Orleans.
The petitions will be given to the lead attorney for the residents,
to show public support for their case, and an email will be sent
to your representatives in Congress and HUD Secretary
Alphonso Jackson."
Sign Petition at:
http://www.colorofchange.org/hud/?id=2015-46534
6-Month Home Detention for Executive
By DOW JONES/AP
A former executive at Computer Associates was sentenced to six
months of home detention yesterday after pleading guilty to
conspiracy charges in connection with a scheme to bolster the
company’s quarterly revenue artificially through backdated
sales contracts.
Judge I. Leo Glasser of Federal District Court sentenced David
Kaplan, former senior vice president for finance, at a hearing
in Brooklyn. Mr. Kaplan was also ordered to serve three years
of supervised release.
Mr. Kaplan was one of several executives at the company, now
known as CA Inc., to plead guilty to criminal charges in 2004
and to cooperate with the government.
January 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/technology/30compute.html
2 Witnesses in Queens Killing Cite Pause Amid 50 Police Shots
By AL BAKER and COLIN MOYNIHAN
January 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/nyregion/30bell.html
Can Humanity Survive? Want to Bet on It?
By JOHN TIERNEY
January 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/science/30tier.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin
Terrified Palestinians flee Baghdad for Syrian border
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/45b7856c4.html
Billboards That Know You by Name
By BARNABY FEDER
January 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/business/media/29cooper.html?ref=business
Russia Turns to Spin to Redefine Itself and Reassure the West
By ALAN COWELL
January 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/world/europe/29russia.html
Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ
January 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/world/middleeast/29iranians.html?hp&ex=1170133200&en=6f1bbc475aa92694&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Death Knell May Be Near for Public Election Funds
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Correction Appended
January 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/us/politics/23donate.html?th&emc=th
Gangsters for Capitalism
Saturday, 27 January 2007
By Clinton L. Cox
01/27/07 -- -- Although benign U.S. intentions are an article of faith
among many Americans, theft, murder and oppression have always
been central to U.S. policies and practices in the non-white world.
George Bush’s crusade for ‘democracy’ is yet another chapter in the
shameful saga.
“The U.S. has routinely destroyed democracy throughout the globe
while its leaders spout words about spreading democracy.”
“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service
as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine
Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant
to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time
being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and
for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.... "
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/134/1/
With DNA From Exhumed Body, Man Finally Wins Freedom
By FERNANDA SANTOS
"AUBURN, N.Y., Jan. 23 — Roy Brown, who spent 15 years in prison
on a murder conviction and uncovered evidence while there that
linked another man to the crime, was released from prison on
Tuesday after DNA tests on the other man's exhumed body
matched saliva on a nightshirt at the crime scene."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/nyregion/24brown.html
Cingular Profits Nearly Quadruple in 4th Quarter
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:04 p.m. ET
January 24, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Earns-ATT-Cingular.html
Man may sue Qantas over Bush T-shirt ban
A Melbourne man is seeking legal advice after Qantas stopped him
from boarding a flight because he was wearing a T-shirt that
depicted US President George W Bush as a terrorist.
Qantas officials told Allen Jasson his T-shirt was offensive and
could cause a security risk, as he tried to board a London bound
flight from Melbourne.
Mr Jasson says Mr Bush has led an illegal war in Iraq.
The 55-year-old says it is his democratic right
to express a political view.
"It's not about affronting anyone and it's certainly not an
offensive statement," he said.
Melbourne QC and civil liberties advocate Robert Richter
says the ban is outrageous.
"You see T-shirts like that on the streets of New York and you
don't see American police telling people to take off
their T-shirts," he said.
Qantas says it will allow Mr Jasson to board another flight,
as long as he removes the T-shirt.
The IT specialist says the T-shirt merely expresses his
view that the US-led war in Iraq is illegal.
"It's an important statement," he said.
"It's a statement that encapsulates the values and
important beliefs that I hold."
Mr Richter says T-shirts with political slogans are common.
"[Fellow passengers] don't have to read it, they don't
have to look at him," he said.
"They can come up to him and say that they disagree but
to think that might incite some problem is absurd."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1831559.htm
Bush Continues to Unite the World... Against Him
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0123-04.htm
UN Climate Panel to Project Wrenching Change
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0123-06.htm
Menopause at 30 for Millions in Poverty
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0123-03.htm
Israeli Separation Barrier is Cutting off Palestinians from Their Livelihood
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0123-02.htm
Tuna Stocks Close to Exhaustion, Says WWF
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0123-01.htm
Israel's President to Be Indicted in Rape Case
By GREG MYRE
"JERUSALEM, Jan. 23 — Israel's attorney general plans to indict the
country's president, Moshe Katsav, on charges of rape and other
sexual offenses, the Justice Ministry announced today."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/world/middleeast/23cnd-israel.html?
hp&ex=1169614800&en=7895701811d23e48&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Bank of America Profit Rises 47%
By ERIC DASH
Big gains in equity investments buoyed Bank of America's earnings
in the fourth quarter, which were up 47 percent from the same period
in 2005, the bank reported today.
January 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/business/23cnd-bank.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
US Warns Iran to Back Down
A second US aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the
Middle East is Washington's way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts
to dominate the region, a top US diplomat said in Dubai Tuesday.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012307A.shtml
Ecstasy trials for combat stress
David Adam, science correspondent
Thursday February 17, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1416073,00.html
UN Study Backs Climate Theory: Humans Cause Global Warming
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0119-07.htm
US Media Overlooked Major Humanitarian Stories in 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0119-05.htm
Cost of Iraq War Skyrockets to $8 Billion a Month
The steadily rising Iraq war price tag will reach about $8.4 billion a
month this year, Pentagon spokesmen said on Thursday, as heavy
replacement costs for lost, destroyed and aging equipment mount.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012007A.shtml
US Plans Envision Broad Attack on Iran: Analyst
US contingency planning for military action against Iran's nuclear
program goes beyond limited strikes and would effectively unleash a war
against the country, a former US intelligence analyst said on Friday.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012007B.shtml
Furor Over 12-Year-Old Actress's Rape Scene
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
January 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/movies/20dako.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Bush to Urge New Tax Plan for Health Care
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ROBERT PEAR
January 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/washington/21health.html?
hp&ex=1169355600&en=768f7fdf5d41e18c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Forget that old line about "What's good for GM is good for America"
How the social glue of America is being dissolved
January 2006, Volume 8, Number 1
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/488
U.S. to Renegotiate Labor Rights
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Bush administration said it would renegotiate the language
covering labor rights in free trade agreements it has reached with
Peru, Colombia and Panama, in order for the new Democratic
Congress to approve the deals. John K. Veroneau, deputy United
States trade representative, said that the three countries had been
notified and predicted that an agreement on revised language could
be reached without a lengthy delay. The announcement was the
strongest signal to date that the administration was prepared
to modify its trade policies in light of Democratic control of the
House and Senate. Democrats, backed by American labor unions,
have long complained that the free trade deals negotiated
by the administration do not include enough protections
for American workers.
January 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/business/worldbusiness/18fobriefs-labor.html
Antiques Dealer Sues to Bar Homeless From Sidewalk
By TRYMAINE LEE
"A Manhattan antiques dealer has filed a lawsuit against a small group
of homeless people claiming that they are disrupting his business
by using the sidewalk outside his high-end East Side store as a urinal,
a spittoon and an occasional dressing room, according to the suit
and the dealer's lawyer."
January 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/nyregion/18suit.html?ref=nyregion
Justices Scrutinize Death Penalty in Texas
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
January 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/18scotus.html
Army Denies Watada Illegal-War Defense
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011707A.shtml
Israeli General Resigns Over War With Hezbollah
By GREG MYRE
January 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/world/middleeast/17israel.html?
hp&ex=1169096400&en=49902c1723a2c943&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Second Iraq Hanging Also Went Awry
By JOHN F. BURNS
January 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/world/middleeast/16hang.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
U.N. Puts '06 Death Toll in Iraq Above 34,000
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
January 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/world/middleeast/16cnd-iraq.html?
hp&ex=1169010000&en=934ebfa88b7db5cb&ei=5094&partner=homepage
New Orleans Veterans for Peace
http://foodmusicjustice.com/2007/01/10/new-orleans-veterans-for-peace/
Guantanamo Uncassified
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5E3w7ME6Fs
Blue Man Group on Global Warming
http://video. google.com/ videoplay? docid=8453442377 878175440
Iraq to give Western companies oil rights: report
Last Updated: Monday, January 8, 2007 | 12:29 PM ET
CBC News
The Iraqi government plans to introduce a law that will give Western
oil companies rights to the country's huge oil reserves,
a British newspaper says.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/01/08/iraq-oil.html#skip300x250
Service members to Congress: End Iraq war
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jan 16, 2007 16:37:16 EST
http://www.navytime s.com/news/ 2007/01/tnsRedre ss070116/
Grumbling in the Ranks
Vocal opposition to President's Bush's strategy of sending more than 20,000
additional troops to help secure Iraq has grown to include some of the
troops themselves.
A group of more than 50 active-duty military officers will deliver a
petition to Congress on Tuesday signed by about 1,000 troops calling for an
end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. "Any troop increase over here will just
produce more sitting ducks, more targets," said Sergeant Ronn Cantu, who is
serving in Iraq.
Under the 1988 Military Whistleblower Protection Act, active duty military,
National Guard, and Reservists may communicate with any member of Congress
without fear of reprisal, even if copies of the communication are sent to
others.
www.marxmail.org
January 15, 2007, 1:30 pm
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/01/15/grumbling-in-the-ranks/trackback/
Anywhere the Eye Can See, It's Likely to See an Ad
By LOUISE STORY
Add this to the endangered list: blank spaces.
January 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/business/media/15everywhere.html?ref=business
Bush gets cool response from troops set for Iraq
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 12, 2007
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20070112-120719-1724r.htm
Brazil Gambles on Monitoring of Amazon Loggers
By LARRY ROHTER
January 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/world/americas/14amazon.html?
_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
Pentagon Intensifies Pressure on Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307A.shtml
Israeli forces confiscating hundreds of dunams of Hebron
land for settlement industry
"Official sources at the Hebron offices of the Land Defense Committee
in the West Bank are reporting that Israeli forces intend to confiscate
much of the town of Dahariya for settlement industry. More than
300 fertile dunams of Palestinian land is slated to be taken from
the southwestern area of the town."
http://english. pnn.ps/index. php?option= com_content&task=view&id=1414
Hackensack: Lawsuit in Police Shooting
By KAREEM FAHIM
The family of a 45-year-old man who was fatally shot last year by
a New Jersey Park Police officer filed a wrongful-death suit yesterday
in State Superior Court. The suit names the officer and several
colleagues, the State of New Jersey and the Park Police. The man,
Emil Mann, a member of the Ramapough Mountain Indians, had
been at a barbecue in the woods of Mahwah on April 1 when the
officer, Chad Walder, shot him twice without justification, the
suit alleges. Officer Walder, who has said he fired in self-defense,
and two other officers also delayed getting medical help to Mr. Mann,
the suit says. A lawyer for Officer Walder, Robert Galantucci, said
the shooting was justified. No criminal charges have been filed
in the case, and the Bergen County prosecutor's office has said
the investigation is still open. Mr. Mann, who grew up on the
mountain where he was shot, lived in Monroe, N.Y., and had
three children.
January 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/nyregion/12mbrfs-emil.html
Texas: Judge Blocks Ordinance on Immigrants
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A judge blocked an ordinance requiring landlords to verify the
citizenship of potential tenants, a day before it was to go into
effect in a Dallas suburb. The judge granted a temporary
restraining order after a claim that state open-meetings laws
had been violated when the ordinance was approved and
adopted by the City Council of Farmers Branch in November.
January 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/us/12brfs-LANDLORDS.html
U.S. Preparing for Trials of Top Qaeda Detainees
By DAVID JOHNSTON and NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 — The Bush administration has set up a secret
war room in a Virginia suburb where it is assembling evidence
to prosecute high-ranking detainees from Al Qaeda including
the man accused of being the mastermind of the September 2001
attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, government officials said this week.
January 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/washington/12terror.html?ref=us
Bush's tough tactics are a 'declaration of war' on Iran
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 12 January 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2145136.ece
Democrats Risk Antiwar Wrath if They Waver on Iraq Exit
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0110-08.htm
Soldiers Doubt an Influx of American Troops Will Benefit Iraqi Army
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0110-04.htm
Bush to Face Street Protests over Iraq Escalation Plan
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0110-07.htm
YouTube User Spurs Iraq War Dialogue
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0110-01.htm
Robert Fisk: Bush's new strategy - the march of folly
So into the graveyard of Iraq, George Bush, commander-in-chief,
is to send another 21,000 of his soldiers. The march of folly
is to continue...
Published: 11 January 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2144057.ece
Rights of Unions and Nonmembers Vie at Court
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
January 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/washington/11scotus.html?ref=us
If you can stomach it:
Transcript of President Bush's Address to Nation on U.S. Policy in Iraq
as recorded by The New York Times:
January 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/us/11ptext.html
Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians
by Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
www.dissidentvoice.org
January 9, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan07/Cook09.htm
Democrats Beef Police State With 9/11 Commission Bill
Political "opposition" also helping Bush gain traction for Iran military strike
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/100107democratsbeef.htm
Wage Increase Could Hinge on Tax Cuts
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
January 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/washington/10wage.html?
hp&ex=1168491600&en=91d9820f1ef98a84&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Britain: An Increase in Profit at the London Stock Exchange
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
The London Stock Exchange, seeking to fend off a hostile takeover
by the Nasdaq Stock Market, reported a 9.9 percent increase in
third-quarter profit and forecast a "strong performance" in fiscal
2008. Net income rose to £31 million ($59.8 million) in the three
months ended Dec. 31, up from £28.2 million a year earlier, the
exchange said. Revenue increased 11 percent, to £89.9 million
($173.5 million). The third-quarter results "support the board's
rejection of Nasdaq's offer, which significantly undervalues the
business and the exchange's unique strategic position," the
exchange's chief executive, Clara Furse, said. "Our strong growth
prospects will continue to enhance the quality of our markets."
The exchange, Europe's biggest equity market, released its
earnings about three weeks ahead of schedule and two days
before Nasdaq's offer to pay £12.43 a share expires.
January 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/business/worldbusiness/10fobriefs-
ANINCREASEIN_BRF.html
Venezuelan Plan Shakes Investors
By SIMON ROMERO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
January 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/business/worldbusiness/10venezuela.html?
ref=business
Mayor Finds Friendly Ears on Senate Homeland Security Panel
By SEWELL CHAN and ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took his perennial
pitch for more security money to Congress on Tuesday, but this year,
for a change, lawmakers seemed poised to listen.
January 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/nyregion/10bloomberg.html?ref=nyregion
3 Relatives of Plotter Are Held by Officials
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
January 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/nyregion/10plot.html?ref=nyregion
Gas-Like Odor Permeates Parts of New York City
By CHRISTINE HAUSER and SEWELL CHAN
January 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/nyregion/08cnd-odor.html?
hp&ex=1168318800&en=b688635a7be2e78d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The Second Declaration of Havana
Walter Lippmann, CubaNews Los Angeles, California
This is one of the great political documents of all time. It was
presented to the Cuban people on February 4, 1962, following Cuba's
expulsion from the Organization of American States. It is printed
here in its entirety. [editorial note from Fidel Castro Speaks,
edited by James Petras and Martin Kenner, Grove Press, 1969.]
It is now web-posted in English here:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-02-04-1962.html
Original Spanish:
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1962/esp/f040262e.html
The universe gives up its deepest secret
It is the invisible material that makes up most of the cosmos.
Now, scientists have created the first image of dark matter
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 08 January 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2134891.ece
Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's
most precious commodity
The Independent (UK)
January 7, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132574.ece
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SCROLL DOWN TO READ:
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS (IN FULL DETAIL)
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
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EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
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LYNNE STEWART AND MICHAEL RATNER IN BAY AREA
FEBRUARY 23-25 (Lynne and her husband Ralph will
stay on several more days. Stay tuned for complete
schedule of events.)
Dear Friends of Lynne Stewart,
I am pleased to announce that Lynne Stewart and Michael Ratner have
just accepted our invitation to tour the Bay Area. The confirmed
dates are February 23-25, 2007. Lynne, accompanied by her husband
Ralph Poynter, will stay on several more days for additional meetings.
In solidarity,
Jeff Mackler,
West Coast Coordinator, Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Co-Coordinator, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
O: 415-255-1080
Cell: 510-387-7714
H: 510-268-9429
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May Day 2007
National Mobilization to Support Immigrant Workers!
Web: http://www.MayDay2007.net
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
e-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
New York: (212)330-8172
Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
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A NEW LOOK AT U.S. RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use of these illegal weapons
http://poisondust.org/
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You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
Che:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqcezl9dD2c
Leon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkFVV5X0p4
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FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html
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URGENT APPEAL TO SAVE IRAQ'S ACADEMICS.
Call for action to save Iraq's Academics
A little known aspect of the tragedy engulfing Iraq is the systematic
liquidation of the country's academics. Even according to conservative
estimates, over 250 educators have been assassinated, and many
hundreds more have disappeared. With thousands fleeing the country
in fear for their lives, not only is Iraq undergoing a major brain drain,
the secular middle class - which has refused to be co-opted by the
US occupation - is being decimated, with far-reaching consequences
for the future of Iraq.
http://www.brussellstribunal.org/
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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177
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ENDORSE THE A.N.S.W.E.R. CALL TO ACTION
March 17-18, 2007
GLOBAL DAYS OF ACTION ON THE
4TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WAR!
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?
SURVEY_ID=3400&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&JServSessionIdr011=
k7a3443r73.app8a
http://answer.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_homepage
Please circulate widely
www.answercoalition.org
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Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.
Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:
Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.
You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
DOCUMENTARY PRESENTATION/EDUCATIONAL DVD IS
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (dvasicek@earthlink.net, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.
Happy Holidays!
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=4
1
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
SHOP:
http://www.manataka.org/page633.html
BuyIndies.com
donvasicek.com.
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*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
MUST SEE: PBS VIDEO NOTEBOOK: A DAY AT THE PLANT
NOW's Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa takes us inside the
world's largest pork processing plant, located in Tar Heel, North
Carolina. As the first TV journalist ever allowed to film inside the
plant, owned by The Smithfield Packing Company, Hinojosa gives
us an insider's view of what conditions are like in a plant that
slaughters over 33,000 hogs per day.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/250/smithfield.html
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*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Rights activist held in Oaxaca prison
Three students arrested and held incommunicado in Oaxaca
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/80142.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
TAX THE RICH! FEED THE POOR! MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS, NOT WAR!
www.bauaw.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The following quote is from the 1918 anti-war speech delivered
in Canton, Ohio, by Eugene Debs. The address, protesting World War I,
resulted in Debs being arrested and imprisoned on charges of espionage.
The speech remains one of the great expressions of the militancy and
internationalism of the US working class.
His appeal, before sentencing, included one of his best-known quotes:
"...while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal
element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
Read the complete speech at:
http://douglassarchives.org/debs_a78.htm
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
!VIVA FIDEL! LONG LIVE FIDEL! LONG LIVE THE CUBAN REVOLUTION!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
My Name is Roland Sheppard
This Is My `Blog'
I am is a retired Business Representative of Painters District
Council #8 in San Francisco. I have been a life long social activist
and socialist. Roland Sheppard is a retired Business Representative
of Painters District Council #8 in San Francisco. I have been
a life long social activist and socialist.
Prior to my being elected as a union official, I had worked
for 31 years as a house painter and have been a lifelong socialist.
I have led a unique life. In my retire age, I am interested in writing
about my experiences as a socialist, as a participant in the Black
Liberation Movement, the Union Movement, and almost all social
movements.
I became especially interested in the environment when I was
diagnosed with cancer due to my work environment. I learned
how to write essays, when I first got a computer in order to put
together all the medical legal arguments on my breakthrough
workers' compensation case in California, proving that my work
environment as a painter had caused my cancer. After a five-year
struggle, I won a $300,000 settlement on his case.
The following essays are based upon my involvement in the
struggle for freedom for all humanity. I hope the history
of my life's experiences will help future generations
of Freedom Fighters.
For this purpose, this website is dedicated.
web.mac.com/rolandgarret/iWeb/Site/RolandSheppardsBlog.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast
Robin Hood in Reverse
http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley11132006.html
More Info:
www.justiceforneworleans.org
For a detailed report:
Big, Easy Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast
by Rita J. King, Special to CorpWatch
August 15th, 2006
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14004
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
TAX FACT SHEET
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/901006_taxpolicy.pdf
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Communist Manifesto illustrated by Disney [and other cartoons) with
words by K. Marx and F. Engels--absolutely wonderful!...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oGIffyVVk&NR
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Asylum Street Spankers-Magnetic Yellow Ribbon
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=bfMgRHRJ- tc
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Homer Simpson Joins the Army
Another morale-booster from Groening and company. [If you get
a chance to see the whole thing, it's worth it...bw]
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/12/video-the-simpsons-salute-the-lazy-and
-uneducated/
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A Look at the Numbers: How the Rich Get Richer
Clara Jeffery (May/June 2006 Issue
IN 1985, THE FORBES 400 were worth $221 billion combined.
Today, they re worth $1.13 trillion more than the GDP of Canada.
THERE'VE BEEN FEW new additions to the Forbes 400.
The median household income
has also stagnated at around $44,000.
AMONG THE FORBES 400 who gave to a 2004 presidential
campaign, 72% gave to Bush.
IN 2005, there were 9 million American millionaires,
a 62% increase since 2002.
IN 2005, 25.7 million Americans received food stamps,
a 49% increase since 2000.
ONLY ESTATES worth more than $1.5 million are taxed.
That's less than 1% of all estates
http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjon
es.com/news/exhibit/2006/05/perks_of_privilege.html
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Do You Want to Stop PREVENT War with Iran?
Dear Friend,
Every day, pundits and military experts debate on TV when, how and where
war with Iran will occur. Can the nuclear program be destroyed? Will the
Iranian government retaliate in Iraq or use the oil weapon? Will it take
three or five days of bombing? Will the US bomb Iran with "tactical"
nuclear weapons?
Few discuss the human suffering that yet another war in the Middle East
will bring about. Few discuss the thousands and thousands of innocent
Iranian and American lives that will be lost. Few think ahead and ask
themselves what war will do to the cause of democracy in Iran or to
America's global standing.
Some dismiss the entire discussion and choose to believe that war simply
cannot happen. The US is overstretched, the task is too difficult, and
the world is against it, they say.
They are probably right, but these factors don't make war unlikely. They
just make a successful war unlikely.
At the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), we are not going to
wait and see what happens.
We are actively working to stop the war and we need your help!
Working with a coalition of peace and security organizations in
Washington DC, NIAC is adding a crucial dimension to this debate - the
voice of the Iranian-American community.
Through our US-Iran Media Resource Program
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabumkFbIfQs8eafpLV5/
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabumkFbIfQs8eafpLV5/ , we help
the media ask the right questions and bring attention to the human side
of this issue.
Through the LegWatch program
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabummRbIfQs8eafpLV5/
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabummRbIfQs8eafpLV5/ ,
we are building opposition to the war on Capitol Hill. We spell out the
likely
consequences of war and the concerns of the Iranian-American community
on Hill panels
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabumkGbIfQs8eafpLV5/
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabumkGbIfQs8eafpLV5/
and in direct meetings with lawmakers. We recently helped more than a dozen
Members of Congress - both Republican and Democrats - send a strong
message against war to the White House
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabumkHbIfQs8eafpLV5/
http://niacouncil.c.topica.com/maafjioabumkHbIfQs8eafpLV5/
But more is needed, and we need your help!
If you don't wish to see Iran turn into yet another Iraq, please make a
contribution online or send in a check to:
NIAC
2801 M St NW
Washington DC 20007
Make the check out to NIAC and mark it "NO WAR."
ALL donations are welcome, both big and small. And just so you know,
your donations make a huge difference. Before you leave the office
today, please make a contribution to stop the war.
Sincerely,
Trita Parsi
President of NIAC
U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)
www.uslaboragainstwar.org
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/
Email: info@uslaboragainstwar.org
PMB 153
1718 "M" Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
Voicemail: 202/521-5265
Co-convenors: Gene Bruskin, Maria Guillen, Fred Mason,
Bob Muehlenkamp, and Nancy Wohlforth
Michael Eisenscher, National Organizer & Website Coordinator
Virginia Rodino, Organizer
Adrienne Nicosia, Administrative Staff
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Immigration video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tacK8MAfuAs
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Enforce the Roadless Rule for National Forests
Target: Michael Johanns, Secretary, USDA
Sponsor: Earthjustice
We, the Undersigned, endorse the following petition:
This past September, Earthjustice scored a huge victory for our roadless
national forests when a federal district court ordered the reinstatement
of the Roadless Rule.
The Roadless Rule protects roadless forest areas from road-building
and most logging. This is bad news for the timber, mining, and oil
& gas industries ... And so they're putting pressure on their friends
in the Bush Administration to challenge the victory.
Roadless area logging tends to target irreplaceable old growth forests.
Many of these majestic trees have stood for hundreds of years.
By targeting old-growth, the timber companies are destroying
natural treasures that cannot be replaced in our lifetime.
The future of nearly 50 million acres of wild, national forests
and grasslands hangs in the balance. Tell the secretary of the
USDA, Michael Johanns, to protect our roadless areas by enforcing
the Roadless Rule. The minute a road is cut through a forest, that
forest is precluded from being considered a "wilderness area," and
thus will not be covered by any of the Wilderness Area protections
afforded by Congress.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/112283692?z00m=6687205&z00m=668720
5<l=1162406255
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Mumia Abu-Jamal - Reply brief, U.S. Court of Appeals (Please Circulate)
Dear Friends:
On October 23, 2006, the Fourth-Step Reply Brief of Appellee and
Cross-Appellant, Mumia Abu-Jamal was submitted to the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn,
U.S. Ct. of Appeals Nos. 01-9014, 02-9001.)
Oral argument will likely be scheduled during the coming months.
I will advise when a hearing date is set.
The attached brief is of enormous consequence since it goes
to the essence of our client's right to a fair trial, due process
of law, and equal protection of the law, guaranteed by the Fifth,
Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The issues include:
Whether Mr. Abu-Jamal was denied the right to due process
of law and a fair trial because of the prosecutor's "appeal-after
-appeal" argument which encouraged the jury to disregard the
presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt, and err
on the side of guilt.
Whether the prosecution's exclusion of African Americans
from sitting on the jury violated Mr. Abu-Jamal's right
to due process and equal protection of the law,
in contravention of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).
Whether Mr. Abu-Jamal was denied due process and equal
protection of the law during a post-conviction hearing
because of the bias and racism of Judge Albert F. Sabo,
who was overheard during the trial commenting that
he was "going to help'em fry the nigger."
That the federal court is hearing issues which concern
Mr. Abu-Jamal's right to a fair trial is a great milestone
in this struggle for human rights. This is the first time
that any court has made a ruling in nearly a quarter
of a century that could lead to a new trial and freedom.
Nevertheless, our client remains on Pennsylvania's death
row and in great danger.
Mr. Abu-Jamal, the "voice of the voiceless," is a powerful
symbol in the international campaign against the death
penalty and for political prisoners everywhere. The goal
of Professor Judith L. Ritter, associate counsel, and
I is to see that the many wrongs which have occurred
in this case are righted, and that at the conclusion
of a new trial our client is freed.
Your concern is appreciated
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
---------*-- -------*- --------* --------- *---------*---------*
Antiwar Web Site Created by Troops
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A small group of active-duty military members opposed to the war
have created a Web site intended to collect thousands of signatures
of other service members. People can submit their name, rank and
duty station if they support statements denouncing the American
invasion. "Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price,"
the Web site, appealforredress.org, says. "It is time for U.S. troops
to come home." The electronic grievances will be passed along
to members of Congress, according to the Web site. Jonathan
Hutto, a Navy seaman based in Norfolk, Va., who set up the Web
site a month ago, said the group had collected 118 names and
was trying to verify that they were legitimate service members.
October 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/washington/25brfs-005.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Judge Orders Release of Abu Ghraib Child Rape Photos
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2006-10-23 20:54. Evidence
By Greg Mitchell, http://www.editorandpublisher.com
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/14864
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Profound new assault on freedom of speech and assembly:
Manhattan: New Rules for Parade Permits
By AL BAKER
After recent court rulings found the Police Department's
parade regulations too vague, the department is moving
to require parade permits for groups of 10 or more
bicyclists or pedestrians who plan to travel more than
two city blocks without complying with traffic laws.
It is also pushing to require permits for groups of 30
or more bicyclists or pedestrians who obey traffic laws.
The new rules are expected to be unveiled in a public
notice today. The department will discuss them at
a hearing on Nov. 27. Norman Siegel, a lawyer whose
clients include bicyclists, said the new rules
"raise serious civil liberties issues."
October 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes. com/2006/ 10/18/nyregion/ 18mbrfs-002. html
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Soul-Sick Nation: An Astrologer's View of America
Jessica Murray
Format: Paperback (6x9)
ISBN 1425971253
Price: $ 13.95
About the Book
Astrology and geopolitics may seem strange bedfellows, but
Soul-Sick Nation puts the two together to provide a perspective
as extraordinary as the times we are living in. Using the principles
of ancient wisdom to make sense of the current global situation,
this book invites us to look at the USA from the biggest possible
picture: that of cosmic meaning. With a rare blend of compassion,
humor and fearless taboo-busting, Soul-Sick Nation reveals
America's noble potential without sentiment and diagnoses
its neuroses without delusion, shedding new light on troubling
issues that the pundits and culture wars inflame but leave
painfully unresolved: the WTC bombings, the war in Iraq,
Islamic jihad, media propaganda, consumerism and the
American Dream.
In her interpretation of the birth chart of the entity born
July 4, 1776, Murray offers an in-depth analysis of America's
essential destiny--uncovering , chapter by chapter, the greater
purpose motivating this group soul. She shows how this
purpose has been distorted, and how it can be re-embraced
in the decades to come. She decodes current astrological
transits that express the key themes the USA must learn
in this period of millennial crisis-including that of the
responsibility of power-spelling out the profound lessons
the nation will face in the next few years.
Combining the rigor of a political theorist with the vision
of a master astrologer, this keenly intelligent book elucidates
the meaning of an epoch in distress, and proposes a path
towards healing-of the country and of its individual citizens.
Murray explains how each of us can come to terms with this
moment in history and arrive at a response that is unique
and creative. This book will leave you revitalized, shorn
of illusions and full of hope.
About the Author
"Jessica Murray's Soul-Sick Nation raises the symbol-system
of astrology to the level of a finely-honed tool for the critical
work of social insight and commentary. Her unflinching,
in-depth analysis answers a crying need of our time. Murray's
application of laser beam-lucid common sense analysis
to the mire of illusions we've sunken into as a nation is
a courageous step in the right direction... Just breathtaking! "
--Raye Robertson, author of Culture, Media and the Collective Mind
" Jessica Murray,..a choice-centered, psychospiritually- oriented
astrologer.. . has quietly made a real difference in the lives of her
clients, one at a time. In "Soul Sick Nation," she applies exactly those
same skills to understanding America as a whole. Starting from
the premise that the United States is currently a troubled adolescent,
she applies an unflinching gaze to reach an ultimately compassionate
conclusion about how we can heal ourselves and grow up."
- Steven Forrest, author of The Inner Sky and The Changing Sky
http://www.authorho use.com/BookStor e/ItemDetail~ bookid~41780. aspx
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Shop for a Donation at Al-Awda!
Interested in furthering your knowledge about Palestine
and its people?
Want to help make the Palestinian Right to Return a reality?
Looking for ways to show your support for Palestine and
Palestinian refugees?
Why not shop for a donation at Al-Awda
http://al-awda. org/shop. html
and help support a great organization and cause!!
Al-Awda offers a variety of educational materials including interesting
and unique books on everything from oral histories, photo books
on Palestinian refugees, to autobiographies, narratives, political
analysis, and culture. We also have historical maps of Palestine
(in Arabic and English), educational films, flags of various sizes,
and colorful greeting cards created by Palestinian children.
You can also show your support for a Free Palestine, and wear with
pride, great looking T-shirts, pendants, and a variety of Palestine pins.
Shop for a Donation at Al-Awda!
Visit http://al-awda. org/shop. html for these great items, and more!
The Educational Supplies Division
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda. org
WWW: http://al-awda. org
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC), is a broad-
based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of
grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public
education about the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their
homes and lands of origin, and to full restitution for all their confiscated
and destroyed property in accordance with the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, International law and the numerous United Nations
Resolutions upholding such rights (see FactSheet). Al-Awda, PRRC
is a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3)
organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the
United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations
to Al-Awda, PRRC are tax-deductible.
---------*-- -------*- --------* --------- *-------- -*------- -
Before You Enlist
Excellent flash film that should be shown to all students.
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=ZFsaGv6cefw
---------*-- -------*- --------* --------- *-------- -*------- -
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
In an interview in March 1995 entitled, "Jesse Helms: Setting the
Record Straight" that appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Helms
said, "I have long believed that if the United States is going to give
money to Israel, it should be paid out of the Department of Defense
budget. My question is this: If Israel did not exist, what would
U.S. defense costs in the Middle East be? Israel is at least the
equivalent of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Without
Israel promoting its and America's common interests, we would
be badly off indeed."
(Jesse Helms was the senior senator from North Carolina and the
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.)
http://www.meforum. org/article/ 244
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TWO AMICUS BRIEFS FILED FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL WITH
THE 3RD CIRCUIT FEDERAL APPEALS COURT IN JULY 2006
These pdf files can be found on Michael Schiffmann's web site at:
http://againstthecr imeofsilence. de/english/ copy_of_mumia/ legalarchive/
The first brief is from the National Lawyers Guild.
The second brief is from the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, Inc.
Howard Keylor
For the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.laboractionmumi a.org.
---------*-- -------*- --------* --------- *-------- -*------- -
Asylum Street Spankers-Magnetic Yellow Ribbon
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=bfMgRHRJ- tc
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
SIR! NO SIR!
I urge everyone to get a copy of "Sir! No Sir!" at:
http://www.sirnosir .com/
It is an extremely informative and powerful film
of utmost importance today. I was a participant
in the anti-Vietnam war movement. What a
powerful thing it was to see troops in uniform
leading the march against the war! If you would
like to read more here are two very good
publications:
Out Now!: A Participant' s Account of the Movement
in the United States Against the Vietnam War
by Fred Halstead (Hardcover - Jun 1978)
and:
GIs speak out against the war;: The case of the
Ft. Jackson 8; by Fred Halstead (Unknown Binding - 1970).
Both available at:
http://www.amazon. com/gp/search/ 103-1123166- 0136605?search- alias=books&
rank=
+availability, -proj-total- margin&field- author=Fred% 20Halstead
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Endorse the following petition:
Don't Let Idaho Kill Endangered Wolves
Target: Fish and Wildlife Service
Sponsor: Defenders of Wildlife
http://www.thepetit ionsite.com/ takeaction/ 664280276?
z00m=99090&z00m= 99090<l= 1155834550
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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
Personalize the message text on the right with
your own words, if you wish.
Click the Next Step button to send your letter
to these decision makers:
President George W. Bush
Vice President Richard 'Dick' B. Cheney
Your Senators
Your Representative
Go here to register your outrage:
https://secure2. convio.net/ pep/site/ Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003= cga2p2o6x1. app2a&cmd= display&page= UserAction& id=177
---------*-- -------*- --------* --------- *-------- -*------- -
Idriss Stelley Foundation is in critical financial crisis, please help !
ISF is in critical financial crisis, and might be forced to close
its doors in a couple of months due to lack of funds to cover
DSL, SBC and utilities, which is a disaster for our numerous
clients, since the are the only CBO providing direct services
to Victims (as well as extended failies) of police misconduct
for the whole city of SF. Any donation, big or small will help
us stay alive until we obtain our 501-c3 nonprofit Federal
Status! Checks can me made out to
ISF, ( 4921 3rd St , SF CA 94124 ). Please consider to volunteer
or apply for internship to help covering our 24HR Crisis line,
provide one on one couseling and co facilitate our support
groups, M.C a show on SF Village Voice, insure a 2hr block
of time at ISF, moderate one of our 26 websites for ISF clients !
http://mysite. verizon.net/ vzeo9ewi/ idrissstelleyfou ndation/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/isf23/
Report Police Brutality
24HR Bilingual hotline
(415) 595-8251
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Justice4As a/
---------*-- -------*- --------* --------- *-------- -*------- -
Appeal for funds:
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
Visit the Dahr Jamail Iraq website http://dahrjamailir aq.com
Request for Support
Dahr Jamail will soon return to the Middle East to continue his
independent reporting. As usual, reporting independently is a costly
enterprise; for example, an average hotel room is $50, a fixer runs $50
per day, and phone/food average $25 per day. Dahr will report from the
Middle East for one month, and thus needs to raise $5,750 in order to
cover his plane ticket and daily operating expenses.
A rare opportunity has arisen for Dahr to cover several stories
regarding the occupation of Iraq, as well as U.S. policy in the region,
which have been entirely absent from mainstream media.
With the need for independent, unfiltered information greater than ever,
your financial support is deeply appreciated. Without donations from
readers, ongoing independent reports from Dahr are simply not possible.
All donations go directly towards covering Dahr's on the ground
operating expenses.
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.
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Legal update on Mumia Abu-Jamal's case
Excerpts from a letter written by Robert R. Bryan, the lead attorney
for death row political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
...On July 20, 2006, we filed the Brief of Appellee and Cross
Appellant, Mumia Abu-Jamal, in the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia.
http://www.workers. org/2006/ us/mumia- 0810/
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Nick Mottern, Consumers for Peace
nickmottern@earthlink.net
Howard Zinn joins Kathy Kelly, Dahr Jamail, Ann Wright and Neil MacKay in
endorsing "War Crimes Committed by the United States in Iraq and
Mechanisms for Accountability."
The report was published internationally by 10 organizations in October.
"This report on the war crimes of the current administration is an
invaluable resource, with a meticulous presentation of the
evidence and an astute examination of international law.
- Howard Zinn.
The 37 page report, written by Consumers for Peace with the
consultation of international humanitarian law expert Karen
Parker, JD, is available for free download at
http://www.consumersforpeace.org/pdf/war_crimes_iraq_101006.pdf
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Today in Palestine!
For up to date information on Israeli's brutal attack on
human rights and freedom in Palestine and Lebanon go to:
http://www.theheadl ines.org
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Oklahoma U's First African-American Speaker
Dear Representative Johnson:
Congratulations on your bill for creating an
African-American Centennial Plaza near the
Capitol.
I have a suggestion for including an important
moment in Oklahoma African-American
history in the displays.
The first African-American speaker at the
University of Oklahoma was Paul Boutelle,
in 1967.
He is still alive but has changed his name
to Kwame Somburu. I believe it would be
very appropriate also to invite Mr. Somburu
to attend the dedication ceremony for
this plaza. I correspond with him by email.
Here is a 1967 Sooner magazine article about his appearance:
http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/sooner/articles/p25-27_1967v40n2_OCR.pdf
Sincerely,
Mike Wright
Norman
329-6688
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Interesting web site with many flash films. The site is managed
by veteran James Starowicz, USN '67-'71 GMG3 Vietnam In-Country
'70-'71 Member: Veterans For Peace as well as other Veterans
and Pro-Peace Groups. Also Activist in other Area's, Questioning
Policies that only Benefit the Few, supporting Policies that Benefit
the Many and Move Us Forward as a Better Nation and World!
Politics: Registered Independent
http://imagineaworldof.blogspot.com/
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Taking Aim with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone has a new Internet
address: http://www.takingaimradio.com
THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF ZIONISM
BY RALPH SCHOENMAN
Essential reading for understanding the development of Zionism
and Israel in the service of British and USA imperialism.
The full text of the book can be found for free at the
new Taking Aim web address:
http://www.takingaimradio.com
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JOIN THE LYNNE STEWAR DEFENSE - THE CASE IS NOT OVER!
For those of you who don't know who Lynne Stewart is, go to
www.lynnestewart. org and get acquainted with Lynne and her
cause. Lynne is a criminal defense attorney who is being persecuted
for representing people charged with heinous crimes. It is a bedrock
of our legal system that every criminal defendant has a right to a
lawyer. Persecuting Lynne is an attempt to terrorize and intimidate
all criminal defense attorneys in this country so they will stop
representing unpopular people. If this happens, the fascist takeover
of this nation will be complete. We urge you all to go the website,
familiarize yourselves with Lynne and her battle for justice
www.lynnestewart. org
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Visit the Traprock Peace Center Video Archive at:
http://www.youtube.com/TraprockPeaceTV
Visit the Traprock Peace Center
Deerfield, MA
http://www.traprockpeace.org/
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NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE
Comité Nacional por la Libertad de los Cinco Cubanos
Who are the Cuban Five?
The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prison, serving
four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being wrongly
convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.
They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero,
Fernando González and René González.
The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing
espionage conspiracy against the United States, and other related
charges.
But the Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were
involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups,
in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba.
The Five's actions were never directed at the U.S. government.
They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any
weapons while in the United States.
The Cuban Five's mission was to stop terrorism
For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based
in Miami have engaged in countless terrorist activities against
Cuba, and against anyone who advocates a normalization
of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. More than 3,000 Cubans
have died as a result of these terrorists' attacks.
Gerardo Hernández, 2 Life Sentences
Antonio Guerrero, Life Sentence
Ramon Labañino, Life Sentence
Fernando González, 19 Years
René González, 15 Years
Free The Cuban Five Held Unjustly In The U.S.!
http://www.freethef ive.org/
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Eyewitness Account from Oaxaca
A website is now being circulated that has up-to-date info
and video that can be downloaded of the police action and
developments in Oaxaca. For those who have not seen it
elsewhere, the website is:
www.mexico.indymedi a.org/oaxaca
http://www.mexico. indymedia. org/oaxaca
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REMINDER TO ALL GROUPS: BE SURE AND POST ALL ACTIONS AND
EVENTS TO WWW.INDYBAY. ORG TO REACH THE MOST PEOPLE
AGAINST THE WAR IN THE BAY AREA!
http://www.indybay. org
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Iraq Body Count
For current totals, see our database page.
http://www.iraqbody count.net/ press/pr13. php
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The Cost of War
[Over three-hundred- billion so far...bw]
http://nationalprio rities.org/ index.php? optionfiltered=com_
wrapper&Itemid= 182
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"The Democrats always promise to help workers, and the don't!
The Republicans always promise to help business, and the do!"
- Mort Sahl
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"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
- Emilano Zapata
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Join the Campaign to
Shut Down the Guantanamo Torture Center
Go to:
http://www.shutitdo wn.org/
to send a letter to Congress and the White House:
Shut Down Guantanamo and all torture centers and prisons.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERco alition.org http://www.actionsf .org
sf@internationalans wer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
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"It is reasonable and honorable to abhor violence and preach
against it while there is a visible and rational means of obtaining,
without violence, the indispensable justice for the welfare of man.
But, if convinced by the inevitable differences of character, by the
irreconcilable and different interests, because of the deep diversity
in the sea of the political mind and aspirations, there is not a peaceful
way to obtain the minimum rights of a people (...) or it is the blind
who against the boiling truth sustain peaceful means, or it is those
who doesn't see and insist on proclaiming it that are untrue
to their people."[2]
[2] José Martí " Ciegos y desleales Obras Escogidas in III volumes;
Editorial Política 1981 Volume III p182
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Great Counter-Recruitment Website
http://notyoursoldi er.org/article. php?list= type&type= 14
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DEFEND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS AND
CIVIL RIGHTS!
Last summer the U.S. Border Patrol arrested Shanti Sellz and
Daniel Strauss, both 23-year-old volunteers assisting immigrants
on the border, for medically evacuating 3 people in critical
condition from the Arizona desert.
Criminalization for aiding undocumented immigrants already
exists on the books in the state of Arizona. Daniel and Shanti
are targeted to be its first victims. Their arrest and subsequent
prosecution for providing humanitarian aid could result in
a 15-year prison sentence. Any Congressional compromise
with the Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437) may include these
harmful criminalization provisions. Fight back NOW!
Help stop the criminalization of undocumented immigrants
and those who support them!
For more information call 415-821- 9683.
For information on the Daniel and Shanti Defense Campaign,
visit www.nomoredeaths. org.
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FYI
According to "Minimum Wage History" at
http://oregonstate. edu/instruct/ anth484/minwage. html "
"Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
highest at $9.12. "The 8 dollar per hour Whole Foods employees
are being paid $1.12 less than the 1968 minimum wage.
"A federal minimum wage was first set in 1938. The graph shows
both nominal (red) and real (blue) minimum wage values. Nominal
values range from 25 cents per hour in 1938 to the current $5.15/hr.
The greatest percentage jump in the minimum wage was in 1950,
when it nearly doubled. The graph adjusts these wages to 2005
dollars (blue line) to show the real value of the minimum wage.
Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
highest at $9.12. Note how the real dollar minimum wage rises and
falls. This is because it gets periodically adjusted by Congress.
The period 1997-2006, is the longest period during which the
minimum wage has not been adjusted. States have departed from
the federal minimum wage. Washington has the highest minimum
wage in the country at $7.63 as of January 1, 2006. Oregon is next
at $7.50. Cities, too, have set minimum wages. Santa Fe, New
Mexico has a minimum wage of $9.50, which is more than double
the state minimum wage at $4.35."
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NO BORDERS! NO WALLS! NO FENCES! GENERAL AMNESTY FOR ALL!
OUR HOMELAND IS WHERE WE LIVE!
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REPEAL THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT IN 2007!
Check out: 10 EXCELLENT REASONS NOT TO JOIN THE MILITARY
http://www.10reason sbook.com/
Public Law print of PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind
Act of 2001 [1.8 MB]
http://www.ed. gov/policy/ elsec/leg/ esea02/index. html
Also, the law is up before Congress again in 2007.
See this article from USA Today:
Bipartisan panel to study No Child Left Behind
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
February 13, 2006
http://www.usatoday .com/news/ education/ 2006-02-13- education- panel_x.htm
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The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
http://www.law. indiana.edu/ uslawdocs/ declaration. html
http://www.law. ou.edu/hist/ decind.html
http://www.usconsti tution.net/ declar.html
http://www.indybay. org/news/ 2006/02/1805195. php
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Bill of Rights
http://www.law. cornell.edu/ constitution/ constitution. billofrights. html
http://www.indybay. org/news/ 2006/02/1805182. php
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"The International"
Lots of good information over at Wikipedia, as often the case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale
What I've always found fascinating is the wide variety of translations (or
perhaps it would be better to call them "interpretations" or "variations")
that exist, even in English. It's also fascinating to read all the different
verses of the song.
One thing I learned at Wikipedia is that the original intention was that the
song would be sung to the tune of the Marseillaise, but that shortly
thereafter different music was written. Good thing, in my opinion, I'd hate
to see the identities of two stirring songs be confused. Each deserves their
own place in history.
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