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Watch the video: "Haiti and the Devil's Curse" at:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
It's a powerful and accurate history of Haiti--including historical film footage of French, U.S., Canadian, and UN invasions, mass murder and torture, exploitation and occupation of Haiti--featuring Danny Glover.
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New York Times Video: For Haitian Children, a Crisis Escalates
Front page of the Times today, February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/
This video shows the frustration of doctors that haven't the supplies or equipment to help severely wounded Haitian children. One child, the doctor explains, had her foot amputated by her family in order to free her from the rubble she was buried under. They finally got her to the hospital after two weeks. By then, of course, the wound was infected. But, not having enough antibiotics, her other foot got infected and that had to be amputated. She is still rotting away at the hospital that can't care for her properly--as hard as the doctors are trying--and they are trying hard.
As it stands now--they haven't got the antibiotics and surgical supplies and they can't get the children to a hospital in the U.S. Since the attempted kidnapping of children by the American missionaries, the children are not allowed out of the country without papers--even when accompanied by their parents. The thing is, nobody has papers in Haiti so the parents can't prove it's their child. Nobody has driver's licenses, birth cirtificates--not the parents nor the children--if such proof exists, it's buried under the rubble along with all their other belongings. So, again, the innocent suffer because of the inability/unwillingness of the wealthiest nation in the world to bring the stuff that is needed to the people who need it because they are experts at bringing bombs, daisy-cutters and white phosphorous, not humanitarian aid. ...bw
The article of the same title is:
Paperwork Hinders Airlifts of Ill Haitian Children
By IAN URBINA
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/americas/09airlift.html?ref=world
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Gaza in Plain Language: a video by Anthony Lawson and Joe Mowrey
Anthony Lawson and Joe Mowrey have created an amazing video. The narrative is from an article published not long ago in Dissident Voice written by Mr. Mowrey. [See article with the same name, No. 14, below. A warning, however. This video is very graphic and very brutal but this is a truth we must see!..bw] A video that narrates just what happened, without emotion... just the facts, ma'am! Share it with those you know! Now on PTT TV so Google and YouTube can't censor this information totally.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/video-gaza-in-plain-language/
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STOP SPENDING TRILLIONS ON THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
FOOD NOT GUNS IN HAITI!
U.S. OUT OF IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN!
FREE PALESTINE!
MONEY FOR HEALTHCARE, JOBS AND EDUCATION!
U.S. HANDS OFF LATIN AMERICA!
SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY
SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 11:00 A.M., CIVIC CENTER
GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT MARCH 20!
Call 415-821-6545 for leafleting and posting schedule.
NEXT MARCH 20 COALITION MEETING:
SATURDAY, March 6, 2010, 2:00 P.M.
(Preceded by steering committee at 12 noon)
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
Between 16th and 15th Streets, SF)
For more information call: 415-821-6545
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Educating, Advocating, and Organizing For The Return
Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine @ SDSU, UCSD and USD, and
Al-Awda San Diego, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
One-Day Conference
Saturday February 13, 2010, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Drive, La Mesa, CA 91942
(note change of venue)
Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
LEARN about the Palestinian refugee crisis and what is happening here on the West Coast
The conference will be followed by
Banquet - Celebrating 10 Years of Al-Awda!
When: 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm (doors open 6:00 pm)
SHARE IDEAS
with fellow activists and help empower the right to return movement at large
ACT NOW!
your participation is urgently needed in the months ahead! This is your chance!
One-Day Conference
Saturday February 13, 2010, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Program: Strategy & tactics discussions will include panels on Student Activism, Refugee Support, Media Activism, and preparations for the upcoming Annual International Al-Awda Convention. Speakers will include Dr. Jess Ghannam, Chair of Al-Awda's National Coordinating Committee, Mazen Almoukdad, Al-Awda Refugee Support Activist, Adam Shapiro, activist filmmaker, among others. There will also be a special presentation of personal experience by a Palestinian refugee recently arrived from Al-Waleed camp in Iraq.
For a tentative schedule with more details of the one day conference, visit this page.
Conference is free of charge!!
The conference will be followed by
Banquet - Celebrating 10 Years of Al-Awda!
When: 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm (doors open 6:00 pm)
Banquet Includes: Keynote Address by Dr. Jamal Nassar, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at California State University, San Bernardino; The Second West Coast Regional Dabke Competition; and Delicious Arabic Food (all Halal)
Banquet Dinner Tickets: General $25.00; Student $15.00; Children under 5 free
To get your tickets, please go to http://al-awdacal.org/dinner.html or contact 760-918-9441 Monday to Friday 9 AM to 5 PM
(Please note that attendance at the conference is not required for attendance at the dinner and vice versa)
Sponsorship: We welcome individual and organizational sponsorship of The Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference. All Sponsors will be listed in the printed program of the conference and acknowledged at the Ten Years of Al-Awda Celebration Dinner unless otherwise requested. Underwriters will each also have a table for eight people reserved for them at the Dinner Celebration. For more information, please go to this sponsorship page.
Suggested accommodation for out of town guests see: Hotel circle http://www.hotelcircle.net
Directions to Conference and Banquet: Take the Spring St exit from I-8 E toward El Centro (6.8 miles). Merge onto 13A (85 ft). Slight left to stay on 13A (315 ft). Continue onto Spring Street (0.1 mile). Turn left at University Ave (0.4 miles). Turn left at Memorial Dr.
Parking is free. Plenty available.
For more information, contact:
SJP @ SDSU, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182; Tel: 661-992-3281 email: sjp.sdsu@googlemail.com or Al-Awda San Diego: info@al-awdasandiego.org, Tel: 760-918-9441
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
Email: info@al-awdacal.org
WEB: http://al-awdacal.org
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Frente Colombiano por El Socialismo
FECOPES SAN FRANCISCO PRESENTS
COLOMBIA: NARCO TRAFFIC, PARA MILITARY, GUERILLA, INTERVENTION AND REVOLUTION:
Thursday, February 18, 2010, 7:00 P.M.
474 Valencia Street. (Upstairs in auditorium)
San Francisco, CA 94103
MARIA CRISTINA GUTIERREZ
National representative of Frente Colombiano por El Socialism
Gloria La Riva
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Gloria Castro
Barrio Unido for a General and Unconditional Amnesty
Music by EQUIPTO
From Bored Stiff
Sponsored by: Barrio Unido for a General and Unconditional Amnesty; Frente Colombiano por El Socialism; Party for Socialism and Liberation; ANSWER; BALASC
415-431-9926
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PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE COMMITTEE, LABOR ACTION COMMITTEE AND PRISON RADIO PRESENTS:
FREE 'EM ALL! FREE MUMIA
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 6:30 P.M.
HUMANIST HALL
390 27TH STREET, OAKLAND, CA 94605
SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
PAM AFRICA
Spokeswoman for the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
POCC CHAIRMAN FRED HAMPTON JR.
Founder of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee; Former political prisoner; and son of the assassinated Black Panther leader.
RAMONA AFRICA
Survivor of the 1985 police bomb that was dropped on the MOVE house in Philly; Former political prisoner and member of the MOVE Organization.
POCC MINISTER OF INFORMATION JR
POCC organizer; founder of POCC: Block Report Radio; Associate editor of the San Fransisco Bay View; and one of the last defendants in the Oakland 100 case.
JACK HEYMAN
Executive Board Member, Local 10, of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU); Member of th eLabor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; Organizer of the ILWU West Coast Port Shutdown to Free Mumia on April 24, 1999
Updates from:
PIERRE LABOSSIERRE
Of the Haiti Action Committee
Donations of $10-$1000 (No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.)
There will be a sneak preview of the full-length new film, "OPERATION SMALL AXE," with POCC Minister of Informaiton, JR and Director, Adimu Maoyun on hand...
This event is done in honor of the lifes of freedom fighters Minister Huey P. Newton (Birthday February 17, 1942) and El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Assassination Date, February 21, 1965)
www.blockreportradio.com
www.prisonradio.org
www.sfbayview.com
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RALLY FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE!
Rally at Civic Center in Defense
Of Public Education and All Public-Sector Services!
Thursday, March 4, 5:00 P.M.
The San Francisco Labor Council calls on all labor affiliates, community organizations, and student groups to mobilize their memberships to attend the 5 p.m. rally and demonstration at the San Francisco Civic Center on March 4.
This rally is being organized and sponsored by United Educators of San Francisco, AFT Local 2121, and the California Faculty Association as part of the statewide March 4 Strike/Day of Action in Defense of Public Education that was called by a statewide conference of students, faculty, and staff unions held in Berkeley on October 24, 2009.
Responding to layoffs, furloughs and widespread cutbacks, the October 24 conference summoned all sectors of education to struggle collectively to save public education in California. The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and California Teachers Association (CTA) have endorsed the Day of Action. Massive demonstrations are being organized across the state on March 4.
The San Francisco Labor Council believes that those who work in the education sector should not be placed in competition with state workers, where each fights against the other for scarce funds.
That is why we are urging that California enact a program of progressive taxation. This could ensure that all our communities can thrive. We could create ample funds so that everyone has the opportunity, through quality, accessible education, to fully develop their potential and become productive members of society. And, at the same time, we could establish fully funded social services and job security for public workers.
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Note: UESF is calling on all teacher unionists and K-12 families to gather at 4 p.m. at the State Building on the corner of Van Ness & McAllister, before joining the mass rally at the Civic Center.
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NEXT MARCH 20 COALITION MEETING:
SATURDAY, March 6, 2010, 2:00 P.M.
(Preceded by steering committee at 12 noon)
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
Between 16th and 15th Streets, SF)
For more information call: 415-821-6545
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U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!
FREE PALESTINE!
San Francisco March and Rally
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
11am, Civic Center Plaza
National March on Washington
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fri., March 19 Day of Action & Outreach in D.C.
People from all over the country are organizing to converge on Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, there will be a massive National March & Rally in D.C. A day of action and outreach in Washington, D.C., will take place on Friday, March 19, preceding the Saturday march.
There will be coinciding mass marches on March 20 in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The national actions are initiated by a large number of organizations and prominent individuals. see below)
Click here to become an endorser:
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=5940&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&autologin=true&link=endorse-body-1
Click here to make a donation:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&autologin=true&donate=body-1&JServSessionIdr002=2yzk5fh8x2.app13b
We will march together to say "No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!" We will march together to say "No War for Empire Anywhere!"
Instead of war, we will demand funds so that every person can have a job, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.
March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the criminal war of aggression launched by Bush and Cheney against Iraq. One million or more Iraqis have died. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have lost their lives or been maimed, and continue to suffer a whole host of enduring problems from this terrible war.
This is the time for united action. The slogans on banners may differ, but all those who carry them should be marching shoulder to shoulder.
Killing and dying to avoid the perception of defeat
Bush is gone, but the war and occupation in Iraq still go on. The Pentagon is demanding a widening of the war in Afghanistan. They project an endless war with shifting battlefields. And a "single-payer" war budget that only grows larger and larger each year. We must act.
Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were predicated on the imperial fantasy that the U.S. could create stable, proxy colonial-type governments in both countries. They were to serve as an extension of "American" power in these strategic and resource-rich regions.
That fantasy has been destroyed. Now U.S. troops are being sent to kill or be killed so that the politicians in uniform "the generals and admirals") and those in three-piece suits "our elected officials") can avoid taking responsibility for a military setback in wars that should have never been started. Their military ambitions are now reduced to avoiding the appearance of defeat.
That is exactly what happened in Vietnam! Avoiding defeat, or the perception of defeat, was the goal Nixon and Kissinger set for themselves when they took office in 1969. For this noble cause, another 30,000 young GIs perished before the inevitable troop pullout from Vietnam in 1973. The number of Vietnamese killed between 1969 and 1973 was greater by many hundreds of thousands.
All of us can make the difference - progress and change comes from the streets and from the grassroots.
The people went to the polls in 2008, and the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
But it should now be obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change - on any front - is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country. These corporate interests work around the clock to frustrate efforts for real change, and they are the guiding hand behind the recent street mobilizations of the ultra-right.
It is up to us to act. If people had waited for politicians to do the right thing, there would have never been a Civil Rights Act, or unions, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war or any of the profound social achievements and basic rights that people cherish.
It is time to be back in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up in cities and towns throughout the country.
We must raise $50,000 immediately just to get started. Please make your contribution today. We need to reserve buses, which are expensive $1,800 from NYC, $5,000 from Chicago, etc.). We have to print 100,000 leaflets, posters and stickers. There will be other substantial expenses as March 20 draws closer.
Please become an endorser and active supporter of the March 20 National March on Washington.
Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible donation today. We can't do this without your active support.
The initiators of the March 20 National March on Washington preceded by the March 19 Day of Action and Outreach in D.C.) include: the ANSWER Coalition; Muslim American Society Freedom; National Council of Arab Americans; Cynthia McKinney; Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective; Ramsey Clark; Cindy Sheehan; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Deborah Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild; Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the 4th of July"; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Col. Ann Wright ret.); March Forward!; Partnership for Civil Justice; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Alliance for Global Justice; Claudia de la Cruz, Pastor, Iglesia San Romero de Las Americas-UCC; Phil Portluck, Social Justice Ministry, Covenant Baptist Church, D.C.; Blase & Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico; Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos; Comites de Base FMLN, Los Angeles; Free Palestine Alliance; GABRIELA Network; Justice for Filipino American Veterans; KmB Pro-People Youth; Students Fight Back; Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - LA Chapter; LEF Foundation; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Community Futures Collective; Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival; Companeros del Barrio; Barrio Unido for Full and Unconditional Amnesty, Bay Area United Against War.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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The US Social Forum II
" June 22-26, 2010 "
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Another World Is Possible! Another US is Necessary!
http://www.ussf2010.org/
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Glen Ford on Black Delusion in the Age of Obama
[A speech delivered to the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations conference. This is a great speech full of information.]
blackisbackcoalition.org
http://blip.tv/file/3169123
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NYT VIDEO:
Security in an Insecure Land
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/30/world/americas/1247466794033/security-in-an-insecure-land.html?hp
What the US/UN police and military are doing in Haiti -- really.
This video takes us to the poorest section of Port-au-Prince, Cité Soleil. It looks like a giant concentration camp in the middle of a desert. The UN Police caravan have nothing with them but cameras and guns! People--men, women, children, are standing alongside the road begging for help. They say they have had no help at all since the earthquake.
The UN police bring NO AID with them. No food, water--nothing! Then the police, guarded by soldiers with automatic weapons, and their camera stop among a large group of people. The UN cop, Alix Sainvil, a Haitian-American United Nations police officer who worked to secure Cité Soleil before the earthquake, is talking to the camera; he explains that since the jail collapsed and prisoners escaped after the earthquake, he worried about how the "gangs" are taking over again.
The camera pans the faces of ALL the men.
One "gang member" (synonym "male") overhears what Soleil is saying to the camera and speaks up and says, "Even if your not a looter, when you walk past a store police will just shoot you for no reason. That's the only thing you do!" That, of course, designates him a "gang member."
The cop, Soleil, says as they are driving away, "that young man is a 'troublemaker.'"
This video illustrates just what the UN has been doing in Haiti. They have been patrolling these slums with automatic weapons and targeting anyone who shows any signs of resistance to the deplorable state of poverty they live in. It is a heinous atrocity orchestrated by the U.S.!
Haiti is US/UN occupied territory now. AND THEY STILL HAVEN'T GIVEN OUT ANY MEANINGFUL AMOUNTS OF AID! They typically pull up with one-tenth of the supplies needed so that most go hungry and get nothing but their fury ignited. And who the hell wouldn't be furious? This is Katrina in powers of ten!
In another article in the Times, "Food Distribution Retooled; Americans Arrested," by DAMIEN CAVE, (number 19, below) "After two weeks of often chaotic food distribution, the United Nations announced plans on Saturday for a coupon-based system that aims to give rice to 10,000 Haitians a day at each of 16 locations around Port-au-Prince." (The article points out that the rice will be given to women only.)
AFTER TWO WEEKS THEY WILL BEGIN THIS WEEK?!?!? I guess they're thinking it'll be cheaper in the long run if more people die first. And that's the bottom line for this government! By the way, the ten Americans were arrested by the Haitian government for trying to take 33 Haitian children across into the Dominican Republic for "adoption." The thing is, they had no proof the children were orphans. I wonder how much they were going to charge for them?
--Bonnie Weinstein
Also see:
Haitian Law Enforcement Returns
The Haitian police are back on patrol in Port-au-Prince.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/world/americas/1194811622209/index.html#1247466794033
Haitians Scramble for Aid
France24 reports on desperate Haitians trying to get some aid food in the Cité Soleil district of Port-au-Prince.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/world/americas/1194811622209/index.html#1247466794033
HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY? EVIDENTLY THEIR PENCHANT FOR MORE AND MORE EGREGIOUS CRIMES ARE LIMITLESS! IT'S UP TO US TO STOP THEM! U.S. OUT OF HAITI NOW! LEAVE THE FOOD AND SUPPLIES AND GET THE HELL OUT! AND TAKE YOUR MARINES, GUNS AND TANKS WITH YOU!
U.S. Marines prevent the distribution of food to starving people due to "lack of security." They bring a truck full of supplies then, because their chain of command says they haven't enough men with guns, they drive away with the truckload of food leaving the starving Haitians running after the truck empty-handed! This is shown in detail in the video in the New York Times titled, "Confusion in Haitian Countryside." The Marines-the strong, the brave--turn tail and run! INCAPABLE, EVEN, OF DISTRIBUTING FOOD TO UNARMED, STARVING, MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN!
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/22/world/americas/1247466678828/confusion-in-the-haitian-countryside.html?ref=world
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Lost Generation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
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Sign the petition. Drop the charges against Alexis Hutchinson!
"...four separate court martial charges have been brought against Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single parent with a one-year old son, who missed deployment in early November 2009 when her childcare plan fell through at the last moment, due to circumstances beyond her control."
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/811/1/
Cuba establishes hospital in Port-au-Prince
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/01/17/kastenbaum.haiti.la.paz.hosp.cnn
Disputes emerge over Haiti aid control
[THIS IS A MUST-SEE VIDEO. U.S. AID IS MILITARY OCCUPATION...BW]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F5TwEK24sA&feature=player_embedded
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
To: President Barack Obama
WE THE UNDERSIGNED petition you to speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all the men, women and children facing execution around the world. This ultimate form of punishment is unacceptable in a civilized society and undermines human dignity. (U.N. General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 62/149, Dec. 18, 2007; reaffirmed, Resolution 63/168, Dec. 18, 2008.)
Mr. Abu-Jamal, a renowned black journalist and author, has been on Pennsylvania's death row for nearly three decades. Even though you do not have direct control over his fate as a state death-row inmate, we ask that you as a moral leader on the world stage call for a global moratorium on the death penalty in his and all capital cases. Mr. Abu-Jamal has become a global symbol, the "Voice of the Voiceless", in the struggle against capital punishment and human-rights abuses. There are over 20,000 awaiting execution around the globe, with over 3,000 on death rows in the United States.
The 1982 trial of Mr. Abu-Jamal was tainted by racism, and occurred in Philadelphia which has a history of police corruption and discrimination. Amnesty International, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, "determined that numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings. [T]he interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal. The trial should fully comply with international standards of justice and should not allow for the reimposition of the death penalty." (A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
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Alert! New Threat To Mumia's Life!
Supreme Court Set To Announce A Decision
On the State Appeal To Reinstate Mumia's Death Sentence
17 January 2010
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
Mumia Abu-Jamal, an innocent man on death row and the world's best-known political prisoner, now faces an immediate new threat to his life from the US Supreme Court. The Court ruled last year on Mumia's appeal, by summarily refusing to even consider a reversal of his unjust 1982 murder conviction in a blatantly racist court. And last week, the Supreme Court discussed a cross-appeal by the State of Pennsylvania to reinstate Mumia's death sentence, which had been put on hold by a federal court in 2001. A ruling could be announced as early as Tuesday this week.
It would be an illusion to expect good news. Supporters should stay tuned, and be prepared to participate in actions to free Mumia!
The Vendetta Against Mumia
In making it's flat-out rejection of Mumia's appeal (which it did without making any statement), the Supreme Court had to knowingly violate its own precedent in the 1986 Batson v Kentucky decision. This ruling famously said that purging a jury on the basis of race was unconstitutional. In Mumia's case, at least 10 black jurors were excluded for reasons not applied to their white counterparts. Under Batson, such violations require that the conviction be thrown out!
But this was Mumia Abu-Jamal, the falsely accused "cop killer." And while evidence of his innocence has always been available, along with evidence of the corruption of the cops who framed him, Mumia is the object of a world-wide vendetta led by the Fraternal Order of Police and numerous pundits and politicians. So an exception was made.
The Spisak Case
Meanwhile, the 2001 federal district court decision (besides upholding Mumia's conviction) said that Mumia's death sentence resulted from improper instructions to the jury. The trial judge's instructions to the jury on sentencing had said that a decision had to be unanimous, even on mitigating factors that could result in a sentence of life in prison, instead of death. This violated another Supreme Court precedent, Mills v Maryland, which held that such mitigating factors required only a simple majority.
After tossing out Mumia's appeal in 2009, the Court took it's time on the State's cross-appeal, because another case, Smith v Spisak, dealt with the same issue of jury instructions in sentencing. Frank Spisak is a neo-Nazi who made racist statements in court, wore a Hitler mustache, and confessed to three hate-crime murders in Ohio. The two cases could hardly be more different, yet appeals courts threw out death sentences in both on the basis of the Mills decision. But now, on January 12th, the Supreme Court has reinstated Spisak's death sentence. The decision on Mumia followed shortly thereafter, and the implications are clear. The Spisak decision could open the door to what the cops, courts and ruling class generally want to do most: legally murder Mumia!
The Supreme Court said Mills didn't apply to Spisak for various reasons (that don't seem to apply to Mumia), but the legal ins and outs aren't the point. The point is that the entire legal system is at the service not of the law, but of power in society.
As Mumia Abu-Jamal said in a recent interview, "[Spisak's] case differs from mine substantially, not just in terms of facts, but also in terms of law. But the law is the tool of those in power, so how they use it doesn't depend on the law; it depends on power."
(-Free Speech Radio News, 15 January 2010).
The Question of Innocence!
As an award-winning radical journalist, former Black Panther, and critic of police brutality and malfeasance, Mumia Abu-Jamal is considered an enemy of the state. As such, legal decisions have systematically gone against him, regardless of the law. Batson is only one example of this "Mumia exception."
Manufacturing false confessions, planting evidence, corrupting "witnesses" to say they saw what they didn't see--all of these "illegal" tricks were used against Mumia. The real evidence points to Mumia's innocence, including another man who confessed, witnesses who said Mumia didn't shoot anybody but who were never called to testify, and photos of the crime scene that show that police lied. But very little of this has ever been heard in court.
Rather than follow the "law," the criminal justice system follows a simple rule: "If we want to get you, we will." The US Supreme Court (Herrera v Collins), and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (signed by Bill Clinton in 1996), have effectively said: innocence is no defense!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has never thought that calling for a new trial, or appealing to the US Justice Department to right the wrongs that they helped create, were anything more than distractions, getting in the way of a mass, working-class movement to free Mumia.
Mumia is a class-war prisoner, and it will take a class struggle to free him: that was position of longshore workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) when they shut down all the ports on the West Coast in 1999, and headed the march in San Francisco, to free Mumia. Oakland teachers, and teachers in Rio de Janeiro Brazil also took work actions to support Mumia. Only this kind of working-class action, combined with mass mobilizations, can defeat a determined frame-up by cops, courts and politicians. Mumia Abu-Jamal is now in imminent danger of a new execution order, so the need for action is urgent. For workers action to free Mumia!
Stay in touch for demonstration details this week.
Visit our newly-rebuilt and updated web site for background information on Mumia's innocence. See the "What You Can Do Now" page: www.laboractionmumia.org
- The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
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Urgent action needed to stop executions in CA
By Stephanie Faucher, Death Penalty Focus
January 8, 2009
stefanie@deathpenalty.org
Dear supporters,
Please take action today to stop executions from resuming in California. This is very urgent, without your help executions could occur in the near future.
Both Californians and non-Californians are encouraged to take action.
Letters must be received by January 20, 2010 at 5pm PDT.
BACKGROUND:
On January 4, 2010, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) proposed minor revisions to its lethal injection procedures in the form of amendments to its previously proposed procedures. CDCR set a fifteen-day comment period ending January 20, 2010 at 5:00 p.m. during which the public can submit written comments on the proposed amendments.
The amended regulations, which are virtually identical to the regulations proposed in May 2009, can be found here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=DsL2ekA4m2nB2qSfspkiCinFkqj%2BKN3u
The above link contains only those regulations that were amended. To see the full text of the proposed regulations proposed in May 2009, go to this link:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NHU2PZL0sQWgLuC6BWt%2BfynFkqj%2BKN3u
TAKE ACTION:
We have created a draft letter which you can personalize and send here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1988
A separate letter will also be sent the Governor of California.
Thank you for taking action!
BAUAW responds:
Here is the letter I wrote as a representative of BAUAW:
I oppose the racist death penalty to its very core. There is no "humanitarian" way to murder someone. It's barbaric.
Already so many who have been on death row for decades have been proven to be innocent victims of gross forensic mistakes or blatant police frame-ups.
The poor are routinely afforded inferior and indifferent legal services that serve mainly as a go-between the prosecution and accused. It can hardly be called legal defense.
Justice is not served equally or fairly in the United States. Most other nations have done away with the death penalty. Here our "great minds of justice" debate the best way to kill.
Under these concrete circumstances, instead of limiting the appeals process for prisoners, the justice system should bend over backwards to hear and re-hear the evidence and set free those who have been convicted unfairly.
Death should never be our conscious choice as a nation.
I am also very concerned about the newly revised lethal injection procedures.
In particular, I have the following concerns:
* The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) added a news article from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat to the rulemaking file. The article mentions that the original creator of the three-drug lethal injection formula has suggested ways to reform the process, including keeping up with changing drugs and science and proper training of lethal injection team members. The recent experience of Romell Broom in Ohio reinforces a point raised in the article, that botched executions are a real possibility, especially in California, due to the limited training of the lethal injection team members and California's repeated failure to meaningfully change its protocol.
* CDCR's amended regulations continue to be wholly inadequate and inapplicable to female condemned inmates. The regulations now specify that a female condemned inmate shall be transported to San Quentin no sooner than 72 hours and no later than six hours prior to the scheduled execution, but contain no provisions to implement the required 45-day chronology of events prior to her arrival at San Quentin. CDCR also fails to address how and if the female condemned inmate will be in contact with her family members and her legal team during her transport, which may take place on the same day as her scheduled execution.
* Contrary to CDCR's claim, the amended regulations continue to treat the condemned prisoner's witnesses differently than the victim's witnesses. The victim's family is allowed an unlimited number of witnesses at the execution, whereas the prisoner scheduled to die is limited to five individuals other than her or his spiritual adviser. In the event of lack of space, the victim's family is provided with the option of remote viewing of the execution, while the same option is not extended to the inmate's family.
*The distinction drawn between Chaplains and "approved" Spiritual Advisors is confusing and it is unclear how and when a person may become a "pre-approved" Spiritual Advisor.
I expect that you will take these concerns very seriously.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War, bauaw.org
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The Pay at the Top
The compensation research firm Equilar compiled data reflecting pay for 200 chief executives at 198 public companies that filed their annual proxies by March 27 and had revenue of at least $6.3 billion. (Two companies, Motorola and Synnex, had co-C.E.O.'s.) | See a detailed description of the methodology.
http://projects.nytimes.com/executive_compensation?ref=business
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AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8
The Unemployment Game Show: Are You *Really* Unemployed? - From Mint.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu3SCAmeBA
Video: Gaza Lives On
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU5Wi2jhnW0
ASSESSMENT - "LEFT IN THE COLD"- CROW CREEK - 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmfue_pjwho&feature=PlayList&p=217F560F18109313&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5
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Tom Zaniello is a living, walking encyclopedia of films about labour.
I heard him speak at a conference once, but it wasn't so much a speech as a high-speed tour through dozens of film clips, lovingly selected, all aiming to make a point.
I don't know anyone who knows more about cinema and the labour movement than he does.
And Working Stiffs, Union Maids, Reds, and Riffraff: An expanded guide to films about labor is his, well, encyclopedia about the subject.
It's a 434 page guide to 350 labour films from around the world, ranging from those you've heard of - Salt of the Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, Roger & Me - to those you've never heard of but will fall in love with once you see them.
Zaniello describes all the films in detail, tells you whether they're available for rental or purchase, and, if so, where.
Fiction and nonfiction, the films are about unions, labour history, working-class life, political movements, and the struggle between labour and capital.
Each entry includes critical commentary, production data, cast list, suggested related films, and annotated references to books and Web sites for further reading.
If you want to know more about labour films, buy this book.
And remember that every copy you purchase helps support LabourStart.
Thanks very much.
Eric Lee
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Letter from Lynne Stewart from behind bars:
Dear Sisters and Brothers, Friends and Supporters:
Well the moment we all hoped would never come is upon us. Good bye to a good cup of coffee in the morning, a soft chair, the hugs of grandchildren and the smaller pleasures in life. I must say I am being treated well and that is due to my lawyer team and your overwhelming support.
While I have received "celebrity" treatment here in MCC - high visibility - conditions for the other women are deplorable. Medical care, food, education, recreation are all at minimal levels. If it weren't for the unqualified bonds of sisterhood and the commissary it would be even more dismal.
My fellow prisoners have supplied me with books and crosswords, a warm it is cold in here most of the time) sweat shirt and pants, treats from the commissary, and of course, jailhouse humor. Most important many of them know of my work and have a deep reservoir of can I say it? Respect.
I continue to both answer the questions put to me by them, I also can't resist commenting on the T.V. news or what is happening on the floor - a little LS politics always! Smile) to open hearts and minds!
Liz Fink, my lawyer leader, believes I will be here at MCC-NY for a while - perhaps a year before being moved to prison. Being is jail is like suddenly inhabiting a parallel universe but at least I have the luxury of time to read! Tomorrow I will get my commissary order which may include an AM/FM Radio and be restored to WBAI and music classical and jazz).
We are campaigning to get the bladder operation scheduled before I came in to MCC) to happen here in New York City. Please be alert to the website I case I need some outside support.
I want to say that the show of support outside the Courthouse on Thursday as I was "transported" is so cherished by me. The broad organizational representation was breathtaking and the love and politics expressed the anger too) will keep me nourished through this.
Organize - Agitate, Agitate, Agitate! And write to me and others locked down by the Evil Empire.
Love Struggle, Lynne Stewart
FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
For further information contact: Jeff Mackler, Coordinator, West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
SEND RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT TO DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOSHUA L. DRATEL, ESQ. FAX: 212) 571 3792 AND EMAIL: jdratel@aol.com
SEND PROTESTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
Lynne Stewart speaks in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQ5_VKRf5k&feature=related
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With a New Smile, 'Rage' Fades Away [SINGLE PAYER NOW!!!]
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/08/health/20091208_Clinic/index.html?ref=us
FTA [F**k The Army] Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HlkgPCgU7g
Jon Stewart: Obama Is Channeling Bush VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/jon-stewart-obama-is-chan_n_378283.html
US anti-war activists protest
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/12/200912283650408132.html
Buffy Sainte Marie - No No Keshagesh
[Keshagesh is the Cree word to describe a greedy puppy that wants to keep eating everything, a metaphor for corporate greed]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmAb1gNN74&feature=player_embedded#
Buffy Sainte-Marie - No No Keshagesh lyrics:
http://www.lyricsmode.com/?i=print_lyrics&id=705368
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The Tar Sands Blow
Hi -
I just signed the Tar Sands Blow petition -- and I hope you'll do the same.
The Canadian tar sands produce the dirtiest oil on earth -- including five times the greenhouse gases of conventional oil. World leaders meet next month in Copenhagen to deal with climate change. Sign the petition -- so that we all don't get a raw deal.
http://ien.thetarsandsblow.org/
The Story of Mouseland: As told by Tommy Douglas in 1944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAA
The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Cartoons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUl4yfABE4
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HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501c)3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Doctor and Patient
When the Patient Can't Afford the Care
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
February 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/health/04chen.html?ref=health
2) Reports: AIG to pay out $100 million in bonuses
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wed Feb 3, 7:05 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100203/ap_on_bi_ge/us_aig_bonuses
3) Tom Condit Dies - Socialist, frequent Candidate
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 4, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/04/BADR1BQ9MQ.DTL
4) Turkey - Life will stop in Turkey on February 4th to support the resisting TEKEL workers' struggle! 6 Labor Confederations reach agreement to participate in the general strike!
February 3, 2010
http://www.sendika.org/english/yazi.php?yazi_no=29079
5) We Won't Sit By while the Bankers and Militarists Plunder this Country
and Send our Loved Ones to Fight in a War for Empire!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Statement
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
6) Marines brace for new push in southern Afghanistan
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 3, 2010; 11:25 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020300564.html?sub=AR27)
7) Military Officials Say Afghan Fight Is Coming
"There will be a big clearance operation and we will separate the civilian population from the insurgents," General Azimi said. "As I've said many times before, we will have a bloody summer ahead."
By ROD NORDLAND
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04taliban.html?ref=world
8) Time Is Running Out
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/opinion/06herbert.html
9) Goldman Chief's Bonus Seen by Some as Show of Restraint
"...Goldman Sachs disclosed late Friday that its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, would receive an annual bonus valued at $9 million... While most people can only dream of such a reward, the news was widely seen on Wall Street as a show of restraint... The current award must, however, be put in the context of his past compensation - in 2006 he received $53.4 million, and the firm said that since 2000 he has received $181.5 million in total salary and bonus, though he has cashed out only part of it."
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and ERIC DASH
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06bonus.html?hp
10) Haiti Hospital's Fight Against TB Falls to One Man
By IAN URBINA
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/world/americas/06tuberculosis.html?ref=world
11) Afghans Mistaken for Militants Killed
By DEXTER FILKINS
February 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/asia/07afghan.html?ref=world
12) Women Now a Majority in American Workplaces
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/economy/06women.html?ref=business
13) Bleak Portrait of Haiti Orphanages Raises Fears
"'So many women do not have jobs. They do not have land to grow food for their children. If their choice is to watch their children starve or give them away, they are going to give them away, and hope that they have put them in good hands.' Either way, the decision is heart-wrenching for parent and child. Stanley Vixamar, 10, cried through the night on his first night at the Foyer of Patience. 'I wanted to stay with my mother even though our house has fallen down,' he said. 'I love her.'"
By GINGER THOMPSON
February 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/americas/07trafficking.html?hp
14) Gaza in Plain Language
By Joe Mowrey
January 19, 2010
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/gaza-in-plain-language/
Video: Gaza in Plain Language: a video by Anthony Lawson and Joe Mowrey
February 8, 2010
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/video-gaza-in-plain-language/
15) University of Sussex Occupation
Get the latest at http://defendsussex.wordpress.com or
https://twitter.com/sussexnocuts
Press contact:
Solomon Schonfield
Telephone: 07906 565 925
Email: sussexstopthecuts100@googlemail.com
16) Fake Food Coupons Present U.N. With New Haiti Problem
[This is proof positive that the most wealthy nation in the world with 20,000 troops on the ground along with UN and Canadian troops cannot or are not willing to bring enough food-not even enough rice-to feed the starving masses in Haiti. They are, however, very capable of delivering bombs anywhere at a moments notice from across the globe, or send men to the moon, but they can't deliver food? Their method of food distribution is unconscionable. They bring in enough for a tiny minority of those in need at a time creating desperation among those thousands who must go empty handed. Men-all men in Haiti-are systematically criminalized by police and occupation forces and the media at every opportunity. This is Katrina in powers of ten! ...BW]
By MARC LACEY
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/americas/09haiti.html?ref=world
17) After Buying Spree, China Owns Stakes in Top U.S. Firms
By DAVID BARBOZA and KEITH BRADSHER
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/business/global/09invest.html?ref=business
18) The Worst of the Pain
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/opinion/09herbert.html
19) Paperwork Hinders Airlifts of Ill Haitian Children
By IAN URBINA
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/americas/09airlift.html?ref=world
20) Japanese Split on Exposing Secret Pacts With U.S.
By MARTIN FACKLER
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/asia/09japan.html?ref=world
21) For Obama, Nuance on Race Invites Questions
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/us/politics/09race.html?ref=us
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1) Doctor and Patient
When the Patient Can't Afford the Care
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
February 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/health/04chen.html?ref=health
During my training, I took care of a man in his 50s with a devastating surgical complication: His abdominal incision had split open a week after an emergency operation. Even after we had taken him back to the operating room, sewn the deepest layer of his abdominal wall closed and treated the infection that had caused his wound to fall apart in the first place, he still had a three-inch long crevice along the middle of his belly. Until the edges contracted and the gaping expanse filled in on its own, he and his wife would have to pack damp gauze into the wound every day to keep it clean and help it heal.
But on a visit a few weeks after his discharge from the hospital, I noticed that the gauze had been packed more loosely and changed less frequently than we had instructed. What should have been white and fluffy looked dried and yellowed, and his wound was no longer clean and healthy but covered with crusty patches.
When I started to lecture him on the importance of dressing changes, he leaned over to interrupt. "Hey, Doc," he said, pointing to the pile of unopened gauze I had brought into the room to re-dress his wound. "Do you think I could have the extra? This stuff isn't cheap."
My patient had been cutting back on the gauze and changing the dressing less often because he couldn't afford the supplies. And while I had been careful to recite the science behind the treatments, I had no idea how much he had to pay or if he could afford the expense.
As I stuffed a few packages into my patient's pocket, I realized that in the busy day-to-day pursuit of becoming a good doctor, I had telescoped in on the clinical details, neglecting my once-cherished ideal to embrace the social and economic aspects of health care. By the time I was in residency, as was so apparent that afternoon, I had completely lost touch with my patient's economic reality.
I believed that being a good doctor meant knowing the clinical facts down cold. And I somehow had led myself to believe that it would've taken much more time and effort to pay closer attention to those other details.
It was as if there had to be some kind of trade-off.
But I was wrong, on two counts. It was possible to learn about the economic and social aspects of health care while immersed in the details of biology, physiology and pharmacology. And it was impossible to become a good clinician without doing so.
Last fall the journal Academic Medicine reported that the vast majority of students felt they had received adequate clinical training during their four years of schooling. But fewer than half felt they had had adequate exposure to health care systems and practice, an area of study that extends to subjects like medical economics, managed care, practice management and medical record-keeping.
When the researchers compared the five-year results from two medical schools, they found that students who had attended the school with more of these types of courses were significantly more satisfied with their education than students from the school with fewer. Moreover, regardless of how much of their school's curriculum was devoted to these nonclinical topics, students remained equally satisfied with their clinical preparation.
"If you only have one system, one payer and one set of hospitals in your country, there's not much you need to know about health care systems," said Dr. Matthew Davis, an associate professor of pediatrics, internal medicine and public policy at the University of Michigan and the senior author of the study. "But when you have hundreds of insurance plans and thousands of insurance groups and different hospitals, you have to be really smart about the health care system.
"Our findings suggest that we are not preparing them nearly as well for that challenge as we are for their clinical work."
What was surprising to the researchers was how relatively little time was required to train students in these broader health care issues. "There was a difference of maybe 16 or 17 lectures" between the two schools, said Dr. Mitesh S. Patel, lead author and a resident in the internal medicine training program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. "But the impact on how properly people felt they were being trained was dramatic."
That impact on students' perceptions and the kind of care they offer is obvious to Madelon L. Finkel, a professor of clinical public health at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, who has led medical students in a required two-week intensive course on the health care system since its inception a decade ago.
"The course opens their eyes to issues they haven't been focusing on," Dr. Finkel said. "At the beginning, I always ask if students routinely ask their patients about drug coverage. But none of them ever does."
The goal of the course, which includes discussions and lectures, as well as mornings spent with officials at various hospital systems, health care organizations and government agencies, is to have all the students asking questions like that one and "understanding the complexities of being a doctor."
Learning about the economics and practice of health care does not always require separate courses; educators can have the same kind of impact by integrating the lessons into the standard medical curriculum. "Oftentimes," Dr. Davis observed, "people look at a curriculum in terms of time rather than ideas." But a discussion about a new group of high blood pressure medications can include not only biochemistry and pharmacology but also health care costs and outcomes research.
"These are incredibly important topics," said Dr. John E. Prescott, chief academic officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges, the group that has sponsored the national questionnaire used by the researchers. "Physicians knowing about the system and the environment in which they work allows them to be better doctors. And that in turn allows them to take better care of their patients."
"It's a pay-off," Dr. Davis added, "not a trade-off."
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2) Reports: AIG to pay out $100 million in bonuses
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wed Feb 3, 7:05 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100203/ap_on_bi_ge/us_aig_bonuses
NEW YORK - American International Group Inc. is set to pay out about $100 million in a fresh round of bonuses to employees of its financial products division, the unit whose risky bets helped sink the company leading to a $180 billion government bailout, according to reports published Tuesday.
AIG agreed to cut the retention bonuses by $20 million but will still hand out $100 million Wednesday, The New York Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the negotiations.
The Washington Post, also citing people familiar with the situation, said the retention payments are for employees at the division who agreed to accept 10 to 20 percent less than AIG had initially promised them two years ago. In return, they are getting their money more than a month ahead of schedule.
AIG is still due to pay out tens of millions of dollars more in March, mostly to former employees who did not agree to the concessions, the Post reported.
A message was left with an AIG spokesman seeking comment.
New York-based AIG faced intense public and Congressional criticism last March when it paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in retention bonuses to employees months after receiving the government bailout.
When the credit crisis hit in the fall of 2008, the U.S. government rescued AIG from the brink of collapse in exchange for an 80 percent stake in the insurer. AIG's near collapse was not due to its traditional insurance operations, but instead risky derivatives contracts written by the financial products division.
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3) Tom Condit Dies - Socialist, frequent Candidate
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 4, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/04/BADR1BQ9MQ.DTL
A celebration will be held in June to honor Berkeley resident Tom Condit, a lifelong socialist and founding member of California's Peace and Freedom Party who ran several times for public office.
Mr. Condit died Jan. 9 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland of prostate cancer. He was 72.
John Thomas Condit was born June 17, 1937, in Spokane, Wash. His father was a newspaper journalist and the family moved frequently as he chased jobs around the country. They were often poor, said Mr. Condit's wife, Marsha Feinland, and Tom Condit picked fruit in the summer.
Mr. Condit began college at UC Santa Barbara but soon found that he couldn't afford to attend, so he joined the Marines. After being discharged he joined the Young People's Socialist League in New York. He held a leadership position in the Students for a Democratic Society. He headed west to Berkeley in the mid-1960s and became involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, among others.
He attended Merritt College, San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley on the GI Bill, Feinland said, "but never received a degree because there was always a protest to organize."
In the late 1960s, Mr. Condit helped to get the Peace and Freedom Party on the ballot in California. He ran under its banner for state insurance commissioner three times, as well as for Assembly and state Senate. In 1984, he ran for president, but lost in the party's primary.
Over the years, Mr. Condit worked in an Oakland cannery, drove a cab and typed documents in a law office. But he was always advocating for working people and supported a single-payer health care system for decades. Feinland said he viewed the current health care legislation before Congress as "a gift to the insurance companies."
Mr. Condit met Feinland, a schoolteacher, at a socialist convention in 1984. They married in 1992.
In 2007, for a reunion of the Young People's Socialist League, Mr. Condit wrote a memoir that was recently reposted by Solidarity, a socialist organization, at www.solidarity-us.org.
"In the past 50 years, I have seen the socialist movement decline on a world-wide scale," Mr. Condit wrote. "At the same time, the need for one has never been greater. The capitalist class is greedier, more violent and more destructive of both humanity and the earth than ever before, and shows no sign of improving despite all the 'greenwashing' corporations are rushing to give themselves.
"We need more than ever to build a movement capable of putting an end to capitalism and building a new society based on cooperation, democracy and sharing," he wrote.
He is survived by his wife, Feinland of Berkeley; his stepson, Ian Grimes of San Francisco; his brother, Colin Condit of Vancouver, British Columbia; his sister, Constance Condit, and her partner, Kathleen McCall of Claremont (Los Angeles County); and his stepmother, Geraldine Irby of Surrey, British Columbia.
Memorial contributions can be made to Haiti Emergency Relief Fund/EBSC, 2362 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94704, or to Feinland for Senate, 2124 Kittredge St., No. 66, Berkeley, CA 94704. A June celebration of Mr. Condit's life is being planned. Details will be made available at www.peaceandfreedom.org.
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4) Turkey - Life will stop in Turkey on February 4th to support the resisting TEKEL workers' struggle! 6 Labor Confederations reach agreement to participate in the general strike!
February 3, 2010
http://www.sendika.org/english/yazi.php?yazi_no=29079
The entire labor union confederations agreed on a joint general strike to support the heroic struggle of the public TEKEL workers who are fighting against contracting out their jobs. In solidarity with this historic event, entire progressive trade associations, student organizations, democratic mass organizations and political parties will join forces with labor against privatizations and against the IMF and World Bank mandates, government take aways and neo liberal policies of the Islamic, pro-US Turkish government.
Massive rallies and demonstrations will be held in every corner of the country from east to west protesting the attacks of neo liberalism and free market policies imposed by imperialism and implemented by the "moderate" Islamic government of Justice and Development Party (JDP) of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
In Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey with a population above 12 million, due to the expected massive participation, there will be two rallies which will march across the city to merge at Sarachane Park around 1:00 PM.
In the nation's capital, Ankara, there will be several marches starting from various points. Each march will follow one of the major roads so that the entire capital will be covered with protests and demonstrations during this day of strike and protest. While the office workers meet at Ulus, the old downtown of Ankara, the health care workers will gather at Hacettepe Hospital that is located between the old and the new parts of Ankara. Labor Unions of Turk-Is, the largest confederation, will meet at the Confederation offices and start the march to meet the rest of the demonstrators. The president of Turk-Is, Mustafa Kumlu, is expected to give a speech at around 11:00 AM.
No trains, no planes
The union of airline workers, Hava-Is, in a written statement called for work stoppage across all its members. The statement reads, "Our members will exercise their right to stop work on February 4 by not being present at their work places. This action will cover all work shifts between 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM and 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. We invite our entire membership to be at Edirnekapi meeting place at 11:00 AM and participate in the massive press conference."
The Joint Transportation Union BTS also called for a strike between 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and announced that the trains will not be running during these hours.
Call to strike from labor organizations
KESK, the Confederation of Public Workers' Unions, in a statement said, "To take such an action, the government must be thinking that they can simply get rid of the workers and that no one will support them,. The TEKEL workers lit a torch against the darkness of this government. We will not let this torch burn out. We will show our solidarity and determination with a one day strike on February 4th."
The president of The Chamber of Engineers and Architects of Turkey, Mehmet Soganci promised to be on the streets with all the members on February 4th.
In another statement, Kamu-Sen, the public workers' union announced the decision to stop work for a day on February 4th.
Joint call from 17 Health Organizations
17 health organizations including the Association of Pharmacists, The Chamber of Physicians of Turkey, Progressive Health Workers' Union, and Healthcare Labor Union announced a joint call to support the TEKEL workers and urged all workers to use their power. The announcement read, "Everybody knows, that is, all the unemployed, all the poor, all public and private workers know that when it comes to using the resources of this country, they know no limits for their own ilk. However, when people need these resources, suddenly nothing is available. The entire health care workers are very much aware of this fact. Therefore we declare that on February 4th, the healthcare workers will join forces with others not only for the TEKEL workers, but also for themselves and for the entire poor and working class of this country."
Sendika.Org
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5) We Won't Sit By while the Bankers and Militarists Plunder this Country
and Send our Loved Ones to Fight in a War for Empire!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Statement
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
The outrage continues and gets worse.
When tens of thousands march in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles on March 20 - we are going to tie together the issue of endless war and skyrocketing unemployment and poverty.
If we don't act, no one will.
Consider these scandalous facts:
--Today, the Pentagon announced that tens of thousands of Marines are invading the southern provinces of Afghanistan in the next few days. General Barry McCaffrey predicts 300-500 killed and wounded each month in the next few months. The generals never bother talking about the loss of Afghan lives.
--Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Gates submitted the largest military budget in U.S. history. The $708 billion includes nearly $500 million each day for Iraq and Afghanistan.
--Hours later, the bankrupt insurance giant AIG announced that it was doling out $100 million more in bonuses. AIG exists because it received $180 billion in taxpayers' bailout. The federal government received an 80 percent share in AIG, which means Obama's Treasury Secretary Geithner agreed to these bonuses. AIG will give millions more bonuses in March.
--More than 25 million people are unemployed or seriously underemployed while the bankers, war contractors and other corporate crooks make record profits and record bonuses.
--Personal bankruptcies rose 32 percent in the past year as families lost their jobs, medical benefits and their homes.
Take to streets. Tell every family and friend, co-worker and fellow student that it's time to get on the bus. It's time for the people to speak out. It's time to raise hell!
Please make an urgently needed donation!
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&JServSessionIdr004=gko1pk1bs3.app13b
This is a huge undertaking and we can't do it without the help of thousands of people like you who are opposing the expanding wars and occupations. Please make your contribution today.
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6) Marines brace for new push in southern Afghanistan
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 3, 2010; 11:25 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020300564.html?sub=AR
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan -- U.S. troops and their Afghan and NATO allies are planning their biggest joint offensive since the Afghan war's start, targeting a town in the volatile south known as a Taliban stronghold and a hub of their lucrative opium trade, officers said Wednesday.
No date for the start of the offensive has been released for security reasons. But U.S. commanders have said they plan to capture the town of Marjah, 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul, this winter.
It is to be the first major offensive since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and many of the Marines set to participate arrived as part of the surge.
Up to 125,000 people are believed to live in the district around Marjah, an agricultural center in Helmand province surrounded by a maze of irrigation canals built with American aid in the 1950s and 1960s. About 80,000 people live in or around the town itself.
Between 600 and 1,000 Taliban and foreign fighters are thought to operate in the area, U.S. officers say. NATO officials won't say how many NATO and Afghan troops have been earmarked for the offensive, but they are expected to vastly outnumber the Taliban and their allies.
In Kabul, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay told reporters that the operation will include at least 1,000 Afghan police and thousands of Afghan soldiers as well as thousands of NATO troops. U.S. officers say the offensive will involve the highest number of Afghan forces in any joint operation to date.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi did not specifically mention Marjah, but told reporters in Kabul that a large operation is coming "in the near future" in Helmand. He said it will "separate the local people from the terrorists in the area."
Fighting escalated in Helmand in 2006, and the sprawling southern province was transformed into one of the deadliest parts of the country for NATO forces.
Last spring, thousands of U.S. Marines arrived in the province to reinforce the British military. British and American forces launched twin operations to try to stabilize the area before the August presidential election, in which turnout in Helmand was extremely low.
U.S. officials have spoken publicly about plans to take Marjah in hopes that many civilians will leave the town, along with Taliban fighters who are not deeply committed to the insurgency.
Commanders believe support of the local population is crucial to establishing an Afghan administration as quickly as possible and to help NATO troops detect the numerous improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that they expect to face in Marjah.
Two U.S. service members were killed by a bomb Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, but NATO did not specify the precise location.
Col. George Amland, the deputy commander of Marines in Helmand province, said the Taliban force includes "hundreds of idiots running around Marjah right now waiting to aggregate" and confront the NATO and Afghan troops.
He expects the Taliban ranks will "dwindle very quickly into a very manageable number" by the time the fighting begins.
Amland dismissed most of the Taliban force as just "in the Taliban's employ" and said that local opium poppy growers and opium dealers will abandon the militants quickly.
That leaves the "dyed-in-the-wool Taliban," Amland told reporters in Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine Corps base in southern Afghanistan. He estimates there are "a couple of hundred of those that are rallying the rest of the cause."
The militants are believed to include about 100 to 150 foreign fighters, including Arabs, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and a few Yemenis, said Maj. Jundish Jang Baz, of the Afghan National Army.
The problem, he added, is that NATO isn't completely sure whether it can rely on all the forces supposed to be on its side. Jang Baz said the locally hired Afghan police were less than reliable.
"We think they're working with al-Qaida in Marjah," Jang Baz said, adding that he expected the Taliban to "scatter like ants."
"The real challenge is to make sure they don't flee with enough weapons to start another fight somewhere else," he said.
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Azimi also said an investigation was still under way into a NATO airstrike that killed four Afghan soldiers last week in Wardak province.
The fighting broke out when a joint U.S.-Afghan force came under fire near a remote highway outpost and called in the airstrike. Both sides have said it appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.
The U.S. Army Special Operations Command denied claims by Afghan officials that the troops involved were special forces.
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7) Military Officials Say Afghan Fight Is Coming
"There will be a big clearance operation and we will separate the civilian population from the insurgents," General Azimi said. "As I've said many times before, we will have a bloody summer ahead."
By ROD NORDLAND
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04taliban.html?ref=world
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO and the Afghan military are about to launch their biggest joint offensive of the war, and they appear to be making sure the Taliban know they are coming.
On Wednesday, spokesmen for the Afghan Defense Ministry and for the NATO forces announced at a news conference that an offensive involving thousands of troops would begin "in the near future," and while they did not confirm the place, they also did not dispute widespread speculation that the target was the Taliban-held town of Marja.
The deliberate publicizing of the offensive - with news conferences, press releases and public pronouncements - is relatively unusual for the military. There could be several strategic benefits - and risks. If Taliban were to withdraw in advance of the offensive and civilians had ample warning, there could be fewer military and civilian casualties.
"In some cases it may make sense, with a population-centered strategy, to give an awareness where U.S. and Afghan forces are going, and give an opportunity for Taliban and insurgent forces to clear out," said Seth Jones, a RAND Corporation senior political scientist who specializes in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American military commander in Afghanistan, has emphasized a counterinsurgency strategy that focuses on reducing civilian casualties and convincing the local population that the Americans and NATO can protect them.
Afghan military officials and Marja residents say that the area has been heavily leafleted to warn civilians that an offensive is coming.
But forewarning also gives the Taliban an opportunity to escape and regroup elsewhere, as insurgents in Iraq did after the 2004 American Marine assault on Falluja. That assault was also widely expected, and the timing generally known within days. Already, Mr. Jones said, there have been reports of Taliban militants filtering out of Marja. Alternatively, the Taliban could fortify their defenses and plant explosives around the area.
The imminent offensive was first announced in a press release from the Pentagon on Monday, and, unusually, the name of the campaign was disclosed: Operation Moshtarak, which means Joint Operation in Dari.
While reporters embedded with American units in southern Afghanistan have been told not to mention the target of the offensive in their dispatches, or in e-mail or phone calls, even Taliban commanders have said they expect their Marja stronghold to be attacked soon.
For months, the town has been under complete Taliban control, and more than a thousand Taliban reportedly took refuge there beginning last summer, as United States Marines stepped up the pressure in Helmand Province. Located in the opium poppy-growing belt, Marja also is close to the strategically important provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, and has been a staging area for suicide attacks and other bombings.
A local Taliban commander in Marja reached by cellphone said they were aware that the town was the target, and he sought to signal that they would not be intimidated. "We will definitely defend Marja," said the commander, who goes by the name Ishaq. "It's the only place left for us. We have all of our fighters assembled here to fight against Afghan and foreign forces."
"We know this operation will be much bigger than previous operations," Mr. Ishaq said. "We are determined to fight until the last drop of our blood."
At the news conference on Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Zahir Azimi, spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense, said the offensive would start "in the near future" in southern Afghanistan. Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, the spokesman for NATO forces here, was more specific, saying it would be in central Helmand Province. "There will be at least a thousand Afghan National Police, thousands of Afghan National Army soldiers and many thousands of ISAF troops," General Azimi said, using the acronym for the International Security Assistance Force.
Since summer, international forces led by the United States Marines have been systematically clearing the Helmand River valley, and in December their Operation Cobra's Anger forced Taliban fighters out of the town of Now Zad, leaving Marja as the last town under Taliban control.
"It's no secret we're going there," the Marine commander in Helmand, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, said in an interview with Reuters and CNN in December. "There's an inevitability that there's a date with destiny with Marja, and we're moving toward that."
At the bus station in Lashkar Gah on Wednesday, Marja residents said the offensive had been expected since leaflets were dropped from helicopters beginning about four months ago. The leaflets warned residents to stay off the streets after 9 p.m. and to stay away from windows once an offensive started.
Ahmed Shah, a 53-year-old driver, said that Taliban fighters had been increasing their numbers in Marja in recent days and residents expected an attack soon, although they did not know when. "Their activities are visible in the city and it seems they are preparing for face-to-face fighting with the government and international forces."
"We know about the operation but we don't know how big and how powerful it will be," said Azizullah, 35, a shopkeeper from Marja, who uses only one name. "It seems it will be a major operation because compared to the previous time, this time there's too much preparation for this operation on both sides."
Both Mr. Azizullah and Mr. Shah said they were hopeful that Afghan government and international forces would stay in Marja, rather than pulling out after a short time, as happened the last time the coalition took Marja, in May 2009.
"There will be a big clearance operation and we will separate the civilian population from the insurgents," General Azimi said. "As I've said many times before, we will have a bloody summer ahead."
General Tremblay said there was no intention of leaving the area after the offensive. Government and civilian reconstruction efforts will follow closely behind the military campaign, he said.
General Azimi said the Afghan military would be bringing troops in from many parts of the country for the offensive. In addition, American troop strength has doubled in the course of the past six months, making it easier to remain in force in areas that are cleared of Taliban.
He said previous efforts to clear the Taliban from areas in Helmand Province faltered because there were insufficient troops to stay permanently.
Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Washington, and an employee of The New York Times from Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan.
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8) Time Is Running Out
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/opinion/06herbert.html
Palo Alto, Calif.
We've now lost 8.4 million jobs in this recession, and a vast majority of them are gone for good. The politicians are clambering aboard the jobs bandwagon, belatedly, but very few are telling the truth about the structural employment problems in the U.S. and the extremely heavy lift that is necessary to halt our declining living standards and get us back to an economy that is self-sustaining.
We don't hear a lot that is serious about the sorry state of the nation's infrastructure or the trade policies that crippled so many American industries or our inability (or unwillingness) to compete effectively with China when it comes to the new world of energy for the 21st century or our abject failure to provide a quality public education for the next generation of American workers, scientists, artists and entrepreneurs.
Speaking at a conference here on Wednesday, Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania said that if we don't act quickly in developing long-term solutions to these and other problems, the United States will be a second-rate economic power by the end of this decade. A failure to act boldly, he said, will result in the U.S. becoming "a cooked goose."
Neither the politicians nor much of the mainstream media are spelling out the severity of these enormous structural problems or the sense of urgency needed to address them. Living standards are sinking in the United States, and there is no coherent vision or plan for reversing that ominous trend over the long term.
The conference was titled, "The Next American Economy: Transforming Energy and Infrastructure Investment." It was put together by the Brookings Institution and Lazard, the investment banking advisory firm.
When Governor Rendell addressed the conference on Wednesday, he used words like "stunning" and "unbelievable" to describe what has happened to the nation's infrastructure. His words echoed the warnings we've been hearing for years from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which tells us: "The broken water mains, gridlocked streets, crumbling dams and levees, and delayed flights that come from failing infrastructure have a negative impact on the checkbook and on the quality of life of each and every American."
The conference was sparked by a sense of dismay over what has happened to the U.S. economy over the past several years and a feeling that constructive ideas about solutions were being smothered by an obsessive focus on the short-term in this society, and by the chronic dysfunction and hyperpartisanship in much of the government.
I was struck by the absence of grousing and finger-pointing at the conference and the emphasis on trying to develop new ways to establish an economy that is not based on financial flimflammery, that enhances America's competitive position in the world, and that relieves us of the terrible burden of reliance on foreign energy sources.
I was also struck by the pervasive sense that if we don't get our act together then the glory days of the go-go American economic empire will fade like the triumphs of an aging Hollywood star. One of the participants raised the very real possibility of Americans having to get used to living in an economy "that won't be number one," an economy that perhaps is more like Germany's.
Rescuing the U.S. economy will require a commitment, and undoubtedly sacrifices, that need to start now. And it will require leadership that pulls together the best talents from all sectors of the society - not just business, not just government, but from everywhere.
Bruce Katz, the director of Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program, discussed some of the steps that need to be taken to remake an economy that has been thrown completely out of whack by frantic, debt-driven consumption, speculative bubbles, exotic financial instruments, and so on.
A new, saner, more sustainable economy will have to be more export-oriented, powered by cleaner fuels, bolstered by innovation that comes from a renewed focus on research and development, and committed to delivering a better-educated, more highly skilled work force.
Mr. Katz believes this is doable, but by no means easy. The nation's infrastructure, he said, will have to "shift from 20th-century models of transport and energy transmission to rapid bus, ubiquitous broadband, congestion pricing, smart grid, high-speed rail and intelligent transport."
New ways of financing such transformative changes will have to be developed, linking public and private capital, preferably through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, among other things. The nation's political leaders and the public at large will have to grasp the difference between wasteful spending and crucial investments in the future.
It's time for serious people to step forward and help lead on these critically important issues. Time is short.
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9) Goldman Chief's Bonus Seen by Some as Show of Restraint
"...Goldman Sachs disclosed late Friday that its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, would receive an annual bonus valued at $9 million... While most people can only dream of such a reward, the news was widely seen on Wall Street as a show of restraint... The current award must, however, be put in the context of his past compensation - in 2006 he received $53.4 million, and the firm said that since 2000 he has received $181.5 million in total salary and bonus, though he has cashed out only part of it."
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and ERIC DASH
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06bonus.html?hp
Once again, a bonus at Goldman Sachs has all of Wall Street talking - only this time, over how small it is.
After weeks of intense speculation, Goldman Sachs disclosed late Friday that its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, would receive an annual bonus valued at $9 million, a figure that, to the surprise of many, put him in the middle of the pay scale for the nation's banking chiefs.
While most people can only dream of such a reward, the news was widely seen on Wall Street as a show of restraint and a nod to the uproar in Washington and elsewhere over resurgent pay and profits at banks like Goldman. Indeed, the award represents a fraction of the record $68 million bonus that Mr. Blankfein received in 2007, when Goldman made less money than it did last year. In 2008, in the midst of the financial collapse, he collected no bonus.
Mr. Blankfein received no cash bonus. The award is entirely in the form of deferred stock, which he cannot sell for five years.
Many on Wall Street had been anxiously awaiting the figure, amid talk that the bonus might be anything from nothing to $100 million.
"It takes a lot of the oxygen out of the argument that Goldman's top of the house is overpaid," said Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant in White Plains. "For running an organization that big, and bringing it through the way he did, nine million is not a lot of money."
Goldman made a series of political and business calculations in tallying Mr. Blankfein's rewards. The timing, too, seemed deft: hours earlier, JPMorgan Chase had announced that its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, would receive a $16.6 million bonus and $1 million in salary. For once, Goldman, known for its big paydays, had grabbed the high ground by paying its chief executive less money. At the top, John G. Stumpf, chief of Wells Fargo, was paid $18.4 million in cash and stock for 2009 though he runs a less complex company. Vikram S. Pandit of Citigroup vowed to accept only $1 in salary until the bank is profitable.
For Mr. Blankfein, the news arrived on Friday afternoon, after a tumultuous day of trading on Wall Street. While Mr. Blankfein's bonus had been the subject of internal debate for weeks, the final decision came quickly.
On Thursday, the compensation committee of Goldman's 10-member board of independent nonexecutive directors called a meeting for Friday afternoon. Some of the directors convened at Goldman's headquarters at 85 Broad Street, in Lower Manhattan, while others joined in by telephone. Before the close of trading at 4 p.m., the decision was final. Less than an hour later, Goldman disclosed the figure in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. Blankfein, whom the firm insisted was not privy to the discussions, had been traveling in the Middle East and returned to New York only this week.
Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for Goldman, insisted that the timing and size of the award was unrelated to Mr. Dimon's announcement, and he would not say how the directors had arrived at the bonus figure, other than to say: "It's a reflection of the times. Notwithstanding that there has been some extremely ill-informed speculation and a great deal of unpleasantness, we have shown respect for the environment."
A person close to the board, however, said that in their discussion the directors had agreed they needed to send a strong statement that the firm understood the mood of Washington and the public.
On top of the bonus, Mr. Blankfein will receive a $600,000 cash salary, the same as in previous years, and other perks like a company car and driver.
The current award must, however, be put in the context of his past compensation - in 2006 he received $53.4 million, and the firm said that since 2000 he has received $181.5 million in total salary and bonus, though he has cashed out only part of it.
Goldman Sachs also announced the bonus awards for four other senior executives, including Gary D. Cohn, the firm's president and chief operating officer, and David A. Viniar, the chief finance officer. All received stock valued at $9 million.
In December, Goldman announced that its top executives, including Mr. Blankfein, would forgo cash bonuses. Instead, the executives would be paid in the form of special stock - an arrangement that could still turn out to be enormously lucrative if Goldman's share price rises.
Many other big banks had disclosed the compensation of their top executives in recent weeks, but Goldman had appeared to delay its announcement, leading to intense speculation about what the firm would do.
Many on Wall Street thought Goldman was waiting for a good public relations moment to release the news - and calculating what figure the public mood could tolerate.
Some analysts suggested that Goldman's - and Wall Street's - show of restraint would be fleeting, and the banks would quickly return to its ways.
"I am still waiting for one of the banks to come forward with a long-term performance-related incentive plan," said Paul Hodgson, a senior compensation analyst at the Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm. "They are just making everybody wait for the pay."
Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting.
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10) Haiti Hospital's Fight Against TB Falls to One Man
By IAN URBINA
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/world/americas/06tuberculosis.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - At a fly-infested clinic hastily erected alongside the rubble of the only tuberculosis sanatorium in this country, Pierre-Louis Monfort is a lonely man in a crowded room.
Haiti has the highest tuberculosis rate in the Americas, and health experts say it is about to drastically increase.
But amid the ramshackle remains of the hospital where the country's most infected patients used to live, Mr. Monfort runs the clinic alone, facing a vastness of unmet need that is as clear as the desperation on the faces around the room.
"I'm drowning," said Mr. Monfort, 52, flanked by a line of people waiting for pills as he emptied a bedpan full of blood. All of the hospital's 50 other nurses and 20 doctors died in the earthquake or have refused to return to work out of fear for the building's safety or preoccupation with their own problems, he said. Mr. Monfort joked that the earthquake had earned him a promotion from a staff nurse at the sanatorium to its new executive director.
In normal times, Haiti sees about 30,000 new cases of tuberculosis each year. Among infectious diseases, it is the country's second most common killer, after AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.
The situation has gone from bad to worse because the earthquake set off a dangerous diaspora. Most of the sanatorium's several hundred surviving patients fled and are now living in the densely packed tent cities where experts say they are probably spreading the disease. Most of these patients have also stopped taking their daily regimen of pills, thereby heightening the chance that there will be an outbreak of a strain resistant to treatment, experts say.
At the city's General Hospital, Dr. Megan Coffee said, "This right here is what is going to be devastating in six months," and she pointed to several tuberculosis patients thought to have a resistant strain of the disease who were quarantined in a fenced-off blue tent. "Someone needs to go and help Monfort, or we are all going to be in big trouble."
A further complication is that definitively diagnosing tuberculosis takes weeks. So doctors are instead left to rely on conspicuous symptoms like night sweats, severe coughing and weight loss. "But look around," Dr. Coffee said. "Everyone is thin, everyone is coughing from the dust and everyone is sweating from the heat."
Dr. Richar D'Meza, the coordinator for tuberculosis for the Haitian Ministry of Health, said his office and the World Health Organization had begun stockpiling tuberculosis medicines. "We are very concerned about a resistant strain, but we are also getting ready," he said, adding that he is assembling medical teams to begin entering tent camps to survey for the disease.
"This will begin soon," he said. "We will get help to these people soon."
For Mr. Monfort, it is not soon enough. He scavenges the rubble daily for medicines and needles. He sterilizes needles using bleach and then reuses the bleach to clean the floors.
In his cramped clinic, eight of the sickest and most contagious patients lay on brown- and red-stained beds. He said he had lost count of how many more were sleeping in other pockets alongside the hospital. Hundreds come daily to pick up medicine.
Outside the clinic, the air is thick with the sickening smell of rotting bodies. Occasionally a breeze carried a waft of char from small cooking fires nearby, offering a respite from the stench and the flies.
Mr. Monfort began to explain that his biggest problem was a lack of food. Suddenly a huge crash shook the clinic. A patient screamed. Everyone stood still, eyes darting. A man outside yelled that another section of the hospital had collapsed. People looking for materials to build huts had pulled wood pilings from a section of the hospital roof, which then fell as the scavengers leapt to safety, the man said.
Mr. Monfort looked to the ground silently as if the weight of his lonely responsibility had just come crashing down.
"These people are dying and in pain here," he said. "And no one seems to care."
The dire scene at Mr. Monfort's clinic speaks to a larger concern: as hospitals and medical staff are overrun by people with acute conditions, patients who were previously getting treatment for cancer, H.I.V. and other chronic or infectious diseases have been pushed aside and no longer have access to care.
At the Champ de Mars, Jean-Baptiste Renauld sat on a curb, one shoe missing, his blue polo shirt torn, his head cupped in his hands. "I have TB, and I am also supposed to get dialysis every other day," he said, explaining that he was a doctor's assistant before the earthquake and meticulous about his treatments. "I have not had dialysis in three weeks, and I feel my blood is rotting from inside."
Waving his hand over a sea of tents and tarpaulins, he added, "It is like this country."
Back at the clinic, Mr. Monfort struggled to fix an IV that had missed the vein and was painfully pumping fluids under a patient's skin. Another ghost of a man hobbled to the doorway on crutches, moaning for help. "Please wait, please wait," Mr. Monfort said in a tense whisper.
The biggest source of stress, Mr. Monfort said, is that his three children and wife are living on the street because the earthquake destroyed their home. His wife begs him daily to stay with them. Instead, unpaid and without a mask or gloves to wear, he walks to the sanatorium each day at 6 a.m. and stays until 8 p.m. when most of the patients drift to sleep.
"Why don't you just leave us to die?" asked Clervil Orange, 39. Mr. Monfort looked offended by the notion. But he did not answer and the question seemed to stick with him.
The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus once wrote that there was a type of suffering so intense that, even in our sleep, it bores into the heart until eventually, "in our own despair, against our will," it taps into a terrible wisdom.
After several minutes in silence, Mr. Monfort spoke of that wisdom. He referred to it as a "strange hope" that had sprung from the suffering of his patients and the loss and abandonment of his fellow staff members.
"These people here are dying, but they keep me alive," he said. "I know they are hurting more than me and not complaining.
"So," he said, handing another walk-in patient a packet of pills, "I must continue."
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11) Afghans Mistaken for Militants Killed
By DEXTER FILKINS
February 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/asia/07afghan.html?ref=world
KABUL, Afghanistan - Seven civilians were shot dead on Friday as they were apparently mistaken for a group of insurgents trying to cross the frontier from Pakistan, an Afghan police official said Saturday.
The Afghan official, Abdul Raziq, who leads the border police in Kandahar Province, said the seven men were from a village in Shorabak, a remote district on the Pakistani border. They were killed when they strayed close to a checkpoint manned by Afghan border police, who opened fire because they believed that their post was going to be overrun.
The border guards "thought they were insurgents," Mr. Raziq said.
The guards were detained after the shooting as part of an investigation, Mr. Raziq said. The bodies of the civilians were taken back to their village, called Sortano.
No American or other foreign troops were present during the shooting, Mr. Raziq said.
Civilians have been killed under similar circumstances before, but several questions about this case were still unanswered on Saturday. In addition to being Taliban infiltration routes, the area is believed to serve as a shipment point for narcotics. The Afghan border police, including Mr. Raziq himself, are suspected by American and Afghan officials of being deeply involved in the drug trade. Mr. Raziq has denied any such connections.
Also on Saturday, British and Afghan forces carried on with military operations intended to lay the groundwork for a planned offensive in Marja, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province.
Habibullah Khan, the governor of the Nad Ali district - which contains Marja - said that a large number of mines and homemade bombs had slowed the advance of the British and Afghan forces operating around the city. The preparatory operation was unfolding on the main road leading into Marja, a city of about 60,000 that sits on the western side of the Helmand River.
Marja is believed to harbor several hundred Taliban fighters as well as a network of laboratories that convert poppy to opium. Afghan and American leaders say that taking the city away from the Taliban is crucial in pacifying the province, which is the most violent in the country.
Talking about a major military operation before it has begun is unusual for military commanders in any war. In this case, the commanders say their goal is to spare as many civilians as possible, even at the cost of letting Taliban fighters slip out of the city. After they seize Marja, the Afghan, American and British officials intend to install a functioning government and police force to help prevent the Taliban from returning. They say they are hoping that much of the Taliban force leaves Marja before the battle starts; hence the early announcement.
The Americans, British and Afghans have amassed a force of several thousand troops for the operation. At least one British-Afghan preparatory action, which the military refers to as a "shaping operation," began two days ago.
"There are many mines on the road to Marja; this is why the operation is very slow," Mr. Khan said. "It's a challenge for us to remove all these mines before we can go ahead. But we are moving ahead slowly."
Taimoor Shah and an Afghan employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Helmand Province.
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12) Women Now a Majority in American Workplaces
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
February 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/economy/06women.html?ref=business
For the first time in recorded history, women outnumber men on the nation's payrolls.
This benchmark is bittersweet, as it comes largely at men's expense. Because men have been losing their jobs faster than women, the downturn has at times been referred to as a "man-cession."
Women's new majority in the nation's workplaces comes decades after women first began trading in their aprons for pantsuits in droves, and it reinforces expectations that women will continue on the path to pay parity.
"Important milestones remain to be achieved, but women's surpassing 50 percent of employment is something that historians will note for years to come," said Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago who has been tracking the recession's effects on both sexes.
According to seasonally unadjusted data released on Friday by the Labor Department, women held the majority of nonfarm payroll jobs in January. They also did so during February, March, November and December of last year, but the shift emerged only on Friday when the Labor Department revised its 2009 data. Women's slender lead was highest last month, when they held 50.3 percent of the nation's nonfarm payroll jobs in the raw numbers.
Over the last few decades, women have been steadily claiming a greater share of the nation's payrolls. In 1964, the first year for which the government began collecting this data, less than a third of the nation's nonfarm payroll jobs were held by women.
But it was the recession that finally pushed women into the majority.
As in previous recessions, male workers have borne the brunt of the job losses in the last two years. Since the recession began in December 2007, men have lost 7.4 million jobs on net, whereas women have lost 3.9 million jobs.
In other words, both sexes are worse off than they were before the downturn, but men have suffered more.
The types of jobs held by men and women help explain the shift. Men are more likely to work in industries like manufacturing, which rise and fall with the economic cycle. Women are more likely to work in government, health care and education, among the safest categories in a downturn. Health care employment has been among the strongest of any type during the recession.
It is also "no accident" that women pushed ahead of men during colder months, says Professor Mulligan.
Male-dominated industries are actually especially cyclical in two different ways: They are not only influenced by the business cycle, but also by the seasonal cycle. Industries like construction, which tend to employ men, get more work in warmer months.
If you adjust for these regular seasonal factors that affect the job market, women would have held just less than half of the nation's payroll jobs in January, at 49.9 percent.
All of this means that women are likely to fall back to a minority of the nation's payrolls again once the weather warms and the recovery gains a foothold in the labor markets. Still, the longer-term trend of stronger representation on the nation's payrolls will most likely continue, economists say.
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13) Bleak Portrait of Haiti Orphanages Raises Fears
"'So many women do not have jobs. They do not have land to grow food for their children. If their choice is to watch their children starve or give them away, they are going to give them away, and hope that they have put them in good hands.' Either way, the decision is heart-wrenching for parent and child. Stanley Vixamar, 10, cried through the night on his first night at the Foyer of Patience. 'I wanted to stay with my mother even though our house has fallen down,' he said. 'I love her.'"
By GINGER THOMPSON
February 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/americas/07trafficking.html?hp
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The floors were concrete and the windows were broken.
There was no electricity or running water. Lunch looked like watery grits. Beds were fashioned from sheets of cardboard. And the only toilet did not work.
But the Foyer of Patience here is like hundreds of places that pass as orphanages for thousands of children in the poorest country in the hemisphere. Many are barely habitable, much less licensed. They have no means to provide real schooling or basic medical care, so children spend their days engaged in mindless activities, and many die from treatable illnesses.
Haiti's child welfare system was broken before the earthquake struck. But as the quake shattered homes and drove hundreds of thousands of people into the streets, the number of children needing care grew exponentially.
Chronic problems - like inadequate services, overwhelming poverty and shady orphanages - have only intensified, while the authorities fear that some of the less scrupulous orphanages are taking advantage of the chaos to round up children in crisis and offer them for sale as servants and sex slaves.
But it took the arrest last weekend of 10 Americans caught trying to leave the country with 33 Haitian children to focus international attention on the issue. While there is no evidence that the Americans, who said they were trying to rescue children in the aftermath of the earthquake, intended any harm, the ease with which they drove into the capital and scooped up a busload of children without documents exposed vast gaps in the system's safeguards.
"This has called the world's attention because it is the first clear piece of evidence that our fears have come true," said Patricia Vargas, the regional coordinator for SOS Children's Villages, which provides services to abandoned children around the world. "Our concern as an organization is how many other cases are out there that we are not aware of."
At the front lines of the system are the orphanages, which run the gamut from large, well-equipped institutions with international financing to one-room hovels in a slum where a single woman cares for abandoned children as best she can.
Most of the children in them, the authorities said, are not orphans, but children whose parents are unable to provide for them. To desperate parents, the orphanage is a godsend, a temporary solution to help a child survive a particularly tough economic stretch. Many orphanages offer regular family visiting hours and, when their situations improve, parents are allowed to take their children back home.
But instead of protecting Haiti's most vulnerable population, some orphanages have become tools of exploitation, the authorities fear.
"There are many so-called orphanages that have opened in the last couple of years that are not really orphanages at all," said Frantz Thermilus, the chief of Haiti's National Judicial Police. "They are fronts for criminal organizations that take advantage of people who are homeless and hungry. And with the earthquake they see an opportunity to strike in a big way."
There is no precise count of the number of orphanages in this country, the number of children living in them, or of the children who are victims of trafficking, although Unicef estimates that number in the tens of thousands per year. The authorities said thousands of those trafficked were sold as servants, known as restaveks, to well-to-do Haitian families. Others, officials say, are smuggled into the Dominican Republic to do domestic and agricultural work, often in appalling conditions.
In recent years, the government has tried to crack down on trafficking, establishing special police units known as child protection brigades that monitor children leaving the airports or crossing borders. But a State Department report issued last year said the brigades did not pursue trafficking cases because there was no Haitian law against the practice. The government "did shut down a number of unregistered orphanages whose residents were believed to be vulnerable to trafficking," the report said.
And in the wake of the earthquake, the authorities suspended all adoptions pending a review of hundreds of applications already in the system.
But Haitian authorities acknowledge that the fledgling efforts of a financially struggling government long plagued by corruption have proved little match for the highly organized, multimillion-dollar criminal networks.
Manuel Fontaine, a child protection specialist with Unicef, said his agency was also concerned that Haiti's inability to monitor orphanages and keep track of children moving in and out of them left them open to abuses.
"With the system already fragile before the quake, we knew something like this could happen," he said of the effort by the 10 Americans. "We warned authorities here to be on the lookout."
It was unclear what the future holds for the 50 children crammed into two bedrooms at the Foyer of Patience, some of them scampering around in clothes that were either too big or too small, and others wearing no clothes at all.
The director of the orphanage, Enoch Anequaire, said he opened the center five years ago but has had no time to get a license. He said he provided an education to the children, but there was not a single book, piece of paper or pencil in the house.
He said he fed them three square meals. At noon, one recent day, several said that they had had nothing to eat.
Mr. Anequaire, whose own clothes were pressed and shoes polished, said he had been overwhelmed with new children since the earthquake. He pointed out five boys who arrived last Wednesday and said that an aunt had brought them in because their homes had collapsed, and that their mothers were unable to feed them.
Some of the children, however, said Mr. Anequaire had come looking for them.
"He came to my house and told my mother he needed 10 more kids," said one of the boys, whose names were withheld from this article to protect them from retribution.
Mr. Anequaire denied this version of events.
Across the street stands another orphanage, two-story compound called the Foyer of Zion, where more than 60 children live in airy, cheerfully decorated rooms. Still, on a recent visit, it was woefully understaffed and poorly equipped. Children in the nursery were kept in stacked wooden boxes rather than cribs.
The director, Marjorie Mardy, said that the center was financed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that several members from the United States had rushed to Port-au-Prince after the earthquake to take home children who had been in the adoption process for more than two years.
Most of the children, however, were in legal limbo, she said. Their parents had not given up custody, nor had they any clear plans for bringing the children home. Many children had been dropped off at the orphanage without any documents providing their names, ages or need for specialized care, which Ms. Mardy acknowledges she is unable to provide.
There was a baby so frail and shriveled she was clearly sick, but Ms. Mardy said she had not been able to take her for tests. A toddler who seemed lethargic and unresponsive had been running a low-grade fever since arriving at the orphanage after the earthquake. But she had not been taken to a doctor.
"In Haiti, it's not like the United States where people have jobs and homes and security," Ms. Mardy said. "And if people have no security, how can they give security to their children?
"We try to give them that security," she said. "But at times like these, it's overwhelming."
The solution, say child protection advocates, lies as much in fixing families as fixing orphanages.
"If we are going to really protect children, orphanages have to become a family's last resort," said Suzanna Tkalec, a human rights lawyer and child protection specialist at Catholic Relief Services, which is developing a program to provide social and economic support for the families of some 2,000 displaced children.
"Anything that recreates a family is a much better option."
Lomene Nerisier is a living example of what is possible. After her husband kicked her and their three children out of their house in La Mardelle, she begged an orphanage in the village to give the children to a family that might provide them a better life.
The director, Gina Duncan, offered Ms. Nerisier a job instead. She received part of her salary in cash and the other part in materials to build her own house. Three years later, she not only takes care of her own children, but she also teaches preschool.
Today she is proud of her accomplishment, but not naïve about what sets her apart from the vast majority of mothers in this country.
"I am lucky," she said. "So many women do not have jobs. They do not have land to grow food for their children. If their choice is to watch their children starve or give them away, they are going to give them away, and hope that they have put them in good hands."
Either way, the decision is heart-wrenching for parent and child. Stanley Vixamar, 10, cried through the night on his first night at the Foyer of Patience.
"I wanted to stay with my mother even though our house has fallen down," he said. "I love her."
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14) Gaza in Plain Language
By Joe Mowrey
January 19, 2010
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/gaza-in-plain-language/
Video: Gaza in Plain Language: a video by Anthony Lawson and Joe Mowrey
February 8, 2010
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/video-gaza-in-plain-language/
In articles acknowledging the one-year anniversary of the assault on Gaza, blunt and unsparing language about what really happened is often avoided. Despite sympathy for and support of the Palestinian people in their struggle against dispossession and oppression, the description of what took place in January 2009 is sometimes buffered by a misguided sense of political correctness. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, it is unjust. But we don't want to be inflammatory or risk offending the sensitivities of those who through their own willful ignorance cling to the notion that Israel is a victim state, fighting for its very survival. The argument is that we should reach out to them and attempt to educate them and win them over.
I'll be more forthright in this commentary.
The sociopathic Zionist administration of Israel, as part of its continuing brutal colonization of Palestine, set out to deliberately devastate the already nearly-incapacitated infrastructure which supports the existence of one-and-a-half million human refugees. The people of Gaza, second, third, and fourth-generation dispossessed Palestinians, are living in forced exile from land their families inhabited and cultivated for generations. Half of them are children under the age of fifteen. Their culture and their economy has been systematically ravaged by Israel for decades and since 2006 a criminal siege supported by the United States, as well as much of the international community, has deprived them of all but the most minimal resources for subsistence. This oppressed and brutalized population was then bombed, bulldozed and terrorized mercilessly for twenty-three days.
Below is a small sampling of facts concerning what the fourth largest military in the world did to a captive and defenseless population. The source materials used to substantiate these statistics are available on request. If the reality presented here goes beyond the stretch of your imagination, you can verify the data yourself. Though you'd better hurry. Much of this information appears to be disappearing down Google's memory hole, just as is the fate of the people of Gaza. A source referencing the percentage of agricultural land destroyed in the onslaught, which was used for a shorter version of this article just a few weeks ago is no longer archived in Google's cache. Surprise, surprise.
You will also find that exact figures vary somewhat depending on the source. But whether it was 21,000 structures or 22,000 structures destroyed, whether 280 schools were destroyed or badly damaged verses 230, the overwhelming truth of the physical devastation, which took place in Gaza, and the fact that this destruction was deliberate and premeditated is irrefutable. Even the Goldstone Report, itself a document with severe pro-Zionist overtones issued by a declared Zionist and a supporter of Israel, states unequivocally, "...[the] deliberate actions of the Israeli forces and the declared policies of the Government of Israel ... cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip in violation of international humanitarian law."
We've heard time and again that more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, over 80 percent of them civilians, including 342 children. It has become a familiar talking point in discussions of last year's assault, so much so that it may have lost its impact on our consciousness. But what we often aren't reminded of is the horrific level of carefully-planned destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza orchestrated by Israel during Operation Cast Lead.
Financed and armed by the United States, the Israeli military destroyed fifteen percent of the structures in Gaza, approximately 22,000 buildings, including 5300 housing units destroyed or subject to major damage. Another 52,000 homes received some form of structural damage. Over 200 factories and 700 stores and businesses were destroyed or badly damaged. Of the residences, factories and businesses completely destroyed, 1300 of the homes and approximately 25 percent of the commercial property was deliberately and painstakingly bulldozed or exploded by Israeli ground forces. Eight hospitals and 26 primary health care clinics were damaged or destroyed. More than 280 schools were damaged or destroyed.
Water and sewage treatment facilities as well as electricity infrastructure were deliberately targeted leaving vast segments of the population with little or no power or clean water for the duration of the assault and for weeks and months to follow. Massive amounts of agricultural lands were systematically bombed or bulldozed. Some estimates suggest that as much as 80 percent of the arable land in Gaza has been ruined or declared off-limits to the people of Gaza over the last decade. Two million liters of wastewater at Gaza City's sewage treatment plant, bombed during the assault, leaked into surrounding agricultural land making it unusable.
An Israeli television station boasted that Israeli warplanes alone, without accounting for tank, ground troop and warship ammunition, dropped approximately one thousand tons of bombs on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. The effort involved months, if not years, of carefully-considered target selection, giving lie to any claim that the devastation was incidental. It requires a stunning level of denial and self-delusion to pretend the destruction, which was achieved in Gaza, had anything to do with Israel's "security" or the targeting of Hamas militants. This was savage and barbaric collective punishment unleashed on a civilian population, nothing more. Any suggestion to the contrary must be sharply and immediately ridiculed as absurd.
This was arguably the first aerial bombing campaign ever conducted on a defenseless civilian population held captive within a fenced enclosure and not allowed to escape the assault. It is a measure of the cynical mindset of the Israeli military that leaflets were sometimes dropped in neighborhoods about to be bombed suggesting the residents flee. "We are about to destroy your home; you had better get out." Flee to where? Gazans are not allowed to leave their open-air prison, not even when under attack. This tactic on the part of Israel also gives lie to the claim that homes and buildings were targeted because there were Hamas militants "hiding" inside. Why then warn them to leave before destroying the structures?
Given this litany of horror and the coldly premeditated nature of its execution, we need to ask what kind of society condones this level of savagery on the part of their government? What precedent is there for such monstrous disregard for even the most basic tenets of human decency? We need look no further than the behavior of our very own United States, of course. In Iraq, the toll of our psychotic militarism is well over a million human beings (not counting the years of punishing economic sanctions) and a large part of the infrastructure of an entire nation of more than 26 million people has been obliterated. Let's not even begin to tally up the deaths resulting from U.S. imperialism around the globe in the last sixty years alone. It would put the Zionists to shame-mere pikers in the annals of human slaughter.
And what of Gaza today, one year later? Israel's continued illegal siege, enabled by the U.S., Egypt (a U.S. client state) and the international community has prevented any substantial amount of building materials from entering Gaza. Essentially, no reconstruction has been possible. The people of Gaza live amongst the rubble left to them by Israeli hatred and aggression. They are attempting to rebuild their society using mud bricks and materials salvaged from the wreckage.
The next time someone attempts to argue, "Israel has a right to defend itself," or uses what I call the abusive spouse defense, "Look what you made me do," tell them, "No." Tell them there is no, and can never be, any acceptable justification for the deliberate devastation of entire societies, no matter what political, ideological or "security" issues, real or imagined, may be at stake. It is unconscionable. It is wrong. Plainly put, there is no sane argument in favor of such behavior. Those who believe there is must be contradicted and opposed at every available opportunity.
- dissidentvoice.org, January 19, 2010
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15) University of Sussex Occupation
Get the latest at http://defendsussex.wordpress.com or
https://twitter.com/sussexnocuts
Press contact:
Solomon Schonfield
Telephone: 07906 565 925
Email: sussexstopthecuts100@googlemail.com
Dear All,
Passing along what happened today as part of the no cuts campaign at
the University of Sussex:
This is a statement from the group who have occupied the conference
room in Bramber House:
We have occupied the top floor of Bramber House, University of Sussex,
Brighton.
There are 106 of us.
The decision to occupy has been taken after weeks of concerted
campaigning during which the university management have repeatedly
failed to take away the threat of compulsory redundancies and course
cuts.
We recognise that an attack on education workers is an attack on us.
The room we have occupied is not a lecture theatre but a conference
centre. As such, we are not disrupting the education of our fellow
students; rather, we are disrupting a key part of management's
strategy to run the university as a profitable business.
They're occupying everywhere in waves across California, New York,
Greece, Croatia, Germany and Austria and elsewhere - and not only in
the universities. We send greetings of solidarity and cheerful grins
to all those occupation movements and everyone else fighting the pay
cuts, cuts in services and jobs which will multiply everywhere as
bosses and states try and pull out of the crisis.
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16) Fake Food Coupons Present U.N. With New Haiti Problem
[This is proof positive that the most wealthy nation in the world with 20,000 troops on the ground along with UN and Canadian troops cannot or are not willing to bring enough food-not even enough rice-to feed the starving masses in Haiti. They are, however, very capable of delivering bombs anywhere at a moments notice from across the globe, or send men to the moon, but they can't deliver food? Their method of food distribution is unconscionable. They bring in enough for a tiny minority of those in need at a time creating desperation among those thousands who must go empty handed. Men-all men in Haiti-are systematically criminalized by police and occupation forces and the media at every opportunity. This is Katrina in powers of ten! ...BW]
By MARC LACEY
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/americas/09haiti.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The United Nations canceled a distribution of free rice for thousands of hungry Haitians on Monday after counterfeiters printed up fake tickets to gain access to the giveaway.
David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said counterfeiters, active in Haiti even during normal times, have become more sophisticated since emergency relief food began to be distributed to those with special tickets. The ticket system was put in place last week to quell the sometimes-violent jockeying that took place during food giveaways in the first days after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.
A secondary market has developed for relief food, which is common in such disasters, was well as for the tickets that allow displaced people access to the food lines. On top of that, scam artists have attempted to copy the tickets just as they used to reproduce currency, passports and other official documents before the quake hit.
To stymie the counterfeiters, the U.N. changes the color of the food tickets daily and prints on them the official logos of the World Food Program, the Haitian government and the aid agency actually giving out the food. The fake tickets discovered in the Petionville area on Sunday were yellow when they should have been green, alerting the authorities to the scam. Otherwise, they were well-made copies, Mr. Orr said.
Distributions went ahead in 15 fixed sites across Port-au-Prince on Monday. The only canceled giveaway had been scheduled for the center of Petionville, an upscale suburb where thousands of displaced people are camping out in squalid conditions in public parks. "The distribution partners wanted to improve the coupon distribution mechanism to safeguard the needs of priority beneficiaries-for example, families which have lost members in the earthquake and women with large number of children to feed," said a statement by the World Food Program, which has distributed enough food for 1.9 million people since the quake.
The Petionville site has been particularly problematic. In recent days, protesters have surrounded the mayor's office there demanding that local officials stop hoarding food and give it to the local population. City officials say there is a misunderstanding and that they have no food to give away.
"The population is hungry and they are quick to get angry," said Dr. Marlene Dorismond Adrien, a hunger advocate who has a radio program on health issues. "They have been waiting days and days. Rumors are flying. The situation is very fragile."
As for the counterfeiters, she said: "Haitians are quick to take opportunities. We may be poor but we're shrewd."
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17) After Buying Spree, China Owns Stakes in Top U.S. Firms
By DAVID BARBOZA and KEITH BRADSHER
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/business/global/09invest.html?ref=business
SHANGHAI - Flush with cash despite the global economic downturn, China's sovereign wealth fund quietly snapped up more than $9 billion worth of shares last year in some of the biggest American corporations, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup.
Although most of the stakes were small, China Investment Corp., the government's $300 billion investment fund, now owns stock in some of the best-known American brands, including Apple, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola and Visa.
The detailed list, which contained holdings totaling $9.6 billion as of Dec. 31, was disclosed Friday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; it lists stakes only in companies traded in the United States.
The filing offers a glimpse of how China is trying to diversify its more than $2 trillion in foreign currency holdings with stock, rather than investing almost entirely in U.S. Treasury bonds and other debt securities issued by governments and by government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China and other officials have repeatedly expressed worry about how the country's holdings of U.S. Treasury securities could be hurt by inflation or by mounting U.S. debt. By buying the securities of international companies, China is trying to spread its fast-growing wealth more widely. It is also seeking to acquire strategic stakes in companies that could feed its hungry economy with a wide range of commodities.
C.I.C., already one of the world's largest sovereign funds, was formed in 2007 with about $200 billion. It now has assets of nearly $300 billion and, according to state-run news media, is expecting another large injection of funds.
A spokeswoman for C.I.C., which is based in Beijing, did not return e-mail messages or phone calls seeking comment. But analysts said the filing showed that the fund had invested only a small portion of its $300 billion in American stocks, and the fund seemed to be following a cautious strategy to diversify globally after initially having put its biggest investments into shoring up the capital of Chinese banks.
"This is still a relatively small amount compared to the total size of the fund," said Chang Chun, a professor of finance at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.
The sovereign wealth fund got off to a rocky start in 2007 and early 2008 by acquiring a $3 billion nonvoting stake in the American private equity firm Blackstone and paying another $5 billion for a 9.9 percent stake in Morgan Stanley.
Shares of both companies plummeted in 2008 during the financial crisis, leading to a storm of criticism directed at C.I.C. But analysts say the fund performed well in 2009, particularly because it was buying aggressively as the market recovered.
Exactly when C.I.C. bought the shares of various companies was not disclosed in the filing. And C.I.C.'s acquisition of nonvoting units of Blackstone and its early stake of preferred shares in Morgan Stanley are not listed in the filing. The Blackstone and Morgan Stanley stakes are not listed, apparently because they are not traded equities.
The filing indicates that C.I.C. owns about $19 million worth of Bank of America stock, close to $30 million worth of Citigroup shares and about $333 million worth of shares in Visa, as well as holdings in various index funds.
The fund's largest listed holdings were $1.7 billion worth of shares in Morgan Stanley and nearly $650 million worth of shares in BlackRock, the New York money management fund.
The Morgan Stanley stake was acquired last June, when the investment bank issued about $2.2 billion worth of common shares to help repay the U.S. government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program; C.I.C. acquired about $1.2 billion worth of shares at that time.
Some U.S. politicians in both parties have been nervous about China's growing financial reach, and particularly wary that China might seek political influence in the West commensurate with its corporate stakes. Wariness in Washington flared four years ago when Congress discouraged Cnooc, a state-owned Chinese oil company, from buying Unocal.
Most sovereign wealth funds, with the exception of Norway's, disclose few details about their holdings. But C.I.C. made its list available for the first time on the S.E.C.'s form 13F, which is filed quarterly by institutional investors and mutual funds in the United States.
Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland, said the Chinese sovereign wealth fund's decision to disclose its holdings could limit concerns about secrecy in government holdings.
"This should help reassure politicians that Chinese sovereign wealth funds can take minority positions responsibly," he said.
C.I.C.'s holdings outside the United States are substantial and growing. In Canada, it owns a $3.5 billion stake in Teck Resources, a mining and resources company listed in the United States, and a $1 million stake in Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry mobile phones.
The sovereign wealth fund has also been buying small stakes in Australia's biggest banks and paid $646 million last autumn for a stake in Noble Group, a diversified commodities company based in Hong Kong with operations around the world in industries like iron ore mining and sugar mills.
Executives whose companies have accepted investments from C.I.C. tend to defend it as apolitical.
Richard S. Elman, the founder and chairman of Noble, said last month that C.I.C. executives had been businesslike in their approach to the investment.
"They are hugely commercial, and they want results," he said. "They do not interfere in the day-to-day operations."
Keith Bradsher reported from Hong Kong.
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18) The Worst of the Pain
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/opinion/09herbert.html
There is a great tendency in this country to refuse to see what is right in front of everybody's eyes.
While there is now, finally, a great deal of talk among the politicians and in the news media about unemployment, there is still almost a willful refusal to focus on just who is suffering the most from joblessness and underemployment.
When it comes to employment, there are roughly three broad categories in the United States. The folks in the upper-income group are not suffering much, if at all, from the profound reversals in employment brought about by the Great Recession. Those in the middle have been hit hard. The job losses there have been severe and long-lasting. But for those in the lower-income groups, the scale of the employment crisis has been mind-boggling.
What you're not hearing from the politicians and the talking heads is that the joblessness and underemployment in America's low-income households rival their heights in the Great Depression of the 1930s - and in some instances are worse. The same holds true for some categories of blue-collar workers. Anyone who thinks this devastating problem is going away soon, or that the economy can be put back on track without addressing it, is deluded.
There has been talk about income inequality over the past several years, but what is happening now is catastrophic. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston divided American households into 10 groups based on annual household income. Then it analyzed labor conditions in each of the groups during the fourth quarter of 2009.
The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during that quarter of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.
Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. That's more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression.
The next lowest group, with incomes of $12,500 to $20,000, had an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent.
These are the kinds of jobless rates that push families already struggling on meager incomes into destitution. And such gruesome gaps in the condition of groups at the top and bottom of the economic ladder are unmistakable signs of impending societal instability. This is dangerous stuff. Nothing good can come of vast armies of the unemployed just sitting out there, simmering.
When the data about underemployment is factored in - meaning individuals who are working part time but would like to work full time, and those who have stopped looking but would take a job if one were available - the picture only worsens. In the lowest group, the underemployment rate was 20.6 percent, compared with just 1.6 percent in the highest group.
The people suffering the most drastic employment reversals in this recession have been those who were in the lower-income groups to begin with - the young, less well-educated workers, especially black and Hispanic high school dropouts, and certain categories of service workers, such as food preparers and building cleaners. Blue-collar workers were also hammered, especially those in the construction industry.
This is not to say that the middle class has not been hurt badly by the recession. It has been. In last year's fourth quarter, the group with household incomes of $40,000 to $49,000 had a jobless rate of 9 percent, close to the disastrous national average. The $50,000 to $59,000 group had a 7.8 percent jobless rate, and households earning $60,000 to $75,000 had a jobless rate of 6.4 percent.
The point here is that those in the lower-income groups are in a much, much deeper hole than the general commentary on the recession would lead people to believe. And none of the policy prescriptions being offered by the administration or the leaders of either party in Congress would in any way substantially alleviate the plight of those groups.
We talk about the recession as if all of its victims were suffering equally, and all will be helped by some bland, class-and-category-neutral solution.
That is so wrong. As the Center for Labor Market Studies explained in its report: "A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution; a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top."
Those who believe this grievous economic situation will right itself of its own accord or can be corrected without bold, targeted (and, yes, expensive) government action are still reading from the Ronald Reagan (someday it will trickle down) hymnal.
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19) Paperwork Hinders Airlifts of Ill Haitian Children
By IAN URBINA
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/americas/09airlift.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Private medical evacuations of critically injured Haitian children to the United States for treatment have largely stopped because aid workers, doctors and government officials are worried about being accused of kidnapping if they transport the children without first getting paperwork that is slow to arrive or is unavailable.
Before 10 Americans were arrested trying to take children out of Haiti late last month, the largest pediatric field hospital in Haiti was airlifting 15 injured children aboard private flights to the United States each day.
But since the arrests, it has been able to evacuate only three children on private flights to American hospitals, according to Elizabeth Greig, the field hospital's chief administrative officer, who has been in charge of trying to get the necessary Haitian and American approval.
At least 10 other children have died or become worse while waiting to be airlifted out of the country, she said. Dozens of children are in critical need of care, and there has been no shortage of American hospitals or pilots willing to take them.
But before being permitted to evacuate the children, some doctors said they were now being asked by American and Haitian officials for documents proving that the children were orphans or that the adult traveling with them was a parent - a challenging task considering that many residents' birth certificates and other records remained buried under the rubble.
"They're all at risk of dying, and none of these children should still be here in Haiti," said Dr. Shayan Vyas, an American pediatrician changing an IV at the pediatric field hospital, which is based here at the Port-au-Prince airport and handles most of the private pediatric airlifts out of Haiti. The hospital is run by Medishare, a Miami-based charity, and a coalition of hospitals tied to the University of Miami.
Other clinics here in Haiti have also conducted private evacuations, but they, too, are wrestling with the burden of proving that they are not illegally transporting children, according to those involved in the relief effort.
Whatever intentions the 10 jailed Americans had when they tried to whisk the children across the border without government approval, many Haitians and aid workers say the case has become a dangerous distraction for a country still in the throes of a huge humanitarian crisis.
Last week, Haiti's prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, observed that reporters were "talking more now about 10 people than they are about one million people suffering in the streets."
Dr. Lee Sanders, an American pediatrician at the airport field hospital, took the point a step further. "For these kids the kidnapping case isn't just a distraction," he said, as he changed a dressing on a girl's infected leg. "It has become the difference between life and death."
Previously, doctors, pilots and aid workers air-lifted children with life-threatening conditions out of the country immediately after triage, and then completed the paperwork after the children were stabilized.
No longer.
"Everything has slowed down, and most pilots are backing out of these medical missions with kids," said Scott Dorfman, a pilot from Atlanta who has flown 50 flights since the earthquake, moving supplies, doctors and patients.
He said he planned on flying a critically ill Haitian baby to an American hospital this week even though he was nervous about it.
"No matter what, I'm not taking off until I know we have those papers in hand," he said. "If it means the patient doesn't go, that's what it means."
Adding to the list of problems, Ms. Greig argued, the American Customs officials who issue the so-called medical parole forms allowing children to be evacuated have sometimes failed to coordinate with the pilots who need completed forms in hand before they can take off.
American officials in Haiti declined to comment on the problems with getting clearance to evacuate the children, but the kidnapping concerns are not the first problem for doctors trying to evacuate critically injured patients.
Medical airlifts being flown by the American military were suddenly halted on Jan. 27 because hospitals and state officials were short on space and worried about shouldering the cost of receiving more children, according to military officials.
Since the military flights resumed on Feb. 1, Dustin Doyle, a spokesman for the Air Force, said that on average they had been flying eight patients a day to the United States.
But doctors said that only a handful of children in need of care had been able to take advantage of those military flights because getting approval was slow and only patients at risk of dying in 24 to 48 hours had been permitted.
In fact, most of the patients airlifted to the United States since the earthquake struck have flown on smaller private flights arranged by a diversity of nongovernmental organizations and private citizens, according to doctors at the airport field hospital.
The paperwork for these private flights has been a challenge from the beginning.
After the earthquake struck, pilots and doctors were getting in shouting matches daily on the runway, with pilots saying they feared losing their licenses and being fined $400,000 if they did not have the medical parole forms from Customs.
The impact of the evacuation delays could not be more evident. Leaning over a premature baby girl at the field hospital here, doctors took turns squeezing an air bag to keep her lungs functioning and used heating packets from ready-to-eat meals to raise her body temperature because they lacked an incubator.
Across the sweltering room, a 5-year-old boy lay moaning on a stretcher, his back broken by a wall that collapsed on him during the earthquake.
Behind him, a 15-year-old girl stared at the infection running down her leg toward what is left of her amputated foot.
Florida hospitals had already volunteered to take them. Pilots were waiting with planes ready to fly them there.
All three had at least one person claiming to be a parent with them, but none had documents to prove it.
The baby has since been flown to another hospital in Haiti, but is still struggling to survive. The other two are still in the field hospital awaiting clearance to leave
Some doctors at the city's general hospital and at the airport clinic said they had consulted lawyers to see if they could be liable for arranging and often paying for private planes to take Haitian children without having first ensured there were proper papers.
The doctors said they had since tried instead to get the children onto the Comfort, a military hospital ship docked in the port, but had failed because space there was limited.
"This is not how medicine is supposed to work," Dr. Vyas said.
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20) Japanese Split on Exposing Secret Pacts With U.S.
By MARTIN FACKLER
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/asia/09japan.html?ref=world
TOKYO - They were Tokyo's worst-kept diplomatic secrets: clandestine cold war era agreements with Washington that obligated Japan to shoulder the costs of United States bases and allow nuclear-armed American ships to sail into Japanese ports.
For decades, Japanese leaders have gone to great lengths to deny the pacts' existence, despite mounting proof to the contrary from the testimony of former diplomats and declassified documents in the United States. The most sensational instance came in 1972, when a reporter who unearthed evidence of one of the treaties was arrested on charges of obtaining state secrets, reportedly by means of an adulterous affair.
Now, the so-called secret treaties are causing problems again, this time in how Japan is handling its suddenly rocky relationship with the United States.
The new administration in Tokyo, whose election last summer ended a half-century of nearly unbroken control by the Liberal Democrats, wants to expose the treaties as a showcase of its determination to sweep aside the nation's secretive, bureaucrat-dominated postwar order. Last fall, the foreign minister appointed a team of scholars to scour Japanese diplomatic archives for evidence of the treaties. Its findings are due this month.
The problem is that the inquiry is coming at a delicate moment in Japan's ties with its longtime patron, the United States. The administrations of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of Japan and President Obama are already divided over the relocation of an American air base in Okinawa. By exposing some of the less savory aspects of Japan's military reliance on the United States, the investigation has drawn criticism, particularly from conservatives in both nations, as an effort by the left-leaning Hatoyama government to pull away from Washington.
However, those involved in the investigation in Japan, both within and outside the government, insist that it is not about challenging the American alliance. In interviews, the current central figures in the case - including the foreign minister, Katsuya Okada; a retired Japanese diplomat who helped blow the whistle on the pacts' existence; and the reporter who got the original scoop, Takichi Nishiyama, now 79 and still fighting to restore his reputation - described the investigation as an effort to expose agreements from the 1960s and early 1970s that were too old to have an impact on current diplomatic relations.
Mr. Okada and the others stressed that the existence of the treaties had already been made public in the United States. Some also said that the Japanese investigation was drawing attention only because it was so unusual for this nation to come clean about its past after years of obfuscation under the long-governing Liberal Democrats. They said the investigation was a highly symbolic gesture by the new government to make Japan's stunted democracy more forthcoming and accountable to its own people.
"The prime minister and I cannot just stand before Parliament and deny the secret treaties, as has been done until now," Mr. Okada said. "We are just doing what the United States has already done."
Diplomatic experts agree that exposing the treaties will have little or no direct effect on the alliance, partly because the United States announced in the early 1990s that it was no longer carrying nuclear weapons on most of its warships.
But the investigation could have unintended consequences if it uncorks long-suppressed public debate on a point that Tokyo has, until now, purposefully left vague: whether Japan, which officially bans nuclear weapons from its territory, can continue to rely on the United States' nuclear umbrella, which may require it to allow carrying such weapons on American ships and planes in a time of crisis.
This could lead to calls to remove the American bases, rewrite Japan's pacifist Constitution to allow a full-fledged military or even develop the country's own nuclear deterrent, political observers said.
"This is the biggest contradiction of the postwar period," said Masaaki Gabe, a professor of international relations at University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa Prefecture. "The Democratic Party could be opening a Pandora's box of public debate."
According to experts, there were four known secret pacts, made when the two countries revised their security pact in 1960 or during negotiations for the return of the southern islands of Okinawa to Japan in 1972. One of the first to expose them was Mr. Nishiyama, then a rising reporter at the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun.
His revelations provoked a battle pitting the public's right to know against government demands for secrecy that many here likened to the Pentagon Papers in the United States. But unlike the Pentagon Papers case, the journalist lost in Japan.
Public attention quickly turned to his arrest and the details of his affair with a Foreign Ministry worker, which he admitted took place.
However, he says the tabloid aspects of the case were highlighted by prosecutors to divert public attention from discussion of the secret pacts themselves. Japan's Supreme Court found Mr. Nishiyama guilty of obtaining state secrets in 1978, and he has been filing lawsuits ever since, seeking an official apology and the disclosure of documents related to the treaties.
"Why do the Japanese people only learn about their own government from documents disclosed in the United States?" he said. "This is crazy."
Mr. Nishiyama and a handful of civic groups seeking evidence of the pacts got a boost in 2000, when the United States began declassifying documents related to the secret agreements. An unexpected breakthrough came four years ago, when a diplomat who had testified at Mr. Nishiyama's trial that the pacts did not exist - Bunroku Yoshino, one of the negotiators of Okinawa's return to Japan - came forward three decades later to admit that he had lied.
"After dozens of years have passed, you cannot keep distorting history," said Mr. Yoshino, now 92.
Mr. Okada, the foreign minister, said he was aware of the criticism that the investigation was anti-American, which he called a misunderstanding. He said exposing the truth would actually strengthen the alliance by righting a past wrong that had led many Japanese to doubt the sincerity of their own government and the United States.
"Telling the facts to the people is extremely important for democracy," he said, adding that the change in Japan's government "is a great chance" to do so.
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21) For Obama, Nuance on Race Invites Questions
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/us/politics/09race.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The civil rights movement will come alive in song at the White House on Wednesday night, when President Obama plans to celebrate Black History Month with a star-studded concert.
And it came alive in quiet conversation on Martin Luther King's Birthday, when Mr. Obama installed a rare signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in the Oval Office and invited a small group of African-American elders and young people in for a private viewing.
The two events - a televised extravaganza with celebrities like Morgan Freeman and Queen Latifah, and an intimate discussion with people like Dorothy Height, the 97-year-old chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women - reflect the nuances in Mr. Obama's handling of the often incendiary issue of race in America. He is using his platform to advance racial consciousness, even as he has steered clear of putting race front and center in his administration.
It is a balancing act that has frustrated some black leaders and scholars, who are starting to challenge Mr. Obama's language and policies.
On Capitol Hill, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed irritation that Mr. Obama has not created programs tailored specifically to African-Americans, who are suffering disproportionately in the recession. In December, some of them threatened to oppose new financial rules for banks until the White House promised to address the needs of minorities.
"I don't think we expected anything to change overnight because we had an African-American in the White House, but the fact still remains that we've got a constituency that is suffering," said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland. "I think he could do more, and he will do more."
Some black scholars say Mr. Obama has failed to lead on the race issue. The Kirwan Institute, which studies race and ethnicity, is convening a conference on Thursday to offer policy prescriptions. After analyzing the State of the Union address, the institute's scholars warned that "continued failure to engage race would be devastating."
Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University sociologist and longtime supporter of Mr. Obama, is exasperated. "All these teachable moments," he said, "but the professor refuses to come to the class."
In an interview in late December with American Urban Radio Networks, a group of black-owned stations, Mr. Obama conceded that there was "grumbling" among African-Americans, especially about his jobs policies. But he rejected the idea that he should pay special attention to them - an argument that Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a black author and political analyst, called "disingenuous at best, and an insult at worst."
Mr. Obama framed it this way: "I can't pass laws that say I'm just helping black folks. I'm the president of the United States. What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need. That in turn is going to help lift up the African-American community."
Until now, black leaders have tended to tread lightly in criticizing Mr. Obama, and some find it painful. Black Americans remain overwhelmingly supportive of Mr. Obama; a recent ABC News poll found that 96 percent approve of his job performance.
But Elinor Tatum, the editor and publisher of the black-owned Amsterdam News, says that if blacks were asked "Is he doing a good job for African-Americans?" his numbers would be lower.
"Every time someone brings up an issue that affects blacks, he says that's an issue that affects all of America," Ms. Tatum said. "But at the same time, if he were of a different race or ethnicity, he would be playing to the black community. So there's a double standard there. Should we be the victims in that?"
The conventional wisdom about Mr. Obama is that he tries to duck the issue of race, but close advisers say he is acutely aware of his role as the first African-American president and is trying to heighten racial sensitivity in constructive ways.
Many black leaders view this as wise. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who is working with Mr. Obama to close the achievement gap in education, says the president is smart not to ballyhoo "a black agenda."
Instead, Mr. Obama has been trying to shine a spotlight on the history that laid the foundation for his presidency, with events like Wednesday's concert and the celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, which offer a peek into his style.
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, said the King event was intended as "an intergenerational conversation" in which guests could share their experiences in a "safe and private moment." Before the Oval Office tour, they gathered in the Roosevelt Room and Mr. Obama invited each to speak.
Dr. Height began with the story of her first encounter with the young Martin Luther King Jr., then 15 and trying, she said, to "analyze his own thoughts as he was trying to determine whether he wanted to enter the ministry, education or law."
A local pastor, John Pinkard, recounted his dinner with Dr. King. Participants said the session seemed as much for the president's benefit as their own.
"My impression was that it was deliberately something for him and for Michelle, and that it was kind of like medicine, it was healing for them," said the historian Taylor Branch, who also attended. "It seemed to answer something personal for them."
Race, of course, can be an incendiary issue in American politics: as a candidate, the biracial Mr. Obama was criticized as either too black or not black enough. He addressed the topic memorably in a speech in Philadelphia after the controversy involving his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Ms. Jarrett said, "He has communicated quite clearly his thoughts on the subject."
As president, Mr. Obama learned the pitfalls of talking bluntly about race. His comment that police officers in Cambridge, Mass., "acted stupidly" when they arrested a black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., caused an uproar, and the ensuing "beer summit" at the White House proved a distraction.
Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor who represented Mr. Gates and is close to Mr. Obama, said the president had never hesitated to talk about race but is more scripted now. "I think there is a carefulness - not a reluctance - but a carefulness about what should be said going forward," he said.
Professor Ogletree said he "finds puzzling the idea that a president who happens to be black has to focus on black issues."
Dr. Height agreed. Having counseled every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt on matters of race, she made a plea in a recent interview for Mr. Obama to be left alone.
"We have never sat down and said to the 43 other presidents: 'How does it feel to be a Caucasian? How do you feel as a white president? Tell me what that means to you,' " Dr. Height said. "I am not one to think that he should do more for his people than for other people. I want him to be free to be himself."
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