*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
STOP SPENDING TRILLIONS ON THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
END US/UN MILITARY OCCUPATION OF HAITI! 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!
Volunteers Needed!
Postering and Flyering Work Sessions every Tues. 7pm and every Sat. 2pm
Volunteers are needed to help put up posters, hand out leaflets and make alert phone calls to fellow activists. Call 415-821-6545 for more info and for office hours. Come by the office to pick up posters and flyers in English, Spanish or Chinese. Participate in an Outreach Work Session held every Tues. 7pm and Sat. 2pm, meeting at the ANSWER Coalition Office: 2489 Mission St. #24 (at 21st St.), San Francisco, near 24th St. BART/#14, #49 MUNI.
Call 415-821-6545 for leafleting and posting schedule.
DONATIONS NEEDED:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1443&JServSessionIdr004=nou1lpg115.app202a
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
VICTORY:
"FELONY ARSON" CHARGES AGAINST JR VALREY DISMISSED BY ALAMEDA COUNTY
Currently, only one other defendant, punk rock artist Holly Works, still faces charges. Her trial is set for March 1. Readers are urged to pack the courtroom so that her charges, too, will be dismissed.
DEFEND HOLLY WORKS!
Monday, March 1st - Holly's trial begins
8 AM - Protest outside the court
9 AM - Proceedings, Room 11
Alameda County Court House • 12th & Oak St, Oakland
(from 12th Street BART Station, walk down 12th St toward Lake Merritt.
Demonstrate / enter court at 12th and Oak St)
Holly Works is the remaining defendants of the Oakland 100, the arrestees in the police crackdown against the protests in Oakland over the police murder of Oscar Grant, on New Years Day, 2009. Framed on felony charges, both are facing years behind bars, but... Holly is innocent!
Holly Works, a local musician and activist, was arrested before she even arrived at the protest! Walking down the street with a friend, she was detained and fraudulently charged with... assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Fri. Feb 26, 9am (come early to pack the hearing room!)
Stop All MUNI Cutbacks and Fare Hikes!
CHOP FROM THE TOP!
Come Speak Out at the MTA Hearing
SF City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 400
Since the Metropolitan Transit Agency (MTA) announced its plans to explore potential areas of revenue in September of 2009, the agency has played a political game, which pits different community groups against each other for their own benefit. They have attacked car drivers who can no longer afford MUNI; they have attacked MUNI janitorial workers who maintain MUNI. The MTA has attacked seniors, the youth, and the disabled who are the most vulnerable during these hard economic times by threatening to double their Fast Passes. They have vastly increased police harassment on MUNI - at great cost. Last year, the SFPD billed MUNI $18 million for "services." All in all, the MTA continues to attack poor and working families who are experiencing cuts, not only at the city level, but at the state and federal level as well.
On Feb. 16, it was announced that the MTA's negotiated contract with the MUNI drivers union, TWU Lo. 250-A, was rejected by the vast majority of its members. Immediately, city officials and the media of San Francisco unleashed a vicious propaganda campaign blaming the disastrous cuts and hikes on the MUNI drivers. Not once in their smear articles did these outlets mention the bloated salaries of directors and administrators whose policies and mismanagement are those truly to blame for the deficit. The top heavy cost to maintain public services in San Francisco is just one of the symptoms of the larger problem with the City as a whole that avoids taxing those who have benefited from this economic crisis, the rich! We say it is time to stop making cuts and ratcheting up fares, meter hours and parking tickets and instead TAX THE RICH!
The current patchwork on the deficits in the MTA will not be solved by more cutbacks and more fare hikes. It is important to know that even if the MTA approves these devastating cuts to "solve" this year's $16.9 million deficit, next year's deficit amounts to $52.7 million! This means that we can expect the approved cuts to be added to a long list of new service and job cuts and new fare hikes.
This crisis cannot be solved on the backs of poor and working people. It is time to CHOP FROM THE TOP! We call on community organizations, activists, MUNI riders, and the people of San Francisco who have had enough with the City's non-stop cuts to our salaries and services to demand that the rich pay instead!
Join us on Feb. 26, 9am to make our voices heard in the MTA hearing. Call 415-821-6545 for more information or to get involved in the campaign.
Note: This hearing was initially scheduled for 2/16, but was later rescheduled by the MTA for 2/26.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Join Unitarian Universalists for Peace-SF to promote the March 20 Coalition antiwar demonstration.:
Sunday, 28 February 2010
12:15 pm
@ Unitarian Universalist Center
1187 Franklin Street (@ Geary), SF, 94109
We invite you to...
-- Lunch (vegetarian) and
-- Movie, Howard Zinn: You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train
A vegetarian lunch will start @ 12:15. We're asking "guests" for $1 - $5 contribution. (UU members, the usual $5). It includes a brief program on "Why I will be protesting the wars on March 20"
RSVP by 25 Feb so we know how much lunch to prepare: blee1931@yahoo.com (415.668.9572) or doloresmp@aol.com (415.387.2287)
The inspiring documentary on recently departed Howard Zinn will start about !:15 pm. Length approx 78 mins.
Donations will be solicited to benefit the March 20 Coalition to defray expenses of the anti-war march & rally on:
Saturday 20 March 2010
11 am
Civic Center Plaza, SF
This lunch and movie social is hosted by Unitarian Universalists for Peace-SF, a member of the March 20 Coalition, calling for an end to the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan: to use our taxes for health care, jobs and education, not death and destruction!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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.
-----
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Bay Area Latin American Solidarity Coalition presents:
The Future of Honduras
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Centro del Pueblo
474 Valencia (between 15th and 16th Streets)
San Francisco
$5-25 donations
(No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.)
415-924-3227
www.mitfamericas.org, www.balasc.org
Come hear Andres Conteris tell the story of his 129 days inside the Brazillian Embassy under seige with President Mel Zelaya after the Honduran coup.
Andres was the last English speaking journalist inside the Embassy, staying until the day that Zelaya was allowed to leave.
Now returned to San Francisco, Andres will tell us about those months withi the Embassy, and inform us of the most recent developments from Honduras.
Andres Conteris is a Latin American Correspondent with Democracy Now! and Flaspoints; has lived in Honduras; and has been involved in human rights activism for many years.
Andres will also be leading a human rights delegation to Honduras later in March, organized through the Task Force on the Americas. Proceeds from the March 10th presentation will benefit the Honduras Delegation Scholarship Fund.
Endorsed by: Chiapas Support Committee; FMLN Northern California; Haiti Action Committee; Nicaragua Center for Community Action; SOA Watch West; Task Force on the Americas
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
LABOR'S STAKE IN ENDING THE WARS
Why are we in Afghanistan?
San Francisco
Saturday, March 20, 10:00 A.M.-12:00 Noon*
Plumbers Hall
1621 Market Street (Near Franklin)
U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and its consequences.
Program Includes:
--"Why Are We in Afghanistan" a short video.
--Stephen Zunes, USF Professor and Middle East specialist
--Afghanistan War Veteran
--Military Families Speak Out
--Labor Leaders
Speakers followed by Q&A and Audience Response
Followed by a Labor Contingent march to Civic Center to join antiwar rally and march in solidarity with Unite HERE Local 2 members at downtown hotels. (Bring union banners and colors)
*Coffee, bagels and music at 10:00 A.M., march to Civic Center at Noon. Park in lot next to building or exit Civic Center BART station, walk about 6 blocks west on Market to Franklin.
Sponsored by:
San Francisco Labor Council and Bay Area U.S. Labor Against the War
Endorsed by:
Alameda Labor Council; AFT Local 2121; Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice; ILWU Local 10; Oakland Education Association; OPEIU Local 3; Peralta Federation of Teachers; SEIU Local 1021; Unite HERE Local 2; United Educators of San Francisco.
This list is in formation. Additional endorsements are invited.
For more information: 510-263-5303
labor-for-peace-and-justice@igc.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The US Social Forum II
" June 22-26, 2010 "
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Another World Is Possible! Another US is Necessary!
http://www.ussf2010.org/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
I AM SEAN BELL, black boys speak
by Stacey Muhammad plus
1 year ago 1 year ago: Thu, Jan 1, 2009 6:22pm EST (Eastern Standard Time)
http://vimeo.com/2691617
I AM SEAN BELL
black boys speak
A Short Form Documentary from Wildseed Films
Directed by Stacey Muhammad
Asst. Directed by Shomari Mason
Edited by: Stacey Muhammad & R.H. Bless
Principal Photography: May 17, 2008
Brooklyn, NY
Running Time 10:30
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A Carnival Artist Without a Carnival
A Haitian Artist Struggles to Show His Work
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html
War veterans and resisters say "All Out for March 20th-National March on Washington!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwsLfG9JjF8
Bilin Reenacts Avatar Film 12-02-2010 By Haitham Al Katib
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chw32qG-M7E
Watch the video: "Haiti and the Devil's Curse" at:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
or
Haiti And The 'Devil's Curse' - The Truth About Haiti & Lies Of The Media PART 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWqgOe0-0xA
Haiti And The 'Devil's Curse' - The Truth About Haiti & Lies Of The Media PART 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Qki6TrI7M&feature=related
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
New York Times Video: For Haitian Children, a Crisis Escalates
Front page of the Times, 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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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. 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/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Lost Generation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
(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).]
*********************************************************************
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
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Israel Unveils Drones Able to Hit Iran
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/world/middleeast/22mideast.html?ref=world
2) List of Troubled Banks at 16-Year Peak, F.D.I.C. Says
By ERIC DASH
February 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/business/24fdic.html?hp
3) Countless Lost Limbs Alter Life in Haiti's Ruins
By DEBORAH SONTAG
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/world/americas/23amputee.html?ref=world
4) Flight Data Show Rendition Planes Landed in Poland
By NICHOLAS KULISH and SCOTT SHANE
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/world/europe/23poland.html?ref=world
5) Applications for Help on Heat Bills Rise by 15%
By ERIK ECKHOLM
February 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/us/23fuel.html?ref=us
6) DiNapoli: Wall Street Bonuses Up 17 Percent
"Wall Street bonuses were up 17 percent to over $20 billion in 2009, the year taxpayers bailed out the financial sector after its meltdown..."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/23/business/AP-US-Wall-Street-Bonuses.html?dbk
7) Second Strike Paralyzes Greece
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
February 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/world/europe/25greece.html?hp
8) Questions Surface After Haitian Airlift
By GINGER THOMPSON
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/americas/24orphans.html?ref=world
9) Gates Calls European Mood a Danger to Peace
"The demilitarization of Europe - where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it - has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," [Antiwar = AntiPeace. More Orwellian doublespeak...bw]
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
February 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/europe/24nato.html?ref=world
10) More Satellites Will Act as Eyes for Troops
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
February 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/asia/24satellites.html?ref=world
11) Illness Hinders Plans to Close Immigration Jail
By NINA BERNSTEIN
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/nyregion/24varick.html?ref=us
12) A Vote to Fire All Teachers at a Failing High School
By KATIE ZEZIMA
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teacher.html?ref=education
13) Doctor Training Aided by Drug Industry Cash
By DUFF WILSON
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/business/23docs.html?adxnnl=1&ref=education&adxnnlx=1267031207-nhb26464GE6S1L2hT+5NKg
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Israel Unveils Drones Able to Hit Iran
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/world/middleeast/22mideast.html?ref=world
TEL NOF AIR FORCE BASE, Israel (AP) - Israel's Air Force on Sunday introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and fly as far as the Persian Gulf, putting Iran within their range.
The new aircraft, called the Heron TP, has a wingspan of 86 feet, making it the size of a Boeing 737 jetliner and the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel's military.
The commander of Israel's Air Force, Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, said the aircraft "has the potential to be able to conduct new missions down the line as they become relevant."
Israel's military refused to disclose the size of the new fleet or whether it was designed for use against Iran.
Israel considers Iran an enemy because of its nuclear program, missiles and repeated threats.
Israel has hinted at the possibility of a military strike against Iran if world pressure does not halt the Iranian nuclear program, despite Iranian assertions that the program is for peaceful ends.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) List of Troubled Banks at 16-Year Peak, F.D.I.C. Says
By ERIC DASH
February 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/business/24fdic.html?hp
Correction Appended
After weathering the nation's worst run of bank failures in nearly two decades, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced Tuesday that it had added 450 institutions to its list of challenged lenders in 2009 and warned that the industry was likely to remain under stress.
The number of so-called problem banks rose to 702 at the end of 2009, compared to 252 at the beginning of the year. Both the number of troubled institutions and their total assets are at the highest level since 1993, putting enormous strain on the government-administered insurance fund that protects customer deposits.
The F.D.I.C. does not disclose which banks it considers at risk. Lenders on its list are not necessarily in imminent danger of failure.
With banks failing in growing numbers, the F.D.I.C. said its insurance fund fell deeper into the red, ending 2009 with a deficit of $20.9 billion. That position was nearly $38.1 billion weaker than a year earlier. The bulk of that decline reflects funds that the F.D.I.C. is setting aside to cope with future losses.
In its annual report on the banking industry, the agency suggested that many of the nation's 8,100 lenders essentially broke even during 2009 but that many remain in fragile condition. Many smaller lenders, in particular, are struggling. Bad credit card, mortgage and corporate loans escalated in the final months of 2009 - the 12th straight quarterly increase - albeit at a slower pace. Fewer than a third of banks reported a net loss for the fourth quarter, which officials held out as a glimmer of good news.
"There is incremental improvement," said Sheila C. Bair, the F.D.I.C. chairwoman, said in a news conference in Washington on Tuesday morning. "We are seeing some encouraging signs here. Over all, the banking system is challenged but stable."
Last week, the Federal Reserve raised the rate it charges banks for emergency loans, suggesting Fed officials consider the overall industry has recovered from the worst days of the financial collapse. Federal regulators are also expected to withdraw several government support programs shortly. But with high unemployment levels and few signs the housing market has bottomed-out, the broader outlook for many banks remains murky at best.
Collectively, banks posted a $914 million profit in the fourth quarter, compared to a $2.8 billion profit in the third quarter.
For all of 2009, the banking industry posted a $12.5 billion profit, far below the $100 billion in annual profits that the industry raked in two years earlier at the height of the boom. Although the financial industry benefited ultra-low interest rates, most banks also faced record loan losses. Many midsize and community lenders, which do not have big trading businesses, suffered big losses last year. Officials worry that they will be reluctant to lend to small businesses and other customers until they replenish their coffers. "Large banks need to step up to the plate here," Ms. Bair added.
The troubles may get worse in the coming months. Once the Fed starts tightening credit, banks will no longer be able to rely on the easy profits of the last two years to cushion their losses. The extra strain could causes dozens of additional banks to fail, just as similar interest-rate swings dealt hurt many lenders following the saving-and-loan crisis.
So far, the F.D.I.C. has seized and sold about 20 banks in 2010, compared with 140 bank failures in 2009. That was the largest number of failures in 17 years. Analysts expect at least several hundred more small lenders to collapse over the next few years, a prospect that seems more likely given the surge in the number of problem institutions last year. The number of problem banks rose by 150 in the fourth quarter alone, bringing it to nearly 1 in 11 lenders.
That is putting significant pressure on the F.D.I.C. fund, which safeguards deposits. Banks pay premiums that insure individual accounts for up to $250,000, but the crushing load of bank failures last year left it severely depleted. The fund had a negative $8.2 billion balance at the end of the third quarter as it slipped into the red for the first time since the early 1990s, the agency said.
Since the bulk of the insurance fund's losses stem from money previously set aside to cover future bank failures, it can continue to operate in the red. But F.D.I.C. began taking steps to shore up the fund last year - and make up a projected $50 billion shortfall.
Last fall, officials ordered its thousands of member banks to begin prepaying their annual assessments that would have otherwise been due through 2012. That move is expected to add about $45 billion to the insurance fund coffers. Officials have imposed a special assessment fee and began striking more loss-sharing agreements, which lowers the amount of cash the agency outlays up-front.
Of course, some analysts still believe that the agency may need additional cash. The F.D.I.C. has the ability to access an emergency line of credit from the Treasury Department if conditions worsen, though officials are reluctant to do so. Such a move would draw a firestorm of bad publicity and runs the risk of unnerving consumers.
In late August, Ms. Bair said she did not anticipate having to tap that line of credit immediately, although she did not rule it out. "I never say never," Ms. Bair said at the time.
Correction: February 23, 2010
An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that 500 institutions had been added to the troubled-lender list in 2009. It also erred in reporting that the collective bank profit in the fourth quarter was an improvement over the previous quarter.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Countless Lost Limbs Alter Life in Haiti's Ruins
By DEBORAH SONTAG
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/world/americas/23amputee.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - "Don't cut off my leg!" Fabienne Jean screamed repeatedly as she was carried through the gates of the General Hospital here after the earthquake. "I'm a dancer. My leg is my livelihood. Please, don't take my leg."
After four days on the hospital's cluttered grounds, lying among what she described as the "dead and living all mixed up," Ms. Jean was wheeled into an operating tent where her crushed, infected right leg was amputated below the knee.
"It is a sad story," Ms. Jean, 31, a slim, graceful woman who danced for the Haitian National Theater, said recently, massaging her bandaged stump. "But what can I do? I can't kill myself because of this, so I have to learn to live with it."
More than a month after the earthquake, thousands of new amputees are facing the stark reality of living with disabilities in a shattered country whose terrain and culture have never been hospitable to the disabled.
Some remain in hospital tents swarming with flies; others have moved to makeshift post-surgical centers; and those who healed quickly, like Ms. Jean, have been discharged to the streets, where they now live. All need continuing care in a nation with no rehabilitation hospital, few physical therapists, no central prosthesis factory since the quake and a skeletal supply of crutches, canes and wheelchairs gradually being reinforced by donations.
"The situation for newly disabled persons is very delicate," said Michel Péan, Haiti's secretary of state for the integration of the disabled. "They urgently need not only medical care but food and a place to live. Also, we cannot forget those disabled before the disaster who, because of their handicap, are having trouble getting access to humanitarian aid."
Rough estimates of the number of new amputees are based on information from overburdened hospitals that did not keep good records of surgeries. The Haitian government believes that 6,000 to 8,000 people have lost limbs or digits. Handicap International estimates that 2,000 to 4,000 Haitians underwent amputations, and many thousands more suffered complicated fractures, some of which could turn into amputations if not managed well.
Dr. Péan, who is blind and serves in a relatively new post as government advocate for people with disabilities, said that Haiti's disabled - some 8 percent of the population even before the quake - had long been treated as second-class citizens. But the government has recently taken legal steps to recognize their rights and opened offices to serve them in the countryside, he said.
Ideally, Dr. Péan said, post-earthquake reconstruction could provide an opportunity to make Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, more accessible to people with disabilities and the impetus to create a national institute for rehabilitation.
For the moment, though, the urgent focus is on the uncertain present: making sure the thousands who underwent life-saving amputations have a future.
Handicap International, based in France, has been coordinating the postdisaster rehabilitation effort with CBM, a Germany-based Christian disability group, and with the Haitian government. Its volunteers - about five dozen therapists, nurses, technicians and community workers - have been providing postsurgical care and physical therapy at 12 hospitals here, and the organization is setting up a prosthetics workshop, too.
"We know that persons with injuries and disabilities are going through a difficult time right now, but they should not feel they're alone," said Aleema Shivji, an emergency response specialist with the group. "There are services available, and they're increasing by the day."
Recently, Caryn Brady, a physical therapist from Canada, made rounds through the sweltering postoperative tents outside the General Hospital. The patients there are being seen by such a revolving cast of international medical professionals, with charts so poorly kept that scribbled messages on bandaged stumps communicate the essentials: "See again on Feb. 23. Thanks. (Smiley face.)"
Bedside, Ms. Brady led Emmanuel Souverain, a university student whose right arm was amputated, through a series of exercises meant to prevent contractures and keep his muscles healthy for a prosthesis - although there is no plan yet to manufacture upper-body prosthetics.
Proceeding on to Mana Alexandre, 22, a double amputee in a white slip, Ms. Brady smiled when Ms. Alexandre showed off, bicycling her two leg stumps fiercely, a proud smile on her face. After more exercises, Ms. Alexandre moved, with the therapist's guidance, into a wheelchair, but worried about how to get back into bed.
"Well," her petite, dimple-faced mother, Evenie Belizaire, said, "I've been lifting you your whole life, with God's help."
Ms. Alexandre's stumps dangled over the seat of the wheelchair. "At home, there are chairs with a padded extension that can slide out and provide support," Ms. Brady said. "But maybe they can find a board?"
The need to adapt is challenging for all new amputees, but here newly discharged patients like Ms. Jean, the dancer, do not even have homes in which to recover or level, paved surfaces on which to plant their crutches or walkers.
On a recent afternoon, Ms. Jean sat on a plastic chair in front of her family's new home, a small green tent on a rocky hillside. Her sister-in-law stood behind her, stroking Ms. Jean's long, fine braids protectively as she spoke.
"Dancing was my hobby, my work, my passion, my everything," Ms. Jean said. She dug out her purse and offered up a couple of photographs of herself in folkloric costume: one, a Judith Jamison-like pose, the other, a slinky Carnival performer. "That was me," she said. "The before pictures."
When her house shook violently on the day of the earthquake, Ms. Jean had been preparing to shower. She ran outside in her underwear, a towel wrapped around her waist, she said.
Standing beside a wall, she breathed in relief at having escaped before her home partly collapsed. And then the wall fell on top of her. Pulling herself out of the rubble, she found her leg snapped in two, bound it together with her towel and hopped back into her house to retrieve some clothes.
Ms. Jean does not remember who took her to the hospital, a scene of utter chaos. Two days later, a doctor promised to try to save her leg, she said, but she never saw him again. She lost her leg four days after the earthquake, and her emotions have oscillated since.
After 10 days, the hospital sent Ms. Jean to a makeshift rehabilitation center near the mass graves in Titanyen. An American prosthetics specialist, Dennis Acton, who examined her there, described the place as a kind of "squalid homeless shelter for amputees."
From there, Ms. Jean was discharged, with a walker, to her doting family. Her father, Roigner Trazile, 48, dabbing at his eyes, said that his hope in life had been lost along with his dancing daughter's leg.
"Before, when she actually had two legs, I thought she would become somebody, and then I would become somebody, too," he said.
But, Ms. Jean said that "some foreigners" - Mr. Acton, actually, who was there with a team from New Hampshire - have promised her not only a regular prosthetic but a high-performance one, too, that could allow her to dance again.
"O.K.," she said, smiling. "I am waiting."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Flight Data Show Rendition Planes Landed in Poland
By NICHOLAS KULISH and SCOTT SHANE
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/world/europe/23poland.html?ref=world
BERLIN - Two human rights groups released government flight logs Monday that showed aircraft linked to the Central Intelligence Agency's program for secretly detaining, moving and housing terrorism suspects had landed in Poland.
Polish authorities have long denied that the country hosted one of the "black sites," part of a network of clandestine overseas prisons where suspected prisoners from Al Qaeda were subjected to brutal interrogation methods under the C.I.A.'s so-called rendition program. Prosecutors in Poland are investigating the country's possible participation in the program.
The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency confirmed that it provided the flight logs to the two rights groups, the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. The logs showed six flights in 2003 by two aircraft, a Gulfstream V and a Boeing 737, five of which originated in Kabul, Afghanistan, and one in Rabat, Morocco, before landing at Szymany airport.
Former American intelligence officials have said that the chief plotter of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was interrogated at the secret base near Szymany airport after his capture in 2003, but the agency has refused confirm that. "The agency does not discuss publicly where facilities related to its past detention program may, or may not, have been located," said a C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano.
Adam Bodnar, head of the legal division at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, based in Warsaw, said that after years of anonymous reports, the flight records were the first official confirmation of the C.I.A. flights to Poland. "We are getting closer to the truth," he said.
"Of course Polish authorities may help the C.I.A. in the fight against terrorism, but they are bound by the Polish Constitution, which prohibits torture," Mr. Bodnar said.
The Polish government declined to comment on the contents of the rights groups' report. "The prosecutor's office is investigating the reports about the alleged use of the Szymany airport," said Piotr Paszkowski, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Robert Majewski, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, told the Polish news agency PAP on Monday that he did not expect the investigation "to end soon."
C.I.A. officials have said that fewer than 100 prisoners were kept in the secret prisons between the creation of the program in 2002 and the transfer of the remaining 14 prisoners to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba in 2006.
Maciej Rodak, vice president of the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency, confirmed that the agency had sent the records to the human rights groups. He said that the agency could not provide passenger lists, which the groups had also requested.
"The thing that is quite shocking is that the European investigations requested these specific flight records some four years ago," said Darian Pavli, a lawyer with the Open Society Justice Initiative, a human rights group in New York. "The Poles all these years said they could not locate them, the flights didn't exist."
Nicholas Kulish reported from Berlin, and Scott Shane from Washington.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Applications for Help on Heat Bills Rise by 15%
By ERIK ECKHOLM
February 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/us/23fuel.html?ref=us
The number of households applying for home heating assistance has climbed to record levels for the third straight year, rising by 15 percent to a projected 8.8 million this winter, state energy officials said Monday. This compares with almost 7.7 million recipients last year and 5.7 million in 2008.
Average heating costs have declined slightly since 2009, and the increase in applications reflects, in part, the mounting troubles of those suffering prolonged unemployment, including many people who had not sought the aid in the past, said Mark Wolfe, director of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, which represents state aid officials in Washington.
Under the federally financed aid program, known as Liheap, states provide low-income applicants with grants averaging about $500 - or considerably more in colder northern states where heating a home with fuel oil can easily run to $1,800 or more for the winter. Later in the season, some people in dire straits also receive smaller emergency grants.
Congress approved $5.1 billion for the energy program, the same as last year. In the fall, with indications of another jump in demand, some states reduced the benefit amounts to stretch the money further. Unless Congress votes to provide extra money, state officials said, some states may cut off applications in the next month or two and scale back aid for weatherization and summer cooling.
A large majority of recipients are low-income elderly and disabled people and families living beneath the federal poverty line, which is $22,050 for a family of four. But households with incomes up to 150 percent or even double the poverty line are eligible in many states and, this year, applications have risen from people who are newly on the borderline of poverty.
"New applicants run the gamut from fixed-income seniors to an increase in the working poor to those of modest means who have lost their jobs or been displaced from homes they may have lost to foreclosure," said Phil Hailer, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.
In Massachusetts, where applications are up by at least 15 percent over last year, the state has reduced the maximum benefit amount to $1,240, from $1,495 in 2009.
Among larger states, aid applications have climbed particularly in California (17 percent), Michigan (28 percent), New Jersey (24 percent) and Wisconsin (20 percent), according to data provided to the national association of assistance directors.
Many states forbid utility shutoffs in the winter, and, with or without aid, struggling families sometimes put off payments, building up arrears. Officials expect a surge in shutoffs of gas and electricity in the spring, when the moratoriums end and consumers find themselves owing large amounts.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) DiNapoli: Wall Street Bonuses Up 17 Percent
"Wall Street bonuses were up 17 percent to over $20 billion in 2009, the year taxpayers bailed out the financial sector after its meltdown..."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/23/business/AP-US-Wall-Street-Bonuses.html?dbk
Filed at 6:57 a.m. ET
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Wall Street bonuses were up 17 percent to over $20 billion in 2009, the year taxpayers bailed out the financial sector after its meltdown, New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Tuesday.
Total compensation at the largest securities firms grew beyond that figure and profits could surpass what he calls an unprecedented $55 billion last year, DiNapoli said. That's nearly three times Wall Street's record increase, a rate of growth that is boosted in part by the record losses in 2008 of nearly $43 billion, the Democrat said.
''Wall Street is vital to New York's economy, and the dollars generated by the industry help the state's bottom line,'' said DiNapoli. ''But for most Americans, these huge bonuses are a bitter pill and hard to comprehend. ... Taxpayers bailed them out, and now they're back making money while many New York families are still struggling to make ends meet.''
DiNapoli supports reforms that require Wall Street bonuses to be tied to long-term profitability, to force more stability in the volatile markets and ''make sure the securities industry thrives without driving the rest of us out on a fragile economic limb.''
DiNapoli reviews tax collections each year and bases his annual projection of Wall Street bonuses on income and other taxes paid in New York City.
DiNapoli notes the bonuses help state revenues tremendously as it faces an $8.2 billion deficit, but they are a ''bitter pill'' to most taxpayers nationwide.
The bonus estimate doesn't include compensation that Wall Streeters chose to take in stock options and other kinds of deferred payment.
He said the bonus pool is a third less than the amount paid out two years ago when Wall Street had its previously most profitable year.
The estimate does not include stock options that have not yet been realized or other forms of deferred compensation. This year's estimated bonus pool is third less than the amount paid two years ago, the previous most profitable year.
For example, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman could receive a stock bonus currently valued at $8.1 million for 2009 if he meets certain performance targets, the bank said in January. Gorman is getting deferred stock worth $5.4 million but no cash bonus for 2009, Morgan Stanley said in a filing. Gorman can't cash in the stock for three years.
Banks had been expected to hand out near-record compensation for last year's performance. Several banks earned huge profits in 2009, aided by billions in government bailout funds and a rebounding stock market.
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has pressed the nation's eight biggest banks to reveal how much they plan to pay out in employee bonuses for 2009. The Democrat also sought the size of the banks' bonus pool would have been affected if the banks hadn't received a taxpayer rescue at the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Second Strike Paralyzes Greece
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
February 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/world/europe/25greece.html?hp
ATHENS - Flights at Greek airports were canceled, public transportation was halted, and schools closed Wednesday as public-sector employees and private-sector workers walked off their jobs in the second 24-hour strike in two weeks against austerity measures.
The government is under intense pressure to plug a budget deficit estimated at 12.7 percent of gross domestic product and to avert the first national default among the 16 countries that use the euro.
The day was largely peaceful, though police officers fired tear gas to disperse around 50 young demonstrators who pelted them with stones and paint near the Parliament building in the city center. They were part of a crowd of more than 20,000 who marched holding banners reading "tax the rich" and "hands off our pension funds."
At the same time, government officials and representatives of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund were discussing the imposition of additional measures to reduce state spending and increase revenue. But the strike included journalists, effectively creating a media blackout that kept Greeks in the dark about any progress.
Greece has already announced wage freezes, bonus cuts, tax crackdowns and pension reforms over the past month meant to save some $6.7 billion.
The new measures, which the government has not yet confirmed but are expected to be announced next week, include a 2 percent increase in the 19 percent value-added tax, higher fuel prices and the possible abolition of one of two additional months of pay received by public-sector workers and by employees at many private firms.
"What else are they going to cut, the air that we breathe?" said Kiki Oikonomou, a 47-year-old administrative employee at a state school for disabled children. "This is like a jail sentence. Where's the hope?"
According to Paraskevi Androni, 26, an unemployed engineer whose short-term contract with the privatized state carrier Olympic Air expired recently, the abolition of the extra pay would bring misery to workers and businesses alike.
"People rely on this additional wage to pay for basic needs," she said. "If it gets cut, people will stop spending and even more small businesses will close." As for her own employment prospects, she said "I try to be optimistic but I'm worried about the future."
Another engineer milling in the crowd before Wednesday's march said he believed many more protests would follow. "If people see the minority living a good life and their wages plummeting, they're going to take to the streets," said Haralambos Dramantis, a 60-year-old employee with the state power board. "We haven't seen the big uprising yet but it will come."
He added that the strike, by farmers, tax collectors, customs officials and others in recent weeks was "just the beginning."
Addressing a sea of protesters from a lectern bedecked with a banner reading, "People and their needs above the markets," the head of main labor union encouraged public resistance to the government's austerity measures. "We refuse to pay the price for a crisis that we didn't create," the leader, Yiannis Panagopoulos, said.
He added that Greece has become "a Ping-Pong ball in a game being played by global speculators," a reference to the financial markets.
The strike came a day after the international credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded Greece's four largest banks on fears that Greece's efforts to bring down its deficit through austerity measures would reduce demand for loans and curb bank profits.
"It is clear," said Giorgos Lakopoulos of Ta Nea, a center-left daily, that European Union officials "do not believe the austerity measures heralded to date are adequate to reduce the deficit by four percentage points this year."
"They want more," he said.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) Questions Surface After Haitian Airlift
By GINGER THOMPSON
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/americas/24orphans.html?ref=world
PITTSBURGH - It was widely billed as the first uplifting story in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated Haiti's capital: two young American women rescued 54 Haitian orphans in an airlift organized by Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and supported by top Obama administration officials.
More than a month later, Governor Rendell is enjoying a reprieve from months of negative budget news coverage, the local church that sponsors the American women's work with orphans is reportedly receiving record donations and 42 of the orphans are in the care of American families who had applied to adopt them.
But for 12 of the children, last month's airlift transported them from one uncertain predicament to another. As it turns out, those children - between 11 months and 10 years old - were not in the process of being adopted, might not all even be orphans and are living in a juvenile care center here while the authorities determine whether they have relatives in Haiti who are able to take care of them.
The details of the children's departure - and what that could mean for relations between the United States and the Haitian government, which later detained 10 Americans for trying to take children out of the country without authorization - remain unclear.
Ambassador Raymond Joseph, Haiti's envoy to the United States, said he refused to approve Governor Rendell's request to remove children from the country who were not already in the adoption pipeline. But an aide to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the Haitian government accepted assurances from Mr. Rendell and American officials that the children would be well cared for in the United States. The adviser, Alice Blanchet, said of the governor, "I have no reason to second guess his intentions."
Senior Obama administration officials acknowledged in interviews that the lines of authority were fuzzy in Haiti on the day of the rescue mission, Jan. 18. And they said that American officials concerned about the well-being of the children had allowed Mr. Rendell to remove them from Haiti even though they had not received clear authorization to travel by the Haitian government and were not in the process of being adopted by American families, as required by a United States humanitarian parole policy announced the day Mr. Rendell landed in Haiti.
"This wasn't supposed to happen this way," said one senior State Department official, who like others asked not to be identified in order to speak candidly about the episode. "But it's not as if it was a normal day in Haiti, either."
When asked what he had done to persuade the administration to grant an exception for the 12 children, Mr. Rendell said in a phone interview, "I don't know how it happened, but I didn't ask a lot of questions, and if you had seen the faces of those children as we loaded them onto the airplane, you wouldn't have asked a lot of questions, either."
Several administration officials who spoke at length about the rescue effort suggested that they were led by their hearts. There were two American women and 54 small children living in precarious conditions without reliable access to food, water and sanitation. Telephone lines were down. And nearly all government offices had been flattened.
Matt Chandler, a spokesman at the Department of Homeland Security, said: "This was an extraordinary situation. There wasn't the benefit of time. And there was a gut decision that the administration believed was in the best interests of the children."
Child-protection advocates, who generally believe that hastily removing unaccompanied children from areas hit by disasters risks severing family bonds and exposing the children to further trauma, took a different view.
Diane Paul, an expert on natural disasters and human rights at the Brookings Institution, pointed out that most children living in Haitian orphanages had families who gave them up during hard economic times, but ultimately hoped to recover them. "How do we know someone in Haiti is not looking for them?" she asked, referring to the 12 children.
For now, they are living in a sweeping 5,000-square-foot cottage at the Holy Family Institute just outside Pittsburgh. The institute's snow-covered playground and indoor swimming pool make it seem a world away from the squalid streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The director, Linda Yankoski, said leaders of Pittsburgh's small Haitian community were volunteering to cook for and work with the children. And she said the children did not seem traumatized by their transition.
In coming days, officials said, Red Cross workers plan to interview the children and establish if they have families in Haiti.
The Pennsylvania governor, a Democrat, said he got involved with the rescue effort after learning about two Pittsburgh-area women - Jamie and Ali McMutrie - who were caring for dozens of children outside a Port-au-Prince orphanage that had been damaged in the earthquake.
From their camp amid the rubble, the young and telegenic McMutrie sisters started a campaign on Facebook and Twitter that captured the attention of people across Pennsylvania. Their pleas for help became part of a national outcry by families seeking to adopt Haitian children that led the Obama administration to take the unusual step of offering humanitarian parole to hundreds of orphans.
Most of the 54 children in the McMutrie sisters' care were eligible for parole, the authorities said. But the women refused to leave Haiti without the dozen children who were not.
That is where Mr. Rendell's high-level political connections became most important. Upon landing at the Port-au-Prince airport, he said, he used a cellphone and a BlackBerry that faded in and out of service to press for authorization to take all the children to the United States.
He and Representative Jason Altmire, another Democrat who was also participating in the mission, began contacting everyone they thought could help back in Washington, including Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, Huma M. Abedin, a senior aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Pennsylvania's two senators, Arlen Specter and Bob Casey, both Democrats.
Denis McDonough, the president's deputy national security adviser, who happened to be at the Port-au-Prince airport trying to fly home that day, was also enlisted to help.
Mr. Altmire recalled getting one or two more children approved with nearly every phone call. Mr. McDonough got a message on his BlackBerry granting the children authority to come to the United States. And five and a half emotionally exhilarating hours later, most of the group was on its way to Pittsburgh.
One little girl, named Emma, had gotten left behind in the shuffle and was brought to Pittsburgh the next day.
Since then, Mr. Altmire said, no one involved with the effort had looked back. He recalled one little boy who clutched a photo of his adoptive parents.
"That put the whole thing in perspective for me," Mr. Altmire said. "I knew all our efforts were worth it."
Simon Romero contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Gates Calls European Mood a Danger to Peace
"The demilitarization of Europe - where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it - has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," [Antiwar = AntiPeace. More Orwellian doublespeak...bw]
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
February 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/europe/24nato.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has long called European contributions to NATO inadequate, said Tuesday that public and political opposition to the military had grown so great in Europe that it was directly affecting operations in Afghanistan and impeding the alliance's broader security goals.
"The demilitarization of Europe - where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it - has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," he told NATO officers and officials in a speech at the National Defense University, the Defense Department-financed graduate school for military officers and diplomats.
A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a "temptation to miscalculation and aggression" by hostile powers.
The meeting was a prelude to the alliance's review this year of its basic mission plan for the first time since 1999. "Right now," Mr. Gates said, "the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems."
Mr. Gates's blunt comments came just three days after the coalition government of the Netherlands collapsed in a dispute over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan. It now appears almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops there will be withdrawn this year. And polls show that the Afghanistan war has grown increasingly unpopular in nearly every European country.
The defense secretary, putting a sharper point on his past criticisms, outlined how NATO shortfalls were exacting a material toll in Afghanistan. The alliance's failure to finance needed helicopters and cargo aircraft, for example, was "directly impacting operations," he said.
Mr. Gates said that NATO also needed more aerial refueling tankers and intelligence-gathering equipment "for immediate use on the battlefield."
Yet alliance members, he noted, were far from reaching their spending commitments, with only 5 of 28 having reached the established target: 2 percent of gross domestic product for defense. By comparison, the United States spends more than 4 percent of its G.D.P. on its military.
Dana Allin, a senior fellow with the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, called Mr. Gates's remarks "very striking."
"Whether this is a conscious statement to sound a real sharp warning, there's no question that the frustration among the American military establishment is palpable regarding coalition operations in Afghanistan," he said.
Mr. Gates did soften his message a bit, noting that, not counting United States forces, NATO troops in Afghanistan were to increase to 50,000 this year, from 30,000 last year.
"By any measure," he said, "that is an extraordinary feat."
More sobering, he said, was that just two months into the year, NATO was facing shortfalls of hundreds of millions of euros - "a natural consequence of having underinvested in collective defense for over a decade."
NATO's problems - greatly magnified by the expansion of its mandate beyond European borders, following 9/11 - called for "serious, far-reaching and immediate reforms," Mr. Gates said.
Indeed, the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, last month turned to an unlikely source - Russia - to request helicopters for use in Afghanistan, arguing that this would help reduce the terrorism threat and drug trade on a border of the former Soviet Union.
Mr. Rasmussen, speaking at the same meeting as Mr. Gates, said that NATO's members needed to better coordinate their weapons purchases. The European Union and NATO should collaborate on developing capabilities like heavy-lift helicopters, he said, and avoid "spending double money."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) More Satellites Will Act as Eyes for Troops
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
February 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/asia/24satellites.html?ref=world
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. - Across the unforgiving terrain of Afghanistan, American combat forces have come to rely on satellites as well as their rifles and body armor to carry out missions effectively, and to stay alive.
But American units have found that satellite signals are weakened and even blocked outright by the breathtaking peaks and backbreaking valleys of Afghanistan - making it hard to pinpoint the troops' location, navigate on patrol, identify friend from foe in battle or call in bombs and artillery when under attack.
So the top officer of the military's Strategic Command, which is better known for control of the nation's nuclear arsenal, has ordered up what might be called a "satellite surge" to increase the coverage and accuracy for GPS devices in the war zone.
The constellation of operational satellites that allows GPS devices to work is being expanded over the next year or two to 27 from 24.
The increase will benefit civilians as well as soldiers. Drivers, sailors, hikers and golfers around the globe will share in the improved performance of their GPS devices.
"We've got more than 24 satellites up there," said Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, the top officer at Strategic Command, during an interview at his headquarters here. "Can we better optimize support to the regional war fighter, particularly as you look at the terrain in Afghanistan?"
His order to increase the number of operational GPS satellites was intended to assist coalition forces carrying out missions in Afghanistan's deep valleys, where troops say they lose signals because of the narrow window to the sky between mountain peaks and within canyon walls.
Four separate satellite signals are required to pinpoint a location on the earth, including elevation. The more satellites overhead, the more opportunities to get the minimum number of signals. Additional readings beyond four provide even greater accuracy.
While it might seem odd that the commander of America's nuclear arsenal would spend time focusing on the conventional mission in Afghanistan, General Chilton visited the country in late January for meetings with Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the No. 2 American commander, who is in charge of day-to-day operations there.
In an e-mail message from his headquarters in Afghanistan, General Rodriguez said he welcomed the increased satellite coverage and noted that "the additional capability will help support the operations here."
The military always keeps extra GPS satellites in space, hibernating in orbit close to active satellites, but ready to be called from standby status should an operating satellite fail or fall out of position.
Moving the three new satellites into position involves a delicate, calculated effort to expend as little fuel as possible, and then let inertia gently guide the satellite into place without wasting energy. Satellites are expensive to build and expensive to lift into space; once a satellite's fuel is gone, it is lost.
So while the need for improved GPS signaling to Afghanistan is a priority, the long-term obligation of preserving fuel aboard the satellites prompted Strategic Command, and its subordinate unit overseeing satellites, Air Force Space Command, to allow up to two years to get the new satellites in place.
The first of the new satellites has already begun sailing toward its operating orbit. A Strategic Command spokesman said the second and third additional satellites could be in place as early as next January, a year ahead of the official schedule.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Illness Hinders Plans to Close Immigration Jail
By NINA BERNSTEIN
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/nyregion/24varick.html?ref=us
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced last month that they would close New York City's only immigration jail and relocate its roughly 300 detainees to New Jersey, they described the step as part of a larger overhaul to improve health care and cost-effectiveness in the nation's detention system.
But with only three days to go before the official end of detention operations at the jail, the Varick Federal Detention Facility in Greenwich Village, on Friday, officials have found that the detainees hardest to relocate are those with serious medical problems.
And each day, dozens of noncitizen New Yorkers - some with acute or chronic ailments - are still entering Varick, which immigration officials say they will keep using only as a processing hub for about 11,000 men a year, to be held no more than 12 hours.
For years the immigration jail, on the fourth floor of a federal office building at Varick and Houston Streets, was supposed to be a brief holding place for New York detainees. But it ended up keeping hundreds of detainees for months, especially those with medical or mental problems who were often denied admission by county jails in New Jersey where immigration authorities rent cells.
Immigrant advocates predict the same problem will recur. "Whether they plan on it or not, detainees are going to be held longer than intended at Varick," said Udi Ofer, advocacy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who analyzed hundreds of detainee grievances obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, in a report to be released Wednesday.
"Moving detainees from New York to New Jersey is not going to fix the problem of inadequate care for immigration detainees," Mr. Ofer added, echoing other advocates who question whether the government should be detaining so many in the first place. "The absence of legally enforceable standards leads to situations where detainees are being mistreated, whether they're being held for a day, a month or a year."
Last week, as federal officials took a reporter on a rare tour of the jail, past the crowded holding cells into locked dorms and disciplinary cells that double as "medical holds," one of the longtime detainees waiting to learn his fate was Adler Michel, 52, a legal resident from Haiti with diabetes, high blood pressure and a swollen jaw.
Mr. Michel, a Brooklyn barber with two drug convictions but no record of violence, has spent more than 20 months at Varick while battling deportation. Officials said one reason he stayed was that at least one New Jersey jail had refused to accept him because of medical concerns. He is ineligible for bond under laws that require detention for immigrants who have ever been convicted of misdemeanor drug possession, or any of a long list of other offenses.
"Obviously, his medical needs must and will be addressed by us while he is in our custody," said Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for the immigration enforcement agency. The 100 detainees remaining on Tuesday were expected to be reduced to 70 by the end of the day, he added.
Beth Gibson, senior counsel to the agency's chief, who joined Mr. Hale on the tour of Varick, said opening the jail to a reporter underscored the Obama administration's commitment to transparency and reform. Plans she cited include streamlining cumbersome paperwork requirements that delay needed care.
"We didn't get where it is overnight," Ms. Gibson said.
But immigrant advocacy groups see the handling of Varick detainees as an illustration of the unfairness and waste in the $1.7 billion detention system.
A coalition of 16 legal and advocacy organizations offered this month to collaborate on a case-by-case review to identify detainees eligible for release, parole, or alternatives to detention like electronic monitoring, which costs about $14 a day, instead of Varick's $253 or the $111 at the Hudson County Correctional Center, where many detainees are being transferred.
But last week, their request was rejected by federal officials, who said they lacked the resources to conduct such a review before the transfers.
At most of the New Jersey jails, health care is provided by a company with a record of medical cost-cutting that has sometimes proved lethal. Federal officials pledged that a government physician at Varick, Dr. Peter D'Orazio, would oversee the care of the relocated New York detainees and screen those entering the jail.
But that does not reassure the Civil Liberties Union lawyers, who said that Dr. D'Orazio was no help when they tried to get proper care for a detainee suffering from infected teeth and gastrointestinal ailments.
"As I write this, I am in so much pain that I want to hit my head against the wall and cry," the detainee, then 23, wrote last July, in one of more than 210 grievances filed by Varick detainees between August 2008 and August 2009. About 30 percent of the complaints cited medical neglect.
A medical screening record notes that the detainee had a tooth abscess when he entered the jail in October 2008. But despite his pleas to see a dentist, it went untreated for 10 months and spread to seven teeth, Mr. Ofer said, even as the detainee was put on a liquid diet because he could no longer chew.
Only after Mr. Ofer intervened did the man get to see a dentist, who offered extraction, records show. The detainee, who remains at Varick, instead wants to save the teeth with root canals at his own expense, Mr. Ofer said. The government has refused, citing liability issues.
Asked about the case, Dr. D'Orazio first denied that the detainee had an abscessed tooth, then said: "We addressed his issue. Now it's up to him to seek the care."
Most grievances cannot be checked and outcomes are not known because detainee names were redacted by the government under privacy laws. But one described an attempt to deport a detainee with prostate cancer two days after he had requested a doctor's appointment.
The detainee, a 47-year-old Russian, wrote in November 2008 of being locked in a van at Kennedy International Airport for hours in acute pain as guards refused to let him go to the bathroom. He was eventually returned to Varick and catheterized, he wrote.
Records confirm that he had been found to have cancer at Beth Israel Medical Center before his detention and that he had been advised to get immediate treatment. But on Dec. 9, 2008, the detainee, still waiting for a medical appointment, wrote in a grievance, "Will it be after my death?"
An official's handwritten note adds that the detainee was deported 12 days later.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) A Vote to Fire All Teachers at a Failing High School
By KATIE ZEZIMA
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teacher.html?ref=education
CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. - A plan to dismiss the entire faculty and staff of the only public high school in this small city just west of the Massachusetts border was approved Tuesday night at an emotional public meeting of the school board.
The board voted 5 to 2 to accept a plan proposed by Schools Superintendent Frances Gallo to fire the approximately 100 faculty and staff members at the chronically underperforming Central Falls High School on the last day of this school year in June.
The plan will also create a new school governance structure and requires the high school's new teachers to take part in "professional development" that meets federal standards.
As soon as the meeting ended, the board went into a closed session and members were not available for comment.
Dr. Gallo said during the meeting that she chose what she called a "turnaround" plan, one of four offered by the state, after the teachers' union rejected conditions in another state plan that called for increased hours without the promise of salary increases.
"Union leadership went too far because I would not commit to monetary incentives," Dr. Gallo said.
Teachers and union members said Dr. Gallo and the board had not bargained with them in good faith.
"We have been at the table," Jane Sessums, president of the Central Falls Teachers Union, said at a premeeting rally at a local park attended by hundreds of teachers, students and supporters. "They have not been willing to bargain."
Dr. Gallo said she had been instructed by the state commissioner of education, Deborah A. Gist, to choose one of the four state reform plans, which were modeled on federal recommendations and included the school's closing. Central Falls High is one of six of the state's lowest-achieving - the only one not in Providence - and has a four-year graduation rate of 48 percent. It has 800 students.
Dr. Gallo has 120 days to submit a more detailed plan to the state.
On Tuesday night, several hundred teachers and students, many wearing Central Falls High's colors of red and blue, packed into the meeting, shouting at Dr. Gallo and school board members. As a board member read the names of people slated for termination, many people were crying.
Joe Travers, 44, a longtime physical education teacher, said after the vote: "They sat up there, looked us in the eye, told us we were not good enough. That's an embarrassment."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Doctor Training Aided by Drug Industry Cash
By DUFF WILSON
February 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/business/23docs.html?adxnnl=1&ref=education&adxnnlx=1267031207-nhb26464GE6S1L2hT+5NKg
More than half of the nation's medical residency programs to train doctors in internal medicine accepted financial support from the drug industry, even though three-fourths of the programs' directors said accepting the aid was "not desirable," a survey found.
At issue are potential conflicts of interest as the residency programs accept drug company support to help train tens of thousands of new doctors at a point in their careers when they are beginning to prescribe drugs, according to the survey report.
The article was published Monday in the Web version of The Archives of Internal Medicine. "Program directors are aware of the problem, but right now they don't have the funds to be free," Dr. Joanne M. Conroy, chief health care officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, who was not involved in the survey, but had seen the report.
The survey, conducted in 2006 and 2007, found that drug companies paid for educational materials like pocket guides in 83 percent of the programs that accepted support, meals in 90 percent, office supplies in 68 percent and drug samples in 57 percent.
Medical residency programs in the southern United States were much more likely to accept the industry largess than those in the Northeast - 72 percent to 47 percent. The overall rate of accepting drug industry financing was 55 percent, but that was down from the 88 percent level reported in a 1990 survey.
The Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine conducted the survey. Responses were returned by 236 of the nation's 381 internal medicine program directors, who together train more than 22,000 doctors.
Of special note in the survey results, the authors wrote, programs where fewer graduates passed tests from the American Board of Internal Medicine - "one indicator of program quality" - were also more likely to accept the assistance.
Dr. Furman S. McDonald, a co-author of the survey report and director of internal medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic, said it was unclear whether the lower test scores indicated a lack of overall support for the residency programs that took industry money, or a negative effect from the information being imparted by the pharmaceutical industry.
"As the pass rates went down," he said of the new doctors' test scores, "the odds of accepting pharmaceutical support went up." Dr. McDonald called for more research in that area.
Residency programs in internal medicine typically last three years after medical school, "a particularly formative time for physicians," the study said.
Other surveys have indicated that medical residents do not think that their own actions are influenced by industry gifts, but that they do think that their colleagues are influenced. Surveys have also shown that gifts as small as a pen or food can influence prescribing patterns.
Meals are often provided for busy residents during educational presentations.
Dr. Martin J. Blaser, chairman of the department of medicine at New York University, said his organization's internal medicine residency program decided about five years ago to stop accepting food or financial support from industry.
"I spend a fair amount of my budget feeding my residents," Dr. Blaser said, "but then they can learn in a way that is not unduly influenced by who is feeding them."
"Our lunches are not quite as opulent as the lunches they used to have, but they have sufficient nutrition," said Dr. Blaser, who was not involved in conducting the survey.
While 72 percent of the survey respondents said drug industry financing was not desirable, many of those skeptics still took the money, the survey showed. The reason, for two-thirds of the directors who reported taking industry money, was inadequate financing from other sources.
They also cited the popularity of drug industry perks among residents in 40 percent of the programs, and encouragement from the administration in 19 percent.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education is the one place that could possibly ban such pharmaceutical financing in all medical residency programs, Dr. McDonald said. The survey did not call for a blanket ban, but for more research.
The accreditation council declined comment on Monday.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
No comments:
Post a Comment