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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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SF Premiere of the new documentary film about the Angola 3
"IN THE LAND OF THE FREE..."
3 men, 100 years in solitary confinement. In America. Today.
Tues. Nov. 16, 7:30pm
ATA Theater, 992 Valencia St. at 21st St., SF
$6 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Join us for an update on the case and discussion with Marina Drummer from the National Committee to Free the Angola 3.
Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King spent almost a century between them in solitary confinement in Angola, the Louisiana State penitentiary. They are known as the Angola 3. Herman and Albert are still in solitary confinement after thirty seven years.
In the Land of the Free... is a documentary feature narrated by Samuel L Jackson that examines the story of these extraordinary men who were targeted by the prison authorities for being members of the Black Panther Party and because they fought against the terrible conditions and systematic sexual slavery that was rife in the prison.
The film is directed by Vadim Jean; produced by Gold Circle Films (My Big Fat Greek Wedding). 2010, 84 min.
Call 415-821-6545 for more info.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
415-821-6545
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NOVEMBER 2010 - CONVERGE ON FORT BENNING, GEORGIA
November 18-21, 2010: Close the SOA and take a stand for justice in the Americas.
www.soaw.org/take-action/november-vigil
The November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia will be held from November 18-21, 2010. The annual vigil is always held close to the anniversary of the 1989 murders of Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Jesuit priests at a the University of Central America in El Salvador.
ORGANIZE YOUR COMMUNITY FOR THE 2010 VIGIL!
November 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the vigil that brings together religious communities, students, teachers, veterans, community organizers, musicians, puppetistas and many others. New layers of activists are joining the movement to close the SOA in large numbers, including numerous youth and students from multinational, working-class communities. The movement is strong thanks to the committed work of thousands of organizers and volunteers around the country. They raise funds, spread the word through posters and flyers, organize buses and other transportation to Georgia, and carry out all the work that is needed to make the November vigil a success. Together, we are strong!
VIGIL AND RALLY AT THE GATES, NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION, TEACH-IN, CONCERTS, WORKSHOPS AND A ANTI-MILITARIZATION ORGANIZERS CONFERENCE
There will be exciting additions to this year's vigil program. Besides the rally at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia with inspiring speakers and amazing musicians from across the Americas, the four day convergence will also include an educational teach-in at the Columbus Convention Center, several evening concerts, workshops and for the first time, the Latin America Solidarity Coalition will stage a one-day Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference on Thursday, November 18, 2010.
SHUT DOWN THE SOA AND RESIST U.S. MILITARIZATION IN THE AMERICAS
Our work has unfortunately not gotten any easier and U.S. militarization in Latin America is accelerating. The SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras, the continuing repression against the Honduran pro-democracy resistance and the expansion of U.S. military bases in Colombia and Panama are grim examples of the ongoing threats of a U.S. foreign policy that is relying on the military to exert control over the people and the resources in the Americas. Join the people who are struggling for justice in Honduras, Colombia and throughout the Americas as we organize to push back.
Spread the word - Tell a friend about the November Vigil:
http://www.SOAW.org/tellafriend
For more information, visit:
www.SOAW.org.
See you at the gates of Fort Benning in November 2010
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Our next UNAC organizing meeting is set for UC Berkeley on Sunday, November 21 at 1:30 pm in Dwinelle Hall, Room 187.
[To get to Dwinelle, walk into the campus at Telegraph and Bankcroft and go straight for a few minutes and pass directly under Sather Gate and proceed over a tiny bridge. Dwinelle is the first building to the left after the bridge.]
This will be an important meeting because it will be our last before our UC Berkeley teach-in on November 30. Below we have pdf versions of the leaflet and poster. We will have thousands in the next few days. Please call to make arrangements to get some for distribution all over the Bay Area at important events.
We are still preparing an initial meeting agenda, but the main focus of Nov. 21 will be on the November 30 meeting.
A second edition of the leaflet and poster will be out soon. This one will hopefully include an impressive list of endorsers. Please let me know if your organization can be listed as an endorser so that we can compile a list in one place. And please seek out the endorsement of as many groups and organizations as you can.
The next meeting of the Nov. 30 Planning Committee is set for Caffe Strada on Bankcroft at Durant at 1:15 pm on Monday, November 15. This is a meeting of reps of all sponsoring organizations and interested activists.
Good News: The launching New York City meeting of UNAC was a tremendous success with some 340 present, 40 speakers representing as many organizations, participation from several East Coast states, some 100 Palestinians and Muslim community activists and leaders and $5000 raised during the fund appeal. A detailed report is in preparation. It's time to rev up our West Coast organizing.
In solidarity,
Jeff
510-268-9429
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PALESTINE, AMERICAN WARS AND ISLAMOPHOBIA IN AMERICA
Bay Area Teach-In
Tuesday, November 30, 7:00 P.M.
East Pauley Ballroom (MLK Student Union UC Berkeley, corner of Bancroft and Telegraph)
Speakers: Hatgem Bazian, UCB; Michael Shehader, LA8; Ziad Abbas, MECA; Barbara Lubin, MECA; Jeff Mackler, UNAC; Masao Suzuki, Committee to Stop FBI Repression; Blanca Misse, UCB Student Worker Action Team; Rep., Cal Students for Justice in Palestine; Rep., UCB Muslim Student Assoc.
Billions for Education, Not Wars and Occupations! End U.S. Aid to Israel--Military, Economic, Diplomatic! Defend Civil Liberties and End the FBI Raids!
Sponsors: United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC); Cal Students for Justice in Palestine; UCB Muslim Student Association; Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA).
Donations Suggested, No one turned away for lack of funds.
For more information: 510-268-9429, teachinnov30@gmail.com, teachinnov30.wordpress.com, ASUC Sponsored, ADA Accessible
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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Quantitative Easing Explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k&feature=player_embedded#
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Report: "Tar balls and black oily plumes" wash up in Apalachicola Bay, FL - 70 miles EAST of Panama City (VIDEO)
November 12th, 2010 at 09:02 AM Email Post
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Seattle Cop: 'I'll Beat the F--ing Mexican Piss Out of You Homey'
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/05/seattle_cop_ill_beat_the_f---ing_mexican_piss_out_of_you_homey.html
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Burning Desperation
Self-immolation has become a common form of suicide for Afghan women. Photographer Lynsey Addario speaks with women who survived their suicide attempts.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/11/07/world/1248069290784/burning-desperation.html?ref=world
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Anonymous BP cleanup worker: The oil "really hasn't even been touched"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vegVKrg84HI&feature=player_embedded
http://allhiphop.com/stories/editorial/archive/2010/11/09/22476630.aspx
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Tag-Team Wrestling
"We have Learned who is For Real and who is Frontin'."
Glen Ford speaks in West Haven, CT just before the Oct. 2010 "One Nation Working Together" DC demo. See his scathing comments about the speakers from the main stage at the actual demo at blackagendareport.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIuTM3cK9I
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Video of massive French protest -- inspiring!
http://www.dailymotion.com/Talenceagauchevraiment
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UAW Workers Picket The UAW Over Two-Tier
http://rustbeltradical.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/uaw-workers-picket-the-uaw/
Rally To End Two-Tier & Stand in Solidarity with GM Lake Orion | UAW HQ, Detroit MI (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bST5aTYZa00&feature=player_embedded
Rally To End Two-Tier & Stand in Solidarity with GM Lake Orion | UAW HQ, Detroit MI (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHLb-KMXD9c&feature=player_embedded
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BP Contract Worker "Trenches Dug To Bury Oil On Beaches"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qop9xbGv4&feature=player_embedded
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RETHINK Afghanistan: The 10th Year: Afghanistan Veterans Speak Out
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/
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Firefighters Watch As Home Burns:
Gene Cranick's House Destroyed In Tennessee Over $75 Fee
By Adam J. Rose
The Huffington Post -- videos
10- 5-10 12:12 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/firefighters-watch-as-hom_n_750272.html
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Soldier Describes Murder of Afghan for Sport in Leaked Tape
By ROBERT MACKEY
September 27, 2010, 6:43 pm
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/soldier-describes-murder-of-afghan-for-sport-in-leaked-tape/?ref=world
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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Stephen Colbert's statement before Congress
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39343087#39343087
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Courage to Resist needs your support
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist.
It's been quite a ride the last four months since we took up the defense of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Since then, we helped form the Bradley Manning Support Network, established a defense fund, and have already paid over half of Bradley's total $100,000 in estimated legal expenses.
Now, I'm asking for your support of Courage to Resist so that we can continue to support not only Bradley, but the scores of other troops who are coming into conflict with military authorities due to reasons of conscience.
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Iraq War over? Afghanistan occupation winding down? Not from what we see. Please take a look at, "Soldier Jeff Hanks refuses deployment, seeks PTSD help" in our December newsletter. Jeff's situation is not isolated. Actually, his story is only unique in that he has chosen to share it with us in the hopes that it may result in some change. Jeff's case also illustrates the importance of Iraq Veterans Against the War's new "Operation Recovery" campaign which calls for an end to the deployment of traumatized troops.
Most of the folks who call us for help continue to be effected by Stoploss, a program that involuntarily extends enlistments (despite Army promises of its demise), or the Individual Ready Reserve which recalls thousands of former Soldiers and Marines quarterly from civilian life.
Another example of our efforts is Kyle Wesolowski. After returning from Iraq, Kyle submitted an application for a conscientious objector discharge based on his Buddhist faith. Kyle explains, "My experience of physical threats, religious persecution, and general abuse seems to speak of a system that appears to be broken.... It appears that I have no other recourse but to now refuse all duties that prepare myself for war or aid in any way shape or form to other soldiers in conditioning them to go to war." We believe he shouldn't have to walk this path alone.
Sincerely,
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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San Francisco Labor Council Resolution Adopted unanimously on Nov. 8, 2010
Resolution Condemning Police Attack on Free Speech & Assembly following Oscar Grant Rally
Whereas, on Friday November 5, former BART cop Johannes Mehserle was given a jail sentence of 2 years for the 'involuntary manslaughter' of Oscar Grant. Subtracting time served and 'good behavior', Mehserle may be back on the streets in as little as 7 months; and
Whereas, the organizers of a November 5th Rally and Gathering in Frank Ogawa Plaza to honor Oscar Grant and Respond to the sentencing of Johannes Mehserle, were refused a permit for an organized march after the rally to an indoor gathering at DeFremery Park; and
Whereas, after the rally many hundreds of community members spontaneously started marching toward Fruitvale BART, the site of Oscar Grant's murder, and after the cops sealed off an entire city block, police did not allow people to disperse, called it a 'crime scene', and arrested 152 people, including San Francisco Labor Council Delegate Dave Welsh, resulting in more arrests than at any other Oscar Grant-related protest; and
Whereas, most arrestees have been cited on misdemeanor charges, held for 24 hours and have mass arraignments in the first week of December at Wiley Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington Street in Oakland.
Therefore be It Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council condemns this assault on freedom of speech and assembly and demands that all these misdemeanor assembly charges be dropped.
Presented by Marcus Holder, delegate from ILWU Local 10, and adopted unanimously at the regular delegates meeting of the San Francisco Labor Council held Nov. 8, 2010 in San Francisco, California.
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Add your name! We stand with Bradley Manning.
"We stand for truth, for government transparency, and for an end to our tax-dollars funding endless occupation abroad... We stand with accused whistle-blower US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning."
Dear All,
The Bradley Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist are launching a new campaign, and we wanted to give you a chance to be among the first to add your name to this international effort. If you sign the letter online, we'll print out and mail two letters to Army officials on your behalf. With your permission, we may also use your name on the online petition and in upcoming media ads.
Read the complete public letter and add your name at:
http://standwithbrad.org/
Courage to Resist (http://couragetoresist.org)
on behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network (http://bradleymanning.org)
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Dear Friend,
On Friday, September 24th, the FBI raided homes in Chicago and Minneapolis, and turned the Anti-War Committee office upside down. We were shocked. Our response was strong however and we jumped into action holding emergency protests. When the FBI seized activists' personal computers, cell phones, and papers claiming they were investigating "material support for terrorism", they had no idea there would be such an outpouring of support from the anti-war movement across this country! Over 61 cities protested, with crowds of 500 in Minneapolis and Chicago. Activists distributed 12,000 leaflets at the One Nation Rally in Washington D.C. Supporters made thousands of calls to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. Solidarity statements from community organizations, unions, and other groups come in every day. By organizing against the attacks, the movement grows stronger.
At the same time, trusted lawyers stepped up to form a legal team and mount a defense. All fourteen activists signed letters refusing to testify. So Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox withdrew the subpoenas, but this is far from over. In fact, the repression is just starting. The FBI continues to question activists at their homes and work places. The U.S. government is trying to put people in jail for anti-war and international solidarity activism and there is no indication they are backing off. The U.S. Attorney has many options and a lot of power-he may re-issue subpoenas, attempt to force people to testify under threat of imprisonment, or make arrests.
To be successful in pushing back this attack, we need your donation. We need you to make substantial contributions like $1000, $500, and $200. We understand many of you are like us, and can only afford $50, $20, or $10, but we ask you to dig deep. The legal bills can easily run into the hundreds of thousands. We are all united to defend a movement for peace and justice that seeks friendship with people in other countries. These fourteen anti-war activists have done nothing wrong, yet their freedom is at stake.
It is essential that we defend our sisters and brothers who are facing FBI repression and the Grand Jury process. With each of your contributions, the movement grows stronger.
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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Deafening Silence, Chuck Africa (MOVE 9)
Check out other art and poetry by prisoners at:
Shujaas!: Prisoners Resisting Through Art
...we banging hard, yes, very hard, on this system...
http://shujaas.wordpress.com/
Peace People,
This poem is from Chuck Africa, one of the MOVE 9, who is currently serving 30-100 years on trump up charges of killing a police officer. After 32 years in prison, the MOVE 9 are repeatly denied parole, after serving their minimum sentence. Chuck wanted me to share this with the people, so that we can see how our silence in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom is inherently an invitation to their death behind prison walls.
Deafening Silence
Don't ya'll hear cries of anguish?
In the climate of pain come joining voices?
But voices become unheard and strained by inactions
Of dead brains
How long will thou Philly soul remain in the pit of agonizing apathy?
Indifference seems to greet you like the morning mirror
Look closely in the mirror and realize it's a period of mourning....
My Sistas, mothers, daughters, wives and warriors
Languish in prisons obscurity like a distant star in the galaxies as does their brothers
We need to be free....
How loud can you stay silence?
Have the courage to stand up and have a say,
Choose resistance and let go of your fears.
The history of injustice to MOVE; we all know so well
But your deafening silence could be my DEATH KNELL.
Chuck Africa
Please share, inform people and get involve in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom! www.MOVE9parole.blogspot.com
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Say No to Islamophobia!
Defend Mosques and Community Centers!
The Fight for Peace and Social Justice Requires Defense of All Under Attack!
http://www.petitiononline.com/nophobia/petition.html
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Kevin Keith Update: Good News! Death sentence commuted!
Ohio may execute an innocent man unless you take action.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-kevin-keith
Ohio's Governor Spares Life of a Death Row Inmate Kevin Keith
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03ohio.html?ref=us
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Please sign the petition to release Bradley Manning
http://www.petitiononline.com/manning1/petition.html (Click to sign here)
To: US Department of Defense; US Department of Justice
We, the Undersigned, call for justice for US Army PFC Bradley Manning, incarcerated without charge (as of 18 June 2010) at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Media accounts state that Mr. Manning was arrested in late May for leaking the video of US Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent people and seriously wounding two children in Baghdad, including those who arrived to help the wounded, as well as potentially other material. The video was released by WikiLeaks under the name "Collateral Murder".
If these allegations are untrue, we call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
If these allegations ARE true, we ALSO call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
Simultaneously, we express our support for Mr. Manning in any case, and our admiration for his courage if he is, in fact, the person who disclosed the video. Like in the cases of Daniel Ellsberg, W. Mark Felt, Frank Serpico and countless other whistleblowers before, government demands for secrecy must yield to public knowledge and justice when government crime and corruption are being kept hidden.
Justice for Bradley Manning!
Sincerely,
The Undersigned:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?manning1
--
Zaineb Alani
http://www.thewordsthatcomeout.blogspot.com
http://www.tigresssmiles.blogspot.com
"Yesterday I lost a country. / I was in a hurry, / and didn't notice when it fell from me / like a broken branch from a forgetful tree. / Please, if anyone passes by / and stumbles across it, / perhaps in a suitcase / open to the sky, / or engraved on a rock / like a gaping wound, / ... / If anyone stumbles across it, / return it to me please. / Please return it, sir. / Please return it, madam. / It is my country . . . / I was in a hurry / when I lost it yesterday." -Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi poet
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Please forward widely...
HELP LYNNE STEWART -- SUPPORT THESE BILLS
These two bills are now in Congress and need your support. Either or both bills would drastically decrease Lynne's and other federal sentences substantially.
H.R. 1475 "Federal Prison Work Incentive Act Amended 2009," Congressman Danny Davis, Democrat, Illinois
This bill will restore and amend the former federal B.O.P. good time allowances. It will let all federal prisoners, except lifers, earn significant reductions to their sentences. Second, earn monthly good time days by working prison jobs. Third, allowances for performing outstanding services or duties in connection with institutional operations. In addition, part of this bill is to bring back parole to federal long term prisoners.
Go to: www.FedCURE.org and www.FAMM.org
At this time, federal prisoners only earn 47 days per year good time. If H.R. 1475 passes, Lynne Stewart would earn 120-180 days per year good time!
H.R. 61 "45 And Older," Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (18th Congressional District, Texas)
This bill provides early release from federal prison after serving half of a violent crime or violent conduct in prison.
Please write, call, email your Representatives and Senators. Demand their votes!
This information is brought to you by Diane E. Schindelwig, a federal prisoner #36582-177 and friend and supporter of Lynne Stewart.
Write to Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY 2-S
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
For further information call Lynne's husband, Ralph Poynter, leader of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Send contributions payable to:
Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
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Listen to Lynne Stewart event, that took place July 8, 2010 at Judson Memorial Church
Excerpts include: Mumia Abu Jamal, Ralph Poynter, Ramsey Clark, Juanita
Young, Fred Hampton Jr., Raging Grannies, Ralph Schoenman
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
And check out this article (link) too!
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2010/062210Lendman.shtml
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL GRAVELY CONCERNED THAT RULING PUTS TROY DAVIS ON TRACK FOR EXECUTION; CITES PERSISTING DOUBTS ABOUT HIS GUILT
"Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence."
Amnesty International Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Contact: Wende Gozan Brown at 212-633-4247, wgozan@aiusa.org.
(Washington, D.C.) - Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today expressed deep concern that a federal district court decision puts Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis back on track for execution, despite doubts about his guilt that were raised during a June evidentiary hearing. Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence.
"Nobody walking out of that hearing could view this as an open-and-shut case," said Larry Cox, executive director of AIUSA. "The testimony that came to light demonstrates that doubt still exists, but the legal bar for proving innocence was set so high it was virtually insurmountable. It would be utterly unconscionable to proceed with this execution, plain and simple."
Amnesty International representatives, including Cox, attended the hearing in Savannah, Ga. The organization noted that evidence continues to cast doubt over the case:
· Four witnesses admitted in court that they lied at trial when they implicated Troy Davis and that they did not know who shot Officer Mark MacPhail.
· Four witnesses implicated another man as the one who killed the officer - including a man who says he saw the shooting and could clearly identify the alternative suspect, who is a family member.
· Three original state witnesses described police coercion during questioning, including one man who was 16 years old at the time of the murder and was questioned by several police officers without his parents or other adults present.
"The Troy Davis case is emblematic of everything that is wrong with capital punishment," said Laura Moye, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. "In a system rife with error, mistakes can be made. There are no do-overs when it comes to death. Lawmakers across the country should scrutinize this case carefully, not only because of its unprecedented nature, but because it clearly indicates the need to abolish the death penalty in the United States."
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia, Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting hundreds of thousands of clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
# # #
For more information visit www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis.
Wende Gozan Brown
Media Relations Director
Amnesty International USA
212/633-4247 (o)
347/526-5520 (c)
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
(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).]
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
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Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501c)3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Congo Republic: Amid Polio Outbreak, Groups Begin Immunization Campaign
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
November 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/africa/12briefs-Congo.html?ref=world
2) Sudan: Parasitic Disease Has Killed More Than 300 in Country's South
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html
3) DNA could have saved the last man executed by Bush
Landmark investigation disproves death penalty case for first time
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles
Saturday, 13 November 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dna-could-have-saved-the-last-man-executed-by-bush-2132850.html
4) PLEASE POST AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY:
West Coast Report:
RALLIES, FILM SHOWINGS DEFEND
MUMIA'S RIGHT TO BE FREE!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
510 763-2347 • www.laboractionmumia.org
5) What We Learned From WikiLeaks
Jonathan Schell
November 10, 2010
This article appeared in the November 29, 2010 edition of The Nation.
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/369-wikileaks/3940-what-we-learned-from-wikileaks
6) Nazis Were Given 'Safe Haven' in U.S., Report Says
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
November 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?hp
7) San Francisco School Administrators Schemed to Take Money, Documents Say
By TREY BUNDY
November 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14bcstudents.html?ref=education
8) None flew over the cuckoo's nest: A world without birds
Could we be facing a future without birds? Our reliance on pesticides has cut a swathe through their numbers. We must act now, argues Kate Ravilious
Monday, 15 November 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/none-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-a-world-without-birds-2134031.html
9) Europe Fears That Debt Crisis Is Ready to Spread
By LANDON THOMAS Jr. and JAMES KANTER
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/business/global/16euro.html?ref=world
10) British Premier Plans Deep Cuts in Aid for Civil Litigants
By JOHN F. BURNS
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/world/europe/16britain.html?ref=world
11) 45 Years Later, an Apology and 6 Months
By ROBBIE BROWN
[Another slap in the wrist for a killer cop...bw]
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/us/16fowler.html?ref=us
12) New York City Police Photograph Irises of Suspects
By RAY RIVERA and AL BAKER
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/nyregion/16retinas.html?ref=nyregion
13) Voices of Foreclosure Speak Daily About Desperation and Misery
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
November 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/business/economy/16foreclose.html?ref=business
14) Alarming escalation in violence used against Jewish peace activist (by Jewish thugs)
Right-wing Israel advocacy group pepper sprays Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) membersRight-wing Israel advocacy group San Francisco Voice for Israel/ StandWithUs
Member Pepper Sprays Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) members
at Bay Area JVP Chapter Meeting. Wraps self in Israeli flag.
VIA Email
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLO2xKcYDwc
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1) Congo Republic: Amid Polio Outbreak, Groups Begin Immunization Campaign
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
November 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/africa/12briefs-Congo.html?ref=world
International aid organizations said Thursday that they were starting a campaign to immunize three million people in three countries to fight a new outbreak of polio. The service organization Rotary International said it would give Unicef and the World Health Organization $500,000 total for the campaign, set to begin Friday in Pointe Noire, a coastal city where about 100 people have died in an outbreak that appears to have an unusually high mortality rate. From there, they will spread out to the rest of the country, neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, with the goal of vaccinating three million people of all ages by year's end. Normally, polio drops are given only to small children, but many teenagers and adults in central Africa are unprotected.
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2) Sudan: Parasitic Disease Has Killed More Than 300 in Country's South
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html
An outbreak of a parasitic tropical disease has killed more than 300 people in Southern Sudan, officials say. The World Health Organization says the outbreak of kala azar, which began in September 2009 and has intensified in recent months, is the biggest health problem facing the region. More than 7,000 cases have been reported this year by the health organization and the Southern Sudanese health authorities. More than 300 people have died since September 2009, the W.H.O. says, but officials fear the disease could spread for several more months.
Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, a W.H.O. medical officer in the region, said this week that health officials were "struggling to respond to the outbreak because it is beyond what we had planned." The parasite is transmitted through sand flies, and mainly affects children whose immune systems are compromised.
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3) DNA could have saved the last man executed by Bush
Landmark investigation disproves death penalty case for first time
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles
Saturday, 13 November 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dna-could-have-saved-the-last-man-executed-by-bush-2132850.html
The last man to be executed during George W Bush's term as governor of Texas was sentenced to death on the basis of a single piece of evidence - one human hair - which did not actually belong to him, DNA tests have shown.
Claude Howard Jones was convicted in 1990 of murdering an off-licence owner and was put to death by lethal injection 10 years later. He suffered the ultimate penalty because jurors were informed that a strand of his hair had been found on the floor close to the victim's body.
That now turns out to be untrue: laboratory analysis of the crucial item of evidence has revealed that it actually came from the head of the store's owner, Allen Hilzendager.
"My father never claimed to be a saint, but he always maintained that he didn't commit this murder," Jones's son, Duane, said yesterday. "I hope these results will serve as a wake-up call ... Serious problems exist in the criminal justice system that must be fixed if our society is to continue using the death penalty."
This week's discovery has huge legal significance because there has previously been no clear-cut case in modern US history of a defendant being sentenced to death on the back of evidence which is demonstrably false.
It does not necessarily prove that Jones, who was 60 at the time of his death, was innocent of murder. But it does add weight his claim that he was waiting in a car outside the liquor store on the afternoon of 14 November 1989 when an accomplice, Kerry Daniel Dixon, walked in and shot Hilzendager.
The men, both career criminals, planned to steal the till, which contained several hundred dollars in cash, from the off-licence at Point Blank, 80 miles east of Houston. Witnesses said they saw one man walk into the store to commit the crime while the other stayed behind to act as getaway driver.
Without the hair from the scene, Jones would have received life imprisonment, since under Texas law it is impossible to secure a death penalty conviction without corroborating physical evidence that the suspect was directly responsible for a crime such as murder.
None of the witnesses was able to positively identify which of the two men had walked into the store and pulled the trigger. A third accomplice, Timothy Jordan, who supplied the fatal weapon, testified that Jones had confessed to the killing, but later withdrew his evidence, saying he had embellished it to secure a lighter sentence.
For the original trial in 1990, analysis of the hair was carried out under a microscope, a technique now obsolete because it is thought to be unreliable. By the time Jones was executed a decade later, DNA testing was relatively commonplace, but his attorneys were unable to convince any court in Texas to have the crucial hair reviewed.
In 2000, just before Jones was killed, Mr Bush declined a request to order a stay of execution. The Texas Observer magazine, which carried out this week's DNA test, claimed that state attorneys "failed to inform him that DNA evidence might exonerate Jones".
The former US president, who is on the road this week publicising his memoirs, has declined to comment. Although he signed 151 execution orders - more than any other governor - during his time in office, Bush has previously stated his support for DNA testing as a means to confirm a suspect's guilt.
In the years after his execution, Jones's family tried repeatedly to get access to the hair sample, but their requests to have it DNA tested were blocked by the local district attorney, who attempted to have it destroyed. It was only released after the Texas Observer resorted to filing a lawsuit demanding access to the item.
That kind of obstruction is true to form in Texas, which has executed 464 people since the death penalty was re-introduced to the US more than three decades ago, giving it one of the world's busiest death rows outside Saudi Arabia and China.
Earlier this year, doubt was cast on the conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was was put to death in 2004 after being convicted of starting a fire in 1991 that killed his three daughters. Several experts have claimed that he was completely innocent and that prosecutors obscured crucial evidence.
An official report into Willingham's case by the Texas Forensic Science Commission will not be completed until next year. Its release was delayed by the current Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who last October removed three members of the panel that is writing the report and replaced them with people thought to be more supportive of capital punishment.
Miscarriages Of Justice?
Cameron Todd Willingham
In February 2004, the unemployed car mechanic was given a lethal injection in Texas for the murder of his three young daughters in an arson attack in 1991. He protested his innocence until his death. Expert fire investigators have since produced reports showing that none of the alleged signs of arson cited at the trial stood up to scrutiny. A final report on the Willingham case is due next year.
Lena Baker
The only woman to die in the US state of Georgia's electric chair, Lena Baker was a black maid executed in 1945 for shooting her white male employer. An all-white jury sentenced Baker to death despite the 44-year-old's claims that her boss had kept her as a slave, raped her and threatened to kill her. In 2005, Georgia's Board of Pardons and Paroles found that Baker should have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter and granted her a pardon.
Derek Bentley
The 19-year-old was hanged in 1952 for his part in the murder of Pc Sidney Miles during a bungled break-in at a Surrey warehouse. Bentley's sister campaigned to clear his name, claiming he had learning difficulties. In 1998, the Court of Appeal found that the original trial judge had been biased against the defendants and that scientific evidence showed the police officers who testified against Bentley had lied under oath.
Marinus van der Lubbe
Scapegoat for one of the defining moments of 20th-century history, the 24-year-old Dutch bricklayer was beheaded for setting fire to the Reichstag in Germany in 1933. He was pardoned 75 years later. Hitler used the arson to suspend civil liberties and establish a dictatorship. Much debate has surrounded the subject of Van der Lubbe's guilt. Lawyers finally achieved a symbolic pardon in 2008, citing legislation based on the idea that Nazi law "went against the basic ideas of justice".
George Kelly
Kelly was hanged in 1950 after one of Liverpool's most famous murder trials. Some 65,000 people were questioned after a cinema manager and his cashier were shot in a botched robbery while an audience enjoyed a thriller. Kelly was tried alongside Charles Connolly, who pleaded guilty to lesser charges to save his own life, although both maintained that neither committed murder. In 2003, appeal judges ruled that the evidence had been circumstantial and Kelly's verdict had been "unsafe".
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4) PLEASE POST AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY:
West Coast Report:
RALLIES, FILM SHOWINGS DEFEND
MUMIA'S RIGHT TO BE FREE!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
510 763-2347 • www.laboractionmumia.org
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man on death row. Yet the State of Pennsylvania, and the federal government, still want to "legally" kill him. This is shown by the US Supreme Court, which in April 2009 rejected Mumia's appeal without comment, despite mountains of evidence of his innocence. (More info below.)
Now, on November 9th 2010, a hearing has been held on the question of Mumia's sentence: death, or life in prison without the possibility of parole. We don't know the outcome in the Third Circuit Court--the judges will take their sweet time with that.
What we know is: MUMIA IS INNOCENT!
MUMIA NEEDS TO BE FREE, RIGHT NOW!
OAKLAND: 150 people rallied at Noon at 14th and Broadway on a work day--Nov 9th--to demand: MUMIA IS INNOCENT! FREE MUMIA! END THE RACIST DEATH PENALTY!
Chants of "An Injury To One Is An Injury To All, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal," rang out on the sidewalk below Oakland's ornate City Hall, as Jack Heyman, executive Board member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, served as chair of the picket and rally. ILWU Local 10 members like Heyman were fresh from their local's recent Bay Area port shutdown to honor Oscar Grant, the young black man shot down in cold blood by BART cop Johannes Mehserle in 2009.
Called by the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and supported by numerous local organizations, the spirited picket and rally in Oakland's downtown on the court date, Nov 9th, sent a message of solidarity to our East Coast friends and comrades who went to Philadelphia to demonstrate at the Third Circuit Court itself: Mumia Must Be Free!
Speakers at the Oakland picket and rally included Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC) Minister of Information, and Block Report Radio journalist, JR; former Black Panther and radio commentator Kiilu Nyasha; Peace and Freedom Party representative Marsha Feinland; and ANSWER Coalition representative Forest Schmidt. Also represented were Radical Women/Freedom Socialist Party; Revolution Clubs; and the Partisan Defense Committee (PDC), the first left organization to publicize and promote Mumia's case.
Supporters of the rally also included the Black Student Union of Laney College, and the BSU of San Francisco State University.
The Labor Action Committee spokesperson emphasized our lack of confidence in the courts or in the Obama administration to free Mumia. We need mass and labor actions now!
SAN FRANCISCO: An indoor rally later that same day featured a showing of the new film on Mumia, "JUSTICE ON TRIAL, the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal." This film, produced by Educators For Mumia and Big Noise Films, tells the truth about Mumia. This event, held at Centro del Pueblo in SF's Mission District, and sponsored by the Mobilization To Free Mumia, was attended by about 50 people. Speakers included Hans Bennett of Abu-Jamal News and Journalists for Mumia; Jeff Mackler of the Mobilization; and Sally Goldin, daughter of Mumia's literary agent, Frances Goldin, who relayed her mother's report on the debate on Mumia's case that was held in Philadelphia on the night before the court hearing. Bottom line: the pro-Mumia side, led by "Justice" filmmaker Johanna Fernandez and lawyer Michael Coard slaughtered the anti-Mumia opposition!
Now we have to get the word out more widely, which leads us to:
SHOWINGS OF JUSTICE ON TRIAL:
Successful West Coast showings of the film so far have included:
The West Coast Premier of this important film, sponsored by the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, at the Humanist Hall in Oakland on October 24th, took in over $400 to support the filmmakers and Mumia's legal defense.
Showings have also taken place in a class at Laney College, and at SF State University.
FUTURE SHOWINGS OF JUSTICE ON TRIAL:
SAN FRANCISCO, 7 PM, SATURDAY DECEMBER 4TH : Come to the Twin Space, 2111 Mission St, San Francisco. Sponsor: Minister of Information JR. Info: 415 504-5289
BERKELEY, 7 PM THURSDAY DECEMBER 16TH: At the Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Info: 510 841-4824.
Future showings are also planned in San Jose, at another Laney class, and at UC Berkeley. Please look for more details on these showings.
NOW IT'S YOUR TURN -- SHOW THE FILM!
You and/or your organization can easily organize a house party, classroom, or auditorium showing of this important film, JUSTICE ON TRIAL.
For a film showing with speaker,
1. Contact the Labor Action Committee at: 510 763-2347, or 510 595-7811, or
2. Contact POCC Minister of Information JR, at 415 504-5289.
Keep up the struggle!
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More Information On Mumia's Case:
MUMIA THREATENED WITH DEATH BY THE COURTS...
Why is this happening?
Targeted by the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO counter-intelligence and disruption program since the age of 15, and more recently by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), Mumia Abu-Jamal is seen as an enemy of the state. His innocence is considered irrelevant, and in US courts, following recent rulings, innocence is no defense.
The US Supreme Court has already thrown out, without comment, Mumia's last appeal against his frame-up conviction before a racist judge in a blatantly unfair trial in 1982. This rejection meant the Supreme Court had to ignore mountains of evidence of Mumia's innocence, such as the recantations of key prosecution "witnesses" who didn't really see anything, other witnesses who said Mumia didn't do it, and the fact that another man (Arnold Beverly) confessed to the crime.
The Supreme Court Ignored Precedent As Well As Evidence...
In order to slam the door on Mumia's last appeal, the Supreme Court also had to ignore key precedents such as its own ruling in Batson v Kentucky, which was supposed to prevent racism in jury selection. Racist exclusion of blacks from the jury was rampant in Mumia's case--this alone should have been enough to overturn his conviction!
Now, on November 9th 2010, the Third Circuit Court has heard oral arguments to decide between removing the stay on Mumia's death sentence, or ordering a new hearing in state court which would rule on a new death sentence, or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Although such a hearing would be before a jury, and while the defense can attempt to present evidence of innocence, the only two possible outcomes are death, or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Reinstatement of Mumia's Death Sentence Is Likely...
The outcome of the November 9th hearing will not be known until the judges issue a ruling. But the US Supreme Court has instructed the Third Circuit to rule in light of another case, which, conveniently for Mumia's opponents, weakens the precedent which led to Mumia's death sentence being put on hold in the first place, by a federal judge ten years ago.
The Supreme Court has in effect pre-arranged the Nov 9th hearing to make an immediate reinstatement of Mumia's death sentence the likely outcome.
We can have no confidence in the corrupt, racist US legal system to resolve this, because the cops, courts and key politicians are all involved up to their ears in Mumia's frame-up! This includes the current governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, as well as the Obama administration and its attorney general, Eric Holder.
We need mass actions, and labor actions, to say:
MUMIA IS INNOCENT! FREE MUMIA!
END THE RACIST DEATH PENALTY!
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5) What We Learned From WikiLeaks
Jonathan Schell
November 10, 2010
This article appeared in the November 29, 2010 edition of The Nation.
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/369-wikileaks/3940-what-we-learned-from-wikileaks
The Army intelligence analyst Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, now in a military detention center charged with having leaked classified documents related to the Iraq War, once explained why he was contemplating his deed. (He is additionally suspected of having leaked the 390,000 documents made public by the whistleblowing solicitor WikiLeaks, but he has not been charged with this.) Manning was not yet in prison or in the media spotlight. He was artlessly and recklessly chatting online to a blogger, Adrian Lamo, who eventually turned him in. Lamo wanted to know why Manning didn't cash in by giving the documents to a foreign power, such as China or Russia. Because "it belongs in the public domain," Manning replied. "Information should be free...because another state would just take advantage of the information...try and get some edge.... It should be a public good."
Manning's breaking point had come when he witnessed the arrest by the Iraqi police of fifteen people for printing "anti-Iraqi literature." He looked the documents over and found them to consist merely of "a scholarly critique" of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. He reported the finding to his American superior, who dismissed it and told him to busy himself looking for more people to detain.
As an intelligence officer with access to secret reports, Manning knew well what happened to detainees in Iraqi custody. They were commonly tortured. A typical example of a report by an American soldier reads:
{AT 191400C OCT___IN___(ZONE___) IVO___NPTT___THAT-___BDE SPTT-___BDE SPTT CONDUCTED A ROUTINE INSPECTION OF THE -___ [WOLF] BDE DETENTION FACILITY AND IDENTIFIED ONE PROBABLE CASE OF DETAINEE ABUSE. THE ALLEGED BEATING TOOK PLACE UNDER INTERROGATION AT THE--___HQ ON THE EVENING OF ___OCT___. THE DETAINEE WAS BLINDFOLDED AND IS UNABLE TO IDENTIFY THE OFFENDERS. THE DETAINEE CLAIMED HE WAS BEATEN ABOUT THE FEET AND LEGS WITH A BLUNT OBJECT, AND PUNCHED IN THE FACE AND___. HE CLAIMED THAT ELECTRICITY WAS USED ON HIS FEET AND GENITALS, AND HE WAS ALSO [SODOMIZED] WITH A WATER BOTTLE. --___PERSONNEL CLAIMED IT WAS CAUSED BY THE DETAINEE FALLING FROM HIS MOTORCYCLE WHILE HE WAS BEING CHASED BY THE___. THE DETAINEE DISPLAYED GREAT DIFFICULTY WALKING WITH BRUISING AND SWELLING ON THE SOLES OF BOTH FEET. THE DETAINEE HAD LOCALIZED CUTS AND BRUISING ON BOTH LEGS (PRIMARILY THE LEFT), THE LEFT ARM, AND THE LEFT CHIN. THERE WERE NO INJURIES VISIBLE ON THE DETAINEE E___HANDS, UPPER ARMS, TORSO, UPPER LEGS, OR BUTTOCKS. HIS CLOTHING WAS NOT RIPPED OR DAMAGED, BUT DID DISPLAY BLOOD STAINS.
No intervention was attempted by the United States in such cases. The military's Fragmentary Order 242, known as FRAGO 242, dictated that if coalition forces were not involved, no further action was to be taken: "only an initial report will be made.... No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ." FRAGO 242 is repeatedly cited by military reporters as the reason for doing nothing.
Sometimes, indeed, American or other coalition soldiers threatened Iraqi prisoners with the torture or execution that would befall them if they were turned over to their Iraqi compatriots. One unit created in these years was the Iraqi Wolf Brigade, an elite outfit set up to terrorize insurgents, perhaps in imitation of the death squads that had operated with US connivance in El Salvador in the 1980s. One report describes a threat by an American to turn an Iraqi prisoner over to the battalion:
DURING THE INTERROGATION PROCESS THE ___ THREATENED THE SUBJECT DETAINEE THAT HE WOULD NEVER SEE HIS FAMILY AGAIN AND WOULD BE SENT TO THE WOLF BATTALION WHERE HE WOULD BE SUBJECT TO ALL THE PAIN AND AGONY THAT THE WOLF BATTALION IS KNOWN TO EXACT UPON ITS DETAINEES [December 14, 2005].
At this time in Iraq, executed victims were being found in the streets with electric-drill holes in their bodies.
American forces were thus routinely handing over Iraqi suspects to Iraqi forces who routinely tortured them, and then nothing further was done. This proceeding did not constitute abuse of some other, better system that provided the rule; it was the system-a torture system. Elsewhere in the "war on terror," "extraordinary rendition"-the practice of sending prisoners to foreign countries to be tortured-required long flights on CIA Gulfstream jets. In Iraq it was a matter of walking across the street. In the days leading up to the war, of course, the United States frequently cited the Saddam Hussein regime's practice of torture as a reason for invading. Now America's own client regime was engaging in widespread torture.
Faced with this particular and general knowledge, Manning felt "helpless," he told Lamo. "That was a point where I was...actively involved in something that I was completely against." In sum, Manning found himself in the classic, excruciating dilemma of the decent person enmeshed in an abhorrent system, not as a victim but as a perpetrator. By following the rules, he would be an accomplice of torture. Only by breaking them could he extricate himself.
Julian Assange, the nomadic cyber rebel who leads WikiLeaks, was not himself a cog in the machine, but he was of like mind with Manning in regard to individual responsibility. Before he got into the business of disclosing the dirty secrets of governments and corporations, he reflected in an essay, "Every time we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act we become a party to injustice," adding, "Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded into servility." In his own way, he, too, acted. In July WikiLeaks released more than 70,000 secret documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan, and then came the documentary tsunami from Iraq, which may have, in Assange's words, "constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any war ever to have entered the public record."
Assange is not in prison-on the contrary, this tall, white-haired, disciplined, well-spoken and somehow unearthly information guerrilla shows up regularly on television, where he performs with a kind of high-minded, cool scrappiness. But his organization has been cloudily but menacingly designated a "threat to the U.S. Army" in a classified Army document (also published by WikiLeaks), and he is a man on the run, moving from nation to nation in search of safety from possible legal jeopardy. (Assange is under investigation for sexual misconduct in Sweden but has denied all accusations.)
Among the flood of Afghan war documents there happens to be a report on one more instance of a man who, finding himself threatened with participation in the evil-doing of a malignant system, opted to withdraw. In Balkh province, a little more than a year ago, the report disclosed, Afghan police officers were beating and otherwise abusing civilians for their lack of cooperation. The police commander then sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl. When a civilian protested, the report stated, "The district commander ordered his bodyguard to open fire on the AC [Afghan civilian]. The bodyguard refused, at which time the district commander shot [the bodyguard] in front of the AC." At the time these documents came out, the official reaction to them, echoed widely in the media, was that they disclosed "nothing new." But let us pause to absorb this story. A police officer, unwilling, at the risk of his own life, to be a murderer, is himself murdered by his superior. He gives his life to spare the other person, possibly a stranger. It is the highest sacrifice that can be made.
The man's identity is unrecorded. His story is met with a yawn. But perhaps one day, when there is peace in Afghanistan, a monument will be erected in his honor there and schoolchildren will be taught his name. Perhaps here in the United States, when the country has found its moral bearings again, there will be recognition of the integrity and bravery of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. For now, the war- and torture-system rolls on, and it's all found to be "nothing new."
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6) Nazis Were Given 'Safe Haven' in U.S., Report Says
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
November 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?hp
WASHINGTON - A secret history of the United States government's Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a "safe haven" in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.
The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.
It describes the government's posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official's drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government's mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.
The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.
Perhaps the report's most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency's involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.'s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.
The Justice Department report, describing what it calls "the government's collaboration with persecutors," says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis "were indeed knowingly granted entry" to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. "America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became - in some small measure - a safe haven for persecutors as well," it said.
The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old. The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials.
The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.
The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings. It cited "numerous factual errors and omissions," but declined to say what they were.
More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year.
In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans "to purge Germany of the Jews" and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States. In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past - whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or "explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances," the report said.
The Justice Department, after learning of Von Bolschwing's Nazi ties, sought to deport him in 1981. He died that year at age 72.
The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)
The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department's No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so "would be to the detriment of the national interest."
Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says.
Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department sought to deport him in 1983, but the O.S.I. considered the deportation of someone of Rudolph's prominence as an affirmation of "the depth of the government's commitment to the Nazi prosecution program," according to internal memos.
The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what American officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found.
In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that "misstated the facts" in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department "knew that Soobzokov had advised the C.I.A. of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States."
(After the case was dismissed, radical Jewish groups urged violence against Mr. Soobzokov, and he was killed in 1985 by a bomb at his home in Paterson, N.J. )
The secrecy surrounding the Justice Department's handling of the report could pose a political dilemma for President Obama because of his pledge to run the most transparent administration in history. Mr. Obama chose the Justice Department to coordinate the opening of government records.
The Nazi-hunting report was the brainchild of Mark Richard, a senior Justice Department lawyer. In 1999, he persuaded Attorney General Janet Reno to begin a detailed look at what he saw as a critical piece of history, and he assigned a career prosecutor, Judith Feigin, to the job. After Mr. Richard edited the final version in 2006, he urged senior officials to make it public but was rebuffed, colleagues said.
When Mr. Richard became ill with cancer, he told a gathering of friends and family that the report's publication was one of three things he hoped to see before he died, the colleagues said. He died in June 2009, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. spoke at his funeral.
"I spoke to him the week before he died, and he was still trying to get it released," Ms. Feigin said. "It broke his heart."
After Mr. Richard's death, David Sobel, a Washington lawyer, and the National Security Archive sued for the report's release under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Justice Department initially fought the lawsuit, but finally gave Mr. Sobel a partial copy - with more than 1,000 passages and references deleted based on exemptions for privacy and internal deliberations.
Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the department is committed to transparency, and that redactions are made by experienced lawyers.
The full report disclosed that the Justice Department found "a smoking gun" in 1997 establishing with "definitive proof" that Switzerland had bought gold from the Nazis that had been taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But these references are deleted, as are disputes between the Justice and State Departments over Switzerland's culpability in the months leading up to a major report on the issue.
Another section describes as "a hideous failure" a series of meetings in 2000 that United States officials held with Latvian officials to pressure them to pursue suspected Nazis. That passage is also deleted.
So too are references to macabre but little-known bits of history, including how a director of the O.S.I. kept a piece of scalp that was thought to belong to Dr. Mengele in his desk in hopes that it would help establish whether he was dead.
The chapter on Dr. Mengele, one of the most notorious Nazis to escape prosecution, details the O.S.I.'s elaborate efforts in the mid-1980s to determine whether he had fled to the United States and might still be alive.
It describes how investigators used letters and diaries apparently written by Dr. Mengele in the 1970s, along with German dental records and Munich phone books, to follow his trail.
After the development of DNA tests, the piece of scalp, which had been turned over by the Brazilian authorities, proved to be a critical piece of evidence in establishing that Dr. Mengele had fled to Brazil and had died there in about 1979 without ever entering the United States, the report said. The edited report deletes references to Dr. Mengele's scalp on privacy grounds.
Even documents that have long been available to the public are omitted, including court decisions, Congressional testimony and front-page newspaper articles from the 1970s.
A chapter on the O.S.I.'s most publicized failure - the case against John Demjanjuk, a retired American autoworker who was mistakenly identified as Treblinka's Ivan the Terrible - deletes dozens of details, including part of a 1993 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that raised ethics accusations against Justice Department officials.
That section also omits a passage disclosing that Latvian émigrés sympathetic to Mr. Demjanjuk secretly arranged for the O.S.I.'s trash to be delivered to them each day from 1985 to 1987. The émigrés rifled through the garbage to find classified documents that could help Mr. Demjanjuk, who is currently standing trial in Munich on separate war crimes charges.
Ms. Feigin said she was baffled by the Justice Department's attempt to keep a central part of its history secret for so long. "It's an amazing story," she said, "that needs to be told."
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 14, 2010
An earlier version misspelled the given name of Adolf Eichmann as Adolph.
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7) San Francisco School Administrators Schemed to Take Money, Documents Say
By TREY BUNDY
November 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14bcstudents.html?ref=education
A group of San Francisco Unified School District administrators, including an associate superintendent, engaged in a long-running scheme to funnel district money into their personal bank accounts via nonprofit community organizations, according to internal documents.
The administrators worked out of the Student Support Services Department, which partners with community organizations to provide thousands of San Francisco students with health education, substance abuse counseling, violence prevention, after-school activities and other services.
The scandal has stunned San Francisco educators and thrown Student Support Services into turmoil at a time when the district faces a $113 million deficit. Some vital student services have been threatened as investigators comb through millions of dollars of transactions dating back at least four years.
Documents obtained by The Bay Citizen under a California Public Records Act request show that administrators directed money from community organizations into their own pockets. Some also fabricated overtime reports and falsified signatures on district contracts. The records also include copies of checks and invoices, suspension and termination notices and contracts bearing signatures that the district says were falsified.
"It was a system developed by a small group of individuals operating outside of the budget and finance department," said Deputy Superintendent Richard Carranza, who participated in the district's investigation.
The documents, many redacted, show evidence of transactions totaling tens of thousands of dollars and possibly more.
In an interview, Mr. Carranza said the district opened the investigation in June after a community organization raised questions to him about irregular accounting practices. The San Francisco district attorney's office is conducting a separate investigation, according to Mr. Carranza and others familiar with the inquiry. A spokesman for that office declined to comment.
The district's investigation is focused on Associate Superintendent Trish Bascom, who is the former head of Student Support Services, and four of her co-workers. For years, until she retired in June, Ms. Bascom had primary control over money distributed to community organizations that were hired to provide services for the district. The department's annual budget is nearly $20 million.
The documents show that community organizations under contract to the district made payments directly to individual Student Support Services administrators. Mr. Carranza said such payments violated district regulations. Ms. Bascom's lawyer, Stuart Hanlon, confirmed that Ms. Bascom had approved the payments, but he said the transactions conformed to district regulations. Mr. Hanlon said the payments were bonuses approved by Ms. Bascom to make up for salary cuts.
"If they want to call it stealing, they can," he said. "I would call the district incompetent. It wasn't stealing. It was paying people bonuses for hard work."
Kevin Truitt, who succeeded Ms. Bascom, said investigators seized computers and documents shortly after he arrived at the end of June. The seizures, along with the removal of key department officials, forced Mr. Truitt and his staff to scramble to put programs in place.
"I'm not privy to the documents or computer files pertaining to the department I now run," Mr. Truitt said in an interview.
The scandal has made it difficult for Student Support Services administrators to track financing for programs, according to one district official.
In an e-mail, Mr. Carranza wrote that Student Support Services programs "are being fully funded. We are committed to ensuring that our students are not penalized for the actions of a few individuals."
In addition to Ms. Bascom, other administrators under investigation by the district include Meyla Ruwin, the department's senior executive director; Betty Wong, Ms. Bascom's assistant; and two of Ms. Bascom's administrative analysts, Linda Lovelace and Lilian Capuli, according to Mr. Carranza and documents.
Ms. Lovelace was fired in September, documents show, and she declined to comment for this article. Ms. Ruwin and Ms. Wong were placed on administrative leave, Mr. Carranza said. Neither could be reached for comment. Ms. Capuli received a termination notice on Sept. 7 but has requested a hearing to dispute the accusations, Tyler Paetkau, her lawyer, said.
Mr. Paetkau, in a letter to the school district, said district officials were using Ms. Capuli as a scapegoat. "Ms. Capuli simply followed the directives given by her superiors," the letter said.
In an August letter informing Ms. Lovelace of her dismissal, the district accused her of supplementing her $83,000 salary with $26,126.64 in unauthorized district money during the 2009-10 school year. According to the district and invoices, the money was paid to Ms. Lovelace by Bay Area Community Resources, a Marin County organization that operates after-school programs for San Francisco students.
Officials with Bay Area Community Resources could not be reached for comment. It is not known whether the group, or any other community organizations, are under investigation.
Ms. Lovelace was in charge of administering contracts between the school district and Bay Area Community Resources. According to her termination letter, she signed contracts on behalf of officials who had not given her authorization and submitted false claims that she had worked 12-hour days during the school year.
"Your conduct in intentionally requesting and receiving an additional four hours of compensation every single day is tantamount to stealing," stated the dismissal notice, which was written by Roger Buschmann, the chief administrative officer. "Particularly at a time when the district faces a multimillion-dollar deficit and forced layoffs of many skilled and diligent professionals, such conduct is appalling."
Last May, documents show, Ms. Lovelace received a check for $40,000 from Edgewood Center for Children and Families, a San Francisco nonprofit that provides mental health, violence prevention and teacher coaching services to the district. The termination letter alleged that Ms. Lovelace had gotten money from Edgewood "for which you knew you had not provided services."
Jeff Davis, the Edgewood chief executive, declined to discuss details of the transaction except to say that all transactions involving the company had been authorized by the school district. Mr. Davis said Edgewood was cooperating with authorities.
"Edgewood could make a payment on full authorization without knowing if the money was later misused," Mr. Davis said.
Mr. Carranza, the deputy superintendent, said the Edgewood payments had "absolutely not" been authorized by the district.
In May, Edgewood issued a $15,000 check to Ms. Capuli, the administrative analysts, according to the documents.
In a letter to Ms. Capuli, the district said the $15,000 payment appeared related to her approval of a $1,092.34 expense reimbursement to Ms. Bascom. It said there was no evidence Ms. Bascom had incurred the expense.
"At the very least, your approval of this invoice without making any effort to evaluate the accuracy of the receipts being submitted is negligent," the letter to Ms. Capuli said. "At worst, it seems to involve a quid pro quo, in which you were approving payment of district funds to Ms. Bascom on an improper submission in return for her approval of the $15,000 Edgewood payment to you."
Mr. Paetkau, Ms. Capuli's lawyer, denied the accusation.
Mr. Hanlon, Ms. Bascom's lawyer, called it "totally false."
tbundy@baycitizen.org
Jennifer Gollan contributed reporting. jgollan@baycitizen.org
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8) None flew over the cuckoo's nest: A world without birds
Could we be facing a future without birds? Our reliance on pesticides has cut a swathe through their numbers. We must act now, argues Kate Ravilious
Monday, 15 November 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/none-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-a-world-without-birds-2134031.html
Scanning the sky with his binoculars, he searches carefully for any sign of movement: the steady beat of a blackbird's wings, the fluttering of a flock of starlings. It has been a week now since he saw the starlings: just four of them flitting from tree to tree, feasting on the autumn berries.
Birds are a real rarity these days. In his boyhood, he recalls, he would watch the acrobatics of entire flocks as they ducked and dived after insects. But now the skies are silent, barring the hum of the odd airplane. Turning back to his fruit and vegetable patch, he continues the laborious task of pollinating the raspberry plants by hand, gently brushing pollen onto the slender stigmas inside the flowers. In the past, bees, wasps, butterflies and flies would have done this job for him; nowadays such insects are likewise a rarity. Farmers instead resort to robot bees to pollinate their crops: tiny motors, encased in fuzzy fabric, which hover from flower to flower.
Will this bleak outlook be a reality for future generations? It is nearly 50 years since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, the book that warned of environmental damage the pesticide DDT was causing. Today, DDT use is banned except in exceptional circumstances, yet we still don't seem to have taken on board Carson's fundamental message.
According to Henk Tennekes, a researcher at the Experimental Toxicology Services in Zutphen, the Netherlands, the threat of DDT has been superseded by a relatively new class of insecticide, known as the neonicotinoids. In his book The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making, published this month, Tennekes draws all the evidence together, to make the case that neonicotinoids are causing a catastrophe in the insect world, which is having a knock-on effect for many of our birds.
Already, in many areas, the skies are much quieter than they used to be. All over Europe, many species of bird have suffered a population crash. Spotting a house sparrow, common swift or a flock of starlings used to be unremarkable, but today they are a more of an unusual sight. Since 1977, Britain's house-sparrow population has shrunk by 68 per cent.
The common swift has suffered a 41 per cent fall in numbers since 1994, and the starling 26 per cent. The story is similar for woodland birds (such as the spotted flycatcher, willow tit and wood warbler), and farmland birds (including the northern lapwing, snipe, curlew, redshank and song thrush).
Ornithologists have been trying desperately to work out what is behind these rapid declines. Urban development, hermetically sealed houses and barns, designer gardens and changing farming practices have all been blamed, but exactly why these birds have fallen from the skies is still largely unexplained.
However, Tennekes thinks there may be a simple reason. "The evidence shows that the bird species suffering massive decline since the 1990s rely on insects for their diet," he says. He believes that the insect world is no longer thriving, and that birds that feed on insects are short on food.
So what has happened to all the insects? In the Nineties, a new class of insecticide - the neonicotinoids - was introduced. Beekeepers were the first people to notice a problem, as their bees began to desert their hives and die, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
The first cases were in France in 1994, but the epidemic quickly fanned out across Europe, and by 2006 CCD reached the US too. Between 2006 and 2009 one third of American beekeepers reported cases of colony collapse. Aside from the loss of revenue in honey sales, this is worrying news because honey bees are one of the world's most important pollinators, and 35 per cent of agricultural crops rely on pollinators.
As a service, pollination is worth an estimated £440m a year to the UK economy and a staggering $15bn (£9.3bn) to US farmers. And it isn't just the Western world that is affected: in China the lack of bees has become so serious that farmers in some regions are already resorting to pollinating their crops by hand.
Controversy has swirled around the issue, with everything from mobile phones to GM crops being held to blame. The key contenders include parasites, viral and fungal infections, and insecticides.
Last month the problem appeared to have been cracked, when a group of US scientists published a paper in the online journal PLoS One which indicated that CCD was caused by the interaction between a virus, the invertebrate iridescent virus, and a fungus known as Nosema apis (http://ind.pn/9NKzPD).
But since then it has emerged that the study's lead author, Jerry Bromenshenk, has in recent years received a research grant from Bayer Crop Science (a leading manufacturer of neonicotinoid insecticides) to study bee pollination. Bromenshenk has, however, said that no Bayer funds were used in the earlier study. Jeroen van der Sluijs, of the Netherlands' Utrecht University, doesn't doubt Bromenshenk's findings, but says they don't address the key issue: "Previous research has shown that exposure to neonicotinoids makes colonies more prone to the Nosema fungus and virus infections."
If that is so, then neonicotinoid insecticides could be the root cause of the problem. But why are they so much worse than other insecticides?
"Neonicotinoids are revolutionary because they are put inside seeds and permeate the whole plant because they are water-soluble (which is why they are called systemic insecticides). Any insect that feeds on the crop dies," explains Tennekes.
Even small doses can kill. Recent research, carried out on honey bees in the lab, showed that these insecticides build up in the central nervous system of the insect, so that very small doses over a long time period can have a fatal effect. The reason that neonicotinoids can have such a powerful long-term effect is down to the way they work - binding irreversibly to receptors in the central nervous systems of insects.
"An insect has a limited amount of such receptors. The damage is cumulative: with every exposure, more receptors are blocked, until the damage is so big that the insect cannot function any more and dies," explains van der Sluijs.
And unfortunately the robust nature of neonicotinoids means that they can travel far beyond the crops they were used to treat. "Neonicotinoids are water-soluble and mobile in soil. They can be washed out of soils and into surface and groundwater - as we've seen in the Netherlands since 2004. As a result, neonicotinoids are probably readily taken up by wild plants as well, and in this way spread throughout nature, causing irreversible damage to non-target insects," says Tennekes.
Many scientists now agree that there is strong evidence to suggest that neonicotinoid insecticides are damaging to bees. But what about the other insects? Are they being poisoned in the same way? "It is very difficult to prove, but I believe that most insects will have declined since the introduction of neonicotinoids in the 1990s. The problem is that we are not really interested in insects, apart from bees (because we need them) and butterflies (because they are pretty). However, the few insect species that we monitor closely indicate massive decline," says Tennekes.
A new PhD thesis goes some way to backing up Tennekes's claim. This year, Tessa van Dijk at Utrecht University demonstrated a strong link between increased pollution levels and a reduced presence of insects, and especially flying insects, in regions of the Netherlands where residues of neonicotinoids are high.
Others agree that Tennekes may be onto something. "It is a plausible theory that birds that feed on insects, or that feed their chicks on insects only, will suffer from insect decline. But much more data are needed to understand how big the role of neonicotinoids is," says van der Sluijs.
Nigel Raine, a bee expert from Royal Holloway, University of London, concurs. "There is not yet enough evidence to show that neonicotinoid insecticides are environmentally safe in the longer term. But if it can be proved that they are causing a decline in insects, it is reasonable to assume a link to a decline in the bird species that eat insects."
Some argue, however, that the story is unlikely to be so simple. "Bird decline started before neonicotinoids hit the scene. Like so many things, the decline of bird populations is almost certainly multifactorial, involving pesticides, habitat loss and many other variables," says Gard Otis, an entomologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
Nonetheless, some countries have already begun to take action. In 2008 the German, Italian and Slovenian authorities imposed a ban on the use of two types of neonicotinoid insecticides on maize. Meanwhile France has had a ban in place since 1999, on a neonicotinoid insecticide used to dress sunflower seeds.
But for Tennekes the only solution is a global ban. "Neonicotinoids act like chemical carcinogens, for which there are no safe levels of exposure. The message is that we must act quickly and ban these compounds, to avoid a catastrophe," he says.
www.disasterinthemaking.com
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9) Europe Fears That Debt Crisis Is Ready to Spread
By LANDON THOMAS Jr. and JAMES KANTER
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/business/global/16euro.html?ref=world
LONDON - European officials, increasingly concerned that the Continent's debt crisis will spread, are warning that any new rescue plans may need to cover Portugal as well as Ireland to contain the problem they tried to resolve six months ago.
Any such plan would have to be preceded by a formal request for assistance from each country before it would be put in place. And for months now, Ireland has insisted that it has enough funds to keep it going until spring. Portugal says it, too, needs no help and emphasizes that it is in a stronger position than Ireland.
While some important details are different, the current situation feels eerily similar to what happened months ago in Greece, where the cost of borrowing rose precipitously.
European authorities stepped in with a rescue package, expecting an economic recovery and the creation of new European rescue funds to fend off future panics by bond investors whose money is needed by countries to refinance their debt.
But with economic conditions weakening, markets are once again in turmoil. Rescuing Ireland may no longer be enough.
Stronger countries and weaker countries using the common currency of the euro are being pulled in different directions.
Some economists wonder if unity will hold or if some new system that allows countries to move on one of two parallel financial tracks is needed.
Despite the insistence of Irish officials that only its banks need additional help, investors continue to bet on an Irish rescue, driving down the bond yields on that country's debt against a benchmark again on Monday.
Portugal's yields increased to 6.7 percent, underscoring the emerging concern in Brussels, the administrative center of the European Union, that it would be irresponsible to adopt a plan to prop up Ireland without addressing the possibility that turmoil could ultimately engulf Portugal, or even Spain. Like Ireland, Portugal has struggled to grow under the fixed currency regime of the euro. Though Portugal has raised enough funds of late from bond markets, its budget deficit is 9 percent of its gross domestic product, much higher than the 3 percent limit for countries in the euro zone. With its weak government and slow growth, investors have grown fearful that Portugal, too, will eventually run out of funds.
While Ireland has largely impressed European officials with its commitment to austerity, Portugal has been lagging in this regard, according to European officials. One official in Europe, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the budget recently presented by the government in Lisbon did not contain the type of far-reaching changes proposed by other countries, like Spain.
"If Ireland were to ask for aid, then you'd have to look at what's going on in Portugal as well," the official said, putting forward a view rescuing Ireland alone would not keep speculators from other vulnerable countries.
José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said on Monday that Ireland had not requested aid. "We have all the instruments to address the problems that may come either in the euro area or outside the euro area," he told reporters in Brussels.
The Portuguese finance minister, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, said Monday evening in Brussels that the situation in Ireland was creating dangers for all countries using the euro.
"If things are getting worse in Ireland, for instance, that will have a contagion impact on the other euro zone economies and particularly on those that are under closer scrutiny of markets, like Portugal," he said. Asked if Ireland should accept a bailout to stem the contagion, Mr. Teixeira dos Santos said, "It's not up to me to make that assessment."
Even so, Mr. Teixeira dos Santos emphasized that his country was not preparing to ask for a rescue package.
Mr. Teixeira dos Santos also said his government was preparing a robust budget that would cut wages, freeze pensions and raise taxes. "We are really committed to meet our targets," he said. "I think we deserve that the market gives us the chance to show that."
The bureaucratic machinations in Brussels highlight one of the main concerns that grew out of the establishment earlier this year of a rescue fund of 500 billion euros (about $680 billion at today's exchange rate) by the European Union after the Greek budget crisis: What happens if, in the next crisis, multiple countries need aid at the same time?
Months later, it remains unclear how, in practice, countries like Ireland and Portugal would tap the rescue money.
Of paramount concern to policy makers in Europe is Spain, which is struggling to close its own deficit of 9 percent of G.D.P. at a time when unemployment is more than 20 percent and the economy is failing to grow.
Just as the growing inability to get a precise reading on Ireland's banking losses has propelled the Irish crisis, the extent of Spain's own banking vulnerabilities - which, like Ireland's, originate from a real estate boom and bust - remain unclear.
Until now, a series of austerity measures has allowed Spain to escape investor scrutiny. But late last week the spread, or risk premium, between Spanish and German bonds widened to a record high of 2.3 percentage points, underscoring investor fears.
Worries about the banks have peaked recently in light of data showing that distressed loans are now 5.6 percent of total Spanish bank loans - the highest level since 1996.
In Ireland, banking troubles lie at the root of what many in Europe are now calling a solvency crisis, reflecting long-term concern over Ireland's ability to repay its debts, as opposed to the lack of short-term funds that forced the Greek rescue last spring.
"This policy of saving banks at the cost of breaking the back of entire countries is a disaster," said Daniel Gros, director for the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. "Ireland is beyond fiscal plans as long as one cannot see the bottom of the losses in the banking sector," he said. The only way to "stop the rot," he added, "would be to let the Irish banks go under" and then use the European funds to "tide over the government until markets and the economy recover."
Ireland is unlikely to let its banks fail, but it has been unable to accurately forecast its banking losses - or say whether bondholders will pay part of the bill.
Irish banking losses are estimated at up to 80 billion euros ($109 billion), depending on the forecast used, or 50 percent of the economy. As long as housing prices continue to fall, these losses cannot be capped.
Landon Thomas Jr. reported from London and James Kanter from Brussels. Stephen Castle contributed reporting from Brussels, Jack Ewing from Frankfurt and Raphael Minder from Geneva.
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10) British Premier Plans Deep Cuts in Aid for Civil Litigants
By JOHN F. BURNS
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/world/europe/16britain.html?ref=world
LONDON - In its latest effort to cut public spending, Prime Minister David Cameron's government took aim on Monday at Britain's system of state-financed legal aid for litigants in civil cases - and, indirectly, at the country's 150,000 lawyers.
Declaring the 60-year-old legal aid system unaffordable, the government set out plans to cut by $560 million the program's current annual cost of $3.4 billion, a figure that has nearly doubled in 10 years. In paying for some or all of the legal costs in two and a half million criminal and civil cases a year, the government spends almost as much as it does on the country's prisons, and about 10 times as much, per capita, as the Netherlands, which has a similarly generous system of state social aid.
"At the moment, no other country in the world has to pay for so much litigation over such a wide variety of areas," said the justice minister, Kenneth Clarke.
While the changes would leave the state's role in financing the defense in criminal cases largely untouched, Mr. Clarke said, the government was concentrating on the costs of state-backed civil litigation and family legal disputes to "discourage people from resorting to lawyers whenever they face a problem."
In setting out the changes in Parliament, where the government will introduce legislation early next year, Mr. Clarke was meeting the government's target of a cut of nearly a quarter in the Justice Ministry's annual budget of nearly $15 billion by 2015. The proposed reductions follow similarly steep cuts that have been announced in recent weeks for defense, higher education and welfare, among other areas, as the government seeks a four-year, $130 billion cut in its annual spending.
As the violence that erupted in central London during student protests last week demonstrated, each new step toward carrying out Britain's harshest austerity measures in decades increases the potential for turbulence of a kind Britain has not experienced since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's economic overhaul 30 years ago. For Mr. Cameron's Conservatives, the risks are compounded by the fact that many cuts will hit the pocketbooks of middle-class voters who are the Conservatives' political bedrock.
So far, polls indicate that public opinion is backing the spending cuts, with as many as 60 percent of poll respondents saying they accept them as necessary. And in the case of the legal aid cuts, the risks appear to be on a minor scale, at least as judged by the government. Lawyers often show up in opinion surveys as one of Britain's least popular employment groups.
Many lawyers already face falling incomes as a result of the shrinkage of the British economy and of London's scope as an international financial center. Some experts have predicted that as many as 10,000 lawyers could lose their jobs before Britain's economy recovers fully from the recent recession.
Lawyers' groups responded angrily to the proposed cuts. Desmond Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, which represents the solicitors who do much of the legal aid work, said the government was "playing fast and loose with the basic principle that our courts and justice system are available to all, irrespective of power or wealth."
A Law Society study released this month suggested that the government, in curbing lawyers' earnings, should aim at the legal profession's top tier here, barristers, who act in most proceedings in the higher courts. The study suggested that the government limit barristers to a maximum of $400,000 a year from legal aid cases. In some widely publicized cases, top barristers have earned more than $1.6 million a year from handling legal aid cases.
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11) 45 Years Later, an Apology and 6 Months
By ROBBIE BROWN
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/us/16fowler.html?ref=us
James Bonard Fowler is 77 now, but in 1965 he was a young Alabama state trooper facing the rising tide of the civil rights movement.
On Monday, at the Perry County Courthouse in Alabama, that past came calling: Mr. Fowler, who is white, pleaded guilty to the 1965 killing of a black man whose death led to the historic civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery.
Mr. Fowler will face six months in prison for the fatal shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old civil rights marcher who died after a confrontation with the police in Marion, Ala. His death inspired the first of the famous Selma marches the next month, an event that also ended in violence.
In the courthouse Monday, with Mr. Jackson's family watching, Mr. Fowler apologized for the shooting and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor manslaughter, but insisted that he had acted in self-defense, believing that Mr. Jackson was trying to grab his gun.
"I was coming over here to save lives," he said. "I didn't mean to take lives. I wish I could redo it."
The plea agreement brought to an end a case that had crept through the justice system for decades. In the 1960s, two grand juries investigated the killing but chose to not pursue charges. Then in 2004, Mr. Fowler confessed to a reporter for The Anniston Star that he had fired the gun.
"Jimmie Lee Jackson was not murdered," he said in the interview. "He was trying to kill me, and I have no doubt in my mind that under the emotional situation at the time, that if he would have gotten complete control of my pistol, that he would have killed me or shot me. That's why my conscience is clear."
But Mr. Fowler's plea on Monday suggests that he was not certain he would win the case in a courtroom. The district attorney who prosecuted the case, Michael Jackson, said he planned to try to convict Mr. Fowler of murder but was satisfied with the less severe manslaughter ruling.
"Time was starting to run out," Mr. Jackson said. "We wanted to make sure justice was done before he died."
Others questioned whether the sentence was harsh enough. The Perry County commissioner, Albert Turner Jr., told the Anniston newspaper that the agreement was "a slap in the face of the people of this county."
But John Fleming, the Anniston Star reporter to whom Mr. Fowler confessed, said the plea had brought "an appropriate end" to the case for a region still grappling with its civil rights history. "One thing we've never experienced in the South is anything close to a truth and reconciliation commission," he said. "What happened today was a moment of that experience."
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12) New York City Police Photograph Irises of Suspects
By RAY RIVERA and AL BAKER
November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/nyregion/16retinas.html?ref=nyregion
The New York Police Department has begun photographing the irises of people who are arrested in an effort to prevent escapes as suspects move through the court system, a police official said Monday.
The program was instituted after two embarrassing episodes early this year in which prisoners arrested on serious charges tricked the authorities into freeing them by posing at arraignment as suspects facing minor cases. The occurrences exposed weaknesses in the city's handling of suspects as they move from police custody into the maze of court systems in the five boroughs.
With the new system, the authorities are using a hand-held scanning device that can check a prisoner's identity in seconds when the suspect is presented in court, said Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman.
Officials began photographing the irises of suspects arrested for any reason on Monday at Manhattan Central Booking and expect to expand the program to all five boroughs by early December, Mr. Browne said.
The department has been working on the program for months, Mr. Browne said. But the effort caught many in the city's legal circles by surprise as news of it began trickling out late last week. It is raising concerns among civil libertarians and privacy advocates, who say the authorities' cataloging of the new data could put innocent people under permanent suspicion.
"It's really distressing that the Police Department is once again undertaking a new regime of personal data collection without any public discourse," said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, "and we don't know the reason for it, whether this is a necessary program, whether it's effective to address the concerns that it's designed to address, and whether in this day and age it's even cost-effective, not to mention whether there are any protections in place against the misuse of the data that's collected."
Steven Banks, attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society, said his office learned about the program on Friday in a phone call from the mayor's criminal justice coordinator.
"This is an unnecessary process," Mr. Banks said. "It's unauthorized by the statutes and of questionable legality at best. The statutes specifically authorize collecting fingerprints. There has been great legislative debate about the extent to which DNA evidence can be collected, and it is limited to certain types of cases. So the idea that the Police Department can forge ahead and use a totally new technology without any statutory authorization is certainly suspect."
Mr. Browne said a legal review by the department had concluded that legislative authorization was not necessary.
"Our legal review determined that these are photographs and should be treated the same as mug shots, which are destroyed when arrests are sealed," he said.
The technology uses high-resolution images to identify unique patterns in the iris, the colored part of the eye. It is considered less intrusive than retinal scanning, which looks at patterns in the blood vessels in the back of the eye and can reveal information about a person's health, raising privacy concerns.
The department's collection and use of electronic data have long been controversial. A new state law forced the department to halt electronic storage of the names and addresses of people stopped under the stop-and-frisk program but not charged or arrested.
The iris database has other implications as well, potentially providing the department with a tool in the fight against terrorism. The military has been using similar biometric technology in Iraq and Afghanistan to develop a database of potential insurgents, though Mr. Browne said that the Police Department's data was not intended for that use and that there had been no coordination with the Defense Department or the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the program.
Other police agencies and correctional facilities across the country also use iris recognition, though it was unclear on Monday how widespread the practice is.
Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which focuses on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues, said that law and policy had developed over time on the collection of fingerprints, and more recently DNA, in the criminal justice system, and that iris scans fell somewhere in between.
"It's a more accurate form of identification," Mr. Rotenberg said of the scans, "but at the same time doesn't raise the same privacy concerns that DNA data has."
The program will cost the city $500,000 to implement and is being paid for through a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Browne said.
In March, a suspect charged in a string of robberies, who had served time in prison for attempted murder, claimed to be another man, who was facing a charge of marijuana possession, as they were about to be arraigned on Staten Island. The ruse worked and the suspect, Freddie Thompson, was released and remained free for 56 hours before he was recaptured. Another suspect, Michael Bautista, who was facing charges of assault and criminal mischief in the Bronx, escaped in the same manner in February and remains at large.
Mr. Browne said he had no statistics on how often suspects had escaped in this manner, but he said the problem was not widespread.
William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick contributed reporting.
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13) Voices of Foreclosure Speak Daily About Desperation and Misery
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
November 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/business/economy/16foreclose.html?ref=business
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - If the mortgage mess had an address, it could be 450 American Way.
This enormous white building, nestled among the hills about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, used to be a warehouse for Bugle Boy jeans. Today, it contains a sea of beige cubicles that seem to stretch on forever.
Inside the complex, 4,000 employees of Bank of America face a daily tide of desperation and misery.
To many Americans, financial giants like Bank of America seem like foreclosure machines. First, the argument goes, banks gave people mortgages they could not afford. Now, lenders are foreclosing as fast as they can, sometimes without even reviewing the paperwork.
But for employees here like Brenda Seymore, the foreclosure crisis is more complicated than that. She joined as a temporary worker in 2009 and was hired full time a year ago, as one of the employees who together field 50,000 calls a day. She finds herself caught between frustrated, anxious homeowners many months behind on their mortgage payments, and investors who hold mortgages and do not necessarily want to modify the loans, or reduce the amount of money homeowners owe.
"It's a learning process," she said. "Our goal here is to find a resolution."
When Ms. Seymore was hired, the second floor of the building was nearly empty. Now it is packed with telephone operators in headsets, who fan out across the cavernous floor at 5 a.m., when it is still dark outside, to begin dialing delinquent borrowers on the East Coast.
On Friday morning, one caller told Ms. Seymore a familiar story: a lost job and a cascade of bills that could not be paid.
Behind on her mortgage payments by $60,000, the caller, from North Carolina, had been approved for a loan modification. But the foreclosure wheels were still turning, she told Ms. Seymore, and she feared they could not be stopped.
This time, the foreclosure was averted. While the caller could not her pay her credit card bills, she was able to come up with a $500 payment necessary to keep her home, at least for now.
It was the kind of outcome that Bank of America will be highlighting as hearings on the foreclosure crisis begin on Tuesday on Capitol Hill. Despite the well-publicized flaws in the process - robo-signers, lost documents, incomplete affidavits - bank officials are expected to testify that they understand and are trying to fix the problem.
Back in Simi Valley, posters with feel-good phrases like "Empathy," "Winning" and "Leadership," dot the walls. But even here, signs of just how politically explosive this mess has become have crept in.
On the wall of Ms. Seymore's cubicle is a placard warning Bank of America representatives to transfer callers from people like members of Congress, officials from regulatory agencies, attorneys general offices and the news media "to your team or unit manager ... no exceptions."
As the nation's biggest mortgage servicer - Bank of America handles one in five home loans in the United States - the lender has been criticized by politicians, customers and the news media as the uproar over foreclosure practices has intensified.
Now the big banks are set to respond, highlighting efforts like the one in Simi Valley, and outlining new steps to ease a wave of more than two million foreclosures.
At the Senate banking committee hearing on Tuesday, Barbara J. Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Loans, plans to announce new initiatives like assigning a single case manager so homeowners do not get passed from one bank employee to another. The bank also will start providing checklists so borrowers know exactly where they stand in the modification or foreclosure process.
Despite such steps, Bank of America faces a formidable challenge in rebuilding its public image. Last month, the bank declared a nationwide halt in foreclosures, and in 27 states, foreclosures remain suspended as it prepares new affidavits from scratch.
Sensing the public mood, Ms. Desoer also plans to apologize for shortcomings in the foreclosure process, while reiterating her defense that no foreclosure or eviction was pursued by mistake.
"We, and those who work with us in connection with foreclosure proceedings, also have an obligation to do our best to protect the integrity of those proceedings," Ms. Desoer is expected to tell the committee, according to prepared testimony obtained by The New York Times.
"When and where that has not happened, we accept responsibility for it, and we deeply regret it," according to her testimony.
In addition, critics have condemned Bank of America for making fewer modifications of eligible loans under the federal government's Home Affordable Modification Program. About 21 percent of eligible Bank of America borrowers have received program modifications, compared with 44 percent at Citigroup, 37 percent at Wells Fargo and 32 percent at JPMorgan Chase.
Bank officials say the lower modification rate reflects the 10 million mortgages it picked up when it acquired Countrywide Financial in 2008. And they note that the bank has made more than 700,000 modifications over the last two years, including 85,000 under the program, more than any other lender.
For the first time, Ms. Desoer also plans to highlight Bank of America's role as a servicer in most cases, rather than the investor that actually owns the mortgages.
Bank of America officials insist their options are limited because investors have to sign off on modification of the loans they own. At the same time, they complain that the investors require a "dual track," in which the modification negotiations take place even as the foreclosure machine steams ahead.
David Lowman, chief executive of Chase Home Lending, is also scheduled to testify and adopt an apologetic stance. "Our process was not what it should have been," he is expected to tell the committee, according to prepared testimony. "Quite simply, it did not live up to our standards."
In Simi Valley, another representative, Tammy Tipton, found herself dealing with a homeowner whose mortgage had been modified before, but was underwater again. The caller still owed about $900,000 on her house, payments had ceased, and like the North Carolina loan, the mortgage was held by an outside investor.
"Another modification would just leave them in the same position a year from now," Ms. Tipton said. "It's painful, and it's not fair to either side."
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14) Alarming escalation in violence used against Jewish peace activist (by Jewish thugs)
Right-wing Israel advocacy group pepper sprays Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) membersRight-wing Israel advocacy group San Francisco Voice for Israel/ StandWithUs
Member Pepper Sprays Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) members
at Bay Area JVP Chapter Meeting. Wraps self in Israeli flag.
VIA Email
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLO2xKcYDwc
Group well known in Bay Area for harassing and intimidating peace activists
Contact:
Jesse Bacon 215-298-3923
Dana Bergen 510-854-6761
[Oakland, CA November 15, 2010] Last night, up to a dozen members of San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs, a right-wing Israeli advocacy group with a documented track record of aggressively taunting and intimidating grassroots peace activists, attended a Bay Area Jewish Voice for Peace community meeting at a South Berkeley Senior Center with the intention of disrupting, intimidating and possibly assaulting Jewish Voice for Peace members. Jewish Voice for Peace is the largest U.S. Jewish peace group dedicated to a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on democracy and full equality --- the Bay Area chapter is the founding chapter of the organization. Approximately 50 to 60 people were at the meeting, and numerous witnesses are available to corroborate the events.
Watch video of some of the disruptions and the victims and perpetrator of attack here.
Eyewitness testimonies are here and here.
Wrapped in an Israeli flag, San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs (SFVI/SWU) member Robin Dubner, an Oakland based attorney, pepper-sprayed two JVP members in the eyes and face after they attempted to nonviolently block her ability to aggressively videotape the faces of JVP meeting attendees against their will.
The members, Alexei Folger and Glen Hauer, were careful to make no physical contact with her or her camera prior to the attack.Folger said, “I did not see it coming and all of a sudden there was gooey stuff all over my head and hand. I have never been pepper-sprayed before, my whole head felt like it was on fire.”JVP had earlier this year filed a police report about a June SFVI/SWU protest at which JVP and (peace group) Women in Black members were intimidatingly videotaped and threatened by a StandWithUs supporter after being taunted with chants like “Nazi, Nazi, Nazi” or “Kapo,Kapo,Kapo”.
Caught on a widely seen videotape was a SFVI/SWU supporter pointing his camera to the faces of silent peace vigil participants while saying “You’re all being identified, every last one of you…we will find out where you live. We’re going to make your lives difficult. We will disrupt your families…”For that reason, JVP members were particularly concerned about protecting the safety of meeting attendees and preventing the videotaping. Hauer, a retired attorney and member of San Francisco’s Congregation Sha’har Zahav who was treated for pepper spray explained, ”When one of the intruders [Dubner] continued standing and filming people despite the facilitator and facility manager repeatedly telling her that she could not, I first asked her politely to please put away the video camera, then several times told her to put away the camera, and then tried nonviolently to stay in front of the camera with my body. I could have taken the camera but decided instead to talk to the woman and to try to be the only person she photographed."
Hauer, who also leads groups on healing from WWII & the Holocaust, and speaks to churches about anti-Semitism as it relates to the movement for peace in the Middle East, went on:
“In my mind was the history targeting of Jewish peace activists by the right wing of the Jewish community--the posting of our photos on internet hate sites, for example, followed by acts of vandalism at our homes and places of work. There were many in the room for whom I care deeply. I could also see that many at the meeting were new to the work we were doing, and I did not want them to be scared away.”
Dubner was accompanied by up to a dozen other StandWithUs members--including Susan Meyers, Mike Harris, Bea Lieberman, Faith Meltzer, and Ross Meltzer--who repeatedly disrupted and aggressively videotaped the JVP meeting and JVP members against their will, wielding the cameras in an intimidating and belligerent manner. Despite repeated requests from the JVP meeting facilitator and other JVP activists to desist from recording and put away their videocameras, the SFVI/SWU activists – who had spread themselves throughout the room – continued to record and launch lengthy monologues while the presenters attempted to speak.
They were explicitly invited by the JVP facilitator to stay in the meeting and participate without videotaping but they refused. They also refused offers for floor time by the presenters. The manager of the facility asked the SFVI/SWU members to abide by JVP’s rules or face the police, and when SFVI/SWU refused to comply with JVP’s protocol, the police were called.
At one point, JVP members and presenters worked to restore calm and de-escalate by singing the Hebrew peace song, Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu (Peace will come to us) while waiting for the police to arrive. Most meeting attendees did not know until later that 2 people had been attacked with pepper spray. When police arrived, Dubner was temporarily placed in handcuffs while other members of San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs remained inside the meeting blowing loud whistles, using videocameras to intimidate meeting attendees. Dubner refused repeated requests by JVP members or the police to identify the substance she sprayed. A police officer later identified it as pepper spray and paramedics were called to help treat the victims of the attack. One of them, Alexei Folger, looked visibly red and swollen, as though she had been burned on more than half her face.Immediately following the attack, Ms. Folger, not knowing the nature of the substance on her face, rubbed some of it on Ms. Dubner’s shirtsleeve at which point the physically powerful Ms.Dubner, who also wore a pen videocamera in her shirt pocket, started physically shoving the petite Ms. Folger.
A Jewish Voice for Peace staff member stood between them to prevent further escalation or physical contact between Ms Dubner and the shocked and injured Ms. Folger. This deliberate confrontation is part of a pattern of escalating intimidation and attacks against peace activists in the Bay Area. Earlier this year, the home of Tikkun Magazine editor Michael Lerner was covered in threatening posters. In addition to the videotaped harassment of Women in Black and JVP members, several months ago someone grafiited outside of the JVP offices “Jewish Voices for Palestine: Viva Barch Goldstein"
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