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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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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) Swedish Court to Seek Arrest of WikiLeaks Founder
By JOHN F. BURNS
November 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/world/europe/19assange.html
2) Haiti: Protesters Stone U.N. Patrol
"The epidemic has killed more than 1,110 people."
By REUTERS
November 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/world/americas/19briefs-Haiti.html?ref=world
3) U. of California Will Raise Tuition by 8 Percent
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
November 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19calif.html?ref=us
4) Trotsky, as Taught in Cuba
Posted By Daisy Valera On August 17, 2010 @ 9:54 pm In Daisy Valera's Diary,Highly Popular Posts | 30 Comments
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=27884
5) Why Our Editor-in-Chief Is Busy and Needs to Be Defended
By WikiLeaks Staff Editorial
18 November 10
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/71lm5i
PETITION: In Support of Julian Assange
Defend Julian Assange
http://www.readersupportednews.org/julian-assange-petition
6) America's Gulf: An Ongoing Catastrophic Disaster
By Stephen Lendman
Thursday, November 18, 2010
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/americas-gulf-ongoing-catastrophic.html
7) Sticking it to the unemployed
Cutting off extended benefits for the unemployed not only hurts individuals who've been laid off but could dampen the economic recovery.
latimes.com
Editorial
November 18, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-unemployment-20101118,0,4893536.story
8) Unions Yield on Wage Scales to Preserve Jobs
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
November 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/business/20wages.html?hp
9) Haitians Plunge Into Muck to Stem Cholera
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
November 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/world/americas/20haiti.html?hp
10) South Africa Fears Millions More H.I.V. Infections
By BARRY BEARAK
November 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/world/africa/20safrica.html?ref=world
11) Haitians Barricading Streets with Coffins as Protests against U.N. Continue over Cholera Outbreak
Protests are continuing in Haiti over the cholera outbreak that has now killed more than 1,100 people and infected some 17,000. On Wednesday, residents in the city of Cap-Haïtien clashed with U.N. troops for the third consecutive day. Crowds have taken to the streets expressing anger at the Haitian government and the United Nations for failing to contain the disease. We go to Cap-Haïtien to speak with independent journalist Ansel Herz.
November 18, 2010
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/18/un_blamed_for_killing_2_haitian
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1) Swedish Court to Seek Arrest of WikiLeaks Founder
By JOHN F. BURNS
November 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/world/europe/19assange.html
LONDON - The Swedish prosecutor's office said that a Stockholm court had approved its request for an arrest warrant to be issued for Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blower's Web site, for questioning on months-old charges of rape and other offenses.
Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, said in a statement in English that the court had decided to issue the warrant "in the absence" of Mr. Assange over suspicions of his involvement in "rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion."
She added that "the next step for the prosecutor is to issue an international arrest warrant." She gave no indication when that would be done.
Mr. Assange's lawyer in Britain, Mark Stephens, said the allegations were "false and without basis."
The normal procedure for pursuing arrest warrants across international borders involves Interpol, the international police agency. It was not immediately clear what legal options would be available to Mr. Assange to resist being returned to Sweden to answer the warrant. .
In recent weeks, Mr. Assange has made several public appearances in London, after spending several weeks in Sweden and flying first to Berlin, then to London, in early October. Mr. Stephens said Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, remained in London as of Thursday morning.
A statement issued before the Stockholm ruling, by Marianne Ny, the director of the Stockholm prosecutor's office, said that prosecutors had been "unable to interrogate" Mr. Assange in nearly 13 weeks, since the allegations against him by two Swedish women became public.
But this was flatly denied by Mr. Stephens, who said in a statement that over the last three months, "despite numerous demands, neither Mr. Assange, nor his legal counsel, has received a single word in writing from the Swedish authorities relating to the allegations."
Mr. Stephens added that the prosecutor's "behavior is not a prosecution, but a persecution."
"Our client has always maintained his innocence," he said. "The allegations against him are false and without basis. As a result of these false allegations and bizarre legal interpretations, our client now has his name and reputation besmirched."
"My client is now in the extraordinary position that, despite his innocence, and despite never having been charged, and despite never receiving a single piece of paper about the allegations against him, one in 10 Internet references to the word 'rape' also include his name," Mr. Stephens said. "Every day that this flawed investigation continues, the damages to his reputation are compounded."
Mr. Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006 as a forum for publishing secret and confidential documents of political, military and economic significance passed to the organization by whistle-blowers who have obtained them from governments, corporations and other sources.
This summer, WikiLeaks posted a cache of 77,000 secret Pentagon documents on the war in Afghanistan, and it followed that last month by posting nearly 400,000 Pentagon documents, also secret, on the Iraq war.
On both occasions, the documents were provided in advance to The New York Times, the Guardian of Britain and Der Spiegel magazine in Germany, all of which ran extensive articles focusing on the insights the documents gave into the United States' conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Obama administration condemned both leaks, and demanded that WikiLeaks "return" all secret American documents and undertake not to publish any more in the future.
The Pentagon and the Justice Department have established a task force to probe all aspects of the affair, and officials have said that prosecution of Mr. Assange and his associates under the 1917 Espionage Act was one step under consideration.
The allegations of rape and sexual molestation against Mr. Assange arose shortly after he arrived in Sweden in late August on a journey that he described at the time as aimed at establishing a secure base for himself and WikiLeaks under Sweden's broad press freedom laws.
The two women who accused him were volunteers who had offered to assist WikiLeaks and met him in his first days in Sweden.
According to accounts the women gave to the police and friends, Swedish officials have said, they had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual. One woman said that Mr. Assange had ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke. The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals to stop when it was no longer in use.
Mr. Assange has questioned the veracity of those accounts.
The Stockholm prosecutor's office first issued a warrant for Mr. Assange's arrest, then withdrew it, and later announced that it was still investigating the rape and sexual molestation charges.
Mr. Assange responded at the time by saying that he was a victim of "dirty tricks" and that his relations with the two women had been consensual. Subsequently, in London, he spoke of a "smear campaign" against him and WikiLeaks, and complained about the Swedish prosecutor's delay in disposing of the case. In an interview in London with The New York Times on Oct. 17, he said that 50 days had passed since the Swedish allegations were made public.
The action by the prosecutor's office on Thursday came more than 12 weeks after it said it wanted to interview Mr. Assange in the office's first statement on the investigation.
Thursday's statement implied that no interview had ever taken place. Mr. Assange has spoken on a number of occasions in recent weeks of his growing anxiety about his personal security.
He suggested at a news conference in London on Oct. 23 that he might have to move to Moscow or Havana, Cuba, in his search for a secure base.
In recent days, WikiLeaks supporters have made moves to establish a legal base for WikiLeaks in Iceland, where Mr. Assange spent several weeks this year.
Daniel Ellsberg, the 79-year-old American military analyst who provided The New York Times and other publications with copies of the secret Pentagon documents on the Vietnam War that became known as the Pentagon Papers in 1971, flew to London from California to support Mr. Assange at the mid-October news conference held in conjunction with the publication of the secret Iraq war documents on the WikiLeaks site.
"Choose Havana," Mr. Ellsberg said, after Mr. Assange spoke of his possible destinations, prompting laughter from him and many of his supporters.
In his statement, Mr. Stephens, the lawyer, said Mr. Assange had "repeatedly offered to be interviewed, first in Sweden, and then in Britain (including at the Swedish Embassy), either in person or by telephone, videoconferencing or e-mail, and he has also offered to make a sworn statement on affidavit."
"Before leaving Sweden, Mr. Assange asked to be interviewed by the prosecution on several occasions in relation to the allegations, staying over a month in Stockholm, at considerable expense and despite many engagements elsewhere, in order to clear his name," Mr. Stephens said. "Eventually the prosecution told his Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig that he was free to leave the country, without interview, which he did."
Mr. Stephens has worked for The Times on libel cases, the most recent of which ended earlier this year.
Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting.
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2) Haiti: Protesters Stone U.N. Patrol
"The epidemic has killed more than 1,110 people."
By REUTERS
November 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/world/americas/19briefs-Haiti.html?ref=world
Several hundred protesters stoned a United Nations patrol and yelled anti-United Nations slogans in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Thursday as anger spread over a cholera epidemic. The protest followed several days of riots against the peacekeepers in the northern city of Cap Haitien, where at least two people were killed. Reports that peacekeepers from Nepal were the source of the cholera outbreak have angered many Haitians. The United Nations says there is no conclusive evidence to support those reports. The epidemic has killed more than 1,110 people.
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3) U. of California Will Raise Tuition by 8 Percent
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
November 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19calif.html?ref=us
SAN FRANCISCO - With none of the protest that marred previous meetings, the University of California's Board of Regents approved an 8 percent fee increase on Thursday, the second straight year that students have faced higher tuition.
The vote came a day after 13 people were arrested at the system's San Francisco campus, as the police were forced to use pepper spray to disperse hundreds of students angry about the fee increase.
The university's president, Mark G. Yudof, had cast the fee increase as necessary to maintain the system's academic excellence after several years of declining financial support from the state. California has had chronic budget problems and is facing a projected $6 billion shortfall for the 2010-11 budget, which passed in October and included a small increase for the university.
"It's worth what you pay to attend here," Mr. Yudof said.
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4) Trotsky, as Taught in Cuba
Posted By Daisy Valera On August 17, 2010 @ 9:54 pm In Daisy Valera's Diary,Highly Popular Posts | 30 Comments
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=27884
Lev Davidovich Bronstein -better known to the world as Leon Trotsky- died on August 21, 1940, in Coyoacan, Mexico. One could think that the name of this Russian revolutionary would have come to my ears in my contemporary history classes in my first year of high school here in Cuba.
Nevertheless, the name Trotsky was not written in the history book that I carried around when I was 14 and 15. From the classes of that period I can only remember the figure of Lenin, who was glorified by my teacher.
Like the more than 30 other students in my class, I knew of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin as the primary and practically sole leader of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The only other memory that I retained of those classes was the day we learned about the causes for the collapse of the USSR; for some reason, many of the students in the room looked at each other as if we had been double-crossed.
The history lessons concluded, as did my high school studies, without me ever learning that there had been a Leon Trotsky. Only a few days before I began my program at the university -and by pure chance- I heard a song by a Cuban folk singer about how Trotsky had been one of the main figures in the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The name of that revolutionary stuck in my mind, but any information about him was scarce in every place one could go to look him up. It wasn't until my third year at the university that the fact that I found myself among a very particular group of people allowed me to discover the full story of a part of history that no one had thought it necessary to reveal to me.
Finally the name of Trotsky stopped being just a name and for me turned into a person who had carried out actions of critical importance for the Russian Revolution. He had been the principle representative of the St. Petersburg's soviets (workers' councils) as well as in the organization of the Red Army.
Perhaps the fact that I had never before known about Trotsky made me become an assiduous reader of most of his works, among which I have to highlight Permanent Revolution (1930) and The Revolution Betrayed (1936).
August 20th will mark 70 years since the fateful attack carried out by a Stalinist clique against a man who exhibited in his deeds and writings a love for the world proletariat. He was confident that a social structure different from capitalism could free life of all wrongs.
Yet despite everything, this Trotsky still doesn't appear in Cuban history books. There's no mention of the founder of the Fourth International, an organization committed to the struggle against bureaucracy, against those who sought to enrich themselves at the expense of other people's labor, against those lacking scruples in accentuating the differences between classes in a society that aimed to construct socialism, and against those who did not allow the workers to either participate or decide.
So isn't it important to reclaim him in the history taught on the island, a person truly committed until the final few days of their life to the non-degeneration of societies that are called socialist.
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5) Why Our Editor-in-Chief Is Busy and Needs to Be Defended
By WikiLeaks Staff Editorial
18 November 10
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/71lm5i
PETITION: In Support of Julian Assange
Defend Julian Assange
http://www.readersupportednews.org/julian-assange-petition
n October 2010 Julian Assange won the Sam Adams Award for Integrity. He has also been awarded the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award and the Economist Index on Censorship Award in 2008. It is important to remember that accolades such as these do not come without tremendous hard work.
The expose of the Afghan War Diaries was a moment of media history, orchestrated by Julian Assange. He brought together The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel, three of the world's most reputable newspapers to collaborate with WikiLeaks on exposing more than 90 000 secret significant action reports by the United States relating to the war in Afghanistan. This involved a huge amount of administration in order to co-ordinate all four media partners' publishing schedules and a lot of time to carefully construct the levels of trust needed to bring together three major newspapers who were also competitors.
Since 2007 Julian, WikiLeaks and the Sunshine Press have been behind international front page stories that have changed the world. However, every story exposing abuses by powerful organizations, whether they be from New York or Nairobi results in a counter attack. Such the importance and veracity of revelations must be defended. Immediately after the Afghan War Diaries he conducted seventy-six interviews in three days maximizing the impact of the disclosures. It is very important for WikiLeaks to create a global platform with which to reach all corners of the earth. This demonstrates to those who wish to expose wrongdoing and misconduct that there is a way to do so without putting themselves at risk. He remains a messenger who big governments and their agencies can, and constantly do, attack while all the time keeping the source of the information published safe.
Because of the nature of the work performed by WikiLeaks both the organization and Julian Assange are constantly under attack. Their servers are under attack. Their security is under attack and their work resources and finances are under attack. This results is a lot of time-consuming administration and means working through a lot of bureaucratic steps to re-establish the efficient running of an organisation. When finances are frozen, as was the case with Money Brokers Limited in August this year (the WikiLeaks account was closed because of "watchlisting" by the US after publication of the Afghanistan documents) it resulted in many letters back and forth, instructing a legal team to administer the situation and still to date there has been no resolution. In just the last 14 days he has met with more than 9 lawyers (excluding Swedish lawyers) in in defense of WikiLeaks' publishing activities, agreements and sources. Similarly, Julian Assange is subject to these sorts of attacks on a personal level.
He and WikiLeaks both have been attacked in the media by Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and highest ranking officer in the US and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates not to mention the well recognized media personalities such as Marc A. Thiessen, a former bush administration chief speech writer and currently a Washington Post columnist who wrote "Assange is a non-U.S. citizen operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him." Christian Whiton, a Fox News contributor, said "WikiLeaks should be declared 'enemy combatants'," indicating they should be dealt with outside the law and Jonah Goldberg, a conservative syndicated columnist asked "why wasn't Julian Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?"
Attacks such as these create an extreme need for security and he must always be conscious and personally vigilant - a task that is both time consuming and mentally exhausting. The major government players such as the CIA and the Pentagon do not stop at just Julian but also target many WikiLeaks volunteers or associates. Two volunteers and an American WikiLeaks spokesperson have been detained and questioned in the United States along with other individuals alleged to be participant to his publishing activities such as Bradley Manning, an alleged source who is being held as a political prisoner in the United States. Mr Manning's mother's house in Wales was raided by the FBI together with local police earlier this year.
The result is a constant need for legal and political support and managing this from afar and throughout many continents is no small task. Furthermore Julian Assange does not take these matters lightly having been privy to bad experiences in the past - while working on the extra judicial assassinations taking place in Kenya, two WikiLeaks' affiliates being assassinated.
Since the false allegations made about him in Sweden this August Julian has also needed to work extremely hard at ensuring the smear campaign launched against him has not affected the WikiLeaks brand. Making many public appearances and conducting interviews is absolutely necessary not to mention maintaining relationships with media partners who are so easily affected by such events.
In spite of the attacks against him, Wikileaks successfully released the Iraq War Logs in late October - a cache of over 400 000 US military intelligence reports relating to the war in Iraq. Due to the false allegations mentioned above the management of this leak was extremely difficult. However, he successfully made new lasting relationships and expanded the media partners to include Al Jazeera, Le Monde, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, SVT and also brought in Public Interest Lawyers and NGOs such as Iraq Body Count. The documents' release was increased to television as well as print media with two full-length documentaries being commissioned.
Julian Assange also readily offers to speak at many public events; especially those he feels will have a resonating effect on people's rights and liberties, ideals he holds close to his heart. Recently he presented at the United Nations Universal Periodic Review against the United States in Geneva where he offered up evidence from the Iraq War logs of the human right abuses such as the 109 000 deaths, 185 000 casualties, 66 000 civilian deaths and countless cases of torture conducted by America. The speech he gave lasted over two hours alone and the preparation for such an event is mammoth. During his stay in Geneva the Swiss government was so fearful for his personal security that they offered two International Police and two Swiss Police as his bodyguards for the duration, yet another indication of the severity of the danger he encounters on a daily basis. In late September he spoke in London for Index on Censorship regarding Security and censorship in the age of WikiLeaks.
In the coming months Julian Assange aims to carry on the invaluable work and service that WikiLeaks offers the public. In due course he intends on providing information, as yet publically unknown. He has stifled many illegal attacks and remains victorious on all legal attacks against WikiLeaks.
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6) America's Gulf: An Ongoing Catastrophic Disaster
By Stephen Lendman
Thursday, November 18, 2010
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/americas-gulf-ongoing-catastrophic.html
On August 14, Obama did what he does best, deceiving and betraying the public. Again it was on the Gulf disaster, saying:
"Today, the well is capped, oil is no longer flowing into the Gulf, and it has not been flowing for a month....I also want to point out that as a result of the cleanup effort, beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean and safe and open for business....But I won't be satisfied until the environment has been restored, no matter how long it takes."
False on all counts. The Macondo well was capped, but video and other evidence show continued leakage, an organization called Concerned Citizens of Florida (CCF), saying:
"....government cannot be relied upon to impart all the information that we need to make informed and necessary decisions. We know that they will not (and have not) respond(ed) quickly (and adequately) enough to this unfolding disaster or perform to the standard that is required to meet it head on." Nor will the major media, "act(ing) as a mouthpiece for both government and industry."
On November 14, CCF headlined an article, "Oil and Gas Leaks Continue Unabated at Macondo: Photos document oily fluid all over the seafloor," saying:
BP's announcing Macondo shut last July, was "just empty rhetoric and part of (its) elaborate Mass Deception Act. First of all....the oil leak....was never (fully) killed and could never be killed." In fact, experts say the Gulf seabed is fractured. Even BP confirmed damage inside Macondo, well below the seafloor. Why else would much of the Gulf sea floor be covered with two-inch thick oil layers. More as well showing up in giant plumes, and reports confirming "fresh oil coming ashore."
Though unverified, a report by Anatoly Sagalevich, director of Deepwater Submersibles Laboratory at Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, said the Gulf seabed is fractured "beyond all repair," a potentially disastrous condition he called "beyond comprehension." Using one of the Institute's Deep Submergence Vehicles, his analysis was based on close-up seabed observation and analysis.
Besides Macondo, he claimed at least 18 other sites were leaking oil, the largest seven miles from where Deepwater Horizon sank, gushing an estimated two million gallons daily. Several times on CNBC and MSNBC, oil expert Matthew Simmons was firm in reporting another giant Gulf leak, miles from Macondo. Last August, he mysteriously drowned in his bath tub - the purported cause, a heart attack. Unanswered questions remain.
On November 13, CCF said:
"We have been lied to, through and through....The gas-oil spill continues unabated (to) this day. (The well-capping) was just a 'dog & pony show' to fool the world. There is a constant need to spray" dispersants. It's ongoing daily, mainly at night but brazenly during daytime as well, according to fishermen and coastal residents.
On November 12, CCF headlined, "Mounting Evidence Points to 2 Wellheads at Macondo," saying:
Rumors suggested that "BP had drilled two wells," side by side. "Lately, (based on video evidence) we have also seen the corrosive effects of the 'potent mixture' that is pouring out not only from the broken wells but also through the crevices in the seafloor."
More Evidence of A Far Greater Disaster
Dr. Gianluigi Zangari is a theoretical physicist at Italy's National Institute of Nuclear Physics at Frascati National Laboratories. A climate research and analysis expert, he said massive amounts of Gulf oil, much on the seabed, caused a disruption of the Gulf's Loop Current. It caused a dramatic weakening in the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current's vorticity (a mass of whirling water or air) as well as a 10C drop in North Atlantic water temperatures.
The oil/dispersants combination is causing the warm Gulf and Caribbean to die, he believes. Contaminated oil covers half the Gulf seafloor. No effective cleanup method is possible. It's also flowed up America's East Coast, into the North Atlantic, and beyond - the North Atlantic Current becoming the Norway and Canary Currents.
As a result, global waters and weather patterns have been affected. The Obama administration's irresponsible handling of the disaster may cause catastrophic fallout later on - to millions of people and the environment, including long-term (perhaps permanent) Gulf contamination.
Zangari said the Loop Current broke down around mid-May, generating "a clock wise eddy, which is still active. (Currently), the situation has deteriorated up to the point in which the eddy has detached itself completely from the main stream, therefore destroying completely the Loop Current....It is reasonable to foresee the threat that the breaking of a crucial warm stream (like) the Loop Current may generate a chain reaction of unpredictable critical phenomena and instabilities due to strong non- linearities which may have serious consequences on the dynamics of the Gulf Stream thermoregulation activity of the Global Climate."
He added that the Loop Current affects "all life on the planet. The Gulf Stream is a strong interlinked component of the global network of ocean conveyor currents, which drive" planetary weather. That, in turn, may cause droughts, floods, crop failures, and global food shortages.
His main worry is that there's "no historical precedent for the sudden replacement of a natural system, with a dysfunction man-made (one). That is, except for" nuclear bomb blasts, widespread radiation, nuclear waste contamination, and events like Chernobyl. As a result, he worries what this new phenomenon portends for the future, suggesting potentially dire planetary consequences will follow.
Other Disturbing Evidence
Experts and local residents express concern about a combination of widespread contamination, growing illnesses, and environment destruction. Besides the above, it's a lethal mixture, impacting the lives of growing millions, but government officials and media reports won't explain it.
For example, independent lab tests confirmed that Gulf seafood contains high levels toxic compounds, a combination of oil, dispersants, and other substances. After conducting tests on Gulf shrimp, Robert Naman, a chemist at Mobile, AL's ACT Labs said:
"I wouldn't eat shrimp or crab caught in the Gulf." His tests showed unusually high levels of digestive tract oil and grease at 193 parts-per-million. According to Dr. William Sawyer, a researcher at Florida's Sanibel Toxicology Consultants & Assessment Specialists:
"Once oil enters (a living organism), it can damage every organ, every system in the body. There is no safe level of exposure to this oil, because it contains carcinogens, mutagens that can damage DNA and cause cancer and other chronic health problems."
Oil/Dispersant Contaminants Killing Coral Reefs
Scientists have confirmed that Gulf coral reefs near the Macondo well site are dying, clearly from toxic contaminants. On November 5, writing for National Geographic News, Kathleen Jones (a National Geographic TV producer) said:
"Large communities of several types of bottom-dwelling coral were found covered with a dark substance at depths of about 4,600 feet near the damaged Deepwater Horizon wellhead, according to a scientific team on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Ronald H. Brown."
Team member Timothy Shank of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said:
"The coral were either dead or dying, and in some cases they were simply exposed skeletons. I've never seen that before. And when we tried to take samples of the coral, this black - I don't know how to describe it - black, fluffylike substance fell off of them."
According to onboard researchers, about 90% of 40 large groups of severely damaged soft coral were discolored, dead or dying. At another site, about 1,300 feet away, a hard coral colony was also partly covered with the same substance.
Penn State University's Dr. Charles Fisher, the ship's lead scientist, said:
"Corals do die, but you don't see them die all at once. This....indicates a recent catastrophic event," clearly connected to the Macondo disaster. "The proximity of the site to the disaster, the depth of the site, the clear evidence of recent impact, and the uniqueness of the observations all suggest that the impact we have found is linked to the exposure of this community to either oil, dispersant(s), extremely depleted oxygen, or some combination of these or other water-borne effects resulting from the spill....We were looking for subtle changes....What we saw was not subtle."
For months, scientists said oil isn't degrading, its toxic ingredients to have long-term dire effects on marine life, vegetation, and humans. In August, University of South Florida (USF) oceanographer David Hollander discovered "deep-sea creatures....showing a strong toxic response to hydrocarbons..."
Hollander's USF colleague, John Paul, told National Geographic News that the coral die-off is a "smoking cannon. It doesn't surprise me. It could be the tip of the iceberg of all kinds of weird things we're going to see in the Gulf of Mexico in the next three to five years." Maybe much longer.
Dying Gulf Wildlife
For months throughout the Gulf region, reports confirmed massive fish kills, a September 14 one on a Louisiana waterway showing a picture looking more like a gravel road. In fact, it was a water surface covered with dead sea life, "a mishmash of species of fish, crabs, stingray and eel." Other accounts reported dead sea turtles, dolphins and a whale along a stretch of coastal Louisiana. In summer, fish kills are common, the result of dead zones, but nothing comparable to what's been seen, all species affected.
On November 6, the Detroit Free Press said wildlife keeps dying in the Gulf. An earlier September 14 Travel & Nature report said the Mississippi River was "brimming with dead fish near the Gulf of Mexico." Found were pogies, redfish, drum, crabs, shrimp, freshwater eel, and other species. Numerous other reports are just as disturbing, some suggesting all Gulf wildlife is threatened, and that virtually all of it is contaminated and unsafe.
Obama's Gulf Disaster Whitewash Commission
On May 22, Obama established a commission to investigate the disaster, the seven-person team headed by former EPA administrator, William Reilly and former Florida governor/senator Bob Graham. At the time, Obama said:
"We need to take a comprehensive look at how the oil and gas industry operates and how regulate them. The purpose of this commission is to consider both the root causes of the disaster and offer options on what safety and environmental precautions we need to take to prevent similar disasters from happening again."
Newly released commission findings confirm he lied. An earlier article foresaw the whitewash, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/obamas-gulf-commission-distortion.html
On November 8, in the wake of the greatest ever environmental crime, Fred Bartlit, the National Commission's general counsel said:
"To date, we have not seen a single instance where a human being made a conscious decision to favor dollars over safety." This about a company Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum said has "the worst safety and environmental record of any oil company operating in America." An earlier article documented it, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/lessons-from-gulf.html
To settle federal, state, and civil lawsuits, it's paid out hundreds of millions in fines as well as penalties for manipulating energy markets. BP is a criminal enterprise, profits its sole concern, its rap sheet showing a disturbing pattern of willful neglect, unfulfilled promises, and utter disregard for personal or environmental safety.
Yet from day one, the Obama administration covered for its crimes, complicit in coverup, distortion, lies, and total disregard for the environment, wildlife, personal safety, and way of life for thousands, let alone permanent damage to a vital ecosystem. It showed in his commission's findings, a brazen whitewash of criminal negligence.
Daniel Becnel, a Louisiana lawyer suing BP, called the findings "absolutely absurd....pasting over (the truth) because they know the government is going to be a defendant sooner or later in this litigation."
Retired University of Alaska scientist Rick Steiner is an outspoken critic of oil industry practices. He's also a prominent member of the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP), its agenda being:
"(a) world where equity is at the root of a dynamic harmony between people and nature, as well as among peoples, (promoting policies in accord with) livelihoods, human rights and responsibilities, human development, security, equity, and the fair and effective governance of natural resources."
Steiner was appalled at the commission's findings, calling them "the most colossally ignorant conclusion anyone could draw. (They) destroyed any credibility the commission may have had....The people and companies that run these rigs (think only of) cut(ting) costs....enhanc(ing) production and....generat(ing) more revenue in less time. Every decision they make has to do with that. The Deepwater Horizon rig was 43 days behind schedule, at about a million dollars a day. Don't tell me that this was not a persistent pressure on everybody on the rig."
"BP has had an unwritten rule here in Alaska called 'run-to-failure.' If your equipment is starting to fail, you continue to run it till it does fail, instead of stopping the operation, upgrading it, maintaining it, putting in a new gas compressor pump or piping section. There's a stigma associated with safety consciousness, and there's certainly a stigma associated with stopping work if you detect a safety lapse or problem."
Steiner added that the Macondo well was trouble-plagued from the start. Rig employees called it "the well from hell" and "nightmare well," saying "this well didn't want to be drilled." They should have plugged and abandoned it, he added. Instead they cut corners, assuring trouble. For the commission to deny this is "absurd" and criminally negligent.
The only part of its report Steiner agreed with was that a mere 3% of spilled oil was recovered. Now the media spotlight is off. Business as usual continues, "and the environment of the Gulf of Mexico (was) sacrificed for nothing."
Shockingly, Bartlit, a BP stooge, said the commission agreed with "90%" of its own internal investigation, saying:
"We see no instance where a decision-making person or group of people sat there aware of safety risks, aware of costs and opted to give up safety for costs. I've been on a lot of rigs, and I don't believe people sit there and say, 'This is really dangerous, but the guys in London will make more money.' We do not say everything done was perfectly safe. We're saying that people (didn't trade) safety for dollars. We studied the hell out of this. We welcome anybody who gives us something we missed."
The commission, in fact, missed everything, running cover for BP and the administration, its report replete with willful lies.
BP is a serial scofflaw. Yet, despite its criminal neglect history, it's allowed to conduct business as usual because of government complicity, regulatory laxity, and whitewashed commission reports. Bartlit, in fact, has long served industry interests, including the 1988 North Sea Piper Alpha disaster, drafting a 1990 inquiry that assured Occidental Petroleum faced no criminal charges. He also represented George Bush in the stolen 2000 election.
Supporting high crime pays well. Defending truth, environmental concerns, public safety and welfare is scorned and ignored at a time profits alone, not people, matter.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 2:31 AM
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7) Sticking it to the unemployed
Cutting off extended benefits for the unemployed not only hurts individuals who've been laid off but could dampen the economic recovery.
latimes.com
Editorial
November 18, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-unemployment-20101118,0,4893536.story
Washington is poised to stop providing extended unemployment benefits despite the huge number of laid-off workers, the paucity of job openings, the high rate of underemployment in every sector of the economy and stubbornly slow economic growth. That's because Republicans in the Senate insist that, unlike the hefty tax cuts they covet for the wealthy, the comparatively slender subsidies for the unemployed must not be financed with borrowed money. This penuriousness is not just hypocritical, it's bad economics.
The current federal program, which offers up to 73 extra weeks of unemployment benefits to idled workers, is due to expire Nov. 30. If it does, about 2 million unemployed people will have their benefits cut off in December - 411,000 of them in California. Their prospects for finding work remain unusually dim; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are still five job hunters for every opening.
Unemployment insurance not only helps keep individuals afloat after they're laid off, it counteracts an economic downturn. As economists at the Congressional Budget Office and elsewhere have noted, providing unemployment benefits is a particularly effective economic stimulus because idled workers are likely to spend their benefits rather than save them. According to one study, that spending could support nearly half a million jobs.
The downturn in the economy has been so severe that even the extended benefits haven't bought enough time for many Americans to find work. Four million people are expected to have exhausted their extended benefits by April; with so many cash-starved consumers, spending could fall again next year and dampen the recovery.
Some critics assert that lengthening the benefits period prompts people to spend more time looking for work instead of quickly taking a job that pays less and requires less skill than their previous positions. That's not a persuasive argument when there are so few jobs to be had. Regardless, attacking any disincentives to work should be done by changing the way the unemployment insurance program is designed, not by just pulling the plug on benefits.
Congress should continue to provide extended benefits at least until the unemployment rate falls from its current level - 9.6% as of October - to 7.2% or less. For the past half a century, Congress has always extended unemployment benefits until the jobless rate has fallen at least that far.
Yes, the extended benefits are costly - another year's worth would cost about $65 billion. But Republicans have shown with their stance on the Bush-era tax cuts that they have no compunction about raising the deficit for the ostensible purpose of helping the economy. And when it comes to helping the economy, unemployment benefits deliver far more bang for the buck than holding down the top marginal tax rates.
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8) Unions Yield on Wage Scales to Preserve Jobs
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
November 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/business/20wages.html?hp
MILWAUKEE - Organized labor appears to be losing an important battle in the Great Recession.
Even at manufacturing companies that are profitable, union workers are reluctantly agreeing to tiered contracts that create two levels of pay.
In years past, two-tiered systems were used to drive down costs in hard times, but mainly at companies already in trouble. And those arrangements, at the insistence of the unions, were designed, in most cases, to expire in a few years.
Now, the managers of some marquee companies are aiming to make this concession permanent. If they are successful, their contracts could become blueprints for other companies in other cities, extending a wage system that would be a startling retreat for labor.
Though union officials said they could not readily supply data on the practice, managers have been trying to achieve this for 30 years, with limited results. The recent auto crisis brought a two-tier system to General Motors and Chrysler. Delphi, the big parts maker, also has one now. Caterpillar, back in 2006, signed such a contract with the United Automobile Workers.
The arrangement was a fairly common means of shrinking labor costs in the recession of the early 1980s. At the end of the contracts, however, wages generally snapped back up to a single tier. At G.M., Chrysler, Delphi and Caterpillar, the wages will not be snapping back.
Nor will that happen for workers at three big manufacturers here in southeastern Wisconsin - where 15 percent of the work force is in manufacturing, a bigger proportion than any other state. These employers - Harley-Davidson, Mercury Marine and Kohler - have all but succeeded in the last year or so in erecting two-tier systems that could last well into a recovery.
"This is absolutely a surrender for labor," said Mike Masik Sr., the union leader at Harley-Davidson, the motorcycle maker, not even trying to paper over the defeat. His union recently accepted a new contract that freezes wages for existing workers for most of its seven years, lowers pay for new hires, dilutes benefits and brings temporary workers to the assembly line at even lower pay and no benefits whenever there is a rise in demand for Harley's roaring bikes.
When the proposal was put to a vote recently, Harley's blue-collar employees, most of whom belong to the powerful United Steelworkers, approved it by a decisive 53 percent to 47 percent.
Just up the highway, Mercury Marine, which makes outboard motors and marine engines, has a similar agreement with its factory workers. And the Kohler Company, another manufacturing giant in southeastern Wisconsin, famed for its gleaming bathroom fixtures, is negotiating a contract using Harley's pact as a template and, so far, getting much of its way.
"The simple economic fact is that we overproduced and now we have to burn off the excess," Matthew S. Levatich, president and chief operating officer of Harley-Davidson, said in an interview, speaking in effect for all three manufacturers. "You could say," he added, "that the new contract is a recognition of this truth on the part of our workers."
Nowhere else in the country has quite so tough a contract emerged at companies that are profitable, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. says.
"Management clearly has the upper hand in negotiations because of the employment situation," Milwaukee's mayor, Tom Barrett, said.
Mr. Barrett ran as the Democratic candidate for governor in the Nov. 2 election, losing to Scott Walker, a Republican in a state that usually votes Democratic. In interviews, several blue-collar workers said they had voted Democratic in 2008 and switched to Republican this time - mimicking the blue-collar political shift throughout the Midwest - because the Obama administration, in their view, had failed so far to help them.
The breakthrough labor agreements reflect this antipathy. They capitalize on a particularly difficult set of circumstances for blue-collar workers. In response to falling demand, the big manufacturers here have cut production and laid off thousands of employees. Many people lost jobs that had paid $22 an hour or more. Few can get work that pays as well, if they can get steady work at all, given an unemployment rate of nearly 8 percent in the area. That makes holding a job a higher priority than holding the line on pay and benefits, much less pushing for improvements, Mr. Masik said.
Increasing the pressure, Harley-Davidson and Mercury Marine, a unit of the Brunswick Corporation, publicly declared that they would move factory operations to lower-cost American cities - Stillwater, Okla., for example, or Kansas City, Mo. - if the unions failed to accept the concessions set forth in remarkably similar contracts. One provision denies laid-off or furloughed workers their old pay if they are called back; they must return as second-tier employees, earning $5 to $15 an hour less.
Mercury Marine's nearly 900 hourly workers voted last fall to reject such terms, but a few days later, they voted again and accepted them. They reversed course after the company announced that its headquarters factory, in nearby Fond du Lac, would be closed and operations consolidated in Stillwater. The Stillwater factory is now being closed instead.
Kohler officials have stopped just short of saying that they, too, will go elsewhere. They declare that if their proposals are not accepted, then "it would be very difficult and challenging for us to sustain manufacturing operations" in Sheboygan County, including those in the town of Kohler, 50 miles north of here, named for the family that founded and still dominates the company.
The alternative for the workers is to strike, thus challenging the companies in their stated determination to relocate - in effect, calling their bluff. The International Association of Machinists at Mercury Marine and the United Steelworkers at Harley-Davidson declined to take that risk, and so has the U.A.W. at Kohler, so far.
The workers themselves are convinced, their union leaders say, that the companies are prepared to move factories from the Milwaukee area, where all three came to life decades ago.
"The company stuck to its agenda," Mr. Masik said of the Harley negotiations, his voice rising, "and we ended up accepting their agenda."
Harley-Davidson actually has two very similar new contracts, one with the Machinists, who represent workers at an assembly plant in York, Pa.; the other with the Steelworkers at an engine-and-transmission factory in Greater Milwaukee. The York agreement, ratified last year and now in effect, has shrunk the core work force there by more than half, to nearly 800 full-timers, while adding 300 "casual" employees, who are union members without benefits.
The Milwaukee agreement, recently ratified, will shrink the full-time payroll to 900 from 1,250 today and more than 1,600 before the recession. Up to 250 "casuals," as in York, will be used to handle surges in demand for Harley bikes. While hourly pay under the current contract averages $31 an hour, that drops to $25 for the second tier, which becomes the only tier once all the veterans have left or retired. Casuals, in contrast, get $18.50 an hour.
The new Milwaukee contract kicks in when the current agreement expires on March 31, 2012. The union balked at negotiating so far in advance, Mr. Masik said, but conceded after the company insisted it would otherwise use the intervening months to prepare to move operations elsewhere, perhaps Kansas City. To guarantee support, Harley also incorporated into the contract $12,000 bonuses for its steelworkers, including those laid off.
Harley's president said the recession left no choice but to reorganize. Motorcycle sales are down 40 percent from their peak in 2006, Mr. Levatich said. Cutting the core staff allows Harley to slow the line during the winter months of lean demand and add "casuals" when demand picks up in the spring and summer.
"What we are doing is not mean-spirited," Mr. Levatich insisted. "We have to retool if we want to survive. We should have started doing this, in small steps, 20 years ago."
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9) Haitians Plunge Into Muck to Stem Cholera
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
November 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/world/americas/20haiti.html?hp
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Duquesne Fils-Aimé, stripped to the waist, stepped gingerly into the canal, drawing stares of astonishment from the spectators above. When he ducked his head under the water - if one could call it that - an audible gasp rose from the crowd.
Plastic bottles and bags, shredded underwear, shoes and endless globs of unidentifiable black muck bobbed like a fetid tarp around Mr. Fils-Aimé and his colleagues as they started another shift - cleaning out the canal by hand.
On and on they worked in the drink, making little progress but at least a little cash in a Sisyphean battle against the squalor that chokes the canals and ditches passing as sewers, causes floods of wastewater and helps spread the cholera epidemic now gripping more than half the country.
"We do the bad," Mr. Fils-Aimé, 41, said of his work, "and maybe people won't get sick."
At least there were no animal carcasses that day; the men have seen plenty of them - dogs, rats, goats. They swam a few strokes, black water slopping over them in a stench many layers thick. At one point, Mr. Fils-Aimé sat entirely supported on the filth as if shipwrecked, fishing out debris to the lucky crew member on dry land.
The job pays $112 a month, and the men are thankful for it, even though they say they sometimes go weeks without getting paid. Unemployment is so crushing here that for some, it is the first steady work they have ever had.
"I can't tell you how long I was looking for a job, so when I found this I took it," said Dieusov Étienne, 38, who has done the work for three years.
Garbage and filth overflow here, spilling from trash bins left unemptied for months and littering tent camps for earthquake refugees. When the rains come, as they did after Hurricane Tomas brushed the island on Nov. 5, the backed-up waterways spread over any vacant patch, creating an ideal home for cholera. Children splash and defecate in the water, people use it to rinse dishes and wash clothes, and some, with few options, even consume it.
In a matter of weeks, the disease has killed more than 1,000 people, hospitalized around 17,000 with choleralike symptoms and prompted violent protests against international peacekeepers, whom residents accuse of importing the illness from South Asia.
There is no sewage plant in Haiti; some hotels and private homes have their own septic systems, and entrepreneurs scour the city cleaning latrines, often dumping the waste in the most convenient canal or drainage ditch.
Even the work of cleaning the canals is a testament to the extreme difficulties of preventing cholera in a country where infrastructure was minimal long before the earthquake and where sanitation crews have to descend into the muck with hardly any tools, much less gloves or suits to protect them.
"Sometimes I get a fever and I thank the Lord I am O.K.," Mr. Fils-Aimé said.
He is well aware that cholera is carried in water, filthy water that, judging by the excrement along the banks around him, is likely to contain the feces that spread the disease. But he needs the money and tries not to think much beyond that.
"I am not worried," he said. "Whatever is going to come, is going to come."
The workers wash after work, and given the trials of so many here, they carry a sense of resignation about the risks.
"I don't care about cholera," said Odvel Étienne, 24, fresh out of the water with bits of debris sticking to his body. "We are all going to die someday."
He is the youngest of the crew of four, who are mostly middle-aged and had never worked a regular job before this.
His colleague, the elder Mr. Étienne, who is not related to Odvel, tells a typical story - of moving from farm work in the countryside to the city 15 years ago looking for better opportunities.
He moved in with relatives and depended on them. He has a wife, a 12-year-old daughter and three other relatives, and they live in an apartment that suffered little damage in the quake, making him one of Haiti's fortunates.
He got this job as most people do, through connections. A friend heard of an opening and recommended him.
"I knew what it was, but I needed the job," he said. It pays the $62 a month for private school for his daughter and supports the rest of his family.
Some, like Désiré Harry, 26, see the men in the muck and wish it were them.
"It should be my job, people my age," he complained while watching Mr. Étienne clear a culvert.
The people who gathered to watch seemed appreciative - or awestruck - over the spectacle of men essentially swimming in a cesspool.
"They are the only ones brave enough to do this," said Claude Ambroise, 44, who is also unemployed.
Brave, perhaps, does not quite capture it.
As the debris picked out of the canal grew, Élines Fedenaud, the lucky dry man, scooped it onto a pile to be picked up by a truck later, if it showed up. Often it does not, the men said, making their work that much more futile.
They have been working on the canal for a month but do not seem particularly discouraged that the garbage they have fished out continues piling up, without getting hauled away. What irked them were delays in getting paid; they sometimes went a month or more without a check.
As they worked, a passing truck blared campaign jingles to a Caribbean beat, advertisements for Jude Célestin, President René Préval's choice in the Nov. 28 presidential election.
The younger Mr. Étienne did a little jig to the music, but he scoffed at all of the 19 candidates in the race.
"The money they do for that could be money for what I am doing here," he said.
Into the putrid water they went, tossing debris out.
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10) South Africa Fears Millions More H.I.V. Infections
By BARRY BEARAK
November 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/world/africa/20safrica.html?ref=world
DAVEYTON, South Africa - South Africa, already home to 5.7 million H.I.V.-positive people, more than any other nation, can expect an additional five million to become infected during the next two decades even if the nation more than doubles its already considerable financing for treatment and prevention and gives prevention a higher priority, according to a report presented here Friday to the country's leading advisory body on AIDS policy.
South Africa has far and away the continent's leading economy, but the study concludes that it nevertheless faces a "major and mounting financial challenge" to confront its AIDS problem, explaining that about $102 billion will need to be spent over the next 20 years merely to keep the number of new infections at the projected five million mark.
"The government doesn't seem to have their heads around the numbers yet, and they are going to have to do some thinking out of the box," Teresa Guthrie, an economist and one of the report's authors, said in an interview. "It's not an encouraging picture."
Actually, South Africa is in the midst of a rapid expansion of its AIDS programs, attempting to overcome years of denial and delay when former President Thabo Mbeki questioned whether H.I.V. caused AIDS. He suggested that antiretroviral drugs were harmful, and his health minister recommended remedies of beet root and garlic.
Last year, the nation spent $2.1 billion on AIDS, according to the report, though about a third of that came from international donors, including $620 million from the United States.
"We would argue that the donors really need to stay with this, and the next five years are absolutely critical," said Robert Hecht, another of the report's authors.
The government itself requested the study, which is called "The Long-Run Costs and Financing of H.I.V./AIDS in South Africa." It was done by the Center for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa, based in Cape Town, and the Results for Development Institute, based in Washington.
Mr. Hecht, a managing director of the institute, presented the findings at a meeting of the South African National AIDS Council, a group that includes leaders from both the government and civil society.
None of the government officials at the meeting were willing to comment on the report, but Mark Heywood, the council's deputy chairman and executive director of the AIDS Law Project, which is based in Johannesburg, said later that he was "gravely concerned" about the numbers cited.
"I found it all difficult to accept," he said. "Our prevention strategy was such a mess for such a long time that I felt sure we could bring down infection rates at a faster pace now that we're working at it."
Mr. Heywood said he did not know where any extra financing would come from. "I think the budget is strained already," he said.
In the past year, the government has widely increased treatment with antiretroviral drugs and begun a campaign for counseling and testing. The report said it needed to go much further, emphasizing male circumcision, which has been shown to decrease by more than 50 percent the rate of contracting H.I.V., and the promotion of condom use.
"Things are still not being done fast enough and broadly enough," Mr. Hecht said. "The big, looming, difficult problem to crack is the general adult population and the millions of people with multiple partners and overlapping relationships. That's the big challenge for South Africa."
In South Africa, with a population of 49 million, an estimated 350,000 to 500,000 new infections occur annually, depending on the estimate. With enough money and better programs, that number could gradually be brought down to 200,000 a year, Mr. Hecht said. This can be accomplished, the report said, by 2020.
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11) Haitians Barricading Streets with Coffins as Protests against U.N. Continue over Cholera Outbreak
Protests are continuing in Haiti over the cholera outbreak that has now killed more than 1,100 people and infected some 17,000. On Wednesday, residents in the city of Cap-Haïtien clashed with U.N. troops for the third consecutive day. Crowds have taken to the streets expressing anger at the Haitian government and the United Nations for failing to contain the disease. We go to Cap-Haïtien to speak with independent journalist Ansel Herz.
November 18, 2010
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/18/un_blamed_for_killing_2_haitian
JUAN GONZALEZ: Protests are continuing in Haiti over the cholera outbreak that has now killed over 1,100 people and infected more than 17,000. On Wednesday, residents in the city of Cap-Haïtien clashed with U.N. troops for the third consecutive day. Crowds have taken to the streets expressing anger at the Haitian government and the U.N. for failing to contain the disease. Nepalese U.N. troops stationed in Cap-Haïtien have been accused of inadvertently bringing cholera to Haiti.
The protests reportedly started at a cemetery where cholera victims were being placed in mass graves. At least two people have been killed in clashes between demonstrators and U.N. troops. On Tuesday, the U.N. Mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, said aid flights have been canceled and water purification and training projects curtailed, while food at a warehouse has been looted and burned.
AMY GOODMAN: The Pan-American Health Organization told Agence France-Presse that the cholera outbreak could kill as many as 10,000 people and cause 200,000 infections in the coming year.
Meanwhile, the disease has spread beyond Haiti's borders. The Dominican Republic confirmed it had detected its first case of cholera, and officials in Florida have confirmed the first case in the United States.
For more, we go to Haiti right now to speak with independent journalist Ansel Herz. He's in the city of Cap-Haïtien, where the protests are taking place.
Ansel, welcome to Democracy Now! Tell us what's happening in Cap-Haïtien.
ANSEL HERZ: Right now, I'm stationed in the downtown public square here in Cap-Haïtien. It's the second-largest city here in Haiti on the northern coast. And things are-appear to be pretty calm here in the downtown. Today is actually a holiday. It's National Flag Day, and it commemorates a huge battle that was waged in 1803 in Haiti's independence struggle.
But as I came into the city yesterday, there were barricades almost every couple hundred of yards on the main highway coming into Cap-Haïtien. There were young men, as well as women, around a lot of these barricades. I had a few rocks thrown at me. But as I got closer, I flashed my press badge, and I tried to make clear that I wasn't with the U.N. peacekeeping mission, and immediately I was sort of hustled through a lot of these barricades. And they're actually still in the streets. A lot of them are not manned at the moment. But people are saying that because today is this national holiday commemorating Haiti's independence struggle, they expect the protesters to come out again in the next few hours.
And I'll add, too, that, reportedly, a third person has been killed by U.N. troops here in the city. That happened yesterday. I actually went by a back street here in Cap-Haïtien, where protesters had dug a trench as a barricade, basically, and a MINUSTAH vehicle, a peacekeeping vehicle, fell into the trench. And I'm told by witnesses and by Haitian journalists here that when the vehicle fell in, Chilean peacekeepers sort of came under attack, I guess, or a barrage of bottles, rocks-the population-and that the troops responded with gunfire and shot an innocent young man just in his house. And so, reportedly, they took his body over to the mayor's office, actually, and left it there. And again, meanwhile, there are still barricades here in the street, and some of them are actually made of coffins, and protesters told me that there are cholera victims inside.
AMY GOODMAN: We're asking listeners and viewers to bear with the phone sound, but we just think it's absolutely critical to get this information out of Cape Haitian, or Cap-Haïtien. Juan?
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Ansel, I'd like to ask you, in terms of-it's clear that the U.N. peacekeepers, if they were the source, and likely were, of the outbreak of the cholera, didn't do it deliberately, but there has been a growing resentment for years now among the Haitian people to U.N.-the presence of U.N. peacekeepers. Can you talk about the roots of this animosity?
ANSEL HERZ: Sure. I mean, it's been interesting to see how the U.N. here has responded to these riots, because they-and protests, because they've actually claimed that people are sort of being manipulated and that it's not a legitimate sort of spontaneous political movement. But, of course, I was here in this city a year ago, actually, and I was interviewing people on the street, and they were telling-there were protests at that time, peaceful protests, against U.N. peacekeepers. And they were telling me that they were tired of an occupation in their country, that the peacekeepers have an enormous budget, but very little of it is spent on, you know, concrete humanitarian activity that could actually improve education and healthcare in this country.
And, of course, also, back in August, a young boy, a 16-year-old boy, was found hanging from a tree inside a U.N. peacekeeping base here in Cap-Haïtien. That's a story that's been totally ignored by basically the entire U.S. media. And U.N. troops claim that he committed suicide. But people just across from the base at a hotel said that they heard his screams. They heard that he was being strangled. And there's a lot of suspicion that he was, in fact, murdered by peacekeepers for maybe stealing a small amount of money. And then recently a group of civil society organizations wrote a letter to the U.N. peacekeepers demanding an independent investigation and condemning what they called the U.N.'s obstruction into justice for that case. And after that death, there were weeks of protests, peaceful protests, here in Cap-Haïtien. So, the idea that these are sort of manipulated protests, that people are being used, I think, doesn't hold water. There have been longstanding accusations against the peacekeeping mission here for abusing Haitians and for lacking transparent investigations into any of these alleged human rights violations.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what about the upcoming elections and the difficulty of holding an election, given the calamities that have befallen Haiti in the past year?
ANSEL HERZ: I mean, there was a recent report from CARICOM that thousands and thousands of people who died in the earthquake are still on the voter rolls. Of course, the cholera epidemic is spreading. It's been epidemic, basically, throughout the country. It was allowed to spread out of the central region where it began and is now in all ten of the provinces. And, you know, even before the cholera outbreak began, you had very regular protests in Port-au-Prince by people in the tent camps, people who have been displaced for the past ten months, who lost their homes in the earthquake and have not been given any kind of new housing. And their rallying cry, again and again, has been "We are not going to vote while we're under tents and tarps." And so, I think the prospects for holding credible election, where you have a considerable participation, are pretty low.
Of course, one of the largest parties in the country, Fanmi Lavalas, the party of the ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overturned in a 2004 coup, that party is being totally excluded from the election on what would appear to be just political grounds. And it's been part of excluding that entire movement since Aristide was ousted. And so, I just think this election is likely to be a sham affair. And yet, the candidates, as well as the Haitian government itself, are insisting-and the United Nations, as well-are insisting that this election is going to go forward on November 28th.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, again, the United States holding back more than-the U.S. Congress holding back more than a billion dollars in aid to Haiti. What is the effect of this, Ansel?
ANSEL HERZ: Well, the effect is that you have at least 1.3 million people still living in these-in tent camps, where independent studies by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, as well as others, have found that, you know, 30 or 40 percent of these camps don't have any regular clean water, don't have toilets. And so, you know, I've heard people say that Haiti is unlucky to be hit by cholera, that it's somehow sort of a tragedy it couldn't have been prevented. But the fact is, you know, NGOs, private charity groups raised billions of dollars in relief funds for earthquake victims after the January 12th earthquake, and very little of it has been sent.
Just one example is the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, headed by Presidents Clinton and Bush. It was inaugurated by President Obama right after the earthquake. They dispersed only $6 million out of around $50 million that they raised. And so, the continuing effect is that you just have a exacerbated humanitarian crisis on top of Haiti's decades of poverty. And it doesn't seem likely to end anytime soon, unless there's a really serious reevaluation of the way NGOs, in tandem with the United Nations, operate in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Ansel Herz, we want to thank you very much for being with us, independent journalist, has lived in Haiti for more than a year. He's speaking to us from Cap-Haïtien, from Cape Haitian, in Haiti.
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