Robert Mitchell, 16, Killed by Law-Enforcement: Detroit Teen's Death Revives Old Images For Warren

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Friday, May 08, 2009

Robert Mitchell, 16, Killed by Law-Enforcement: Detroit Teen's Death Revives Old
Images For Warren

Cora Mitchell, on right, the mother of Robert Mitchell, 16, who died in the
custody of Warren Police after being chased into Detroit and tased in an
abandoned house on April 10, 2009. (Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe)

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Friday, May 8, 2009


Teen's death revives old images for Warren

Use of force by police
revives racism claims

Christine Ferretti / The Detroit News


Warren -- With a new mayor, a new police chief and new partnerships with
neighboring Detroit, the city's old reputation for racial intolerance seemed to
be softening.

But for some, the death last month of a Detroit teen
who was shocked with a Taser by Warren police near the Eight Mile border revives
an image Warren earned when former Mayor Mark Steenbergh in 2005 likened the
city to a "fortress," standing strong against criminals from Detroit.


"It set the tone for the manner in which police officers in Warren have dealt
with individuals, specifically from the south side of Eight Mile," said Ron
Scott, a spokesman for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality.


"Hostility is going on. It's not a fallacy. It's a reflection of what's actually
happening."

The April 10 death of 16-year-old Robert Mitchell, who
was black, has spurred a civil rights lawsuit as the teen's family and Detroit
ministers and activists plead for changes to the department's use-of-force
policy. Mitchell's autopsy results are pending.

Scott said the
incident also revives the notion that the predominantly white city operates
under a cultural bias, even though there's been significant growth in the
minority population. Warren's black population has risen from 0.7 percent of all
city residents in 1990 to around 9 percent, according to a three-year census
estimate conducted between 2005-07.

Warren's Deputy Police
Commissioner Jere Green said the idea that the city is racist is "prehistoric
thinking."

"This city has evolved so far beyond that. That's what
makes statements like that almost defeat all the progress we've made," said
Green, a 30-year veteran of the department. "For someone to hang their hat on a
comment made years ago that they think was racially motivated. ...I can't
understand it."

Officials reach out

Warren officials say
new administrators have forged a stronger partnership with Detroit that's
brought about many positives and the best relationship ever in the history of
the two cities.

Since Mayor Jim Fouts took office in 2007, the
neighboring agencies have worked together to secure grants, fight drugs,
prostitution and blight on both sides of Eight Mile, including a tri-county auto
theft crackdown.

"We don't want crime to have a haven in either
Warren or Detroit," Fouts said. "Criminals of any background and any type of
crime will not be tolerated in Warren. We have a very professional police force
and have good people working for us."

But Mitchell's grandmother,
Charlotte McGlory, who is lobbying for the city to reevaluate its policy on the
use of Tasers, doesn't see it that way.

McGlory says she believes
Warren officers didn't target her grandson because of his race -- it was simply
because "they could."

"It's not a black issue. It's an abuse of power
issue. The whole mentality of the department needs to change," said McGlory, of
St. Clair Shores, who has vowed to attend City Council meetings until the city
changes or eliminates its use of Tasers. "They need to be accountable."


Others are convinced that race is the issue. Lifelong Detroit resident William
Ballard, who is black, said police have always been biased against Detroiters.


"They are discriminating. You can't cross (Eight Mile) without them bothering
you," said Ballard, 52, who lives near Seven Mile and Van Dyke. "It never
changes. The history has been going on so long it's hard to change."


Police deny profiling
Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer, who joined
the city in April 2008 after serving as police chief in Farmington Hills, said
he "doesn't tolerate" excessive force or profiling.

South-end patrol
officers like Matt Nichols say they don't either. When there's a crime, cops
react, regardless of where they may be from, he said.

"Once a crime
is committed, we have no control over who commits it," he said. "You can't
change what people feel or the way they perceive things. If people feel unfairly
targeted there's really nothing we can do, other than fairly enforce the law."


Steenbergh made the controversial "fortress" remark during a State of the City.
Detroit leaders said it raised racial tensions between the state's first and
third-largest cities. Warren officials maintained his comment was not racial,
simply factual -- one third of Warren's crimes, they said, were committed by
Detroit residents.

Detroit-based minister Tuesday Hicks said a more
diversified department could improve relations between officers and the varying
cultures in Warren.

"A force should be based on what the community
(makeup) is. They would be able to relate if something transpires. It's only
fair," she said. "It would save a lot of havoc in these departments."


Green said the Warren department has African-American, female and Pakistani
officers and the bond with Detroit's force adds to that diversity.


"The law enforcement community is unified and working together. The bulk of
Detroit staff may be African-American, and the bulk of our staff is white," he
said. "When they see us working together for a common goal, you can throw that
stereotype right out the window."

cferretti@detnews.com (586)
468-0343

Find this article at:

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090508/METRO03/905080353/Teen-s-death-revives-old-images-for-Warren



Friday, May 8, 2009

Critics say cops too quick to pull trigger on
Tasers
Police favor devices to guns, while others downplay benefits


George Hunter / The Detroit News

More than a decade after police
first started using the Thomas A. Swift Electronic Rifle -- or Taser -- the
weapon remains controversial.

Some say the weapons, which use an
electric jolt to temporarily stun suspects, give police a nonlethal alternative
to shooting. Others claim cops are too quick to use Tasers on people who pose no
immediate danger.

And whenever someone dies in the aftermath of Taser
use -- such as the April 10 death of 16-year-old Robert Mitchell in Detroit --
the debate is ramped up.

Authorities are awaiting an autopsy report
to determine the cause of the teen's death. In the meantime, Warren Mayor Jim
Fouts asked for a report from police about the incident and the use of Tasers.


"I asked for a report and a re-evaluation of the use of Tasers, but the police
haven't finished that yet," Fouts said Thursday. He declined further comment
because the city is being sued over the death.

Ron Scott, spokesman
of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said police are too quick to
reach for Tasers in situations that don't call for the weapon.


"Officers are supposed to de-escalate situations, and Tasers were originally
meant to be used as defensive weapons," Scott said. "But they're being used as
offensive weapons, in situations where there is no danger."

But
University of Detroit-Mercy criminal justice professor Daniel Kennedy said the
benefits of Tasers far outweigh the negatives.

"You have to weigh the
risk of injury against the benefits, which is maybe saving someone from further
injury," Kennedy said. "It's a balancing act."

Tasers fire two
wire-guided probes that puncture a person's clothing and skin, and then shoots
them with 50,000 volts of electricity. It causes an involuntary contraction of
skeletal muscles and disrupts communication between the brain and the muscles.


Police are taught to use a "continuum of force" to control situations, the
lowest form being verbal direction, and the highest deadly force. Tasers provide
a middle ground, proponents of the weapon say.

"If Tasers are being
used as police are trained to use them, then it gives officers a chance to
de-escalate a situation without resorting to deadly force," Kennedy said.


The problem, Scott said, is that officers often use Tasers as a first resort,
even in situations that don't call for it. In one case in Florida, police fired
a Taser at a 6-year-old boy.

"You have people tasing young children,"
he said. "It's barbaric."

Scott said he encountered an overzealous
police officer while waiting for a flight at Metro Airport.

"My watch
went off in the metal detector and they detained me," he said. "I asked, 'Why
are you doing this?' and the first thing he said was, 'Be quiet if you don't
want to get tased.' That was his first choice."

One way to determine
whether police are using Tasers properly is to mount cameras on the weapons. In
2005, Taser International, which manufactures the guns, introduced Taser Cam, an
add-on that is mounted to the butt of the Taser. When an officer turns on his
Taser, the camera starts recording the encounter. The devices retail for about
$500 each.

ghunter@detnews.com (313) 222-2134

Find this
article at:

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090508/METRO03/905080356/Critics-say-cops-too-quick-to-pull-trigger-on-Tasers

US Economic Crisis Bulletin: Another 539,000 Job Losses; Banks Lose $600bn; AIG
Losses at $4.35bn; Another 'Jobs Program'

People wait by the thousands in the United States in a hopeless quest for
meaningful employment. Despite claims by the Obama administration of a
potential recovery, unemployment and home foreclosures continue to rise.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

MAY 8, 2009, 8:52 A.M. ET


Pace of Job Losses Moderated in April; Jobless Rate at 8.9%

By BRIAN
BLACKSTONE
Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- The pace of U.S.
job losses tapered off a bit last month, suggesting that while the economy
remains mired in a prolonged recession, it may be finally starting to find its
footing.

Still, even though the decline was the smallest in six
months, a good deal of the improvement came from temporary government hiring in
advance of next year's Census.

And another half-million-plus drop in
employment and further increase in the unemployment rate to a 25-year high
remains a sober reminder that any road to recovery will be bumpy.


Nonfarm payrolls fell 539,000 in April, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday,
slightly better than Wall Street expectations for a 610,000 decline, according
to a Dow Jones Newswires survey. March was revised to show a steeper payroll
drop of 699,000.

The economy has shed 5.7 million jobs since the
recession started in December 2007, with almost 2.7 million of those losses
occurring in the last four months alone.

"Widespread job losses
continued throughout the private sector," said Keith Hall, Commissioner of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Private-sector employment fell by 611,000 last
month, down a bit from the 700,000 average of the past four months, Hall said.


The unemployment rate, which is calculated using a survey of households as
opposed to companies, increased 0.4 percentage point to 8.9%, the highest level
since September 1983.

Many economists expect that rate to eventually
top 10%. Not only does the economy have to stop losing jobs before the jobless
rate stabilizes, it actually has to add payrolls at a modest rate just to keep
up with new entrants into the labor force.

In testimony to the
Congressional Joint Economic Committee Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke said, "currently we don't think it's going to get to 10%" though even
something in the 9% range is still "way too high."

By broader
measures, unemployment -- or at least underemployment -- is already well into
double digits. When marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers are
included, the rate of unemployed or underemployed workers hit 15.8% last month,
up from 15.6% in March and 6.6 percentage points higher than it was one year
ago.

Average hourly earnings advanced just $0.01 to $18.51. That was
up just 3.2% from one year ago, a sign that inflation isn't a threat.


Should the modest improvement in labor-market conditions continue, as weekly
jobless claims figures suggest, then the pace of economy contraction will
probably ease somewhat this quarter. After declining over 6%, at annual rates,
in each of the last two quarters, gross domestic product is expected to contract
at a much slower rate this quarter, setting the stage for a return to growth
later this year.

But so far, most of the so-called "green shoots" of
recovery that economists and policymakers have latched onto are sentiment-based
indicators such as consumer confidence and purchasing manager surveys.


The mix of grim automobile sales for April and ongoing steep job cuts suggest
that consumers still face considerable headwinds.

According to
Friday's report, hiring last month in goods-producing industries fell by
270,000. Within this group, manufacturing firms cut 149,000 jobs, bringing the
total since the recession began to 1.6 million.

Construction
employment was down 110,000 last month.

Service-sector employment
fell 269,000. Business and professional services companies shed 122,000 jobs,
the sixth-straight six-figure loss, and financial-sector payrolls were down
another 40,000.

Retail trade cut 46,700 jobs, while leisure and
hospitality businesses shed 44,000 as households cut back on nonessential
spending. Temporary employment, a leading indicator of future job prospects,
fell by more than 62,000 a slight improvement from the previous month's fall.


As has been the case throughout much of the recession, the sole bright spot
among private sector industries was health care, which added almost 17,000 new
jobs.

The government added 72,000, "mainly due to hiring of
temporary workers in preparation for Census 2010," Hall said.

The
average workweek was unchanged at 33.2 hours. A separate index of aggregate
weekly hours fell 0.6 percentage point to 100.3.

Write to Brian
Blackstone at brian.blackstone@dowjones.com


Fed Sees Up to
$599 Billion in Bank Losses

Worst-Case Capital Shortfall of $75
Billion at 10 Banks Is Less Than Many Feared; Some Shares Rise on Hopes Crisis
Is Easing

Wall Street Journal
By DAVID ENRICH, ROBIN SIDEL and
DEBORAH SOLOMON

The federal government projected that 19 of the
nation's biggest banks could suffer losses of up to $599 billion through the end
of next year if the economy performs worse than expected and ordered 10 of them
to raise a combined $74.6 billion in capital to cushion themselves.


The much-anticipated stress-test results unleashed a scramble by the weakest
banks to find money and a push by the strongest ones to escape the government
shadow of taxpayer-funded rescues.

The Federal Reserve's worst-case
estimates of banks' total losses and capital shortfalls were smaller than some
had feared. Optimists interpreted the Fed's findings as evidence that the worst
is over for the industry. But questions remain about the stress tests' rigor, in
part since the Fed scaled back some projected losses in the face of pressure
from banks.

The government's tests measured potential losses on
mortgages, commercial loans, securities and other assets held by the
stress-tested banks, ranging from giants Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup
Inc. to regional institutions such as SunTrust Banks Inc. and Fifth Third
Bancorp. The government's "more adverse" scenario includes two-year cumulative
losses of 9.1% on total loans, worse than the peak losses of the 1930s.


Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday that he is "reasonably
confident" that banks will be able to plug the capital holes through private
infusions, alleviating the need for Washington to further enmesh itself in the
banking system.

Banks also said they will consider selling
businesses or issuing new stock to meet the toughened capital standards.


The information provided by the stress tests will "make it easier for banks to
raise new equity from private sources," Mr. Geithner said. Still, he added, "We
have a lot of work to do...in repairing the financial system."

Some
of the banks told to add capital raced to accomplish that by tapping public
markets. On Thursday, Wells Fargo & Co., which the Fed said needed to raise
$13.7 billion, laid plans for a $6 billion common-stock offering. Morgan
Stanley, facing a $1.8 billion deficit, said it will sell $2 billion of stock
and $3 billion of debt that isn't guaranteed by the U.S. government.


If successful, the offerings "should be a meaningful step in restoring a modicum
of confidence to the banks," said David A. Havens, a managing director at
Hexagon Securities. "It indicates that even the big messy banks are able to
attract private capital."

Shares of more than a dozen stress-tested
banks rose in after-hours trading as the government's announcement soothed
jitters about the industry's immediate capital needs. Bank of America shares
climbed 3.6% to $13.99, while Citigroup was up 6.3% to $4.05. Fifth Third jumped
19% to $6.35. SunTrust fell 2.5% to $18.05, and Wells Fargo slipped 0.9% to
$24.54.

Nine of the stress-tested banks -- including titans like
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wall Street's Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as well as
several regional institutions -- have adequate capital. That finding essentially
represents a seal of approval from the Fed.

The others need to raise
anywhere from about $600 million for PNC Financial Services Group Inc. to $33.9
billion for Bank of America. In between are several other regional lenders:
Fifth Third, which needs to raise $1.1 billion; KeyCorp, $1.8 billion; Regions
Financial Corp., $2.5 billion; and SunTrust, $2.2 billion.

Experts
warn that the tests could have a serious unintended consequence: Loans could be
harder to come by for consumers and businesses. That's because the government's
intense focus on thicker capital cushions might prompt banks to hoard cash and
further curtail lending, said Jim Eckenrode, banking research executive at
TowerGroup, a financial consulting firm. He said banks will have less room to
offer consumers low interest rates, while corporate customers may have a tougher
time getting financing for commercial real-estate and property development.


That would undercut a key goal of the Obama administration, which has been
pushing banks to lend more in order to jump-start the economy.

The
test results were vigorously contested by some banks, which argued they were
superficial and didn't reflect significant differences in the health of various
banks' loan portfolios.

In a news release Thursday, Regions publicly
criticized the testing process. The Birmingham, Ala., bank said the Fed's loss
assumptions were "unrealistically high." Regions said it "questions whether it
should be required to raise additional capital now to provide for a two-year
adverse economic scenario," given recent hints that the economy may have hit
bottom.

With the tests complete, Washington's effort to clean up the
banking system now shifts into a new, potentially messy phase. While most of the
banks that need capital are likely to be able to find it, analysts and bankers
say a few others are likely to end up being largely owned by the U.S. government
due to their inability to raise capital from private investors.


Meanwhile, the tests don't address a sea of problems confronting many midsize
and smaller banks.

Federal officials have repeatedly vowed to
support the 19 banks, which essentially have been labeled too big to fail. Those
reassurances have propelled the companies' shares to their highest levels in
months. The White House, Treasury Department and Fed hope that by restoring
confidence in the industry, private investors will help troubled banks shore up
their finances, eliminating the need for taxpayer-financed rescues.


There are some encouraging signs. In recent weeks, a handful of healthy banks --
ranging from giants like Goldman Sachs to Denver's 34-branch Guaranty Bancorp --
have raised money by selling stock in public offerings. That represents a
seismic shift from earlier this year, when many investors refused to touch any
bank stocks.

"What we're starting to hear from investors is a view
that these companies were oversold and, although things are bad, they're not as
bad as was baked into the assumptions," said Brian Sterling, co-head of
investment banking at Sandler O'Neill & Partners in New York.

Some
Fed-blessed banks are likely to pursue public equity or debt offerings to flex
their financial muscles and help pay back the funds that the government invested
in them.

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, left, Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gathered in
Geithner's office at Treasury on Thursday.

State Street Corp.
Chairman and Chief Executive Ronald E. Logue said the government's conclusion
that the Boston company needs no additional capital puts it "in a position to
consider repayment of the TARP preferred stock and warrants under the
appropriate circumstances."

State Street, one of the largest
managers of index funds, got a $2 billion taxpayer-funded infusion under the
Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal
incorrectly reported that State Street had been told to come up with more
capital.

Bankers acknowledge that investors' appetites are limited.
Investors say not enough private funds are available to fill the big banks'
financial holes.

"I think there is some demand in the market to
raise a certain amount, but whether you could find $60 billion of capital in the
next couple of months is highly unlikely," said Joshua Siegel, managing
principal at StoneCastle Partners LLC, a New York firm that invests in banks.


Banks that can't coax private investors have some other options. They can sell
assets or business lines, a strategy already under way at Bank of America and
Citigroup. They can push investors to swap so-called preferred shares for common
stock, padding a measure of capital known as tangible common equity.


During a Thursday conference with investors, Bank of America Chairman and Chief
Executive Kenneth Lewis said, "Our game plan is designed to help get the
government out of our bank as quickly as possible," and vowed to abandon a
loss-sharing agreement with the U.S. on $118 billion in assets.

But
bankers and analysts say at least a few lenders are in a vise. Too weak to lure
investors, and lacking a large pool of privately held preferred stock, these
banks likely will have to turn to Washington for help. Fifth Third and Regions
both said in statements Thursday that they hope to raise private funds.


The 19 tested banks, which all have at least $100 billion in assets, accounted
for most of the industry's total loans. But the companies represent a sliver of
the roughly 8,000 banks nationwide.

Among that vast field, many
banks -- from regional institutions to tiny community lenders -- are holding
huge portfolios of rapidly souring loans. Unlike their larger rivals, these
banks lack the diverse income streams to overcome the brutal operating
environment.

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets estimate that 60% of
the top 100 U.S. banks that weren't included in the stress tests would need to
raise new capital based on the Fed's loss assumptions.

—Jane J. Kim
contributed to this article.
Write to David Enrich at
david.enrich@wsj.com, Robin Sidel at robin.sidel@wsj.com and Deborah Solomon at
deborah.solomon@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1



AIG blames market disruption for loss

By Henny Sender in New York

Financial Times
Published: May 8 2009 00:11

American
International Group reported a $4.35bn net loss in the first quarter, reflecting
continuing markdowns of the value of credit insurance sold by its financial
products unit.

The company blamed “restructuring and market
disruption charges and accounting charges related to taxes” for its performance.
AIG’s loss, which amounted to $1.98 a share, follows the $62bn loss it took in
the last quarter of 2008, the largest quarterly loss in US corporate history,
and a loss of $8.9bn for the year-ago period.

AIG Financial
Products, AIG’s financial service unit, had an operating loss of $1.1bn. AIGFP
recorded a $454m markdown of the value of the remaining $12bn credit insurance
it sold on subprime mortgage securities, showing just how damaging the business
continues to be. The group continued to wind down the credit insurance it
provided to European banks to less than $200bn in nominal exposure and said it
did not expect to make payments on those contracts.

But of greater
concern to analysts was the weakness of AIG’s core insurance arms. Operating
income was down for the general insurance business as net premiums fell 17.5 per
cent compared with the year-ago period. Premiums in the life assurance business
also declined, leading the firm to increase its dependence on investment income.
The firm denied that it had engaged in aggressive pricing.

Much of
the discussion on the group’s results concerned AIG’s asset sales and its
efforts to generate cash to repay the government for its loans and other support
in place since September last year. AIG, once the world’s largest insurance
group, is being forced by the government to spin off many of its crown jewels
and wind down many of its operations. The company declined to speculate on how
much asset sales have raised so far.

Among options is a public
offering of a 20 per cent stake in AIU Holdings, which was spun off in April to
try to insulate the core insurance unit from the stigma of the AIG brand.


While many financial institutions that have accepted public capital are
struggling to maintain a difficult balance between the desires of the government
and their private shareholders, AIG, which has received almost $200bn in support
from the government has far less leeway to decide its fate.

“We are
making good progress and stabilising the business,” said Edward Liddy, chief
executive in a call with investors.

Copyright The Financial Times
Limited 2009


MAY 8, 2009, 7:22 A.M. ET

Obama to
Unveil Plan to Help Unemployed

Associated Press


WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will outline steps Friday to help the
unemployed pursue education and training, and at the same time keep their
unemployment benefits.

Currently, people who are out of work and
want to go back to school have to give up their monthly unemployment check. And
if they decide to return to school, they often don't qualify for federal grants
because eligibility is based upon the previous year's income.

The
president was announcing the new measures hours after the government releases
its April unemployment report. The national unemployment rate stands at a
25-year high of 8.5%, and many analysts expect it to climb to 8.9%.


Under the measures Mr. Obama was scheduled to outline, according to the White
House:

-The Labor Department will encourage states to update rules
during economic downturns so that the unemployed can enroll in community
colleges and other education or training programs without giving up their
benefits. States generally require people who collect unemployment to be
actively looking for work, which can make it difficult to sign up for school or
job training. Going to school will satisfy the requirement that they be actively
seeking new employment.

-The Education Department will encourage
colleges to increase financial aid packages for the unemployed. Colleges can
consider an unemployed worker's situation and make them eligible for Pell
Grants, which help low-income students afford college, and other aid. An
unemployed person could get a Pell Grant and use it to pay for education or job
training without giving up unemployment benefits. Beginning in July, the maximum
Pell Grant will be boosted by $500, to $5,350.

"Our unemployment
insurance system should no longer be a safety net, but a stepping-stone to a new
future," Mr. Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery Friday. "It should
offer folks educational opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have" and give
them skills they need to "get ahead when the economy comes back."


Mr. Obama has directed Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Education Secretary Arne
Duncan to implement the changes. Both departments also have launched a new Web
site, http://www.opportunity.gov , to help get the word out to the public.


States also will send letters to every unemployment recipient describing
available training opportunities and financial support.

US War Update: Ex-Soldier Found Guilty of Rape, Murder; Hundreds of Thousands
Flee Fighting in Pakistan; Military Denies Killing 147 Afghan Civilians

Anti-American demonstrations took place in Iraq on October 18, 2008. People
demanded that the imperialist occupation inside the country be halted
immediately.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Ex-soldier could get death
in Iraq rape, slayings

By BRETT BARROUQUERE, Associated Press Writer


PADUCAH, Ky. – A former soldier's life will be in the hands of a western
Kentucky jury after the panel convicted him of raping and murdering a
14-year-old girl and killing her family in Iraq.

The 12 jurors were
scheduled to reconvene Monday to weigh the penalty in the case of one-time Army
Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas. Green was convicted Thursday in
federal court in Paducah in the March 12, 2006, attack on Abeer Qassim al-Janabi
and her family in a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq.


One of Green's defense attorneys, Darren Wolff, said the strategy all along was
to focus on the penalty phase and avoid a death sentence.

"Is this
verdict a surprise to us? No. The goal has always been to save our client's
life," Wolff said. "And, now we're going to go to the most important phase,
which is the sentencing phase and we're going to accomplish that goal."


The lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford, declined comment.


Green's father, John Green, declined to comment about the verdict, but told The
Associated Press that he might testify during the penalty phase of the trial.


In Youssifiyah, a town near where the incident took place, there was praise for
the verdict mixed with lingering anger and skepticism.

"If American
court has convicted the American soldier I will consider the U.S. government to
be just and fair," said Mohammed Abbas Muhsin, 36, an employee at a municipal
electricity department. "This verdict will give the rights back to the family,
the relatives and the clan of the victim Abeer."

But Ahmed Fadhil
al-Khafaji, a 32-year-old barber, said, "The American court and government are
just trying to show the world that they are fair and just." He added, "If they
are really serious about it, they should hand the soldier over to an Iraqi court
to be kept in Abu Ghraib prison and tried by Iraqis."

Civil servant
Qassim Abed, 45, said, "Even if this court convicts him, I don't believe he will
go to prison," he said. "The court should sentence them all to death for their
horrible crimes."

Charges were brought in civilian court under a
2000 law allowing the government to charge former soldiers with alleged crimes
committed overseas. Green was charged in June 2006, a month after being
discharged from the Army with a personality disorder before the military
investigated the murders and rape.

The trial started April 27.
Jurors deliberated for more than 10 hours beginning Wednesday before finding
Green guilty on all 16 counts.

His defense team had asked jurors to
consider the "context" of war, saying soldiers in Green's unit of the 101st
Airborne Division lacked leadership. Defense attorneys also said the Army missed
signs that Green was struggling after the loss of friends in combat and offered
little help to him and other members of his unit.

The prosecution
rested six days into the trial after presenting witnesses who said Green
confessed to the crimes and who put him at the home of the teen, Abeer Qassim
al-Janabi, heard him shoot her family and saw him rape and shoot the girl.


During opening statements, federal prosecutor Brian Skaret said Green talked
frequently of wanting to kill Iraqis, but when pressed, would tell people he
wasn't serious.

Prosecutors told jurors that the plot against the
family was hatched among Green and fellow soldiers who were playing cards and
drinking whiskey at a checkpoint. Talk turned to having sex with Iraqi women,
when one soldier mentioned the al-Janabi family, who lived nearby, Skaret said.


In closing arguments, Ford said the crime was planned and premeditated. "This
was a crime that was committed in cold blood," she said.

Three other
soldiers are serving time in military prison for their roles in the attack, and
testified against Green at his trial.
___

Associated Press
writer Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this story.



Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis flee fighting

MINGORA, Pakistan
– Pakistani jets screamed over a Taliban-controlled town Friday and bombed
suspected militant positions as hundreds of thousands fled in terror and other
trapped residents appealed for a pause in the fighting so they could escape.


The U.N. said half a million people have either already left or are trying to
flee the bombings in the northwestern Swat Valley area that followed strong U.S.
pressure on nuclear-armed Pakistan to fight back against militants advancing
toward the capital as a now-defunct peace deal crumbled.

Pakistan
has launched at least a dozen operations in the border region in recent years,
but most ended inconclusively and after massive destruction and significant
civilian deaths. It remains a haven for al-Qaida and Taliban militants, foreign
governments say.

To end one of those protracted offensives, the
government signed a peace accord in Swat that provided for Islamic law in the
region. But that deal began unraveling last month when Swat Taliban fighters
moved into Buner, a neighboring district just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from
Islamabad.

Pakistan's prime minister appealed for international
assistance late Thursday for the growing refugee crisis and vowed to defeat the
militants in the latest operation.

"I appeal to the people of
Pakistan to support the government and army at this crucial time," Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in a television address. "We pledge to
eliminate the elements who have destroyed the peace and calm of the nation and
wanted to take Pakistan hostage at gunpoint."

The military hailed
signs of the public's mood shifting against the Taliban after the militants used
the peace deal to regroup and advance.

"The public have seen their
real face," Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said. "They realize their agenda goes much
beyond Shariah (Islamic) courts. They have a design to expand."


Still, the pro-Western government will face a stiff task to keep a skeptical
nation behind its security forces.

The mayor of Mardan, the main
district to the south of the fighting, said an estimated 250,000 people had fled
in recent days and that more were on the move. Of those, 4,500 were staying in
camps, while the rest were with relatives or rented accomodation, he said.


Pakistani officials have said up to 500,000 are expected leave. The exodus from
Swat adds to the more than 500,000 already displaced by fighting elsewhere in
Pakistan's volatile border region with Afghanistan.

A spokesman for
the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Ron Redmond, said Friday in Geneva that
up to 200,000 people have arrived in safe areas in the past few days and that
another 300,000 are on the move or are about to flee.

Military
operations are taking place in three districts that stretch over some 400 square
miles (1,000 square kilometers). Much of the fighting has been in the Swat
Valley's main city of Mingora, a militant hub that was home to around 360,000
people before the insurgency two years ago.

Many of those have fled
the city, but tens of thousand remain. Some have said the Taliban are not
allowing them to leave, perhaps because they want to use them as "human shields"
and make the army unwilling to use force.

"We want to leave the
city, but we cannot go out because of the fighting," said one resident, Hidayat
Ullah. "We will be killed, our children will be killed, our women will be killed
and these Taliban will escape."

"Kill terrorists, but don't harm
us," he pleaded.

The military says that more than 150 militants and
several soldiers have been killed since the offensive began last week. It has
not given any figures for civilian deaths, but witness and local media say they
have occurred. A hospital in Mardan just south of the battle zone on Thursday
was treating 45 civilians with serious gunshot or shrapnel wounds.


Among the youngest patients was Chaman Ara, a 12-year-old girl with shrapnel
wedged in her left leg. She said she was wounded last week when a mortar shell
hit the truck taking her family and others out of Buner.

She said
seven people died, including one of her cousins, and pointed to a nearby bed
where the boy's wounded mother lay prone. "We mustn't tell her yet. Please don't
tell her," she whispered.
___

An AP reporter in Mingora who
was not identified for security reasons and writer Riaz Khan in Mardan
contributed to this report.


US denies 147 civilians killed in
Afghan violence

By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer


KABUL – The U.S. military said Friday that reports that as many as 147 civilians
died in fighting involving American forces and the Taliban were "extremely
over-exaggerated" and said the investigators were still analyzing the data
collected at the site.

Officials said preliminary findings of the
joint U.S.-Afghan investigation into the deaths in the villages of Ganjabad and
Gerani in the western Farah province could be released as early as Friday, but
they have yet to schedule an announcement.

Reports of the large
number of civilian deaths come at an awkward time for the Obama administration,
as the U.S. steps up its military campaign here while emphasizing the importance
of nonmilitary efforts to stabilize the country.

A local official
said that he collected from residents the names of 147 people killed during
fighting on Monday night and Tuesday. If true, it would be the deadliest case of
civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted
the Taliban regime.

But the U.S. military described that toll from
the fighting as over the top.

"The investigators and the folks on
the ground think that those numbers are extremely over-exaggerated," U.S.
military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said. "We are definitely nowhere
near those estimates."

Mathias said she could not yet provide
estimates of how many people were killed as the team has yet to produce its
findings.

Afghan residents say the destruction was from aerial
bombing. U.S. officials have suggested that at least some of the deaths were
caused by insurgents, whom the military accuses of using civilians as human
shields when fighting with its forces.

In a video obtained Friday by
Associated Press Television News, villagers are seen wrapping the mangled bodies
of some of the victims in blankets and cloths and lining them up on the dusty
ground.

In one shot, two children are lifted from a blanket with
another adult already in it. The children's faces are blackened, and parts of
their tunics are soaked in what appears to be coagulated blood.


Their limp bodies are then put on the ground, wrapped in another cloth and put
next to the other bodies. It was not clear how many bodies were in the room
where the video was shot.

The man who shot the video said many of
the bodies he filmed in the village of Gerani on Tuesday were in pieces. He
spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from security
agencies.

It was not possible to independently verify the
authenticity of the video.

Investigators on Thursday visited the
scene of the violence, where sobbing relatives showed them graves and the
demolished buildings where they said the victims had sheltered.

"The
joint investigators are back and they are all discussing what they found,"
Mathias said. "We are still corroborating."

President Barack Obama
expressed sympathy over the loss of life in a White House meeting Wednesday with
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who contends that such killings undermine support
for the fight against resurgent Taliban militants.

U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert Gates, whose two-day visit in Afghanistan was overshadowed by
the case, offered a new expression of U.S. regret for the deaths but stopped
short of taking blame.

"We regret any, even one, innocent civilian
casualty and will make whatever amends are necessary," Gates said Thursday
during a visit to the war zone. "We have expressed regret regardless of how this
occurred."

Abdul Basir Khan, a member of Farah's provincial council
who said he helped the joint delegation from Kabul with their examination
Thursday, said he collected names of 147 dead — 55 at one site and 92 at
another. Khan said he gave his tally to the Kabul team.

He said
villagers told investigators that many of the dead were buried in mass graves of
20 or so people. Investigators did not exhume the bodies, according to Khan.


"They were pointing to graves and saying, 'This is my son, this is my
daughter,'" Khan said.

Villagers said they gathered children, women
and elderly men in several compounds near the village of Gerani to keep them
away from the fighting, but that the compounds were hit by airstrikes. The
International Committee of the Red Cross has also said that women and children
were among dozens of dead people its teams saw in two villages.

But
what happened remained a matter of dispute.

Three U.S. defense
officials, speaking anonymously, said Thursday that it is possible the
investigators would find a mix of causes for the deaths — that some were caused
by the firefight between the Americans and the Taliban, some by the U.S.
airstrike and some deliberately killed by Taliban fighters hoping U.S. bombings
would be blamed.

US Banks 'Need to Raise $75 Billion'

Pan-African News Wire editor, Abayomi Azikiwe, with Sandra Hines of the
Moratorium Now Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions, outside Bank of
America on July 22, 2008 in downtown Detroit. (Photo: Alan Pollock).

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Friday, May 08, 2009

02:08 Mecca time, 23:08 GMT

US banks 'need to raise $75bn'


Wells Fargo is one of 10 US banks found to need more capital if an economic
crisis deepens

Ten US banks need to raise almost $75bn in
additional funds to survive a further major slump in the economy, the US central
bank has said, after carrying out "stress tests" on 19 of the country's biggest
banks.

Bank of America needs to raise $34bn, more than any other
bank, Wells Fargo almost $14bn, and Citigroup needs to raise $5.5bn, the Federal
Reserve said on Thursday.

The administration of Barack Obama, the US
president, hopes the firms can raise the capital holes from private sources,
although Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the government
is prepared to help if needed.

"Our government, through the treasury
department, stands ready to provide whatever additional capital may be necessary
to ensure that our banking system is able to navigate a challenging economic
downturn," Bernanke said in a statement.

Bernanke said that the
results should "provide considerable comfort" to US investors as almost all of
the banks has enough assets to survive the hypothetical adverse scenario.


Stress tests

Nineteen banks were asked to project their income and
expenses until 2011, and disclose how much money they would have in reserve.


A stress test is a type of "worst case scenario" where the government outlines a
hypothetical situation in which the economy gets progressively worse.


This one looked at how the 19 banks would fare if the economy were to shrink by
more than three per cent, and unemployment continued to rise.


"Roughly half the firms, though, need to enhance their capital structure to put
greater emphasis on common equity, which provides institutions the best
protection during periods of stress".

The total figure also appeared
to be small enough to ensure that the White House would not have to approach
congress for more money after the $700bn bailout of financial firms approved
last year by George Bush, the previous US president.

Citigroup, Bank
of America and Wells Fargo have already received about $65bn in government
bailout money.

James Galbraith, a US economist, told Al Jazeera that
questions over the health of the banks remained.

"If the test showed
they did not need capital, no one would believe them," he said.

"The
real question is that whether the toxic assets they hold are so riddled with
fraud and corruption that they [the Banks] cannot recover ... or whether they
are not."

"Until the assets are examined, the stress tests are not
going to give us a definitive answer."

Source: Al Jazeera and
agencies

General Giap Wages New Battle For Environment in Vietnam

General Vo Nguyen Giap of the Vietnam People's Army has recently celebrated
his 97th birthday. General Giap, a revolutionary journalist and military
tactician, is respected throughout the world.
Originally uploaded
by Pan-African News
Wire File Photos

Friday, May 08, 2009
02:23 Mecca
time, 23:23 GMT

New battle for old Vietnam soldier


By Tom Fawthrop in Hanoi

Bauxite critics say the mining would ruin
the rich eco-tourism potential of the highlands

Fifty-five years
after masterminding a military victory that led to the end of French colonial
rule in Indochina, Vietnam's celebrated General Vo Nguyen Giap is still
fighting.

The 98-year-old's latest battle - with words rather than
bullets - is to save the environment and his "enemy" is bauxite mining.


In its quest for rapid economic development, Vietnam's government has committed
to mining an estimated 5.3 billion tonnes of bauxite, the main ore in aluminium,
most of it located in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong.


Giap, who orchestrated the historic defeat of the French army at Dien Bien Phu
on May 7, 1954, has called on the Vietnamese government to halt those plans,
citing environmental damage, harm to ethnic minorities, and a threat to national
security as reasons.

The man who led North Vietnamese forces against
the US in the Vietnam War has written two open letters - the latest just last
month - against the government's bauxite plans, and his stand appears to have
inspired others.

In a rare expression of public opposition in the
one-party communist country, 135 intellectuals and scientists signed a petition
that was delivered to the president of the national assembly in Hanoi.


They called on the government to stop further development of new bauxite
projects in the Central Highlands until a proper investigation of the
environmental impact is completed.

Nguyen Tan Dung, the prime
minister, has called bauxite mining "a major policy of the party and the state"
and says the projects will go ahead while environmental issues are addressed.


But according to Professor Vo Quy, one of the country's foremost
environmentalists, "damage to the environment far outweighs any economic
benefits".

"I support economic development, but not bauxite mines,"
he told Al Jazeera, adding that the Central Highlands was an "area of stunning
beauty with rich eco-tourism potential and a highly productive agricultural
zone".

Fallout fears

Bauxite extraction produces thousands
of tonnes of toxic waste known as "red sludge" according to Quy and other
experts.

Vietnam's fledgling environmental movement fears the toxic
residue could poison rivers that flow into heavily populated areas, including
the vital Mekong Delta in the south - home to fish farms and some of Vietnam's
most productive rice paddies.

In his letters, Giap called on
scientists, managers and social activists to "suggest to the party and the state
to have a sound policy on the bauxite projects in the Central Highlands".


"It is also my opinion that we shouldn't exploit the bauxite. The exploitation
will cause serious consequences on the environment, society and national
defence," he wrote.

The general also cited a 1980s report that warned
the government that exploiting bauxite in the region "would cause devastating,
long-term ecological damage, not only for local residents, but would also harm
the lives and environment of people in the southern plains of the central
provinces".

Contract signed

Despite pressure from the
general, the government has gone ahead and signed a contract with a subsidiary
of Chinese aluminium firm Chinalco to mine bauxite in the highlands.


But it did organise a two-day seminar in Hanoi last month for scientists to
discuss how to minimise damage to the environment from bauxite mining.


And it said that the Chinese bauxite project would be reduced in scale, with
restrictions placed on the numbers of Chinese workers.

Critics had
complained that having thousands of Chinese mine workers in the strategic
Central Highlands was an unacceptable security threat, given Vietnam's long
history of conflict with its northern neighbour.

Nguyen Thien, a
Vietnamese writer says the project "is all so illogical and irrational that many
people suspect it is a part of a secret deal between Vietnam and China with
strategic implications".

Still others say that bauxite mining is not
even commercially viable since it requires a lot of water and electricity –
commodities often in short supply in Vietnam.

Professor Dao Cong
Tien, a former president of Ho Chi Minh City's Economics University, says the
mining was likely to result in a water shortage which would severely affect
Central Highlands agricultural producers.

Nguyen Huu Ninh, a Nobel
Prize winner for his work on climate change, questions whether bauxite projects
benefit the nation.

"There is no sense in a project that does not
bring benefits to local people," he says.

But despite the doubts and
objections, the government has said that the bauxite project will go ahead.


For Giap, the general who has triumphed in wars of resistance against French,
and later US forces, the battle to protect the forests and rivers of the Central
Highlands from the encroachments of Chinese economic may prove to be his
toughest yet.

Source: Al Jazeera

"Attention MOVE: This is America!", Article by Hans Bennett

Ramona Africa of MOVE, Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of the Pan-African News Wire
and Andrea Egypt of MECAWI at the Cass Cafe after a Detroit public meeting
on the cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the MOVE 9 on Aug. 2, 2008. (Photo: Alan
Pollock).
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

This article below has
just been released at Born Black Magazine. This is based on an article I wrote a
few years ago, and I have updated it to include news from last years parole
denial for the MOVE 9, and to situate it with the current support campaign for
MOVE 9 Parole. A demonstration is being organized in Philadelphia on May 16,
marking the anniversary of the May 13, 1985 massacre, and to mark the release of
the MOVE 9. Please help spread the word.


http://www.bornblackmag.com/move_9.html

Attention, MOVE: This is
America!

--At the 24th anniversary of the May 13 massacre, MOVE
organizes for 2009 Parole Hearings

By Hans Bennett
(Born Black
Magazine, May 2009)

“Attention, MOVE: This Is America! You must
abide by the laws of the United States!” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sambor
declared through a loudspeaker, minutes before the May 13, 1985 police assault
on the revolutionary MOVE organization’s home. This assault killed 5 children
and 6 adults, including MOVE founder John Africa. That morning police shot over
10,000 rounds of bullets into their West Philadelphia home, and detonated
explosives on the front, and both sides of their house.

Following an
afternoon standstill, a State Police helicopter dropped a C-4 bomb, illegally
supplied by the FBI, on MOVE’s roof. The bomb started a fire that eventually
destroyed 60 homes: the entire block of a middle-class black neighborhood.
13-year old Birdie Africa and 30-year old Ramona Africa were the only survivors,
after they dodged police gunfire and escaped from the fire with permanent burn
scars.

Today, Ramona recalls being in the basement with the children
when the assault began. “Water started pouring in from the hoses. Then the tear
gas came after explosives blew the whole front of the house off. After hearing a
lot of gunfire, things became pretty quiet. It was then that they dropped the
bomb without any warning.”

“At first, those of us in the basement
didn’t realize that the house was on fire because there was so much tear gas
that it was hard to recognize smoke. We opened the door and started to yell that
we were coming out with the kids. The kids were hollering too. We know they
heard us but the instant we were visible in the doorway, they opened fire. You
could hear the bullets hitting all around the garage area. They deliberately
took aim and shot at us. Anybody can see that their aim, very simply, was to
kill MOVE people—not to arrest anybody.”

After surviving the
bombing, Ramona was charged with conspiracy, riot, and multiple counts of simple
and aggravated assault. Her sentence was 16 months to 7 years, but she served
the full 7 years when she was denied parole for not renouncing MOVE. In court,
all charges listed on the May 11 arrest warrant, used to justify the assault,
were dismissed by the judge. Says Ramona, “This means that they had no valid
reason to even be out there, but they did not dismiss the charges placed on me
as a result of what happened after they came out.”

Concluding
Ramona’s 1986 trial, Judge Stiles explicitly told the jurors not to consider any
wrongdoing by police and other government officials, because they would be held
accountable in “other” proceedings. This would never happen, as Ramona explains:
“not one single official, police officer, or anybody else has ever been held
accountable for the murder of my family.”

“People should not be
fooled by this government using words like ‘justice.’ My family members, who
were parents of most of those children that were murdered on May 13, have been
in prison for almost 30 years to this day, for the accusation of a murder that
they didn't commit, that nobody saw them commit. Meanwhile, the people who
murdered their babies are still collecting paychecks, still seen as respectable,
and never did a day in jail.”

Origins of the Confrontation


The 1985 police bombing was the culmination of many years of political
repression by Philadelphia authorities. Much has already been written about the
events of May 13, 1985, but less is told of the “MOVE 9”: Janine, Debbie, Janet,
Merle, Delbert, Mike, Phil, Eddie, and Chuck Africa. These nine MOVE members
were jointly sentenced in the 1978 killing of Officer James Ramp after a
year-long police stakeout of MOVE’s Powelton Village home. Their parole hearings
come up in 2008.

Ramona Africa explains, “The government came out to
Powelton Village in 1978 not to arrest, but to kill. Having failed to do that,
my family was unjustly convicted of a murder that the government knows they
didn’t commit, and imprisoned them with 30-100 year sentences. Later, when we as
a family dared to speak up against this, they came out to our home again and
dropped a bomb on us, burned babies alive.”

First, some history:


Founded in the early 70’s by John Africa, MOVE sought to expose and challenge
all injustice and abuse of all forms of life, including animals and nature.
Along with neighborhood activism, MOVE also organized nonviolent protests at
zoos, animal testing facilities, public forums, corporate media outlets, and
other places.

MOVE’s first conflicts with police began at these
nonviolent protests when Mayor Frank Rizzo’s police reacted in their typical
brutal fashion. From the very beginning, MOVE acted on the principle of
self-defense and “met fist with fist.” Defending this today, Ramona Africa
explains “I’m sure the police were outraged that these ‘niggers’ had stood up to
them, telling them that they couldn’t come and beat on our men, women, and
babies without us defending themselves. What are people supposed to do? Sit back
and take that shit?”

Given Rizzo’s iron-fist rule, confrontation
with MOVE was inevitable. Infamous for his racist brutality as Police
Commissioner from 1968-71, Rizzo once publicly boasted that his police force
would be so repressive that he’d “make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.” He
was elected mayor in 1972 and by 1979, his police force was indicted by the
federal government, when the Justice Dept, for the first time ever, brought suit
against civil authorities--not just police officials. The suit named Rizzo and
20 other top city officials (inclusive of police command) for aiding and
abetting police brutality.

Police attacks on MOVE escalated on May
9, 1974 when two pregnant MOVE women, Janet and Leesing, miscarried after being
beaten by police and jailed overnight without food or water. On April 29, 1975,
Alberta Africa lost her baby after she was arrested, dragged from a holding
cell, held down, and beaten in the stomach and vagina.

On the night
of March 18, 1976, seven MOVE prisoners had just been released and were greeting
their family in front of their Powelton Village home in West Philadelphia, when
police arrived and set upon the crowd. Six MOVE men were arrested and beaten so
badly that they suffered fractured skulls, concussions and chipped bones. Janine
Africa was thrown to the ground and stomped on while holding her 3-week old Life
Africa. The baby’s skull was crushed and Life was dead.

After MOVE
notified the media of the attack and baby’s death, the police publicly claimed
that because there was no birth certificate, there was no baby and that MOVE was
lying. In response, MOVE invited journalists and political figures to their home
to view the corpse. Shortly after the attack, renowned Philadelphia journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal (now on death row) interviewed an eyewitness who had watched
from a window directly across the street. "I saw that baby fall," the old man
said. "They were clubbing the mother. I knew the baby was going to get hurt. I
even reached for the phone to call the police, before I realized that it was the
police. You know what I mean?" The District Attorney’s office declined to
prosecute the murder.

The Standoff Begins

In response to
the escalated police violence, MOVE staged a major demonstration on May 20,
1977. They took to a large platform in front of their house, with several
members holding what appeared to be rifles. MOVE explains that: “We told the
cops there wasn’t gonna be any more undercover deaths. This time they better be
prepared to murder us in full public view ‘cause if they came at us with fists,
we were gonna come back at them with fists.

"If they came at us with
clubs, we’d come back at them with clubs, and if they came at us with guns, we’d
use guns too. We don’t believe in death-dealing guns. We believe in life, but we
knew the cops wouldn’t be too quick to attack us if they had to face the same
stuff they dished out so casually on unarmed defenseless folk.”


Speaking through megaphones on the platform, MOVE demanded a release of their
political prisoners and an end to violent harassment from the city. Heavily
armed police surrounded the house, and a likely police attack was averted when a
crowd from the community broke through the police line and stood in front of
MOVE’s home to shield the residents from gunfire.

Days later, Judge
Lynn Abraham responded by issuing warrants for 11 MOVE members on riot charges
and “possession of an instrument of crime.” Police then set up a 24-hour watch
around MOVE’s house to arrest members leaving the property, a standoff that
lasted for almost a year.

Mayor Rizzo escalated the conflict on
March 16, 1978, when police sealed off a four-block perimeter around MOVE
headquarters, blocking food and shutting of the water supply. Rizzo boasted the
blockade “was so tight, a fly couldn’t get through.” Numerous community
residents were beaten and arrested when they attempted to deliver food and water
to the pregnant women, nursing babies, and children inside.

After
the two-month starvation blockade, MOVE and the City came to a disputed
agreement under pressure from the federal government and a very sophisticated
campaign mounted by a Philly-based community coalition. On May 8, 1978, MOVE
prisoners were released, and the police searched MOVE’s house for weapons.
Police were shocked to find only inoperable dummy firearms and road flares made
to look like dynamite.

In the agreement, the DA agreed to drop all
charges against MOVE and effectively purge MOVE from the court system within 4-6
weeks. In return, MOVE would move out of their home within a 90-day period,
while the city assisted them in finding a new location.

After
searching the MOVE home and finding only inoperable dummy weapons, police began
to modify terms of the agreement, focusing on the alleged 90-day “deadline,” for
MOVE to leave their home.

MOVE says that the 90-day time period had
been described to them as “a workable timetable for us to relocate,” but “was
misrepresented to the media as an absolute deadline. MOVE made it clear to
officials that we’d move to other houses but we were keeping our headquarters
open as a school.”

At an August 2, 1978 hearing, Judge Fred DiBona
ruled that MOVE had violated the deadline and signed arrest warrants that would
justify the police siege the following week.

The morning of August
8, hundreds of riot police moved in, bulldozers toppled their fence & outdoor
platform, and cranes smashed their home's windows. Forty-five armed police
searched the house and found that MOVE was barricaded in the basement. Police
began to flood them out with high-pressure hoses.

Suddenly gunshots
fired, likely from a house across the street. Police opened fire on MOVE’s
house—using over 1,000 rounds of ammunition. The police and most of the
mainstream media would later report that MOVE had fired these first shots.
However, KYW Radio reporters John McCullough and Larry Rosen both recalled
hearing the first shot come from a house diagonally across the street, where
they saw an arm holding a gun out of a third floor window.

The
subsequent gunfire was chaotic and mostly directed at the flooded basement.
Officer James Ramp was fatally wounded in the melee. Three other policemen and
several firemen were also hit. A stake-out officer admitted later, under oath,
that he had emptied his carbine shooting into the basement, where he heard
screaming women and crying children. At a staff meeting days later, a police
captain noted “an excessive amount of unnecessary firing on the part of police
personnel when there were no targets per se to shoot at.”

When MOVE
eventually surrendered and came out of the house, their children were taken and
the adults were viciously beaten. Chuck and Mike Africa had been shot in the
basement. Live television documented the violent arrest of Delbert Africa. He
was smashed in the head with a rifle butt and metal helmet. While on the ground,
he was brutally stomped. Twelve MOVE adults were arrested.

At a
press conference that afternoon, asked whether this was the last Philadelphia
would see of MOVE, Rizzo proclaimed “the only way we’re going to end them is,
get that death penalty back, put them in the electric chair, and I’ll pull the
switch.”

Destruction of Evidence

The subsequent case
against the “MOVE 9,” was plagued by factual inconsistencies and illegal police
manipulation of evidence.

In a recent interview with the author,
Temple University professor and Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington
elaborated on what he said in the 2004 documentary MOVE, narrated by Howard
Zinn, that “the police department knows who killed Officer Ramp. It was another
police officer, who inadvertently shot the guy. They have fairly substantial
evidence that it was a mistake, but again they’ll never admit it. I got this
from a number of different sources in the police department, including sources
on the SWAT team and sources in ballistics.”

Manipulation of
evidence began immediately after the MOVE adults were arrested and Mayor Rizzo
ordered the police to bulldoze MOVE’s home by 1:30pm that day. Police did
nothing to preserve the crime scene, inscribe chalk marks, or measure ballistics
angles. A few days before, a Philadelphia judge had signed an order barring the
city from destroying the house, but this order was explicitly violated.


In a preliminary hearing on a Motion to Dismiss, MOVE unsuccessfully argued that
destroying their home had prevented them from proving that it was physically
impossible for MOVE to have shot Ramp. MOVE cited the case of Illinois Black
Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark where the preservation of the crime scene
enabled investigators to prove that all the bullet holes in the walls and doors
were the result of police gunfire.

The photographic evidence
presented in court was also incomplete. Before demolishing MOVE’s house, police
did take photos of empty shelves and claimed they had been used to store their
guns. However, there were no photos of MOVE pointing or shooting guns from the
basement windows, of police removing weapons from the house, or supporting the
claim that police removed guns from the mud of the basement floor. To the
contrary, a police video viewed in court actually shows then police commissioner
Joseph O’Neill passing guns into MOVE’s front basement window.


Strongly suggesting the deliberate destruction of evidence, police video footage
was also blanked out at the point where Ramp was shot on all three police
videotapes presented in court.

Ballistics evidence presented about
Officer Ramp’s death is also inconsistent. In the documentary film MOVE, Linn
Washington recalls the treatment of evidence at the trial. “They had a big
problem with the authenticity and thus the validity of the medical examiner’s
report. The prosecutor took out a pencil and erased items in the report that he
didn’t like. Now MOVE was objecting and the judge was saying ‘sit down and shut
up’ and allowed the guy to do that.”

On Aug.8, The Philadelphia
Bulletin reported that Ramp had been “shot in the back of the head according to
the police log.” The next day, the Daily News instead reported that the bullet
head entered his throat at a downward trajectory in the direction towards his
heart. Later, in court, the prosecution’s medical examiner, Dr. Marvin Aronson
testified that the bullet entered his “chest from in front and coursed
horizontally without deviation up or down.”

In a recent newsletter,
MOVE argues that if they had shot from the basement, the bullet would have been
coming at an “upward” trajectory instead of the “horizontal” and “downward”
accounts that had been presented. This crucial point aside, it would have been
essentially impossible to take a clean shot at that time. The water in the
basement, estimated more than 7 feet deep, forced the adults to hold up children
and animals to prevent them from drowning.

“The water pressure was
so powerful it was picking up 6 foot long railroad ties (beams that were part of
our fence) and throwing them through the basement windows in on us. There’s no
way anybody could have stood up against this type of water pressure, debris, and
shoot a gun, or aim to kill somebody.”

On May 4, 1980, Janine,
Debbie, Janet, Merle, Delbert, Mike, Phil, Eddie, and Chuck Africa were
convicted of 3rd degree murder, conspiracy, and multiple counts of attempted
murder and aggravated assault. Each was given a sentence of 30-100 years. Two
other people denounced MOVE and were released. Consuela Africa was tried
separately because the prosecutor found no evidence that she was a MOVE member.


Mumia Abu-Jamal writes that the MOVE 9 “were convicted of being united, not in
crime, but in rebellion against the system and in resistance to the armed
assaults of the state. They were convicted of being MOVE members.”


When Judge Malmed was a guest a few days later on a talk radio show, Abu-Jamal
called in and asked him who killed Ramp. The Judge admitted, “I have absolutely
no idea” and explained that since MOVE called itself a family, he sentenced them
as such.

The 2009 Parole Hearing

Mike Africa, Jr. wants
his parents to come home. The son of MOVE 9 prisoners Mike and Debbie, Mike Jr.
was born in prison just weeks after his mother withstood police gunfire and a
vicious beating on Aug. 8, 1978. Today, Mike Jr. explains that growing up
without parents is “very hard. It’s like missing part of yourself. The system
separated MOVE people like they did because they know it’s hard to deal with
being separated from your family.”

After the May 13, 1985 bombing,
Mike Jr’s grandmother decided to leave MOVE, and brought him and his sister with
her. “Not being in MOVE and not having parents was especially hard because I
didn’t understand why my parents were in prison I was ashamed. It was never
really explained to me until Ramona brought me back to MOVE following her 1992
release.” Since returning to MOVE, Mike Jr. has traveled around the world
publicizing the struggle to release his parents and the other MOVE 9 prisoners.


MOVE 9 member Merle Africa tragically died behind bars in 1998 under
circumstances MOVE feels were suspicious. 2008 marked the 30th year of the
remaining eight’s imprisonment, and they were all eligible for parole for the
first time. Supporters mobilized for the parole hearings and initiated an online
video series,online petition, and a telephone & letter campaign contacting the
parole board. Despite this pressure, all eight were denied parole, even though
the women never even faced weapons charges.

With the 2009 parole
hearings now underway, MOVE and supporters are organizing for their release by
contacting the parole board and organizing a demonstration inPhiladelphia on May
16, also marking the 24th anniversary of the May 13, 1985 massacre.


Ramona Africa is particularly concerned about the parole board utilizing two
possible clauses that were implemented to deny parole in 2008.

First
is the “taking responsibility” clause, which basically demands a prisoner admit
guilt in order to be granted parole. “That is not acceptable, because it is
patently illegal. If a person was convicted in court, to then demand that they
admit guilt -- even when they are maintaining their innocence, as the MOVE 9 are
-- is ridiculous. The only issue for parole should be issues of misconduct in
prison that could indicate one’s not ready for parole. Other than that, an
inmate should be paroled,” explains Ramona.

Second is the “serious
nature of offense” clause. “This is patently illegal too because the judge took
this into consideration and when the sentence was issued, it meant that barring
any misconduct, problems, new charges, etc. this prisoner was to be released on
their minimum. To deny that is basically a re-sentence. We’re dealing with these
issues because when our family comes up for parole, we don’t want to hear this
nonsense.”

Ramona also urges to people to support Mumia Abu-Jamal,
who was just denied a new guilt-phase trial by the US Supreme Court, and
supporters are urging President Obama and Attorney General Holder to initiate a
civil-rights investigation.

“This brother’s life is on the line
here. He became a target of the government because he was the only journalist
that consistently reported on the truth about what was going on with MOVE. Mumia
gave us his support uncompromisingly throughout the years and that is why we
give him our support and loyalty now.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal writes today,
“The muted public response to the mass murder of MOVE members has set the stage
for acceptable state violence against radicals, against blacks, and against all
deemed socially unacceptable. … The twisted mentalities at work here are akin to
those of Nazi Germany, or perhaps more appropriately, of My Lai, of Vietnam, of
Baghdad, the spirit behind the mindlessly murderous mantra that echoed out of Da
Nang: ‘We had to destroy the village in order to save it.’ ”

Over
the years, MOVE has never been left in peace. The 1978 and 1985 police
destruction of MOVE’s homes; the arrest and capital sentence of reporter Mumia
Abu-Jamal, who covered the MOVE conflicts; the 1998 death of Merle Africa in
prison; and the 2002 custody battle over Zachary Gilbride Africa are only a few
examples of MOVE’s long history of confronting the system. This tradition is
best summed up by MOVE founder John Africa in his 1981 speech to the jury before
he was acquitted of federal weapons charges in the famous criminal trial, “John
Africa vs. The System”:

“It is past time for all poor people to
release themselves from the deceptive strangulation of society…This system has
failed you yesterday, failed you today, and has created conditions for failure
tomorrow, for society is wrong, the system is reeling, the courts of this
complex are filled with imbalance. Cops are insane, the judges enslaving, the
lawyers are just as the judges they confront. … trained by the system to be as
the system, to do for the system, exploit with the system, and MOVE ain’t gonna
close our eyes to this monster.”

Hans Bennett is an independent
multi-media journalist http://www.insubordination.blogspot.com and co-founder of
Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.abu-jamal-news.com


--For more information, please visit http://www.onamove.com or
http://www.move9parole.blogspot.com

--Watch the 2008 MOVE 9 Parole
Video Series featuring interviews with Mike and Ramona Africa, Confrontation in
Philadelphia, and the 2004 film MOVE, narrated by Howard Zinn.


--Permission to reprint this article is granted as long as Born Black Magazine
is cited as the original source: http://www.bornblackmag.com/move_9.html

DRC News Update: Amnesty Passed for Illegal Armed Groups; Goma Threatened With
Volcano

The shoreline in the Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma in the
eastern region. There have been joint military operations between the DRC,
Rwanda and Uganda against rebel forces.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

May 8, 2009
World
Briefing | Africa

Congo: Amnesty Passed for Illegal Armed Groups


By REUTERS

Lawmakers in the Democratic Republic of Congo passed a law
creating an amnesty for nearly two dozen illegal armed groups as part of a peace
deal meant to end fighting in the violence-ravaged east. The law, which pardons
acts of war and insurgency and was passed late on Wednesday, applies to
homegrown rebels and militias in North and South Kivu Provinces, where one
million people have been displaced by fighting since late 2006.

“We
want to open new paths to peace in our country,” Lambert Mende, the information
minister, said Thursday. Mr. Mende said the renegade general Laurent Nkunda, the
founder of the Tutsi-dominated National Congress for the Defense of the People,
would not be included in the amnesty. Mr. Nkunda is accused of committing war
crimes.


DRC-RWANDA: Volcanic activity "threatens Goma"


Destruction was wrought by the volcano near Goma in 2002
Specialists fear
it could erupt again soon

KIGALI, 7 May 2009 (IRIN) - Recent
volcanic activity in the Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira peaks in North Kivu Province
of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has triggered fears that the 600,000
people in Goma could be under threat, according to specialists.


Dieudonne Wafula, head of Goma’s Volcanological Observatory, told IRIN on 7 May
that the two volcanoes had shown early warnings of eruption.

"The
volcanoes could erupt any time; it could be in two days, or a week or two but
not later than two months from now," Wafula said, adding that the most at-risk
areas were villages east of Nyamulagira.

Wafula added that Goma, the
provincial capital, could also be under threat if Nyiragongo erupts. However, he
said, the lava levels in Nyiragongo were low and would not be expected to cause
extensive damage to the city, whose population has been swelling in the past few
years, fuelled mainly by the mineral trade as well as renewed fighting in rural
areas of North Kivu.

Mt Nyiragongo last erupted in 2002, spilling
lava into Goma and displacing at least 400,000 people. Infrastructure worth
millions of dollars was also destroyed.

An estimated two million
people who live around Lake Kivu, which straddles the DRC and Rwanda, are also
at risk of pollution from the airborne ash, which is usually triggered by a
volcanic eruption. Wafula said this was likely to contaminate drinking water,
poison livestock and disrupt air traffic.

According to the UN
Environmental Programme (UNEP), there is a mass of methane gas under the base of
Lake Kivu and a volcanic eruption could release a lethal cloud of carbon dioxide
from the lake, which could be disastrous for surrounding communities.


UNEP has in the past warned that rising water temperatures could ignite the
methane, forcing it to explode. Methane can release deadly gases, which are a
threat to human life, fish and livestock.

Gas power


Rwanda has on several occasions tried to extract the gas to neutralise the
“killer lake”.

In March, Rwanda signed a US$325 million agreement
with the US-based energy firm Contour Global to extract the gas and generate up
to 100 megawatts of power for itself as well as neighbouring countries.


According to Wafula, the Goma Observatory has already informed aid agencies to
prepare for possible evacuation and to provide assistance for people likely to
be affected.

Zebe Kitabingo, head of the local chapter of the
Congolese Red Cross, said in a statement in April that volunteers were on alert
to help the population.

However, according to Wafula, no evacuation
has so far taken place.

Cheikh Diouf, the UN security adviser in the
region, could not give an immediate comment on the possible volcanic eruption.


Report can be found online at:

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84271
This report does not
necessarily reflect the views of the Pan-African News Wire

Cholera Outbreak in Zimbabwe Continues to Decline, Says United Nations

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe speaks at an international forum. The
country has heightened security amid western threats aimed at
destabilization.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Cholera outbreak in
Zimbabwe continues to decline – UN

7 May 2009 –The cholera outbreak
that took hold of Zimbabwe from last August sustained its downward trend last
month while aid agencies continued their efforts to combat the disease,
according to the latest United Nations update.

The UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported 65 cholera infections by
the end of April with four deaths, compared to 26 cases and 13 deaths the
previous month.

The total number of people contracting cholera
reached 97,400 and the death toll stood at 4,271 since August 2008.


The Cholera Command and Control Centre continues to provide medical supplies to
the districts and all provinces have received cholera kits and generators, while
agencies partnering with the UN are supporting the control effort by providing
case management expertise, distributing non-food items, borehole drilling and
water trucking.

Also in April, basic hygiene kits were distributed
in 14 districts and additional non-food items (NFI) reached some 93,000
households, at least 465,000 people.

Aid agencies working in water,
sanitation and hygiene are also responding to cholera spikes as they occur,
focusing efforts in Harare in April.

The World Health Organization
(WHO) donated computers and communication equipment to the Ministry of Health
and Child Welfare, with the aim of strengthening surveillance through better
data management.

Zimbabwe News Update: IMF Reprieve; Zuma Congratulated; African Monetary Union
Needed

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and first lady Grace Amai, greeting the
delegates at the ZANU-PF national conference on December 19, 2008.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Zim earns IMF reprieve


Herald Reporters

THE International Monetary Fund has partially
lifted the suspension of technical assistance to Zimbabwe in recognition of the
country’s co-operation on reforming economic policies.

THE
International Monetary Fund has partially lifted the suspension of technical
assistance to Zimbabwe in recognition of the country’s co-operation on reforming
economic policies.

In a statement released on Wednesday following
Monday’s IMF executive board meeting, the Bretton Woods institution said it
would examine the decision at the next review of Zimbabwe’s financial
obligations.

"Effective from May 4, 2009, IMF technical assistance
can be provided to Zimbabwe in the areas of tax policy and administration,
payment systems, lender-of-last-resort operations and banking supervision and
central banking governance and accounting," the statement said.

The
decision will be analysed at the next review of Zimbabwe’s obligations to the
Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility-Exogenous Shock Facility Trust and at
subsequent six monthly reviews.

The half-yearly reviews will be held
for as long as Zimbabwe is in arrears to the Trust.

"In taking this
decision, the Executive Board took into account a significant improvement in
Zimbabwe’s co-operation on economic policies to address its arrears problems and
severe capacity constraints in the IMF’s core areas of expertise that represent
a major risk to the implementation of the Government’s macro-economic
stabilisation programme," the institution said.

Zimbabwe owes about
US$133 million to the PRGF-ESF Trust which led to the suspension of technical
assistance to the country.

The IMF has already hailed Government’s
efforts to revive the country’s economy through the Short-Term Emergency
Recovery Programme.

However, Finance Minister Tendai Biti — who
attended the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington, DC — said STERP
would fail if the United States government maintained its illegal sanctions law,
the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001.


According to ZDERA, the US Secretary of the Treasury is instructed to ensure any
American executive director at an international financial institution opposes
and votes against any extension by the respective institution of any loan,
credit or guarantee to Zimbabwe.

The British government, which
advocated sanctions against Zimbabwe following a bilateral dispute over land,
has said it will no longer vote against IMF, International Finance Corporation
and World Bank funding to Zimbabwe.

Minister Biti yesterday met with
ambassadors based in the country to apprise them on his recent trip to America.


The meeting, which was called for by the ambassadors, also discussed issues
related to finance requirements under STERP.

Under STERP, Minister
Biti said he gave the ambassadors a micro-breakdown of the requirements of each
sector.

He said that brief focused on the complete breakdown of what
the requirements are.

"For instance, in terms of water and
sanitation, we require US$225 million and that money is needed to buy filters,
water pumps and other accessories and it is that breakdown that we were giving
them.

"We want the ambassadors to look at the requirements and see
where they can come in," he said.

Minister Biti said they also
discussed issues related to the multi-donor trust fund.

The country
requires at least US$8 billion to fund its activities under STERP that is
expected to kick-start the economic recovery process.

The country
has so far received US$650 million in lines of credit from Botswana, South
Africa, Comesa and the PTA Bank.

Congratulations to Zuma, ANC



EDITOR — The South African elections have come and gone.

Tomorrow,
Cde Jacob Zuma will be inaugurated as the third president of the independent
Republic of South Africa.

As a revolutionary, I wish to extend my
deepest congratulations to Cde Zuma, the ANC and the people of South Africa, for
the dawn of yet another new era.

I was gratified to hear that one of
the five key areas that the Zuma presidency will concentrate on will be land
reform.

What lessons will South Africa draw from Zimbabwe’s Land
Reform Programme?

I also wish to congratulate the "mother of the
nation", Cde Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, for bouncing back into the political
limelight.

You had become so quiet sister!

The bumpy
road you traversed is well acknowledged by many, and we wish that you continue
to contribute positively to the development of South Africa and Africa as a
whole.

Varaidzo Ziyambe.

Harare.



Monetary union vital for Africa

By Mammo Muchie

TWO
obstacles prevent Africa from entering the phase of self-reliant development:
irrational fragmentation from a casual tearing-up of the continent into
incoherent real estates of the African peoples, and dependence on donors to
finance African development.

The first emanates from monumental
historical-political crimes that saw Africa divided according to the whims of
colonial powers.

This demands rectification by making the boundaries
innocuous to Africa’s peoples through allowing voluntary and free movement of
people.

The second is to create a unified African strategy and
approach to dealing with the outside donor world by neutralising the poison that
donor aid has come to be in Africa. Weak and fragmented states, largely unable
and not often in a position to mobilise internal resources, depend on external
sources of aid.

Political fragmentation has created unviable
economic entities.

Conversely, lack of success in economic
development has created weak political structures and so-called failed States
that fall prostrate with begging bowls.

Africa’s position as a donor
recipient bolsters donor agencies, accentuates inter-African fragmentation and
destroys the chance to evolve a unified African strategy.

Donor
econocentrism destroys Africa’s logocentric imagination, vision and strategy to
evolve a unified and Africa-centred development.

The G8 meeting in
Gleneagles promised US$50 billion and remains unfulfilled.

The grand
lesson is this: Africans must rely on Africans and must build their unity to own
their mineral and agricultural wealth and manufacture that into value-added
wealth.

Africa’s new relationship with the rest of the world will be
born when Africans learn to neutralise the harm that the unholy trinity of
loans, aid and debt has done to them.

One key initiative is to
establish a currency system that can largely self-finance an integrated African
development.

The existing State currencies that are not exchanged
directly with each other, and whose exchange rate is mediated with the dollar,
the franc and the euro, should give way to direct exchanges based on a fair
settlement.

Naturally, diversities, inequalities, different levels
of development, differing attitudes and interests present problems in
constructing a workable unified currency system.

It is precisely to
deal with these varied problems that Africa needs a currency system to create
liquidity.

The exchange of the local-to-local currency via a global
currency continues to fragment Africa and integrate discrete interests and
regions with the world economy.

The key is to find strategies for
Africa to integrate with the world economy as a whole and not in parts.


The domestication of the existing national currencies is necessary to make
Africa relink with the world economy on its own terms and not terms dictated by
others.

The move must be sensible, realistic and inclusive.


If the cost and benefits for the various sections of social groups can be fairly
worked out, possibilities exist even to neutralise transnational, supranational
actors, who will no doubt be worked up by the suggestion for a monetary union.


There are innumerable informal, spontaneous and voluntary cross-border
transactions in Africa. Those engaged in such transactions would prefer
exchanging their goods for hard currencies such as dollars or francs.


This is often related to the pegging of local currencies to the US dollar and
French franc.

An African currency that can serve as a sort of local
dollar or franc will stimulate the domestic market and communication among
African regions, peoples, communities, markets and states.

The
unified currency will assist gradually to overcome the limitation of many weak
currencies with new money serving as a unit of account, a store of value, means
of payment and means of circulation convertible within Africa.


African economies continue to import and export vertically and not horizontally.


This structure reflects a largely unchanged trade pattern between Africa’s
primary products and manufactured products from the Western world.


Economic diversification is still a job waiting to be done.

The
weakness of African currencies is tied to the lack of a diversified economic
structure.

The price of foreign money is high compared to the price
of local money.

For example, the French franc used to be 100 times
the local CFA franc in West and Central Africa.

One euro is CFA
665,957. Now the franc is dead in France replaced by the euro and is alive in
West and Central Africa!

Tourists and real estate dealers with
French francs or euros can purchase services and local assets in Africa with a
couple of thousands of these notes.

African exports should be
cheaper, but with so many tariff barriers to Africa’s primary and
semi-manufactured goods and worsening terms of trade, and unchanging commodity
portfolios, the advantage of devalued local currencies is neutralised.


Africa in the CFA zone largely loses both in its exports and imports based on
the existing arrangements.

Money and financial flows still occur
between Africa and the West rather than within Africa itself. Inter-African
integration, mobility of money, labour and capital is more difficult than the
movement of money, people and capital within African states.

This
pattern has been reinforced by Africa’s dependence on loans, grants and debt.


When debt repayment becomes a priority, the political economy of the interests
of the international financial institutions (IFIs) becomes paramount.


When improvement of the standard of livelihood of the population is a priority,
social spending will be necessary to bring it about.

However,
despite the rhetoric by the IFIs as "friends of the poor" following policies of
poverty reduction, loans through such schemes as the heavily indebted poor
countries schemes, policies of structural adjustment have been followed, in
reality, at the expense of social spending for development. Africa has been
confronted with a stark constraint: a policy structure that has privileged debt
repayment over development.

International politics and economics
have forced this policy choice over a Pan-African alternative.

To
maintain or to change this policy structure is an important issue confronting
Africa in the 21st century.

The Pan-African quest is to change the
African situation, while the IFIs want to retain the status quo of debt payment
as a priority under the guise of the poverty reduction rhetoric.


Debt repayment distorts African economic policy in the direction of producing
the things Africa cannot consume and to consume the things it cannot produce.


The advice from the international elite is to keep the capital account of
African states open and unregulated.

This furthers the
vulnerabilities of Africa’s economies to fall prey to cyclical fluctuations in
the world economy.

They become easy victims to fast movements of
speculative finance that episodically ravishes whole economies like gales.


The existing 53 State monetary arrangements in Africa are too fragmented to
withstand powerful movements in world finance and business cycles. There has to
be a creative way of breaking out of this trap for Africa.

We
back-cast to look for any past attempts to forge currency unions in order to
forecast feasible alternatives to get Africa going.

Prior to the
programmatic call by Kwame Nkrumah to set up an African monetary union in May
1963, there have been a number of attempts to set up monetary unions in
different regions of Africa.

The origin of the modern monetary
unions is traceable to the colonial encounter between Europe and Africa.


The most enduring currency union has been that managed by France.


France planted the roots of the CFA franc zone in 1945.

This was the
result of a decision by the French colonial government to crowd out the various
local currencies and establish the franc as the sole legal tender throughout the
French colonies of West and Central Africa.

France retained its
control over the monetary arrangement of its West and Central African
ex-colonies in the 60s by creating two regional currencies that cleverly
retained the CFA franc designation in both regions.

The exchange
rate between the ‘CFA francs of the West African Monetary Union and the Central
African Monetary Area were made equal -- both maintaining the same parity
against the French franc and capital can move freely between the two regions.


Both monetary areas have since comprised what France calls the "African
Financial Community", where each currency is only legal tender in its own
region, despite the currencies being jointly managed by the French Treasury as
integral parts of a single monetary union.

Though France was not a
member of the CFA itself, its Ministry of Finance held the operational accounts
and the foreign exchange reserves of the central banks of West and Central
Africa.

France insured convertibility of the CFA franc at a fixed
price, set and controlled rules for credit withdrawal and maintained a ratio of
50:1 between the CFA franc and the French franc for half a century.


In 1994, there was a devaluation of the CFA franc to the French franc by a ratio
of 100:1.

In January 1999, the CFA was pegged to the euro rather
than the French franc, but in all other respects the French Ministry of Finance
retained substantive control over the CFA franc zones.

The euro
seems to have been introduced via France into West and Central Africa two years
before 12 of its members began to use it as legal tender this year.


The British also had created a less successful East African Currency Board in
1919 and issued a common currency unit, the East African shilling, as legal
tender in Kenya, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and Uganda.

After
independence in the 60s, the common currency area broke apart.


Efforts to mend the break-up are still continuing with the re-establishment of
the East African Community.

During the 1920s, South Africa
collaborated with the colonial powers to create a common monetary area.


The Common Monetary Area embraced South Africa, former British colonies
Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland and the then German colony, Namibia.


After decolonisation in the late 60s, the Rand Monetary Area was formed in 1974,
though diamond–rich Botswana was not in it preferring to set up the pula as
national money.

It is interesting to note that more efforts were
made during the colonial period to create currency unions than in the period of
political independence.

The fact that Africa was diverted from
following Pan-African directions in the post-colonial period meant that projects
for currency unions to create liquidity to finance inter-African development
were abandoned.

--Mammo Muchie is a professor at Aalborg University
in Denmark and a member of the Network of Ethiopian Scholars. This article first
appeared in The African Executive.

Manan Ahmed on the Politics of US "Hysteria" Over Pakistan

Supporters of the Pakistani religious party Jamat-i-Islami hold a protest
rally in Karachi, Pakistan on Thursday, April 2, 2009 as world leaders from
the G20 countries gather for a summit at the ExCel centre, in London's
Docklands.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Manan Ahmed on the
Politics of US “Hysteria” over Pakistan

As a truce between the
Pakistani government and the Taliban collapses, clashes between the two sides
have forced tens of thousands to flee Pakistan’s Swat Valley. We speak to
University of Chicago historian Manan Ahmed about the distinction between
legitimate and overblown concerns about Pakistan’s internal unrest. While US
political culture has focused on the Taliban, it’s taken for granted the
legitimacy of the US-backed Zardari government and US drone attacks that have
killed hundreds of Pakistanis.

Guest:

Manan Ahmed,
Historian of modern Pakistan and South Asian Islam at the University of Chicago.
He blogs at Chapati Mystery.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Our top story today is
Pakistan, where tens of thousands of people continue to flee the Swat Valley
area of the North-West Frontier Province along the Afghan border following a
major offensive by the Pakistani military. Pakistani helicopter gunships and
warplanes have been bombing sites in the area as clashes intensify. The military
claims to have killed eighty militants, alongside reports of rising civilian
casualties and the Red Cross warning of a growing humanitarian crisis. As the
Pakistani government prepares to set up temporary shelters for up to
half-a-million people it expects will be displaced in the fighting, the peace
deal with pro-Taliban groups in the valley appears to be over.


Meanwhile, the Pakistani and Afghan presidents are in Washington for a second
day of talks with President Obama. Following Wednesday’s talks, all three
leaders emphasized their linked futures and their shared commitment to fighting
Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. President Obama thanked his counterparts for
attending the summit, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the recent
steps against militancy in Pakistan.

On the eve of the meetings,
Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to the region, testified before the House
Foreign Relations Committee to assure lawmakers of continued US support for
Pakistan.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: We do not think Pakistan is a failed
state. We think it’s a state under extreme test from the enemies, who are also
our enemies. And we have, Mr. Chairman, the same common enemy.

JUAN
GONZALEZ: The Obama administration, however, was not so sanguine about Pakistan
last month. Tensions have been growing since the Pakistani government signed a
ceasefire deal with the Pakistani Taliban three months ago that allowed the
Taliban to impose Islamic law in the Swat Valley.

Amidst reports
that the Pakistani Taliban were gaining new ground and nearing the capital city
of Islamabad, Secretary of State Clinton warned of a, quote, “existential
threat” to Pakistan. She told the House Foreign Relations Committee that
Pakistan was, quote, “basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists.”


HILLARY CLINTON: I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness of the
existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances,
now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated
group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani
state, which is, as we all know, a nuclear-armed state. And I don’t hear that
kind of outrage or concern coming from enough people that would reverberate back
within the highest echelons of the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan.


AMY GOODMAN: Last week, Pakistani President Zardari sought to calm Western fears
of his country’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban.


PRESIDENT ASIF ALI ZARDARI: I want to assure the world that the nuclear
capability of Pakistan is under safe hands. It’s not a Kalashnikov. Nuclear
technology is a huge subject. So it’s not that one little Taliban can come down
and press a button. There is no button.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, expert
commentators and journalists continue to raise alarm bells about the dangers of
the Taliban in Pakistan and the alleged threat they pose to the country’s
nuclear facilities. This is a sampling of their voices in recent weeks: Walter
Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations, Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria,
former CIA Officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, and David Sanger of the New York Times.


DAVID SANGER: What the President was asked was whether or not he believed that
Pakistan can and will protect the arsenal itself. And he expressed confidence
and then went on to say that his confidence was in the army, the Pakistani army,
which is one of the few institutions in the country that actually works. But
that confidence is based mostly on the assurances they have been given that this
is the army’s number one priority.

ROLF MOWATT-LARSSEN: The most
important concern is any possibility that instability might lead to a security
breakdown, where they might lose either material or parts of a weapon or, in the
worst case, an entire weapon.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Pakistani
army really has been developed for fighting a conventional war against India. It
is not a very good counterinsurgency army. This is a campaign they’re not likely
to have a lot of overwhelming success with. So they don’t have the capacity to
do this well, even if they had the will.

FAREED ZAKARIA: And the
problem in Pakistan is, we don’t have anybody there. We don’t have any US troops
there. We don’t have a UN mandate there. They don’t want us there. The
anti-Americanism there is incredibly high.

JON STEWART: But we gave
them $10 billion. Didn’t they build some kind of non-permeable structure at the
border there?

FAREED ZAKARIA: Oh, no, no, no.

JON
STEWART: What did they do with our $10 billion?

FAREED ZAKARIA: Used
it to prepare to fight a war against India.

JON STEWART: But now the
Taliban is—aren’t they sixty miles outside of Islamabad?

FAREED
ZAKARIA: They now claim to have won a great military victory, and they’re now a
hundred miles away.

JON STEWART: Oh, that’s forty miles right there.
That’s at least a week.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Exactly. I think maybe now
they’ve finally gotten a wake-up call, and they realize, you know what? This
problem isn’t going away. And it’s your struggle. This is not America’s
struggle. This is not about—somehow, we became part of the problem. In a nice
way, the Pakistanis are now taking some responsibility. I have some, you know,
friends in Pakistan who used to always denounce the American drone attacks, you
know, these Predator strikes—

JON STEWART: Right.

FAREED
ZAKARIA: —on the al-Qaeda. And the last month, what I notice is, they’re all in
favor of them.

JON STEWART: Really?

FAREED ZAKARIA:
Yeah. They’re saying, “You know what?”

JON STEWART: So now they’re
afraid.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Yeah, yeah. They’re saying, “You know what?
If that’s the only thing that will work, kill those guys.”

AMY
GOODMAN: Fareed Zakaria on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, among the many voices in
the media echoing and amplifying the administration’s concerns about Pakistan’s
ability to contain the Taliban.

Well, our guest today is University
of Chicago historian Manan Ahmed, who blogs at chapatimystery.com, a historian
of South Asian Islam and Pakistan and has been closely following recent events
in Pakistan, as well as how they get talked about here in the United States.


Manan Ahmed, joining us from Chicago, welcome to Democracy Now! Your assessment
of the situation right now?

MANAN AHMED: Thank you, Amy, for having
me.

I think there are two parallel things that we ought to talk
about. On the one hand, there is this hysteria, or at least a hyperventilating
that’s going on in US media outlets, specifically Washington Post, New York
Times, the sort of the mainstream top-of-the-line newspapers, and also coming
from, as you played the clip from Secretary of State Clinton. So, there is a
hysteria or hyperventilating that the army or the Pakistani state are not aware
of or not acting appropriately towards the sort of threat of Taliban, who are
forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred miles from Islamabad.

And what we
have to sort of bracket that with is, you know, the Pakistani institutions,
Pakistani army, which, by last count, was 500,000- to 700,000-strong, have sort
of—it’s very hard to project a future in which Pakistan fails. Pakistan has
megacities, like Karachi, Islamabad, populations of 12, 13 million, 18 million
in the case of Karachi. It’s very hard to see how Taliban, who are estimated to
be 14,000 to 18,000, are simply going to walk into Islamabad and take over the
nuclear—you know, nuclear bombs and nuclear facilities. So there is a certain
sort of level of hyperbole or hyperventilating that’s going on in the media.


But let’s leave that to where it is, and let’s turn our attention to Pakistan
itself. There are approximately three major crises that Pakistan faces, internal
crises. One is the civilian legitimacy of Zardari’s regime, Zardari’s
government. This, as you might remember, is a result of a very, very populist
movement to bring Pervez Musharraf’s military dictatorship out of power about a
year ago. And since then, the Pakistan People’s Party, which is Zardari’s party,
and the Nawaz Sharif party, the PML, the other opposition leader, have been
really struggling to get a hold of what they think are the nation’s top
priorities. The chief justice Chaudhry Iftikhar’s reinstatement was a big part
of the PML-N, the Nawaz Sharif platform. And so, you saw another long march of
lawyers and citizenry against Zardari’s regime this time to reinstate the chief
justice, and that happened not too long ago. So there is a way in which the
civilian government itself has legitimacy issues with the people of Pakistan.


Contributing to that are the drone attacks, which have been going on really
ferociously since August of 2008. And by, you know, sort of Pentagon or related
outlets themselves, the success rate is really abysmally low. Some estimates
that I heard put the success rate at two percent. That is, two percent of
al-Qaeda or Taliban or targeted people were actually killed, and 98 percent
being civilian or collateral damage casualties. And what happens is that, since
November of 2008, when the Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani promised on national
television the Pakistani people that the new administration will stop these
drone attacks and will work with the Pakistani government to have a sort of
systematic strategy against—for fighting al-Qaeda or foreign elements—they call
them “foreign elements”—that obviously didn’t happen. Since the Obama
administration has taken hold, the drone attacks have not only continued, but
they have sort of increased in frequency.

So, on both fronts, both
domestic politics front and foreign national front, the Pakistani regime, the
Zardari regime, is facing big legitimacy crises. So—

JUAN GONZALEZ:
Manan Ahmed, I’d like to ask you—you wrote recently that there’s a rich vein of
Pakistan-on-the-brink theorization that has dominated US foreign policy since
the 1950s. And you mention that decades ago it was a fear of communist takeover;
now it’s fear of Islamic fundamentalists taking over. Could you—


MANAN AHMED: That’s absolutely right, yeah, sure. I mean, there is a—if you
think back to 1947, when Pakistan was founded, it sort of melded within the
academic and administrative circles in Washington and with, you know, the real
rise of modernization theory. This was when nations were going to become
templates, where a Western idea of modernity was going to be
implemented—infrastructure, big dams. We saw this across the world in many,
many, many different sites.

Pakistan had its brief moment of
sunshine earlier in that transition period, in ’57, ’58, when the Harvard
Advisory Group was at the forefront of sort of developing Pakistan. But very
soon thereafter, in the early ’60s, Pakistan failed to meet the developmental
matrix, you know, how they were to chart the progress. And since then, the
notion that Pakistan is a failed state or a failing state or a collapsing state
or on the brink, at a crossroads, has been a very, very sustained and deeply
held sort of myth within both academic and governmental states.

At
that point, in the ’60s and ’70s, it transitioned from the developmental vein to
communist sort of domino theory, wherein Pakistan’s socialist/communist Prime
Minister Bhutto was going to lead Pakistan into the arms of USSR. And part of
that vein really crystallizes once sort of the Afghanistan invasion
of—Afghanistan invasion happens by Russia.

And so, it isn’t just the
fact that Pakistan is found to be failing or about to fail currently, but if you
look through the literature and you look through the pronouncements of US sort
of state and government entities throughout the fifty-plus-year history of
US-Pakistan relationships, you’ll see a very, very sustained sort of presence of
“Pakistan is to fail,” “Pakistan should be protected from failing,” and
“Pakistan is failing.”

AMY GOODMAN: Manan Ahmed, you’ve got the
presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan in Washington now. What do you think the
US approach to both countries should be?

MANAN AHMED: I think for—I
mean, one of the things that I thought the Obama administration had a huge
misstep was to link Pakistan and Afghanistan together, or their AfPak strategy,
which I think they’re trying to de-link again. I mean, fact of the matter is
that, you know, Afghanistan, 35 million-plus population, ravaged by thirty-plus
years of war, without any infrastructure to speak of, one sort of very little
urban presences, versus Pakistan, 175 million people, megacities, you know, at
least some tradition of governance, a very fierce critical media. These are not
countries that—whose fates are sort of—can be lumped in one basket.


So I think that the first step needs to be to recognizing Pakistan’s own
realities. You know, how do you operate within that country itself? And within
that, I think the primary task has to be to support the civilian government of
Asif Ali Zardari, not because—I mean, I personally am not a huge fan, but the
fact is that that is the elected government by the people after a, you know,
twelve-year gap in elections. And I think they need—they explicitly need
support, because if we are to give them the political will to act in Swat, to
act in Waziristan, to act in Baluchistan, if we are to give them the political
standing to go to the people of Pakistan and say, “This is a hard war. This is a
tough campaign. There are refugees in these major cities. We need to support
those refugees, and we have to support the civilian populations. And then we
need to fight—in real military terms, fight—those elements who are not
negotiating and not talking to us.” And that takes a tremendous amount of
political will on behalf of a government that like, as I said before, has
problems with legitimacy.

So I think that’s where the media hype in
the United States press becomes a huge drawback. And I think that’s where the
Obama administration needs to step up and sort of convince both itself and the
Pakistani people that they are really partners in this together and that they
will support the civilian leadership and not, you know, start talking
nostalgically about the return of another—yet another military dictator.


JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, you raise the issue of yet another military dictator. Isn’t
it—could the argument be made that Pakistani society is perhaps stronger now
than it has been in many years, because of the success of the people in getting
rid of Musharraf and ending the authoritarian rule and that it seems that the
administration sees it as a failed state, when it’s not—when the government is
not strictly controlling its population?

MANAN AHMED: Absolutely. I
think that one of the sort of untold and unheard story of Pakistan’s entire
existence in the United States media was the lawyers’ movement that peacefully,
I might add, and in large terms secularly, drove out of power a entrenched
military dictator, both out of military power, but also out of civilian power.


And I think that that really speaks towards two inherent presences in Pakistani
society. One is they have a robust, critical media that is not multi-—sort of
multi-voiced. There’s Urdu presses, Urdu newspaper channels, English newspaper
channels and other regional channels and newspapers, so very, very diverse media
that has had a critical engagement with the state on many different levels. And
secondly, the need of Pakistani people, in general, to—you know, as in any other
citizenry of the world, to ask for security, to ask for safety, to ask for
engagement with their government.

And I think that the rise of this
sort of civil movement, the lawyers’ movement and its sort of student wing,
really speaks to the articulation by the Pakistani people that they want to
operate within a democratic framework and not within a sort of a military
dictatorship that they had been under for the past ten years.

AMY
GOODMAN: Manan Ahmed, we want to thank you very much for being with us,
historian of modern Pakistan and South Asian Islam at the University of Chicago.
His blog is at chapatimystery.com.

MANAN AHMED: Thank you.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Zuma Confirmed as President by South African Parliament

South African ruling party ANC president Jacob Zuma (L) holds an infant as
Winnie Mandela (R) and ex-wife of former South African President Nelson
Mandela, looks on during a visit on May 30, 2008.
Originally
uploaded by Pan-African
News Wire File Photos

Zuma elected president


CAPE TOWN--South Africa’s president-elect Jacob Zuma yesterday vowed to work
quickly to boost the nation’s limping public services while bolstering the
economy, as parliament named him the new head of state.

Zuma led the
African National Congress (ANC) to a sweeping election victory two weeks ago on
an anti-poverty platform, vowing to extend the social safety net while improving
education, health care and policing.

"It is my fervent hope that our
public servants heard our campaign message and understand that it shall not be
business as usual," he told parliament, shortly after lawmakers named him the
new president.

"We expect hard work and utmost dedication," he said.


Zuma said he planned for his cabinet to take office by Monday, following his own
inauguration on Saturday.

"I should be able to produce a team that
will work very hard and with the necessary speed. We mean business when we talk
about faster change," he said in the nationally broadcast speech.


ANC supporters sang in the aisles as the secret ballots were counted, and
chanted "Zuma, Zuma" as the 277-47 vote was announced.

"He is a
capable leader that epitomises our continued and resilient struggle against the
worst that humanity has to offer and the hope that we as a nation shall triumph
against all odds," said Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of democracy icon
Nelson Mandela, as she nominated Zuma.

Thirteen members of smaller
parties joined the ANC in voting for Zuma. The only rival candidate was Mvume
Dandala from the ANC breakaway party the Congress of the People.

The
main opposition Democratic Alliance, which holds 67 seats, abstained from the
vote.

It was a triumphant return to parliament for Zuma, who was
booted out of the national assembly in 2005 when he was fired by then president
Thabo Mbeki after his former financial advisor Schabir Shaik was jailed for
fraud and corruption.

Zuma was implicated in the charges against
Shaik, facing his own eight-year long battle with graft charges which were
finally dropped last month amid evidence of government interference in pursuing
the case.

His victory was hard-won and came on a wave of popular
support as his hardline backers cried foul and claimed a conspiracy against him,
splitting the ANC into two camps and resulting in a near political crisis.


While the ANC won elections with a convincing majority, the party did not go
unscarred by the internal bickering and a record of failed public service
delivery, narrowly losing a two-thirds majority which had enabled it to pass
constitutional changes.

His pledges to expand the social safety net
will become more difficult to achieve as South Africa’s economy appears to be
sliding into a recession, with a new survey showing 208 000 people lost their
jobs in the first three months of the year.

That put the official
unemployment rate at 23,5 percent, but the figure is believed to be closer to 40
percent if discouraged workers no longer seeking jobs are included.


The dim economic outlook has heightened speculation about who will fill key
cabinet posts, especially finance, health and education.

Zuma’s
leftist backers from trade unions and the Communist party had complained of
being sidelined under Mbeki, and are pushing for a greater voice in Zuma’s
cabinet.

The hottest topic is who will head the finance ministry,
which has been widely hailed under Trevor Manuel for 13 years.


Manuel is credited with policies that have protected the country from the
banking crisis, but he has often clashed with unions over his market-friendly
policies.

Local media tip him to lead a powerful new oversight body
that is to monitor government’s performance, while respected tax boss Pravin
Gordhan could take his place at finance. — AFP.

South Carolina Halts Thousands of Home Foreclosure Sales

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, covering the April 4,
2009 anti-war demonstration on Wall Street. (Photo: Alan Pollock)

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ifXC8ff1Xuqnjj45LlzoW6qEHXxwD9809UMG0


SC court halts thousands of home foreclosure sales

By MEG KINNARD


COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's highest court on Tuesday temporarily
stopped thousands of pending foreclosure sales in the state to give homeowners
more time to take advantage of a new federal program to help them refinance
mortgages.

The injunction — which mortgage experts said appeared to
be the nation's first court-ordered stop for an entire state — prevents judges
in South Carolina from finalizing foreclosure sales on properties guaranteed by
Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae or any other mortgage company that has signed on to a
federal assistance program.

RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing
firm, says the ruling could affect 5,000 South Carolina homes facing
foreclosure.

The ruling was in response to a request from a Columbia
attorney representing Fannie Mae, who had argued that it was necessary to keep
homeowners who might be eligible for federal assistance from being shut out of
the process.

"Absent the injunction, mortgagors eligible for relief
... could be denied their right to participate because their property was sold
at the foreclosure sale," lawyer Ronald Scott wrote in his three-page motion.
"This qualifies as irreparable injury for which the court should provide redress
in the form of a temporary injunction."

Fannie Mae said the ruling
was necessary because of a South Carolina law meant to ensure that foreclosures
sales are conducted in a timely fashion. Under the law, judges can cancel a
foreclosure case and start over if the sale is delayed for too long.


The company argues that South Carolina's law gives lenders an incentive to speed
up foreclosure cases because of the threat the process could be restarted, which
would cost lenders more money.

"This ruling will allow us the
flexibility to evaluate problematic mortgages in the state for possible
eligibility for the (Obama) Administration's modification program and reduce the
overall borrower and company costs associated with the foreclosure process,"
Fannie Mae said in a statement.

The Obama administration announced a
plan in March to provide $75 billion in incentives for the mortgage industry to
modify loans to help borrowers avoid foreclosure. Freddie and Fannie also rolled
out a refinancing program for homeowners who owe up to 5 percent more than
current total value of their home with an application deadline of June 2010.


Scott had asked the court to address about 1,000 South Carolina homes facing
foreclosure and backed by Fannie Mae loans. But in her order, state Supreme
Court Chief Justice Jean Toal expanded the stoppage to foreclosures backed
either by Fannie or Freddie — together, the government-controlled companies own
or guarantee almost 31 million mortgages, more than half of all U.S. home loans
— or any other lender who has agreed to participate under the Obama
administration's plan.

Toal also set a May 15 deadline for plaintiffs
in foreclosure actions to notify other parties if the loan is subject to
modification under the federal program. If it is, those foreclosure proceedings
will remain on hold. But if not, the sale can go forward.

Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac had suspended foreclosure sales through the end of March to
evaluate whether borrowers could qualify for the Obama program.

A
spokesman for Freddie Mac, Brad German, said Tuesday the South Carolina ruling
was the first he'd heard of in the country by a court with statewide
jurisdiction.

"We're not aware of anything like this, anywhere else,"
German said.

Nationally, the number of homes facing foreclosure grew
24 percent in the first three months of this year from a year earlier. The total
in 2008 was 2.3 million households that received foreclosure filings. In South
Carolina, more than 13,700 homes are in some stage of foreclosure, according to
RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service in Irvine, Calif.


RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist also said the ruling appeared to be a
first.

"There have been some piecemeal things, but nothing that broad
statewide," Blomquist said.

Associated Press Writers Katrina A.
Goggins and Alan Zibel contributed to this report. Zibel contributed from
Washington.

On the Net:
Making Home Affordable program:
http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov



http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/news/27540-fannie-mae-seeks-foreclosure-freeze-only-in-sc


Fannie Mae seeks foreclosure freeze only in S.C.

By Ashley Fletcher
Frampton
aframpton@scbiznews.com
Published May 6, 2009


Mortgage-backer Fannie Mae said it singled out South Carolina for an unusual
court-ordered freeze on home foreclosure sales because the state gives local
judges the authority to dismiss delayed cases, which other states do not.


Fannie Mae isn’t seeking a similar temporary freeze in other states, said Brian
Faith, spokesman for the mortgage company.

“In South Carolina,
judges have the discretion to cancel an ongoing foreclosure process if there is
a significant delay between the foreclosure judgment date and the actual
foreclosure sale,” Faith said in a statement.

If masters-in-equity —
the special county judges that usually handle foreclosures in South Carolina —
were to dismiss delayed cases, “the process begins anew, which leads to higher
costs and losses,” Faith said.

“The court ruling effectively
addresses this situation,” he said.

Fannie Mae suspended its
foreclosure proceedings in late 2008 and during the first of quarter of 2009
while it reviewed cases for potential workout strategies, Faith said. In some
cases, that created significant delays.

At Fannie Mae’s request, the
S.C. Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order late Monday afternoon on
foreclosure sales for some homes. It targets properties that could be eligible
for a mortgage modification program that President Barack Obama’s administration
is rolling out. The program offers more affordable mortgage payments to
homeowners whose loans are backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and who meet
certain other criteria.

Fannie Mae did not want homeowners
potentially eligible for the program to lose their homes in foreclosure before
they had a chance to participate. The mortgage company estimates that more than
1,000 homes in South Carolina were headed to foreclosure sales this week. It
filed the petition for a temporary restraining order on Friday.


Obama announced the Home Affordable Modification Program in February, but
details were not outlined until April 6.

Masters-in-equity say they
are still sorting through the implications of the S.C. Supreme Court order,
which requires lenders seeking foreclosure to submit affidavits by May 15
stating whether loans in default are eligible for the modification program.


Homes not eligible will continue in the foreclosure process, according to the
restraining order.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blacks Match Whites in Voting Rates in 2008

Detroit voting location on the west side. People lined up by the hundreds to
cast their ballots. (Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe).
Originally uploaded
by Pan-African News
Wire File Photos

Blacks Match Whites in Voting Rates in 2008


By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly
one-fourth of voters in last November's election were minorities, the most
diverse election ever, fueled by high turnout from black women and a growing
Hispanic population, an independent research group found.

The study
by the Pew Research Center, released Thursday, also showed that for the first
time blacks had the highest voter turnout rate of any racial or ethnic group
among people ages 18 to 29. Analysts said it remained to be seen how fully the
strong minority participation, a reflection of both changing U.S. demographics
and enthusiasm for Democrat Barack Obama, would carry over to future elections.


In 2008, about 65 percent of blacks went to the polls, nearly matching the 66
percent voting rate for whites. Black women had the highest rates of
participation among all voters at 69 percent; they were followed by white women
(68 percent), white men (64 percent) and black men (61 percent).


Pew's analysis of census data found that whites cast about 100 million, or 76
percent, of the 131 million total ballots last November, compared with 79
percent in 2004. It was the sharpest percentage drop in more than a decade.


Blacks, meanwhile, had their sharpest increase in voter participation in more
than a decade, with 15.9 million casting ballots to make up 12.1 percent of the
electorate. Blacks previously had seen their share decline to 11 percent in 2004
after their low turnout in Republican George W. Bush's re-election win over
Democrat John Kerry.

Hispanics also had gains in voting share,
mostly due to their rapidly growing population. In 2008, about 9.7 million, or
half of Hispanics eligible to vote, cast ballots. They made up about 7.4 percent
of the total voters, a jump from 6 percent in 2004.

Due to
immigration and high birth rates, the number of Hispanics eligible to vote rose
by 21 percent from 2004 to 2008 to 19.5 million, compared with a 5 percent
increase for the general population. The fastest-growing minority group,
Hispanic voters helped Obama flip the battleground states of Colorado, Florida,
Nevada and New Mexico.

"Moving into the future, we're going to see a
much more diverse electorate," said Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the
Pew Hispanic Center, who co-wrote the report. "Among youths generally and black
youths in particular, we have seen an increase in voter participation since
2000, and there's generally been more civic engagement such as volunteering."


Lopez attributed the higher turnout among youths to better outreach, as well as
early voting and Election Day registration in some states that allow voters to
register when they arrive at the polls.

Other findings:


-Among voters 18-29, blacks had the strongest participation rate in last
November's election at 58 percent, compared with 51 percent overall in that age
group. Blacks were followed by whites (52 percent), Asians (43 percent) and
Hispanics (41 percent).

-The greatest increases in turnout were in
Southern states with large black populations who were eligible to vote:
Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and Louisiana, as well as the District of
Columbia.

-Women widened their turnout advantage over men. In 2008,
about 65.7 percent of women cast ballots - more than 4 percentage points higher
than the 61.5 percent rate for men. In 2004, 65.4 percent of women voted
compared with 62.1 percent for men.

-About 47 percent of Asians, or
3.3 million, voted in 2008. They made up about 2.5 percent of total voters, up
slightly from 2004.

The Pew analysis is based on the Census Bureau's
Current Population Survey, which asked respondents after Election Day about
their voting registration and turnout. The figures for "white" refer to the
whites who are not of Hispanic ethnicity.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the Net:
Pew Research Center: http://people-press.org/

Pages From History: Speech by President Kwame Nkrumah at the Opening Session of
the First Meeting of the Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia Africana,
September 24, 1964

President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana with W.E.B. DuBois and Shirley Graham
DuBois, along with Kojo Botsio, Ghana Foreign Minister in 1963.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Speech at the Opening
Session of the First Meeting of the Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia
Africana

On September 24, 1964 At the University of Ghana


by Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

Distinguished members of the Editorial
Board of the Encyclopaedia Africana, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a
great pleasure and privilege for me to inaugurate this first meeting of the
Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia Africana. The presence on this Board here
today of representatives from all parts of the Continent of Africa is yet
another token of the African cultural renaissance which is manifesting itself
side by side with the political resurgence of the African Continent. I must also
confess, distinguished guests, that today I feel a great sense of relief and joy
to think that at long last a first significant step has been taken towards the
positive realisation and consummation of a long cherished dream.


Years ago, I felt that Africa needs to buttress her unimpeachable claim to
political independence with parallel efforts to expose to the world the bases of
her rich culture and civilisation through the medium of a scholarly
Encyclopaedia. I therefore invited W.E.B. DuBois of blessed memory to come to
Ghana to help us establish the framework for this great natural heritage. Dr.
DuBois was happy to come to Ghana in the very evening of his life to embark upon
this task; he took Ghanaian citizenship, and immediately plunged headlong into
the stupendous work of setting out the general aims of this project and securing
the interest and support of eminent scholars throughout Africa for its
realisation. To him this was an exciting state of affairs to produce such an
Encyclopaedia.

It is perhaps not without significance that DuBois
should have had to wait until the very sunset of his life to find and receive
encouragement and support for this project, not in the abundance of the United
States, but rather in an Africa liberated from the cramping and oppressive
conditions of colonial rule.

In taking upon ourselves this great
responsibility for Africa, we are reminded of an old Roman saying: "Semper
aliquid novi ex Africa." Africa had a noble past which astounded even the
ancient Roman world with its great surprises. Yet, it was only much later, after
a millennium and a half of African history that we are now busily engaged in
reconstructing for all the world to know, that racial exploitation and
imperialist domination deliberately fostered a new and monstrous mythology of
race which nourished the popular but unfounded image of Africa as the "Dark
Continent." In other words, a Continent whose inhabitants were without any past
history, any contribution to world civilization, or any hope of future
development - except by the grace of foreign tutelage!

It is
unfortunate that men of learning and men of affairs in Europe and America from a
century ago down to yesterday, have spent much valuable time to establish this
unscientific and ridiculous notion of African inferiority. A European author
declared that "the history of civilization on the continent begins, as concerns
its inhabitants, with Mohammedan invasion" and that African is poorer in
recorded history than can be imagined.

Even the Eleventh Edition of
the Encyclopaedia Britannica also declared: "Africa, with the exception of the
lower Nile Valley and what is known as Roman Africa is, so far as its native
inhabitants are concerned, a continent practically without history and
possessing no records from which such history may be conducted ..... the Negro
(referring to the black man) is essentially the child of the moment and his
memory, both tribal and individual, is very short," And "if Ancient Egypt and
Ethiopia be excluded, the story of Africa is largely a record of the doings of
its Asiatic and European conquerors and colonizers."

And here I want
to sound a note of caution about the term "Negro." I hope that in the record of
the Encyclopaedia Africana the term "Negro", whatever meaning or connotation has
been given to it, will not find a place, except perhaps in a specific article
proving its opprobrious origin and redundancy. I would like that people of
African descent and Africans in general should be described as black men, or
Africans. I personally would like to be referred to as a black man, African or
Ghanaian, not referred to as a "Negro".

It would be long to attempt
to survey this field of malicious distortion against Africa. But this would be a
useless and unprofitable venture, and I am sure that your Editorial Board would
not suffer this pointless waster of valuable time. But listen a while to Leo
Frobenius in his Voice of Africa: "The ruins of the mighty past lie slumbering
within the bosom of the earth but are glorified in the memory of men who live
beneath the sun." He dwells on the "god-like strength of memory in those who
lived before the advent of the written word" and he continues: "Every
archaeologist can quote examples from the nations of the North. But who would
imagine that the Negro Race (here again referring to the black race) of Africa
possessed an equally retentive mind for its store of ancient monuments."


It may be argued, however, that this sort of view about Africa is dying out, and
we may be accused of whipping a dying horse. It is also true that, particularly
in the years since World War II, there has been a marked improvement in much of
the writing by non-Africans on Africa and there are today a number of writers
and scholars who have made signal contributions to African historiography.
Nevertheless, it is to be doubted if the popular image of the so-called Dark
Continent has been much affected by the widening horizon of knowledge of Africa.
The fact is that the powerful forces which seek to block the advance of the 280
millions of Africans to a place of full equality in the world community and
which strive to maintain neo-colonialist or even overt colonial domination and
white supremacy rule in Africa, find it in their interest to perpetuate the
mythology of racial inferiority.

Thus it is not simple ignorance of
Africa, but deliberate disparagement of the continent and its people that
Africanists and the Encyclopaedia Africana must contend with. The foulest
intellectual rubbish ever invented by man is that of racial superiority and
inferiority. We know now, of course, that this distortion and fabrication of the
image of man was invented by the apostles of imperialism to salve their
conscience and justify their political, cultural and economic domination of
Africa.

I understand that through the medium of the Information
Report, published periodically by the Encyclopaedia Africana Secretariat, have
appeared expressions of support and pledges of co-operation in the work of this
great project from numerous eminent scholars. And I am particularly happy that
among those who have expressed their endorsement of our work are distinguished
scholars in the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India, Britain and other
countries outside Africa.

I am sure the members of the Editorial
Board share my appreciation of this world-wide support of the idea of an
Encyclopaedia Africana. However, it is of course only logical that an
encyclopaedia work on Africa should be produced in Africa, under the direction
and editorship of Africans, and with the maximum participation of African
scholars in all countries.

While I believe that no contribution to
the projected Encyclopaedia should be rejected solely and simply because the
author happens to be non-African, there are surely valid reasons why the maximum
participation of African scholars themselves should be aimed at. Let me
illustrate this point with an example from a book published just fifty years ago
by George W. Ellis, an Afro-American who served from 1901 to 1910 as Secretary
of the United States diplomatic mission in Liberia. From this study came his
book, Negro Culture in West Africa, published in 1914. In the Preface to this
work Ellis tells how he had sought to widen his knowledge of Africa, before
coming to Liberia, by the diligent study of encyclopaedias, geographies, and
works of ethnology and anthropology, only to find that much of this information
was "unsupported by the facts" and gave a picture "substantially different" from
the character of African life which he himself found in West Africa. Acknowledge
the services of European authors such as Harry Johnston, Lady Lugard and others,
Ellis stated that to him "it seems more necessary and imperative that the
African should explain his own culture, and interpret his own thought and soul
life, if the complete truth is to be given to the other races of the earth."


But there were already men in West Africa who had blazed a significant trail in
this direction: Edward Wilmot Blyden, Joseph Casely Hayford and John Mensah
Sarbah. Many other Africans in preceding generations helped to lay the basis of
our present efforts to project a new African image of Africa. One thinks of such
figures as James Africanus B. Horton and his "A vindication of the African
Race". (1868) and of Carl Reindorf, Attoh Ahumah, Anthony William Amu, Samuel
Johnson of Oyo, Blaise Diagne, Herbert Macaulay and others in West Africa, of
Duse Mohammed Effendi of the Sudan, Lewanika of Barotseland, Apolo Kagwa of
Buganda, and leaders such as JohnTengo Jabavu, Solomon T. Plaatje, and Clements
Kedalie in South Africa.

And let us not forget the important
contributions of others in the New World, for example, the sons of Africa in
Haiti such as Antenor Firmin and Dr. Jean Price-Mars, and others in the United
States such as Alexander Crummell, Carter G. Woodson and our own Dr. DuBois.


All of those whose names I have mentioned believed in and urged the necessity of
writing about Africa from the point of view of African interests and African
assumptions and concepts - and not from the point of view of Europeans or others
who have quite different interests, assumptions and concepts, whether conscious
or unconscious. This is precisely what we mean when we say that the
Encyclopaedia Africana must be frankly Afro-centric in its interpretation of
African history and of the social and cultural institutions of the African and
people of African descent everywhere.

It is to be hoped, therefore,
that the work on the Encyclopaedia Africana may provide both the forum and the
motivation for the development of a virile and salutary new trend in the writing
of African history, writing which will rank in scholarship with any other
historiography, but which will also be based upon a frame of reference that is
independently African, and will lead the way in independent thinking about
Africa and its problems.

I am anxious that I should not be
misunderstood in my emphasis on an Afro-centric point of view for the
Encyclopaedia Africana. There are some who will say that this implies simply
reversing the faults and distortions of the colonialist minded writers on
Africa, painting everything white that they pictured as black, and everything
black that they pictured as white.

I should like to assure our
guests, the members of the Editorial Board, that that is in no sense my
conception of what the Encyclopaedia Africana should be. Most certainly it must
and will set the record straight on many points of African history and culture.
But it will do this not simply on the basis of assertion backed by nothing more
than emotion, but rather on the foundation of first-class scholarship linked
with the passion for scientific truth.

It will not romanticize or
idealize the African past, it will not gloss over African failings weaknesses
and foibles, or endeavour to demonstrate that Africans are endowed with either
greater virtues or lesser vices that the rest of mankind. There is undoubtedly
considerable evidence of much that is noble and glorious in our African past;
there is no need to gild the Lily nor to try to hide that which is ignoble. But
here again it is a question of whose standards and values you are applying in
assessing something as noble or ignoble, and I maintain that the Encyclopaedia
Africana must reject non-African value-judgments of things African.


It is true that despite the great advances made during the last twenty years in
the various disciplines of African studies, so much of Africa's history has yet
to be unearthed, scientifically analysed, and fully comprehended. This sometimes
gives rise to the question whether enough is yet known to undertake at this time
the compilation of an encyclopaedia of the sort envisaged. Those who entertain
such hesitation and doubt only expose the extent of their ignorance about
Africa's great past.

Before the colonial era in Africa, Europeans
had had many encounters with Africans on the cross-roads of history. They had
married into African royal families, received Africans into their courts as
ambassadors and social equals, and their writers had depicted African characters
as great heroes in their literature. In common with the rest of mankind Africans
made extensive use of cereals, they learnt the art of raising cattle, adapted
metal tools and weapons to their own use, and, to quote Basil Davidson,
"undertook mining and smelting and forging on a continental scale, borrowed
crops from other lands, introduced soil conservation, discovered the medicinal
value of a host of herbs and plants, and worked out their own explanations of
mankind and the universe.
All this had happened before the first ships set
forth from Europe."

Let me give another quotation even at the risk
of boring you, this time from Leo Frobenius again, a well-known historian who
made 17 expeditions into Africa, North, East, West and South, in order to learn
at first hand of the culture of the African peoples. Frobenius makes a basic
statement in his book African Civilisation, which unfortunately has not yet been
translated into English. Doubtless, there is reason why no complete translation
has yet been made. From a limited translation made by Anna Malise Graves, I
quote: "When they, European navigators, arrived in the Gulf of Guinea and landed
at Ouidah in Dahomey, the captains were greatly astonished to find streets well
laid out, bordered on either side for several leagues with two rows of trees,
and men clad in richly coloured garments of their own weaving. Further south in
the kingdom of the Congo, a swarming crowd dressed in silk and velvet, great
states well ordered and down to the most minute details, powerful rulers,
flourishing industries, civilised to the manner of their bones. And the
condition of the countries on the eastern coast, Mozambique, for instance, was
quite the same. The revelations of the navigators from 15th to the 17th century
gave incontrovertible proofs that Africa stretching south from the edge of the
Sahara desert was still in full flower - the flower of harmonious and
well-ordered civilisations. And this fine flowering the European conquistadors
or conquerors annihilated as far as they penetrated into the country."


Indeed, the history of Africa goes back into the dim recesses of time and
antiquity. There are even scientists in our time who are beginning to claim that
Africa was the very cradle of mankind. The fossil remains of man discovered by
Dr. L.S.B. Leakey in Tanganyika have been dated by scientific processes as one
and three-quarter million (1,750,000) years old.

From the head
waters of the Nile in Tanganyika let us move swiftly to its mouth on the
Mediterranean Sea and the Isthmus of Suez where the great civilization of Egypt
was fostered for thousands of years down to the Christian era. There, as we all
know, man rose to the phenomenal heights of statecraft, science and religion and
the excellence of the arts. Evidence from language, religion, astronomy,
folklore and divine kinship, as well as geographical and physical proximity,
confirms the basic African origin of this Egyptian cultural eminence.


This great flowering of the mind in Africa was unfortunately scorched by the
ravages of the slave trade which encouraged extensive destruction through tribal
warfare. Close upon this set in the evil of colonisation and the deliberate
effort, to which I have already referred, of painting the African black and
backward as a valid justification for colonial rule.

I have
endeavoured to touch on some of these questions only as a means of making a
clear case for justifying our attempts to provide Africa with an Encyclopaedia
portraying vividly the glory of Africa's great past.

I should now
like to say just a few words on the vital question of how this great undertaking
is to be carried through to completion. I must say at the outset that a broad
policy having been laid down, the precise plans for achieving it must be left to
the Editorial Board and its staff of competent experts. My purpose is only to
call attention to the underlying principle - the principle of Pan-African
co-operation - which I believe to be indispensable in any concrete plans of work
on the Encyclopaedia.

As you are aware, the preparatory work on this
project has been carried forward for a little more than two years by a
Secretariat here in Accra, functioning under the aegis of the Ghana Academy of
Sciences. This Secretariat has not been content to work in isolation; it has
been continually active in establishing contacts with scholars and institutions
throughout Africa and abroad. A motion declaring "that all African countries
should contribute to the work of the Secretariat" was unanimously adopted at a
Conference on the Encyclopaedia Africana attended by some150 persons from Africa
and elsewhere in December, 1962. Soon thereafter, the Secretariat undertook the
establishment of Co-operating Committees of scholars in various African
countries.

The Secretary of the Secretariat, Dr. W. A. Hunton, met
with several of these Committees during a tour which he made in East and North
Africa some months ago. Following this came the nominations by the Co-operating
Committees of their respective representatives to serve on the Editorial Board
of the Encyclopaedia. In this way the basis, at least, of Pan-African
co-operation in this work has been established.

The members of the
Editorial Board now have before them the Secretariat's detailed prospectus of
what the Encyclopaedia Africana should contain and how the material should be
presented. This is merely a blueprint of what is to be constructed. The
Editorial Board members are asked to examine this blueprint with great care,
proposing whatever alterations they consider would result in a more perfect plan
for the Encyclopaedia. Once this has been agreed upon, the stage will have been
set for the play to begin - that is to say, for the work of preparing and
assembling the Encyclopaedia articles to commence.

I sincerely
trust that the deliberations of the Editorial Board at this first meeting will
successfully hit that mark. The progress of the work from that point on will
depend in the first instance, as I see it, on the degree of whole-hearted and
effectively organised support that can be procured from African scholars in all
countries, from the many institutes of African studies and research agencies of
various kinds which are to be found today throughout our continent, and from the
various independent African governments which are ready to provide the fullest
measure of financial support for this work. So far, the financial burden has
been borne by the Government of Ghana alone.

As I have already
stated, I have no specific proposals to present with regard to these matters.
But I am convinced that the task is not insuperable. The fact that we have
advanced this far in accomplishing, almost single-handed, the formation of a
Pan-African Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia Africana augurs success in the
further stages of the work. I trust this project will be welcomed by all the
African Heads of State, and will have the full support of the Organisation of
African Unity. We must now think in terms of continental political unity in
everything we do for Africa. Without such cohesion and unity none of us can
survive the intrigues and divisive forces of the imperialists and
neo-colonialists. The work of this Encyclopaedia Africana will take us one
further step towards the great objective to which we are dedicated - a
Continental Union Government of Africa.

Speaking on behalf of the
Government of the Republic of Ghana and as Chancellor of our Universities, I can
assure the members of the Editorial Board that work on this Encyclopaedia will
have the fullest co-operation of our Universities, learned societies and
research institutions in Ghana, as well as the financial support of the
Government of Ghana.

Distinguished scholars and members of the
Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia Africana, on behalf of the Government and
people of Ghana and on my own behalf, I extend a warm welcome to you. May this
your first meeting mark the auspicious beginning of your work in a great
undertaking for the benefit of mankind.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad's Speech in Geneva Before the World Conference
Againt Racism Durban Review II

President Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran speaking at the World
Conference Against Racism Durban Review II in Geneva. The racist states
walked out during his address. The majority stayed and cheered his remarks.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Tuesday, 28 April 2009


FULL TEXT OF AHMADINEJAD'S GENEVA SPEECH

In the name of God, the
Compassionate, the Merciful…
[Protestors in clown costumes escorted out by
security] May
he bestow upon his prophets… Praise be upon Allah, the

Almighty, who is just, kind, and compassionate. May he
bestow upon his
prophets his blessings and his grace from
Adam to Noah; Abraham, Moses,
Jesus Christ, and His last
prophet, Mohammed. Peace be upon them all who
are the
harbingers of monotheism, fraternity, love … [Applause] …

human dignity and justice.

Mr. Chairman. I call upon all
distinguished guests to
forgive these ignorant people.

In the
name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise
be upon Allah, the
Almighty, who is just, kind, and
compassionate, and praise and salutations
of the Almighty
God to the great prophet. May he bestow upon [us] His

blessings, His grace. We thank the Almighty God. Praise be
upon him who is
just and who is compassionate. And the
salutations and regards of Allah to
his prophets, from Noah
to Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and his last
prophet
Mohammed. Peace be upon them all who are the harbingers of

monotheism, fraternity, love, human dignity, and justice.

Mr.
Chairman. Honorable Secretary General of the United
Nations. Madam High
Commissioner. Ladies and Gentleman. We
have gathered here in the follow up
to the Durban
conference against racism and racial discrimination to work

out practical mechanisms for our holy and humanitarian
campaigns. Over the
last centuries, humanity has gone
through tremendous suffering and pain. In
the middle ages,
thinkers and scientists were sentenced to death. It was

then followed by a period of slavery and slave trade, when
innocent people
in millions were captivated and separated
from their families and loved
ones, to be taken to Europe
and America under worse conditions; the dark
period that
also experienced occupations, lootings, and massacres of

innocent people.

Many years passed by before nations rose up and
fought for
their liberty and freedom, and they paid a high price. They

lost millions of lives to expel the occupiers and proclaim
their
independence. However, it did not take long that the
coercive powers
imposed two wars in Europe which also
plagued a part of Asia and Africa.
Those horrific wars
claimed about 100 million lives and left behind massive

devastation. Had lessons been learned from the occupations,
horrors, and
crimes of those wars, there would have been a
ray of hope for the future.
The victorious powers called
themselves the conquerors of the world while
ignoring or
downtreading the rights of other nations by the imposition

of oppressive laws and international arrangements.

Ladies and
gentlemen, let us take a look at the U.N.
Security Council, which is one of
the legacies of World War
II and World War I. What was the logic behind
their
granting themselves the veto rights? How can such a logic
comply
with humanitarian or spiritual values? Could it be
in conformity with the
recognized principles of justice,
equality before law, love, and human
dignity? [Applause] Or
rather, with discrimination, injustice, violation of
human
rights, or humiliation of the majority of nations and
countries?


That Council is the highest decision-making world body for
safeguarding the
international peace and security. How can
we expect the realization of
justice and peace when
discrimination is legalized and the origin of law is

dominated by coercion and force rather than by justice and
the right?


Coercion and arrogance is the origin of oppression and
wars. Although today
many proponents of racism condemn
racial discrimination in their words and
in their slogans,
a number of powerful countries have been authorized to

decide for other nations based on their own interests and
at their own
discretions. And they can easily ridicule and
violate all laws and
humanitarian values, as they have done
so.

Following World War
II, they resorted to military
aggression to make an entire nation homeless
on the pretext
of Jewish sufferings. And they sent migrants from Europe,

the United States, and other parts of the world in order to
establish a
totally racist government in the occupied
Palestine… [Delegates walk out in
protest. Applause] And in
fact in compensation for the dire consequences of
racism in
Europe… Okay, please. Thank you. And in fact in
compensation
for the dire consequences of racism in Europe,
they helped bring to power
the most cruel and repressive,
racist regime in Palestine. [Applause]


The Security Council helped stabilize this occupation
regime and supported
it in the past 60 years, giving them a
free hand to continue their crimes.
It is all the more
regrettable that a number of Western governments and the

United States have committed themselves to defend those
racist perpetrators
of genocide whilst the awakened
conscience and free minded people of the
world condemn
aggression, brutalities and bombardments of civilians in

Gaza. They have always been supportive or silent against
their crimes. And
before that, they have always been silent
with regard to their crimes.


Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, what are the
root causes of
U.S. attacks against Iraq or invasion of
Afghanistan? [Shouts from
audience] What are the root
causes of U.S. attacks against Iraq invasion of

Afghanistan? Was the motive behind the invasion of Iraq
anything other than
the arrogance of the then U.S.
administration and the mounting pressures on
the part of
the owner of wealth and power to expand their sphere of

influence, seeking the interests of giant arms
manufacturing companies,
affecting a noble culture with
thousands of years of historical background,
eliminating
potential and practical traits of Muslim countries against

the useful Zionist regime, or to control and plunder energy
resources of
the Iraqi people? Why, indeed almost a million
people were killed and
injured and a few more millions were
displaced and became homeless. Why,
indeed the Iraqi people
have suffered enormous losses amounting to hundreds
of
billions of dollars. And why was hundreds of billions of
dollars
imposed on the American people and its allies as a
result of these military
actions? Wasn’t the military
action against Iraq planned by the Zionists
and their
allies in the then U.S. administration in complicity with

the arms manufacturing companies and the owner of the
wealth?


The invasion of Afghanistan; restore peace, security, and
economic well
being in this country. The United States and
its allies not only have
failed to contain [?] in
Afghanistan, but also the illicit cultivation of
narcotics
multiplied in the course of their presence. The basic

question is: What was the responsibility of the job of the
then U.S.
administration and its allies? Did it represent
the world? Have they been
mandated by them? Have they been
authorized on behalf of the people of the
world to
interfere in all parts of the globe? And of course mostly
in
our region aren’t these measures a clear example of
egocentrism, racism,
discrimination, or infringement upon
the dignity and independence of
nations?

Ladies and gentlemen, who are responsible for the current

global economic crisis? Where did the crisis start from?
From Africa? From
Asia? Or was it first from the United
States, then spreading to Europe and
to their allies? For a
long time they imposed inequitable economic
regulations. By
their political power on the international economy they

imposed a financial and a monetary system without a proper
international
oversight mechanism on nations and
governments that played no role in the
repressive trends or
policies. They have not even allowed their people to

oversee of monitor their financial policies. They introduce
all laws and
regulations in defiance to all moral values
only to protect the interests
of the owners of wealth and
power. They further presented a definition of
market
economy and competition that denied many of the economic

opportunities that could be available to other countries of
the world. They
even transferred their problems to others
whilst the wave of crisis lashed
back, plaguing their
economies with thousands of billions of dollars in
budget
deficits. And today, they are injecting hundreds of
billions of
cash from the pockets of their own people into
the failing banks companies
and financial institutions
making the situation more and more complicated
for the
economy and their people. They are simply thinking about

maintaining power and wealth. They couldn’t care any less
about the people
of the world and even about their own
people.

Mr. President,
ladies and gentlemen, racism is rooted in
the lack of knowledge concerning
the truth of human
existence as the selected creature of God. It is also
the
product of his deviation from the true path of human life
and the
obligations of mankind in the world of creation.
Failing to consciously
worship God, not being able to think
about the philosophy of life or the
path to perfection that
are the main ingredients of divine and humanitarian
values,
have restricted the horizon of human outlook, making
transient
and limited interests a yardstick for his
actions.

That is why
the cells of the Devil’s power took shape and
expanded its realm of power
by depriving others from
enjoying equitable and just opportunities to
development.
The result has been the making of an unbridled racism that

is posing the most serious threat against the international
peace and has
hindered the way for building peaceful
coexistence in the entire world.
Undoubtedly, racism is the
symbol of ignorance which has deep roots in
history. And it
is indeed a sign of frustration in the development of human

society. It is therefore crucially important to trace the
manifestations of
racism in situations or in societies
where ignorance or lack of knowledge
prevails in the
societies. This increasing general awareness and

understanding towards the philosophy of human existence is
the principle
struggle against such manifestations; which
is the key to understanding the
truth that humankind
centers on the creation of the universe, and the key
to a
return to the spiritual and moral values, and finally the

inclination to worship God the Almighty. The international
community must
initiate collective moves to raise awareness
in the afflicted societies
where the ignorance of racism
still prevails so as to bring to a halt the
spread of these
malicious manifestations.

Dear friends, today
the human community is facing a kind of
racism which has tarnished the
image of humanity in the
beginning of the third millennium. The world
Zionism
personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and
abuses
religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly
faces. However, it is of
great importance to bring into
focus the political goals of some of the
world powers and
those who control huge economic resources and interests in

the world. They mobilize all their resources, including
their economic and
political influence and world media to
render support in vain to the
Zionist regime, and
maliciously endeavor to diminish the indignity and
disgrace
of this regime. This is not simply a question of ignorance,

and one cannot conquer this ugly phenomenon through
cultural campaigns.
Efforts must be made to put an end to
the abuse by Zionists and their
supporters of political and
international means and respect of the will and
aspirations
of nations. Governments must be encouraged and supported in

their fights aimed at eradicating this barbaric racism
[applause] and to
move towards reforming … [applause] … the
current international mechanisms.


There is no doubt that you are all aware of the
conspiracies of some powers
and Zionist circles against the
goals and objectives of this conference.
Unfortunately,
there has been literature and statements in support of

Zionism and their crimes, and it is the responsibility of
honorable
representatives of nations to disclose these
campaigns which run counter to
humanitarian values and
principles. It should be recognized that boycotting
such a
session as an outstanding international capacity is a true

indication of supporting the blatant example of racism.

In defending
human rights it is primarily important to
defend the rights of all nations
to participate equally in
all important international decision making
processes
without the influence of certain world powers. And secondly

it is necessary to restructure the existing international
organizations and
their respective arrangements. Therefore
this conference is a testing
ground and the world public
opinion today and tomorrow will judge our
decisions and our
actions [applause].

Mr. President. Mr
President. Ladies and gentlemen. The
world is going through fundamental
changes, radical
fundamental changes. Power relations have become so weak

and fragile. The sounds of cracks in the pillars of world
oppression can
now be heard. Major political and economic
structures are at the brink of
collapse. Political and
security crises are on the rise. The worsening
crises in
the world economy for which there can be seen no bright

prospect, amply demonstrate the rising tide of far reaching
global changes.
I have repeatedly emphasized the need to
change the wrong direction in
which the world has been
managed today. And I have also warned of the dire

consequences of any delay in this crucial responsibility.

Now, in
this [?] and valuable event, I would like to
announce here to all leaders
thinkers, and to all nations
of the world present in this meeting and those
who have a
hunger for peace and economic well being, that the

management, the inequitable and unjust management of the
world, is now at
the end of the road. This deadlock was
inevitable since the logic of this
imposed management was
oppressive.

The logic of collective
management of world affairs is
based on noble aspirations which centers on
human beings
and the supremacy of the Almighty God. Therefore it defies

any policy or plan which goes against the interest of
nations. Victory of
the right over the wrong and
establishment of a just world system have been
promised by
the Almighty God and his messengers and it has been a

shared goal of all human beings from different societies
and generations in
the course of history. Realization of
such a future depends upon the
knowledge of the creation
and the belief in the hearts of all the faithful

[applause]. The making of a global society is in fact the
accomplishment of
a noble held in the establishment of a
common global system that will be
run with the
participation of all nations of the world in all major and

basic decision making processes and the definite route to
this sublime
goal. Scientific and technical capacities as
well as communication
technologies have created a common
and wider spread understanding of the
world society and has
provided the necessary ground for a common system.


Now it is incumbent upon all intellectuals, thinkers, and
policy makers in
the world to carry out their historical
responsibility with firm belief to
this definite route, I
also want to lay emphasis on the fact that the
western
liberalism and capitalism, like communism, has reached to
its
end since it has failed to perceive the truth of the
world and human[kind]
as it is. It has imposed its own
goals and directions on human beings with
no regard for
human and divine values, justice, freedom, love, or

brotherhood; has based the living on the intensive
competition securing
individual and collective material
interests.

Now we must learn
from the past by initiating collective
efforts by dealing with present
challenges, and in this
connection and in closing my remarks I wish to draw
your
kind attention to two important points. One: It is
absolutely
possible to improve the existing situation in
the world. However, it must
be noted that it could only be
achieved through the cooperation of all
countries in order
to get the best out of existing capacities and resources
in
the world. My participation in this conference is because
of my
conviction of these important issues, as well as to
our common
responsibility to defending the rights of
nations /vis-a-vis/ the sinister
phenomenon of racism, and
being with you, the thinkers of the world.
[Applause]

Two: Mindful of the inefficacy of the current
international
political, economic, and security systems on the world

scene, it is necessary to focus on the divine and
humanitarian values and
by referring to the true definition
of human beings, and based upon justice
and respect for the
rights of all people in all parts of the world, and by

acknowledging the past wrongdoings in the past dominant
management of the
world undertake collective measures to
reform the existing structures. In
this respect, it is
crucially important to reform the structure of the
Security
Council, including the elimination of the discriminatory
veto
right … [applause] … and change the current world and
financial monetary
systems. It is evident that lack of
understanding on the urgency for change
is equivalent to
the much heavier costs of delay.

Dear friends,
be aware that to move in the direction of
justice and human dignity is like
the national rapid flow
in the current of a river. Let us not forget the
essence of
love and affection, the promised bright future of human

beings is a great asset that will serve our purpose in
keeping us together
to build a new world and to make the
world a better place full of love
fraternity and blessings;
a world devoid of poverty and hatred, [inaudible]
the
increasing blessings of God Almighty and the righteous
management
of the perfect human being. Let us all join
hands in amity in playing our
share in the fulfillment such
a decent new world.

I thank you
Mr. President, Secretary General, and all
distinguished participants for
having the patience to
listen to me. Thank you very much.


Posted by Sukant Chandan at 17:59

Pages From History: The Black Panther Party on 'Why We Are Not Racists'

The Black Panther Party holds May Day demonstration to Free Huey in Detroit
at the Federal Court House on Lafayette during May 1, 1969. (Photo: Leni
Sinclair).
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

WHY WE ARE NOT RACISTS


by Bobby Seale, Seize the Time, 1970

The Black Panther Party is not a
black racist organization, not a racist organization at all. We understand where
racism comes from. Our Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton, has taught us to
understand that we have to oppose all kinds of racism. The Party understands the
imbedded racism in a large part of white America and it understands that the
very small cults that sprout up every now and then in the black community have a
basically black racist philosophy.

The Black Panther Party would not
stoop to the low, scurvy level of a Ku Klux Klansman, a white supremacist, or
the so-called "patriotic" white citizens organizations, which hate black people
because of the color of their skin. Even though some white citizens
organizations will stand up and say, "Oh, we don't hate black people. It's just
that we're not gonna let black people do this, and we're not gonna let black
people do that." This is scurvy demagoguery, and the basis of it is the old
racism of tabooing everything, and especially of tabooing the body. The black
man's mind was stripped by the social environment, by the decadent social
environment he was subjected to in slavery and in the years after the so-called
Emancipation Proclamation. Black people, brown people, Chinese people, and
Vietnamese people are called gooks, spicks, niggers, and other derogatory names.


What the Black Panther Party has done in essence is to call for an alliance and
coalition with all of the people and organizations who want to move against the
power structure. It is the power structure who are the pigs and hogs, who have
been robbing the people; the avaricious, demagogic ruling-class elite who move
the pigs upon our heads and who order them to do so as a means of maintaining
their same old exploitation.

In the days of worldwide capitalistic
imperialism, with that imperialism also manifested right here in America against
many different peoples, we find it necessary, as human beings, to oppose
misconceptions of the day, like integration.

If people want to
integrate - and I'm assuming they will fifty or 100 years from now - that's
their business. But right now we have the problem of a ruling-class system that
perpetuates racism and uses racism as a key to maintain its capitalistic
exploitation. They use blacks, especially the blacks who come out of the
colleges and the elite class system, because these blacks have a tendency to
flock toward a black racism which is parallel to the racism the Ku Klux Klan or
white citizens groups practice.

It's obvious that trying to fight
fire with fire means there's going to be a lot of burning. The best way to fight
fire is with water because water douses the fire. The water is the solidarity of
the people's right to defend themselves together in opposition to a vicious
monster. Whatever is good for the man, can't be good for us. Whatever is good
for the capitalistic ruling-class system, can't be good for the masses of the
people.

We, the Black Panther Party, see ourselves as a nation
within a nation, but not for any racist reasons. We see it as a necessity for us
to progress as human beings and live on the face of this earth along with other
people. We do not fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We
do not fight exploitative capitalism with black capitalism. We fight capitalism
with basic socialism. And we do not fight imperialism with more imperialism. We
fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism. These principles are very
functional for the Party. They're very practical, humanistic, and necessary.
They should be understood by the masses of the people.

We don't use
our guns, we have never used our guns to go into the white community to shoot up
white people. We only defend ourselves against anybody, be they black, blue,
green, or red, who attacks us unjustly and tries to murder us and kill us for
implementing our programs. All in all, I think people can see from our past
practice, that ours is not a racist organization but a very progressive
revolutionary party.

Those who want to obscure the struggle with
ethnic differences are the ones who are aiding and maintaining the exploitation
of the masses of the people: poor whites, poor blacks, browns, red Indians, poor
Chinese and Japanese, and the workers at large.

Racism and ethnic
differences allow the power structure to exploit the masses of workers in this
country, because that's the key by which they maintain their control. To divide
the people and conquer them is the objective of the power structure. It's the
ruling class, the very small minority, the few avaricious, demagogic hogs and
rats who control and infest the government. The ruling class and their running
dogs, their lackeys, their bootlickers, their Toms and their black racists,
their cultural nationalists - they're all the running dogs of the ruling class.
These are the ones who help to maintain and aid the power structure by
perpetuating their racist attitudes and using racism as a means to divide the
people. But it's really the small, minority ruling class that is dominating,
exploiting, and oppressing the working and laboring people.

All of
us are laboring-class people, employed or unemployed, and our unity has got to
be based on the practical necessities of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, if that means anything to anybody. It's got to be based on the
practical things like the survival of people and people's right to
self-determination, to iron out the problems that exist. So in essence it is not
at all a race struggle. We're rapidly educating people to this. In our view it
is a class struggle between the massive proletarian working class and the small,
minority ruling class. Working-class people of all colors must unite against the
exploitative, oppressive ruling class. So let me emphasize again - we believe
our fight is a class struggle and not a race struggle.

Cuban President Raul Castro Addresses Non-Aligned Movement, April 29, 2009

Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz at the National Assembly where he was
officially elected on Feb. 24, 2008. His brother Fidel remains head of the
Communist Party.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Thursday, 30 April 2009


RAUL CASTRO ADDRESSES NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT

Key Address at the
Ministerial Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement

HAVANA, CUBA, APRIL
29, 2009

Distinguished participants in this ministerial meeting:


It is an honor for our people and government to again host
a high level
meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement. Two years
and seven months have passed
since the celebration in this
same hall of the 14th Summit of Heads of
State or
Government in September 2006. On that occasion I said:


"On the sound foundations of our historic victories in the
struggle for
decolonization and the removal of apartheid
and with the rich experience of
our efforts in favor of a
New International Economic Order and of peace,
disarmament
and the true exercise of the right to development, the

Non-Aligned Movement shall now wage heroic battles against
unilateralism,
double standards and the impunity of the
powerful; for a more just and
equitable international order
to tackle neoliberalism, plundering and
pillage; for the
survival of the human species instead of the irrational

consumerism of the wealthy nations."

The challenges identified then
are not only still standing
but they are now more dangerous and pressing.
Therefore,
the necessity for NAM to act in a coordinated fashion is

today more imperative and crucial. We are currently
afflicted by a deep
economic, social, food, energy and
environmental crisis that have become
global. The
international debates are multiplied but they do not engage

every country. There is a growing awareness that solutions
must be found
shortly; however, just and lasting solutions
seem elusive. If we fail to
act firmly and expeditiously
our peoples stand to suffer again the worst
consequences of
this crisis, and for a longer period of time.

It
is impossible to sustain the unfair and irrational
consumption patterns
that served as the basis to the
current international order imposed by a
few that we have
been forced to respect. A global order inspired in

hegemonic pretenses and the selfishness of privileged
minorities is neither
legitimate nor ethically acceptable.
A system that destroys the environment
and promotes unequal
access to riches cannot last. Underdevelopment is an

unavoidable result of the current world order.

Neoliberalism has
failed as an economic policy. Today, any
objective analysis raises serious
questions about the myth
of the goodness of the market and its
deregulation; the
alleged benefits of privatizations and the reduction of
the
states' economic and redistribution capacity; and the
credibility
of the financial institutions.

In 1979, thirty years ago, when Cuba
first assumed the
chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement, the leader of
the
Cuban Revolution comrade Fidel Castro alerted on the
negative
consequences of spending over 300 billion dollars
in weapons and on the
existence of a foreign debt of the
underdeveloped countries that amounted
to almost as much.

On that occasion comrade Fidel estimated that, at
the time,
that figure would have allowed: ".to build in one year 600

thousand schools to teach 400 million children; or 60
million comfortable
houses for 300 million people; or 30
thousand hospitals with 18 million
beds; or 20 thousand
factories providing jobs to over 20 million workers;
or
placing 150 million hectares of land under irrigation which
with an
adequate technical level could feed one billion
people."

Of
course, nothing was done and the situation has
aggravated dramatically.
Suffice it to say that currently
the annual military expenses exceed the
figure of one
trillion dollars; the number of unemployed in the world

could rise to 230 million during 2009; and in hardly a year
-during
2008-the number of people starving in the world
mounted from 854 million to
963 million.

The UN has estimated that 80 billion dollars a year for
a
decade would be enough to eradicate poverty, hunger and the
lack of
health and education services and houses all over
the world. That figure is
three times lower than what the
South countries spend every year to pay
their foreign debt.

The international system of economic relations
requires
fundamental changes. This was demanded almost 35 years ago
by
the member countries of our Movement in the Declaration
and Plan of Action
for the Establishment of a New
International Economic Order adopted in the
6th Special
Session of the United Nations General Assembly in May 1974.


The solution to the global economic crisis demands a
coordinated action
with the universal, democratic and
equitable participation of all
countries. The response
cannot be a solution negotiated by the leaders of
the most
powerful nations without the participation of the United

Nations.

The G-20 solution calling for the strengthening of the role

and functions of the International Monetary Fund, whose
nefarious policies
had a decisive effect on the emergence,
aggravation and magnitude of the
current crisis cannot
solve inequality, injustice or the unsustainability
of the
present system.

The UN High Level Conference on the
Economic and Financial
Crisis and its Impact on Development scheduled for
June 1
to 3, 2009, is the indispensable context to debate and try
to
find solutions by consensus to this grave situation, and
the Non-Aligned
Movement should support it.

From its inception, this Movement has
shown its willingness
to work for peace and security for the community of
nations
and for defense of International Law. The removal of the

weapons of mass destruction, and foremost nuclear
disarmament, is still a
priority.

The practice of multilateralism requires absolute respect

for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the states
and for the
self-determination of the peoples. It also
demands to dispense with threats
and the use of force in
international relations, and to do without
hegemonic
aspirations and imperial behavior. It requires to put an
end
to foreign occupation and to deny impunity to such
criminal aggressions as
those of Israel against the
Palestinian people.

The Movement
should engage in every major debate of the
international agenda, in the
different venues and
multilateral forum and with the broadest participation
of
its member countries, not to compete with other groups of
South
countries but to strengthen and complement them.

We need to continue
permanently improving the Movement's
working methods. The fulfillment of
the Plan of Action we
have adopted shall be an indispensable tool to
determine
our priorities and our tasks.

We should all start
working right away to ensure a
successful 15th Summit of Heads of State or
Government in
Egypt next July. We should make a critical analysis of

everything done until today and set ourselves new goals and
objectives in
compliance with current and future problems
and challenges.


Finally, on behalf of Cuba I wish to express the
appreciation of our
government and our entire people for
the steadfast and unwavering
solidarity of the Non-Aligned
Movement with the Cuban Revolution, and
particularly for
its permanent call for the lifting of the unfair U.S.

economic, financial and commercial blockade. Although the
measures recently
announced by President Obama are positive
they are of limited scope. The
blockade remains intact.
There is no political or moral pretext that
justifies the
continuation of that policy.

Cuba has not imposed
any sanction on the United States or
its citizens. It is not Cuba that
prevents that country's
entrepreneurs from doing business with ours. It is
not Cuba
that chases the financial transactions of the American
banks.
It is not Cuba that has a military base in the U.S.
territory against that
people's will, and so on and so
forth, --to avoid making an endless list--
therefore, it is
not Cuba that should make gestures.

And if they
want to discuss everything, as we recently said
at an ALBA summit in
Venezuela, that is, to discuss
everything, everything, everything, we can
discuss
everything related to us but also everything related to
them,
on equal footing.

We have insisted that we are willing to discuss
everything
with the United States government, on equal footing; but we

are not willing to negotiate our sovereignty or our
political and social
system, our right to
self-determination or our domestic affairs.


The greatest strength of our Movement lies in its unity
within our
characteristic diversity. Such has been the
major premise of the Cuban
presidency in the almost three
years of its mandate.

I have no
doubt that the Non-Aligned Movement will continue
to play a fundamental and
constructive role in the
international debates. Cuba will keep up its
efforts to
contribute to that objective.

I wish this Ministerial
Meeting every success.

Thank you very much.

Posted by
Sukant Chandan at 20:04

Rights Groups Still Waiting for Obama to Deliver

Database for fingerprints proposed by Homeland Security. The so-called 'war
on terrorism' has spawned a host of surveillance projects that erode
personal privacy and violate civil liberties.
Originally uploaded
by Pan-African News
Wire File Photos

Rights groups still waiting for Obama to
deliver

By William Fisher

Apr. 30- While human rights
and open-government groups are generally pleased with President Barack Obama's
rhetoric during his first 100 days, some are skeptical that he will deliver on
his promises.

Caroline Fredrickson, head of the Washington
Legislative Office for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told IPS that
Obama's first 100 days "are something of a mixed bag."

She said the
president's first-day-in-office executive orders closing the Guantánamo Bay
detention center, ordering a review of all cases there, and suspending the
military commission trials were "an excellent start."

Frederickson
was far less pleased with the president's use of the "state secrets" privilege,
which has prevented a number of lawsuits from ever being heard in court. And she
questioned the wisdom of the administration's position that detainees at Bagram
Air Force base in Afghanistan have no right to challenge their detention.


She also cautioned that there are a number of "unknowns," including the issue of
what to do with Guantánamo Bay detainees who are cleared for release, but who
have no place to go, as well as where to keep those who are to be tried in U.S.
courts and others who cannot be tried because the evidence against them was
obtained through torture.

The ACLU is opposed to indefinite detention
as well as to the establishment of special security courts. Obama has not yet
clarified the administration's position on these issues.

The
London-based rights group Amnesty International expressed similarly mixed
sentiments, praising Obama for declaring that he will close Guantánamo, but
noting that after an "auspicious start" in making a swift announcement, more
than 240 detainees are no closer to freedom.

"The bottom line is
that… unlawful detentions at Guantánamo Bay continue, and for the vast majority
of the detainees, the change in administration has so far meant no change in
their situation," Amnesty said.

The group also expressed concerns
about suspects held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, which it said remained
"shrouded in secrecy."

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) –
which has mobilized a small army of pro-bono lawyers to defend Guantánamo
detainees – praised Obama's rhetoric but cautioned that "in many areas of
critical importance – like human rights, torture, rendition, secrecy and
surveillance – his words have been loftier than his actions."

Vince
Warren, CCR executive director, noted that "secrecy was the hallmark of the
[George W.] Bush administration. It classified more documents than any
administration in history, restricted Freedom of Information Act requests and
tried to protect government officials and military contractors from being held
liable for illegal actions, such as torture and wrongful death."

"It
invoked the state secrets privilege to avoid scrutiny in court and
responsibility for government action more times than any other administration,"
he said.

"Obama has come down on both sides of this issue, ordering
far more transparency through cooperation with Freedom of Information Act
requests, while at the same time invoking state secrets in a case charging an
aviation corporation with complicity in rendering a detainee to torture," Warren
said.

He was also critical of Obama on the issue of electronic
surveillance, pointing out that the new president "still has not repudiated the
executive orders supporting warrantless wiretapping and the legal opinions used
to support them."

Warren said that release of the "torture memos"
prepared by lawyers in the Bush Justice Department was "welcome," but he noted
that "Obama has indicated he will not prosecute former officials who broke the
law and committed crimes, saying he would rather look forward than back. For
there to be no consequences for creating a torture program not only calls our
system of justice into question, but it also could allow the nightmare to happen
all over again."

A generally positive assessment was offered by a
leading open-government advocacy organization, OMB Watch, which said, "The
president and his team have made significant progress in both the right-to-know
and regulatory areas."

But it added that "there is still much work to
be done as we move deeper into Obama's term in office."

"Overall, the
Obama administration has set a strong tone on transparency, but a true
assessment cannot occur until the development of agency-wide policies are put in
place and fully implemented," the group said.

"During his first full
day in office, Obama successfully communicated the importance of transparency to
agencies and the public by issuing memorandums on the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) and on transparency and open government."

But it was critical
of the new president on the issues of "signing statements" and use of the "state
secrets privilege" to keep cases out of court on national security grounds.


It said, "Many groups considered Obama's signing statement on the 2009 omnibus
appropriations bill to be an affront to whistleblower protections. These groups
have interpreted Obama's signing statement as impeding the ability of government
employees to communicate with Congress."

"Further, in repeated court
cases, Obama administration officials have insisted on maintaining the Bush
administration's broad interpretation of executive branch power on the issue of
state secrets. There has been no public discussion of reviewing these policies
for possible revision."

Source: Inter Press Service



Domestic surveillance draws civil liberties concerns

By Eric Schmitt


Apr. 28- A growing number of big-city police departments and other law
enforcement agencies across the country are embracing a new system to report
suspicious activities that officials say could uncover terrorism plots but that
civil liberties groups contend might violate individual rights.

In
Los Angeles and in nearly a dozen other cities, including Boston, Chicago and
Miami, officers are filling out terror tip sheets if they run across activities
in their routines that seem out of place, like someone buying police or
firefighter uniforms, taking pictures of a power plant or espousing extremist
views.

Ultimately, state and federal officials intend to have a
nationwide reporting system in place by 2014, using a standardized system of
codes for suspicious behaviors. It is the most ambitious effort since the Sept.
11 attacks to put in place a network of databases to comb for clues that might
foretell acts of terrorism.

But the American Civil Liberties Union
and other rights groups warn that the program pioneered by the Los Angeles
Police Department raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.


"The behaviors identified by L.A.P.D. are so commonplace and ordinary that the
monitoring or reporting of them is scarcely any less absurd," the A.C.L.U. said
in a report last July.

"This overbroad reporting authority," the
report adds, "gives law enforcement officers justification to harass practically
anyone they choose, to collect personal information and to pass such information
along to the intelligence community."

Muslim-American groups here
also view the program with suspicion, especially after the police department's
counterterrorism and criminal intelligence bureau proposed in November 2007 to
create a map detailing the Muslim communities in the city, ostensibly as a step
toward thwarting radicalization. Muslim leaders said the idea amounted to racial
or religious profiling, and it was dropped.

Cmdr. Joan T. McNamara,
assistant commander of the counterterrorism bureau, said her department was
vetting information from the some 1,500 reports so far in the year-old program.
Commander McNamara said in an interview that police officers, intelligence
analysts and top commanders were training in what kind of suspicious behavior to
look for, based on a 65-item checklist that she and her staff created, as well
as in privacy and civil liberties issues.

The Los Angeles program has
not foiled any terrorism plots, said Commander McNamara and Lt. Robert Fox, who
runs the department's suspicious reporting program. But they said 67 of the
reports had been referred to the local Joint Terrorism Task Force, headed by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.

About 20 reports have led to arrests
in cases involving explosives, weapons, bomb threats and organized crime, they
said, but they declined to give details because the cases are under
investigation.

"We're able to connect the dots like we were never
able to before," said Commander McNamara, a 26-year veteran and highly decorated
former narcotics officer.

The approach is based on experience showing
that terrorists typically surveil their targets before an attack, conducting dry
runs of their operations to note guard schedules, to gauge how emergency
personnel react to false alarms or abandoned packages and to seek out security
weaknesses.

Some programs are in their infancy, but senior police
officers in other cities said a searchable network of standardized databases
could help with reporting and analyzing suspicious behavior possibly linked to
terrorism that might previously have fallen through the cracks.

"This
is the piece of the whole puzzle that's been missing," said Earl O. Perkins, a
deputy superintendent with the Boston Police Department who oversees its
intelligence center.

Mr. Perkins said that his department had not
detected any terror plots in the nine months the program had been operating but
that it had led to arrests involving credit-card fraud and identify theft,
crimes associated with terrorism cells in the past.

A branch of the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence is sponsoring the national pilot
program that in addition to Boston and Los Angeles includes police departments
in Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, Seattle and Washington, as well
as state intelligence fusion centers in Florida, New York and Virginia. Nearly
two dozen other cities have expressed interest.

The New York City
Police Department has an extensive reporting system that works closely with the
F.B.I., said Paul J. Browne, a department spokesman.

After issuing
the report critical of the Los Angeles program, A.C.L.U. lawyers have met in
recent months with police and federal officials to try to work out tougher
safeguards on vetting information that goes into the reports, police training
and privacy and civil liberties protections.

"Our concern lies with
the investigation of noncriminal, ordinary activity," said Peter Bibring, a
staff lawyer with the A.C.L.U. of Southern California, who met recently with Los
Angeles police officials. "It remains to be seen how much of my feedback they
take."

Civil liberties advocates praise the transparency of the
police efforts in Los Angeles and a few other cities. But they also cite
problems in places where police or other law enforcement officials have
overreached — examples they say will multiply if the program to report
suspicious activity expands.

In September 2007, a 24-year-old
Muslim-American journalism student at Syracuse University was stopped by a
Veterans Affairs police officer in New York for taking photographs of flags in
front of a V.A. building as part of a class assignment. The student was taken
into an office for questioning, and the images were deleted from her camera
before she was released.

Also that year, a 54-year-old artist and
fine arts professor at the University of Washington was stopped by Washington
State police for taking photographs of electrical power lines as part of an art
project. The professor was searched, handcuffed and placed in the back of a
police car for almost half an hour before being released.

Police
officials acknowledge that problems need to be worked out.

"We want
police officers to be aware of criminal activities with nexus to terrorism, but
we don't want them stopping everyone who takes a picture of the Golden Gate
Bridge," said Tom Frazier, a former Baltimore police commissioner who is
executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents the
nation's 56 largest police departments.

In Los Angeles, Deputy Chief
Michael P. Downing, head of the police counterterrorism bureau, said the program
should give law enforcement officials more warning to help avert an attack.


"We should be able to see something coming, harden the target and deploy
resources to it," Chief Downing said.

Source: New York Times



Prosecutors end secrets case against AIPAC lobbyists

By Neil Lewis
and David Johnston
New York Times

May. 1- A case that began
four years ago with the tantalizing and volatile premise that officials of a
major pro-Israel lobbying organization were illegally trafficking in sensitive
national security information collapsed on Friday as prosecutors asked that all
charges be withdrawn.

From the beginning, the case against the
lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was highly unusual.
The two, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were charged under the World War
I-era Espionage Act, accused of improperly providing to their colleagues,
journalists and Israeli diplomats sensitive information they had acquired by
speaking with American policy makers.

Some lawyers at the Justice
Department had always had significant reservations about the case, some current
and former officials said. They believed that Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman had
acted imprudently, but doubted that either man should be criminally prosecuted.
Nevertheless, F.B.I. agents poured substantial resources into the case, and the
decision to seek a dismissal infuriated many within the law enforcement agency.


But several current and former officials said the decision to abandon the case
was no surprise. With adverse judicial rulings making the prosecution
increasingly risky, lawyers in the United States Attorney's Office in
Alexandria, Va., and at Justice Department headquarters met on several occasions
in recent weeks, agonizing over whether to go forward with the trial, which was
scheduled to begin June 2.

Last week, officials from the F.B.I.'s
Washington office who investigated the case made their final pleas to keep the
case alive, arguing that there was enough evidence to persuade a jury to find
the two men guilty. But prosecutors—including some who had worked on the case
for years — disagreed.

Joseph Persichini Jr., the top official at the
F.B.I.'s Washington office, praised the work of the F.B.I. agents on the case,
and said he was "disappointed" in the decision to drop the charges.


The case had raised delicate political issues about the role played by American
Jewish supporters of Israel and their close, behind-the-scenes relationships
with top government officials. Advocates of civil liberties and of open
government asserted that the defendants were being singled out for activities
that were part of the accepted and routine way that American policy on Israel
and the Middle East had been formulated for years, with people exchanging
information.

The decision to drop the case comes just days before
Aipac is scheduled to begin its annual policy conference in Washington, which
has often served as an advertisement of its influence. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu of Israel is scheduled to address the event via satellite.


Lawyers for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman said in a statement that while they were
pleased at the decision, the government had erred in bringing the case in the
first place and had caused great damage to their clients. Aipac dismissed the
men early in 2004 after prosecutors presented some of their evidence to an Aipac
lawyer. The group later agreed to subsidize their legal costs.

The
Justice Department said that the decision to drop the case had been made solely
by career prosecutors in Alexandria, and that senior officials of the Obama
administration had acted only to approve the recommendation.

Several
other officials said, however, that while senior political appointees at the
Justice Department did not direct subordinates to drop the case, they were
heavily involved in the deliberations. These officials said David S. Kris, the
newly appointed chief of the department's national security division, and Dana
J. Boente, the interim United States attorney in Alexandria, had conferred
regularly with prosecutors and ultimately decided to accept the recommendation
to abandon the case. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was informed and raised
no objections.

The case would have been the first prosecution under
the espionage law in which no documents were involved and in which the
defendants were not officials who provided the information, but the private
citizens who received it from them in conversations.

While Mr. Rosen
and Mr. Weissman trafficked in facts, ideas and rumor, they had done so with the
full awareness of officials in the United States and Israel, who found they
often helped lubricate the wheels of decision-making between two close, but
sometimes quarrelsome, friends.

The move by the government to end the
case came in a motion filed with the Federal Court in Alexandria.

In
pretrial maneuvering, the prosecution suffered several setbacks in rulings from
the trial judge, T. S. Ellis III, that were upheld by a federal appeals court in
Richmond, Va. Judge Ellis rejected several government efforts to conceal
classified information if the case went to trial. Moreover, he ruled that the
government could prevail only if it met a high standard; he said prosecutors
would have to demonstrate that Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman knew that their
distribution of the information would harm United States national security.


The investigation of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman also surfaced recently in news
reports that Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat long involved in
intelligence matters, was overheard on a government wiretap discussing the case.
As reported by Congressional Quarterly, which covers Capitol Hill, and The New
York Times, Ms. Harman was overheard agreeing with an Israeli intelligence
operative to try to intercede with Bush administration officials to obtain
leniency for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman in exchange for help in persuading
Democratic leaders to make her chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee.


Ms. Harman has denied interceding for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman, and has
expressed anger that she was wiretapped.

Over government objections,
Judge Ellis had also ruled that the defense could call as witnesses several
senior Bush administration foreign policy officials to demonstrate that what
occurred was part of the continuing process of information trading and did not
involve anything nefarious. The defense lawyers were planning to call as
witnesses former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Stephen J. Hadley, the
former national security adviser; and several others. Government policy makers
indicated they were clearly uncomfortable with senior officials' testifying in
open court over policy deliberations.

The government's motion to
dismiss said the government was obliged take a final review of the case to
consider "the likelihood that classified information will be revealed at trial,
any damage to the national security that might result from a disclosure of
classified information and the likelihood the government would prevail at
trial."

Source: New York Times

Hamas is Backing Two-State Solution in Palestine

Hamas leader based in Syria, Khaled Mershaal, says the Palestinian movement
will never recognize the terms of an Israeli ceasefire. Over 1,400 were
killed by the IDF during December 2008 and January 2009.
Originally
uploaded by Pan-African
News Wire File Photos

Hamas is backing two-state solution


Author: Tom Mellen
People's Weekly World Newspaper
05/06/09 08:43


Original source: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk

The political
leader of Hamas has expressed support for a two-state solution to the
Israel-Palestine conflict, similar to that sought by the Palestinian Authority.


In an interview with the New York Times, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled
Meshaal said on Tuesday that the Islamic Resistance Movement seeks the
establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, based on their
borders before the 1967 war.

"We are with a state on the 1967
borders, based on a long-term truce," Mr Meshaal said, defining long-term as 10
years.

"This includes east Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements
and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees," he stressed.


Mr Meshaal, who was re-elected to his post for four additional years last month,
told the NYT that guerillas in the Gaza Strip have unilaterally ceased firing
rockets at Israel for the time being.

Hamas has also limited its
offensive activities against Israel following a re-evaluation of its policies,
he said.

"Not firing the rockets currently is part of an evaluation
from the movement which serves the Palestinians' interest," he told the
newspaper.

"After all, the firing is a method, not a goal -
resistance is a legitimate right, but practising such a right comes under an
evaluation by the movement's leaders," Mr Meshaal added.

The
Damascus-based official promised the US administration and the international
community "that we will be part of the solution, period."

But he
described Fatah's 1993 decision to recognise Israel's right to exist as an
error, asking: "Did that recognition lead to an end of the occupation?


"It's just a pretext by the United States and Israel to escape dealing with the
real issue and throw the ball into the Arab and Palestinian court."


In a shift from former US president George W Bush's approach, the Obama
administration has reached out to US adversaries Syria and Iran - but it has
continued to refuse to engage with Hamas.

Speaking to French
television on Sunday, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad urged the US to hold
talks with Hamas and the Lebanese-based Hezbollah, both of which Washington
designates as terrorist groups.

But US State Department deputy
spokesman Robert Wood ruled this out on Monday, saying the resistance groups
"must renounce violence first.

"We would like to see Syria change
the behavior of these two groups," Mr Wood declared.

Hardline
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman refused to express support for the
idea of a Palestinian state at a press conference in Rome on Tuesday.


When asked if he would ever endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state, as
called for by the US and the EU, Mr Lieberman said: "This government's goal is
not produce slogans or make pompous declarations, but to reach concrete
results."

Prisoners Defending Prisoners: Review of New Book by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal on April 19, 2008 calling for his immediate
release after serving over 26 years in Pennsylvania for a crime he did not
commit.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

http://www.phillyimc.org/en/prisoners-defending-prisoners-review-new-book-mumia-abu-jamal


http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/04/30/18592062.php

Prisoners
Defending Prisoners: Review of new book by Mumia Abu-Jamal

by
Carolina Saldaña

“My only wish is to tell a story that has never
been told before,” says Mumia Abu-Jamal of his new book Jailhouse Lawyers:
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., City Lights Books, 2009.


Mumia Abu-Jamal’s sixth book written from death row is coming out at the very
time that the Supreme Court of the United States has slammed the door in his
face and the campaign to execute him has been renewed. The book was presented on
April 24 in Philadelphia, New York, Oakland, Detroit, Boston, Houston, Portland,
Los Ángeles, Seattle, Olympia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C., to celebrate his
birthday and open a new stage in the battle for his life and freedom.


See the Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble at Philadelphia event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fyKTmH4A8E

He tells us that there
are tens of thousands of jailhouse lawyers in the prisons of the United States.
Little known, if they are known at all, outside prison walls, they are men and
women who handle their own cases, defend other prisoners, or file suits to bring
about changes in prison conditions.

With insight, respect, empathy,
and humor, Mumia brings us the words and experiences of around thirty of them,
some of whom he has known personally in the prisons of Pennsylvania and others
who have corresponded with him or responded to his surveys. Most of them fight
their cases in unfamiliar territory because they didn’t go to law school before
they ended up in prison; they’ve learned the law on their own, usually with the
help of other, more experienced prisoners.

“They've not forgotten
how to fight,” says Mumia. “They've not forgotten how to resist. They've not
forgotten how to help others, often the most helpless around them. And they've
not forgotten how to win.... Some of these people have, quite literally, saved
people's lives by their work. Others have changed the rules of the game.”


To thank them for their services in protecting the Constitution, they are
punished more harshly than any other single group of prisoners.

In
this book, we get to know Steve Evans, who learned the law by himself and taught
many other prisoners (with the exception of snitches and baby rapers) how to
handle their own cases. His pupil Warren Henderson had to learn to read before
he could learn the law, but he developed such a love of reading that he stole
hundreds of books with the dream of setting up a library for the kids in the
‘hood when he got out of prison, and went on to successfully defend himself in
court. Midge DeLuca, who had cancer when she went to jail decided to help other
women who needed medical care after reading a line from her favorite poet Audre
Lorde, “only our silences will hurt us.”

We also meet quite a few
rebels, revolutionaries, and political prisoners, such as the MOVE members and
sympathizers who dramatically defied the authority of the courts in a long
series of trials, often with unorthodox tactics; Rashaan Brooks-Bey, who
organized strikes and other actions for prisoners’ rights, and along with his
co-plaintiffs Russell Maroon Shoatz, Robert Joyner, and Kareem Howard, openly
confronted the judge and demanded that the police be jailed; Martin Sostre, the
legendary organizer of the Afro-Asian Book Store in Buffalo, NY, who won many
suits and influenced many of his fellow prisoners; Iron Thunderhorse, long-time
prisoners’ rights organizer, now legally blind; and Ed Mead, originally a social
prisoner turned prisoners’ rights activist, and later member of the George
Jackson Brigade and then co-founder of Prison Legal News.

Scorned by
judges and district attorneys and faced with a serious lack of resources and
public apathy, jailhouse lawyers often lose their cases, but they have scored
some impressive wins.

-- In Pennsylvania, Richard Mayberry’s battles
to represent himself began in the mid-‘60s, and in spite of being sent to the
hole many times, he finally eliminated some of the major obstacles. He also won
a class-action suit in 1978 that brought drastic changes in the prisons of
several states in the areas of health, overcrowding, and punishments such as the
“glass cages.”

-- In 1971, David Ruiz filed suit against the Texas
prison system, which was run like a slave plantation, resulting in far-reaching
reforms ordered by Judge William Wayne Justice.

-- In Pennsylvania,
at the beginning of the ‘80s, a class action suit filed by Rashaan Brooks-Bey
resulted in the closure of a repressive unit at the Pittsburgh prison. The
prisoners also won two hours of outdoor exercise instead of fifteen minutes,
laundry service, covered food trays, and an end to four strip searches every
time they had a visitor.

-- In California, appeals filed by Jane
Dorotik have led to the freedom of a good number of women falsely imprisoned at
Chowchilla. Her work is underscored in a chapter dedicated to the work of
several women jailhouse lawyers at a time when there has been a tremendous
increase in the women’s prison population ––300% in the last few years.


-- Barry “Running Bear” Gibbs achieved the revocation of his own death sentence
as well as those of two other prisoners. He remembers how he felt when one of
them yelled out the good news. Says Running Bear: “Saving someone’s life via pen
and paper is a rewarding and unforgettable experience.”

-- The
shameful sentencing of 9 MOVE members to prison terms of 30-100 years in 1978
was followed by an astounding victory for the organization in 1981, when Mo and
John Africa successfully defended themselves on arms and explosives charges.
Their unusual tactics included summoning the 9 MOVE prisoners to testify about
the aims of their struggle, the good character of John Africa, and the treason
of the state’s witnesses, as well as a final speech by John Africa about the
survival of the planet. The jury, with tears in their eyes, exonerated them
completely.

--A few months later, MOVE sympathizer Abdul Jon was
able to get assault charges thrown out against him, Jeanette, and Teresa África,
at least temporarily, after the three suffered a brutal beating by the police.
His clear, logical arguments made the high-sounding (false) arguments of the
D.A. laughable. Although it was a minor victory, says Mumia, it gives something
of the flavor of the long string of MOVE trials.

Mumia brings out
the irony of the situation in which even though John Africa was exonerated by a
jury for possession of arms and explosives, he was murdered on May 13, 1985,
along with Theresa Africa and 9 other MOVE members with explosives illegally
obtained from the federal government to bomb MOVE’s house.

Yet not a
single local or federal agent was ever brought to justice. The only person
accused, tried, and sentenced to 7 years for “inciting a riot” was Ramona
Africa, who dared to survive the massacre. If she hadn’t handled her own case,
she would probably have spent many more years in jail, due to all the initial
charges against her.

Mumia has no doubt about the fact that, in the
final analysis, the law is whatever the judge says it is. In one interesting
chapter, he explores several definitions of the law, including that of the
person “now deemed the avatar of Western Capitalism,” Adam Smith: “Laws and
governments may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination
of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of
the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor,
who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an
equality with themselves by open violence.”

For prisoners, however,
the law is neither a theory nor an idea because they experience its brutal
reality. Furthermore, those who know Black History are aware that millions of
people were legally enslaved. There were different laws for Africans, called
“Slave Codes,” which reemerged after the Civil War as “Black Codes” and
penalized behavior such as “vagrancy, breach of job contracts, absence from
work, possession of firearms, an d insulting gestures or acts.”


Mumia explains that precisely because jailhouse lawyers had challenged the use
of the law as an instrument of domination, former President Bill Clinton, in
1996, achieved the passage of a law limiting the rights of prisoners to file
appeals or suits and prohibiting recovery for psychological or mental harm or
injury, in violation of the Convention against Torture. To the Slave Codes and
the Black Codes, he says, we can now add Prison Codes.

Naturally,
the book reveals many aspects of the conditions in United States prisons,
including the torture practiced there: “What millions saw in the garish
reflections of Iraq was but a foreign edition of the reality of American
prisons: places of legalized torture, humiliation and abuse—practices exported
from domestic U.S. hellholes to ones overseas.”

What distinguishes
street lawyers from jailhouse lawyers? The conservative bent in the profession,
explains Mumia, goes back to the days when professional lawyers were seen as
instruments of the British Crown, who only worked for the rich. “Of the
fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence (no women signed) in
1776, twenty-nine of them, or roughly 52 percent, were lawyers or judges.


They would erect a legal structure that would protect property yet deprecate
freedom—at least the freedom of enslaved African people. The lawyers brought
with them a sensibility that is at the heart of the profession, an inbred
conservatism.” As a matter of fact, the first three Presidents of the United
States were aristocrats, albeit without title, and slave owners. “They helped
erect a legal structure that would protect the wealth and privileges of their
class.”

Today, when lawyers graduate from law school, they aren’t
“officers of the community,” but “officers of the court.” Their loyalty is not
the accused, but instead “to the court, the bench, the civil throne.” This
explains, at least in part, the great distance that exists between lawyer and
client and the client’s lack of trust in him. It is almost impossible for a poor
person to have a good lawyer and even more so when the defendant is not white.


Jailhouse lawyers, however, have a different relationship to the State. In some
cases, even the most progressive street lawyers have taken the side of the State
against them. Mumia explains that in the midst of the post 9/11 anthrax scare,
several states passed laws allowing the State to open legal or court mail
outside the presence of the prisoner, in violation of the First Amendment to the
Constitution.

The measure was negotiated with the support of the
liberal American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) but finally rolled back thanks to
the hard work of three jailhouse lawyers ––Derrick Dale Fontroy, Theodore
Savage, and Aaron C. Wheeler. On the other hand, it’s extremely rare for a
jailhouse lawyer to negotiate a case. They have no loyalty to the court, they re
not professional lawyers, and they have no one to whom they can sell out.
They’re not part of the “club.”

Even with the high esteem that Mumia
has for the jailhouse lawyers described in this book, he also points out the
limits of their efforts. At the end of the ‘70s, Delbert Africa had warned him
of a dangerous trap. He explained that the problem is that many prisoners study
the law, they believe the law, and they believe it applies to them. Then, when
they realize that the system doesn’t follow its own laws, and that on the
contrary, laws are made and broken at the whim of the judge, they just go crazy.


Mumia assures us that he has known prisoners who have gone mad for this very
reason. He’s also known some who have taken advantage of the prisoners they
represent. But the main limit he points out is the insufficiency of their good
efforts when it comes to making fundamental changes in the prison system. In
order to put an end to this system, any effort to use the law against power must
be in the context of broad social movements, both inside and outside of the
prisons, to transform the society as a whole.

Modest, as ever, Mumia
barely mentions his own work as a jailhouse lawyer who has helped other
prisoners get out of prison. One of these is Harold Wilson, who has now changed
his name to Amin, participates in the campaign to free Mumia, and spoke at the
book presentation in Philadelphia on April 24 and in New York City on April 25.


Videos from Philadelphia event:

(Samiya Davis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkR2IH0QkoQ)
(Abdul Jon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJE2b2uKksg )

Angela Davis speaking
in Oakland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoAwPRiRfI

The Angola 3: Torture in Our Own Backyard

The Angola 3 are political prisoners, two of whom are still being held in
the state of Louisiana. All three are former members of the Black Panther
Party.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

The Angola Three: Torture
in Our Own Backyard

By Hans Bennett, AlterNet
April 2, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/139222/

"My soul cries from all that I
witnessed and endured. It does more than cry, it mourns continuously," said
Black Panther Robert Hillary King, following his release from the infamous
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 2001, after serving his last 29 years
in continuous solitary confinement. King argues that slavery persists in Angola
and other U.S. prisons, citing the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
which legalizes slavery in prisons as "a punishment for crime whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted." King says: "You can be legally incarcerated but
morally innocent."

Robert King, Albert Woodfox, and Herman Wallace
are known as the "Angola Three," a trio of political prisoners whose supporters
include Amnesty International, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Congressman John
Conyers, and the ACLU. Kgalema Mothlante, the President of South Africa says
their case "has the potential of laying bare, exposing the shortcomings, in the
entire U.S. system."

Woodfox and Wallace are the two co-founders of
the Angola chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) -- the only official prison
chapter of the BPP. Both convicted in the highly contested stabbing death of
white prison guard Brent Miller, Woodfox and Wallace have now spent over 36
years in solitary confinement.

The joint federal civil rights
lawsuit of King, Woodfox, and Wallace, alleging that their time in solitary
confinement is "cruel and unusual punishment," will go to trial any month in
Baton Rouge, at the U.S. Middle District Court. Herman Wallace's appeal against
his murder conviction is currently pending in the Louisiana Supreme Court, and
on March 18, he was transferred to the Hunt Correctional Facility in St.
Gabrielo, Louisiana, where he remains in solitary confinement. On March 2, the
U.S. Fifth Circuit Court heard oral arguments regarding Albert Woodfox's
conviction, after the Louisiana Attorney General appealed a lower court's ruling
that overturned the conviction.

An 18,000-acre former slave
plantation in rural Louisiana, Angola is the largest prison in the U.S. Today,
with African Americans composing over 75% of Angola's 5,108 prisoners, prison
guards known as "free men," a forced 40-hour workweek, and four cents an hour as
minimum wage, the resemblance to antebellum U.S. slavery is striking. In the
early 1970s, it was even worse, as prisoners were forced to work 96-hour weeks
(16 hours a day/six days a week) with two cents an hour as minimum wage.


Officially considered (according to its own website) the "Bloodiest Prison in
the South" at this time, violence from guards and between prisoners was endemic.
Prison authorities sanctioned prisoner rape, and according to former Prison
Warden Murray Henderson, the prison guards actually helped facilitate a brutal
system of sexual slavery where the younger and physically weaker prisoners were
bought and sold into submission.

As part of the notorious "inmate
trusty guard" system, responsible for killing 40 prisoners and seriously maiming
350 between 1972-75, some prisoners were given state-issued weapons and ordered
to enforce this sexual slavery, as well as the prison's many other injustices.
Life at Angola was living hell -- a 20th century slave plantation.


The Angola Panthers saw life at Angola as modern-day slavery and fought back
with non-violent hunger strikes and work strikes. Prison authorities were
outraged by the BPP's organizing, and overwhelming evidence has since emerged
that authorities retaliated by framing these three BPP organizers for murders
that they did not commit.

Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace


Both convicted of murder for the April 17, 1972 stabbing death of white prison
guard Brent Miller, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have recently had major
victories in court that may soon lead to their release. In response, Angola
Warden Burl Cain and the Louisiana State Attorney General, James "Buddy"
Caldwell, are doing everything they can to resist this and to keep the two in
solitary confinement.

In sharp contrast, Miller's widow, Leontine
Verrett, now questions their guilt. Interviewed in March, 2008, by NBC Nightly
News, she called for a new investigation into the case: "What I want is justice.
If these two men did not do this, I think they need to be out."


Woodfox and Wallace were inmates at Angola, resulting from separate robbery
convictions, when they co-founded the Angola BPP chapter in 1971. Woodfox had
escaped from New Orleans Parish Prison and fled to New York City, where he met
BPP members, including the New York 21, before he was recaptured and sent to
Angola. Wallace had met members of the Louisiana State Chapter of the BPP,
including the New Orleans 12, while imprisoned at Orleans Parish.

On
September 19, 2006, State Judicial Commissioner Rachel Morgan recommended
overturning Wallace's conviction, on grounds that prison officials had withheld
evidence from the jury that prison officials had bribed the prosecution's key
eyewitness in return for his testimony. However, in May 2008, in a 2-1 vote, the
State Appeals Court rejected Morgan's recommendation and refused to overturn the
conviction. Wallace's appeal is now pending in the State Supreme Court, with a
decision expected any month.

On June 10th, 2008, Federal Magistrate
Christine Noland recommended overturning Woodfox's conviction, citing evidence
of inadequate representation, prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of
exculpatory evidence, and racial discrimination. Then, on November 25, U.S.
District Court Judge James Brady upheld Noland's recommendation, overturned the
conviction, and granted bail. Attorney General Caldwell responded by appealing
to the U.S. Fifth Circuit.

In December, the Fifth Circuit granted
Caldwell's request to deny Woodfox bail, but indicated sympathy for the
overturning of the conviction, writing: "We are not now convinced that the State
has established a likelihood of success on the merits." On March 3, oral
arguments were heard by appellate Judges Carolyn Dineen King, Carl E. Steart and
Leslie H. Southwick, and a decision from them is now expected within six months.


If the three judge panel affirms the overturning of Woodfox's conviction, the
state will have 120 days to either accept the ruling or to retry Woodfox. The
state has already vowed to retry him if necessary. If the Fifth Circuit rules
for the state, Woodfox's conviction will be reinstated.

Ira Glasser,
formerly of the ACLU, criticized AG Caldwell, writing that following the October
2008 announcement that Woodfox's niece had agreed to take him in if granted
bail, Caldwell "embarked upon a public scare campaign reminiscent of the kind of
inflammatory hysteria that once was used to provoke lynch mobs. He called
Woodfox a violent rapist, even though he had never been charged, let alone
convicted, of rape; he sent emails to [Woodfox's niece's] neighbors calling
Woodfox a convicted murderer and violent rapist; and neighbors were urged to
sign petitions opposing his release.

In the end, his niece and
family were sufficiently frightened and threatened that Woodfox rejected the
plan to live with them while on bail." In his Nov. 25 ruling, Judge Brady
himself criticized the intimidation campaign: "it is apparent that the
[neighborhood] association was not told Mr. Woodfox is frail, sickly, and has a
clean conduct record for more than twenty years."

When the October
27-29 National Public Radio (NPR) series on the case reported directly from
Angola, reporter Laura Sullivan observed, "a hundred black men are in the field,
bent over picking tomatoes. A single white officer on a horse sits above them, a
shotgun in his lap … It's the same as it looked 40 years ago, and 100 years
ago."

Commenting that many at Angola today "seem to want to bury
this case in a place no one will find it," NPR reported that Warden Burl Cain
and others refused to comment. However, Caldwell told NPR he is convinced that
Woodfox and Wallace are guilty, and that he will appeal Woodfox's case all the
way to the US Supreme Court. "This is a very dangerous person," Caldwell says.
"This is the most dangerous person on the planet."

As NPR
documented, there is no physical evidence linking Woodfox or Wallace to the
murder. A bloody fingerprint was found at the scene but it matches neither
prisoner's prints. Prison officials have always refused to test that fingerprint
against their own inmate fingerprint database. Caldwell vows to continue this
policy, telling NPR: "A fingerprint can come from anywhere … We're not going to
be fooled by that."

Caldwell also told NPR that he firmly believes
the testimony of the prosecution's key eyewitness, Hezekiah Brown, a serial
rapist who had been sentenced to life without parole. Brown first told prison
officials that he didn't know anything, but he later testified to seeing Miller
stabbed to death by four inmates: Woodfox and Wallace, and two others who are
now deceased: Chester Jackson (who testified for the state and pled guilty to a
lesser charge) and Gilbert Montegut (who was acquitted after an officer provided
an alibi).

Pardoned in 1986, and now deceased, Brown always denied
receiving special favors from prison authorities in exchange for his testimony.
However, prison documents reveal special treatment, including special housing
and a carton of cigarettes given to him every week. Testifying at Woodfox's 1998
retrial, former Warden Murray Henderson admitted telling Brown that if he
provided testimony helping to "crack the case," he would reward him by lobbying
for his pardon.

Solitary Confinement for "Black Pantherism"


In early 2008, a 25,000-signature petition initiated by
http://www.ColorOfChange.org , calling for an investigation into Woodfox and
Wallace's convictions and solitary confinement, was delivered to Louisiana
Governor Bobby Jindal by the head of the State Legislature's Judiciary
Committee, Cedric Richmond. To this day, Jindal remains silent on the case.


In March, 2008, following a visit from Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the
US House Judiciary Committee; Innocence Project founder Barry Scheck; and Cedric
Richmond, Wallace and Woodfox were transferred from solitary and housed together
in a newly-built maximum security dormitory for twenty men. This temporary
release from solitary lasted for eight months, during which time Woodfox
reflected: "The thing I noticed most about being with Herman is the laughing,
the talking, the bumping up against one another … we've been denied this for so
long. And every once in a while he'll put his arm around me or I'll put my arm
around him. It's those kinds of things that make you human. And we're truly
enjoying that."

In April, following his visit, Conyers wrote a
letter to the FBI requesting their documents relating to the case, stating: "I
am deeply troubled by what evidence suggests was a tragic miscarriage of justice
with regard to these men. There is significant evidence that suggests not only
their innocence, but also troubling misconduct by prison officials." The FBI
responded by claiming that they had no files on the case, because, they had
supposedly been destroyed.

In his deposition taken October 22, 2008,
Warden Burl Cain explained why he opposed granting Woodfox bail and removing him
from solitary confinement. Asked what gave him "such concern" about Woodfox,
Cain stated: "He wants to demonstrate. He wants to organize. He wants to be
defiant … A hunger strike is really, really bad, because you could see he
admitted that he was organizing a peaceful demonstration.

There is
no such thing as a peaceful demonstration in prison." Cain then stated that even
if Woodfox were innocent of the murder, he would still want to keep him in
solitary, because "I still know he has a propensity for violence … he is still
trying to practice Black Pantherism, and I still would not want him walking
around my prison because he would organize the young new inmates. I would have
me all kinds of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the blacks
chasing after them. I would have chaos and conflict, and I believe that."


The only other known U.S. prisoner to have spent so many years in solitary
confinement is Hugo Pinell, in California. One of the San Quentin Six, Pinell
was a close comrade of Black Panther and prison author, George Jackson.
Currently housed in Pelican Bay State Prison's notorious "Security Housing
Unit", Pinell has been in continuous solitary since at least 1971.


The recently freed Angola 3 prisoner Robert Hillary King says Pinell "is a clear
example of a political prisoner." This January, Pinell was denied parole for the
next 15 years, which King says "is a sentence to die in prison. This is cruel
and unusual punishment, which may be legal but is definitely not moral."


Robert Hillary King

The new book From the Bottom of the Heap: The
Autobiography of Robert Hillary King has just been released by PM Press. This
inspiring book tells of King's triumph over the horrors of Angola. Born poor in
rural Louisiana, he was raised mostly by his heroic grandmother, who King
recounts "worked the sugar cane fields from sun up 'til sun down for less than a
dollar a day. During the off-season, she washed, ironed clothes, and scrubbed
floors for whites for pennies a day or for leftover food. Her bunions and
blisters told a bitter but vivid tale of her travails."

King first
entered Angola at the age of 18, for a robbery conviction. In his book, he
admits to doing some non-violent burglaries at the time, but maintains his
innocence regarding this conviction and every one since. Granted parole in 1965,
at the age of 22, he returned to New Orleans, got married, and began a brief
semi-pro boxing career as "Speedy King." He was then arrested on charges of
robbery, just weeks before his wife Clara gave birth to their son.


After being held for over 11 months, his friend pled guilty to a lesser charge
and was released on time served. Simultaneously, the DA dropped the charges
against King, but he was not released, because his arrest, coupled with his
friend's guilty plea was deemed a parole violation. Therefore, King was sent
back to Angola where he served 15 months and was released again in 1969.


Upon release, King was again arrested on robbery charges, and was convicted,
even though his co-defendant testified that he had only picked King out of a mug
shot lineup after being tortured by police into making a false statement. King
appealed, and while being held at New Orleans Parish Prison, he escaped, but was
re-captured weeks later. Upon returning to Orleans Parish he met some of the New
Orleans 12--BPP members arrested after a confrontation with police at a housing
project. He was radicalized and worked with the Panthers organizing non-violent
hunger strikes, and engaging in self-defense against violent attacks from prison
authorities.

In 1972, King moved to Angola shortly after the death
of prison guard Brent Miller. Upon arrival, on grounds that King "wanted to play
lawyer for another inmate," he was immediately put into solitary confinement:
first in the "dungeon," then the "Red Hat," and finally to the Closed Correction
Cell (CCR) unit, where he remained until his 2001 release.

At CCR,
King writes that the Angola BPP chapter and others continued to struggle, using
the one hour a day outside their cells (when they were allowed to shower and
interact in the walkway) to organize: "That was how we talked, passed papers,
educated each other, and coordinated our actions."

King writes about
the fight, started in 1977, to end the practice of routine rectal searches of
prisoners: "Coming to a consensus conclusion that this practice was a carryover
from slavery (before being sold, the slave had to be stripped and subjected to
anal examination), and after months of appealing to our keepers, we decided to
take a bold step: we would simply refuse a voluntary anal search.

We
would not be willing participants in our own degradation." When King and others
refused, they were viciously beaten. Woodfox hired a lawyer on the prisoners'
behalf and they filed a successful civil suit. The court ruled to ban "routine
anal searches." Another victory came after a one month hunger strike that
stopped the unhealthy and dehumanizing practice of putting the inmate's food on
the floor to be slid underneath the cell door, whereby food would often be lost
and the remaining food would usually get dirty.

In 1973, King was
accused of murdering another prisoner, and was convicted at a trial where he was
bound and gagged. After years of maintaining his innocence and appealing, his
conviction was overturned in 2001, after he reluctantly pled guilty to a lesser
charge of "conspiracy to commit murder" and was released on time served.


Kenny "Zulu" Whitmore

On June 21, 2008, Robert King attended the
unveiling of a 40-foot mosaic dedicated to Angola prisoner and Angola BPP member
Kenneth "Zulu" Whitmore, launching the "Free Zulu" campaign. King is working to
publicize his case, saying "Zulu is a true warrior, Panther, a servant of the
people. He has fought a good battle, for so long, unrecognized, unsupported!"


The mosaic adorns the back of activist/artist Carrie Reichardt's home in the
West London suburb of Chiswick. Reichardt says "we chose to base the design
around a modern day interpretation of the Goddess Kali. She is considered the
goddess of liberation, time and transformation. We wanted to use a strong,
positive image of a female that would give hope and encourage others to join the
struggle to bring about social change. Her speech bubble says 'The revolution is
now'."

Imprisoned since 1977, Whitmore met Herman Wallace while
imprisoned in 1973 at the East Baton Rouge Prison. Whitmore was released but
then arrested and subsequently imprisoned at Angola when he was convicted of
robbery and second-degree murder after he had returned to the community and been
a political organizer.

Just like the Angola 3, the case against him
is full of holes, and he is appealing his conviction. Whitmore does not have a
lawyer yet, so the freezulu.co.uk website is raising money to support his
appeal.

Angola: The Last Slave Plantation

Three court
cases are now pending: the federal civil rights lawsuit at the U.S. Middle
District Court, Albert Woodfox's appeal at the U.S. Fifth Circuit, and Wallace's
appeal at the State Supreme Court. At this critical stage, a new DVD has just
been released by PM Press, titled The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last
Slave Plantation.

The DVD is narrated by death-row journalist Mumia
Abu-Jamal, and features footage of King's 2001 release, as well as an interview
with King and a variety of former Panthers and other supporters of the Angola 3,
including Bo Brown, David Hilliard, Geronimo Ji Jaga (formerly Pratt), Marion
Brown, Luis Talamantez, Noelle Hanrahan, Malik Rahim, and the late Anita
Roddick.

The perpetuation of white supremacy and slavery at Angola
is a central theme throughout the film. Fred Hampton Jr., emphasizes that "we've
got to make the connection between these modern day plantations, and what went
down with chattel slavery." Scott Fleming, a lawyer for the Angola 3, says:
"That prison is still run like a slave plantation … People like Albert Woodfox
and Herman Wallace are the example of what will happen to you if you resist that
system."

Longtime Japanese-American activist Yuri Kochiyama says
that Woodfox and Wallace "love people and will fight for justice even if it puts
them on the spot. I think of them as real heroes … who hated to see people in
the prison get hurt." San Francisco journalist and former BPP member Kiilu
Nyasha adds that "it behooves us to not forget those who were on the frontlines
for us. … We need to come to their rescue because they came to ours."


The many years of repression and torture have failed to extinguish the Angola
3's spirit or will to resist, as Woodfox explains in the DVD: "At heart, mind
and spirit, we're still Black Panthers. We still believe in the same principles
as the BPP, we still advocate the ten point program. We still advocate that all
prisoners, black or white, are human beings. They deserve to be treated as human
beings."

2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/139222/

Youth Unemployment a Major Challenge for African Countries

South African public sector workers during the strike in 2007. The COSATU
trade union federation demonstrated again on July 16 and July 23, 2008 over
the energy crisis in the country.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Youth Unemployment a Major
Challenge for African Countries

Washington, April 26, 2009 – A panel
of experts on youth and employment from Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Colombia met on
Saturday, during the annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund, to discuss ways to alleviate the growing problem of youth
unemployment in Africa.

The high-level panel, chaired by Africa
Region Vice President Obiageli Ezekwesili and moderated by Human Development
Sector Director Yaw Ansu, agreed that there are no easy solutions to the
problem.

“Youth in urban areas are looking for jobs alongside
thousands of others from the same schools, while rural youth are flooding into
the cities looking for work,” said Sanoussi Toure, the Minister of Finance of
Mali. “This is a tragedy. Our policies favor investment in education and
training, but this investment has not led to job creation.”

Kinuthia
Murugu, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in Kenya,
concurred that economic growth does not equal job creation, “which is why we
need specific targeted interventions.” He noted that Kenya has created a Youth
Employment Marshall Plan, which aims to create 500,000 new jobs over the next
four years by expanding the number of technical training institutes and
subsidizing students, supporting entrepreneurs in rural areas, initiating
labor-intensive public works, developing the information and communication
technology (ICT) sector, and paying young people to plant trees, through a Trees
for Jobs program, to help reverse the effects of deforestation.

In
Ghana, the Government has taken a sectoral approach to the problem, said
Professor William Ahadzie, Deputy Head of the Centre for Social Policy Studies
at the University of Ghana. “We’ve developed a National Youth Employment Program
that aims to actively engage youth in productive employment where they are
needed – as health extension workers, waste and sanitation workers, teachers,
and as paid interns in industry.”

The panelist from Colombia,
Mauricio Cárdenas, former Minister of Transport and also of Economic Planning,
spoke about his efforts to address youth unemployment during Colombia’s economic
crisis in the late 1990s, when external shocks drove unemployment from 10 to 20
percent, and youth unemployment to 30 percent.

“We tried two
different programs,” Mr. Cárdenas said, “and then evaluated the results.” One
program, called Youth in Action, trained young people for the labor market. “We
provided three months of classroom training, followed by three months of
on-the-job training. We also provided them with income support of $3 per day,
which corresponds to the poverty line in Colombia.” Under this program, “80,000
young people were trained, and the evaluations were highly favorable, using
different techniques to measure impact.”

The other program in
Colombia focused on employment generation through small-scale communal works in
urban neighborhoods. This program was less successful. “We depended on local
NGOs to implement the program and secure co-financing from municipalities, but
they did not have the capacity to do so.” Another reason for the program’s
failure, Mr. Cárdenas said, was that “it required that the individuals be paid
minimum wage, and this restricted job creation.”

Based on these
experiences, Mr. Cárdenas concluded that “the best strategy for tackling youth
unemployment is associated with labor training that takes into account their
need for income during training.” In addition, “you also have to have a supply
of training programs. Our approach encouraged the creation of these programs by
the private sector.”

During the discussion period, Mr. Murugu said
that the private sector can be encouraged to create more jobs through contracts
for public works, and noted that in Kenya, public works contracts require that
the companies use a certain percentage of the contract for labor.

In
response, Mr. Cárdenas cautioned against the tendency to see infrastructure
projects as the answer to the urgent problem of youth unemployment.
“Infrastructure projects require a lot of bureaucratic work and take a long time
to be implemented. Social interventions are much more effective, you can train
and educate the youth, and then create incentives for firms to hire them.”


“After training, then what?” asked Murugu of Kenya. “In Kenya we spend 150
billion shillings on primary education, but how can youth make the transition to
being employed when there are no jobs?” He emphasized the importance of
improving the environment for the informal sector by requiring local authorities
to sign job creation performance contracts.

He also said that it is
critical to support youth in agriculture, since most farmers in Kenya are more
than 60 years old. “Our Trees for Jobs program is meant for rural areas,” he
said. “Youth work with the forestry service, learn skills, and help preserve the
economic foundation of our country.”

Professor Ahadzie of Ghana
agreed with the need to support job creation in agriculture, but noted the need
to link agriculture with non-farm activities such as processing, the creation of
markets, and the need for credit.

The Director of the National
Planning Commission of Nigeria, Ayodele Omotoso, in Nigeria, who was in the
audience, said that “youth unemployment in Nigeria is 60 to 70 percent, and the
labor market can only absorb 10 percent of new job entrants. We used to think
that the public sector had to provide jobs. Now we are looking at things
holistically.

We have established a social protection program, with
cash transfers to the unemployed. We are also reforming the education sector.
We’re also looking at ways to increase youth employment in all sectors.


In the agriculture sector, we’re looking at commercial agriculture, and also at
land reforms. We’re looking at manufacturing, although that sector is
constrained by inadequate infrastructure. We’re also looking to increase youth
employment in tourism, ICT, transport, and utilities. The key lesson is that
youth unemployment is a multi-dimensional problem that needs to be addressed on
a macro basis.”

In her concluding remarks, Regional Vice President
Ezekwesili said that it was clear that youth unemployment needs to be addressed
from many entry points. “The profile of unemployed youth has to enter the way we
think, just as gender has. Youth need to be effectively targeted in everything
we do, so that they will have a stake in the future.”

Source: World
Bank Ghana Office
Story from Modern Ghana News:

http://www.modernghana.com/news/214443/1/youth-unemployment-a-major-challenge-for-african-c.html


Published: Monday, May 04, 2009

Torture Memos: Inquiry Suggests No Prosecutions

Central Intelligence Agency operatives have destroyed at least two tapes
documenting torture against detainees. The admission has prompted an
investigation.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

May 6, 2009


Torture Memos: Inquiry Suggests No Prosecutions

By DAVID JOHNSTON
and SCOTT SHANE
New York Times

WASHINGTON — An internal
Justice Department inquiry has concluded that Bush administration lawyers
committed serious lapses of judgment in writing secret memorandums authorizing
brutal interrogations but that they should not be prosecuted, according to
government officials briefed on its findings.

The report by the
Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the
Justice Department, is also likely to ask state bar associations to consider
possible disciplinary action, which could include reprimands or even disbarment,
for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials
said.

The conclusions of the 220-page draft report are not final and
have not yet been approved by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The officials
said that it is possible that the final report might be subject to further
revision but that they did not expect major alterations in its main findings or
recommendations.

The findings, growing out of an inquiry that
started in 2004, would represent a stinging rebuke of the lawyers and their
legal arguments.

But they would stop short of the criminal referral
sought by some human rights advocates, who have suggested that the lawyers could
be prosecuted as part of a criminal conspiracy to violate the anti-torture
statute. President Obama has said the Justice Department would have to decide
whether the lawyers who authorized the interrogation methods should face
charges, while pledging that interrogators would not be investigated or
prosecuted for using techniques that the lawyers said were legal.


The draft report is described as very detailed, tracing e-mail messages between
the Justice Department lawyers and officials at the White House and the Central
Intelligence Agency. Among the questions it is expected to consider is whether
the memos were an independent judgment of the limits of the federal anti-torture
statute or were deliberately skewed to justify the use of techniques proposed by
the C.I.A.

At issue is the question of whether the lawyers acted
ethically and competently in writing a series of Justice Department legal
opinions from 2002 to 2007.

The opinions permitted the Central
Intelligence Agency to use a number of methods that human rights groups and
legal experts have condemned as torture, including waterboarding, wall-slamming
and shackling for hours in a standing position. The opinions allowed many of
these practices to be used repeatedly and in combination.

The main
targets of criticism are John Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury, who, as
senior officials of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, were principal
authors of the opinions.

It was unclear whether all three would be
the subject of bar association referrals. One person who saw the report said it
did not recommend bar action against Mr. Bradbury.

Mr. Bradbury, and
lawyers for Mr. Yoo, now a law professor at Berkeley, and for Mr. Bybee, now a
federal appeals court judge in Nevada, all declined to comment Tuesday, saying
Justice Department rules require confidentiality for ethics reviews.


The work of other lawyers in the counsel’s office was also questioned in the
report, the officials said, but none are believed to be the subject of
disciplinary recommendations. The report reaches no conclusions about the role
of lawyers at the White House or the C.I.A. because the jurisdiction of the
ethics unit does not extend beyond the Justice Department.

The draft
report on the interrogation opinions was completed in December and provoked
controversy inside the Bush administration Justice Department. But criticism of
the legal work in the memos has intensified since last month when the Obama
administration disclosed one previously secret opinion from 2002, drafted mainly
by Mr. Yoo and signed by Mr. Bybee, and three from 2005, signed by Mr. Bradbury,
which for the first time described the coercive interrogation methods in detail.


Michael B. Mukasey, attorney general when the draft report was first completed,
was said by colleagues to have been critical of its quality and upset over its
scathing conclusions. He wrote a 10-page rebuttal to its findings, and, in his
farewell speech to employees, warned against second-guessing the legal work of
the department’s lawyers.

Several legal scholars have remarked that
in approving waterboarding, the near-drowning method Mr. Obama and his aides
have described as torture, the Justice Department lawyers did not cite cases in
which the United States government previously prosecuted American law
enforcement officials and Japanese World War II interrogators for using the
procedure.

In a letter on Monday, the Justice Department advised two
Democratic senators on the Judiciary committee, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois
and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, that the former department lawyers who
wrote the opinions had until May 4 to submit written appeals to the findings.


The letter, written by Ronald Weich, an assistant attorney general, also said
the report had been given to the C.I.A. for review and declassification, and
some officials said they expected a version to be made public, probably late
this month.

Mr. Durbin and Mr. Whitehouse, who have criticized the
Bush administration’s interrogation policies, have repeatedly demanded the
release of the report. Mr. Whitehouse is scheduled to hold a hearing on May 13,
to examine issues related to the report.

The professional
responsibility office first began examining the actions of the lawyers nearly
five years ago. Recently, Mr. Holder named Mary Patrice Brown, a senior federal
prosecutor in Washington to head the office, moving its longtime chief, H.
Marshall Jarrett, to another job within the Justice Department.

Up to 100 Dead in Afghanistan Raid by US Military

The US military has killed 100 Afghan civilians in a bombing. Thousands of
civilians have been killed inside the country since the occupation began in
2001.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

18:20 Mecca time, 15:20 GMT

'Up to 100 dead' in Afghan raid


The governor of Farah province said he feared that 100 civilians had been killed
in Farah province.

Up to 100 Afghan civilians may have been killed
during an air raid by US forces during a joint operation targeting suspected
fighters, a provincial governor has said.

If the claims are
verified, the deaths in Farah province on the western border would be the
largest loss of civilian life in a single incident since US-led forces invaded
Afghanistan in 2001.

Rohul Amin, the governor of Farah province,
said on Wednesday that he feared that 100 civilians had been killed in the Bala
Baluk district of the province, about 600km from Kabul, the capital.


Amin said that the Taliban were reportedly using civilian homes to take shelter
during the fighting.

Earlier reports had said that 50 civilians had
been killed in Monday's raid.

Burials

Jessica Barry, a
spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said that
the organisation sent a team to the region after concerned tribal leaders had
contacted them seeking help.

"When [our team] went to the first two
villages where these incidents took place they saw dozens of bodies. They saw
graves and they saw people being buried," she told Al Jazeera.

Barry
said that an ICRC community-based first aid volunteer and his extended family,
including his five daughters and three sons, were among the dead.


She said that they were killed while sheltering in their home.

The
US said on Tuesday that it was conducting a joint inquiry, along with the Afghan
government, into the deaths, with investigators from both sides visiting the
sites.

Robert Wood, the acting US state department spokesman, said
in a statement: "Coalition forces and the Afghan government have received
reports of civilian casualties in conjunction with a militant attack on Afghan
National Security Forces in Farah Province on May 5.

"A joint
investigation will be conducted to determine exactly what happened."


'Dozens of dead'

Colonel Greg Julian, a US military spokesman,
acknowledged that a battle had taken place, but could not say if there had been
civilian deaths.

Last year, about 2,000 civilians died in fighting
against the Taliban, according to the UN

"Once we get eyes on the
ground we will have a better idea of what may have happened," Julian said.


Monday's attack occurred after Taliban fighters killed three former government
officials in a village for co-operating with the state, Amin said.


Amin said that villagers had brought lorry loads of bodies to his office in the
provincial capital as proof of their death.

The US government has
come under increasing criticism during the past year for civilian deaths during
operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.


Barry said: "I think that it is important to remember that this is not a one off
situation. There has been a rise in casualties over the last year.


"It is absolutely important to remind all sides that civilians must not be
harmed."

However, Wood said: "US and international forces take
extensive precautions to avoid loss of life among Afghan civilians as well as
international and Afghan forces during operations against insurgents and
terrorists."

Washington talks

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan
president, said on Wednesday that the civilian deaths were unacceptable and that
he intends to discuss it with Barack Obama, his US counterpart.


Karzai is in Washington DC for talks with Obama and Asif Ali Zardari, the
Pakistani president.

The meeting is being held to address the war
against the Taliban in both nations.

The Taliban has used Pakistan's
border region with Afghanistan as a base to launch attacks in the two countries
since their five-year rule in Kabul was ended by a US military invasion in 2001.


Washington has heightened its focus on fighting the Taliban since the Obama
administration assumed power this year, with an added 21,000 troops being sent
to Afghanistan.

There are more than 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan
already, alongside a similar number of troops from other foreign nations.


Last year, about 2,000 civilians were killed in fighting against the Taliban,
according to the UN.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

May Day in South Africa Takes Place Amid Democratic Elections, Strike Actions
and the Global Economic Crisis

Abayomi Azikiwe & Brenda Smith, August 19, 2001
Originally uploaded
by panafnewswire

May Day in South Africa Takes Place Amid Democratic Elections, Strike Actions
and the Global Economic Crisis

Labor escalates demands for measures
to protect workers from the deepening financial meltdown

by Abayomi
Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
News Analysis


Results from the April 22 national elections in South Africa reinforced
widespread political support for the ruling African National Congress. The ANC
won nearly a nearly two-thirds majority in the elections, securing victories in
all the provinces with the exception of the Cape where the opposition Democratic
Alliance won out over the ruling party.

This year's election was the
fourth democratic poll since 1994, when the former racist apartheid system ended
after decades of political, labor and armed struggle. The winner of the 2009
presidential vote was the current ANC president Jacob Zuma. Zuma is the fourth
ANC president since 1994 following the rule of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and
Kgalema Motlanthe.

The vote comes amid escalating labor unrest in
South Africa in response to both the burgeoning global economic crisis and
unfolding national democratic revolution which has scored monumental advances in
the political arena despite the fact that the overall economic distribution of
resources has yet to be realized for the overwhelming majority African
population.

South Africa's new president Jacob Zuma told a May Day
rally that the new government will introduce legislation to further guarantee
rights for the country's workers. "We want to introduce laws to regulate
contract work, sub-contracting and outsourcing," Zuma told a crowd of tens of
thousands of people in East London. (AFP, May 1)

These laws, which
were included in the election manifesto of the ANC, will outlaw policies that
allow abuse to workers as well as "labor brokering." This practice involves the
utilization of employees on a contractual basis where they never gain the full
rights under the existing labor laws in the country. The Congress of South
African Trade Unions (COSATU) has called for the outlawing of "labor brokering"
inside the country.

"It is a serious matter that while our
Constitution talks about the rights of all and the rights of workers, we have
workers that worked for decades without any security," Zuma said at the rally in
East London on May 1. The new president called upon corporate leaders to develop
programs which protect jobs in the current economic climate.

"We
reiterate our message to business that they should do everything possible to
retain jobs," Zuma told the May Day rally in East London.

Labor
Struggles and the Economic Crisis

During the annual May Day
commemorations workers in South Africa sent out a strong message in defense of
their class during the present world situation. The leading trade union
federation COSATU organized 36 rallies throughout the country. The largest
rallies took place in the Eastern Cape.

Several of the rallies were
addressed by the-then president-in-waiting Jacob Zuma, the South African
Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande and COSATU president Sidumo
Dlamini. At a media briefing in Johannesburg, COSATU general secretary
Zwelinzima Vavi, stated that the 2009 May Day events came during a period when
workers are losing their jobs at the same time that the world is reaching

"unemployment peak levels."

Vavi said during the media briefing
that:

"This is the worst economic environment which we celebrate
Workers Day under. We can't wait to see the state president on a daily basis
providing solutions and interventions on job threats. We want a very active
president who is preoccupied with South Africa's survival in this economic
crisis." (The Times, South Africa, April 30, 2009)

Another trade
union umbrella in South Africa, The Federation of Unions of South African and
the National Council of Trade Unions, under the banner of the South African
Confederation of Trade Unions, selected the theme "Fighting for decent work
through worker's unity." The general secretary of the National Council, Manene
Samela, called for a focus by the Unemployment Insurance Fund on worker
retraining of the unemployed.

Samela said that "high food prices are
affecting and hitting directly on the workers' disposable incomes. The
government needs to ensure that the Competition Commission is well-resourced to
take up the battle against companies which don't comply." (The Times, April 30)


The general secretary of the Federation of Unions of South Africa, Dennis
George, proclaimed that May Day must focus on the need for legal safeguards for
contract labor, sub-contracting and outsourcing.

George also
emphasized the Federation's support for the reduction in the usage of labor
brokers. "It will mean punishing employers who do not provide decent work by
refusing them state tenders. It is imperative that the government seriously
invests in the creation of decent jobs for all, he said.

Leading up
to May Day in South Africa a number of strikes have hit the country in key
industries involving transport, metals, municipal services and public health. In
addition, the slow pace of the resolution of some of these strikes has
threatened to bring about further workstoppages in broader sectors of the
economy.

The South African Transport and Allied Workers' Union
(SATAWU) held a strike during April that affected the supply of petroleum and
food. In Soweto, the largest township in the country, the Digital Journal
indicated that "while filing stations in Johannesburg were working normally,
many Soweto pumps were empty due to alleged intimidation of truck drivers by
members of SATAWU.

Another article on the SATAWU strike published in
the Cape Times warned that "Western Cape consumers could face empty shelves if
the strike by about 20,000 truckers lasts into this week. (April 13) Merchandise
director Kevin Korb on nationwide food chain Pick n Pay said the franchise had
'filled its distribution centres to the hilt' in the weeks before the strike."


On April 28 600 Metrobus workers in Johannesburg who are affiliated with the
South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) went out on strike. The strike
action was based on two demands: the increase in salaries and the suspension of
a manager.

The City-owned bus service has sought to have the strike
suspended and to continue negotiations through a local government bargaining
council. However, the spokesperson for SAMWU Dumisani Langa has said the strike
would continue as planned.

"The strike is indefinite. We will strike
until our demands are met. Metrobus did ask us to suspened it, but we cannot
just suspend the strike without an offer. We cannot even suspend the strike on
the basis that they have approached the bargaining council with that
application," Langa said.

SAMWU has threatened to bring broader
union forces into the dispute with Metrobus. The Sowetan reporter Gertrude
Makhafola wrote on April 30 that "South African Municipal Workers Union plans to
bring Johannesburg to its knees to drive their point home."

Langa
was quoted in the Sowetan article as saying that "We are examining the Labour
Relations Act regarding a secondary strike. We want to get all the city's
departments on board because it seems that is the only way through which
management would listen." He was addressing 800 workers picketing outside the
Metrobus offices in Braamfontein on April 29.

A physicians strike
has also had a notable impact on the country's health care system over the last
several weeks. According to the Digital Journal "Countrywide, some 26 public
hospitals, located in areas which house tens of millions of the country's most
desitute and vulnerable people are the hardest-hit by the doctor's strike,
including at the world largest hospital in Soweto, Baragwanath.


"Doctors at private hospitals and clinics, as well as at military hospitals, are
all jumping in to help in the growing health crisis. On April 25 the South
African Medical Association formally distanced itself from the doctors' strike
which has greatly affected the country's public hospitals." (Digital Journal,
April 24, 2009)

The majority of the doctors involved in the strike
are junior physicians and interns who earn approximately $US700 per month in
take-home salary. The physicians are also accusing the government of not
carrying out a pledge to raise their salaries through a "Occupational Specific
Dispensation" scheme that would put them on par with other medical professionals
in the country.

On April 29 it was reported in the Star and
Independent Online newspapers that the strike had ended with an agreement
between the South African Medical Association, the Doctor's Forum and the
provincial authorities. The physicans had been threatened with dismissal if they
did not return to work. At the same time doctors in KwaZulu Natal (KZN) province
threatened to strike over the poor conditions for doctors as well as patients.


Also sex workers attended the May Day rallies across the country as part of
their campaign to gain rights as other workers inside South Africa. COSATU has
stated that the federation supports the demands of the demands of sex workers.


"Sex workers demand recognition of their trade," the Sex Workers Education and
Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) said in a statement on April 30. This organization,
that is based in Cape Town but has affiliates in several provinces, has recently
won a High Court order halting police from making abitrary arrests of these
workers.

"Having secured this victory, Sweat is calling for...the
right to freedom of trade, occupation and profession [and] the right to decent
working conditions and fair labour practices," Sweat said in a statement issued
on April 30.

Independent Online quoted COSATU Western Cape
provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich as saying that "It's not our place to make
a moral judgement on prostitution. It's a reality in South Africa today. Those
workers work under difficult and dangerous conditions, and they need protection
just like every other South African." (May 1, 2009)

The opposition
Democratic Alliance-led City of Cape Town is threatening to pursue other means
of arresting and prosecuting sex workers in the aftermath of the High Court
ruling restraining excessive police action.

Over the last year the
global economic crisis has severely affected South Africa. Unemployment is
rising along with prices for food and transportation services.


Africa's largest steelmaker, the Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal South Africa
Ltd, announced recently that the corporation "posted a first-quarter loss of 239
million rand after steel prices slumped. Parent company ArcelorMittal on May 1
reported worse-than-expected loss of $1.1 billion for the first quarter."
(Bloomberg, May 1, 2009)

In South Africa the steelmaker could
possibly close some of its operations and permenantly cut jobs if prices
continue to spiral downward. In response to the threatened layoffs, the National
Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) plan to strike over the next two
months in opposition to the job losses. The company has already cut 1,000
contractor jobs in recent weeks.

Overall the South African Reserve
Bank Governor Tito Mboweni has forcasted a dismal picture forcasting lower
growth rates in the economy. He points to the fact that the country is possibly
in a recession and is faced with inflationary pressures.

Political
Impact of the Election Results

Despite the earlier forecasts of some
elements within the corporate media in South Africa, the ANC has maintained its
political dominance inside the country. In regard to the opposition-led
provincial government in the Cape, COSATU has called for the formation of a
coalition government.

In the West Cape News on April 30 COSATU
provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich warned the Democratic Alliance (DA) that it
should not continue its agenda of "perpetuating white privilege in the
province." The DA won 51.46% of the provincial vote in the April 22 elections.
The ANC won 31.55% of the vote, down from 45.25% in 2004.

COSATU
threatened strike action if the DA did not agree to form a unity provincial
government with other parties in the Cape. "Therefore good governance will
dictate that the African communities are brought into government," Ehrenreich
said.

The South African Communist Party expressed satisfaction
with the election results. In a statement issued on April 24, the SACP said that
"millions of our people came out in numbers to cast their votes in the fourth
democratic elections of our country. The outcomes of the votes...have reaffirmed
the overwhelming confidence that our people have in the ANC.

"The
ANC has amidst all manner of pessimisms, including sustained negative media
publicity, emerged with a renewed mandate to work together with our people to
transform the South African society for the better.... The SACP commits itself
to deepening the political organisation of the working class to play its
rightful place as the leading motive force to deepen and consolidate our
democracy." (http://www.sacp.org.za)

Despite the impact of the
global economic crisis on South Africa, the people have maintained a commitment
to working class and mass struggle throughout the country. The democratic
character of the ruling party and its allies within COSATU and the SACP
continues to address the major issues related to the distribution of wealth and
the character of social relations within the production process.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. The writer has
followed the political situation in South Africa and throughout the region of
the sub-continent for many years.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

United Nations Blames Israel for Gaza Attacks

Detroit demonstration in support of the Palestinian people under siege in
Gaza. The event was held in downtown Detroit on January 8, 2009.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

04:48 Mecca time, 01:48 GMT

UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks


More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Israel's month-long assault on Gaza


A United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza has found that Israel was to blame
for at least seven direct attacks on UN operations - including schools and
medical centres.

The UN report, commissioned by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN
secretary-general, said the Israeli military intentionally fired at UN
facilities and civilians hiding in them during the war and used disproportionate
force.

Missiles, bombs and small arms were all used by Israel against
the UN - leading to dozens of deaths.

The UN's own fuel and aid depot
in Gaza was hit with Israeli artillery shells causing widespread damage.


The attack continued for two hours after the UN asked the Israeli military for
it to stop.

'Negligence and recklessness'

The report's
summary accused the Israeli army of "varying degrees of negligence or
recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of UN
staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths,
injuries and extensive physical damage and loss of property."

Ban
said at a news conference on Tuesday that the aim of the report, which is not
legally binding, was to establish "a clear record of the facts" surrounding
incidents involving UN premises and personnel.

A total of 53
installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) were
damaged or destroyed during Israel's Gaza campaign, including 37 schools - six
of which were being used as emergency shelters - six health centres, and two
warehouses, the UN agency said.

Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey in New
York said the UN secretary-general was still determining the UN's course of
action over the report's 11 recommendations.

The report said the UN
would seek reparations for damages from Israel and meet the Israeli government.


Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, told Al Jazeera that the report was
"one-sided" and that he hoped Ban would take into account Israel's response to
it.

Israel's army concluded its own report into the three-week war on
Gaza in late April, finding that Israel followed international law and that
while errors occurred they were "unavoidable".

Notorious incident


The report found that in seven out of the nine incidents involving UN premises
or operations that it investigated, "the death, injuries and damage involved
were caused by military actions ... by the IDF [Israeli army]".

It
also said one of the incidents, when a World Food Programme warehouse in the
Karni industrial zone in Gaza was damaged, was largely caused by a rocket "most
likely" fired by Hamas or another Palestinian faction and condemned those
responsible for using such "indiscriminate weapons" to cause deaths and
injuries.

The investigation included one of the most notorious
incidents in the war, when up to 40 people are believed to have died at a UN
school in Jabaliya after Israeli mortar shells struck the area.

The
UN initially said the shells had hit the school but later retracted the claim,
while Israel initially said its forces were responding to firing from within the
school, but also later reportedly withdrew the statement, although the UN report
noted the claim still appeared on the Israeli foreign ministry's website as of
Tuesday.

The report also recommended that because there had been
"many incidents" during the war involving civilian victims, an impartial inquiry
should be mandated "to investigate allegations of violations of international
law in Gaza and southern Israel by the IDF [Israeli army] and by Hamas and other
Palestinian militants".

Israel's 22-day war on Gaza left more than
1,400 Palestinians dead, including around 400 children, Gaza health officials
said, along with 13 Israelis.

Much of the coastal territory was also
left in ruins.

Report 'flawed'

Mark Regev, an Israeli
government spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the report was "fundamentally flawed"
and contained
"methodological problems are so deep that everyone has to
ask on what basis they make these criticisms".

"Evidence shows one
thing and the UN report clearly shows that they are not looking at reality."


Israel has said the aim of its operations in Gaza was to cripple the Palestinian
group Hamas's ability to launch rockets into the south of Israel.


Earlier this month an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed to Al
Jazeera that it would not co-operate with a separate UN Human Rights Council
investigation into alleged war crimes during the assault on the Gaza Strip.


International rights groups have accused both the Israeli military and
Palestinian groups such as Hamas of violations throughout the conflict.


The UN secretary-general commissioned the report, written by a special committee
led by Ian Martin, former head of Amnesty International, in January, shortly
after fighting ended.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

China, Eritrea Pledge to Boost Bilateral Ties

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki with Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

China, Eritrea pledge to
boost bilateral ties

ASMARA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- China and Eritrea
on Tuesday pledged to boost bilateral ties and cooperation in various fields
when top officials of the two friendly countries met in the capital of Eritrea.


During his meeting with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Wang Jiarui, visiting
head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC)
Central Committee, said that the Chinese ruling party and government attaches
great importance to deepening exchange and cooperation in various fields with
Eritrea.

"China would like to work together with Eritrea to inject
more vigor to the development of the bilateral ties," the senior CPC official
added.

For his part, Afwerki noted that his country regards China as
a trustworthy friend and holds high expectation for the deepening and expanding
of the bilateral ties between the two ruling parties and countries.


The two sides also exchanged views on regional and international affairs of
common concerns.

Wang also held talks on Tuesday with Yemane
Gebreab, head of political affairs of the People's Front for Democracy and
Justice of Eritrea, on the friendly cooperation between the two ruling parties,
as well as the efforts to enrich the new Sino-African strategic partnership.


Also present at the meetings were Wang's delegation and Shu Zhan, Chinese
ambassador to Eritrea, as well as other senior officials of the Eritrean ruling
party.

Wang and his delegation were scheduled to leave here on
Wednesday for the next stop of this trip in Ghana.

Detroit City Council Grants Permit to Hold People's Summit in Grand Circus Park,
June 14-17

Detroit demonstration in the financial district on Sept. 25, 2008. The march
opposed the trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street. (Photo: Alan Pollock).

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

For Immediate Release


Media Advisory

Contact: Moratorium Now! Coalition/People's Summit

5920 Second Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202
Phone: 313.887.4344, 680.5508,
671.3715
E-mail: moratorium@moratorium-mi.org
URL:
http://www.peoplesummit.org
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB7fshPvt9M

Event:
People's
Summit & Tent City
June 14-17, 2009
Grand Circus Park, Detroit,
Michigan

Detroit City Council Grants Permit for the People's Summit
in Grand Circus Park, June 14-17, 2009

The Moratorium Now! Coalition
to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions--along with the People's
Summit--enthusiastically welcomes the passage of a resolution by the Detroit
City Council on May 5 granting a permit for holding the planned gathering in
Grand Circus Park next month.

Moratorium Now! petitioned the City
Council in February to establish a tent city in downtown at Grand Circus Park.
We are calling upon labor, community, youth, cultural, human rights, immigrant
rights, women's rights, environmental and all other people's organizations and
movements to join us in this endeavor that will strengthen the struggle to win
against the corporations, banks and the war machine.

On June 15-17,
2009, the National Business Summit, sponsored by the Detroit Economic Club, will
take place at the Renaissance Center, General Motors Corporate Headquarters.
Millionaire capitalists like the heads of Conoco-Phillips, Dow Chemical, General
Motors, Chrysler, Humana Inc., Ascension Health, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, BNSF
Railway Co., and PVS Chemicals, and well as the presidents of the National
Council on Competitiveness and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will gather at this
summit. President Barack Obama and cabinet members have been invited.


These wealthy businesspeople will put their greedy heads together to discuss
“innovation and policy ideas in technol­ogy, energy, environment and
manufactur­ing.” In other words, they will be strategizing on how to further
increase their profits at the expense of the ever-shrinking middle class, the
vast working class and the growing millions living in utter poverty.


The National Business Summit will be held in a city with record-high
unemployment and poverty rates, lay-offs, budget cuts, school closings, utility
cost hikes and shut-offs and massive home foreclosures. With a registration fee
of $1,495, it is unlikely that any victims of foreclosures and evictions, let
alone laid-off workers, will be able to attend the National Business Summit. No
one at this event will be speaking in the interests of those most affected by
the economic collapse.

The People’s Summit will be a dynamic event.
During the People’s Summit, organizers will implement a moratorium on
foreclosure evictions by going into the neighborhoods and supporting homeowners
who are willing to confront the bailiffs. If there is a strike, demonstration or
sit in, the People’s Summit will join it. The People’s Summit will confront the
big-business CEOs and politicians gathering next door. Join us!


RAISE YOUR VOICES TO DEMAND:

Bailout the people!
Jobs,
healthcare, housing and education for all
Moratorium on foreclosures,
evictions and utility shutoffs – housing is a right
Stop budget cuts and
restore social services funding
Stop tuition hikes and school closings

Moratorium on layoffs, plant closings, pension thefts and union busting – A job
at a living wage is a right
End racism, sexism and anti-LGBT attacks

Stop attacks on immigrants
Full rights for disabled people
Bailout
youth and students
No more police brutality
Jobs not Jails - For
prisoners and ex-prisoners' rights
Save the natural environment and stop
global warming
U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan
Money for
jobs and human needs, not war

------------------------------------------------------------
Initiated by
the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions

http://www.moratorium-mi.org
Email: moratorium@moratorium-mi.org
5920
Second Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202
Phone 313-680-5508
Call today to
endorse, volunteer, reserve your tent space and/or make a donation.

------------------------------------------------------------
Endorsements:

Michigan Welfare Rights Organization
Bail Out the People Movement

United for a Fair Economy
Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality

Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
Green Party of
Michigan, Detroit Chapter
Jobs with Justice
John Conyers,
Congressperson
Autoworker Caravan
Michigan Emergency Committee Against
War & Injustice
among many others

Has Change Come to Post-Katrina New Orleans?

A pepper spray victim being treated outside City Council in New Orleans.
Police used excessive force to prevent people from attending a public
meeting where decisions were made to demolish 4,500 housing untis on
December 20, 2007. (BBC Photo).
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Has Change Come to
Post-Katrina New Orleans?

Introduction

If you want to
measure the distance between George Bush and Barack Obama on domestic political
issues, Katrina provides the best test. What emerges is a startling continuity
of policy toward New Orleans between the Republican and Democratic White Houses
– especially regarding the fate of public housing.

This continuity
of policy “is particularly the case in New Orleans where public services have
been or are on their way to being privatized or eliminated, and where, primarily
due to this disaster capitalist agenda, almost half the population has been
unable to return home, disproportionately female, black and, poor.”


Has Change Come to Post-Katrina New Orleans?

by Jay Arena


As people in the U.S. and around the world make their evaluation of President
Barack Obama’s first one-hundred days, many – that is, those that truly wanted a
break from the racist, militarist, anti-working class policies of the Bush
regime – are coming to the conclusion that the “change” his campaign promised
seems to have turned into “more of the same.”

An examination of his
substantive policies, from the continued military occupation of Iraq and
expanded wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the trillions more to bailout Wall
Street while a promised health care plan is put on the back burner, to an
unwillingness to prosecute criminals, from George Bush on down, that carried out
torture, underscores the extent of continuity, rather than change, embodied by
the administration of the United States’ first African American president.


Yet, you might ask, does Obama’s track record of continuity over substantive
change extend to even still-devastated New Orleans? Evaluating what is happening
in New Orleans is a particularly significant measure of the new president since
the city became so emblematic of everything that was wrong with the U.S. under
Bush.

In fact, even Bush’s own aides, such as Scott McClellan, have
acknowledged that Katrina and Bush’s response was a key turning point in the
administration’s descent. Thus, evaluating what change – or lack thereof – the
Obama administration has introduced to New Orleans provides an important window
into the political character of the new regime in Washington. In fact the record
shows, as I will elaborate, the gap between the rhetoric of change, and
continuity in practice, may be most glaring in post-Katrina New Orleans.


Obama, Public Housing, and the Racist Disaster Capitalism Agenda

The
central thrust of the Bush administration’s post-Katrina “reconstruction”
plan—and shared, to a great degree by state and local officials, Democrat and
Republican, black and white, alike—has been to use the disaster as an
opportunity to privatize and eliminate such vital public services as education,
housing and health care. The dismantling of the public sector is central to what
many call “disaster capitalism” where corporations, and their public servants,
use the disruption and disorientation produced by a disaster among the working
class to grab and pillage public resources, award sweetheart contracts, and to
lift labor, environmental or any other constraints on profit making.


The Obama administration has not deviated fundamentally from this agenda, with
their stance toward public housing being a prime example. To understand the
level of continuity we need to briefly review Bush’s post-Katrina policy toward
public housing in New Orleans.

At the time of the storm New Orleans
had about 7,000 public housing apartments, down by about half following the
Clinton administration’s so-called HOPE VI program that led to the elimination
of wide swaths of the system, while rebuilding only a fraction of affordable
units under the new “mixed income” replacements. The sturdy, brick, three-story
apartment buildings that make up most of traditional Public Housing in New
Orleans provided poor people, besides housing, a key source of hurricane
protection. Yet, despite this role in still hurricane-vulnerable New Orleans,
and despite coming through the storm in much better shape than most of the
private housing stock, the federally controlled local housing
authority--HANO--closed down four housing developments, the St. Bernard,
Lafitte, BW Cooper and CJ Peete, immediately after the storm.

The
Bush regime followed this – after an intense two year anti-racist, poor people
fight back, that included scores of protests, building occupations, and the
police tasering, macing, beating and arrest of people for having the temerity to
speak out at the December 20, 2007 New Orleans City Council hearing – with the
demolition of some 5,000 apartments in the Spring of 2008.

“Despite
coming through the storm in much better shape than most of the private housing
stock, the federally controlled local housing authority closed down four housing
developments.”

Demolition was a clear violation of international
law, which requires the government to facilitate the return of the displaced –
not demolish their homes. Of course, it is not a surprise that the Bush regime,
which flouted international law and public opinion to carry out the war against
Iraq, would break international treaties when dealing with its own citizens,
especially poor African American families in New Orleans. Yet, despite a change
in discourse, the new Obama administration stands in violation of international
law as well, by continuing the demolition of public housing and thus preventing
the return of poor, displaced, predominately black, people to the city.


Of course, considering the makeup of the Obama administration, this stance
should not come as a surprise either. Obama, as a state senator and during his
presidential campaign, defended “public-private partnerships” that involve
providing public subsidies to private developers, as an alternative to public
housing.

Indeed some of his top advisors and supporters, such as
Valerie Jarrett, the CEO of The Habitat Company, one of Chicago’s largest real
estate redevelopment firms, has made millions managing government-funded private
replacements for public housing, such as the squalid Parc Grove apartments in
Chicago. Jarrett self-servingly defended her role, arguing, “Government is just
not as good at owning and managing as the private sector because the incentives
are not there” (see the Boston Globe exposé by Binyamin Applebaum, June 27,
2008).

Policing the Movement: Obama and His Non-Profit Partners


Thus, unsurprisingly Obama, like Bush before him, has been pushing forward with
more demolitions and replacement with “public-private partnerships” that enrich
private developers. His new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),
Shaun Donovan, is well prepared for that role having been a HUD under secretary
for the Clinton administration in the 1990s, overseeing the demolition of tens
of thousands of public housing apartments, and displacement of poor families
from highly valued inner city real estate, such as at New Orleans St. Thomas
development.

Most recently he worked as billionaire New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Housing czar, overseeing the continued underfunding
and undermining – the demolition by neglect strategy – of the country’s
historically best public housing, while providing generous subsidies to
developers to create an insufficient number of “affordable” housing units, out
of reach for many poor New Yorkers.

Donovan’s other key credential,
from Obama’s perspective, is that he is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School
of Government, a major incubator of neoliberal government housing policy. This
outfit specializes in churning out “scholars” that can effectively legitimate
the starving of the public sector, and the providing of generous subsidies to
developers, as an exercise in “good government” and implementing “best
practices.”

Thus, it is no surprise, that when Donovan visited the
city in early March he only met with “responsible” non-profit leaders that agree
with this neoliberal framework for (inadequately) addressing affordable housing
needs in post-Katrina New Orleans and the US. On March 5th he sat down to chat
with a collection of responsible non-profits that would not raise uncomfortable
issues, like public housing, and who refused, in order to protect the secretary
from any embarrassing protests, to divulge any information to grass roots
organizations about when a where they would meet with Donovan.

These
vetted non-governmental “civil society” leaders included Janey Bavishi of the
State of Louisiana funded “Equity and Inclusion” campaign—the same state that
refused to give one dime for renters as part of the so-called Road Home program
– Kalima Rose of Policy Link, another non-profit think tank and advocacy group
that refused to support the defense of public housing, and a host of other
non-profits from New Orleans and the Gulf.

In their meeting with
Donovan, as explained in the Equity and Inclusion web newsletter of March 19th,
they did not raise one word of protest against the Obama administration’s plan
to demolish more public housing in New Orleans, while, at the same time, raising
some important equity issues, including the state of Mississippi receiving
federal government waivers that allowed them to redirect federal money intended
for low and moderate income people to rebuild ports for the shipping industry.


Thus, this meeting exemplified the crucial role of the non-profiters in
suppressing any challenges to the pro-corporate neoliberal model by shaping
their demands to fit within the policy framework that Obama and his neoliberal
appointees, such as Donovan, find acceptable. Therefore, seeing the effective
policing role the non-profits play, it is not a surprise that Obama, more so
than even under Bush, is working to promote the non-profit sector. They act,
particularly in post-Katrina New Orleans, as key adjuncts, partners, to the
disaster capitalist agenda.

Obama/Donovan Shut Door on Grass Roots
Activists Clamoring to Be Heard

Donovan’s – and by extension Obama’s
– treatment of public housing tenant leaders Sharon Jasper, Sam Jackson,
Stephanie Mingo, Katrina survivor and holdout Mike Howells, and other members of
the public housing movement during his March visit, underscores most
dramatically the Obama administration’s continuity with Bush when dealing with
New Orleans.

During the last visit of Bush’s notoriously corrupt HUD
secretary, Alphonso Jackson, to the city in the Spring of 2007, the public
housing movement was relegated to screaming at the secretary and local public
officials from across a police barricade. The protestors denounced HUD’s plans
to demolish 5,000 viable public housing apartments while the Bush appointee
stood with Mayor Nagin and other local officials at a ribbon cutting ceremony
for the reopening of a handful of apartments at a new mixed income community in
the 9th ward.

Shockingly, activists found themselves in the same
position, literally, during Donovan’s visit. On March 5th, at the same “mixed
income community,” Donovan surrounded himself with the some of the same local
officials that Jackson had gathered, along with some new faces, including UNITY
for the homeless director Martha Kegel. This nonprofit official earned her place
at the gathering by playing an indispensable role for Mayor Nagin evicting the
homeless – who have doubled in number from their pre-Katrina levels – from
various “unsightly,” highly visible locations in the center of the city.


On the other side of the police barricades the public housing movement, just as
they had during Alphonso Jackson’s visit, raised the uncomfortable issues that
the non-profit “advocates” would not. These included the demand that the Obama
administration support Senate Bill 1668 that guarantees one-for-one replacement
of all the public housing apartments demolished since Katrina as PUBLIC housing
apartments – that is, ones in which residents pay 30% of their income for rent
and utilities.

Second, they demanded that the remaining 100
apartments at the Lafitte development, to which residents moved only a short six
months before, not be demolished and the residents be allowed to stay in their
homes. Third, they wanted the federal stimulus money allocated for the local
housing authority to be used to include the repair of the Iberville development,
the only fully intact traditional public housing development, which sits outside
the French Quarter.

This money is badly needed to repair and reopen
over 200 empty apartments at the 800-plus complex, units that are desperately
needed by the thousands of families that are on the public housing waiting list,
which has not accepted new applicants since Katrina.

(For an
excellent critique of the non-profit sector’s solutions to housing, and a plan
that places the reconstruction of the public sector at the center of any
solution, see “Comments On the Draft “Policy Recommendations to Support Gulf
Coast Housing Recovery’: A New Orleans Perspective,” put out by May Day New
Orleans).

Iberville and the Obama/Donovan Demolition-By-Neglect
Strategy

The public housing movement quickly received a response
from Donovan/Obama to their demands: keep the bulldozers moving! At the end of
March a notoriously repressive housing authority manager, Lois Watson, swept
through the Lafitte development threatening these traumatized Katrina survivors
with arrest if they did not immediately vacate the premises (Times Picayune,
March 29, 2009).

By April 1st all residents had moved out, and by
late-April authorities placed a metal fence around the development to prepare
for demolition of this historic, architectural gem, built by Creole artisans
from the Treme neighborhood in the early 1940s, whose demise New York Times
architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff denounced as “a human and architectural
tragedy of vast proportions.”

Yet, Obama was not finished with this
“change you can believe in” for New Orleans. Diane Johnson, the federally
imposed one-person board of New Orleans housing authority, announced at an April
8th hearing that the Iberville and the remaining apartments at the BW Cooper
developments, the only remaining traditional developments, would not get one
dime of the $34 million federal stimulus money awarded to HANO.

Bush
imposed Johnson as the new one-person board chair in May 2008, where, upon
taking office, she chillingly pronounced that “I understand demolition…just
watch and see Diane Johnson.” Johnson, with the full support of Obama, who has
kept on this Bush appointee, as he is done in so many other areas, has kept her
demolition promises. The failure to provide any money for Iberville is a thinly
veiled attempt to carry out demolition by neglect and thus pave the way for
“redevelopment” that will allow the ethnic and class cleansing of the community
and the seizing of this long sought after property by real estate interests.


Obama Expands the Neo-Apartheid, ‘Public-Private’, Charter School System


Duncan and other neoliberal education reformers – including, especially, Obama –
promote pouring public monies into for-profit and non-profit companies.


The appointment of Arne Duncan, the former CEO of the Chicago school district,
and a major proponent of privatized charter schools, made clear where Obama
stands on “education reform.” Proposals made by May Day New Orleans, C3/Hands
Off Iberville and other grass roots organizations, to use public funds to create
well-funded, democratically-run, broadly accessible, and useful public works,
public schools and other public goods, is not even entertained.


Instead, through a top-down strategy, as with housing, Duncan and other
neoliberal education reformers – including, especially, Obama, as he made clear
in his speech to the Business Roundtable – promote pouring public monies into
for-profit and non-profit companies to administer, and profit from, the delivery
of education services.

Thus, Duncan’s approach by no means
represents a divergence from what has happened to public education in
post-Katrina New Orleans, but rather deepens the processes initiated by his
predecessor. After the storm the State of Louisiana, under Democratic Governor
Kathleen Blanco, and with the full support of the majority African American New
Orleans delegation in the State House and Senate, tore up the teachers union
contract, fired all the teachers and support staff from cafeteria to janitors,
and had the state, through the Recovery School District, take over almost all
the schools.

Of those that have reopened, most – only half of the
over 120 pre-storm schools were reopened – are now charter schools, run by an
array of non- and for-profit companies, and overseen by a Byzantine complex of
unaccountable, self appointed boards, and advised by elite, corporate-linked
think tanks, such as the Cowen Institute. Bush Education secretary Margaret
Spelling stepped in and helped make this transformation a truly bipartisan
effort by providing $40 million, all of which was earmarked for charters,
shortly after Katrina.

Yet, despite, or rather because of, this
scenario, Education Secretary Duncan, during his March 20th swing through New
Orleans, praised the “phenomenal innovation going on” and “the set of adults
that are pushing a very strong reform agenda’,” in a city that has witnessed the
widest and most rapid privatization of the any public school system in the
country. Duncan also underscored his opposition to democratically controlled
local school boards and that “reform” requires authoritarian “leadership from
the top” (Times Picayune, March 21, 2009).

He was right on the mark.
His touting of authoritarianism is a recognition of the unpopularity of these
neoliberal educational reforms and the need for strong arm tactics to impose
them. The New Orleans case, in which the local elected school board was stripped
of its control by the state executive, and Governor Blanco’s lifting of the rule
– while most New Orleanians were still in exile – that gave parents and teachers
at targeted schools the right to vote on whether they want their schools to
become charters, underscores the undemocratic nature of the whole agenda and the
need for an authoritarian state to impose it.

This lifting of local
control allowed maybe the most blatant racist takeover of all – the chartering
of the formerly all-black, low-income, Fortier High School, located next to
Tulane University, by the elite, “magnet,” selective admission, Robert Lusher
School, named after, appropriately, a post-civil war era segregationist.


Fortier H.S., taken over through a collaboration with Tulane University, denies
entry to former students, while guaranteeing admission, in a typical phony
“anti-racist” neoliberal multicultural form, to students of full time employees
of Tulane and Loyola Universities, as well as the historically black
universities of Dillard and Xavier.

This school, which before
Katrina regularly went without even toilet paper, now operates in a renovated
facility, with plenty of amenities, and a “progressive” multicultural student
body, that excludes, in a neo-apartheid manner, the former low-income black
students, many of whom remain in the post-Katrina diaspora.

New
Orleans Public Hospital Remains Closed

Obama’s failure to change
course and tackle the pressing post-Katrina health care needs is especially
ominous considering that addressing health care was a major component of his
campaign. After Katrina, Governor Blanco intervened, ordering out the Oklahoma
national guard, German engineers and hospital staff that were cleaning out the
main public hospital – Charity Hospital – which in fact incurred little damage.


The Democratic Governor then declared Charity Hospital, which provided
critically needed care for the poor and uninsured, beyond repair and announced
it would be permanently closed. Since then, New Orleans has had no major public
health care facility to deal with those without health insurance, and lost its
major source of psychiatric care, in a city where psychiatric illnesses have
skyrocketed due to the varied problems people face in a post-disaster
environment, problems further acerbated by the government’s failure to reopen
public services.

Here again, New Orleanians find no relief from the
Obama administration. The State of Louisiana’s plan, which the new Republican
Governor Bobby Jindal – an apparent Obama challenger – supports, will turn
Charity into a much smaller teaching hospital, as part of a new medical complex
to be built in conjunction with the local Veterans Hospital.


Although it is a state-level initiative, the federal government, through control
of Medicaid dollars, the critical role of the Veterans hospital in the plan, and
the moral power of the new president, has a variety of methods at their disposal
to get the state to change course.

Nonetheless, despite this
leverage, the Obama administration has not exercised this power, but has,
instead, continued the same federal government support begun by Bush.


Obama, Non-Profits, and Need for Building a Political Alternative

An
honest evaluation of Barack Obama’s administration, one that looks at substance
over symbolism reveals, at both home and abroad, a striking continuity with his
predecessor.

Although one can find differences in the style and
discourse of the two leaders, the underlying program of the new administration
continues to be that of militarism, of anti-working class attacks, and yes,
substantively, a deeply racist one. He has put a new face on a still brutally
racist, capitalist system. This continuity, as I have shown, is particularly the
case in New Orleans where public services have been or are on their way to being
privatized or eliminated, and where, primarily due to this disaster capitalist
agenda, almost half the population has been unable to return home,
disproportionately female, black and, poor.

Yet, at the same, as I
have shown, New Orleans’ public housing movement, the campaign to reopen Charity
hospital, and other struggles, along with the nationally reviving immigrant
rights and anti-war movements, represent the kernels of a real political
alternative – not the mirage of Obamania. But, as the New Orleans case reveals,
for these movements to make gains they will have to effectively traverse, expose
and combat an array non-profit apologists that provide political cover and
protection for the new progressive face of the system.

Indeed, many
of these outfits are lining up for funding as part of the
non-profit-state-network that Obama, a particularly intelligent and foresighted
representative of the ruling class, is cultivating as an effective social buffer
in the face of the deepening capitalist crisis.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay Arena is a member of C3/Hands Off Iberville. For more information on
supporting the New Orleans public housing struggle, contact the author at
504-520-9521.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIST Youth Group Says: 'US Hands Off Somalia'

Abdi Wale Abdul Kadhir Muse shown in the custody of the United States
government in New York. The Somali teen will be tried as an adult and
charged with piracy under a colonial-slave era law utilized by the racist
state.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Youth group says: ‘U.S.
hands off Somalia’

Published May 3, 2009 8:06 PM

The
following excerpted statement was issued by the youth group FIST—Fight
Imperialism, Stand Together.

Fight Imperialism, Stand Together calls
for the release of Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse—the young teen from Somalia who was
brought to New York and arraigned in a federal court—and that he be allowed to
return to his family in Somalia.

Muse, who according to his parents
is only 16, has been charged with five counts, the most serious of which,
piracy, carries a life sentence if convicted. The charges stem from the April 8
seizure of the Danish-owned Maersk Alabama, which was flying a U.S. flag. The
ship had passed through the Gulf of Aden and was in the Indian Ocean, 350 miles
off the coast of Somalia.

From April 8 to 12, the captain of the
Maersk was allegedly detained by Muse and three of his companions. The incident
was ended after Navy Seals shot to death three young Somali men aboard a tugboat
anchored to their destroyer, the USS Bainbridge. Muse was aboard the destroyer
trying to negotiate the release of the captain of the Maersk, as was agreed to,
when the three youths were killed.

What jurisdiction does the U.S.
have over events that occurred off the coast of the Horn of Africa? Moreover,
the so-called pirates have not killed anyone they have captured. The only people
killed so far have been the three young Somali men, killed by U.S. Seals, and a
French national killed by French commandoes who stormed a yacht that had been
seized.

The popular media can show sympathy for the crews of ships
being seized and their family members. But, rarely do the media that have played
up this human drama delve into the daily existence of the people of Somalia,
Iraq or any place around the world that has been under siege from imperialist
war and intervention.

Events in history give justification to the
seizing of ships by so-called pirates from Somalia.

Barrels of toxic
materials have been dumped off the coast of Somalia. This waste—nuclear waste in
some cases—washed ashore after a tsunami in late 2004. Thousands have become
sick with strange rashes, respiratory infections, stomach illnesses and hundreds
have died. The toxic materials are coming from European companies that pay
others to dispose of nuclear and other types of waste. Instead of responsibly
paying to have the waste disposed of in Europe, they pay smaller fees to have it
dumped off the Somali coast, ignoring the resulting suffering of the people
there.

Additionally, more than $300 million a year in seafood is
stolen from the waters near Somalia by ships from other nations that employ
trawling, a fishing method that involves the dragging of huge nets across the
ocean floor. Trawling not only damages the natural environment, but is illegal
off the coast of many nations. It robs the many villages and towns on the Somali
coast that have relied on fishing for centuries.

Added to these
charges are colonial and imperialist occupation and subterfuge. The U.S.
undermined progressive developments in East Africa in the 1970s, caused a war
between Somalia and Ethiopia, tied Somalia to foreign aid and occupied the
country in the early 1990s, killing thousands of Somali people.


Currently there are more than two dozen military vessels patrolling waters off
the coast of Somalia. Somalia is occupied by foreign troops propping up a weak
regime beholden to the West.

The EU, the U.S. and other countries
discuss how to deal with piracy coming from Somalia, yet reparations to Somalia
for years of imperialist intervention, theft of sea life and the dumping of
toxic waste are not being discussed. The only option being put on the table is
military action.

FIST demands there be no further imperialist
intervention; that reparations be paid; that the foreign troops in service of
Western world imperialism be removed from Somalia; that all ships off the coast
return to their nations; and that Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse be set free and
returned to his family in Somalia.

U.S. Hands off Somalia!


U.S. Hands off Africa!

Fight Imperialism, Stand Together

-----------------------------------------------------------
Articles
copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this
entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice
is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email:
ww@workers.org
Page printed from:

http://www.workers.org/2009/world/fist_0507/


The real pirates
of the seas

Insurance giants profit from Somalia’s poverty


By Caleb T. Maupin
Published May 3, 2009 8:10 PM

There are
some pirates who don’t use firearms to seize vessels on the high seas. There are
certain pirates who commit their acts of oceanic theft from thousands of miles
away, in cool office buildings in Chicago and London.

Patrick G. Ryan
is the founder and chairman of the Aon Corporation, the world’s largest “risk
management services” conglomerate. He doesn’t wear an eye patch and has no hook
in place of his hand, although he could afford one made of solid gold.


In addition to helping his corporation obtain a net income of $685 million in
2004, Ryan took some time off that year to hold a personal fundraiser for George
W. Bush’s reelection campaign at his estate in Winnetka, Ill., where Laura Bush
and many of Ryan’s closest friends enjoyed a lobster dinner. They never even
bothered to pay the $80,000 the city asked for as reimbursement for the massive
police protection the city provided for the event. (Chicago Tribune, Jan. 17,
2005) Though Ryan is a Republican and strong Bush supporter, he was made a
member of President Barack Obama’s inaugural committee and is working to get the
2016 Olympics in Chicago. (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com, Nov. 25)


Ryan’s Aon Corporation, along with others in the insurance business, such as the
London-based International Securities Solutions Inc., has taken advantage of the
recent rise in so-called “Somali piracy” by astronomically raising insurance
rates on ships traveling through the Indian Ocean.

Eleven percent of
the world’s seaborne petroleum is carried in tankers through the Gulf of Aden, a
location specifically targeted by “pirates” of Somali descent. (examiner.com,
April 13) Even though the risk of a ship being seized in the Gulf of Aden has
gone up only 1 percent, the folks at Aon Corporation and their associates in
“risk management services” have raised the cost of insuring a vessel from an
average of $900 to $9,000, according to military historian James F. Dunnigan.
(strategypage.com, Oct. 18)

Presently, however, less than 10 percent
of vessels in the Gulf of Aden even bother to be insured at all, as the costs
have gone up so much. (time.com, April 20)

Aon rewarded for corporate
crime

With maritime insurance profits going through the roof, Aon
Corporation still felt it was necessary to cut the pensions of its British
workers, some by as much as 50 percent. (timesonline.co.uk, April 8) A spokesman
for Aon UK told the Times that this was necessary “to protect our business” and
ensure that Aon can “emerge from the recession strong and successful.”


On Jan. 8, Aon Corporation received the largest fine ever given for financial
crime in the history of the England. It was fined 5.25 million pounds for making
$7 million worth of “suspicious payments” to unnamed sources abroad, without
checking to make sure these firms were not involved in “corruption.” The fine
was originally 7.5 million pounds, but Aon was rewarded for its “cooperation”
with the investigation by a 30 percent cut in its fine. (ifaonline.co.uk, Jan.
9)

When interviewed by Time magazine, an executive at Cooper Gay, a
British insurance giant making huge profits from the “piracy” off the coast of
Somalia, was asked if some of the profits made could be used to “develop”
Somalia and prevent the poverty that causes the starving people of Somalia to
seize ships and take people for ransom. He responded by snorting, “It’s not down
to insurance companies to promote peace in Somalia.” (time.com, April 20)


He should have said that actually the opposite is true. Dunnigan said that a
1,000 percent hike in insurance costs for vessels would be “modest.”
(strategypage.com, Oct. 18) The fact that impoverished, starving people in
Somalia are reduced to “piracy” in order to survive has made the folks in the
insurance business richer than ever. If anything, they see it as their
responsibility to make sure it continues.

Aon Corporation announced
that its revenue for 2007 was $7.15 billion. But with insurance costs for those
traveling across the Gulf of Aden going up 1,000 percent as Dunnigan estimated,
Aon is bound to do even better in the coming months. Yet the company still found
it necessary to reduce its British workers’ pensions to “protect” itself and be
able to “re-emerge” in the “challenging conditions” they now face.

Is
it ironic that a few years before Bush would bomb Somalia and kill thousands of
innocent civilians, his spouse Laura was eating lobster at the home of a man who
would use the impoverishment of Somalia as an opportunity to line his
ever-hungry pockets?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of
this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this
notice is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011

Email: ww@workers.org
Page printed from:

http://www.workers.org/2009/world/somalia_0507/

Reflections of Fidel Castro: Cuba, A Terrorist Country?

Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Fidel Castro of Cuba. The two nations have a
long record of solidarity and mutual cooperation.
Originally
uploaded by Pan-African
News Wire File Photos

Reflections of Fidel

Cuba,
a terrorist country?

THURSDAY, April 30, was an unfortunate day for
the United States. That day it occurred to it to once again include Cuba on its
list of terrorist countries. Involved as they are in their own crimes and lies,
perhaps even Obama himself was unable to disentangle himself from that mess. A
man whose talent nobody denies must feel ashamed of that cult to the lies of the
empire. Fifty years of terrorism against our country come to light in an
instant.

How to explain to those who are aware of the atrocious act
of the sabotage of an airplane in mid-flight with its passenger and crew, U.S.
participation in the act, the recruiting of Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles,
the supplying of explosives and funds and the complicity of that country’s
intelligence agencies and authorities. How to explain the campaign of terror
that preceded and followed the mercenary Bay of Pigs invasion, the attacks on
our coasts, towns, transport and fishing ships, the acts of terrorism inside and
outside the United States? How to explain the hundreds of thwarted plans for
assassinating Cuban leaders? What to say about the introduction of viruses like
hemorrhagic dengue and the swine fever that, genetically speaking, did not even
exist in the hemisphere? I am just mentioning some of the acts of terror
committed by the United States, which are recorded in their own declassified
documents. Aren’t these acts a cause for shame for the current administration?


The list of repugnant activities that could be enumerated would be endless.


At our request, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez sent me the textual words
of the question that an Agence France-Presse reporter asked him on April 30,
along with his convincing answer.

Rigoberto Díaz, of the AFP:
"Coinciding with the final moments of this meeting and also regarding an issue
that has been addressed at this event, the United States government has again
included Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, together with
Sudan, Iran and Syria. I would like your opinion on this."

Bruno’s
answer:

"We do not recognize the U.S. government as having any
political or moral authority to make any list, on any issue, or to ‘certify’
good or bad conduct.

"The Bush government was ‘certified’ by world
public opinion as an aggressive, war-mongering government that violated
international law, as a government responsible for extrajudicial executions.


"Bush has been the only president to boast in public, in the U.S. Congress, of
having engaged in extrajudicial executions, a government that kidnapped people
and illegally transferred them, that created secret prisons – and nobody knows
whether they have been maintained – that created a concentration camp where
torture is used, on a piece of land that it has usurped from the Republic of
Cuba.

"In terms of terrorism, the U.S. government historically has
had a lengthy record of acts of state terrorism, not just against Cuba.


"In the United States, Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles – both of them
responsible for numerous terrorist actions, including the bombing of a Cuban
civilian airplane in mid-flight – are freely walking the streets. There has been
no response to Venezuela’s petition for the extradition of Posada Carriles, who
is facing various charges, but not as a notorious international terrorist.


"The United States government engineered a rigged trial of the five Cuban
anti-terrorist fighters whom, to this day, remain as political prisoners in its
jails.

"The United States government protects acts of state
terrorism committed by Israel against the Palestinian people and the Arab
peoples. It remained silent in face of the crimes perpetrated in the Gaza Strip.


"Therefore, the United States should not be recognized as having the slightest
moral authority, and I frankly believe that nobody pays any attention to or
reads those documents because, for one thing, their author is an international
criminal in many of the themes that he criticizes.

"Cuba’s position
against any manifestation or form of terrorism — wherever it is committed,
whatever state it is committed against, in whatever any form it is undertaken,
with whatever purpose that is proclaimed — is clear and consistent with its
actions.

"Cuba has been the victim of terrorism for many years and
has a totally clean record in that matter. Cuban territory has never been used
for organizing, financing or executing terrorist acts against the United States
of America. The State Department, which issues those reports, could not say the
same."

This statement, issued at the foreign ministers’ meeting of
the Non-Aligned Movement, is still not well known by the population, which has
received an abundance of news of every kind in recent days. If the State
Department would like to argue with Bruno, there are enough facts to bury them
with their own lies.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 2, 20097:12 p.m.

Translated by Granma International


United States prevents
Silvio from attending Pete Seeger's 90th birthday

THE U.S. State
Department, currently under the leadership of Hilary Clinton, has prevented the
famous Cuban singer/songwriter Silvio Rodríguez from attending celebrations in
New York for the legendary American folk singer Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday.


The CubaDebate website yesterday published a message from Silvio, who was in
Paris, saying that he had not received a visa on Friday, thus thwarting his
plans to travel to the United States on an invitation from the event’s
organizers.

"The blockade is still an active policy in the doings of
the U.S. government," the website stated.

In a message to his sister
and manager in Havana, Silvio stated: "It is 8:40 p.m. on Friday, May 1 in Paris
and I have just connected to the website where the U.S. embassy in France
publishes news on visa applications. Mine appears as still being processed, as
it has been since I applied for it. Since today is the day that I was supposed
to fly to New York and the visa hasn’t appeared, I leave for Havana tomorrow.


"I think that the State Department’s attitude is very much in contradiction with
President Obama’s express desire for a rapprochement with Cuba. As a worker in,
I still feel as blocked and discriminated against as by other governments. I
hope that this will really change some day. Thanks for your help," the Cuban
nueva trova artist wrote at the end of his note.

Peter Seeger, who
gave global backing to the popularity of Guantanamera – by Joseíto Fernández,
with verses from José Martí – has been a tireless critic of the U.S. blockade of
Cuba, which he has visited five times.

Translated by Granma
International

South Africa Scraps Visas for Zimbabweans

Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, South African Home Affairs Minister, said to
Parliament that "we need to fight and resist all forms of discrimination and
prejudice including homophobia."
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire Photo File

SA scraps visas


Herald Reporter

ZIMBABWEANS travelling to South Africa are no longer
required to have visas, South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister, Nosiviwe
Mapisa-Nqakula, has said.

According to media reports from South
Africa, Minister Mapisa-Nqakula said Zimbabweans no longer need to apply and pay
for visas before travelling to South Africa.

Instead, they can apply
for a free 90-day visitor’s permit at the border.

She said Zimbabwean
citizens could also apply to do casual work while in South Africa.


Minister Mapisa-Nqakula made the announcement in the presence of her two
Zimbabwean counterparts, Co-Home Affairs Ministers Kembo Mohadi and Giles
Mutsekwa, according to the media reports.

Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to
South Africa, Simon Khaya-Moyo, welcomed the development.

"The South
African government has scrapped visa requirements on Zimbabweans intending to
travel to the country.

"We are very grateful for this kind gesture,
and we hope that our people will now be able to visit their relatives in South
Africa and we will obviously not want to disturb the agreement," he said.


South African officials believe many of the 8 000 or so Zimbabweans who apply
daily for asylum status would now opt for the visitor’s permit.

A
senior immigration officer in Harare yesterday confirmed that the ministers and
Principal Chief Immigration Officer Mr Clemence Masango travelled to South
Africa over the weekend to conclude the agreement.

"They travelled to
South Africa, but I am not quite sure about the results. They are supposed to
return tonight (last night)," he said.

In February last year, South
Africa relaxed some of the stringent visa requirements for Zimbabweans intending
to travel to that country following talks between the two governments.


According to the authorities, the invitation letters or evidence of the host’s
address in South Africa were no longer a requirement when applying for a permit.


The security deposit was required only in respect of persons with a history of
"overstaying" in South Africa or whose bona fides were questionable.


Applicants for a visitor’s visa were now required to submit a valid passport,
one passport-size photograph and proof of funds in the form of traveller’s
cheques, credit cards or foreign bank statements that showed balance of at least
R2 000.

The scrapping of these stringent visa requirements was the
culmination of talks between Zimbabwe and South Africa under the Joint Permanent
Commission on Defence and Security that began in November 2007.

The
relaxing of the visa requirement was the first step towards the eventual removal
of the visa.

South Africa had recently announced that it would soon
scrap the visa and grant Zimbabweans permits to work in that country.



Repeal sanctions Act, Biti urges US

Herald Reporter


FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti has called for the immediate repeal of the
draconian United States sanctions law, the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and
Economic Recovery Act of 2001, saying it is barring the country from accessing
lines of credit and is affecting Government’s economic turnaround programmes.


In an interview with pirate broadcaster SW Radio about his recent trip to
Washington for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings,
Minister Biti said Zimbabwe cannot progress with the Act in place.


Minister Biti said he met American lawmakers who contributed to the crafting of
ZDERA and made it clear that it would be difficult for Zimbabwe to move forward
with the sanctions law in place.

"I actually met Senator (Russ)
Feingold, whom you know was one of the authors of these Bills. I also met
Congressman (Donald) Payne, who was also involved in ZDERA.’’

He said
he had also had audience with other US politicians "who mothered and gave
paternity to this ZDERA — and I made it clear that it would be very difficult
for us to move when ZDERA is there".

Minister Biti’s admission that
ZDERA affected lines of credit marked the first tacit admission by a senior
MDC-T official that the Western-imposed sanctions are economic, and not
restricted to individuals.

Over the years, the party had claimed the
sanctions, which were imposed as a knee-jerk reaction to the land reform
programme, were targeted at senior Government officials.

Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, during his maiden speech in Parliament, was not
explicit as he referred to the sanctions as "restrictive measures".


Minister Biti said the World Bank had the capacity to help Government but could
not do so because of the sanctions law.

"The World Bank has right now
billions and billions of dollars that we have to access, but we can’t access
those dollars unless we have dealt with and normalised our relations with IMF.


‘‘We cannot normalise our relations with IMF because of the voting power, it’s a
blocking voting power of America and people who represent America on that board
cannot vote differently because of ZDERA," he said.

ZDERA states in
Section 4 (c):

‘‘The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the
United States executive director to each international financial institution to
oppose and vote against: (1) any extension by the respective institution of any
loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or

‘‘(2)
any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe
to the United States or any international financial institution."


Minister Biti, however, described the meetings as fruitful, saying the officials
understood that the sanctions law had to go.

ZDERA effectively stops
American companies and related organisations from investing in Zimbabwe while
the IMF and World Bank cannot extend lines of credit to the country on account
of the US’ blocking vote.

By dint of this, Zimbabwe cannot even get
development assistance.

US President Barack Obama recently extended
the sanctions for another year, a move that was roundly condemned by
progressives the world over.

Some, however, said Obama’s hands were
tied as the sanctions law can only be lifted after going through Congress, which
is a process not an event.

China Gives $10 Million to Zimbabwe

Gu Xiulian, vice-chair of the Standing Committee of China's National
People's Congress (NPC), meets with Grace Mugabe, the First Lady of Zimbabwe
and head of a visiting women's delegation, at the Great Hall of the People
in Beijing, November 19, 2007.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

China gives $10 mln to
Zimbabwe

LUSAKA (AFP) – China has given 10 million dollars (7.5
million euros) to Zimbabwe, half of it directly into the state coffers, to help
boost the country's troubled economy, a Chinese government official said on
Tuesday.

"The Chinese government last week gave our brothers in
Zimbabwe five million US dollars in cash and humanitarian assistance amounting
to five million dollars," China's special representative for African affairs,
Liu Guijin told reporters in Zambia's capital Lusaka.

"We are happy
with the efforts in forming a unity government," he added.

Liu spoke
shortly before 18 leading Zimbabwean activists were detained on charges of
attempting to overthrow long-time President Robert Mugabe, a move that his unity
government partners warned threatened the fledgling power-sharing deal.


Liu said that even in the face of the global economic crisis, as well as the
falling commodity prices, the Chinese government would continue encouraging
private investors to Africa.

"We are encouraging our people to
create more jobs opportunities in Zimbabwe and the rest of the continent," Liu
said.

The new Zimbabwe unity government, which only took office in
February said it needed more than 8.5 billion dollars (6.4 billion euros) over
three years to haul the country out of economic ruin.

Last week,
Industry Minister Welshman Ncube told state media that Zimbabwe had secured 400
million dollars in credit lines from neighbouring countries to revive the
country's economy.

The report did not say which countries would
extend the credits or what form they would take.

Aretha, Hats and the NAACP in Detroit

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, at the NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner at Cobo
Conference Center in Detroit. Franklin was given the Lifetime Achievement
Award.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

May 5, 2009


Aretha Franklin's hat making news again

Compiled by Cassandra
Spratling and B.J. Hammerstein
Free Press staff writer and editor of
detroit.metromix.com

Aretha Franklin's headgear is making news
again.

The singer told a radio reporter that the wide-brimmed pink
hat she wore to the NAACP dinner in Detroit on Sunday night was not from Mr Song
Millinery, the Detroit store she made famous when she wore one of its hats while
singing at the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

But Luke Song,
milliner and one of the owners of the family business, looked at a newspaper
photo of the hat and said, "That's our hat." He then pointed out a similar hat
in the store catalog.

"We gave her the hat when she placed the order
for the inaugural hat," Song said. "The thing is, she has so many hats she might
have not thought it was ours. I'm pretty sure it's all just a misunderstanding."


Song would not respond directly to remarks Franklin made Sunday night to a radio
reporter; she told the reporter she believed she should get royalties from the
sale of hats like the one she wore at the inauguration.

When asked
whether he would consider sharing profits with Franklin, Song said that that was
not an appropriate conversation to have with a reporter.


May 1,
2009

Aretha Franklin to play Fox Theatre on July 11

By
BRIAN McCOLLUM
Free Press Pop Music Writer

CORRECTION: an
earlier version of this story contained the wrong date for the ticket sales. The
correct version is below.

The Queen of Soul is set to take the
throne at the Fox Theatre.

Aretha Franklin will play the hometown
venue on July 11, theater officials announced today.

Tickets are $45
and $50 and will go on sale Saturday via Ticketmaster and at the Fox box office.


The summer date is one of several U.S. concerts scheduled for the 67-year-old
music icon, and is her first hometown music appearance since a gospel revival
last June.

Franklin was scheduled to play DTE Energy Music Theatre
last August, but canceled two days before the show, fearing high temperatures at
the outdoor gig.

This has already been a high-profile year for
Franklin, who performed at the January inauguration of President Barack Obama.
She’s amid one of the busiest stretches of her career: After several years of
sporadic performing, Franklin returned to the road with gusto in 2005, and has
since been a fixture on the U.S. touring scene.


Sunday, May 3,
2009

Jackson: NAACP still has much work ahead

Paul Egan /
The Detroit News

Detroit -- November's election of a black president
marks a huge stride forward for America but still leaves much important work for
the NAACP to complete.

That message was repeated again and again
tonight as an estimated 10,000 supporters of the Detroit branch of National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People gathered at the Cobo Center
for the Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner -- billed as the largest annual sit-down
dinner in the nation.

"We are free but not equal and in need of
massive restructuring," the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson said in his keynote speech to
the dinner.

The country has "first-class prisons and second-class
schools" and the shift in Detroit's economy away from the Big 3 automakers to
three big casinos demonstrates that "the struggle today is to re-industrialize
our country," he said during his speech and at a news conference earlier in the
day.

Jackson, a civil rights leader who was with the Rev. Martin
Luther King when he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, ran unsuccessfully for
the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.

He is the
founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, an international human
rights organization that promotes voter registration, economic development and
improved health care among other areas of social change.

Jackson
blasted the recent bank bailouts, saying the government should instead bail out
cities like Detroit and America's children. He told the crowd the NAACP must now
fight for the survival of the auto industry.

"We must fight back and
save GM, Ford and Chrysler -- that's our lifeline," he said.


Jackson's failed bids for the presidency "blazed a significant trail as an
African-American candidate for president," in the lead-up to President Barack
Obama's success last year, said Eric Foster of Urban Consulting LLC in Detroit.
"He still has views that need to be considered."

The Rev. Wendell
Anthony, president of the Detroit branch of the NAACP, acknowledged that many
question the relevancy of the organization -- which celebrates its 100th
birthday this year -- now that a black man is president.

But Anthony
said the NAACP must match the political strides of the last 100 years with
economic strides over the next century. He said the unemployment rate for blacks
is still more than double that for whites and said studies show certain white
employers would prefer to hire a white man with a criminal record than an
equally qualified black man with no criminal record.

"As we celebrate
our victories, we still are challenged by our unfinished responsibilities,"
Anthony said.

Fritz Henderson, president and CEO of embattled General
Motors Corp., told dinner attendees his company faces huge challenges and "it's
not about survival; it's about success."

"Most of us derive our
livelihood from the auto industry, directly or indirectly, and we're all in this
together," Henderson said.

The dinner honored the Rev. Al Sharpton,
singer Aretha Franklin, and the Rev. Edwin Rowe of Detroit for their civil
rights accomplishments.

Past keynote speakers have included former
President Bill Clinton and Gen. Colin Powell.

pegan@detnews.com (313)
222-2069

Find this article at:

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090503/METRO/905030332/Jackson--NAACP-still-has-much-work-ahead

Before Nation: An Essay by Mumia Abu-Jamal

The daughter of Mumia Abu-Jamal calling for the immediate freedom of her
father at the rally held in Philadelphia on Sat., April 19, 2008.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Before Nation


[col. writ. 4/26/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

As the temperature of
war increases in Iraq, and the U.S. increases troops in Afghanistan, an
unanswered question looms.

Not, 'what is a nation', so much as why
is this a nation, and when?

When we speak of Iraq, Afghanistan or
even Pakistan as nation-states, we are really speaking of political elites in
their capitals, and of relatively new political identities that are not truly
agreed upon even in those states.

Many of these nations had their
borders drawn, not by themselves, but by diplomats in Europe, more for their
interests than the inhabitants thereof.

Let me give but one example:
remember the former Pakistani president-general Pervez Musharraf? In the year he
was born, there was no Pakistan. He was born a citizen of northwest India.


In many of these countries there are millions of people who see themselves,
first and foremost, as members of ancient tribes, to whom loyalties lie. They
are Pashtun, Punjabi, or Tajik.

In Ayaan Hirsi Ali's
autobiographical work, Infidel, she recounts the childhood memory of her and her
sister standing in their back yard in Somalia, reciting the lineage of their
clan. Standing over them was the daunting figure of grandmother, a switch in
hand, and woe to the child who would forget or overlook an ancestor.


Her grandmother didn't demand that they recount the rulers of Somalia. What was
important was tribe, clan and sub-clan histories and lineages.

For
millions and millions of people, in Africa and South Asia, one's clan is
crucial; nation is ephemeral. For before nation, there was clan. When one is in
distress, there is clan. When one is endangered, there is clan.


Nation is a collection of strangers. Nation is the faraway capital. Nation is
the oppressive force that imposes taxation, or unwanted military presence.


As the U.S., under Obama, plans to downsize in Iraq, and beef up in Afghanistan,
it faces a force that Americans have not had to consider for several centuries;
the power of tribes (here, I speak of the so-called 'Indians', a European name
imposed on a host of tribes, clans, and sub-clans).

This is the true
social and political power that lies beneath the ossified and often corrupt
national governments in which the U.S. has invested billions.

There
is the formal nation-state, with all the structure that Americans like, but
unseen is the true movers and shakers of society -- identity formers -- tribes.


This may be the rock upon which all U.S. efforts, all of its billions, all of
its military might -- shatters.

--(c) '09 maj
================


The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

Audio of most of Mumia's
essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org


http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's
Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio
commentaries online.

Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS:
PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y.
Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books:
http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090

If you are
planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also
receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails
for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32
per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are
nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order,
please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com


Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage
Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately
need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce
literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build
new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all
the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON
WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!

Please make a contribution to help free
Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED
FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION
(NYC).

HTTP://WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM

Please mail donations/
checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,

NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)


FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029


Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM
8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370


WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Detroit May Day March and Rally Draws Thousands

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, speaking to the May
Day rally in Detroit held in Clark Park. Rosendo Delgado of Latinos Unidos
translates from english to spanish. (Photo: Alan Pollock)

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Detroit May Day March and
Rally Draws Thousands

by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African
News Wire

This year's May Day events marked the fourth consecutive
year when the Latino community spearheaded a march and rally in support of
immigrant rights. The event was organized by Latinos Unidos and supported by the
Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI)as well as other
organizations.

The march began at Patton Park and proceeded along
Vernor avenue where many others lined the streets and joined in with the walk
and chants. Several small community businesses along the route provided water
for the demonstrators who were largely youth and young workers. Estimates of the
attendance by the corporate media and police ranged from 5,000-15,000.


May Day participants called for the full legalization of all undocumented
workers, and end to raids and deportations by ICE, an end to racial profiling by
law-enforcement and equal pay and protection for Latino workers, both "legal"
and undocumented.

Ending at Clark Park after a two-hour march, the
concluding rally was addressed by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC),
Ignacio Meneses and Rosendo Delgado of Latinos Unidos, Abayomi Azikiwe of MECAWI
and the Mortorium Now! Coalition and Michigan State Representative Coleman Young
II.


May 1, 2009

5,000 rally in Detroit for
immigrant rights

By Niraj Warikoo
Free Press Staff Writer


Waving Mexican and U.S. flags, thousands of immigrants and their supporters
rallied in southwest Detroit today for immigrant rights.

Rally
organizers called for comprehensive immigration reform that would offer a path
to citizenship for legal and illegal immigrants, and for an end to deportations
that they say separate families.

Over the past four years, the
number of deportations in Michigan and across the U.S. has sharply increased.


For fiscal year 2008, 7,514 illegal immigrants in Michigan and Ohio were
deported, compared to 4,144 in fiscal year 2007, an 81 percent increase.
Compared to 2005, when 2,243 illegal immigrants were deported, that’s a 235
percent increase.

The rally started at Patton Park and ended at
Clark Park in the heart of the Mexican-American community. Ralliers held up
placards that read “Stop the Raids,” “Legalize Hard Work,” and “No Human is
Illegal.”

“We need a more humane approach to immigration reform,”
said Rosendo Delgado, a co-organizer with Latinos Unidos. This is the fourth
annual immigration rally in Detroit. It was smaller compared to previous years
when Congress was considering bills that would crack down on illegal
immigration.

Detroit police estimated today’s crowd at 5,000 to
7,000.

Jhonatan Ferrer, 19, of Dearborn Heights said many illegal
immigrants “live in the shadows of society” and need a path to citizenship so
that employers and others can’t take advantage of them. Right now, Ferrer said,
“they have no rights.”

Others expressed concerns about deportations
and its affect on immigrant communities.

Khaalid Walls, a spokesman
for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government agency that oversees
deportations, said the government has “increased strategic enforcement efforts
to identity and remove criminal and fugitive aliens.”

Contact NIRAJ
WARIKOO: nwarikoo@freepress.com

Monday, May 04, 2009

Some Muslims Rethink Close Ties to Law Enforcement

Afsheen Shamsi of Princeton, N.J., community relations director for the
Council on American-Islamic Relations, talks about her organization at their
offices in South Plainfield, N.J., Friday, April 24, 2009.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Some Muslims rethink close
ties to law enforcement

By SAMANTHA HENRY, Associated Press Writer

Mon May 4, 11:56 am ET

NEWARK, N.J. – Mohammad Qatanani's mosque was
full of FBI agents the night before he was to find out if he would be deported.


But even though the federal government was trying to link Qatanani to foreign
extremists, the agents weren't there to keep an eye on him. They wanted to show
their support for a Muslim leader they considered a valued ally for the
relationships he helped forge between the FBI and Muslims in the wake of 9/11.


Across the nation, such grass-roots relationships between Muslims and the
federal government are in jeopardy. A coalition of Muslim groups is calling for
Muslims to stop cooperating with the FBI — not on national security or safety
issues but on community outreach.

The coalition is upset over what
it says is increasing government surveillance in mosques, new Justice Department
guidelines that the groups say encourage profiling, and the FBI's recent
suspension of ties with the nation's largest Muslim civil rights group, the
Council on American-Islamic Relations.

A petition that opposes FBI
tactics is circulating in Muslim communities and has been gaining support, said
coalition chairman Agha Saeed. The coalition, represented by the American Muslim
Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, has requested a meeting with U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss what it sees as the deteriorating
relationship between the FBI and Muslim communities.

"We have to
decide what we're doing as a country. If it's not a war on Islam, then these
practices must be stopped," Saeed said. "We're not asking for special treatment,
just equal treatment."

A number of Muslim groups — including some of
the nation's most prominent — have declined to sign the petition. Other
organizations say they agree with parts of the petition but also support ongoing
dialogue with law enforcement.

FBI spokesman John Miller said the
agency values its relationships with Muslims and has worked hard on outreach
efforts that range from town hall meetings to diversity training for FBI agents.


"I think a lot of these inaccurate statements and claims have the potential to
do damage to those relationships," Miller said. "What we've suggested to the
major (Muslim) groups is that we try to separate the real issues from the sound
bites, and if we can identify those real issues, tackle them together."


Supporters of the petition cite recent cases in California and Michigan where
the FBI has been accused of using informants and coercive tactics to spy on
mosques.

A federal judge in California ordered a review last week of
FBI inquiries into several Muslim groups and activists who claim they have been
unfairly spied on and questioned. A Muslim organization in Detroit asked Holder
in mid-April to investigate complaints that the FBI asked mosque attendees to
spy on Islamic leaders and worshippers.

Miller said there is no
factual basis for claims the FBI infiltrates mosques or conducts blanket
surveillance of Muslim leaders.

"Based on information of a threat of
violence or a crime, we investigate individuals, and those investigations may
take us to the places those individual go," Miller said.

Miller
questioned the timing of the petition, noting that it comes after the FBI
suspended ties with CAIR, partly because it was named as an unindicted
coconspirator in the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and
Development — a group charged with bankrolling schools and social welfare
programs the U.S. government says are controlled by Hamas.

Afsheen
Shamsi, a spokeswoman for CAIR's New Jersey chapter, dismissed the idea that the
petition is retaliation. She said it reflects the concerns of Muslims who have
grown tired of being stopped at airports, constant questioning and relentless
scrutiny eight years after the attacks of Sept. 11.

"I believe the
Muslim community is questioning whether the mosque visits and the handshakes are
just a big show by the FBI, while behind the scenes, they continue to engage in
questionable practices," she said.

The petition is gaining little
traction in New Jersey, home to one of the nation's largest concentrations of
Muslims, and a place where relationships between Muslims and law enforcement
were heavily tested in the aftermath of 9/11.

New Jersey lost 744
residents in the attacks; many Muslims were among the victims. Several of the
9/11 hijackers had lived in Paterson for a time, and many Muslims detained after
the attacks were held in New Jersey jails.

But Muslim leaders say
the FBI distinguished itself by reaching out to Muslims, Arab Americans and
groups like Sikhs in the wake of 9/11. Relationships forged between the FBI and
Muslim leaders in New Jersey have endured since.

At Qatanani's
mosque in Paterson after 9/11, the imam invited FBI agents to lecture
congregants on how to recognize terrorists. Qatanani also helped train FBI
agents on how to deal respectfully with Muslim detainees and community members.


When Qatanani became the subject of a high-profile deportation case last year,
several high-ranking law enforcement officials took the stand on his behalf.


Aref Assaf, a mosque member and supporter of Qatanani who heads the
Paterson-based American Arab Forum, say despite the imam's immigration ordeal,
he has urged his supporters not to sever ties with federal law enforcement. When
the petition came up at a recent meeting of New Jersey Muslim leaders, Assaf
said many declined to sign it.

"I'm a believer that law enforcement
does not have a built-in anti-Muslim policy," he said.

"I know from
dealing with FBI leaders they have been very forceful in their expressions of
solidarity with our faith and culture, but there is a line, where we have to
accept that as part of our dealings with them, they have a job to do, to make
sure there are no terrorists in our midst or anywhere else."

Agha
Saeed says relationships between the FBI and Muslims in other parts of the
country have been more one-sided.

"There was a sense of mutuality at
first. ... These local connections people made, they wanted to see it as working
with law enforcement and making the community better," he said. "I am stupefied
by the fact that they (the FBI) are burning down the bridges that they need."

Sunday, May 03, 2009

As a Professor, Obama Held Pragmatic Views on Court

Barack Obama in the classroom teaching constitutional law. He will soon
appoint a new Supreme Court Justice. Will he appoint an African American
woman?
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

May 3, 2009

As
a Professor, Obama Held Pragmatic Views on Court

By JODI KANTOR

New York Times

Many American presidents have been lawyers, but almost
none have come to office with Barack Obama’s knowledge of the Supreme Court.
Before he was 30, he was editing articles by eminent legal scholars on the
court’s decisions. Later, as a law professor, he led students through landmark
cases from Plessy v. Ferguson to Bush v. Gore. (He sometimes shared his own
copies, marked with emphatic underlines and notes in bold, all-caps script.)


Now Mr. Obama is preparing to select his first Supreme Court nominee to replace
retiring Justice David H. Souter. In interviews, former colleagues and students
say they have a fairly strong sense of the kind of justice he will favor: not a
larger-than-life liberal to counter the conservative pyrotechnics of Justice
Antonin Scalia, but a careful pragmatist with a limited view of the role of
courts.

“His nominee will not create the proverbial shock and awe,”
said Charles J. Ogletree, a Harvard professor who has known the president since
his days as a student.

Mr. Obama believes the court must never get
too far ahead of or behind public sentiment, they say. He may have a mandate for
change, and Senate confirmation odds in his favor. But he has almost always
disappointed those who expected someone in his position — he was Harvard’s first
black law review president and one of the few minority members of the University
of Chicago’s law faculty — to side consistently with liberals.


Former students and colleagues describe Mr. Obama as a minimalist (skeptical of
court-led efforts at social change) and a structuralist (interested in how the
law metes out power in society). And more than anything else, he is a pragmatist
who urged those around him to be more keenly attuned to the real-life impact of
decisions. This may be his distinguishing quality as a legal thinker: an
unwillingness to deal in abstraction, a constant desire to know how court
decisions affect people’s lives.

“The University of Chicago was and
is full of eminent theorizers who wrap up huge areas of the law by applying some
magic key,” said David Franklin, a former student. “He didn’t do any of that; he
wasn’t interested in high theory at all.”

Though Mr. Obama rarely
spoke of his own views, students say they sensed his disdain for formalism, the
idea — often espoused by Justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas, but sometimes by
liberals as well — that law can be decided independent of the political and
social context in which it is applied. To make his point, Mr. Obama, then a
state senator, took students with him to Springfield, Ill., the capital, to
watch hearings and see him hash out legislation.

And he asked
constant questions about consequences of laws: What would happen if a mother’s
welfare grant did not increase with the birth of additional children? As a state
legislator, how much could he be influenced by a donor’s contribution?


Former students say that Mr. Obama does not particularly prize consistency or
broad principle. Adam Bonin arrived in Mr. Obama’s class with the firm belief
that drawing districts to ensure minority representation should be illegal. “It
struck me as wrong that the legislature should pick and choose what interests
should be represented in the legislature,” Mr. Bonin said.

“What I
took from the class and the reading materials was the reality that unless these
voices are physically present in a legislature, they won’t be heard,” he said.
“As long as everyone is grabbing for power, members of racial minority groups
ought to do the same.”

But when it came to sentencing laws, Mr.
Obama led Mr. Bonin in a more conservative direction than the student had
expected. The primary victims of black criminals were fellow blacks — and so
minority neighborhoods had an interest in keeping sentencing laws tough, he
taught.

Pragmatism has its detractors, and in a confirmation battle,
Mr. Obama’s nominee could face charges that he or she does not give enough
weight to formal law. But although Mr. Obama is results-oriented, he retained an
overall skepticism for what courts can accomplish, said David Strauss, a former
colleague at University of Chicago. In Mr. Obama’s due process and voting right
classes, he showed students the broad failures of Reconstruction-era amendments
that tried to establish equality for blacks.

“He sees the political
process as the place that a lot of these large, difficult public policy
questions ought to be resolved,” said Richard Pildes, a professor at New York
University law school whom Mr. Obama met through their mutual interest in
election law.

Even as law review president, Mr. Obama de-emphasized
his own views and instead made himself a channel for those of others. His
decision making was “about the group sentiment and what the group majority might
agree to,” said Nancy McCullough, a fellow editor.

In class and in
conversation, Mr. Obama talked about judges all the time, but in heterodox terms
that gave no clear sense of whose work he most prized.

“I would
imagine that if Barack had a free hand to appoint judges without having to worry
about confirmations, about politics, that his idea of a great justice would be
someone like a Thurgood Marshall,” said Geoffrey Stone, a former dean of the
University of Chicago law school.

Mr. Obama often expressed concern
that “democracy could be dangerous,” Mr. Stone said, that the majority can be
“unempathetic — that’s a word that Barack has used — about the concerns of
outsiders and minorities.”

But when a student asked Mr. Obama to name
the circuit judge he would most like to argue in front of, he named Richard
Posner, a conservative. Judge Posner was smart enough to know when you were
right, Mr. Obama told the class.

And in his seminar discussions, he
poked holes in the arguments of Justices Marshall, a liberal, and Thomas, a
conservative, alike.

Mr. Obama’s selection of a new justice may
challenge him in a way that running a law review and then teaching law never
did. Both of those jobs were about cultivating robust debate, about encouraging
multiple viewpoints. Now Mr. Obama must settle on a single legal thinker — at
least for now.

Thanks to his time in Cambridge and Chicago, he knows
the options rather well.

Cass R. Sunstein, Elena Kagan and Diane
Pamela Wood, three names likely to be on Mr. Obama’s list, are all former
colleagues at University of Chicago. When Mr. Sunstein was married last summer,
Mr. Obama sent a long toast to be read at the wedding. Another possible nominee,
Pamela S. Karlan, co-wrote an election law textbook that Mr. Obama not only
taught from but also contributed comments to when it was in draft form.


In class, Mr. Obama liked to tell students that the Supreme Court was not as far
off as it seemed, that it was a dynamic institution that they should not be
afraid to challenge and change.

One day in class, Aleeza Strubel told
Mr. Obama that she was confounded by a particular decision, a voting rights
opinion she simply could not understand. He quizzed her carefully on the court’s
logic but finally acknowledged it was rather hard to grasp.

“When
you clerk for Justice O’Connor,” Mr. Obama said, jokingly, “you’ll tell her she
got it wrong.”

Cairo Conference Against Imperialism and Zionism

The 7th Cairo Conference Against Zionism and Imperialism is scheduled to be
held on May 14, 2009. The recent Durban Review II Conference in Geneva was
boycotted by the racist governments of the west and the state of Israel.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Cairo Conference Against
Imperialism and Zionism On May 14th

IkhwanWeb - Egypt
Thursday,
April 30, 2009

After postponement and threat of cancellation, the
International Campaign Against Universal Imperialism and Zionism has decided to
hold its seventh conference at the headquarter of Medical Professions
Association in Azbakeya from 14-17 May.

The seventh Cairo Conference,
which will be convened under the slogan "Pro-Resistance and Anti-Occupation with
its crimes", will be discussing a number of issues such as supporting the
resistance, developing the struggle against the occupation of Iraq, confronting
the racist policies of imperialist governments and issues against dictatorship
and globalization in Egypt and the Arab world.

The organizing
committee has invited all political forces, movements, political and public
activities, individuals and independent personalities from Egypt, the Arab world
and from all parts of the world who are against imperialism, Zionism and
globalization as well as defenders of freedom, democracy and social justice, to
participate in the work of the forum and the conference.

It was
scheduled for the conference to be convened in Journalists Syndicate during the
last week of March 2009, however the intransigence of Makram Mohamed Ahmed (Head
of the Journalists Syndicate) prevented it. It also made MB students miss the
opportunity to participate in the activities of the conference as they were
working hard on organizing it during the past years.


http://www.ikhwanwe b.com/Article. asp?ID=20036&SectionID=0

African Union Panel on Sudan Will Meet ICC, Says Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma at the ANC Conference in Polokwane. Zuma won the
elections to become the new president of the ruling party in South Africa.

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

African Union panel on
Darfur will meet ICC: Mbeki

03-05-2009


ADDIS ABABA, May 3 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - An African Union (AU) panel plans to
meet the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite AU opposition to a warrant
of arrest for Sudan's president, former South African President Thabo Mbeki said
on Saturday.

"We are in contact with the prosecutor and have agreed
that we would find an occasion as soon as possible for us to sit and meet with
him face to face," Mbeki said in Ethiopia.

He said he could not yet
say what the panel would recommend to the ICC, but that they would also discuss
issues of "justice."

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for
President Omar el Bashir to face charges of alleged war crimes carried out
during almost six years of fighting in Sudan's violent west, but he has refused
to deal with the court.

Mbeki is chairing an AU panel charged with
helping to bring peace to Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur by making
recommendations to the AU's Peace and Security Council.

The AU has
said the warrant is likely to compromise peace efforts in Darfur, and the
53-member organization wants the indictment deferred.

International
experts say 200,000 people have died and more than 2.5 million have been driven
from their homes in the remote western region since mostly non-Arab rebels took
up arms against the government in 2003. Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.


Mbeki -- who has been on a "listening tour" of Sudan and neighboring countries
-- said improved relations between Sudan and Chad were necessary for peace.


"It's critically important that relations between the Sudan and Chad governments
should be normalized," he said. "If that doesn't happen then it is going to be
very difficult to find a solution to the Darfur problem," he added.


Sudan and Chad accuse each other of supporting rebels opposed to their
governments.

The AU panel's tour has so far visited Sudan, Chad,
Egypt and Libya.

Other members of the delegation include the former
presidents of Burundi and Nigeria, Pierre Buyoya and Abdusalami Abubakar.


bdnews24.com/md/1032 hrs.

Somlia News Update: Life in the Pirate Army; NATO Attacks Off the Horn of Africa

A modern-day Somali pirate off the coast in the Horn of Africa. The US Navy
killed three Somalis on April 12, 2009.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Life in Somalia's pirate
army

MUSTAFA HAJI ABDINUR

(May 03 2009)--A mobile
tribunal, a system of fines and a code of conduct: the success of Somali
pirates' seajacking business relies on a structure that makes them one of the
country's best-organised armed forces. A far cry from the image conveyed in
films and novels of pirates as unruly swashbucklers, Somalia's modern-day
buccaneers form a paramilitary brotherhood in which a strict and complex system
of rules and punishments is enforced.

They are organised in a
multitude of small cells dotting the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden coastline.
The two main land bases are the towns of Eyl, in the breakaway state of Puntland,
and Harardhere, further south in Somalia.

"There are hundreds of
small cells, linked to each other," Hasan Shukri, a pirate based in Haradhere,
told AFP in a phone interview. "We talk every morning, exchange information on
what is happening at sea and if there has been a hijacking, we make onshore
preparations to send out reinforcement and escort the captured ship closer to
the coast," he said.

Somali piracy started two decades ago with a
more noble goals of deterring illegal fishing, and protecting the nation's
resources and sovereignty at a time when the state was collapsing. While today's
pirates have morphed into a sophisticated criminal ring with international
ramifications, they have been careful to retain as much popular prestige as
possible and refrain from the violent methods of the warlords who made Somalia a
by-word for lawlessness in the 1990s.

"I have never
seen gangs that have rules like these. They avoid many of the things that are
all too common with other militias," said Mohamed Sheikh Issa, an elder in the
Eyl region. "They don't rape, and they don't rob the hostages and they don't
kill them. They just wait for the ransom and always try to do it peacefully," he
said.

Somalia's complex system of clan justice is often rendered
obsolete by the armed chaos that has prevailed in the country for two decades,
but the pirates have adapted it effectively. Abdi Garad, an Eyl-based commander
who was involved in recent attacks on US ships, said the pirates have a mountain
hide-out where leaders can confer and where internal differences can be solved.


"We have an impregnable stronghold and when there is a disagreement among us,
all the pirate bosses gather there," he said. The secretive pirate retreat is a
place called Bedey, a few miles from Eyl. "We have a kind of mobile court that
is based in Bedey. Any pirate who commits a crime is charged and punished
quickly because we have no jails to detain them," Garad said.

Some
groups representing different clans farther south in the villages of Hobyo and
Haradhere would disagree with Garad's claim that Somalia's pirates all answer to
a single authority. But while differences remain among various groups, the
pirates' first set of rules is precisely aimed at neutralising rivalries, said
Mohamed Hidig Dhegey, a pirate from Puntland. "If any one of us shoots and kills
another, he will automatically be executed and his body thrown to the sharks,"
he said from the town of Garowe.

"If a pirate injures another, he is
immediately discharged and the network is instructed to isolate him. If one aims
a gun at another, he loses five percent of his share of the ransom," Dhegey
said. Perhaps the most striking disciplinary feature of Somali "piratehood" is
the alleged code of conduct pertaining to the treatment of captured crews.


"Anybody who is caught engaging in robbery on the ship will be punished and
banished for weeks. Anyone shooting a hostage will immediately be shot," said
Ahmed Ilkacase. "I was once caught taking a wallet from a hostage. I had to give
it back and then 25,000 dollars was removed from my share of the ransom," he
said.

Following the release of the French yacht Le Ponant in April
2008, investigators found a copy of a "good conduct guide" on the deck which
forbade sexual assault on women hostages. As Ilkacase found out for himself,
pirates breaking internal rules are punished. Conversely, those displaying the
most bravery are rewarded with a bigger share of the ransom, called "saami sare"
in Somali.

"The first pirate to board a hijacked ship is entitled to
a luxurious car, or a house or a wife. He can also decide to take his bonus
share in cash," he explained. Foreign military commanders leading the growing
fleet of anti-piracy naval missions plying the region in a bid to protect one of
the world's busiest trade routes acknowledge that pirates are well organised.


"They are very well organised, have good communication systems and rules of
engagement," said Vice Admiral Gerard Valin, commander of the French joint
forces in the Indian Ocean. So far, nothing suggests that pirates are motivated
by anything other than money and it is unclear whether the only hostage to have
died during a hijacking was killed by pirates or the French commandos who freed
his ship.

Some acts of mistreatment have been reported during the
more than 60 hijackings recorded since the start of 2008, but pirates have
generally spared their hostages to focus on speedy ransom negotiations. With the
Robin Hood element of piracy already largely obsolete, observers say the
"gentleman kidnapper" spirit could also fast taper off as pirates start to
prioritise riskier, high-value targets and face increasingly robust action from
navies with enhanced legal elbow room.

They have warned that the
much-bandied heroics of a US crew who wrested back control of their ship and had
their captain rescued by navy snipers who picked off three pirates could go down
as the day pirates decided to leave their manners at home.

Copyright
Agence France-Presse, 2009


Khaleej Times Online


NATO thwarts Somali pirates, seizes dynamite

(AP) 3 May 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya – Special forces on a Portuguese warship seized explosives from
suspected Somali pirates after thwarting an attack on an oil tanker, but later
freed the 19 men. Hours later and hundreds of miles away, another band of
pirates hijacked a cargo ship, a NATO spokesman said Saturday.


Pirates are now holding 17 ships and around 300 crew, including the Greek-owned
cargo ship Ariana, hijacked overnight with its Ukrainian crew.

The
attack on the Ariana, about 1,000 miles (1600 kilometers) from the sea corridor
NATO guards and the seizure of explosives from the group that attacked the crude
oil tanker MV Kition may indicate the pirates are adapting their tactics as
crews become better trained in counter-piracy measures.

Sailors are
aware that pirates generally attack during the day and that some guidelines
suggest designating a safe room with a bulletproof door where crews can lock
themselves in case of an attack. Such a room would still be vulnerable to being
blown open with explosives.

It was the first time NATO forces found
pirates armed with raw explosives, Lt. Cmdr. Fernandes said from the Portuguese
frigate the Corte-Real, which responded to the attack. The Corte-Real had sent a
helicopter to investigate a distress call from the Greek-owned and
Bahamian-flagged Kition late Friday about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north from
the Somali coast in the Gulf of Aden.

The suspects fled to a larger
pirate vessel without damaging the Kition, but were intercepted by the warship
an hour later.

“The skiff had returned to the mothership,” Fernandes
said, referring to the vessels pirates commonly use to tow their small, fast
speed boats hundreds of miles (kilometers) out to sea. “Portuguese special
forces performed the boarding with no exchange of fire.”

They found
four sticks of P4A dynamite — which can be used in demolition, blasting through
walls or potentially breaching a the hull of a ship — which were destroyed along
with four automatic rifles and nine rocket-propelled grenades. It was unclear
how the pirates planned to use the dynamite, Fernandes said, because there were
no translators to conduct interrogations.

Andrew Mwangura of the
East Africa Seafarers’ Assistance Program said explosives were also commonly
used in illegal fishing.

The 19 pirate suspects were released after
consultation with Portuguese authorities because they had not attacked
Portuguese property or citizens.

Decisions on detaining piracy
suspects fall under national law; Fernandes said Portugal was working on
updating its laws to allow for pirate suspects to be detained in such
situations.

Nearly 100 ships have been attacked this year by pirates
operating from the lawless Somali coastline despite deployment of warships from
over a dozen countries to protect the vital Gulf of Aden shipping route.


The latest seizure was another Greek-owned ship, the Maltese-flagged Ariana. Lt.
Cmdr. Fernandes, who originally said the ship’s British agents were its owners,
said it was seized overnight.

Spyros Minas, general manager of
Athens-based ship owners Alloceans Shipping, said the captain and 23 crew were
all Ukrainians and the ship was carrying a cargo of soya from Brazil to Iran
when pirates attacked it southwest of the Seychelles islands.

“The
captain reported two armed pirates but there may be more. We have not been
contacted yet by the pirates regarding ransom,” he said.

One
hijacked vessel, the Philippine tanker MT Stolt Strength, was held more than
five months before a $2.5 million ransom was paid and the ship and 23 crew were
released April 21.

Anxious relatives greeted the freed crew in a
tearful homecoming Saturday at Manila airport.

The Somali pirates
had seized the chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden on Nov. 10 while it was on
its way to India with a cargo of phosphoric acid.

After dropping the
pirates close to shore, the ship remained vulnerable, unable to speed to a safe
harbor because it was low on fuel. German, U.S. and Chinese naval vessels
eventually came to their aid, providing food, medicine and fuel, which allowed
them to sail to Oman where they stayed for two days before flying home to
Manila.

Second Mate Carlo Deseo said the pirates’ evident
disorganization was the source of much of his fear.

They “did not
seem to know what they were doing,” he said.


10:40, May 03,
2009

Greek-owned ship seized by Somali pirates

A
Malta-registered Greek-owned ship was attacked and seized by Somali pirates in
the sea region between Madagascar and the Seychelles islands on Saturday,
according to Athens News Agency.

The report said that the ship, the
MT Ariana, with a 24-member crew of Ukrainian nationals, is safe. MT Ariana
loaded with soya departed from Brazil heading for Iran.


Source:Xinhua


Somali pirates hijack bulk carrier


11:49, Sunday May 3, 2009

Somali pirates have hijacked a bulk
carrier in the Indian Ocean., their first successful attack in almost a week.


Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarers Assistance Program, confirmed the
hijacking overnight of the MV Ariana, a large bulk carrier.

He had
initially said the ship was British-owned but later said it emerged the vessel
had Greek owners and a British agent.

'The crew of 24 is entirely
Ukrainian, we believe they are safe,' he told AFP. 'It was coming from Brazil
and headed to the Middle East.'

According to an agent for the
owners, the ship is believed to be carrying 35,000 tonnes of soya.


Meanwhile pirates in Haradhere, one of the main bases for the ransom-hunting
bandits who have been plying the Indian Ocean, said their group had seized
another ship late on Friday.

'Our boys have captured two ships. One
of them is carrying vehicles,' said a pirate who asked to be named only Hassan.


Another commander speaking on condition of anonymity from Haradhere confirmed
that two ships had been hijacked but there was some confusion on their flag
countries and cargo.

The last time Somali pirates seized a Ukrainian
ship it was carrying 33 Soviet-type battle tanks.

The MV Faina's
hijacking was one of the longest since Somali piracy surged in 2007. The vessel
and its crew were freed in February after a 134-day hostage crisis.


Maritime watchdogs and foreign navies could not immediately confirm the second
hijacking.

If they are both confirmed, the latest hijackings would
bring to at least 18 the number of ships currently held by Somali pirates in the
Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.

April saw a surge in attacks owing
largely to favourable weather conditions for the pirates, whose ability to board
vessels is diminished during the monsoon seasons.

Experts say there
is still a high-risk window of a few days in May before the seas start getting
rougher.

Naval ships from the European Union, NATO and other US-led
coalitions have thwarted several attacks in recent days, either preventing
hijackings or capturing suspected pirates.

In recent weeks, foreign
navies have apprehended dozens of pirates. Most of them have been either
transferred to Kenya for prosecution or released for lack of evidence and legal
backing.

Commander Chris Davis, from the control centre for the NATO
mission protecting merchant ships off Somalia, said the Portuguese frigate Corte
Real launched a helicopter on Friday after being informed of an attack on the
tanker, the Bahamas-flagged Kition.

The helicopter pursued the
pirates back to their mother ship, a fishing boat which was later boarded, and
weapons including grenade-launchers and explosives were seized, Davis said.


However, a Portuguese officer with the NATO force in the Gulf of Aden, Santos
Ferreira, told TSF radio that the 19 pirates captured had been released 'after
contact was made with Somali national authorities'.

Davis said in
another incident on Thursday a Turkish vessel, the Christina A, was attacked by
pirates in two boats off the Kenyan port of Mombasa, but managed to shake them
off by increasing speed to 20 knots.

About 20 foreign warships
patrol the waters off the coast of Somalia - on one of the globe's busiest
maritime trade routes - on any given day.

But the area is huge and
pirates have adapted their tactics to hunt for vessels several hundred nautical
miles into the Indian Ocean, further away from the heavily-patrolled shipping
corridors of the Gulf of Aden.

South Africans Vote For Economic Freedom

Winning ways while thousands of supporters attended the ANC’s rally at
Coca-Cola Stadium. (Photograph: Paul Botes)
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

S.Africans vote for
economic freedom

By James Shikwati

South Africans are
grappling with political independence for blacks who control less than 10
percent of the economy.

That explains in part why voters chose to
vote for "Lethu Mshini Wami" (Bring Me My Machine Gun.) To them, the struggle is
far from over.

The obsession with whether the African National
Congress garnered a two-thirds majority or not by Western media is driven by the
apprehension of what might befall the population that controls 90 percent of
South Africa’s economy should Jacob Zuma opt to make use of his "Mshini".


The African National Congress is said to have used the philosophy of
"each-one-teach-one" during the struggle against apartheid to ensure that the
blacks who went to school taught those who were out fighting.

In
post-apartheid era, the black elites, supposedly led by Thabo Mbeki, "forgot"
their brothers in the struggle.

Last year’s push by black South
Africans to evict other Africans from their country was driven by the quest to
access the economic pie through jobs and business.

Many firms in
South Africa opt to employ educated Africans from neighbouring countries and
find it difficult to absorb the "uneducated" freedom fighters — leading to an
army of angry youth that view foreigners as their economic enemy.

Who
else would have been their best candidate other than the one asking for a
machine gun!

Jacob Zuma’s sweeping victory in South Africa is a
pointer to the undercurrents that drive African politics.

Africans
have started asking the "hard questions" such as: "Who controls the economy?"


"Is political freedom enough?" "Does the law (constitution) that relegates the
majority into a crowd of dancing voters instead of economic producers serve
Africa’s interests?" "Does Christianity (for example) define an African?"


Western market concerns over South Africa are simply a pointer to a system
fighting to sustain global economic status quo.

The greatest
challenge for African leaders is how to raise revenue from and serve populations
that are generally disenfranchised from the global market systems and build
institutions that are respected by all.

Under the current global
economic order supervised by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund;
African leaders are continuously bombarded with instructions; imposed
international treaties and competing investors’ interests.

This
breeds corrupt and detached leadership that ignores policies that ought to give
more Africans a fair chance at the market place.

Lessons from Kenya
and South Africa itself point at the fact that maintaining the economic status
quo that has turned the majority into spectators at the market place is more
costly.

In the eyes of Tanzanians for example, Kenya’s economy is
controlled by non-Kenyans assisted by a few elites that act as mere fronts.


The resultant effect has been insecurity and mushrooming of killer gangs in
search of economic survival.

Kenyans are now grappling with organised
gangs such as Mungiki that are said to be mainly descendants of freedom fighters
that were shortchanged by political elites.

Ethnic tensions are rife
in Kenya precisely because one community is seen to have built their enterprises
through political patronage.

South Africa, on the other hand, records
high rates of crime, rape and even murder as disenfranchised populations seek to
break into the class of wealth generators.

Last year, I participated
in a closed-door session with Jacob Zuma, now South Africa’s President-elect.


He struck me as an individual who is very much aware of the challenges that the
black majority face in his country.

I am, however afraid that he will
soon find himself walking over hot coals — something that will create a false
impression that he is a dancing President!

It is not going to be easy
for the minority that control 90 percent of the economy to cede ground to allow
for economic freedom that will facilitate free participation in growth of South
Africa’s economy.

For long-term purposes, it will be strategic for
those who fear a Jacob Zuma presidency to review the law and draw the majority
into the productive sector.

Such a move will guarantee the elites
peace as they sip evening tea at their verandah.

To ignore Africans
who have been disenfranchised by the global market order is to breed anarchy.


The most urgent agenda for leaders on the continent ought to be to increase
productivity among its people devoid of World Bank controlled development
experimentations on Africans.

Zuma’s "Lethu Mshini Wami" must protect
all.

--James Shikwati is the director of the Inter Region Economic
Network and he can be contacted on james@irenkenya.org.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Review of New Book by Mumia Abu-Jamal: Prisoners Defending Prisoners

Mumia Abu-Jamal remains on death row in Pennsylvania. The widow of slain
police officer Daniel Faulkner has been used to push for the execution of
Jamal despite his unfair trial.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

via: Hans Bennett

=============

http://www.phillyimc.org/en/prisoners-defending-prisoners-review-new-book-mumia-abu-jamal


http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/04/30/18592062.php

Prisoners
Defending Prisoners: Review of new book by Mumia Abu-Jamal

by
Carolina Saldaña

“My only wish is to tell a story that has never
been told before,” says Mumia Abu-Jamal of his new book Jailhouse Lawyers:
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., City Lights Books, 2009.


Mumia Abu-Jamal’s sixth book written from death row is coming out at the very
time that the Supreme Court of the United States has slammed the door in his
face and the campaign to execute him has been renewed. The book was presented on
April 24 in Philadelphia, New York, Oakland, Detroit, Boston, Houston, Portland,
Los Ángeles, Seattle, Olympia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C., to celebrate his
birthday and open a new stage in the battle for his life and freedom.


(See Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble at Philadelphia event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fyKTmH4A8E)

He tells us that there
are tens of thousands of jailhouse lawyers in the prisons of the United States.
Little known, if they are known at all, outside prison walls, they are men and
women who handle their own cases, defend other prisoners, or file suits to bring
about changes in prison conditions. With insight, respect, empathy, and humor,
Mumia brings us the words and experiences of around thirty of them, some of whom
he has known personally in the prisons of Pennsylvania and others who have
corresponded with him or responded to his surveys. Most of them fight their
cases in unfamiliar territory because they didn’t go to law school before they
ended up in prison; they’ve learned the law on their own, usually with the help
of other, more experienced prisoners.

“They've not forgotten how to
fight,” says Mumia. “They've not forgotten how to resist. They've not forgotten
how to help others, often the most helpless around them. And they've not
forgotten how to win.... Some of these people have, quite literally, saved
people's lives by their work. Others have changed the rules of the game.”


To thank them for their services in protecting the Constitution, they are
punished more harshly than any other single group of prisoners.

In
this book, we get to know Steve Evans, who learned the law by himself and taught
many other prisoners (with the exception of snitches and baby rapers) how to
handle their own cases. His pupil Warren Henderson had to learn to read before
he could learn the law, but he developed such a love of reading that he stole
hundreds of books with the dream of setting up a library for the kids in the
‘hood when he got out of prison, and went on to successfully defend himself in
court. Midge DeLuca, who had cancer when she went to jail decided to help other
women who needed medical care after reading a line from her favorite poet Audre
Lorde, “only our silences will hurt us.”

We also meet quite a few
rebels, revolutionaries, and political prisoners, such as the MOVE members and
sympathizers who dramatically defied the authority of the courts in a long
series of trials, often with unorthodox tactics; Rashaan Brooks-Bey, who
organized strikes and other actions for prisoners’ rights, and along with his
co-plaintiffs Russell Maroon Shoatz, Robert Joyner, and Kareem Howard, openly
confronted the judge and demanded that the police be jailed; Martin Sostre, the
legendary organizer of the Afro-Asian Book Store in Buffalo, NY, who won many
suits and influenced many of his fellow prisoners; Iron Thunderhorse, long-time
prisoners’ rights organizer, now legally blind; and Ed Mead, originally a social
prisoner turned prisoners’ rights activist, and later member of the George
Jackson Brigade and then co-founder of Prison Legal News.

Scorned by
judges and district attorneys and faced with a serious lack of resources and
public apathy, jailhouse lawyers often lose their cases, but they have scored
some impressive wins.

-- In Pennsylvania, Richard Mayberry’s battles
to represent himself began in the mid-‘60s, and in spite of being sent to the
hole many times, he finally eliminated some of the major obstacles. He also won
a class-action suit in 1978 that brought drastic changes in the prisons of
several states in the areas of health, overcrowding, and punishments such as the
“glass cages.”

-- In 1971, David Ruiz filed suit against the Texas
prison system, which was run like a slave plantation, resulting in far-reaching
reforms ordered by Judge William Wayne Justice.

-- In Pennsylvania,
at the beginning of the ‘80s, a class action suit filed by Rashaan Brooks-Bey
resulted in the closure of a repressive unit at the Pittsburgh prison. The
prisoners also won two hours of outdoor exercise instead of fifteen minutes,
laundry service, covered food trays, and an end to four strip searches every
time they had a visitor.

-- In California, appeals filed by Jane
Dorotik have led to the freedom of a good number of women falsely imprisoned at
Chowchilla. Her work is underscored in a chapter dedicated to the work of
several women jailhouse lawyers at a time when there has been a tremendous
increase in the women’s prison population ––300% in the last few years.


-- Barry “Running Bear” Gibbs achieved the revocation of his own death sentence
as well as those of two other prisoners. He remembers how he felt when one of
them yelled out the good news. Says Running Bear: “Saving someone’s life via pen
and paper is a rewarding and unforgettable experience.”

-- The
shameful sentencing of 9 MOVE members to prison terms of 30-100 years in 1978
was followed by an astounding victory for the organization in 1981, when Mo and
John Africa successfully defended themselves on arms and explosives charges.
Their unusual tactics included summoning the 9 MOVE prisoners to testify about
the aims of their struggle, the good character of John Africa, and the treason
of the state’s witnesses, as well as a final speech by John Africa about the
survival of the planet. The jury, with tears in their eyes, exonerated them
completely.

--A few months later, MOVE sympathizer Abdul Jon was
able to get assault charges thrown out against him, Jeanette, and Teresa África,
at least temporarily, after the three suffered a brutal beating by the police.
His clear, logical arguments made the high-sounding (false) arguments of the
D.A. laughable. Although it was a minor victory, says Mumia, it gives something
of the flavor of the long string of MOVE trials.

Mumia brings out
the irony of the situation in which even though John Africa was exonerated by a
jury for possession of arms and explosives, he was murdered on May 13, 1985,
along with Theresa Africa and 9 other MOVE members with explosives illegally
obtained from the federal government to bomb MOVE’s house. Yet not a single
local or federal agent was ever brought to justice. The only person accused,
tried, and sentenced to 7 years for “inciting a riot” was Ramona Africa, who
dared to survive the massacre. If she hadn’t handled her own case, she would
probably have spent many more years in jail, due to all the initial charges
against her.

Mumia has no doubt about the fact that, in the final
analysis, the law is whatever the judge says it is. In one interesting chapter,
he explores several definitions of the law, including that of the person “now
deemed the avatar of Western Capitalism,” Adam Smith: “Laws and governments may
be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to
oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the in¬equality of the goods which
would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not
hin¬dered by the government would soon reduce the oth¬ers to an equality with
themselves by open violence.”

For prisoners, however, the law is
neither a theory nor an idea because they experience its brutal reality.
Furthermore, those who know Black History are aware that millions of people were
legally enslaved. There were different laws for Africans, called “Slave Codes,”
which reemerged after the Civil War as “Black Codes” and penalized behavior such
as “vagrancy, breach of job contracts, absence from work, possession of
firearms, and insulting gestures or acts.” Mumia explains that precisely because
jailhouse lawyers had challenged the use of the law as an instrument of
domination, former President Bill Clinton, in 1996, achieved the passage of a
law limiting the rights of prisoners to file appeals or suits and prohibiting
recovery for psychological or mental harm or injury, in violation of the
Convention against Torture. To the Slave Codes and the Black Codes, he says, we
can now add Prison Codes.

Naturally, the book reveals many aspects
of the conditions in United States prisons, including the torture practiced
there: “What millions saw in the garish reflections of Iraq was but a foreign
edition of the reality of American prisons: places of legalized torture,
humiliation and abuse—practices exported from domestic U.S. hellholes to ones
overseas.”

What distinguishes street lawyers from jailhouse lawyers?
The conservative bent in the profession, explains Mumia, goes back to the days
when professional lawyers were seen as instruments of the British Crown, who
only worked for the rich. “Of the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of
Independence (no women signed) in 1776, twenty-nine of them, or roughly 52
percent, were lawyers or judges. They would erect a legal structure that would
protect property yet deprecate freedom—at least the freedom of enslaved African
people. The lawyers brought with them a sensibility that is at the heart of the
profession, an inbred conservatism.” As a matter of fact, the first three
Presidents of the United States were aristocrats, albeit without title, and
slave owners. “They helped erect a legal structure that would protect the wealth
and privileges of their class.”

Today, when lawyers graduate from
law school, they aren’t “officers of the community,” but “officers of the
court.” Their loyalty is not the accused, but instead “to the court, the bench,
the civil throne.” This explains, at least in part, the great distance that
exists between lawyer and client and the client’s lack of trust in him. It is
almost impossible for a poor person to have a good lawyer and even more so when
the defendant is not white.

Jailhouse lawyers, however, have a
different relationship to the State. In some cases, even the most progressive
street lawyers have taken the side of the State against them. Mumia explains
that in the midst of the post 9/11 anthrax scare, several states passed laws
allowing the State to open legal or court mail outside the presence of the
prisoner, in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The measure
was negotiated with the support of the liberal American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) but finally rolled back thanks to the hard work of three jailhouse
lawyers ––Derrick Dale Fontroy, Theodore Savage, and Aaron C. Wheeler. On the
other hand, it’s extremely rare for a jailhouse lawyer to negotiate a case. They
have no loyalty to the court, they’re not professional lawyers, and they have no
one to whom they can sell out. They’re not part of the “club.”

Even
with the high esteem that Mumia has for the jailhouse lawyers described in this
book, he also points out the limits of their efforts. At the end of the ‘70s,
Delbert Africa had warned him of a dangerous trap. He explained that the problem
is that many prisoners study the law, they believe the law, and they believe it
applies to them. Then, when they realize that the system doesn’t follow its own
laws, and that on the contrary, laws are made and broken at the whim of the
judge, they just go crazy.

Mumia assures us that he has known
prisoners who have gone mad for this very reason. He’s also known some who have
taken advantage of the prisoners they represent. But the main limit he points
out is the insufficiency of their good efforts when it comes to making
fundamental changes in the prison system. In order to put an end to this system,
any effort to use the law against power must be in the context of broad social
movements, both inside and outside of the prisons, to transform the society as a
whole.

Modest, as ever, Mumia barely mentions his own work as a
jailhouse lawyer who has helped other prisoners get out of prison. One of these
is Harold Wilson, who has now changed his name to Amin, participates in the
campaign to free Mumia, and spoke at the book presentation in Philadelphia on
April 24 and in New York City on April 25.

Videos from Philadelphia
event:
(Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fyKTmH4A8E
(Samiya Davis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkR2IH0QkoQ)
(Abdul Jon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJE2b2uKksg )

Angela Davis speaking
in Oakland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoAwPRiRfI

Friday, May 01, 2009

U.S. Hands Over Bodies of 3 Somalian Men Killed by Navy

Abdi Wale Abdul Kadhir Muse shown in the custody of the United States
government in New York. The Somali teen will be tried as an adult and
charged with piracy under a colonial-slave era law utilized by the racist
state.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

U.S. hands over bodies of
3 Somalian men shot during captain's rescue

Thu Apr 30, 9:30 AM


VANCOUVER (CBC) - American naval forces on Thursday handed Somalian police the
bodies of three Somalian men shot during the rescue of an American ship captain
earlier this month.

Lt.-Col. Mohamed Abdulle Mohamed, the chief of
security in the country's northern Bossaso port, said regional authorities sent
a small boat to collect the wooden coffins containing the bodies from a U.S.
warship stationed about 6.5 kilometres off the coast.

Mohamed said he
did not know if any family members of the men were at the port to collect the
bodies.

"Maybe they will join the funeral procession," he said.


Mohamed said the Americans had been doing DNA tests on the bodies.


Lt. Stephanie Murdock, a spokeswoman for the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet,
declined to comment on possible DNA testing, but confirmed the bodies were
transferred to Somali police.

U.S. Navy SEALS shot and killed the
three men on April 12 as they held Capt. Richard Phillips in a lifeboat in the
Indian Ocean.

A fourth man, Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, was captured and
taken to the United States, where he is to stand trial on charges of piracy.


The four Somalian men were part of a group who tried to hijack the U.S.-flagged
Maersk Alabama. The crew prevented the ship from being hijacked, but four of the
pirates left with Phillips and held him in a lifeboat for several days.

UK Seeks Deals Amid Iraq Pullout

The corporate media could not cover up the continuing fighting against the
occupationists forces and their surrogates in Basra and Baghdad on
Wednesday, March 26, 2008. 55 were reported killed in the ongoing anti-US
campaign.
Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Thursday, April 30, 2009

18:41 Mecca time, 15:41 GMT

UK seeks deals amid Iraq pullout


Brown said Britain wants to get involved in protecting oil supplies from Iraq


British forces have formally ended combat operations in Iraq- as the country's
prime minister met his Iraqi counterpart in London to discuss business deals
between the two countries.

A ceremony was held in the southern city
of Basra on Thursday to remember the 179 UK soldiers killed during six years of
warfare.

The conclusion of the military campaign, which began with
the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, came as Gordon Brown, the UK prime
minister, held trade talks with Nuri al-Maliki, his Iraqi counterpart, in the
British capital.

Brown said: "Today marks the closing chapter of the
combat mission in Iraq. The flag of 20 Armoured Brigade will be lowered as
British combat patrols in Basra come to an end and our armed forces prepare to
draw down."

Britain, under Tony Blair, the then-prime minister, was
Washington's key ally when George Bush, the former US president, ordered the
invasion of Iraq.

Street, Brown said Britain now wanted to get involved in protecting oil supplies
from Iraq.

Investment opportunities

Brown said: "We hope
to sign an agreement with the Iraqi government about the future role that we can
play in training and in protecting the oil supplies of Iraq and that will be an
agreement between our two governments rather than any new United Nations
resolution."

Brown said he believed a proposed agreement would go to
the Iraqi parliament in the next few weeks.

accompanied on his trip to the UK by several international business people and
Iraqi officials to explore possible investment deals with the UK.


Representatives from more than 200 companies, including Shell, Rolls Royce,
Barclays Capital and JP Morgan, where Tony Blair works as a senior advisor, are
taking part in the meeting.

al-Shahristani, the oil minister, are also attending the day of talks.


Al-Maliki said Iraq needed investment, while Brown said Iraq was open for
business and urged British companies to look for opportunities there.


Iraq currently produces nearly two million barrels of oil a day and sits on the
world's third-largest proven reserves.

Increased violence


British troop numbers were the second-largest in the Iraq campaign, peaking at
46,000 at the height of combat operations that resulted in the toppling of
Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, and his eventual execution for
crimes against humanity.

A deal signed by Baghdad and London last
year had agreed that the last 4,100 British soldiers would complete their
mission, primarily training the Iraqi army, by June, before a complete
withdrawal from the country in late July.

By the end of July there
will be only around 400 troops left, who will help to train Iraqi troops.


Major general Andy Salmon, the senior British officer in Basra, handed over the
southern base to an American commander at a similar ceremony last month, in a
key step towards the departure of all foreign troops from the country.


The withdrawal of foreign troops comes amid an upturn in violence in April.


A series of bombings, suicide attacks and shootings have claimed more than 300
lives so far this month.

Under a landmark security pact signed
between Baghdad and Washington in November, US troops are required to withdraw
from all Iraqi towns and cities by June 30 and pull out from the rest of the
country by the end of 2011.

50 years after Britain's previous exit from Iraq, in May 1959, when the last
soldiers left the Habbaniyah base near the western town of Fallujah, ending a
presence that dated back to 1918.

Source: Agenciess

Economic Decline in Quarter Exceeds Forecast

Demonstration organized by the Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM) outside
Bank of America on April 3, 2009 in New York City. (Photo: Alan Pollock)

Originally uploaded by
Pan-African News Wire File Photos

April 30, 2009


Economic Decline in Quarter Exceeds Forecast

By LOUIS UCHITELLE and
EDMUND L. ANDREWS
New York Times

The American economy is
contracting at its steepest pace in 50 years, the government reported Wednesday,
but an unanticipated rise in consumer spending since January suggested to many
economists that the worst of the recession might have passed.

The
last six months were brutal. Output fell at a 6.1 percent annual rate in the
January-through-March quarter after falling at a rate of 6.3 percent in last
year’s fourth quarter, according to the Commerce Department. If that pace were
to continue, nearly $1 trillion would be wiped out this year from the nation’s
economic output of $14.2 trillion last year.

Not since 1958, in the
wake of a brief but severe collapse in home construction, has the national
economy lost so much ground in just six months. But as tax breaks and government
stimulus spending kick in, the decline in the gross domestic product could be
cut in half by summer.

“The situation is not nearly as dark as the
first-quarter number suggests,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s
Economy.com, echoing the opinion of many forecasters, who see the contraction
continuing, but at a slower rate until growth returns late this year or in early
2010.

Stock prices rose, partly in response to this prospect. The
Dow Jones industrial average was up 168.78 points, or 2.11 percent, closing at
8,185.73.

The looming question remains the severity of job losses.
More than five million jobs have disappeared since the recession began in
December 2007. As their wages disappear, households spend less, and business, in
response, reduces the output of goods and services, cutting more jobs in the
process.

That dog-chasing-its-tail cycle was evident in the latest
G.D.P. report, except for consumer spending, which rose at its best pace since
the recession began. A sharp drop in fuel prices, economists said, helped to
free up money for other spending.

“The biggest wild card going
forward is whether that spending can hold up,” said Brian A. Bethune, an
economist at IHS Global Insight.

The Federal Reserve’s policy
makers, echoing the incipient optimism, said in a statement issued Wednesday, at
the end of a two-day meeting, that the outlook had “improved modestly” and that
the Fed would continue to pump tens of billions of dollars into the economy to
keep credit flowing. To encourage this borrowing, and spending, interest rates
controlled by the Fed would remain near zero, the policy makers said.


In a rare public forecast, Paul A. Volcker, a former Fed chairman and now an
economic adviser to President Obama, added his voice to the optimism, although
cautiously. “I’m not here to tell you the economy is going to recover very
strongly in the short run,” Mr. Volcker said in an interview recorded for a
weekend show on Bloomberg Television. But he said the improvement was sufficient
to avoid a second government stimulus on top of the $787 billion in spending and
tax breaks enacted in February.

An obstacle to easier credit,
however, might come from the Treasury Department, which said in a report issued
Wednesday that it would step up the issuing of 30-year bonds. The funding is
needed to help finance the hundreds of billions of dollars that the government
is spending on bank bailouts and stimulus. But the quickening pace could force
Treasury to raise long-term interest rates to attract enough buyers for the
bonds — an action that in turn could impede lending.

A special
advisory committee to the Treasury warned in a report that the government’s huge
and rapidly escalating need to borrow money would weigh heavily on the financial
markets and that investors would demand higher interest rates in exchange for
buying up the avalanche of new bonds.

Until now, that has not been a
problem, the report said. Investors have snapped up Treasury bonds as a haven
for their money in a troubled world economy, and China invested the proceeds of
a huge trade surplus in United States government securities.


“Treasuries will probably not receive the same favorable demand treatment from
either source over the coming quarters,” the advisory committee’s report said.


Consumer spending stood out as the only significant bright spot in the Commerce
Department’s otherwise bleak update on the gross domestic product, the broadest
measure of the nation’s economic activity, which has now posted three straight
quarters of decline. Consumer spending turned up in the first quarter, rising at
a 2.2 percent annual rate, for the first time since last summer.


Most of the spending was on autos, kitchen appliances, computers and other
durable goods. But retailers allowed shoppers to draw down inventories, without
reordering to fill their shelves. Indeed, imports, a source of much of the
nation’s consumption, fell sharply, along with exports. And so did business
investment.

Adding to the damage, government spending at the state
and local level either declined or fell sharply. That presumably will reverse in
the current quarter, as the $787 billion stimulus package kicks in this spring.
Indeed, many economists are counting on the federal spending and on various
small windfalls for consumers to ease the recession in the months ahead.


The Social Security Administration, for example, is sending $250 checks in early
May to each of the millions of older people getting benefits. And thousands of
employers, responding to new federal rules, are cutting the amounts withheld
from their employees’ weekly and monthly pay checks — in the process fattening
take-home pay.

“These fiscal policy measures will play a key role,”
said Robert J. Barbera, chief economist at ITG Investment Technology Group, “in
gradually lifting economic growth.”

Jack Healy contributed
reporting.

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Pan-African News Wire

Abayomi Azikiwe

The Pan-African News Wire is an international
electronic press service designed to foster intelligent discussion on the
affairs of African people throughout the continent and the world. The press
agency was founded in January of 1998 and has published hundreds of articles and
dispatches in newpapers, magazines, journals and websites throughout the world.
The PANW represents the only daily international news source on pan-african and
global affairs.

View my complete profile

Join the People's Summit in Detroit, June 14-17, 2009 at Grand Circus Park,
Downtown

Four Days of Resistance to the Worst Economic Crisis Since
the Great Depression

K'Naan Speaks on the Truth Behind the Struggle for the Somali and Horn of
Africa Waterways

Just Click on This Photo of K'Naan and View His Interview
With Davy D

Africans in Guadeloupe and Martinique Have Been on a General Strike

Workers Are in Rebellion Against French Imperialism in the
Caribbean

Guadeloupe General Strike In Respnse to Global Economic Crisis

• LKP
  Rally Addressed by Elie Domota in Guadeloupe


• Just Click On This Link
  To View The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on Guadeloupe


• General Strike
  Continues in Guadeloupe


• Guadeloupe Masses Rebel
  Against French Colonialism


• Strike
  Leader Speaks: Domota Elie Talks to the Guadeloupe Masses


• Le
  conflict sinstalle dans la duree

The Legacy of Frantz Fanon Lives On In "The Wretched of the Earth"

Click on Photo to View a Section of the Documentary "Black
Skins, White Masks"

A Tribute to Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)

• 
  Click On This Link to View "Hommage Frantz Fanon"


• Click on This Link to
  Check Out Admiral T & Kassav Performing "Fos A Peyi La"

Miriam Makeba, Known Widely as 'Mama Africa' Joined the Ancestors on
November 9, 2008 in Italy

Makeba in Photograph During the 1950s With the Manhattan
Brothers in South Africa

Miriam Makeba is Known as 'Mama Africa'

• Click on Here to View
  Miriam Makeba Singing Khawuleza in 1966


• Click on This Important
  Link to Watch Miriam Makeba Singing Kilimanjaro in 1968


• 
  Click on This Link to Watch a Rare Film of Miriam Makeba on Brazilian TV in 1968


• Click on Here to
  Read a Profile by Kwame Nkrumah's Son, Gamal, On Mariam Makeba

Detroit Rallied to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, the MOVE 9 & All Political
Prisoners, December 3

This Meeting Was Held at the MECAWI Office, Detroit,
7:00pm

Africa & World News Page

• Africa & World News
  Page

Africa Daily

• Africa Daily News Reports

A Detroit Demonstration Protested Threats Against Iran on Aug. 1 at Hart
Plaza, Downtown

• Click on This Link to
  View Abayomi Azikiwe Calling for Mass Protests Against Threats on Iran

These Remarks Were Made on July 11 in New York City

Demonstration At the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Policy Summit,
April 16 in Washington, DC

A Moratorium Now! Coalition Supports the Passage of Senate
Bill 1306 Which Would Grant a Two-Year Moratorium on Foreclosures in Michigan

Demonstration at Bank of America on Tuesday, July 22, 2008

• Just Click on Here to
  Watch Abayomi Azikiwe Speaking in Front of Bank of America on July 22, 2008

• Watch Abayomi Azikiwe,
  PANW Editor, Speaking at a Demonstration in the Financial District in Downtown
  Detroit on June 6, 2008


• Check Out Atty. Jerome
  Goldberg Voicing Support for a Moratorium on Foreclosures in Michigan at a Town
  Hall Meeting in Detroit, June 14, 2008

Haitian People Respond to Rising Food Prices

Haitian Masses Launch Demonstrations and Rebellions in
April, 2008

• Just
  Click on This URL to View the Rebellions in Haiti in Response to Rising Food
  Prices and Other Consumer Goods

Abayomi Azikiwe Speaking in An Interview on the Significance of the Barack
Obama Presidency

Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of the Pan-African News Wire

Franco, 1938-1989, the grand master of pan-african music

Franco From a CD Cover

• 
  Just Click on This Link to See and Hear Franco & the TPOK Jazz Band in Action


• Listen to the Guitar
  Players on Pesa Position


• Listen to TPOK Jazz
  Recording "Lisolo Ya Adamo Na Nzambe (Ntesa Dalienst)


• Franco
  and the TPOK Jazz Band Recording "Dje Melasi"


• Listen
  to a Recording of TPOK Jazz Called "Bodutaka"


• Hear TPOK Jazz
  Recording "Na Lingaka Yo Yo Te (Part 1)


• Listen to TPOK
  Jazz Recording "Na Lingaka Yo Yo Te (Part 2)


• Check
  Out TPOK Jazz Band Recording "FC 105"


• Listen
  Carefully to "C'est Dur la Vie d'une Femme Celibataire" by Franco & TOPK Jazz


• Listen
  to Franco & TPOK Jazz Recording "Naseki Mingi"


• TPOK
  Jazz Recording of "Matinda"


• TOPK Jazz
  Recording "Liwa Ya Emery" (A Tribute to Patrice Lumumba)


• Franco & TPOK Jazz
  Recording "Lumumba, Heros National"


• Check Out Les Chics Men
  Performing Kolela Lela in HQ

MECAWI Demonstration Held Against the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq
Occupation on March 15

Pan-African News Wire Covering the March 15 Action in
Downtown Detroit

End the Occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine on March 15, Noon,
Downtown Detroit

• Click Here for MECAWI Web Site


• View the March 15
  Anti-War Demonstration in Detroit

Read the Works of Pan-Africanist and Socialist Scholar/Activist W.E.B.
DuBois

• Click on This URL to Read the Works of
  W.E.B. DuBois

A Conference on Imperialism in Africa Was Held on Feb. 23, 2008 Sponsored by
MECAWI

The Conference Commemorated the 140th Birthday of W.E.B.
DuBois (1868-1963): Pictured Above With Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Madame Fathia in
1963

Abayomi Azikiwe, Pan-African News Wire Editor

PANW Editor Speaking at the Dr. Charles H. Wright Museum
of African-American History, April 5, 2008

• Hear
  Abayomi Azikiwe Speaking to the NYC Workers World Black History Forum, Feb. 29,
  2008

El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X) Archives

• Read
  and Listen to the Speeches of Malcolm X

Anna Julia haywood Cooper, Educator, Activist & Historian

• Enter This Site to
  Read "A Voice From the South," The Pioneering Work by Anna J. Cooper Published
  in 1892

Abayomi Azikiwe Speaks on the 40th Anniversary of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion

Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of the Pan-African News Wire, July
21, 2007

To Read The Series Published in Workers World on the 1967 Rebellion Just
Click on the Links Below

• Part One:
  The Global Struggle's Connection to Detroit's 1967 Upheaval


• Part
  Two: Background on the International Dimensions of the African-American Question


• Part
  Three: 'Soul Serenade', The Role of International Affairs in 1967


• Part
  Four: Inner City Voices, 'I Just Wanna Testify'


• Part
  Five: 'You Set the Scene'

Jimi Hendrix is Considered the Greatest Guitarist of the 20th Century

• Just Click on
  This Site For a Guide to the Music of Jimi Hendrix


• 
  Visit This Site for a Film of Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles at the Newport Pop
  Festival, June 22, 1969

Classic Blues Music on Video

Click on the Photo of Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and Buddy
Guy to See a Classic Blues Video

Legendary Blues Man Son House

Click on This Photo of Son House to See Him Performing the
Classic "Death Letter"

Aretha Franklin Pictured Performing at the Obama Inauguration on January 20,
2009

Aretha Franklin From Detroit

Aretha Franklin is One of the Great Artists to Emerge During the 1960s.
Click on Links Below

• Just Visit This Site
  to Learn More About Aretha Franklin


• Aretha
  Franklin Music Video From 1967: "Baby I Love You"


• Watch This Video of
  Aretha Franklin on TV Singing "Dr. Feelgood" in 1968


• Check Out Aretha
  Franklin Singing "Night Life", 1967


• Watch This Video of
  Aretha Franklin Singing "I Never Loved A Man," From TV Special "Lady Soul" in
  1968

A Tribute to John & Alice Coltrane

• Click on this site to read about John
  Coltrane

Just Click on This Image and Watch The John Coltrane
Quartet Playing "Alabama".

Bob Marley, the Reggae Legend, Advanced the Struggle for Pan-Africanism

• Click on Here to Visit the Official Bob
  Marley Web Site

Bob Marley's 64th Birthday is Feb. 6, 2009

The Cuban Daily Newspaper Covering the World

• Click on Here to Read
  Granma International

Assata Shakur Speaks for the Liberation of the People

• Enter Here to Read About the Life &
  Legacy of Assata Shakur

The Jericho Movement Calls For a General Amnesty for All US Political
Prisoners

• Click on to Read About the
  International Campaign to Free Political Prisoners

The Commemorative Archives of the Black Panther Party

• Check Out This Site
  For the Black Panther Party Compiled Archives

Ruth Brown, Legendary Rhythm & Blues Artist, Actress, Joins the Ancestors

• Ruth Brown on 1950s
  Television Singing "Teardrops From My Eyes"


• 
  Ruth Brown on Film Singing Hit Song "Mama" From the 1950s


• Ruth Brown on Film
  Singing "Oh What A Dream", 1950s Television


• Just Click on
  This Site to Read More About Ruth Brown

The Legacy of Blues Women From Mamie Smith Forward

• Mamie Smith Recording
  of "My Sportin' Man"


• Blues Pioneer Mamie
  Smith on Film Singing "Lord, Lord, Lord"


• Mamie Smith on Film
  Performing "So What Papa?"


• Mamie Smith on Film
  Singing "No Good Man"


• Hear Bessie Smith
  Singing "Baby Won't You Please Come Home", With Photographs


• 
  Bessie Smith on Film Performing "St. Louis Blues"


• Blues Singer Ida Cox on
  Film Performing "Four Day Creep"


• Click on This Site to
  Read About the Pioneering Role of Women in Recorded Music

Kwame Nkrumah: Pan-Africanist Founder of Modern Africa

• 
  Read Nkrumah and Other Writings on Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of
  Imperialism

The Bibliography of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

• Panaf Books: The Publishing
  House of Kwame Nkrumah

Mbilia Bel Is One of the Great Legends of African Music

Pan-African Music From All Over the Continent

• Watch and Listen to
  Tsala Muana Performing "Menteur"


• Check Tsala Muana Doing
  "J.M. Kongolo"


• Watch
  and Listen to Tshala Muana in "Kalume"


• Check
  Out Tshala Muana on "Banda Yango"


• Listen to Tsala Muana
  Recorded Song "Tshibola"


• Listen to Tsala
  Muana Singing "Koumba"


• Watch Mbilia Bel
  Performing "Naza"


• Check Out Mbilia Bel
  Performing "Welcome"


• See
  Mbilia Bel Doing Les Z'o'n-Dit


• View Mbilia Bel Doing
  "Ambiance a Gogo


• Check Out Mbilia Bel
  Performing Bellisimo


• Watch
  Mbilia Bel With Suzanna Owiyo Performing "Lo"


• Listen and Watch TPOK
  Jazz With Papanzinga Performing "Massu"


• Watch Abby Surya
  Performing "Bokila"


• Check Out Abby
  Surya Singing Delice Ya Bolingo


• Listen to and Read
  About African Music From Traditional to Classical and Contemporary

Tsala Muana Is Another Great Congolese Pan-African Artist

Just Click on This Image to View Abayomi Azikiwe Speaking
at the National Conference on "The New Situation in the U.S. & The World" in
NYC, November 15, 2008.

Abayomi Azikiwe Featured on Pacifica Radio's KPFA, 94.1 FM in Berkeley,
California.

• Listen to Emira Woods of the
  Institute for Policy Studies and Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of the Pan-African News
  Wire, on "Africa Today", Hosted by Walter Turner at KPFA Radio. This Program Was
  Aired on March 30, 2009.


• 
  Just Click on This Link to Hear the Abayomi Azikiwe Interview on the General
  Strikes That Took Place in Guadeloupe and Martinique

WBIA, 99.5, Pacifica Radio, New York City

• WBAI Community Radio Streaming Live

The Zimbabwe Herald

• Zimbabwe News

MECAWI

• Michigan Emergency Committee Against War &
  Injustice

Pan-African Parliament

• Pan-African Parliament News &
  Documents

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

• International Campaign to Free Mumia
  Abu-Jamal

African National Congress

• African National Congress &
  Allies


• 
  Watch the ANC Election Commercial From South Africa


• African
  National Congress Women's League Campaign For April 22 Elections

African National Congress Gears Up For National Elections on April 22

Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa, Mbete
Baleka, Who Is a Candidate For the National Assembly

African Union

• African Union News & Projects

Aljazeera News Service

• News From the Middle East & the
  World

Caribbean Newspapers

• News From Throughout the
  Caribbean

Pan-African News Wire Archives

• 
  
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    • 
      Robert Mitchell, 16, Killed by Law-Enforcement: De...
    
    
    • 
      US Economic Crisis Bulletin: Another 539,000 Job L...
    
    
    • 
      US War Update: Ex-Soldier Found Guilty of Rape, Mu...
    
    
    • 
      US Banks 'Need to Raise $75 Billion'
    
    
    • 
      General Giap Wages New Battle For Environment in V...
    
    
    • 
      "Attention MOVE: This is America!", Article by Han...
    
    
    • 
      DRC News Update: Amnesty Passed for Illegal Armed ...
    
    
    • 
      Cholera Outbreak in Zimbabwe Continues to Decline,...
    
    
    • 
      Zimbabwe News Update: IMF Reprieve; Zuma Congratul...
    
    
    • 
      Manan Ahmed on the Politics of US "Hysteria" Over ...
    
    
    • 
      Zuma Confirmed as President by South African Parli...
    
    
    • 
      South Carolina Halts Thousands of Home Foreclosure...
    
    
    • 
      Blacks Match Whites in Voting Rates in 2008
    
    
    • 
      Pages From History: Speech by President Kwame Nkru...
    
    
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      Iranian President Ahmadinejad's Speech in Geneva B...
    
    
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