A Journey Back to the Source of
HIV & Aids'
Part - 1
World scientists gather in Durban today to discuss
the epidemic sweeping the continent. But still we don't
know how it began. Edward Hooper returns to Uganda where
14 years ago he first charted the scale of that
calamity. His fears have been confirmed, he argues: we
unwittingly sparked the horror with a contaminated polio
vaccine
Sunday July 9, 2000
The catch of fish was good this morning, and
because the coffee season is beginning, swollen sacks of
beans lie scattered in the dirt like great brown
maggots. A few yards away, beside the boats drawn up
along the shores of Lake Victoria, the marabou storks
skip and glide from one fish head to another. Kasensero
looks as dirty and dissolute as it ever did, as the sun
burns down on its tumbledown shacks of wood and
corrugated iron. Now is the season for making money and
the village is full of young fishermen and smugglers,
and young women with dyed hair. There is a constant
hubbub of shouting and laughter, flirting and argument,
intertwined with the Lingala music that booms from the
tiny bars and cafes. Although it is not yet noon, many
are already drunk.
One mile away, in the relative calm of the landing site
at the mouth of the Kagera river, the man in charge
tells us that Kasensero never changes - that the young
still make money, have sex, and forget to use condoms.
This, for me, is a journey back in time. For this small
smuggling village is the place that I and a
fellow-journalist first visited in 1986, after tales of
the cataclysm along Uganda's southern border began
filtering up to Kampala.
The people told us, almost casually, how 'Slim
disease' had arrived in their midst four or five years
earlier, and how more than 100 of Kasensero's itinerant
population of 500 had died since then. Then they called
a meeting beneath the big tree, and asked us what to do
about it. Acutely aware of our amateur status, we did
our best. Use condoms, we said. If you have an
injection, make sure the needle is first boiled. By good
fortune, the advice was sound, and nowadays it is echoed
by posters on display in the village - posters that are
all too often ignored. The only thing that has changed
in 14 years is the name. These days, everyone calls it
Aids.
Happily, the stubborn, hedonistic fatalism of
Kasensero is not typical of Uganda as a whole, where the
norm nowadays is to 'love carefully', to use condoms.
Elsewhere in Africa, however, there are still many such
venues, and wherever they exist, they fuel infection
rates in surrounding areas. So it is that over
two-thirds of the estimated 53 million people who have
become infected with human immunodeficiency virus type
one (HIV-1) since the start of the pandemic have been
from Africa.
Back in 1986, we spent four days travelling around
Kasensero and its neighboring villages, until we
realized that we were witnessing something momentous and
strange. Aids had been seen before in specific groups
such as gays, drug users and hemophiliacs and in
hospital beds across central Africa, but what we were
witnessing was the first community-wide Aids epidemic in
the world. Men, women and children were all affected,
and we rushed back to Europe and America to tell the
story.
In 1995 my friend, the late great evolutionary
biologist Bill Hamilton, visited to get an update on the
situation and brought back sad news about the men who
had escorted us through the villages in 1986 - the tall,
dignified district chairman, Joseph Ssebyoto-Lutaya, and
the ever-smiling medical assistant, Jimmy Ssemambo. Both
had died of Aids.
Now, 14 years after that initial visit, I call at
Joseph's house, in the village of Kyebe, near Kasensero,
to offer my respects. His wife, it turns out, died a few
months after him, but their 10 children all survive, and
thankfully all look healthy. The younger ones are still
cared for by their grandparents, who live in the house
next door to Joseph's, beside the concrete graves among
the banana trees. These children are lucky. So many
houses around here now lie deserted, abandoned - their
former occupants either dead, or scattered to the winds.
I am here in Uganda with a Channel 4-news team, to
help them prepare a front-line report ahead of the
thirteenth International Conference on Aids, which opens
in Durban today. There has been a belated acceleration
of interest in Aids and Africa over the past few months.
Partly this has been because of the conference, but
partly because of other events including the ill-judged
comments of South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki,
questioning whether HIV actually causes Aids, which have
provided unmerited oxygen for the moribund hypothesis of
Professor Peter Duesberg. And at long last,
international donors such as the US and Britain have
made significant contributions.
In addition, my book The River seems to have
ignited a major scientific debate about how Aids started
in Africa. This pleases me, for the book was an
obsession and a labour of love. It took more than nine
years to research and write and included more than 600
interviews with scientists. What I was stunned to
discover was that a perfectly sound and scientific
explanation for the origin of Aids had been casually -
and irresponsibly - dismissed by the scientific
establishment. Now, as a result of the controversy, a
two-day conference on 'The Origins of HIV and Aids' will
be held at the Royal Society in London in September.
My central hypothesis was that the Aids pandemic
was sparked by an experimental oral polio vaccine (OPV)
called CHAT, which was fed to more than a million
infants, children and adults in the former Belgian
colonies of central Africa between 1957 and 1960. It is
now accepted that the immediate ancestor of HIV-1 is the
simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) of the common
chimpanzee. In the late Fifties, polio vaccines were
grown in cells from monkey kidneys, but evidence
suggests that some batches of the CHAT vaccine fed in
Africa were, uniquely, produced in chimp cells.
By contrast, the hypothesis to which most Aids
researchers still subscribe is that a hunter or
market-woman originally acquired the virus, perhaps with
cut hands, who butchered a chimp for bushmeat. When
asked 'Why now?' (For chimps have been hunted and eaten
since time immemorial), the reply of 'cut hunter'
proponents is that it was probably decolonisation,
leading to urbanization and new sexual interactions,
that allowed the newly acquired chimp virus to break
free from its rural hearth. Then to proliferate an
urban environment, and then to spread across Africa.
On the face of it, the cut-hunter theory seems
plausible. On the other hand, the CHAT hypothesis fits
the known facts considerably better. For example, it is
now known that the CHAT researchers had a chimpanzee
camp at Lindi, just outside Stanleyville (now Kisangani)
in the then Belgian Congo, and that between 1956 and
1958, some 400 chimpanzees were held there, of which
nearly 300 were first used to test the polio vaccine,
and then sacrificed. According to a growing number of
witnesses, both kidneys and blood were extracted shortly
before sacrifice, and were then dispatched in flasks to
Philadelphia and to Belgium, the two places where the
CHAT vaccine used in Africa was made.
Then there are the astounding correlations between
CHAT vaccination sites and early Aids. Fully 64 per cent
of the first Aids cases seen in Africa (up to and
including 1980) come from the same towns and villages
(all in the former Belgian colonies of Congo, Rwanda and
Burundi) where CHAT was fed in the Fifties. Furthermore,
every single one of the 46 earliest HIV-positive blood
samples from Africa comes from within 140 miles of a
CHAT vaccination site.
Reviews of the River have generally acknowledged
that the CHAT theory is plausible, albeit unproven.
However, earlier this year, researchers led by Bette
Korber placed the last common ancestor of all the HIV-1
variants seen today (which she called 'the Eve virus')
in 1931, plus or minus 10 to 20 years. Since this was
before the CHAT trials began, Korber pronounced the
polio vaccine theory 'highly unlikely'.
Many US journalists assumed that this theoretical
data settled the issue, which it most certainly did not.
Korber's mentor and former boss, Gerry Myers, will
oppose her position at the Royal Society conference
pointing out that Korber's dating says nothing about
when chimpanzee SIVs transferred to humans and that the
new data supports the CHAT theory better than the
cut-hunter position.
This and other counter-arguments to CHAT will all
be addressed at the London meeting. It is worth noting,
however, that none of the opposing scientists has thus
far come up with data or arguments to refute the theory.
Hamilton, who was a leading scientific supporter of
the CHAT theory for many years, initially proposed the
conference. In January, he traveled to Kisangani (by
then in the midst of civil war) to collect shit samples
from chimpanzees to see whether any were SIV-infected.
Tragically, he contracted malaria and, shortly after his
return to England, died. Since then, there has been a
concerted attempts by some of those who made the
vaccine, or who support the cut-hunter theory, to
scupper the conference. First, several 'cut-hunters'
who had previously agreed to speak, withdrew. They later
relented, but only after the meeting was postponed from
May to September, and they had been allotted extra
speakers.
Meanwhile, a series of extraordinary public and
private attacks have been mounted against Hamilton,
myself and others who believe that the CHAT theory
deserves a fair hearing, accusing all involved with
organizing the London meeting of being enemies of
science.
In fact, there are sound reasons for having the
debate that so many wish to stifle. One is that
knowledge of how a disease began often leads to a better
understanding of how to cure, prevent or alleviate it.
Another is that the CHAT story has important
implications for future medical and scientific practice,
at a time when we may be about to embark on other
well-meaning, and potentially even more dangerous,
biomedical interventions. These include
xenotransplantation (placing animal organs in humans,
together with whichever undiscovered viruses may be
lurking within), and trials of live Aids vaccines (which
have the potential to recombine with existing HIV
variants, to devastating effect).
In June 1981, a German missionary doctor, Margerete
Bundschuh, saw five women from the Ugandan border
regions with unusual bacterial infections of the groin
and anus, together with a man whose penis was 'half
rotted off'. Much later, she wrote to me to explain her
sense that these conditions were complicated by serious
immune-deficiency: 'We had the impressions - sex
infection, three to six months of slow deterioration,
then acute disease and death. At that time, there was no
long stage of undetectable Aids.' Bundschuh worked at
Mugana hospital, in northern Tanzania, on the smugglers'
road leading to Lake Victoria and Kasensero, which would
witness its first cases a few months later.
In Tanzania, the new condition was christened
'Juliana' by local people; in Uganda, 'Slim'. This
detail alone - that non-specialists realized a new
disease had arrived - destroys the claims by Peter
Duesberg that the Aids epidemic in Africa is merely a
collection of ancient diseases, to which Western doctors
have ascribed a new name.
So how did HIV-1 arrive along the Uganda/Tanzania
borders? This coffee-growing region receives many Hutu
migrant workers from Burundi and Rwanda, so it is
possible that one of these was the carrier. However,
there is an alternative explanation.
In the early Sixties, hundreds of thousands of
Tutsi refugees fled ethnic violence in Rwanda. In 1962,
3,000 of them were transferred to this region, and
encouraged to settle. They came from Butare and Nyanza,
two of the four 'territories' where CHAT vaccine was
administered in Rwanda. Shortly afterwards, a
two-year-old child from one of the settlement villages
died of aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma - a possible early
case of Aids.
This same region later experienced a series of
upheavals. In 1978, Idi Amin's army invaded the Kagera
salient of northern Tanzania, and Julius Nyerere
summoned 45,000 troops to oppose him. For three months
they trained intensively for the counter-invasion.
Seven thousand men from the 207th brigade camped
out on an open, grassy plain beside the village of
Bugandika. Local men told us that there were many
instances of rape and that: 'Soldiers came and went from
village houses. There were many divorces. Girls and
mothers came here from far away for meat and beer.'
Bugandika lies just nine miles from Mugana hospital, at
the foot of the smugglers' road.
It seems likely that someone who spent time at that
camp, a soldier or a female visitor, was already
infected with HIV and that - just as with the gay
bath-houses in America at around the same time - a seed
was planted in a fertile environment. From Bugandika,
the 207th took a route north which was different to
those of other Tanzanian brigades. It crossed into
Uganda at Joseph Ssebyoto-Lutaya's village, Kyebe,
and then moved north through Kyotera and Masaka to
Kampala, which it occupied until the Tanzanian
withdrawal in 1981. By 1987, a quarter of the women in
Masaka and Kampala were HIV-positive, while Kyebe and
Kyotera were famous as epicenters of Aids.
In 1987 Uganda initiated the first Aids Control
Programme in Africa, and began a campaign of health
education that continues to this day, with posters, TV
ads, lessons in schools and villages, and the popular
radio show Straight Talk. The rewards are there to be
seen. A few days ago, President Yoweri Museveni
announced that national (adult) HIV-prevalence had
fallen from 30 per cent in 1992 to fewer than 10 per
cent today.
DOWNLOAD US SVCP Flow Chart:
http://www.boydgraves.com/flowchart
Click Here:
AIDS is caused by a tool of the viral cancer re…
http://www.winstonsmith.net/How%20aids%20was%20invented_intro.htm
Click Here:
What You Should Know About Small Pox & Antrax
http://www.winstonsmith.net/initialpage.htm
Click Here:
The
History of the Development of AIDS
http://www.boydgraves.com/timeline
Click Here:
LEADING AIDS ORIGIN AUTHOR ENDORSES DR.GRAVES, …
http://www.boydgraves.com/letters/040602.html
Click Here:
HIV/AIDS Made In America? - Graves Gets His Day…
http://www.rense.com/general38/made.htm
Click Here:
HIV/AIDS Made In America? - Global Black News (…
http://www.globalblacknews.com/AIDS.html
Click Here:
Boyd E.
Graves, J.D. The Man Who Solved AIDS
http://www.boydgraves.com/graves/
Click Here:
NEWS: Dr. Boyd E.
Graves / U.S. Special Virus R…
http://www.boydgraves.com/
Click Here:
1. Why We Will Never Win the War on AIDS
http://fusmail.franciscan.edu/ratnerfiles.nsf/0/178c13338e89d2e585256a01005735c3?OpenDocument
Click Here:
2. Why We Will Never Win the War on AIDS
http://www.oralchelation.com/viewpoint/karl_loren/virus3.htm
Click Here:
AIDS:
The Untold Story
http://www.radioliberty.com/aiduntld.htm
Click Here:
Horowitz on the US Special Virus, Boyd Graves, …
http://www.boydgraves.com/news/101502.html
Click Here: The Invention of AIDS by Boyd E. Graves,
J.D.
http://www.boydgraves.com/class/invention.html
Click Here:
The Invention of AIDS by Boyd E. Graves, J.D.
http://www.boydgraves.com/class/invention.html
"AIDS WAS CREATED BY U.S"
Dr.
Boyd E. Graves pictured in the Buckeye Review July 11, 2001.
Dr. Graves' activism for the immediate review of the mostly
secret U.S. Special Virus program prompted Ohio Congressman
James Trafficant to call for an immediate investigation into
the US SVCP budget which spent over $550 million tax payer
dollars to make HIV/AIDS. Congressman Trafficant's request
for immediate review was sent to the
U.S. Comptroller General July 19, 2001.
THE INVENTION OF AIDS
by Boyd E. Graves, J.D. boyded2001@yahoo.com
Do people with HIV/AIDS owe royalties to the patent holder
of the AIDS virus? In April 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo filed a
United States patent application for his invention, the
HIV/AIDS Virus. Normally when a patent is filed and
approved, as Dr. Gallo's was,
anyone who uses the product
or invention owes a royalty payment to the inventor.
Thus, holding the intellectual property laws to their
fullest interpretations, one must only wonder why Dr. Gallo
has yet to file a lawsuit seeking to recover damages from
the usage of his invention?
As odd as this scenario may sound, it bears need for
additional scrutiny. The scientific evidence is complete and
compelling, the AIDS Virus is a designer bi-product of the
U.S. Special Virus program. The Special Virus program was a
federal virus development program that persisted in the
United States from 1962 until 1978. The U.S. Special Virus
was then added as 'compliment' to vaccine inoculations in
Africa and Manhattan. Shortly thereafter the world was
overwhelmed with mass infections of a human retrovirus that
differed from any known human disease, it was highly
contagious and more importantly,
it could kill.
A review of the Special Virus Flow Chart
("research logic") reveals the United States was seeking a
'virus particle' that would negatively impact the defense
mechanisms of the immune system. The program sought to
modify the genome of the virus particle in which to splice
in an animal "wasting disease" called "Visna". According to
the Proceedings of the United States of America, AIDS is an
evolutionary, laboratory development of the peculiar Visna
Virus, first detected in Icelandic sheep.
Recently, American and world scientists confirm with 100%
certainty the laboratory genesis of AIDS. This fact is
further underscored when one reviews the 'multiply-spliced'
nature of the HIV 'tat' gene and Dr. Gallo's 1971 Special
Virus paper, "Reverse Transcriptase of Type-C virus
Particles of Human Origin".
Dr. Gallo's 1971 Special Virus paper is identical to his
1984 announcement of AIDS. Upon further review the record
reveals that he filed his patent on AIDS, before he made the
announcement with Secretary Heckler. Earlier this year, Dr.
Gallo conceded his role as a 'Project Officer' for the
federal virus development program, the Special Virus.
The Flow Chart of the program and the 15 progress reports
are irrefutable evidence of the United States' secret plan
to cull world populations via the unleashing of a stealth
biological microorganism that would 'waste' humanity. In
light of this true genesis of the world's most divesting
biological scourge, it is the United States that owes
'royal' payments to the innocent victims. Each and every
victim of AIDS is deserving of a formal apology and a sense
of economic closure for an invention of death and despair,
perpetrated by the United States.
The eyes of the world are upon the General Accounting
Office's Health Care Team, under the direction of William J.
Scanlon. Between 1964 and 1978, the secret federal virus
program spent $550 million dollars of taxpayer money to
invent AIDS.
It is now necessary to spend
whatever it takes to dismantle an invention that has led to
the greatest crime against humanity in the history of the
world.
~~~Additional Resources~~~
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FORWARD to Friends:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We must let nature determine
the finish line, not man.
We are greater than any federal virus program, we are the
human race."
Dr. Boyd E. Graves, U.S. Supreme Court Case No.
00-9587
World War AIDS
Click Here:
The Invention of AIDS by Boyd E. Graves, J.D.
http://www.boydgraves.com/class/invention.html
DOWNLOAD US SVCP Flow
Chart:
http://www.boydgraves.com/flowchart
Click Here:
AIDS is caused by a tool of the viral cancer re…
http://www.winstonsmith.net/How%20aids%20was%20invented_intro.htm
Click Here:
What You Should Know About Small Pox & Antrax
http://www.winstonsmith.net/initialpage.htm
Click Here:
The History of the Development of AIDS
http://www.boydgraves.com/timeline
Click Here:
LEADING AIDS ORIGIN AUTHOR ENDORSES DR.GRAVES, …
http://www.boydgraves.com/letters/040602.html
Click Here:
HIV/AIDS Made In America? - Graves Gets His Day…
http://www.rense.com/general38/made.htm
Click Here:
HIV/AIDS Made In America? - Global Black News (…
http://www.globalblacknews.com/AIDS.html
Click Here:
Boyd E. Graves, J.D. The Man Who Solved AIDS
http://www.boydgraves.com/graves/
Click Here:
NEWS: Dr. Boyd E. Graves / U.S. Special Virus R…
http://www.boydgraves.com/
Click Here:
1. Why We Will Never Win the War on AIDS
http://fusmail.franciscan.edu/ratnerfiles.nsf/0/178c13338e89d2e585256a01005735c3?OpenDocument
Click Here:
2. Why We Will Never Win the War on AIDS
http://www.oralchelation.com/viewpoint/karl_loren/virus3.htm
Click Here:
AIDS: The Untold Story
http://www.radioliberty.com/aiduntld.htm
Click Here:
Horowitz on the US Special Virus, Boyd Graves, …
http://www.boydgraves.com/news/101502.html
Click Here: The Invention of AIDS by Boyd E. Graves, J.D.
http://www.boydgraves.com/class/invention.html
Click Here:
The Invention of AIDS by Boyd
E. Graves, J.D.
http://www.boydgraves.com/class/invention.html
Copyright Zygote Media 1998-2001
<
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Death of Free Internet is Imminent
Canada Will Become Test Case
By Kevin Parkinson
21/07/08 "Global Research <
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9627>
" -- - In the last 15 years or so, as a society we have had access to
more information than ever before in modern history because of the
Internet. There are approximately 1 billion Internet users in the world
B and any one of these users can theoretically communicate in real time
with any other on the planet. The Internet has been the greatest
technological achievement of the 20th century by far, and has been
recognized as such by the global community.
The free transfer of information, uncensored, unlimited and
untainted, still seems to be a dream when you think about it. Whatever
field that is mentioned- education, commerce, government, news,
entertainment, politics and countless other areas- have been radically
affected by the introduction of the Internet. And mostly, it's good
news, except when poor judgements are made and people are taken
advantage of. Scrutiny and oversight are needed, especially where
children are involved.
However, when there are potential profits open to a corporation, the
needs of society don't count. Take the recent case in Canada with the
behemoths, Telus and Rogers rolling out a charge for text messaging
without any warning to the public. It was an arrogant and risky move for
the telecommunications giants because it backfired. People actually used
Internet technology to deliver a loud and clear message to these
companies and that was to scrap the extra charge. The people used the
power of the Internet against the big boys and the little guys won.
However, the issue of text messaging is just a tiny blip on the radar
screens of Telus and another company, Bell Canada, the two largest
Internet Service Providers (ISP'S) in Canada. Our country is being used
as a test case to drastically change the delivery of Internet service
forever. The change will be so radical that it has the potential to send
us back to the horse and buggy days of information sharing and access.
In the upcoming weeks watch for a report in Time Magazine that will
attempt to smooth over the rough edges of a diabolical plot by Bell
Canada and Telus, to begin charging per site fees on most Internet
sites. The plan is to convert the Internet into a cable-like system,
where customers sign up for specific web sites, and then pay to visit
sites beyond a cutoff point.
From my browsing (on the currently free Internet) I have discovered
that the 'demise' of the free Internet is slated for 2010 in Canada, and
two years later around the world. Canada is seen a good choice to
implement such shameful and sinister changes, since Canadians are viewed
as being laissez fair, politically uninformed and an easy target. The
corporate marauders will iron out the wrinkles in Canada and then spring
the new, castrated version of the Internet on the rest of the world,
probably with little fanfare, except for some dire warnings about the
'evil' of the Internet (free) and the CEO's spouting about 'safety and
security'. These buzzwords usually work pretty well.
What will the Internet look like in Canada in 2010? I suspect that
the ISP's will provide a "package" program as companies like Cogeco
currently do. Customers will pay for a series of websites as they do now
for their television stations. Television stations will be available
on-line as part of these packages, which will make the networks happy
since they have lost much of the younger market which are surfing and
chatting on their computers in the evening. However, as is the case with
cable television now, if you choose something that is not part of the
package, you know what happens. You pay extra.
And this is where the Internet (free) as we know it will suffer
almost immediate, economic strangulation. Thousands and thousands of
Internet sites will not be part of the package so users will have to pay
extra to visit those sites! In just an hour or two it is possible to
easily visit 20-30 sites or more while looking for information. Just
imagine how high these costs will be.
At present, the world condemns China because that country restricts
certain websites. "They are undemocratic; they are removing people's
freedom; they don't respect individual rights; they are censoring
information," are some of the comments we hear. But what Bell Canada and
Telus have planned for Canadians is much worse than that. They are
planning the death of the Internet (free) as we know it, and I expect
they'll be hardly a whimper from Canadians. It's all part of the
corporate plan for a New World Order and virtually a masterstroke that
will lead to the creation of billions and billions of dollars of
corporate profit at the expense of the working and middle classes.
There are so many other implications as a result of these changes,
far too many to elaborate on here. Be aware that we will all lose our
privacy because all websites will be tracked as part of the billing
procedure, and we will be literally cut off from 90% of the information
that we can access today. The little guys on the Net will fall likes
flies; Bloggers and small website operators will die a quick death
because people will not pay to go to their sites and read their pages.
Ironically, the only medium that can save us is the one we are trying
to save- the Internet (free). This article will be posted on my Blog,
www.realitycheck.typepad.com
<http://www.realitycheck.typepad.com/>
and I encourage people and groups to learn more about this issue.
Canadians can keep the Internet free just as they kept text messaging
free. Don't wait for the federal politicians. They will do nothing to
help us.
I would welcome a letter to the editor of the Standard Freeholder
from a spokesperson from Bell Canada or Telus telling me that I am
absolutely wrong in what I have written, and that no such changes to the
Internet are being planned, and that access to Internet sites will
remain FREE in the years to come. In the meantime, I encourage all of
you to write to the media, ask questions, phone the radio station, phone
a friend, or think of something else to prevent what appears to me to be
inevitable.
Maintaining Internet (free) access is the only way we have a chance
at combatting the global corporate takeover, the North American Union,
and a long list of other deadly deeds that the elite in society have
planned for us. Yesterday was too late in trying to protect our rights
and freedoms. We must now redouble our efforts in order to give our
children and grandchildren a fighting chance in the future.
Author's website:
http://realitycheck.typepad.com/
<http://realitycheck.typepad.com/>
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Prisons ban books over
fear of radicals
By LARRY
NEUMEISTER, Associated Press WriterSun
Jun 10, 2:01 PM ET
Inmates
at the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y.,
were stunned by what they saw at the chapel library on
Memorial Day — hundreds of books had disappeared from
the shelves.
The
removal of the books is occurring nationwide, part of a
long-delayed, post-Sept. 11 federal directive intended
to prevent radical religious texts, specifically Islamic
ones, from falling into the hands of violent inmates.
Three
inmates at Otisville filed a lawsuit over the policy,
saying their Constitutional rights were violated. They
say all religions were affected.
"The set
of books that have been taken out have been ones that we
used to minister to new converts when they come in
here," inmate John Okon, speaking on behalf
of the prison's Christian population, told a judge last
week.
Okon
said it was unfortunate because "I have really seen
religion turn around the life of some of these men,
especially in the Christian community."
The
government maintained that that the new rules don't
entirely clear the shelves of prison chapel libraries.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Feldman told U.S. District
Judge Laura Taylor Swain that prison libraries limited
the number of books for each religion to between 100 and
150 under the new rules. He said officials would expand
the number after choosing a new list of permitted books.
Feldman
said the removal order stemmed from an April 2004
Department of Justice review of the way prisons choose
Muslim religious services providers. It is not exactly
clear why it took so long for the order to be put into
effect, but prison officials said they needed time to
examine a long list of books.
Feldman
said the study was made out of a concern that prisons
"had been radicalized by inmates who were practicing or
espousing various extreme forms of religion,
specifically Islam, which exposed security risks to the
prisons and beyond the prisons to the public at large."
Feldman
said the review by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons concluded
that prison chapel libraries were not adequately
supervised.
"The
presence of extremist chaplains, contractors or
volunteers in the BOP's correctional facilities can pose
a threat to institutional security and could implicate
national security if inmates are encouraged to commit
terrorist acts against the United States,"
the bureau's report said.
The
review suggested audio and video monitoring of worship
areas and chapel classrooms and screening of religious
service providers. It also recommended that prisons
reduce inmate-led religious services and consider
constant staff monitoring of inmate-led services.
A Bureau
of Prisons spokeswoman in Washington did not
immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Feldman
said inmates are permitted to order books on their own
and bypass the chapel libraries. "So fundamentally this
is not a case about what books the inmates have the
ability to read," he said.
However,
inmates say the rules have had a chilling effect.
Inmate
Moshe Milstein told the judge by telephone that the
chaplain at Otisville removed about 600 books from the
chapel library on Memorial Day, including Harold S.
Kushner's best-seller "When Bad Things Happen to Good
People," a book that Norman Vincent Peale said was "a
book that all humanity needs."
"There
is definitely irreparable harm done to us already, and
we would like the court to issue the injunction to get
the books back as soon as possible," he said.
Inmate
Douglas Kelly, who described himself as a representative
of the prison's Muslim community, complained of "a
denial of our First Amendment rights."
He said
books on Islam already were the least represented in the
library's collections and were reduced by half in the
Memorial Day removal.
"A lot
of what we are missing were definitely prayer books or
prayer guides and religious laws on the part of the
Muslim faith," he said.
The
judge said the lawsuit might be premature because the
inmates had not yet followed prison administrative
complaint procedures. She declined to block the book
removals, the remedy sought by the lawsuit.
Ron Kuby,
a civil rights lawyer who has represented a former head
Islamic chaplain banned from the state prison system
after he was accused of making extremist statements,
called the prison book removal "a mass Memorial Day book
burning."
But he
also said there might be limits to relief the prisoners
can seek because prisoners' First Amendment rights are
severely limited.
"When a cause comes along and you know in your
bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it--at
that moment you begin to die; and I have never seen
so many corpses walking around talking about
justice."
- Mumia Abu-Jamal
As Users Expose Police
Brutality
Monopolies seek stranglehold on YouTube
By Greg Butterfield
Published Jun 1, 2007 11:59 PM
YouTube, a popular Web site for free sharing of online videos, is
increasingly being used by communities, youths, progressive movements
and radicals worldwide to expose injustice, protest the horrors of
imperialist war, and promote revolutionary ideas to a global audience.
At the same time, U.S. corporate monopolies–including YouTube's owner,
Google, and rivals like Viacom and NBC Universal–are battling to
exercise control over the site's contents and censor those voices that
interfere with their goal of turning it into a profit-making machine.
Created by three former PayPal employees in 2005, YouTube now streams
more than 200 million videos and adds 200,000 new videos to its
library daily. It is a truly global phenomenon, with viewers outside
the U.S. watching 70 percent of all videos streamed. (Associated
Press, May 20)
According to the Toronto Star, the site has 40 million visitors
monthly, and the number is climbing.
YouTube's creators sold the site last year for $1.65 billion in Google
stock. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, two of the creators who remain
spokespeople for YouTube, seem content to accommodate Google's moves
to introduce aggressive advertising on the site, develop software
capable of censoring material objectionable to advertisers and the
state, and clamp down on posting of so-called copyright-protected
materials, like clips from TV shows and Hollywood films.
But the site, with its millions of users worldwide, has far outgrown
the proprietary claims of any individuals or corporation. It has
become a truly mass, participatory forum and should be the common
property of all.
Police terror exposed
In the U.S., the most dramatic effect of mass YouTube use has been to
expose cases of police brutality—incidents that otherwise would have
been completely covered up by the cops or quickly silenced by the
mainstream media.
And thanks to features allowing users to easily share videos, these
exposures can spread like wildfire.
In November 2006, no fewer than three cases of brutality by the Los
Angeles Police Department were exposed via YouTube videos.
William Cardenas was punched in the face repeatedly by cops, who
accused him of being a "gang member." The FBI was forced to open an
investigation into violations of Cardenas' civil rights after the
video was widely seen. A second video showed cops beating a restrained
prisoner in a police cruiser.
The third—shot on a camera phone in the University of California-Los
Angeles Library—showed police shooting with taser guns Mostafa
Tabatabainejad, a 23-year-old Iranian-born student, because he had
forgotten his ID. The video also shows angry students demanding the
cops' names and protesting the violation of Tabatabainejad's civil
rights. A cop then threatened to attack these students, too. (MoJo
Blog, Nov. 16, 2006)
Based on this video evidence, Tabatabainejad has now brought a lawsuit
against the LAPD.
These exposures have sown fear among cops and concern throughout the
capitalist state. In today's world of high technology combined with
growing repression, every worker is a potential George Holliday—the
amateur videographer who captured the brutal LAPD beating of Rodney
King in 1991.
The phenomenon isn't limited to Los Angeles. From Pennsylvania to
Florida, from Middleport, N.Y., to Denver, YouTube has been used as a
platform to expose cop terror.
After Michigan State University students were arrested protesting a
Minuteman bigot in East Lansing on April 19, organizers posted videos
showing the police use of excessive force, witness statements, and
interviews with university administrators exposing their collaboration
with the racists.
And when police attacked immigrant rights demonstrators in both Los
Angeles and New York on May Day, YouTube was used to rapidly spread
the word.
Outside the U.S., forces fighting back against imperialism have
adopted the medium as well. You can watch videos explaining the views,
methods and aims of the revolutionary movement in Nepal, witness May
Day marches in India and Turkey, or watch subtitled films from
Cultural Revolution-era China that are unlikely to ever see commercial
release on DVD.
Corporate media in the U.S. and Israel reacted with outrage in May
when clips of "Tomorrow's Pioneers" appeared on YouTube. This
children's show, produced by the Palestinian Hamas movement, promotes
resistance to U.S. imperialism and Israeli occupation and is hosted by
a Mickey Mouse-like character called Farfur.
Pentagon hypocrisy
Of course, it's not only anti-imperialists who are using this
technology. The Minutemen and other Klan types use it. And now the
Pentagon has joined in, hoping to exploit YouTube as a recruiting
device by showing clips of U.S. troops triumphant in battles with "the
enemy" in Iraq.
The Pentagon launched the "Multi-National Forces Iraq" channel in
March. The Los Angeles Times reported that the channel was viewed more
than 120,000 times in its first month.
Now–not coincidentally—the Defense Department has put a blanket ban on
the use of YouTube and 12 other popular information-sharing sites by
U.S. military personnel.
CNN reported May 14: "Iraqi insurgents and their supporters have been
posting videos on YouTube at least since last fall. The Army recently
began posting videos on YouTube showing soldiers defeating insurgents
and befriending Iraqis.
"But the new rules mean many military personnel won't be able to watch
those achievements–at least not on military computers. ... Defense
Department computers and networks are the only ones available to many
soldiers and sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Nobody's buying the government's claim that the ban is needed to save
Defense Department bandwidth. It's an obvious ploy to keep angry and
demoralized U.S. troops from exposing the dire quagmire they find
themselves in or posting videos of Pentagon abuses.
Many military families have expressed outrage, since these sites were
one of the few ways soldiers could keep in touch with their loved ones
at home.
Next up is the 2008 presidential election–already dubbed the "YouTube
Election" by some mainstream pundits. Democratic Party candidates
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are making extensive use of the site.
YouTube and MySpace, the social networking Web site owned by Rupert
Murdoch, are both co-sponsoring primary debates of the Democratic and
Republican candidates. (Los Angeles Times, May 20)
Battle for control
The corporate struggle to dominate YouTube and profit from its
popularity has many similarities to the battle over file-sharing
programs like Napster, which peaked a few years ago with
music-industry lawsuits against students (in some cases, minors) for
swapping music files. While free file sharing still exists, much of it
has been co-opted by pay-per-song sites and file-protected CDs.
However, in the case of YouTube, there is a basis for a much broader
struggle based on the mass, participatory character of video file
sharing—of which the exposures of police brutality are powerful
examples.
Again, the public battle lines are being drawn over the issue of
"copyright protection" and "intellectual property" by mammoth media
companies.
But this is really just a smokescreen. It amounts to positioning by
the media monopolies for a bigger cut of the profits once a way is
eventually found to turn free video sharing into a controllable,
profitable business model.
The real action is going on behind the scenes–the moves to introduce a
video advertising component to YouTube and to develop software to
curtail the site's free-for-all contents and make it more "advertiser
friendly."
The posture of the U.S. capitalist political establishment at this
juncture seems to be to let this process of "free market censorship"
play itself out rather than mount a frontal assault on those who use
the site for progressive and revolutionary ends.
Of course, there is no guarantee that this will remain the case.
Who will control new technology?
Workers World wrote about file-sharing: "The controversy over Napster
raises important issues for the international workers' movement. Chief
among them is: Who will control the revolutionary new technology that
allows the free exchange of music, art and all kinds of information?
"Will it be dominated by capitalists seeking profit? Or will workers
and oppressed people control it?" ("Napster and the right to free
music," WW, Aug. 10, 2000)
YouTube is another example of how technology has outgrown the
constraints of private property and capitalism. What could be more
natural than for people to freely share videos with their community,
family or comrades, down the block or across the ocean?
Yet capitalism must find a way to constrain, control and censor so
that the profit system isn't compromised. The genie must be shoved
back into the bottle by any means necessary.
What is needed is an international struggle for control by YouTube
users, along with communities, organizations of workers and oppressed
people, and unions, to ensure the right of the people to use the
service, end corporate domination and rout the apologists for
imperialism and racism.
It's a fight that can't be confined to the computer keyboard. It must
come out into the streets, as exemplified by those who are using the
technology today to expose police brutality.
Articles copyright 1995-2007 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
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----------------------------------------------------------
Page 1
THE CHEROKEE NATION, ET AL. v. THE UNITED STATES
Appeal No. 5-66, Ind. Cl. Comm. Docket No. 190, 12 Ind. Cl.
Comm. 570
UNITED STATES COURT OF CLAIMS
180 Ct. Cl. 181; 1967 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 80
May 12, 1967, Decided
DISPOSITION: [**1]
Affirmed.
SYLLABUS:
ON APPEAL FROM THE INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION
Indian claims; appeal from Indian Claims Commission. -- The
Indian
petitioners appeal from a decision of the Indian Claims
Commission (12 Ind.
Cl.
Comm. 570 (1963)) dismissing their suit under the Indian
Claims Commission
Act,
25 U.S.C. § 70a, in which appellants had claimed that their
Treaty of July 19,
1866, 14 Stat. 799, guaranteeing former Cherokee slaves the
rights of native
Cherokees, was procured by duress exerted by agents of the
United States,
that
the tribe acted under a unilateral mistake of fact as to the
true meaning of
the
treaty, that their concessions to the freedmen were made
without
consideration,
and that the United States dealt with them in a manner less
than fair and
honorable. It is held that on the basis of the record on
appeal the court
concludes that the Commission's decision is supported by
substantial evidence
and that the Commission correctly applied the law to the
facts of the case.
The
decision of the Commission is affirmed.
COUNSEL:
Paul M. Niebell, attorney of record, for appellants. Earl
Boyd Pierce,
George E. Norvell, Robert D. Hudson, and Oscar C. Essman, of
counsel. [**2]
Frederick C. Ward, Jr., with whom was Assistant Attorney
General Edwin L.
Weisl, Jr., for appellee. Wilma C. Martin, of counsel.
JUDGES:
Cowen, Chief Judge, Laramore, Durfee, Davis, Collins,
Skelton, and Nichols,
Judges.
OPINIONBY:
PER CURIAM
OPINION:
[*182] This is an appeal from a decision of the Indian
Claims Commission
(12 Ind. Cl. Comm. 570 (1963)) dismissing appellant's suit
under Section 2
(3)
and (5) of the Indian Claims Commission Act, 25 U.S.C. §
70a, for revision of
that part of the Treaty of July 19, 1866, 14 Stat. 799,
which provided that
former Cherokee slaves (the so-called Cherokee freedmen)
should have all the
rights of native Cherokees. The claim was that (a) the
Cherokee Nation agreed
to this portion of the treaty as a result of duress exerted
by the agents of
the
Federal Government; (b) the Nation acted under a unilateral
mistake of fact
as
to the meaning and reach of the treaty; (c) no proper
consideration was
provided
by the United States for the tribal property which flowed to
the freedmen as
a
result of the treaty; and (d) the dealings of the United
States with the
Cherokee Nation with respect to this matter were not fair
and honorable.
Recovery [**3] was sought of the value of that portion of
the tribal funds
and
lands which had been distributed to the freedmen (as members
of the Cherokee
Nation).
A trial was had. In a detailed and exhaustive opinion the
Commission
concluded that the appellant had failed to prove a case upon
which relief
could
----------------------------------------------------------
Page 2
be granted. More specifically, [*183] the Commission
determined that "the
plaintiff [appellant] has failed to prove the 1866 treaty or
its antecedent
1865
and 1866 negotiations were attended by duress, fraud,
intimidation,
falsehood,
or mistake. The plaintiff has failed to prove that
consideration was relevant
to the pertinent portions of that treaty. The plaintiff has
failed to prove
that
the 1866 treaty or its antecedent 1865 and 1866 negotiations
were tainted by
unfair or dishonorable dealings on the part of the
defendant. The plaintiff
has
failed to prove that in the allotment of tribal funds and
lands there was any
taking by the defendant which would raise the issue of
unconscionable
consideration." [12 Ind. Cl. Comm. at 643.]
Some two years ago when the Seminole Nation appealed a
companion ruling by
the Commission involving a comparable treaty with that
Nation (12 Ind. [**4]
Cl. Comm. 798 (1963)), we found that the Commission's
decision was "supported
by
substantial evidence and that the Commission correctly
applied the law to the
facts." Seminole Nation v. United States, 171 Ct. Cl. 477
(1965). We are of
the
same view here. The Commission's findings of fact in this
case are sustained
by
substantial evidence in the record as a whole, and its
material legal rulings
were correct. There is no need to go over again the ground
which the
Commission
has so thoroughly covered in its findings and opinion. We
affirm its decision
substantially for the reasons it gave.
Affirmed.<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR>
See what's
free at http://www.aol.com.</HTML>
Media Advisory
Press
conference
What:
A white Veteran Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Deputy Garrett Shah says
mistreatment of African-Americans and
minority's are widespread,
His legal team of advisors will make
public a lawsuit that has been filed by
Deputy Shah in United States District
Court. Shah is suing the county Sheriff’s Department
for wrongful retaliatory conduct against him for his
refusal to participate in abusive and discriminatory
practices against African-Americans.
Shah,33,calls himself a
“whistle blower” against an anti-African-American
culture that thoroughly pervades the Sheriff’s
Department — from the jail cells the deputies
control, down to the neighborhood streets they
patrol.
In his complaint,Shah states that he has observed
sheriff’s deputies plant illegal items on
African-Americans, use neighboring law enforcement
agencies to make unwarranted arrests of blacks and
lie in court proceedings about their wrongful
acts.Civil rights activist Najee Ali Director of
Project Islamic HOPE
will call for a federal investigation
of the Sheriffs Department.
“It doesn't have to be a ‘Rodney King-type’
thing,”“We don't have to lay a
hand on you. It’s in what we write and what we
say. All we have to do is
write it down and say it and it’s gospel. We can
go anywhere in any city
in this county and do what we want.
“If we don't like somebody or are in a mood for
mischief, we write a report on that person that
jams them up forever,“And it happens more
frequently to African-Americans then to anybody
else.
“There are a lot of Deputy Sheriffs who hate
black people, all black people: males, females,
old, young, rich, poor. They don't have to be
gang member, they don't care.“They treat blacks
worse than any other people — whites, Latinos,
Asians. They treat blacks like they aren't even
human. I've seen
some horrible treatment of blacks. And I've had
all I'm going to take,
because it makes no sense." Stated Deputy
Sheriff Garrett Shah.
" Deputy Shah is only confirming what many
Blacks have said for years,
that the LA. County Sheriffs department has
rouge deputy's who
are racist,abusive, and corrupt. Now we have a
White deputy who has
come forward publicly to help confirm what
Black activists has said for
decades" stated Najee Ali,director of Project
Islamic HOPE
Press conference Date : Wednesday May
30,2007
Time: Noon
Where: Leimert Park ( Crenshaw and Vernon
)
3415 W.43rd Place Los Angeles
CA 90043
Confirmed speakers: Deputy Garrett
Shah,and his legal advisors.
Najee
Ali,CEO Project Islamic HOPE.
Rev
K.W.Tulloss,Making A Difference Foundation.
Contact: Project Islamic HOPE Najee Ali
(323) 350-1065 cell
Official
Press release from –The International Indigenous Society
– Abannaki Aboriginal Nation of Moors
In
Response to “Space Alien Diplomats” Issue
The True
Story Told
Contact
Office 215-917-2096
Voicemail
215 279-6116
Email
isisworld19@yahoo.com,
webmaster@blacklaws19.4t.com
Chief
Executive Minister Abdul Ali Muhammad ©
·
The International Society of
Indigenous Sovereigns [I.S.I.S.] is an International
Confederation of Aboriginal Nations that advocates the
Sovereignty of Aboriginal Peoples and the restoration of
Indigenous Governments.
·
The International Indigenous
Society is an Indigenous International Organization that
acts on behalf of the International Society of
Indigenous Sovereigns advocating the political
objectives of the International Society of Indigenous
Sovereigns [I.S.I.S.]
·
The Abannaki Aboriginal
Nation of Moors [Misnomer Delaware/Lenni Lenape/Miqmaq]
is the oldest Aboriginal Nation in North America and the
Imperial Seat of I.S.I.S.
·
The following press release
was prepared by the National Headquarters of the
International Society of Indigenous Sovereigns for
release to the general International media.
·
Official Statement from
Chief Executive Minister Abdul-Ali Muhammad
“Our International
Confederation, International Organization and Aboriginal
Nation have been unlawfully violated by the Trenton
Police Department and the Trentonian News paper of the
City of Trenton. As we are a foreign government in
respect to the United States who have a permanent
allegiance to the United States expressed through
treaties we will pursue Justice in the proper methods
according to Treaties, International Law and proper
application of laws in the U.S. in respect to the
unlawful arrests of our officials and the unlawful
confiscation of property of our government and
officials. It is my opinion based on communication and
interaction with the Trenton Police and the Trentonian
newspaper that both entities were unaware of the
severity of the situation and the unlawfulness of their
actions. Although they may have been unaware of our
official status, both entities were given an opportunity
to correct their violations of law after meeting with
them. We know that Ignorance of the law is no excuse for
the Officers and journalists responsible; however we
were generous enough to provide all of the appropriate
information to both entities to verify that their
allegations and statements were bogus Both the Trenton
Police and The Trentonian had an opportunity to verify
the following:
·
Our Status as an Aboriginal
government that is foreign to the United States
·
Our Documents from the United
States Department of State sealed with the great Seal of
the United States and signed by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice that verify that we are an Aboriginal
Nation and International Confederation of Aboriginal
Nations that has treaties with the United States Federal
Government and that our actions, while in full accord
with the Treaties of agreement between our Aboriginal
Nations and the United States, are not against United
States Law or Policy.
·
We provided direct contacts
to the United States Department of State – Chief
Authentications Officer Denitra Hawkins # 202 663-1848-
The purpose of the contact was for the verification of
our Documents # 06013144-1 which are for the purpose of
being used in International correspondence and in Courts
as evidence of our status. This exactly what our
Ministers were doing while communicating with the
foreign venue [State of New Jersey Police Officers]
·
Proof that our Ministers were
not residents of the State of New Jersey. If they had
been then they would have been required to have New
Jersey registration, insurance, and a New Jersey
Driver’s license in conformity with the New Jersey Motor
Vehicle Code. Our Official residence is in Poverty Point
Louisiana [Washitaw Indigenous Lands, which is in North
America on Indigenous Lands and is not considered a part
of the United States per land patent release # 923
[1991].
·
Title 18 Protections for
Foreign officials [foreign to United States] and the
protections of their propertiesDue to the rejection of
the offer to the Trenton Police to follow the laws of
the New Jersey State Motor vehicle code which our
Indigenous Ministers were in perfect conformity with,
due to the harassment, intimidation, threat, duress,
coercion, unlawful arrest and unlawful/illegal seizure
of the property of an Aboriginal Government that is
foreign to the United States, and due to the slander,
libel, and defamation of character of Trenton Police in
the Trentonian newspaper and Trentonian Staff
[Journalists Jack Knarr] and Editors, the International
Society of Indigenous Sovereigns-Abannaki Aboriginal
Nation had decided to sue both entities for Federal Tort
Claims and Criminal Activity under The United States
Constitution, Treaties, and Title 18 [United States
Code] violations upon foreign officials.
The following notes are a
record of the events that transpired in this case
between Our Nation and the Trenton Police, Trentonian
News Paper, and Courts of the State of New Jersey
3-12-07 Chief Protocol
Minister Born El Bey and Minister Abdul-Amin Ali are
unlawfully arrested by Trenton Police for carrying
Native American Nationality Cards and traveling in
government automobiles of the Abannaki Aboriginal Nation
and International Society of Indigenous Sovereigns.
3-13-07 Minister Abdul Amin
Ali is released by Judge Lawson McElroy
3-13-07 An Automobile
belonging to I.S.I.S. Abannaki Nation is unlawfully
stolen by a towing company at around 4:30 am at Anderson
and Hewitt Streets. The vehicle was not unlawfully
parked, was registered, insured, and in conformity with
all laws applicable.
3-14-07 Chief Executive
Minister Abdul-Ali Muhammad testifies before Judge
Lawson McElroy on behalf of Protocol Minister Born El
Bey verifying the Nationality of Minister Born El Bey.
Judge McElroy orders the release of Minister Born El Bey.
Trenton Police violate the judicial order and unlawfully
detain a foreign official of an Aboriginal Government
due to allegations of a speeding ticket detainer that is
14 years old.
3-14-07 Chief Executive
Minister Abdul-Ali Muhammad communicates with Sergeant
Dave McGinnis of the Grand Jury of the Superior Court of
New Jersey in order to verify his status as Governmental
Head of the International Society of Indigenous
Sovereigns – Abannaki Aboriginal Nation of Moors and to
provide documents from the United States of State. The
purpose of this communication was to insure that the
false allegations of false documents and false
Government documents [which are indictable offenses] is
dealt with speedily [dismissed] and the government
property [3 automobiles and various belongings and Money
of Ministers] registered with I.S.I.S. is returned upon
judicial investigation. Sergeant Dave McGinnis copies
the federal documents and the Aboriginal Nation’s
documents and records them in the office of the
Prosecutor of the Superior Court of New Jersey
3-14-07 Chief Executive
Abdul-Ali Muhammad and Assistant Ministers Fareed
Ishmael and Anthony Ali Bey meet with Captain Fred
Reester, Joseph Juniak, and another Lieutenant of the
Trenton Police at Police Headquarters to discuss the
status of the unlawful arrest of Ministers of the
Abannaki Nation and unlawful seizure of the Property of
an Aboriginal Government. The Police are provided with
the documents they requested prior to the meeting. They
agree to call the United States Department of State to
verify the documents and releases all property and
Ministers upon verification.
3-14-07 The Trentonian, a
local newspaper in the City of Trenton, releases a front
page newspaper story directed towards the International
Society of Indigenous Sovereigns and Abannaki Nation
calling Ministers of the Nation “Space Alien Diplomats”,
and taking information from the website of a group
called the ‘Universal Zulu Nation’ in order to carry out
character assassination and defamation upon I.S.I.S. and
the Abannaki Aboriginal National and its Ministers. The
newspaper also prints a plate on the front page that is
inscribed with the words D-Fraud and issued by the
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE. This is not an
automobile plate of I.S.I.S. or the Abannaki Nation but
is depicted as such. The Trentonian makes many false
statements about the Aboriginal Nation.
3-15-07 The International
Indigenous Society and Abannaki Nation make an official
statement via one of its weekly newsletters called the
Real Deal Weekly about the true activity of the Nation’s
correspondence with the Trenton Police and in response
to the slander libel and defamation of the Trentonian
[See Attached Info]
3-16-07 Chief Minister Louis
Diaz Ali El was arrested for ownership of a Nationality
card of the Aboriginal Nation. His automobile which was
registered with the Abannaki Nation was unlawfully
seized. Minister Louis Diaz Ali El is released in 3
hours.3-17-07 National Headquarters of the Abannaki
Nation provides Captain Joseph Juniak with United States
Department of State contact [Chief Authentications
Officer Denitra Hawkins] to verify the authenticity of
US DOS Document # 06013144-1 of the International
Society of Indigenous Sovereigns Chief Executive
Minister Abdul Ali Muhammad by Fax.
3-17-07 Ministers of Abannaki
Nation go to meet Captain Joseph Juniak in person at
Police Headquarters to provide contact information to
the U.S. Department of State to verify the authenticity
of their Documents from the U.S. Department of State.
Although Joseph Juniak was reported as present by the
Building Guard he was nowhere to be found.
3-19-07 Ministers of Abannaki
Nation go to meet Captain Joseph Juniak in person at
Police Headquarters to provide contact information to
the U.S. Department of State to verify the authenticity
of their Documents from the U.S. Department of State.
Chief Executive Minister Abdul-Ali Muhammad provides
Captain Joseph Juniak with the proper contact
information inside the US DOS [Chief Authentications
Officer Denitra Hawkins contact # 202 663-1848]. Captain
Juniak refuses to call to verify the documents and tells
Chief Executive Minister Abdul-Ali Muhammad that he has
been demoted.
3-19-07 Ministers of Abannaki
Nation go to Mayor’s Office City of Trenton - Citizens
Concerned Unit and makes an official 5 page report to
Mayor Douglass Palmer’s staff [Duewa Edwards Dixone and
Phyllis Holly-Ward]. In less than 2 hours Duewa Edwards
Dixone calls Chief Executive Minister Abdul-Ali Muhammad
and communicates that Mayor Douglass Palmer will be
unable to meet with the National Ministers and that the
matter was being investigated by Federal Agencies. No
Federal Agencies have contacted the Abannaki Nation as
of 4-11-07 although the matter has been public since
3-13-07.
3-20-07 Minister Abdul-Amin
Ali sets 4-11 court date in Superior Court
3-20-07 Minister Born El Bey
is finally released after Ministers discharge a 14 year
old traffic ticket After 7 days of being detained
unlawfully after a judicial order of release by Judge
Lawson McElroy on 3-14-07 Minister Born El Bey is the
last I.S.I.S. Minister released.4-11-07
Court dates for Minister
Abdul Amin-Ali, Minister Born El Bey, and Minster Louis
Diaz Ali El, Minister Jabbar Ali El are set for 4-11 –
07 at Superior Court of New Jersey
Article of 3-15-07 from the International Indigenous
Society
CONSPIRACY ON INDIGENOUS NATION EXPOSED
Trenton Police Department Meets Secretly with Indigenous
Nation to Verify their Federal & International Status
DocumentsThen Trentonian Times Jack Knarr Starts Slander
Campaign
The International
Indigenous Society Chief Executive Abdul-Ali Muhammad
along with Assistant Indigenous Ministers met yesterday
with Captain of Trenton Police Fred Riester and Joseph
Juniak to verify their Status as an Aboriginal Nation.
The presiding Official of the Aboriginal National
Abdul-Ali Muhammad made these comments to the Real Deal
Weekly,”
We formally met with the Police Captain Fred Riester
and Northwest Captain Joseph Juniak at Police
Headquarters. We provided our Federal Documents signed
by the Secretary of State of the United States
Condoleezza Rice and sealed with the Great Seal of the
United States. We also presented our International
Protections based on the United Nations Charter which
the United States is subject to as a member of the
United Nations [see United Nations Permanent forum of
Indigenous Issues Website
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/
]. The Law enforcement officers were not very familiar
with the Constitution, International Law, and State
Constitutional Law. Despite this the meeting was
productive and cleared up a lot of the problems. I
expected that officers who oath themselves to support
both the state and federal Constitutions would be more
knowledgeable of their oath”.
Police Director Joseph Santiago was not present at the
Wednesday meeting with the Abannaki Nation however his
Captain Fred Riester and Joseph Juniak were. They
witnessed the federal paperwork and International
Protections of the Aboriginal Nation. They did not make
any accusations of fraud at the meeting after witnessing
the paperwork. All State Officers pledge to support and
defend the United States Constitution which includes all
Treaties that protect Native Americans and Indigenous
Peoples on the National and International Level. The
Aboriginal Nation plans to sue Trentonian Times [Jack
Knarr] for slander, libel and defamation of character.
Trenton Police had seized
three automobiles that belonged to the Aboriginal Nation
and arrested two Nationals/Citizens. The vehicles were
registered and insured by the Aboriginal NationChief
Minister Abdul-Ali Muhammad was allowed to speak on
behalf of Minister Born El Bey on yesterday before Judge
Lawson McElroy. Judge McElroy after hearing the
Testimony of the Chief released Born El Bey on his own
recognizance. Officers of the Trenton Police violated
the judicial order and held Minister Born El Bey on
faulty charges against judicial Authority.
Chief
Minister Muhammad stated that he had already
communicated the Nation’s documents to the Sergeant of
the Grand Jury of the Mercer County Prosecutors office
David McGinnis on Tuesday to rectify any problems. The
Chief stated,
“These local officers and state officers
were in direct violation of the New Jersey State
Constitution, the New Jersey State Motor Vehicle Code,
the U.S. Constitution, and International Law. I am
surprised at how ignorant they are. We plan to sue Jack
Knarr of the Trentonian for slander, libel, defamation
of character, and generally misrepresenting the facts of
this case.” Article
provided by International Indigenous Society©
Published: December 16, 2005
Washington
Post
Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts for White
Skin
By Rick Weiss
Original Research .pdf Article:
Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a
tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first
appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of
years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's
most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of
humanity's greatest sources of strife.
The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation
occurred by chance in a single individual after the
first human exodus from Africa, when all
people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring
apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what
is now Europe, helping to give rise to the
lightest of the world's races.
Leaders of the study, at Penn State University,
warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery
of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined
biological, social and political concept, they noted,
and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is
not.
In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows
just how small a biological difference is reflected by
skin color. The newly found mutation involves a change
of just one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion
letters in the human genome -- the complete instructions
for making a human being.
"It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said
Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological
genetics at Oxford University, who was not
involved in the work. "Almost all the differences used
to differentiate populations from around the world
really are skin deep."
The work raises a raft of new questions -- not least of
which is why white skin caught on so thoroughly in
northern climes once it arose. Some scientists suggest
that lighter skin offered a strong survival advantage
for people who migrated out of
Africa by boosting their levels of bone-strengthening vitamin D;
others have posited that its novelty and showiness
simply made it more attractive to those seeking mates.
The work also reveals for the first time that Asians owe
their relatively light skin to different mutations. That
means that light skin arose independently at least twice
in human evolution, in each case affecting populations
with the facial and other traits that today are commonly
regarded as the hallmarks of Caucasian and Asian races.
Several sociologists and others said they feared that
such revelations might wrongly overshadow the prevailing
finding of genetics over the past 10 years: that the
number of DNA differences between races is tiny compared
with the range of genetic diversity found within any
single racial group.
Even study leader Keith Cheng said he was at first
uncomfortable talking about the new work, fearing that
the finding of such a clear genetic difference between
people of African and European ancestries might reawaken
discredited assertions of other purported inborn
differences between races -- the most long-standing and
inflammatory of those being intelligence.
"I think human beings are extremely insecure and look to
visual cues of sameness to feel better, and people will
do bad things to people who look different," Cheng said.
The discovery, described in today's issue of the journal
Science, was an unexpected outgrowth of studies Cheng
and his colleagues were conducting on inch-long zebra
fish, which are popular research tools for geneticists
and developmental biologists. Having identified a gene
that, when mutated, interferes with its ability to make
its characteristic black stripes, the team scanned human
DNA databases to see if a similar gene resides in
people.
To their surprise, they found virtually identical
pigment-building genes in humans, chickens, dogs, cows
and many others species, an indication of its biological
value.
They got a bigger surprise when they looked in a new
database comparing the genomes of four of the world's
major racial groups. That showed that whites with
northern and western European ancestry have a mutated
version of the gene.
Skin color is a reflection of the amount and
distribution of the pigment melanin, which in humans
protects against damaging ultraviolet rays but in other
species is also used for camouflage or other purposes.
The mutation that deprives zebra fish of their stripes
blocks the creation of a protein whose job is to move
charged atoms across cell membranes, an obscure process
that is crucial to the accumulation of melanin inside
cells.
Humans of European descent, Cheng's team found, bear a
slightly different mutation that hobbles the same
protein with similar effect. The defect does not affect
melanin deposition in other parts of the body, including
the hair and eyes, whose tints are under the control of
other genes.
A few genes have previously been associated with human
pigment disorders -- most notably those that, when
mutated, lead to albinism, an extreme form of pigment
loss. But the newly found glitch is the first found to
play a role in the formation of "normal" white skin. The
Penn State team calculates that the gene, known as
slc24a5, is responsible for about one-third of the
pigment loss that made black skin white. A few other
as-yet-unidentified mutated genes apparently account for
the rest.
Although precise dating is impossible, several
scientists speculated on the basis of its spread and
variation that the mutation arose between 20,000 and
50,000 years ago. That would be consistent with research
showing that a wave of ancestral humans migrated
northward and eastward out of Africa about
50,000 years ago.
Unlike most mutations, this one quickly overwhelmed its
ancestral version, at least in
Europe, suggesting it had a real benefit. Many scientists suspect
that benefit has to do with vitamin D, made in the body
with the help of sunlight and critical to proper bone
development.
Sun intensity is great enough in equatorial regions that
the vitamin can still be made in dark-skinned people
despite the ultraviolet shielding effects of melanin. In
the north, where sunlight is less intense and cold
weather demands that more clothing be worn, melanin's
ultraviolet shielding became a liability, the thinking
goes.
Today that solar requirement is largely irrelevant
because many foods are supplemented with vitamin D.
Some scientists said they suspect that white skin's
rapid rise to genetic dominance may also be the product
of "sexual selection," a phenomenon of evolutionary
biology in which almost any new and showy trait in a
healthy individual can become highly prized by those
seeking mates, perhaps because it provides evidence of
genetic innovativeness.
Cheng and co-worker Victor A. Canfield said their
discovery could have practical spinoffs. A gene so
crucial to the buildup of melanin in the skin might be a
good target for new drugs against melanoma, for example,
a cancer of melanin cells in which slc24a5 works
overtime.
But they and others agreed that, for better or worse,
the finding's most immediate impact may be an escalating
debate about the meaning of race.
Recent revelations that all people are more than 99.9
percent genetically identical has proved that race has
almost no biological validity. Yet geneticists' claims
that race is a phony construct have not rung true to
many nonscientists -- and understandably so, said Vivian
Ota Wang of the National Human Genome Research Institute
in Bethesda.
"You may tell people that race isn't real and doesn't
matter, but they can't catch a cab," Ota Wang said. "So
unless we take that into account it makes us sound
crazy."
Reference:
Published: December 16, 2005
The New York Times
Gene That Determines Skin Color Is
Discovered, Scientists Report
By Nicholas Wade
A gene that is responsible for the pale skin of
Europeans and the dark skin of Africans has been
discovered by scientists at Pennsylvania State
University.
The gene comes in two versions, one of which is found in
99 percent of Europeans and the other in 93 to 100
percent of Africans, the researchers report in today's
issue of Science.
The gene is unusual because with most human genes,
different versions are generally shared, though one
version may be more common in one race than another. One
exception is the Duffy null allele, a version of a gene
that prevents malaria, that is found almost exclusively
in one race, sub-Saharan Africans.
The new gene falls into the same category as the Duffy
gene, and it may shed light on the evolutionary
pressures to which Europeans were subjected as their
ancestors, who were presumably dark skinned, moved into
the northern latitudes some 40,000 years ago.
Humans acquired dark skins in Africa about
1.5 million years ago to shield their newly hairless
bodies from the sun. Its ultra-violet rays destroy folic
acid, a shortage of which leads to birth defects.
But when the modern humans who left Africa
began to live in northern latitudes, they needed more
sunlight to penetrate the skin, to permit the chemical
reaction that produces vitamin D.
The new gene was first identified not in humans but in a
mutant zebra fish, a small striped fish common in
aquariums. The mutant fish are known as golden, because
their stripes, usually black, are much paler and their
bodies more yellow.
Dr. Keith C. Cheng, an author of the report, and his
colleagues showed that the golden version of the fish
gene altered production of melanosomes, the tiny black
particles of pigments that give skin its color.
The researchers then found that in humans, who have
their own form of the gene, the version common in
Africans allowed larger melanosomes, which tend to clump
together, whereas the version in Europeans produced
smaller and more dispersed melanosomes.
Asians have the same version of the gene as Africans, so
they presumably acquired their light skin through the
action of some other gene that affects skin color, said
Dr. Cheng.
Mark D. Shriver, another author of the article, said his
laboratory was trying to assess when the European
version of the gene became so common, as well its
geographical origin.
The intense selective pressure that drove the version to
become universal in Europeans may have included sexual
selection.
"In Africa
people are much darker than they need to be for UV
protection, so to me that screams sexual selection," Dr.
Shriver said. Black skin, in other words, may have been
favored by men and women in sexual partners, just as
pale skin may have been preferred in sexual partners
among Europeans and Asians.
SUMNER M.
REDSTONE RACIST GARBAGE PROGRAMMING
It is amazing how today's images are just as
degrading as those of yesterday... The chairman of Viacom (Sumner
Rothstein aka Sumner Redstone) should know better... He lived during
those racist movies and commercials... His father's movie theaters
probably ran some of those degrading images of black people... His
executives know what he wants (and not want) and they go to work...
I bet they will not run images that are harmful to Mr. Rothstein's
community... So, they put in their garbage ideas, find willing
subjects and output racist and hurtful garbage...
BY Opio
Race Divide
A white gang member is charged with
threatening a black student in Pasadena
By CHRISTINE
PELISEK
Wednesday, August 9, 2006 -
6:00 pm
|
James Campbell |
A member of a gang notorious for terrorizing African
Americans has been charged with pointing a gun at a 17-year-old
black student after summer-school classes at Blair High School
in Pasadena. The confrontation was the second assault on a black
youth in the last month by Avenues gang members from Highland
Park.
Thirty-seven-year-old James “Drifter” Campbell, who is white,
was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon and criminal
threats. He was arrested outside a drug store in Highland Park
by Los Angeles and Pasadena law-enforcement officials on August
3.
According to Pasadena Police Department Commander John Perez,
Casey Carter had just finished classes for the day and was
leaving campus on July 17 when Campbell, who is the father of a
girl Carter was dating, yelled out to him. Carter crossed the
street to speak to Campbell when the gang member pointed a gun
at him. The two exchanged words and Campbell drove off.
“It is going to take several prosecutions before [authorities]
get their message across that this kind of behavior won’t be
tolerated,” said a law-enforcement official who is familiar with
the Avenues and the July 17 incident. “I believe it was racially
motivated.”
According to the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, Campbell has been in and out of state prison
since 1989. In 1996, he began an eight-year prison term for
voluntary manslaughter. He returned to prison again in 2004
after he was caught with a bulletproof vest. Two months ago, on
June 9, a few days after he was paroled, he was shot in the
chest just after 5 p.m. in a parking lot in Glassell Park by
rival gang members. Bullet casings from two handguns and an
AK-47 were found at the scene.
In an unrelated case, Zelvin Reyes, a 17-year-old graduate of
Lincoln High School, was shot to death July 22 after attending a
party on Avenue 40 — Avenues gang territory. Police are trying
to determine whether members of the Aves 43, a clique of the
larger Avenues gang, were involved in the slaying, which
followed a fight between gang members and a black teen during a
party of 100 or so mostly high school students. According to
law-enforcement sources, gang members confronted the black teen,
who was singing, and told him to “shut the fuck up.” Reyes, who
is Latino, was leaving the party when a second run-in occurred
between gang members and the black teen and other partygoers.
One of the gang members pulled out a gun. No one has been
arrested in connection with the slaying.
Both incidents occurred as four Avenues gang members faced trial
in federal court in downtown L.A. for a series of racially
motivated attacks against blacks who lived in Highland Park
between 1995 and 2001. Federal prosecutors contended that the
gang members threatened, intimidated and beat African Americans
who dared to make Highland Park their home, and ultimately
killed three black residents. Kenneth Kurry Wilson, 38, was shot
to death by a van full of Avenues gang members early on a Sunday
morning on April 18, 1999, as he was attempting to park a
Cadillac on Avenue 52, a tree-lined street just a short jog from
Figueroa Street. The next year, Christopher Bowser, 28, was shot
three times in the head while he was waiting at a bus stop.
Bowser, who had lived in Highland Park with his mother since
1989, had been regularly chased down the street, threatened and,
just eight days before his death, was beaten by the Aves 43 set.
A third victim, 21-year-old Anthony Prudhomme, an aspiring music
producer, was attacked in his bed and shot twice in the head.
The four-week trial marked the first use of a federal hate-crime
statute against a street gang by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. On
August 2, after deliberating for just over two days, the jury
found the defendants, Gilbert “Lucky” Saldana, 27; Alejandro
“Bird” Martinez, 29; Fernando “Sneaky” Cazares, 26; and Porfirio
“Dreamer” Avila, 31 — all members of the Aves 43 — guilty of
conspiring to interfere with the housing rights of black
residents through threats and violence. Cazares, Martinez and
Saldana were also found guilty of violating a federal hate-crime
statute, which is based on the 13th Amendment, which outlawed
slavery, by killing Wilson because of his race and while he was
on a public street. They were also found guilty of using a
firearm. The four will likely serve life sentences. A fifth
defendant, Merced Cambero, 27, who is alleged to have fired the
shot that killed Wilson, is currently a fugitive.
__._,_.___
Politrix: Wars and Rumors of Wars
By Bro. Tony Muhammad
Politrix2012@yahoo.com
www.uannetwork.com
With the current fighting taking
place in US occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, US conflicts with Iran and
North Korea over “nuclear weapons,” the fighting going on in UN occupied
Haiti, the conflicts between Somalia and “War on Terror” ally Ethiopia
and the most hyped about war between Israel and Lebanon, we are closer
to the possibility of what would be considered a World War III more so
than ever before. Yet, in my travels throughout several cities this
summer I notice that peoples’ attitudes are unusually calm, especially
in New York which experienced the worst attack on a civilian population
anywhere on this earth just five years ago. It seems like we, as people
living in the US, don’t know the true meaning of “cause and effect;”
that is, how the foreign policy of our government truly affects how
other people in the world view us. Perhaps mixed into this
psycho-developmental problem is our historical amnesia; that is, the
belief that things are all of a sudden magically “all good” – not just
in the areas of our own safety, but also other issues including
violence, racism, sexism and classism.
With all of this being said,
ultimately from experience I can say that there is a much larger war
that is currently being fought. Some simply say that it is “cultural”
or merely a “gap between the generations.” I would say that it is
beyond this and truly beyond any conspiracy theories or rumors of
conspiracy. It is, in fact, a war for the control of our minds.
Just so I could make this more
relatable to some of you, let’s take the liberating aspect of Hip Hop
culture for instance. “Back in the day,” it was encouraged by everyone
within the culture to not “bite” (copy any one else’s style), be
creative and develop our own identity around whatever we were into.
This included style of dress, musical approach and even thinking. On a
larger level, every city and every area of the country had their own
general styles in these areas. While there may have been some regional
(not too serious) rifts here and there, we were still able to claim the
fact that we had our own identities.
But somewhere along the lines
corporate America took the music from the culture, altered it (for a
“general audience”) and started to do what it never did before – it had
the music playing on commercial radio on prime time hours, in some cases
on stations that prior to this refused to play Hip Hop at all. It had
the music videos playing outside of its scheduled time slots on MTV.
(i.e. remember Yo! MTV Raps?) With this development, only a few artists
were able to shine while the mass majority, many of whom remained
creative and original, were left on the back burner. So now corporate
America is in control of telling you what is Hip Hop and what is “hot
and what is “not.” Just like how now you can expect to encounter
Walgreen’s, Wal-Mart, CVS, Chili’s and Starbucks when you travel to any
major city in this country, you can expect the people there to dress,
sound and even think the same.
I was recently shocked to
encounter New Yorkers dressing with extra long tees, flashing blinged
out grills and speaking and rapping with drawn out accents as if they
were living in the “Dirty South.” This is in the same way that I was
shocked to find my old neighborhood in Jamaica, Queens invaded by CVS
stores. I walked into a “bodega” (small Latin owned corner store) and
was startled by the owner who was overjoyed that I decided to buy a
bottle of water there rather than the CVS store. I was shocked to find
that 90% of the music played in New York urban radio is currently “Dirty
South.” Mind you, we’re talking about the birthplace of Hip Hop here.
I found much of the same in Philadelphia and Chicago.
Since the culture of what’s “hot”
currently encourages young people to be ignorant rather than informed
about the realities of the world that affect them the most, for the most
part they don’t see the purpose in taking the time to pay attention to
the news. On the internet, they would rather spend hours downloading
their favorite music. Whatever news they do get, they get it in the
form of sound bites on the 11’oclock – and many at times not with full
understanding. This is even more problematic when considering that
roughly 90% of all media is owned and controlled by just a handful of
companies. It becomes a condition of being locked up and trapped into a
cloned type of thinking and living – in other words, a Matrix.
I can safely say that Hip Hop,
while still in it’s most creatively cultural and political stage (in the
80s and early 90s) saved my life because it taught me to be comfortable
to be myself and how to think for myself. For those of you that are
into Hip Hop (or even if you are not) and you are looking to get a
broader perspective on the world, I encourage you to visit the following
web sites just for starters:
Davey.com
Blackelectorate.com
Chicotown.com
Allhiphop.com
Worldnews.com
Industryears.com
Guerrillanews.com
Next issue we will tackle the
question of “Once we are out of ‘The Matrix,’ how do we reach out to
others that are still trapped in it in the best of manners?”
Until then, Peace!
White supremacists and neo-Nazis are
infiltrating the U.S. military because recruiters
and commanding officers are looking the other way.
Demand that the military adopt a
zero-tolerance policy, now.
|
|
Dear Loleta,
A growing number of white supremacists and
neo-Nazis are infiltrating the U.S. military, and the military is
letting it happen.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)--which
has monitored hate groups for over 20 years--recently issued a
report detailing how recruiters and commanding officers, under
pressure to meet wartime manpower goals, have been relaxing
standards designed to weed out racist extremists.[1]
Donald Rumsfeld, despite being directly asked by the SPLC to address
the problem, has been silent.
Meanwhile, white supremacist organizations are
encouraging their members to join the military so they can receive
the best military training in the world, in preparation for race
war.
This is insane, and it has to stop now.
Thankfully, Reps. Artur Davis (AL) and Eliot Engel (NY) have taken
up the issue. Today, along with 30 other representatives, they will
propose a resolution demanding that Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld immediately adopt a clear, strict zero-tolerance policy
towards racist extremism in the military and conduct a full
investigation into the problem.[2]
This isn't a partisan issue--it's a basic
American issue. Every member of Congress should be on board. You can
help by calling on your representative to support the resolution.
And once you've taken action, please let your friends and family
know. It takes only a moment.
http://www.colorofchange.org/military/?id=2139-62873
In 1996, shortly after a Black couple was
gunned down by neo-Nazi Army paratroopers in a racially-motivated
murder, the Pentagon launched a massive investigation and crackdown
on racist extremists in the military, and made its restrictions on
extremist activity more clear.
But that was during peacetime. The occupation
in Iraq is putting enormous pressure on the military to keep
enlistment up, and the current restrictions aren't clear or strict
enough to prevent today's desperate recruiters from looking the
other way to fulfill their quota, or to ensure that officers in the
military will kick out soldiers who are discovered to be involved in
hate groups. In fact, a Department of Defense investigator has said
that out of hundreds of white supremacist soldiers he's discovered
and reported to the military, only a handful have been discharged.[1]
Neo-nazi and white supremacist groups are on
the rise -- the number of hate groups has grown 33% since 2000[3].
Many of these groups advocate violence and dream of all-out race war
and genocide. It's frightening to know that many of them are serving
in Iraq, and that when they come back, they'll be able to draw on
their experience fighting there as they think about how to
accomplish their goals.
Dangerous white supremacists should not receive
military training, have access to U.S. taxpayer financed weapons,
serve alongside our brothers and sisters in the military, or fight
in Iraq or anywhere else. It's dangerous for other American
soldiers, for Iraqis, and for this country, and the military should
do everything in its power to stop it.
Three weeks ago the Southern Poverty Law Center
called on Donald Rumsfeld to address this problem. He hasn't yet
responded. This week, Reps Artur Davis and Eliot Engel delivered a
letter signed by 40 members of Congress to Rumsfeld and will be
bringing a resolution to the House floor asking Rumsfeld to take
immediate action.
Please join us by calling on your
representatives to support the resolution. Our military shouldn't be
a breeding ground for white supremacy and other forms of racist
extremism.
Thank You and Peace,
-- James, Van, Gabriel, Clarissa, and the rest
of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 27th, 2006
References:
1. "A Few Bad Men," Intelligence Report,
Southern Poverty Law Center, Summer 2006
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=66
2. "Congressmen Davis, Engel, Urge Rumsfeld to
Apply Zero Tolerance to Racist Extremists In Our Military" (press
release), July 25, 2006
http://colorofchange.org/military/davis_engel.html
http://colorofchange.org/military/signed.pdf
3. "The Year In Hate, 2005," Intelligence
Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Spring 2006
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=627
4. "White supremacists enlisting in military,
watchdog report says," San Francisco Chronicle, July 7, 2006
http://colorofchange.org/ref/mil2.html
5. "Racist extremists active in U.S. military"
(press release), Southern Poverty Law Center, July 7, 2006
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=197
6. "White supremacists are enlisting in
military to prepare for race war," Courier-Journal
(Louisville, Kentucky), July 13, 2006
http://colorofchange.org/ref/mil3.html
7. "Lawmakers: Discharge extremists,"
Montgomery Advertiser
http://colorofchange.org/ref/mil1.html
A Defining Issue for
African Americans:
Saving the Child Night Commuters
Dear Friends of Black People World Wide:
There
are thousands of children that will travel 7 - 10 miles by foot tonight
just to sleep in partial safety. Many of them will sleep on the ground.
I went to bed tonight at 10pm only to awake at 2am because I could not
sleep knowing that our babies are going through this hell tonight (and
every night). About 2 months ago, I interviewed some college students
that were sleeping outside to
bring
attention to the "child night commuters” in the northern region of
Uganda
. These college students were all white. My procrastination
and inaction has caused me to lose sleep over this. So, I make this plea
for your help in this most serious cause. Because these are African
children, I believe African-American elected officials, media and
activists must take action. And, we all should do something.
I
ask that you please:
1.) Send an
email
and/or
call the chairman
of the Congressional
Black Caucus (Rep. Melvin L. Watt) and ask that the Caucus take
the lead and immediate action on this issue. You may even forward him
this email at
nc12.public@mail.house.gov
or call him at (202) 225-1510.
2.) Send this email to your list of
people who will forward it to others who care about Black people.
3.) Learn more about this (at
www.Poli-Tainment.com) and
mention it to
one other person you know - in person.
Thank you for caring about OUR babies.
Your Friend,
Opio Lumumba Sokoni
ABOUT THE CHILD NIGHT COMMUTERS
Children continue to be the main casualties in the 20-year-old war in
northern Uganda between
government forces and rebels who are known as the Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA). The LRA has abducted more than 20,000 children. These boys and
girls are beaten, tortured, raped, forced to fight, and sometimes
killed.
Night Commuters
Terrified
of being abducted by the LRA at night, as many as 40,000 children leave
their rural homes every evening. Known as "night commuters," these
children walk to neighbouring towns (including Gulu, Pader, and Kitgum).
They sleep on the street or in public buildings. They hope there is
safety in numbers.
Abducted Children
Abducted children are often forced to murder
their own family members and burn down their villages. The LRA does this
to make the children believe they won't be welcomed back to their
communities should they escape.
Children Who Escape
Thankfully,
thousands of children have escaped or been liberated by government
forces. However, these children are usually severely traumatized. There
are few social services available to help them recover. Most children
have little education and few vocational skills. They are often rejected
by their families and communities because of the atrocities they have
committed. Many girls who were raped in captivity are now mothers. HIV
rates are high. Although they are free, these children have little hope
for the future.
AGAIN, PLEASE:
1.) Send an
email
and/or
call the chairman
of the Black
Congressional Caucus (Rep. Melvin L. Watt) and ask that the
Caucus take the lead and immediate action on this issue. You may even
forward him this email at
nc12.public@mail.house.gov or
call him at (202) 225-1510.
2.) Send this email
to your list of people who will forward it to other people who
care about Black people.
3.) Learn more about this (at
www.Poli-Tainment.com) and
mention it to
one other person you know - in person.
Statues of Egyptian
Goddess Unearthed
3-13-2006
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An Egyptian-German archaeological team has
discovered 17 statues of Sekhmet, an ancient Egyptian goddess with the
head of a lioness and the body of a woman.
The statues, estimated to be about 3,000 years old, were found
during restoration work on the temple of Amenhotep III, in the southern
city of Luxor, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said in a statement Sunday.
Last week, the team discovered six similar black granite statues
depicting Sekhmet seated on a throne and holding the ``key of life'' in
her left hand. Two of those statues were broken, with only the lower
parts found.
The condition of the 17 statues was not revealed, though the council's
chief, Zahi Hawass, said in the statement that each figure will be
removed from the site for maintenance. Hosni did not say when the
figures were found.
Hawass said Amenhotep III's different names and titles were
delicately engraved on both sides of the statues' thrones,
reflecting the advanced stage of arts during the 18th dynasty rule.
Sekhmet was considered the goddess of war and recovery, which could
explain why so many similar statues were found on the same site,
according to Mansour Breik, the official supervising the Luxor
antiquities.
Greetings Family,
Please read the press release from our dear friend and brother,
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan regarding the passing of Mrs.
Coretta Scott King.
We can make this happen! Please donate & spread the word!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Immediate
Release - NOI Official Press Statement
Statement on
the passing of Mrs. Coretta Scott King
|
|
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE BENEFICENT, THE MERCIFUL.
I and my Family, the Ministers, Laborers and Members of
the Nation of Islam, mourn the loss of Mrs. Coretta Scott
King. We send our deepest condolences to the King Family,
all of her friends, and those who love her for her tireless
effort in the area of Civil and Human Rights. The Honorable
Elijah Muhammad spoke very highly of Mrs. King, and we who
followed her life with her husband, Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King are painfully aware of the many sacrifices that
she and her children have made that we might have a better
life in America through the hard-fought gains of the Civil
Rights Movement.
Many great men and women have passed this way and have
devoted their lives to the betterment of us as a people,
America as a nation, and to the betterment of the world in
which we live. There is a monument to Marcus Garvey in
Jamaica, but many, many men and women who gave their lives
for us have no monument to their greatness except that
history records their efforts on our behalf. Since the
passing of Dr. King, his wife Mrs. Coretta Scott King worked
tirelessly to produce a monument to the memory of her
husband and the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement to
make us a better people and America a better nation.
From her efforts came the Martin Luther King Jr. Center
for Non-Violent Social Change. The family at this present
time is in disagreement over whether the National Park
Service should take over the expense of the maintenance of
the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and whether it should be
sold or maintained by the King family. Martin Luther King
Jr. belonged to all of us. This is the only known monument
to a leader who worked to create a better environment in
which we could grow. So is it the responsibility of the King
family, is it the responsibility of the National Park
Service, or is it our responsibility to maintain that
Center, pay for the upkeep of its grounds and its staff so
that, in so doing, we would show the gratitude that we, as a
people, have for the sacrifices that Dr. King, Mrs. King,
their family and others have made to further Civil and Human
Rights?
It would be a shame, not on the family, but on us, for us
to be so ungrateful for the sacrifices that he and those in
the Civil Rights Movement have made, which made it possible
for us to do things in the United States that prior to the
Civil Rights Struggle we were unable to do. We should hang
our heads in shame if we do not rally behind the King family
and make a solid commitment to maintain the Martin Luther
King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
Look at all the money that has come to Black artists,
entertainers, sports figures and others because of the
sacrifice of Martin Luther King Jr., Mrs. King, the King
family, leaders, their families and followers in the Civil
Rights Movement. Should we not, on the passing of Mrs. King,
say with one voice to the King family that each of us who
are blessed to make money out of this economy should give an
annual donation to the King Center? If we did this, it would
show the world that we are arising in the proper spirit of
gratitude. Whether or not we agreed with his methodology and
philosophy, we all benefited from his and their sacrifices.
So, it is my appeal to all of us, especially those in
sports and entertainment, doctors, lawyers, teachers or
whatever your field of endeavor, that out of what Allah
(God) blesses us to gain we should contribute something to
the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change on a yearly
basis. This would be the proper response to the life and
sacrifice of Mrs. Coretta Scott King and the King family.
This would say thank you for the sacrifice that all in the
Civil Rights Movement have made, from which we, as a people,
have benefited.
May Allah (God) grant the members of the King family His
Peace, and know that it is written in the Holy Qur’an:
“Speak not of those who have died or are slain in the way of
Allah (God) as dead. They are alive but you understand not.”
Mrs. King and her husband yet live.
I Am Your Brother and Servant,
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Servant to the Lost-Found
Nation of Islam in the West
|
THE MARK OF THE BEAST 666
GPS Device Finds Bank Robbery
Suspect ...
Cincinnati, OH -- Police
say modern technology foiled an old-fashioned bank robbery. A teller
placed an electronic Global Positioning System device in a bag of stolen
money, allowing police to track down a suspect in just 42 minutes
Thursday.
"Around here (GPS) is still relatively rare," Hamilton County
sheriff's office spokesman Steve Barnett said. "But with the advancement
in technology and the continued success of catching bank robbers, soon I
would hope that other financial institutions would jump on board."
Authorities said that after William Ingram, 46, left a U.S. Bank in
suburban Colerain Township, the GPS device tracked him to a car
dealership in Hartwell, where he was returning a Honda that he had
borrowed for a test drive but actually used as a getaway car. When
Ingram was confronted, money began spilling from his pockets, officials
said.
EDITOR'S Comment: There will be no place to hide for anyone who
takes the Mark of the Beast.
Three R's: Reading, Writing, RFID
(Radio Frequency Identification) chips...
Gary Stillman, the director of a small K-8 charter school in Buffalo,
New York, is an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) believer.
While privacy advocates fret that the embedded microchips will be
used to track people surreptitiously, Stillman said he believes that
RFID tags will make his inner city school safer and more efficient.
Stillman has gone whole-hog for radio-frequency technology, which his
year-old Enterprise Charter School started using last month to record
the time of day students arrive in the morning. In the next months, he
plans to use RFID to track library loans, disciplinary records,
cafeteria purchases and visits to the nurse's office. Eventually he'd
like to expand the system to track students' punctuality (or lack
thereof) for every class and to verify the time they get on and off
school buses.
"That way, we could confirm that Johnny Jones got off at Oak and
Hurtle at 3:22," Stillman said. "All this relates to safety and keeping
track of kids.... Eventually it will become a monitoring tool for us."
Radio-frequency identification tags -- which have been hailed as the
next-generation bar code -- consist of a microchip outfitted with a tiny
antenna that broadcasts an ID number to a reader unit. The reader
searches a database for the number and finds the related file, which
contains the tagged item's description, or in the case of Enterprise
Charter, the student's information.
Euro notes may be radio tagged...
Hitachi is rumored to be in talks with the European
Central Bank about embedding radio tags into euro banknotes.
Radio tags the size of a grain of sand
could be embedded in the euro note if a rumored deal between the
European Central Bank (ECB) and Japanese electronics maker Hitachi is
signed.
"RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags also have the ability of
recording information such as details of the transactions the paper note
has been involved in. It would, therefore, also prevent
money-laundering, make it possible to track illegal transactions and
even prevent kidnappers demanding unmarked bills," Chopra said.
Library adopts Spy Chips...
A civil liberties watchdog group is expressing concern over the San
Francisco Public Library's plans to track books by inserting computer
chips into each tome. Library officials approved a plan Thursday to
install tiny radio frequency identification chips, known as RFIDs, into
the roughly 2 million books, CDs and audiovisual materials patrons can
borrow. The system still needs funding
and wouldn't be ready until at least 2005.
Your car tires have RFID's chips in them
ALREADY!!!
Its a us federal sponsored initiative to track vehicles near certain
highways feeding certain urban areas. Basically the FBI enters a rfid
number into the database and then history of travel for the car pops
up. The feds can also pre-enter rfids they want to watch after getting
a reading off your parked car or from the Canadian-us customs border
(where they already actively log the car rfids in the tires and
associate them with plates)
Your tires have a passive coil with 64 to 128 bit serial number emitter
in them!
Federal Drug Administration
approves use of the Mark of the Beast for medical Patients...
And he shall make all, both little
and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in
their right hand or on their foreheads: And that no man might buy or
sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the
number of his name.
(Apocalypse
Chapter 13: 16-17)
Medical milestone or privacy invasion? A tiny computer chip
approved Wednesday for implantation in a patient's arm can speed vital
information about a patient's medical history to doctors and hospitals.
But critics warn that it could open new ways to imperil the
confidentiality of medical records.
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that Applied
Digital Solutions of Delray Beach, Fla., could market the VeriChip, an
implantable computer chip about the size of a grain of rice, for medical
purposes.
With the pinch of a syringe, the microchip is inserted under the
skin in a procedure that takes less than 20 minutes and leaves no
stitches. Silently and invisibly, the dormant chip stores a code that
releases patient-specific information when a scanner passes over it.
Think UPC code. The identifier, emblazoned on a food item, brings
up its name and price on the cashier's screen. At the doctor's office
the codes stamped onto chips, once scanned, would reveal such
information as a patient's allergies and prior treatments, speeding
care.
The microchips have already been implanted in 1 million pets. But
the chip's possible dual use for tracking people's movements - as well
as speeding delivery of their medical information to emergency rooms -
has raised alarm.
Mexico's Attorney General
required the Mark of the Beast in a 160 people. Thousands more are now
planned...
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - Security has reached the subcutaneous level
for Mexico's attorney general and at least 160 people in his office -
they have been implanted with microchips that get them access to secure
areas of their headquarters.
Mexico's top federal prosecutors and investigators began receiving
chip implants in their arms in November in order to get access to
restricted areas inside the attorney general's headquarters, said
Antonio Aceves, general director of Solusat, the company that
distributes the microchips in Mexico.
Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha and 160 of his
employees were implanted at a cost to taxpayers of $150 for each rice
grain-sized chip. More are scheduled to get "tagged" in coming months,
and key members of the Mexican military, the police and the office of
President Vicente Fox might follow suit, Aceves said. Fox's office did
not immediately return a call seeking comment. Aceves said his company
eventually hopes to provide Mexican officials with implantable devices
that can track their physical location at any given time, but that
technology is still under development.
The chips that have been implanted are manufactured by VeriChip
Corp., a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions Inc. (ADSX)
of Palm Beach, Fla. They lie dormant under the skin until read by an
electromagnetic scanner, which uses a technology known as radio
frequency identification, or RFID, that's now getting hot in the
inventory and supply chain businesses. Erik Michielsen, director of
RFID analysis at ABI Research Inc., said that in theory the chips could
be as secure as existing RFID-based access control systems such as the
contactless employee badges widely used in corporate and government
facilities.
In addition to the chips sold to the Mexican government, more than
1,000 Mexicans have implanted them for medical reasons, Aceves said.
Hospital officials can use a scanning device to download a chip's serial
number, which they then use to access a patient's blood type, name and
other information on a computer. Still, Silverman said that his company
has sold 7,000 chips to distributors across the United States and that
more than 1,000 of those had likely been inserted into U.S. customers,
mostly for security or identification reasons.
Because the Applied Digital chips cannot be easily removed - and
are housed in glass capsules designed to break and be unusable if taken
out - they could be even more popular someday if they eventually can
incorporate locator capabilities. Already, global positioning system
chips have become common accouterments on jewelry or clothing in
Mexico. In fact, in March, Mexican authorities broke up a ring of
used-car salesmen turned kidnappers who were known as "Los Chips"
because they searched their victims to detect whether they were carrying
the chips to help them be located.
Bio-chip implant "VeriPay"
arrives for cashless checkless society...
At a global security conference held on November
21, 2003, in Paris, an American company, Applied Digital Solutions,
announced a new syringe-injectable microchip "VeriPay" implant for
humans, designed to be used as a fraud-proof payment method for cash and
credit-card transactions. The chip implant is being presented as an
advance over credit cards and smart cards, which, absent biometrics and
appropriate safeguard technologies, are subject to theft, resulting in
identity fraud.
Cashless payment systems are now part of a larger technology
development subset: government identification experiments that seek to
combine cashless payment applications with national ID information on
media (such as a "smart" card), which contain a whole host of
government, personal, employment and commercial data and applications on
a single, contactless RFID chip.
"We are the only ones out there offering implantable ID
technology," said Silverman, who announced the "VeriPay" service during
a speech Friday at ID World 2003 in Paris. "We believe the market will
evolve to use our product."
VeriPay - Your Cash Register on
the move...
You
can now accept credit card payments from your customers anywhere and
anytime. All you need is a standard GSM mobile phone, which becomes an
EFTPOS terminal in your pocket. You don't even need to make a phone call
- transaction details are simply sent as an SMS text message and
confirmed within a few seconds. Ensure the card is good and money is in
your bank before you leave the job. No more end-of-day paperwork, visits
to the bank or double handling of transactions.
U.N. meeting hears proposal for global
human database, ID numbers, to register everyone…
Every person in the world would be fingerprinted and registered under
a universal identification scheme to fight illegal immigration and
people smuggling outlined at a United Nations meeting today. The plan
was put forward by Pascal Smet, the head of Belgium's independent asylum
review board, at a roundtable meeting with ministers including
Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock this afternoon. But he
said the plan could be extended worldwide.
Verichip, a miniaturized,
implantable identification device with a variety of medical, security
and emergency applications...
VeriChip is an implantable, 12mm by 2.1mm radio frequency device
about the size of the point of a typical ballpoint pen. Each VeriChip
will contain a unique identification number and other critical data.
Utilizing an external scanner, radio frequency energy passes through the
skin energizing the dormant VeriChip, which then emits a radio frequency
signal transmitting the identification number and other data contained
in the VeriChip. The scanner will display the identification number, but
the VeriChip data can also be transmitted, via telephone or the
Internet, to an FDA compliant, secure data-storage site. It will then be
accessible by authorized personnel. Inserting the VeriChip device is a
simple procedure performed in an outpatient, office setting. It requires
only local anesthesia, a tiny incision and perhaps a small adhesive
bandage. Sutures are not necessary.
Ex-New Jersey surgeon offers
himself for experiment
NEWARK -- The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center have
spurred a former surgeon from New Jersey to turn himself into a human
guinea pig. Five days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Richard Seelig spent
about five minutes implanting two "Verichips" -- each no larger than a
small breath mint -- below the skin of his right forearm and right hip.
Florida firm first to sell ID
microchips to be implanted under skin...
“Digital Angel”: technology that cares
The Digital Angel is a computer chip that is
smaller than a grain of rice and has a short antenna. It is placed
under the skin of a person and the chip sends a signal to cell phone
towers and satellites in the sky and it can tell the body temperature,
pulse, heartbeat, insulin levels, etc. and it also tells the location of
a person anywhere in the world. All this information on a person would
be available over the internet. This chip can also be put in furniture
or anything of value for tracking in case of theft. It can also be put
in food to record temperature and location as it is shipped across the
country.
The Digital Angel demonstration will be held
on Thursday, October 26, at the Unconvention Center (Pier 94) in New
York City. Roughly 200 invitations will be issued to interested members
of the national media, potential joint-venture/licensing partners and
selected Wall Street analysts. As previously announced, attendees of
the event will witness an historical first: the first-ever operational
combination of bio-sensor technology and Web-enabled wireless
telecommunications linked to GPS location-tracking systems.
Applied Digital Solutions (ADSX) holds all
the patents on the Digital Angel. The projected worldwide sales is $100
billion dollars. The stock is currently selling at 36 cents a share.
They call it “technology that cares.” We call it the Mark of the
Beast or 666.
Back in 2000 Applied Digital Solutions
used this above graphic for their Digital Angel product. The
angel image on the left was a part of an early ‘splash’ screen for a
GPS-based tracking device similar to OnStar or LoJack designed to be
worn by or implanted in humans for medical monitoring, location of
at-risk individuals, firearms control, and as “a foolproof means of
identification for e-commerce security.
The
image in the center is the prior image inverted. Many people feel that
the line drawing of the angel forms a clear and distinct pattern
resembling the number 666 - the Number of the Beast from the Book of
Revelations. The image on the right highlights this pattern. Was this
design a deliberate act of sabotage or an unfortunate accident of design
or a sign of the prophecy?
And that no man might buy or
sell, but he that hath the character...
And it was given him to give life to the image of the beast: and that
the image of the beast should speak: and should cause that whosoever
will not adore the image of the beast should be slain. And he shall
make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to
have a character in their right hand or on their foreheads: And that no
man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of
the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. He that hath
understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the
number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred sixty-six.
(Apocalypse Chapter 13: 15-18)
He also shall drink of the wine
of the wrath of God...
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice: If
any man shall adore the beast and his image and receive his character in
his forehead or in his hand, He also shall drink of the wine of the
wrath of God, which is mingled with pure wine in the cup of his wrath:
and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy
angels and in the sight of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torments,
shall ascend up for ever and ever: neither have they rest day nor night,
who have adored the beast and his image and whoever receiveth the
character of his name. Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the
commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. (Apocalypse Chapter 14:9-12)
And there fell a sore and
grievous wound upon men who had the character of the beast...
And the first went and poured out his vial upon the earth. And
there fell a sore and grievous wound upon men who had the character of
the beast: and upon them that adored the image thereof. (Apocalypse
Chapter Chapter 16:2)
Cast alive into the pool of fire
burning with brimstone..
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who
wrought signs before him, wherewith he seduced them who received the
character of the beast and who adored his image. These two were cast
alive into the pool of fire burning with brimstone. (Apocalypse Chapter
19:20)
But they shall be priests of God and of Christ: and
shall reign with him a thousand years...
And I saw seats. And they sat upon them: and judgment was given
unto them. And the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of
Jesus and for the word of God and who had not adored the beast nor his
image nor received his character on their foreheads or in their hands.
And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of
the dead lived not, till the thousand years were finished. This is the
first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection. In these the second death hath no power. But they shall be
priests of God and of Christ: and shall reign with him a thousand
years. (Apocalypse Chapter 20: 4-6)
The complete Apocalypse is found at:
http://www.tldm.org/bible/new%20testament/apoc.htm
Our
Lady of the Roses' awesome Bayside Prophecies...
http://www.tldm.org/../Bayside/
These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to
Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995.
The Mark of the Beast and
the Mark of the Living Christ...
"You have been asked to wear a sacramental about your neck. Now I will
explain why, My children. I have warned you of the unseen evil forces
about you. I have cautioned you that your human eyes cannot see this.
But it exists and is as solid in their world as you are on your earthly
plane. Know this, that there are two camps now on earth: Lucifer on one
side and the road to Heaven and its followers on the other. You have all
been marked. There are two signs now: the mark of the beast and the mark
of the living Christ.
"Recognize
the signs of the times, My children. The war is on." - Our Lady of the
Roses, March 25, 1972
Insight...
"As time goes on, My children of light, you will be able to recognize
with your human eyes, through insight from the Eternal Father in the
Spirit, those who are marked with the sign of the cross or the beast." -
Our Lady of the Roses, July 25, 1978
Marked with the mark of
satan...
"My child, there will be very many victims upon earth: those who are
willing to sacrifice their own pleasures, their own human pursuits, to
give them over to the salvation of souls, their brothers and sisters,
who are marked with the mark of satan and are seeking to take it away.
There is only one way: conversion, and then cure of the sick soul." -
Jesus, July 25, 1985
Every person of
conscionable age...
"The final count shall be in the few of those who are to be saved. My
children, at this very moment of time upon earth, each and every person
of conscionable age has been marked with the sign of the cross and
redemption, or they have accepted on free will the mark of the beast,
eternal damnation!" -Our Lady of the Roses, August 14, 1978
Be branded...
"Each man on earth who has been baptized and set himself up as a
follower of My Son in infancy has received the mark of the cross upon
him. He can in his lifetime cast this away and be branded with the mark
of the beast. This will be of his choice. No man will be lost without
his own choice." -Our Lady of the Roses, December 31, 1972
Why Do They Want My Phone
Number?
By MICHAEL S. JAMES, ABC
(Dec. 16) - On the checkout line this holiday
season, make sure you have everything on your gift list, your cash or
credit card ready -- and, oh yeah, get set for one more thing.
"Can I have your phone number, please?"
"I hate that," said Larry Ponemon, a former
corporate auditor who founded the Ponemon Institute, a Michigan-based
think tank that studies privacy, data protection and
information-security policy.
Hate it or not, more stores are asking for
phone numbers or other personal information, and that has some privacy
experts concerned.
"The various data companies are trying to
acclimate people to invasions of privacy. It started with the zip code
and now it's moved on to phone numbers," said Chris Hoofnagle of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center in San Francisco. "I'm willing to
bet that retailers' market research is showing a willingness of
customers to share the telephone number, and that's why it's happening."
Privacy advocates advise against revealing
such information, because it can be the key to accessing more sensitive
information about you.
"I think a lot of stores, to be fair, they're
not abusing your privacy," said Ponemon, who once audited an unspecified
chain store's use of customer data and found it ethical. "But some
stores are thinking there's money in your data."
Because a phone number often can be used to
look up a customer's address, stores say it helps them send special
offers through the mail or tailor those offers to a customer's prior
purchases. Many stores have signs explaining such a policy near checkout
counters. Such signs commonly add that the stores don't share their
customer information with third parties.
Susan McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Toys R Us
Inc., said its stores had asked for phone numbers for several years. She
believes most customers have no problem voluntarily giving their numbers
at the register -- though it's "no problem at all" if they decline.
"It's so we can send you offers, coupons, et
cetera, and we don't sell it to third parties," she said. "I'd say the
majority of people like getting coupons."
'Hub of Customer Identification' But phone
numbers can be used to organize much more than just who gets the best
coupons, and that's what worries the privacy experts.
"The telephone number is really becoming the
hub of customer identification," said Hoofnagle, in San Francisco.
"Consumers do not understand that giving out the phone number allows the
business to buy more information about the consumer through a system
known as enhancement."
Companies that specialize in enhancement can
generate things like marketing profiles, credit reports or background
checks on individuals. Two database companies, Acxiom and Experian, did
not return calls from ABCNews.com seeking comment. A spokesman for a
third, ChoicePoint, said that the company's data collection did not
extend to retail stores, and that it did not index data via phone
number.
"Telephone numbers are an element of the
information used by ChoicePoint to verify a person's identity,"
spokesman Chuck Jones said. "However, none of ChoicePoint's products
begin the verification process with a telephone number."
But if a store sought to gather data starting
with a phone number, Hoofnagle explained how it might occur.
"The retailer sends the database company the
full list of phone numbers and receives back the same list, but enhanced
with demographic information -- addresses, information about interests
and hobbies, information about whether there's children in the home, et
cetera," Hoofnagle said.
The additional personal information may have
been culled from other sources, Hoofnagle said, possibly including
product registration forms, corporate customer support lines, or surveys
voluntarily filled out by individuals.
It's also conceivable that the information
could have been gathered from purchases in stores or online. Ponemon,
for one, is not reassured by stores' stated promises to keep such
information private.
"Policies change," he said. "Even if they have
a policy and they mean to the best of intentions that they don't share,
it's hard to hold businesses to account."
He cited the case of Toysmart.com, which had a
policy of not sharing customer information. The company moved to sell
its customer database when it went bankrupt, but was taken to court over
the matter and eventually agreed with the Federal Trade Commission not
to sell the information.
Power of Data Experts worry about what happens
when a store manages to circulate its customer data.
"We don't have very good privacy protection in
law in this country, so there aren't very many clues in the marketplace
as to what's being done with the information, where does it end up
ultimately, how does it flow," said Beth Givens of the Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse in San Diego.
"It's very difficult for people to know how a
certain decision about them was arrived at and whether their personal
information played a part," she said. "So much of this information flow
is invisible to people. How do you know how the insurance company came
to the decision to increase your rates?"
Hoofnagle said there might be another drawback
to providing a phone number at checkout: It could open a person up to
telemarketing -- even if they are on the federal "do not call" registry.
According to Hoofnagle, giving a phone number while making a purchase
may establish a business relationship, and companies can call
individuals on the "do not call" list with whom they have prior business
relationships.
"Not only that, you can also get an e-mail
address" through data enhancement, Hoofnagle added. "So getting the
phone number opens you up not just to getting phone calls, but to spam."
Some experts don't consider giving up a zip
code at the cash register quite as risky. Givens said it "doesn't really
say much about you," and she understands that it's useful for stores to
know where their customers come from.
Hoofnagle is less blasé.
"In a lot of America, a name is unique in a
zip code," he said. "Not only that, a date of birth is almost always
unique. Data that seems innocuous can get more information when
aggregated."
It's unclear whether Americans really care
about whether or not their personal data is being aggregated. But Givens
points to the popularity of the federal "do not call" registry as
evidence that they care about the possible end result of aggregation.
However, she worries reluctance to reveal
personal information may be eroding among a key demographic.
"It's hard for me to speak about identity
theft to young people and get them to understand it," Givens said.
"I think there's a life-experience issue there
with young people. But more so, young people grow up with Internet
access. They're more immersed in an information-rich environment. … It's
just natural for them to spend most of their time dealing, in one way or
another, with their personal information."
Lou Rawls Being Treated for
Lung Cancer
Estranged Wife Says Singer
"Not Expected to Live Much More"
LOS ANGELES (Dec. 16) - Singer Lou Rawls is being
treated for lung cancer, and his estranged wife said he also has brain
cancer and suggested his condition is dire.
"Don't count me out, brother," Rawls said
Thursday night from his room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "There's
been many people who have been diagnosed with this kind of thing, and
they're still jumpin' and pumpin'."
Rawls, in the interview with the Arizona
Republic, said he has received alternative and traditional medical
treatments for lung cancer. He said he quit his regular smoking habit 35
years ago.
The lung cancer was diagnosed a year ago and the
brain cancer in May, his estranged wife, Nina, said during a marriage
annulment hearing Thursday in Arizona.
"By his doctor's admission, he is not expected to
live much more," she said. Rawls' attorney, Robert L. Schwartz, attended
the annulment hearing, but did not discuss the singer's prognosis.
Rawls, who has lived in Scottsdale, Ariz., since
2003, said in court papers that he is trying to annul his two-year
marriage and protect hundreds of thousands of dollars of assets that his
wife "absconded with."
His estranged wife, who has worked as Rawls'
manager since 2003, says she transferred nearly $350,000 into an account
that she solely controls to prevent one of Rawls' two adult daughters
from seizing the money.
Rawls, 70, has sold more than 40 million albums
and won three Grammys during a career spanning more than four decades.
His voice has been described as "sweet as sugar,
soft as velvet, strong as steel, smooth as butter." His hits include
"Love Is a Hurtin' Thing," "Dead End Street" and "You'll Never Find
Another Love Like Mine."
He has also appeared on television shows and in
movies, including "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Blues Brothers 2000."
His charitable work has included telethons that
helped the United Negro College Fund raise nearly $200 million.
STATEMENT AND URGENT CALL TO ACTION
4 November 2005
Reference: Dorotea Mendoza
Secretary General, GABRIELA Network
secgen@gabnet.org, 1.212.592.3507
GABRIELA NETWORK CONDEMNS GANG RAPE OF
FILIPINA BY U.S. MARINES,
DEMANDS JUSTICE AND INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION,
PHILIPPINE JURISDICTION ON CUSTODY AND PROSECUTION,
AND FULL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. MILITARY FROM THE PHILIPPINES
While we are appalled by the rape of a 22-year old Filipina in Subic,
former site of a US naval base, by six US marines last November 1,
2005, we are, sadly, not surprised. Nor are we surprised that the
perpetrators are in the custody of the US Embassy in the Philippines.
This case is indicative of the constant violence and violation of a
nation’s sovereignty perpetrated by the US military and US intervention
in the Philippines. It is indicative of the US government pulling the
strings on Philippine affairs and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo. It is indicative of Macapagal Arroyo kowtowing to US
interests, ignoring the safety and security of the very people she is
supposed to serve.
Indeed, Macapagal Arroyo continues to sell Filipinas and Philippine
sovereignty. She has opened the Philippine archipelago for further
exploitation by welcoming George W. Bush and Company’s borderless,
never-ending so-called “war on terror.” She has declared open season
on Filipino women by continuing the unconstitutional Visiting Forces
Agreement, entertaining 4,000 to 4,500 US troops in the Subic area,
among other regions, for army games with the Armed Forces of the
Philippines.
With this and charges of election fraud, corruption, and human rights
violations, Macapagal Arroyo is indeed unfit to govern. And those who
assert this, those who dare resist, those who’ve been calling for her
ouster are harassed, disappeared, murdered—there’s been 117 political
killings in 2005 alone.
As women living in the US, we demand immediate prosecution and arrest
of the six US marine suspects, justice for the Filipina rape victim,
immediate and full withdrawal of US troops from the Philippines.
CALL TO ACTION:
WHAT: Emergency Rally. Expedite prosecution and arrest of 6 US
marines. Put US Marines suspects behind bars now. Justice for
Filipina rape victim! Stop US-Philippine military exercises. Junk VFA
(Visiting Forces Agreement). VFA = rape of the Philippines, rape of
Filipino women.
WHEN: Friday, 4 November 2005, 8:30AM
WHERE: in front of the Philippine Consulate, 3600 Wilshire Blvd.
(corner Kingsley), Los Angeles, CA
WHO: organized by GABRIELA Network USA
PHOTO AND INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES. ###
-------------
GABRIELA Network USA
A Philippine-US Women's Solidarity Mass Organization
PO Box 403, Times Square Station
New York, NY 10036
www.gabnet.org
October 1 / 2, 2005 The Bennett Rule:
Abort Every White Baby!
By JUSTIN FELUX
Bill Bennett, a prominent right-wing blowhard, has recently come under
intense
fire for remarks made on his radio show, in which he stated, "I do know
that
it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could ... abort every
black
baby in this country." He quickly backed away from the proposition,
saying
"That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible
thing to
do, but your crime rate would go down." It's unfortunate that Bennett
chose
to be so politically correct, because I think he may be onto something
here.
He's just wrong about the target. If we really wanna get tough on crime,
it's
the white babies who should start getting the coat hanger treatment.
Consider the fact that whites commit three times as many violent crimes
as
blacks every year, just in raw numbers. This is just for ordinary
"street
crimes" such as assault. The numbers become skewed out of this world
when you
consider "white-collar" crimes (typically, the collar isn't the only
thing
that's white).
For instance, job-related accidents and illnesses claimed the lives of
70,000
Americans in 1992, a significant portion of which can be chalked up to
white
employers neglecting to comply with occupational health and safety laws.
According to studies, up to 64,000 die every year due to pollution and
other
environmental hazards produced by industry. Another 21,700 die due to
consumer product deaths, costing the nation $200 billion a year. Another
$200
billion is lost annually due to white-collar embezzlement. These two
statistics alone add up to over 26 times the amount of all the robberies
and
petty thefts committed every year combined!
We should also not forget the ravages of the white-owned health care
system
and insurance industry. Around 18,000 adults are killed every year as a
result of a lack of medical coverage. Over 25 thousand die as a result
of
unnecessary prescriptions and surgeries performed by mostly white
doctors.
All in all, corporate criminals take about ten times as many lives as
street
criminals. And I haven't even mentioned the white men who control the
apparatus of state, which through war, sanctions, and other means kills
hundreds of thousands, if not millions more. Over 100,000 civilians have
died
in Iraq alone, for example.
I don't know about you, but every time I see a white man in a suit I
find a
place to hide. Once I feel safe, I call the Department of Homeland
Security
to report his suspicious activity. I simply don't feel safe knowing that
all
these savage, white thugs are out walking the streets. After all, from
Bob
Chambliss to Timothy McVeigh to Eric Rudolph, by far most of the
terrorist
attacks in America have been committed by whites.
Which brings me to my next point: even if a white guy isn't wearing a
suit,
you still shouldn't assume that he isn't dangerous. One can find a
plethora
of deadly and pathological behaviors uniquely prevalent among whites who
look
just as ordinary as you and me. Most notable among them are spree
killing,
serial murder, and cannibalism. About 90% of all serial killers are
white
men. Some other white pastimes include animal torture, vampirism, Satan
worship, witchcraft, self-mutilation, eating disorders, and child sexual
molestation. White men engage in child sexual abuse at twice the rate of
black men. By aborting all the white babies, we will be protecting a
great
many children from the horror of enduring abuse at the hands of white
male
sex perverts (pardon the redundancy), in addition to preventing the
creation
of new white molesters in the future.
Alas, even if we allowed white fetuses to continue living, and they
manage to
avoid the pitfalls of vampirism, corporate employment, and serial
murder, the
odds are still pretty good that they will turn out to be hopeless
drunks.
Whites are 74% more likely than blacks to binge drink regularly. In
fact,
there are more binge drinking whites than there are blacks in the entire
population of the country! Naturally, whites are twice as likely as
blacks to
drive drunk, resulting in over ten thousand deaths every year. The same
trend
can be seen when considering drug use in general, contrary to popular
belief.
Whites make up 74% of illegal drug users, whereas only 14% are black.
Whites
make up a majority of drug dealers as well.
Given all of these facts, can there be any doubt that aborting every
white
baby would not only reduce the crime rate, but would also result in a
much
safer, cleaner, and happier existence for all Americans? I can already
hear
some of you sissy liberals whining about "human rights" or some other
nonsense. In reality, you are soft on crime and lack the rugged
individualism
necessary to get things done. At the very least, we should start
forcibly
sterilizing white males, much in the same way we did to Latinas and
black
women up until the 1970s.
I think the most interesting debate will be over the question of what to
do
with mixed race babies. Should we apply the "one drop" rule, whereby one
drop
of white blood marks the fetus for termination? I doubt we'll need to
take it
to that extreme. If the baby is say, 1/8 white, then its more
destructive
tendencies should be sufficiently diluted. Nevertheless, police and
homeland
security should still apply increased scrutiny to individuals whose skin
looks suspiciously pale. I'm sure Bill Bennett wouldn't mind taking a
little
harassment from the cops if it results in a safer America for everyone.
Justin Felux is a writer and activist based in San Antonio, Texas. He
can be
contacted at
justins@alacrityisp.net.
October 31, 2005
Grieving for Parks, Rights Leaders Ponder
Future
By FELICIA R. LEE
The body of Rosa Parks lay in the Capitol Rotunda this morning, on view for
thousands of Americans who wanted to honor the woman known as the mother of
the civil rights movement. Her death last week has created a moment, many
African-Americans engaged in political struggle say, to take stock of what
that movement accomplished and whether it is still alive.
With the deaths this year of other major figures from a movement that once
galvanized a mass following over issues like the right to vote, segregated
lunch counters and a seat in the front of the bus, some say that not enough
has been done to share that history with the young or to shape future
leaders to carry on the cause. That movement has been replaced, in large
part, by more dispersed struggles over issues like housing and employment,
health care and incarceration.
"In the absence of dogs and hoses there is no immediate, obvious enemy
before us, so it's harder to mobilize a sense of outrage," said Senator
Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is the only black member of the
United States Senate. "Rosa Parks did not just sit down on her own
initiative. She was part of a movement."
The reflection on the earlier civil rights movement and the next phase, if
there is to be one, is occurring at an extraordinary time.
Hurricane Katrina exposed fault lines of race and class in America. The case
of Emmett Till, the black teenager who was killed in the Mississippi Delta
in 1955 supposedly for whistling at a white woman, has been reopened. Edgar
Ray Killen, a former Klansman, was convicted in the 1964 killings of three
civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss.
Just last weekend, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice focused international
attention on the civil rights struggle when she took Jack Straw, the British
foreign secretary, on a visit to the Birmingham, Ala., church where four
black girls died in a bombing 42 years ago. Ms. Rice used the visit to link
the civil rights struggle there to an international quest for democracy.
And last month, the Senate approved a measure that would create a Justice
Department office to investigate and prosecute unsolved killings from the
civil rights era.
"I do think there is a movement building," said Malika Sanders, 32,
president of the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement with headquarters
near Selma, Ala., which trains young people to be human rights workers.
"If you look from California to Wyoming and from Maine to the furthermost
tip of Alabama, you find people working on human rights issues," Ms. Sanders
said. "It's a major challenge to this generation to put forth a vision that
makes connections between those issues."
The echoes of the past come as many of the figures and chroniclers of the
early fight are dying, leaving behind a black population with a median age
of 30 - many born after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated
in Memphis in 1968 and after legal barriers to voting, public accommodations
and education were toppled.
"We are at a crossroads," said Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat
who is a former associate of Dr. King's. "We can either go forward or stand
still."
"It seems every other day we are losing somebody and we have not done enough
to inform, to educate another cadre of leaders," said Mr. Lewis, who once
led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. "I am thinking not only
of the death of Rosa Parks but of Constance Baker Motley, Vivian Malone
Jones, C. DeLores Tucker."
Ms. Motley was a politician and lawyer who defended civil rights workers,
and became the first black female judge on the federal bench. Ms. Jones was
the first black graduate of the University of Alabama, and Ms. Tucker
marched with Dr. King and founded the National Political Congress of Black
Women.
Since the beginning of the year, other prominent leaders in the civil rights
movement have died, including John H. Johnson, the founder and publisher of
Ebony and Jet magazines; Ossie Davis, the actor and activist who eulogized
Malcolm X; and Arthur A. Fletcher, known as the father of affirmative
action.
It was the recent death of Mrs. Parks, though, that reawakened the desire to
reflect, say some leaders from her era and young leaders of grass-roots
organizations across the country.
While many struggles continue, they do not approach the drama of the march
on Washington in 1963 when Dr. King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech or of
Montgomery, Ala., in 1955, when Mrs. Parks refused to give up her bus seat
to a white man, setting off the bus boycott that brought Dr. King to
national prominence.
"A lot of people are gone," said Julian Bond, chairman of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "You lose that witness,
that personal testimony."
Mr. Bond was once one of the Young Turks of the movement. "Civil rights
today has to fight the false belief that all those problems were solved in
the Martin Luther King era," he said.
In some ways, the success of the earlier civil rights leaders is daunting,
said Van Jones, the 37-year-old executive director of the Ella Baker Center
for Human Rights in Oakland, Calif., an organization named in honor of the
first executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
They helped repair American democracy, integrated the mainstream and created
a template for other movements, he said.
But a failing of that generation, Mr. Jones and some other young leaders
said, was that it had no plan to nurture and hand off responsibility to
younger leaders.
"The older generation did not realize fast enough it that it wasn't going to
fix all the problems," Mr. Jones said.
Still, he says he remains hopeful. People are rallying behind campaigns like
that of the colorofchange.org Web site, a kind of African-American
equivalent to MoveOn.org, Mr. Jones said, and he sees a hunger for more
unity. "We've got a lot of issues but not a lot of coherence," he said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said the civil rights movement was alive and well but
just looked different.
"The movement today is more Northern, more urban and more centered around
police brutality and racial profiling," Mr. Sharpton said, adding that it
was also less likely to be covered by a national news media that
romanticized the Southern confrontations of the past.
Farai Chideya, a journalist and founder of PopandPolitics.com, an online
opinion journal, said: "At this point, there's work to do on defining a
movement as opposed to following a movement. If this generation wants to
mount a challenge to the earlier generation's leadership they have to raise
their own money and start their own organizations."
The earlier generation's success in helping remove a legal color line, those
interviewed said, means only that racism can be subtler. Blacks continue to
lag behind whites on every socioeconomic index. The new movement, they said,
will focus not only on explicitly "black" issues but also on wider societal
problems like joblessness and failing schools that affect blacks
disproportionately.
"I eschew this idea that only sees civil rights as being about protest and
litigation," said Marc H. Morial, the president of the National Urban League
and a former mayor of New Orleans. "Those were tactics used in the 60's
because we didn't have the right to vote and weren't sitting in the
boardroom."
Others, too, say there is a much broader focus now.
"Our struggle has gone from civil rights to human rights," said Martin
Luther King III, president of the King Center in Atlanta, created to
preserve his father's legacy.
The Rev. Markel Hutchins, a 28-year-old minister in Atlanta, said: "The
paradigm in America has shifted from black and white to the haves and
have-nots." His group, the National Youth Connection, works to end poverty
and to fight police brutality, among other things.
Many saw a catalyst to bring people together in the Hurricane Katrina
aftermath, in which a slow local and federal response to the disaster left
mostly poor and black residents stranded in New Orleans.
"What happened with Katrina took the cover off," Mr. Lewis said. "It said
we've traveled a long distance but many of us have been left behind."
These days, said many of the political leaders and activists interviewed,
problems like a lack of quality health care and joblessness are more complex
than desegregation and can be solved only through a series of potentially
expensive long-term initiatives and not just legislation.
"Today you can eat at a lunch counter but you can't get an education that
allows you to go the next level," said T. J. Crawford, the 29-year-old
chairman of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention and its Chicago local.
"We build upon the intellectual capital, but there's not enough community
building or institution building on a mass level, so you're forced to repeat
the struggles of your parents and grandparents."
Politics Mondays:
Million More
Movement: From Marching to
Movement
by Horace Campbell
Introduction
The
Million
More Movement (MMM) made its
mark on the USA by a massive demonstration in Washington, D.C, and the
capital of the USA on Saturday October 15, calling for "regime change" in
the USA. The marchers came from all parts of the country and sent a signal
to all of the USA that they intended to build a new movement for the twenty
first century. The estimated numbers of between 800,000 to one million
demonstrators made radical demands on the US society for reparations and
reconstruction. The immediate impetus for the call for repair, justice and
break with its criminal past came from the massive outrage among African
Americans over their treatment in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Rita.
But, the hurricane was simply the catalyst that galvanized all sections of
the community to come out to make their voices heard for a change in the
politics, economics and cultural policies of the USA.
Not since the marches of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
of the 1920’s and the massive outpouring of writers, artists, religious
leaders and cultural leaders has there been an assembly of this sort. The
Civil Rights movement made many marches and protests during the sixties and
many veterans from that period provided the link of this intergenerational
struggle. Dorothy Height, the veteran activist of over ninety years old,
symbolized the intergenerational link and called on all to work together. By
adding her voice to this new thrust for mobilization and self organization,
Dorothy Height was bringing her considerable influence to bear to support
the call for the building of a new movement of men and women, young and old,
gays and straight, Christians and Muslims, and all of those who believed in
the basic dignity of humans. Minister Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam was
even more explicit in the reasons for this movement to oppose militarism and
racism. "We need to think about a new political party," Mr. Farrakhan said.
"The Democrats have used us and abused us. They look at the black and the
brown and the poor like this is a plantation, and our Democratic leaders are
like the house Negro on the plantation of Democratic politics."
The spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, Minister Louis Farrakhan
said simply that this march was a precursor to a movement of black, brown,
red and the poor. Wyclef Jean, the Hip Hop activist, put the words to song
and wailed,
this is not a
March but a movement. The Civil
Rights Era cry of "Black Power" was made many times; speakers identified
with the need to move from marches to concrete organization, while
recognizing the need for marches to register collective opposition to
neo-conservative militarism.
There were many impressive features of this Millions More Movement,
but for this activist, by far the most defining was the broad range of
organizations, religious formations and youth groups that were mobilized for
this statement against US capitalism.
Religious Unity and the Politics of Inclusion
The other major victory of this march (to be transformed into a
movement) was to bring together peoples of different religious faith and
spiritual leanings to oppose the manipulation of religious sentiments in the
black community and in the wider society. The so- called war on terror has
depended on driving differences between Christians and followers of Islam.
However, by bringing together the top leaders of the AME Church, AME Zion
Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the Progressive National
Baptist Convention, various Baptist and other Christian groups, the Millions
More Movement was bringing attention to the alternative to the mega-church
conservative syndrome that is in bed with the neo-cons. Black people called
on the god of justice and peace to repair the diseased spirit of the USA and
the gods of racism, violence segregation and Jim Crow Jr. When the head of
the Progressive National Baptist Convention pledged that the two million
members would be behind the
Millions More Movement, it
was the clearest signal that the god of neo-conservatism and promise keepers
was being challenged head-on. Christians, Muslims, Hebrew Israelites,
Hindus, Rastafari, agnostics, nationalists, socialists, gays and lesbians,
communists, men, women and youth came together in agreement that the time is
now for us to make a break with this system of institutionalized racism.
Because there were so many groups represented, there were many messages, and
sometimes mixed messages relating to capitalism, but there was one voice
when it came to racism, militarism and the injustice of the Gulf wars and
the prison industrial complex.
One clear signal from this march came from the voices of women. Even
though there were elements who longed for the march of men of 1995, women
made their voices and their presence felt. The organizers of the Million
Women March elaborated on the need for inclusion. It was noteworthy that the
mainstream media had sought to manipulate the question of the inclusion of
gays and lesbians to divide the movement but it was made clear in the call
for the March of October 15 that no one was excluded. Those who excluded
themselves were the ones who supported imperialism, racism and militarism.
However, to be really inclusive, there must be a more rigorous
opposition to the homophobia in the ranks and parts of the leadership of the
Million More Movement. It was not sufficient to say that the speaker from
the gay and lesbian community was dropped from the program because of time
pressure. After months of lobbying by the National Black Justice Coalition,
the leadership of the Millions More Movement had agreed that the Gay and
Lesbian speaker should be included. Moreover, given the long history of
sexist, anti gay and violent sexist positions by some black leaders and
preachers, the Millions More Movement has to be explicit in ensuring that
all voices of peace and justice are heard. A religious leader or any leader
who is known to use sexist, homophobic and graphically sexually violent
language should not be given pride of place in the Millions More Movement.
What was also so significant was the introduction of Louis Farrakhan
by his daughter. Her speech and eloquence was not isolated since it emerged
in a context of the debate among Muslims all over America of the place of
the women in the Mosque and in public spaces. The case of
Amina Wadud
and the question of whether women should lead in prayers continue to be hot
button issues among Muslims in the USA. By publicly embracing the daughter
of Farrakhan as a speaker, the Nation of Islam was extending its
understanding of the politics of inclusion.
We are all related - Political Unity towards a united front
Russell Means of the First Nation Peoples made the call for Unity by
reminding the marchers that we are all related as human beings. This was a
call for us to elaborate our humanity and to break the prison walls of race
that divide blacks, browns, reds and the other oppressed who form the
majority in this society. Despite the near absence of a high level
representative from the Latino community, nearly all speakers noted the need
for unity. This was also underlined by the speakers from the black community
who called for greater unity among blacks. Minister Farrakhan said: "It is
the strength of Unity that will make the difference in how we respond to the
ills of our community and make right what has been wrong for years."
The mainstream media had gone to great lengths to demonize the
Minister, but the recent vivid pictures of exploited and poor blacks in the
Superdome in New Orleans signaled to many that it was time to submerge our
differences. And Dorothy Height said this simply: "We're here from all over
the country, from many different backgrounds. And I think one of the things
we have learned is that we may have come to this country by different ships,
but we're all in the same boat now, and we've got to learn to work
together."
Black people all over responded to this call. Over 150 key leaders,
including the NAACP, National Urban League and the National Rainbow PUSH
Coalition, the National Bar Association, TransAfrica, National Council of
Negro Women, National Coalition for Reparations for Blacks in America, Black
Social Workers, Black Trade Unionists, the Congressional Black Caucus,
National Black Student Government Association and others had signed on to be
National Co-Conveners of the Millions More Movement. It was hectic trying to
make room for spokespersons of over 150 organizations in one day, but the
voices were heard and all pledged to stay focused on the messages of
reparations, peace, justice and redemption.
Unlike the Million Man March of 1995 when the emphasis was on the
"atonement" of the black male, the speakers universally outlined why the
present system of capitalism and survival of the fittest cannot serve black
people, brown people, and poor whites. It was as if the words of Kanye West
were being echoed all over the world, "George Bush doesn't care about black
people." The language of crimes and criminality was used by speakers who
mobilized the people to see the war in Iraq as criminal, to see that the
Administration should be charged with criminal negligence for Katrina, to
see that the slave trade and capitalism was criminal and to see that repair
was the only solution to move from this history of crimes.
The gathering at the Mall included women, men, gays, lesbians, Latinos
and Native Americans and sympathetic whites, along with agents of the US
government taking pictures from buildings around the march. But these
government agents did not intimidate the people and there was one clear
message. There was need for regime change in the USA: "I think we need a
regime change in the United States of America."
This statement by Minister Louis Farrakhan underlined the message of
the day and brought home a clear message that Blacks would be taking the
lead for political change.
The capitalist class in the USA has in the past forty years taken away
the rights of the workers to health care, the right to pensions, the right
to housing and the right to a decent education. In order to continue to
weaken the working classes and to divide all workers the neo conservatives
have mobilized the corporate media to demonize black people. Additionally,
the Republicans in Congress had placed new proposals to force the poor and
working peoples to pay for the cost of the wars with new tax cuts for the
super-rich. These plans to cut basic entitlements to poor and working class
people are being put forward as the way the Federal government will "help"
the poor to recover from Katrina.
For good measure in the week after the Massive March, the Bush
administration approved a sweeping Medicaid plan for the state of Florida
which would limit spending for millions of those who benefited from
Medicaid. This plan was to be the model for the rest of the country.
The challenge that was posed: what kind of movement will emerge after
the march? This challenge comes at a moment in the US history when the
principal contradictions of militarism, racism, environmental racism, global
warming, mis-education of the youth and the health crisis called for a
radical change in the direction of the society. This challenge was nowhere
clearer than in the disaster of the thousands who lost their lives and
livelihoods in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina.
Clear Message – Katrina and the exploitation of Black Brown and working
poor.
The criminal neglect of the capitalist system and the racism of US
society were brought to the attention of the world by the devastation caused
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. All of the major contradictions of the
society (massive exploitation of black and brown peoples, the effects of
hydrocarbons on climate change, super profits for oil and gas companies at
the expense of people, lack of repair of basic infrastructure, filth, sludge
and polluted urban environments, cancerous spaces of habitation, education
for subjugation, racist policing and a shoot on sight policy) were brought
before the world by the media. The majority of poor and black persons in the
USA had lived and struggled on a day to day basis against these realities,
but the glare of the cameras depicting hundreds of poor and exploited US
citizens brought this reality to billions around the world. For the
corporate leaders of America, the tragedy of Katrina was not the
displacement and destruction but the fact that the images weakened the
ideological hold of the US over the rest of the world in presenting the
image of the US as a super power.
Prior to the hurricane, all over the country the conservatives and the
corporate elements had been seeking ways to move blacks from the inner
cities of the USA in order to take back prime properties. New Orleans was no
exception. Under the power of
eminent domain, the Supreme
Court had given local capitalists the right to seize properties and turn
them over to so-called private developers. More than two thirds of the
residents of New Orleans were poor blacks. In private, the neo conservatives
proclaimed that their god carried out the urban removal in New Orleans.
The peoples of Mississippi and Louisiana now faces the reality that
the Bush administration wanted to use this tragedy to reconstruct the Gulf
Coast and especially New Orleans for the capitalists and to ensure that
blacks did not return. These realities and the gentrification of the cities
in the USA ensured that the effects of Katrina acted as a source for the
mobilization of the Millions More Movement. It was Katrina and the war in
Iraq that elicited the clearest responses from the millions gathered on the
mall. Survivors of the Katrina hurricane bore witness to the crimes of the
US government and most speakers called for continued mobilization to ensure
that the blacks were returned to their rightful place in Louisiana, with
reconstruction contracts going to black business persons and entrepreneurs
and not to the cronies of the administration such as Halliburton. The
criminal nature of the past and present actions of the government was
underlined by the principal speaker, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan,
who called for a law suit against the US government to charge the government
with "criminal neglect."
Farrakhan asked rhetorically why the government did a better job
helping the citizens of Florida last year, and why so few lives were lost,
when the state was hit by four major hurricanes.
"I believe that we can charge the government with criminal neglect,"
he said. "I firmly believe that if the people on those rooftops (in New
Orleans) had blond hair and blue eyes and pale skin, something would have
been done in a more timely manner. We charge America with criminal neglect,"
Corporate Crime or Criminal
neglect?
What the Minister called criminal neglect are crimes that have been
consistent with the history of capitalism in the USA. Corporate crime has
run rampant but under the Bush administration these criminals have been
given the green light to plunder and loot with the scandals of Enron, Tyco,
Global Crossing, World Com. Etc, exposing the more brazen corporate
elements. In order for this charge of criminal neglect to become a reality,
the Millions More Movement will have to mobilize black lawyers, progressive
lawyers, and black law students of the National Black Law Students
Association (BALSA) to gather the evidence on the Department of Homeland
Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to press the charges.
Ultimately, questions of criminal neglect will be solved politically, but in
the interim the pressure must be mounted so that the National Bar
Association is not simply an endorser of the March but an active component
of the new movement. It is only an organized movement that will expose
whether the charge of "criminal neglect" will be more than rhetoric.
There were a number of initiatives announced for marches and rallies
in Louisiana at the end of October and in December. One real test of this
movement,
with its diverse constituency, will be whether there can be coordination
between organizations such as the October 28 manifestations and the
Institute of the Black World 21st century organizing the December activities
to expose the crimes in the Gulf.
Two Gulf Wars
If Katrina, the tragedy of the Gulf of Mexico, provided one impetus
for unity, the other catalyst for unity was the total opposition to the war
in Iraq and Afghanistan. In nearly every presentation references were made
to the over $200 billion USD spent on the unjust and illegal war in Iraq and
Afghanistan while the infrastructure deteriorated in the USA. There was more
than one speaker that labeled the war criminal and called for George Bush to
be impeached.
The call to bring the troops home now was underlined by many speakers,
especially
Damu Smith of
Black Voices for Peace. In less
than a minute, Damu Smith made the case for the withdrawal and yielded his
place to a mother who had lost her son in the war. The voice of this black
woman booming across the mall went to all the small towns, urban centers of
the USA where the military recruiters had promised black youths a career in
the army. Given the laws of unforeseen consequences, it was unclear whether
this call for blacks to actively oppose the Iraq war could have the effect
of expanding further the split in the US armed forces, eventually leading to
breaking an already fragmented military structure. For while the Bush
administration seeks to present an image of a strong military, there are
many mothers in all communities who see their children being used as cannon
fodder for the oil companies. The Black Voices for Peace and the black
mothers share the anger of Cindy Sheehan. These mothers have been most
forthright in arguing that their sons and daughters were sent to fight and
die in an unjust war for reasons that have proven to be lies.
Will these revelations of lies and profiteering by the military
industrialists lead to a split in the armed forces similar to the period of
the civil war?
The millions More Movement will need to teach the youth of the work of
John Brown, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and the
militant abolitionists who precipitated this split in the armed forces in
another era. One of the principal objectives of the Million More Movement
must be the dismantling of the imperial military bases and the conversion of
the military-scientific-industrial complex.
New Alliances necessary
The tasks of conversion and demilitarization will need a new political
alliance between all of the oppressed regardless of race. All of the
speeches pointed to the fact that the new political alliances were necessary
in order to create a new power center to prosecute the real criminals. The
call was made for an alliance of the majority to create a new government so
that the agencies of the state such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Center for Disease Control (CDC)
and the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) could spend the resources to
prosecute the corporate criminals. Under the present system, the military
and police forces are mobilized to defend the one per cent that controls the
corporations.
The appeal to the youths in the military to oppose the war was
probably one of the most radical features of this march. While the
mainstream liberal peace movement has treated the question of the
war crimes
and torture
in Iraq and Guantanamo gingerly, the black movement had no qualms in calling
the war against the people of Iraq criminal. This resonated well with
millions of youth across the country that are targeted as criminals and
warehoused in the military, prison industrial complex.
A recorded message was sent from Death Row on behalf of all those
behind bars and called for increased mobilization to stop the racist
executions. The more well-known death row case of Mumia Abu-Jamal was also
brought to the marchers in order to remind those present of the thousands of
blacks and brown facing the death penalty. However, the marchers never heard
the taped message prepared by Mumia.
Reparations and crimes against humanity
The word
crime
was used numerous times in this march. The clearest usage was when the
charge of criminal neglect
was leveled against the government. Other crimes, committed by the
capitalist system, whether it was in relation to health, the environment, or
test trials for drugs using Africans as guinea pigs, were also addressed. By
speaking to the questions of
crimes against humanity and
reparations
the Millions More Movement drew the attention and energies of the masses of
people in the USA who have mobilized and will mobilize in support of
reparations.
The representatives from the First Nation Peoples reminded the
millions gathered of the crimes of genocide against the millions Native
Americans. He drew attention to the fact that over 98 per cent of his people
had been massacred by the invaders who had been celebrated as trailblazers
of freedom. The connections between corporate crimes, crimes of biological
warfare against blacks, crimes of neglect, the crimes of war, the crimes of
genocide and the crimes of the Transatlantic Slave trade resonated
throughout and went far and wide across the land. In his speech, Farrakhan
called on poor whites not to
be accomplices to the historic crimes. One speaker noted that though
the present generation of whites may be beneficiaries from the system of
slavery and white supremacy, it was time to make a break with this criminal
past.
Martin Luther King Jr. had made a similar observation when he was
incarcerated in the Birmingham jail. He noted that the poor blacks had more
in common with the poor whites (his jailers) but the system had mobilized
the whites to be cheerleaders in their own oppression by being accomplices
to crimes of lynching and killing black peoples.
The Millions More Movement was now calling on poor whites to refrain
from being accomplices to crimes in the present. In this regard, it is
imperative that the USA accede to the principles of the International
Criminal Court.
While there is the focus on past crimes, it is also urgent to focus on
the present crimes. It is urgent that the Million More Movement draw
attention to the criminal activities of corporations that use our
communities as dumping grounds for dangerous products. The cancer epidemic
in our communities requires concrete mobilization. The women of the Million
Women March have been most forthright in raising the question of health care
and universal health care. Black Women have raised the bar in the debate on
reparations by adding the questions of sexual violation and gender violence
to the historic crimes.
Reparations and Reconstruction in Africa
This message of Reparations was also echoed in the context of new
efforts to divert attention from the global demands of the World Conference
Against Racism in 2001. One such diversion is the present international
campaign to
Make Poverty
History in Africa.
Louis Farrakhan addressed his comments specifically to Prime Minister
Tony Blair of the United Kingdom who had convened a special summit of the G8
in Scotland earlier this year, with the agenda to end poverty in Africa.
Mocking the announced plans to give $50 billion US dollars worth of aid to
Africa, Farrakhan spelled out the demand that Africa did not want aid but
demanded
reparations. He repeated the
call for the cancellation of the African debt, apology for slavery, the
return of cultural objects stolen from Africa and called for trillions of
dollars to be invested in the building of roads, (from Cape to Cairo) the
building of bridges, the building of water supply systems, the building of
new energy and electrical systems and the construction of other
infrastructure.
While the message on reparations for crimes in Africa was on point,
Farrakhan sent a mixed message on the role of African Americans in the
reconstruction of Africa. His ideas on reconstruction did not take into
consideration the tremendous technical changes that made old forms of
industrialization outdated in the bio-tech century. African plants and
genetic materials are far more valuable today than industrial plants. The
Millions More Movement must grasp the fact that Africans in the Americas who
want to participate in the reconstruction of Africa must start with
consultations and discussions with the oppressed Africans themselves.
Ultimately, Africans in the USA must break with the vision of those leaders
in Africa who envision Africa as a free trade zone for African Americans.
Yet, the castigation of Blair and the call for reparations for Africa
spelt a clear political shift from the professional lobbyists of the
humanitarian sector who consider themselves to be new missionaries in
Africa. The Millions More Movement was poised between the Pan Africanism of
Kente Cloth and trips to Africa by the black middle classes and the reality
of police brutality against African immigrants (epitomized by the profiling
of North African immigrants and the shooting of others such as the pumping
of 41 bullets into Amadou Diallo.
Hitherto, the US government had sought to divide Africans everywhere
who are supposed to be Christians from their Islamic brothers and sisters in
other parts of Africa. All of the language and symbols of the so called war
on terror had been pointed against Africans of the Islamic faith and peoples
of the Arab World in general.
The Millions More Movement was a statement and opposition to all forms
of racial profiling and called on black people to break from elite Pan
Africanism that served the interests of the Pentagon. If this movement is to
be internationalist and taken seriously by Africans and others fighting
against colonialism and occupation in places such as Palestine and Puerto
Rico, it must intensify its solidarity and information work. Black and Brown
peoples in the USA must know what is going on in societies such as Nigeria,
the Sudan and Zimbabwe. This is to ensure that African Americans are not
mobilized to be on the wrong side of history.
Even before the so called war on terror and the elevation of Colin
Powell and Condi Rice as the non white spokespersons of US imperialism, the
militarists in the USA sought to recruit sections of the African American
community through links to the Corporate Council for Africa. This
organization has in turn sought to tap into the genuine love for Africa
which is manifest in the black community as a whole. In turn, there has
developed an organization called the Constituency for Africa.
The Millions More Movement by its very existence, and its overt Pan
African message to the grassroots, stands as a challenge to the forward
plans of the corporate criminals. In turn, an organized movement will be
able to expose which forces believe in a real Constituency for Africa.
The stated objective of the US government through so called
consultations and dialogue was to bring Africa under the neo liberal
straightjacket through the Africa Growth and Opportunity (AGOA) framework
for trade and the Africa contingency operations training assistance (ACOTA)
for the military efforts.
From :
Terry Marshall <urbantecknique@gmail.com>
MIAMI CRISIS UPDATE - EYEWITNESS REPORTING
Miami Crisis Update
10/27/05
Miami is known for its night glow of bright neon lights. They are
supposed to represent all that is glitter and gold about the city. The
first night after Hurricane Wilma, the lights (or lack of) showed how
race space, and class were intertwined. On that night one could drive
over one of the bridges that connect the main land to Miami beach and
see what parts of the city were given priority (south beach and
downtown still shined) and what's parts didn't (Most of the mainland,
Liberty city, Overtown, North Miami).
And The Days Go On
Miami is experiencing its 5-day without power (Florida Power and
Lights reported in the Herald that 42% of the city has regained
power). I have been back in Miami for 4 days now. Luckily I was out of
town when the hurricane hit. I say luckily because I came back to see
that my apartment ceiling caved in from rain (right over where I
sleep-on the couch). After spending the last few days trying figure
out my housing situation, I took time today to help out with the
broader situation.
I volunteer with the Miami workers center. The Miami Workers Center
(http://www.miamiworkerscenter.org)
is a strategy and organizing
center for low-income communities and low-wage workers in Miami-Dade
County. The Center organized teams of volunteers to go out into the
community to interview and document how folks were doing and assess
the crisis.
My Team was assigned to Ward Towers and Claude Pepper, two senior
citizens homes in North Miami. We were armed with clipboards and
fliers. On the back there was a list of emergency numbers that people
could call for help with hurricane related problems.
Our tasks were to dialogue with folks and document there stories,
assist in any emergency needs, and to let them know that the center
was open as a resource (the center is based in liberty city and just
regained power today).
The first thing I noticed about the two buildings was how nondescript
they were. It's as if the city didn't want to let anyone know that
elderly folk live there. The stories I heard once I got inside help me
see how the city makes the poor and elderly even more invisible than
just the buildings appearance.
The building is occupied by mostly by older black and Latina women.
They are experiencing their 5th straight day without electrical power.
The first 3 days they got no help at all. They did not have access to
an elevator until today. Because of this some people who lived on the
higher floors (the building is 16 Stories, 200 units) to sleep on the
first floor in the common room on hard steel chairs! One woman, who
has arthritis, lived on the eighth floor and had to walk up and down
the stairs. Needless to say here knees are causing her more pain as of
late. They did not receive any ice or water until last night. Many
folks believe this was because a couple of news stations came by and
did a story on them. Exposing the conditions. Windows were blown in
and apartments flooded. To date the city has done nothing about this
but board up some windows. Residents had to clean up the water
themselves. One Latina resident told us that a store around the corner
was price gouging, selling candles that usually cost $1.25 for $5!
But don't let these stories lead you to believe the elders in this
building were helpless victims. A man confined to a wheelchair told us
after the first 3 days of no help that the residents were discussing
sitting in the middle of the cross street and getting arrested. "How
would that look, the police arresting a 85 year old woman because she
wanted food and water and lights? How would that look!"?
An elder Black woman, Ms. Emma Brown, told us "The is no color here!
We all, all of us, helped each other out, as neighbors. All the
different people you see around you, we all worked together to help
one another. We didn't see color!" In a city that is known for its
racial tensions between Cubans (primarily) and Blacks, That's huge!
My team would not have been able to so effectively get folks stories
if it wasn't for Ms. Mae Catherine Smith. Ms. Smith is a member of
L.I.F.F.T. (Low Income Families Fighting Together, a initiative of the
Miami Worker Center) and a resident the Ward tower senior citizen
home. She took us around and introduced us to people. Explaining who
we were and what we were doing. You could tell that she was an
organizer within the building and people trusted her. She was breaking
down to folk how they could get help and what needed to be done. It
was her leadership that guided us this afternoon.
When we got back to the center to debrief with the other teams we
shared some of the stories we heard things we've seen.
Distribution Centers being mismanaged: no set times, running out of
supplies early, telling people wrong locations, no coordination
between agencies (county not knowing where or when federal was coming,
or military). Some officials at distributions center admitted that
they had know idea when the center would re-open or where.
People are not being able to get transportation to centers either. The
bus system is horrible in Miami and even if you have a car you will be
an in 2-mile line trying to get gas). No Spanish speaking cops in
largely Spanish speaking areas. To top it off the packages of food
that they are handing out to people is hardly anything to eat. The
items in one package were: Jell-O pudding, small package of cereal,
chocolate milk, and a small can of beeforoni)
The Miami Workers Center is planning on sending people out to spots
again tomorrow. Their work is proving to be essential in this time of
need.
All of the neighborhoods (Liberty city, Opa-locka, Allaphatta, and
Little Havana) that we investigated today were low-income communities
of color (black and Latino). In the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma these
resource depleted areas are still suffering from neglect. The hardest
hit being the elderly and women and children.
There are completely opposite stories going on in neighborhoods like
The Design District, Downtown, and South Beach. Places that are known
for being playgrounds for the upper classes had power and services
back on within 24hrs of the hurricane.
Race, Space, and Class (Gender and age as well) seem to come together
again.
This experience is showing (along with that of the Katrina victims)
that it's not a question of where hurricanes hits. It's a question of
where the resources are missed.
More updates to come..
P.S. more news can be found at
www.miami.com
Terry Marshall
Independent Researcher
BLOC Network (http://www.blocnetwork.org/)
From: "Gary Douglas Holmes" <garydholmes@legacyassurance.net>
Reply-To: "Gary Douglas Holmes" <garydholmes@legacyassurance.net>
Hi Folks!
Good information from Irwin Schiff, maybe worth a donation of a few
dollars
or buy some of his books to fight the beast! Between "We the People",
Irwin
Schiff, Joe Banister and Larken Rose we need to continue to support
these
beast slayers with prayer and donations. Remember they are fighting with
limited resources and funds, you and I can make a difference so don't
cop
out now, be a part of the solution! God's blessing be upon these
courageous
men and women!
Gary
Las Vegas TRIBUNE
Headlines June 3, 2005
Duped By The IRS?
Schiff: When Will The Government PROVE
that the IRS is Authorized to Collect Taxes?
http://www.lasvegastribune.com/headline1.html
Important. This article from the "Las Vegas Tribune" confirms and
exposes
what Irwin has been saying all along. There is no law that makes anyone
"liable" for the payment of income taxes, and IRS agents have no
authority
to seize property or do anything at all to enforce the payment of income
taxes. Irwin is kicking himself for not raising this jurisdictional
argument earlier in this case, and in connection with the government's
$2.3 million dollar civil lawsuit and in connection with the Preliminary
Injunction - however he will raise the issue now in those cases since
they
are still pending. It's not that he was unaware of this argument,
since
he discusses it in pages 264 - 265 of "The Federal Mafia." He can't
believe he overlooked it in these law suits against him and is kicking
himself for having done so. He says that's what he gets for not reading
his own books more often.
The issue is really quite simple, and can be used in any situation where
the IRS is attempting to extort money for the payment of income taxes;
from CDP hearings to petitions to Tax Court. Irwin believes this
issue,
if forcefully used, should stop all criminal income tax prosecution
and
civil law suits seeking to extort income taxes - but since we are still
dealing with a corrupt federal judiciary, we can't tell how they will
try
to get around it. But, the simplicity of this issue should make it
difficult for them to do so - especially if we can publicize it.
Obviously, if we had to pay income taxes the two documents would exist,
but
they don't. Las Vegas' local, main stream media have refused to touch
the story. (However Irwin tells me that the AP told him "we're still
looking at it." We'll wait and see what they will do with it.) In any
case, you should pass this story on to everybody in your address book.
Bring the story to the attention of your local media. Call in local and
national talk shows and talk about it. The issue is simple and
uncomplicated - and is all explained in the "Tribune" article. For a
more
detailed understanding read Irwin's Motion and his Reply as posted to
his
website, www.paynoincometax.com
So, if you want to help expose and end
the destructive and illegal enforcement of the income tax which is
rapidly
converting the United States into a 3rd world country - get moving on
this
story. How can you find a simpler issue?
Angela
Irwin Schiff News
http://www.taxfreedomnow.com
http://www.paynoincometax.com
Join the Lawmen - workshop - in your city here
http://www.lawmenamerica.com
Subscribe/Un-subscribe to IS News e-mail here
http://irwinschiff.homestead.com/Subscribe.html
Disclaimer: Irwin Schiff News posts the above information and web sites
for
educational purposes only and referral to them is not to be construed as
an
endorsement or legal advice. All Irwin Schiff News (IS News) text
messages
are presumed to be first amendment protected freedom of speech on issues
of
importance to the Civilian population of the United States of America.
In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and educational purposes.
LARIAT GROUP Rounding up GREAT Solutions for YOU!
Gary-Douglas: Holmes
Director The Lariat Group
5145 Rogue River Hwy
Gold Hill
Oregon [97525] (UUD)
garydholmes@legacyassurance.net
garydholmes@lariatgroup.com
IM:
garydholmes@hotmail.com MSN
www.lariatgroup.com tel:
tel2:
fax: 541-582-5900
866-250-8084 VMbox 1611
503-296-585
ABORIGINES VOW TO WIPE PIONEER SCOT OFF
THE MAP
BY Kurt Bayer
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=672952005
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=672952005
A SCOTTISH pioneer revered as one of Australia's foremost explorers
faces
being erased from maps amid accusations that he was responsible for the
cold-blooded murder of hundreds of aborigines.
The aborigines are calling for the electoral district of McMillan in the
southern state of Victoria to be renamed out of respect for the men,
women
and children they say were slaughtered by Angus McMillan and his
'Highland
Brigade' in the massacre of Warrigal Creek.
The 1843 massacre was one of several attributed to McMillan, originally
from
Glenbrittle, Skye, and his band of Scottish settlers, who styled
themselves
the 'Highland Brigade'. They are accused of carrying out a genocidal
campaign against the aborigines for a decade.
Generations of Australian schoolchildren have been taught that McMillan
was
a trailblazing settler, the first to cross the Snowy Mountains, opening
up
the fertile lands beyond. In 1841, McMillan founded Port Albert,
Victoria's
oldest sea port and the first European settlement in Gippsland, the rich
agricultural territory he discovered.
The official Clan MacMillan society, which boasts thousands of members
throughout the world, hails Angus McMillan as a famous son. Australia's
Presbyterian community have also voted the devout Christian one of the
nation's "greatest Presbyterians".
But the Koori aboriginal people of East Gippsland in southern Victoria
have
altogether different views on the Scottish explorer.
The Koori Heritage Trust says that the number of aborigines slaughtered
by
McMillan and his colleagues is thought to be in excess of 300, with
evidence
of 14 separate massacres, including women and children. The most
notorious
was at the remote settlement of Warrigal Creek, where up to 180
aborigine
adults and children were shot after a native reportedly murdered Ranald
Macalister, nephew of Lachlan Macalister, the Scottish sponsor of
McMillan's
expeditions.
An account of the massacre from George Dunderdale, who collected local
stories and published them in The Book of the Bush in 1898, said: "The
blacks were found encamped near a waterhole at Gammon Creek, and those
who
were shot were thrown into it."
Richard Frankland, founding member of Australia's pro-indigenous
political
party, Your Voice, has called on Prime Minister John Howard to launch an
investigation into McMillan's shrouded past.
Last night, Frankland said: "Australia has a nursery version of history
in
its head. All of these people who committed these war crimes, including
McMillan, should be outed publicly and I urge our prime minister to set
up a
select committee to make a judicial investigation into these atrocities.
"If there are statues or commemorations pronouncing them as wonderful
men,
then they should be torn down or renamed to reflect what they commonly
are.
There also needs to be a massive renaming of any town or area that is
named
after these explorers, who in some cases were drunks, rapists and
murderers.
"You can't go on ignoring history and making heroes of someone like
McMillan, it is blatantly wrong."
Greta Jubb, research officer for the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service,
said: "We're not going to stand by and let these events in history go
past
without notice. We're going to kick up a fuss."
Last night, Clan MacMillan International Centre refused to comment.
In Commemoration Of The 40th Anniversary
Of Malcolm X's Death, Go-Kart
Films Will Release This Startling Expose on DVD
Sure to Incite a Firestorm of Debate, The DVD Also Features a
Never-Before-Seen, Exclusive Interview with James 67X, Secretary and
Close Friend of Malcolm X, Talking About the Assassination for the
First Time
NEW YORK, NY, September 23, 2005 -- For nearly forty years, the murder
of one of America's most controversial leaders, Malcolm X, has remained
a mysterious tangle of lies and confusion. On October 25, an explosive
and critically-acclaimed documentary will finally shed light on one of
the darkest moments in American history. More than ten years in the
making, Brother Minister: The Assassination Of Malcolm X, is a
painstakingly in-depth documentary examining the swirl of events
surrounding the death of this cultural icon through interviews with
friends and felons, scholars and collars, de-classified government
intelligence and more.
Narrated by actor Roscoe Lee Browne, directed by Jack Baxter and
co-written by Baxter and Jefri Aalmuhammed (a consultant on Spike Lee's
Malcolm X) Brother Minister is an exhaustive inquiry into the extremely
tangled web that surrounded the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X.
Digging deeply, the highly compelling film implicates some unlikely
suspects, including Louis Farrakhan, the FBI, the CIA, the New York
police, the Nation of Islam and founder Elijah Muhammad, members of the
FOI - the Nation's security force - various body guards, and even, in
an act of martyrdom, Malcolm X himself.
Over the course of a decade, the filmmakers unearthed archival footage
and stills, old newsreels of the aftermath of the assassination, TV
news clips and numerous interviews with close friends and associates of
Malcolm X, up to recreating the very assassination itself. Fascinating
interview subjects include Dr. John Henrik Clarke, who helped Malcolm X
with historical research; assassination witness Robert Higgins; author
Baba Zak A. Kondo; lawyer William Kunstler, and convicted killer Thomas
15X Johnson, who served 23 years, despite ultimately being found
innocent of Malcolm X's assassination.
Focusing not only on the actual assassination but on the turbulent
context of the murder, Brother Minister examines the origin and history
of the Nation of Islam, and countless other organizations and
individuals that shaped the life, and death, of Malcolm X. What role
did Louis Farrakhan and J.Edgar Hoover play in the assassination? Did
the real assassins escape? Did two innocent men go to prison for a
crime they did not commit? Brother Minister sets out to answer the
questions that many have been afraid to ask.
The only documentary that deals exclusively with the assassination of
Malcolm X, Brother Minister is a must-have for anyone looking to
explore the reality beyond the lines of history books. Brother Minister
proves, ultimately, that it's never too late for the truth.
BMI JOINS FIGHT AGAINST FILE SHARING
BMI Senior VP Government Relations Fred Cannon hotly debated Consumer
Rights
Association activist Michael Petricone on the steps of the U.S. Supreme
Court building (Reuters photo receiving nationwide circulation) as the
Court
held a hearing that will decide whether or not Grokster -- a company
that
provides peer-to-peer file-sharing software -- will be "contributory
infringers"
or "vicariously liable" for the infringement activities of the users of
its software. BMI has joined with many others in the creative community
in urging the Supreme Court to render a judgment that protects
intellectual
property.
http://bmi.com/musicworld/musicpeople/200503/grokster.asp
BMI, MOBZILLA IN LICENSING PACT
BMI and La Jolla, CA-based wireless media company mobZilla, LLC have
announced
an agreement covering the performing rights for BMI musical works for
mobZilla's
mobile phone streaming music service. MobZilla is a monthly subscription
service that gives users unlimited access to streaming commercial-free
music
both online and on select mobile phones across most major U.S. carriers.
MobZilla subscribers nationwide can listen to a mix of music
personalized
from over 30 content genres through their mobile phone or on the
Internet.
http://bmi.com/news/200503/20050304a.asp
“Future True Humanity: The necessity for the African AIDS
Holocaust”
by Boyd Ed Graves, J.D.
www.boydgraves.com
January 21, 2005
To the people of the
world:
Somewhere
in time and at some point, Aryan men and women have been living
under a directive to eliminate the Black race in the name of
future true humanity. The historical development of the medical
and science proof is overwhelming. It is unfortunate, very
unfortunate, but true. The guarantee of life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness is disingenuous. . In my world my
government is not above or beyond my Constitution. It is a
Constitution I have believed in all my life. The U.S.
development and proliferation of HIV/AIDS violates every tenant
of any true humanity or society. A society that seeks to
eliminate,… eliminates itself. A world where everyone looks the
same before and after their tanning lotion.
If the Negroid race
is to be eliminated, and certainly with your early viral work as
far back as 1902, then I pray your manipulated future yearns for
your brother and sister.
It is truly
unfortunate that many of us are centralized in our intelligence.
However, these are your government’s documents, because
you choose to be ‘told’ information, and lack the fortitude
required to attempt to at least try to make a difference, you’ll
wave your hand away from accessing any of the documents, the
truth and facts, on your own. You will wonder and ponder until
you no longer exist, nor any of your antecedents.
There is comfort,
strength and solace in truth. This path that we have taken down
the “center of the double yellow” has been the correct one. If
there is unbiased science and medical evidence, there is. If
there were not, we would not have the 1971 “research logic”
flowchart (blueprint) of HIV/AIDS.
www.boydgraves.com/flowchart. If there were not documents,
we would not have the 1969 sworn Congressional testimony of the
coming AIDS weapon. Oddly enough, the testimony is similar to
that of the May 1946 Appropriations hearing where the June 4,
1946 TIME magazine wrote “Better Than The Bomb”. Although the
1957 Appropriations hearing with Gerald Ford was “off the
record”. It is widely believe that appropriation funded,
“Special Operations-X”. It also is important to note that
“visna” disease isolated in 1957, although he had been
identified as early as 1932..
The U.S. Special
Virus program should be reviewed and investigated for the true
future of all humanity.
See and read, U.S.
Public Law 91-213, March 16, 1970
Boyd Ed Graves is a
2005 (unofficial) nominee for a Nobel prize. I am grateful to
the international effort being made on my behalf. Thank you in
particular to Ms. Gina Rydland and her group in Norway
www.uprootmedia.org
Hoteph My Beloved Sisters and
Brothers:
Beloved, if such become true about Aids could kill 80 millions
Afrikans
by
2025 and I might add or before, such become a testimony to how
complacence
we are as Afrikans and serve as testimony that as I said, Afrikans
have
the
inability to respect the profoundness of other Afrikans and in this
case,
the other Afrikan is Dr.Boyd Graves.
May I ask, where is Dr. Graves, the Afrikan in america who warned us
about
this devilish virus and how we Afrikans just gave him our behind to
kiss
because he was brave enough to point a condemning finger at america
and
others who participated in creating this devilish virus call Aids.
You know my beloved, the Afrikan has evolved to become our biggest
obstacle
to our life joy, peace, pristine health, justice and independence.
You who are for Truth will have to agree with me, we did not show
Brother
Graves the respect we should have shown to him, but hell, we were on
cue
and
ready to show all sort of doubt about what he was telling us about
this
devilish Virus call Aids and the sad part about it is, Afrikans in
Afrika
refused to embrace this brother and invite him to Afrika so the
Afrikan
pathologist could confer, or question him about what he was claiming
about
Aids being a man made Virus, knowing full well who will suffer the
most
from
such a killer virus that operate as it does.
Where is Dr, Graves, has america caused something to happen to him
health
wise, that will be damaging to his life?
I desire nothing has happen to him in that regard or is it that
they did
not need to, because we Afrikan took care of that for them in the
way we
ignored this brother and criticized him, questioning his
qualification to
be
able to make such a charge against such a clandestine Nation,
capable of
doing everything Dr Grave accused them of doing but us Afrikans
chose to
doubt and ignore this brother and now here we are making prediction
of
how
many more Afrikans will die from this devilish Virus, known as the
HIV/Aids
virus.
So I ask, did anybody prove Dr.Graves to be a shyster, a shenanigan
and
an
imposter?
Did anybody prove that Dr.Graves was making all of this up just for
recognition and using such a claim for a Hustle?
I am raising all of these question because I know how Afrikans have
been
conditioned to think about other Afrikan who point a condemning
finger
toward america.
So I will make an appeal to Dr. Graves, that is if he is not to fed
up
with
Black folks, to appear once again and make your claim and tell us
what
you
need to continue our fight against this devilish Aids virus and the
devil
that manufactured it and as you said, they have the cure to that
which
they
have made but is willing to let Afrikans and others Die in order to
meet
their Afrikan population control quota or to distinguish us out
entirely.
The Afrikan has become a pitiful and sad lot of a people.
It Is Time to Condemn the Lie and elevate The Truth!!!
We Must Cause Trouble ( with the truth ) Until Our Liberation!!!
It Is The Black Fool Who Say I Have Lost Nothing In Afrika!!! (
Osiris )
I Come, I Share, You Either Accept Or Reject, I Move On.
Completely Loving The Black Afrikan Nation
Honor,Respect And Praise To The Honorable Marcus Garvey
Hoteph
Osiris
Afrikan Spiritualist, Hierophant,Political Revolutionary
There exists 20 000
documents that can prove that AIDS is manmade.
Is DATA working to
disclose the truth?
"The
1971 flowchart makes it perfectly clear, the design,
intent and purpose of the U.S. Special Virus program. As
Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS says, the
HIV/AIDS virus is the result of many steps in the
laboratory, it was no accident.
The 1971 flowchart provides absolute evidence of the
United States' intent to kill its own citizens and
others."
____________________
There exists a cure for AIDS, that
needs to be tested out!
Has DATA informed
about this?
Send a copy of the text below to
friends, media, politicians and different organisations!
Let them know!
Inventors: Antelman; Marvin S.
(Rehovot, IL)
Assignee: Antelman Technologies Ltd.
(Providence, RI)
Appl. No: 658955
Filed: May 31, 1996
United States Patent: 5,676,977. Oct 14, 1997
__________________________-
(And don`t say it isn`t true! The NSA had it`s own
protocol to get their hands on the 20 000 documents in
Africa.)
NSA protokoll: TRUCKERS JOURNAL,
HARTS/NSA v/LARA JOHNSTONE.
http://www.uprootmedia.org/truckersjournal.html
D.O.B: 04 DECEMBER 1966 US INS A# A77 177 281,
DRIVERS LICENCE: CA: B9644585 SOC-SEC:
620-06-3225 aka Lynn Johnstone (UK/MI5), aka
Kelly Haigh (Al Queda/Taliban), aka Lara
Johnstone McVeigh.
OFFICIAL US GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS IN HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES (1969): 'AIDS: The
Manufactured Virus', transcript taken from the
June 9, 1969 Senate testimony of Dr. Donald
MacArthur, a high-level Defense Department
biological research administrator,....
THABO MBEKI President Thabo Mbeki's
Spokesperson: Mr. Bheki Khumalo: Cell: (083) 256
9133, 05 April 2002, Conversation Recorded by
Echelon, Inc. 'Yes, President Thabo Mbeki Is
Well Aware of Who Lara Johnstone Is. The
President has Received Your Hundreds of Emails
For the Past Eight Months That There Are Over
20,000 US Government Documents substantiating
that AIDS is A Black Depopulation Program,....
DESIGNER DISEASES AIDS as Biological &
Psychological Warfare By Waves Forrest Despite
repeated denials from Defense Department
officials, allegations persist that AIDS is a
genetically altered virus, which has been
deliberately released to wipe out homosexuals
and/or non-whites in the U.S. and reduce
populations in third world countries. At first
glance it seems like the epitome of paranoia to
accuse the military of conspiring to exterminate
citizens of their own country, and even some of
their own troops. However, the vast majority of
military personnel could be completely unaware
of such a plot in their midst, while a relative
handful of traitors in key positions could
conduct it under cover of classified operations.
And the circumstantial evidence is actually
quite compelling, that the AIDS virus was
artificially engineered, and planted in several
different locations at about the same time
through vaccination programs, and possibly blood
bank contamination. At a House Appropriations
hearing in 1969, the Defense Department's
Biological Warfare (BW) division requested funds
to develop through gene-splicing a new disease
that would both resist and break down a victim's
immune system,....
Ms. Lara Johnstone: AYE: Biological &
Chemical Warfare Military Scientists created A
Synthetic Biological Agent, named AIDS to Attack
Blacks Immune Systems, for Depopulation
Purposes. The US Special Virus Program has over
20,000 Scientific US Government Documents
Verifying that the "creation," "production" and
"proliferation" of AIDS was INTENTIONAL,....
Bulletin of the W.H.O., vol. 47, p 257-
274.) This is a clinical description of the
function of the AIDS virus. The incidence of
AIDS infections in Africa coincides exactly with
the locations of the W.H.O. smallpox vaccination
program in the mid-1970's (London Times, May 11,
1987). Some 14,000 Haitians then on UN
secondment to Central Africa were also
vaccinated in this campaign. Personnel actually
conducting the vaccinations may have been
completely unaware that the vaccine was anything
other than what they were told. A striking
feature of AIDS is that it's ethno-selective.
The rate of infection is twice as high among
Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans as among
whites, with death coming two to three times as
swiftly. And over 80% of the children with AIDS
and 90% of infants born with it are among these
minorities. "Ethnic weapons" that would strike
certain racial groups more heavily than others
have been a long-standing U.S. Army BW
objective. (Harris and Paxman, p 265),....
October 2002:
In Addition to a list of approximately 100
covert intelligence operatives, assassins, bomb
explosives experts, terrorists, etc, who
categorically state that: AIDS IS A BLACK
DEPOPULATION VIRUS, HARTS CONFIRMS FOLLOWING
INDIVIDUALS TO THE STATEMENT:
Mr. Wouter Basson, Former Head of South Africa's
Biological & Chemical Warfare Program, on 06 Oct
2002 at 21:09 hrs - Mr. Ron Pandolfi, Deputy
Director of Science & Technology, Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), on 09 Oct 2002 at
09:11 hrs President George W. Bush, President of
the United States of America, on 16 Oct 2002 at
09:11 hrs - Former United States Presidents: W.J.
Clinton, G.H.W. Bush Snr., J. Carter, R. Reagan,
& G. Ford; on 17 Oct 2002 at 09:11 hrs - United
States of America: Ambassador in Pretoria: HE
Mr. Cameron Hume, on 18 Oct 2002 at 17:00 hrs
Republic of South Africa: Ambassador in
Washington, DC: HE Ms. SVM Sisulu on 18 Oct 2002
at 17:00 hrs,....
Mr. D'Oliviera to FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS
TO HIM were unsuccessful. My instructions to my
attorney as dated on 17 October 2002, also
stated briefly: I have been informed by the NSA
(National Security Agency), as well as my friend
in the White House (Tim McVeigh), that the U.S.
Special Virus Program authors who 'created Aids'
as a 'depopulation program for blacks' are
willing to release all their documentation to
that fact to the South African Department of
Defense, SA Military Health Services, c/o Major
Ali. Their request is that the charges against
Lara Johnstone are dropped in their entirety,
and that all complaints written by Lara
Johnstone be immediately addressed, investigated
and where relevant the appropriate official
apologies are made. President George W. Bush
would kindly appreciate a response on this
matter by the latest at 17:00 hrs South Africa
time (GMT + 2), as would I, Lara Johnstone.
President Bush can be contacted via the White
House Press Office (202) 456 2580,....
The "discovery" of the AIDS virus (HTLV3)
was announced by Dr. Robert Gallo at the
National Cancer Institute, which is on the
grounds of Fort Detrick, Maryland, a primary
U.S. Army biological warfare research facility.
Actually, the AIDS virus looks and acts much
more like a cross between a bovine leukemia
virus and a sheep visna (brain-rot) virus,
cultured in a human cell culture, than any virus
of the HTLV group. The closest thing in this
case to a "smoking test tube" so far is the AIDS
virus itself. If it was possible for such a
monstrosity to occur naturally it would have
done so ages ago and decimated mankind at that
time. Some other life form would presently be in
control of this planet (assuming that is not
already the case). The Hepatitis B vaccine study
in 1978 appears to have been the initial means
of planting the infection in New York City. The
test protocol specified non-monogamous males
only, and homosexuals received a different
vaccine from heterosexuals. At least 25-50% of
the first reported New York AIDS cases in 1981
had received the Hepatitis B test vaccine in
1978. By 1984, 64% of the vaccine recipients had
AIDS, and the figures on the current infection
rate for the participants of that study are held
by the U.S. Department of Justice, and
"unavailable." The AIDS epidemic emerged
full-blown in the three U.S. cities with
"organized gay communities" before being
reported elsewhere, including Haiti or Africa,
so it is epidemiologically impossible for either
of those countries to be the origin point for
the U.S. infections. Another indication AIDS had
multiple origin points is that the 14-month
doubling time of the disease cannot nearly
account for the current number of cases if we
assume only a small number of initial infections
starting in the late 1970s. Before dismissing
the possibility that a U.S. Army BW facility
would participate in genocide, bear in mind that
hundreds of top Nazis were imported into key
positions in the U.S. military- intelligence
establishment following WW II. U.S. military
priorities were then re-oriented from defeating
Nazis to "defeating" communism at any cost, and
strengthening military control of economic and
foreign policy decisions (See - Project
Paperclip by Clarence Lasby, Atheneum 214, NY,
and Gehlen: Spy of the Century by E.H. Cookridge,
Random House.),....
The first detailed charges regarding AIDS
as a BW weapon were published in the Patriot
newspaper in New Delhi, India, on July 4, 1984.
It is hard to say where the investigations of
this story in the Indian press might have led,
if they had not been sidetracked by two major
domestic disasters shortly thereafter: the
assassination of Indira Gandhi on Oct. 31 and
the Bhopal Union Carbide plant "accident" that
killed several thousand and injured over 200,000
on Dec. 3. The Soviet press picked up the story
on October 1985, making it easy for U.S. Defense
Department spokesmen to dismiss the charges as
"Soviet propaganda," even though many other
countries carried it. The Soviets recently
retracted the charges, in the new spirit of
US-USSR cooperation,....
At approx 13:18 hrs (GMT + 2), FAXED TO:
US EMBASSY PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE AT (012)342
2090, from 13:10 to 13:14 hrs, Job # 630, from
Wizard, Inc. Offices in CapeTown, and at 13:07
hrs, faxed to 09-1-202- 456-2461, from same
office.
============================================
TO: National Security Council Press
Office, Fax: (202) 456 2461. FROM: Lara
Johnstone, HARTS, RSA: Cell: (072) 589 7086 RSVP
FAX: c/o Rhodes House, Cape Town: Fax: 27 -
(021) 424 8849. DATE: 31 December 2002 (
approx13:00 GMT + 2 | 08:00 EST) # OF PAGES: TWO
(2): this page, plus front page copy of ON THE
ROAD AGAIN. URGENT! RSVP BY MIDNIGHT (PST) 31
DECEMBER 2002. NSC Press Office: Please
IMMEDIATELY copy to the following Offices, for
their response to your Office: (i) USA Embassy
in Pretoria, RSA, (ii) White House Press Office,
(ii) President Bush's Office, (iii) Vice
President Cheney's Office, (iv) Mr. Nicholas
Calio, Dir. Of Legislative Affairs Office, (v)
Secretary of State: Mr. Powell's Office, (vi)
Secretary of Defense: Mr. Rumsfeld's Office,
(vii) Ms. Condoleeza-Rice's Office, (viii)
Office of the First Lady, Ms. Laura Bush, (ix)
US Congress & Senate, (ix) US Marine Corp
Officers doing service in the White House, who
previously served with Gunnery Sgt. Jon Michael
Dye (x) Derrick, Public Liaison Office. URGENT:
FINAL WRITTEN CONFIRMATION REQUESTED: This fax
to the National Security Council Press Office,
REQUESTS that if any of the above offices would
like a deletion, change of date and/or time of
statement (below), or a correction of title (AS
INDICATED BELOW), to please contact the National
Security Office, IMMEDIATELY with these
changes/additions/deletions. Additionally this
is the FINAL CONFIRMATION to ALL THE ABOVE
OFFICES, that YOU ARE AWARE THAT THESE
STATEMENTS WILL BE GOING INTO PRINT.
Additionally, a lack of written response stating
otherwise from your offices, to the NSC Press
Office: OFFICIALLY INDICATES YOUR OFFICE'S
"OFFICIAL APPROVAL, SANCTION
AND APPRECIATION THAT A PRINT PUBLICATION
IS WILLING TO PRINT THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT":
`AIDS IS A BLACK DEPOPULATION VIRUS' MADE BY THE
FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS (i) Timothy James McVeigh,
National Alliance, US Army Special Forces & NSA,
(convicted of bombing Oklahoma City Federal
Building, sentenced to execution, given
unconditional Presidential Pardon by President
G.W. Bush), Terre Haute Federal Prison, Indiana,
May 2001. (ii) Jon Michael Dye, Sgt. US Marine
Corps (saved Steve Biko's life), Berkeley
Marina, CA, Aug 2001 (iii) Nicholas Calio,
Assistant to President G.W. Bush, Dir of
Legislative Affairs, 06 Sep 2001. (iv) General
R.E. Eberhart, Commander in Chief NORAD, 11 Sep
2001. (v) Senator's: Thurmond & Clinton; Rep's:
Tancredo & McKinney, 13 Nov 2001 at 09:11 hrs
(vi) Sgt. Michael "Bossman" Martin, Blue-Eyed
Seminole Indian, US Army Special Forces, (aka
John Doe # 3 of the OK City Bombing, requested
by the Army to disappear after the bombing),
Truck Stop, Phoenix, AZ, 15 Dec 2001, at 09:11
hrs. (vii) Mr. Ron Pandolfi, Dep. Dir of
Technology, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
09 October 2002 at 09:11 hrs; (viii) President
George W. Bush, President: United States of
America, 16 Oct 2002 at 09:11 hrs; (ix) Former
US Presidents: Clinton, Bush Snr., Carter,
Reagan & Ford; 17 Oct 2002 at 09:11 hrs; (x) US
Ambassador in Pretoria: Mr. Cameron Hume, 18 Oct
2002 at 17:00 hrs. Mr. Johan de Jongh, former
SAP bomb explosives expert, and Bodyguard to
Prime Minister P.W. Botha, and Mr. Wouter Basson,
former Head of RSA Biological & Chemical Warfare
Program, have OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED THEIR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THEIR NAMES TO THE ABOVE
STATEMENT IN PRINT. For further information on
the other individuals mentioned `final
confirmations', contact Mr. Ron Pandolfi, Deputy
Director of Technology at the CIA. WHITE HOUSE -
GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER PLEASE |
International finance facility
In January 2003 HM Treasury and the Department for International
Development (DFID) launched a proposal for an International Finance
Facility (IFF). The IFF is designed to frontload aid to help meet
the Millennium Development Goals.
Estimates suggest that development assistance must be doubled and
focused on the poorest countries if the Millennium Development Goals
are to be met - an increase of at least $50 billion a year. At the
UN's International Conference on Financing in Monterrey in 2002,
donors pledged to provide an additional $16 billion a year from
2006. But this means a significant resource gap must be bridged if
the Millennium Development Goals are to be reached.
The Millennium Development Goals represent different indicators of
the same basic poverty. Investments in different sectors must take
place simultaneously to ensure sustainable progress. Education,
health, access to water, roads and other infrastructure for growth
must be tackled at the same time to ensure a lasting exit from
poverty. Funding for debt relief should reinforce, not replace,
funding to build a skilled work force and the infrastructure and
capacity to trade. The IFF, as a stable financing vehicle, could
provide the critical mass of additional and predictable funding
needed to make lasting progress in all these areas.
The IFF:
is a financing mechanism which would provide up to an additional
$50 billion a year in development assistance between now and 2015;
would leverage in additional money from the international capital
markets by issuing bonds, based on legally-binding long-term donor
commitments;
would be responsible for repaying bondholders using future donor
payment streams; and
would disburse resources through existing multilateral and
bilateral mechanisms.
Since the proposal for the IFF was launched, it has received broad
interest and support from emerging markets, developing countries,
international institutions, faith communities, NGOs and business.
Many Filipino children poisoned
Wednesday 09 March 2005 1:23 PM GMT
Initial results show the victims ate snacks made from cassava
Up to 28 primary school children have died from apparent poisoning after
eating the tropical food crop cassava in the central Philippine province of
Bohol, officials said. The students from the San Jose Elementary School in
the town of Mabini had eaten snacks made from cassava roots in their
mid-morning break before falling ill, officials said on Wednesday. Philip
Fuderanan, a spokesman for the mayor of Mabini, said 25 of 60 children who
had fallen ill and been taken to various nearby hospitals had died.
"As of 4pm, the number of casualties has reached 25," Fuderanan told local
GMA television. Eutiqio Bernales, mayor of the neighbouring town of Ubay
where most of the children were taken for treatment, said medical workers
were numbering those dead at 28.
"In fact, I borrowed a dump truck to take back (to Mabini) the more than 20
bodies here," Bernales said, adding that shocked and grieving relatives of
those who died were being properly looked after.
Critical condition
Fuderanan said municipal health workers had rushed to the hospitals to carry
out tests on the surviving children, many of whom were in critical
condition.
"They had eaten food with cassava as an ingredient," Fuderanan said after
the initial results of an investigation by doctors.
"As of 4pm, the number of casualties has reached 25"
Municipal health authorities were investigating the incident, and radio
reports said two vendors who had sold the children the snack were being
questioned.
"We are trying to account for all the children who had eaten (the root
crop). We are checking them up to make sure that they are all right," vice
mayor of Mabini Ester Tabigi said. "Twenty-five did not make it and
expired," she said.
Cassava or manioc is a tropical food crop widely grown around the Asian
region. In many impoverished Philippine towns, it is a substitute to rice,
the staple food.
Toxic varieties
Cassava is traditionally boiled, or processed as ingredients for native
cakes and delicacies in the Philippines. Experts say that certain types of
cassava may contain substances that produce cyanide and are toxic to humans
if unprocessed. Doctor Nenita Po, who heads the state hospital in Bohol's
capital city Tagbilaran, about 100km east of Mabini, said doctors there took
in 13 patients. Two of those later died. A 68-year-old woman who reportedly
prepared the food that the children ate was among those still sick in the
Tagbilaran hospital, Po said. "When they arrived here they were vomiting,
complaining of abdominal pains and LBM (Loose Bowel Movement or Diarrhoea),"
she said.
You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/462935A1-417A-4F67-A765-3F673FE51B5C.htm
Afrika Bambaataa
|
|
NYC's Hot 97 Under Fire
Artists, activists
accuse radio station of fueling hip-hop violence
|
New York's Hot 97 was the setting for
two recent high-profile shootings, and now the radio
station has become a target itself -- of artists and
activists who charge that it promotes violence in the
hip-hop community. On Friday, in the wake of the
much-hyped February 28th shootout between associates of
50 Cent and the Game and the beginning of the Lil' Kim
perjury trial involving a 2001 shootout, rappers Afrika
Bambaataa, M1 of Dead Prez, Roxanne Shante and other
members of the newly formed Hip-Hop Coalition held an
anti-Hot 97 rally in New York's Union Square Park.
"Hot 97 actively promotes conflict within our
communities and among our artists," journalist and rally
organizer Rosa Clemente told Rolling Stone. "We
have to target [Hot 97's parent company] Emmis
Communications, because they're fueling controversy
between artists to get ratings."
"The violence is sensationalized," added M1, "and I
think more than anything they intend to benefit from
it."
The typically cryptic Afrika Bambaataa saw the rally
as a chance to address a broader issue. "Many people are
still being blind, deaf and dumb to what's going on due
to the mind control of the masses of people," the Bronx
rapper said before launching a diatribe aimed at
corporate media.
The Coalition contends that the recent incidents
could have been prevented instead of promoted by the
station's employees. The "Tsunami Song," Hot 97's parody
of the December tragedy in South Asia, also drew
criticism at the rally, with Queens councilman John Liu
accusing the station of "insensitivity" to its
listeners. The Coalition also voiced its list of demands
-- which include the station airing anti-violence public
service announcements and having its employees attend
town hall meetings with community educators, parents and
youth.
A spokesman for Hot 97 refused to address the
demands, telling Rolling Stone that the station
is being targeted unfairly. "It's interesting that they
single out Hot 97," he said. "Why not the artists that
make the music, the record labels that produce the
records, the record stores that sell them and then the
consumers that buy them? . . . Hot 97 has been number
one in the eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old demographic
for close to ten years, so obviously there are a whole
lot of people that enjoy the station and feel
differently. We only play what's out there: If the
violence didn't exist in the song, they wouldn't hear it
on Hot 97."
TRACEY FORD
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Hip Hop community joins protest of radio racism
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Archive
Recent
Editions
2005
Editions
Feb
19, 2005
Author:
Dan Margolis |
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 02/17/05
11:20 |
NEW YORK — Protesters were on the street outside the office of
Hot 97 here Feb. 14, the second day back on the job for suspended
morning show deejays.
The “Miss Jones in the Morning” crew on WQHT-FM sparked outrage last
month when it played the “Tsunami Song,” a racist parody of “We Are
the World” that made fun of the victims of last December’s South
Asian tidal wave that killed almost 300,000 people. “We Are the
World” had brought an array of stars together in the 1980s to aid
victims of famine in Africa.
“This is something that we’re just getting started with,” City
Council member John Liu told the World. Referring to the Hip Hop
station’s owner, Emmis Communications, Liu said, “Emmis needs to
come clean because people are united against the kind of hatred that
is put over our airwaves.”
The company issued an apology and fired several people, including
one disc jockey who said on the air he would start “shooting
Asians.” Although Emmis also donated one week’s worth of paychecks
of the suspended staff members to tsunami relief, many believe this
was mere lip service and more needs to be done to seriously address
the problem.
The Coalition Against Hate Media (CAHM), organizers of the rally,
includes dozens of elected officials and community groups, among
them the NAACP, the National Hip-Hop Convention, American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 1707, and
the teachers union.
Although the people killed by the tsunami were mainly South Asian,
Indonesian, and African, the song’s racial hatred is directed
primarily at Chinese people. However, the anger and indignation has
spread far beyond the Chinese community. The multiracial rally
included representatives of the Latin American Integration Center,
the gay and lesbian community, and several city council members. Out
in full force were members of the area’s hip-hop community. Many
speakers say they came to let the city and the world know that while
Hot 97 claims to represent New York’s Hip Hop scene, racism and hate
are not part of that movement.
“I am here today protesting … as a young adult I’m speaking up,”
said Jessica Edraza, a student from Vanguard High School. “They
think that this is what young people want to hear and I honestly say
this is not what I want to hear … not this negativity.”
To drive home the point that hip-hop is about unity and respect for
all races, the “godfather of Hip Hop,” Afrika Baambaata, took to the
stage. “Hip Hop is for peace, unity, love and having some fun, and
to organize many of the communities throughout the world,” said
Baambaata.
“This is just the first step. We are going to organize, organize,
organize. First it’ll be Emmis, and any other stations that try to
keep talking this hate or any type of disorder against any people on
the planet,” he said. “We must stand against anybody that preaches
hate, that teaches hate … [we must] try to make a change … and never
give up the fight.”
The rally had four demands of Emmis: termination for anyone involved
in the song; donation of a week’s worth of corporate revenues to
tsunami relief and local community organizations; establishment of
clear, written corporate guidelines against racism and hate; and an
ongoing dialogue with the community to implement long-term solutions
to prevent hate speech from recurring.
After an earlier protest (immediately after the incident), a number
of companies, including New York Newsday and Sprint, withdrew their
ads from Hot 97.
“This is just one station and they’ve been doing this for a while,
so we’re going to keep the pressure on here,” Baambaata told the
World after the rally. But, he stressed, it’s a nationwide problem
and plans are to continue “organizing people around the country
about stopping this type of program that’s going on our airwaves and
coming mainly to our youth.”
dmargolis@cpusa.org
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Editorial Office:
3339 S Halsetd St.
Chicago IL 60608
ph: 773-446-9920
fax: 773-446-9928
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235 West 23rd Street
New York NY 10011
ph: 212-924-2523
fax: 212-645-5436 |
52,000 Deaths Spread Across 11 Nations · Disease
Could Double Death Toll, WHO Says · At Least 12 U.S. Citizens Said Killed ·
More Than 800 Killed on Sri Lankan Train
Relief Effort Under Way as Death Toll Rises
By ANDI DJATMIKO, AP
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Dec. 28) - Mourners in Sri Lanka used their bare
hands to dig graves Tuesday while hungry islanders in Indonesia turned to
looting in the aftermath of Asia's devastating tsunamis. Thousands more
bodies were found in Indonesia, dramatically increasing the death toll
across 11 nations to around 52,000.
Emergency workers found that 10,000 people had been killed in a single town,
Meulaboh, in Aceh province at the northern tip of Sumatra island, the
hardest hit region in Indonesia, said Purnomo Sidik, national disaster
director at the Social Affairs Ministry.
Another 9,000 were confirmed dead so far in the provincial capital, Banda
Aceh, and surrounding towns, he said. Along Aceh's hard-hit western
coastline, villages were swamped up to the roofs, still unexplored by
soldiers combing the area for survivors and dead. Refugees fleeing the area
described surviving for days on little more than coconuts before reaching
Banda Aceh.
''The sea was full of bodies,'' said Sukardi Kasdi, who reached the capital
from his town of Surang.
With aid not arriving quick enough, desperate residents in Meulaboh and
other towns in Aceh - a region that was unique in that it was struck both by
Sunday's massive quake and the killer waves that followed - began to loot.
''It is every person for themselves here,'' district official Tengku
Zulkarnain told el-Shinta radio station from the area.
In Sri Lanka, the toll also mounted significantly. Around 1,000 people were
dead or missing from a train that was flung off its tracks when the gigantic
waves hit. Rescuers pulled 204 bodies from the train's eight carriages -
reduced to twisted metal - and cremated or buried them Tuesday next to the
railroad track that runs along the coast.
''Is this the fate that we had planned for? My darling, you were the only
hope for me,'' cried one man for his dead girlfriend - his university
sweetheart
- as Buddhist monks held prayer nearby.
More than 18,700 people died in Sri Lanka, more than 4,400 in India and more
than 1,500 in Thailand, with numbers expected to rise. Scores were also
killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives. The giant waves raced
nearly 3,000 miles to east Africa, causing deaths in Somalia, Tanzania and
Seychelles.
And the toll was expected to continue to mount. A police official said 8,000
people were missing and possibly dead in India's remote Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, located just north of Sumatra. So far, only 90 people were
confirmed dead in the archipelago of 30 inhabited islands. The Indonesian
vice president estimated that up to 25,000 could be dead on Aceh's western
coastlines, bringing the country's potential toll up to 50,000.
Europeans desperately sought relatives missing from holidays in Southeast
Asia - particularly Thailand, where bodies littered the once crowded beach
resorts. Near the devastated Similan Beach and Spa Resort, where mostly
German tourists were staying, a naked corpse hung suspended from a tree
Tuesday as if crucified.
A blond two-year-old Swedish boy, Hannes Bergstroem, found sitting alone on
a road in Thailand was reunited with his uncle, who saw the boy's picture on
a Web site.
Luis Enrique Ascui, Reuters
A tsunami wave, triggered by an ocean-floor earthquake, is barely
perceptible as it travels across the water, but its shoreline impact can be
tremendous.
''This is a miracle, the biggest thing that could happen,'' said the uncle,
who identified himself as Jim, after flying from his home country to
Thailand to reach Hannes at the hospital were the boy was being treated. The
boy's mother and grandmother were missing, while his father and grandfather
were reportedly at another hospital.
The vacationing former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was evacuated by Sri
Lankan military helicopter from the hotel he was trapped by flooding in the
south of the country. In Thailand, Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova, who
appeared on the cover of 2003 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, was injured
and her photographer boyfriend Simon Atlee was missing, Atlee's agent said.
So far, more than 80 Westerners have been confirmed dead across the region -
including 11 Americans. But a British consulate official in Thailand warned
that hundreds more foreign tourists were likely killed in the country's
resorts.
Sunday's massive quake of 9.0 magnitude off the Indonesian island of Sumatra
sent 500-mph waves surging across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in the
deadliest known tsunami since the one that devastated the Portuguese capital
of Lisbon in 1755 and killed an estimated 60,000 people.
Amid the devastation, however, were some miraculous stories of survival. In
Malaysia, a 20-day-old baby was found alive on a floating mattress. She and
her family were later reunited. A Hong Kong couple vacationing in Thailand
clung to a mattress for six hours.
In Sri Lanka, more than 300 people crammed into the Infant Jesus Church at
Orrs Hill, located on high ground from their ravaged fishing villages.
Families and childres slept on pews and the cement floor.
''We had never seen the sea looking like that. It was like as if a calm sea
had suddenly become a raging monster,'' said one woman, Haalima, recalling
the giant wave that swept away her 5-year-old grandson, Adil.
How to Help
Getty Images
Network for Good links you to organizations that are helping the disaster
victims.
· Here's What You Can Do
Adil was making sandcastles with his younger sister, Reeze, while Haalima
sat
in her home Sunday morning. Haalima said the girl ran to her complaining
that
waves had crushed their castles, then came screams and water entered the
home. ''When we looked, there was no shore anymore and no Adil,'' she said.
Death was so widespread in Sri Lanka that the government waived rules
requiring an autopsy before burial. In Muslim villages in the east of the
otherwise
Buddhist-dominated island, some survivors, lacking shovels, used giant iron
forks used for communal cooking and their hands to scrape out graves for
several
dozen victims, half of them children.
''The toll is going up and I will not be surprised it reaches 20,000 to
25,000,'' said Nimal Hettiarchchi, director of Sri Lanka's National Disaster
Management Center.
Relief workers warned that survivors could face outbreaks of disease,
including malaria and cholera. ''Our biggest fear at the moment is the
shortage of
drinking water,'' said Janaka Gunewardene, a director at Sri Lanka's
disaster
management center, adding that waterways and well across Sri Lanka's
northern,
eastern and southern coasts were contaminated, said.
A new danger emerged Tuesday: the floods uprooted land mines in Sri Lanka -
a
nation torn by a decades-old war with Tamil separatists in the north. The
mines now threatened aid workers and survivors, UNICEF said.
The first international deliveries of food were being delivered to ravaged
areas, as humanitarian agencies - accustomed to disasters in one or two
countries at time - tried to organize to help on an unprecedented geographic
scale,
across 11 nations.
The disaster could be history's costliest, with ''many billions of dollars''
of damage, said U.N. Undersecretary Jan Egeland, who is in charge of
emergency
relief coordination.
A dozen trucks loaded with more than 160 tons of rice, lentils and sugar
sent
by the U.N. World Food Progam, left Tuesday from Colombo for Sri Lanka's
southern and eastern coasts, and a second shipment was planned for
overnight.
UNICEF officials said about 175 tons of rice arrived in Banda Aceh,
Indonesia, and six tons of medical supplies were to arrive by Thursday.
Helicopters in
India rushed medicine to stricken areas. In Sri Lanka, the Health Ministry
dispatched 300 physicians to the disaster zone by helicopter.
HOW TO HELP
* To find out how to donate to World Vision, visit www.worldvision.org or
call 888-562-4453.
* To find out about supporting Northwest Medical Teams, call
800-959-4325 or visit www.nwmedicalteams.org
* To make a donation to Mercy Corps, go to www.mercycorps.org
* Also accepting donations is Seattle-based World Concerns, which plans to
provide water, sanitation and shelter in Thailand. Visit
www.worldconcern.org
* My favorite for all crises is www.Oxfam.org. Effective, and smart use of
money.
----------------------------------------------------------
For an updated list of disaster contacts, go to this
URL:
http://voteowens.com/news/newsitem.php?section=ACM&id=2672&showcat=3&seq=6
Chris Owens
718-783-2347
chris@voteowens.com
www.voteowens.com
"A thinking people is a powerful people."
Time to
Show you cAre!!
With the number of deaths struggling to pass a hundred and fifty
thousand mark.
So
many families,
children and parent in disarray
Not
knowing where the other is,
Alive or dead.
So
many will never know, because the burials now are in mass graves and
there is no time for identification as the bodies of human beings and
animals are competing on who can decompose faster.
In
the comfort of your homes,
businesses, travels.
In
places of worship and rest.
Find time to pray
for those suffering now.
Go a step further
and reach out in love with any thing possible to alleviate the
sufferings of the affected people.
The
affected are Nigerians, Africans, Asians, Europeans, Americans, Middle-
Easterners and the World at Large!
Nothing is too small; nothing is too big; a caring heart is what
matters.
Even a widows mite can cause a heavenly Smile.
Lets join the
world NOW..
and show we also
care.
May the Almighty
God, maker of Heaven and Earth, Surprise you this New Year as you reach
out in love to touch somebody,
Somewhere in
distress.
In
Nigeria, Send your crossed checks or Postal/Money Order from the Post
Office of the amount you want to donate and send it to the
Tsumani
Disaster Victims
Through:-
Country
Representative
United Nations
Head Office
Central Business
Area
Abuja Nigeria
Or
The Chairman
African Union
C/o HE Olusegun
Obasanjo
Aso Presidential
Villa
Abuja
Or
The Bush Clinton
Initiative
c/o the Ambassador
The United State
Embassy
Abuja Nigeria
Or your Country of
residence!!
Let us stand up and
initiate an action that will make our Government and people contribute
to the alleviation of the suffering of People in disaster striken areas.
PJ Adamz
Abuja Nigeria
www.abujanig.org
Tsunamis
The time 00:58 UTC
The date December 26, 2004
The place Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra
Located 3.2670N, 95.8210E
At a depth of 30Km (18.6miles)
The earth roared louder than a lion
Under the Indian Ocean
It trembled,
Was furious,
It yelled!
In anger it cracked!
Shook the land from Indonesia
To Thailand
To India
To Malaysia
To Sri Lanka
To Kenya
As far as Somalia
As it lowered back into the sea
It threw up massive water, produced wave
Washed away a whole generation
Then sank
And there was quietness in the land.
Debris covered the surface of water
Boats seen on land beyond imagination
Human bodies, float in exchange for fishes on land
Children were most hit
Cities sank
Where there was an Island before, two were seen
The earth shook to its very foundation
As Islands at the scene move farther
Still counting the losses
Figures climbing
Thousands still missing
Thousands injured
Foreigners from more than 36 nations confirmed dead
A day when there were no enough living
To bury the dead
In search of peace
In search of harmony
In search of quietness
Man abandoned the hassles of cities
Crawled to remote part on holiday
With children, Wives, Husbands
A whole family
To enjoy the nature
To take bath in the sun
With promises to come back
Only not to come back
As the earth shook
Roared
Furious
Yelled
Cracked
Threw up
Washed away
Sank
Then quietness
Promises gone with it
Tomorrow never came
No time to say good bye
One was left the other was taken
Children looking for parents
Parents looking for children
Dead everywhere
As the earth roared
In its furious she took away loved ones
While she yelled, she dismantled edifice
As it cracked, she cracked structures
As she threw up water she entered cities, buried cities
As she washed away, she took with her men, women, children, animals,
animate, inanimate, things and beings
Then she sank
And there was quietness
Can man sit down for a minute?
Can man just humble self?
Just for a minute can man pause?
Can man see the damages he is causing his future?
In his greediness man rob himself of tomorrow
Having destroyed his yesterday
With no history of today
Thinking all in all that after all he is smart
With no sensors to warn
Animals detect the signal
The moved before the earth roared
The panicked on the mountain
The watched in amazement
As nature played
Then is man really smart?
As we stole from nature,
Nature is kind by looking away
Waiting quietly for a day of revenge
A day she will show no mercy
A day she will cause pains and agonies
And the day came
The earth roared louder than a lion
It trembled,
Was furious,
It yelled!
In anger it cracked!
As it lowered back into the sea
It threw up massive water, produced wave
Washed away a whole generation
Then sank
And there was quietness in the land.
We build cities from what we stole from earth
We continue pumping oil out of the ground
We engineered food
We engineered human being but nature was quiet
Watching us quietly
Waiting for the day of revenge
A day she will show no mercy
A day she will cause gnashing of teeth
And the day came
The earth roared louder than a lion
It trembled,
Was furious,
It yelled!
In anger it cracked!
As it lowered back into the sea
It threw up massive water, produced wave
Washed away a whole generation
Then sank
And there was quietness in the land.
Whatever we take from nature, shall nature take back.
Not tomorrow, not today but yesterday
Not the quantity taken but in thousands folds
Not where it was taken but somewhere else.
In unleashing its judgment,
It causes pains and agonies among innocents
Sparing the greediest of men
Robbing fathers of mothers
Denying children of parents
Submerging states, swallowing cities
In our greediness to consume all we met here
Nation wage war against nation
Bigger countries invade smaller ones
Millions carted into slavery
The destruction we witnessed today
Started years back
Whatever we take from nature, shall nature take back.
Not tomorrow, not today but yesterday
Not the quantity taken but in thousands folds
Not where it was taken but somewhere else.
In unleashing its judgment,
It causes pains and agonies among innocents
Submarines swimming under the sea
Earth so much disturbed
Under sea nuclear weapon test
Space exploration
As if humanity has more than a world
Or more than a life
Or more than an opportunity
As things will pass away
Whatever we take from nature, shall nature take back.
Not tomorrow, not today but yesterday
Not the quantity taken but in thousands folds
Not where it was taken but somewhere else.
In unleashing its judgment,
It causes pains and agonies among the innocents
Man compresses water
Blocked their path
We dammed denying other species along its path food
Nutrition, Hygiene
We pluck gold
Flaring gas to the atmosphere
With heat melting ice caps
Man should remember that
Whatever man takes from nature, shall nature take back.
Not tomorrow, not today but yesterday
Not the quantity taken but in thousands folds
Not where it was taken but somewhere else.
In unleashing its judgment,
It causes pains and agonies among innocents
May the souls of people killed by tsunami earthquake rest in peace
All Rights Reserved
Oladele O Olawole
African Information Service Center
www.africaservice.com
Sunami spawns internet scams
by
Wednesday 05 January 2005 11:41 PM GMT
Crooks are seeking to cash in on the tragedy
Tricksters are posing as tsunami victims on the internet in a bid to
siphon some of the millions of dollars flowing to relief efforts.
Online security experts on Wednesday said crudely written appeals for
help have begun to appear in e-mail boxes, asking for donations through
a website or an offshore bank account.
"It's only a matter of time ... we have fully fledged websites that
spoof well-known charities, for example," said Paul Wood, chief
information security analyst at MessageLabs, an internet security
company.
Aid organisations have collected millions of dollars through the
internet since 26 December - the day the tsunami struck several Indian
Ocean nations and claimed about 150,000 lives.
Quick money
"It's a good opportunity for the criminals out for a quick buck, and
it's something that people are going to respond to," said Forrester
Researcher analyst Jonathan Penn.
"We have fully fledged websites that spoof well-known charities"
Paul Wood,
MessageLabs
The fraudulent appeals are patterned after two existing scams: "Phishing"
attacks that direct people to legitimate-looking websites in order to
trick them into giving up their credit card numbers, and 419 scams,
messages that promise great riches in exchange for a bank account
number.
"We have been rendered homeless and have lost all we have in life... We
will be very grateful if you can assist us with any amount of money to
enable us to start a new lease of life," one message said.
Ken Dunham, malicious code intelligence manager for the internet
security company iDefense, said such scams could be very effective.
"It's a get-rich quick thing, and it makes perfect sense in light of the
disaster. Everybody's heard of it, they all know lots of people have
died off, maybe whole families have died off, and monies truly are
available,"
Dunham said.
Agencies
By
You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7ECCB84F-CB93-4E08-AA8F-26B47F006644.htm
Please note that this message may contain confidential information. If
you have received this message by mistake, please inform the sender of
the mistake by sending a reply, then delete the message from your system
without making, distributing or retaining any copies of it.
Although we believe that the message and any attachments are free from
viruses and other errors that might affect the computer or IT system
where it is received and read, the recipient opens the message at his or
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from the receipt or use of this message.
Africaservice - The Pride of The Continent
www.africaservice.com
from www.seeingblack.com
IN THE NAME OF THE SUPREME FORCE AMEN RA
The Universal Zulu Nation is wishing each and all of you on this
Great Planet So Called Earth a Peaceful New Years and hope and pray
that the Supreme Force will bless each and everyone of you with good
health, a home, success and Spirituality. We ask that all of your
sometime today or night on your busy schedule, if you can say a
prayer for yourselves as well as for all the Humans who went through
trails and tribulations in this year of 2004. To give a special
prayer to all those Humans who have lost their lives all over Asia,
Africa cause of the Great Tidal Wave Wrath of Mother Nature. We have
taught for years about the disrespect of our Great Planet So called
Earth by Humans, who are becoming a cancer to this great living
entity. Yes Mother Earth is alive and kicking.
All Humans of all colors, races, nationalities ,religions ,ect. Have
better wake up to what is going on this planet as well as with The
Universe. Since that movie The Day After which was a message sent to
all to see, watch, overstand has come out to movie theaters all
around the planet, there has been all type of chaos happening on
Mother Earth. Go back and read all the Great books of knowledge that
has warn you of these days. Go back and seek out the Knowledge of
the Ancients of Ancients from Africa, Asia, Americas, Europe who
have predicted long time ago about these days. See what mistakes was
made back then, that we still do today that will cause destruction
all over this planet without warnings like in the Great days of
Atlantis, Lemura, Babylon, and so forth. All Humans need a check up
from the neck up. All have went against the order of nature and the
God of Nature seeks revenge on all that has got greedy and all who
has cause hell on the planet.
No more times for just fun and games Humans cause Mother Nature is
not playing games with you no more. Either we are going to get back
into spirituality with the planets and Universe or all of us should
get ready for The Wrath of Amen Ra, Allah, Jehovah, Yaweh, Jah, Anu,
Eloheems, and all the other names we call The Supreme Force. As the
saying goes,”It’s Not Nice To Fool With Mother Nature”
Please help out in whatever your can to which ever organization your
can to donate whatever you can to send food and water and money to
all the victims who have felt the Wrath of Mother Nature all over
the planet So called Earth…..
"Mother of the
Matrix" Victorious
By Martha Carter
Monday, October 4th 2004 ended a
six-year dispute
involving Sophia Stewart,
the Wachowski Brothers, Joel Silver and Warner
Brothers. Stewart's
allegations, involving copyright infringement and
racketeering, were
received and acknowledged by the Central District of
California, Judge
Margaret Morrow residing.
Stewart, a New Yorker who has resided in Salt Lake
City for the past five
years, will recover damages from the films, The Matrix
I, II and III, as
well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon
receive one of the
biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood, as the
gross receipts of both
films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion
dollars.
Stewart filed her case in 1999, after viewing the
Matrix, which she felt had
been based on her manuscript, "The Third Eye,"
copyrighted in 1981. In the
mid-eighties Stewart had submitted her manuscript to
an ad placed by the
Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works.
According to court documentation, an FBI investigation
discovered that more
than thirty minutes had been edited from the original
film, in attempt to
avoid penalties for copyright infringement. The
investigation also stated
that "credible witnesses employed at Warner Brothers
came forward, claiming
that the executives and lawyers had full knowledge
that the work in question
did not belong to the Wachowski Brothers." These
witnesses claimed to have
seen Stewart's original work and that it had been
"often used during
preparation of the motion pictures."
The defendants tried, on several occasions, to have
Stewart's case
dismissed, without success.
Stewart has confronted skepticism on all sides, much
of which comes from
Matrix fans, who are strangely loyal to the Wachowski
Brothers. One on-line
forum, entitled Matrix Explained has an entire section
devoted to Stewart.
Some who have researched her history and writings are
open to her story.
Others are suspicious and mocking. "It doesn't bother
me," said Stewart in a
phone interview last week, "I always knew what was
true."
Some fans, are unaware of the case or they question
its legitimacy, due to
the fact that it has received little to no media
coverage. Though the case
was not made public until October of 2003, Stewart has
her own explanation,
as quoted at daghettotymz.com:
"The reason you have not seen any of this in the media
is because Warner
Brothers parent company is AOL-Time Warner... this
GIANT owns 95 percent of
the media... let me give you a clue as to what they
own in the media
business... New York Times papers/magazines, LA Times
papers/magazines,
People Magazine, CNN news, Extra, Celebrity Justice,
Entertainment Tonight,
HBO, New Line Cinema, Dreamworks, Newsweek, Village
Roadshow... many, many
more!... They are not going to report on themselves.
They have been
surpressing my case for years..."
Fans who have taken Stewart's allegations seriously,
have found eerie
mythological parallels, which seem significant in a
case that revolves
around the highly metaphorical and symbolic Matrix
series. Sophia, the greek
goddess of wisdom has been referenced many times in
speculation about
Stewart. In one book about the Goddess Sophia, it
reads, "The black goddess
is the mistress of web creation spun in her divine
matrix."
Although there have been outside implications as to
racial injustice
(Stewart is African American), she does not feel that
this is the case.
"This is all about the Benjamins," said Stewart. "It's
not about money with
me. It's about justice."
Stewart's future plans involve a record label,
entitled Popsilk Records, and
a motion picture production company, All Eyez On Me,
in reference to God. "I
wrote The Third Eye to wake people up, to remind them
why God put them here.
There's more to life than money," said Stewart. "My
whole message to the
world is about God and good and about choice, about
spirituality prevailing
over 'technocracy'."
If Stewart represents spirituality, then she truly has
prevailed over the
"technocracy" represented in both the Terminator and
the Matrix, and now,
ironically, by their supposed creators.
Stewart is currently having discussions with CBS about
a possible exclusive
story and has several media engagements in the near
future to nationally
publicize her victory.
The politics of shopping
With the holidays upon us, some of us might wish to be mindful of whom we
patronize relative to their 2000 Election Cycle political donations, as
reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Shopping:
* Price Club/Costco donated $225K, of which 99% went to democrats;
WalMart, $467K, 97% to republicans;
K-Mart, $524K, 86% to republicans;
Home Depot, $298K, 89% to republicans;
Target, $226K, 70% to republicans;
Circuit City Stores, $261K, 95% to republicans;
Rite Aid, $517K, 60% to democrats;
Magla Products (Stanley tools, Mr. Clean), $22K, 100% to democrat
3M Co., $281K, 87% to republicans;
Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to republicans;
Amway, $391K, 100% republican;
Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% republicans;
Warnaco (undergarments), $55K, 73% to democrats;
B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to republicans;
Proctor &Gamble, $243K, 79% to republicans;
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, $153K, 99% to democrats;
Estee Lauder, $448K, 95% to democrats;
Guess ? Inc., $145K, 98% to democrats;
Calvin Klein, $78K, 100% to democrats;
Liz Claiborne, Inc., $34K, 97% to democrats;
Levi Straus, $26K, 97% to democrats;
Olan Mills, $175K, 99% to democrats.
Spirits:
Coors, $174K, 92% to republicans; (also Budweiser - sd)
Gallo Winery, $337K, 95% to democrats;
Brown-Forman Corp. (Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, Bushmills, Korbel wines
- as well as Lennox China, Dansk, Gorham Silver), $644K, 80% to republicans;
Southern Wine &Spirits, $213K, 73% to democrats;
Joseph E. Seagrams &Sons (includes beverage business, plus considerable
media interests), $2M+, 67% democratic;
Restaurants/food companies:
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% republican;
Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% republican;
Sonic Corporation, $83K, 98% democrat;
Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87%
republican;
Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the
Border, Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83%
republican;
Triarc Companies (Arby's, T.J. Cinnamon's, Pasta Connections), $112K,
96% democrats;
Waffle House, $279K, 100% republican;
McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% republican;
Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze),
$121K, 89% republican;
Hotels:
Hyatt Corporation, $187K, 80% to democrats;
Mariott International, $323K, 81% to republicans;
Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to republicans.
Choose Blue
Shop locally and shop BLUE
Use the US Post Office, not Fedex or UPS
Use the corner hardware store -- Home Depot is a huge contributer to the
GOP.
Please send to like-minded friends and urge them to draw a line in the sand.
80% of annual! You can make a difference how retail business is done in the
next three weeks!
M. Kathryn Langworthy
Divisional Manager for Educational Administration
Wildlife Conservation Society
2300 Southern Boulevard
Bronx, NY 10460-1099
718-220-5131
718-220-7968 (direct line)
FDA Approves
Computer Chip For Humans
Oct 13, 2004
By DIEDTRA HENDERSON, Technology - AP
WASHINGTON - Medical milestone or privacy invasion? A tiny computer chip
approved Wednesday for implantation in a patient's arm can speed vital
information about a patient's medical history to doctors and hospitals. But
critics warn that it could open new ways to imperil the confidentiality of
medical records.
The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) said Wednesday that
Applied Digital Solutions of Delray Beach, Fla., could market the VeriChip,
an implantable computer chip about the size of a grain of rice, for medical
purposes.
The news pleased investors. On Wednesday, Applied Digital shares were up
$1.45, or 68.4 percent, at $3.57 on the Nasdaq Stock Market — near the
middle of their 52-week range of $1.94 to $5.
With the pinch of a syringe, the microchip is inserted under the skin in a
procedure that takes less than 20 minutes and leaves no stitches. Silently
and invisibly, the dormant chip stores a code that releases patient-specific
information when a scanner passes over it.
Think UPC code. The identifier, emblazoned on a food item, brings up its
name and price on the cashier's screen. At the doctor's office the codes
stamped onto chips, once scanned, would reveal such information as a
patient's allergies and prior treatments, speeding care.
The microchips have already been implanted in 1 million pets. But the chip's
possible dual use for tracking people's movements — as well as speeding
delivery of their medical information to emergency rooms — has raised alarm.
"If privacy protections aren't built in at the outset, there could be
harmful consequences for patients," said Emily Stewart, a policy analyst at
the Health Privacy Project.
To protect patient privacy, the devices should reveal only vital medical
information, like blood type and allergic reactions, needed for health care
workers to do their jobs, Stewart said.
An information technology guru at Detroit Medical Center, however, sees the
benefits of the devices and will lobby for his center's inclusion in a
VeriChip pilot program.
"One of the big problems in health care has been the medical records
situation. So much of it is still on paper," said David Ellis, the center's
chief futurist and co-founder of the Michigan Electronic Medical Records
Initiative.
As "medically mobile" patients visit specialists for care, their records
fragment on computer systems that don't talk to each other.
"It's part of the future of medicine to have these kinds of technologies
that make life simpler for the patient," Ellis said. Pushing for the
strongest encryption algorithms to ensure hackers can't nab medical data as
information transfers from chip to reader to secure database, will help
address privacy concerns, he said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) on
Wednesday announced $139 million in grants to help make real President Bush
(news - web sites)'s push for electronic health records for most Americans
within a decade.
William A. Pierce, an HHS spokesman, could not say whether VeriChip and its
accompanying secure database of medical records fit within that initiative.
"Exactly what those technologies are is still to be sorted out," Pierce
said. "It all has to respect and comport with the privacy rules."
Applied Digital gave away scanners to a few hundred animal shelters and
veterinary clinics when it first entered the pet market 15 years ago. Now,
50,000 such scanners have been sold.
To kickstart the chip's use among humans, Applied Digital will provide $650
scanners for free at 200 of the nation's trauma centers.
In pets, installing the chip runs about $50. For humans, the chip
implantation cost would be $150 to $200, said Angela Fulcher, an Applied
Digital spokeswoman.
Fulcher could not say whether the cost of data storage and encrypted
transmission of medical information would be passed to providers.
Ultimately, the company hopes patients who suffer from such ailments as
diabetes and Alzheimer's or who undergo complex treatments, like
chemotherapy, would have chips implanted. If the procedure proves as popular
for use in humans as in pets, that could mean up to 1 million chips
implanted in people.
The company's chief executive officer, Scott R. Silverman, is one of a half
dozen executives who had chips implanted. Silverman said chips implanted for
medical uses could also be used for security purposes, like tracking
employee movement through nuclear power plants.
Such security uses are rare in the United States.
Meanwhile, the chip has been used for pure whimsy: Club hoppers in
Barcelona, Spain, now use the microchip to enter a VIP area and, through
links to a different database, speed payment much like a smartcard.
On the Net:
VeriChip:
http://www.4verichip.com/index.htm
HHS:
http://www.hhs.gov/
"TrueMajority" <
alerts@truemajority.org>
The
Mark of Doom: Computer-Activated Biological Warfare
In
the not-so-distant future, a new kind of weapon could appear
that would change the balance of political power in the world.
This main principle behind this weapon: seek and destroy
according to genetics.
by Vasili Sychev
American scientists have
declared that in ten years they will succeed in creating a
radically new type of biological weapon. This weapon would be
capable of infecting people according to a genetically
predetermined marker such as skin color or eye shape. Infection
could have a delayed effect or only begin once a certain type of
medicine was taken. A recent closed seminar held by the CIA was
devoted to the topic. The event took place as part of the
Project for the New American Century.
A slow sickness
Scientists have been exploring
the possibilities of selective biological weapons for some time
now. This is roughly how these weapons would work. Genetic
information is implanted into bacteria's "programming,"
reflecting the gene structure or gene combination of a certain
targeted group of people. Once the programmed bacteria enter
someone's system, they "recognize" their target and kill the
person. If the genetic structure of the infected person does not
correspond, the microbe dies without harming him.
Even specialists will have a
hard time differentiating bacterial ethnic cleansing from a
regular epidemic, if only because the countries leading the
development of these weapons could purposefully misinform the
public. There will be few direct clues...
Another difficulty is that this weapon could have a delayed
effect. It could be turned on by a trigger mechanism, meaning it
could target not only specific people but also people under very
specific conditions. This means that illness could be delayed
not just by days but for an indefinite period of time. Yet the
moment the infected person, say, comes down with strep throat
and takes antibiotics, the bacteria begin to multiply, leading
to a severe illness that eludes diagnosis.
"It is already possible today
to create antibiotic resistant cultures," Alexander Prozorov, a
professor in the microorganism genetics lab at the Russian
Academy of Science Institute for General Genetics, told Expert.
The most striking examples of this type of culture are
streptomycin-dependent bacteria that only grow in the presence
of the antibiotic streptomycin. This will make it hard for
doctors to do much, as traditional pharmaceuticals won't help.
On the contrary, treatment will only make the patient sicker.
Political germs
Yet the most terrifying new
possibility is the hypothetical biological weapon that could
infect people according to genetic markers. Not only would it
allow for genocide; it would be created specifically for that
purpose. A recent report by the British Medical Association
stated that "the rapid progress in genetics could become the
basis for ethnic cleansing on an unheard of scale in the near
future."
Three years ago, ideologues
like US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and PNAC
Director William Crystal were already discussing genetic
weapons. They recommended that the Pentagon consider the
possibility for using this type of weapon not only to
successfully wage war, but also to reconfigure world politics.
According to a PNAC report, genetic weapons could completely
change the politics of the entire planet: "cutting-edge
biological warfare targeting a certain genotype could turn the
reign of terrorism into a politically useful tool."
According to information from
PNAC, Israel has also recently begun to work actively on
mutagenic weapons. Israel geneticists confirm that Arabs carry a
unique gene that no one else in the world has. This gene forms
the basis for the Israeli research, believe American experts.
Things look far more
frightening, in fact. Genetic weapons could do more than destroy
an ethnic group. They could kill according to a person's
"usefulness" or "talents." American journalist and bestselling
author Thom Hartmann has argued that it would even be possible
to kill those with the gene for attention deficit disorder. This
means that if you are easily distracted and have a hard time
concentrating (there could be other selection criteria as well),
you could end up marked for destruction.
We will survive
Fortunately, it is not as easy
to create a selective biological weapon as some scientists are
claiming. Though it may be possible to create bacteria that
multiple only when a person takes a specific medication, the
creation of an effective genetic weapon that would not harm the
developers themselves seems unrealistic in the foreseeable
future.
"It is hard to imagine how a
microbe would determine the presence or absence of a certain
gene or its structure. Even a researcher armed with the last
word in scientific technology has a hard time doing this. It
would impossible for bacteria to accomplish such a task,"
believes Prozorov.
And so on. Even if bacteria
could learn how to identify specific genes, how would this
information be transformed into infection? That bacteria
multiply in the presence of certain antibiotics is clear, but
how would information about eye and hair color turn into certain
doom for the world's blue-eyed blonds? For this kind of weapon
to become a reality, its creators would have to stuff the
bacteria with a powerful "computer" to identify genes and at the
same time arm them with the means to begin an infection.
There is one more reason why
this kind of biological weapon is unlikely to be as effective as
the ideologues would wish. As Nazi doctor Josef Mengele put it,
"Scratch a Frenchman and find an African." Humanity has existed
for many millennia. In the context of all our past tribal and
intertribal connections, it is not far from the truth to say
that we are all brothers. "Over the many years of human
existence, ethnics groups have intermingled to such an extent
that the genetic structures determining ethnic identity have
blurred and become difficult to recognize," notes Prozorov
|
HIV virus deliberately created:
Wangari MaathaiAdd to Clippings
AFP[ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2004 10:26:50 PM ]
NAIROBI: Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to
win the Nobel Peace Prize, on Saturday reiterated her claim that the
AIDS virus was a deliberately created biological agent.
"Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because
we have been living with monkeys (since) time immemorial, others say it
was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.
"Us black people are dying more than any other people in this planet,"
Maathai told a press conference in Nairobi a day after winning the prize
for her work in human rights and reversing deforestation across Africa.
"It's true that there are some people who create agents to wipe out
other people. If there were no such people, we could have not have
invaded Iraq,"
she said.
"We invaded Iraq because we believed that Saddam Hussein had made, or
was in the process of creating agents of biological warfare," said
Maathai.
"In fact it (the HIV virus) is created by a scientist for biological
warfare," she added.
"Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS? When you ask where did
the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me
suspicious,"
Maathai added.
Africa accounts for 25 million out of the estimated 38 million across
the world infected with HIV, and the vast majority of infected Africans
are women, according to UNAIDS estimates.
The United States on Friday congratulated Maathai on winning the Nobel
Peace Prize, but tempered its praise over her claims about AIDS. "She
said
(HIV/AIDS) was invented as a bioweapon in some laboratory in the West,"
a senior State Department official said. "We don't agree with that."
The official pointed to a report of those comments published in August
in Kenya's daily Standard newspaper, in which Maathai was quoted as
saying that HIV/AIDS was created by scientists for the purpose of mass
extermination.
The Government Won’t Let Us Bring Darfur
Witnesses Here
So We Want to Bring the Cameras to Them
The people of
Darfur need to tell their stories.
Click here to help us send a camera crew with a satellite
uplink directly into the refugee camps.
|
We’ve had some big successes in our campaign to save the genocide victims in
Darfur. Most recently, both houses of Congress unanimously passed the
resolutions we supported, calling the atrocities in Sudan “genocide” and
pressing the Bush administration to take any action needed to stop it. This
has really isolated Bush’s position—that this isn’t really genocide
requiring immediate action. Instead, he’s using a “go slow” approach with
the hope that the Sudanese government will do an about-face and save the
millions who are now being starved to death.
To focus the media’s
attention on this, and really put the heat on the President, we tried to
bring some witnesses from Darfur to the United States as “Refugee
Ambassadors,” but the State Department wouldn’t issue them any visas. One
employee actually defended the State Department’s position by saying that
some of the refugees might be terrorists. If it wasn’t so tragic it would
be funny.
Well, if the government
won’t let us bring witnesses to the media, we’ll bring the media to the
witnesses. Working with our friends at FaithfulAmerica.org, we have created
a plan to send a camera crew, complete with a satellite uplink, directly
into the refugee camps on the Chad/Sudan border. From there we’d be able to
get witnesses, aid workers, and human rights activists directly onto talk
shows here in the States. We’d also be able to have local experts appear in
the studios, to comment on how our government can stop this.
Now we just need to raise
the money to pay for this project. We figure the cost, including crew,
equipment, and satellite time, will be about $45,000. If we raise any
additional money, we’ll use it to continue pressing the government to do the
right thing in other ways, such as an ad campaign. But first we need to get
the crew over there.
To help send a camera crew
with a satellite uplink to the Darfur refugees, click here and give whatever
you can:
http://truemajority.kintera.org/darfurdonation
We are all doing what we
can to stop the genocide. TrueMajority founder, Ben Cohen, was even
arrested at a protest in front of the Sudanese embassy. Now please do
whatever you can.
Thanks for helping,
Andrew Greenblatt,
Online Organizer
Here is some background
on what is going on in Darfur:
Over the last several
months, a government-backed Arab militia in Sudan, called the Janjuweed, has
been attacking black Africans. The Janjuweed tactics are crude, but
effective. They enter a village and use terror to force everyone to leave
their homes and crops. Entire populations have fled to distant camps in the
middle of desolate areas. These desert camps are now surrounded and
controlled by the Janjuweed, and anyone who tries to leave is raped or
killed. Unarmed international aid workers are turned away. A total of
370,000 human beings are already dead, or in the late stages of dying, from
starvation in these extermination camps. The death toll could reach one
million within the next few months.
Time is our greatest enemy. Every day one thousand people are dying in
these camps. Currently, starvation is claiming the weakest—70 percent of
the dead are children aged five and under. As time goes on, the death toll
will rise more quickly. The United States needs to ensure that food aid is
brought to the people of Darfur, along with the protection of an
international military force. Both houses of Congress have already passed
resolutions calling this “genocide”, and have called on the President to act
to stop it. The problem is that the Bush administration is unwilling to
take the decisive action needed to make sure that the food aid is safely
delivered to those who need it most. Instead, they are calling on the
corrupt Sudanese government to disarm their allies, the Janjuweed,
and allow food aid in. To pressure the Sudanese government, the Bush
administration is talking about using sanctions, a process that will take
months—long enough to kill everyone currently starving in the camps. That
is why it is crucial that President Bush act now.
You can learn more at
www.darfurgenocide.org.
DR.
MALACHI Z YORK
For two years now Malachi York has been incarcerated unjustly for the
alleged crime of child molestation. Whom they refer to as Malachi Z.
York is none other than the Chief of the Yamassee Native American Moors
of the Creek Nation whose lineage goes back to Ben York of the Louis and
Clark Expedition a fact that has been proven by blood test conducted by
the U.S. government since his illegal incarceration. The key witness for
the prosecution is Abigail Habibah Washington, who at one time ran the
financial office of the group Malachi founded called The United
Nuwaubian Nation of Moors based in Putnam County Georgia since 1993
after relocating from Liberty, New York.
Malachi York was sentenced Thursday April 22, 2004 to 135 years in
federal prison for alleged molesting several children. Jonathan Marks, a
New York attorney who said he had previously represented York on an
unrelated case, said he would file an appeal based on various
discrepancies in the case and, in particular, the fact that key
witnesses against York have recanted their stories, revealing an
intricate conspiracy between the son of Malachi York, Jacob York aka
Yaquwb Abdullah Muhammad aka Yaquwb Johnson, aka Jake York, who
orchestrated this entire case against his father. Jake York [Yorktown
Records] was the force behind the hip-hop group Junior Mafia (Notorious
B.I.G., Little Kim, etc.) along with his partner Lance UnRivera [Untertainment
Records]. Jake asked that Little Kim, in her early solo career, to be
financed by his fathers organization, after which he was turned down.
Various other personal reasons have fueled Jake York and the so-called
victims to create this lie against him also [
http://www.unnm.com/legal/father_vs_son.htm ]
This fact was constantly not admitted into the case, although well
known, because the presiding judge (biased from previous cases against
the Yamassee) Judge C. Ashley Royal called it all hearsay. He is another
conspirator in the plot to keep Malachi incarcerated. It was further
conspired by the FBI, the Sheriffs Department in Putnam County (Howard
Richard Sills), various Lawyers like Ed Garland (a previous lawyer put
on the case by his family), Rob Peecher (Eatonton messenger, Macon
Telegraph) and various news reporters, as well as various other hidden
forces who know the bottom-line facts of why they wanted this innocent
man incarcerated HE IS A NATIVE AMRICAN CHIEF (Maku: Chief Black
Thunderbird Eagle) THAT HAS EXCERCISED HIS RIGHT TO HIS
SOVEREIGNTY AND WAKING HIS PEOPLE UP.
For those who ask, What can you do? Please do not let another injustice
occur. Contact the Media, Public Officials, Family and Friends. Tell
them there is a video taped confession from one of the so-called
victims, Abigail Washington, and it clears Malachi Z. York of any
wrongdoing and actually shows the intricate plot to falsely accuse him
of many crimes. Malachi, in his mercy, has since forgiven his son,
because various people, to further their hatred towards him, used him
also. This is that factual video evidence and confession of Abigail
Habibah Washington, of her own free will and under her lawyers guidance,
in whom Malachi still forgives for her part in the conspiracy also. This
is for all to see what they don't want you to know
Make some noise, SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT, tell them to FREE MAKU!
Hotep
John
Links to Newspaper Articles on Reparations and
Data about Slavery:
Suit Seeks Billions in Slave
Reparations
http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/26/slavery.reparations/
Rastas Call for Slavery
Reparations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1299475,00.html
Federal Judge Dismisses Slave
Reparations Case
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109509,00.html
The Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African American
Act (From Congressman John Conyers, Jr)
http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_reparations.htm
Lawsuit Chases Companies Tied to Slavery
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48781,00.html
President
of Brown Seeks to Fuel Reparations Debate
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/wickham/2004-03-15-wickham_x.htm
From USA
Today's Money Section
Aetna, CSX, FleetBoston, Face
Slave Reparations Suit
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/03/25/slave-reparations.htm
Reparations Gain Legal, Academic Interest
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/03/25/reparations-sidebar.htm
Corporations Challenged by Reparations Activists
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-reparations.htm
Farmer-Paellmann Not Afraid of Big Corporations
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-activist.htm
Insurance Firms Issued Slave Policies
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-insurance-policies.htm
Firms
Own Dailies that were Vital to Slave Economy
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-newspapers.htm
FleetBoston: Traced to Slave-Trading Merchant
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-financiers.htm
Brown
Bros.: Loans Gave Planters Cash to Buy Slaves
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-brown-bros.htm
Lehman Bros: 1 Brother Owned 7 Slaves in 1860
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-lehman-bros.htm
Rail
Networks Own Lines Built with Slave Labor
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-railroads.htm
Textile Firm Linked to Negro Cloth For Slaves
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-westpoint-stevens.htm
Reparations Coordinating Committee Members
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-rcc-members.htm
Let's
face it, very unfortunately, most people in
Middle America don't care about the rape of
Black women and girls.
Facing the Copyright Rap
Associated Press
Story location:
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,64884,00.html
1
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that rap artists should pay for every
musical sample included in their work - even minor, unrecognizable snippets
of music.
Lower courts had already ruled that artists must pay when they sample
another artists' work. But it has been legal to use musical snippets - a
note here, a chord there - as long as it wasn't identifiable.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati gets rid of that distinction. The court said federal laws aimed
at stopping piracy of recordings applies to digital sampling.
"If you cannot pirate the whole sound recording, can you 'lift' or 'sample'
something less than the whole? Our answer to that question is in the
negative," the court said.
"Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity
in any significant way."
Some observers questioned whether the court's opinion is too restrictive,
especially for rap and hip-hop artists who often rhyme over samples of music
taken from older recordings.
"It seems a little extreme to me," said James Van Hook, dean of Belmont
University's Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. "When
something is identifiable, that is the key."
The case at issue is one of at least 800 lawsuits filed in Nashville over
lifting snippets of music from older recordings for new music.
The case centers on the NWA song "100 Miles and Runnin," which samples a
three-note guitar riff from "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" by '70s funk-master
George Clinton and Funkadelic.
In the two-second sample, the guitar pitch has been lowered, and the copied
piece was "looped" and extended to 16 beats. The sample appears five times
in the new song.
NWA's song was included in the 1998 movie "I Got the Hook Up," starring
Master P and produced by his movie company, No Limit Films.
No Limit Films has argued that the sample was not protected by copyright
law. Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records, which claim to own the
copyrights for the Funkadelic song, appealed the lower court's summary
judgment in favor of No Limit Films.
The lower court in 2002 said that the riff in Clinton's song was entitled to
copyright protection, but the sampling "did not rise to the level of legally
cognizable appropriation."
The appeals court disagreed, saying a recording artist who acknowledges
sampling may be liable, even when the source of a sample is unrecognizable.
Noting that No Limit Films "had not disputed that it digitally sampled a
copyrighted sound recording," the appeals court sent the case back to the
lower court.
Richard Busch, attorney for Westbound Records and Bridgeport Music, said he
was pleased with the ruling.
Robert Sullivan, attorney for No Limit Films, did not return a phone call to
his office.
Be informed!!!!!
Subject: Tom Joyner
Forwarded for your information.
Tom Joyner wants this information to reach his
listeners...
You have probably heard of "NUD" as a result of the Tom
Joyner morning show related to CompUSA. NUD is the acronym
for a very subtle and little-known marketing term
specifically directed toward people of color.
NUD stands for Non Urban Dictate. These three words
essentially mean that a company is not interested in the
Black consumer. A NUD label means that a company does not
want their marketing and advertising materials placed in
media that claim an urban audience (black folks) as their
main target.
There are legitimate reasons for companies not using urban
radio. It may be that Blacks don't index high in certain
categories or that a company's strategy is to market to the
Black consumer down the road after they have established ! a
strong position in their primary target.
But NUD usually means that a company is not interested in the
Black consumer. Companies evade discrimination liability by
embracing it as theory rather than policy. As a service to
Black consumers, the Urban Institute will list all companies
that have a NUD policy. Armed with this information, we feel
that Black consumers will be able to make informed buying
decisions.
Companies with NUD policies:
a. Starbucks
b. Jos. A Bank
c. CompUSA
d. Weight Watchers
e. Keebler
f. Life Savers
g. Continental Airlines
h. Northwest Airlines
i. America West Airlines
j. HBO - Apollo Series
k. Paternal Importers
l. Calico Corners
m. OM Scott
n. Pepperidge Farms
o. Ethan Allen
p. Busy Body Fitness
q. Mondavi Wines
r. Builders Square
s. Don Pablo
t. Lexus
u. Aruba Tourism
v. Ciba Vision
w. Kindercare
x. Grady Restaurant
y. Eddie Bauer
Please forward this information on to any other consumer that
you consider a friend and advise them to do likewise.
Remember, we can't act wisely unless we are informed wisely.
The Urban Institute
2100 M Street, NW.
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 833-7200
"The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people"
African Proverb.
CYBER FEARS ON FED'S WEB
PLAN
By HILARY KRAMER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 15, 2004 -- With little fanfare, the Federal Reserve will begin
transferring the nation's money supply over an Internet-based system this
month - a move critics say could open the U.S.'s banking system to cyber
threats.
The Fed moves about $1.8 trillion a day on a closed, stand-alone computer
network. But soon it will switch to a system called FedLine Advantage, a
Web-based technology.
Proponents say the system is more efficient and flexible. The current system
is outdated, using DOS - Microsoft's predecessor to the Windows operating
system.
But security experts say the threat of outside access is too big a risk.
"The Fed is now going to be vulnerable in two distinct ways. A hacker could
break in to the Fed's network and have full access to the system, or a
hacker might not have complete access but enough to cause a denial or
disruptions of service," said George Kurtz, co-author of "Hacking Exposed"
and CEO of Foundstone, an Internet security company.
"If a security breach strikes the very heart of the financial world and
money stops moving around, then our financial system will literally start to
collapse and chaos will ensue."
FedLine is expected to move massive amounts of money. Currently, Fedwire
transfers large-dollar payments averaging $3.5 million per transaction among
Federal Reserve offices, financial institutions and federal government
agencies.
Patti Lorenzen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Reserve, said the agency is
taking every precaution.
"Of course, we will not discuss the specifics of our security measures for
obvious reasons," she said. "We feel confident that this system adheres to
the highest standards of security. Without disclosing the specifics, it is
important to note that our security controls include authentication,
encryption, firewalls, intru sion detection and Federal Reserve conducted
reviews."
Ron Gula, president of Tenable Network Security and a specialist in
government cyber security, said he's sure the Fed is taking every
precaution. But no system is 100 percent foolproof.
"If the motive was to manipulate the money transferring, there are Tom
Clancy scenarios where there are ways to subvert underlying technologies,"
Gula said. "For example, a malicious programmer can put something in the
Fed's network to cause the system to self-destruct or to wire them money."
The biggest concern isn't the 13-year-old who hacks into the Fedwire and
sends himself some money - it's terrorism.
On July 22, the Department of Homeland Security released an internal report
saying a cyber attack could result in "widespread disruption of essential
services ... damag(ing) our economy and put(ting) public safety at risk."
But the Fed's undertaking of this massive overhaul is considered a
necessity.
"Our strategy is to move to Web-based technology because there are inherent
limitations with DOS based technology and our goal is to provide better and
robust product offerings to meet our customers' needs," said Laura Hughes,
vice president of national marketing at the Chicago Fed, which has
spearheaded this program.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
KISS YOUR INTERNET
GOOD-BYE
By Servando González
NewsWithViews.com
In a short, but forceful article, Peter Sparacino
pointed out that constitutional tools are no longer valid in our losing
battle against a government out of control, rapidly becoming a totalitarian
dictatorship. According to Sparacino, neither the ballot box, nor the jury
box can be used to stop its advances -- not even the cartridge box. The only
thing left to fight back, he states, is freedom of the press.
But, as media critic A.J. Liebling rightly expressed, freedom of the press
is guaranteed only to those who own one. Though in theory the opportunity to
own his own printing press was open to every American citizen, in practice
just a few, and lately only the very rich and powerful, were able to own
one.
Granted, the media monopoly was never total, and many small presses
proliferated, but the big ones, later joined by the network TV channels,
just played the game, giving the false image of independent thinking. But
suddenly, less than ten years ago, a technological breakthrough changed the
rules of the game in a radical way, bringing about what media guru Marshal
McLuhan envisioned more than thirty years ago: the global village. This
revolutionary new medium is the Internet.
The Internet is a totally new type of communication medium that has changed
our lives. It allows for easy, fast, and cheap exchange of ideas in an
optimum way. Thanks to the Internet, owning your own press is as cheap as
$20 a month. Almost anybody can afford it.
As soon as the people realized the power of the tool they had in their
hands, many began using the Internet not only to gather the information they
wanted, but also to become themselves providers of information. Sites
offering the most surprising, contradictory, interesting, and useful
information mushroomed, soon to be followed by many offering not-so-useful,
in-your-face, sometimes disgusting or plainly gross content. But, even with
its nasty aspects, the Internet radically changed the way most of us get the
daily news.
Initially, the powerful media giants, both in printed and TV form, ignored
the Internet as a curiosity or a passing fad. But sites like the Drudge
Report, NewsMax, or WorldNetDaily, just to mention a few of the most
successful, soon began attracting more and more readers, while newspapers
like the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times began
losing theirs. Soon after, the big TV networks experimented their own
dramatic loss of viewers.
Faced with the strong, unexpected competition, the media giants joined the
Internet bandwagon, but they were in for a big surprise. Contrary to the
traditional printed media and TV, where money plays a cardinal role -- only
the very rich can afford to hire the qualified personnel and promote and
market the product -- the Internet seems to be a pure product of the human
intellect. As the extraordinary success of the Drudge Report indicates, most
people don't visit a site because it has a fancy design or is professionally
made, but because it is a place where they can find provoking,
non-mainstream ideas that make them think; exactly the type of thinking they
were not able to find in the orchestrated, self-censored mainstream media.
Consequently, a site made by a housewife right from her kitchen in Hot
Springs, Arkansas, or by an almost unknown journalist from his home office
in Oregon or Florida, can compete on equal footing with the New York Times.
This is exactly how extraordinarily successful sites like the Drudge Report
and WorldNetDaily were born. Like the Colt .44 in the Old West, the Internet
became the great equalizer.
But the people who control the media monopoly were not going to see their
power challenged without a fight. After their initial skepticism and scorn,
and their failed attempts to extend their media monopoly to the Internet,
they began a subtle process of infiltration. For example, I was surprised
when, in June, 2001, the notorious Alexander Haig Jr. joined NewsMax's
advisory board. It is probably only a coincidence, but lately NewsMax has
become a sort of mouthpiece for the Republican Party and an uncritical
provider of the Bush administration's propaganda. Its most recent no-brainer
is a "boycott France" campaign. I stopped visiting the site several weeks
ago. On the other hand, if only half of what I found in this article is
true, perhaps NewsMax's problems have deeper roots than I thought.
There is a saying in Latin America: "A los periodistas se les paga o se les
pega." ("Journalists: you buy them or you hit them.") I don't think it is
much different here. I expect that after some unsuccessful attempts to
derail some of the most successful sites, just to bring an example, the
media powers will try to buy them. But, even though I don't think it would
be easy for them to do it, and they may resort to strong arm tactics, the
bottom line is that, because of its inherent characteristics -- the Internet
is an off-shoot of the Arpanet, a military communications decentralized
nodular network designed to survive a full scale nuclear attack on the U.S.
-- the Internet is uncontrollable. It is a Hydra of innumerable heads.
They can keep buying and coercing people and eventually may get control over
the most successful Internet sites, but other people will come forward, and
their sites will rapidly become extremely successful. The attempts of the
media monopolists to control the Internet the way they managed to get
control of the printed press, the TV channels, and, most recently, am radio,
will never be successful. Currently, they are extremely concerned about such
a powerful tool in the hands of the American people. The Internet has become
a growing obstacle to their plans.
Therefore, what will they do? Very simple: They will destroy it. The only
solution to solve the Internet's growing challenge to the media monopoly is
to shut it down and throw the key away.
How it will happen? One of these days, out of the blue, the Internet will be
used for launching a devastating terrorist attack on the United States.
Somehow, this cyberattack will cost the lives of scores of American
citizens. In order to avoid more damage, the government, putting to good use
the recently approved anti-terrorist laws, will shut the Internet down and
ban the use of the Internet as we know it.
But most government agencies rely heavily on the Internet. How can they
function without it? No problem. The replacement already exists; it is
called Internet 2, reportedly a consortium being led by more than 200
universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop
and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the
creation of tomorrow's Internet. But, contrary to the deceptive
techno-babbling rhetoric, Internet 2 is nothing more than a controlled
Internet, similar to the one currently in place in totalitarian countries
like China and Cuba.
Internet 2 will be fully controlled by the state. In order to access it, or
to have e-mail access, you must be a member of, or be affiliated to, any of
the government-authorized organizations and have a sort of security
clearance. Internet 2 will be out of the reach of the general public, and
every person trying to have unauthorized access to Internet 2 will be
charged with terrorist activities, and severely penalized
The unavoidable fact is that the Internet is incompatible with a
totalitarian system of government. Therefore, either we are a bunch of
delusionary paranoids, and what we see happening in this country is only a
figment of our feverished imagination, and, consequently, the Internet will
not be banned, or we are right, and it will disappear. Actually, the
disappearance of the current free Internet will serve as a litmus test that
will accurately mark our final loss of freedom.
The banning of the Internet, the cancellation of the Second Amendment
rights, and the closing of our borders -- not to stop illegals from entering
the country, but to stop Americans from fleeing it -- in exactly that order,
will be important steps in the implementation of this evil plan.
In the meantime, hope for the best, and enjoy the Internet while you can.
© 2003 Servando González - All Rights Reserved
France accuses US of
Aids blackmail
Sarah Boseley in Bangkok
Wednesday July 14, 2004
The Guardian
America was yesterday accused by France of blackmailing developing
countries into giving up their right to produce cheap drugs for Aids
victims.
In a move that may strain already tense relations between the two countries,
the French president, Jacques Chirac, said there existed a real problem of
favourable trade deals being dangled before poor nations in return for those
countries halting production of life-saving generic drugs.
These cheap drugs compete with identical but more expensive patented
varieties made by the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
"Making certain countries drop these measures in the framework of bilateral
trade negotiations would be tantamount to blackmail, since what is the point
of starting treatment without any guarantee of having quality and affordable
drugs in the long term?" Mr Chirac wrote in a statement that was read to the
International Aids conference in Bangkok yesterday.
Although the president did not name the Bush administration in his attack,
French officials later explicitly named the US as being at the heart of the
problem.
Mireille Guigaz, France's global ambassador on Aids, said: "It is a question
between the United States and developing countries, and the way the US wants
to put pressure on developing countries who try to stand up for their own
industries. We do not wish countries' hands [to be] tied by bilateral
agreements."
The US has been pursuing bilateral trade agreements expected to close the
loophole allowed by the World Trade Organisation's agreement on drug patents
last year. At Doha, it was agreed that poor countries in need of medicines
could disregard the 20-year patents on new drugs owned by the multinational
drug companies, most of which are based in the US.
The deal, completed at Cancun, lets poor countries buy cheap, generic copies
of patented drugs from the makers, in India, Brazil and Thailand. Aids drugs
were hugely expensive before such firms made their copies and brought the
prices down from $10,000 (Ł5,400) a patient a year to under $300 (Ł162).
According to the World Health Organisation, six million people in poor
countries need antiretroviral treatment but only 440,000 are getting it.
On Monday, a report from Oxfam warned that bilateral agreements were set to
do great damage to the fight against Aids in Thailand, where the government
has so far been able to administer generic versions of Aids drugs made by
its own government pharmaceutical organisation (GPO). Thailand has said it
intends to export its copies to neighbouring countries.
But the US launched negotiations on a free trade agreement with Thailand on
June 30. Other similiar agreements, signed by the US with Singapore, Chile
and central American countries, contain stringent intellectual property
provisions, said Oxfam. If Thailand is forced down the same road, its
government may not be able to license the GPO to make new, cheap Aids drugs
as the older ones lose their efficacy.
The agreements already signed extend patent protection beyond 20 years,
Oxfam said, and limit a government's ability to allow its own generic
companies to make copies of patented drugs and import generic versions.
"Oxfam shares the concerns of Thai NGOs that a free trade agreement with the
US, containing unnecessarily high intellectual property standards, will
seriously undermine future access to affordable medicines in Thailand," says
the report.
Xavier Darcos, the French minister for cooperation and development, said
France wanted to see a global agreement on access to medicines and favoured
any that allowed "the countries in most need to access drugs, ideally free,
or else produce them".
Mr Chirac, in his statement, also called for the US to put more money into
the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. "We should ensure
the sustainability of the fund's financing and raise its resources to $3bn a
year by sharing this effort among Europe, the United States and all the
other donors."
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said he thought that the US
contribution of $500m to the global fund should have been $1bn of the $15bn
the Bush administration had pledged for Aids projects.
Yesterday the UN said there would be 50 million orphans in sub-Saharan
Africa by 2010, of whom 18.4million would have lost one or both parents to
Aids. Yet it was a crisis that had been ignored. A report from Unicef, the
children's fund, revealed that from 2001 to 2003 the number of children
worldwide orphaned by Aids rose from 11.5 million to 15 million. Most of the
Aids orphans were in Africa, which has been hardest hit by the pandemic.
· José Manuel Barroso, the president-designate of the European commission,
yesterday attacked American "arrogance" but insisted the EU had to keep good
relations with the US. The former prime minister of Portugal, who backed the
Iraq war, said he admired the nation but he hated "their arrogance, their
unilateralism", But it was very much in Europe's interest " to try to have a
constructive relationship".
Special reports
Aids
Medicine and health
Special investigation
February 2003: Saving Grace - why 30m people with Aids can't get the drugs
they need
Full text
UN Aids report, November 2002
UN report into Aids, July 2002
Useful links
NHS Direct: HIV/Aids
British HIV Association
Eldis HIV/Aids guide
National Aids Trust
Terrence Higgins Trust
Elton John Aids Foundation
Children with Aids
Médecins Sans Frontičres
Britain Attacks 'Gluttony'
Of Kenyan Leaders
By Jeevan Vasagar
7-15-4
NAIROBI -- The British high commissioner to
Kenya has launched a remarkably frank attack on the country's new
government, accusing it of arrogance, greed and a gluttony that caused it to
"vomit all over our shoes".
Sir Edward Clay warned that Kenya risked losing foreign aid because of the
"new corruption" under the president, Mwai Kibaki, who launched a crusade to
clean up public life when he ousted the corrupt government of Daniel Arap
Moi 18 months ago.
"We never expected corruption to be vanquished overnight," Sir Edward told a
gathering of businesses in Nairobi. "We all implicitly recognised that some
would be carried over to the new era. We hoped it would not be rammed in our
faces.
"Evidently the practitioners now in government have the arrogance, greed and
perhaps a desperate sense of panic to lead them to eat like gluttons. They
may expect we shall not see, or notice, or will forgive them a bit of
gluttony because they profess to like Oxfam lunches. But they can hardly
expect us not to care when their gluttony causes them to vomit all over our
shoes."
His remarks, at a private lunch, were published in the East African Standard
yesterday. He claimed that corruption under President Kibaki's government
was costing Kenya $188m (Ł105m) and said efforts to end the culture of
bribery were being hampered by so many government figures being "on the
take".
Last night Sir Edward had reportedly been summoned to Kenya's foreign
ministry.
When President Kibaki's coalition won the December 2002 elections, foreign
donors welcomed his pledge to clamp down on sleaze and resumed lending late
last year. But in May John Githongo, a senior Kenyan investigator, said
corruption was returning.
Sir Edward said corruption had spread throughout Kenyan society. "There must
be few and fortunate Kenyans who do not believe that exploiting a
relationship, or proffering kitu kidogo [a little something] or having some
illegitimate inside track, is absolutely essential to getting some ordinary
public service."
One unfolding scandal has concerned the planned Ł20m passport equipment
system. Already four senior civil servants have been suspended after the
government's find of "serious irregularities".
Sir Edward criticised Anglo Leasing & Finance, which was to have financed
the passport deal. "It is a shadowy company with links to an address in
Liverpool, with links to Kenyans, not registered in either Britain or
Switzerland, incapable of commissioning a garden shed, discovered never to
have delivered anything more than drawings more or less on the back of an
envelope, and hot air." It was now unlikely that donors would chip in to aid
Kenya's development.
Amos Kimunya, a government minister, admitted his coalition had inherited "a
few bad apples". He said: "We're not going to say that
now...abracadabra...we're clean. There are still some who will be dipping
into the kitty. But when we discover them what do we do with them?"
Anglo Leasing's managing director, Michel Gruring, denied wrongdoing. "My
company has in no way defrauded your government," he said in a letter to
Kenya's government made public yesterday.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,12689,1261631,00.html
Forgive Me, I was Wrong on Iraq
by Tom Frame
As the only Anglican bishop to have publicly endorsed the Australian
Government's case for war, I now concede that Iraq did not possess weapons
of mass destruction. It did not pose a threat to either its nearer
neighbours or the United States and its allies. It did not host or give
material support to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups.
But did the Australian Government and the Australian Defence Force really
believe that Iraq possessed WMD and would employ them in support of its
national interests? Definitely. Were intelligence assessments of Iraq's WMD
arsenal and its ability to mount military operations exaggerated and
inaccurate? Certainly. But in the absence of any clear mitigation, there is
no alternative to concluding that the March 2003 invasion was neither just
nor necessary.
Let me be clear on two points: I am not saying the war failed to produce any
positive outcomes - happily, the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein has gone
- nor that it cannot be explained in constructive political terms - the
shift to democracy in Baghdad is most welcome. My judgement is simply that
the war cannot be reconciled with just war principles.
Is this of concern? Yes. The relationship of trust that needs to exist
between the Government and the people for a healthy democracy to exist may
have been damaged by what must be regarded as an unnecessary pre-emptive
military strike.
As we ponder the invasion and occupation of Iraq, three important
observations can be made.
First, there is a continuing need of better systems for arbitrating
international disputes. When the "coalition of the willing" invaded Iraq, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked: "If we are going to make preventive
action, or war, part of our response to these new threats, what are the
rules? Who decides? Under what circumstances? Did what happened in Iraq
constitute an exception? A precedent others can exploit? What are the
rules?" These are good questions that cannot go unanswered.
I continue to seek God's forgiveness for my complicity in creating a world
in which this sort of action was ever considered to be necessary.In my view,
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was right to propose "a standing
commission on security within the UN structures, incorporating legal and
other professionals, capable of taking expert evidence, which could advise
on these questions and recommend UN intervention when necessary - instead of
complete reliance on the present Security Council framework". Reform of the
UN must continue.
Second, there must be sombre recognition of the complexities associated with
armed intervention. While the overthrow of a despotic regime might be
quickly achieved, rebuilding countries with a poisoned political culture
takes considerably longer.
The use of military force is very much subordinate to a larger political
solution in places such as Iraq. This is because the root causes of disorder
and violence are varied and profound. They include the availability of guns
and drugs, and the prevalence of racism and sexism together with the
dissipation of the family. These are factors that diminish respect for human
life.
If there is a pervasive cause, it would appear to be poverty. The UN has
rightly engaged in a "war on poverty" where the protagonists are the poor
who attempt to steal from the poorer.
The weapons of war are not bullets and bombs but humanitarian aid, and
direct economic relief and assistance. Armed intervention is time-consuming
and expensive if genuine political and economic progress is to be made. This
must not be forgotten.
Third, attempts to rebuild civil society are certainly impeded if the
invading army or the occupying force fails to uphold certain standards of
behaviour. Although soldiers are not routinely trained to be prison warders
or civil police, they know what constitutes acceptable conduct in an
operational zone.
The calculated humiliation of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad
over the past six months has damaged the Bush Administration's attempts to
portray the US Army as a liberating force. What is worse, men and women from
a nation claiming to be civilised have shown they are just as capable of the
barbarism that characterised Saddam's Baathist regime. These acts retard
political and social progress and perpetuate the cycles of recrimination and
violence that interventions are intended to break. Occupying forces must do
better.
On March 18 last year - two days before the war began - I addressed students
in the united faculty of theology at Melbourne University. In reply to the
question: "Is the proposed war against Iraq just, or just another war?" I
said: "We are, as yet, unable to say with complete confidence. The final
determination cannot be made until we are acquainted with the information
now known by the Government, when we have seen the extent of the WMD that
the 'coalition of the willing' alleges Iraq maintains, and when the full
human cost of war has been calculated." I am now able to answer that
question: it was just another war.
Looking back on the events of the past 18 months I continue to seek God's
forgiveness for my complicity in creating a world in which this sort of
action was ever considered by anyone to be necessary. Even so, come Lord
Jesus.
Dr Tom Frame is the Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defence Force and the
author of Living by the Sword? The Ethics of Armed Intervention (UNSW Press,
2004).
Copyright © 2004. The Age Company Ltd.
Bank ATMs Converted to Steal
IDs of Bank Customers
A team of organized criminals is installing
equipment on legitimate bank ATMs in at least 2 regions to steal
both the ATM card number and the PIN. The team sits nearby in a car
receiving the information transmitted wirelessly over weekends and
evenings from equipment they install on the front of the ATM (see
photos). If you see an attachment like this, do not use the ATM and
report it immediately to the bank using the 800 number or phone on
the front of the ATM.
The equipment used to capture your ATM card
number and PIN is cleverly disguised to look like normal ATM
equipment. A "skimmer" is mounted to the front of the normal ATM
card slot that reads the ATM card number and transmits it to the
criminals sitting in a nearby car.
At the same time, a wireless camera is disguised
to look like a leaflet holder and is mounted in a position to view
ATM PIN entries.
The thieves copy the cards and use the PIN
numbers to withdraw thousands from many accounts in a very short
time directly from the bank ATM.
Equipment being installed on front of existing bank
card slot.
The equipment as it appears installed over the normal
ATM bank slot.
The PIN reading camera being installed on the ATM is
housed in an innocent looking leaflet enclosure.
The camera shown installed and ready to capture PINs
by looking down on the keypad as you enter your PIN.
|
RAD: Free Self Defense Class for Women |
The Latest News, Tips and Tools For Your
Career |
Good news
and bad news for job seekers
Abridged: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
WASHINGTON,
DC -- The good news is for three months running, the labor market
has again been generating significant numbers of new jobs. The bad
news is new Labor Department data show that over the same three
months an exceptionally large number of jobless workers exhausted
their regular unemployment benefits and did not qualify for further
federal aid.
The Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation (TEUC) program was
created in March 2002 to provide up to 13 weeks of federally funded
unemployment benefits to those who have run out of regular
unemployment benefits. Individuals who have exhausted their regular
benefits since December 20, 2003 have not been eligible for TEUC
aid. The lingering high level of exhaustees suggests that the
program was turned off too soon.
Analysis indicates that more than two million unemployed workers
have exhausted their regular benefits and are without further
federal unemployment aid from when the TEUC program ended through
the end of June. The next few months are also likely to see an
exceptionally large number of exhaustees. Projections suggest that
in July, August, and September of this year, the number of jobless
workers without aid will set records for those particular months.
Confidentially post your resume on top job sites
Staff Writer, The Career News
LOS ANGELES,
CA -- There are several lists of career websites available on the
internet or through a search engine. And while it may take some
time, posting your resume on all the top sites will give you better
exposure than your job competition while maximizing your job
opportunities.
If you want the benefit of maximum exposure, but don't want to spend
60 hours researching and filling out website forms - and you don't
want your current employer to see your resume posting, consider
letting a service like Resume Rabbit do the work for you. With this
service, you fill out one easy form and in about 15 minutes you'll
be posted on 100 top career sites like Monster, Headhunter, Hot
Jobs, Net-Temps, Dice and more. A comprehensive list of all the
sites they post to is on their home page.
If confidentially is a concern, use Resume Rabbit's new
"confidentiality" feature. Your resume can be seen, however, no one
will see your name, street address, phone number or even your
current company name. Whether you do it by hand or use a service
like Resume Rabbit, creating accounts on all the best career sites
will give you access to millions of jobs and exposure to 1.5 million
employers and recruiters daily. To try Resume Rabbit,
go to this link.
Job
seekers: The 'hidden job' network
George Blomgren, Tips From An Employer
MILWAUKEE, WI -- There's a pseudo-employment agency out there
that will charge you thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars
largely to provide you with the following information:
The most powerful tool at your disposal for finding jobs is
networking. In other words, understanding just how extensive a
network you have generated in your life (if you ever interact with
anyone) and how to use it to find work. Because, despite the web,
most job opportunities remain unadvertised.
The trick, simply, is communication. You must work your network,
even when you are happily employed. Keep in touch with people. And
when you are unemployed, reach out in a constructive manner to
utilize this network. Your barber, your friends at church, previous
coworkers, members of clubs you belong to - may not be hiring, but
they may know someone who is. Experts agree networking is the most
powerful and efficient way to land most of the best jobs out there.
Job
seekers go where the openings are
Abridged: News-Star.com
SHAWNEE, OK -- The long-awaited improvement in the labor market -
a gain of 1.5 million positions since last August - is improving
odds for jobseekers. But some are hitting the road to secure work.
Recruiters and job placement counselors say more jobseekers are
relocating for work, or showing a willingness to do so -
particularly in regions and industries where hiring has lagged.
Itąs too early for the government to have figures on the number of
Americans who have moved in the past year. But a rebounding economy
is likely spurring work-related moves as companies grow more willing
to hire new employees or shift existing ones and jobseekers gain the
confidence to move their families, David Baxter, a demographer for
the Urban Futures Institute, said.
A really robust economy gets a lot of people moving. A slowdown in
the economy makes people say 'I donąt want to take that risk,' he
said. Although things are changing, many remain reluctant to move
for work. In a recent survey of 1,100 jobseekers by personnel
consulting firm DBM Inc., 34 percent indicated a willingness to move
for a new job, but they were far outnumbered by the 82 percent
willing to change industry.
Free:
Resume critique by professional writers
Staff Writer, The Career News
LOS ANGELES, CA -- You've got terrific experience. Your work
ethic is superb. You're even willing to be flexible on salary. But
after sending your resume to countless, perfectly matched management
opportunities, you're just not getting the interviews. Why? It may
be hard to believe, but there's a good chance your resume is the
culprit. With the average employer spending less than 30 seconds
scanning each resume they receive, your resume needs "The Right
Stuff" to grab attention and get the interview.
What is the Right Stuff? To find out, The Career News has arranged
for its subscribers to receive a complimentary resume critique and
price quote from a certified professional resume writer,
specializing in resumes for management level job candidates.
You'll not only find out what's right with your resume -- but more
importantly, if it is actually preventing you from getting
interviews. While the critique is free and valuable, you'll also
learn how a professional writer might successfully re-vamp your
resume and refine your job search strategies -- and exactly what
that would cost. This may just start making you money quicker than
you think. To receive your complimentary price quote and resume
critique today,
follow this link.
Top 7
questions to ask in a sales interview
Pat Schuler, Business Development Coach
MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- As a sales manager, there were a handful of
questions that alerted me the applicant was a cut above average. I'm
sharing these today to give you a foundation. Not all of them will
feel right for you or be appropriate for your situation. Use them as
a starting point. Pick a few that resonate for you. Add others that
elicit the information you most want to know about the company and
the position.
- If you had to pick three qualities you viewed as crucial for
success in the position, what would they be?
- What are the biggest challenges I'll probably face in the
position?
- What are the top three customer complaints? How do you
typically address them?
- What separates you from the competitors?
- Were you promoted or hired from the outside? If hired from
the outside, why wasn't someone promoted?
- What really stinks about this job?
- How long do people usually take to ramp up to acceptable
production?
Free trade
magazines: Increase your marketability
Staff Writer, The Career News
LOS ANGELES, CA -- Whether you're looking to move up or move on -
reading business and trade publications let you move right in to the
job of your dreams. They keep you sharp, well informed, articulate
and in-demand. It's no secret that keeping up with news and trends
of your industry or profession (as well as that of your clients')
will give you the competitive edge you need. And now, you can get
your trade magazines without having to pay for them.
Through a special offer from The Career News, you can get a
subscription to practically every leading industry and business
publication, at no charge. It takes only a minute to search our
website and quickly find the magazines matching your skills and
interests.
First you search by publication title, industry, or geography. Next,
pick the magazines you want, fill out a brief online subscription
form and press submit. It's that easy. For more information or to
sign up now for your free trade magazines,
follow this link.
Corporate
staffing websites evaluated
Abridged: KansasCity.com
KANSAS CITY, MS -- Two dozen job search experts, each an out of
work human resource professional, were mobilized by Mark Mehler and
Gerry Crispin, authors of the CareerXroads Directory, a reference
guide to job and resume Web sites to help evaluate corporate job
websites. The HR professionals submitted applications to the 100
companies that landed on Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For"
list in 2004.
While some company websites disappointed, there were some national
companies that the analysis found have good corporate staffing
sites, including: Aetna, Apple Computer, Adolph Coors, Walt Disney,
Eastman Kodak, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor, General Electric, Intel,
Johnson & Johnson, Northwestern Mutual Life, Procter & Gamble,
Sherwin-Williams, United Parcel Service of America, and United
Technologies, with many more working to improve their sites as
hiring picks up.
Featured
contributing writer: Wendy J. Terwelp
Staff Writer, The Career News
LOS ANGELES, CA -- Wendy Terwelp is an internationally certified
Job & Career Transition Coach with more than 15 years experience.
Her step-by-step coaching programs help Sr. Level Executives and
professionals make career transitions that transform their lives in
order to become more productive, effective, and fulfilled in a
competitive marketplace.
Are you ready to change your life? Would you like to learn more
about what a Career Coach can do for you before making the financial
commitment? To learn more about how to make a career transition and
to receive a free 20-minute career evaluation and price quote from
Wendy J. Terwelp, just
follow this link. |
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Career
Tools Highlighted in This Issue:
|
Resume Rabbit
Confidentially
post your resume on 100 career sites - instantly.
Free Resume Critique & Quote
Resume critique
& price quote from a professional resume writer.
Free Industry and Trade Publications
Subscribe online
to industry and business publications.
Career Coaching Services
Receive a free
20-minute career evaluation & price quote. |
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Copyright
2004, TheCareerNews.com
9461 Charleville Blvd. #501 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 |
|
July 19, 2004 |
The Career News |
Special Edition |
|
The Latest News, Tips and Tools For Your
Career |
Make the
most of the recent hiring surge!
Staff Writer, The Career News
The job
market is improving. Hiring is definitely on the rise. If you're
currently in the job market, now is the time to make sure your
resume is where hiring managers will find it. Most recruiters and
hiring managers first turn to one of the hundreds of career sites or
resume banks to find suitable job candidates to fill their
positions. That's why posting your resume on ALL the top career
sites will give you the competitive advantage and maximize your job
opportunities.
And while there are currently millions of jobs listed on amongst all
the top career websites, more and more companies report they are
searching the job boards for candidates without posting their
upcoming jobs -- due to fear of an onslaught of unqualified
applications.
That makes this is the BEST time to put your resume on ALL major
career sites which are collectively reported to be searched by 1.5
million employers and recruiters and hiring managers daily!
According to a recent poll by the Society for Human Resource
Management, 88% of human resource professionals now rely on Internet
to fill open positions open in their organizations.
How long does it take?
Researching which sites to post to and then filling out all of their
forms will take a fair amount of time. If you don't want to spend 60
hours filling out forms and researching sites, you can turn to a
services called Resume Rabbit, which will instantly post your resume
to 100 top career sites for you. You can find them by
following this link.
This site is easy to use, takes only 15 minutes to complete, saves
you tons of time and instantly posts your resume on all the best
sites like Monster, Hot Jobs, CareerBuilder, Net-Temps, Flip Dog,
Dice.com, ComputerWork & More.
Why post to all the sites?
The answer is: To be in the right places at the right times!
Especially now.
While many companies search the largest career sites, increasingly
employers and recruiters are cutting costs by searching the lesser
expensive mid-sized career sites.
This means that the hiring managers and jobs are dispersed amongst a
large number of career sites. And in this market, the window of
opportunity for a job is a little smaller than usual, so it's
important that you're where the jobs are when they're available.
Can I Post My Resume Confidentially?
You can still post your resume online while remaining anonymous if
you use ResumeRabbit.com by selecting "Post My Resume
Confidentially" during their registration process. In this case they
will select the confidentiality option on career websites offering
that feature. For career websites that do not offer a
confidentiality feature, they will replace your personally
identifiable information and current company name with something
non-descript.
Does It Really Work?
It's a fact
that most hiring managers use the internet to find their candidates.
Of course, when there are more jobs available in the market, your
chances are better of finding a job faster.
However, even when the job market is weak, then it's even more
important that you give yourself a competitive advantage over others
competing for the same jobs, by making sure your resume is
"findable" on ALL top career sites.
Here are a couple of comments about being on all the career sites
from users of ResumeRabbit.com:
A customer service representative in Missouri named Jim used
ResumeRabbit.com to post his resume and commented,
"I signed up on a Tuesday and by Thursday the job offers started
pouring in. By Friday, I had a job set up!"
Ronnie, a sales representative in Texas reports,
"I got the account on Sunday evening and by Monday morning I was
already getting phone calls from recruiters. That was fast and easy.
There are so many job sites out there it would have taken weeks."
Since 1999 Resume Rabbit has performed over 1 million resume
postings for some very happy customers who feel the service can't be
beat. If you want to try Resume Rabbit it can be found by
following this link.
Whether you fill out the forms your self or elect to have a service
like Resume Rabbit to do it for you, being on all the major career
sites is a good idea. It's a competitive job market right now. If
you know how to play the numbers you can beat the odds and succeed.
Post your resume to as many career sites as possible and visit them
often. |
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Copyright
2004, TheCareerNews.com
9461 Charleville Blvd. #501 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 |
|
Jun 28, 2004 |
The Career News |
Vol. 4, Issue 26 |
|
The Latest News, Tips and Tools For Your
Career |
Highest
paying jobs have greatest number of openings
Abridged: CNN/Money
NEW YORK, NY
-- In its latest quarterly outlook, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
broke out 20 jobs with relatively high median earnings, and guess
what: they're among the occupations with the greatest number of job
openings projected through 2012.
The number of job openings projected for a given field is a
combination of new jobs likely to be created and positions likely to
open up as a result of workers retiring or otherwise leaving the
occupation permanently. So, for instance, the BLS projects that
95,980 jobs will open up annually between 2002 and 2012 for
post-secondary teachers. The median earnings of those who hold the
title -- meaning half earned more -- was $49,090 in 2002.
Also notable about the BLS list: not all of the jobs necessarily
require graduate or even college degrees. Among these occupations
with relatively high median earnings and the potential for
significant job openings are carpenters, truck drivers and auto
mechanics.
Job
Seekers: Don't get beat by the competition
Staff Writer, The Career News
LOS ANGELES,
CA -- People may not realize this, but thousands of successful
businesses are in desperate need of competent and skilled employees.
These days, to land a job over the competition, you have to work
smarter. The hard part is to get your resume read by the right
people at the right time. Good jobs aren't on the market very long.
To succeed your resume has to be available to the employer the
moment they decide to fill a position.
One easy way to be found by employers who are looking to hire
someone with your skills, is to post your resume on all the top
career sites. As soon as an employer needs someone, this is usually
the first place they look. This is a proven, documented method of
successful job searching. While it may take a fair amount of time to
find and fill out the forms of all these sites, you will definitely
multiply your chances of landing a job.
If you want all the benefits without all the work, you can use a
service like Resume Rabbit to do it for you. You fill out one simple
form and they'll instantly post your resume on up to 90 top career
sites like Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder, Dice & more! You'll be
seen by over 1.5 million employers & recruiters daily. It takes
about 15 minutes and saves 60 hours of research and data entry! To
try Resume Rabbit today,
go to this link.
Success
Stories leave favorable impressions
George Blomgren, Tips From An Employer
MILWAUKEE, WI -- One of the best ways to leave a lasting,
favorable impression on an interviewer is to share success stories.
Think about teachers you remember fondly, speeches that have moved
you, conversations that stick with you. They probably leaned toward
the narrative. Religious leaders, politicians, and comedians use
this trick to great advantage. You can too.
After a few interviews, you know what subjects will likely come up.
What are the things you wish to emphasize in your working history?
What are the accomplishments and experiences that matter most? What
are some significant challenges you have faced, what are some of
your prized achievements? Take some time to write down answers to
these questions and to polish the answers into concise, memorable
anecdotes.
If you are still not convinced, pretend you are an interviewer. You
ask two candidates the question - "how are your team skills?" One
says: "Oh, I'm a good team player." The other tells you a great
story (complete with humor and suspense) about the time she
coordinated a team of coworkers to successfully complete a truly
difficult challenge. Which candidate are you likely to remember
favorably?
National
day of mourning delays jobless claims
Abridged: CNN/Money
NEW YORK, NY -- The number of Americans filing for unemployment
benefits increased last week, the government reported Thursday.
There were 349,000 people filing for initial unemployment benefits
in the week ended June 19, up from the 336,000 who filed the
previous week. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecast initial
claims would rise to 340,000 in the most recent period.
One possible factor driving up filings during the most recent week
was the closing of many government offices the last day of the
previous week for the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan,
which could have delayed some people's filing for benefits.
The four-week moving average of initial claims was 344,250, an
increase of 1,000 from the previous week's unrevised average of
343,250. But the four-week average is well below the 421,500 reading
during the same period a year ago.
Free trade
publications increase marketability
Staff Writer, The Career News
LOS ANGELES, CA -- Whether you're looking to move up or move on -
reading business and trade publications let you move right in to the
job of your dreams. They keep you sharp, well informed, articulate
and in-demand. It's no secret that keeping up with news and trends
of your industry or profession (as well as that of your clients')
will give you the competitive edge you need. And now, you can get
your trade magazines without having to pay for them.
Through a special offer from The Career News, you can instantly get
a subscription to practically every leading industry and business
publication, at no charge. It's quick and easy to do.
It takes only a minute to search our website and quickly find the
magazines matching your skills and interests. First you search by
publication title, industry, or geography. Next, pick the magazines
you want, fill out a brief online subscription form and press
submit. It's that easy. For more information or to sign up now for
your free trade magazines,
follow this link.
In between
jobs? No, you're on sabbatical.
Pat Schuler, Business Development Coach
MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- You're between positions and you have a job
search action plan in place -- complete with specific activities and
goals. Ask yourself, when will you next have open-ended chunks of
time at your control? What would you do with your time if you went
on sabbatical? What would you learn or research?
You don't have the money to take that course in Spanish or quilting
or small engine repair? Who among your peers has a skill or craft
you'd like to learn? What gifts do you take for granted that someone
else might like to learn? Are you an effortless dancer? Do you know
first aid, CPR or do you swim like a fish? You may be surprised to
find you have skills to barter.
Consider these activities. Your mind stays active. Your spirits are
engaged in learning and growth. You have an area of accomplishment
that supports your self-esteem at a time when it may be under
attack. You may stretch, learn, enjoy and help others. Not bad for
your spare time.
How to
identify your perfect career
Staff Writer, The Career News
MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- Want to know a way to figure out whether your
current career path is the right one? Get to know yourself a little
bit better. It's hard enough finding jobs these days, but finding a
job that is as enjoyable as it is personally rewarding can be a hard
balance to achieve. Perhaps it's time to look within for the
answers.
One way to find out the best career direction for you is by using a
complimentary service like MAPP. There is a series of questions that
ask you to select what you like the most and least amongst three
things. Then, you are rewarded with an analysis of your likes and
dislikes, working environment preferences, as well as suggestions as
to which careers might be best suited to you! For your free analysis
and to get your career on the right path,
go to MAPP.
Pay
attention: Take notes on interviews
George Blomgren, Tips From An Employer
MILWAUKEE, WI -- Never show up at an interview empty handed.
Always bring paper and pen, preferably in a nice
portfolio/organizer. These aren't just props; you'll want to use
them to take notes. Taking notes has a number of benefits. It
signals you are clearly paying attention. It's an implicit form of
flattery, demonstrating that you take what the interviewer tells you
seriously. You are modeling a good work skill - note taking is
valued in many jobs. And it sets you apart (in a positive manner)
from many other candidates.
Take notes that will help you. For instance, take note of things the
interviewer stresses as being of particular importance -- about the
job, the company, etc. Use these notes to formulate relevant
questions and show you've paid attention. They will also come in
handy when writing a follow-up note to your interviewer, enabling
you to refer back to meaningful highlights of the conversation
rather than just offering a generic thank you.
A great
free resource for job seekers
Staff Writer, The Career News
FREDERICKSBURG, VA -- Have you had the chance to visit Job.com?
It has quickly become one of the more meaningful career sites on the
web. Posting your resume on this top career site is a simple process
that takes less than 5 minutes and is no charge to you. By joining
you'll gain immediate exposure to their proprietary database of
employers and recruiters. Additionally, you'll receive the following
complimentary services when you sign up:
- Notifications of newly posted jobs in your targeted industry
and state;
- Articles and tips on how to advance your job search;
- Access to salary data in Job.com's Salary Center;
- Access to research on 1000's of companies;
- A free resume critique and job search evaluation;
If you're still in the job market and haven't signed up to Job.com,
perhaps now's the time. To sign up, go to
Job.com. |
|
Career
Tools Highlighted in This Issue:
|
Resume Rabbit
Post your resume
on 90 career sites - confidentially.
Free Industry and Trade Publications
Subscribe online
to industry and business publications.
MAPP - Take the personality test
Complimentary
personal assessment tool. Takes 15 minutes for a report.
Job.com
Great job seeker
resources at no charge. |
|
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was sent to: zulus@zulunation.com
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The Career News: |
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Copyright
2004, TheCareerNews.com
9461 Charleville Blvd. #501 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 |
France accuses US of
Aids blackmail
Sarah Boseley in Bangkok
Wednesday July 14, 2004
The Guardian
America was yesterday accused by France of blackmailing developing countries
into giving up their right to produce cheap drugs for Aids victims.
In a move that may strain already tense relations between the two countries,
the French president, Jacques Chirac, said there existed a real problem of
favourable trade deals being dangled before poor nations in return for those
countries halting production of life-saving generic drugs.
These cheap drugs compete with identical but more expensive patented
varieties made by the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
"Making certain countries drop these measures in the framework of bilateral
trade negotiations would be tantamount to blackmail, since what is the point
of starting treatment without any guarantee of having quality and affordable
drugs in the long term?" Mr Chirac wrote in a statement that was read to the
International Aids conference in Bangkok yesterday.
Although the president did not name the Bush administration in his attack,
French officials later explicitly named the US as being at the heart of the
problem.
Mireille Guigaz, France's global ambassador on Aids, said: "It is a question
between the United States and developing countries, and the way the US wants
to put pressure on developing countries who try to stand up for their own
industries. We do not wish countries' hands [to be] tied by bilateral
agreements."
The US has been pursuing bilateral trade agreements expected to close the
loophole allowed by the World Trade Organisation's agreement on drug patents
last year. At Doha, it was agreed that poor countries in need of medicines
could disregard the 20-year patents on new drugs owned by the multinational
drug companies, most of which are based in the US.
The deal, completed at Cancun, lets poor countries buy cheap, generic copies
of patented drugs from the makers, in India, Brazil and Thailand. Aids drugs
were hugely expensive before such firms made their copies and brought the
prices down from $10,000 (Ł5,400) a patient a year to under $300 (Ł162).
According to the World Health Organisation, six million people in poor
countries need antiretroviral treatment but only 440,000 are getting it.
On Monday, a report from Oxfam warned that bilateral agreements were set to
do great damage to the fight against Aids in Thailand, where the government
has so far been able to administer generic versions of Aids drugs made by
its own government pharmaceutical organisation (GPO). Thailand has said it
intends to export its copies to neighbouring countries.
But the US launched negotiations on a free trade agreement with Thailand on
June 30. Other similiar agreements, signed by the US with Singapore, Chile
and central American countries, contain stringent intellectual property
provisions, said Oxfam. If Thailand is forced down the same road, its
government may not be able to license the GPO to make new, cheap Aids drugs
as the older ones lose their efficacy.
The agreements already signed extend patent protection beyond 20 years,
Oxfam said, and limit a government's ability to allow its own generic
companies to make copies of patented drugs and import generic versions.
"Oxfam shares the concerns of Thai NGOs that a free trade agreement with the
US, containing unnecessarily high intellectual property standards, will
seriously undermine future access to affordable medicines in Thailand," says
the report.
Xavier Darcos, the French minister for cooperation and development, said
France wanted to see a global agreement on access to medicines and favoured
any that allowed "the countries in most need to access drugs, ideally free,
or else produce them".
Mr Chirac, in his statement, also called for the US to put more money into
the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. "We should ensure
the sustainability of the fund's financing and raise its resources to $3bn a
year by sharing this effort among Europe, the United States and all the
other donors."
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said he thought that the US
contribution of $500m to the global fund should have been $1bn of the $15bn
the Bush administration had pledged for Aids projects.
Yesterday the UN said there would be 50 million orphans in sub-Saharan
Africa by 2010, of whom 18.4million would have lost one or both parents to
Aids. Yet it was a crisis that had been ignored. A report from Unicef, the
children's fund, revealed that from 2001 to 2003 the number of children
worldwide orphaned by Aids rose from 11.5 million to 15 million. Most of the
Aids orphans were in Africa, which has been hardest hit by the pandemic.
· José Manuel Barroso, the president-designate of the European commission,
yesterday attacked American "arrogance" but insisted the EU had to keep good
relations with the US. The former prime minister of Portugal, who backed the
Iraq war, said he admired the nation but he hated "their arrogance, their
unilateralism", But it was very much in Europe's interest " to try to have a
constructive relationship".
Special reports
Aids
Medicine and health
Special investigation
February 2003: Saving Grace - why 30m people with Aids can't get the drugs
they need
Full text
UN Aids report, November 2002
UN report into Aids, July 2002
Useful links
NHS Direct: HIV/Aids
British HIV Association
Eldis HIV/Aids guide
National Aids Trust
Terrence Higgins Trust
Elton John Aids Foundation
Children with Aids
Médecins Sans Frontičres
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
Significance Of Iranian
Flying Saucer Reports
For The US Military
Occupation Of Iraq
By Michael E. Salla, PhD
exopolitics@yahoo.com
5-2-4
In this exopolitics commentary I take the opportunity to reflect on the
recent flying saucer reports in Iran and what they signify as far as the US
military presence in Iraq is concerned (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/28/iran.ufos.reut/
).
The reports are indicative of something that is very likely related to
Stargate/energy portal activity in Iraq/Iran and the region generally. It is
very likely that the whole region comprising Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan is a vast
energy portal that was strategically chosen for this reason as the home base
for extraterrestrials known as the Anunnaki during the Sumerian era. The
ancient Sumerians described in great detail the lives and activities of the
Anunnaki, and Sumerians' descriptions have been translated by the scholar
Zecharia Sitchin. We are presently seeing signs of a possible connection
between extraterrestrials and energy portals in the region in terms of the
Iranian flyer saucer reports that may be only the initial wave of
extraterrestrials visibly showing up in the region.
Now something that is an area of concern is that the US forces in Iraq are
doing things that act as a focus of rage for the Arab and Muslim world. The
latest saga involving the brutal treatment of Iraqi prisoners that only
inflames the volatile situation (http://www.rense.com/general52/sadist.htm
). The situation in the Iraqi city of Fallujah has eased but it seems that
there appears to be one event after another agitating the Arab/Muslim world
about US behavior in Iraq. Imagine one billion Muslims praying for Allah's
vengeance against the 'US imperialists' at the very time there is major
Stargate/energy portal activity in the region.
According to the author Gregg Braden, the 'Isaiah Effect' involves creating
a particular event through the power of creative visualization by focused
and intense emotions. The key idea in the `Isaiah Effect' is that by
visualizing a desired event and fully immersing oneself in the emotions of
the event as though it had occurred, a powerful energetic impulse is created
that helps manifest the desired event in the concrete physical realm
http://www.greggbraden.net/lost_mode.php3 .
So we might well imagine the effect of a billion Muslims praying for the
'American infidels' to be punished in Iraq by Allah. What they might
manifest by all this rage/anger is an opening of the portals and literally
the gates of hell opening with the 'return of the Gods' - the Anunnaki - who
take the rage around the region as permission to intervene and punish US
forces and their allies. If something like that happened, well the
consequences could be really terrible if the US 'shadow government' managing
extraterrestrial affairs unleashed its secret arsenal to fight back.
I'm confident that the 'shadow government' behind the Bush administration
were aware of this Stargate/energy portal activity beginning to peak at this
time and this was the reason for their haste in going in to Iraq. So it
wasn't Oil, Weapons of Mass Destruction, or the 'War against Terror', just a
desire to be in Iraq if and when the energy portals/Stargates became active.
Significantly, confirmation of the presence of Stargates in Iraq came from
Dr Dan Burisch a microbiologist working on a classified government project
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/4/prweb121870.htm
In various interviews, Burisch has described 'natural' and 'artificial'
Stargates. These natural Stargates might be better described as 'energy
portals', and together with 'artificial Stargates', allow off-planet based
extraterrestrial races a means of intervening on Earth and bypassing an
alleged quarantine of Earth http://www.ecologynews.com/sampleexopolitics.html
. Burisch also confirmed the existence of a secret committee of thirty-three
members managing extraterrestrial projects who comprise a 'shadow
government', the 'Committee of the Majority'.
The Bush administration has badly managed the takeover of Iraq by enacting
policies that enrage the Arab/Muslim world. It is very possible that focused
rage over Iraq will basically manifest an intervention by an aggressive
extraterrestrial race claiming to be the 'returning gods' or Anunnaki.
These Anunnaki could presumably use the collective will of the population in
the region for vengeance as a mandate to wreak Allah's punishment on the
'American infidels'. Rather than the Bush administration being solely
responsible, it is the secret managers of the extraterrestrial presence
(e.g., 'shadow government'/'Committee of the Majority') that must bear
primary responsibility since they are ultimately behind the Bush
administration's decision to militarily intervene in Iraq to secure the
Stargates and energy portals. It is therefore both the 'shadow government'
and the Bush administration that ultimately share responsibility for
allowing the situation in Iraq to deteriorate to the extent it has at a time
of heightened Stargate and energy portal activity. Merely shifting blame
onto the Bush administration and making it the scapegoat in order to ensure
that a Kerry administration takes over the situation in Iraq, would be an
expedient solution to a problem that is structural. What is currently
happening in Iraq and the danger this poses US and global sovereignty, goes
to the core of how the extraterrestrial presence is secretly managed in a
way that involves unnecessarily high risks.
The ultimate result of extraterrestrial intervention responding to regional
rage against the US is a military confrontation that could lead to a
domineering extraterrestrial race having a major strategic toehold in human
affairs. Those who have made decisions that make such an outcome possible
need to be scrutinized closely as to any hidden motivations that suggest
undue extraterrestrial influence. This pertains not only to the Bush
administration, but also to the 'shadow government' that secretly pushed for
the intervention in Iraq. In particular, the policies of the top civilian
administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremmer, who made the decision to disband the
Iraqi army and thereby fueling a mass Iraqi insurrection needs to be closely
examined in terms of his association with the 'shadow government'.
It is noteworthy that Bremmer has close ties with Dr Henry Kissinger, a
prominent 'former' member of the 'shadow government', who himself played a
critical role in giving assent to US intervention in Iraq when he argued in
a February 2003 article that the Atlantic Alliance was in its "Gravest
Crisis" due to opposition to US military intervention by France and Germany.
Kissinger was hereby indicating his assent, and the assent of the 'shadow
government' to the Bush administration's intervention into Iraq.
So what can be done to counter all this? The best thing is for peaceful
resolution of conflict in Iraq. US forces in Iraq need to get their act
together there and really dampen the situation and stop inflaming things by
confrontational policies that exclude the former Iraqi elite who are behind
the insurrection in Sunni dominated areas. The pictures of Iraqis being
tortured was really the last straw for many in the Muslim world so the US
military forces really need to beware that with all this regional rage, and
major Stargate/energy portal activity in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan, that they
may literally start something that will have terrible consequences both for
the US and the planet. The solution to the military siege of Fallajuh where
the Marine commanders decided to work with a former General from Saddam
Hussein's army, provides a model that while on the surface appears to
compromise political principles initially espoused by the Bush
administration, offers short term security and stability to Iraq. This is
critical if Stargate/energy portal activity is entering a heightened state
in the region thereby creating great uncertainty over the consequences of
regional rage over the presence of US military forces and their response to
an ongoing Iraqi insurrection.
The Iran flying saucer reports are a sign that major events are happening in
the region in terms of a schedule relating to Stargates and energy portals
that has not been disclosed by the 'shadow government'/Committee of the
Majority. We might therefore anticipate further extraterrestrial activity in
the region that suggests great caution is needed by the Bush administration
in how it deals with Iraq and ensuring that there is a peaceful transition
to a more legitimate and popular Iraqi government. The situation in Iraq for
better or worse is a focus of regional/world attention, and the extent to
which the region/world express either rage or optimism over US policies in
Iraq, will impact very strongly on increasing extraterrestrial activity on
Earth.
Michael E. Salla, PhD
www.exopolitics.org
exopolitics@yahoo.com
Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate among private
individuals and groups, post on all Internet sites and publish in full in
all not-for-profit publications. Contact author for all other rights, which
are reserved.
What Are Those
Objects
In The Trails??
By Brenda Livingston
Living-Tracer Enterprises
http://tracers.8m.com
There is no doubt that many things are happening in our skies-- testing of
experimental aircraft, testing of contrails, military radar jamming, new
communications, VTRPE, HAARP a plethora of UAVs (surveillance and
experimental platforms), weather control which may indeed utilize
long-lasting contrails as part of their mission.
There are persistent contrails... some that may contain various chemicals
and materials (ie., barium, aluminum) that are referred to as 'chemtrails'.
And there are contrails are caused by commercial airliners leaving lasting
contrails in a rapidly changing atmosphere (or having their normal contrails
transformed into persistent contrails by passing through unusual contrail
remnants or clouds).
I prefer to use the term persistent contrails (PCs) to refer to all
long-lasting and spreading contrails and then distinquish between these
based on content and mission. All PCs are contributing in some way to the
haze and the pseudo-cirrus 'clouds' covering up our blue skies and
contributing to the grand pollution problem and thus global warming.
Persistent contrails caused by jet exhaust has been measured as contributing
approximately 7-10% to the overall pollution of the atmosphere. Then add the
potential pollutants contained with 'chemtrails' and PCs possibly containing
polymers and objects (and there waste products) and we can only guess at the
overall effect in our atmosphere over time.
The big question for the 'Chemtrail' Community is: Are some of the
persistent contrails covering our skies a clandestine government or military
project -- and if so, is what they are doing harmful or potentially harmful
to human beings or the environment (not to mention the ramifications of
these 'projects' on democratic rights).
Many theories have been proposed in an attempt to explain the increase in
long-lasting spreading contrails: chemical or biowarfare agents to cull the
population, simulants of chemical or BW agents to develop counter measures,
an increase in global warming with atmospheric effects, an attempt to
counter the effects of increased air traffic emissions or ozone holes or UV
radiation...to name a few... All of these may be occurring in our
atmosphere...likely to be.
These most mysterious long-lasting spreading contrails filling our skies
with criss-crossing, u-turning and vertical patterns that often result in
the most unusual looking "clouds" continue to baffle all those attempting to
study the phenomena. Although any or all of the above are scenarios worthy
of continued research and investigation...another important element to the
study of persistent contrails (PCs) must now be included in any legitimate
search for answers to this atmospheric conundrum.
Gathering reliable evidence in this arena has been a difficult process...and
finding definitive links between PCs at 7-40,000 feet in the atmosphere and
air or ground samples has proven to be an extraordinary challenge. Obtaining
reliable and uncontaminated air and ground samples of what is thought to be
PC-related evidence is a difficult feat in and of itself. Studies which
include gathering data as to contrail 'clusters' by region are needed to
ascertain if there is a pattern and what this pattern might tell us about
their purpose.
And what is the evidence presented telling us? A very strange story is being
revealed by chemtrail researchers: strange and unusual forms and content
within samples...red blood cells...synthetic material...protein... some
mixed with fuel components. These and the mysterious concoctions of fungi,
bacteria and unidentifiable matter presented -- if factual and reliable
evidence -- seem almost beyond the realm of any logical black government
project. These results even try the most imaginitive minds to come up with
who would rain this material down on the citizenry or why.
It is true....some contrails are not like the others...
Sightings of spherical and oval shaped objects of varying sizes hovering
near, moving about within PCs and moving in and out of persistent contrails
are increasingly being reported, photographed and videotaped worldwide.
These objects are not few and far between....hundreds can exist in each
contrail they occupy. With new technology and techniques becoming available,
photographic and videographic evidence may hold the key to understanding the
source, formation and behavior of PCs, related "clouds", aircraft and
anomalous objects associated with PCs.
While many craft (aircraft, UAVs) in the atmosphere can provide adequate
explanation for some contrails and objects spotted overhead, a closer look
at the contents of some PCs must become the highest priority for researchers
into this atmospheric mystery...if the truth be known. In all the efforts --
to show evidence that PCs are unusual and contain unusual and perhaps
unhealthy material -- the critical area of associated anomalous objects has
not been examined with the thoroughness it deserves.
WHAT ARE PEOPLE SEEING?
While there are no doubt normal aircraft creating both 'normal' contrails
and persistent contrails at times, larger number of unusual PCs have been
occurring in the atmosphere all over the planet in the last decade. What
makes these unusual PCs different is their observed altitude temperature
which is inconsistent with ice formation of exhaust aerosols; the unusual
spread of these contrails into haze and distinctive 'wispy' clouds; the
color, irridescence and consistency; and the most unusual patterns and
apparent flight activity of the trailmakers.
I personally do not believe that any study of the PC phenomena can be fully
legitimate or reach the truth without a full scale study of these objects
which clearly appear to be a part of the form and function of persistent
contrails ("chemtrails").
Based upon 5 years of research and the hundreds of sighting reports,
photographs, and many good videos -- it is now evident that at least some
persistent contrails occurring at various altitudes contain hundreds if not
thousands of 'unknown' yet to be fully identified 'objects'. And these
objects do move out of these specific contrails and into the environs of the
atmosphere. Several different types of 'objects' have been identified as to
form, color, behavior/activity both within the PCs and outside them. Because
the 'objects' are not understood at present or can be fully explained as
conventional in form or behavior, the following will be descriptive in
nature. Later I will attempt to 'connect the dots' and suggest possible
purposes or 'missions' of the objects...and the potential impact upon our
atmosphere and ecology.
Sightings from credible witnesses and those experienced in identification of
aircraft, photographs and video from various countries around the world (all
over the U.S., the UK, Australia, Mexico, Russia, Germany, France, Turkey,
the Netherlands, Japan to name a few) and satellite images all over the
planet...over both land and ocean ... reveal the same evidence:
~ White and Dark persistent trails crossing the skies in various patterns
ranging in altitudes of 40,000 feet to 1000 feet... criss-crossing Xs,
patchwork, encircling, spoke and wheel, sharp U-turns, parallel contrails.
~ Long-lasting contrails that eventually become strange clouds or haze that
occur at various altitudes, temperatures and relative humidity aloft (many
PCs well below the altitudes/temps needed to create ice crystals which
compose 'normal' contrails)
~ Dark 'lines' preceding white PCs that run parallel to the lines
~ Sudden shifting of dispersion pattern from wide-angle V shaped contrails
to single narrow 'lines'
~ Unidentified 'objects' in front of PCs -- appearing to be creating the
trails
~ Illuminated PCs crossing the skies at night at various altitudes
~ Hundreds to thousands of dark and white (in addition to reddish, blue and
yellow) spheroidal shaped objects within some persistent contrails
~ These objects within the PCs moving out of and back into the PCs
~ Similar appearing objects are seen in photographs taken as far back as the
1940s with no contrails present
COMPOSITION OF CTs/PCs (Observations & Images)
The particular persistent contrails to which I am referring appear to have
two distinct components....(1) the white substance or material from the
white contrails (which contain the white objects) and dark substance or
material from the dark trails which often precede the white contrails and
contain dark objects....and (2) the various PC related objects
CHEMISTRY/SUBSTANCE SURROUNDING THE OBJECTS
The appearance of the substance within the white billowy persistent
contrails containing various objects is fairly consistent from photographs
to video captures to what can be gleaned from eyewitness observation. There
appear to be at least two different substances and patterns of 'spread' of
these particular contrails.
One kind of PC appears billowy then breaks up over time into "clumps" with a
separate hazy substance spreading into a white to greyish-white haze over
the sky.In both closeup photos or enhanced images and video zoom captures,
the billowy clumps are filled with dark, white and dark/white combo
objects.... These cloud-like groupings of objects remain fairly stationary
even with winds aloft while the accompanying substance that surrounds the
objects in the in tact contrail disperse evenly across the sky creating a
thin haze.
A second pattern of 'spread' occurs as a result of the composition of the
substance or material which seems denser and holds together and is spread
more slowly often forming nearby pseudo clouds, long 'stretched out' wispy
upturned and other flowing designs. The substance surrounding the objects is
dragged out of the center of the contrail to form long jagged bidirectional
flows.
The closest analogy to the movement of this substance would be flowing smoke
from a pipe or allowing liquid soap to fall through water. Occasionally the
flow of the surrounding substance separates from a resulting PC cloud
formation and falls downward which is an indication that this substance is
both denser and at times heavier that the atmosphere.
One can observe PCs criss-crossing the skies and spreading to form wide
swaths of clouds. Many reports comment on the remarkable irridescent colors
seen at sunset and around the edges and interwoven within the resulting PC
clouds. Generally these colors are reddish/orange/yellow/blue-green
suggesting an unusual chemistry. Interestingly, these are the colors
released by the dark PC objects whilst interacting with the white objects
One early morning as the sun was rising in a mostly clear blue sky in
February 2004 (a few wispies in the distance), I watched as one long white
persistent contrail after another were being formed from horizon to horizon.
This began with one almost overhead which began to slide to the east with
the winds aloft. As this PC (would approximate at 20K altitude) reached a
distance away, the maker still in sight -- a second PC was being formed just
parallel to this one. Soon after -- a third PC was moving just parallel and
slightly above the others (all drifting slowly to the east) -- all
originating from the north moving south.
As they looked to be at least 20 miles away, the sun shown up toward these
contrails. As I watched through binoculars, the tops of each of the PCs --
along the outer edges -- became a solid red -- the center remained white and
the lower edges shown a bright irridescent blue.
Irridescence in certain PCs and PC related 'clouds' has been reported
widely... along with color combinations along the edges of both. Irridescent
color 'sundogs' are prevalent when the sun is behind these types of clouds.
Many describe an 'oily' looking appearance in some PC related 'clouds'.
Another characteristic of PC 'clouds' which relates to their consistency and
contents is the inconsistency of their apparent density. For example, at
dusk one evening after a long day of criss-crossing white PCs, much cloudy,
hazy remnants were left in the sky overhead. As the sun went down, these
'clouds' appeared to be very thick in consistency... the light of the
setting sun lighting up their undersides with a beautiful orange glow. I
spotted Venus in the western sky and was watching to see any other stars
popping out. Venus was soon covered by the orange 'clouds'... but after the
sun set... I noticed Venus showing through a hazy misty looking area that
had just been a very dense looking cloud. Once the sun was no longer
reflecting off this 'cloud' and there was less light in the sky, this
'cloud' suddenly became near transparent
As commented on before, aircraft making normal contrails or none at all may
move through the substance or PC clouds and begin leaving a persistent
contrail. An important question to ask is: What is in these particular
contrails that could be conducive to exhaust from an aircraft combining with
it to form a persistent contrail?
I have not personally noted aircraft with no contrail flying through normal
clouds suddenly leaving a contrail and when through them revert back to no
trail. Yet this has been witnessed many times happening within the 'clouds'
that result from these particular persistent contrails....
There have been many reports of "white haze" after a heavy day of persistent
contrails descending to ground level and presenting as a white, white-grey
or tannish grey haze or fog which covers large areas or regions. This is
unlike normal fog in that it does not dissipate in the sun or move with
light winds and may stay in place for several days or until a front moves
through the area.
THE TRAILMAKERS
In at least half of the reports that Tracers has received, the observer of
unusual persistent contrails cannot identify the maker of the contrail....
because of the distance of the maker or haze in the sky. Some reporters will
see a shape of an aircraft which is dark or white or glints on occasion.
Another 48 percent can identify a type of aircraft. These aircraft range
from small jets to passenger jets to KC-135s.
Two percent of the reports indicate that the witness could see nothing at
all in front of the PC, saw a small dark or white object in front of the PC
or witnessed what appeared to be a combination of white objects in front of
the PC. Many of these sightings were accompanied by photographs and video
which appear to show the same.
The majority of the reports indicate two or four locations for the 'start'
of PCs. Sometimes single persistent contrails are reported in conjunction
with larger PCs. Other witnesses using binoculars or zoom video report
seeing at time 6 or 7 origins of tightly packed parallel PCs.
Usually the contrails are white billowy straight lines across the sky...
unchanging in how they are laid. Occasionally one may witness an 'on and
off' pattern looking like dashes. This may be caused by the trailmaker or a
change in the atmosphere as the trail is being formed. It is important to
note that once the PCs spread and form either haze or thicker appearing
'wispy' cirrus-like 'clouds' -- aircraft/trailmakers with or without
contrails -- often begin to create persistent contrails when they move
through the area of the PC cloud.
One important sighting accompanied by photographs of low altitude parallel
persistent contrails was by myself and a friend on our way to the store one
day in May 1999:
"In May 1999 on my way into town with a friend, I noticed what I thought
were small jets (looking like fighteraircraft but may have been private
jets-- difficult to see clearly without binoculars at the speedthey were
traveling) coming toward us from the NW almost overhead toward the west a
bit. When I first spotted them, both aircraft were making close and very
broad parallel PCs lookingwhich were billowing and spreading out quickly --
covering the sky to the NW. This was a clear day with no other PCs to be
seen. I had watched a commercial airliner pass byto the south just before
this moving SE toward the airport. These flights are usually at
approx.3-5,000 feet at this point.
The 'jets' or trailmakers passing overhead appeared to me to be at about
this altitude. Just as they were almost overhead -- both jets contrails
suddenly and simultaneously switched from what looked like four very broad
releases two behind each jet) to two narrow single (ordouble very close
together) releases -- forming one long concentrated PC behind each jet which
continued on across the sky toward the SE. This action certainly appeared to
be very timed and deliberate. The two single parallel PCs -- which began
when the craft apparently switched from 'spray' to engine only or engine
modes/direction of exhaust -- remained fairly consistent and together across
the remainder of the sky -- not spreading out at all.
The accompanying photograph does not show the 'creators' of the PCs
(persistent contrails) --only the after-effects of what appeared to be two
fighter jets or private jets that I and another person witnessed passing
overhead at approximately 3-5,000 feet (only an estimate based upon
experience) on a clear day with no other normal or persistent contrails in
sight. I have estimated the altitude of PCs through comparison to other
aircraft following known flight paths and getting a general reading on cloud
ceilings and altitude of clouds in the area. Unfortunately I did not check
to get the stats on the winds aloft and relative humidity and temp at the
estimated altitude for an analysis of the contrails themselves.
I have seen PCs move well below clouds and through them on many occasions
and on some occasions found out the the cloud ceiling was less than 10,000
feet..(where it is less likely for normal ice crystal trails to be
produced). And on a few occasions, the small cumulus clouds passing overhead
were at 5,000 feet and the PC making craft were well below these clouds. The
outward splaying and V shape of the parallel PCs may indicate that nozzles
or other devices were being used to spray some substance into the
atmosphere. But there may be other operational explanations for the apparent
switching of types of contrails shown or "other" explanations. "
Upon closer examination of the photographs taken that day, at least four
different types of objects occupy the V shaped spreading PCs. Dark
spheroidal objects, larger white spherical objects, dark reddish objects of
various shapes and dark oblong objects.
THE OBJECTS
Sightings of spherical and oval shaped objects of varying sizes hovering
near, moving about within PCs and moving in and out of persistent contrails
are increasingly being reported, photographed and videotaped worldwide.
These objects are not few and far between....hundreds can exist in each
contrail they occupy. With new technology and techniques becoming available,
photographic and videographic evidence may hold the key to understanding the
source, formation and behavior of PCs, related "clouds", aircraft and
anomalous objects associated with PCs.
While many craft (aircraft, UAVs) in the atmosphere can provide adequate
explanation for some contrails and objects spotted overhead, a closer look
at the contents of some PCs must become the highest priority for researchers
into this atmospheric mystery...if the truth be known. In all the efforts --
to show evidence that PCs are unusual and contain unusual and perhaps
unhealthy material -- the critical area of associated anomalous objects has
not been examined with the thoroughness it deserves.
Based upon 5 years of research and the hundreds of sighting reports,
photographs, and many good videos -- it is now evident that at least some
persistent contrails occurring at various altitudes contain hundreds if not
thousands of 'unknown' yet to be fully identified 'objects'. And these
objects do move out of these specific contrails and into the environs of the
atmosphere. There is ample evidence to suggest that these objects have been
in the earth's atmosphere for a very long time -- within contrails in
abundance only recently -- within the last 10 years or so.
Several different types of 'objects' have been identified as to form, color,
behavior/activity both within the PCs and outside them. Because the
'objects' are not understood at present or can be fully explained as
conventional in form or behavior, the following will be descriptive in
nature. Later I will attempt to 'connect the dots' and suggest possible
purposes or 'missions' of the objects...and the potential impact upon our
atmosphere and ecology.
Sightings from credible witnesses and those experienced in identification of
aircraft, photographs and video from various countries around the world (all
over the U.S., the UK, Australia, Mexico, Russia, Germany, France, Turkey,
the Netherlands, Japan to name a few) and satellite images all over the
planet...over both land and ocean ... reveal the same evidence:
COMPOSITION OF PCs (Observations & Images)
The particular persistent contrails to which I am referring appear to have
two distinct components....(1) the white substance or material from the
white contrails (which contain the white objects) and dark substance or
material from the dark trails which often precede the white contrails and
contain dark objects....and (2) the various PC related objects. I will
discuss the second in this paper. (see
http://tracers.8m.com/inthetrails.htm
for more information)
PC RELATED OBJECTS (For Background Article - see
http://www.rense.com/
The dark objects that appear in persistent contrails have been photographed
and videotaped in various locations, altitudes and conditions....from the
mountains of the Pacific Northwest to the seacoasts of California and
Florida, crossing the rooftops of England, flying past cathedrals in Europe
and seen and photographed rather routinely in the skies of Mexico... over
Russia and the Far East. And each contrail that contains these objects
usually contains hundreds or more of them.... no small enterprise.
Shortly after the dispersal of the contrail, the PC begins to spread and the
darker objects move out of the contrail as do larger white objects with the
darker ones attached. This "attachment" or "nudging against" is usually on
opposing sides of the white object two or four dark objects affixed opposing
one another along the exterior. With very large white objects, there may be
more darker objects attached around the perimeter.
Those darker objects independent of the white objects "swarm" beneath the PC
and in and out of the nearby clouds -- some hovering and slowly moving
within and on the edges of these clouds. This swarming activity takes place
at extreme speeds --the objects often reversing directions in a split second
at times as the objects moved very close to one another. While the
white/dark object "combination" objects do move at extreme speeds and join
one another in various combinations themselves -- so far these have not been
observed in the swarming behavior exhibited by the darker objects.
Rick Moors of Santa Monica, California has provided Tracers with many
extraordinary photographs of PCs and what appears to be the release of
hundreds of objects -- illustrating for the first time a particular kind of
dispersal pattern. Upon enlargement and detailed study of many of Moors'
photographs, it became apparent that the darker objects line the outer edges
of some persistent contrails--with larger white spherical objects occupying
the interior. These are shown 'mixing' within the interior of the PC and
moving out of the contrail and below it the dark objects attached to the
white.
Also apparent in Moor's photos is the strange white substance contained
within the PC -- surrounding the objects. Witness observation, photos and
videos all document that as objects move from a persistent contrail, often
they 'drag' a white flowing substance with them. These same remnants from
the PC often form the strange white smooth flowing and wisping "clouds" we
have witnessed in our skies over the last few years. This movement of
objects out of PCs could also account for the "bi-directional" flows of the
contrail substance from the originally laid contrails seen so often by
witnesses.
Many videos and photographs show near the 'trailmaker' a dark substance
which forms the outer edge of PCs -- either on one or both sides. This
substance then appears to become dark spheriodal shaped 'objects' which line
either side of the contrail. Between the dark substance streaming out of the
back of the trailmaker is a white substance or material which appears to
coalesce in the turbulent wakes (usually in two streams...occasionally four
or more). The coalesced 'forms' are larger than the dark objects lining the
trail, are also spheroidal but appear to be cloudy 'fluffy' amorphous forms.
Within moments, the dark objects move from their positions on either edge of
the contrail into the white substance of the trail nearer to the larger
white cloudy objects. Interspersed throughout the PC are these objects (the
dark to white approximately 1:3 ratio -- the dark more plentiful) are the
smaller dark spheroidal objects, the white objects, various objects which
appear to be at least three separate colors (reddish, blue, yellow) and the
white flowing substance around these objects.
As the PC is laid across the atmosphere... as the propulsion movement and
turbulence has slowed... the dark objects begin to close in on the larger
white objects in a coordinated manner... surrounding them in two's, four's
or more depending on the size of the white object. At times in some
photographs these dark objects appear to 'pinch' -- surround, 'attach' and
move or pull the white object out of the white substance of the contrail.
After the dark objects surround and 'attach' to the larger white cloudy
objects, these combination objects (dark/white combos) move out of the PC
and into the sky. At times they may return to the PC briefly and then move
out into the sky once again.
The dark objects may also move out of the PC without 'attaching' to white
objects.... moving about in the sky independently or swarming in groups
below the contrail or moving in and out of nearby clouds. This swarming
activity takes place at extreme speeds --the objects often reversing
directions in a split second at times as the objects moved very close to one
another. As these dark objects move into nearby clouds they slow and appear
to hover -- and can be seen in videos stting on the edge of the clouds. They
are joined by the dark/white 'combos' in these adjacent clouds -- all
hovering or moving slowly amidst and between the clouds. (These objects have
also been witnessed moving about within or hovering within clouds away from
persistent contrails).
The dark objects can fly individually and independently, swarm about one
another in groups, or travel about the processions or 'trains' -- trailing
behind one another across the skies. Usually this 'train' activity is in
groups of two or three. These objects can join the larger white objects and
then leave them in independent flight.
One can only estimate the size of the dark or white objects. From studying
hundreds of photographs and captures with references of aircraft appearing
in contrails at approximately the same altitude and reference points such as
trees, houses, etc. -- the approximate size of the dark objects appears to
be between 2 and 4 feet in diameter and the white objects 6-10 feet in
diameter. It does appear that because of their activity and other factors,
these objects may vary in size.
© 2004 Brenda Livingston and Living-Tracers Enterprises (All Rights
Reserved)
SECTION II
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE OBJECTS
Upon closer examination of photographs and videos and application of
information provided by eyewitnesses, the dark spheroidal objects within
some persistent contrails and flying about in the skies appear as black to
dark brown to tan and rather amorphous the closer they appear to the lens of
the camera whether on zoom or if they fly to lower altitudes. There appears
to be a darker core surrounded by a lighter more transparent substance or
'field'.
Some photos/videos show these to be more amorphous at the edges at times
some of the matter appearing outward in hairlike projections (usually in
conjunction with activity in relationship to other dark or the white
objects. Spheroidal or ovoid in shape for the majority of the time, these
dark objects are able to change shape or morph and both types of objects can
leave behind trails of material or 'release' small parts of material or
particulate.
While the majority of the witness reports describe and photos and videos
often show the dark objects as ovoid in shape -- they seem to morph into
various shapes as they interact with one another or with the larger white
spheroidal objects. On zoomed video and enlargements of captures and
photographs, the interaction of the dark to the white seems to show a
release or emission of reddish, blue or yellow color. These colors appear to
stream from the location where the dark object joins the white... and
continues to stream outward from this area after a dark object leaves its
position or flies off into the sky. This color 'stream' seems to flow at
times across the white object and into the atmosphere (usually seen with
individual dark/white combos).
It appears that these color 'streams' may be emanating from the different
color (at least showing as separate from the dark or black objects) objects
that appear to attach to the larger white objects. These red, blue and
yellow objects are generally the same size and shape as the dark objects on
photographs of clusters -- but may vary in size according to other close to
ground level shots. The colors can combine -- red and blue to become purple
and yellow and blue to become green, etc., as the 'flows' move out around
the cluster or combo object.
Often the dark objects are producing a red 'flow' thus it is not completely
clear as to whether the dark objects can change their color or these color
objects are separate objects from the dark ones. It is interesting to note
that the objects 'attached' to glowing spherical objects at night appear as
reddish similarly shaped objects.
Some reports and accompanying photographs show a single object moving from
or through a persistent contrail that exhibits a changing appearance...
appearing as a bright object looking like a 'star' to a white cloudy object
to one with flares or colors. At times several objects will be present and
exhibit one of these attributes or even a bright red color.
DISPERSAL PATTERNS
There appear to be two distinct "dispersal patterns" of objects and the
surrounding substance. For the majority of photo and videographed persistent
contrails containing the objects, the dark objects line the edges of the
contrail -- with the white objects in the interior. The other type of
"dispersal" of objects and material has been described as the 'Black Line
Mystery'. Many observers in a variety of locations have described and
videotaped a sudden appearance of a dark line streaking across the sky
seemingly with no craft in front....seeming to be 'tearing' open a dark
streak leaving a persistent dark line in the sky.
Ardeth Merklinger, host of "Mysteries of the Mind" program, reported to
Tracers that she witnessed a dark line move across the sky before a white PC
was laid parallel to it. She explains: "...I am writing specifically at this
time to add my sighting of the mysterious black line phenomenon. Twice I
have seen sprayers which are PRECEDED by the black line, confirming
speculation that it seems to be a "track" followed by the plane and,
therefore, the chemtrail."
This dark 'line' is then followed by a persistent contrail which moves
precisely parallel in close proximity to the dark 'line'. Upon closer
examination of the dark 'line' in photos/videos -- it is apparent that these
dark streaks are yet another type of persistent contrail -- a contrail
containing the same dark objects as those lining the white PCs. [These are
not to be confused with the shadow effect often see near white PCs in a hazy
refractive atmosphere which parallel the contrails or appear to shoot out in
front of an aircraft at times.] Soon after both the dark and white contrails
are in place beside one another, the dark objects fly out of the dark trail
and begin uniting with the larger white objects in the larger white PC.
The dark/white combos (the dark objects attached to the larger white
objects) have been identified within PCs at approximately 30-40,000 feet
descending to approximately 100 feet (just above housetops). They can move
about in the atmosphere with ease -- increasing their speed from a complete
full-stop hover to extreme speeds...covering thousands of feet per second.
Often they move gently with smooth deliberate motion. Other times they may
swoop down from high in the sky to rooftop at high speeds.
CLUSTERS OF DARK/WHITE COMBOS
Not only do the dark objects attach to or 'combine' with the larger white
objects, but the dark/white combos do combine with one another to form
clusters of objects. These can take the form of double, triple, quadruple
clusters of dark/white combos and at times more are positioned together or
are interacting in specific ways within tight clusterings. It appears from
enlargements of photographs and video captures put through mulitple filters
that the dark objects morph to cover the a side of the white object and join
together to form a bond between two or more dark/white combos.... although
other images suggest that the white objects can also coalesce or join also.
These clusters can be oblong 'trains' of combos -- the white objects joining
together with the dark along the edges -- sometimes two dark objects to one
white and other times more dark objects joining together to form a 'rim' or
'jacket'. Some clusters are several objects in various positions -- some in
'trains' or diagonal to one another and seeming fairly stationary. At other
times, these combo objects appear to be moving around one another, morphing,
releasing substance and performing some quite amazing feats.
As these clusters move past the observer/videographer, both dark and smaller
white objects move in and out of the clusters. Various objects formerly a
part of a trail move quickly in various directions all around the cluster
individually ... the dark objects often trailing one another.An odd-shaped
and morphing object was spotted over Los Angeles at about 3 p.m. on December
2, 2000. Note the description not only contains information about this
object(s), but also about spherical objects around it:
"The object was silver in color and now straightened out, then bunched up,
then formed a V and continued turning over. The whole process resembled an
earth worm contorting around in the sky. About this time I noticed a small
white sphere under the larger object. In the air around the sphere there
seemed to be some sort of disturbance. Giving the appearance of an
"exhaust," if you will. The sphere slowly moved away and to the left and
this process continued until I counted seven sphere's in the sky along with
the big object. We watched as the object kept moving south east until it was
out of our sight." (Thanks NUFORC)
This sighting mentions the various elements of clusters that are consistent
with both eyewitness accounts, photographs and videotapes. Silvery or white
amorphous mass forming lines (or trains of objects), V shapes, etc., white
spherical objects and a "disturbance" or exhaust (similar to descriptions of
a cloudy substance, gas or ionization surrounding the dark and white
spherical 'combos'.
Several images show a cluster which formed a horizontal 'train' of 6 or 7
dark and white combos. These were the classic combos having one dark object
on either side of the larger white object and interacted without a large
number of dark objects obscuring the white objects or forming a notable
'rim' as seen in one of Woods' videoclips. Wood also videotaped 'train'
clusters some of which were vertical rather than horizontal.
Many images show a cluster breaking up with the separate dark and white
combos floating in juxtaposition to and away from one another into various
positions nearby. Each combo component of the train cluster looked identical
to those in images of single dark/white combos and some appeared to be
exuding a reddish or yellowish color where the dark object meets the white
object (as seen on many single object images).
Some cluster images reveal much about the objects as well as the substance
composing them. In one set of images, a grouping of dark and white combos
move together and as the white 'cloudy' objects are adjacent to one another
-- the substance that surrounds them appears to mix or mesh. At times the
substance itself forms an amorphous shape with the white spherical shapes
remaining within it. In one particular cluster image, this amorphous shape
of the cluster changes from a 3 dimensional 'amoeba' to a inverted V shape
with the combos distinquishable but deeply embedded in the white substance
surrounding them.
While in the mixed cluster shape, a variety of dark and colored objects all
approximately the same size and shape appear on the edges and embedded in
the cluster -- perhaps remaining attached to each of the white spheres
within. These objects appear as black, red, and blue with the whole cluster
surrounded on one side with a reddish substance (or glow) and the other with
a greenish substance (or glow).
Each white object appears to have a core to which the dark objects are
attaching themselves -- this core and some of the dark objects surrounded by
the cloudy white substance in the clusters. Whether or not the substance of
the white objects is contributing to the white to pink irridescence
surrounding the whole cluster, most clusters appear to be surrounded by a
glow. This may be a corona or ionization of the air surrounding the object
cluster. In the daytime this 'field' about whole groups or cluster of
objects often looks white and rather hazy (at other times pastels in pink,
blue, yellow and their combinations).
Several witnesses have reported seeing through binoculars or telescope (two
are amateur as astronomers) at night clusters surrounded by an amorphous
substance moving by as they were star gazing. These clusters usually
consisted of 15+ spherical objects that either exhibited a dim glow or were
star like in appearance. The 'substance' around them looks almost
transparent and often has a hazy off-white or tannish glow. One witness
described the shape of the substance to be similar to that of an
amoeba...morphing and changing shape as the whole cluster moves by in a
straight path.
MULTIPLE OBJECTS ACROSS THE SKY
While dark and similar (or the same) objects of different colors move out of
persistent contrails and fill the skies -- swarming, hovering in nearby
clouds or other unknown activities -- most sightings of multiple spherical
objects are of the larger dark/white combinations or combos.
Several witnesses including myself and others in the UK and Mexico in
particular have been witness to sightings of multiple dark/white combos (20+
objects) gently floating about a thousand feet above them... and moving
about both vertically and horizontally in relation to one another.... some
passing by one another in close proximity. These groups of dark/white
'combos' appear to move from area to area staying in one area for a time
then moving to another area In 1999, I personally watched as a large
grouping of these objects moved from overhead to a distance of approximately
5 miles away remaining generally at the same altitude all continuously
floating and moving gracefully in the sky about a larger white object...then
moving on to yet another location about the same distance away in another
direction and remaining there for about the same amount of time. These
reflected the low sun in a strange way -- looking rather silvery and watery
in appearance -- rising and lowering in the sky forming various geometrical
patterns above the observer.
Photographs from this event revealed several groupings of white objects
moving near larger white objects (perhaps a 'platform' or 'mothership'). In
addition to showing these smaller white objects as having dark objects
'attached', enhancements also show these objects 'glowing' orange and dark
objects dispersed in the atmosphere around them.
Another almost identical report surfaced only 15 days after my sighting....
August 15, 1999 at 7:15 over Glendale California...a sighting lasting
approximately 15 minutes: "High flying large object followed by 20 small
ones. Joined by other large object. Objects were seen at 90 degrees moving
in a NNW direction. Large object was followed by about 20 small objects
following in a straight line..."
During my sighting, I kept close scrutiny on first the silvery watery
appearing spherical objects which seemed to be appearing and disappearing in
complex patterns directly overhead... though it was likely that instead of
disappearing these objects were moving upward and out of range of sight.
Then I focused upon the larger object which appeared to be teardrop in shape
as it hovered silently above me and then began moving in a straight line
toward the NE. As I following the larger object, I did see a few smaller
ones on occasion but it was not until the larger object stopped again did I
see the smaller objects gather around it.
Although from the photos I took as I was watching these objects through
binoculars there appeared to be many more sets across the sky, I have no way
of knowing if the original grouping of smaller objects remained the exact
same objects throughout my sighting. Some may have joined another larger
object grouping as I focused on the one larger object.
DARK OBJECTS/DARK & WHITE COMBOS & CLUSTERS NEAR VOLCANOS
A multitude of witnesses have reported seeing groupings of rather large
spherical objects appearing to fly together as in a flock or individually
swarming around one another or closely interacting within 'clusters'.
Most interesting are the sightings of videos taken of these objects in the
skies of Mexico. While some stunning footage of large groups of the
dark/white combos were taken in the 1980's over Mexico, two incidents are
remarkable -- one occurred whilst a government run monitoring camera was
capturing images of the volcano at Mt. Popocatepetl and the other event
having multiple witnesses and a news crew videotaping it and an airline
pilot acknowledging the objects. OBJECTS AT POPOCATEPETL VOLCANO (Mt. Popo)
--Daily Sequential Pattern
The following is what I observed for several days at approximately the same
time each day on the CENEPRED volcano camera -- a stationary camera set up
to monitor the activities of the Popocatepetl Volcano in Mexico (see
http://tracers.8m.com/poposeriesI.htm)
I tuned into Cenepred Volcano Cam starting January 1st 2002 and began to
witness with others the most extraordinary display on the screen. I had
never seen anything quite like this before -- thought I had seen an
occasional dark or white rounded object moving across the screen on this
videocam -- but this was very different.First I noticed a white rounded area
with what appeared to be a dark area right above and below it -- at the top
right part of the screen. It remained more or less in this position for
several days appearing fairly close to the camera.Soon thereafter closing in
on 1pm CST, a couple of white 'streaks' appeared in the distance to the
right of Mt. Popo -- both seeming to move toward the volcano keeping the
same distance between them.
The camera that has been set up to monitor the volcano is a joint project
between Institutos de Geofísica e Ingeniería de la UNAM and the US
Geological Survey and sends a still picture to the screen every minute or
two. The white streaks in the background certainly were changing in position
relative to the mountain volcano and appeared to move right over it and
curved toward the camera. A white oblong "object" with what appears to be
dark areas on the top and bottom of it also -- then appeared from the top of
the screen to the left of the apparently stationary object. Over a few
minutes this object 'from above' moved beneath the stationary object at a
diagonal angle and then moved off screen.
I decided to tune in to CENEPRED Volcano Cam the following days and captured
and saved the action at random not knowing what would be showing up later.
As if the action of the first day was not enough to baffle the mind -- the
march across the skies over Mt. Popo continued over several days. And it was
the SAME march! Recently I brought out these old captures and decided to do
a little study -- and lo and behold -- I had some pictures taken at
relatively the same time to compare. On three separate days, at about 1 pm
CST until 1:30 pm -- (1) the white 'streaks' moved over Mt. Popo and (2) the
white oblong object moved under the stationary white spherical object.
Not only that -- but they were **synchronized**. In the shots taken by the
camera at 13:03 pm, 13:15 pm, and 13:23 pm (all within a minute or so of one
another), my captures of the objects show them to be in the same almost
*exact positions* on January 3, 6 and 8 at those times.After these days of
the objects following this sequence, the stationary object no longer was
present yet the presence of multiple white and dark objects continued to
show themselves and move across the screen in sequential shots on the same
day and different days.We certainly may have aerial robots (of the human or
'other' variety) here synchronized on a GPS or other Grid system perhaps
monitoring the volcano. This does appear to be organized activity...but the
question remains..."who's"? See
http://tracers.8m.com/PopoSeriesI.htm for
the sequence of videocam
On closer examination of the camera shots... the object in the upper right
corner of the screen remained in place over several days varying in position
only slightly. The object is spherical, white, 'cloudy' in appearance....and
dark objects are on either side. Over time a reddish material or substance
seems to flow from where the dark and white objects come in contact with one
another. This substance appears to move across the exterior of the white
object and out into the atmosphere...following a similar pattern of other
dark/white 'combos'.
The white oblong 'streaks' which appear to be moving forward toward the left
of screen and the object moving into view from the top of the screen and
passing just under the stationary white object (combo) are composed of
multiple objects. These objects appear to be the same dark/white combos
linked together in a 'train' formation. The cloudy material or substance
that envelopes the objects moving forward in the distance appears to be
streaming with their movement and trailing a short distance behind the
grouping. Dark objects similar to those in a myriad of photos and videos are
grouped along the exterior of the oblong white clusters. Because of their
movement, the timing of the appearance each day and the following the same
sequence of flight and hover patterns... these objects appear to be
intelligent or intelligently controlled.
HOT AND COLD OBJECTS- Superconductors & Anti-Gravity ?
On examination of dark and white combos and combo clusters -- using various
filters including those that reveal heat and cold temperatures of distance
objects -- one thing remains consistent. The core of the larger white
objects is cold while the dark objects range from ambient temperatures to
very hot -- seeming to be in flames at certain points while attached to the
white objects. Comparison of the sizes of the cold cores of the white
objects and the dark objects show these to be similar in size.
In some images which reveal the heat of the dark objects and cold of the
white object's core -- reveal what looks like a flame surrounding the dark
objects...the white objects adjacent to them maintaining their cold core and
the substance surrounding them remaining at background temperatures. This
suggests that both objects can withstand heat and not be consumed by the
heat and flames generated by the dark objects.
These combos and clusters have been seen, videotaped and photographed at
altitudes of 20-40K to a hundred feet off the ground. Questions remain as to
whether these cold and heat processes are active at all altitudes,
temperatures and atmospheric conditions. It is clear that the cold cores of
the white objects and the heat of the dark are active at lower altitudes.
And one sequence of images suggests the possibity that at least the heat and
flammability of the dark objects can be very active at approximate 20-30K.
It appears that after the dark objects 'attach' to the white objects at some
point they release a flowing colored substance which may be the catalyst for
the white objects to emit light perhaps heating the white substance that is
surrounding the white objects. This is seen in photographs and videos of
white objects with two, four or more dark objects attached. The larger the
white object, the more dark objects can attach.
PCs AS OBJECT CREATORS
In a multitude of photographs and video captures, one can easily notice a
luminosity and at times a prism effect running across the PC. With a closer
look, at the beginning of a trail after a space, a dark line forming along
the outer edges of the trail. Soon this dark line separates into multiple
ovoid shapes that spread out from one another along the edge of the
contrail. Within the two (usually two) dark lines is a white substance which
further down the PC forms vortices. As the vortices form, the PC substance
or material appears to coalesce into rounded or spheroidal objects.
These may be the formation of these two distinct objects that seem to fill
some PCs. How can this be? Nanotechnology and autonomous intelligent (smart)
polymers and other materials may be at work in this 'creation'... all fully
programmed to become the dark objects (autonomous aerial robot) made of
'smart' flexible and morphing materials that can generate heat and light and
white objects composed of fibres/polymers with an icy core. Together these
can produce superconductivity and antigravity flight.
Inexpensive, self-creating materials...creating self-replicating
self-regulating robotry. All beginning with an aircraft filled with
nanomaterials.... with some of the newly created robotry equipped with the
capability of creating more PCs with more nanotech based robots. Missions?
To monitor the atmosphere, the weather, geological activity, pollution,
biological/chemical threats, various experimental tests and chemicals within
'chemtrails'...and people....people who are seen as threats ...and all
citizens (see my article
http://www.rense.com/ for information on how UAVs
and robotry can be used to conduct domestic spying).
Interestingly enough, this could also explain polymer falls and ice falls...
when the white objects have been expended by the dark objects... what goes
up must come down. Material such as 'smart' dust and 'smart' nanotech and
polymers would simply disintegrate, subliminate or separate into microscopic
particles and fall to the earth.
Comments
What I have presented is not a conclusion. Much research and investigation
needs to be conducted before we can say definitively what is happening. Yet
with good observation and reports and more quality photographic and
videographic evidence and collection and testing of the materials within
PCs--much information can be gleaned and used as a step for further
investigation.
We have three possible explanations as to whom is behind these objects...
human black projects, indigenous undiscovered lifeforms of the atmosphere
and extraterrestrials. The technology or 'know-how' behind these amazing
objects is astounding in its breadth and complexity.
If humans have developed this technology, the implications are
far-reaching... if it is of some other creation... we must reach farther
than we ever have to understand and assimilate this new understanding into
our life experience.
Part II will include more information about these objects which may be the
key in solving other mysteries in the skies.... and the research conducted
regarding polymers, nanotech, superconductors as antigravity source. See
http://tracers.8m.com for further
information and updates.
Please contact me at
info@tracers.8m.com if you have any reports or
information concerning the objects discussed or related areas. Many thanks
to all who have been dedicated and have contributed to this search.
© 2004 Brenda Livingston and Living-Tracers Enterprises (All Rights
Reserved)
Disclaimer
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Gangs are terrorist -just like Al Quaeda
Posted by Hood News on
5/14/2004, 8:04 am, in reply to "Top
News"
Message
modified by board administrator 5/14/2004, 8:13 am
By LUKAS I.
ALPERT
Associated Press Writer
May 13, 2004, 7:33 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- Members of a brutal Bronx
gang accused of terrorizing their
neighborhood have been indicted by a grand
jury on murder and other charges as acts of
terror under the state's anti-terrorism
statute, the first use of the law against a
gang.
Five of the 19 indicted gang members
were arrested Thursday, police said. The
other 14 were still being sought.
Charging that the St. James Gang acted
with "the intent to intimidate or coerce a
civilian population," Bronx District
Attorney Robert Johnson said the grand jury
was justified in adding the terrorism
stipulation to several counts including
conspiracy, murder, gang assault and others.
Johnson said it was the first time he
was aware of that the terrorism statute had
been used in such a way. The law, passed by
the state Legislature six days after the
Sept. 11 attack, allows for more severe
sentences.
The gang members sought to "enhance
their status" through violence and
intimidation and charged dues for
membership, Johnson said. They were not
involved in any other type of organized
crime, like drug dealing or racketeering,
police said.
The gangsters' standard practice was
to crash parties, get drunk and intimidate
guests. Any attempts to stop them were met
with immediate violent reprisals, police
said.
Edgar Morales, 22, who was arrested
Thursday, faces the most serious charge,
second-degree murder as a terrorist act,
stemming from the shooting death of
10-year-old Melanie Melendez on Aug. 18,
2002, at a baptism party at a church hall.
Prosecutors allege members of the gang
crashed the party and confronted a man they
believed was a member of a rival gang. The
gang members chased the man outside and
started shooting, hitting the girl with a
stray bullet, prosecutors said.
If convicted on that charge, Morales,
who also faces several other charges, would
face a mandatory life sentence without
parole. The charge without the terrorism
stipulation would carry a sentence of 25
years to life.
Morales was awaiting arraignment late
Thursday and could not be reached for
comment.
Other charges facing the gang members
include shooting a 15-year-old in the face
as he left a gang member's birthday party,
firing shots into a crowd of people at a
party outside a church, firing shots into a
crowd of people in a park and repeatedly
robbing customers at a restaurant over the
course of three years.
The four other men arrested Thursday
were charged with conspiracy and could face
as much as 25 years in prison if convicted
|
|
|
'
RICHIE PEREZ
OF THE YOUNG LORDS PARTY
PASSES AWAY
COMMUNITY
ACTIVIST RICHIE PEREZ PASSES
March
27, 2004, 8:13 PM EST
by WIL CRUZ AND RON HOWELL Newsday Staff Writers
"Richie Perez, a long-time community activist for issues ranging from police
brutality to racial violence, died [March 26] He was 59. Perez, who had been
hospitalized for a few months, died of cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center in Manhattan at 10:35 a.m. Perez was a fixture in the city's
Puerto Rican community for decades. A former member of the Young Lords
Party, a 1960s community-based organization that struggled around Puerto
Rican Issues, Perez was most recently co-founder of the National Congress
for Puerto Rican Rights. He was also co-chair of that organization's Justice
Committee, which, among other things, works with families of victims of
police brutality and racial discrimination. One of its most consistent and
committed revolutionary leaders has been
lost to the community," said Vicente "Panama" Alba, a longtime friend and
fellow activist. 'Because of the many ways he impacted people ... he will be
sorely missed. He just leaves a big hole, a vacuum in our community.' Perez
graduated from public schools in the Bronx before attended the City
University of New York. He taught about the Puerto Rican experience in New
York, mass media and social policy, among other things, at Hunter College. A
published author, Perez wrote "Committee Against Fort Apache: The Bronx
Mobilizes Against Multi-National Media" and "From Assimilation to
Annihilation: Puerto Rican Images in U.S. Films." In the 1990s, he formed
grassroots movements against police brutality — among them the high-profile
killings of Anthony Baez and Amadou Diallo, who were killed by police in
1994 and 1999, respectively. Perez also was inspirational in the creation of
the group "Mothers Against Police Brutality," a group of mothers whose
children were brutalized or killed by police.
Perez also had been a member of the New York Committee to Free the Puerto
Rican Nationalist Prisoners, a group of 16 militants imprisoned in the early
1980s for fighting for the independence of the nation-island. After nearly
20 years behind bars, 11 of them were pardoned in 1999 by President Bill
Clinton. Perez was most recently employed by the Community Service Society,
a non-profit organization, as its director of organizational development and
voter participation. He is survived by his wife, Martha Laureano; his son,
Danny Laureano;, and his mother Annie Perez. Perez will be buried Wednesday
at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx."
___________________________________________________________
Peace
It is with extreme sadness that I let people know that mentor, brother,
comrade Richie Perez, former Young Lords Party and staunch community
activist has passed away. Richie meant so much to me. He guided me
through my academic years, my formative activist years and was always
willing to tell me when i was wrong and when i was right. Words cannot
and will never describe the loss to our communities, especially the
Boricua community at this time. But as Richie said, "do not mourn
me, up the ante up, step it up, take it tot them before they take it
to us." Take a moment just to send your energy and love to his family.
Below is more information.
Palante, Simepre, Palante!
*********************************************************
Peace,
Richie Perez our friend and brother has passed away this morning at
10:35am. Please keep Martha, Danny and Annie in our thoughts at this
very
difficult time. I am at a loss for words to describe the great
contributions Richie has made in our lives at this moment. Please
post messages and share your love for Richie.
The public viewing will be:
Monday and Tuesday, March 30th at
Frank Campbell Funeral Home
1076 Madison Ave (81st.)
>The hours are:
Monday 4-5pm & 7-9
Tuesday 2-5pm & 7-9
Thank you to everyone who has kept Richie and his family in their
prayers.
Your love and energy made Richie feel wonderful.
Please, take a moment to celebrate Richie's life, send love to Richie's
family, and to remember Richie's marching orders to all of us...we
need to
up the ante.
>
Richie....thank you...we love you...we'll miss you.
Peace
Jessica
Rosa Clemente
1971 AIDS DEVELOPMENT FLOWCHART
WOWS THE NATIONAL PRESS!
http://www.boydgraves.com/news/030304.html
by Boyd Ed Graves, J.D.
www.boydgraves.com
Last night the National Press got a dose of their own medicine. The 1971
flowchart, the "research logic" of the U.S. Special Virus program proved
to be too much for an on hand skeptic. A former medical doctor for the
U.S. government had to concede to the legitimacy of the document and the
realization the United States government had played an "intentional"
role in the "design", "production" and "proliferation" of the synthetic
HIV/AIDS virus.
Quickly one realizes the U.S. press has played a joint role in its
failure to let the people know the truth. In light of the 'visna sheep
disease cells' in HIV, and the U.S. confession in 1971 that visna had
not YET been associated with human disease, the government's medical
doctor, last night, amounted a very small challenge to the reality that
the U.S. Special Virus program is the birthplace of HIV/AIDS.
We are hopeful that Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones will now call
for the Congressional investigation of the U.S. Special Virus program.
According to U.S. law, the 1971 flowchart and the progress reports are
(some) evidence of the laboratory birth of AIDS. The people simply want
the rest of the truth; the official documents of the U. S. Special Virus
program (1948 - 1978).
Tomorrow we take the U.S. patented cure to the Ambassador from Uganda
and will subsequently meet with Angelique Shofar of "Africa Meets
Africa".
We believe the United Nations must finally show leadership and backbone
and support with action and proper allocation, the immediate
implementation of the "double blind" clinical trials of the U.S.
patented cure for AIDS, patent #5676977.
FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS THE 1971 FLOWCHART CONTINUES TO OFFER ABSOLUTE
EVIDENCE OF THE IATROGENIC ORIGIN OF AIDS.
Thanks,
Boyd Ed Graves 216-382-9252
Web: http://www.boydgraves.com
Email: boyded2004@yahoo.com
Toll Free: 1-866-246-2772
THE
DEVELOPMENT OF HIV/AIDS:
U.S. POLICY FOR 34 YEARS
http://www.boydgraves.com/news/031504.html
By Boyd Ed Graves, J.D.
www.boydgraves.com
Recently the U.S. National Press (Sarah McClendon Study Group) became
aware of the solid evidence of a U.S. virus development program that
preceded the HIV/AIDS mystery disease' pandemic. The U.S. Special Virus
program (1948 1978) (www.boydgraves.com/flowchart/)
is the epitome of
a Constitutional democratic government run amuck. History will
ultimately show the secret U.S. Special Virus program and the
implementation and proliferation of HIV/AIDS to be the greatest
genocidal conspiracy in recorded thought.
Oddly enough, however, because of U.S. Public 91-213, the development
and proliferation of HIV/AIDS can never be criminally prosecuted.
Thirty-four years ago, President Richard Nixon declared that population
stabilization had broad support across the nation. After handing out
pens and getting ready for the ensuing Irish holiday, John Rockefeller,
the third, became this nation's population czar as he assumed the
chairmanship of the little known U.S. Population Commission. This secret
commission would normally catch the eye of the U.S. Project on
Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists. However,
the project's director, Dr. Steven Aftergood, has declared that nobody
knows about the U.S. Special Virus program', he seems content in keeping
it that why. We believe that the disclosure of the documents of the U.S.
Population Commission, would shed greater light on the U.S. policy
decisions that complemented the secrecy of the U.S. Special Virus
program (19!
48 1978) federal virus program.
Many people now are beginning to see that there appears to be a
connection between HIV/AIDS and some early research conducted by the
United States. The 1902 Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory work appears to
have direct relevance to HIV/AIDS. This is also true for the 1904
Station for Experimental Evolution. In 1910 Francis Peyton Rous declared
that he had isolated a transmissible agent of fowl (cancer). This
alleged naturally occurring transmissible agent has been proven to be
a laboratory recombinant. See, pages 14 15, progress report #15 (1978)
U.S. Special Virus program (1948 1978).
Thus, the science and medical evidence alone proves the hypocrisy of
naturally occurring chronic cancer diseases. If since 1843, we have been
tweaking the mycoplasma (transmissible) element of the spotted leaf
disease of the tobacco plant , then we are more in the dark now
(intellectually) than any planet being engulfed by any black hole
elsewhere in our universal neighborhood.
We cannot overlook the 1926 VIRUS CANCER Conference at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). We cannot overlook the 1931 International
Conference on the African child. Soon we must incorporate the knowledge
of the dual genesis of Tuskegee and HIV/AIDS. How does the 1932 ks1514
strain of nazi sheep VISNA disease appear in the genome of HIV/AIDS,
when the United States concedes in 1971 that nazi sheep VISNA disease
had not YET been associated with human disease?
Moreover, the Untied States confirms in 1985 that HIV/AIDS EVOLVED from
nazi sheep VISNA disease. See, Science, VOL 223, pp. 173 177, January
1985, see also, PROC NAS VOL 83, pp. 4007 4011, June 1986 and PROC NAS
VOL 92, pp. 3283 3287, April 11, 1995.
We sincerely believe the 1971 flowchart of the U.S. Special Virus is the
research logic for the development of a contagious cancer that
selectively kills . We believe a review of the science and medical
evidence encompassed in the fifteen progress reports of the secret
program that correlate to the 1971 flowchart would provide our best
avenue to a world without HIV/AIDS and other synthetics once again.
We are certain the HIV/AIDS virus is the synthetic biological agent'
requested by the U.S. Pentagon from the United States Congress on June
9, 1969. See H.R. 15090, Part VI funding, pages 121, 129.
In any event, U.S. Public Law 91-213 has stood for 34 years and we
continue to propagandize that scurrilous Africans and homosexuals
started HIV/AIDS. The nazi sheep disease sequences in HIV/AIDS from 1932
hopefully should assist your understanding of the true origin of
HIV/AIDS.
We believe this re-education process based on truth and fact,
strengthens the national security of our country and that of the
world's.
Boyd Ed Graves
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIV/AIDS: U.S. POLICY FOR 34 YEARS
http://www.boydgraves.com/news/031504.html
Two Bills
Now Pending To
Bring Back The Draft
H. R. 163
To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the
United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a
period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and
homeland security, and for other purposes.
Search Bill Number 'HR163' at
http://thomas.loc.gov
S. 89
To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the
United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a
period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and
homeland security, and for other purposes.
Search Bill Number 'S89' at
http://thomas.loc.gov
Bush Administration
Weighs Condom Warning
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is considering requiring warning
labels on condom packages noting that the contraceptive devices do not
protect users from all sexually transmitted diseases, a Food and Drug
Administration official said Thursday.
Most recent studies indicate condoms do not safeguard against human
papillomavirus, or HPV, a little-known but widespread sexually transmitted
disease that, untreated, can cause genital warts or cervical cancer.
The FDA ``has developed a regulatory plan to provider condom users with a
consistent labeling message and the protection they should expect from
condom use,'' said Dr. Daniel G. Schultz, director of the agency's Office of
Device Evaluation.
The agency ``is preparing new guidance on condom labeling to address these
issues,'' Schultz told members of a House Government Reform subcommittee.
The FDA has considered warning labels since 2000, when President Clinton
directed the agency to re-examine whether information included in packages
accurately reflected condom effectiveness in preventing all sexually
transmitted diseases, including HPV.
But some lawmakers feared that such labels could turn people away from using
condoms, thereby increasing the risk of contracting diseases such as AIDS,
chlamydia and gonorrhea.
``Anything that undermines the effectiveness of condoms for these uses will
have serious public health consequences,'' said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
``Are condoms perfect? Of course not. But reality requires us not to make a
public health strategy against protection, but rather to ask a key question:
compared to what?''
Some lawmakers ``insist that abstinence-only education is the solution to
teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases because abstinence works
each time,'' Waxman said. ``Well, the evidence, however, indicates that
abstinence-only education works rarely, if at all.''
Responded Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va.: ``This is not about social ideology, or
religious ideology. It's about informing women.
And truly, the only way to be protected is abstinence. That's not ideology -
it's fact.''
The White House wants to double, to $270 million, federal spending on
education programs to convince young people that abstinence is the only
certain way to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But an
independent report for the government two years ago indicated that no
reliable evidence exists that abstinence programs work.
More than 2 million American women are infected with HPV each year, said Dr.
Ed Thompson, deputy director for public health services at the Centers for
Disease Control. Ten thousand women are diagnosed annually with cervical
cancer, claiming 4,000 lives, Thompson said.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information
contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise
distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Greetings Family,
First let me thank those that immediately responded to
my call for help.
I understand and respect those that have requested
more information, regarding the details of my case.
Even I, do not post/forward a story without doing some
type of background search.
I've been on the Net for over 10 years. Many of you
know me only by my writings. I have always tried to
demonstrate character and integrity in the articles I
write, and the stories I forward on this digital drum.
Many have sent me glowing letters of thanks and
praise over the years, regarding the information I've
put out on scholarships, jobs and business
opportunities. If for no other reason, support me for
that one alone.
For those that need to know the full story simply
follow this link
http://www.citylightssoftware.com/JIN_appeal_2.html.
I need your support Now! I tried to fight this case by
the book, believing that there was no way I could be
convicted, when there was no evidence of me ever doing
anything wrong. Let me repeat that ... No Evidence! I
never forged anything/misrepresented anything/or filed
a false report to the Social Security Administration.
As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, stated
this year in the appeal case for Delma Banks Jr.; A
defendant, she wrote, is entitled to presume that
prosecutors' representations are not lies: "A rule,
declaring 'prosecutor may hide ... defendant must
seek,' is not tenable in a system constitutionally
bound to accord defendants due process" (end quote)
It is illegal to lie to a federal investigator but it
is legal for them to manipulate, trick and lie ... To
You!
Having to go public has been embarrassing. I've always
tried to present myself as a leader in our online
community. Now, I'm a felon ... I know, I'm not the
first black man to ever be falsely convicted (nor will
I be the last). The only way I can clear my name at
this point is through the Appeal Process. I'm hoping
that by taking this issue public, I will be able to
generate enough of a public uproar to get the
attention of the main stream press and media. Believe
me when I say that my conviction is truly a
miscarriage of justice.
Help me get the word out. Please forward this cry for
help to your entire network of online friends and
associates. Ask them to support a brother by signing
the JUSTICE FOR JIM NEUSOM petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/JIN/petition.html I'm
trying to make this a national issue. Not so much for
myself but for all the other brothers and sisters who
have found themselves fighting the system with No
money, No Lawyer, No Hope. Maybe with the light of
public attention focused on the system, we can
initiate positive change in the justice system.
Peace and Gods Blessings,
Jim Neusom
Executive Director/Publisher
InterServe Networks/City Lights Software Inc.
www.citylightssoftware.com
(702) 384-3881 Office
(702) 242-1829 Voice Mail
(702) 395-1345 Fax
POSITIVELY BLACK
How Safe Is Your Pension Plan?
By jrswriter@Comcast.net
Junious Ricardo Stanton
"Real pensions (defined-benefit plans) are workers' best bet for
retirement
security on top of Social Security. They provide a guaranteed benefit
financed by professionally managed funds, behind which stands the
guarantee
of either the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (and ultimately
the U.S. Treasury) or the sponsoring state or local government in the case
of public employees. Benefits accrue over a worker's career and are funded
by automatic contributions from employers (and in some cases by workers,
too). Employers, not individual workers, bear the investment risk, and
workers are offered lifetime benefit payouts (annuities) for themselves
and
their spouses."- AFL-CIO Website
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. agency that provides a safety net to
company pension plans will announce a $10 billion deficit later this week,
a
congressman said Tuesday. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. had reported
in
October that it had an $8.8 billion deficit as of August, up from a fiscal
2002 deficit of $3.64 billion and a $7.73 billion surplus the previous
year."- http://www.Forbes.com 01-13-04
"WASHINGTON, D.C. - On the heels of the Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation
's (PBGC) report today that the agency now has the largest deficit in its
history, House Republicans announced plans to craft a comprehensive
legislative proposal to strengthen the defined benefit pension system in
2004. The Education & the Workforce Committee held several hearings on
this
issue late in 2003, including one on the financial condition of the PBGC,
and will hold several more beginning early this year before putting
together
its defined benefit pension reform initiative. Today, the PBGC reported a
long-term deficit of $11.2 billion for single employer plans, up from $8.8
billion since August, and a $261 million deficit for multi-employer
plans."
US Congressional Committee On Education In The Workforce 01-15-04
Last year I had journalist Patricia Kelly O'Meara who writes for the
conservative Insight Magazine as a guest on my Internet radio program .
She
had recently completed a story on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp the
federal agency created and designed to underwrite and secure US pension
plans. At that time she informed our listeners that the fund was short
several billion dollars and explained the implications of not only this
shortfall but also the federal government's failure in it's fiduciary
oversight responsibilities to make sure pension funds were secured by
adequate contributions from employers to meet their goals and projected
earnings to ensure long term solvency. The PBGC is the agency designed to
make sure that employee pensions are secure and that there are sufficient
funds to cover any shortfalls like these that happened to workers at Enron
and Worldcom who lost all their retirement, 401 K and pension funds in the
much publicized bankruptcy and accounting scandals. In addition to the
scandals, the sluggishness of the US economy over the last two years, low
interests rates, falling stock prices, record numbers of pension plan
bankruptcies and laws that do not require employers to maintain full
funding
levels in their retirement plans (US pension plans are reportedly
underfunded by an excess of $350 billion) have contributed to many pension
funds showing lackluster growth and even taking devastating hits. Most
pension fund managers invest in stocks and the dismal showing of the US
stock market the last few years has not helped their portfolios or the
pension fund earnings. Most AmeriKKKans are whistling by the cemetery
during
these times of anemic economic growth, frequent downsizing and job losses
oblivious to what is happening to their pensions. Many pension funds lost
money during the DOT.com crash in the late 1990's, many state and local
pension funds that invested heavily in Enron, Worldcom took tremendous
hits
and state fiscal crises have also hampered their ability to replace
pension
funds lost in these various scenarios. The fact that the agency that was
designed to be the safety net for pensioners and pension funds is itself
underfunded by anywhere from 10 to 11 plus billion dollars depending on
whose figures you believe does not bode well for the record number of baby
boomers set to retire in the next few years. The PBGC had to bail out 152
pension plans last year (2003), up from 144 plans in 2003. This is
information that doesn't generally make the evening news and the corporate
media rarely talks about these issues. Wonder why?
The Congress is now looking into the situation but the hard pressed
taxpayers (burdened even more by Bush's tax cuts that are wrecking havoc
on
state and local budgets which local residents are forced to balance
through
increased taxes, fees and cut services) are the ones who may be called
upon
to bail the PBGC out! Congress has already appropriated $26 billion in
emergency relief for companies having difficulty making their pension plan
contributions. The question becomes if the economy doesn't improve what
will
the implications be for US workers as far as their retirement security is
concerned. One of the myriad of reasons why even the employers who are
showing profits aren't hiring more workers is because many of them must
use
a higher percentage of their profits to increase their share of their
pension contributions to get their pension plan funds back to the
appropriate levels. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in the public
employee sector many state and local pension plans are also facing
difficulties and several states like Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Oregon
are facing what are termed severe long term pension problems. Some states
facing huge budget deficits like Indiana have raided their public employee
pension funds in an effort to forestall tax increases to balance their
budget. According to a recent USA Today article public pension funds are
already paying more to retirees than governments and employees are putting
and the gap will widen as the US population ages and retirees increase. In
2001 pensioners received a total of $101 billion in benefits but the
pension
funds only received $ 65 billion in contributions. The shortfalls coupled
with state and local budgetary crisis exacerbated by the poor stock market
performance and the trickle down effect of Bush's massive federal deficits
have put most states in a precarious situation.
In recent years many companies have chosen not to offer traditional
(defined
benefit) pension plans to their workers, rather they have opted to provide
what are called defined contribution plans which: are not protected by the
federal government, do not provide a guaranteed monthly pension amount and
the employee contributes to his or her plan. In addition to the volatility
of the stock market and low interests rates, another risk factor is that
many defined contribution plans can go the way of the Enron Company where
the employees suffered because most of their retirement funds were
invested
in Enron itself and when the company went belly- up and they lost
everything! In reality no matter what type of pension plan you have in
today
's climate, we all are at risk for a myriad of reasons, mismanagement, low
interest rates, poor stock market performance, government deficits etc..
We
need to ask why the mainstream media isn't reporting these issues and why
aren't politicians speaking openly about them? We cannot afford to allow
the
media and politicians to keep this under the public consciousness radar
screen. Do the research, use the Internet, ask questions about your
pension
or retirement plan and if you don't like the answers you are getting
become
an involved part of the solution.
Super-TB' created by
scientists
TB is a major world killer
A virulent form of tuberculosis was created in the laboratory by
experts trying to alter its genetic structure.
The mutant form of the bug multiplied more quickly, and was more
lethal than its natural counterpart.
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, US, had
actually been trying to disable genes and make the bacterium less deadly.
"This is one of the very few hyper-virulent organisms ever created,"
said scientist Dr Lisa Morici.
Tuberculosis is one of the world's biggest killers, and scientists are
probing its genetic structure in a bid to find weaknesses that might be
exploited by new treatments.
The Berkeley study, published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, concentrated on a particular collection of genes
thought to give TB some of its virulence - its ability to infect.
Growing threat
They disabled these genes, and expected to find a weakened form of TB
as a result. Instead, the organism grew in virulence.
It killed laboratory mice within seven months of exposure, while those
infected with normal TB survived the experiment.
Further investigations suggested that the genetic changes had the
unexpected effect of undermining the body's own immune response against TB.
Professor Lee Riley, who led the study, said: "These findings came as
a complete surprise to us.
"We thought we had made a mistake, so we repeated the test several
times, and we always got the same result."
Bioterror played down
There have been fears that similar genetic modifications might lead to
a new form of TB that could be used in bioterrorism, but Dr Morici said this
was unlikely.
The bacterium is hard to deliver in an aerosol - the accepted method
of spreading it over large populations - and despite its extra virulence in
the lab, still grows relatively slowly and can be treated by antibiotics.
"There are several other organisms out there that are easier to
manipulate than TB," she said.
Dr Neil Stoker, from the Royal Veterinary College at the University of
London, UK, said that his research had also uncovered hyper-virulent strains
of TB.
The emergence of these strains should pose no risk to humans, he said.
"These are not going to become 'super-strains'," he said. "They are
already going to be out there, and they have not become dominant."
TB is such a "successful" pathogen, he said, for completely the
opposite reason.
"It is such a phenomenal pathogen because it does not cause disease in
everyone it infects.
"It has this extraordinary ability to transmit itself, and nine out of
10 people who have it will never fall ill."
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie
MAD COW DISEASE IN THE
UNITED STATES
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A British lab provided initial independent confirmation
Thursday that the United States has its first case of mad cow disease, U.S.
agriculture officials said. Federal investigators labored to trace the path
the infected animal took from birth to slaughter.
Scientists at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, told
the Agriculture Department they concur with the reading of tests on the
stricken Holstein cow that led U.S. officials to conclude the animal had the
brain-wasting disease, U.S. officials said.
"We are considering this confirmation," said USDA spokeswoman Alisa
Harrison, adding that the English lab still will conduct its own test using
another sample from the cow's brain. Final test results on the cow from
Washington state were expected by the end of the week, she said.
Professor Steven Edwards, chief of the British lab, said those results
already have been given to USDA. But Edwards refused to disclose whether the
tests show that the animal had mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy.
Meanwhile, Harrison said, investigators were working through the holiday to
prevent a potential outbreak of the deadly disease and to calm public fears
about the food supply. Government officials have said there is no threat to
food supply because the cow's brain and spine - the parts most likely to be
infected - were removed before it was sent on for processing. Humans can
contract a fatal variant of mad cow disease by eating infected beef
products.
"Even though this is Christmas day, federal officials are working on the
investigation," she said.
The government is trying to find the herd the cow was raised with, since the
cow likely was sickened several years ago from eating feed made partly from
an infected cow. The incubation period in cattle is four to five years, said
Dr. Stephen Sundlof of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web
sites).
Authorities also want to know where the animals were transported and have
narrowed their search to two unidentified livestock markets in Washington
state, where the sick cow could have been purchased.
Government sources told The Associated Press that the cow lived since 2001
at the Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, Wash., a town 40 miles south of Yakima.
Authorities also were scrambling to find where the meat cut from the animal
was sent. The Agriculture Department already has issued a recall for 10,410
pounds of beef slaughtered Dec. 9 at Vern's Moses Lake Meat Co. in Moses
Lake, Wash.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the recall was an extra precaution.
But the government came under criticism on two fronts. John Stauber, the
author of "Mad Cow U.S.A.," said the U.S. hasn't done enough to keep BSE
(news - web sites) out of the country.
Cattle get sick by eating feed that contains tissue from the brain and spine
of infected animals. The United States has banned such feed since 1997.
"Here's the problem, the feed ban has been grossly violated by feed mills,"
Stauber said in a telephone interview from his home in Madison, Wis.
In one such case, X-Cel Feeds Inc., of Tacoma, Wash., admitted in a consent
decree in July that it violated FDA regulations designed to prevent the
possible spread of the disease.
Agriculture officials said that only two out of some 1,800 firms are not in
compliance with the ban, a significant improvement since 1997.
Stauber also said he believes the ban is ineffective because it exempts
blood from cattle, which Stauber said could transmit mad-cow type diseases.
Government officials and industry executives have said there is no evidence
that animals can be infected from the blood of other animals.
Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist at the University of California at San
Francisco who discovered the proteins that cause mad cow disease, said he
warned Veneman recently that it was "just a matter of time" before the
disease was found in the United States.
He said he told her the United States should immediately start testing every
cow that shows signs of illness and eventually every single cow upon
slaughter, The New York Times reported in Thursday's editions.
Prusiner, a Nobel laureate, told the Times that fast, accurate and
inexpensive tests are available, including one that he has patented through
his university that he says could add 2 or 3 cents a pound to the cost of
beef.
The scientist said Veneman is getting poor advice from USDA scientists and
did not seem to share his sense of urgency when he met with her six weeks
ago, after several months of seeking a meeting.
"We have met with many experts in this area, including Dr. Prusiner," Julie
Quick, a spokesman for Veneman told the Times. "We welcome as much
scientific input and insight as we can get on this very important issue. We
want to make sure that our actions are based on the best available science."
While government and cattle industry officials voiced assurances that the
beef on American Christmas holiday tables was safe to eat, the biggest
buyers of U.S. beef around the world slapped bans on imports of the American
product.
BSE is caused by a misshapen protein - a prion - that eats holes in a cow's
brain. A total of 153 people worldwide have been reported to have contracted
the human form of the illness, according to the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (news - web sites).
___
On the Net:
USDA: http://www.usda.gov
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
Israel's Threat To World
Peace
by James J. David
(Wednesday 24 December 2003)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Libya has never been a threat to the United States, and for that matter,
Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The only threat Iraq or Libya
posed was a threat to Israel's dominance of nuclear weapons in the Middle
East."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems that the entire world is praising American and British diplomacy
for its efforts in convincing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in announcing
that Libya would cease work on its programs to develop nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons. This is quite an accomplishment, considering that Libya
has been listed for more than 17years by the U.S. State Department as one of
the major countries supporting state terrorism.
As wonderful as this news may be, the United States needs to concentrate its
efforts towards the real obstacle to world peace. Libya was no threat to
world peace, and neither was Iraq. If the United States devotes as much
effort in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as they did with
Libya's weapons of mass destruction then maybe the American people could
rest a bit easier.
According to a recent poll by the Anti-Defamation League, forty-two percent
of the American people consider Israel as a threat to world peace. What's
even more astonishing is the result of a recent European poll that found 59
percent of Europeans considered Israel as the major threat to world peace
with the United States coming in second. Libya wasn't even mentioned.
Libya has never been a threat to the United States, and for that matter,
Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The only threat Iraq or Libya
posed was a threat to Israel's dominance of nuclear weapons in the Middle
East.
While Iraq failed to obey one UN resolution fast enough, Israel has
steadfastly refused to obey not just one UN resolution, but an incredible 69
UN resolutions. Israel's actions have brought outrage from a majority of the
UN's member states on 69 separate occasions. They have condemned Israel for
the destruction of Arab villages, for the murder of innocent women and
children, for making war on neighboring states, for refusing to withdraw
from invaded and occupied territory, for killing protesting students, for
killing civilians protesting being expelled from their homes, for a
transcontinental bombing raid against Tunisia, and for dozens of other
violations. And on 29 other occasions, UN resolutions with real teeth in
them, calling for Israel to withdraw from stolen land and allow
self-determination for the Palestinian people among other things, would have
been adopted but were vetoed by the one dissenting vote of the United
States. When it comes to the exercising of any kind of real power against
those who violate UN resolutions, it seems that some countries are "more
equal than others." Israel gets away not only with an expansionist foreign
policy, but with repeatedly and endlessly violating the most elementary
human rights of her subject peoples. Although Israel's PR men would have us
believe that Israel is an island of Western values in the Middle East, the
truth is quite the opposite. Not only does Israel violate the most
fundalmental human rights laws but Israel is also guilty of assassination,
kidnapping, expulsion, detention without charges or trial, land
confiscation, and collective punishment - not to mention Israel's
long-standing practice of espionage against the United States, its principal
benefactor and the attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American sailors
and injured another 171.
Hardly a day goes by without the Israelis killing innocent Palestinian men,
women, and children. Today they killed 8 Palestinians and wounded an
estimated 300. Three days ago they killed a 6-year-old Palestinain boy just
hours before a 13-year-old Palestinian boy died from a gunshot to his head.
Twenty Palestinians have been killed in the past two weeks even though there
hasn't been even one suicide bombing in over two months. And just last week
the Israelis shot and killed a 21-year-old pregnant Palestinian mother
trying to take her young son to the hospital. The Israelis have killed more
than 500 women and children in the past 3 years. They have demolished more
than 3000 Palestinian homes, causing more than 17,000 homeless, including
2300 children.
These stories never make the Headline News or the front pages of your local
newspapers. You don't see President Bush or Condoleezza Rice out on the
front lawn of the White House condemning the Israelis for killing innocent
men, women, and especially children. The United States talks about a
balanced Middle East Policy but just look at what we actually practice. We
have one standard for the treatment of Israelis that is so high they cannot
be criticized no matter what grisly crimes they commit. Then we have a
second standard for the treatment of Palestinians that is so low we publicly
finance their ethnic cleansing and torture.
President Bush may refer to Israeli policies as obstacles to peace but when
it comes time for a vote in the U.N. Security Council on the illegal
settlements, or the apartheid wall, or on assassinations, or any of the
other Israeli criminal acts, the United States vetoes every move to condemn
Israeli aggression. The United States could not even bring itself to condemn
the Qana Lebanese refugee camp massacre of 1996 in which 103 innocent
Lebanese civilians were killed. Is it any wonder the Arab world hates us? Is
it any wonder America was attacked? How can the United States strive for
world peace when Israel is allowed to do whatever it pleases? Supporting
Israel may be politically correct, but the more we look the other way, the
more violence there will be. American politicians jump on the Zionist
bandwagon simply because they know that is where the power is. The Jewish
Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Lobby and Jewish interest groups have
effectively silenced any politician who is critical to Israeli policy.
Is the Israeli lobby and the Jewish control of our American politicians so
powerful that our elected officials have lost all sense of moral right?
Evidently, former President Jimmy Carter thought so when he was prompted to
say, after he left office of course, that no politician dared to oppose its
demands, because to do so would be "political suicide." They take our money,
we fight and die in their wars, and, since both political parties are in
their pocket, the American people don't have any choice in the matter.
Sheilding Israel is an international embarrassment and places U.S. citizens
in danger around the world, let alone danger to our own nation. It is time
for the American people to face the fact that supporting Israel's criminal
activities is the greatest threat facing America today. Disguising America's
threat with anything else is nothing more than political spin and a decoy
used as a means of savings one's career. Placing the blame on Israel would
end one's political career.
The recent decision by Libya to abandon its weapons of mass destruction is
just one step towards world peace. The bigger step would be for Israel to do
the same. It is time for the United States to free itself from the grips of
the Jewish lobby and to take a stand on the side of human mankind. It is
time to use our foreign aid as leverage and to insist on Israel to abandon
its weapons of mass destruction and to abide by International Law. It is
time we stop fooling the American people. It is time to get tough with
Israel. After all, Israel is the biggest threat to world peace.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
Pilot Suspected of
Drinking Before Flight
Sat Dec 20,11:28 AM ET
WASHINGTON - A veteran Virgin Atlantic Airways pilot was in a Virginia jail
Saturday facing a charge that he showed up drunk to fly a planeload of
almost 400 passengers to London.
AP Photo
The airline said Richard George Harwell, 55, an American living in England,
had a spotless record during 14 years as a Virgin pilot.
"He was suspended with immediate effect pending an internal investigation,"
said John Riordan, a Virgin Atlantic spokesman.
Police at Washington Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia
seized Harwell aboard Virgin Atlantic Flight 22 on Friday night after being
summoned by the Transportation Security Administration, whose screeners had
detected alcohol on Harwell's breath, said Tara Hamilton, spokeswoman for
the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
He was interrogated at the airport, arrested and charged under Virginia law
with operating an aircraft while under the influence of an intoxicating drug
or alcohol and jailed at the Loudoun County Detention Center, Hamilton said.
She said Harwell will be arraigned at a bail hearing Monday on the charge
punishable by as much as five years in prison and a $500 fine.
Riordan said the Boeing 747-400 was to leave on the flight to London's
Heathrow Airport Saturday night after a 23-hour delay. Its 383 passengers
were put up in area hotels, Riordan said.
In London, Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Moore said Harwell had a
"completely unblemished record" with the airline. "We will be talking to him
and the authorities over the coming weeks to find out what has happened,"
Moore said.
Moore added, "It's the first time it has happened in the 20 years we've been
operating and is totally out of character for Captain Harwell, who is an
extremely experienced and popular pilot."
The airline is "at a loss to explain what has happened," Moore said.
Federal Aviation Agency spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency, which
licenses pilots to fly within the United States, will carry out a civil
investigation parallel to the Virginia state criminal probe to determine
Harwell's status.
"The two investigations are not really related, except they relate to the
same incident," Brown said. A pilot must have a valid airman's certificate -
a pilot's license - and medical certificate to operate commercial aircraft
in the United States, she said.
In such cases as the Dulles incident, she said, the medical certificate
might be revoked if the pilot were found to have been medically unfit to
fly.
Dick Gregory's Comments On
Michael Jackson
By Bakari Akil II
Dick Gregory, activist, health guru, ex-comedian, as well as advisor
to many influential people, is a man who has been a mainstay in
American culture for decades.
As a friend of Michael Jackson for many years he recently offered
insight to the current situation involving Mr. Jackson and provided a
perspective that has not been evident in many media outlets.
On a radio show entitled, Make it Plain, hosted by WOL's Mark Thompson
in
Washington, D.C., Dick Gregory stated in response to the mad media
frenzy
and tilt toward guilt coverage, that those who believe in Michael
Jackson's guilt or innocence should first ask for truth to be exposed.
Whether it is damaging for Michael Jackson or not, he insisted that
truth is the most
important aspect of this issue.
However, Mr. Gregory does not believe that Mr. Jackson is guilty of
the charges and raised many questions concerning the events leading up
to the actions of law enforcement and consequent media coverage.
He asked why was it necessary for 40 police officers and 20 FBI agents
to raid Michael Jackson's property? More specifically, why were FBI
agents present, especially since the allegations against Mr. Jackson
are not a federal offense? He also questioned the legitimacy of the
claim of law enforcement that they did not know of Mr. Jackson's
whereabouts and the timing of the raid.
According to Mr. Gregory, there is a monetary element to this entire
situation. He states that Michael Jackson purchased the Beatles
catalog for nearly $48 million and it is now worth $1.5 billion. He
also owns the rights to the Elvis catalog and found out after his
purchase of the Beatles collection that these rights also included
ownership of Little Richard's catalog of which, Michael Jackson
promptly called Mr. Richard and returned it to him.
His suspicions arise from the fact that Michael Jackson has taken out
loans and his lenders wanted collateral, which was none other than his
Beatles catalog. Mr. Gregory stated that Michael Jackson did not mind
offering that up as collateral because every time he would come out
with a record he would make around $500 million from his efforts. For
those who doubt those claims, he explained that there is a
mischaracterization that occurs when people think about what is
success for Michael Jackson. Although he may not achieve the
outrageous sales of his more youthful days a majority of successful
artists sales would pale by comparison.
Mr. Gregory found it odd that every time Michael Jackson is about to
come out with an album or moneymaking venture he is hit with a scandal
and that this situation is no different. He also admonished the
audience not to forget that Michael Jackson embarrassed SONY and music
mogul Tommy Mottola when he claimed that they were racist and that
they took advantage of and mistreated Black artists.
Not holding anything back, Mr. Gregory stated that Rev. Al Sharpton,
who came to the defense of Michael Jackson during this time was soon
overwhelmed by media coverage of a video tape which showed individuals
attempting to frame him in a drug deal. He went even further stating
that this type of behavior could be traced to Bill Cosby and the
suspicious murder of his son. Ennis, who was gunned down while
changing the tire of his Mercedes on a California highway. He claims
that this happened after Mr. Cosby hinted that he wanted to purchase
NBC when it was up for sale.
Dick Gregory also alleged that when they showed Michael Jackson in
handcuffs, it was symbolic and when they handcuffed him, they
handcuffed us all (Black communities). He stated that they allowed Mr.
Jackson to board his private plane in Las Vegas, fly back to
California and then handcuffed him and immediately took them off when
inside the police station. According to Mr. Gregory, law enforcement
had not judged him an extreme flight risk if they let him fly in and
obviously not a danger if they immediately uncuffed him once inside,
so why the posturing?
Mr. Gregory further intensified his discourse by reiterating that the
value of Michael Jackson's Beatles catalog cannot be underestimated
and asserted that Mr. Jackson could easily be killed, have it
consequently ruled a suicide and thus his collection will be forfeited
in lieu of his debt.
He further commented that people such as Liz Taylor, whom he knows
Michael
Jackson would rush to their aid in times of need, have not come to his
defense or spoke out on his behalf. He also talked about how many
people take "Michael" for a joke, yet he is very intelligent and that
he knows what is going on.
Yet for all his concerns, Dick Gregory stated that Michael Jackson
will "come out clean" in this dilemma and he called for people to say
a daily prayer for the "truth to come out" about this situation
concerning Mr. Jackson at 12:00 P.M., no matter what the time zone. He
believes, ultimately, people will be shocked at what that truth is.
In the final analysis, many may balk at the comments and observations
of Mr.
Gregory, believing that governmental officials, media organizations
and corporations in the music business may be beyond collusion or
conspiracies when two or more make a conscious effort to bring about a
certain reality, which is fine.
Yet, free and independent thought that Mr. Gregory exhibits is
absolutely necessary, especially in an era where fact and fiction has
taken an equal seat in mainstream media and thought.
Hopefully, people will not jump on the bandwagon of mainstream
reactionary
thought and will judge this situation objectively and think about how
the constant stream of Black men being vilified as sexual and violent
deviants will affect Black communities and Black individuals in
general.
I will not even address how these events also help serve as a
smokescreen to other national and international events, but if we do
not become more vigilant of our surroundings, it maybe a mistake we
may all regret.
- Bakari Akil II
BED BUGS
Just a note
The information we have today is that actually Bed Bugs are affecting the
hotel industry in New York city as well, so it is not only Toronto and
Montreal. That is the danger you get when you lick the you know what of the
environments who have forced society to stop using all insecticides for we
are saving the environment. If you sleep in a hotel make sure you do not
carry them, For Bed Bugs are attacking in our cities.
--------------------------------------------
Bugs crawling back into Canadian beds
Last Updated Mon, 24 Nov 2003 22:28:27
TORONTO - Canadian bed bug infestations have increased as much as 600 per
cent in the past decade.
The small, flat insects, which feed on human blood, have been re-appearing
in hotels, hostels, shelters, public housing and private homes across the
country.
Bed bugs were all but wiped out after the Second World War thanks to strong
pesticides.
But they have been crawling back into beds across the country due, in part,
to international travel.
People have been carrying the pests into Canada in clothing and luggage.
Another contributing factor is the decreasing use of strong pesticides and
broad-based spraying methods for pest control.
Bites can lead to serious infection in some cases. However, health officials
consider the bugs a nuisance, not a health hazard, because they're not known
to transmit disease.
Entomologists say once the bugs make themselves at home, it can be difficult
to send them packing.
Experts advise people to take precautions by vacuuming thoroughly, sealing
cracks in walls and dry-cleaning or replacing pillows and washing all
linens.
Written by CBC News Online staff
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
A Net of Control
Unthinkable: How the Internet could become a tool of corporate and
government power, based on updates now in the works
Christoph Niemann for Newsweek
By Steven Levy
Newsweek International
Issues 2004 - Picture, if you will, an information infrastructure that
encourages censorship, surveillance and suppression of the creative impulse.
Where anonymity is outlawed and every penny spent is accounted for. Where
the powers that be can smother subversive (or economically competitive)
ideas in the cradle, and no one can publish even a laundry list without the
imprimatur of Big Brother. Some prognosticators are saying that such a
construct is nearly inevitable. And this infrastructure is none other than
the former paradise of rebels and free-speechers: the Internet.
To those exposed to the Panglossian euphoria of Net enthusiasts during the
1990s, this vision seems unbelievable. After all, wasn't the Internet
supposed to be the defining example of empowering technology? Freedom was
allegedly built into the very bones of the Internet, designed to withstand
nuclear blasts and dictatorial attempts at control. While this cyberslack
has its downside-porn, credit-card fraud and insincere bids on eBay-it was
considered a small price to pay for free speech and friction-free business
models. The freedom genie was out, and no one could put it back into the
bottle.
Certainly John Walker believed all that. The hackerish founder of the
software firm Autodesk, now retired to Switzerland to work on personal
projects of his choosing, enjoyed "unbounded optimism" that the Net would
not only offset the powers of industry and government but actually restore
some previously threatened personal liberties. But in -the past couple of
years, he noticed a disturbing trend. Developments in technology, law and
commerce seemed to be directed toward actually changing the open nature of
the Net. And Internet Revisited would create opportunities for business and
government to control and monitor cyberspace.
In September Walker posted his fears in a 28,000-word Web document called
the Digital Imprimatur. The name refers to his belief that it's possible
that nothing would be allowed to even appear on the Internet without having
a proper technical authorization.
How could the freedom genie be shoved back into the bottle? Basically, it's
part of a huge effort to transform the Net from an arena where anyone can
anonymously participate to a sign-in affair where tamperproof "digital
certificates" identify who you are. The advantages of such a system are
clear: it would eliminate identity theft and enable small, secure electronic
"microtransactions," long a dream of Internet commerce pioneers. (Another
bonus: arrivederci, unwelcome spam.) A concurrent step would be the adoption
of "trusted computing," a system by which not only people but computer
programs would be stamped with identifying marks. Those would link with
certificates that determine whether programs are uncorrupted and cleared to
run on your computer.
The best-known implementation of this scheme is the work in progress at
Microsoft known as Next Generation Secure Computing Base (formerly called
Palladium). It will be part of Longhorn, the next big Windows version, out
in 2006. Intel and AMD are onboard to create special secure chips that would
make all computers sold after that point secure. No more viruses! And the
addition of "digital rights management" to movies, music and even documents
created by individuals (such protections are already built into the recently
released version of Microsoft Office) would use the secure system to make
sure that no one can access or, potentially, even post anything without
permission.
The giants of Internet commerce are eager to see this happen. "The social,
economic and legal priorities are going to force the Internet toward
security," says Stratton Sclavos, CEO of VeriSign, a company built to
provide digital certificates (it also owns Network Solutions, the exclusive
handler of the "dot-com" part of the Internet domain-name system). "It's not
going to be all right not to know who's on the other end of the wire."
Governments will be able to tax e-commerce-and dictators can keep track of
who's saying what.
Walker isn't the first to warn of this ominous power shift. The Internet's
pre-eminent dean of darkness is Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford University
guru of cyberlaw. Beginning with his 1999 book "Code and Other Laws of
Cyberspace," Lessig has been predicting that corporate and regulatory
pressures would usurp the open nature of the Net, and now says that he has
little reason to retract his pessimism. Lessig understands that restrictive
copyright and Homeland Security laws give a legal rationale to "total
control," and also knows that it will be sold to the people as a great way
to stop thieves, pirates, malicious hackers, spammers and child
pornographers. "To say we need total freedom isn't going to win," Lessig
says. He is working hard to promote alternatives in which the law can be
enforced outside the actual architecture of the system itself but admits
that he considers his own efforts somewhat quixotic.
Does this mean that John Walker's nightmare is a foregone conclusion? Not
necessarily. Certain influential companies are beginning to understand that
their own businesses depend on an open Internet. (Google, for example, is
dependent on the ability to image the Web on its own servers, a task that
might be impossible in a controlled Internet.) Activist groups like the
Electronic Frontier Foundation are sounding alarms. A few legislators like
Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota are beginning to
look upon digital rights management schemes with skepticism. Courts might
balk if the restrictions clearly violate the First Amendment. And there are
pockets of technologists concocting schemes that may be able to bypass even
a rigidly controlled Internet. In one paper published by, of all people,
some of Microsoft's Palladium developers, there's discussion of a scenario
where small private "dark nets" can freely move data in a hostile
environment. Picture digital freedom fighters huddling in the electronic
equivalent of caves, file-swapping and blogging under the radar of censors
and copyright cops.
Nonetheless, staving off the Internet power shift will be a difficult task,
made even harder by apathy on the part of users who won't know what they've
got till it's gone. "I've spent hundreds of hours talking to people about
this," says Walker. "And I can't think of a single person who is actually
going to do something about it." Unfortunately, our increasingly
Internet-based society will get only the freedom it fights for.
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
General Assembly
Approves International Treaty Against
Corruption
The United Nations General Assembly this week approved the first
internationally negotiated treaty against corruption, which includes
a clause saying governments had to repatriate any stolen assets
bought under their jurisdiction. The treaty will be opened for
signature at a High-level Political Signing Conference from 9 to 11
December in Merida, Mexico, and will enter into force - or become a
part of international law - 90 days after the thirtieth country
deposits its instrument of ratification.
In taking this action and setting the stage for national and
international efforts to fight the scourge of corruption, the United
Nations had witnessed a momentous day in its history, the acting
chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee charged with negotiating the
convention, Jordanian Ambassador Muhyieddeen Touq, told a press
conference at UN Headquarters in New York.
A large number of countries had participated in the negotiations and
it should be easily ratified, said Mr. Touq, who is ambassador to
Austria.
<B>He said he believed the Convention would inspire the start of a
fight against corruption, making the world more liveable and
contributing to global economic development and good governance.</B>
Joining Ambassador Touq at the briefing was Antonio Maria Costa,
Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, who
said, "The convention has teeth."
It had strong language, many binding paragraphs and dealt with law
enforcement and criminal justice, as well as prevention and technical
assistance, he said.
The provision on repatriating stolen or illegally appropriated assets
was a major breakthrough that would act as a deterrent for potential
perpetrators, Mr. Costa noted. Other new elements covered the funding
of political parties and electoral processes and the use of
electronic methods for investigations and asset recovery.
Asked if the convention would apply retroactively, Mr. Costa said it
would not, but it would be immediately binding as soon as it was
ratified. The United Nations would assist countries that needed help
in arranging their ratification and creating or reworking domestic
legislation.
©EuropaWorld 2003
Merck Starts
Global Test of AIDS Vaccine
2 hours, 9 minutes ago
WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J. - Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. said Friday that
it has started the first global human tests of an experimental AIDS (news -
web sites) vaccine, working with the Seattle-based HIV (news - web sites)
Vaccine Trials Network.
The experiment, which will include about 435 adult volunteers not infected
with the HIV virus (news - web sites), is meant to determine if the vaccine
candidate is safe, has tolerable side effects and is practical to administer
in different parts of the world. Researchers will also determine whether the
vaccine stimulates an immune response in people.
The study is being conducted in 18 cities in North America, South America,
the Caribbean, southern Africa and Southeast Asia. Using such diverse
testing sites is important because different strains of the HIV virus
circulate in different regions. The vaccine is made from a modified cold
virus and does not contain any live HIV virus, so it cannot cause HIV
infection.
Merck currently is running tests of other potential HIV vaccines on people,
including an experiment announced earlier this week in which is testing
combination of one of its experimental AIDS vaccines and another from
Aventis Pasteur. Whitehouse Station-based Merck began doing human tests of
experimental HIV vaccines in late 1999.
The vaccine trials network is supported by the National Institutes of Health
(news - web sites).
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
Gulu children pray for
peace
By Elizabeth Kameo
September 22, 2003
KAMPALA - Children from Gulu district have appealed to government and the
international community to pacify northern Uganda.
The call was made at celebrations to mark the International World Peace Day
at Bat Valley Primary School.
Speaking on behalf of the children, Michael Onono,12, appealed to Ugandans
to help end the fighting in the north.
"We come from Gulu where we have never had peace for the last 17 years and
people are aware of our suffering. Children sleep on streets," Onono said.
He condemned those profiting from the war and those who blame the insurgency
on the Acholi.
"Young girls are raped, abducted and become mothers at a young age. What do
the government, NGOs think of our suffering? We are innocent children and we
need peace and love," Onono said.
The children were joined by their peers from Kampala to celebrate the
International World Peace day with a fun football match and the signing of a
peace manifesto.
The ceremony organised by Right To Play, Kampala Kids League and Alliance
for African Assistance was attended by the Minister of State for Sports, Mr
Henry Okello Oryem, Miss Uganda 2003 Aysha Salma Nassanga and officials from
various UN agencies.
Oryem appealed to all Ugandans to protect children. It is everyone's
responsibility to ensure that Uganda's children are protected, he said.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
Saturday, September 13, 2003 at 12pm
UNITED NATIONS
47th Street & First Ave
New York City, NY
For information contact
Millions for Reparations
456 Nostrand Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11233
Telephone: 718-398-1766
Fax: 718-623-1855
info@millionsforreparations.com
www.millionsforreparations.com <http://www.millionsforreparations.com/
From: Juno Security & Abuse
Department
Subject: Important Security Information
Dear Juno Member,
We are writing to warn you of an Internet scam designed to trick you into
revealing credit card,
passwords, social security numbers and other personal information to
individuals who intend to use
them for fraudulent purposes. The scam is known as "phishing" and the
communications are sent to
appear to look as if they come from reputable companies such as Juno. The
e-mails often instruct
you to verify or update your account information by requesting you to reply
to their e-mail with
your updated information, or by providing you with a link to a website where
you may enter your
information. The Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning about these
identity theft scams.
They suggest the following:
- If you get an e-mail that warns you, with little or no notice, that an
account of yours will be
shut down unless you reconfirm your billing information, do not reply or
click on the link in
the e-mail. Instead, contact the company cited in the e-mail using a
telephone number or
Web site address you know to be genuine. For Juno, you should contact
security@juno.com or call customer
support at 888-839-5866. We take security very
seriously and will work with law enforcement with the goal of preventing
this type of activity.
- Avoid e-mailing personal and financial information.
- Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them
to
determine whether there are any unauthorized charges. If there is
unauthorized activity,
we strongly urge you to contact your credit card company immediately to
determine what action
you should take.
For more information on how to avoid e-mail scams, please visit the Federal
Trade Commission's
website at
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/phishingalrt.htm
Remember, when you receive e-mail from an unknown source and suspect it to
be spam, avoid clicking on
the unsubscribe links, replying to the spam, replying to an address in the
spam message, or visiting any
link contained within the e-mail. These actions confirm the validity of your
e-mail address and may
result in more spam.
If you ever receive e-mail requesting this type of information, please
forward the message to security@juno.com
.
Please remember that Juno will never send you an unsolicited e-mail asking
you for your
password, social security number, mother's maiden name, or driver's license
number.
If we do request you to update your credit card information for billing
purposes, the request would
link to
http://account.juno.com. You can also access these sites directly from
the My Account
tab at the top of the start page to update your account information at any
time. Please remember
that some of these sites will appear to look as if they are being sent from
us, so if you have any
question, please contact
security@juno.com .
Thank you,
Juno Security & Abuse Dept.
Bogus Scams -you may read more info on this subject @
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/06/bogus.htm
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/opt-out.htm
http://caag.state.ca.us/consumers/alert/basic_facts.htm
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/optout_truth.htm
Million Youth Marchers
Celebrate Permit Victory With All Star Lineup
By James C. McIntosh, M.D.
Co-Convener of the Million Youth March, Betty Dopson says that the rally
her group CEMOTAP is hosting on Thursday evening, August 21st at Bethany
Baptist Church in Brooklyn was originally planned to protest the City’s
denial of a routine permit to hold its Million Youth March on Fulton Street
in Brooklyn on September 6. “We decided to invite some of the nationally
known victims of 1st Amendment Rights to address the New York Black
community,” said Dopson. “There was certainly no shortage of victims --
Imamu Baraka just illegally deposed from his Poet Laureate position in New
Jersey, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Atlanta, Georgia who was denied
her rightful primary victory by a scheme that involved importing Republicans
to vote in the Democratic Primary, Attorney Alton Maddox who because of his
vigorous defense of his clients Tawana Brawley and Al Sharpton has been
denied his right to practice law for the last 12 years. The list goes on and
on. Now that the City has backed down and promised to issue a permit, a bit
of celebration will creep into our protest,” said Dopson.
The program involves each of the victims speaking about their specific
cases. The program will run from 6 to 9 pm and features, Professor Leonard
Jeffries, Attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz, Attorney at war Alton Maddox,
Minister Kevin Muhammad, Imamu Baraka and Jitu Weusi. Dopson says that
Cynthia McKinney originally confirmed to be there then announced that she
was running into scheduling difficulties. “Amiri Baraka confirmed before the
recent tragic death of his daughter and we would not really expect him to
be there said Dopson. However, both his case and Cynthia McKinney’s will be
addressed by our speakers. This rally should be attended by everybody who
supports the right of African People to Free Speech and everybody who wants
to help make the Million Youth March a success. Admission is Free and Doors
Open at 6:00 PM. Bethany Baptist Church is located at 460 Marcus Garvey
Boulevard, Brooklyn New York. Anyone desiring further information should
call 718-322-8454.
Clear
Channel Radio, a division of Clear Channel Communications, and the New York
Local of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
announced today that the two parties have reached an agreement concerning
the on-air hosts at Clear Channel's New York stations, WLTW (106.7 FM), WKTU
(103.5 FM), WAXQ (104.3 FM) and WWPR (105.1 FM).
Details of the agreement were not released, however, both parties feel that
the terms are in the best interest of AFTRA members, Clear Channel's New
York stations and radio listeners in the market.
"Clear Channel attributes the success of its New York stations to the talent
and hard work of all its employees in the market," said John Hogan,
president and CEO, Clear Channel Radio. "We are pleased with today's
agreement and remain committed to providing our listeners with the highest
quality programming."
"AFTRA and its members are pleased that we have reached an agreement with
Clear Channel," said Peter Fuster, New York AFTRA Assistant Executive
Director. "Today's announcement demonstrates our commitment to our members
and to listeners of New York."
Paris Nicole Payton
Entertainment Advisor/Manager
Sports Personal Assistant
P.O. Box 1494, Phila, PA 19105
Mobile: 267-235-4483
Fax: 212-244-3735
2Way:2152514246@airmessage.net
"A Caring Professional Leader"
Far-Out Theory
Ties SARS Origins to Comet
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
June 3, 2003
The source of SARS has mystified medical experts. Some believe it evolved
naturally in humans. Others say it must have jumped from an animal, maybe a
chicken or an exotic bird. But one group of British scientists suggests a more
far-out origin: space. In a letter to the British medical journal The Lancet,
Chandra Wickramasinghe, from Cardiff University in Wales, and other
scientists,
propose that SARS may have originated in outer space then fallen down to Earth
and landed in China, where the outbreak began.
A group of researchers in Wales has proposed a controversial theory
that the coronavirus which causes SARS may have originated in space.
Top: Photograph courtesy NASA
Bottom: Photograph by Fred Murphy, courtesy Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention
It sounds like a headline from a supermarket tabloid, but the idea may not be
as outlandish as it first appears. One hundred tons (90 metric tons) of space
debris fall on Earth every day; some scientists believe as much as one ton
(0.9 metric ton) of bacteria from space is part of that daily deposit.
Particles
carrying the SARS virus could have come from a comet, the researchers say,
and released into the debris trail of the comet's tail. The Earth's passage
through the stream would have led to the entry of the culprit particles.
"We're
not saying this is definitely what happened," said Wickramasinghe, who is also
the director of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, a research effort that
seeks evidence of extraterrestrial life. "But the theory should not be ruled
out." SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, has so far infected at least
8,384 people and claimed 770 lives. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
Canada
have been hit hardest by the epidemic.
Independent Evolution Although SARS has been identified as a coronavirus, the
virus is unexpectedly novel. An independent evolution of the virus may have
been required, which, Wickramasinghe says, adds credibility to his argument
that SARS has an external origin. According to his theory, a small amount of
the
virus introduced into the stratosphere could have lead to an initial fallout
east of the Himalayas, where the stratosphere is thinnest, followed by
sporadic
deposits in neighboring areas. "There would be a first point of descent,"
said Wickramasinghe. "This could have been in China." But most medical experts
are sticking to a more conventional explanation for the origin of SARS. "We
have
no scientific evidence that SARS or any other infectious disease has dropped
off a meteor at this point in time," Julie Gerberding, director of the
Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a recent
briefing.
"Should we discover any evidence supportive of that, we would let you know.
Gerberding said SARS is most explainable by natural evolution of coronaviruses,
either from an animal or a poultry source, or possibly a coronavirus that's
evolved in a human. "We have many hypotheses that are far more plausible than
meteorites," she said.
Collecting Bacteria About 100 tons (90 metric tons) of comet debris reach the
Earth on a daily basis, and Wickramasinghe says there is evidence for life
arriving with this debris. In an experiment two years ago, he and scientists
from the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organization sent sterile
collecting devices into space and brought back large quantities of
microorganisms in
samples of stratospheric air captured at an altitude of 26 miles (41
kilometers). The researchers were able to culture, or grow, two types of
microorganisms,
which proved similar to known terrestrial species. "Our findings lend support
to the view that microbial material falling from space is, in a Darwinian
sense, highly evolved, with an evolutionary history closely related to life
that
exists on Earth," said Wickramasinghe.
He estimates that a ton (0.9 metric ton) of bacterial material falls onto
Earth every day, translating into more than 1,000 bacteria. Most of this
material
simply adds to the unculturable or uncultured microbial flora present on
Earth. The researchers argue that the random nature of epidemics adds credence
to
their argument that disease-causing bacteria and viruses may be evolving in
outer space, parallel to those on Earth. "New epidemics have a record of
abrupt
entrances from time to time," said Wickramasinghe. "The patterns of spread of
these diseases are difficult to explain simply on the basic of endemic
infective agents." He says the unusual nature of major epidemics, such as the
influenza epidemic of 1917-19, where infection rates were not easily explained
by
epidemiological modeling, bears the hallmarks of a space incident. "Although
person-to-person spread occurred in local areas, the disease appeared on the
same
day in widely separated parts of the world on the one hand, but, on the other,
took days to weeks to spread relatively short distances," said
Wickramasinghe.
The Origins of Life on Earth The idea that SARS may have originated from
space is based on the argument that life first appeared on Earth some four
billion
years ago when the Earth suffered a prolonged period of comet impacts. This
is a controversial theory. Most scientists believe that life on Earth began as
a "primordial soup" in a lake or pond some 3.5 billion years ago: Chemicals
from the atmosphere combined with some form of energy necessary to make amino
acids (the building blocks of proteins) to create the first primitive
organisms,
kicking off the evolution of all species on Earth. Wickramasinghe disagrees.
He believes life did not start on Earth, but evolved on a much bigger scale,
in a cluster of galaxies. Earth merely became an "assembly station" for all
the
cosmic genes. "If Earth evolved in a closed-box situation, the argument we're
making about SARS would not carry much weight," he said. "But if you accept
the argument that life on Earth started from the outside, then all viruses
originated from the outside."
Sometime next year,
Dominicans in New York City plan to open a museum
and cultural center to document their immigrant experience. That is not
surprising, given the growth of the Dominican population. But the name
chosen for the center may come as more of a surprise: "Afro-Quisqueya,"
a nod to these Latinos' African roots.
As Latinos surpass African-Americans as the country's largest minority,
Latinos who are also black have been increasingly asserting their place
as a Hispanic subgroup.
Only 2 percent of Latinos counted in the 2000 census identified
themselves as black. But the proportion is much higher in New York,
which has a large concentration of Latinos from Caribbean countries with
a legacy of African slavery. Of those Latinos in the United States who
identified themselves as black, 28 percent - more than 200,000 - lived
in New York City.
The Afro-Latino presence has been felt locally in recent years in a
proliferation of music and cultural events, in new college courses and
conferences that explore black roots in Latin America and in the growing
numbers of Dominicans, who are predominantly black and are expected to
eventually surpass Puerto Ricans as the city's biggest Latino group.
"The Dominican Republic is a country with a tremendous African
influence; you see it in our daily customs, our music, our foods," said
Moises Perez, executive director of Alianza Dominicana, an advocacy and
social service agency that is building the Afro-Quisqueya Cultural
Center on West 166th Street in Manhattan. Quisqueya is the Indian name
for Hispaniola, the Caribbean island shared by Haiti and the Dominican
Republic.
Black Latinos straddle America's main racial divide as well as two
distinct cultures, and sometimes navigate treacherous waters. As a
student at Fordham University, Fernando Ramirez joined a black
fraternity. At Brooklyn Law School, he interned with the NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund. His Latino friends were curious, he said,
wanting to know why he did not work at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense
and Education Fund instead.
"I could tell what they were asking was, `Why are you at the black one?'
" said Mr. Ramirez, 35, now a lawyer in New York City.
Mr. Ramirez, born to a black Dominican mother and a white Puerto Rican
father and raised in Washington Heights in Manhattan, is light-skinned
and wears his hair in long dreadlocks. He goes to Spanish Mass and has a
Puerto Rican fiancée. Of his two closest friends, one is Puerto Rican,
the other African-American.
By now, he is used to being scrutinized.
"When I tell some African-Americans I'm black - a black Latino - they
think I'm being cute," he said. "I push it. I ask, what does `black'
mean? No one has a monopoly on black culture."
Jay Jolliffe, 36, a dark-skinned Panamanian who runs a marketing
research firm in New York, remembers being called the ugliest of racial
slurs used against blacks when her family moved to a white neighborhood
in Queens when she was 6. All her life, she said, some whites have
subjected her to their stereotypical views of African-Americans. She
still feels pressured sometimes to choose between her racial and
cultural identities.
"When I state I am a black Latino, some African-Americans feel like I am
trying to deny my blackness," she said. "Here, you have to define who
you are within these very narrow margins."
But recent surveys have shown resistance among Latinos to racial
classification. Almost half the respondents to a national survey last
year by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation said
they would rather answer "Hispanic" or "Latino" - and leave it at that -
than choose from the standard racial categories.
This was also evident in the 2000 census, where 42 percent of those
identifying themselves as "Hispanic," "Spanish" or "Latino" also
identified themselves as a member of "some other race" besides black or
white. An additional 6 percent said they were members of "two or more
races."
Many of those choosing these options are Mexican-Americans, whose racial
background includes a strong indigenous influence, experts in Latino
demographics said. But such preferences made Latinos "virtually alone in
breaking away from the standard racial categories," the Pew/Kaiser study
reported.
This resistance to racial categorization worries some advocates for
minority groups.
"If you have populations that need certain remedies, what do you do to
identify them?" asked William A. Darity, director of the Institute of
African American Research at the University of North Carolina.
Self-identification is the only way, he said, "while being careful that
how they are seen by others can be quite different from the way they
label themselves - and that may be more important in the kind of social
treatment they face."
Some black Latinos say that how others perceive them has an effect on
how they identify themselves. Maria Perez-Brown, 41, a Puerto Rican
television producer and entertainment lawyer in New York, is the
daughter of a dark-skinned Puerto Rican mother and a white Puerto Rican
father. She marked "Hispanic" and "black" on the census form.
"A lot of times society makes that decision for you," she said. "The way
American culture works, you select one or the other. If you're
brown-skinned and you say you're white, you're going to grow up with a
lot of conflict."
But self-identification can also be a personal choice. Nina Paulino, 42,
a Dominican who organizes a festival of Dominican African dance in New
York every year, is blue-eyed and olive-skinned but said she identifies
herself as a black Latina as a political statement, to honor her
father's side of the family.
"I had never given respect to that side of me" while growing up in the
Dominican Republic, she said.
Almost half the Latinos responding in the census - 47.9 percent -
identified themselves as white, even though many Americans might not see
some of them that way. In Latin America, by contrast, the concept of
race tends to be more elastic, said Roberto Suro, the director of the
Pew Hispanic Center. It often starts out from a baseline of mixed
heritage rather than one that is purely black or white.
"In the Caribbean we're white, but in this country we would be black,"
said Neyda Martinez, Fernando Ramirez's fiancée, who was born in Chicago
to Puerto Rican parents. She is dark-skinned, with long wavy hair, and
is often regarded as Indian in Puerto Rico but is more accurately
mulatto, a mix of black and white.
"It's empowering for Latinos to say you're black instead of Indian,"
said Ms. Martinez, who identifies herself as a black Latina. "Usually
people try to hide behind the romanticism of saying you're Indian. For
some it's a denial of the blackness. It's a very personal thing how
people identify themselves. You can't go by skin color."
Among the young, hip-hop has given black Latinos the confidence to
express a black racial identity, said Raquel Z. Rivera, author of the
just-released "New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone" (Palgrave
Macmillan), which documents the Puerto Rican roots of hip-hop,
particularly in the dancing. Some performers have even branched out from
hip-hop to reclaim African rhythms of their parents' countries, rhythms
like bomba, a Puerto Rican music form that has become popular among
Puerto Ricans in their 20's and 30's in the last five years, Ms. Rivera
said.
Will Jones, a 26-year-old black Latino of Panamanian descent, said that
when he was a teenager, hip-hop gave him a platform to rap about racial
matters and bond with African-Americans who shared his urban
experiences.
"When hip-hop began, most people thought it was just black people, but
it was really blacks and Latinos and it became the middle ground both
groups could feel part of," he said.
Mr. Jones, now a sales representative with Fat Beats, a Brooklyn hip-hop
label, said he has moved comfortably in the Hispanic and
African-American worlds because he sees himself as belonging to both.
"I'm 100 percent black and 100 percent Latino," he said. "I don't swing
back and forth - the pendulum is always in the middle."
Ms. Perez-Brown, who grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn,
said that when she attended Yale University there was a division between
the Puerto Ricans from the island - "rich and blonde," she said - and
"mainlanders" like her, dark-skinned, urban and more in tune with
African-Americans from the same background.
"It was a class issue, but class and race became commingled," she said.
"I made a conscious decision to hang out with blacks rather than the
Latin Americans."
These days, Ms. Perez-Brown is busy trying to pick the right skin tone
for Kaelyn, the lead character in an animated series she is creating for
Nickelodeon that features preschool superheroes. The character's parents
are Puerto Rican and African-American, like Ms. Perez-Brown and her
husband. Ms. Perez-Brown also has two other Nickelodeon shows to her
credit.
In the superheroes' circle of friends, one character is
African-American, another is Native American and a third is non-Hispanic
white. Kaelyn's brother is pink. Ms. Perez-Brown was leaning toward
making Kaelyn a medium brown, not unlike herself. While a marketing team
may look at the character's coloring as something that will help
determine its commercial success as a toy, Ms. Perez-Brown said, she has
other priorities in mind.
"I want black and Puerto Rican girls to be able to say, `That's me,' "
she said. "And `that's me' because of the way she acts, the way she
talks and the way she looks."
SONNY
CARSON WAY, COMING TO A BROOKLYN STREET
CARSON BIRTHDAY/MEMORIAL CELEBRATION
BY NAYABA ARINDE
There is a big Brooklyn birthday/memorial observation planned for late
elder activist Abubadika 'Sonny' Carson.
In two weeks tie, members of his Committee to Honor Black Heroes are
hosting the Sonny Abubadika Carson Memorial/Birthday Observance, at
Restoration Plaza in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on May 23, 2003.
On Friday -December 20, the 'Mayor of Bed-Stuy' made his transition
following a cardiac arrest in September.
Funeralized over the last Kwanzaa weekend, thousands turned out to honor
the man also known as AB.
"It is in this spirit, that we are asking friends, family, colleagues
and all those who simply just appreciated this great giant of a man, to
come and celebrate and memorialize him at this beautiful event,"
Committee member Pop Gaskins told the Daily Challenge.
"We lost a powerful man in Abubadika 'Sonny' Carson. We honor him by
continuing his work, and that is addressing the every day issues of the
people ? from housing, to education, to police harassment."
"It's been 100 days since Sonny's death, the legacy he left is a
glorious testimony to his commitment to the local, national and
international Black community," Atiim Ferguson added. "The nature of his
work shows us that there is still much that needs to be done. His last
project to rename Fulton Street Harriet Tubman Blvd. is soon to be
completed; and we hope that by the middle of this year, or the beginning
of next year we will rename a Bed-Stuy street ? Sonny's Way. Not avenue,
or road, but Sonny's Way. A school in Bed-Stuy will also be named after
him this year."
The vice-chairman of the Committee continued, "The organization Sonny
left behind is still carrying on his work, and that is to continue to be
a resource for our community. They can still come to us with issues of
concern; whether it is about their children and schools, or gangs or
police misconduct. Whatever the dilemma or positive program or event,
the Committee to Honor Black Heroes is here to assist."
Carson's wake took place on the first day of Kwanzaa ? Umoja ? meaning
unity. For four days of Kwanzaa, the international Black community
observed services and tributes; including an African-drum led
'homegoing' funeral procession, from the Brooklyn Bridge through many of
his old Bed-Stuy stomping ground in the People's Republic of Brooklyn.
"At the celebration and memorial, we will honor Sonny," said Gaskins.
"We will show his homegoing video; there will be a few select words;
some good home-cooked food; and in the African tradition we will honor
him with song. As well as local entertainment, they will be a deejay
playing some oldies, but goodies. We will reminisce, but we will
celebrate the brother too."
From running with some of Brooklyn's toughest gangs in his youth, Carson
was to become a much-respected elder statesman known the world over.
From local gang leaders, to elected officials, to national Black
leadership, to African chiefs; Carson was always just a phone call away.
But, despite his influence and his reach, the former paratrooper (Korea)
never abandoned the streets.
A South Carolinian by birth, Carson made Brooklyn his home and his HQ.
He renamed streets and schools after Black heroes such as El-Hajj Malik
El Shabazz and Marcus Garvey.
He led countless marches, founded and endorsed numerous organizations,
such as the Committee to Honor Black Heroes, the Black Men's Movement
Against Crack and the December 12th Movement.
A District Judge for the Republic of New Afrika, the man also known as
Mwlina Imiri Abubadika, always referred to himself as a "kidnapped
African" living in America. He personified Black Nationalism and was a
symbol of Black rebellion.
With 50 years in 'The Struggle,' the chairman of the Committee to Honor
Black Heroes, tackled everything from: from gang issues; to police
brutality; to community control in schools such as the historic Ocean
Hill Brownsville battle; to campaigning for amnesty for political
prisoners; to fighting for reparations; and before his passing was
working on renaming Brooklyn's Fulton Street after that other warrior
Harriet Tubman.
In 1998, he took the bones of his ancestor ? runaway enslaved African
Samuel Carson to Ghana. This act became an integral part of the Panafest
Emancipation Day celebration, forever transforming the 'Doors of No
Return' to the 'Doors of Return.'
The story of his early days is now a classic. The 1974 movie 'The
Education of Sonny Carson,' adapted from his autobiography of the same
name, has cult status, and was recently released on DVD.
"The Committee to Honor Black Heroes is a community resource. We are
trying to be something of a clearing house for community issues, where
people can come and have their concerns addressed," said Committee
member Ibidun Sundiata. "We are trying to identify resources and make
sure that they are utilized by the community. Services that not being
used may as well not be available. Our community has been targeted and
afflicted with unemployment; school closings; high infant mortality
rates; disturbing prenatal health care statistics and low health
insurance coverage numbers; and poor services for our elderly and our
youth.
"We want to help those suffering from alcohol and substance abuse.
They can be helped, but they can't do it alone.
"So, one of our priorities is to identify where services are
available and make the community aware of how they can gain access to
them. This is what Sonny always did. Whatever services we can not
provide, we will try and put people in touch with others who can."
Sundiata concluded, "We are trying to network in partnership with
elected officials, community leaders and organizations, who want to work
with integrity on behalf of our people. We want to improve our
community's opportunities. Sonny always kept out front and foremost
responding to the needs of the people."
For more information call (718) 398 7566.
FWD from Curtis Cost ccross@kua.net <ccross@kua.net>:
http://www.africa2000.com/BNDX/BAO112.htm
Baobab Press --Vol. 1 Number 12
BRAZIL
LAUNCHES INQUIRY INTO
U.S. POPULATION ACTIVITIES
The charge: millions sterilized
to meet U.S. political objectives
A U.S.-sponsored program that resulted in the sterilisation of nearly half
of Brazil's women has prompted a formal congressional inquiry, sponsored by
more than 165 legislators from every political party that is represented in
the Brazilian legislature. The investigation was initiated after information
about a secret U.S. National Security Council memorandum on American
population control objectives in developing countries was published in the
Jornal de Brasilia, Hova do Povo (Rio de Janeiro), Jornal do Brasil, and
other major newspapers in early May.
That U.S. foreign policy document, officially known as National Security
Study Memorandum 200 or NSSM 200, detailed a plan to target thirteen large
de- veloping nations with intensive efforts to promote population
"policies'' that would allow the U.S. to run massive birth control and
sterilisation projects in those countries.
Brazil, the study said, was placed on the list of thirteen target nations
because it "clearly dominates the continent [South America]
demographically,'' and its population was projected to equal that of the
United States by the turn of the century. This, said the report which was
jointly prepared for the National Security Council (NSC) in 1974 by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Departments of State and Defence
(DOD), and the Agency for International Development (USAID), suggests "a
growing power status for Brazil in Latin America and on the world scene over
the next 25 years.''
The NSC report listed twelve other nations whose growth could give them
increased political influence, and which were also to be targeted under the
international population program. Those are: Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, the Philippines,
Mexico and Colombia.
The document, which is over 200 pages in length, was written after a
proposed "world population plan of action'' was denounced by large numbers
of African and Latin America nations, by the Vatican, and by the entire
socialist bloc (with the exception of Romania), during a UN population
conference held in Bucharest in 1974.
The formerly-classified strategy document was approved as an integral part
of American foreign policy in 1975 by Brent Scowcroft, who served as then-
President Gerald Ford's security advisor. He occupies the same office today
under George Bush.
Reports about the document, as well as about the Brazilian inquiry, have
since appeared in every part of Brazil and throughout Central and South
America.
Brazil's Ministry of Health, which had begun an investigation into the
sterilisation program even before the American population strategy documents
were disclosed, has revealed that 44 percent of all Brazilian women between
the ages of 14 and 55 have been permanently sterilised. The older women
apparently had the operation done when the program started, nearly two
decades ago. News reports charge that many of these women underwent the
operation without their knowledge or consent.
Benedita da Silva of the Workers Party (PT), who represents the residents of
impoverished sections of Rio de Janeiro known as favelas, will head the
legislative investigation. According to some reports, as many as 90 percent
of all Brazilian women of African descent have been sterilised. If true,
this would nearly eliminate future generations of black people in Latin
America's largest nation. Brazil's black population is reported to be second
in size only to Nigeria's. At least half of Brazil's 154 million people are
believed to be of African ancestry.
The sterilisation program in Brazil, like those just now beginning in dozens
of African nations, started as a relatively small, "voluntary'' family
planning campaign, which publicly stressed spacing children rather than
reducing population growth. It quickly and quietly escalated, however,
taking advantage of unfavorable economic conditions -- themselves largely
imposed through the policies of the U.S. and other developed countries -- to
press for limitations in family size.
The massive sterilisation activities were mainly orchestrated by BEMFAM, the
Brazilian affiliate of the London-based International Planned Parenthood
Federation, according to news reports.
Several private U.S. population contractors, operating with funds from the
U.S. Agency for International Development, are also involved. These include
the Pathfinder Fund, the Johns Hopkins University Population Communication
Services project, Family Health International, the John Snow "Enterprise''
program, the Program for the Introduction and Adaptation of Contraceptive
Technology (PIACT), and the Association for Voluntary Surgical
Contraceptive. All have current activities both in Brazil and in numerous
African nations. Some of the Brazilian programs funded through these groups
are subcontracted to BEMFAM, while other projects are run by the USAID
contractors through paid contacts at Brazilian universities, family planning
clinics, firms, and individuals.
In recent years, Brazilian officials have begun to raise objections to the
level of population activities in their country. A large shipment of condoms
from USAID was held up in customs for over a year and then seized by
Brazilian agents as contraband, according to a report released in late 1989
by the Office of the Inspector General at USAID. The same report advised
that Brazilian authorities had complained that the level of U.S. population
assistance had become "overwhelming and unnecessary.''
Last summer, health officials began the investigation that showed the
incredibly high sterilisation rate. That information coincided with the
revelations about U.S. intentions to curb births in developing countries.
Aside from advocating a strategy to contain the political influence of large
and rapidly growing developing countries, the document stressed the need to
maintain orderly, pro-U.S. leadership in countries that supply "strategic
and critical'' materials needed for normal U.S. military and industrial
operations. The NSC report stated that the U.S. "will require large and
increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed
countries. That fact gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political,
economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a
lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase
the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to
resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States.''
It advised, too, that the relatively young populations characteristic of
societies with high birthrates give momentum to nationalist movements
because young people can more easily be persuaded to attack foreign
investments and other influences seen as "imperialistic.''
The document also detailed a strategy for persuading leaders in the
developing world to cooperate with the population program, urging that
various agencies of the United Nations, the U.S. Information Agency, the
World Bank, and USAID collaborate with other industrial country donors to
influence leaders of targeted "LDCs'' [less-developed countries]. "We should
give higher priorities in our information programs world-wide for this area
[population control] and consider expansion of collaborative arrangements
with multilateral institutions in population education programs,'' it said.
It warned, however, that there was a "danger that some LDC leaders will see
developed country pressures for family planning as a form of economic or
racial imperialism; this could well create a serious backlash.'' The U.S.,
it added, "can help to minimise charges of an imperialist motivation behind
its support of population activities by repeatedly asserting that such
support derives from a concern with (a) the right of the individual to
determine freely and responsibly their number and spacing of children ...
and (b) the fundamental social and economic development of poor countries.''
It also recommended that U.S. foreign service and diplomatic personnel "be
alert to opportunities for expanding our assistance efforts and for
demonstrating to their leaders the consequences of rapid population growth
and the benefits of actions to reduce fertility.''
The secret document also noted that it is "vital'' that officials avoid
giving the impression of "an industrialised country policy to keep their
strength down'' because this could "create a serious backlash adverse to the
cause of population stability.''
The study also suggested that, where diplomatic initiatives fail to persuade
leaders their populations should be reduced, "mandatory programs may be
needed and ... we should be considering these possibilities now.'' Specific
forms of coercion proposed in the study were limited to food rationing and
"taking account of family planning performance'' in foreign assistance
payments.
The document further advised that in countries where leaders had raised
strong objections to population control plans -- specifically including
Brazil, Nigeria, and Ethiopia -- population funds "would have to come from
other donors and/or from private and international organisations,'' although
these groups would receive contributions from USAID. In other words, at
least in those countries, the U.S. planned to conceal its funding of such
"private'' population activities.
Nations in Asia and Latin America took most of the pressure in the early
1970s, largely because African leaders were strongly opposed to population
control. But by the early 1980s, the World Bank had revised its guidelines
for funding consumable supplies, and began promoting population reduction
projects as an integral part of development loans in Africa and as a
condition for credit.
Today, most African nations have adopted formal policies that state
birthrates are "too high.'' While such official statements do not
necessarily translate into actions, they nonetheless open the door to
further diplomatic maneuvers and pressure tactics by foreign governments and
international lending agencies. Eventually, such pressure is intended to
bring about the kind of coercive "family planning'' programs in Africa were
enacted in India (and which are credited, at least in part, with the 1984
assassination of Indira Gandhi) and those now under investigation in Brazil.
Still, there are several African nations that have not yet even produced
these formal policy statements: Mozambique, Somalia, Angola, Tchad, Congo,
Gabon, Libya, Sudan, Namibia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinee,
Mali, Mauritania and Togo among them. And in others, there are strict rules
that make such statements unenforceable by Western governments and their
private intermediaries; sterilisation, for example, is a criminal offense in
Ethiopia, according to a study of national policies done by the UN several
years ago.
The action of Brazil's legislature is an example of an effective response
that comes too late. Already about 25 million Brazilian women have
permanently, and, in many cases unwillingly, been deprived of the capacity
to bear children.
Said Heraclio Salles, one of Brazil's most respected journalists and colum-
nists: "They have given and are giving millions of women procedures that do
not differ in their final objectives from those employed by the nazis under
the Hitler regime to affect the removal of the Jewish population.''
COPYRIGHT U.S.A. 1991
BAOBAB PRESS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM THE UNITED NATIONS DATABASE
A U.S. $67 million program, funded by USAID and implemented by the
Pathfinder Fund, includes (among scores of others) a "PAMPA'' project to
implement "psycho-social assistance'' with emphasis on "family planning'' in
Sao Paulo, Brazil; a joint Pathfinder- BEMFAM program to survey adult
attitudes on birth control and to sponsor a Latin American population
conference; and a program to "continue participation in the shaping of the
national discussion on population issues'' with an emphasis on the impact of
such discussions on Brazil's new Constitution. In Nigeria, Pathfinder has an
even larger number of current activities, including the training of medical
personnel to perform birth control procedures in just about every state, as
well as projects to "improve knowledge, attitude and practice of family
planning'' among both rural and urban women. It funneled approximately $2
million from USAID into a national family planning campaign in Zimbabwe
between 1987 and 1990, and has contributed large amounts of money to similar
projects in Kenya and Tanzania, with smaller activities in several other
African nations. The Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception
(formerly Assn. for Voluntary Sterilisation) conducts activities primarily
to promote methods that cause permanent infertility. It has U.S. $80 million
in AID contracts, with numerous activities both in Brazil and Nigeria; it
has made several recent payments to universities, hospitals and family
planning associations in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Rwanda, Malawi, Burundi, Zaire, Mali, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. The PIACT
program funds publications and media projects, as well as contraceptive
distribution networks in Brazil. It conducts similar activities in about a
dozen African states.
Source: United Nations Population Fund Inventory of Population Projects in
Developing Countries Around the World
This news release is based on published reports in Jornal de Brasilia,
Jornal do Brasil, Hova do Povo (Brazil), El Financiero, El Dia
Latinoamericano (Mexico), and other newspapers in Brazil, Colombia and
Mexico which appeared between 1 May 1991 and mid-July. Information on the
U.S. National Security Council population memorandum is taken from the
document itself, titled "Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for
U.S. Security and Overseas Interests,'' which is on file at the National
Archives in Washington, D.C. Other material comes from reference books
published by the U.S. government, the United Nations and the World Bank.
Permission to reprint, to translate, or to edit this article is granted to
editors and publishers. This news service is sponsored entirely by private,
voluntary donations, and no compensation is requested or expected from
users. For more information about this story or about the Baobab Press,
please contact us at P. O. Box 43345, Washington, DC 20010--U.S.A.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/SAsia/depop/Chap2.html
1984
Time has come to resist the population control activities
Welcome to this international tribunal on reproductive rights. We are all
here today to start the conference concerning population control programs
indifferent countries of the world, say in Asia, Africa, Latin-America and
countries in Europe. We will share our experiences of these programs
specific to our own countries. No doubt, we speak different languages and
come from different cultural and historical back-rounds, but I believe and
perhaps you will also agree, that the basic ideology of population control
is the same for all of us. Because, first of all it did not originate in our
specific countries, it came from abroad. The ideology, the money and the
contraceptives all are there from abroad which we received along with the
'aid for development'. Therefore, the problems related to each of us and the
counter arguments to the ideology of population control are going to be the
same for all of us. We identify with each other and feel the necessity of
having a conference of this sort to formulate our strategy for future
action. The greatness of the tribunal is that it has brought women from all
over the world to discuss about the most serious political issue of
population control and is addressing the crucial questions of drug dumping
by multinational companies. Sterilisation abuse, contraceptive abuses and
the ideology and practices of population control affects women in the third
world countries as well as in the developed countries. It has become clear
that it is women who have to take the lead in the protest against this and
also to take part in the democratic revolution taking shape in most of these
countries. Women must participate and liberate themselves as person! It is
very encouraging to see today that so many women have come from different
parts of the world which means that the movement is taking the international
character. We must pursue this trend to take it to its logical conclusions.
Now, if you permit, I will take some time to give an overview of the
political theme of the population control with specific reference to
Bangladesh, because Bangladesh has now become one of the biggest population
control program in the country leading towards 'depopulation' and is moving
in line with the chances in the international population policies. I am
sure, most of you who are from the Third World countries will find
amazingly, how that is similar to the population control programs in your
own countries. Nothing new will perhaps be known from the history of
population control in Bangladesh: we have known most of it from the
experiences of Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, etc. But certainly
this attempt will help us to clarify our position on depopulation and the
composition of the foreign interventionist policies on women in all the
countries of the world. We do not want that control any more.
All types of societies practice some sort of birth control, Bangladesh is no
exception. Neither are the societies in Africa, Latin America or any country
in Asia. People practiced birth control like coitus interruptus, abstinence,
moral restraint, or indigenous method of abortion for generations. These
birth control practices served the particular need specific to a certain
phase of social development of the individual and their families and
consequently the need of the society in general. The social norm and
reproductive behaviour correspond to these needs. This fact, although known
to ethnographers for long, is being mentioned here for uneducated intellect
of the west exposed heavily to the propaganda of population controllers and
for population explosion theorists. Due to this unhealthy exposure an image
has been successfully constituted in the west that "overpopulated "
societies are populous because they breed like animal. A vegetative
non-human existence has been continually projected. The poverty and under
development in the third world societies are explained by their inert
thing-like reproductive behaviour: they are poor, because they breed too
many. Horrifyingly, the west has noticed that these animals are breeding
unknowingly to the extent of exploding the global availability of
subsistence.
The reasons that population control is being practised in all third world
countries are mostly that of the fear of taking over the majority of poor
over the rich minority both at national and international level, the fear of
taking over the black majority over the white minority and the fear of
taking over the working- class over the bourgeoisie class. The resource
distribution in the world is uneven and now the developed nations seem to be
worried about the fact that they do not have enough people to enjoy their
resources. They are found to be selectively encouraging an increase in their
own countries, and among the whites in countries like Africa. This shows
that the issue of populations control is selective and is because the
developed nations do not want to redistribute the resources through
improving the international economic relations between the countries and
through changes in the social and economic structure within the countries,
they resort to limit the number of the future revolutionaries.
In the forthcoming World Population Conference to be held in Mexico(1984),
the World Bank is going to alarm the world (as they always did before, and
already World Development Report has done it) with the message that high
rates of population growth are holding back economic and social development
in many of the poorer countries. The World Bank therefore is going to put
its authority as the most powerful international development agency behind
the case for bringing population policy into the centre of debate on
development planning. The World Bank President A. W. Clausen says in the
foreword to the report that "failure to act now to slow population growth is
likely to mean lower quality of life for millions of people. In the poorest
countries, poverty contributes to high mortality and even higher fertility."
Of course, no specific measures are being taken to eradicate the poverty
except by cutting down the number of poor people through forced reduced
births. The argument in favour of family planning on the part of the donors
is that, "it is remarkably cheap and highly cost-effective."
As we know the United States government and the private foundations like
Rockefeller and Ford Foundations are working actively for population control
abroad. For years, they have worked through the private organisations and
the governments in many developing countries to control the population
growth rate. In Bangladesh, for example, USAID is one of the largest donors
in the population control program, next to the World Bank, and suggests
explicitly that to achieve the desired decline in the population growth rate
the government should handle the problem by
"suspending the normal rules, by going outside the usual government
procedures and resorting to any and all socially acceptable measures which
seem likely to work". Interestingly enough, while USAID has been pursuing to
adopt a policy equivalent to crisis management, the paper prepared for the
Mexico Conference by the US government says that, "the population was a
challenge, it need not have been a crisis." The paper surprises everybody
when it says that "more people do not mean less growth, that is absurd on
its face". Indeed, the paper further says, "both in American experience and
in the economic history of the most advanced nations, populations growth has
been an essential element in the economic progress."
However, we need not to be convinced with the argument put forward by the
United States, we have our own explanations and analysis. But what is
interesting here is that United States does believe that population is not
the problem. The US government, by putting argument against population
control, is in fact responding to the anti-abortionist lobby in the USA,
because President Reagan has to yield to these pressures in the election
year. Also the USA is not going to support coercive sterilisation programs
on paper, of course). We know that according to the US Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961, no US money can be paid for inducing sterilisation operation,
too. But according to our experiences in Bangladesh , we know that the
incentive money for sterilisation is paid by the USAID in the name of the
compensation charges to the clients. In a country like Bangladesh where more
than 80 percent of the people are living below poverty line and many people
are without work during most of the time of the year, (he money paid for
undergoing sterilisation operation is certainly not a "compensation" rather
it is an inducement to take sterilisation in return for money. Now,
incentive money is also being offered to the clients of Copper-T and the
government is also planning to offer incentives to the acceptors of
Depo-Provera.
The history of population control program in Bangladesh starting- from1952
is an example of the external intervention into the reproductive behaviour
of a society. The country had just liberated itself from the long history of
British colonisation, and during this time period new political and economic
interventions from the United States were showing up in many of the Latin
American countries as well. The first intervention in Bangladesh was made
through the formation of private organisation called Bangladesh Family
Planning Association. The organisation received most of its funds from
abroad, and a nominal support was received from the government (of
Pakistan). Internationally, interventionists had not yet finished setting up
their operational structure. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America
had just organised into an international operation in 1948, to become
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). To add scientific
legitimacy to population control pro-rams, the Population Council was
established. The initial strategy of operation was that the private
organisations were to operate informally. Their primary task would be to
keep an eye on certain elites in foreign governments and eventually to
establish formal programme. The concern for the growing pressure of
population on the resources of the planet was expressed in a conference on
World Population in Rome in the year 1954, held under the auspices of the
United Nations. From 1965, the official government program of population
control started in the country by recruiting large number female family
planning workers to motivate couples (women in particular) and to distribute
contraceptives. After the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, the
country went through massive population control program and much more with
experimental programs and dumping Planning programs. During the Bucharest
Conference on Population in 1974, consensus grew about the necessity of
having development programs along with the family planning programs,
including health services to the people. The multisectoral development
programs were developed with the funds from the World Bank and the UNFPA and
was part of the overall development strategy of the World Bank in the Third
World countries. After 1980, the program has taken its drastic shape with
the major emphasis on sterilisation, and the clinical methods as temporary
methods of contraception.
Integrating women into development activities became important concern of
the policy makers with the primary assumptions that if women are
economically liberated, they will have decision making power about the
family size. Let me assure you, that the necessity of abolition of
patriarchal relation was not posited in these assumptions. Women, however,
received much attention from then on, not because they recognise women as
person, but because it was easy to put the burden of population control on
women and dump all the harmful contraceptives into their bodies. The
examples of the use of Depo-Provera pills. IUDs prove that the concern for
women's health was never an issue; rather women fell into the trap of not
wanting to bear the burden of pregnancy, they had the option of only
accepting contraceptives. The fact that the maternal mortality is very high
in many of the poor countries like Bangladesh the justification for pushing
harmful contraceptives was made valid. The health hazards caused by
contraceptives were overlooked, but Maternal and Child Health Care services
are provided to create a favourable condition for the acceptance of
contraceptives by women.
In societies where western family planning is not accepted, it is again
women who face the burden of social resistances and the pressures. For
example: in Bangladesh, many women are refused for burial after death
because they were sterilised. Moreover, due to contraceptive side-effects of
excessive bleeding and weakness, women who are earning- their livelihood
through working, outside their houses, are gradually becoming out of work,
which means starvation to most of them. Not only that, in a family women are
the crucial labour force for doing household works and the post harvest
works in the rural families. Under the conditions, where women maintain
their credibility by giving birth to male children and doing necessary
works, the acceptance of contraceptive methods aggravates their vulnerable
situation and even they are thrown out of their husband's houses.
Another most important aspect of the population control program in countries
of the world is that it is simply a process of marketing of contraceptives
produced by the multinational drug manufacturers, like Ortho, Syntex,
Searle, Upjohn etc., who are interested in having markets for their products
both in their own country and abroad. Therefore, women in the developed
countries are also victimised as their sisters in the poor countries. But
since the drug administration in the developed countries are strict, the
poor countries become the dumping ground for the banned and harmful drugs.
The cases of Dalkon Shield IUD of A.H. Robins, Depo-Provera of Upjohn and
the Pills of Syntex are well known to everybody. Not only that, the poorer
countries also provide the laboratory for the test of new drugs with the
guinea pigs, called women. Initially pills were tested on women in Latin
American countries, and now Norplant (a subdermal implant) is being tested
and even used in Finland, Thailand, Dominican Republics, Brazil etc. Under
the current US law, new drugs and other important pharmaceuticals cannot be
exported for sale abroad until they received approval for marketing in the
US by Federal Drug Administration(FDA) or US Department of Agriculture. This
ban on exports has had a significant adverse impact upon the US economy and
on the international competitive position of the American firms. Therefore,
the drug industry is seeking federal legislation which would allow to export
and manufacture of drugs which are not approved for use in the United
States. This is called the Export Bill, which if it is passed, is going to
legitimize the criminal marketing behaviour of the drug industry. This
situation is very alarming for the developing countries and therefore
resistance must be developed within our own countries to have a strong
Import-Bill, which will not allow any banned drugs.
It therefore becomes evident that the time has come to resist the population
control activities and resist the suppressions in the developing countries.
And for that, women must take the lead in the movement against external
interventions.
With this, I open the tribunal sessions for the week and hope to have a
lively discussion on the crucial issues of population policies.
Wish you all good luck for the week.
[Opening Speech at the International Women & Health Meeting No. 4 and
Women's International Tribunal & Meeting on Reproductive Rights 22-28 July
1984. Amsterdam, The Netherlands.]
Chapter 3 ]
http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-15-99.html
May 15, 1999
Don't Fund UNFPA Population Control
by Stephen Moore
Stephen Moore is director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Within the next week or so Congress will vote on whether to restore $60
million of U.S. taxpayer funding over the next two years for the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). For at least 30 years the UNFPA has been a
complicit partner in some of the most unspeakably brutal population control
programs around the globe -- including China's genocidal one-couple,
one-child policy. Almost universally, women and children -- at least
hundreds of thousands of them -- have been the victims of this fanatical
crusade. The UNFPA should not be re-funded. It should be universally
condemned for the evil acts in which it has participated.
These days almost no sane person gives any credence to the population bomb
hysteria that was all the rage in the 1960s and 1970s. Every prediction of
massive starvations, eco-catastrophes of biblical proportions and $100 a
barrel oil has been discredited by the global economic and environmental
progress of the past quarter century. Intellectually, the Malthusian limits
to growth menace is stone dead.
But within the Clinton-Gore State Department, Malthusianism flourishes. The
Clinton administration still allocates almost $300 million a year to
international population control -- or what is euphemistically described
these days as "family planning." In countries ranging from India to Mexico
to Nigeria to Brazil, the basic human right of couples to control their own
fertility and determine their own family size has been trampled upon by the
state, thanks in larger part to flows of dollars and deluges of false
limits-to-growth propaganda supplied by the American government.
The UNFPA, however, has had a particularly demon-like presence in developing
nations. Back in the Reagan years, Congress sensibly pulled out of the UNFPA
because of its complicity in some of the most inhumane forms of population
containment. Today the UNFPA ludicrously maintains the fiction that the
agency has fought coercive policies. How does one explain then, that UNFPA
once gave an award to the Chinese government for the effectiveness of its
genocidal one child per couple policy?
To this day no one knows precisely how many babies and women have died at
the hands of the population control fanatics in China. What we do know is
that this program will go down in history as one of the greatest abuses of
human rights in the 20th century (see table). The Chinese government's birth
control policy has already claimed an estimated 5-10 million victims. I say
already because this is an ongoing genocide. An estimated 80-90 percent of
the victims have been girls. UNFPA still spends millions each year on
population control programs in China.
Incredibly the members of Congress leading the campaign to restore funding
for the UNFPA tend to be "pro-choice" women -- principally Carolyn Maloney
of New York, Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Connie Morella of Maryland. But
how in the world can an agency that participates in programs that sterilize
women against their will or that tells women they have an ecological
responsibility to have only one or at most two children possibly be called
pro-choice? Last year the U.S. Senate Committee on Human Rights heard from
witnesses of the China population program, who related how rural women are
forcibly strapped to steel tables in "hospitals" and their babies aborted --
in some cases in the 7th, 8th and 9th months of pregnancy. Ms. Maloney may
fantasize that the UNFPA promotes "reproductive rights," but there are quite
literally millions of women in China, India and Mexico who would beg to
differ.
These programs were never about giving women reproductive choice. Just the
opposite. Population control programs have been from their inception about
preventing couples from having "too many" babies. Moreover, these "family
planning" services do not promote women's and children's health; they come
at its expense. There are many Third World hospitals that lack bandages,
needles and basic medicines but are filled to the brim with boxes of
condoms -- stamped UNFPA or USAID.
Rep. Maloney believes that population control is necessary to "stop hunger
and preserve our world's resources." In Maloney's dim world view, human
beings are not resources. They are destroyers of resources. Yes, the spirit
of Malthus is alive and well in the U.S. Congress.
A vote for the UNFPA is a vote for a fanatical anti-people creed that holds
that we should celebrate the planting of a tree, or a litter of three baby
seals, but that we should regard the birth of a human couple's third baby in
China or India or even the United States as eco-terrorism. This is a
fundamentally anti-Christian philosophy and it explains why groups like
UNFPA, Zero Population Growth and Planned Parenthood view the Catholic
Church as "the evil empire."
The cause of world hunger and environmental disasters in the world today is
not too many people. It is too much statism. Almost all of the greatest
ecological damage of the past 50 years was perpetrated by the socialists
behind the iron curtain.
Reagan had it right when he declared 15 years ago that economic growth is
"the best contraceptive." The UNFPA is at best irrelevant to economic
development and probably a deterrent. To help women and children in the
developing world, the United States should be exporting capitalism, not
condoms.
Greatest Genocides of the 20th Century
Turkey's Slaughter of Armenians
0.5 - 1.0 million
Hitler's Holocaust
6 million
Pol Pot's Killing Fields
1 - 2 million
Stalin Extermination of Jews
10 million
Mao's Great Leap Forward
10 - 20 million
Chinese One-Child Policy
5 - 10 million
www.thinktwice.com
http://thinktwice.com/birthcon.htm
Are New Vaccines
Laced with Birth-Control Drugs?
During the early 1990s, the World Health Organization (WHO) had been
overseeing massive vaccination campaigns against tetanus in a number of
countries, among them Nicaragua, Mexico, and the Philippines. In October
1994, HLI received a communication from its Mexican affiliate, the Comite'
Pro Vida de Mexico, regarding that country's anti-tetanus campaign.
Suspicious of the campaign protocols, the Comite' obtained several vials of
the vaccine and had them analyzed by chemists. Some of the vials were found
to contain human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), a naturally occurring
hormone essential for maintaining a pregnancy.
hCG and Anti-hCG Antibodies
In nature the hCG hormone alerts the woman's body that she is pregnant and
causes the release of other hormones to prepare the uterine lining for the
implantation of the fertilized egg. The rapid rise in hCG levels after
conception makes it an excellent marker for confirmation of pregnancy: when
a woman takes a pregnancy test she is not tested for the pregnancy itself,
but for the elevated presence of hCG.
However, when introduced into the body coupled with a tetanus toxoid
carrier, antibodies will be formed not only against tetanus but also against
hCG. In this case the body fails to recognize hCG as a friend and will
produce anti-hCG antibodies. The antibodies will attack subsequent
pregnancies by killing the hCG which naturally sustains a pregnancy; when a
woman has sufficient anti-hCG antibodies in her system, she is rendered
incapable of maintaining a pregnancy.(1)
HLI reported the sketchy facts regarding the Mexican tetanus vaccines to its
World Council members and affiliates in more than 60 countries.(2) Soon
additional reports of vaccines laced with hCG hormones began to drift in
from the Philippines, where more than 3.4 million women were recently
vaccinated. Similar reports came from Nicaragua, which had conducted its own
vaccination campaign in 1993.
The Known Facts
Here are the known facts concerning the tetanus vaccination campaigns in
Mexico and the Philippines:
* Only women are vaccinated, and only the women between the ages of 15 and
45. (In Nicaragua the age range was 12-49.) But aren't men at least as
likely as young women to come into contact with tetanus? And what of the
children? Why are they excluded?
* Human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) hormone has been found in the
vaccines. It does not belong there -- in the parlance of the O.J. Simpson
murder trial, the vaccine has been "contaminated."
* The vaccination protocols call for multiple injections -- three within
three months and a total of five altogether. But, since tetanus vaccinations
provide protection for ten years or more, why are multiple inoculations
called for?(3)
* WHO has been actively involved for more than 20 years in the development
of an anti-fertility vaccine utilizing hCG tied to tetanus toxoid as a
carrier -- the exact same coupling as has been found in the
Mexican-Philippine-Nicaragua vaccines.(4)
The Anti-Fertility Gang
Allied with the WHO in the development of an anti-fertility vaccine (AFV)
using hCG with tetanus and other carriers have been UNFPA, the UN
Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the Population Council, the
Rockefeller Foundation, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and a
number of universities, including Uppsala, Helsinki, and Ohio State.(5) The
U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (part of NIH)
was the supplier of the hCG hormone in some of the AFV experiments.(6)
The WHO begain its "Special Programme" in human reproduction in 1972, and by
1993 had spent more than $356 million on "reproductive health" research.(7)
It is this "Programme" which has pioneered the development of the
abortificant vaccine. Over $90 million of this Programme's funds were
contributed by Sweden; Great Britain donated more than $52 million, while
Norway, Denmark and Germany kicked in for $41 million , $27 million, and $12
million, respectively. The U.S., thanks to the cut-off of such funding
during the Reagan-Bush administrations, has contributed "only" $5.7 million,
including a new payment in 1993 by the Clinton administration of $2.5
million. Other major contibutors to the WHO Programme include UNFPA, $61
million; the World Bank, $15.5 million; the Rockefeller Foundation, $2.5
million; the Ford Foundation, over $1 million; and the IDRC (International
Research and Development Centre of Canada), $716.5 thousand.
WHO and Philippine Health Department Excuses
When the first reports surfaced in the Philippines of tetanus toxoid vaccine
being laced with hCG hormones, the WHO and the Philippine Department of
Health (DOH) immediately denied that the vaccine contained hCG. Confronted
with the results of laboratory tests which detected its presence in three of
the four vials of tetanus toxoid examined, the WHO and DOH scoffed at the
evidence coming from "right-to-life and Catholic" sources. Four new vials of
the tetanus vaccine were submitted by DOH to St. Luke's (Lutheran) Medical
Center in Manila -- and all four vials tested positive for hCG!
From outright denial the stories now shifted to the allegedly
"insignificant" quantity of the hCG present; the volume of hCG present is
insufficient to produce anti-hCG antibodies.
But new tests designed to detect the presence of hCG antibodies in the blood
sera of women vaccinated with the tetauns toxoid vaccine were undertaken by
Philippine pro-life and Catholic groups. Of thirty women tested subsequent
to receiving tetanus toxoid vaccine, twenty-six tested positive for high
levels of anti-hCG! If there were no hCG in the vaccine, or if it were
present in only "insignificant" quantities, why were the vaccinated women
found to be harboring anti-hCG antibodies? The WHO and the DOH had no
answers.
New arguments surfaced: hCG's apparent presence in the vaccine was due to
"false positives" resulting from the particular substances mixed in the
vaccine or in the chemicals testing for hCG. And even if hCG was really
there, its presence derived from the manufacturing process.
But the finding of hCG antibodies in the blood sera of vaccinated women
obviated the need to get bogged down in such debates. It was no longer
necessary to argue about what may or may not have been the cause of the hCG
presence, when one now had the effect of the hCG. There is no known way for
the vaccinated women to have hCG antibodies in their blood unless hCG had
been artificially introduced into their bodies!
Why A Tetanus Toxoid "Carrier"?
Because the human body does not attack its own naturally occurring hormone
hCG, the body has to be fooled into treating hCG as an invading enemy in
order to develop a successful anti-fertility vaccine utilizing hCG
antibodies. A paper delivered at the 4th International Congress of
Reproductive Immunology (Kiel, West Germany, 26-29 July 1989) spelled it
out: "Linkage to a carrier was done to overcome the immunological tolerance
to hCG."(8)
Vaccine Untested by Drug Bureau
After the vaccine controversy had reached a fever pitch, a new bombshell
exploded; none of the three different brands of tetanus vaccine being used
had ever been licensed for sale and distribution or registered with the
Philippine Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), as required by law. The head of
the BFAD lamely explained that the companies distributing these brands "did
not apply for registration."(9) The companies in question are Connaught
Laboratories Ltd. and Intervex, both from Canada, and CSL Laboratories from
Australia.
It seemed that the BFAD might belatedly require re-testing, but the idea was
quickly rejected when the Secretary of Health declared that, since the
vaccines had been certified by the WHO -- there they are again! -- there was
assurance enough that the "vaccines come from reputable manufacturers."(10)
Just how "reputable" one of the manufacturers might be is open to some
question. In the mid-`80s Connaught Laboratories was found to be knowingly
distributing vials of AIDS-contaminated blood products.(11)
Epilogue
At this juncture, evidence is beginning to appear from Africa.(12) HLI has
called for a Congressional investigation of the situation, inasmuch as
nearly every agency involved in the development of an anti-fertility vaccine
is funded, at least in part, with U.S. monies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
(1) "Abortifacient vaccines loom as new threat," HLI Reports, November 1993,
pp. 1-2.
(2) World Council Reports, 28 November 1994, pp. 4-5.
(3) A call placed by this writer on 5 May 1995 to the Montgomery County
(Maryland) Health Department, Epidemology Division -- Infectious Diseases --
Adult Immunizations, elicited the following information:
Q. For how long a time does the tetanus vaccination offer protection?
A. 10 years.
Q. Have you ever heard of any adult requiring three tetanus vaccinations
within a 3 or 4 month time period, and a total of 5 vaccinations in all
within a year or so?
A. Whaaaat! Never. No way!
Reports from the Philippines appear to confirm the 10-year immunity afforded
by tetanus toxoid vaccinations: prior to the campaigns begun in 1993, the
so-called booster shots were given only every 10 years.
(4) More than a score of articles, many written by WHO researchers, document
WHO's attempts to create an anti-fertility vaccine utilizing tetanus toxoid
as a carrier. Some leading articles include:
"Clinical profile and Toxicology Studies on Four Women Immunized with
Pr-B-hCG-TT," Contraception, February, 1976, pp. 253-268.
"Observations on the antigenicity and clinical effects of a candidate
antipregnancy vaccine: B-subunit of human chorionic gonadotropin linked to
tetanus toxoid," Fertility and Sterility, October 1980, pp. 328-335.
"Phase 1 Clinical Trials of a World Health Organisation Birth Control
Vaccine," The Lancet, 11 June 1988, pp. 1295-1298. "Vaccines for Fertility
Regulation," Chapter 11, pp. 177-198, Research in Human Reproduction,
Biennial Report (1986-1987), WHO Special Programme of Research, Development
and Research Training in Human Reproduction (WHO, Geneva 1988).
"Anti-hCG Vaccines are in Clinical Trials," Scandinavian Journal of
Immunology, Vol. 36, 1992, pp. 123-126.
(5) These institutional names are garnered from the journal articles cited
in the previous footnote.
(6) Lancet, 11 June 1988, p. 1296.
(7) Challenges in Reproductive Health Research, Biennial Report 1992-1993,
World Health Organization, Geneva, 1994, p. 186.
(8) G.P. Talwar, et al, "Prospects of an anti-hCG vaccine inducing
antibodies of high affinity...(etc)," Reproductive Technology 1989, Elsevier
Science Publishers, 1990, Amsterdam, New York, p. 231.
(9) "3 DOH vaccines untested by BFAD," The Philippine Star, 4 April 1995,
pp. 1, 12.
(10) "BFAD junks re-testing of controversial shot," Manila Standard, 7 April
1995; "DOH: Toxoid vaccines are safe," The Philippine Star, 7 April 1995.
(11) "Ottawa got blood tainted by HIV." Ottawa Citizen, 4 April 1995.
(12) A nearly two-year old communique from Tanzania tells a familiar story:
tetanus toxoid vaccinations, five in all, given only to women aged 15-45.
Nigeria, too, may have been victimized; see The Lancet, 4 June 1988, p.
1273.
Credit: Copyright June/July 1995 by James A. Miller, special correspondent
for Human Life International. This article was originally published in HLI
Reports, Human Life International, Gaithersburg, Maryland; June/July 1995,
Volume 13, Number 8. Permission to reprint granted to Thinktwice/New
Atlantean Press.
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/who.html
World Health Organisation (WHO), UN & Third World vaccination
http://www.who.int/gpv/
http://www.africa2000.com/RNDX/rndx.htm
"If we look closely, we realise that health for all, according to the WHO,
means medicalization and vaccinations for all. That is to say sickness for
all."---Guyliane Lanctot, M.D.
"AIDS and SARS are ways for epidemiologists (e.g., the CDC, WHO, etc.) to
secure their jobs and continued funding for their agencies. No new emerging
epidemics, maybe no CDC, no WHO, so we've got an infrastructure that
REQUIRES the "discovery" of new, threatening epidemics. And the media pick
a new one every year. This year, it's SARS. For the past couple of years,
it's been West Nile Virus. Next year it'll be something else."---- Dr Dan
Duffy DC
"Who's paying the WHO? Where do they get their funds? What are the links
from the WHO to all the huge pharmaceutical Companies? Just look at that. We
physicians are the modern slaves of the pharmaceutical industry... We depend
on their pre-fabricated medications... They are the real overlords..."---Dr
Buchwald MD
"Dr. Robert Strecker believes the diabolic "plan" for Africa was spelled out
in a 1972 memorandum published by the Bulletin of the World Health
Organization. The report indicated that infection with certain retroviruses
could result in "selective damage" to the immune system, particularly to
white blood cells known as "T-cells." A careful study of World Health
Organization literature reveals the careful planning that went into the
seeding of AIDS in various nations. In 1987, the WHO was publicly accused of
unleashing the AIDS epidemic in central Africa, as a result of its smallpox
vaccine programs. The most logical explanation to account for the millions
of Africans infected is that the vaccines used in the WHO mass inoculation
programs, 1960-1977, were contaminated....The evidence is overwhelming, the
United States Government and the World Health Organization collaborated on
the development, production and proliferation of a synthetic biological
agent that subsequently became known as HIV and AIDS"---Terry Wycuff
http://aidsbiowar.com/
"The UN is not just, as many Americans suspect, a group of incompetent
busybodies. It is, instead, a global criminal enterprise determined to
shift power away from individuals and sovereign-nation states to a small
band of unaccountable international elites."--Joseph Farah (Idaho Observer
Sept 2000)
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
"forced me to look into the question of vaccination further, and the further
I looked the more shocked I became. I found that the whole vaccine business
was indeed a gigantic hoax. Most doctors are convinced that they are useful,
but if you look at the proper statistics and study the instances of these
diseases you will realize that this is not so . . .
My final conclusion after forty years or more in this business
[medicine] is that the unofficial policy of the World Health Organization
and the unoffical policy of the 'Save the Children's Fund' and ... [other
vaccine promoting] organizations is one of murder and genocide. . . . I
cannot see any other possible explanation. . . . You cannot immunize sick
children, malnourished children, and expect to get away with it. You'll kill
far more children than would have died from natural infection."---Dr
Kalokerinos
"These data support the World Health Organization recommendation to
administer measles vaccine in under-developed countries as soon after nine
months of age as possible, regardless of nutritional status or the presence
of minor illnesses."--
Halsey NA, et al. Response to measles vaccine in Haitian infants 6 to 12
months old. Influence of maternal antibodies, malnutrition, and concurrent
illnesses. N Engl J Med. 1985 Aug 29;313(9):544-9. PMID: 4022091; UI:
85267950.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=4022091&form=6&db=m&
Dopt=b
CDC Genocidal Measles Vaccine Experiments on Minority Children Turn Deadly
In an experiment to find out of they could give high-potency Edmonston
Zagreb (EZ) measles vaccine to babies as young as four months old
[completing disregarding developmental neurology and lack of myelinization
in the nervous system of babies] in order to overwhelm their natural
maternal antibodies and replace them with vaccine-induced antibodies,
medical "researchers" at the CDC and Johns Hopkins University injected
thousands of babies in the Third World with the experimental vaccine that
reportedly caused chronic immune suppression and the deaths of an unknown
number of babies. Also, in the United States, with the help of Kaiser
Permanente, more than 1500 six-month old black and Hispanic babies in inner
city Los Angeles were "enrolled" in the experiment starting in June 1990.
[ During the administration of president and ex-CIA director George Bush.]
The study was halted in October 1991, after more than one year of genocidal
activity, after repeated reports from vaccine trial sites in Africa that
girl babies were dying in higher than expected numbers six months to three
years after injection. [ A less-than-admirable population control effort.]
http://www.cco.net/~trufax/vaccine/0696.html
Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola. Nature, Accident or Intentional? Interview
of Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A.., M.P.H. by Gary Null 1995.
WHO & Vaccine
http://www.techmgmt.com/restore/who.htm
Population control
http://www.new-atlantean.com/global/birthcon.html
Ebola & AIDS in Africa
http://www.tetrahedron.org/research.htm
WHO reproductive research
http://www.trufax.org/vaccine/v7.html
Book:
http://home.earthlink.net/~simultrek/tmwca.htm
"We find that UCI-EPI as it has been generally conceived and executed
represents two major departures from the time honoured ethics and traditions
of medicine. These are: i.that all forms of treatment should be
individualized, particularly when prescribing or injecting substances which
carry the potential for disease, disablement, and death; and ii.the
objectively informed patient (or parent) should always have absolute freedom
to accept or reject any given measure or therapy, and have reasonable
opportunity to consider alternatives."--H Buttram MD (Vaccinations & Immune
Malfunction)
EPI---Expanded Program on Immunization (commenced 1983)
UCI---Universal Childhood Immunization
HIV HYSTERIA LEADS UN TO LAUNCH
ANTI-BREASTFEEDING CAMPAIGN
"But, at the highest levels of the medical cartel, vaccines are a top
priority because they cause a weakening of the immune system. I know that
may be hard to accept, but it's true. The medical cartel, at the highest
level, is not out to help people, it is out to harm them, to weaken them.
To kill them. At one point in my career, I had a long conversation with a
man who occupied a high government position in an African nation. He told me
that he was well aware of this. He told me that WHO is a front for these
depopulation interests."--Jon Rappoport interview
[Home]
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/lillithsrealm/myhomepage/MISEPIndex.html
Sterilization and Eugenics Programs Index
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTI-FERTILITY VACCINES - Over recent decades,
researchers have been exploiting new contraceptive methods to use in family
planning programmes in the South. Within the scope of medical application of
modern biotechnologies, the development of anti-fertility vaccines is a new
approach. However, these new vaccines do not really benefit the user, says
Ute Sprenger.
A Vaccine Against Pregnancy? While in Huairou, China, for the NGO Forum of
the Fourth World Conference on Women in Sept. 1995, Beverly Whipple, FWHC
Executive Director, learned about a new anti-fertility "vaccine." This
so-called "vaccine" is one of the newest birth control methods being tested
in India, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, Australia, Sweden and other
countries.
Burn, baby Burn!!! Quinacrine sterilization campaign proceeds despite risks
By David Morrison Population Research Institute Review, September/October
1996.
Quinacrine -- Chemical Sterilization Banned by FDA - The Food and Drug
Administration recently hand-delivered a warning letter to Stephen Mumford
asking him and his partner to stop distributing the drug quinacrine, used
for the chemical sterilization of women.
Methotrexate - an experimental antimetabolic chemosterilant
Methotrexate (MTX) is a trade name for amethopterin, a substance that
neutralizes folic acid to inhibit DNA synthesis. MTX is a cancer
chemotherapy agent, and is used for the treatment of severe psoriasis and
rheumatoid arthritis. MTX causes multiple skeletal birth defects when taken
during weeks 8 to 10 of pregnancy. The most characteristic MTX malformation
syndrome is a clover-leaf? skull with large head, swept-back hair, low-set
ears, prominent eyeballs, and wide nasal bridge.
Quinacrine?s latest pushers; Group seeks to put Christian mask on an ugly
reality By David Morrison - The Institute for Development Training seems to
believe women should be sterilized, chemically if necessary, in the name of
Christ.
A MISSION TO STERILIZE THE POOR QUINACRINE: CAMPAIGN OFFERS A PAINFUL,
POSSIBLY DANGEROUS DRUG TO THE WORLD. Published: Friday, July 3, 1998 BY
ALIX M. FREEDMAN, Wall Street Journal
Sterilization Abuse: A Brief History by Beth Cooper Benjamin - For many
women, sterilization can mean permanent and empowering freedom from the fear
of unwanted pregnancy. But for others it is not a choice. Sterilization
abuse has earned a central place in the gruesome lore of the American
medical establishment. Although the womenąs health movement has made great
strides in publicizing sterilization abuse, the practice continues to claim
victims from those strata of society least prepared to fight it.
THE HUMAN LABORATORY - BBC Television: Horizon - AIR DATE 5 November
1995 -- They have been used as a human laboratory. They're just expendable.
Who cares if a Third World woman dies?
Institutional Confinement & Sexual Sterilization - Compensation Act
Introduced : EDMONTON--The Institutional Confinement & Sexual Sterilization
Compensation Act was introduced in the Alberta Legislature today by Justice
Minister Jon Havelock. The legislation sets parameters for the amount and
type of damages that a person may receive in compensation for sterilization
under the Sexual Sterilization Act and wrongful confinement in Alberta
provincial institutions from the late 1920s to the early 1970s.
Sterilization: Implications for Mentally Retarded and Mentally Ill Persons
(1983) - Comments on the Canadian Law Reform Commission?s Working Paper
PTNT-04; The Law Reform Commission of Canada dealing with the Protection of
Life Project has issued its second Working Paper: Sterilization:
Implications for Mentally Retarded and Mentally Ill Persons (1979).
BET concert in the slave dungeons: words fail
(BET is now a white owned company doing "blackface" for
profit and continued disrespect of Black teens, Black women, and Black men!
Would the Jews party in the ovens in Germany? Would New Yorkers party at
Ground Zero in New York City? This is disgusting!)
Date:3/24/2003 12:42:03 PM Pacific Standard Time
Last week, well over 100 years after the last enslaved African had been
transported to the Western World, a terrible thing happened at the slave
dungeon in Cape Coast, Ghana, West Afrika. Black Entertainment
Television, founded by billionaire Robert Johnson and now owned by Viacom,
organized a Jazz Concert! This concert took place in one of the largest slave
dungeons located on the west coast of Afrika (over 50 total with over 40
located in Ghana) but not without protest from many Africans in Ghana and
throughout the world!
The Abibiman presented an appeal letter to the concert organizers, the
Ghana Media and the Tourism Ministries. This letter accurately laid out why
the slave dungeons were inappropriate places to hold concerts (where people
party and forget about the ills of the past). The letter also proposed three
alternative sites (all available) in Cape Coast, where a Jazz Concert would
have been appropriate. Members of the Abibiman discussed the issue on Choice
FM in Accra, with host Nii Lante Bruce. On hand during the discussion was
Ghana Chair of the Commission on Culture, Professor Hagen. The Abibiman asked
professor Hagan to come up with policy that would include rules and
regulations on 'what can and cannot' plus 'what is and is not' an appropriate
event in the slave dungeon. The professor promised to act on the request,
stating that he too, was not in favor of these types of events, had he known
about the event ahead of time he would have done whatever he could have to
stop it.
On Thursday evening, the Abibiman representing the ancestors went to the
dungeon in Cape Coast in a silent protest of the concert. We noted people
smiling and dancing, enjoying the concert. One of the guest said that Angela
Bofil did sing her classics, "This time I'll be Sweeter," > and "I Try" in the
dungeon. This is just one example of what we mean by an inappropriate location
and an insult to our ancestors. Never again must we allow this to take place.
Looking back at the network that put on this concert. BET. Though
sellout Robert Johnson sold out long before Viacom purchased BET,
Viacom is a European company. This European company was allowed to put on a
Jazz Concert produced by BET. Sound familiar doesn't it. Oh yeah, the slave
traders were only able to take slaves because they were being sold to them by
other Afrikans. You see if you don't learn from your past you are bound to
repeat it. This is a prime case. Europeans are once again using Afrikans to
abuse and disrespect each other. They don't even have to be there. They don't
have to call us ni**** anymore, we will do it ourselves. They don't have to
chop off our limbs anymore in the Congo for the rubber. We will do it for
bling bling (jewels) to each other today. They don't have to bother with
colonialism. They get the same benefits, privileges and less trouble by
installing puppet leaders and having French Summits to deal with Afrikan
problems. In other words - Neocolonialism/Neoslavery.
The Abibiman are asking all Afrikans in the Mamaland and throughout the
Diaspora to demand that concerts and other celebrations disrespecting our
ancestors not be held in the slave dungeons of Afrika. These are our sacred
hollow ground and must be respected as that. We send this plea out to: The
Afrikan Union, Global Afrikan Congress, TransAfrika, AWRRTC, United Afrikan
Movement, Pan-Afrikan Congress, All Afrikan Peoples Revolutionary Party and
all other progressive Afrikan organizations, movements, etc. that are about
uplifting the conditions of Afrikans throughout the Globe.
Kwabena Sagidi Rasuli Jijaga
United Afrikan Movement
sportangelv@hotmail.com writes:
Subject: Very Important
During the next several weeks be VERY cautious about opening or
launching any e-mails that refer to the World Trade Center or 9/11 in
any way, regardless of who sent it. PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL YOUR
FRIENDS AND FAMILY. FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW, "WTC" STANDS FOR THE
WORLD TRADE CENTER. REALLY DANGEROUS BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL OPEN IT
RIGHT AWAY, THINKING ITS A STORY RELATING TO 9/11!
BIGGGG TROUBLE !!!! DO NOT OPEN "WTC Survivor" It is a virus that
will erase your whole "C" drive. It will come to you in the form of
an E-Mail from a familiar person. I repeat, a friend sent it to me,
but called and warned me before I opened it. He was not so lucky and
now he can't even start his computer!
Forward this to everyone in your address book. I would rather
receive this 25 times than not at all. So, if you receive an email
called "WTC Survivor", do not open it. Delete it right away! This
virus removes all dynamic link libraries (.dll files) from your
computer.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7104
Racial Quotas in Brazil Touch Off Fierce Debate
By Larry Rohter
New York Times | April 8, 2003
RIO DE JANEIRO, April 4 - The Brazilian government, responding to
demands to improve the lot of the black population, has begun imposing
racial quotas for government jobs, contracts and university admissions.
But that has unleashed an acrimonious debate in a country that
traditionally prides itself on being a harmonious "racial democracy."
The initial battleground is a pair of public universities here, which
have just accepted a freshman class
that is 40 percent black. As in the United States, though, white
students who were not admitted
despite scoring higher on entrance examinations have challenged that
action in courts. They contend
that they are being denied the "equality of access to schooling"
guaranteed by Brazil's 1988
Constitution.
Civil rights advocates in this nation of 175 million, which has the
largest black population of any
nation outside of Africa, predict that the debate is likely to intensify
even further as a result of a
sweeping Racial Equality Statute now before Congress. That bill,
supported by the left-wing
government that took power here on Jan. 1, would make racial quotas
obligatory at all levels of
government and require them even in casting television programs and
commercials.
"This policy is absolutely correct in terms of philosophy and ethics,"
Justice Minister Márcio Thomaz
Bastos said at a news conference with foreign reporters here this week.
"I have no doubt of it. After
all, this country has an enormous debt because of the iniquity that was
slavery in Brazil."
As a byproduct of the debate, Brazilians are also being forced to define
who is black, a process they
find puzzling and alien. More than 300 terms are used to designate skin
color - from the
dark-skinned crioulo to the light-skinned brancarao - and racially mixed
relationships are the norm
rather than the exception. As a result, racial categories have never
been defined as they were in more
segregated countries.
College admission in Brazil is highly competitive, with many more
applicants than places available,
especially for prestigious public universities, and entrance examination
scores count for everything.
Of the 1.4 million students admitted to universities in Brazil each
year, only 3 percent identify
themselves as black, and only 18 percent come from the public schools,
where most black Brazilians
study.
Because of the university admissions dispute here, the Supreme Court has
been asked to rule on the
constitutionality of racial quotas, and has indicated that it will do so
quite soon. Since the chief justice
himself imposed a hiring quota for court employees last year, civil
rights advocates are expecting a
favorable decision, which they say could have an impact here comparable
to that of Brown v. Board
of Education in the United States.
"This is a historic moment, and the court has a historic opportunity to
undo the terrible injustice that
was committed in 1888," when slavery was legally abolished but no
government support was
provided to newly freed blacks, said Zulu Araújo, a director of the
Palmares Foundation, a
government agency that addresses the interests of black Brazilians. "I
have no doubt that the justices
will vote in favor of quotas and establish the new paradigm of racial
equality that this country needs."
But critics of the measures say the government is merely making a
difficult problem worse by turning
to what they consider to be a solution imported from the United States,
a country in which racial
definitions and relations are very different.
"Do they want racial war in Brazil?" said a recent article in the daily
O Estado de Săo Paulo, which
also complained in an editorial that the government was "officializing
racial discrimination."
Some opponents of racial quotas also argue that racism is not a feature
of Brazilian society and that
conditions for blacks will improve as poverty is gradually eliminated.
But civil rights advocates point
to statistics showing that white Brazilians earn more, live longer,
receive more education and are less
likely to be arrested than black citizens.
"This is not merely a social problem," said José Vicente, a lawyer and
sociologist in Săo Paulo who
is president of Afrobras, a black advocacy group. "We have to recognize
that this is a racist society
and that people with dark skin have been systematically excluded from
space in that society for more
than 400 years."
Under the new system for college admissions adopted here, all applicants
declaring themselves to be
of "African descent" on admission forms are considered to be black and
given preferential treatment.
But that has led to complaints of abuses, in which students who do not
have dark skin or features
considered African - including some of Asian or Jewish descent - have
designated themselves as
black to improve their chances of being admitted.
No one can agree, however, on a better system. In a televised campaign
debate last year, Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, now the country's president, was widely criticized
when he maintained that
"scientific criteria" could be used to determine who is black.
"A black person," Mr. Bastos said this week, "is someone who feels black
and lives as a black. I
don't believe there is any objective, scientific criteria."
Since assuming office three months ago, Mr. da Silva has taken a number
of steps, both practical
and symbolic, to stress his commitment to racial equality. His cabinet
includes four black members,
among them the minister of a newly created Secretariat for the Promotion
of Racial Equality, and he
has made clear his intention to name the first black justice to the
Supreme Court.
Among advocates of quotas, the government's sympathy to their position
is stimulating a parallel
debate over what percentage should be set aside for blacks. According to
census figures, about 45
percent of Brazil's 175 million people consider themselves to be black
or "pardo," a broad and
deliberately vague designation that can be applied both to those who are
of mixed race and people
of Indian descent.
But many of those pushing hardest for quotas argue that the ceiling
should be set, at least for the
moment, at 20 percent. "Anything more than that is doomed to failure and
would lead to a social
convulsion," said Mr. Vicente, the leader of the black advocacy group.
Others contend that quotas should vary from state to state and be based
on the percentage of the
population that is black or brown. More than 80 percent of people in the
northeastern state of Bahia
fall into that category, while fewer than 10 percent of the population
in states in the far south
bordering Argentina describe themselves as Afro-Brazilians.
"This whole debate about quotas and who is black is just a diversion
that masks more serious issues
that we haven't addressed yet," Mr. Araújo said, somewhat impatiently.
"Any doorman knows who
is black and should be sent to the service entrance, just as any cop
knows who is black and should
be stopped on the street and ordered to produce identification."
SURE
RECORD POOL'S
EARS 2 THA STREETS
NEWS FLASH
PLEASE READ INFORMATION.
IT NEEDS YOUR ATTENTION!
SENATOR JOE BIDEN
TRYING TO SNEAK RAVE ACT INTO S151 CONFERENCE
Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) is at this very moment attempting to sneak the RAVE
Act into conference committee on the National AMBER Alert Network Act of 2003
(S151). S151 is a popular bill about child abduction and has nothing to do
with drug issues. S151 has already been passed by the Senate and House and is
now in Conference. In contrast, the RAVE Act has not passed even one single
committee this year. It did pass a committee last year, but was so
controversial two Senators withdrew their sponsorship after the vote.
This means that if the RAVE Act passes the conference committee, it is likely
to pass into law without ever having a hearing, a debate or a vote. Drug
Policy Alliance has been told that Senator Biden has falsely told other
conference committee members that the ACLU is no longer in opposition to the
action and has told conferees that nightclub owners now support him (on the
basis of one group that switched sides). If the act makes it into the
conference language it is likely to become law. It must be stopped now.
PHONE YOUR SENATORS and Conference Committee Members (Background information
below). DO IT NOW. If you do not respond to this alert, the controversial RAVE
Act is likely to become law and it will be much harder to fix.
ACTIONS TO TAKE:
1. The following Members of Congress are on the conference committee. They
need to hear from you IF AND ONLY IF you live in their district. Please be
polite. Just tell them that you oppose the RAVE Act, that it is controversial
and it should not be included in the conference language of S151. Don't stay
on the phone long. Ask as many people as you can to call them.
HOUSE:
James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) - 202/225-5101
Howard Coble (R-NC) - 202/225-3065
Lamar Smith (R-TX) - 202/225-4236
Mark Green (R-WI)- 202/225-5665
Melissa Hart (R-PA)- 202/225-2565
John Conyers (D-MI) - 202/225-5126
Bobby Scott (D-VA) - - 202/225-8351
SENATE:
Orrin Hatch (R-UT) - 202/224-5251
Charles Grassley (R-IA) - 202/224-3744
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) - 202/224-4124
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) - 202/224-5972
Patrick Leahy (D-VT) - 202/224-4242
Ted Kennedy (D-MA) - 202/224-4543
Joseph Biden (D-DE) - 202/224-5042
2. Everyone in the U.S. - You have two Senators who can weigh in on this issue
with the conferees. A list of your Senators by state can be found at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
Please call your Senators at the Capitol Switchboard at 202/224-3121 - please
tell them that the RAVE Act is very controversial. Senator Biden is holding up
the AMBER Act by placing controversial bill in conference. Urge them to oppose
the RAVE Act by contacting the Senate conferees and asking them to leave it
off the measure so that there will at least be a hearing on this issue.
Background Information
Congress is considering two pieces of legislation that could effectively ban
live music and dancing, while throwing innocent people like you in jail. If
enacted, either bill could prevent you from hearing your favorite band or DJ
live. Every musical style would be affected, including rock and roll, Hip Hop,
country, and electronic music. The proposed laws could also shut down hemp
festivals, circuit parties, and other events government officials don't like.
Both bills would allow overzealous prosecutors to send innocent people to jail
for the crimes of others.
The two bills are the RAVE Act (H.R. 718) and the CLEAN-UP Act (H.R. 834).
Both could be passed this year without your help.
The RAVE Act was first introduced last year in the Senate by Senator Joe Biden
(D-DE). A House version was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). Thanks to
the support of thousands of voters like you, Drug Policy Alliance and a
coalition of friends and activists around the country was able to stop both
bills last year. Unfortunately, supporters of the RAVE Act are even more
determined to pass it this year. Rep. Howard Coble
(R-NC) is sponsoring a new RAVE Act in the House. Additionally, Senator Biden
has introduced a Senate version entitled the Illicit Drugs Anti-Proliferation
Act.
If enacted, the RAVE Act would make it easier for the federal government to
punish property owners for any drug offense that their customers commit - even
if they work hard to stop such offenses. If enacted, nightclub and stadium
owners would likely stop holding events - such as rock or Hip Hop concerts -
in which even one person might use drugs. Because of its broad language, the
proposed law would even potentially subject people to twenty years in federal
prison if one or more of their guests smoked marijuana at their party or
barbecue.
The CLEAN-UP Act was also first introduced last year, but it failed to make it
out of committee. This year's bill has over 60 co-sponsors and could become
law without your help. Sponsored by Rep. Doug Ose (R-CA), the Clean, Learn,
Educate, Abolish, and Undermine Production (CLEAN-UP) of Methamphetamines Act
is largely an innocuous bill that provides more money and training for the
clean up of illegal methamphetamine lab. Hidden within the bill, however, is a
draconian section that could make dancing and live music federal crimes.
Section 305 of the CLEAN-UP Act stipulates that:
'Whoever, for a commercial purpose, knowingly promotes any rave, dance, music,
or other entertainment event, that takes place under circumstances where the
promoter knows or reasonably ought to know that a controlled substance will be
used or distributed in violation of Federal law or the law of the place where
the event is held, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or
imprisoned for not more than 9 years, or both.'
This provision will allow any concert promoter, event organizer, nightclub
owner and arena or stadium owner to be fined and jailed, since a reasonable
person would know some people use drugs at musical events.
Under both the RAVE Act and the CLEAN-UP Act, it doesn't matter if the event
promoter and property owner try to prevent people from using drugs. Nor does
it matter if the vast majority of people attending the event are law-abiding
citizens that want to listen to music not do drugs. If enacted, either bill
could be used to shut down raves, circuit parties, marijuana rallies,
unpopular music concerts, and any other event federal officials don't like.
ACLU's take:
Oppose the Culture War on Raves
Members of both the House and Senate are attempting to pervert proper
legislative processes by appending two unrelated provisions to the popular
Amber Alert measure. One of the two provisions would target raves -- a social
event that mixes electronic music, light shows and dancing; the other
provision would seek to limit the discretion of federal judges.
The rave provision would make building owners liable for their tenants' and
customers' activities. For example, even if they instituted excellent security
precautions, restaurant, bar, nightclub, dance and music venue owners could
all be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and forced into bankruptcy if a
customer sneaked in drugs. No matter how much security is put in place, they
could be held responsible for the actions of just one customer.
The federal sentencing provision would require the Justice Department to
report to Congress every time federal judges use their discretion to impose a
lower sentence than recommended under federal sentencing guidelines. This
would intimidate judges and prevent them from using their judgement when
handing down sentences.
These anti-civil liberties amendments should have full legislative review and
not be allowed to piggyback on more popular, yet unrelated, legislation.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7104
Racial Quotas in Brazil Touch Off
Fierce Debate
By Larry Rohter
New York Times | April 8, 2003
RIO DE JANEIRO, April 4 - The Brazilian
government, responding to
demands to improve the lot of the black population, has begun imposing
racial quotas for government jobs, contracts and university admissions.
But that has unleashed an acrimonious debate in a country that
traditionally prides itself on being a harmonious "racial democracy."
The initial battleground is a pair of public universities here, which
have just accepted a freshman class
that is 40 percent black. As in the United States, though, white
students who were not admitted
despite scoring higher on entrance examinations have challenged that
action in courts. They contend
that they are being denied the "equality of access to schooling"
guaranteed by Brazil's 1988
Constitution.
Civil rights advocates in this nation of 175 million, which has the
largest black population of any
nation outside of Africa, predict that the debate is likely to intensify
even further as a result of a
sweeping Racial Equality Statute now before Congress. That bill,
supported by the left-wing
government that took power here on Jan. 1, would make racial quotas
obligatory at all levels of
government and require them even in casting television programs and
commercials.
"This policy is absolutely correct in terms of philosophy and ethics,"
Justice Minister Márcio Thomaz
Bastos said at a news conference with foreign reporters here this week.
"I have no doubt of it. After
all, this country has an enormous debt because of the iniquity that was
slavery in Brazil."
As a byproduct of the debate, Brazilians are also being forced to define
who is black, a process they
find puzzling and alien. More than 300 terms are used to designate skin
color - from the
dark-skinned crioulo to the light-skinned brancarao - and racially mixed
relationships are the norm
rather than the exception. As a result, racial categories have never
been defined as they were in more
segregated countries.
College admission in Brazil is highly competitive, with many more
applicants than places available,
especially for prestigious public universities, and entrance examination
scores count for everything.
Of the 1.4 million students admitted to universities in Brazil each
year, only 3 percent identify
themselves as black, and only 18 percent come from the public schools,
where most black Brazilians
study.
Because of the university admissions dispute here, the Supreme Court has
been asked to rule on the
constitutionality of racial quotas, and has indicated that it will do so
quite soon. Since the chief justice
himself imposed a hiring quota for court employees last year, civil
rights advocates are expecting a
favorable decision, which they say could have an impact here comparable
to that of Brown v. Board
of Education in the United States.
"This is a historic moment, and the court has a historic opportunity to
undo the terrible injustice that
was committed in 1888," when slavery was legally abolished but no
government support was
provided to newly freed blacks, said Zulu Araújo, a director of the
Palmares Foundation, a
government agency that addresses the interests of black Brazilians. "I
have no doubt that the justices
will vote in favor of quotas and establish the new paradigm of racial
equality that this country needs."
But critics of the measures say the government is merely making a
difficult problem worse by turning
to what they consider to be a solution imported from the United States,
a country in which racial
definitions and relations are very different.
"Do they want racial war in Brazil?" said a recent article in the daily
O Estado de Săo Paulo, which
also complained in an editorial that the government was "officializing
racial discrimination."
Some opponents of racial quotas also argue that racism is not a feature
of Brazilian society and that
conditions for blacks will improve as poverty is gradually eliminated.
But civil rights advocates point
to statistics showing that white Brazilians earn more, live longer,
receive more education and are less
likely to be arrested than black citizens.
"This is not merely a social problem," said José Vicente, a lawyer and
sociologist in Săo Paulo who
is president of Afrobras, a black advocacy group. "We have to recognize
that this is a racist society
and that people with dark skin have been systematically excluded from
space in that society for more
than 400 years."
Under the new system for college admissions adopted here, all applicants
declaring themselves to be
of "African descent" on admission forms are considered to be black and
given preferential treatment.
But that has led to complaints of abuses, in which students who do not
have dark skin or features
considered African - including some of Asian or Jewish descent - have
designated themselves as
black to improve their chances of being admitted.
No one can agree, however, on a better system. In a televised campaign
debate last year, Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, now the country's president, was widely criticized
when he maintained that
"scientific criteria" could be used to determine who is black.
"A black person," Mr. Bastos said this week, "is someone who feels black
and lives as a black. I
don't believe there is any objective, scientific criteria."
Since assuming office three months ago, Mr. da Silva has taken a number
of steps, both practical
and symbolic, to stress his commitment to racial equality. His cabinet
includes four black members,
among them the minister of a newly created Secretariat for the Promotion
of Racial Equality, and he
has made clear his intention to name the first black justice to the
Supreme Court.
Among advocates of quotas, the government's sympathy to their position
is stimulating a parallel
debate over what percentage should be set aside for blacks. According to
census figures, about 45
percent of Brazil's 175 million people consider themselves to be black
or "pardo," a broad and
deliberately vague designation that can be applied both to those who are
of mixed race and people
of Indian descent.
But many of those pushing hardest for quotas argue that the ceiling
should be set, at least for the
moment, at 20 percent. "Anything more than that is doomed to failure and
would lead to a social
convulsion," said Mr. Vicente, the leader of the black advocacy group.
Others contend that quotas should vary from state to state and be based
on the percentage of the
population that is black or brown. More than 80 percent of people in the
northeastern state of Bahia
fall into that category, while fewer than 10 percent of the population
in states in the far south
bordering Argentina describe themselves as Afro-Brazilians.
"This whole debate about quotas and who is black is just a diversion
that masks more serious issues
that we haven't addressed yet," Mr. Araújo said, somewhat impatiently.
"Any doorman knows who
is black and should be sent to the service entrance, just as any cop
knows who is black and should
be stopped on the street and ordered to produce identification."
"Bring me before
Congress!" -
FARRAKHAN TO BUSH
SAVIORS DAY SPEECH
BY
NAYABA ARINDE
nayaba@africanstudios.tv
"This is indeed a very, very, dangerous time. President Bush's
leadership is going to lead America to her fall. Our president is saying
that he is doing this for peace and for the protection of the American
people, as though Saddam Hussein has power to threaten us."
Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan looked robust and like a
man half his age as he delivered his Saviors' Day speech from the UIC
Pavilion, Chicago, on Sunday.
"A week ago, I was not able to walk, my doctors advised me don't talk
too long, because
you could have a relapsed," said the 69-year-old leader of the Nation of
Islam.
He said he had been laid out on his back for five weeks, recovering from
the continuing side effects from the radiation treatment, which he said
has eradicated the cancer from his body. But, you could not tell that
this was a man in recovery, fierce and voluminous as he was at the
podium
As President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair now say they
will wait for UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to deliver his report next
month, before they act on the votes for their second resolution,
Farrakhan warned the war-determined duo to rethink what will be a
cataclysmic course of action
Brooklyn's Friendship Baptist Church reflected scenes in churches and
community halls in over 100 cities in the nation, as Muslims and
non-Muslim men, women and children gathered to hear Farrakhan's Saviors'
Day speech 'America at the Crossroads ? War is Not the Answer.
Satellite carried his three-hour message clear across the world.
Over and over again, calling on the Bible and the Qu'ran, Farrakhan who
always underlines his opinion that America is the greatest country on
the planet, said that Bush was furthering America's reputation as "an
arch deceiver."
The minister said the Feb 23 speech would be his last, his "final call."
Two letters to Bush from him, demonstrations throughout the world,
nothing has deterred Bush from rushing at break-neck speed to this
"error" of a war, said Farrakhan.
"They found some missiles the other day. The range of those missiles is
about 90 miles, 150 kilometers. The rocket can't get out of Iraq, but
these are weapons of mass destruction. He's the man that gassed his own
people. He's the man that killed hundreds of thousands. He's a dictator.
Well, what about you? Why don't you bring me before Congress and charge
me with being un-American. You, the American people, have been greatly
deceived by the arch deceiver."
This president and members of Congress have been lying and manipulating
the ignorance of the masses "to use your flesh and blood supposedly for
a noble principle, but to advance imperialistic colonial idea," he said.
Farrakhan broke down the histories of how America has used coerced
events to create reasons to declare war, to get a hold of: Cuba, the
Philippines, Hawaii, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Using alleged assaults on ships, America has gone to battle in: World
War and Vietnam.
"See don't worry about crying over 3,000 lives at the World Trade
Center," Farrakhan said. "You cry, but wise policy makers they don't
cry. They manipulate your grief and use you to further policies that you
think are in your interest but they are in the interest of the wealthy
and the powerful people of America. I hasten to tell you that the
precious lives that were lost in the World Trade Center was a cover,"
collective gasp rushed through the audience at Bed-Stuy's Friendship
Baptist Church. "A cover for a war that had been planned
to bring a
pipeline through Afghanistan to bring oil from
that region, oil owned by
UNICAL of which Dick Cheney is stockholder. I
don't care how bad Saddam
Hussein is. That's Iraq's problem. Bush is our
problem."
America is Babylon, Farrakhan cited from the Book
of Revelations. "Now
she is fallen. Her stock market, her dollar, is fallen against the yen
and the Euro and you have seen nothing yet. Her prestige in the world
under Bush is going down. The nations afraid of her but they don't like
her. She is trying to buy, buy China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Jordan
and Turkey. She's gone to the little African nations in the UN tempting
them with little promises of wealth. I say to the governments of the
world, that you are a fool if you believe that America will fulfill her
promise to you. She promises you only to deceive.
"After 9/11 she promised billions to New York. It's been a year and a
half ain't no money come yet, not to New York. She said don't worry
Afghanistan, we will bomb the hell out of you but we're going to rebuild
you but the money is not there. She's saying to the Iraqi exiles, after
Saddam Hussein, don't worry we will rebuild Iraq. It will be a
democracy. We're going over there to liberate the Iraqi people. Well,
who the hell is asking for you? Why don't you come and liberate the
homeless, liberate the 42 million Americans that have no health
insurance, liberate the ignorant in America who want a college education
but can't get it because they don't have money. Liberate the American
> people. Why
are you going overseas spending billions and refuse to spend it at home
on your own who need? You are a liar and a deceiver."
Aghast, the audience responded, some applauded, some gave affirmation.
"Ask the Native Americans how many promises have they fulfilled in the
treaties that they made with you. What happened to our 40 acres and a
mule?"
"Well!" said somebody else, also wanting to know.
"Don't worry Turkey, we will send you some money," Farrakhan continued,
as his Chicago crowd encouraged him to go on. "We'll rebuild your
airport facilities. Just let us use your country. I warn you Turkey,
you'll be a Thanksgiving Turkey for somebody. If you back America, Saudi
Arabia your doom is sealed. If you back America Jordan, your doom is
sealed. All those who join her in evil will taste of the consequences."
America will be at war within a few weeks, continued Farrakhan.
Innocents will die in Iraq and American soldiers will come back in body
bags, and the anger of the protestors will get worse and worse.
"And you my dear brothers who are leaders of street organizations,
Black, Hispanic, and Asian, I am appealing to you to please stop the
killing. Because homeland security is designed to take you out. The same
way you see tanks and helicopter gun ships in Gaza and the West Bank,
you will see it in the south and west sides of Chicago, in East Los
Angeles and in Watts. America does not intend for you to destroy their
future with your madness, even though they encouraged your madness. Now
under homeland security they will slaughter Black people. Slaughter you
Mexican gangs, Puerto Rican gangs, Asian gangs."
Farrakhan warned, "I'm telling you the anger of white people against you
is growing. Do you know why it's growing? Because you're taking their
children from them. The Hip Hop generation has taken young white
children. They can't even see a future for themselves because their
children are now wearing dreadlocks. Their children now smoking reefer,
smoking crack, their pants hanging off their behinds and they are
rapping with you. Your culture has affected young people all over the
world and those in power see that you've taken their children from them.
They intend to get their children back."
Meanwhile, Bush is writing a check that his behind can not cash, the
bank being morally and financially bankrupt and all.
He said his letter to the president warned him, "You are painting
yourself in a corner with your talk that you won't be able to get
yourself out from. I said your neighbors are turning against you
president and you're making enemies for America all over the world.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Muslims have a different
outlook on life and they have a different outlook on death. You are
dealing with a force that you don't want to unleash. We've been in your
midst for 70 years. We don't bother nobody. We are not terrorists. The
Arabs in America, they are not terrorists. They are people that came to
America like other immigrants looking for a better life. I'm saying to
the Muslims as this war gets started, persecution against Muslims is
going to grow. But don't fear.if you go through it strong with
perseverance, you will come through all right."
Containment is coming, said Farrakhan, and told the people, "You would
be wise to stock up something in your house. Not just homeland security,
your security because when fighting gets started in the streets, the
first places they will hit will be the supermarkets. And the enemy is
building highways, strong highways, and when the stuff gets started he
will ring the Black community. Don't worry about it. You're not going to
give him no trouble at all with your little guns. He will just cut off
the water, the electricity, and the gas, and wait on you. You are going
to be good all right. When this is over ain't nobody going to have to
ask you do you want to do right."
America will be fighting in Asia and in Europe soon, the Nation of Islam
predicted. "You
> that are in the armed forces, you may go away by the hundreds of
thousands. But the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said you'll come back by
the fives and the tens and you will be in no shape when you get back; if
you get back."
As some folk began to look slightly terrified by the words coming from
> the screen via satellite, Farrakhan offered something of a solution,
"How do you come out? I'm not talking about going somewhere else. I'm
> talking about separating yourself from the mentality of this wicked
world and start reforming yourselves. You would do wise in the church to
start being very friendly to each other. Learn how to be a good neighbor
because before this is over, you are going to need each other."
Irony, hypocrisy and deception is the government seal stamped all over
this situation, Farrakhan intimated. "You know America is saying that
she wants to attack Iraq because she has violated UN resolutions.
According to what I've read, more than 91 UN resolutions have been
violated by countries belonging to the UN. Armenia has violated four.
Croatia six, Indonesia four, Israel 32, Morocco 16, Russia one, Sudan
three, Turkey 14, Iraq between 12-14. Now if America wants the UN to be
respected, why would you jump on Iraq with 14 violations and not jump on
Israel with 32? And guess what, of the 15 members of the security
council, do you know that America has vetoed nearly 50 resolutions that
were condemning Israel, and she either abstained or said yes to the 32
that passed, but there was another 50 that she used her veto to stop."
Of course the crowd reacted.
"America is undermining the UN. If she goes to war, the UN can't stop
her, this is the beginning of the breakup of the UN, the breakup of this
world. Watch China. America will never be able to tell China anything
about Taiwan. North Korea, she is pulling out of the nuclear treaty and
she soon said she will pull out of the [amnesty treaty]. And she warned
America if you put sanctions on us we will call it a state of war.
UN resolution 687, article 14, says that Iraq must disarm and that there
must be no weapon of mass destruction in the 'Middle East,' said
Farrakhan. "But Israel has never been asked to disarm. Saddam Hussein
having any weapon of mass
destruction will force Israel to a table to bring about a resolve of the
problem. But as long as Israel is superior in military might to the
whole Arab world, she don't have to do nothing. And you remember when
they slaughtered the Palestinians in Jeneane, and the UN sent a team to
go, Israel said you're not coming in here. That's thumbing your nose at
the UN. What did America say? Nothing, but you're going to bomb Iraq."
The United States of America is at the crossroads, Farrakhan said. "And
we to are at the crossroads. You can not follow your leaders blindly.if
you allowed yourself with patriotic zeal to follow that which is in
error, then as the Bible says, if the blind lead the blind, both then
fall in the ditch, and the ditch represents hell. And I hasten to tell
you that the president of the United States is spiritually blind.
"The masses of the people are trying to say something to the president.
But the president is even more emboldening even after millions and
millions of people have protested against the war. He said that this
will not sway him. This man came into office with a determined idea to
remove Saddam Hussein from power. Though Iraq looks easy to America,
Iraq is a trigger, but the real thing will happen after Iraq.
America will start rolling down the hill, I promise you, to total
destruction."
Ronald Reagan "came into office with a determined idea to kill Muammar
Gadhafi and destroy that regime. He failed and every president since
Reagan has had some altercation with the Muslim world. President Bush
says he's not against Islam but he's against the
radicals in Islam. It is true that there are radicals that have hijacked
Islam. But I want to say to Mr. Bush, you are a radical that has
hijacked Christianity. And I want to say to Sharon, Netanyahu, and that
crowd, you are a group that claim to be Jews but you have hijacked
Judaism. And it is time now for the righteous Jews to stand up. The
righteous Christians to stand up. The righteous Muslims to stand up
against those who have hijacked our religion."
The Black church, however, is finally politicizing itself, declared the
minister. "I don't want to be a solo,' he said, "I want to hear a chorus
against this war. And I heard my Black preachers, male and female,
speaking with such strength, such courage, such determination, to
fulfill the needs of the people. Such desire to come out of the church
and get in the streets and minister to the people. The Black church is
being reborn. The Black church is becoming, not only the vanguard of
Black liberation, but the Black church is becoming the vanguard of
liberation for all.
"Elijah Muhammad .would tell me, when the Black preacher wakes up the
end is sight, the end of our struggle, because the Black preacher is one
of the freest Black men in America. They don't have to look for no
handouts. And the way some of
those brothers were talking, they don't want any faith based initiative
grant from the government to muzzle them. I want to say how proud I am
of Reverend Jackson and Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Forbes and these young
pastors. Sharpton I don't believe will ever sell you out. I believe he's
a man on a mission.
He does admire Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, Farrakhan said as the
crowd gasped. "They are marvelous human beings, but they are being used
as the mouthpiece of a policy of death and destruction," he said.
This is his "final call,' Farrakhan repeated.
"I will not be talking publicly, but I will be in-house working to
strengthen the Nation. I'll be talking to leaders. But, there's nothing
to talk about after she goes to war. It's over. Get your house in order.
Go back to your church, get your house in order. Get your family in
order. Get your life in order and maybe we will be lucky enough to ride
the storm."
THE WAR WITH IRAQ
By Steve Boggan in Amman, Evening Standard 25 March 2003
On the streets of Jordan hundreds of anti-war demonstrators march every day.
In Saudi Arabia, senior Muslim clerics call upon their followers to wage
jihad, holy war, against America. Burning American flags, thousands of angry
people on the streets and exiled Iraqis returning home to fight. It is a far
cry from the scenes of people throwing flowers on liberating troops that
George Bush and Tony Blair might have imagined.
Across the Middle East, antiwestern sentiments are hardening with every bomb
seen crashing into Baghdad on Al Jazeera TV. In Yemen, where three died last
Friday in a march on the United States Embassy, western diplomats and oil
company executives are given personal bodyguards. In Oman, people march and
chant "Bush and Blair are God's enemies. And in Egypt police have been
fighting running battles with demonstrators.
The governments and royal families of the region, who deal with the US
privately but condemn them publicly, are growing increasingly concerned for
their own futures and for the emergence of a pan-Arab Islamic militancy that
they have spent years suppressing. "Not one of the Arab leaderships has any
legitimacy, none is democratic, and they are getting nervous," said Ahmad
Lutfi of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "That
is why all they do at the moment is go from Arab summit to Arab summit.
"They want to prevent the anger in the Middle East from turning on them."
For ordinary Arabs, however, that is not enough. "I used to dislike Saddam,
but now I think he is a great leader," said Nada Emad, a 23-year-old
assistant pharmacist in Amman, Jordan. "This aggression is uniting Arabs,
even people who didn't see eye to eye before." With Arab television stations
showing images of civilian casualties, including one of a young boy with
half his head blown away in Basra, public anger is increasing every day.
Fayez Kazem, who fled Saddam's regime four years ago, is preparing to go
back from Jordan to fight the coalition.
"I can't stay watching the television, seeing Baghdad burning," he said.
"The Iraqi is born from the womb of his mother carrying a weapon." Thousands
of Iraqi exiles have been returning over the past week from Jordan, with
many insisting they want to defend their country against US and British
"invaders".
Blair's transatlantic warning
By Nick Assinder
BBC News Online political correspondent
Tony Blair has given his clearest warning yet of the threat to the world
order posed by a continuing rift between Europe and the US in the wake of
the Iraq war. In what he confessed was undiplomatic language, he put French
President Jacques Chirac on notice that this was an issue that had to be
"sorted out" once the conflict was over. And he reminded him that, if the 10
countries about to join the EU had been taken into account, Britain had
commanded a majority over the war.
The unspoken threat here was that these countries were more likely in future
to rally to the UK flag and give his own position within the EU a major
boost. The prime minister's monthly press conference was dominated by the
progress of the military campaign in Iraq. Mr Blair insisted the action was
going exactly to plan and that there would come a time when the cowed Iraqi
population felt free to welcome the US-UK troops as liberators.
But he also looked beyond the conflict to the rebuilding of the country -
and the rebuilding of dangerously fractured international relations. He was
unusually blunt in his description of the falling out between France and the
US-UK axis over the war. He acknowledge there was a deep and serious rift
between him and President Chirac. He insisted it was nothing personal, but
made it crystal clear he was no longer prepared to allow the current
situation to continue.
He once again expressed his deep fears that there was a movement in Europe -
partly driven by anti-Americanism - that wanted to see the EU and the US
facing each other as rivals rather than partners. That, he suggested, would
be an historic mistake which would make the world a more dangerous place. It
was an issue that needed to be brought out into the open and faced head on,
he said.
Unequal partners
This, of course, is one of the prime minister's passions. He has always seen
himself as the bridge between a US with isolationist tendencies and an EU
with a strain of anti-Americanism running through it. And he has long been
determined to bring these two blocks together for what he believes would be
the benefit of the entire planet. But that task has been made hugely more
difficult by the fundamental split over this war. The suspicion in some EU
countries and with some sections of the public, is that this would be an
unequal partnership. They believe the conduct leading up to the war suggests
the US would only countenance such a partnership so long as it held the whip
hand.
More fundamentally, many do not see the same natural alliance between their
countries and the US that the prime minister sees between London and
Washington. Overcoming this is a major challenge that has been made
infinitely more difficult by the events of the past few months.
Tony Blair clearly believes he is the man to tackle it.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2884355.stm
Published: 2003/03/25 14:54:39
© BBC MMIII
Traveling in Asia -
watch out for that mystery illness
------------------------------------------------------
Datelinehealth-Africa News Service
Africans and people across any ethnic colorations
traveling in Asia better be aware of a mystery illness
as health officials worldwide "advise persons planning
nonessential or elective travel to Asia to consider
postponing their trip until further notice."
The World Health Organization has issued a rare health
alert as a mysterious respiratory illness spread
across countries, declaring the ailment "a worldwide
health threat" (WHO Press release, 03/15/03.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2003/pr23/en/).
The organisation said that it had received reports of
more than 150 new suspected cases of the illness, now
known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, SARS (or
simply atypical pneumonia) in the last week.
The illness has so far caused at least nine deaths,
the last one a nurse in Hanoi, Vietnam. Almost all
victims have either apparently passed through Hong
Kong or come in close contact with persons that have
passed through this country. The illness does not
respond to antiviral and antibiotic drugs.
Although no reports have come from Africa, reported
cases have come from other countries with high public
health surveillance and reporting systems like Canada
and six countries in Asia ˇŞ Hong Kong, China,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam, the health organization said.
The cause of the mystery respiratory illness has not
been identified, and scientists do not know whether it
is a virus or another infectious agent.
Avian influenza, which has infected a small number of
people sporadically in Hong Kong since 1997, is
suspected, but laboratory tests have not detected that
rare strain, known as influenza A (H5N1). As a result,
laboratory scientists are focusing on the possibility
of a previously unknown infectious agent. Mycoplasma
or similar fungal microbes, Ebola and other viruses
that cause hemorrhagic fevers, have not been
implicated.
Speaking at a news conference yesterday, Dr. Julie L.
Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta, USA, said that it
appeared to take direct and sustained contact to
transmit the illness from an affected individual to
other people. "There is no evidence to suggest that
this can be spread through brief contact or
assemblages of large numbers of people," she said.
Asked whether the mystery illness might be an instance
of bioterrorism, she replied, "We are keeping an open
mind."
The W.H.O. is urging all travelers to be aware of the
main signs, which may manifest as breathing problems,
dry cough and other flulike symptoms that may develop
two to seven days after exposure. Symptoms start with
a sudden onset of high fever (ˇÝ 38oC) and go on to
include muscle aches, headache, sore throat and
shortness of breath.
Standard lab tests often show low numbers of white
blood cells and platelets, which help blood to clot.
The health agency advises any traveler in Asia or
airline crew member who developed such symptoms to
seek medical attention immediately and ensure that
information about their recent travel is passed on to
health care personnel. "Any traveler who develops
these symptoms is advised not to undertake further
travel until they have recovered," it said.
If a passenger became ill on a flight, the agency
asked airlines to alert the airport of destination and
to refer any ill passengers to airport health
officials.
Updated information on this mystery illness can be
obtained from the WHO Web site, at:
http://www.who.int.
A. Odutola
Centre for Health Policy & Strategic Studies (CHPSS)
Lagos, Nigeria
mailto: chpss_abo@yahoo.com
Shirley J. Wilcher
Executive Director
Americans for a Fair Chance
1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 925
Washington, D.C. 20036
202-822-9221 (tel)
202-822-9267
(fax)
_________________________________________________________________
CIVIL RIGHTS MARCH ON
WASHINGTON, DC
TO SAVE BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
_________________________________________________________________
On April 1, thousands of high school and college students will
march through the streets of Washington, DC to the U.S. Supreme
Court demanding that the high court uphold affirmative action in
the University of Michigan cases. These two cases represent a
turning point in regard to race relations and for our entire
society. This is a struggle for integration and equality in
education and throughout American life. Now is the time to stand
up.
Affirmative action is a desegregation plan for higher education.
If affirmative action is barred, higher education in America will
be resegregated. Already, integration plans in K-12 education
have been attacked across the country. As a result, segregation
in K-12 education increased dramatically.
A VICTORY AT THE SUPREME COURT will open up a new struggle for
progress towards integration and equality in education and
throughout American society. A victory will present a better
opportunity than we have had for generations to reconcile the
segregated, unequal reality of our educational system with the
hope and pride that the overwhelming majority of Americans of all
races feel in the prospect of integration and equality.
A DEFEAT would outlaw any and all active integrationist measures
in this society, without which there has never been and can never
be any prospect of genuine integration. If positive
integrationist measures are barred, Brown v. Board of Education
will be a dead letter.
An unprecedented, public divide between President Bush and
Secretary of State Colin Powell over the University of Michigan
affirmative action policies illustrates the peculiar importance
of these cases. The outcome of this struggle teeters on a razor's
edge between victory and defeat. Your voice and your organizing
can tip the balance. Only this civil rights march can guarantee
victory in these critical cases. We have a little over two months
to force a positive change in history.
BEGIN ORGANIZING a contingent from your school, trade union,
church, or community organization immediately. Do not wait to
hear back from us. Spread the word about the march; take the
pledge and call to action (see below); email everyone you know,
all your friends and relatives. Tell them this historic turning
point demands their voice.
Now is the time to affiliate your organization to BAMN or form a
local chapter of BAMN (Guidelines for doing both are found in
points #1 & 2 in the BAMN Principles:
http://www.bamn.com/1/principles.asp).
The new civil rights movement must meet either victory or defeat
at the Supreme Court with a greatly expanded fight to make real
the promise of Brown v. Board of Education - the long-deferred
promise of integration and equality.
Please contact us with any ideas or questions. Please forward
this email everywhere. Together, we can win.
-The National Organizers of BAMN.
letters@bamn.com
=================================================================
Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration,
And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)
www.bamn.com -
letters@bamn.com
=================================================================
TOOLBOX:
* List of What You Can Do:
http://www.bamn.com/1/what-you-can-do.asp
* Civil Rights March on the Supreme Court info page
http://www.bamn.com/wdc/
* Printable copy of the Pledge/Call to Action:
http://www.bamn.com/pledge.pdf
* General information about affirmative action, fact sheets and
myths and facts hand outs:
http://www.bamn.com/literature/lit-facts.asp
* Printable Civil Rights March to the Supreme Court posters to
post up on your campus or in your workplace:
http://www.bamn.com/wdc/poster.htm
* Information on the University of Michigan affirmative action
cases:
http://www.bamn.com/literature/lit-um-case.asp
* For a draft resolution in support of the Civil Rights March to
the Supreme Court:
http://www.bamn.com/wdc/resolution.asp
* For a printable copy of the Petition to Support Affirmative
Action Before the US Supreme Court:
http://www.bamn.com/supreme-court.pdf
* Sign the petition online at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/755335360
[cut & paste the above link to forward to others in you own
email.]
*** RESERVE YOUR SEAT ON A BUS ***
From: Prema [SMTP:prema@hilobay.com]
African Refugees Targeted in Cairo
Human Rights Watch
CAIRO, EGYPT 10 February 2003
Hundreds of foreigners, including refugees and asylum seekers, were beaten
and jailed during two nights of racially-motivated arrests in Cairo, Human
Rights Watch said today.
During the raids, which took place on January 28 and 29, plainclothes
policemen and security forces entered homes without showing either
identification or warrants, and arrested foreigners, predominantly people
of sub-Saharan African origin. Other foreigners were arrested while
walking down the street, and were prevented from returning home to collect
identity papers. Still others were during the arrests and sustained
injuries as a
result.
Individuals carrying blue identification cards issued by the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were arrested alongside
undocumented foreigners. Refugees explained to Human Rights Watch that the
police repeatedly told them the UNHCR cards were "useless."
"These are refugees who have permission to be in Egypt, and there's no
reason for police to be arresting them," said Alison Parker, refugee
protection expert at Human Rights Watch. "And there's no reason for the
police to beat people they arrest, under any circumstances."
The raids were also discriminatory. Refugees and asylum-seekers told Human
Rights Watch that police wagons and microbuses patrolled the streets of
the al-Maadi district of Cairo throughout the day on January 28, looking for
"blacks." Witnesses report hearing policemen refer to January 28 as "Black
Day." Human Rights Watch also learned that the intake sheet on which
police took names at al-Maadi station was headed, in Arabic, "Operation
Track
Down Blacks."
"The raids in Cairo are doubly reprehensible, for targeting refugees -
vulnerable people who should be protected, not punished - and for
targeting people solely on the basis of the color of their skin," Parker
said.
Detainees were held at al-Maadi and Bassatin police stations in inhumane
and crowded conditions. As many as eighty people were crammed in cells
measuring three by four meters and were forced to stand overnight. At
al-Maadi station, the chief officer on duty refused to accept food for any
prisoners.
Early on January 29, UNHCR staff, after arguing with police at al-Maadi
station for much of the night, finally secured the release of a few dozen
detainees with refugee status. A number of other detainees have since been
freed, but an undetermined number may still be held. When a Human Rights
Watch representative questioned officials at al-Maadi station as to the
number of people remaining in detention, he was given conflicting figures.
Some of those arrested had not yet been recognized as refugees. Such
asylum seekers are not given documents, as they are in some other
countries,
to
indicate that they have temporary permission to remain while their cases
are considered.
"The process of seeking asylum in Cairo is fraught with delay and
procedural deficiencies," Parker said. "UNHCR is overburdened and
under-resourced. At the same time, people waiting to have their cases
heard should have something to show to police when they are asked for
identity documents."
The recent raid is the latest example of human rights violations
perpetrated by Egyptian police against refugees and asylum-seekers. Raids
also took place on December 2 -3, 2002 and earlier in January, during
which people were harassed, beaten, arbitrarily arrested and detained.
The threat of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and racially-based
harassment continues to hang over many asylum-seekers and refugees in
Egypt. One Nigerian asylum-seeker old Human Rights Watch, "The police and
people here do not believe in human rights. And they do not even seem to
believe that black people are human."
Human Rights Watch urged the Egyptian government to immediately cease the
racial targeting and arbitrary arrests and detention of refugees and
asylum
seekers, and called on Egyptian law enforcement personnel to respect
documents issued by UNHCR.
Human Rights Watch also called on UNHCR to consider issuing temporary
"asylum seeker" documents in order to prevent arbitrary arrests of people
whose cases are not yet resolved.
Source: African refugees targeted in Cairo, Egypt
http://www.africaonline.com/site/Articles/1,3,52058
IN THIS ISSUE of the highly irregular
"CAN'T STOP" NEWSLETTER:
+++++++++++
-> WHY URBAN RADIO SUCKS
-> GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED: JOBS!
+++++++++++
BLOG:
http://cantstopwontstop.blogspot.com
********************
URBAN RADIO RAGE
********************
When Clear Channel bought KMEL, it destroyed the so-called people's station.
Now the people want it back.
[This one's in this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian, and on the web at:
http://www.sfbg.com/37/18/cover_kmel.html]
THERE AREN'T MANY visitors to Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s South of
Market fortress these days, other than ad buyers, talent managers, and
contest winners. The first floor looks like a tiny security bunker with
silent music videos flickering on small wall-mounted TVs. So on Jan. 6, when
a group of hip-hop activists showed up a bunch of teens and
twentysomethings, battle-hardened, some of them anyway, by campaigns against
globalization and Proposition 21 the gatekeeper alerted management before
allowing them up to the fourth-floor waiting room.
They were there for a meeting with representatives of KMEL, 106.1 FM. In the
skylighted penthouse conference room, Malkia Cyril, executive director of
Youth Media Council, part of the listeners' group calling itself the
Community Coalition for Media Accountability (CCMA), pressed their case.
Since Clear Channel took over KMEL in 1999, she said, there has been no
access to the airwaves for social justice organizations, an imbalance in
programming and content, and no avenues for community accountability.
KMEL representatives listened, sometimes confused, often baffled. Pop radio
executives aren't used to going face-to-face with angry, politicized
listeners. But then again, KMEL has never been an ordinary radio station. In
recent years such meetings in which community leaders air grievances and
radio execs scratch their heads seem to have become a regular thing. Once
known as "the people's station," KMEL has become a target for the people's
anger.
For more than 15 years, KMEL has been a national radio powerhouse. It is the
number-two music station in the fourth-largest radio market in the country,
commanding the largest radio audience among the highly coveted 18-to-34
demographic. But perhaps more important, KMEL holds an almost mythical place
in Bay Area hip-hop. During the '90s, KMEL helped launch rappers like Tupac
Shakur, Hammer, and E-40. It produced on-air personalities, including Trace
Dog and Franzen Wong (of the Up All Night Crew) and Renel Lewis, who seemed
as around-the-way as hip-hop itself. Through its innovative
community-affairs programming, it engaged the social issues of the hip-hop
generation. The arrival in 1992 of a fierce competitor, KYLD-FM, also known
as "Wild," which billed itself as "the party station," only reinforced
KMEL's populist image.
But an unprecedented wave of consolidation swept the radio industry after
Congress passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which removed
station-ownership caps. Before the ink was dry, KMEL's then-parent company,
Evergreen Media, ended the ratings war with KYLD by purchasing it and the
changes didn't stop there. A series of ever larger mergers culminated in
1999 with a whopping $24 billion deal in which KMEL and KYLD passed from
AMFM Inc. into the hands of Clear Channel. That, critics say, is when
everything that was once so right began to go so wrong.
An outcry for media justice
If the changes that began in 1996 began to turn off some longtime KMEL
listeners, the Oct. 1, 2001, firing of radio personality and hip-hop
activist David "Davey D" Cook shortly after his show Street Knowledge
aired Rep. Barbara Lee's and the Coup's Boots Riley's objections to the war
in Afghanistan was the final straw. Cook's firing seemed to symbolize the
end of an era in which community input, local music, and progressive
politics had a place at KMEL, and it triggered thousands of e-mails, faxes,
and letters; rowdy picket lines at the station; and the current round of
accountability meetings. Gang-peace organizer Rudy Corpuz of United Playaz
said the message to KMEL remains clear: "Check your priorities. Without the
community, your station would never have been made."
The KMEL protests are a big part of a swelling national backlash in urban
communities against the shock jocks, autopilot programming, and mind-numbing
hype of their radio stations. On Jan. 14, Cook joined with Afrika Bambaataa
and the Universal Zulu Nation, rapper Chuck D, Bob Law of the National
Leadership Alliance, and black activist organizations the December 12th
Movement and the Code Foundation to denounce what they say is the lack of
positive black music and community voices on stations like Emmis
Communications-owned Hot 97 and Clear Channel-owned Power 105.1. Many have
begun calling it a movement for media justice.
Cook, who hosts the Hard Knock Radio and Friday Night Vibe shows on KPFA,
94.1 FM, has now quietly and somewhat reluctantly become one of the
movement's most prominent spokespeople. Speaking to the Bay Guardian from
New York, he sketched out the issues. "The main complaint I've heard for
three days," he explained, "is the lack of positive music, lack of access,
and just the feeling that there's something foul about what I am listening
to. People are really pissed from coast to coast."
Radio Godzilla
Clear Channel's vast media empire caught the public's attention during the
aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when executives allegedly
circulated a list of so-called sensitive songs to be banned from the
airwaves. By then corporate media critics were already describing Clear
Channel as the Godzilla of the radio industry. Indeed, no other firm has
benefited more from the Telecommunications Act. It has gone from owning 40
stations in 1996 to owning 1,240 today, commanding over a quarter of all
radio revenues and listeners. (In the Bay Area it holds a similar market
share.) Its closest competitor, Cumulus Media, owns just 248 stations.
"Clear Channel is the monster that destroyed radio," veteran Bay Area
radio-industry watcher and columnist Bill Mann said.
Critics say Clear Channel's KMEL has been distinguished by bland on-air
personalities, reactionary politics, and the same seven songs that seem to
be playing on every urban station everywhere. Bay Area political rapper
Paris notes that in 1990, KMEL helped artists like him and Digital
Underground blow up nationally. During the Gulf War the station even aired a
remix of a Sway and Tech track called "Time for Peace" that featured all of
them. "There was a lot more willingness to support local talent. Now that
willingness is not there," he said. "Especially in this political climate,
even in what many would argue is the cradle of liberalism, there's no room
for anything that's progressive. Everything is rampant negativity."
Wong thinks the station is a shell of its former self. "They don't care
about the streets anymore," he said.
Radio for everyone
The calls for change at KMEL are coming from a powerful source: angry youths
of color from the station's target audience. Last fall a group of listeners
began subjecting KMEL to some hard listening. The result was a scathing
critique of the station issued by the Youth Media Council and the CCMA (www
.media-alliance.org/action/KMEL.pdf). The CCMA's broad front includes the
Mindzeye Artist Collective, hip-hop activist organization Let's Get Free,
and global justice group Just Act.
They argue that since Cook was fired, progressives have lost their voice.
They charge that the last remaining community-affairs program, Street
Soldiers, excludes their views. They note that local artists who make up
one of the most vibrant and diverse rap music scenes in the country are
rarely heard on the station. The title of their report pointedly asks the
question "Is KMEL the People's Station?"
"They say that they're the people's station," said Just Act program
coordinator and CCMA spokesperson Saron Anglon, a 25-year-old who has
listened to KMEL for 15 years. "They're not talking about social change or
peace. They're focusing on things like crime and war. Our communities are
listening to this quote-unquote people's station, and the people are not
necessarily being represented."
A recent study by the Future of Music Coalition (www.futureofmusic.org),
an
artists' rights-public interest organization, provides a context for urban
radio rage. Radio deregulation, the report argues, has left the public
airwaves dominated by companies that have laid off hundreds, decimated
community programming, and all but standardized playlists across the
country. The report also found that an overwhelming majority of listeners
want playlists with more variety and more local artists. It cites research
pointing out that the time an average listener spends with the radio has
dropped to a 27-year low.
On Jan. 6 the newest FCC commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein, spoke to
attendees at a Future of Music Coalition conference in Washington, D.C. He
echoed the concerns of media justice activists across the country, said, "We
must ask ourselves: At what point does consolidation come at the cost of the
local expression that makes radio so unique and so special in this country?
At what point does allowing consolidation undermine the public interest
and the quality of what we hear on the radio?"
For a growing number of alienated urban radio listeners, the answer is
"Now."
Building the people's station
During the early '80s, Bay Area urban radio was stagnating, dominated by
slick, disposable R&B. At the same time, college- and community-radio
stations like KPOO-FM, KZSU-FM, KUSF-FM, and KALX-FM were championing
hip-hop. Danyel Smith, the author of More like Wrestling and a former Vibe
magazine editor in chief, was a columnist for the Bay Guardian during the
years hip-hop broke.
"You had to know where Billy Jam was gonna be playing, where Davey D was
gonna be playing," she said. "To the rest of the world, they were very
little radio stations that came in staticky, and the show was on in the
middle of the night, but you were in the know, and things were really
exciting. And as much as I think we all liked being part of our little
secret thing, we all thought, 'Wow this music needs to be heard by everyone.
Someone needs to take it and blow it up, give it the respect that it
deserves.' And for the Bay Area, that station was KMEL."
During the mid '80s, KMEL changed from a rock format to a "contemporary
hits" format and became one of the first crossover pop stations in the
nation to target young multiracial audiences with hip-hop, house, and reggae
music. To make it work, KMEL desperately needed street credibility. College-
and community-radio jocks, such as KALX's Cook, Sadiki Nia, and Tamu du Ewa,
and local artists, including (now-MTV personality) Sway and King Tech, were
recruited to the station. "They took what we were doing at community radio
and brought it to the station," said KPOO personality KK Baby, who joined
KMEL in 1991. "They would use us to attract the rest of the pop music
audience."
Most of the jocks were never offered full-time positions, but they brought
their audiences with them and became the central force in pushing KMEL to
play cutting-edge music and offer community-oriented programming. Street
Soldiers evolved from Hammer's idea to have a forum for young people to talk
candidly about issues like gang violence. (The syndicated show is now hosted
by Joe Marshall and Margaret Norris of the Omega Boys Club.) Davey D's
hugely influential Street Knowledge program debuted in 1995 as a talk show
for the hip-hop generation, dealing with topics spanning race, gender, and
class. On his second show Davey D hosted a roundtable on the state of civil
rights that featured Jesse Jackson, then-assembly speaker Willie Brown,
Chuck D, Paris, and Belva Davis.
With a formula of underground-friendly playlists, activism-savvy
programming, and street promotions, the station's ratings soared in the
early '90s. KMEL's approach progressive, edgy, multicultural, inclusive
fit the Bay Area well. Listeners embraced the people's station with open
arms. KMEL's music shows and community-affairs programming, even its popular
Summer Jam events, were soon imitated throughout the country.
The 1992 ratings war with KYLD brought out the best in most people. Michael
Martin, who was then KYLD's program director and now serves as Clear
Channel's regional vice president of programming, said, "We felt KMEL was a
little lazy, so we came in with a vengeance." It was in this fierce
competition that mainstays like Sway and Tech's Wake-Up Show, Street
Soldiers, Street Knowledge, and KYLD's Doghouse stepped forward. At the same
time, the dueling stations let the mix-show DJs experiment with local music,
resulting in hits for artists like Tha Click, Conscious Daughters, Mac Mall,
and the Luniz. The audience expanded to include listeners from San Jose to
Pittsburg.
All around the world, the same song
Then the Telecommunications Act was passed. FCC chair Reed Hundt defended
the legislation by arguing, "We are fostering innovation and competition in
radio." But by all accounts, KMEL's innovative years were over. After a
dustup between Too $hort and the Luniz at the 1995 Summer Jam, local artists
were reportedly pushed off playlists. Mix-show DJs increasingly found their
mixes subject to approval by higher-ups. Specialty shows were quietly
eliminated. The battle for young urban ears ended with KMEL's purchase of
KYLD. Three years later, Clear Channel swallowed them both.
To the listener, consolidation is probably most apparent in what the
stations play. Just listen to KMEL's and KYLD's nightly countdowns of the
seven "most requested" (their own words) songs. On any given night the
stations may share as many as four of their seven "most requested" songs
the same 50 Cent, Ashanti and Ja Rule, LL Cool J, and P. Diddy tracks that
are playing across the country. The exception, "Closer," by the Bay Area's
Goapele, which was added to KMEL's rotation last month, stands out like a
diamond for its rarity.
"Programming is more or less centralized," columnist Mann argued. "This is
not guesswork. They've got too much money and too many shareholders at stake
to leave much to chance." But Martin, who programs KMEL, KYLD, and K101-FM
while overseeing the playlists of all of the other Clear Channel stations in
northern California, denies this. "There is no centralization of programming
at Clear Channel," he said. "There is no such thing as a national type of
playlist."
Still, this is small consolation for local artists like E-A-Ski, who,
despite producing records for Master P and Ice Cube that have sold millions
of copies and holding a national fan base for his own rap records, still
finds himself knocking from the outside. After Clear Channel took over, he
and other local artists went to KMEL to protest their exclusion. As a
result, Davey D got the green light to begin broadcasting the short-lived
Local Flavas show. These days E-A-Ski is one of a tiny number of local
artists heard on KMEL, but only because he is on a remix of Atlanta rapper
Lil' Jon's "Who U Wit." "If you look at the South, they got all their DJs
and their radio to support their records. The same system they have, we
had," he said. "Everybody else is supporting their music, but KMEL isn't
doing it."
Martin dismissed such complaints, saying, "No matter what market you go
into, you hear the same complaint from the same people: you don't support
local artists, you don't play this. Bottom line is, if they would put out
hit records that are equal in hit quality to the other stuff we're playing
on the air, there wouldn't be an issue."
He does concede that playlists have tightened over the years. "I will tell
you that, around the country, the stations that play less have bigger
ratings. Power 106 in L.A., who has huge ratings, their most-spun record in
a day can go up to 16 times in a day. My most-played will hit 11, maybe 12,
that's it," he said. "Because, at the end of the day, the hits are the hits.
And the audience comes to you for a reason to hear the hits.
"The listeners don't care who owns us, or whether or not [stations] are
owned by the same company, or the same person is programming them," he
added.
Who stole the soul?
Martin's canny management took KYLD from "worst to first," as he puts it.
But as KYLD caught up to KMEL in ratings and revenue during the late '90s,
the people's station suffered a slow death. "There were four different
mergers. People were cut all along. People were just getting frustrated, and
then when Clear Channel came in, that was the worst [part] of it all,"
onetime KMEL DJ Nia said.
Shortly before she was laid off, Nia's cohost, du Ewa, who also engineered
the overnight shows, was shown her own obsolescence when she was trained on
the programming system created by Clear Channel subsidiary Prophet Systems
Innovation. "The [software] has the music, commercials, and in-house
station-promotions elements. I could look on there and find Wild's and
[KISS-FM's] programming as well," she said. "Their idea was to cut
late-night shifts, cut as many people as they can, and have more
voice-overs. The late shift I used to do from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. on the
weekends is now digitally preprogrammed."
For the listener, this process, known as "voice tracking," crushes the
notion that all radio is local. Jocks may prerecord vocal drops and listener
calls to send out to other Clear Channel stations throughout the region.
Labor unions argue that Clear Channel utilizes voice tracking to violate
labor contracts, according to Peter Fuster, vice president of the American
Federation of Radio and Television Artists' New York chapter. Consumer
groups say it undercuts radio's public mission to provide news, information,
and color for local communities. The practice is so controversial that it
has already provoked a National Labor Relations Board charge against KMEL's
New York counterpart, Power 105, which imported former KMEL DJ Theo
Mizuhara's voice for overnight programming.
Mann said, "For years I've been calling them Cheap Channel, because they
consolidate and they lay people off." Other industry insiders speculate that
Clear Channel is in a bind because it overpaid for its radio properties.
Many former KMEL employees say it was Martin who presided over Clear
Channel's gutting of KMEL. During the summer of 2000, he replaced the
station's fired program director, Joey Arbagey, and was handed programming
responsibilities for both stations. "All these years you're competing with
him, now he's your boss," du Ewa said. "He was on this personal vendetta to
prove that he could make that place totally successful with his people. And
eventually that's who he had in there, a whole new staff of his people."
Despite being among the highest-rated radio personalities in the Bay Area,
the Up All Night Crew's Wong was dismissed. He had started at KMEL as a
14-year-old intern and worked his way up to become one of the station's key
assets. He was cohost of a popular video show on the California Music
Channel, one of the most visible Asian American radio DJs in the country, a
big supporter of local artists, and a bona fide Bay Area street hero. "My
contract was up January 1, 2001. I had the meeting with [Martin] on January
2, 2001, and that's when I got let go," Wong, now a radio personality in Las
Vegas, said. "I told him, 'Thank you,' and I walked out. The thing that
burned me the most is that I didn't get to say good-bye to my listeners."
(Martin says Wong was fired "due to insubordination" and will not comment
further.)
On Oct. 1, Davey D was fired. He recalls his last few weeks at the station
as being surreal: "I remember after 9/11, I got a call, and they wondered
where the candlelight vigil was for the night. I said, 'The candlelight
vigil?' And it was like, 'Yeah, we need to send the street team there.'
That's typical of radio these days."
'Why support them?'
Execs at Clear Channel note that its stations' ratings are higher than ever.
In the just-concluded books for fall 2001, KMEL rose to a 4.3 share, which
they say represents an audience of nearly 692,000 listeners, up from 562,000
when Davey D was fired. "When you start to see ratings slip, you need to
make changes, and the changes that we have made have made KMEL a
higher-ranked, higher-rated radio station," Martin said.
But Davey D argues that the numbers don't measure whether people are
satisfied or simply have nowhere else to go. "You may have more listeners
than you ever had before, but you also have more complaints than they ever
had before. You have people dissatisfied in a way they never were before.
You have people meeting, doing demonstrations, writing letters, doing
monitoring and hearings and all this stuff that never happened before."
Thembisa Mshaka, former rap editor for the Gavin Report trade magazine and
now a Columbia Records executive and Emixshow magazine columnist, argues
that companies like Clear Channel no longer care about "stationality" an
industry term for how well a station distinguishes itself by its
personality, as reflected in the styles of the DJs and the presentation of
local music and news. With the growth of alternative radio outlets, via
satellite and Internet, addressing community complaints may represent Clear
Channel's last, best chance to keep Bay Area listeners interested. "There
are still as many listeners out there to keep these stations going, but
they've gotta be concerned about their future. They're kidding themselves if
they're not," Mshaka said.
KMEL has allowed the past half decade of successful local R&B and hip-hop
acts to pass it by, including important artists like Meshell Ndegeocello and
the Coup. "They're excluding themselves from the musical renaissance
happening in the Bay Area," KPOO's KK Baby said. And since Street Knowledge
ended with Davey D's firing, no current programming reflects the brilliant
voices of the burgeoning local hip-hop-activist movement, which has been
instrumental in setting the national agenda for post-boomer progressives.
Recently, Clear Channel execs have made some concessions. Since the release
of the CCMA's report in November, they have added a battle-of-the-rappers
segment and a Friday-night local artist mix show hosted by Big Von and have
brought back the Wake-Up Show. They've also agreed to open an ongoing
dialogue with the CCMA. In fact, execs and activists left the Jan. 6 meeting
optimistic that they could work together.
But others are skeptical. "Now people in the streets are talking," rapper
E-A-Ski said. "I've had cats that just really want to say, 'If they ain't
gon' support us, then why are we supporting them? Don't let them come out to
the streets and the clubs.' "
Yet he continues to work with the station. "Big Von said to me yesterday we
got a lot more work to do. So I take that as we're moving towards trying to
make a new era in Bay Area rap, and I'ma hold cats to that. But when I don't
see it, I'll be the first one to make a record letting them know."
But will it get played? He paused to consider the irony. "What am I supposed
to do? Sit around here and just keep begging motherfuckers? I'm not gon'
keep begging."
-end-
**********
JOBS NOT BOMBS!
**********
So Bush spends about two minutes on the real State of the Union (shitty
economy) and then gets teary eyed for a half hour about sending young people
off to war (shittier foreign policy...but pretty good acting). Now this
e-letter was never meant to be a job board, but like a man seh, someone has
to give the people what they need. I mean, fuck a tax cut, ya know?
+++
MS. FOUNDATION COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
+++
OVERVIEW: The primary goal of the Director of Communications is to
develop and implement media, public relations, marketing and public
education strategies designed to increase and enhance the visibility of the
Ms. Foundation for Women and its programs including the Take Our Daughters
And Sons To Work program. The Director oversees the development and
communication of the Foundationąs visual and verbal messages, ensuring an
effective and persuasive communications effort to promote the organizationąs
vision.
Essential duties and responsibilities include the following. Other duties
may be assigned.
. Position and pitch the organization as the premiere national womenąs
philanthropic organization to our core audiences.
. Serve as a primary spokesperson for the Foundation.
. Work closely with selected marketing firms to develop and implement
promotional pieces for the Foundation.
. Ensure that all materials and communications adhere to verbal and visual
brand management guidelines and review all communications for key messages
and clarity for the target audience(s).
. Collaborate closely with development and program staff to create and
execute media, public relations and public education and marketing
strategies designed to expand public awareness of the Foundation and its
activities, and to generate increased financial support for the Foundation.
. Manage the content, design, and direction for all institutional
publications, including the website, to achieve a consistent and a
high-quality look for the Foundation.
. Serve on the Foundationąs executive team, ensuring the overall
effectiveness and sustainability of the institution.
. Develop an annual public service ad campaign for Take Our Daughters And
Sons To WorkSM that communicates the strategic goals and direction of the
program.
. Manage the Take Our Daughters And Sons To WorkSM brand, including visual
and verbal messages.
. Generate and distribute press releases for all Foundation announcements
and events and oversee the production of press kits, news releases, and
media alerts.
. Closely monitor current events to respond with letters to the editor and
longer opinion pieces in a timely manner and with effective messages.
. Cultivate and work closely with reporters, journalists, producers, and
editors to ensure the Foundationąs prominent voice and high visibility on
key issues.
. Serve as a resource on womenąs issues for professionals in print and
visual media.
. Position Ms. Foundation staff as experts and resources on key issue areas
via our website, press materials, etc.
. Coordinate and prepare staff for interviews with the media to ensure that
the Foundation has a consistent message and image when speaking to the
press.
. Oversee the communications departmentąs resources, including subject
files, news clippings, fax on demand service, and a comprehensive reporter
database.
. Direct a staff of five in the communications department.
QUALIFICATIONS
. Bachelor's degree and proven track record with 10+ years of progressive
media relations experience.
. Exceptional written, oral, and interpersonal communications skills.
. Strong planning and management skills; ability to manage time efficiently,
meet deadlines, work independently and within a team structure; ability to
work under pressure.
. Demonstrated ability to manage, mentor, and motivate staff. Senior
institutional management experience a plus.
. Ability to establish and implement short- and long-range goals.
. Experience in budget development and implementation.
. A strong commitment to womenąs rights and womenąs empowerment. Background
in advocacy, economic development, social change, or womenąs issues a strong
plus.
. Travel required.
COMPENSATION Salary commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits.
HIRING POLICY The Ms. Foundation for Women is an equal opportunity
employer. We consider applicants for all positions without regard to race,
color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, marital or
veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.
Please submit letter with salary requirements, resume and writing sample to:
HR-DOC
Ms. Foundation for Women
120 Wall Street, 33rd Floor,
New York, NY 10005
Only those whose applications are being considered will be contacted.
+++
JOBS AT THE CENTER FOR THIRD WORLD ORGANIZING
+++
The premier organizer's institute for people of color, the CENTER FOR THIRD
WORLD ORGANIZING, is seeking dynamic individuals who wish to build a
stronger movement for racial justice. The following staff positions are open
until filled. Please send a resume
and writing sample to:
Mark Toney ? CTWO ? 1218 E. 21st Street ? Oakland, CA 94606 ?
mtoney@ctwo.org
People of color, women, and LGBT persons are strongly encouraged to apply.
PROJECT COORDINATOR, Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program
For 16 years, MAAP has been the preeminent training school for young
organizers of color. The MAAP Coordinator is responsible for recruiting
participants and host organizations, coordinating week-end long Community
Action Trainings, as well as some curriculum development and conducting
trainings. The position also involves fundraising and writing reports.
Qualifications: Applicant must have at least 2 years experience doing social
justice work. Ability to handle multiple tasks and prioritize while
maintaining attention to detail is preferred. Must have excellent writing
and verbal skills. Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Filemaker is a
plus. Involves travel.
Salary range is $30-36,000/year plus generous benefits.
LEAD ORGANIZER, Grassroots Organizing for Welfare Leadership
The GROWL organizer will work closely with a national network of
community-based organizations developing actions and trainings around
welfare rights issues. The GROWL Coordinator will be responsible for the
recruitment of allies, organizing of gatherings, coordinating state-level
campaigns, research, fundraising and administrative duties.
Qualifications: Applicant must have at least 5 years experience as an
organizer with a community or labor organization working directly with
low-income communities. Ability to deal with multiple tasks and deadlines is
helpful. Strong written and verbal communication skills are a must.
Bilingual skills (Spanish/English) are helpful. Travel will be required.
Salary range is $35,000-42,000/year plus generous benefits.
LEAD ORGANIZER, Alliance for Post-Prison Education, Advocacy, and Leadership
APPEAL is a criminal justice/racial justice project that seeks to develop
organizing and leadership skills for people coming out of prison in order to
break down barriers to a full and dignified re-entry into our communities.
The APPEAL Lead Organizer is in charge of strengthening community re-entry
coalitions, coordinating research on barriers to community re-entry, and
developing leadership training sessions for ex-prisoners.
Qualifications: Applicant must have at least 7 years experience as an
organizer with a community or labor organization working directly with
low-income communities. Experience supervising staff and crafting organizing
campaigns is required for this position. Strong written and verbal
communication skills are a must. Bilingual (Spanish/English) helpful.
Involves travel.
Salary range is $38-44,000/year plus generous benefits.
+++
ROCK THE VOTE LOOKING FOR ORGANIZERS
+++
Rock the Vote is re-launching the Community Street Team (CST) Program for
2003. We need adventurous, active young people to serve as our CST leaders
in 50 cities nationwide.
Hiring Now, Positions Run Through December 2003.
Applications: Go to
www.rockthevote.org/streetteams.html to download an
application and return it completed to
pablo@rockthevote.org.
If you live in one of the cities or states listed below and want to join
RTV's team of young people changing the world, then read all the info below
and send in your application!
South (13 cities, 10 states):
Atlanta, GA
Little Rock, AR
Miami, FL (2)
Tampa Bay, FL
New Orleans, LA
Austin/San Antonio, TX
Houston, TX
Dallas, TX
Mississippi
Virginia
Kentucky
Raleigh, NC
South Carolina
West (13 cities, 9 states):
Bay Area, CA (2)
Fresno, CA
Irvine, CA
Los Angeles, CA (2)
San Diego, CA
Albuquerque, NM
Portland, OR
Seattle, WA
Denver, CO
Phoenix/Tucson, AZ
Las Vegas, NE
Salt Lake City, UT
Honolulu, Hawaii
Midwest (10 cities, 10 states):
Des Moines, Iowa
Detroit, MI
Cleveland, OH
St Louis// Kansas City, MO
Chicago, IL (2)
Indianapolis, IN
Madison, WI
Brookings, South Dakota
Twin Cities, MN
Missoula, MT
East (9 cities, 7 states):
Boston, MA
Connecticut
New Brunswick, NJ
New Hampshire
New York, NY (2)
Albany, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Washington DC (2)
What is a Community Street Team?
The community street team program is Rock the Vote's grassroots apparatus;
it is the method of distributing our message on the ground while cultivating
young activists; it is our premiere means to building youth into the
progressive political force of the future.
The CST, comprised of young people (ages 14-30) who implement RTV's programs
in their own communities, is officially affiliated with RTV and in general
must support the overall mission of the organization.
Why join a RTV Street Team?
By joining one of the CSTs, members will be provided with:
÷ An opportunity to impact change and inspire oneąs peers;
÷ An opportunity to be a part of a grassroots movement that can and will
affect the future of this country.
÷ A valuable experience in organizing, management, leadership and activism;
÷ A resume-building experience for employment or educational goals;
÷ A chance to attend concerts free of charge; and
÷ An opportunity to receive promotional items, giveaways and other perks.
What types of activities and events will the CSTs participate in?
Voter registration and issues advocacy at the following types of events:
¸ Music Concert Tours.
¸ Festivals, Parades and any other local community events where young people
will be present.
¸ Rock The Vote sponsored tours and events
¸ Issues advocacy rallies and protests.
Other Responsibilities:
Schools:
¸ Reach out to high school government/civic classes for volunteers and to
promote the value of voting and civic engagement.
¸ Link up with Political Science/Public Policy Departments of local colleges
for volunteers and to inform them of our organizational goals.
¸ Make presentations at different schools on different issues both local and
national.
¸ Solicit involvement from young activists and/or clubs that are interested
in getting young people involved in the political process.
Media:
¸ Partner with local radio stations to spread the RTV message.
¸ Make relations with your local media so that they will report on your
activities.
¸ Get acquainted with local talent and find ways in which they can help the
leader achieve the goals of the local CST.
Local and National Non-profit Organizations:
¸ Develop partnerships with relevant organizations in your community and
collaborate on projects aimed at getting young people involved in the
political process.
¸ Issues advocacy with organizations that have similar stands on issues.
Volunteers:
¸ Build a strong volunteer network comprised of interested young people
using internet, phone trees, regular meetings, and social activities.
¸ Recruiting volunteers at every event that you attend, building a strong
and dependable team that can be ready to hit the streets when called on.
Would you like to be the RTV Street Team Leader in your city?
RTV is now hiring one or two CST Leaders in the 50 cities listed above,
providing a modest stipend of $200/month to the selected individuals for
committing approximately 30 hours a month to RTV activities. Leaders will
be trained on different methods of organizing and asked to meet a number of
deliverables.
The CST leader will be the lead contact for all activities in their
community and work closely with the RTV Program Coordinator to carry out all
delineated responsibilities. This person will serve as the RTV contact to
all local events and partnerships and is responsible for the recruitment and
retention of the Street Team members. The ideal Street Team would have
15-20 members that are reliable and well trained by the leader.
To apply, please fill out an application at
www.rockthevote.org/streetteams.html and return it to
pablo@rockthevote.org
by the deadlines listed at the top.
PAYOLA IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
http://dir.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2001/07/24/urban_radio/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3715-2003Jan2.html
Washington tunes in
By Eric Boehlert
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/03/27/beltway/index.html
Maryland State Police Reach Deal On
Profiling
By Jo Becker
The Maryland State Police have reached a partial
settlement in the nation's
longest-running racial-profiling lawsuit, agreeing to far-reaching changes
aimed
at preventing troopers from singling out minority motorists for harassment.
The agreement, developed over months of intense negotiations, comes a decade
after the legal battle began with a Harvard University-educated public
defender's refusal to consent to a police search. The class action filed in
federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union now includes the Maryland
chapter of the NAACP and scores of minority drivers who said they were
victims
of racial bias.
The settlement will go before the state's Board of Public Works for approval
next week, the board's final meeting before a new governor and state police
superintendent take office. The deal includes $325,000 for the plaintiffs'
attorney fees but does not include monetary damages. Those will be sought in
separate lawsuits to be filed in the future, said William J. Mertens, the
ACLU's
lead outside counsel.
In reaching the agreement, the state police did not admit to engaging in
systematic racial profiling, though data have shown that Maryland troopers
stop
and search minority drivers at disproportionate rates.
Mertens said the state police's agreement to abide by a federal court order
to institute policy changes represents a significant step forward.
"It requires that they make use of information they currently collect,
identify red flags, investigate them further and take the appropriate action,"
Mertens said. ". . . The problem has been that there was all this data
gathered
but nobody did anything about it: No one took any heat, no one paid
attention."
State Police Superintendent David B. Mitchell, who will step down when
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is sworn in as governor Jan. 15, was not available for
comment. His spokesman, Lt. Bud Frank, said the agency "was not permitted to
discuss this in any manner right now." Frank said most rank-and-file troopers
are still in the dark about the partial settlement.
Jim Wobbleton, president of the State Law Enforcement Officers Labor
Alliance, was furious yesterday that the agreement was struck without the
troopers' input.
"I see a tremendous amount of problems with this," Wobbleton said. "You get
frustrated as a police officer when you are just trying to do your job and you
get accused of being racist."
Particularly vexing is a requirement that the state police prepare a
brochure on how to file racial-profiling complaints and make copies available
to
drivers, said Nick Paros, acting president of the Maryland Troopers
Association.
"When you are pulling people over, it's not the best of circumstances. You'r
e usually writing them a ticket," said Paros, who learned of the settlement
from
a Washington Post reporter yesterday. "Now you are going to have to invite
them
to file a complaint against you for doing your job."
Gary Thorpe, the assistant comptroller who reviews Board of Public Works
agenda items, cast the settlement as a pragmatic one. "The courts have ruled
against them. Sometimes it's a question of cutting your losses," Thorpe said.
Ehrlich spokesman Paul E. Schurick said the incoming governor would reserve
judgment on the consent decree. "We've just learned about this, too, and I
believe it's best that we not comment until we have a chance to review it,
assess how much it will cost to implement, and evaluate its potential
effectiveness," Schurick said.
The 20-page agreement would require that the brochure be stocked at rest
stops, state police barracks and Motor Vehicle Administration offices. The
agreement also calls for setting up an 800 number for complaints.
Troopers would be required to keep copies of the brochure in their cars and
to offer the information to any motorist ticketed unless the situation -- in
keeping with preset standards -- made it impractical to do so. The state
police
would be required to provide training aimed at encouraging troopers to embrace
the process.
The state police also would have to develop what Mertens called an "early
warning system" to identify trouble spots or officers. Management would be
held
responsible for reviewing data, and a system would be put in place to review
videotape shot by troopers whose cars are equipped with cameras.
A police-citizen panel would be established to hear police and citizen
concerns about racial-profiling policies and make recommendations.
When state troopers asked for consent to search cars, they would have to
inform drivers that they have a right to refuse and have them waive that right
in writing, a practice many troopers already follow.
The legal battle began in May 1992 when Robert L. Wilkins was stopped in
Cumberland while driving home from Chicago to the District. Wilkins, a defense
lawyer, refused to consent to a police search, and he and relatives with him
were held for almost an hour while a state trooper called in a police dog to
sniff the car for drugs.
Wilkins contended that the trooper stopped the car because his family is
black. He contacted the ACLU and filed suit in 1993 in federal court in
Baltimore. The state police quickly offered to settle for $50,000, but Wilkins
held out for a promise that police would track traffic stops to determine
whether troopers were targeting people for "driving while black."
A settlement was signed in 1995, when Maryland troopers became the first
major police agency forced to collect traffic data on racial profiling. When
the
figures were reviewed the next year, they suggested that troopers were
disproportionately targeting blacks. In 1997, a federal judge found a "pattern
and practice of discrimination."
In 1998, the ACLU filed a new suit backed by testimony from 14 additional
plaintiffs and more than 125 people allegedly victimized by racial profiling.
A breakthrough in the legal dispute came in late October or early November,
Mertens said. It took additional time to agree on attorneys' fees. "By the
time
we had the agreement together and signed, and there were some last-minute
issues, it was too late to get it on agenda before the election," he said.
One of the lead plaintiffs, Gary D. Rodwell of Philadelphia, said, "It got
caught up in the elections, I think, because it has political and monetary
ramifications."
Wilkins said he was happy that at long last an agreement had been reached.
"I've been involved with this for over 10 years now," he said. "I believe that
this will help ensure that the state police enforce the law effectively but in
a
colorblind way."
From http://FinalCall.com
National News
Boycott called in Louisville over police shooting of Black man
By Saeed Shabazz
Staff Writer
Activists in Louisville, Ky., have called for a boycott of businesses in
the
downtown area in protest of the December 5 fatal shooting by police
detectives of James Taylor, 50, who was handcuffed at the time.
A similar boycott for similar reasons has impacted the economy of Cincinnati,
Ohio, a city about 100 miles north of Louisville.
Activist have also written the U.S. Justice Department about the shooting and
have held daily protests, bringing such activists as Dick Gregory, Martin
Luther King III and Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) to Louisville.
In a letter dated Dec. 13 to the Justice Department, Rev. Louis Coleman,
executive director of the Justice Resource Center, said that for the last
decade activists in the city have filed numerous complaints with the federal
agency concerning issues of police brutality and abuse. Rev. Coleman said
the response from the Justice Department has been one of indifference.
The activist/minister said that in recent years seven Black men have been
murdered by police officers under questionable circumstances. All of the
fatal shootings have been ruled justifiable, he said.
"We are taking matters into our own hands this time," Rev. Coleman told The
Final Call. He said activists believe that the Louisville business community
is the real power broker in Louisville, not the politicians.
"We are taking the fight for justice for James Taylor to the corporations
that make money from us, but do not speak out concerning issues such as
police brutality," Rev. Coleman stressed. "This is the best time to get our
point across; it's the holidays," he said.
Rev. Coleman said 30 percent of Louisville's 200,000 citizens are Black.
According to police reports, James Taylor had been handcuffed while in his
one-room apartment when Detective Michael O'Neal fired 12-rounds into his
five feet, nine inch, 159-pound frame. Coroner Richard Greathouse told
reporters that the seven bullets severed Mr. Taylor's vital organs.
The coroner said the "circumstances surrounding the shooting were very
troubling." Mr. Greathouse told the Louisville Courier-Journal that this is
the first time in his 29 years as a coroner that police shot a suspect who
was already handcuffed.
Police Chief Greg Smith told reporters that four other men in the apartment
with Mr. Taylor admitted to drinking and smoking crack cocaine. Police said
they recovered a crack pipe, but no illegal drugs. Chief Smith said that Mr.
Taylor had a box-cutter in his hands when he was shot.
Commonwealth Attorney Dave Stengel told the Courier-Journal that he expected
this case would be brought to the grand jury after the police department's
investigation is completed. Federal authorities have also expressed interest
in the case.
"The FBI has started an investigation into the recent shooting because of the
handcuff factor," Jeff Vessels, executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union office in Louisville, said during a Dec. 13 telephone
interview. "We need justice in Louisville. The mood here is, here we go
again, another police shooting swept under the rug. We have been fighting for
the last 10 years to get the police department to change the way it does
business."
In his letter to the Justice Department, Rev. Coleman said recruiting and
upgrading of Black officers has not changed in 30 years.
"As of this writing, not one of the six major command districts have an
African American in a command position," Rev. Coleman wrote, adding that 90
percent of the complaints to the Louisville Police Dept's Internal Affairs
Division have been dismissed.
Activists say they have been arguing for a Police Civilian Review Board in
Louisville. Mr. Vessels said the case for such a board was won two years ago,
but has been held up in court because of a suit filed by the Fraternal Order
of Police, which called the review board "unconstitutional."
Yvonne Bach, editor of the Louisville Defender, a Black community newspaper,
believes that getting the Police Review Board will help relieve some of the
tension in Louisville.
"The Black community has lost faith in the police department and the
political system of Louisville, so the board would be a step in the right
direction," Ms. Bach said.
Copyright 2002 by http://FinalCall.com
SONNY
CARSON ? THE GREAT WARRIOR PASSES ON
BLACK NEW YORKERS PAY TRIBUTE TO THE
NEW ANCESTOR
SONNY CARSON ? THE GREAT WARRIOR PASSES ON
BLACK NEW YORKERS PAY TRIBUTE TO THE NEW ANCESTOR
At 11.42p.m. on Friday -December 20, elder activist Robert ‘Sonny’ Carson made
his transition.
The beloved uncompromiser also known as Mwlina Imiri Abubadika, had been at a
New York area hospital since September following a cardiac arrest.
He was surrounded by his wife, members of his family and close friends.
"We lost a warrior no question about it," long time activist Herman Ferguson
told the Daily Challenge yesterday. "Hopefully, some of our young people will
come to study his life and work, to learn about the years of struggle for
Black
liberation and self-determination."
Carson was an activist in the true and original sense of the word. A real
people’s champion, who grew from running with some of Brooklyn’s toughest
gangs
in his youth, to become a world-renowned elder statesman.
Enjoying cult-like hero status on the underground and seen as a resolute
watchguard and methodologist overground, Carson was born in Orangeburg, South
Carolina, and moved to Brooklyn when he was three. The Borough of Kings had no
idea what it was in for.
He made the Peoples Republic of Brooklyn his. He renamed streets and schools
after Black heroes such as El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz and Marcus Garvey.
The marches he inspired are too numerous to mention here; the rallies and
issues he took up, the organizations he founded ? well documented; the bridges
he built are far-reaching with deep foundations. The impact of the man ? small
in stature, with a booming voice and glorious Black empowerment vision,
continues to be tremendous.
He was defiantly contentious when he challenged the status quo, whether it be
the City’s educational system, the police department, or local elected
officials. He was fiercely concerned like a patriarch when answering the call
of thousands of parents, when their ‘young, targeted and Black’ child was in
need.
Striding with staff in hand, with at least one of his lieutenants, Carson
could
often be seen going through Bedford-Stuyvesant, pretty much looking like the
king of all he surveyed. From all directions folk would come hands extended,
with a housing or regentrification issue; a discipline problem; a police
misconduct matter; a gifted child program; community organization plan; or
just
to give the brother love.
When it got chilly, his basement office in Restoration Plaza (which he helped
found) was the hotspot. Not unlike Grand Central Station was the foot traffic.
Activists from every Black grassroots group, leaders of local, government and
international organizations; committees from politics to entertainment,
culture
and the metaphysical; and individuals with agendas spanning life’s entire
panorama ? all passed through Sonny Carson’s door.
The four walls of the office are covered from ceiling to floor with posters,
pictures, placards, awards and photographs. Yesterday, as folk gathered once
again to do some organizing and some reflecting, watching over was a large,
blown up 1970s photo of Carson with an Afro, and a red, black and green
background. It was taken from the cover of his classic autobiography ‘The
Education of Sonny Carson.’
"We’re not mourning, we’re paying tribute," African-American Rabbi William
Tate
told Committee to Honor Black Hero members on Saturday morning as, friends
passed through the office. The phone continued to ring off the hook ? calls
from Africa to west and southern America.
"The world has lost another great man," said Ali Lamont, Carson’s
second-in-command. Having known him for over 36 years, Lamont is one of those
trying to come to terms with the loss of the Chairman of the Committee to
Honor
Black Heroes (The Committee).
"He was my brother, my best friend and somebody who I was with for 30 years,
and we still have to finish his work," Atiim Ferguson, Carson’s
chief-of-staff,
told the Challenge.
When the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) was founded in 1968, 500 people attended
the Detroit conference, 100 signed an oath of allegiance.
"He took the oath and lived the pledge," Ibidun Sundiata, member of The
Committee told the Challenge. Under Carson, District Judge for the RNA,
Sundiata took the oath at the famous School of Common Sense.
"For the fruition of Black Power; for the triumph of Black nationhood, I
pledge to the building of a better people and a better world, my total
devotion, my total resources, and the total power of my mortal life."
As folk gathered to share the news this past weekend, some people fought back
tears, others just cried.
The only emotion matching the pain, has been the joy in the recounting of the
thousands of ‘Remember when Sonny Carson did…’ stories that have been told in
homes and spots across the country and abroad, certainly in Africa.
Rabbi ‘Bill’ Tate is 72 years old, born and raised in Brooklyn.
"I’ve known Sonny since we were 13 or 14 years old," he said. "Sonny had his
own way of solving problems. He was a warrior, not a quitter. He was a
straight-talker. He always told it like it is. He was a true people’s person
concerned about the plight of the community.
"We came through those gang-games: the Robin, the Beavers, the Bishops, the
Nits, the Lords, and the Jolly Stompers." Immediately, elders like George
Merton, Atiim Ferguson and the Rabbi began a loud debate about exactly which
Brooklyn streets were the dividing lines between the gang territories.
Derek Muhammad of the Nation of Islam’s New York Mosque Number Seven sent the
Challenge a brief statement, "It is with the deepest sympathy and sorrow that
we extend our condolences to the family of Sonny Abubadika Carson. Our pioneer
and warrior in the struggle for Black Liberation for many years has returned
to
the ancestors."
"Sonny personified Black Nationalism and was a symbol of Black rebellion,"
Rev.
Al
Sharpton told the Daily Challenge. "When I was growing up in Brooklyn Sonny
was
synonymous with rebelling against an unjust system. History will portray him
as
far more significant than present times."
It was Carson who challenged the recent building of the Marriott Hotel in
downtown Brooklyn, with no Black laborers; he was the one who continued to
counsel incarcerated individuals such as Lemrick Nelson and more recently ?
ODB
? Russell Jones; it was Mr. Carson who led a Black Solidarity Day funeral
procession down Fulton Street, shadowed by cops, as a coffin was held high
inscribed with the names of police brutality victims such as: Randolph Evans,
Eleanor Bumpers, Nicholas Heyward and Gavin Cato.
The achievements of this Black Nationalist are so many. He shook up Brooklyn’s
CORE; helped found Medgar Evers College; ignited the debate around parent
power
and community control in the Ocean Hill Brownsville battle; organized many
community struggles and founded many organizations such as the Committee to
Honor Black Heroes, the Black Men’s Movement Against Crack and the December
12th Movement; and he was as harsh on Black perpetrators as he was on the
white
ones ? be they local or international.
And then there is the movie, ‘The Education of Sonny Carson.’
An in-the-know segment of a generation know all the lines of this film adapted
from his autobiography.
Word for word, can repeat them ? and do. Nevermind over-hyped,
mega-celebrity-driven movies, the message in the celluloid has a life of its
own. The anti-mainstream-hero hero, who is Sonny Carson in the movie, and was
him in real life, has captured the heart and imagination of Black folks from
children to great grandparents.
Wu Tang Klan and Mobb Deep are among the rappers who took the lyrics and
introduced a whole new audience to the man, also known as Mwlina Imiri
Abubadika.
The popularity of the movie was demonstrated by the October ‘Sonny Carson Day’
celebration held at Restoration Plaza and the Akbar Community Center, where
tribute was paid to the man and his mission.
The 1974 film is still shown on several cable channels and is available on
video and was just released on DVD.
‘The Education of Sonny Carson’ is a coming-of-rage story about how a young
Black boy parlays his street smarts from being a member of The Bishops gang to
a chief community organizer and an internationally respected elder statesman.
The working poor and Black leaders from Africa/Caribbean-America to kings,
chiefs and elected officials from the Continent and Diaspora have sought and
received an audience with Carson. Braggin’ About Brooklyn’s founder Fred
Laverpool has long been pushing to rename parts of Gates Avenue after Carson,
just as the man himself had virtually completed negotiations for the renaming
parts of Brooklyn’s Fulton Street after that other warrior Harriet Tubman.
An ex-convict himself, in recent years Carson had set up voter registration
drives for
released convicts. Seeing them as fellow comrades in struggle, Carson battled
for amnesty for America’s political prisoners. Always referring to himself as
a
"kidnapped African in America, Carson was actively involved in pursuit the
Reparations battle; but, perhaps the most crucial achievement for which he
will
be best known internationally, is taking the bones of his ancestor runaway
enslaved African Samuel Carson to Ghana in 1998. This act became an integral
part of that nation’s Emancipation Day celebrations transforming the ‘Doors of
No Return’ to the ‘Doors of Return.’
"Sonny Abubadika Carson was a courageous, consistent and committed brother. He
never changed," Rev. Herbert Daughtry told the Challenge. He had known Carson
for 42 years. "He was always vigilant, protecting the rights of the people. He
said things that other people were afraid to say. When he spoke all that guff,
he was just being protective. He really was a tender dude. We will miss him
very much."
At the end of his book, ‘The Education of Sonny Carson,’ first printed in
1972,
he concluded with the historic battle between teachers, students, the
community
and armed police officers at Ocean Hill-Brownsville.
"Community control is what the people say it is," he wrote. While he stated
that it was not token leadership; or insulting quick fixes; or having
righteous
indignation siphoned off by so-called national organizations with career
building and capitalism at community expense as its bottom line; Carson did
say, "If you’re waiting for me to tell you what it is, then I think it is time
for you to use commonsense instead of an imposed discipline."
Education is key, he said.
His book begins with his first day in school, a little guy, all dressed up in
his fresh pressed clothes ? introduced to the New York City education system.
It ends with an activist giant challenging it at Ocean Hill-Brownsville, as he
marched, leading close to 2000 people, to a police precinct to find the
casualties and those arrested after the violent confrontation with the city’s
police.
"I end here, because I think it is important for you to be left now," he
wrote,
"at the moment of entering a police precinct not too far from a public
school,"
to talk to cops about the injured and handcuffed, officers who themselves were
products of the very system he was protesting. "It is the police system and
the
educational system that Black people must ? and will control, because it is
these two that remain an obstacle to our determining for ourselves our own
destinies in our community."
At the beginning of his book, he explains that he and his editor disagreed
with
some of the vocabulary he chose to use in the book, "but, I have been
insistent, consistent and resistant."
The man could not be described better.
His wake is scheduled to take place on Thursday, December 26, the first day of
Kwanzaa ? Umoja ? meaning ‘unity.’ It is both divine and appropriate.
The wake will be at Rev. Herbert Daughtry’s House of the Lord Church (415
Atlantic Avenue, between Bond St. and Nevins St., Downtown Brooklyn).
The funeral will take place on Friday at 7p.m., at Bed-Stuy’s Friendship
Baptist Church (92 Herkimer Street, between Nostrand and Bedford Ave.). The
viewing will be from 5pm to 7pm.
A walk for Abubadika Sonny Carson’s ‘homegoing’ will begin at the Brooklyn
Bridge (Tillary and Adams) at 11a.m. on Saturday morning. The drummer led
procession will pass through many of Carson’s old Bed-Stuy stomping grounds,
followed by a service at Brown Memorial Baptist Church (484 Washington Ave.,
at
Gates Ave.).
Abubadika will be buried on Monday in Long Island
For more information call (718) 636 5769.
Nayaba nayaba@africanstudios.tv
~~~~~~~~~~ Spread the Word
--
PROTEST
AGAINST BEHEADING
OF FEMALE AUTHOR FROM
SUDAN ON THURSDAY
For
Immediate Release
Contact Ajowa Nzinga Lfateyo (202) 882-0182
Supporters of best-selling author Kola Boof on Thursday, Nov. 7 will demonstrate
against a fatwa that Sudan's fundamentalist Islamic government has issued
against the controversial womanist writer. The demonstration will take place
at 5 p.m. at the Sudan Embassy, 2210 Massachusetts Ave N.W. A simultaneous
demonstration also is planned for the United Nations in New York.
The 'fatwa' or death warrant was issued Sept. 26 in London, according
to Boof, by Sudanese diplomat Gamal Ibrahaim. A Sharia court purportedly
has found her guilty of blasphemy and treason by "deliberately and maliciously
bearing false witness against religious sentiment and of willing treason against
her Arab Muslim father's people and against her nation, the Sudan." Her alleged
crime: denouncing the oppression of women under the Islamic government and
the enslavement of black Africans. The method of execution decreed: beheading.
Boof is the author of three books published in eight countries, including
the most recent bestseller, Long Train to the Redeeming Sin. Her natural
parents were executed at her home in Sudan when she was a young girl of about
10 because of their comments about slavery. After their deaths, Boof's Egyptian
grandmother put her up for adoption because she was too dark for her father's
Arab family. Boof, who was born Naima Bahri, was adopted by an African-American
couple and raised in Anacostia Park in Washington, D.C.
Boof's life has been threatened for a year. On Aug. 21, three Arab teenagers
took a shot at the author in Indian Hills, Calif., 40 miles outside of Los
Angeles. She returned fire and was unhurt in the attack. She is currently
in seclusion. The Sudanese People's Liberation Movement, the Universal Negro
Improvement Association-African Community League, other groups and individuals
will participate in the demonstration.
"In America, women have the right to talk, to speak out against oppression,"
said publicist Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo. "On Thursday, women and men will be
raising our voices to let the world know that slavery is still alive in 2002
and that we support this brave woman Kola Boof who speaks out against this
parasitism, in spite of threats to her life and the loss of her freedom and
peace of mind. Every person who loves freedom, especially black people who
are still suffering from the effects of slavery in this country, should join
Kola Boof in denouncing the kind of barbarism taking place in Sudan."
Boof had this to say about the fatwa in an Oct. 14 statement:
"Sudan is ruled by Satan now. There is no Allah involved whatsoever. As a
Black African woman, I cannot and will not be silent as black men in Arab
nations are chained up like dogs to the back doors of Muslim households and
fed, literally, from doggie bowls. I will not be silent as African women are
raped, mutilated and mentally demeaned by sadistic human beings calling themselves
children of Allah. I will not be silent as the number of little black boys
who are sodomized by their Arab masters continues to soar, while even worse
atrocities attend the lives of little black girls."
The United Nations has estimated that at least 2 million people have died
in Sudan since about 1980. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the kidnappings,
killings, rape and enslavement of African people in the country "the worst
human rights nightmare on the planet." On Oct. 21 President Bush signed the
Sudan Peace Act designed to encourage an end to slavery and "evils inflicted
on the people of Sudan by their government - including senseless sufferingŠ"
For more information, please visit Boof's official website at
Kola Boof: Womanist Novelist Poet . For a fact sheet on Boof, interviews
and other articles, please visit "Fatwa"
Against Kola Boof or http://www.mirrormax.i8.com/about.html.
"You will never gain respect for yourself Black Man until you learn to demand
respect for your Black Woman."
Malcolm X
Farrakhan: Murder violates Islamic teachings Nation of Islam leader addresses
media on D.C. sniper case
CHICAGO (FinalCall.Com)--The accused deadly D.C-area sniper has had no link
with the Nation of Islam for over three years and anyone guilty of such murder
violates Islamic teachings, said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
"Nowhere in the teachings of Islam, nowhere in the teachings of the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad, would we countenance any man taking the lives of innocent
human beings," Min. Farrakhan told reporters and community activists during
an Oct. 26 news conference at Mosque Maryam here.
"I and we grieve for the senseless loss of life. I and we grieve with all
the families that lost loved ones for we were touched in grief as well. But
we also grieve for John Allen Williamsâ?T, also known as John Muhammad's,
first wife and his son and his second wife and their three children, who will
have to grow up in an environment and live with whatever comes from the trial
of these two persons. If they are found guilty, that will affect every member
of his family.
"Members of his family said, 'This is not the John that I knew.' And this
is not the John that we knew. What happened to him, what caused this remains
at present to me and to us a mystery. It's something that must be probed and
it must be found. What turns a person into a cold killer of innocent people?"
he asked.
One of the victims, Ken Bridges, was a Black empowerment activist and longtime
friend and associate of Min. Farrakhan. "It grieved us much to hear that his
life was lost as a result of the sniper," he said.
Maryland officials Oct. 25 charged Mr. Williams, 41, and teen John Lee Malvo
with six counts of first-degree murder in the shootings. A third man, reportedly
co-owner of a blue Chevrolet Caprice the pair was caught in, was arrested
as a material witness Oct. 26.
The accused sniper was in bad standing with the Nation over a child custody
dispute with his second wife, who attends a D.C.-area mosque, Min. Farrakhan
said. He had not been heard from since 1999, the Minister said. If guilty
as charged, the man will not be considered a member of the Nation, he said.
"We would all ask that any who is guilty of such be punished to the fullest
extent of the law," Min. Farrakhan added. Under the Nation's teachings, members
are not allowed to possess any weapon, Min. Farrakhan explained.
"It is horrific for us to learn that someone who once was a part of our ranks
may be involved in something as horrific as this. But, I respectfully say,
to the members of the media and the American people, Timothy McVeigh confessed
that he was a Christian, but nobody blames the church for his misconduct,"
he observed. Mr. McVeigh was found guilty of the April 1995 Oklahoma City
Federal Building bombing.
Likewise, the pastors of those imprisoned are not linked to their crimes,
but there is a bias that allows for Islam to be wrongly attached to crimes,
he said.
Muslims already suffer from a stigma and pain of Sept. 11 that have been
associated with Islam, and now these horrendous acts, he said. Those who share
the name Muhammad face an additional stigma now, Min. Farrakhan said.
Mr. Williams first attended a study group in northern California and later
a small study group in Seattle, said Min. Farrakhan, adding that Mr. Williams
may have attended the peaceful Million Man March, but had no role as personal
security for him.
Every Black man at the 1995 march was entrusted with keeping the peace,
Min. Farrakhan said.
In 1996, at the annual Saviours' Day convention, all of the believers present
were given the right to wear the name Muhammad, as a sign of religious ties
to Nation of Islam patriarch Elijah Muhammad, the Minister said. The name
Muhammad means, â?oone worthy of praise, and one praised much,â?? he said.
Those who took the name had to pledge to act in a manner that would bring
honor, praise and credit to that name, he said.
The accused sniper's wife at the time was at the convention. He later legally
changed his name to Muhammad in the courts, the Minister said.
US Goes After al-Qaida Sleeper
Cells In Major Cities
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
11-1-2
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Local and federal law enforcement officials are using
sophisticated infiltration and disinformation campaigns to expose and neutralize
al Qaida sleeper cells operating in the United States, U.S. intelligence officials
tell United Press International.
FBI officials say that al Qaida cells are embedded in most U.S. cities with
sizable Islamic communities. New York, Detroit, New Jersey, Los Angeles, the
Virginia area, Florida and cities in North Carolina like Charlotte are all
believed to contain cells and their supporters, usually living in run-down
sections of urban areas or towns, these officials say.
"Information indicates that quite a few al Qaida cells have been established
within the continental United States," an FBI official said. "The cells are
up and active." He added that there had been recent electronic intercepts
of communications between some groups that show they are in the United States
and "talking to each other."
In a review of ongoing U.S. operations, UPI was briefed on the al Qaida
investigations by several current and former intelligence officers, all of
whom asked not to be identified by name.
According to former CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency officials, the terrorists
choose run-down, seedy neighborhoods because "in a place like that, you are
invisible. People don't care about you, they don't want to look at you and
don't look at you," as one put it.
The terrorists will tend to dress poorly as well. "If you're going to blow
up something, you don't walk down a street in a nice suit and tie. If you
dress like that, there is the assumption you should have somewhere to go and
not be seen loitering around," he said.
A former very senior U.S. intelligence official explained: "The members
of cells don't think of themselves as raiding parties, but as the front end
of an invasion," he said. "If they can attack, blow things up and disrupt
society, they believe there will be mass defections to Islam and society will
collapse. They can then set up an Islamic state."
The cells, these sources said, are made up of U.S.-born Moslems and well
as young male Muslims from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states,
Yemen, Somalia and Indonesia, among others. Most are thought to have entered
the country some time ago, singly or in pairs, and to be now deeply entrenched
in their communities, working or running small businesses that may act as
a cover for their activities.
To root them out, the FBI has been busy developing a network of informers
in Muslim neighborhoods -- everyone from a nightclub owner, waiters in restaurants,
gym owners, motel proprietors, lawyers, or merchants -- each with his own
contribution to make to the growing file of intelligence on the suspected
cells, according to a federal law enforcement official.
U.S. law enforcement agencies believe that intelligence is their chief tool
in the war on terror, according to a very senior former Pentagon intelligence
official.
"Intelligence is really just a giant research operation where you rely on
huge archival files," he said. "It's the most effective weapon you've got."
The next and best weapon in the war against the cells is infiltration. According
to a longtime covert operations specialist, law enforcement is currently using
agents who are Arabs and fluent in Arabic who then look for ways to get inside
the community where the cell members worship.
Their next goal: "to find about the social structure: where do they worship,
where do they entertain, what do they talk about?" he said. If it is known
where they socialize and there is probable cause, local police might be able
to place microphones on the premises, he said. The goal is to identify and
eliminate leaders, a former CIA official said.
As the FBI and other law enforcement agencies gain knowledge, any rivalries
between group members can be exploited, using disinformation to convince some
cell members that others are informers or traitors. One FBI official explained
that the purpose is to "disrupt" hostile organizations and that FBI tactics
go back to 1956 when the FBI established its COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence
program.) This official said that the program pitted one group -- or even
members of a single group -- against each other "like gladiators in ancient
Rome."
The program was used successfully against such groups as the Black Panthers
and the Ku Klux Klan, he said.
According to several former U.S. intelligence operatives, the most urgent
task is to create a fictitious source of information, a "straw man," a person
who doesn't exist, according to the longtime U.S. covert operations specialist.
Using straw men works on the theory that anxiety makes people more susceptible
to suggestion. "The cell members know they are doing something illegal and
expect to be caught and believe that everybody is a spy," he said.
As a key device to disseminate disinformation, the FBI and other law enforcement
officials are using pro-al Qaida Web sites and Web chat rooms, U.S. government
officials said.
An FBI official confirmed this, adding that what the FBI agent does is go
to a city, use a public library computer and create a onetime Hot Mail account.
The FBI agent will then enter the chatroom conversation, producing the name
of a cell member and labeling him as disloyal, perhaps as an informer for
the U.S. government. The agent then flies to another city, and opens another
account, and using the name of a different but equally fictional person, enters
the chat room "to support and endorse his own story," a longtime undercover
operative said.
"It's wonderful mechanism to use. I've done it," the specialist said.
A former CIA official pointed out that similar campaigns used by the French
against nationalist rebels in Algeria in the 1950s resulted in internecine
conflict within the movement -- including leaders turning against and killing
each other.
FBI officials said that they used phony Black Panther sources to place incendiary
information in the hand of the Jewish Defense League, which then retaliated
against the Panthers.
The phony information -- that the Black Panthers were anti-Semitic -- was
leaked to the newspapers, damaging their appeal and reputation, the FBI official
said.
The FBI itself carefully crafts these interventions before planting them
with informants, to ensure maximum embarrassment and disruption of the targeted
extremist group, U.S. officials said.
According to a half-dozen serving and retired federal officials, secret federal
intelligence reports put the numbers of al Qaida operatives trained in Afghanistan
or elsewhere and currently in the United States at between 2,000 and 5,000.
The estimates are based on immigration and census data, plus numbers of
terrorists trained in Afghanistan by Osama bin Laden. "They are only conjectural
probabilities," said an FBI source.
Former senior counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson told UPI he thinks
al Qaida cell members in the United States may number "around 2,000."
Johnson doesn't underestimate the danger, but noted that some skills taught
cell members by training in Afghan camps are "perishable. Skills grow dull."
But the intelligence challenge has become urgent and more dangerous because
U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have dispersed the leadership of al
Qaida worldwide. As a result, the command and control structure have become
much looser and cells have been "given more autonomy," a federal law enforcement
official said.
Copyright © 2002 United Press
International. All rights reserved.
FIRE BURNS DOWN JUNGLE MC KING TC IZ
HOUSE
Please help in any way you can and forward
to everyone you know. Thanks,
Ernie Paniccioli
>From Www.toolsofwar.com:
TC Iz Has Lost Everything in a House Fire
Super Emcee and DJ: TC Iz (formerly known as TC Izlam) lost EVERYTHING
including his records, clothing, Hip Hop and Jungle memorabilia, all his
contacts/phone numbers, and even his dog in a fire that destroyed his NJ
home
this past Tues. Apparently his ever loyal dog refused to leave his bedroom.
He is safe, healthy, strong in mind and heart and staying with family.
Anyone
who knows TC, knows he is a survivor and he does not stop. He is already
making plans to get back to work to regain what he has lost. He can be
contacted at Hipstepmassive@aol.com
Donations of clothing, vinyl, gear, equipment and even funds can be sent to:
Sammy Kane (for TC Iz) 1104 Washington St. #7 Hoboken NJ 07030
(Sizes: 8 1/2 shoes, Large and XL shirts, 34 waist pants, XL coats)
"Please also forward this message to everyone, so we can rebuild that which
was lost. Much thanks to all of you who have been reaching out. ~HIPSTEP
MASSIVE
Reaching
out to all (hiphop/hipstep/jungle drum n bass) family once again...
T.C. and his family are doing okay. As you know he and his family lost
everything tragically to a fire in their NJ home. Including all of his
contacts. We are asking that everyone please send your names, phone numbers,
and information to...
hipstepmassive@aol.com
Please also forward this message to everyone, so we can rebuild that which was
lost.
Much thanks to all of you who have been reaching out.
~HIPSTEP MASSIVE~
Profits
Behind Bars
There are ways to capitalize on rising
crime rates without actually committing a crime. Prisons are, after all,
basically just real estate developments that happen to house criminals.
Shouldn't correctional facilities be considered as much of an investment as a
shopping mall or an office property? Those who believe the justice system can
produce a profit could throw their money into the real estate investment trust
Correctional Properties Trust, which exclusively holds interest in
correctional facilities.
It may not be the most tasteful way to make a buck, but it is an honest
investment nonetheless. Correctional Properties Trust (nyse:
CPV - news -
people ) is just one of many specialized real estate investment trusts, or
REITs, that allow individuals to invest in specific types of real estate (such
as movie theaters or golf courses). Specialized REITs operate exactly like
mainstream retail or industrial REITs. Where they differ is that they tend to
be much smaller trusts since they hold very narrow types of properties.
Correctional Properties Trust owns and leases 13 correctional properties,
which are leased out to both private and government groups. (The company uses
triple-net leases, which means it owns the property, while tenants pay taxes
and insurance and maintain the property.) The majority of the taxable income
goes to its shareholders. Last quarter, Correctional Properties Trust's income
was up to 37 cents per diluted share, compared to 32 cents per share during
the same quarter last year. If one takes the dim perspective that the number
of facilities required to house America's criminals could increase over the
years, there is no reason why the properties themselves shouldn't increase in
value (assuming operating costs are kept in check).
NEWS LINKS
http://dynamic.washtimes.com/twt-print.cfm?ArticleID=20030407-1359995
INFORMATION CLEARING
HOUSE. NEWS, COMMENTARY & INSIGHT