About twenty minutes ago it is reported that A police officer was reported injured after gunshots at the U.S. Capitol.
Take care people !!!
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
[image] This view from the Russell Senate Office Building shows police converging on the scene of a shooting on Constitution Avenue on Capitol Hill near the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013. A police officer was reported injured after gunshots at the U.S. Capitol, police said Thursday. They locked down the entire complex, at least temporarily derailing debate over how to end a government shutdown. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Thursday October 3rd 2013
Chris Moody and Dylan Stableford 14 minutes ago
WASHINGTON — U.S. Capitol Police lifted a shelter-in-place warning at all U.S. Senate office buildings on Thursday after reports of multiple shots were heard in the area, and one suspect reported dead.
“Close, lock and stay away from external doors and windows,” the alert issued early Thursday afternoon, read. “Take your annunciators, emergency supply kits or go kits, and escape hoods. Move to your office’s shelter in place location or the innermost part of your office suites and check in with your OEC.” The lockdown was later lifted.
Earlier, police could be seen swarming the grounds near the U.S. Capitol building with guns drawn.
Yahoo News reporter Chris Moody was on Independence Avenue outside the U.S. Capitol when he heard three shots ring out.
About half a dozen police cars sped west down Constitution Avenue toward the scene. Moments later, other police vehicles sped back the other way.
Capitol Police told tourists and staffers near the Capitol building to walk south past the House congressional offices and all buildings were locked down. Staffers waited outside.
Tim Wilson, a spokesperson with the District of Columbia Fire and EMS Department, told Yahoo News that medical personnel transported one patient from the scene who suffered life-threatening injuries. He would not give the gender of the patient or the nature of the injuries.
Multiple news outlets reported that a female suspect was dead on the scene.
A police news conference was scheduled for 3 p.m.
One eyewitness told Yahoo News she saw a black car being chased by police and they surrounded the suspect when the shots rang out.
“Police were shooting at [the car],” a witness told Yahoo News. “They had [the driver] blocked up and he kept going around the Capitol building and around and around. Then I heard a loud crash on the other side of the Capitol.”
Another witness said police began shooting when the car sped off after being trapped.
“We saw a black car and a couple of cop cars behind him,” that witness said. “He kind of got stuck in front of the Capitol building where the pillars are. The cops got out of their car and surrounded [the suspect] and started yelling. Somehow [the car] turned around and almost hit a couple of them and that’s when the cops started shooting.”
Something happening outside Capitol. Police running around with guns at ready. pic.twitter.com/7JkF5fMzfS
— Alex Leary (@learyreports) October 3, 2013
Reports of shots fired not far from the US Capitol; this warning for Shelter in Place pic.twitter.com/ddbI6m8pQQ
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) October 3, 2013
Helicopter outside the Capitol pic.twitter.com/B0zDujqWHQ
BRADLEY KLAPPER and LAURIE KELLMAN 20 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A police officer was reported injured after gunshots at the U.S. Capitol, police said Thursday. They locked down the entire complex, at least temporarily derailing debate over how to end a government shutdown.
The shooting unfolded after police chased a black car up Constitution Avenue toward the Capitol, said tourist Edmund Ofori-Attah, who walked toward the scene as the car stopped.
“Then I heard the gunfire” and hit the ground, he said.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., told reporters he was walking from the Capitol to the Senate Russell Office Building across the street when he noticed several police officers driving fast up Constitution Avenue on motorcycles.
“Within seconds of that,” Casey said, “we heard three, four, five pops,” which he assumed were gunshots. He said police ordered Casey and nearby tourists to crouch behind a car for protection.
In about two minutes, he said, the officers moved everyone into the Capitol.
FBI agents rushed to the scene and Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer said: “There are reports of injuries.”
After nearly an hour, police ended the lockdown.
The shooting comes two weeks after a mentally disturbed employee terrorized the Navy Yard with a shotgun, leaving 13 people dead including the gunman.
As a warning was sounded, the House abruptly went into recess and lawmakers left the chamber floor. The Senate also suspended business.
Before the disruption, lawmakers had been trying to find common ground to end a government shutdown. The House had just finished approving legislation aimed at partly lifting the government shutdown by paying National Guard and Reserve members.
People standing outside the Supreme Court across the street from Congress were hurried into the court building by authorities.
The White House also was briefly locked down after the incident at Capitol Hill and the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the compound was closed to pedestrians. Secret Service said the procedures were precautionary.
Attached is the preliminary schedule announcing plans for the 2013 LUCO annual conference. I did not have the current e mails for everyone, so please update as necessary and forward accordingly where you note address errors or omissions, of which I apologize in advance. 2013 is shaping up to present us a quite eventful conference so please plan on attending. For those who want to know our mailing address, it is:
Luo United Communities Organization
300 N. Dakota Ave Ste 307
Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57104
The BOD will be in touch with more updates as conference plans materialize. In the mean time, I look forward to your comments and suggestions and to seeing you in Sioux Falls!
Sunday, November 3, 2013 11:00 am – Farewell breakfast/brunch
Registration? Seeking donations to defray conference costs. The BOD is still debating the fee amount to charge. Kindly send suggestions. BOD decision forthcoming.
Where? CNA Building, Lumberjack Exchange Conference Center [by the Hilton Garden Inn]
101 S. Reid Street
Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57103, USA
Contacts?
Okall Lang’u; Obang Jobi; Julius Kur; Okony Cham;
*Please forward suggestions as to topics you would wish included in the program. Also suggest presenters and speakers to invite. Forward asap via e mail to Okall at: languokall@yahoo.com
President Obama had a vision which he shared and got full public support and mandate, the vision that are good, fair and balanced for all people. The President is paying the price for the promise he made to save people’s lives with economic collapse.The President promised to serve diligently without veering off into the convoluted plot twists with unnecessary melodrama that afflicted so many people with economic downturn and loss of job opportunities. The country’s economy suffered from budget deficits over the years, a situation created by special business interest who evaded paying taxes and equally defaulted in paying back Government loans on time. There were many other instances of business theft that went on for many years undetected including twisted bankruptcy where businesses shut-down, with instances of irregular ponzi-schemes and Hedge Funding that were reasons for serious budget deficits by the selfish and greedy special business interest group.
To suspend Obamacare for another year is a crime against the people on their medical security. To protect from further medical fraud, the program must commence on time as legislated.
It must be known that, once a federal law has been enforced, it remain a validated law of the land. It is a requirement by law that the Presidency must be respected by all irrespectively. Knowing that President being in-charge of the executive branch, and that the Obamacare having gone through checks and balances in the normal legal dispensation process without a hitch; it is a crime, illegal and contemptuous for any group of politicians or the Speaker to change its course to allow Government Shut-down that serve fundamental public interest to favor special interest of a few, is unacceptable. It is as well breaking the law of many to short-change in ways or form, to bring such matter to be a subject for discussion. Delaying or suspending healthcare for people is deninately a crime that must be disputed by all to protect health security concerns; and politics must not be allowed to interfere with peoples livelihood and health interests.
How does this Gov. Shut-down impact debt default, when the nation’s borrowing go double from default and the limit must be raised from default? How will this help the Government from not defaulting???Does it not mean that these politicians who are after the Government Shut Down are into a jig-saw-cut-deal for their self and greedy interest, and that they are trading short-change business by using Gov. Shut-down purposefully to push Government to default to benefit benefactors? How can people trust Ted Cruz with those behind him pushing for the same??? This is definately a tango to test President Obama ability to leadership. Who will President Obama support, the people or the special interest??? Law is Law and no one is above the law. Obamacare is legally binding and it remains the law. This is the feel President Obama should guard against political actions that are in contempt of the law. This is asking the President to compromise on what is the LAW…….is this right??? Is this what the American people want???
It is unthinkable and despicable that a few special interest Republicans behave this way in a selfish manner to disrepute and embarrass this great Nation on the face of the world. Business community as well have a duty to respect the law.
It is therefore our concern and rights that we the people engage public support to reject the motion of Government-Shut-Down and petition the President to oppose this bad melodrama and instead, use his prerogative to save this ugly situation for the sake of many and equally protect democracy on fundamental service to the people. In these instances and for the ake of security of majority people and the Nation, President Obama has right to use the bligated power vested for the Presidency to VETO any such proceedings to save a situation.
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson &
Executive Director for
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
email: jbatec@yahoo.com
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What ObamaCare Will Mean for You
Published on Sep 27, 2013
http://www.healthcare.gov and use the new Health Insurance Marketplace to see all of the health plans available in your area and sign up for the one that fits your needs and budget. You can also find out if you’re eligible to pay less for private health insurance or whether you qualify for other free or low-cost programs.
White House White Board: What Obamacare Means for You
Megan Slack
September 27, 2013
11:01 AM EDT
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The Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – means better coverage for those who already have health insurance, and more options for those who don’t, including a new way to shop for affordable, high-quality coverage.
Watch the latest White House White Board to learn more about what the law means for you.
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For more information:
HealthCare.gov
What is the Health Insurance Marketplace?
Learn how the Affordable Care Act protects you
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To Ask China’s Permission First
Bruce Tonkin The current Democrats are certainly not infallible, nor are they immune to criticism. The Republicans, however, have gone from being fiscally reckless (rai […] Frank Sharon This country is lucky to have men like Ted Cruz–Scott Walker—Ron Paul because they are for the people of united states. Obama and the Clintons and quite a […] James Pleiss Senator Cruz is a rare politician in that he understands logic and reasons deductively as any prosecuting attorney would; this presents a problem to so man […]
70 comments, 3 called-out
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Ted Cruz: Has he overplayed his hand? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ted Cruz, an ultra-conservative Cuban American who is leading the current assault on Obamacare, has done more than anybody to bring the federal government to the brink of shutdown. What he has not considered is how America’s foreign creditors will react.
Although China, Japan, and other major creditor nations have no dog in the Obamacare fight, they have a strong interest in preserving America’s basic financial, economic, and social stability. From their point of view, Cruz, a junior senator from Texas and a Tea Party favorite, is not following the script. It is essential that he be smacked down – and he will.
Bruce JapsenContributor
Unbeknownst to Cruz, and seemingly to most of the rest of the Republican party, the creditor nations hold the high cards. If they were to sell just a small proportion of their American assets, they could send Wall Street into a tailspin. They are unlikely to do this but even if they were merely to slow the pace of their buying, bond yields would rocket and stocks could fall 15 percent in the space of a couple of weeks.
It is sometimes suggested that by triggering a sell-off, creditor nations would be cutting their own throats. Actually this is a characteristically myopic Western way of looking at things – a view that completely misunderstands how things have changed now that East Asians call the tune. The point is that the creditor nations are long-term holders who are largely indifferent to short-term fluctuations.
As a general rule, the East Asian creditor nations hate drawing attention to themselves. But they are quite effective behind the scenes in making their views known. One of the most important ways they wield influence is through major Wall Street investment banks. These latter in turn spend large amounts on political contributions, typically backing both Republicans and Democrats. Their money gives them plenty of face time to advise American elected representatives on “good economics,” a term that more and more these days amounts to economics that serves East Asia’s interests. Meanwhile American investors generally are short-term thinkers who rarely show much intestinal fortitude in riding out downturns. As they generally vote Republican, their bleating can be expected to help soften the attitudes of Cruz and his cohorts.
It remains to be seen how markets will react tomorrow but the betting is that, in the absence of a climbdown by Republicans, we will see a significant correction. And if Cruz and his allies continue to stick by their guns in the weeks ahead, we could see damage particularly in techs and other high P/E stocks. For the record, major tech stocks that seem most richly valued on a forward P/E basis include CRM, LNKD, CCI, FB, and ADBE. Although future prospects may justify such valuations, the short-term action could be quite bumpy — certainly bumpy enough to frighten a lot of the Republican rank and file.
By
Jake Miller /
CBS News/ September 22, 2013, 4:29 PM
Budget bill battle over Obamacare opens new GOP schism
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, center, smiles during a news conference with conservative Congressional Republicans who persuaded the House leadership to include defunding the Affordable Care Act as part of legislation to prevent a government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013. / AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
After the House passed a bill on Friday funding the government for roughly three months but defunding Obamacare, the fight over the budget and the healthcare law shifted to the Senate.
While most lawmakers, including many Republicans, have all but conceded that the Senate will never pass the House bill and will instead re-insert Obamacare funding, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is leading the fight against the healthcare law in the upper chamber, insisted it’s still possible for the Senate to follow the House’s lead.
“Senate Republicans should stand united to stop [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid from changing the House bill and, in particular, from inserting the funding from Obamacare with 51 votes,” said Cruz on “Fox News Sunday.” “That’s going to be the fight procedurally – whether he’s able to use a straight party line vote, just Democrats, to put Obamacare back. And you know what? If Senate Republicans stand together, we can stop Harry Reid from doing it.”
Cruz said he will ask Reid to institute a 60-vote threshold for amendments to the House bill, which would enable the Senate’s 46 Republicans to block any measure re-inserting Obamacare funding if they are able to stand united.
Play Video
Rep. Salmon: Defunding Obamacare “the will of the people”
Play Video
Coburn: “We don’t have the ability” to defund Obamacare
But when he was pressed by Fox News’ Chris Wallace on whether his GOP colleagues will stand behind him, the Texas Republican demurred.
“We don’t know right now, and this week, we’ll determine that,” he said. “Look, this has been a fast moving target. You know, just a few weeks ago, we didn’t have any of the votes we needed in the House or in the Senate.”
If he doesn’t get his wish, and the Senate votes to send a bill with Obamacare funding back to the House, Cruz said Republicans should stand strong, even if it means incurring a government shutdown – not that such a result would be the fault of the GOP.
“I believe we should stand our ground and I don’t think Harry Reid and Barack Obama should shut down the federal government,” he said. “Look, the House voted to fund the federal government. If Harry Reid kills that, Harry Reid is responsible for shutting down the government and he should listen to the American people, open the government, fund the government, but don’t fund Obamacare because it’s hurting the American people.”
Despite Cruz’s tough talk, most of the rest of Washington is convinced his push to defund Obamacare will ultimately come up short. And some of the strongest notes of skepticism are coming from his fellow Republicans.
“I am sure the Senate is going to move that bill forward,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., on CBS’ “Face the Nation. “We don’t have the ability… to put a total stop and defund Obamacare. It would be nice if we did. I’d be in the fight.”
Coburn marveled that those who were clamoring loudest for a vote on defunding Obamacare, such as Cruz, are now threatening to halt the legislative the process if it doesn’t suit their ends. “The ironic thing…is that the answer now in the Senate, by those who proposed this strategy, is to filibuster the very bill they said they wanted,” he said.
Even Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has sided with Cruz and other Republicans pushing to defund the law, threw cold water on the likelihood that they could succeed.
“We probably can’t defeat or get rid of Obamacare,” Paul told reporters at a Republican gathering on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.
The skepticism from Paul and Coburn echoed that of other Republicans, such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who said this week that it’s not “rational” for Republicans to think they can defund the healthcare law during the budget fight, and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who urged Cruz to “keep quiet” with his hard-line on Obamacare.
House anti-Obamacare budget bill dead on arrival, senators say
Obama to Congress: Pass a budget, quit the drama
Democrats, for their part, agree with their GOP colleagues who believe that de-funding the healthcare law is off the table. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed that any bill that touches Obamacare funding is “dead” when it reaches his chamber.
Play Video
Reid: “Any bill that defunds Obamacare is dead”
In the meantime, though, Democrats are happy to sit back and watch Republicans snipe at each other, saying the infighting demonstrates just how disorganized and ideologically bankrupt the GOP has become.
“Let’s be really clear about this: The Republicans put legislation on the floor that was intended to shut down government. For them, that’s a victory, because they’re anti-government ideologues who dominate the Republican Party,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Sunday on CNN. “The effect of putting the Affordable Care Act on the bill is to shut down government. They know that. They know that has no prospect of prevailing.”
“I call them legislative arsonists,” she continued, warning that Republicans’ obsession with Obamacare could wreak havoc on other, unrelated budget items. “They’re there to burn down what we should be building up in terms of investments and education and scientific research and all that it is that make our country great and competitive. I don’t paint them all with the same brush. And I certainly don’t paint the speaker with that brush. But enough of them in their caucus to shut down government. That would be a victory for them.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told “Fox News Sunday” that Republicans are throwing a “tantrum” because they didn’t get their way in the 2012 election.
“It’s not brute political force that is refusing to defund Obamacare. It’s called the American people and elections. I don’t think in America, we should throw tantrums when we lose elections and threaten to shut down the government and refuse to pay the bills,” she said. “I cannot believe that they are going to throw a tantrum and throw the American people and our economic recovery under the bus.”
Comments:
Unfortunately, partisan dan doesn’t quite understand that both parties spend our money equally — they just have different priorities — and the PPACA fixed the Medicare Part D “donut hole” that saves seniors billions, since the PPACA funded the unfunded GOP legislation!
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jimsmith90210 says:
Quite hypocritical of rafael cruz, the Canadian senator living in texas, to be filibustering “until he can no longer stand” in the Senate, while 26% of his constitutents lack health care — the state with the most uninsured and under-insured residents — which only means he should be championing the ACA instead of fighting it!
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Au contraire!!!
It’s different for the GOP than the Democrats. Things that are okay for the GOP are an outrage when Democrats do them. If Obama was born in the United States, as was his mother, but his father was born in Kenya, that makes him not a US citizen. But if Cruz’s mother was born in the United States, and he was born in a foreign country, that makes him a US citizen. Kind of like how Romneycare is good, but Obamacare is bad. Or how Obama should be forced to make every single school record public, but Romney’s tax returns were nobody else’s business. Or how Anthony Weiner is a horrible, morally corrupt man (he is) but Mark Sanford was such a paragon of virtue that he not only was allowed to finish his term in the House, but then went on to be elected to the Senate. How silly of you, thinking that the GOP should operate under the same rules. I hope you understand now, how absurd the very suggestion is.
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jimsmith90210 says:
ButIPlay1onTV says: “Now notice that Cruz is still a Canuck. At least, after he’s run out of congress and exiled back to his home country, he’ll get their free healthcare.”
Maybe not, since the Canadians could agree to take him back on the condition that he will not apply for socialized health care since he is so radically against it, and force him to return to texas for health care – the state that has the highest number of uninsured residents!
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goldenrod25 says:
Strange how the Republicans keep fighting amongst themselves. Seems like McConnell finally grew a pair and put Cruz in his place. Too bad Boehner doesn’t do the same to the TeaParty nuts in the House.
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House Republicans defy Obama on funding bill; government shutdown nears
Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan 2 hours ago
By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House of Representatives early on Sunday brought the federal government closer to a shutdown as it voted to delay President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law for a year as part of an emergency spending bill.
By a mostly partisan vote of 231-192, the Republican-controlled House approved the “Obamacare” amendment, despite a veto threat from the White House.
It also voted 248-174 to repeal a medical device tax that aims to help fund healthcare programs under the 2010 law.
And in a sign that lawmakers might be resigned to a government shutdown beginning Tuesday, the House unanimously approved a bill to keep paying U.S. soldiers in the event the government runs out of money to run many programs.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reiterated on Saturday that the House bill would be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, which is not scheduled to meet until 2 p.m. on Monday.
View gallery.”
U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) (C) walks to the House floor for a series of late-nigh …
Obama also threatened to veto any bill that delays his healthcare restructuring.
There is a slight chance the two sides could reach a funding deal before the government’s fiscal year ends at midnight on Monday. Congress could also act at any time to end the impasse if a shutdown did occur.
But the bitterness of the House debate on Saturday night that spilled into early Sunday did not bode well for prospects of a compromise.
“You have been hijacked by a group called the Tea Party,” Democratic Representative David Scott of Georgia said angrily, referring to the powerful conservative, anti-government movement that holds significant sway over Republicans.
“The American people deserve to have time to see what this monstrosity will do before it is implemented,” shouted Republican Representative John Culberson of Texas, referring to “Obamacare.”
The high-stakes maneuvering between Democrats and Republicans is likely to continue through much of Monday.
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The U.S. House of Representatives remains fully lit during a rare late-night Saturday session at the …
The standoff is also a harbinger for the next big political battle in Washington: a far more consequential bill to raise the federal government’s borrowing authority. Failure to raise the debt ceiling by mid-October could result in the government defaulting on its obligations.
MEDICAL DEVICE TAX
The funding impasse is the culmination of more than three years of failed conservative efforts to repeal “Obamacare,” a program aimed at extending health insurance to millions of those without coverage.
Republicans argue that “Obamacare,” which is set to launch on October 1, is a massive and unnecessary government intrusion into medicine that will cause premiums to skyrocket and damage the economy.
Failure to pass a funding bill would close down much of the government for the first time since 1996. More than a million federal employees would be furloughed from their jobs, with the impact depending on the duration of a shutdown.
The current timetable could leave House Speaker John Boehner with the most difficult decision of his career: whether to approve a straight-forward spending bill passed on Friday by the Senate or allow the government shutdown to begin.
View gallery.”
The U.S. House of Representatives remains fully lit during a rare late-night Saturday session at the …
Neither side wants to be the last to cast the final vote that would lead to a shutdown, a concern that has turned the funding measure into a hot potato tossed between the two chambers.
While polls consistently show the American public is tired of political showdowns and opposed to a shutdown, House conservatives were jubilant about the fight.
“This is a win-win all the way around,” said Republican Arizona Representative Matt Salmon, who described the mood of Republicans before the vote as “ecstatic.”
Republicans and a handful of Democrats also approved an amendment to the bill repealing a tax on medical devices that helps fund the healthcare law to the tune of about $30 billion. That provision, sought with heavy lobbying by the medical device industry, has been supported in the past by some Democratic senators.
In a government shutdown, spending for functions considered essential, related to national security or public safety, would continue along with benefit programs such as Medicare health insurance and Social Security retirement benefits for seniors.
But civilian federal employees – from people who process forms and handle regulatory proceedings to workers at national parks and museums in Washington – would be temporarily out of work.
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U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) (C) walks into the offices of Speaker John Boehner (R- …
The last government shutdown ran from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996, and was the product of a budget battle between Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republicans, led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Republicans suffered a public backlash when voters re-elected Clinton in a landslide the following November, a lesson never forgotten by senior Republicans, including Boehner.
This time, Boehner tried to avoid a showdown but was overruled by his rebellious caucus, largely influenced since the 2010 election by newcomers endorsed by the Tea Party.
While Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the top House Republicans, worked behind the scenes, they did not deliver floor speeches in support of the bill – something they often do on major legislation.
Instead, some of the House’s most conservative members who drove the “Obamacare” delay effort, dominated the debate.
With Boehner effectively sidelined, rank-and-file Republicans boasted of their unity. Members chanted, “Vote, vote, vote, vote,” in their closed-door meeting, they reported later.
Afterward, Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter of New York, took to the House floor to accuse Republicans of throwing a “temper tantrum” about “Obamacare” under pressure from “Tea Party extremists.”
Conservative and liberal groups, from the Tea Party to women’s rights organizations, have been cashing in on the showdown over “Obamacare,” using it to rally supporters and raise money for next year’s congressional elections.
(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Kim Dixon.; Editing by Fred Barbash, Christopher Wilson and Paul Simao)
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Bill Clinton: When It Comes to Obamacare, GOP ‘Begging for America to Fail’
View gallery
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The Republican Party is “begging for America to fail” by rooting for President Obama’s signature health care law to fail, former President Bill Clinton said during an interview for “This Week” with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos,
“I’ve never seen a time – can you remember a time in your lifetime when a major political party was just sitting around, begging for America to fail … I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’ll be shocked if it fails,” Clinton, who attempted during his first term as president to overhaul the country’s healthcare system in the early 1990s, said during an interview taped Thursday in New York while the annual Clinton Global Initiative was taking place.
A recent ABC News-Washington Post-poll found that more than half of Americans are opposed to the Affordable Care Act. But for his part, Clinton is optimistic that with time, the law – known more commonly as “Obamacare” – will grow in popularity.
“I just think that when all these dire predictions don’t come out, if they don’t – I believe that pretty soon, within the next several years, this’ll be like Medicare and Medicaid. And it’ll be a normal part of our life. And people will be glad it’s there,” the former president told ABC News.
READ: Clinton Calls Parts of House GOP Proposal to Raise Debt ‘Chilling’
Clinton was responding to a recent suggestion by Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s political future was tied to the success or failure of Obamacare. Graham said he thinks the law will fail.
Clinton told Stephanopoulos he was “not at all” concerned about the potential failure of the Affordable Care Act having any impact on a potential run by his wife for the White House in 2016.
“I think this bill’s already produced a lot of good results and every – look, they are desperate for this bill to fail, because if it’s not a failure, their whole – everything they’ve been telling us since 1980 that government’s bad is wrong. They so badly want it to fail,” he said.
Since being passed in 2010, the Affordable Care Act has been a political lightning rod and has been subject to attempts by Republicans to delay and defund it. The law is at the center of the current fight in Congress that could lead to a government shutdown, which would be the first in almost 20 years.
Like “This Week” on Facebook . You can also follow the show on Twitter.
Go here to find out when “This Week” is on in your area.
Criminal Investigation investigates healthcare fraud perpetrated against the federal and state governments, as well as private insurance companies. In these investigations, CI follows the money trail and considers both tax and money laundering perspectives. Criminal tax investigations are initiated when income generated from healthcare fraud is not correctly reported on tax returns, or when there is an overstatement of expenses on tax returns. Criminal Investigation investigates money laundering when either illegally obtained funds from healthcare fraud are used to purchase assets or when the perpetrators of the schemes devise elaborate methods to conceal their fraudulent proceeds. Money laundering occurs in a wide range of fraudulent healthcare schemes such as false claims, kickbacks, or staged accidents.
Typical healthcare fraud investigations are lengthy, labor intensive, and involve complex issues. To assist in combating healthcare fraud, CI participates in DOJ-sponsored, multi-agency task forces and works closely with several state agencies. These task forces capitalize on the strength and expertise of the participating agencies and have proven effective in dealing with healthcare fraud.
Criminal Investigation’s participation enhances multi-agency healthcare fraud investigations by documenting that the perpetrators of these schemes financially benefited from their fraudulent activities. Currently, CI is involved in the following areas of healthcare fraud: false billings, mental health, nursing home fraud, chiropractic fraud, durable medical equipment fraud, staged accidents, pharmaceutical diversion, and patient referral (kickbacks) schemes.
Statistical Data
Healthcare Fraud enforcement statistics on investigations initiated, prosecutions recommended, indictments, sentenced investigations and months to serve in prison.
Examples of Healthcare Fraud Investigations
Examples of investigations have been written from public record documents filed in the district courts where the case was prosecuted.
June 1st, 2011
Undercover Investigation Reveals Unfair Treatment of Dental Patients
According to the findings of an undercover investigation, dentists overcharge their patients and do not inform them correctly regarding the fact that they can get cheaper treatments through their NHS policies
According to the findings of an undercover investigation, dentists overcharge their patients and do not inform them correctly regarding the fact that they can get cheaper treatments through their NHS policies.
Some even go to the point where they pressure the patients to choose the private insurance, even though these patients could receive the same quality treatment through NHS, but much more cheaply.
There has also been a case where a patient received a quote 4 times more expensive than a non-private insurance quote for a root canal treatment.
These findings have been made public through the “Dispatches” team from Channel for on TV. There have even been sent out members from the public to go for NHS check-up at offices that offer both private and non-private treatments.
After the “patients” have spent on an average 15 minutes inside the office, they came out and said that they have been recommended to go with private care (the focus has been especially on hygienic dental services). An NHS scale and polish treatment costs around £16.50, but instead of that patients have been given quotes for private treatment which is much more expensive.
Some other members of the public were sent to three surgeries where they have been asking about the root canal treatment options.
With the NHS this treatment costs around £198, but instead patients have been quoted rates coming from the private sphere- £678, £598 and £725 respectively.
The opinion of Dr. Anthony Halperin who is a dentist and a member of the Patients Association is that these dentists are not sincere and rightful towards their patients.
The next step is that the coalition is ready to re-negotiate the dentistry deal of the Labour from 2006, to see what changes can be made in order to enforce fair treatment for the patients in the dentistry field.
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Health Care Fraud
Trends and Tips
06/28/10
A pharmaceutical company marketed four drugs to doctors. The drugs had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for specific medical conditions—like rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia, and neuropathic pain—but the company promoted the drugs for other uses as well—like post-operative pain, dementia, and migraines—and sometimes in larger doses than the FDA allowed. In some cases, the company even paid kickbacks to doctors to prescribe the drugs for these other uses.
What this company did is known as off-label marketing of prescription drugs, and it’s both illegal and potentially harmful to consumers. After an investigation involving the FBI and our federal and state partners, the company pled guilty to misbranding the drugs and agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle criminal and civil violations…the largest U.S. health care fraud settlement ever.
At the FBI, we take our health care fraud responsibilities seriously as the primary investigative agency with jurisdiction over both federal and private insurance programs. But with total health care expenditures in the U.S. expected to reach $2.26 trillion by 2016 according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the opportunity for fraud will continue to grow—so will our workload. That means we have to find ways to leverage our resources.
Latest Schemes and Scams
As part of its health care fraud program, the Bureau is looking at various fraud schemes involving:
– Home health care;
– Infusion therapy; and
– Durable medical equipment.
We’re also focused on other health care fraud-related crime problems impacting public safety, such as:
– Off-label marketing of prescription drugs;
– Drug diversion (prescription drugs diverted from legitimate supply sources for illicit distribution and abuse); and
– Internet pharmacies
Partnerships are key. A tried-and-true method of leveraging resources is establishing partnerships. And we’ve done just that—with federal agencies like the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration, various state and local agencies, and private insurance groups like the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association.
Our most recent joint endeavor? Our participation in the Department of Justice/Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team, or HEAT, and its Medicare Fraud Strike Forces located in several major metropolitan areas.
The HEAT initiative includes senior Justice, FBI, and HHS officials who are focusing their efforts to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud through enhanced cooperation. And the strike forces, which use a data-driven approach to identify unexplainable billing patterns by health care providers and then investigate these providers for possible fraudulent activity, are a vital part of the initiative. As a result of strike force efforts, more than 300 cases have been filed and close to 600 defendants charged.
Health care fraud facts:
Health care fraud schemes come in all forms—fraudulent billings, medically unnecessary services or prescriptions, kickbacks, duplicate claims, etc.
Schemes target large health care programs—both public and private—as well as health care beneficiaries. (Medicare and the Medicaid are the largest programs, so they are targeted more often.)
Schemes are committed by health care providers, owners of medical facilities and laboratories, suppliers of medical equipment, organized crime groups, corporations, and even sometimes by the beneficiaries themselves.
FBI health care fraud cases sometimes cross over into other investigative areas, like organized crime, gangs, and cyber crime, where we see criminals beginning to use the proceeds from health care fraud schemes to fund their operations.
Tips to help avoid being victimized:
Protect your health insurance information card like a credit card.
Beware of free health services—are they too good to be true?
Review your medical bills, like your “explanation of benefits,” after receiving health care services and ensure the dates are services are correct.
And if you suspect health care fraud, contact your local FBI office.
The Affordable Care Act. Health Reform. Obamacare. Whatever you’d like to call it, it’s going mean something very tangible for millions more Americans in just four days.
Starting October 1 — that’s next Tuesday — Americans who need or want health insurance will be able to be able to go to healthcare.gov. They’ll be able to compare plans based on their needs, and they’ll be able to sign up for quality, affordable health coverage.
There are folks out there with questions about what this law means for them. It’s on all of us to make sure those questions are answered. That’s the only way this is going to work.
Our team has put together a great video that unpacks the law, piece by piece, in an incredibly simple way. It explains exactly what October 1 is going to mean for those millions of folks who need coverage.
Take a look, but don’t let it stop with you. We all know at least one person who either doesn’t have insurance, or wants to know more about the law. Forward this on to other folks who you know need to see it.
You’ve probably heard about the 3.1 million young adults who have gained coverage through their parents’ plans, the 6.3 million seniors who are paying less for prescription drugs, and the more than 100 million Americans who have gotten free preventative care like mammograms and cancer screenings.
Right now, the best thing we can do is make sure that, ahead of October 1, we don’t let valuable information like this die in our inboxes. So don’t let it happen. Start talking to your friends, your coworkers, your family members. Answer their questions. Make sure they know how to get covered, and then ask them to help others get covered.
That starts with sharing this video, right now, with the folks you know need to see it:
Right now, Congress has two jobs: to pass a budget that invests in the middle class and to pay the bills it has already incurred.
But instead of doing their jobs, a few reckless Republicans in Congress are so obsessed with refighting old political battles over Obamacare that they’re threatening to shut down the government and stop paying the country’s bills.
On Friday, these House Republicans voted to shut down the government unless the Senate and the President agree to defund Obamacare. This week, instead of playing those games, the Senate is set to send a simple budget resolution back to the House — one that keeps the government open for a few months while leaders continue to work on a budget that creates jobs and cuts the deficit in a balanced way. That’s a reasonable solution.
But some Republicans still care more about scoring political points on Obamacare than keeping the government open and our economy moving forward.
This kind of up-to-the-final-hour brinksmanship is beyond irresponsible, and it could reverse the hard-earned economic progress we’ve made by creating another crisis. Unfortunately, we’ve watched them run this play before, and we know what it looks like. Two years ago, these Republicans held the economy hostage, and as a result our credit rating was downgraded, the stock market plummeted 17 percent, consumer confidence dropped like a rock, and businesses stopped hiring.
That’s why it’s time for GOP lawmakers to pass a simple budget resolution that doesn’t defund Obamacare and move on.
We need your help to spread the word so that Americans know what’s going on, so forward this message to your friends and family.
In the five years since the financial crisis began, the American people have pushed the economy forward. Over the past 42 months, businesses have added 7.5 million jobs. American manufacturing is growing again, and the auto industry is back. We’ve reformed Wall Street so that no company is ever again too big to fail and created the toughest consumer financial protections this nation has ever seen. We’ve cut our deficit by more than half, made the tax code more progressive, and reformed our health care system.
Today, there is record demand for American products abroad, and our tech companies are booming. The housing market is coming back — sales of existing homes are up by double digits and new foreclosures are down to the lowest levels since the start of 2006.
We need to keep building momentum. So we’re asking Congress to join the President in creating a better bargain for the middle class, and give up on manufacturing a new political crisis. For that to happen, reasonable Congressional Republicans have to stand up to a few extreme members of their party for the good of the country and our economy.
From the day he took office, President Obama has been open to any good idea when it comes to the budget, as long as supporting middle-class families remains our North Star. Republicans won’t extract concessions over the full faith and credit of the United States.
Will you help spread the word? Share this message so that people know what’s about to happen to the economy if Congress doesn’t act.
Thanks,
Dan
Dan Pfeiffer
Senior Advisor
The White House
@Pfeiffer44
P.S. — Want to learn more about where we are five years after the start of the financial crisis? Check this out.
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The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111
The following Chinese statement directed to UK and US sounds challenging and provocative and it is unacceptable.
Chinese interests in Kenya are corrupt and toxic. Their activities are against public interest and mandate and are not within the policy establishment of the Constitution of Kenya.
The kind of direct outburst shows they are afraid their butt-naked will be exposed along with their illegal special business interest network that have brought pain and sufferings to the people of Kenya. Their influence in Kenya has not brought anything good but destruction on fundamental fabric of livelihood and survival. They are afraid they shall be exposed at the ICC Hague on matters that are of Human Rights Crime, Violation, Abuse with Environmental pollution and that their butt will be on fire?????……..and are they therefore, sounding a threat to challenge US and UK……????
The Chinese must beware that US and UK have vested interest in Kenya for the good of both countries and that Kenya victims have rights for fair Justice where the law must be seen to be done in the most favorable and fair manner. It is therefore that, the Chinese Government must watch how they conduct themselves on matters that are of Public interest and mandate and watch how they engage and communicate.
Kenya’s security, livelihood and survival are paramount of crucial concern to the people of Kenya and the world; and no amount of conspiracy theories on fear factor, intimidation, manipulation or foul-play shall be tolerated.
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson &
Executive Director for
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
email: jbatec@yahoo.com
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Anger after Kenyan ICC trial witness ‘outed’ online
By Helen Vesperini
Published September 18, 2013
AFP
NAIROBI (AFP) – A woman who appeared as a protected witness in the crimes against humanity trial of Kenya’s vice president has been named by local media and bloggers, prompting a stark warning from the Hague-based tribunal.
The woman was the prosecution’s first witness in the case against William Ruto, and she delivered a harrowing testimony to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday. She was referred to only as “Witness P0536,” her face pixellated and voice distorted.
But within hours of the court session, relayed live on several Kenyan television stations, viewers began speculating on her real identity on Twitter and other social media.
By Wednesday, scores of posts on Twitter gave her supposed real name, while one Kenyan blogger and the website of a tabloid newspaper even published photographs they said were of the witness. Several comments also denounced the woman as a “liar.”
The ICC said it may take legal action.
“Any revelation of the identity of a witness whose identity has been protected… amounts to an offence,” the ICC’s presiding judge Chile Eboe-Osuji said. “Such conducts will be investigated and the culprits will be prosecuted.”
The judge said the warning applied to “everyone inside the courtroom, in the public gallery, in Kenya, and anywhere in the world,” and urged “members of the press, bloggers, social media members or participants and their web hosts… to desist from doing anything that would reveal or attempt to reveal the identity of protected witnesses.”
Rights groups were also furious.
Amnesty International said it was “deeply concerned”, urging “the ICC and the Kenyan authorities to take effective measures to protect the safety and well-being of this witness and her family.”
“The publication, if correct, amounts to a serious breach of an order made by ICC Judges barring the disclosure of the identity of the first witness,” Amnesty’s Deputy Africa Director Sarah Jackson told AFP.
The Kenyan Human Rights Commission, an independent NGO, said other witnesses could now back out of the trial.
“Now that a witness has been identified it will be difficult to assure others that they are their family members will be safe. And in Kenya, it’s not just the nuclear family: there are aunts, uncles, cousins,” said spokeswoman Beryl Aidi.
“Witnesses are bound to feel that their family and their extended family may be in danger and might want to withdraw.”
‘Risk of collapse’
The witness had broken down in the Hague court as she recounted how a machete-wielding mob of “around 3,000” youths had trapped some 2,000 people hiding inside a church and set it ablaze.
The prosecution alleges the resulting massacre was part of a plan of ethnic violence orchestrated by Ruto to “satisfy his thirst for power” after disputed 2007 elections. In all, more than 1,000 people died in the post-poll unrest, the worst since Kenya’s independence in 1963.
The ICC, which has also charged Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta for allegedly masterminding a campaign of murder, rape, persecution and deportation. His trial is due to start in November, and like Ruto he contests the charges.
According to a Western source, who asked not to be identified, around one-third of the witnesses originally scheduled to testify for the prosecution in the Ruto case have pulled out.
“The risk of collapse is credible,” the source said.
Kenyan political scientist Mutahi Ngunyi said the exposure was a major setback for ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.
“The ICC prosecutor is extremely naive because she assumed that putting the witness behind a curtain and distorting the voice was enough,” he told AFP, noting that the court’s first trial, that of DR Congo warlord Thomas Lubanga, had also been dogged by witness protection issues when former child soldiers were initially expected to testify in court with him present.
In an interview prior to the start of the Ruto trial, Richard Dowden, a writer, journalist and head of the Royal Africa Society, said the ICC risked being severely damaged.
“If the cases… were dropped because of witnesses who appeared credible, and were taken by the ICC to be credible, have withdrawn, then I think the credibility of the ICC would take a big hit because they were not able to protect the witnesses,” he said.
Woman: My life is in danger for being branded as ICC witness in Kenya’s deputy pres. trial
Published September 19, 2013
Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya – A Kenyan woman says she fears for her life after her photo was circulated on social media and on blogs claiming she was the first witness — whose identity was hidden — to testify against Kenya’s deputy president during his trial at the International Criminal Court.
Rahab Muthoni says she reported her fears to police late Wednesday.
The attempt to reveal the identity of the first witness prompted the presiding judge in the ICC trial of William Ruto to issue a stern warning Wednesday against witness intimidation and revealing the names of protected witnesses testifying in the case.
Ruto, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and broadcaster Joshua Sang face crimes against humanity charges for allegedly orchestrating the postelection violence in 2007-08 that killed more than 1,000 people.
Chinese President differs with US and BRITAIN over UHURU/ RUTO’s ICC trial – End the cases UNCONDITIONALLY!
By staff02/09/2013 09:47:00 // News | Africa | Kenya | Chinese President differs with US and BRITAIN over UHURU/ RUTO’s ICC trial – End the cases UNCONDITIONALLY!
The Kenyan DAILY POSTPolitics06:47
Monday September 2, 2013 – The Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has strongly differed with United States and Britain over the trials of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy, William Ruto, at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In a statement to the ICC on Friday, the Chinese President said the Chinese people support the deferral of cases facing President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto to Nairobi, saying the country has a good judicial mechanism to prosecute cases of such magnitude.
When contacted on Sunday, the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi explained China’s position on the ICC cases against the two Kenyan leaders.
“The Chinese Government understands the concerns of the Kenyan Government over the ICC cases and supports efforts by the Kenyan Government to put these cases to an end,” Said Shifan Wu, a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi said.
“We hope the ICC can fully respect Kenya’s judicial sovereignty.” The spokesman added.
This is a big reprieve to Uhuru and Ruto since China has veto power (One veto vote at the UN Security Council) and the cases can easily be deferred to Kenya.
USA and Britain had initially opposed the move and with China supporting it now it is up to the court to decide the venue.
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News / Africa
Rights Activists Urge Obama to Prevent Sudan Leader’s UN Visit
September 19, 2013
Omar al-Bashir speaks during a news conference with Umma Party leader and former PM Al-Sadiq Al Mahadi. August 2013.
UNITED NATIONS — Hollywood actors George Clooney, Don Cheadle and Mia Farrow and other human rights activists on Thursday urged U.S. President Barack Obama to do everything in his power to prevent Sudan’s indicted president from attending the U.N. General Assembly.
The appeal was part of a letter addressed to Obama and signed by more than 20 activists.
World leaders gather in New York next week for the opening of the 193-nation assembly’s annual general debate. Khartoum has said Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for suspected genocide and other war crimes in Sudan’s western Darfur region, wants to attend.
Washington says it has received Bashir’s visa application and described the request as “deplorable.” However, the United States is not a member of the Hague-based ICC, so the court would not be legally bound to cooperate. The United States also has a special agreement that allows leaders of U.N. member states to attend the General Assembly.
Rights activists outraged
The idea of a war criminal indictee attending the General Assembly sparked outrage among human rights activists.
“Our immigration laws prohibit admitting perpetrators of genocide and extrajudicial killings into our country, and it is unprecedented for someone wanted by the International Criminal Court for the crime of genocide to travel to the United States,” the letter said.
“While we recognize that the U.S. government is obliged to facilitate President Bashir’s visit under the U.N. Headquarters Agreement, we urge you to do everything in your power to prevent the trip,” it said.
The text of the letter was made public by the Enough Project, an anti-genocide group whose co-founder John Prendergast, a former U.S. State Department official, is among the signatories.
Sudan says charges overblown
Sudan dismisses the ICC charges and says reports of mass killings in Darfur were exaggerated. It refuses to recognize the court, which it says is part of a Western plot against it.
Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.
A trip to the United States could be risky for Bashir, who has limited his travel mostly to African neighbors and Arab allies since the court ordered member countries in 2009 and 2010 to detain him if he entered their territories.
Several U.N. diplomats told Reuters they were surprised by Bashir’s request to come to the United States. One Latin American ambassador said it was a “travesty of international justice.” The U.S. mission to the United Nations did not have an immediate reaction to the letter to Obama.
A case for US courts?
The activists said the U.S. Justice Department should explore the possibility of a criminal case against Bashir under U.S. law, which allows for anyone on U.S. soil to be prosecuted for genocide, regardless of where the crimes were committed.
They also suggested that the United States offer Bashir only minimal protection required under the U.N. Headquarters Agreement, a 1947 pact between the U.S. government and the United Nations, and urge states to deny landing rights for Bashir’s plane.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in Washington on Thursday that “there are a variety of considerations in play with respect to President Bashir’s visa request, including the outstanding warrant for his arrest.” She did not provide details.
Mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms in Darfur in 2003 against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, complaining of neglect and discrimination.
The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died since the conflict erupted in 2003, but Khartoum rejects that figure.
Not without precedent
It would not be the first time a controversial figure who displeased the U.S. government appeared at the U.N. General Assembly session. In 1974, Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, addressed the General Assembly wearing a holster and denounced Zionism.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted U.S. imperialism in a four-hour speech to the General Assembly in 1960. Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized the United States and Israel in recent years, once suggesting that the U.S. government may have orchestrated the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Wednesday September 18, 2013 – The Chinese Government has urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to drop the two Kenyan cases facing President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto saying Kenya is not a Pariah State
In statement read by Chinese Government Spokesman, Hong Lei, on Wednesday, the Chinese Government said President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto were elected in a democratic and fair manner and ICC and other Western powers (US and Britain) should respect the country’s sovereignty.
“We have noticed that there are different voices in Kenya on the ICC trials, and that quite a few African nations have raised serious questions about the trials,” Hong said Uhuru and Ruto were elected by Kenyans in a free vote, Hong said, adding that an African Union summit in May urged the ICC to transfer the trials of Kenyan leaders to Kenya.
“We hope the international community will respect the Kenyan people’s choice, and the ICC will heed the advice of African nations and the African Union,” he said adding that the Chinese President will formally meet with ICC officials in order to urge them to respect Kenya’s sovereignty.
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Why should we not all live in peace and harmony ? we look up the same stars , we are fellow passengers on the same planet and dwell beneath the same sky , what matters it along which road each individual endeavours to reach the ultimate truth ? the riddle of existence is too great that there should be only one road leading us to an answer
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QUINTUS AURELIUS SYMMACHUS
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Congress could vote this week on a bill to kick millions of children and families off SNAP–a.k.a. “food stamps.” We have to show them that we won’t stand for attacks on programs that help the neediest Americans. Can you sign the petition?
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/1115?t=2&akid=609.6000.jATLGd
– – –
Dear Readers,
Congress wants to take food from the mouths of hungry children and families. Literally.
For 30 years, the food stamp program–now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or “SNAP”–has been renewed regularly by Congress with broad bipartisan support and minimal opposition.1 And for good reason: SNAP lifted 4.7 million people out of poverty in 2011 alone, 2.1 million of whom were children. SNAP also boosts our economy, returning $9 for each $5 spent on the program.2 No brainer, right?
But Congress is proposing cuts of about $40 BILLION from SNAP, kicking somewhere between 4 and 6 million people off the program.3
After children, women are the biggest SNAP recipients,4 relying on it to provide food for themselves and their families–including millions of kids who would otherwise go hungry. Congress could vote on the bill this week. Before they do, we have to show them that attacks on programs like SNAP will create intense public backlash. Journalists are just starting to write about the immoral cuts in this bill. If tens of thousands of us speak out now, we can expose what Congress is up to and make sure it’s defeated. Can you sign the petition?
Hunger is a serious problem in this country. Studies show that children who don’t have a reliable source of food were more likely to be hospitalized, have chronic conditions such as asthma, or have behavioral problems and trouble in school.5 Last year, 1 in 6 Americans struggled with hunger, including 16 million children. SNAP helped nearly 15% of people in the U.S. rely on the program to provide food for themselves or their families.6 According to the Center for American Progress, “nearly 72 percent of SNAP participants are in families with children; more than one-quarter of participants are in households with seniors or people with disabilities.”7
But conservatives in the House can’t stop attacking this vital program. In June, they introduced a bill to cut more than $20 billion from the program, but it failed in the House in part because extremists didn’t think it cut enough. Now, they’re back with this new bill that doubles the cuts to a devastating $40 billion.8 The bill would take free school meals away from 210,000 children and affect 170,000 veterans. In total, 22 million children and 9 millions seniors or people with disabilities would be hurt by the cuts. It would even cost 55,000 jobs in the first year alone.9
Conservatives are determined to slash funding to SNAP and other programs like it. We have to make sure this bill is defeated and show them that it doesn’t pay to attack the neediest Americans. If we generate enough outrage to get the attention of the press, we can make sure this bill is defeated. Can you sign?
Add your name.
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/1115?t=4&akid=609.6000.jATLGd
Thanks for speaking out.
–Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Karin, and Malinda, the UltraViolet team
Sources:
1. 30 Years of Tackling Hunger on a Bipartisan Basis Is in Danger of Failing This Fall, Center for American Progress, September 16, 2013
2. Infographic: Stop Slashing SNAP, Center for American Progress, September 16, 2013
3. 30 Years of Tackling Hunger on a Bipartisan Basis Is in Danger of Failing This Fall, Center for American Progress, September 16, 2013
4. Characteristics of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Households: Fiscal Year 2011, United States Department of Agriculture, November 2012
5. Child Development, Feeding America
6. More Than 1 in 7 Use Food Stamps in U.S., Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2012
7. 30 Years of Tackling Hunger on a Bipartisan Basis Is in Danger of Failing This Fall, Center for American Progress, September 16, 2013
8. Ibid.
9. Infographic: Stop Slashing SNAP, Center for American Progress, September 16, 2013
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UltraViolet is funded by members like you, and our tiny staff ensures small contributions go a long way.
Chip in here.
https://weareultraviolet.actionkit.com/donate/donate?akid=609.6000.jATLGd
From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2013
Maryknoll missionary and communication Veteran, Fr. Joseph G. Healey receives Award for Promoting Small Christian Communities in Eastern Africa, AMECEA Blog News online reports.
According to the report, a Catholic non-profit organization based in Plainfield, New Jersey, USA has awarded the Fr. Joseph G. Healey, who is also the first AMECEA Communication Secretary, “The Msgr. Thomas A. Kleissler Award” for his visionary spirit of church renewal, commitment to justice as integral to faith, dedication to the formation of lay leadership, and devotion to spiritual renewal through the building of small Christian communities in Eastern Africa during its fourteenth annual fundraising gala held on June 6, 2013 at the Pleasantdale Chateau, West Orange, NJ.
Immediately after the post-election violence in Kenya, Fr Healey used his skills in SCCs methodologies to reconcile and bring healing to ethnic communities that were almost not relating. The first of and historical one was done in Kisumu Archdiocese, where the Luo (conceived to be Raila Odinga followers) and Kikuyu (conceived to be Mwai kibaki followers).
The second of such historic reconciliation and healing was done in Nakuru, Rift valley Province where provincial, district, divisional and location police officers attended. Rift Valley and Kisumu were among the areas that were badly hit by violence.
Msgr. Thomas A. Kleissler Award, is an award named in honor of RENEW’s president emeritus and co-founder given to person with remarkable qualities of Msgr. Kleissler.
The other two persons who received the Awards were Mr. Michael Catanzaro who received the President’s Award and Ms. Lisa Marie Meehan who received the Spirit of RENEW Award. These three are considered to have played a significant role in fostering RENEW International’s mission of spreading gospel values in daily life.
Besides members of his family and Maryknoll priests, Fr. Joe Healey was accompanied to the gala by Maryknoll Missionary sisters from East Africa: Sr. Theresia Ndesoma, MM from Moshi Diocese in Tanzania and Sr. Ann Mutinda, MM from Machakos Diocese in Kenya.
While receiving the award, Fr. Joe Healey said, “I am delighted to receive this Msgr. Thomas Kleissler Award on behalf of the 120,000 Small Christian Communities in the nine countries of Eastern Africa.”
Fr. Healey also conveyed greetings from members of his SCC in Nairobi to the congregation that was gathered at the gala, “The members of my own St. Kizito SCC in Nairobi, Kenya greet all of you; the children in my SCC greet your own children and grandchildren.”
Fr Healey is a missionary priest belonging to Maryknoll Congregation. Apart from working as Communication secretary at AMECEA Secretariat Fr Healey has been a promoter of Small Christian Communities (SCCs) as he gave himself a name Mwana Jumuia in Kiswahili to mean (A member of Small Christian Community). Fr Healey can only to you his age by saying ‘amekula chumvi mwingi’ (an African expression for the person who has eaten a lot of salt). He worked closely with myself (Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ) during reconciliation and healing exercises.
His pastoral ministry, academic career, and writings have not only made him a leading voice in the spread of SCCs throughout Africa and around the world, but also young and active. His confrere Fr Richard Dick Quinn refers to him as a man of computers. He is always busy with his computer.
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste wish to congratulate Fr Joseph Healy (Joe mdogo)-hongera padre!
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Facebook-omolo beste
Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002
For 67 years the US has pursued its own interests at the expense of global justice – no wonder people are sceptical now
by George Monbiot
You could almost pity these people. For 67 years successive US governments have resisted calls to reform the UN security council. They’ve defended a system which grants five nations a veto over world affairs, reducing all others to impotent spectators. They have abused the powers and trust with which they have been vested. They have collaborated with the other four permanent members (the UK, Russia, China and France) in a colonial carve-up, through which these nations can pursue their own corrupt interests at the expense of peace and global justice.
Eighty-three times the US has exercised its veto. On 42 of these occasions it has done so to prevent Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians being censured. On the last occasion, 130 nations supported the resolution but Barack Obama spiked it. Though veto powers have been used less often since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the US has exercised them 14 times in the interim (in 13 cases to shield Israel), while Russia has used them nine times. Increasingly the permanent members have used the threat of a veto to prevent a resolution being discussed. They have bullied the rest of the world into silence.
Through this tyrannical dispensation – created at a time when other nations were either broken or voiceless – the great warmongers of the past 60 years remain responsible for global peace. The biggest weapons traders are tasked with global disarmament. Those who trample international law control the administration of justice.
But now, as the veto powers of two permanent members (Russia and China) obstruct its attempt to pour petrol on another Middle Eastern fire, the US suddenly decides that the system is illegitimate. Obama says: “If we end up using the UN security council not as a means of enforcing international norms and international law, but rather as a barrier … then I think people rightly are going to be pretty skeptical about the system.” Well, yes.
Never have Obama or his predecessors attempted a serious reform of this system. Never have they sought to replace a corrupt global oligarchy with a democratic body. Never do they lament this injustice – until they object to the outcome. The same goes for every aspect of global governance.
Obama warned last week that Syria’s use of poisoned gas “threatens to unravel the international norm against chemical weapons embraced by 189 nations”. Unravelling the international norm is the US president’s job.
In 1997 the US agreed to decommission the 31,000 tonnes of sarin, VX, mustard gas and other agents it possessed within 10 years. In 2007 it requested the maximum extension of the deadline permitted by the Chemical Weapons Convention – five years. Again it failed to keep its promise, and in 2012 it claimed they would be gone by 2021. Russia yesterday urged Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control. Perhaps it should press the US to do the same.
In 1998 the Clinton administration pushed a law through Congress which forbade international weapons inspectors from taking samples of chemicals in the US and allowed the president to refuse unannounced inspections. In 2002 the Bush government forced the sacking of José Maurício Bustani, the director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. He had committed two unforgiveable crimes: seeking a rigorous inspection of US facilities; and pressing Saddam Hussein to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, to help prevent the war George Bush was itching to wage.
The US used millions of gallons of chemical weapons in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It also used them during its destruction of Falluja in 2004, then lied about it. The Reagan government helped Saddam Hussein to wage war with Iran in the 1980s while aware that he was using nerve and mustard gas. (The Bush administration then cited this deployment as an excuse to attack Iraq, 15 years later).
Smallpox has been eliminated from the human population, but two nations – the US and Russia – insist on keeping the pathogen in cold storage. They claim their purpose is to develop defences against possible biological weapons attack, but most experts in the field consider this to be nonsense. While raising concerns about each other’s possession of the disease, they have worked together to bludgeon the other members of the World Health Organisation, which have pressed them to destroy their stocks.
In 2001 the New York Times reported that, without either Congressional oversight or a declaration to the Biological Weapons Convention, “the Pentagon has built a germ factory that could make enough lethal microbes to wipe out entire cities”. The Pentagon claimed the purpose was defensive but, developed in contravention of international law, it didn’t look good. The Bush government also sought to destroy the Biological Weapons Convention as an effective instrument by scuttling negotiations over the verification protocol required to make it work.
Looming over all this is the great unmentionable: the cover the US provides for Israel’s weapons of mass destruction. It’s not just that Israel – which refuses to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention – has used white phosphorus as a weapon in Gaza (when deployed against people, phosphorus meets the convention’s definition of “any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm”).
It’s also that, as the Washington Post points out: “Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile results from a never-acknowledged gentleman’s agreement in the Middle East that as long as Israel had nuclear weapons, Syria’s pursuit of chemical weapons would not attract much public acknowledgement or criticism.” Israel has developed its nuclear arsenal in defiance of the non-proliferation treaty, and the US supports it in defiance of its own law, which forbids the disbursement of aid to a country with unauthorised weapons of mass destruction.
As for the norms of international law, let’s remind ourselves where the US stands. It remains outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, after declaring its citizens immune from prosecution. The crime of aggression it committed in Iraq – defined by the Nuremberg tribunal as “the supreme international crime” – goes not just unpunished but also unmentioned by anyone in government. The same applies to most of the subsidiary war crimes US troops committed during the invasion and occupation. Guantánamo Bay raises a finger to any notions of justice between nations.
None of this is to exonerate Bashar al-Assad’s government – or its opponents – of a long series of hideous crimes, including the use of chemical weapons. Nor is it to suggest that there is an easy answer to the horrors in Syria.
But Obama’s failure to be honest about his nation’s record of destroying international norms and undermining international law, his myth-making about the role of the US in world affairs, and his one-sided interventions in the Middle East, all render the crisis in Syria even harder to resolve. Until there is some candour about past crimes and current injustices, until there is an effort to address the inequalities over which the US presides, everything it attempts – even if it doesn’t involve guns and bombs – will stoke the cynicism and anger the president says he wants to quench.
During his first inauguration speech Barack Obama promised to “set aside childish things”. We all knew what he meant. He hasn’t done it.
WHO GOT THE DEFENSE DOLLARS, AND HOW THEY VOTED ON SYRIA I
Senators who backed Syria resolution got 83 per cent more defense lobby money than those who voted against it
By Daily Mail
Wednesday’s 10-7 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee supporting an authorization of military attacks on Syria may have been affected by varying levels of financial support the senators got from political action committees representing the defense industry, and from the companies’ employees.
On average, a ‘yes’-voting senator received 83 per cent more money from defense contractors than one who voted ‘no.’
The resolution would not authorize the deployment of ground forces, but MailOnline reported Wednesday that the Pentagon has already estimated the need for 75,000 troops to secure Syria’s vast supplies of chemical weapons and the factories that produce them.
Over a 5-year period, most of the $1,006,887 that flowed from the defense lobby to senators who weighed in on Wednesdays war powers resolution went to those who cast ‘yes’ votes.
On average, those ‘yes’ votes came after $72,850 in defense-contractor campaign dollars, while a ‘no’ vote followed just $39,270.
Here’s how it stacked up.
YES VOTES
$176,300 – John McCain (R-AZ)
$127,350 – Dick Durbin (D-IL)
$101,025 – Tim Kaine (D-VA)
$80,550 – Ben Cardin (D-MD)
$70,850 – Bob Corker (R-TN)
$60,000 – Bob Menendez (D-NJ)
$41,872 – Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
$26,900 – Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
$24,150 – Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
$19,500 – Chris Coons (D-DE)
NO VOTES
$86,500 – John Barrasso (R-WY)
$62,790 – Marco Rubio (R-FL)
$59,250 – Chris Murphy (D-CT)
$19,250 – Ron Johnson (R-WI)
$18,700 – Tom Udall (D-NM)
$17,900 – Rand Paul (R-KY)
$14,000 – Jim Risch (R-ID)
If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron, Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.
Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa’ida for intelligence help – after all, this is the group with “boots on the ground”, something the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa’ida could offer some target information facilities to the country which usually claims that the supporters of al-Qa’ida, rather than the Syrians, are the most wanted men in the world.
There will be some ironies, of course. While the Americans drone al-Qa’ida to death in Yemen and Pakistan – along, of course, with the usual flock of civilians – they will be giving them, with the help of Messrs Cameron, Hollande and the other Little General-politicians, material assistance in Syria by hitting al-Qa’ida’s enemies. Indeed, you can bet your bottom dollar that the one target the Americans will not strike in Syria will be al-Qa’ida or the Nusra front.
In Iraq, we went to war on the basis of lies originally uttered by fakers and conmen. Now it’s war by YouTube. This doesn’t mean that the terrible images of the gassed and dying Syrian civilians are false. It does mean that any evidence to the contrary is going to have to be suppressed. For example, no-one is going to be interested in persistent reports in Beirut that three Hezbollah members – fighting alongside government troops in Damascus – were apparently struck down by the same gas on the same day, supposedly in tunnels. They are now said to be undergoing treatment in a Beirut hospital. So if Syrian government forces used gas, how come Hezbollah men might have been stricken too? Blowback?
Robert Fisk
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 8:29 PM, Haidari BENN wrote:
Rep. Grayson on U.S. striking Syria: We are not the world’s policeman
More than 100 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, mostly Republicans and some Democrats, sent President Barack Obama a letter demanding he consult with Congress before ordering any action.
Democratic congressman Alan Grayson, member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, outright opposes any intervention.
“We are not the world’s policemen. That is not our responsibility,” said Grayson.
“The secretary certainly overstated the evidence that this was a deliberate decision made by the high command in Syria,” said Grayson.
Grayson was referring to Secretary of State John Kerry’s comments Tuesday, when he said that evidence “strongly indicates” chemical weapons were used in last week’s attack on a Damascus suburb that reportedly killed and wounded more than 3,000 people. Kerry added, “we know the Syrian regime maintains custody” of such weapons and has the rockets to use them.
United Nations inspectors are expected to reveal their findings on that attack by Saturday. But even if they come back and said such an attack occurred, and they think it is tied to the Assad administration, such findings would not satisfy the Florida congressman.
“If the United Nations decides to authorize members including the United States to do something about that, then that is a bridge we can cross at that point. But just because the United Nations inspectors would come and say chemical weapons were used, without even identifying whether it was a high command decision on that subject or even who did it, no, that doesn’t satisfy me at all,” said Grayson.
Grayson said the Obama administration has not explained why a U.S. strike in Syria affects vital American interest.
“I think the only people who really want it to happen are the military industrial complex. I just don’t understand how this involves us, Americans. The British had estimated the strike will cost Americans billions of dollars … And at a time when the budgets are so tight, and we’re cutting veterans’ benefits, and we’re cutting education, and we’re cutting health care, why are we spending billions of dollars?” said Grayson.
“I don’t know where we got this odd notion that every time we see something bad happen in the world, we should bomb it,” said Grayson.
But Obama told PBS Wednesday that the situation in Syria does affect the U.S., saying, “You are not only breaking international norms and standards of decency, but you’re also creating a situation where U.S. national interests are affected. And that needs to stop.”
“I don’t see how this tragedy, it’s a tragedy, affects U.S. national interests,” Grayson said in response, adding that “the highest norm in international law is that you don’t attack another country unilaterally without the authorization of the United Nations.”
For more of our interview with Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, watch the video above.
Benn Haidari
Klintvägen 16 C 36
22100 Mariehamn
Åland
Suomi-Finland
Author of Modern Zanzibar Cuisine
Tel/Home: +358.18.13665
Mobile: +358.457.3424826
BREAKING: Macy’s responded to our campaign calling out their attack on an equal pay bill in Texas–by claiming that the bill is unnecessary.1
We know that Macy’s is feeling the heat from our actions, but it’s clear that we need to amp up our campaign and make sure they know that we’re not buying their excuses–or their merchandise–unless they publicly pledge to never block equal pay legislation again.
We’re planning a big delivery next week. But for a super-size store like Macy’s, we want to make sure we have a super-size petition.
Can you add your name right away and let Macy’s know that blocking equal pay is bad for business?
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/1020?t=1&akid=575.6000.CbILmA
Thanks for speaking out,
Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Malinda, and Karin, the Ultraviolet team
Sources:
1. Macy’s Convinces Rick Perry That Women Don’t Need Equal Pay, Jezebel, August 20, 2013
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/1045?t=2&akid=575.6000.CbILmA
P.S. Here’s the original email about Macy’s asking Governor Rick Perry to veto a popular equal pay bill in Texas.
—prior msg;——-
Macy’s just blocked a bill that would help stop wage discrimination in Texas. Can you sign the petition to tell Macy’s to stop blocking equal pay?
Have you ever shopped at a Macy’s department store? If you have, you’ve unfortunately helped fund discrimination against women.
Here’s the story: Macy’s recently played a key role in defeating an important equal pay bill in Texas.1 The bill would have given employees who are discriminated against more time to sue in state court. Without this law, women who are paid less simply because of their gender could miss their chance to get justice before they even find out that they were discriminated against.2
The bill passed the Texas legislature with strong bipartisan support, but Governor Rick Perry vetoed it last month at Macy’s request.3
Wage discrimination is a major problem in America, costing women and their families an average of $431,000 over their careers.4 Macy’s is in the middle of a big back-to-school marketing campaign right now, aimed largely at moms.5 The last thing they need right now is controversy over equal pay–an issue women all over the country care a lot about. If we all speak out now, we can generate enough media attention to pressure them to retract their opposition and pledge to support equal pay legislation–in Texas and nationally–going forward. Can you sign the petition?
Tell Macy’s: Stop blocking equal pay for equal work.
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/1020?t=5&akid=575.6000.CbILmA
The wage gap between men and women has remained stagnant for decades. The average, full-time working woman in this country earns $0.77 for every dollar a man makes. For women of color, it’s even worse–for African American women it’s only $0.64 and for Latina women it’s $0.55. The gender wage gap means lost wages of $10,000 per year for an average woman–or $431,000 over her lifetime.6
And it doesn’t just affect women–it hurts entire families who are struggling to make ends meet. $431,000 could cover a lot of mortgage payments, groceries, doctor’s appointments, or college tuition payments.7 But Congress is stalled on the Fair Pay Act, which would help finally close the gender wage gap, and the last thing we need when it finally comes up for a vote is big companies like Macy’s stepping in to oppose it.
The Texas bill mirrors the federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and would give Texas women who are paid less because of their gender the right to sue in state courts for 180 days after a discriminatory paycheck.8 The protections in federal law don’t extend to the state courts–which are often closer and more affordable for victims to access than federal courts.9 For a woman who’s already lost income due to wage discrimination, access to state courts is critical. But according to Macy’s letter to Gov. Perry, this important protection for women is “unnecessary.”10
Macy’s should be supporting, not blocking equal pay–especially if they want to woo women as customers. If we all speak out now, we can generate enough bad press to make sure they get the message. Can you sign?
Add your name.
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/1020?t=6&akid=575.6000.CbILmA
Thanks for speaking out,
Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Malinda, and Karin, the Ultraviolet team
Sources:
1. You Really Shouldn’t Shop There: The Businesses That Told Perry to Veto Equal Pay, Burnt Orange Report, August 7, 2013
2. Perry vetoed wage bill after getting letters from retailers, Houston Chronicle, August 5, 2013
3. Ibid.
4. Facts: Women and the Wage Gap, National Partnership for Women & Families
5. Macy’s Back to School campaign, Macys.com
6. Facts: Women and the Wage Gap, National Partnership for Women & Families
7. How the Wage Gap Hurts Women and Families, National Women’s Law Center, April 3, 2013
8. Perry vetoed wage bill after getting letters from retailers, Houston Chronicle, August 5, 2013
9. You Really Shouldn’t Shop There: The Businesses That Told Perry to Veto Equal Pay, Burnt Orange Report, August 7, 2013
10. Perry vetoed wage bill after getting letters from retailers, Houston Chronicle, August 5, 2013
——–
Want to support our work? UltraViolet is funded by members like you, and our tiny staff ensures small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.
https://weareultraviolet.actionkit.com/donate/donate?akid=575.6000.CbILmA
From: Judy Miriga
Date: Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 4:21 PM
Subject: AMERICAN CHOICE FOR RAILA HAVE CONSEQUENCES AS CHINA GIVES SHS 425BN TO KENYA
To: jbatec@yahoo.com
From: Judy Miriga
My Good Friends,
Do not smear Obama’s name on liking Raila to Obama as buddies………the two are such a big contrast. The two are not anywhere close to each other, they are on parallel line. One is terribly corrupt with a passion and the other is a man of the people. I would rather you say, Raila is Clintons friend, Graca Machel with Jesse Jackson and not Obama.
One is West and the other is extreme East. Raila belongs to a camp that works with China and Asianic who are after taking power from the West to East. Connect the dots and get your facts right……..Kenya is therefore in jeopardy as it is central in Africa and it will turn the battle ground of the West and the East; which is why, because of peace, Raila should go home to retire and rest.
Tyranny of Numbers made it clear that, although the white population is decreasing in the world and for them to retain power in order to control the world, they are forced to create Coalition Camps with those like minded who have population manpower for labor reserve and that constitutes numbers. With this number, they are able to spread their wings across the world to have their economic and political deals done for them. In this case, China with Asian communities from Asianic Territories, having been Colonized and rose to join Partnerships and Allys with the Whites from working hard, acquired the technique and used the same on their target groups. America therefore is a formation of immigrants, having driven the Red Indians who were the original natives of America. In other words, New Americans was therefore formed by the first migrant settlers from Europe, Asia etc., America as a result is formed by Nationals from all over the world Africa included. It is a Nation of Nationals of the world. The only difference is that, Africans were brought to America as Slaves from Africa.
Now over time, the Asianic community became partners of deal making doing business with the world. Because of this, Chinese economy rose too quickly to compete with that of the White minority because of their common unity within Asian Territorial factors.
America’s Corporate Special Business Interest are however divided into two. 1) Those who have decided to team with Chinese under unscrupulous greedy deals with Asianic labour force to share their wealth with China through extreme corruption with impunity, prefer to kill the Constitutional Just Rule of Law with Central Governing system so they are able to avoid guiding principles of regulations except Grab Land for free, Trade for Free and evade paying taxes to the Government ……. 2) while those of European Coalition Community prefer Democracy principles that provide community organization to share wealth with the world under Mutual Partnership, with Fair Sharing of resources; where opportunity for common good is available to all…….and where, those who strive for progressive development to improve lifestyle gets the a chance to do so without suppression, discrimination, intimidation or marginalization.
Today, Africa has what it takes in the New Global Emerging Market, and the focus being put in Africa by the world does not mean that Africa will get it easy without meeting challenges or engaging in the Coalition of Partnership Deals with either the West or the East. In this case, Raila and Uhuru with their connection chose to go East.
During Clintons leadership, Clinton mapped out where to connect with his business network and where to lay his investments; more specifically targeting Africa. Unfortunately, his engagement with Africa notably; Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Libya with Ivory Coast seriously backfired very badly. His engagement there caused more harm than good. In other words, Clintons Policy in Africa elevated extreme extra-judicial killings, poverty, pain and sufferings.
Show-Case:
Having Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor as their point men in Libya, killings, stealing and looting from the Liberians, taking their wealth and resources for free, did not go down well between the people of Liberia with their corrupt leaders where Charles Taylor perfected the art of embezzlement after joining Samuel Doe’s Government. It resulted in Taylors conviction and jail by the ICC Hague.
It is exactly a replica of what you see Raila and Uhuru are engage in ……. they do not want to allow Democracy to work well for the people, instead, they are staging Drama to sway their agenda of embezzlement and stealing from the people. The same is the reason why Congo was made a puppet of Kagame’s boxing bag. The same is why Museveni is stealing from Kenya taking Migingo unconstitutionally.
To cut the long story short, I want to let you know that, Obama is not corrupt, he does not belong to Raila Club; if he was he would not have bothered to sponsor THE CONSTITUTION of Kenya. It is because of Obama Kenya has the Constitution.
Those who are fighting the Constitution of Kenya, want to sneak in dangerous clauses to protect their thieving and stolen wealth and natural resources goods from the people of Kenya with the rest of Africa. Raila was caught Red-Handed dipping his hands in the Honey Jar, demanding for Referendum to quench his greedy thirst and realized, he was boxing himself to a corner.
The Constitution made America powerful for 260 years. The Constitution is the landmark for Peace and Unity in diversity……which means, leaders are guided with it to deliver services to their people or the constituency and to deliberate to protect public interest who voted them to Represent them through enactment of policies that are of public interest and mandate.
Raila is equal to Taylor, and therefore, a very big problem Kenya have……..if Kenyans do not watch and confront leaders with the truth, Kenya is headed Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast style………
Wake up people and connect the dots…….signs of the time are here……..Peace and Liberty in pursuit for happiness is crucial……..No one want war, Unite and shame the devil………
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
– – – – – – – – – – –
From: account146w qt4
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 11:47 AM
Subject: AMERICAN CHOICE FOR RAILA HAVE CONSEQUENCES AS CHINA GIVES SHS 425BN TO KENYA
Mr. Mohamed
You have put it well, choices have consequences. Only that consequences are on both sides. On earth here nothing is free. Super power like China or USA or UK always win in the long run. Experience have shown that when a developed country puts 5 billion in africa they end up collecting 20 to 30 billion from that investment. Time will tell in the long run. But past events have shown how africa has been exploited and still being exploited. Foreigners put 1 dollar but collect 10 to 20 dollars in return, leaving africa to linger in constant poverty since freedom came to african countries .
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 09:36:36 -0700
From: mhmdwarsama@ . . .
Subject: AMERICAN CHOICE FOR RAILA HAVE CONSEQUENCES AS CHINA GIVES SHS 425BN TO KENYA
President Obama’s choice of defeated Cord presidential candidate Raila Odinga have grave long-term consequences for US position of dominance in Kenya.
State House in Nairobi has just announced that President Kenyatta, visiting China, and his host President Xi Jinping have today signed Kshs 425bn deal for economic, wildlife, energy and railway projects.
Choices have consequences indeed. Welcome ICC short for International Chinese Companies.
Mohamed Warsama
From: Maurice Oduor
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 12:16 PM
Subject: DIGGING THE AFRICAN WEALTH BY FORCE
Somebody should comment on this; I won’t and I won’t say why.
Courage
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 12:30 PM, account146w qt4 wrote:
Good people;
A quick scan of things happening in the world today reveals a surprising number of facts, or perhaps not so surprising, considering the network of sources, including politicians or african leaders that should develop africa instead of selling it.
Sources now reveal that when Obama the son of an african male was in Tanzania for state visit; G.W: Bush the former USA president was also in the same country. What made a democratic president and a former republican president come together in Africa??.
The two leaders though come from 2 different political parties had the same agenda for USA. That is USA interest in Africa.
G.W. Bush and Obama met Tanzanian leaders and made an agreement that USA continues to own the mines it had in Tanzania despite the present Chinese influence in the continent. Documents were signed to prolong USA interest in Tanzania.
Now the kenyan president also so scared of his country´s economy and how to feed his own people have reached for help from China; Signing a so called help loan worth 5 billion USA dollars. That is a lot of money for a developing country.
What remains to be asked is this: How will Tanzanians gain from Mines USA holds?. Or What has the present Kenyan president promised Chinese to get 5 billion USA dollar as an aid packet?. Are kenyan mines and oil now finding their routes to China??
The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia (Full Length Documentary)
Published on Jun 13, 2012
VICE travels to West Africa to rummage through the messy remains of a country ravaged by 14 years of civil war. Despite the United Nation’s eventual intervention, most of Liberia’s young people continue to live in abject poverty, surrounded by filth, drug addiction, and teenage prostitution. The former child soldiers who were forced into war have been left to fend for themselves, the murderous warlords who once led them in cannibalistic rampages have taken up as so-called community leaders, and new militias are lying in wait for the opportunity to reclaim their country from a government they rightly mistrust.
Hosted by Shane Smith | Originally released in 2009 at http://vice.com
The Violent Coast: Liberia and Sierra Leone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVtvflEKx_0
Published on Mar 6, 2013
Holidays in the Danger Zone (BBC)
cry freetown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WHl2UmJXYU
Uploaded on Oct 19, 2011
No description available.
Why I killed So Many Liberians, The Demonic confession of General Butt Naked
Uploaded on Sep 14, 2011
This is a never before seen confession of one of Liberia most feared warlord and his time under the control of satan. He talks about how he became introduced into the satanic realm when he was a boy. This video was recently made and publish in Liberia. I hope you enjoy it and share the links with others.
Conflict in Sierra Leone – True Story of South African Mercenaries
Conflict in Sierra Leone – True Story of South African Mercenaries
Uploaded on Jul 4, 2009
The RUF were bastards, and Executive Outcomes and the former SADF and others kicked their asses. The United Nations sucks.
Tone Bez Sierra Leone civil war
Uploaded on Aug 26, 2011
FAN PAGE http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tone-be… music/211820068869676FOLLOW @tonebez DOWNLOAD LINK!
The Forgotten War: Sierra Leone Civil War Sorious Samura civilwarcrimes rebel civlian Africa atrocities brutality summary execution beating history documentary civil war africa culture.
Produced by Jesse Jagz
Directed by Mex of PXC
THERE ARE MANY VERSIONS BUT THIS IS THE ORIGINAL FROM THE CHOCOLATE CITY!
Children of War – Sierra Leone – January 2000
Published on May 16, 2012
This is the story of the child soldiers who were drugged with cocaine to make them fight in a war fuelled by blood diamonds, and the child victims of mutilations. Can a permanent world court bring justice to a lost generation?
A deeply moving report on Sierra Leone’s children of war.
Sherieff Koroma is today in a schoolroom learning to read and write. Earlier in the year he was living a different life, his nickname was Captain Cut-Hand. After his house was burnt down by the RUF he escaped to the bush only to be found by rebels. They gave him the choice “do we kill you, or do you join us.” He was then drugged up with cocaine and sent out to fight, mutilations became his trademark. With a smile on his face he describes how he earned respect as a brave fighter. “Whenever we attacked we children went first. We were fearless.” With enough drugs, and with no other family apart from the rebels, children like Sherieff were easily manipulated. It is the child fighters who’ve been responsible for the worst atrocities in Sierra Leone. Isattu Kargbo, a girl the same age as Sherieff, recalls the day four boys came and cut off her hand. RUF leader Foday Sankoh vehemently denies his ‘freedom fighters’ are responsible for such mutilations. In an interview here, he blames the Nigerian led peacekeepers ECO
MOG, “It’s all lies” he says. The RUF he leads has no other purpose than to sustain itself and maintain power in Sierra Leone. It gathers wealth from the Sierra Leoneon diamond mines it controls. Sankoh believes that “the people were crying for war, and that was answered by God.” Yet the people caught up in the war are sending out different prayers. “Sometines I get an urge to chop off more hands,” Sherieff tells us, “I pray to God to remove this urge. I pray to God to help me kill myself.”
SABC
The Blood on Jesse Jackson’s Hands
This is the true story of how Jesse Jackson unleashed a sadistic warlord on the suffering people of Sierra Leone.
http://www.concern-liberians.org/chat_room/view_topic.php?id=85694
http://www.weirdrepublic.com/episode79.htm
Posted: Wed Aug 14th, 2013 05:05 am
Part One: The Long Slide Into Hell
Our former president Jimmy Carter tells us that Liberia’s former “President William Tolbert enjoyed worldwide acceptance as an enlightened Christian layman, having been the elected leader of the Baptist World Alliance, representing almost all organizations of this major Protestant faith.” (New York Times 7/13/03) On April 12th, 1980 a Liberian army sergeant assigned to a beach patrol near the Liberian president’s home directed his platoon to the presidential palace and surprised President Tolbert in his bed, where the president was promptly disemboweled. Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe personally cut out President Tolbert’s liver and heart and ritually mutilated the organs; he left his teeth marks in the flesh; he would later nail Tolbert’s liver to a wall of the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia. Within hours of his murder, thirteen of President Tolbert’s cabinet ministers were bound to telephone poles on a Monrovia beach and shot to death by drunken soldiers loyal to the illiterate Sergeant Doe. Thus
began Liberia’s descent into ruin and depravity.
As the new self-appointed ruler of Liberia, Samuel Doe briefly indulged in a flirtation with Libya and then astutely aligned Liberia with the United States. Despite mounting evidence of increasing atrocities, Washington increased military aid to Liberia. Few questions were asked.
In 1985, Samuel Doe staged an election to legitimize his regime and then rigged the outcome. The United States assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester A. Crocker, announced that Liberia had enjoyed “the beginning, however imperfect, of a democratic experience.” It was all a fraud. Washington’s solid support for Samuel K. Doe sent a clear message to all Liberians that any moderate opposition to the barbaric President Doe was futile.
After the coup of April 1980, a Liberian citizen named Charles Taylor, who was then living in the United States, returned to Liberia and insinuated himself into Samuel Doe’s inner circle. Charles Taylor had entered the United States on a student visa in 1972. He had attended Chamberlayne Junior College in Newton, Mass and later attended Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. He had graduated in 1977 with a degree in economics. In 1983 Doe’s government accused Taylor of embezzling nearly a million dollars. Embezzlement was Doe’s chosen word for Taylor’s failure to make kickbacks. Taylor fled back to the United States.
Responding to a complaint from the Liberian government, American authorities arrested Taylor in Boston in 1984 and held him for extradition. Taylor was represented by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who would later join Saddam Hussein’s defense team.
After cooling his heels in the slammer for more than a year, Taylor teamed up with four petty criminals and together they escaped from the Plymouth House of Correction by cutting his cell bars with a hacksaw blade and climbing down a bunch of knotted bed sheets. Later he would claim that God “opened the prison doors for me.”
After his jailbreak, Taylor found his way to Ghana where he hooked up with Liberian dissidents. Taylor befriended revolutionaries from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Libya. In Libya the government intelligence apparatus put the willing Mr. Taylor through al-Mathabh al-Thauriya al-Alamiya – in English: World Revolutionary Headquarters. It was a school for leftist “revolutionary” guerrillas from every part of Africa. It was at Colonel Qaddafi’s school for thugs that Charles Taylor befriended a former Sierra Leone army corporal named Foday Sankoh.
The Invasion
Fortified with money and weapons supplied by Colonel Qaddafi and with the financial and political support of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, Charles Taylor made his move on Samuel Doe’s Liberia.
On Christmas Eve of 1989, Charles Taylor led a band of 100 guerrillas into Liberia’s northern Nimba County from neighboring Ivory Coast and sparked a civil war that would continue for fourteen years. By the time he was forced from power in 2003 the conflicts he had ignited had swept away the lives of more than 300,000 Africans and uprooted millions of others who scattered into half a dozen West African nations. Taylor carried about a map that he called the map of Greater Liberia which included parts of Guinea and the diamond fields of Sierra Leone. He was a man with a grandiose plan.
Among Charles Taylor’s “revolutionary” innovations was the formation of his notorious Small Boys Units, contingents of intensely loyal child soldiers, some as young as five years old. These boy soldiers revered Charles Taylor as “our father;” he fed them a steady diet of marijuana and crack cocaine.
As many as 10,000 child soldiers fought in Liberia’s last three years of civil war – the final swell of carnage in fourteen years of conflict. Battlefield commanders prized these little fighters for their unquestioning obedience and their lack of comprehension of the suffering of others.
Taylor’s officers would demand that boys kill their parents and family members, thereby breaking the ultimate African taboo. Taylor’s commanders would recruit heavily from the vast pool of younger males who were frustrated by the authority of their elders and who lacked the “bride wealth” to get on with their lives. Rather than waiting years to inherit dowry wealth from their fathers and uncles, Taylor espoused a smash-and-grab take-it-now philosophy. Young recruits were plied with methamphetamines, marijuana and crack cocaine to blunt all qualms and to sharpen a killer mentality. The little soldiers were given license to rape and plunder.
All the while he was eroding the traditional African respect for elders, Charles Taylor was substituting himself as an enthralling all-powerful elder authority over the young troopers who maimed and slaughtered in his name.
Taylor’s “boys” ran amok, indulging in ritual mutilations, impromptu amputations and cannibalism. Women and children were not spared. Taylor’s boys slaughtered five American nuns.
According to the New York Times (4/2/06),
“Mr. Taylor also co-opted the secret societies that dominate life in many West African countries, like the Poro hunting society in Liberia. This gave him access to a world of unseen power and allowed him to project an aura of mystery and invincibility. Rumors that he practiced cannibalism, human sacrifice and blood atonement rituals merely added to his mystique.”
In September 1990 President Doe was captured, tortured and dismembered. By 1991 Taylor’s forces held sway over ninety percent of Liberia and were applying pressure to its weakened government. Taylor deployed his militias to seize control of the Liberian economy, of its natural abundance of timber and raw materials. He controlled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade as well as booty from smuggling and drug trafficking.
Making Matters Worse
In March of 1991, Charles Taylor began encouraging his fellow gangster, Foday Sankoh, to ignite a war in neighboring Sierra Leone – a nation Taylor coveted as part of his imaginary Greater Liberia. With Taylor’s support, Sankoh’s troopers went straight for Sierra Leone’s diamond mines. They called their greedy gang the Revolutionary United Front (RUF); they referred to Sierra Leone as their Kuwait because of the wealth it would provide them. In every meaningful sense, the monstrous Foday Sankoh was a creature of Charles Taylor. Without Taylor there would not have been a Revolutionary United Front.
Horrific mayhem laid both countries to waste during Bill Clinton’s budding presidency. Two hundred thousand of Liberia’s three million citizens were slaughtered. Taylor agreed to 13 peace treaties, but only did so when he needed time to rearm. He trashed all thirteen agreements: It was a methodology he had learned from Colonel Qaddafi. When Taylor felt his grip on Liberia was firm, he pushed for a “free and open” election for the presidency of Liberia. But every citizen understood that if Taylor lost the election he would unleash his AK-47-toting, machete-wielding Small Boys Units on the population.
In short, the 1997 election was conducted “in an atmosphere of intimidation,” to quote the U.S. State Department. With armed children running amok in the streets chanting “He killed my pa. He killed my ma. I’ll vote for him,” Charles Taylor garnered seventy-five percent of the vote.
As Charles Taylor tightened his grip on Liberia, Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front was suffering setbacks in Sierra Leone. The government had contracted the services of a private South African security firm named Executive Outcomes which arrived in May of 1995 and began inflicting grief on the RUF. By early 1996 Sankoh’s guerrillas had been evicted from the diamond fields that had bankrolled his homicidal ventures. The RUF had been severely weakened by Executive Outcomes.
In February of 1996 the United Nations sent election monitors to Sierra Leone and allowed a veteran UN official named Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to step outside his UN role and run for president of Sierra Leone. Mr. Kabbah won the election with far more votes than voters. President Kabbah then asked the well-armed Nigerians to become his protectors. The Nigerians were only too happy to oblige and promptly established a heroin trafficking hub at the Freetown airport.
By the end of 1996 the Revolutionary United Front appeared to be a hollow shell. It was then that President Kabbah did something nearly fatal: he made “peace” with Foday Sankoh and agreed to terminate his government’s contract with Executive Outcomes. Soon thereafter, in May of 1997, disaffected government troops stormed the Freetown prison, released hundreds of condemned criminals and RUF officers, and then seized the reins of government. President Kabbah ran off to neighboring Guinea. Then the coup bossmen invited Foday Sankoh and the RUF to join their junta. Altogether they tore up the constitution; they festooned the hills surrounding Freetown with artillery pieces and then they threatened to bombard the city if anyone complained. They massacred and mutilated civilians; they abducted girls as sex slaves; they forced villagers to toil in the diamond mines. Order would not be restored until Britain, Sierra Leone’s former colonial ruler, sent in troops in 2000.
In short order the RUF took control of the junta and established goon rule: the political opposition was punished with rape, amputations or death. Judicial due process was suspended; civic leaders were locked away.
Sankoh’s troops pounced on the diamond fields of Kono and Tongo. Soon rough uncut diamonds were being ferried away to Liberia in Charles Taylor’s military helicopters. Thereafter, Liberia became a big-time exporter of diamonds even though Liberia itself produced few diamonds.
Just when it seemed that the lives of the citizens of Liberia and Sierra Leone couldn’t get any more grim, Bill Clinton took an interest in these unhappy nations.
Part Two: Clinton’s Disastrous Special Envoy
Bill Clinton was determined to avoid any African entanglements. He had ignored Rwanda as it slid into savage chaos in 1994, when the intervention of a single American battalion would have averted that humanitarian disaster; Clinton was not about to rescue Sierra Leone in 1998. Clinton punted African affairs to his secretary of state Madeline Albright who then fobbed African policy off onto the Congressional Black Caucus – a Democrat power block in Congress. Clinton never offered an opinion about anything African without first consulting Congressman Donald Payne (D., N.J.) of the Black Caucus or Clinton’s soul mate, Jesse Jackson. Every gesture of Clinton’s administration toward Liberia was crafted to legitimize the warlord Charles Taylor.
President Taylor had achieved so much personal control of the Liberian economy that folks had taken to referring to Liberia as Charles Taylor, Inc. The tight circle of friends around Bill Clinton saw in Charles Taylor a man they could deal with. To inaugurate their relationship, a private meeting was arranged between President Taylor and Jesse Jackson whom Bill Clinton had personally designated as his “special envoy” to Liberia.
In February of 1998 Jesse Jackson touched down at the Monrovia airport. Waiting to greet him was a Liberian named Romeo Horton. Mr. Horton had gone to college in the United States and he had traveled between the two countries for two decades. In the early 1980s Horton was in one of Master Sergeant Samuel Doe’s jail cells when Jackson and others appealed for his release. Jackson later met Horton in Chicago.
Romeo Horton’s presence at Jackson’s arrival in Monrovia was stagecrafted by the warlord Charles Taylor. Taylor had summoned Horton back to Liberia to brief him about Jesse Jackson. The last thing Taylor wanted was a sermon on human rights from Clinton’s “special envoy.” His worries were baseless. Because of the helpful Mr. Horton, Jackson’s audience with the Liberian gangster on February 12th, 1998 was all smiles. These two hustlers were ready to do business. It was in the Clinton Administration’s interest to mainstream Charles Taylor. Clinton was keen to avoid any African entanglements; he saw Charles Taylor as someone with whom he could deal.
Soon after this meeting, Nigerian troops liberated Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Foday Sankoh’s troops retreated across the border into Liberia where they were welcomed by Sankoh’s mentor and partner in mass murder, Charles Taylor.
In early March of 1998 Sierra Leone’s exiled president, Ahmad Kabbah, returned to his homeland. A mere two weeks later, Bill Clinton and an enormous entourage of “friends of Bill” entered Liberian airspace on a fun-filled taxpayer-funded African safari. (Transportation costs alone were $42.8 million.) It was then that Bill Clinton emboldened Charles Taylor with thirty minutes of encouragement during a telephone downlink from Air Force One. The airborne entourage included Jackson and lots of his business pals who were in Africa to make a financial killing.
Just before Bill Clinton’s big African adventure, Nigeria’s dictator Sani Abacha had announced his intention to run as the one-and-only unopposed candidate for president of Nigeria. People with a preference for democratic civilian rule had scoffed at the mockery of democracy that a single military candidate represented, but Bill Clinton was quick to assert that it was enough for Abacha to run for office “as a civilian.” Jesse Jackson chimed in that “No body should dictate to the Nigerian people who their leaders are,” by which he meant no one except the unopposed military-dictator-candidate-for-president Sani Abacha.
Just as the multi-million-dollar Bill-and-Jesse screw-the-taxpayer African party junket was winding down, Liberia’s homicidal bossman Charles Taylor ordered Foday Sankoh’s machete-wielding Revolutionary United Front back into long-suffering Sierra Leone where they began a slaughterfest called “Operation No Living Thing.” To hear our State Department describe it, this premeditated attack on Sierra Leone was an orgy of “brutal killings, severe mutilations, and deliberate dismemberments, in a widespread campaign of terror.” So Taylor was an acknowledged terrorist as was his sidekick, Foday Sankoh. Amnesty International enumerated thousands of murders and mutilations. All the while, Jesse Jackson was doing feel-good public relations for the terrorist Charles Taylor.
Showcasing a Terrorist
Back in Chicago, Mister Jackson hosted an extravagant media presentation designed to showcase the terrorist Charles Taylor as the savior of Liberia.
Though Mr. Jackson fraudulently billed his Taylor love-fest as a “reconciliation” conference and falsely claimed that it was an opportunity for opposition Liberians to have a dialog with Charles Taylor, opposition leaders remember that evening differently. According to Harry Greaves, who co-founded the Liberian Action Party, “This was just a PR exercise by Charles Taylor.” Taylor’s wife Jewel Howard Taylor led the Liberian government delegation and the warlord himself filled the enormous video screen of Jesse’s Chicago PUSH auditorium and rambled on at length.
S.J.K. Nyanseor, chairman of Liberian Democratic Future, would later protest to the Congressional Black Caucus that Jackson’s shindig was “nothing more than a scheme designed to promote Taylor and his repressive government.” He was offended that Jackson had not invited a single opposition leader to his so-called “reconciliation conference.” Indeed, the invitations that Jackson sent out did not mention any Liberian speaker or guest other than the warlord Charles Taylor. In fact, Mister Jackson’s aide, Yuri Tadesse, crudely informed opposition leaders that they would not be given any opportunity to say anything.
Mr. Bodioh Wisseh Siapoe, chairmen of the Coalition of Progressive Liberians, was repulsed by the participation of Jackson’s close associate Romeo Horton, whom he asserted “helped finance the carnage of our people.”
Jesse Jackson spent the evening shamelessly shilling for the barbaric Charles Taylor. Jackson demanded that Liberians stop posting details of Taylor’s atrocities on the Internet. Mr. Jackson indignantly proclaimed that “The international community frequents the Internet and takes note of whatever information is disseminated on the Information Superhighway. So, please stay off the Net,” according to people in attendance.
Mister Jackson introduced no fewer than ten of Charles Taylor’s officials who spoke for hours about the paradise Charles Taylor was creating in Liberia. When some opposition folks appealed for a tribunal to try Liberian war criminals, PUSH operatives declared that time was short and drove the dissidents from the stage.
According to Harry Greaves, “The general perception in the Liberian community was that Jackson was a paid lobbyist for Charles Taylor.” Liberians fingered Jackson’s pal Romeo Horton as Taylor’s bagman to Jackson.
Harry Greaves knew for a fact that Jackson was a money grubber: Liberian human rights advocates had appealed to Jackson to support their cause by attending a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral in 1990. Jackson had agreed. Invitations were sent announcing Jackson’s coming appearance. Then, at the last minute, Jackson demanded an up-front payment of $50,000 to appear. The human rights group could not meet Jackson’s demand for cash, so Jackson ditched the event. Clearly, Jesse Jackson had both feet firmly planted in Charles Taylor’s camp.
Jesse’s Evil Deeds
African journalist Tom Kamara has written that “Reverend Jackson is considered a civil rights leader in America, but in Africa he is a killers’ rights leader.” Why would he say such a thing? Here’s why . . .
On July 25th, 1998, the Nigerian government sent the warlord Foday Sankoh home in chains. President Kabbah announced that Sankoh would stand trial for treason against Sierra Leone. Days later, a handcuffed Sankoh appeared on television telling his gang of thugs not to shoot at government soldiers or their Nigerian army allies. At that moment it seemed that peace was at hand: a sadistic mass murderer was in chains and his boy-soldier murder machine was about to become a leaderless rabble. These were positive developments. Any genuine follower of Jesus Christ would have welcomed this moment.
Sadly, Jesse Jackson was secretly using all of his influence to spring the homicidal Foday Sankoh from captivity. After all, Sankoh was a partner-in-genocide with Jackson’s associate Charles Taylor, and what was good for Taylor promised rewards for Jesse Jackson . . . so to hell with the people of Liberia. Jackson immediately set to work pressuring Sierra Leone’s President Ahmad Kabbah to release Foday Sankoh.
On September 18, hundreds of Taylor’s Special Security Service officers and members of his police Special Task Force, teamed up with rag-tag contingents of Taylor’s armed factions and indiscriminately used automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and light artillery against Liberia’s ethnic Krahns. Hundreds of Liberians, many women and children, were slaughtered in seventeen hours of mayhem. People were shot on the spot during house-to-house searches. Taylor was hunting for rival warlord Roosevelt Johnson, an ethnic Krahn.
The following day, Roosevelt Johnson sought refuge in the American embassy. As he and his associates were entering the United States Embassy, Taylor’s goons opened fire, killing two of Johnson’s friends and wounding two United States Marine Corps embassy guards. Taylor’s thugs had trashed the Geneva Convention governing diplomatic relations. So, how did Bill Clinton’s administration respond?
Jesse Jackson called his pal Charles Taylor and urged him to call off his dogs. After that, Bill Clinton’s State Department threw a blanket of secrecy over the embassy murders, referring to the location of the Geneva violations in official reports as “a Western embassy.”
With the Clinton State Department and Jesse Jackson hard at work concealing his violations of international law, Charles Taylor was emboldened to commit even more outrageous acts of indecency. Taylor and the Revolutionary United Front began a push to recapture the diamond fields of Sierra Leone.
Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson set off on another African junket as Clinton’s “special envoy.” While in Guinea, Jackson cajoled Charles Taylor and Ahmad Kabbah into signing the Mano River non-aggression pact, which included the stipulation that neither country would allow its territory to be used as a staging area for attacks on the other. It was all for show: even as he was signing the Mano River pact Taylor was subverting its intent by rearming Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front for guerrilla operations in Sierra Leone.
As Jesse Jackson recalls it, “Kabbah had just executed some of Sankoh’s guys and was about to execute Sankoh. So we appealed to Kabbah not to kill Sankoh.” Why would Jackson do that? Sankoh was a monster who employed drug-addled children to kill and mutilate countless Africans; Sankoh was an agent of mayhem, chaos and suffering. Why was Jesse Jackson so keen to win the release of this satanic monstrosity?
Jackson flew to Freetown and appealed to President Kabbah on Sankoh’s behalf. Jackson repeated his appeal during a stopover in Ghana. A smiling Jackson proclaimed, “We live in the morning of a new day.”
In January 1999, Sankoh’s guerrillas launched an epic attack on the capital city of Sierra Leone, driving before them a human shield of women and children. Along the way they torched homes, chopped off arms and legs, raped children and shot bystanders on a whim. Within three weeks the RUF had slaughtered six thousand citizens, most of them non-combatants. When a Nigerian army counter offensive drove the RUF from Freetown, Sankoh’s thugs torched entire city blocks and abducted thousands of children to exploit as boy soldiers or sex slaves.
Just as Sierra Leone’s President Kabbah had persuaded the Nigerian peacekeepers to strike a crushing blow against the barbaric RUF, Jesse Jackson interceded to stop this winning counter offensive. Clinton’s State Department had invited a RUF spokesman to Washington where the RUF spokesman chatted with Donald Payne who, in turn, urged President Kabbah to release Foday Sankoh and to negotiate with Sankoh’s RUF “without precondition.” Under pressure, with the Nigerian counter offensive stymied by Jesse Jackson & Company, President Kabbah reluctantly acquiesced to U.S. State Department meddling. Foday Sankoh was released on April 19th and Sankoh flew away to Lome, the capital city of Togo.
Because of Jesse Jackson and his meddlesome friends a monster was once again unleashed on the African civilian population; a golden opportunity to decapitate Sankoh’s rogue murder machine had been snatched away. After that, Jesse Jackson would personally guarantee the ruination of Sierra Leone by physically removing President Kabbah from an African summit meeting in Ghana and spiriting him away to an unannounced confrontation with the insurgent bossman Foday Sankoh in Lome, Togo.
The abduction of President Kabbah happened this way: At an African summit meeting in Accra, Ghana, Jesse Jackson urged President Kabbah to meet with Foday Sankoh. Jackson arranged to have a helicopter waiting at the Accra airport. Jackson arrived at the airport surrounded by his ample staff and by people friendly with Charles Taylor. When President Kabbah attempted to board the helicopter with his information and finance ministers, Jackson suddenly declared that there was no room for Kabbah’s aides, both of whom were known to be opposed to making concessions to the warlord Foday Sankoh. Jackson refused to make room for Kabbah’s aides by leaving any of his attendents in Accra. So, Jackson spirited President Kabbah away to Togo without a single supportive aide. It was a one-hundred-mile hop down to Accra, where Jackson refused to exit the helicopter until his image could be captured by a late-arriving CNN film crew. The president of Togo was kept waiting in the hot African sun for most of an hour because of Jac
kson’s swollen vanity.
The isolation of the remote meeting place and Jesse Jackson’s pressure tactics paid off for Jesse and his homicidal allies: Against his better judgment, President Kabbah agreed to a ceasefire with Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front. This would allow the Qaddafi-trained Foday Sankoh an opportunity to replenish his weapons supply. Kabbah was also pressured to enter into power-sharing negotiations with Sankoh. Jesse Jackson then convinced the U.S. State Department to supply Sankoh’s guerrillas with updated communications equipment so that Sankoh could better coordinate his field operations in the bush.
As a direct consequence of the Jackson-brokered Lome Accord, former death row prisoner Foday Sankoh was elevated to the office of vice president of Sierra Leone. Even worse, Foday Sankoh was granted the chairmanship of Sierra Leone’s Management of Strategic Mineral Resources – translation: the diamond mines.
This was what the Charles Taylor/Foday Sankoh partnership had been seeking all along and Jesse Jackson handed it to them on a silver platter! Within days Sankoh was negotiating with the diamond gnomes of Antwerp. When the Belgian diamond merchant Michel Desaedeleer handed Foday Sankoh a bank check the warlord was nonplussed. The diamond merchant recalled, “He just looked at it and asked me, ‘What’s this?’ It was the first bank check he had ever seen.”
Foday Sankoh exploited Sierra Leone’s diamond sales to buy allies and arms. Belgian air force planes brought in weapons for the Revolutionary United Front insurgents in crates disguised as farm produce. Rebel diamonds purchased sixty-eight tons of weapons for the RUF from Ukrainian arms dealer Leonid Minim. Diamonds bought the silence of United Nations watchdogs in Freetown. Raw uncut diamonds purchased political influence in the United States.
Looking back on the mayhem that Jesse Jackson worked so hard to unleash on the people of Sierra Leone, Jackson allows that “putting Sankoh over the diamonds, that was a bit too generous.” Jackson pretends that he was not a driving force behind the ruinous Lome Accord, but what is perfectly clear is the fact that at the historical moment when the leader of a sadistic boy-soldier insurrectionist army was about to meet the hangman, it was Jesse Jackson who intruded into the internal affairs of Sierra Leone, won the release of the genocidal Foday Sankoh, and then pressured the president of Sierra Leone to negotiate with the rebel leader.
The hideous development of Foday Sankoh being elevated to the vice presidency of Sierra Leone and given control of the diamond mines so that he could finance further slaughter in Sierra Leone and Liberia is a direct consequence of meddling by Jesse Jackson acting as Bill Clinton’s “special envoy.” Jackson was “special” indeed; he had a gift for making life unbearable for the people of Sierra Leone and Liberia. Without Jackson’s enthusiastic intrusion into Sierra Leone’s internal affairs the trade in blood diamonds would have stopped. Jackson has the blood of countless slaughtered Africans on his hands.
The Jackson-brokered ceasefire fell apart in less than six months; it was just an opportunity for Sankoh’s sadistic gang to rearm and redeploy. Jackson’s legitimization of Sankoh and Taylor set the stage for the slaughter of tens of thousands of African children.
Was Jackson surpassingly stupid or just his usual self-serving self when he unleashed Foday Sankoh on a suffering Sierra Leone? Did Jackson get a clue when Sankoh’s machete-wielding savages began murdering UN peacekeepers and then took 500 peacekeepers hostage in May of 2000?
By mid-May Jackson was warned to stay out of Freetown because he had been labeled a “killers’ rights leader” by Africans. Jackson blundered into Monrovia at the height of the hostage crisis and then attempted, with no success, to cajole Charles Taylor into intervening. Jackson had unleashed the dogs of war and Taylor saw no profit in reining in his buddy Foday Sankoh.
On June 5th, 2000, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker disavowed any support for Jackson’s bumbling attempts at diplomacy. The Clinton folks gave their “special envoy” the boot.
In a revealing article in the New York Post titled “The War That Jesse Built” (7/10/03), author Kenneth R. Timmerman suggests that
“Among the first questions prosecutors should ask Taylor is whom he paid off using Foday Sankoh’s diamonds. U.S. intelligence officers reported these payoffs at the very moment that Jackson was negotiating a favorable role for Taylor and for Sankoh in Lome, former CIA officers and other sources have told me over the past two years. As a result of the payoffs, Taylor continued to enjoy support among the Congressional Black Caucus and with the Clinton State Department.”
The ever hustling Mr. Jackson, who has been cutting corners and cutting deals ever since he dropped out of the Chicago Theological Seminary after a scant six months and began calling himself “the Reverend Jackson,” definitely has the blood of slaughtered African innocents on his hands. Because he was acting as America’s “special envoy” to Africa, it’s high time Mr. Jesse answered a few tough questions about the horror he wrought in Africa. It’s time to follow the trail of the African blood diamonds.
Republicans are trying to steal control of the U.S. Senate by making it harder to vote.
Pitch in to help defend the right to vote and stop Republicans from stealing the 2014 election.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=292693&id=73265-21095459-vLAjbox&t=2
Dear MoveOn member,
This is stunning: The New York Times’ data wizard Nate Silver—who predicted the 2012 election results state-by-state with uncanny accuracy—is now projecting that, “Republicans [are] close to even-money to win control of the [Senate] after next year’s elections.”1
It’s the worst-case scenario: Republicans win a majority in the Senate, and we can kiss the rest of President Obama’s agenda goodbye.
To make things worse, they have a plan to steal the 2014 election starting right now by making it harder for seniors, students, poor people, and African-Americans to vote.
Back in May, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Since then, Republicans in key states have been racing to purge voter rolls, eliminate early voting, and require new photo IDs to vote—anything they can do to make it harder to vote.
And in an election as close as this one will be, even 1-2 percentage points could turn the tide.
You think the fights over the budget, Obamacare, and immigration are bad now? Imagine Mitch McConnell in control of the U.S. Senate. Try getting any pro-choice judge confirmed for the Supreme Court against a GOP majority. Or stopping cuts to Social Security. Forget it.
The 2014 election is hugely important—and we can’t let Republicans steal it now. So if you think you’ll want to get involved sometime next year, I ask you: Please get engaged right now.
We’re raising $250,000 this week to launch a ‘Let Us Vote’ Campaign to fight back right now—while it can make the greatest difference. Will you help?
Yes, I’ll contribute $5 so we can fight back.
https://civ.moveon.org/donatec4/voter_suppression_2013.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=73265-21095459-vLAjbox&t=4
How blatant are the GOP’s efforts? North Carolina just passed what’s widely being called the most extreme voter suppression law in the country. It requires Voter ID, reduces early voting, and ends same-day registration.2
Why there? Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina is just one of four Democrats up for re-election next year in a state won by Mitt Romney. If Republicans can reduce turnout in North Carolina and defeat her, it’ll drastically improve their odds of taking the Senate.
To reverse the effects of this effort, we have a 3-pronged plan of attack:
1. We’ll launch state-by-state campaigns to roll back discriminatory voter suppression laws, rules and regulations when state legislatures are back in session.
2. We’ll prepare a traditional and online media blitz, highlighting both the actions of extreme politicians like North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and the stories of heroic individual voters whose rights are being trampled.
3. We’ll organize an aggressive counter-intimidation campaign to mobilize the very same voters who are being disenfranchised. This tactic was proven to work last election, when showing voters what Republicans are really up to actually motivated unlikely voters to overcome barriers to get to the polls.4
We helped beat back the GOP voter suppression machine in 2012—and we can do it again—but all of us need to help. And we can’t afford to wait until next year. Are you in to support our “Let Us Vote” campaign?
–Anna, Alex, Jessica, Nick, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “Senate Control in 2014 Increasingly Looks Like a Tossup”, The New York Times, July 15, 2013
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=292665&id=73265-21095459-vLAjbox&t=6
2. “Hagan demands review of NC voter law,” The Hill, August 13, 2013
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=292652&id=73265-21095459-vLAjbox&t=7
3. “How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics,” The Nation, April 29, 2013
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=292696&id=73265-21095459-vLAjbox&t=8
4. “How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics,” The Nation, April 29, 2013
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=292698&id=73265-21095459-vLAjbox&t=9
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Kenya is moving forward…….never backwards…… Land Grabbing and Decolonization must be fought in all fronts……
Cheers !!!
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
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FBI agents, police pursue three theories in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport fire probe
Updated Thursday, August 8th 2013 at 22:07 GMT +3
Senior criminal investigation offi cials scour the scene of Wednesday’s fire Thursday. [PHOTOS: WILBERFORCE OKWIRI/STANDARD]
By CYRUS OMBATI
NAIROBI; KENYA: Detectives probing the Wednesday blaze that brought down the main terminal at Kenya’s biggest airport are not ruling out terrorism or arson, although they say it could have been an accident.
President Kenyatta chaired a meeting of the country’s top security organ to discuss the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport ( JKIA) fire tragedy as it emerged investigators were pursuing all three theories.
On Thursday the probe took on an international feel as three FBI agents sent by the US embassy in Nairobi joined the investigating team a day after President Obama called President Kenyatta to offer his government’s support following the fire.
Officially, authorities say it is not yet clear what caused the fire that prompted the closure of the busiest airport in East and Central Africa for most of Wednesday.
Over 200 people, among them 60 Kenya Airport Authority (KAA) workers, have recorded statements as the probe intensifies.
Huge losses
Yesterday, President Kenyatta called a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the tragedy that has occasioned huge economic losses following the disruption to cargo and passenger flights.
Deputy President William Ruto, all heads of the country’s security agencies, and Cabinet Secretaries in charge of Security and Infrastructure attended the meeting at State House, Nairobi. Details of the meeting were scanty, but officials said the crisis at JKIA was extensively discussed and the President briefed on progress in investigations.
At JKIA, head of the ATPU Boniface Mwaniki led the probe as detectives searched for clues in the fire-damaged section of the airport. The FBI agents arrived carrying special equipment to back up their Kenyan counterparts with their expertise, in a joined bid to unearth the cause of the inferno.
The agents took away samples from the scene for further analysis and tests.
Investigators were also reviewing images on the closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras to examine events before and after the fire broke out, as part of their investigations. It was not immediately clear if the entire sequence of events was captured on the surveillance cameras.
Apart from the ATPU, officers from the Bomb Disposal Unit, Kenya Airports Police Unit, Nairobi County and CID headquarters were helping with the probe.
Personnel from the National Intelligence Service, Kenya Power Company personnel, the City Council of Nairobi Fire Department and investigators from insurance companies were also at the scene.
The detectives have taken over a bar at the airport and turned it into an interrogation room where witnesses are recording statements.
Officials said some of the staff said in their statements that they heard two explosions after smoke started billowing out.
The explosions, according to those who have been questioned, were not very powerful or loud, with suggestions and they may have been caused by air conditioners.
Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau and CID Director Ndegwa Muhoro confirmed the arrival of the FBI agents to assist in the probe.
“We wish to express our appreciation and gratitude for the support we have received from other governments around the world and our development partners,” said Kamau.
On Thursday, controversy raged over where the fire started as witness accounts contradicted the official position that the fire broke out atin the immigration area.
There were suggestions that the huge inferno may have been occasioned by naked electric wires left in one of the 56 shops pulled down by the Government as it ejected duty free shop operators last week.
Insiders and firemen who spoke to The Standard claimed the fire could have been triggered by an electric fault from one of the duty free shops.
“There were some cables that were left naked. The power was cut off in some of the shops and was left on in others. This is exactly what I told the investigation team when they grilled me this morning,” said one of the employees.
But the Government has maintained that the shops were 50 metres away. “The fire came from the immigration section after the bridges, the second desk after immigration which is nearest to unit 1. The duty free shops are more than 50 metres apart and I do not see any relationship between the demolitions and the fire,” Kamau said on Wednesday.
On Thursday, minimal operations resumed at JKIA with the Government indicating they expected full operations by midnight.
The State also opened up the excusive Presidential Pavilion, usually reserved for visiting heads of states, for use by travellers to help ease the crisis. Kamau indicated that full operations would resume at the airport from midnight on Thursday.
“We want to assure all travellers within the country that even though the level of comfort is not what they would expect, we want to reassure them of their security and safety,” he said. Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) confirmed that other international airlines can use JKIA under advice, added Kamau.
National carrier Kenya Airways had already lined up 17 international flights throughout Thursday to various capitals across the globe.
Trans-Nzoia County governor told to stop land grabbing
Updated Thursday, August 8th 2013 at 23:01 GMT +3
BY OSINDE OBARE
Trans-Nzoia County: The business community in Trans-Nzoia County has pressed authorities to repossess 100 acres of grabbed land earmarked for the Kenya Industrial Estate ( KIE).
The Trans-Nzoia Kenya National Commerce and Industry branch said it would institute legal action on behalf of residents to sue people behind the illegal allocation of prime plots in Kitale.
The branch’s Executive Officer Martin Waliaula said the economic activities in the county have grounded because land meant for them has been grabbed.
Speaking in Kitale yesterday, Mr Waliula asked the county leadership led by Governor Patrick Khaemba to reclaim the grabbed land.
“The normal stories that the government is going to recover grabbed land should be made a reality. The rampant grabbing has hampered economic activities. We want all public assets taken by individuals repossessed,” he demanded.
Condemning the grabbing of the KIE land meant for industrialisation programmes, the officials said the Chamber will move to court to revert the land to its intended purpose.
“We cannot allow developers to benefit at the expense of many unemployed youths. We are ready to face these individuals and recover the land,” he said.
He said a survey done by the Chamber had indicated only 15 acres had been spared from the initial parcel reserved for industrialisation purposes.
People from the Continent of Africa deserve fair Human Rights with better Trading engagement away from Politically Engineered conflicts that come as a result of corruption and impunity. People of Africa too have a right to enjoy benefits of peace and happiness and as well, engage in Trading under favorable conducive environment, just like other people from other parts from Industrialized progressive world. I say this because, the resources from Africa is in the world market where we are all consumers of the same; but looking back and considering the pathetic humanitarian situations at which the resources are acquired from Africa, it is extremely traumatizing. It then calls for moral conviction for which I am compelled to petition you, to face this matter boldly, resolutely without looking back and make firm and conclusive response which will save this pathetic situation and ultimately provide safety-net to the proposed Energy project you sold out during your recent trip to Africa.
Since UN Treaties are an internationally credible Law that are as valid as any other Constitutional Law of any Nation in the world, most United Nations ratified their treaties to conform with that of UN. We therefore expect The UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki-moon to engage fairly and be fully committed to guiding member States to be in compliant with Policy Agreement of the UN Conventions or face the law.
Every piece of Africa’s land and every ounce of water are protected by the International and UN treaty rights, including treaty rights for specific countries such like Kenya, Congo, Tanzania or any other Nation in Africa, Asia or in Europe where inherent rights are honored and protected. All these rights (be it Human Rights, Governments Constitutional Rights, Trade Security or Climatic Environmental Change) contribute to effects on Environmental Rights that afflict human health adversely or destroys and pollutes Nature and consequently abuses human rights. Similarly, the same in extension are Agreements recognized within International and UN Treaty.
The People of Congo, South Sudan, Kenya and other parts of Africa, are constantly attacked from outside invasion from the likes of M23 Rebel Groups. This tends to negate natural development that involves good balanced practices needed for fair trading, with sustained job creation to engage the youth and women from Africa.
Since the unscrupulous International Corporate special business interest failed to do fair business deals in Africa, or consult favorably to engage mutually good business practices; the corrupt African Governments found reason to violate and evade their Responsibilities. As a result, they fail to commit mandated business for investment deals on a “Give and Take” to mutually benefit both stakeholders and the investors. But because of humanitarian grounds, and because victims have suffered irreparably, I petition you to engage good Allys to stop this idea of sponsoring Rebel Groups in Africa to kill, destroy, drive away and scare their own local people from their home establishments that results into extreme poverty and deaths instead of advancing development; thus paving ways for extreme business of greed.
Land, Waters, Oil or rare mineral resources, should explicitly be utilized within the acceptable legal framework of the United Nations International Treaty, where the same, through Legislative consultative system in the Government should provide security to public mandate, Land Rights, resource Rights or Taxpayers as obligated in the Jurisdiction …… and this therefore remain a question for Legal Justice system to pursue, remedy and inform.
As a matter of concern, the extremely traumatic of humanitarian situation in the Eastern DRC require urgent, bold, resolute, and morally inspired response by the United States with its Allys from other countries to work tin concerted efforts to bring life in Congo and in Africa to normality. The Regions in Eastern Great Lakes of East Africa are blessed with very good understanding people who love peace. These people are highly educated and can reason well. They are extensively informed and are ready to engage in secured progressive business. This cannot happen when peace and security that offers favorable, friendly and conducive environment to prosper is not assured.
In DRC Congo and South Sudan, 70 percent of the economy of these countries heavily depend on oil and mining, therefore, any initiative would have to take into account peoples welfare, security and health protection under Human Rights, security with preservation to preserve cultural livelihood of the people.
We must not under-estimate main purposes with reasons of Terror fighting in Congo and South Sudan. It is a well known fact that, Corporate Special Business Interest are determined to engage in their selfish greed that has caused pain and sufferings to others; and are unwelcomed failed practices that do not add value; which in the first place is the reason for Global Economic Collapse, the disease which is now spreading like bush-fire to Kenya and before long, the world will break into 3rd world war because, people have reached their limits.
Currently, sponsored Private Rebels are terrorizing people and Mercenaries who engage in serious Pirating, illegal Money Laundering, illegal transfer with sale of fire-arms as well with other sophisticated weaponry, Trafficking of child prostitution with Drug trading in the Great Lakes Regions has become the order of the day.
The states surrounding the Great Lakes – which include Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Kenya, and the DRC – have coalesced around these issues without proper management plan to develop a plan of action that requires effective coordination to ensure, there is credibility for security monitoring and as well the Rebel Groups are dismantled and driven out of Congo with their foundation completely destroyed.
To save a situation, a workable sustained process for solution must be established so that, those affected communities who are victims of circumstances get involved in Nation building and are compensated of their loses.
A targeted sustained development project instead of Aid that are short term and do not make any notable impact, must urgently be put to take effect in these regions, otherwise, those who conspired to create the mess for their advantage, would be the same beneficiaries fronting for the AID Funding, and as a result, there will be no tangible effective result for remedy that shall have been implemented……..”since the funding will have gone to those who planned for the damage in the first place”………Loose-ended spoon-feeding Aid to Africa is unsustainable and non-effective and this is where the Neo-colonialism breeds high suspecion in Africa……….What a double tragedy that would be after 50 years of Africa”s independence !!!
It is an open secret with credible documented reports both from the UN, African Envoys and by the NGOs stating that, although Governments in these regions face considerable challenges from the growing strength and sophistication of arms by these rebel groups in the Region, trading across borders only benefit the corrupt politicians with their network of Corporate Special Business Interest to a large extent, leaving out the Government to fall apart with its local people dug deeper into hopeless poverty which is greatly alarming.
It is unfortunate that, Pirating and smuggling is growing dangerously in leaps and bounds in and around the region and there is urgent need to stop these from getting out of control in Africa.
Need to Establish a Functioning Civil Society:
Management of Civil Society with Engagement of the Government to observe and follow the Constitutional policies for public mandate is crucial and very necessary. Since the Government is for the people, Civil Society have rights to be equipped with knowledge to organize themselves so to protect and preserve their Pivotal roles in the Society through engagements.
Civil society guarantee sustainability through popular participation to facilitate a functioning Democracy with good Governance that are established under Just Rule of Law; and by engaging and managing their affairs with humanitarian issues, the Civil Society are able to assist the government in managing their welfare in their Community Organization. Civil Society must equally be engaged in training in order to help with strengthening their government system to expedite service on time. When the Community is informed, they are able to manage their affairs effectively. Any other matters of human rights abuses and the need to protect Rights through policy enactment is a ways the Civil Society will preserve Africa’s minerals resource trading in a more beneficial and sustainable manner. This Natural Mineral Wealth do not last for ever, and it is our responsibility now that we engage to do the right thing.
Consequently, the information exchange encourage the civil society’s participation as Watch-dog that monitors the bad behavior of government employees with reason to re-call irresponsible elected Officials who fail to perform with integrity.
Moving forward in boosting education and strengthening security for civil society on the ground is extremely important and definitely essential.
The U.S. government, must support initiatives for Congo, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania with peace initiative to create management re-organization to provide conflict-free supply chains. If more revenue is invested to legitimizing supply chains, Trading benefits for USA with their Allys will grow more in bounty than where we are presently. A greater substantial proportion of the problem will have been solved, paving ways for sustainable Trading processes in the Region to compete fairly and peacefully under conducive environment that has lesser challenges from terrorism and war. This is the only way to avoid Neo-colonialism.
Progress must be swift and fast so to establish proceedure for order and discipline to instil general rule where all Trading are done in mutually common good for all.
For this to happen there is need to establish a lasting impact that will bring solution. We must follow up on uniformity to Mineral Certification process on all types of Natural Mineral Resource business that involve Oil, Gold, Diamond, Titanium, Colta, Land, Water with observance of International Treaty with United Nations Conventions.
I await to hear from you favorable…..I beg to remain,
Sincerely,
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson &
Executive Director for
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
email: jbatec@yahoo.com
– – – – – – – – – – –
Point of Reference from latest news report why action is acutely important and extremely urgent:
Omollo,
Iko Jaluo moja kutoka Gem anaitwa Professor Rading a ver accomplished researcher and educationist. He did a lot of research work and tests on various areas in Kwale. Through him I came to know that Niobium an element so important on stainless steels, and Titanium the stuff they use for manufacturing bodies of Fighter jets which travel at 3times the speed of sound or Mach 3 is available in Kwale in trillions of tons. Infact Kwale holds one third of the total World Titanium.
Way back in 1998 a Canadian Company, which engaged that professor from Gem to do the reseach, was given a license by Baba na Mama Government, to start Mining. Unfortunately the company wanted to loot the area the way all Gentile Companies loot Minerals in Africa. The locals were not put in the picture. Tiomin (the canadian Company started evicting akina Mwana Iddi na Swaleh Bakarii without compensation. They resisted and later the case went to Court.
The Court’s resolution was that these Locals be paid good compensation to make them relocate. But Tiomin said that they did not have that kind of money at that time. With that argument the project came to a holt.
Sometime around 2004 Obako’s Government issued another Fresh license to Tiomin.. At that point Tiomin involved their Government by asking for a Loan from the Canadian Government to help offset the money going to the Locals as compensation. From then on it has been back and forth with no headway.
Now, if the Ching ling Ling were hoping to get into those mines then they are a little late because as I know it the Canadians already have the license. not through Kamwana but one which was issued by Moi and reissued by Kibaki.
Professor ile ya ktoka Gem likwisa fuanya analysis na kuthibitisa availability of several minerals way back in late 80s to mid 90s. Donge!!!
Also did you know that Kwale has the best sand for Casting of any kind be it process casting of Aluminum or steel or Cast Iron. Sand around Kwale town has 99.9% silica. Almost 100%. I personally tested this in a lab. Compare this to other Countries which do a lot of Casting like USA Germany, USSR. Egypt, South Africa etc. Their sand range from 65% – 90% silica
Jagem
President Uhuru Kenyatta steps into global mining power struggle
Updated Tuesday, July 30th 2013 at 17:29 GMT +3
It, by-and-large, has escaped the attention of the madia that Kenya has a resources asset far greater than the oil and gas find, about which there was so much fuss. Down in Kwale, under a wooded hill, sits a deposit of Rare Earths that is of global significance.
Rare Earths are in every mobile phone, in our modern light bulbs, in most modern technologies, and just as the world played a dance of Middle Eastern supremacy over oil and control of oil supplies, so China, more than a decade ago, spotted the power of controlling the Rare Earth market.
Rare Earths
The Chinese President laid out his country’s strategy to be the controller of Rare Earths as the Middle East had controlled oil. He spoke of it. It was spelt out in his speeches. And China moved. With large Rare Earth deposits of its own, it went on to acquire almost all of the world’s mines, in Australia, globally.
It secured more than 95 per cent of all the world’s Rare Earth supplies. No-one can make modern technology without Chinese-controlled Rare Earths, and, predictably enough, the prices have soared in recent years.
Now, Kenyan geologists have long known the country had Rare Earths, together with a handy little mineral called Niobium, also these days in big demand as a strengthener of steels. Geological surveys showed the Rare Earths in Kwale back in the 1950s — a sweet enough mineral asset to mean there was a time that global mining major, Anglo American, hacked a mine shaft into that hill and set out on the path of mining there.
But that international company gave up, unable to get mining go ahead in a country where mining has never happened NOT because the country isn’t packed with mineral resources, but because no mining company could ever manage the politics. Mining takes huge up-front investment. The surveys have to happen first, the mining, the processing plant, the processing, and finally, years down the line comes the first actual piece of revenue.
Investors have to back a mine, for years and in very large sums, to turn it into a revenue stream.
It’s not like selling Coca Cola, and it doesn’t work when the menu on offer is ‘put a lot of money in, but you may lose it all and never see a penny of revenue’. Mining investment takes SOME commitments.
Kenya has never offered that, leaving itself almost isolated in Africa as a country without earnings from natural resources.
But the Kwale thing was bigger still. It certainly sat there for decades undeveloped through a lack of will to convert into a government facilitated investment. A French company tried after Anglo American. Gave up.
Then a little ‘junior’ mining company — first a South African/Australian nexus, then merged with a Toront-listed mining company — began the journey.
That company got further than the others. They prospected and found the deposit was among the richest in the world, possibly the richest, in the percentage of Rare Earths held in the soil.
They also found that the deposit was larger than anyone realised. It now looks as if it may be the second largest in the world, after the world’s largest Rare Earth mine, in China, called Baotou.
But by now, there were more challenges than ordinary, routine, forever, political blockage of mining.
No one ever mentioned in China’s strategy for Rare Earths that it would be a supply dominated by China AND Kenya. The ‘ Kenya’ part wasn’t in the global plan.
Not that anyone has really focussed on that jigsaw puzzle as we gained lots of lovely grants and friendship from China, a free hospital, a beautiful Thika superhighway.
I asked a Chinese First Secretary last week why China had put so much into Kenya recently, and he told me, repeatedly, that it was a ‘beautiful’ country with interesting tourism and great weather.
So I guess China will be putting a lot into Croatia too, with its stunning coastline.
Of course, the truth is, China wanted that mine, and maybe it’s suicide of me to say it, but I think they had got it. Only then our new government was elected, and within three weeks our new President intervened, personally. China did not get the licence. The President met the Canadian-listed international miners, issued their licence, and they have now received their Environment Impact Assessment approvals. The fund raising is underway.
Changing future
And no-one, but no-one, seems to grasp how brave that was. There will be so much pressure over that mine. I’ve seen detailed figures estimating the resource at a worth of US dollars 95 billion — that’s 8 trillion shillings. It’s the biggest thing that Kenya has ever owned that the world wants.
But that resource is a Kenyan birth right. So I don’t care what tribe he’s from: our President just stood up to one of the most powerful forces in the world to harness it for Kenya, setting up an income stream in royalties, 80 per cent of which will go to Government, and our health service, and teachers’ pay, and so much more.
And I’m not sure anyone even noticed. But they should. Because that’s future changing.
And very brave indeed.
COMMENTS:
Rare-Earth DIGGER01 August 2013 3:37 PM
Looks pretty close. The revenue may look tiny in light of the bigger cake, however, that is a direct revenue. there are indirect revenues such as employment and infrastructure development, investments, etc.
twister31 July 2013 11:29 PM
It start low as the company recoup its huge invested, which is usually borrowed attracting huge interests, after some time the Gok will poket as high as 80%.
George k31 July 2013 6:35 AM
Why such a low percentage , someone should explain this
Paulo30 July 2013 3:31 PM
This article is full of praises but lacking in real focus. Praising China for giving us grants that we will end up paying back and being dependant on their input even in cases where we can do better by developing our local capacity is not the way to go. Also, the issue of mining is more complicated than just working out figures in billions and trillions of expected income/production. EIA have been political tools in cases where in the long run, the cost paid by the local population turns out to be far much greater.
Ekhisa30 July 2013 12:05 PM
I still think 80percent of 3 percent of 95b only comes to 2.8B USD leaving the mining company with staggering profits from these at 92B USD…So what is so transformational about that figure…I think the new President did well to stick it for Kenya but the royalties just doesnt make sense…I mean Kenya will only make 250B KES from mining worth of 8 trillion shillings…Not right
Lands officer linked to Sh954m fraud
Ministry of Lands headquarters in Nairobi. Former State officials have been accused of using their positions in government to grab 795 acres of land belonging to Ms Anna Nyogio Kimitei.
By VINCENT AGOYA vagoya@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Wednesday, July 31 2013 at 21:44
In Summary
The former State officials have been accused of using their positions in government to grab 795 acres of land belonging to Ms Anna Nyogio Kimitei.
A lands registrar has been summoned to court in a case where a widow claims she was swindled out of a Sh954 million ranch using false documents.
Ms Agnes Wangu Gerald Kuria has failed to honour “verbal” summons to honour the court date.
Wednesday, magistrate Peter Ndwiga issued summons after police complained she had ignored orders to present herself to investigators.
Ms Kuria has been enjoined in the case with former Kenya Pipeline Company boss Ezekiel Komen, former District Commissioner Benjamin Rotich, land registrar Tom Mainja and two others.
Ms Kuria has been accused of giving instructions on behalf of the chief land registrar to open green cards in the names of Ezekiel Komen, Eric Kibiwott Tarus, and Kipkorir Kuti for the transfer of land in Eldoret belonging to someone else.
She did this on December 22, 2005 while working as a lands registrar at Ardhi House, Nairobi, it is claimed.
Using positions
The former State officials have been accused of using their positions in government to grab 795 acres of land belonging to Ms Anna Nyogio Kimitei.
Yesterday, the prosecution said it would amend the charges to include Ms Kuria and charge the suspects afresh.
The prosecution alleges the widow lost her land to powerful politicians during the Kanu regime.
It is alleged the politicians subdivided the land and sold it to more than 200 families who have put up commercial and residential buildings.
The widow claims her family bought the land from a white settler, Mr James Gear, on March 10, 1969 but in 2006 was told that “the government had taken it over and allocated it to poor families.”
The court yesterday extended the suspects’ bond of Sh500,000 and ordered them to appear Thursday.
A Summary of
United Nations Agreements
on Human Rights
Contents
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
Convention Against Torture
Convention Against Genocide
The Geneva Conventions
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Convention on Eliminiation of Discrimination Against Women
Charter of the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The UDHR is the first international statement to use the term “human rights”, and has been adopted by the Human Rights movement as a charter. It is short, and worth reading in its entirety — a summary would be about as long as the document itself.
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
This covenant details the basic civil and political rights of individuals and nations. Among the rights of nations are:
the right to self determination
the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence
Among the rights of individuals are:
the right to legal recourse when their rights have been violated, even if the violator was acting in an official capacity
the right to life
the right to liberty and freedom of movement
the right to equality before the law
the right to presumption of innocence til proven guilty
the right to appeal a conviction
the right to be recognized as a person before the law
the right to privacy and protection of that privacy by law
freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
freedom of opinion and expression
freedom of assembly and association
The covenant forbids torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, slavery or involuntary servitude, arbitrary arrest and detention, and debtor’s prisons. It forbids propaganda advocating either war or hatred based on race, religion, national origin, or language.
It provides for the right of people to choose freely whom they will marry and to found a family, and requires that the duties and obligations of marriage and family be shared equally between partners. It guarantees the rights of children and prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, color, national origin, or language.
It also restricts the death penalty to the most serious of crimes, guarantees condemned people the right to appeal for commutation to a lesser penalty, and forbids the death penalty entirely for people under 18 years of age.
The covenant permits governments to temporarily suspend some of these rights in cases of civil emergency only, and lists those rights which cannot be suspended for any reason. It also establishes the UN Human Rights Commission.
After almost two decades of negotiations and rewriting, the text of the Universal Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was agreed upon in 1966. In 1976, after being ratified by the required 35 states, it became international law.
Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The protocol adds legal force to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by allowing the Human Rights Commission to investigate and judge complaints of human rights violations from individuals from signator countries.
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
– This covenant describes the basic economic, social, and cultural rights of individuals and nations, including the right to:
– self-determination
– wages sufficient to support a minimum standard of living
– equal pay for equal work
– equal opportunity for advancement
– form trade unions
– strike
– paid or otherwise compensated maternity leave
– free primary education, and accessible education at all levels
– copyright, patent, and trademark protection for intellectual property
In addition, this convention forbids exploitation of children, and requires all nations to cooperate to end world hunger. Each nation which has ratified this covenant is required to submit annual reports on its progress in providing for these rights to the Secretary General, who is to transmit them to the Economic and Social Council.
The text of this covenant was finalized in 1966 along with that of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but has not been ratified yet.
UN Convention on the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces (I)
Also called the first Geneva Convention
The first Geneva Convention focuses on the rights of individuals, combatants and non-combatants, during war. It is lengthy and detailed, perhaps because human rights are rarely at such risk as during war and, in particular, involving prisoners of war or enemy captives.
Convention against Genocide
This convention bans acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. It declares genocide a crime under international law whether committed during war or peacetime, and binds all signators of the convention to to take measures to prevent and punish any acts of genocide committed within their jurisdiction. The act bans killing of members of any racial, ethnic, national or religious group because of their membership in that group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, inflicting on members of the group conditions of life intended to destroy them, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and taking group members’ children away from them and giving them to members of another group.
It declares genocide itself, conspiracy or incitement to commit genocide, attempts to commit orcomplicity in the commission of genocide all to be illegal. Individuals are to be held responsible for these acts whether they were acting in their official capacities or as private individuals. Signators to the convention are bound to enact appropriate legislation to make the acts named in Article 3 illegal under their national law and provide appropriate penalties for violators.
People suspected of acts of genocide may be tried by a national tribunal in the territory where the acts were committed or by a properly constituted international tribunal whose jurisdiction is recognized by the state or states involved. For purposes of extradition, an allegation of genocide is not to be considered a political crime, and states are bound to extradite suspects in accordance with national laws and treaties. Any state party to the Convention may also call upon the United Nations to act to prevent or punish acts of genocide.
The remainder of the Convention specifies procedures for resolving disputes between nations about whether a specific act or acts constitute(s) genocide, and gives procedures for ratification of the convention.
Convention against Torture
This convention bans torture under all circumstances and establishes the UN Committee against Torture. In particular, it defines torture, requires states to take effective legal and other measures to prevent torture, declares that no state of emergency, other external threats, nor orders from a superior officer or authority may be invoked to justify torture. It forbids countries to return a refugee to his country if there is reason to believe he/she will be tortured, and requires host countries to consider the human rights record of the person’s native country in making this decision.
The CAT requires states to make torture illegal and provide appropriate punishment for those who commit torture. It requires states to assert jurisdiction when torture is committed within their jurisdiction, either investigate and prosecute themselves, or upon proper request extradite suspects to face trial before another competent court. It also requires states to cooperate with any civil proceedings against accused torturers.
Each state is obliged to provide training to law enforcement and military on torture prevention, keep its interrogation methods under review, and promptly investigate any allegations that its officials have committed torture in the course of their official duties. It must ensure that individuals who allege that someone has committed torture against them are permitted to make and official complaint and have it investigated, and, if the complaint is proven, receive compensation, including full medical treatment and payments to survivors if the victim dies as a result of torture.. It forbids states to admit into evidence during a trial any confession or statement made during or as a result of torture. It also forbids activities which do not rise to the level of torture, but which constitute cruel or degrading treatment.
The second part of the Convention establishes the Committee Against Torture, and sets out the rules on its membership and activities.
The Convention was passed and opened for ratification in February, 1985. At that time twenty nations signed, and five more signed within the month. At present sixty five nations have ratified the Convention against torture and sixteen more have signed but not yet ratified it.
Convention on Eliminiation of Discrimination Against Women
This convention bans discrimination against women. The copy of the Convention on Women presently accessible through this page is a fully- indexed HTML document. A linked summary of the document will be written in the next few weeks.
Convention on the Rights of the Child
This convention bans discrimination against children and provides for special protection and rights appropriate to minors. The copy of the Convention on the Rights of the Child presently accessible through this page is a fully-indexed HTML document. A linked summary of the document will be written in the next few weeks.
Charter of the United Nations
The Charter of the United Nations contains some important human rights provisions, in addition to containing the framework for the organization as a whole. This is a fully indexed HTML version of the charter. A summary will be written at some future date.
Created on July 8, 1994 / Last edited on January 25, 1997
Clear Channel–the largest owner of AM and FM radio stations–just booted ads for a women’s health clinic, claiming they were “divisive.” Tell Clear Channel that there’s nothing divisive about women’s health care. http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/981?t=2&akid=531.6000.nsBV8f
Dear Readers:
Clear Channel–the largest owner of AM and FM radio stations, including the ones that carry Rush Limbaugh’s show–just booted ads for a women’s health care clinic in Kansas, calling them “indecent” and “divisive.”1
What’s indecent? Absolutely nothing–these ads are straightforward promotions of available health care for women. But apparently Clear Channel decided declaring that your clinic offers “highly qualified gynecologists” and “trusts women to make the best decisions for themselves” is too divisive. (see transcript below)
Their claims are ridiculous–and dangerous.
We cannot let a media corporation get between a woman and her right to critical health information. This story is starting to get attention in online media, including Jezebel, DailyKos, and the Huffington Post.2 If thousands of us speak out quickly, we can help generate a national media firestorm and Clear Channel will be forced to respond. Will you sign the petition telling Clear Channel to put South Wind Women’s Center’s ads back on the air and stop blocking Kansas women’s access to health care information?
Tell Clear Channel that ads for women’s health clinics aren’t indecent or divisive.
At South Wind Women’s Center, our physicians are committed to providing quality reproductive health care in Wichita. Each physician is board-certified in family medicine or obstetrics and gynecology. Between them, they have over 50 years of experience and dedication, ensuring women are able to ensure the care they need when they need it.3
And South Wind Women’s Center was founded to reestablish full access to reproductive health care. The center provides high-quality medical care and trusts women to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. South Wind Women’s Center: entrusting women with their own medical decision-making.4
The radio industry is still recovering from the fallout after hundreds of advertisers dropped Rush Limbaugh’s show when he attacked Sandra Fluke for testifying before Congress about birth control.5 And radio industry insiders know another high profile fight about their meddling with women’s personal decisions isn’t going to go over well.
If enough of us speak out, we can send a strong message to Clear Channel, and others: Media corporations have no business getting between a woman and her right to critical health information.
Tell Clear Channel to stop blocking women from reproductive health care information.
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/981?t=4&akid=531.6000.nsBV8f
Thanks for speaking out.
–Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Malinda and Karin, the UltraViolet team
Sources:
1. Clear Channel Won’t Run Women’s Center Ads Because They’re ‘Divisive’, Jezebel, July 26, 2013
2. Massive Media Company Pulls Ads for Famous Women’s Health Center, Jezebel, July 24, 2013
Clear Channel Pulls Ads for Women’s Health Clinic, Claiming They Are “Indecent”, DailyKos, July 25, 2013
Clear Channel Pulls Abortion Clinic Ads, Huffington Post, July 25, 2013
3. South Wind Women’s Center Ad 1
4. South Wind Women’s Center Ad 2
5. EXCLUSIVE: 140 Companies Drop Advertising From Rush Limbaugh [Update: 142], Think Progress, March 12, 2012
Rush Limbaugh Still Toxic For Advertisers One Year After Fluke Attacks, Media Matters, March 1, 2013
In the USA, there has been a divisive highly covered in the media, Zimmerman court case. Some political activist groups have reacted to the case by criticizing a certain body of law. In seeking to know what the jargon referred to, I looked up that term in a brief web search. See below first paragraph of its description, and link to the rest.
-om-
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Stand-your-ground law
A stand-your-ground law is a type of self-defense law that gives individuals the right to use reasonable force to defend themselves without any requirement to evade or retreat from a dangerous situation. It is law in certain jurisdictions within the United States. The basis may lie in either statutory law and or common law precedents. One key distinction is whether the concept only applies to defending a home or vehicle, or whether it applies to all lawfully occupied locations. Under these legal concepts, a person is justified in using deadly force in certain situations and the “stand your ground” law would be a defense or immunity to criminal charges and civil suit. The difference between immunity and a defense is that an immunity bars suit, charges, detention and arrest. A defense, such as an affirmative defense, permits a plaintiff or the state to seek civil damages or a criminal conviction but may offer mitigating circumstances that justify the accused’s conduct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law
Russ Feingold failed to harmonize Kenya’s situation of 2007/8. Instead of giving a hearing to warring factions to solve a situation, he made the situation worse by favoring one group against the other thus dividing Kenyans Diaspora who worked so hard to bring the 2007/8 to order and put it on a path to peaceful resolution of their problems. It is therefore that, I am not convinced that he is the right person to be send as envoy to broker a delicate situation of the Great Lakes of East Africa, more specifically the Congo situation with Rwanda. I can see in advance that he will fall in favor of the M23 of Kagame for Rwanda Government and this will be very divastating……..
Russ favored, trusted and believed in everything said by the group of Salim Lome the advisor of Raila Odinga as Gospel Truth and whatever the warring group put forth were disregarded and ignored. He had a fixed mind and wouldnt budge or change opinion to pay attention for fairness.
I am also seeing a situation where USA stand to loose grips in Africa giving a wider berth of opportunity to Chinese if we make such mistakes………We have to be very careful how we engage with Africa……..more or so now that Africa is very shaky and are unstable in their economic standing with China who is encouraging corruption with impunity and where respect for sovereignty and territorial boundaries of neighbours are not respected according to the International Treaty with failure to observe International Human Rights Law.
Africa is presently facing massive situation of LAND GRABBING with the scramble of the worlds unscrupulous greed by Special Interest to Africa for illegal occupation.
If we fail to save Africa, we shall have failed to reinvented USA power in the world.
Kerry will have made the worse mistake ever in going ahead with this plan……….
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson &
Executive Director for
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
email: jbatec@yahoo.com
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U.S. News
Kerry names Feingold special envoy for African region, including DRC
Former Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., named special representative for Africa’s Great Lakes Region and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 2007 file photo. (UPI Photo/Kevin Dietsch)
Published: June 18, 2013 at 3:05 PM
WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) — Secretary of State John Kerry named former Sen. Russ Feingold special representative for Africa’s Great Lakes Region and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Speaking with reporters at the State Department in Washington Tuesday, Kerry said “the ongoing crisis” in the region “continues to trouble all of us greatly.”
“We are convinced that we have to help the parties find a path to a lasting peace, to a permanent cessation of hostilities and to the disarmament and demobilization of M23, accountability for human rights abuses and finally a breaking down of the barriers that are standing between humanitarian aid and the civilians who need it.”
M23 is a rebel military organization also referred to as the Congolese Revolutionary Army.
Kerry said the region is “a high level priority” for him and President Barack Obama.
He said Feingold, a Democrat, was “the Senate’s leading advocate and expert on Africa” during his time in office.
“I’m very grateful that he has agreed to come back to government and to apply the expertise that he gained those years for the Obama administration and for the State Department.”
In his new role, Feingold will work on issues including cross-border security, and political, economic and social assistance, Kerry said.
