Politics and Events in a Dynamic World

Ambassadors of Poverty

2012-09-21T07:19:00.003-07:00

What kind of ambassador are you? don't tell me now, after you read this you can check yourself then tell me *winks* Got this from a friend today.

Ambassadors of poverty are: The corrupt masters of the economy with their head abroad and anus at home, patriots in reverse order, determined merchants of loot who boost the economy of the colonial order to impoverish brothers and sisters at home. Ambassadors of poverty are the ''saviours'' of the people, office loafers in the guise of workers, barons of incompetence with kleptomaniac fingers and suckling filaments, position occupants and enemies of service, locked in corrosive war of corruption with their peoples' treasury and killing their future. Ambassadors of poverty are the dubious-sit-tight ''patriots'' frustrating the corporate will of their followers;the beleaguered, hungry and famished owners of the land. People , priced out of their conscience and power, incapacitated by their destitution, unable to withstand the temptation of crispy mint and food aroma. Ambassadors of poverty are the political elite in air conditioned chambers and exotic cars, with tearful stories of rip-off, tucked away from their impoverished constituencies, lying prostrate with death traps for roads, mud for water, candle for light, underneath trees for schools, rats for protein, fasting as food and alibi as governance. Ambassadors of poverty are the rancorous elite in battle of supremacy for the control of power, and their peoples' wealth mowing down their own with whiteman's machine, oiled by the prosperity of black patronage, counterpoised by deprivations as the corpses of their able bodied men, women and children lie unmourned in shallow graves, in their fallow farm lands long abandoned. Ambassadors of poverty are the able-bodied men on the streets without motive, without vision, without mission! Men fit for the farms but glued to the city hungry and desperate, constituting willing tools in the hands of political overlords for mission of vendetta against political foes in their fight for power. Ambassadors of poverty are those whose actions and in-actions reduce their peoples' expectations to nothingness! Those whose antecedents have lost the spark to inspire, while their people lie in surrender, having been defeated by poverty. Ambassadors of poverty are the round trippers, the elusive importers of unseen goods and services, sand inclusive..who trip the economy down by tricking form M for harvests of dollars as import, when their people see neither money nor food. Ambassadors of poverty are all of us whose in-actions steal our collective joy because of what we should do which we never do, as we bargain away our conscience in the market place to assuage our hunger and our masters' will. Refuse now to be an ambassador of poverty and a corrupt master of the economy!!!

Meet Asuelimen Precious on FB

At Last 5000naira suspended

2012-09-21T04:31:00.001-07:00

I have been wondering why someone who is working to make the society a cashless one, will be planning on introducing a higher currency denomination into the economic system. Now fading away the N20, N10,N5 to coins is another issue entirely, like i saw in a cartoonist column of a paper, will we now be forced to withdraw "coins" from ATM's and carry them home with

basins on our heads? haba! Goodluck Jonathan Ebere, God bless you for standing up for once on this issue...I think you need to read what he did about it...

Bye bye N5000 note • Jonathan orders Sanusi to stop controversial plan

President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday finally bowed to pressure as he directed the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, to suspend the planned introduction of N5,000 note.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media, Dr. Reuben Abati, disclosed the development to State House correspondents in Abuja.

Abati told journalists that Jonathan’s latest disposition to the issue was based on the need for more “enlightenment and consultation”.

He said, “The introduction of the new note is being suspended for now to enable the CBN do more enlightenment on the issue.Yes, President Jonathan has directed that the implementation of the new N5,000 note be suspended for now.

“This is to enable the apex bank to do more in terms of enabling Nigerians understand why it proposed it in the first place. So, for now, the full implementation is on hold.”

The CBN, in a statement on Thursday, also confirmed that it had received a presidential directive to stop action on the currency restructuring plan.

The statement by the apex bank’s spokesperson, Ugo Okoroafor, reads, “The CBN hereby informs the general public that the President, on Thursday, September 20, 2012, directed that further action on the approved restructuring exercise be stopped.

“It is important to stress that till date, no contract whatsoever has been awarded by the CBN in connection with the printing and minting of the new currency notes and coins. Consequently, no currency note or coin has been printed or minted under the proposed exercise.”

The planned introduction of the note had attracted a huge outcry in the public domain. Those against the move had hinged their position on the fact that it could worsen inflation in the country.

They also said it was contrary to the apex bank’s cash-less policy.

At resumption on Tuesday, both arms of the National Assembly passed resolutions asking the CBN not to go ahead with the plan. But the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, said that the resolutions are advisory.

Jonathan was said to have expressed his readiness to halt the process when he met with the President of the Senate, Mr. David Mark, and Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwwal, on Tuesday.

Watchers say that the suspension might be government’s way of cancelling the project without much fuss.

The controversial restructuring of the naira was to be headlined by the introduction of the N5,000 note and the conversion of lower denominations into coins.

Mixed reactions had followed the announcement. Some renowned economists faulted the move, saying the action was uncalled for.

Reacting to the latest development, an economist, Mr. Olujimi Boyo, said the President should have cancelled the project instead of suspending it.

He said, “This is an indication that it may still be revived. If the President has really considered people’s opinion on this action by the CBN, then it should be stopped and not suspended. Telling them to do more work on the project is not what the people are calling for.

“The CBN needs to do more research on what is really affecting the value of the naira, instead of introducing a higher currency or even redenomination. Both moves are not what we need to stabilise our currency. They should find out what can be done to address inflation because this is the main reason why they keep talking about redenomination or introduction of higher currency.

“If the CBN is claiming that the introduction of higher currency will complement the cash-less policy, then they are wrong because redenomination would have been better,” Boyo added.

Also speaking, the Managing Director, Lambeth Trust Investment Limited, Mr. David Adonri, said the suspension of the project was reasonable.

He said, “It is logical that they did not annul the project because the public debate on the issue has been more of politics. The introduction of the policy will be economically beneficial.

“Unfortunately, most of the commentators are not enlightened on the benefits of the policy, especially members of the National Assembly.”

According to some analysts, the introduction of the N5000 bill will defeat the cash-less policy initiative of the bank and increase the amount of currency in circulation.

The Chief Executive Officer, B. Adedipe Associates Limited, who is also a consultant economist, Dr. Biodun Adedipe, said the introduction of a bigger currency note would encourage people to carry more cash around.

He said, “One can easily argue that talking about a bigger note in terms of denomination is more like an endorsement of people carrying even more cash than what we have now. This means there will be more currency in circulation.

“So, if that is what the CBN has been trying to discourage before now, then it will be counter-productive to have a bigger denomination that will encourage people to carry more cash.”

The Director-General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Muda Yusuf, had also said that the plan would defeat the cash-less policy initiative.

A former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had at a roundtable advocacy forum organised by the Institute of Directors, Nigeria, in Lagos, submitted that the N5000 note would kill production and affect small businesses negatively.

He had added that the way Sanusi was fighting inflation by removing money from circulation was improper.

-culled from the Punch

Army Headquarter Dog Centre

2012-09-21T04:02:00.000-07:00

Right now, the Federal government of Nigeria is commissioning the Army Headquarter Dog centre...I don't understand this o...Is it dog centres we need now or what? please i want to know what you think about this new development

Miners' strike tops S Africa congress agenda

2012-09-17T05:10:00.002-07:00

Police have dispersed striking miners at the Marikana mine in South Africa who tried to march despite a government-ordered clampdown to halt illegal protests.
Monday’s development came as unions in South Africa began their national congress where the strike at the Lonmin PLC's platinum mine is expected to top the agenda.
The miners were angry at a police crackdown on Saturday during which rubber bullets and tear gas were fired at a shantytown in Marikana, where officers killed 34 miners on August 16.
On Sunday, police persuaded hundreds of strikers at another mine, run by the Anglo American company, to halt an illegal protest without violence.

In Depth

The presence of 1,000 soldiers brought into the "platinum belt", 100km northwest of Johannesburg, has escalated tensions over union rivalries and higher pay demands that have stopped work at one gold and six platinum mines.
Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa, reporting from the mine, said: "Police are playing a cat-and-mouse game with the striking miners. They have brought in reinforcements and encircled the entire settlement.
"They went out on foot, cocked their guns, then got back in their vehicles and seemingly drove away.
"The miners on the road here are defying government orders not to assemble and they are quite defiant now. They are saying that "if the police come back, there will be war".
Meanwhile, at the gathering of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the major talking point for delegates is the crisis that has gripped the country's mining sector for the past five weeks.
The ongoing strikes are continuing to damage South Africa's economy and are especially critical to the mining sector.
Tens of thousands of miners remain on strike, and many are critical of the close ties between the main labour unions and the ruling ANC party.
Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from the congress venue in Johannesburg, said the meeting was happening against a backdrop of the labour dispute which has created great ruptures and splits within the union movement.
There has also ben great criticism of the union movement, COSATU and the ANC, he said
"What we are seeing is questioning among the delegates of whether the ANC is going to shift its policy, or whether the delegates at this conference can bring pressure to bear on the government to alter its policy, or if this is not going to work and the trade union will have to split away from the ANC and the government itself".
The striking miners have accused union leaders of being too close to politicians.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

Miners' strike tops S Africa congress agenda

2012-09-17T05:09:00.001-07:00

In Depth

	In pictures: Marikana miners
	Legal implications for S African miners
	Can Zuma survive?
	Mine Shooting: Who is to blame?
	Unrest spreads
	Will Marikana resurrect Julius Malema?
	Has the post-Apartheid bubble burst?
	South Africans react to mining 'massacre
	S Africa miners complain of 'living hell'

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

Beyond Obama: Could a True Socialist Actually Gain Power in America...How One Almost Did

2012-09-17T04:59:00.001-07:00

As we all know, President Barack Obama hardly deserves the epithet “socialist” tossed at him by right-wing commentators and candidates. There is one prominent Socialist in Washington, DC, but Senator Bernie Sanders comes from a very small state and acts as a true voice in the wilderness. Looking abroad, French voters this year elected a Socialist, François Hollande, to head their government, the first time that has happened in two decades. Could this happen some time soon in
America, or ever?
Progressives, with our without the capital P, have occasionally taken the reins in a major city or small state. But for perhaps the leading example of a near-takeover in a giant state one has to go back nearly eighty years.
Of all the left-wing mass movements that arose in the early years of the Great Depression, Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California (EPIC) crusade proved most influential, and not just in helping to push the New Deal to the left. The Sinclair threat—after he easily won the Democratic gubernatorial primary—so profoundly alarmed conservatives that, seventy-eight years ago this month, it sparked the creation of the modern political campaign, with its reliance on hired guns, advertising and media tricks, national fundraising, attack ads on the screen and more.
Profiling two of the creators of the anti-Sinclair campaign, Carey McWilliams would call this (in The Nation) “a new era in American politics—government by public relations.” It also provoked Hollywood’s first all-out plunge into politics, which, in turn, inspired the leftward tilt in the movie colony that endures to this day.
Back in the autumn of 1934, political analysts, financial columnists and White House aides for once agreed: Sinclair’s victory in the primary marked the high tide of electoral radicalism in the United States. Left-wing novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote a piece for Esquire declaring EPIC “the most impressive political phenomenon that America has yet produced.” The New York Times called it “the first serious movement against the profit system in the United States.” Here is an overview:
Sinclair lost in November, but the inspiring success of his mass movement—among other things, it basically created the liberal wing of the state’s Democratic Party, which also endures to this day—and its powerful influence on a wavering new President deserves close study. (Note: My book on the 1934 race, The Campaign of the Century, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize, was recently published in new e-book and print editions.)
* * *

Nearly three decades after his classic novel The Jungle (1906) exposed dangerous and abusive conditions in the meatpacking industry, Sinclair decided, “You have written enough. What the world needs is a deed.” Sinclair, who had moved to California in 1916, had written dozens of influential books while finding time to spark numerous civil liberties and literary controversies, get arrested and become perhaps the best-known American leftist abroad.
He had twice run for governor of California on the Socialist line, to little avail, but the election of FDR in 1932 encouraged him to give the Democrats a whirl. While he backed the New Deal, he saw that it did not go nearly far enough. Hugh Johnson, who ran Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, had allowed big business to subvert its codes, and a national textile strike loomed. Nearly one in four people was on relief in New York, with the numbers only slightly better in many other large cities. Adequate relief payments and some form of social security were promised but still unrealized.
So the country’s best-known member of the Socialist Party switched his affiliation to Democrat and used his pen one more time, writing and self-publishing a sixty-four-page pamphlet, I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty. Then he set out to make his fantasy true.
Although Sinclair could draw thousands of votes on name recognition alone, he considered a grassroots movement his greatest hope. Thousands quickly rallied to his cause, organizing End Poverty League clubs across the state. Note to Obama (and Occupy?): a detailed, step-by-step plan—“a way out,” as Sinclair put it—and a steely will help.
Sinclair, in a nutshell, outlined a classic production-for-use plan, where all of the unemployed would be put to work in shuttered factories or on unused farms, with goods traded, providing necessities. No one would go hungry or homeless. The elderly and infirm would get relief or pensions. Co-ops would receive state aid. Another plank in the platform: open up discarded studio lots and help out-of-work movie people make their own films. Naturally, this caused most of the Hollywood studio chiefs to threaten to move their operations to Florida.
Many who sympathized with Sinclair—including his friend McWilliams, the young California writer and future Nation editor—found some devil in the details, but the candidate promised to junk what didn’t or couldn’t work.
A pen his only weapon, Sinclair led an army of crazed utopians, unemployed laborers, Dust Bowl refugees and all-purpose lefties to take on “the vested interests.” He noted, “Our opponents have told you that all of this is socialism and communism. We are not the least worried.” I, Governor became the bestselling book in the state. EPIC clubs kept popping up like mushrooms, funded largely by bake sales, rodeos and rallies; and a weekly newspaper, the EPIC News, reached a circulation of nearly  1 million by primary day in August 1934.
Sinclair swept the Democratic primary. Dozens of EPIC candidates also won races for the party’s nod for the State Senate and Assembly, including Augustus Hawkins and Jerry Voorhis, both future Congressmen. “It is a spontaneous movement which has spread all over the state by the unpaid labor of tens of thousands of devoted workers,” Sinclair noted. “They were called amateurs but they have put all the professional politicians on the shelf.” All that stood between EPIC and the governor’s mansion was a hapless GOP hack named Frank “Old Baldy” Merriam, who had become governor after the death of “Sunny Jim” Rolph.
Where did FDR stand? A few days after winning the primary, Sinclair took a train east to meet with the president at Hyde Park, under the glare of national press coverage. The White House was torn. Sinclair was a true radical and a loose cannon. Roosevelt and his political director, Jim Farley, feared that the president, already accused by the right of being a socialist—led by Father Coughlin, the Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh of his day—could not afford this taint. Those tilting to the left, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, were far more enthusiastic about EPIC. And then there was the rather significant matter of Sinclair being the party’s nominee in a year when controlling a major statehouse was vitally important. FDR believed the greatest challenge for the head of a democracy was not to fend off reactionaries but to reconcile and unite progressives.
During the Hyde Park meeting FDR suggested that “experiments” within the overall New Deal framework could be valuable. Sinclair was elated, but the president held off any public endorsement.
Meanwhile, EPIC organizing surged in California. The number of local chapters was now more than 800, and circulation of the EPIC News reportedly hit a staggering 2 million. Black precincts that had reliably voted Republican (the legacy of Lincoln) now split down the middle. Even a few Hollywood screenwriters, such as Dorothy Parker, who normally kept their politics under wraps in the right-wing movie colony, spoke out for Sinclair. So did Charlie Chaplin.

But “the vested interests” organized the most lavish and creative dirty-tricks campaign ever seen—one that was to become a landmark in American politics. There’s far too much to describe in this limited space (it’s the focus of my book The Campaign of the Century, just published as an e-book for the first time and in a new print edition), but it involved turning over a major campaign to outside advertising, publicity, media and fundraising consultants for the first time. What was left of the official GOP campaign was chaired by a local district attorney named Earl Warren.
California’s newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, covered only Merriam’s activities, while mocking Sinclair day after day with quotes from books and novels taken out of context. (Chandler’s Los Angeles Times referred to Sinclair’s “maggot-like horde” of supporters.) Hollywood moguls, besides threatening the move to Florida, docked most employees a day’s pay, giving the proceeds directly to Merriam’s coffers. Millions of dollars to defeat Sinclair poured in from business interests across the country, all off the books. And then there were the attack ads (i.e., newsreels) shown in movie theaters around the state, created by the saintly film producer Irving Thalberg, causing near-riots in some places—the precursor of today’s negative TV spots. You can watch excerpts from the historic newsreels—which I uncovered in researching my book—the first use of the screen to defeat a candidate, here:

FDR, displaying an Obama-like tendency, waited, refusing to make a bold move to help Sinclair ward off the savagely unfair assaults. As a result, Sinclair fell behind in the polls—and then the president was advised to not endorse a probable loser. Farley sent an emissary to California to strike a deal with Merriam: if the GOP governor promised to back the New Deal down the road, the White House would remain silent on Sinclair.
The EPIC fervor continued right up to election day. Activists, looking at their numbers and energy, were certain their candidate would prevail. Sinclair, in fact, would receive almost 900,000 votes, twice the total ever for a Democrat in the state, but would still finish about 200,000 votes behind Merriam. Revealing the true strength of the grassroots movement, however, two dozen EPICs won election to the state legislature, including Hawkins and Culbert Olson.
The Nation concluded that Sinclair’s defeat “shows what will happen to any radical who attempts to challenge the existing order through the medium of an old-party machine.” Decades later, we might say that Barack Obama is no radical, but his reliance on the “old party” after taking the White House damaged, maybe even doomed, the chances of his presidency becoming a true instrument of change.
* * *
The legacy of the EPIC campaign? Merriam did embrace much of the New Deal, providing at least some fresh help for suffering Californians. Responding to the Hollywood moguls’ outrages during the campaign, actors and writers turned left and feverishly bolstered their fledgling unions.
On the national scene, Sinclair’s strong showing encouraged Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson to predict an agrarian revolt that would bring down “the profit system,” and five left-wing Congressmen called a conference to explore a third-party bid. Lewis Schwellenbach won a Senate contest in the Northwest on the End Poverty in Washington platform. The La Follettes and their Progressive Party pretty much took over Wisconsin
Emboldened by the results of the midterm elections and Sinclair’s strong showing, Harry Hopkins near the end of 1934 proposed a comprehensive program, dubbed End Poverty in America, which the New York Times said “differs from Mr. Sinclair’s in detail, but not in principle.” Along with other popular movements—from the Townsend Plan pension crusaders to Huey Long in Louisiana—but more so, EPIC exerted a leftward pressure on the New Deal, strongly influencing FDR’s groundbreaking legislation on Social Security and public works. The “Second New Deal,” which also included the Works Progress Administration and National Labor Relations Act, would be more prolabor and antibusiness than the first.
A few lessons for today and the Occupy movement as it debates how to move forward? Mobilizing electorally to prove grassroots support for a “radical” option usually produces positive results, even if that’s not certain immediately, and even if candidates are defeated.
Revealing another typical result, the EPIC campaign split over whether to remain in the election business or align with the co-op movement and other groups outside the party system. When Sinclair returned to writing books, the End Poverty League and the EPIC News slowly declined, revealing the dangers of depending too much on one inspiring figure to lead a mass movement (a prime Occupy warning). Of course, we saw this years later with Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition, not to mention with Ross Perot and his “movement.”
Still, a backlash against the GOP tactics in the ’34 campaign helped push Culbert Olson to election in 1938 as the state’s first Democratic governor in decades—defeating Merriam by 200,000 votes. Olson hired Sinclair’s pal McWilliams to direct the state immigration and housing agency.
Many years after the Sinclair race, McWilliams remarked that he still came across EPIC cafes “in the most remote and inaccessible communities of California” and EPIC slogans “painted on rocks in the desert, carved on trees in the forest and scrawled on the walls of labor camps.” While he questioned Sinclair’s ability to govern, he hailed his “conviction that poverty was man-made, that you didn’t need it.”
But the eternal debate—work within or outside the two-party system?—continues, as well it should.

culled from: Greg Mitchell writes a daily blog for The Nation. His book on the 1934 race, The Campaign of the Century, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize, was recently published in new e-book and print editions. Mitchell’s other books include Atomic Cover-up, The Age of WikiLeaks, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady, So Wrong for So Long, Why Obama Won and, with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America. Contact: epic1934@aol.com

Beyond Obama: Could a True Socialist Actually Gain Power in America...How One Almost Did

2012-09-17T04:57:00.005-07:00

Beyond Obama: Could a True Socialist Actually Gain Power in America? How One Almost Did

2012-09-17T04:57:00.003-07:00

Beyond Obama: Could a True Socialist Actually Gain Power in America? How One Almost Did

2012-09-17T04:56:00.001-07:00

As we all know, President Barack Obama hardly deserves the epithet “socialist” tossed at him by right-wing commentators and candidates. There is one prominent Socialist in Washington, DC, but Senator Bernie Sanders comes from a very small state and acts as a true voice in the wilderness. Looking abroad, French voters this year elected a Socialist, François Hollande, to head their government, the first time that has happened in two decades. Could this happen some time soon in
America, or ever?
Progressives, with our without the capital P, have occasionally taken the reins in a major city or small state. But for perhaps the leading example of a near-takeover in a giant state one has to go back nearly eighty years.
Of all the left-wing mass movements that arose in the early years of the Great Depression, Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California (EPIC) crusade proved most influential, and not just in helping to push the New Deal to the left. The Sinclair threat—after he easily won the Democratic gubernatorial primary—so profoundly alarmed conservatives that, seventy-eight years ago this month, it sparked the creation of the modern political campaign, with its reliance on hired guns, advertising and media tricks, national fundraising, attack ads on the screen and more.
Profiling two of the creators of the anti-Sinclair campaign, Carey McWilliams would call this (in The Nation) “a new era in American politics—government by public relations.” It also provoked Hollywood’s first all-out plunge into politics, which, in turn, inspired the leftward tilt in the movie colony that endures to this day.
Back in the autumn of 1934, political analysts, financial columnists and White House aides for once agreed: Sinclair’s victory in the primary marked the high tide of electoral radicalism in the United States. Left-wing novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote a piece for Esquire declaring EPIC “the most impressive political phenomenon that America has yet produced.” The New York Times called it “the first serious movement against the profit system in the United States.” Here is an overview:
Sinclair lost in November, but the inspiring success of his mass movement—among other things, it basically created the liberal wing of the state’s Democratic Party, which also endures to this day—and its powerful influence on a wavering new President deserves close study. (Note: My book on the 1934 race, The Campaign of the Century, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize, was recently published in new e-book and print editions.)
* * *
Nearly three decades after his classic novel The Jungle (1906) exposed dangerous and abusive conditions in the meatpacking industry, Sinclair decided, “You have written enough. What the world needs is a deed.” Sinclair, who had moved to California in 1916, had written dozens of influential books while finding time to spark numerous civil liberties and literary controversies, get arrested and become perhaps the best-known American leftist abroad.
He had twice run for governor of California on the Socialist line, to little avail, but the election of FDR in 1932 encouraged him to give the Democrats a whirl. While he backed the New Deal, he saw that it did not go nearly far enough. Hugh Johnson, who ran Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, had allowed big business to subvert its codes, and a national textile strike loomed. Nearly one in four people was on relief in New York, with the numbers only slightly better in many other large cities. Adequate relief payments and some form of social security were promised but still unrealized.
So the country’s best-known member of the Socialist Party switched his affiliation to Democrat and used his pen one more time, writing and self-publishing a sixty-four-page pamphlet, I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty. Then he set out to make his fantasy true.
Although Sinclair could draw thousands of votes on name recognition alone, he considered a grassroots movement his greatest hope. Thousands quickly rallied to his cause, organizing End Poverty League clubs across the state. Note to Obama (and Occupy?): a detailed, step-by-step plan—“a way out,” as Sinclair put it—and a steely will help.
Sinclair, in a nutshell, outlined a classic production-for-use plan, where all of the unemployed would be put to work in shuttered factories or on unused farms, with goods traded, providing necessities. No one would go hungry or homeless. The elderly and infirm would get relief or pensions. Co-ops would receive state aid. Another plank in the platform: open up discarded studio lots and help out-of-work movie people make their own films. Naturally, this caused most of the Hollywood studio chiefs to threaten to move their operations to Florida.
Many who sympathized with Sinclair—including his friend McWilliams, the young California writer and future Nation editor—found some devil in the details, but the candidate promised to junk what didn’t or couldn’t work.
A pen his only weapon, Sinclair led an army of crazed utopians, unemployed laborers, Dust Bowl refugees and all-purpose lefties to take on “the vested interests.” He noted, “Our opponents have told you that all of this is socialism and communism. We are not the least worried.” I, Governor became the bestselling book in the state. EPIC clubs kept popping up like mushrooms, funded largely by bake sales, rodeos and rallies; and a weekly newspaper, the EPIC News, reached a circulation of nearly  1 million by primary day in August 1934.
Sinclair swept the Democratic primary. Dozens of EPIC candidates also won races for the party’s nod for the State Senate and Assembly, including Augustus Hawkins and Jerry Voorhis, both future Congressmen. “It is a spontaneous movement which has spread all over the state by the unpaid labor of tens of thousands of devoted workers,” Sinclair noted. “They were called amateurs but they have put all the professional politicians on the shelf.” All that stood between EPIC and the governor’s mansion was a hapless GOP hack named Frank “Old Baldy” Merriam, who had become governor after the death of “Sunny Jim” Rolph.
Where did FDR stand? A few days after winning the primary, Sinclair took a train east to meet with the president at Hyde Park, under the glare of national press coverage. The White House was torn. Sinclair was a true radical and a loose cannon. Roosevelt and his political director, Jim Farley, feared that the president, already accused by the right of being a socialist—led by Father Coughlin, the Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh of his day—could not afford this taint. Those tilting to the left, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, were far more enthusiastic about EPIC. And then there was the rather significant matter of Sinclair being the party’s nominee in a year when controlling a major statehouse was vitally important. FDR believed the greatest challenge for the head of a democracy was not to fend off reactionaries but to reconcile and unite progressives.
During the Hyde Park meeting FDR suggested that “experiments” within the overall New Deal framework could be valuable. Sinclair was elated, but the president held off any public endorsement.
Meanwhile, EPIC organizing surged in California. The number of local chapters was now more than 800, and circulation of the EPIC News reportedly hit a staggering 2 million. Black precincts that had reliably voted Republican (the legacy of Lincoln) now split down the middle. Even a few Hollywood screenwriters, such as Dorothy Parker, who normally kept their politics under wraps in the right-wing movie colony, spoke out for Sinclair. So did Charlie Chaplin.
But “the vested interests” organized the most lavish and creative dirty-tricks campaign ever seen—one that was to become a landmark in American politics. There’s far too much to describe in this limited space (it’s the focus of my book The Campaign of the Century, just published as an e-book for the first time and in a new print edition), but it involved turning over a major campaign to outside advertising, publicity, media and fundraising consultants for the first time. What was left of the official GOP campaign was chaired by a local district attorney named Earl Warren.
California’s newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, covered only Merriam’s activities, while mocking Sinclair day after day with quotes from books and novels taken out of context. (Chandler’s Los Angeles Times referred to Sinclair’s “maggot-like horde” of supporters.) Hollywood moguls, besides threatening the move to Florida, docked most employees a day’s pay, giving the proceeds directly to Merriam’s coffers. Millions of dollars to defeat Sinclair poured in from business interests across the country, all off the books. And then there were the attack ads (i.e., newsreels) shown in movie theaters around the state, created by the saintly film producer Irving Thalberg, causing near-riots in some places—the precursor of today’s negative TV spots. You can watch excerpts from the historic newsreels—which I uncovered in researching my book—the first use of the screen to defeat a candidate, here:

FDR, displaying an Obama-like tendency, waited, refusing to make a bold move to help Sinclair ward off the savagely unfair assaults. As a result, Sinclair fell behind in the polls—and then the president was advised to not endorse a probable loser. Farley sent an emissary to California to strike a deal with Merriam: if the GOP governor promised to back the New Deal down the road, the White House would remain silent on Sinclair.
The EPIC fervor continued right up to election day. Activists, looking at their numbers and energy, were certain their candidate would prevail. Sinclair, in fact, would receive almost 900,000 votes, twice the total ever for a Democrat in the state, but would still finish about 200,000 votes behind Merriam. Revealing the true strength of the grassroots movement, however, two dozen EPICs won election to the state legislature, including Hawkins and Culbert Olson.
The Nation concluded that Sinclair’s defeat “shows what will happen to any radical who attempts to challenge the existing order through the medium of an old-party machine.” Decades later, we might say that Barack Obama is no radical, but his reliance on the “old party” after taking the White House damaged, maybe even doomed, the chances of his presidency becoming a true instrument of change.
* * *
The legacy of the EPIC campaign? Merriam did embrace much of the New Deal, providing at least some fresh help for suffering Californians. Responding to the Hollywood moguls’ outrages during the campaign, actors and writers turned left and feverishly bolstered their fledgling unions.
On the national scene, Sinclair’s strong showing encouraged Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson to predict an agrarian revolt that would bring down “the profit system,” and five left-wing Congressmen called a conference to explore a third-party bid. Lewis Schwellenbach won a Senate contest in the Northwest on the End Poverty in Washington platform. The La Follettes and their Progressive Party pretty much took over Wisconsin
Emboldened by the results of the midterm elections and Sinclair’s strong showing, Harry Hopkins near the end of 1934 proposed a comprehensive program, dubbed End Poverty in America, which the New York Times said “differs from Mr. Sinclair’s in detail, but not in principle.” Along with other popular movements—from the Townsend Plan pension crusaders to Huey Long in Louisiana—but more so, EPIC exerted a leftward pressure on the New Deal, strongly influencing FDR’s groundbreaking legislation on Social Security and public works. The “Second New Deal,” which also included the Works Progress Administration and National Labor Relations Act, would be more prolabor and antibusiness than the first.
A few lessons for today and the Occupy movement as it debates how to move forward? Mobilizing electorally to prove grassroots support for a “radical” option usually produces positive results, even if that’s not certain immediately, and even if candidates are defeated.
Revealing another typical result, the EPIC campaign split over whether to remain in the election business or align with the co-op movement and other groups outside the party system. When Sinclair returned to writing books, the End Poverty League and the EPIC News slowly declined, revealing the dangers of depending too much on one inspiring figure to lead a mass movement (a prime Occupy warning). Of course, we saw this years later with Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition, not to mention with Ross Perot and his “movement.”
Still, a backlash against the GOP tactics in the ’34 campaign helped push Culbert Olson to election in 1938 as the state’s first Democratic governor in decades—defeating Merriam by 200,000 votes. Olson hired Sinclair’s pal McWilliams to direct the state immigration and housing agency.
Many years after the Sinclair race, McWilliams remarked that he still came across EPIC cafes “in the most remote and inaccessible communities of California” and EPIC slogans “painted on rocks in the desert, carved on trees in the forest and scrawled on the walls of labor camps.” While he questioned Sinclair’s ability to govern, he hailed his “conviction that poverty was man-made, that you didn’t need it.”
But the eternal debate—work within or outside the two-party system?—continues, as well it should.

culled from: Greg Mitchell writes a daily blog for The Nation. His book on the 1934 race, The Campaign of the Century, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize, was recently published in new e-book and print editions. Mitchell’s other books include Atomic Cover-up, The Age of WikiLeaks, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady, So Wrong for So Long, Why Obama Won and, with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America. Contact: epic1934@aol.com

Beyond Obama: Could a True Socialist Actually Gain Power in America? How One Almost Did

2012-09-17T04:55:00.005-07:00

As we all know, President Barack Obama hardly deserves the epithet “socialist” tossed at him by right-wing commentators and candidates. There is one prominent Socialist in Washington, DC, but Senator Bernie Sanders comes from a very small state and acts as a true voice in the wilderness. Looking abroad, French voters this year elected a Socialist, François Hollande, to head their government, the first time that has happened in two decades. Could this happen some time soon in
America, or ever?
Progressives, with our without the capital P, have occasionally taken the reins in a major city or small state. But for perhaps the leading example of a near-takeover in a giant state one has to go back nearly eighty years.
Of all the left-wing mass movements that arose in the early years of the Great Depression, Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California (EPIC) crusade proved most influential, and not just in helping to push the New Deal to the left. The Sinclair threat—after he easily won the Democratic gubernatorial primary—so profoundly alarmed conservatives that, seventy-eight years ago this month, it sparked the creation of the modern political campaign, with its reliance on hired guns, advertising and media tricks, national fundraising, attack ads on the screen and more.
Profiling two of the creators of the anti-Sinclair campaign, Carey McWilliams would call this (in The Nation) “a new era in American politics—government by public relations.” It also provoked Hollywood’s first all-out plunge into politics, which, in turn, inspired the leftward tilt in the movie colony that endures to this day.
Back in the autumn of 1934, political analysts, financial columnists and White House aides for once agreed: Sinclair’s victory in the primary marked the high tide of electoral radicalism in the United States. Left-wing novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote a piece for Esquire declaring EPIC “the most impressive political phenomenon that America has yet produced.” The New York Times called it “the first serious movement against the profit system in the United States.” Here is an overview:
Sinclair lost in November, but the inspiring success of his mass movement—among other things, it basically created the liberal wing of the state’s Democratic Party, which also endures to this day—and its powerful influence on a wavering new President deserves close study. (Note: My book on the 1934 race, The Campaign of the Century, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize, was recently published in new e-book and print editions.)
* * *
Nearly three decades after his classic novel The Jungle (1906) exposed dangerous and abusive conditions in the meatpacking industry, Sinclair decided, “You have written enough. What the world needs is a deed.” Sinclair, who had moved to California in 1916, had written dozens of influential books while finding time to spark numerous civil liberties and literary controversies, get arrested and become perhaps the best-known American leftist abroad.
He had twice run for governor of California on the Socialist line, to little avail, but the election of FDR in 1932 encouraged him to give the Democrats a whirl. While he backed the New Deal, he saw that it did not go nearly far enough. Hugh Johnson, who ran Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, had allowed big business to subvert its codes, and a national textile strike loomed. Nearly one in four people was on relief in New York, with the numbers only slightly better in many other large cities. Adequate relief payments and some form of social security were promised but still unrealized.
So the country’s best-known member of the Socialist Party switched his affiliation to Democrat and used his pen one more time, writing and self-publishing a sixty-four-page pamphlet, I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty. Then he set out to make his fantasy true.
Although Sinclair could draw thousands of votes on name recognition alone, he considered a grassroots movement his greatest hope. Thousands quickly rallied to his cause, organizing End Poverty League clubs across the state. Note to Obama (and Occupy?): a detailed, step-by-step plan—“a way out,” as Sinclair put it—and a steely will help.
Sinclair, in a nutshell, outlined a classic production-for-use plan, where all of the unemployed would be put to work in shuttered factories or on unused farms, with goods traded, providing necessities. No one would go hungry or homeless. The elderly and infirm would get relief or pensions. Co-ops would receive state aid. Another plank in the platform: open up discarded studio lots and help out-of-work movie people make their own films. Naturally, this caused most of the Hollywood studio chiefs to threaten to move their operations to Florida.
Many who sympathized with Sinclair—including his friend McWilliams, the young California writer and future Nation editor—found some devil in the details, but the candidate promised to junk what didn’t or couldn’t work.
A pen his only weapon, Sinclair led an army of crazed utopians, unemployed laborers, Dust Bowl refugees and all-purpose lefties to take on “the vested interests.” He noted, “Our opponents have told you that all of this is socialism and communism. We are not the least worried.” I, Governor became the bestselling book in the state. EPIC clubs kept popping up like mushrooms, funded largely by bake sales, rodeos and rallies; and a weekly newspaper, the EPIC News, reached a circulation of nearly  1 million by primary day in August 1934.
Sinclair swept the Democratic primary. Dozens of EPIC candidates also won races for the party’s nod for the State Senate and Assembly, including Augustus Hawkins and Jerry Voorhis, both future Congressmen. “It is a spontaneous movement which has spread all over the state by the unpaid labor of tens of thousands of devoted workers,” Sinclair noted. “They were called amateurs but they have put all the professional politicians on the shelf.” All that stood between EPIC and the governor’s mansion was a hapless GOP hack named Frank “Old Baldy” Merriam, who had become governor after the death of “Sunny Jim” Rolph.
Where did FDR stand? A few days after winning the primary, Sinclair took a train east to meet with the president at Hyde Park, under the glare of national press coverage. The White House was torn. Sinclair was a true radical and a loose cannon. Roosevelt and his political director, Jim Farley, feared that the president, already accused by the right of being a socialist—led by Father Coughlin, the Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh of his day—could not afford this taint. Those tilting to the left, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, were far more enthusiastic about EPIC. And then there was the rather significant matter of Sinclair being the party’s nominee in a year when controlling a major statehouse was vitally important. FDR believed the greatest challenge for the head of a democracy was not to fend off reactionaries but to reconcile and unite progressives.
During the Hyde Park meeting FDR suggested that “experiments” within the overall New Deal framework could be valuable. Sinclair was elated, but the president held off any public endorsement.
Meanwhile, EPIC organizing surged in California. The number of local chapters was now more than 800, and circulation of the EPIC News reportedly hit a staggering 2 million. Black precincts that had reliably voted Republican (the legacy of Lincoln) now split down the middle. Even a few Hollywood screenwriters, such as Dorothy Parker, who normally kept their politics under wraps in the right-wing movie colony, spoke out for Sinclair. So did Charlie Chaplin.
But “the vested interests” organized the most lavish and creative dirty-tricks campaign ever seen—one that was to become a landmark in American politics. There’s far too much to describe in this limited space (it’s the focus of my book The Campaign of the Century, just published as an e-book for the first time and in a new print edition), but it involved turning over a major campaign to outside advertising, publicity, media and fundraising consultants for the first time. What was left of the official GOP campaign was chaired by a local district attorney named Earl Warren.
California’s newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, covered only Merriam’s activities, while mocking Sinclair day after day with quotes from books and novels taken out of context. (Chandler’s Los Angeles Times referred to Sinclair’s “maggot-like horde” of supporters.) Hollywood moguls, besides threatening the move to Florida, docked most employees a day’s pay, giving the proceeds directly to Merriam’s coffers. Millions of dollars to defeat Sinclair poured in from business interests across the country, all off the books. And then there were the attack ads (i.e., newsreels) shown in movie theaters around the state, created by the saintly film producer Irving Thalberg, causing near-riots in some places—the precursor of today’s negative TV spots. You can watch excerpts from the historic newsreels—which I uncovered in researching my book—the first use of the screen to defeat a candidate, here:

FDR, displaying an Obama-like tendency, waited, refusing to make a bold move to help Sinclair ward off the savagely unfair assaults. As a result, Sinclair fell behind in the polls—and then the president was advised to not endorse a probable loser. Farley sent an emissary to California to strike a deal with Merriam: if the GOP governor promised to back the New Deal down the road, the White House would remain silent on Sinclair.
The EPIC fervor continued right up to election day. Activists, looking at their numbers and energy, were certain their candidate would prevail. Sinclair, in fact, would receive almost 900,000 votes, twice the total ever for a Democrat in the state, but would still finish about 200,000 votes behind Merriam. Revealing the true strength of the grassroots movement, however, two dozen EPICs won election to the state legislature, including Hawkins and Culbert Olson.
The Nation concluded that Sinclair’s defeat “shows what will happen to any radical who attempts to challenge the existing order through the medium of an old-party machine.” Decades later, we might say that Barack Obama is no radical, but his reliance on the “old party” after taking the White House damaged, maybe even doomed, the chances of his presidency becoming a true instrument of change.
* * *
The legacy of the EPIC campaign? Merriam did embrace much of the New Deal, providing at least some fresh help for suffering Californians. Responding to the Hollywood moguls’ outrages during the campaign, actors and writers turned left and feverishly bolstered their fledgling unions.
On the national scene, Sinclair’s strong showing encouraged Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson to predict an agrarian revolt that would bring down “the profit system,” and five left-wing Congressmen called a conference to explore a third-party bid. Lewis Schwellenbach won a Senate contest in the Northwest on the End Poverty in Washington platform. The La Follettes and their Progressive Party pretty much took over Wisconsin
Emboldened by the results of the midterm elections and Sinclair’s strong showing, Harry Hopkins near the end of 1934 proposed a comprehensive program, dubbed End Poverty in America, which the New York Times said “differs from Mr. Sinclair’s in detail, but not in principle.” Along with other popular movements—from the Townsend Plan pension crusaders to Huey Long in Louisiana—but more so, EPIC exerted a leftward pressure on the New Deal, strongly influencing FDR’s groundbreaking legislation on Social Security and public works. The “Second New Deal,” which also included the Works Progress Administration and National Labor Relations Act, would be more prolabor and antibusiness than the first.
A few lessons for today and the Occupy movement as it debates how to move forward? Mobilizing electorally to prove grassroots support for a “radical” option usually produces positive results, even if that’s not certain immediately, and even if candidates are defeated.
Revealing another typical result, the EPIC campaign split over whether to remain in the election business or align with the co-op movement and other groups outside the party system. When Sinclair returned to writing books, the End Poverty League and the EPIC News slowly declined, revealing the dangers of depending too much on one inspiring figure to lead a mass movement (a prime Occupy warning). Of course, we saw this years later with Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition, not to mention with Ross Perot and his “movement.”
Still, a backlash against the GOP tactics in the ’34 campaign helped push Culbert Olson to election in 1938 as the state’s first Democratic governor in decades—defeating Merriam by 200,000 votes. Olson hired Sinclair’s pal McWilliams to direct the state immigration and housing agency.
Many years after the Sinclair race, McWilliams remarked that he still came across EPIC cafes “in the most remote and inaccessible communities of California” and EPIC slogans “painted on rocks in the desert, carved on trees in the forest and scrawled on the walls of labor camps.” While he questioned Sinclair’s ability to govern, he hailed his “conviction that poverty was man-made, that you didn’t need it.”
But the eternal debate—work within or outside the two-party system?—continues, as well it should.

culled from: Greg Mitchell writes a daily blog for The Nation. His book on the 1934 race, The Campaign of the Century, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize, was recently published in new e-book and print editions. Mitchell’s other books include Atomic Cover-up, The Age of WikiLeaks, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady, So Wrong for So Long, Why Obama Won and, with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America. Contact: epic1934@aol.com

Angry protests spread over anti-Islam video

2012-09-14T03:31:00.000-07:00

Sources from Al Jazeera disclosed this not long ago... I mean what is happening in our today world? Is dialogue no more in the dictionary?

Demonstrations over movie trailer made in US and deemed insulting to Islam spread across Middle East and North Africa.

Angry demonstrations against an anti-Islam film made in the US have spread to several countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Clashes between police and demonstrators near the US embassy in Sanaa on Thursday killed four people, a security official said.

"Four people were killed and 34 others were wounded in the clashes that lasted from morning until late in the evening" in the area around the US embassy in Sanaa, the official said.

The protesters removed the embassy's sign on the outer wall and brought down the US flag and burned it, according to witnesses.Earlier on Thursday, a security official said that Yemeni police shot dead a protester in confrontations outside the embassy, shortly after ejecting crowds that briefly stormed the mission's compound.
A number of diplomatic vehicles were torched as security forces used water cannons and warning shots in a bid to drive them out.
In Egypt, 224 people were injured in protests, eight of whom needed to be transfered to hospital, the health ministry said.

In Libya, where the US ambassador and three embassy staff were killed during protests in Benghazi on Tuesday, officials said they had made "four arrests" over the attack.

In the Iranian capital, Tehran, up to 500 people protested over the issue chanting "Death to America!" and death to the movie's director, an AFP photographer at the scene said.
The rally, near the Swiss embassy that handles US interests in the absence of US-Iran diplomatic ties, ended peacefully two hours later.

US flags burned
Meanwhile, Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi has condemned the film that has sparked an outcry in his country.
"We Egyptians reject any kind of assault or insult against our prophet. I condemn and oppose all who... insult our prophet," Morsi, on an official visit to Brussels, said in remarks broadcast by Egyptian state television.

President Morsi appealed for calm, saying Egyptians "reject any kind of assault" against Prophet Muhammad

"[But] it is our duty to protect our guests and visitors from abroad... I call on everyone to take that into consideration, to not violate Egyptian law... to not assault embassies," he added.

Egyptians have clashed with police outside US embassy in the capital, Cairo, for the third day.
About 30 people have been injured, including more than 10 riot police in the overnight clashes, as the fallout from a film ridiculing Islam's prophet continued to rage on Thursday.
Police have used tear gas to disperse the crowd, as interior ministry said at least 12 people have been arrested.
American flags were also burned in Tunisia, outside the US embassy in the capital, Tunis.
Police fired tear gas at demonstrators who shouted their opposition to the film, and chanted slogans against the US.
A small crowd also burned an American flag in Gaza City where Hamas, the elected government there, has condemned the film.
Despite the Egyptian government's call for calm, protesters chanted in the streets and fires burned.
Innocence of Muslims, the film that mocked Prophet Muhammad, was allegedly produced in the US by a filmmaker with ties to Coptic Christian groups, and excerpted on YouTube with dubbing in Arabic.
On Wednesday, about 200 demonstrators took part in protests in the Egyptian capital.
They rallied into the night chanting "leave Egypt" but there was however no repeat of the previous day's events when angry crowds climbed the walls of the complex and tore down an American flag, which they replaced briefly with a black, Islamist flag.
YouTube block
Meanwhile, YouTube, the video website owned by Google Inc, has said it will not remove the film clip, but it has blocked access to it in those countries.

Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan reports on US-Middle East relations following protests

The Afghan government has ordered an indefinite ban on YouTube to prevent access to the film deemed offensive to Muslims, officials said on Thursday.
The US prosecutor-general said on Wednesday that four people were being questioned after Tuesday's events.
Nine Coptic Egyptian-Americans were also put on an airport watch list. They are believed to have contributed to the production of the anti-Islam film that led to the embassy protest.
The man behind the protests told Al Jazeera he just wanted to combat insults against Islam through legal and peaceful means. Wesam Abdel Wareth, the protest organiser, said his group was not happy that young people who joined their protest brought down the US flag.
He also said there was no co-ordination with protesters in Libya, and he condemned the violence there.
On Tuesday, Egypt's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque condemned a symbolic "trial" of the Prophet organised by a US group, including Terry Jones, a Christian pastor who triggered riots in Afghanistan in 2010 by threatening to burn the Quran.
But it was not immediately clear whether the event sponsored by Jones also prompted the embassy events.
Egypt 'neither enemy, nor ally'
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama has called the leaders of Egypt and Libya to discuss security co-operation following the violence in Cairo and Benghazi, the White House has said.

Iraqi supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr burn Israeli and US flags in the Iraqi city of Kut [AFP]

Obama urged Egypt to uphold its commitments to defend US diplomatic facilities and personnel and called on Libya to work with US authorities to bring those behind the deadly attack on the US consulate to justice.
Morsi promised Egypt "would honour its obligation to ensure the safety of American personnel", the White House said.
Obama told Morsi that while "he rejects efforts to denigrate Islam ... there is never any justification for violence against innocents".
Whatever the cause, the events appeared to underscore how much the ground in the Middle East has shifted for Washington, which for decades had close ties with Arab dictators who could be counted on to crush dissent.
Obama's administration in recent weeks had appeared to overcome some of its initial caution after the election of Morsi, offering his government desperately needed debt relief and backing for international loans.
Egypt is neither an ally nor an enemy of the United States, Obama said on Wednesday.
"I don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy," Obama said in excerpts of an interview with Telemundo aired by MSNBC.

Senegal opposition celebrates election win

2012-03-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

Senegal opposition celebrates election win

Victory celebrations in Dakar as Macky Sall heads to landslide win over longtime incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade.

Last Modified: 26 Mar 2012 12:48

Thousands of people are celebrating in the streets of Dakar after preliminary results showed Senegalese opposition candidate Macky Sall has won over Abdoulaye Wade, the incumbent president who sought a third term in office.
Sall supporters gathered in the streets of the capital on Monday, chanting, dancing and sounding car horns.
Outside Sall's party headquarters people danced to music blaring from powerful speakers, and revellers shouted: "Macky president", "This time we have it", "We have won".

Wade conceded election defeat and congratulated Sall, as preliminary results gave an overwhelming lead to his runoff rival.
"My dear compatriots, at the end of the second round of the vote... the current results indicate that Macky Sall has won," Wade said in a statement.
Amadou Sall, a spokesman for Wade, told the Reuters news agency: "It is the whole country that has just won ... This is a big moment for democracy and President Abdoulaye Wade has respected the voice of the people."
"The real winner remains the Senegalese people," said Sall, a former prime minister who served for years under Wade.
"We have shown to the world that our democracy is mature. I will be the president of all the Senegalese."
Thijs Berman, with the EU election observer mission in Senegal, told Al Jazeera: "It is the Senegalese people, who by the ballot boxes, by their own voting, said no to all the violence, said no to all the rumours of vote rigging of fraud.
"All these rumours are without any content if you look at the result."
Wade conceded defeat
Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons, reporting from Dakar, said: "A lot of people could not envisage Abdoulaye Wade ever standing down. He was going for a controversial third term, insisting the constitution could be changed against the will of many many people. He really misjudged the electorate of Senegal it would seem.
"But within an hour of the polls closing we were told by a special adviser to the presidency that if it is a defeat he will do the honourable thing and make a phone call to his opposition candidate and basically concede defeat.

Andrew Simmons reports from Dakar

"Then, within an hour-and-a-half that phone call was made and people were already on the streets celebrating," Simmons said.
The congratulatory phone call to Sall, at 21:30GMT on Sunday, alleviated fears that Wade, 85, would attempt to stay in office by challenging the runoff results.
It was seen as bolstering the West African state's democratic credentials in a region fraught with political chaos.
Official results of the vote are not expected until Tuesday or Wednesday, but celebrations started just hours after the polls closed and results started filtering over the radio waves, Al Jazeera's Azad Essa reported from Dakar.
"With Sall winning so many polling stations across the country, people in Dakar emerged to the streets to rejoice," Essa said.
Dakar resident Rama Diop, 39, told Al Jazeera it was "like a dream come true to hear that Macky has topped the lists, [both] inside and outside the country".
Souleymane Sankhare, 22, said he was "glad" Sall was going to take over.
"Wade has done some good work, but if a country shows you that they do no longer need you, you should leave. People depend on Macky Sall and this is why they support him," he said.
Peaceful poll
Polling stations closed after a largely peaceful electoral exercise on Sunday that attracted more than five million voters, with local reports suggesting a high turnout.
As votes were tallied, state media released initial results which showed Sall far ahead of Wade by a ratio of at least 2:1 in the overwhelming majority of polling stations.
The outgoing president was even roundly beaten in his home constituency in the suburb of Point-E.

Sall had reportedly also won the vote in the biggest suburbs Pikine and Guediawaye among other areas of the city.
Wade, who first took office in 2000, has seen his popularity suffer amid soaring costs of living and unemployment in this country on Africa's western coast.
Opposition activists had said Wade's quest for a third term was unconstitutional and some voters viewed him as yet another example of a long-serving African leader seeking to hang onto power.
His decision to seek re-election had infuriated many voters, and intense protests erupted that left at least six people dead.
Analysts had warned of further unrest if Wade won.
Aly Fary Ndieye, a Senegalese political analyst told Al Jazeera on Sunday: "[Voters] have chosen someone who has a very clear record... and good candidate.
"We have never seen a president elected with this kind of landslide victory [in Senegal]. It gives a lot of political capital [to Sall]. The question now is how will Macky Sall turn this win into political power.
"The biggest challenge now is how to effectively implement policies to benefit Senegalese people," he said.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

Soldier in Afghan killings ‘remembers little'

2012-03-20T04:46:00.001-07:00

Soldier in Afghan killings ‘remembers little'

US army sergeant accused of slaughtering 16 civilians has sketchy memory of the night of the massacre, says his lawyer.

Last Modified: 20 Mar 2012 06:14

Sixteen Afghan villagers, including nine children and three women, were slaughtered inside their homes [Reuters]

The lawyer for the US army staff sergeant accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in a pre-dawn shooting rampage has met his client for the first time and said the soldier has a sketchy memory of the night of the massacre.
Lawyer John Henry Browne said on Monday that Robert Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little or nothing from the time the military believes he went on a shooting spree through two Afghan villages.

FROM THE BLOGS

No one asked their names
By Qais Azimy in The Asia Blog

"He has some memory of some things that happened that night. He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Browne told The Associated Press news agency by telephone from Fort Leavenworth, where Bales is being held since Friday.
Pressed on whether Bales can remember anything about the shooting, Browne said, "No," but added, "I haven't gotten that far with him yet." In an earlier interview with CBS News, Browne said unequivocally that Bales could not remember the shootings.
Bales, 38, has not been charged yet in the March 11 shootings, though charges could come this week. The killings sparked protests in Afghanistan, endangered relations between the two countries and threatened to upend US policy over the decade-old war.
Meanwhile, Bales' wife, Karilyn, offered her condolences to the victims' families and said she wants to know what happened. She said her family and her in-laws are profoundly sad. She said what they have read and seen in news reports is "completely out of character of the man I know and admire".
Families of the victims, as well as the Afghan president Hamid Karzai, have claimed that more than one soldier was involved in the massacre.
The president also accused the US of not co-operating with the team he sent to investigate the incident immediately after it happened.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

Mexican police killed in highway ambush

2012-03-20T04:34:00.000-07:00

Mexican police killed in highway ambush

Twelve officers killed on their way to investigate the beheadings of 10 people in Guerrero state.

Last Modified: 20 Mar 2012 02:50

Twelve Mexican police have died in a mountain highway ambush hours after the severed heads of 10 people were dumped in a small town in a key illegal drug growing region.
Gunmen opened fire on Sunday evening on a police convoy, killing 12 officers and wounding 11 more, said Arturo Martinez, spokesman for the Guerrero state government said on Monday.

Click here for an in-depth analysis of Mexico's many challenges

The ambush took place on a rural highway near the town of Teloloapan, located in southern Mexico between the beach resort of Acapulco and Mexico City.
Earlier Sunday, the severed heads of 10 people were lined along a street outside a slaughterhouse in the center of Teloloapan.
The region has been long used by drug gangs to grow marijuana. Surrounding Guerrero state has seen a spike in violence since last year as several major gangs battle over trafficking routes.
The La Familia cartel and its offshoot, Los Caballeros Templarios (The Knights Templar), are among the gangs fighting for territory in the region. The heads had been left with a message threatening the La Familia gang, local media reported.
More than 50,000 people, including more than 2,500 police and soldiers, have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led crackdown on the cartels after taking office five years ago.

Source:

Agencies

French manhunt for school killer

2012-03-20T04:16:00.001-07:00

French manhunt for school killer
Vigil held for four killed in Toulouse, as police probe links between shooting spree and soldiers' killings last week.

Last Modified: 20 Mar 2012 09:16

French police are hunting for a gunman who shot dead four people, including three children, at a Jewish school in the city of Toulouse, prompting President Nicolas Sarkozy to put the region on its highest terrorism alert.

More than a 100 officers were dispatched to the area on Monday to search for the gunman, who is also a prime suspect in the killing of three soldiers in two seperate shootings last week.
As thousands held vigils for the latest victims, a police source told the AFP news agency that the same weapon and the same stolen scooter appeared to have been used in all three attacks.
All three attacks were carried out by the rider of a powerful, dark-coloured scooter, using a .45-calibre weapon, who witnesses described as calmly shooting his victims at point-blank range.
In carrying out the killings outside the Ozar Hatorah school on Monday, the shooter opened fire with a 9mm calibre weapon, which jammed.

He then produced a second weapon, a pistol of the same .45 calibre as that used in the other attacks, and chased children into the school to continue his spree.
Possible pattern
Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Toulouse, said that people were particularly concerned by the sense that a pattern of killings was emerging.

"[The gunman] shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school"
- Michel Valet, local prosecutor

"It would seem to be a huge coincidence otherwise; over the space of eight days you have three attacks, all of which involve an attacker on a motorcycle wearing a black helmet and the same sort of gun. So the evidence is starting to stack up."
Patrick Rouimi, the father of a child at the school, told the AFP news agency that the attacker opened fire on a group of people standing at a spot where children were picked up for school.
"He shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school," Michel Valet, the local prosecutor, told journalists.
Nicole Yardeni, president of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, told Al Jazeera that the children who were killed were younger siblings of those who attend the school.
"There is an eight-year-old, a six-year-old and a three-year-old that are dead and a 17-year-old that [attends] the school, that is between life and death at the hospital," Yardeni said.
"He was shooting at them, even catching them and shooting them in their heads."
'National tragedy'
Sarkozy rushed to the school, ordering increased security at Jewish and Muslim buildings around Toulouse, while his prime minister ordered officials to "secure" all schools and religious buildings.

The Israeli prime minister described the attack as "despicable murder of Jews" [AFP]

France has Europe's largest Jewish community, estimated at up to 700,000 people.
Speaking after meeting security officials, Sarkozy said "exceptional security measures" would be taken in the Midi-Pyrenees region and that it was being put on "scarlet" terror alert, the highest possible level.
"It is a national tragedy," said Sarkozy, denouncing the "savagery" of the attack, and vowing to find the killer.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, described the attack as "despicable murder of Jews".
"It is too early to determine exactly what the background to the murderous act was, but we certainly cannot rule out the option that it was motivated by violent and murderous anti-Semitism," he said.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, the White House, and the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat also issued statements condemning the attack.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

National Assembly ignores the Constitution

2012-03-20T04:11:00.000-07:00

National Assembly ignores the Constitution

On March 20, 2012

THE National Assembly should be more reticent when making laws. Its tendency has been to make laws for their sake or to please the Executive. In the process it ignores the Constitution. The Central Bank Act 2007, which may soon be a subject of legal dispute, is a good example.
It became law on 25 May 2007, days to the end of the Obasanjo administration. Its efforts at creating a new Central Bank, succeeded largely in the emergence of an organisation that acquires some powers of the National Assembly.

Section 3 of the CBN Act sets the tune. “In order to facilitate the achievement of its mandate under this Act and the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act, and in line with the objectivity of promoting continuity and stability in economic management, the bank shall be an independent body in the discharge of its functions.”
In Section 6 (3a), the Central Bank Act presses further, “The Board shall be responsible for consideration and approval of the annual budget of the bank.” This section is CBN’s explanation for not sending its budget to the National Assembly. After failing in its duties, the Senate wants to waste public funds in a legal pursuit of a matter that the CBN Act settles.
Section 50 of the Act requires CBN to furnish the National Assembly with its annual accounts and financial statements within two months of the close of its financial year. CBN’s 2011 financial year closed on 31 December. Has the National Assembly asked for CBN’s 2011 accounts? Why does the Senate ignore the law it made?
The National Assembly has all powers over Nigeria’s money according to the expansive provisions of Section 80 (4), “No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly.” Public money was used to raise the CBN’s authorised capital to N100 billion from N300 million. What is the fixation with the budget? The Constitution expects full accountability to the National Assembly for use of public funds. CBN, therefore, cannot be exempted as it uses public funds.
Blames are the National Assembly’s. It refuses to activate the powers Section 1 (3) of the Constitution, “If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.” Its tango with CBN is avoidable with the supremacy of the Constitution over all our laws.
The National Assembly’s acceptance of the refusal of 32 other federal agencies to subject themselves to its oversight functions, questions its relevance.

Nigerian Consulate in S-Africa to outsource issuance of Visa

2012-03-20T04:01:00.001-07:00

Nigerian Consulate in S-Africa to outsource issuance of Visa

On March 20, 2012 ·

Johannesburg - The Nigerian Consulate in South Africa will soon outsource the issuance of visa to consultants.
A source in the consulate in Johannesburg on Monday on the condition of anonymity, said that the consulate was still working on the process of outsourcing issuance of visa to credible consultants.
“Yes we are working on the possibility of outsourcing the issuance of Nigerian visas in South Africa to consultants.
“This will help in reducing the possibilities of visa racketeering involving our staff here and reducing the volume of people coming to the Consulate to procure Nigerian Visas.

“This is current trend in many missions. Even the South Africa High Commission in Nigeria outsource the issuance of their visas to consultants,’’ the source said.
The Nigerian Consul-General, Mr Okey Emuchay had in November 2011, after the invasion of the consulate in Johannesburg by the South African Police Service (SAPS), said the issuance of Nigeria’s visa would be outsourced in the first quarter of the year.
Some members of SAPS laid siege on the consulate and prevented movement of people in and out of the consulate on the claim that members of 12 Apostles Church in Christ were denied visas.
“From the first quarter of next year, we will embark on outsourcing of visa application process, but the final decision to issue visas still rests on the consulate.
“Within seven days of application, either the visa is issued or the applicants will get their passports from the consultant they submitted their passports to.
“With that, nobody needs to come here for visa anymore. That will eradicate the issue of visa racketeering,’’ Emuchay said.
The source, however, said that the first quarter promised by the Consul-General might not be feasible.
It said careful selection of the consultants would be required.
“The outsourcing is not feasible in the first quarter. There are lots of logistics required before that process can take off.
“We have to ensure that the consultants to be selected are competent to handle the task of handling visa applications.
“We don’t want to rush into it and discover that those given the responsibilities are not competent.
“Not only that whatever we are doing here must get the approval of the Foreign Affairs Minister.
”Until the process is completed and approval is given, outsourcing of visa cannot take effect,’’ it added. (NAN)

Fire rages at UNILAG Faculty of Science

2012-03-20T03:57:00.001-07:00

Fire rages at UNILAG Faculty of Science

Fire fighters are currently making efforts to put out the fire

By Nkechi Opurum

An early morning fire, which started in the Faculty of Science, University of Lagos (Unilag) is still raging.
Uncertain as to how the fire started, some eyewitnesses say the fire erupted from one of the offices located in the department of physics and spread to other offices.
The Lagos State Fire Service was at the scene trying to put a stop to the fire, and as at press time, reports had it that the Federal Fire Service had also arrived.
Unilag students are however angry with the school's Fire Service, as they were the last to get to the fire scene.
It will be recalled that about 2 weeks ago, another fire raged for 120 minutes, claiming a car in a university. The campus cab burnt to ashes without rescue from the fire service on campus while bystanders prevented the driver of the burning car from re-entering the burning vehicle which he said he got on hire purchase.

Drama, intrigues as BBA returns

2012-03-20T02:39:00.000-07:00

Drama, intrigues as BBA returns

The stage is set again for another round of 91 days of tension, excitements and actions as Africa’s biggest reality TV show, Big Brother Africa returns live on Dstv, May 6.
This 7th season sees contestants doubling up to enter the series in pairs with a USD 300 000 prize for just one winner . M-Net and series producers, Endemol recently revealed the name of the latest edition of Big Brother Africa, announcing that the new series will be called ‘Big Brother Stargame.’
And, fittingly, the ‘star’ themed name was announced at the same time as M-Net confirmed that Grammy nominated American rapper and hit maker J.Cole is set to perform at the glam series launch.

Big Brother Africa's previous winners; Karen Igho, Kevin Chuwang Pam and Uti Nwachukwu

“One of the main reasons for the success of Big Brother, in Africa and abroad, is that it creates its own stars from the minute housemates step into the spotlight,” says M-Net Africa Managing Director Biola Alabi.
“The show is built on the idea that, given the chance, anyone can be a star, anyone can find themselves shot to stardom. So this year, we’re honoring this essential element of the show directly in the title, putting the concept of rising stars and dreams of stardom right at the front of what is a challenging, fun, dramatic game.”
She continues, “of course, we’re thrilled that we can kick off Big Brother StarGame with an international star whose incredible talent is making him one of the hottest names in music today. J.Cole is fast becoming a superstar, an amazing artist who is taking the world by storm. We are very pleased that he will be performing for the very first time in Africa on our stage.”
With J.Cole’s visit facilitated by Los Angeles based One Entertainment (who facilitated Busta Rhymes’ appearance last year), the 27-year-old star is scheduled to perform three songs, to be revealed closer to the time, at the launch of Big Brother StarGame. He will also be filmed for a special insert on Channel O during this time talking about his work, life and ambitions.
Alabi said “The really big surprises this season is that entrants must enter as pairs. In the past we’ve seen a natural and continuous cross-over between individuals and their families, their friends.
“So this year, we decided to include that as part of the game. It will definitely make a dramatic addition to the series so we urge people to enter and experience what will be a uniquely different Big Brother Africa!”
The second surprise: an addition of two new participating countries, which are Liberia and Sierra-Leone. M-Net announced that two previous participating countries, Ethiopia and Mozambique will play new part in this year’s edition. Ethiopia, M-Net said, opted out of the show for an undisclosed reason.
But it can be inferred from the performances of the two housemates – Yacob and Hanni – who represented the country in the previous three editions that Ethiopia featured in.
Many analysts of the show felt these two housemates didn’t put up strong performances to clinch the ultimate prize. For Mozambique, M-Net said, there will be a new role. What role this is, M-Net didn’t state yet. Big Brother is full of twists and turns, as viewers can only keep guessing at what awaits them.
The third and the biggest surprise: M-Net has increased the prize money from $200,000 to $300,000. This time around, it is a winner-takes-all.

2,140 ex-soldiers sue FG over unpaid pension

2012-03-20T02:29:00.000-07:00

2,140 ex-soldiers sue FG over unpaid pension

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA — A Federal High Court in Abuja has adjourned till Friday to hear a suit filed before it by 2,140 ex-soldiers who fought during the Nigerian Civil war between 1967 and 1970.
The retired soldiers are asking the high court to invoke its original jurisdiction and order the Federal Government to forthwith, pay pension benefits and other entitlements due to them since the past 42 years after they bowed out of active service.

Senate Committee Chairman on Defence Navy Senator Chris Anyanwu Inspecting Guard of Honour at Nigerian Army Training Camp Kachia Kaduna State during the closing ceremony of Exercise Camp Highland Direct Short Service Course 20 (Navy) Kachia Monday.photo by Olu Ajayi.

In an originating summons they filed through their counsel, Mr. Femi Falana, the plaintiffs contended that having contributed their quota towards securing the territorial integrity of the country by fighting on the side of Nigeria against Biafra insurrection, it was unconstitutional and unjust for the government to refuse paying their pension benefits since the Civil war ended.
Consequently, they are praying the trial court to issue a declaration that each of them is entitled to payment of pension benefits computed in accordance with the due process of the law.
Joined as defendants in the suit are the Minister of Defence, Dr Haliru Bello Mohammed and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minster of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN.
Meanwhile, when the case came up for hearing, Monday, trial judge, Justice Donatus Okorowo asked all the parties to appear before him on Friday to address the court on the issue of jurisdiction.
Justice Okorowo noted that in view of the nature of the case, he would want both the defence counsel, Mr. A.O Alilu and counsel to the plaintiffs, Mr Falana, to argue on whether it is the federal high court or the National Industrial Court, NIC, that has the requisite jurisdiction to handle the matter.

CASHLESS POLICY: CBN buckles, shifts kick-off date

2012-03-20T02:11:00.001-07:00

CASHLESS POLICY: CBN buckles, shifts kick-off date

On March 20, 2012 ·

By Babajide Komolafe & Favour Nnabugwu
LAGOS— The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said yesterday that it has postponed nationwide implementation of the cashless policy till January 1, 2013 and also granted partial exemption to ministries, parastatals and agencies (MDAs) only for the purposes of revenue collection.
This was part of the amendments to the cashless policy announced in a statement issued yesterday and signed by the Head Corporate Communications, CBN, Alhaji Abdullai Mohammed. The statement was entitled, “REVIEW OF INDUSTRY POLICY ON RETAIL CASH COLLECTION AND LODGEMENT.”

The amendments include upward review of the limit for free cash transactions for individuals to N500,000 from N150,000 and for corporate bodies to N3 million from N1 million.
The charges or processing fee for cash transactions above the limits were reviewed downward. For individuals the charge cash deposits was reduced to 3 per cent per N1000 from N10 per cent, while for corporate accounts, it was reduced to five per cent from 10 per cent.
The statement said: “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) having monitored the partial implementation of the Cashless Policy in Lagos State and following discussions with various stakeholders on the effective implementation of the project, has decided to reassess the policy to allow for smooth transition and adoption in Lagos State in the first instance, and the entire country at a later date. Consequently, the CBN as a responsive institution has reviewed the policy as follows:
Daily Cumulative Cash Withdrawals/Lodgments Limits:
The daily cumulative limits of N150,000 and N1 million have been reviewed upwards to N500,000 and N3 million on free withdrawals and lodgments by individual and corporate customers respectively.
Processing fee for withdrawals: The processing fee for withdrawals above the limit for individual customers has been reviewed downwards from 10% to 3%, while the processing fee for withdrawals above the limit for corporate bodies has also been reviewed downwards from 20% to 5%.
Processing fee for lodgments:
The processing fee for lodgments above the limit for individual customers has been reviewed downwards from 10% to 2%, while the processing fee for lodgments above the limit for corporate bodies has also been reviewed downwards from 20% to 3%.
Exemptions:
Exemptions have been granted to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the federal and state governments on lodgments for accounts operated by them, for the purpose of revenue collections ONLY.
The cash-less policy applies to transactions conducted in branches of banks situated in Lagos State only for now. The implementation of the newly approved processing charges by deposit money banks in Lagos State will commence on April 1, 2012. It should, however, be noted that the charges are subject to review every six months.
Meanwhile, the pilot programme in Lagos State has now been extended to December 31, 2012 in order to allow people to be more conversant with the new initiative. As such, the roll-out of the programme in other states of the federation has been deferred to January 1, 2013.

Indian minister quits over fare hike

2012-03-19T06:05:00.001-07:00

Indian minister quits over fare hike

Railway minister resigns after coming under fire from his own party for his proposal to increase passenger fares.

Last Modified: 19 Mar 2012 06:27

Trivedi insisted the hike in fares was needed to better safety [Reuters]

India's railway minister has resigned after he raised fares on the country's vast but neglected railway network.
Dinesh Trivedi's resignation and the expected rollback of the fare hike, follow a pattern in recent months of India's leaders announcing economic reforms but, without being able enforce it.

Trivedi announced the first increase in passenger fares in eight years on Wednesday, a move aimed at shoring up a railway network whose dysfunction is seen to weigh down the country's economy.

India's infrastructure sliding off the rails [Al Jazeera]

The news was positively received by investors but prompted a furious response from Trivedi's own party, a powerful regional ally of the ruling Congress party, that has stood in the way of economic reform in the past.
Explaining his decision to resign he defended his decision to increase the fares.
"I'm a loyal soldier of the party," Trivedi said. "I'm worried about (passenger) safety. I did what I did because of the safety."
Still reeling from defeat in regional elections last month, the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is currently seeking to pass its 2012-13 budget in parliament but is under pressure of his coalition partner, Mamata Banerjee.
If Banerjee's Trinamool Congress does not support the budget and withdraws from the ruling coalition, the government of Asia's third largest economy would face a no-confidence motion and would have to look to other parties to maintain the majority in parliament.
In the unlikely scenario that Congress fails to prove it had a majority, a snap general election would be called, two years before the government's term is due to end in 2014.
If the prime minister agrees to a rollback of the fare hike, it would feed criticism that his government - already reeling from graft scandals - is unable to implement policies needed to lift economic growth, which has slowed to its lowest in nearly three years.

Source:

Agencies

Arrests at New York 'Occupy' protests

2012-03-19T06:02:00.001-07:00

Arrests at New York 'Occupy' protests

Clashes and arrests in Zuccotti Park as 'Occupy' activists mark six months since birth of anti-corporate greed movement.

Last Modified: 18 Mar 2012 05:44

Critics say the movement lacks demands and direction [GALLO/GETTY]

Police and activists have clashed at a park in New York where hundreds of people had gathered to mark six months since the beginning of the city's Occupy Wall Street protests.
The clashes, late on Saturday, came as some activists attempted to re-occupy Zuccotti Park, which police had earlier declared closed for the evening.
The Manhattan park, close to
Wall Street, was where the anti-corporate greed protest movement began in September last year. Activists spent months camping at the site, prompting similar demonstrations in other US cities and abroad.
Police began making arrests after several hundred protesters had remained there, with some erecting a makeshift tent of cardboard and tarpaulin in contravention of rules banning shelters in the park.
More than 100 police officers pushed through the park, clashing with protesters who attempted to stand their ground, The Associated Press news agency reported.
The Reuters news agency reported that dozens of protesters had been led away in handcuffs, although there has been no official word on the number of arrests.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of protesters had marched on nearby Wall Street, resulting in another unspecified number of arrests, police said.
Organisers vowed that Saturday's rally was the first of several events planned to protest against perceived economic injustice.
'We are going to take it back'
One of the activists taking part in the gathering said he hoped the park would again become a home for protesters, in defiance of a police ban on sleeping there which led to the eviction of the protest camp's occupants after two months.

In-depth coverage of the global movement

"They're hoping we'll all go away because it's cold," said Rob, 28, declining to give his last name. "The park's become the symbol both for us and for them. We are going to take it back."
Protester Paul Sylvester, 24, of Massachusetts said he was "thrilled" to be back at the park but said he hoped the movement would begin to crystallise around specific goals. "We need to be more concrete and specific," he said.
Critics say the Occupy movement lacks demands and direction and has lost momentum.
But warmer spring weather in the US has brought expectations that Occupy leaders will try to regain their momentum.
Protesters seemed invigorated by their relatively large numbers compared to the small turnouts during street demonstrations over the winter.
At the park on Saturday, street theatre troupes performed and guitar players led sing-alongs. Some protesters marched through the streets of the financial district, chanting "bankers are gangsters" and cursing at police.
Liesbeth Rapp, 27, who was performing street theatre about economic injustice, said protesters were ready to make some changes.
"I think we've learned a lot about being strategically and tactically smarter," she said. "We're learning to decentralise, and to work in smaller groups."

Source:

Agencies

Deadly shooting at French Jewish school

2012-03-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

Deadly shooting at French Jewish school

Three children among four killed as gunman opens fire outside school in southwest city of Toulouse.

Last Modified: 19 Mar 2012 11:35

French police are hunting for the gunman, who witnesses said was riding a black scooter [AFP]

At least four people, including three children, have been killed in a shooting outside a Jewish school in the southwest French city of Toulouse, officials say.
Monday's incident occurred as children and their parents were arriving at the Ozar Hatorah school, in the northeast of the city, for the start of the school day.
The shooter drove away on a scooter, a national police officer said.

Claude Gueant, the French
interior minister, has ordered security to be tightened around all Jewish schools in France following Monday's attack.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his education minister and interior minister are travelling to Toulouse.

Patrick Rouimi, the father of a child at the school, told AFP that a man opened fire on a group of people standing at a spot where children were picked up for school.

"He shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school," Michel Valet, the local prosecutor, told journalists.

The daughter of the school's director was seriously injured in the attack, said Charles Ben Semoun, a parent of another child in the school.

Nicole Yardeni, president of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, told Al Jazeera that the children who were killed were the younger siblings of those who attend the school.
"There is an eight-year-old, a six-year-old and a three-year-old that are dead and a 17-year-old that [attends] the school, that is between life and death at the hospital."
Yardeni said that a parent was also killed.
She said that the shooter was "extremely determined because cameras showed [the shooter] running after the children and shooting at them".
"He was shooting at them, even catching them and shooting them in their heads," she said.

'Horrified'

Gilles Bernheim, the grand rabbi of France, who is also on his way to the city, said he was "horrified" and "stunned" by what had happened.

Israel's foreign ministry declared itself "horrified" by the attack.

A local prosecutor said the gunman 'opened fire at everything that moved' [AFP]

"We are horrified by this attack and we trust the French authorities to shed full light on this tragedy and bring the perpetrators of these murders to justice," Yigal Palmor, the Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson, told AFP.
Police in southwestern France launched a major manhunt last week after the killing of three paratroopers and the wounding of another in two separate, but connected incidents.
Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Paris, said that people were particularly concerned because the recent incidents pointed towards a possible pattern emerging.

The perpetrator of both attacks fled on a motorbike.

"Towards the end of last week there was a shooting in which three [paratroopers] were shot dead... Again the attacker was on a scooter," Rowland said.

France has Europe's largest Jewish community, estimated at up to 700,000 people.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

An otherworldly upside-down home

2012-03-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

Malaysia's first upside-down house brings a childhood fantasy to life.
Photo: Rumah Terbalik

When you were a child, did you spend time wondering what it would be like to walk on the ceiling? If so, you are probably among the millions who, even as adults, continue to be enchanted by the idea of an upside-down house.
Worldwide, there are a number of upside-down houses. Some offer almost an amusement park experience, but many exist simply to turn the everyday world on end.
Imagine walking down an ordinary street and coming upon an upended house balanced on a front gable. That’s the experience for visitors to Rumah Terbalik, Malaysia’s first upside-down house. From the outside, it looks exactly like its neighbors, traditional Sabah village residences. A wheelbarrow leans against a wall and a sedan is parked in the adjacent carport. All typical except they are upside down.

Finishing touches in the living room include a typewriter, coffee cup, soft drink,
even a cigarette in an ashtray.
Photo: Rumah Terbalik

Inside, a TV, microwave, tables, chairs and sofas dangle above visitors who navigate the home’s ceilings, steering around light fixtures and ceiling fans. Playing cards and comic books strewn along the floor, a cigarette in an ashtray, make it seem as though the family has just left the room. Even the washing machine and sewing machine hang overhead. Literally everything in the 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom home is topsy turvy. But in this house it is the visitors who feel they are ones turned on end.

An upside-down car is an everyday occurrence in this topsy-turvy world.
Photo: Rumah Terbalik

In addition to bringing visitors to the region, Rumah Terbalick’s creator, Alexander Yee, says he wants to call attention to the long term impact of unbridled development, which has the potential to turn the world upside down. “The World Stands on its Head” is actually the name of Germany’s upside-down house, while the house in Poland, built during the Soviet era, was said to be a commentary on Communism and state of the world.
Maybe an upside-down house will prove to be the perfect antidote to an increasingly topsy-turvy world.