End of Issue #35


Any Questions?


Editorial and Rants

So...  Where is it?

Where's the Outrage Over Black-on-Black Killings?

January 2, 2007 - From: news.yahoo.com

By DeWayne Wickham

BALTIMORE - A couple of days before Christmas, I phoned Patricia West, an old friend I hadn't spoken to in years.  It was a call I didn't want to make - the kind of call no one should ever have to place.

It was a brief conversation, a few minutes of aimless chatter that quickly went from awkward laughter to muffled crying.  I called her to say how devastated I was to hear that her son had been killed.  His death was reported in the final paragraph of a short crime story in The (Baltimore) Sun that gave the bare facts of his demise.

"The other homicide victim, Kevin West, 39, of the 9000 block of Meadow Heights Road in Randallstown, was found fatally shot shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday by officers investigating reported gunfire in the 2800 block of Virginia Ave., police said."

Kevin West's murder was the 260th homicide this year in Baltimore - a city in which virtually all of the murder victims and those arrested for murder are black.  On the same day that he was gunned down, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched down Fifth Avenue in New York to protest the Nov. 25 killing of another black man.  Sean Bell was felled by a hail of police gunfire moments after he and two friends left his bachelor party early on the morning of the day he was to have been married.

Just why the cops fired on the unarmed men is unclear.  Bell's death drew the scorn of civil rights leaders and black activists, many of whom took part in the march. West's killing has generated no such attention.

And that makes me made as hell.

As troubling as it is that Bell's life might have been cut short by the unlawful actions of some rogue cops, it bothers me more that most of this nation's black murder victims are killed by other blacks.  And despite this chilling fact, nowhere have tens of thousands of people taken to the streets recently to protest this carnage.  Not in New York, or Baltimore, or Atlanta, or Detroit, or Chicago. Nowhere.

Of the country's 14,860 homicide victims in 2005, 7,125 were black, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.  And of the 3,289 cases that year in which a single black was killed by a single assailant, the FBI says, 91% of the killers were black.

Let me put this another way: The number of blacks killed in 2005 in this one homicide category alone approaches the total of all the blacks lynched in this country from 1882 to 1968, according to records maintained by Tuskegee University.

So why aren't black leaders taking up this fight?  Why do so many turn out to decry the death of one black man at the hands of some cops, but no mass rallies take on the deaths of thousands of blacks who are slaughtered by other blacks?

"I think it's because we know it's our fault, and we're constantly looking for someone else to blame," says Baltimore City Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm, who, like me, grew up in Cherry Hill, a poor black neighborhood on the city's south side.

Hamm says most black leaders are afraid to address this issue, afraid to confront the apathy, fear and indifference that allow many poor black neighborhoods to become killing fields.

He could be right.

But whatever the reason, it's time for black leaders - activists, preachers, educators, politicians, business and community leaders - to say enough is enough.

It's time for them to be as aggressive, and as demanding, in combating the black murder rate as they are in fighting for an increase in minimum wage or an expansion in health care.

The ripple effects of black-on-black killings have turned many inner city neighborhoods into urban wastelands, chased businesses from those communities, fueled a growth in other crimes and sapped the resources of local governments.

As mad as black folks have a right to be over the killing of Sean Bell, we ought to be angry over the failure of black leaders to be equally outraged over the murder of Kevin West - and the thousands of blacks who are killed each year by other blacks.







... to leech off the gringos.

More Venezuelans Seeking U.S. Asylum

January 25, 2007 - From: www.miami.com

By Alfonso Chardy & Casey Woods

Parallels in Alejandro Costa's family history are unsettling.

His father, Jose Costa Moure, fled to Venezuela in 1959 after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba.  And after concluding that Castro's ally in Caracas, President Hugo Chavez, was turning Venezuela into another Cuba, Costa fled Venezuela in 2004.

More than 2,000 Venezuelans received U.S. asylum in 2004 and 2005 figures newly released by the Office of Immigration Statistics indicate.  In 1997 -- the year before Chavez was first elected -- only nine Venezuelans received asylum in the United States.

The latest figures show a surge of Venezuelans moving to the United States either through asylum, permanent residence or other visas.  The number of Venezuelans who got green cards in 2005 -- almost 11,000 U.S. permanent residents -- was more than double those in 2000.

Those who seek asylum are claiming persecution or that communism is about to take hold in Venezuela.  In 2004 and 2005, more than 3,000 Venezuelans filed petitions for asylum in immigration courts -- a dramatic rise from 1997 to 2001, when only a few dozen applied each year.

Costa, 41, left in 2004 after thugs he believes were pro-Chavez beat up his wife Claudia and threatened to kill him.  The couple and their two daughters and a son got asylum in 2005.

A prominent chef, Costa was running catering services for wealthy clients and major companies.  His wife was a senior training executive for the Wendy's restaurant chain in Venezuela.

Costa said he got into trouble when he began a free catering service for employees of the Venezuelan oil giant Petróleos de Venezuela SA or PDVSA after they went on strike against Chavez in 2002.

His departure evoked memories of his father's past in Cuba.

''I kept thinking about my father, who was forced to leave his country because communism had taken over,'' Costa said.  ``Now, the same thing was happening to me.''

Fear of Persecution

To gain asylum, an applicant must prove a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.  An applicant's sole testimony may be enough to prove persecution if it's deemed believable and detailed by either a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officer or an immigration judge.

Wilfredo Allen, a veteran Miami immigration lawyer who specializes in South American asylum cases, said more Venezuelans will seek asylum as a result of Chavez's Dec. 3 reelection, his Jan. 8 plan to nationalize electricity and telecommunications companies and his Jan. 10 vow of ``socialism or death.''

''Before, many of our Venezuelan clients did not want to ask for asylum because they were convinced the opposition would defeat Chavez,'' Allen said.  ``The fact he won will begin the stampede to leave.''

Some Venezuelan expatriates say they merit protection and would like to see a U.S. law, similar to the Cuban Adjustment Act, to expedite their claims to stay.

''We think Venezuelans will need something like what the Cubans have in the short term because the situation is getting worse all the time,'' said Ernesto Ackerman, president of Independent Venezuelan-American Citizens.

He added: ``Chavez is moving faster every day toward a Castro-style communist government.  What's coming is going to be terrible.  Venezuelans aren't fleeing economic problems, they are leaving because of persecution.  It's not hypothetical anymore that Venezuela will be a communist country -- it's a fact.''

South Florida's Cuban-American Republican lawmakers in Washington agreed that Venezuelan asylum seekers should receive special consideration, given changing political conditions back home.

''This is why it's so important to pass comprehensive immigration reform,'' said Ana Carbonell, Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart's chief of staff.  ``Congressman Diaz-Balart will be strongly advocating for the inclusion of Venezuelans in that reform.  At the same time, we continue working on improving the asylum rates of Venezuelans, and we have seen an improvement with higher approval rates.''

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Democrats may have the last word.

''The House and the Senate are controlled by the Democratic Party, so any efforts to pass such an initiative should be led by a member of Congress from the majority party,'' she said.  ``The Venezuelan community in my district is undergoing many difficulties.''

Controversial Plans

A Venezuelan adjustment law may become more relevant if Chavez launches new controversial programs, including a plan to infuse schools with socialist ideology, said Patricia Andrade of the Venezuela Awareness Foundation.

Thousands of Chavez's ''Bolivarian schools'' already exist, and Venezuela seems poised to create more.

''He's going to copy the Cuban education system and indoctrinate the children,'' Andrade said.  ``People are desperate to emigrate [because of this], but they couldn't get asylum because they aren't persecuted.''

Bernardo Alvarez, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, took issue with any suggestion Venezuelans are leaving because the government is persecuting them.

''In Venezuela there is no persecution or torture of anyone,'' Alvarez said.  ``What there is, is a situation in which Venezuelans are leaving for a multiplicity of reasons and factors -- be they personal, economic or family-related.''


Alvarez noted that opposition leaders leave and return at will.  He said that perceptions of Venezuela's ''cooperation'' with Cuba may be behind ``strong pressures in Florida to grant asylum to people who in reality do not qualify.''

Besides seeking asylum, other Venezuelans are resettling here by other means.  Many are using visitor or business visas to stay.

Waldo Gutierrez, a Venezuelan computer firm executive in Orlando, got a business visa in 2005 but already is thinking of seeking permanent residence -- which he can legally obtain through his current status.

Asked if his decision to stay was linked to Venezuela's political conditions, Gutierrez, 44, did not hesitate.

''Of course, 100 percent,'' he said.  ``I see my country going backward.''

High-profile figures who once held official positions or were prominent in their fields are also seeking asylum.  Gisela Parra, the former president of the country's powerful Judicial Council, fled to the United States in March 2005 after the Venezuelan government issued a detention order against her.  She criticized Chavez government reforms that she maintains destroyed the independence of the judiciary.

Chavez eventually accused her of conspiracy, she said.

''They chose a group of people who had a certain respect in the community, and made them examples,'' said Parra, 59, who is now living in Palmetto Bay with her niece's family.  She was granted asylum in December.

''People in Venezuela don't know what is coming, but I do know,'' she said.  ``My case shows how far the persecution has gone in Venezuela.''


Wow.  Greedy, selfish Eurosavages!  I'm shocked!

  Is there anyone these Nazi bastards are not in bed with?

Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties

January 30, 2007 - From: www.nytimes.com

By Steven R. Weisman

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 European governments are resisting Bush administration demands that they curtail support for exports to Iran and that they block transactions and freeze assets of some Iranian companies, officials on both sides say.  The resistance threatens to open a new rift between Europe and the United States over Iran.

Administration officials say a new American drive to reduce exports to Iran and cut off its financial transactions is intended to further isolate Iran commercially amid the first signs that global pressure has hurt Iran's oil production and its economy.  There are also reports of rising political dissent in Iran.

In December, Iran's refusal to give up its nuclear program led the United Nations Security Council to impose economic sanctions.  Iran rebuff is based on its contention that its nuclear program is civilian in nature, while the United States and other countries believe Iran plans to make weapons.

At issue now is how the resolution is to be carried out, with Europeans resisting American appeals for quick action, citing technical and political problems related to the heavy European economic ties to Iran and its oil industry.

We are telling the Europeans that they need to go way beyond what they've done to maximize pressure on Iran, said a senior administration official.  The European response on the economic side has been pretty weak.  The American demands and European responses were provided by 10 different officials, including both supporters and critics of the American approach.

One irony of the latest pressure, European and American officials say, is that on their own, many European banks have begun to cut back their transactions with Iran, partly because of a Treasury Department ban on using dollars in deals involving two leading Iranian banks.

American pressure on European governments, as opposed to banks, has been less successful, administration and European officials say.

The main targets are Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, all with extensive business dealings with Iran, particularly in energy.  Administration officials say, however, that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the current head of the European Union, has been responsive.

Europe has more commercial and economic ties with Iran than does the United States, which severed relations with Iran after the revolution and seizure of hostages in 1979.

The administration says that European governments provided $18 billion in government loan guarantees for Iran in 2005.  The numbers have gone down in the last year, but not by much, American and European officials say.

American officials say that European governments may have facilitated illicit business and that European governments must do more to stop such transactions.  Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has said the United States has shared with Europeans the names of at least 30 front companies involved in terrorism or weapons programs.

They've told us they don't have the tools, said a senior American official.  Our answer is: get them.

We want to squeeze the Iranians, said a European official.  But there are varying degrees of political will in Europe about turning the thumbscrews.  It's not straightforward for the European Union to do what the United States wants.

Another European official said: We are going to be very cautious about what the Treasury Department wants us to do.  We can see that banks are slowing their business with Iran.  But because there are huge European business interests involved, we have to be very careful.

European officials argue that beyond the political and business interests in Europe are legal problems, because European governments lack the tools used by the Treasury Department under various American statutes to freeze assets or block transactions based on secret intelligence information.

A week ago, on Jan. 22, European foreign ministers met in Brussels and adopted a measure that might lead to laws similar to the economic sanctions, laws and presidential directives used in the United States, various officials say.  But it is not clear how far those laws will reach once they are adopted.

The American effort to press Iran economically is of a piece with its other forms of pressure on Iran, including the arrest of Iranian operatives in Iraq and sending American naval vessels to the Persian Gulf.

American officials refuse to rule out military action.  On Monday, President Bush said in an interview with National Public Radio that the United States would respond firmly if Iran engages in violence in Iraq, but that he did not mean that were going to invade Iran.

Several European officials said in interviews that they believe thatthe United States and Saudi Arabia have an unwritten deal to keep oil production up, and prices down, to further squeeze Iran, which is dependent on oil for its economic solvency.  No official has confirmed that such a deal exists.

The Bush administration has called on Europe to do more economically as part of a two-year-old trans-Atlantic agreement in which the United States agreed to support European efforts to negotiate a resolution of the crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

Typically, American officials say, European companies that do business with Iran get loans from European banks and then get European government guarantees for the loans on the ground that such transactions are risky in nature.

According to a document used in the discussions between Europe and the United States, which cites the International Union of Credit and Investment Insurers, the largest providers of such credits in Europe in 2005 were Italy, at $6.2 billion; Germany, at $5.4 billion; France, at $1.4 billion; and Spain and Austria, at $1 billion each.

In addition to buying oil from Iran, European countries export machinery, industrial equipment and commodities, which they say have no military application.  Europeans also say that courts have overturned past efforts to stop business dealings based on secret information.

At least five Iranian banks have branches in Europe that have engaged in transactions with European banks, American and European officials say.

The five include Bank Saderat, cited last year by the United States as being involved in financing terrorism by Hezbollah and others, and Bank Sepah, cited this month as involved in ballistic missile programs.

A directory of the American Bankers Association lists Bank Sepah as having $10 billion in assets and equity of $1 billion in 2004.  It has branches in Frankfurt, Paris, London and Rome.  The United States Embassy in Rome has called it the preferred bank of Iran's ballistic missile program, with a record of transactions involving Italian and other banks.

Bank Saderat had assets of $18 billion and equity of $1 billion in 2004, according to the American Bankers directory.  Three other Iranian banks Bank Mellat, Bank Melli and Bank Tejarat have not been cited as involved in any illicit activities, but many European officials say they expect the Treasury Department to move against them eventually.

European officials say that the European Commission will meet in mid-February and approve a measure paving the way for freezing assets and blocking bank transactions for the 10 Iranian companies and 12 individuals cited in an appendix of Security Council Resolution 1737, adopted in December.


Anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that camel-humpers are genetic garbage.

Saudi Arabia Awakes to the Perils of Inbreeding

May 1, 2003 - From: www.nytimes.com

By Sarah Kershaw

When she was 17, marrying age for a Saudi girl, Salha al-Hefthi was presented with a husband.

She was lucky, her parents told her when they planned the wedding, that she was to marry such a good man, a man from her own tribe, a man who would care for their children and make a good living. He was the son of her father's brother -- her first cousin -- and everyone, including the bride, agreed that ''a first cousin was a first choice,'' she said.

The couple had two healthy boys, now 22 and 20, but their third child, a girl, was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a crippling and usually fatal disease that was carried in the genes of both parents. Their fourth, sixth and seventh children were also born with the disorder.

Spinal muscular atrophy and the gene that causes it, along with several other serious genetic disorders, are common in Saudi Arabia, where women have an average of six children and where in some regions more than half of the marriages are between close relatives.

Across the Arab world today an average of 45 percent of married couples are related, according to Dr. Nadia Sakati, a pediatrician and senior consultant for the genetics research center at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.

In some parts of Saudi Arabia, particularly in the south, where Mrs. Hefthi was raised, the rate of marriage among blood relatives ranges from 55 to 70 percent, among the highest rates in the world, according to the Saudi government.

Widespread inbreeding in Saudi Arabia has produced several genetic disorders, Saudi public health officials said, including the blood diseases of thalassemia, a potentially fatal hemoglobin deficiency, and sickle cell anemia. Spinal muscular atrophy and diabetes are also common, especially in the regions with the longest traditions of marriage between relatives. Dr. Sakati said she had also found links between inbreeding and deafness and muteness.

Saudi health authorities, well aware of the enormous social and economic costs of marriage between family members, have quietly debated what to do for decades, since before Mrs. Hefthi was married 23 years ago. Now, for the first time, the government, after starting a nationwide educational campaign to inform related couples who intend to marry of the risk of genetic disease, is planning to require mandatory blood tests before marriage and premarital counseling.

Mrs. Hefthi, for one, wishes she had been given the opportunity to test for genetic risks.

''If I knew, I would have said no to that marriage,'' Mrs. Hefthi, an elementary school teacher, said the other night, sitting in her living room with three of her sons.

''Why? It's very painful. Why? If you know something is wrong, would you do it?''

Mrs. Hefthi did not know it when her daughter was born, but Ashjan, now 18, would never walk. Her childhood would be filled with terrible colds, sore throats, assorted other illnesses and an obsessive longing to walk and run like her older brothers.

''Why can't I walk,'' she would shout to her mother when she was 6.

''It is God's will,'' her mother would say. ''In paradise you will walk.''

''In paradise will I have a magic carpet?'' she would ask constantly. ''In paradise will I have a horse with wings?''

Ashjan would never be able to comb her hair or dress or clean herself. Her body would grow only in tiny spurts, her spine curving into the shape of a half-moon. Once she reached adolescence, she would shrivel year by year, and she would most likely die by the time she turned 20.

Health officials and genetic researchers here say there is no way to stop inbreeding in this deeply conservative Muslim society, where marrying within the family is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years.

Today, when most unions are still arranged by parents, marrying into wealth and influence often means marrying a relative. Social lives are so restricted that it is virtually impossible for men and women to meet one another outside the umbrella of an extended family. Courtships without parental supervision are rare.

Among more educated Saudis, marrying relatives has become less common and younger generations have begun to pull away from the practice. But for the vast majority, the tradition is still deeply embedded in Saudi culture.

Statistics on the prevalence of genetically based diseases and the extent to which they are a direct result of marriage between close relatives -- second cousins or closer -- are scarce or unreliable because many Saudi parents raise their disabled children in obscurity, ashamed to seek services.

That has begun to change as more programs intended to educate disabled children open in Saudi Arabia, where there were almost none until a decade ago. Genetic research is emerging here and several projects have recently begun in an effort to document the connection between inbreeding and disease and to quantify the prevalence of the diseases.

''Saudi Arabia is a living genetics laboratory,'' said the executive director of the Prince Salman Center for Disability Research, Dr. Stephen R. Schroeder, an American geneticist who has been doing research in Saudi Arabia for the last year. ''Here you can look at 10 families to study genetic disorders, where you would need 10,000 families to study disorders in the United States.''

One of the oldest and best known educational programs for disabled children in Saudi Arabia is the Disabled Children's Association in Riyadh, which opened in 1986. There, 200 children from infancy to age 12 suffering from a variety of diseases and disorders attend day care programs and classes. At the school, the director, Sahar F. al-Hashani, pointed out at least one or two students in each of six classrooms whose parents were related.

Not all marriages between close relatives produce children with genetic disorders. In fact, most do not. But testing could identify couples who test positive for serious diseases. Under a fatwa issued by the World Islamic League in 1990, Islam permits abortions up to 120 days after conception if an unborn child tests positive for a serious disorder.

In the case of spinal muscular atrophy, if both parents are carriers of the gene, the couple has a 25 percent chance of having a child with the disease -- or one in four children. The percentage regrettably turned out to be much higher for Mrs. Hefthi and her husband, with four out of their seven children afflicted.

Mrs. Hefthi said she would not allow any of her three healthy boys to marry a relative. In a society that places such a premium on having children, she said, many people would choose to find another mate if they learned that they were at risk of having severely disabled children and if their parents supported their decision.

''I suffered,'' she said. ''People, sometimes when they see me they say how tired I am. They tell me I could put my children in an institution. But I tell them I am a mother.''


(http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070127/481/vm11301271121)

Harvard Sits Silent While Khatami Defends Executing Gays

Khatami, widely considered a reformer in Iran, was often met with applause from the Kennedy School audience...

In response to another question, Khatami also justified his country's use of capital punishment for acts of homosexuality, but said that the conditions for execution are so strict that they are "virtually impossible to meet."

"Homosexuality is a crime in Islam and crimes are punishable," Khatami said.  "And the fact that a crime could be punished by execution is debatable."

The audience responded with silence to his remark.

(http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/13/harvard-sits-silent-while-khatami-defends-executing-gays)






NIGGERS!
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