|
|
|
Bigotry seen behind ports uproar
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, contends that bias and bigotry, not security concerns, are behind the uproar over a deal that would place commercial operations at six US ports in the hands of an Arab company.
The furor centers on the $6.8 billion acquisition by Dubai Ports World (DPW), owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O). P&O had been running operations at shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
Citing what they say are fears of lax security, politicians from both parties called on President Bush to cancel the deal and several began drafting legislation to block it.
"I find some of the rhetoric being used against this deal shameful and irresponsible. There is bigotry coming out here," said Zogby.
He said politicians were exploiting fears left over from Sept. 11 to gain advantage in a congressional election year.
According to some industry analysts, the change in management would have no real effect on security, which would still be carried out by US workers. The UAE, whose government owns DPW, is an international financial hub and close US ally.
Source: Reuters |
| Back to top |
| |
Bush policies weakening Guard
Governors of both the Republican and Democratic parties have said that Bush administration policies are stripping the National Guard of equipment and personnel needed to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies.
Tens of thousands of National Guard members have been sent to Iraq, along with much of their equipment, the governors said at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.
Nearly one-third of the US ground forces in Iraq are members of the Army National Guard.
In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said that "extensive use of the Guard's equipment overseas has significantly reduced the amount of equipment available to governors for domestic needs."
Since 2003, the report said, the Army National Guard has left more than 64,000 pieces of equipment, valued at more than $1.2 billion, in Iraq. The Army has not kept track of most of this equipment and has no firm plans to replace it, the report said.
Governors of both parties said a Pentagon plan to reorganize the Army National Guard would significantly weaken its ability to save lives and property at home.
Source: NYT |
| Back to top |
| |
CIA reclassifies 50-year-old documents
The CIA and other federal agencies have secretly reclassified over 55,000 pages of records taken from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), according to a report published on Feb. 21 by the National Security archive at George Washington University.
The briefing book that the Archive published on Feb. 21 includes 50-year old documents that CIA had impounded at NARA but which have already been published in the State Department's historical series, Foreign Relations of the United States, or have been declassified elsewhere.
Other documents have apparently been sequestered because they were embarrassing, such as a complaint from the Director of Central Intelligence about the bad publicity the CIA was receiving from its failure to predict anti-American riots in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1948 and a report that the CIA and the rest of the US intelligence community badly botched their estimates as to whether or not China would intervene in the Korean War in the fall of 1950.
Source: National Security Archive |
| Back to top |
| |
Drives to ban gay adoption heat up
Efforts to ban gays and lesbians from adopting children are emerging across the US as a second front in the culture wars that began during the 2004 elections over same-sex marriage.
Steps to pass laws or secure November ballot initiatives are under way in at least 16 states. Some — such as Ohio, Georgia and Kentucky — approved constitutional amendments in 2004 banning gay marriage.
Florida has banned all gays and lesbians from adopting since 1977, although they can be foster parents. State court challenges to overturn the law have failed. A pending bill would allow judges to grant exceptions.
Mississippi bans adoption by gay couples, but gay singles can adopt. Utah prohibits all unmarried couples from adoption.
Richard Carlson, a professor at South Texas College of Law, says adoption laws based on judgments of morality offer "a weak argument" and will face legal challenges. He cites Supreme Court rulings striking down bans on interracial marriage and sodomy, which reflected prevailing views when enacted.
Source: USA Today |
| Back to top |
| |
Dubai company has ties to White House
The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six US ports has at least two ties to the White House.
One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that signed off on the sale of an English company to the United Arab Emirates government-owned Dubai Ports World (DPW) — giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.
Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DPW for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.
The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DPW's European and Latin American operations and who was tapped by Bush in January to head the US Maritime Administration.
Source: Knight Ridder |
| Back to top |
| |
Gay rights groups protest 'ex-gay' rally
Hundreds of gay rights demonstrators protested in front of a church in the suburbs of St. Louis, MO, where an "ex-gay" rally was taking place.
Inside the First Evangelical Free Church, about 1,500 people attended the "Love Won Out" conference organized by Focus on the Family and Exodus International.
Speakers used statistics to back up their claims that homosexuality is a matter of choice that can be altered, but the material used had already had been discredited by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.
Other speakers claimed to have been "cured" of their homosexuality by prayer and intervention.
Outside, protesters carried signs that read "God made me gay," and "Love needs no cure."
Dr. Mark Pope, a professor of Counseling and Family Therapy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, condemned the conference by saying, "The organizers of 'Love Won Out' state that homosexuality is preventable and treatable.... But you can't prevent or treat something that isn't a disease."
Source: 365Gay.com |
| Back to top |
| |
Harvard president resigns
Lawrence Summers stepped down from his post as president of Harvard University on Feb. 21 after a five-year tenure.
Summers, who was criticized last year for saying that innate differences between men and women probably lead to there being fewer women at the very top in math and science, made his exit only days before a meeting with academic staff that professors had predicted would be a "bloodbath" for the Harvard chief, who has been widely criticized for his abrasive manner. He had been expected to face his third no-confidence vote from professors in less than a year. His resignation is effective on July 1.
With his departure, Summers, known as a brilliant economist and as treasury secretary under President Clinton, brings to an end one of the most fractious eras in Harvard history. He will be replaced by Derek Bok, a law professor who was president of Harvard from 1971 to 1991.
Summers's tenure at Harvard began in acrimony when he accused a prominent African-American professor, Cornel West, of devoting too much attention to activities he did not view as fitting academic pursuits.
Source: Guardian (UK) |
| Back to top |
| |
States curbing right to seize homes
In a rare display of unanimity that cuts across partisan and geographic lines, lawmakers in virtually every state across the country are advancing bills and constitutional amendments to limit use of the government's power of eminent domain to seize private property for economic development purposes.
The measures are in direct response to the US Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision last June in a landmark property rights case from Connecticut, upholding the authority of the city of New London to condemn homes in an aging neighborhood to make way for private development of offices, condominiums and a hotel.
The reaction from the states was swift and heated. Within weeks of the court's decision, Texas, Alabama and Delaware passed bills by overwhelming bipartisan margins limiting the right of local governments to seize property and turn it over to private developers. Since then, lawmakers in three dozen other states have proposed similar restrictions and more are on the way, according to experts who track the issue.
Source: NYT |
| Back to top |
| |
Study: Emergency food needs are rising
More than 25 million people in the US receive emergency food assistance each year from America's Second Harvest, a network of charitable food banks, representing an eight percent increase since 2001, according to a report released on Feb. 23. "Hunger in America 2006," is the largest, most comprehensive study ever conducted on domestic hunger.
About 70 percent of clients seeking emergency food assistance are living below the federal poverty line, and nearly 40 percent have at least one adult working in their household. Seventy percent of clients are living in food insecure households — not knowing where they will find their next meal — and 33 percent of those clients reported experiencing hunger, being completely without a source of food.
Many of the 52,000 clients who participated in interviews for "Hunger in America 2006" reported having to make difficult choices between food and everyday necessities. More than 40 percent of the clients served reported having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food, 35 percent had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food, 32 percent reported having to choose between paying for medical bills and food.
Source: America's Second Harvest Network |
| Back to top |
| |
Verizon faces suit over NSA complicity
An upstate New York lawyer has filed a $20 billion class-action lawsuit against Verizon, charging that the company violated customer confidentiality in aiding warrantless eavesdropping by a federal spy agency.
The civil suit is the second to challenge corporations for helping the National Security Agency (NSA) carry out a secret order by the president to spy on communications between people in the US and parties overseas without first obtaining warrants.
In a Feb. 17 statement announcing the suit, lawyer Michael S. Pascazi in Fishkill, NY, called the NSA program "the largest invasion of privacy ever devised." Citing media reports, Pascazi alleged that Verizon provided the spy agency with communications records of customers and non-customers alike, violating consumer trust and numerous laws. The suit was filed on behalf of all people who have used Verizon facilities to communicate while the NSA program had access to Verizon's databases.
In addition to allowing the NSA to tap into its communications lines, the suit alleges that Verizon continues to provide "unfettered" access to its massive databases containing communication records.
Source: NewStandard |
| Back to top |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
|
| Quote of the Week |
| " Total US deaths in Afghanistan have doubled under President Obama, and when the next US soldier is reported dead, the majority of US deaths in Afghanistan will have occurred under President Obama. " |
-- Robert Naiman, truthout, 8/16/2010.
|
|
|
