U.S. says strike on Syria would help deter North Korea from using chemical weapons

0 0
Read Time:2 Minute, 6 Second

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un (C) attends a parade of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and a mass rally …

BEIJING (Reuters) – A strong response to a Syrian chemical weapons attack would help deter North Korea from using its "massive chemical weapons arsenal", a senior U.S. defense official said in Beijing, as Washington presses its case for a military strike on Syria.

The United States and France say forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were behind the attack last month in which more than 1,400 people are estimated to have been killed, and that they are considering air strikes to try to deter him from using such weapons again.

U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller said he felt compelled to stress that norms against the use of chemical weapons be upheld in scheduled talks with China's Defense Ministry on Monday.

"I emphasized the massive chemical weapons arsenal that North Korea has and that we didn't want to live in a world in which North Korea felt the threshold for chemical weapons use had been lowered," Miller told reporters on Tuesday.

"I went through that case and made the argument that it was strongly, not just in American national interests but in Chinese and international interests, that there be a strong response to Assad's clear and massive use of chemical weapons," he said.

Miller said Wang Guanzhong, Deputy Chief of General Staff of China's People's Liberation Army, took his comments "on board" but Wang told Miller he had to defer to China's Foreign Ministry on questions about Syria.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged Washington to proceed with "extreme caution" on Syria and Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Barack Obama at a G20 summit in Russia on Friday that a military strike could not solve the problem.

Beijing has repeatedly called for an impartial investigation by U.N. chemical weapons inspectors into the attack in Syria, and has warned against pre-judging the results. It has also said that whoever used chemical weapons had to be held accountable.

Miller said he also discussed cyber security with Wang and urged China to pressure impoverished and isolated North Korea, which has tested nuclear weapons three times since 2006, toward "credible and authentic" denuclearization talks.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Okey Goodluck Nwankwo

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

How Israel Is driving the US to War in Syria

0 0
Read Time:3 Minute, 41 Second

The threat of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran if the US does not act on Syria is slowly seeping into American media.

What is the driving force in the building U.S. campaign to launch attacks on Syria? Max Blumenthal below argues that Israel's military intelligence and political leadership are forcing the issue, and a recent New York Times article described the Israel lobby as a powerful presence in the White House's deliberations. Other journalists, like the Guardian's Nafeez Ahmed have suggested that the impetus for attacking Syria is part of a larger regional multi-year project to sustain control over the production of oil and gas by Western oil companies. Noam Chomsky, long-time scholar and commentator on the Mideast has argued persuasively that the Israel lobby's influence in the United States is overstated; essentially arguing that Israel is a satellite of US power, and that its priorities are addressed to the extent that the US is in agreement with its wishes.

How Israel Is driving the US to War in Syria by Max Blumenthal

President Barack Obama’s August 31 announcement that he would seek congressional authorization to strike Syria has complicated an aggressive Israeli campaign to render a US attack inevitable. While the Israelis are far from the only force in bringing the US to the brink of war – obviously Assad’s own actions are the driving factor – their dubious intelligence assessments have proven pivotal.

On April 25, the head of the Israeli army’s Military Intelligence research and analysis division, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, delivered a high profile  lecture at the military-linked Institute for National Security Studies. “To the best of our professional understanding, the [Syrian] regime has used lethal chemical weapons,” Brun declared, referring to March 19 attacks near Damascus and Aleppo.

“The very fact that they have used chemical weapons without any appropriate reaction,” Brun said, “is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate.”

The stunning statement by the Israeli army’s top intelligence analyst was significantly stronger than suspicions expressed days before by the UK and France about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons. It was clearly aimed at Obama, who had declared in the summer of 2012 that chemical weapons attacks on civilian targets would transgress a “red line” and trigger US military action. But the White House pushed back against the Israeli ploy, dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supply more conclusive evidence.

“I don’t know yet what the facts are,” Kerry said after a phone call with Netanyahu, “I don’t think anybody knows what they are.”

Specious intelligence brightens the red line

Flash forward to the August 21 Ghouta massacre, where over 1000 Syrian civilians died without any sign of external wounds in a series of attacks. As in April, Israel has come forward with intelligence supposedly proving that the victims of the attacks died from nerve gas deployed by units from Assad’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

On August 24, Israel’s Channel 2 broadcast a  report claiming that the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of Assad’s SAA fired the nerve gas shells on Ghouta. Channel 2 added that Israel was relaying its concerns to Washington, suggesting an urgent demand for US action. The report was echoed by an August 30  article in Germany’s Focus magazine claiming that Israeli army’s Unit 8200 — a cyber-warfare division that functions much like the American NSA — had intercepted communications of top Syrian officials ordering the chemical attack.

Oddly, neither outlet was able to reproduce audio or any quotes of the conversation between the Syrian officials. Channel 2 did not appear to cite any source at all – it referred only to “the assessment in Israel” – while Focus relied on an unnamed former Mossad official for its supposed bombshell. The definitive nature of the Israeli intelligence on Ghouta stood in stark contrast to the kind introduced by other US allies, which was entirely  circumstantial in nature. At the same time, it relied on murky sources and consisted of vague assertions.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

George Zimmerman won’t be charged after alleged domestic incident

0 0
Read Time:2 Minute, 44 Second

(CNN) — No charges will be filed against George Zimmerman after an alleged altercation with his estranged wife and her father, Lake Mary, Florida, Police Chief Steve Bracknell said Monday.

"Shellie Zimmerman has declined prosecution (after consulting with her attorney)," Bracknell said.

George Zimmerman had been temporarily detained by police after Shellie Zimmerman told 911 Monday that he had threatened her and her father with a weapon.

On the 911 call, Shellie Zimmerman, who filed for divorce last week, is breathing heavily when she tells a dispatcher that Zimmerman is still at the house.

"He's in his car and he continually has his hand on his gun, and he's saying, 'Step closer.' He's just threatening all of us with his firearm," she says.

Shellie Zimmerman also tells 911 that George Zimmerman punched her father in the nose, then smashed her iPad before getting in his truck.

"I don't know what he's capable of. I'm really, really scared," she says.

Mark O'Mara, George Zimmerman's attorney and a CNN legal analyst, said, "There was heightened emotion, and a disagreement took place."

O'Mara said Shellie Zimmerman no longer lives at the house — which is owned by her father, David Bryant Dean — and had come to it to retrieve some belongings.

After he was initially detained by officers, George Zimmerman was interviewed at the house by detectives, Lake Mary police spokesman Zach Hudson said.

Zimmerman had offered to turn over surveillance tapes from security cameras at the house to investigators.

Shellie Zimmerman called 911 just after 2 p.m. ET, Bracknell said earlier.

George Zimmerman had a bodyguard in the truck with him when police arrived, Bracknell said.

Police had drawn their guns and told the bodyguard to "stand by out of the way."

Police said Dean spoke with first responders but was not treated by paramedics.

The incident comes two months after Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was found not guilty of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.

George's brother, Robert, tweeted after his brother's detention that the public shouldn't "jump to conclusions."

Shellie Zimmerman's divorce filing last week in Seminole County came after she pleaded guilty to perjury on August 28 for lying about the state of the couple's finances during a bond hearing in April 2012. She had claimed she and her husband were broke, when in reality they had collected about $135,000 in donations.

Since his acquittal on July 13, George Zimmerman has been in the headlines several times. In late July, he reportedly helped a family escape from an overturned SUV. A report from the Seminole County Sheriff's Office confirmed his involvement.

More recently, Zimmerman has been pulled over in traffic twice. The first time, he was given a verbal warning for a traffic violation in Texas and reportedly told officers he had a firearm in his glove compartment. The second time was in Florida last week, when he was issued a $256 ticket for speeding.

Lake Mary is a suburb of Orlando near Sanford.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

Uphill battle for Obama: Where Congress stands on Syria

0 0
Read Time:4 Minute, 36 Second
WASHINGTON — President Obama faces a daunting and uphill battle to win congressional authorization for a military strike on Syria, a USA TODAY Network survey of senators and representatives finds.
 
The comprehensive poll of Congress finds that only a small fraction of the 533 lawmakers — 22 senators and 22 House members — are willing to say they will support the use of force in response to the reported use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. Far more overall — 19 senators and 130 House members — say they will oppose a resolution that would authorize military strikes. There are two vacant seats in the House where lawmakers resigned and have not yet been replaced.
 
The largest group of lawmakers remains undecided, including a majority of the Senate and the House. That could create an opportunity for the president to persuade them in a string of six interviews with TV network anchors Monday and a televised address to the nation Tuesday. The Senate could vote as early as Wednesday.
 
"We cannot turn a blind eye to images like the ones we've seen out of Syria," Obama said in his weekly radio address Saturday. "Failing to respond to this outrageous attack would increase the risk that chemical weapons could be used again; that they would fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us, and it would send a horrible signal to other nations that there would be no consequences for their use of these weapons. All of which would pose a serious threat to our national security."
 
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made the rounds of the morning talk shows Sunday, making the administration's case.
 
Congress isn't convinced. In the survey:
 
•Democrats haven't fallen in line behind the president, at least not yet. Congressional Democrats are as likely to oppose the measure as support it, although most say they are undecided. At the moment, 28 Democrats support action; 28 oppose it.
 
•Republicans who have made a decision overwhelmingly oppose Obama, by nearly 8-1. Sixteen Republicans support action; 121 oppose it.
 
•In a majority of states, not a single member of Congress has gone on record endorsing the president's request for authorization of a military strike. That includes a dozen states that Obama carried in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections: Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
 
"I think it's an uphill slog from here," House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., one of the handful of Republicans who supports the president, said on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday. He said the White House has "done an awful job" in explaining the reason for a strike and added, "It's a confusing mess."
 
On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was horrified by images of the chemical weapons attacks in Syria but warned that the strikes could destabilize the country or even increase the odds that opposition forces obtain chemical weapons. "I don't think we're going to do anything to Assad," he said of the Syrian leader.
 
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he has heard overwhelming opposition from his constituents. "And keep in mind, my district voted 77% for the president," he said on CBS. "I think the president has work to do, but I think he can possibly get the votes. But he's got to come before the Congress and the nation."
 
On this issue, Obama hasn't been able to count on the classic partisan divide that has defined the capital's politics through his tenure. Some liberal Democrats have aligned with Republican libertarians to oppose a military strike. Some GOP hawks who typically oppose him (including Arizona Sen. John McCain, whom Obama beat for the White House in 2008) argue for action.
 
Even African Americans in Congress, who have been among Obama's most reliable supporters on other issues, are resistant. Of 42 black lawmakers, two are committed to voting "yes."
 
"This is truly a momentous occasion in which the outcome is up for grabs," says Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. He notes the "high-wire act" for Obama as he returned Friday from his European trip. "The urgency you saw with the president hustling back to the States, the national address he'll give — all that is a signal of the urgency and perhaps the growing sense of foreboding in the White House."
 
A separate Washington Post count of congressional support Sunday reported different specific numbers but also found a tough road ahead for the president. In the Senate, the Post found 23 in favor, 17 opposed, 10 leaning no and 50 undecided; in the House, 25 in favor, 111 against, 116 leaning no and 181 undecided.
 
In the USA TODAY Network survey, journalists from USA TODAY and nearly 40 other Gannett-owned newspapers and television stations across the country reported on the views expressed by every senator and all but four members of the House, who couldn't be reached.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

Man lost 4 months in Andes found alive

0 0
Read Time:41 Second
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Authorities in Argentina say a 58-year-old man from Uruguay has been rescued in good health after spending four months lost in the Andes.
 
The provincial emergency service says Raul Fernando Gomez was found Sunday. It says he had lost about 45 pounds and was dehydrated, and is being treated at a hospital.
 
Officials say Gomez had been reported missing in May while trying to bicycle across the Andes between Chile and Argentina. They quote Gomez as saying his bicycle broke down and he tried to finish his trek on foot, but became disoriented by two heavy snowfalls.
 
He told authorities that he lived off sugar and raisins he had with him and food cached in mountain shelters. He also said he ate rats that he trapped.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

Report: U.S. spied on Brazil’s Petrobras, Google

0 0
Read Time:3 Minute, 18 Second
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Documents leaked by Edward Snowden indicate the National Security Agency spied on Brazil's state-run oil company, the private computer networks of Google and a company that facilitates most of the world's international bank transfers, a Brazilian TV report says.
 
Globo TV, however, gave no information about what the NSA may have obtained from Petrobras, Google and the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, an organization better known as SWIFT that oversees international bank transfers thought to be secure transactions.
 
All three companies are included in an NSA training manual for new agents on how to target the private computer networks of big companies, the report said.
 
Earlier reports based on Snowden's documents revealed the existence of the NSA's PRISM program, which gives the agency comprehensive access to customer data from companies like Google and Facebook.
 
Separate reports last week in the Guardian, New York Times and ProPublica, also based on Snowden's leak, said the NSA and its British counterpart had developed "new access opportunities" into Google's computers by 2012, but the documents didn't indicate how extensive the project was or what kind of data it could access.
 
James Klapper, director of U.S. national intelligence, said in a statement that "it is not a secret that the Intelligence Community collects information about economic and financial matters, and terrorist financing."
 
The NSA collects the information to provide "the United States and our allies early warning of international financial crises which could negatively impact the global economy," the statement said. "It also could provide insight into other countries' economic policy or behavior which could affect global markets."
 
It said the intelligence community's "efforts to understand economic systems and policies and monitor anomalous economic activities is critical to providing policy makers with the information they need to make informed decisions that are in the best interest of our national security."
 
Klapper added that the NSA has had "success in disrupting terror networks by following their money as it moves around the globe."
 
"What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line," he said.
 
Offices of the Petrobras oil company and Google's Brazil offices were closed Sunday and officials could not be reached for comment. An emailed request for comment from SWIFT wasn't immediately answered.
 
Glenn Greenwald, a U.S. journalist living Rio de Janeiro who received thousands of documents from Snowden and was the first to break stories about the NSA's extensive program to collect Internet and phone data, worked with Globo on its report.
 
It came a week after Greenwald and the network said NSA documents showed that U.S. spy agencies had monitored the president of Brazil as well as Mexico's new president prior to his election. That report brought demands for an explanation and investigations from the governments of Brazil and Mexico, and left U.S. President Barack Obama scrambling to soothe the anger in two important countries in the Western Hemisphere.
 
On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had quietly persuaded a surveillance court in 2011 to lift a ban on the NSA searching deliberately for Americans' communications in its huge databases of intercepted phone calls and emails.
 
The same day, the German news weekly Der Spiegel reported that the NSA is able to crack protective measures on iPhones, BlackBerry and Android devices to gain access to users' data on all major smartphones.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

Teens who beat obesity at risk for eating disorders

0 0
Read Time:4 Minute, 31 Second
Teens who were once overweight or obese are at a significant risk of developing an eating disorder as they lose weight, but identification and treatment of the condition is often delayed because of their weight history, researchers say.
 
"For some reason we are just not thinking that these kids are at risk. We say, 'Oh boy, you need to lose weight, and that's hard for you because you're obese,' " says Leslie Sim, clinical director of the eating disorders program at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and lead author of a case study report in October's Pediatrics, published online today.
 
In the report, Sim and colleagues review two cases in which teens with a history of obesity developed severe, restrictive eating patterns in the process of losing weight. But indications of an eating disorder went unidentified and untreated by medical providers for as long as two years despite regular check-ups.
 
Symptoms for one, a 14-year-old boy, included concentration problems and irritability, cold intolerance, bloating and chest pains. A girl, 18, had stress fractures, menstrual problems, hair loss and dizziness, among other problems. Physicians attributed the symptoms to rarer disorders, such as gastrointestinal conditions or polycystic ovary syndrome, says the report.
 
Both teens "set out to diet, and were both very diligent, eating fewer than 1,500 calories a day, running and doing other intense activities to lose weight in a very driven way," says Sim. Each lost a "massive amount of weight very quickly. They were not binging, not throwing up. It was simply from having a very low-(calorie) intake."
 
About 6% of youths suffer from eating disorders, according to a 2011 study in the Archives of General Psychiatry, cited in the report. It also cites CDC figures that 55% of high school girls and 30% of boys report "disordered eating symptoms" to lose weight, such as diet pills, vomiting, laxatives, fasting and binge-eating.
 
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health illnesses, and successful treatment requires medical, psychiatric and nutritional intervention, says Sim, a child psychologist.
 
At the Mayo Clinic, about 35% of kids and teens who come in for a restrictive eating problem have a history of having been overweight or obese, she says. That may be reflected nationally, Sim says: Government statistics estimate that about 30% of kids and teens are overweight or obese.
 
That it takes so long to recognize the eating disorder risk for kids with a history of obesity is particularly concerning, given that "the best prognosis for recovering from an eating disorder is catching it early," she says.
 
The cases cited in Pediatrics mirror a trend that psychiatrist Jennifer Hagman has been seeing "with much more prevalence" over the past five years.
 
It's a "new, high-risk population that is under-recognized," says Hagman, medical director of the eating disorders program at Children's Hospital Colorado, who was not involved in the new report.
 
The kids she sees in this condition "are just as ill in terms of how they are thinking" as they are in terms of physical ailments, she says. "They come in with the same fear of fat, drive for thinness, and excessive exercise drive as kids who would typically have met an anorexia nervosa diagnosis. But because they are at or a even a little bit above their normal body weight, no one thinks about that."
 
These cases are no surprise, says Lynn Grefe, president of the National Eating Disorders Association. "Our field has been saying that the more we're pushing the anti-obesity message, the more we're pushing kids into eating disorders" by focusing on size or weight instead of health and wellness.
 
The exact relationship between pediatric obesity and eating disorders is not well-understood, says Melinda Sothern, a pediatric obesity and physical activity researcher at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. "More studies are needed to determine the risk profile for disordered eating in obese children seeking treatment."
 
A larger public health problem "is the lack of mental health and emotional medical support for children with especially severe obesity," Sothern says.
 
The No. 1 risk factor for developing an eating disorder is dieting, says Sim. "I've never seen an eating disorder that didn't begin with a conscientious effort to diet."
 
The problem here is that "when a child is obese and starts to lose weight, we think it's a really great thing and we applaud it and reinforce it and say it's so wonderful and now you're healthy," says Sim. Meanwhile, some kids are "very unhealthy, with many physical and psychological problems as a result of their behaviors. They are just not being identified because of their weight history."
 
It's essential, she says that eating-disorder symptoms be on every medical provider's radar, regardless of the patient's weight, and that providers monitor any weight loss that deviates from a child's growth pattern, paying close attention to how the weight change occurred.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

U.S. NAACP chief Ben Jealous to resign, cites family reasons

0 0
Read Time:6 Minute, 45 Second
The man who has become the face of the NAACP — from marches protesting the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin to vigils for death row inmate Troy Davis in Georgia — is resigning effective Dec. 31.
 
In an interview with USA TODAY, Benjamin Todd Jealous said the constant travel as president and CEO of the nation's largest civil rights organization has kept him away too much from his wife, civil rights lawyer Lia Epperson, and children, daughter Morgan, 7, and Jack, 13 months. He said he plans to make a formal announcement to his staff Monday morning.
 
"Leadership knows when to step up and when to step down," Jealous said. "This day I can say with pride that I'm prepared to step down and make room for the next person who will lead this organization to its next chapter."
 
Jealous, 40, said he is talking to a handful of schools within commuting distance of metropolitan Washington about teaching. He plans to continue work with civil rights colleagues toward raising money for a fund to promote black participation in politics. In a separate interview with USA TODAY columnist DeWayne Wickham, Jealous detailed plans to create an "EMILY's list for people of color."
 
The civil rights leader said he's satisfied that he will leave an organization in much better condition than it was when he took over five years ago. Back then, the Baltimore-based civil rights group was financially shaky and shouldering constant criticism that its aging leadership was out of touch. Now, the organization is solvent, social media savvy and its staff seems to be part of a new cadre of leaders — headed by President Obama — who are diverse, well-educated and visible.
 
"In the last five years, we've had double-digit revenue growth, we've spent five years in the black," Jealous said.
 
Under Jealous, the donor base has grown from 16,422 in 2007, just before he started, to 132,543 last year. Revenue has grown from $25.7 million in 2008 to $46 million in 2012. Out of a total score of 70, independent non-profit reviewing organization Charity Navigator gives the NAACP 51.42 for finances and 70 for accountability and transparency.
 
When Jealous came in at age 35, he was hailed as the youngest leader of the organization in its history, although some questioned whether he was old enough to serve, and the board vote approving him was close. As a lifelong activist, he was known in the civil rights community but not by the general public. Over the years, he changed that, appearing in public constantly, often alongside other civil rights leaders. If there was a major regional or national civil rights event, Jealous was often there with rolled-up sleeves.
 
Jealous has had bumps too. In 2010, he faced criticism when he condemned black USDA employee Shirley Sherrod after a deceptively edited video appeared to show her making biased remarks about her work with a white farmer. Sherrod's comments were actually part of a longer speech in which she discussed overcoming her prejudices.
 
Jealous grew up in California, the son of civil rights activists. He was suspended from Columbia University for organizing student protests but returned later to graduate, also becoming a Rhodes Scholar and earning a graduate degree from Oxford. He's worked as an investigative reporter for Mississippi's Jackson Advocate and was founding director of Amnesty International's Human Rights Program.
 
Jealous said a couple of instances reinforced that he needed to move to his next stage in life. His daughter reminded him he'd promised to stay in the job only five years (it was really something, he said, that he told her to appease her). In February 2012, he was two blocks away from home, heading out for a much-needed, non-travel week at the NAACP offices, when he got a call about the death of Trayvon Martin. He went back home, told his wife he'd be gone two days and wound up traveling to Sanford, Fla., on that case many times over the months after that.
 
NAACP board chairwoman Roslyn Brock said Jealous had worked through one three-year contract that the organization had extended by a year and was just beginning his second three-year contract.
 
"Truly we were surprised," Brock said of learning the news Wednesday. "We're disappointed that he's leaving at this time. He's five years in, and we were expecting him to be with us seven years, based on our agreement with him."
 
She said the organization understands. "We know his passion for the work, and we could hear the pain in his voice," Brock said. "We looked back over the five years. He has made a sacrifice. But he's left us in a place with a five-year strategic plan."
 
Included in that plan is the continuation of work to eliminate the death penalty and to register 50,000 new voters by Martin Luther King Day in January 2014.
 
Van Jones, host of CNN's Crossfire and former Obama green jobs adviser, said he has known Jealous since they were both student activists, Jones at Yale Law School and Jealous at Columbia undergrad. Jones said he liked the fact that the product of a plan the NAACP pushed years ago — to steer black Americans toward elite educational institutions — has helped return the organization to relevance.
 
"Ben Jealous really electrified the organization," Jones said. "You're talking about the oldest civil rights organization on the planet, and it was starting to show. The NAACP before Ben got there was financially in the red and politically marginal. Ben should be on the cover of every business magazine in America as foremost turnaround artist on the American scene."
 
Other civil rights leaders credited Jealous for reaching out beyond the groups that have traditionally worked with the NAACP and stretching old boundaries.
 
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a group that advocates for gay and lesbian rights, said that when he assumed his role a little more than a year ago, Ben Jealous reached out and met with him on his first day on the job. Jealous was insistent that both groups work together, and Griffin credits Jealous with pushing the marriage equality measures that have passed in recent years, as well as strengthening previously weak activist ties between the black and lesbian and gay communities.
 
"Many times I've called him a modern-day civil rights visionary, and I truly think that is the only description that captures him," Griffin said. "He led the NAACP to embrace marriage equality but also transformed the national conversation of civil rights."
 
Mary Kay Henry, international president of the Service Employees International Union, said Jealous helped expand what's considered the civil rights agenda from the expected voting rights and death penalty cases to issues surrounding the closure of dangerous power plants, early childhood education and health care.
 
"He's been incredible in re-energizing the NAACP and taking the national operations to the next level," said Henry, whose group worked with the NAACP to create a fund to advance black participation in politics.
 
Because Jealous does not leave for four months, the organization does not yet have a plan in place for his replacement, Brock said.
 
Jealous suggested the 104-year-old organization might be looking at a woman president.
 
"I'm the 17th president of the NAACP and the 17th man. I do expect that the next president of the NAACP will be different in some way," he said with a small laugh.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

Australia poll: Labor disunity aided Abbott’s rise – Analysts

0 0
Read Time:3 Minute, 40 Second

Disunity within the Labor government helped conservative leader Tony Abbott rise to power in Saturday’s Australian elections, politicians and analysts said, with infighting and switching of leaders alienating voters.

Abbott’s Liberal/National coalition won the election decisively, but failed to inflict the thumping landslide which opinion polls had been predicting, with voters apparently still having some reservations about the London-born Sydneysider.

For the last six years Australians have enjoyed a growing economy thanks to a mining boom and enviably low unemployment despite the global financial crisis, yet the soap opera within Labor overshadowed this.

Outgoing Labor ministers were open about how divisions within the centre-left party — which twice switched leaders in their two terms in power before landing with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in June — had fuelled a distrust within the electorate.

“The division that we have seen has been disastrous,” admitted outgoing health minister Tanya Plibersek.

“The clear take-out from this definitely is that disunity is death and we are not disciplined enough,” she told the ABC.

“I don’t think the division or the pain was justified at any stage.”

Rudd was reappointed Labor’s “comeback kid” by party colleagues in June, three years after they had suddenly and brutally dumped him for Julia Gillard, claiming his government had been dysfunctional and chaotic.

Gillard became the nation’s first woman prime minister and took the country to an election which produced the first hung parliament in 70 years, but her campaign was undermined by leaks and policy missteps.

With an election due in 2013 and polls looking bleak for Labor, the party decided to again switch back to Rudd, a change which prompted the resignation of several senior figures including the treasurer and the ministers for education, climate change, trade and communications.

“As a major party you have to contain your internal division,” said Nick Economou, senior lecturer in politics at Melbourne’s Monash University.

“If you let them spill out then the voters will lose faith in you. Labor, of course, couldn’t contain it and voters lost faith with them.”

Economou said Australian voters expected majority government which meant that Gillard’s rule was always going to be in trouble from the start.

“I still think that Gillard overthrew Rudd and managed to hang on, she scraped through an election — that was bad but it was not fatal.

“I think the carbon tax decision was the fatal decision,” he said referring to Gillard’s decision to introduce a levy on carbon pollution after pledging during the election there would be “no carbon tax under a government I lead”.

Haydon Manning, associate professor of politics at Flinders University in South Australia, said he saw the election as “a two-staged defeat of the Labor government”.

“It began last time and led to the hung parliament. It’s now been completed,” he said.

Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie, who Rudd had drafted into the campaign, said the perception of Labour ahead of the vote was “instability for leadership”.

“And I think during the campaign that was emphasised by the stability of Tony Abbott’s campaign,” Beattie told the Seven Network.

“The Labor Party have to be honest about this, and face the reality head on, that was the key issue. We all know that disunity is the death in politics. What Tony Abbott did is put up a unified team.

“The cumulative effect of the six years… has played into the spirit of ‘it’s time for change’.”

Labor heavyweight and former prime minister Bob Hawke said it was a disappointing defeat, but also admitted that “a party that can’t govern itself can’t govern the country”.

Labor frontbencher Jason Clare said people were sick of the “dance of death between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd”, and Rudd’s decision to stand down as Labor leader was widely welcomed.

“My view is it’s time for generational change,” Clare told the Ten Network.

“We need to put the Rudd and the Gillard era behind us.” AFP

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %

Syria activists say shelling near capital kills 16

0 0
Read Time:2 Minute, 37 Second
BEIRUT (AP) — Heavy government shelling of rebel positions near the Syrian capital killed 16 people on Saturday, activists said, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lobbied European allies to back Washington's proposed military action against the ruling regime.
 
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the mortar and artillery fire on the Moldokhiya agricultural area south of Damascus killed 14 rebels. Two civilians, including a child, also died in the shelling, it added.
 
The group also reported heavy fighting between rebels and troops loyal to President Bashar Assad around the Christian village of Maaloula. The rebel advance into the area that began on Monday was reportedly spearheaded by al-Qaida-linked fighters, exacerbating fears among Syrians and religious minorities in particular that Islamic extremists are playing an increasingly important role in the rebellion.
 
Fighters from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army have also participated in battles around Maaloula, destroying two government checkpoints near the town earlier this week, according to a statement by the main opposition coalition on Friday.
 
The fighting comes as President Barack Obama's administration presses ahead with efforts to win congressional backing and international support for military strikes against Syria over a chemical attack in August outside Damascus. The Obama administration says Assad's forces fired rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin on rebel-held areas near the capital before dawn Aug. 21, killing at least 1,429 people. Other estimates put the death toll in the attack at more than 500.
 
Kerry is in Lithuania to meet with European foreign ministers later Saturday.
 
European officials have been skeptical about whether any military action against Assad's regime can be effective. They are expected to urge the U.S. to hold off on any strike in Syria until United Nations inspectors report on the alleged use of chemical weapons.
 
The U.N. inspectors' report is expected later this month, although some European officials are asking the U.N. to speed up the probe or issue an interim report.
 
The prospect of a U.S.-led strike against Syria has raised concerns of potential retaliation from the Assad regime or its allies. On Friday, The State Department ordered nonessential U.S. diplomats to leave Lebanon over security concerns and urged private American citizens to depart as well.
 
The Shiite militant group Hezbollah, an Assad ally that has sent fighters into Syria, is based in Lebanon.
 
Syrian officials have been trying to capitalize on reluctance in Europe and the U.S., and both the government and state media accuse Obama of "supporting terrorism."
 
"Any US aggression against Syria has no explanation other than (that it's) supporting terrorism," Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said in an interview with state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV broadcast late Friday. He challenged international community to present evidence that Syria had used sarin, and said military action against his country would be "dangerous and might affect America's friends and the entire world."

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Happy
0 0 %
Sad
0 0 %
Excited
0 0 %
Sleepy
0 0 %
Angry
0 0 %
Surprise
0 0 %