Moratorium NOW! Coalition To Hold Street Meeting/Rally at HighlandTowers, September 14, 6:00-8:00pm

Moratorium NOW! Coalition Will Hold Street Meeting/Rally at Highland Towers, Monday September 14, 6:00pm-8:00pm

For Immediate Release

Media Advisory

Event: Moratorium NOW! Coalition Meeting/Rally at Highland Towers
Date: Monday, September 14, 6:00-8:00pm
Location: Highland Towers Apartments, 12850 Woodward Near Glendale
Contact: 313.671.3715
E-mail: ac6123@wayne.edu
URL: http://www.moratorium-mi.org

Moratorium NOW! Coalition Meeting Will Be Held Outside the Highland Towers to Demand That the Lights Remain on Pending an Acceptable Resolution of the Crisis; We Must Win a Halt to Illegal Utility Shutoffs and Evictions!

Organizers for the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs will intensify their campaign this week in support of the tenants at the Highland Towers Apartments in Highland Park where DTE Energy had shut off the power for 11 days. The owners of the building had failed to pay the utility bills despite the fact that the tenants had paid their rents which includes costs for electrical services. On Friday September 11, as a result of a 10 day struggle, Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen MacDonald ordered DTE Energy to turn the power back on at the building for one week.

There will be a series of actions this week to build on the victory won on September 11 that resulted in the temporary restoration of power. On Monday, September 14, organizers for the Moratorium NOW! Coalition will make an appearance on the TV 33 Morning Show hosted by Ricard Hairston from 7:00-8:00am. Later in the day, from 3:00-4:00pm, on the TV program hosted by Theo Broughton on the same TV 33 network, a tenant representative at the Highland Towers will also appear for an interview on the present situation at the building.

Then later at 6:00pm, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition will expand its weekly staff meeting into a mass rally outside the Highland Towers. Both Moratorium NOW! Coalition members and the residents of the Highland Towers will discuss future actions designed to win justice for tenants at the building.

Other important developments this week will include two other hearings before Judge MacDonald on Tuesday, September 15 and Friday, September 18 at 9:00am. Both hearings will seek relief from damages endured by the residents resulting from the actions of both the absentee landlords as well as DTE Energy.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition is calling upon the community in both Highland Park and Detroit to attend the street meeting on Monday evening. The current struggle to win justice for the residents at Highland Towers has broader implications for the overall campaign to win a general moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs in the state of Michigan. As the economy further declines more people will face illegal lockouts and displacements. Only an organized response from homeowners, tenants and their supporters can protect the rights of growing numbers of people effected by the economic crisis.

Please follow these media events and by all means attend the street meeting/rally on Monday evening outside the Highland Towers at 6:00pm.

Members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition are available for comment to the media. Just contact the Coalition at the numbers listed above.

Sincerely In Struggle,
Abayomi Azikiwe
Media Liaison
313.671.3715

Assembly President calls for revamping UN in final address to Member States

The President of the General Assembly today called for a complete overhaul of the United Nations so that it can effectively carry out its mission, as he wrapped up his year-long term as head of the 192-member body.

Iraqi shoe thower - symptomatic of ingrates

The Iraqi coward who threw his shoes at President Bush in 2008 is due to be released from a Baghdad prison tomorrow. While the sentence was arguably somewhat severe, it is his near canonization and the fanfare surrounding his release that is troubling.

Muntazar al-Zaydi, an unknown television reporter before the incident, is being hailed a hero among Iraqis, Arabs and Muslims for his insult to the president and commander in chief of the country that freed his country from decades of dictatorship under Saddam Husayn. Al-Zaydi screeched at Bush (in Arabic), “This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” At the same time, he threw both of his shoes at President Bush who was standing beside Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

In the Arab countries, calling someone a dog is a gross insult. Shoes are also regarded as an instrument of insult. Merely showing the soles to another is regarded as rude. I have heard Arabs shout at each other, “You are shoes…you are shoes.” (It loses something in translation.) The juvenile act of throwing the shoes at an American president is an extension of that sentiment.

Yet, Iraqis are embracing this coward as a folk hero. At the family home in Baghdad, there were celebrations in progress. There are posters that read, “Release the one who regained Iraqis’ dignity.” Iraqi dignity? They should be ashamed and embarrassed by al-Zaydi’s actions.

Let’s put this into some perspective. What do you think would have happened if al-Zaydi had thrown his shoes at Saddam Husayn. Or more to the point, would this “hero” have even dared to raise his voice to Saddam? I sincerely doubt it. When I lived in Baghdad in the late 1980’s, it was impossible to find any Iraqi that did not profess adulation for Saddam - reports of criticism were dealt with swiftly and severely.

When al-Zaydi’s release was delayed for a day, his family threatened to stage a sit-in and stop traffic outside the military installation where al-Zaydi is being held. How would that have been treated during Saddam’s reign?

So, Muntazar, you criticize, insult and assault the man who engineered your right to do just that. You remind me of another ingrate standing on a corner in post-invasion Baghdad with a sign that read, “Where is my freedom?”

As I explained then, the mere fact that an Iraqi could hold up that sign is the answer. Hopefully, most Iraqis realize that without George Bush, they would still be living with the regime of Saddam Husayn. The Kurds in northern Iraq certainly so - perhaps the Arabs will at some point.

Celebrating this coward’s actions are in insult to the memories of the over 4,200 American troops who gave their lives so that he could insult those troops’ commander in chief.

Trial of two former Bosnian Serb officials begins at UN tribunal

The trial of two former high-ranking Bosnian Serb officials, facing charges that include extermination, murder, persecution and torture, began today at the United Nations war crimes tribunal set up in the wake of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

Yemeni child bride, 12, dies in labor

Abolishing child marriage, he says, “is an idea whose time has come.”

Actually, the time for this idea came several centuries ago, but some places seem to have missed it. Muhammad’s wife Aisha was apparenlty about 9 years old when the marriage was consummated.

The Painful Death of a Yemen Child Bride
Yemeni Girl, 12, Dies in Childbirth After 3 Days of Labor
By LARA SETRAKIAN

“Families think child marriage is a good thing&that it comes directly from Islam. They don’t understand the dangers,” Ahmad Al-Qureishi of Seyaj, a Yemeni children’s rights group, tells ABC News.

 

The dangers are apparent in statistic gathered by the United Nations. Yemen has a high maternal death rate of 430 women per 100,000 births more than 20 times that of its neighbor, Saudi Arabia — and is in the top 50 countries ranked for high infant mortality.

 

Most of the maternal deaths are for early pregnancy, according to UNICEF.

 

“It’s a deeply embedded social habit. For every one child marriage we can stop there are five more,” said Naseem Rehman, a UNICEF spokesman in Yemen’s capital of Sana’a.

 

Rehman says child brides in Yemen face a “triple disadvantage,” having to cope with a lost childhood, a pregnancy their bodies aren’t ready to handle, and often forced to give birth at home, far from any health facility.

 

An estimated 50 percent of women in Yemen are married before age 18, some as young as eight. In recent years Yemen’s civil society and women’s rights activists have pushed back against the practice, which is prevalent in what has long been the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula.

 

Calls For New Law

 

In February Yemen’s parliament passed a child marriages law setting a minimum age of 17, but it has yet to be enacted. The bill has long been challenged by conservative lawmakers who say it would contradict the laws of Islam.

 

The law also challenges rural and tribal customs. Marriages are often arranged by parents to serve the family’s interests; a child marriage can bring a dowry payment, and relieves a household from having to feed one more child.

 

Earlier this year Seyaj, the children’s rights group, documented the case of Rahmanah Ali Al Shayef, 10, whose father traded her hand in marriage in exchange for a bride for his son. When a local official refused to issue the marriage contract because of the bride’s young age, Al Shayef’s father took her to another district, where the marriage officer was more compliant.

 

The issue of child marriage in Yemen rose to prominence in 2007 after an 8-year-old bride, Nojoud Ali, was granted a divorce from her abusive husband.

 

At the time her lawyer, Shatha Nasser, told ABC News that the young girl left her home and walked to the local court, asking staff there for help. They put her in touch with Nasser, who handles cases of abuse against women and children, and the two successfully fought for an annulment.

 

Together they were honored by Glamour Magazine’s Woman of the Year Award in 2008; Nojoud Ali has since been banned from traveling outside of Yemen.

 

Since then human rights activists have stepped up their efforts, led by Yemeni women and civil society groups.

 

“We have young girls speaking out against the practice, which injures the child, the family, and the community,” said Rehman of UNICEF.

 

Abolishing child marriage, he says, “is an idea whose time has come.”

Indonesia’s Aceh to Allow Stoning for Adulterers

Current global crises call for fresh thinking and new ideas from UN - Ban

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed the need for fresh thinking on a range of global crises currently facing the world - including food, fuel, flu, finance and climate change - the likes of which, he emphasized, have not been seen in generations.

Ex-staffer at UN’s Balkan war crimes tribunal found guilty of contempt

A former prosecution spokesperson at the United Nations tribunal set up to tackle the worst war crimes committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s faces a fine of €7,000 after being found guilty today of contempt of court by the same tribunal for disclosing confidential information about the case of Slobodan Milosević.

The ECJ strikes again

We’ve just come across another hugely significant ruling by the European Court of Justice on the EU’s Working Time Directive (WTD) , which slipped largely under the radar last week. HR magazine People Management has the story.

Essentially, in the latest Pereda v Madrid Movilidad case, the EU judges’ ruling opens up the possibility of employees ‘reallocating’ their annual leave if they are struck down by ‘illness’ while on holiday.

The employee in the case, Vicente Pereda, was injured shortly before his annual leave was due to start but his employer refused a request to move his holiday. The Court ruled that this was illegal under the WTD. Lawyers have warned that there is now no reason in principle why an employee whose holiday had already started could not claim the right to reallocate leave, if they were entitled to sick leave at the same time.

To call this a can of worms would be a gross understatement. How would employers be expected to police this in practice? Fly ‘compliance officers’ to the Costa Del Sol to verify a bout of food poisoning at the hands of a dodgy paella?

But there is a wider and more serious point about EU law here - that at the hands of the ECJ judges it can take on a life of its own.

Since the WTD was agreed in 1993 the ECJ has continuously extended the Directive’s reach, ruling against national governments and increasing employment costs to both the private and public sector.

In November 1996, the EU’s judges in Luxembourg ruled against the UK Government by determining that the WTD’s legal base fell under health and safety rather than social policy, meaning the UK no longer retained its veto (which existed at the time).

In October 2000, in the ‘SiMAP’ ruling, the ECJ decided that time spent resident on call in a hospital or other place of work should count as working time, even if the worker is asleep for some of that on-call time. This has had a huge impact on the NHS, for example, as resident on-call doctors’ hours were slashed.

In June 2001, the ECJ ruled that the UK was in violation of the WTD’s provision on
annual leave.

In April 2003, in the ‘Jaeger’ ruling, the ECJ ruled that rest periods entailed in the WTD have to be taken immediately rather than within a “reasonable time” if the minimum rest period has been interrupted by an emergency. This causes huge problems for the rota system at British hospitals and the British Medical Association estimates that the effect would be
tantamount to losing between 4,300 and 9,900 junior doctors.

In March 2006, the ECJ ruled that British firms that pay workers in place of their holiday entitlements – so-called rolled up holiday pay – were violating the WTD.

In September 2006, an ECJ ruling found that UK Government guidance on rest entitlement was incompatible with the WTD.

In January 2009, European judges ruled that employees on long term sick leave must remain entitled to annual statutory holiday pay upon their return to work. This means that staff can take their annual holiday built up while at home as soon as they return to work.

For more of out thoughts on the WTD, see here.

Now, one can debate the merits of each of these individual rulings but what is surely not in doubt is the immense power vested in the unelected ECJ to extend and interpret EU law as it sees fit. The ECJ is able to drive policy almost at will and yet it answers to no-one .

If only UK ministers had known that by signing the WTD all those years ago, they were creating their very own Frankenstein.

Road to peace and democracy in Sierra Leone will be bumpy, warns UN official

Although Sierra Leone had embarked on a remarkable journey towards a stable, peaceful and democratic country, this journey will be bumpy, long and even, at times, dangerous, the top United Nations official in the West African nation warned today.