Winfrey Settles Lawsuit Brought by Former Headmistress in South Africa

March 24, 2010, 11:21 am

Winfrey Settles Lawsuit Brought by Former Headmistress

By DAVE ITZKOFF
New York Times

You may see Oprah Winfrey next week on her syndicated talk show, but you won’t be seeing the broadcasting queen in a Philadelphia courtroom.

On Tuesday Ms. Winfrey settled a defamation lawsuit filed by the former headmistress of a school she set up in South Africa, who had said that the talk show host had defamed her after a sex-abuse scandal there, Reuters reported. Nomvuho Mzamane ran the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa at its founding in 2007 but left after students there said they were being abused by another staff member.

After Ms. Winfrey held a news conference and said that Ms. Mzamane had ignored the students’ complaints, Ms. Mzamane said Ms. Winfrey had defamed her and made it difficult for her to find another job.

A statement from lawyers representing both women said the dispute had been settled “peacefully to their mutual satisfaction” and both women had withdrawn their complaints, according to Reuters.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. A trial was scheduled to begin on Monday in federal court in Philadelphia, where Ms. Mzamane was living when she filed the suit.

Ban to attend Arab League summit amid new concerns about the Middle East

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that he will participate in the League of Arab States summit this weekend in Libya amid what he called a crisis of confidence surrounding Israel’s plans to build new settlements in East Jerusalem.

Ethiopia ‘Silencing Its Critics’ In Lead Up to National Elections

Ethiopia ’silencing its critics’

The Ethiopian government is waging a sustained attack on its opponents in the run-up to an election in May, US-based Human Rights Watch says.

The group accuses the ruling EPRDF party of using its control of local government to withhold services and job opportunities from political opponents.

The activists also said new laws had severely restricted the activities of activist groups and journalists.

Government officials said the claims were ridiculous and outrageous.

Spokesman Bereket Simon told the BBC that the report was aimed at tarnishing the image of the country.

Deadly protests

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was hailed as one of a new generation of democratic African leaders in the 1990s, but rights groups have increasingly accused him of cracking down on his critics.

One of the country’s most prominent independent newspapers - the weekly Addis Neger - was closed in November.

And last week Mr Zenawi admitted to jamming transmissions from the Voice of America’s Amharic language service, accusing it of broadcasting “destabilising propaganda”.

“Expressing dissent is very dangerous in Ethiopia,” said Georgette Gagnon, Human Rights Watch Africa director.

“The ruling party and the state are becoming one and the government is using the full weight of its power to eliminate opposition and intimidate people.”

The BBC’s Will Ross says opposition groups disputed the last election results in 2005, but when protestors took to the streets, they were shot.

Reports of the number of people killed varied between 50 and almost 200.

Human Rights Watch says the government has ensured these events will not be repeated when the country votes on 23 May, because there is no longer any way to protest.

Mr Bereket dismissed the claims and said people had a constitutional right to stage demonstrations.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8585619.stm
Published: 2010/03/24 15:51:58 GMT

Haitian writer Frankétienne named UNESCO Artist for Peace

The United Nations cultural agency today named the Haitian writer Frankétienne as one of their Artists for Peace in recognition of his contribution to French-language literature, his commitment to preserving Haitian culture and his contribution to the promotion of the agency’s ideals.

Gorillas could disappear from Central Africa in 15 years, UN agency warns

Gorillas could disappear from large parts of the Greater Congo Basin in central Africa by the mid-2020s unless urgent action is taken to safeguard their habitats and counter poaching, a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and INTERPOL warned today.

UN paves way for normalizing life in isolated area of eastern DR Congo

It may be a brown dirt road but the Bukavu-Shabunda route is the equivalent of a big highway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the United Nations says its work to reconstruct the road will improve the economic, social and security situations in the troubled province of South Kivu.

Cyprus: UN signs deal to build new road and allow crossing point to open

Work is set to begin on a new crossing point that will link the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities on the Mediterranean island after the United Nations signed a contract today with a local joint venture.

EU ’solidarity’ in action

As details of a possible bailout plan for Greece, which could emerge from tomorrow’s EU summit, are leaked, it is becoming clearer that ’solidarity’ for some EU leaders is not a one way street.

And we are not necessarily referring to German demands for renewed fiscal discipline in exchange for financial aid to Greece.

Instead, Reuters is reporting that France and Germany are trying to land plum defence contracts from Greece. Under the headline “Broke? Buy a few warships”, the article reports that, in an unexpected twist to the Greek debt crisis, France and Germany are pressing their beleaguered neighbour to buy six frigates, 15 helicopters and up to 40 top-of-the-range Rafale fighter aircraft (pictured), even as the country struggles to get its public finances in line.

The article quotes an advisor to the Greek PM George Papandreou saying: “No one is saying ‘Buy our warships or we won’t bail you out’, but the clear implication is that they will be more supportive if we do what they want on the armaments front”.

Possibly not the kind of solidarity that Mr Papandreou had in mind when he said he was expecting EU solidarity.

The Struggle to Save Black Radio

The struggle to save Black radio

By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia
Published Mar 21, 2010 9:00 PM

A spirited program addressing the tactics used by corporate media to undermine Black radio was held in Philadelphia March 9. It was attended by activists already involved in efforts to stem this tide and others concerned over how to keep peoples’ news and culture alive and thriving.

The program, hosted by the Philadelphia International Action Center and the Prometheus Radio Project, featured Iyanna “Nana Soul” Jones and U-Savior Washington from Black Waxx Multimedia. It was also the Philadelphia premier of an exciting documentary produced in 2008 by Washington entitled, “Disappearing Voices: The Decline of Black Radio.”

Following the movie screening, Jones and Washington were joined on a panel by Cody Anderson, station manager of WURD and former owner of WHAT radio; Andalusia Knoll from the Prometheus Radio Project; Berta Joubert-Ceci of the People’s Video Network; and Jasper Jones with West Philadelphia community radio WPEB. Anderson and Jones both appear in the film.

“Disappearing Voices” makes the point that those who control radio and other media can control what people think and what culture they want. In the Black community, radio is very important. The lack of access to this medium impacts struggles against racism, police brutality and other forms of injustice, and for jobs, affordable housing and education.

In Philadelphia activists have struggled for years to get out the truth about Mumia Abu-Jamal, unjustly imprisoned on Pennsylvania’s death row for over 25 years. In 1997, when an interview with Abu-Jamal with Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman was scheduled to run on Temple University radio station WRTI, then-Gov. Tom Ridge effectively stopped the broadcast by threatening to cut state funding to the station unless it discontinued its contract with Pacifica radio.

Black-owned talk radio station WHAT, which frequently provided news of Abu-Jamal’s case along with other community events, is now hosted by mainly white DJs. WDAS, a station previously known for playing Black artists, has switched its format to “urban contemporary.”

“Disappearing Voices” traces the history of Black radio from the early 1940s when Black stations or white-owned stations with all-Black staff began to spring up across the South. As this phenomenon grew, more stations opened in urban areas from Boston to Los Angeles and played a major role in promoting the Black music industry. As these stations gained popularity, some white radio personalities began to adopt Black persona on the air.

Black radio stations took up key issues that other media would not touch, including the alleged rape of 15-year-old African-American Tawana Brawley by a group of white police officers in 1987, and the 1984 presidential campaign of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. What set Black radio apart from all other media was the promotion of serious Black talk and personality programming.

Profits, racism and the FCC

In the 1980s the drive for profits began to undermine Black radio, opening the way as well for the whitewashing of Black culture. MTV, for example, would play white artists singing R&B, but excluded Black artists. Stations that played “urban contemporary” music began to compete with those whose format focused more on traditional grassroots Black culture.

The biggest changes, however, were changes in Federal Communications Commission regulations. When radio program licenses were first given out, Black stations were excluded.

Jones noted that, “The FCC is supposed to protect the interests of the public by seeing that station owners operate with some level of responsibility to the public, which includes offering programming that serves the community as well as protecting station owners from being forced out of business by monopolies.”

Yet in 2004 the FCC opened the door for conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting to buy up competing stations within the same listening area. The owners of WDAS, a popular Black-owned station in Philadelphia, were forced to sell the station. It was eventually purchased by Clear Channel for a sum considerably more than the original owners received. Clear Channel’s use of syndicated DJs and canned music made programming into a McDonald’s-like product — as uniform as possible — while creating a barrier between programmers and the communities they serve.

A further attack came with the growth of Arbitron Inc., a major supplier of radio-ratings information to advertisers that many say works to keep Black radio impoverished. Arbitron’s rating system for the stations most listened to claims to include all population sectors, but in his film Washington interviews people of all ages in the Black community who have never been contacted by the company.

“Disappearing Voices” ends on the upbeat note that struggle by the people to hold the FCC accountable and to demand radio that speaks for and by the community can turn the situation around. This message resonated with members of the panel and audience, many of whom are already engaged in doing just that.

Prometheus Radio Project has been challenging FCC regulations while providing assistance for communities to develop their own radio using low-watt frequencies. Members of one such project, WPEB radio in West Philadelphia, spoke on the panel and from the audience. Crystle Smith described her efforts to provide a voice for Black youth with a program she directs on Change Radio.

Berta Joubert-Ceci spoke on the role that radio has played in the struggle to advance economic and social justice in Venezuela, where much of the media is still owned by major corporations opposed to the development of a socialist economy. She noted that all over this Latin American country, workers and poor people are broadcasting their own media to challenge the corporate control.
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U.S.-Ghana: The Biofuel Scam

U.S. - Ghana: The biofuel scam

Wednesday 24 March 2010
by Caroline Boin

US Department of Agriculture figures reveal that a quarter of US cereals grown in 2009 went to biofuel, turning cheap food into expensive fuel. This pushes up food prices and damages the environment yet President Obama promised “continued investment in advanced biofuels” in his recent State of the Union address. A new report in Ghana shows how much damage biofuels can do.
A paper on the 2007-2008 food crisis by the World Bank Development Prospect Group, leaked in 2008, said US and European Union biofuel production was responsible for 70 to 75% of the price rises—against 3% admitted by the USDA.

These subsidies are about political pandering, not cutting greenhouse gases. But despite a backlash against biofuels in 2008, they are still in favour.

Biofuels from crops like maize, sugar and palm oil have more than tripled since 2000. The USA is to increase ethanol blending to 15 billion gallons by 2012 and 36 billion by 2022, up from nine billion last year.

A recent report by Rice University (Texas) found that the USA spent US$4 billion on biofuel subsidies in 2008 to replace a mere 2% of the US gasoline supply. It estimates that this costs taxpayers about US$82 per barrel, or US$1.95 a gallon more than the retail price of petroleum fuel. By 2022, US biofuel subsidies will have totalled US$400 billion, according to environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth. The EU is no better, giving around €3.7 billion (US$5.2 billion) in biofuel subsidies in 2007, aiming to replace 5.75% of transport fuel by the end of 2010.

On top of wasted taxes and higher food prices, biofuels make little environmental sense: production in the USA and the EU can release more emissions than it avoids. Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Paul J. Crutzen estimates: “For rapeseed biodiesel, which accounts for about 80% of the biofuel production in Europe, the relative warming due to N2O [nitrous oxide] emissions is estimated at 1 to 1.7 times larger than the quasi-cooling effect due to saved fossil CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions. For corn bioethanol, dominant in the US, the figure is 0.9 to 1.5.”

Although the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization sees little chance in the near future of another “concurrence of so many factors” that caused the food crisis, there is no room for complacency. Food prices are taking a long time to fall (maize is still 50% above its 2003-2006 average), while the number of hungry people recently topped one billion. This is a worrying trend as there has been an increase in both the absolute number and the percentage of hungry people, reversing decades of progress.

Ethanol already takes up 27 million acres out of the 90 million acres of maize in the USA: from 2006 to 2008, the World Bank’s Food Price Index doubled.

If biofuel was about the environment, the USA would not impose tariffs on environmentally-friendly ethanol from Latin America and the Caribbean. Likewise, new EU tariffs are clearly aimed at American producers who send 95% of their biofuel exports to Europe.

In addition, there is the fear that natural habitats will be converted to farmland to take advantage of biofuel subsidies. The diversion of existing US cropland to biofuels has shifted soya bean production to South America and Indonesia, encouraging deforestation.

In Ghana, a study into biofuels released this month by Action Aid Ghana (AAG) and FoodSPAN cites land grabs, deforestation, use of arable lands, destruction of existing crops and damage to biodiversity.

Nor do biofuels save energy. Some varieties require as much to grow, transport and process as they release when you burn it.

And according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, at oil prices below $70 per barrel (the recent range is US$70-85), maize-based ethanol is about the same price at the pump as normal petroleum fuels—not counting what taxpayers have already paid in subsidies.

The USA and the EU claim “second-generation” biofuels from plant cellulose or waste will help achieve their stringent self-imposed “renewables” targets but this is a nascent industry that has yet to deliver value for money. The EU said it would reconsider biofuels following the food crisis. But there is powerful pressure from farm lobbies in both places.

Agriculture faces many difficulties, from how to establish land rights to how to disseminate technology or adapt to climate change. But the biofuel problem is a no-brainer.

Creating an artificial market with subsidies is no way to reduce emissions, save rainforests or feed the poor. Biofuel subsidies are just a Green handout to farm lobbies in rich countries: it is time to end them.

Caroline Boin is a Project Director at International Policy Network, London, an independent think-tank working on economic development.