THE HANDSTAND
july 2005
letter from Runoko Rashidi in Paris
The Pantheon is the tomb of many of the greatest of
French heroes including the great African French writer
Alexander
Dumas. I got a great story about Dumas a couple of
weeks ago from the great Hannibal/Pushkin scholar from
Benin, Dr. Dieudonne Gnammankou. The brother told
me that the fantastic African Shakespearean actor Ira
Aldrige once gave a performance of Othello at the palace
of Versailes with Dumas sitting in the front row.
Gnammankou told me that the performance was so good that
Dumas leapt upon the stage and embraced Aldrige in a huge
hug and exclaimed that "I too am a Negro!"
Dumas is buried in a large fine crypt next to Victor Hugo
and Emile Zola. There is a painting of his Black
father from Haiti, General Dumas, hanging just
outside. I noticed yesterday that both Hugo's
and Zola's coffins have a wreath of flowers placed on top
but Dumas's did not. It was so obvious that both
sister Zawadi and I asked the Pantheon officials about it
and they told us that anybody could place flowers in the
crypts and so on the next visit we intend to do just
that. I am really excited about it. What kind
of flowers do you think would be most appropriate? The
Pantheon also has a really fine painting of early Black
people fighting the Crusaders in Palestine.
Pulling a white sheet
from the street sign near Berlin's central Potsdamer
Square, Israel's President Moshe Katsav (center) on
Wednesday officially renamed the city's Relief Street in
honor of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion
(1886-1973). The northern part of the street, which cuts
through Berlin's Tiergarten park, is named after Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, who was assassinated in
1995. Katsav ends a three-day state visit to Germany
Wednesday.
Israel President warns against Far-Right :
On the second day of his state visit, Israeli President
Moshe Katsav warned in a speech to the German parliament
Tuesday that the Jewish state was concerned by the
resurgence of neo-Nazis in Germany. (May 31, 2005)
Gregor Gysi and Oscar
Lafontaine putting a shape on the' Left Party'
The two men from the PDS(Communist) and the
SPD(Schroder) Parties are joining to form an opposition
to the two main German political groups. .The present
governments Labour and Reform plans are unacceptable to
the public and it is assumed in the Media that if this
party achieves popularity they will present a serious
opposition during elections. The SPD is rooting for its
socialist credentials again and Lafontaine is tarnished
by reference to jobloss occurring because new members of
the EU are drifting in for work.
Ways and Means
German domestic rubbish is put on the pavements of towns
and cities for collection, and the fluctuating
populations often find just the furnishings they require
there. A girl was salvaging kitchen units for her new
flat when a Pole appeared and declared he needed them,
revealing his language as he bullied her. The girl who
spoke Polish replied to him in Polish, and taken aback he
watched her pick up and leave with all the material she
could carry. Behind her she heard big smashing and turned
to see the Pole vindictively smashing up the remaining
kitchen units
greece Ano Liossia was chosen after Athens' main
sewage plant on Psitalia island was told to stop dumping
sludge in trenches near the sea.
A Greek Orthodox priest was also caught up in the melee.
Local people say the landfill site is already a blot on
their area.
Typical English Attitudes:..........infants not
"under control" by the age of three were four
times more likely to be convicted of a criminal offence
once they reached maturity
Three-year-olds
'face criminal risk test'
Hélène
Mulholland, The Guardian
Monday June 13, 2005
Children as young as three should be targeted as
potential criminals, according to a leaked government
report. The Home Office study suggested nursery staff
should be trained to spot tots at risk of becoming
criminals when they grow up. The 250-page report by the
Home Office strategy unit, entitled Crime Reduction
Review, was drawn up to identify the most effective ways
of cutting crime by 2008. It recommended that nursery
staff should start singling out three and four-year-olds
who display bullying behaviour, or those with a history
of criminality in their immediate family, to identify
those most at risk of criminality in the future, the
Sunday Times claimed. The Home Office refused to comment
on the leaked publication, which reportedly recommends
early intervention for children identified as being at
risk.
Nursery nurses warned against labelling young children as troublemakers so early. Jean Gemmell, the general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT), which incorporates the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses (PANN), said: "We would be alarmed if nursery staff were to be asked to take on some sort of Big Brother-style role on behalf of an all-controlling state. "They are professional childcarers not criminal psychologists. Trying to identify potential criminals before they've even started school seems impractical. We would not want to see children labelled as troublemakers before they've done anything wrong."
The children's minister, Beverley Hughes, said "I don't think you can tell whether a three-year-old is likely to become a criminal,"
Ministers
Were Told of Need for Gulf War 'Excuse'
By Michael Smith
The Sunday
Times UK
Sunday 12 June
2005
"The
briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's
inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime
change was illegal it was "necessary to create the
conditions" which would make it legal."
Ministers
were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committe to
taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they
had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet
Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed
to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a
summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush
three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants
at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002,
said that since regime change was illegal it was
"necessary to create the conditions" which
would make it legal. This was required
because, even if ministers decided Britain should not
take part in an invasion, the American military would be
using British bases. This would automatically make
Britain complicit in any illegal US action.
"US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British
bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia," the briefing
paper warned. This meant that issues of legality
"would arise virtually whatever option ministers
choose with regard to UK participation".
The suggestions that the allies use
the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and
Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week,
that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go
to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.
The briefing paper is certain to add
to the pressure, particularly on the American president,
because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair
agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for
a way to justify it. There has been a
growing storm of protest in America, created by last
month's publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A
host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have
demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often
shortened to "the DSM" on websites) has been
largely ignored by the US mainstream media.
The White House has declined to
respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking
if it was true - as Dearlove told the July meeting - that
"the intelligence and facts were being fixed around
the policy" in Washington.
Frustrated at the refusal by the White
House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have
set up a website - www.downingstreetmemo.com - to collect signatures
on a petition demanding the same answers.
Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush
once it reached 250,000 signatures. By Friday morning it
already had more than 500,000 with as many as 1m expected
to have been obtained when he delivers it to the White
House on Thursday.
AfterDowningStreet.org, another
website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a
congressional committee to consider whether Bush's
actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for
impeachment. It has been flooded with
visits from people angry at what they see as media
self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have
attracted more than 1m hits a day.
Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000
(about £550) to any journalist who quizzed Bush about
the memo's contents, although the Reuters reporter who
asked the question last Tuesday was not aware of the
reward and has no intention of claiming it.
The complaints of media
self-censorship have been backed up by the ombudsmen of
The Washington Post, The New York Times and National
Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention
the minutes have received from their organisations.
An Artist's complaint against Gerhard Schroeder:The German art market could use a little good news. The Rhineland is rich, but many U.S. art buyers are staying home, thanks to the global economic slowdown and the war with Iraq. What's more, collector confidence in Germany is being battered with threats of new taxes from the government of Gerhard Schroeder -- a hike in the sales tax on art from seven to 16 percent, and perhaps even a new "resale royalty" tax on profitable sales by collectors and dealers of works by perhaps 300 top artists.
THE NO VOTE An
indepth voter analysis has shown that further enlargement
of the EU
featured very far down on the list of reasons why the
French and the Dutch voted against the constitution, yet
rhetoric from EU politicans makes the opposite appear
true.
Article >> http://euobserver.com/?aid=19430&rk=1
What European media are saying today: UK and France
curry Polish favour
over budget ; Sarkozy calls to freeze enlargement; US
smiles on German UN bid; Europe sticks to Iran line;
Hubner predicts quick budget deal; Italy to get 2007
budget ultimatum.
Article >> http://euobserver.com/?aid=19436&rk=1