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Kidnapped Girls Become Tools of US Imperial Policy in Africa May 14, 2014Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Central African Republic, Congo, Genocide, Human Rights, Women.
Tags: Africa, africom, black caucus, boko haram, central african republic, glen ford, kidnapped girls, michelle obama, nigeria, nigerian army, roger hollander, susan rice
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Roger's note: the average North American's lack of knowledge and understanding of Africa the the United States' continued role there is astounding, present company included. Here is a bit of eye opening reporting for the always reliable Black Action Agenda's Glen Ford.
A chorus of outraged public opinion demands that the "international community" and the Nigerian military "Do something!" about the abduction by Boko Haram of 280 teenage girls. It is difficult to fault the average U.S. consumer of packaged "news" products for knowing next to nothing about what the Nigerian army has actually been "doing" to suppress the Muslim fundamentalist rebels since, as senior columnist Margaret Kimberley pointed out in these pages, last week, the three U.S. broadcast networks carried "not a single television news story about Boko Haram" in all of 2013. (Nor did the misinformation corporations provide a nanosecond of coverage of the bloodshed in the Central African Republic, where thousands died and a million were made homeless by communal fighting over the past year.) But, that doesn't mean the Nigerian army hasn't been bombing, strafing, and indiscriminately slaughtering thousands of, mainly, young men in the country's mostly Muslim north.
The newly aware U.S. public may or may not be screaming for blood, but rivers of blood have already flowed in the region. Those Americans who read – which, presumably, includes First Lady Michelle Obama, who took her husband's place on radio last weekend to pledge U.S. help in the hunt for the girls – would have learned in the New York Times of the army's savage offensive near the Niger border, last May and June. In the town of Bosso, the Nigerian army killed hundreds of young men in traditional Muslim garb "Without Asking Who They Are," according to the NYT headline. "They don't ask any questions," said a witness who later fled for his life, like thousands of others. "When they see young men in traditional robes, they shoot them on the spot," said a student. "They catch many of the others and take them away, and we don't hear from them again."
The Times' Adam Nossiter interviewed many refugees from the army's "all-out land and air campaign to crush the Boko Haram insurgency." He reported:
"All spoke of a climate of terror that had pushed them, in the thousands, to flee for miles through the harsh and baking semidesert, sometimes on foot, to Niger. A few blamed Boko Haram — a shadowy, rarely glimpsed presence for most residents — for the violence. But the overwhelming majority blamed the military, saying they had fled their country because of it."
In just one village, 200 people were killed by the military.
In March of this year, fighters who were assumed to be from Boko Haram attacked a barracks and jail in the northern city of Maiduguri. Hundreds of prisoners fled, but 200 youths were rounded up and made to lie on the ground. A witness told the Times: "The soldiers made some calls and a few minutes later they started shooting the people on the ground. I counted 198 people killed at that checkpoint."
All told, according to Amnesty International, more than 600 people were extrajudicially murdered, "most of them unarmed, escaped detainees, around Maiduguri." An additional 950 prisoners were killed in the first half of 2013 in detention facilities run by Nigeria's military Joint Task Force, many at the same barracks in Maiduguri. Amnesty International quotes a senior officer in the Nigerian Army, speaking anonymously: "Hundreds have been killed in detention either by shooting them or by suffocation," he said. "There are times when people are brought out on a daily basis and killed. About five people, on average, are killed nearly on a daily basis."
Chibok, where the teenage girls were abducted, is 80 miles from Maiduguri, capital of Borno State.
In 2009, when the Boko Haram had not yet been transformed into a fully armed opposition, the military summarily executed their handcuffed leader and killed at least 1,000 accused members in the states of Borno, Yobe, Kano and Bauchi, many of them apparently simply youths from suspect neighborhoods. A gruesome video shows the military at work. "In the video, a number of unarmed men are seen being made to lie down in the road outside a building before they are shot," Al Jazeera reports in text accompanying the video. "As one man is brought out to face death, one of the officers can be heard urging his colleague to 'shoot him in the chest not the head – I want his hat.'"
These are only snapshots of the army's response to Boko Haram – atrocities that are part of the context of Boko Haram's ghastly behavior. The military has refused the group's offer to exchange the kidnapped girls for imprisoned Boko Haram members. (We should not assume that everyone detained as Boko Haram is actually a member – only that all detainees face imminent and arbitrary execution.)
None of the above is meant to tell Boko Haram's "side" in this grisly story (fundamentalist religious jihadists find no favor at BAR), but to emphasize the Nigerian military's culpability in the group's mad trajectory – the same military that many newly-minted "Save Our Girls" activists demand take more decisive action in Borno.
The bush to which the Boko Haram retreated with their captives was already a free-fire zone, where anything that moves is subject to obliteration by government aircraft. Nigerian air forces have now been joined by U.S. surveillance planes operating out of the new U.S. drone base in neighboring Niger, further entrenching AFRICOM/CIA in the continental landscape. Last week it was announced that, for the first time,AFRICOM troops will train a Nigerian ranger battalion in counterinsurgency warfare.
The Chibok abductions have served the same U.S. foreign policy purposes as Joseph Kony sightings in central Africa, which were conjured-up to justify the permanent stationing of U.S Special Forcesin the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, in 2011, on humanitarian interventionist grounds. (This past March, the U.S. sent 150 more Special Ops troops to the region, claiming to have again spotted Kony, who is said to be deathly ill, holed up with a small band of followers somewhere in the Central African Republic.) The United States (and France and Britain, plus the rest of NATO, if need be) must maintain a deepening and permanent presence in Africa to defend the continent from…Africans.
When the crowd yells that America "Do something!" somewhere in Africa, the U.S. military is likely to already be there.
Barack Obama certainly needs no encouragement to intervention; his presidency is roughly coterminous with AFRICOM's founding and explosive expansion. Obama broadened the war against Somalia that was launched by George Bush in partnership with the genocidal Ethiopian regime, in 2006 (an invasion that led directly to what the United Nations called "the worst humanitarian crisis is Africa"). He built on Bill Clinton and George Bush's legacies in the Congo, where U.S. client states Uganda and Rwanda caused the slaughter of 6 million people since 1996 – the greatest genocide of the post War World II era. He welcomed South Sudan as the world's newest nation – the culmination of a decades-long project of the U.S., Britain and Israel to dismember Africa's largest country, but which has now fallen into a bloody chaos, as does everything the U.S. touches, these days.
Most relevant to the plight of Chibok's young women, Obama led "from behind" NATO's regime change in Libya, removing the anti-jihadist bulwark Muamar Gaddafi ("We came, we saw, he died," said Hillary Clinton) and destabilizing the whole Sahelian tier of the continent, all the way down to northern Nigeria. As BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka writes in the current issue, "Boko Haram benefited from the destabilization of various countries across the Sahel following the Libya conflict." The once-"shadowy" group now sported new weapons and vehicles and was clearly better trained and disciplined. In short, the Boko Haram, like other jihadists, had become more dangerous in a post-Gaddafi Africa – thus justifying a larger military presence for the same Americansand (mainly French) Europeans who had brought these convulsions to the region.
If Obama has his way, it will be a very long war – the better to grow AFRICOM – with some very unsavory allies (from both the Nigerian and American perspectives).
Whatever Obama does to deepen the U.S. presence in Nigeria and the rest of the continent, he can count on the Congressional Black Caucus, including its most "progressive" member, Barbara Lee (D-CA), the only member of the U.S. Congress to vote against the invasion of Afghanistan, in 2001. Lee, along with Reps. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and fellow Californian Karen Bass, who is the ranking member on the House Subcommittee on African, gave cart blanch to Obama to "Do something!" in Nigeria. "And so our first command and demand is to use all resources to bring the terrorist thugs to justice," they said.
A year and a half ago, when then UN Ambassador Susan Rice's prospects for promotion to top U.S. diplomat were being torpedoed by the Benghazi controversy, a dozen Black congresspersons scurried to her defense. "We will not allow a brilliant public servant's record to be mugged to cut off her consideration to be secretary of state," said Washington, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.
As persons who are presumed to read, Black Caucus members were certainly aware of the messy diplomatic scandal around Rice's role in suppressing United Nation's reports on U.S. allies' Rwanda and Uganda's genocidal acts against the Congolese people. Of all the high profile politicians from both the corporate parties, Rice – the rabid interventionist – is most intimately implicated in the Congo holocaust, dating back to the policy's formulation under Clinton. Apparently, that's not the part of Rice's record that counts to Delegate Norton and the rest of the Black Caucus. Genocide against Africans does not move them one bit.
So, why are we to believe that they are really so concerned about the girls of Chibok?
It's Not Just Uganda: Behind the Christian Right's Onslaught in Africa April 3, 2014Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Human Rights, Kenya, LGBT, Nigeria, Religion, Right Wing, Zimbabwe.
Tags: Africa, anti-gay, evangelical, gay rights, homophobia, human rights, kenya, lgbt, mugabe, nigeria, pat robertson, religion, religious right, right wing, roger hollander, zimbabwe
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For years now, evangelical activists from the United States have been speaking out against homosexuality and cheering on antigay legislation all over Africa.
In Uganda, being gay can now earn you a lifetime in prison.
Last month, the East African country was again thrust into the international spotlight after President Yoweri Museveni signed into law a draconian bill that criminalized homosexuality. The high profile, on-and-off battle over the so-called "kill the gays" bill has drawn headlines for years as the most extreme example in a wave of antigay legislation on the continent. But homophobia in Africa is not merely an African problem.
As the gay rights movement has gained traction in the United States, the more virulently homophobic ideologies of the religious right have been pushed further out of the mainstream and into fringe territory. But as their influence has waned at home, right-wing evangelists from the United States have been flexing their sanctimonious muscles influencing policymakers in Africa.
For years now, evangelical activists from the United States have been injecting themselves into African politics, speaking out against homosexuality and cheering on antigay legislation on the continent. The influence of these groups has been well documented in Uganda. The now-defunct Exodus International, for example, sent Don Schmierer, a board member, to Uganda in 2009 to speak at a conference alongside Scott Lively, a pastor who was later sued by a Ugandan gay rights group for his role in promoting human rights violations against LGBTQ people. The two participated in a disturbing anti-gay conference, where speakers blamed homosexuals for the rise of Nazism and the Rwandan genocide, among other abhorrent acts. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a hard-right Christian group that is active in U.S. politics as well, similarly supported anti-gay laws in Uganda. At the peak of controversy over the "kill the gays" bill, Perkins praised the Ugandan president for "leading his nation to repentance."
But such groups aren't just active in Uganda. They have promoted antigay legislation in Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, just to name a few other places. The support ranges from popular agitation and sideline cheerleading to outright intervention.
In 2010, for example, when Zimbabwe began the process of drafting a new constitution, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ)—a Christian law firm founded by evangelist Pat Robertson—launched a Zimbabwean counterpart called the African Centre for Law and Justice. The outpost trained lawyers for the express purpose of putting a Christian stamp on the draft of the new constitution.
The African Centre joined forces with the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ), an indigenous organization, to promote constitutional language affirming that Zimbabwe is a Christian nation and ensuring that homosexuality remained illegal. These and other hardline views are outlined in a pamphlet distributed by the EFZ and ACLJ. Jordan Sekulow, the executive director of ACLJ, announced that his organization would lobby for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in political and religious circles in the event of any controversy over the provisions, despite the fact that the Zimbabwean president has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for violating human rights. Last year, Zimbabwe's new constitution, which includes a ban on gay marriage, was approved by an overwhelming popular vote.
ACLJ's Kenyan-based offshoot, the East African Center for Law and Justice (EACLJ), made an effort to lobby against Kenya's progressive new constitution as well. In April 2010, a report on the group's website called homosexuality "unacceptable" and "foreign" and called for the Kenyan constitution to clearly define marriage as between a man and a woman, thus closing the door on future laws that could attempt to legalize same-sex marriage. In this case the ECLJ was unsuccessful, and the new constitution was approved without any language regarding same-sex marriage.
Pat Robertson's entanglements in Africa go well beyond Zimbabwe and Kenya.
In 1960, Robertson created The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), which broadcasts through cable and satellite to over 200 countries. Robertson is a co-host on the 700 Club, arguably CBN's most popular show. From his perch on the show, Roberts has made a seemingly endless variety of inflammatory remarks about LGBTQ people and just about everyone else that does not fall in line with his own religious thinking.
In the United States, Robertson's vitriol can be brushed aside as the antiquated ravings of a fringe figure. Not so in much of Africa. A survey conducted in 2010 found that 74 million people in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, had watched at least one CBN show in the previous year. That's a remarkable reach considering Nigeria is home to over 80 million Christians.
Robertson's influence plays into an increasingly hostile political climate for gays in the country. Last January, Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan signed into law the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, which provides punishments of up to 14 years imprisonment for a gay marriage and up to 10 years for membership in or encouragement of gay clubs and organizations. The enactment of the law was followed by a wave of arrests of gay men—and widespread denouncement from the international community.
The religious right, however, doesn't see Nigerian laws regarding homosexuality as a gross violation of human rights, but rather as protection of "traditional marriage." In 2011, on the heels of the Nigerian Senate passing an earlier version of the anti-gay law, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would officially promote LGBTQ rights abroad as part of its development framework. In response, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute denounced the administration's directive for putting "U.S. foreign policy on a collision course with religious freedom."
MassResistance, a Massachusetts-based organization that bills itself as a "pro-family" activist group, praised Nigeria when the Nigerian House passed an earlier version of the bill that President Jonathan signed into law on January 7. In a statement, the group said that African nations are "feeling the brunt" of the gay rights movement, claiming that the "huge spread of AIDS" and the "breakdown in society caused by the homosexual movement seems to bring more general social destruction in African cultures than in the West." Anti-gay laws in Nigeria have enjoyed unequivocal support from some hardline evangelical groups in the United States, with some going so far as to travel to Nigeria to spread anti-gay sentiment.
One such group is Family Watch International (FWI), another U.S.-based "pro-family" advocacy group. Formed in 1999 and headed by Sharon Slater, FWI boasts members and supporters from over 170 countries. In 2011, Slater was the keynote speaker at a meeting of the Nigerian Bar Association, where she touted her beliefs on homosexuality, telling delegates that they would no longer have religious freedom and homosexuals would prey on their children if they supported "fictitious sexual rights." To Slater and her ilk, the rights of LGBTQ persons are imaginary.
FWI even wields influence within the United Nations. In early 2011, FWI co-hosted a "Global Family Policy Forum" in Phoenix, Arizona. Over the two-day event, FWI coached 26 UN staffers from 23 different countries in attendance on how to resist UN initiatives on gay rights. An FWI newsletter claimed that conference attendees were finally hearing scientific and clinical "evidence" that homosexuality was not genetically determined and could be cured by therapy.
To some, the belief that homosexuality is a disease that needs to be cured may seem too ridiculous to even entertain. But if the devout can't win at home, they'll take their message abroad. It's up to the international community and African activists dedicated to human rights to put an end to this export of hate.
The Obamas Do Africa June 27, 2013Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Kenya, South Africa.
Tags: Africa, africa trade, afrocom, dirty war, foreign policy, jeremy scahill, kenya, obama africa, obama visit, obamas, roger hollander, senegal, somalia, South Africa, tanzania, uhuru kenyatta
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Tue, 06/25/2013 – 22:57 — Glen Ford
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
President Obama claims he's off to Africa in search of trade. But the Chinese have eclipsed the U.S. in that arena by offering "far better terms of trade and investment than the Americans." Obama talks trade for public consumption, while the U.S. military locks Africa in a cage of steel.
"The U.S. is not in the business of fair and mutually beneficial trade – it's about the business of imperialism."
The President and his family are spending a week in sub-Saharan Africa, with Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa on the itinerary. The focus of the trip, if you believe the White House, is trade, an arena in which the United States has been eclipsed by China since 2009. China, by some measurements, now does nearly twice as much business with Africa as the U.S., and the gap is growing. It is now commonly accepted that the Chinese offer far better terms of trade and investment than the Americans, that they create more jobs for Africans, and their investments leave behind infrastructure that can enrich their African trading partners in the long haul.
No one expects Obama to offer anything on this trip that will reverse America's declining share of the African market. That's because the U.S. is not in the business of fair and mutually beneficial trade – it's about the business of imperialism, which is another matter, entirely. The Americans ensure their access to African natural resources through the barrel of a gun.
So, while the Chinese and Indians and Brazilians and other economic powerhouses play by the rules of give and take, the U.S. tightens its military grip on the continent through its ever-expanding military command, AFRICOM.
To justify its rapid militarization of Africa, Washington plunges whole regions of the continent into chaos. U.S. policies, under presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, have utterly destroyed Somalia, made the Horn of Africa a theater of war, drawn the northern tier of the continent into America's cauldron of terror, and killed six million people in the eastern Congo.
"The Americans ensure their access to African natural resources through the barrel of a gun."
The face of America in Africa is war, not trade; extraction of minerals by military intimidation, not conventional commerce. Washington's priority is to embed AFRICOM ever deeper into the militaries of African states – rather than configuring more favorable trade relationships on the continent. But you won't learn that from the U.S. corporate media, which chooses to focus on the $100 million cost of Obama's African trip, or to look for human interest angles on Obama's decision not to touch down in his father's homeland, Kenya. However, even that angle is too sinister for deeper exploration by the corporate press, because Kenya's absence from the itinerary is meant as a threat.
The United States is angry because Washington wanted the Kenyan people to elect a different president, one more acceptable to U.S. policymakers. The Americans expected the whole of Kenyan civil society to bend to Washington's will, and reject the candidacy of Uhuru Kenyatta, simply to please the superpower. When that didn't happen, it was decided that Kenya must be shunned, despite its past services to U.S. imperialism.
Skipping Kenya was a warning that more serious repercussions may lurk in the future – which is a potent threat, because the U.S. controls most of the guns of Africa. As the U.S.-backed warlord in Somalia said in Jeremy Scahill's excellent film The Dirty War, "The Americans are masters of war." War, and the threat of war, is the reality behind every U.S. presidential visit, to Africa and everywhere else. Whether the terms of trade are good or bad, the declining U.S. empire will get access to the resources it needs, or thousands – millions! – will die.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Listen to us on the Black Talk Radio Network at http://www.blacktalkradionetwork.com
A Second Wave of Genocide Looms in Congo, with Susan Rice on Point November 28, 2012Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Congo, Foreign Policy, Genocide, Libya, Rwanda, Uganda.
Tags: Africa, black caucus, Congo, ethnic cleansing, genocide, glen ford, human rights, roger hollander, rwanda, susan rice, uganda
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Roger's note: Susan Rice, who is Obama's current nominee to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, is appaently as hawkish as they come and would fit comfortably into a McCain or Romney Republican administration. To distinguish between Obama's foreign policy and that of the Republicans would require a pretty powerful microscope. Elsewhere, Glen Ford compares her to Clearance Thomas. But she has served only under Democrat presidents. It's called our two party system. Recent reports indicate that she holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline (cf. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/susan-rice-keystone-pipeline_n_2207861.html)
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford, Wed, 11/28/2012 – 13:14
"Susan Rice has abetted the Congo genocide for much of her political career."
The invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo by U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda, in 1996, set in motion a genocide that left six million Congolese dead. Another wave of mass killings now looms with this month's capture of Goma, an eastern Congolese city of one million, by "rebels" under Rwandan and Ugandan control. "People need to be clear who we are fighting in the Congo," said Kambale Musavuli, of Friends of Congo. "We are fighting western powers, the United States and the United Kingdom, who are arming, training and equipping the Rwandan and Ugandan militaries." The main player in suppressing information on Congo's neighbors' role in the ongoing genocide, is U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice.
Rice has fought a two-front battle to protect Washington's murderous clients, delaying publication of a UN Group of Experts report on Washington's clients' depredations in Congo, and at the same time subverting efforts within the State Department to rein in Uganda and Rwanda. Last week, Rice blocked the UN Security Council from explicitly demanding that Rwanda immediately cease providing support to M23 rebels who vowed to march all the way to Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.
Susan Rice has abetted the Congo genocide for much of her political career. Appointed to President Bill Clinton's National Security Council in 1993, at age 28, she rose to assistant secretary of state for African affairs in 1997 as Rwanda and Uganda were swarming across the eastern Congo, seizing control of mineral resources amid a sea of blood. She is known to be personally close to Rwanda's minority Tutsi leadership, including President Paul Kagame, a ruthless soldier trained at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and mentored by Ugandan strongman (and Reagan administration favorite) Yoweri Museveni, who is believed to have pioneered the use of child soldiers in modern African conflicts.
"Rice said not a word about ethnic cleansing and racial pogroms against black Libyans and sub-Saharan African migrant workers."
On the outside during the Bush years, Rice became a fierce advocate of "humanitarian" military intervention in Africa, urging air and sea attacks on Sudan and championing the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, in 2006. A senior foreign policy advisor on Barack Obama's 2008 campaign team, Rice made it no secret she hoped to be named secretary of state. As UN ambassador, she is the administration's top gun on Africa, the focus of her outsized aggressions. Rice is widely credited with convincing Obama to launch NATO's bombing campaign for regime change in Libya. She parroted false media reports that Muammar Gaddafi's troops were raping Libyan women with the aid of massive gulps of Viagra, refusing to back down even when U.S. military and intelligence officials told NBC news "there is no evidence that Libyan military forces have been given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas." Yet, Rice said not a word about ethnic cleansing and racial pogroms against black Libyans and sub-Saharan African migrant workers, including the well-documented erasure of the black city of Tawergha.
Susan Rice's "humanitarian" instincts, like her boss's, are highly selective – so much so, that a genocide equal to or greater than the Nazi's liquidation of European Jewry is invisible to her. More accurately, Rice labors mightily to render the genocide in Congo invisible to the world, suppressing release or discussion of reports on Rwanda and Uganda's crimes.
"Rice labors mightily to render the genocide in Congo invisible to the world."
The first document, a "Mapping Report," described human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1993 through 2003. Finally published by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in October of 2010, after long delays, the document specifically charges Rwandan troops with engaging in mass killings "that might be classified as crimes of genocide." The more recent report by a UN Group of Experts concludes that M23, the Congolese "rebel" group that captured Goma, is actually "a Rwandan creation," embedded with Rwandan soldiers that take their orders from Paul Kagame's military. Uganda also supports M23.
Susan Rice, as an energetic protector and facilitator of genocide, should be imprisoned for life (given that the death penalty is no longer internationally sanctioned). But of course, the same applies to her superiors, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. One would think that the Congressional Black Caucus would be concerned with the threat of a second wave of mass killings in Congo. Not so. A Google search fails to reveal a word of complaint from the Black lawmakers about genocide in Congo or suppression of documentation of genocide – or much of anything at all about Africa since the death of New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne, ranking member of the House Subcommittee on African Affairs, in March of this year.
"One would think that the Congressional Black Caucus would be concerned with the threat of a second wave of mass killings in Congo. Not so."
Instead, incoming Congressional Black Caucus chair Marcia Fudge, of Cleveland, held a press conference with female Caucus members to defend Rice, "a person who has served this country with distinction," from Republican criticism of her handling of the killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya. "We will not allow a brilliant public servant's record to be mugged to cut off her consideration to be secretary of state," said Fudge.
In the Congressional Black Caucus' estimation, Rice's "record" as chief warmonger in Africa and principal suppressor of the facts on genocide in Congo makes her a role model for African Americans, especially young Black women.
Her relationship to the women of Congo is more problematic. Said Kambale Musavuli, of Friends of Congo, which works tireless on behalf of victims of mass rape in eastern Congo: "Why should you want to help a Congolese woman who is raped, when your tax money is supporting the ones that are doing the raping? That's a contradiction"
In the Age of Obama, the Black American relationship to Africa is suffocating from such contradictions.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo Genocide June 25, 2012Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Congo, Foreign Policy, Genocide, Rwanda, Uganda.
Tags: Africa, africom, antoine roger lokongo, Congo, genocide, kagame, museveni, roger hollander, rwanda, tutsi, uganda
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by Antoine Roger Lokongo
Six million Congolese have died since 1996 so that western corporations could retain unfettered access to the region's mineral wealth. Rwanda and Uganda turned the eastern Congo into a cauldron of death – with impunity, protected by their patrons, the U.S. and Britain. Although the evidence of Rwanda's role in the Congo genocide is irrefutable, Tutsi strongman Paul Kagame's regime "will simply get away with it and recommence again tomorrow – as long as minerals need to be supplied to the West."
Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo Genocide
by Antoine Roger Lokongo
This article appeared in Pambazuka News.
"Britain, America and the European Union are now caught red-handed and cannot claim not to be aware of the plot of annexing eastern Congo to Rwanda and Uganda."
The carnage that is lived daily by the Congolese people in eastern DRC is what the Congolese daily Le Potentiel calls a "forgotten genocide"[1] by the will of the international community. In fact, the international community has witnessed the atrocities being committed in eastern Congo by both Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi armed groups, with the complicity of some Congolese, since the UN peacekeeping mission was deployed in the DRC over a decade ago.
Britain, America and the European Union can no longer turn a blind eye to the complicity of Rwanda and Uganda in both supplying arms and soldiers to Tutsi rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda (both him and his predecessors are already indicted by the ICC) in the troubled North Kivu of the DRC. Britain, America and the European Union are now caught red-handed and cannot claim not to be aware of the plot (of annexing eastern Congo to Rwanda and Uganda, encouraged by the Sudanese experience) that is being weaved by Rwanda and Uganda in the eastern DRC.
Three official reports issued by the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo as reported by the BBC[2], by Human Rights Watch[3] and by the Congolese government (after conducting its own thorough investigation, including interviewing Rwandan fighters caught in the frontline[4]) have all confirmed that Rwanda, for the umpteenth time, is yet again on the front line in eastern Congo. According to Congolese Minister of Information, Lambert Mende Omalanga:
"200 to 300 rebels were recruited in Rwanda in order to be infiltrated in the DRC. They underwent a brief military training before being deployed against the armed forces of the DRC."[5]
Anyway, for the Congolese people there was nothing new. A year before Rwanda joined the Commonwealth (November 2009), The Telegraph, a British daily close to the Conservative Party in Britain and therefore close to the British Crown, revealed that Congolese Tutsi rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda was recruited from the Rwandan army. Rwanda was therefore allowing its territory to be used as a recruiting ground for the rebel movement behind the DRC's bloodshed, according to first-hand accounts and evidence gathered by The Telegraph.
"Rwanda, for the umpteenth time, is yet again on the front line in eastern Congo."
A 27-year-old fighter in Nkunda's movement said that he served as a platoon commander in Rwanda's army:
"There are many former Rwandan soldiers with the CNDP [Gen Nkunda's rebels]. When I was still in the Rwandan army, I was in touch with them. They wanted me to join the CNDP," he said. "I decided to join them because fighting for the CNDP is like fighting for Rwanda."[6]
The US Department of State is said to have issued "a firm statement"[7] warning governments against supporting rebel groups and mutineers operating in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo – without naming Rwanda. In a statement published on 6 June 2012 titled "Situation in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo," US State Department spokesperson Marck C. Toner, said:
"The United States is concerned by the continued mutiny of officers and soldiers formerly integrated into the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and now operating in North Kivu province as an armed group under the name M23, and by recent reports of outside support to M23."[8]
The European Union for its part, is said to be "strongly concerned" about an army mutiny in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the bloc's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
"The EU is strongly concerned by recent developments in the Kivus and the deterioration of the security situation. The current developments require the attention of all countries in the region. Recent cooperation between Rwanda and the DRC on this matter is necessary and positive. The EU is worried by information that this dynamic might be endangered," Ashton said in a statement.[9]
"Rwanda was therefore allowing its territory to be used as a recruiting ground for the rebel movement behind the DRC's bloodshed."
"The Tutsi continued to use the war against Hutu 'genocidists' as a pretext for occupying mining concessions and systematically exploiting them."
Kagame, Museveni and their Western backers have been uncovered. The whole world can now see that they are the main force driving this conflict. As Jacqueline Umurungi writes, some of Kagame's greatest admirers are Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Starbucks magnate Howard Schultz. American evangelist Rick Warren considers him something of an inspiration and even Bill Gates has invested in what has been called Africa's success story. Yes, Western liberals, reactionary evangelicals, and capitalist carpetbaggers alike tout Paul Kagame as the herald of a new, self-reliant African prosperity. Britain annually subsidizes 50 per cent of Rwanda's national budget.[10] Now you understand why the war in mineral-rich eastern Congo never ends and why, mockingly according to the BCC, "there is no end to the tears in the DRC."[11]
What Kinshasa did was to integrate all the Tutsi Congolese into the national army, even those wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity like General Bosco Ntaganda, "who was born in Rwanda where he fought with the ethnic Tutsi rebels who brought current President Paul Kagame to power and ended the genocide in 1994," according to the BBC.[12] The CNDP (The National Congress for the Defence of the People or Congrès national pour la défense du people), a former rebel movement, was transformed into a political party and integrated into President Kabila's coalition in power.
President Kabila put them in charge of military operations against Hutu militia accused of having committed the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Kinshasa even made a deal with Kigali to allow the Rwandan army to enter Congo and hunt Hutu militia. By the way, The ICC recently confirmed the dismissal of charges against Callixte Mbarushimana, a Hutu, of responsibility for atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2009.[13] Then the people of Congo realized that the Tutsi continued to use the war against Hutu "genocidists" as a pretext for occupying mining concessions and systematically exploiting them. That is why the Congolese Tutsi soldiers refuse categorically to be transferred to other parts of Congo to serve there. They just want to be posted in eastern Congo near the Rwandan border. But the Congolese army is supposed to be a national army, not an ethnic army. When President Kabila ordered the transfer of all soldiers from eastern Congo to serve in other parts of Congo, rumor went around that Ntaganda was going to be arrested and transferred to the ICC (Kabila has said he would be tried in Congo). He launched a mutiny known as the 23 March movement (a new name for the CNDP) because they joined the Congolese army under a March 2009 peace deal but have defected "complaining of poor treatment."
Enough is enough. The well-armed and Western-backed Tutsi regimes of Rwanda and Uganda must understand that there is a saying which goes like this: "Lie! Lie! There will always be something left to lie about: the truth." The "international community" will yet again confirm its complicity in the plot against the DRC if Rwanda and Uganda yet again get away with it this time. Is the ICC there just for Charles Taylor and Laurent Gbagbo, but not Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Museveni and Kagame?
[1] Le Potentiel. 2012. Face à l'indéniable implication du Rwanda dans la guerre au Kivu, les Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, l'UE… mis devant leurs responsabilités !, Kinshasa, 11/06/2012.
[2] BBC. 2012. Rwanda 'supporting DR Congo mutineers. BBC News Africa. 28 May 2012.
[3] Smith, David. 2012. Rwandan military 'aiding war crimes suspect' in Congo – Human Rights Watch. The Guardian, World News, Rwanda. 4 June 20. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/04/rwandan-military-war-crimes-suspect
[4] Groupe L'Avenir. 2012. Est de la Rd Congo : Enfin le Rwanda démasqué. lundi 11 juin 2012. http://www.groupelavenir.cd/spip.php?article45903
[5] Le Potentiel. 2012. Face à l'indéniable implication du Rwanda dans la guerre au Kivu, les Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, l'UE… mis devant leurs responsabilités !, Kinshasa, 11/06/2012.
[6] Blair, David. 2008. DR Congo rebels recruited from Rwanda army. The Telegraph. 20 Nov 2008.
[7] AfroAmerica Network. 2012. US Government Warns Governments Supporting Rebellions in DRC. 8 June 2012. http://bit.ly/Kvzquo
[8] Toner, Mark C. 2012. Situation in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Press Statement. US Department of State, 6 June 2012. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/06/191902.htm
[9] AFP. 2012. EU 'concerned' over army mutiny in DRC. News24. 8 August 2012. http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/EU-concerned-over-army-mutiny-in-DRC-20120607
[10] Umurungi, Jacqueline. 2012. The Untold Stories: Again Rwanda is on the front line in the Congo Conflict.Who is fooling who? Inyenyeri News. NYENYERI NEWS, 28 May 2012.
[11] Hubert, Thomas . 2012. Havoc as Congolese flee the 'Terminator'. BBC News Africa. 11 May 2012.
[12] BBC. 2012. Congo warlord Bosco 'Terminator' Ntaganda 'replaced'. BBC News Africa, 8 May 2012.
[13] Reuters. 2012. ICC confirms release of Congo war crimes suspect.
Canada Mines African Discontent June 7, 2011Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Canada, Tanzania.
Tags: Africa, african barrick gold, barrick, Canada, canada government, canada mining, fipa, gold mining, linda mcquaig, multi-nationals, multinationals, roger hollander, Stephen Harper, tanzania, tanzania poverty
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While Canadians may think of ourselves as best known for owning the Olympic podium, among Africans we may actually be better known — and not particularly liked — for owning their natural resources.
Once beloved on the continent, Canada is no longer so fondly regarded in Africa.
The new, less enthusiastic view of Canada was vividly illustrated last month when more than 1,500 desperately poor Tanzanian villagers picked up machetes, rocks and hammers and stormed the mining compound of Canadian-owned African Barrick Gold.
The uprising — leading to the shooting deaths of seven of the villagers by police and security forces at the mine — is a startling reminder that theories widely held in the West about the benefits of foreign investment for the developing world are not always shared by people on the receiving end.
In theory, Barrick's arrival in the 1990s has been a boon to the Tanzanian economy, pushing it toward development.
In reality, Tanzania has collected only a pittance in taxes and royalties from Barrick and other foreign multinationals through contracts that are shrouded in secrecy. So, although it sits on massive gold reserves worth more than $40 billion, Tanzania remains one of world's 10 poorest countries.
A 2008 investigation funded by Norwegian church groups concluded that Tanzania collected an average of only $21.7 million (U.S.) a year in royalty and taxes on more than $2.5 billion worth of gold exported over the previous five years. The investigation also estimated some 400,000 Tanzanians, who formerly mined for gold with nothing but their own picks, shovels and ropes, have been left unemployed by the giant mining operations.
Two months after that report, a government-appointed commission headed by retired Tanzanian judge Mark Bomani strongly urged imposing higher royalties and taxes on the foreign mining companies.
With growing popular pressure for tougher legislation, the Canadian government intervened on the side of the multinationals, pressuring the Tanzanian government and parliament to oppose Bomani's proposed reforms.
Officials from the Canadian High Commission launched an "intense" lobbying mission with Tanzanian legislators aimed at blocking the reforms, according to reports in the Tanzanian newspaper ThisDay.
Ottawa also sought to head off potentially tougher rules governing Canadian mining companies by pressing for stronger investor protections in trade talks with Tanzania, aimed at securing what Canada calls a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA).
"Canada's objective in entering these negotiations is to secure a comprehensive, high-quality agreement to protect investors through the establishment of a framework of legally binding rights and obligations," says a posting on the website of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
The FIPA is "purely an instrument aimed at protecting the interests of Canadian companies in Tanzania," according to Zitto Kabwe, a Tanzanian parliamentarian.
All this seems to be a departure from the way Canada used to operate in Africa.
Back in the 1970s, Canada actually gave African countries help, teaching them how to negotiate better deals with foreign multinationals, says Linda Freeman, a political scientist at Carleton University who specializes in African political economy.
Today, Freeman notes, Canada is solidly on the side of the multinationals, pressuring vulnerable African nations to accept deals favourable to multinationals, with negative implications for their own populations.
Do Canadians care about any of this? Apparently not, according to Canadian parliamentarians, who last fall narrowly voted to defeat a private member's bill aimed at holding Canadian companies operating abroad more accountable here in Canada.
The bill would have made a significant difference in how last month's violence in Tanzania will be investigated, according to Jamie Kneen, with the Ottawa-based watchdog group Mining Watch.
The killings — and additional allegations of rape — are being investigated by Tanzanian police and by Barrick.
But the private member's bill would have entitled villagers to a Canadian government investigation, with potential repercussions for Canadian companies found to have behaved improperly.
The tragic defeat of that bill — and the Harper government's intense focus on championing rights for Canadian corporations — has left Canada flexing its muscle against some of the world's most impoverished people.
Evangelical Homophobia-Planting in Uganda: A Tough Seed With Poisonous Fruit May 10, 2011Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Human Rights, LGBT, Uganda.
Tags: Africa, Bible, bigotry, evangelical, fundamentalism, gay rights, homophobia, human rights, lgbt, religion, religious bigotry, roger hollander, uganda, valerie tarico
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Christian extremists in Uganda's parliament are hoping that hunger and high gas prices will provide the cover they need to finally subject gay men to punishment of biblical proportions. They haveintroduced a bill, up for vote on May 11, that seeks life imprisonment for gay sex and, for repeat offenders, the death penalty. Last year, similar legislation was averted by international outrage. President Museveni was afraid of losing valuable aid dollars, and after outcry arose across the West, with Barack Obama calling the law "odious," Museveni prevented the bill from coming to a vote.
Stopping the bill was insufficient to save the life of one Ugandan,David Kato, who was beaten to death with a hammer in January. Kato was Uganda's most outspoken gay rights advocate and had received many death threats before he was killed. In the winter months before his death, one newspaper ran a front page photo of Kato with an anti-gay rant and a banner urging "Hang them." Last spring I traveled in Mozambique, where a full-page article in a local paper interspersed Bible verses, exhortations to spiritual living, and similar anti-gay vitriol. Although leading fundamentalists like Albert Mohler appear increasinglyresignedto "tolerance" here at home, across Africa the marriage of Christianity and homophobia appears to be thriving—thanks in part to an American tendency to take our outdated wares and social movements overseas.
Two years ago, I wrote an article that asked, "If the Bible Were Law, Would You Qualify for the Death Penalty?" It described some of the thirty six causes for capital punishment listed in the Good Book, including cursing parents, witchcraft, being raped (only within the city limits), adultery, and of course, homosexual sex. Mercifully, even the most old school American Christians seem to ignore the Bible on these points. But one of the unfortunate consequences of Americans exporting biblical literalism to developing countries is thatpeople in those countries take the Bible literally– including the parts we all, missionaries included, wish they wouldn't. In Nigeria, American Pentecostalism has fused with local animism and resulted in children being beaten and burned as witches, just like the Bible prescribes.
In Uganda, American evangelism may besimilarly responsiblefor Kato's death and the proposed law. In March 2009, frustrated by their inability to block the gradual inclusion of gays in the universal human rights umbrella at home, Evangelical leaders traveled to Uganda and led incendiary workshops seeking to increase Ugandan fear that gay men are a threat to straight marriages and children. It would appear that Uganda's already fractured and restive society is reaping what the American missionaries have sown: further contention and violence.
"I don't want anyone killed," said Mr. Schmierer, one of the Evangelical leaders who traveled to Uganda two years ago. "But I don't feel I had anything to do with that [Kato's death]." Many evangelicals, those who see the Bible as literally perfect, find it almost impossible to imagine that the Bible itself could be responsible for inciting violence or that those who preach biblical inerrancy could be complicit in that violence. And yet other Christians, those who see the Bible as the imperfect record of the imperfect struggle of our spiritual ancestors, find this causal chain quite plausible. According to theologian Thom Stark (The Human Faces of God),the biblical record attributes divine sanction in places to some of the worst of Iron Age impulses, including human sacrifice. Unless we understand those writings in their human context we are bound to glorify passages that instead should teach us about the darkness in the human spirit. And glorifying human darkness puts us at risk of enacting it.
It is troubling that of the many offerings that might have been carried by American Christians to Africa in the service of theGreat Commandment, what has been carried instead are the seeds of homophobia—fear, hatred, and death. It will take many voices raised together to reverse the damage done by a few misguided missionaries. I hope those voices will be raised this week (petition here)and again next year, and for as many years as are needed until Uganda's gay community can live in love and peace
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist. She is the author of 'Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light'. She is also the founder of WisdomCommons.org.
Niger Delta Women Act Against Abuses by Big Oil November 10, 2010Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Environment, Human Rights, Nigeria.
Tags: Africa, chevron, environment, niger delta, nigeria, nigeria oil, protest, roger hollander, shell oil, women
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"The reason why we filed this protest is that the affected communities want shore-piling for erosion control. We also need step down line for industrial electrification for the entire Ugborodo communities". -Chief Thomas Ereyitobi, Chairman of Ugborodo community
"In less than three years from now the surging Atlantic Ocean would have wiped away our communities from the face of the earth and in spite of our crying out loudly everyday in the media to call the attention of the Federal Government to our plight, the Niger Delta Ministry did not deem it fit to include the Ugborodo shore protection project in the recently advertised job showing clearly that we are not part of the Nigerian project."
"The Sector 2 Commander admonished the troops deployed to the facility and other areas of the council area to ensure "the use of proper tactical, overt and covert operations to protect the vast infrastructure and equipment at the rig site as well as protection of the rig staff."
Malawi: Judge convicts gay couple May 18, 2010Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, LGBT.
Tags: Africa, anti-gay, donna bryson, gay activists, gay marriage, gay rights, human rights, lgbt, malawi, raphael tenthani, religion, religious bigotry, roger hollander, same sex
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By RAPHAEL TENTHANI
Associated Press, May 18, 2010
BLANTYRE, Malawi — A judge convicted a gay couple in Malawi Tuesday of unnatural acts and gross indecency after a trial that drew worldwide condemnation of this southern African country's colonial-era laws on homosexuality.
Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, had been jailed since their arrest Dec. 27, the day after they celebrated their engagement with a party that drew crowds of curious, jeering onlookers.
Blantyre Chief Resident Magistrate Nyakwawa Usiwa said the sentencing will take place on Thursday. The couple could be imprisoned for up to 14 years.
Hearings in the trial have drawn Malawians who have ridiculed the couple, an indication of views on homosexuality in this traditional society — and elsewhere in Africa.
Undule Mwakasungula, a gay rights activist in Malawi, said the couple's decision to declare their relationship with an engagement ceremony, a first in Malawi, appears to have been personal, not political. Mwakasungula said others have been prosecuted under the law, but this case was different because the two men were open about their homosexuality.
"This is the most publicized case related to that penal code," he said.
Mwakasungula said he did not know the couple before their arrest, but that he and other activists have supported them since. He said they were relaxed before the verdict, but concerned that if they were released, they could be attacked by Malawians who have threatened them.
Mwakasungula said activists had planned to take the two to a safe house if they had been found innocent, but that given the laws and the climate in Malawi, a guilty verdict had been expected.
"It's a challenge in terms of us pushing for legal reform," Mwakasungula said. "We can't be using a law that was enacted in 1940."
The verdict is "extremely disturbing," said Michaela Clayton of the Namibia-based AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa, saying it could encourage anti-gay sentiment in the region as well as set back the fight against AIDS. Gay people forced underground in Africa are unlikely to seek counseling and treatment for AIDS, she and other activists said.
Homosexuality is illegal in at least 37 countries on the continent. In Uganda, lawmakers are considering a bill that would sentence homosexuals to life in prison and include capital punishment for "repeat offenders." Even in South Africa, the only African country that recognizes gay rights, gangs have carried out so-called "corrective" rapes on lesbians.
Clayton said gays and other minorities in Africa had in recent years become more assertive about their sexual orientation and about claiming their rights, which could have led to the backlash.
"We have to keep on being strategic about the way we push this agenda forward," she said.
Priti Patel of the Southern African Litigation Centre, an independent rights group, said Monjeza and Chimbalanga could appeal on the grounds that the laws under which they were prosecuted violate the country's 1994 constitution. But an earlier attempt by their lawyer to have the case thrown out on those grounds was rejected.
Malawi's government has been defiant in the face of international criticism over the prosecution of Monjeza and Chimbalanga. Months before the verdict, Information Minister Leckford Mwanza Thoto said it was clear the two had broken the law.
Malawi church leaders have backed the government, saying homosexuality is "sinful" and the West should not be allowed to use its financial power to force Malawi to accept homosexuality. Malawi relies on donors for 40 percent of its development budget.
The controversy, though, has emboldened some human rights activists in Malawi. The Center for the Development of People was recently formed to fight for the rights of homosexuals and other minorities.
Associated Press Writer Donna Bryson in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


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- Prevent Cancer Foundation - http://preventcancer.org -
Prevent Cancer Super Colon Video
Posted By pcfadmin On March 10, 2011 @ 7:15 pm In | No Comments
The Prevent Cancer SuperColon gained national exposure this September as the headliner for The Doctors show, "Is It In Your Genes?" The thought provoking episode highlighted questions we all need to know about our family history, illustrated by one viewer's worries about a connection between a family predisposition to IBS and colon cancer. Dr. Jeffrey Sherman of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center gave viewers a virtual tour of the SuperColon. The tour included close-ups of the SuperColon interior which showed examples of what doctors look for when doing a colonoscopy. The segment also featured the Foundation's Executive Vice President, Jan Bresch, reminding the television audience that colorectal cancer is Preventable, Treatable, Beatable!
This Segment is licensed by The Doctors and CBS and cannot be replicated, loaned, assigned, transferred to, licensed by or sold to any other person, firm, corporation or entity.
Article printed from Prevent Cancer Foundation: http://preventcancer.org
URL to article: http://preventcancer.org/what-we-do/education/super-colon/super-colon-video/
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[1] Image: http://preventcancer.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/doctors-logo.gif
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Copyright © 2011 PCF Dev. All rights reserved.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Free spirited hippie
Who cares about too much
And nothing at all.
Learning myself day by day
One day my inner being will be found.
Writing is a passion
Fitness is my journey
Reading is my escape
Laughing is my life
I've put on a little body fat but I'm getting back into gear with my healthier eating :)


text:
I've heard from two moms recently about little friends that are bad news for their kids.
One mom was telling me that the little friend was very jealous and didn't want to share her daughter. She would call to find out where her daughter was and who she was with and would leave repeated messages if her daughter wasn't at home. We're talking about an 8-year-old.
Another mom shared that her daughter had a similar friend. When they played together the friend didn't want anyone else involved. She even told her that if she played with other kids on the playground she wasn't her friend.
Both moms are trying to intervene. The first mom is trying to nicely let the girl's mom know that her daughter is calling. She's also not letting them hang out when possible. The second mom is not letting the girls have any more alone time and reminding her daughter frequently not to leave friends out.
I don't remember my mother getting involved with my childhood friendships but as an adult she did. I had made friends with a new woman, and she just kept telling me that she didn't think this woman was nice to me and wasn't really a friend.
What do you think: Does your child have any toxic friends? Have you intervened to separate them? Do you point out when it's not a healthy relationship? What do you do with teen friendships where it's much harder to control their interactions?
March 8th, 2009
5:15 pm
Toxic friends are not tolerated. They are not allowed to remain "friends". It is a good opportunity to teach your child, even if you cannot help the other child.


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text:
Simple Dessert: Strawberries in Red Wine
Simple and elegant, a bowl of strawberries in red wine makes a lovely end to a spring or summer meal.
To make this dessert, just toss a basket of fresh, sweet strawberries with some fruity red wine, a splash of lemon juice, and a little sugar. For this batch, we used a Tempranillo wine with strawberry flavors of its own, but one could also use a wine like Merlot, Zinfandel, Santa Maddalena, Barbera, or Valpolicella.
After letting the berries macerate at room temperature for an hour, chill them in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour and then serve. They are delightful as is or with a dollop of whipped cream of crème fraîche. We like to add a crack of black pepper or pink peppercorns, too.
Get a recipe: Strawberries in Red Wine (Gourmet)
Related: Red & Juicy: 15 Sweet Treats with Strawberries
(Images: Emily Ho)
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Balsamic vinegar is also a great way to go with strawberries!
mmm this reminds me of a recipe i've been meaning to try for raspberry and red wine sorbet in david lebovitz's cookbook.
Oh my god thank you for this.
As a kid, I watched a lot of PBS food tv, and one chef talked about macerating strawberries. Well, I loved strawberries, so I was totally intrigued. I made the mistake of asking my (Irish catholic) parents what macerating was... and needless to say I never asked again.
I didn't dare think about it again for years. And then I saw this recipe! Now I know! and no sex lecture involved. Yipee!


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Emma's 5 Do-Ahead Tips for Planning a Stress-Free Dinner Party
Gatherings from The Kitchn
To cap off this week's series on my All-American Beer Bottling Party, I wanted to share some of my best do-ahead tips to — hopefully! — reduce the stress many of us often feel in the days leading up to, and the day of, a big dinner party. I have not always been the world's most calm and collected hostess (...ahem...), and these tips have been hard-earned. But they're easy! More like habits, really. Once I got used to thinking about a dinner party in terms of doing things ahead, the amount of anxiety I felt in anticipation of the party itself disappeared.
When I throw parties like my All-American Beer Bottling Party, I aim for a balance of three types of dishes: dishes that can be made 1 to 3 days ahead, quick-cooking or quick-to-assemble dishes to make the day of the party, and prepared foods that I will pick up locally, like the pie and pretzels for my party. This way, the work is spread out and I never feel overwhelmed at any one time.
2. Chop vegetables the day ahead: I feel like chopping vegetables is the sneaky time-suck for any dinner. A recipe looks like it can be made in an hour...but then you spend an extra 30 minutes on top of that just chopping up the vegetables. This throws off my dinner party game faster than anything else.
Happily, most vegetables can be chopped the day ahead and kept overnight in the fridge. I made all the components for my Chopped Brown Rice Salad the day before my beer bottling party — including making the rice and slicing the grapes — and tossed everything together just before sitting down to dinner. You can do the same with vegetables that will be sautéed, braised, or grilled.
3. Look for easy "Make-Ahead Moments" in recipes: Even if a recipe can't be made entirely ahead, often there are components within the recipe that can be. The shrimp for my Shrimp Tacos and the Honey & Chili Chicken Thighs were both going to be quickly cooked just before serving, but I made the sauces for these respective dishes the day before. Both sauces were easily made in minutes, but having them done and out of the way made me feel less stressed.
Packing up the prepped salad ingredients.
4. Use the freezer to your advantage: I sometimes forget that the freezer isn't only for longterm storage of freezer meals and smoothie ingredients; we can also use it to store foods for just a few days, thereby cleverly extending the number of days we can make things ahead for parties. Fresh pasta, dinner rolls, pie crusts, and even things like soup bases and sauces can all be made at our convenience in the days (or weeks) before the party — ust remember to let these foods thaw overnight before the party!
5. Set the table the night before: This is an old tip of Faith's that I have adopted wholeheartedly. Setting the table the night before or the morning of the party gives you one less thing to worry about. (Bonus: you get a wrinkle-free tablecloth without ironing!) I sometimes extend this idea a little further by setting up the appetizer station, arranging bottles for making cocktails, and even pulling out serving trays that I'll be using and keeping them on the counter.
Tossing the salad components together just before dinner.
Hanging out while waiting for the main dish to cook... woops!
Chicken is ready! Finally!
I cannot emphasize #1 enough. Planning that time-balanced menu is really key to the whole party coming together without a host meltdown.
This said, there are always things you can't anticipate — like, the dinner at my beer bottling party was late because I forgot to preheat the oven — so my last tip is really just to give yourself a break. I know very few people (myself included) who don't get stressed out at some point while throwing a dinner party. But you know what? It's fine. The party will be just fine. I always remind myself that if the worst happens and dinner is ruined, we can always order pizza and grab some more beers.
What are your best tips for throwing a stress-free party? I love to hear them!
Photography: Danielle Tsi
(Images: Danielle Tsi)
More posts in this series
An All-American Beer Bottling Party
7 Comments
I agree about setting up ahead of time. My own version of magical thinking is that I can handle anything once the table and bar are set up, and I feel completely flustered until it's done. I've been giving dinner parties for 40 years, but it's a true today as it ever was.
My other tried and true hint is: always have a co-host. Someone you trust, who knows you well enough to know what you will and won't freak out about. I was single for a lot of my party giving years and always had at least one person I could trust to keep things on track with little or no direction from me. These days, it's my husband, who is hands-down the best host on earth. We have another couple at whose home we co-host the year's big shindigs for Thanksgiving and Easter. It helps tremendously to have the four of us on hand for the really big (for us) 'dos. I know my co-hostess will be planting flowers and setting out candles til the last possible minute, and she knows that I'll check the bathrooms and get the sink cleared after her other half fills it.
I'm a big one for getting all the serving dishes out. My sisters laugh at me when they arrive on Thanksgiving and I've got a bunch of platters and bowls with little pieces of paper in them: "Cranberry sauce" and "sweet potatoes," etc....
Excellent list, thank you! I also like to draw a diagram of what the table will look like with all the food that I'm serving, it really helps me get a sense of whether or not I have too much/not enough and then I fill out any holes or add things as needed. I can't do parties without my diagram!
I make to do lists by time, so I know at what time each thing needs to go into the oven, have prep started etc.
I'm with Nami 12 and leapkate.
Once the table is set, I'm in party mode! Getting up on party day and seeing the table set is both reassuring and exciting. If you have cats, simply set the table and cover the whole enchilada with a clean sheet.
As for the serving dishes, leapkate and I must be twins separated at birth. I, too, put out serving dishes with little lables. If people see it they think I'm nuts. But, then, I'm not the one scrounging around at the last minute to figure out where the cake plate is and digging it out! I put out the serving dishes AND their needed serving utensils. It's just one less thing to think about at the last minute.
I'm pretty organized when it comes to planning dinner parties but I've never actually thought of setting the table the night before...brilliant! I DO prep everything (chop veggies, etc) either the night before or morning of...that way I can just throw everything together last minute. It really saves time (and stress!).
Great suggestions! I'll expand on the tip about serving items. A few days beforehand, it's easy to pull out all of the serving pieces, utensils, vases, and "party only" items (like my grandmother's crystal, or Christmas dishes e.g.). That's when I make sure all are in good condition and sparkling clean--then always set the table up the night before, including flowers or centerpieces, if any.


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Pioneering companies proactively embrace change--not on a reactionary basis or simply as inevitability, but as an opportunity to challenge the status quo and achieve greater success.
Read Whole Story
Speed. Age. Glocal. Uncertainty. Innovation. I hear business leaders actively talking about these trends as separate entities. But it is clear to me that they are interrelated and must be taken as a whole to sustain profitable growth in this new age.
What's clear from the last year in business is that companies that achieve high, or even healthy growth, have the ability to focus, perceive all the options, choose one or several realities with great market appeal, innovate around them and continue to do so persistently.
What does it take to make a global leader? For Wendy Judge Paulson, lifelong activist and chairman emerita of the worldwide conservation organization Rare, qualities include "intellectual curiosity, fearless tackling of hard questions," and, more unusually, "ecological literacy."
Taken together -- innovation and the approach of looking at the cost competitiveness through the eyes of a private equity company -- thought leaders at our recent conference gave CEOs an important new perspective to achieve sustainable profit growth.
It is hard to do -- especially since most think of innovation as seismic change brought about by all those much-heralded, mass-market disruptions dreamed up by boy geniuses and biotech scientists.
I am encouraging all my students as well as colleagues who are plotting a career change to seriously look at investing in learning essential global leadership skills that will serve both their professional and personal development in the near and long term.
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Lot/land for sale in Corsicana, TX 85,000 USD
Beautiful heavily wooded 1 acre RV-Friendly waterfront in The Shores! Lot 128 is covered in Oak trees and has a quiet privacy that youll apreciate. Its located on a wide cove just around the corner from the waterfront bar & restaraunt, marinas and the main portion of the lake. The Shores offers tons of amenities for the whole family to enjoy.
Brokered And Advertised By: Coldwell Banker Richland Chamb
Listing Agent: Jason Burnham
Request More Information: For more information regarding this land, please give us a call at... .
Data Provided by:
North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, Inc.


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Fifth Harmony's Lauren Vs. Little Mix's Jesy: Who Wore It Better?!
Ariana Grande Accused Of Being A Diva!
Battle of the Boy Bands: One Direction Vs. 5 Seconds of Summer!
Ed Sheeran Confirms Demi Lovato Collab!
Demi Vs. Ariana: Best 'Cosmo' Cover?
WTF! Celebrity Couples Gone Wrong
Battle of the Boy Bands: Ed Vs. 5SOS
The Week in Review, Expressed in Hilary Duff GIFs
The 15 Struggles of Having a Hard-to-Pronounce Name
Daniel Radcliffe Repays Irish Soccer Team Two Years Later
Madam Secretary Review: Bitches Get Stuff Done
How I Met Your Mother: Ted Lets Lily In On His Secret in a New Deleted Scene (VIDEO)
Who Would You Cast in CBS's New Supergirl Project from Arrow's Greg Berlanti?
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Her Cleavage Lead Today's Star Sightings
Nicki Minaj Wig Lawsuit Thrown Out, Janet Jackson's Anniversary: A Roundup
Honey Boo Boo's Parents Broke Up And We All Stopped Believing in True Love
The Worst Movies of 2013 Review Themselves
This 'The Fault in Our Stars' Poster Is Already Damp With Our Tears
Golden Globes 2014 Nominations: Who Got Snubbed, Who Was a Surprise?
'Madam Secretary' Review: A Solid Start for Téa Leoni's Political Drama
Keyshia Cole Arrested in Los Angeles
Fall TV Showdown: It's Time to Vote For Your Favorites in the Elite 8!
Throwback Thursday: See Photos Shared by Demi Lovato, Reese Witherspoon + More
10 YA Books We Wish Were Required Reading
Nicki Minaj's Sexiest, Steamiest Selfies
Watch Pregnant Zoe Saldana Pole Dancing at the Airport (VIDEO)
Cheryl Burke Potentially Leaving Dancing With the Stars — Would You Be Upset?
Grumpy Cat Has a Voice! 14 Cranky-Face Celebs (PHOTOS)
Let's Get Cozy: It's Sweater Weather Season!
Vintage Barbie Dolls
25 Albums To Watch For This Fall
All contents © Hollywire, 2014


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Mia is 17 years old and has an older brother named Jacob Lawson-Black. Their father and mother died when they were younger, so Mia relied on her brother to take care of her until she was old enough to fend for herself.
Mia loves to hang out with her cousin Carlos Pena Jr. and his friends Kendall Schmidt, James Maslow, and Logan Henderson when they have time off from their TV show, and when they are not on tour. Mia hopes to become an actress or a professional dancer like her cousin. Mia is a Vampire and is currently TALKING TO SOMONE.
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BEAN STATION (WATE) - A reward of up to $2,500 is now being offered for the suspect or suspects responsible for two pharmacy burglaries earlier this month in Bean Station and Newport.
The first incident happened at Rite Aid, 1255 Highway 11 West in Bean Station, on June 10. Police say someone came in through the rear of the building and took an unknown amount of medication.
The second happened at Jabo's Pharmacy, 602 E. Broadway in Newport on June 11. Someone came in through a bathroom wall, knocking over the toilet.
Previous story: Burglars break into Newport pharmacy through bathroom wall
The Bean Station Police Department, Newport Police Department and Crime Stoppers are teaming up to offer the reward, donated by RxPATROL, a collaborative effort between industry, pharmacists and law enforcement to collect and disseminate information on pharmacy thefts.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Crime Stoppers Hotline at (888) 4RxTIPS or (888-479-8477).
1306 N. Broadway NE Knoxville, Tennessee 37917
Telephone: 865.637.NEWS(6397)
Fax: 865.525.4091
Email: email@example.com


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The high school dropout rate is one of the biggest challenges facing the United States today. That's why NET Learning Services and a statewide education coalition have initiated a series of broadcast, online, and community engagement activities to raise awareness and share creative solutions. Initially funded as part of American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen, a national public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), NET has made its own two-year commitment to the State of Education in Nebraska project
live streaming schedule & on demand videos
|07:30 pm
|Glenn Korff School of Music Performance: ChamberFest, Kimball Recital Hall
|07:00 pm
|E.N. Thompson Forum 2014-2015: Creativity, Curiosity, and Learning
|The engines of the U. S. economy rely on entrepreneurship, technology, and innovating new products...
|07:00 pm
|E.N. Thompson Forum 2014-2015: Chuck and Linda Wilson Dialogue: Cutting Carbon Emissions: Better Environment, Worse Economy?
|Debate Summary This Wilson Dialogue will explore the global environmental and financial effect of...
|Nebraska Stories: Nebraska Land & Sky, Episode 507
|A British aerial photography team spent 10 days capturing Nebraska from above. In this sneak...
|Nebraska Stories: The Best of..., Episode 507
|This extended length episode features seven stories from across the state. From Morse Bluff, we...
|ICU Learning English: Citizenship Test Review II, 826
|Learn vocabulary related to Citizenship Test Review II
|Consider This: Bed Bugs, 1725
|The library in North Platte closes after finding these on some pieces of furniture. Coming up on...
|Everest avalanche service
|Video of a memorial service following the deadly avalanche on Mount Everest.
|Robert Kay Everest Avalanche
|Robert Kay describes Mount Everest avalanche
|ICU Learning English: Citizenship Test Review I, 825
|Learn vocabulary related to Citizenship Test Review I
|Consider This: Gay Marriage, 1724
|On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state and the sixth jurisdiction in the world...
|Dan Dryden Speaks About What He and Don Christensen Saw When They Entered the Shed After They Purchased Emery Blagdon's Sculptures And Paintings In 1986.
|Dan Dryden speaks about what he and Don Christensen saw when they entered the shed after they...
|Live at the 1200 Club: Special
|NET, partnering with OPA and Hear Nebraska, developed a concept to promote and serve Nebraska...


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Selected Works
All great brands begin with a logo. A logo helps create a visual identity, an image and a legacy around a particular brand. When a logo can speak to peoples senses and evoke certain emotions, it creates staying power and in turn makes a brand memorable. We love creating memorable brands and have lots of experience doing so. We design brands as part of our personal branding packages and our online ID building work. Take a look below at a sampling of what we've created. Contact us to start working on your brand today.


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All quotes tagged The Best
(9292 quotes found)
"Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves -- to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today."
"My love, you know you are my best friend. You know that I'd do anything for you And my love, let nothing come between us. My love for you is strong and true."
"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.' Need I say more?"
"Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price."
"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."


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Kaitlyn's Q & A
Favorite Sport/Team
football - baltimore ravens
Favorite Movie/Actor
travis aaron wade
Go-to karaoke song
fight for your right - beastie boys
My first job
lifeguard/swim instructor
Piercings/Tattoos (How many? Where?)
16 piercings, for me to know and you to try and find out.
Mac or PC?
Nintendo, Xbox 360, PS3, or don't game?
super nintendo and N64. bring it.
What fun fact, talent or superpower of yours should guys know about?
I am currently working on gleeking on command. I'll drink you under the table.
What's the most memorable pick up line you've ever heard?
hey umm, I've got a hotel room..
What's the craziest thing you've ever done?
fallen off a hotel balcony. oops.
What's the most unusual place you've ever hooked up? How'd it go?
I could write a book.
What's in your purse or pocket right now?
What do you feel most comfortable wearing?
sweats and a beater
Would you rather have boring sex all the time or an amazing romp once a year?
If you could do a shot of Jose Cuervo with anyone -- dead or alive -- who would it be?
bob barker.


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Alberta has become the third leg of a process which the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA) sees as a way to finalize a prairie-wide entity funding oat research, market development and education. The Alberta Oat Growers Commission (AOGC) was established by the provincial government in July 2012, to begin collecting a 50 cents per tonne levy on all Alberta-grown oats marketed commercially. Collection began on August 1, 2012.
"The Alberta Oat Growers Commission is a big step for oat producers in our province," added Gordon Pope, Director of the Alberta Oat Growers Commission Steering Committee. "Until now, an organization dedicated to the specific needs of Alberta's oat growers didn't exist. The new commission will work with our partners in Saskatchewan and Manitoba on initiatives that will benefit the western Canadian oat industry as a whole."
While oats are one of the last of the major grains to create an advocacy and research organization, the funding support from Alberta oat growers, (through a check-off of less than 1 cent per bushel), will have a major impact on the future of the industry. POGA was launched in 1998 by oat growers from the three prairie provinces and continues to act as an umbrella agency, coordinating activities with and through SODC , MOGA and now AOGC
All Alberta oat growers who pay into the service fee (also known as a check off) are welcome to attend the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Prairie Oat Growers Association, and the AGM of the Alberta Oat Growers Commission.
AOGC members are also encouraged to let their names stand for director positions. Benefits of being a director for AOGC include:
Please contact the POGA office for information on how to express interest.
Also see:


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Roy Bahat, president of video gaming site IGN Entertainment, on his company's call for software developers: bring your passion, bring your talent, but leave the resume behind.
Tomio Geron talks with Karma co-founder Lee Linden about his new app which enables its users to share gifts with others based upon social media recommendations.
CEO Michael Lazerow on the new marketing revolution in social media and how to be on the forefront of increasing a brand's reach.
"When everyone else loses power, I've still got my pencil."
New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee discusses the mechanics of his craft, why he hasn't embraced technology and draws three exclusive cartoon panels for Forbes' Jeff Bercovici at SXSW Interactive.
It's a tough competition out there. Zack O'Malley Greenberg wants to know how the rising artists of SXSW land gigs in Austin - and what they do to stand out.
"How is a new artist supposed to be discovered in a meaningful way? How am I supposed to broaden my music horizon or stay on top of all the new stuff that comes out each week? That's about $10 an album—even I can't afford that. With the new model, where you don't have to make a purchase to enjoy a piece of art…that's the way it should be."
Digital music service Rdio refreshes its platform with a focus on social circles, positions itself to compete with Spotify and Pandora and gears up for international expansion. Forbes' Tomio Geron sits down with Malthe Sigurdsson, Rdio's VP of Product, for an exclusive interview from SXSW Interactive.
Behold: the media coop in the Austin Convention Center, where journalists from various publications power-write, nap, —and then, of course, power-write some more. Tee-shirt, jeans and some energy drinks? It's a glamorous life.
"There is simply no evidence to prove that technology and social media are causing more cheating. There are very clear indicators of cheating within the architecture of the brain, and the human brain has not changed in over 2,000 years. If you're a cheater, you're going to cheat. If you don't meet your ex girlfriend from high school through Facebook and sleep with her, you're certainly going to find someone else."
-Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and chief scientific for Match.com, speaks to Forbes' Meghan Casserly about the reason that women cheat and why we can't stop sexting.
Zack O'Malley Greenburg interviews the alterna-folk songstress known as L.P. in Austin.
British crooner Ed Sheeran takes a moment out of his busy SXSW schedule to chat.
Brian Petchers (from ForbesVideo) and Zack O'Malley Greenburg hanging out backstage, waiting to interview The Staves at La Zona Rosa.


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Black and Gold Soup
Notes: Donna Higgins of Halfway, Oregon, threw this soup together as a "desperation dinner." She used canned black beans and chicken broth from the pantry, and squash from her garden.
Yield: Makes 4 servings
More From Sunset
Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
- Calories: 389
- Calories from fat: 15%
- Protein: 38g
- Fat: 6.3g
- Saturated fat: 1.5g
- Carbohydrate: 46g
- Fiber: 12g
- Sodium: 794mg
- Cholesterol: 62mg
- 3 1/2 cups fat-skimmed chicken broth
- 2 packages (12 to 14 oz. each) frozen puréed yellow squash
- 2 cans (15 oz. each) black beans, rinsed and drained
- 2 cups shredded skinned cooked chicken
- 1/2 cup tomato salsa
- About 1/4 cup tequila (optional)
- About 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
- 1. Combine broth and squash in a 4- to 6-quart pan over high heat. Stir frequently until squash is thawed and mixture boils, 15 to 18 minutes.
- 2. Stir in beans, chicken, salsa, and tequila and lemon juice to taste; stir often just until hot, 1 to 2 minutes.
- 3. Ladle into wide bowls. Garnish with cilantro.
My Notes
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Black and Gold Soup Recipe at a Glance
- COURSE: Soups/Stews
- CONVENIENCE: Quick/Easy
- CUISINE: American, Southwest
- MAIN INGREDIENT: Poultry
- DIETARY CONSIDERATION: Low Fat, Gluten-Free
- PUBLICATION: Sunset
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Walk for fun class
Aging Well will host a free walk for fun class
- When: Wednesday, June 9, 2010, 11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
- Where: Bud Werner Memorial Library, Steamboat Springs
- Cost: Free
- Age limit: Not available
- Categories: Leisure
Aging Well will host a free walk for fun class starting today, from 11 to 11:45 a.m. The class is at Bud Werner Memorial Library and will walk on the Yampa River Core Trail. Call Aging Well at 871-7676 to sign up.
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Maya's summer is shaping up to be unforgettablein both good and bad ways. First she's sent to stay with her grandmother for a month. Living in the city, Maya is too far from her friend Keysha and her boyfriend, Misaloand too near her rebellious cousin Viviana. When Maya finally comes home, her parents drop a bombshellViviana is moving in with them.
Her cousin has barely unpacked before she's creating chaos. Truth is, Maya kind of likes the way life is a whole… (more)
Publisher: Kimani TRU (October 25, 2011)
Format: EPUB
Page count: 256 pages
File size: 285 KB
Protection: DRM
Language: English