Chicago Defender

Category: WORLD

Chelsea, Tottenham players face racial abuse

Photo caption: Juventus' Mirko Vucinic, right, is tackled by Chelsea's John Obi Mikel during their Champions League group E soccer match at Stamford Bridge, London, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Tom Hevezi)

LONDON (AP) — Chelsea has asked police to investigate racist abuse directed at midfielder John Obi Mikel, while black Tottenham players were apparently taunted during a Europa League match.

Racist tweets were sent to Mikel after the Nigeria international's mistake in Wednesday's Champions League opener against Juventus led to Chelsea conceding an equalizer.

Mikel, who has apologized for giving the ball away late in the match at Stamford Bridge, deleted his Twitter account Thursday.

"We've been made aware of racist tweets targeted at Mikel which are totally unacceptable, disgusting and abhorrent," Chelsea said in a statement. "We've informed the police and support taking the strongest possible action."

On Thursday night at White Hart Lane, Lazio fans allegedly aimed monkey chants at Tottenham players Jermain Defoe, Aaron Lennon and Andros Townsend during the 0-0 draw.

UEFA President Michel Platini was at the match, and Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas expects European football's governing body to take action if the case is proven.

"UEFA is very active on this kind of situation so and our overall objective is to kick racism out of football," Villas-Boas said. "I can't point the finger at anyone in any way shape or form tonight because I didn't hear anything. It's for the authorities to follow up in any kind of investigation."

On Wednesday, British lawmakers urged football authorities to do more to combat racism in football.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Category: WORLD

South Africa: Lonmin miners ready to resume work

Photo caption: Miners sing and dance whilst holding South African bank notes in Lonmin Platinum Mine near Rustenburg, South Africa, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012. Striking miners have accepted a company offer of a 22% overall pay increase to end more than five weeks of crippling and bloody industrial action. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

MARIKANA, South Africa (AP) — Lonmin miners celebrated a wage deal Wednesday that ended a deadly and prolonged strike but labor unrest continued with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas at strikers at a different platinum mine.

Some warned that the deal struck by Lonmin to give its 28,000 workers up to 22 percent pay raises would incite other miners to similar action. Lonmin also employs 10,000 contract workers not covered by the agreement.

"It sets a dangerous precedent and illegal actions to enforce wage increases could occur at other mines in future," said Gideon du Plessis, head of the mainly white Solidarity mining union.

The Lonmin agreement reached Tuesday night does not resolve the union rivalry that was at the heart of the violence, nor the class struggle that it exposed between a small, politically connected black elite and the majority of impoverished South Africans who feel the government has failed to keep its promise of a better life for all.

And the political and economic fallout likely will hurt the re-election campaign of South African President Jacob Zuma, whom miners blame for the police shootings of 112 striking miners, which killed 34 on Aug. 16. The total number of those who died during the strike rose to 46 Wednesday when a woman died in hospital after being shot on Saturday when police raided the Wonderkop settlement, according to mediator Bishop Joe Seoka.

At the Lonmin mine at Marikana, the world's third largest platinum mine, thousands gathered and sang the national anthem in piercing heat, holding up umbrellas to block the sun. Workers cheered and laughed as they walked into the mine stadium. Many hurt by the no-work, no-pay stoppage said they would be happy to return to work Thursday.

Lonmin agreed to a gross pay of 11,078 rand ($1,385) for rock drill operators who had been demanding a monthly take-home wage of 12,500 rand ($1,560). They also agreed to give all miners a 2,000 rand ($250) bonus for returning to work. A statement from the company said that miners will receive between 11 and 22 percent wage increases.

"If everyone is happy with the money, I am also happy with them because I am here to work for my children," said miner Stan Chayisa.

"I am so happy," said Mvenyeza Luhlaziyao, 48, a painter at the mines. "I try to forget the past and continue to move forward ... We must continue to build the company and management must listen to us in the future. People didn't care about us, that's why we decided to go on strike."

Zolisa Bodlani, one of the strike leaders, said the agreement is noteworthy. "If no people were killed, I'd say this was a great achievement," he said. "We've never in the history of South Africa had such an increase of pay as 22 percent."

Two wives of winch operators expressed their pleasure that the strike had ended. "The weeks without pay were terrible," said Plaxedes Matemba, a 39-year-old mother of two.

"It will make life better for us," she said of the pay raise. "We expect better changes again ... there will be no more provoking, no more noise, no more beatings," she said.

Still, many expressed anger toward the government, questioning Zuma's leadership as he prepares for a crucial governing party congress in December that will decide whether he gets another term as leader of Africa's richest economy.

They "brought the police to shoot us, so I don't believe the current president of South Africa should be the president again. There must be change," said miner Michael Maleswa.

Another, Johannes Hlkela, said "I don't believe he (Zuma) should be president again because of the way he has killed people like animals."

Strikers had spoken against the huge economic inequality and the government's failure to address massive unemployment and poverty. Most Lonmin miners live in tin shacks without water or electricity.

The strike has highlighted the country's widening gap between the majority poor and a small black elite enriched, often corruptly, through shares in mines.

Government plans in the aftermath of the brutal apartheid regime to share the wealth of a country that provides 75 percent of the world's platinum, a fourth of its chrome and is in the top 10 of gold producers have made a small handful of blacks billionaires, joining a small white elite that continues to control an economy dominated by mineral resources and agriculture.

The exuberant crowd at Lonmin was addressed by Joseph Mathunjwa, president of the breakaway Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union that has poached thousands of members from the dominant, government-allied National Union of Mineworkers this year.

"From the 16th of August, you have known who are your proper leaders. Now you know who is the leader of the boardroom and who is the leader of the people," he said. "The right leader is the one who comes forth to its people without security or bodyguards to talk to its members. The leader who is afraid to come forth to workers or miners, he is afraid because he knows what he has done."

Many miners said they were angry at Zuma for not visiting the site of the police shootings when he belatedly came to address them.

The National Union of Mineworkers said the Lonmin deal will open the way for new demands from other miners."

Spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said the NUM will try to set up a forum with other mining companies.

"Of course this is going to set a precedent," he said. "We want the companies to come together into bargaining so that we can deal with this thing. The challenge is going to be whether the other companies will be able to do 22 percent."

At Anglo American Platinum's Amplats mine near Rustenburg, northwest of Johannesburg, some 400 to 500 strikers tried to march Wednesday. The workers at Amplats, the world's biggest platinum mine, have said that they are better paid than Lonmin strikers and want even more than the Lonmin strikers' demands for a monthly take-home salary of 12,500 rand ($1,560).

Police ordered the Amplats strikers to lay down their homemade weapons - machetes, spears and clubs. "Police asked them to disperse and when they wouldn't, police used tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd," said police spokesman Dennis Adriao. "We've said from the start that we would not tolerate illegal gatherings."

He said 19 people were arrested.

Zuma gave police the go-ahead for a crackdown on the strikers, further angering miners.

Anglo American Platinum spokeswoman Mpumi Sithole said all five mines in Rustenburg had reopened Tuesday. But she refused to say how many miners have returned to work. Anglo released a statement late Wednesday that said legal avenues may be pursued for workers who do not return by Thursday's night shift.

South Africa Press Association reported that the head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zwelinzima Vavi, left the group's conference Wednesday to deal with a strike at Gold Fields' Driefontein mine in Carletonville. It said that 15,000 workers have been on an illegal strike for 10 days.

Vavi said the mineworkers were also demanding a salary of 12,500 rand, according to SAPA. He said of Lonmin: "If those workers forced the hand of the company in that fashion through an unprotected strike, what stops Driefontein in doing the same," according to SAPA, which also said that leaders from the National Union of Mineworkers went with Vavi to the mine.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Category: WORLD

Jamaica introduces Garveyism in classrooms

Photo caption: In this Aug. 1922 file photo, Marcus Garvey is shown in a military uniform as the "Provisional President of Africa" during a parade on the opening day of the annual Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World at Lenox Avenue in Harlem, New York City. A century ago, Garvey helped spark movements from African nationalist independence to American civil rights to self-sufficiency in black commerce. Jamaican students in every grade from kindergarten through high school have began studying the teachings of the 1920-era black nationalist leader in a new mandatory civics program in schools across this predominantly black country of 2.8 million people. (AP Photo/File)

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Struggling with a chronically stagnant economy and one of the highest crime rates in the world, Jamaica is turning for help to a black nationalist leader who died more than 70 years ago.

Marcus Garvey, who inspired millions of followers worldwide with messages of black pride and self-reliance, is being resurrected in a new mandatory civics program in schools across this predominantly black country of 2.8 million people.

Students from kindergarten through high school are supposed to learn values such as self-esteem, respect for others and personal responsibility by studying Garvey, whom Martin Luther King Jr. called the "first man on a mass scale and level to give Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny."

But the program almost totally avoids mention of the positions that made Garvey deeply controversial: his promotion of a "back to Africa" movement, his use of the title "provisional president of Africa" and a campaign for racial separation, born of the conviction that whites would never allow blacks justice. He even met with the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, leading some mainstream African-American leaders to question his sanity.

American civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois once called him "the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race."

The program is a major rethinking of Garvey's legacy in his Caribbean homeland. He was the first person named a national hero following independence in 1962, and the government put his likeness on coins. But it had declined repeated calls to use his teachings in schools, where history is not a required subject.

"The teaching of Garveyism in schools is something that politicians of all stripes have shied away from partly because of their own intellectual ignorance and partly because they don't know what to make of this complex subject," said Robert Hill, a Garvey expert who is professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles.

But Jamaicans take great pride in the achievements of a native son who created an international movement.

"We want all our children to believe they are important to what becomes of this country. Through Marcus Garvey, we see what it means ... to admit to no stumbling block that we cannot overcome," said Amina Blackwood Meeks, the Ministry of Education's culture director who led efforts to draft the Garvey-infused civics program.

For many Garvey adherents in Jamaica, where reggae luminary Burning Spear once mournfully sang "no one remembers old Marcus Garvey," the only question is: What took so long?

Born nearly 50 years after the abolition of slavery in Jamaica, Garvey founded the United Negro Improvement Association in 1914 on the island, and then built it into a mass movement in New York from 1919 to 1927. He established a network of "Liberty Halls" as venues for political debate, theater and scholarship around black themes, raising awareness of African achievements and calling for economic empowerment to circumvent racism.

From his Harlem base, Garvey urged people find pride in their African history, and assured the descendants of slaves that there were no limitations to what they could accomplish. His Pan-African philosophy urged blacks to return to the continent of their ancestors and he launched the Black Star Line, a fleet of steamships intended to take them there.

During his meteoric rise, he was bitterly opposed by some fellow black intellectuals, especially Du Bois, who said Garvey was either "a lunatic or a traitor." In turn, Garvey called Du Bois a "rabid mulatto who needed a horse whipping," and he dismissed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, as seeking black assimilation into white society.

His movement claimed to speak on behalf of Africans and delegates at one congress elected him "provisional president of Africa."

Garvey was eventually convicted of mail fraud charges in connection with his steamship line and was deported to Jamaica in 1927.

But in the early decades of the 20th century, when segregation was deeply implanted in the United States and when European colonialism still stretched around the world, Garvey's words also inspired civil rights figures in America, political leaders in Africa and the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica.

It's the uplifting and ambitious aspects of Garvey's life that educators hope will inspire youngsters in modern-day Jamaica, where times are tough for many.

The official unemployment rate is over 14 percent, but many economists believe it's higher. Nearly 30 percent of high school students dropped out just before their final year in 2011 and standardized test scores are sinking. Over the past decade, the United Nations says, the island had the world's third-highest murder rate, with about 60 slayings per 100,000 inhabitants. Young slum dwellers use concoctions that promise to transform dark complexions to a cafe-au-lait color.

Some island academics blame many of the country's woes on the lingering effects of slavery, which was particularly brutal on Jamaica's sugar plantations.

"We have to use all tools and strategies at our disposal to tell our children and our people in general that, as Garvey said, the black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a symbol of national greatness," said Verene A. Shepherd, director of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at Jamaica's University of the West Indies. "If Jamaicans from very young are imbued with this kind of thinking, we will see the benefits in years to come."

But some academics question whether the program can really overcome the lack of economic opportunities in Jamaica, arguing that self-esteem follows achievement, not the other way around. They also say students will ultimately reject efforts to turn a historical figure into nationalistic propaganda.

Hill said he suspects the program will mostly involve "beating the drum for Garvey" while glossing over his complexities.

"If I just say to students, 'Garvey is a great man and here's the reasons he was great,' that hasn't taught them anything. In fact, the likelihood is you are likely to alienate the very students you are trying to reach because they will recognize it as just a form of ideological brainwashing," Hill said. "You have to teach Garvey as part of the development of political thought."

The teachers' handbook for the new program includes lesson plans using famous Garvey quotes such as "Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will" to instill personal identity, discipline, courtesy, national pride and heritage. It says economics lessons could highlight Garvey's experiences as an entrepreneur, while devotionals will include hymns he wrote. Youngsters will be required to keep a journal.

One of the few references to his "back to Africa" call is a suggestion that students "explore ship building, the shipping industry and travel by sea through a project to reconstruct (small models of) the ships of the Black Star Line."

So far there has been no public opposition to the program from blacks or whites, who are accustomed to seeing Garvey as a part of the country's history and seem happy to have civics of any sort introduced at schools.

Meeks said nothing about the program will be alienating for students or faculty who are not black.

Several schools declined to allow a reporter inside classrooms to see the civics course in action because orientation was just getting started.

But Education Minister Ronald Thwaites said he's confident the program will soon be a success, saying that "after many false starts, the campaign of values and attitudes now begin in earnest, rooted and founded" in Garvey.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Category: WORLD

Free speech, religion clash over anti-Muslim film

Photo caption: Indonesian Muslims burn an American flag during a protest against an American-made film that ridicules Prophet Muhammad outside the U.S. Consulate in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012. Indonesians continue to protest the anti-Islam film "Innocence of Muslims," torching the flag and tires outside the consulate in the country's third largest city of Medan. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

CERRITOS, Calif. (AP) — While the man behind an anti-Islam movie that ignited violence across the Middle East would likely face swift punishment in his native Egypt for making the film, in America the government is in the thorny position of protecting his free speech rights and looking out for his safety even while condemning his message.

It's a paradox that makes little sense to those protesting and calling for blood. To them, the movie dialogue denigrating the Prophet Muhammad is all the evidence needed to pursue justice — vigilante or otherwise — against Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, an American citizen originally from Egypt.

In America, there's nothing illegal about making a movie that disparages a religious figure. And that has the Obama administration walking a diplomatic tight rope less than two months before the election — how to express outrage over the movie's treatment of Islam without compromising the most basic American freedom.

"The thing that makes this particularly difficult for the United States is that ... we treat what most of us would refer to as hate speech as constitutionally protected speech and Americans don't appreciate, I think, how unusual this position seems in the rest of the world," said Lawrence Rosenthal, a professor at Chapman University's School of Law in Orange, Calif.

The situation also raises vexing questions about how far the government can and should go to protect someone who exercises their First Amendment right. In the past, for example, police have stood guard to ensure Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan could march without being attacked for their views.

But Nakoula's case invites scrutiny because the free speech he exercised with the film "Innocence of Muslims" has had such far-reaching and violent implications.

If the government were to overtly protect Nakoula, it could be seen by some as tacit approval of the film, and further enflame protests. Leaving him to fend for himself could have deadly consequences. There are examples of violence against others who have written or spoken against Muhammad.

So far, the government has acknowledged offering very limited assistance. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies escorted Nakoula to an interview with federal probation officials. They did so in the dead of night and allowed Nakoula to cover his face. And early Monday, deputies answered his family's request for help leaving the house where they'd been holed up for five days so they could reunite with the 55-year-old filmmaker. All remain in hiding.

Department spokesman Steve Whitmore stressed the agency is not providing protective custody. He referred questions to federal authorities, who have declined to comment.

Jody Armour, a professor at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, said it's "not unusual at all for the government to step in and give a citizen in distress or danger special protection, but it can't unlimited. They're going to have to strike a balance."

A 14-minute trailer for the film posted on YouTube sparked violence in the Middle East, including an attack in Libya in which a U.S. ambassador was killed. Nakoula, a Coptic Christian and American citizen who served federal prison time for check fraud, told The Associated Press in a short interview last week that he was involved in management and logistics for the anti-Islamic film. Federal officials, however, told the AP they have concluded he was behind the movie.

Furor over the film has been widespread. Bahrain protesters used Twitter to organize demonstrations that included burning American flags in the nation that hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Pakistan's conservative Islamist parties sent out text messages, mosque announcements and made phone calls to bring out protest crowds, including about 1,000 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday and hundreds who rushed the U.S. consulate in Karachi, sparking clashes with police in which one demonstrator was killed.

"Yes, we understand the First Amendment and all of this stuff," wrote Khalid Amayreh, a prominent Islamist commentator and blogger in Hebron on the West Bank. "But you must also understand that the Prophet (for us) is a million times more sacred than the American Constitution."

Were he in his native Egypt, Nakoula could be charged with "insulting religion," a crime punishable by up to three years in prison or could face the more serious charge of "upsetting national security," which carries a life sentence.

In America, the government can't even order that the video be removed from YouTube. All it can do is ask. And so far, parent company Google has declined, saying the video was within its guidelines for content. The company did restrict access to the video in certain countries, including Egypt, Libya and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

"This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere," the company said in a statement.

That's precisely the point about the First Amendment, Armour said.

"The reason it is a constitutionally protected interest is precisely because it may prove unpopular," he said. "Words and images don't just convey information, they are attached to consequences. That's when we really have to ask ourselves, 'What price are we willing to pay for that First Amendment interest?' And these are the times that really test our convictions."

In 1975, former CIA agent Philip Agee published a book detailing agency operations and disclosing the names of a number of CIA agents working undercover overseas, Rosenthal said. Even in that instance, the U.S. government didn't press criminal charges but instead revoked Agee's passport and sued him for the book's profits.

"It's not clear that there is, on the books today, a law that makes what (Nakoula) did a crime," Rosenthal said. "This is an extremely difficult problem."

Indeed, federal officials have said they are looking at Nakoula only in the context of whether he violated his probation for the fraud conviction. Under terms of his sentence, he was banned from using computers or the Internet as part of his sentence.

The probation issue "gives the government a relatively low visibility way of prosecuting him but not technically for what he said and how inflammatory it was," Armour said. "It may be a way of splitting the baby."

Associated Press writer Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.