Guardian UK
TULSA, Okla. (AP) – Anger over a homeless man’s fatal beating of a brass-knuckle-wielding bar owner is boiling over in Tulsa, where street people are facing a loosely organized campaign against their presence – and in some cases are being run out of the area.

T-shirts around town blast homeless people with a four-letter word, and some people are warning of vigilante justice. A liquor store put up a wanted poster with a picture of Terry Badgewell, the man who used a length of pipe to kill Deadtown Tavern owner Shawn Howard.

A prosecutor said the killing was self-defense and refused to file charges, but the victim’s family is gathering thousands of signatures on a petition to force a grand jury investigation.

“We’re very committed,” said Howard’s mother, Kay. “Shawn deserves this.”

Meanwhile, Tulsa’s homeless are feeling the heat. Michael Cypert, 31, who usually stays at a Salvation Army shelter near downtown, said patrons of the Deadtown Tavern chased him away from the area during a memorial for Howard a few days after his June 25 death.

Police have warned homeless people to stay away from the bar, and Cypert said has seen people downtown wearing “F— the homeless” T-shirts handed out by bar owners. full article

What is becoming clearer by the day is the increasing mean-spiritedness of American people, and this especially manifests in hostility towards the poor. ‘Sweeps’ of the homeless in major cities, police violence, Bill Cosby’s poor-bashing…The physical presence of poor people is insulting to those who cherish the image of America portrayed in all of the many Army-recruiting commercials, shining the light of freedom and prosperity on the rest of the world. This mean-spiritedness is being actively encouraged by the government, despite all the rhetoric about ‘unity in diversity’. ‘Diversity seems to mean that conversations about race and poverty are off-limits. The racial demographic of poverty is never discussed. It is not politically correct to have t-shirts that say f* blacks. People who talk about race, like Al Sharpton, are called divisive for pointing out the stark divisions which exist.

Gap Between Rich and Poor Widening in Troubled Economy commondreams.org
WASHINGTON — Over two decades, the income gap has steadily increased between the richest Americans, who own homes and stocks and got big tax breaks, and those at the middle and bottom of the pay scale, whose paychecks buy less.

The growing disparity is even more pronounced in this recovering economy. Wages are stagnant, and the middle class is shouldering a larger tax burden. Prices for health care, housing, tuition, gas and food have soared.

The wealthiest 20 percent of households in 1973 accounted for 44 percent of total U.S. income, according to the Census Bureau. Their share jumped to 50 percent in 2002, while everyone else’s fell. For the bottom fifth, the share dropped from 4.2 percent to 3.5 percent. full article

Guardian UK
Half of Japanese primary and secondary school students have never seen a sunrise or sunset, according to a survey.

The study, conducted last year among 900 children, found that Japanese youngsters spend significantly less time outdoors than previous generations.

Compiled by Tetsuro Saito of Kawamura Gakuen Women’s University, the report is the fourth of its kind to be carried out since 1991.

It shows that 52% of today’s children have never seen either a sunrise or a sunset. Thirteen years ago the figure was 41%.

“Today’s parents don’t have a lot of experience with nature,” said Professor Saito, who advocates changing the classroom-bound education system to allow for more time for outdoor learning.

“But the situation can only improve if parents make an effort to spend more time outdoors with their children.”

Parents’ groups and other social analysts say several factors have influenced young people’s distant relationship with the environment. These range from an urbanised lifestyle with its emphasis on consumption and few opportunities to spend time outdoors, to Japan’s notorious cram school system. full article

Guardian UK
When it comes to American presidential elections, blue blood counts.

So say British researchers who predict that Democratic challenger John Kerry will oust President George Bush on November 2 because he boasts more royal connections than his Republican rival.

After months of research into Mr Kerry’s ancestry, Burke’s Peerage, experts on British aristocracy, reported yesterday that the Vietnam war veteran is related to all the royal houses of Europe and can claim kinship with Tsar Ivan “The Terrible”, a previous Emperor of Byzantium and the Shahs of Persia.

Burke’s director, Harold Brooks-Baker, said Mr Kerry had his mother, Rosemary Forbes, to thank for most of his royal connections.

“Every maternal blood line of Kerry makes him more royal than any previous American president,” Mr Brooks-Baker said.
full article

Guardian UK
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Accompanied by a warning that its missiles have the range, Iran on Tuesday said it would destroy Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor if the Jewish state were to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“If Israel fires a missile into the Bushehr nuclear power plant, it has to say goodbye forever to its Dimona nuclear facility, where it produces and stockpiles nuclear weapons,” the deputy chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, said in a statement.

Bushehr, a coastal town on the Persian Gulf, is the site of Iran’s first nuclear reactor. Built with Russian assistance, it’s due to come online in 2005.

Iran says its nuclear program is strictly for generating electricity. But Israel and the United States strongly suspect Iran is secretly building nuclear weapons. full article

New York Times
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, Aug. 16 – Leonel Fernández returned to the presidency of this nation after a four-year hiatus on Monday, bracing Dominicans for austerity measures needed to ease an economic crisis that has caused living standards to plummet during the past year.

Mr. Fernández, a lawyer and former university professor, said in a speech at a swearing-in ceremony that he would restrict spending by government agencies, preventing civil servants from using public funds to buy the imported sport utility vehicles that have become symbols here of skewed income distribution, rubbing up against the dilapidated motor scooters that fill the streets of this city.

He also said his administration would limit international phone calls by civil servants, among other cost-cutting measures intended to reduce a budget shortfall that has depleted resources to import fuel and generate electricity. In a jab against his predecessor, Hipólito Mejía, a populist businessman against whom Mr. Fernández won a landslide victory in May, he deplored the “absence of seriousness in everything.”

…Mr. Fernández reached out to President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in a trip to Caracas last month, seeking to preserve an agreement allowing the Dominican Republic to import oil on favorable terms. And Mr. Fernández was scheduled to meet Monday evening with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in an effort to strengthen ties with that country, Latin America’s largest. full article

Maybe what we are seeing is the start of a ‘reverse domino theory’, countries one by one escaping the traps set for them by the US and Europe.

New York Times
JERUSALEM, Aug. 17 — The day before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faces sharp debate about his policies at his own Likud Party convention, his government made an effort to pacify his critics today, issuing tenders for 1,001 new, government-subsidized apartments for settlers in the occupied West Bank.

The decision will annoy Washington, Western diplomats said. The road map to peace, which Israel accepted, calls for a freeze on all Israeli settlement activity.

While Israeli officials insisted the new housing was long planned and remained within current settlement boundaries, it will renew the debate in Washington over Israeli compliance.

“It’s difficult to see how 1,001 new housing starts are consistent with the road map,” a Western diplomat said today. full article

Let’s see: road to nowhere? Road to disaster? Highway to hell?

Independent UK
In a marathon poll marked by high voter turnout, Venezuelans have ratified the mandate of President Hugo Chavez in a recall referendum that represents a monumental boost to his government and ablow to his domestic and foreign opponents.

Ending hours of confusion, former American president Jimmy Carter, who helped monitor the referendum, endorsed the returns showing that the maverick president had won the vote. “Our findings coincided with the partial returns announced today by the National Elections Council [CNE],” Mr Carter told a news conference, and urged Venezuelans to accept the result.

The Organisation of American States, which also monitored the vote, said there were no indications of fraud. full article

Guardian UK
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – City officials want to eradicate 27 homeless camps, getting their occupants into shelters or out of town as Little Rock prepares for the high-profile opening of the Clinton Presidential Library.

Officials deny the strategy has anything to do with the Nov. 18 opening, but homeless advocates fear the city is being merciless – perhaps at the behest of the library. The homeless were living at the library site before construction began. full article

Since Clinton made so many people homeless, and furthermore invisible, I think they should have a permanent spot at his library.

Guardian UK
Germany apologised for the first time yesterday for a colonial-era genocide which killed 65,000 Herero people in what is now Namibia.

“We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time,” said Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany’s development aid minister, at a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the Hereros’ 1904-1907 uprising against their rulers.

“The atrocities committed at that time would have been termed genocide,” she said, according to Associated Press.

Although she ruled out financial compensation for the victims’ descendants – a civil case has been brought by relatives of those who died – she promised aid, particularly in land reform.

…Germany dismissed the claim, saying international rules on the protection of combatants and civilians were not in existence at the time of that conflict. full article

Genocide wasn’t illegal then: how lame is this?

Independent UK
They came from across Iraq, marching in solidarity with Shia brothers. Civilians ­ they bear no arms, for the moment anyway ­ who are willing die on the steps of the Imam Ali shrine. The human shields have arrived in Najaf. full article