Each morning, when Gabriela Ocampo looked up at the chalkboard in her ninth-grade algebra class, her spirits sank.

There she saw a mysterious language of polynomials and slope intercepts that looked about as familiar as hieroglyphics.

She knew she would face another day of confusion, another day of pretending to follow along. She could hardly do long division, let alone solve for x.

“I felt like, ‘Oh, my God, what am I going to do?’ ” she recalled.

Gabriela failed that first semester of freshman algebra. She failed again and again — six times in six semesters. And because students in Los Angeles Unified schools must pass algebra to graduate, her hopes for a diploma grew dimmer with each F.

Midway through 12th grade, Gabriela gathered her textbooks, dropped them at the campus book room and, without telling a soul, vanished from Birmingham High School.

Her story might be just a footnote to the Class of 2005 except that hundreds of her classmates, along with thousands of others across the district, also failed algebra.

Of all the obstacles to graduation, algebra was the most daunting.

The course that traditionally distinguished the college-bound from others has denied vast numbers of students a high school diploma.
latimes.com

…Analysts wonder what to make, now, of Wolfowitz’s declarations that fighting graft is a priority. His actions, including the suspension of a $124m loan to Chad for reneging on a deal aimed at ensuring oil revenues reached the poor, had suggested an era of tough engagement lay ahead. The Kenya loan smacks of a return to the bank’s traditional way of doing business in Africa, which kept the likes of Zaire’s Mobutu flush with funds.
guardian.co.uk

Police have launched an investigation into claims of “systematic” racial assaults, racist abuse and brutality by prison officers at maximum security Whitemoor prison, it emerged last night. Cambridgeshire police confirmed to the Guardian that an investigations team was set up last October to examine an alarming number of serious allegations at the jail.

The Guardian has learned of a variety of incidents alleged by inmates and their solicitors, including an assault to the head by an officer using a riot shield and an assault which resulted in a spinal injury. It has also been alleged that staff used a range of racial abuse including “black bastard” and “black cunt”. A number of officers have been named in complaints.
guardian.co.uk

Constant Conflict: US Army War College Quarterly
…For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is “nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited.” The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.

…There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

Hamas ‘ready to form a Palestinian army’

Fatah gunmen storm parliament

Iran invites Blair to Holocaust debate

Israel to restrict Hamas movements

Iran warns of missile strike

A triumph for Sharon
Lying in a coma in Hadassah hospital, Jerusalem, Ariel Sharon has achieved his final triumph. The Hamas victory in Wednesday’s Palestinian elections is not only the inevitable outcome of everything Sharon did as prime minister, but is precisely what he would have wished.

‘Maybe they just need to have their civil war’: Fueling Sectarian Violence in Iraq

Pressure has been mounting on Lebanon’s Palestinian militias to disarm
Fears that Syria is using them to retain some sort of grip on the country have been exacerbated by international pressure to implement UN resolution 1559, which calls for all non-government factions to lay down their guns.

But behind the high politics lies another, more human story.

Palestinian community leaders and NGO workers say that the real danger comes from the deplorable conditions in which the country’s 400,000 Palestinians – refugees since the establishment of Israel in 1948 – continue to live.

They argue that deteriorating services in the 12 cramped refugee camps and the lack of future prospects for the young are fomenting the conditions for extremism.

US wants end to Syrian ‘bullying’

U.S. tells India to back off Syria oil deal

India changes tune, defends Iran

The EU has given the ‘Palestinian Authority’ $600 million in the last year. There are 135,000 Palestinians employed by the PA. Bush started the first US dollars given directly to Palestinians flowing 3 years ago. Predictably, one of the factors in the Hamas victory was ‘rampant corruption.’ Imagine the effect of pouring massive numbers of dollars (and weapons) into an enormous refugee camp where people have been living for 50 years under violent occupation and grinding generational poverty– no need to imagine, actually. Turn on the television news. Scary papa Ariel Sharon may be mostly dead, but it’s hard not to imagine him smiling.

Mossad armed and funded Hamas in order to undermine Arafat, and years after the fact, their crude divide-and-conquer ploy has paid off: no need to even maintain the flimsy veneer of good-faith negotiations—let the bastards turn on one another.

Israel has apparently made state terrorism into an art form: one would wish the Israeli people would put two and two together and wrap their minds around the fact that their government has in effect been exploding its own people on the streets, on buses, in grocery stores, in restaurants, exploiting the rage engendered by occupation to create a suicidal army that, unbeknownst to itself, is serving the purposes of its sworn enemy.

But what could the people there do about it? What can any horrified people in any so-called Western-styled democracy do about the doomsday scenario unfolding in the Middle East?

The whole thing is like one of those bad Chuck Norris movies, with Iran’s president yanking everybody’s chain with his remarks about the Jewish holocaust, threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, threatening to put Israel into a ‘permanent coma’, while the Western media has taken to referring to the ‘Iran nuclear crisis,’ stirring up a panic about non-existent nuclear weapons. Well, not all the nuclear weapons are non-existent: the ones the US is proposing to use are all too actual.

Because it is so difficult to imagine the sort of wickedness we’re talking about here, the perpetrators are able to act in broad daylight with impunity. Who could conceive that the architects of the Afghanistan disaster, the Iraq disaster, the Palestine disaster, the coming Syria and Iran disasters, are deliberately engendering a chaos which will allow them to do the unspeakable?

How could this be about oil-hegemony for the few remaining years of a misbegotten petroleum age? But what else could it be about? Is it about the cracked philosopher-king fantasy of the neo-cons who dream of Total Global Domination in a post-nuclear Mad Max world? Is it really possible that the corporate imperialists are so entrenched in their small-mammalian brain circuitry that they are unable to envision the consequences of their planetary pillaging-spree?

Just as Eduardo Galeano observed, we are living in the upside-down world. Democracy is suppressed and undermined in the name of democracy. The supposed victims of terror are the terrorists. The good guys are the bad guys, or, the bad guys and good guys are in bed together.

“Everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned…”

There are clearly elements of the world power structure that are in love with the idea of endless war.

Gas supplies to parts of Chechnya’s capital Grozny have been cut off after an accident damaged a gas pipeline running through the Russian region.

The accident came shortly before its energy-starved neighbour Georgia agreed a deal with Iran to get extra gas.

Most of Georgia still lacks power and heating after snow and wind knocked down its main power line and explosions ruptured a key Russian gas pipeline.

Russia and its neighbours are suffering from extreme cold this winter.

In Chechnya, the emergency situations ministry and gas utillity experts are searching for the cause of the pipeline rupture, which happened near the city of Gudermes, a ministry official said.

Chechen rebels have been blamed for previous damage to pipelines, including the explosions which cut off Georgia’s gas last Sunday.

The BBC’s Natalia Antelava in Tbilisi says Georgians are trying their best to keep warm, but wood and kerosene are all most people have.
bbc.co.uk

‘Lessons’ for EU from gas crisis
The European Union has expressed relief that a dispute threatening gas supplies from Russia is over, but said lessons must be learned from the crisis.

Russia has agreed to start pumping gas to Ukraine again, after turning off the taps in a row over prices.

…Andris Piebalgs had been leading an emergency meeting of EU gas experts when news of the deal came through from Moscow.

Under the five-year agreement, Ukraine will buy Russian gas, mixed with Central Asian gas, for $95 (£54) per 1,000 cubic metres on average.

Russia halted gas supplies to Ukraine on 1 January, after Kiev rejected a price rise that would have taken the cost of gas from $50 to $230.

Austrian Energy Minister Martin Bartenstein told journalists in Brussels that Russian gas would remain the backbone of the European energy supply mix.

But he said: “We have to think about energy supply security in general, gas supply security… and we have to learn the lessons.”

He added that a planned pipeline to deliver Caspian gas to Europe via Turkey could help to diversify the EU’s sources of gas.

Russia supplies about a quarter of Western Europe’s needs, but this proportion is due to rise dramatically in future, under current plans.

Gazprom’s global ambitions
“We would like to transform our company from being the world’s leading gas company into a world leading energy company,” says Mr Medvedev.

Not only are the world’s two largest energy markets – China and the US – on the radar of the state-controlled giant, which is 51% owned by the government.

It also has firm ambitions to raise its presence in European energy markets, and it is preparing to expand its production facilities with the view to become a truly global player.

Gazprom is also keen to allow foreign investors to buy its shares, following stock market liberalisation plans recently cleared by the Duma.

“We will target market capitalisation of around $250bn-$300bn in the next 5 to 7 years.”

Gazprom, which is already the world’s largest gas producer, is about to start pumping gas from the hitherto unexploited Russian parts of the Barents Sea.

…The Shtokman field is one of Gazprom’s most significant projects in the next five years,” says Mr Medvedev.

“It is a unique field, with unique reserves.

“If all goes according to plan, the field should be ready by 2010.”

Gas from the field is set to be pumped through four pipelines to liquefied natural gas, or LNG, processing plants near Murmansk.

From there, much of the LNG is to be shipped in giant tankers to the North American markets, which can be reached in just over a week.

“It will enable Gazprom to be a major player in the LNG market in the USA,” says Mr Medvedev, adding that it is already shipping LNG to North America, though it hopes the route from the Barents Sea should help reduce costs compared with current shipping routes.

Pakistan’s battle over Balochistan
…No-one seems to know exactly how many civilians have died in helicopter raids on suspected militant camps or in the numerous rocket attacks on soldiers’ camps.

In the words of one analyst, it’s an undeclared war in which neither side is observing the rules.

So what on earth is going on in Balochistan, which is regarded as the poorest and most backward of Pakistan’s four provinces?

With about six million inhabitants, Pakistan’s biggest province has less than half the population of the port city of Karachi.

In mineral resources, however, it is said to be the richest province and is a major supplier of natural gas to the country.

With the government now planning to construct a deep sea port at Gwadar and a road link with Afghanistan and central Asia, Balochistan has acquired a new significance – both for Pakistan and other regional players.

LA PAZ, Bolivia – The Evo Morales era began this week in Bolivia as the new president promised it would, with long days, new faces and quick decisions sure to anger the establishment.

Fresh off an inaugural weekend that celebrated Bolivia’s indigenous majority and featured a parade of leftist dignitaries, Morales formed a Cabinet empowering the longtime outsiders of Bolivian society. He shook up the military brass in a move that brought howls of protest. And on Thursday, Morales named a longtime ally to try to revive the state oil company.

The Cabinet is home to a handful of unknowns, heavy on leftist credentials but almost absent governmental experience.

The new foreign minister has no diplomatic background. The new justice minister has no legal education. But both are indigenous, just like Morales and about 60 percent of the Bolivian population. And both have won praise for their work with poor communities that historically have been abused and neglected in Bolivia.

“The parties are over. The honeymoon is over,” Morales said in swearing in his 16 ministers.

Then, in an allusion to the vast self-interest that has long plagued the public sector in Bolivia, Morales said: “To be in authority means to serve the people and not to live off the people. Zero corruption and zero bureaucracy.”
contracostatimes

Prensa Latina: The naval attache of the US Embassy in Venezuela, John Correa, has left the country after his participation in an espionage case involving several Venezuelan low-ranking officers was revealed.

When he realized the espionage network had been discovered, Correa organized the escape of several of the officers involved to Miami, and then he fled when Venezuelan authorities called him up for a meeting, according to a report on Friday’s VEA newspaper.

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel confirmed some low-ranking officers were leaking top secret information to the Pentagon through Correa who, making use of his diplomat status, recruited the Venezuelan officers for US intelligence services.
vheadline.com

US wants Venezuela on terror sponsor list: Chavez
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday Washington planned to brand Venezuela a sponsor of terrorism as he used the World Social Forum to vent against U.S. imperialism and the Iraq war.

Chavez, a close ally of U.S. foe Cuba, gave no evidence to back up his claim and has often charged U.S. President George W. Bush with planning to overthrow or assassinate him since he survived a 2002 coup.

Washington has repeatedly denied the allegations.

The socialist leader has become one of Bush’s fiercest critics after putting his self-styled revolution at the heart of regional opposition to Washington’s free-market proposals for South America.

“The imperialism we face now is the most perverse, murdering, genocidal and immoral,” Chavez told packed crowds at an “anti-imperialism” event. “The latest detail we have is this year they want to include Venezuela on the list of countries supporting terrorism.”

State closes in on deal for cheap oil from Venezuela
Vermont is close to a deal to obtain discounted fuel oil from Venezuela — a deal that would save low-income Vermonters precious dollars off their home heating bills this winter.

Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., expects to announce details of the agreement next week with Venezuela and Citgo, the government-controlled oil company.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As his plane lifted off the runway here in August 2003, Brian Dean Curran rewound his last, bleak days as the American ambassador in this tormented land.

Haiti, Mr. Curran feared, was headed toward a cataclysm, another violent uncoupling of its once jubilant embrace of democracy more than a decade before. He had come here hoping to help that tenuous democracy grow. Now he was leaving in anger and foreboding.

Seven months later, an accused death squad leader helped armed rebels topple the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haiti, never a model of stability, soon dissolved into a state so lawless it stunned even those who had pushed for the removal of Mr. Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest who rose to power as the champion and hero of Haiti’s poor.

Today, the capital, Port-au-Prince, is virtually paralyzed by kidnappings, spreading panic among rich and poor alike. Corrupt police officers in uniform have assassinated people on the streets in the light of day. The chaos is so extreme and the interim government so dysfunctional that voting to elect a new one has already been delayed four times. The latest date is Feb. 7.

Yet even as Haiti prepares to pick its first elected president since the rebellion two years ago, questions linger about the circumstances of Mr. Aristide’s ouster — and especially why the Bush administration, which has made building democracy a centerpiece of its foreign policy in Iraq and around the world, did not do more to preserve it so close to its shores.
nytimes.com

Preserve it?? How about undermine it at every turn? For 200 years?

…The other important factor to consider when thinking of justice for Africans is that justice must be rooted in history. History is important because it provides the means for us to understand the roots of the indignities we experience and it also gives us the means to express anger, pain and frustration at the present economic system. As we encounter the poor in our society, we experience the power of anger that motivates us to stand in solidarity with those who are pushed to the margins by the institutionalized power relations in our societies. Deconstructing our history also gives us a reason to celebrate our survival despite the oppression we have experienced by providing us with memories of those who fought for justice even unto death. African history has its roots in African traditional culture, colonialism and neocolonialism. We have to analyze the effects of this history on our social institutions and on our identity. Understanding our history helps us to define ourselves not as helpless victims but as survivors who are the agents of change. It gives us not only the motivation and the courage to work for change but also a vision of what kind of society we want to strive for.
africafiles.org