Barack Obama wins election for second term as president

Text of Barack Obama’s speech after re-election

President Barack Obama’s speech in Chicago after his re-election Tuesday night, as transcribed by Roll Call:

By The Associated Press

President Barack Obama’s speech in Chicago after his re-election Tuesday night, as transcribed by Roll Call:

—

Thank you so much.

Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.

It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.

Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.

I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way, we have to fix that. Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone, whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.

I just spoke with Gov. Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign. We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight. In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Gov. Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward.

I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden.

And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady. Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you’re growing up to become two strong, smart beautiful young women, just like your mom. And I’m so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now one dog’s probably enough.

To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics. The best. The best ever. Some of you were new this time around, and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning. But all of you are family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together and you will have the lifelong appreciation of a grateful president. Thank you for believing all the way, through every hill, through every valley. You lifted me up the whole way and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done and all the incredible work that you put in.

I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics that tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos or the domain of special interests. But if you ever get the chance to talk to folks who turned out at our rallies and crowded along a rope line in a high school gym, or saw folks working late in a campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you’ll discover something else.

You’ll hear the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who’s working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity. You’ll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer who’s going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift. You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse who’s working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job or a roof over their head when they come home.

That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small, it’s big. It’s important. Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy.

That won’t change after tonight, and it shouldn’t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.

But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers. A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.

We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet. We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this – this world has ever known. But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being.

We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag. To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner. To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president – that’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go – forward. That’s where we need to go.

Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path. By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin.

Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. A long campaign is now over. And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you, and you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead.

Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.

But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.

This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth. The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.

I am hopeful tonight because I’ve seen the spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job. I’ve seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.

I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm. And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.

I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own. And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That’s who we are. That’s the country I’m so proud to lead as your president.

And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.

And together with your help and God’s grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.

http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2019622154_apusobamatext.html

Barack Obama wins election for second term as president

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/barack-obama-wins-election-second-term-president-041852102–election.html

Obama Wins New Term as Electoral Advantage Holds

Voters returned President Obama to the White House, but he will face a Congress with the same divisions that marked his first term.

What Are They Saying About Obama’s Victory?

http://news.yahoo.com/saying-obamas-victory-

Obama or Romney: Africa’s choice between the devil and the deep blue sea!

  By Sam Akaki

Saturday, 27 October 2012 00:00
The upcoming US presidential election will be a de facto international presidential election. Whoever wins will not only become – symbolically and in reality – the chairman of the five-member central committee of the world, which is the UN Security Council,  he will also indirectly be in charge of the preeminent global currency, which is the dollar. Crucially, the US president will be the Commander-in-Chief of the supreme army, the nuclear-armed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Under Article 5, “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” This explains why Syria can only watch, helplessly, as Turkey, a NATO member, closes its air space, trains, arms and sends rebels into Syria.

Moreover, NATO is not only expanding although its main adversary the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in 1991 it is also freely choosing and picking which opposition groups are terrorist organizations or pro-democracy fighters, and which country is to be invaded on the spurious excuse of pre-emptive humanitarian intervention to maintain international peace and security.

These realities will present African peoples at home and in the US with a particular dilemma. By instinct, we should vote for Barack Obama.  After all, he is “one of us”, his father having been a black Kenyan!

The ‘one of us’ syndrome based on our ethnicity, tribe and clan is central in the African DNA makeup, which invariably determines how we provide public services to our own.

But as Obama’s African policy has shown in the last four years, it will be a monumental self-delusion for any African at home and in the US to believe that his second term in the White House will bring better news to the continent.

The uncomfortable truth is that the difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is only skin deep. Like Romney, Obama is first and last an ambitious US politician, who wants to be president of the last super power of the world.

To achieve that ultimate goal, both men are competing to appear a better US citizen than the other, declaring their uncompromising commitment to pursue not the 1832 Monroe doctrine, but the 1961 President John Kennedy’s doctrine.

The Monroe Doctrine noted that the United States “would neither interfere with existing European colonies (in Africa and elsewhere) nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries.” That was before John F. Kennedy arrived.

By contrast, in his in January 1961 inauguration speech, Kennedy said “let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of our liberty.” By “our success”  Kennedy meant US imperial domination of the world!

Regardless of Obama’s campaign rhetoric, his Africa policy will not be guided by any consideration about is late father’s tribal origin or religion, but by US special interest to maintain political, economic and military dominance of the world.

President Obama or Romney will without hesitation use the USAID to maintain soft control over the continent through politically-motivated humanitarian and development assistance. At the same time, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) will keep a close military eye and ear on Africa from the ground, air, sea and space. Any African leader or military commander who thinks his or her official and personal secrets are safe is a fool.

President Obama or Romney will use the Bretton Woods institutions, which are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to manipulate African economies and by extension, social and political conditions, which suits the US.
Whoever wins, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will not relax the pressure on African countries to introduce legislation to implement the one-way Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). These, among other things, will potentially allow western technology companies to “own” anything and everything including trees and shrubs anywhere.

The US, which has not ratified the Rome Statue, will continue to selectively use the ICC as a double-edged political weapon not only to punish non-compliant African leaders such as Omar al Bashir and Robert Mugabe, but also to protect leaders of US client states who torture their own people and invade their neighbours.

While some US companies continue to trade with Iran, President Obama or Romney will demand and get the UN Security Council to impose punitive sanctions on any African country that buys oil from Iran.

NATO intervention in Libya may have been its first on African soil, but it is unlikely to be the last whoever wins. Neither Obama nor Romney will lift the sanctions on Eritrea, Sudan or Zimbabwe.

US entry visas will not become any more easily available for African students or old people wishing to visit their grandchildren just because Obama or Romney has become president.

Finally, according to the Census Bureau, 15 percent of Americans, or more than 46 million people, live below the poverty line, defined as an annual income of USD 23,000 for a family with two children.

The vast majority in this group are African-Americans. They will not become better off with well-paid jobs, adequate housing and health-care cover when and if Obama or Romney takes office next January. That is why I say Africa’s unpalatable choice in the 2012 US presidential election is between the devil and the deep blue sea. We are damned if “one of us” Obama, wins and we are damned if he loses on November 6th!
But why criticize Obama for putting America first and last?  What a different place would Africa be if our leaders could also put behind their personal interests, clan, tribe and ethnicity – and tackle the population explosion and youth unemployment, which are driving millions of young men and women to die abroad?

Ed’s Note: The writer is a Ugandan-born former parliamentary candidate in the 2010 UK general elections, founder executive director of Optimum Population for Sustainable Development in Africa (OPSUDA) and Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa (DIPRA). The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter. He can be reached at sam.akaki@hotmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Sudan, South Sudan agree on metering to avoid disputes

(Reuters) – Sudan and South Sudan plan to avoid future disputes over oil exports with a metering system, but have failed to end a $1.8 billion row over how much Juba will pay for seizing northern oil facilities after its secession.

On Thursday, the African neighbors signed a deal to restart oil exports from the landlocked South through a Sudanese Red Sea port. In January, Juba had shut down its entire output of 350,000 barrels a day after failing to agree on export fees.

When the row escalated, Juba had accused Sudan and the mainly Chinese oil firms operating in the new republic of publishing incorrect production data to the disadvantage of the South.

Oil facilities in both countries were built before South Sudan became independent from Khartoum in July 2011, putting three quarters of oil production in the south but locating processing, refining and sea export facilities in the north.

To avoid any future arguments over export volumes, both sides plan to “review and ensure…effective metering facilities”, according to the final agreement published by the African Union (AU) late on Thursday.

The agreement did not outline any concrete steps but said each party had the right to ask oil firms to install additional metering systems.

The neighbors also agreed to set up a committee headed by an African Union-appointed official to review payments and technical issues to avoid disputes.

Global Witness, a group campaigning for transparency, said it was disappointing that oil payments and audit reports would not be made public.

“This lack of public accountability is particularly concerning given the allegations of high-level corruption that both governments are facing,” Global Witness campaigner Dana Wilkins said in a statement.

COMPENSATION ROW

Diplomats had hoped the agreement would settle all disputes but both nations failed to agree on how much South Sudan should pay Sudan in compensation for taking over oil facilities once owned by state firm Sudapet.

Sudan demands $1.8 billion for Sudapet’s assets, said Pagan Amum, Juba’s chief negotiator.

“We are not going to pay this,” he said after the signing ceremony in Ethiopia on Thursday.

The agreement, which was brokered after three weeks of talks in Addis Ababa, only said the parties would try reach a deal within two months. Lengthy international arbitration would then probably follow.

Both sides also agreed that Sudan will have to pay back proceeds from two disputed oil shipments, transported by the Ratna Shradha and ETC ISIS vessels, which Sudan seized as compensation for what it called unpaid transit fees.

Southern officials had previously demanded the return of four oil shipments worth more than 6 million barrels, seized since December by Sudan, which has never confirmed or denied the figures.

Juba will give up claims from southern oil diverted to refineries by Sudan when the row over transit fees escalated. “The Government of South Sudan shall not bring any other claims,” the agreement said.

Under the final deal, South Sudan will pay between $9.10 and $11 a barrel to export its crude through the north. Juba will also pay $3.08 billion to help Sudan overcome the loss of three quarters of oil production due to southern secession.

South Sudan’s government expects resuming oil production will take three to six months after the pipelines were watered and some fields were damaged during fighting between the two nations in April.

South Sudan plans to build pipeline to Kenya but analysts are skeptical as it would be difficult to build across rough terrain hit by tribal violence.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alison Birrane and Jason Neely)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/us-south-sudan-oil-idUSBRE88R11J20120928

Khartoum Calls on UN to Press Juba to Stop Supporting SPLM-N

September 15, 2012 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan has urged UN chief to press South Sudanese government to cease its support to the rebel Sudan people’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) stressing such links hamper the ongoing efforts to settle the unresolved issues.

Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, Permanent Representative of Sudan to the United Nations met on Friday 14 September with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to brief him on the latest developments on the ongoing talks with South Sudan as the UN Security Council prepare to discuss the issue on 22 September.

The parties made progress on the different files except the border demarcation and the disputed areas while the mediation plans to hold a presidential summit on Abyei between Omer Al-Bashir and Salva Kiir on 21 September.

The parallel process with the SPLM-N, on the other hand, is stalled as the parties trade accusations of delay of humanitarian relief, plans to topple the regime with the support of South Sudan and Darfur rebels.

Daffa-Alla said he urged Ban Ki-moon to put pressure on Juba government to disengage politically and militarily with the Sudanese rebel group which fights the government in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. He stressed that such relation breaches the rules of international law.

According to SUNA, the Sudanese diplomat told the UN chief that Khartoum would not hold direct talks with the rebel group until the latter formally disengage politically and militarily with the newly independent South Sudan.

The two parties hold indirect humanitarian and political talks as they meet the mediation separately.

Sudan says the two former divisions of the SPLA in Blue Nile and South Kordofan are still receiving they salaries, weapons and ammunition from Juba. It further says the leaders of the Sudanese rebellion are instructed by the SPLM leader and South Sudan President Salva Kiir.

Juba and SPLM-N denied the accusations. Following the referendum on self determination of January 2011, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the north Sudan established an independent structure as their comrades in South Sudan were preparing to proclaim their independent state in July 2011.

But Khartoum speaks about disengagement to highlight the close relations and the continued support they receive from the SPLM in Juba which is the ruling party.

South Sudanese top negotiator Pagan Amum arrived in Addis Ababa after a long stay in Washington for medical reasons.

Also, Princeton Lyman, US envoy for Sudan and South Sudan arrived to the Ethiopian capital where he met with the chief mediator, Thabo Mbeki to discuss the recent development on the talks.

Daffa-Alla told Ki-moon that the Sudanese delegation was keen to be in Addis on the date fixed by the mediation while the rebels belatedly arrived to Addis Ababa and left two days later to Washington obstructing the talks.

SPLM-N leadership is in a visit to the United States for talks with the American officials and to seek the support of members of Congress and civil society groups as the campaign for US presidential election has already started.

 

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article43909

Salva Kiir Receives 192-Kilometer Juba-Nimule Road From Susan Page

12 September 2012—(Juba) —The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, has handed over the 192 kilometer Juba – Nimule highway to the government on Wednesday.

The tarmacking of the highway which now connects the country to East Africa through Uganda began on February 10, 2011.

The launch was attended by President Salva Kiir, the USambassador  to South Sudan, minister of Roads and Bridges and other USAID and government officials.

Speaking at the handover ceremony at Nesitu checkpoint along the high way, the US Ambassador to South Sudan, Susan Page said that the highway is and will fasten delivery of commercial goods to the country and connect South Sudan to East Africa, and beyond.

[Susan Page]: “With the completion of this economically vital road, business transactions within the country and between the South Sudan and the neighboring countries are faster and easier. This road has reduced travel times between Juba and Nimule for more than six hours at the beginning of the project -slightly less than three hours today. Am sure you are all aware of the benefits of that improvement with South Sudan now becoming fully integrated into East Africa, trade roads and more goods coming to South Sudan more regularly and quickly. The United States Government and the ministry of roads and bridges have worked closely together to establish and build the capacity of the road’s authority and its success will be essential to an improved transport network in South Sudan.”

Meanwhile, President Salva Kiir Mayardit called on the public to observe road safety regulations and maintain the road due to its significance to the economy of the country.

[Salva Kiir]: “Now that we celebrate this great achievement of this paved road for the first time in South Sudan, we should also remember the dangers that come with it -particularly over speeding; when drivers find the road is smooth, they run to the extend that they forget their lives, it is dangerous. A good road like this is not good for people to die on it. There must be speed limit, and the traffic agents must put road signs on this highway. Where there is a curve, there must be a sign that shows you are entering into a curve so that one can slow down. This is very important.”

President Kiir also authorized the ministry of interior to deploy highway patrol police to ensure safety of motorists and passengers traveling on the Juba –Nimule highway.

[Salva Kiir]: “There must also be safety on this road; the minister of interior in conjunction with other security organs should ensure that there is security on this road 24 hours a day, because there are some other criminals who have guns, they could come set an ambush on this road. If they see the road is clear without security force, they could easily come and rob any car, take their money or goods. These kinds of people must be apprehended by the security forces -especially the police.”

Juba – Nimule High way is the first fully tarmacked modern road in the country.

http://www.sudanradio.org/usaid-hands-over-just-tarred-juba-nimule-road

60 Genocide Scholars Call on Obama Administration to Help the Embattled People of Nuba Mountains

To Whom It May Concern,

More than sixty genocide scholars are calling on the Obama Administration to airlift aid to thousands of Sudanese facing starvation in the embattled Nuba Mountains. The experts believe the Sudanese regime is deliberately targeting the minority Nuba people, and they warn that as many as 300,000 internal refugees face imminent starvation.

In their letter to President Obama and other U.S. officials, the scholars cite multiple reports from reputable human rights groups, journalists and U.N. agencies, describing the killing of civilians by Sudanese armed forces. They warn that the regime’s racist ideology is driving it to annihilate ethnic groups it suspects of supporting rebel militia, regardless of the civilians’ true affiliations.

Satellite imagery has revealed mass graves, razed communities, and the indiscriminate low altitude aerial bombardment of civilian areas in South Kordofan state. Reliable eyewitnesses continue to report systematic government shelling and bombing of refugee evacuation routes, with helicopter gunships hunting civilians as they flee their homes and farmland to hide in caves, and a deliberate and widespread blockage of humanitarian aid into South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Anecdotal evidence of perpetrators screaming racist slurs as civilians are killed and raped are familiar to anyone who knows what has been happening in Darfur since 2003.

Almost 200,000 people from South Kordofan and Blue Nile states have fled across the border into South Sudan to escape the violence which began 15 months ago. Humanitarian agencies warn they face starvation and disease in squalid and overcrowded camps, cut off by seasonal rains.

However, hundreds of thousands remain trapped in Sudan, sheltering in caves and living on grass and insects. The Sudanese government, based in Khartoum, refuses to allow aid groups access to those at risk. An African Union-brokered deal, signed at the beginning of August, may eventually allow the delivery of aid, but observers fear Khartoum will place conditions on access, determining where food goes. Naturally, the regime denies there is any humanitarian emergency in the region.

In their letter the scholars point out that the Sudanese government, led by indicted war criminal Omar Bashir, used the same tactics against the ethnic minority Nuba people in the 1990s. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between Sudan and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in its southern states led to South Sudan’s independence in 2011. However, Khartoum has violated the terms of the deal by refusing to allow the people in the contested Sudanese border states of Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Abyei to have a say in their future. Many in the region identify more with ethnic groups in South Sudan. Consequently, rebels in the SPLM-North have gained ground in the area, long marginalized both economically and politically by Khartoum.

The genocide scholars fear the Sudanese regime will continue to block or interfere with humanitarian access because it believes food aid will bolster the rebels. They call on the U.S. to act under the power given to it as one of the three guarantors of the CPA.

“We strongly urge you to act now to stave off the starvation of an entire people,” the scholars said in an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and Advisor to the President and Director of the Atrocities Prevention Board Samantha Power.

“As world leaders you have the moral authority granted by the U.N.’s unanimous 2005 declaration of the Responsibility to Protect to demand delivery of aid to those inside Sudan,” the letter continues.

The scholars go on to warn that Khartoum will continue to kill its own people, “if once again the United States declines to use the economic and diplomatic leverage to enforce the delivery of aid into South Kordofan and Blue Nile states under internationally acceptable terms.”

While human rights groups and aid agencies have been pressing the Obama administration to act for more than a year, this is the first time experts from ten countries have called on the U.S. president to intervene.

But will he? If it chose to, the U.S. could apply ‘soft power’ pressure to the regime in the form of targeted economic sanctions against the architects of the Darfur genocide, measures already approved by the U.N. Security Council but never implemented. The White House could also offer incentives in the form of access to much needed financial support from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The U.S. could also remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terror, in exchange for the cessation of violence against ethnic minorities in Darfur and the contested border areas.

However, the White House has consistently underestimated its potential leverage, fearing President Bashir will jeopardize fledgling South Sudan’s independence to an even greater extent. Obama is also under pressure from U.S. security and intelligence agencies to appease Khartoum in the unlikely event that Sudan’s avowedly Islamist leaders will pass on information about its ideological bedfellows in al Qaeda. Given that Bashir counts Iran, Hamas and Hizbollah as his closest friends, it is doubtful he would hand any useful intelligence to Washington. Yet, hope continues to triumph over experience and common sense. And the civilians hiding in caves in the Nuba Mountains continue to pay the price.

September 5, 2012

To: President Barack Obama
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice
Special Assistant to the President Samantha Power.

From: The Undersigned Genocide Scholars

Subject: Humanitarian Catastrophe in South Kordofan and Blue Nile States of Sudan

Dear President Obama, Secretary of State  Clinton, Ambassador Rice and Special Assistant Power:

On June 6, 2011, the Sudanese regime, led by indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir, unleashed a wave of targeted ethnic killings against the people of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan state, Sudan. Since then this state-sponsored violence has spread to engulf much of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

The continuing multiple atrocities amount to at least crimes against humanity. This, in and of itself, is alarming. According to the tenets of the Responsibility to Protect now is the time to protect the targeted population.

Satellite imagery has revealed mass graves, razed communities, and the indiscriminate low altitude aerial bombardment of civilian areas in South Kordofan state. Reliable eyewitnesses continue to report systematic government shelling and bombing of refugee evacuation routes, helicopter gunships hunting civilians as they flee their homes and farmland to hide in caves, and a deliberate and widespread blockage of humanitarian aid into South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Anecdotal evidence of perpetrators screaming racist slurs as civilians are killed and raped are familiar to anyone who knows what has been happening in Darfur since 2003.

Sufficient evidence exists for us to believe the Sudanese regime is attempting to annihilate those whom the government suspects of supporting the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North’s (SPLM-N) aims. Hence many local people are automatically targeted regardless of their true political affiliations.

Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese remain trapped in South Kordofan, the victims of forced starvation, unable to farm their land. This critical situation largely mirrors what the same regime perpetrated in the 1990s, a case of genocide by attrition.

Meanwhile in Blue Nile state, a scorched earth campaign by government forces has forced the SPLM-N to retreat, leaving tens of thousands with no protection from the perpetrators.

As genocide scholars we have a solemn responsibility to educate the public about the horrors of the past in the hope of creating a future free of such crimes. We are the keepers of the chapters of human history that are difficult to confront, casting a dark shadow on all of humanity. We study the past to find ways to prevent such egregious actions in the future. We exist to remind the world of humanity’s capacity to commit genocide anywhere and against any group of people.
It is because of that responsibility that we write to you.  We call on  you to fulfill your responsibilities as global leaders when it comes to confronting mankind’s most terrifying of crimes.

Although we welcome your efforts to aid the refugees who have found their way to camps in South Sudan, we must point out that as world leaders you have the moral authority granted by the UN’s unanimous 2005 declaration of the Responsibility to Protect to demand delivery of aid to those inside Sudan. As guarantors of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed that same year, moreover, you have not fulfilled your legal and moral obligation to sanction violators of that agreement.

The Sudanese regime continues to slaughter its own civilians, while denying them access to aid and in defiance of various international treaties and conventions it has signed, not to mention the Sudanese constitution.

The Tripartite Agreement signed on 4 August 2012 in Addis Ababa, called upon the Government of Sudan to allow humanitarian access to all areas of the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile state dependent on certain conditions. Yet the Bashir regime’s track record leads us to fear it will interfere with aid delivery to those in most need. Seasonal inaccessibility also requires extraordinary and timely arrangements, such as airdrops.  Hence we beseech you to take the following steps immediately to ensure aid is delivered to South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

•      Establish a land and air humanitarian corridor through which aid can be delivered without interference or hindrance from Sudanese security, military or other forces or proxies.
•      Secure arrangements with the SPLM-N for the airlifting of these supplies directly into territory in their control.
•      Inform relevant Sudanese officials that, due to the urgency of the catastrophe created by their actions, the United States will deliver relief directly into the war-affected areas underneath SPLM-N control.
•      Invite relevant Sudanese officials to observe the cargo to be delivered so they can verify the contents.
•      Use the most effective means possible, including airlifts, to get supplies into affected areas in SPLM-N control.

•      Keep armed escort planes on standby for the protection of aid delivery planes if necessary.

It is therefore unwise to respond to the Khartoum regime’s various crimes with appeasement. By allowing the NCP to behave with impunity, the U.S. and the rest of the international community signals a weakness that only emboldens those who would flout its own international agreements.

Furthermore, it is unwise to assume, as the international community does, that Khartoum intends the best for its citizens. Therefore we call on your administration to end Khartoum’s effective blockade of aid to South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The regime will continue to kill their own people if once again the United States declines to use the economic and diplomatic leverage at its disposal to enforce the delivery of aid into South Kordofan and Blue Nile states under internationally acceptable terms.

We strongly urge you to act now to stave off the starvation of an entire people. Nothing would speak louder to the United States’ concern for the protection of international human rights than an immediate operation to deliver aid to the Nuba Mountains people while they are still alive and able to be helped.

If your administration chooses to stand with the victims of Sudan’s continuing campaign of ethnic cleansing, then history will accord you respect and honor. If you do not stand with the victims, history will be much harsher.

We very much look forward to hearing from each of you in regard to our letter and the suggestions therein.

In solidarity with the victims, and with respect,

Dr. Samuel Totten
Professor Emeritus, and author of Genocide by Attrition: Nuba Mountains, Sudan (2012)
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
samstertotten@gmail.com

Dr. John Hubbel Weiss
Associate Professor, History
Cornell University

Mr. David Kilgour, J.D.
Former Canadian Secretary of State for Africa
Ottawa, Canada

Dr. Israel W. Charny (dual citizenship, U.S. & Israel)
Director, Genocide Prevention Network and Past President of the International Association of Genocide Studies, and Chief Editor, Encyclopedia of Genocide
Jerusalem, Israel

Dr. Helen Fein
Chair of the Board, Institute for the Study of Genocide, and author of Human Rights and Wrongs: Slavery, Terror and Genocide
New York, NY

Dr. Roger Smith
Professor Emeritus and Past President of the International Association of Genocide Studies, and editor of Genocide: Essays Toward Understanding, Early Warning Prevention
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA

Dr. John Hagan
MacArthur Professor, and Co-Director, Center on Law & Globalizations, American Bar Foundation Co-author of Darfur and the Crime of Genocide (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
Craig Etcheson
Author of After the Killing Fields: Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide.
Canton, IL

Dr. Ben Kiernan
Whitney Griswold Professor of History and Director of Genocide Studies Program (Yale University
Author of Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur
Yale University
New Haven, CT

Dr. Herb Hirsch
Professor, Department of Political Science and Co-Editor of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal and author of Anti-Genocide: Building An American Movement to Prevent Genocide (Praeger, 2002)
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

Dr. Hannibal Travis
Associate Professor of Law and author of Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq and Sudan (2010)
Florida International University College of Law

Professor Linda Melvern
Department of International Politics, and author of A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide
University of Aberystwyth, Wales

Dr. Henry Theriault
Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, and Co-Editor of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal
Worcester State University, MA

Dr. Eric Weitz
Dean of Humanities and the Arts, and author of A Century of Genocide:  Utopias of Race and Nation
City College, City University of New York
New York, NY

Dr. Gregory Stanton
President, Genocide Watch
Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

Dr. Rouben Adalian
Director, Armenian National Institute
Washington, D.C.

Dr. Susanne Jonas
Professor (retired), Latin American & Latino Studies, and author of The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads and U.S. Power
University of California, Santa Cruz

Dr. Robert Skloot
Professor Emeritus
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Nicolas A. Robins
Co-editor, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, and author of Genocide by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice
Raleigh, North Carolina

Dr. John D. Ciorciari
Assistant Professor of Public Policy
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Dr. George Kent
Professor, Department of Political Science
University of Hawaii, Honolulu

Dr. Elisa Von Joeden-Forgey
Visiting Scholar, Department of History
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Dr. Peter Balakian
Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in Humanities, and author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response
Colgate University, Hamilton, NY

Dr. Ernesto Verdeja
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame

Mr. Stephen D. Smith
Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation, and Adjunct Professor of Religion
University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, California

Dr. Paul Slovic
Professor, Department of Psychology
University of Oregon, Eugene

Dr. Jason Ross Arnold
Assistant Professor of Political Science
L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

Dr. Jason K. Levy, Associate Professor, Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and Director, National Ho9meland Security Project, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

Dr. Amanda Grzyb (Dual Citizen, U.S. and Canada)
Assistant Professor, Information and Media Studies, and editor of The World and Darfur: International Response to Crimes Against Humanity in Western Sudan
University of Western Ontario (Canada)

Dr. Alan L. Berger
Reddock Family Eminent Scholar in Holocaust Studies, and Director, Center for the Study of Values and Violence After Auschwitz
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Dr. Douglas H. Johnson
International Expert, Abyei Boundaries Commission, 2005
Author of The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars
Haverford, PA and Oxford, UK

Dr. Gagik Aroutiunian
Associate Professor, Department of Art, Media & Design
DePaul University, Chicago, IL

Dr. Gerry Caplan
Independent Scholar and Author of Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide
Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Dominik J. Schaller
Lecturer, History Department, and author of The Origins of Genocide: Raphael Lemkin as a Historian of Mass Violence
Ruprecht-Karls-Univeristy, Heidelberg, Germany

Dr. Philip J. Spencer
Director of the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence
Kingston University
 Surrey, England

Dr. Maureen S. Hiebert
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
University of Calgary (Canada)
Dr. Eric Reeves
Professor, and author of A Long Day’s Dying: Critical moments in the Darfur Genocide
Smith College, Northhampton, MA

Dr. Robert Hitchcock
Professor, Department of Geography, and co-editor of Genocide of Indigenous Peoples
Michigan State University, Lansing

Dr. James Waller
Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, author of Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing
Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire

Dr. Rubina Peroomian
Research Associate
University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Colin Tatz
Visiting Fellow, Political and International Relations, and author of With Intent to Destroy: Reflecting on Genocide
Australian National University, Canberra

Dr. Kjell Anderson
Project Manager
The Hague Institute for Global Justice
The Hague, The Netherlands

Dr. Adam Jones
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, and author of Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction
University of British Columbia

Dr. Elihu D. Richter, MD MPH
Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention and Hebrew-University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Jerusalem, Israel

Matthias Bjornlund
Historian/Lecturer
Danish Institute for the Study Abroad, Copenhagen, Denmark

José Carlos Moreira da Silva Filho
Professor, Criminal Law Post Graduate Department
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Port Alegra RS – Brazil

Tamar Pileggi
Co-Founder, The Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention
Jerusalem, Israel

Dr. Uriel Levy
Director, Combat Genocide Association
Jerusalem, Israel

Dr. Penny Green
International State Crime Initiative
Kings College, London

Dr. Tony Ward
Professor of Law
University of Hull, UK

Ms. Amy Fagin
International Association of Genocide Scholars
New Salem, MA

Dr. Ann Weiss
Director, Eyes from the Ashes Educational Foundation, and author of The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau
Bryn Mawr, PA

Dr. Rick Halperin
Director, Embrey Human Rights Program
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

Mr. Geoff Hill
Bureau Chief, The Washington Times,
Johannesburg, South Africa
South Africa

The President’s Son

by Tearz Ayuen

Look,

You broke ass son of a hunter

Do you know who you’re messing with?

Do you have an idea who the fuck I am?

You seem to know nothing about me, uh?

Okay, listen

I am the son of the president

Did you hear that?

My dad is the president

Read my lips, preee-ssssi-denn-t

We run this country

We rule you, motherfucker

We own everything in it;

The airport, the police, the army, the rivers and mountains, the wildlife,

The oil, the banks, the hospitals, the media, the mountains,

The roads, the whole city

Everything

Even yourself!

We own you and your poor parents

We’ve got your lives in the palm of our hand

We decide who lives and who dies

That’s our responsibility,

Our mandate

It’s written

We can raise taxes,

Quadruple food prices,

Ban imports,

And hoard basic food items like flour,

Sugar, bread and milk

If we like,

Just to cleanse the country of roaches like you

I could call my dad right now to instruct his boys to do it

And believe me, by the end of six months,

You would have starved to death

As a wild fire consumes savannah grassland in summer,

So would hunger and diseases feast on your siblings

Or there are so many ways to kill a rat

We could just shut all the windows of survival,

With exception of only one

Guess what it is

It’s your sister, fool

We could mold her into something else,

An idol

Something monetary,

A sex trade commodity

We could turn her into a hawker,

A professional prostitute,

Who would satisfy my dad’s business friends’ sexual adventures

Imagine how much she would be getting in exchange of her body

With only one source of income, you people wouldn’t die quickly though

But slowly and painfully,

Both physically and emotionally

So, what makes you think I can’t enter this club with my Nine?

Like I told you earlier,

We own everything

This nightclub is also my dad’s

I have access to it,

Anytime,

Any day,

Whether I am carrying an RPG or 50 Cal

It’s none of your fucking business

Now get the fuck out of my way,

Before I put a bullet in your dumb head

And have your body dumped in the river

I said get the fuck out of my way!

Okay,

You have the guts to push me, uh?

I see

You are planning to commit a suicide, right?

Dude, I won’t let you do that

Coz you are already dead,

Half-dead

Poverty killed your other half

And it is about to take away the remaining half

In fact, you were born like that – half-dead,

Half-human being

Fully poor

A son of a pauper

Thanks to your uncle, Grinding Poverty!

The only blood brother of your father

And now you want me to stain my hands with your stinking blood?

Hell no

No way!

I am not going to waste my bullet on a worthless thing like you

I would rather shoot a dog or a baboon

Yes I am a drunkard and so what?

What do you expect of a big boy like me,

A big boy whose father is the most powerful man around here?

We got all the money, man

In my house, we do not use toilet rolls

Toilet paper is a symbol of poverty

It indicates how poor one is

I tell you,

In my place, we wipe our asses with dollar bills,

Hundreds, to be specific

So, what comes to your mind?

All I do is drink,

Smoke weed, shisha, cigars and cigarettes,

Fuck,

Eat,

And sleep

So, how does my drinking concern you?

Or are you jealous of the liquor brand I am drinking?

Dude, this is called Cognac

I believe you can’t pronounce that, Mister Never-Been-To-School

Now read my lips again, ko-ni-ak

Cognac is a French brandy, fool

You have never tasted it,

And never shall you taste it

It’s very expensive, dude

It would cost you one of your kidneys to buy a cognac,

You broke ass motherfucker

I don’t even know why I am talking to you,

You knucklehead

What?

What do you mean, get a life?

Do I look like I got no life?

Look me in the eye

Check me out,

From my toes to the head;

My designer jeans, my UGG boots, my Heuer Carrera,

My dreadlocks, my tattoos, my iPhone, my drawers

Now tell me,

What life are you talking about?

I ride a Chrysler 300 C

I own two mansions,

One in Kampala, one in Nairobi,

Another in Sydney

I got millions of dollars in the bank

Isn’t that life?

I have been to many places,

Cities you have never dreamt of

I have been to Havana, Dublin, Oslo, Rio de Janeiro,

Jamaica, Buenos Aires, Atlanta, Lagos and Antananarivo,

To mention but Just a few

If it is about school,

Forget it, man

Yes I discontinued my studies

Because I saw no reason of learning

In fact, I shouldn’t have enrolled in school in the first place

School is for poor dudes like you

A vehicle for escaping beggary,

A means of keeping wretchedness at bay

For me, my destiny is set

From day one,

The very day I was planted in my mum’s womb

Like father like son,

In few years coming, I will be the president

Yes, I am a prospective Commander-in-Chief of armed forces,

The would-be controller of everything in this country

The heir of my father’s business empire

The inheritor of this country

And remember I don’t need scholastic crap to rule you

The fact that my father was once the president is enough

It mandates my future presidency

Automatically, it gives me all the qualities of a leader

Even if I don’t succeed my father,

I will succeed one of his protégés

Shortly before the end of his tenure,

Dad’s protégé will visit us in our family house

He will explain to mum and my uncles his intentions,

That it is about time I am groomed for presidency

Shut the fuck up!

And put that fake phone away

Let me finish

Yes, we will all welcome the good news

Immediately, we won’t wait to celebrate,

To pop bottles of champagne

This would bring my drinking,

And my smoking to a pause,

As I concentrate on the campaign trails

With my father known as a hero,

The former president,

The man of the people

It would not take that long to win voters’ admirations

The paupers who take pride in names,

Things that are devoid of meaning

Folks who scramble to submit in their votes for my presidential candidacy

With the sole hope of being rewarded with the crumbs

That fall off the table,

Hope that never materializes

By the way, this is the only time you’re considered valuable

During elections, we value you

You become a valuable customer,

A political customer

All we require from you is a vote

Nothing else

After that, we forget your ass until another election season

That’s how we do it

We, the born to rule

Hey!

Who the hell are you people?

Let go of my arms

Stop pulling me

Shit!

What?

So you are cops, uh?

So, this filthy dude called cops on me?

I see

And you idiots got the balls to lay your hands on me?

Silly smelly cops

You little rats,

You just got your asses fired

That, I promise you

Wait till my dad learns of this……..

South Sudan’s Atong De Mach Wins 4th Place in Miss World Competition 2012

South Sudan’s Atong Demach who was fourth overall was the top African queen at this year’s Miss World competition.

20 August 2012

Miss World Africa Atong Demach. [PHOTO: Miss World]

ORDOS, 20 August 2012 [HOWZIT MSN ]- The finals of this year’s Miss World beauty pageant have been held in the northeastern Chinese mining city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, located on the edge of the Gobi desert.

True to pre-event predictions, China’s Wenxia YU, was crowned Miss World 2012 at a thrilling ceremony held on the weekend. She takes over from Miss World 2011 Ivian Sarcos of Venezuela.

This year marked the 62nd edition, and saw some 116 countries taking part, including the newly independent African nation South Sudan.

Represented at the world stage this year by the ever gorgeous and stunning Atong Demach, South Sudan managed to create history by winning the coveted Miss World Africa prize, also known as the “African Continental Queen of Beauty”, on their first ever shot at the world title.

Demach, who turned 24 this year (16th June, 1988), also won the “Miss World Top Model” prize, a feat that contributed to her gradual progression into the list of top finalists.

At the Dongsheng Fitness Center Stadium venue, Atong mesmerized the wide array of global audience seated, as well as million others who watched through a syndicated worldwide broadcast, with her class-act stage craft, alluring and striking poses, and stunning looks.

After making it into the list of Top 15 countries, which also included contestants from Kenya, Indonesia, Netherlands, USA, Philippines, Spain, Brazil, England, Wales, China, Jamaica, Australia, Mexico, and India, Demach subsequently made it into the Top 7.

The Top 7 also included contestants from Jamaica, India, Australia, Brazil, China PR and Wales. Demach cruised into the finals of what was a night of pure fun for her, with cheeky ease, placing a respectable fourth position, and bringing the world’s attention to the country she represents.

Africa continues to make giant strides at the global event, held every year since its first edition. The continent has and continues to make a strong case at that stage.

South Sudan joins a tall list of other African countries, who have won the Miss World Africa prize. South Africa is the country with the most Miss World Africa titles, winning 11 in all, the most recent being last year when Bokang Montjane who was also in the top 7, won it. Emma Wareus of Botswana won Miss World Africa in 2010.

Demach is a final year student of the Juba University, located in Juba, the capital and largest city of the Republic of South Sudan and which also serves as the capital of Central Equatoria, the smallest of the ten states of South Sudan.

Her future ambition she says is “to be involved in helping all needy children while I also hope to help work towards protecting our precious environment”.

The unassuming but intelligent young lady from Bor, a town located on the River Nile, says she is … “honoured to represent my country for the first time at Miss World and proud to stand for Beauty with a Purpose. All of us, who will compete, stand for the values of humanity, the beauty and strength of women in our world”.

With a little over 8 million people, South Sudan is poised on defining herself away from the Sudan of old, which for a very long time, was stained and bedeviled with attrocities of war crimes against innocent civilians, looting, greed and insensitive corruption.

Blessed with enough natural resources, it is expected that Africa’s new nation will rise and shine. Demach’s winning of the Miss World Africa prize, is just one of several successes the country looks forward to achieving in the coming years.

In its 62nd year, the Miss World beauty pageant was founded by Eric Morley in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain celebrations. Some 26, young, beautiful ladies took part in the maiden edition.

The event is now being run by Julia Morley, wife of the deceased founder, who died in 2000. The Miss World franchise is available to some 130 countries.

Considered the world’s most successful beauty pageant, the Miss World event continues to offer hope to young, beautiful and brilliant ladies, who are keen on impacting lives and changing society.

http://www.gurtong.net/ECM/Editorial/tabid/124/ID/7576/Default.aspx

Anderson Cooper Comes Out Finally: “The Fact Is, I’m Gay.”

The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud. I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don’t give that up by being a journalist.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/anderson-cooper-the-fact-is-im-gay.html

Israel “belongs to white man” Says Eli Yishai, the Israeli interior minister

The Israeli government has also resorted to overt racist statements when referring to African refugees.  Eli Yishai, the interior minister, said recently that he would use “all the tools to expel the foreigners,” claiming that “Israel belongs to the white man.”

http://electronicintifada.net/content/sudanese-face-expulsion-minister-declares-israel-belongs-white-man/11394

Note to refugees from South Sudan: Israel is for the white man

These were the astonishing words uttered by Israel’s interior minister Eli Yishai in an interview recently in which he outlined the Israeli government’s view of African migrants. He also added in the same interview which featured in the newspaper Maariv that “The infiltrators along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream,” With particular reference to the few hundred South Sudanese refugees living in Israel, the comments by made by Yishai were delivered as the government set about enforcing its new policy-to expel the South Sudanese.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/22/note-to-refugees-from-south-sudan-israel-is-for-the-white-man/

Book Review: The Hidden Barack Obama

The Hidden Obama: A young man more introspective than ambitious, the future president took a long time to choose a direction in life.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303901504577461660023302338.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

120 South Sudanese leaving Israel under pressure

120 South Sudanese leaving Israel under pressure

The Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel was forcing 120 South Sudanese to leave the country on Sunday, starting what was to be a mass deportation of thousands of …

The Problem of University of Juba Is Corruption and Needs Political …
AllAfrica.com
In most of our government’s institutions in South Sudan, it is easy to predict a tribe of a minister if you identify the gate keeper. This is the rampant practice that …

120 S.Sudanese forced to leave Israel

Independent Online - ‎

By Amy Tiebel AP South Sudanese migrant workers wave as they board a bus in the bus terminal in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, June 17, 2012 before leaving to Ben Gurion airport to leave for South Sudan. Israel is forcing 120 South Sudanese to leave the …

 Israel deporting 120 South Sudanese

Times LIVE - ‎

Residents of south Tel Aviv hold placards as they protest against African migrants living in their neighborhood. Sudanese protesters hold signs during a demonstration in Tel Aviv against the deportation of migrants from South Sudan.

 Israel to fly S.Sudanese home in migrant crackdown

Straits Times - ‎‎

A South Sudanese migrant waves his national flag as he waits to board a bus to Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, where they will be deported to south Sudan on June 17, 2012. Some 120 people from Southern Sudan will take the first flight back home as …

 120 South Sudanese leaving Israel under pressure

Times of India - ‎

JERUSALEM: Israel was forcing 120 South Sudanese to leave the country on Sunday, starting what was to be a mass deportation of thousands of unauthorized African migrants who have poured into the Jewish state. Some 60000 impoverished Africans, …

 Israel launches African migrant deportation drive

Reuters - ‎‎

* Israel lacks options on bulk of African migrants * Grateful Juba vows to recognise Jerusalem claim By Dan Williams JERUSALEM, June 17 (Reuters) – Israel launched a high-profile deportation drive against African migrants on Sunday with an airlift of …

 Israel begins deporting Africans

News24 - ‎

African migrants protected by Israeli border police, background, look on to an anti-African migrant protest, not seen, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Ariel Schalit, AP) This up-to-date guide to Israel and the Palestinian territories includes a history chapter …

 Sudanese battle price hikes as economic crisis bites

Al-Arabiya - ‎

In a report late last month, the International Monetary Fund described the economic challenges the South Sudan faces as “daunting.” (Reuters) By AFP Iman is grateful at least that she is healthy. But the Sudanese mother of two says she struggles to …

 S. Sudan supports ‘return’ of illegal migrants

Jerusalem Post - ‎‎

By REUTERS The South Sudanese government supports Israel’s decision to send illegal migrants back to South Sudan. Formally independent from Sudan since last July, the African country received clandestine Israeli help for decades prior and counts on …

 PIBA loads S. Sudanese migrants on buses to airport

Jerusalem Post - ‎

By BEN HARTMAN First plane carrying 120 South Sudanese migrants set to leave Israel; deadline to voluntarily leave country extended. The Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) began loading South Sudanese migrants onto buses in cities …

 Netanyahu: Deportation of African migrants will take place in ‘humane’ fashion

Haaretz - ‎

Speaking ahead of first flight of deported South Sudanese migrants, premier says Israel has to uphold a Jewish tradition of treating foreigners with dignity. By Barak Ravid | Jun.17, 2012 | 12:21 PM By Roy Arad | Jun.17,2012 | 12:21 PM By Yaniv …

 Netanyahu: Deportation will be humane

Ynetnews - ‎

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Israel’s handling of the deportation of illegal aliens on Sunday stressing that the state will “act in a humane manner.” Infiltrators will no longer be transported to Tel Aviv and instead be immediately placed …

 PM: Migrants to be deported in dignified manner

Jerusalem Post -

By HERB KEINON, REUTERS Netanyahu outlines plan on migrants hours before 1st group of S. Sudanese fly back to country of origin. S. Sudan supports “return.” With heart-rending scenes of police rounding up frightened African migrants on the nightly news …

 South Sudan, still in infancy, already a global problem child

Kansas City Star - ‎

By ALAN BOSWELL NAIROBI, Kenya — Along a road littered with bodies, South Sudan marched north in mid-April to capture a Sudanese oil field that both countries claim. By the time South Sudan withdrew from Heglig 10 days later, it had damaged more than …

 PM: Migrants will be returned to their country with dignity

Jerusalem Post - ‎

By JPOST.COM STAFF Ahead of the departure of 120 South Sudanese migrants, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday morning that the migrants will be returned to their country in a organized and dignified manner. Speaking at the beginning of the …

UK PM Forgets 8-year-old daughter in pub

Cameron was traveling in one car with his bodyguards and assumed that Nancy was in the other car with his wife Samantha and their two other children. Samantha, however, assumed young Nancy was with her father, and they only realized she was missing when they got home.

http://news.yahoo.com/whoops-uk-pm-leaves-8-old-daughter-pub-201302870.html

Vatileak: God’s Bank Mired Down in Embarrassing Financial Scandals

Insight: Vatican bank-money, mystery and monsignors

By Philip Pullella and Silvia Aloisi | Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – For a financial institution whose ATMs offer Latin as a language option, whose offices are below the pope’s windows and where tellers work under the gaze of crucifixes, one might assume the Vatican bank would have a dispensation from earthly travails.

But new judicial woes and internal upheavals at the bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), have raised new hurdles for the Vatican, just as it entered the final stretch of years of efforts to join the international club of financial righteousness.

On May 24, in the type of corporate drama rarely seen in the Vatican, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, 67, the Italian president of the IOR, stormed out of the bank’s executive offices……….

Read More…

http://news.yahoo.com/insight-vatican-bank-money-mystery-monsignors-100134961–finance.html

Israel demonstration against African migrants turns violent

African asylum seekers injured in Tel Aviv race riots

The Guardian - ‎

Dozens of African asylum seekers were injured as race riots broke out in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night. Thousands of protesters joined politicians to protest against the arrival of an estimated 60000 asylum seekers in Israel in recent years.

 Israel demonstration against African migrants turns violent

Al-Arabiya - ‎‎

Over the years, an estimated 60000 Africans, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, have slipped over the border into Israel from Egypt. (Reuters) By AFP Violence broke out as several hundred people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night against the …

 Police arrest 11 for attacking African migrants in Tel Aviv

Jerusalem Post - ‎

By YAAKOV LAPPIN Police arrested a gang of eleven youths from south Tel Aviv on suspicion of launching a series of assaults on African migrants in the area. Police believe the suspects, nine of whom are minors, assaulted the migrants, and used clubs …

 Tel Aviv protest against African migrants turns violent

Jewish Telegraphic Agency - ‎

More than a thousand protesters gathered Wednesday in the Hatikvah neighborhood carrying signs reading “South Tel Aviv a refugee camp” and “Infiltrators, leave our home.” Protesters attacked African migrants who passed the demonstration, …

 12 arrested during TA protest against African migrants

Ynetnews - ‎‎

Police employed nightsticks and pepper spray in the arrests of 12 people during a demonstration against African migrants and infiltrators that took place in south Tel Aviv Wednesday night. The suspects allegedly attacks foreign workers during the …

 AG: South Sudanese can be deported

Ynetnews - ‎‎

About to be deported? Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein has presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a brief that says that Israel can return illegal migrants from South Sudan to their country. Weinstein met with Netanyahu on Wednesday evening …

 Car containing 3 African migrants set alight; none injured

Jerusalem Post - ‎‎

By YAAKOV LAPPIN A car containing three African migrants was set upon by a group of demonstrators, who smashed its windows and headlights. Police arrived and pushed back the rioters, and the vehicle left the area. The car’s occupants were unharmed.

 May 24: We come first

Jerusalem Post -‎

By JERUSALEM POST READERS Sir, – The article “Threats to deport Africans are only populist political talk, NGOs say” (May 22) confronts us with an extremely serious and growing problem. Thousands of African infiltrators are streaming into Israel every …

 Rally: South Tel Aviv a ‘refugee camp’

Ynetnews - ‎

Residents says streets ‘no longer safe for children, women’ due to influx of African infiltrators. Demonstrators attack migrants’ car. MK Regev: They are a cancer in our society Hundreds of people gathered in south Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood …

 AG: S. Sudanese migrants can legally be deported

Jerusalem Post -

By JPOST.COM STAFF Over a thousand people gather across Israel to protest influx of African infiltrators; Danon: Expel them to Africa, Europe. Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein informed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that it his opinion …

 Danon: Expel infiltrators to Africa, eastern Europe

Jerusalem Post - ‎

By JPOST.COM STAFF MK Danny Danon (Likud), chairman of the “Deportation Now” movement, called on Wednesday for the immediate expulsion of African migrants from Israel. Speaking at a rally in south Tel Aviv, Danon said: “The infiltrators are a national …

 Report: AG tells Netanyahu deportation of Sudanese legal

Jerusalem Post - ‎

By JPOST.COM STAFF Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein informed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that it his opinion that Israel can legally begin to detain and deport infiltrators from Sudan, Channel 2 reported.

 Knocking on Etgar Keret’s door

Jerusalem Post - ‎

By DAVID BRINN The day before he was due to speak at a session of the International Writers Festival in Jerusalem last week, Etgar Keret is sipping coffee on the terrace of his favorite neighborhood café in Tel Aviv. Amid the well-scrubbed, Keep our Israel Jewish

Ynetnews - ‎

On Saturday morning, an unusual episode took place near my southern Tel Aviv apartment: A wedding procession. The minister wore a white cape and boasted a well-groomed beard and a cross on his chest. The groom and his friends wore fancy suits.

 Hot, Partner Drop in Tel Aviv After First-Quarter Profit Slides

BusinessWeek -

By Shoshanna Solomon on May 23, 2012 Hot Telecommunication System Ltd. (HOT) and Partner Communications Co. tumbled to the lowest in at least three years in Tel Aviv after the Israeli telecommunications providers reported a slump in first-quarter …

 Israel’s migrant explosion

Ynetnews - ‎

Tens of thousands of illegal residents from African countries have infiltrated into Israel from Egypt, and when they enter they receive a temporary dwelling permit – so it is possible to define most of them as asylum seekers. Only some hundreds in fact …

 Guardian not wrong to say Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital, panel says

Jewish Telegraphic Agency - ‎May 22, 2012‎

(JTA) — A complaint leveled against the Guardian over Israel’s capital city was decided in favor of the British newspaper. In correcting a photo caption that had referred to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the newspaper wrote that “The caption on a …

 MKs squabble over how to deal with African migrants

Haaretz - ‎May 21, 2012‎

Tel Aviv police chief reports spike in crime, increased tension in south of city; urges Knesset to let refugees work. By Jonathan Lis | May.22, 2012 | 12:39 AM The Knesset’s Committee on Foreign Workers held a tense meeting yesterday that discussed a …

 Israelis Riot, Loot, Attack, Stone African Refugees

FailedMessiah.com - ‎1 hour ago‎

Dozens of protesters tried to move from the Hatikva neighborhood, where the rally was held, towards Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood, where most African refugees live. They were stopped by police. Protesters attacked a car passing by carrying African …

 South Sudan, world’s youngest nation, develops unlikely friendship with Israel

Jewish Post -

By Armin Rosen, JTA James Lago, a street merchant in Juba, South Sudan, with the Israeli flag. (Armin Rosen) JUBA, South Sudan (JTA) – This city in the world’s newest country is not your typical Arabic-speaking capital. For one thing, most of the …

 Violence Erupts at Anti-African Rally in Tel Aviv

Forward - ‎

Escalating Conflict: Demonstrators rally against immigrants in Tel Aviv. Violence later broke out and several Africans were beaten. By Haaretz Over a thousand people demonstrated Wednesday night in south Tel Aviv, calling on Israeli authorities to …

 Violent Tel Aviv demo against African migrants

The Australian Eye - ‎

By Gary Dunn Violence broke out as several hundred people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night against the sizeable community of African immigrants in the city, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. “Following the violence, we arrested five …

 MK Danon: “Banish Now, before it’s too Late!”

Arutz Sheva -

Chairman of the Banish Now movement, MK Danny Danon (Likud) participated in the anti-aliens demonstration in South Tel Aviv Wednesday evening. “The Aliens must be banished from Israel before it’s too late. Send the Sudanese to Sudan, and send the rest …

 Israel police arrest 5 at protest against migrants

KENS 5 TV - ‎

AP JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police say they have arrested five people at a protest against African migrants in south Tel Aviv. Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld says about 200 people gathered in an impoverished neighborhood where many migrants live.

 1000 in Demo to Deport Illegal Immigrants

Arutz Sheva - ‎

MK Danny Danon: Israel is at war with an enemy state that has established its capital in southern Tel Aviv. By Gil Ronen Over 1000 people took part Wednesday evening in a protest against Israel’s growing illegal immigrant population.

 Not in my name

The Jewish Journal of Greater L.A. - ‎

by Maya Paley The Jerusalem Post recently reported on the Molotov cocktails thrown into a Nigerian woman’s open day care and an Eritrean family’s private apartment in Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood. Luckily no one was hurt, but this incident reminded …

 Fear In Tel Aviv Due To Refugee Influx

The Jewish Press -‎

Angry and frightened working-class residents in parts of Tel Aviv are accusing Israeli police and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai of failing to aggressively confront an unprecedented spike in the number of violent acts against local citizens by a growing …

 DICHTER: Israel’s historic opportunity

Washington Times - ‎May 22, 2012‎

By Avi Dichter With the establishment last week of a broad national unity government in Israel – brought about by the Kadima Party’s bold decision to join Prime Minister Netanyahus government – I believe that Israel is on the crossroads of major …

Sudan’s press under siege

By Abdelgadir Mohammed Abdelgadir/CPJ Guest Blogger

Press freedom in Sudan is rapidly deteriorating, with confiscation of newspapers by the security agency becoming a norm. The scope of violations committed against publications and journalists by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) is widening by the day.

Since early May, the NISS has confiscated more than 14 editions of different newspapers in Sudan, suspended more than 13 journalists from writing in newspapers, and identified about 20 taboo topics not to be tackled by the press.

Newspapers confiscated by the NISS since early May:

• On May 1 and 2, the NISS confiscated Al-Jarida from the printing press.
• On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, the NISS confiscated Al-Midan after printing was completed.
• On May 6, the NISS confiscated Al-Midan and Al-Jarida after printing was completed.
• On May 7, the NISS confiscated Al-Tayar after printing was completed.
• On May 8, 10, 13, and 15, the NISS confiscated Al-Midan after printing was completed.
• On May 17, the NISS halted printing of Al-Midan.
• On May 11, 12, and 14, the NISS confiscated Al-Jarida after printing was completed.
• On May 18, the NISS confiscated Akhir Lahza from the printing press.

Every confiscated newspaper results in losses of between 10,000 and 15,000 Sudanese pounds (equivalent to US$330 and US$5,000) in printing costs, even without factoring in other operational expenses including rental of premises, wages and salaries, travel expenses, and advertisement costs. In addition, these newspapers suffer a moral blow and lose the confidence of their readership because of their repeated no-shows on newsstands–which they are unable to explain because the government bans newspapers from discussing censorship.

By confiscating newspapers, the security agency aims to cause a significant financial loss and force the newspapers either to go out of business or to comply with its instructions.

Arresting journalists

On May 15, the NISS arrested for the second time this month prominent journalist, university professor of media, and editor-in-chief of the suspended Al-Adwa newspaper Faisal Mohamed Saleh. He was interrogated at the State Security Prosecution several hours after his arrest. A police complaint was issued against him under Article 94 of the Criminal Code on resisting a law enforcement officer.

Saleh was released on bail pending further investigations, with a hearing set for June 11. Conviction under Article 94 is punishable by approximately one month of jail time and a fine.

Between April 25 and May 11, Saleh was told to appear at the security agency daily because of a statement he made on Al-Jazeera TV in which he criticized a speech by President Omar al-Bashir as escalating the language of war.

“The security personnel came to my house and my office more than once during the day and in the evening on Wednesday, April 25. I wasn’t at home,” Saleh said. “Around 8 p.m., they came to my house again and told me I was wanted by the security agency. I joined them outside and went with them to the premises of the security agency. I was questioned about my comments regarding the president’s speech in Al-Abyad City to Al-Jazeera’s 6 p.m. newscast of Thursday, April 19. There was not much to say since they already had the news bulletin recorded and I also repeated my comments to them. They told me that such comments were not fit for media and it was better to communicate them to the authorities by other means and that I should be conservative when speaking to foreign media outlets and should not talk about certain issues except to local media. They also told me that I used some inappropriate words. I replied to all that. The interrogation lasted until midnight. I was asked to come back on Thursday morning to continue the interrogation which they insisted on calling a ‘dialogue.’”

Saleh continued to report daily to the security agency premises in Khartoum North for 11 days. On the 12th day, however, he decided not to go to the security agency premises and posted his intention on local websites. The next morning, he was arrested and kept in the security agency premises for about nine hours without interrogation.

Journalists banned from writing per NISS orders

In addition to the direct censorship exercised by the NISS on newspapers and other publications, the NISS instructs management boards and editors-in-chief of newspapers to suspend certain journalists from writing. Should a newspaper not comply with NISS orders, it would face confiscation and possible suspension. Editors-in-chief report that they were instructed by the security agency not to publish the work of certain journalists or their news outlets will be closed.

At last count, the following journalists were suspended:

• Haidar al-Makashfi, editorial consultant at Al-Sahafa
• Zuhair al-Siraj, columnist at Al-Jarida
• Abdullah al-Sheikh, former editor-in-chief of multiple papers
• Abu Zar Ali al-Amin, writer at the suspended Rai Al-Shaab and at Al-Jarida
• Fayez al-Salik, Al-Jarida
• Amal Habbani, Al-Jarida
• Mujahed Abdullah, Alwan
• Essam Jafar, Alwan
• Rasha Awad, Al-Jarida
• Ashraf Abdul Aziz, Al-Jarida
• Al-Tahir Abu Jawhara, Al-Jarida
• Mohammad Mahmoud Al-Subhi, Al-Jarida
• Abdul Salam al-Qarai, Al-Jarida

Banning journalists from writing is a weapon used by the security agency to deprive journalists of their livelihoods and income in order to coerce them into obedience.

Taboo topics

The security agency sends a daily letter to editors-in-chief in Khartoum containing a list of taboo topics. “The list of red lines is long and renewed on a daily basis,” said journalist Idris al-Douma, the managing editor of Al-Jarida. “We usually abide by the directives of the security agency and have never disregarded them. Yet, the security agency still disrupts the printing of the newspaper. We do not know the reason behind such deliberate disruption. We believe thatAl-Jarida newspaper is targeted by the security agency but we do not know why,” Al-Douma said.

Security agency censorship takes different forms, including orders communicated to the editor-in-chief or the managing editor over the phone not to publish about certain topics that the agency considers taboo.

“I received an evening phone call from the Intelligence and Security Services on Saturday, May 5,” said Madiha Abdullah, editor-in-chief of the critical Al-Midan. “They told me over the phone that the newspaper must not contain articles that criticize the performance of the security agency, the armed forces, or the police, and must not criticize the president, and that the newspaper must not discuss the situation of civil liberties and press freedoms, problems in the government of the state of Gedaref [in Eastern Sudan] or the dismissal of the governor,” she said. “Previously, they had warned against criticizing the performance of the army and the violations committed at the hands of the police, uniformed forces, and the security agency, along with a list of taboo subjects. However, we usually do not abide by these directives, as they are too numerous and restrictive and violate our right to publish and the people’s right to access information.”

Abdelgadir Mohammed Abdelgadir is a Sudanese freelance journalist and press freedom advocate based in Khartoum. He recently authored a book on press freedom in Sudan called, “Walls of Silence: Systematic Practices to Repress Press Freedoms, Freedom of Opinion and Expression in Sudan.”

Expel All the Criminals from Israel: African Migrants Should Indeed be Expelled

Op-ed: African migrants should indeed be expelled, along with another Israeli sector

Asaf Gefen

In the past, Interior Minister Eli Yishai from the Shas party already warned us that African work migrants brought to Israel diseases such as hepatitis B, measles, and AIDS.

Now, according to Minister Yishai, it turns out that they also imported to Israel various phenomena such as the rape epidemic, violence, theft, and the usage of knives for purposes other than cutting vegetables.

Indeed, some researchers insist that such criminal phenomenon have been observed in Israel even before the African crime families arrived here. However, these must be odd claims that are no less unfounded than Darwin’s evolution theory.

And as the Africans brought to Israel not only the crime virus, but are also dangerous missionaries who are plotting to convert us from Judaism to the new religion of criminality, we should all join the call issued by Minister Yishai this past week.

Indeed, we should imprison and expel from here all of these Africans. However, this should only be done on one condition.

In addition to all of these criminals, another criminally minded community must also be expelled. After all, this community’s involvement in criminal activities exceeds that of any other sector in Israel and there is no other community that made a greater contribution to rising crime here and to the process of Israel’s social deterioration.

I’m talking about the Shas party’s Knesset members.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4231130,00.html

The truth about ‘refugees’

Op-ed: African migrants threatening Israel’s future with help of leftist groups, European governments

Hanoch Dau

The most enlightened thing one can do is to embrace the children whose parents infiltrated into Israel on a cold night, but the time has come to take off the masks: The three Eritreanssuspected of raping a 15-year-old girl are merely a minor prelude to what will happen here should we fail to regain our senses soon.

At this time already, some 40% of crimes in Tel Aviv are committed by these illegal aliens, and at this rate the millionth infiltrator will be arriving in Israel at some point. Did anyone say “demographic threat”?

Our pathetic desire to be enlightened is making us lose our minds. The “Israeli Children” NGO claims that Israel expels the children of foreign workers. But that’s a lie – Israel expels the parents. The children go with them.

And here’s yet another lie: The term “refugees.” These are not refugees. We are dealing with people who are seeking a better life. Even according to the relevant UN convention, refugees are only considered as such in the first state they arrive in from their country – in this case, it’s Egypt.

Leftists groups are also lying when they say that one cannot return to South Sudan because of mortal danger. South Sudan is 20 or 30 times larger than Israel. The dangerous zone there only comprises a tiny part of the land.

In Eritrea, by the way, a dictatorship rules and there is mandatory army service of 15 years. Most infiltrators are draft-dodgers; people who simply did not want to join the army. One can understand them, but this is not our problem.

High Court to the ‘rescue’

Leftist groups petitioned the High Court of Justice, which forbade Israel to return infiltrators back to Egypt shortly after they cross the border, lest they be shot. Yet this constitutes dangerous self-righteousness. Had the Egyptians shot the first five infiltrators returned to them, the 500 waiting their turn would think twice about coming here.

Yet now they have an insurance police courtesy of the High Court; they know that even if they are nabbed, Israel will protect them.

Another law that the High Court banned because of a petition by leftist groups is legislation that would forbid employers to hire infiltrators. Until a detention facility is built (the State is currently trying to build it at your expense, at a cost of hundreds of millions of shekels,) such law is illegal.

The result of this is that the infiltrators are working, and their friends in Africa who hear about it are arriving here en masse.

Do you see what’s happening here? European governments are handing over money to leftist groups that assist the infiltrators via the High Court. And what does Europe gain from this? That’s obvious. Every infiltrator who arrives here is one less infiltrator who goes there.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4230916,00.html

Bnei Brak may ‘expose’ landlords who rent out flats to Africans

City officials say landlords subdivide flats, cram refugees in them with ‘total disregard for general population’

Yoav Zitun

Following the halachic ruling issued by rabbis in Bnei Brak’s Pardes Katz neighborhood according to which residents are forbidden to rent out apartments to African migrants, the municipality announced Wednesday its inspectors would work in the coming days against landlords who illegally subdivide apartments and rent them out to “many Sudanese who have arrived recently.”

Speaking to Ynet, Mayor Rabbi Yaakov Asher explained, “Police do not deal with them on grounds that they have refugee status, and this is the only way we found to tackle the phenomenon.

“We may reveal the names of landlords who rent out apartments to refugees, but not before they receive prior notice,” he said.

The City of Bnei Brak has the authority to file charges against people who subdivide apartments. A city official said the phenomenon is expanding “as many Sudanese who lived near the central bus station in Tel Aviv have left because of the police station located nearby.”

According to city officials, some landlords cram as many as 10 Sudanese refugees into the apartments and charge $100-200 from each of them.

One official said the City is considering the possibility of revealing the landlords’ names “so the public will learn the identity of those whose personal monetary interests outweigh the harm caused to the general population.

“http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3982899,00.html

Surge in number of illegal migrants

Some 5,528 illegal migrants infiltrate Israel through southern border in first three months of 2012 in contrast to 1,742 who entered at same time last year

Omri Efraim

Some 5,528 illegal migrants infiltrated Israel through the southern border in the first three months of 2012, compared with only 1,742 illegal migrants who infiltrated Israel during the same period last year, data released by the Population and Immigration Authority revealed on Tuesday.

Over the months of January and February 2012, some 2,406 Eritreans and 848 Sudanis and 220 migrants from other countries came into the country illegally through the Egyptian border. At the same time 601 people were deported from Israel (some of which were foreign workers and not infiltrators), and 24 have had their status regularized.

In 2011 the majority of infiltrators arrived from Sudan and Eritrea, countries which by international law, Israel cannot deport people back to. Yet the most recent government decision on the matter determined that as southern Sudan has already gained independence, it is possible to deport illegal migrants from that country.

Even so, the Jerusalem District Court has accepted petitions filed on the subject and postponed the deportation to April 15. At the same time, the Foreign Ministry is seeking to delay the deportation due to new information it received on the situation in Southern Sudan.

According to Immigration Authority data, there are currently 75,000 legal foreign workers in Israel today, most of whom are employed in the nursing sector (42,653) and construction (5,221). An additional 2,225 foreign workers are employed legally as specialists in their field.

The Immigration Authority estimates that 13,885 illegal migrants are currently residing in Israel, with the majority employed in the nursing sector and 2,000 in the construction sector.

In 2011 some 34,350 illegal migrants left Israel willingly.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4212215,00.html

MK: African migrant infiltrations like in biblical times

Meeting of south Tel Aviv residents demands government action to curb flow of refugees to area. Protestor: Those who say I’m racist can go to hell in their black-free buildings and neighborhoods

Yoav Zitun 

Dozens south Tel Aviv’s residents gathered at the Hatikva neighborhood on Monday to protest what they referred to as the State’s failure to address the flow of African migrants to the area.

Some protestors said the refugees “chase our daughters,” while others called the Africans “beasts” and claimed they “spread diseases, drink and steal.”

The conference was held just a few days after a migrant from Eritrea allegedly murdered his pregnant wife in the neighborhood.

“Today a refugee stole the purse of an elderly woman I take care of,” neighborhood activist Pnina Cohen said. “They walk around in robes with nothing underneath and chase our daughters. This is a war we must wage, or else we’ll lose our home.”

Irna, who lives near the murdered woman’s apartment, said, “I lived in fear even before the murder. I made aliyah from Russia to this neighborhood because I like it, but I don’t leave the house at night. It’s very scary.”

Gidi Aharoni from the Kfar Shalem neighborhood said, “They spread disease and mingle with our children; they drink and steal. Those who say I’m racist can go to hell in their black-free buildings and neighborhoods. “

City Council member Shlomi Maslawi (Likud) said, “Demographically speaking, they have already surpassed us, and we have become the minority in our own neighborhood. This is a national problem. They take away our housing, jobs and receive welfare at our expense. We demand that the government reinstate the ‘Gedera-Hadera policy’ and scatter them across the periphery.”

Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari (National Union), who was accompanied by extreme rightist Baruch Marzel, told the meeting that the infiltration of African migrants through the Egyptian border is akin to the “Midianite raids on Israel in biblical times.

“They too arrived from Sinai, with their large numbers as their weapon. They also stole,” he said.

The MK criticized fellow lawmakers “who are afraid to speak their minds for fear of being accused of racism.

“People mention Iran and the Palestinians as being the main threats to Israel, but here there is a tangible danger, and the Cabinet is not convening to try and find a solution,” Ben-Ari added.

TA man suspected of torching migrant homes

Police say evidence links Shapira neighborhood resident to recent firebomb attack on homes of African refugees

Eli Senyor

Police arrested a 20-year-old resident of Tel Aviv on suspicion of throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of asylum-seeking migrants in the city’s Shapira neighborhood, Ynet reported Sunday.

Firebombs were hurled overnight Friday at four homes in which African migrants reside and towards another apartment which also serves as a kindergarten. No injuries were reported, but the structures were damaged.

Activists protest violence directed at migrants (Photo: Yaron Brener)

Investigators have gathered forensic evidence that allegedly links the suspect to the crime. Police are still trying to determine whether the suspect had any accomplices.

Following the incident, some 200 social activists held a rally in the Shapira neighborhood on Friday in support of the migrants. “It was just a matter of time,” said Orit Marom of the Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel. “The incitement against asylum-seekers is terrible. Israelis spit at them on the street.”

Dori, a neighborhood resident, said that while she is against hurling firebombs, it is the migrants who usually instigate the violence. “We are afraid to walk the streets or send our children to the park alone,” she said.

Another Shapira resident said: “We are not a sewer in which all the refugees are thrown into. They should be scattered all over the country. Let us live.”

South Sudan, world’s youngest nation, develops unlikely friendship with ‘role model’ Israel

Despite tensions over migrants, a relationship that dates back to 1967 — when rebels first contacted Israeli PM Levi Eshkol — is flourishing

By ARMIN ROSEN May 18, 2012 

JUBA, South Sudan (JTA) – This city in the world’s newest country is not your typical Arabic-speaking capital.

For one thing, most of the city’s inhabitants are Christian. For another, the Israeli flag is ubiquitous here.

Miniature Israeli flags hang from car windshields and flutter at roadside stalls, and at the Juba souk in the city’s downtown, you can buy lapel pins with the Israeli flag alongside its black, red and green South Sudanese counterpart.

“I love Israel,” said Joseph Lago, who sells pens, chewing gum and phone cards at a small wooden stall decorated with Israeli and South Sudanese flags. “They are people of God.”

Many South Sudanese are not just pro-Israel but proudly and openly so. There’s a Juba neighborhood called Jerusalem. A hotel near the airport is called the Shalom.

Perhaps most notable, South Sudan’s fondness for Israel extends to the diplomatic arena, where the two countries have been building strategic ties in a relationship that long preceded the founding of South Sudan last July.

“They see in us kind of a role model in how a small nation surrounded by enemies can survive and prosper, and they would like to imitate that,” Haim Koren, the incoming Israeli ambassador to South Sudan, told JTA.

South Sudan was created last year when its residents voted to secede from Sudan, a country with a Muslim majority and without diplomatic ties to Israel. The government in Khartoum accepted the secession, but in recent weeks a long-simmering dispute over oil revenues and borders has brought the two Sudans to the brink of all-out war.

With Sudan having often served as a safe haven for enemies of Israel and the West, the South Sudanese and Israel have had a common adversary.

In the mid-1990s, Osama bin Laden found shelter in Sudan. In 1995, Sudanese intelligence agents participated in an attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, an ally of Israel and the West. Khartoum signed a military cooperation agreement with Iran in 2008, and in 2009, Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed a 23-truck weapons convoy in Sudan bound for the Gaza Strip.

The first contact between militants from southern Sudan and the Israeli government was in 1967, when a commander with the Anyana Sudanese rebel movement wrote to then-Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. The officer explained that his militants were fighting on Sudan’s southern flank, and that with some help, the Anyana could keep Israel’s enemies bogged down and distracted.

According to James Mulla, the director of Voices of Sudan, a coalition of U.S.-based Sudanese-interest organizations, Israel’s support proved pivotal to the Anyana’s success during the first Sudanese civil war, which ended in 1972.

“Israel was the only country that helped the rebels in South Sudan,” Mulla told JTA. “They provided advisers to the Anyana, which is one reason why the government of Sudan wanted to sign a peace agreement. They wanted to finish the Anyana movement just shortly before they got training and advice.”

Over the years, there have been reports of the Israelis continuing to aid South Sudanese rebels during Sudan’s second civil war, which lasted from 1983 to 2005 and resulted in an estimated 1.5 million to 2.5 million deaths.

Angelos Agok, a US-based activist and a 13-year veteran in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, recalls that the SPLM’s ties to Israel were kept discrete.

“It was an intricate case, where South Sudan was still part of Sudan, which is an Arab country,” Agok said. “We didn’t want to offend them, and we had to be very careful diplomatically.”

Agok said SPLA leaders traveled to Israel for training. The Israeli government declined to comment on the subject.

Koren says the relationship with South Sudan is consistent with Israel’s strategic interests in East Africa, where state failure and political extremism have provided terrorist groups with potential bases of operation.

“In the long run, we’re expecting that friendly countries like South Sudan could be an ally like other states that are built in a non-extreme way,” he said.

Agriculture is another reason for the alliance. South Sudan’s economic future likely depends on large-scale farming. There was little commercial development in the region during the war years, and the country still imports much of its food from Uganda, despite sitting on some of Africa’s richest potential farmland.

It’s an area in which Israel has deep expertise, and it shares that expertise in ongoing cooperative projects with numerous developing countries.

“We have the initiative and we have the abilities to contribute and to help,” Koren said of South Sudan’s agricultural potential.

Israel already has a small presence in the country in the form of IsraAid, an Israeli NGO coalition. In March, an IsraAid delegation helped South Sudan set up its Ministry of Social Development, which will provide social work-related services for a population traumatized by decades of war.

“Whenever you say you’re from Israel, they’ll open you the door,” said Ophelie Namiech, the head of the Israeli delegation. “When we say we’re Israeli, the trust has already been built.”

Eliseo Neuman, who is director of the American Jewish Committee’s Africa Institute and traveled to Juba with the SPLM when South Sudan was still under Khartoum’s control, says the close ties between Israel and South Sudan could complicate both countries’ relationships with the Arab world.

“The north was blamed by the Arab League generally for fumbling the secession, and some allege that now they have the Zionists on their southern frontier — meaning the South Sudanese,” Neuman said. “Any very overt strengthening of the relationship might be an irritant.”

The relationship faces another potential pitfall: the future of the estimated 3,000 South Sudanese living in Israel who fled to Israel via Egypt during the long civil war.

Israel has struggled with how to handle the migrants and differentiating between those who came seeking refuge from violence and those who came in search of economic opportunity.

Israel “takes its obligations as a signatory to the Refugee Convention very seriously, given the history of the Jewish people and the history of many people who ended up coming to Israel,” said Mark Hetfield, an official at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society who in two weeks will become its interim president and CEO. “But at the same time, they need to send a signal to people coming for economic reasons that they can’t sneak into the country under the guise of being asylum seekers.”

In February, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced plans to begin deporting South Sudanese who would not accept government financial incentives to leave the country voluntarily.

Hetfield, who is now senior vice president at HIAS for policy and programs, helped oversee a program in Israel that taught job skills to South Sudanese who planned on returning home, but the program was suspended when the threat of deportation loomed.

Hetfield says the group would like the Israeli government to grant South Sudanese a “temporary protected status” that would prevent them from being deported to their unstable homeland.

Mulla does not think that the Israeli refugee issue will have an impact on the broader strategic alliance between South Sudan and Israel. However, he said he has raised the issue of the possible deportations with the South Sudanese ambassador in Washington, and hopes that something can be done to halt the process.

“If Israel decides to deport them, of course it’s going to be devastating,” Mulla said.

Advocates for the Africans are appealing to Israel’s Supreme Court in an attempt to stall or halt the deportations.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/south-sudan-worlds-youngest-nation-develops-unlikely-friendship-with-role-model-israel/

UN council calls for Sudan agreement Huffington Post May 17, 2012 02:39 PM EST | AP UNITED NATIONS — The UN Security Council has called on Sudan and South Sudan to reach an agreement on the status of the disputed, oil-rich Abyei border region and extended the UN security force’s mission there by six …

South Sudan: Fuel Thirst AllAfrica.com By Victor Lugala, 17 May 2012 There is still an acute shortage of fuel in Juba. Long queues of vehicles and bodabodas are a common sight in petrol stations. Some motorists queue for as long as three hours and yet still go home without a drop of the …

UN council calls for Sudan agreement Las Vegas Sun AP The UN Security Council has called on Sudan and South Sudan to reach an agreement on the status of the disputed, oil-rich Abyei border region and extended the UN security force’s mission there by six months. The council passed a resolution Thursday …

South Sudan: SPLA Soldiers Hold Frontline Position Voice of America PANAKUAC, South Sudan - The border between South Sudan and Sudan is quiet, but tense after weeks of fighting in contested areas – which sparked fears of all-out war. South Sudanese troops are at a standstill as they await talks on a UN Security …

Flood of Nuba refugees hits camp near Sudan border Austin American-Statesman Amjuma Ali Kuku, 24, stands inside a compound for unaccompanied female minors in the Yida refugee camp, Unity State, South Sudan on Saturday, May 12, 2012. Amjuma, herself a refugee from South Kordofan, Sudan, took it upon herself to watch over and …

South Sudan, world’s youngest nation, develops unlikely friendship with Israel St. Louis Jewish Light By Armin Rosen · May 17, 2012 JUBA, South Sudan (JTA) – This city in the world’s newest country is not your typical Arabic-speaking capital. For one thing, most of the city’s inhabitants are Christian. For another, the Israeli flag is ubiquitous here.

Breaking the Standoff On Post-Independence Issues With Sudan AllAfrica.com By John A. Akec, 17 May 2012 Dr. John Garang de Mabior code-named the current President ofSouth Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, “tiger”. South Sudanese affectionately call him “Joshua” for taking over successfully from where Dr. Garang de Mabior or …

Walk to End Genocide Huffington Post 400000 Nuba civilians have been trapped in the mountainous regions of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in Sudan since June 2011, on the brink of a government-orchestrated famine. The Khartoum regime has intentionally cut them off from their fields …

UN Says Sudan strikes on South Sudan may be illegal As “AU-African Diplomat” Accuses South Sudan of Destroying Heglig’s Oilfield

Sudan strikes on S.Sudan may be illegal: UN

AFP – 

Sudanese air strikes on foe South Sudan could amount tointernational crimes, the UN rights chief warned Friday, adding that she was “saddened and outraged” at bombing raids that broke a UN ceasefire order.

“Deliberate or reckless attacks on civilian areas can, depending on the circumstances, amount to an international crime,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told reporters.

Khartoum has repeatedly denied its warplanes have bombarded Southern territory during weeks of bitter border conflict, including civilian areas and a UN base as well as Southern army positions along the contested frontier.

However Pillay, who has been visiting South Sudan, said Khartoum had carried out “indiscriminate bombing without consideration that civilians are living there.”

A May 2 Security Council resolution called for Sudan and South Sudan to cease hostilities along their border and settle unresolved issues after the South’s separation last July following a 1983-2005 civil war.

On Wednesday, Sudan’s army said it had fought with South Sudan along the disputed border, while the South said it had come under renewed Sudanese air attack, violating that UN ceasefire.

“Twice in the past six months I have publicly condemned the indiscriminate use of aerial bombardment by the Sudanese Armed Forces - today, I condemn it again,” Pillay added.

“What the UN has done in response to the aerial bombardment by Sudan in the territory of South Sudan is mostly the adoption of a Security Council resolution, which is very serious when it reaches this stage,” Pillay said.

Both sides have pledged to seek peace after bloody clashes began in late March, peaking with the South’s seizure of the key Heglig oil field before it pulled back after international condemnation.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said Thursday neither the UN nor the African Union can impose its will on Sudan, although Khartoum’s foreign ministry has sent written confirmation of its commitment to stop hostilities.

Under the resolution, talks must start by May 16.

Bashir and other senior Khartoum officials are already accused by the International Criminal Court of war crimes and genocide in Sudan’s western war-torn Darfur region.

http://news.yahoo.com/sudan-strikes-sudan-may-illegal-un-155206134.html

Riddle over war damage at Sudan’s Heglig

By Ian Timberlake | AFP 

Somewhere within the twisted metal of Sudan’s damaged Hegligpetroleum complex may lie the evidence to prove who caused the destruction during the 10-day occupation of the region by South Sudanese troops last month.

The United Nations has called for an impartial investigation into what happened at Heglig during the border war which sparked international alarm.

Sudan and South Sudan have blamed each other for the extensive damage to the export pipeline and central processing facility serving the north’s main oil field.

Sudanese officials said it produced roughly half the national production before South Sudanese forces moved in on April 10, disputing the north’s claim to the area.

During the occupation South Sudan’s army alleged the north bombed the Heglig area “indiscriminately,” and that an air raid struck the processing facility, setting it ablaze.

But the north blamed southern troops and called for compensation.

An African diplomat taken on a government-run tour a few days after Heglig’s “liberation” said the damage did not appear to have been caused by aerial bombing.

He said an explosion under the facility’s power station had left depressions in the ground and the metal roofing was blown out — damage inconsistent with an air strike.

The diplomat, who declined to be identified, said he could still detect the smell of explosives and felt South Sudan was responsible.

“My sense is that, I can’t see how Sudan would’ve self-inflicted that kind of thing on themselves,” the diplomat said.

“It was well thought out, well executed… just enough to cause disablement, at least for a while.”

But he said some observers in Khartoum disagree, believing that either side could have done it. “There are some who say that,” he added.

A source close to the oil industry also felt the South was behind the damage because it could not have been caused by aerial bombing.

Sudan announced last week that it had resumed pumping oil from the partially-repaired Heglig facility but the source said it would take months to resume full production.

An international economist estimated that Sudan’s oil revenues shrank by more than $700 million after Heglig was damaged.

South Sudan separated last July with about 75 percent of the former united Sudan’s oil production, leaving Khartoum struggling for revenue and hard currency.

Juba still depended on the north’s pipeline and Red Sea port to export its crude, which it said provided 98 percent of its earnings,.

But a protracted dispute over fees for use of that infrastructure was at the heart of tensions which brought the two countries to the brink of all-out war and led South Sudan in January to shut its oil production.

“It seems quite plausible to me that South Sudan did it,” an international analyst said of the Heglig damage.

Despite Sudan’s claims to have driven the South Sudanese troops from Heglig by force, the analyst and the diplomat said there had not been heavy fighting in Heglig itself, supporting the argument that Sudan wanted to preserve the oil facility.

“You would’ve seen artillery shells quite extensively… pock marks, and (battle) damage” if there had been intense combat, the diplomat said.

Corpses that were scattered about, “may have been of a show nature,” he added.

Sudan did not allow journalists into the Heglig area during clashes with the South, and granted them only brief access on government-escorted tours after South Sudan said it had withdrawn.

“They did not want them to witness this damage,” said South Sudan’s military spokesman Philip Aguer.

“Whatever story Khartoum is giving, it’s a fabrication. It is their own bombing. It is their own destruction,” he said. “Khartoum is a country based on denial.”

Magdi El Gizouli, a fellow at the Rift Valley Institute, a non-profit research group, said that because it was a war zone, “I think both parties contributed to the damage”.

Under a May 2 UN Security Council resolution, the two countries are to cease hostilities and resume by next Wednesday negotiations on unresolved issues including oil.

The resolution also calls for “an impartial fact-finding effort to assess the losses and economic and humanitarian damage, including to oil facilities and other key infrastructure, in and around Heglig.”

South Sudan is ready to comply with “all the articles” in the UN resolution, Minister for Cabinet Affairs Deng Alor said.

The African diplomat said the UN call for fact-finding is significant because in a climate of war rhetoric, “the first victim is truth.”

http://news.yahoo.com/riddle-over-war-damage-sudans-heglig-141702723.html

The Best of American’s Presidential Politickings

Both candidates are slammed as: ”Out of touch” with ordinary Americans. Obama: Cloistered in the White House. Hangs out with celebrities, acting “cool.” Doesn’t understand the real world because “he spent too much time at Harvard,” according to Romney, who earned two Harvard degrees himself. Romney: Grew up wealthy, with a governor for a father. Worth $200 million or more. He’s the kind of guy who had a Swiss bank account and wants a car elevator for his beach house, the Democrats note.

Who’s who? Obama, Romney projecting mirror image

By CONNIE CASS | Associated Press –

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — He’s a smug, Harvard-trained elitist who doesn’t get how regular Americans are struggling these days. More extreme than he lets on, he’s keeping his true agenda hidden until after Election Day. He’s clueless about fixing the economy, over his head on foreign policy. Who is he?

Your answer will help decide the next president.

Is it Barack Obama, as seen by Mitt Romney? Or Romney, the way Obama depicts him? For all their liberal versus conservative differences, when the two presidential contenders describe each other, they sound like they’re ragging on the same flawed guy. Or mirror images of that guy.

Will voters prefer the man waving with his left hand or his right?

Blame it on two cautious candidates with more traits in common than their disparate early biographies would suggest.

No Drama Obama is panned as professorial and aloof. Romney is deemed boring when he’s not being awkward.

Distrusted as too moderate within his own party, each is demonized as a radical by the other side. They don’t get specific about the tough stuff, like budget cuts or taxes, that would invite more precisely calibrated negative ads.

Add a presidential contest buried beneath a single issue, the economy, and original lines of attack are scarce. The candidates take jabs anyway.

“They’re trying to define each other. That’s what it’s all about,” said Ken Duberstein, chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan. “They’re throwing out different characterizations to see which one resonates.”

With quickie Internet videos and instant comebacks via Twitter, “the attack and counterattack is happening in real time,” said political communications expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson. “Campaigns are working to make sure nothing is missed.”

Attacks big or small get batted back, even if the response amounts to “I know you are, what am I?”

Democrats accuse Republicans of a “war on women,” Romney’s campaign notes rising female unemployment during the Obama years.

The Obama camp jokes about Romney’s dog riding on the roof of the family car; Republicans respond that Obama ate dog meat as a boy in Indonesia.

Both candidates are slammed as:

“Out of touch” with ordinary Americans.

Obama: Cloistered in the White House. Hangs out with celebrities, acting “cool.” Doesn’t understand the real world because “he spent too much time at Harvard,” according to Romney, who earned two Harvard degrees himself.

Romney: Grew up wealthy, with a governor for a father. Worth $200 million or more. He’s the kind of guy who had a Swiss bank account and wants a car elevator for his beach house, the Democrats note.

___

Bad for the middle class.

Obama: Failed to deliver on his promises to help Americans “struggling to find good jobs and make ends meet,” the Romney camp says. Median household income is down, unemployment up since he took office.

Romney: Wants to reduce taxes on the wealthy while devastating Medicare and cutting education, health care and other programs the middle class need, Democrats charge. Obama says that amounts to “social Darwinism.”

___

Suspiciously secretive.

Obama: Believing his microphone off, assured the Russian president he would have “more flexibility” after Election Day. Obama will reveal “his true positions only after the election is over,” Romney says. Republicans predict he would tack left on the environment, spending, gay rights and other issues.

Romney: Told campaign donors of plans to cut or eliminate the housing and education agencies as well as others — ideas he hasn’t disclosed publicly. “What’s Mitt hiding?” Democrats ask, demanding more about his personal tax returns and investments, too.

___

Too extreme.

Obama: Hopes to create “a European-style social welfare state,” Romney says, and “put free enterprise on trial.” Endorsing Romney, Newt Gingrich called Obama “the most radical, leftist president in American history.”

Romney: Referred to himself as “severely conservative.” He’s “extreme on women’s issues,” Democrats contend. Obama places him to the right of Reagan and suggests he’s akin to Barry Goldwater.

___

Unable to fix the economy.

Obama: Can’t get the jobless rate below 8 percent. He “delayed the recovery and made it anemic,” according to Romney, who says Obama lacks the private sector experience necessary to understand the economy.

Romney: As a venture capitalist, laid off workers and shipped jobs to Mexico, the Obama campaign says. Also created Massachusetts jobs more slowly than other governors of the time, Democrats note.

___

Not up to foreign policy.

Obama: Too weak to stand up to China or Russia or to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, and too eager to apologize for the United States, Romney charges.

Romney: Likely to stumble into another misguided war, according to Vice President Joe Biden. Wouldn’t have had the guts to send Navy SEALs into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, the Obama campaign suggests.

http://news.yahoo.com/whos-obama-romney-projecting-mirror-image-115522902.html