France Urged to Pay $40 Billion to Haiti in Reparations for "Independence Debt"
According to the UN-sponsored Haiti Reconstruction Fund, only two countries—Brazil and Estonia—have fully paid the pledged amount. The United States, France, Canada and many others have failed to send their pledged aid. A recent review by CNN found that just two percent of total pledges have been delivered to Haiti. Calls are now growing for another form of payment to Haiti: reparations. This week, a group of prominent academics and activists published an open letter calling on France to repay an "independence debt" it imposed nearly 200 years ago after Haiti successfully won independence from France. Haiti was forced to pay France around 90 million gold francs up until World War II, which after interest and inflation is valued today at up to $40 billion.


Singer, Civil Rights Activist Abbey Lincoln, 80, Joins the Ancestors

Abbey Lincoln

The jazz singer, songwriter, actress and civil rights activist Abbey Lincoln has joined the ancestors at the age of 80. In 1960, she and her then-husband Max Roach released the "We Insist! Freedom Now Suite." The recording became a landmark musical statement of the civil rights movement. Lincoln later said the political nature of the recording might have hurt her career. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2007, she said, "We all paid a price, but it was important to say something. It still is."


Jobless Claims Reach Six-Month High; Foreclosures Rise 9%
The number of claims for first-time unemployment benefits has reached its highest level in six months. According to the Labor Department, more than 484,000 initial jobless claims were filed last month, the highest number since the week ending February 20th. New figures meanwhile show foreclosures increased nine percent last month to 93,000. That’s also a six percent increase over the same period a year ago.


Wells Fargo Ordered to Repay Customers for Overdraft Fees
A federal judge in California has ordered the banking giant Wells Fargo to change its policies on overdraft fees and return $203 million to customers who overpaid. In his ruling, US District Judge William Alsup said Wells Fargo had engaged in "profiteering" and "unfair and deceptive business practices" that led customers into paying excessive fees. Wells Fargo drove up fees by processing the most expensive transactions first, instead of in the order of when they took place.


Alleged Serial Killer to be Extradited to Michigan
The suspect in a series of killings and attacks in three states waived his extradition to Michigan.
Elias Abuelazam, 33, a Christian Arab from Israel in an Atlanta court last Friday did not contest his extradition to the state where most of his attacks allegedly took place. Abuelazam will be extradited in the next two weeks. He is expected to face an attempted murder charge in one of the attacks. Following a trial in Michigan, Virginia will likely request his extradition. Some of the attacks also took place in Ohio.

Abuelazam reportedly was living legally in the United States on a green card obtained when he married a U.S. citizen, from whom he is now divorced. He was last in Israel six months ago, when he reportedly was involved in a brawl in Ramla. He reportedly does not have a police record in Israel. Abuelazam, who lived in the United States for several years as a child, was arrested Aug. 11 in Atlanta after boarding a flight to his native Israel. Nearly all of the attacks, which include at least a dozen non-fatal stabbings and five deaths, involved dark-skinned victims, either Black or Latin American. The crimes have not been linked by forensic evidence or DNA testing, but the unprovoked attacks all have similarities, according to the Washington Post. The newspaper reported that the attacker approached his victims from behind or asked them for help to get close to them.


Judge Orders Release of Californian Jailed Under Three Strikes
In California, a state judge has ordered the release of a man who was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after trying to forcibly enter a church soup kitchen thirteen years ago because he was hungry. Gregory Taylor had been sentenced under the state’s controversial three-strikes law. Taylor’s release came in part due to efforts by students working on the Three Strikes Project at the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School.


Dozens Injured in Massive Turnout for Subsidized Housing in Georgia
And in Georgia, a chaotic mob scene unfolded last week at an East Point shopping mall where some 30,000 people turned out to be placed on a wait list for government-subsidized housing. Witnesses say the overwhelming numbers, lack of coordination and the scorching summer heat led to fights amongst line-goers and standoffs with police. A number of people were treated for dehydration, and some sixty-two people were injured. It was the first time the East Point Housing Authority had offered the housing applications since 2002.


Google and Verizon Propose Two-Tiered Internet System
In technology news, Google and Verizon have issued a proposal that could radically restructure the internet by essentially creating a two-tiered internet system. At first glance, the Google and Verizon proposal appears to promote the idea of net neutrality, that users should have equal access to all types of information online. But the Google and Verizon proposal includes a massive loophole that would exempt from net neutrality protections all internet access over cellphone and wireless networks and any future new subscription services that broadband providers could offer. Jason Rosenbaum is with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Jason Rosenbaum: "The Google and Verizon deal announced today is the first step towards corporate control over the internet. They propose creating two tiers of internet service: a public version of the internet that everybody will be able to use without fear of discrimination and then a private version that the big corporations will control absolutely. And that’s the version that they are likely going to put all of their investment in. So when it comes down to it, people in America will have a choice: they’ll be able to use the corporate-controlled internet, where they’ll get their information from corporate sources very quickly, or they’ll be able to use the, quote-unquote, 'public internet,' and that’s going to be relegated to the slow lane."
Craig Aaron of the group Free Press says the Google plan could permanently shift who controls the internet.

Craig Aaron: "The beauty of the internet is that you’re able to get online, go wherever you want, do whatever you want, download whatever you want. And if you’re a content creator, then you have the opportunity to have the reach of a television station or a radio station or a cable channel. All you have to have is that good idea or something interesting to say. But if you change the way the internet works, if you reserve that fast lane just for a few select companies, that opportunity goes away."

Jason Rosenbaum of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee says he also has concerns about the impact of the Google-Verizon proposal on free speech online.

Jason Rosenbaum: "We’ve already seen how corporate control over networks can lead to political discrimination. So, there was a text message sent out by NARAL Pro-Choice that was blocked by wireless carriers, because the wireless carriers disagreed with the message. When you have internet activities or various online activities running on a corporate-controlled network, you’re opening the door to these kinds of censorship. It’s very much a free speech issue, very much a civil rights issue."


Numbers of Casualties Under Obama in Afghanistan to Surpass Bush
The website Just Foreign Policy is reporting 575 US soldiers have lost their lives in the Afghan war since President Obama took office. That is the same number of US soldiers killed during the first seven years of the war under President Bush. When the next US soldier is reported dead, the majority of US deaths in Afghanistan will have occurred under President Obama. The tally is based on data from the webstite icasualties.org.


Shadow War: US Secretly Carries Out Strikes in Yemen
The New York Times has revealed the US has carried out at least four secret air strikes inside Yemen since December as part of the Obama administration’s shadow war against al-Qaeda and its allies. The most recent strike occurred on May 25. The Times reports the attacks on Yemen come at a time when the United States is significantly increasing covert military and intelligence operations in roughly a dozen countries where it is secretly using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy, and training local operatives to chase suspected terrorists. The Times reports that much of the Pentagon’s shadow war in being run by Michael Vickers, who helped run the CIA’s campaign to funnel guns and money to the Afghanistan mujahideen in the 1980s.


Report: US Pressuring Allies to Target WikiLeaks Founder
The Obama administration is reportedly pressuring some of its top allies to crack down on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for releasing thousands of classified US military records on the Afghan war. According to the news website The Daily Beast, the US has asked Britain, Germany, Australia and other Western governments to open criminal investigations of Assange and severely restrict his international travel. The US is considering charges of its own against Assange, including violation of the Espionage Act. Assange, meanwhile, is claiming the Pentagon is refusing to assist him in his group’s attempt to remove the names of Afghan civilians and others who could be endangered by the release of 15,000 additional military documents. Assange says neither the Pentagon nor human rights groups that have urged him to censor the names have been willing to help foot the bill for an exhaustive review. The Daily Beast also reports the US may review its relations with Iceland, where WikiLeaks is effectively based.


BP Ties Compensation Fund to Gulf Coast Drilling Revenues
The Huffington Post is reporting the oil giant BP appears to have structured its $20 billion compensation fund so that it will only be solvent if the company continues profiting from oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The US government’s agreement establishing the fund isn’t with BP or even BP America, but with a subsidiary called BP Exploration & Production, or BPEC, which operates BP’s Gulf oil leases. Vested with BPEC, the compensation fund could presumably fold in the event BPEC stops generating revenue from its Gulf operations. The structuring also could increase BP’s leverage in ensuring a continued Gulf presence, should it come under challenge. In a statement, the watchdog group Public Citizen called the arrangement "wildly inappropriate," adding, "It will give the government a financial incentive to become an even bigger booster of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf—the fatal flaw of the Minerals Management Service at the time of the BP disaster."


Obama Backs the Rights of Muslims to Build Mosque Near Ground Zero
For the first time, President Obama has weighed in on the controversy over the planned construction of a mosque and Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan at the site of a former Burlington Coat Factory store, two blocks from Ground Zero. On Friday, President Obama addressed the issue during an iftar dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in the White House State Dining Room.

President Obama: "As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their religion, as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."

Less than 24 hours later, President Obama was asked about the mosque by a reporter and appeared to backtrack from his statement of the night before.

President Obama: "I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right that people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about."

Republicans are vowing to make the controversy over the proposed lower Manhattan mosque a campaign issue in the fall. Texas Senator John Cornyn, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, appeared on Fox News Sunday.

Sen. Cornyn: "I do think it’s unwise, and it—to build a mosque at the site where 3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of a terrorist attack. And I think, to me, it demonstrates that Washington, the White House, the administration, the President himself, seems to be disconnected from the mainstream of America."


Florida AG Unveils Anti-Immigrant Measure
Florida Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bill McCollum has proposed a new anti-immigrant measure that could be even harsher than the notorious Arizona law that was partially stricken down last month. McCollum’s bill would impose a twenty-day jail sentence for any immigrant who doesn’t carry documentation, as well as longer sentences for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. On Wednesday, McCollum said his bill "goes one step further" than Arizona’s and predicted that Arizona will want to pass a similar measure.

Bill McCollum: "This is our own law, not theirs. And I think when we’re done passing this law, Arizona is going to want our law. They’re going to want to pass our law, because we’re better, we’re stronger, we’re tougher, and we’re fairer."


Obama Signs State Aid Bill After Dems Cut $12B in Food Stamp Funding
President Obama has signed into law a $26 billion measure Democrats say will save the jobs of 300,000 public sector workers, around half of them teachers. The House reconvened from summer recess to approve the state aid bill on Tuesday following Senate passage last week. To advance the bill, Democratic leaders agreed to cut $12 billion in spending on food stamps. The Food Research and Action Center says the cuts will impact some 40 million people when they take effect in 2014. A family of four that receives food stamps stands to lose $59 in monthly benefits. Democratic Congress member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut voted for the measure, but said, "I cannot in good conscience condone what we have taken away...The bill shamefully pits these priorities against each other."


"Gaming the System": Study Details How Big Banks Are Avoiding Lending Obligations Under Community Reinvestment Act
Federal bank and thrift regulatory agencies are holding a series of public hearings in cities across the country this summer to reevaluate the Community Reinvestment Act. The act was passed in 1977 to stop the redlining of low-income neighborhoods and communities on color. Critics have said it contributed to the subprime crisis, but community groups say it was an out-of-date and weak law that could improve bank practices, when used effectively.

Well, a new report from National People’s Action, a Chicago-based coalition of community groups around the country, shows exactly how big banks have been able to wiggle around their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act. The report is called "Gaming the System," and it focuses on Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America.

Liz Ryan Murray is senior policy analyst at National People’s Action and co-author of the report "Gaming the System."

LIZ RYAN MURRAY: The major concerns with the way the banks have approached the law is by getting around it. In 1977, as was reported, the law was passed, and when it did, it a covered the entire lending industry, which was, at the time, depository institutions. Since that time, in the last ten, twenty years, rampant deregulation has led to a whole different lending industry, with mortgage companies, brokers, finance companies doing mortgages, and many of them owned by the big banks. Those mortgage companies are not covered by the Community Reinvestment Act and are not under the scrutiny of the law.

In addition, the way the Community Reinvestment Act works, it only looks at certain parts of where a lender is—a bank is doing their business, based on where their branches are. And that’s not where banks are doing their lending anymore. But that’s where the regulators are looking. So the banks have been doing their shadier business around the law, where they’re not being watched. And it’s those loans, those high-cost loans, the predatory lending, that tanked our economy, destroyed our neighborhoods.

If we can get the Community Reinvestment Act back to cover the lending industry the way it was supposed to be covered, it not only has a dampening effect on those kinds of destructive loans, it’s really a major tool for our recovery. It will encourage small business lending. It encourages home lending. It encourages community-led investment. That’s what we need. We need the banks to come in, fix the mess they created through the economic collapse and the mortgage meltdown, and get back to doing the business they’re supposed to be doing in our communities.

Three out of every four, 74 percent, of minority African American or Latino customers of big bank affiliate home lenders received high-cost loans, which averaged 10.2 percent on their first lien mortgages in 2006.

African American and Latino neighborhoods and low-income neighborhoods have been the canaries in the coal mine for this disaster, the mortgage disaster. They were the first ones to get the high levels of predatory lending. It’s an easy mark. The lenders went in there, destroyed communities wholesale. They went through churches. They went through community centers. They went through neighbors and convinced people that this was the way to go and that this would be better for them, versus the truly toxic and destructive products that they were.


Gibbs: Critics of Bush-Like Obama Policies Should Be "Drug Tested"
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has sparked a controversy after making dismissive comments about progressive critics of President Obama. In an interview with the newspaper The Hill, Gibbs said critics who liken some of Obama’s policies to those of former President George W. Bush should be "drug tested." Gibbs went on to blast what he called "the professional left," saying, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality." In a statement, Gibbs declined to retract his comments, but acknowledged his comments may have been "inartful" toward those "frustrated that the change we want hasn’t come fast enough for many Americans." In an interview with the Huffington Post, Democratic Congress member Keith Ellison of Minnesota said he supports calls for Gibbs’s resignation.As Gibbs Attacks


Rangel Rejects Ethics Charges in House Floor Speech
Democratic Congress member Charles Rangel of New York took to the House floor to defend himself against a wave of ethics charges. Rangel faces an ethics trial over thirteen alleged violations, including improper political donations and tax filings. In a lengthy speech before the House chamber, Rangel rejected calls to resign.

Rep. Charles Rangel: "If it is the judgment of people here, for whatever reason, that I resign, then, heck, have the Ethics Committee expedite this. Don’t leave me swinging in the wind until November. If this is an emergency, and I think it is, to help our local and state governments out, what about me? I don’t want anyone to feel embarrassed, awkward. Hey, if I was you, I may want me to go away, too. I am not going away. I am here."
Rangel is a longtime member of the Congressional Black Caucus.


Waters’ Attorneys Accuse Ethics Panel of Double Standard
Black Caucus member Maxine Waters of California is also facing an upcoming ethics trial over allegations she sought to help OneUnited Bank receive federal bailout funds at a time when her husband owned stock in the bank and served on its board. Waters isn’t accused of any direct actions, but rather that she failed to instruct her chief of staff not assist or consult with OneUnited after she reported the potential conflict of interest. The allegation that Waters sought to help OneUnited Bank stems from the fact that it’s a member of the National Bankers Association, a group of minority-owned banks. Waters had asked the Treasury to meet with the group over concerns minority-owned banks were being sidelined during the Wall Street bailout. Speaking to the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Waters rejected the charges and said she would welcome a trial.

Rep. Maxine Waters: "I’m not guilty of any violations. And if you’re going to wrap this all around, creating these violations because I failed to supervise my staff, it doesn’t hold water. They don’t have any proof of that. And I maintain that I want to go to trial, or whatever they want to call it, a judicatory hearing, because I think I don’t deserve this."

Waters’s attorneys also said Tuesday the ethics panel is applying a double standard in charging her despite exonerating Republican Sam Graves of Wyoming in a comparable case last year.


Number of Oiled Wildlife Increasing in Gulf of Mexico
In news from the Gulf of Mexico, an increasing number of oiled wildlife are being discovered despite recent assertions by BP that just a quarter of the leaked oil remains in the Gulf. The Times-Picayune reports that almost double the daily average of oiled birds are now being collected, while more oiled turtles have been discovered in the last ten days than during the spill’s first three months. Meanwhile, local news sources in the Gulf are reporting recent discoveries by fishermen of crabs with black gills. One fisherman stated, "I have never seen anything like this. There is oil on the bottom out there. The crab is a bottom feeder." Scientists are also reporting never-before-seen mixtures of dispersant and crude oil inside tiny blue crab collected in Gulf waters.


Israel Bulldozes Palestinian Cemetery
The Israeli military has reportedly destroyed hundreds of gravestones in a centuries-old Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. Palestinians say bulldozers were used to raze the graves as an Israeli court rejected a petition to halt the demolitions. The destruction occurred near the site of the planned "Museum of Tolerance," a project funded by the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. Palestinians have opposed the museum because of its proximity to the cemetery. The Obama administration meanwhile is continuing its effort to convince Palestinian Authority negotiators to drop their insistence on an Israeli settlement freeze as a precondition for talks. After a meeting with Middle East envoy George Mitchell, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the settlement demand remains unchanged.

Saeb Erekat: "Once again, we are not against direct negotiations. Once again, we want to resume direct negotiations. And we believe that the key to direct negotiations is in the hand of the Israeli government. The minute they accept their obligation of stopping settlement activities and the terms of reference of two states on ’67 [borders], with agreed territorial swap, I think we can begin direct negotiations immediately."


Mia Farrow Testifies at Charles Taylor War Crimes Trial
At the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, actress Mia Farrow told a court hearing that she had heard supermodel Naomi Campbell say she had been given a "huge diamond" by Taylor when he was Liberia’s president. Prosecutors are hoping Farrow’s claim will help establish that Taylor was involved in the trade of so-called blood diamonds illegally mined from Sierra Leone. Last week, Campbell appeared before the court in The Hague and admitted she had received diamonds after a 1997 charity dinner in South Africa, but did not know if they were from Taylor. On Monday, Farrow contradicted Campbell and described meeting with Campbell the morning after she received the diamonds.

Mia Farrow: "From Miss Campbell, Miss Campbell entered the room. My children and I were already eating breakfast. And as I recall it, she was quite excited and said, in effect, 'Oh, my god! In the middle of the night last night,' or 'last night, I was awakened by knocking at the door, and it was men sent by Charles Taylor. And he sent me,' as I recall, 'a huge diamond.'"


Bolivian UN Ambassador: Despite Extreme Weather, US and Other Developed Countries Failing to Make Serious Pledges to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Even as the world faces a series of extreme weather events that scientists warn is related to global warming, international climate negotiations are moving at a glacial pace. The latest round of climate talks in Bonn, Germany, ended recently and diplomats have just one more short meeting in China in the coming months to hash out their differences before the critical high-level climate conference in Cancún, Mexico, at the end of the year.

At the meetings in Bonn, the negotiating text got a lot bigger, and a number of proposals from developing countries were added into the controversial agreement that came out of the divisive Copenhagen summit last year. Some fear the new text could slow down talks in Cancún, but others say the concerns of the majority of the world’s countries are finally represented in the text.

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