UN expert sounds alarm over court order for Liberia to pay back ‘vulture funds’

A United Nations human rights expert voiced concern today over the decision of a court to order Liberia to pay debts of about $20 million to two so-called “vulture funds” - private investment firms that buy the debts of struggling countries or companies at below face value and then aggressively pursue repayment of the entire sum.

Fela Dance Party Finds Its Way to Broadway

Review: ‘Fela!’ dance party finds its way to B’way

NEW YORK (AP) — Fela Anikulapo-Kuti seems an unlikely subject for the star of a Broadway musical. He was a most scrappy fella, internationally famed Nigerian musician and combative political activist.

Tony-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones has shaped a stirring production around Kuti’s outsize personality and key events from his rebellious, unconventional life, set to the percussive Afrobeat music Kuti invented. The result is “Fela!,” a terrific dance party of a musical, an exuberant celebration that also drives home a spirited message of human resilience.

Jones co-wrote the book with Jim Lewis and directs the play, which he co-conceived with Stephen Hendel and Lewis, like a kaleidoscope of sight and sound and motion.

The Eugene O’Neill Theatre has been transformed into the interior of Fela Kuti’s Lagos nightclub, “The Shrine,” for a 1977 concert, when Fela has decided to leave Nigeria to protect his family. The audience is immediately immersed in the underground atmosphere, as the set and projections extend out into the theater. The performers frequently dance through the aisles, filling the theater the same way the lively music does.

An extremely talented ensemble of attractive, limber, athletic dancers are in nonstop motion throughout the play. The infectious onstage band, heavy on horns and drums and conducted by Aaron Johnson, includes members of Antibalas, a group that began studying Fela Kuti’s music a decade ago.

Sahr Ngaujah, who originated the role of Fela Kuti in the successful off-Broadway production last year at Arts 37, now shares the rigorous role with Kevin Mambo.

Onstage nearly the entire show, Ngaujah gives a beguiling, swaggering, sweaty portrayal of Fela, conveying the hedonistic attitude of a popular musician who constantly speaks out against the various dictatorial regimes in his country. His more provocative songs include “Zombie,” which portrays the military rulers as mindless robots, and “Pipeline/ITT, (International Thief Thief,”) which rails against the looting of his country’s oil and diamond wealth by multinational corporations.

Fela’s persistent messages of human rights, anti-corruption and individual empowerment are conveyed through his direct, often-satirical lyrics and the monologue of this nightclub act. Humor alternates with serious matters, though, as the audience is requested at one point to get up and follow Fela’s directions to really move their hips (”The Clock.”)

Fela describes his early musical influences in an amusing number called “BID (Breaking It Down),” that includes Frank Sinatra, James Brown, his own grandfather’s spiritual hymns, jazz fusion and Yoruban chants.

Video projections of headlines and old newsreels accompany Nguajah’s performance, showing that Fela Kuti was often arrested and beaten, alongside news of his increasing popular acclaim. A seminal incident in which vicious police raided his compound, brutalized his family and staff, and fatally injured his mother, is depicted in the production as a turning point in Fela’s life, causing him to doubt his life’s passion for justice.

To soften the underlying violence and Kuti’s complicated, raunchy, chauvinistic edges for a Broadway audience, two real women from Kuti’s life are given expanded roles in the musical. The character Fela also seeks guidance from his deceased mother and from African spirits.

Saycon Sengbloh plays Sandra Isadore, an African-American woman who introduces Fela to Black Power ideals when his early travels take him to Los Angeles. In the musical, this leads Fela to use his music and his lifestyle to promote his African roots.

Lillias White portrays his pioneering feminist mother, Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti. A revered human-rights activist in her country, Funmilayo is presented as a saint, with a halo that lights up around her portrait whenever Fela speaks to her. White beautifully performs several powerful ballads, including “Trouble Sleep” and a new number written for the show, called “Rain,” in which Fela’s martyred mother appears in a dream and inspires him to continue to fight injustice.

Colorful costumes and the amazing set, both designed by Marina Draghici, enhance the party atmosphere, particularly in a riveting, surreal dream sequence when Fela travels through the spirit world. Draghici’s recreation of The Shrine includes Nigerian folk-art and political graffiti from the 1960s and ’70s. Robert Wierzel’s magical lighting, Robert Kaplowitz’s sound and Peter Nigrini’s projection design complete the feeling of being in a hip, slightly dangerous nightclub.

The political messages do not detract from the terrific work by the cast, the overriding musicality and outstandingly sensuous dance performances.

“Fela!” is a unique Broadway experience that leaves the audience on their feet and wanting more.
___
On the Net:
http://www.felaonbroadway.com

Ban receives report from probe into deadly crackdown in Guinea

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has begun examining the report of the International Commission of Inquiry set up by the United Nations to investigate the deadly crackdown on unarmed demonstrators in Guinea in September.

Middle East peace efforts face race against time, UN envoy warns

Efforts to forge a Middle East peace are “in a race against time” with both sides needing to do more, Israel by fulfilling its commitments, including a settlement freeze, under an internationally endorsed plan for a two-State solution, and the Palestinians by resuming negotiations, a senior United Nations official warned today.

Markit & C-Questor Launch Carbco Platinum Standard

Copenhagen, London and New York, NY – Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, and C-Questor Limited, a UK-based international organization dedicated to helping solve the problems of global warming and climate change through the application of cutting-edge technologies, today announced the launch of the Carbco Platinum Carbon Standard. Carbco offers a range of services relating to the Carbon markets, including both voluntary and mandatory carbon credits. The two companies also announced an agreement to list the Platinum Carbon Standard verified credits exclusively on Markit’s Environmental Registry, a leading environmental registry which lists the majority of the world’s credits based on voluntary carbon and ecosystem standards.

The Platinum Carbon Standard supports current international, scientifically sound standards (such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard), adding additional certification and validity. Whilst earlier projects have focused on deforestation credits, the Platinum Carbon Standard is designed to encompass emerging technologies in the climate change sector. It will focus initially on the forestry sector, integrating carbon, biodiversity and other environmental services into a single certificate thereby representing the highest possible ethical standards.

There are currently several Platinum Carbon Standard projects underway in Africa, Brazil and South-East Asia. The first certificates to be listed based on the standard related to a 168,000 hectare forestry project based in Papua, Indonesia.

Platinum Carbon Standard projects are required to meet a range of obligatory standards ranging from sustainability, biodiversity and transparent accounting to the setting aside of carbon as an insurance against accidents and the need for proof that a project produces genuine carbon reductions that would not have occurred during normal business practice.

Dr. Hans Christian Soerensen, a Director of C-Questor Limited, said:“The Carbco Platinum Carbon Standard’s focus is on protecting the broadest range of species and ecosystems. Qualifying projects must ensure that project benefits can be verified and observed, both by official verifying bodies and by the provision of regularly updated satellite data and real time video feeds to permit monitoring by the global community.”

Transparency and integrity for the new standard are of paramount importance. In line with this requirement, Markit’s Environmental Registry has been selected as the sole global carbon registry for credits verified with the Carbco Platinum Carbon Standard.

Helen Robinson, Managing Director of Markit’s Environmental Registry, said:“Markit is pleased to provide a secure platform for the listing and tracking of the Carbco Platinum Carbon Standard.”

Dr. Soerensen added:“It is essential for buyers and sellers of carbon credits to be confident in the provenance and singularity of the credits. Markit’s Environmental Registry provides this security and greatly increases the visibility of the Carbco Platinum Carbon Standard within the global marketplace.”

There are 10 million Pending Issuance Units, validated to the Carbco Platinum Carbon Standard, currently listed on Markit’s Environmental Registry. These can be viewed on www.markitenvironmental.com/carbcoplatinum

A copy of the press release can be downloaded from the C-Questor website by clicking here.

Clinton: If China won’t become transparent, the deal is off

As rumours abound that President Obama won’t attend COP15 after all, Hillary Clinton makes a pledge to create a climate fund worth $100 billion a year by 2020 - but there are strings, says Fred Pearce

China turn down Clinton’s ultimatum - but hope remains

China say they will not incorporate their emissions pledge into any Copenhagen agreement, meaning that a positive outcome for the conference is blocked by a diplomatic minefield, says Fred Pearce

Pages From History: “Race Intelligence”: A Short Critique by W.E.B.DuBois, July 1920

Primary Source
Race Intelligence
W.E.B. Du Bois

Original source: The Crisis, July 1920.

“Race Intelligence”

by W.E.B. Du Bois

[1] For a century or more it has been the dream of those who do not
believe Negroes are human that their wish should find some scientific basis. For years they depended on the weight of the human brain, trusting that the alleged underweight of less than a thousand Negro brains, measured without reference to age, stature, nutrition or cause of death, would convince the world that black men simply could not be educated. Today scientists acknowledge that there is no warrant for such a conclusion and that in any case the absolute weight of the brain is no criterion of racial ability. DuBois’s often criticized the use of psychology to justify racial discrimination.
[See RW’s Note to Paragraph 1 below.]

[2] Measurements of the bony skeleton followed and great hopes of the scientific demonstration of race inferiority were held for a while.
But they had to be surrendered when Zulus and Englishmen were found in the same dolichocephalic class.

[3] Then came psychology: the children of the public schools were
studied and it was discovered that some colored children ranked lower than white children. This gave wide satisfaction even though it was pointed out that the average included most of both races and that considering the educational opportunities and social environment of the races the differences were measurements simply of the ignorance and poverty of the black child’s surroundings.

[4] Today, however, all is settled. “A workably accurate scientific
classification of brain power” has been discovered and by none other
than our astute army officers. The tests were in two sets for
literates and illiterates and were simplicity itself. For instance,
among other things the literates were asked in three minutes “to look
at each row of numbers below and on the two dotted lines write the two numbers that should come next.” These tests, Army Alpha (for literate soldiers) and Army Beta (for illiterate soldiers), were administered to many U.S. soldiers during World War I. DuBois is here quoting from George F. Arps, “The Army Intelligence Tests (Natural History, 19:6 (December 1919): 671-9, at p.671).

[See RW’s Note to Paragraph 4 below.]
[5] 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . . . .
8 7 6 5 4 3 . . . . . .
10 15 20 25 30 35 . . . . . .
81 27 9 3 1 1/3 . . . . . .
1 4 9 16 25 36 . . . . . .
16 17 15 18 14 19 . . . . . .
3 6 8 16 18 36 . . . . . .

These sequences are “Number Series Completion” tests, which Arps included, along with several other tests, on p.676.
[See RW’s Note to Paragraph 5 below.]

[6] Illiterates were asked, for example, to complete pictures where
the net was missing in a tennis court or a ball in a bowling alley!
These pictures are found in Arps’ article on p.677.
[See RW’s Note to Paragraph 6 below.]

[7] For these tests were chosen 4730 Negroes from Louisiana and
Mississippi and 28,052 white recruits from Illinois. The result? Do
you need to ask? M. R. Trabue, Director, Bureau of Educational
Service, Columbia University, assures us that the intelligence of the
average southern Negro is equal to that of a 9-year-old white boy and
that we should arrange our educational program to make “waiters,
porters, scavengers, and the like” of most Negroes! The two sets of
italicized words were in DuBois’s original text.

DuBois is referencing conclusions reached by M.R. Trabue in his “The Intelligence of Negro Recruits” (Natural History, 19:6 (December 1919): 680-5, at p.685).

[8] Is it conceivable that a great university should employ a man
whose “science” consists of such utter rot?

[End of original text]

RW’s Note to Paragraph 1:
DuBois’ critique of intelligence testing was expressed years later in
a essay that also criticized the conventional social sciences in
general:
“This insistent clinging to the older pattern of race thought [i.e.,
racism and racial prejudice] has had extraordinary influence upon
modern life. In the first place, it has for years held back the
progress of the social sciences. The social sciences from the
beginning were deliberately used from the beginning to prove the
inferiority of the majority of the people of the world, who were being
used as slaves for the comfort and culture of their masters. The
social sciences long looked upon this as one of their major duties.

History declared that the Negro had no history. Biology exaggerated
the physical differences among men. Economics even today cannot talk straight on colonial imperialism. Psychology has not yet recovered from the shame of its ‘intelligence’ tests and its record of
‘conclusions’ during the first World War.”

[Source: W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Prospect of the World Without Race
Conflict,” American Journal of Sociology, 49 (March 1944): 450-456, at p.455. Also available in Du Bois: On Sociology and the Black Community (pp.290-302). Ed. by Daniel Green & Edwin Driver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978, at p.299 ].

RW’s Note to Paragraph 4:
Robert M. Yerkes and a group of well known psychologists developed the Army Alpha and Beta tests (Yerkes’ bio at the Human Intelligence website hosted at Indiana University). Yerkes presents the early history of the testing in Psychological Review (1918)[entire volume], and a fuller treatment see Robert Yerkes (Ed.), National Academy of Sciences Memoirs, v.15: Psychological Examining in the United States Army (1921: esp. Part I) [entire volume].

For another description of the tests, including protocols and results,
see Carl Campbell Brigham’s A Study of American Intelligence (1923) [download the book or view page images of the work accessible at Cornell University’s Home Economics Archive].

RW’s Note to Paragraph 5:
The “Number Series Completion” depicted in DuBois’ essay are only a part of a longer list, which is available in Brigham’s A Study of
American Intelligence (p.24) [start page], or from Yerkes’ work in the
National Academy of Sciences Memoirs (1921): p.225. Many other
examples of the Army tests are depicted throughout the books.

RW’s Note to Paragraph 6:
Page 50 of Brigham’s Study provides a graphic example of these sorts of completion tests for illiterate soldiers [book’s start page]. Also see Yerkes’ National Academy of Sciences Memoirs (1921): p.238. The two pictures mentioned by Du Bois are found in both books.

Climate of fear leads to impunity for criminals in Colombia, UN expert warns

Despite important steps taken by the Colombian Government, a climate of fear pervades the country’s judicial system due to attacks and threats against the judiciary, victims and witnesses, a United Nations independent human rights expert warned today, calling for greater transparency, independence and more equal access to justice.

Copenhagen diaries: Money helps

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