Russia needs a greener plan for 2014 Winter Olympics, UN report states

Russian authorities need to better assess the impact of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and tourism projects on the local ecosystem and put in place appropriate mitigation measures, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced in a report released today.

Alibaba’s 2009 revenues jump 29%, net income down 12%

Alibaba.com just released its 2009 financial results this afternoon. Revenues were an impressive US$567.5 million, a 29% increase over last year’s US$440 million. Net income fell significantly dropping from US$169 million to US$148 million - down more than 12%. On the upside, fourth quarter net income was up nearly 49% at US$41.2 million. The Hangzhou crew are also sitting on a mountain of cash – US$1.1 billion. That should see them through any recession.

Ali also added 9.6 million registered users in 2009 – a year-on-year increase of 25%. The company now has 47.7 million registered users. 11.5 million on its International Marketplace and 36.2 million on its China Marketplace. The International Marketplace, which generates most of the revenues, saw registered users grow by 46% last year.

Global Sources’ share price jumped 7.5% last night on news of declining revenues. Stay turned to see what Alibaba does tomorrow.

Muslim scholars defend Islamic schools’ ‘correct’ teaching

How will the World really end?

Predictions about the end of the world have been around since…well, the beginning of the world. But setting aside the warnings of apocalyptic prophets, technophobes, and assorted other Chicken Littles, what are the most plausible scenarios for humanity’s demise? How will Earth, and the universe, die out? And how soon? In a special series this week, Big Think asks a paleontologist, an astrophysicist, a nuclear terrorism expert, and other distinguished guests what doomsday might actually be like.

A Supernova Could Nuke Us

Edward Sion, Astronomer and Astrophysicist, Villanova University

A nearby star system may “go supernova” in 10 million years—far sooner than scientists once predicted. The resulting explosion would “outshine the galaxy,” not to mention kill life on Earth.

For the video for this segment and for other segments in this series check out their page - http://bigthink.com/series/31. Ten possibilities are discussed including the sun eating Earth, an asteroid hitting the planet, climate change coupled with class war, nuclear threat to our cities, a black hole, the sea turning to sulfur, and escape to a parallel universe, etc. It makes for interesting reading.

Source:
The Big Think, “How will the World really end?“, accessed March 12, 2010

U.S. Wants Loggerhead Turtles Added To Endangered List

The U.S. government has proposed upgrading loggerhead turtles from threatened to endangered. The proposal was made after a review of the status of loggerheads worldwide found the sea turtles “currently at risk of extinction.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are soliciting public comments on the listing change they are seeking. They will accept detailed information about population trends, turtle behavior and harmful human activities for 90 days.

The proposal is in response to petitions from the Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and other conservation groups in 2007 asking to re-classify loggerheads as endangered.

The groups say the population of the sea turtles has dropped by at least 80 percent in the North Pacific. If the current trend in the region continues, loggerheads could be extinct by the mid-21st century.

Nesting of loggerheads in Florida, which hosts the largest nesting population of the turtles in the Northwest Atlantic, has declined by more than 40 percent in the past decade.

An endangered status would provide loggerheads with more protection, including a designated critical habitat.

The turtles face multiple threats such as the loss of nesting sites, entanglement with commercial fishing nets, oil slicks and feeding on debris such as deflated balloons and plastic bags mistaken as food. Mammals who need to surface for air, their shells are also often damaged by boats.

Loggerheads, like all sea turtles, lay their eggs on or near the beach where they were born as hatch-lings. Unhatched eggs and hatch-lings face the risk of being eaten by predators or illegally harvested by humans. Lights from resorts and boats may confuse hatch-lings, who follow the light of the moon to reach the ocean and swim away to safety when they emerge from the egg.

Sea turtles can also become “cold-stunned” because as cold-blooded animals, they assume the temperature of their surroundings. Prolonged frigid temperatures in shallow waters caused a record number of turtles to become cold-stunned and immobile this winter in Florida, and NOAA rescued 5,000 of the animals in the state and autopsied hundreds that died.

NOAA and FWS have reviewed the status of loggerheads and are proposing to list nine separate groups, called distinct population segments or DPS, of the turtles worldwide.

The agencies want two groups, in the South Atlantic Ocean and in the Southwest Indian Ocean, to be listed as threatened. They say the remaining seven populations in the North Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, Southeast Indo-Pacific Ocean, North Indian Ocean, Northwest Atlantic Ocean, Northeast Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea are endangered.

“Loggerheads will disappear from the Pacific without greater protections from capture in fisheries,” Todd Steiner, executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network, said in a statement. “Action is more urgent than ever with the recent expansion of the Hawaiian swordfish fleet and the tripling of loggerhead capture.”

Source:
AHN, “U.S. Wants Loggerhead Turtles Added To Endangered List“, accessed March 12, 2010

Detroit Coalition Strives For Proper Policing

Posted: March 14, 2010

Coalition strives for proper policing

FBI shooting in Dearborn is current concern

BY ZLATI MEYER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Ron Scott wasn’t happy.

He sat at the Detroit Police Commission meeting, listening to a lengthy presentation about the status of video recording equipment in city police cars. He patiently waited for the public comment period.

Then, he let loose.

Scott lambasted the Detroit Police Department for not outfitting every car with cameras and questioned why gang-squad cars don’t have them like patrol cars do. He raised issues with the bidding process, the department’s culture, and whether there is a quota system for traffic stops.

Finally, Scott challenged Chief Warren Evans to “come before the people.”

“This is not a matter of cold statistics,” Scott said to the commissioners and a handful of others in attendance. “This is about life and death.”

In Detroit, when the issue of police behaving badly comes up, no one comes to mind faster than Scott. As head of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, he fields thousands of phone calls a year from people who believe they were victimized, publicly criticizes police and holds vigils and rallies that sometimes draw a crowd — sometimes only a few people.

“I never find it disheartening,” Scott said, “because we have gotten so much love and support from the people that we’re doing the right thing.”

Activist keeping an eye on cops

A crowded office on the eighth floor of a downtown Detroit building is the situation room where one man takes on one of the largest police departments in the United States.

Though most people may not be familiar with Scott, chances are good they have heard about the cases for which he is fighting.

Currently, the 62-year-old community organizer is trying to draw attention to two high-profile cases: the fatal shooting of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah during an FBI-led raid in Dearborn in October; and what appeared from television helicopter camera to be some police heavy-handedness on Andre Hardy after police said he led Michigan State Police and Detroit police on a high-speed chase on the Lodge Freeway earlier this month.

It was the 1992 beating death of a black man at the hands of two white Detroit cops that helped spawn the coalition which Scott, a 1960s civil-rights activist turned TV producer, heads.

“The Malice Green case really did create the synergy in the city and people were really upset about that,” Scott said.

The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality was founded in 1996 by Wayne State University professor Gloria House and Marge Parsons. They were upset about crack and cocaine sentencing disparities and the large number of young African-American motorists police were pulling over. Scott was among the early members; he joined and became spokesman for the organization in 1996.
Day-to-day concerns

Since then, the coalition has protested, concerning Detroit, the record-high number of police shootings, hangings in local jails, the 2000 shooting of deaf Detroiter Errol Shaw, Officer Eugene Brown’s record nine shootings and the 2003 federal consent decree against the department. The group also raised awareness of last year’s police Taser death involving Warren police and the terrorism charge lobbed at a Clinton Township man who allegedly bit his neighbor.

Over the years, the organization has grown and is now run from donated office space in Ron Glotta’s law office in the Michigan Building at 220 Bagley.

Scott and a staff of 10-15 volunteers hear from people complaining of police brutality in metro Detroit. He said that the coalition handled 2,554 calls last year, tackled 10%-20% and referred the rest to attorneys, public agencies or other groups.

The coalition operates on an annual budget of about $100,000, primarily made up of grants and in-kind donations. Scott expects an educational arm of the coalition that aims to promote peace in neighborhoods and raise awareness about the criminal justice and law enforcement systems will get 501(c) 3 status soon. The Internal Revenue Service designation makes a nonprofit organization formed for charitable or other purposes exempt from most federal taxes. Those organizations are prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in political campaigns involving candidates for elected offices.

Scott has been asked to speak to groups around the country about countering police brutality. His cell phone is always on, an eloquent quote at the ready for news media callers.
Incident in Greektown

But the man who is the opposition to police brutality has experienced it. Scott said that in 1994, he was attacked by Detroit cops in Greektown after disputing a charge of loitering — thrown to the ground, kneed in the back and threatened.

Perhaps that’s why he’s willing to take on authority, including Detroit’s police chiefs present and past.

“Warren Evans is setting the department back,” Scott said. “It’s backward, backward, backward. Ella Bully-Cummings had some challenges, but she at least tried to set up a frame to work with the community. He’s slipped into this macho dream world.”

Evans disagrees with Scott’s assessment of his oversight of Detroit police.

“Advocacy from all segments of the community is helpful for the city and for the police department, quite frankly,” Evans said. However, he added that “when you criticize, you ought to have your facts right. Mr. Scott oftentimes does not have the facts or misconstrues.”

Evans cited Scott’s claim that complaints are up, when the department’s figures show they are down. Scott also said he’s investigating eight or nine fatalities at the hands of police, but Evans said there were no shootings or in-custody deaths last year involving his department.

“I’ve had a history with Ron Scott going back 20 something years,” Evans said. “Ron knows I’m not the enemy. He just has to pontificate.”

Man behind the microphone

The son of a teacher and postal worker, Scott’s professional life began behind a microphone of a different sort. He was a professional singer as a child before moving to radio. His broadcast career began at age 15. By college, that love of audio evolved from music into journalism, as it would later morph from radio to TV.

In 1963, Scott marched with Martin Luther King Jr. But he said it was a three-hour speech by Black Panther Party leader Kathleen Cleaver in Detroit in 1968 that truly inspired him.

“I saw the Black Panther Party and it was one moment of epiphany — this is what I should be doing,” he said in his whirlwind of a workspace, several yards from a poster with Malcolm X’s picture and a sign that read “Protect habeas corpus and jury of our peers.”

Scott organized the Detroit chapter of the Black Panthers and began what would become a lifetime of community projects and consciousness-raising that outlasted the group — including a breakfast program for Detroit schoolchildren, the Jeffries Project rent strike, anti-apartheid divestment and support for liberation movements in Africa.

“This really just congealed the fact that people my age literally have an impact on changing the world,” Scott said.

Professionally, Scott was growing, too. He went to work for the Wayne County TB and Health Association, then in the 1970s segued into television, producing on local TV. He launched Ron Scott Video Productions in the 1980s, which still is in operation. Over the years, he blended his media savvy and love of activism by taking to politics and working with elected officials.

As he takes on law-enforcement officials full-time now, his message is clear, whether shouting it at a rally or simply talking at a Police Commission meeting:

“We’re not anti-police. We want to do the right thing.”

Contact ZLATI MEYER: 313-223-4439 or meyer@freepress.com

Despite State Department Denials, Pentagon Continues Military Presencein Horn of Africa

Despite State Department Denials, Pentagon Continues Military Presence in Horn of Africa

Somalia, Djibouti and throughout continent U.S. escalates intervention

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
News Analysis

In an interview on March 12, United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, attempted to place the current Obama administration policy toward Somalia and the Horn of Africa in a non-military context. However, Carson did admit that support from both the previous administration of George Bush and the current one was approximately $185 million over the last 19 months. (U.S. Department of State, March 15)

“We have provided limited military support to the Transitional Federal Government through the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM),” Carson noted in a recent State Department interview. He continued “We have supported the acquisition of nonlethal equipment to the governments of Burundi and to Uganda in particular as well as Djibouti, ranging from communications equipment and uniforms to transportation and support for Ugandan military training of TFG forces.”

Carson was responding to a New York Times report on March 5 which quoted Pentagon sources that the U.S. planned to launch aerial bombardments of Somalia in an effort to retake large sections of the capital of Mogadishu and the country as a whole from the control of the Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam resistance groups.

Carson said that “The United States does not plan, does not direct, and it does not coordinate the military operations of the TFG, and we have not and will not be providing direct support for any potential military offensives. Further, we are not providing nor paying for military advisers for the TFG. There is no desire to Americanize the conflict in Somalia.”

Nonetheless, Gen. William Ward, who heads the U.S. Africa Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that any effort by the TFG to retake Mogadishu would be “something that we would look to do in support, to the degree the transitional federal government can in fact re-exert control over Mogadishu, with the help of AMISOM and others.” (Xinhua News Agency, March 9)

Ward said that the current offensive by the “transition government to reclaim parts of Mogadishu, I think it’s something that we would look to do and support. Michigan Senator Carl Levin, the Chair of the Armed Services Committee, along with Ward, identified other countries on the continent where so-called “counter-terrorism” operations are taking place.

According to journalist Rick Rozoff “The U.S. military has already been involved in counterinsurgency operations in Mali and Niger against ethnic Tuareg rebels, who have no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda, not that one would know that from Levin’s comments.”

A former U.S. diplomat Daniel Simpson was quoted recently in regard to the Pentagon’s involvement in Somalia that the operation was designed to “test out AFRICOM ground and air forces in Djibouti for direct military action on the continent.” (Rozoff, scoop.co.nz, March 12)

Ward also told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Africa Partnership Station, which is a U.S.-led effort designed to supposedly respond to requests by African states for assistance with security issues, was now conducting its fifth deployment on the continent. He continued by stating that the Africa Partnership Station “has expanded from its initial focus on the Gulf of Guinea to other African coastal nations.” (John Kruzel, Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs)

Consequently, the articles written in the New York Times and other sources provide proof that the U.S. is escalating its military involvement in Africa. The domination of the global oil industry could be one of the strong motivating factors in the current U.S. policy since greater amounts of this resource in being imported into the country.

Moreover, the U.S. imperialists do not want to see a government come to power in Somalia which has the capacity to stabilize the political and military situation inside the country and is also independent of the foreign policy imperatives of the state department and the Pentagon.

U.S. military intervention in Somalia during the 1992-94 period resulted in a tremendous defeat at the hands of the resistance forces which forced a withdrawal of the marines and a political humiliation for the previous Clinton administration.

The Bush administration’s engineered invasion by Ethiopia in December 2006–as well as several aerial bombings–were also defeated by the Somali people resulting in the withdrawal of the U.S.-backed forces in January 2009. The TFG and AMISOM hold out the only present hope for the imperialists to dominate this area of the Horn of Africa.

Israel Feeling Rising Anger From the U.S.

March 15, 2010

Israel Feeling Rising Anger From the U.S.

By MARK LANDLER and ETHAN BRONNER
New York Times

WASHINGTON — An ill-timed municipal housing announcement in Jerusalem has mutated into one of the most serious conflicts between the United States and Israel in two decades, leaving a politically embarrassed Israeli government scrambling to respond to a tough list of demands by the Obama administration.

The Obama administration has put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a difficult political spot at home by insisting that the Israeli government halt a plan to build housing units in East Jerusalem. The administration also wants Mr. Netanyahu to commit to substantive negotiations with the Palestinians, after more than a year in which the peace process has been moribund.

With the administration’s special envoy, George J. Mitchell, suddenly delaying his planned trip to Israel, the administration was expecting a call from Mr. Netanyahu, after a tense exchange last week with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On Monday, however, Mr. Netanyahu sounded a defiant note, telling the Israeli Parliament that construction of Jewish housing in Jerusalem was not a matter for negotiation.

He is struggling to balance an increasingly unhappy ally in Washington with the restive right wing of his coalition government.

The prospects for peace in the Middle East seemed murkier than ever, as a year’s worth of frustration on the part of President Obama and his aides seemed to boil over in its furious response to the housing announcement, which spoiled a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“What happened to the vice president in Israel was unprecedented,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Where it goes from here depends on the Israelis.”

But the diplomatic standoff also has repercussions for the Obama administration. Its blunt criticism of Israel — delivered publicly by Mrs. Clinton in two television interviews on Friday and reiterated Sunday by Mr. Obama’s political adviser, David Axelrod — has set off a storm in Washington, with pro-Israel groups and several prominent lawmakers criticizing the administration for unfairly singling out a staunch American ally.

“Let’s cut the family fighting,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut. “It’s unnecessary; it’s destructive of our shared national interest. It’s time to lower voices, to get over the family feud between the U.S. and Israel. It just doesn’t serve anybody’s interests but our enemies’.”

Relations between Israel and the United States have been uneasy ever since Mr. Obama took office with a plan to rekindle the peace process by coupling a demand for a full freeze in Jewish settlement construction with reciprocal confidence-building gestures by Arab countries.

Neither happened, and Mr. Obama, who is not as popular in Israel as he is elsewhere around the world, was forced last September to make do with Mr. Netanyahu’s offer of a 10-month partial moratorium on settlements in the West Bank. But the president was outraged by the announcement of 1,600 housing units in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem during Mr. Biden’s visit, administration officials said.

Mr. Obama was deeply involved in the strategy and planning for Mr. Biden’s visit and orchestrated the response from Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton after it went awry, these officials said.

The administration has used language intended to telegraph anger, defining the dispute not only in terms of the damage it could cause to the peace process but to the American relationship with Israel.

“That is a whole different order of magnitude of importance,” said Daniel Levy, a former peace negotiator who is senior fellow and head of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation, a research group.

The last time relations between the United States and Israel became this strained, analysts said, was when James A. Baker, then secretary of state, clashed with the Israeli government in the early 1990s, also over settlement policy. The United States ended up withholding loan guarantees from Israel for a time.

Mr. Netanyahu said the announcement of the housing development had surprised even him, and he apologized for its timing. But Mr. Obama feels that Mr. Netanyahu should have been in clearer control of the construction process and that he should have done what was needed to stop it, according to officials in Jerusalem and Washington.

There is a feeling among officials in Washington that the Netanyahu government does not fully grasp how angry Obama officials have grown. But there are signs that it is sinking in.

The Israeli ambassador in Washington, Michael B. Oren, used the word “crisis” about his country’s relations with Washington for the first time since taking up his job last year, in a telephone briefing to colleagues over the weekend, according to an Israeli official.

Still, American and Israeli officials also made clear that the core security issues binding the two countries were not in jeopardy, and that what was happening was closer to a married couple having a bad fight rather than seeking a divorce.

In the murky vocabulary of diplomacy, the scheduled talks due to start under American supervision are viewed by the Israelis mostly as “proximity” discussions, in other words procedural talks rather than substantive negotiations. But the Palestinians want the discussions to be as substantive as possible, an approach Mrs. Clinton demanded in her call to Mr. Netanyahu on Friday.

The Israeli leader has said he is open to direct negotiations with the Palestinians. But the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said in an interview in his Ramallah office that the Palestinians and Israelis had exhausted direct negotiations and that it was time for America to take a more direct role. “We have a trust level below zero between the two sides,” he said.

The settlement episode has enabled the administration to turn the tables on Mr. Netanyahu, some analysts say. But the question is whether it will be able to extract more concessions from him now.

“The heart of the matter is whether the proximity talks are going to be productive, in the sense of opening a corridor to direct negotiations that will lead to a peace agreement,” said Martin Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel.

The timing of the dispute could not be more awkward for the administration, coming a week before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group, meets in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu and Mrs. Clinton are both scheduled to speak to the group, which has condemned the White House’s tough stance.

Mr. Biden may meet with Mr. Netanyahu while he is here, officials said. But there is no meeting planned between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu because the president will be traveling in Indonesia and Australia, a conflict which one official joked suits the administration well right now. “This may not be the best time for a face-to-face,” he said.

Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.

Nearly 400 California Educators Receive Preliminary Pink Slips

Nearly 400 local educators receive preliminary pink slips by Monday deadline

By J.M. BROWN
Posted: 03/15/2010 07:53:48 PM PDT

SANTA CRUZ - Just shy of 400 local K-12 teachers and other certificated employees received preliminary layoff notices by Monday’s state-mandated deadline, education officials reported.

The 396 employees who received pink slips eliminating their jobs or cutting their hours for next fall represent the highest number in recent years, topping the 385 notices sent out last year. The figures represent the number of people affected by the cuts, not the number of positions cut, which is significantly lower because a number of employees work part time. The cuts also don’t include the number of non-teaching cuts districts will weigh in coming days.

Many of the teaching pink slips are likely to be rescinded once districts have a clearer picture about the number of retirements and resignations are in the pipeline. But teachers and administrators agree the cuts, even if preliminary, destroy morale.

The county’s two largest districts, Pajaro Valley Unified and Santa Cruz City Schools, sent notices to 275 and 80 employees, respectively, on top of a combined total of 120 adult education workers. Both districts have made cuts of about 10 percent in K-12 expenses and gutted adult education programs in the face of record slashing from a state mired in $20 billion of red ink.

“It’s huge,” said Barry Kirschen, president of the Greater Santa Cruz Federation of Teachers, saying the district sent out more notices than necessary. Administrators say the March 15 deadline
requires them to send out as many preliminary notices as they think they could need to balance the budget absent a cost-saving deal with teachers.

Monday, the two sides tentatively agreed on a retirement incentive plan that will reduce the layoffs if approved by the school board. Forty-one teachers agreed to retire at the end of the school year under an offer to pay them 80 percent of their final salaries over time. In exchange, the district will cap K-3 class sizes at an average of 23 students per teacher, which is an increase of three from the current ratio.

Kirschen said the retirements will equal nearly $900,000 in savings, or about 15 percent of the $5.4 million the district needs to trim. But Tanya Krause, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources, said saving that much also would have meant laying off counselors with less seniority than some junior teachers who could be saved by the retirements - a trade-off she said the district isn’t willing to live with.

In the meantime, both sides said they are getting closer to a furlough agreement that could mean nearly an additional $1 million in savings. Teachers are willing to take a reduction in work days, but details are still being negotiated.

“We will have some calendar concessions, but I just don’t know how many and where on the calendar,” Krause said.

Soquel Union Elementary School District is also weighing furloughs to reduce layoffs. The district sent 25 pink slips after having cut the equivalent of 16 full-time positions to save $1.5 million, or about 10 percent of last year’s budget.

In Scotts Valley, where the budget had to be cut 9 percent, K-3 classes are growing to an average of 29 students, which led the school board to cut the equivalent of six elementary teaching positions. There were also cuts at the high school level, but retirements and other personnel changes brought the number of total workers who actually received a pink slip to eight, Superintendent Susan Silver said.

Ann Codd, head of the Scotts Valley teachers union, said she believes the district worked hard not to send out more notices than absolutely necessary. But the sting of getting a pink slip is still devastating, she said, especially when there are few teaching jobs elsewhere.

“It’s still really tough because some of these teachers are already part-time teachers because of previous reductions,” Codd said. “We understand it doesn’t come from the district, but rather the state’s mess.”

Statewide, districts have cut 22,000 teachers and other certificated employees. Sixty percent of workers cut last year were later brought back, but education officials expect a greater number of notices to be made permanent this year due to a fourth consecutive year of deep state cuts.

Monday, the state’s Recovery Task Force Director Herb K. Schultz urged Washington to send the second round of stabilization funds that are part of President Obama’s federal stimulus package. The U.S. Department of Education, which requires states to maintain education funding to be eligible for the money, has raised concerns about the California’s record of cutting schools to balance its budget.

“California has met all federal requirements for the second distribution of stimulus funding for education,” Schultz said in a prepared statement. “I am disheartened that anyone would try to stand in the way of securing nearly a half a billion dollars in critical funding for our education system during these difficult economic times.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Preliminary pink slips

Below are the numbers of preliminary layoff notices issued in K-12 local public school districts by Monday, which was the statewide deadline for issuing pink slips to teachers, administrators and other certificated staff. The figures represent the number of employees who were sent layoff notices, not the number of positions cut, and do not include Adult Education teachers.

Pajaro Valley Unified School District: 275

Santa Cruz City Schools: 80

Scotts Valley Unified School District: 8

San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District: 3

Soquel Union Elementary School District: 25

Live Oak School District: 2

County Office of Education: 3

Four small school districts: 0

TOTAL: 396

Seizing, Shrinking and Privatizing Detroit Public Schools and Government

Seizing, Shrinking and Privatizing Detroit Public Schools and Government

Corporate interests and government operatives unveil plans to “rightsize” city

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Over the last several weeks the spokespersons for corporate Detroit have issued plans to both take total control of the public school system as well as “shrink” the city over the next decade. These efforts come amid the worse economic crisis in Detroit since the Great Depression where the city leads all other major urban centers in joblessness with an official unemployment rate of 28 percent.

A plan to turn over control of the Detroit Public Schools to Mayor Dave Bing has sparked outrage throughout the city from community organizations, unions and the elected Board of Education. One year ago Gov. Jennifer Granholm appointed an Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) Robert Bobb to purportedly balance the budget of the beleaguered school district and improve its fiscal operations.

Yet since the appointment of Bobb, the deficit for the Detroit Public Schools has increased by $100 million and the controversial gubernatorial appointee has recently been awarded an annual pay raise of $81 thousand. A series of lawsuits have been filed against Bobb by both the elected Detroit Board of Education, the Detroit Federation of Teachers and independent groups of teachers and parents.

In addition to the attacks on the elected school board, the teachers’ union and community organizations, the EFM has also announced the cancellation of the existing bus contract which is held by Safeway and is switching to First Student Transportation Co. The plan will leave over 300 bus drivers out of work, many of whom have in excess of 25 years of service with DPS.

Although Bobb has stated that the change will save the DPS approximately $50 million, there is no evidence that this will actually occur. In fact the record of First Student has been questioned by the drivers for Safeway, a company which has been providing transportation for DPS students for the last 34 years.

On March 10-11 several dozen bus drivers and their supporters traveled to the state capital in Lansing to protest the actions of the EFM demanding that their contract be reinstated and that Bobb be terminated from his position. The drivers met with a number of African-American state legislators from Detroit who pledged support, however, Gov. Granholm refused to see the transportation employees.

Protest actions and public hearings in opposition to these decisions involving public education has prompted the backers of privatization to accelerate the process of a takeover of the schools. On March 11, the EFM and 15 other groups announced a sweeping plan to seize control of the district and place it under the ostensible control of the corporate-oriented Mayor Bing and to hire private management companies to administer its operations.

At a press conference on March 11 the school takeover plan was announced by Skillman Foundation CEO Carol Goss who was flanked by a number of other groups including New Detroit, Inc., the University Preparatory Academy Charter School and the Detroit Parent Network which is financed heavily by the Kresge Foundation.

“It’s a sad day,” said Ruby Newbold, who is president of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees. We are saddened by what is going on in the city of Detroit. How dare you dismantle our school district!”

Newbold also stated that “This community is not going to take it anymore,” which sparked a standing ovation from the audience.

A mass demonstration took place on March 15 in opposition to Robert Bobb and the Governor’s plans to take over control of the school district. The protest was held outside Renaissance High School where Bobb delivered his “state of education” report seeking public support for the plan to eliminate the Detroit School Board and place total control under Mayor Bing and private management firms.

According to the corporate media, it will take only 4,000 signatures of registered voters to place such a referendum on the ballot in November. The same private interests that pay a substantial portion of Robert Bobb’s salary are undoubtedly willing to bankroll an electoral campaign to sway voters to allow this seizure of the public schools to take place.

Plans Launched to “Rightsize” City

Meanwhile attacks on Detroit residents continue through the proposals to restructure the city by razing neighborhoods and commercial districts to create what is touted as a more efficient system of municipal governance. In speeches and articles in the corporate dailies and Crain’s Detroit business weekly, corporate interests and foundations are promoting the notion that large sections of the city should be bulldozed, fenced off and sold to the highest bidder.

In a recent interview with WJR Radio in Detroit, Bing stated that “If we don’t do it, you know this whole city is going to go down. I’m hopeful people will understand that. If we can incentivize some of those folks that are in those desolate areas, they can get a better situation.”

Bing continued by stating “You can’t support every neighborhood. You can’t support every community across this city. Those communities that are stable, we can’t allow them to go down the tubes. That’s not a good business decision from my vantage point.” (Detroit News, Feb. 25, 2010)

One of the principal architects of this downsizing plan is the Kresge Foundation based in the Detroit suburb of Troy. An article published in Crain’s Detroit in January stated that “That the city must shrink is beyond debate, said Rip Rapson, president of the Troy-based Kresge Foundation, which has offered to fund the plan. And a land use plan is crucial to developing viable long-term strategies.” (Crain’s, Jan. 30, 2010)

Nonetheless, opposition to these plans is widespread throughout the city. Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality spokesperson Ron Scott stated that he was adamantly opposed to such a plan.

“Sounds like a reservation to me, it sounds like telling people to move. The citizens of the city of Detroit who built this city, the working class, didn’t create this situation. You are diminishing the constitutional options people have by contending you have a crisis.” (Detroit News, Feb. 25)

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs has called for two major activities in response to the burgeoning crisis in Detroit. On March 23, Moratorium NOW! will sponsor a demonstration outside Mayor Bing’s “State of the City” address where unions, community organizations and other opposition forces are encouraged to voice their displeasure with the administration and its corporate backers.

In addition, on March 27, a Town Hall meeting will be held at the Central United Methodist Church downtown in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) under the Roosevelt administration. The WPA put 8 million people back to work during the 1930s at the height of the Great Depression.

According to Moratorium NOW! “Today, with tens of millions of workers—especially youth—unemployed, we need a real, public jobs program, NOW! We can’t wait for some imaginary future jobs from the banks and corporations who have already been bailed out with trillions of our tax dollars.”

The community organization continues by pointing out that “There is plenty that needs doing immediately in Detroit—repairing roads and bridges, cleaning parks, insulating and fixing up thousands of vacant homes so no one is homeless or without heat.”