The Security Council today agreed to extend the United Nations panel of experts monitoring compliance with sanctions related to the conflict in Somalia for another year and to expand its mandate to try to maintain the arms embargo imposed in the region.

Kris Hamel, Sandra Hines and Abayomi Azikiwe in front of the "Spirit of Detroit" downtown during the anti-war actions on March 15, 2008. (Alan Pollock).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Three items:
March 19 - Anti-war demonstration, 4 PM - NO PARKING at Central United Methodist Church
March 23 - Demonstration at Mayor Bing’s State of the City Address, 5:30 PM
March 27 - Town Hall Meeting - Jobs or Income for All, 1 PM
——————————————————————————–
1)
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST WAR & INJUSTICE

MONEY FOR OUR CITY NOT WAR & BANK BAILOUTS!!!
MARCH 19, 2010
DETROIT, MI

Please note: There is no free parking at the Central United Methodist Church.

4:00 p.m. - Gather at the “Spirit of Detroit”, Woodward at Jefferson, Downtown
4:30 p.m. - Rally and Speakout Against War and For Jobs, Income,
Housing, Healthcare and Education
5:00 p.m. - March thru Downtown to Central United Methodist Church, 23 E. Adams, 4th floor
5:30 p.m. - Light Refreshments at Church
6:00 p.m. - Roundtable Discussion on “How to End War and Win Social and Economic Justice”

Sponsors:
Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI)
Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shut-offs
Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST)

Endorsed by:
The Michigan Coalition for Human Rights Youth Board
The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality
Coalition to Restore Hope to DPS
Eleventh Hour for Peace
Detroit Green Party

For More Info: 313.671.3715/313. 887.6466
http://www.mecawi.org
——————————————————————————–
2)
DEMONSTRATE AT MAYOR BING’S STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS

TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010 – 5:30 P.M.

Max M. Fisher Music Center
3711 Woodward Avenue, Detroit

45% unemployed in the City of Detroit – Families losing their lives
due to DTE shutoffs – Our neighborhoods destroyed by foreclosures and evictions – Detroit schools continuing to fail – City services
diminished due to lay-offs…

Instead of hare-brained schemes to “downsize the City” and lay-offs
and privatization at behest of the banks, it’s time for the Mayor to
stand up for the workers and poor who have been devastated by the
economic depression.

Mayor Bing: Declare a State of Economic Emergency in the City of Detroit!

–Moratorium NOW to Stop all Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility
Shutoffs in the City

–Stop lay-offs and privatization – Balance the budget by suspending
debt service to the banks

–Request President Obama declare Detroit a Disaster Area and fund a Public Works Program to provide jobs now

–Under Michigan law, specifically MCL 10.31 et. seq., upon
application of the Mayor the governor can proclaim a state of
emergency and designate the area involved. Mayor Bing, with the
support of City Council, needs to formally apply to Governor -

–Granholm to declare a State of Economic Emergency in Detroit, and
demand she use her police powers to place a two-year Moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs in the city. In
addition, as part of the State of Emergency declaration, the Mayor
must demand that the Governor apply to President Obama for money to bail out Detroit, the hardest-hit city in the country. We need funds to pay for jobs for youth to rebuild the houses that have been
stripped and destroyed, and money to stop the destruction of public
education and services in our city.

Called by Moratorium Now! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shut-Offs

313-887-4344 http://www.moratorium-mi.org
——————————————————————————–
3)

On the 75th Anniversary of the W.P.A.

Detroit Town Hall Meeting
Speak Out for Jobs!
Saturday – March 27, 2010 – 1 PM
Central United Methodist Church, 2nd floor
23 E. Adams, Detroit

At the height of the Great Depression of the 1930’s President
Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (renamed later as the Work Projects Administration) on April 8th, 1935. It was funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. The WPA put over 8 million unemployed people to work directly and was the largest employer in the United States at that time.

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 government can and must open hiring halls in every neighborhood and get people back to work. In the 1930’s the Detroit WPA built Western High School and City Airport and upgraded the Detroit Zoo among many other projects. 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.

The Full Employment Act makes it the government’s duty to put everyone to work – it’s the law! Let’s organize and tell the politicians – A REAL, PUBLIC JOBS PROGRAM NOW!

Sponsored by:

Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs;
Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice

313-887-4344
http://www.mecawi.org
http://www.moratorium-mi.org

All today’s stories on newscientist.com at a glance, including: why we should take control of statistics, an app for credit card theft, and proof that orang-utans can swim

The efforts of Central African nations to consolidate peace and further development are being thwarted by weapons trafficking, top United Nations officials warned today, calling on Member States to do all they can to eradicate this scourge.

The United Nations-supported diplomatic group promoting peace in the Middle East today called on the Israeli and Palestinian sides to resume negotiations as soon as possible with the aim of reaching a settlement within two years.

A senior United Nations official has lauded the progress achieved by the men and women of Haiti involved in the cash-for-work programme, which was identified as one of the priority activities in the early recovery agenda following the 12 January earthquake.

16 of the 25 sturgeon species are now critically endangered, including the much-prized Beluga sturgeon

Documents from the European Scrutiny Committee point that three additional measures have been limited to only four weeks scrutiny time because of the failure of Ministers to deposit the relevant documents with the Committee.

The Committee points out that this “contravenes the undertaking in Baroness Ashton’s statement on JHA opt-ins that the Government will place an Explanatory Memorandum before Parliament ‘as swiftly as possible and no later than ten working days after the publication of the proposal.’”

The United Nations-supported diplomatic group promoting peace in the Middle East today called on the Israeli and Palestinian sides to resume negotiations as soon as possible with the aim of reaching a settlement within two years.

U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at her school for girls in South Africa. A former administrator of the school is suing her for defamation after she was fired in 2007 amid allegations of sexual abuse by another employee.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Judge Rules Oprah Winfrey Can Be Sued for Defamation

Trial Set to Begin March 29 in Philadelphia to Test Free Speech By a Most Public Figure

By EAMON McNIFF
March 18, 2010—

Now that a Federal Judge has ruled Oprah Winfrey can be sued for defamation of character, plaintiff Nomvuyo Mzamane will have the task of taking on one of the world’s most famous women for doing what she does best: sharing her thoughts with the universe.

The suit, slated to begin March 29 in Philadelphia, raises the question of whether a jury can distinguish between Winfrey the public figure, famous for deep chat sessions with guests on her show, and Winfrey the person who may or may not have defamed Mzamane when addressing a sexual abuse scandal at her school in Africa.

“When you think of cases of public people being sued, there aren’t that many of them today,” Floyd Abrams, a famed First Amendment attorney, said in an interview with ABC News. “That’s because the law is generally protective of free speech, and because courts and juries are generally sensitive to the needs of protecting free speech.”

In the 128-page opinion published March 15 in Mzamane v. Winfrey, U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno concluded that statements made by Winfrey at a November 2007 press conference were “capable of defamatory meaning.” The judge rejected arguments made by Winfrey’s lawyers that the remarks were merely “expressions of opinion.”

According to court documents, in 2007 students at the school accused one of the dorm matrons, Virginia Tiny Makgobo, of sexual abuse, prompting Winfrey and the school’s executives to call in the authorities to investigate. Six girls have accused Makgobo of sexual abuse. She has pleaded not guilty, and her trial is ongoing.

Following the allegations, Winfrey met with parents of the students, fired Mzamane as head of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy School and held a press conference. Winfrey opened the elite boarding school for high-achieving poor South African girls near Johannesburg in January 2007

Winfrey is quoted in court documents as saying: “I’m going to find a new head of the academy for the school. … Dorm parents are gone, [Mzamane] is gone,” in her meeting with the parents.

According to the judge, that statement suggested Mzamame had a role in the alleged mistreatment of the students which would “clearly blacken plaintiff’s reputation or injure her in her profession.”

“Plaintiff submits that despite her unblemished record of professional employment, she was unable to obtain a position in the educational field from the time of Winfrey’s public comments until August 2008. Furthermore, plaintiff asserts that she suffered personal humiliation and distress as a result of being wrongly associated with the misconduct at OWLAG due to Winfrey’s comments,” Robreno says.

Winfrey was also quoted saying she “lost confidence” in Mzamane’s abilities as the school’s headmistress, and that “any person” who had caused harm to any student would not be returning to the school.

“The average listener could interpret Winfrey’s statement that she has ‘lost confidence’ in plaintiff’s abilities, in conjunction with the preceding statement that ‘any person that has caused harm’ to the students would not be returning to OWLAG, to mean that plaintiff was not being retained due to the fact that she played some role in the ‘harm’ caused to the students,” Robreno wrote.

According to a brief filed by Mzamane’s lawyers, Winfrey herself acknowledged the power of her words when she said in a deposition she thought only two people — President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle wielded more influence in the media.

The court papers also quote Winfrey as saying “my mistake was trusting people, putting them in power, and allowing them to rule without me having daily contact to see what was going on.”

“Winfrey’s characterization of her decision to delegate authority with respect to the students as a ‘mistake’ implies the existence of undisclosed facts unearthed during the internal investigation which indicated that the people put in ‘power,’ i.e., plaintiff, were engaged in wrongdoing,” Robreno wrote.

“Winfrey indicted Ms. Mzamane for creating an atmosphere where the students’ voices were silenced,” Mzamane’s lawyers, including Timothy McGowan, said in their brief. “Simply put, the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the press conference was that Ms. Mzamane was let go because, at best, she disregarded claims of sexual abuse at [the school].”

Winfrey’s lawyers tried to have the suit dismissed on the grounds that the comments she made were only her opinions. They also tried to move the trial to Chicago, where her show is based. Robreno said it could be tried in Pennsylvania, where Mzamane lived when she filed suit in 2008. Mzamane is seeking more than $250,000 in damages.

“Oprah and Harpo await the opportunity to present the case in court,” her lawyer, Chip Babcock of Houston, said in a statement issued this week through Harpo, Winfrey’s production company, which is also a defendant in the suit.

Babcock successfully defended Winfrey during her 1998 libel trial in Texas after she was sued over a segment on mad cow disease.

Although the case has been allowed to proceed, Abrams said Mzamane has no easy task ahead of her, but not simply because she is facing off against Winfrey.

“It’s true that libel law in America is generally protective of free speech. Plaintiffs have a difficult task in prevailing but not an impossible one,” he said.

Winfrey’s fame and the media storm the trial will bring aside, Abrams is confident both parties will get a fair trial.

“I think she [Winfrey] can get a fair trial, and I think the plaintiff can get a fair trial even if she is one of the most-admired women in America, because my experience is, juries are pretty good at parsing through to find out what the facts are,” Abrams said.