Sister Rosetta Tharpe and

Chorlton’s Rock’n'Roll History

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Sister Rosetta, pioneer of rock'n'roll

BBC4 continues to put out some of the best music programmes on any channel. But last Friday’s offering, ‘Godmother of Rock’n'Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe’ was one of the all-time greats.

Sister Rosetta, who started as a 1930s Gospel singer from the USA’s deep South, graduated by way of nightclub singing at the Cotton Club and touring work as a jazz, blues and gospel soloist, to being a pioneer of Rock’n'Roll and one of the all-time great figures. yet she’s been almost forgotten.

Listening to her wonderfully percussive guitar style you could hear at once how much Chuck Berry learned from her; and the archive footage of her hugely energetic performances, full of movement, power and infectious delight, made it quite clear that she was a – if not the – key figure in the transition from Black gospel music to Rock. Popular music history needs to be rewritten to put this lady at the centre!

But the most amazing thing for me was to learn that, when her career (like that of many blues musicians in the US) had stalled in the early ’60s, she was invited to the UK by Chris Barber of all people – and that Granada TV invited her to perform at the disused Chorlton-cum-Hardy railway station about five minutes from where I live in Manchester. Just take a look at the clips! And more important, listen!

The rationale was something to do with freight trains and all that – the vague mythology of train tracks and the Blues. Whatever. Granada decked the old station out as a kind of Wild West scene, with a fake ‘Chorltonville’ sign which they must have thought sounded American. They put the band on one platform and the audience on the other, and delivered Sister Rosetta in a horse-drawn carriage. The horse is a typical piebald cob – a ‘gypsy horse’ of the kind you can see by the hundred at Appleby Fair every year. Her affection for the horse is typical of this immensely sweet and loving woman who seems to radiate kindness and warmth with every ounce of her being. Good to know, then, that the UK tour put Sister Rosetta back on the map and she remained a big star in Europe at least until her death.

We all knew Chorlton was special (Quentin Crisp died here, Badly Drawn Boy lives here, and of course it’s full of wonderful creative people) – but now we know it has a place in Rock’n'Roll history too. The station is about to reopen as a Metrolink stop. Maybe there ought to be a blue plaque on that platform.

Submission Guidelines

For 2011 Submissions

 

More Info

• About the Nelligan Prize
• This Year’s Winner
• Previous Winners
• Submission Guidelines

General guidelines:

1. $1,500 will be awarded for the best short story, which will be published in the fall/winter 2011 issue of Colorado Review.
2. This year’s final judge is Ron Carlson; friends and students (current & former) of the judge are not eligible to compete, nor are Colorado State University employees, students, or alumni.
3. Entry fee is $15 per story; there is no limit on the number of entries you may submit.
4. Stories must be previously unpublished.
5. There are no theme restrictions, but stories must be under 50 pages.
6. All manuscripts must be typed and double-spaced.
7. Contest opens January 1, 2011.
8. Deadline is the postmark of March 11, 2011.
9. Winner will be announced by July 2011.
10. All submissions will be considered for publication.

To submit online:

1. The story title and your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address should be in your cover letter, in a separate document from your story. Be sure your name is not anywhere in the story itself.
2. Submit here.

To submit via regular mail:

1. Include two cover sheets: on the first, print your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and the story title; on the second, print only the story title. Your name should not appear anywhere else on the manuscript.
2. Enclose a check for $15 for each story. Checks should be made out to Colorado Review.
3. You may submit multiple stories in the same envelope, and the check can be made out for the total.
4. Provide SASE for contest results.
5. Manuscripts will not be returned. Please do not enclose extra postage for return of manuscript.
6. Entries must be clearly addressed to:

Nelligan Prize – Colorado Review
9105 Campus Delivery
Department of English
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-9105

 

New South 2011 Contest Guidelines

Poetry Prize
First Place: $1000
Second Place: $250

Prose Prize
First Place: $1000
Second Place: $250

Deadline: All entries must be postmarked or submitted electronically to our online submission manager by March 4, 2011.
Reading Fee: $15.00

To Submit by Post Mail

Each post mail entry must include the following:

1) A check or money order (NO CASH) made payable to Georgia State University for fifteen dollars ($15). Entry fee includes a copy of the Summer 2011 issue, which will contain the winning entries.

2) A cover letter with a 3- to 4-line bio, title(s) of the work submitted, and your name, mailing address, phone number, and email address.

POETRY

• Address poetry submissions to the Poetry Editor.
• Poems must be typed.
• Submit up to three (3) poems per $15 Reading Fee.
• All poems must have name, address, phone, and e-mail appearing on each page.

PROSE

• Address fiction submissions to the Fiction Editor.
• Manuscripts must be typed.
• Include name, address, phone, email, & word count on the first page of the manuscript only.
• Non-fiction is welcomed and encouraged.
• Submit one (1) short story or non-fiction piece per $15 Reading Fee.
• Please limit your submission to 9,000 words.

Send work to the following address:
New South/Writing Contest
Campus Box 1894
Georgia State University
MSC 8R0322 Unit 8
Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3083

To Submit Online

New South will also accept online submissions for this year's contest. Please visit our page on Tell It Slant to submit.

Each online entry must include the following:

1) A reading fee of fifteen dollars ($15). Entry fee includes a copy of the Summer 2011 issue, which will contain the winning entries.

2) The submitter's contact info, including a mailing address so that we may send a copy of the Summer 2011 issue.

POETRY

• Submit up to three (3) poems per document.

PROSE

• Non-fiction is welcomed and encouraged.
• Submit one (1) short story or non-fiction piece per $15 Reading Fee.
• Please limit your submissions to 9,000 words.

While we take the greatest care in handling your entries, we assume no responsibility for lost or damaged manuscripts. Only unpublished work considered. Simultaneous submissions considered with notification. All rights revert to author after publication. Current students, staff, and faculty at Georgia State University are not eligible.

New South publishes quality literary art promoting the work of emerging and established writers. New South holds no subject biases. The staff will select the best work regardless of style or genre. The final round of judging will be anonymous (the names will be removed from the manuscripts before the final judges see them).

For questions ONLY (no submissions, please):

new_south@langate.gsu.edu

2011 St. Petersburg Review Poetry Contest   Prize: $1000 and publication in St. Petersburg Review 2011   All writers not associated with the editors of St. Petersburg Review may enter. Postmark deadline (extended): March 1, 2011 for publication in fall 2011. Entry/reading fee: $15.00 (U.S. checks or money orders made payable to St. Petersburg Review). Each entrant will receive a copy of the issue carrying the winning poem if a complete mailing address is enclosed. An entry may consist of up to three unpublished poems.      There will be one winner. All entrants will be considered for publication (e.g. St. Petersburg Review published four entrants in addition to the 2009 winner in its 2009 issue). Simultaneous submissions are OK; please let us know immediately if they have been accepted elsewhere. Fees will not be refunded and submissions will not be returned. Please type all entries and submit individual entries separately. Include a page with your name, address, phone number, email address and the title(s) of your poems. Your name must not appear on the manuscript itself. SPR will not be able to answer individual entrant requests for information about contest status. If you would like to receive the results by mail, please send a SASE.      Send entries to St. Petersburg Review, Attention: Contest, Box 2888, Concord, NH 03302.        St. Petersburg Review is an independent, international, nonprofit review of contemporary literature that seeks to foster and promote global connections and affinities through the annual publication of quality fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama from all countries.   2010 contest winners and finalists are listed on our web page.       www.stpetersburgreview.com

Spring 2011 Institute Events

Sightlines: New Perspectives on African Architecture and Urbanism
Discussion with acclaimed Senegalese artist Viye Diba

Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Time: 6:30-7:45pm
Location: room 208 Knox Hall

Using a range of local found and appropriated materials, including woven strips of cloth ordinarily used for shrouds; sand; and recycled objects, Viye Diba creates works that fuse painting with sculpture. In a lecture titled Environment and Object: Exploring Urban Topographies, Viye Diba discusses his recent work, created using found objects and materials from African cities including Dakar, where the artist lives. The lecture, which will be followed by a Q&A with the audience, is the first in a new series that explores contemporary African cities as unique built environments, examining their social, physical, and emotional contours. Titled Sightlines: New Perspectives on African Architecture and Urbanism, the series is co-presented by the Museum for African Art and Columbia University’s Institute of African Studies.

In French, with English translation.

 

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Rebecca Ginsburg - Black Women in White Johannesburg: Domestic Workers' Spatial Strategies under Apartheid
Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs, Room 1512, 420 West 118th Street, New York City

In mid-twentieth-century South Africa, thousands of black women left rural areas to find work in the households of suburban white families. Many headed to Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and industrial powerhouse, which was a racially and ethnically divided space. University of Illinois Professor Rebecca Ginsburg explores the ways in which domestic workers’ mobility was severely limited under Apartheid-era legislation and how these women responded and overcame these restrictions.

Dr. Ginsburg, who lived for several years in South Africa, teaches courses on historic African cities and the Atlantic slave trade, among other subjects. Her current research interests include fugitive landscapes and geographies of the Atlantic slave trade. Dr. Ginsburg’s previous publications include The Landscapes of North American Slavery; Historical Geography, and Landscape Journals, among other titles.

Date: Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Time: 6:30-7:45 pm
Location: room 1512 International Affairs Building

 

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Migration and Xenophobia in Southern Africa
A Discussion with Sean Jacobs

Date: Friday, February 18, 2011
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: TBA

Presented by Aurelia Wa Kabwe-Segatti, Senior Research Fellow from the African Centre for Migration and Society, and Loren B. Landau, the director of the African Centre for Migration and Society from the University of the Witwatersrand. With discussant Sean Jacobs, Assistant Professor from The New School.

 

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Sightlines: New Perspectives on African Architecture and Urbanism
"'Convivencia'" at Timbuktu: Jewish Influence on West African Architecture"
Discussion with Labelle Prussin

Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Time: 6:30-7:45 pm
Location: room 138 Horace Mann Hall, Teachers College

In the past, many in the academic community viewed West Africa as isolated from the rest of the continent. Distinguished scholar and curator Labelle Prussin has been exploring a historic nexus of Jewish traders, scholars, builders, and artisans at Timbuktu and her research links them to North Africa via the historic trans-Saharan trade routes. Dr. Prussin will share examples of architectural and artisanal similarities that may point to an Islamic-cum-Judaic convivencia (coexistence) which contributed to and enriched the African architectural landscape.

Dr. Prussin, an independent curator, has spent four decades undertaking archival research and fieldwork in African arts and architecture. She has taught at the University of Science and Technology in Ghana, the University of Michigan, University of Washington, and City University of New York. In 2007 Dr. Prussin was appointed Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, in Durban, South Africa

 

Related Events

Promised Land
Film Screening and Discussion

Date: Thursday, February 3, 2011
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: TBA

Promised Land invites viewers to take an inside look at the critical story of land reform and racial reconciliation in the new, post-apartheid South Africa. The film follows the story of the Mekgareng, an impoverished tribe removed from their land 40 years ago who, in 1998, petitioned the new democratically elected government to reclaim their land-now owned by white farmers and developers. Through their story, viewers will see why, as many inside South Africa call it, the land issue is a "ticking time bomb" that has potential to explode and destroy the fragile racial compact that post-apartheid South Africa was built upon. Promised Land, produced and directed by Yoruba Richen, won the Fledgling Fund Award for Socially Conscious Documentaries presented at the Independent Feature Project in New York City.

 

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The Market Maker
Film Screening and Discussion

Date: Thursday, March 3, 2011
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: TBA

The Market Maker, hosted by anchor Aaron Brown, tells the dramatic, intimate story of a woman on a mission – and a world of trouble standing in her way. Eleni Gabre-Madhin is a woman with a dream. The charismatic Ethiopian economist wants to end hunger in her famine-plagued country. But rather than relying on foreign aid or new agricultural technology, she has designed the nation’s first commodities exchange, which she hopes will revolutionize an ancient market system whose inefficiencies have been partly responsible for the country’s persistent food shortages.
Directed by Hugo Berkeley, an award-winning director and cinematographer, and produced by Eli Cane, who in his career has overseen production of a dozen Grammy winning albums.

 

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Panel on Africa Media
A Discussion with Filmmaker Rachel Boyton and Columbia Professor Anya Schiffrin

Date: Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Time: TBA
Location: The Kellogg Center in the International Affairs Building (15th Floor)

As the extractive sector has come to play an increasingly important role in the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, attention has turned to the media. Many hope that the media will play an important role in framing the policy agenda and educating the public and so support efforts to boost transparency, promote good governance and help ensure that revenues from the extractives are used well to reduce poverty and promote development. But in many of the countries where the extractive sector is important, the media is unable to play a forceful and active role. At the same time, an increasing number of NGOs (both foreign and domestic) have begun to look at how to ensure the continent benefits from the revenues that are generated from the extractive sector. They hope that the projected revenues from oil, gas and mining can be used to improve the economic development of extractive countries and the income of ordinary citizens. A panel hosted by CGT/IMAC could discuss the role of the media in covering the extractive sector in Africa, talk about where some of the stronger reporting is taking place currently, look at digital media (sites like saharareporters.com) and its ability to get around the restrictions faced by reporters in the legacy media and outline areas for future coverage.

 

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The Art of Citizenship in African Cities
A Conference hosted by the Committee on Global Thought

Date: Friday, May 6, 2011
Time: TBA
Location: Avery Hall, Wood Auditorium

Insight on African cities has driven some of the most innovative and provocative recent scholarly debates considering development, the nature of citizenship, and the postcolonial urban condition. In contrast with a familiar reading of African cities which characterizes them as dysfunctional, chaotic and decaying, there is a burgeoning scholarship which explores the way that African cities actually work and the very orderly, dynamic and creative processes which animate them. This conference builds on these insights, aiming to highlight the emergent citizenship practices through which urban Africans enact and reconfigure their cities, while asking some hard questions about the implications of these strategies and their limits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Class Analysis of Baby Doc: Mothballed Playboy Dictator Recalled to Service

By Kim Ives

THE BIG QUESTION HAITIANS ARE ASKING IS: WHO is behind Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s surprise arrival in Haiti with an expired Haitian passport on Jan. 16 aboard an Air France flight from Paris? “I have come here to see how I can help my country,” he announced, stepping off the plane. Yeah, right. It is inconceivable that Baby Doc, 59, would return to the country where there are outstanding criminal proceedings against him without knowing that some powerful foreigners have his back. With dozens of Haitian SWAT team police outside and a helicopter hovering overhead, Haitian government prosecutor Aristidas Auguste and investigating magistrate Gabriel Ambroise met for about an hour with Duvalier in his suite at the posh Hotel Karibe in Pétionville on Jan. 18 and then took him unhandcuffed to their offices downtown for more questioning, before allowing him to return to his hotel. Ambroise will now weigh the evidence, which sources say is solid and massive, that Duvalier, his former wife Michelle Bennett, and other cronies embezzled over $300 million (and by some counts almost triple that) during the course of his rule from 1971 to 1986. However, Judge Ambroise’s ruminations might take as long as three months, which lends the whole episode an air of “grimas,” as they say in Kreyòl, a face-saving show. Duvalier should have been arrested immediately at the airport, most Haitians say. Instead, he was escorted by Haitian police and United Nations occupation troops to his hotel. “Usually in Haiti a thief gets unceremoniously dumped into a pickup and carted off to a stinking cell to await trial in a few years or never,” quipped author and journalist Amy Wilentz on Twitter. Duvalier will await his improbable indictment dining on grilled conch at the Karibe. He has this luxury because he has surely received a wink and a nod from powerful government sectors, even if not the official ones, in either the U.S. and/or France, the two nations which helped prop up his regime with economic and military aid. The U.S. also flew Duvalier out of Haiti on Feb. 7, 1986 on a C-130 loaded with his sports cars and motorcycles and his wife’s furs, while France has hosted his golden exile and protected him from prosecution ever since. DUVALIER'S LAWYER IS GERVAIS CHARLES, THE HEAD OF the Haitian Bar Association. He makes the dubious claim that the files pertaining to the charges against Duvalier were all destroyed in the earthquake and that, anyway, the statute of limitations on the embezzlement proceedings, undertaken by several governments against Duvalier since 1986, has run out. But Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) says this is unlikely. “The statute of limitation on these financial crimes is something like five years after the last instance of investigation by a judge into the case,” he said, noting that “a July 3, 2009 order from the First Court of Public Law of the Federal Court of Switzerland said the Haitian government had informed it of criminal proceedings against Duvalier as late as June 2008.” On Jan. 17, the IJDH along with the International Lawyers Office (BAI) in Port-au-Prince issued a statement urging the Haitian government “to comply with Haitian law” by arresting Duvalier for embezzlement on the basis of rulings and investigations in both Haiti and the U.S.. The statement also pointed to “Duvalier’s human rights violations, including the torture and disappearances of political dissidents at the Fort Dimanche prison and other crimes committed by organizations under his control, including the Armed Forces of Haiti and the Volunteers for National Security (Tontons Macoutes). Mr. Duvalier is not protected against prosecution by any statutes of limitations” for these violations because they are “crimes against humanity, which are imprescriptible under international law.” Meanwhile, former political prisoners and other victims like youth sports trainer Bobby Duval and former journalist Michelle Montas (Duvalier’s thugs destroyed her husband’s radio station in 1980) expressed their outrage that Duvalier was in Haiti without being immediately arrested and vowed prosecution. THE STANDARD STORYLINE BEING REPEATED TODAY IS that Baby Doc inherited François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s repressive dictatorship in 1971 and continued it until the Haitian people rose up and chased him out of the country 15 years later. History is, of course, a good deal more complicated than that, and between the elder and younger Duvalier regimes there are important differences, an analysis of which can help us decipher, or at least make an educated guess about, what lies behind Duvalier’s sudden return. Throughout most of its 207 years, Haiti has had two ruling classes: the grandon, Haiti’s big landowning class, and the comprador bourgeoisie, an import-export merchant class based in the coastal cities, primarily the capital, Port-au-Prince. These two ruling groups carried out a bitter rivalry for political power in the capital, control of which gave one an upper hand over the other. This rivalry explains why Haiti’s history is checkered with at least 32 coups d’état. The grandon often organized rural militias which would run bourgeois presidents out of the capital, and the bourgeoisie often ousted grandon presidents with the standing city-based Army. Papa Doc, a former country doctor who came to power in a military sponsored election in 1957, was a classic representative of the grandon, who extract surplus value from peasants through a form of semi-feudal share-cropping called the two-halves system or dè mwatye. The arch-reactionary grandon were often hostile to encroaching foreign capitalists, who sought to turn peasant sharecroppers into starvation-wage-earning workers. This put Papa Doc at odds with Washington officials, but they needed him as a bulwark against the spread of communism from revolutionary Cuba, only 60 miles west across the strategic Windward Channel. To offset the bourgeoisie’s and Washington’s influence over the Haitian Army, François Duvalier, a student of Machiavelli, established his own militia, the infamous Tonton Macoutes. Their reign of terror and violence is legendary, immortalized in Graham Greene’s novel The Comedians and Bernard Diederich’s and Al Burt’s exposé Papa Doc: The Truth about Haiti Today. The elder Duvalier used the Macoutes to beat back several Washington-sponsored (and ratted on) invasions during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. But there was a sea-change in 1969 when Papa Doc received President Nixon’s envoy, Nelson Rockefeller. Shortly afterward, cheap labor U.S. assembly factories began setting up in Haiti. When Papa Doc died of natural causes in 1971, he passed the title of “President for Life” (won in a 1964 referendum that some 2.8 million people voted for and only 3,234 against) to then 19-year-old Baby Doc, and the sweat-shop sector began to take-off. Jean-Claude had gone to Haiti’s finest schools with the bourgeoisie’s children, developing a taste for fancy women, fast cars, and a less brutish reputation. He began to offer a “reformed” Duvalierism, called “Jean-Claudisme,” in response to the Carter administration’s call for “human rights” in Latin America. Carter’s crusade was actually the beginning of a U.S. policy shift away from strong-arm and corrupt dictators like Duvalier to façade democracies which were backed by so-called multinational peace-keeping forces. The push to reform the Duvalier dictatorship did not stop with Reagan’s election in 1980 as the old guard Duvalierists had hoped. Jean-Claude did crack down on journalists that year, exiling many of them. He also married archetypal bourgeois princess Michelle Bennett. That marriage begat an ugly new offspring, a kind of Macoutized bourgeoisie, which would become more familiar to the world during the 1991 and 2004 coups d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. At the same time, the comprador bourgeoisie was transforming into a more assembly industry variant, typified by “Jean-Claudiste” (and later coup-backing) families like the Apaids, the Bouloses, the Brandts, and the Mevs. WASHINGTON BECAME PEEVED AS Jean-Claude and his crew skimmed off millions of development aid dollars into Swiss bank accounts, money that was supposed to build a better roads, water systems and electrical networks to serve expanding U.S. sweatshops and other foreign investments. Even the Pope visited Haiti in 1983 and warned that “Things must change here.” Finally, in 1986, the U.S. decided to give Jean-Claude the boot, fully expecting they could easily install a puppet in post-Duvalier elections. Among the democratic activists fighting for that change a quarter century ago was René Préval, now Haiti’s president. Like activist businessman Antoine Izméry and radio journalist Jean Dominique, Préval came from Haiti’s “enlightened bourgeoisie,” which was inspired by the anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s and 1970s and dreamed of a democratic Haiti. Préval along with Izméry were the two who pushed Aristide , a former parish priest, into the electoral ring for president in 1990 against the neo-liberal U.S.-backed candidate, former World Bank economist Marc Bazin. Six years later, Préval himself was Haiti’s president, thanks to Aristide’s long coattails. But over the past 15 years, he has compromised repeatedly with the U.S. empire he once vowed to fight, bowing to their demands that Haiti privatize its state enterprises, lower its tariff walls, and allow U.S. military aircraft and vessels to enter Haitian airspace and waters any time they please. Préval has gradually been turned into a Washington’s patsy, often happily but sometimes grudgingly, doing its bidding. Until now. Washington and Préval are presently at loggerheads over the disastrous Nov. 28 elections, which Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council claims should go to a second round between neo-Duvalierist former First Lady Mirlande Manigat, who supposedly came in first, and Jude Célestin, the candidate of Préval’s party Unity. But the Organization of American States (OAS), acting on Washington’s behalf, has issued a report that orders Préval to change the second-place candidate to neo-Duvalierist former konpa musician Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly. “There is nothing to negotiate in the [OAS] report,” said US ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten. But Préval is resisting. And this is where Duvalier, his old nemesis, comes in. Manigat and Martelly are essentially the old and young faces of resurgent Duvalierism, of which Baby Doc is the living symbol. Célestin is not that much different; he was, after all, escorted to enlist as candidate by Rony Gilot, an infamous Duvalierist crony who is today escorting Baby Doc around Haiti. But Célestin is suspect because “sources in the American government know that Préval recently sought $25 million from [Venezuelan president Hugo] Chávez to bankroll [Célestin’s] runoff campaign,” complained the American Enterprise Institute’s Roger Noriega, who as President George W. Bush's Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, was an architect of the 2004 coup against Aristide. Also among the former dictator’s current escorts is Jodel Chamblain, the former No. 2 of the death-squad FRAPH during the first coup against Aristide and a leader of the “rebels” who terrorized Northern and Central Haiti during the second coup against Aristide. So we have come full circle. For the first time in 20 years, the bourgeois-grandon alliance, along with the U.S. and France, have a chance to install one of their preferred puppets through an election, however patently bogus, rather than a coup. This is likely why Duvalier is now in Haiti.

__________________________

• Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 January 2011 18.08 GMT
• Article history

Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier waves from a residential balcony in Port-au-Prince after slipping out of the hotel where he was staying. Photograph: Ramon Espinosa/AP

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has slipped out of his hotel and moved to a private house overlooking Port-au-Prince, but the list of charges for abuses during his dictatorship of Haiti continues to grow.

Duvalier left the upmarket hotel through a rear exit yesterday while his partner, Veronique Roy, distracted journalists by walking out of the front, enabling a discreet move to the hillside residence.

It may prove a brief respite because judicial proceedings gathered momentum today after an announcement from Amnesty International that authorities are investigating alleged crimes against humanity during the former dictator's 1971-86 rule.

"Investigating Jean-Claude Duvalier for the human rights crimes committed during his time in power is a massive step forward," Gerardo Ducos, Amnesty's Haiti researcher, said. "What we need to see now is a swift and impartial process, in line with international standards, that truly brings justice for those who have been waiting for too long.

"We are also calling on the UN to offer technical support to the Haitian authorities to ensure the trial ... meets the expectations of the Haitian people and the international community." Haitian authorities made no immediate comment.

Duvalier – who made a sudden return to his homeland last Sunday after 25 years in exile – was briefly detained and charged with corruption and embezzlement.

Since then, pressure has mounted to bring more serious charges related to the jailing, torture and murder of thousands of people by a regime that relied on the brutal Tonton Macoute militia to maintain control.

Four Haitians, including a former UN spokeswoman, filed separate charges, including torture and crimes against humanity. Amnesty gave 100 documents, detailing dozens of cases, to the chief prosecutor, Harycidas Auguste, and the justice minister, Paul Denis.

A group representing former agricultural labourers filed a separate charge accusing Duvalier of selling them into "slavery" to the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

How Haiti's ramshackle justice system will cope with such a high-profile, politically charged case remained unclear but there was little doubt that 59-year-old Duvalier blundered by leaving his Paris sanctuary.

He electrified Haiti with his unexpected homecoming, but did not give a reason beyond vague remarks about helping the country recover from last January's devastating earthquake. Roy said he planned to stay just three days. Analysts speculated that it had been a gamble to recover millions of dollars frozen in a Swiss bank account, the remnants of a fortune long drained by lavish expenditure and tax and divorce disputes.

A brief, uneventful return to Haiti, the theory goes, would have allowed Duvalier to claim he had no legal troubles in Haiti and deserved access to the money. 

>via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/21/baby-doc-duvalier-haiti-charges

The State of Native America: Very Unemployed and Mostly Ignored

Monday
Jan 3, 2011
2:02 pm

By R. M. Arrieta

Homes north of Round Rock on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona.   (Photo by DAVID MCNEW/Getty Images)

As the new year begins, it’s as good a time as any to look at a topic almost completely ignored by mainstream media: how Native American people are faring in the U.S. labor market. The economy and its paucity of jobs dominated U.S. headlines throughout 2010, but news media overlooked the particularly difficult experiences of native peoples.

In late November, the nonpartisan think tank Economic Policy Institute released a report looking at unemployment figures among American Indians. According to Algernon Austin of EPI, unemployment in Indian Country is bleak. 

For instance, the national unemployment rate among Native people spiked from 7.7 percent in the first half of 2007 to 15.2 percent in the first half of 2010. Whites experienced a 4.1 percent and 9.1 percent unemployment rate respectively, in the same time period. In his brief “Different Race, Different Recession: American Indian Unemployment in 2010,” Austin writes that:

We find some of the largest disparities in employment between American Indians and whites in Alaska, the Northern Plains, and the Southwest.

These are also the regions of the country where the ratio of the Native to non-Native population is among the highest.

The unemployment numbers are different from those released by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Labor Force Report, whose sample and methodology is different than that used by EPI. The BIA bases its numbers on the American Indian and Alaska Native population that lives on or near the reservation and are eligible for BIA-funded services.

This population, however, according to Austin, is only about one-third of the total American Indian and Alaska Native population.

Austin’s report, based on statistics from Current Population Survey (CPS) data, uses the total American Indian and Alaska Native population, including biracial individuals. Here are his research's key findings:

• By the first half of 2010, the unemployment rate for Alaska Natives jumped 6.3 percentage points to 21.3%—the highest regional unemployment rate for American Indians.
• Since the start of the recession, American Indians in the Midwest experienced the greatest increase in unemployment, growing by 10.3 percentage points to 19.3%.
• By the first half of this year, slightly more than half—51.5%—of American Indians nationally were working, down from 58.3% in the first half of 2007.
• In the first half of this year, only 44% of American Indians in the Northern Plains were working, the worst employment rate for Native Americans regionally.
• The employment situation is the worst for American Indians in some of the same regions where it is best for whites: Alaska and the Northern Plains.

This year, President Obama made efforts to work toward building a better relationship with native people, ordering his administration to seek the advice of native people on the best ways that federal programs and policies could serve them.

In 2010, the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration’s Indian and Native American Program awarded $53 million to 178 grantees to provide employment and training services geared toward unemployed, under-employed and low-income Native American adults.

And it awarded an additional $13.8 million in grants to 78 tribes, tribal consortiums, and tribal nonprofit organizations to offer summer employment and training activities for native youth to offer basic and occupational skills training and job placement assistance.

As outlined in the 2010 White House Tribal Nations Conference Progress Report, Obama requested $55 million in his 2011 fiscal year budget for the Indian and Native American Program, which grants funding to tribes and Native American nonprofits to provide employment and training services to unemployed and low-income Native people.

That’s a 4-percent increase over fiscal year 2010. Whether it will be approved or not is another matter, of course.

Gulf Oil Spill Blood Tests Reveal Alarming Levels Of Toxic Chemicals In Residents

The Huffington Post  Zoe Triska First Posted: 01/22/11 12:10 PM Updated: 01/22/11 12:17 PM

Nine months have passed since the Gulf oil spill, and residents continue to see more and more negative outcomes from the tragedy.

This month, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network released the blood test results from 12 Gulf residents between the ages of 10 and 66 that were taken in September, November, and December of 2010. According to Treehugger, these people consisted of cleanup workers, crabbers, and people living along the coast. The study consisted of six women, four men, and two boys, aged 10 and 11.

Four of the people had unusually high levels of benzene, which, according to the ISS, is a highly toxic chemical from crude oil. It has been linked to many health problems, including anemia, leukemia, irregular menstrual periods and ovarian shrinkage. Those four were all crabbers from the Biloxi area, and consisted of three adults and one 10-year-old boy.

Ethylbenzene was detected in all 12 blood samples from Gulf residents at high levels and 11 of the 12 individuals had relatively high concentrations of xylenes. Ethylbenzene can cause damage to hearing and to the ear, dizziness, kidney damage, and may even cause cancer. Xylene can cause dizziness, headaches, skin irritation, confusion, and a whole slew of other ailments.

The two children had the most exposure of chemicals in their systems. The 10-year-old is currently experiencing severe respiratory problems as a result of the exposure.

Cherri Foytlin, co-founder of the grassroots group Gulf Change, is disturbed that the government isn't doing all that it can to address the health problems of Gulf residents. She told the President's oil spill commission:

"Today I'm talking to you about my life. My ethylbenzene levels are 2.5 times the [NHANES] 95th percentile, and there's a very good chance now that I won't get to see my grandbabies."

Though promises have been made to reopen the health issues at the White House, Gulf residents remain waiting for it to be done.

Read the full evaluative report here.