SOS Children's Villages - USA - Very Nice! “Borat” Screening Brings Aid for Orphaned Children in Kazahkstan

Very Nice! “Borat” Screening Brings Aid for Orphaned Children in Kazahkstan

11/14/06 SOS Children’s Villages – USA announced today that some moviegoers are taking Borat - or Kazahkstan - seriously. They are raising funds for the orphaned and abandoned children of SOS Childrens' Villages Kazakstan. One young man simply stood outside a movie theater and raised $1700 for SOS Kazahkstan after a showing of the Borat movie.

“It's great to turn a comedy into something good for children. Children are orphaned in Kazahkstan for the same reasons they are in other developing countries: extreme poverty, disease and social conditions that destroy family ties,” says Heather Paul, CEO of SOS-USA.

“We are thrilled that the screening of this movie inspired these donors. Let's hope that a few more Borat fans want to raise money for Kazahkstan's children. We are now launching new programs to prevent child abandonment and improve the lives of more than 900 children and families in Astana and Temirtau, Kazahkstan. These funds are a great start towards establishing programs that support at-risk families, including HIV/AIDS prevention education and care program.”

About SOS Children's Villages - USASOS Children’s Villages was founded in 1949 to provide families for orphaned and abandoned children. Today there are over 450 villages in 132 countries around the world. The mission of SOS is to build families for children in need, help them shape their own futures and share in the development of their communities.

To learn more, visit www.sos-usa.org.

CONTACT:
Jennifer Tabbal
202-470-5175
jtabbal@sos-usa.org

West Turkey cafe grenade attack injures 15: sources | International News | Reuters.com

IZMIR, Turkey (Reuters) - At least 15 people were injured on Monday evening when unknown assailants threw two grenades into a cafe in Izmir, Turkey's third largest city, hospital sources and police said.

The injured were rushed to three hospitals, where sources told Reuters a total of 15 people had been admitted suffering injuries from the blast. A police official said he could confirm seven people had been injured. There were no reports of deaths.

"Two grenades were thrown into the cafe and exploded, but the attack has no political links," Izmir police chief Huseyin Capkin told reporters. He did not give details.

The explosion comes a day after the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) began a unilateral ceasefire in its 22-year conflict with the Turkish state.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed struggle for an independent Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey.

Armed forces chief General Yasar Buyukanit said earlier that only warring states could declare a ceasefire and that the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Europe and Turkey, should unconditionally lay down its arms and deliver itself to Turkish justice.

Far-left and Islamist groups have also carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past.

Top Ugandan LRA rebels snubb talks

In a recent interview broadcast on the BBC, Mr Kony denied the LRA had carried out atrocities, particularly against children.

Thousands have died in the two-decade conflict between rebels and the government, and some two million have been forced to flee their homes.

Snippet from the BBC article... I really wonder what was going through Joseph Kony's mind when he said that.

Invisible Children - Global Night Commute

	We have been called idealists, but our ideals are becoming realities. The images you are about to see do not lie. On April 29th, 2006, in more than 130 cities, roughly 80,000 people joined thousands of Northern Ugandan night commuters and slept outside. Young, old, all races, all religions – demanded that the world take notice to a war that remained unseen for over 20 years. If you were there, you were a part of something historical. If you weren’t, keep watching; the Global Night Commute was just the beginning of a much larger movement. Please continue to burn high res photos to a CD and send to our office (attn: GNC art book) to possibly be included in the highly anticipated GNC art book, available for sale soon online. This beautiful book will detail the makings of the revolution that is invisible children’s Global Night Commute (for more details- see our website). Thank you for fighting for justice for people you may never meet – knowing they deserve the same freedoms as you. Pass this video on, and continue to ask family, friends, neighbors, teachers, journalists, and politicians to help us out, take Northern Uganda off the backburner, and end a war. This is just the beginning. Hold on.

strangest conversation ever

me: how you doing?
Friend: i have a ppr due tomorrow! :)
you?
11:12 PM me: oooh, you can be up all night with me and my sister!
i have a project due at 9am
and "9uuuu3" (my sister) has a paper due tomorrow too!
she's at my apt
we have coffee and sugar stuff (banana bread, brownies, etc)
it'll be fun!
(excpet for the paper/project part)
11:13 PM Friend: haha
11:14 PM that would be fun!
it's like a party!
11:15 PM woooot
i'm not sure if what i'm writing makes sense
me: party... woot, fun, sense
Friend: oh i meant my paper
me: check
Friend: hahaha
me: oh
haha
Friend: haha yeeeeah
how fun!
you and your sister are so cute
11:16 PM me: can't i be manly or something?
cute...
:p
Friend: hahah
suuuch a guy
you and your sisteer are so manly?
come on.
haha
me: HAHA
k, you win that one too.
11:17 PM Friend: haha
yES
11:18 PM are you guys really staying up all night?
11:19 PM me: yea... sadly thats the plan
Friend: wow
11:20 PM i want banana bread
throw some over to campus village
me: k, here it comes! (im on my balcony, aiming...)
umf!
wow, that was a long toss...
hmm
the wind...
11:21 PM it landed closer to MSTB it looks like
you could go look for it
but ya know, it'd be hard to find
just trust me, i really did toss it
Friend: i don't believe you!
11:22 PM you didn't even try!
me: sure i did!
Friend: jon! i thought we were friends!
me: i am you friend!
i am sorry i couldnt aim better!
Friend: and i thought you were an expert bread thrower
or i wouldn't hav asked
me: :(
Friend: haha
me: i'll bake another loaf!
Friend: jaaaaay kaaaay
oooh
maybe not jk then
haha
me: hahaha
11:23 PM i'll try to make it football-shaped this time
you know... aerodynamic
airodynamic?
air-o-dynamicy
huh
Friend: ooh
and then put it in a rocket launcher
11:24 PM yeah, that should do it
me: ya! and i can power the blast with some of the rum we've got laying around our cabinets!
alcohol should be explosive enough
hopefully it doesnt burn the bread
Friend: hopefully
me: ...all that effort, to waste...
Friend: we can only pray
11:25 PM hah i'm so lame
hahaha
me: "dear God, may thou bless this rocket launcher... may it blasteth thy bread safely and freshly to my friend's apartment"
11:26 PM (im trying hard to win the lame award at least)
:P
Friend: hahah
well, we can share the spot
i am sitting in THE most uncomfortable position EVER
well, maybe not ever
11:27 PM but i want you to feel my pain
hahah
me: can you describe the position?
11:28 PM Friend: uh, my back is half towards the wall
however, my body is twisted to the left to type
and my legs are constantly shifting
11:29 PM oh! and i have a hair clip in my hair, so my head can't fully lay on the back of the wall
awwwwkward
11:30 PM me: huh... on the floor?
Friend: on my chair
me: yea... odd
11:31 PM Friend: but the back of my chair isn't agains the wall
haha i don't know
it just hurts
haha
ok, i'll stop complaoining
how is your project coming along
11:32 PM me: im stuck at the line fputc(
incase that means anything to you
haha, my sister just read her paper description, and turns out its not due till friday
11:33 PM Friend: ...
hahaha
is she going to pull an all-nighter?
me: no... she says she'll still try to write maybe half of it
11:35 PM Friend: oooh
aw, you're alll alone!
me: well... she didnt leave yet
and my roommate just got back
11:36 PM Friend: oh that's good
give him a head nod from me
11:37 PM me: HAHA, he just was telling me about what happened today... with him being all dressed up
he says: i told other people your "secret"
11:38 PM he says sorry
Friend: haha oh really?
he doesn't soouuund sorry
jkjk
11:39 PM i'll stop being sucha girl
me: he says: ya, you're right
Friend: hahaha
whatever :P
11:41 PM haha i have THE most horrible friend ever
11:42 PM (not my roommate) someone else
me: oh haha
i was about to forward the comment :p
Friend: i've been friends with someone forever
and he doesn't know what year i am or my maor
hahahh
wow, that would suck for my roommate
me: hmmm.... kinda like how i was confused...
7 minutes
11:50 PM Friend: SORRY
bad connect
jacking wireless haas bad consequences
11:51 PM me: thats okay
i had to go use the restroom
didnt even notice
Friend: hah
ohok
11:52 PM i feel...better?
me: thats good?
11:54 PM Friend: yes?
haha
i like this whole question thing?
me: are you sure?
i like it too?
11:55 PM would it be better if we actually made questions of our sentences rather than just add a question mark to the end?
Friend: maybe?
do you know the question game?
me: wouldn't that just mean adding a word like "how" "why" or "what" to the beginning?
which game is that?
Friend: no?
11:56 PM it's the best game ever?
me: don't you mean "is it the best game ever?"?
is it hard to make actual questions?
how do you play the question game?
11:57 PM Friend: you keep asking questions
me: why aren't you playing it now??
aren't I playing it already?
11:58 PM Friend: no?
me: have you looked at the last 20 of my messages to you?
haven't they all been questions?
11:59 PM Friend: have they?
me: or have i? dun dun dun...?
you arent feeling like im mad at you right? cuz im not?
12:00 AM doesnt it make you feel like someone is mad at you when they keep "drilling" you with questions?
12:01 AM Friend: ... haha NO
me: really?
Friend: let's play the exclamation game!
no
me: no!
Friend: i don't really care!
me: now i really feel mad at you!
Friend: I feel excited!
haha!
me: you're horrible for wasting my time like this!
jk jk!
12:02 AM im too appologetic to play this game!
ack!
AHAHAHA!
12:03 AM Friend: yeah!
maybe we shoud stop!
me: can't... stop...!
12:04 AM too... much... momentum!
THIS IS THE STRANGEST CONVERSATION I HAVE EVER HAD!
12:05 AM i mean, that the second strangest conversation I've ever had!
(second strangest is a safer guess, leaves a bit of leeway incase a stranger one exists... ya know, so i'm not lying)

Project: OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)

This is a really niffty device! The article (click the title of this post) describes many of its technological specs, but basically it is meant to be easily used by kids! Meaning withstand impacts, touch-screen capable, easily rechargable, super-mobile, automatic ad-hoc networking, usb device ready, linux based (cheap!), and fun!

It's like the ultimate protable device! If it comes with any VoIP software, it becomes a combination laptop, cellphone, and potential TV (ipTV streaming).

And it will only cost $100 or less.

I'm extremely excited for the potential that this device offers. Think open source development gets a huge new developer base as kids are learning linux and getting access to technology at much younger ages.

Kidworks will majorly benefit from something like this! Can't wait for it to become available!

what to do with my own domain

So I am graduating UCI, and I need a place to keep practicing my HTML, Javascript and other scripting language skills. Not to mention have a place to upload stuff should the need arrise. UCI has provided a nice small webspace for me, and I am transfering it to PhiliaAgape.net - but I want to improve!

Some thoughts: homepage should be a blog, links to personal and professional profiles, photo galleries, etc... I'd like to learn how to do something like del.icio.us, and keep a personal list of favorites or saved bookmarks, so that I can get them from anywhere (without having to sign in to del.icio.us).

National Boycott Plans Creating a New Divide

The 45-year-old illegal immigrant plans to skip work and march for immigrant rights on Monday for one reason: He hopes someday to become a legal resident of the United States. After six years here, he wants to visit the family he left behind in Mexico — without fear of arrest on his way back.

Lupe Moreno, 48, a Santa Ana social worker, American citizen and advocate for immigration control, will not join in the national boycott of work, school and consumer spending. After she finishes work, she said, she will engage in her own form of activism: purchasing a $1,000 big-screen TV to "support the U.S. economy as a proud Latino American."

And Luis Magana, a worker at the Sara Lee Bakery Group factory in Vernon, is still torn about what to do. "We want to show that our work counts. We pay taxes and help the economy," Magana said, referring to himself and his fellow workers. "But we need our jobs too."

Among other things, many are urging Congress to pass legislation that would create a path toward legalizing most of the nation's 11.5 million illegal immigrants, increase family visas and expand guest worker programs. The Senate is still debating such issues; the House passed a bill in December with strict enforcement provisions, such as making it felony to be in the United States without a valid visa, that many immigrant advocates consider punitive.

What began as a call for action by a small group of Los Angeles activists three months ago has gained dramatic momentum in recent days — with the boycott even drawing support from the California Senate. Some now see it as a measure of whether the newly energized immigrant rights movement will crest to new heights, stumble or provoke anger that hurts the cause.

The outcome is difficult to predict.

Spanish-language disc jockey Renan "El Cucuy" Almendarez Coello, who helped mobilize as many as 500,000 protesters in downtown Los Angeles in March, said the boycott goes against what immigrants represent.

"We are hard workers," he said. "We came to the United States to work. We should work Monday. Work dignifies us."

A recent survey by Garcia Research, a Burbank firm specializing in Latino market research, found overwhelming support in Los Angeles for a boycott of work and consumer spending.

"After so many years of working so hard, people feel they don't have voice," said Carlos Rojas, the firm's political analyst. "They see it as a way of showing the rest of society the power and dignity of the Latinos."

Feelings are running so high in some heavily Latino areas that many employers don't feel comfortable not closing for the day.

Russia's 100 richest worth $248 billion

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The 100 richest Russians have assets worth $248 billion or more than a quarter of Russia's nominal gross domestic product, according to the Russian version of Forbes magazine which hit news-stands on Thursday.

Roman Abramovich, 39, owner of English soccer club Chelsea, stayed at the top with a fortune of $18.3 billion, a gain of $3.6 billion on last year, said the magazine.

Collectively, the fortunes of Russia's richest who are often termed "oligarchs" grew by $107 billion over the past year.

"The rich are becoming richer because the Russian economy is becoming richer," Kirill Vishnepolsky, deputy chief editor of Forbes in Russia, told Reuters.

"The value of many Russian companies has risen faster than the economy over the past year as they were undervalued."

Russia now has 44 dollar billionaires. But their fortunes compare to average wages of $3,600 per year, according to official Russian statistics.

Many ordinary Russians view the oligarchs with a mixture of envy and resentment and are quick to accuse them of having made illicit gains.

Russia's richest amassed massive fortunes and influence in the chaotic privatizations that followed the fall of the Soviet Union.

Charity: 9 million African kids lose mother to AIDS

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- Nine million children in Africa have lost a mother to AIDS, British charity Save the Children said Monday, calling on donors to sharply increase aid to meet their needs.

"Incredibly, the impact of HIV and AIDS on children is still being ignored," Save the Children Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said in a statement.

The charity said in a report that a lack of testing facilities meant that many mothers, especially in the poorest countries, did not know their HIV status until they were ill and were unable to fight off even the simplest infections.

"The AIDS pandemic robs millions of children of their childhoods as well as their mothers," Whitbread said. "Children are caring for their mothers, missing school, and having to work because their mothers are too sick to look after them."

The charity called for a focus on children orphaned by AIDS as well as sick parents, adding red tape was slowing aid flows.

"Donors must spend 12 percent of their AIDS funding on proper support for children," it said, adding this would amount to $6.4 billion. It did not give any comparisons for the current amount of aid for children affected by AIDS.

The charity addressed its appeal to the G8 wealthy nations, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the World Bank and the European Commission.

Sub-Saharan Africa has about 10 percent of the world's population but 60 percent of the people living with HIV/AIDS.

More than 3 million Africans were infected with HIV in 2005, representing 64 percent of all new infections globally and more than in any previous year for the impoverished continent, according to UNAIDS, the lead U.N. agency against AIDS.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 4.6 percent of young women aged 15 to 24 are infected with HIV, compared to 1.7 percent of young men, according to U.N. data.

Save the Children said most of the 19.2 million women living with HIV around the globe were mothers.

"To truly make a difference we must also support children whose mothers are HIV positive," it said.

"In sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than 12 million children under the age of 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. By 2010, at current rates of HIV infection, this number is likely to increase to 18 million," Save the Children said.

A woman lies dying of AIDS in a hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this month.

Zambia: Fertile but Hungry

As you drive around the Zambian countryside, to the north and south of the capital, Lusaka, it is sometimes difficult to understand why there is a food crisis in this country.

The fields are green, fertile and full of maize. There is also an abundance of water. It has been raining heavily.

These are promising signs for the forthcoming harvest.

However, the food shortages that Zambians are experiencing at present, with more than 1.2m people in need of food assistance this year, stem from the drought in 2004-5.

Like many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, this is about far more than just poor rainfall.

There are deeper, long-term problems that cause hunger.

Lost out

For the last five years, Emily Miyanda and her husband, Steve, have run Pamusha Farm, about 15km from Lusaka.

In a near perfect setting, the well-irrigated seven-hectare farm produces maize, cabbages, tomatoes and other vegetables.

"We're employing local workers here and helping the government to secure jobs. But in return, we'd like some government support in buying seeds and fertiliser. That would make life easier," says Emily Miyanda.

Zambian farmers lost out on subsidised agricultural inputs when tough World Bank and International Monetary Fund conditions were imposed.

However, Zambia's Minister of Agriculture Mundia Sikatana admits that more must now be done to help small farmers like the Miyanda family.

"We are giving fertiliser and seeds to 150,000 farmers but that's not enough. It's a drop in the ocean. One million small farmers need assistance," he said.

"We hope to improve on our numbers in this year's budget because it's much cheaper for the country to support the farmer than to import food".

Food exporter

In the meantime, farmers are being urged to diversify and end their over-dependence on maize. Some are turning to sorghum, sweet potatoes and ground nuts.

Mr Sikatana says he would also like to see Zambians growing cassava, a crop much favoured in neighbouring Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo.

In this way, Zambia would have the potential of returning to the days when it was a food exporter.

One problem for farmers is access to markets.

In spite of the fact that the Lusaka skyline lies in the distance, Pamusha Farm can only be reached by several kilometres of poor dirt roads.

"Some of the roads in Zambia are just impassable," says Henry Malumo, co-ordinator of the Global Call To Action Against Poverty.

"The issue of infrastructure is a major one. There's no way you can expect peasant farmers to lift themselves out of poverty when there are such bad roads."

Farming sector decimated

In the rural communities, hunger is directly related to poverty.

At the Kapopo primary school in the Naluyanda district near Lusaka, teacher Gift Shiyanga says that around half the 500 children are not getting enough food.

"They come from families that are poor. They are starving," he says.

Perhaps the biggest cause of food insecurity in southern Africa is the HIV/Aids crisis.

This has decimated the farming sector.

Ninety minutes' drive south of Lusaka is the farming town of Mazabuka.

The Ndeke Community Centre there provides support for those who are chronically ill, most of whom are HIV positive.

Hunger trap

Under a thatched rondavel hut, 30-year old Gideon Lungu sits listlessly in the summer heat.

He is suffering from tuberculosis, and like many here, he looks gaunt and weak.

"Most of these people are farmers who can no longer work their fields," says Samuel Banda who works for a local non-governmental organisation called Programme Urban Self Help (Push).

"As a result the season is ending without any farming activity, and there is widespread hunger."

Life expectancy in Zambia has fallen from 50 to 32.

In a country that depends so heavily on agriculture, the loss of so many bread-winners is having a catastrophic effect on the farming sector and on society in general.

Many orphans are now being brought up by grandparents and elderly relatives who struggle to take on the burden of farming.

On the road back to Lusaka, I encounter an afternoon thunderstorm.

For half an hour, the countryside soaks up the torrential rain.

Drought and hunger are synonymous, but the storm is a potent reminder that it is Zambia's long-term developmental needs that must be addressed if people are to escape the hunger trap.

Costa Mesa's Border Heat Puts a Chill in Its Latinos

In a Republican county known as a cradle of border enforcement zeal, Costa Mesa has long been celebrated — and maligned — as a city that offered immigrants a generous embrace.

Though perhaps best known for its shopping mecca, South Coast Plaza, the city of 110,000 also spawned a soup kitchen, a long-running charity with a free medical and dental clinic and a pioneering day-labor center.

But in its treatment of its Latino residents, currently a third of the population, the city's heart has always been riven, a fissure more evident now than ever.

Last year, the city shut down the dayworker center after 17 years. It abolished its human relations committee after 18 years. And as the city now moves to train local police in immigration enforcement — the nation's first municipality to do so — it has become a flashpoint in a national debate.

Outsiders have rushed in, hailing or condemning the city's efforts. There are demonstrations at City Hall, shouting matches, floods of e-mails, threats of a boycott. But nowhere is the turmoil felt more keenly than in the city's heavily Latino Westside.

"Everybody's afraid," said Sherry Chavez, 23, a day-care worker and mother of two, as she pushed her baby stroller toward her Shalimar Drive apartment. "They're scared to go out of their houses. I have family that don't have papers, and they're scared of taking their children to school."

Chavez grew up in the city's barrios and considered Costa Mesa a nice town, blessed by sunshine and ocean breezes. Since police blocked off her street with concrete pylons a few years back to stymie drug traffic, it has also felt like a safe place to raise children.

Now, she said, the city seems meaner, less like home. Mayor Allan Mansoor insists his immigration plan, if implemented, will target only serious criminals. But Chavez and many others are convinced that roundups of undocumented workers — and the potential harassment of Latinos in general — are imminent.

A few miles from Chavez's block, in a neighborhood of modest tract homes called College Park, another longtime resident worries the city he loves is slipping away.

Ken Rasmussen, 64, a retired restaurateur, moved to Costa Mesa in 1968 and had his two children attend the public schools. He wouldn't do it now; he thinks an unchecked influx of Latino immigrants has ruined the schools.

"All of a sudden, it isn't the same city," Rasmussen said. "I want my city back."

The hubbub mirrors much broader anxieties. Like California, Costa Mesa is an increasingly diverse and expensive place to live. Costa Mesa's Latino population has grown to about a third of the total, with blacks and Asians accounting for about 10%.

The city flourished after World War II, drawing troops from a military base in the city and workers from the Boeing plant in adjacent Huntington Beach and absorbing part of the white flight from Los Angeles.

Today, along with its high-end mall and its teeming Westside, the city features pockets of million-dollar homes, a symphony orchestra, a respected theater and a 3,000-seat Performing Arts Center.

"It's one of the most split-personality cities I've ever seen," said former Mayor Peter Buffa. "If you're south of the 405, it's a small-town community. If you're north of the 405, it's one of the most vibrant commercial areas in the country."

The city is wedged between two radically different cultures. To the north is predominantly Latino Santa Ana, with many low-income and crowded neighborhoods. "Guess what's coming south," said Rasmussen, worried his city increasingly resembles its northern neighbor. "Guess what's coming this way."

To Costa Mesa's south is wealthy, showy Newport Beach, with beachfront mansions and a harbor full of yachts. Costa Mesa's median home price in 2005 was more than $710,000, but in Newport Beach the median topped $1.5 million.

Costa Mesa means "coastal tableland," and the city seal features a sailboat on picturesque blue water. Yet although it is cooled by the ocean breeze, it has no coast, no docks. Those are in Newport Beach.

What Costa Mesa has are high-profile charities, such as Share Our Selves. All week long, immigrants stream in for medical care, clothes and bags of groceries — workers who clean the city's big houses, keep its yards hedged and oil the gears of its humming economy. They know the 36-year-old charity is a friendly place that won't ask about their citizenship.

The charity helped forge Costa Mesa's incongruous reputation as "a city with a heart" — to use the words of a former county supervisor — in a county that has been a caldron of border-enforcement sentiment. Orange County was the birthplace of Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative that sought to curb public services for illegal immigrants. And it is the home of Jim Gilchrist, cofounder of the Minuteman Project citizen patrol.

To some Costa Mesa residents, the immigrant-friendly facilities were a drain. "Costa Mesa has always been super socially liberal, always wanting to take care of anybody who comes down the street," said Roger Carlson, a retired sportswriter who lived in Costa Mesa for 40 years. "You feel sorry for them, but does one city have to take care of them?"

Latinos live throughout the city, and in some crowded Westside neighborhoods around the intersection of West 19th Street and Placentia Avenue, they are the vast majority. Mayor Mansoor said he does not know how many people are living in the city illegally, but he pointed to statistics showing that of Orange County Jail's average daily population of 6,000, about 10% are illegal immigrants.

For decades, Costa Mesa's treatment of its swelling immigrant population has ranged from warm receptiveness to icy suspicion.

In 1989, amid cries that Share Our Selves was a beacon for crime and illegal immigrants, the city evicted the charity from its original site in a residential neighborhood, and it reopened elsewhere.

The next year, the city had a headline-grabbing spat with Jack Kemp, then secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The City Council had decided to bar HUD grant money from agencies that assisted illegal immigrants, but Kemp called the policy "un-American" and issued an order against it.

Costa Mesa has never had a Latino council member. Council members are elected citywide, rather than by district, diluting Latino voting power. Just over 10% of its registered voters have Spanish surnames.

The city's treatment of immigrants is regularly determined by a single vote on a divided council. Last year, with a series of 3-2 votes, the council shut down the job center, which was intended to prevent loitering by day laborers; abolished the human relations committee, which was meant to quell prejudice; and endorsed the mayor's immigration plan.

The plan ostensibly will target only serious criminals for deportation and remains in the planning stages. But fear and confusion are pervasive in the city's barrios, and the conversation keeps turning to what is perceived as an ominous alliance between la policia and la migra, the Border Patrol.

"There's a lot of people thinking that on Jan. 1, police officers were allowed to arrest anyone who is walking, driving or riding a bike who looks Hispanic," said Paty Madueno, who manages apartments on the Westside.

At the Vista Center on 19th Street, which includes the El Metate market and a panaderia, or bakery, merchants say business has been suffering. "People are staying inside, in the house," said Nelson Lopez, 36, a Guatemalan immigrant who works the counter of the Dollar Mart.

Opponents say the plan threatens to erode the already tenuous bonds between the city's police and Latino residents, some of whom refuse to report crime for fear of harassment or deportation.

Costa Mesa Police Cpl. Doug Johnson, who patrolled the Westside for more than two years, said he found Latinos wary of his badge long before the mayor announced his plan.

"The majority of the people, unless you make contact, they turn away or look away," Johnson said. "People who got beat up on the streets or even robbed, they were hesitant [to call]. It would have to be someone who witnessed it who called it in."

At City Hall, immigrant-rights advocates are converging from across the Southland to denounce the immigration plan. And border-crackdown activists are coming to hail it, hoping it portends broader change.

"This will be the testing ground for the country," Gilchrist said before a recent council meeting.

Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who voted against the plan, said she thought outsiders had hijacked city politics. Foley said her constituents wondered why the city was taking on a federal issue. They are more concerned, she said, about getting lighted fields and breakfast eateries in their neighborhoods.

"People outside of Costa Mesa have taken over the discussion, so reasonable-minded residents have been taken out of the discussion," she said. "Unfortunately, our city has become the lightning rod for a political issue that is consuming all of our resources and time."

Power Plant Is Opposed

A poor Riverside County area would be hurt by the project, says a group planning to sue.

By Janet Wilson, Times Staff Writer
February 23 2006

A power plant touted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and General Electric for its ability to reduce air pollution will actually spew nearly three times more unhealthful particulate matter into the air than older facilities, a coalition of environmental and labor groups said Wednesday.

The plant, under construction in the impoverished, largely Latino Riverside County community of Romoland, will sit about 1,000 feet from an elementary school, in a region that already suffers from the highest soot levels in the state.

"Any power plant built so near schools and families must follow clean air laws and not make our air quality any worse," said Roland Skumawitz, superintendent of the Romoland School District. He said he recognized the need for power in the fast-growing Inland Empire, but preferred that GE and another company that has applied to build a second plant nearby help pay to move the school to a new site.

"This whole area is being targeted for these kinds of facilities," said Penny Newman, executive director of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice in Riverside. She said GE's application to the regional air district showed that while the new, so-called H-style turbine plant might reduce greenhouse gas-causing emissions slightly, it would nearly triple particulate emissions.

"You can't trash a local community just because you may save a little somewhere else," she said.

Riverside County already suffers from some of the state's highest levels of particulate pollution, which studies have found can cause or worsen lung disease, childhood asthma and other illnesses.

Late Wednesday, the coalition mailed 60-day notices of intent to sue for violation of the Clean Air Act to the GE subsidiary building the $1-billion plant and to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which in August issued a permit for the plant. But the group's attorney, Marc Joseph of Adams, Broadwell, Joseph & Cardozo in South San Francisco, said it would prefer not to sue and just wants the project changed.

"We would be very happy if GE's claim that this is a power plant that's good for the environment were true, but at the moment, it's not. What we are seeking is for GE to live up to its advertising…. The technology exists to have power plants which don't increase downwind pollution illegally."

Spokesmen for both General Electric and the air district said they had not received the complaint and could not comment.

GE Energy spokesman Dennis Murphy said the Romoland facility was the first of its kind in North America, and the second globally after a similar plant in Wales.

He said it was a demonstration plant to show that greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by increasing the efficiency of natural gas used.

"We're very optimistic about the future of the technology," he said. "The project is designed to be more environmentally compatible."

As for the location, he said, "this was a very solid place to site the plant, to meet the needs of the entire area, which is very hungry for power."

The plant has no commercial customers yet, but the power it generates could be sold on the state's grid to serve 600,000 households, according to company officials and its website.

Greenhouse gas emissions are different ingredients of air pollution than particulate matter and are not regulated, said air district spokesman Sam Atwood. Particulates are regulated, but the notices allege that the agency ignored its own particulate standards to give special treatment to GE.

Countered Atwood: "We did a thorough review of their permit application, along with detailed modeling we required of them, and it did meet our requirements."

The documents and Joseph also allege that the air district illegally allowed GE far cheaper "emissions offsets," or payments for pollution, than market rate offsets that could cost millions more. The cheaper offsets were established for emergency providers such as hospitals, police and fire stations.

Atwood and attorneys for the air district noted that any application for a new power plant deemed complete by the California Energy Commission by the end of 2003, during the state energy crisis, could qualify to use the lower rates.

Calpine Corp., a power generator and the original site owner, applied for a traditional turbine plant permit that year, then sold the site, project name and approvals to GE last year. Schwarzenegger praised the agreement between the two utilities for a 775-megawatt power plant last year, saying in a statement that it was "fantastic news for California…. The plant's planned use of state-of-the-art turbine technology will produce more power with lower emissions than any power plant in its class."

Darrel Ng, the governor's spokesman on energy issues, said Wednesday: "We're going to decline comment on a lawsuit we are not party to."

Bob Balgenorth, president of the California Building Trades Council and chief of a group known as California Unions for Reliable Energy, which is funding the legal challenge to the site, said the two groups have "no fight with the governor" and that Schwarzenegger may have been misinformed by the power companies.

"They claim they're using state-of-the-art technology here. That's what GE told everybody when they first filed the application, but their own numbers show a violation of federal laws. It's crazy," he said. "They promised us a diamond and they're giving us zirconia. What you've got is a plant that actually produces more pollution than a whole previous generation of plants."

Bono calls on U.S. to give part of budget to poor

U2 frontman cites religious text at breakfast attended by Bush

WASHINGTON - Quoting from Islamic, Jewish and Christian texts, rock star Bono called Thursday for the U.S. government to give an additional 1 percent of the federal budget to the world’s poor.

Speaking to President Bush and members of Congress at the National Prayer Breakfast, the U2 front man said it’s unjust to keep poor people from selling their goods while singing the virtues of the free market, to hold children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents and to withhold medicines that would save lives.

“God will not accept that,” he said. “Mine won’t. Will yours?”

Vote at this poll: Should the U.S. take Bono's advice?

--------------------------------------------------------------------
how sad is this? in the same article... there are links to these issues:

• Bush to offer $440 billion defense budget

• Bush to seek $120 billion for wars

but what about africa!!