Malcolm X Day

I recently read an article by Toure in Time magazine discussing should Malcolm X have a national holiday and it made me realize just how powerful and iconic Malcolm was in the sense of what the American Dream really is. Malcolm came from poverty as well as hardships such losing his father to death while being young than being snatched from his mom and being put in foster care where he was thought he couldn't be a lawyer. Thus encountering all of that which led to a life of crime before hitting prison where he was reformed and started to become a dynamic civil rights leader in the north. So Toure asked what ideals would we celebrate on Malcolm X Day, May 19, his birthday? Many. Malcolm’s not a static intellectual figure — his mind journeyed throughout his life, he held firm to his principles but was also strong enough to re-evaluate his beliefs and change when he deemed change is right. He was far from a flip-flopper who moved because it was politically expedient — and thankfully not an intellectual mule who refused to change when he uncovered new information and perspectives. Malcolm was intelligent and bold enough to be open-minded. His courage to be a truth seeker is part of what we’d celebrate — his willingness to reconsider his principles, to be protean, to challenge himself and be willing to grow and thus embody the transformative potential of American life. We would celebrate not just his willingness to journey but also his journey itself, which concludes with militancy being defeated by humanism and with racial hatred being defeated by globalism and multiracial acceptance. While we celebrate Dr. King and praise him year end and year out it was a time when King was considered a threat to our society. So as Toure says, "Surely some will not be able to wrap their heads around supporting a Malcolm X federal holiday because they will get stuck on the image of Malcolm as violent. This misunderstands several things. King was, at a time, considered dangerous and was hated too and, more importantly, Malcolm merely proposed that oppressed people had a right to armed self-defense — an inherently American principle. King, who preached steadfast non-violence, represents America as it wishes it were, while Malcolm symbolizes America as it is. Malcolm never equated self-defense with violence for its own sake and he never fomented violence. He was wiretapped and followed inside and outside the United States by the FBI, the CIA and the NYPD for years and years — if he had incited violence, even in a private conversation at home, he would surely have landed in legal trouble. Indeed, the FBI noted its difficultly in neutralizing him because he did not conspire to break laws and lived by a stringent moral code. A New York police officer surveilling him went to his bosses and told them they should be helping Malcolm — such is the righteousness of his positions to someone who truly listened." Malcolm was a man unreservedly committed to the cause of liberating black people by any means necessary and his fierce but loving advocacy helps move the country forward as much as King’s Gandhi-ist movement. We cannot separate Malcolm from his era in that he conveyed the righteous anger of the black masses during his time but linked it to an articulation and a brilliance that was inspiring as well as a geopolitical, economic, spiritual and religious strategy. Malcolm was angry because we were, but instead of sparking riots he incited deep self-pride and linked the civil rights struggle to human rights. His militant advocacy was as stunning as it was necessary, to force the issue and imbue millions with the confidence and spirit and strength needed to overcome. He knew power gives up nothing without a demand and inspired millions to not accept victim status and imbued them with the agency to force America to become as democratic as it claimed to be. Malcolm is the true father of Black Power (and its son hip-hop), which deeply inspires all identity freedom movements that follow it. so without a doubt Malcolm X was just as important to America and the civil rights movement as well as black nationalism and humanism world wide than King, Ghandi, and Mother Theresa. It is clear that if America is to celebrate Malcolm X than more about his legacy and impact needs to be talked about to show the positive side of the things not always discussed. Malcolm's impact still lives on today and as, "Think of Malcolm not as an intellectual thug but as a Mandelaesque figure who advocated righteous and political-minded self-defense when that was necessary and later grew into peaceful humanists." Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/20/we-need-a-malcolm-x-day/

Stop the Politics

The American people don't want to hear that the $2 billion we have spent to liberate the Libyan people is less than what the previous administration spent to liberate the Afghanistan and Iraqi people. Clearly stop the politics because we need to jobs in America and that $2 billion that was spent liberating Libya could have went toward improving our schools, our infrastructure, etc. Thus stop the political games and acting like over the last 3 years we aren't still spending billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan because we are.

It's time out to politics and its time to restore America back to the people who are the one's suffering.

Always Respect & Remember our Veterans

America we need to always respect and remember our veterans regardless if we agree with the wars they are fighting, we shouldn't never dishonor them or disown them for simply falling orders and protecting many of the rights & privileges that our nation has today.

U.S. apologizes for STD experiments in Guatemala

The U.S. Government apologizes for STD study that infected Guatemalans. This is truly sad but at least the government is apologizing after finding out it did this to human beings. Still further investigating needs to be done. The U.S. government needs to monitor current and future testing more closely so this doesn't happen again. This is truly shocking news.

President Obama Addresses the United Nations

The President outlines his Administration's vision for American leadership in the 21st century and calls on the world to help realize a future built on freedom and human rights in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. September 23, 2010.

America is no longer an isolation nation and we will never be that way. We are a nation ready to help lead the world into a 21st century where freedom and human rights are given to all the world's people. We are a nation ready to help eradicate poverty, HIV/AIDS to children and other diseases that plague youth in the world. We are a nation ready to make sure that peace is a more of a reality in the Middle East and throughout the world than any other point in our nation's history.

President Obama at Millennium Development Goals Conference

The President speaks at the Millennium Development Goals Conference at the United Nations Building on his plan for global development.

President Obama is right about we as a world have to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Meeting these goals will help the world grow into a better Earth for all its people. So its time for all of us to step up and do our part.

FACTBOX: What happens now after German elections?

German voters gave Chancellor Angela Merkel a second term in an election on Sunday and a mandate to form a new government with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) that is expected to cut taxes to boost growth.

Here is what is likely to happen next:

To read more, go to: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58Q2IO20090927

Japan's 'Change' Agenda--By Fred Hiatt

Just as the health-care debate was showing how hard it is to translate the slogan of change into reality, newly inaugurated Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama swept into New York, branding himself as the Barack Obama of Japan.

By voting for change, Hatoyama told me during an interview last week, "each individual in the United States has gained vitality within themselves. We too, by changing our closed politics, have been able to generate vitality within each individual in Japan."

Personally the two leaders could not be more different: Hatoyama is oddly affectless rather than charismatic, and born into a family of long-standing wealth and power.

Yet to Japan watchers, his ascent is, in its way, as path-breaking as Obama's. By leading his left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to a smashing victory last month, he broke a half-century of virtually uninterrupted rule by the right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). And with an overwhelming majority in the lower house of the Diet, Hatoyama may have an easier time enacting his change agenda than Obama is finding in the Senate Finance Committee.....

To read more, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/27/AR2009092701442.html

Iran tests most advanced missiles--By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer

Iran tested its most advanced missiles Monday to cap two days of war games, raising more international concern and stronger pressure to quickly come clean on the newly revealed nuclear site Tehran was secretly constructing.

State television said the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran's missile program, successfully tested upgraded versions of the medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles. Both can carry warheads and reach up to 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel, U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and parts of Europe within striking distance.

The missile tests were meant to flex Iran's military might and show readiness for any military threat.

To read more, go to: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090928/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran

Has Osama bin Laden Failed?

Has Osama bin Laden Failed?

Now on September 11th, many Americans would not want to ask yet alone mention Osama Bin Laden’s name. However it is important to ask the question has bin Laden failed, 8 years after 9/11. Now Osama may have eluded justice and the long reach of the world's most powerful military force; his followers may (and probably will) strike again at some point in the future, near or distant; but history's verdict on Osama bin Laden has been in for some time, now: Al-Qaeda failed.

The 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington - like those that preceded it in East Africa in 1998 and those that followed in London, Madrid, Bali and other places - were tactical successes, in that they managed to kill hundreds of innocents, grab the world's headlines and briefly dominate the nightmares of Western policy makers. But the strategy of which those attacks formed part has proven to be fundamentally flawed. Terrorism departs from the rules of war by deliberately targeting the innocent, but it shares the basic motive force of conventional warfare - "the pursuit of politics by other means, " as Clausewitz wrote. (See pictures of the challenge of memorializing 9/11.)

The purpose of the 9/11 attacks was not simply to kill Americans; they formed part of bin Laden's strategy to launch a global Islamist revolution aimed at ending U.S. influence in Muslim countries, overthrowing regimes there allied with Washington, and putting al-Qaeda at the head of a global Islamist insurgency whose objective was to restore the rule of the Islamic Caliphate that had once ruled territory stretching from Moorish Spain through much of Asia. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden.)

Today, however, al-Qaeda is believed to comprise a couple of hundred desperate men, their core leaders hiding out in Pakistan's tribal wilds and under constant threat of attack by ever-present U.S. drone aircraft, their place in Western nightmares and security assessments long-since eclipsed by such longtime rivals as Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. This year's official threat assessment by the U.S. Directorate of National Intelligence cited the primary security challenge facing the U.S. as the global economic downturn. The report cited "notable progress in Muslim public opinion turning against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda" and said no country was at risk of falling to Qaeda-inspired extremists. It argued that sustained pressure against the movement's surviving core in the Pakistani tribal wilds was degrading its organizational cohesion and diminishing the threat it poses.

Sure, al-Qaeda continues to issue vituperative missives by video from its hideouts, many of them directed at the likes of Iran and Hamas. But Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan seemed to sum up al-Qaeda's plight two years ago, when, responding to a particularly rabid attack from bin Laden's number two. Ayman al-Zawahiri had accused Hamas of "joining the surrender train" by participating in elections and agreeing to form a unity government with Fatah. Hamas, sneered Hamdan in response, had no need of advice from "a fugitive in the Afghan mountains" and did not accept criticism from "those who do not know what is going on." (See pictures of life under Hamas in Gaza.)

Even among those who share much of Bin Laden's animus to the U.S. and Israel, al-Qaeda has remained largely irrelevant, its strategy of global jihad rejected in favor of an Islamist radicalism focused on more limited national goals. The flaw in bin Laden's strategy of trying to capture the imagination of the Muslim masses through spectacular acts of terror was obvious even in the immediate wake of 9/11. In much of the Arab and Muslim world, there was a pervasive refusal to believe that Muslims had been responsible for the attacks, even after bin Laden claimed responsibility. The denial inherent in the tendency common from Egypt to Indonesia to blame the Mossad or the CIA for 9/11 reveal a damning negation of al-Qaeda's tactics - so repulsive was the mass murder of innocents to ordinary Muslims that most refused to celebrate the attacks, as bin Laden had hoped they might, but instead sought to blame them on those deemed enemies of Islam. (Read: "How to Remember 9/11.")

Even in countries where al-Qaeda had hoped to capitalize on resentment against American influence, its networks were largely rolled up by security services as the population looked on, indifferent. By invading Iraq, the Bush Administration arguably did a far more effective job than bin Laden had of weakening U.S. influence in the Muslim world and rallying its youth to resistance. Yet, even in Iraq, al-Qaeda's effort to gain control of the resistance failed because its ideology and tactics were so loathsome even to the bulk of the Sunni insurgents fighting the Americans that they eventually made common cause with the U.S. against the jihadists.

Similarly, in Afghanistan, bin Laden's erstwhile stomping ground, the fight against the U.S. is being waged by the Taliban, which may have been an ally of al-Qaeda but exists entirely independently of bin Laden's movement and will ultimately make its strategic decisions based on its own, national interests. The sobering reality for bin Laden is that even among those dedicated to resisting the U.S. and its allies, his ideology of global jihad against the "far enemy" (the United States) has failed to supplant the more pragmatic Islamist movements such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, all of whom limit themselves to clearly defined national objectives, eliciting increasingly manic denunciations from al-Qaeda's cave-dwellers. (See pictures of the U.S. Marines new offensive in Afghanistan.)

Senator John Kerry invited ridicule from the Bush Administration while running for President in 2004 when he made the point that terrorism was essentially a law enforcement and intelligence problem. "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance," he told the New York Times, suggesting that the goal was to reach a point where the specter of al-Qaeda "isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life."

Not even another 9/11-scale terror attack would succeed in launching al-Qaeda's revolution. The years since 9/11 have seen events in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan escalating Muslim hostility toward Israel, the U.S. and those Arab regimes deemed too willing to do Washington's bidding. But, even so, al-Qaeda remains a marginal factor. Bin Laden may have imagined that 9/11 would anoint him the head of a resurgent Caliphate in the making, but instead it has reduced him, and his movement, to a life of duck-and-cover in Pakistan's wild frontier - and a political address otherwise known as oblivion. History marches on without them.

However Bin Laden is still on the loose 8 years later and that alone makes some Americans angry or upset that our nation has not caught the mastermind behind 9/11’s terrorist attacks. Now less than two months after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, CIA agents tracked Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border.

Bin Laden narrowly eluded a search by Afghani and American soldiers, and since then, intelligence analysts say, he’s never come close to being caught. Eight years later, the U.S. government is still waiting to pay the $25-million reward it has offered to anyone who provides information leading to bin Laden’s capture. And as the search continues, experts in the fields of terrorism and world politics agree on two things: Getting bin Laden would be satisfying, but it wouldn’t do much to advance the war on terrorism.

“Like any other American, I want to see this guy brought to justice,” said Dr. James Forest, director of terrorism studies at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center in West Point, N.Y. “But in terms of strategic impact on the global terror threat, he is only a small part of that.”

Forest said the 52-year-old bin Laden is properly credited as the founder and spiritual leader of the Al Qaeda network, which began during the Afghan war against the Soviet-occupied government in Kabul more than 20 years ago. A member of a wealthy Saudi family, he helped organize radical Muslim groups that went to Afghanistan to drive the Soviets out of the country, and he provided money for the military campaign.

But the man often thought of as bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician, does a lot more to run the day-to-day operations of al-Qaeda than bin Laden, according to Dr. Lewis Brownstein, professor of political science and international relations at the State University at New Paltz, N.Y. “The organization has morphed in the last 10 years and the key player is Al-Zawahiri,” Brownstein said.

Now, Al Qaeda is basically a loose network of terrorists. “Psychologically for us, it would mean a great deal to get bin Laden,” Brownstein said. “Would it disrupt the worldwide terror network? No, I wouldn’t think so.” Although Al Qaeda members are viewed as foreigners by the homegrown Taliban in the close-knit region near the Afghan-Pakistani border where bin Laden is believed to be hiding, “there’s an ongoing alliance, and by this time, the two groups have intermarried, so they’re working more closely together,” Brownstein said.

Given bin Laden’s familiarity with the wilderness of Afghanistan and the support and protection he enjoys there, Bard College political science professor Jonathan Becker said, no one in the U.S. intelligence community is optimistic about the prospects of catching him. And the ongoing military campaigns in the area make it unlikely the United States will receive any help.

“When the U.S. misses its targets in that region, it alienates the local population,” Becker said. Dr. Artin Arslanian, professor of history and international relations at Marist College in New York, said that while most experts agree bin Laden doesn’t have much direct control over Al Qaeda anymore, killing or capturing him would benefit the United States politically. “It’s a matter of national pride,” he said, “because we did vow to catch him.”

So Bin Laden has failed despite the fact we have not captured him. Al-Qaeda is not as strong as it once was and many of its top operatives including Osama bin Laden are hiding in mountains and will eventually be captured, it’s only a matter of time.

Wall Street slips on China sell-off; energy, banks slide--By Angela Moon

U.S. stocks fell on Monday as concerns about the global economy's health weighed on Wall Street following a sell-off in Chinese equities.

Energy shares led the decline after the sharp drop in China's main stock index, while oil slipped below $70 a barrel on increased worries about global energy demand.

Shares of Chevron Corp (CVX.N) tumbled 1.1 percent to $69.94 and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) dropped 1.4 percent to $69.15. The S&P Energy index (.GSPE) was down 1.8 percent.

The Shanghai Composite index (.SSEC) fell nearly 7 percent to a three-month low on fears that China's government is trying to moderate economic growth and choke off speculation in its stock market by tightening bank lending.

"China is a very important engine of growth to the rest of the world," said Craig Hester, chief executive of Hester Capital Management in Austin, Texas.

"People need to see China continue its growth, and a slowdown in the stock market there will slow us down, too."

Heading into a traditionally soft period of the year for stocks, investors are increasingly becoming more worried about a pullback after a 50 percent rally from multi-year closing lows in March.

Despite the day's lackluster performance, the Dow ended August up 3.5 percent, while the S&P 500 advanced 3.4 percent and Nasdaq gained 1.5 percent.

In Monday's session, the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) fell 47.92 points, or 0.50 percent, to end at 9,496.28. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) shed 8.31 points, or 0.81 percent, to 1,020.62. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC)
declined 19.71 points, or 0.97 percent, to close at 2,009.06.

FINANCIALS TUMBLE
Financial stocks, which enjoyed a strong rally last week, changed their course after a number of bearish notes from analysts.

Rochdale Securities analyst Richard Bove wrote that in the short term, "a reaction to the recent move up in the stocks may develop."

In addition, Barron's recommended profit-taking in Citigroup (C.N) and said American International Group (AIG.N) shares were overpriced after gaining more than 50 percent last week.
Citi was down 4.4 percent at $5.00 while AIG dropped 9.8 percent to $45.33.

The weakness in energy and financial stocks overshadowed the news of two large mergers on Monday.

Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment (MVL.N) for $4 billion, while Baker Hughes Inc (BHI.N) said it would buy BJ Services Co (BJS.N) for $5.5 billion.
Marvel shares soared 25.2 percent to $48.37, while BJ Services' stock was up 4.1 percent at $16.06.

Also on Monday, the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago's business barometer rose to 50.0 in August. The level was higher than expected, and was on the dividing line between growth and contraction in the sector.

Volume was light on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1.38 billion shares changing hands, below last year's estimated daily average of 1.49 billion.

On the Nasdaq, about 2.33 billion shares traded, above last year's daily average of 2.28 billion.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 11 to 4. On the Nasdaq, about 19 stocks fell for every seven that rose.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

Japanese election upends long-ruling party--By Eric Talmadge, Associated Press Writer

Japan's opposition swept to a historic victory in elections Sunday, crushing the ruling conservative party that has run the country for most of the postwar era and assuming the daunting task of pulling the economy out of its worst slump since World War II.

A grim-looking Prime Minister Taro Aso conceded defeat just a couple hours after polls had closed, suggesting he would quit as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan for all but 11 months since 1955.

"The results are very severe," Aso said. "There has been a deep dissatisfaction with our party."
Unemployment and deflation — and an aging, shrinking population — have left families fearful of what the future holds.

Fed up with the LDP, voters turned overwhelmingly to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which ran a populist-leaning platform with plans for cash handouts to families with children and expanding the social safety net.

"This is a victory for the people," said Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democrats and almost certainly Japan's next prime minister. "We want to build a new government that hears the voices of the nation."

Hatoyama and his party — an eclectic mix of former Liberal Democrats, socialists and progressives — face a daunting array of challenges, economic and demographic.

Japan's economy has been hit hard amid the global recession and falling demand for its exports. The unemployment rate has spiked to a record 5.7 percent and younger workers have watched the promise of lifetime employment fade. Incomes are stagnant and families have cut spending.

The country also faces threats as its population ages, which means more people are on pensions and there is a shrinking pool of taxpayers to support them and other government programs.

The Democrats' plan to give families 26,000 yen ($275) a month per child through junior high is meant to ease parenting costs and encourage more women have babies. Japan's population of 127.6 million peaked in 2006, and is expected to fall below 100 million by the middle of the century.

The Democrats are also proposing toll-free highways, free high schools, income support for farmers, monthly allowances for job seekers in training, a higher minimum wage and tax cuts. The estimated bill comes to 16.8 trillion yen ($179 billion) if fully implemented starting in fiscal year 2013 — and critics say that will only further bloat Japan's already massive public debt.

In foreign relations, the Democrats have said they want Tokyo to be more independent from Washington on diplomatic issues, though they have stressed that the U.S. will remain Japan's key ally and that they want to keep relations good, while also strengthening ties with their Asian neighbors.

Official nationwide results were expected to be announced midmorning Monday, but public broadcaster NHK projected early Monday that the Democrats would win 308 of the 480 seats in the lower house to the LDP's 119, citing local election results. Other parties and independent candidates won a total of 53.

The Democratic Party needed to win a simple majority of 241 seats in the lower house to ensure it could name the next prime minister. The 300-plus level would allow it and its two smaller allies the two-thirds majority they need in the lower house to pass bills.

"It's a historic election in that a clear alternation of power has happened for the first time in the postwar period," said Koichi Nakano, professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. "It's hard to know whether this is going to lead to a real change in policy, at least for the short term."

The loss was only the second the Liberal Democratic Party — traditionally the champion of big business and conservative interests — has suffered since it was founded in 1955. The only other time it was out of power was for less than 11 months in 1993-1994, and that was to a coalition of eight parties that quickly collapsed.

The LDP had survived through previous recessions in Japan but since then families have grown less secure about the future.

With only two weeks of official campaigning that focused mainly on broad-stroke appeals rather than specific policies, many analysts said the elections were not so much about issues as voters' general desire for something new after more than a half century under the LDP.

"All the bad things over the last 54 years finally caught up to them," said Fumio Morita, 45, who runs a bar in Tokyo. "It's good that they are no longer in power."

Japan has had three prime ministers in three years, all of whom were deeply unpopular for their perceived lack of leadership and for failing to get the country out of its deepening economic morass.

The LDP tried to fight back by reminding voters that their party led the nation out of the ashes of World War II. They also argued that the Democrats, who have never run the government, were irresponsible and inept.

Hatoyama's party, which already controls the upper house with two allies, held 112 seats in the lower house before parliament was dissolved in July. The LDP had held 300 seats.

___
Associated Press reporters Mari Yamaguchi, Kelly Olsen, Shino Yuasa and Tomoko Hosaka contributed to this report.

Women Are Drivers of Positive Change—By Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State

Op-Ed
City Press, South Africa
August 9, 2009

When I first visited the Victoria Mxenge co-operative in Cape Town in 1997, I met homeless women working to transform an empty patch of land into a new community. They pooled their savings and microloans, bought shovels, poured concrete and built new homes for themselves and their children. In 1997 there were just 18 homes. I returned a year later and saw 104. Yesterday I found a village of thousands of homes where once there had been only dust and despair.

The determination and entrepreneurial spirit of the women of Victoria Mxenge underscore a basic truth: empowering women is key to global progress and prosperity. This is not just a moral imperative – it is an economic one as well. When women are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, health care and gainful employment, they drive social and economic progress. When they are marginalised and mistreated, as is the case in too many places in Africa today, prosperity is impossible.

This week I am travelling across Africa to highlight the continent’s promise and possibility. Empowering women is a crucial step towards seizing the economic opportunities of this new century. No nation can succeed in spreading prosperity or increasing security if it leaves out or leaves behind more than half of the population.

Our broader agenda for progress and economic growth also includes increasing trade, implementing development strategies that build capacity and opportunity, and advancing responsible governance that rejects corruption, enforces the rule of law and delivers results for people. South Africa’s leadership is essential in advancing this agenda across Africa.

South Africans have many reasons to be proud on this National Women’s Day. President Jacob Zuma recently appointed Gill Marcus as governor of the South African Reserve Bank. Across the country, women are leading small and medium-sized businesses that are the foundation of economic progress. And South Africa is home to dynamic entrepreneurs such as Sally Marengo, who started the KPL Aluminium and Zinc Die-Casting factory which now manufactures car parts in Bedfordview, and Lillian Masebenza, who created the Mhani Gingi Social Entrepreneurial Networks to turn traditional stokvels into collectives that help disadvantaged women generate income and start new businesses.

The women of South Africa have helped to make the country an economic anchor for the continent. They are an example of what can be accomplished through civic responsibility, commitment to the rule of law and a diversified and inclusive economy.

Across Africa, women are driving positive change. Kenya’s Wangari Maathai has launched an international movement on behalf of environmental stewardship. Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has taken the reins of a nation once gripped by civil war and proven that women can lead at the highest levels.

But in many parts of Africa, and indeed around the world, the picture is not so encouraging. Laws deny women the right to own property, access credit or make their own choices within their marriage. Women comprise the majority of the world’s poor, unfed and unschooled. They are subjected to rape as a tactic of war, so-called “honour” killings, maiming, trafficking, child marriages, genital mutilation and other violent, degrading practices.

This week I will visit survivors of sexual and gender-based violence used as a tool of conflict in eastern Congo, where women have been victimised on an unimaginable scale. Some 1100 rapes are reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day.

In the face of such depravity the world must speak with one clear voice: this violence must end.

The United States is working to develop partnerships across Africa to ensure that the rights of women are protected and respected, and that they have the opportunity to pursue an education, find a good job, live in safety and fulfil their own potential.

President Barack Obama and I believe in Africa’s promise. Too often, the world views Africa only through the lens of poverty, disease and conflict. But we see a continent of opportunity, home to 800 million people – more than half of them women – ready to build, create and thrive.

National Women’s Day commemorates the 20 000 South African women who marched for justice on August 9 1956. Fearless, they sang an anthem that has become a rallying cry: “Wathint’a bafazi, Wathint’ imbokodo” (You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock).

Women can be the rock on which a freer, safer and more prosperous Africa is built. They just need the opportunity.

Nigerian military ignored warnings of violence--By KATHARINE HOURELD, Associated Press Writer

Nigerian authorities ignored dozens of warnings about a violent Islamist sect until it attacked police stations and government buildings last week in a bloodbath that killed more than 700 people, Muslim clerics and an army official said.

More than 50 Muslim leaders repeatedly called Nigeria's police, local authorities and state security to urge them to take action against Boko Haram sect militants but their pleas were ignored, Imam Ibrahim Ahmed Abdullahi said.

He spoke Saturday to The Associated Press along with several other Muslim scholars in the battle-ravaged city of Maiduguri.

"A lot of imams tried to draw the attention of the government," Abdullahi said, drawing nods from other scholars sitting with him in a Maiduguri slum. "We used to call the government and security agents to say that these people must be stopped from what they are doing because it must bring a lot of trouble."

On July 26, militants from the sect attacked a police station in Bauchi state, triggering a wave of militant violence that spread to three other northern states. Nigerian authorities retaliated five days later by storming the group's sprawling Maiduguri headquarters, killing at least 100 people in the attack, half of them inside the sect's mosque.

About 700 people were killed in days of violence last week in Maiduguri alone, according to Col. Ben Ahanotu, the military official in charge of a local anti-crime operation. A relief official said thousands fled the city.

The death toll in other northern areas from the violence was not known.

The imams were not the only ones to raise the alarm. Ahanotu said he recommended several times action be taken against the group but received no orders to do so.

"I complained a lot of times," he said. "I was just waiting for orders."

The allegations of authorities dismissing the warnings raise serious questions about the West African nation's capacity to monitor and defend itself against terrorist groups.

International concern is growing over the ability of al-Qaida affiliates to cross the porous desert borders of north African countries such as Niger, which shares a border with Nigeria.

Abdullahi said he had known Boko Haram's charismatic leader Mohamed Yusuf for 14 years before the 39-year-old Yusuf was killed Thursday while in police custody. Several human rights groups have urged an investigation into the killing, the details of which remain murky.

Abdullahi and Yusuf were friends but had a falling out four years ago, the imam said, when Yusuf drifted toward extremism, began publicly rejecting Western education and urged followers to commit violence.

Yusuf's sect, Boko Haram — which means "Western education is sacrilege" — rejects government education and seeks the imposition of strict Islamic Shariah law in Nigeria, a multi-religious country that is a major oil producer and Africa's most populous nation.

Yusuf, a Western-educated member of the country's elite, encouraged his followers to rid themselves of all material wealth while he was chauffeured around in a Mercedes.

Most sect members are young, unemployed and angry that the introduction of moderate Shariah law in 12 northern states 10 years ago has not halted the corruption that keeps most Nigerians in desperate poverty.

But Abdullahi said calls to violence were not the answer.

"I tried to show him and many of our Islamic scholars tried to show him that this is totally wrong," Abdullahi said, adding that he had asked friends to tape Yusuf's sermons to keep tabs on his violent rhetoric.

"They wanted to draw the attention of the world," he said. "Only Allah knows how many lives have been lost."

Abdullahi said he made his final call to security agencies two days before the sect attacked police stations with guns, bows and arrows and homemade bombs.

It was not clear why authorities didn't act sooner. Boko Haram was not discreet and Yusuf had been arrested several times before, most recently in 2008 after his followers attacked a police station.

Nine days ago, two sect members were making a homemade bomb when it went off prematurely, killing one and fatally wounding another.

Borno state's governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, said he wasn't sure he could bring enough evidence to court against the sect.

"It's not that people did not hear or that our government did not know that these followers of Mohamed Yusuf did exist. They did exist, but we don't know what they stand for," he said.

Ahanotu, the military official, blamed Nigeria's notoriously inefficient bureaucracy, while Abdullahi said the fact that many sons from prominent families had joined the sect may have helped slow the government response.

Recent government attention has focused on the country's cash lifeline: the oil-rich Niger Delta, plagued by a series of militant attacks. Little heed has been paid to the tens of millions living in the impoverished, mainly Muslim north.

"These attacks show the danger of that neglect," said Tom Cargill, an Africa analyst at London-based think-tank Chatham House.

___
Associated Press Writer Njadvara Musa contributed to this report.

Digging Deeper Dept: Castro Blames Bush and the Right for Honduras

Posted by: "Carl Davidson" carld717@gmail.com
Sat Jul 18, 2009 5:24 am (PDT)

*Castro blames Bush for Honduran coup * Latin american Post (Mexico)

HAVANA -- Fidel Castro blames the coup in Honduras on the U.S. Embassy in that Central American country and other American diplomats in the region appointed during the administration of George W. Bush.

"Unscrupulous characters of the extreme right who were trustworthy officials of George W. Bush" toppled the democratically elected government of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Castro claimed late Thursday.

In a column posted on a government Web site, the 82-year-old former Cuban president stopped short of blaming Barack Obama for Zelaya's ouster. He suggested the U.S. State Department conspired with the leaders who took power after the coup to broker a false diplomatic solution while Obama was distracted by travels in Russia.

"The idea that the ambassador of the United States in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, knew nothing about or discouraged the coup is absolutely false," Castro wrote, referring to America's top diplomat in the Honduran capital. "He knew about it, as did American military advisers who have not ceased training Honduran troops even for one second."

The day before the coup, Zelaya publicly praised American officials in Honduras for working to preserve his presidency, and Obama has joined the United Nations, the Organization of American States and other governments in condemning the coup.

The U.S. Embassy in Honduras severed all contact with the new government and suspended more than $18 million in military assistance and development aid programs, though Washington has not joined other nations in recalling their ambassadors to Honduras.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has met with Zelaya personally and promoted the idea of brokering a peace agreement through mediations with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel peace laureate.

But Castro contends that "the Costa Rica peace plan was suggested by the office of the State Department to contribute to the consolidation of the military coup."

He said the interim government has grown more entrenched and international support for Zelaya has waned.

"The coup plotters were in a hurry. The Costa Rican initiative had the objective of saving them," he wrote. "It's obvious that Yankee handiwork does not increase the possibilities for peace but does exactly the opposite."

US offers $50M in rewards in drug war offensive--By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

The Department of State offered up to $50 million Monday for information leading to the arrests of 10 top Mexican drug suspects accused of key roles in a violent organization estimated to have sold more than $1 billion worth of drugs in the United States.

U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell said the reward money and new federal charges were among U.S. efforts to dismantle a powerful drug trafficking organization known as The Company, whose members came from an elite security force called Los Zetas.

The only name on an indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn was Miguel Trevino-Morales, a fugitive charged with operating a continuing criminal enterprise, international cocaine distribution and firearms violations. The indictment also sought the forfeiture of $1 billion in drug proceeds.

Campbell said in a release that Trevino-Morales, who could face life in prison if convicted, was the principal leader of Los Zetas, a group that includes former members of the Air Mobile Special Forces Group of the Mexican military who went into the drug-smuggling business.

In Washington, the Department of State announced it was offering a total of $50 million for tips leading to the capture of the defendants, including four leaders who were designated as narcotics kingpins by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The government said it was offering up to $5 million apiece for information leading to the arrests of 10 people, one of whom has been captured.

Nineteen defendants have been charged in an indictment in federal court in Washington with drug trafficking-related crimes, and others are charged in indictments in federal court in Houston.

"The joint efforts announced today are significant steps in the department's strategy to stop the flow of illegal drugs into our communities and the shipment of drug proceeds back to Mexico," Campbell said.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said the actions taken Monday will at least make it more difficult for the drug dealers to move cash around.

"We have learned that the most effective way to disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations is to prosecute their leaders and seize their funding," she said in a release. "We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our brave Mexican colleagues in the fight against these destructive cartels."

The Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, which became law in 1999, prohibits all trade and transactions between U.S. companies and individuals and significant foreign narcotics traffickers, their organizations and associates who act on their behalf.

Fewer than 100 people have been designated narcotics kingpins since the first major targets were announced in June 2000.

The indictment unsealed in Brooklyn said the drug organization, formerly known as the Gulf Cartel, had become the dominant force in the drug trade along the Gulf of Mexico, transporting multi-ton quantities of cocaine each month from Mexico to Texas after obtaining it in Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela and elsewhere.

It said a small group of deserters from the Mexican military was taken into the drug organization in the 1990s to provide a personal security force for the organization's leader.

Eventually, the security force protected the entire organization, carrying out numerous murders, kidnappings and tortures as it ensured that cocaine and other drugs moved safely through Mexico into the United States, the indictment said.

___
Associated Press writer Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this story.

South Africa begins AIDS vaccine trial, cuts funds--By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – South Africa launched a high-profile trial of an AIDS vaccine created by its own researchers Monday, a proud moment in a nation where government denial, neglect and unscientific responses have helped fuel the world's worst AIDS crisis.

After a government official lauded the project at a ceremony at Cape Town's Crossroads shantytown, the scientist leading the research said state funding had been halted.

The contrast between Monday's hopeful vaccine launch and the revelation of funding cuts raised questions about whether the government was backsliding on its pledge to combat AIDS.

Anna-Lise Williamson, an AIDS researcher at the University of Cape Town, told The Associated Press the clinical trial would continue with U.S. money. But she said South Africa's Department of Science and Technology had pulled its funding in March, while the project's other sponsor, the state electricity utility Eskom, did not renew its contract when it expired last year.

Neither government spokesmen nor Eskom immediately returned calls seeking comment about funding cuts.

The South African vaccine was developed at the University of Cape Town and targets the specific HIV strain that has ravaged South Africa. It is also undergoing safety tests at a trial involving 12 volunteers in Boston that began earlier this year, said Sarah B. Alexander, spokeswoman for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network at the Fenway Institute, an AIDS treatment center where the trial is under way.

The safety trials started in the U.S. to allay any criticism the United States was collaborating on an AIDS vaccine that might be seen as using Africans as guinea pigs, she said.

At Monday's ceremony in Cape Town, one of 36 healthy young volunteers was injected as government officials, AIDS researchers and journalists watched. The event was also attended by American health officials who gave technical help and manufactured the vaccine at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The ceremony came on the sidelines of an international AIDS conference where delegates expressed concern about cuts in funding for AIDS research, treatment and prevention programs because of the global economic crisis. A report released Monday says worldwide funding for HIV vaccine research decreased for the first time since 2000, with investments of almost $1.2 billion in 2008, down 10 percent from 2007.

South Africa has not escaped the economic slowdown, and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said in his budget speech this month that while health spending remains a priority, funds would be shifted to those areas seen as most crucial.

AIDS vaccine research has met so many disappointments that some activists have questioned sinking scarce funds into developing a vaccine, saying the money might be better spent on prevention and education.

Male circumcision, for example, has been shown to cut the risk of contracting the AIDS virus by as much as 60 percent.

But circumcision has not gotten the kind of attention in South Africa that it has in neighboring countries like Swaziland. South Africa's government has failed to seize on the cost-effective procedure, and AIDS activists say circumcision, with its cultural and political sensitivities, cannot be pushed without government approval.

South Africa was the site of the biggest setback to AIDS vaccine research, when the most promising vaccine ever, produced by Merck & Co., was tested here in 2007. Researchers found that people who got the vaccine were more likely to contract HIV than those who did not.

South African scientists working on the latest vaccine had to overcome deep skepticism from their political leaders, who had made unscientific pronouncements about the disease.

During nearly 10 years of government denial and neglect, South Africa developed a staggering AIDS crisis. Around 5.2 million South Africans were living with HIV last year — the highest number of any country. AIDS strikes men and women alike, though young women are hardest hit, with one-third of those aged 20-to-34 infected with the virus.

In the 1990s, South Africa's then-President Thabo Mbeki denied the link between HIV and AIDS, and his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, mistrusted conventional anti-AIDS drugs and made the country a laughingstock trying to promote beets and lemon as AIDS remedies.

In its vaccine initiative, the government decided it was important to target the HIV subtype C strain that is prevalent in southern Africa "and to ensure that once developed, it would be available at an affordable price," said Anthony Mbewu, president of South Africa's government-supported Medical Research Council, which shepherded the project.

Some 250 scientists and technicians worked on the vaccine's development.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and a leading AIDS researcher, was in South Africa for the trial launch and said the South African scientists received more money from his institute's research fund than any others in the world, outside the United States. The U.S. also paid to produce the vaccine.

He called it "the most important AIDS research partnership in the world."

But, he warned: "There are extraordinary challenges ahead," referring to the years of testing needed now that South Africa has reached the clinical trial stage.

Monday's launch was put on by the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative, the lead program of the government-backed Medical Research Council. The deputy ministers of health and science were both at the event and praised the initiative.

Aaron Motsoaledi, a medical doctor who became health minister in May, has promised to try to strengthen AIDS prevention campaigns that were weakened for years by red tape and mixed messages from policy makers.

Even before Motsoaledi took over, the government was promising to sharply step up treatment programs, saying it wanted to provide AIDS drugs to 1.5 million people over the next three years — up from 700,000 at present. AIDS activists had to file repeated legal suits to force Mbeki to provide AIDS drugs.

But Elise Levendal, interim director of the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative, said the program has had to lay off scientists because of government funding cuts.

"We have had to refocus," she said. "It is a big blow."

Williamson, the vaccine project's head researcher, said it was crucial to continue testing.

"For vaccine development presently, the South African AIDS Vaccine initiative has no money. If we do not continue working on this, we will never have a vaccine," she said. "It's incredibly important that we keep working."

___
On the Web:
http://www.saavi.org.za, the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative
http://www.hivresourcetracking.org.

The Dumbing Down of Democracy-- By DANIEL HENNINGER

Obama's reluctance to stand up for Western political values is dangerous.
July 9, 2009

The pivotal foreign policy event so far in the Obama presidency was not this week's summit with Russia. It was instead that rarest of all events: Barack Obama's silence.

When the people of Iran filled the streets of their country demanding a fair election, the U.S. clutched for a week. Uncertain of whether U.S. interests lay with the nuke-building ayatollahs or the democracy-seeking population, the Obama team essentially mumbled sweet nothings through the first days of the most extraordinary world event in this young president's term. That moment of hesitation, when a genuine and strategically useful democratic moment needed support, could prove costly.

When the Group of Eight nations tried to shape a response to the Iranian government's repression, its newest member, Russia, knew what to say about Iran.

"No one is willing to condemn the election process," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, "because it's an exercise in democracy."

Behold the official dumbing down of democracy.

Our purpose here is not to ridicule Foreign Minister Lavrov's absurd description of the Iranian elections. It is instead to show his statement the respect that anything dangerous deserves.

Two years ago in June, Vladimir Putin's main press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, visited the offices of the Journal editorial page. It was a remarkable meeting. The editors asked about the widely discussed criticisms of the Putin government's actions against opposition political parties and individuals and its control of the media. With a calm and confident smile, Mr. Peskov replied: "Ours is a different system of democracy." That was it. He stopped talking but kept smiling, letting the message sink in.

Dmitry Peskov was defining democracy in a way that could hardly be more different than the system of political pluralism developed the past 300 years in the West. His message was clear: We are changing the rules. Get over it.

In this light, President Obama's performance this week in Moscow was disconcerting, to put it mildly. In Mr. Obama's worldview, political systems apparently don't compete. They simply . . . are. "America cannot and should not seek to impose any system of government on any other country," he said, "nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country."

Mr. Obama's political equivalence, conventional wisdom now among many Western sophisticates, is wrong and dangerous. Unless the West, led by the U.S. under this president offers active push-back against the Russian definition of democracy, their version inexorably will back out ours.

The design of Iran's election was a perfect mirror of Russia's. Foreign Minister Lavrov wasn't ratifying it for our benefit. Like Dmitry Peskov, he couldn't care less what the Americans or Europeans think of his astonishing statement. His audience is the world's other leaders and parties.

Where is it written that American-style democracy will last forever, much less spread to new nations? If the members of the U.N. General Assembly could choose between the democracy of the U.S., Britain and France or that of Russia, Venezuela and Bolivia, likely it would be the latter. Genuine democracy is hard work. Why should the likes of Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Taiwan or Brazil endure that stress if Potemkin Village democracy is okay?

What Putin, Khamenei, Chavez, Morales and Mubarak want is fait-accompli legitimacy. When resistance to their dumbed down democracy stops, they'll have it. Vocal criticism, even as eloquent as Mr. Obama's in Moscow this week or in Cairo, is not resistance. Real resistance requires acts of political push back that all the world's people can see and recognize.

A study released last month by Freedom House, "Democracy's Dark Year," reported democratic erosion in most of the new European Union member states and in the then-inspiring "color revolution" nations -- Georgia's Rose Revolution, Ukraine's Orange Revolution and Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution.

Latin America is also tipping toward dissolved democracies. The 34 nations of the Organization of American States just voted to readmit the Cuban dictatorship. After the vote, the OAS foreign ministers broke into applause, and the summit's host joyously announced, "The cold war has ended." Those words of congratulations for unrepentant anti-democrat Fidel Castro came from Manuel Zelaya, then president of Honduras.

Elected in 2005, Mr. Zelaya has been using his muscle to import the Russian-Venezuelan-Iranian political model to Honduras. That means rigged future elections and the constitution changed by fiat to validate the rigging. After meeting with Mr. Zelaya in Washington Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton off-loaded Honduras's fate to former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias.

Letting genuine democratic aspirants in places like Iran and Honduras lose in front of a watching world will exact a price. The United States and the other John Locke democracies are in an active, long-term competition with fake democrats over whose politics governs the next century. And they will presume to choose which parties should run other counties.

There is the clear sense that anything the Bushies did, the Obama sophisticates will not do. Does the fact that the Bushies pushed democracy mean it would be bad form to support even our own political system?

Write to henninger@wsj.com

UN adds targeted North Koreans to sanctions list--by Gerard Aziakou Gerard Aziakou

The UN Security Council on Thursday targeted five individuals and five entities from North Korea for sanctions in a bid to cut off a key source of revenue for Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The move was announced by the head of the council's sanctions committee, Turkish diplomat Fazli Corman, after weeks of bargaining by the body's 15 members.

It was mandated under a UN Security Council resolution adopted June 12, which imposed sanctions on the Stalinist state following its May 25 underground nuclear test.

That resolution called for beefed up inspections of air, sea and land shipments going to and from North Korea, and an expanded arms embargo.

The council then directed its sanctions panel to agree on a list of additional individuals and entities to be targeted for sanctions including a travel ban and an assets freeze.

Corman named five senior officials linked to North Korea's banned nuclear, ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs who will be subjected to the sanctions.

The five include Yun Ho-Jin, head of Namchongang Trading Corporation, which oversees the import of items needed for the uranium enrichment program and Han Yu-Ro, head of Korea Ryongaksan General Trading Corporation, and involved in North Korea's ballistic missile program.

Five entities involved in illicit proliferation activities were also named as targets for an assets freeze, including:

-- NAMCHONGANG TRADING CORPORATION, which has been involved in procuring Japanese-origin vacuum pumps identified at a North Korean nuclear facility and in nuclear-related procurement associated with a German individual;

-- HONG KONG ELECTRONICS, which has facilitated the movement of money from Iran to North Korea;

-- GENERAL BUREAU OF ATOMIC ENERGY (GBAE), which is responsible for the county's nuclear program, including the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and its plutonium production research reactor, as well as its fuel fabrication and reprocessing facilities.

Also added to the sanctions list were two items identified as "graphite designed or specified for use in Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) machines" and "Para-aramid fiber (Kevlar and other Kevlar-like) filament and tape."

Corman said the measures, endorsed by all 15 members, "demonstrated the council's unity and resolve" and were carefully targeted at North Korea's nuclear weapons, ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs.

They were designed "to minimize any unintended consequences for the people" of North Korea.

Japan's UN Ambassador Yukio Takasu, whose country feels particularly threatened by Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile activities, immediately welcomed the new measures.

The United States also applauded the panel's decision.

"We are pleased with the new international sanctions agreed upon today in response to North Korea's nuclear tests and recent missile activity," US Ambassador Susan Rice said in a statement.

"These new designations... strengthen the sanctions regime against North Korea and will serve to constrain North Korea from engaging in transactions or activities that could fund its WMD or proliferation activities."

British UN Ambassador John Sawers said: "These further measures place DPRK's trading activity under close scrutiny and includes important measures to clamp down on DPRK's proliferation activities and thereby the means with which it funds and develops its nuclear and WMD program."

Previous UN sanctions targeted North Korean companies, freezing their overseas assets, but did not apply to individuals.

Since a long-range rocket launch in early April, the North has staged its second nuclear test, fired a variety of shorter-range missiles, renounced the truce in force on the Korean peninsula and quit nuclear disarmament talks.

In month's turmoil, Iran death toll still unknown--By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

Several dozen families camp outside Iran's daunting Evin prison, trying to learn the fate of loved ones who vanished in post-election turmoil. A month into the government crackdown, the number of killed and arrested remains unknown, but human rights groups believe the death toll is far higher than the official figure of 20.

Many of at least 500 known to have been arrested have disappeared in prisons, held in secret locations and barred from contact with families. Rights groups say perhaps dozens of others have not been heard of since the protests and their relatives still cannot determine whether they are now locked in a cell or dead.

Over the weekend, about 50 men and women held vigil in Tehran before the gates of Evin, the main prison for political detainees, waiting for news on whether their relatives are inside, a witness told The Associated Press. Some of the women read aloud softly from the Quran, others chanted "God is great" from time to time. But mostly they stood silent, the witness said.

"They will call you soon. Go home and wait for the phone to ring," a police officer told them. But the families remained in place. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retribution from authorities, and government restrictions imposed on the media barred photographing the gathering.

The crackdown on the gigantic rallies that broke out after Iran's disputed June 12 presidential election was chaotic. Not only regular police, but also plainclothes Basiji militiamen linked to the elite Republican Guards were involved in beating or firing on protesters, dragging some away in covered trucks to unknown locations.

The protests were sparked when opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed he was the victor and that official results showing a victory for hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were fraudulent.

At the same time, security forces launched a sweep that continues weeks later against pro-reform politicians, lawyers, journalists, women's rights and other activists. Many were arrested from their homes or offices and the roundup effectively stripped away a senior level of the reform movement's political leadership.

It took 26 days for the family of Sohrab Aarabi to learn his fate after the 19-year-old disappeared during a June 15 protest. After weeks of asking at courts and prisons for him, his family was told Saturday that he had been shot in the chest during the protest and died, the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported.

Aarabi was buried Monday in the vast Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran.

But confirmation of his death only raised more questions. His body did not appear before the coroner until June 19, and it was not known if he died immediately of his wounds, was hospitalized or was detained at any point, the group said, citing the family.

Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the rights group, said there could be "dozens or even hundreds" of missing people like Aarabi, based on accounts from inside Iran that his group is investigating.

"They are people who simply went off the radar screen. They could be in detention, because the government has not released a list of detainees. There's no confirmation if they are in prison or dead. Their families are searching everywhere and not getting answers."

Iranian police said 20 protesters were killed in Tehran during the crackdown. The country's general prosecutor said last week that 2,500 people were arrested around the country, and that of those 500 remain in prison. He promised the 500 would be brought into the judicial system soon — meaning they would be removed from secret locations and either put on trial or processed for release.

The government has produced no list of dead or arrested. Independent efforts to track the numbers are made even harder by families' fears of talking about their killed or detained loved ones. Opposition Web sites report that families of slain protesters are given their loved ones' bodies for burial only after promising that the funerals will be discreet and will not feature political chants.

"Many people believe that countrywide the death toll is 100 or more. The trend coming to us is that it could be several times what the government has admitted," Ghaemi said. His organization is working on compiling a list of the dead from sources in Iran.

Another group, the International Committee Against Executions, has compiled a list of the names of 61 killed, with details of how and where they died and where they were buried.

For 25 of them, the list gave the number of the section where they are buried in Behesht-e-Zahra. Also on the list were protesters killed in other cities, including Kermanshah, Shiraz and Isfahan, which would not be included in the figure given by the Tehran police.

About a third of the names were confirmed by family members as dead, the rest by friends or activists on the ground, said Farshad Hoseini, the group's Netherlands-based director. The list could not be independently confirmed.

Among those on the list are Aarabi and Neda Agha Soltan, a 27-year-old woman whose dying moments after she was shot during a protest were captured on video, turning her into an icon for the movement. The list also includes three women and four men killed when Basijis stormed a Tehran University dormitory on June 14, as well as Kianoosh Asa, a chemistry student it said was abducted from another dorm and found dead in a morgue 10 days later.

Meanwhile, relatives of many of those known to be imprisoned have been unable to find their loved ones, much less communicate with them. There are widespread fears that detainees held in special Revolutionary Guards facilities or other secret locations are being tortured or abused.

Mehdi Saharkhiz, who lives in the United States, said his family and friends in Tehran have been searching for his father — Isa Saharkhiz, a prominent journalist and a media adviser to defeated reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi — since he was arrested on July 3.

"Absolutely nothing. We don't know where he's kept," the younger Saharkhiz, a 27-year-old graphic designer in Wayne, New Jersey, told AP.

Mehdi had been heading on a vacation on July 2, but before he left he called his father in Iran to check in on him. Isa Saharkhiz had been in hiding since security forces searched his Tehran home early on in the turmoil.

"He told me to go ahead, everything seemed to be calm. So we left (on vacation.) As soon as we landed, I got e-mails from friends telling me to call home. When I did they told me he'd been taken," Mehdi said.

The detainees include prominent figures from the 1997-2005 reform government, including former vide president Mohammad Ali Abtahi and numerous former cabinet officials. Also still in custody are Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, who has Iranian and Canadian citizenship, and Iranian-American Kian Tajbakhsh. In one of the most recent arrests, prominent human rights lawyer Shamsoldeen Issaei was detained by men in plainclothes over the weekend from his Tehran office, his wife has told pro-opposition newspapers.

Dozens of relatives of detainees gathered Tuesday in office of a human rights group in Tehran to exchange news. The wives of two of the most prominent detained pro-reform politicians, Mohsen Mirdamadi and Mostafa Tajzadeh, said they like many others had been unable to get any information about their loved ones' whereabouts.

"No official responded to us over the fate of detainees, this is a sign of lawlessness in the country," said Mirdamadi's wife, Zahra Mojarradi. "We went to the prosecutor general, but they said the case is not in their hands. It is said arrests were done by the Revolutionary Guards."

____
AP correspondent Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Cairo contributed to this report.