By Jane Henderson
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Elizabeth Alexander, the poet asked to read at Barack Obama’s inauguration Jan. 20, is a “citizen poet,” her publisher at Graywolf Press said in a press release.

Fiona McCrae, the publisher, said: “This is a brilliant and absolutely right choice for the president of change. Elizabeth Alexander has established herself as an important voice for a new generation. She is a citizen poet-passionate, deeply engaged, with an expansive, inclusive sensibility.”

She’ll be only the fourth poet to read at a presidential inauguration, following Robert Frost (for John F. Kennedy) Maya Angelou and Miller Williams (Bill Clinton). Graywolf Press will publish a chapbook featuring Alexander’s original poem.

Alexander told guardian.co.uk that the challenge would be to write a poem which “speaks to the occasion [and] has its own integrity”. “But it’s a good challenge”, she added. “It’s the balance between listening to the muse and speaking to many many people.” A personal friend of the Obama family, Alexander said the friendship made the opportunity “all the sweeter”.

Here is Alexander’s bio information from Graywolf:

Elizabeth Alexander was born in New York City and raised in Washington, D.C. She is the author of four collections of poetry, American Sublime, Antebellum Dream Book, The Venus Hottentot, and Body of Life, which was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She is also the author of two collections of essays, The Black Interior and Power and Possibilities: Essays, Interviews, Reviews, and a collection of poems for young adults, Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Colors (co-authored with Marilyn Nelson). She recently edited The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks. She has read her work across the United States and in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, and her poetry, short stories, and critical prose have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies.  She has received many awards and honors, most recently the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954,” and the 2007 Jackson Prize for Poetry, awarded by Poets and Writers. Alexander is a professor of African American Studies and American Studies at Yale University, and also teaches in the Cave Canem Poetry Workshop. She lives with her family in New Haven, Connecticut. To see some of Alexander’s poetry, go to her web site, www.elizabethalexander.net

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Kyodo News

TOKYO —The executive committee of world soccer’s governing body FIFA approved a plan Saturday to name the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals simultaneously in December 2010. Japan, which co-hosted the 2002 finals with South Korea, is interested in staging the 2018 tournament but will decide whether to file for candidacy depending on the outcome of Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, Japanese soccer officials said.

According to FIFA President Sepp Blatter, Australia, China, England and Spain have shown interest in hosting a World Cup along with Japan. South Africa will stage the 2010 World Cup and the 2014 finals have been awarded to Brazil. FIFA rules out candidacy from Africa for the 2018 finals and South America for both the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.

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By Michael Malakata
Computer World Kenya

In a bid to consolidate its presence in Africa and control the region's mobile market, pan-African mobile service provider Zain has launched its first 3.5G network in order to offer customers high-speed Internet access.

 

The launch of the 3.5G network in Ghana on Dec. 15 means that subscribers will be able to use multimedia content, with the ability to send video clips, music and pictures via mobile phone. Until now, Zain has only provided mobile voice and data services to its African subscribers.

Ghana is the second country on the continent, outside of South Africa, to use the 3.5G network.

Having invested over US$420 million in infrastructure development and the network roll out, Zain has invested heavily in bringing the latest technology to create the best network in West Africa, said Zain CEO Saad Al Barrak.

The launch of Zain's 3.5G network in Ghana also means that the company's subscribers can now access the One Network borderless roaming service in several African countries, including Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya and Nigeria.

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By Prof. Mazrui
State University New York
Sunday Monitor, Uganda

In addressing this issue we must focus, not just on relations between African-Americans and Africans, but also between African-Americans and Africa as a continent.

Do African-Americans empathise with Africa? If so, how much? Indeed, it is worth examining relations within the United States between American-Africans and African-Americans. There are areas of solidarity in those relations; and there are areas of tension.


 

When Amadou Diallo from Guinea was over-killed by four white policemen in New York City, pouring forty-one bullets into him, it sent shock waves in the Big Apple not just among immigrant Africans but also among African-Americans, Latinos and other disadvantaged groups.

Victimisation by white racism and police brutality are areas of solidarity. And yet many African-Americans feel that Africans generally are not concerned with race enough. This is the case because of vastly different historical experiences. Among African-Americans many give race 60 per cent relevance to their lives while Africans give it only 35 per cent relevance. This difference in racial preoccupation can be a cause of stress. The majority of Africans (or American-Africans) and African-Americans are in support of affirmative action. This is an area of solidarity. But who precisely gets the jobs or the educational opportunities created by affirmative action? In reality the greatest beneficiaries are probably white women, but there is sometimes rivalry between African-Americans and American-Africans over jobs, business opportunities, and other scarce resources. This area of professional and occupational competition can be a source of stress. Intellectual jobs are prone to this kind of rivalry.

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By Herman J. Cohen
New York Times

The conflict in eastern Congo over the past 12 years has been as much a surrogate war between Congo and neighboring Rwanda as an internal ethnic insurgency, as a United Nations report underscored last week. The only way to end a war that has caused five million deaths and forced millions to flee their homes in Congo’s two eastern provinces is to address the conflict’s international dimensions. The role of Rwanda — which borders the provinces and which denied the accusations in the United Nations report over the weekend — is of prime importance.


 

The international community has worked hard to resolve the conflicts among the various parties: the sovereign states of Rwanda and Congo as well as the assorted militias and private armies that are sponsored by these two governments and by opportunistic local warlords. But despite the deployment of 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers, and many efforts at mediation with constructive American support, the situation appears intractable. The failure of international diplomacy is related to the economic roots of the problem, which began with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Until the economic conundrum is addressed, there is little prospect for a solution. The genocidal war between the majority Hutu and the minority Tutsi in Rwanda spilled into Congo, and the eastern part of that vast country has been unstable ever since. When Tutsi rebel forces took power in Rwanda in June 1994, more than a million Hutu fled to Congo, where they settled into refugee camps on the Rwandan border.

After two years of cross-border raids from the refugee camps by exiled Hutu soldiers who had participated in the genocide, the Rwandan Army attacked and destroyed the camps, with the quiet but unambiguous approval of the United States in the absence of another solution to the violence. Most of the Hutu refugees returned to Rwanda, but about 100,000 of them, along with the exiled Hutu soldiers, moved westward as a disciplined group into Congo’s interior. The Rwandan Army pursued the escaping Hutu and caught up with them near the city of Kisangani at the headwaters of the Congo River. The refugees were massacred, but the former Hutu soldiers escaped to neighboring countries. The move against the refugee camps was the first step in a well-planned action by Rwanda in 1996 and 1997 to overwhelm the weak Congolese Army and, with the help of the Congolese opposition, overthrow the 30-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko. With logistical support from Uganda and Angola, the military action succeeded in less than three months. A new government in Congo was installed under President Laurent Kabila, an exile handpicked by the Rwandans. And from 1996 to today, the Tutsi-led Rwandan government has been in effective control of Congo’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu. This control has been maintained through intermittent military occupation and the presence of Congolese militias financed and trained by the Rwandan Army.

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By Edmund Sanders
Los Angeles Times

From his tented refugee camp, James Karanga Ngugi seethed as he scanned a vast horizon of fallow, unoccupied land -- most of it owned by two of Kenya's most prominent political families.

"Why do they have so much and I have nothing?" he asked.

His grandfather once prospered here, before he was displaced by British colonialists. After independence, villagers regained control, but were soon forced out again, this time by a rich Kenyan businessman with ties to the president.


 

Kenya's land is owned mostly by politicians who grabbed millions of acres in questionable deals over the last 45 years. Above, Masai warriors with bows and arrows clash with a rival tribe in a postelection land dispute in March. Now the new lands minister has an ambitious redistribution plan.

As compensation, Ngugi received 10 acres of land about 100 miles away, but residents there, from a different tribe, always resented his presence. During the election turmoil late last year and early this year that grabbed headlines worldwide, his house and business were burned down. "Now I have to restart with nothing," he said. As this East African nation struggles with food shortages, a sluggish economy and wounds from post-election violence, there's a growing consensus that one issue rests at the heart of Kenya's woes. It's the land, stupid. All across Africa, battles over land continue to simmer, largely a fallout of European colonialism. During most of Africa's history, sparse population and tribal traditions meant land was plentiful and disputes were rare. Colonialists introduced alien concepts such as borders and private ownership. Since independence began to sweep the continent 50 years ago, fledgling African governments have struggled to unwind injustices, sometimes with disastrous results. The Zimbabwean economy was devastated by President Robert Mugabe's campaign to seize and redistribute land owned by white farmers.

Kenya suffered a similar colonial legacy, but has taken a different route. As is the case in many African nations, more than half of Kenya's land is owned by a minority of its richest families, including some white foreigners. But unlike Zimbabwe and South Africa, where the struggle has pitted whites against blacks, the land here is owned mostly by Kenyan politicians who have grabbed millions of prime agricultural acres in questionable real estate deals over the last 45 years. "This is really an issue between us as Kenyans," said Paul Ndungu, head of a landmark 2004 report that investigated more than 40 years of land fraud. "It's Kenyan versus Kenyan." Tribal clashes that killed more than 1,000 people after the disputed presidential election last December, were rooted largely in historic disputes over land. As Kenya struggles to feed its people, vast swaths of its most productive terrain sit idle and underutilized -- and the land grievances remain unresolved. "Peace, tranquillity and stability in Kenya is predicated on sorting out this land issue," said Odenda Lumumba, head of the Kenya Land Alliance, a land-reform advocacy group. Newly installed Lands Minister James Orengo, a former student activist who was once jailed for aiding a 1982 coup attempt, has vowed to take on Kenya's rich and powerful with a progressive new land policy.

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By Andy Birkey

President-elect Obama is making good on his commitment to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community as he prepares to enter the White House. His transition team features seven LGBT people, he’s set to name a lesbian to a senior position in his administration.

Nancy Sutley

Obama’s transition team includes seven openly LGBT people: Michael Guest, former Clinton ambassador to Romania; Fred Hochberg, former Clinton Small Business Administration leader; Elaine Kaplan, who headed Clinton’s Office of Special Counsel; Thomas Soto, who was appointed by Clinton to serve on an international commission involved in conservation efforts with Mexico; Rick Stamberger, president of an online gay news collection website called SmartBrief; and Brad Kiley, a deputy assistant for administration at the Clinton White House.

Additionally, more than 1,300 LGBT-identified people have submitted applications for a spot in the administration.

Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley, a lesbian born in South America and now a U.S. citizen, will likely head up the White House Council on Environmental Quality, making her the highest-ranking LGBT appointment so far.

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African Press Agency

Washington DC - Violent clashes between the warring factions in conflict-ravaged Darfur region of western Sudan have threaten humanitarian work and the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping operation in the region, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warns in his latest report on the mission issued here Friday, urging all parties to end hostilities immediately.

Fighting on the western flank of Sudan “and displacement continue, humanitarian operations are at risk, clashes between the parties occur with regrettable regularity and the parties have not reached a negotiated peace agreement,” Mr. Ban writes.

In this environment the UN-AU hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID), has focused on the protection of civilians, but are hampered by a severely under-deployed force.

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By Alexander Mooney
CNN

Prominent liberal groups and gay rights proponents criticized President-elect Barack Obama Wednesday for choosing evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration next month.

 

Warren, one of the most influential religious leaders in the nation, has championed issues such as a reduction of global poverty, human rights abuses and the AIDS epidemic.

But the founder of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, has also adhered to socially conservative stances -- including his opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights that puts him at odds with many in the Democratic Party, especially the party's most liberal wing.

"[It's] shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now," Andrew Sullivan wrote on the Atlantic Web site Wednesday.

People for the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert told CNN she is "deeply disappointed" with the choice of Warren and said the powerful platform at the inauguration should instead have been given to someone who has "consistent mainstream American values." iReport.com: What do you think of the pick?

"There is no substantive difference between Rick Warren and James Dobson," Kolbert said. "The only difference is tone. His tone is moderate, but his ideas are radical."

Dobson, a social conservative leader, is founder and chairman of Focus on the Family.

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Statement affirms promise of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

New York - As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN General Assembly will hear a statement in mid-December endorsed by more than 50 countries across the globe calling for an end to rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity. A coalition of international human rights organizations today urged all the world's nations to support the statement in affirmation of the UDHR's basic promise: that human rights apply to everyone.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Nations on four continents are coordinating the statement, including: Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, France, Gabon, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway. The reading of the statement will be the first time the General Assembly has formally addressed rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

"In 1948 the world's nations set forth the promise of human rights, but six decades later, the promise is unfulfilled for many," said Linda Baumann of Namibia, a board member of Pan Africa ILGA, a coalition of over 60 African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups. "The unprecedented African support for this statement sends a message that abuses against LGBT people are unacceptable anywhere, ever."

The statement is non-binding, and reaffirms existing protections for human rights in international law. It builds on a previous joint statement supported by 54 countries, which Norway delivered at the UN Human Rights Council in 2006.

"Universal means universal, and there are no exceptions," said Boris Dittrich of the Netherlands, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights program. "The UN must speak forcefully against violence and prejudice, because there is no room for half measures where human rights are concerned."

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By Tom Hays

NEW YORK – A police officer warned a tattoo parlor worker that if he reported being sodomized with a baton during an arrest at a subway station, officers would lock him up for a felony, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Officer Richard Kern charged with aggravated sexual assualt

The threat was among details to emerge as the Brooklyn district attorney announced an indictment charging Officer Richard Kern and two other patrolmen with felonies.

Kern, 25, was charged with aggravated sexual abuse and assault after the Oct. 15 confrontation. Fellow Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales were charged with hindering prosecution and official misconduct for allegedly covering up the crime.

All three pleaded not guilty Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn. As Cruz and Morales were released without bail and left the courtroom, accuser Michael Mineo glared at them and clapped sarcastically. Kern left minutes later after posting $15,000 bail.

"I relive this every day. I'm still in pain," Mineo, a 24-year-old body piercer, said outside the courtroom. "No one should go through this."

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ISTANBUL - Gays, lesbians and transsexuals suffer discrimination throughout the world, but in Iran, the difficulties are compounded by the government’s denial of their very existence.

"There are no gays in Iran" was the statement made in New York last year by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in response to a question on the difficulties gays faced in Iran. It was met with incredulous smiles from the American audience he was addressing, but certainly could not have been more hurtful to the gays of his country.

Arsham Parsi

Aside from negative social reactions toward people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, the Islamic government of Iran recognizes homosexual intercourse as a "crime," penalized, at worst with the death penalty, at best a whipping.

This is why Iranian LGBTs, like many other oppressed groups, are looking for ways to flee their home country and many use Turkey as a temporary stop, until their asylum applications elsewhere are approved.

Arsham Parsi, an Iranian gay rights activist and founder of the Canada-based organization "Iranian Queer Railroad," tries to help asylum-seeking Iranian LGBTs during the lengthy and often painful asylum process. As he was a refugee himself in the past, Parsi knows personally the difficulties Iranian homosexuals endure while trying to escape, having experienced it first hand on his own "trip" from Iran to Canada, through Turkey.

The name of his organization is inspired from "The Underground Railroad," which was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses for black slaves, who wanted to flee the southern United States in the 19th century.

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But the Historic Allies Still Disagree on Many Issues

By Marissa Brostoff and Rebecca Spence

After months of predictions to the contrary, American Jews voted for president-elect Barack Obama in higher proportion than any demographic group besides African Americans. For many Jewish liberals, this was a watershed moment, marking a return to the days when blacks and Jews were thought to have a special relationship founded on a shared language of suffering and joint efforts to promote civil rights.

 

Indeed, the numbers — 78% of Jewish voters went for Obama, as did 96% of blacks — suggest that the fabled political alliance between the two groups is in some respects alive and well. But voting for the same candidate doesn’t mean thoroughgoing political alignment. On many issues, public opinion and exit polls suggest, blacks and Jews occupy different corners of the Democratic Party’s big tent — and so, going forward, there remains the question of whether the issues most important to each group will be those that bind them together or those that drive them apart.

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African Ancestry Helps A-List Line Up of African American Celebs Join Obama in Knowing their Roots in Africa

The rise of consumer genetic testing coupled with First Black President of African descent spawn trend in African Americans to trace roots to Africa during post-election Holiday season.

 

One things President-Elect Barack Obama won't have to grapple with in the Oval Office is his ancestry.
He's one of the few African Americans who actually know exactly where in Africa their African bloodlines began -- an experience that remains elusive to many people of African descent in the U.S.  African Ancestry, Inc., the company that pioneered DNA-based ancestry tracing for people of African descent, is making it easier and more accurate for African Americans to be like Obama and know their roots this Holiday Season with a specially-priced Holiday DNA-Test Kit at  African Ancestry
	In addition to the thousands of families impacted through African Ancestry's DNA tracing during the past five years, African-American celebrities have also responded to the trend. African Ancestry's celebrity round-up includes movie stars and musical artists to business moguls and political leaders.
With common ancestries in West and Central Africa -- regions more affected by the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade -- a majority of African Ancestry's celebrity reveals are from present-day Sierra Leone. Cameroon and Nigeria also run a good race as genetic homelands for many of America's top African American icons among the nearly 40 countries that African Ancestry's proprietary DNA testing system is designed to trace.  See sample listing below:
Maya Angelou -- Sierra Leone India.Arie -- Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia Jim Brown - Nigeria Don Cheadle - Cameroon Kimberly Elise - Mali Roberta Flack - Cameroon Morgan Freeman - Niger Whoopi Goldberg -- Sierra Leone, Liberia Louis Gossett Jr. -- Sierra Leone, Liberia Judge Hatchett - Nigeria Tom Joyner -- Sierra Leone Spike Lee, Niger - Cameroon Taraji P. Henson - Cameroon Russ Parr - Niger Chris Rock - Nigeria Forrest Whitaker - Ghana Oprah Winfrey - Liberia Susan Taylor -- Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia Hon. Andrew Young -- Sierra Leone Mayor Shirley Franklin -- Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone Dr. Dorothy Height -- Sierra Leone Congr. Barbara Lee -- Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone Dr. Louis Sullivan -- Sierra Leone Congr. Diane Watson, Central African Republic Chauncey Davis -- Sierra Leone, Liberia Trevor Pryce -- Sierra Leone, Liberia Etan Thomas -- Sierra Leone Dr. John Hope Franklin - Cameroon Dr. Wade Nobles -- Sierra Leone Dr. Mae Jemison -- Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Senegal

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Dakar, 5 Décembre 2008 - Un groupe de personnes lesbiennes, gays, bisexuals, transgenres et intersex (LGBTI) venant de plus de 25 pays africains demandent une réponse urgente à la pandémie de VIH qui affectent leurs communautés. Lors d'une conférence préparatoire tenue trois jours avant la Conférence Internationale sur le SIDA et les Infections Sexuellement Transmissibles en Afrique (ICASA), les délégués ont exprimé leurs inquiétudes face aux différentes violations des droits humains dont les personnes LGBTI font face en Afrique et la diaspora comme l'exclusion sociale due a leur statu VIH/SIDA et les infections sexuellement transmissibles (IST), le manque d'accès aux soins appropries et autres facilites.

Les hommes qui entretiennent des rapports sexuels avec d'autres hommes (HSH) sont neuf fois plus enclins à contracter le VIH que leurs homologues hétérosexuels. A Dakar, la capitale du Sénégal où la conférence se tient, les HSH ont une séroprévalence de 21% contre seulement 1% de la population globale. "Le refus systématique de considérer les besoins des hommes qui entretiennent des rapports sexuels avec d'autres hommes en Afrique ou ailleurs dans le monde n'aidera pas à stopper la propagation du SIDA ", déclare Paula Ettelbrick, directeur exécutif de la Commission Internationale des Droits humains des Gays et Lesbiennes (IGLHRC), qui a organisé la pré-conférence. " Ignorer cette réalité, constituerait une violation sérieuse des droits de la personne dont les Etats sont responsables". Bien que le thème de cette année soit " Ensemble, faisons face aux réalités ", il existe encore peu de programmes de prévention du VIH ciblant les minorités sexuelles sur le continent africain. Seuls sept pays africains ont inclus les HSH dans leurs plans nationaux de lutte contre le VIH/SIDA. Et parmi ces sept pays, seule l'Afrique du sud s'est engagée à inclure les femmes qui ont des rapports sexuels avec des femmes (FSF) dans sa réponse à la pandémie du VIH/SIDA.

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African LGBTI People Demand a Strong Response to AIDS

Dakar, December 5, 2008- A group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people from more than 25 African countries has demanded an urgent response to the HIV pandemic affecting their communities. At a pre-conference held 3 days before the start of the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), delegates voiced concern about various human rights violations experienced by LGBTI people in Africa and the diaspora. These included socio-political exclusions related to HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), access to adequate health services and other related issues. Men who have sex with men (MSM) in Africa are nine times more likely to be HIV positive than their heterosexual counterparts. In Dakar, Senegal where the ICASA conference is being held, the prevalence of HIV infection among MSM is 21% versus less than 1% for the total population. "The deliberate refusal to address the needs of men who have sex with men in Africa or anywhere in the world will never help us end the spread of AIDS," said Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), which organized the pre-conference, "The refusal to treat the health needs of this population blatantly defies the human rights obligations incumbent on states."

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by Mark Silva

On the eve of Thanksgiving, the president-elect and his wife and young daughters turned up at a food bank on Chicago's South side.

Ten-year-old Malia Obama and 7-year-old Sasha Obama joined their parents in shaking hands and dishing out holiday wishes to hundreds who had lined up for hours at the food bank. The family handed out wrapped chickens to the needy at St. Columbanus Catholc Church, where boxes of potatoes, oranges, fresh bread, peanut butter, canned goods, oatmeal, spaghetti and coffee also were passed around.

 

Veronica Lewis bows for President-elect Barack Obama, and his family, from left, Michelle Obama, daughters Sasha, 7, (hidden) Malia, 10, distributing Thanksgiving turkeys at the food bank at St. Columbanus Catholic Church on the South Side of Chicago today. (AP Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The president-elect, dressed in a leather jacket, black scarf and khakis, called out "Happy Thanksgiving" and invited everyone to be casual: "You can call me Barack."

The father of two explained that he wants his girls "to learn the importance of how fortunate they are, and to make sure they're giving back."

As children from the church school came down to the auditorium, Obama climbed up on the stage to screams and cheers. "I just wanted to come by and wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving," he said, fielding questions from some. One wanted to know what it's like to be followed around all the time. Obama spoke of a certain loss of privacy.

""I gotta admit, sometimes it's kinda strange,'' the 47-year-old former junior senator from Illinois said. "You just want to go take a walk or go out and ride your bike or something, and you always have someone with you... So you don't have a lot of privacy and that's one of the things you have to sacrifice in order to run for president."

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By Carlos Sadovi

The organizers of a proposed high school aimed at gay and lesbian students said Wednesday that they dropped the plan from a vote by the Chicago Board of Education after realizing a revamped version failed to mention sexual identity.

Paula Gilovich, a member of the brain trust behind the Social Justice High School's Pride Campus, said members of the group decided to withdraw its application after the school's new mission statement shifted from being about gay students to a more generic "haven where students can feel safe and valued for who they are."

 

"There were various communities that put a great deal of pressure on the proposal and on the design team and on the city and on the Chicago Public Schools to change it," Gilovich said.

Gay rights activists supporting the school's focus on gay and lesbian students blasted both the team pushing the plan and school officials for giving in to public and political pressure and scuttling the plan.

"I feel the political pressure that has been placed on the design team from the mayor's office on down to shelve it, to scuttle it, to remove it from consideration is an outrage and a disgrace," said Roger Fraser, a retired teacher and gay activist.

Since it was first introduced, the plan has garnered national attention. It was widely supported in several public hearings, but Mayor Richard Daley said the school, which had been designed for gay students but would accept all students, should not segregate.

Gilovich vowed to return next year with a revamped proposal.

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By Steve Lopez

It was a point I hadn't considered.

But just before the Nov. 4 election, a black friend told me his theory: The attitude toward homosexuality and gay marriage won't change dramatically in the African American community until someone comes out of the closet and makes it more socially acceptable.

 

"There's no  Elton John or David Geffen in the black community," said my friend, an AIDS-prevention activist.

I suspected this had to be wrong, so I began racking my brain to come up with such a person.

Well, there's . . .

Hmmmmmm.

Outside of RuPaul, I was stumped. Rumors and speculation throw a couple of names on the table, but no one of the stature of John, Geffen or Ellen DeGeneres is front and center.

Does that mean there are no prominent African Americans who happen to be gay?

"I think in the black community we have a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, where everybody knows there are gay folks, but if it's not said, it's easier," said state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, who along with dozens of other legislators, opposed Proposition 8 and is now supporting legal challenges to the measure.

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President-elect Obama has a singular opportunity to signal a new era and send a new message of hope and constructive engagement across the Muslim world, despite formidable political and economic challenges.

By John Esposito

Barack Obama’s campaign victory was epic-making in America and across the Muslim world. On November 4, as soon as the election was called for Barack Obama, I began to receive congratulatory emails from friends in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Europe. Some had stayed up through the night to hear the final results. 

Of course, I wasn’t surprised at the global interest and support, which had been evident on recent visits to Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Wherever I spoke, regardless of the topic, someone in the audience would ask me a question about Obama and his prospects. Privately, it was the topic of conversation. So what will all this mean?

In the Muslim world, as in Europe and much of the world, Obama is welcomed as an internationalist president. His Kenyan father, early schooling in Indonesia, race and name symbolize for many a unique internationalist presidential profile, one that contrasts sharply with his predecessor. Indeed, he is seen as the antithesis of George W. Bush—internationally informed, experienced, aware and sensitive, a measured and articulate statesman—not, as Bush is often regarded, as a swaggering Texas cowboy.

Obama’s foreign policy will be expected to be all the things that many in the Muslim world saw as lacking in the Bush administration, which was viewed as neo-colonial, unilateral, arrogant, militant and interventionist. Therefore, an Obama administration will be expected to be multilateral, favor diplomacy first over military threats and intervention, and avoid what many believe was a neo-colonialist American foreign policy whose verbal commitment to democracy promotion and human rights was hypocritical. Obama’s administration cannot, like Bush’s, fail to walk the way it talks.

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By Peter F. Spalding

Americans can be grateful to Indonesia for the contributions the Indonesian culture made to the character of a bright, sensitive, young boy named Barack Hussein Obama who was known to his Indonesian school mates from 1967 to 1971 as "Barry."

The United States will soon have a President who has a profound understanding and respect for Islam gained from having been immersed in "the real Indonesia" of the kampong during his first two years in Indonesia and from his later exposure to the tolerance and pluralistic attitudes at SD Besuki Mentang in Jakarta.

 

Obama with classmates in Indonesia

In The Audacity of Hope, the future President of the United States recalls that "our family was not well off in those early years; the Indonesian Army did not pay its lieutenants much. ...without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks."

Obama writes that he "remembered those years as a joyous time, full of adventure and mystery -- days of chasing down chickens and running from water buffalo, nights of shadow puppets and ghost stories and street vendors (kaki lima) bringing delectable sweets to our door." When his Indonesian stepfather left the military and obtained a job in the oil sector the young Obama was fortunate to attend SD Besuki Mentang, where he studied alongside Muslim, Christian, and Hindu students.

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