Brazil Hit by New Wave of Widespread Protests

From Al-Jazeera – May 15, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/q7kze94

A wave of protests in several cities raises fears of chaos, with four weeks to go before the World Cup kickoff.

Brazilian officials are bracing themselves for a wave of anti-government demonstrations in several cities, many in protest at the high spending on next month’s World Cup.

Authorities said there were about 15 separate protests in Sao Paulo on Thursday. Most were gatherings of a few hundred people, although about 5000 demonstrators gathered near the Itaquerao soccer stadium in Sao Paulo, which is set to host the opening match of the World Cup.

People waved red banners and Brazilian flags as black smoke rose from burning tyres, spoiling the view of the stadium. Dozens of riot police blocked the main entrance next to a construction zone where cranes and other machines were lined up to carry materials still needed to finish the arena.

Groups also planned anti-government demonstrations in other cities hosting World Cup games. Some were called by two big unions that are demanding better wages and working conditions.

The demonstrations are being viewed as a test of the government’s ability to contain protests ahead of football’s flagship event.

Massive anti-government protests across Brazil last year overshadowed the Confederations Cup, a warm-up tournament to the World Cup, with more than a million people taking to the streets on a single night.

Many of the demonstrations turned violent. At least six people were killed in connection with the protests, most being run over by cars as rallies packed busy streets.

Brazilians are angry at the billions spent to host the World Cup, much of it on 12 ornate football stadiums, one-third of which critics say will see little use after the big event. Those who have taken to the streets want the government to focus on improving the country’s health, education, security and infrastructure.

The government hopes that the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Rio will put Brazil in the global spotlight, showing advances the country has made in the past decade in improving its economy and pulling tens of millions of people out of poverty.

Outrage at the cost of the World Cup drove about a million Brazilians to the streets in protest last year [EPA]

Brazil Audit: ‘Corrupt World Cup Costs’

From AlJazeera – May 13, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/prggkvr

The cost of building Brasilia’s World Cup stadium has nearly tripled to $900m in public funds, largely due to allegedly fraudulent billing, government auditors have said.

After the dramatic increase in costs, it is now the world’s second-most expensive football arena, even though the city has no major professional team.

Analysis of data from Brazil’s top electoral court by the AP news agency shows skyrocketing campaign contributions by companies that have won the most World Cup projects.

The lead builder of Brasilia’s stadium increased its political donations 500-fold in the most recent election.

The links between construction firms and politicians add to suspicions that preparations for football’s premier event are marred by corruption.

They also raise questions about how politicians who benefit from construction firms’ largesse can be effective watchdogs over billion-dollar World Cup contracts.

“These donations are making corruption in this country even worse and making it increasingly difficult to fight,” said Renato Rainha, an arbiter at Brasilia’s Audit Court, which is investigating the Brasilia stadium spending.

“These politicians are working for those who financed campaigns.”

With only three-fourths of the $900m stadium project examined by auditors, $275m hve already been found in alleged price-gouging.

Federal prosecutors say as yet no individuals or companies face corruption charges related to World Cup works. There are at least a dozen separate federal investigations into World Cup spending.

Claudio Monteiro, the head of the government’s World Cup committee in Brasilia responsible for oversight, said the audit court’s allegations were simply wrong and that all the spending would be justified.

“This report comes out just 100 days before the Cup? That’s why I say they’re trying to spoil the party,” Monteiro said from his office outside the stadium. “We’re going to show how this report is off base.”

Political contributions

Funding for Brasilia’s stadium relies solely on financing from the federal district’s coffers, meaning every cent comes from taxpayers.

The auditors’ report found instances of what appears to be flagrant overpricing.

For instance, it says the transportation of pre-fabricated grandstands was supposed to cost just $4,700, but the construction consortium billed the government $1.5m.

The consortium is made up of Andrade Gutierrez, a construction conglomerate, and Via Engenharia, an engineering firm.

The steel to build the arena represented one-fifth of total expenses, and auditors say wasteful cutting practices or poor planning added $28m in costs, the single biggest overrun.

The audit questions why the consortium had to discard 12 percent of its steel in Brasilia when Andrade Gutierrez, using the same cutting methods, lost just five percent of steel at another stadium in Manaus, and virtually none at a Cup arena in the city of Cuiaba.

Andrade Gutierrez did not respond to an AP request for comment on the accusations of cost overruns. It noted its political donations were legal.

Andrade Gutierrez, which was awarded stakes in contracts totaling nearly one-fourth of the World Cup’s total price tag, contributed $73,180 in 2008 municipal elections.

Four years later, after it was known which cities were hosting tournament matches, and thus which political parties controlled the local governments that awarded and are overseeing cup projects, the company’s political contributions totaled $37.1m.

Widespread protests

While those campaign contributions were legal, they are likely to soon be banned by Brazil’s Supreme Court.

A majority of justices voted last month to end corporate donations, citing corruption concerns. A single justice demanded to delay a final vote, meaning the reform will not take effect for months, after the World Cup is over.

Suspicions abound in Brazil, where in a poll last year three-fourths of respondents said the World Cup construction has been infused with corruption.

That helped fuel widespread, often violent, anti-government protests last June that sent more than a million Brazilians onto the streets. Many protesters railed against the billions spent to host the tournament.

The overall price of the 12 stadiums, four of which critics say will become white elephants after the tournament because they are in cities that cannot support them, has jumped to $4.2bn in nominal terms, nearly four times the estimate in a 2007 FIFA document published just days before Brazil was awarded the tournament.

At the time, leaders also promised the stadiums would be privately funded.

Brown decision at 60: A look at education inequity

WASHINGTON (AP) — Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Many inequities in education still exist for black students and for Hispanics, a population that has grown exponentially since the 1954 ruling.

"What we've seen in 60 years is that the courts were able to highlight what was wrong and say stop it, but the courts by themselves do not create the moral authority and the concrete steps to make the promise of public education a reality for all children," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Here are five things to know about the case:

WHAT IS BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION?

Brown v. Board of Education is a landmark case brought before the Supreme Court by the NAACP's legal arm to challenge segregation in public schools. It began after several black families in Topeka, Kansas, were turned down when they tried to enroll their children in white schools near their homes. It was named for Oliver Brown, whose daughter Linda was barred from a white elementary school. The lawsuit was joined with cases from Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that separating black and white children was unconstitutional, because it denied black children the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law. "In the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place," Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote. "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

The decision overturned the court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which on May 18, 1896, established a "separate but equal" doctrine for blacks and whites in public facilities.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

View gallery

FILE - This May 27, 2008 file photo shows the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, fo …

Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP's legal arm who argued part of the case, went on to become the Supreme Court's first African-American justice in 1967. Marshall died in 1993. Chief Justice Earl Warren, a Republican and a former California governor, had been appointed to the top spot at the Supreme Court the year before Brown by President Dwight Eisenhower; he led the court until 1969. He also chaired the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Warren died in 1974.

Oliver Brown, for whom the case was named, became a minister at a church in Springfield, Missouri. He died of a heart attack in 1961. His daughters Linda and Cheryl live in Kansas and helped found the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research.

WHAT HAVE THE COURTS SAID SINCE BROWN?

Brown v. Board of Education has never been overruled, and is still in force. The Justice Department currently is a party in court to more than 180 desegregation orders with school districts around the nation.

The Supreme Court did not immediately order enforcement of its Brown decision. In 1955, Chief Justice Earl Warren ordered lower courts to tell states and school districts to admit students "to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed."

However, there was resistance in the South. White parents removed their children from public schools and officials resisted letting black children into integrated schools. In 1968, the justices ruled in Green v. School Board of New Kent County that states operating segregated schools be ordered to come up with a system that eliminates racial discrimination "root and branch." In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education in 1971, the Supreme Court endorsed sending students from different neighborhoods to the same school to promote integration, leading to the widespread use of busing to end segregation by federal judges in the South.

Many of the desegregation and busing orders have been dissolved since those decisions.

View gallery

FILE - This Aug. 22, 1958 file photo shows Thurgood Marshall outside the Supreme Court in Washington …

SEGREGATION TODAY:

The Civil Right Project at UCLA, using Education Department data, has found that segregation has been increasing since 1990, and that black students nationally are substantially more segregated than they were in 1970. Around the country, only 23 percent of black students attended white-majority schools in 2011. That's the lowest number since 1968 and far below the peak of 44 percent in 1988. And segregation is also affecting Latino students, the largest minority group in the public schools. They now are more likely to attend school with other Latinos than black students are with other blacks.

Many advocates blame this on the federal courts for removing school districts from Brown-inspired desegregation orders. The changing demographics of the school system — the withdrawal of white students from the public systems and the booming Latino population — also contribute to the changing colors of the schools.

DISPARITIES IN EDUCATION:

Civil rights data recently released by the Education Department showed glaring disparities remain in all aspects of education. Among the findings: minority students are less likely to have access to advanced math and science classes, and to have new teachers. Black students of any age — even preschoolers — are more likely to be suspended. And, there continue to be gaps between the performance on national assessments between whites and black and Hispanic students, with whites scoring higher.

In a recent bit of good news, high school graduation rates increased 15 percentage points for Hispanic students and 9 percentage points for African-American students from 2006 to 2012, according to a recent GradNation Report. Hispanic students graduated at 76 percent and African-American students at 68 percent in 2012, the report said. The national rate is 80 percent.

_____

Follow Jesse J. Holland on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland and Kimberly Hefling on Twitter: http://twitter.com/khefling

_____

Online:

History of Brown v. Board of Education: http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/get-involved/federal-court-activities/brown-board-education-re-enactment/history.aspx

Timeline for Brown v. Board of Education: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brown-v-board/timeline.html

Brown v. Board of Education decision: http://www.naacpldf.org/files/case_issue/Brown%20v.%20Board%20of%20Education%20%28Brown%20I%29%20Decision.PDF

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund special section on Brown v. Board: http://www.naacpldf.org/brown-at-60

Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research: http://www.brownvboard.org

60 years later, education inequality still exists

Statistics recently released by the Education Department show glaring disparities remain in schools.
Landmark case remembered

View Gallery

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama told Kansas high school graduates Friday that young people who've grown up with diversity must lead a national fight against prejudice and discrimination because after six decades, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling against school segregation is "still being decided every single day."

Obama spoke to several thousand students and parents at an event honoring high school graduates in Topeka, the state capital. Her speech came the day before the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision in the Brown case, which takes its title from a federal lawsuit filed by parents in Topeka.

She noted that her special assistant, Kristen Jarvis, is the grandniece of Lucinda Todd, a leader with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Topeka in the 1940s and 1950s, the first parent to sign onto the lawsuit challenging the city's segregated schools. She said Todd, who died in 1996, is an example of people who "choose our better history."

"Every day, you have the power to choose our better history — by opening your hearts and minds, by speaking up for what you know is right, by sharing the lessons of Brown versus Board of Education, the lessons you learned right here in Topeka, wherever you go for the rest of your lives," Obama said.

The parents who filed the Topeka lawsuit in 1951 were recruited by local NAACP leaders and included Oliver Brown, whose daughter was not allowed to enroll in an all-white elementary school near their home. The U.S. Supreme Court combined the Kansas case with others from Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia, ruling on May 17, 1954.

The all-black elementary school Brown's daughter was forced to attend is now a national park site dedicated to the history of the Brown case and the civil rights movement.

View gallery

First lady Michelle Obama smiles after being introduced during Topeka Public Schools Senior Recognit …

Obama said that despite the progress the Brown decision represented, some school districts have pulled back on efforts integrate their schools and communities have come less diverse as residents move from cities to suburbs.

"We know that today in America, too many folks are still stopped on the street because of the color of their skin, or they're made to feel unwelcome because of where they come from, or they're bullied because of who they love," she said.

She added: "As you go forth, when you encounter folks who still hold the old prejudices because they've only been around folks like themselves, when you meet folks who think they know all the answers because they've never heard any other viewpoints, it's up to you to help them see things differently."

The first lady spoke at the ceremony honoring the graduates after meeting with 11 high school students participating in a federally funded program that prepares poor children and children in foster care for higher education. She sat in a circle with them in a room at the Brown site.

Her events Friday were scheduled after the initial announcement of her trip last month stirred criticism in the Kansas capital. She'd initially planned to speak Saturday during a combined graduation ceremony for five schools, but some parents and students were worried the arena for the speech wouldn't be large enough to accommodate all the students' family members.

View gallery

First lady Michelle Obama speaks during Topeka Public Schools Senior Recognition Program in Topeka, …

"We are grateful that she changed her schedule," said Sue Cochran, whose son, Justin, is graduating from Topeka West High School, adding that the first lady's visit was an honor.

Democratic President Barack Obama received just 38 percent of the vote in Republican-leaning Kansas in 2012, and conservative Republicans have boosted their fortunes by running against him and the federal health care overhaul he championed.

Yet former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, also a former governor, received loud cheers when introduced, while the applause and cheers for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback were matched by booing from some in the crowd.

Obama said young people who've grown up with diversity should speak up when family members make insensitive remarks and push for diversity in the organizations and companies they join.

"The truth is that Brown versus Board of Ed isn't just about our history, it's about our future," she said. "Because while the case was handed down 60 years ago, Brown is still being decided every single day — not just in our courts and schools, but in how we live our lives."

___

Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna .

Wochit

African Leaders Work To Counter Boko Haram

PARIS (AP) — Hours after yet another attack in a Boko Haram stronghold, African leaders and Western officials drew the outlines of an international plan to share intelligence and coordinate the fight against the Islamic extremist group holding more than 200 girls captive.

Calling the group fundamentally opposed to civilization, French President Francois Hollande emphasized Boko Haram's links with al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.

The militants, who claim to be fighting a holy war in Nigeria, move freely across the border into neighboring Cameroon, where a Chinese engineering firm's camp came under attack late Friday. The camp was in the same nearly trackless parkland where the school girls were spirited away.

The leaders of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Benin met Saturday with French, U.S. and British officials in hopes of coordinating strategy and sharing intelligence to find the girls.

Boko Haram has offered to exchange the 276 girls who remain captive for jailed insurgents, and threaten otherwise to sell them into slavery.

"Boko Haram's strategy, contrary to all civilization, is to destabilize Nigeria and to destroy the fundamental principles of human dignity," Hollande said during the working lunch. "More than 200 young girls threatened with slavery is the proof."

View gallery

A Nigerian, resident in Spain protests outside the Nigerian embassy in Madrid, Spain, Friday, May 16 …

Officials have said there will be no Western military operation. British officials say Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who has reluctantly accepted outside help, has ruled out swapping prisoners for the girls.

On Friday, Jonathan canceled a trip to the town where the girls were seized, apparently due to security concerns.

Signs are growing that some Nigerian troops are near mutiny, complaining they are overwhelmed and outgunned by Boko Haram. Soldiers have told The Associated Press that some in the ranks actually fight alongside the group. Last year, Jonathan said he suspected that Boko Haram members and sympathizers had infiltrated every level of his government and military, including the Cabinet.

That complicates attempts to share intelligence. The U.S., France and Britain have all sent experts to help find the girls, but French and American officials have expressed concerns about how any information might be used.

The northeastern region where the girls were kidnapped has suffered five years of increasingly deadly assaults by Boko Haram. Thousands have been killed, including more than 1,500 civilians this year.

View gallery

South Africans protest in solidarity against the abduction three weeks ago of hundreds of schoolgirl …

Cameroon, which borders the region, has begun to take the threat more seriously after years of dismissing it as a Nigerian problem, French officials say.

France has negotiated the release of citizens held by Boko Haram in Cameroon and officials were hoping Saturday's summit would set the outlines of a more international approach.

Chinese state media reported that 10 people were missing in the Friday night attack on the camp in a region where Boko Haram has previously abducted foreigners, including a French family of seven and a priest.

Hollande's administration successfully negotiated the release of the French citizens, and officials in Paris said France's experience dealing with Boko Haram as well as its good relations with the governments concerned were the impetus for the summit.

China is a major investor in Cameroon, helping build infrastructure, public health projects and sports facilities and importing crude oil, timber and cotton.

___

Associated Press writer Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, and Michelle Faul in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed.

View Gallery

Leaders meet in Paris to counter Boko Haram

The heads of five African nations and Western officials gather to discuss actions against the militant group.
Hours after latest attack

SAVASTEPE, Turkey (AP) — Miner Erdal Bicak believes he knows why so many of his colleagues died in Turkey's worst mining disaster: company negligence.

And he knows one other thing — he's never going back down any mine again.

Bicak, 24, had just ended his shift Tuesday and was making his way to the surface when managers ordered him to retreat because of a problem in the Soma coal mine in western Turkey. Workers gathered in one area to hastily put on gas masks.

"The company is guilty," Bicak told The Associated Press, adding that managers had machines that measure methane gas levels. "The new gas levels had gotten too high and they didn't tell us in time."

The miner also said government safety inspectors never visited the lower reaches of the Soma mine and have no idea of how bad conditions get as workers trudge deeper underground.

Government and mining officials have insisted, however, that the disaster that killed 301 workers was not due to negligence and the mine was inspected regularly. Akin Celik, the Soma mine's operations manager, has said thick smoke from the underground fire killed many miners who had no gas masks. High levels of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been a problem for rescue workers as well.

View gallery

Miner Erdal Bicak, center, speaks to journalists as he joined fellow miners and their family members …

Bicak, whose leg was badly injured and in a cast, recounted his miraculous escape late Friday while at a candle-lit vigil for Soma victims in the town square of nearby Savastepe.

Public anger has surged in the wake of the Soma coal mine inferno. Police used tear gas and water cannon Friday to disperse protesters in Soma who were demanding that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government resign. In Istanbul, police broke up a crowd who lit candles to honor the Soma victims.

On Saturday, police increased security in Soma to prevent new protests and detained lawyers who scuffled with police after objecting to identity checks, NTV television reported. The lawyers came to offer legal advice to the victims.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said crews located the bodies of the last two missing miners Saturday, raising the death toll to 301. He said 485 miners escaped or were rescued.

"Our efforts will be coming to an end," Yildiz said. "However, our friends will be scouring all corners (of the mine) once again" to confirm the final death toll.

View gallery

Police use water cannons and teargas to disperse people gathered to commemorate the Soma mine accide …

Bicak said he ended up about a kilometer (.6 miles) underground with 150 people Tuesday afternoon when he heard an explosion. He said they were given old oxygen masks that he thought hadn't been checked in many years.

Bicak and a close friend tried to make their way to an exit, but the smoke was thick. The path was narrow and steep, with ceilings so low the miners couldn't stand up, making it difficult to leave quickly. He and his friend took turns slapping each other to stay conscious.

"I told my friend 'I can't go on. Leave me here. I'm going to die,'" Bicak said. But his friend said to him, "'No, we're getting out of here.'"

Bicak eventually made it out of the mine with his friend — by then lapsing in and out of consciousness. He said he lost many friends and out of the 150 miners he was working with, only 15 made it out alive.

The Milliyet newspaper said Saturday it saw a preliminary report by a mine safety expert who went into the Soma mine that suggested smoldering coal caused the mine's roof to collapse. The report said the tunnel's support beams were made of wood, not metal, and there were not enough carbon monoxide sensors.

View gallery

Miner Cetin Esmer speaks to the Associated Press as he joined fellow miners and their children to co …

Labor Minister Faruk Celik said investigations have been launched by both prosecutors and officials but "there is no report that has emerged yet."

Bicak said the last inspection at the Soma mine was six months ago. He said mine managers know that government inspectors only visit the top 100 meters (yards) of the mine, so they just clean up that part and the inspectors never see the narrow, steep, cramped sections below.

Mine owners are tipped off up to a week before an inspection anyway, said Ozgur Ozel, an opposition lawmaker from the Soma region who has criticized the government for not adopting the International Labor Organization's convention on mine safety.

Bicak says his mining career is now over.

"I'm not going to be a miner anymore. God gave me a chance and now I'm done," he said.

___

Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara.

___

Follow Desmond Butler at http://twitter.com/desmondbutler

View Gallery

Turkish miner says company is to blame

Erdal Bicak says managers knew that gas levels in the Soma mine were too high, but they didn't tell employees.
More than 300 dead