Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
(file photo)
Egyptian authorities say former President Hosni Mubarak has been
taken to a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he
was under house arrest.
The 82-year-old was expected to face
legal questioning over corruption allegations and Western media reported
that he was to be interviewed by investigators as early as Tuesday.
During
the later years of his rule, he had been suffering health problems and
had undergone gallbladder surgery and treatment in Germany. He was
ousted from office amid popular protests on February 11.
On
Sunday, Egypt's public prosecutor summoned Mubarak for questioning about
the killing of protesters and the embezzlement of public funds, as
hundreds of protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square demanded he be brought
to trial.
A statement from the prosecutor said Mubarak's sons
Gamal and Alaa also were summoned in the corruption probe. A later
announcement Sunday said authorities detained former prime minister
Ahmed Nazif for 15 days as part of a corruption investigation.
The
ousted president says the allegations against him are unfounded, and
that he has the right to defend his reputation and that of his family.
Mubarak's
remarks were broadcast Sunday by the Al-Arabiya news channel. They
were his first public remarks since mass protests forced his departure
in February.
The former leader said he is willing to cooperate
with authorities investigating his wealth, and stated that he does not
have any foreign bank accounts or large properties abroad.
Some information for this report
was provided by AP and AFP.
The
immediate impact of New Jersey’s new legislative map has been to produce a
flurry of activity among members of the State Senate and Assembly.
Legislators
are retiring, moving out of their hometowns, shifting their election campaigns from
the Assembly to the Senate (and vice versa), and trying to win a game of
political musical chairs that is being played in districts that now have more
incumbents than open seats.
For
the most part, the dust will settle by April 11, the filing deadline for this
fall’s elections. But maybe we should not be so quick to relegate the
contentious issue of redistricting to the backburner for another decade. Why
not take some time now – while redistricting and all its flaws and shortcomings
are still fresh in our minds – to see how the process can be improved for the
next round of legislative map-making?
Just
think about the current system, and it will not take long to reach the
conclusion that there has to a better way.
For
example, every 10 years, once new Census figures are available, the process
begins with each of the chairs of the two major political parties appointing
five members to the State Apportionment Commission, which is charged with
drawing 40 new legislative districts to reflect the new Census numbers. That
means five Democrats and five Republicans are expected to agree on a map that
will shape New Jersey’s political landscape for the next 10 years. It is a bit
like asking the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox to reach a gentlemanly
agreement on which team should win the American League East.
When the inevitable occurs and
the commission finds itself deadlocked, the process calls for the Chief Justice
of the New Jersey Supreme Court to appoint an eleventh member as a tie-breaker.
As a result, the vote of one person ultimately determines whether the new map
will be more favorable to Democrats or Republicans. Continuing with the
baseball analogy, this is akin to two teams playing to a tie after nine innings
and then allowing an umpire to decide which one should be declared the winner
of the game.
In addition, under the existing
system, each of the 10 original members of the commission has a vested interest
– either directly or indirectly – in the outcome of its work. This is not a
recipe for producing a map in the best interests of New Jersey’s 8.7 million
residents. Instead, it creates the potential for gerrymandering, political
paybacks, and districts that all but guarantee incumbents will be re-elected.
And let’s not forget that, at a
time when citizens are demanding more transparency in government, state law
exempts the Apportionment Commission from New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings
Act.
Finding flaws in the current
system is easy; identifying a better way to tackle redistricting is a much
greater challenge, but here are a few suggestions to get the ball rolling on improving
the process:
·The
State Apportionment Commission should be restructured and made as non-political
as is reasonably possible. Take the two major political parties and their
chairs out of the process. Give a role to some of New Jersey’s ordinary
citizens – the folks the politicians always refer to when they talk about families
sitting at the kitchen table and making decisions on how to make ends
meet. We rely on citizens for juries
that decide if people are guilty or innocent and whether they should be sent to
jail. Surely, we can entrust them with drawing a map.
·Tap
the expertise within our academic community. New Jersey colleges and universities
have hundreds of brilliant scholars. State government should make better use of
the experts who work in our higher education institutions. Certainly, there are
professors with the Socratic ability to determine how 40 sets of boundaries can
be fairly drawn.
·Put
some young people on the commission. The map will be in place for a decade, and
it should reflect the input of those who are New Jersey’s newest voters and may
have fresh ideas on politics and government.
·Make
better use of computers. Machines are not perfect, as anyone who has ever been
misdirected by a GPS device knows. Nevertheless, technology can do amazing
things today. Redistricting needs a human element, but computers can help build
a strong foundation for the work involved in producing a quality legislative
map.
Improving
the redistricting process will not be an easy task, but we have a decade to
work at it. But first we must decide whether we truly want to make the process
better, or if we simply want to put the existing system back into its box and
not open it again for another 10 years.
Richard
A. Lee is Communications Director of the Hall Institute. A former State House
reporter and Deputy Communications Director for the Governor, he also teaches
courses in media, politics and government at RutgersUniversity,
where he is completing work on a Ph.D. in media studies. Read more of Rich’s
columns at richleeonline
and follow him on Twitter.
Sources say Usher is dating his co-manager and stylist Grace Miguel,
43, who is the former Def Jam executive. Reportedly, Miguel is trying
to talk him into firing everyone on his staff and replacing them with an
entire new team. This is said to include his managers, choreographers,
etc.
Longtime agent, Mark Cheatham of Creative Artists Agency is
reportedly first on the chopping block. “I don’t know anything about
it. I’ve been with Usher for a long time,” Cheatham said. The R&B
singer is already missing from the agency’s client list.
The 30 year old R&B singer and Miguel went public with their
relationship just after filing for divorce from his ex-wife Foster.
Sources say Miguel signed on as Usher’s co-manager after he pulled his
mom from the position.
A close source says “Usher will do whatever she (Miguel) wants him
[to] do right now.”
Courtroom
illustration shows accused serial killer Robert Pickton
NEW YORK, U.S.A - Police are considering the
possibility that the serial killer who has dumped at least eight bodies
along a Long Island barrier beach may be an ex-cop or other law officer,
law enforcement officials familiar with the case said. The possibility that the killer could be a
former law enforcement official or other person with knowledge of law
enforcement techniques is being considered based on evidence that the
suspect may understand investigators' procedures, they said.
Numerous people with possible links to the four
slain women who have been identified have come to the attention of
police since the investigation began, the officials said. Police are
also looking at people who have had regular or routine access to the
beach where the bodies were found, and Investigators are also exploring
possible links to the serial killer who murdered prostitutes in New
Jersey, they said.
According
to one investigator familiar with the case and the behavior of serial
killers, this appears to be an organized serial killer who plans
methodically and is probably above average intelligence. It appears that
the killer usually lures people, then kills them in one place and
disposes of the body in another.
This sort of killer is often social -- not a loner -- with
family, friends and what would appear to be a normal life, the
investigator said.
It was the disappearance of a prostitute that
led New York police to stumble on the serial killer's ocean-front
dumping ground in western Suffolk County. Shannan Gilbert, 24, disappeared in May 2010
after arranging online to meet a client. Her disappearance triggered a
search in the scrub brush along Gilgo Beach, a popular summer getaway
spot, but much less frequently visited in the winter. In December police found four skeletal bodies,
all of them women and all of them prostitutes, but none were Gilbert.
Last week, cops found another four bodies.
Those bodies have not been identified, but Suffolk County Police said
Tuesday that none of the remains belonged to Gilbert.
Cops obtained DNA samples of Gilbert's family
last year and were able to quickly check the remains against those
samples. The police conclusion suggests that Gilbert is possibly a ninth
victim of a serial killer.
Cops searched the brush along Gilgo Beach and
neighboring Oak Beach last week, looking for the bodies of more women
potentially killed and dumped in the thick vegetation, while other
detectives worked to create a profile of the man who is stalking
prostitutes online and killing them.
Suffolk County police have kept a tight lid on
many of the investigation's details, commenting publicly only on the
search efforts, including the canine units with cadaver sniffing dogs
and a dozen police recruits from the academy brought in to help search
for bodies.
Experts
outside the investigation consulted by ABC News said cops are compiling a
vast database of clues and working up a profile of a single serial
killer suspected of killing at least eight women, most of them
prostitutes, and dumping their bodies on Gilgo Beach over four years.
In December, while searching for Gilbert,
police stumbled on the killer's dumping ground, an area that has turned
out to be a seven-mile stretch of beach as more bodies were discovered.
Two hours of my life
were lost this past weekend watching
Black Agenda, hosted by Ed
Schultz, on MSNBC. I kept trying to understand why Ed Schultz
was chosen to host the show. Evidently others had the same concerns.
If any villager can explain why Schultz was the host ... please
do so.
Anyhow, there wasn't much
new territory covered on the show. In many respects it seemed like a
mini-version of the 'State of Black America' program that Tavis
Smiley used to produce each year. This time MSNBC tried valiantly to
cover a number of the issues within the Black community that need to be
addressed.
The most entertaining part of the show was also the saddest part.
Did any of you see when Cornel West and Al Sharpton started playing
the dozens with each other? If they had been sitting next to each
other ... or if there wasn't a table in front of them ... then I think
that the two old men would have come to blows.
You be the
judge!
What was your take on this segment ... or the entire show?
Drumbeats
By Allan Lengelticklethewire.com
The nationwide hunt for a transient suspected of bombing a Santa
Monica, Calif. synagogue last week ended Monday night with his arrest in
Cleveland Heights, Ohio, the FBI said.
The FBI said a citizen tip resulted in the arrest of Ron Hirsch, who
had taken a Greyhound bus on the day of last Thursday’s bombing, and was
destined for New York, where he has relatives.
“There are at least 10 destinations in between Los Angeles and New
York. Additional investigation and video surveillance indicates that
Hirsch disembarked the bus in Denver and may have further deviated from
his original route,” the FBI said.
The New York Daily News reported that the blast at the Chabad House
synagogue “sent a 300-pound concrete-encased pipe ricocheting off the
synagogue into a neighboring house where a child was sleeping.” There
were no injuries.
Authorities initially thought it was an industrial accident.
Validated
Independent NewsIf a picture is worth a
thousand words, what was the message Raymond Davis sent after capturing
an image with his phone of the dead man he just shot in the back? In
Lahore, Pakistan after his arrest police found photos of madrassas and
military installations in his camera. Davis’s contacts list included
twenty-seven militants from terrorist organizations and relationships
with the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (the terrorist
organization that killed Prime Minister Bhutto and Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl).
Lahore Investigators called the shooting a
“blessing in disguise” because it confirmed what they already knew- that
Davis was hatching a terrorist plot to justify a US occupied Pakistan.
A US occupied Pakistan would be a strategic advantage against
Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation and Anti-American sentiment.
Manipulating American public opinion through fear mongering requires a
terrorist event. Davis was engineering this by working with a group of
Taliban ready to do his bidding.
US officials have refused to
identify exactly who Davis’s employer is and have maintained through it
all – citing the Vienna Convention of 1961 – that Davis was a diplomat
and a crime victim. Their story juxtaposed against the facts
demonstrates otherwise. The real victim was a Pakistani Intelligence
Agent shot in the back by Davis with a Glock nine millimeter. Davis’s
tools of “diplomacy,” included M-16 shells, cell phone trackers,
infrared telescopes, masks, make up, and business cards for a phony
security company, Hyperion LLC. It sounds more like espionage than
diplomacy. Past Ministers of Propaganda such as Josef Goebbels know
that if a lie is repeated enough people will believe it.
There was
nothing diplomatic about Davis’s presence in Pakistan. To add insult to
injury the 2.3 million in blood money paid to the families of the slain
men will be coming out of Pakistani taxpayers pockets, as the Pakistani
government will be footing the bill. The US will continue to fund the
Zadari puppet government it supports to the tune of three billion per
year.
Title: US Caught in the Big Lie: This Can’t be Happening! Was
Correct in Exposing Raymond Davis as a Spy Author: Dave Lindorff
