NNA Breaking News 12/16/98<<<
Nationalist News Agency
The Nationalist News Agency offers news and
information for people of European descent
around the world.
Visit the NNA homepage at http://nna.stormfront.org
---------------------------------------------------------------
NNA Breaking News 12/16/98
US News
1. Ex-Houston officials guilty in bribe probe
2. Rape, robbery terrifies L.A. diners
3. Study finds drop in newspaper credibility
4. Detroit police struggle to fill vacancies with minorities
5. Black Woman Gets Life Term in Killing of a Pregnant Girl
World News
6. Far-right post-fascists snatch Rome from the left
7. Row over german goverments plan for holocaust memorial.
8. Clinton to decide on U.S. spy (Pollard).
9. China arrests four trying to smuggle human cargo to the U.S.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[The parts of America going mestizo gets a foretaste of what's coming
by watching Houston, Texas. Reading this article sounds a lot like
what's common south of the border, doesn't it?]
Ex-Houston officials guilty in bribe probe
HOUSTON - (AP) Seven months after a hung jury forced a mistrial, two
former Houston political figures were found guilty Monday of taking
bribes in a sting set up by the FBI.
Former City Councilman Ben Reyes was convicted on four counts of
bribery and one count of mail fraud and conspiracy. Former Port
Commissioner Betti Maldonado was found guilty of two bribery counts
and conspiracy.
Reyes could be sentenced to as many as 50 years in prison, Maldonado
could get 25 years. Sentencing was set for Feb. 24.
Jurors took just six hours to convict the pair on all charges.
''I don't know how to explain a verdict as quick as that one,'' said
Michael Ramsey, Reyes' attorney. ''It's not for me to second-guess
juries. It is for me to appeal, however, and that is what I'll do.''
Maldonado attorney Dick DeGuerin also said he would appeal.
''I'm shocked and very, very disappointed,'' DeGuerin said. ''This is
not the end of the story by any means.''
As in the first trial, jurors heard Reyes brag on tape about getting
rich from buying off civic leaders and watched video of Maldonado
nervously handing an envelope supposedly containing $3,000 to
Councilman John Castillo, who faces retrial next year with
codefendants Councilman Michael Yarbrough and former Councilman
John Peavy Jr.
The defense has accused federal authorities of targeting minorities
politicians, because all five defendants are either black or Hispanic.
The only white non-Hispanic defendant, lobbyist Ross Allyn, was
acquitted by the presiding judge during the first trial.
--
[More things to come in "diverse America". Take heart! The media says
crime is down!]
Rape, robbery terrifies L.A. diners
LOS ANGELES - Armed robbers invaded a restaurant and brutalized
customers and employees, slashing the throat of a cook, raping a woman
and pistol-whipping others during 20 minutes of terror. The three
robbers fled Sunday night with an undetermined amount of cash and
valuables and were at large Monday. The men, all armed with handguns,
invaded the Grinder restaurant about 10:30 p.m. Sunday. ''A callous,
vicious, brutal act,'' Officer Mike Partain said of the siege. The
robbers pistol-whipped some victims and dragged a 21-year-old female
customer to the rear of the restaurant where she was raped,
investigators said.
Before leaving, one attacker grabbed a kitchen knife and slashed the
throat of the cook, who was critically injured but was recovering
Monday.
--
[Newspaper bosses must be worried over this one. The end result of
affirmative action in the newspaper media is bad grammar, sloppy copy,
and egalitarian bias. Jewish department stores balk at having to spend
advertising dollars in duplicate when cities have more than one
newspaper, and therefore destroy competition by supporting only one
paper.
Jewish media bosses, hell-bent on "redefining America" have thrown
caution to the wind and fill newspapers with bra-ads, politically
correct diversity, and weird "Holocaust" articles. No wonder no one
wants to read that garbage.]
Study finds drop in newspaper credibility
WASHINGTON - Sensationalism, garbled grammar and misquotes are
among the chief reasons for the decline of credibility in newspapers
and a disconnect between today's reporters and their audiences, a
new report says.
"Americans say they're tired of having sensational stories crammed
down their throats," the report, released Tuesday by the American
Society of Newspaper Editors, concludes.
About 80% of adults surveyed for the study said newspapers
overdramatize the news to sell papers, and that sensational stories
get a lot of coverage because they're exciting - not because they're
important.
The public thinks newspapers mishandle "normal" news stories too.
Forty-eight percent said they find misleading headlines in their
paper more than once a week.
In addition, the study says readers see too many misspellings,
mislabeled maps and grammatical mistakes - lowering public trust
of the media.
Those who have firsthand experience with reporters and editors are
some of their biggest critics, and the public thinks reporters are
out of touch with their readers.
The study, part of the ASNE's three-year project to find out why the
public has lost confidence in newspapers, is based on a national
telephone survey of 3,000 U.S. adults in April and May, 16 focus
groups
and a 12-page questionnaire completed by newspaper journalists. The
report was conducted and analyzed by Urban & Associates of Sharon,
Mass.
"I guess the good news is that we recognize that we have problems and
we're trying to do something about them," says ASNE President Edward
Seaton, editor-in-chief of The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury. "It means
that
we've got to tighten up. We've got to cut down on errors, cut down on
anonymous quotes and rein in the pundits."
More than three quarters of those surveyed expressed concern about the
credibility of news stories that use anonymous sources, and 45% said
the story shouldn't run at all if no one will go on the record.
The study's findings come in a year when the press has had to give a
number of mea culpas: CNN retracted a story presented jointly with
Time
magazine that alleged the U.S. military used a nerve agent in pursuing
defectors during the Vietnam War. The Cincinnati Enquirer retracted a
story because it was based in part on information stolen from a
company's telephone message system. At The New Republic magazine and
The Boston Globe, writers made up quotes and people that appeared in
stories.
The study also follows three years of high-profile stories that have
hogged the front page: The murder trial of football star O.J. Simpson,
the deaths of Princess Diana and Colorado child beauty queen JonBenet
Ramsey, Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit against President Clinton
and his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Sensationalism aside, a newspaper's credibility often is undermined by
little mistakes. More than one-third of respondents said they see
spelling or grammatical mistakes in their paper more than once a week
-
21% said they see them nearly every day. Twenty-three percent said
they
find factual errors in the news stories of their daily paper at least
once a week.
While 73% of adults have become more skeptical about news accuracy,
those who have firsthand knowledge of a news story are the most
critical. Thirty-one percent said they had been the subject of a news
story or had been interviewed by a reporter. Of that group, 24% said
they were misquoted and 31% found errors in the story.
Readers welcome corrections, though. Sixty-three percent said they
"felt better" about the quality of the news coverage when they see
corrections.
Getting it right, however, is only part of the problem in reaching
readers. More than half of those surveyed believe the press is
"out-of-touch with mainstream Americans," the study says. In many
ways - educational attainment, income, interests, circle of friends
and working hours - many journalists are in a different class than the
average American, the study says.
"When newspaper readers see feature stories about ways to make an
elegant presentation of artichoke hearts, many study the photograph
to find out what, exactly, an artichoke looks like," the study says.
"When adjectives like 'churchgoing' or 'right-wing' or 'suburban' or
'radical'
appear in print or broadcast news stories, they sense that judgments
are being made by folks not very much like themselves."
Some findings from the American Society of Newspaper Editors' study on
why newspaper credibility has been dropping:
More than one-third of 3,000 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone say
they see spelling or grammatical mistakes in their newspaper more
than once a week.
23% say they find factual errors in the news stories of their daily
paper at least once a week.
73% have become more skeptical about news accuracy.
78% agree with the assessment that there is bias in the news media.
58% believe the public's dissatisfaction with the media is justified
(''that they're not just an easy target for deeper problems in our
society'').
50% believe there are particular people or groups that get a ''special
break'' in news coverage.
78% believe powerful people or organizations can influence a
newspaper to kill or ''spin'' a story.
86% believe the names of suspects should not be published until
formal charges are filed.
--
Detroit police struggle to fill vacancies with minorities
The Detroit News
DETROIT -- The city's Police Department is looking to the suburbs
to help fill 800 jobs, spurring concerns about a force with too
few minorities to police a city that is nearly 80-percent black.
The imminent retirement of more than 250 officers from the
4,000-member force, as well as Chief Benny Napoleon's desire to
beef up community policing, narcotics enforcement and create a
unit to monitor casinos, is behind the historic hiring blitz.
In the past, the department looked primarily inside Detroit's
borders to fill its ranks.
"If the police force in this city becomes majority white, I'm
telling you, there are going to be problems," said Steven Banks,
a 32-year-old hair salon owner and lifelong Detroiter. "People are
going to elect another (Mayor) Coleman Young who will get in and
kick butt."
When the Police Department was mostly all white, many people in
the black community looked upon it as an occupying force.
Young was elected mayor in 1973 with a campaign platform to reform
the Police Department and make it more reflective of the community.
The department went from less than 10-percent black in the early
1970s to nearly 70-percent black in the early 1990s.
Young also abolished a controversial police decoy unit -- STRESS,
or Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets. A number of young black
men were killed in the early 1970s in shoot-outs with STRESS
officers. In addition, some of STRESS' white officers were charged
with violating residents' civil rights.
But the percentage of black officers has declined recently, and
stood at 57 percent in 1996, the latest year for which the department
could provide figures.
Department officials say they are trying to balance the need for
cultural diversity on the force with the need to hire good cops --
quickly.
The hiring push comes at a time when the department is trying to
raise admission standards and compete with other cities in what has
become a job-seekers' market.
"Nationwide, metropolitan police departments are in a full-scale
recruiting war," said Sheldon Greenberg, director of the Police
Executive Leadership Program at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore. "And there is a shortage of qualified police personnel."
In Detroit, widespread retirements are expected soon as baby boom
officers reach retirement age.
"We could have as many as 1,600 openings by next year," said City
Council President Gil Hill, a former Detroit police commander.
"Something has to be done about this."
Department statistics show that in 1996, the average age of the
562 cops with the rank of sergeant was 46 and they had an average
of 22 years on the force. Officers can retire after 20 years.
Even the rank-and-file is aging. The average age of the roughly
3,000 police officers was 36 with 11 years' experience.
But a city that has paid $107 million to settle civil lawsuits
filed against the department from 1986-97 can ill afford to hire
just anyone, said Chandra Oden, director of the department's
personnel division.
And the department's reputation has suffered some setbacks ranging
from murder indictments to drug arrests. The most public was the
conviction of former Police Chief William Hart, who was sentenced
to prison for embezzling money from a police fund used for drug
investigations.
"Just because you have a good driving record and aren't a convicted
felon, doesn't mean you can be a Detroit police officer," Oden said
in a recent interview. "We want to become more selective. If we are
going to bring in more officers than ever in our history, we want
to bring in the best."
Detroit is the only department in the state that does not require
candidates to have an associate's degree. Under rules set this year
by the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, Detroit is
exempt from that requirement because it is the state's only municipal
department to run its own police academy.
Detroit requires candidates to be 18, have a high school diploma or
equivalent, have no felony record and have a good driving record
with no outstanding traffic tickets.
Recruits also must pass a battery of physical and psychological
tests and a drug screening.
But those requirements are a bare minimum, Oden said.
To ensure that enough qualified applicants are found, Detroit police
recruiters have traveled as far as New Orleans and are concentrating
efforts across the state.
"At this point, our efforts have been focused on who we want and how
to get that person," Oden said.
The department, she said, hasn't ruled out offering signing bonuses
to people to increase the chances they'll join the force, which has
a starting salary of $25,000.
The salary figure is still less than many suburban police departments
that have little trouble finding recruits. For example, Mt. Clemens
pays starting officers $33,304; Canton pays $29,423 a year, and West
Bloomfield starts officers at $29,612.
In addition, Detroit has a strict residency requirement that forces
officers to live in the city, while most suburban departments have
more relaxed residency rules or none.
Still the Detroit department says it must recruit outside the city
to find enough qualified candidates and that troubles many of the
city's officers.
"They are recruiting from the farmlands," said Officer Reginald
Crawford, vice-president of the Detroit African American Police
Officers Association. "Let's just say that the end result is that
you don't have a grass-roots police department."
Crawford, an accident investigator in the 4th (Fort) Precinct,
said he already sees too many young officers who can't direct
visitors to landmarks such as Belle Isle and who leave the city
on time off to return to their hometowns.
"I'm not knocking people from outside the city who come here
for a job," Crawford said. "What I'm saying is that the department
seems to put more effort to recruit outside the city than it does
inside the city."
He knows firsthand.
About three years ago, Crawford and Sgt. Roosevelt Lawrence Jr.,
president of the black officers association, were asked by an
instructor at Wayne County Community Community College to hold
a workshop on their day off to recruit students from Detroit.
"We went to the recruiting section to pick up materials, and that
very day, people on the recruiting staff said they were going
downriver to recruit," Crawford said. "Here we were using our own
money and gas to recruit people from Detroit and they're using tax
money to recruit downriver."
The presumption that there are not enough qualified black candidates
in the city who want to become police officers upsets some young
black men. Afterall, Mayor Young had little trouble finding enough
black recruits to fill the department's roster.
"Every black guy out here isn't doing drugs and sticking people up,"
said James Thomas, 18, a Detroit Southwestern High School graduate
now enrolled in culinary school. But many experts say that the trouble
with recruiting in inner cities goes beyond finding candidates who
can make the grade, it means persuading the best and the brightest
to become police officers.
"Somebody who has come to see how police act and react may not want
to join the force," said John Dogherty, chairman of the criminal
justice department at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Dogherty,
who retired from the force in Poughkeepsie, said he's found that
many inner-city youth who aspire to a career in law enforcement
don't want to be a police officer in the place where they grew up.
Thomas, for one, said that a number of his classmates did decide to
join the force in Detroit.
"They thought it was a good job," he said.
Still, some black Detroiters who interact with the police every day
say they don't care what color the officers are, as long as they
are respectful.
Elliot Evans, 35, owns Elliot's Floral Design on Eight Mile but
often sells flowers in Greektown and said he sees officers from the
1st (Clinton) Precinct at work all the time.
"Every year, we get a new batch of cops here in Greektown, and black,
white, whatever, they do a good job," Evans said. "I think they
should just keep trying to hire the best cops they can."
Qualities sought in new officers
Starting salary for a Detroit police officer is about $25,000.
Applicants must:
* Possess a high school diploma or equivalent
* Be at least 18
* Have a good driving record
* Not been convicted of a felony
In addition, the department now is emphasizing skills such as:
* Analytical thinking
* Computer proficiency
* Communication abilities
New assignments
The city of Detroit is about to begin a historic hiring blitz that
will shape the future of the 4,000-member department. Officials hope
to fill at least 800 positions before year-end.
Here is how the officers will be assigned:
* 250-300 will replace retiring officers at posts throughout the city.
* 500 new officers will hit the streets as community police officers,
narcotic enforcement officers and to patrol casinos.
Racial makeup
Here is a breakdown of white and black officers for the years
1995-'96, the most recent available.
1995 1996
Black males 1,612 1,676
Black females 611 639
Total 2,223 2,315
White males 1,335 1,361
White females 123 199
Total 1,458 1,560
Source: Detroit police annual reports
--
Black Woman Gets Life Term in Killing of a Pregnant Girl
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
T USCALOOSA, Ala. -- A woman convicted of killing a pregnant
teen-ager and slicing open her womb to take her baby was sentenced
Monday to life in prison with no chance of parole.
The crime by the woman, Felicia Scott, was "heinous, atrocious,
cruel and premeditated," said Judge Gay Lake Jr. of Circuit Court,
but he held to the jury's recommended sentence despite the
prosecution's pleas for the death sentence.
Ms. Scott, who was convicted in September, says she is innocent.
Ms. Scott, 31, was convicted of fatally shooting Carethia Curry,
17, and removing Ms. Curry's baby girl from her body. She pretended
the baby was her own. The girl is now 2 and lives with her father.
Prosecutors said Ms. Scott, who had been married and had two
children before getting a hysterectomy five years ago, befriended
Ms. Curry once she learned the teen-ager was pregnant.
The two went out for pizza on Jan. 31, 1996. Then, prosecutors
said, Ms. Scott killed Ms. Curry at her apartment, removed the
child and dumped the young woman's body in a ravine.
Ms. Curry's mother, Carolyn O'Neal, said Ms. Scott "not only took
my daughter, she took my grandbaby from me. I will never be able to
forgive her."
Dan Turberville, a defense lawyer, said Ms. Scott would appeal.
--
World News
Far-right post-fascists snatch Rome from the left
Agence France-Presse
ROME, Dec 14 (AFP) - The post-fascist far-right National Alliance
(AN) snatched Rome from the left in a photo-finish in Sunday's local
elections, in which the abstention rate hit a record high.
The AN's candidate Silvano Moffa sneaked just ahead of the centre
left's Pasqualina Napoletano in the run-off second round vote with
51.1 percent of the vote. Turnout was only 43 percent.
AN leader Gianfranco Fini hailed the result as a "new departure" for
the rightwing opposition.
The left's surprise defeat in the Italian capital -- where Napoletano
had been leading in the first round with 46.8 percent against 44.7
percent for her rival -- cast a shadow over the otherwise good
performance by the left in the rest of the country.
The left held on to the province of Foggia, in the south, and Massa
Carrara in the north, and took Benevento in the south, which had
been held by the right.
In the seven cities which went to the polls, the left retained the
municipalities of Massa, Sondrio, Brescia and Pisa, while the right
hung on to Pescara and took Vicenza from the left. The separatist
Northern League comfortably retained control of the city council
in Treviso near Venice.
Italian political commentators remarked upon the unusually high
absention level, 42 percent of the more than 4.3 Italians called
to the polls on Sunday. "If it had a spokesman, the abstentionist
party could legitimately claim to be the most important movement
that Italy has ever seen," the centre-left Rome daily La Repubblica
said in an editorial.
The paper slammed the nation's political parties for "having lost
the capacity to mobilise the country."
"People are fed up with old politics, fine words, and promises which
are never kept," the daily La Stampa commented, saying that the
charitable sector in Italy had never been so popular as today.
"Social commitment grows in proportion to the falling off of interest
in politics," the paper owned by the prominent industrialist Agnelli
family noted.
The Milan daily Il Corriere della Sera said the left had everything
to lose in the general disillusionment while La Stampa said the left
ran the risk of disappointing an ever more sceptical country.
--
Row over german goverments plan for holocaust memorial.
BONN, Dec 14 (AFP) - The German government is to propose its own
plan for a Holocaust memorial in Berlin in a bid to end a
decade-long controversy over the monument, the minister of state for
culture, Michael Naumann, said here Monday.
Naumann told a press conference that the project, which has the
support of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and will be discussed by
parliament next year, would house a Holocaust exhibit, a library and
a research institute.
The scheme has also won support from Washington, he added.
But Ignatz Bubis, a leading representative of German Jews,
attacked the scheme, saying it had "lost any connection with a
memorial."
The government plans to build the project on land already set
aside for a memorial near Berlin's Brandenburg Gate proposed by
American architect Peter Eisenman.
Eisenman will be consulted and in fact talks have been scheduled
with him for Saturday in Berlin, Naumann added.
He stressed that discussions on the project and the financing
were continuing.
Naumann said Eisenman's planned project -- a labyrinthine
structure including 2,500 concrete pillars at a two-hectare
(five-acre) site -- would be merely a place of reflection, and not a
true memorial.
The minister had previously criticized Eisenman's plan, which
was backed by former chancellor Helmut Kohl, as being on a
monumental scale that smacked of Nazi-style architecture.
Alongside Bubis' comments that the new plan would not be a
fitting memorial, journalist Lea Rosh, who first proposed the Berlin
memorial in 1988, told Tuesday's Tagesspiegel newspaper that Naumann
"should be honest and say, 'we don't want to erect a monument to the
Jews.' "
Meanwhile, a public opinion poll released Monday said that
almost one out of two Germans thinks there is too much talk about
the Holocaust.
According to the poll for ZDF television, 42 percent of 1,275
people surveyed felt there was too much talk while 13 percent felt
not enough attention was paid to this subject.
The 52 percent of others felt the level of discussion was the
right one.
As for building a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, 47 percent were
for and 46 percent were against.
--
Clinton to decide on U.S. spy (Pollard).
JERUSALEM (AP) -- President Bill Clinton on Sunday promised a
prompt decision on whether to free Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S.
Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the
mid-1980s.
Clinton noted he had promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu that he would look into Netanyahu's request for leniency
for Pollard, who is serving a life sentence. The review is to be
completed in mid-January.
``I have instituted the review that I pledged to the prime
minister, and we've never done this on a case before, but I told
him I would do it, and we did it,'' Clinton said.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Netanyahu, the
president said he had instructed White House counsel Charles F.C.
Ruff to check with all relevant intelligence and security agencies
for their opinions. Clinton said he would also weigh the opinions
of Pollard's supporters, ``and I will make a decision in a prompt
way.''
``We are giving everyone time to present their comments, and I
will get comments on both sides of the issue, evaluate it, and make
a decision,'' he added.
Netanyahu said while he was not excusing Pollard's behavior, he
feels a release is in order because Pollard had been in what
amounted to solitary confinement for 13 years.
``It's a very, very heavy sentence, and since he was sent by us
on a mission ... we hope that on a purely humanitarian appeal a way
will be found to release him,'' Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu said his appeal was not meant to be political or to
exonerate Pollard, but ``merely to end a very, very sorry case that
has afflicted him and the people of Israel.''
David Bar-Illan, a top aide to Netanyahu, said Pollard's case
did not come up in formal talks between Clinton and Netanyahu on
Sunday, although aides said they were not aware of what was
discussed in the leaders' private session.
Bar-Illan said Pollard's deeds did not warrant the harsh
sentence he got. ``We feel it is missing the quality of mercy and
is unjust is that sense,'' he said.
Pollard's supporters claim the U.S. intelligence community is
exacting revenge on Pollard, noting that other spies have been
released after serving shorter terms.
Shouting ``Free Pollard,'' about 30 demonstrators gathered
outside the home of Israeli President Ezer Weizman while he met
with Clinton. Two members of Israel's parliament were among the
demonstrators.
Successive U.S. administrations have turned down Israeli
requests for Pollard's release. After years of claiming that
Pollard was part of a rogue operation run without the government's
knowledge, Netanyahu's government recognized Pollard as an Israeli
agent and granted him citizenship. He has since been visited by a
number of top officials.
In October, the Pollard case led to a crisis in the Wye River
Mideast summit. On the last day of the summit, Netanyahu demanded
Pollard's release as a condition for release of Palestinian
prisoners from Israeli jails. He had hoped to fly home with Pollard
on his plane, a move that would have helped him sell the Wye accord
with his right-wing coalition partners.
However, the proposal met stiff opposition from U.S.
intelligence officials, past and present, and CIA Director George
Tenet reportedly threatened to resign if Pollard went free.
A U.S. official confirmed last week that information Pollard
handed over included a top secret 10-volume manual used by the
National Security Agency to tap foreign communications and protect
U.S. communications from intercept.
--
China arrests four trying to smuggle human cargo to the U.S.
HONG KONG, Dec 11 (AFP) - Chinese authorities have arrested four
people attempting to smuggle 72 illegal immigrants to the United
States on board a ship, it was reported Friday.
The four were arrested on Wednesday together with immigrants as
they waited for passage to the ship on an island off Liangjiang in
the eastern Chinese coastal province of Fujian, the China-backed Ta
Kung Pao said.
The island was one of several collection points along the
Chinese coast before the immigrants were due to be smuggled on board
the US-bound ship. No further details were given.
The arrests were made as US immigration authorities on Thursday
broke up a large-scale alien-smuggling ring believed to have brought
3,600 Chinese men into the United States through Canada since 1996.
--
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed
a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research
and educational purposes only.