Seven Democratic candidates for U.S. president are debating in the historic city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton is facing increased criticism from her competitors. As the televised debate began, second place and third place candidates, Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards, accused Clinton of changing her positions on past issues.

Clinton answered that she has been standing up against Republicans since her Senate career began. She defended her plans for reforming the social security retirement system and for ending the war in Iraq. On Iran’s nuclear program, Clinton said she is against a rush to war. She said Democrats must take strong action to prevent President Bush and Republicans from taking action on their own against Iran. She recommended instead “vigorous diplomacy” and economic sanctions.

Clinton has a large lead in national polls, but a survey released Monday shows a tight race in the state of Iowa, where the first votes will be cast to begin the primary elections. The Iowa caucus is scheduled for January third. A strong showing in Iowa can give a candidate momentum in subsequent state contests.

Source: VOA News

We are happy to announce that we will be covering the 2008 Presidential Election in our new series, “Our Coverage“. In “Our Coverage” we will examine the presidential candidates, political parties and give up-to-date and relevant news on the election and issues that affect us.

If you have any topics or issues you would like Clutch to cover on the election, candidates, or parties please email us at ourcoverage@clutchmagazine.com or just leave a comment!

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Don Cheadle had no trouble giving a convincing performance in his latest movie. He stars as himself. Cheadle is one of the subjects of the documentary “Darfur Now,” which the 42-year-old actor hopes will draw attention to the genocide in Sudan that has killed an estimated 200,000 civilians and displaced 2.2 million more. “I do think that it’s unfortunate that it does take quote unquote celebrity to bring attention to this,” says Cheadle. “This is the 21st century’s first genocide, and it’s happening right now and that’s not enough to lead off [the newscasts]?

“That still has to go behind Britney losing the kids to Kevin Federline and Paris Hilton going to jail and ‘America’s Next Top Model’ and ‘So You Think You Can Dance’?” Filmed from January to May of this year, “Darfur Now” - which Cheadle co-produced with “Crash” producer Cathy Schulman - follows six people around the world who are trying to help end the three-year civil war. For his part, Cheadle joined fellow “Ocean’s Eleven” star George Clooney to meet with government officials in China and Egypt to lobby the Sudan’s two biggest trading partners to step in. “Hopefully, people, if they’re inspired, will realize that they can do something more than nothing,” says Cheadle.

Ted Braun, the director of “Darfur Now,” which opens Friday, says Cheadle fit right in with other subjects like Hejewa Adam, who lost her 3-month-old son in the violence. “The way I saw [Cheadle] and wanted to present him to audiences was a guy who has kids who is seeing something happening in the world that he doesn’t understand, that horrifies him, and he’s trying to do something about it,” says Braun. Cheadle first started trying to do something about it after filming 2004’s “Hotel Rwanda” - his role earned him an Academy Award nomination - when he was invited to Darfur as part of a congressional delegation. “I don’t think I can change everything by myself,” says Cheadle. “I just have to stand up for those things that I told myself are important things to stand up for.”

Source: New York Daily News

The portraits of her predecessors line the hall of her new office: women for the most part, in their 50s and all white. An austere group that will soon be spiced up by the exotic face of Norway’s first black cabinet minister, Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen. The 44-year-old from the French overseas department of Martinique is also the first person of foreign origin to join the ranks of a Norwegian government, after Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg last week appointed her minister of children and equality. Her appointment has ruffled the feathers of some in Norway, in particular among the far-right Progress Party.

Ramin-Osmundsen, who was granted a Norwegian passport earlier this month, was immediately accused of allegiance to a “foreign power”, of not being aware of the real problems ethnic minorities face even though she has lived in Norway for 16 years, and of failing in a previous public appointment. Sitting on the edge of the sofa almost apprehensively, as though she has yet to take ownership of her new office, Ramin-Osmundsen welcomes her visitors with a broad and easy smile. Her former colleagues say that she can be authoritarian, a characteristic that sets her apart in a country that is accustomed to flat hierarchies and consensus.

The mother of three children and married to a native Norwegian, Ramin-Osmundsen has long since adopted the customs and traditions of her new home. She has been seen celebrating Norway’s national holiday wearing a ‘bunad’, the traditional national costume, and enjoying the country’s pristine nature by hiking in the mountains under rugged conditions. “I have three identities: Martinique, France and Norway,” she says. Ramin-Osmundsen comes from a comfortable background. Her father was an engineer, her mother a hospital director, and she grew up in Martinique and Paris.

Moving to Oslo:
After earning a PhD in law from Sorbonne University in Paris, she moved to Oslo in 1991 to join her husband Terje Osmundsen, a former government adviser. Norway had at the time just begun to open its doors to immigrants. “I was the object of a certain curiosity. It didn’t bother me, in the sense that I’m able to shake off the little things that are a bit annoying and just look forward,” she says. In the beginning she held down various small jobs, and Norway’s rejection of European Union membership in a 1994 referendum dashed her hopes of seeing her law degree recognized in her new home. Instead, she turned her focus to the fight against ethnic discrimination, and founded the Center Against Ethnic Discrimination in Oslo which she headed from 1998 until 2002.

She was later appointed to top positions at Norway’s Directorate of Immigration, and held the top job for several weeks before she was pressured to leave in May 2006 after a scandal involving residency permits that were granted to Iraqi Kurds against the government’s instructions. In her new job as a minister for the Labor party, she will be in charge of implementing a new Norwegian law that requires publicly listed companies to have at least 40 percent women on their boards of directors as of January 1, 2008. She also hopes to change Norwegians’ perception of immigration, to make it a “positive phenomenon”. “When you arrive in a country, you arrive with your heart,” she says. “Every country really has something to gain from stimulating and using its newcomers in a positive way because they arrive full of hope.”

Source: Turkish Daily News

By Karin Brulliard This is what love has done to Wendy Brown: She’s lost weight, resumed smoking and all but decided to move to the Balkans to be with her Albanian fiance. And each night, she spends hours in her cozy Baltimore apartment mingling online with strangers who are equally fixated on the same topic: getting their soul mates through the U.S. immigration system.

“We are both devastated,” Brown, 38, wrote last spring on VisaJourney.com, reporting that the U.S. Embassy in Albania had denied her fiance a visa. She also posted a list of the questions the fiance was asked at his interview. “I’m going to keep fighting and fighting until we get what we both want more than anything in the world. . . . and that is to be together.” Many people are frustrated with the immigration process and its long lines and opaque applications that, if misinterpreted, can send a case back to square one. Perhaps none are more ardent than the growing ranks of U.S. citizens applying for fiance and spouse visas, who say their passion is driven by a sense that their own government is fighting them and by the fear that delays or denials might spell the end of a romance.

In recent years, these American petitioners have channeled their despair into a few Web sites featuring the odd pairing of love stories and red-tape navigation for those fed up with the federal immigration agency’s help line, whose representatives are trained in immigration regulations and provide scripted advice that critics say is often wrong.

VisaJourney, a site whose 35,000 members are mostly Americans with foreign fiances and spouses, is at once a celebration of love and a condemnation of bureaucracy. Members, who call themselves VJ’ers, describe meeting their beloveds in Kenyan bars, Jamaican churches, online video games. They have posted thousands of photos of smiling couples in foreign lands. Their profile pages are adorned with beating hearts, clocks counting the hours since their last meetings and such statements as “feels like eternity . . . without him.”

Members also post detailed timelines with dates of approved and denied forms and interviews; moderators crunch those into graphs of average wait times at domestic visa offices and overseas embassies. They rank U.S. immigration offices with stars as if they were restaurants. They advise one another on procuring police records for an Ecuadorean fiance and how much proof of a relationship — photos, love letters — a hopeful British fiance should cart to an interview. (As much as he can carry, one member advised, adding “knock ‘em dead.”)

“Misery loves company,” said Brown, a vocational rehabilitation specialist. “You’re looking for any beacon of hope.” That company has grown alongside a jump in these visas: Nearly 33,000 fiance visas were issued in 2005, up from about 9,000 in 1995. Spouse visas rose to more than 16,000 from about 4,600 since 2000. Immigration officials offer no single explanation for the growth, but some observers say the Internet — with its online dating sites, instant messaging and Web cams — has fueled transnational relationships.

Uniting in the United States is not so easy. The petitioner files numerous forms and documents that are typically processed within six months, longer than for many other non-family visas. Next come background checks. Then the application goes to a U.S. embassy or consulate, where the fiance or spouse submits more forms and is interviewed. The process can take months or years. VisaJourney members list a host of complaints: Those on the East Coast are enraged about what they call a recent slowdown in approval times, which they zealously track. They condemn U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ recent announcement that it was prioritizing employment and citizenship cases after a summer surge in work visa applications.

“People who aren’t born-and-bred American citizens are taking precedence over American citizens. . . . The government is talking about, ‘Let’s legalize the illegal aliens’ when you’re waiting for your loved ones to get here. What happened to family first?” said Faith Keenan, 43, of Ruther Glen, Va. She applied for a visa for her Egyptian fiance four months ago. She said she thinks about her pending application “all day long. It consumes you.”

(Continue Reading…)

Millions of Cubans have been to the polls in elections to choose more than 15,000 municipal council members. It was the beginning of a process that will culminate in delegates electing a new National Assembly next March. The assembly will then choose the Council of State, which President Fidel Castro has led since the early 1960s.

These were the first elections since Mr Castro temporarily handed over power to his younger brother, Raul, for health reasons over 14 months ago. The communist government in Cuba describes its electoral system, which was enshrined in the constitution of 1976, as one of the freest and fairest in the world, where almost anyone can be elected to a municipal council or national assembly seat. However, critics like the US and the EU, along with dissidents on the island, disagree. They say the electoral process in Cuba is merely a cosmetic democratic exercise, which has no place for government opponents, as it is fully overseen by the country’s ruling Communist Party.

95 Percent Turnout
Raul Castro has been in charge for nearly a year. This latest round of municipal elections was expected to see as many as 95% of voters on the Caribbean island turn out. The poll has been given added significance because it is the first since Raul Castro took over as acting president in place of the 81-year-old Fidel at the end of July last year.

Since then, the status quo has reigned in Cuba and there has been no sign that the country’s ruling Communist Party has lost any of its hold on power. Cuban media said Fidel Castro cast his ballot at the secret location where he is recovering from intestinal surgery.

US Sanctions
The transition of power from Fidel to his brother came about despite predictions to the contrary from Washington and the leadership of the Cuban exile community in Miami. But in a sign that it recognizes its system is one primarily governed by aging revolutionaries, the Communist Party urged young Cubans to stand for municipal council seats in the hope of pumping younger blood into the government’s aging political structure. On Wednesday, US President George W Bush is due to unveil what the White House calls new initiatives to help Cubans push for democracy.

Source: BBC News

By: Gavin Prins TV talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey had tears in her eyes as she asked parents to forgive her for alleged abuse at her girls’ school here. “I’ve disappointed you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” Oprah told parents at an emergency meeting in a packed marquee tent on the school premises.

The TV talk-show queen has visited her school at Henley-on-Klip near Vereeniging at least twice in the past few weeks, after allegations that one of the matrons fondled a girl and that other pupils had been physically abused. Oprah gave the girls her personal telephone number, her e-mail address and her postal address so that they could contact her at any time, day or night.

Apart from the matron apparently involved, Oprah sent the principal, a Dr. Mzimane, and at least one other matron on leave two weeks ago. Only the principal was on paid leave. A parent told Rapport on Saturday evening that the abuse had visibly upset Oprah. She had felt guilty because she had trusted the principal and the matron.

Oprah has laid a charge
“I trusted her (Dr Mzimane). When I appointed her, I thought she was passionate about the children of Africa. “But, I’ve been disappointed,” Oprah said in tears last Saturday. The father of one of the pupils had responded by telling Oprah: “It’s not your fault. We don’t blame you.” “You trusted them. You have more passion for the school and its existence than anyone else in this country, including us parents.”

Oprah gave parents the assurance she would do everything possible to ensure that those who had been guilty of abuse would be dealt with. Rapport newspaper has disclosed that the queen of chat personally laid a charge with the police against the matron concerned. Oprah’s “daughters” have accused Dr. Mzimane of failing to take action, although the girls had often complained of being grabbed by the neck, beaten and thrown against a wall, and being sworn at.

Source: South Africa - News 24

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes to an end we here at Clutch want to remind you to continue to support products that help raise money for research and spread awareness about Breast Cancer. It’s important because Breast Cancer affects our mothers, sisters, and best friends. This disease knows no boundaries—so we have to continue to search for treatments and for a cure.

For the last Must Have Monday feature of October we want to highlight a product that not only delivers a perfect shine for your lips, but also donates to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Sephora Brand’s BCA Super Shimmer Lip Gloss in Forever Pink is a holographic shimmer that is perfect for almost every skin tone. ($10, sephora.com) Best of all Sephora is donating $1 from the sale of each Super Shimmer Lip Gloss in Forever Pink to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! You can feel good pulling this gorgeous shimmer out of your clutch every time you put it on, knowing that you and Sephora are helping to fight the war against this disease!

HOUSTON - The city’s school system has fired a police officer for creating and distributing a “Ghetto Handbook.” The eight-page booklet, handed out to other police officers at a May roll call, said the definitions it contained would allow readers to speak as if they “just came out of the hood.” It was subtitled “Wucha dun did now?”

Gang investigator Roby Morris, 34, had worked for 11 years at the Houston Independent School District before being fired this past week, according to an investigation report released Friday. He had been on paid leave since August. “This incident represents an egregious violation of our standards of conduct and decency,” said school district spokesman Terry Abbott.

Morris told investigators he made the booklet to get back at one of his bosses. He also pointed out he is married to a black woman and that they have three children together, according to the report. Morris could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.

Source: MSNBC

A man wrongly accused of being an illegal immigrant may have been singled out just for being black, an Equality Commission spokeswoman has said.

Frank Kakopa has been paid £7,500 after the Immigration Service wrongly held him in prison for two days. Mr. Kakopa, originally from Zimbabwe, was on a short break with his wife and young children in 2005, when he was stopped at Belfast City Airport. He had proof he lived in England but was still strip-searched and jailed. His work manager had also confirmed both his legal residency and employment position.

Eileen Lavery from the Equality Commission said she had concerns over why Mr. Kakopa was singled out and held in Maghaberry Prison near Lisburn, as he had “an enormous amount of documentation”. “Why pick on him? Other than I think because he is black,” she said.

Mr. Kakopa, a structural engineer, said the experience still haunted him. His family were left at the airport and Mr. Kakopa said he had no idea what had happened to them. “They wouldn’t allow me to make phone calls - I was actually detached from the world,” he said. “I did not know where my kids were taken to. “It is still difficult to believe that what was supposed to be a relaxing break for my family turned out to be our worst nightmare.

“I was locked up with convicted criminals, having committed no crime, while my wife and young children were left abandoned at the airport of a strange country worrying about where I was and how I was being treated.” The Equality Commission took on the case alleging false imprisonment and discrimination.

In an out-of-court settlement, the Immigration Service admitted false imprisonment and apologized to Mr Kakopa and his family. They also agreed to discuss their practices with the Equality Commission. The Home Office said in a statement that it did not comment on individual cases.

Source: BBC News

From actress Sanaa Lathan to Georgia State Supreme Court chief justice Leah Ward Sears, many African-American women attribute much of their success to having a positive father figure.

In Daughters of Men, author Rachel Vassel has compiled dozens of stunning photographs and compelling personal essays about African-American women and their fathers. Whether it’s a father who mentors his daughter’s artistic eye by taking her to cultural events or one who unwaveringly supports a risky career move, the fathers in this book each had his own unique and successful style of parenting. The first book to showcase the importance of the black father’s impact on the accomplishments of his daughter, Daughters of Men provides an intimate look at black fatherhood and the many ways fathers have a lasting impact on their daughters’ lives.

For more information or to purchase Daughters of Men: Portraits of African-American Women and Their Fathers please visit www.amazon.com or www.rachelvassel.com

Some of the heaviest fighting in months has broken out between Ethiopian forces and local insurgents in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

Some of the heaviest fighting in months has broken out between Ethiopian forces and local insurgents in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. Residents said that at least 10 people had been killed amid shell and machine-gun fire as the Ethiopian forces launched an offensive. Somalia has seen a surge in violence since Ethiopian-backed government troops ousted Islamists last December. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the fighting.

Elders’ appeal
The BBC’s Africa editor Martin Plaut says the latest clashes began after Ethiopia moved reinforcements and a convoy of 20 tanks and armoured cars into the city late on Friday. One of the vehicles was hit by a landmine and exploded. Early on Saturday the Ethiopians fanned out of their barracks and fighting erupted. The forces targeted areas of the city occupied by militia who are remnants of forces loyal to the ousted Union of Islamic Courts.
Insurgents are reported to have captured and ransacked a police station. They later retreated chanting “God is great”, witnesses said. Local resident Ismail Osman told the Reuters news agency: “Ethiopian troops and insurgents are fighting in every alley.”

The Ethiopian forces have since reportedly returned to barracks, but heavy artillery fire has continued. A worker at one of Mogadishu’s main hospitals said many people had been brought in suffering from gunshot and shrapnel wounds. Local elders described the Ethiopian offensive as a genocide and have appealed to the international community to intervene.

Some 1,600 Ugandan troops are also in Mogadishu as part of a planned 8,000-strong African Union force to support the interim government. Somalia has been without an effective government since the civil war began in 1991. The UN says some 400,000 people have fled the violence in Mogadishu in the past four months.

Source: BBC News

By Dana Rubinstein - The Brooklyn Paper Behemoth record label Universal Music Group must change the name of rapper Nas’s new album, “Nigger,” or risk losing $84 million in state investments, a Fort Greene assemblyman said this week.

“[They are] profiting from a racial slur that has been used to dehumanize people of color for centuries,” said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D–Fort Greene), a former entertainment industry big-wig. “It is time for Nas and other hip-hop artists to clean up their act and stop flooding the airwaves with the N-word.”

Jeffries called on Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to withdraw the $84 million that the state pension fund has invested in Universal and its parent company, Vivendi. “It’s a staggering amount of money, which at least justifies a review of the appropriateness of the content that is flooding the public,” said Jeffries. Clinton Miller, of Brown Memorial Baptist Church, and Jill Merritt, a founder of the Abolish the N-Word Project, joined Jeffries in his condemnation of the word.

A recent report by state Sen. Antoine Thompson (D–Buffalo) revealed that the New York State Pension Fund has $2.8 billion invested in 16 major entertainment companies, including Time Warner and Disney. That number did not include the state’s investment in Vivendi.

Universal did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for DiNapoli, who manages the pension fund, said that the comptroller “is concerned about this issue and is intending to contact the company and urge them not to release the album.”The fight to quell the use of the controversial term has been gaining ground lately. In February, the Council passed legislation urging people not to use the repugnant racial slur.

Jeffries, who was an assistant general counsel at CBS and a lawyer at Viacom before he was elected last year, is intent on hitting the industry where it hurts. “The [Council made] an important symbolic step, but I’m more interested in the substantive approach of reviewing the multi-billion-dollar investment that the New York State pension fund makes in the entertainment industry.”

Source: The Brooklyn Paper

Genarlow Wilson spent two years in prison for having consensual oral sex at a New Year’s Eve Party. He was 17 at the time — his partner was 15. The encounter was videotaped and prosecutors charged the honor roll student, football star and homecoming king with aggrevated child molestation. “Genarlow Wilson is of an age where the law says he is expected to respect her youthfulness,” Douglas County District Attorney David McDade said in a “Primetime” interview last year.

After Wilson was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, Georgia legislators changed the law that landed him in jail. They did not, however, make the new law retroactive to Wilson’s case. “I was shocked. I just knew my life was over,” Wilson said on “Primetime.”

Today, however, the Georgia Supreme Court said Wilson’s crime “does not rise to the level of adults who prey on children.” The court overturned the sentence, calling it “grossly disproportionate to the crime.” State legistalotrs applauded the court’s decision. “I said all along that the sentence that this kid received for having a consensual relationship was cruel and unusual. It was harsh punishment,” Georgia State Sen. Emmanuel Jones said. The case has always been about much more than age or consent — it was also about race. Wilson is black and his sex partner is white.

“The good thing about this case is that at least it resolves the issue for Genarlow Wilson for the moment,” said Charles Ogletree, a professor at Harvard Law School. “But the fact that we continue to have these incidents remains for me a problem in trying to achieve racial justice in America.” Today represents a victory for Genarlow Wilson, but some like Ogletree say it’s also a reminder that we still have a long way to go.

Source: ABC