US president-elect Senator Barack Obama’s victory earlier this month has provoked a rise in hate crimes against ethnic minorities, civil rights groups said on Monday.
Hundreds of incidents of abuse or intimidation apparently motivated by racial hatred have been reported since the election, though most have not involved violence, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.
White supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Council of Conservative Citizens have seen a flood of interest from possible new members since the landmark election of the first black president in US history.
“We have seen a fairly dramatic backlash over the last three or four weeks, since the final weeks of the campaign,” said Mark Potok of the Montgomery, Alabama-based center, which monitors far right groups.
“These [incidents] are merely gut level reactions from a lot of people,” Potok said. “There is a substantial subset of white people in America who are boiling angry over this.”
In the highest-profile case, a federal grand jury indicted Jeffrey Conroy, 17, for second-degree murder and classed it as a hate crime last week after Marcelo Lucero of Ecuadoran descent was stabbed to death on New York’s Long Island.
Six other teenagers face lesser charges in the case. All pleaded not guilty. Police said last week the seven youths set out to find and attack Latinos.
About a quarter of black Americans live in poverty — nearly three times the rate for whites — at a time when rising budget deficits and expensive corporate bailouts are going to leave little federal money for anti-poverty programs. The federal budget deficit is likely to hit a record US$1 trillion next year.
Black adults are more likely than whites to be in prison. Homicide is the leading cause of death among black males ages 15 to 34 — and it has been for years.
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
Czech intelligence chief Michal Koudelka has spent decades uncovering Russian spy networks, sabotage attempts and disinformation campaigns against Europe. Speaking in an interview from a high-security compound on the outskirts of Prague, he is now warning allies that pushing Kyiv to accept significant concessions to end the war in Ukraine would only embolden the Kremlin. “Russia would spend perhaps the next 10 to 15 years recovering from its huge human and economic losses and preparing for the next target, which is central and eastern Europe,” said Koudelka, a major general who heads the country’s Security Information Service. “If Ukraine loses, or is forced
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
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