• BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley on the foreign policies of U.S. president Barack Obama
• BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon on the FCC proposals to allow "market"pricing for the Internet and it's threat to left political discourse.
• BAR executive editor Glen Ford on "Obama's Most Effective Evil", "causing Black people to behave like white people - or even worse than white people - on issues of war and peace.

Philly Throws a Party for Mumia
Mumia Abu Jamal's hometown turned out for a day-long celebration of the nation's best-known political prisoner's 60th birthday.
High Court Brings Back Old Jim Crow
The U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold a Michigan referendum banning affirmative action "reinstitutes a policy of state's rights that characterized the old Jim Crow," said Shanta Driver, of Detroit-based By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), who argued the case before the High Court.
Socialist Alternative Gears Up to Put Wage Hike on Seattle Ballot
Kshama Sawant, who won a seat on the local city council last year on a wage hike platform, warned 500 delegates to a national 15 Now conference that Seattle's mayor is backing a watered down measure that would delay the increase.
Secret Trade Treaty Aimed at China
President Obama's proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty with 11 Asian and Pacific nations "is shrouded in secrecy because the only way they can pass this is if we don't know what's in it," said Kevin Zeese, co-director of It's Our Economy. Zeese said the pact is linked to a U.S. military encirclement of China.
Minorities to Lose Under Internet Pay-for-Speed Rules
The National Hispanic Media Coalition has weighed in against the Federal Communications Commission proposal to allow big corporations to buy faster speed on the Internet.

Seattle Conference to Kick Off $15 an Hour Ballot Initiative
On April 26th, the 15 Now campaign will kick off a drive to collect 50,000 signatures to put the wage increase on the ballot.

Supreme Court Decision Renders U.S. a "Zombie Democracy"
The recent McCutcheon ruling, which allows the rich to spend virtually unlimited funds on political campaigns, confirms that the "system doesn't really function, it has no internal life," said Ajamu Baraka, an editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report.

Fusion Spy Centers Target Activists
Human rights activists in 7 cities recently protested against U.S. intelligence Fusion Centers that allow local law enforcement and contractors to share information on political dissent.

Black Lives Endangered in Detroit, Chicago, Congo
The crowds that come to hear about the slaughter of six million Congolese since 1996 "the biggest genocide since World War Two" don't make a distinction between what's taking place on the South Side of Chicago, or in Detroit, and what's happening in the Congo, said Maurice Carney, executive director of Friends of Congo.

Blacks and "Bio-Sexual Politics"
David Austin, Montreal-based author of Fear of a Black Nation took part in "Black Folk in Dark Times: A Workshop on Sovereignty, Citizenship and Freedom" at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville.

Haitians Need National Sovereignty Most of All
Framing Haiti as a charity case is insulting and wrong, said Pierre Labossiere, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee. "The kind of support we need is to denounce the repression that has been imposed on the people of Haiti" since the U.S.-backed coup of 2004. Haiti doesn't need handouts, said Labossiere; it needs solidarity in the struggle to resist the foreign "conspiracy to rob the country of its resources."

Black Folk in Dark Times
Black academics and activists gathered at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, for a "Workshop on Sovereignty, Citizenship and Freedom." Organized by Dr. Jemima Pierre, an anthropologist, and historian Dr. Peter Hudson, the event was titled "Black Folk in Dark Times." Author and community organizer Kevin Alexander Gray, from Columbia, South Carolina, looks forward to Barack Obama's exit from the White House, in two years. Under the First Black President, "we bought into this idea of endless war, and we bought into the idea of star chambers where people are denied due process," said Gray, author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics.
Dr. Christina Sharpe, a professor of English at Tufts University, spoke of "ways of seeing and imagining responses to terror in the varied and various ways that our Black lives are lived under occupation." She is author of Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects.
Dr. Maboula Soumahoro, an English professor born in France to Ivory Coast parents, told the gathering that "Afropea, Black Europe, is in the making." "In my view," she said, "Arabs and Muslims, sub-Saharan Africans, Afro-descended people born in France, people from the Caribbean Asians of all kinds, Roma communities and all people of color are all Black" in France. Soumahoro is editor of the acclaimed essay collection, Constructing Black France: A Transatlantic Dialogue

Mumia: A Half-Century of Civil Wrongs
"For the Black bourgeoisie," the 50 years since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act "has been a rush of opportunity and entre into doors once closed to them," said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation's best known political prisoner, in a report for Prison Radio. However, "for the Black poor and working class," mass incarceration has made "civil rights as ancient and distant as Reconstruction."

Cornel West: Integrity is Key to Liberation
"They are closing our schools, they're foreclosing our homes, closing our libraries, closing the factories, closing the post office," said Larry Hamm, president of the Newark-based People'sOrganization for Progress. "They continue to do it, because they have not yet met the countervailing force that can stop them from doing," he told the Bethany Baptist Church crowd. Hamm then directed the question to the evening's speaker, noted public intellectual Dr. Cornel West, of New York's Union Theological Seminary. "How do we build this countervailing force?"

Pressure Mounts on Temple University in Monteiro Firing
Students and community organizations plan a series of actions to protest Temple University's firing of African American Studies professor Dr. Anthony Monteiro. A student walkout is set for this Wednesday and, next week, Philadelphia community groups will march on the campus seeking justice for Monteiro, a fair contract for university employees, and against gentrification of the Black neighborhoods that surround Temple. People recognize that "injustice to the community has gone hand in hand with this injustice to me," said Monteiro. African American Studies chairman Dr. Molefi Asante has resorted to red-baiting to defend his complicity in Monteiro's firing. Asante argues "that I am a radical, that I'm a Marxist, that I'm a socialist and, therefore, I don't fit into his view of African American Studies at Temple," said Monteiro.

Black Preachers Say Marissa Alexander Should Cop a Plea
Calling her case a â distraction,â a group of Black ministers in Jacksonville, Florida, are urging Marissa Alexander, who has already served three years in prison for firing a gun to deter her abusive husband, to plead guilty. Prosecutor Angela Corey is threatening to put Alexander away for 60 years. Opio Sokoni, president of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said Corey and the ministers make â strange bedfellows.â â Some of these pastors are the same ones that said, not too many weeks ago, that Black people should received the death penalty in greater numbers,â said Sokoni.

Moral Mondays Move to Georgia and South Carolina
Nearly 40 people were arrested in demonstrations demanding that southern states expand Medicaid to cover more poor people, in line with Obamacare. Moral Mondays protests, which began in North Carolina, have taken root in Georgia and South Carolina. Author and activist Kevin Alexander Gray said â the poorest of the poorâ are hard to organize. â That group doesnâ t have the financial wherewithal to come to a protest,â he said. â Theyâ re not thinking about a protest, theyâ re thinking about survival.â

Oil and Environmental Racism in Albany, NY
Huge numbers of railroad oil tanker cars are parked only feet from a poor housing project in Albany, New York, prompting fears of an explosion like the one that claimed dozens of lives in Quebec, Canada, last year. â Since the expansion of fracking in North Dakotaâ and elsewhere, â ports have received a lot more oil,â said Vivian Kornegay, an Albany councilwoman. â Weâ re talking about an environmental injustice against low income people living in a housing project,â said Kornegay. â That community hasnâ t been given a voice or any considerationâ in the shale oil fracking boom.

Temple University Firings Bode Ill for Black Studies
â Temple is a pivotal institution for African American Studies, and whatâ s happening there may be a bellwetherâ for other campuses, said Dr. James Turner, founding director of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University. The recent firings of professors Anthony Monteiro and Muhammad Ahmed (also known as Max Stanford) provoked intense opposition in North Philadelphiaâ s Black community, which also blames the university for encouraging gentrification.

Obama, Deporter-in-Chief
President Obama â must be made accountableâ for deporting more immigrants than any other president in U.S. history, said Jesus Iniguez, of Presente, a Latino organization that claims 300,000 members. Obama doesnâ t have much time left to save his legacy, said Iniguez. â The only thing that has evolved these past six years has been more intrusive and toxic lawsâ targeting immigrant communities.

Afro-Colombians Displaced
â The main demand of Afro-Colombians is land,â said Charo Mina-Rojas, director of the Afro-Colombian Womenâ s Human Rights Defender Project. â We have been living for centuries on this ancestral landâ but are often forced out by paramilitaries and government soldiers in service of multinational corporations, she said. Colombia has the largest population of internally displaced persons in the world, most of them Black.

Mumia on the Mother of All Death Sentences
In a report filed for Prison Radio from Frackville State Prison, in Pennsylvania, political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal noted the 528 bulk death sentences imposed by an Egyptian court against members of the Muslim Brotherhood, â a group that has existed longer than Egyptâ s government has been independent. It seems to me the war aintâ over,â said Abu Jamal.

U.S. Guilty in Haiti Cholera Epidemic
The United States "is as responsible, if not more," than the United Nations for the cholera outbreak in Haiti, since "it's because of the military occupation that we have cholera," says Dr. Jemima Pierre, professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville.

Crimea Deserves Self-Determination
Dr. John Quigley, professor of international law at Ohio State University says Crimean "sentiment for separation" from Ukraine "has been very strong for a very long time" and the referendum on secession was not taken "under the gun" of Russia.

U.S. Billions for Ukrainian Fascists, Cuts for Hungry American Children
Washington is offering $10 billion in loan guarantees to the partly-fascist government of Ukraine, while cutting $8 billion in food stamp benefits to Americans, said Sara Flounders, of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC).

Mumia: Police Still Spreading Anti-MOVE Propaganda
The Fraternal Order of Police has orchestrated a renewed campaign of hatred and disinformation against the MOVE organization in order to prevent imprisoned members from winning parole, said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation's best-known political prisoner.

Monteiro Supporters Blast Temple University and Molefi Asante
Hundreds of community, student and labor activists demanded reinstatement with tenure for Dr. Anthony Monteiro, an associate professor in the African American Studies Department.