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Nigeria: President expresses remorse for army massacre

LAGOS, Jan. 1 (GIN) - At a meeting of local Christian groups, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo publicly apologised for the killing of more than 200 unarmed civilians by the army in Benue State in October 2001.

   The army has been accused of several mass killings since civilian rule was restored in Nigeria in 1999. Mr Obasanjo is seeking re-election in April and this Sunday faces a former minister from Benue State in primaries for the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP).

   The killing of ethnic Tivs was apparently in retaliation for the abduction and murder of 19 soldiers sent to quash fighting between Tivs and Jukuns, the biggest group in neighbouring Taraba State.

   Human Rights Watch, a New York based rights group, has strongly condemned the Nigerian government for first encouraging, then failing to condemn, the military action.

   "I am sorry, it should never have happened," Mr Obasanjo said.

   Over a three-day period, soldiers entered a series of towns and villages, including Zaki Bam, in Benue State and opened fire on unarmed residents.

The New Year

Did anyone notice that another year is gone? It just sailed by like a light breeze, a little warm, but nothing hanging on, nothing substantial.

Two-zip-zip-two was a hell of a year for me. The breeze that brushed against my psyche knocked me over, knocked me down and then picked me back up again and sailed me off on another adventure.

What I remember…

Well we have been on the verge of war now for more than a year. Just how stressful is that to us on a daily basis? I mean we don’t really talk about it, oh maybe occasionally but if there was research done, what effect does it have on us on some sub-conscious level?

Do You Have a Story to Tell about Lack of Health Coverage?

Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio (UHCAN OHIO) needs your help. During March 10-16, 2003 UHCAN OHIO will be supporting Covering the Uninsured Week. This is a major national project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and sponsored by a coalition of diverse national partners (see the list below) . Lack of health insurance is a dilemma facing 41 million Americans. Over 100,000 of them live right here in Franklin County. UHCAN Ohio is committed to making Covering the Uninsured Week a major opportunity to educate the public about the crisis of health care coverage, but UHCAN Ohio needs your help.

During Covering the Uninsured Week, community events will be held to focus attention on the problems faced by uninsured Americans. Also, newspapers and radio and TV reporters will be interested in talking to people without health insurance. These events will only be as strong as the people who contribute their stories of lack of coverage to the events. IF YOU LACK HEALTH COVERAGE OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO DOES and are willing to tell your story please contact Kathleen Gmeiner. You can reach her at (614) 443-2845 or

South African broadcaster to keep CNN but may add Al-Jazeera

JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 1 (GIN) - Initial reports that the South African Broadcasting Corporation would drop CNN for Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Persian Gulf news network well known for broadcasting videotaped messages from Osama bin Laden, have been denied by the SABC.

   However, Al-Jazeera could be added to the line-up.

   SABC spokesperson Ihron Rensburg said the broadcaster was looking at a range of options.

   "The main objective is to provide viewers with the widest range of news as it happens." Under review, said Rensburg, was CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera and Sky News.

Money, Politics and an Upper Middle Class Suburban High School

Money and politics form the basis of the average Upper Middle Class Suburban High School. Money has always equaled power. When it comes to judging, all that seems to matter to people is whether you have it or not. The fact is, the more money one has, the higher the chance of fitting in. Money can even be it’s own parameter in establishing cliques.

While fitting in is probably one of the biggest pressures felt by my peers, especially females, it isn’t on my list of things to deal with on a day to day basis . To some, high school is all about “status”. Conformity is what everyone is seeking. Without the right clothes, cars, or friends, it’s quite hard to establish one’s “status” in the “popular” group. On the other hand, there are those who seem to strive to be the exact opposite of a “conformist”. Some students buy into the idea of being different just to prove that they are above the pressures of fitting in. This kind of person is no less a sell-out than people who do whatever they can to prove they are part of the in-crowd. No matter where one is in the conformity spectrum, it’s all based on the same people’s standards.

City Green

When I joined the Greens it was 1991(or some time around this date) because of the value system the Greens were working on at the time. The Ten Key Values is what made me believe that this movement can succeed where others have failed. Why did I feel this way? Ten years of Voodoo and Deep do-do(Reagan and Bush) had bushed me to the brink of just tunning out everything having to do with baby boomers and their fucked up way of avioding socail responsibility for screwed up policies. The generation that had seen the coming of age of several movements pretended for all of the eighties and part of the nineties that the issues of racism, gender, and class were the burden of some "others", but certainly not theirs. There is alot more I could go on about but the point is that in the mist of all this madness the greens looked a whole lot better than what was currently available.

Media Year 2002, R.I.P.

It's impossible to adequately sum up any year, and 2002 is probably more difficult than most to grasp. Bursts of militaristic fervor bracketed the 12 months, which began in the terrible aftermath of 9/11 with the United States waging a fierce war in Afghanistan. Now, an even larger war against Iraq seems about to begin.

We can try to remember the nonstop avalanche of media that came between New Year's Day and late December, but most of it is forgettable -- if we're lucky. This is a more or less constant problem in our lives as we avail ourselves of daily mass communications. Whether the medium is television, radio, print or the Internet, the vast majority of what passes before our eyes and gets into our ears is not worth remembering.

The end of a year lends itself to introspection and reminders of mortality. We don't have time to waste, and we may fear that we're wasting it anyway! An old TV Guide or a pile of yellowing newspapers is testimony to the brief shelf-life of media sizzle.

There's no doubt that the new media technologies have opened up

What the hell will they do to us next?

AUSTIN, Texas -- I got out the quote-box for today's column, on the theory that we could all use a little more insight and humor at this season than one measly journalist can provide. I suppose you could call this a cheap column, but I prefer to think of it as sharing some of the gifts of 40 years of reading with you. Happy holidays to all.

Margaret Thatcher cited this tablet from ancient Egypt as a model of bureaucratic brevity: "Apollonius to Zeno, Greeting. You did right to send the chickpeas to Memphis. Farewell."

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people." -- Abraham Lincoln in the Illinois Legislature, January 1837.

Rep. Emmanuel Cellar would intone: "Consistency is like a stagnant pool. It breeds vipers in the mind."

"Any idiot can face a crisis: It is this day to day living that wears you out." -- Chekhov.

"Neither charm nor patience nor endurance has ever wrested power from those who hold it." -- Frederick Douglass.

Do You Have a Story to Tell about Lack of Health Coverage?

Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio (UHCAN OHIO) needs your help. During March 10-16, 2003 UHCAN OHIO will be supporting Covering the Uninsured Week. This is a major national project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and sponsored by a coalition of diverse national partners (see the list below) . Lack of health insurance is a dilemma facing 41 million Americans. Over 100,000 of them live right here in Franklin County. UHCAN Ohio is committed to making Covering the Uninsured Week a major opportunity to educate the public about the crisis of health care coverage, but UHCAN Ohio needs your help.

During Covering the Uninsured Week, community events will be held to focus attention on the problems faced by uninsured Americans. Also, newspapers and radio and TV reporters will be interested in talking to people without health insurance. These events will only be as strong as the people who contribute their stories of lack of coverage to the events. IF YOU LACK HEALTH COVERAGE OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO DOES and are willing to tell your story please contact Kathleen Gmeiner. You can reach her at (614) 443-2845 or

After Gore

What an irony! In the opinion of many, it was a Third Party candidate, Ralph Nader of the Greens, who doomed the Democratic candidate in 2000 and ensured victory for George Bush. Just over two years later, that same candidate, Al Gore, all but guaranteed there will be a third party challenger in 2004, maybe even Ralph Nader.

On Sunday, Dec. 15 of this waning year, Al Gore announced that he was no longer a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2004. He'd come to that conclusion, he said, in the green room at NBC's studios in New York, waiting to go on "Saturday Night Live." Liberated from the burden of candidacy, Gore duly put on one of the better performances of his career in public life.

So why did he stand down, and what does his exit portend in the political battles ahead?

When Gore took his stance against the attack on Iraq he was parting ways with a group that has underwritten his political career these past 30 years, a group among whose prime features has been unswerving advocacy of the most hawkish Israeli positions, as expressed by Gore's tutor, Martin Peretz, Harvard fixture and sometime editor-in-chief of the New Republic.

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