Houston Leaders Try to Save Historic Site
Black leaders in Houston, walking in the footsteps of three former slaves, are trying to raise enough funds to save the city’s storied Emancipation Park. They are hoping to come up with about $2 million for improvements to the fitness trail, a children’s water park, new tennis courts and a public amphitheatre. The money would also allow for additional staff to keep the park maintained. Roughly 137 years ago, two Black preachers and a local politician, all former slaves, raised $800 – an impressive sum at the time – for 10 acres that ultimately became Texas’ first and only city park for Black people for more than two decades. As crime and neglect have chipped away at the park, city leaders are determined to restore it to a place of historic pride. Dorris Ellis, president of the nonprofit Friends of Emancipation Park Board and publisher of The Houston Sun newspaper, said that the goal is to make it a destination place once more.  “We want it to be a masterpiece,” she told The Houston Chronicle. “We have a wonderful vision. … We’re planning for 50 years, 100 years down the road,” she said. A historically protected landmark, the park opened in 1872 when pastors Jack Yates and Elias Dibble and political leader Richard Allen raised $800 to acquire the land at an interest rate 6-percent higher than White citizens were charged, Ellis said. “The park was the site of Houston’s first Juneteenth celebration and was donated to the city in 1916,” the Chronicle reports. “When Houston segregated its parks in 1922, Emancipation Park was the only facility open to Blacks.”

 
NAACP Chastises the ACC
Defying the NAACP’s boycott against South Carolina – imposed because the state continues to fly the rebel flag on statehouse grounds – the Atlantic Coast Conference awarded its future baseball contracts to the state. ACC leaders agreed last week on Myrtle Beach, S.C., as the tournament site from 2011 to 2013. In a resolution issued Saturday, the century-old civil rights group said that the ACC’s action plan was devoid of dignity, decency and respect.

Obama will showcase his economic team. President-elect Barack Obama is set to introduce his economic team on Monday, including Timothy Geithner, 47, the acclaimed president of the New York Federal Reserve he wants as his treasury secretary and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as commerce secretary, his transition officials confirmed over the weekend. Obama hopes the team can craft an economic-stimulus plan that puts 2.5 million people to work in jobs that would improve the nation’s infrastructure – roads and bridges – and jumpstart green initiatives, such as the building of wind farms, solar panels and fuel-efficient cars. “I’ve already directed my economic team to come up with an economic recovery plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011,” Obama said Saturday before describing the plan as, “big enough to meet the challenges we face.” By some estimates, the plan could cost as much as $700 billion; however, the Obama team says it hasn’t even had time to put the plan the president described in his radio/Internet message Saturday on paper yet. Republican lawmakers on Sunday didn’t totally diss the idea, but said the devil is in the details. Meanwhile, Obama said he hopes to sign a stimulus package into law immediately after taking office Jan. 20, 2008. To be able to do that, some lawmakers want the president-elect and President Bush to sit down now to start work on the stimulus plan. Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, of Connecticut said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday that if the incoming and outgoing presidents don’t put their heads together now, any stimulus package Obama has in mind might not take hold until the second quarter of next year, “and that’s too long.”

Repub. leaders say Obama is “off to a good start.” The top Senate Republican said on Friday that Democratic U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is “off to a good start” with regard to his Cabinet picks and steps he’s taking to ease the financial crisis. He also said Republicans can’t wait to bid President George W. Bush farewell. “Our members, in one way, are kind of relieved by the departure of an administration that became unpopular and made it very difficult for us to compete,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Capitol Hill reporters. Former presidential contender Mitt Romney said on Sunday that he also thinks the Obama team is making the right moves to end the nation’s economic strife.  Obama won the White house and gave Democrats a larger Congressional majority on Nov. 4 in part because of the nation’s widespread disapproval of Bush. Obama, who inherits a global financial crash and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has vowed to work with Republicans to try to overcome the bitter partisan divisions that have stymied Congress.

Blood pressure control could save 8,000 Blacks a year. The lives of nearly 8,000 Black Americans could be saved each year if doctors could figure out a way to bring their average blood pressure down to the average level of Whites, a new study finds. The gap between the races in controlling blood pressure is well-known, but scientists say the resulting loss of life comes as a surprise. The study’s lead author says he believes action can be taken to close the gap, but there is evidence that it will take more than leveling the quality of care between Blacks and Whites. A second article in the same journal found that racial differences persist in blood pressure control in England, despite a national health system that provides equal access to care. The reasons for the racial difference have more to do with poverty and cultural habits than access to medical care, researchers say. Both can prevent people from exercising, eating healthy foods and getting in to see a good doctor. For more on controlling blood pressure, go to BET.com/Body & Soul.

Catholic leaders vow to fight Obama on abortion. The nation’s Catholic bishops are expected to issue a statement Wednesday pledging cooperation with President-elect Barack Obama on numerous social issues but vowing all-out opposition to any law or executive order he may sign advocating abortion rights. The initial draft of the bishops’ statement expressed a “desire to work with the administration” on social issues, such as immigration, economic justice and health care for the poor, highlighting that, “The Church is intent on doing good.” However, “the Church is also intent on opposing evil,” says the next line.

Ugandan man killed because he kept smoking.

In Uganda, a group of people attacked and killed a man because he would not stop smoking, reports the BBC. The incident, which has left local officials in shock, happened in a public bar, where the country has had a ban on smoking for about four years. “I’m really not happy with it. He had broken the law, but they should have taken it to the police for the law to take its course,” saidJohn Okeya, an official in the village where it all happened. While the victim was smoking and drinking at the bar he made “provocative comments” to others who told him to stop smoking before the mob eventually approached him and strangled him to death. Many residents have spoken out against the case of extreme vigilantism, saying the attackers went too far. “These people who killed made a mistake because the law does not say kill a smoker, the law says take the smoker to the authority concerned,” said one resident. However another local said the action was necessary. “He was told to move away and smoke from outside and he refused,” the he said. The police have detained several suspects in the killing.

Zimbabwe leaders already aren’t getting along, reports say. Not too long after holding a press conference where everyone was all smiles, it looks like there’s trouble between the Zimbabwe leaders already. Just days after President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (along with Arthur Mutambara who leads a small faction of the opposition) publicly agreed on a power sharing deal, they are reportedly deadlocked once again on ministry appointments. Sources tell CNN that ZANU-Pf, the party of controversial longtime leader Mugabe wants to control important ministries like defense, justice and home affairs while giving Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change less important ones like correctional services. In the deal signed earlier this week, ZANU-Pf was assigned 15 council ministers and the opposition altogether was assigned 16. Mugabe seemed to have misgivings about the deal very early on. In fact, he told his supporters that the agreement was a humiliation, but that he had to sign it since Tsvangirai gained so many votes in the first round of elections (while Tsvangirai had the majority he didn’t have the over 50 percent needed to secure a victory). And at least one official from the Movement for Democratic Change also had problems with the deal the weekend before it was signed, saying Tsvangirai shouldn’t sign until issues with the ministries were taken care of. Still, he went ahead and inked the deal on Monday.

Wyclef helps Haiti, and there’s model search in Kenya

World Lens: Musician Wyclef Jean pitches in to help Haiti, Zimbabwe leaders are all smiles and the search for is on for Kenya’s next top model. See these pictures and more.

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Police are wondering how he got his hands on that much money.
Nigerian official allegedly spent $4 million on a witch doctor. Nigerian police arrested a government employee for allegedly hiring a witch doctor to kill a fellow employee, reports CNN. Sam Edem, the head of the Niger Delta Development Corporation, was suspended after the local press got word that he allegedly spent $4 million on the witch doctor to hex and kill another official in his agency. Edem wanted him killed because he believed the employee had ill will against him, police say. He also wanted the witch doctor to influence a state governor to give him “juicy contracts,” said a police statement. Edem became upset when none of the things he asked the witch doctor to do actually happened, and demanded a refund which the witch doctor refused to give him. Both police and those in the federal government are trying to figure out how Edem got his hands on that much money to give to the witch doctor in the first place. He, although not available for official comment, has not denied any of the charges against him, according to the government. Since the nation’s independence from Britain in 1960, about $400 billion of the Nigerian government’s money has been stolen or wasted, according to investigators.

Rival Zimbabwe leaders will resume talks later today. This weekend’s power-sharing negotiations between Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai ended without an agreement, reports CNN. But they are scheduled to resume the talks later today. “We have not finished. We obviously have sticking points like in any talks, but we look forward to overcome them,” Mugabe told the press after talks adjourned early on Monday. Tsvangirai did not answer any questions, instead referring reporters to the meeting’s mediator, South African President Thabo Mbeki who also had no comment. In June, following violent weeks which saw people killed and beaten, longtime leader Robert Mugabe was re-elected in a runoff election that many in the international community dismissed as a sham. Tsvangirai had dropped out of the runoff days before voting, saying that he was fearful for his life and the lives of his supporters. Tsvangirai’s party, Movement of Democratic Change, says that 100 of its supporters were killed by members of the president’s political party, Zanu-PF. But just last week, in a written statement, both parties took responsibility for the violence that occurred ahead of the runoff and pleaded with their supporters to stop fighting, reports the news service. “We further reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that the law is applied fairly and justly to all persons irrespective of political affiliation, to take all necessary measures within our power to eliminate all forms of political violence,” the said statement.