Blacks Lose Better Jobs Faster as Middle-Class Work Drops Unemployment among blacks is rising at a faster pace than in any similar period since the mid-1970's, and the jobs lost have been mostly in manufacturing, where the pay for blacks has historically been higher than in many other fields. Nearly 2.6 million jobs have disappeared over all during the last 28 months, which began with a brief recession that has faded into a weak recovery. Nearly 90 percent of those lost jobs were in manufacturing, according to government data, with blacks hit disproportionately harder than whites. At the same time, jobless black Americans have been unusually persistent about staying in the labor force. Having landed millions of jobs in the booming 1990's, they have continued to look for new ones in the soft economy, and so are counted now as unemployed; if they gave up trying to find work, they would not be counted. These two phenomena help to explain why the black unemployment rate, though still not high by historic standards, is rising twice as fast as that of whites, and faster than in any downturn since the mid-1970's recession. Low-wage workers and women who went from welfare to work in the 1990's have largely kept their jobs; factory breadwinners have borne the pain, men and women alike. "The number of jobs and the types of jobs that have been lost have severely diminished the standing of many blacks in the middle class," said William Lucy, president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. In Indianapolis, for example, Autoliv, a Swedish manufacturer of seat belts, is closing a plant and laying off 350 workers, more than 75 percent of them black. Many are young adults who were hired in the late 1990's when the unemployment rate in Indianapolis was only 2 percent and Autoliv, to recruit enough workers to expand production, hired young men without high school diplomas. "They were taken from the street into decent-paying jobs; they were making $12 to $13 an hour," said Michael Barnes, director of an A.F.L.-C.I.O. training program that helps laid-off workers in Indiana search for new jobs. "These young men started families, dug in, took apartments, purchased vehicles. It was an up-from-the-street experience for them, and now they are being returned to their old environment." It is not only the recently hired who are losing jobs. So are tens of thousands of textile workers in the South, many with long tenure, as production in the industry shifts to China and India. Bruce Raynor, president of Unite, the union that represents textile workers, ticked off a few of the more recent losses: 1,000 jobs lost in the last two years as mills closed in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.; another 1,000 in mill closings in Columbus, Ga.; 1,500 lost in the closing of a sweatshirt factory in Martinsville, Va. These workers are mostly black men and women who were earning $11 an hour plus benefits in small towns where other jobs, if there are any, do not pay as well. "This is not like the cyclical downturns in the old days, when you got furloughed for a few weeks and then recalled," said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "These jobs are gone, and that represents a potentially significant slide in living standards." Black employment in manufacturing, once concentrated in the Midwest and Northeast, is now spread across every state as companies have migrated to lower-wage towns and cities. With an increasing number of these companies migrating again, this time overseas in search of yet lower labor costs, the job loss in manufacturing has intensified. Every state has lost manufacturing jobs over the last three years, according to a study by the National Association of Manufacturers. In 2000, there were 2 million black Americans working in factory jobs, or 10.1 percent of the nation's total of 20 million manufacturing workers. Blacks were represented in the overall work force in roughly the same proportion. Then came the recession that began in March 2001; since then, 300,000 factory jobs held by blacks, or 15 percent, have disappeared. White workers lost many factory jobs, too � 1.7 million in all. But because they were much more numerous to begin with, proportionally the damage was less, just 10 percent. These job losses figure significantly in the rise in the unemployment rate among blacks 20 years of age or older. It has gone up 3.5 percentage points since the onset of the recession, while the rate among whites has risen less than half as much, 1.7 percentage points. Most damaging, blacks' share of the remaining manufacturing jobs has slipped to 9.6 percent. "Half a percentage point may not sound like much," Mr. Bernstein said, "but to lose that much in such an important sector over a relatively short period, that is going to be hard to recover." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/business/12RACE.html?pagewanted=all&position=

When Frontier Justice Becomes Foreign Policy �intelligence organizations and military forces, once forbidden from attempts to assassinate foreign leaders by the executive orders of two recent presidents, have now embarked on an open, all-out effort to find and kill Saddam Hussein in a campaign with no precedents in American history. Despite three strikes aimed at Mr. Hussein since the opening night of the American war on Iraq, intelligence officials have conceded that a recent broadcast of Mr. Hussein's voice is probably genuine. A concession that the Iraqi leader remains alive is also implicit in Washington's offer of a $25 million reward for his capture or proof of his death. Since President Bush announced the end of major military operations on May 1, it has become increasingly clear that the Iraq war is not over, that there is a concerted campaign of resistance and that Mr. Hussein remains a formidable foe. Over the last 10 days the chief American official in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, has frequently stressed the importance of capturing or killing Mr. Hussein. The campaign to kill him, frankly admitted and discussed by high officials in the White House, Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, has committed the United States for the first time to public, personalized, open-ended warfare in the classic mode of Middle Eastern violence � an eye for an eye, a life for a life. American officials in the White House and Iraq have argued that Mr. Hussein's survival encourages resistance, and killing him is therefore a legitimate act of war. But the United States has never before openly marked foreign leaders for killing. Treating it as routine could level the moral playing field and invite retaliation in kind, and makes every American official both here and in the Middle East a target of opportunity. Realists may scoff that war is war and that things have always been this way, but in fact personalized killing has a way of deepening the bitterness of war without bringing conflict closer to resolution. In April 1986 President Reagan authorized an air raid on the home of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya that spared him but killed his daughter. The Reagan administration never acknowledged that Colonel Qaddafi, personally, was the target, nor did it publicly speculate two years later that Libya's bombing of an American jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, was Colonel Qaddafi's revenge for the death of his daughter. But the administration got the message: after Lockerbie, Washington relied on legal action to settle the score. It is impossible to know how, or if, Mr. Hussein's supporters will find a way to retaliate for the American campaign to kill the deposed Iraqi leader, but that effort inevitably reopens a long-simmering American argument over assassination, never embraced openly in so many words but never repudiated once and for all. Despite much tough talk of killing enemies since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration still shrinks from using the word assassination, and much of the public continues to oppose it as both dangerous and wrong � dangerous because it commits the United States to a campaign of murder and countermurder, and wrong because hunting people down, however it plays in the movies, excuses murder by calling it something else.� http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/weekinreview/13POWE.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

Court Affirms Bush's Power to Detain Citizen as Enemy A sharply divided federal appeals court today upheld President Bush's authority to detain indefinitely as an enemy combatant a United States citizen captured on the battlefield and to deny him access to a lawyer. The full roster of active judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., voted 8 to 4 to affirm a ruling in January that first found such a right, the administration's most important legal victory to date concerning expansion of its authority since the Sept. 11 terror attacks. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/10/national/10DETA.html

Palestinians Say the Truce Is in Jeopardy By GREG MYRE Palestinians expressed growing frustration today over the pace of talks with Israel, and what they see as Israel's unwillingness to grant concessions, and warned that the current truce could be in jeopardy if progress was not achieved soon on crucial issues like Palestinian prisoner releases and Israeli troop withdrawals. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/10/international/middleeast/10MIDE.html

Net Radio Group Threatens to Sue RIAA Small Internet radio stations, angered over what they say is the recording industry's effort to wield royalty rates as a weapon to drive them out of business, say they are preparing to file an antitrust suit against the Recording Industry Association of America. The Las Vegas-based Webcaster Alliance will send a letter today to the RIAA, threatening to sue the group for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act unless the RIAA agrees to reopen negotiations over the royalty rates webcasters must fork over to artists and record labels, Webcaster Alliance attorney Perry Narancic said. "We're trying to negotiate with these people, but with a big stick," Narancic said. The existing royalty rates structure would force as many as 90 percent of small commercial Internet radio stations to close if left unchanged, Narancic said. The Webcaster Alliance has more than 300 members ranging from tiny hobbyists to small broadcast stations with accompanying Internet sites. The group's members include stations specializing in trance, bluegrass, classical and other genres.� http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31245-2003Jul9.html

Water and Electricity in Baghdad Are Still Below Prewar Levels, Officials Say Two officials overseeing the American-led effort to rebuild Iraq said today that the electricity and drinking water available in Baghdad and some other parts of the country remained below prewar levels. The assessment appeared to run counter to earlier assurances by the Pentagon that the goal levels for improving those services had been or were close to being met in many parts of the country. It also reflects the damage done by looters and saboteurs since the end of major combat two months ago. As the occupation officials in Baghdad warned of tough times ahead, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who led allied forces through the war, stepped down today as head of the United States Central Command. He was replaced by his deputy, Gen. John P. Abizaid, who must now secure the victory in an Iraq where American troops face almost daily attack. In a video conference with reporters at the Pentagon, the two occupation officials in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Carl Strock of the Army and Andrew Bearpark, the occupation's director of regional services, said that electricity in Baghdad was being redirected to other parts of the country even though the lack of power in the capital had been cited as one reason for the continuing violence. Drinking water in Baghdad could be restored to prewar levels by the end of July, the officials said, but they conceded that efforts to treat raw sewage now pouring into the Tigris River were still months away. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/08/international/worldspecial/08POST.html?pagewanted=print&position=

TRUSTe issues privacy ultimatum to Batteries.com. Maier says that the investigation into Batteries.com concluded with the following six findings, all of which constituted violations of TRUSTe's policies. Batteries.com provided personal data to a third party called sungifts.com, an organization that had a relationship with Men's Journal and it did this for marketing purposes. Batteries.com did not obtain approval from TRUSTe. It needs to do that because that sharing of information constitutes a material change to the privacy practice under which the license was granted. Batteries.com did not notify customers that practices were changing in terms of sharing with third party. Such notification is required of all TRUSTe licensees. In transferring its customers' personal identity information (names, email addresses, physical address, etc.) Batteries.com did not honor the preferences of the customers that opted out from receiving marketing communications from batteries.com. (The marketing communication in question is an email that was sent Batteries.com customers that informed them they would begin receiving the publication unless they opted-out again.) Related to item number 4, the opt-out page requires a link to a privacy statement which it did not have. Batteries.com already transferred the personal data outside of its organization to sungifts.com before the opportunity to opt-out was presented. It needs to go the other way around. Maier said she believes, after conducting the investigation, that the violations were unintentional. But, Maier added, it doesn't matter whether the transgression was intentional or not. "Either way, the outcome would have been the same," said Maier. "We issued a notice to Batteries.com that their license would be terminated unless certain action was taken within 20 days." The required remedies in that notice were as follows: Batteries.com must identify those customers whose opt-outs were not honored, send them an apology explaining TRUSTe's role and the requirement that TRUSTe has put on them as a result of the policy violations. Batteries.com must update its list management and other practices to ensure that opt-outs are respected. Batteries.com must update its privacy statement and other disclosures within its user interface (shopping cart, opt-outs opportunities, etc) to reflect its information practices and TRUSTe's program requirements. Once the privacy statement and disclosure step is completed, Batteries.com must announce to all customers the change in its privacy statement and its practices and the role that TRUSTe has played in those changes and announcements. Batteries.com must allow for TRUSTe to conduct an in-house audit and review of their Batteries.com's privacy and information practices. Batteries.com must, at its own expense, have its executives, marketing and customer service staffs attend TRUSTe-taught privacy training sessions. According to Maier, while TRUSTe demands a fee for the training, those fees don't come close to the total expense so far borne by TRUSTe in investigating the matter and in sending its trainers to Batteries.com for on-site training. "Batteries.com has 20 days to do those things that can be done within a 20-day period and to commit to doing those things that will take longer," said Maier. "The company has agreed to satisfy the remedies. But, if for some reason, they don't, then they're out [of the TRUSTe program]." http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2914180,00.html

U.S. Military Trials Displease British Britain has ``strong reservations'' about U.S. plans to try two Britons held at Guantanamo Bay before a military commission, the Foreign Office said Monday. ``We have make clear to the U.S. that we expect the process to meet internationally accepted standards of a fair trial, and we will follow the process very carefully,'' Foreign Office Minister Chris Mullin said, answering a question in the House of Commons. The United States announced last week that two British al-Qaida suspects held at Guantanamo Bay -- Moazzam Begg, 35, and Feroz Abbasi, 23 -- were on the initial list of six suspects who could face U.S. military trial. Relatives of the two British detainees said they feared the trials would be unfair. The government is ``fundamentally opposed'' to the death penalty and would raise the ``strongest possible objections'' if there were any chance of it being applied in these cases, Mullin said. ``We have strong reservations about the military commission,'' he added. ``We have raised and will continue to raise these reservations energetically with the U.S.'' Neither of the British detainees has been charged so far. Opposition Conservative legislator Douglas Hogg, who sought the government statement in the Commons, said the U.S. plans were ``wrong, potentially unjust and gravely damaging to the Americans' reputation.'' Hogg said he was concerned about the plight of the two men, asking if it was correct there was no appeal outside the military process and that the defense team would be chosen by the military. ``What steps have been taken to protect their civil rights?'' Hogg asked. Mullin said ministers shared the concerns of Hogg and others. The two suspects could be charged and prosecuted, but this was not automatic, Mullin said, adding that ministers were still seeking details about how a trial would be conducted and expressing ``very strong views.'' Defense lawyers will be nominated by the Americans ``in some way and we are seeking further information about that too,'' Mullin said. ``Many of these aspects are a cause of concern to us and we intend to pursue all of them.'' http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-US-Guantanamo.html

What I Didn't Find in Africa By JOSEPH C. WILSON 4th Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as charg� d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and S�o Tom� and Pr�ncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me. In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake � a form of lightly processed ore � by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.� I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired. (As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors � they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government � and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.) Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.� I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country. Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case. Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.� http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?pagewanted=all&position=