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Reports from the Other New York:
Bronx Ambulance Was Slow, and Chase to Close Four Branches in Low and
Moderate Income Tracts
Byline: Matthew R. Lee
BRONX, NY,
May 18 -- On the Bronx' Prospect Avenue just south of 183rd Street,
near-riot conditions existed between 6:20 and 7 p.m. on Wednesday night.
Shots rang out, and 16-year old Dominick Hanley was shot in the chest. A
crowd formed; a police car came. Some ran toward the scene, and some ran
away, north on Crotona Avenue. Dozens of teenagers gathered inside the
jail-like fence that surrounds the housing project at 2311 Prospect
Avenue. A police officer shouted at them to move back. A white t-shirted
teen yelled back, "We have a right to be here!" Others in the crowd
began to scream about the lack of an ambulance. Finally, officers were
seen carrying the shot 16-year old to a squad car.
In the day since, city officials including Fire Commissioner Nicholas
Scopetta
have stated
that the ambulance arrived about seven or eight minutes after the call
came in. This reporter was on the scene just after the shots rang out;
well over eight minutes elapsed and still no ambulance came. More and
more police cars came, speeding up Crotona Avenue with sirens wailing,
and still no ambulance. The detailed questions being asked -- including
here -- about the timing of calls for an ambulance, and its actual
arrival, should be answered forthwith by the Fire and Police
Departments. The mood on Prospect Avenue was raw, even before seven p.m.
when Dominick Hanley was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. But
the events by the fence of 2311 Prospect are among the reasons for the
rawness, and must be addressed.
An architectural aside: why is there a tall, jail-like fence in front of
this and other housing projects? It was part of the problem on Wednesday
evening in The Bronx.
Over the past weekend, 18-year old Samantha Guzman was shot and killed
in front of 1240 Washington Avenue in The Bronx, a new housing
development during the construction of which a workman
fell to his death on
the sidewalk below. In 2006 New York, Bronx life is too cheap...
 Teens
in better times (UN)
In economic news, JPMorgan Chase has today for the first time specified
that it has identified in low- and moderate-income census tracts four of
the Bank of New York branches it seeks to acquire "which are located
close to a JPMCB branch." This is essentially code language that these
four low-income branches would be closed if the acquisition is approved.
JPM Chase's statement, in a May 18 letter responding to
Fair Finance Watch's
April 17 and May 6 comments
to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, declines to provide
the addresses of these four branches and the 46 other branches, some
surely adjacent to low-income tracts, which the letter projects would be
closed. Developing...
Sample
reports from the United Nations
Human Rights Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department
Spins from SUVs
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May 9
-- For the new Human Rights Council, the
voting
went to a second then third run-off ballot. Denied a spot in the final run-off
was Slovenia, whose president has spoken to near-empty rooms at the UN about
his Darfur peace plan.
Edging the Slovenes were Romania and Ukraine, despite its recent deportation of
asylum-seeking from Uzbekistan. In better-known rights abuse news, many in the
media focused on records of some of those elected -- Cuba, Russia, China, et
al. -- while the UN true-believers pointed out that Sudan and Zimbabwe
didn't run.
Inner
City Press, which spent much of the day in a fruitless stake-out in front of the
General Assembly entrance, focused on a more marginal storyline, literally at
the bottom of the page like a footnote. In the Office of the Spokesman for the
Secretary General -- which did not hold a noon press conference, apparently to
prepare for the Condi-fest reported on below -- there was a hand out listing by
region the countries elected and those which got less than the 96 votes required
for inclusion. Several countries were listed as receiving a single vote: Spain
and Colombia, Malvides and Qatar, Serbia-and-Montenegro, Tanzania, Madagascar
and Egypt. What was the explanation? Would headlines ensue, Qatar excluded due
to human rights abuse? In the alternative, were these stray votes a signal of
protest? Or merely of negligence and inattention?
We're
betting on the latter. As pointed out to Inner City Press by Spain's Information
Counselor Faustino Diaz, "Spain was not a candidate in today's vote. Therefore
it must have been a mistake of a delegation to write its name in the ballot."
Spain's Mr. Diaz added, "We are considering our candidacy for 2008." Bonne
chance!
 Human Rights Council vote
In the driveway of
UN Headquarters, a fleet of black SUVs announced the visit of Condoleezza Rice.
She came to confer with the so-called Quartet, on how and if to allow any
funding to the West Bank and Gaza. There followed a five p.m. press conference,
from which the Russian foreign minister left early. In the aftermath Javier
Solana was surrounded by reporter, and the
UN's Alvaro de Soto,
channeling not his economist brother Hernando but rather ex-NYSE Dick Grasso,
briefed reporters by the doorway. Further inside, a self-described senior U.S.
State Department official (henceforth the "SUSSDO") talked cocky about the
effect of barring all dealings with the Palestinian Authority.
Asked by
Inner City Press whether the new funding mechanism sketched by the press release
read out by Kofi Annan would involve or require any amendment to the
U.S. Treasury Department's block-order,
SUSSDO smirked and acknowledged that there are some "overseas" concerned that is
they touch any funds to or from the Palestinian Authority, they'll run afoul of
U.S. banking laws. "But you have to remember," said SUSSDO. "We have these
sanctions for a reason." SUSSDO continue on to estimate that only 20 to 30
percent of the employees of the Palestinian Authority actually show up to work,
"especially among those added on in the last month." Alvaro de Soto estimated
that the Palestinian authority has from 140,000 to 170,000 employees, security
making up 70,000 of these. Mr. de Soto declined to answer Inner City Press'
questions about U.S. Treasury Department regulations, saying "I'd have to check
with my lawyer." Famous last words...
Footnote, 9 p.m. --
an unscientific poll of United Nations late-night cleaning workers elicited
frustration that the day's Condi-hoopla centered not on Darfur. An articulate
5-to-12 cleaner who is from the Sudan opined that UN blue helmets are neither
wanted nor needed in Darfur; "they'll only lead to more problems," he said.
There were tales of the freight elevator which carried up and down Ms. Condi
Rice's paraphenalia from her meeting with Annan. The SUVs and armed guards gone,
the UN building's graveyard shift proceeded...
Child Labor and Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird
Flu
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May 4
-- As the level of threats regarding Iran continues to rise, at UN Headquarters
many issues fall to the side. Child labor, for example. At a ten a.m. press
conference attended by precisely one journalist [full disclosure deemed
unnecessary], Maria Arteta of the International Labor Organization released a
report
documenting among other things that the raw number of child laborers in Africa
rose in the past four years. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 26% of children ages
five to 14 are at work.
The lone
attending reporter inquired into an African specific: the use of child labor in
cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast and Ghana, and the alleged involvement of
Archer Daniels Midland, Nestle and Cargill. Teenagers from Mali have sued the
three companies, asserting that they were trafficked to harvest cocoa for or to
the benefit of the three named companies (the last two of which are members of
the
United Nations Global Compact).
Ms.
Arteta responded among other things that these companies
"need to think about how do they establish
controls of their supply chain...
They do need to respond to this accusation
They do need to investigate
They do need to find out
And they do need to have steps to put
these controls in place... [so that their] supply chain is free from child labor
and other exploitation."
Immediately following the ILO briefing, Inner City Press posed written questions
to two officials at the Global Compact, asking for a response by mid-afternoon:
"what comment does
the Global Compact have on the allegations and lawsuit against Global Compact
members Cargill and Nestle and the idea that these companies, and other Global
Compact members facing child labor-related allegations, need to address the
issues and that the Global Compact should provide guidance, and provide
transparency into what both it and its members are doing in this regard?"
 Ms. Arteta answers on
Nestle
This was
also raised by Inner City Press at the OSSG noon briefing. At 4 p.m. the Global
Compact's always-polite media relations officer said "we're still working on
some answers." Inner City Press asked for some by five or even six o'clock, but
no response from the Global Compact was forthcoming by six-fifteen. An inquiry
thereafter by the OSSG was followed, at 6:35, by the following response, which
in fairness we quote here in full:
"All Global Compact
participants are expected, within their sphere of influence, to work towards the
implementation of GC principle five, namely the effective elimination of child
labour. The ILO and UNICEF, among others, are very active in this field and have
guidance materials and other efforts aimed at achieving this goal. Some
information about what companies can do is also available on the Global
Compact's
website.The Global Compact advocates use of a performance model, which is
designed to provide practical guidance to companies on how to improve their
performance with respect to all ten principles. As a voluntary initiative, it is
neither our practice nor within our power to express opinions about the
situation of individual companies, including with respect to lawsuits that they
may be facing. Nevertheless,transparency is a core value of the Global Compact,
and we use the means available to us in order to increase the quantity and
quality of information for stakeholders on companies' progress in implementing
the Global Compact principles. To this end, the Global Compact requires that
participants communicate annually to their stakeholders on progress made in
implementing all ten principles, including principle five on child labour. Links
to these communications can be found on the Global Compact website. Moreover, in
the spirit of the Global Compact's emphasis on dialogue and learning, we
encourage and promote dialogue between Global Compact participants and those who
raise matters relating to their implementation of the Compact's principles. We
therefore hope that the parties concerned will engage in constructive dialogue
to resolve this matter as early as possible."
While that's a
bit much to unpack at press time, the raising of these matters has been not only
in litigation, and in a shareholders' resolution this Spring at the chocolate
company Hershey's, but now (full circle) at the ILO's briefing on May 4 (here
in UN summary;
here
in Real Media) -- this is an ongoing beat.
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
The Silence of
the Congo and Naomi Watts; Between Bolivia and the World Bank
Human Rights
Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins
from SUVs
Child Labor and
Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu
Press Freedom?
Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security
Council
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Background Checks
at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from
Turkmenbashi's Single Book
Ripped Off Worse
in the Big Apple, by Citigroup and Chase: High Cost Mortgages Spread in
Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds
Burundi: Chaos at
Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated
by Forty Until 4 AM
In Liberia, From
Nightmare to Challenge; Lack of Generosity to Egeland's CERF, Which
China's Asked About
The Chadian
Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the
Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come
Through the UN's
One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations,
Even Nuclear Areva
Racial
Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks
Mine Your Own
Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the
Paparazzi
Human Rights Are
Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still
Murky
Iraq's Oil to be
Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear
At the UN, Dues
Threats and Presidents-Elect, Unanswered Greek Mission Questions
Kofi, Kony,
Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala
As Operation
Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if
Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Cash Crop: In
Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in
their Camps
The Shorted and
Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't
Add Up
UN Reform:
Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance
Contract
In Congolese
Chaos, Shots Fired at U.N. Helicopter Gunship
In the Sudanese
Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says
Empty Words on
Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Abkhazia:
Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
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lending, consumer protection, money laundering, mergers or the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), click
here for Inner
City Press's
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