Charles Taylor may go free because court is running broke.

by Nelima

An article in the VOA says that former Liberian president Charles Taylor could go free due to insufficient funds for the court proceedings. For those of you not familiar with the history of this story, Charles Taylor is currently in custody at the Hague and on trial by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone’s civil war. According to the article;

Reuters news agency quotes prosecutor Stephen Rapp as saying donations to the Special Court for Sierra Leone are down because of the worldwide economic recession. Rapp says if the court runs out of money, it is possible judges will have to release Taylor.

What is your “sleep number saving”?

by Solange Kolie
Recession-Proof Ideas

Times are hard! So its time to try and get ahead of the game.

The more money you have saved, the less stressful you are about losing a job or house or how the stock market is performing.

African Immigrants to the Rescue?

by Nelima

This is a rare immigration story.  As the economy worsens, immigrants are increasingly seen as a burden and competition for welfare resources, but this story in Newsweek gave a much needed fresh angle of the impact of immigrants on the American economy. Here are some excerpts, but make sure you read the full article.

Barely a decade ago, Lewiston, Maine, was dying. The once bustling mill town’s population had been shrinking since the 1970s; most jobs had vanished long before, and residents (those who hadn’t already fled) called the decaying center of town “the combat zone.” That was before a family of Somali refugees discovered Lewiston in 2001 and began spreading the word to immigrant friends and relatives that housing was cheap and it looked like a good place to build new lives and raise children in peace. Since then, the place has been transformed. Per capita income has soared, and crime rates have dropped. In 2004, Inc. magazine named Lewiston one of the best places to do business in America, and in 2007, it was named an “All-America City” by the National Civic League, the first time any town in Maine had received that honor in roughly 40 years.

Elusive employment opportunities for foreign-trained African Immigrants

by Nelima

 The Star Tribune had a  ’Mega Career Expo’ at the Minneapolis Convention Center yesterday. There where three pavilions, a health care pavilion, a general/professional pavilion and an engineering pavilion.  There were a ton of young job hunters and only FOUR booths in the general/professional area. Verizon Wireless was looking for customer reps, a company called ARAMARK was looking an operations manager and office assistant, AVON was looking for salespeople and the Border Patrol was there too (didn’t know they’d come this far north to hire people).  The health care pavilion was pretty small, though I couldn’t really tell how many booths were in there because they were screening people’s resume at the point of entry; you had to have some experience in nursing. The engineering pavilion had only one booth and they were screening for entry too; you had to be a US citizen. Which means that all those highly qualified American-trained engineering permanent residents were out of luck.  

Economic hardships drive masses to church?

Worshipers in NY church, courtesy of New York Times

by Nelima

I am not overly religious, but I must admit that every once in a while I get an urge to go to mass. Interestingly, when I was younger I went to Catholic schools, sang in the church choir and in high school I was church pianist. Yet somehow after high school that all changed. Long story short, yesterday I finally decided to go to mass after being M.I.A for months. I knew I would not make the morning service so I planned to catch the 5pm mass. All hyped up about mass I wore my ‘Sunday best’ in the morning and prepared to brave cold drive.

Brian Coyle Community Center food shelves lay bare.

In today’s Minnesota Daily there’s an article talking about the diminishing stock of food at the Brian Coyle Center’s metal food shelves. The only thing that’s worse than the dwindling food and money contributions is the increasing demand.

Since July, when Becky Burand took over responsibility for the Brian Coyle food shelf, she’s seen monthly increases in demand.

“September was something like 300 people, October was 400,” she said. “We are seeing two or three new families every day.”

“It’s mostly middle-class people who donate, it’s not the people with tons of money who are giving money to food shelves.” she said. “It’s also the middle class that’s really suffering right now.”

I know the economy is bad and money is tight, but a donation at the Brian Coyle Center would go a long way for the families in need. As most of you know, Brian Coyle serves mainly the Somali community over in the Cedar-Riverside area. Food donations can be dropped off at the center during their business hours as can money donations. Money donations can be mailed in too. For more information contact Becky Burand, who is the basic needs coordinator at (612)876-9324 or by email burandr@puc-mn.org .

 

Vegas Booming

by Ibe

Bad economy? Well that depends on who you ask. Like many things in life, the economy is apparently a seesaw.

When some are down, others are up. In this bad economic times, some business (if not entire industries) are experiencing a boom.

This became clear to me earlier this week when I visited Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world. Conventional belief would have you believe when people don’t have enough for groceries, the last thing they do with their change is gamble. Well, apparently conventional belief is wrong. In fact I heard, in these hard economic times, your neighborhood State Lottery is enjoying record number of players. I guess when people are struggling to fit their life in one and two jobs, they turn to divine intervention. And winning the lottery (or hitting the jackpot) is as divine as it gets. Unfortunately, despair doesn’t know the golden rule that says you can never beat the house. When it comes to gambling (illegal or state sanctioned) for every winner, there are thousands of losers. And more often, today’s winners become tomorrow’s losers. Maybe despair understands perfectly well. But when it’s dark all around, a sliver of light is just as bright as the sun.