Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/333998278?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Silicon Valley Trailer Park Residents Fight To Stay
Palo Alto middle school student Jennifer Munoz Tello (right) stands outside her family's trailer in Palo Alto with her mother, Sandra, and 2-year-old sister, Cynthia.
Eric Westervelt/NPR
Palo Alto middle school student Jennifer Munoz Tello (right) stands outside her family's trailer in Palo Alto with her mother, Sandra, and 2-year-old sister, Cynthia.
Eric Westervelt/NPR
Sunny Palo Alto, Calif., is awash in multimillion-dollar homes, luxury Tesla electric cars and other financial fruits from a digital revolution the city helped spark. The Silicon Valley city is home to Stanford University, at least eight billionaires, and one mobile home park.
Now, Buena Vista Mobile Home Park — one of the largest and one of the few remaining affordable housing options here — is threatened with closure. The owners want to sell the land to a developer who plans to build luxury apartments for the high-tech corridor's growing workforce. The park's low-income, mostly Latino residents are fighting to stay in their community and to keep their kids in one of California's best school districts.
The fight shows the less-publicized underbelly of Silicon Valley's incredible successes: unequal access to education, and the marginalization of some low-income workers.
A Good Education
"Most of us don't really know where we'd go" if the park closed, says 28-year-old Erika Escalante, who grew up at Buena Vista and now lives in a mobile home there with her husband and 6-year-old son. "With rents in Palo Alto, it's just impossible," she says.
Quality public education is the main reason many of the park's residents are fighting to stay. The Palo Alto schools rank sixth among more than 1,000 districts in the state, and test scores for all ethnic groups have regularly exceeded statewide averages.
Escalante was the first in her family to graduate from college. Her sister and brother are now following her lead. Escalante's dad worked as a janitor. She says he moved the family to Buena Vista largely because of the schools.
"He felt like we were getting the best education that he could possibly offer to us," Escalante says. "I mean, we know that historically Hispanics are kind of disadvantaged. There's that big education gap. And to be able to have access to that education, I mean, you can't put a price there. We want to be able to succeed, you know, kind of like that American dream. Education is a big part of that."
An Airstream To Call Home
Buena Vista is home to more than 400 predominantly low-income residents, more than 80 percent of them Latino.
Ringed with a jumble of potted plants, a silver '70s-era Airstream trailer has been home to Jennifer Tello for most of her 12 years.
"My mom works cleaning houses, and my dad works construction," she says. Jennifer's mom is busy getting food for her baby sister before heading off to work. Jennifer says her parents struggled to find a place in the Bay Area that's safe, affordable and has quality schools.
"They're really good schools. My mom works really hard, and so does my dad. Sometimes they don't have enough time to spend with us. I'm really happy that they're really hard working. And they encourage me to work hard, so I [could] have a better job," she says.
The park's owners, Toufic and Eva Jisser, have petitioned the city of Palo Alto to close shop. They want to sell the land to Prometheus Real Estate Group, which wants to build 180 luxury apartments on the site. "My client has a constitutional right to exit the rental business," says Margaret Ecker Nanda, the owners' lawyer. Prometheus officials declined to comment.
Erika Escalante is a program coordinator for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She grew up in the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park and now lives there with her husband and 6-year-old son, Andre Xavier Bracamontes.
Eric Westervelt/NPR
Erika Escalante is a program coordinator for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She grew up in the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park and now lives there with her husband and 6-year-old son, Andre Xavier Bracamontes.
Eric Westervelt/NPR
The Value Of Diversity
Jennifer Tello attends a nearby middle school. "I don't want to move and start all over and find new friends," she says.
The PTA, the school board, and some parents have taken action to back the park's residents. They've offered supportive resolutions, organizing space, and their time. Nancy Krop, a civil rights attorney, is one of those parents. She says diversity, fairness and justice are at stake.
"I want every child to have the opportunity that my son's going to have — and that I had," Krop says. These kids at Buena Vista "want the world, and know they need a Palo Alto education to get it."
Krop says she was attending a City Council meeting when one Buena Vista mother spoke up. "She mentioned that she made a living cleaning other peoples' houses. And she asked the City Council to please allow her family to keep their home at the mobile home park because she felt that if her daughter went through the Palo Alto schools, her daughter would not grow up to clean other peoples' homes," says Krop. "I was really struck by that."
Krop's fifth-grade son attends nearby Barron Park Elementary, where 35 percent of the students are Latino and about half the students are learning English. She says the benefits of that diversity are key for her family in a city that is incredibly affluent and still mostly white.
"My son has gone on play dates to homes where he found out his friend didn't have a bedroom. His friend sleeps on a couch. He didn't even know that that was how some kids grow up. You learn what they don't have; you learn the richness of what they do have too — the strength of their community and culture and heritage," she says.
Trying To Stop The Sale
The residents are asking the city to help stop the sale. They point out that city planning documents list the mobile home park as a key source of affordable housing and "encourages its preservation." But ultimately, that may not mean much legally. Palo Alto city attorneys say the mobile home park is not counted as part of a regional affordable housing plan required by the state.
The city has twice rejected the owners' application to close the park, largely due to incomplete details in its relocation benefits package. "There is recognition of the desire to preserve the park," says city spokeswoman Claudia Keith. But with soaring private property values in Silicon Valley, she says there may be little the city can do. The park's residents can appeal any final decision the city makes to an independent hearing officer.
The Buena Vista residents' group, with help from legal aid and affordable housing organizations, offered to buy the property for $14.5 million. The owners rejected that offer.
The owners' attorney Margaret Nanda says her client has every right to cash in on booming property values and retire. The owner was offered more than $30 million for the 4.5-acre lot. "He is not a social agency or a nonprofit. He's a private business operator who wants to sell his property," she says.
Nanda says her client will compensate tenants fairly under city law, but equivalent quality schools are not part of that package. "There is absolutely no right to a Palo Alto education under the [city] ordinance" for converting a mobile home park, Nanda says. "The ordinance says they are to be relocated to comparable housing. And then the ordinance references a number of things, but education is not one of them."
'Squeezed' By Rising Housing Costs
Amado Padilla, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, has teamed up with the medical school to study the education, housing and health care challenges the Buena Vista residents face. Padilla notes that the residents' struggle highlights a less-discussed part of the valley's thriving high-tech economy: It's driving tremendous job growth, but surging housing prices are forcing more and more working people to the margins.
"Just like police and firemen and also teachers cannot afford to live in Palo Alto, these people could not afford to live in Palo Alto if it were not for places like the mobile park home. Our service workers are getting squeezed in all kinds of directions because of the tech fields in our areas," Padilla says.
Silicon Valley is particularly hard hit by sky-high housing prices. But the problem is serious across large swaths of America's most populous state. New research by the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford says that rising housing costs are pushing more families into poverty. According to the center's new California Poverty Measure, 22 percent of Californians are in poverty.
At a recent potluck dinner celebrating diversity at the Barron Park school, a few blocks from the mobile home park, kids, parents and teachers ate, talked and heard songs and performances.
It's clear the Buena Vista residents are not going away silently. With few resources of their own, they are vowing to fight to stay in the community — and schools — that they love.
But this may all come down to the hard reality of money: Buena Vista residents pay about $700 a month in rent. Palo Alto's average monthly rental is nearly four times that amount. And the average home price here is edging up to nearly $2 million.
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Wall Street Week Ahead: Debt-ceiling battle may overshadow earnings
By Ryan Vlastelica
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock investors, hoping to leave politics aside to focus on fundamentals, aren't going to get their wish yet as lawmakers battle over raising the debt ceiling.
Proof that political uncertainty was holding down markets was seen on Thursday and Friday as the S&P 500 generated two days of strong gains in advance of the weekend.
Legislators will be busy negotiating raising the $16.7 trillion federal borrowing limit and reopening the federal government. If the borrowing cap is not increased by October 17, it could lead to a U.S. debt default.
The government has been partially shuttered since October 1. The shutdown has lasted longer than many expected, and while proposals from both President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans have been viewed as signs of progress, a final agreement remains elusive.
When not worrying about the government shutdown, investors will dive into the first busy week of third-quarter results, led by bellwethers General Electric Co (GE), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS), and Google Inc (GOOG).
"If we see a deal over the weekend, the market will trade back to where it was before all this concern settled in, near all-time highs," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Boston. "Otherwise we'll probably fall back to 1,650, possibly further, depending on how rancorous the disagreement is."
INCREASE IN VOLATILITY
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is above its major moving averages, which could serve as support in the case of a market decline. The benchmark index is 0.9 percent above its 50-day moving average of 1,678.22, and 1.8 percent above its 100-day average of 1,662.53.
Many analysts have forecast increased volatility the longer the market goes without a deal. The CBOE Volatility index (^VIX) spiked this week above 20 for the first time since June. Trading in VIX futures suggested more concern about the near-term market trend as well.
Data showed investors were willing to pay more for protection against a slide in the S&P 500 now than three months down the road. On Wednesday, the spread between the VIX and 3-month VIX futures briefly hit its lowest since late 2011 at around negative 2.
That condition reversed on Thursday when the market rallied sharply, but traders remain on guard against another jolt of volatility if Washington politicians emerge from the weekend without any progress.
The indexes' weekly performance was mixed. Late in the session on Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) rose 0.5 percent, the S&P added 0.2 percent and the Nasdaq (^IXIC) fell 1.1 percent, pressured by selling in some of its best performers this year, including Netflix (NFLX) and Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA).
While most analysts said a default on U.S. debt would be catastrophic for the economy, they also said it was highly unlikely that a deal would not be reached.
Ken Fisher, who oversees $49 billion at the Woodside, California-based Fisher Investments Inc, said there was a "maybe 0.0001 percent chance" the debt ceiling would be breached.
"People have been saying that things are different this time, but Washington is just a distraction for markets, simple as that," Fisher said. "If a default was possible, you would see bond prices fall through the floor. Eventually you have to stop listening to the people crying wolf."
Notably, investors in the short-term Treasury bill market are preparing in case of a missed or delayed payment. Yields on bonds maturing from late October through the end of 2013 are at elevated levels as investors shun those issues as a result of the default threat.
EARNINGS HEAT UP
Next week is a busy one for corporate earnings. Results and outlooks from banks may be the most important, as investors look for companies' comments on how the shutdown may affect growth and the impact of higher interest rates. Among the early indications, Wells Fargo (WFC) said revenue from home refinancings fell to its lowest level since the second quarter of 2011.
"The shutdown will impact earnings growth some, but I expect the negative effect will likely be small," said Fisher. "We're clearly still in the middle phases of a bull market."
S&P 500 companies are expected to post earnings growth of 4.2 percent in the quarter, down from the 8.5 percent rate that had been forecast on July 1, according to Thomson Reuters data. Of the 31 S&P components that have reported thus far, about 55 percent have topped expectations, below the historical average of 63 percent.
While some government-prepared economic data will be delayed next week because of the shutdown, including consumer prices and housing starts, those still scheduled include the New York Fed manufacturing survey and Philadelphia Fed survey, both for October.
Monday is Columbus Day and a federal holiday. Stock markets will be open but the U.S. government, of course, will remain shut.
(Additional reporting by Angela Moon and Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-week-ahead-debt-193711722.html
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Lawmakers, Obama sound uncharacteristically hopeful
A postponed high-stakes meeting at the White House. A rescheduled closed-door gathering of Republican senators. Leaders of the bitterly divided Congress ducking into each others' offices. President Barack Obama, behind a table of bologna sandwiches, pressing lawmakers to forge an 11th-hour deal to spare the fragile economy from a potentially catastrophic debt default.
And from the chaos, growing optimism about a possible deal — even though it may just set the weary country up for another confrontation in only a few short months.
With the partial government shutdown entering its third week and the United States due to slam into the congressionally set debt ceiling in just days, top lawmakers and Obama sounded uncharacteristically hopeful Monday about an agreement to get back to business and avert a default.
Two Democratic Senate aides cautiously described the emerging deal as including a debt-ceiling hike that would last until Feb. 7 or 15, 2014, providing enough money to keep the government open until mid-January, and securing a commitment from all sides to launch comprehensive negotiations on the nation's finances.
Those broader budget discussions would not take the form of a supercommittee. (That ship has sailed — and sank.) Instead, negotiators from the Senate and House would meet to hash out differences on the budget — a “conference,” as called for under regular congressional procedure when the two chambers disagree. The conference would target an agreement by mid-December.
Democrats hoped those broader discussions would lead to some sort of compromise that would avert the next round of automatic, across-the-board “sequestration” spending cuts due to take effect in January.
Amid the frantic negotiations, the White House scheduled a 3 p.m. ET Oval Office meeting between Obama and the top GOP and Democratic leaders in Congress — then postponed it indefinitely, saying the president hoped to give lawmakers more time to reach a deal.
Senate Republicans encountered their own scheduling snafu, first calling a 5:45 p.m. ET closed-door conference to discuss the possible agreement, and then putting it off until Tuesday to accommodate lawmakers not yet returned from their district.
Obama staged a photo-op visit to a local food bank, posing in a green apron with kids and furloughed government employees — and facing a symbolic struggle of his own, as polarized Washington leaders struggled to seal the deal.
“The Ziplock’s not zipping,” the president said, wrestling a sandwich into a plastic bag.
Obama told reporters that he hoped to use the White House talks to gauge “whether this progress is real.”
“And you know, my hope is that a spirit of cooperation will move us forward over the next few hours,” he said. The meeting was postponed not long afterward.
The postponed meeting would have included Republican House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Vice President Joe Biden was also due to attend.
The U.S. Treasury says the government will hit its debt ceiling Thursday, running out of the authority to borrow money to pay for existing programs and risking a debt default that experts warn will send shock waves through the fragile global economy.
“Not only is it untenable for us to continue this shutdown — this week if we don't start making some real progress both in the House and the Senate, and if Republicans aren't willing to set aside some of their partisan concerns in order to do what's right for the country, we stand a good chance of defaulting,” Obama warned. “And defaulting would have a potentially devastating effect on our economy, sending interest rates shooting up, [and] people — whether Social Security recipients or people with disabilities or small-business people who are vendors to government — not getting paid on time.”
“We've already had a damaging effect on our economy because of the shutdown,” the president added. “That damage would be greatly magnified if we don't make sure that the government's paying its bills, and that has to be decided this week.”
Reid and McConnell have been working behind the scenes to cobble together a deal, and a bipartisan group of 12 senators has been doing the same. Ultimately, though, the question is: How will the House GOP respond, with time already running short?
"We're getting closer," Reid told reporters after he met privately with McConnell.
The Republican leader agreed: "We’ve had an opportunity to have some constructive exchanges of views on how to move forward. I share his optimism — we will get a result that will be acceptable to both sides."
Several other lawmakers have sounded optimistic notes about getting a deal done quickly.
“I think we'll solve this problem over the next few days. I think today may be a very good day,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told MSNBC’s "Morning Joe."
But Obama said he would keep pushing Congress “until the details are done.”
And the president appeared to refer to public opinion polls that have shown Republicans bearing the brunt of the blame for a shutdown that their tea party-affiliated rank and file triggered by demanding that the president accept some rolling back of his signature health care law, Obamacare.
“There's been some progress on the Senate side, with Republicans recognizing it's not tenable, it's not smart, it's not good for the American people to let America default,” he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-to-host-top-lawmakers-as-default-looms-160042194.html
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Monday, October 14, 2013
On Montana Reservation, A Mixed Reception For Bisons' Return
A herd of 34 bison, pure of any cattle genes, have been introduced from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana.
Dan Boyce/Montana Public Radio
A herd of 34 bison, pure of any cattle genes, have been introduced from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana.
Dan Boyce/Montana Public Radio
A red pickup rolls into a 1,000-acre pasture of dry grassland on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana. Mark Azure, director of the reservation's fish and wildlife department, is out looking for buffalo when he spots about two dozen of the furry beasts gathering around a watering hole.
The animals are "grazing, wallowing, drinking, checking us out," Azure explains. He says the tribes have been working to see these bison here for years.
"This is their home, this is where they came from," he says.
This small herd of 34 genetically pure bison is roaming northern Montana's high plains for the first time since being nearly hunted to extinction in the 1800s.
The animals come from Yellowstone National Park, home of the last bison known to have no trace of cattle genes. The Fort Belknap Indian Reservation received them through a deal with Montana wildlife officials.
Tribes are hailing the arrival of the bison as a return of something lost and a cause for celebration. But others see the animals as an intrusion.
Leta Calvin, a tribal member who lives at the base of the hill, across the highway from the bison enclosure, owns a small cow-calf operation with her husband. She worries the bison herd, enclosed behind an 8-foot, woven wire fence, could harm her livelihood.
"[If] people find out that we have the cattle here and the bison are next to 'em," she says, "people are gonna be less apt to buy our calves."
That's because of the disease brucellosis — or the fear of brucellosis. It runs in bison and can cause cattle to abort their calves. The illness can pretty much ruin a rancher's business.
These bison, though, have been tested over and over again for years and do not have brucellosis. But Calvin says that doesn't matter — it's the perception that they might.
"People around, they're not gonna listen to all that," she says of the test results.
Mike McCabe, a tribal member who owns a dusty piece of land on another side of the bison enclosure, is also concerned about the new arrivals. He says he's "not confident in that fence at all. ... I'm a poor rancher as it is."
Fort Belknap already has a herd of hundreds of bison with a small trace of cattle genes. Landowners like McCabe, who surround these other herds, have complained for years that the reservation does not properly care for them. They break out, they say, damaging private property and eating hay.
McCabe worries the same thing could happen with the new genetically pure bison.
"If they're starving, I can almost imagine they're gonna try to get through there somehow," he says.
The reservation cut a deal with the state for the pure bison, and if state officials determine the tribes are not taking good enough care of them, they can be taken away.
Tribal officials say they will not let that happen.
Back inside the pasture, Montana State Rep. Clarena Brockie, a Native American herself, is watching the bison gather around the watering hole. When they disappeared from these lands generations ago, she says, so too did many tribal ceremonies and much native culture.
"These are the same bison that were with my ancestors, that helped my grandparents and my ancestors survive," she says.
The tribes and the state will be letting the herd grow over the next few years. At that time, the reservation will have full authority to decide whether to sell the bison for meat or use them for ceremonial purposes.
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Saturday, October 12, 2013
U.S. fiscal negotiations sputter as deadline nears
By Thomas Ferraro and Tim Reid
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional negotiations to end a U.S. fiscal crisis gripping Washington and spooking financial markets hung by a thread on Saturday after bipartisan talks broke down in the House of Representatives and shifted to Senate leaders.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, held an initial session with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. But uncertainty remained about their ability to reach an agreement quickly to end a partial government shutdown and increase the nation's borrowing authority.
Thursday is the deadline for raising the debt ceiling, necessary to avoid a possible government default. The Senate was set to meet on Sunday, but the U.S. House of Representatives was not, so Congress will be cutting it close.
"Economists say it won't be long before financial markets react negatively to this continued uncertainty," Reid said on the Senate floor.
"The life savings of ordinary Americans are at risk."
Among the unresolved issues is the duration of the debt ceiling increase. House Republicans were pushing a boost that would last only six weeks, producing another potential showdown in the middle of the holiday season. Democrats want to push the next debt ceiling deadline at least well into the new year.
Also at issue were government spending levels and Republican concerns about President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, popularly known as Obamacare. Republican demands for defunding Obamacare led to the shutdown on October 1.
Reid and other Senate Democratic leaders went to the White House to confer with Obama in the afternoon, but said nothing to reporters as they left after an hour and 15 minutes.
Lawmakers are also scrambling to put hundreds of thousands of federal employees back to work after their failure to fund the government resulted in the partial shutdown.
Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said the goal was to reach a bipartisan deal in the Senate before financial markets reopen on Monday.
But the road to a deal appeared difficult, as Reid dismissed Republican Senator Susan Collins' plan to extend the U.S. debt limit until January 31 and fund the government for six more months.
That plan had given some moderate lawmakers hopes for a quick compromise, but Democrats said it was saddled with too many objectionable add-ons.
Collins expressed disappointment, but said she remained hopeful "that a bipartisan solution to reopen the government and prevent a default is within our reach."
The "preliminary" Reid-McConnell negotiations - at 9 a.m. on Saturday in Reid's office - were launched one day after Obama rejected a proposal by House Republicans for a short-term increase in the debt limit to November 22.
Democrats warned that such a small increase in borrowing authority would simply lead to another round of bitter confrontations in Congress and could choke off consumer confidence just as the Christmas buying season was starting.
The flurry of action in the Senate came as House Speaker John Boehner informed his fellow Republicans in a private meeting that the White House had rejected its proposals and there likely would be no more ideas delivered to Obama now that attention was shifting to Senate negotiations.
'GOOD MEETING'
Although McConnell initiated talks with Reid, the Republican has maintained a relatively low profile as he faces a tough re-election campaign back home in Kentucky.
"We had a good meeting" was all McConnell would say to questions shouted by reporters in a Senate hallway.
While some senators were hopeful now that Reid and McConnell were negotiating, no clear path to a deal was evident.
"Senator Reid and Senator McConnell are talking to each other for the first time and that's good," Republican Senator Roy Blunt said.
Even if senators craft a proposal to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, at least some Republican support will be needed to pass it in the House. That support is far from guaranteed, especially if the Senate deal does not include any new attacks on the healthcare law.
As Senate leaders tried to craft a deal, many House members headed to their home districts, having been informed there would be no votes before Monday evening.
With every passing day, according to opinion polls, Americans' patience has worn thin with Republican tactics that led to the government shutdown, enhancing prospects of a deal.
"Markets rose on hope for a deal, so markets are likely to fall as reality check alters sentiment," said David Kotok, co-founder and chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors. Kotok said he believed there would be no deal before Thursday, adding, "This fight is a long way from over."
Companies and trade associations have been stepping up their efforts on Capitol Hill as the debt ceiling deadline approaches.
"I was optimistic yesterday morning," David French, the chief lobbyist for the National Retail Federation, told Reuters on Saturday. "I'm a little less optimistic today and so are folks I've talked to" on Capitol Hill.
Retailers are particularly concerned about going into a holiday season with debt ceiling jitters hanging over the economy.
Beyond that, French said: "They're concerned about Washington. They're concerned about the level of dysfunction. Our members do not like lurching from crisis to crisis without hope of a resolution."
Scott DeFife, top lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, said his industry was "extraordinarily concerned with the debt limit."
For his members, he said: "Consumer confidence is critical. Any financial issue like this can really put a damper on activity."
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Diane Bartz and David Gaffen; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Fred Barbash and Peter Cooney)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-republicans-search-deal-u-fiscal-impasse-034151944--business.html
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
Charles Taylor to serve sentence in Britain
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who was convicted for sponsoring atrocities in Sierra Leone, will serve his 50-year sentence in a British prison, Justice Minister Jeremy Wright announced Thursday in a letter to Parliament.
Taylor, 65, is the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone found him guilty in April 2012 of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including terrorism, murder, rape and using child soldiers. His conviction and sentence were upheld at appeal last month.
In his letter to Parliament, Wright called Taylor's conviction, "a landmark moment for international justice." He did not identify the prison where Taylor would be confined.
In the Liberian capital, Monrovia, Taylor's brother-in-law Arthur Saye said Taylor should serve his sentence in Rwanda like other rebels convicted by the Sierra Leone court.
"Mr. Taylor is an African; he's someone who believes in eating his African foods and what have you," Saye said.
"And what happened took place in Africa; yes, they tried him in another country, but why must he be subjected to serve his term in a white man's country?"
Saye expressed fears for the former warlord-turned-president's safety if he is imprisoned in Britain.
The court's president, Judge George Gelaga King, said in a written order dated Oct. 4 and released Thursday that in choosing a British prison he took account of Taylor's family situation and the ability of other possible states to ensure his physical safety.
____
Associated Press writer Jonathan Paye-Layleh contributed to this report from Monrovia, Liberia.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/charles-taylor-serve-sentence-britain-095138830.html
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