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August 16, 2012

  • NASA Plans Second Mars Mission

    NASA Plans Second Mars Mission Human mission set for the 2030s Charles F. Bolden, Jr.

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  • An Innocent Man Tries to Rebuild His Life

    An Innocent Man Tries to Rebuild His Life Sedrick Courtney, who spent 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, has been exonerated as a result of DNA evidence.

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  • Jackson is Being Treated for a Bipolar Disorder

    Jackson is Being Treated for a Bipolar Disorder U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., is being treated for a bipolar disorder, officials of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., announced on Monday.

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  • Mississippi Has the Most Obese Residents

    Mississippi Has the Most Obese Residents Here are the states of fatness The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Monday that 12 states have very high obesity rates and that African Americans really need to step away from the table. The 12 states, where at least 30 percent of the adult population is obese, are: Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. Mississippi, which is home to the nation’s largest black population, has the highest adult obesity rate.

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  • Fisk to Share Stieglitz Art

    Fisk to Share Stieglitz Art Fisk University has received a payment of $30 million as part of an agreement to share the Stieglitz Art Collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark.

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  • FAMU to Provide Alternative to Band Performance During Halftime

    With its famous Marching “100” band prohibited from participating in this season’s football halftime shows, officials of Florida A&M University said they will provide alternative entertainment.

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  • Report: Schools Suspend Black Students at a High Rate

    Report: Schools Suspend Black Students at a High Rate by Frederick H. Lowe As students prepare to return to class for a new school year, a major university has released a blistering report that paints African Americans as poster children for out-of-school suspensions.

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  • Miss. District Runs School-to-Prison Pipeline

    Miss. District Runs School-to-Prison Pipeline The U.S. Justice Department on Friday reported that Meridian, Miss., operates a school-to-prison pipeline in which police arrested black students and jailed them for minor infractions such as dress-code violations.

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  • Report: Sikh Temple Shooter Was a Skinhead

    Report: Sikh Temple Shooter Was a Skinhead Wade Michael Page, who shot and killed six members of the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin before turning the gun on himself, was a member of the Northern Hammerskin, one of the oldest, most-violent and most-dominant skinhead organizations in the United States, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

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  • Albert C. Freeman, Jr., 78

    Albert C. Freeman, Jr., 78 Albert C. Freeman, Jr., an actor and Howard University professor has died, university officials recently announced. He died Aug. 9. He was 78 years old.

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  • Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte, 78

    Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte, 78 Dr. Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte, a scholar of the African diaspora and black migration, died July 30 in a Maryland assisted-living center, where he had lived for the past two years after suffering a series of strokes.

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  • NYC Police Kill Man in Times Square

    New York City Police shot and killed on Saturday a knife-wielding man with a history of mental problems in Times Square. Police fired 15 shots at Darrius Kennedy, 51, hitting him at least seven times before he died.

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  • Defensive Player of the Year Kicked Off LSU Football Team

    Defensive Player of the Year Kicked Off LSU Football Team Last year’s Heismann Trophy finalist Tyrann “Honey Badger” Mathieu has been dismissed from the Louisiana State University football team for violating school and team rules.

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  • SuperPAC Calls President Obama a Bigot

    by Zenitha Prince (TriceEdneyWire.com) - A new SuperPAC has launched an ad campaign that accuses President Barack Obama of supporting racist behavior against whites.

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  • The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

    The NorthStar’s Week in Black History August 16 through August 22 August 16 1963 ----- The U. S. Postal Service offered for sale on this date a postage stamp, featuring the image of a broken chain, issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

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  • Romney Picks Ryan, Creating an All-White Male Team

    Romney Picks Ryan, Creating an All-White Male Team Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has selected Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, creating an all-white-male team, which looks like an anachronism in the age of diversity.

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  • NAACP Gives Ryan All 'Fs'

    NAACP Gives Ryan All 'Fs' The "Comeback Team" Is the "Thowback Team" (TriceEdneyWire.com) - U. S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who has received consistent Fs on the NAACP Civil Rights report card, is Republican Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president.

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  • Advocates Will Appeal Photo-ID Ruling

    Advocates Will Appeal Photo-ID Ruling by Frederick H. Lowe Voting-rights advocates said they will appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court a lower court decision upholding the commonwealth’s restrictive voter photo-ID law.

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  • Police Release “Re-enactment” Video

    Police Release “Re-enactment” Video The video is designed to back their claim that handcuffed man shot himself in the head Jonesboro, Ark.

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Flag of Guinea-Bissau
Flag of Guinea-Bissau

Drug Trafficking Explodes in 'Coup-Prone' Guinea-Bissau

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from GIN

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – A massive drug trade in the West African coastal nation of Guinea-Bissau is worrying world leaders at the United Nations. An international summit is being considered to see how democratic rule could be restored to the coup-prone nation.

Military officers overthrew the last president, Raimundo Pereira, on April 12.

About a quarter to two-thirds of the cocaine from South America to Europe passes through West African countries, specifically Cape Verde, Mali, Benin, Togo and Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau, and Ghana.

As reported by the World Drug Report, "The cocaine found in Africa originates mainly in Colombia and Peru and frequently transits through Brazil.”

Francisco Thoumi, a Colombian economist, noted that: “profitable illegal economic activity requires not only profitability, but also weak social and state controls on individual behavior… a society where government laws are easily evaded and social norms tolerate such evasion.”

Much like the deadly Mexican drug trade, traffickers pay for their safety by recruiting policemen, army officers and cabinet ministers to cooperate in the business.

“West Africa is changing more and more from being just a stockpiling place into a hub where cocaine is traded,” said Antonio Mazzitelli, regional representative for the United Nations.

Still, multinational corporations find reasons to do business in the notorious drug trade hub.

Angola, a major investor, has mounted a $500 million project to develop a bauxite mine and a deep-water port, among other projects. Contracts for the nascent offshore oil, gold and phosphate sector are held by Swiss, Chinese and Canadian companies.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its legal economy depends largely on farming and fishing, but trafficking in narcotics is the country's most-lucrative enterprise.

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