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(06/18/01 1:31am)
According to a study conducted by the state Family and Social Services Administration, 21.7 percent of tobacco vendors illegally sold tobacco products to Indiana youths last year.\nVarious Indiana state agencies and private organizations are committed to seeing that percentage drop -- they're looking to state funds secured in the nationwide tobacco settlement to help them attack the problem. \nIndiana\'s level of youth smokers is higher than the national average, said Louise Polansky of Indiana\'s Division of Mental Health and Addiction. According to the agency's Web site, the national average of individuals under the age of 18 that use tobacco is 18 percent, while 24 percent of Indiana youth are users.\nRobyn Eley of Smokefree Indiana said it is important to focus anti-tobacco efforts on underage smokers. \n"Once kids start smoking, they're hooked."\nUnderlining this point, Karla Sneegas of the Indiana\'s Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Board stated in a recent press release that "Indiana has the fourth-highest adult smoking rate in the country. It all starts with our youth."\nWhile Polansky would like to see the percentage of tobacco retailers that sell to youth decline further, she emphasized that the 21.7 percent figure for 2000 represented a 6 percent drop from 1999, according to the state\'s annual study.\nPolansky attributed the decline, at least in part, to the state-administered Tobacco Retailer Inspection Program. The agency works with the Indiana State Excise Police to randomly inspect tobacco retailers, checking for non-compliance with the state's youth access laws.\nThe program will benefit from Indiana\'s share of the nationwide tobacco settlement, it was announced last Wednesday. The influx of funds will result in the "stepping up of efforts to enforce state laws," Eley said. \n"The national lawsuit against the tobacco industry, in which Indiana played a major role, was all about stopping the marketing of cigarettes and other tobacco products to youths," Sneegas said. "And the state legislature appropriated $65 million through 2003 to the tobacco board to implement a comprehensive approach to curb smoking in Indiana."\nJim Cushing, manager of The Den, a local convenient mart located on Kirkwood across from Peoples Park, said "we do everything we possibly can to not sell tobacco products to minors." \nIn addition to posting multiple signs stating that they do not sell tobacco to anyone under the age of 18, he said they consistently require identification. Their staff is trained to effectively deal with minors who attempt to purchase cigarettes from them. \nSince he started as manager a few years ago, Cushing said he has witnessed a sharp decline in the number of youths trying to buy cigarettes from The Den as a result of the measures that he has implemented. \nSusan Mulder, an Indiana cancer control specialist with the American Cancer Society, said a comprehensive approach to youth smoking is needed. \n"We need to be doing all that we can to make sure that children do not pick up the tobacco habit," she said. \nThis includes reducing the number of access points, Mulder said.
(06/11/01 4:44am)
Leaders of several U.S.-based Muslim organizations staged an act of civil disobedience in Washington D.C. last week in protest of what Khalid Turaani, Executive Director of American Muslims for Jerusalem, described as "America's uncritical support for Israeli's Apartheid-like policies against the Palestinian people."\nThe six Muslim leaders sat down in the street that runs in front of the U.S. Department of State building, blocking traffic for over an hour. There were no arrests.\nThe ad hoc group of Muslim leaders are calling for a major shift in U.S. policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has claimed the lives of at least 450 Palestinians and 110 Israelis since the volatile relationship once again eroded into violence eight months ago.\nIn a statement released just prior to the sit-in, the Muslim leaders outlined their criticisms, asking the Bush administration to pressure Israel to end their "occupation of Palestinian land," stop the expansion of Jewish settlements and allow the return of Palestinian refugees.\nThe Muslim leaders further insisted that the Bush administration publicly condemn "Israeli aggression" and cut off all U.S. military aid to Israel. "We feel that Israel is taking advantage of the United States' generosity by using the weapons that we supply to them in a manner that is contrary to U.S. laws," said Turaani.\nTuraani said Israel has used U.S. - supplied military equipment against Palestinian civilians, which he said is a violation of the U.S Arms Export Control Act -- the U.S. legislation that stipulates the conditions under which arms purchased from the United States can be used.\nWhile they face an uphill battle, Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said they have reason for some degree of optimism. A State Department official met with the demonstrators and promised to help facilitate a meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell, said Hooper.\nDefending the strong language used in CAIR's press release, Hooper said the "Apartheid-like" quality of Israel's policies towards the Palestinian people is beyond dispute.\nApartheid refers to the legally sanctioned racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against nonwhites in South Africa from the 1940s until the 1990s.\nIn addition to racial and religious segregation in Israel, said Hooper, "you have conviction without trial, confiscation of land, demolition of homes, and daily humiliations of every sort known to man -- all based on whether or not you belong to a certain race or ethnic or religious group. The problem is that people seem to accept these policies when they're carried out by Israel, but not when they were carried out by South Africa."\nIn 1985, the United States imposed economic sanctions on South Africa to pressure the government to end their racially discriminatory policies.\nTuraani agreed with Hooper that the protest was successful in driving the point home. The fact that the police did not arrest the protesters even though they were engaged in an act of civil disobedience, which by definition is illegal, "showed how uncomfortable we have made them feel at the State Department," said Turaani.\nThe State Department refused to comment on any of the policy related charges made by the U.S. Muslim leaders, but did deny that the lack of arrests revealed any position or attitude of the State Department towards the demonstrators or their cause.\nCAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, who took part in the sit-in, said they plan to continue to stage similar protests until the Bush administration changes U.S. policy to reflect their concerns.
(05/31/01 12:36am)
For the last 40 years, the U.S. has maintained a comprehensive economic embargo on Cuba. \nThe embargo was established in 1960 shortly after the fledgling communist leader, Fidel Castro, came to power in a country 90 miles off the Florida coastline. Since then, relations between the United States and Cuba have been frozen in a contentious stalemate.\nIn search of a creative way to overcome the impasse, Jack Hopkins, a retired IU professor and former Bloomington City Council member, helped found CUBAmistad -- the Bloomington-Santa Clara Sister City Project in the fall of 1998. \n"We decided that we would make our own foreign policy," Hopkins said. \nIn establishing a sister city relationship with Santa Clara, Hopkins said the group hopes to "encourage dialogue and understanding" between citizens of Cuba and the United States by facilitating visitor exchanges and the "sharing of friendship, culture and resources." \nIn Spanish, "amistad" literally means friendship.\nHopkins said they picked Santa Clara, Cuba, as Bloomington\'s sister city because it was a good fit. Located in central Cuba, Santa Clara has about 200,000 residents and a large university. And like Bloomington, it's home to a large refrigerator plant.\n"Santa Clara even has a few limestone quarries," Hopkins said.\nCUBAmistad has recently announced that Bloomington will host the third annual national conference of the United States-Cuba Sister City Association an umbrella organization that assists U.S.-Cuba sister city organizations like CUBAmistad. The conference runs June eighth through the tenth at the Showers Building in downtown Bloomington. \nSince its inception, CUBAmistad has sent two American delegations to Cuba -- one in 1999 and another in 2000. Jack Hopkins and his wife Katherine were the sole members of the first trip that solidified the relationship between the two cities. \nJack Hopkins said they received a "warm, friendly welcome." \n"We just had a wonderful time," he said.\nCrediting CUBAmistad with several tangible accomplishments, Hopkins stressed their medical supply program, which they began last year. IU, Riley and Methodist hospitals in Indianapolis donated a total of three semi-truck loads full of medical equipment to CUBAmistad, which they in turn delivered to hospitals in Santa Clara and Havana. \n The group plans to continue shipping medical supplies to hospitals in Cuba that Hopkins said are in "dire need" of such equipment. \n CUBAmistad is also planning a service-learning class, which will bring IU students to Santa Clara where they will work with the town and the Central University of Los Villas on a number of service learning projects. Jack Hopkins will teach the eight-week course, which will take place in the fall of 2002 and will include a spring break trip to Santa Clara. \nJack Hopkins hopes that the upcoming conference in Bloomington will not only bring together members of a number of U.S.-Cuba sister city organizations from around the U.S. but that it will also provide the opportunity for U.S. members to meet with their Cuban counterparts. \nCUBAmistad is still working to secure visas for a number of prospective Cuban conference attendees. While Hopkins is hopeful that potential conference participants like the mayor of Santa Clara and Jose Roman Ruiz Hernandez, Santa Clara's provincial health director, will be able to obtain visas, he laments the difficulty of doing so.\nThe conference, which is open to the public, will include a series of panels and workshops as well as feature talks by Fernando Remirez de Estenoz, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, and Mayor John Fernandez. \nAmber Gallup, who is handling publicity for the event, said that the conference will provide an opportunity for community members to learn about the "Bloomington-Santa Clara Sister City Project and all the possibilities that this relationship provides." Registration information is available at CUBAmistad's Web site: bloomington.in.us/~amistad.\nBloomington City Council member and physician Anthony Pizzo joins Gallup in encouraging IU students and community members to attend the conference. Pizzo visited Cuba last year along with Bloomington City Council member Chris Gaal and a number of other CUBAmistad delegates. \n"People who come out to the conference and learn more about the Sister City Project will be able to appreciate the impact it might have on the future if sister city partnerships continue to expand throughout the world," Pizzo said. \nHe has high hopes for sister city programs. \n"I think that if this program were more widespread and more participatory for all countries we would have a peaceful world eventually," said Pizzo. \nPizzo agrees with Hopkins that a fresh approach is needed to U.S.-Cuba relations. \n"The only reason we put it on," said Pizzo in reference to the embargo, "was to get rid of Castro, but he is just as entrenched now as he was 40 years ago." \nCUBAmistad's approach to fostering better relations by forming links between the people of each country appeals to Pizzo. He said that "we send ambassadors and other personnel to other countries to ensure good relations, but they never really form good relationships because they only get to know the administration and the elite -- they never get to know the common people."\nAs a physician, Pizzo said he valued the opportunity that his trip provided him to visit Cuban hospitals and meet with Cuban doctors. \n"They are just short of everything, its very sad," Pizzo said. The twelve dialysis units that CUBAmistad delivered to Cuban hospitals last year was equipment that Pizzo said was "desperately needed."\nWhile U.S. leaders emphasize that the embargo on Cuba exempts food and medicine, "the fact is they just don't get the medical supplies they need," Pizzo said. He said that the embargo is largely to blame because it contributes to the formation of negative attitudes towards Cuba as a whole and it hurts their economy, which limits their ability to purchase medical equipment. Pizzo strongly advocates dissolving the embargo. \n"We may not like Castro," he said, "but the people down there are just like us -- they need medicine as badly as sick Americans do"