Fw: TV2Africa

Feed the Future A coalition of aid groups briefs the United State Congress on the progress of "Feed the Future," a government global hunger and food security initiative. VOA Carolyn Turner reports. .The state can't legislate against abhorrent attitudes, but it can pass and enforce tough anti-hate and anti-harassment laws such as last year's Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act, which compels Florida schools to adopt anti-bullying policies. Local municipalities must take stock of what measures are in place within their walls to counter hate and "set an example, create an environment where people are comfortable discussing those issues and constituents are comfortable bringing those issues to them," says Simma Lieberman, author of Putting Diversity to Work. And we must hear from the Oval Office, where the biracial president needs to amp-up the call for racial tolerance by, for example, boosting the size and charge of the Justice Department's Community Relations Service, which referees community dust-ups arising from racial or ethnic tensions. Traces of racism may always plague our communities. Only by acting with singular resolve can the nation finally sweep racial hatred into history's margins ADMINISTRATION -- SENATORS: PENTAGON HAS DELAYED RECOVERY OF MILLIONS IN CONTRACTING OVERCHARGES: On Friday, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Susan Collins (R-ME) wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, questioning why the "Pentagon has done little to collect at least $100 million in overcharges paid in deals arranged by corrupt former officials of Kellogg Brown & Root, the defense contractor, even though the officials admitted much of the wrongdoing years ago." The New York Times notes that the letter "is likely to revive allegations that the Pentagon has become so close to KBR, and relies so heavily on it, that there is little inclination or incentive to discipline the company." McCaskill and Collins complained that the KBR has maintained its monopolistic relationship with the Army, which has paid the logistics contractor $31.3 billion for operations in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. Indeed, KBR was just recently awarded a new $35 million contract -- just weeks after a review of nearly 30,000 Army buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan found that more than half "failed miserably" when tested for electrical safety, the majority of which were wired by KBR. Last July, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) produced evidence that KBR was aware of the electrical hazard in one of its bases in Baghdad but did nothing to fix the problem. Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth was later killed by electrocution there. "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons". - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), Russian novelist

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