TRANSATLANTIC TIMES: World News Report
December 26, 2006
Washington, DC, USA
A. JAMES BROWN SOUL 'GODFATHER' DIES
B. LITVINENKO WAS KILLED OVER SECRET DOSSIER, SAYS EX-SPY
C. GIBSON SAYS 'GET OVER IT'
D. ISREAL LOBBY, CARTER'S PALESTINE APARTHEID, IRAQ STUDY GROUP, CONNECT
 THE DOTS IN US POLICIES (SEND YOUR COMMENTS)
James Brown Soul 'Godfather' dies
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ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.
Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.
Copsidas said Brown's family was being notified of his death and that the cause was still uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said.
Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him.
His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.
If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator. (Watch the "Hardest Working Man in Show Business" do his thing)
"James presented obviously the best grooves," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. "To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close."
His hit singles include such classics as "Out of Sight," "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Out Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.
"I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black," Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. "The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society."
He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.
'Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown' He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life. Brown, who lived in Beech Island near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer. After his release on in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music.
From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business."
With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince.
In 1986, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling.
Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. "The music out there is only as good as my last record," Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," he told the AP in 2003.
Born in poverty in Barnwell, South Carolina, in 1933, he was abandoned as a 4-year-old to the care of relatives and friends and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Georgia, in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it. There he learned to wheel and deal.
"I wanted to be somebody," Brown said.
By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Georgia, for breaking into cars.
While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.
In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later "Please, Please, Please" was in the R&B Top Ten.
While most of Brown's life was glitz and glitter, he was plagued with charges of abusing drugs and alcohol and of hitting his third wife, Adrienne.
In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta office. Police said he asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom.
Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck.
Brown received a six-year prison sentence. He spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program before being paroled in February 1991. In 2003, the South Carolina parole board granted him a pardon for his crimes in that state.
Soon after his release, Brown was on stage again with an audience that included millions of cable television viewers nationwide who watched the three-hour, pay-per-view concert at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.
Adrienne Brown died in 1996 in Los Angeles at age 47. She took PCP and several prescription drugs while she had a bad heart and was weak from cosmetic surgery two days earlier, the coroner said.
More recently, he married his fourth wife, Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers. The couple had a son, James Jr.
Two years later, Brown spent a week in a private Columbia hospital, recovering from what his agent said was dependency on painkillers. Brown's attorney, Albert "Buddy" Dallas, said singer was exhausted from six years of road shows.
Litvinenko Was Killed Over Secret Dossier, Says Ex-Spy
By John Joseph, Reuters
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LONDON (Dec. 16) - Murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was killed because of an eight-page dossier he had compiled on a powerful Russian figure for a British company, a business associate told the BBC on Saturday.
Litvinenko died in London on November 23 after receiving a lethal dose of radioactive polonium 210. On his deathbed, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his killing. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
Ex-spy Yuri Shvets, who is based in the United States, said Litvinenko had been employed by Western companies to provide information on potential Russian clients before they committed to investment deals in the former Soviet Union.
He said Litvinenko was asked by a British company to write reports on five Russians and asked Shvets for help. The British company was not named. Shvets said he had passed Litvinenko the information for the dossier on one individual in September.
The BBC said it had obtained extracts of the dossier, which British detectives also have, from an unnamed source. The BBC said the report contained damaging personal details about a "very highly placed member of Putin's administration."
"Litvinenko obtained the report on September 20," Shvets told the BBC. "Within the next two weeks he gave the report to Andrei Lugovoy. I believe that triggered the entire assassination."
Lugovoy is a former Russian spy who told Reuters on Thursday he had known Litvinenko casually for nearly a decade and had worked closely with him during 2005, meeting him about 10 times.
Shvets said Litvinenko had given the dossier to Lugovoy to show him how reports on Russian companies and individuals should be presented to Western clients.
However, Shvets said he believed Lugovoy was still employed by the Russian secret service the FSB, the successor to the KGB, and had leaked Litvinenko's dossier to the Russian figure.
Shvets said the report had led to the British company pulling out of a deal, losing the Russian figure potential earnings of "dozens of millions of dollars."
LONDON HOTEL
Lugovoy and businessman Dmitry Kovtun met Litvinenko at a central London hotel, soon after he had met Italian KGB expert Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar. Litvinenko felt ill that night and two days later was admitted to hospital.
"Litvinenko told me he met Lugovoy and other Russians and they offered him tea that wasn't made in front of him, said Shvets.
Lugovoy told Reuters in an interview that he met Litvinenko in October and November but he has repeatedly denied having anything to do with his death.
Litvinenko never blamed Lugovoy publicly for his murder before dying in the London hospital. However, Shvets said he had come around to that possibility.
"I asked Litvenenko who did you think did it?" Shvets told the BBC. "He immediately said Scaramella. For three days he stubbornly reiterated it was Scaramella and only on the fourth day did he admit he met Lugovoy and other Russians.
"I stopped communicating with Litvinenko when it was diagnosed he had been poisoned. But I spoke to his wife and she told me Litvinenko shared my opinion," Shvets told the BBC.
The BBC said senior Scotland Yard officers had interviewed Shvets.
Gibson Says 'Get Over It'
By Marco R. della Cava
"You got me at the wrong time. I'm probably a bit surly in the morning," Mel Gibson says. "I'm surly early."
Though as mornings go, Thursday cast a soft light on a man more accustomed to glare: Gibson's Apocalypto had just gotten a Golden Globe nomination for foreign-language film and was riding the week out as box office champ.
"Ah yes, the Golden Globes, it's nice, flattering," says Gibson, tweaking the awards' name.
He added that he's not concerned by his film's modest $15 million take. "I knew it wouldn't be like Passion (of the Christ, which earned $360 million worldwide), so this will just take a little more time to make its money back," he says. "I think it's lucky it got to No. 1. It was a soft weekend."
If Gibson sounds vaguely humble, don't be fooled. The director leaves no doubt about his feelings for those who assail his movies or his actions. When it's suggested that perhaps he move away from Hollywood, Gibson doesn't hesitate: "They can move."
Gibson and Tinseltown have been locked in an awkward dance since his double-Oscar triumph for 1995's Braveheart. First came his controversial take on Jesus' final hours and, more recently, a drunken-driving incident in which he railed that Jews were the cause of all wars. Now, with Apocalypto, come charges of excessive violence.
"I don't understand all the heat," says Gibson. "It's less violent than Braveheart, and yet they're calling it blood porn. To make it personal against me, that's a low blow."
Gibson concedes that his pre-Columbian chase scene-cum-love story does have nasty turns, as when a man gets his face chewed off by a jaguar, "but it's appropriate to the subject matter."
He dismisses charges that the film doesn't linger long enough on the cultural contributions of Mayan civilization. "That's on the History Channel, right?" Beat. "Seriously, I show you glyphs and temples and incredible architecture. It's there if you look. In the end, though, the main objective is to tell that story."
With Apocalypto's current success, Gibson's own Hollywood story remains on track, despite calls from the likes of super-agent Ari Emanuel for him to be shunned.
1 climber found dead in 2nd snow caveAstronauts prep for fourth spacewalkColo. may limit oil and gas emissionsPaparazzi sues celeb blogger for $7.6MTomlinson breaks Hornung's single-season scoring record "This place isn't like a club where you're in or you're out," says Gibson. "It's a sprawling place that you make of what you will. It's not a glee club, that's for sure."
He says he feels some empathy for Michael Richards, whose recent comedy club tirade against blacks finds him in the entertainment community's cross hairs. "He snapped, what are you going to do. … You don't always have to be picked to be off the hook."
Gibson says his next project is unknown ("It'll germinate"), and though he'd consider acting, "I'm not really anxious to jump up there again. … Maybe I'll just go get a dartboard tattoo on my chest."
The non- sequitur is revealing; Gibson's thoughts often return to the shake he's getting in his field.
"I'm doing well," he says. "But how many people do you know get a DUI and are kicked around for six months? It's out of proportion. I'm not saying I wasn't at fault. Hey, we're not perfect, we're all human, get over it. I've apologized, done the right thing, now get the hell over it. I'm a work in progress."
ISREAL LOBBY, CARTER'S PALESTINE APARTHEID, IRAQ STUDY GROUP, CONNECT THE DOTS IN US POLICIES (SEND YOUR COMMENTS)
By Eugene Bird
December, 2006
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It has been a remarkable year for U.S. policy in the Middle East. The debate about U.S. Middle East policy has been enriched by the combined effect of three "controversial" events, the Isreal lobby, Jimmy Carter's Palestine Apartheid and the Iraq study group report. The first was "The Israel Lobby" study released last spring by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which caused an enormous debate, the first of its kind in the United States. "The Tipping Point: Changing Perceptions of the U.S.-Israel Relationship," which includes a debate in New York City featuring Prof. Mearsheimer and Walt and later at the National Press Club, The two professors are currently writing a book to be released in the fall of 2007 on the same subject.
The second was the publishing of former President Jimmy Carter's book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," last month. An extremely vicious campaign to villify him is underway, but the book is climbing on the bestseller list. A fox news jihad and fatua has been declared against the book, however the boyish smile faced ex-president and his public relations team seems for now to be one step ahead of the opposition.
Third, the Baker-Hamilton report is the highest-level statement to emphasize the connection between the Arab-Israeli dispute and an exit strategy for ending the war in Iraq. A high-level Israeli delegation, headed by its foreign minister and including the radical right-wing politician Avigdor Leiberman, is holding a session at the Brookings Institution this weekend, including a dinner at the Department of State. Damage control on the report is already underway.
In their testimony on Thursday, Pearl Harbor Day, before the Senate Armed Services Committee Lee Hamilton and Jim Baker made it clear that real progress towards a settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute would be the sine qua non of getting out of Iraq with honor and restoring American leadership in the Middle East.
With two million Iraqi refugees, perhaps twice that number, now living in neighboring countries, the administration has achieved a complete implosion of the forces of stability in the whole Middle East.
These events don't yet add up to a clear direction in American policy towards the middle east. TRANSATLANTIC TIMES would like our reading public to CONNECT THE DOTS AND SEND IN YOUR COMMENTS, let us know what direction you think the American foreign policy towards the Middle East should be heading and WHERE YOU THINK THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OR THE NEWLY ELECTED CONGRESS WOULD MOVE THE US POLICIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
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