UPI NewsTrack TopNews - September 22, 2007
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Sept. 21
Mattel apologizes to China
BEIJING, Sept. 21 U.S. toymaker Mattel Inc. Friday apologized to China, taking responsibility for design flaws leading to recalls of millions of toys made in that country.
Thomas Debrowski, executive vice president of Mattel's global operations, apologized personally to Li Changjiang, a senior Chinese official, Xinhua reported.
"Mattel takes full responsibility for those recalls and I would like to apologize personally to you, the Chinese people and all of the customers who received toys that have been manufactured," Debrowski told the head of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in Beijing.
Debrowski admitted it was design flaws, rather than manufacturing problems in China, that caused the vast majority of its recalls this summer, with 17.4 million items called back because of loose magnets and 2.2 million because of toxic lead paint.
"Mattel does not require Chinese manufacturers to be responsible for the magnets-related recalls due to design problems," the company said in a news release.
The company also said its lead-related recalls were "overly inclusive."
Blackwater resumes guard duties in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Sept. 21 Blackwater USA Friday resumed protective escorts for convoys carrying U.S. diplomats in Iraq, less than a week after being banned by the Iraqi government.
It was not clear whether the private security firm had received official clearance from Iraqi authorities to resume operations, The New York Times reported. U.S. embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo told the newspaper the decision to allow Blackwater to operate "in a limited manner" had been made "in consultation with the Iraqi authorities."
The Iraqi and U.S. governments have been on a collision course over the way diplomats and contractors are protected. Iraq's Ministry of Interior said security guards for Blackwater USA wantonly fired on Iraqis in their cars in midday traffic Sunday, killing eight people, the newspaper said.
"The Blackwater company is considered 100 percent guilty," the ministry report concluded, urging dozens of foreign security companies in Iraq be replaced by Iraqi companies, and a law be scrapped that has given the companies immunity.
It is unlikely the U.S. State Department, which is preparing its own analysis, will drop Blackwater and the other companies because U.S. officials rely heavily on them for protection Iraqi authorities cannot provide, the Times said.
Mychal Bell of Jena 6 remains in jail
JENA, La., Sept. 21 A Louisiana judge refused Friday to release Mychal Bell, the only jailed member of the group of black teenagers known as the Jena 6.
The defense filed a writ of habeas corpus in an effort to get him out of jail, The Chicago Tribune reported.
An appeals court overturned Bell's conviction for aggravated battery, ruling that he should have been tried as a juvenile. He was 16 when he and the other five teenagers allegedly beat up a white student at Jena High School.
The case has recently gained national attention. On Thursday, thousands of demonstrators converged on Jena, on what had been scheduled to be Bell's sentencing day.
The beating followed weeks of racial tension that began when black students sat under a tree on the high school campus that had customarily been a place for whites only to gather. The next day, white students hung three nooses from the tree.
Two arrested in La. noose incident
ALEXANDRIA, La., Sept. 21 Two teenagers were arrested in Louisiana after allegedly driving a pickup with two nooses hanging off the back past people who had demonstrated in nearby Jena.
Jeremiah Munsen, 18, and an unnamed 16-year-old passenger allegedly cruised back and forth past the demonstrators Thursday night as they waited in Alexandria for buses to take them back to their home states, CNN reported Friday.
The groups had been in Jena, about 40 miles away, earlier in the day to show solidarity with six black youths facing charges in a racially charged attack on a white youth. That attack allegedly occurred after nooses were hung from a tree outside a school after black students had congregated in an area where white students habitually gathered.
Munsen was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, driving while intoxicated and inciting to riot, the police report showed. He also had an unloaded rifle in the back of the truck and brass knuckles on the dashboard, police said.
The passenger allegedly told police he and his family are in the Ku Klux Klan and that he had KKK tattooed on his chest, the police report said.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
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