Print

published by The Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Sept. 2, 2007 (AP) – Half a dozen teenagers are leading scruffy dogs through a slalom of orange plastic cones in the worn asphalt yard of a veterinary clinic.

The dogs have been rescued from nearby townships, the kids from South Africa’s criminal justice system. The teens started coming to the clinic run by Community Led Animal Welfare on Saturday mornings in late April after being arrested for theft, assault and other minor offenses. (more…)

published by The Associated Press


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, June 2, 2007 (AP) – Public sector workers Friday staged the biggest strike in post-apartheid South Africa, closing down schools, forcing hospital patients to return home, and leaving only minimum staffing in prisons.

About 1 million workers are involved in the strike, described as the biggest since the onset of multiracial democracy in South Africa in 1994. (more…)

published by the Oakland Tribune

OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 14, 2006 – The debate over the future of Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood might as well be a referendum on the projects developers Ron Kriss and Roy Alper started building here in 2004. Shouts of “too big” and “too many” have grown louder as the pair have bought up half a dozen sites along Telegraph Avenue in Temescal’s pedestrian-scale historic core to build four and five story condominium complexes. The concerns prompted the city to launch a community planning process last spring to update the neighborhood’s zoning.

Alper and Kriss resist being called “developers” in the pejorative sense, just flying in to make a profit. Instead they like to cast themselves as just a couple of guys from the neighborhood trying to revitalize a community they love. (more…)

published by the East Bay Business Times


OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 20, 2006 – The owners of two toddler-friendly cafés in Oakland, which may be the first venues of their kind in the country, seem to be onto something.

Play Café Inc. president Kelliane Lam said her business broke even one month after opening in September 2005 and is on pace for a 37 percent increase in total sales this October compared to last.

Tumble & Tea LLC co-owner Georgina DeCarlo said her café has been meeting or exceeding cost since it opened three months ago.

Both businesses have plans to expand. (more…)

published by the Oakland Tribune

EL CERRITO, California – El Cerrito High School Junior Kenneth Thornton, 16, had switched his cell phone to vibrate and stashed it in the pocket of his baggy Rocca Wear jeans. When it went off in Jim Perrero’s Friday morning history class, he ducked under his desk.

“Who is this?” Thornton whispered, “I’m gonna call you back.”

Sliding back up into his chair, Thornton said he had to take the call.

“I didn’t know that number it could have been important.”

But answering a cell phone at El Cerrito High is now risky business. The school’s 1,250 students were greeted on the first day of school with warnings that their phones would be confiscated if they were in view at any time during school hours. (more…)