Egypt a sign of the current times....

The death toll in Egypt rose by as much as over 100 by Saturday, as anti-government protests extended for the fifth day in an attempt to pressure President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

Riot police confront Egyptian army soldiers at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo after wide-spread protests early January 29, 2011. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused on Saturday to bow to demands that he resign after ordering troops and tanks into cities in an attempt to quell an explosion of street protests against his 30-year rule.


U.S. and European leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday issued statements opposing violence and calling for restraint by Egyptian authoritmeeting on the situation in Egypt.


Obama "reiterated our focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint; supporting universal rights; and supporting concrete steps that advance political reform within Egypt," the White House said in a statement released after a White House meeting on the situation in Egypt.

Eight others were killed when more than 200 prisoners tried to escape from Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo,.

Protesters defied curfew for the second time as demonstrations grew violent, with clashes with police. Army tanks were ordered into the streets of Cairo and Suez, where protesters welcomed them as protection against police.

Mubarak promoted his chief of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, to the vice presidency on Saturday. Suleiman, 74, a long-time Mubarak ally, becomes the first vice-president ever under this regime.

At least 31 people were killed in Alexandria, CNN reported.

The death toll is 74, according to the Associated Press.

At least two people were killed when police protecting the Interior Ministry near the site opened fire at a funeral procession for a dead protester.

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China, U.S. sign half-billion-dollar deals ahead of Hu's visit

Chinese and U.S. businesses signed six agreements worth of 574 million U.S. dollars in Texas on Monday, one day ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the United States.

The deals include two cotton import agreements, an agreement on import of CKD kits, an agreement on development and application of efficient crystalline silicon solar cells and PV generation system, a porcelain product import agreement, and an MOU between the Chinese Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products and the Greater Houston Partnership, the primary advocate of Houston's business community.

The agreements were signed during a visit to Texas by a Chinese business delegation led by Vice Commerce Minister Wang Chao.

The deals were only the start for a further promotion of the Sino-U.S. trade relations, Wang said at a news briefing following the signing ceremony.

The Chinese government highly values and supports the Sino-U.S. business cooperation that aims at a win-win result, and it is the mission of the Chinese delegation to encourage more Chinese purchase from and Chinese investment in the United States, Wang said.

He also urged the U.S. federal and state governments to facilitate Chinese companies' investment and operation in the country.

China and the United States are second largest trade partners to each other, as the U.S. investment in China has exceeded 60 billion U.S. dollars and Chinese investment in the United States totalled some 4.4 billion and is expected to grow in the future, Wang said.

Last year the U.S. export to China grew 34 percent and is expected to exceed 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, said Craig Allen, deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The Chinese delegation included over 300 entrepreneurs from more than 200 companies in such sectors as energy, machinery, electronics, environmental protection, chemical engineering, pharmacy, agriculture and banking.

The delegation will also visit other U.S. states to sign deals and hold forums and symposiums on investment environment.

Nation of Islam purchases water purification unit for Haiti

Nation of Islam purchases water purification unit for Haiti

Editor Manie Barron,dies at age 55

NEW YORK (AP) -- Manie Barron, an editor and literary agent who worked on and advocated for African-American books through much of a 23-year publishing career, has died at 55.

Barron died Saturday at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, his widow, Wendalyn R. Nichols, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He was being treated for lung cancer.

A native of New York's Harlem section and a childhood friend of the late comedian Freddie Prinze, Barron studied acting and accounting at City College of New York and applied both performance and monetary savvy to the publishing industry.

He held numerous positions, from sales at the since-closed Doubleday bookstore to telephone sales at Random House, where he moved into editing. After working as publishing manager at Amistad, an African-American imprint at HarperCollins, Barron was a representative at the William Morris Agency. He then co-founded the Menza-Barron Literary Agency with Claudia Menza.

Authors he worked with included vampire novelist L.A. Banks, Harlem Renaissance historian Sondra Kathryn Wilson and fiction writer Guy Johnson, the son of Maya Angelou. One of his proudest projects was editing Velma Maia Thomas's "Lest We Forget," an interactive history of slavery that sold tens of thousands of copies despite receiving little publicity.

Barron was often one of the few African-Americans, if not the only one, at his workplace and was open about his frustration. "Y'all just don't get it," was a favorite expression about executives who rejected a proposal for an African-American book, according to his widow, whom he met at Random House. During a panel discussion in 2000 about minorities in publishing, Barron likened his status to a collapsible car: constantly being rebuilt.

"You always have to prove yourself," said Barron, an editor at Random House at the time. "You can have successes, but even though you've made money you're still thought of as a fluke." Not long before he died, Barron wrote on his blog that he had been a battered child who "learned the rules were funky in ... the game of Life." Still, he noted, "I kept my dignity intact and won. That's really the best we can hope for."

Barron is survived by his wife and his daughter, Veronica Grace Nichols Barron.

Minister Farrakhan's 2011 New Years Interview Live on 98.7 Kiss FM (Jan ...

Judith Jamison retires from Alvin Ailey after 21 years

By Jamilah Lemieux


This past Sunday marked the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company's final New York performance with the legendary Judith Jamison serving as Artistic Director.

A native of Philadelphia, Jamison began dancing at only ten years old, and later attended Fisk University and the Philadelphia Dance Company. She joined Ailey's company under the direction of the late choreographer in 1965, becoming a principal dancer (and Ailey muse) shortly thereafter.

Jamison departed in 1980 to star in the Broadway musical, Sophisticated Ladies, based on the music of Duke Ellington. She was selected by Ailey to replace himself as Artistic Director for the company and did so following his death in 1989.

Jamison, who will be replaced by choreographer Robert Battle, was honored by the White House last October; first lady Michele Obama spoke of bringing her daughters to see Jamison as often as she could because "(I) want them to see Judith's gifts on display, because I want them to witness the grace and the beauty that stirs our souls and connects us to each other like nothing else can."

Jamison's awards include the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in 1999 and a National Medal of Arts in 2001. She received both an Emmy and an American Choreography Award for the PBS Great Performances: Dance In America special "A Hymn for Alvin Ailey" (1998).