Cameron Douglas gets help from family, friends through letters

By BRUCE GOLDING

The heroin-addicted, drug-dealing son of actor Michael Douglas is getting some big help from his family and friends as he tries to avoid spending the next 10 years in federal prison.

Cameron Douglas, 31, pleaded guilty to distributing drugs and heroin possession in January -- the second a charge stemming from allegations that his girlfriend tried to smuggle the drug to him in an electric toothbrush while he was under house arrest.

Although Cameron faces a minimum of 10 years behind bars when he is sentenced April 14 in Manhattan federal court, his lawyers filed a series of letters outlining why the judge should show him leniency, The Post has learned.

The letters provided to the judge are from his grandfather, legendary actor Kirk Douglas, his father, actor Michael Douglas and his wife, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. A letter from former Knicks coach Pat Riley, a family friend, is also included in the file.

In the letters obtained by The Post, Douglas' lawyers are requesting that he be sentenced to time served or 42 months in prison.

In a heartfelt letter, Kirk Douglas claims "it was a surprise to me" when the sometime-actor/sometime-DJ was busted last July 28 at the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District by a DEA task force.

The 93-year-old actor also addes that he'd like to see his grandson rehabilitate himself from drugs "before I die".

Cameron Douglas' lawyers claim he has been clean for the past eight months.

Before his arrest, Douglas had been staying at the hotel for some time in a room rented by his father, and when authorities barged in, they found the place a mess and Cameron Douglas strung out.

An informant had told the investigators that Douglas was the middleman in a deal to move a half-pound of crystal meth from California to New York to sell.

After spending the past year behind bars, Kirk Douglas wrote that he recently saw his grandson and "was gratified to how well he was taking his incarceration. He had no one to blame but himself ... The only sorrow he expressed was the trouble he had caused others".

Kirk Douglas also added that Cameron "calls me Pappy (never grandpa)" and that his grandson "was always fun to be with him and well-behaved. ... I am convinced Cameron can be a fine actor and cares for others. ... I love Cameron".

In a separate, handwritten note, Cameron's step-mother, Catherine Zeta-Jones, wrote: "Never in my experience ... has Cameron shown any sign of the disease that has tormented him toward his siblings or been abusive to us as a family at any time".

On official Miami Heat stationary, legendary NBA coach Pat Riley, a family friend since he coached the Los Angeles Lakers during the 1980s, wrote that Cameron "deserves an honest and appropriate sentence".

In his three-page letter, Riley also wrote, "I hope and pray .. that he is sent to a facility ... that will focus primarily on education and rehabilitation".

He concludes: "Cameron is not a criminal. ... I ask for mercy. ... Can we please save this 'ONE'".

New York Post

Rwanda moves on – but scars from genocide of Tutsis remain

Michael Binyon

As Rwanda begins a week of official commemorations of the 1994 genocide today the last village courts set up to try those who took part in the killing of 800,000 Tutsis are preparing to shut down, closing a chapter in the long process of healing.

For the past five years thousands of Hutus have been brought face to face with survivors and their families in traditional tribunals. These have sentenced many of the killers to long terms in jail while promoting reconciliation among those who still live alongside their victims’ families.

The gacaca courts have dealt with almost 1.5 million cases and most of the backlog of those accused of taking part in the genocide has been cleared. There are fears, however, that some villagers are using this unique system of justice to settle scores with neighbours, and the Government wants any remaining cases to be tried in regular courts.

Rwanda has promised to preserve the evidence that has emerged from these informal tribunals as part of the effort to ensure that racist ideology and the genocidal mania it spawned is never again allowed free rein.

Documents and archives will be added to the main genocide memorial centre in Kigali and to those set up across the country on sites where men, women and children were maimed, tortured, raped, bludgeoned and hacked to death in a frenzy of killing that lasted 100 days.

Every year Rwanda commemorates the start of the genocide on April 7, the date when the pre-arranged plan to exterminate the Tutsi minority was triggered by the shooting down of the aircraft that was carrying President Habyarimana.

Young people will march today to the main national stadium on a “walk to remember”. The event has been organised by Peace and Love Proclaimers , a local youth organisation linked to the Aegis Trust , a British-based organisation that helped to set up the Genocide Centre in Kigali, where 250,000 victims are buried. The genocide will also be remembered at a service in Southwark Cathedral.

Despite progress in reconciliation the trauma still hangs over Rwanda. It is already distorting the presidential election in November, making it a sensitive and dangerous time.

President Kagame, leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front — which swept in from exile in Uganda in 1994 to drive out the genocidaires— has laid down tough penalties for anyone attempting to exploit lingering suspicion between Hutu and Tutsi. Genocide deniers and apologists face criminal charges. Rwandans admit that this is a curb on free speech but point to the laws in Germany that make Holocaust denial an offence.

Human rights organisations accuse the Government of using the genocide as a pretext to bar those considering standing against Mr Kagame. Two weeks ago Victoire Ingabire, a Hutu exile who returned recently from the Netherlands, was detained at the airport when she attempted to leave. She has caused uproar by speaking of a double genocide and claiming that many Hutus were killed by returning Tutsi exiles in 1994. She claims that she is being silenced because of her opposition to the President.

Few doubt that Mr Kagame will be re-elected — the country has a healthy growth rate of 5 per cent and he has made progress in reconstruction, education and fighting corruption. However, he has been criticised for his secretive style of government and it is feared that any poll may be tarnished by the lack of any credible opposition.

The most sensitive issue is the legacy of the genocide. Most of the Government is drawn from Tutsi exiles who returned in 1994, and they are resented by many as a clique.

Mr Kagame has banned any official distinction between Tutsis and Hutus and insists that Rwandans must work together — but there is an ever-present fear that the animosities could be rekindled. Rwanda is small and crowded, vulnerable to tensions if land or the economy is squeezed.

And across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo still lurk the former interahamwe killers, a reminder of the tribalism and extremism that wreaked mayhem 16 years ago.

Times Online

Rescue effort for 32 miners in crucial phase

Operation temporarily suspended after hazardous gas accumulates

TAIYUAN - The rescue operation at a flooded mine in North China's Shanxi province has entered its most challenging phase, as rescue workers struggle to reach the last group of 32 miners trapped in the lowest levels of the pit.

Rescue teams found the bodies of five workers in the Wangjialing coal mine on Monday night. These were the first fatalities to be announced after 115 men were pulled out alive earlier in the day, according to the rescue headquarters.

The death toll rose to six on Tuesday afternoon, according to Shanxi Governor Wang Jun.

Before the major breakthrough in the rescue effort on Monday, a total of 153 workers had been trapped deep underground for more than a week after the mine flooded on March 28.

The names of the survivors and the dead miners have yet to be confirmed by the authorities.

The underground search for the remaining 32 miners was temporarily suspended when it was discovered that a highly explosive gas had accumulated in the pit, Liu Dezheng, spokesman for the rescue headquarters, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Earlier, Liu said the rescue teams had located the men, though their conditions remained unclear.

In addition to the threat of a gas explosion, rescue workers still faced the difficulty of pumping out the water that blocked the passage to the lowest part of the shaft.

According to Liu, headquarters was adjusting plans to overcome these new challenges in the rescue effort.

Of the 115 rescued miners, most of them were in stable physical conditions, with 26 showing relatively serious symptoms but without threats to their lives. All were under medical treatment in hospitals across three cities of Shanxi.

Some of the survivors have recovered so well that they had their first full meal in the past ten days.

"I want to eat meat," one unidentified survivor, holding a palm-sized bowl of noodles with egg, tomato and bean curd, told nurses in the Shanxi Aluminum Plant Hospital, where 26 survivors had been taken.

"Sausage would be better," he added as he set about eating the noodles.

Another man in his 30s said he preferred steamed bread.

"The miners are still too weak to eat solid food after being starved for more than a week," said Liu Qiang, deputy director of the medical team with the rescue headquarters.

He said the survivors were only given glucose and rice porridge shortly after they were brought to the surface on Monday.

Along with another 59 rescued miners, Lu Jianjun on Tuesday received treatment in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, after they were transferred from Hejin city, one of the cities closest to the mine.

Lu, 26, a native of a village near the mine and the father of a 7-month-old infant, said he hoped the mine would be restored as soon as possible and he could return to work there.

Meanwhile, the rescue headquarters has required the mine's owner to prepare for the imminent inquiry into the accident that left the men trapped, according to spokesman Liu.

The State Administration of Work Safety has blamed the accident on the violation of safety rules during the construction of the mine.

Preliminary investigations found water had gushed into the mine after workers broke into a disused shaft that had filled with groundwater.

Xinhua contributed to the story

China Daily

Canada’s urban aboriginals feel politically unrepresented, poll finds

More than 40 per cent of aboriginals living in a city can’t identify any political organization, aboriginal or mainstream, that best represents them

Joe Friesen Demographics Reporter

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Canada’s aboriginal leadership faces a potential challenge to its legitimacy from the growing movement of aboriginal people to the city, according to a major survey of Canada’s urban aboriginal population.

The poll, conducted by the Environics Institute, shows that more than 40 per cent of urban aboriginals can’t identify any political organization, aboriginal or mainstream, that best represents them.

The Assembly of First Nations, an organization of reserve-based chiefs, receives the most support of any political body at 13 per cent, followed by the New Democratic Party  at 11 per cent, the Métis National Council at 10 per cent, the Liberal Party at 8 per cent, the Green Party at 4 per cent and the Conservatives at 3 per cent. The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples was chosen by less than 1 per cent of respondents.

“Aboriginal people living in the city do not feel very well represented by any organization,” said Ginger Gosnell-Myers, who managed the Environics study. “There’s hundreds of thousands of aboriginal people living in cities without a clear voice”.

About half of Canada’s 1.2 million aboriginal people live in urban centres, the study says. Most are politically engaged, but 41 per cent say they are not well represented.

Calvin Helin, an aboriginal lawyer based in Vancouver, says aboriginals are sending a clear message to their leadership: They want to be able to vote for their own leaders. A movement to have the national chief of the AFN elected by direct ballot fizzled last year because it failed to garner much support among elected band chiefs. The national chief, who holds considerable sway in the national policy debate, is currently elected by a vote of more than 600 chiefs from across Canada.

“There’s a lot of resentment that there isn’t any representation, and I think that clearly came out in the study,” Mr. Helin said. “Once there is equal representation, and everybody has the chance to elect the national chief of the AFN, for example, people I think will have a much greater sense of ownership”.

Angus Toulouse, Ontario regional chief of the AFN, said his organization does its best to represent its people wherever they live. He said he’s not opposed to the idea of a one-person, one-vote system to elect a national chief, but the idea requires further study.

“We need to address the urban issues our people are facing,” Mr. Toulouse said.

Mark Podlasly, a member of the Nlaka’pamux First Nation who runs an environmental consulting business, said aboriginals living in a city often feel they have nowhere to turn for political representation.

“People think the AFN represents them, but [urban aboriginals] are outside their mandate. I don’t know who to call as an aboriginal person,” he said. “There has to be a connecting of the dots in the cities that says these are what our issues are and this is the organization that’s going to represent us”.

The Globe and Mail

Simply eating your five a day will not protect you against cancer

Focus of research shifts to specific fruit and veg that could ward off certain tumours

By Jeremy Laurance

It has been a shibboleth of healthy living for decades: eat more fruit and vegetables to beat cancer. Now, scientists have found that the anti-carcinogenic properties of such a diet are weak at best.

In one of the largest and longest studies into the link between diet and the killer disease, scientists surveyed the fruit and vegetable consumption of almost 400,000 men and women in 10 European countries including the UK over almost nine years, during which they developed 30,000 cancers.

They found that eating an extra 200g of fruit and vegetables each day, equivalent to two servings, reduced the incidence of cancer by about 4 per cent. The finding confirms the pessimistic view of a growing body of scientists over the last decade: that the protective effect of fruit and vegetables against cancer is very limited.

It represents a dramatic reversal from 20 years ago, when as high as 50 per cent potential reductions in cancer risk were suggested. The World Health Organisation in 1990 recommended five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

Is that recommendation now history? No. The latest finding is undoubtedly a serious blow, demolishing one of the pillars of the cancer-protective lifestyle. But there is still good evidence that fruit and vegetables protect against heart disease and stroke.

In the same population of men and women which showed virtually no effect of fruit and vegetable consumption on cancer, there was a 30 per cent lower incidence of heart disease and stroke among those eating five servings a day compared with those eating less than one and a half servings.

Separate studies have shown that increasing fruit and vegetable consumption reduces blood pressure, a major cause of heart disease.

But how were researchers misled over the decades? Paolo Boffeta of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who led the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), said other factors linked with a high fruit and vegetable consumption, such as lower alcohol intake, not smoking and having higher levels of physical activity "may have contributed to a lower cancer risk".

The over-emphasis on fruit and vegetables may also have come from the way the early research was conducted. "Case control" studies formed the basis of the evidence, in which the diet of a person with cancer was compared with that of someone who did not have cancer but who was matched in age, sex and other factors.

These studies rely on people's memories of what they ate, and depend on people volunteering to be controls who have a strong interest in health. Thus, the tendency to exaggerate the benefits of the diet is built in from the start.

Later in the 1990s, case control studies were replaced by prospective studies in which participants were asked about what they were eating at the time, thus avoiding the problems of recall, and followed to see who developed cancer in the ensuing years.

Results from these studies were consistently less impressive than the earlier ones. Now, one of the biggest studies has confirmed the disappointing conclusion that an apple a day is unlikely to save you from cancer.

It remains possible that specific foods have preventive effects against specific cancers, and that the overall effect of a diet high in fruit and vegetables is greater in younger people. In an accompanying editorial in the JNCI, Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health singles out lycopene, a constituent of tomatoes, for which there is "considerable evidence" of a protective effect against prostate cancer. Many other foods including blueberries, broccoli and strawberries are also said to have anti-cancer properties.

"The findings add further evidence that a broad effort to increase consumption of fruit and vegetables will not have a major effect on cancer incidence," Professor Willett concludes. "Such efforts are still worthwhile because they will reduce risks of cardiovascular disease, and a small benefit for cancer remains possible. Research should focus more sharply on specific fruits and vegetables and their constituents and on earlier periods of life".

Dr Rachel Thompson, science programme manager for the World Cancer Research Fund, said: "This study suggests that if we all ate an extra two portions of fruits and vegetables a day (about 150g), about 2.5 per cent of cancers could be prevented.

"Given the fact that there are many types of cancer where there is no evidence eating fruits and vegetables affects risk, it is not surprising that the overall percentage is quite low. But for the UK, this works out at about 7,000 cases a year... a significant number".

Super foods: The produce now under the microscope

Red and orange peppers

An excellent source of vitamin C. Half a red pepper provides all the vitamin C an adult needs in one day. They also contain anti-oxidant flavenoids and beta-carotene.

Strawberries

As well as vitamin C and flavenoids, they contain the phytochemical ellagic acid, which research has shown can help inhibit the growth of cancers.

Carrots

Good source of beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A. This keeps skin healthy and helps the immune system.

Tomatoes

The antioxidant lycopene is what makes them red. Studies have linked tomatoes, especially when cooked, canned or in pastes and sauces, with a lower risk of prostate cancer.

Onions

Contain allium compounds and are rich in quercetin, a phytochemical. Both of these are thought to reduce cancer as well as improving circulation and blood pressure.

Broccoli, cabbage, sprouts

Members of the brassicas family, linked with lower rates of cancers of the digestive system.

Garlic

Contains allylic sulphides, garlic has long been used as a natural medicine. May help ward off cell damage.

Blueberries

Full of vitamin C and a good source of the antioxidant anthocyanin, believed to boost the immune system, help keep the heart and skin healthy.

Brazil nuts

Rich in selenium, a mineral, important to people in the UK who mostly have low intakes. Some studies have suggested low levels increase the risk of cancer and heart disease.

The Independent