Ex-media mogul Conrad Black sent back to prison (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Friday ordered former media baron Conrad Black back to prison for 13 more months, cutting his original 6 1/2-year sentence nearly in half for remaining fraud and obstruction of justice convictions.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve, in pronouncing a total sentence of 42 months, told the 66-year-old member of Britain's House of Lords she was swayed by letters from fellow inmates and other factors in departing from federal guidelines calling for a stiffer resentencing.

Black's wife, Barbara Amiel Black, collapsed immediately in her seat after St. Eve ruled, and was assisted out of the courtroom by medical personnel.

She later walked out of the courthouse supported on her husband's arm, wearing sunglasses. A U.S. marshal who had rushed to her side said she was fine, and possibly dehydrated.

After serving 29 months in prison, Black was released in July 2010 based on a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court narrowed the scope of the federal honest services law used to help convict him and an appeals court subsequently voided two of three fraud counts against him. That necessitated the resentencing on Friday.

"It's a very serious crime," St. Eve told the silver-haired former chief executive of newspaper publishing giant Hollinger International Inc.

"Corporate executives need to be sent a message that the company's money belongs to the company, and its shareholders," she said. "You had a duty of trust. The shareholders put their trust in you. And you violated that trust."

In departing from federal guidelines calling for Black to be resentenced to between 51 and 63 months, St. Eve cited his conduct in prison, his charitable work with the family foundation, his advanced age and the unlikelihood he would ever commit another crime.

The letters from inmates who served time with Black at Coleman prison in Florida said he had been generous with his time and tutelage.

Before the sentencing, Black spoke at length, and with typical eloquence, about his sense of the case that began some eight years ago with an accusation he and his colleagues had engaged in a $500 million "kleptocracy."

The Canadian-born Black said he had been unfairly portrayed as a "guerrilla warrior" objecting to the U.S. justice system, countering, "I have been absolutely submissive to legal authority."

'I DO BELIEVE IN REPENTANCE'

He stopped short of expressing remorse, saying he regretted the loss of $2 billion in shareholder value caused by fallout from the case against him and four other Hollinger executives.

Black was convicted of scheming with partner David Radler and other executives to siphon off millions of dollars in proceeds from the sales of newspapers as they unwound Hollinger, once the world's third-largest publisher of English-language newspapers. It operated the Chicago Sun-Times, Jerusalem Post, London's Daily Telegraph and dozens of other newspapers across North America.

"I do believe in repentance ... and punishment," he said. "It is right that people inevitably pay for their mistakes."

He quoted Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling and other notables, and said he had become a patient in psychoanalysis since his release in July, learning that "it is practically impossible to suppress conscientious remorse."

Black said a lawsuit he filed in Canada against the authors of a report condemning his reign at Hollinger was near a settlement, and would result in a payment to him for the "scurrilous charges" contained in it.

St. Eve said she would grant Black up to two months before he must surrender to finish out his sentence, noting that unlike U.S. citizens convicted of financial crimes, he was not eligible for a low-security prison "camp." He also is ineligible for a halfway house before release.

As a British citizen convicted of a felony, Black will be forced to leave the United States on release, but he may be allowed to return to Canada.

"I have always tried to take success like a gentleman and disappointment like a man," Black said.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Ex-Media Mogul Conrad Black sent back to prison (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Convicted former media baron Conrad Black was ordered back to prison by a U.S. judge on Friday to continue serving time on fraud counts.

Judge Amy St. Eve of U.S. District Court, who sentenced Black to 6-1/2 years on fraud and obstruction of justice convictions following his 2007 trial, sentenced the 66-year-old member of Britain's House of Lords to 42 months, including the 29 months already served.

Black's wife, Barbara Amiel Black, collapsed immediately after St. Eve ruled, and was assisted out of the courtroom by medical personnel.

Black was released from prison in July 2010 based on a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court narrowed the scope of the federal honest services law used to help convict him.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Greg McCune)

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USS Monterey's Black Sea arrival raises Russia's hackles (The Christian Science Monitor)

Moscow – It's not quite the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it has some Russians recalling that grim cold war episode.

Moscow claims the US is violating a strategic understanding, and potentially threatening Russia's nuclear deterrent, by sending the antimissile cruiser USS Monterey to participate in Black Sea war games with a dozen other nations.

Russia, which objects to any US military incursion into the Black Sea, was bound to disapprove of this week's Sea Breeze 2011 international naval exercises, cosponsored by the US and Ukraine, whose theme this year is antipiracy operations.

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But the decision to send the Monterey, equipped with advanced Aegis antimissile weaponry, has Moscow unusually agitated and apparently fearful that the US is trying bypass ongoing – and deeply troubled – talks over European missile defense and slip a strategic threat into Russia's own back yard under the cover of peaceful exercises.

"If a routine 'visit' to this extremely sensitive region is the issue, why was a warship with this particular type of weaponry chosen?," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a sharp statement Sunday.

"We have to state that our concerns continue to be ignored and under the guise of talks on European missile shield cooperation, efforts are under way to build the missile shield configuration whose consequences are dangerous and about which we have numerously informed our US and NATO partners," it added.

The foreign ministry statement suggested Russia has received US assurances that the planned missile defense shield, designed to protect the West from rogue attacks, would mainly focus on ship-based Aegis deployments in the Mediterranean Sea, to defend southern Europe. They would only be sent to the Black Sea if the situation "deteriorated" in the region, it said.

"The Russian side has said on many occasions that we will not leave without attention to the emergence of elements of the US strategic infrastructure in the direct vicinity of our borders and will take such steps as a threat to our security," it added.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said it sees "no threat" to any country from the naval games, which are designed to highlight international cooperation on security issues of universal concern.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday that "[The Russians] are entitled to their opinion ... . But we have a strong bilateral relationship with Ukraine, and it's in keeping with that kind of partnership that these exercises take place."

Ukraine has moved briskly into Russia's strategic orbit over the past year, and effectively shelved its previous application to join NATO.

Experts say that international exercises like Sea Breeze are crucial elements in Kiev's policy of trying to balance West against East, while hoping to enjoy good relations and wrest economic benefits from both.

But the Russians insist that missile defense is a make-or-break issue for US-Russia relations and they see the Monterey's appearance in the Black Sea, sans prior consultations with Moscow, as a troubling precedent.

"The Black Sea is a closed sea, and the intrusion of this US warship breaks existing traditions," says Konstantin Zatulin, a Duma deputy with the ruling United Russia party. "There is a realistic fear that the balance of forces in the region could be altered... .

"Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? We know how Americans react when someone drops new strategic facts into their backyard, so they should understand that this episode gives us no joy."

RECOMMENDED: Russia's military might

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Investigators find black box from Air France crash

PARIS (AP) — Investigators have located and recovered the memory unit of the flight data recorder of a 2009 Air France flight ? a remarkable deep-sea discovery they hope will explain why the aircraft went down in a remote area of the mid-Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.

var data = blocks.columnist;if (data != undefined){document.getElementById('columnistmug').innerHTML=data;} By Johann Peschel, AP

This photo provided Sunday shows the flight data recorder from the 2009 Air France flight that went down in the mid-Atlantic.

By Johann Peschel, AP

This photo provided Sunday shows the flight data recorder from the 2009 Air France flight that went down in the mid-Atlantic.

France's air accident investigation agency BEA said a search by a submarine probing some 12,800 feet below the ocean's surface located and recovered the unit Sunday morning. The unit is now aboard the ship Ile de Sein, the statement said.

The statement also included photos of the recorder ? a red cylinder partially buried in sand on the sea floor. Judging from the photos, the unit appeared to be in good condition.

Last month, the agency said the undersea search had identified the "chassis" that had held the recorder, but said the memory unit was still missing. The flight data recorder stores data from the flight. Another so-called "black box" records cockpit conversations.

Investigators hope Sunday's remarkable discovery will allow them to determine what caused the June 1, 2009,crash of Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to the French capital, Paris. The aircraft slammed into the Atlantic northeast of Brazil after running into an intense high-altitude thunderstorm.

Automatic messages sent by the Airbus 330's computers showed it was receiving false air speed readings from sensors known as pitot tubes. Investigators have said the crash was likely caused by a series of problems, and not just sensor error.

The crash site was so remote and in such a deep area of the Atlantic that the bulk of the wreckage was only recently discovered, thanks to a deep-sea search.

Experts have said that without retrieving the voice and data recorders there would be almost no chance of determining what caused the crash ? the worst disaster in Air France's history.

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Movie Man In Black 2

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This movie begins five year after the end of its prequel, Men in Black. It shows the main lead agent, Agent K that is played by the great actor Tommy Lee Jones in a civilian attire with a normal life in a small town as a postmaster. Agent J who is played by Will Smith however continues to work as an agent for the MiB. MiB is a self-funded New York Citybased agency that monitors and regulates any interactions with the extraterrestrial life forms on earth. Agent J works alone as his partners had been let go due to their instability by MiB. While going through the daily routine, J discovers a diabolical plot to destroy the earth by an all time villian Serleena who is a shapeshifting Kylothian queen. On planet earth, she has disguised herself as a model. This character is played by the fine young actress Lara Flynn Boyle. After discovering her plot and to stop her from achieving her goal, Agent J convinces K to come back to work. Agent K is the only man on earth who knows exactly what is required to stop Serleena from destroying planet earth.

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Black soldiers waged wars on two fronts

Stories, videos, cold cases. Once in uniform, black recruits faced a range of prejudicial treatment, including low pay, inferior weapons, inadequate medical care and relegation to fatigue duty. With blacks in camp, white soldiers were spared from degrading manual tasks such as digging ditches for latrines.

Black soldiers understood that only on the battlefield could they earn the respect of whites. Although black regiments participated in 39 major battles and 449 minor engagements, it was their remarkable valor in several battles in 1863 and 1864 that assuaged Northern prejudices, impressing naysayers enough to give serious consideration to the widespread use of black soldiers.

Learning that the North was arming slaves, the Davis administration threatened to re-enslave captured blacks and execute white officers for aiding servile insurrection. When Lincoln vowed to retaliate by executing Rebel officers taken prisoner, Davis backed down. But the Confederate president could do little to slake the racial animosity of many rebel commands, which adopted a no-prisoners policy signified by carrying the "black flag" into battle.

When blacks responded with terror tactics of their own, the war descended into a vicious cycle of atrocity and reprisal that has somehow faded from the American memory. The war may have been a chivalrous contest for some combatants, but not for the Rebels who shot surrendering blacks at Fort Pillow, Tenn., or the blacks who murdered wounded Confederates at Jenkins' Ferry, Ark.

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Va.'s George Allen assumes black reporter played sports

PreviousSen. Manchin urges Congress to skip pay in shutdown

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Leading black scholar dies days before book release

Leading black scholar dies days before Malcolm X biography release By Katie Silver, CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTSColumbia University director of black history center dies at 61Dr. Manning Marable wrote 20 booksUpcoming book on Malcolm X has high expectations New York (CNN) -- Dr Manning Marable, director of Columbia University's Center for Contemporary Black History has died, according to a statement from the NAACP. He was 61.

The statement did not give a cause of the Friday death.

"Dr. Marable's contributions to the struggle for freedom of African Americans will never be forgotten," stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous.

"Dr. Marable brought one of the keenest intellects of our age to the contemporary conversation on race in America," Jealous said.

Born in 1950, Dr Marable was a professor at Cornell, Fisk, Colgate, Ohio State and Colorado universities before founding the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia in 1993, according to the website for the Columbia center, CCBH.

This center went on to become one of the nation's most prestigious centers on African-American Study, the website said.

A prolific author, Dr Marable wrote some 200 articles and 20 books, though many have said his forthcoming 594-page book, ""Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,"" is one of his life's great achievements.

"So much that has been written and portrayed on Malcolm X has been a series of iconic, misleading images," Dr Marable told CNN in 2003. "He's been expropriated by everybody from the hip-hop generation to the U.S. Postal Service."

"Let's now document the true meaning of Malcolm through his own words," Dr Marable said.

A public memorial service is planned for May 27 by his wife, three children and two stepchildren, according to the NAACP release.

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