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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 2005)
500 F years of •/community service W ‘City of Roses’ Happy Thanksgiving i ^ irrtlan h (Ohserner Committed to Cultural Diversity Volume XXXV, Number 47 .Week ¡n The Review Jose Padilla Charged www.portlandobserver.com Established in 1970 Wednesday • November 23. 2005 Payday Loans Cost Millions Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held in a Navy brig as an enem y co m b at ant for more than three years, was charged T uesday with being part o f a terror cell that sent m oney and recruits overseas to “m urder, maim and kidnap.” A bsent from the indictm ent were allegations m ade earlier that Padilla sought by M ichael L eighton to blow up U.S. hotels and apart T he P ortland O bserver ment buildings and planned an Portland area residents w ho borrow attack on A m erica with a radio paycheck to paycheck are being gouged logical “dirty bom b.” m illions o f dollars in interest for short Iraqis, U.S. Soldiers Killed term loans at high-priced check cashing A suicide car bom ber killed 21 sto res. people in northern Iraq on T ues Payday lenders in M ultnom ah County day after insurgents lured police alone did $48 m illion in business in 2002, to the scene by shooting an o f according to a new survey and report by ficer, officials said. The U.S. com the O regon Student Public Interest Re m and said three more U.S. sol search Group. diers have been killed, pushing The cost to consum ers is a staggering the A m erican m ilitary death toll average interest rate o f 521 percent when for the conflict to 2,100. adjusted annually. In a typical payday loan in Portland, to borrow $300 for two Obama Seeks Withdrawal w eeks or less a consum er w rites a per Illin o is Democratic sonal check for $360. Sen. Barack W orse yet, m ost o f the people who O bam a on take these short term loans can ’t repay T uesday the am ount at the end o f the initial loan called for a period and m ost are “rolled over” to tro o p r e another short term loan, often tw o or duction in three tim es, requiring an additional $60 Iraq and criticized the Bush admin each extension to carry it for tw o more istration for questioning the patrio w eeks. tism of people who speak out against O ut o f 141,360 payday loan transac the war. tions in one year in M ultnom ah County, 74 percent o f the custom ers w ere unable Student Guilty in Plot An American Muslim student was to pay back the loan on the first try, with convicted T uesday o f jo in in g al- 52 percent o f the custom ers rolling over Q aida and plotting to assassi their loans three tim es, the survey showed. nate President Bush. The federal A s m ost lenders charge a flat fee based jury rejected A hm ed O m ar Abu on the loan am ount, a loan for less than A li’s claim that Saudi authorities 14-days can carry even heftier interest w hipped and tortured him to ex rates, w hich can approach and exceed tract a false confession. Borrowers pay average rate of 521 percent Civil Jury Convicts Blake photo by I saiah B ouif / T he P ortland O bserver Teddy Perez steps out from a check cashing store on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. “It sucks that every time I cash my check, $63.47 is taken out, ’ he said. A survey found payday loans are even costlier with interest rates equivalent to more than 500 percent annually. 1000 percent. O SPIRG also discovered that nearly h alf o f the 21 storefront lenders who control 95 percent o f the local market are not even com plying with the most basic requirem ent to post annual percentage rates where custom ers can easily read it. “No m atter how desperate the con sum er, no lender should be able to gouge them with such high-cost loans,” said Shannon C allahan, a staff attorney for O SPIRG . “ Payday loans are designed to trap consum ers in a spiral o f ever-in- creasing debt.” Nearly all o f the payday lenders in Portland are out-of-state corporations. continued on page A8 Portland’s World AIDS Response Eight months after Robert Blake was acquitted at a criminal trial of m u r d e r in g his w ife, a civil jury in B u rb a n k , C a lif, d e cided Friday the to u g h guy a c to r was behind the slaying, and ordered him to pay Bonnie Lee World AIDS Day will observed in Bakley’s children $30 million in Portland with a benefit concert and damages. Bakley was gunned down dance. in 2001 in the actor’s car outside a For the first ti me, a series of events for restaurant where the couple had the Friday, Dec. 1 national observance just dined. are being planned locally thanks to the Nike Jet Lands Safely organizations Keep the Promise, the A Nike G ulfstream je t failed to Africa AIDS Response and AIDS Ac fully retract its landing g ear after tion Project Northwest. takeoff from H illsboro on M on day and then w ouldn’t budge up or down. The crew was finally able to get the gear fully extended and locked into place after six hours o f high-altitude m aneuvers under guidance from G ulfstream officials. Concert Keeps Prom ise Ural Thomas The 4th annual AIDS benefit concert and dance will take place at the Tiffany Center Emerald Ballroom, downtown, African Gospel Acappella is comprised o f six blind musicians who sing in with a free educational reception kick several languages. The Vancouver musicians, originally from Liberia, will ing off the festivities at 4:30 p.m., fol perform at the Africa Aids Response 4th annual benefit concert and dance. lowed by memorial service at 5:30 p.m. A pre-dance dinner and auction be students and students and are available at Clifford Walker of Portland said words gins at 6 p.m. with the classic sounds of all Safeway Ticketwest outlets or by call cannot express the joy people of Mutare soul, Cajun and R&B filling the center ing 5 0 3 -2 2 4 -8 4 9 9 or v isitin g feel for the past help Portland area resi dents have given them in their fight against beginning at 7:30 p.m. The entertain www.ticketswest.com. ment will be highlighted by Portland’s Support for the annual Portland cel AIDS Walker returned from Mutare in July Ural Thomas, followed by the Bonnie ebration will raise money tocontinue AIDS Lee Band and the African Gospel relief efforts in Portland’s Sister City of where local support for AIDS relief has Mutare, Zimbabwe. paid for the construction o f a health clinic, Acappella group. Tickets are $20 for adults or $ 10 for African AIDS Response spokesman two schools and church. Clifford Walker o f Portland's African AIDS Response organization, visits Mutare, Zimbabwe, meeting village leaders Misheck Zamba (from left) and Chief Ishe Chigodoraf. Helping our Sister City of Mutare, Zimbabwe In 1991, a grassroots effort by local residents led to the city of Portland toofficially recognize Mutare, Zimbabwe as our 9,h Sister City. Today, Mutare and its closest neighbors in Zimbabwe are receiving help from Portland in its fight against HIV and AIDS. The devastating health crisis a world away has generated a local helping hand mostly because of African AIDS Response, a nonprofit group that grew out of the Portland- Mutare Sister City organization. Maria Kosmetatos, the founder of Africa Aids Response and Cliff Walker, president of the orga nization have traveled back and forth to Mutare since 2000. They can now proudly say that a church, two schools and finally a health clinic were pro vided from local donations to a population peril a world way. continued y ^ on page A 8