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