Trial begins of Boston police officer accused of h
Trial begins of Boston police officer accused of helping cousin flee slaying
The trial of a Boston police officer accused of helping his cousin flee a homicide began yesterday in the parking lot of the Copa Grande Oasis nightclub in Randolph, where the alleged slaying occurred.
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts The jury, some wearing sunglasses and others squinting under the morning sky, were instructed to take mental notes of the area where Joseph Lopes was gunned down on Jan. 29, 2005, allegedly by Carlos DePina, the suspect in the slaying who has not been captured. DePina's cousin, Baltazar DaRosa, allegedly drove the get-away car.
DaRosa, a three-year veteran of the Boston police force who has been suspended without pay pending the results of the trial, stood nearby yesterday. He is being tried with Amilcar Cabral, who is charged with being an accessory.
``Baltazar DaRosa and Amilcar Cabral helped him [DePina] flee from that parking lot after the murder," said Assistant District Attorney Lynn M. Beland, after the jury returned to the Norfolk District County Courthouse in Dedham. Bland said DePina shot Lopes nine times and ran to DaRosa's car and told him there had been a shooting. DaRosa knew his cousin had shot Lopes, but he drove him back to Dorchester, she said. Authorities say they believe DePina may have fled to Cape Verde. A 24-year-old woman, who has not been publicly identified because she is a witness, testified yesterday she saw DePina shoot Lopes that night.
Wayne R. Murphy said his client, DaRosa, was unaware of what had allegedly transpired. ``All the evidence will show is that my client drove his cousin home, and he knew nothing else."
Cabral's lawyer, James S. Dilday, told the jury, ``You won't hear any evidence to show you that Mr. Cabral was aware that Carlos DePina shot anyone on that particular day." Beland said witnesses overheard Cabral telling DePina to ``keep running" after the shooting, and that Cabral and DePina jumped into DaRosa's car at the same time.
Lopes's killing is believed to have resulted from a feud between factions of Cape Verdean youths in Dorchester, a police official said. DePina's brother, Nathaniel, was killed by a masked gunman at a Dorchester barbecue in 2003. Lopes was a suspect in that slaying, the official said.
The Rev. Walter Waldron -- pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Roxbury, which has a large Cape Verdean contingent -- sat behind DaRosa, 28, during the trial. ``He's a very soft-spoken guy, very gentle and spiritual," Waldron said. ``He's not the aggressive type."
DePina, Cabral, DaRosa, and a friend who has not been charged drove to the nightclub about midnight, Murphy said. According to testimony from Steve Mahoney, head of security at the club, Jan. 29 was Cape Verdean night and went off without any incidents. The lights were turned on about 1:45 a.m., a signal for the music to stop and for the staff to begin ushering out the crowd.
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Miss S.C. Pageant pays higher-than-market-value pr
Miss S.C. Pageant pays higher-than-market-value price for office space
The Miss South Carolina Organization is headquartered at this 1,896-square-foot building at 124 W. Main St. in Liberty. In 2004, the state pageant paid $63,000 to rent part of the former medical office owned by pageant president Joe Sanders III.
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In 2004, the last year for which tax filings are available, the state pageant paid $63,000 to rent part of an 1,896-square-foot, one-story brick building at 124 W. Main St. in Liberty, a small town that's home to about 3,000 people. The building is owned by pageant president Joe Sanders III through the now-defunct Sanders Financial Group LLC and also houses the Sanders family business, American Family Mortgage Services.
Complaint
The nonprofit pageant organization, run for years by the Sanders family, is under investigation by the S.C. Secretary of State's Office after a complaint alleged that promised scholarship funds were never disbursed. Tax records indicate the pageant paid out $32,620 in scholarships in 2004. The office rent was almost twice
as much for the same period.
While tax returns show no sign of office expenses from 1996 through 1999, the lease costs total $245,000 between 2000 and 2004. The lease amount for 2004 equates to more than $33 per square foot per year, assuming pageant offices filled the entire building.
"That's a generous amount of money for that space," said Century 21 real estate agent Eddie Beaver of Easley, an agent for 28 years.
The building was constructed in 1962 to house medical offices and has a taxable market value of $158,173, according to records from the Pickens County Assessor's Office. Beaver estimated that the property and building -- furnishings excluded -- could be leased for a maximum of $15 per square foot per month after viewing the building from the street.
"I can't see $63,000 a year," he said. "I can see ($34,000), I can see ($32,000), but I might not be seeing something inside."
Joe Sanders declined to discuss the terms of the office lease or make any public comment on the organization's behalf until the Secretary of State's Office completes its review of the organization's tax returns. That office has authority only over whether returns were correctly filed, not over how the nonprofit chooses to spend its funds.
Real estate agents were quick to note that lease amounts vary widely by factors including building condition, included contract expenses -- such as insurance --and traffic count in front of the location. But according to listings on a Web site run by the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors, most of the listings for commercial office space in the Upstate are offered at a lease of less than $20 per square foot annually, including some offices in downtown Greenville.
Pageant comptroller Gail Sanders said in a past interview that the $63,000 spent on the lease in 2004 included costs for telephone, office equipment, maintenance, electricity, furniture, fixtures and the like. A $2,200 telephone expense recorded on the same document, she said, was for the organization's board secretary only.
The same document lists more than $24,000 spent on insurance, postage, Internet charges, storage and office supplies for 2004, plus $21,000 in clerical labor. For the year, administrative expenses totaled nearly $120,000, or 18 percent of the organization's budget.
Secretary of State Mark Hammond said his office's investigation into the organization, which holds its annual pageant each July in Spartanburg, is ongoing. Hammond said pageant officials had been cooperative with additional document requests from his staff.
Rachel E. Leonard can be reached at 562-7230 or
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Dick Resch
Dick Resch
Being owners doesn't put employees on easy street at KI, a maker of office furniture whose stock is privately held by its workers and managers. No, CEO Dick Resch wants each of the 3,500 employees to feel like an entrepreneur, which might mean big rewards, and certainly big risk.
That also means employees need information to help run the business, Resch says. Detailed numbers get spread around the company, especially during a monthly meeting at its Green Bay, Wis., headquarters, where several dozen managers drill deep into material costs, sales and profits of divisions, and even individual products. "Everyone sees the good, the bad, and the ugly," says Resch.
Ugly? "Everybody knows who's doing well and who's not."
It's a high-stakes creative tension that has helped transform KI from a small player in nondescript office furniture-think folding chairs-to a fashion-conscious supplier to highfliers like Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. Since Resch, 68, took over in the 1980s, the company's sales have gone from $45 million to more than $600 million, and KI is now the seventh-largest maker of office furniture.
Grubstake. Resch joined what was then Krueger International as a young executive in the 1960s, a small stake making him one of the company's few shareholders. Even he got little information, though, until he led the company through a couple of leveraged buyouts after the founder died. By 1986, he'd set up KI as nearly 100 percent employee owned; the only outside shareholders are committed advisers, including board members and attorneys.
KI has grown by rapidly producing furniture tailored to industries such as healthcare and technology, and even specific companies within those fields. Resch credits the agility to an informed, committed workforce and decentralized management. But shared responsibility and stakes don't mean everyone agrees; Resch and his managers make the decisions: "We don't have time for consensus."
Still, Resch says every worker is encouraged to think like a manager. Those monthly meetings are about training as well as operations, and the numbers make their way down to self-managed teams in an effort to spread financial literacy. "We try to teach people a common vocabulary," he says.
It's the language of business and investors. People work harder when they have incentives, when they "have skin in the game," Resch says. That's skin that can be won, or lost.
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Russia to be guided by IAEA assessment on Iran, sa
Russia to be guided by IAEA assessment on Iran, says FM
Moscow will be guided by the judgement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the upcoming meeting of the agency on the Iranian nuclear dispute, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
"It is most important not to accentuate sensational issues such as when or whether the issue will be referred to the UN Security Council or when the council will make a decision," Lavrov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying after talks with his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy.
Russia will be guided by IAEA assessment of Iran's nuclear program and expects others to do likewise at the meeting, scheduled for Feb. 2-3, he said, adding Russia views non-proliferation as the primary goal.
The IAEA emergency meeting comes at the request of the European Union, which demanded a vote on whether or not to refer Iran to the UN Security Council to face possible sanctions after Iran resumed sensitive nuclear research last week.
Moscow has said it might not block attempts to refer Iran to the council. But Lavrov also said: "We should act only after we have planned the sequence of steps to be taken."
Douste-Blazy said the international community should be "united but also firm" to persuade Iran to stop sensitive nuclear work and return to the negotiating table.
Russia, which is helping Iran build its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr, has proposed to enrich its uranium under a joint venture on the former Soviet republic's soil. But Iran has so far cold-shouldered the offer.
Uranium enriched at low levels can fuel nuclear reactors, but if highly enriched it can be used for nuclear bombs.
The United States accuses Iran of running a covert nuclear arms program. Iran, however, says its nuclear work is designed merely to meet its energy needs and insists on the right to develop a full nuclear fuel cycle.
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Assad pledges support for Iran's nuclear program
Assad pledges support for Iran's nuclear program
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pledged on Thursday at a joint news conference with his visiting Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Syria's support for Iran's nuclear program and rejected pressure on Tehran."Iran has the right to build up nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," said Assad after talks with Ahmadinejad. Assad also said that he had expressed his country's support for Iran in its pursuit of peaceful nuclear technology during the meeting with Ahmadinejad.
"We back the idea of a dialogue between Iran and the international parties. We also reject the pressure being exerted on Iran" over its nuclear program, he said, adding "countries who oppose this gave no convincing reason, regardless of whether it is legitimate or not."
Assad also renewed Syria's call for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, saying "the beginning (of establishing a nuclear-free Mideast) should be with Israel."
Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, but it has never admitted or denied of possessing nuclear weapons.
In addition, Assad said that both Damascus and Tehran wanted stability in Lebanon but stressed "the need to support the resistance" against Israel, in a clear reference to the radical Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.
Ahmadinejad started a two-day official visit to Syria on Thursday in a bid to strengthen political and economic relations amid mounting international pressures.
Syria and Iran, both on the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, are also accused by Washington of taking insufficient actions to prevent armed opponents of the U.S.-led coalition from crossing into Iraq.
In addition, the two countries back the Hezbollah, which is branded by Washington as a terrorist group. Washington also backs disarming the group under UN Security Council Resolution 1559. Both countries are now entangled in their foreign affairs. Syria is facing mounting international pressure over its alleged role in the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri while Iran was in the hot water over its disputed nuclear program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, will hold an emergency meeting on Feb. 2 upon calls by the European nuclear negotiators to refer Iran's nuclear case to the UN Security Council which might lead to sanctions. Meanwhile, Washington also urged Damascus to stop obstructing the UN probe into Hariri's killing and respond positively to there quests by the UN investigation commission, threatening to refer Syria to the UN Security Council for further actions if Damascus does not cooperate.
Syria has denied any role in Hariri's death and dismissed the UN charge of slow cooperation as "inaccurate."
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Only 0.03% Chinese firms have own key tech
Only 0.03% Chinese firms have own key tech
Statistics from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), China's top intellectual property watchdog, show that only 0.03 percent of Chinese enterprises own key technologies on which they have intellectual property rights.
An SIPO source said that 99 percent of Chinese enterprises have never applied for patents and 60 percent do not have their own trademarks.
SIPO Officials said China established an intellectual property legal system as well as a law enforcement mechanism two decades ago and it now ranks the first in the world in terms of the number of trademark applications and patent applications for utility model and design.
But China still lags behind in terms of the number and quality of intellectual property rights, they said.
While China ranks the third in foreign trade volume, patented high technologies contribute only 2 percent of its total foreign trade volume.
In 2004, China received 130,000 applications for invention patents, half of which are from multinationals headquartered in developed countries.
About 18 percent of patent applications from Chinese companies and individuals are for inventions while 86 percent from foreign companies are for invention patents.
China GDP grew 9.8% in 2005, latest estimate
China GDP grew 9.8% in 2005, latest estimate
Chinanews, Jinan, Jan. 2 (By Yu Jingbo) - The National Development and Reform Commission's (NDRC) deputy director Ou Xinqian revealed at today's conference on national critical coal production, transportation and demand linkages that according to preliminary estimate, China's GDP growth rate reached 9.8% in 2005. This is the latest official estimate after China adjusted its GDP figures. Prior to this, the Chinese government forecast a 9.4% GDP growth for 2005.
An official with the National Bureau of Statistics revealed recently that China will modify its 2005 economic statistics and the tenth five-year-plan period (2001-2005) on the basis of the latest Economic Census results. Ou Xinqian said today that major goals of economic and social development in the tenth five-year-plan could be fulfilled smoothly.
Ou said that according to preliminary estimate, China's consumer price index (CPI) growth has been kept under 2% in 2005. Its investment in fixed assets was up 25%, and its total volume of retail sales of consumer goods rose 13%. These figures were the same as the forecasts made by the Chinese government before the result of the Economic Census was released.
The official forecast also points out that in 2006, China's domestic demand for coal will reach approximately 2.17 billion tons, and coal export will be about 80 megatons. The overall demand for coal is expected to reach 2.25 billion tons, and the growth rate of coal demand will be lower than that of the past few years.
The conference was jointly convened by NDRC, the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Communications, and relevant ministries and commissions of coal and electric power.
