November 30, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) – Some helicopter pilots say it is too dangerous to land on a helipad on top of Chicago’s new Lurie Children’s Memorial Hospital.

The proposed helipad is in the city’s Streeterville neighborhood on the Near North Side. That helipad has been opposed by some area residents but was approved by the state. The US Department of Transportation is looking into concerns written in an anonymous letter that questions the safety of the helipad.

After a summer of hearings, in mid-October the Illinois Department of Transportation okayed the hospital’s proposed rooftop helipad, an assent that took into account the prior approvals of the City of Chicago and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The letter they received is now the subject of federal questions. Twenty-two stories up is where Lurie Children’s Hospital officials say lives will be saved: A heliport to receive urgent medical cases. But opponents recently received an anonymous letter, supposedly on behalf of four University of Chicago medical helicopter pilots who fly to the existing Children’s Memorial Hospital in Lincoln Park who think the new setup is dangerous.

“There is nowhere to safely land in an emergency during landing or takeoff,” the letter says. The pilots think the kind of helicopter used “does not have the power to successfully fly away on one engine, because of the nearness of surrounding buildings.”

The letter goes on to say the pilots brought up their fears to superiors but have been “absolutely” told to keep quiet. “It is obviously from a concerned citizen who is trying to find a path to share safety concerns,” said Patty Frost, Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR). SOAR favors medical flights landing a mile away at the Coast Guard station on Navy Pier, a plan the hospital would employ when the weather won’t allow a rooftop landing.

“The city municipal code outlines specific areas for what emergency landing areas can be and not be, and there aren’t any in that neighborhood,” Frost said.

SOAR sent the anonymous letter to the federal transportation department, which said its inspector general’s office had assigned a case number to the matter. A department official would neither confirm nor deny an investigation had started, but said a case number is a sign the matter — among the thousands of requests it receives — will be followed up.

As for Lurie, the fact that the letter had instigated a federal response was news. Still, the hospital, which will open in June, stands by its helipad. In a statement, it said the helipad hearings were “the result of five years of detailed studies…the concerns addressed in the letter…were squarely addressed by expert testimony and documentation provided to IDOT.”

The Illinois Department of Transportation says they stand by their findings that the hospital is a safe location to operate a helipad. The federal response, whatever it may turn out to be, may not be known for six months, and a Freedom of Information request has to be sent to Washington to get what their official response to this letter might turn out to be.

(Copyright ©2011 WLS-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Eight reasons Obama will win in 2012

“Republicans fall in line and Democrats fall in love,” says Kevin Lampe, a Chicago political consultant and executive VP of strategic communications firm Kurth Lampe, who coached Obama before his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. But Democrats will fall in line behind Obama because “if they don’t vote, it’s a tea party vote.”

http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/15025303/eight-reasons-obama-will-win-in-2012

http://www.lantosfoundation.org/Lantos_News_Template.asp?id=34

CONCORD, NH – Katrina Lantos Swett, President of The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, responded today to a protest staged in opposition to the upcoming award of the 2011 Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize to Rwandan humanitarian Paul Rusesabagina:

a href=http://rwandaspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/tom_lantos_microphone.jpgimg class=alignleft size-full wp-image-178 title=Tom_Lantos_microphone src=http://rwandaspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/tom_lantos_microphone.jpg alt= width=235 height=300 //a“The protest staged today is only the latest attempt to smear the good name of this year’s Lantos Prize recipient, Paul Rusesabagina. These protests were not staged when the Oscar-nominated film “Hotel Rwanda” was released, nor were they staged when Paul received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush. It was only once he started to speak out about the need for more freedom and democracy in Rwanda, including a Truth and Reconciliation process, that these attacks were suddenly manufactured. Unfortunately these attacks appear to be consistent with a disturbing pattern of censorship, intimidation and even violence that has been directed at those who have dared voice concerns about the government of Rwanda. This pattern is not unique to Rwanda. Other authoritarian regimes have responded in a similar fashion.

The most recent high profile example happened in 2010, when the Chinese government vehemently protested the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo and tried to bully governments into boycotting the Prize ceremony. The irony of such manufactured protests is that, in the end, they only serve to provide a brighter spotlight to the intended target.

As the child of Holocaust survivors, I, along with the Lantos Foundation staff, have made particular efforts to listen to the concerns of Rwandan genocide survivors who have contacted us. While many have thanked us for our decision to honor Paul Rusesabagina, there are others who have expressed contrary views. We have spent hours talking to these individuals by phone and email, and even meeting with some in person. The bottom-line is that the more we speak to them, the more it becomes painfully obvious that there is a “script” in place. This script is at times absurd and at other times petty. They accuse Paul of denying the genocide when in fact he has devoted his life to telling the awful story of Rwanda’s genocide and working to achieve genuine peace and reconciliation. They complain that Paul charged the guests who found refuge in the hotel a fact that Paul readily shares in his book, in person and in the movie Hotel Rwanda- money was needed to feed the 1200 people living in the hotel and to bribe the ever murderous gangs that prowled outside the hotel gates. At the end of the day, it seems that his real offense in their eyes, is that he has been outspoken in defense of democracy in Rwanda even in the face of determined efforts to silence him.

We did not intend to cause controversy with this year’s Lantos Prize, but it seems the controversy has found us anyway. We did not intend to step into the political disagreements that are currently swirling in and around Rwanda, but it seems we are not able to avoid that either. We originally chose Paul Rusesabagina as the Lantos Prize recipient purely based on his heroic actions during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, not for his work since then through the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation. But we now find ourselves quite in awe of Paul’s willingness to stand up and speak out for freedoms in his home country, despite the backlash that work has caused.

In the end, the most poignant take away from today’s events is that the very freedom to take part in these protests is something that wouldn’t be allowed in Rwanda under the current government. Paul Rusesabagina is simply asking for his native country to experiencea href=http://rwandaspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2011_hr_award_recipent_paul_rusesabagina-1.jpgimg class=alignleft size-medium wp-image-179 title=2011_HR_Award_Recipent_Paul_Rusesabagina-1 src=http://rwandaspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2011_hr_award_recipent_paul_rusesabagina-1.jpg?w=300 alt= width=300 height=112 //a the same of freedom and openness that we deeply value here in America.”

The Lantos Foundation established the Lantos Human Rights Prize in 2009 to honor and bring attention to heroes of the human rights movement. It is awarded annually to an individual or organization that best exemplifies the Foundation’s mission, namely to be a vital voice standing up for the values of decency, dignity, freedom, and justice in every corner of the world. The prize also serves to commemorate the late Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress and a prominent advocate for human rights during his nearly three decades as a U.S. Representative. Former recipients of the Lantos Prize include His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. This year’s award will be presented to Paul Rusesabagina in Washington, DC on November 16th.

Contact: Kitty Kurth

Cell Phone: 312-617-7288

Skype:kittykurth

Email: kitty@kurthlampe.com

Rwandans, Congolese & Europeans Protest in Support of Peace and Reconciliation; Against the Visit of Rwandan President Paul Kagame to Paris September 12

Paul Rusesabagina, about whom the movie Hotel Rwanda was made, will join with his fellow Rwandans, other Africans and Europeans to peacefully protest the presence of the Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Paris on Monday, September 12 at 10 a.m. at Sevres Babylone – 75006 Paris.

Kagame will be in Paris for his first official visit since the 1994 Genocide to meet with President Sarkozy, other officials, and the business community. Protesters intend to make it clear that Kagame’s Rwanda is the home of many human rights violations, including acting as a primary sponsor for the proxy war that has killed more than seven million Congolese in the past decade.

Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation President Paul Rusesabagina said, “It is regrettable that the French government and business communities are choosing to validate Kagame’s regime with this visit. Protesters will focus on the need for the Rwandan people to be free of the dictatorship that rules them, not to have that dictatorship make new deals with otherwise respected governments and business leaders. Any support shown for Kagame reflects poorly on both the government of France and on French businesses.”

Rusesabagina continued, “I believe that the dictatorial practices of President Kagame should not be condoned by the French people. I will gather with my fellow Rwandans and friends who wish for Truth and Reconciliation and lasting peace for our country. We will protest the presence of Kagame’s bloody hands and oppressive fists. His acts as President are creating a situation that will likely devolve in to more violence for Rwanda.”

Just last week, Reporters sans Frontieres announced that another Rwandan newspaper was forced to suspend publication after threats made after President Kagame was criticized in the Ishema newspaper. (http://news.yahoo.com/rwandan-paper-suspends-publication-threats-001646964.html) All serious opposition press outlets are now effectively closed in Rwanda, either by government fiat,threat, or in some cases after attacks or murders of reporters, editors and publishers. In recent years many in the media have been forced into exile after exercising their right to speak freely.

According to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, President Kagame is responsible for millions of deaths of Rwandans and Congolese citizens. The UN in its Mapping report of 1 October, 2010, details those war crimes, crimes against humanity and even possible acts of genocide (http:// www.ohchr.org/en/Countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/RDCProjetMapping.aspx ). For years, the United Nations Security Council has been reporting that Rwanda is responsible for driving a proxy war for minerals in neighboring Congo.

The June 3, 2011 report from Amnesty International condemns Kagame’s government, saying “The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), in power since the 1994 genocide, tightly controls political space, civil society and the media, contending that this is necessary to prevent renewed violence. Human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents cannot openly and publicly criticize the authorities. People who do speak out risk prosecution and imprisonment.” The report,

entitled UNSAFE TO SPEAK OUT: RESTRICTIONS ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN RWANDA says “freedom of expression in Rwanda has been unduly restricted for many years. The months leading up to the August 2010 presidential elections were marked by a clampdown on freedom of expression, which still shows no sign of abating” (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/ info/AFR47/002/2011/en ).

Human Rights Watch published it’s latest Rwanda report on May 31, 2011, ( http://www.hrw.org/en/ reports/2011/05/31/justice-compromised ) that says in Rwanda justice has been compromised, and that flaws in trials have lead to miscarriages of justice. Human Rights Watch declared that President Kagame is in crisis (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/09/21/rwanda-president-crisis ), as he drives the country that has suffered genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity further into the direction of civil war and more bloodshed.

Kagame has jailed political opposition leaders, closed political space, banned independent media, and pursues Rwandans abroad to assassinate them and harass them. Last year he sent thugs to ransack the house of Paul Rusesabagina in Belgium. Last month law enforcement in the United Kingdom warned Rwandans that “reliable intelligence states that the Rwandan government poses an imminent threat to your life” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/africa/20rwanda.html ).

The peaceful protesters who will gather in Paris on Monday will call for an immediate end to President Kagame’s war crimes and impunity, and will ask the international community to bring him to account for the crimes he has committed. The protesters will also be asking the international community to support Rwandans searching for the permanent resolution to the current Rwandan refugee crisis; an end to chronic violent conflict and prevention of more bloodshed in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region of east and central Africa; support for human rights protection, dialogue, freedom, equal justice, democracy, and equitable prosperity. They will call for reconciliation and healing among many millions of Rwandans and their neighbors who have been subjected to untold suffering for so long.

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Take a walk around and tell us what your think?

Thanks,

Kevin

During Construction please contact us:

Kevin Lampe

(312) 617-7280

Kevin@kurthlampe.com