Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 4-22-16 Edition

President Obama Meets With 6 Arab Nations To Talk About Security In Persian Gulf
Harriet Tubman To Replace Andrew Jackson On $20 Bill
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia --
President Barack Obama
met Thursday with top officials from six Arab nations to discuss regional security issues in the Persian Gulf including the fight against the Islamic State militant group.
The meetings in Riyadh are meant to build on a similar sum- mit convened last year at Camp David. They reflect an effort by the White House to reassure and coordinate with important but wary Mideast allies that harbor serious doubts about the Presi- dent’s outreach to Iran and U.S. policy toward the grinding civil war in Syria.
Pres. Obama and officials from the U. S.-allied countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council opened up talks Thursday morn- ing by posing for a group photo. The leaders, meeting around a circular table in an ornate meet- ing room in the Diriyah Palace, made polite conversation and smiled for cameras, but offered no remarks.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Ad- viser Susan Rice and CIA Di- rector John Brennan also attended the meeting.
The summit follows bilateral talks that the President held with Saudi’s King Salman on Wednesday shortly after arriving in the kingdom. Besides Saudi Arabia, the GCC includes the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain.
The White House has said the summit meeting included three sessions.
One is aimed at fostering re- gional stability and another at counterterrorism efforts includ- ing efforts to defeat al-Qaida and
President Barack Obama and King Salman of Saudi Arabia have held talks in Riyadh ahead of a regional summit.
HARRIET TUBMAN
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew re- leased information about changes to the U. S. $20 bill. In a historic move, a woman will grace the front of the $20 for the first time in more than 100 years. The bill is expected to go into circulation in 2030.
Secretary Lew said the $20 will feature Harriet Tub- man, an African American abo- litionist, replacing President Andrew Jackson. This marks the first time an African Ameri- can, male or female, has ever ap- peared on paper money in the United States.
The announcement came after the Treasury Department received a groundswell of public comments, following the “Women On 20s” campaign calling for a notable American woman to appear on U. S. cur- rency.
Tubman was chosen after her name emerged as the choice of more than half a million vot- ers in the online poll last year.
Women on 20s stated on its website. “Not only did she de- vote her life to racial equality, she fought for women’s rights alongside the nation’s leading suffragists.”
Born Araminta Harriet Ross, Harriet Tubman, was born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland around 1820.
As a teenager, she was struck in the head with a 2- pound weight when she refused to help restrain a runaway slave.
PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON
She suffered from seizures, se- vere headaches and narcoleptic episodes for the rest of her life.
In 1844, she married a free Black named John Tubman. After the death of her master, she and two of her brothers es- caped to Philadelphia in 1849. Pennsylvania was a free state where escaped slaves found safety. She began helping other slaves to escape to Pennsylvania through the Underground Rail- road.
However, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, Tubman re-routed the Underground Railroad to Canada. She is credited with helping more than 300 slaves escape to freedom.
Harriet Tubman died in 1913, after contracting pneumo- nia, and was buried with full military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.
Other Changes On $10 And $5 Bills
The new $10 bill will be intro- duced into circulation in 2020. It will continue to feature Alexander Hamilton, the first U. S. Treasury Secretary on its front. However, five women will share honors on the back.
They are: Susan B. An- thony, Elizabeth Cady Stan- ton, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, and Sojourner Truth.
The Lincoln Memorial will remain on the back of the $5 bill. However, it will be a back- drop for photographs of Mar- ian Anderson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Islamic State militants. A third session will focus on Iran, which Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states see as a destabilizing rival in the region.
Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and other Gulf countries share the U. S. view that IS militants pose a threat, and have joined the U. S.-led bombing campaign against the group. But they want the U. S. to do more to attempt to remove Syrian’s President Bashar Assad from power.
The Gulf states are also deeply skeptical of Pres. Obama's willingness to negoti- ate with Shiite powerhouse Iran, and fear that last year's nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic will lead to a rebalancing of re- gional stances at their expense.
Several of the Sunni-ruled Gulf states view Tehran's back- ing of Shiite militias in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq as the main driver of sectarianism and insta- bility in the region.
Disputes over Iran were a major part of Pres. Obama's talks with Saudi’s King Salman on Wednesday. The President spent two hours with the King and top Saudi officials amid strains in the relationship.
Pres. Obama also held di-
rect talks Wednesday with
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the power- ful crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
U. S. military aircraft are based in the Emirates, the sec- ond largest Arab economy after Saudi Arabia, and its Jebel Ali port in Dubai frequently hosts visiting Navy warships.
Thursday's talks are likely to touch on fighting in neighboring Yemen. A U. N.-brokered cease- fire that started earlier this month has been repeatedly breeched — by the Saudi-led coalition fighting on the side of Yemen's internationally recog- nized government and by the Shiite rebels and their allies.
The Saudi effort has sought to drive the Shiite rebels from the capital and other parts of the deeply impoverished country. The U. S. is not carrying out airstrikes in that campaign, but has provided refueling and other logistical help.
Following his meetings with Gulf leaders, Pres. Obama planned to depart Saudi Arabia late Thursday for Britain and Germany, the final two stops on his trip.
Ben Carson: Harriet Tubman Belongs On $2 Bill, Not $20 Bill
Dr. Ben Carson is getting a deserved collective side-eye from folks over his comments regarding Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. And on top of that he’s getting a tongue lash- ing from a Rosa Parks rela- tive.
As we reported last year, Rosa Parks was also in the running to get a new spot on U. S. currency, and her niece, Sheila Keys, incensed with Carson’s comment about Tubman, told reporters the re- tired neurosurgeon “needs sur- gery on his brain” and clearly puts zero historical value on Tubman’s contributions to America.
Ben Carson, former candi- date for president.
As for her aunt Rosa getting passed up, Keys says Parks “was not a diva and being on a dollar bill does not represent what she’s about.”
White House News
PAGE 6-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016