MLB, NBA Globalization focused on Communist China and silence.

Communist China's relation to slaughter in Africa creates problems for an "N.B.A. globalization plan that is focused on the Beijing Olympics."

• (The NY Times article focuses mainly on NBA players and avoids addressing David Stern (or Bud Selig)-the key players. Nor does it address the X Factor of all this globalization: the price of oil. Otherwise informative). sm

(NY Times): "His (NBA player Ira Newble) letter to China’s president, Hu Jintao, joined a chorus calling for intervention in the western region of Sudan, the African nation from which China is the leading importer of oil and by extension the financier of weapons used in the slaughter and displacement of non-Arabs." (Christians-the Times is pc. sm)

• (NY Times): Newble’s teammates signed the letter, the most notable exception being LeBron James, superstar extraordinaire in the Michael Jordan risk-averse mold.

King (LeBron) James’s reticence was tied to his lucrative affiliation with Nike, which is heavily invested in China. He is also an ambassador in an N.B.A. globalization plan that is focused on the Beijing Olympics....

• In the meantime, Newble is preparing to play more basketball as a multipositional playoff defensive stopper, looking for a new N.B.A. home, not worried about a backlash for having spoken out in a manner that some might have interpreted as unhelpful to the league’s global blueprint for success."

From NY Times article by Harvey Araton, "Gingerly, the Athlete turns Activist," 3/15/08

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