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Award-winning author Alice Walker has refused to allow a Hebrew translation of her acclaimed novel The Color Purple, saying ‘Israel is guilt of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people.’ Publisher Yediot Books had requested a new edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel which deals with the legacy of racism in the American Deep South but the 68-year-old said she could not permit it ‘at this time’.

In a letter penned on June 9, which was posted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Walker said: ‘Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.’ (more…)

(CBS) DALLAS – A 14-year-old Texas girl who has been missing since 2010 was mistakenly deported to Colombia by immigration agents and is now sitting in a detention facility waiting to come home. According to CBS affiliate KHOU Jakadrien Turner ran away from home in the fall of 2010 following her parents divorce and the death of her grandfather. She ended up in Houston, where she was arrested for theft. The girl gave police a fake name, which apparently belonged to a 22-year-old illegal immigrant from Colombia, who had warrants for her arrest.

KHOU reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took the girl’s fingerprints, but didn’t confirm her identity before deporting her.

Jakadrien reportedly speaks no Spanish.

“How do you deport a teenager and send her to Colombia without a passport, without anything?” asks the girl’s grandmother, Lorene Turner, who was able to track the girl down through Facebook. (more…)