Syria talks yield narrow deal, Assad "red line"

Haitham al-Maleh, senior member of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), Syria’s main political opposition group, leaves a meeting with U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. Syrians on opposite sides of their country’s civil war tried again Sunday to find common ground, with peace talks focusing on an aid convoy to a besieged city that once more came under mortar attack from the government. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

Haitham al-Maleh, senior member of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), Syria’s main political opposition group, leaves a meeting with U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. Syrians on opposite sides of their country’s civil war tried again Sunday to find common ground, with peace talks focusing on an aid convoy to a besieged city that once more came under mortar attack from the government. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

Monzer Akbik, center, a spokesman of the of the Syrian National Coalition, Syria’s main political opposition group, is surrounded by journalists after a meeting with the Syrian government at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. Syrians on opposite sides of their country’s civil war tried again Sunday to find common ground, with peace talks focusing on an aid convoy to a besieged city that once more came under mortar attack from the government. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

Monzer Akbik, center, a spokesman of the Syrian National Coalition, Syria’s main political opposition group, is surrounded by journalists after a meeting with the Syrian government at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. Syrians on opposite sides of their country’s civil war tried again Sunday to find common ground, with peace talks focusing on an aid convoy to a besieged city that once more came under mortar attack from the government. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

Monzer Akbik, a spokesman of the Syrian National Coalition, Syria’s main political opposition group briefs the media, at the European headquarters of the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. Syrians on opposite sides of their country’s civil war tried again Sunday to find common ground, with peace talks focusing on an aid convoy to a besieged city that once more came under mortar attack from the government. (AP Photo/Keystone,Salvatore Di Nolfi)

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi gestures as he gives a short press briefing upon his arrival to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. Syria’s government and opposition face each other for the second time Sunday, buffered by a U.N. mediator hoping to guide them to a resolution of the country’s devastating civil war. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

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GENEVA (AP) — Two days of face-to-face peace talks yielded a narrow and tentative agreement Sunday for women and children trapped in a besieged Syrian city, and the government said President Bashar Assad had no intention of giving up “the keys to Damascus.”

With little progress to show after months of international pressure for the conference in Geneva, the U.N. mediator hoping to broker an end to Syria’s civil war defended their pace.

“I think being too slow is a better way than going too fast,” Lakhdar Brahimi said. “If you run, you may gain one hour and lose one week.”

The limited agreement to let women and children leave a blockaded part of the old city of Homs, under negotiation for at least two days, fell far short of expectations and was called into question by multiple reports of government shelling.

The talks have yet to touch upon the issue of a possible transitional government — their purpose according to terms laid out when they were first conceived. But the government was unequivocal that Assad’s future was assured in the country led by his family since 1970.

“This is a red line. If some people think we are coming here to give them the keys of Damascus they are wrong,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mikdad, echoing the language U.S. President Barack Obama used to describe a chemical weapons attack in Syria.

In Syria, the war continued as if there were no effort to stop it — gunfire and shelling in Homs, between Assad’s forces and rebels, and between the al-Qaida-linked militants and Kurdish fighters, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The blockaded districts of Homs came under intense fire that activists blamed on the government, calling into question how any deals reached in remote Switzerland could be implemented or verified in a chaotic civil war with dozens of players that began as a largely peaceful uprising against Assad. More than 130,000 people have died in less than three years, and millions of Syrians have fled their homes.

Brahimi acknowledged that the agreement for Homs fell short of his hope to send a humanitarian aid convoy to the city. But, he said, “to bring Syria out of the ditch in which it has fallen will take time.”

There have been a number of short-lived, local truces reached between opposition-held towns and government forces in recent months that, including in Moadamiyeh, a sprawling rebel-held community west of Damascus, where about 5,000 residents were allowed to evacuate in the fall.

Monzer Akbik, an opposition spokesman, said the coalition was still determined to stay for the political talks set to begin Monday despite accusing the government of stalling.

“They were sidestepping some issues and saying they want to refer back to Damascus for answers. It is clear to us that the regime delegation is not in charge of its own decisions,” Akbik said.

Both sides claim to represent the Syrian people.

The Western-backed opposition, made up largely of exiled Syrians, says Assad has lost legitimacy and can no longer lead a country after unleashing the military on largely peaceful protests nearly three years ago. They say Assad is being propped up by aid, weapons and fighters from Iran and Russia.

The government says the rebellion is rife with terrorists and that Assad is the only person able to end the fighting, blaming the West and Gulf states — especially Saudi Arabia — of turning the country into an al-Qaida haven.

Homs was considered a promising place to start the negotiations.

The city was one of the first areas that plunged into armed conflict in 2011. Neighborhoods in the old city have been ravaged and emptied of residents following repeated government assaults to reclaim control from rebels. Activists say about 800 families are trapped, without regular access to food, medicine and basic necessities.

“The regime is blocking all convoys to Homs and has been doing so for months,” a senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity because the talks remain sensitive. “The situation in Homs is extremely urgent. Anything the government says to the contrary is false.”

Syrian activists, including the Observatory, said some rebel-held districts in Homs came under attack Sunday morning by mortar shells fired by government forces.

The two sides failed to reach agreement on a prisoner exchange, as Brahimi had hoped. Al-Mikdad said a list of names submitted by the opposition was greatly exaggerated, adding the government had no children in its jails, while the opposition said it had no control over the militants who have kidnapped hundreds of people, including aid workers and journalists.

Back in Syria, residents were following the talks closely, despite deep cynicism that they would achieve any concrete results.

“I watch the TV news twice a day and whenever else I have time,” said Ghassan Matta, a 47-year-old businessman in Damascus.

Qutaiba al-Rifai, 35, a private sector employee in Damascus said the peace talks in Geneva were premature and neither side was prepared.

“Till now, it’s unclear whether it’s a negotiations conference or a dialogue between the two sides.”

Monday’s talks promised to be far more difficult, and Brahimi wouldn’t predict how often the two sides could sit in the same room.

Al-Mikdad, the government official, said the opposition must come to the table “with their dreams outside the room when we sit and discuss concrete issues on the future of Syria.”

___

Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper in Geneva; Ryan Lucas and Diaa Hadid in Beirut, and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Syria talks yield narrow deal, Assad "red line"

Can black-owned franchises help narrow the wealth gap?

Growing up, all Ronald Smothers ever wanted was to own his own business. In the mid-’70s, armed with a degree from UCLA, he chose a career in franchise restaurants, opening a Burger King in Los Angeles’ Crenshaw neighborhood. He saw that times were changing and believed fast food was one way to fill a growing gap.

“At that time women really weren’t fully into the workforce like they are today, but they were starting to get in,” said Smothers. “And you could feel that once they got in, they weren’t going to be preparing those meals at home like I was accustomed to. They were going to come home tired as well.”

His instincts paid off and in 2006, Smothers added a Denny’s in Crenshaw to his holdings.

“I would have to say that it was a good trip,” Smothers said. “The money was pretty good.”

Ronald Smothers, who is African-American, was an early success, but by the turn of this century, the franchising industry realized that he was a rarity.

“[The International Franchise Association] looked around and saw that really it was comprised of white males and they realized that was not mirroring the population of the United States,” said Miriam Brewer, senior director of education and diversity with the International Franchise Association.

In 2006, the IFA formed MinorityFran, an institute which sought to connect would-be minority entrepreneurs with businesses that were looking to recruit. The idea was that it would be good for everybody, offering businesses entry into new neighborhoods and minorities a way to build wealth steadily over time.

“We tend to support individuals or businesses that look like us,” Brewer said. “So why not have those business owners in their communities?”

Ronald Smothers talks to customers at his Denny’s franchise on Crenshaw Boulevard. (Credit: John Ketchum)

Rob Bond co-founded the National Minority Franchising Initiative in 2001, with a similar goal. His experiences growing up in “a lily-white area of Louisville, Kentucky” and later, serving in the Navy, left him with the impression that businesses in the U.S. needed to help level the economic playing field. With the help of sponsors like Meineke, Marriott and Papa John’s, which  paid about $ 5,000 a year to support the endeavor, the NMFI staged informational lectures for minorities across the country and maintained a website that was dedicated to minority franchising. By 2008, Bond’s outreach efforts were largely over.

“When the recession hit, everything changed,” he said. “All of the second-tier franchisors, I think their bottom lines were devastated. They went from a period of trying to aggressively recruit minorities to [trying to] stay afloat themselves.”

The years between 2002 and 2007 saw a slight — but advocates say, significant — jump in the number of minority owned franchises, from 19.3 percent of the total to 20.5 percent.

Joseph McKenna was part of that shift. An African-American with experience in banking and real estate, McKenna bought a Quiznos franchise in 2006, in what he believed to be an inspired location — Midtown Manhattan’s business district.

“[It was] very close to a lot of the high-end investment banks and a lot of lawyers that did the mortgage-backed securities and, literally, two blocks from Bernie Madoff’s headquarters,” McKenna said. “Once Bear Stearns went out, who used to buy close to $ 2,000 worth of food from me a week, it’s like the whole thing seemed to just drop like a rock.”

Joseph McKenna was wiped out by a recession that was entirely colorblind, but hit minorities particularly hard. A recent Urban Institute report shows the racial wealth gap has widened since the recession. Prior to the downturn, white families had about four times as much wealth — in cash, real estate, retirement accounts — as non-white families. In 2010, whites had about six times more.

Scholars who study the wealth gap say that efforts to bring minorities into franchising are well-intentioned, but fail to acknowledge a Catch-22: in order to create wealth, a person must already have some.

“Existing racial differences in wealth go the full distance in explaining racial differences in self-employment,” says William Darity, a professor of African-American studies, public policy and economics at Duke University. “If we’re really concerned about the self-employment gap in the United States, or the franchise participation gap more narrowly, we have to address racial differences in wealth.”

For Karim Webb, who owns two Buffalo Wild Wings franchises in Los Angeles, wealth was never a problem. Webb’s parents and sister own fifteen McDonald’s franchises and, after graduating from Morehouse, he saw no reason to bother with business school.

“You know, when your parents are entrepreneurs, you kind of grow up around the table, and that is your MBA,” he said. Webb applied for financing during the recession and was turned down by banks, but with the help of his business partner, he was able to attract “high net worth individuals” to help invest the $ 2 million needed for each restaurant.

On a recent Friday, his Baldwin Hills restaurant was packed with people who crowded at the bar to watch a basketball game and families who’d stopped in for dinner. Webb says he’d like to see more minorities in franchising. He’s aware of the racial wealth gap and the difficulties that minorities face when applying for bank loans.

He also thinks they face an additional hurdle — one that occurred to him while he was talking to a corporate counterpart at a Buffalo Wild Wings convention.

Webb says he had “an epiphany” as his colleague explained that he was having trouble finding African-American and Latino managers.

“I was flabbergasted,” Webb said, “because he didn’t realize those people already worked in his restaurant.”

That conversation inspired him to act and Webb now meets regularly with aspiring minority entrepreneurs who have seen his success and seek to emulate it. He invites them to his restaurant and asks them to defend their business plans. He says he’s on the lookout for new talent in which to invest.

“Hopefully in 10 years, I’ll be in a position to diversify my portfolio,” Webb says, “and I’ll be looking for a plethora of opportunities to park some money.” He says that African-Americans who want to follow in his footsteps are exactly the type of people he’s hoping to support.

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Can black-owned franchises help narrow the wealth gap?