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73292cd682aa3bafb888526328fe6165 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-dec-22-la-fg-wn-indian-protest-rape-case-20121222-story.html | Indian protesters clash with police over rape case | Indian protesters clash with police over rape case
NEW DELHI — Thousands of people demonstrated outside the Indian president’s residence in New Delhi on Saturday, breaching barricades and clashing with police over the brutal rape of a 23-year-old girl before authorities drove them back with sticks, tear gas and water cannons.
Public anger has been building all week since the attack last Sunday in which six men in a private bus allegedly picked up the victim, a medical student, and her 28-year-old male friend as they headed home about 9 p.m. after watching “Life of Pi” at a multiplex theater.
The pair thought they were boarding a normal commuter bus when the men, who were on a joy ride, allegedly beat them with metal rods and raped her for 30 minutes as the vehicle drove around the city and passed several police posts before dumping the pair by the side of the road. The bus had curtains and tinted windows, which are illegal but not uncommon in New Delhi.
Six men have been arrested in the case, including the bus driver, his brother, a gym instructor and a fruit seller, and face charges of kidnapping, gang rape, unnatural offenses and robbery. Three of the six have reportedly confessed.
Indian media reported that one of those held, the brother of the driver, was assaulted by other inmates at Tihar Jail before officials separated him from others at the facility.
Protesters on Saturday, the sixth and most violent day of demonstrations, chanted “We want justice” and carried signs reading “Kill the rapists!” “Hang them now” and “Stop the shame.” More than 30 demonstrators and 35 police officials were injured, according to media reports, as protesters threw stones and broke the windows of a public bus.
Police said four subway stations near the government district would be closed Sunday in a bid to control crowds and keep people from the area.
While New Delhi has seen the most intense protest, other cities have also expressed anger and outrage over the last week. In Meerut, Kanpur and Lucknow in the central state of Uttar Pradesh, demonstrators carried placards demanding an end to pornographic websites and called for tougher steps against rapists. In Bangalore, more than 600 women formed a human chain, shouting slogans against state and federal governments for their “inaction and failure to protect women.” And in Mumbai, people gathered at the beach to conduct a candlelight vigil in support of the victim.
While high-profile rape cases and violence against women are common in India -- and especially in New Delhi, which is known as the nation’s “rape capital” -- the brutality of this case has struck a national nerve.
In response to this latest attack, the government announced it had suspended eight police officers for dereliction of duty, was setting up a judicial commission of inquiry and considering an amendment in the criminal code making rape in certain extreme cases subject to the death penalty.
Opposition lawmakers have called for a special session of parliament to focus on sexual harassment, an idea the government has rejected, perhaps fearful it will be pilloried. A parade of celebrities have expressed their outrage including cricket player Yuvraj Singh, who sent out the Twitter message: “If this is the way women are treated, God save our society.”
The 23-year-old victim, whose identity has not been disclosed, is reported to be in critical but stable condition after a week on a ventilator. On Saturday, she was well enough to give a statement to police. Doctors at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital had to remove most of her intestines to arrest gangrene that had set in.
“She is very brave and positive and optimistic about her future,” said Dr. Abhilasha Yadav, a senior psychiatrist at the hospital. “Her biological functions are normal and psychologically she is totally balanced and composed.”
According to official figures, rape cases doubled in India between 1990 and 2008, with 21,397 rape incidents recorded nationwide in 2009. Women’s groups, however, say the real figures are far higher given social stigma and police corruption and indifference. A poll by the Thomson Reuters foundation listed India as the world’s fourth most dangerous place for women, worse than Somalia and only slightly better than Afghanistan and Congo.
A great deal of public anger over last Sunday’s attack has been directed at police, including the Delhi High Court that criticized them for being “evasive” over who was responsible. “Is the police deaf, blind?” read one headline on the Times Now TV news network. “Inept police flex muscle,” read another.
Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde met with a small number of demonstrators Saturday afternoon. At a news conference a few hours later, he said he reassured them that the government shares the public’s outrage over the attack and will file a case shortly. He also appealed for calm.
“This is not a way to protest,” echoed R.P.N. Singh, the minister of state for home affairs, in comments to local media. “Trying to storm buildings and breaking barricades is not a way to start a dialog.”
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said the capital has approved five fast-track courts to try the rape cases. In an interview she added that she “hates Delhi being called ‘rape capital,’ but it has indeed become one.” In 2011, New Delhi recorded 453 rape cases compared with 239 for Mumbai, the second highest among the nation’s cities, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau.
U.N. Woman, an agency of the world body, has called on the Indian and New Delhi governments “to do everything in their power to take up radical reforms, ensure justice and reach out with robust public services to make women’s lives more safe and secure.”
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2855458ff7e7f9602b7090a4651f5585 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-dec-24-la-na-cory-booker-20121225-story.html | Newark Mayor Cory Booker aims for higher office | Newark Mayor Cory Booker aims for higher office
NEW YORK — The crowd in the Upper West Side bookstore practically cooed when the mayor of Newark, looking like the college football tight end he once was, strode into a book signing and gave the audience a bashful smile.
Cory Booker, here because he wrote the forward to a book about homelessness, spent the next half-hour talking about his father’s roots in poverty and the kindness of humankind, throwing in references to friends such as entertainer Tyler Perry and author Alice Walker, and, presumably because this is New York, using some Yiddish.
“When I first became mayor of Newark, I said I was a prisoner of hope,” he said in a speech brimming with optimism. “Now I use a new metaphor — hope unhinged.”
Booker is preparing to ride that message to higher office. Last week he said he would explore the possibility of running for U.S. Senate in New Jersey in 2014, and in the run-up to that announcement he was invited to talk about poverty on “Meet the Press,” gun control policy on “Piers Morgan Tonight” and his growing fame on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.”
His personal feats are well-publicized. Among other things, he rushed into a burning building to rescue a neighbor, and he spent a week on food stamps after being prompted to do so by a Twitter follower. He sends out dozens of tweets a day, often to individual constituents, and has more than a million followers — more than four times the population of the city he governs.
Some observers say Booker, who is African American, is a Barack Obama-style phenom who could be the next post-racial politician.
“He’s very bright. He’s probably seen by the Obama people as among the best of the up-and-comers” in the Democratic Party, said Carl Golden, an analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy in New Jersey.
Booker, 43, graduated from Stanford University and Yale Law School and was a Rhodes scholar. He was elected mayor of Newark — New Jersey’s largest city and one of the nation’s most troubled — with 72% of the vote in 2006. His reelection vote in 2010 dropped to 59%, reflecting continuing approval but also disquiet over higher taxes and cuts in city services, and a sense in some quarters that the mayor was getting ready to move on.
“Because the mayor is envisioning greater heights — and I wish him well — he’s not doing the same kind of things that got us elected,” said Councilman Ronald C. Rice, who ran on Booker’s ticket in 2006. “He hasn’t had a community meeting since 2010. He doesn’t come to the ward and hear our complaints.”
Illustrating the political divisions in the city, Booker’s recent appointment of an ally to the Newark Municipal Council led to a near-riot in the council chambers; police had to intercede using pepper spray.
Booker says his record speaks for itself. Crime will be down this year compared with 2011, the city’s population is growing for the first time in decades, affordable housing has doubled, and the budget deficit has been cut significantly.
He also started networking with national figures who might never have paid attention to Newark. He convinced Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to give $100 million to improve Newark schools. Oprah Winfrey donated $1.5 million to Newark nonprofit groups. A foundation created by Brad Pitt opened an affordable-housing complex for veterans in the city.
“I set out on this concerted effort to bring the world to Newark,” Booker said in an interview. “I was going to have to be the kind of mayor that dragged people — kicking and screaming, if necessary — to invest in my city in ways they weren’t going to invest before.”
Joe Taylor, chief executive of Panasonic North America, said that Booker was persistent in getting the company to relocate from Secaucus to Newark. Though the company received a big tax credit from the state, Taylor said that Booker’s determination to change Newark helped convince him it would be a good hub for U.S. operations.
“He was incredibly hands-on,” Taylor said.
Newark still has a long way to go. About a third of the city’s residents live below the poverty level, and its crime rate is often among the worst in the nation. Newark houses so many tax-exempt organizations like churches and universities that it’s consistently short on revenue. To contend with the city’s structural deficit, Booker laid off hundreds of government workers and raised property taxes by 16%, which didn’t exactly earn him friends around town.
“Education? Forget about it. Security? Forget about it. He talks a lot, but the guy’s got nothing done in six years,” said Bernardino Coutinho, a leader in the Portuguese community and one of the veteran Democrats whose influence was curbed by Booker’s rise.
“He’s a politician — they promise everything, but they don’t do much,” said Manny Lopes, the owner of a hardware store in the Ironbound district of Newark. “For the money we put into property taxes, we should have more police.”
Jon DaSilva, 24, who also works in the Ironbound district, said that in the last few months the house across the street, the apartment upstairs and the trophy store where he works have been burglarized. He’s tried to call City Hall to get a concealed weapon permit, but no one answers the phone, he said.
But other residents see progress and say that nearly all urban mayors find it difficult to turn around a city in two terms.
“Where Cory deserves a lot of credit is that there’s a vigor to his cheerleading that makes the city look like a better place to do business,” said Patrick Hobbs, a longtime resident who is dean of the law school at Seton Hall University. “There’s a sense of optimism about Newark that did not exist five years ago.”
Booker will need to win a large proportion of urban centers like Newark if he does decide to run for the Senate. He seems confident that the local critics will not be a problem.
“We’re going to have a very strong base in the city of Newark for anything we want to do in the future,” he said.
alana.semuels@latimes.com
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51fe78caea7a91e9ed9f3ceac820a0df | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-dec-29-la-fg-wn-french-court-tax-rich-20121229-story.html | French court throws out Hollande’s tax on rich | French court throws out Hollande’s tax on rich
PARIS — France’s highest constitutional authority dealt a blow to President François Hollande’s plans to repair the nation’s economy Saturday by throwing out his new “supertax” on the wealthy days before it was to be imposed.
The French Constitutional Council ruled that the new fiscal measure, which would have seen individual earnings exceeding $1.32 million a year taxed at 75%, was unfair and therefore unconstitutional.
Immediately after the political setback, Hollande’s Socialist Party government pledged to redraft and resubmit the controversial proposal, which was passed by Parliament this month.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement that a new proposal to tax the rich “taking into account the principles raised by the Constitutional Council’s decision” would be drawn up as part of the next budget law submitted in 2013 or 2014. No further details of how and when this would be done were given.
The controversial proposal to tax the wealthy was a pillar of Hollande’s presidential campaign, which saw him installed in the Elysée Palace in May. It was expected to be a temporary measure, imposed for two years, that would affect only 1,500 people and raise less than $661 million.
It was part of a raft of tax-raising measures to be introduced by Hollande on Jan. 1 to bring down France’s public spending deficit from a forecast of 4.5% of gross domestic product this year to 3% by the end of his five-year term.
The tax rate was broadly approved by the political left but heavily criticized by conservatives and business leaders who warned that it would lead to a flood of entrepreneurs and wealthy fleeing France to neighboring countries where taxes are lower.
These fears were boosted two weeks ago when French actor Gérard Depardieu, a national institution, revealed he was moving just across France’s border into Belgium, allegedly to avoid paying the 75% tax. French billionaire Bernard Arnault, head of the luxury goods company Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, is also seeking Belgian nationality, though Arnault denies this is for fiscal motives.
A number of celebrated French sports and screen stars already live in Switzerland, Belgium, Britain and Luxembourg, where the tax burden is lighter.
When Ayrault described Depardieu’s move into tax exile as “shabby,” the actor wrote a furious open letter to the Journal du Dimanche Sunday newspaper accusing the Socialist government of seeking to punish “success, creation and talent.”
The politically independent Constitutional Council, made up of nine judges and three former presidents known collectively as The Wise, had been asked to rule on the tax by the center-right opposition Union for a Popular Movement party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was defeated by Hollande in May.
In its ruling released Saturday, the council said the tax was unconstitutional because it “failed to recognize equality.” Unlike regular income tax, which is levied on French households, the 75% rate was to be applied to individuals. This meant an individual would have to pay the new rate on any money earned above $1.32 million a year, whereas a couple each earning just under this amount would escape it.
After the ruling, Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici confirmed that the government would not drop plans to impose higher taxes on the rich.
“Our deficit-cutting path will not be diverted,” Moscovici told BFM television.
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99c8687f3e5a61ccf152cb510075ce4f | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-dec-29-la-fg-wn-philippines-law-contraceptives-20121229-story.html | Philippines president signs law easing access to contraceptives | Philippines president signs law easing access to contraceptives
MANILA — Philippines President Benigno Aquino III has signed legislation that will provide modern contraceptives to the nation’s poorest people and mandate sex education in public schools, a spokeswoman announced Saturday.
Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines immediately vowed to challenge the new law in the nation’s Supreme Court and rally demonstrations in the streets, alluding to the bishops’ role in inspiring the “People Power” revolution in 1986 that helped topple former President Ferdinand Marcos.
“The fight is far from over,” said Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, a vice chairman of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, in a radio interview Saturday. “The church will continue to protect and defend life. The church will not stop.”
The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act was passed by the Philippines Congress this month after the bishops and their supporters had successfully blocked it for 14 years.
Access to birth control is a particularly acrimonious issue in the Philippines, which has the highest birthrates in Southeast Asia and millions of impoverished parents struggling to feed their large families. Half of all pregnancies are unintended and access to modern contraception is mostly limited to those who can afford it.
The bishops, who hold large sway in a nation that’s more than 80% Catholic, oppose birth control pills, condoms, IUDs and other forms of modern contraception, equating them with abortion or suggesting that they promote promiscuity. Instead, they sanction only Vatican-approved “natural” family planning, such as withdrawal or abstinence during a woman’s fertile periods.
Yet the people in the Philippines have been edging away from the Catholic hierarchy on such personal matters, following the path of Catholics in Europe and the Americas. For the last decade, polls have shown that 70% of Filipinos support the reproductive health bill that will take effect in January.
Aquino signed the bill without public ceremony just before Christmas so as to not antagonize Catholic leaders. One leader of the Bishops’ Conference threatened to excommunicate the president if he signed the bill. Arguelles previously compared Aquino’s endorsement to an act worse than the gunman who killed 20 children in Newtown, Conn., school shooting.
On Saturday, the Aquino spokeswoman said the new law “closes a highly divisive chapter of our history” and reached out to Catholic leaders and their supporters for cooperation and reconciliation.
“This is the mark of a true democracy,” Abigail Valte wrote in a statement issued by the presidential palace.
The new law, among other measures, would overturn Manila’s de facto ban on contraceptives in its public health clinics. The Los Angeles Times in July published a series, “Beyond 7 billion” chronicling the lives of poor women who scramble every day to care for many more children than they planned to have.
Government surveys show that 39% of married women in the Philippines want to postpone pregnancy or have no more children, but are not using modern contraception. Similar patterns exist across the developing world, where an estimated 222 million women want to avoid pregnancy but do not have access to effective contraceptives.
If they did, unplanned births would fall by two-thirds, as would the number of abortions, according to the U.N. Population Fund and the Guttmacher Institute, a New York think tank that supports universal access to contraceptives and safe abortion.
The Philippines, with a population of 96 million, is projected to reach 155 million people by mid-century, making it one of the 10 most-populous nations, according to the United Nations.
The new law, if carried out, should help reduce the country’s high rates of abortions and maternal deaths as well as alleviate poverty, said Melissa Upreti, Asia regional director of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.
“The Philippines has a track record of introducing good laws and not implementing them,” Upreti said. A lengthy court fight, she said, “could delay the implementation of the new law leading to further denial of women’s rights with dangerous consequences for their health: more unplanned pregnancies, maternal deaths and unsafe abortions.”
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2e67b4d587d2f9985d63ad1cc44db8e1 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-dec-31-la-fg-wn-afghans-greater-security-role-20121231-story.html | Afghans to take over greater security role | Afghans to take over greater security role
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan forces are preparing to take the lead in safeguarding more parts of the country in line with plans to assume full responsibility for security when most foreign troops withdraw by the end of 2014, President Hamid Karzai’s government announced Monday.
The next phase of the hand-over of security duties from North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led troops to Afghan soldiers and police will begin in two months and will give the national forces primary responsibility for defending 87% of the population, said Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who heads a transition commission set up by the government.
Speaking at a news conference, he dismissed concerns about the readiness of Afghan troops to take on the lead combat role against the Taliban-led insurgency, saying security has improved or remained the same in areas that have already made the transition.
“When the enemies of Afghanistan have attacked the Afghan national security forces, they have been defeated,” Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi told reporters at the briefing.
Most of the districts that will be included in the next phase of the transition are located in the north and interior of Afghanistan, with one district in the restive southern province of Helmand. When the handovers are completed at an unspecified date, Afghan security forces will be responsible for 23 of the country’s 34 provinces.
“This is a significant step towards our shared goal of seeing Afghans fully in charge of their own security by the end of 2014,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement.
By next summer, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force expects the Afghans to take responsibility for the entire nation, with U.S. and international troops mainly in a support role.
But the challenges were evident from a Pentagon report released in December that said only one of the Afghan army’s 23 brigades can operate without international air, logistics and other support.
The U.S. and its allies plan to maintain troops in Afghanistan after 2014 to train, advise and assist the national security forces, but the size of that force is still under discussion.
With the additional responsibility taken on by Afghan forces has come a heavier toll. More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers died in 2012, substantially higher than the year before, Afghan defense officials said Sunday.
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Hashmat Baktash contributed to this report.
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37b412d7127ed4ca02cf5bd44e756974 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-dec-31-la-fg-wn-central-african-republic-rebels20121231-story.html | African Union tells Central African Republic rebels to end uprising | African Union tells Central African Republic rebels to end uprising
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The African Union on Monday warned rebels who are threatening to oust the Central African Republic government that they would face isolation in Africa, suspension from the organization and sanctions if they do so.
Nkosana Dlamini-Zuma, commission chairwoman of the AU, warned the coalition of rebels called Seleka, or the Alliance, that other African nations would not tolerate the removal of a government by force.
Dlamini-Zuma called on the rebels in a statement to end their uprising and commit to negotiations.
Central African Republic President Francois Bozize met Sunday with Yayi Boni, president of the AU, and said he was willing to include the rebels in a government of national unity. He promised not to seek another term when his current term expires in 2016.
However, rebel spokesman Eric Massi on Monday rejected the overtures in television interviews. He told France 24 television that the rebels’ aim was not to join the government. Massi also told BBC that the coalition didn’t believe Bozize’s promises.
“Know that Seleka’s aim today is not to enter into a government but to allow the people of Central African Republic to be able to drive the country toward development and self-fulfillment,” he said, according to France 24.
The AU’s solution to disputes over power or elections is often to establish national unity governments, which have had mixed success. While such arrangements might end immediate violence or fighting, they can lead to governmental paralysis, with political opponents struggling for dominance in a unity cabinet. Or they may simply paper over the cracks between opponents without resolving the conflicts, leaving disputes to fester and explode some time later.
Seleka is a coalition of three rebel groups from the north of the country that accuse Bozize of betraying agreements he made with militias in 2007 to end a war that had been raging since 2003, when he seized power in a coup.
The rebels have swept across the country in recent weeks seizing towns with little opposition from government forces. Seleka now controls a large swath of the country and appears on the brink of taking control of the capital, Bangui.
The Central African nation, situated in one of the world’s most volatile neighborhoods, has seen years of misgovernance, corruption, warfare, armed uprisings and military coups since independence from France in 1960. Though the nation is rich in resources such as diamonds, gold, timber and uranium, most of the population survives on less than $2 a day.
The rebels claim that hundreds of their supporters have been abducted by security forces, a charge Bozize -- who has twice been elected since seizing power, most recently in 2010 -- has denied.
On Saturday, the rebels took control of Sibut, around 100 miles from Bangui, putting them within striking distance of the capital. Government troops, supported by forces from Chad, have retreated to the town of Damara, less than 50 miles from Bangui.
The U.S. closed its embassy last week, evacuating about 40 people by air.
The U.S. still has troops in the country, deployed to help African forces track down Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army militia from Uganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of committing war crimes and atrocities. He is believed to be hiding in the Central African Republic.
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505f70be3b7007e6cc7b112d0cc16bd6 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-08-la-na-marriage-kennedy-20120209-story.html | Gay marriage fight may hinge on Supreme Court’s Anthony Kennedy | Gay marriage fight may hinge on Supreme Court’s Anthony Kennedy
The Supreme Court has nine justices, but if the constitutional fight over same-sex marriage reaches them this year, the decision will probably come down to just one: a California Republican and Reagan-era conservative who has nonetheless written the court’s two leading gay rights opinions.
JusticeAnthony M. Kennedy, 75, often holds the court’s deciding vote on the major issues that divide its liberals and conservatives. More often than not, that vote has swung the court to the right. But on gay rights, Kennedy has been anything but a “culture wars” conservative.
One of his opinions lauded the intimacy between same-sex couples and demanded “respect for their private lives,” provoking Justice Antonin Scalia to accuse him of having “signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda.”
“He is a California establishment Republican with moderately libertarian instincts,” Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan said of Kennedy. “He travels in circles where he has met and likes lots of gay people.”
Based on Kennedy’s past opinions, Karlan is confident that if the Supreme Court takes up the issue of California’s same-sex marriage ban, “it meansProp. 8is going down to defeat,” she said. “There is no way he will take it to reinstate” the ban.
Not all court observers share her prediction, but the uncertainty about how Kennedy might vote may, by itself, be enough to deter the high court from hearing an appeal of the decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Four justices must vote for the court to consider a case, but a majority is needed to issue a ruling.
When an appeal reaches the high court, the four most conservative justices will face a tough choice: Vote to have the court hear the case and run the risk that Kennedy would side with the more liberal justices to go beyond the 9th Circuit decision and establish a nationwide right to same-sex marriage. Or turn the case aside, leaving same-sex marriage intact in California but setting no national precedent.
The man at the center of the speculation grew up in a Catholic family in Sacramento, where his father was a lawyer and lobbyist in the Legislature. Family friends included then-Gov. Earl Warren. As a Harvard law student, the young Kennedy visited the Supreme Court to meet with Warren, who was then chief justice.
As a justice since 1988, Kennedy has reflected at times both styles of Republicanism: the conservatism and respect for states’ rights of Reagan, who appointed him, as well as Warren’s devotion to civil rights and fair treatment.
Two years ago he wrote the much-disputed 5-4 opinion in the Citizens United case that said corporations and unions had a free-speech right to spend freely on election campaigns. But also that year Kennedy wrote a 5-4 opinion that struck down as cruel and unusual punishment the laws in Florida and elsewhere under which juvenile offenders were sent to prison for life for crimes that did not involve a murder. Sounding a bit like Warren, Kennedy said it was unfair to close the prison doors forever on youths who had gone wrong.
Eight years ago he wrote the decision that declared unconstitutional laws in Texas and elsewhere that made gays subject to arrest for “deviate” sexual conduct. “The state cannot demean” same-sex couples by making their intimate, private conduct into a crime, Kennedy said.
In 1996, he wrote an opinion in a Colorado case called Romer vs. Evans that formed the basis for Tuesday’s 9th Circuit decision striking down Proposition 8.
Colorado voters had approved an initiative that stripped gays and lesbians of civil rights protections under state and local ordinances. Kennedy said the law could not stand because it was “born of animosity” toward homosexuals and took away their hard-won legal rights.
In Tuesday’s decision, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles did not say gays had a right to marry as a matter of equal treatment. Instead, he focused on same-sex marriage in California and repeated Kennedy’s view that voters could not take away the rights gays had briefly won. “Prop. 8 singles out same-sex couples for unequal treatment by taking away from them alone the right to marry,” Reinhardt wrote, citing Romer vs. Evans.
Kennedy sits in the middle of two ideological blocs likely to split evenly on the question of same-sex marriage. The four conservatives — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.and Justices Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — are likely to oppose the 9th Circuit’s decision on the grounds that judges should not force such a change in state law. The four liberals — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — are likely to support the 9th Circuit’s decision as a matter of equal treatment.
“Both sides will be nervous,” said Michael Dorf, a Cornell University law professor who has clerked for Reinhardt and Kennedy. The California-only approach taken by Reinhardt would allow the high court to pass up the case, but he and others predict the justices will hear it. “This legalizes same-sex marriage in the biggest state. That’s a big deal in itself,” Dorf said.
Chapman University law professor John Eastman said conservatives had not given up on Kennedy.
“I know some people say Justice Kennedy will ask: Should we stop the progress now? I think Justice Kennedy will ask: Do we want to put a stake in the heart of an institution, marriage, that has done so much for society?” he said.
Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine Law School, believes Kennedy will play the crucial role and write a broader opinion that undercuts other state laws banning same-sex marriage. “This is a court that wants to have the last word on major legal issues,” he said.
david.savage@latimes.com
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f3956dfa82caacc5d1cc3fcd2ee5ac15 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-09-la-na-mlk-bomb-20120209-story.html | White supremacists revive dream of a homeland in Northwest | White supremacists revive dream of a homeland in Northwest
Three sanitation workers found it along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march: a nest of wires in a backpack.
The homemade bomb was equipped with an unusual remote-controlled trigger and stuffed with more than 100 heavy fishing weights coated in rat poison. The Spokane County bomb squad disarmed it hours before the route would have been flooded with marchers last year.
If the device had detonated and the weights had torn into the intended victims, the poison would have prevented their blood from coagulating, all but ensuring their deaths, lab analysts concluded.
The intense manhunt that ensued led authorities to a remote cabin in the pine-shrouded hills north of Spokane. In it lived Kevin W. Harpham, an Army veteran who had posted venomously for years on a white supremacist website, the Vanguard News Network.
“Those who say you can’t win a war by bombing have never tried,” he wrote. “I can’t wait till the day I snap.”
At the conclusion of a hurried, tense investigation, Harpham pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and a hate crime and was sentenced in December to 32 years in prison.
A decade after the dissolution of the Aryan Nations compound in northern Idaho and the arrest of the Montana Freemen, white supremacists, far-right militias and radical patriots have revived their dream of a homeland in the Northwest.
In 2010, residents in several parts of Idaho woke to find Easter eggs tossed on their lawns — courtesy of the not-dead-yet Aryan Nations. The eggs contained jelly beans and solicitations to “take back our country and make it great, clean, decent and beautiful once again.”
In October, a federal jury convicted Spokane-area resident Wayde Kurt of firearms violations in a case prosecutors said stemmed from Kurt’s membership in the white supremacist group Vanguard Kindred.
In a sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors said Kurt discussed with an FBI informant a plan for what he called an act of terrorism “of the worst kind,” comparable to the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, that “would mean a death sentence if he is caught.”
“The defendant stated that he needed to make sure that everyone is fed up with [President] Obama,” the memo says.
Meanwhile, prominent white nationalists, radical constitutionalists and other apostles of the far right have established beachheads in northwestern Montana. They include April Gaede, who is appealing to white “refugees” to establish a Pioneer Little Europe; Karl Gharst, a former member of the Aryan Nations who has been screening Holocaust denial films at the local library; and Ronald Davenport, a Washington man who was convicted in November of filing more than $20 billion in false liens against government officials seeking to collect $250,000 in unpaid taxes.
Conservative preacher and radio host Chuck Baldwin, the 2008 presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, moved to Montana from Florida in 2010 to help establish an “American redoubt” for “liberty-loving brethren,” and is now running as a Republican for lieutenant governor.
“We know there’s a fight coming. We know there is a line being drawn in the sand, and we want to be in the right place. The good ground is right here in Montana,” Baldwin told supporters last year.
In a recent report, the Southern Poverty Law Center said “a new round of antigovernment stirrings” was evident in northwestern Montana, especially around Kalispell.
“We’re seeing a real resurgence of the idea once again of retreating to the Pacific Northwest, the last best place, as they say,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow with the civil rights group.
The new arrivals have not made overt threats of violence. Many have said they came to establish a quiet line of defense against rising crime in cities to the south. Yet Travis McAdam, executive director of the Montana Human Rights Network, said the militant right posed a different kind of challenge.
Instead of doing most of their proselytizing online, as they have in the past, he said, the groups are now sponsoring public meetings, bringing in guest speakers such as David Irving, an internationally known writer who challenges the Holocaust, and Paul Fromm, a well-known Canadian white supremacist.
“The idea that they just want to move here and be left alone — we’ve seen in the last 21/2 years that that’s not what these folks are about. They’re about pushing their agenda, trying to recruit people if they can,” McAdam said. “It’s definitely about establishing a presence and saying basically, ‘We’re here.’ ”
In the case of Baldwin, he added, “They’re engaging mainstream political institutions and trying to accumulate power.”
The near-disaster involving the backpack bomb at the King Day march in Spokane evoked comparisons to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, another below-the-radar radical, and Buford O. Furrow Jr., a former guard at the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho who drove to Los Angeles from Washington state in 1999 and opened fire at a Jewish community center in Granada Hills, wounding five, then killed a Filipino American postal worker in Chatsworth.
Harpham “was what we feared most, the prototypical lone wolf extremist who didn’t foreshadow the event in any way,” the FBI’s lead agent in Spokane, Frank Harrill, said in an interview. “There had been nothing that would signal that he would conduct some vicious attempt like this.”
The rush to identify a suspect — complete with an elaborate arrest plan involving a SWAT team disguised as road workers — reflected the fear that whoever was responsible might detonate a bomb somewhere else.
“We all felt, although the timeline was uncertain, that this could be a race against a second device in some venue somewhere ... so it was all hands on deck,” Harrill said. “One of the big concerns was that the geographic origin of the perpetrator was unknown.... We didn’t even know if it was an individual” or a group.
The first victory came when the bomb squad disarmed the device while keeping most of its components intact.
FBI bomb technician Leland McEuen, who had dismantled improvised explosive devices in Iraq, recognized it as a pipe bomb with a triggering device — a remote car starter — similar to those used against U.S. forces in the Middle East.
The bomb was wrapped in two T-shirts, traced by FBI Case Agents Ryan Butler and Joe Cleary to a Relay for Life fundraiser and an after-school production of “Treasure Island” in Stevens County, the forested valley that stretches north of Spokane toward the Canadian border.
Zeroing in from there, FBI Special Agent Craig Noyes found that an unusually large number of fishing weights identical to those found in the bomb had been sold the previous November at a Wal-Mart in Colville, Wash. The weights had been purchased with a debit card belonging to Harpham, a 37-year-old electrician who lived on a 10-acre plot outside Colville.
A quick check revealed that Harpham had served with an artillery unit at what is now Joint Base Lewis-McChord in western Washington. A DNA sample from his Army records matched a sample found on the backpack’s handle.
Within hours of coming up with Harpham’s name, FBI analysts had matched him to a man posting under the pseudonym “Joe Snuffy” more than 1,000 times since 2004 on the Vanguard website.
“The older I get, [the] less I have to live for, and the less I have to live for, the less the laws of this country will be able to influence my actions,” he wrote in one of the postings, which frequently ranted about African Americans and Jews.
“It was clear from those postings that ...we were dealing with an individual who was extraordinarily racist and potentially violent,” Harrill said. “He was talking about caching food, fortifying structures, obtaining high-capacity assault weapons. And while those things are not of themselves illegal, if you juxtapose them with the placement of an extremely lethal destructive device, it presents really a nightmare scenario in terms of an ultimate resolution.”
One thing FBI supervisors knew: They did not want to try to arrest Harpham at his cabin — not after the disastrous 1992 siege of the Idaho cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver. That assault killed Weaver’s wife and 14-year-old son.
Instead, FBI agents learned that Harpham was looking to buy a car, and devised a plan to grab him when he emerged from his cabin.
On March 9 — 51 days after the attempted bombing and 22 days after agents had identified him as their suspect — Harpham drove down the narrow mountain road from his cabin to a small bridge at the bottom. Awaiting him there were the FBI’s hostage rescue team and an FBI SWAT team from Seattle, disguised as road workers.
A man dressed as a flagger signaled Harpham to proceed onto the bridge. A van on the other side blocked his exit. A backhoe bucket slammed down onto the rear of Harpham’s car.
A dozen FBI agents in camouflage leaped out of the van with assault rifles, shouting at Harpham to put his hands in the air. He did so — but he had questions of his own. “How long have you known about me?” Harpham asked. When he didn’t get an answer, he muttered one of his own: “About two months.”
During his sentencing in December, Harpham argued that his intention had been merely to shatter the glass of a nearby medical building and cause general alarm as a form of protest.
“Just these kinds of social concepts — unity, multiculturalism. It was no different than a Christian person out there protesting gay marriage,” Harpham said. “Just making a statement that people are out there who do not agree with these ideas.”
Harpham’s father, Cecil “Bill” Harpham, said his son was “a real good kid” who fell in with skinheads in the Army.
“They more or less brainwashed my son into thinking that this hate group is going to better America, that they’re getting stronger every day and a bunch of stuff like that,” he said. He sighed. “Oh, I cried an awful lot. But he brought this on himself. I told him not to mess with those skinheads. Stay away from ‘em. But he wouldn’t do it.”
kim.murphy@latimes.com
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439cd545e3a3f10a340e53a5016afcaf | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-10-la-na-fordham-20120211-story.html | Birth control hard to come by at Fordham University | Birth control hard to come by at Fordham University
Emily moved from Los Angeles to New York for law school with more health worries than your average 26-year-old. She had lost one ovary to a tumor, had polyps cut from her uterus, and faced a greater risk of developing cancer in her remaining ovary unless she took birth control pills.
When Emily visited the student health services center at Jesuit-run Fordham University, however, she could not get her prescription filled.
The situation facing Emily, who did not want her full name used for privacy reasons, highlights the dilemma at religious-based institutions, which are caught up in the debate over whether health insurance should cover contraception.
On Friday, amid anger from Catholic leaders, President Obama backed away from his vow to mandate that all employers’ healthcare plans offer free contraceptive care. Instead, the insurance providers for Catholic institutions will have to “reach out and offer women” such care, a tweak designed to mollify conservatives who oppose birth control on religious grounds.
But 28 states, including New York and California, already mandate that contraception be included in prescription drug coverage. In some of those states, such as New York, Catholic institutions that oppose birth control as a means of preventing pregnancy make it available only for medical purposes.
“That’s routine. It happens all the time,” said Fordham spokesman Bob Howe.
But Emily and other women at Fordham say it doesn’t happen all the time.
At Fordham Law School, fliers advertising an off-campus birth control clinic held last November still hang from some lockers. On the website Collegeconfidential.com, one student accused Fordham of being “backwards and outdated” for limiting birth control. Others argued on the school’s behalf. “I always marvel at people who apply to a Catholic Jesuit college and then expect them to change their long-standing policies and Catholic doctrine for them,” one person wrote.
Fordham’s website describes the institution as “the Jesuit university of New York,” and Howe said the school’s religious identity is featured prominently in recruiting material. “Our students come to Fordham knowing our Catholic mission and our Catholic identity, and that is central to what Fordham is,” he said. “You’d be very hard-pressed to miss it.”
Bridgette Dunlap, a Fordham student originally from San Jose, Calif., organized the November clinic to help female students who said they were having problems getting contraception through the school’s health insurance. Dunlap said she had heard from several young women with medical conditions that are treated with birth control pills but who had been denied them at Fordham. “What these stories show is that even under a protective mandate, we still can’t get affordable birth control,” she said.
One second-year law student said she was given painkillers instead of birth control pills, which she had been on since the age of 14 for endometriosis. “I knew you couldn’t get a birth control prescription normally, but I knew they supposedly had a health exception,” said the student, who would have had to pay $100 to find an out-of-network doctor to get birth control pills.
Other options include visiting off-campus clinics that offer free or discounted care, such as Planned Parenthood, but students say they pay too much for Fordham’s health insurance — Emily said it cost her $2,400 a year — to justify having to do that.
In addition, Emily, despite her problems, said she was uneasy going to clinics designed for women with more serious economic problems.
“I’m in a pretty bad spot, but there are so many people in far worse spots,” she said.
Emily, like others, notes that Fordham embraces a range of beliefs and lifestyles. Emily herself is a lesbian who has been in a monogamous relationship for years, something she says should show skeptics that her need for birth control is not to prevent pregnancy.
Emily said she hadn’t decided what to do but that she had let her birth control prescription lapse and is considering transferring to another law school. The student who was given painkillers is back on birth control, because a friend who is a doctor wrote her a prescription at no charge.
Fordham’s Howe said the student health center did not turn away patients who need birth control for medical reasons. “In a minority of cases, students may have to be referred to an outside specialist … but that applies to any medical complaint, not just hormone-related issues,” he said.
tina.susman@latimes.com
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2f28b26a4124d0cbcf08aee2b919a834 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-13-la-na-white-house-budget-20120213-story.html | Obama budget is preview of election battle | Obama budget is preview of election battle
President Obama’s 2013 budget, scheduled for release Monday, offers a preview of the November election as both parties angle to refine the vision they hope to sell to voters.
Obama’s plan and the House Republicans’ answer, due in the spring, are aimed as much at offering voters a choice as at promoting policies destined for enactment.
For the president, the budget is another opportunity to try to position himself as a defender of the middle class, a leader willing to ask the wealthiest to pay more in taxes and to use government spending to spur job growth. It will give a nod to the president’s call for balanced deficit reduction, while also aiming to preserve Democrats’ brand as guardians of the social safety net.
Over the last year the conversation was about “How much do we cut?” Obama’s budget will try to shift to more politically advantageous questions: “Who should pay more?” and “What is fair?”
“In the long term, we need to get the deficit under control in a way that builds the economy that can last for the future,” White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Obama wants to do that “in a way that’s consistent with American values so that everyone pays a fair share.”
Republicans are set to offer a competing vision guided by a call for smaller government, lower taxes and an overhaul of entitlement programs.
As word of Obama’s budget plan spread, Republicans cast it as light on serious deficit reduction. They have opposed Obama’s call to increase taxes on top earners and called for more drastic cuts in spending.
House Republicans are expected to offer a budget that renews their call for a major overhaul of Medicare, although it is not clear whether they will endorse the voucher program proposed last year by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).
“We do not plan on retreating,” Ryan said. “We feel we owe the country a solution, a plan, to lift the burden of debt to get us back to prosperity, a fiscal policy to grow the economy and get our debt under control.”
Obama will try to turn the spotlight on his spending priorities, beginning with a visit Monday to a community college in Annandale, Va., to talk about his plan for boosting community colleges to train workers for manufacturing and technical jobs. An $8-billion fund is designed to help forge partnerships between community colleges and businesses to put 2 million workers in high-demand industries.
The president’s goal is to give the economy a shot in the arm now while laying long-term plans to deal with deficits, Lew said during appearances on several morning talk shows. The Obama blueprint would cut spending by $2.50 for every dollar it raises in taxes, he said.
Unlike past years, there is little mystery about the details of Obama’s spending plan. The August budget accord forged during the debt ceiling debate set spending caps for the year, and administration officials say the president’s plan will adhere to them.
That law also required steep spending cuts to defense and domestic programs — a result of the failure of a congressional “super committee” to agree on a plan for $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. Obama’s budget will propose heading off those cuts by adopting a deficit reduction proposal similar to the one the president submitted to the super committee in September, administration officials said.
The proposal will call for more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. That reduction would be achieved with savings from the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; expiration of the President George W. Bush-era tax cuts for upper-income Americans; other tax increases targeted at top earners; closing tax loopholes; and cutting costs for Medicare and Medicaid.
The plan calls for an overhaul of the tax code guided by the so-called Buffett rule, the principle that no household earning more than $1 million should pay less than a 30% tax rate. The rule has become a staple of the president’s economic speeches, accompanied by reminders that billionaire Warren Buffett’s secretary is taxed at a higher rate than her boss.
But the budget will not include specific details on whether the rule would generate significant revenue, administration officials have said.
Though Republicans and Democrats have expressed concern about the looming budget cuts, it’s unlikely that Obama’s proposal will get much of a second look. Republicans on Capitol Hill have repeated their opposition to raising taxes on the top income earners, a position echoed by GOP presidential candidates.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has embraced aggressive spending cuts through an overhaul of Medicare, as have House Republicans.
But the president’s budget, like his previous proposals, steers clear of major changes. Ryan’s Medicare proposal became a forceful weapon for Democrats last year, and many lawmakers on Capitol Hill have urged the White House not to undercut that issue. Obama’s budget will repeat a call for $360 billion in reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, administration officials said, but avoid broader changes to the programs.
That’s a choice that may leave the White House open to criticism from conservatives who claim the president is dodging hard choices in an election year.
“I think it will continue to be a major irresponsibility not to propose changes to the major entitlement programs,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said on Friday.
Obama defenders rebut that notion, offering their depiction of Republican choices.
“When it comes to entitlement, they are wolves in sheep’s clothing,” said economist Jared Bernstein, former advisor to Vice President Joe Biden and a fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “For them, it’s really about going after a fundamental function of social programs.”
The decision will be left to voters in November.
kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
cparsons@latimes.com
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7cc3ea887aaa14fffd68a7cbf6f28d8d | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-16-la-fg-iran-israel-bombing-20120217-story.html | U.S. intelligence chief sees limited benefit in an attack on Iran | U.S. intelligence chief sees limited benefit in an attack on Iran
An Israeli bombing attack might set back Iran’s nuclear development program by one to two years, America’s top intelligence official told a Senate committee Thursday, indicating that viable military options are far more limited than Israeli leaders have suggested.
James R. Clapper, director of National Intelligence, said he does not believe that Israel has decided to attack Iran’s uranium enrichment and other nuclear facilities. Clapper said the U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran’s leaders have not decided to build nuclear weapons but are pursuing technology that might allow them to do so.
Clapper’s appraisal comes as the standoff with Iran has raised concern in Washington and other capitals that Israel may launch a preemptive airstrike, as it did against nuclear targets in Iraq and Syria. Some U.S. officials have suggested that an attack could be carried out this spring.
In recent months, the West has tightened economic sanctions against Iran’s oil and banking sectors, and unidentified assailants have killed half a dozen nuclear scientists in Iran, suggesting a covert campaign to derail the program. This week, Israel accused Tehran of ordering assassination attempts on Israelis living in Thailand, India and Georgia.
Clapper’s comments largely echoed those of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who recently downplayed the likelihood of an Israeli knockout blow.
“At best,” an Israeli attack “might postpone [Iran] maybe one, possibly two years,” Panetta said in December at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “It depends on the ability to truly get the targets that they’re after. Frankly, some of those targets are very difficult to get at.”
Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. intelligence agencies cannot calculate with precision how much damage, or delay, an Israeli strike might achieve. “There’s a lot of imponderables,” he said, including the targets chosen, how ordnance is used and how quickly Iran might recover.
Most experts argue that Iranian scientists now possess enough technological know-how so that no air campaign, not even sustained bombing by U.S. forces, could destroy Iran’s ability to someday produce a nuclear weapon should it choose to do so.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines when he told a reporter that Israel can “cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project.”
U.S. intelligence officials are skeptical. Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told a group of foreign policy experts last month that Israel is not capable of inflicting significant damage on Iran’s nuclear sites. Some are situated at the outer range of Israeli bombers, and others are underground, he said.
“The Israelis aren’t going to [attack Iran] … they can’t do it, it’s beyond their capacity,” Hayden said. “They only have the ability to make this worse.”
A monthlong U.S. bombing campaign would inflict far more damage, Hayden said, but it wouldn’t be worth it. The George W. Bush administration studied the issue, he said.
“The consensus was that [attacking Iran] would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent: an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon and that would build it in secret,” Hayden said.
Clapper and Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also said at the Senate hearing that the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq may have played a role in several recent bombings against government facilities in Syria, but they hedged their statements.
Clapper said the bombings at security and intelligence installations in Damascus, the Syrian capital, and Aleppo bear “all the earmarks of an Al Qaeda-like attack. So we believe that Al Qaeda in Iraq is extending its reach into Syria.”
Burgess said U.S. intelligence has seen no evidence that extremists from elsewhere were heading to Syria to fight.
Clapper said that Syria’s stocks of chemical weapons appeared to be secure, and that U.S. intelligence agencies are watching them closely.
ken.dilanian@latimes.com
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062e4f032adb06ee1fe756c5e3733ab7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-16-la-na-obama-manufacturing-20120216-story.html | President Obama, speaking at L.A. fundraiser, points to positive changes | President Obama, speaking at L.A. fundraiser, points to positive changes
While acknowledging that “change is hard,” President Obama touted the nation’s economic progress on his watch during a celebrity-studded fundraising stopover Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
Addressing a crowd of about 1,000 at an outdoor reception, Obama needled Angelenos about the weather — “You’re all cold. This is balmy, people” — then talked about the change he promised in the 2008 campaign, and the depth of the nation’s economic troubles when he took office.
“We did not fully comprehend at that point how deep this crisis would be,” he said, then mentioned the increase in jobs in recent months. “Don’t underestimate the changes we made.”
He said the U.S. auto industry was saved, and asserted that “2.6 million young people have health coverage who wouldn’t otherwise have it” had it not been for the healthcare law that he championed.
Obama was expected to raise a total of more than $3 million during two events at the expansive Holmby Hills estate of “The Bold and the Beautiful” producer Bradley Bell and his wife, Colleen. The outdoor event, with tickets priced at $250 and $500, featured a performance by the Foo Fighters and appearances by comedian Jack Black and actress Rashida Jones.
Obama spoke later to a more intimate gathering inside the Bells’ Spanish-style home, which about 80 supporters each paid $35,800 to attend. Among those present were George Clooney, Jim Belushi and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who on Wednesday was named chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
Obama offered a version of his standard campaign speech, touting the end of the Iraq war, job creation and the end of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but acknowledged some supporters’ frustration with work left undone. “I understand that; I feel the same way sometimes,” he said, citing the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the continued detention of suspected “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The president’s foray into Los Angeles came amid tension between him and some of his Hollywood supporters over anti-piracy legislation. The entertainment industry strongly backed the bills, but they were killed under pressure from Google and other Silicon Valley interests on Internet free-speech grounds. The White House angered some in Hollywood by publicly criticizing key aspects of the bills.
Previous visits by Obama have caused severe traffic jams across Los Angeles, prompting outrage from frustrated motorists. The Los Angeles Police Department urged drivers to avoid major Westside streets Wednesday night and Thursday morning, when Obama is scheduled to travel to a fundraiser at the Corona Del Mar home of real estate developer Jeff Stack and his wife, Nancy. He is then scheduled to travel to San Francisco and Seattle.
Earlier Wednesday, the president visited the Master Lock factory in Milwaukee, portraying the world’s largest padlock manufacturer as an optimistic tale about American manufacturing on the rebound.
Over the last two years, Master Lock has moved 100 jobs from China back to the Milwaukee plant, a mini-surge that Obama compared to the recovery of America’s troubled auto industry since an emergency government bailout in 2008 and 2009.
“What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries,” Obama told a crowd gathered on the factory floor. “Today you’re selling products directly to customers in China stamped with those words, ‘Made in America.’ ”
The president appealed to manufacturers to reverse outsourcing and find ways to create jobs back home. He makes his pitch as China’s expected future president, Xi Jinping, makes his own U.S. tour and faces questions about China’s role as America’s chief rival in the global economy.
U.S. industry doesn’t lack patriotism, Obama’s Republican critics argue. Business executives will add jobs when it’s in their economic interest to do so, said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
“The best thing the president can do to prevent outsourcing is pull back on the destructive policies — like his healthcare law and regulations — and threat of tax hikes that are making it harder for American businesses to hire workers here at home,” Buck said.
kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
michael.finnegan@latimes.com
Times staff writer Robert J. Lopez in Los Angeles and Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
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02b991b6fd106f8506b8d1cbcdc5251a | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-19-la-fg-syria-assassinate-20120220-story.html | 2 judicial officials assassinated in Syria | 2 judicial officials assassinated in Syria
Two judicial officials were assassinated Sunday in Syria’s Idlib province, and the strife-riven nation faced what could be a critical week, almost a year after the bloody rebellion erupted against the government of President Bashar Assad.
Authorities said “an armed terrorist group” in Idlib city opened fire on a car carrying a judge, Mohammed Ziyadeh, and a prosecutor, Nidal Ghazal. Also killed was the driver, said the official Syrian Arab News Agency.
An opposition activist reached in Idlib contradicted the official version and said Syrian security forces killed the pair because they were cooperating with antigovernment rebels active in the northwestern region, close to the border with Turkey.
Assassinations by unknown assailants have become a familiar feature of the conflict in Syria, where armed insurgents are fighting to oust Assad, whose family has ruled the country for more than 40 years.
On Saturday, the state news agency reported, gunmen assassinated a member of the city council in the northern municipality of Aleppo, a business hub that is regarded as staunchly pro-Assad.
In various areas of Syria, the government has been fighting to recapture terrain lost to rebels. The opposition said insurgent enclaves in the western city of Homs were shelled again Sunday, as reports circulated that ground troops might be preparing an assault on the besieged rebel bastion of Bab Amr.
The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition coalition, reported at least 20 killed Sunday across the country, including nine in Homs. The numbers could not be independently confirmed because of restrictions on media access in Syria.
Despite the ongoing violence and threat of a full-fledged civil war, Assad has scheduled a nationwide referendum for Sunday on a new draft constitution that is a centerpiece of his asserted reform agenda. Much of the opposition has rejected the move as a stalling tactic and called for a boycott.
Meantime, Arab and other nations calling for Assad to cede power are scheduled to meet Friday in Tunis, Tunisia, to discuss new ways to put pressure on the embattled Syrian president. Diplomats from the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other allied nations have pledged to ramp up assistance to Syria’s opposition, which remains deeply divided.
Diplomats, however, say any international intervention remains off the table in Syria, where a popular revolt against Assad began 11 months ago.
A request this month by Arab foreign ministers that a joint Arab-U.N. peacekeeping team be dispatched to Syria was denounced by the Assad administration as a “hostile act” and “a call for foreign intervention in Syrian affairs.”
Assad has said he has no intention of resigning and has vowed to restore security and implement wide-ranging political reform leading to a representative democracy. Many opponents say only Assad’s departure will be enough.
Russia and China, which vetoed a pair of United Nations Security Council resolutions condemning Assad’s crackdown on dissent, have applauded the plans for a referendum on the new constitution.
The opposition says a peaceful protest movement gravitated to arms in response to brutal repression. The government says armed Islamic militants have been part of a foreign “conspiracy” to topple Assad since the outset of trouble.
On Sunday, opposition sympathizers reported a heavy police presence in Damascus’ Mezzeh district, a day after the neighborhood hosted what activists called the largest protest march to date in the capital.
“There are almost no people on the street,” said an activist reached via Skype, who, like others, declined to give his name for security reasons.
The opposition has accused authorities of shutting down roads, rerouting bus lines and cutting off communications and services in a bid to isolate anti-Assad strongholds in the Damascus suburbs and elsewhere. Troops have also been dispatched to quell protests and arrest alleged rebel sympathizers, the opposition says.
“There are snipers now, and no one can leave the house,” said an activist Sunday in the Damascus suburb of Barzeh, a frequent site of antigovernment marches.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Marrouch is a special correspondent.
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89d2bb76635917830ea836ae31af9fab | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-19-la-na-labor-politics-20120220-story.html | Unions return to Democratic fold for 2012 election | Unions return to Democratic fold for 2012 election
Last May, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stood a few blocks from the White House and issued a stern warning: Union members could not be counted on as the Democrats’ foot soldiers anymore.
“If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, then working people will not support them,” he said in a speech at the National Press Club.
Flash forward to today: Labor appears squarely back in the Democrats’ corner for the 2012 election — pushed there in large part by Republican attacks on collective bargaining rights for public employees.
Those and other anti-union measures are rallying organized labor to the side of its longtime Democratic allies, and not just in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan, where they are battling efforts aimed at curbing union organizing.
The country’s biggest unions also have played a central role in helping a network of federal pro-Democratic “super PACs” get off the ground, pouring more than $4 million into those groups in 2011, even as many wealthy liberals kept their checkbooks closed.
And some major labor groups have even inserted themselves into the Republican presidential primaries with ads that take aim at White House hopeful Mitt Romney.
The decision by unions to act again as an early firewall for Democrats speaks to how stepped-up hostility by Republicans has curtailed labor’s hope to be an independent political force.
Across the country, state GOP lawmakers — many of whom were swept into office by the tea-party-fueled wave that dominated the 2010 midterm election — are aggressively pushing right-to-work laws that would make it harder for unions to collect dues. And in the presidential campaign, Romney has taken a particularly antagonistic posture against what he calls “big labor.”
“I think we’ll be more engaged in 2012 than certainly in the last 20 years,” said Mike Podhorzer, political director for the AFL-CIO, a federation of 57 unions. “Working people realize in a way they never have what a threat the current Republican platform is to their well-being.”
Organized labor is now expected to match or slightly exceed the estimated $400 million that unions spent to help elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats in 2008, according to Marick F. Masters, a business professor who studies the labor movement at Michigan’s Wayne State University.
The political power of unions was amplified by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United case freeing corporations and unions to do independent political spending. That means that organized labor no longer has to limit its outreach to union members during its vaunted door-to-door field programs. Unions can also pay for political ads directly with dues, rather than through separate political action committees.
So far, however, labor groups have been cautious about exploiting that tool, wary that using member dues for television spots would trigger criticism. For now, union leaders say they plan to focus their political spending on expanding their ground efforts to turn out voters.
One of the biggest unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, plans to put in as much as $100 million this year — money that will largely benefit Obama and other Democrats at the local, state and national levels. “What’s the alternative?” Gerald McEntee, the federation’s president, told the Washington Post in October.
Last month, AFSCME spent $1 million in Florida on a television ad attacking Romney for his ties to a medical company that admitted to defrauding Medicare — the first time the union had weighed in during a Republican primary. The Service Employees International Union, working with the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, ran its own anti-Romney radio ads in Florida and Nevada.
Labor officials insist their recent political activity does not mean they are a de facto arm of the Democratic Party, a frequent charge made by conservatives. Larry Scanlon, AFSCME’s political director, noted that the union backed GOP officials at the local and state level.
But the political climate has made it increasingly difficult to find pro-labor Republicans on a national level.
“We’re trying, because we want to work with anybody who wants to work with us, but the options have not been great,” said Brandon Davis, political director for the service employees’ union.
The aggression on the right led to a shift in labor’s strategy from what it was less than a year ago, when union leaders complained that Democrats were not fighting hard enough for their issues. They ticked off a litany of complaints, including the failure of Congress to pass “card check” legislation that would make union organizing easier and Obama’s support for a trade deal with Colombia, where union members have been killed.
Last April, Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Assn. of Firefighters, announced the group would cease its contributions to federal candidates, citing a lack of support for organized labor.
“Where are the congressional delegations en masse standing up and fighting with us?” he asked at the time.
The freeze didn’t last long. By December, citing the passage of legislation that included $730 million in grants to local fire departments, the union announced it would reopen the spigot to congressional candidates.
In fact, relations between the firefighters union and Democrats had warmed months earlier, when the union quietly cut a $250,000 check to the House Majority PAC, a super PAC supporting Democrats in House races.
Labor observers said that and other donations to Democratic super PACs revealed that — despite their calls for autonomy — unions still relied heavily on Democrats to shape their political fate.
“In this business, if you want to play, you’ve got to pay,” Masters said. “And so despite what you might say about wanting to be nonpartisan or more independent, when these PACs come to you and say, ‘We’re at a pivotal time period and we need your support. Can you help?’ it’s hard to say no.”
Indeed, unions provided the seed money for the four major Democratic super PACs last year, contributing $4.2 million, more than 30% of the $13.6 million the groups raised altogether, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.
More than $2 million of the $3 million that the House Majority PAC raised in 2011 came from labor. And nearly a quarter of the money brought in by Priorities USA Action came from a single union: Service Employees International, which gave $1 million.
The AFL-CIO has largely steered clear of financing the Democratic super PACs, choosing instead to launch its own, called Workers’ Voices. Last year, the federation put $2.2 million from its general treasury into Workers’ Voices, which raised $3.7 million overall.
Podhorzer said the super PAC would finance field efforts, not television ads, and would be used to strengthen the independent role that Trumka laid out last year.
“It obviously sounds somewhat farcical because the Republican Party has made itself so anti-labor, but the paradigm shift that he was trying to effect was to get out of the box of thinking that political parties or politicians could be the salvation for workers,” he said. “Our support can’t be counted on by any politician as a matter of course.”
matea.gold@latimes.com
melanie.mason@latimes.com
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b907110f5d791d17bf6f1ca5ab986814 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-20-la-fg-greece-bailout-20120221-story.html | Eurozone ministers approve $170-billion bailout for Greece | Eurozone ministers approve $170-billion bailout for Greece
Europe’s ailing currency union approved its second bailout for Greece in less than two years, signing off on a $170-billion rescue package early Tuesday after weeks of bickering and rising ill feeling between Athens and other regional capitals.
The deal should help ward off the specter of an imminent Greek default, which threatened to occur as early as next month and to throw global markets into turmoil.
But the price for Greece is a fresh round of punishing austerity cuts that its parliament approved last week, despite an economy already gutted by previous belt-tightening measures. The new bailout also comes amid stark warnings that it still may not do much to lighten the burden of debt that Athens is staggering under.
Finance ministers from the 17 countries that share the euro currency sealed the agreement in Brussels after 13 hours of negotiations. In a sign of the mutual mistrust that has deepened of late, the ministers demanded that Greece set up a special escrow account for money to be spent on servicing its debt and not on other public expenditures such as teacher salaries.
Despite the heavy demands being made of it, including the relinquishment of some fiscal and economic sovereignty, Greece welcomed the bailout package, which it needs most urgently to make a bond repayment that comes due next month. Without the rescue funds, Athens would be forced to declare bankruptcy.
“The Greek people [are] sending Europe the message that they have, and they will, make the necessary sacrifices in order for our country to regain its place within the European family,” Evangelos Venizelos, Greece’s finance minister, said in a statement before the marathon negotiating session. “For Greeks, this is a matter of national dignity and a national strategic choice.”
The agreement envisages a larger-than-anticipated contribution by private creditors to debt relief for Greece, to bring the country’s overall debt level down to 120.5% of gross domestic product by 2020. Creditors are expected to take a 53.5% write-down on their holdings of Greek bonds, up from the 50% being negotiated just a few days ago.
Talks with bondholders have dragged on for months, but officials are hopeful they can be concluded within the coming days.
Also, interest rates on the emergency loans from Greece’s first bailout are being lowered.
None of the bailout’s elements, however, directly address the increasingly desperate need for a return to economic growth, without which Athens will find it impossible to pay off its debts. Greece is already into its fifth year of severe recession; last year, its economy shrank by nearly 7%.
Many analysts say that the German-led insistence on even more austerity for Greece — about $4 billion worth of cuts in the latest round, including steep wage reductions and thousands of public-sector layoffs — merely threatens to bury the country in an even deeper hole.
“What the Greek economy is going through basically is a massive demand shock,” said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London. “Unless they help the Greek economy back to growth, then I don’t think there’s any chance of the Greeks being able to abide by the terms of this bailout.”
henry.chu@latimes.com
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dfa09fe560b35f4b5f7c5e8b654a4af5 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-feb-23-la-na-santorum-record-20120224-story.html | The two sides of Rick Santorum | The two sides of Rick Santorum
A U.S. senator for barely three months, Rick Santorum, then just 36, sought to strip 72-year-old Republican Mark O. Hatfield of a committee chairmanship for voting against a balanced-budget constitutional amendment.
The longtime Oregon senator kept the gavel, but Santorum put his colleagues on notice in 1995 that he would bring a brash, more partisan style to the genteel chamber to advance conservative causes.
About a decade later, Santorum backed Sen. Arlen Specter, a supporter of abortion rights, over a more conservative, antiabortion challenger in Pennsylvania’s GOP primary.
The actions show two sides to Santorum: a man who portrays himself in his presidential primary campaign as an outsider taking on the establishment, but also a man who played a good inside game during four years in the House and 12 in the Senate.
Santorum was very much the insider when it came to earmarking funds for home-state projects, a practice often derided as pork-barrel spending. Santorum also rapidly worked his way up to become the Senate’s third-ranking Republican, responsible for the party’s messaging.
Santorum’s record in Congress has come under fire as he has surged in the race. Mitt Romney attacked him Thursday for saying during a testy debate the night before that he voted for President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, an expansion of the federal role in education that is unpopular among conservatives, out of party loyalty.
“He talked about this as being taking one for the team,” Romney said of Santorum. “I wonder which team he was taking it for.... My team is the American people, not the insiders of Washington.”
Santorum has said that he now regrets the vote.
Six years after Santorum lost his Senate seat, his tenure on Capitol Hill draws mixed reviews from former colleagues and Congress watchers.
Former Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) called Santorum a “very rigid man … a lot tougher than [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich to deal with.”
And former Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) said of Santorum: “I’m not opposed to bucking the establishment, but I always felt he was using the establishment for his own aggrandizement. I remember him saying, ‘You’ve got to give me a little slack. I need to vote for this for my state.’ … It was a little bit inconsistent to take on Hatfield for what he did based on the kinds of things Santorum did.”
But others say they appreciated Santorum’s hard-charging style. “He was aggressive,” said former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, a Romney supporter.
Lott said that many of Santorum’s former colleagues committed early to Romney and didn’t expect Santorum “to do as well as he has,” but that there also was concern that Santorum doesn’t appeal enough to independents and moderate Democrats to get elected.
Santorum made a name for himself soon after he was elected to the House over a Democratic incumbent in 1990.
He was one of the “Gang of Seven” freshmen, along with current Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), to force House leaders to spotlight members who had written overdrafts on the now-defunct House bank.
Santorum played a key role in overhauling the welfare system, first as a House member, then as a freshman senator chosen by Majority Leader Bob Dole to lead the floor fight.
“Dole chose Santorum, who had been in the Senate about 150 days, to be the point person on welfare reform,” said Robert Rector, a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation who worked with Republicans on the effort. “That was a great testimony to the Republicans’ assessment of Santorum’s ability.”
After the bill became law, Santorum pushed for federal funding to promote “healthy marriage” and “responsible fatherhood.”
Santorum was perhaps best known in the Senate as an outspoken advocate of banning same-sex marriage, restricting abortion, and other social conservative positions. He was the chief sponsor of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003.
“He was willing to take on issues that others weren’t,” said Brian Darling, a former Senate GOP aide now with the Heritage Foundation.
John Ullyot, another former Senate Republican aide, added: “Despite how you feel about him, his convictions are genuine.”
Santorum has drawn criticism from the conservative Club for Growth for a “mixed record” on federal spending.
The group also calls him a “prolific” supporter of earmarks.
Santorum has come in for criticism for supporting Alaska’s proposed “bridge to nowhere,” an earmark to link Ketchikan to an island with an airport and 50 people that has become a symbol of congressional excess.
Santorum defended his earmarking as a way to fund important projects in his home state without ceding Congress’ power of the purse to the executive branch.
The National Taxpayers Union gave Santorum a B-plus average for his votes on fiscal issues since 1992.
While Santorum voted the party line more than 90% of the time, he occasionally broke ranks.
He joined other steel-state senators to vote for union-backed legislation to restrict steel imports. He supported an increase in the minimum wage sponsored by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in 2005.
In his 2006 reelection battle, which he lost by 18 points, labor unions coalesced around Democrat Bob Casey, but the Philadelphia building and trades group broke ranks and endorsed Santorum because of all the construction jobs he’d worked to bring back to the state. Democrat Pat Gillespie, the president of that group, said he almost lost his job over it.
Santorum also had other interests; he sponsored legislation to crack down on puppy mills, for example.
“Obviously, the life of animals is fundamentally different than the life of a human being,” he told the Associated Press in 2005. “But to me, we have a responsibility to God’s creatures to treat them humanely, and the government’s laws should reflect that.”
Smith, the former New Hampshire senator, said he never fully understood why Santorum endorsed his Republican primary opponent, John E. Sununu, in 2002, and finds it even more baffling given Santorum’s support for the more moderate Specter two years later over conservative challenger Pat Toomey.
In recent years, Santorum has pleaded for forgiveness for backing Specter, calling it a mistake and saying he did it only because of a deal with Specter, then the Judiciary Committee chairman, that he would support Bush’s Supreme Court appointments.
Specter has said the account is untrue. He declined to be interviewed for this report.
richard.simon@latimes.com
citkowitz@mcall.com
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20e77450ee473d5e0584ad032fc5ad36 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-01-la-na-obama-plans-20120101-story.html | Obama’s resolution? To limit dealings with Congress | Obama’s resolution? To limit dealings with Congress
Heading into the new year, President Obama will insist that Congress renew the payroll tax cut through the end of 2012, but will otherwise limit his dealings with an unpopular Congress, and instead travel the country to deliver his reelection message directly to voters, a White House aide said.
“In terms of the president’s relationship with Congress in 2012 — the state of the debate, if you will — the president is no longer tied to Washington, D.C.,” spokesman Josh Earnest said in a news briefing in Honolulu.
The assertion is striking given that Obama, as president for nearly three years, is the symbol and personification of the federal government. It also offers a glimpse into an Obama reelection strategy that will target a “do-nothing” Congress much in the style of Harry S. Truman’s reelection campaign in 1948.
With most legislative cliffhangers behind him, Obama does not consider the rest of his policy agenda to be a “must-do” for lawmakers, Earnest said.
Rather, the White House believes Obama would be well-served by continuing to distance himself from a Congress often blamed for Washington’s gridlock and infighting.
As the year unfolds, Obama will use executive authority to roll out more initiatives designed to boost the economy and assist struggling families, the White House aide said. Obama has already unveiled 20 such measures under the White House’s new slogan, “We can’t wait.”
Earnest said that the White House’s goal was to contrast the image of a “gridlocked, dysfunctional Congress” with “a president who’s leaving no stone unturned to try to find solutions to the difficult financial challenges and economic challenges facing this country.”
Obama will also make the case for passage of his $447-billion jobs package, most of which Congress has rejected over the last three months.
His jobs plan includes money to keep public workers on the job and rebuild the nation’s roads, ports and bridges. But it seems doubtful that he’ll push Congress on his jobs plan with the same focus that he brought to the payroll tax cut debate. In late December, Congress agreed to extend the payroll tax cut for two months, following a high-stakes showdown with Obama that delayed his Hawaiian vacation for six days.
Nothing else on Obama’s menu requires congressional action as urgently as the tax cut, the White House said. If Congress were to let the cut expire at the end of February, tens of millions of Americans would be hit with a tax increase, harming the fragile economic recovery, the White House contends.
Earnest said that now that Obama was “sort of free from having to put out these fires, the president will have a larger playing field, as it were. And if that playing field includes working with Congress, all the better. But I think my point is that that’s no longer a requirement.”
In pushing his jobs plan — which included the payroll tax cut — Obama often mocked lawmakers who opposed it for fear of giving him “a win” politically. He bristled over such characterizations, saying his aim was not short-term political advantage but a solution for the nation’s high jobless rate.
Now that the payroll tax cut has been extended, the White House is resorting to some of the same language that Obama had rejected. White House aides have made it clear that Obama fought — and won — a battle with congressional Republicans.
The president did so in part by trying to adopt a new political persona. Earnest described him as having “worked to claim the mantle as a warrior for the middle class.”
He’ll try to emphasize that identity in the new year, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, when he travels to Cleveland to give a speech on the economy. That trip comes one day after the Republican caucuses in Iowa, the first major contest in the race to establish a GOP nominee.
Obama won’t congratulate the winner, the White House said, but he will try to distinguish himself from Republican candidates who are bashing each other in a fierce campaign.
Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said: “It’s disappointing that job creation, energy security, tax reform and preventing everyone’s tax rates from going up aren’t on the president’s ‘must do’ list. But they are on the priority list of Republicans.”
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
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05e9df983a8587da0cdbeb437c2b44a7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-03-la-na-wetlands-court-20120103-story.html | Supreme Court takes up property rights dispute | Supreme Court takes up property rights dispute
Mike and Chantell Sackett wanted to live on scenic Priest Lake in Idaho but couldn’t afford it. So they bought a residential lot across the road that offered a distant view of the water, clearing the land and laying gravel.
But instead of building their dream home, the Sacketts found themselves enmeshed in a four-year legal battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over whether their dry lot is a protected “wetlands” and possibly off-limits for building.
Next week, the Supreme Court will take up the Sacketts’ case, not to redefine wetlands but to decide whether landowners are entitled to a hearing before a judge when they are confronted by the EPA. The case is being closely watched by developers and environmentalists.
Under the EPA’s rules, dry lots and open fields can qualify as protected wetlands if they are wet sometimes or situated near a stream or lake.
In November 2007, the Sacketts were given an “administrative compliance order” by three EPA officials telling them they must stop work, remove the gravel and “restore” the land by adding new plants suitable for a wetland. If they maintained the land in its natural state for at least three years, they were told, they could then seek a permit to build, a process that would cost about $200,000.
“We were blindsided,” Mike Sackett said. “And if we didn’t comply, we were subject to fines of up to $37,500 per day.”
Stymied, the Sacketts sought a hearing to contest the EPA’s order. They insisted the half-acre lot, which they had bought for $23,000, was not wetlands. But their hearing request was turned down by a federal judge in Idaho and by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Agreeing with the EPA, the judges said the compliance order was like a warning to the landowners that they were violating the law. They weren’t entitled to a hearing under the law until the agency had imposed a fine on them, the appeals court said.
That offered no solace to the Sacketts. They were in an “impossible situation,” their lawyer said: Do nothing with their lot for three years, or start building and face potential fines running into millions of dollars. They chose instead to appeal to the Supreme Court, which will hear the case Monday.
The case has become a cause celebre for the right, which is depicting the EPA as an out-of-control agency. The Idaho couple appeared three times on the Lou Dobbs program in 2011 and testified at an October hearing organized by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to explore the “government’s assault on private property.”
“We need to take the government back from unelected bureaucrats,” Paul said at the hearing.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, which defends property rights, is handling the Sacketts’ case. “When the government seizes control of your land, shouldn’t you be allowed your day in court?” asked Damien Schiff, the foundation lawyer who represents the Sacketts.
The Constitution says no one may be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” and the Sacketts say they were entitled to a hearing before a judge before they were denied the full use of their property.
EPA officials decline to talk about the case because it is before the court.
Some environmental lawyers fear a decision in the couple’s favor could undercut the agency’s ability to stop polluters. The EPA issues as many as 3,000 compliance orders a year. For example, if a mine or factory were discharging toxic chemicals into a river, the EPA could issue a compliance order telling the owner to halt the discharges immediately or face daily fines for violating the Clean Water Act.
A victory for the Sacketts could “undermine the government’s ability to promptly respond to environmental threats,” said Nina Mendelson, a University of Michigan law professor and former Justice Department lawyer. But she also said the EPA should consider allowing administrative hearings in cases, such as that of the Sacketts, that do not involve pressing environmental threats.
In defense of the EPA, the Justice Department argued the Sacketts were not entitled to a “pre-enforcement hearing” under the law. The Sacketts “face a dilemma largely of their own making, since they discharged fill into wetlands without first seeking a permit or consulting EPA,” the government’s lawyers told the high court.
It remains unclear why EPA officials were convinced the Sacketts lot was a wetland. One part of the lot is bordered by cattails, and it is wet sometimes during the year, Mike Sackett reported. But he also said no water flows from his land to the lake, which is about 500 feet away and across a road. Contradicting the Sacketts, an environmental group says the couple were warned in advance their lot had a wetland.
The legal authority for regulating wetlands comes from the Clean Water Act, which forbids the “discharge of any pollutant” into the “navigable waters of the United States.” Since the late 1970s, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have claimed broad authority to protect wetlands, even when they are not connected to rivers or lakes. As the Sacketts learned, putting gravel on a dry lot amounts to “discharging pollutants” into the “waters of the United States” if the lot is deemed to be wetlands.
They might get a friendlier reception from the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia once complained that the EPA has used its authority over wetlands to claim control over an “immense” area of the nation, “including half of Alaska and an area the size of California in the lower 48 states.”
In a 2006 decision, Scalia and three other justices agreed that the EPA’s anti-pollution authority extended up rivers to free-flowing streams, but not to nearby marshy fields. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in a separate opinion, said the EPA could protect marshy fields or other wetlands, but only if it could show that filling them would harm nearby rivers or lakes.
The justices could not muster a five-member majority in 2006 to redefine the law on wetlands. As a result, the EPA kept in force its broad regulations on wetlands, as the Sacketts learned a year later.
david.savage@latimes.com
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553b84a87b78e7f04542ca03655af73b | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-04-la-fg-japan-farm-20120105-story.html | Japan’s tsunami has dealt lasting blow to family farms | Japan’s tsunami has dealt lasting blow to family farms
For nearly 40 years, farmer Eiichi Fukuda has put his faith in the land, trusting the annual yield of the fertile brown soil to help feed his family and the rest of his nation.
But these days, the veteran grower has watched the good earth turn dangerous. Nearly 10 months after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was struck by an earthquake-triggered tsunami, releasing radioactive cesium into the atmosphere, many nearby farmers are now at odds with their own land.
Fukuda’s eldest son, Hideaki, refuses to drive the tractor without a glass compartment to protect him from blowing dust. Family members now scrub their boots and work clothes immediately after leaving the field as a precaution against any radioactive residue.
And, most telling, they no longer eat the food they grow.
“For the first time in my life I’m afraid of my own crops,” said Fukuda, 60, a third-generation rice and vegetable farmer whose 50-acre spread sits a few miles from the ailing power plant. “Now we buy everything from the markets, grown far away from the reactor’s reach.”
These are dark days for Japan’s farmers as a perfect storm of politics, a slumping economy and natural calamity threatens a way of life here that dates back 2,500 years.
Even as growers in the disaster-hit Tohoku region 200 miles north of Tokyo deal with the nuclear fallout, another threat looms: the government’s possible participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a controversial free-trade pact that would scrap import tariffs that protect Japanese growers from cheaper imports.
Rice growers like Fukuda would be hit worst. Many are now protected by a whopping 800% duty on imported rice. Irate farmers recently drove their tractors down busy Tokyo streets to counter lobbyists who promote the free-trade pact as a boost for Japan’s sagging economy.
Analysts say Japan must keep pace with developments such as South Korea’s recent free-trade pact with the United States. Membership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, these observers say, will strengthen ties with Japan’s neighbors and the U.S. while reducing the damaging effects of a surging yen.
But caught in the middle are Japan’s estimated 2.4 million farming households. The nation’s agriculture sector suffered $30 billion in losses from the March earthquake and deadly tsunami, which deluged crops and damaged the cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, leading to reactor meltdowns and escaping radiation.
In recent months, excessive levels of radioactive cesium have been detected in nearly three dozen Fukushima food items, a development that many characterize as a final blow to an already doomed industry.
As he waits to see how badly his land has been contaminated by radioactivity, Fukuda planted only broccoli this year after he found out through his own Internet research that the plants had a slow absorption rate for cesium. But once harvested, by law the broccoli must be labeled as produce grown in Fukushima, the nuclear zone, a damaging disclaimer that will bring him less than 40% of usual market value.
Yuji Sakai, a representative at a Fukushima regional office of the Japan Agricultural Cooperative, called agriculture an aging trade, with many farm families in their last generation on the land.
More than 70% of the 15,000 farmers his office represents are older than 65, and only 10% of those are like Fukuda, with a son or daughter willing to take over the business. Further, a survey found that nearly one in three Japanese farmers are so disillusioned that they do not want their children to succeed them.
With young people leaving the farms, Sakai laments the future of farming in Japan, which he predicts might one day resemble the U.S.: a domain of large-scale agricultural interests rather than small family farms.
“The biggest, most diverse farms will survive,” he said, “but the smaller ones will probably not.”
As he considers joining the multination free-trade pact, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda promises to protect “traditional Japanese culture and beautiful farm villages.”
But Fukuda believes that those farms are already becoming a thing of the past. “I honestly don’t know if there will be a farm around here for my eldest son to work when he reaches my age,” he said.
Fukuda began farming at 18 and eventually took over the land from his father. The family always had been able to capitalize on troubled times.
Two decades ago, when rice prices dropped, many smaller growers quit, allowing Fukuda to expand his operation. Now he fears that he’ll be the one selling off his land.
When the earthquake hit, Fukuda was ready to harvest his tomatoes. Instead, his family fled the farm and left the entire crop to rot in the greenhouses. When he finally returned for rice season, he wasn’t sure he should even seed his fields.
“I thought, ‘What’s going to come out of the ground if I plant? Will it be harmful to people?’ All of us farmers worry about that.”
Without rice or potatoes to grow, Fukuda had time to ponder his future. A practical man, normally so busy that he had to keep his mind on the job at hand, he was suddenly bored.
Meanwhile, his son harbors second thoughts about the farm. He doesn’t want to drink the local water, and he worries that, unlike his father, he’ll live long enough to feel the adverse health effects of cesium exposure, including cancer.
On a sunny afternoon in late autumn, Fukuda walked through one of his broccoli fields, running his hands along the leafy plants. With five years before retirement, he always figured he had time to teach his son all he needed to know to become a successful fourth-generation Fukuda family farmer.
Now the future of the family venture is in peril.
“Who would have ever guessed that the tsunami could have spawned such a terrible disaster?” he said, kicking at the dirt. “Fukushima products once represented high quality and safety. But the nuclear accident took care of that.”
john.glionna@latimes.com
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6a1d18fa24327cec023ca90b7715bf7b | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-04-la-fg-yemen-saleh-troubles-20120105-story.html | Yemen president capitalizes on his political wits | Yemen president capitalizes on his political wits
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is as relentless as he is cunning, promising to step aside yet remaining very much in power even after nearly a year of deadly rebellion has edged his impoverished nation to the brink of implosion.
Bearing the scars from an assassination attempt last year, Saleh, who has transferred duties to his vice president, still holds an uncanny sway over the country he has ruled for 33 years. He has been maneuvering for his son and nephews to retain control of Yemen’s military and security agencies, and last week he startled many by canceling a trip to the U.S. for medical treatment.
Saleh has deftly, if erratically, manipulated Yemen’s multiplying dangers. But since November, when he signed an agreement backed by Washington and Saudi Arabia to cede power, his attention has focused on escaping prosecution and consolidating his family’s grip on key institutions. The opposition accused him over the weekend of using sleight-of-hand ploys to again sidestep his promise to step down.
Pressure on his government has increased because of the growing influence of the Islamist party, Islah, a leading voice in labor unrest and dissident movements. At the same time, Al Qaeda militants are assassinating his security officials and battling his army in southern towns in a conflict that has left the U.S. concerned about the expansion of terrorism in the Arabian Peninsula.
Saleh, a former tank commander who survived a rocket attack on his compound in June, has proved more resilient than his toppled contemporaries, including the late Moammar Kadafi in Libya and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. He can leave the country, as he did to recuperated in Saudi Arabia for months, and return to even more bloodshed and political disarray, yet somehow stay a step ahead of his enemies.
Yemen’s many threats and Saleh’s mercurial gambits have made the nation unique in the revolts that have swept the Arab world over the last year. Protesters face more than a stubborn despot. Their rallying cries have been subsumed by struggles involving larger forces, including mutinous soldiers, rival tribes, a secessionist movement in the south and sporadic war between security forces and rebels in the north.
The nation, which often seems at the brink of bursting, as it did in the 1994 civil war, appears inured to conflict like a well-armed dysfunctional family that has learned to share a battered house. But many now suggest the momentum against Saleh is too daunting for him to survive.
“Saleh has resisted stepping down for the last year and every time he’s agreed to a deal he’s broken his promise,” said Jamal Anam, an opposition member. “But the president will not be able to stop the wheel of change. Saleh will become more and more isolated.”
The transfer of power agreement was expected to ease tension. The pact called for Saleh to hand authority to Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi in preparation for a presidential election next month. Saleh has vowed that once a new president, widely expected to be Hadi, is in place, he will formally step down in exchange for immunity from prosecution. This proviso has angered hundreds of thousands of protesters demanding Saleh’s arrest.
“The signing of the deal did not satisfy the demonstrators in the streets,” said Ali Saif Hassan, an analyst and head of the Political Development Forum. “The West has to think more creatively to pressure for a national dialogue. It can convince political forces by freezing their assets and bank accounts.”
Saleh’s maneuvering since the deal has left Yemenis and the international community at times feeling whiplashed. His announcement last month about plans to travel to the U.S. caught many in Yemen off guard.
The proposal put Washington in the sensitive predicament of possibly offering refuge to a reviled autocrat who also has been a U.S. ally in fighting Al Qaeda. But Saleh, as he often does to keep his opponents exasperated, reversed himself Saturday, suggesting his absence would imperil stability at a time Islah is plotting to paralyze state offices.
There were also indications Saleh would not be treated with the pomp the U.S. usually gives a head of state. Ahmed Sofi, the president’s spokesman, said Saleh made “compromises and sacrifices” to Washington by agreeing to step down and “if President Obama or a high-ranking official in the U.S. won’t receive him, we do not want to go.”
The deepening political tumult in Yemen is a sign of Islah’s attempt to strike at the core of Saleh’s power. The Islamist organization, which is intent on creating an Islamic state that would certainly run counter to U.S. interests, has instigated unrest in federal and local government agencies. Seizing on national anger over public corruption, Islah has called for the firing of school principals and top government officials.
The strategy threatens to roil the military and intelligence establishments controlled by Saleh’s family. It is an indication that the politically shrewd Saleh may be finding it difficult to counter elements more powerful than hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators.
Employees at the September 26 newspaper, a mouthpiece for the military, have demanded the resignation of Ali Shatar, chief editor and head of Moral Guidance, an agency with the Defense Ministry. The manager of state-controlled Yemen TV and several of his executives were forced to flee their offices after fistfights broke out between workers and a production manager over graft.
Islah, the country’s main opposition party, has been moving to steer the protest movement. It competes in Change Square, the epicenter of anti-Saleh sentiment in Sana, the capital, with socialists, students, nationalists, tribes, Houthi rebels and others in what represents an often violent mosaic of dissent.
Saleh has often warned that Islah is a front for a dangerous brand of radicalism. He has repeatedly played on fear of Islamic extremism, especially resonant in the West, as a way to enhance his power. However, Saleh critic Hassan Zaid, head of an opposition party, also warned recently that “the world will be surprised when Al Qaeda, the militant wing of the Islah, controls Yemen.”
Among Islah’s more prominent personalities are the ultraconservative Sheik Abdul Majeed Zindani, a henna-bearded cleric who is considered a terrorist by the U.S. and was once a spiritual mentor to Osama bin Laden, and defector Gen. Ali Mohsen Ahmar, whose 1st Armored Division has clashed with Saleh loyalists in the capital. But the group also has less radical members such as Tawakul Karman, a human rights activist who shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
The neighborhoods around Saleh’s palace in Sana have been carved up by warring factions, including one funded by a billionaire telecommunications tribesman and another led by Saleh’s son, Ahmed, commander of the Republican Guard. Artillery blasts and power blackouts are common. On Sunday, Saleh’s forces shelled a neighborhood, killing three people.
“Saleh will ultimately be forced to leave the country, but not now,” said Ahmed Zurqah, a political analyst. “He has to make sure his family and the political loyalists around him are not harmed and the nation doesn’t shatter.”
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Times staff writer Fleishman reported from Cairo and special correspondent Al-Alayaa from Sana.
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e39df7ee24ee6aefa04fad3764fbdc11 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-04-la-na-cyber-theft-20120104-story.html | Hackers reveal personal data of 860,000 Stratfor subscribers | Hackers reveal personal data of 860,000 Stratfor subscribers
A computer hacking group has revealed email addresses and other personal data from former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and hundreds of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military officials in a high-profile case of cyber-theft.
The unauthorized release of account information for 860,000 subscribers to Stratfor, a Texas-based company that provides analysis of national and international affairs, makes it possible to identify some subscribers and, in theory, impersonate them in cyberspace, analysts warned.
The data were released in two batches last month by the AntiSec faction of Anonymous, a self-described hacker collective. It also disclosed about 75,000 names, addresses and credit card numbers associated with Stratfor customers, including Kissinger and Quayle. They did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
“The exposure is huge,” said John Bumgarner, who analyzed the release for the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, an independent, nonprofit research institute. “We can assume that a foreign intelligence service has already taken advantage of this information.”
Anonymous engages in what it calls civil disobedience to expose secrets, but others have called it Internet terrorism. Group members have hacked into corporate and government databases around the world since 2008, and authorities have arrested alleged members in the Netherlands, Britain, Spain, Turkey and elsewhere.
Bumgarner said the Stratfor data included 19,000 email addresses from the ".mil” domain, meaning members of the military. He also found 212 email addresses from the FBI; 71 from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s spying arm; 29 from the National Security Agency, which conducts global eavesdropping and cyber espionage; and 24 from the CIA.
Bumgarner said he used off-the-shelf software to crack many of the Stratfor passwords. One intelligence officer used “intel” as a password, and a Navy SEAL officer used “frogman1,” he said.
After the attack, Stratfor took its website off line and wrote on its Facebook page that it was cooperating with law enforcement. AntiSec said it targeted the company in part because it had poor network security.
ken.dilanian@latimes.com
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8cb0b05c27a1d5d021a94fea94b894c7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-05-la-fg-brazil-truth-commission-20120106-story.html | Brazil finally ready to confront abuses in past dictatorship | Brazil finally ready to confront abuses in past dictatorship
Vera Paiva has spent four decades trying to find out what happened to her father after he was arrested in 1971 during Brazil’s military dictatorship.
Rubens Paiva, a former congressman, is one of the country’s most famous desaparecidos, or “disappeared ones,” whose cases finally will be investigated by the government.
“The last time we heard of anyone seeing him, he was inside the jail and had been barbarically tortured,” Vera Paiva said, sitting in her house in Sao Paulo and going through details she has told journalists and officials hundreds of times.
“As his daughter, I would love to know what actually happened,” said Paiva, 57. “But it’s more important that the country know the truth, so it can move forward.”
Long after South American neighbors Chile, Argentina and Uruguay underwent similar bouts of self-reflection over their violent histories, Brazil’s government in November approved the formation of a truth commission to investigate human rights abuses under its military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.
The commission’s work is expected to last two years and comes as President Dilma Rousseff, who was among those imprisoned and tortured in the early 1970s for opposing the dictatorship, completes her first year overseeing a country that has seen its economy grow rapidly and is eager to take a prominent position on the world stage.
The dictatorship, which took over in a U.S.-backed coup, is suspected of killing or causing the disappearance of more than 450 people, and torturing or exiling thousands more. There is broad agreement on what the regime did, but government records have not been opened to reveal details since the military passed an amnesty law in 1979 while managing a gradual transition to civilian rule.
The truth commission will not lead to any trials. But after 16 years in which the country was governed by presidents who once were persecuted by military rule, proponents of a commission successfully argued that a full investigation would allow the country to confront its past. The commission findings could end an era of perceived impunity and secrecy for human rights abusers, they said, and help move the nation forward with boosted moral credibility.
Brazil’s regime was less bloody than those of other countries, but victims, relatives and activists say orders of magnitude are not important when discussing the consequences of decades of repression. The regime took aim not only at the politically active, but artists, intellectuals and musicians as well.
“I heard the cries of the tortured in the night,” said Caetano Veloso, a legendary musician who helped pioneer the Tropicalismo movement, which mixed Brazilian rhythms with ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll. Veloso was imprisoned for two months in the late 1960s and left for London soon after being released.
“The truth commission should mean a healthier public.… If it goes well, it should serve to pull Brazil out of the moral underworld” that the dictatorship plunged the country into, “and elevate it to a nation seriously committed to human rights,” he said.
“The dictatorship was a nightmare for those who believed in democracy,” Veloso said. “But that was the role that fell to Brazil between the forces of the Cold War.”
Analysts say the commission could also stir some uncomfortable reflections on the role the United States played at the time. Washington provided aggressive support to movements opposed to any perceived communist threat, regardless of their democratic or human rights credentials.
“Of course the U.S. will have embarrassing moments, but it has had those all over the region,” said Peter Hakim, president emeritus at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank focusing on hemispheric affairs. “Brazil’s dictatorship was not quite as brutal as that in Argentina or Chile, and U.S. involvement there was more modest.”
Supporters of the investigation said laying blame is less important than national reconciliation.
“The truth commission won’t affect Dilma’s relations with Washington, but will reveal a black period in US-Brazil relations,” said Antonio Campos, a lawyer who will present evidence to the commission.
Declassified documents show that the Brazilian military government took power with U.S. logistical and military support, and then exiled left-wing President Joao Goulart in 1964. What was initially a so-called soft military dictatorship became increasingly repressive as the decade went on. The most frequent targets of fatal violence were leftist antigovernment guerrilla groups, in which the young Rousseff took part.
Rubens Paiva was one of the most emblematic of the disappeared, his daughter said, because he was a respected politician with a family, rather than a young radical suspected of involvement in armed struggle against the regime.
Vera Paiva said her family does not know a lot about what happened to her father. After his position in Brazil’s legislature was revoked by the coup, she said, he maintained contact with friends and allies.
Vera Paiva believes that after her father received a letter from an exile in Chile — then still under President Salvador Allende before a military coup there in 1973 — the Brazilian regime must have come to the conclusion that he had some information on armed guerrilla organizations.
She said that in 1971 two plainclothes government agents picked him up in Rio de Janeiro as he returned from a beach for lunch. Most of the rest of his family members, including his wife, were also arrested and then released over the next few weeks. Their best guess is that he was tortured to death.
“But of course, no one knows,” Paiva said.
The delay in getting answers in Brazil came about partly because the military oversaw the transition to democracy and protected its interests, said David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia.
“The military wants zero investigation. They didn’t want any truth commission at all. They considered the amnesty enough,” he said.
The influence of still-active political parties that participated in the regime was another countervailing force to the movement for a commission, analysts say. This is despite the fact that since 1995, all Brazilian presidents had been personally affected by the military regime. During the dictatorship, center-right Fernando Henrique Cardoso was exiled in Paris and Chile, and left-wing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — Cardoso’s successor and Rousseff’s predecessor — was imprisoned as a labor leader.
“I hope the commission can reveal the truth,” Paiva said. “You can’t build a new future on lies and falsifications.”
Bevins is a special correspondent.
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343c6edc8c8f11d0d5b9ccb3d4c6238b | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-05-la-na-obama-powers-20120106-story.html | Obama appointments could trigger court test case | Obama appointments could trigger court test case
President Obama’s decision to defy Senate Republicans and appoint four top agency officials on his own authority sets the stage for a contentious constitutional battle over the powers of the presidency and the role of Congress.
To Republicans, Obama’s action amounted to “an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab,” according to House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who said the move would have “a devastating effect on the checks and balances” in the Constitution.
To Democrats, who have the majority in the Senate, the blame rested on an obstructionist GOP minority, which has been stalling appointments, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Reid criticized the Republicans for blocking an up-or-down vote on nominees such as former Ohio Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray, Obama’s pick for head of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray, nominated last summer, had 53 votes for confirmation, short of the 60 needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.
In addition to appointing Cordray, Obama on Wednesday named three officials to fill vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board, which referees labor-management disputes. He made the appointments — two Democrats and a Republican — under his power to fill vacancies during a congressional recess. He argued that the Senate was in recess despite pro forma sessions designed by the GOP to forestall recess appointments.
Underscoring the fact that the appointments will be an election year issue, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney on Thursday called Obama a “crony capitalist” who had put “union stooges” on the labor board.
The Supreme Court has never ruled on the president’s power to go around the Senate and make recess appointments, but legal experts say Obama’s bold use of the power is likely to trigger a test case.
Some legal experts said the constitutional dispute was complicated because both sides could be accused of violating the Constitution. Whereas Obama is accused of overstepping his power to make recess appointments, Senate Republicans have refused to fulfill their obligation for “advice and consent” by blocking votes on many of Obama’s nominees.
“There is a sort of clean-hands argument here. Those who have so abused the confirmation power are in a poor position to argue that the president has abused the recess appointment power,” said University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock.
Nevertheless, business owners, including payday lenders, are likely to challenge enforcement actions by Cordray’s agency in court, arguing that the rules are invalid because his appointment was unconstitutional.
The question will be: Was the Senate on recess this week because most of its members were away, or was it in session because one senator sounded the gavel on Tuesday?
The Constitution says the president can appoint officials “with the advice and consent of the Senate.” It also says the president “shall have the power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.”
In recent decades, as the partisan infighting has worsened, presidents have increasingly used their recess power to go around the Senate. Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments; George W. Bush made 171; Obama has made 32.
In response, senators in the opposing party have sought to tie the president’s hands by forgoing official recesses. The Senate no longer votes to “adjourn” when its members leave on a scheduled recess. In 2007, Democrats began holding brief “pro forma” sessions every three days to sound the gavel. Often, only one or two senators were present; deterring Bush from making further recess appointments. Not surprisingly, Republicans pressed to continue that process under Obama.
This week, the White House decided it would no longer play along with the Senate, deriding the short Senate sessions as a “gimmick.”
The president’s lawyers argue that the Senate made it clear it was away on a monthlong recess. “The Senate said it was adjourning on Dec. 17 and would be convening only pro forma sessions thereafter. And importantly, the Senate said no business would be conducted during the pro forma sessions,” said White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called Obama’s move a “terrible precedent” that “could allow any future president to completely cut the Senate out of the confirmation process.”
david.savage@latimes.com
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138345c7b4b324e8323e1346ec60b0cf | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-08-la-na-florida-beaches-20120108-story.html | If South Florida’s beaches could talk | If South Florida’s beaches could talk
A cow’s head. Lots of truck tires and shattered wooden pallets. Fresh fruit. Even, rarely, human remains.
Each morning the city’s beach cleanup crew heads out on a daily pre-dawn sweep of Fort Lauderdale’s famous beach. They never know what has washed up overnight.
“Mostly what we find is seaweed,” said parks department supervisor Mark Almy. “But there are always surprises that make you ask, ‘How did this get here?’”
Florida has 663 miles of beaches, and over the years the sands have been repositories of everything from stranded ships to messages in bottles. Not to mention drug caches, medical waste, tar balls, refugees from other nations, dead sharks, stingrays and whales, an alligator, a 50-foot mahogany tree, engine blocks, fishing line, drums full of chemicals, dirty diapers, railroad ties and headless chickens.
In Deerfield Beach, parks maintenance manager Jami Moore said the sheriff’s office was recently called out after workers found a device that looked like a bomb.
“It turned out to be a box from a weather balloon,” Moore said. “But the fishing pier was shut down for four to six hours.”
Not long ago in Boca Raton, city crews found about 1,000 shoes that took hours to collect. “Tennis shoes, sandals, flip-flops,” said supervisor Andrew Leganik. The shoes were given to charity.
Over the years, Almy said, he and others in his 20-man Fort Lauderdale crew have learned to be junior detectives in order to return the many cellphones left in the sand. “Almost everyone has a contact in their phone for Mom,” he said. “So we call Mom and tell her that we’ve found their son or daughter’s phone.”
In contrast, things like the cow’s head — likely used as bait for fish or crabs — get disposed of as trash.
“Every day is a new day,” said Steve Salafrio, 42, who has worked the beaches for the public services department in Hollywood, Fla., for 17 years. In that time he has come across a bale of marijuana, an inert Navy training missile and a run-aground Haitian fishing boat carrying 80 migrants, two of whom were dead.
“Not a glamorous thing we do,” said Gary Solomon, of the volunteer group Sand Sifters Beach Cleanup, which makes regular patrols in Boynton Beach and Gulf Stream.
For the crew who patrol the Fort Lauderdale beach, the first look at the shoreline is like awakening to Christmas morning in the dark.
“Bouquets of long-stemmed roses, empty tonic bottles from Costa Rica, a pair of rubber boots. It’s amazing,” Almy said.
Beach cleanup begins at 5:30 a.m., when Bennie Lynch fires up one of three new Caterpillar Challenger tractors: $200,000 rubber-tracked yellow and black behemoths that pull a Barber Surf Rake so sensitive it can pluck a cigarette butt from wet sand.
On a recent Wednesday, Lynch found little but seaweed, lumber and a few dead fish.
But as he crawled down the beach at about 5 miles an hour, he did see several familiar faces: Edna, the elderly Canadian woman who arrives daily with bread for the pigeons; the yoga lady, who greets each sunrise sitting cross-legged on a white sheet; and the homeless, who sleep under piles of blankets.
As the sun began to brighten the sky, Lynch swerved around them. “They won’t move,” he said.
Although a job on the beach may seem like a low-key gig, Moore and Lynch say expectations are high. “It’s really high-pressure and a lot of stress because the seasonal people want the beach to be perfect, just like the picture they have in their mind,” Moore said.
But, he said, “the beach is a live body. It is constantly moving and it can change. The wind can shift and the pristine look is gone.”
Said Lynch, “Tourists don’t want to see seaweed. Or this tractor.”
But the seaweed is constant. In November, said Almy, the beach patrol picked up 300 tons of seaweed, which is moved from the bucket of the Surf Rake into a dump truck and hauled off for composting.
The bounty of the sea is endless, and its workings mysterious. Who knows how a steel rod or a plastic syringe gets carried by the tide to a South Florida beach? But if it washes ashore in Fort Lauderdale, Lynch said, he will pick it up.
mwclary@tribune.com
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5702615e80eab92e14039ab1071e9ec5 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-10-la-na-oklahoma-sharia-20120111-story.html | Appeals court affirms order blocking Oklahoma sharia law ban | Appeals court affirms order blocking Oklahoma sharia law ban
A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that blocked the implementation of an Oklahoma law barring judges from considering international or Islamic law in their decisions.
The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling released Tuesday, affirmed an order by a district court judge in 2010 that prevented the voter-approved state constitutional amendment from taking effect. The ruling also allows a Muslim community leader in Oklahoma City to continue his legal challenge of the law’s constitutionality.
The measure, known as State Question 755, was approved with 70% of the vote in 2010. The amendment would bar courts from considering the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. “Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or sharia law,” the law reads.
The appellate court opinion pointed out that proponents of the law admitted to not knowing of a single instance in which an Oklahoma court applied sharia law or the legal precepts of other countries.
“This serves as a reminder that these anti-sharia laws are unconstitutional and that if politicians use fear-mongering and bigotry, the courts won’t allow it to last for long,” said Muneer Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma. Awad sued to block the law, contending that it infringed on his 1st Amendment rights.
Proponents of the law argued that it was intended to ban courts from considering all religious laws and that sharia was simply used as an example. The appeals court, however, disagreed.
“That argument conflicts with the amendment’s plain language, which mentions sharia law in two places,” the court opinion read.
Republican Sen. Anthony Sykes, who sponsored the measure in the state Senate, said its goal was to require judges to apply only the laws of the United States and Oklahoma. “Sharia merges religion and the law. Our constitution is totally different,” he said. “I think it is something that competes with our constitution — it just doesn’t mesh.”
Sharia — which translates roughly as “path” in Arabic — is intended to guide Muslims to connect with God and is rooted in mercy and compassion, said Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.
Al-Marayati argues that campaigns to ban sharia present a distorted view of Islamic law. “They equate it with unjust and abusive practices originated by tyrannical regimes in the Middle East,” he said. “They use misconceptions about Muslims to misinform the American public.”
stephen.ceasar@latimes.com
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1b18c4df2e4fc78e2f15ee052dec9ac8 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-15-la-fg-italy-cruise-ship-20120116-story.html | Italy cruise ship death toll rises to 5 as search continues | Italy cruise ship death toll rises to 5 as search continues
Scuba divers on Sunday retrieved the bodies of two men from the submerged lower levels of shipwrecked Costa Concordia, bringing to five the number of victims in Friday’s luxury liner accident off Italy’s Tuscan coast.
Rescue workers were racing to locate the 15 people still missing after the giant cruise ship struck a rocky reef and quickly rolled onto its side in front of the small island of Giglio.
As a many-pronged investigation got underway, the captain of the ship remained in custody on charges of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship. Prosecutors said he was responsible for the disaster because he knowingly brought the vessel too close to the rocky shore.
PHOTOS: Cruise ship runs aground
Late Sunday, the cruise company Costa Crociere, headquartered in Genoa, released a statement saying it was cooperating with investigators and appeared to assign responsibility for the disaster to the captain.
“It seems that the captain committed errors of judgment that had extremely serious consequences; the route followed by the ship was too close to the coast,” the statement said, adding that the captain did not follow the company’s emergency procedures.
Hope of finding survivors had been high earlier Sunday following the rescue of a couple of 29-year-old South Korean honeymooners and an Italian officer of the ship who had remained trapped after having seen to the safe evacuation of many passengers, authorities said.
But after sundown, fire department official Claudio Chiavacci told Italian television that although search operations would continue through the night, it was growing less likely survivors would be found.
Three bodies were recovered Saturday.
Authorities were evaluating the hypothesis that the ship’s 52-year-old captain, Francesco Schettino, had steered the ship too close to the island to take a “bow,” or salute its residents, an apparently common practice by cruise ships aiming to thrill their passengers, according to news reports.
The ship’s black box was retrieved and was being examined to ascertain how the decision was made to bring the ship within about 300 yards of the rocky coast on its way from Civitavecchia to Savona, port cities on Italy’s western coast.
Chief investigating magistrate Francesco Verusio of Grosseto said the captain had intentionally taken the nearly 1,000-foot, 126,000-ton vessel on “a route that it shouldn’t have,” bringing the ship too close to the rocks.
Visible on the wounded hulk of the ship, lodged at an almost 90-degree angle on a reef, is a huge gash in the hull and a large boulder lodged on the left side. Signs of collision were also found on the right side, where the boat is listing, indicating the ship had run between two rocky outcrops, news reports said.
Schettino, who the cruise company said had been a captain since 2006, has said that he steered the ship on an authorized path but that it ran onto rocks that weren’t marked on maritime charts, an account authorities immediately disputed. He is also accused of leaving the vessel shortly after midnight, about five hours before the last of the passengers was safely off the ship.
Most of the more than 4,200 passengers and crew jumped in the water or were evacuated in lifeboats after the ship struck the rocks as dinner was being served. Passengers described a horrible groaning noise, the lights going out, and plates, tables and chairs sliding as the ship swiftly leaned to starboard.
Passengers were told by loudspeaker in Italian and other languages that there had been a power failure and that all was under control. Meanwhile, the ship was taking on water. Many passengers rushed to their staterooms to get life vests.
Survivors described a terrifying scene of chaos in which people fought over flotation vests and lifeboats were stuck and unusable, while hundreds of people jumped into the icy winter waters, reaching the shore on their own or picked up by boats called to the scene. Many crew members did not appear well-trained to act in an emergency, they said.
Magistrates were also investigating claims that passengers had called coast guard and other port authorities warning of the ship’s difficulties, but that officials of the Costa Concordia insisted by radio that there was only a power failure.
News reports said more than an hour passed before an SOS was sounded.
In its statement, Costra Crociere defended the crew and equipment on the ship, saying all crew members had earned basic safety training certificates and that they were trained to act in emergencies and help passengers. It said its ships are fully equipped with life vests and boats.
Some commentators said on Italian television that although the captain apparently had made a grievous error by bringing the ship too close to the rocky island, he had probably saved hundreds of lives by steering it back to the port of Giglio, a move that facilitated rescue operations.
Coast Guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro said emergency workers would continue to search nonstop for survivors. Operations are extremely dangerous, he said, because although the ship was relatively stable lying on its side on the reef, any shift could cause it to fall off a drop of about 230 to 260 feet.
Vincenzo Bennardo, a spokesman for fire department rescuers, said the search by personnel from the coast guard, various fire departments, military and national police units was proceeding methodically, but that the steep angle of the vessel made it necessary for them to use ropes and move on hands and knees.
He said that anyone trapped in a stateroom would have difficulty getting to the door, which could be above them where the ceiling should be or below them, underwater.
Firefighters early Sunday afternoon were able to reach Manrico Giampetroni, 57, a Costa Concordia officer who was hailed as a hero for his part in getting passengers to safety. He suffered a broken leg and was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Grosseto.
Authorities said that for the moment there was no danger that the 2,300 tons of fuel could leak from the vessel, an event that would be an environmental disaster for the island, popular with summer tourists for its crystal-clear water.
PHOTOS: Cruise ship runs aground
Delaney is a special correspondent.
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834776c6692f830441b6b00f1913e5e9 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-20-la-fg-afghan-deaths-20120121-story.html | France’s doubts on Afghanistan a boon for Taliban | France’s doubts on Afghanistan a boon for Taliban
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s announcement Friday that France was suspending joint combat and training programs and considering an early withdrawal from Afghanistan may be a sign the Taliban’s efforts to discourage its foes from continuing a long and unpopular war are paying off.
Sarkozy said his country would review its role in the U.S.-led war after four French soldiers were killed and more than a dozen wounded by an Afghan soldier who turned on them Thursday in Kapisa province, just north of Kabul, the capital.
The possible departure of France’s 3,600 troops could weaken Washington’s hand as it tries to launch talks with the Taliban insurgents in the hope of forging a peace deal before the Americans leave by the end of 2014.
Thursday’s attack on the French was the second in three weeks. On Dec. 29, an Afghan soldier killed two French troops in the eastern part of the country. The deaths bring to 82 the number of French troops killed in the decade-long war.
Sarkozy is vying for reelection April 22 against rivals who say they would move more quickly to end France’s participation in the war. His Socialist Party opponent, Francois Hollande, said Friday that if elected, he would pull out all French troops by the end of the year.
Sarkozy said he would decide on a possible withdrawal after a previously scheduled meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai next week. “The French army is not in Afghanistan to be shot at by Afghan soldiers,” he said.
Defense Minister Gerard Longuet and Adm. Edouard Guillaud, the head of the military chiefs of staff, were dispatched to Afghanistan to investigate the incident.
Karzai said he was deeply saddened by the attack. “France has been generous to provide extensive assistance to Afghanistan over the past 10 years,” he said.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said in a statement in Kabul that a suspect had been arrested, but it gave no details. Military trainers say deadly clashes between Afghan and foreign troops are often caused by perceived personal slights or cultural gaffes. But even when it is not responsible, the Taliban is quick to claim credit, seeking to create more dissent among rank-and-file troops and boost its standing in the eyes of ordinary Afghans.
The Taliban’s overall objective, analysts say, is to raise the cost of remaining militarily involved in Afghanistan.
“Divide and conquer is clearly the No. 1 part of their strategy,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, a Paris-based expert on terrorism and financing of terrorism. “They’ve repeatedly ... said their strategy is to harass foreign troops to hasten their withdrawal, which they would accomplish if Sarkozy is serious about this.”
Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, said Sarkozy’s actions would boost Taliban morale.
U.S. officials have been worried privately for months that support is waning among their allies for keeping combat troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014. They hope to keep the alliance unified until a NATO meeting in May, when they want to announce that they are speeding up the transition to a strategy more focused on training Afghan forces and turning more areas of the country over to Afghan control.
The killing of the French soldiers deepened doubt about the vetting of Afghan recruits, and about whether the Taliban is infiltrating their ranks.
U.S. officials refrained from criticizing Sarkozy’s announcement, saying such decisions must be made by individual governments. Voters in most countries that have troops in Afghanistan are unhappy with the rising toll of the war.
Didier Andre, 48, a Paris bank employee, said France needed to get out now. “The whole history of foreign intervention in Afghanistan has always ended badly,” he said. “Why should we imagine it would be any different this time?”
In addition to Hollande, who is considered Sarkozy’s main rival in the election, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen has also raised the prospect of a quick withdrawal. “If security conditions are not clearly established, then we should think about pulling the French army out,” she said.
“Clearly, we are in the process of training an Afghan army of which a certain number of members are not loyal to France,” she said.
Didier Francois, a defense specialist for Europe 1 radio, said French forces were in an “extremely difficult zone” in Afghanistan. If Sarkozy intends to pull them out, he said, it will take nearly a year to make sure roads are clear and that the danger of bombs and ambushes has been removed.
Francois Heisbourg, a special advisor at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, said he believed an early pullout was necessary but it would leave the U.S. and remaining allies with the difficult problem of how to patrol Kapisa.
“It’s true that if we decide to pull out materiel this year, we will be forced to stop missions in that region,” he said. “As a result, NATO operations will be threatened. The discussions [about this] will be very important. Everything is possible and much depends on what the Americans want.”
mark.magnier@latimes.com
Times staff writer Magnier reported from Jaipur, India, and special correspondent Willsher from Paris. Staff writer David S. Cloud in Washington contributed to this report.
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c73ff65342526fbda404b794cda1f9e7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-20-la-fi-china-internet-20120120-story.html | U.S. website blackout draws praise in China | U.S. website blackout draws praise in China
Chinese Internet users are applauding the U.S. tech industry’s Web “strike” this week to protest federal anti-piracy bills that would give Uncle Sam greater control of cyberspace.
As websites including Wikipedia shut down and millions of Americans complained to lawmakers about the potential for government censorship, Chinese netizens spoke admiringly of the public rebellion. Such a display in China would be nearly impossible right now, given Beijing’s tight grip on citizens’ online activities.
“Only an American company could protest the way Wikipedia or Google has to the government,” said Zhao Jing, a closely followed blogger in Beijing who uses the pen name Michael Anti. “A Chinese company would never get away with that.”
China’scommunist regime has long exercised control over the Web, forcing Internet firms to censor content that authorities deem offensive or critical of their legitimacy.
Google shut down many functions of its mainland China operation after Chinese hackers in 2009 allegedly stole some of the company’s computer code and attempted to penetrate activists’ Gmail accounts. (The Chinese government denied involvement.) China has also blocked a number of foreign sites including Twitter and Facebook that could be used to mobilize dissent.
Regulation has gotten even tighter in the wake of the “Arab Spring” uprisings that rocked authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. Chinese authorities recently announced new rules requiring users of Twitter-like microblog services to register their accounts under their real names. They’ve jailed a number of online activists over the last year and have vowed to punish others who spread “harmful information” online, a euphemism for any challenge to the state’s authority.
U.S. supporters of the anti-piracy bills in Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), say the legislation is needed to crack down on counterfeiters. Foreign websites that traffic in pirated movies, music and counterfeit goods cost Hollywood and other U.S. content creators billions annually. Cries of Big Brother and censorship from tech opponents are overblown, they said.
But Chinese bloggers appear to be siding with Silicon Valley.
That’s because Chinese netizens have found out the hard way that censorship is a slippery slope, said Wen Yunchao, a prominent blogger and outspoken government critic who left mainland China recently for Hong Kong. He said China’s so-called Great Firewall, which authorities use to block websites and filter content, was initially billed by Beijing as a way to stop piracy and pornography.
“Now it’s being abused and extended to thousands of websites,” Wen said.
At least the proposed anti-piracy legislation is being debated openly in the U.S., Wen said. In contrast, China’s government Internet watchdogs operate largely in secret. Lack of transparency means Internet companies and users are never quite sure what content is taboo, why or who is calling the shots.
“In China, all the government decisions are done in a dark box,” Wen said. “No one knows what’s going on. There’s never any legal reason cited. If these laws are passed in the U.S., every step of the way it will be more transparent. People can challenge it. There’s no comparison when it comes to censorship in China and in the U.S.”
Others aren’t so sure.
“Now the U.S. government is copying us and starting to build their own firewall,” one microblogger wrote of the proposed anti-piracy legislation.
Incidentally, China’s 513million Web users have relatively free access to the very sites targeted by PIPA and SOPA. Those include file-sharing sites such as Extratorrent.com and sellers of counterfeit goods such as Taobao.
“The Chinese Great Firewall is not targeting pirated material,” said Jason Ng, a popular blogger in Beijing who has 29,000 Twitter followers. “Look at the Chinese Internet space and it’s all about pirated movies, TV and porn. Everyone just wants to enjoy and be entertained. If the government cut all that off, they’d have a serious problem on their hands.”
david.pierson@latimes.com
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74322920801c6b636010b03ed7bb9268 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-20-la-fi-internet-piracy-20120120-story.html | Uproar over proposed bills delays answer to Internet piracy | Uproar over proposed bills delays answer to Internet piracy
The derailing of long-sought legislation to combat digital piracy is a troubling sign for the entertainment industry, whose insider lobbyists were routed by technology companies armed with the brute-force power of the Internet.
Tech still lags behind Hollywood in campaign contributions, but its leaders showed this week that they could mobilize opposition against bills that threatened the Web’s wide-open borders.
Lawmakers’ ears were still ringing Thursday from the thousands of calls and emails that flooded Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the day Wikipedia led about 10,000 websites in a blackout to protest the legislation. The Internet companies said the bills could lead to censorship and cause legitimate websites to shut down, and at least six co-sponsors of the bill pulled their support.
The upshot is that the entertainment industry, which has pushed aggressively for more than a year for broad new powers that would allow the federal government and U.S. companies to target those websites more quickly, will probably have to settle for a more limited set of tools in narrower legislation that will take time to draft.
Tech industry partisans were elated, characterizing this week’s developments as a populist victory over old-school, inside-the-Beltway Hollywood lobbyists.
“This was not just about this bill; this was about the way a lot of things happen in this town,” said Mike Masnick, president of the TechDirt blog.
Both Hollywood and Internet companies want to halt foreign piracy, but they disagree over how to do it.
Hollywood wants strong federal powers, including the ability to block offshore websites that pirate movies, music and books. Internet companies, which fear that overzealous enforcement could censor legitimate websites, want the government to choke off money from the U.S. that supports the pirates.
The widespread uprising online over controversial anti-piracy legislation has fundamentally altered the debate and shifted the timeline for action from weeks to months — or longer.
“There are solutions, but we need to step back and reset,” said Markham Erickson, whose NetCoalition includes Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., EBay Inc. and Yahoo Inc. “Instead of having to negotiate with a gun to our head, so to speak, let’s sit down and have a data-driven process.”
The delay is bad news for Hollywood, which has been desperate to shut down foreign sites that have been sucking millions of dollars from the industry by offering pirated movies, music, books and other content.
“Hiding offshore will continue to be a safe haven for people that steal our stuff, and the longer that period extends, the greater the damage that can be inflicted,” said Michael O’Leary, a senior executive vice president at the Motion Picture Assn. of America.
In a sign of the magnitude of the problem, U.S. prosecutors working with international authorities unsealed an indictment Thursday against seven foreigners and two corporations, accusing them of massive worldwide online piracy through Hong Kong-based MegaUpload.com and related sites. The sites were shut down.
The indictment, one of the largest criminal copyright cases, alleged that the scheme generated more than $175 million in illicit gains and caused more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners.
Opponents of the legislation vowed to keep up the pressure.
The bipartisan effort to pass the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act is “not dead at all,” warned Michael Petricone, vice president of government affairs for the Consumer Electronics Assn. He noted that the Senate was still scheduled to hold a procedural vote Tuesday on PIPA.
But that vote was in jeopardy after several senators backed off their support. On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for a delay because of “serious legal, policy and operational concerns” with the bill.
Opponents of the bills said they wanted a slower, more open legislative process with congressional hearings on the complex technical issues involved in addressing rogue foreign websites.
“Why can’t we step back and get it right?” Petricone said. “This isn’t the Patriot Act; the country’s not going to blow up if we don’t enact this next week.”
But legislative time is short in an election year. And the Internet protests might have made the bills politically radioactive to some in Congress.
The sponsors of the bills promised to make changes and are expected to remove the controversial provision that enabled access to foreign-based piracy sites to be blocked.
The White House called for the removal of the provision on Saturday and urged lawmakers to reach consensus on how to address online piracy without damaging the Internet.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), lead backer of the PIPA bill, is working on a set of amendments he planned to unveil before Tuesday’s vote to address opponents’ concerns.
The cautions about the fight’s not being over were echoed by Wikipedia, whose English-language version was easily accessible again Thursday. A banner at the top of the site read: “Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. (We’re not done yet).”
Opponents of the existing bills are looking toward legislation introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Their proposed Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, known as the OPEN Act, is a much narrower approach that focuses on trying to cut off the money to foreign piracy sites through the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Internet companies and online activists liked the process that Issa and Wyden have used in crafting their bill. The two lawmakers released a draft last year at https://www.KeepTheWebOpen.com and said they revised it to reflect some of the more than 150 substantive comments and suggested improvements sent by visitors to the site.
The MPAA’s O’Leary said the bill’s approach was too slow and too bureaucratic, noting that cases involving the trade commission can take 12 to 18 months to resolve.
“That’s an awfully long time to be dealing with someone who’s trying to steal your stuff,” he said.
jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com
Times staff writer Deborah Netburn contributed to this report.
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10e0df1d254a2156a2f447f637094ceb | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-24-la-fg-syria-monitors-20120125-story.html | Gulf states withdrawing monitors from Syria and urge U.N. action | Gulf states withdrawing monitors from Syria and urge U.N. action
An Arab League peace plan for Syria appeared to be near collapse Tuesday as six Persian Gulf nations announced their intention to withdraw monitors from the country and urged the United Nations Security Council to take “all needed measures” to pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad to relinquish power.
The gulf monarchies, including regional giant Saudi Arabia, said in a statement that Assad’s government had failed to comply with demands by the 22-member regional bloc designed to curb months of bloodshed in Syria. The six nations — which also include Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates — contributed 55 of the 165 monitors sent to Syria.
On Monday, Syria rejected as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty a proposed Arab League political road map that called for Assad to transfer power to a deputy and for the establishment of a national unity government within two months. Supervised parliamentary and presidential elections would follow, according to the proposal.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem was defiant Tuesday at a news conference in Damascus, the Syrian capital, assailing the league’s political plan and denouncing “a plot against Syria” abetted by Arab nations. Syria, a close ally of Iran, has repeatedly alleged that it is the victim of a conspiracy backed by Washington and other Western nations in alliance with Arab states.
Moallem said the government has a duty to suppress what he described as armed terrorist gangs, signaling that Syrian authorities have no intention of ending a violent crackdown against a 10-month uprising.
He was dismissive of any effort to refer Syria to the Security Council, saying the Arab League could take the issue “to New York or to the moon, as long as we don’t have to pay for their ticket.”
Syria is counting on two Security Council allies, Russia and China, to block any U.N. effort to pressure the Assad regime. Last year, Russia and China jointly vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Damascus’ crackdown on antigovernment protests.
Both Russia and China are wary of the Libya precedent, in which a U.N. resolution last year opened the way for armed Western intervention against the government of the late Moammar Kadafi. Western nations have denied any intention to intervene militarily in Syria.
“Russia will not agree on the foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs, and this is a red line,” Moallem said Tuesday.
But Western and Arab diplomats have voiced the hope that Syria’s rejection of the league’s political demands could highlight what they call Damascus’ intransigence and weaken Russian and Chinese resolve, leading to some U.N. move against the Assad regime.
The gulf nations’ decision to withdraw their personnel in Syria left in doubt the future of the observer mission, which is intended to ensure that Damascus complies with a league-negotiated plan calling for the withdrawal of security forces from cities and other residential areas, the release of political prisoners and dialogue with the opposition.
Other countries could also decide to pull out monitors, according to members of the mission, which began last month. But League Deputy Secretary-General Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters in Cairo that they could be replaced with monitors from other countries and that the mission would continue its work.
Despite having reservations, Syria said it was granting the league’s request to extend the mission by a month after its mandate expired Thursday.
Syrian authorities have expressed concern that armed rebels are moving into areas vacated by its military forces under the league’s plan. The government has already lost effective control of some rebel strongholds, such as parts of the embattled city of Homs, one of the central points of the uprising.
Moallem said “armed groups” had exploited the observers’ presence to step up attacks on government forces, tripling the number of army and law enforcement casualties in the conflict. The government says more than 2,000 security force members have been killed since major antigovernment protests began in March.
“It is the duty of the Syrian government to take the necessary measures to address the issue of these armed elements who are wreaking havoc across Syria,” Moallem said.
Opposition activists have also challenged the effectiveness of the observers, who they say are only buying time for the government’s crackdown. Reports of the number of people killed in political violence Tuesday ranged from 25 to more than 60, with the highest tolls in the Homs region, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as well as the Local Coordination Committees, a coalition of opposition activists. The figures could not be independently verified.
According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 Syrians have been killed since mid-March.
Still, Syria says it is committed to political reform and a new constitution after more than four decades of authoritarian rule led by the Assad family.
“We will teach them democracy and pluralism,” Moallem said, referring to other Arab nations.
alexandra.zavis@latimes.com
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Zavis reported from Damascus and McDonnell from Beirut.
Special correspondent Rima Marrouch contributed to this report from Damascus.
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bc482eb84377cc88b83c988bf5d54017 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jul-01-la-fg-pakistan-beer-20120701-story.html | Could Pakistan beer take edge off relations with India? | Could Pakistan beer take edge off relations with India?
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — In a country where mullahs ceaselessly denounce Western vices and laws prevent restaurants from offering anything stronger than mocktails or Red Bull, the Murree Brewery somehow perseveres, churning out pallets of lager with an efficiency that would make Milwaukee proud.
A relic of British colonialism, the 152-year-old brewery has survived a 1977 government decree banning tippling by Pakistani Muslims, turning instead to a small but ever-present clientele of non-Muslim foreigners and Christian Pakistanis on the hunt for alcohol-enhanced answers to Pakistan’s 100-plus-degree summers.
A recent Pakistani government decision to allow beer exports to non-Muslim countries raises an intriguing prospect: Could Murree beer help relations with nuclear archrival India, a neighbor whose populace has a well-known craving for a cold one?
“Business has to prevail, it has to be the bridge, I would say,” Isphanyar Bhandara, chief executive of Murree Brewery, said during an interview at his office, where shelves of Murree offerings as varied as beer and 12-year-old single malt whiskey greet visitors. Government authorities, he continued, “have realized that keeping a lid on alcohol, allowing it in Pakistan but not allowing it to be exported, doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make economic sense.”
Approval for alcohol exports, a government move aimed at generating more tax revenue, coincides with a recent thaw in ties between Pakistan and India, die-hard enemies since the partition of British colonial India in 1947. The two countries endorsed a most-favored nation agreement this year that fosters trade through the mutual imposition of lower import tariffs and higher import quotas. And Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to India in April was viewed on both sides of the border as an important symbolic gesture.
Murree can now do business with any non-Muslim nation, but India appears to be the likeliest market. Its beer sales are expected to double to almost $9 billion by 2016, according to a recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek. In India’s northwestern state of Punjab, Murree beer is already routinely smuggled over the border.
Still, Bhandara acknowledges that his marketing department has tough work ahead.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed and shouting at Indian Punjab to import our beer, but it’s a hard sell in India,” Bhandara said. “They are already producing beer in millions of barrels…. So it’s not that we are going to put crates on the border, and people are going to come and quickly snatch it up. We don’t see that happening, though we wish it would.”
Within Pakistan, sales are hardly a problem. At hotels in the capital, Islamabad, cases of Murree are hauled away by thirsty Westerners just as quickly as workers can stock them. Black marketeers make millions of rupees serving the legions of Pakistani Muslims who drink on the sly.
That Pakistani Muslims can get their hands on Murree beer, whiskey, vodka and gin doesn’t really bother Bhandara.
“Murree’s direct customers are institutions, not individuals,” said the beer magnate, whose non-Muslim family has owned Murree since the late 1940s. “I’m only allowed to sell my product at government-authorized outlets. If those hotels and shops sell to Muslims, that’s not my concern or jurisdiction.”
The people Bhandara might worry about the most, Pakistan’s array of Islamist militant groups, have never attacked the brewery. The reason may lie in its location, a sprawling red-brick compound less than a mile and a half from the army’s headquarters, Pakistan’s equivalent to the Pentagon, and not far from the residence of army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani.
Inside the brewery, a tidy, clockwork rhythm prevails that seems out of place amid the dusty bustle of bazaars and motorcycle-rickshaw-choked avenues of Rawalpindi. Workers and technicians, almost all of whom are Pakistani Muslims, tend to conveyor belts spitting out thousands of bottles a day of Murree’s honey-gold lager. In the distillery, an eclectic array of liquors is produced: Lemo’ Lime gin, Dew of Himalayas malt whiskey, Bolskaya vodka and, until recently, even an Irish cream.
Sabih ur-Rehman, a retired army major and Bhandara’s right-hand man, acknowledges that marketing a Pakistani-made Irish cream was a hard sell.
“I’d say it was one of the best products we produced,” Rehman said. “But the market wasn’t there. Those who drank it almost got addicted, it was that good. But it’s a liqueur and the alcohol percentage is less. So we couldn’t get customers interested.”
Murree executives are heartened by the federal government’s decision to allow exports, but their relationship with Pakistani Punjab provincial bureaucrats has been far from ideal.
Last summer, the brewery, which is already heavily taxed, got word from the Punjab government that Murree would be assessed a separate pre-production duty on ethanol purchased for use in its distillery, a move that brewery executives said amounted to double-taxing.
Murree balked at paying, and for six months the brewery’s operations were virtually shut down. Bhandara estimates his losses amounted to about $1 million. Murree threatened to take the case to court, but eventually agreed to pay extra duty on the ethanol provided it wasn’t made retroactive.
There are other government-imposed restrictions that the brewery grudgingly endures. Each morning, the brewery can’t open until a Punjab provincial inspector unlocks the gates. That inspector also has the keys for the buildings within the compound that involve alcohol production, including the brewery’s fermentation vats and storage tanks, the bottling department and the distillery. He unlocks only those departments that are expected to be in use that day.
“It’s done to prevent pilferage,” Bhandara said. “The government wants to ensure that for every drop that goes out, it gets its share.”
That share should increase if Murree begins exporting alcohol. In Pakistan, it’s virtually the only game in town; the country’s only other brewery, Indus, in the south, is tiny compared with Murree. Bhandara knows he doesn’t have the means to compete head-to-head with Indian beer giants such as Kingfisher. But as he begins scouting around for potential importers, he’s buoyed by one conviction. He believes his beer is better.
“As far as quality is concerned,” he said, “our beer beats any Indian beer hands down.”
alex.rodriguez@latimes.com
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6b62c316feff00d55084a42b1433c288 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jul-01-la-na-latino-ads-20120701-story.html | Presidential campaigns missing the mark in advertising to Latinos | Presidential campaigns missing the mark in advertising to Latinos
Both political parties agree that the country’s 21.3 million registered Latino voters could make a crucial difference in this year’s presidential election.
Yet in a race defined by massive spending on television ads, fast-response Internet videos and sophisticated social media efforts, both President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney have fallen short thus far when it comes to targeting Latino voters electronically, according to some Spanish-language media experts.
Republican candidate Romney trails Obama badly among Latinos, according to polls released last week, and isn’t counting on them to propel him to victory. Even so, his Spanish-language advertising has been minimal and clumsy, the experts said. Some of his ads are simply translated versions of his English-language commercials — a particular no-no when trying to reach Latino consumers.
Obama has spent more heavily, and created more effective ads than his rival, but some experts said that so far he has failed to craft a campaign that keeps pace with the rapidly increasing size and sophistication of the Latino population, which climbed to 50.5 million in the 2010 census, from 35.3 million a decade earlier.
Neither campaign has adopted the approach honed over the years by businesses targeting Spanish speakers — one that not only depicts Latinos in positive settings, but also reflects attention to cultural nuance. A truck ad in the Midwest, for example, will show American flags and beer-drinking men, while an ad for the same truck in Arizona will depict Latino men hauling construction equipment and managing their farms.
“In the TV world, there’s incredible sensitivity to trying to get Latinos excited; there’s tons of money spent on ‘how do we get this demographic to like our product?’” said Matt Barreto, a prominent Latino pollster at the University of Washington. “The political world has been very slow to change.”
Some marketing experts say Romney’s Spanish-language efforts suggest he’s abandoned hope altogether of reaching the Latino community. Polls indicate the same — an NBC/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll showed Obama led Romney 66% to 26% among Latino voters.
Romney’s campaign has released two Spanish-language video ads so far — “Día Uno” and “Van Bien?” — but both are directly translated from identical ads in English, a blunder in Spanish-language marketing, said Glenn Llopis, founder of the Center for Hispanic Leadership.
“You can’t just translate these things,” Llopis said. “That’s where a lot of these marketing things go wrong. They need to be customized, form-fitted. If the Hispanic community thinks you’re just translating and not creating a campaign that speaks to them, they’ll just shut off.”
The ads also don’t talk about issues such as healthcare and education that are important to Latino voters, many of whom are uninsured and benefit from policies such as Obama’s healthcare law.
“Día Uno” talks about what the first day of a Romney presidency would look like, outlining objectives such as opening the Keystone oil pipeline and ending the healthcare law. “Van Bien?” picks up on an Obama comment that the private sector is “doing fine,” and asks how the president can fix the economy if he doesn’t understand it.
What’s more, some of the phrases in those ads are awkwardly translated, said Melisa Diaz, a Latino media consultant based inWashington, D.C., who has worked for the Democratic National Committee.
“Doing Fine?” would be more accurately translated as “Las cosas están bien?” Diaz said, while the proper phrase to convey “the right direction” would be “la dirección correcta,” not “la buena dirección,” as used in the ads. And the English idiom “Day One” would be better if phrased “El Primer Día,” not “Día Uno,” Diaz said.
“These kind of mistakes would not happen in an English-language ad,” she said. “You can tell that the ads were not proofed by a native speaker.”
The Romney campaign did not have an official comment on the matter.
Shaky Spanish translation has tripped up politicians before. A Twitter feed, @ElBloombito, mocks the Spanish-speaking attempts of New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Will Ferrell poked fun at President George W. Bush’s Spanish in a"Saturday Night Live” skit. And the Republican National Committee had a misstep on its Spanish-language website last month when it was revealed that stock photos of children on the website portrayed Asian children rather than Latinos.
But Bush and Bloomberg both had effective ads targeting the Latino community. Romney doesn’t yet.
“In every way, he’s not really courting the Latino vote,” Barreto said. “He’s doing as little as possible.”
That includes spending — Romney spent just $33,000 on Spanish-language ads between mid-April and mid-June in the battleground states of North Carolina and Ohio, while Obama spent $1.7 million over the same period, according to SMG-Delta. Romney trails Obama among Latino voters in battleground states by 36 points, according to a poll released last week by Latino Decisions and the left-leaning immigration reform group America’s Voice.
Perhaps the Romney campaign is paying close attention to studies that show advertising in Spanish can turn off white and black voters. When white and black audiences saw ads with a Latino endorsement or in Spanish, their support for a candidate dropped, said Ricardo Ramirez, a professor of political science at Notre Dame.
“We know that appearing more inclusive by outreaching toward Latinos seems to work well for immigrants, but it seems to have a negative impact on blacks and whites,” he said.
The Obama campaign has a Spanish-language website, a Twitter feed for Latinos, an English-language website targeted at Latinos and a Spanish-language website on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. After Obama’s order that would allow young undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S., the campaign put out an ad in Spanish featuring Miami-based television personality Cristina Saralegui, who also endorsed the president.
That ad supplements two rounds of Spanish-language television commercials that had been running in the battleground states of Colorado, Nevada and Florida. They feature campaign volunteers talking about Obama policies that have affected them, including funding for Pell Grants and Head Start centers, and the Affordable Care Act.
“Under Obama’s healthcare reform, you can’t be denied insurance for preexisting conditions,” one volunteer, Elena McCullough of Tampa, Fla., says as she visits with a concerned elderly couple.
While these ads are effective because they feature Latinos and are tailored to issues such as health and education, even they fall short when considering the nation’s changing demographics, Ramirez said. The Latino population climbed by 43% between 2000 and 2010, and in swing states such as Florida, Latinos make up 13% of all registered voters.
“They’re doing more in English-language media than they are in Spanish,” he said. “They need to step it up.”
alana.semuels@latimes.com
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9992a9c31342bcac9ca9e87fa63af088 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jul-06-la-na-secure-communities-20120706-story.html | Citizen sues over imprisonment under fingerprint-sharing program | Citizen sues over imprisonment under fingerprint-sharing program
WASHINGTON — A computer specialist is suing the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security after a controversial fingerprint-sharing program incorrectly identified him as an illegal immigrant and authorities ordered him detained in a maximum-security prison.
The lawsuit is the first legal challenge by a U.S. citizen to the Secure Communities program, which the Obama administration has expanded nationwide over the objections of immigration advocacy groups and Democratic governors in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts.
Under the program, fingerprints obtained when local authorities arrest a suspect are automatically checked against immigration databases as well as FBI criminal databases. U.S. immigration agents are notified if the results indicate an immigration violation.
When James Makowski, a Chicago-area resident who repairs computer networks for companies, pleaded guilty in December 2010 to a felony charge of selling heroin, he was sentenced to four months at a “boot camp” drug treatment program, according to DuPage County, Ill., court records.
But when the fingerprint search flagged Makowski as an illegal immigrant, he was held for two months in the maximum-security prison in Pontiac, Ill., before immigration officials acknowledged the error and canceled the detention order. He later completed the four-month drug rehabilitation program and was released.
“Everybody makes mistakes. I’ve made mine,” Makowski, 24, said in a telephone interview Thursday. “But if the government can detain a U.S. citizen without justification, that’s pretty outrageous. There have to be safeguards in place.”
Makowski was born in India and adopted by an American family in New Jersey when he was 4 months old. The family later moved to Illinois. Makowski became a naturalized U.S. citizen at age 1, but the government did not update his immigration records, according to his lawyer, Mark Fleming.
Makowski’s suit, which was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, argues that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security violated the Privacy Act of 1974, which restricts what information may be passed between government agencies, every time they share fingerprints from people who are not suspected of an immigration violation.
“The FBI and DHS are consistently and systematically violating the Privacy Act,” said Fleming, a lawyer for the National Immigrant Justice Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in Chicago. “The FBI should not be sharing this data if they have indications that this individual is a U.S. citizen.”
The lawsuit seeks to hold the government liable for unspecified damages for “loss of liberty” for two months, lost wages, emotional distress and attorney’s fees.
Government lawyers are evaluating the lawsuit, said Brian P. Hale, a spokesman forU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. “However, we do not comment on pending litigation,” he added.
In December, ICE created a 24-hour hotline that detainees can call if they are victims of a crime, or if they are U.S. citizens and have been wrongfully detained. ICE officials said that the agency did not track how many U.S. citizens had been inadvertently held in immigration detention.
Secure Communities was started by PresidentGeorge W. Bushin 2008, and the FBI has sent more than 16 million fingerprints to the immigration database since then. More than 900,000 were flagged as potential immigration violators, records show.
The other 15 million sets of fingerprints likely belonged to U.S. citizens, the lawsuit alleges, and their transmission violates the Privacy Act.
The fingerprint-sharing program is active in 97% of state and local law enforcement jurisdictions around the country, and the rest will be covered by the end of this year.
In Illinois, where some local police departments have voiced concerns that giving fingerprints to immigration officials may make witnesses less likely to cooperate with police, only 26 of the state’s 102 jurisdictions are involved.
The Obama administration argues that Secure Communities has allowed ICE to focus on finding and deporting illegal immigrants who have criminal records and who pose a threat to public safety.
They say the program was partly responsible for nearly doubling the number of deportations of convicted criminals and repeat immigration violators, from 114,415 people in 2008 to 216,698 in 2011.
“I’ve been here my whole life,” Makowski said. “I was raised like an upper-middle-class American. But I didn’t feel American when I had that detainer put on me.”
brian.bennett@latimes.com
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8d1b23dbe72492d9623e2961f5bac006 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jul-22-la-na-colorado-shooting-20120723-story.html | After Colorado theater shooting, Aurora seeks solace, unity | After Colorado theater shooting, Aurora seeks solace, unity
AURORA, Colo. — They began arriving hours before the prayer vigil began Sunday, lugging shattered hearts as a thunderstorm crackled and light rain fell.
By the time thousands had gathered outside Aurora’s City Hall amid noticeably tight security, the sun had penetrated the clouds and the day’s stifling heat had lifted.
As authorities continued to amass evidence in Friday’s massacre inside an Aurora movie theater, Coloradans sought strength in the face of madness, packing church services and coming together as a community to remember the 12 who died.
PHOTOS: ‘Dark Knight Rises’ shooting
They were joined by President Obama, who met with victims and families at the University of Colorado Hospital, a short drive from where their lives were upended. He quoted from the Bible, Revelation 21:4.
“Scripture says that ‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away,’” Obama said.
Obama thanked police for their quick response and relayed the story of two friends, 19-year-old Allie Young and 21-year-old Stephanie Davies, who were watching “The Dark Knight Rises” when the gunman stormed the theater.
As a man flung at least one gas or smoke canister and opened fire with an assault-style rifle, Young stood up, Obama said, and was immediately shot in the neck. Her wound spurting blood, she dropped to the floor. Davies dragged her out of the aisle, dropped down with her and stuck her fingers in the wound to apply pressure.
Young told her to flee, Obama said, but Davies refused, staying until police arrived and arrested the suspect. Then, he said, Davies and others carried Young across two parking lots to ambulances.
She’s going to be fine, he said.
“I don’t know how many people at any age would have had the presence of mind that Stephanie did, or the courage that Allie showed,” Obama said. People like them “represent what’s best in us, and they assure us that out of this darkness a brighter day is going to come.”
Earlier, a federal law enforcement official told the Associated Press that the shooter’s AR-15 rifle jammed, and he switched to another weapon and begin firing again. Police have said they don’t know how many rounds the shooter fired.
As Obama finished speaking and left Colorado for previously scheduled events in the Bay Area, the somber crowd at the nearby Aurora Municipal Center listened as clergy and civic leaders talked of perseverance and remembrance.
“It was almost like somehow God had come down and picked the most alive and vibrant people, and taken them from us,” Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said. But “history tells us the pain of something like this never goes away completely, but we do get stronger and it will get easier to move forward. It will take days, or months, or even longer.”
Responding to requests from victims’ families who want their loved ones, not the shooter, remembered, Hickenlooper did not say the suspect’s name.
“In our house, we’re just going to call him Suspect A,” he said.
Obama also refused to mention James E. Holmes.
“Although the perpetrator of this evil act has received a lot of attention over the last couple of days, that attention will fade away, and in the end, after he has felt the full force of our justice system, what will be remembered are the good people who were impacted by this tragedy,” the president said.
Many at the vigil wept. Others closed their eyes in prayer or looked on in a daze. People walked up to police officers, strangers, shook their hands and thanked them for their response.
“Do you want some water?” asked a young boy, offering his bottle to police Det. Lance Dyer, who politely declined.
“I want to thank you as well,” said Mark Bogati, 59, a self-described biker who said he has had his share of trouble with the law. “God bless.”
One young boy drew gasps and tears with a simple handwritten placard:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
This is a tragedy
I’m so sorry for you
“While our hearts are broken, our community is not,” Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan told the crowd. “Our community will be with you as you leave this place tonight. The pain is still raw, and the healing has yet to begin, but know that [the community] will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to help you. That is what families do. And we are a family.”
Nearby, a makeshift memorial formed a mass of pink in honor of victim Micayla Medek, who loved the pink-clad Hello Kitty. A boy wearing baggy white jeans tucked a pink scrap of cloth into his pocket. His fedora was lined with Hello Kitty trim.
Melissa Cutshaw’s daughter, Kimber Avra, was in Theater 9 with Medek and five other friends. Medek, 23, was the only one of the group struck down.
“It’s hard,” said Cutshaw. “It’s hard to think my child almost didn’t make it out. And then to know someone who died, it’s heartbreaking. I need people. I need everyone here. They know how I feel.”
“It shows you’re not alone,” said Cutshaw’s son, Jacob, 16.
As prayers were offered at the vigil, many wiped away tears and parents held their children a little tighter.
“I don’t want to leave him out of my sight,” said Brittnay Kilgore, who stood with her 12-year-old son, Tyler, at the back of the crowd. “All I can say is, God is probably as brokenhearted as I am.”
Others were equally shaken. Hickenlooper called out Medek’s name and the names of the 11 other victims who died.
With each name, the crowd responded:
“We will remember.”
As the memorial ended, Ashley Talmage, 23, held a candle and thought about her friend Farrah Soudani, hospitalized in critical condition. Soudani, 22, has had two surgeries to remove shrapnel and needs another, Talmage said, but doesn’t have health insurance.
The crowd began to disperse, but Talmage didn’t want to extinguish her flame. She watched as others joined hands, formed a circle in the field and bowed their heads for a while longer. Eventually, as it began to rain, the circle was broken and the candles went out.
ashley.powers@latimes.com
alexandra.zavis@latimes.com
mike.anton@latimes.com
Powers and Zavis reported from Aurora and Anton from Los Angeles.
Times staff writers Kathleen Hennessey in Washington, Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Aurora and Rick Rojas and Connie Stewart in Los Angeles contributed to this report
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fc6b77dd97ad7ccf1979ea5de195b322 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jul-28-la-na-obama-likability-20120729-story.html | Obama outranks Romney on likability, polls show | Obama outranks Romney on likability, polls show
WASHINGTON — The economy is in the tank and hopes for quick improvement are dim. Most people don’t like the direction the country is headed and many blame President Obama. And his GOP rival scores better on the top issues. So why isn’t Obama doing worse in the polls?
One likely reason: Voters like him more than Mitt Romney.
Obama’s job approval ratings long ago plummeted from his halcyon postelection days. But the president’s favorability — the catchall measure that pollsters say reflects voters’ gut feelings about a politician — has been resilient. Despite a recession, a sluggish jobless recovery, an oil spill, an unpopular healthcare law and a string of ugly tussles with Congress, Obama’s favorability is 54%, according to a recent USA Today-Gallup poll. Respondents were essentially divided on Romney, who had a 46% favorability rating. When asked about likability, respondents favored Obama, 60% to 30%.
Included in that barometer is a group of personal traits more consequential than just being nice. Obama gets high marks on honesty and trustworthiness. And most voters say he shares their values and cares about people like them.
And, by some accounts, voters really like the president. Two-thirds of voters surveyed recently by the Wall Street Journal and NBC said they liked Obama personally.
Romney, the unofficial Republican nominee, was personally liked by 47%.
“Basically, it looks like Romney’s personality is holding him back and Obama’s likability is helping him,” said Jeffrey M. Jones, managing editor for the Gallup Poll. “It seems frivolous, but it matters.”
How much it matters is the subject of debate among political scientists. Pollsters note that favorability ratings have been an accurate predictor in the last five presidential elections, including the virtual tie of 2000. Vice President Al Gore went into the election with 56% of voters having a favorable impression;George W. Bush was at 55%.
But favorability isn’t the most precise reading of how people feel about a candidate’s personality because it can be swayed by partisan leanings and other biases. When looking more narrowly at whom voters just plain like best, it’s not at all clear that presidential elections are popularity contests, some observers say. Theories about voters picking the candidate they would like to crack open a beer with are “a lot of noise,” said Morris Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
“It’s always better to be liked than not liked,” Fiorina said. “But it won’t save you.”
It is not unusual that the number of people who say they view Obama favorably is outpacing the number who say they like the work he’s doing. People tend to like their president.
Asking people to vote for the candidate they may not like more but who they think will do a better job is, for now, the Romney campaign’s task. In several recent polls, the former Massachusetts governor and former chief executive of a private equity firm got strong marks on how he would handle the issues voters care about most. A Gallup survey from mid-July showed Romney with the edge over Obama on creating jobs, handling taxes and lowering the deficit.
But the same poll found that voters considered Obama more likable than Romney by a 2-to-1 ratio. And half said he better understands the challenges Americans face in their daily lives, compared with 39% who said Romney does.
The Obama campaign has pounced on that gap. Nearly every campaign speech and television ad charges that Romney’s tax proposals favor the rich or notes his considerable wealth. TV ads released last week aimed to capitalize on Obama’s personality edge, showing him speaking directly to the camera.
Likability doesn’t substitute for job approval, Obama advisor David Axelrod said, “but it’s also true, especially when you’re voting for president, that people understand they’re going to be living with this person for the next four years, and they want to have someone they relate to as a person and who they feel comfortable with, and that’s always been the case. It’s not unimportant.”
Romney senior strategist Neil Newhouse downplayed that factor: “Likability doesn’t fix the economy. Likability isn’t helping the middle class.”
And Newhouse pointed to the Republican National Convention in late August as a likely venue for showcasing Romney’s personal strengths. “People don’t really know Mitt Romney yet,” he said. “By election day, I think they’re going to really get a feel for who he is, what drives him.”
There is precedent in Romney’s favor, notes Fiorina, who has studied the role of personal positives in presidential elections. Contrary to lore, it was President Carter, the Sunday school teacher with the smile, who had the personality edge in 1980 but lost to Ronald Reagan. And 20 years before, Richard Nixon’s personality was viewed just slightly more positively thanJohn F. Kennedy’s.
In the 13 elections from 1952 to 2000, only four saw a major personality gap, Fiorina found. Americans voted for the less-liked candidate in two — Clinton in 1996 and Reagan in 1980.
Fiorina posits that outside events can trump popularity, which means Obama’s edge helps him but offers no safety net. The intensity of concerns about the economy may drown out other concerns.
“My mechanic might be a peach of a guy,” he said, “but if he doesn’t find out what’s wrong with the car, I go somewhere else.”
kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
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dcb4de3c0a3c79bef94a9be6b15af6b2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-04-la-fg-syria-assad-20120604-story.html | Syria President Bashar Assad denies role in massacres | Syria President Bashar Assad denies role in massacres
AMMAN, Jordan — A defiant Syrian President Bashar Assad offered no new initiatives Sunday to revive a faltering United Nations peace plan but instead assailed a “foreign conspiracy” stoking violence and denied his government had a role in “monstrous massacres” across the nation.
“The truth is that even monsters do not do what we saw, especially in the Houla massacre,” Assad said, referring to the house-to-house executions last month of scores of civilians, mostly women and children, in the town of Houla.
The killings in Houla sparked international repudiation of the Syrian government. U.N. officials said evidence pointed to pro-government death squads as the killers. But authorities in Syria blamed the slayings on foreign-backed “terrorists” seeking to frame Syrian security services and undermine the peace process.
“The crisis is not internal,” Assad declared, repeating his government’s long-standing assertion that foreign powers are behind the nearly 15-month-long uprising. “Rather, it is a foreign war with internal tools.”
The Syrian opposition says it is an indigenous movement, though rebel leaders have called on other nations to provide funding and arms to help oust Assad.
The president’s nationally televised address before Syria’s newly elected parliament seemed aimed mostly at a domestic audience. He appeared to be preparing Syrians for more hardships after months of violence and withering economic sanctions that have battered and traumatized the population.
“We are facing a real war from outside,” Assad told the Syrian people. “Everyone is responsible for defending the homeland.”
Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years, mocked opposition calls for democracy, declaring: “This democracy that they talked about is soaked with our blood.”
The president, formerly a practicing ophthalmologist, invoked the metaphor of a surgeon in the operating theater as an apparent justification for harsh counterinsurgency tactics in a brutal conflict that has cost more than 10,000 lives.
“Who is the wise man who loves blood?” Assad asked. “When a surgeon enters the operating room and opens a wound, it bleeds. He cuts and extracts. Do we tell him: ‘Your hands are cursed as they are contaminated with blood?’ Or do we thank him for saving the patient?”
U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan has urgently called on Assad to take “bold and visible steps” to help implement the faltering U.N. peace blueprint, which, among other things, calls for a drawdown of government troops from populated areas. On Saturday, the special envoy warned of “all-out civil war, with a worrying sectarian dimension,” if the peace plan fails.
But the Syrian leader presented no breakthrough measures designed to help resuscitate the U.N. peace plan, widely violated by both sides in the conflict.
Meanwhile, authorities in Lebanon said Sunday that a guarded calm had returned to the northern city of Tripoli after two days of Syria-related sectarian clashes that reportedly left at least 14 people dead and more than 50 wounded.
Annan and others have voiced grave concern about the potential “spillover” of Syrian violence into neighboring nations, notably Lebanon, with its volatile mix of sects and its delicate political landscape. Syria maintained occupation forces in Lebanon for almost 30 years until forced to withdraw in 2005.
The battles in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second most-populous city, involved militants from two rival neighborhoods — a pro-Assad stronghold and an anti-Assad district. The combatants fought for almost two days in running urban battles featuring automatic-weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenade volleys. The two districts have a long history of enmity.
The Lebanese military deployed troops to Tripoli and the official Lebanese news agency reported Sunday that Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who rushed to the scene on Saturday, had been assured that “the security situation is under control thus far, despite a number of limited violations.”
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Special correspondent Marrouch reported from Amman and Times staff writer McDonnell from Beirut.
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63ca3ceef5738151568459dd01525cf6 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-07-la-fi-bernanke-economy-20120608-story.html | Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warns of ‘fiscal cliff’ risks | Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warns of ‘fiscal cliff’ risks
WASHINGTON — Fears about a looming fiscal crisis at the end of the year are starting to pinch job growth and threatening to undercut the nation’s fragile recovery, a growing number of economists and employers say.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, in testimony Thursday before Congress, repeatedly warned about the so-called fiscal cliff — a reference to the expiration of tax cuts Dec. 31 and the imposition of automatic spending reductions Jan. 1.
By some accounts, the U.S. economy could see an unprecedented fiscal hit of as much as $720 billion if the slated changes take effect.
They would include an end to the temporary tax cuts enacted during the George W. Bush administration and to temporary Obama administration payroll tax reductions. Spending cuts in defense and on federal programs were negotiated as part of last summer’s pact to raise the debt ceiling.
If all the changes take place, the shock will probably cause the economy to contract and possibly lead to a recession, Bernanke said.
So far, however, Bernanke’s concerns about the fiscal cliff have been largely obscured by the more immediate, intensifying financial troubles in Europe and elsewhere.
On Thursday, China cut its interest rates, sparking worries that the sprawling economy might be doing worse than thought. There also is a widespread expectation that Congress will take last-minute action to pull back from the fiscal cliff.
Some analysts are skeptical that lawmakers can come together to avoid potential disaster.
“As the cliff approaches, we expect first firms and then households to start postponing decisions, weakening the economy in advance of the cliff,” economists at Bank of America said in a report this week. “When you are approaching a cliff, in a deep fog of uncertainty, you slow down.”
That’s exactly what some employers are doing.
“We were in a growth mode for the first half of 2012,” said Joe Dutra, president of Kimmie Candy Co. in Reno.
His company recently invested in factory equipment with plans to double production and add five to six workers to the payroll of 23. But he and other company managers met this week and decided to put everything on hold, even the installation of the new equipment.
“My main concern for our company is the uncertainty,” said Dutra, 59, a onetime farmer in Sacramento who started Kimmie Candy as a side business in 2000. Since then, some of his chocolate products have become national brands.
“We look at the news every day, and it’s just a roller coaster,” he said. “The government is not stable. We have a government that can’t make hard decisions.... We’re looking at the future and expecting to be going back into more of a recession in 2013.”
Bernanke wasn’t nearly as pessimistic; he told lawmakers Thursday that the economy was continuing to grow at a “moderate” pace. But he also expressed concerns about the deepening troubles in Europe, a slowdown in China and other developing countries, and the cloudy U.S. fiscal outlook.
Despite those risks and the weakening U.S. job market, the Fed chairman gave no clear signal that the central bank was about to provide more monetary stimulus to prop up the economy and bring down the unemployment rate, which inched up to 8.2% in May.
He said the fall-off in job growth — to 75,000 in the last two months, on average, from 225,000 a month in the first three months of the year — may have been exaggerated by issues related to the warm winter and by the end of what he called a spurt of “catch-up hiring” by employers who had cut payrolls aggressively during and just after the recession.
Still, Bernanke called on lawmakers to do more, “to take some of this burden from us,” reminding them of what happened last year when the debt ceiling debacle took the country to the brink of default.
“The brinkmanship last summer over the debt limit had very significant adverse effects for financial markets and for our economy.... It really knocked down consumer confidence quite noticeably,” Bernanke said. “I urge Congress to come to agreement on that well in advance so as not to push us to the 12th hour.”
Many, however, are expecting exactly that to happen again, especially in an election year.
The stakes are higher this time as several large pieces of temporary legislation are set to end at once, the biggest of which is the Bush tax cuts, estimated at $165 billion.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress remain bitterly divided on those cuts, with President Obama determined to eliminate the breaks for high-income Americans and GOP challenger Mitt Romney insisting that all the provisions should be made permanent.
In addition to the Bush-era tax cuts, Congress is likely to let expire both the payroll tax cut, which is saving the typical worker about $1,000 this year, and the federal extended unemployment benefits, though these provisions, too, could spark a fight, as they have in the past, analysts said.
“This is a problem we need to deal with, but unfortunately we’re not going to take this on until after the election,” said Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.), referring to the fiscal cliff.
“My belief is that after the election, we’ll sit here and the leaders will say on Dec. 24, ‘We’ve reached no conclusion, and we’re going to extend everything for two to three months until the new Congress comes in.’ ”
But moving the cliff out a few months or even longer carries risks. For one thing, economists said, it could trigger a credit downgrade. It also would be likely to increase the uncertainty and prompt more companies to adopt contingency plans.
Bernanke declined to endorse specific tax extensions or spending cuts, saying what’s needed is a “combination of sensible policies that allow the recovery to continue over the next year or two, with a long-term credible plan for putting our budget on a sustainable path.”
If Congress can’t compromise on a new budget, automatic cuts will take effect under the so-called sequester outlined in the Budget Control Act. For defense, the 10% elimination would shave about $53 billion from the budget, to $472 billion.
“People in the industry are really worried a train wreck could come.... They are starting to hedge,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
The impact of the uncertainty, he said, will be magnified at thousands of smaller second- and third-tier contractors, some of which are already asking, “How can you best position a business to prepare for this shock?”
John Raine is one of them. His Anderson, Ind., company has been making military field gear for 27 years. The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the drawdown in Afghanistan have already cost him significant business, forcing him to lay off a worker for the first time ever.
With potential defense cutbacks coming sooner or later, and higher taxes on the horizon, Raine said there was only one thing he could do.
“You’re going to batten down the hatches,” he said. “It’s the psychology.”
don.lee@latimes.com
Times staff writer Jamie Goldberg contributed to this report.
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daa4b4f67bdf78b755a60d6a119428dd | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-10-la-na-afghan-shooting-20120610-story.html | Four seconds in Afghanistan: Was it combat, or a crime? | Four seconds in Afghanistan: Was it combat, or a crime?
Sgt. 1st Class Walter Taylor’s life collapsed in four interminable seconds in a dusty field in central Afghanistan.
His convoy was reeling from a roadside bomb, his fellow soldiers were engaged in combat with insurgents — and a mysterious black car had just screeched to a stop in the middle of the firefight. Some nine minutes later, a black door opens.
Second 1: A figure dressed in dark, bulky clothing emerges.
Second 2: The figure begins walking toward the trunk.
Second 3: Taylor, with five wounded comrades behind him, sees a thin trigger wire seeming to snake directly toward the black car. Could there be a second bomb in the trunk?
Second 4: Taylor squeezes the trigger on his M-4 carbine. The figure crumples to the dirt.
The figure was not an insurgent, but Dr. Aqilah Hikmat, a 49-year-old mother of four who headed the obstetrics department at the nearby Ghazni provincial hospital. Also dead inside the car were Hikmat’s 18-year-old son and her 16-year-old niece. Hikmat’s husband, in the front seat, was wounded.
Army prosecutors say Hikmat’s killing in July 2011 was not just a casualty of combat, but a crime. Charged with negligent homicide and dereliction of duty, Taylor will face a hearing June 19 before a U.S. military judge in Germany to determine whether the case goes to a full court-martial, with the possibility of three years in prison.
***
Ten days after the explosion and firefight, Taylor got what he is convinced was a dose of Afghan street justice: His vehicle was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, which blew off his nose, shattered his cheeks, ripped open his lips, drove his teeth back toward his throat, blinded him in one eye — in short, left him without a face as he had known it.
The 30-year-old sergeant, who had served three previous combat deployments, accepted a Purple Heart in August 2011 and a criminal charge sheet shortly thereafter.
“I feel to this day that this makes no sense. It’s just wrong,” Taylor said recently, sitting at a table in the kitchen of his small apartment near Bamberg, Germany, with his German wife, Nina, and their two young children. “I mean, can people please look at everything I did, and why I did what I did?”
Taylor was a well-regarded field leader whose split-second decision came as the Army was trying to minimize allied-caused civilian casualties.
The military has increasingly emphasized precision weapons and positive identification of targets before shooting. Its leaders have emphasized that unidentified people should be presumed to be civilians who can’t be engaged unless they show obvious signs of hostile intent.
Last year there were 3,021 civilian deaths, according to the United Nations. This year so far, deaths are down 36% from the same period last year, though violence has been spiking in recent weeks as the weather has warmed.
Hikmat’s death put the Army on the defensive, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai calling for an investigation.
Taylor’s civilian lawyer, James Culp, will argue at next week’s hearing that every soldier is entitled to shoot in self-defense, no matter what the rules of engagement say. Infantrymen who engage heavily armed combatants have fewer protections under the law than police officers, he contends.
“Before criminal charges can be filed [against a police officer], it has to be demonstrated ... that no other police officer under those circumstances would have acted that way,” he said. “But there’s no such system for guys who are 100 times more likely to encounter a lethal scenario on a daily basis and die, and that’s our soldiers.”
Army officials would not comment on Taylor’s case but said commanders of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force were determined to uphold the law.
"[Our] main mission is to protect the Afghan people, and ISAF realizes that incidents of this kind damage the confidence of both the Afghan people and the government in ISAF,” Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings Jr., a spokesman for the force in Afghanistan, said in a statement to The Times. “We try to prevent accidental or unintentional casualties through a variety of measures which call upon our forces to exercise restraint during operations.”
***
Taylor didn’t lead his platoon by swagger and intimidation. For one thing, he weighs only 114 pounds. With quiet authority and wry humor, Taylor would pester the 44 soldiers of the 541st Sapper Company’s 38th Route Clearance Platoon to put on their goggles, and annoy them by calling for yet another drill. On a mission, he would walk with 18-year-old privates as they scanned roadsides for improvised explosive devices, vulnerable outside their armored machines.
The 541st, nicknamed the Outlaws, had one of the most dangerous jobs in the Army. It was charged with detonating or dismantling bombs found along the so-called Highway of Death between Kabul and Kandahar, while fighting off the insurgents who planted them. Between January and October of last year, Taylor’s unit was hit by homemade bombs 16 times. Thirty-eight men were injured in those explosions; 12 were hit three times; two died.
“He’s a hard man to work for — oh, my God. But overall, he’s one of the only [noncommissioned officers] I’ve ever seen that takes care of his soldiers,” said Spc. Wayne Wedgeworth, a former corrections officer from Texas injured in the July 2011 attack.
“Get everybody home,” is what Taylor most often says when he talks about what a platoon sergeant is supposed to do.
He grew up in the little town of Wimauma, Fla., in an immigrant-heavy neighborhood where a lot of the people were on welfare. He lived with his mother, four brothers and an older sister in a two-bedroom, single-wide mobile home (later, they traded it in for a double-wide).
Taylor spent summers rounding up kids for summer camp at the local parks, where he worked as a youth director. He got a job at the grocery store when he was 14, and when he had enough money he bought an old Chevy for $350. He used it to drive his mom to work at a Bealls department store and to provide rides to half the rest of the neighborhood. They called him the “taxi driver.”
There were two dozen African American kids from Taylor’s neighborhood at his high school; Taylor said he was the only one who graduated. Two of his brothers had spent time in jail by then.
“I’d be the one keeping people from fighting,” Taylor said, “protecting anybody at my school whenever we’d go out and there’d be issues.”
His grades were good enough that he’d been offered several scholarships to state schools. But his best friend wasn’t so lucky, and the two of them suddenly made a pact to join the Army together.
“He felt it was something he could tackle, and he was so proud of doing it. We had babied him to death, and this was like him breaking away into his manhood,” said Taylor’s older sister, Lisa “Tina” Armstrong.
After he went overseas, Taylor bought cars for two younger brothers, hoping it would help them get jobs. “Anything he could do to try to help, he did it,” Armstrong said. “There’s a host of nieces and nephews — one brother has six kids — and he came one year and he bought every one of the nieces and nephews a pair of shoes.”
Taylor met Nina through a friend in Giessen, Germany. Their son, Jamie, now 6, was born while Taylor was in Iraq — two weeks before one of Taylor’s best friends lost both of his legs to a roadside bomb. Nala’s birth wasn’t timed much better: Taylor, offered a brief leave from Afghanistan, had to decide between going to his father’s funeral or his daughter’s birth. He chose the one who was still alive.
***
As Taylor’s platoon patrolled the turbulent Tangi Valley, it regularly came under attack from small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and the periodic, sickening boom of the bombs they’d failed to find.
“It was like lambs to the slaughter,” Wedgeworth said. “We’d fight, take casualties, and we’d be out there again the very next day.”
During times of the year when the brush grew thick, the sappers would dismount and walk along the edge of the road looking for explosives. “They could be next to a tree, in a ditch where water’s flowing. So you actually had to get out and look. And when you’re out walking along the grass, you could get hit,” Taylor said.
In March 2011, a few months before the July attack, Taylor’s unit still had three seasoned squad leaders, one of the best of whom was Staff Sgt. Joshua Gire. He too had a German wife and kids, and the two families socialized on leaves back in Germany. Gire’s death in an explosion that month — Taylor had to pull his friend’s body, missing a face, from the vehicle where he’d died — weighed heavily on Taylor. He’d promised Gire’s wife he’d bring her husband home, he kept telling himself.
Sometime after that, Taylor called home and talked to his sister.
“He was like, ‘Tina?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, Mosie?’ ‘Cause that’s what we call him — Mosie. And he was, ‘Tina?’ ‘Yes, Mosie.’ He said: ‘Pray.’”
He started telling her about all the guys who’d been injured, all the days he’d spent under fire.
“He said, ‘We’re fighting as hard as we can, but we’re losing.’ He told me, ‘Sissie, it’s just too much.’”
Taylor’s day of decision — the four seconds in which he ended Hikmat’s life — came on a routine patrol late in the afternoon of July 21, 2011, near the village of Shekhabad.
The blast of the roadside bomb was so powerful it hurtled one of the 45,000-pound Buffalo mine-clearing vehicles 10 feet into the air with Wedgeworth and four other men inside it. Taylor and his fellow soldiers clambered out of their vehicle and began exchanging fire with insurgents on the hillsides and in a pair of white cars fleeing the scene.
Almost simultaneously, a black Suzuki sedan raced up behind the white cars and sped past one of them before skidding to a halt under a withering hail of gunfire. “Cease fire!” someone yelled over the radio as the white cars disappeared into the distance.
Taylor and three of his soldiers crept cautiously across the empty field, seeing the thin wire from what had been the roadside bomb and tracing it back to what appeared at the time might be its source — the black car.
“I thought they were insurgents,” Sgt. Nicholas Wilson, who also fired at Hikmat during those few seconds, told investigators. “I wanted to make sure we all got back safe.”
***
Hikmat’s husband, Sayed Mir Agha Hikmat, told The Times he and his family were making their way to Kabul — as they often did for the weekend — when they came upon the convoy, and the explosion.
It is precisely such situations that frighten Afghans. Many worry about traveling on the country’s highways, fearing that if they get caught in a crossfire, foreign troops might shoot without waiting to determine whether they are insurgents or innocent civilians.
The family parked by the side of the road, along with other wary onlookers, and waited, he said, but it began to get late and they didn’t want to be caught out after dark. Finally, the Hikmats — with several other cars following, he said — decided to try to make their way around the scene.
“Suddenly, they started shooting,” he said. When the soldiers kept advancing on foot toward the car, Aqilah Hikmat “couldn’t stop herself,” and got out, he said.
“She raised her arms and said, ‘We are civilians, we are unarmed, why are you shooting?’ her husband recalled. “One of the soldiers opened fire and shot my wife in the forehead and killed her.”
Taylor insists Aqilah Hikmat never raised her arms, never said a thing, and just walked toward the back of the car, where he feared she might be going for a weapon.
Witness statements from the Army investigation show that Taylor wasn’t the only one who thought the black Suzuki was a threat. An alarming lack of coordination on the ground after the explosion made it difficult for any of the soldiers to know what had been confirmed about the enemy, a preliminary Army inquiry concluded.
The lieutenant who should have been coordinating never left his vehicle. Soldiers were talking over one another on their radios. One person declared the black car was not hostile, while someone else claimed to have seen muzzle fire coming from it. No one but the Afghan translator appeared to have seen Hikmat raise her arms, and no one had heard her say anything.
“There was a leadership failure in this incident,” the initial investigation concluded, finding that the lack of organization “set the patrol up for failure.”
The criminal case doesn’t concern the dozens of rounds of ammunition that sprayed the black car, fired from nearly all quarters during the heat of the gun battle, which killed Hikmat’s son and niece. Nor were any charges filed against Wilson, the junior soldier who also fired at Hikmat when she emerged from the car.
The crux of the case will be what judgment Taylor used during those few seconds as Hikmat got out of the car, perhaps nine minutes after the initial firing stopped. Army investigators believe he did not meet the primary criteria under the Army’s rules of engagement — making a positive identification of his target as a combatant and, beyond that, confirming that the unknown figure had hostile intent.
But Army investigators have also sought to explore Taylor’s state of mind. After Hikmat was dead and the soldiers converged on the car, Hikmat’s husband began yelling at them, Taylor told investigators. “I didn’t say anything to him, but he said to me: ‘Shoot me too! You killed my wife — shoot me too!’”
Investigators responded: “How would you explain that Sgt. [Richard] McKelvey overheard you yelling that they had gotten what they deserved, or words to that effect?”
Taylor insisted he never said such a thing. No one else apparently heard it. Culp, his lawyer, says the exchange was probably misreported. If not, he says, such a comment would simply have been the adrenaline talking.
Army investigators also wanted to know why neither Taylor nor Wilson in their initial interviews mentioned that Hikmat wasn’t shot during the heat of the initial battle. That revelation didn’t come until later. Taylor told investigators he wasn’t asked about it during the initial inquiry and didn’t consider it important. Wilson said he had been worried about the sergeant’s precarious health after the grenade attack and “didn’t want to get him in trouble.”
Sayed Hikmat said someone must be held accountable. “If this soldier was punished in a meaningful way, we would be glad. So many lives were destroyed by this,” he said.
***
But for several of those there that day, there was no question that Taylor was doing what he always did: trying to bring them home.
“Sgt. Taylor did not freak out,” Wedgeworth says. “He fought these dudes off of us. He got control of the ground units and he pushed forward to suppress the enemy ... and bring the choppers in to get us out of there.”
Cpl. Pablo Mena, who was with Taylor when he got hit by the grenade, is even more emphatic. “Look what he took for his country,” he said. “If I had to go out tomorrow, I would be right beside him again.... I would give my life for that man.”
Taylor has had 10 surgeries and has half a dozen more ahead over the next 18 months to try to repair his face. Once the Article 32 hearing is over this month, he will probably be flown to Texas, where doctors will remove the makeshift nose they’ve put in place, take out the plastic tubes he’s been breathing through and attach a new, permanent nose fashioned from bone from his rib and skin from his forehead.
There are fewer hopes for restoring his eyesight in more than one eye, and he still has problems with his back and ankles.
For Taylor, the combination of the injuries and the court case has been like a double blow. “I got out of the hospital, and they called me into the office, and told me about this legal thing,” he said. “And I was just distraught — I can’t put it in any other words. I felt like I got stabbed.”
kim.murphy@latimes.com
Times staff writer Laura King and special correspondent Aimal Yaqubi in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
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f2ad95c3617c6cd346879457cbde505c | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-14-la-fg-colombia-false-positives-20120614-story.html | In Colombia, 6 sentenced in ‘false positives’ death scheme | In Colombia, 6 sentenced in ‘false positives’ death scheme
BOGOTA, Colombia — Leonardo Porras, a mentally challenged day laborer, was lured by the promise of work and flown from Bogota to a faraway location in northern Colombia, where he was shot to death by Colombian soldiers. As part of a nefarious scheme, prosecutors say, he was then identified as a leftist terrorist killed in action in order to hype the army’s body count.
Porras, 26, was one of 22 young men from the Soacha shanty barrio offered jobs in August 2008 and later found dead hundreds of miles away in North Santander province. The case blew the lid off a so-called false positives scheme, which was already being flagged by human rights groups at the time as a major problem, but which some in the government were downplaying as isolated cases.
This month, six army officers and soldiers were sentenced after a weeks-long trial in a Bogota criminal courtroom to prison terms of at least 35 years for Porras’ murder.
“I never knew why or when he left because the recruiters told Leonardo to keep his work opportunity a secret,” said his mother, Luz Marina Bernal, who heads a group of Soacha mothers of victims. “He just disappeared and I never had a chance to say goodbye.”
In total, more than 3,300 mostly poor, unemployed or mentally challenged people fell victim to “extrajudicial executions” by Colombia’s armed forces from 2002 to 2008, human rights groups say.
“By inflating body counts, the officers and the soldiers got promotions, vacations and other benefits,” said Ivan Cepeda, a congressman who previously headed a state victims group. Hyped killed-in-action totals also fed the perception that the government was getting results in the fight against terrorists, he said.
The murder cases are being tried in civilian courts instead of military tribunals because then-President Alvaro Uribe said he wanted to assure the public of impartial trials. Verdicts have been reached in about 170 of the 3,350 cases, but a coalition of Colombian and international human rights groups thinks the wheels of justice are grinding too slowly.
Last month, the coalition filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, charging that 95% of the cases still had not come to trial, said Alberto Yepes, a human rights investigator in Bogota.
Moreover, President Juan Manuel Santos, who was Uribe’s defense minister when the Soacha murders occurred, is backing two pieces of legislation that combined could make cases still to be tried revert to military jurisdiction.
The changes are necessary to improve morale among the armed forces, whose members think civilian criminal norms shouldn’t apply to war, and to broaden a framework for peace negotiations that would limit criminal culpability for both soldiers and rebels in any future accord to end four decades of civil conflict, government officials have argued.
Human rights groups counter that such changes could impede justice and reduce the chances of determining from how high up in the military command the orders for such killings came.
“Moving the cases to military jurisdiction would result in many being shelved because a military court would not have the autonomy nor the impartiality that is needed,” Yepes said. “A military court is not going to blame the high command for these kinds of things, if in fact they are to blame.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch said this week such legislation would provide ""undercover amnesty.”
During the trial in the Porras killing, testimony was provided on how “recruiters” combed poor barrios for mentally impaired or disadvantaged victims and received $100 for each one they delivered to the military.
Yepes said “false positives” killings are thought to have occurred in 32 of 33 Colombian provinces.
“What was really striking was that these cases were happening all over the country. It was not just one bad apple. It was astonishing how similar they all were,” said Lisa Haugaard of the Latin America Working Group in Washington, a human rights agency.
The killings rocked the government after the Soacha case revealed the dimension of the crimes. On the firing line was Santos, then the defense minister.
When Santos drew fire over the Soacha killings in 2008, he insisted that he had no knowledge of the practice, fired 27 army officers and ordered changes in how the army measured success.
Reported cases have declined dramatically but still occur, Yepes contends.
“I’m still waiting for justice,” said Carmen Gomez, another Soacha mother, whose son Victor Fernando, 23, was a victim. Those suspected in his killing have not yet come to trial. She said “recruiters” fooled him into thinking he had a job somewhere on Colombia’s northern coast but in fact gave him up to army killers.
“I want to know not only who pulled the trigger of the gun that killed my son,” she said, “but who gave the order.”
Kraul is a special correspondent.
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952e5cca5f052f73e7df4247ff625eea | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-21-la-fg-syria-homs-20120621-story.html | No sign of Syria truce to let civilians evacuate from Homs | No sign of Syria truce to let civilians evacuate from Homs
BEIRUT — The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday that it had received assurances from the Syrian government and opposition forces on a plan for a temporary truce to evacuate and assist people stranded in the battle-torn city of Homs.
But reports from pro-opposition activists in Homs indicated that the government had continued shelling, clashes were ongoing and there was no sign of a relief operation.
Rebels were also reportedly on the offensive, seeking to reoccupy the battered Baba Amr district, a longtime rebel enclave that became an international symbol of resistance until Syrian forces overran the neighborhood in March after weeks of shelling and urban combat.
Insurgents have been methodically attacking more than a dozen military checkpoints surrounding Baba Amr, which is a key logistics corridor for rebels based deeper inside the city, said an opposition activist from the district who is in Lebanon.
“It’s first because of the symbolism of the place,” said the activist, who declined to be named for security reasons. “Second, it’s the route where all the supplies to Homs enter.”
The Red Cross said hundreds of civilians were trapped inside Homs’ old city, unable to flee because of the battles.
“It is critical that the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent be immediately given safe and unhindered access to those in need of lifesaving assistance,” Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of the Red Cross’ operations for the Near and Middle East, said in a statement
The United Nations has already issued a plea for both sides in the conflict to allow humanitarian access to Homs, which has seen the heaviest sustained fighting throughout the 15-month rebellion against the government of President Bashar Assad.
Broad swaths of Homs have been reduced to rubble, and much of its population has fled a metropolitan area that once was home to more than 1 million people. Homs was long a bustling urban center on the road between Damascus, the capital, and the northern city of Aleppo, the nation’s commercial hub.
Intense fighting has resumed in the last 10 days as government forces try to retake areas occupied by insurgents. As the battles rage, efforts to rescue stranded civilians have become caught up in the poisoned atmosphere of Syria’s strife.
The government has accused rebels of using civilians as “human shields” and preventing evacuations. The rebels, in turn, have alleged that government forces engage in indiscriminate bombardment of civilian districts and deliberately target field clinics.
Once a humanitarian “pause” is in place, the Red Cross and Red Crescent said, their personnel would enter the hard-hit old city. The Red Cross said “all possible measures” must be implemented to facilitate the evacuation of the wounded, the sick and civilians.
Marrouch is a special correspondent.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
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2d3799a84950650b0fd089ea3b089bc0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-24-la-fg-syria-turkey-20120624-story.html | Syria, Turkey mount joint rescue for downed jet’s pilots | Syria, Turkey mount joint rescue for downed jet’s pilots
BEIRUT — A day after Syria shot down a Turkish jet, officials from the neighboring countries moved to tamp down tensions Saturday as they mounted a joint rescue operation for two pilots still missing in the eastern Mediterranean.
The incident dramatically escalated tensions between two countries whose relations were already severely strained because of Turkey’stacit support of the 16-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
But there was a notable lack of bellicose rhetoric Saturday emanating from both capitals, Ankara and Damascus, underscoring the explosive potential of the incident.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul conceded Saturday that the F-4 Phantom aircraft downed Friday off the Syrian coast, apparently by a surface-to-air missile, may have wandered into Syrian airspace, but he said any such action was not “ill-intentioned” and was not unusual.
“We will wait to clarify some details, and then of course everything that needs to be done will be done,” Gul told reporters.
Turkey has said it would act “with determination” once the facts were clarified.
Turkey is a NATO member and was probably consulting the United States and other allies before deciding how to respond. But there was no public indication that Turkey was seeking support from North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies for retaliatory action.
Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, will also be watching closely. Moscow has said it opposes any foreign intervention in the Syrian conflict, which has left at least 10,000 people dead, as the nation plunges toward a sectarian-tinged civil war.
Diplomats have been extremely concerned about the possible “spillover” effect in neighboring nations, including Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. On Thursday, a Syrian pilot defected to Jordan with his MIG-21 aircraft.
Turkish authorities were said to be studying the doomed F-4 Phantom’s flight path in a meticulous effort to conclude whether it was in Syrian airspace when it was shot out of the sky. The outcome seemed likely to color Ankara’s response.
Syria’s official state news agency reported that air defenses shot the aircraft down when it was less than a mile from the Syrian coast, well within domestic airspace.
A war between the two nations — both with huge armies, modern air forces and considerable missile-launching capabilities — would probably create massive instability in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
But the overall tone of the Turkish response did not suggest that Ankara regarded the incident as a justification for war. Turkish public opinion also seemed muted, though there was some saber-rattling in the Turkish press.
On the Syrian side, a Foreign Ministry spokesman took the unusual step of calling a Turkish television channel and reassuring the Turkish people directly that the incident was an “accident” and not an act of aggression.
“There was no hostile act against Turkey whatsoever,” Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told Turkey’s A Haber television news channel, according to a translation provided by the station and quoted by the Associated Press. “What is important now is that Turkey and Syria are working together to find the pilots.”
Search vessels from the two nations were said to be scouring the area where the jet was thought to have plunged into the Mediterranean. There were no reports of wreckage having been recovered.
Among the many unanswered questions was what the U.S.-made jet was doing so close to the Syrian coast, and whether it had strayed there inadvertently or was there for a specific purpose.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry is expected to release a more detailed statement Sunday.
The incident did put foreign powers on notice that Syria’s Russian-made air defenses remain capable of defending its borders. Washington and other Western nations have so far ruled out a Libya-style intervention in Syria, but Western military planners have been examining the options.
Before the outbreak of the Syrian rebellion, Syria and Turkey were close allies that had even mounted joint military exercises. The 500-mile Turkish-Syrian border was a hub for international trade. The Syrian uprising, however, has strained relations to something close to a breaking point. Each nation has expelled the other’s diplomats, and both sides have exchanged verbal broadsides. The border has become a tinderbox.
Turkey has joined the United States and other nations in calling on Assad to step down. A mutual animosity appears to have developed between Assad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who once regarded the Syrian leader as a friend.
More than 30,000 Syrian refugees have fled into Turkey and are living mostly in border-area camps. Damascus has charged that insurgents and arms are flowing into Syria through the porous frontier. Several cross-border shooting incidents — including one in April that left two dead on the Turkish side — have drawn angry condemnations from Ankara.
Turkey is hosting both a major Syrian rebel umbrella group, the Free Syrian Army, and several political opposition coalitions, including the best-known faction, the Syrian National Council. But Turkey has denied reports that it is supplying arms to Syrian rebels or facilitating arms transfers.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
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4623119accf0a78e29b98a90660b5fa5 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-24-la-na-sea-level-20120624-story.html | In North Carolina, a fight over sea levels and science | In North Carolina, a fight over sea levels and science
RALEIGH, N.C. — When scientists at a state commission predicted that North Carolina’s sea levels could rise 39 inches by 2100, coastal business and development leaders weren’t alarmed at the prospect of flooding. They were outraged by the report itself.
They complained to state legislators, saying the projection could trigger regulations costing coastal businesses and homeowners millions of dollars.
The result is House Bill 819, a measure that would require sea level forecasts to be based on past patterns and would all but outlaw projections based on climate change data.
The bill, now under discussion by a legislative conference committee, has been ridiculed nationwide. It was mocked by comedian Stephen Colbert and savaged in a Scientific American blog post titled “N.C. Considers Making Sea Rise Illegal.”
It has also focused attention on the political shift in North Carolina, where Republicans in 2010 won control of the state Legislature for the first time in a century.
The legislation would outlaw “scenarios of accelerated rates of sea level rise unless such rates are from statistically significant, peer-reviewed data and are consistent with historic trends.”
Scientists and environmentalists say the bill would legislate science and inhibit research. Orrin H. Pilkey, a geology professor emeritus at Duke University, said making projections based only on past sea level changes is like limiting hurricane warnings to the precise spots where hurricanes have struck.
Stanley R. Riggs, an East Carolina University geologist and one of 19 scientists who made the 39-inch projection, said the bill represents “a criminally serious disregard for science.”
The Science Panel on Coastal Hazards of the state Coastal Resources Commission consists of marine scientists, geologists and engineers who relied on tide gauges, satellite altimetry, storm records and geologic data. They cautioned that predicting long-term sea level change is “an inexact exact science,” saying the report reflects “the likely range” of sea level rise due to global warming and the melting of ice shelves.
Because sea levels and scientific knowledge are advancing rapidly, Riggs said in an interview, the panel recommended recalculating sea level projections every five years.
The bill’s backers issued their own projections, using data from tide gauges and carbon dioxide levels, and citing studies that project no or minimal sea level rise. They predict a rise of, at the most, 8 inches — and contend that sea levels are actually receding in some coastal areas. They say the 39-inch projection would restrict economic development, send insurance rates skyrocketing and decrease coastal property values.
“It’s a death sentence for coastal North Carolina,” said Tom Thompson, who leads the coastal business group, known as NC-20 for its representation of 20 coastal counties. “It could quite frankly kill development on the coast.”
Thompson, director of the Beaufort County Economic Development Commission, called the 39-inch prediction “dishonest statistically” and no better than a coin flip. In an interview, he dismissed climate change as “a phobia” pushed by environmentalists.
John Droz Jr., NC-20’s science advisor, said commission scientists were “bent on promoting their personal political agenda.” NC-20’s projections “are entirely about the science” and have nothing to do with developers, or economics, Droz wrote in a letter to the News & Observer newspaper.
Republican state Sen. David Rouzer, a sponsor of the bill, did not respond to requests for comment. After the measure was endorsed by a state Senate committee June 7, Rouzer told reporters:
“If you’re going to use science when you really can’t validate it … you’re going to be implementing policy and rules and regulations that can have a very, very negative impact on the coastal economy of this state.”
A spokeswoman for Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, said the governor would not announce her position on the bill unless it was passed by the Legislature.
Biology professor Robert B. Jackson, who directs Duke University’s Center on Global Change, warned a Senate committee earlier this month that denying rising sea levels puts coastal residents and property at risk of serious flooding.
“There are many things we can do something about if we use this data,” Jackson said. “I don’t see why taking into account the range of possible futures costs us money, compared to naively assuming the best-case scenario.”
Riggs, the geologist, said the panel had preferred to report a range of projected sea level rises — from 15 to 18 inches to 55 inches, based on each member’s projections. But because the commission demanded an absolute number, the panel took the mean of the range, or 39 inches.
Comedian Colbert brought the debate to a national audience, wisecracking in a segment titled “Sea, No Evil” on the June 4 “Colbert Report”: “If your science gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved.”
The bill has triggered lively debate on social media, websites and the letters page of the News & Observer. The paper’s editorial board called the bill “a burst of legislative folly.”
One letter, titled “Sea-Level Fiction,” said the bill “reveals just how far the climate change-deniers and their anti-environmental, science-hating minions have penetrated” state government. Another, from an environmental technology professor at North Carolina State University, said: “We are the laughingstock of the nation.”
In a recent full-page newspaper ad titled “The N.C. General Assembly wants to ignore science,” the Southern Environmental Law Center said the sea level bill would “set a dangerous precedent of politicians telling scientists what data they may and may not use.”
david.zucchino@latimes.com
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093d23877a1d2b896769744bd3966008 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-28-la-fg-india-gumshoe-20120629-story.html | In India, first comes detective work, then comes marriage | In India, first comes detective work, then comes marriage
NEW DELHI — It’s a weekday morning in posh Safdarjung Enclave. A man sells fragrant masala tea from a cart, stray dogs dodge belching rickshaws, and two men smoking cigarettes work overtime at looking nonchalant. Their attention is focused on a white house with a narrow veranda and brown trim.
Their studied calm disappears when a twentysomething woman in jeans emerges, jumps into a dented silver Hyundai and sails into the chaotic traffic. The two detectives follow a few cars back. Both are named Raj Kumar, one with a scar on his cheek, the other without.
Their mission: conduct a premarital investigation to assess whether the woman is a suitable match for their client.
Traditionally, premarital snooping in India was done by village priests, matchmakers and busybodies. Is the bride chaste? they asked. Is the groom solvent? Are there any hidden medical problems?
But with urbanization, online social networking and mixed-gender workplaces, more relationships arise spontaneously, beyond the prying eyes in communities that once flushed out shameful secrets and character flaws. Parents often feel ill-equipped to navigate this fast-paced social scene to vet prospective sons- or daughters-in-law. So many are hiring detectives to do the dirty work.
The rush to join an increasingly prosperous middle class has led to a lot of resume-fudging, caste-fudging and salary-fudging, further fueling the demand for background checks.
“In India, you don’t always get what you see,” says Anupam Mittal, founder of Shaadi.com, which bills itself as the world’s largest online matchmaking service. He recommends background checks for couples who meet through his site. “Everyone is like an onion.”
India’s Assn. of Private Detectives and Investigators has 1,200 members, up from 13 in 2005.
Much of the industry’s business involves premarital investigations. Growing demand spurred the recent opening of Kolkata’s Anapol Institute, said to be India’s first private-detective school.
Marriages in India, 90% of which are arranged, are more a merging of clans than a union of two people, and therefore proceed with greater caution. And beneath the nation’s glitzy veneer rests a traditional core. Finding that a woman smokes, drinks an occasional beer with colleagues or frequents nightclubs can put the kibosh on a marriage.
“India’s very orthodox, even though it pretends to be modern,” says Tanmoy Bhattacharya, a software consultant who commissioned a premarital investigation of his niece’s fiance. “With arranged marriages, it’s all very delicate.”
***
On the trail of the woman in the silver Hyundai, the two Globe Detective Agency investigators note that she’s driving a different car than she was the day before. They’re suspicious.
So they won’t be influenced in their investigations, they receive little information about their subjects. But with a few details about the woman’s identity, they’ve managed to download her picture from Facebook. She’s thinner in person than she appears in her Facebook photo, they note.
She’s a fast, decisive driver, complicating their efforts to tail her inconspicuously. Approaching a tollbooth, the detectives are forced to cut off several cars, amid much honking, to stay close.
They’re not too concerned that she’ll notice them. “In India, no one really looks in their rear-view mirror,” says the scarless Kumar.
They snap a cellphone photo for their report. She’s wearing bangles, which are more typically worn by married women, another thing they find a bit odd. Kumar-with-the-scar decides she’s good-looking. “I don’t think I can drive that well,” he adds.
***
Premarital investigations cost $200 to $400 and take seven to 10 days. Detectives follow the subject for 12 to 18 hours daily and chat up co-workers, domestic help and tradesmen under various pretexts. “Beware — your neighbor knows everything,” says Sanjay Singh, chief executive of New Delhi’s Indian Detective Agency. “Sometimes more than you know yourself.”
Particularly useful are fake marketing surveys. Enticed into participating with the promise of a free gift, sometimes something as modest as a bottle of shampoo, the subject or a neighbor may reveal a secret relationship or details of a would-be bride or groom’s late-night entertainment activities and smoking or drinking habits.
“People love freebies,” says Krishna Kumar, an Anapol Institute graduate. “Most fall for it hook, line and sinker.”
She worked at a computer company for four years before deciding detective work would be a lot more challenging. Women have a big advantage as sleuths because they’re non-threatening, can mingle better and are more intuitive, she says.
“I like doing premarital investigations best,” she says. “You’re watching someone go in a new direction, and your work could make or break their future.”
For ferreting out details on employment, finances and family history, cash bribes or bottles of whiskey work wonders, detectives say. Some admit hacking phones and computers and paying bribes to obtain credit card records.
Most premarital investigations are ordered by parents, although sometimes spouses-to-be want a little snooping done, including women keen to size up their prospective mothers-in-law in a society where it is common for couples to live with the husband’s extended family.
According to detectives, investigations turn up significant problems in about 60% of cases. In about 10%, the discoveries are explosive enough — such as previously undisclosed marriages or serious hereditary diseases — to cause cancellation of the wedding.
For the caste-conscious, a hidden Dalit relative, or so-called untouchable, is also problematic. “Caste and dowries remain huge issues today, and people like to exaggerate,” says Sachit Kumar, director of Globe Detective Agency.
A factor driving premarital investigations is the growing number of cases in which foreigners of Indian descent marry and then disappear, often taking huge dowries with them. It happens to 30,000 brides every year in northern Punjab state alone, according to India’s National Commission for Women.
A woman named Priya, 35, hired detectives to investigate three potential husbands she met on matchmaking sites. The first one, it turned out, had lied about almost everything. The second was short-tempered to everyone but his mother, to whom he was slavish.
The third checked out on all counts. He’s now her fiance.
“All told, I’ve spent $2,000 on investigations,” says Priya, who asked to be identified by her first name only for fear of jeopardizing her marriage. “But otherwise I’d be trapped. It was money well spent.”
Some, however, find spying on a future spouse questionable.
“There’s no trust to begin with if you feel compelled to hire a detective,” says Amrita O’Sullivan, 28, who works in an advertising agency in Gurgaon. “It’s a complete intrusion.”
***
After 30 minutes on the highway, the young woman in the silver Hyundai arrives at a suburban house, greets a man in a striped shirt and heads to the balcony for a cigarette.
“We suspect it’s her boyfriend,” scarless Kumar says over the whine of a power saw at a construction site. The detectives drive past the house, but they think the pair suspects something — further evidence of guilt, they say — so they retreat out of sight near the cul-de-sac’s exit.
“I think he’s a manager at her company,” says Kumar-with-the-scar. “You develop a sixth sense.”
The hours pass. It’s over 100 degrees. A dog plunks down in the shade as the detectives listen to Bollywood tunes on a cellphone. Many people think private investigators are all about thrills, they say, but more often it’s endless waiting.
There are minor compensations.
“Her eyes are beautiful,” says Kumar-with-the-scar, looking at the woman’s picture again. “It’s always more interesting if they’re beautiful. And in this business, beauty fuels temptation. Beauty has many takers.”
mark.magnier@latimes.com
Tanvi Sharma of The Times’ New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.
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6b2d7c251890147de8dad0c322e941f1 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jun-29-la-na-europe-campaign-20120630-story.html | Romney’s critiques of Europe raise some questions | Romney’s critiques of Europe raise some questions
BRUNSWICK, Ohio — It is Republican tradition to portray Europe as a socialist haven where high taxes and extravagant public spending on healthcare and retirement benefits show the folly of Democrats’ big-government agenda.
But few have used the tactic as aggressively as Mitt Romney. For years, Republican crowds have applauded his scathing critique of Europe. As Europe’s fiscal turmoil has posed a growing threat to the global economy, Romney has made it one of his main lines of attack against President Obama.
“He’s taking us down a path towards Europe,” Romney told supporters at aFather’s Daybreakfast in this Cleveland suburb. “He wants us to see a bigger and bigger government, with a healthcare system run by the government. He wants to see people paying more and more in taxes.”
The road to Europe, Romney said, leads to chronic high unemployment, low wage growth and massive debts that can trigger fiscal calamity.
But Romney’s presentation ignores aspects of the European crisis that critics see as an illustration of how his own plans to shrink government could threaten the sputtering U.S. recovery. In Greece, Spain, Ireland and other Eurozone nations, unemployment has soared amid steep government cutbacks under austerity measures championed by Germany.
In Britain, critics of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron blame the country’s recent slide back into recession on his austerity agenda of scaling back government.
Obama has rejected austerity, calling instead for new federal spending on short-term stimulus measures, such as road construction and state aid to stop layoffs of teachers and other public workers, followed by long-term budget cuts to reduce the deficit once the economy recovers.
Facing diplomatic constraints, the president has avoided comparing European austerity to Romney’s economic plans.
Former President Clinton, however, has been blunt about drawing political lessons from Europe — saying that Romney’s vision of smaller government would kill jobs, both private and public.
“Who would have ever thought that the Republicans would embrace the austerity and jobless policies of what they used to derisively call old Europe?” Clinton told Obama campaign donors at a fundraising dinner with the president June 4 in New York City.
“I never thought I’d live to breathe and see, here they are, saying, ‘Let’s do the Eurozone’s economic policy. They got 11% unemployment. We can get up there if we work at it.’”
The U.S. unemployment rate, which peaked at 10% in October 2009, dropped to 8.1% in April, then bumped back up to 8.2% last month.
Romney’s digs at Europe are not just economic; they are also cultural. A December 2006 blueprint for his first presidential campaign, disclosed by the Boston Globe, featured Romney attacks on “European-style socialism” — aimed especially at France, even though Jacques Chirac, the French president at the time, was a conservative.
Foreseeing a race against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, the PowerPoint blueprint included Romney saying the European Union wanted to “drag America down to Europe’s standards,” adding: “That’s where Hillary and Dems would take us. Hillary = France.”
Romney has used attacks along those lines ever since. Having lived in France as a Mormon missionary for 2 1/2 years in the 1960s, Europe is delicate turf for Romney. As head of the organizing committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he spoke French for two minutes in a video to welcome volunteers. “Bonjour, je m’appelle Mitt Romney,” he began.
In March, Romney mocked Europeans at a rally in Wisconsin. He accused Obama of blocking oil, coal and natural gas projects, saying, “That’s of course so that you can have the applause of the Europeans for all of the wind and solar that you’re using.”
Other Republicans have tried to keep the debate over austerity from muddying the party’s political narrative on Europe.
In a recent speech at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, House Budget Committee ChairmanPaul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said Democrats were overspending with borrowed money, just as he said European nations had.
Ryan’s calls for deep tax and spending cuts, which Romney has embraced, are premised on a need for immediate steps to reduce debt — just as European austerity policies are. Yet Ryan distanced himself from the word “austerity” as he laid out his fiscal plans.
“We must avoid European-style austerity — harsh benefit cuts for current retirees and large tax increases that slow the economy to a crawl,” Ryan said, noting that tax increases, too, are part of Europe’s controversial debt reduction plans. “But too many in Washington are repeating Europe’s mistakes instead of learning from them.”
Like Ryan, Romney argues that tax cuts — and smaller government — will spur business investments that create jobs. When questioned on whether austerity might worsen unemployment, Romney has conceded that slashing government spending too fast would slow the economy.
But his emphasis remains on what he describes as the excessive spending and borrowing at the root of Europe’s crisis.
“You know how many people are unemployed in Spain?” Romney asked the crowd in Ohio. “Twenty-five percent of the population. That’s where European-style policies lead. I don’t want to transform America into Europe.”
michael.finnegan@latimes.com
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2993790382e21a35249a2ac95c74a7ea | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-mar-08-la-fg-pakistan-iran-pipeline-20120309-story.html | Pakistan’s Iran pipeline plan further strains ties with U.S. | Pakistan’s Iran pipeline plan further strains ties with U.S.
As the U.S. and Pakistan struggle to patch up frayed ties, plans for a Pakistani-Iranian natural gas pipeline further threaten the fragile partnership.
Pakistan desperately needs new energy sources and has made it clear that it plans to forge ahead with the pipeline to bring in natural gas from Iran, despite warnings from the U.S. that Islamabad could be hit with economic sanctions if it follows through with the project.
“If built, [it] could raise serious concerns under the Iran Sanctions Act. We have made that absolutely clear,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a congressional hearing last month. “We believe that actually beginning the construction of such a pipeline, either as an Iranian project or as a joint project, would violate our Iran sanctions law.”
The imposition of sanctions “would be particularly damaging to Pakistan because their economy is already quite shaky,” she said.
Pakistan’s leaders appear unmoved. At a news conference last week, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said talk of sanctions wouldn’t deter Islamabad from ramping up its cooperation with Iran.
“We cannot afford to be selective about where we receive energy from,” Khar said.
More than half of Pakistan’s manufacturers use natural gas to power their factories, and no other country relies as heavily on natural gas to fuel its cars, buses and trucks. About 21% of the country’s vehicles run on compressed natural gas.
Yet Pakistan produces only 30% of the natural gas it needs. Neighboring Iran, meanwhile, has the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves, topped only by Russia. The proposed 1,300-mile pipeline would deliver to Pakistan more than 750 million cubic feet of gas per day from Iran’s South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The U.S. has touted an alternative pipeline project that would transport natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and into Pakistan and India. But with Afghanistan mired in a 10-year-old war with Taliban insurgents, experts in Pakistan doubt that pipeline will ever be built.
“A lot of people might be huffing and puffing, but no one is coming up with a viable alternative,” said Safiya Aftab, a columnist with the Friday Times, a Pakistani weekly newspaper. “Running a pipeline through Afghanistan in the current conditions is not going to happen.”
The U.S. is trying to persuade Pakistan to drop the Iranian pipeline project at a time when its government is taking stock of its relations with Washington after the errant American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border in November.
Pakistanis have also been deeply frustrated with the continuation of U.S. drone missile strikes against militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and with Washington’s decision not to inform Islamabad before launching the commando raid that killed Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden in the military city of Abbottabad in May. Islamabad’s government is under heavy pressure from a vehemently anti-American public to reduce its dependence on Washington and assert its own agenda.
The effort to scuttle the pipeline venture is part of Washington’s bid to economically squeeze the Iranian government, which it believes is intent on building nuclear weapons. A similar imposition of sanctions on Pakistan could devastate the country’s economy, already weakened by years of militancy and overburdened by debt to international lenders.
Such a move might cause irreparable harm to Washington’s relationship with Pakistan, a difficult but vital ally in the fight against terrorism. Pakistan is also viewed as having a key role in facilitating talks with Afghan Taliban insurgents who use Pakistani territory as sanctuary.
“I think it would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Zafar Hilaly, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. “If sanctions are imposed, then I don’t think we could have a Pakistani government that is even remotely disposed toward the U.S.”
Analysts in Pakistan say Washington’s warnings about the pipeline are premature because the project is far from being realized. Iran has nearly completed the pipeline on its side of the border, but Pakistan hasn’t started yet and is struggling to find financing for the $1.2-billion segment on its territory.
“Pakistan can’t build it until they get funding,” Aftab said. “That’s where they are running into problems.”
alex.rodriguez@latimes.com
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2fb24358ed310fad6ace3431857d5388 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-mar-08-la-na-koran-training-20120308-story.html | U.S. military struggles to teach troops to respect Koran | U.S. military struggles to teach troops to respect Koran
Troops serving in Afghanistan were advised never to touch the Koran, never to place anything on top of one, and to keep it off the floor and out of bathrooms. They were even told never to “talk badly” about it.
But the do’s and don’ts said nothing about burning the Muslim holy book, which is what happened last month as a cache of Korans was incinerated at Bagram air base, setting off riots across the country that killed more than 30 people and provoked attacks on U.S. forces.
An investigation by NATO officials into the burnings found five U.S. troops responsible, but it concluded that the actions were not deliberate and were the result of a miscommunication. The troops could face disciplinary action, but commanders in Afghanistan have not yet announced the form it will take.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops last week started mandatory refresher training on how to handle the Koran. Troops are now told flatly not to dispose of Korans and will be urged to err on the side of caution when dealing with Arabic texts, assuming “material is sacred if there is any doubt over its religious significance.”
But some experts think the more explicit approach might not stop future incidents. Montgomery McFate, an anthropologist who has worked closely with the U.S. Defense Department, said the issuance of cultural do’s and don’ts was only useful to a point.
“It makes culture into a set of arbitrary rules. You don’t understand why,” she said. “The Bible is not considered itself a holy object, and unless you’d grown up in a religious tradition where that was true, you wouldn’t understand the way that Muslims feel about the Koran.”
Lt. Col. George Robinson is a senior officer in the Marine Corps’ language and culture training programs and has seen the new training documents issued last month. “It’s probably a little too simplistic to suggest that it’s a simple matter of do’s and don’ts,” he said. “It’s more a matter of why is the Koran important.”
The Koran, which means “the recitation” in Arabic, is considered by Muslims to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the prophet Muhammad.
The military has struggled for years with troops mishandling Korans. In 2005, Newsweek reported that a Koran was flushed down a toilet in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003. An internal investigation found no evidence to back up the allegation, but it did find that a camp guard had deliberately kicked a Koran. In 2008, the Army announced that a soldier in Iraq had used a Koran for target practice.
In the early years of the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, cultural awareness training was practically nonexistent. Now, all Army forces are required to undertake six to eight hours of online training before they deploy, and Marines get two days of classroom courses.
According to Rochelle Davis, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars who is writing a book on cultural training in the military, troops she has interviewed found such training useful and commanders recognize its value too.
“Over the past decade we have created a military that is the strongest, most powerful military in the world, but we haven’t been able to achieve what we wanted to achieve in Iraq and Afghan,” she said. “Culture and interacting with the populations has been one of the ways that they think it can happen.”
Mahir Ibrahimov, a top Army advisor on culture and language, is working to update and standardize the service’s approach. He said the Koran burnings could affect the Army’s training. “If that’s the result of a lack of cultural training, of course we need to keep that in mind for the future,” he said.
Ibrahimov was a soldier in the Soviet army in the 1970s. He received training on the culture of Afghanistan as the Soviet Union geared up for its disastrous 1979 invasion, and later worked as a civilian in Moscow developing cultural training programs.
Despite the painful Soviet experience in Afghanistan, Ibrahimov said he was not surprised it had taken the U.S. time to refine its training. Translating a Russian proverb, he put it this way: “You cannot learn from others’ mistakes; you only really learn from your mistakes.”
ian.duncan@latimes.com
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8bf2ea162fc6e30f58a57eef6e3a8bb4 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-mar-19-la-na-bales-profile-20120320-story.html | Who is Robert Bales? Friends, comrades thought they knew | Who is Robert Bales? Friends, comrades thought they knew
Reporting from Lake Tapps, Wash., and Norwood, Ohio
For those who grew up with him, Robert Bales seemed to have a place reserved on easy street. Captain of the football team and president of the sophomore class at his Ohio high school, Bales after just three years of college had an oceanfront condo in Florida. He was also pulling in more than $100,000 a year as a financial advisor.
His investment work ran into trouble, though, and when the Sept. 11 attacks came, Bales felt what friends said was an irresistible call. He enlisted in the Army — signed up for the hardest duty anybody could ask for, the infantry — and headed almost straight for Iraq.
“I thought, ‘Jeez, man. That’s crazy. You’ve got it all,’ ” said Steven Berling, a high school friend.
But Bales had long seemed fascinated by what led nations into combat. “I remember one day in AP [advanced placement] history class, Bobby and the teacher were going back and forth about old wars and … various historic battles,” Berling said. “He must have been reading up on all that on his own.”
In Iraq, Bales was a soldier “who really believed in it,” his former platoon leader, Chris Alexander, said. “It was rare to find an E5 soldier who was as deep a thinker as he was.... He’d get into these epic conversations about the Middle East and our role.”
Now, friends are trying to piece together how the gregarious 38-year-old staff sergeant could have become the tragic anti-hero suspected in the late-night massacre of 16 Afghan civilians — a crime that has prompted new questions about how much longer the U.S. can remain in Afghanistan.
For soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where Bales was based during three deployments to Iraq and one in Afghanistan, the events have been dumbfounding. Bales trained his men carefully, oversaw his patrols vigilantly, and treated Iraqi villagers with respect and good humor. That he could have snapped so precipitously is almost beyond comprehension.
There is sympathy for the financial problems, multiple deployments and violence that may have imposed unbearable stress, but also contempt for a soldier who may have put others in the path of potential violent reprisals.
“The picture that’s being painted of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales — that ‘There but for the grace of God goes any other American soldier’ — this is amazingly offensive,” said Bryan Suits, who hosts a Seattle-based KFI radio show popular with soldiers and veterans.
Suits, who served three Army deployments, said nearly all long-serving U.S. troops had similar stories of nightmarish deployments. “Everybody’s been there. And this is the first time a guy has killed 16 civilians,” he said.
But Bales’ combat colleagues appear more mystified than angry.
“I know Bales. I worked with him for years. He was a great NCO,” Alexander said. “And you don’t go from being somebody like that to all of a sudden shooting unarmed people.... There’s something more to it.”
Longtime friend Michael Blevins, who grew up with Bales in Ohio, said almost the same thing. “I want people to know there is no way the guy I knew did this,” he said. “You don’t go from being a local hero to a monster.”
* * *
People from the working-class neighborhood of shady lanes and two-story panel homes in Norwood, Ohio, where Bales grew up said that, even early on, Bales seemed to feel it was his mission to protect the neighborhood.
“When Bobby was 10 or so, there were half a dozen teenagers talking loud and obnoxious in front of his house. He went outside and ran them off after knocking one of them into the bushes,” Blevins recalled. “My mother watched the whole thing from her porch. When it was all over, Bobby walked across the street and said, ‘I’m sorry they were talking that way and that you had to hear it.’ ”
Bales attended Ohio State University for three years and went to work as a financial advisor with several firms in Ohio, launching his own investment firm with his brother in Florida.
But according to a report from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Bales and his Ohio firm were the target of a major complaint from a client in 2000. In 2003, Bales and his partners were directed in arbitration to pay more than $1.2 million in compensatory and punitive damages for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and other charges.
Meanwhile, the World Trade Center attacks had occurred, and Bales abandoned the world of stocks and bonds for the Army.
Bales was stationed almost immediately at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, joining the 2nd Infantry Division’s 3rd Stryker Brigade. Court records show he was charged in 2002 with criminal assault in a case involving a girlfriend; the charge was dismissed after he underwent anger management training.
In 2005, he married Karilyn Primeau, who grew up in the well-to-do suburbs east of Lake Washington, and who neighbors said already owned a home in Auburn, not far from the military base. Bales by then was preparing for his second deployment to Iraq and walking with a pronounced limp; acquaintances said it appeared a medical mishap had compounded a previous injury and led to the loss of part of his foot. It’s unclear when the original injury occurred.
“His main focus and goals at that time were to get healthy, get in another unit and go back over there,” said his neighbor in Auburn, Timothy Burgess. “Which kind of amazed me, because he’d already got injured and it was like, ‘Ain’t you done enough?’ ”
Bales also suffered a head injury in a vehicle rollover unrelated to combat. But he seemed to revel in battle and, even when patrols were quiet, would sit alert on the back of his Stryker vehicle as he’d been trained to do, Alexander said.
“Some of us got pretty jaded, but he really wasn’t one of those. There was a genuine, ‘We need to win the hearts and minds’ attitude, and he put effort into it. He’d smile at the kids. He learned a little bit of Arabic to throw out at folks, the kind of stuff that shows you’re not Robocop walking around in body armor.”
The Bales’ two children, ages 3 and 5, were born while Bales was overseas. The couple had moved to a bigger house in the wooded, lakeside neighborhood of Lake Tapps, but they owed too much on the Auburn house to sell it. That house fell into disrepair and the bank took it over.
Soon, the couple had trouble keeping up with the payments on the Lake Tapps house too.
Still, they seemed like a solid couple, said many who knew them. They were hoping, after Bales’ third deployment, that he could be assigned a safe job as a military recruiter.
Ann Burlingame, a high school friend of Karilyn’s, saw the couple at a reunion last summer. “They were handsome; just so happy to be together,” she said. Bales, she said, regaled the group with war stories. “He was really looking forward to spending a career in the military.”
* * *
Things didn’t work out as the couple had hoped, though. Bales was up for a promotion to sergeant first class but didn’t make it. And then the couple got news that Bales’ unit was going to Afghanistan in December.
What went wrong on this deployment is now the subject of an exhaustive Army investigation; official charges are likely later this week.
At a briefing in Afghanistan, a U.S. legal expert said authorities were investigating the possibility that a makeshift bomb had damaged a U.S. tank near the scene of the shootings several days earlier, prompting what villagers said were threats of reprisals from U.S. forces. And Bales’ lawyer, John Henry Browne, said Bales was not present but was traumatized by the explosion that cost a fellow soldier a leg.
After meeting with his client at Ft. Leavenworth on Monday, Browne said Bales remembers little or nothing from when the military believes he went on a shooting rampage.
“He has some memory of some things that happened that night. He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little,” Browne told the Associated Press.
Back home, there were dark rumbles on the domestic front too. On the eve of the shootings, Karilyn Bales had put the house up for sale for more than $50,000 less than they’d paid for it.
On Monday, two small moving vans pulled into the driveway and started the process of removing what had been the Bales family’s life there.
In a statement released through lawyers Monday, Karilyn Bales called the shootings “a terrible and heartbreaking tragedy.” She extended condolences to Afghans who lost family members, saying she and her husband’s family are “profoundly sad.”
“I too want to know what happened,” she said. “I want to know how this could be.”
kim.murphy@latimes.com
louis.sahagun@latimes.com
Murphy reported from Lake Tapps and Sahagun from Norwood.
Times staff writers Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Los Angeles, Richard Serrano in Washington and Laura King in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
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0e98072bf096f571362213a390adbd9a | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-mar-21-la-fg-france-shootings-20120322-story.html | Standoff with shooting suspect unfolds in France | Standoff with shooting suspect unfolds in France
A standoff with a gunman deemed France’s public enemy No. 1 after he claimed responsibility for three shootings that left seven people dead entered its second day Thursday as heavily armed police tried to extricate the suspect from a barricaded apartment in Toulouse.
Elite SWAT-style officers had cordoned off the four-story building and spent more than 24 hours trying to persuade 23-year-old Mohamed Merah to surrender after he boasted of a 10-day terrorist rampage that left three Jewish children, a rabbi and three French paratroopers dead. Merah told police negotiators he was linked to a group associated with Al Qaeda.
Authorities first tried to talk him out, and then they tried freezing him out by turning off the gas and electricity to his apartment. Finally, shortly before midnight Wednesday, they tried to scare him out by using explosives to blast the walls of the building where he was holed up.
Witnesses reported three explosions and orange flashes lighting up the night sky after Merah reportedly reneged on a pledge to surrender. Further blasts and bursts of gunfire were heard a few hours later, but officials denied that a full-out assault was underway in the southwestern city.
The hundreds of heavily armed security officers, many in body armor, were under strict orders to bring Merah in alive.
The unemployed auto-body repairman spent Wednesday shouting his allegiance to Al Qaeda and telling police negotiators that his only regret was “not having more time to kill more people.” Police described his declarations as “icy.”
A massive manhunt had begun Monday after a gunman barged into a Jewish school in Toulouse, shooting three children and a rabbi point-blank. Officials said the gunman chased and cornered one victim, an 8-year-old girl, before pulling her to him by the hair and shooting her in the head.
The school attack followed two drive-by attacks last week on French paratroopers; three soldiers were killed.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin, had claimed responsibility for all three attacks. Merah also boasted that he had “brought France to its knees,” Molins said, and had been planning further killings when police surrounded him.
Merah claimed that he been asked by Al Qaeda to carry out a suicide attack in Europe but refused because he preferred to kill and live, officials said. He said he had “accepted a general mission to commit an attack in France,” French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters.
Molins, however, warned that all Merah’s claims needed to be checked.
The siege began about 3 a.m. Wednesday when members of a police tactical squad surrounded a block of apartments in a residential area of Toulouse. Two hours earlier, a man believed to be Merah had called a French television station, France 24, claiming he had carried out the three shootings.
As police tried to smash their way into one ground-floor unit, shots were fired from inside, injuring three officers.
Gueant said Merah had “talked a lot” to police negotiators, telling officers he attacked a local Jewish school in revenge for the killing of Palestinian children.
On Wednesday, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the French attacks and dismissed any attempt to link the crimes to the cause of Palestinian statehood. “It is time for those criminals to stop exploiting the name of Palestine through their terrorist actions or claim victory to the rights of Palestinian children, who only seek a decent life for themselves and all children of the world,” Fayyad said.
And before a meeting with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who accompanied the bodies of the children and rabbi to Israel for burial, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the world to fight anti-Semitism and terrorism.
Merah also reportedly said he had shot the three soldiers, two of them Muslims, in retaliation for French military involvement in Afghanistan.
Several hours into the siege, the suspect gave up one weapon, a Colt .45, believed to have been used in the three shootings. But it was believed he still had two automatic weapons.
A woman whom police identified as the suspect’s mother was asked by police to persuade him to surrender. She refused, saying she had “no control over him.”
Merah, one of five children, was reportedly first arrested at 17 and had a history of minor offenses for which he spent time in jail. An older brother was also arrested Wednesday.
The government said Merah had been under surveillance by the security services but had shown no signs of planning any “criminal act.”
Merah was reported to have traveled to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban. Reuters news service quoted an Afghan prison official as saying Merah was arrested five years ago and sentenced to three years behind bars for planting bombs in Kandahar province but escaped months later in a Taliban prison break.
However, the Telegraph in London later reported that the Afghan government denied ever detaining a French citizen named Mohamed Merah, casting doubt on the prison director’s claims.
Gueant said Merah had “explained a lot about his itinerary” to police negotiators. “His radicalization took place in a Salafist ideological group and seems to have been firmed up by two journeys he made to Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Gueant said.
French army officials confirmed that Merah tried to enlist in 2008 and had passed the necessary tests, but he was rejected because of his criminal record. He had also applied to join the French Foreign Legion in Toulouse.
The break in the manhunt came when a Yamaha dealer in Toulouse recalled a young man asking how to disable the GPS tracker on his 500cc TMAX scooter, which had been stolen and repainted. Witnesses at two of the shootings reported that the killer escaped on a similar vehicle.
Investigators also traced an Internet address believed to have been used by the killer to arrange a meeting with the first victim, a paratrooper who was selling his motorbike and had placed an ad online.
Christian Etelin, a lawyer who represented Merah in court last month on charges of driving without a license in Toulouse, said Merah knew he had been under surveillance since returning from Afghanistan. He described Merah as “by no means rigid or fanatical” and said he could not imagine him committing the shootings. He said Merah had “the face of an archangel.”
“He was polite and courteous ... quite sweet actually,” Etelin said.
With just five weeks before the presidential election, Jewish and Muslim leaders have urged the candidates not to make political capital of the killings.
The fact that the gunman appeared to have North African roots and Al Qaeda links played into the hands of France’s extreme right: Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front immediately declared the “risk of fundamentalism” had been underestimated in France and proposed a referendum on bringing back the death penalty.
Nicolas Sarkozy, whose campaign for reelection had been floundering, was said to be hoping that his handling of the case would restore his image as France’s “Super Cop.”
One of the president’s defining moments was in 1993 when he was mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine and a man calling himself the Human Bomb held a classroom of children in the town hostage. Sarkozy personally negotiated their release. The Human Bomb was shot to death by police after a two-day standoff.
Political campaigning has been temporarily suspended but is expected to resume in the next few days.
Willsher is a special correspondent.
Times staff writer Edmund Sanders in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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5b8318e3e8f27f8275964c1da6cda60d | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-mar-25-la-na-poll-presidential-20120325-story.html | California Republicans get behind Mitt Romney | California Republicans get behind Mitt Romney
Republican voters in California have swung behind Mitt Romney, with the national presidential front-runner crushing his rivals by double digits and substantially expanding his support in the state, a new poll has found.
Romney won 42% of registered Republican voters, with his closest rival, Rick Santorum, trailing by 19 points, according to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul were a distant third and fourth.
Romney’s support has risen by 15 points since a November USC/Times poll, when Herman Cain was his closest competitor. (The former businessman has since dropped out.)
Yet there remains a palpable lack of enthusiasm for the Republican field. Half of GOP voters said they wished other candidates were running for president.
Barbara Foley, a 73-year-old Republican, said she would prefer former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or Rep.Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. She decided to vote for Romney by process of elimination — she says Santorum is too socially conservative, Gingrich is smart but a “loose cannon,” and Paul — “well, I just think he’s nuttier than a fruitcake.”
“I vote the lesser of two evils, unfortunately,” said the Alpine retiree, who deeply disapproves of President Obama, notably his healthcare law, and fears the nation has grown increasingly socialist under his watch. “Mitt Romney is the lesser of the evils.”
The poll, conducted for The Times and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, comes less than three months before California holds its primary, a late contest that has loomed as potentially important as the GOP nomination battle continues.
Although Romney appears headed to a romp on June 5, when the pool of voters will be limited to registered Republicans, his prospects against Obama in the fall remain dim, the poll found. Obama led Romney by 21 points and the other candidates by even more — Paul by 28 points, Santorum by 29 and Gingrich by 32.
Nearly 6 in 10 voters surveyed said they approved of the president’s job performance, a increase of 7 points since the last USC/Times poll in November. And 62% said they had a favorable impression, a figure that soared to 73% among Latinos, one of the state’s key electoral groups.
Voters had a negative impression of all of the Republican candidates, in contrast. Romney ranked highest, with 37% saying they had a favorable view of him. For Paul it was 30%, Santorum 28% and Gingrich 25%.
California voters, who had cooled somewhat toward Obama, now give him improved marks on such issues as his handling of the economy, jobs and taxes. While they remain concerned about the state’s economy, voters indicated growing faith in the national recovery. That was particularly true among independents, a key constituency for Obama.
“They see a strong national economy and they appear to be giving the president credit for that,” said pollster Stanley B. Greenberg of the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, which conducted the survey with the Republican firm American Viewpoint.
A warning sign was evident in Obama’s handling of escalating gas prices. Nearly two-thirds of voters disapproved of his response, making it the area in which he fared the poorest. While the issue has yet to dramatically affect his standing in California, Obama’s campaign has indicated its concern about the long-term impact of gas prices; last week the president touted his energy policies at events in four states.
Michelle Fischer, an accountant from South San Francisco, said her family had to cut out movies, dining out and luxury purchases because of their $500 weekly bill for gas. (Her husband commutes 80 miles a day.) But though she is disappointed in Obama’s handling of gas prices, she strongly approves of his overall job performance and plans to vote for him in November.
“I think he’s doing the best he can. I really do. I think his hands are tied with what he inherited,” said the 50-year-old registered Democrat. “I don’t think he’s the only one who caused it; it’s not just one person. Everybody is part of it, and I think maybe the oil companies are more at fault than the government.”
The fact that the issue has spurred dissatisfaction in California, where support for Obama is strong, suggests it could have a more substantial impact in more-competitive states, according to poll director Dan Schnur.
“Gasoline prices would probably have to hit $20 a gallon to put Obama in serious trouble here in California,” said Schnur, who heads USC’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. “But if voters in a deep-blue state like this one are that unhappy with the way he’s handling this issue, it should be a big warning as to what his campaign is going to have to deal with in Ohio or Florida.”
The first Republican candidate to seize on gas prices was Gingrich, but the former House speaker has not reaped a benefit. In the November poll he was among Romney’s chief rivals for the nomination, but he is now attracting the support of 12% of the state’s GOP voters. Paul, the Texas congressman, finished last with 10%. The poll surveyed 1,500 registered voters by phone between March 14 and 19. The survey has an overall margin of error of 2.9 percentage points in either direction.
Romney’s gains in recent months came across the board. The former Massachusetts governor leads in nearly every demographic group, with his greatest support coming from Los Angeles County and the Bay Area. He wins nearly every age group and educational level, except voters ages 18 to 29, who favor Paul with 30% of their vote to Santorum’s 21% and Romney’s 20%, and voters who did not attend college, among whom Romney ties Santorum at 30%.
Because California will award most of its delegates by congressional district, there are opportunities for Romney’s rivals to focus their efforts geographically. In the Central Valley, for example, Santorum beats Romney by 5 points.
Marten Verhoeven, a consultant from Hanford, said he was drawn to Santorum because of the former Pennsylvania senator’s socially conservative values and his opposition to overly burdensome regulations. Verhoeven said he experienced layers of bureaucracy every day while helping farmers and dairymen comply with regulations.
Santorum “is about the most logical one. I think his environmental views are about what’s best for our country right now in these times,” the 51-year-old Republican said. “This president really scares me.”
Nothing in the poll, however, suggested that Santorum had a realistic chance to catch Romney, with his sophisticated campaign machine and flush war chest — and commanding lead in the delegate race.
“The race is moving towards Romney being the GOP nominee,” said Linda DiVall of the Republican polling firm American Viewpoint. And, she added, “Romney’s increased hold on delegates begins to create the sentiment of getting on board with the winner.”
seema.mehta@latimes.com
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f09750e7dc07ade49197c215d30347f0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-mar-29-la-fg-saudi-worries-20120330-story.html | Mideast upheaval knocks Saudi Arabia off balance | Mideast upheaval knocks Saudi Arabia off balance
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The Saudi royal family prizes stability as much as the oil that secures its wealth, but political upheaval across the Middle East has shaken the kingdom’s sense of balance, forcing it to press for radical change in Syria and confront a bid by longtime nemesis Iran to wield greater influence.
The decades-old rivalry between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite-controlled Iran for prominence in the region is one of the volatile subplots embedded in the “Arab Spring."This was evident Thursday when Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries, which have complained of Iranian manipulation of the Shiite-majority government in Iraq, sent lower-level delegations to the Arab League summit in Baghdad.
Intrigue between Riyadh and Tehran has sharpened as Iran has accelerated its nuclear program. The kingdom blames Tehran for training Islamic militants and for stirring sectarianism in eastern Saudi Arabia and in neighboring Yemen and Bahrain. The bloodshed in Syria has enraged the monarchy, but also provided a moral cover as it attempts to undercut Iran by weakening its strategic proxy, Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Iran’s meddling “is very dangerous,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal told The Times.
In a wide-ranging interview, Saud listed other highly charged issues, including Israel’sthreat to attack Iran’s nuclear program. His comments about the region’s precipitous change, including the ouster of longtime Saudi allies such as deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, illustrate how cautiously Saudi Arabia’s old guard is navigating this perilous new world.
Expressing Saudi fears that the Arab uprisings could ignite new unrest in the region, and even within the kingdom, the prince reflected on epoch-changing rebellions. “Revolutions have brought good things, and some revolutions have brought bad things,” he said. “The French Revolution was followed by a reign of terror.”
The Obama administration embraced the Arab revolts last year, a policy that strained relations with Riyadh. The strategic U.S.-Saudi partnership, as both sides like to call it, has improved somewhat since. Both countries share similar concerns about Iran and Syria, and seek to calm oil markets to prevent further pressure on the global economy.
Led by a king in his late 80s and a cadre of top princes not much younger, the House of Saud presides over a nation anxious about succession and a young generation craving greater freedom from the kingdom’s rigid form of Islam and an oppressive Interior Ministry often cited for human rights abuses.
Saudi Arabia’s decisions to send troops to help crush a Shiite rebellion in Bahrain and to grant refuge last year to deposed Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali are testaments to its resistance to shifting regional dynamics. The message was stark: The kingdom stands by its allies — no matter how corrupt — and will not tolerate antigovernment protest.
But some leaders, most notably Assad, whose violent repression of his people has jarred the world, are expendable to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries in their larger strategic struggle against Iran. Removing the Syrian president and his Shiite-offshoot Alawite regime could bring Syria’s majority Sunnis to power, and limit Iran’s reach in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, where it backs the militant group Hamas.
Prince Saud has urged the international community to arm Syria’s rebels, but he denied reports that the kingdom was secretly sending weapons through Jordan. “You must at least allow those who are being killed to protect themselves,” he said. “Perhaps that will change the mind of the government if they see that.”
He was animated in criticizing world powers, especially Russia and China, for not stopping Assad’s army from its pummeling of Homs and other Syrian cities. Moscow and Beijing, which increasingly needs Saudi oil to fuel its economic growth, blocked attempts by the United Nations to impose harsher sanctions on Damascus.
“We don’t understand what objectives they [Russia and China] are trying to pursue,” Saud said. “If it is stability they’re looking for, certainly stability cannot be achieved by such a policy of bloodletting. If it’s protecting their interests, they are losing public opinion in the region very quickly.”
On Tuesday, the Assad regime agreed to a cease-fire negotiated by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan. But the government has broken past pledges, and fighting continued in the conflict, which the United Nations says has claimed more than 9,000 lives. The fate of Syria is central to the tension between Riyadh and Tehran, which has framed much of the politics in the region since Iran’s 1979 revolution.
Saudi Arabia is frustrated over how to counter Iran’s maneuverings, which include expanding its influence with Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, training Islamic militants in Lebanon and arming Houthi rebels in Yemen. The kingdom’s army battled the rebels in 2009 along the Saudi-Yemen border. Riyadh also alleges that Tehran is aiding an Al Qaeda branch in Yemen for attacks on oil targets inside the kingdom.
Saud said, however, that Iran’s alliances with countries such as Iraq and Syria were not stronger than the allegiances those nations have to the Arab world.
“Syria and Iraq are Arab countries, and whatever change happens [they] will be coming back to the Arab fold and not going toward Iran,” he said.
The mistrust has been exacerbated by Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian proposes, but the U.S. believes the goal is to produce a bomb. The fear is that Tehran’s nuclear aspirations will spur Arab countries to follow suit to protect themselves. Concern for its security and efforts to counter Iran partly influenced Saudi Arabia’s decision to buy $60 billion worth of fighter aircraft, helicopters and other equipment from the U.S. in 2010.
Deep economic sanctions imposed on Iran have led to threats by Tehran to close the Strait of Hormuz, which would affect shipping lanes for all gulf countries. The Saudis have attempted to allay fears, saying that there is enough oil on the market and that it would boost output if necessary.
Saudi Arabia and other gulf states are more alarmed by the specter of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations. Such an attack would probably shift international condemnation against Iran to Israel, spur terrorism against Jerusalem and possibly lead to a wider regional war. Saud said that Israel’s rhetoric is reckless and that its security is not in jeopardy.
“Who is threatening Israel with atomic bombs? Which Arab countries are arrayed on the border of Israel? Is there a threat to Israel’s security?” he asked. An Israeli attack on Iran without considering the wider consequences “would be an act of extreme uncaring for the region and its stability,” he said.
Saud said his kingdom has been closely following the global debate over Washington’s perceived loss of influence.
“People are saying that America is losing its power because it’s not able to influence events in other countries,” he said. “What you hear in the debate is that because America is not using its military force to solve things it’s losing power.”
He said, however, that the White House was turning “to the power of ideas,” which is “more important that the power of artillery.”
But even that, he suggested, can be inconsistent, especially when it comes to U.S. support of Israel and lack of progress on a Palestinian state. Saud said the Arab world was encouraged by President Obama’s speech to Muslims in Cairo in 2009, which struck a more conciliatory note than policies of theGeorge W. Bush administration.
“We thought, thank God, America is coming back,” he said. “But I think his program was abrogated before it was fulfilled.”
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
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8454252401b73fc31de067d6e40de931 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-mar-31-la-na-hiv-women-20120401-story.html | HIV among black women in 6 cities far exceeds national average | HIV among black women in 6 cities far exceeds national average
African American women in six U.S. cities are becoming infected with HIV at a rate five times the national average for black women, and closer to the rates of some African countries, according to a new study.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and around the country who made the findings suspected the rates were relatively high in these “hot spots” that have battled the epidemic for decades, but the numbers still came as a surprise in a field that tends to focus more on black and gay men.
The researchers found that in Baltimore; Atlanta; Newark, N.J.; New York City; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and Washington, the annual rate of infection was 24 per 10,000 black women. Nationally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that black women become infected at a rate of 5 per 10,000.
The rate in Congo is 28 per 10,000.
The study was conducted with funding from the National Institutes of Health by researchers who are part of a national consortium called the HIV Prevention Trials Network. The data were presented March 8 at the 19th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle.
Baltimore declared HIV a public health emergency in 2002, but the numbers of infected people continue to rise, particularly among at-risk groups, including IV drug users and gay and bisexual men.
Dr. Patrick Chaulk, assistant commissioner for HIV and STD services in the Baltimore Health Department, said a large share of the city’s resources to combat HIV go to men because they make up two-thirds of new cases in the city. Nationally it’s about three-quarters, according to the CDC.
But the city and partners at the state and in academic and nonprofit circles haven’t forgotten the women, Chaulk said. He cited programs aimed at drug users and sex workers, among others.
Every week, one city project sends a van with health workers to the Block, Baltimore’s red-light district. The workers have built trust among the people there, and not only test for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases but also offer reproductive health services, needle exchanges and assistance in securing health insurance and housing.
Through the program, the city reported testing 4,660 women last year for HIV, including 3,362 African American women. About seven were found to be positive for infection and referred for treatment.
The new study underscores the urgency in addressing the problem, said Dr. William A. Blattner, chairman of the City’s Commission on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment, which developed the Baltimore plan to reduce infections.
About the black women in particular, he said, “HIV continues to impact our most vulnerable and marginalized, in particular economically disadvantaged women whose risk is compounded by gender inequality and potential barriers to substance-abuse interventions.”
Reaching those women won’t be easy, said Patrice Henry, a patient advocate at Johns Hopkins who was diagnosed with HIV in 1995.
Many women put off being tested because of the stigma still associated with HIV and AIDS, Henry said. They fear telling family and partners. Many don’t have insurance.
“Women also tend not to put their medical concerns first,” she said. “They either think this won’t happen to them or they still find it a sensitive issue to discuss.”
A single 59-year-old living in Baltimore, Henry tells her story to women newly diagnosed with HIV who come to Hopkins for treatment. She shows them they don’t have to be scared of dying, or of living with the virus.
She tells them how she was a professional who never used drugs and was particular about the men she dated. It was nearly impossible for her to believe her diagnosis.
By the time she learned that she had been exposed to HIV, she had already developed AIDS and lost much of her body weight. She was given just a few months to live. Her mother was sitting in the city clinic’s waiting room, and Henry’s first thought was how she would tell her.
But Henry had the doctors explain her treatment to her and her mother. She stuck with the drug regimen, adopted a better diet and has been healthy for 17 years.
Now, she said, she hopes this new study will show how big the problem has become, and maybe persuade more women to get tested and treated.
“We as women need to look after ourselves,” Henry said.
meredith.cohn@baltsun.com
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b71504d8ae27c883376b7add496b1067 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-may-08-la-na-same-sex-marriage-20120508-story.html | Gay marriage is distancing Obama from other Democrats | Gay marriage is distancing Obama from other Democrats
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s carefully crafted position on the issue of gay marriage is leaving him trapped between liberal elements important to his party and the socially conservative swing voters who could well decide the November election.
But other Democrats with future White House ambitions are in a much different place. With same-sex marriage rapidly gaining support among Democratic voters and donors, they risk damaging their presidential prospects by remaining behind the curve on the issue.
As a result, a growing number of prominent Democratic leaders are leaving the president behind on gay marriage, which he opposes.
Vice President Joe Biden set off renewed discussion of the issue when he announced on a Sunday talk show that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage. The sentiment was echoed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Monday.
Gay rights groups hailed the statements, with the Human Rights Campaign splashing a large color photo of a grinning Biden and Duncan across its website.
Obama’s top reelection strategist, David Axelrod, insisted that Biden’s comments were “entirely consistent with the president’s position, which is that couples who are married, whether they are gay or heterosexual couples, are entitled to the very same rights and very same liberties.”
Axelrod told reporters on a conference call that “there couldn’t be a starker contrast on this issue than with Gov. [Mitt] Romney, who has funded efforts to roll back marriage laws in California and other places, who believes that we need a constitutional amendment banning the rights of gay couples to marry, and would take us backward, not forward.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, asked whether the president, like Biden, was comfortable with gays marrying, said Obama was comfortable with same-sex couples “being entitled to the same rights and the civil rights and civil liberties as other Americans.” He said he would leave the question of whether marriage is a civil liberty to “civil libertarians or lawyers.”
Biden, who returned to campaigning Monday at private fundraisers in Nashville and Atlanta, said nothing in public. The vice president, 69, has not ruled out a 2016 run.
Younger Democrats with higher aspirations have already sided with the gay rights movement. Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Martin O’Malley of Maryland signed same-sex marriage measures into law in the last year.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, widely viewed as a 2016 contender despite her demurrals, has not endorsed same-sex marriage. But her husband, former President Clinton, is delivering an automated phone message urging voters in North Carolina to reject an anti-gay-marriage measure on Tuesday’s ballot.
Obama aides, mindful of how his presidency will be evaluated by history, regularly rebut questions about marriage with a checklist of ways the president has advanced gay rights. Among them: the elimination of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring gay service members from serving openly in the military, the Justice Department’s refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court and smaller measures aimed at strengthening legal rights for same-sex couples.
Obama has been aggressively soliciting campaign funds from gay donors, in part to compensate for a falloff in giving from Wall Street. At the same time, he has continued to resist pressure to endorse same-sex marriage. In 2010, he said the “arc of history” was trending in favor of gay marriage and that his own views were “evolving.”
Polls show overwhelming support among Democratic voters, but independent voters remain split, and the issue finds resistance among older voters in particular.
The gay marriage comment wasn’t the first time that Biden had put his boss on the spot with an apparently unscripted remark. But his words appeared to reflect the vice president’s instinctive feel for the issue, not least because of the large number of gay people he’s encountered at fundraising events across the country.
According to an attendee, Biden gave a similar answer at a private dinner for about 30 gay rights leaders and others last month at the Los Angeles home of Michael Lombardo, an HBO executive, and his husband, Sonny Ward. The vice president referred to the event during an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“One gentleman looked at me in the question period and said, ‘Let me ask you, how do you feel about us?’ And I had just walked into the back door of this gay couple and they’re with their two adopted children. And I turned to [Lombardo]. I said, ‘What did I do when I walked in?’ He said, ‘You walked right to my children. They were 7 and 5, giving you flowers.’ And I said, ‘I wish every American could see the look of love those kids had in their eyes for you guys. And they wouldn’t have any doubt about what this is about.’ ”
Dinner guest Chad Griffin, incoming president of the Human Rights Campaign and a gay rights activist in Los Angeles, said that at one point Biden mentioned that he had to be careful when he articulated a position that was different from the president’s.
Griffin said that politicians a few years ago were running from the issue of same-sex marriage. “Now, they’re running to the issue.” He added that “increasingly, people in public life are being asked their position on this real-life issue ... and they’re choosing to answer it honestly.”
michael.memoli@latimes.com
david.lauter@latimes.com
Paul West and Kathleen Hennessey in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
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3d0654b09fa9d6c2abbf83fdf0725775 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-may-17-la-na-nuns-20120518-story.html | Catholics all a-Twitter about the role of nuns | Catholics all a-Twitter about the role of nuns
Sister Simone Campbell doesn’t wear a habit.
A nun for more than 40 years and an attorney for 35, the executive director of a Roman Catholic social justice lobby called Network doesn’t feel she should wear one.
Her voice mail refers to her simply as “Simone,” and she hasn’t worn the long, gray dress habit since her early days as a nun.
Such an approach doesn’t sit well with some Catholics.
“Love the traditional nun ... I really would like to see the habit back,” Patricia Earp, a Catholic, said on Twitter.
The tweet was prompted by a recent Vatican report that upbraided the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, accusing them of deviating from church doctrine and promoting “radical feminist themes.” The organization represents more than 80% of the nuns in the United States.
The report has unleashed a torrent of comment, much of it on the Internet, about the role of nuns in American life. Some Catholics called for more nuns to return to the cloister. Some praised the nuns. “They have taught me to value community, family, social justice for all, compassion, and well-being for the less able!” RisaDuSoleil tweeted.
The report from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the church’s orthodoxy watchdog — was publicly released last month by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The report said that although the women’s leadership group had been vocal about social justice issues — the report praised the nuns’ work with the needy — the group had been unacceptably silent on other issues, notably opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. The Vatican ordered the nuns to focus more on promoting church orthodoxy.
Reactions to the analysis have included standard letters and phone calls as well as Facebook posts and Twitter hash tags.
“Fifty years ago, a document like this would have been published internally and then trickled down,” said Sister Janice Farnham, a retired professor and historian at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry.
Farnham said she read about the report on the BBC’s wire and not through the “traditional avenues of the church.”
The document quickly reached the masses through Internet links and re-posts.
Social media are the perfect place for people to weigh in when they feel voiceless, said Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.”
“Everyone who is baptized is part of the church, but sometimes Catholics don’t feel that they have venues in which they can express their views,” he said.
Martin started a hash tag (#whatsistersmeantome) to thank nuns for dedicating their lives to the communities in which they work and to separate the comments from the rest of the twittersphere.
The conversation soon grew to include voices supporting orthodox, habit-wearing orders.
Jacob Biddle tweeted, “Sisters to me mean habited women who fight heresy and the devil, not embrace them like LCWR.”
Robert Salazar tweeted a link to a cloistered community in New Jersey and praised its work. “Great sisters — obedient to God and His Church.”
Some associated with the LCWR don’t agree with the claim that they’ve strayed from church doctrine.
“For me, to follow Jesus was to engage in my community that struggled for civil rights,” said Campbell, whose organization, Network, was singled out for criticism in the Vatican’s review.
“To nourish my faith was to nourish my quest for justice, and my community does that.”
The assessment, based on a two-year investigation, shook those affiliated with the conference and brought attention to how nuns conduct themselves. For example, some take a more activist role to their work, while others may focus on a more contemplative life.
“There is room for both kind of sisters,” Martin said. “The problem is some Catholics think that being a traditional sister is the only way.”
The various orders — though having pledged the same principal vows of poverty, chastity and obedience — have differing opinions on the Vatican’s assessment.
The report “hasn’t affected us at all. We are not associated with the group,” said Sister Philomena Murphy, sister superior of the Congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth. The habit-wearing congregation runs a senior home in Los Angeles.
The conference has yet to discuss its next move, but continues to welcome the public’s comments, in any tone or form, Campbell said.
“It’s a stretch — holy moly — but it’s a way forward if we move across these polarized divisions.”
dalina.castellanos@latimes.com
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9cb940d38831be287029839e4927df50 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-may-19-la-fg-panetta-interview-20120519-story.html | Panetta to confront Pakistan at NATO summit on transport costs | Panetta to confront Pakistan at NATO summit on transport costs
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta heads to this weekend’s NATO summit prepared to confront Pakistan over what he considers price-gouging for transport of supplies to Afghanistan and hoping for a “consensus” among allies over the war effort.
In an interview before his arrival in Chicago, where the summit is scheduled to begin Sunday, Panetta all but ruled out paying Pakistan $5,000 for each truck carrying supplies across its territory for NATO troops waging the Afghanistan war. Pakistani officials have demanded that amount as a condition for reopening supply routes that have been closed to the alliance since fall.
“Considering the financial challenges that we’re facing, that’s not likely,” Panetta said of the demand.
Before the supply routes were closed in November after a mistaken U.S. attack on two remote Pakistani border posts that killed two dozen Pakistani troops, NATO convoys were paying an average of about $250 a truck, a senior U.S. official said.
U.S. officials say they remain hopeful they can resolve the dispute, perhaps at the summit. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari accepted a last-minute invitation to attend the meetings, although he is not expected to meet one-on-one with President Obama, officials said.
Thousands of trucks a day carrying supplies would go through multiple border crossings from Pakistan to Afghanistan, making the fees a potentially massive source of revenue for the cash-strapped government in Islamabad.
The U.S. has shifted deliveries to different routes through Russia and other countries to Afghanistan’s north. But the massive withdrawals of equipment due to unfold over the next 21/2 years as troops leave the country will be “significantly” more difficult if routes in Pakistan aren’t used, the Pentagon acknowledged in a report last month.
The Obama administration hopes the two-day summit will highlight what Panetta called a “consensus” within NATO about how to disengage militarily by the end of 2014. Exhausted after more than a decade of war, the U.S. and its allies want to hand off responsibility for fighting the Taliban to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government, even though its army and police remain well short of being able to stand on their own.
“Everybody in the alliance recognizes that for this to work, we can’t pick up and leave. We’ve got to remain there to provide support and to assist them in that effort with training, with assistance, with advice,” Panetta said.
But he acknowledged that there would be difficulties, both on the battlefield and within the alliance. Those splits are exemplified by the new French president, Francois Hollande, the Socialist Party leader who campaigned on a vow to withdraw all 3,300 French troops by the end of this year. Hollande met with Obama at the White House on Friday.
Panetta, who plans to meet the new French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, in Chicago, indicated that the U.S. hopes France will agree to keep some forces in a noncombat role in Afghanistan for the next 2 1/2 years, even if they withdraw all combat troops early.
Yet a more rapid exit by France than planned could lead other allies to speed up their own troop withdrawals.
“There are some countries — Canada, France — that want to bring their combat operations to an end on a faster time track, but that doesn’t have to mean they won’t accept the responsibility to continue to provide the needed support,” Panetta said.
Panetta acknowledged that U.S. efforts to persuade other countries to make long-term financial pledges to fund Afghanistan’s army and police, a key objective of the two-day Chicago summit, is running into difficulties.
“Of course, it’s not easy considering the financial difficulties that a lot of these countries are going through,” he said. “Many of them have come forward and said they would be willing to make a commitment, and I really do think we will be able to achieve the support levels we need.”
In an effort to secure more pledges, the U.S. is asking other countries to commit to providing aid for only three years, though Afghanistan’s armed forces are expected to need foreign assistance for at least a decade, a Western diplomat in Washington said.
A year ago, the Obama administration was hopeful it could draw the Taliban into peace negotiations with Karzai’s government, but Panetta acknowledged that he didn’t see a deal to end the conflict happening “any time soon.”
david.cloud@latimes.com
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7923014b5c21b59d9b20173b34496f51 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-may-20-la-na-dna-revolution-20120521-story.html | Registry tallies over 2,000 wrongful convictions since 1989 | Registry tallies over 2,000 wrongful convictions since 1989
WASHINGTON — More than 2,000 people have been freed from prison since 1989 after they were found to have been wrongly convicted of serious crimes, according to a new National Registry of Exonerations compiled by University of Michigan Law School and Northwestern University.
Its sponsors say it is by far the largest database of such cases, and they hope it will help reveal why the criminal justice system sometimes misfires, prosecuting and convicting the innocent.
“The more we learn about false convictions, the better we’ll be at preventing them,” said Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor.
The registry covers the period since DNA came into common use and revealed, to the surprise of many prosecutors and judges, that a significant number of convicted rapists and murderers were innocent. The Innocence Project in New York says DNA alone has freed 289 prisoners since 1989.
Criminal law experts have been studying the growing number of exonerations. Some cases have involved police corruption or witnesses who recanted. Experts have also pointed to faulty eyewitness testimony and lying witnesses as common problems.
Beyond that, a surprising number of cases involved suspects who confessed to crimes they didn’t commit.
“Nobody had an inkling of the serious problem of false confessions until we had this data,” said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University. Under persistent and prolonged questioning by investigators, some suspects confessed to crimes such as rape, even though DNA later revealed they were not the perpetrators.
Among the states, Illinois has the most exonerations listed in the new registry, and among counties, Cook County and Chicago led the way, followed by Dallas and Los Angeles. However, the sponsors of the new registry do not contend that their data permits strong comparisons across counties or states because only about 900 of the cases were examined in detail by jurisdiction.
“It’s clear that the exonerations we found are the tip of the iceberg,” Gross said.
For example, several counties in California with more than 1 million residents, including San Bernardino and Alameda, listed no exonerations. By contrast, Cook County had 78 and Dallas County 36.
“Obviously there are false convictions in those [other] counties. We just don’t know about them,” he said.
The figures are also constantly changing. Last week, shortly after a report on the registry was completed, prosecutors in Lake County, Ill., dropped sexual assault charges against Bennie Starks. He had been convicted of the 1986 rape of an elderly woman and had served 20 years in prison. DNA evidence taken from the victim pointed to a different man.
Updating the registry, Warden said Illinois now had 103 exonerations.
david.savage@latimes.com
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49cd44218b7b5b0e260f64cc1655cf17 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-may-24-la-fg-brazil-migration-20120524-story.html | Brazil’s historically poor northeast finally gets its boom | Brazil’s historically poor northeast finally gets its boom
RECIFE, Brazil — The Brazilian state of Pernambuco was once known for its vast plains of parched dirt and roving bandits called cangacos, who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.
For later generations, escaping the widespread poverty of the northeast customarily meant moving to livelier southeastern cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, though many migrants still ended up living in favelas, or slums.
Today, an economic boom has given locals good reasons to stay put, and large numbers of Brazilians are even making their way north in search of a better life.
The area around Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, has benefited from huge government and business investments such as the expansion of the port of Suape, a new shipyard and an oil refinery project. Government aid has also helped struggling families improve their lives, which has lessened the need to move elsewhere.
In Boa Viagem, a new middle-class neighborhood south of downtown Recife, the signs of change include apartment complexes and chic restaurants that have sprung up in recent years.
“The region is now much more than just big industrial projects,” said Juliana Queiroga, regional coordinator at Endeavor Nordeste, a new northeastern branch of a Sao Paulo-based nongovernmental organization that promotes entrepreneurship. “It’s a new gastronomic center, a tech center, and there’s lots of innovation and international money coming in.”
In the last 12 years, unemployment in the Recife metropolitan area dropped from about 14% to 6.2%, and the population of the city grew 8% to more than 1.5 million during roughly the same period. The city has been a beneficiary of the growth that has powered the country’s economy for a decade and pushed migration into parts of the country that had languished for a century.
When Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became president in 2003, he instituted a set of social programs that predominantly benefited the impoverished northeastern states, which had lost much of their economic relevance of the 19th century, when slave plantations were central to the country’s growth. As a youth, Lula made the weeks-long journey on the back of a truck from the woods of Pernambuco to Sao Paulo, where he eventually found a job as a metalworker.
The billions of dollars in government investments and projects have made the northeast — home to nine states and 50 million people — the fastest-growing population center in Brazil’s economic success story, which recently helped the country overtake Britain to become the world’s sixth-largest economy.
The northeast has grown four times as fast as the richer states of Sao Paulo and Rio, said Marcelo Neri, a Brazilian demographics specialist.
The distribution of wealth has improved across classes, and millions of people have moved from poverty into the middle class, he said.
“This is the first decade in recorded history that net migration from the country to the big cities has basically stopped,” Neri said. “It’s remarkable. This is still a very unequal country, but we are one of a very few countries these days that can say that inequality is falling.”
Some Brazilians are moving around the countryside to take advantage of an agricultural industry that is profiting from selling soybeans and other commodities to China. The related jobs range from business experts familiar with specialized agribusiness techniques to laborers who hack away brush before seeds are planted.
Some Brazilians are moving to newly revitalized urban centers such as Recife or Fortaleza to work in construction, infrastructure or oil refining. And some are leaving the crime-ridden slums of Rio for jobs in their families’ home regions.
The balance has shifted so far that many who traditionally would have taken high-paying professional jobs in the southeast are heading to places like Recife instead.
Sergio Silvino, a native of Sao Paulo who moved to Recife in 2010, was happily surprised to find a job as an engineer on a huge construction site.
“I didn’t think there were any opportunities up here. But then I got wind that there were job openings, and I ended up with a position that paid much better than I could have gotten in Rio,” Silvino said. “Now I see people here from all over the country, and it’s very tough to find anyone without a job.”
Since President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s handpicked successor, took over in January 2011, growth has continued apace, surprising many of those who grew up in the area or arrived more recently.
“If you would have asked me at the beginning of my college term, I would have said I wanted to leave Pernambuco,” said Jorge Diogo Souza Costa, a business student who moved to Recife from a small town in the interior of the state so he could attend a decent high school. “But now I want to stay. We have the refineries, the port projects, shipbuilding and the pharmaceutical and tech industries now. It’s just obvious that our time has come.”
Bevins is a special correspondent.
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762180dbf321333797d2e363c96b98d8 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-14-la-fg-wn-death-mother-refused-abortion-ireland-debate-20121114-story.html | Death of woman denied an abortion causes uproar in Ireland | Death of woman denied an abortion causes uproar in Ireland
The death of an ailing woman who was refused an abortion in an Irish hospital has inflamed longstanding concern about Ireland’s tight restrictions on when women can terminate a pregnancy.
Praveen Halappanavar told the Irish Times that his wife, Savita, was suffering intense pain and had been told her baby would not survive. Upset but resigned to losing her child, she was denied an abortion despite repeated pleas with their Galway hospital as she suffered shakes and vomiting, Halappanavar told the newspaper.
“The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita said, ‘I am neither Irish nor Catholic,’ but they said there was nothing they could do,” Halappanavar told the newspaper from India.
As long as the fetus still had a heartbeat, the husband said they were told, an abortion was illegal. Days later, the heartbeat stopped and the remains were removed, but Halappanavar grew sicker, eventually dying of blood poisoning, her husband told the Irish Times.
The Galway Roscommon University Hospitals Group said it could not discuss the details of her case with reporters, but was reviewing the unexpected death in line with its usual procedures to establish what had happened. It extended its sympathy to her husband, family and friends. The Health Service Executive, a national body that oversees Irish healthcare, is also carrying out a review and will recommend any changes needed to prevent similar incidents, it said.
While abortion is banned under the Irish constitution, its highest court ruled decades ago it is allowed when the life of the woman is in peril. But with no detailed regulations or guidelines for doctors, the question of when a fetus can be aborted remains murky.
Even doctors who think abortion is needed may fear arrest or losing their careers, abortion activists say. Critics argue the legal limbo makes doctors so uneasy that they refuse to perform the procedure even when mothers are at risk or a baby is already expected to die.
James Burke said he and his wife learned that their child wouldn’t survive outside the womb because of a rare syndrome, but were told they had leave the country to get a medical termination. They went to England.
“It’s just so saddening that it has to come to a woman and her child dying for people to start talking about it,” said Burke, who went public with his own story last year. He is now part of an activist campaign called Termination for Medical Reasons Ireland.
Nearly two years ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ireland had violated European Union law by failing to adequately protect the lives of women. The Irish government called upon a group of experts for advice on how to clear up its abortion rules; that expert group gave its report to the Irish health department Tuesday night for review, just before the Irish Times published its story.
While Sinn Fein and other political parties pressed the government to pass “long overdue legislation” ensuring that abortions to save women would be allowed, Prime Minister Enda Kenny argued that the government should not take action before the death is fully investigated. His Fine Gael political party said any changes should also await the expert report on abortion law.
“The matter will come before government in due course,” it said Wednesday.
Sen. Kathryn Reilly of Sinn Fein argued that the tragedy exposed the damage done by inaction. “We’re no longer dealing with what-ifs. We’re no longer dealing with a hypothetical situation,” she said, pressing the government to say when the report would be made public and laws would be passed.
“It just can’t go on anymore,” Reilly said. Protests and vigils were planned Wednesday night across the country as the news spread in Irish and international media.
The Irish law is unusually restrictive for a country in Europe, but the resulting barriers to abortion access are much like those in poorer countries that get less media attention, said Patty Skuster, senior policy advisor for Ipas, which advocates for safe abortion.
“There are countless women like her that we don’t see,” Skuster said.
The bereft husband says he told his story to ensurethat it won’t happen to anyone else. “It was all in their hands and they just let her go,” Halappanavar told the Irish Times. “How can you let a young woman go to save a baby who will die anyway?”
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b46d1d02a37d6975d4dc996ad351f81b | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-15-la-fg-wn-india-abortion-ireland-savita-20121115-story.html | Outrage in India over death of woman denied abortion in Ireland | Outrage in India over death of woman denied abortion in Ireland
Outrage over the death of an Indian woman denied an abortion in Ireland resounded in her home country this week, as politicians and her grieving parents demanded changes in Irish laws.
“We should lodge a very strong protest with the Irish authorities as they are responsible for committing a crime which resulted in loss of a human life,” politician Brinda Karat told the Press Trust of India. “They preferred to sacrifice the young woman’s life rather than to do something which [would] have gone against their religious belief.”
Savita Halappanavar died from blood poisoning weeks ago in a Galway hospital after being repeatedly refused an abortion, her husband told the Irish Times in an article published this week.
Doctors had told her that her child would not survive, but wouldn’t terminate the pregnancy even as Halappanavar, resigned to losing her baby, pleaded for the procedure to end her pain, her husband said. He said hospital staffers told them an abortion was impossible because Ireland is a Catholic country.
After the fetus died and was surgically removed, Halappanavar passed away as well. Her death is now under investigation by the hospital and the national body overseeing Irish healthcare.
As vigils and protests erupted in Ireland, the story also ignited a furor in India, where Halappanavar and her husband were originally from. One news website headlined its story, “Ireland Murders Pregnant Indian Dentist.” Indian television stations ran interviews with her bereaved parents, who demanded an international investigation.
“In an attempt to save a 4-month-old fetus they killed my 30-year-old daughter,” her mother, A. Mahadevi, told local stations, the Associated Press reported. “How is that fair, you tell me?”
Halappanavar was actually 31 at the time of her death, the Associated Press reported. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs called her death “a matter of concern” and said its embassy in Dublin was closely following the matter.
Abortions to save the life of the woman are supposed to be allowed in Ireland: Though the procedure is banned under the Irish constitution, its highest court ruled decades ago to allow abortion when the woman is in jeopardy.
But that 1992 ruling has never been translated into clear regulations, leaving it in limbo. Fearful of losing their jobs or being sent to jail, many Irish doctors have shied from performing any abortions, even when the baby is already bound to perish, activists complain. Thousands of Irish women are estimated to travel to nearby England annually to terminate pregnancies.
The European Court of Human Rights prodded Ireland to clear up the confusion in its laws nearly two years ago, ruling it had violated European Union law by endangering women. Government officials say they are now reviewing an expert report on altering its abortion laws, but opposition lawmakers and other critics say Ireland has already stalled too long.
“The insanity of the Irish situation couldn’t be better illustrated than by this case,” said Johanna Westeson, Europe regional director for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “If it weren’t so tragic, it would be laughable that such procrastination is going on.”
Anti-abortion activists and writers have argued that the case was an aberration from Irish law, not an example of it.
“Normal medical practice in Ireland was not followed after a grossly misplaced application to her case ... of a heretical misreading of Catholic moral law,” William Oddie wrote in the Catholic Herald. “These tragic deaths cannot justify the replacement of the world’s most civilized abortion law by the pro-death laws now almost universal throughout Europe.”
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4a929f640b308d8f6c139ffd83344d91 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-19-la-fg-israel-gaza-airstrikes-20121119-story.html | Israeli strike kills 9 members of Gaza family | Israeli strike kills 9 members of Gaza family
GAZA CITY — An Israeli airstrike Sunday killed at least nine members of the same family — mostly women and children — in the deadliest single attack and worst civilian tragedy since the fighting in the Gaza Strip began last week.
Though Israel has expressed pride over its five-day military campaign for limiting civilian casualties, the strike against the Dalu home in Gaza City was likely to test the limits of international support it has received in the battle to stop militants from firing rockets at Israeli cities.
Yet despite immediate condemnation by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, the tragedy did not appear to derail cease-fire negotiations underway in Cairo, where Israeli and Palestinian representatives are meeting. In fact, the high civilian death toll from Sunday’s attack only increased the international pressure on both sides to end hostilities, coming on a day both President Obama and British officials raised concerns about the conflict expanding into a ground war.
Israeli military officials said they were targeting a Hamas militant in his home, but provided no further information. The Dalu family was believed to have links to Hamas’ military wing and had been targeted by Israel before.
But there were conflicting reports about whether the strike killed the home’s owner, Jamal Dalu, or his son Mohamed. Hamas’ Health Ministry put the death toll at 11, which may include two neighbors. More than 20 people were injured.
On its website, the military wing of Hamas said that the attack on the family “will not go unpunished” and that the group had begun firing rockets at Israel in response. By Sunday night, Gaza militants had fired 114 rockets at southern Israel during the day, hitting buildings in Beersheba, Sderot and Ashdod. Five people were injured by shrapnel from a rocket in Ofakim, near the Gaza border.
The Israeli missile strike was so strong it destroyed the Dalu family’s three-story building, blowing out windows blocks away and sending a charred mattress flying into the street.
For hours panicked neighbors and rescue workers clung to hope of finding survivors. While a bulldozer pulled apart pieces of the collapsed walls, volunteers in orange vests scrambled over the wreckage and searched for signs of life.
In a grim, heart-wrenching scene that played out over 90 minutes, the bodies of four children were pulled out one after another.
Each time they found a body, some of the men would yell excitedly and wave their hands at the bulldozer’s driver to stop digging, while others would climb down to retrieve the child. As mobs of onlookers chanted “God is great,” a rescue worker would race toward a waiting ambulance with a limp, dust-covered child.
“This is a massacre,” shouted a distraught Nasser Dalu, 56, a cousin and neighbor, as he watched his relatives being pulled from debris. “What did these children do?”
Israel Defense Forces said it has launched more than 1,000 airstrikes over the last five days, mostly targeting weapons caches and military compounds, in an attempt to put an end to rocket and mortar attacks on communities in southern Israel.
It expanded its targets to include the homes of Hamas leaders; Gaza officials said 17 homes were attacked on Sunday alone. About the same time that the Dalu house was hit, Israel said it targeted Yiyhe Abia, the head of Hamas’ rocket-firing squad, in his home nearby.
Sunday’s airstrikes brought the death toll in Gaza to 69 people since Wednesday, including at least 24 civilians, hospital officials said. More than 660 Palestinians have been wounded.
Three Israelis were killed when a projectile fired from Gaza hit their apartment complex Thursday.
The strike on the Dalu home inflamed much of Arab world and within hours “aldalumassacre” had become a Twitter hashtag. Some compared the attack to the 2009 shelling of the Samouni house, when 21 members of the family were killed during the previous Israeli assault on Gaza.
The Dalu strike came at a delicate time in the Gaza conflict, as Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has been trying to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas. Despite the heated rhetoric and escalating violence, talks continued behind the scenes Sunday night, Hamas officials said.
Without an agreement soon, many fear Israel will launch a ground invasion. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that Israel is “prepared for a significant expansion of the operation.”
At a news conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Obama urged both sides to resolve their differences “without further escalation of violence in the region.”
While repeating his previous statements that Israel has a right to press for an end to attacks on its people, Obama said, “If that can be accomplished without a ramping-up of military activity in Gaza, that’s preferable. That’s not just preferable for the people of Gaza, it’s also preferable for Israelis, because if Israeli troops are in Gaza, they’re much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded.”
British Foreign Secretary William Hague shared Obama’s concerns, telling Sky News television that “a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation.”
In addition to hitting the homes of Hamas officials, Israel expanded its targets to include buildings used by communications services, leaving several journalists injured early Sunday.
A 1:30 a.m. strike against one building destroyed the 11-floor offices of Al Quds television, a Hamas-affiliated network. Several journalists were seriously wounded, including one whose leg had to be amputated, witnesses said.
Cameraman Mohamed Akhras, 23, said he was working the night shift in case of any breaking stories and had just fallen asleep when the blast buried him and a colleague under furniture and debris.
“Israel targeted us because we are revealing the truth about their crimes,” Akhras said, half his face dotted with small shrapnel cuts.
Israeli military officials defended the attacks against the Al Quds site and another Hamas-run communications facility, saying they were trying to destroy rooftop antennas used by militants to communicate.
edmund.sanders@latimes.com
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c4205e319b8c86773056f834d963b65e | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-19-la-fg-us-gaza-20121120-story.html | Gaza conflict threatens Obama’s plans for Mideast diplomacy | Gaza conflict threatens Obama’s plans for Mideast diplomacy
WASHINGTON — The increasingly bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is threatening the Obama administration’s plans to reinvigorate its Middle East diplomacy, creating new obstacles across the region as the president prepares for his second term.
With negotiators struggling to craft a cease-fire agreement, diplomats and experts say the strife is hampering administration efforts to help resolve the civil war in Syria, improve relations with Egypt’s new government, support moderate Palestinian leaders and check Iran’s growing ambitions.
In a region thrown into turmoil by the “Arab Spring” uprisings, U.S. support for Israel and its right to defend itself has been one of the few constants. That has not changed, despite the well-publicized rocky relationship between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
TIMELINE: Israel-Gaza conflict
But by all accounts, the damage to U.S. influence in the region is likely to grow if Israel sends ground troops into Gaza to stop the Hamas militant group from firing rockets into Israel.
“The bottom line is that this will poison everything the United States is trying to do in the region,” said Shadi Hamid, research director at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar.
President Obama has spoken repeatedly with leaders in Israel and Egypt, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has spoken with other officials while she and Obama went ahead with a visit to Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia that was intended to emphasize the administration’s efforts to refocus U.S. foreign policy on Asia.
PHOTOS: Israel-Gaza violence
Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security advisor, told reporters on the trip that the U.S. position is that “those nations in the region, particularly nations that have influence over Hamas, and that’s principally Egypt and Turkey, also Qatar… that those nations need to use that influence to de-escalate the conflict. And de-escalation has to begin with, again, an end to rocket fire from Gaza.”
U.S. officials don’t have direct contact with Hamas, which they consider a terrorist organization.
Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to both Israel and Egypt, said the crisis appeared close to a tipping point. If Israel sends armored columns into Gaza, Washington would be caught between pressing Israel to stop a conflict that has Obama’s support, or being seen in the Arab world as complicit in the bloodshed.
“We will be put in the same corner as Israel,” said Kurtzer, now with Princeton University. “This will be an extremely awkward position.”
While U.S. officials have sought to avoid judging Israeli tactics, Obama said at a news conference Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand, that it was preferable for Israel to avoid sending troops into Gaza, for the sake of both Palestinians and Israelis.
Washington has struggled to regain its influence in the Middle East since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 brought to power populist Islamist governments that are more wary of Washington and more responsive to pro-Palestinian public opinion.
In the last week, U.S. diplomats have implored Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. They want to steer Morsi away from taking sides in the conflict and putting at risk the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which Washington views as a linchpin of peace and America’s strategic role in the region. Administration officials have praised Morsi for his efforts and his seeming eagerness to maintain the Camp David treaty.
The administration also faces pressure on Capitol Hill, where key U.S. lawmakers are demanding that Egypt do more to halt the Hamas attacks or risk losing billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a leading conservative voice on foreign policy, warned Egypt on Sunday to “watch what you do and how you do it.… You’re teetering with the Congress on having your aid cut off if you keep inciting violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a frequent White House ally who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Egypt’s efforts to resolve the crisis had been “pretty weak so far, from what I can tell.”
U.S. aid is one of the few levers the United States still has to influence Egypt, and administration officials said they would strongly resist efforts to cut it off.
The strife has also created strains in U.S. relations with Turkey. Obama considers the government in Ankara central to administration efforts in Syria and Iran, and he has carefully nurtured ties with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Yet Erdogan has denounced Washington for supporting what U.S. officials say are Israel’s efforts to defend itself and to halt rocket attacks from Gaza.
“Israel is the aggressor,” Erdogan told an Islamic group Monday in Istanbul.
On Syria, the United States and its allies have criticized Russia and China for supporting President Bashar Assad’s military crackdown on antigovernment forces. The conflict there has killed an estimated 20,000 civilians.
Hamid said it would appear to people in much of the Islamic world that in Gaza, it’s the U.S. that is enabling the killing of Palestinians. “The Russians and Chinese don’t look like such bad guys anymore.”
Moreover, if the United States appears to be giving Israel unconditional backing in an unpopular conflict, he said, “it becomes harder and harder for Arabs and Turks to stand with the United States.”
The conflict also could ease international pressure on Iran to curb its disputed nuclear program, a top priority for the administration. Iran is a longtime supporter of Hamas, and may gain credibility in some countries for its hostility toward Israel.
The conflict has also threatened America’s moderate Palestinian allies, the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, at least in the short term. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority control the West Bank, while the Hamas movement controls Gaza.
As Arab and other leaders visit Gaza to meet with Hamas leaders, “the message to the Palestinian people is that those who cooperate with Israel don’t get attention and backing, and those who stand up to Israel do,” said Robert Danin, a longtime U.S. diplomat in the Middle East.
The crisis increases pressure on Abbas to seek an enhancement of the status of the Palestinian territories at the United Nations. The United States, Israel and European countries have opposed that effort, saying it will alienate Israel and reduce chances for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Now ordinary Palestinians will say to moderate leaders, “Hamas has taken action — what have you done?” said Danin, who is now with the Council on Foreign Relations. “This will make it that much harder for Abbas to avoid that course.”
paul.richter@latimes.com
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64a44f300c6bdfb4123cb5db36fd5206 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-20-la-fg-egypt-morsi-gaza-20121121-story.html | Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi walks tightrope in Gaza conflict | Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi walks tightrope in Gaza conflict
CAIRO — The Gaza conflict has pressured Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on many fronts: Each rocket Hamas fired into Israel has been a test of Morsi’s loyalty. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also been gauging how much damage he can inflict on Hamas before Morsi responds with more than public statements and diplomacy.
And the United States and the West, the source of billions of dollars in aid and possible investment that Egypt desperately needs, are watching to see whether the Egyptian president emerges as a formidable and trusted regional voice.
Morsi supported Hamas years before he became Egypt’s president, but his efforts to persuade the militant group to agree to a cease-fire are central to his ambition to emerge as an Islamist leader capable of navigating the Middle East’s many tinderboxes.
TIMELINE: Israel-Gaza conflict
The fighting between Hamas and Israel has put Morsi’s new government in the spotlight, testing his influence with Hamas and his international stature. Hamas, for its part, exploited its close ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to press its case in an Arab world reshaped by uprisings and revolutions.
Morsi has stood firm on defending Palestinian interests in the Gaza Strip while not jeopardizing Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of stability. It is a sensitive task for a man new to the slipstream of world affairs.
“Israeli aggression will end today, Tuesday, with no compromises or surrender,” the state news agency quoted Morsi as saying while United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held talks in Cairo on a possible cease-fire.
PHOTOS: Israel-Gaza violence
Despite expressions of optimism that an agreement to end the fighting was close, talks dragged into Wednesday with no announcement. But the Egyptians felt that they were redefining their role as a prominent player in the Arab-Israeli peace process.
“Egypt is like Palestine’s big brother in this situation. Israel tried to ridicule Egypt in front of its little brother and they got a reaction they were not expecting,” said a Morsi confidant who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the cease-fire talks.
“Israel is trying to show Palestine, Hamas and the world that nothing has changed in Egypt’s reaction and that they can still do what they want,” the confidant said. “But this is no longer applicable and they are shocked.”
Morsi’s tenor through the last week has been markedly different from that of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, who was suspicious of Hamas and was criticized for tilting toward Israeli interests. Mubarak closed the border crossing with Gaza and blamed Hamas for exporting terrorism to Egypt. Morsi, however, immediately sided with the Palestinians, withdrawing Egypt’s ambassador to Israel and dispatching his prime minister to Gaza in a show of solidarity.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood inspired the founding of Hamas and the two share religious ideologies and a desire to outmaneuver Israel and secure an independent Palestinian homeland. But Morsi, who once referred to Israelis as vampires, is also tempering his Islamist passion with the pragmatism that comes with his shift from onetime dissident to president of Egypt.
This is not without risks. Morsi’s backing of Hamas “threatens Egypt’s external and internal politics,” said Said Okasha, an Arab-Israeli expert at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. He said Egyptian public opinion demands that Morsi side with the Palestinians, but not to the extent of isolating Israel or endangering Western investment.
Hamas celebrated when Morsi was inaugurated in June, ending three decades of autocratic rule by Mubarak. Ties between Cairo and Gaza have strengthened even as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas have evolved differently: Hamas represents a virulent strand of militant Islam with ties to Iran while the once-oppressed Brotherhood has risen to power through elections.
“The relationship between Hamas and Egypt now is very strong. Hamas is the extension of the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Mustafa Labbad, director of Al Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies. “Mubarak is not there and they see Egypt as a guarantor with a leader closer to them than to Israel. It is a victory for Hamas.”
But Morsi cannot afford to unconditionally support Hamas.
Morsi’s other dominant concern is keeping peace in the Sinai Peninsula, which abuts Gaza and Israel. A ground war in Gaza would probably send streams of refugees into an Egypt already under strain from a poor economy and shortages of gas, water and other essentials. The welcome Palestinians received from Egyptians during the 2009 war was short-lived.
Tribal leaders in the Sinai also have blamed Hamas and rival Palestinian groups for aiding the reemergence of extremist networks that have killed Egyptian soldiers and border guards. Stability in the Sinai is crucial for Israel, which fears that militants will launch attacks from the desert region.
Such a scenario might rouse the Egyptian military, which Morsi sidelined from power in August when he forced the resignations of top commanders, including Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.
The military, which receives about $1.3 billion in U.S. aid and has been essential to upholding the peace treaty, has been blamed for not crushing the radicals. But it could intervene if it sensed Morsi and the Brotherhood, especially the organization’s conservatives who want a harsher line on Israel, were jeopardizing the treaty in support of Hamas. That does not appear to be the case now.
“Everyone agrees on the need for a cease-fire,” said Labbad. “It’s not an easy task, but the window of opportunity is opening. Egypt is not interested in violence and struggle. It wants to upgrade its regional papers [status] from the era of Mubarak that achieved nothing.”
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Abdellatif is a news assistant in The Times’ Cairo bureau.
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e48e79f5248a09474d2ed8740967f455 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-21-la-fg-wn-gaza-mideast-fallout-20121120-story.html | Israeli-Hamas clash sends unsettling ripples throughout Mideast | Israeli-Hamas clash sends unsettling ripples throughout Mideast
A weeklong battle between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip has turned the political kaleidoscope, shaking up and repositioning diplomatic forces tackling the Middle East’s myriad conflicts.
The broad alliance contending with the civil war in Syria has divided over who’s to blame for the latest Israeli-Palestinian clash. Egypt, no longer moving in lockstep with Washington after last year’s ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, is walking a fine line between defense of fellow Islamists in Hamas and commitment to the Arab-Israeli peace treaty. Tensions in Egypt’s Sinai have ratcheted up with an influx of Palestinians fleeing the airstrikes on Gaza. And what was seen for months as a grave threat for the region -- Israel’s vow to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities -- has faded from the headlines but not the horizon.
The barrage of Hamas rockets and Israeli airstrikes has most notably diverted world powers’ attention from the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad that has reached a bloody stalemate after 20 months and left thousands dead. The U.N. Security Council called an emergency session in New York for Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has rushed to the region to counsel the Gaza combatants, as has U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and concerned diplomats from the European Union and Arab League.
TIMELINE: Israel-Gaza conflict
Even if the Gaza conflict is quickly tamped down by a cease-fire, it has undermined the recent consensus among Western powers to unite rebel groups fighting for Assad’s ouster and strengthen their hand with diplomatic recognition, aid and potentially arms. Turkey, a NATO military partner and staunch U.S. ally in the Syria peace efforts, has accused leaders of the Jewish state of “waging terrorism” against Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Egypt’s new Islamist leadership has also come to the defense of Hamas, an offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood that helped bring President Mohamed Morsi to power this year and transform Cairo’s political outlook after three decades of Mubarak toeing the U.S. line.
Morsi has so far shown balance and statesmanship in helping to broker a cease-fire, analysts say, but the shifts in popular sentiment brought about by the “Arab Spring” confront the Egyptian leader with competing pressures to respect the peace accord with Israel as well as stand up for the Palestinians who have suffered the lion’s share of casualties in the weeklong conflict. As of late Tuesday, the Palestinian death toll topped 130 and the Israeli toll was five dead.
Middle East experts are divided over the significance of Israel’s sudden silence on Tehran’s reported acceleration of uranium enrichment and suspected aim of building a nuclear bomb. Some contend Israel couldn’t cope with a two-front war and has put the standoff with Tehran on a back burner. Others expect the Israelis to confront any fresh Iranian provocation even while battling Hamas, with the recent clash providing them an opportunity to test their Iron Dome missile defense system.
“A lot of people have speculated that this is a sort of dress rehearsal for Iran,” Paul Scham, a Middle East Institute scholar and professor of Israel studies at the University of Maryland, said of the past week’s Israeli offensive punishing an escalation of Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel.
The Iron Dome system succeeded in intercepting at least 300 rockets fired from Gaza, preventing what might have been a higher civilian casualty toll that could have driven Israel to step up its offensive with a ground invasion, Scham noted.
Demonstrating the prowess of its previously untested missile defense, he said, “might be a warning to Iran, and to the United States as well, that Israel is serious about halting any weapons development.”
Charles Ries, a career diplomat now heading Rand Corp.'s Center for Middle East Public Policy, said he wasn’t among those predicting that an Israeli strike on Iran was imminent. But he sees no compromising of Israeli capabilities to act against Tehran because of the Gaza distraction.
“The Israelis will act on their interests as they see them. If they see weaponization by Iran, they will act regardless of Gaza. That said, I don’t think that’s particularly likely,” Ries said of the Iranian nuclear standoff surging to the foreground.
A more disturbing consequence of the past week’s violence may be seen in Syria, where attacks on rebel-held civilian enclaves by Assad’s forces have intensified as the Syrian president takes advantage of the international community’s diverted attention, said Robert Danin, senior fellow in Middle East and African Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“We’ve seen a dramatic uptick in violence in Syria since this conflict broke out in Gaza,” said Danin. “We are not very good, the United States or the international community, at watching multiple crises unfolding. This conflict has a way of sucking oxygen away from other issues.”
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A foreign correspondent for 25 years, Carol J. Williams traveled to and reported from more than 80 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
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ade6e6bfdee6292875b94204d43560a2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-25-la-fi-mo-airline-food-getting-healthier-expert-says-20121123-story.html | Airline food is getting more healthful, expert says | Airline food is getting more healthful, expert says
On the nation’s airlines, the days of free lunch are long over. That also goes for breakfast, dinner and snacks. Once complimentary, most airline food now comes with a price tag.
But there is some good news about what you get to eat on commercial airlines: It apparently is getting more healthful.
That’s the assessment of Charles Platkin, a professor of nutrition at the City University of New York, who has tested and ranked airline foods off and on since 2000. He said most airlines now offer at least one healthy meal alternative in their on-board menu.
“It’s actually moving in a good direction,” he said. “It’s been an ebb and flow, but the overall trend is positive.”
Platkin gave the top ranking this year to California-based Virgin America, noting that the airline offers lower-calorie options like roasted pear and arugula salad, a “protein plate” with hummus and whole wheat pita bread, plus oatmeal for breakfast. He gave the airline 4 1/4 stars out of five.
At the bottom of the list was Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, with a rating of 1 1/2 stars. Platkin said the airline “made it clear that their foods were not healthy. It shows.” The airline’s snacks include M&Ms;, Oreo Brownies and Pringles chips.
Air Canada and Alaska Airlines came in second and third in Platkin’s ranking. Other big airlines -- including United, American, Delta and US Airways -- ranked in the middle of the list.
Platkin does not eat the food on every airline he rates. “I don’t have that kind of time,” he said. “I have classes to teach.” Instead, he collects and reviews lists of food items, including the ingredients and calorie counts, from the airlines.
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Follow Hugo Martin on Twitter at @hugomartin
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088a9f2d89663d22a7aa4f8cdb858957 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-28-la-fg-wn-egyptian-court-challenges-president-20121128-story.html | Egyptian court vows to not be ‘blackmailed’ by President Morsi | Egyptian court vows to not be ‘blackmailed’ by President Morsi
CAIRO -- Egypt’s highest court Wednesday went on the offensive against President Mohamed Morsi, saying it would not be intimidated by “blackmail” and indicating it would soon rule on whether to dissolve the Islamist-led constitutional assembly, which Morsi has vowed to protect.
The comments by the Supreme Constitutional Court increased the pressure in the struggle over the separation of powers and set the country on unpredictable legal and political terrain. Street protests against the president echoed across the nation as Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood requested that the army guard its offices, which have been ransacked and burned in several cities.
The court’s stance is a direct challenge to Morsi, who last week stunned Egyptians by placing his office and the constitutional assembly above judicial oversight. The president’s credibility would be further damaged if the court rules to nullify the assembly, which has been boycotted by liberals and non-Muslims for leaning toward Sharia law at the expense of civil rights.
The constitutional “court will not be intimidated, blackmailed or threatened and we will not be subjected to any pressure regardless of how strong this pressure is. We are united,” court spokesman Maher Samy told reporters while Egypt braced for demonstrations that have echoed the passions of protests last year that brought down longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.
The court’s statement means the judges “will tend to their work regardless of what happens,” said Ahmed Ibrahim Ismail, an appeals court lawyer. “It seems that they will remain defiant because they have the people’s support. The people are rejecting Morsi’s declaration because it essentially turns the president into a godly figure.”
The public backlash against Morsi, whose power decree has been criticized by his justice minister and several aides, is widening and threatening the running of the government. The Appeals Court announced its judges and lawyers would suspend their duties, joining a nationwide strike by other judges.
But Morsi remains defiant in an ominous test of wills between Islamists and opposition parties. Tensions long suppressed under Mubarak are now central to defining the nation’s political character. Tweets from the Brotherhood set a mood of battle: “no turning back, decree is staying, those not willing to reach to a point of stability will be held accountable to God & history.”
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045a7c16b12b3cff288144ab66a29eea | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-nov-28-la-fg-wn-spanish-real-estate-lender-layoffs-20121128-story.html | Top Spanish real estate lender lays off 6,000 employees | Top Spanish real estate lender lays off 6,000 employees
MADRID -- Spain’s biggest real estate lender announced Wednesday that it would slash 6,000 jobs and close nearly 40% of its bank branches in exchange for European bailout loans.
The European Commission approved restructuring plans for Spain’s financial sector Wednesday, including a $48-billion loan to four lenders nationalized by the Spanish government. Europe has offered Spain up to $130 billion to rescue its banks, severely hobbled by the country’s housing boom-and-bust. Madrid could still tap more of that total when it evaluates additional banks next month.
The bulk of the initial loan is earmarked for Bankia, the fourth-largest Spanish bank overall but the country’s largest property lender. Its failure last spring sparked fears of a wider Spanish meltdown and prompted politicians to turn to Europe for help.
Moments after officials in Brussels approved the aid for Spanish banks, Bankia’s chairman, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, announced that the company would lay off 28% of its work force, shed $65 billion in assets and shut 1,100 Bankia branches. Many of those used to belong to seven regional savings banks that merged to form Bankia in late 2010.
“Our clients can be totally reassured because we have a viable and solid business in which they can be absolutely sure of their savings,” Goirigolzarri told reporters in Madrid.
Bankia has about 12 million customers, or about 1 in 4 Spaniards.
The European Union’s competition commissioner called the bank bailout approved Wednesday a “milestone” for the Eurozone.
“Our objective is to restore the viability of banks receiving aid so that they are able to function without public support in the future,” Joaquín Almunia, the competition commissioner and a Spaniard, told reporters in Brussels. “We also make sure that banks use no more than what is necessary of taxpayers’ money to restructure and do not go back to unsustainable business practices.”
The Bankia layoffs will exacerbate Spanish unemployment, already at an all-time high of more than 25%. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast this week that Spain’s jobless rate would approach 27% next year.
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60a715e9cb1aa7dd2c43cbdb0cbdeaca | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-oct-03-la-na-russian-indict-20121004-story.html | U.S. indicts 11 in alleged technology theft for Russia | U.S. indicts 11 in alleged technology theft for Russia
HOUSTON —Eleven alleged members of a clandestine procurement network have been indicted in connection with what prosecutors say was a $50-million conspiracy designed “to steal American technologies for the Russian government.”
The grand jury indictment was unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., but many of the defendants were arrested in Texas. One, Alexander Posobilov, appeared before a U.S. magistrate in Houston as prosecutors began seeking defendants’ transfers to Brooklyn for trial.
Federal prosecutors said the ringleader is Alexander Fishenko, 46, the owner of U.S. and Russian companies. He immigrated to this country in 1994 and became a U.S. citizen nine years later. He is accused of acting as an unregistered agent “on behalf of the Russian government” to oversee shipments to Russia of radar and surveillance systems, weapons guidance systems and detonation triggers.
“These microelectronics had applications in a wide range of military systems, including radar and surveillance systems, weapons targeting systems and detonation triggers,” the indictment says. Prosecutors say the equipment wound up with Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service.
Much of the equipment is unavailable in Russia, and it is illegal to ship it out of this country. The crime can draw more than 20 years in prison.
“The defendants spun an elaborate web of lies to evade the laws that protect our national security,” said U.S. Atty. Loretta Lynch in Brooklyn. “The defendants tried to take advantage of America’s free markets to steal American technologies for the Russian government.”
The indictment said Fishenko ran Arc Electronics Inc. in Houston, which sent the equipment to Russia. There was “a striking similarity” between Arc’s gross revenue and Russia’s defense spending over the last several years, prosecutors said.
Arc often gave false information to obtain the equipment from U.S. manufacturers and suppliers, the indictment said, and claimed that it “merely manufactured benign products such as traffic lights.”
In other instances, the defendants allegedly labeled some equipment as material for fishing boats rather than as anti-submarine devices.
Prosecutors told U.S. Magistrate Judge George C. Hanks Jr. in Houston that three defendants — Fishenko, Posobilov and Viktoria Klebanova — should be held without bond. They said they had recovered hundreds of Fishenko emails that “constitute devastating evidence” of his work for Russia.
Prosecutors said Posobilov, 58, entered the U.S. in 2001 and became a U.S. citizen in 2008. He was arrested Tuesday as he was about to fly to Russia.
He was the first to appear in federal court, where he sat handcuffed, chained at the waist and ankles. Looking sleepy, Posobilov occasionally closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair as he listened to the proceedings translated into Russian on headphones.
The judge set Posobilov’s detention hearing for 10 a.m. Friday in Houston.
His Houston-based attorney, Richard Kuniansky, said he expected more information to be released at the hearing.
“You’re going to find out all about the case then,” he said.
Prosecutors said Klebanova, 37, is a U.S. citizen but travels to Russia extensively. She allegedly exchanged emails with Fishenko and Posobilov about how to evade U.S. export laws.
More defendants are scheduled to appear in court Thursday.
FBI agents and Houston police have cordoned off Arc’s offices, stringing yellow police tape around the strip mall that also houses a storefront church and an orthopedic supply company.
Lance Carter, 33, who works across the street at Showcase Cable, watched in disbelief as agents removed boxes of evidence from the building. “This is something you would see on an episode of ’24,’ not real life,” he said as he snapped photos.
Dan Brown, 25, an orthopedic sales rep, said he had seen an older Russian man outside the building, smoking, but had never really talked to him. The business received a lot of deliveries, he said. Now he wonders what was in all the packages.
“It’s crazy to think there’s some kind of espionage and treason thing going on with Russia. None of us had an inkling,” he said. “It’s unnerving.”
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
richard.serrano@latimes.com
Hennessy-Fiske reported from Houston; Serrano from Washington
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4651746bd7ce263ea4bc08a6618e505e | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-oct-20-la-fg-pakistan-malala-20121020-story.html | Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, shot by Taliban, able to stand | Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, shot by Taliban, able to stand
LONDON — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenage education-rights campaigner who was shot in the head by the Taliban, has been able to stand for the first time since the attack and is communicating by writing, a British hospital official said Friday.
But the 14-year-old whose plight has aroused international concern is still fighting an infection caused by the bullet that entered her head, burrowed past her jaw and lodged above her shoulder blade, said David Rosser, medical director at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, in central England. Malala was flown to the hospital from Pakistan this week for specialized treatment.
Rosser said Malala has continued to show signs of improvement since waking from a long anesthesia.
“One of the first things she asked the nurses was what country she was in,” he told reporters. “She’s closer to the edge of the woods, but she’s not out of the woods.”
The teenager was shot Oct. 9 aboard a school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, a scenic region that has come under the sway of Taliban militants and their fanatical Islamist ideology.
Malala had risen to prominence by passionately defending the right to education for girls, in defiance of Taliban teaching; she wrote a blog about her thoughts and experiences for the BBC’s Urdu Service.
Three brothers have been arrested in connection with the shooting, though Pakistani authorities said none was believed to have been the gunman. Officials in Pakistan were quoted this week as saying that the suspected attacker had been detained in 2009 during a military offensive in the Swat Valley but later released.
The Taliban has vowed to finish Malala off, prompting tight security at the Birmingham hospital.
Far from quashing Malala’s cause, the attack sparked huge rallies across Pakistan and the rest of the world on her behalf. Rosser said his young patient was “keen to thank people” for their outpouring of support and wanted the world to be kept apprised of her condition.
The bullet that struck her did not penetrate her skull, Rosser said. Instead, it entered her head near her left eyebrow, then traveled under the surface of the skin down the side of her head and neck. Shock waves from the bullet shattered a bone in her skull, and fragments were driven into her brain.
Two other girls in the bus were wounded in the attack, one of them critically. They remain in Pakistan.
Rosser said that scans had shown some damage to Malala’s brain. But encouragingly, “at this stage we’re not seeing any deficit in terms of function,” he said. “She seems to be able to understand; she has some memory.... She’s able to stand. She’s got motor control, so she’s able to write.”
Malala appears to have some recall of the attack, but those around her are refraining from bringing up the topic, Rosser said.
“From a lot of the work we’ve done with our military casualties, we know that reminding people of traumatic events at this stage increases the potential for psychological problems later,” he said.
A tube in her trachea makes it impossible for her to speak for now, but the hospital is trying to arrange for her to listen to her father on the phone. Her family remains in Pakistan; efforts are underway to bring them to Britain to be at her bedside.
Rosser said the teen would require a few weeks of rest before surgeons try to reconstruct the damaged part of her skull and possibly her jaw.
“Its going to be a process of recuperation and recovery,” he said. “If things go well, there shouldn’t be dramatic changes to her condition; it should be a gradual recovery of strength.
“It would be over-optimistic to say that there are not going to be further problems,” Rosser said. “But it is possible she’ll make a full recovery.”
henry.chu@latimes.com
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5cd511620df2b71de2102b0b61a23bef | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-oct-25-la-fg-egypt-trash-20121026-story.html | In Egypt, post-revolution chaos stinks, with trash piling up | In Egypt, post-revolution chaos stinks, with trash piling up
CAIRO — Trucks haul garbage away, but by nightfall trash bags seem to breed across boulevards and alleys, rising like a foul tide until men and boys, hands quick as birds, scavenge for tin foil flashing in the rising sun.
Trash tumbles and blows, sits in clumps, blocks traffic, smothers canals, tangles in trees and gives this overcrowded city the fly-buzz hum of something not quite right. There is much wrong in Egypt these days, but few things are as irritating and noxious as piles of rotting waste.
“It’s affected my breathing. You wouldn’t believe how many medicines I’m on,” said Sayed Abdelalim, garbage spilling out of a neighborhood dump and coiling down his street. “I have to buy two inhalers a week. We complain to the government, but it’s like talking to ourselves.”
The trash deluge is part of an array of social and economic setbacks facing this nation since last year’s overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Power outages, crime and fears that subsidies may be cut on bread and propane have unnerved the poor and middle class. Garbage has become another metaphor, a black-humor shorthand, for explaining all that doesn’t work.
President Mohamed Morsi launched a “Clean Homeland” campaign when he was inaugurated in June. The program has made some improvements, but trash collection is an underfunded and disorganized network of private contractors, state agencies, street sweepers and Coptic Christian garbage collectors, known as zabaleen, who have been an informal but integral part of the refuse business for generations.
Cairo reportedly generates 14,000 tons of garbage a day — 8,000 picked up by zabaleen and various contractors, leaving 6,000 to litter sidewalks and corners, where sheep headed for slaughter dine on the contents of split-open bags. The problem has been complicated by a cultural mind-set that trash can be tossed anywhere in an ancient metropolis soured by cement dust and factory grit.
It is a shifting landscape, an unspoken war: People in one neighborhood drop trash in another in a cycle that leaves no street safe.
“We are suffering in one of the most polluted cities in the world,” said Ahmed Abrass, an environmentalist. “We have typhoid.... When you pollute the air, it affects your mind, your well-being. The Ministry of Environment is very unorganized and unresponsive. Simply collecting the trash won’t help. We need a better way of disposal.”
Food scraps, machine parts, newspapers, bottles, diapers, couches, dead cats and just about anything else end up before the broom of Sayed Ahmed, who has been sweeping streets for 24 years.
“The trash keeps increasing. It’s the only thing in Egypt we don’t run out of,” said Ahmed, in a blue uniform and askew cap, scooping debris into a white sack. “The population keeps growing and there’s nowhere to put it. But people are throwing away bread. You should never throw away food.”
Behind him, in the street median, a young man and a boy pick through a small hill of garbage, plucking out recyclables and things that can be sold or tinkered into something new. “We take what we can use,” said the man, back bent and oblivious to jockeying donkey carts and microbuses.
This city and its suburbs have a population of about 17 million. Villagers arrive daily from the provinces, and scavenged wood and bricks are used to add new hovels to neighborhoods of slums. It’s a grid of perpetual motion and compressed space, where legions of hogs kept by the zabaleen once munched away tons of trash a day. Their ranks were culled in 2009 over misplaced fear that the animals carried swine flu.
“There are no pigs anymore to eat all this trash,” said Mahmoud Ahmed, a car parts dealer.
Front-end loaders scrape garbage from streets and trucks drive it away in Sisyphean ritual. As soon as it’s cleared, more materializes, even around villas of the rich. Mothers, children at their elbows, struggle to keep hems unsullied while navigating piles and gliding through errands.
“Cairo has long been a city where rich and poor live cheek by jowl, where extreme wealth sits within sight of wrenching poverty. Garbage, however, is one of the few equalizers,” according to the news website Ahram Online.
Mohamed Gamal has known days of stink. A waiter in a restaurant on a busy street, he recalled not long ago when garbage piled outside ruined the view for his diners. The government cleaned it up and built a fountain next to the restaurant, a mosque and a playground.
“Egyptians throw away an amazing amount of trash. I don’t know where they get it all,” said Gamal, a cooking fire burning behind him. “The state is trying. But we need more bins and containers. I expected things to have improved more since the revolution. But we need to change ourselves, our hygiene habits. People should know where to throw their trash. This city is too overcrowded.”
Like much in Egypt, the trash predicament will take patience. The fountain outside Gamal’s window, after all, still has no water.
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Special correspondent Reem Abdellatif contributed to this report.
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3a2a8d1639708773462429599e0a8fb2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-oct-27-la-fg-syria-truce-violence-20121027-story.html | Dozens killed as Syria cease-fire ends within hours | Dozens killed as Syria cease-fire ends within hours
BEIRUT — The first day of a cease-fire in the Syrian conflict in observance of the Eid al-Adha holiday went as many observers had expected: It was violated within hours, and both sides blamed each other.
The four-day truce, which began Friday with the Muslim holiday, was brokered by the international envoy to Syria and was intended to provide at least a brief respite from the bloody violence, as well as possibly begin a long-term cessation of fighting.
Instead, opposition activists said 49 people were killed across the country — a lower daily death toll than has become the norm in Syria — including about 10 who died after a car bomb went off in a Damascus neighborhood Friday afternoon.
The bomb detonated in the Zuhour neighborhood, near a vegetable market that had been transformed for the holiday into a playground. At the time of the explosion, the area was crowded with families. Among the dead were several children.
Video from the blast’s immediate aftermath showed residents searching for bodies amid destroyed building fronts as fires burned in the street. State media said more than 10 people were killed.
The opposition rebels and the government of President Bashar Assad traded blame for the explosion, which seemed to effectively end what was already a shaky cease-fire.
Despite pessimism by Lakhdar Brahimi, envoy for the United Nations and Arab League, over his chances for success in brokering a peace in the conflict, he said he still had hope that the four-day truce could lead to a lasting cease-fire. Yet even as Assad’s government announced Thursday that it had agreed to a halt in fighting, few believed the truce would succeed. Previous attempts at a cease-fire have failed, and violence in Syria has escalated.
There was no broad consensus among rebel groups about observing the truce, with some saying they would put up their arms only if regime forces did first, while others said the government needed to release all detainees and withdraw from cities before there could be a cease-fire.
In April, Brahimi’s predecessor, Kofi Annan, brokered a cease-fire that fell apart within days.
Despite clear indications from both sides that they are not interested in dialogue or a political transition, international leaders are still pushing for diplomacy.
Meanwhile, in the southern province of Dara, state media reported that rebels detonated a car bomb near a military checkpoint, injuring 11 soldiers.
In the Damascus suburb of Harasta, 10 people were killed when the town again came under government shelling, as it has been for several days now, activists said.
In the northern city of Maarat Numan, which has been the scene of fighting between Free Syrian Army rebels and loyalist forces for more than two weeks, government shelling began at 5 a.m. on all parts of the city, activist Ahmad Halabi said.
As fighting continued in some parts of the country Friday, however, many Syrians took advantage of the relative calm after morning Eid prayers to take to the streets in antigovernment demonstrations. Some of the protests were the largest seen in months, as in many parts of the country the armed conflict has overshadowed the uprising’s early displays of peaceful dissent.
Several demonstrations occurred in the country’s largest city, Aleppo, despite clashes reported by activists that continued unabated throughout the night, and shelling began early in the afternoon.
“Gunfire is coming down like rain,” one Aleppo resident said. “What kind of a cease-fire is this? And what kind of Eid is this?”
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80dc4558389b8628f0dd5e2919c6f3b3 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-oct-27-la-na-campaign-2012-20121028-story.html | Candidates joust over Romney’s record as governor | Candidates joust over Romney’s record as governor
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Mitt Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts was the focal point of presidential campaign sparring on Saturday, with the GOP nominee boasting that he worked across the aisle to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap and President Obama arguing that his tenure benefited the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.
Romney, speaking to thousands in a plane hangar in Kissimmee, said Washington needed bipartisan collaboration to fix the nation’s problems, and he pointed to his record in Massachusetts working with a legislature that was 85% Democratic.
“We didn’t go to work fighting each other; we came to work to work together. We found a way to do that. So we cut spending, we actually reduced the amount of money government was spending. And then we cut taxes 19 times,” Romney said. “We made our state more business-friendly.”
The end result, he said, was that a $3-billion budget gap turned into a $2-billion rainy-day fund and the state’s job growth improved.
“Those principles could work to get America together. We’ve got to do it. We can’t do this without the help of the people across the aisle,” he said.
While he made the case that his Massachusetts formula could be used to “get America together,” Romney omitted key elements — including that he increased corporate taxes and state fees by $750 million a year, outstripping his tax cuts, and was reluctant to engage with legislators. (He also has embraced the GOP’s stalwart objections in Congress to Democratic proposals.)
Obama, almost within shouting distance of the Bay State’s border in Nashua, N.H., said Romney’s record was instead proof that the GOP nominee’s budget plan would squeeze the middle class.
Campaigning in front of thousands outside a school, Obama said Romney’s promises of “big change” were only a “rerun” of failed policies.
Romney is “making a lot of last-minute promises lately,” claiming he would “cut taxes for everybody and ask something from nobody,” Obama said.
“But the problem is, we’ve heard those promises before,” he said. “During Gov. Romney’s campaign for governor down there, he promised the same thing he’s promising now. … But once he took office, he pushed through a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited 278 of the wealthiest families in the state, and then he raised taxes and fees on middle-class families to the tune of $750 million. Does that sound familiar to you?”
The president noted that Romney’s revenue hikes covered everything from gas and milk to marriage and birth certificates. The latter “would have been expensive for me,” Obama quipped, referring to the inaccurate claims about his birthplace that prompted him to release his long-form birth records.
With 10 days to go until election day and voters already hitting the polls in many states, the campaigns were also forced to scramble because of an October surprise from Mother Nature. Hurricane Sandy is hurtling toward an East Coast landfall early in the week, prompting Romney to cancel a Sunday swing through Virginia, after consulting with Gov. Bob McDonnell.
“He said, ‘You know, the first responders really need to focus on preparation for the storm,’ so we’re not going to be able to be in Virginia tomorrow; we’re going to Ohio instead,” Romney told Floridians. “But I hope you’ll keep the folks in Virginia and New Jersey and New York and all along the coast in your minds and in your hearts. You know how tough these hurricanes can be, and our hearts goes out to them.”
Vice President Joe Biden also canceled an event because of the storm, and his son, Delaware’s attorney general, had to cancel an appearance because his National Guard unit was activated to assist with that state’s response.
Obama altered his travel plans because of the storm, which is expected to cause flooding and power outages. He began his Saturday with a briefing by his homeland security and emergency management teams, telling officials to make sure there were “no unmet needs” as states prepared for the storm. The federal government response to Sandy is likely to be heavily scrutinized as early voters make their decision.
But Obama and Romney both made it Saturday to key states in a race that is coming down to the wire.
Romney appeared in Florida on the first day of early voting, and urged his supporters to go to the polls.
“Today you can go vote. And it helps for you to vote now because the earlier you vote, the more help you can give us getting other people to the polls because we’re going to have to turn out our people,” he said. “We need to get people who care about America to go to the polls and vote.”
And Obama’s appearance in New Hampshire, the second in 10 days, coincided with the state’s deadline for advance voter registration. Residents can also sign up to vote on election day.
New Hampshire has four electoral votes, the fewest among the most-contested states, but enough to warrant increasing attention from both campaigns, with Biden visiting on Monday and Romney on Tuesday.
“New Hampshire is going to be very important,” Obama told union workers at a stop en route to the Nashua rally. “We don’t know how this thing is going to play out, [and] these four electoral votes right here could make the difference.”
seema.mehta@latimes.com
michael.memoli@latimes.com
Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
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b16cb0945df29bf970b93df70d44a727 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-oct-28-la-fg-china-party-security-20121028-story.html | ‘No’ tops the agenda ahead of China’s 18th party congress | ‘No’ tops the agenda ahead of China’s 18th party congress
BEIJING — In honor of the upcoming 18th congress of the Chinese Communist Party, here are just a few of the things you cannot do in Beijing.
Watch foreign television while you exercise in a health club. Attend an outdoor concert. Do your homework online. Buy a knife in the supermarket. Buy lunch from a food cart. Run a marathon.
Complain.
Mao Tse-tung once said revolution is not a dinner party, but the party congress scheduled to begin Nov. 8 — during which a new Chinese leadership will be anointed — isn’t looking like much fun, either.
Since last month, in the name of security, Chinese authorities have turned to various baffling regulations that are snuffing much of the life out of Beijing, and police have increased their presence to keep the capital’s streets free of problems. As a result, many residents are finding the country’s political event of the decade to be nothing more than a colossal inconvenience.
Countless public events — cultural, sporting and business — have been canceled or postponed with no explanation and scant notice.
The Beijing Marathon, a world-class event normally run in October, was postponed to an undetermined date. Attendees at a legal conference scheduled for Oct. 10 arrived to find the doors taped shut and a notice saying the building had been closed by the fire department.
It has become difficult to find street vendors selling jianbing, a Beijing-style fried pancake that used to be as ubiquitous as hot dogs in New York, or someone grilling chuan, the Chinese version of shish kebab.
At the city’s five-star hotels, guests pounding away on the running machines and cross trainers can’t do so to the patter of CNN or a number of other programs: The television sets are all fixed to state-run channels.
Why?
“You can’t see foreign programs anymore because we are not allowed to play them. I don’t know why, but the relevant parties said it was not allowed,” said an employee in the gym at the Grand Hyatt.
The congress is the whopper political event in China, sort of like the U.S. Republican and Democratic conventions and election night all rolled into one. Though the event takes place every five years, this year’s gathering is highly important because both President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are to be replaced, along with other members of the top leadership.
Thousands of party cadres will be in Beijing for the occasion, making heightened security understandable to some extent. Still, at times it can feel like overkill.
Though the weeklong congress will be held at the Great Hall of the People, the security cordon extends far beyond Tiananmen Square.
Across town in Sanlitun, a restaurateur was visited recently by 20 municipal inspectors whose leader told him, “Avoid trouble and close your doors until it’s over.”
Train stations throughout the country have barred anyone who is not a passenger from platforms. A family in Shenzhen, more than 1,000 miles from Beijing, complained about not being allowed to help a 90-year-old relative with his luggage.
The websites of China’s international schools, which students use for online homework assignments, have seen unexplained disruptions.
The inconveniences are large and small: Yang Rui, a nationalist television host sometimes dubbed the Rush Limbaugh of China, complained on his blog about a recent experience in a supermarket.
“I looked everywhere for a fruit knife, but I failed. So I asked the clerk. He said, ‘All knives are off the shelf before the 18th party congress.’”
The precautions, if intended to avoid scandal, feel somewhat like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. The country has already seen a fair amount of unwanted attention during the last year or more.
In recent months, for example, the wife of a then-Politburo member, Bo Xilai, was convicted of murder, and a top security official, Wang Lijun, sought asylum in a U.S. consulate. Hu Jintao’s top aide had to step down after his son crashed his Ferrari, with two naked women as his passengers. The presumptive next president, Xi Jinping, disappeared for 17 days in a vanishing act that remains unexplained.
The congress’ inconveniences were drawn out this year because of secrecy over the date. By the time it was announced in September, lower-level government officials who had been left in the dark had already decided it was wisest for them to clear the calendar for much of autumn.
“We still have an underground party which is scared to reveal its real moves to the people, even the dates of its meetings,” dissident artist Ai Weiwei said in an interview this month.
Li Dan, who runs the Dongjen Center for Human Rights Education, said authorities were using the congress to maintain their grip on the people.
“It has become a habit over the years. At the lower levels, officials are afraid they will be punished if anything goes wrong at a crucial moment,” Li said. “There is always, every year, some big reason they claim they cannot be relaxed.”
China has been lurching from one sensitive moment to the next — the 2008 Olympics, followed in 2009 by the 60th anniversary of the country’s founding and last year’s 90th anniversary celebration of the Communist Party — each being an occasion to round up malcontents and cancel public events.
Event planners try to tiptoe around the land mines in the calendar, anticipating what might be a sensitive time.
Promoters of the Dreamer Festival, which features indie rock ‘n’ roll musicians, this year moved the outdoor concert from Beijing to Tianjin, 70 miles away. But it was ordered stopped anyway, forcing organizers to cancel contracts with artists, airlines and hotels and refund tickets.
“We dreamers were too naive. We thought we wouldn’t be affected by XX,” one of the festival organizers wrote on a music blog, using “XX” instead of writing “18th congress.”
That’s another taboo. The term “shi ba da” (meaning 18th congress) is among those banned from the Internet in China.
barbara.demick@latimes.com
Nicole Liu of The Times’ Beijing bureau contributed to this report.
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7dad0fb45c18bded3f2a5eb397ee7971 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-04-la-fg-syria-azaz-rebels-20120905-story.html | Syria rebel-captured town Azaz lies mostly in ruins | Syria rebel-captured town Azaz lies mostly in ruins
AZAZ, Syria — This battered agricultural hub near the Turkish border is one place where the Free Syrian Army has triumphed, scattering the forces of Syrian President Bahar Assad. It has proved to be something of a Pyrrhic victory.
Shot-up buildings, burned tanks and a pile of twisted rubble where a MiG fighter jet dropped a bomb last month attest to the heavy fighting required, the danger that remains, and how hard it will be to rebuild a normal life any time soon.
Like Azaz, many rebel-held towns in northwestern Syria are depopulated and heavily damaged. Refugees filter through Azaz on their way to safety in Turkey. A heavily guarded military base, still under the control of Assad’s forces, is only about 10 miles away. Artillery shells and the occasional airstrike shatter the calm.
None of that is likely to change until the fighting is over. But with the conflict grinding on, those who remain here are focused on just getting by, aware that they are fortunate to at least have electricity and running water.
Few in this conservative Sunni Muslim town, once home to about 50,000 people, mourn the collapse of government rule. Hatred for Assad and his leadership circle — made up largely of members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam — runs deep.
Near the site where the MiG dropped the bomb in mid-August, a man with a neatly trimmed beard squatted, contemplating the debris. The man, who identified himself as Abu Shado, said he lost 17 family members in the airstrike, including two brothers, his father and his mother.
Opposition sources say they were among 60 people killed in the airstrike. Scores were wounded.
“It should have been an equal fight: young men against young men,” Abu Shado said, scanning the wreckage like a seasoned sailor scrutinizing the sea. “Not this.”
His home, a few hundred yards away, was spared. But he spends a lot of time across the road from the wreckage, along with others who smoke cigarettes and stare at the debris. “I find comfort here,” he said.
At a former army barracks, now in ruins, graffiti proclaiming “Assad Forever” is a source of mockery. Military uniforms lie discarded on the floor of a school that had been used as a barracks. Posters of soccer heroes and female pinups attest to their former residents.
The tricolor of the Syrian uprising ripples in the wind alongside the Turkish star and crescent at the nearby Bab al-Salameh border crossing, where the trickle of visitors is welcomed to “Free Syria.”
The crossing, previously a major commercial hub, is now a sluggish compound where scruffy refugees gather in the shade of large structures meant for cargo truck inspection. There they wait their turn to cross into Turkey, where austere but safe tent cities await them.
There is no commercial traffic at the border crossing. Armed rebels check passports, having become de facto immigration officers, mostly serving returning Syrians and the occasional journalist.
The last government troops pulled out of Azaz in late July, the opposition says. The snipers have gone, but hulks of destroyed tanks remain on many streets, vivid reminders of months of clashes and shelling and sniper fire.
The government’s exit sparked a day of great celebration here. But about 80% of the population also has left. Few rebels are even here.
Rebel fighters remain on checkpoints outside the town, but virtually all of them are needed in the battle for Syria’s commercial capital, Aleppo, 30 miles away.
Last month’s airstrike was a reminder of the vulnerability of the town and many other places now controlled by the rebels. Government warplanes and artillery can strike at will from bases scattered around areas that are otherwise held by rebels.
Some who came here from Aleppo and elsewhere for shelter left after the airstrike.
“We are living in fear and terror, but we are Muslims and believe in God,” Hassan Tabach, 32, a women’s clothing store owner, said Tuesday evening after the daytime heat had abated and some people ventured onto the streets or into shops.
A 43-year-old man who gave his name as Abu Mohammed sat on a street enjoying tea with his family, including its 87-year-old patriarch.
Across the street, Amaar Shaabo, 24, was busy cutting hair for the nighttime clientele. Business is way down; rebel troops are among his regulars. But Shaabo said he keeps the shop open as much as possible.
Shaabo said that he was married three months ago amid shelling, and that many people left after the big airstrike. “But I have hope they will come back,” he said.
As night fell, the thud of distant shelling returned. But there was also the laughter of children in the streets and the din of conversations as people sat outside in the fresh air.
Everyone here seems to want the war to end. Few seem to think it will any time soon.
“Sometimes we have hope,” said a woman, 38, who fled Aleppo’s violence-racked Salahuddin district and wonders whether her family is safe here. “And then the shelling comes back. And we no longer have hope.”
As if to emphasize the point, the roar of a fighter jet broke the quiet just after midnight, followed by an explosion and a plume of smoke that rose from a residential neighborhood. There was no immediate word on casualties.
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a3f39832bfb1f5968bfe8c06023167d2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-08-la-fg-india-intellectuals-20120909-story.html | In India, Bengalis seek to recapture their glory as intellectuals | In India, Bengalis seek to recapture their glory as intellectuals
KOLKATA, India — The dusty files, manual typewriter, aging books and film reels in metal tins languish in Satyajit Ray’s study, largely the way the filmmaker left them on his death two decades ago.
Among the most creative Bengalis of modern times, Ray directed 37 films and wrote 75 short stories when he wasn’t publishing, illustrating, composing and writing critiques. A few weeks before his death, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences paid tribute to his life with an honorary Oscar.
People from Bengal — now divided between India’s West Bengal state and Bangladesh — have long enjoyed a reputation as India’s intellectuals, its creative spirits. Many cite an early 20th century quote by Indian freedom fighter Gopal Krishna Gokhale: “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.”
But the creative juices slowed to a trickle in the last few decades as political and economic stagnation fueled a brain drain and older generations died out, epitomized by Ray’s fading, museum-like study.
The state government recently has sought to recapture its cultural glory. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee declared that within a few years, the state capital, Kolkata (formerly, and unofficially still, known as Calcutta), will not only become India’s cultural capital, but also the world’s.
She named herself cultural affairs head, expanded arts budgets, honors and prizes, named subway stations after cultural icons and promised new auditoriums, archives, research centers and schools.
That’s left some artists questioning whether bureaucrats can lead the renaissance. In fact, many point to the government as a factor in the closing of minds in West Bengal, arguing that last year’s end of the Communist Party’s 34-year reign in the state left a legacy of bureaucratic complacency.
“It’s good they’re gung-ho,” said Qaushiq Mukherjee, 38, a filmmaker. “But I don’t see this resonating from the state.”
Bengalis’ intellectual reputation dates to the 19th century, when Calcutta was the capital of British India. Living directly under the “imperialists” allowed Bengalis to pick up English quickly, exposing them to global ideas, innovation, arts and politics. Soon, Calcutta boasted India’s first trams, gramophones, museum, telephone exchange, modern university.
But it also left many chafing under a foreign power.
“This was the seat of colonial power with lots of repression,” said Partha Pratim Ray, a physics professor at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University. “We Bengalis weren’t strong physically, so we became stronger in our brains to get around them.”
Bengalis were pioneers in outlawing sati, under which Indian widows committed suicide on their husband’s funeral pyres, and in the anti-British nationalism leading to independence in 1947, producing over the years an impressive array of writers, artists, philosophers and social reformers.
These included poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, India’s Tolstoy; nationalist revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose; and Swami Vivekananda, who introduced Hindu thought to the West, helping to spread and popularize yoga.
In 1911, however, Britain shifted the capital to New Delhi, which gradually diminished Calcutta’s publishing, arts and industrial production.
“The Bengalis thought they were on the vanguard,” said Ramachandra Guha, a historian. “This idea never left them, even as other parts of India eclipsed them.”
This nostalgia is epitomized in a 2005 Hindustan Times column envisioning an India still ruled from Kolkata: “We would be a nation of intellect and not a nation that is largely governed by idiots,” it said. “If there is anything that Calcutta has in abundance, it is soul.”
Echoes of that faded soul are still found in legions of bookstalls around Kolkata’s Presidency University, where S.K. Mansur Ali, 51, sits crouched in a tiny kiosk selling books varying from Stephen King thrillers to the “Manual of Geriatric Psychiatry.”
“Business is bad,” Ali said, blaming computers, changing values and Kolkata’s decline. “I used to be so busy, I couldn’t even talk. Now I have all day. Consumerism is corrupting our minds.”
A few blocks away, up a flight of grungy steps, the ghosts of conversations past echo in the College Street Coffee House, which traces its roots to the 1800s. Once a nexus for scholars, artists and student revolutionaries debating political “isms” over cheap cigarettes, it’s now a hangout for low-end clerks and the unemployed drawn to its cheap chow mein and surly service.
Another blow to their beloved Kolkata, Bengalis say, was the Communists’ three-decade political domination. Although the Left Front initially introduced land reform, it soon settled into inertia and political intrigue, critics say, as anti-business policies and onerous labor rules sparked crippling strikes, driving many corporations away.
“There’s been no job creation and tremendous brain drain,” said Ray, the professor. “It’s not a conducive intellectual atmosphere, and there isn’t good infrastructure.”
Pritish Nandy, a poet, painter, journalist and former lawmaker, was one such refugee. He left Calcutta as a young man to run the then-fledgling Times of India, now the nation’s largest English-language newspaper, in Mumbai. “I felt the opportunity was slipping out,” he said.
Still, Bengalis have clung defensively to their intellectual reputation, some believe, even as vitality has slipped away.
“It’s a belief in the lost cause,” said Swapan Dasgupta, a senior Bengali journalist now living in Delhi. “It’s a lost generation.”
But Kolkata’s loss was India’s — and the world’s — gain, as a host of Bengalis and their offspring populated Indian media, Bollywood and beyond, including Nobel Prize laureate and Harvard economics professor Amartya Sen, filmmaker Aparna Sen, author Amitav Ghosh, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri.
For some, Kolkata’s finest don’t necessarily embody creativity. Rather, they’re pretty good at convincing others of their brilliance. “It may look like they’re doing a lot of thinking, but it’s more their articulation,” said Sen, the economist.
In a world obsessed with greed, upward mobility and glitzy shopping malls, some welcome a place where the ideals of faded glory still hold sway.
Back in the elegant, dated apartment of filmmaker Satyajit Ray, his son expresses cautious optimism about Kolkata’s future, even if it never lives up to state leader Banerjee’s boast of becoming the “next London.”
“Changes are happening, although it’s still a bit on the slow side,” said Sandip Ray, 57, also a filmmaker. “We have to be a little more aggressive about marketing, which isn’t really in our psyche.”
mark.magnier@latimes.com
Tanvi Sharma of The Times’ New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.
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8bbc4322dc9a8c67a5e78ccd6bc32af0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-14-la-fg-middle-east-violence-20120915-story.html | Anti-American unrest spreads in Muslim world | Anti-American unrest spreads in Muslim world
CAIRO — Anti-American violence erupted across the Muslim world for a third day, with enraged protesters scaling the walls of U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunisia and hard-pressed police waging street battles with demonstrators in several Middle East capitals.
Protesters tore down the flag at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, and set a nearby American school afire. In Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, demonstrators breached an embassy wall and raised a black flag of militant Islam as police struggled to push them back. They also set fire to a building at the German Embassy compound.
At least four protesters were reported killed — two in Tunisia, one in Yemen and one in the Lebanese city of Tripoli — during attacks on American fast-food franchises Hardee’s and KFC. Armed Islamic militants attacked a multinational peacekeeping base in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, setting vehicles on fire and wounding at least three Colombian peacekeepers.
Triggered in large part by an amateurish video clip portraying the prophet Muhammad as a womanizer and child molester, the protests have strained U.S. relations with Egypt and raised tension in Libya, where an armed attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The protests were a reminder of the passions unleashed by the “Arab Spring,” which toppled authoritarian regimes across the region, the unfulfilled longings of millions for a better life and the weaknesses of new governments still trying to find their footing. New leaders such as Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi find themselves in a bind.
Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were caught flat-footed when their rivals in the ultraconservative Salafist movement called for protests outside the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday. The Brotherhood wants to maintain its legitimacy on the streets, but it also needs to court international support and investment. Morsi has been seeking forgiveness of $1 billion of his country’s debt, as well as new international loans worth an estimated $4.8 billion.
“For the Muslim Brotherhood, there is always this sense of trying to protect their right flank and to not cede ground to the Salafists,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, an expert on Egypt at the New York-based Century Foundation. “At some point in time, they have to make this jump from always playing the domestic angles and being careless with international issues.”
The U.S. has responded with diplomatic pressure and by sending Marine guards to shore up security at U.S. missions in Libya and Yemen, where the U.S. embassy in Sana was stormed by demonstrators Thursday.
State Department officials said Friday that security services in some countries responded sluggishly and had to be pushed to step up protection of U.S. diplomats and property. But spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also softened the criticism, saying that in several cases post-authoritarian security forces weren’t used to taking the initiative.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that after U.S. prodding, the response in Tunisia was “very strong.”
From Indonesia and Malaysia to Afghanistan and Pakistan, other demonstrators mounted less violent protests after Friday prayers. And in East Jerusalem, about 400 protesters trying to reach the U.S. Consulate threw stones and bottles at Israeli police, who held off the assault and arrested four people.
In Cairo, police had stood by Tuesday night as mobs stormed the U.S. Embassy, and Morsi failed for two days to publicly condemn the attack. At least 250 people were wounded during four days of skirmishes, according to Al Ahram newspaper.
After a sharply worded phone call from President Obama on Thursday, Morsi said during a televised address on Friday that it was a religious requirement “to protect our guests and their homes and places of work.” He also condemned the killing of Stevens in Libya, saying it was unacceptable within Islam.
Outside the embassy in downtown Cairo on Friday, crowds were divided between peaceful protesters summoned by the Brotherhood, which has the largest faction in parliament, and a more violent group bent on confrontation.
“The U.S. ambassador must leave!” shouted a young man in the crowd. He was raised in the air, to cheers, by others as a group of several hundred protesters tried to storm past riot police.
The booms of police tear gas canisters rang out every few minutes. Injured demonstrators were lifted into ambulances as more protesters arrived to replace them.
Even as clouds of tear gas wafted across Tahrir Square, the rioting seemed as closely tied to Egypt’s internal politics as to complaints about America. There was angry talk among the protesters that Morsi had not been tough enough.
In Tunis, government officials condemned the attack on the U.S. Embassy. President Moncef Marzouki called it “unjustifiable aggression” and said that those who caused it would be punished.
A mob of up to 5,000 people stormed the embassy earlier in the day, shouting, “We will have our revenge for our prophet!” as police fought to drive them back. A firebomb landed inside the compound and set part of a building on fire as two armed U.S. Marines took up positions on an embassy rooftop.
Police and military reinforcements, backed by three tanks, fired tear gas and rubber bullets. At least eight people in the crowd went down, and Tunisian state news later reported that two people had been killed and 29 wounded.
Demonstrators scaled a rear embassy wall, tore down an American flag and raised a black banner of militant Islam.
“American and European leaders didn’t apologize for making fun of the prophet,” said one protester, who identified himself as Rida, 22, a university student. “We will do anything to defend our faith.”
In Yemen, security units surrounded the embassy in Sana, closing all routes nearby and dispersing several hundred demonstrators Friday. One person was killed, raising the death toll to five since Thursday.
Demonstrators on Friday carried banners that read, “This is your last day in Yemen, U.S. ambassador” and “The U.S. is the devil.” But in Friday sermons, religious scholars in the capital condemned the violence, while also denouncing the U.S.-made video clip.
At Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, Obama attended a ceremony as the bodies of the Americans killed in Libya arrived on U.S. soil.
“The United States of America will never retreat from the world,” Obama told friends and families of the men. “We will never stop working for the dignity and freedom that every person deserves, whatever their creed, whatever their faith.... That’s the spirit that sets us apart from other nations.”
At the ceremony, Clinton issued a veiled but steely warning to foreign leaders who fail to protect U.S. missions. “We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with,” Clinton said. “It is hard for the American people to make sense of that, because it is senseless. And it is totally unacceptable.
“Reasonable people and responsible leaders in these countries need to do everything they can to restore security and hold accountable those behind these violent acts,” she said, speaking slowly and emphatically.
The caskets arrived at the base shortly after 2 p.m. and were greeted by a Marine team that walked them to a hangar. Obama and Clinton stood in front of the caskets and briefly recalled the lives of the four men. When the ceremony concluded, the Marines placed the flag-draped caskets into their hearses, waiting to deliver them to Delaware’s Dover Air Force base and to their families.
ned.parker@latimes.com
Abdellatif is a special correspondent. Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington, David Zucchino in Durham, N.C., Christi Parsons at Andrews Air Force Base and special correspondent Radhouane Addala in Tunis contributed to this report.
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afc647004fc9d7d46471386d4b3b3980 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-19-la-na-macdonald-20120920-story.html | Final chance for ‘Fatal Vision’ convict? | Final chance for ‘Fatal Vision’ convict?
WILMINGTON, N.C. — His ankles are shackled as he shuffles into the courtroom, looking older than his 68 years after half a lifetime in prison.
He wears white socks and shower sandals, baggy pants, and a drab tan pullover stamped with the words “Inmate New Hanover County,” the temporary home for federal prisoner number 0131-177. His thinning silver hair is worn in a choppy prison-barber cut.
Jeffrey MacDonald, the Army doctor imprisoned for life for killing his family, is back in federal court to seek exoneration 42 years after the crime.
In 1970, MacDonald was a captain assigned to the legendary Green Berets at Ft. Bragg, N.C. His marriage to his high school sweetheart, Collette, ended in horror when the pregnant Army wife and the couple’s two young daughters were stabbed and bludgeoned to death inside military housing late one night in February of that year.
A federal jury convicted MacDonald of the murders nine years later. He’s serving three life sentences, still insisting that his family was slaughtered by intruders, including a woman in a floppy hat chanting “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs.”
MacDonald has now achieved a rare legal feat. His lawyers have persuaded a federal appeals court to grant him a hearing based on new evidence.
For the last three days, MacDonald has sat at the defense table, listening in silence at a hearing to consider his claims that new DNA analysis and a belated revelation by a U.S. deputy marshal could prove his innocence.
The DNA evidence consists of a 2006 analysis of three human hairs found in MacDonald’s house at 544 Castle Drive at Ft. Bragg. The defense says the DNA does not match MacDonald nor any member of his family, but could belong instead to the intruders.
In 2005, former U.S. Deputy Marshal Jimmy Britt, now dead, gave sworn depositions saying a key witness — a heroin addict the defense says is the woman in the floppy hat — was threatened by the lead prosecutor in MacDonald’s 1979 trial. Britt told the defense team that prosecutor James Blackburn warned Helena Stoeckley that he would charge her with murder if she testified that she was at the MacDonald house the night of the murders.
Stoeckley is dead too — of post-hepatitis cirrhosis in 1983 — and the hearing has become an echo chamber of disembodied voices from a dim past. Richard Nixon was president and J. Edgar Hoover led the FBI when the murders took place.
U.S. District Judge John C. Fox has allowed the defense considerable leeway, saying Monday, “We don’t want to come back 42 years later and do it again.” Fox can reject the defense’s case and leave MacDonald to serve his three life sentences (his release date is 2071). He can vacate the convictions, or order a new trial.
Whatever his ruling, this is probably MacDonald’s last shot at freedom.
As the old stories played out inside the darkened courtroom in this former Confederate port city, the compelling narrative arc of the case took shape once again, two decades after a best-selling book and hit TV miniseries imprinted the murders on the public consciousness.
MacDonald, glib and handsome in 1970, managed to convince his wife’s parents that intruders had stabbed him and beat him unconscious as they murdered his family. The Army ultimately sided with him too, exonerating MacDonald in October 1970.
But soon the in-laws turned on him, and so did his erstwhile partner in championing his innocence, journalist Joe McGinniss, author of the damning 1983 best-seller “Fatal Vision,” which portrayed MacDonald as a scheming psychopath.
It was a horrific crime. Collette was stabbed 16 times with a knife and 21 times with an ice pick. Kimberley, 5, was bludgeoned in the head several times, and repeatedly stabbed in the neck. Kristen, 2, was stabbed 48 times and her finger nearly severed as she tried to defend herself.
Someone wrote “pig” in blood on a headboard. Prosecutors suggested it was MacDonald, concocting a phony murder scene to cover up his crimes.
This week, prosecutors poked holes in Britt’s claim that Stoeckley had confessed to him as he drove her to court in 1979. They
introduced documents showing that two other marshals, not Britt, drove Stoeckley. Britt’s fellow marshals testified that he was a fabulist and attention-seeker.
Further, Blackburn denied on the stand Wednesday that he had ever threatened Stoeckley, and said Britt was not even in the room where he purportedly overheard Blackburn’s threats. And Wade Smith, 75, MacDonald’s co-counsel in 1979, conceded that while Stoeckley may have told Britt she was at the murder scene, she refused to repeat that to defense lawyers.
Stoeckley told numerous people that she was at the murder scene or that her boyfriend and another man killed MacDonald’s family. But on the stand at MacDonald’s trial, Stoeckley denied that she was ever in the house and said she was so debilitated by heroin and mescaline that she had no memory of that February night.
This week, a parade of witnesses came forth to testify about Stoeckley’s claims. Sara McMann, who raised Stoeckley’s son David, said Stoeckley told her she had accompanied men from a cult determined to “rough up” MacDonald that night.
Wendy Rouder, a legal assistant for the defense at the 1979 trial, told of being dispatched to rescue Stoeckley at a cheap motel after Stoeckley’s boyfriend had bloodied her nose. She said Stoeckley told her that she wanted to testify that she had been at the murder scene, but was terrified of retaliation from prosecutors.
Stoeckley described a memory of being inside MacDonald’s house, “standing at the couch holding a candle … it was dripping blood,” Rouder testified.
Stoeckley’s younger brother, Gene Stoeckley, testified that his sister confessed to their mother in 1982 that she was in the house when the murders occurred — and that she knew MacDonald was innocent.
The DNA testimony is yet to come. In court filings, prosecutors have dismissed the evidence as inconclusive at best, saying it cannot possibly prove that intruders were in the MacDonald home.
At the same time, a literary duel is playing out over the true MacDonald narrative. Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, who has attended all three days of the hearing, has written the antidote to McGinniss’ accusatory account. His exquisitely timed “A Wilderness of Error,” published on the eve of the hearing, portrays MacDonald as a victim of investigative incompetence and legal injustice. MacDonald is innocent, Morris insists.
Morris wrote that McGinniss, who began his reporting in concert with MacDonald, betrayed his project partner, and plummeted down “a slippery slope of tergiversation, opportunism, and self-interest.”
McGinniss, who is on the witness list by virtue of what prosecutors called his “embedded” status as a de facto member of the 1979 defense team, is in Wilmington. He said in an email that he was sequestered and not free to discuss the case until after his testimony.
In court, MacDonald breaks his focus only to look over his shoulder to flash a slight smile at his wife, Kathryn, 51, in the gallery. She married him in a prison ceremony in 2002 in Cumberland, Md., where he is serving his sentence. She has spent the last several years rounding up new statements from witnesses, some of whom are testifying this week.
On the other side of the courtroom are the prosecutors, determined to cement forever the government’s conviction from three decades ago. And there too is Robert C. Stevenson, Collette’s brother, still seething over the murders.
“He butchered her,” Stevenson says of his former brother-in-law.
Stevenson, 73, a pastor’s assistant who wears a silver ponytail and a necklace of bear and fox teeth, says there is no new evidence — only an attempt to trample over “the broken and bloodied bodies of my family.”
MacDonald doesn’t often glance toward the prosecution side, where Stevenson sits in rigid silence. MacDonald’s focus is forward, except when the past embraces him.
After Smith finished his testimony Monday, the lawyer patted his former client on his arm and whispered encouragement in his ear. MacDonald smiled and bid his old friend goodbye, then turned his gaze back, ready for the next witness.
david.zucchino@latimes.com
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60ab2700779d048cce303f469b496b72 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-26-la-na-obama-debate-20120926-story.html | Obama getting less debate practice than Romney | Obama getting less debate practice than Romney
WASHINGTON — President Obama has blocked out three days to prepare for the October debates, but with the constant pressures that come with one of the world’s most important jobs, aides worry he may not get enough practice at the podium.
The debate retreat, scheduled to start Sunday in Henderson, Nev., a suburb that sprawls away from Las Vegas, includes time for the daily battery of presidential meetings, leaving room for three afternoon debate sessions — if no crises flare up. Obama has already canceled some debate preparation because of events in the Middle East, said Jen Psaki, his campaign press secretary.
“He has had to balance the management of world events, governing, time out campaigning,” she said. “He’ll have less time than we anticipated to sharpen and cut down his tendency to give long, substantive answers.”
That’s the polite way to say the former University of Chicago law professor and U.S. senator can be wordy, a concern among his aides, who believe Republican Mitt Romney will be a serious debate adversary.
In September 2008, Obama’s “debate camp” was held in an old hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., where the candidate practiced all day with a brief break to campaign. At night, he did a full-length mock debate on a replica of the real stage for each debate, according to the campaign’s manager, David Plouffe, who recounted the scenes in his book, “The Audacity to Win.”
Aides to the president will not say whether they are bringing the same attention to detail to his practice sessions next week.
Romney has worked on his strategy for weeks, prepping at his home in New Hampshire and at his Boston headquarters, but also squeezing in time as he travels. On Sunday, at a hotel in Los Angeles, he huddled with confidant Beth Myers and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, who takes the role of Obama in Romney’s mock debates.
The stakes are high for the GOP nominee in the first debate on Oct. 3 in Denver, which is seen as one of his best chances to reignite his campaign after a string of unfavorable headlines about internal squabbles and controversial remarks. Presidential debates will also be held on Oct. 16 in Hempstead, N.Y., and Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla.
Romney demurred when asked Sunday whether he needed to win the debate, saying his job is to “describe what I believe in a way that the American people will understand and make the choice that they feel is right for America.”
In contrast to Romney, the president has been deeply immersed in virtually every aspect of the U.S. government for four years. He has not only executed policy, but has also routinely explained it to the American people and debated it with prominent GOP opponents.
Allan Louden, a professor of political communications and a presidential debate expert at Wake Forest University, said that didn’t mean Obama would be able to make his argument in an eloquent, pithy way. “True preparation is about familiarity with the material,” he said. “It takes practice to make your most important points in a concise, memorable way.”
During debate preparation, candidates practice rhetorical maneuvers to corner an opponent as well as solid comebacks to attacks, Louden said.
But debates aren’t just scripted performances, he said. “Debates, as much as they’re about prepared material, have a sneaky way of letting you see the person,” Louden said. “That’s what’s so great about them.”
Romney has had more recent practice than Obama, having participated in numerous debates during the rough-and-tumble GOP primary, and Obama analysts think he displayed a talent for landing sharp attacks and rejoinders. To some degree, that assessment reflects a concerted effort by the White House political team to downplay expectations for the president.
But Obama’s political advisors don’t seem to be faking their angst about his schedule. The tug of war over Obama’s time inevitably pits them against administration officials as they put together the daily calendar.
This week’s schedule — which includes campaign trips to Ohio and Virginia on Wednesday and Thursday after his speech Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly — leaves a little time for Obama to do some reading, and perhaps more formal study in the evenings. But Obama also has a long-standing habit of college-style cramming. Some of his most important remarks have been composed on the fly.
Psaki still thinks the pressure is on Romney, saying: “He has been training for them like an Olympic decathlete, starting earlier than any candidate in modern history and running through mock debates five times in 48 hours.”
christi.parsons@latimes.com
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
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fce65c0a60ca2e1680a7185b5d7791c5 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-29-la-fg-china-mooncakes-20120930-story.html | The greening of the mooncake | The greening of the mooncake
BEIJING — With the Mid-Autumn Festival fast approaching, Yang Haijuan dropped by the posh China World Hotel to pick up three deluxe sets of mooncakes, gifts for her friends.
She’d chosen the eight-cake “Autumn Elegance” boxes, covered in golden fabric and embroidered flowers, at a cost of $63. Each came in a thick, sparkly, gold and red shopping bag with rope-like handles.
“I’m buying more this year and spending more than last year,” said Yang, a human resources specialist. But she’ll get even more boxes of pastries than she’ll give: Yang expects to receive up to 20 boxes, from colleagues, friends and family members as gifts for the festival, which is Sunday.
Neighborhood recycler Lu Shoujun knows mooncake season means one thing: more trash. About 10 days from now, Lu will start to get calls from his regular customers, clamoring for him to collect mooncake boxes along with their newspapers, cardboard and other usual items.
“Some people get so many that we have to go upstairs to their apartments and haul them down,” he said.
China is rapidly transforming from a rural nation to an urban one, and officials are pushing to “rebalance” the economy so that consumer spending accounts for a bigger share of gross domestic product. Ever-greater numbers of city dwellers eager to buy fancier things have created vast new business opportunities, but the environmental costs are also on the rise.
China has surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest trash producer, churning out more than 260 million tons a year. Beijing’s 20 million residents generate about 18,000 tons a day, most of which goes to landfills. With household trash volume rising at least 5% annually, according to the city, authorities are building new incinerators, though that’s caused concern about further dirtying the capital’s already smoggy skies.
Mooncake-related refuse is just a small part of the problem. But much like Christmas wrapping in the West, it’s attracting attention from activists seeking to raise public awareness, encourage greener business practices and nudge bureaucrats to enforce environmental regulations already on the books.
This year, the nation is expected to produce 280,000 tons of mooncakes, with sales reaching $2.53 billion, up 6% from a year ago, Zhu Nianlin, president of the China Assn. of Bakery & Confectionery Industry, told China’s Global Times newspaper. But high-end mooncake purveyors report much stronger growth.
Mooncake sellers spent more than $300 million on packaging in 2010, including 200,000 tons of paper and 40,000 tons of tin, according to the China General Chamber of Commerce.
A Beijing-based environmental group, Friends of Nature, says more than 95% of the packaging is unnecessary, and even when the material can be recycled, the process uses energy and can contribute to water and air pollution.
This year, China’s Zero Waste Alliance has launched a campaign to get users of Sina Weibo, the nation’s Twitter-like microblog service, to take pictures of excessively packaged mooncakes. The group plans to collect the photos and compile a list of the most egregious offenders.
“We need to get customers to change their habits,” said Tian Qian, urban solid waste coordinator for Friends of Nature, which is part of the campaign. “Manufacturers are important too, as they are directly involved, and we believe some companies are violating the national law.”
Several years ago, China adopted regulations on mooncake boxes. Among the guidelines: Only three layers of wrapping are allowed, and cakes must occupy 40% of the box volume. The cost of the package should be no more than 25% of the wholesale cost of the cakes.
But Tian noted that items like the plastic trays under the cakes, as well as the bags the boxes are placed in, are not counted as layers by government inspectors.
Lu, the neighborhood recycler, said increasingly elaborate packaging means more work and a lower profit for him. He and his workers often must use knives to separate the boxes’ paper from plastic and other materials: leather, wood, fabric, even ceramic tile.
“Labor costs are going up, the price we get for the materials is going down,” said the 40-year-old Lu, who cut his staff from four to two men this year and now washes cars part-time. “Sometimes, we just have to throw the stuff out.”
Excess packaging not only contributes to solid waste but also adds to fuel use for transportation and, thus, air pollution.
Many Beijing residents grouse that mooncake mania adds to traffic in the week before the Mid-Autumn Festival, as people scurry around town buying cakes, delivering them and picking up other cakes with vouchers they’ve been given by their employers or friends. City officials said the capital’s traffic congestion index on Tuesday hit 9.8 out of 10, the worst reading of the year.
Yan Ning, director of food and beverage for the China World Hotel, has seen demand for his highbrow mooncakes grow rapidly in the last 10 years. This year, his hotel expects to rake in nearly $2.4 million selling 100,000 boxes in 13 styles and 33 flavors, up from 20,000 boxes a decade ago. Corporate clients account for half of his sales.
Each year, he works with a designer to come up with fresh look. Designs for 2012 include a $93 jewelry-box-like item with drawers, and a $74 red leather case with gold handle. “You have to make something elegant, something distinctive,” he said. “You can’t make the same design each year.”
Yan said he tries to stay away from metal and wood out of environmental concern, and this year the hotel is again offering a special “charity” box; the hotel will make a contribution to a wetland park for each purchase of that design.
Selina Lee, who oversees mooncakes for the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Beijing clubhouse and says sales have risen about 40% annually for the last five years, said she tries to keep the packaging to the minimum, using paper and environmentally friendly glue. But changing customer habits can be hard.
Last year, she said, the club introduced a box design that included a handle, so that buyers would not need a shopping bag to carry the mooncakes. “They didn’t like it,” she said. “We had to go back to bags. I don’t think the market is looking at environmental concerns. But we are trying to make it eco-friendly.”
julie.makinen@latimes.com
Nicole Liu of The Times’ Beijing bureau contributed to this report.
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d396a0896b12cb8ef18dd2d799231118 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-30-la-na-court-election-20120930-story.html | Presidential race may leave lasting imprint on Supreme Court | Presidential race may leave lasting imprint on Supreme Court
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is not on the ballot in November, but its future direction on issues such as abortion, gay rights, gun rights, voting laws and the role of money in politics depends on who is elected president for the next four years.
The justices, who open their annual term Monday, are closely split along ideological lines. The current court has four liberals appointed by Democrats, four conservatives appointed by Republicans, and a centrist Republican in 76-year-old Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
The court’s makeup means that a President Mitt Romney could tip the court decisively to the right if he were to replace liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 79, with a conservative. Similarly, a reelected President Obama could tilt the court to the left if he were to replace Kennedy or Justice Antonin Scalia, 76, with a liberal.
“A change in the ideology of only one justice could have a profound impact on the course of constitutional law,” said professor Geoffrey Stone at the University of Chicago Law School, where Obama formerly taught. An Obama win “could bring about a significant — and in my view, healthy — change in the direction of the court,” he said.
Clint Bolick, a lawyer for the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, is not rooting for an Obama victory, but he agrees the election could have a lasting effect on a closely split court. “The average justice remains in office nearly 25 years — more than six presidential terms. Supreme Court nominations are one of most enduring legacies a president has,” he said.
Obama’s two appointees — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, 58, and Elena Kagan, 52 — have generally liberal voting records. Sotomayor was in the minority in the 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case, which freed corporations and unions to independently spend unlimited sums on campaign ads, and Kagan opposed the move when she served as solicitor general.
Given one more liberal vote, the court would likely switch directions on campaign money and uphold laws that limit election spending and require the full disclosure of donors. With an extra conservative vote, however, the justices on the right are likely to go further and free big donors — including corporations — to give money directly to candidates and parties.
The law on abortion could also switch with a change of one justice. With an extra vote on the right, the six Republican appointees would likely uphold strict regulation of abortion, and possibly a criminal ban. With an extra vote on the left, however, the liberal bloc could strike down state or federal regulations that limit abortions or restrict abortion doctors.
This term, the court is being asked to rule for the first time on gay marriage, another issue likely to split the court on ideological lines.
Two separate questions are pending. The first concerns the rights of legally married gay couples. Several judges have struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, and ruled that the federal government may not deny equal benefits to same-sex couples who were married in states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut.
When the Obama administration refused to defend this provision, House Republicans took up the cause. The justices have before them several appeals and are likely to decide in November which case to take up.
Also pending is California’s Proposition 8 and the question of whether the U.S. Constitution gives gay couples a right to marry. After the California Supreme Court ruled for gay marriage in 2008, opponents put on the ballot and won approval for Proposition 8, which amended the state’s Constitution and restricted marriage to the union of a man and a woman.
In February, however, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Proposition 8 in a 2-1 decision. The opinion by Judge Stephen Reinhardt did not say the U.S. Constitution gives gays and lesbians a right to marry in every state. Instead, he said California violated the Constitution by taking away a right to marry after it had been briefly granted.
The sponsors of Proposition 8 have an appeal pending before the high court (Hollingsworth vs. Perry). The justices have put off a vote on it and are likely to consider it in November in conjunction with the DOMA cases.
In the court’s private conference, it takes four votes to grant an appeal, but five votes for a majority ruling. Both the conservatives and liberals may be wary of granting the appeal in the Proposition 8 case because they may not be sure where Kennedy would come down.
There are three options. The justices could turn down the appeal, which would clear the way for gay marriage to resume in California. They could decide to hear the case because a federal court has voided a state constitutional amendment approved by the voters. Or, as many experts predict, they could opt to delay a decision on Proposition 8 until they have ruled on the DOMA cases.
Also pending are two major race-related issues. On Oct. 10, the court will hear a case from the University of Texas to decide whether to limit or end race-based affirmative action at colleges and universities. Kennedy and the court’s conservatives have been steadily skeptical of policies that treat people differently because of their race.
The court’s conservatives are also skeptical of the part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that puts much of the South under Washington’s scrutiny. Because of their history of racial discrimination, these states may not revamp their election laws without convincing the Justice Department or a panel of judges that proposed changes would not have a discriminatory effect on blacks or Latinos.
Texas and South Carolina failed that test earlier this year when they sought to put into effect new voter ID laws. Quite similar laws went into effect in Northern states, including Pennsylvania, which are not subject to this part of the Voting Rights Act.
The justices will decide soon whether to hear an appeal from the South and decide whether what is widely regarded as one of the most effective civil rights laws of the 20th century has outlived its time.
david.savage@latimes.com
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40a01fc8b2a0e131778d0804e3256a87 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-sep-30-la-na-missouri-senate-20120930-story.html | Stalwart Missouri conservatives stick with Todd Akin for Senate | Stalwart Missouri conservatives stick with Todd Akin for Senate
ROLLA, Mo. — The first stop on Republican Todd Akin’s bus tour in his renegade campaign for U.S. Senate was Rush Limbaugh’s hometown, then he headed west to the rural communities off historic Route 66 and north to the capital — criss-crossing a state where billboards with anti-abortion messages dot the highways.
Politics and religion fuse openly here —as they do for Akin, who earned a master’s degree in divinity before launching a nearly 12-year career as a congressman. His ability to inspire evangelical and tea party voters to turn out will be critical in his challenge to Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill after he alienated some voters when he asserted that “legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancy.
At an evening stop in McCaskill’s rural birthplace of Rolla in southern Missouri, Akin brought his mix of politics and religion to the storefront headquarters of the Phelps County Republicans. “If you want to know how to take back America, we take back America by understanding who we are,” Akin said. “We’re God’s children.”
Dressed in khaki trousers and a navy blazer, Akin runs through his election-year grievances against McCaskill with the efficiency of a businessman and the passion of a preacher. He knocks her support for President Obama’s stimulus package, healthcare law and bank bailouts.
She is part, he says, of the “liberal Senate.”
This land of Harry Truman has an increasingly Republican tilt. Akin once seemed likely to be the next Republican to benefit, even though he was the more conservative candidate in the GOP primary and the opponent McCaskill wanted most. But his misstep played right into McCaskill’s campaign strategy: to cast him as extreme and out of step with mainstream Missourians.
“He was tea party before there was a tea party,” said Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.
To be sure, the race remains a challenge for McCaskill, whose unfavorable ratings could still pose political problems. McCaskill was an early supporter of Obama’s first campaign for president, but the nation’s new healthcare law, his top domestic achievement, was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in a statewide referendum. Akin is running a TV ad showing McCaskill in Obama’s embrace.
Missouri has changed in the six years since McCaskill narrowly won her seat. It has caught up with other Southern states that have flipped from Democratic to Republican strongholds, notes E. Terrence Jones, chairman of the political science department at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Romney is poised to carry the state in November.
To capture the more moderate voters Akin may have left behind, McCaskill portrays herself as “No. 50,” a reference to a national ranking that puts her 50th of the 100 senators on a partisan scale. “Right in the middle,” she says in one TV ad.
But McCaskill’s biggest advantage may be her campaign war chest, which is much richer than Akin’s. She dipped into it last week as Akin toured the state, releasing a new television ad highlighting some of his positions: abolishing the minimum wage, ending federal student loans, questioning the constitutionality of Medicare.
Akin says he believes such programs are an overreach for the federal government, essentially a form of “socialism,” and better left to the states.
In the weeks ahead, McCaskill’s team is widely expected to try to do to Akin what Democrats did to Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada and other tea party favorites who lost Senate races two years ago after being characterized as out of step with mainstream American politics.
“He’s so far on the fringe,” McCaskill said during her first debate with Akin. And she made sure to note that Akin opposed abortion in all instances, even in cases of rape.
Akin has been visibly upbeat on the campaign trail, believing he has been vindicated in his decision to stay in the race after top Republicans, including Mitt Romney, told him to go.
He is taking phone calls from some who reversed course to support him. Others, including former presidential candidate Rick Santorum and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, plan to visit the state on his behalf, stepping into the void left by national party leaders.
“Akin is being seen as the hero,” said Brandy Pedersen, former vice chairwoman of the St. Charles County Republican Party in the suburbs west of St. Louis and an Akin supporter. “How dare the party do this to one of our own?”
Yet among women, unease with Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment lingers. Akin backed away from his contention that women’s bodies have ways “to shut that whole thing down” and apologized for using the “wrong words.”
Outside the Rolla office, a few women protested Akin’s arrival. In the state’s larger cities, he is often greeted by groups of women wearing pink “Women are Watching” T-shirts from Planned Parenthood.
Linda Becker, spokeswoman for Missouri Women Standing with Todd Akin, argued, “There’s a whole lot more important issues we need to be discussing right now.”
But even some supporters winced when asked about his remarks.
“What Todd said is sort of ridiculous,” said Mary Barrett, a self-described conservative, as she left a Republican women’s group meeting in Kirkwood, a St. Louis suburb. “But we’re steady with him because I cannot vote for Claire McCaskill.”
lisa.mascaro@latimes.com
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90f1dbab678bf2fed77e700b9c1dce63 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-02-la-fg-wn-palestinian-prisoner-dies-20130402-story.html | Death of Palestinian prisoner in Israel sparks violence | Death of Palestinian prisoner in Israel sparks violence
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Violence broke out Tuesday in several Israeli jails and West Bank cities following reports that a Palestinian prisoner died of cancer at a hospital in southern Israel.
Palestinians said that Maysara abu Hamdieh, 63, died because of medical negligence and called for an international investigation into the situation of Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons, who number close to 5,000.
A spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service, Sivan Weizman, denied claims of medical negligence and said Hamdieh, who was serving a 99-year term, received proper treatment by specialized doctors. She said several prisoners and guards had been hurt in the disturbances that broke out in multiple prisons following news of Hamdieh’s death.
Palestinian prisoners declared a three-day hunger strike and a general strike was called for Wednesday in the West Bank. Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli cars on West Bank roads and clashed with Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, Hamdieh’s hometown, and elsewhere. Tear gas and rubber bullets were used to contain the protesters. A protest march was also held in central Ramallah.
Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoners Issa Qaraqi said Hamdieh was diagnosed with throat cancer more than two months ago. However, he said, Israeli prison authorities failed to provide him proper treatment, causing a further deterioration in his health.
Qaraqi said Hamdieh was transferred to a hospital only three days ago after it became clear his cancer was terminal. He was chained to his hospital bed when he died, the Palestinian official said, citing information he received from a lawyer who had visited Abuhamdieh in the hospital.
“An ugly and serious crime has been committed against Abuhamdieh as a result of medical negligence and reluctance to release him,” he said at a press conference in Ramallah.
Weizman, the Israeli prison spokeswoman, said she could not confirm that Hamdieh had been restrained when he died. She said restraints are used for hospitalized inmates on a case-by-case basis.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a meeting that the Palestinian Authority had asked Israel to release Hamdieh so he could get better medical treatment but that its efforts failed. Weizman said the Israel Prison Service sought to release Hamdieh but that parole officials had not acted on the request before the prisoner’s death.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called for an international investigation into the situation of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Hamdieh, a father of four, was a major general in the Palestinian Preventive Security forces when he was arrested in 2002 during the Palestinian uprising. He was eventually sentenced to 99 years in prison on charges that included participation in a foiled suicide bombing plot.
He is the second Palestinian prisoner to die in Israeli jails in less than two months.
Arafat Jaradat, also from the Hebron area, died in prison in February four days after his arrest. Palestinians charged he died from torture during interrogation. Israeli officials said the 30-year-old died of a heart attack.
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82216d6a6a0aff2bf884544105bb513a | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-08-la-fg-wn-afghanistan-roadside-bomb-kills-civilians-20130408-story.html | Roadside bomb in Afghanistan kills 9 civilians | Roadside bomb in Afghanistan kills 9 civilians
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A roadside bomb detonated under a bus in Afghanistan on Monday, killing nine civilians, officials said. It was the latest in a string of attacks over the past week that have left noncombatants dead.
The bus was driving from the southern province of Ghazni to Kabul when the blast ripped it apart about 8:30 a.m. in the Sayedabad district of troubled Wardak province, said Attaullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor. The attack also injured 21 people, including six women and four children.
“It’s the Taliban’s fault,” Khogyani said. “They’re planting roadside bombs to target people, create fear across the nation and show up the weakness of government.”
However, Taliban officials denied responsibility in statements to the media.
In another development, Interior Ministry spokesperson Sediq Sediqqi said French freelance reporter Pierre Borghi, 30, who was kidnapped from downtown Kabul nearly four months ago, had been released. Sediqqi declined to provide further details.
A French charity worker was later kidnapped in the same area as Borghi but was subsequently freed.
It was not immediately clear whether Borghi was seized by the Taliban, other insurgents or criminal gangs. An Afghan official who requested anonymity said he had escaped his captors in Wardak, which is just outside of the Afghan capital.
Though kidnapping in Afghanistan is sometimes motivated by politics or ideology, it’s also frequently done for profit, particularly when rich Afghans are the targets. In other cases, it is a combination of the two motives, with criminal gangs grabbing a victim before selling him or her to militant groups.
Monday’s bus bombing was the latest in a string of attacks over the past week.
On Saturday, at least 10 children and a woman were killed during a NATO attack on militants in eastern Kunar province, according to Afghan officials, after an attack that killed a U.S. advisor and wounded four Afghan troops. NATO confirmed the airstrike but said it was still investigating whether any civilians were killed.
Civilian deaths from NATO airstrikes and ground fighting have been a major source of tension between Afghanistan and the U.S.-led coalition. Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned Saturday’s reported deaths and ordered an investigation.
Also on Saturday, a car bomb in Zabul province killed three U.S. soldiers, a Defense Department contractor and Anne Smedinghoff, a 25-year-old diplomat in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Secretary of State John F. Kerry paid tribute to Smedinghoff, who joined the Foreign Service after graduating in 2009 from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in international relations.
The violence made Saturday the deadliest day for U.S. personnel in Afghanistan in eight months.
And in one of the worst attacks in recent years, Taliban fighters using a car bomb, suicide vests, automatic rifles and grenades raided a provincial court compound last week in western Farah province, killing 44 people, most of them civilians.
The violence comes as NATO forces are handing over more security responsibility to Afghan troops and police in advance of the coalition’s planned withdrawal of combat troops by late 2014. Illiteracy, poor morale, desertions, weak intelligence and limited air power have eroded the Afghan military’s effort to take over.
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48e7d9c2e389dc8ec8b407dc655fe17d | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-10-la-fg-wn-interview-albanian-artist-20130410-story.html | Global Voices: An artist’s take on dictatorship’s legacy | Global Voices: An artist’s take on dictatorship’s legacy
Anila Rubiku grew up in a country that no longer exists, at least not the isolated, repressed and paranoid state that was Albania before Eastern Europe’s anti-Communist revolutions.
The Balkan country that broke away from its iron-fisted mentors in Moscow, Beijing and Belgrade to pursue an even more Stalinist path has changed dramatically in the two decades since democracy began making inroads. But the scars of despotism remain visible on the landscape and in the mentality of Albanians, tens of thousands of them having endured unimaginable brutality in “re-education camps” during the long post-World War II dictatorship of Enver Hoxha.
Hoxha sowed fear among the 3 million inhabitants of his remote Adriatic Sea enclave with constant warnings of imminent invasion by Albania’s real and imagined enemies. He studded the coastline, borders, mountain ridges and crossroads with 750,000 steel-reinforced concrete bunkers to resist the onslaught that never came but left Albanians forever wary of the outside world.
Rubiku, now 42 and serving a stint as artist-in-residence at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, has embarked on a mission to illuminate the dark pages of her country’s past with weekly workshops that bring to the curious her unique eye on social and human connections. During a break from the three-hour sessions at the museum in Westwood, the artist who divides her time between her recovering homeland and the international art scene in Milan recounted how dictatorship left its mark on her life, her art and her outlook.
Q: How are you incorporating into your work at the Hammer Museum your experiences coming of age in one of the world’s most repressive countries?
Rubiku: No one here has experienced what I did, being brought up in the most absurd country in the world. Before communism, my family was rich. But my mother and father started their life together with only a spoon and a knife. The whole society was extremely poor. Albania had no infrastructure, no opportunity for business or free enterprise. Especially people involved in culture had no support. Yet when people were starving, the government built these bunkers all over the country. It was a way to make us afraid and insecure. We need to tell these stories through our projects, so that people won’t forget our history. Especially in this city that doesn’t seem to have a huge memory.
Q: What are the challenges of bringing your work to Los Angeles, which is so different from your homeland? Is it difficult for you to communicate and identify with people in this frantic, highly urban society?
Rubiku: Identity is a fragile thing. When I go back to Albania now, so much has changed that I am a foreigner there, too. But when I’m in Italy, I still feel like a foreigner. I don’t know that I will ever feel where I belong, although I always look at my environment from the point of view of a European. People there see each other in the street every day when they are walking. They don’t spend so much time in cars. It’s very difficult here to bring people together. There’s no opportunity for connection – they are inside their cars or inside their homes and they don’t see each other unless they make an appointment.
Q: How will you change that outlook through your work here?
Rubiku: I like the museum’s open door and the opportunity to invite people in to produce art, not just look at it. I got the idea for my first workshop –- I call it “City of Light” -- from looking at the big spread of lights around Los Angeles the first time I landed here. All those lights represent families in their homes, but you can’t see them. Walls protect what’s inside. What I’m doing is bringing the inside out. Every home has a place to eat and a place to sleep. The sleeping place in an Afghan home might be a rug instead of a bed, but we have the same needs. The home is one of the things that connects us. [Visitors to the free workshops draw furniture and fixtures and pets on the outside of white cardboard cutouts that are folded into shoebox-sized house shapes. They then perforate the lines of their drawings and embroider the domestic scenes on the houses that will be part of a miniature village installation].
Q: You have a wide range for expression, having staged exhibits of the bunker replicas and hats on which thoughts are written and explorations of eroticism and feminism. What else do you plan during your time at the Hammer?
Rubiku: My second project is quite political. It’s about art and the power and wealth it brings to dangerous people. The biggest dictators have always had a wonderful taste for art. Adolf Hitler, Ferdinand Marcos, the Shah of Iran –- they all surrounded themselves with beautiful works while they were exterminating people. I want to show how art can erase memory. I will make charcoal drawings of the faces of 12 dictators and we will erase the etchings. The artistic media that they enjoyed while in power will become their destruction.
Q: What will you do once back in Albania? Has your experience here influenced your plans for the future?
Rubiku: The issues of gun control and the feminist movement are very different here. In Albania, there is no control over guns at all and they have been flooding in since the 1990s, when we had no government at all and there was a war across the border in Kosovo. We have gone from a country with no prisons for women to having a huge population of women who killed their husbands with the guns coming in to the country. They do this because they are victims of domestic violence, or their children are victims. But nobody talks about the situation for women in Albania. I’m going to talk with them and express their stories through artwork -- through drawing and sewing images of how their life could have been if they hadn’t been driven to kill. There are so many problems of gender in such a young democracy. This is just one example of how if a state is not ready for democracy, there can be chaos.
Q: You often incorporate embroidery in your artworks. Is this a historic type of expression in the Balkan countries?
Rubiku: All of the Balkan region has a Muslim background and a rich tradition of embroidery – Greeks, Serbs, Macedonians, Kosovo Muslims. It was common from the days of Ottoman rule for women to gather and sew together when the men were socializing in the cafes. It is also a way for women to help their families economically. They can create something to sell without having to leave the home.
Q: What is your mission as an artist? What stamp do you want to leave on the world?
Rubiku: I’m such a tiny person. I don’t see myself as taking on something so big as a “mission.” But you do need a wider view of the world if you want to improve it. The problem with politicians is they see only what is happening today and what needs immediate attention. If you want to have a better world in 30 years, you need to get to work on that now. I hope that the generation in power in 20 years will not look at the borders and differences that divide the world but at the things that unite us.
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fe66f4fc78ec85edaadc9619614b19f6 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-13-la-fg-wn-palestinian-authority-prime-minister-resigns-20130413-story.html | Palestinian Authority prime minister resigns | Palestinian Authority prime minister resigns
JERUSALEM -- Embattled Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad resigned late Saturday after struggling for years against political rivals and lackluster public support.
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who in recent months had also clashed with Fayyad, accepted the resignation, but asked him to remain in office until a replacement is named, according to Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Nour Odeh.
The departure means that a new Palestinian government, the fourth since 2007, could be formed in coming weeks.
Since Abbas will remain as president, Fayyad’s resignation is unlikely to have a significant impact on the Obama administration’s renewed efforts to relaunch peace talks, but it may complicate plans promoted by Secretary of State John Kerry to unveil new economic development in the West Bank.
Fayyad, 61, had served as prime minister since 2007. The former International Monetary Fund banker was highly respected by international donors, including the U.S., and was credited with reducing government corruption and reforming Palestinian institutions.
But Fayyad’s tenure was bitterly opposed by many inside the two largest Palestinian factions. Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza Strip, viewed Fayyad as a Western pawn, while officials in Fatah, the mainstream West Bank party led by Abbas, resented that so much power was vested in a politically independent person.
In recent months, many had come to blame Fayyad for the authority’s cash shortages. Under Fayyad, spending increased as he tried to build government institutions in anticipation of statehood. But when peace talks stalled, the PA was left with a $100-million monthly deficit.
Fatah lawmaker Najat Abu Bakr said Fayyad’s policies “made our life worse than ever before.” Under Fayyad, she said, the authority’s debt grew from $1 billion to $3.5 billion.
Tension with Abbas, who previously had protected Fayyad and rejected offers by him to resign, increased earlier this year when Fayyad allowed the authority’s finance minister to quit against Abbas’ wishes. Still, Fayyad remained popular with the international community because of his image and actions as a political moderate.
U.S. officials and other Western nations in recent days had urged Abbas to keep Fayyad in control, warning that international funds could be at risk if he is replaced.
The Obama administration recently announced it would resume financial assistance to the PA, which it suspended last year after Palestinians turned to the U.N. for statehood recognition and moved to reconcile with Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.
In a statement, Abbas, who is expected to leave Sunday for a trip to Jordan and Kuwait, thanked Fayyad for his service and pointed “to the exceptional achievements of the government in serving the national project and building the institutions of the independent State of Palestine in difficult times.”
It remained unclear whom Abbas would select to replace Fayyad. He might opt to assume the role himself. That’s the plan under pending reconciliation talks with Hamas to form a new unity government between the two factions, which split in 2007.
[For the record, 3:15 p.m., April 13: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the two Palestinan factions split in 2006. They split in 2007.]
Under those talks, which are being mediated in Cairo, Fayyad was expected to resign anyway, largely because Hamas insisted that he not serve in the new government.
Another possibility is Muhammad Mustafa, head of the Palestine Investment Fund, the investment arm of the Palestinian Authority. Like Fayyad, he is a Western-educated former World Bank staffer and graduate of George Washington University.
Whoever replaces Fayyad may only be in the post temporarily if Palestinian leaders proceed with plans to hold elections for the first time since 2006. A new vote has been repeatedly postponed because of the split between Fatah and Hamas.
Earlier this month, Palestinian election officials said they had completed voter-registration work in Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Fayyad’s service in the Palestinian Authority was always rocky. He was named finance minister for now-deceased PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 2002, but quit in frustration three years later.
In 2006, Fayyad led the newly formed Third Way party and won a seat in the Palestinian parliament. A year later, he was asked to become finance minister of a short-lived unity government formed by Hamas and Fatah.
After political differences between the factions briefly erupted into warfare in 2007, rival governments were established in Gaza and the West Bank. Abbas named Fayyad prime minister and finance minister of the new Fatah-led administration in Ramallah.
In recent months, some Palestinian protesters, angry over delays in receiving their government salaries, have called for Fayyad’s resignation.
In March, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that the approval rating for Fayyad’s government stood at 25%, down from 34% in December.
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f9fa718e3608912a58ef13b73ec571ed | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-14-la-fg-venezuela-election-20130415-story.html | Nicolas Maduro wins Venezuela presidency, council says | Nicolas Maduro wins Venezuela presidency, council says
CARACAS, Venezuela — Nicolas Maduro, who served as Venezuela’s interim president in the weeks after the death of his mentor, President Hugo Chavez, won a narrow victory over Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles to become the country’s elected leader, officials said.
Maduro, Chavez’s handpicked successor, won the presidential election Sunday with a 235,000-vote margin with nearly 15 million votes cast, much less than the 1.5-million-vote margin by which Chavez won in October, according to the National Electoral Council.
Speaking at Miraflores presidential palace, Maduro called on Capriles to cooperate in building peace in the highly divided country.
“I call on those who voted against me to work for union, to work together,” Maduro said.
But Capriles did not concede defeat, saying he did not consider the results legitimate. His campaign documented hundreds of incidents of voting irregularities, he said.
“It was you who was defeated,” Capriles said at his campaign headquarters in Caracas. “This struggle is not over.”
The results were announced at 11:15 p.m. after a tense wait for an outcome that both sides knew would be close.
Vicente Diaz, a member of the council who represents the opposition, asked that all the votes be recounted manually, although council leader Tibisay Lucena said the results were “irreversible.”
The close result could raise problems for Maduro, who will take over governing a sharply divided country suffering from high crime, double-digit inflation and scarcity of basic foodstuffs.
Chavez, who transformed this oil-rich, poverty-ridden nation and attempted to light a leftist, anti-American brush fire throughout Latin America, died of cancer March 5.
On Sunday, a picture-perfect spring day in the capital, Caracas, voters flocked to polling places to cast ballots that would determine whether Venezuela would continue down the leftist trail blazed by Chavez or take a more conservative path offered by Capriles.
Turnout was light early in the day, but heavier in the afternoon. There were no significant problems reported and some voters commented on the relative efficiency of the process.
Loudspeakers mounted on cars and pickup trucks that sped through the streets of the poor barrios in Caracas played reveille, a signal for Chavistas to get out and vote for Maduro. The interim president cast his vote at a school in the Catia slum, while Capriles voted in the upscale Mercedes section of the capital.
“I voted for him, the Big Guy, for my father,” Maduro said, referring to Chavez, as he left the polling station accompanied by his wife, Cilia Flores, who is Venezuela’s attorney general. “My soul is at rest.”
Maduro promised that, if he won, he was prepared to reestablish relations with the United States “in terms of equality and respect.” Relations between the two countries have been strained for years, and they have not exchanged ambassadors since 2010.
But Maduro wasn’t quite ready to back down.
“There are always problems because they are always conspiring,” Maduro said in reference to the United States, adding that he had new evidence of a U.S.-sponsored plot to destabilize the country, details of which he would announce at a news conference Monday.
During the campaign, Maduro had accused the U.S. of conspiring with opposition labor unions and of causing power blackouts. He expelled two U.S. military attaches last month.
After Capriles voted, he told reporters he was running to vanquish alleged abuses by the government in the electoral process. Among other things, Capriles has criticized Defense Minister Diego Molero for endorsing Maduro and the socialist revolution.
Opinion polls showed Maduro in the lead heading into the election, but Capriles closing the gap. The challenger’s success was attributed, in part, to a much more aggressive stump style during the abbreviated campaign leading up to Sunday’s snap election than in his losing effort against Chavez in October. Then, Capriles lost to Chavez by 10 percentage points.
Maduro was also thought to be vulnerable because of homicide rates that have quadrupled since 1999, as well as double-digit inflation and scarcities of foodstuffs.
“Capriles took the gloves off and people were waiting for that,” said Angela Orellana, a physician who voted in the Acacias neighborhood close to Ft. Tiuna, where Chavez’s body lay in repose for a week after he died, and where tens of thousands of Venezuelans went to pay homage.
“We have to do away with this government of inefficiency, abuses and corruption, and Capriles can show us the way. We’re 40 years behind the times,” Orellana said.
Pablo Garcia, an economics instructor at the Central University of Venezuela, said he waited only a minute or two to vote Sunday in the South San Agustin barrio, a poor neighborhood in south Caracas. In October, he said, he waited five hours.
“It was much more fluid this time, with less paperwork and confusion,” he said.
Garcia said he voted for Capriles. But his neighborhood is considered a Maduro stronghold, made up largely of the poor voters who were Chavez’s greatest supporters. Jose Ramon Gamero, a traveling fabric salesman, voted at the same polling place, casting his ballot for Maduro.
“We have to continue the revolutionary process, which has benefited so many people, especially the poor,” he said. “Capriles would be a step backward,” Gamero said, “and we don’t want to go there.”
Migdalia Vivas, a cosmetics distributor, said after voting at San Lazaro elementary school in the Acacias barrio that she chose Capriles in hopes that he could unify the country. “Productivity is depressed and families and neighborhoods are divided. It’s very sad.”
But many poor and working class voters said they feel a great debt to Chavez for having improved their lives and that Maduro, Chavez’s anointed successor, deserved their support. Chavez channeled billions in oil dollars into welfare programs called Missions.
“I didn’t vote for Maduro because of his leadership or anything to do with him personally. I voted for him because he will be a continuation of the will of the people as expressed in the Oct. 7 election won by Chavez,” said law student Daniel Diaz.
Chicken distributor Harris Santana said a victory for Capriles would halt the country’s path to socialism and return it to a period of less restrained capitalism, “when the country owed the International Money Fund and foreign bankers enormous sums.”
Rosa Castrillo, a homemaker and mother in the South San Agustin barrio, agreed.
“We have to continue with the revolution, with the Missions that have given us health coverage, Mercal [a cut-rate groceries chain] and free housing,” Castrillo said.
“Before Chavez, we didn’t count, and if Capriles wins, we’ll go back to where we were,” said Castrillo, adding she is on the list to receive a free apartment under the Mission Vivienda program Chavez started before he died.
Kraul and Mogollon are special correspondents.
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f0be14032a4d16ed52450418c6b536e1 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-19-la-fg-wn-father-of-boston-suspects-20130419-story.html | Bombing suspects’ father, Chechen officials cry ‘set up’ | Bombing suspects’ father, Chechen officials cry ‘set up’
MOSCOW -- Reports that two young Chechens were suspects in the deadly explosions this week in Boston were met Friday with anger, denial and surprise by their father and officials from Chechnya and the neighboring Dagestan in southern Russia.
Anzor Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen and the father of suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, refused to believe his sons had anything to do with the terror attack.
Boston authorities have reported that Tamerlan, 26, was slain in an overnight gun battle with police and Dzhokhar, 19, remains on the run.
FULL COVERAGE: Boston Marathon attack
“I will never believe my boys could have done such a terrible thing,” he said in a telephone interview from Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan region. “I have no doubt they were set up.”
“My older son is killed and now they are after my little boy,” he said. “It is a provocation of the special services who went after them because my sons are Muslims and don’t have anyone in America to protect them.”
He argued that his sons didn’t know how to handle firearms, let alone explosives.
[Updated 12:50 p.m. April 19: In an interview with Interfax, the father said that he spoke to his sons by telephone after he learned of the explosions in Boston. “I asked them: ‘Are you OK? You are not injured, are you?’ They said: ‘Don’t worry. We were not even there.’”]
PHOTOS: Boston bombing suspects
The Tsarnaev family moved to Makhachkala from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, where they had sought refuge from violence in Chechnya in the mid-1990s, a Dagestan official said.
“They lived in Makhachkala for a very brief period and then they went abroad and settled in America,” Rasul Temirbayev, spokesman for the Investigative Committee of Dagestan, said in a phone interview. “We have nothing in our records to indicate that the [Tsarnaev] brothers had any connection with underground [resistance] cells. They were very young boys when they lived here.”
Officials in Makhachkala School No. 1 confirmed to Interfax news service that the older brother and two sisters joined the school in 1999 and left in 2001. By that time Dzhokhar had spent only four months in the school as a first-grader. [For the record, 12:02 p.m. April 19: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that all four family members were at the school for four months in 1999.]
“Both brothers and two sisters, Bella and Amina, then went abroad and their father and mother stayed here,” Timur Dzhafarov, Interfax correspondent in Dagestan, said in a phone interview. “Their father is a Chechen but their mother is Avarian,” one of Dagestan’s numerous ethnicities.
Photos: Manhunt in Boston
“No one in Chechnya knows anything about this family,” Lyoma Gudayev, deputy information minister, said in a phone interview. “But if these kids are really Chechens it is very unlikely that they could travel all the way around the world to explode something in the United States. It sounds like science fiction to me.”
“The West keeps thinking that we are a troubled republic but the war is long over for us down here,” he added.
Chechnya, a primarily Muslim region, was the site of two wars of independence, from 1994 until 1995 and again in 1999. The latter rebellion was put down by Russian forces and the republic has been ruled by Kremlin loyalists ever since.
The violent Islamic movements spread to the neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, which continue to see attacks on government forces and police.
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2b6300c2e56c183acf486eb257366636 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-20-la-fg-wn-marathon-bombing-suspects-visit-home-to-dagestan-20130420-story.html | Bombing suspect reportedly led quiet life during Dagestan visit | Bombing suspect reportedly led quiet life during Dagestan visit
MAKHACHKALA, Dagestan -- When Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev returned home to the capital of Dagestan for six months last year, he led a quiet life and spent time helping his father with house repairs, according to a family friend.
“The boy wasn’t gloomy but he kept quiet and silent most of the time as he was helping his father,” electrician and longtime family friend Vyacheslav Kazakevich said in a phone interview from Makhachkala, the capital city of the Russian Caucasus republic.
“Anzor [the father] was working hard to turn a room on the ground floor [of a residential house] into a perfume shop and open this new business this year.”
Tsarnaev, 26, was killed Friday in a confrontation with police in Watertown, Mass., and his younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, was captured later in the day.
In January 2012, the elder brother returned to Makhachkala from Cambridge, Mass., for six months to update his expired Russian passport, a procedure a Russian citizen can actually handle without leaving the United States by applying to a Russian consulate. Tsarnaev was not registered with any of the Russian consulates in the United States, Russian officials said earlier in the week.
Kazakevich said Tsarnaev sported a beard when he arrived home, and appeared to lead a quiet life while there. He was frequently absent from work during the mornings, the electrician said, with his father shrugging that his son was still asleep.
Anzor Tsarnaev, the father, was absent from his home Saturday. Kazakevich said that he and his wife were planning to go to America to try and prove their sons’ innocence and were probably on their way to Moscow.
A producer for Russia Today, a pro-Kremlin English-language television network which interviewed the suspect’s mother on Friday, said that the couple had actually gone to Chechnya.
In a telephone interview posted Saturday on the network’s website, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva reiterated her family’s version that the two suspects were set up and that FBI has been following her older son for a long time already.
“My son has been controlled [by FBI] for five years already,” the mother said. “They have been tailing him, they knew what websites he visited. They called him a radical because he was visiting as they think extremist websites.”
“But having spoken with my [older] son, one of the FBI agents called me and characterized my boy as one of the best,” she added.
On Friday, a federal law enforcement official said Tamerlan Tsarnaev had in the past been interviewed by the FBI at the request of a foreign government. The official would not name the government, but added that “nothing derogatory...came out of that interview.”
A Russian security officer interviewed Saturday said Russia must have been the party that made the inquiry.
Despite ups and downs in U.S.-Russian relations over the last decade, contacts and exchange of information on terrorism wouldn’t stop or even slow down but have been maintained on a regular basis, the Russian officer said.
“It is naïve to think that young men from Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia who come to the United States would integrate into American culture all that naturally and easily,” he said. “They would go to American schools and play with American kids and then would come home where their tightly knit clan would pray together on the carpeted floor and then talk about U.S. imperialism and expansion.”
While the repair project at the Makhachkala residence seems almost finished, there is now a sign on the door saying that the business is for rent.
“No wonder they are renting the place out now,” Magomed Khamroyev, an elderly neighbor said. “The poor fellow thought his children would be safe in America. No one wants us and we are not safe anywhere.”
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7511681a63317d9c66e977edcf22288c | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-21-la-fg-wn-tsarnaev-mother-20130421-story.html | Bomb suspect’s mother: Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s touching call | Bomb suspect’s mother: Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s touching call
MOSCOW -- Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, called his mother Thursday morning, hours before being killed in a shootout with police, and told her he had received a call from the FBI, she said.
“He would call me every day from America in the last days,” Zubeidat Tsarnaev said Sunday in a telephone interview with The Times from her home in the Russian republic of Dagestan, “and during our last conversation on the morning [before the shootout], he was especially touching and tender and alarmed at the same time,” she said. “He said he got a private phone call from [the FBI] and said that they told him he was under suspicion and should come see them.”
“ ‘If you need me, you will find me,’ he said, and hung up,” she said, beginning to sob. “You know the FBI followed him for several years and when he got back from Dagestan last year they called him and asked him what was the purpose of his visit to his homeland.”
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), a former FBI agent who has not hesitated to criticize his former employer, said Sunday that the FBI had done “a very thorough job” of vetting Tamerlan Tsarnaev after the Russian intelligence service flagged him in early 2011 as a possible Islamic radical. Rogers said he didn’t think the bureau had missed anything significant.
In her remarks, the suspects’ mother focused primarily on her older son, but also mentioned the younger brother, Dzhokhar, who was badly wounded in the shootout and was captured by police later Friday, hiding in a boat in suburban Watertown, Mass. He remains hospitalized and in police custody.
“When [Tamerlan] talked to me that last time, Dzhokhar was in his house too, and he said he would give him a lift home,” their mother said. “And then the next day my daughter Bella called me and said, ‘Mama, turn on the television.’ ... Now I live with the television turned on at all times,” she said, crying again.
Zubeidat Tsarnaev said she and her husband are planning to go to the United States to clear their sons’ names. She said her husband’s brother “is a lawyer with a big oil company and he said that he will help us find a good lawyer for Dzhokhar.”
She said that in recent months, Tamerlan had told her on the phone several times that while he loved and enjoyed America, he wanted to move back to Dagestan and had persuaded his wife, who is American, to move back with him and their daughter.
“He wanted to be among his people, among his relatives, close to his roots,” she said, sobbing.
The Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. In 1992 they tried to move to their historic homeland of Chechnya, a restive region of southern Russia, but in 1994 the first war between Moscow and the regional separatists broke out. The Tsarnaevs moved back to Kyrgyzstan and from there in 1999 to neighboring Dagestan. In 2002 they immigrated to the United States. The parents returned to Dagestan a year ago while their sons and two daughters remained in the U.S.
An Islamic militant group in Dagestan issued a statement Sunday distancing itself from the marathon bombing.
“The Caucasian mujahedin are not fighting against the United States of America,” the group, called the Caucasus Emirate, said in its statement. “We are at war with Russia, which is not only responsible for the occupation of the Caucasus, but also for heinous crimes against Muslims.”
Experts and rights activists in Moscow agreed that taking the war of terror across the ocean to the United States doesn’t help the cause of Russian radical Islamists, despite their routine anti-American rhetoric.
“I think we can trust this statement, because attacking the U.S.A. is not in the interests of North Caucasus insurgents,” Tatiana Kasatkina, executive director of Memorial, a Moscow-based human rights group that monitors events in the troubled region. “The United States doesn’t support Russia in this regional conflict and more than that, it regularly criticizes the Russian leadership for violations of human rights in the course of this conflict.”
For the record, 4:51 p.m. April 21: A previous version of this post said Tamerlan Tsarnaev called his mother Friday morning. It was Thursday.
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aa2720653499e75ba6a0a44589db69b0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-22-la-fg-wn-police-canada-suspects-al-qaeda-iran-20130422-story.html | Analysts surprised by alleged Al Qaeda in Iran tie in Canada plot | Analysts surprised by alleged Al Qaeda in Iran tie in Canada plot
Police in Canada said Monday that two men suspected of plotting to derail a passenger train were guided by Al Qaeda elements in Iran, but the statement surprised many experts who study terrorism in the Middle East and Iran.
“It frankly doesn’t compute for me,” said Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “If there is any link, I would think it was extremely tangential.”
Iran and Al Qaeda have frequently had chilly relations, according to Slavin and other experts. Iran is majority Shiite, while Al Qaeda is firmly Sunni. In Syria, Al Qaeda has jumped into the fray alongside opposition fighters while Iran has backed President Bashar Assad. Iran has also held Al Qaeda members in the country under house arrest, monitoring their activities. Documents confiscated from Osama bin Laden’s hide-out in Pakistan and released last year suggested discord between the two.
Canadian police said there was no reason to believe that the plotted attacks were sponsored by any state, which would mean the Iranian government was not involved. Police provided no further details regarding the alleged involvement of Al Qaeda elements in Iran in the plot.
Even if Iran and Al Qaeda share some of the same enemies, “it’s not like Iranians are going to allow a Sunni terrorist group to plan an attack that might result in more hostilities against the Shiite nation of Iran,” said Rick “Ozzie” Nelson, a former U.S. counter-terrorism official and a senior affiliate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There’s no love lost between them.”
If Al Qaeda members detained in Iran were able to continue orchestrating attacks, that could mean members of the terrorist group have more freedom there than previously believed, Nelson said. That might mean they were able to plot an attack without being detected by Iranian authorities.
The question could be, “How much of this was them just not paying attention?” Nelson said.
Not everyone has been skeptical of the idea that Iran and Al Qaeda could team up, however. “Iran appears willing to expand its limited relationship with Al Qaeda,” Rand Corp. senior political scientist Seth G. Jones wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last year. Al Qaeda would probably reject any direction from Iran, he wrote, but “any support or tentative permission to plot on Iran’s soil would be helpful.”
The U.S. Treasury Department said in October that Iran has allowed Al Qaeda to operate a pipeline moving money and fighters to support Al Qaeda activities in South Asia. While Sunni extremists often consider Shiites to be “heretics,” some Shiite extremists have tried to forge alliances, said Jeffrey M. Bale, a senior researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Al Qaeda members are believed to have gotten training from Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon in the past.
“It’s extremely complicated and murky,” Bale said. Iran itself is not a monolith, he added, and different parts of its military and clerical establishment might weigh working with Al Qaeda differently.
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7decf513823b5292659fb0764f4efdcd | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-23-la-fg-wn-car-bomb-french-embassy-libya-20130423-story.html | Car bomb explodes at French Embassy in Libya | Car bomb explodes at French Embassy in Libya
CAIRO -- A car bomb exploded at the French Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, on Tuesday, injuring three people and raising the specter that Islamist militants were seeking retribution for France’s military strikes against extremists in the West African nation of Mali.
The bombing was the latest indication of the dangers facing a volatile Libya after the overthrow and death of Moammar Kadafi in 2011. The attack was the most potent against a foreign installation in the country since last year’s assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
No one claimed immediate responsibility for Tuesday’s blast, which set nearby cars ablaze and injured two embassy guards and a Libyan girl. But Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened in recent weeks to target France and other nations for their intervention in the war against rebels and extremists in Mali.
Militant groups have been exploiting Libya’s security vacuum, sneaking through porous borders and relying on looted stockpiles of weapons. Rising extremist activity across the deserts of western and northern Africa has concerned the United States and Europe since popular uprisings two years ago changed the politics of Libya, Egypt and Tunisia.
French President Francois Hollande said the attack was aimed at “all countries in the international community engaged in fighting terrorism.” He added: “France expects the Libyan authorities to shed the fullest light on this unacceptable act, so that the perpetrators are identified and brought to justice.”
Most Libyans praise the French for NATO-led airstrikes that weakened Kadafi’s army and led to his downfall. Others are more suspicious, suggesting that France and other Western powers are angling to capitalize on Libya’s vast oil reserves. These sentiments are playing out in a nation shaken by assassinations, kidnappings, tribal disputes and recent attacks on churches.
Libya’s central problem is a lack of security. While the army is being rebuilt, the country is relying on tribes and militias, many with their own agendas, to keep order across deserts and a vast coastline.
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7f7449537c82515fb7194e266f5d0498 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-23-la-fg-wn-iran-canada-terror-plot-20130423-story.html | Iran scoffs at alleged link to Canada terror plot | Iran scoffs at alleged link to Canada terror plot
TEHRAN -- Iranian officials Tuesday scoffed at the idea that an alleged terrorist plot thwarted in Canada had been guided by Al Qaeda elements in Iran.
“In my 64 years of age, I have not heard anything as ridiculous as this,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast chimed in, deriding the alleged link as “part of Islamophobic and Iranphobic campaigns.”
Canadian police said Monday that two suspects arrested Monday for allegedly plotting to derail a passenger train in the greater Toronto area had gotten “direction and guidance” from Al Qaeda elements located in Iran. Police did not provide further evidence of the alleged link at a news conference Monday.
Canadian authorities told reporters there was nothing to indicate the plan was “state-sponsored,” meaning the Iranian government was not believed to be involved. Iran nonetheless bristled at the suggestion that Al Qaeda had been able to plot from its soil.
Al Qaeda “has no possibility to do any activity inside Iran or conduct any operation abroad from Iran’s territory,” Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations, said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press. “We reject strongly and categorically any connection to this story.”
The claim by Canadian police surprised many Western analysts, who pointed out that Iran and Al Qaeda have often been at loggerheads.
Iran is largely Shiite, while Al Qaeda is a Sunni extremist organization, and the two have thrown their support behind opposing sides in the bloody conflict in Syria. Tehran has also held members of Al Qaeda who fled Afghanistan under house arrest, closely monitoring their activities.
Other analysts, however, have argued that Iran might be willing to work with Al Qaeda against a shared enemy. In October, the U.S. Treasury Department said Iran has allowed Al Qaeda to operate a pipeline moving money and fighters to support Al Qaeda activities in South Asia.
Angered by Iranian support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and other stands taken by Tehran, Canada closed its embassy in Iran and cut off diplomatic relations in September. At the time, its foreign affairs minister, John Baird, called the Iranian government “the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today.”
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Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Alpert from Los Angeles.
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cf94b6019d9ccec45b2bf18f43d0da35 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-23-la-fg-wn-israel-syria-chemical-weapons-20130423-story.html | Israel accuses Syria of using chemical weapons against rebels | Israel accuses Syria of using chemical weapons against rebels
JERUSALEM – Israel on Tuesday accused Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime of using chemical weapons against rebels, heightening pressure on the international community to react and exposing a potential new rift with the United States over the assessment of regional threats.
The disclosure of Israel’s intelligence assessment came as U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wrapped up a three-day visit here. U.S. officials said they remained unconvinced about whether lethal chemical weapons were used.
“The United States continues to assess reports of chemical weapons use in Syria,” said Pentagon spokesman George Little. “The use of such weapons would be entirely unacceptable.”
Such a determination could have far-reaching implications because President Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a “game changer,” raising the specter of military intervention in Syria.
In Israel’s most direct accusation yet, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the nation’s top military intelligence analyst, said Syria used chemical weapons, probably a sarin-based nerve agent, in attacks March 19 near the cities of Aleppo and Damascus.
Speaking at a Tel Aviv security conference Tuesday morning, he said the assessment was based upon reports of victims foaming at the mouth and having constricted pupils. The disclosure followed similar assessments by Britain and France last week.
“To the best of our professional understanding, the regime used lethal chemical warfare on a number of occasions during recent months,” Brun said, criticizing the international community for failing to respond.
“The very fact that they have used chemical weapons without any appropriate reaction is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate,’’ he told participants at the Institute for National Security Studies conference.
The apparently divergent U.S. and Israeli views on Syria’s use of chemical weapons are potentially embarrassing for the Obama administration, which has been working to repair a relationship that was strained over how to respond to the Iranian nuclear threat.
During his visit, Hagel vigorously defended Israel’s right to defend itself, even though U.S. officials oppose a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran and would rather give diplomacy more time to work.
At a press conference with Hagel on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon sounded a restrained note on Iran, voicing a view that echoed the Obama administration’s position.
“There are other tools to be used and to be exhausted, whether it is diplomacy, economic sanctions, even more support of the opposition in Iran,” he said.
Adding to the awkwardness was the fact that, while the security conference was taking place, Hagel was just a few miles away with Yaalon, observing a demonstration of an Israeli special forces canine unit.
A U.S. official said Israel did not share its intelligence assessment with Hagel during the visit.
In his public statements during the visit, Yaalon did not accuse Syria of using chemical weapons as explicitly as Brun did.
Israeli officials said the disclosure of their latest assessment was not timed to take place during Hagel’s trip, but that they stood behind Brun’s comments.
“He is the [Israel Defense Forces] officer who is dealing with this threat and we are not contradicting anything he said,’’ said a senior government official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The official would not comment on what Israel believes the international community should do in light of its assessment. Israeli officials have warned against arming Syrian rebels, fearing weapons might fall into the wrong hands.
For Israel, the red line in Syria is the transfer of chemical weapons to extremists, not their use, the official said.
“We have always said that the most important thing to us in Syria is the transfer of dangerous weapons to extremists,’’ he said. “That’s our focus.”
According to Israeli intelligence assessments, Syria has more than 1,000 tons of chemical stockpiles, including VX and sarin. Israel is particularly concerned that such weapons might be seized by Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon or Al-Qaeda-inspired groups in Syria.
As Syria’s civil war enters its third year, Israel and the U.S. have been working with other countries in the region, such as Jordan and Turkey, to formulate a plan to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, if needed.
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be45b2dd8e72f1833a300ea63d0adbbc | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-24-la-fg-wn-china-korea-dempsey-20130424-story.html | In Beijing, Dempsey warns of further North Korean provocations | In Beijing, Dempsey warns of further North Korean provocations
BEIJING -- The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday in Beijing that he is expecting more provocations from North Korea in the coming years and a heightened risk of confrontation.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, who was speaking to reporters at the U.S. Embassy at the end of his visit here, said North Korea had become progressively more provocative with the rise of Kim Jong Un, who took over after the death of his father in December 2011.
“We are no longer in a period of cyclical provocations -- where a provocation occurs and then there is a period of time when concessions are made.... I think we are in a period of prolonged provocations,” Dempsey said. “I think the risk of miscalculation is higher, and the risk of an escalation is higher.”
Dempsey spent three days in Beijing as part of a series of high-level contacts that touched on issues as diverse as cyber-security, the South and East China seas, and North Korea. He spoke with China’s new president, Xi Jinping, among others.
He told reporters at Wednesday’s briefing hat he was encouraged by China’s evolving attitude toward North Korea, which has been its ally since the partition of the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II.
“I will leave here with the belief that China is as concerned as we are about North Korea’s march toward nuclearization and missile technology,” Dempsey said. “We think there is still time for North Korea’s leader to back away from provocations.”
North Korea conducted a long-range missile test in December and its third nuclear test in February.
Top Chinese Gen. Fang Fenghui told reporters here Monday that he believed North Korea could carry out a fourth nuclear test -- a rare public statement for the Chinese military.
“As far as the Chinese side is concerned, we are willing to work actively with all sides to persuade North Korea to stop nuclear tests and to stop producing nuclear weapons,” Fang said.
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539a2b473404fceb7f7919af3e50a7a2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-aug-21-la-syria-rebels-say-scores-dead-in-poisongas-attack-20130821-story.html | Syria rebels say scores dead in poison-gas attack | Syria rebels say scores dead in poison-gas attack
BEIRUT -- Syrian opposition activists Wednesday accused the government of killing scores of civilians, including women and children, in a poison-gas assault on rebel strongholds outside Damascus.
The official Syrian news agency called the reports “untrue” and designed to derail a United Nations inquiry into charges of chemical weapons in the conflict.
Opposition activists say the number of dead may be in the hundreds.
There was no independent confirmation of the allegations.
The fresh allegations come as a U.N. inspection team is in Syria conducting a long-delayed investigation into charges of chemical weapons use there. Each side has accused the other of deploying chemical weapons in the more than two-year conflict.
The Syrian war has featured numerous allegations of massacres by both sides. A lack of access for journalists and human rights investigators has hampered independent investigations. Human rights groups say both sides have committed extra-judicial killings during the bloody conflict.
In its statement, the official Syrian news agency called the allegations of a chemical weapons attack “completely baseless,” and said the aim of the reports “is to distract the U.N. chemical weapons investigation commission away from its mission.”
Pro-opposition activists said the alleged chemical weapons attacks occurred early Wednesday in the so-called Ghouta region, an opposition bastion outside Damascus, the capital. The Syrian military has been methodically pursuing an offensive aimed at driving rebels away from the sprawling Ghouta zone and other areas near Damascus.
Images posted online by opposition activists purported to show bodies of victims from the chemical attack, including women and children. The images could not be independently verified.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based pro-opposition group, said the government’s use of “poisonous gases” had caused “dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.” The group called on the U.N. inspection team in Syria “to head directly to these devastated areas in order to verify and investigate these reports ... as well as to immediately provide the badly needed aid and medical treatment to the people in these areas.”
Ake Sellstrom, the Swedish scientist who heads the U.N. inspection team in Syria, told Swedish media that he had seen only the television images of the alleged attacks.
“But the high number of wounded and dead they are speaking about sounds suspicious,” Sellstrom told Swedish news agency TT, via telephone from Damascus. “It sounds like something one should take a look at.”
The U.N. has said its inquiry is limited to three alleged instances of chemical attack. Whether the team’s mandate could be expanded to include the latest allegations was not immediately clear.
On Wednesday, in a separate incident, the Syrian government alleged that its forces had uncovered a “mass grave” of civilians shot and stabbed by “terrorists” -- the government’s term for rebels -- in northwestern Latakia province, where battles have been raging between rebels and the military. There was no independent confirmation of the allegation.
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Special correspondent Lava Selo contributed to this report. Also contributing were Times staff writer Raja Abdulrahim in Cairo and special correspondent Alexandra Sandels in Stockholm.
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323261f4bcdbb26d851a4051eecd04b6 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-aug-26-la-fg-wn-europe-syria-20130826-story.html | Britain, France press for intervention in Syria | Britain, France press for intervention in Syria
LONDON -- The drumbeat for Western intervention in Syria, including possible military strikes, grew louder Monday in Europe, mostly at the urging of Britain and France.
The two nations also led the European response to the war in Libya, but this time even Germany, which sat out that conflict, has thrown its support behind a forceful response.
British Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a vacation to convene an emergency meeting of security advisers Tuesday or Wednesday and may summon Parliament from its summer recess. His foreign secretary, William Hague, declared Monday that a mandate from the United Nations was not necessary for the West to act, a clear poke in Moscow’s eye.
“The United Nations Security Council … has not been united on Syria; it’s not shouldered its responsibilities on Syria, bluntly [put],” Hague told the BBC. “Is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the U.N. Security Council? I would argue yes, it is. Otherwise, of course, it might be impossible to respond to such outrages.”
In France, President François Hollande said the West’s response “will be decided this week” and could encompass airstrikes, toughened sanctions and arming of the rebels fighting Assad’s regime.
“We will also leave a little time for the diplomatic process, but not too much time,” Hollande told the newspaper Le Parisien. “We cannot not react to the use of chemical weapons.”
Hollande spoke to President Obama late Sunday and told him that France, like Britain, would be at his side if “an action of force” was decided upon.
Yves Boyer, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris think tank, said he doubted any action would take place this week while world leaders waited for a report from U.N. weapons inspectors investigating the accusations that chemical weapons were used last week.
“The least we could do would be to have targeted airstrikes against the three sites where the chemical weapons are stored and destroy these sites and those who control them,” Boyer said.
“While this is the least we could do, it is also the most we can do,” Boyer added. “We would not want to go further and enter into a very complicated situation that could go very wrong. China is already reluctant and Russia has chosen its camp. Add in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and we have every interest not to go into Syria.”
In Germany, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Monday that Berlin would consider any use of chemical weapons in Syria as a “crime against civilization.”
“If such a use were confirmed, the global community must act,” Westerwelle said. “Germany would be among those who consider it right that there be consequences.”
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henry.chu@latimes.com
Twitter: @HenryHChu
Times staff writer Chu reported from London and special correspondent Willsher from Paris.
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60bf7630062059f0fe5842478109fdca | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-aug-27-la-fg-wn-afghan-civilians-targeted-20130827-story.html | Civilians becoming targets in Afghanistan -- a dozen slain by Taliban | Civilians becoming targets in Afghanistan -- a dozen slain by Taliban
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban killed six civilians in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday, among a dozen slain in the latest attacks that have seen ordinary people increasingly caught up in the violence, often after being accused of working with the government.
The bodies -- four engineers, an adviser and a trainer employed on a project funded by the United Nations -- were discovered Tuesday in Herat province, officials said, an area in the west that’s seen less violence than other parts of Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
This followed by a few hours the discovery of the bodies of six civilians shot in eastern Paktia province.
A civilian was also wounded Tuesday in Kabul when a suicide bomber on a bicycle detonated his explosives near the Energy Ministry after being followed by security forces, city police Chief Mohammad Ayob Salangi said. It wasn’t immediately clear what his intended target was.
In attacking civilians it accuses of supporting the government or foreign troops, analysts said, the Taliban hopes to draw a distinction between itself and the administration of President Hamid Karzai, who it dismisses as a U.S. puppet. This, the movement believes, will force the electorate to reject the government as the Taliban attempts to boost its political standing through violence, intimidation and propaganda in advance of next year’s election and the withdrawal of Western combat troops, they added.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the killings, suggesting that Pakistan may have had an indirect role, as he wrapped up a two-day visit in that country.
“The killing of innocent engineers and workers shows that the Taliban and their foreign masters want Afghanistan to be an impoverished and underdeveloped country forever,” he said, an apparent reference to foreign powers that include Pakistan. Karzai has frequently accused Pakistan of supporting peace efforts at the same time elements within the country support Afghanistan’s insurgency, part of a dual strategy aimed at expanding its influence in Afghanistan. Islamabad has long denied the allegations.
On Monday, Karzai, in his first visit to Pakistan in 18 months, called on that nation’s help in arranging peace talks with the Taliban. At Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s request, Karzai prolonged his visit through Tuesday as the two leaders discussed regional security issues. No results were announced, although the meetings included Pakistan’s powerful army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and reportedly focused on more difficult issues between the two countries.
“Pakistan and Afghanistan have to work closely to bring peace in the region,” Sharif said in a statement released by his office. “We have common challenges and huge opportunities before us.”
Mohammad Daud Naemi, spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, said the six workers in Herat province were abducted on Sunday while surveying a construction project that aims to improve local project management.
Negotiations had begun toward their release, Naemi said, but their bodies were discovered before a deal was reached. The U.N. operation in Afghanistan condemned the killings, adding that attacks against civilians may amount to war crimes.
The six other slain civilians were found in Paktia province’s Zurmat district. Their identities could not be immediately determined and the bodies were handed over to a Red Cross office in the province, said Rohullah Samon, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
In July, the U.N. reported that the number of civilians killed and wounded combined increased by almost 25% in the first half of this year as Afghan forces assumed more responsibility for security, reversing a decline in 2012 that many hoped would lead to better conditions for the most vulnerable victims of the 12-year war.
In the first six months of this year, 1,319 civilians were killed in war-related violence in Afghanistan, compared with 1,158 in the first half of 2012, with women and children affected disproportionately, according to the report. In addition, 2,533 civilians were injured, compared with 1,976 a year earlier. The worst year on record for civilians was 2011.
The report said the Taliban and other militant groups were responsible for most of the 23% jump in civilian casualties through indiscriminate roadside bombings, armed assaults and suicide attacks in populated areas. But the Taliban, in a statement at the time, condemned the report as “totally biased,” adding that many of those identified as civilians were actually soldiers, police and officials at intelligence agencies.
Jawed Kohistani, a Kabul-based military and political analyst, said he expected abductions and killings to increase because the Taliban increasingly sees kidnapping as a way to raise funds. “The Taliban name is good for business these days,” he said. “And if they don’t get the money, they kill those abducted.”
Rising civilian casualty rates have reinforced concerns that Afghan forces aren’t equipped to take on the militants after foreign troops leave. The Afghan army suffers from poor morale, high desertion rates, weak training, equipment shortfalls and limited medical support.
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Twitter: @markmagnier
Special correspondents Hashmat Baktash in Kabul and Nasir Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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4e32506197cdec5edb3111ced4896eb8 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-feb-04-la-heb-tv-exercise-sperm-20130204-story.html | Sperm count low among couch potatoes, study finds | Sperm count low among couch potatoes, study finds
For those men who are looking to boost their sperm count, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have some simple advice: drop the TV remote control and get to the gym.
A study published Monday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that men who watched more than 20 hours of television a week had 44% lower sperm count than men who watched almost no television.
Researchers found too that men who engaged in moderate to vigorous exercise for 15 or more hours a week had 73% higher sperm count than men who exercised less than five hours per week.
The findings come amid claims from some scientists that sperm quality has declined among Western men in the last decades. Some say it may be due in part to a rise in sedentary lifestyles.
“We know very little about how lifestyle may impact semen quality and male fertility in general, so identifying two potentially modifiable factors that appear to have such a big impact on sperm counts is truly exciting,” said lead author Audrey Gaskins, a doctoral student at HSPH.
The study was based on 189 men in Rochester, NY. Study subjects, who had an average age of 19, were surveyed on their television viewing habits, exercise regimen, tobacco use and diet. Samples of their semen were then analyzed for sperm concentration; sperm motility; sperm morphology, or shape; and total sperm count.
While more exercise and less TV were closely associated with higher total sperm count and concentration, they appeared unrelated to sperm motility or morphology, according to the report.
Reduced sperm count has been linked to lower fertility. However, it does not absolutely prevent men from fathering a child, authors said.
“The majority of the previous studies on physical activity and semen quality had focused on professional marathon runners and cyclists, who reach physical activity levels that most people in the world cannot match,” said senior author Jorge Chavarro, an assistant professor of nutrition and epidemiology at HSPH.
“We were able to examine a range of physical activity that is more relevant to men in the general population,” he said.
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29c123339ae7858fe4131b2ab4fbc869 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-feb-05-la-fg-wn-mexico-spanish-tourists-raped-20130205-story.html | Six Spanish tourists raped by gunmen in Mexico, authorities say | Six Spanish tourists raped by gunmen in Mexico, authorities say
MEXICO CITY -- Six Spanish tourists on vacation in Acapulco were raped by masked gunmen who burst into their lodgings in the middle of the night, roughed up their companions and made off with cash, laptops and other valuables, authorities said.
The attack early Monday on what was in Mexico a long holiday weekend came as the one-time tourist mecca struggles to salvage its reputation. Acapulco, faded gem of Mexico’s Pacific coast, has become one of the deadliest cities in the country as rival drug traffickers fight for control.
“This is a very regrettable incident that undoubtedly hurts Acapulco,” Mayor Luis Walton Aburto said at a news conference.
Most of the violence has been limited to dicier parts of the city not frequented by tourists. But this attack took place near the beach about six miles south of the so-called Diamond Zone, Acapulco’s newest and most luxurious enclave.
Acapulco’s city government press office said the tourists had rented a bungalow on Enchanted Beach south of the city, alongside small four-star hotels that advertise themselves as places for meditation, relaxation and yoga.
Walton said at least five gunmen entered the rooms where the tourists were sleeping, beat and tied up six men and raped six Spanish women. A seventh woman, a Mexican national, was unharmed, he said. The nationalities of the male tourists were not disclosed.
Walton added that the women were raped despite what he described as “excellent security” beefed up in Acapulco for the holiday weekend. Federal police and the army patrol parts of the city.
No arrests have been reported in the case.
Against obvious empirical evidence, Angel Aguirre, the governor of Guerrero, the state where Acapulco is located, has repeatedly vowed that the resort is destined to make a comeback and recover its past glory. The drop in tourism is blamed in part for a $33-million deficit in the city’s budget.
Killings and kidnappings are so rampant in parts of Guerrero that armed vigilante groups now patrol five villages in the southern part of the state. Operating outside of formal law, they have captured around 50 “suspects” whom they plan to put on a kind of “people’s trial.” Human rights groups as well as the state government are eyeing the developments nervously.
A group of the vigilantes opened fire over the weekend on two Mexican tourists headed to the beach who failed to stop at one of their impromptu roadblocks. The pair was injured but survived.
The U.S. and Spanish governments last year issued warnings advising extreme caution while traveling in Acapulco. The Mexican foreign ministry Tuesday expressed regrets for the rapes and said Spain’s consul general, based in Mexico City, had traveled to Acapulco to assist the victims.
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098a5340685a2efa2b39afd7ee219e6a | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-feb-05-la-na-obama-speechwriter-20130205-story.html | Jon Favreau, President Obama’s head speechwriter, is departing | Jon Favreau, President Obama’s head speechwriter, is departing
WASHINGTON — Jon Favreau’s career took off when, at age 23, he interrupted U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama during a speech rehearsal to offer some suggestions for improvement.
That cheeky move led to a seven-year tour as Obama’s lead speechwriter, an assignment that ends March 1 as Favreau considers trying his hand at another form of drama — as a screenwriter, perhaps in Los Angeles.
The departure subtracts a vivid personality from the president’s operation, defined since the beginning by Obama’s spoken words and the team that wrote them.
After Favreau landed in the White House four years ago, he became the most recognizable in a coterie of young staffers. Sporting aviator sunglasses and a buzz cut, he occasionally lit up social media with his antics.
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People magazine named him one of the world’s most beautiful people. He went out with actress Rashida Jones, best known for her role in “The Office.” One night, as he and some friends played a shirtless game of beer pong in Georgetown, someone snapped a photo that ended up on the blog FamousDC, with the headline: “White House Gone Wild.”
But about the writing, Favreau was always serious, telling peers it was a solemn responsibility to remain in sync with the president’s thinking.
“When they’re working together, it’s like watching two musicians riff,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s longtime advisor. “Jon’s stamp is on all of the great speeches, from 2005 until now.”
Favreau will turn over his seat to Cody Keenan, a Chicago native who is taking the lead on writing the State of the Union address. Keenan is an original member of the team of twentysomethings that Favreau assembled for a tough assignment: writing for a writer with exacting standards.
Favreau declined Monday to discuss his departure.
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In a statement, Obama said, “He has become a friend and a collaborator on virtually every major speech I’ve given in the Senate, on the campaign trail and in the White House.”
They didn’t start off as collaborators. Obama was an Illinois state senator running for the U.S. Senate when they met in 2004. He was preparing to deliver the Democratic National Convention speech that would launch his national career. Favreau was working as a junior speechwriter for the party’s presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who is from Favreau’s home state.
Kerry’s staff had spotted an overlap between Obama’s speech and the one their boss planned to deliver, and they sent Favreau to tell Obama to trim his text.
“It was an unbelievably cruel thing to do, to send the 23-year-old in to do that job,” Axelrod joked.
After Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, he hired Favreau. Favreau then moved to Obama’s 2008 campaign and into the White House, where he earned a reputation as someone who could write speeches and parry with senior officials and Cabinet secretaries who wanted to put their fingerprints on the work.
If there were any doubts about him, Favreau quickly dispelled them when he wrote the first inaugural address and the president’s healthcare speech to Congress, said David Plouffe, a longtime Obama advisor.
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“Jon wasn’t going to come in with a draft that was not Barack Obama-like,” Plouffe said. “The president never has to worry that he’s going to get something and have to say, ‘This isn’t my voice.’”
Keenan is known for his handling of heartbreak and sadness. He was the lead writer on Obama’s speech at the Tucson memorial after the shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
Favreau plans to stay in Washington for a while, but he has often told friends that he wants to pursue screenwriting, as did former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett, the co-creator of the new comedy “1600 Penn.”
His time in the White House should serve Favreau well, Plouffe said.
“He can write comedy, history, drama, suspense,” he said. “He’s got the whole range.”
christi.parsons@latimes.com
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ff14c5d34de3633326cb66666400b583 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-feb-07-la-na-brennan-hearing-20130208-story.html | CIA controversies scrutinized at Brennan confirmation hearing | CIA controversies scrutinized at Brennan confirmation hearing
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s nominee to be CIA director faced a grilling at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday about a decade of CIA mistakes and misdeeds, from abuse of detainees to leaks of classified information.
The highly unusual public hearing cast a rare spotlight on a spy agency that operates in the shadows. Senators from both parties took turns pushing John Brennan for his views of covert programs that have garnered headlines, including the administration’s expanded use of targeted killings by drone aircraft, a highly classified effort he helped design and oversee as White House counter-terrorism chief.
Brennan’s confirmation is all but assured. But the sharp questions reflected deep frustration on the part of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has battled the Obama administration over access to classified documents, and which has not held a single public hearing on CIA drone strikes that have killed an estimated 3,000 suspected militants in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia in the last four years.
“Every American has the right to know when their government believes it’s allowed to kill them,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told Brennan.
Brennan said any Al Qaeda operatives, including U.S. citizens, “have a right to surrender.” The high-flying CIA drones offer no such opportunity, however.
If confirmed, Brennan will take over a fabled spy service facing a budget downturn after a decade of increases, and intelligence challenges including Iran, North Korea, nuclear proliferation and cyber-espionage.
Most of Thursday’s session focused instead on pent-up grievances from the past. Senators cited CIA mistakes before the 2001 terrorist attacks, faulty CIA warnings on Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction, the secret “rendition” of terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture, and other controversies.
In particular, Brennan was pressed about his involvement in the harsh interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects during the George W. Bush administration. Criticism over alleged torture of detainees had forced Brennan to withdraw his name from consideration as CIA director four years ago.
On Thursday, Brennan called waterboarding of CIA detainees “reprehensible,” and said simulated drowning in CIA interrogations should be banned, but he declined to call it torture.
When such harsh interrogations began in 2002, Brennan was the CIA’s deputy executive director. He received about 50 messages involving the program before it ended in 2003, senators said.
“I was cc’d on some of those documents, but I had no oversight of it,” he said. “I professed my personal objections to it, but I did not try to stop it because it was something that was being done in a different part of the agency.”
Brennan also said he had revised his earlier view that what the CIA called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including nudity and stress positions, at now-shuttered secret prisons around the globe had produced valuable intelligence. He said a 300-page summary of a recently completed 6,000-page classified report by committee Democrats was “rather damning.”
If confirmed as CIA chief, Brennan promised to find out “what went wrong in the system, where there were systemic failures, where there was mismanagement in the system.” He added it would be “one of my highest priorities.”
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said the interrogation program was “corrupted by personnel with pecuniary conflicts of interest.” He did not elaborate.
The CIA has yet to formally respond to the report and it’s unclear if some portions will be made public.
The 3 1/2-hour hearing will be followed by a closed-door session Tuesday. It came a day after Obama abruptly reversed course and agreed to let the House and Senate intelligence committees review secret Justice Department memos and opinions used to justify the targeting of Anwar Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and Al Qaeda member who was killed in a CIA drone strike in Yemen in September 2011.
The committee chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), complained to Brennan that senators could not bring staff experts and lawyers to examine the documents, and said the White House had withheld eight opinions that the committee had requested.
Republicans largely focused on whether the CIA should be capturing more terrorists, rather than just killing them. They also questioned whether Brennan had disclosed classified information in meetings that the White House arranged with reporters and former U.S. counter-terrorism officials.
He “vehemently” denied any misconduct, and said he had volunteered to help federal prosecutors investigating several alleged leaks.
“Unfortunately, there was a hemorrhaging of information and leaks,” he said.
Brennan entered the hearing room to shouted protests from members of Code Pink, a group that opposes drone strikes. Protesters interrupted his opening statement until Feinstein asked police to clear the hearing room of all but Capitol Hill staffers and reporters.
Feinstein led the Democrats’ charge on lethal drone strikes. Even though the committee had confirmed that the number of civilians inadvertently killed each year “has typically been in the single digits,” she said, she has not been permitted to discuss it.
“When I asked to give out the actual numbers, I’m told, ‘You can’t,’” she said. “And I say, ‘Why not?’ ‘Because it’s classified. It’s a covert program. For the public, it doesn’t exist.’”
That rationale, she added, “is long gone.”
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) urged Brennan to consider asking an independent court to review drone-targeting decisions, just as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court reviews secret intelligence eavesdropping warrants.
“Having the executive be the judge, prosecutor and the jury all in one is very contrary to the laws of this country,” King said.
Brennan said the idea was “worthy of discussion,” but he wondered whether courts could evaluate decisions to stop terrorists before they acted.
After the hearing, Feinstein also lent support to the notion of allowing judicial review, even by a secret court, of the drone attacks. “I think this has gone about as far as it can go as a covert activity,” she said.
ken.dilanian@latimes.com
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b200d489f7613d92793c0df85cf7b1b0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-feb-09-la-fg-wn-india-hanging-20130209-story.html | India executes Afzul Guru for 2001 parliament attack | India executes Afzul Guru for 2001 parliament attack
NEW DELHI -- India executed Mohammad Afzal Guru on Saturday, an Indian national from divided Kashmir convicted of providing logistical support for a notorious 2001 attack on parliament that killed at least seven people and fanned regional tension.
Authorities hoped this would put an end to a painful chapter in the country’s history but braced for violence, erecting barriers, deploying hundreds of security forces and slapping a curfew on parts of Kashmir. Residents of the disputed region, which has had a separatist insurgency for decades, learned of the restrictions through mosque announcements made during morning prayers.
Guru’s hanging, India’s preferred method of execution, took place at Delhi’s Tihar Jail without warning or fanfare early Saturday morning. His body, which his family has no right to retrieve under Indian law, will be buried in accordance with Islamic rituals inside the prison grounds.
“This is only about the law taking its course,” Home Secretary R.K. Singh told reporters. “We followed the jail manual and his hanging took place today.”
During the attack on Dec. 13, 2001, five militants stormed New Delhi’s well-guarded parliament armed with guns and grenades but were killed before getting into the main hall. Most of the seven casualties from the 30-minute fire fight were policemen or related security officials along with a gardener.
Guru, arrested a few days later, was convicted of sheltering and helping the militants secure weapons and was handed the death penalty in 2004. The middle-class student, who was studying for his civil service exam, denied any role in the conspiracy, and a scheduled 2006 execution was delayed after his wife filed a petition arguing that there was no direct evidence linking him to the attack.
Several human rights groups and political parties argued that Guru didn’t get a fair trial in the rush to blame. A final clemency appeal to President Pranab Mukherjee late last month was rejected, local media reported, leading to Saturday’s hanging.
India accused Pakistan at the time of being responsible for the brazen attack through Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group it said was a proxy for the government. Islamabad denied any involvement, but tension mounted as the nuclear-armed neighbors mobilized nearly a million soldiers, bringing the wary rivals to the brink of their fourth war. Eventually several months later, tensions dissipated.
India and Pakistan each control part of Kashmir, divided by a heavily armed Line of Control. They’ve fought two wars over the region, which they both claim in full.
The Congress Party-led government, which faces a tough reelection battle in 2014 amid corruption scandals, a weak economy and high inflation, has been accused by political opponents of dragging its feet in the fight against terrorism.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a controversial high flier in the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, tweeted Saturday that the decision to hang Guru was “better late than never.”
But government officials said politics didn’t play a role in the timing of the execution.
Mark.Magnier@latimes.com
Tanvi Sharma in the New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.
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