~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From LA Times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Authorities arrest Mexican national for allegedly kidnapping 4-year-old girl

Federal authorities said today they have arrested a Mexican national who is accused of kidnapping a 4-year-old girl he had been paid to smuggle into the United States.

Emanuel De La Costa-Valdiva was arrested Thanksgiving Day after he took the girl into the U.S. and then refused to give her to her mother, according to agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

Mother and child were reunited the same day, and the child was unhurt.

De La Costa, 32, has been charged with human trafficking, kidnapping and extortion and is currently at the Orange County Jail awaiting his initial appearance in court, according to a statement by ICE officials.

The mother, also a Mexican national, is expected to stay in the United States to serve as a witness for the prosecution.

ICE officials said the mother had made arrangements to enter the U.S. illegally and have her daughter, who is a U.S. citizen, smuggled in separately via another route.

When the mother went to retrieve her daughter, officials said De La Costa refused to return the child and demanded more money.

The mother contacted authorities who called in officials with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/authorities-arrest-mexican-national-for-allegedly-kidnapping-4yearold-girl.html#more

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Details emerge about Roman Polanski's life in Swiss prison

With Roman Polanski set to be released on bail, new details are emerging about his time behind bars.

An inmate who served time in the same Swiss prison said the famed director received special treatment.

In an interview with Zurich's Radio One, Yussi Akram said Polanski was able to regularly call his wife and attorneys and communicated frequently with guards at the prison outside the city. Akram also said Polanski's cell was equipped with a special emergency button he could use to summon guards.

Polanski has been at the prison for two months, ever since Swiss authorities arrested him on a warrant related to a three-decade-old child sex case in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, a close friend of the director's said Polanski is depressed and has lost 30 pounds.

"His fear of the U.S. verges on panic and he has lived with that fear for so long that it's become obsessive," director Janusz Morgenstern told a Polish radio station, according to ABC News. He added Polanski's children have been pulled out of school in part because of taunts from other children.

Polanski is expected to be released in the next few days after a Swiss court granted the director bail.

The court based its decision on Polanski's pledge of $4.5-million bail along with what the court called supporting measures, including electronic monitoring, which would alert the authorities if he tried to leave home or remove a monitoring bracelet.

Polanski is expected to stay at his Alpine chalet.

Legal experts say the bail probably will lengthen the battle over whether Polanski should be extradited to Los Angeles to face sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old at Jack Nicholson's home. The decision also raises other questions, given that Polanski fled from the United States just before his sentencing in 1978. Swiss justice officials repeatedly have denied his bail requests, saying he is a flight risk.

Swiss officials told Reuters that they don't think Polanski will be released for a couple of days.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A forensic study of human death through the life of insects

A Cleveland entomologist is studying insects collected from the bodies found in Anthony Sowell's duplex. 'I follow where the bugs lead me. Their lives tell a story about death.'

by P.J. Huffstutter

November 28, 2009

Reporting from Cleveland

Joe Keiper squinted into a microscope and pressed the dead maggot with a pair of surgical forceps to determine how much human flesh the fat white larva had eaten.

The forensic entomologist had plucked hundreds of them off a corpse found inside a Cleveland house the day before Halloween.

"Understand insects, and you can understand death," said Keiper, a slender, balding scientist of 40.

For nine years, Keiper has studied all things creepy-crawly as the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's director of science and curator of invertebrate zoology.

Local cops just call him the bug man. Now he's working on one of the most puzzling cases in the city's history: the discovery of 10 bodies in a duplex.

Keiper is one of fewer than 20 people in the U.S. who do this sort of forensic work on a regular basis. He tracks the life of insects to solve the mysteries of human death.

From his windowless museum lab here in northern Ohio, he has helped local police and federal investigators solve 32 cases since 2001.

The clues he finds from maggots, flies, beetles and other insects rarely paint the whole picture of death: They are only bits and pieces. But there are usually thousands upon thousands of pieces available, each contributing to the whole story.

"I follow where the bugs lead me," Keiper said. "Their lives tell a story about death. You just have to know how to read the story they're trying to tell."

This latest case is as mysterious as any he has ever handled.

The remains of 10 women have been found at the duplex on Imperial Avenue. And a skull was found in a bucket in the house's basement. The duplex's sole resident, Anthony Sowell, 50, has been arrested and charged with five counts of murder. Investigators continue to search for more bodies.

"Working with bugs, in a crime scene or in nature, I've learned that everything has a role to play in life," Keiper said. "Everything has its purpose."

Life and death are crammed onto every flat surface inside the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's laboratory where Keiper spends most days.

A glowing blue tank with spiny lake sturgeon fish sits near a table of brown snakes curled inside bottles of preserving liquid. Dragonflies grow inside refrigerated trays, while metal cabinets that stretch from floor to ceiling house more than a million animal and insect specimens -- a collection that dates to the 1700s.

Keiper leaned back in his squeaky office chair and pulled a cart filled with glass vials toward him.

Each vial is full of bugs from Sowell's home. Keiper bottled them by species, location and proximity to each body.

"Dead flies taken from sills of basement where body/corpse was concealed," reads one vial.

"Casings found inside body bag upstairs," reads another.

Minutes after someone dies, nature begins its cycle of life by sending flies. In the Midwest, as in most places, it is usually the blowfly -- small and metallic-green or -blue.

They're like the bloodhounds of the fly world. Drawn to the scent of blood and the gases released by the body, blowflies find the corpse and lay eggs on it.

Those eggs are important to forensic scientists because the passage of time between the laying of an egg (day one) to an adult fly's emergence from its cocoon-like shell (day 14) is usually predictable.

As time passes, other bugs appear. By determining the age and size of the larvae, and figuring out what insect species they are, Keiper can backtrack and estimate the period between death and the body's discovery.

In the lab, Keiper picked up one vial off his work cart and held it up to his eyes. A dozen maggots, each no longer than a pencil eraser, floated in golden liquid. So did a slip of paper inside the bottle.

Keiper read his own neat pen strokes: "Under body on basement."

He unscrewed the cap and reached for a pair of tweezers.

The discovery of the bodies at the home on Imperial Avenue was a fluke.

Police had arrived Oct. 29 to serve Sowell with an arrest warrant after a woman said he had choked and tried to rape her inside the home a week earlier. Sowell, who had served 15 years in prison for attempted rape, wasn't home, but the smell of decay was so strong that the officers entered the building and walked upstairs.

There, they found the bodies of two women lying on the floor. Both had been dead long enough to be partially mummified.

They found two more stuffed into a crawl space inside the house. Another was buried in a shallow grave in the basement's dirt floor, while yet another was buried beneath an outdoor staircase. Four were buried in the backyard.

All were African American women, according to the Cuyahoga County coroner's office.

Coroner Frank Miller called Keiper. Miller doesn't need to call very often. In a county with nearly 1.4 million residents, his office said it averages 100 homicides a year. Fewer than six of those cases involve mysterious circumstances and a body so decayed that investigators can't identify it.

"It was an 'all hands on deck,' " Keiper said. "I dropped everything I was doing."

Keiper, whose uniform is a cotton shirt and jeans faded from repeated washing to get rid of the smell of decaying flesh, inspected the bodies and the area around them.

There are details in death that aren't obvious to the untrained eye. Room temperature is one factor. A body decays faster and maggots grow quicker in warm air.

Location is another. Maggots no wider than a piece of thread can crawl inside body cavities and orifices. Insects can hide in the nearby soil or fall in the space between wooden floor planks.

Sometimes, it's the lack of bugs that's telling. Keiper found very few insects, and only one species, on the body of a 17-year-old boy found in a sewer drain in 2007.

Confused, he returned to the crime scene days later and crawled into the drain, ignoring his claustrophobia. He realized the teen had been killed outside and his body quickly dumped by his killer.

"Some flies would have landed while the body was being moved. But after that, the flies wouldn't travel that far down the tunnel on their own," said Keiper, whose findings were used to help refute the alibi of the man later convicted of the crime.

Keiper has yet to find anything so conclusive in the Cleveland case. After searching through the Imperial Avenue home, he has now settled in for the grueling laboratory work involved in analyzing all the bugs he collected.

Keiper turned back to the maggot under his microscope. A gentle press against its middle tilted the larva's back end into view. Two eye-shaped vents appeared, showing where the insect breathes. Keiper zoomed in.

Even these tiny pieces can be telling. There should be tiny slits visible in these vents. One slit means the larva is very young, only a few days old when it was plucked off a body at Imperial Avenue. Three slits mean it is older and will soon stop eating, and form into a pupa.

In this case, Keiper has an idea of what he's seeing but won't elaborate because the investigation is ongoing.

He returned the maggot to its vial and reached for the next bug.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-bugman28-2009nov28,0,7646104,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Washington Times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Piracy threatens fishermen in Yemen

by Heather Murdock, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

ADEN, Yemen | Deeply tanned teenage boys dragged four yellowfin tuna off the small fishing boat and ran up the beach. The boys were strong, but the fish were fat and at least three feet long. They slapped the fish down in the concrete and tile market. It was dinner time, and hungry shoppers were looking to buy.

Anwar Abdulkader Aisa, who fishes for tuna and kingfish in his 23-foot boat, said he still makes a living in the Gulf of Aden, but his income has been cut in half. One third of the piracy in the world takes place in the gulf, a roughly 200-mile wide strip of water that separates Yemen from Somalia.

About a year ago, international forces moved into the area to fight a rising threat from Somali pirates. Led by the European Union, the armada relies on naval support from NATO and more than 25 countries, including the United States, China, Russia and India. But despite the display of military might, piracy in the area doubled in 2009, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

One of the world's busiest sea lanes, more than 25,000 merchant ships pass through the Gulf of Aden every year. Between January and September this year, there were 100 attempted and actual pirate attacks. There were half as many during the same period last year. In 2005, there were eight.

Traditional fishermen, who catch most of Yemen's fish exports, are caught in the middle. "[The pirates] will kill you for a small thing like a boat engine," Mr. Aisa said. "The international forces are also a threat."

Standing on a small beach on a muggy night in November, he said aircraft from all over the world harass fishermen in Yemeni-flagged traditional fishing boats. Almost every day they hover over his boat, he said. Usually they move on after they are convinced the boat is for fishing. About seven of his colleagues have been arrested.

Because the international operations are massive, Mr. Aisa thinks the pirates could have been crushed long ago. "It's a great force," he said. "It could occupy the whole world."

But Somali officials say that the international forces are not trying to stop piracy; instead they are protecting their own illegal fishing boats. They say widespread illegal fishing in Somali waters has forced fishermen to turn to piracy to make a living. And now, the international community is using pirates as an excuse to send more fishing boats.

"If all the piracy was gone, this coalition would continue," said Hussein Hagi Ahmed, the Somali consul in Aden. He also said 90 percent of the fish coming out of Somali waters, famous for stores of tuna, snapper and shark, are taken illegally.

Naval forces sent to fight piracy are often intended to protect their fishing boats, not stop the pirates, he said. Somali people, suffering from war, drought and crushing poverty, are increasingly sympathetic to the pirates.

"People believe the coalition came to protect illegal fisheries," Mr. Ahmed said. "Not to fight pirates."

But IMB officials say Somali pirates have stepped up their operations in the Gulf of Aden because they are increasingly capable of hijacking boats far from their shores, and the trade route through the gulf that connects Europe and Asia hosts lucrative prey.

"This basically makes it very attractive to pirates who can pick and choose vessels," said Cyrus Mody, manager of the IMB.

And although illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters may have inspired some fishermen to turn to piracy, it is now big business, he added. "They have come a long way from trying to protect their waters from illegal fishing," he said.

According to Mr. Mody, instability in Somalia - which hasn't had a functional government since civil war broke out in 1991 - is the primary reason for the growing presence of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. The chaos in Somalia, he said, is "giving pirates a free hand to do what they want."

In the first nine months of this year, 18 ships were hijacked and more than 300 hostages were taken from the Gulf of Aden. Worldwide, 661 hostages were taken during that time period, most by suspected Somali pirates. Six hostages were killed, and eight are still missing.

Pirate attacks continue to occur almost daily.

Nabile Farouk, who has been fishing the Gulf of Aden and off the east coast of Somalia for over 20 years, said Yemeni fishermen now steer clear of the Somali coast, where they used to fish for tuna, abundant there. Like Mr. Aisa, his income has been cut in half.

Sometimes fishermen don't work for days because of reports of pirate activities in the gulf. Earlier this month, pirates stole a colleague's boat and left him floating on a wooden palate. The fisherman drifted for one day and one night before he was rescued by another boat passing by.

"We are afraid because there is no security," Mr. Farouk said. "We fear pirates because they are armed and we are not."

But piracy is not just a problem for fishermen and shipping companies, according to business leaders in Yemen. Once one of the most important ports in the world, international companies have been avoiding investing in the port of Aden because of the danger in the water, and businesses all over Yemen are feeling the crunch. Even before the surge in piracy, foreign investors were wary of working in Aden after suicide bombers killed 17 American sailors in the 2000 USS Cole attack.

"Piracy is like a cancer on the whole region," said Mohamad Al-Awadi, the head of the General Investment Authority in Hadramout, in a speech at an Aden business conference in mid-November.

Mr. Al-Awadi advocated the use of force to stop the pirates, but international maritime organizations caution that putting armed guards on boats could lead to an arms race at sea. Somali pirates, already carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, could become more violent.

According to the Yemen Coast Guard, more force is needed to keep the waters safe. The coast guard, which was established five years ago, is too small, new and under-funded to catch pirates, according to Col. Lutf al-Barati, the head of the Yemeni Coast Guard in Aden.

Pirate boats travel more than 50 mph, while the fastest coast guard boats travel about 35 mph, he said. "You can't even catch up to them," he added.

But fishermen in Aden say they would rather work with the Yemen Coast Guard than the international forces, which are almost as scary as the armed pirates.

Mahran Omayran, who fishes the gulf in a 30-foot boat with his four-man crew, said he sees international forces in the waters almost every day. Helicopters hover over his boat and fire randomly. Officers are sometimes sent to board and search the boat and men are ordered to undress. "They know that we are fishermen," he said.

But according to Mr. Aisa, anything can happen in the Gulf of Aden these days. Pirates regularly steal boat engines, and fishermen are regularly arrested. About nine months ago, some of his friends found four pirates drifting at sea with no engine, sail, food or water. They saved the pirates and turned them in to Yemeni authorities.

"The pirates were going to die, but they rescued them," he said. "Now [the pirates] are in jail."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/28/piracy-threatens-fishermen-in-yemen//print/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What, me worry?

by Clifford D. May

The Heritage Foundation recently convened a meeting of experts to discuss "Weapons of Mass Destruction and America's Communities," the various ways terrorists might attack our allies and us in the future, and what might be done to stop them. You can imagine what a merry gathering this was.

The most obvious concern: the spread of nuclear weapons. There was consensus that if Iran, the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, is not prevented from acquiring nukes, the result will be a nuclear proliferation "cascade." Before long, so many countries would have so many nuclear devices that the chances of terrorist groups getting their hands on at least a few of them would increase exponentially.

A scenario perhaps even more frightening: Terrorists using biological weapons, setting off epidemics of smallpox, Ebola virus or other hemorrhagic fevers; a crop duster spreading 10 pounds of anthrax causing more deaths than in World War II; genetically engineered pathogens - for example, a super contagious form of HIV.

We also discussed radiological dispersal devices, more commonly known as "dirty bombs." Such weapons are fairly simple to construct: radioactive materials - e.g., radium, radon, thorium - are wrapped around a core of conventional explosives. Though the device would not carry the lethality of a nuclear or biological weapon, its psychological and economic impact could be substantial.

How else might terrorists advance toward their goal, succinctly articulated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "a world without America"?

Adm. Mike McConnell, who until February of this year was the director of national intelligence (America's top spy), recently told Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes" that he was increasingly concerned about cyberwarfare, the use of computers and the Internet as weapons.

"If I were an attacker and I wanted to do strategic damage to the United States ... I probably would sack electric power" throughout as much of the country as possible, he said. Adm. McConnell also worries about the possibility that a cyberattacker could destroy the electronic processes and records that keep track of money and its movements, thereby setting off an economic collapse.

Another way to destroy the electric grid as well as everything computerized: an Electromagnetic Pulse Attack. In 2001, the U.S. government established a commission to "assess the threat to the United States" from an EMP attack. The commission reported to Congress that if a nuclear warhead were to be detonated at high altitude over the American mainland, the blast would produce a shock wave so powerful that it would "cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food and other infrastructure."

Among the experts attending this conference, all agreed that the use of such terrorist weapons is a more serious and imminent threat than is "global warming." Yet no summits are being organized to decide how the United States and other targeted nations can best defend themselves.

I would argue that if we are to prevent our enemies from doing the kind of damage they intend, we must play offense as well as defense. We'll need to keep our enemies on the run, pursuing them in their training camps, laboratories and safe houses, forcing them to look over their shoulders and worry that they may be killed or captured, and being captured should not mean being presented on a global stage to spout propaganda at American taxpayer expense.

Our choice is to advance or retreat, hunt or be hunted - win or lose. There is no fortress we can build, no permanent stalemate we can achieve, no gesture or concession that will make us inoffensive to our enemies. When the barbarians are at the gate, you need to do more than lock up, and we haven't even done that yet.

George Orwell articulated a fundamental rule of national security: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Much of the Western world is now led by people who believe that rule may have applied in the old days but no longer. If that doesn't keep you awake at night, nothing will.

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/28/what-me-worry-28462775//print/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Wall Street Journal

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Haven for Disabled Workers Feels Job Market's Sting

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Robert Ertle, 30, has cerebral palsy and can't walk. But he can assemble car parts at a special table designed for him. After one of his frequent brain operations, he's apt to argue with his mother, Dawn Cleveland, that he should go back to work immediately.

"I like to be busy," he says.

Mr. Ertle works for Lott Industries, a nonprofit organization that trains adults with developmental disabilities to do light assembly work and other tasks. In 1993, Lott became the only program of its kind to earn the auto industry's prestigious Quality One supplier award.

Now, Lott and its 1,200 workers are in danger of becoming another casualty of recession. Seven major contracts vanished in late 2007, representing 80% of its business, when Ford Motor Co. closed a nearby stamping plant. Next, in 2008, went the General Motors contract for truck transmission parts. Earlier this year, business with a Honda parts supplier dropped off. Cleaning and other nonautomotive work also dried up as companies brought those functions back in-house to keep their own employees busy.

Lott's struggles show how an economic pall can be particularly tough on the disabled, a group that suffers from chronically low employment. As early as the 1940s, the government launched "Hire the Handicapped" campaigns, urging companies to recruit disabled veterans -- many of them missing limbs -- in a show of patriotism and goodwill. While industry supported the idea in theory, preconceptions about worker limitations often damped opportunities.

Progress has been particularly difficult for developmentally challenged adults -- those who have lifelong impairments such as autism, brain injury or Down syndrome. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 barred employers from discriminating against workers with disabilities and forced them to make reasonable accommodations -- such as wheelchair ramps -- so that qualified disabled people wouldn't be shut out from jobs. But the act didn't do anything to compel companies to hire employees with more severe mental and physical limitations. Unemployment within the nation's developmentally challenged population hovers around 80%.

Lott has been a barrier-breaker. It was founded in the 1940s by Josina Lott, a teacher who believed that children with developmental disabilities should have the chance to make a living. Over the years, it earned a name in the auto industry, where companies like Ford were flush with business and willing to give Lott's eager work force a chance.

"[Lott] was ahead of the curve," says Charles Lakin, who heads a University of Minnesota program that tracks services to the developmentally disabled. Too often, he says, programs provided training for jobs that never came up, like "screwing nuts on bolts, even though no one screws nuts on bolts." Lott also offered benefits, like paid sick leave and 15 holidays.

Joan Uhl Browne, Lott's president, wakes up in the middle of the night thinking "Oh my God, what am I going to do? It's not like other places where you risk your job and reputation if you mess up," she says. "Here if I screw up, I mess up a lot of people's lives."

All of Lott's workers have developmental impairments. Some are in wheelchairs. Others have autism. Over the years, they've tried with little success to work in restaurants or supermarkets, wiping tables and stocking shelves. One deaf man was dismissed from a local grocery for poor communication skills.

For many, the realities of the downturn are tough to process. Lott's employees don't understand why their work went away or that broader remote forces -- like oil prices and imports -- have been partly to blame. They thought they had done something wrong. Many refused to do other work, less out of stubbornness than bewilderment. "I do Ford. I make those cars," they would tell Gail Little, the Lott supervisor who was the customer liaison with Ford. "I would say, 'Honey, Ford isn't here."

Some had been with Lott since high school. Now middle aged, they had come to rely on Lott for a livelihood and self esteem that is often elusive for those with disabilities.

Eduard Kemp, 46, has had seizures since he was 6 and lives with his mother, Pearline, 79, in Toledo. A few years ago, after her husband died, Pearline suggested moving south to Memphis to be with her family. "He didn't want to move because he loves Lott," she says. His co-workers elected him president of the employee council. Eventually, he earned enough at Lott to buy his own drum set and computer. Because of employees like him, "we have to find work," says Ms. Uhl Browne.

At this point, Lott's revenues are less than half of what they were two years ago. With business evaporating, Lott began burning reserves to maintain its average $101,000 biweekly payroll. Wages and sick pay were reduced, although no workers have been released.

Ms. Uhl Browne's small staff has been scrambling to replace the auto contracts. They've cast a wide net, cold-calling businesses offering to label bottles and bundle linoleum. While dining at the bar of a local restaurant, Ms. Uhl Browne overheard a conversation between a father and son regarding their bookselling business. They needed to unload unwanted volumes. "I butted in," she says. A deal to sell Lott's document destruction services was later struck.

Lott had scored its first contract with Ford in 1980, stapling felt pads to pieces that later went into the racy and powerful Thunderbird. Workers assembled parts in an old industrial three-story building. When elevators broke, employees formed lines handing goods to one another and then down the steps to get them out the door in time. That early relationship helped Lott become essentially self-sustaining, enabling it to buy its own equipment and operate largely without subsidies from the state or federal government.

In 1993 Ford told Lott that if it wanted to continue doing business with the auto giant, it had to earn the highest quality certification, called Q1 -- just like the rest of its suppliers.

"There was going to be no more hand holding," recalls Ms. Little. Lott embarked on an intensive overhaul. It invested in new computers and training. It engineered special tables and hand-held tools for those in wheelchairs and with limited fine motor skills to help them attach clips and clamps to plastic fender and wheel parts.

Ford officials spent five days at its factory inspecting operations. Before leaving, they said Lott would be recommended for the prestigious Q1 award. "It was the greatest day of my life," says Ms. Little. Workers celebrated with an outing to the Toledo Zoo. All received blue Ford jackets.

Soon, Lott was shipping directly to Ford plants in Kentucky, Illinois and Michigan, with quality and on time ratings exceeding 99%, according to data compiled by Lott for Ford. It expanded to three production sites, with close to 300,000 square feet, and began assembling head rests and hoses for Jeep, GM, and Chrysler. By 2006, revenue reached $7 million, with Ford generating about 75%. The rest came from other car makers and non-auto assembling, packaging, recycling, and maintenance jobs.

Assembly-type work, tedious to others, was ideal for Lott employees, who thrived repeating and mastering a single activity. Taking ownership in their work, they asked to visit the Ford stamping plant to see where their parts fit onto vans and trucks and wore Ford baseball hats.

Stars like Patty Zawierucha emerged. Her specialty was belly pans and splash shields. "I loved them," says Ms. Zawierucha, 60, who has a learning disability. She preferred using her hands, now proudly calloused, instead of specially engineered tools because she could work faster that way. At times, her output was so far above average that supervisors suspected a data-entry error. Joe Murnen, chief operations officer, stood next to her and tried to match her numbers. "I tried but I just couldn't do it," he says.

Depending on the type of job, Lott workers are either paid minimum wage of $7.30 an hour or a piece rate, which is based on the competitive prevailing wage. With volumes currently down, that's translated into smaller paychecks for many Lott employees.

Michael Peters, 44, was dubbed Speedy Gonzales, "because I was so fast" adding clips, pins and foam strips to parts, he says. While working for Ford, he earned $800 and $900 every two weeks, which was enough to support his mother, Martha, in their home. "I was paying for all the household bills for me and my mom," says Mr. Peters, who wears a photo of his now-deceased mother, on a metal tag around his neck.

Mr. Peters's diligence, mirrored by many others, earned the respect of those around them. "A lot of regular guys in life think how to cheat and steal from the system," says Mike Walker, who supervises Mr. Peters and others. "These guys work hard."

Robert Ertle, the 30-year old who can't walk, is industrious by nature. In the evenings, antsy to get out of his wheelchair, he will crawl out to the garage to clean his mother's car.

"Lott is the best thing that ever happened to him," says his mother, Ms. Cleveland.

That sense of stability was shaken when Ford launched its Way Forward program in 2006. It was a much-needed restructuring aimed at saving billions by closing more than a dozen factories, including the Maumee stamping plant, which was Lott's major customer.

Ms. Little was devastated. "We worked so hard to get that business," says Ms. Little, noting that Lott workers would sometimes find problems with the auto parts and help resolve them.

"It was nothing that Lott did or didn't do. We were appreciative of the work they did and the dedication the employees showed," says Ford spokesman Todd Nissen.

Lott President Ms. Uhl Browne, a former consultant in higher education, was hired a few months before the Ford contract ended. "I knew it was going to happen, but knowing it and living are it are two different things," she says.

After losing the Ford work, Lott secured a GM contract and invested $100,000 in equipment. Lott anticipated the arrangement to last for three or four years -- enough time to warrant the capital investment. Instead, that work dried up by the end of 2008. A GM spokesman says it was never meant to be a long-term contract. Lott says the business went away faster than expected.

It obtained another auto-related contract for more than 20 small parts for a Honda supplier. Almost immediately, the expected volume began shrinking and was cut by more than 40%.

Meanwhile, Lott's other business took a hit from the financial crisis and recession. Paper mills wouldn't accept recycled paper because prices had tanked. Local companies that employed crews of Lott workers to clean or load boxes cancelled those contracts, or greatly reduced volume.

Revenues fell to $2.6 million, with a scant $100,000 trickling in from the auto-supply business. "And we really hustled to get that," says Jeff Holland, Lott's chief financial officer.

Even though contracts were dwindling, Lott employees continued coming to work, doing odd jobs like shredding paper and repairing wooden pallets. At first Lott tried to maintain their average biweekly pay of about $200 by tapping its investment reserves. But the fund was losing money. "We had to stop," says Ms. Uhl Browne. Workers receive only what they actually earned -- even if it was just $24 every two weeks.

The speedy Mr. Peters could no longer afford the $500 a month payments to stay in his house so he moved into an apartment. Lott contacted a social-service organization to help him and others pay their bills and manage their money.

Pockets of optimism remain. The "Cash for Clunkers" stimulus effort helped revive flagging volume at the Honda supplier. A few other contracts have come through in recent weeks. One involves sorting, labeling and stacking decorative panels on pallets for delivery to retailers like Lowe's. Another short-term stint labeling containers will occupy some workers for three to four months.

"We're keeping everyone busy but we're still losing money," says Ms. Uhl Browne. "We're not out of the woods."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125918205048464519.html#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

U.S. Tries New Tack Against Taliban

Coalition Works With Afghan Officials to Offer Militants Jobs and Protection if They Lay Down Weapons

KABUL -- The U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government are launching an initiative to persuade Taliban insurgents to lay down their weapons, offering jobs and protection to the militants who choose to abandon their fight.

While President Hamid Karzai's government has been trying to woo these insurgents for years, the new program marks the first time that the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces are systematically reaching out to Taliban fighters.

The Afghan government has had a reconciliation program in place since 2004, and claims to have turned more than 8,000 insurgents. That program, however, is widely derided as corrupt and ineffective. Insurgents were enticed with offers of jobs but rarely received the promised assistance, leading many to rejoin the fight.

Western officials behind the new reconciliation program say they believe the majority of insurgents are fighting for money -- the Taliban often pay their members -- or personal grievances. Luring such men from the battlefield is a central component of America's new counterinsurgency strategy crafted by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top allied commander here.

"It is an issue of dialogue -- we need to establish respect, even if they are the enemy," said Graeme Lamb, a retired British general who spearheaded a similar effort to turn Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and who oversees the campaign out of NATO headquarters in Kabul.

The Iraqi program split local Sunni insurgents from al Qaeda's foreign fighters in the tribal Anbar province, recruiting many of them into paramilitary forces. It is widely credited with driving down the level of violence there, eventually allowing the U.S. to begin drawing down its forces.

President Barack Obama signed a bill in October that earmarks funds to pay former Taliban members to protect Afghan towns and villages from insurgents.

"It has to be a local solution, specific to each community," Mr. Lamb said. "If you try to control everything from Kabul, you will be doomed."

The Taliban's senior leadership met the new reconciliation efforts with scorn. The Islamist movement is "considering this decision as a sign of weakness and complete despondency of the enemy," Mullah Brader Akhund, the Afghan Taliban's second-in-command, said in a statement posted on jihadi Web sites. The insurgents, he added, "have not chosen this path of strife between the truth and the evil to obtain some material goals."

Gul Wazir, a midlevel Taliban commander who fought the Americans for nearly eight years south of Kabul, has been disappointed with the Afghan central government's current reconciliation program. When Mr. Wazir, a middle-age man with a thick, wiry beard and a row of silver teeth, decided to stop fighting in September, the government promised to protect him from his erstwhile comrades, who were threatening to kill him for defecting. It also promised a job, he says.

But no job or protection materialized, and Mr. Wazir says he was forced to flee for the relative safety of Kabul, where he spends his days looking for work. "The government hasn't done a single thing for me," he complains. "I am jobless and my life was better when I was fighting."

Afghan officials said they plan to revamp the existing reconciliation program and, together with NATO forces, create a new body that supervises the process. The new job and literacy-training programs, Mr. Lamb explained, would help ensure that reformed fighters are not "left in the cold."

It is far from certain that the new program will produce better results, analysts say, at least as long as the Taliban retain momentum in the battlefield.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125936488818367181.html#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.