For many in Haiti quake, help is still a no-show

Haitians are angry, but not surprised, that they are left to dig out the trapped and haul off the dead on their own. Some people flee Port-au-Prince with whatever they could salvage.

By Joe Mozingo and Tracy Wilkinson

January 15, 2010

Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

By Thursday, the bodies had begun piling up on the streets. Where the day before there were one or two, now there were several, sometimes dozens in a single spot. It became common to see people carrying bodies through the streets, pickup trucks loaded with bodies on their beds, people pushing bodies in wheelbarrows.

So many bodies, and so little help.

With no food, water or medical assistance in sight, a sense of chaos and urgency gripped Haiti's capital. In a country where civil institutions have rarely worked, there also was a sense of forsaken self-reliance.

In the Turgeau neighborhood, up the hill from downtown, Lily Pierre Lormeus stared at the ruins of a three-story school where adults had been taking classes Tuesday afternoon. The top two floors had fallen intact, and screaming people scrambled out, she said. But the rest of the students were entombed on the bottom floor, dead or soon to be.

"All Tuesday night, up to yesterday, we heard people yelling and groaning," said Lormeus, who runs another school nearby. "Nobody could do anything."

"We need tools," she said. "It's starting to smell."

Most big buildings in Port-au-Prince were built like cheap parking structures. Columns held up big slabs of concrete. The walls were thin cinder block. When they fell, they became unforgiving mountains to dig through. Offices, apartments, schoolrooms, all collapsed to mere inches.

Remarkably, for a metropolitan area of several million people just 700 miles from Miami, heavy machinery seemed almost nonexistent. Most people didn't even have picks or hammers. In the absence of tools, they resorted to using the rubble itself and pieces of rebar -- or just their hands -- to dig through thick slabs of concrete.

Although some foreign medical crews quickly set up field hospitals for Haitians injured in Tuesday's earthquake -- Doctors Without Borders said it had treated more than 1,000 people -- some of the more visible international rescue efforts seemed focused on foreign victims.

An American rescue crew from Virginia pried loose the wreckage of the United Nations mission headquarters in what had been the six-story Christopher Hotel, now a one-story pile of debris. Using an excavator and crane, the Americans, along with a Chinese rescue crew, were able to find about a dozen survivors, who were taken to a U.N. hospital.

The American rescuers next went to the Hotel Montana, a nexus for the international community in Port-au-Prince.

Most Haitians saw none of this. For the poor, the desperate, the bereaved, there was little help. The Haitian government, for the most part, was a no-show.

In the hillside neighborhood of Petionville, men snaked down a deep street with a wooden coffin on their shoulders, dancing and singing as they went.

Hundreds of bodies lay in the parking lot of the General Hospital morgue, waiting for families to identify and remove them. Few people have the financial means to bury them.

Along L'Ouverture Boulevard, named for the leader of Haiti's revolution, an exodus of sorts was underway. Lines of cars and trucks, three or four abreast in a two-lane thoroughfare, crawled at a noisy snail's pace. Stranded in the interminable, fume-choked jams were overcrowded buses and trucks with sheet-wrapped corpses in the back. Vehicles were stacked high with salvaged goods, mostly mattresses, bundles of clothing, a suitcase or two, as people fled.

The nearly complete collapse of the country's communications network made it difficult to know what conditions awaited the refugees as they made their way to the countryside or smaller cities. But given how close the quake's epicenter was to Port-au-Prince, it seemed reasonable to expect that the situation might be better elsewhere.

But for most people, fleeing was not an option.

At the bottom of a hill, Haitians were sleeping under tarps in Place Canape Vert, still wary of what the earth might do. In a country that has seen horrific spates of violence, the toll was unprecedented.

They were furious, though not surprised, that they were left to themselves to dig out the trapped, haul off the dead, beg for help for the dying.

Hubert Benjamin, 59, blamed his own government and figured that it would squander any international aid it received.

"I know if they give it to them to give to the Haitians . . . I know already they won't give it to us.

"Look at how many people die here on the ground. No one comes to see them. Right now there is still someone crying in a building down there."

He led a reporter up a bank of rubble onto the roof of a collapsed school. A dozen men were holed up in a cave with a small hand pick and a crowbar. The five floors of the school had sandwiched into one, like the strata of a canyon wall.

In a little pocket of air between the layers, a woman was alive. They heard her knocking a rock against the concrete about 8 a.m. They started digging.

They found out her name, Emelen Marche. She was a young mother who had come to the school to pay her children's tuition.

By 5 p.m., the men had been working for seven hours in the muggy heat amid gathering flies and the nauseous smell of decomposing corpses. Two bodies were bloating up on the basketball court 20 yards away, a man was sprawled on the roof just a few feet away, and in another hole in the roof, the top half of a man who looked like a teacher lay crushed by a girder, still wearing his spectacles.

Nor was this the only excavation going on. On the other side of the roof, a natty old man in white pants, a white guayabera shirt and wingtip shoes directed young men to dig out his son. He sat on the roof, occasionally lying down and staring at the sky. He knew his son was gone; he just wanted him out.

Marche, the young mother, appeared likely to make it. The men gave her water and food through the hole. Jean Eddy Fleurantin took his turn with the pick. A young boy came down with a rusty hacksaw to cut through rebar.

She was talking. "Don't do that!" she would yell, when their strikes with the pick came too close to her hand.

As the sun set behind the mountains, and total darkness approached, a reporter asked when they thought she might be set free.

"That's in God's hands," Fleurantin said.

Even if she gets out, there is no happy ending to this story. The two children whose tuition Marche came to pay were crushed to death in their home.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-haiti-color15-2010jan15,0,4922305,print.story

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Emergency aid begins to arrive in a chaotic Haiti

Rescue teams from eight countries arrive. But there is little sign of them in Port-au-Prince, where residents scavenge for food, carry the dead and hunt for survivors.

by Tina Susman, Tracy Wilkinson and Joe Mozingo

January 15, 2010

Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

Emergency aid flowed from around the world toward Haiti on Thursday, only to confront a reality that grew more desperate by the hour: Crippled ports and communications left stunned earthquake survivors on their own to scavenge for food and water, carry away legions of dead and dig frantically for voices calling out from under the rubble.

President Obama promised $100 million and the full resources of the U.S. government for what he said would be one of the largest relief efforts in recent history. U.S. officials said 30 countries had either sent aid or promised to do so. Rescue teams from eight countries already had arrived.

But two days after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, there was little evidence of the aid effort in the capital of the hemisphere's poorest country.

"In Haiti, you're lucky if they come with a screwdriver," said Jean Marc Mercier, a Haitian American who spent the last two days hunting for survivors in the wreckage of the Hotel Montana, a longtime gathering spot for diplomats, journalists, humanitarian workers and businessmen.

The toppled six-story hotel was an exception to the scenes of abandonment elsewhere; a rescue team newly arrived from Virginia was combing the debris.

Mercier, who runs a computer business in Haiti, said he and others had been burrowing by hand toward voices calling out from deep inside the wreckage. They had managed to save one woman, an aid worker.

"Last night after I went to bed, all I heard were the voices in my head. One guy told me not to bother: 'Go help people who are in better shape. There is no way you are getting to me,' " said Mercier, 44. "I wasn't able to sleep all night."

Asked how many people were in the hotel when it collapsed, he whispered, "Hundreds."

Aid officials said the risk of violence and looting would increase as scant food and water run out and frustrated families fail to find medical care for the injured.

Officials who were willing to estimate the number of dead acknowledged that they were just guessing. Victor Jackson, an official with Haiti's Red Cross, told Reuters news agency that his organization was estimating 45,000 to 50,000 had died.

All across Port-au-Prince, it seemed, the living bore the dead -- in the beds of pickups, in wheelbarrows, on makeshift stretchers. At a hospital named St. Marie, crowded a day earlier with dozens of people seeking help, the courtyard was empty except for two cleaners mopping bloody water into the street.

Even many who didn't lose their homes were afraid to sleep in them.

Lionel Aceveje, a police officer who lives in a hillside shantytown near the suburb of Petionville, said his family of six was sleeping outside in the evening chill. "Every little shaking terrifies us," he said.

Both the air- and seaports were proving to be bottlenecks for the international aid effort.

Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard medical professor and U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti, said supply lines to Haiti are often fragile, even without a devastating natural disaster.

The quake-damaged seaport is "basically shut down," said Farmer, who has 27 years' experience working in Haiti. Air traffic was backed up, he said, with planes jockeying to land at a minimally functioning airport.

UNICEF, the United Nations' children's charity, was amassing supplies in Panama for an airlift. The agency sent one plane with medical kits, blankets and tents to Port-au-Prince on Thursday, but the plane could not land and had to return to Panama.

"It's really a logistics nightmare," Farmer said. "We need to fix the port and open up other land bridges and air spaces where planes and helicopters can land."

The U.N. response has been further hampered by its own losses. Although there's no official body count, U.N. officials said at least 30 of their colleagues in Haiti are known to be dead and 100 to 150 remain missing.

Among the rescue teams in place was a 72-member contingent from Southern California. A Los Angeles County search-and-rescue team that includes firefighters, doctors, six rescue dogs and their handlers arrived Thursday morning. The team is equipped with medical supplies as well as cameras, listening devices and cutting tools.

In Washington, Obama enlisted both of his immediate predecessors, Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, to lead the U.S. aid initiative, following an example set by Bush after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It was his first presidential request of Bush, whom he criticized for his administration's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten," Obama said, addressing the people of Haiti. "In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you."

U.S. officials were able to evacuate 300 to 400 U.S. citizens by air, most of them to the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

A U.S. diplomat was among the dead. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Victoria DeLong, 57, a cultural affairs officer, had been stationed in Haiti since last year. He said she was from California, but her hometown was not immediately available.

One immediate focus of the U.S. effort was restoring communications, which were so bad that Obama was unable to reach Haitian President Rene Preval on Thursday afternoon.

The U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, equipped with three operating rooms, 19 helicopters and a water-purification system, was en route to Haiti and was expected to arrive today to help shuttle relief supplies and serve as a floating hospital.

The Navy also dispatched an amphibious assault ship, the Bataan, with 2,000 members of a Marine expeditionary force aboard and its own medical facilities. Officials said they hoped the Marine contingent would arrive as soon as today.

The military also has ordered two other amphibious vessels to set sail.

About 125 troops from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division were also sent, the leading edge of a contingent of 3,000 soldiers, Defense officials said.

They will confront a patchwork of destruction. In downtown Port-au-Prince, many old buildings with columns and porticoes toppled into the wide and once-splendid Grand Rue. The middle section of the National Palace and all three domes fell, but the president's apartment on the grounds appeared to be intact.

The adjacent Dessalines barracks, the infamous army barracks where enemies of the Duvalier dictatorship were tortured and killed, still stood. But many government buildings, including the tax office and Health Ministry, were complete losses.

For residents, the shortages of food, water and fuel carried the prospect of increased hardship in a nation with a volatile history. Chaotic lines formed at gas stations, though it was unclear if any gasoline would be pumped. Those with enough fuel created a noisy traffic jam on one main boulevard heading out of the capital.

People scavenged for water, carrying empty canisters in the street.

One elderly man, who wanted to be identified by only his first name, Milton, said Haitians were hoping that U.S. Marines, who have been deployed during times of political upheaval, would come again.

"When the U.S. occupation is good and big, it creates work, builds roads, helps people," he said. Not only that, Milton added, Marines tended to toss the remains of their meals into the city's omnipresent mountains of garbage.

"They bring good ham and cheese," he said. "And you know it's good food because they have eaten it."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-haiti-quake15-2010jan15,0,6630834,print.story

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In Haiti, aid workers face a dual challenge

The poor nation has long suffered from a lack of medical care and rampant disease. With the earthquake, aid agencies must build a healthcare system on the fly.

by Shari Roan

January 15, 2010

In Haiti, average life expectancy is 53, three-quarters of women give birth without a health attendant, diarrheal illnesses are the second-leading cause of death and 30% of children younger than 5 have stunted growth.

And that was before Tuesday's magnitude 7.0 earthquake.

This time, emergency medical responders will have to provide much more than the usual food, water, latrines and bandages to stop the spread of disease, said Dr. Christina Catlett, associate director for health preparedness at the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response in Baltimore. They'll also have to create a public health system on the fly.

It's not clear yet whether aid workers will have enough resources to meet all needs, Catlett said. Haitians are in desperate need of clean water, and there was a stampede Thursday when a rumor spread that water was available, she said. One person needs about four gallons of clean water for drinking and hygiene per day to limit disease.

"My heart absolutely broke when I heard about [the quake]," she said. "Haiti had significant health problems prior to the earthquake: HIV, tuberculosis, severe malnutrition, intestinal parasites, anemia and a host of other problems."

In the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, with a population of about 9 million, only $96 per person is spent on healthcare, compared with $6,090 in the United States and $3,040 in France. Half of all Haitian families live in a single-room dwelling. About 8% of newborns and children younger than 5 die of malnourishment each year. One-quarter of adult women are anemic. There are roughly three doctors in Haiti for every 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

"This would be a disaster anywhere," said Dr. Alina Dorian, assistant director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters. "However, when you're starting with pretty much zero infrastructure, this really overwhelms everything."

Haiti will challenge the record of the global public health response to natural disasters, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Assn. Such responses have been generally effective, with successful efforts to curtail disease outbreaks and deaths after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina.

"We know how to do this. That's not an issue," he said.

But humanitarian support systems, such as the World Health Organization and non-governmental organizations, have been crippled by the disaster. According to news reports, only one hospital in Port-au-Prince, the capital, is functioning.

Clean water is the most crucial need. Diseases such as cholera and dysentery may break out if people drink contaminated water.

But food is also more crucial than in most other disasters. Many Haitians are already underweight and won't be able to survive as long as a healthy person without food, Dorian said. Emergency health responders may need to set up therapeutic feeding stations to care for people who are in danger of starving.

There is also the risk that people could resort to eating contaminated food, making food-borne illness likely.

"When you're hungry, you'll eat whatever you can find," Benjamin said. "People may eat food that's not safe and we'll have water- and food-borne illnesses like E. coli and salmonella."

If Haitians flock to shelters, which seems likely considering their limited options, crowding will increase the threat of disease. Haiti already has high rates of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and measles.

"You have worry about hand-washing and hygiene and roaches and vermin that carry disease," Benjamin said. "Waste disposal is so important. Anyone who has ever been on a cruise ship knows how easily a gastrointestinal illness like norovirus can spread."

These threats are much more real than those posed by the many corpses lying in the streets, Dorian said. "Dead bodies transmit disease less than a live body," she said.

Chronically ill Haitians are likely to be hit especially hard. The number of Haitians infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, is estimated to be at least 200,000 and it could be as high as 600,000. Haiti has about 30,000 new cases of tuberculosis each year, according to WHO. People taking daily medications for HIV or tuberculosis may be cut off from their supplies, Dorian said. Already weakened, they'll be less able to withstand new illnesses.

Diseases such as tetanus and diphtheria -- much more common there because of low rates of childhood vaccination -- could spread easily. And people injured in the quake may be susceptible to infections, such as tetanus, sepsis and meningitis, which would be fatal if untreated.

"The baseline health conditions and health status of Haitians is going to make responding more challenging," Catlett said. "There was no margin for error in the first place."

The tragedy will cause an immediate deterioration of public health delivery in Haiti, but it also could focus long-term attention on the nation's desperate medical needs.

"Haiti has gone through so much for the past decade; flood after flood and disaster after disaster and coup d'etat after coup d'etat, and the international community only responded on the surface," said Ulrick Gaillard, chief executive of the Batey Relief Alliance, a nonprofit agency that provides assistance in Haiti. "Right now you have a country completely destroyed. The only way the international community can respond to Haiti is by rebuilding Haiti."

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-haiti-health15-2010jan15,0,7947296,print.story

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Handling of Ft. Hood shooting suspect could bring discipline

Several Army officers should have taken action when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was clearly having problems in the years before the deadly Texas rampage, a Pentagon review finds.

by Julian E. Barnes

January 15, 2010

Reporting from Washington

Between five and eight Army officers are expected to face discipline for failing to take action against the accused Ft. Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, over a series of behavioral and professional problems in the years leading up to the November rampage.

Had corrective action been taken, Hasan's career might have been cut short before the Nov. 5 spree at the Texas Army base that left 13 people dead, an official familiar with results of a Pentagon review said Thursday.

In addition, the review concludes that the Defense Department does not adequately share information about personnel internally. It also found that the department's policies toward internal threats are outdated, focusing more on hunting spies than ferreting out extremists, according to officials familiar with the review.

Top officials plan to discuss portions of the review at a Pentagon briefing today.

The review found that Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, repeatedly failed to meet basic officer standards for physical fitness, appearance and work ethic, but that superiors allowed his medical career to advance.

"Had those failings been properly adjudicated, he wouldn't have progressed," and could have been forced out of the armed services, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the review's findings had not been made public.

Instead, the investigation found that for much of Hasan's career, supervisors were blinded by his resume, believing they had found a rare medical officer: someone with a stellar undergraduate record, prior service in the infantry and intimate knowledge of the Islamic faith.

"The Army thought it had hit the trifecta," the official said.

The officers whose actions may be called into question hold ranks of colonel and below, and could be given letters of reprimand, according to the official familiar with the review.

The review also concludes that the military should work harder to identify threats posed by service members and employees with criminal tendencies, mental problems or extremist beliefs.

Information sharing can be improved by giving commanders broader access to law enforcement checks, financial problems and complaints by co-workers. Investigators said that if Hasan's commanders had such access, they may have been able to take more decisive action.

The report also examines weapons policies. Hasan had two firearms, one given to him by his brother in Virginia and one purchased in Texas when he arrived in Ft. Hood. Because he resided off base, he was not required to disclose that he owned those weapons.

The review does not call for a specific change in weapons policies, but recommends a unified department policy, rather than one that varies by service or installation.

The inquiry raises questions about the Army Medical Corps and how it trains and reviews its officers.

Investigators found that Hasan was promoted because he was an adequate doctor, but that he was a poor officer and should have been forced to take corrective action. The review determined that Hasan was overweight, avoided physical training, was frequently late and did not meet standards for appearance.

During his residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, from 2003 to 2007, Hasan was counseled about improperly discussing his religion, the official familiar with the review said. "The feedback he got seemed to be effective," the official said. "[The proselytizing] stopped."

But Hasan was a difficult person to work with and at other times pushed back forcefully against counseling. At one point, the review found, a supervisor insisted that he see a Muslim psychiatrist.

Hasan refused, saying his religious views were none of the Army's business. The supervisor backed down, a decision the review found was a mistake.

Following his Walter Reed residency, Hasan won a military fellowship to continue his studies for two more years. But the review concludes that the honor was intended for high-achieving doctors, so Hasan should instead have been sent into the field or pushed to correct his conduct and behavior.

Despite the failings, the review did not conclude that it was a mistake to send Hasan to Ft. Hood and found no clues that he would become violent.

Hasan's supervisors in Texas were informed of some of his problems; they reportedly counseled him on his work ethic and worked to accommodate his religious needs -- like having a time and a place to pray.

The investigation, according to a second official, found that Hasan's performance at Ft. Hood was good.

Still, investigators believe there was suspicious behavior that in hindsight supervisors at Ft. Hood should have confronted Hasan about -- including his refusal to socialize with colleagues and his decision to rent a rundown apartment in a rough part of town.

"He was such a loner," the first official said. "That is not unusual, but there were enough indicators that we should have taken a closer look. But nobody asked the right questions."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-fort-hood15-2010jan15,0,1178700,print.story

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Chinese hackers pose a growing threat to U.S. firms

Escalating cyber attacks on Google and other companies alarm government officials who say the U.S. may be powerless to stop the online industrial espionage.

by Jessica Guynn

January 15, 2010

The scale and sophistication of the cyber attacks on Google Inc. and other large U.S. corporations by hackers in China is raising national security concerns that the Asian superpower is escalating its industrial espionage efforts on the Internet.

While the U.S. focus has been primarily on protecting military and state secrets from cyber spying, a new battle is being waged in which corporate computers and the valuable intellectual property they hold have become as much a target of foreign governments as those run by the Pentagon and the CIA.

"This is a watershed moment in the cyber war," James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis at Defense Group Inc., a national-security firm, said Thursday. "Before, the Chinese were going after defense targets to modernize the country's military machine. But these intrusions strike at the heart of the American innovation community."

The attacks on Google and several dozen other companies have alarmed government officials and lawmakers who warned that the U.S. may already be losing the battle to protect the nation's besieged cyber infrastructure.

"The recent cyber intrusion that Google attributes to China is troubling and the U.S. government is looking into it," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said Thursday.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), a senior member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, called China a pervasive hacker. "This behavior is unacceptable. We used to use the term 'highway robbery.' This is high-tech robbery."

The cost has been huge, according to a recent study by a congressional advisory panel, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. While it is hard to quantify the value of the intellectual property that is stolen by the Chinese each year -- because many businesses do not like to report getting hacked -- Dan Slane, chairman of the commission, estimated it was in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Hacker strategy

Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a Bethesda, Md., security firm, said Chinese hackers target Western companies with an approach dubbed "1,000 grains of sand," meaning they go after every piece of information in search of competitive intelligence. Most companies keep silent about the attacks, but they draw heavy scrutiny from law enforcement officials.

"The odds of the 25 biggest companies in California not being fully compromised by the Chinese is near zero," Paller said. "That is true of companies across the country."

China defended its Internet policies at a news conference Thursday. Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said China's Internet is open and welcomes foreign companies. She also said Chinese law prohibits hacker attacks but declined to say whether the Chinese government is bound by the law.

Google on Tuesday revealed that it had fallen prey to a series of cyber attacks originating from China. The Mountain View, Calif., Internet giant said it believed the attackers wanted access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. But the incursions, which also included theft of intellectual property, raised the possibility that the hackers were also attempting economic espionage.

Google took the bold stance of making the attacks public, catching the Chinese government off guard. The company's defiance of the world's most populous country stunned observers. It also prompted questions about the scope and nature of the attacks.

"For a big multinational company to consider leaving a critical market means the overall damage to its operation and assets is likely to be greater than the benefits," said Oded Shenkar, a professor of business management at Ohio State University and the author of "The Chinese Century." "Google is not only making a human rights statement; my educated guess is that there is much more to it than that."

It is unclear exactly where the attacks came from, and Google was careful not to directly accuse the Chinese government of orchestrating them. But Chinese cyber spying has been a persistent problem for years with dozens of attacks on commercial, government and military targets, analysts say.

A growing menace

The attacks against the U.S. are ramping up, according to the congressional U.S.-China commission, which noted in October that Chinese espionage was "straining the U.S. capacity to respond."

The report focused on an attack on one company, concluding that it was supported and possibly choreographed by the Chinese government. The report also alleged that China's military, the People's Liberation Army, is responsible for aspects of cyber spying and has created cyber warfare units.

McAfee Labs, which has analyzed the attacks on Google and other companies, said Thursday that the hackers had deployed highly sophisticated "advanced persistent threats" that in the past were primarily used against governments. The attacks targeted individuals with known access to valuable corporate information.

Google may have been particularly vulnerable because all of its technology is online and networked, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

On Wednesday, Google said it would improve security for Gmail users by encrypting data to its servers. Such steps are crucial for Google, whose business hinges on its ability to protect its users' privacy and maintain their trust, said Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal.

"Commercial organizations can rarely defend themselves against sophisticated government attacks," said Phil Lieberman, chief executive of Lieberman Software, a Los Angeles security software firm.

Last week, a Santa Barbara software maker filed a $2.2-billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and several Chinese technology firms, accusing them of conspiring to steal and disseminate the U.S. firm's Internet filtering technology.

The Los Angeles law firm representing Cybersitter in the lawsuit said Thursday that it was besieged by similar cyber attacks originating in China. On Monday evening its lawyers began receiving 10 different Trojan horse e-mails designed to retrieve information from its computers, said Gregory Fayer, an attorney at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione. The law firm has turned over the e-mails to the FBI, which is investigating, Fayer said.

After Google's announcement, Adobe Systems Inc. and Rackspace Hosting Inc. also reported attacks.

A national priority

Early last year, President Obama identified protecting computer networks in the private and public sectors as a national security priority. But bureaucratic infighting among law enforcement and intelligence agencies and disagreements with business interests about the role of government in controlling the Internet delayed naming a White House cyber-security "czar."

In December, Obama appointed Howard Schmidt, a former chief security executive at Microsoft with 31 years' experience in law enforcement and the military, to the post.

How to protect the nation's cyber infrastructure, largely in private sector hands, from alleged state-sponsored attacks has become a matter of intensifying debate in Washington, analysts say.

The U.S. has no formal policy for dealing with such attacks. Renewed attention could help shape policy and smooth passage of legislation, analysts said.

"This highlights a core dilemma for the U.S. cyber strategy," Mulvenon said. "What can the U.S. government do to defend Google? Really not very much."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-google-china15-2010jan15,0,4780901,print.story

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Investigators hope discovery of jewelry in forest will provide clues to human remains found nearby

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives hope three jewel-encrusted rings and a gold necklace found near the skulls of a man and woman in the Angeles National Forest after the Station Fire may help identify the deceased and reveal more about how they died.

The skulls were found Dec. 24 and Dec. 26  in the burned-out area below the Angeles Forest Highway, near mile marker 19.

"It appears that there was some trauma to at least one of the skulls," L.A. County Sheriff's Det. John Duncan said. The trauma to the male skull could be a bullet hole, investigators said. 

Duncan said investigators believe the skulls have been in the Lucas Creek area for some time, predating the Station Fire last year that consumed more than 250 square miles.

Detectives suspect the jewelry belong to one of the deceased.

"We are hoping this jewelry will be recognized by someone,” Duncan said. “The three rings seem to go together, and we believe a family member may recognize it." 

Hikers discovered the first skull on Christmas Eve and alerted authorities. Forensics experts then scoured the site with the aid of a cadaver dog and sifted the soil. They uncovered the second skull Dec. 26.

After considerable examination of other bones collected during the search, coroner's forensic experts concluded the deceased were a man and a woman.

The forest on the edge of Los Angeles has long been a dumping ground for the bodies of crime victims,  detectives say.

The body of Cindy Lee Hudspeth, the 10th Hillside Strangler victim, was found in the trunk of her car here in 1978. The remains of model Kimberly Pandelios, who was drowned in a mountain stream by her killer, were uncovered in 1993. Ron Levin, whose slaying lead to the demise of the infamous Billionaire Boys Club, is also believed to have been buried here.

Anyone who can identify the jewelry or provide any other clues in the recent discovery of the two skulls is asked to contact Duncan or Det. Philip Guzman at Sheriff's Homicide, (323) 890-5500.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/01/investigators-hope-discovery-of-jewelry-in-angeles-national-forest-will-provide-clues-to-human-remai.html#more

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OPINION

Don't count Haiti out

From its earliest days, the nation now reeling from a devastating earthquake has been called doomed. But the capacity of its people for survival, even greatness, has been demonstrated over and over.

by Amy Wilentz

January 15, 2010

Almost since its inception, outsiders have proclaimed Haiti doomed. In the wake of its 1791 slave rebellion, which led, in 1804, to independence from France and the establishment of the world's first black republic, observers were convinced the island nation would not survive. The sin of the triumphant Haitians was not only their blackness. Even worse, while many professed Christianity, the great majority followed traditional African practices, or voodoo.

More recently, doomsayers have focused on Haiti's corrupt leadership, on its environmental disasters and its failure to find a good fit with globalization. And yet, the country has limped on, defiantly resilient.

With Tuesday's devastating earthquake, Haiti's inevitable demise is again being heralded, most egregiously by fundamentalist minister Pat Robertson, who declared the earthquake evidence that Haiti was under a curse because it had made "a deal with the devil" to get out from under French rule. Well, Robertson is an unvarnished speaker, let's put it that way. But he is not the only one who thinks like this.

As Paul Farmer, the doctor and international humanitarian, has written, even the media, which should know better, have helped "to perpetuate a series of peculiarly potent myths about Haiti and Haitians." Robertson, in other words, is saying out loud what many have been thinking, without knowing why. I have at least seven e-mails in my in-box from well-meaning friends using the word "cursed" in the subject line or text.

Not surprisingly, Haitians often feel this way too, and never more than right now. It's a kind of brainwashing: They've been hearing they are cursed for so long that they believe it. Also, it's hard to feel proud of your historical legacy when your family is buried under the rubble of a slum and your presidential palace, symbol of Haiti's patrimoine , looks more like a deflated pan of muffins than a shining beacon to the nation and to the oppressed everywhere.

One doesn't have to think back too far, though, to a time when things were better. It's no wonder Haitians often long for the days before globalization, when Haiti's farmers did not have to compete with cheaper produce from abroad, when the countryside was more or less self-sufficient, when people were not starving. I'm not saying Haiti was a tropical paradise, but when I started going there in 1986, at least there was a local economy of sorts, and poverty hadn't pushed peasants to cut down all their trees. There was dirt to farm and a vibrant culture. There was the coumbite , a get-together in which Haitians sang and helped each other till the earth, bring in the harvest, roof a house. You can still find this kind of life in some spots in Haiti.

In recent years, however, extreme poverty in the countryside has driven huge swaths of the population into Port-au-Prince, looking for a job, a way out, a boat to Florida or the Bahamas, anything . Haiti has traditionally been highly centralized -- it modeled itself on France, where there is the metropole (Paris) and les provinces (the rest of the country). In large measure, Port-au-Prince is Haiti, which is why the headlines refer to Haiti's devastation, though large parts of the country seem not to have been much affected by the quake.

Today, the capital is home to at least a sixth and probably more of the population. The city has spread out like an urban ectoplasm, over hillside and ravine, scattering concrete and asphalt wherever it expands. Country people who moved to town built slanting, uncontrolled favelas to accommodate the new arrivals, slums that now have crashed down to the bottom of the ravines.

Haitians will have a lot to consider when they finally can gather themselves up from this awful catastrophe and think again about more abstract things than food, water, shelter and medicine.

When your country is a shambles, it concentrates the mind. When the symbols of state -- the National Palace, the justice ministry, the Parliament, the police headquarters -- have been reduced to a nonsense pile of broken construction materials, you have to re-imagine your national aspirations. (The United States did this to a degree after 9/11, and think what might have happened if those planes had hit the White House too.) The United States as well as Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, Taiwan, France and others can provide construction and medical material, as well as expert advisors, for building a new Haiti.

We cannot know yet how many who would have participated in constructing that Haiti lie dead beneath what, only days ago, was Port-au-Prince. Every few hours I hear further dispiriting news about who has perished, about who is presumed dead. Friends who lived in apartments near the center of town have remained ominously silent.

There are tens of thousands of victims of this earthquake. Still, it bears remembering that there are also many survivors. Help will come and is already on the way. People are still being pulled alive from the rubble, and Haiti itself will also emerge. As a Haitian American friend said Wednesday on Twitter: "Don't get your hopes down."

The tragedy is tremendous and the threats to life ongoing in a situation in which the ground is still trembling and disease likely. But the capacity of this people for survival and, indeed, for greatness in the worst of conditions has been demonstrated for more than two centuries. These are the descendants of people who overthrew an indecent, inhuman, overpowering slave system. Many of those still alive grew up under a vicious dynasty and rose up to oust it.

It's entirely likely, therefore, that Haitians once again will put together a national coumbite . With a huge humanitarian effort from their friends, they will rebuild the country -- for the better. The will must be there for the world to come to Haiti's aid and work with the millions of surviving Haitians to rebuild this valuable country.

So many Haitians, including the president, have nowhere to sleep, but they will sleep and get up again tomorrow to face the troubles.

Amy Wilentz is the author of, among other books, "The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-wilentz15-2010jan15,0,5775469,print.story

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Survivors Face Threat of Outbreak of Disease

Earthquake survivors walk amidst collapsed buildings and rubble in downtown Port-au-Prince on Thursday.

Doctors and aid workers worry that a wave of infectious disease may soon spread through Haiti, with masses of the newly homeless clustering in public spaces without clean water or sanitation.

"An infectious diarrhea can sweep through a population like that very quickly," said Greg Elder, deputy operations manager for Haiti at Doctors Without Borders. Such an outbreak, which could arise within a week, could be deadly for infants, the sick and others left vulnerable by disease, exhaustion and a lack of food, he said.

Other diseases that can be fatal in vulnerable populations could spread. Respiratory infections are a threat, as are vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, Dr. Elder said. About half of Haitian children aren't vaccinated against measles, according to a 2006 Unicef report.

Even cuts and lacerations that become infected pose a serious risk. "These kinds of infections are a major cause of death" in the aftermath of a disaster, said Paul Garwood, a World Health Organization spokesman.

Haiti is notorious for its inadequate health system and a high prevalence of infectious disease. Only 50% of people in the country normally have access to clean water and 19% have access to appropriate sanitation, Mr. Garwood said.

Bodies of people killed during the earthquake don't pose a health risk. "The bodies of people that have died of a natural disaster don't spread disease, since they have died of trauma and not disease," said Ute Hofmeister, a forensic expert of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Haiti suffers from a much weaker infrastructure than, for instance, New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. "Not everybody in Haiti before this earthquake had access to safe drinking water, food and health care, and where the infrastructure did exist it much of it is now destroyed," said Linda Degutis, a professor of public health and emergency medicine at Yale University. "We knew people were at risk with Katrina, but not to the extent that we are going to see it in Haiti because the resources there are so limited to begin with."

The tropical climate will allow survivors to live outdoors with no risk that exposure to wet or cold will worsen their conditions, Prof. Degutis said. On the other hand, mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and malaria could spread, says Richard Wenzel, who sits on the board of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

Also distinguishing the situation in Haiti is the fact that the earthquake struck the capital city, as opposed to the remote locations affected by recent earthquakes in Pakistan and China, says Kathryn Dedeiu, a water and sanitation engineer with Doctors Without Borders. "This is where everything was," she says.

Aid Priorities

Partners in Health, a nonprofit with clinics in Haiti, circulated this list of acute needs in order of importance:

• 1. Reopen the airport.
• 2. Repair cellphone communication systems.
• 3. Clear main roads of debris.
• 4. Send in rescue teams.
• 5. Set up protected shelters throughout the city with food, water and basic medical and surgical services.
• 6. Procure, distribute water.
• 7. Procure, distribute, stock food.
• 8. Procure, distribute and stock medical and surgical kits and IV fluids at mobile clinics.
• 9. Increase medical and surgical capacity at large medical institutions with three centers focused on specialized surgical interventions.
• 10. Dispose of all bodies.

Water and sanitation experts worked on Thursday to reduce the risk of disease outbreaks, but much of the medical relief effort remained focused on immediate emergencies.

Earthquakes tend to produce many more injuries than do tsunamis and hurricanes. Typically, quake victims buried under debris can live up to 72 hours, but can survive for more than a week if injuries are minimal, Prof. Degutis says.

Doctors Without Borders said more than 1,000 patients had been treated in four facilities the organization had set up in tents, after its three main health centers in Port-au-Prince were rendered unusable in the earthquake. The group was moving a team into a public hospital that includes an operating theater.

Some of the wounded left the capital city to seek care in less-damaged regions. Partners in Health, a Boston nonprofit focused on health care for the poor, reported patients flowing in to its health centers on the Central Plateau, ordinarily about two hours by car outside the capital. The group said it set up a triage unit in a church outside its main hospital on the plateau. Partners in Health says it has also set up several temporary first-aid centers in Port-au-Prince, including at the U.N.'s damaged headquarters, and has treated at least 200 U.N. workers and ordinary Haitians.

The organization had 120 doctors on the ground, but surgeons were in short supply, said Andrew Marx, the group's spokesman. He said they planned on flying surgical teams from Boston and Florida beginning Friday.

Barth Green, a University of Miami neurosurgeon who arrived Wednesday on a private jet with other doctors, said they had treated hundreds of patients at a makeshift facility near the airport.

On Thursday afternoon, Dr. Green said he had traveled to a hospital on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince because he had heard that there were hundreds of patients waiting for treatment, and no doctors. But the hospital was locked shut.

"We've just loaded three kids with broken legs into the back of the truck, and we're going to try to find a place to treat them," he said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003223509657804.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories#printMode

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Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening to Kill Obama

An Arkansas man pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring in 2008 to kill dozens of African-Americans, including Barack Obama, who was then a U.S. senator and running for president.

Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, 19-year-old Paul Schlesselman faces 10 years in prison for the crimes, which also included illegal transport of firearms.

In a federal court hearing in Memphis, Mr. Schlesselman said that on Oct. 23, 2008, he threatened to kill Mr. Obama, who won the presidential election the following month. The threat allegedly was made in the presence of investigators, who had arrested Mr. Schlesselman and another man for weapons charges.

Prosecutors filed federal charges the next day against Mr. Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart of Tennessee, who had met each other on the Internet. Mr. Cowart has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Mr. Schlesselman said at his plea hearing that on Oct. 20, 2008, he transported an unregistered short-barreled shotgun and a .357 magnum caliber handgun from Arkansas to Tennessee in order to commit racially targeted killings at an African-American school, which would culminate in the assassination of Mr. Obama, prosecutors said.

It is unclear how the men planned to locate and kill Mr. Obama, who reportedly had no plans to be in Tennessee at the time. "It's unclear to me as well," says Joe Bird, a lawyer for Mr. Cowart.

An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in an affidavit filed with the court in 2008 that the men were believers in "white power."

Mr. Bird said his client, the 21-year-old Mr. Cowart, "disavows any affiliation or participation in a hate crime basis of belief and that has been the case since his incarceration 14 months ago."

He added that Mr. Cowart "made a combination of egregious mistakes and ended up on a road he shouldn't have been on but he's reverted back to what the true Mr. Cowart is: a man who believes in the Christian faith" and who would never harm others.

Mr. Schlesselman is scheduled to be sentenced in April.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003763040976760.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond#printMode

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Medunjanin Ordered Detained in Terror Probe

NEW YORK—A Queens part-time building supervisor was ordered detained Thursday after being arrested last week in a probe of an alleged terror plot in New York.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom in Brooklyn entered a permanent order of detention for Adis Medunjanin pending trial on charges of receiving training from al Qaeda and conspiring to kill persons outside the U.S. Mr. Medunjanin, 25 years old, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Saturday.

Mr. Medunjanin, a U.S. citizen whose parents are from Bosnia, had been held without bail on a temporary order of detention since his arrest following a car accident on the Whitestone Expressway last week.

A lawyer for Mr. Medunjanin didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.

Mr. Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay, a Queens cab driver, were taken into custody last week by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York as part of a probe that led to the arrest of Colorado airport shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi in September. The task force includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department.

Prosecutors had alleged that Mr. Zazi bought hair products in Colorado that contained chemicals that could be used to make bombs in connection with a plot to commit an attack in New York City. They also have alleged that bomb-building instructions were found on his computer.

Mr. Ahmedzay, 24, pleaded not guilty to a single count of making a false statement to law enforcement at a hearing Friday. He is also being held without bail.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn alleged that Mr. Medunjanin received military-style training between August 2008 and October 2008 from al Qaeda. He traveled to Qatar and Pakistan in August 2008 from Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., outside of New York City, according to prosecutors.

They also alleged Medunjanin conspired during that time frame to commit one or more acts of murder outside the U.S.

FBI affidavits filed in Mr. Zazi's case said that he told FBI agents in interviews that he also attended courses and received instruction on weapons and explosives at an al Qaeda training facility in Pakistan. Mr. Zazi, who has been charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, has pleaded not guilty to the charge and denied his involvement.

The indictment against Mr. Ahmedzay alleged he also traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan between August 2008 and January 2009.

Prosecutors have alleged he lied to FBI agents about the locations he visited while in Afghanistan and Pakistan and his knowledge of whether an individual, not identified in the indictment, received military-type training at a camp in Pakistan between August and September 2008.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003232169325668.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

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Miami Braces for Refugees as Relatives Continue Search

In Miami's Haitian community, leaders say they fear that the earthquake's aftermath and political unrest could prompt people to flee Haiti on rafts and in boats.

"A large wave of people taking to the sea, I worry about it," says Jean-Robert Lafortune, chairman of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition. Political instability, even more than economic troubles, he says, is likely to lead to "a Haitian exodus."

 Officials say they aren't gearing up to cope with a flotilla. "We're not there yet," says Philippe Derose, a councilman in North Miami Beach. But he and others complain that the Haitian government has failed to show leadership or organize even a morgue for the thousands feared dead.

Fear and frustration are evident throughout the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami, where Creole is more commonly heard than English or Spanish. Almost no one has been able to reach family members, and when they do, the news is seldom good.  

Jean Gervais, who runs an educational foundation, became so upset he couldn't speak when asked whether he has reached his family—three brothers and two sisters—since the earthquake.

No, he says eventually.

 "We want answers," he says. "Come on, man, what does it take? All the money we have been sending Haiti, where has it gone?"

Mr. Gervais says he hopes to travel to Haiti on Friday with a group of local businessmen, and some local trauma nurses say they have arranged to fly themselves and some medical equipment to Port-au-Prince on Saturday.

But officials say that though they have been deluged with calls from volunteers willing to go to Haiti to help, the situation there is too dangerous and chaotic for individuals to navigate. "I don't want to take people to Haiti now to become martyrs," says Father Reginald Jean-Mary, pastor of Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church.

It isn't clear if would-be volunteers could get to Port-au-Prince. "The hard thing is to find transportation," says Yvans Morisseau, a community-affairs assistant for Miami-Dade County who is trying to recruit first responders and trained support staff.

Mr. Morisseau hopes to travel to Haiti himself to look for a missing cousin. "If he's alive, I'll be happy," Mr. Morisseau says. "If he's not, I'll do what I have to do."

Though financial donations are welcome, people hoping to donate water and other goods have often been stymied, and shunted from place to place trying to drop things off. 

Shirley Sieger, another county employee, says her family is thinking of trying to get into Haiti from the Dominican Republic to search for her 71-year-old mother, Marie Olga Dejean. Ms. Dejean's cellphone rings, her daughter says, but is never answered.

"People are trying to send food, make donations, but nothing is in place to receive them," she says sadly. And in Haiti, she adds, "Desperation could cause people to do the flotilla."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003384249634628.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLENews#printMode

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From the Washington Times

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EDITORIAL

Special protection for Black Panthers

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Racial cowardice, thy name is Eric Holder. For those who don't remember, Attorney General H. Holder Jr. had the gall last February to claim that Americans form "a nation of cowards" with regard to racial issues. Saying that this nation must examine its "racial soul" and that "we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race," Mr. Holder explicitly vowed to "have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us." In that same context, he also vowed repeatedly last year to "restore" the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to a supposedly renewed focus on protecting minority rights.

Yet Mr. Holder was far from explicit about exactly what he meant. Judging from the Civil Rights Division's actions - and now from a highly revealing speech by a newly exiled member of the division - it appears that the civil rights of blacks and Latinos will be protected but those of whites and Asians are treated as irrelevant. Far from having a "frank conversation" about that highly problematic change in policy, Mr. Holder's Justice Department instead is hiding the change behind bureaucratic smokescreens, spurious claims of legal "privileges" and outright gag orders.

Mr. Holder knows that his sea change in law enforcement would be highly unpopular if discussed openly - and would be subject to serious legal challenge if openly tested in a court of law. Hence his fear, his cowardice, on the issue.

The smoking gun is the department's refusal to fully sanction members of the New Black Panther Party who were charged with voter intimidation for brandishing a nightstick and using threatening racial language at a polling place during the 2008 presidential election. In this case, Mr. Holder appeared to be undermining equal justice under the law by refusing to protect the civil rights of white voters. Now comes one of the key attorneys in that case to confirm that analysis.

The attorney in question, Christopher Coates, was transferred suddenly to South Carolina after the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights tried to subpoena his testimony with regard to the Black Panther case, which Mr. Coates helped oversee. Mr. Coates is known to have objected to the Obama-Holder team's decision to drop three of the four charges and play softball on the fourth.

Mr. Coates ought to have great credibility because nobody can accuse him of being a conservative ideologue. A former American Civil Liberties Union attorney who has won major awards from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Georgia Environmental Organization and the Justice Department itself, Mr. Coates has made a career of advocating for the rights of black Americans. Yet when he tried to do the same for white voters (and some black ones, too) intimidated by the weapon-wielding Black Panthers, he was hounded, ordered to ignore a subpoena and ultimately exiled.

As reported by the Heritage Foundation's Hans A. von Spakovsky, writing at National Review Online, here's a close paraphrase of what Mr. Coates said to his colleagues at his going-away party:

"A plain reading of the statutory language of the Voting Rights Act indicates that it is aimed at protecting all American voters from racial discrimination and voter intimidation and is not limited to protecting only racial-minority or language-minority voters. ... [Indeed,] the race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act is imperative to the holding of racially fair elections. ... For the Department of Justice to enforce the Voting Rights Act only to protect members of certain minority groups breaches the fundamental guarantee of equal protection, and could substantially erode public support for the Voting Rights Act itself. ..."

Yet, Mr. Coates noted elsewhere in his remarks, there are those - obviously at the Justice Department itself - who have argued that the department should take into account "disparities between the socioeconomic levels of black and white residents" and "who want to continue to enforce the Voting Rights Act in a racially biased fashion and to turn a blind eye whenever incidents arise that indicate that minority persons have acted improperly in voting matters."

That's exactly what happened in the Black Panther case, quite obviously by now with Mr. Holder's acquiescence. It also is what happened when the Obama-Holder team dropped a case against the state of Missouri for not clearing its voting lists of people who had died. It is what happened when the new administration refused to let the majority-black town of Kinston, N.C., by its own choice, hold nonpartisan municipal elections - with the Justice Department deciding that Kinston's blacks apparently were too stupid to know for whom to vote if the Democratic Party label weren't on the ballot.

The Holder Justice Department likewise argued mostly in favor of the town of New Haven, Conn., when it denied promotions to white firefighters who had earned them. Its new Civil Rights Division chief, Thomas Perez, made a point in his inaugural remarks of saying that the department's focus would be on protecting traditional minorities along with Muslim- and Arab-Americans, abortion doctors and "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals." The rights of others, though, got short shrift.

If that is indeed to be his department's new policy - civil rights protection for me but not for thee - Mr. Holder should be willing to say so openly rather than refusing to let his department answer inquiries - from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and prominent congressmen - on the Black Panther case or on broader discrimination issues.

Openness to such inquiries, and to broader public scrutiny, might take courage. Unfortunately, courage is a character trait in short supply in Mr. Holder's breast.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/15/special-protection-for-black-panthers//print/

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From Fox News

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U.S. Beefs Up Security on Domestic Flights, Sources Say

Thursday , January 14, 2010

WASHINGTON  — 

All airlines flying to the United States or within the country were told Thursday to prepare for even tighter security because of the Al Qaeda threat from Yemen, a law enforcement official said.

The U.S. increased the number of air marshals on international flights and pressed for more random screening at airports as intelligence officials warned that Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen was continuing to plot attacks on the United States.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said American intelligence agencies were intensely examining all information about threats from the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula, including potential plots and specific individuals. Counterterrorism agencies have serious concerns about Al Qaeda plots emanating from Yemen, the official said.

The officials did not pinpoint any specific evidence of new plots since the Christmas Day bombing attempt by a Nigerian national on a Detroit-bound flight. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence publicly.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement that travelers should allow for extra time, especially if flying into the U.S. from overseas, as officials stepped up security. "We are facing a determined enemy and we appreciate the patience of all Americans and visitors to our country, and the cooperation of our international partners as well as a committed airline industry," she said.

President Barack Obama was briefed Thursday by his national security team on progress against al-Qaida and its affiliates.

Al-Qaida's Yemeni offshoot has long aimed at U.S. targets. Yemeni terrorists almost sunk the USS Cole in 2000 with an explosion that killed 17 sailors. The U.S. Embassy there has closed several times over past threats.

Hundreds of names have been added to the terrorist watch list since Dec. 25, when a 23-year-old Nigerian man boarded a flight without a coat or checked bag from Amsterdam to Detroit. Bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is alleged to have hidden an explosive in his underwear, was not on a watch list that would have called for extra screening before he boarded the U.S.-bound plane.

The administration has already added hundreds of air marshals to the existing force of more than 4,000. Napolitano said the air marshals would be assigned to flights on certain routes. There were no air marshals on Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas or on the same flight the following day.

The additional security measures Napolitano described Thursday are similar to what the administration asked of airlines since Christmas. Security directives for international travel are sent to airlines because the U.S. does not have the authority to regulate how foreign airports secure commercial air travel.

Spokespersons for several major U.S. airlines, including Delta, AirTran, US Airways and American, said there was nothing new on the security front that they could share publicly.

On its Web site, Delta was advising passengers to arrive for international flights at least three hours before departure. American was advising passengers to get to airports two to three hours early for international flights, depending on origin and destination.

U.S. airlines have not handled security screening at domestic airports since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the TSA was created to take over that task. At some airports overseas, however, airlines have been known to hire private security firms to help guard passengers, cargo and aircraft. That has been the case at times at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Kenya.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,583081,00.html

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Dozens Arrested in Massive Ga. Kiddie Porn Crackdown

Thursday , January 14, 2010

ATLANTA -- A massive child pornography crackdown this week netted results all across Georgia, as authorities arrested 53 people, executed 80 search warrants and seized almost 300 computers in what is being described as an all-out effort to stifle the illegal business.

The statewide bust called Operation Restore Hope began Tuesday, the culmination of a three-month effort to track the spread of online child pornography. It is a follow-up to an operation last year in which 27 people were arrested and more than 100 computers seized.

It homed in on computer users who share child pornography online for free, using peer-to-peer software, said John Whitaker, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent who led the operation.

His office has so far pinpointed 50,000 separate IP addresses -- the Web equivalent of a street address or phone number -- that are trading child pornography. He said Georgia's tally is the fifth-highest number in the nation.

"Even though we have other problems in Georgia, this is a major problem here compared with other states," said Whitaker. "And we're trying our best to move forward with this operation with as many resources as we have."

The operation involved 24 local agencies, federal prosecutors offices and the state Attorney General's Office. It also included the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Postal Service.

The arrests spanned the state. In southeast Georgia's Effingham County, for instance, two suspects were arrested on child pornography charges. And authorities in west Georgia's Paulding County said the sting netted them two arrests as well.

Whitaker said one of the more disturbing cases was in DeKalb County, where authorities found a child who said she had been sexually abused for the last eight years. County officials did not immediately disclose any other details about the case.

State investigators, meanwhile, are already beginning to shift their focus to the next raid.

"It took us three months to gather our target list and now we're moving forward," said Whitaker. "We're going to wrap this one up and we'll start right on another one."

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,583053,00.html

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'Israel's Fritzl' Arrested for Incest, Sex Abuse

Friday , January 15, 2010

Residents of Tel Aviv's quiet Hatikva neighbourhood were shocked yesterday to discover a self-styled Jewish sage living in their midst with a harem of 30 women kept as "slaves" in squalid apartments.

Goel Ratzon, 60, is accused of fathering 37 children since 1993 with his "wives" and daughters. Ratzon, who was dubbed by the local media as "Israel's Josef Fritzl," is under arrest on suspicion of incest and sexual abuse.

"The evidence shows the suspect controlled his women with a firm hand, including their possessions and their money," police said. Ratzon even wrote a list of commandments to ensure that the women were kept in "conditions similar to slavery," police said.

In addition to turning over all their wages, the women were forbidden from making telephone calls or talking to men other than Ratzon. If they broke the rules they would pay a fine or receive physical punishment.

Mickey Rosenfeld, the Israeli police spokesman, said that Ratzon convinced his victims that he had godlike status. "The women didn't really understand what their situation was, they didn't understand what freedom was," Rosenfeld said.

In one case, police raided a three-bedroom apartment where 10 women and 17 children were found living in "horrible conditions."

The women wore conservative orthodox dresses covering their entire bodies and bore tattoos of their captor's face — and name. He was married to 17 women but it was unclear how many others he had relations with, police said. All his offspring had names with a variation on his — Goel, which means redeemer in Hebrew.

Continue reading at the Times of London

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,583086,00.html

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Former Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Nabbed in Teen Sex Sting

Thursday , January 14, 2010

Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter was arrested in a Pennsylvania sex sting in November on a litany of charges involving a lewd Internet conversation with a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl.

Ritter, 48, allegedly masturbated in front of a Web camera while he was engaged in conversation in an Internet chat room with an undercover cop posing as the teenage girl. He declined to discuss the charges Thursday when reporters visited his New York residence.

"I said there would be no comment," Ritter said, according to the Albany Times Union. "Why don't you guys just go away?"

The chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and harsh critic of the war in Iraq, Ritter is accused of contacting the "girl" while using the handle "delmarm4fun" last February.

Ritter, of Delmar, N.Y., allegedly told the girl, "Emily," that he was a 44-year-old man from Albany, N.Y., according to an affidavit of probable cause.

• Click here to read the affidavit.

The undercover officer then told Ritter he was a 15-year-old girl from the Poconos region of Pennsylvania, at which point Ritter asked for a picture in addition to one "Emily" had posted on her account, according to the affidavit prepared by Barrett Township Police Det. Ryan Venneman.

Ritter then sent a link to his Web camera and began to masturbate while it was focused on his genitals, according to the affidavit. The former U.N. official then allegedly provided his cell phone number.

"He then continued to masturbate on web cam and he again asked how old I was," the affidavit continued. "He was advised again that I was 15 years old. He said he didn't realize that I was 15 years old and turned off his web camera. He stated that he didn't want to get in trouble."

Ritter then allegedly told the "girl" that he fantasized about having sex with her, to which the officer replied, "guess u turned it off [no problem]."

Ritter then asked the girl if she "want[ed] to see it finish" before reactivating his Web camera and ejaculating, the affidavit read.

• Click here to read the criminal complaint.

The conversation with the girl allegedly took place on Feb. 7, 2009, but the police investigation investigation lasted until November. Ritter was arrested on Nov. 9 and charged with unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation.

Ritter appeared for his preliminary hearing on Dec. 17 and waived the felony charge of unlawful contact with a minor. He remains free on $25,000 bail.

Ritter's attorney, Todd Henry, of Philadelphia, did not return several calls seeking comment Thursday.

Ritter — born William Scott Ritter Jr. — is a former Marine who reportedly met his second wife, Marina, while working as a counterintelligence officer in the former Soviet Union.

"I came to Delmar ... to put roots down, to raise a family and live a normal middle-class American life," Ritter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2002.

A press conference on the matter to be held by the Barrett Township Police Department is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday. Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Michael Rakaczewski will prosecute the case.

A press release issued in November by the Barrett Township police noted that the incident wasn't the first time Ritter had been arrested on similar charges, but that he had not been formally charged.

Ritter was reportedly charged in a June 2001 sex sting in New York, but the case was dismissed. He had been charged with attempted child endangerment after arranging to meet a person he thought was a 16-year-old girl at a fast-food restaurant. The girl was actually an undercover police officer.

The New York Post reported Ritter was caught in a similar case in April 2001 involving a 14-year-old girl, but he was never charged.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,583027,00.html

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Ohio Pediatrician Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison for Sex Abuse

Thursday , January 14, 2010

HAMILTON, Ohio — 

A pediatrician charged with sex crimes against former patients pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Scott Blankenburg, 54, also pleaded guilty to compelling prostitution, illegal use of a minor in a nudity-oriented material or performance, pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor, complicity to obtain a dangerous drug and two counts of bribery.

He agreed to the 13-year term in a plea deal made with Butler County prosecutors in exchange for his pleas. The only guilty plea involving one of the doctor's former patients was one count of bribery.

He will begin serving the sentence Feb. 15. He also must pay a $7,500 fine and agreed to pay a $27,500 fine levied against his twin brother in a similar case.

The brother, Mark Blankenburg, a fellow pediatrician, was sentenced last week to 21 to 27 years in prison for sex crimes involving former patients, money laundering and drug charges.

Blankenburg, who lived in Hamilton with his brother, had offices in nearby Fairfield while his brother mostly practiced in Hamilton. They were indicted in March.

He had initially been charged with 28 counts, including sex counts involving two of his patients and two of his brother's patients.

Authorities say the unlawful sexual conduct involved a 15-year-old boy, now in his 20s, who came forward after the original indictment. Prosecutors said Scott Blankenburg performed sex acts on the teen between 2002 and 2003 and bribed him to keep quiet. Prosecutors did not give additional details on those allegations.

Additional charges, including drug crimes, occurred as recently as last year, prosecutors said.

Mark Blankenburg still faces trial in May on pornography charges stemming from photos the brothers took of high school athletes during games. Prosecutors said some pictures, although not illegal, focused inappropriately on certain body parts.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,583071,00.html

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Helping Others Is the American Way

We're Americans. When our neighbors are in trouble, we help them.

Turn on any news channel and images of the Haiti disaster flood the screen. Destroyed buildings and fires serve as the backdrop for the human misery of countless refugees and families mourning loved ones.

In the aftermath of the quake, the world turns to the United States almost immediately, expecting us to lead the relief efforts. That is always the case. Americans are called upon to help, whether it is starvation in Africa or a tsunami in Asia.

We are expected to forget how much the world complains about American military might, except when that military is swiftly on the scene of a crisis. We are expected to forget how many in the world hate us because we have so much, except when they need some of that plenty.

The natural reaction is to just say no. Sorry, America doesn't have the resources. Our politicians in both parties have spent us into perpetual debt. Our nation is fighting two wars abroad and trying to secure our borders against the insidious threat of terror. Our 10 percent unemployed would be right in questioning the expense of such aid. The additional 7 percent of our population that has given up any hope of even finding a job would be right to wonder why we are helping abroad and not doing the same here at home.

All of those are wonderful points. And we should dwell on them just long enough to roll up our sleeves and lend a mighty hand.

Why? Because it is simply the right thing to do. Some things in life are clear. This is one of them. People need immediate help and we must be there for them.

Haiti seems far away. It rarely makes the news except in bad ways because it is a tiny nation often beset by violence. In truth, it is a close neighbor, nestled in a spot between the tip of Florida and Puerto Rico. While only 9 million people live in Haiti, another 500,000 people of Haitian descent live here in America. That's not exactly equal to the Irish diaspora in America, but there are more ties than many people realize. And that, as a wise woman once said, is the "spoonful of sugar" to make the medicine go down. It's a rationalization to make us feel better the next time the world complains about a meddling America.

But it's only a rationalization. It's not really needed. We're Americans. When our neighbors are in trouble, we help them. We don't fret over whether we have time, we give the time. We don't check our wallets to see what's in there, we give. We don't check and see if it's safe, we run toward those in danger.

It is the spirit that sent American soldiers to free Europe in World War II. It is the spirit that sent police officers and firefighters into burning buildings on 9-11. It is an essential piece of the American Dream.

Outsiders criticize our drive to succeed, to earn. But they forget that money is never an end in itself. It's merely a means to an end. Our ancestors came here to build a nation, but many wanted to earn enough to leave something special behind for their children.

It is the same with our nation. Who knows how long America will grace the globe. But whether it's another hundred years or another thousand, we should make sure that we leave something special behind. Not just our belief in democracy or our many freedoms. But that in a crisis – whether a war or a disaster – Americans were willing to forget their differences and help those in need.

This is especially important for conservatives. We know we can't save everyone in the world. There are 6.7 billion mouths to feed and 6.4 billion of those live somewhere else. We don't have the resources to feed and clothe and care for everyone.

That is true. But it's an argument for another day. Today, our neighbors are hurt, homeless and desperate. And we will set aside those arguments and do our best to help.

Because that's what Americans do.

Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center's Vice President for Business and Culture . His column appears each week on The Fox Forum and he can be seen on Foxnews.com's “Strategy Room.” He can also be contacted on FaceBook and Twitter as dangainor.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ci.Helping+Others+Is+the+American+Way.opinionPrint

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From ICE

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ICE on Prime Time Reality TV Series, 'Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force'

In the city that never sleeps, at 1:30 a.m. on September 11, 2009, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer (SDDO) Thomas "Tommy" Kilbride is wide awake as he briefs the fugitive task force members gathered at the U.S. Marshals Manhattan headquarters. ICE is one of the hundreds of federal, state and local agencies in the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force given the unique authority to track fugitives across all borders and around the world.

SDDO Kilbride prepares the team for their latest manhunt beginning with, "How yous doing?" revealing his Brooklyn roots. Kilbride lays out the setting, the stage and the roles each task force member will play in a stakeout to catch a Dominican national with a criminal history, including illegal reentry into the United States where he now works at a trendy upper Manhattan nightclub.

Two task force officers will linger in the park as if they're homeless, two will enter a night club as partygoers, two will keep a look out at the subway and others will be conducting surveillance, watching and waiting outside the nightclub.

At 4:27 a.m. an unexpected brawl breaks out in front of the night club. The task force members quietly talk about breaking up the melee. Yet, just a minute or even a second of ill timing or misjudgment can foil an entire operation. SDDO Kilbride's instincts and experience as a 19-year veteran of ICE/U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), a retired U.S. Marine and a former Customs and Border Patrol agent give him the intuitive sense to order the task force to stand down. The patience pays off. The ruckus ends and Martes, surrounded by eight cohorts, exits the night club. That's when the task force moved in.

By 4:30 a.m., the task force has 36-year-old Jorge Martes leaning against a vehicle and handcuffed. Besides being an illegal alien residing in the U.S., Martes was wanted on firearms and drug charges, as well as assaulting a police officer. His serious and violent offenses warrant him a top three billing in ICE's priority list of fugitives to target and arrest. The first two priority fugitives, according to ICE, are those who pose a threat to national security or a threat to the community.

This entire law enforcement operation will be aired on the A&E network in "Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force," a reality show, in a series of episodes that begins Jan. 14. A film crew captures on film the federal New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force in action as they hunt and apprehend dangerous fugitives. "Manhunters" shows the public that "our focus is on the most egregious felons who threaten society," said SDDO Kilbride.

The relationship between the U.S. Marshals' Fugitive Task Force in New York City and ICE's legacy agency, INS, dates back to 1996. Together they have arrested thousands of New York's most violent egregious fugitives.

"If you are a criminal alien, get deported and illegally return to New York City, look out," says SDDO Kilbride, "ICE and the U.S. Marshals Task Force will find you, arrest you, prosecute you, put you in prison and then deport you again from the U.S."

The National Fugitive Operations Program (NFOP) of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operations is the clearing-house for fugitive cases and refers leads to ICE Fugitive Operations Teams in the field. These specially trained investigative teams are dedicated to locating and apprehending fugitives for removal from the United States, with a particular focus on targeting those who have been convicted of crimes and pose the greatest threat to public safety. For more information regarding ICE's fugitive operations, visit the NFOP page .

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1001/100114newyork.htm

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With Twitter ( www.twitter.com/wwwICEgov ) the public is able to follow breaking news from ICE and access useful information from the agency. ICE's YouTube channel ( www.youtube.com/wwwICEgov ) offers viewers a glimpse into ICE with videos highlighting the agency's national security role, special capabilities, enforcement operations, public awareness campaigns and ceremonies.

"Using these social media tools allows ICE to reach a broader audience and share news about our efforts to keep our communities safe," said ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton. "As more citizens shift to these sites as a source of news and information, we are adapting to reach this audience."

ICE is committed to using all avenues of information dissemination to increase transparency and understanding of our role as a federal law enforcement agency. These applications are another way for those interested to stay appraised of ICE's efforts and achievements in targeting sexual predators, violent gang members, human traffickers and smugglers, criminal aliens, and other important initiatives and investigations.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1001/100114washingtondc.htm

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From the FBI

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Two Brothers Plead Guilty in Conspiracy to Hold Thai Workers in Forced Labor in Hawaii

WASHINGTON—Defendants Alec Sou and Mike Sou, co-owners of Aloun Farm, pleaded guilty on Jan.13, 2010, in federal district court in Honolulu, to conspiring to commit forced labor. The two defendants, who are brothers, each face up to five years in prison for their respective roles in a labor trafficking scheme that held Thai agricultural workers in service at Aloun Farm through a scheme of debts, threats, and restraint.

During their respective plea hearings, the defendants acknowledged that they conspired with one another and with others to hold 44 Thai men in forced labor on a farm operated by the defendants, using a scheme of physical restraint and threats of serious harm to intimidate the workers and hold them in fear of attempting to leave the defendants' service.

“Holding other human beings in servitude against their will is a violation of individual rights that is intolerable in a free society,” stated Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “This prosecution demonstrates our commitment to combating human trafficking in all its forms, vindicating the rights of trafficking victims, and bringing human traffickers to justice.”

“Labor traffickers prey on vulnerable victims and their dreams of a better life. Those who conspire to hold workers in forced labor undermine this country's promise of liberty and opportunity,” said Florence T. Nakakuni, U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii. “We will continue to hold accountable those who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the freedom, rights, and dignity of others.”

In the past fiscal year, the Civil Rights Division, in partnership with U.S. Attorney's Offices, brought a record number of human trafficking cases, including the highest number of labor trafficking cases ever brought in a single year.

The government's case is being prosecuted by trial attorneys Susan French and Kevonne Small of the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division and its Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit and by Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Cushman.

This case was investigated by FBI Special Agents Gary Brown in Honolulu and Tricia Whitehill in Los Angeles, with support from ICE Special Agents Frank Kalepa and Daniel Kenney.

http://honolulu.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/hn011410.htm

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