Border deaths in Arizona may break record

This year, 170 bodies have been found in Pima County; many of those cannot be identified. Some expected tougher immigration policies to deter people from trying to cross the desert into the U.S.

By Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times

August 24, 2010

Reporting from Tucson

This year, Arizona became known as the state with the toughest policies against illegal immigration. That's why Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Eric Peters didn't think the Pima County coroner would see a surge in migrants killed while trying to cross Arizona's southern deserts.

But despite beefed-up efforts to stem illegal immigration and an economy that makes work harder to come by, migrants are still trying to get into the country. And many are dying.

In 2007, a record 218 bodies were found in Pima County. This year, the death toll could be worse. Already, authorities have recovered the remains of 170 migrants.

"We're kind of looking at a record-breaking year this year," Peters said.

July was the worst month of this year so far, with 59 people found dead. More than half of them died from heat-related causes. On July 15, the deadliest day of the month, seven bodies were found, among them the remains of Omar Luna Velasquez, 25. The high temperature that day was 108 degrees.

To accommodate the bodies in the summer heat, a 50-foot refrigerated trailer truck has been parked in the coroner's receiving area.

More than 66% of the bodies found this year remain unidentified. Sometimes corpses are reduced to skeletal remains; some are mummified by the sun and shriveled like raisins. Of the seven bodies found July 15, only Luna's could be identified.

The Pima County Medical Examiner's Office works closely with the Mexican Consulate to identify remains and locate relatives of the dead. Consular officials inspect the body and any belongings and try to match clues, such as voter registration cards or phone numbers inked on the inside of jeans, with tips that they keep in a database of missing migrants.

"We don't start from scratch because we have a big whereabouts database," said Julian Etienne, a spokesman with the Mexican Consulate in Tucson.

Border deaths were sparse throughout the 1990s. But in 2000, the numbers jumped drastically, and four years later the county created a name for the type of person who dies in such a manner: the "undocumented border crosser."

Increased border enforcement in California moved migration routes east into some of Arizona's most remote and inhospitable terrain. Unusually hot weather, even by Arizona standards, also may be contributing to the large number of deaths this year.

Some migrants try to time their journeys to the summer monsoon season with its cooling rains, said Kat Rodriguez, who works with the human rights group Coalicion de Derechos Humanos. But July was one of the hottest on record, according to the National Weather Service, and the seasonal rainstorms came late.

"The experience 10 years ago is completely different than now," Rodriguez said. "It's brutal and ruthless."

It's difficult to know how many people die crossing the Southwest border each year. California's Imperial County is one of only a handful of counties that keeps track, said Rodriguez, who conducts research with the University of Arizona Binational Migration Institute.

Imperial County, which adjoins Arizona and about 80 miles of Mexican border, hasn't seen a large number of migrant deaths since the mid-1990s. Through July, the county recorded 16 such deaths. In the last fiscal year, it had 23.

In San Diego County, 10 migrants have been found dead this year. "We used to have a lot more here, lots more here," said Deputy Medical Examiner Jonathan Lucas.

Kenneth Quillin, a supervising agent for the Border Patrol in Yuma County, Ariz., said he hadn't seen a death in about 15 months. He attributes the decrease to the border fence and increased enforcement by agents.

"Every mile of the border in Yuma has some sort of barrier," he said. The enforcement helps push migrants to Pima County and neighboring Cochise County.

Cochise County, in the southeastern corner of the state, has recorded 19 deaths this year. Last year, it had 28. Most of the fatal border crossings in Arizona occur in Pima County.

Oddly, although the number of deaths is on the rise, illegal immigration is down. Apprehensions at the border have dropped 61% in the last fiscal year, compared with 2000. This year, 194,000 people have been apprehended, down 5% from the same time last year.

"Crossing the border isn't as easy as it was before," said Omar Candelaria, a spokesman with the Border Patrol in Tucson.

Humanitarian groups such as Humane Borders in Tucson say that the increased law enforcement presence only means that people will go to greater lengths to come to the U.S.

Sofia Gomez, executive director of Humane Borders, said she recently met a woman in Sonora, Mexico, who said that in the 1990s, the journey to the U.S. took hours. Now it's several days.

Gomez asked the woman if she would cross again.

"She just smiled," Gomez said. "I could tell right away that she basically didn't think she had a choice."

Some human rights groups try to help migrants survive the desert. Humane Borders maintains 100 water stations in Arizona.

Volunteer Lance Leslie, a stocky man with blond hair, was checking water stations near the border recently, driving a white truck through deep sand and a landscape dotted with rattlesnake holes.

"People have been walking in this corridor for years," Leslie said after refilling a blue 55-gallon barrel. "I have no doubt that these barrels have saved a life."

But they couldn't save Omar Luna Velasquez, the 25-year-old found in the desert July 15. His family buried him recently in Mexico.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border-deaths-20100824,0,6357112,print.story

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

8 hostages killed in Manila bus hijacking

The drama in the Philippines starts when a disgruntled ex-policeman hijacks a busload of Hong Kong tourists and ends when the suspect dies in a gunfight with police after firing on the hostages.

By John M. Glionna and Al Jacinto, Los Angeles Times

August 24, 2010

Reporting from Seoul and Zamboanga City, Philippines -- In a desperate act to regain his job, a disgruntled ex-police officer Monday hijacked a busload of Hong Kong tourists in Manila, prompting a 12-hour drama that ended with eight captives and the suspect being killed, authorities said.

Much of the episode played out in pouring rain as authorities surrounded the bus, a maneuver that snarled traffic.

In the end, the suspect, former police Capt. Rolando Mendoza, 55, was killed by a sniper shot near the front door of the bus, where he staked out a last-stand battle with 30 police commandos, who moved in with tear gas and flash bombs. He injured one sniper before he was killed, police said.

"The hostage-taker was killed," police Col. Nelson Yabut told reporters. "He chose to shoot it out with our men. On our first assault, Capt. Mendoza was sprawled in the middle of the aisle and shot one of our operatives. On our second assault we killed him."

Police said they stormed the vehicle when Mendoza fired on the hostages. Several captives were seen crawling out the back door of the bus during the gunfight.

As the standoff came to an end, police vehicles and ambulances converged on the bus. Eight hostages were confirmed dead, Philippine Health Secretary Enrique Ona told Reuters news service. Five captives were unharmed. The condition of two hostages was unknown late Monday.

The standoff began when Mendoza, dressed in a camouflage uniform and armed with an M-16 rifle, hitched a ride with the tourists as they visited historic sites in the city, which didn't seem unusual in the heavily policed capital. Then he announced that he was taking the travelers hostage to win back his job.

Mendoza was among five officers charged with robbery and extortion after a Manila hotel chef filed a complaint alleging the policemen falsely accused him of using drugs to extort money, according to 2008 newspaper reports. Mendoza denied the allegations against him.

The gunman released nine hostages in the afternoon. In a live interview with a local radio station, he threatened to kill the remaining 15 captives unless he got his job back.

"I can see there are many SWAT teams arriving; they are all around," Mendoza said in Tagalog. "I know they will kill me. I'm telling them to leave because any time I will do the same here."

As night closed in, negotiators lost hope of a peaceful conclusion to the standoff. Finally, police said, commandos moved in after they saw Mendoza attack the tourists as the bus driver jumped out a window.

Earlier in the night, policemen arrested a brother of the hostage-taker, Gregorio Mendoza. He had reportedly been dispatched to persuade the suspect to surrender but was later accused of instigating his brother, said Leocadio Santiago, chief of police in the National Capital Region.

The arrest of Rolando Mendoza's brother may have prompted the gunman to shoot the hostages, police say. Moments after the arrest, several shots rang out inside the bus.

"His problem was he was unjustly removed from service," Gregorio Mendoza told reporters as he was surrounded by police. "There was no due process, no hearing, no complaint."

A handwritten message was left stuck to the bus' front door. "Big mistake to correct a big wrong decision," it read.

Later, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang criticized Philippine authorities for their handling of the standoff, whose violent last moments were broadcast live on television.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-0824-philippines-standoff-20100824,0,7399653,print.story

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

The 'He's a Muslim' canard

Yes, Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim — but the presidency doesn't require a religious test.

OPINION

August 24, 2010

It's easy to sympathize with President Obama over the drumbeat of misrepresentations of his religion, place of birth and even the validity of his Social Security number. But in protesting too much that he is a Christian — and one, moreover, who prays daily — the White House may be encouraging the impression that there is a religious test for the presidency and that a Muslim would fail it.

Such defensiveness is unedifying in the context of a religiously pluralist society. Also, like the irrational opposition to the construction of an Islamic community center in New York City, it could confirm suspicions in the Muslim world that this country is hostile to Islam.

The White House insisted on Obama's Christian bona fides after last week's release of a Pew Research Center poll showing that 18% of respondents thought he was a Muslim, compared with 11% who expressed that belief in March 2009. The poll suggested that 34% of Americans believe the president is a Christian, down from 48% who said so last year. The poll was taken before the president expressed his support for the right of Muslims to erect the community center, which would include a room for prayer, two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attack. In a Time magazine poll conducted after Obama's remarks, 24% of respondents said they thought the president was a Muslim and 47% that he was a Christian.

An Obama spokesman minimized the importance of the poll. Yet a clergyman who is one of Obama's spiritual advisers — and who also counseled President George W. Bush — materialized to complain that "never in the history of modern-day presidential politics has a president confessed his faith in the Lord and folks basically call him a liar." (Indeed, Obama told a Christian magazine during the 2008 campaign that "I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life.")

The White House's sensitivity to the canard that Obama is a Muslim no doubt reflects the knowledge that many of those who propagate it believe that adherence to Islam is a disqualification for the presidency. But too strenuous and self-conscious a rebuttal runs the risk of encouraging that very view.

One pollster suggested that growing misconceptions about the president's religion reflected the fact that Obama hadn't "made religion a part of his public persona" as much as he did during the campaign. Instead of flaunting his Christian faith, the president should urge Americans to honor the spirit as well as the letter of the Constitution, which says that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-obama-20100824,0,5398271,print.story

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

Keeping the faith

Three young Muslim women talk about the fear and prejudice they've faced, and how their religion needs to become even more visible in the U.S.

OPINION

by Gregory Rodriguez

August 23, 2010

The United States needs new immigrants to continually remind itself of its own values. That's the simple lesson I learned last week after a moment of despair.

On Monday, I watched the hilarious but depressing video of Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, rabidly defending his ludicrous claims that Middle Eastern women are coming to the U.S. to give birth to "terror babies" who will come back and bomb us in 20 years. On Tuesday, I saw a self-styled Christian on CNN arguing haughtily that we should not allow mosques to be built anywhere in the U.S. Then, of course, there was the ranting of Holy Warrior Newt Gingrich, the moral cowardice of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the weak-kneed triangulation of President Obama. The contemptible political rhetoric aimed at Muslim Americans frightened me.

But that's before I chatted with three young Muslim American women who gave me back my faith. They reminded me that the U.S. is all about outsiders adhering to this country's first principles — including equality and freedom of religion — in their struggle to become insiders.

It's never been easy to become American. We may welcome the "tempest toss'd," but that doesn't mean they won't encounter a gantlet of exploiters and haters and a raucously free marketplace of ideas. What propels them forward is not only America's opportunities but the idealistic belief that despite the ugliness they may face, this country's ideals ultimately will triumph.

On Wednesday, I visited the tiny office of Al-Talib, the Muslim news magazine at UCLA. Three young women had agreed to talk with me, and though each of them had different stories and takes on life, they shared a fundamental resilience and optimism that impressed me. I had assumed that being Muslim in America these days was about as much fun as getting a pie in the face, but none of these women complained.

Each of them had encountered some form of overt prejudice. All of their families had had discussions about how "Muslim" one should be in public. They spoke of a "Muslimness" that had been thrust on them after 9/11 when they were only teenagers — preconceived notions about their beliefs that they felt obliged to struggle against. Nonetheless, they all professed that they'd been desensitized to a lot of the ugly rhetoric that was getting me down, and they saw the blow-up over the so-called ground zero mosque as simply reflective of tensions that have been seething for years.

Nursing student Neda Momeni, 22, whose parents came from Iran, started wearing a hijab a year ago. She says she considers the source of whatever nasty things are being said or inferred about Muslims. She also puts things in historical perspective. "Every ethnic group has its struggles," she said. "Look, it's not as bad as it was for Japanese Americans. Considering the past, we're pretty lucky. I've never been denied a job or anything."

Fowzia Shareen, 24, who just graduated with a degree in English, doesn't deny that she gets mad. The L.A.-born Bangladeshi American particularly resents the implication that her religion is somehow un-American, and she feels it's important to define for herself what it means to be Muslim. "If other people are going to give me names," she says, "I might as well as name myself."

The same goes for Afghanistan-born Sayeda Fazal, 22, who professes an unshakable belief in American pluralism. "I think people are offended by the mosque because they think 9/11 was caused by Islam. Muslims haven't done a good job of teaching people about their beliefs."

After some prodding, all three women confessed that having to combat negative assumptions about them does take a lot of energy. But they all seemed to feel that somehow it was their duty, both as Muslims and Americans. They were convinced that the less the public knows about Muslims, the more they will be demonized. In order to achieve greater understanding, they thought, Islam would have to become more, not less, visible in the United States.

Just as strongly though, they thought that America had to step up. They can cope with the gantlet, but they expect this nation to adhere to its promise and extend to them equal rights and more: all the comforts of home.

"I really believe American principles will win out," Shareen said. "Every time we've been at a moral impasse, we've gotten over it."

The "we" says it all. I drove home relieved.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez-muslim-20100823,0,829128,print.column

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

From the New York Times

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

In Scarred Land, a Haven for Victims of Acid Burns

TRAPAENG VENG, Cambodia — Touch Eap stroked her husband's scarred and discolored back as she described the night six years ago when she poured a tub of acid over his head, burning off his eyes and ears and lips and leaving him as dependent on her as a child.

“I wanted to kill him,” she said. “I didn't want to injure him. He said he would kill me, and I thought, better to kill him first so that I can take care of the children.”

She smiled ruefully as she talked; his drunkenness and threats were an old memory. Her husband, Phoeung Phoeur, 45, opened his mouth in what may also have been a smile.

“I'm sorry for him,” said Ms. Touch Eap, 46, who grows vegetables to support her husband and three children, “and I try to take care of him.”

It was a moment of domestic tranquillity here in Cambodia 's only shelter for acid burn victims, where a dozen other mutilated residents napped or sang or hung their heads backward in an exercise to help keep their scarred necks flexible.

Cambodia, along with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, has a history of acid attacks — a rare and extreme form of revenge or punishment.

An increase in the number of reported attacks in Cambodia, with 17 so far this year, has drawn attention to this shelter, the nonprofit Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity , on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

The center has been advising the government in drafting a law that is making its way slowly through the legislature. The proposed law would restrict sales of acid — now widely and cheaply available — require warning labels and impose sentences of up to life in prison for the most severe attacks.

The center's residents, who receive medical and psychological care, physical therapy, and occupational training, are just a few of the more than 280 known victims in Cambodia of a form of revenge that illustrates an undercurrent of violence that courses through this wounded society. Experts say the true number is certainly far higher.

“This is a traumatized culture,” said Pin Domnang, chief of programs and administration at the center, referring to decades of mass killings and civil war. “When something happens, the only response is violence. Violence can solve their problems. Violence can make them feel better.”

Short of murder, advocates say, an acid attack is the most devastating form of aggression, transforming the victim into a figure of horror and an outcast in a society that often sees disfigurement as a form of karmic justice.

That thought is an unexpected comfort to one of the survivors here, Soum Bunnarith, 41, a former salesman whose wife blinded him with acid five years ago in a rage of jealousy. “I ask myself, ‘Why me?' ” he said. “But then I think maybe I did terrible things in a past life, and that thought helps me to accept this.”

Some, rejected and without family members to care for them, take their lives in despair, Mr. Pin Domnang said. “Their identity changes, their whole life changes,” he said. “It is difficult to control the food in their mouths. Sometimes it spills out.

“Their families don't want to see them, don't want to come to visit them,” he said. “The trauma in their spirit is like they are gone. They don't want to live on this earth any more.”

Others, spurred by anger, try to pursue their attackers in court. Under current laws, acid attacks are generally treated as civil assault cases in which the victim must press charges. In a system governed by power, money and influence, there have been few convictions. Nevertheless, the center's medical and legal manager, Dr. Horng Lairapo, has been encouraging victims to file new cases and revive old ones.

One of those victims is Mean Sok Reoun, 35, who was attacked and blinded by her husband's former wife 15 years ago. Until recently, she said, her attacker had lived freely after paying a bribe to the police, while Ms. Mean Sok Reoun endured 40 operations.

“I saw her clearly running away,” said Ms. Mean Sok Reoun, whose eyes moved rapidly behind a curtain of skin as she talked. “But then I saw only shadows. And then I was blind.”

Ziad Samman, the center's project manager, said, “The attacks are not always the products of jealous rage; some grow out of other personal or business disputes.”

Acid is widely available for uses like maintaining machinery, clearing drains and polishing jewelry. It is used in the processing of rubber, and a high proportion of attacks have come in areas near plantations, according to the center. In rural areas where there is no electricity, acid fuels the car batteries that are used to power television sets.

It was battery acid that Ms. Touch Eap said she poured over her husband's head as he sat drinking in their home six years ago, a large knife by his side.

“ ‘Do what I say or I'll kill you' — those were the last words I said to her,” said Mr. Phoeung Phoeur, joining his wife in the narrative as their 13-year-old daughter, Per Srey Ai, looked on.

If he was going to live, Mr. Phoeung Phoeur said, he realized he needed his wife. As soon as he reached the hospital, he begged a friend to pay the police to set her free. Ms. Touch Eap returned to him, and she has nursed and supported her husband ever since she tried to kill him.

She was with him at the hospital when doctors told him he had only hours left to live, and she walked alongside him as neighbors carried him home in a hammock to die. She lighted incense and prayed beside him as he slipped in and out of consciousness until, defying the doctors' predictions, he returned to life.

“We called all the family around him,” she said, remembering that dark evening. “We were all waiting around him, waiting for him to die. I was so afraid he was going to die.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/world/asia/24cambo.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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

Hacker's Arrest Offers Glimpse Into Crime in Russia

MOSCOW — On the Internet, he was known as BadB, a disembodied criminal flitting from one server to another selling stolen credit card numbers despite being pursued by the United States Secret Service .

And in real life, he was nearly as untouchable — because he lived in Russia .

BadB's real name is Vladislav A. Horohorin, according to a statement released last week by the United States Justice Department , and he was a resident of Moscow before his arrest by the police in France during a trip to that country earlier this month.

He is expected to appear soon before a French court that will decide on his potential extradition to the United States, where Mr. Horohorin could face up to 12 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 if he is convicted on charges of fraud and identity theft . For at least nine months, however, he lived openly in Moscow as one of the world's most wanted computer criminals.

The seizing of BadB provides a lens onto the shadowy world of Russian hackers, the often well-educated and sometimes darkly ingenious programmers who pose a recognized security threat to online commerce — besides being global spam nuisances — who often seem to operate with relative impunity.

Law enforcement groups in Russia have been reluctant to pursue these talented authors of Internet fraud, for reasons, security experts say, of incompetence, corruption or national pride. In this environment, BadB's network arose as “one of the most sophisticated organizations of online financial criminals in the world,” according to a statement issued by Michael P. Merritt, the assistant director of investigations for the Secret Service, which pursues counterfeiting and some electronic financial fraud.

As long ago as November 2009, the United States attorney's office in Washington, in a sealed indictment, identified BadB as Mr. Horohorin, a 27-year-old residing in Moscow with dual Ukrainian and Israeli citizenship.

But it was not until Aug. 7 this year that Mr. Horohorin, who was traveling from Russia to France, was detained on a warrant from the United States as he boarded a plane to return to Russia at an airport in Nice, in southern France.

The Secret Service released a statement on Aug. 11 , when the indictment was unsealed. Max Milien, a Secret Service spokesman in Washington, said the agency could not comment about the decision to arrest Mr. Horohorin in France.

Olga K. Shklyarova, spokeswoman for the Russian bureau of Interpol, said no American law enforcement agency had requested Mr. Horohorin's arrest in her country. “We never received such a request,” she said by telephone.

According to the Secret Service statement, Mr. Horohorin managed Web sites for hackers who were able to steal large numbers of credit card numbers that were sold online anonymously around the globe. Those buyers would do the more dangerous work of running up fraudulent bills.

The numbers were exchanged on Web sites called CarderPlanet — carder.su and badb.biz — according to the Secret Service, and payment was made indirectly through accounts at a Russian online settlement system known as Webmoney, an analogue to PayPal.

Underscoring the nationalistic tone of much of Russian computer crime, one site featured a cartoon of the Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin , awarding medals to Russian hackers. “We awaiting you to fight the imperialism of the U.S.A.” the site said, in approximate English.

Mr. Horohorin lived openly in Moscow. As a foreign citizen, he registered with the police, according to Dmitri Zakharov, a spokesman for the Russian Association of Electronic Communication, an industry lobby for legitimate Russian Internet businesses, who cited a database of such registries.

A phone number for Mr. Horohorin was out of service Thursday.

Arrests in Russia for computer crimes are rare, even when hackers living in Russia have been publicly identified by outside groups, like Spamhaus, a nonprofit group in Geneva and in London that tracks sources of spam.

The F.B.I. in 2002 resorted to luring a Russian suspect, Vasily Gorshkov, to the United States with a fake offer of a job interview (with a fictitious Internet company called Invita), rather than ask the Russian police for help. To obtain evidence in the case, F.B.I. computer experts had hacked into Mr. Gorshkov's computer in Russia. When this was revealed, Russian authorities expressed anger that the F.B.I. had resorted to a cross-border tactic.

Online fraud is not a high priority for the Russian police, Mr. Zakharov said, because most of it is aimed at computer users in Europe or the United States. “This is a main reason why spammers are not arrested,” he said.

Politics may also play a role. Vladimir Sokolov, deputy director of the Institute of Information Security, a Russian research organization, said the United States and Russia were still at odds on basic issues of computer security, although the differences were narrowing.

The United States tends to view computer security as a law enforcement matter. Russia has pushed for an international treaty that would regulate the use of online weapons by military or espionage agencies. Last year the United States opened talks on a treaty, but it has continued to press for closer law enforcement cooperation, Mr. Sokolov said.

Computer security researchers have raised a more sinister prospect: that criminal spamming gangs have been co-opted by the intelligence agencies in Russia, which provide cover for their activities in exchange for the criminals' expertise or for allowing their networks of virus-infected computers to be used for political purposes — to crash dissident Web sites, perhaps.

Sometimes, the collateral damage for online business is immediate. A year ago, for example, hackers used a network of infected computers to direct huge amounts of junk traffic at the social networking accounts of a 34-year-old political blogger in Georgia, a country that fought a war with Russia in 2008. The attack, though, spun out of control and briefly crashed the global service of Twitter and slowed Facebook and LiveJournal, affecting tens of millions of computer users worldwide.

The Russian authorities have repeatedly denied that the state has any connection to such attacks.

Spamhaus says 7 of the top 10 spammers in the world are based in the former Soviet Union, in Ukraine, Russia and Estonia.

More ominously, Western law enforcement agencies have traced a code intended for breaking into banking sites to Russian programming.

In 2007, Swedish experts identified a Russian hacker known only by his colorful sobriquet — the Corpse — as the author of a virus that logged keystrokes on personal computers to capture passwords for Nordea, a Swedish bank, and the accounts were drained of about $1 million.

For a time, these rogue programs were openly for sale on a Russian Web site. The home page displayed an illustration of Lenin making a rude gesture.

Since Mr. Horohorin's arrest, the badb.biz Web site has gone dark. But through Monday, at least, its CarderPlanet counterpart, the Russian site carder.su, was still open for business.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/business/global/24cyber.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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

Scant Progress in Effort on Old Racial Killings

ATLANTA — In February 2007, Alberto R. Gonzales , the attorney general under President George W. Bush , issued a stern warning to those who murdered blacks with impunity during the civil rights era: “You have not gotten away with anything. We are still on your trail.”

He noted that time was short. The window of opportunity to solve racially motivated crimes more than 40 years old was closing. Families of the victims had waited decades for resolution, while suspects and witnesses have died.

More than three years later, they are still waiting.

There have been no federal indictments since Mr. Gonzales's announcement, which heralded the Civil Rights-Era Cold Case Initiative . Very little of the millions of dollars approved by Congress to finance the initiative has materialized. Though 40-year-old murder cases are incredibly difficult to solve, no Federal Bureau of Investigation field agents are assigned to pursue the cases full time.

Those who hoped for an all-out law enforcement effort to beat the clock, akin to the search for the Unabomber , have been sorely disappointed. Instead, witnesses say, the F.B.I. has taken months or years to approach them.

President Obama 's attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. , has promoted his department's handling of these cases, pointing out that 56 of 109 have been closed, with many more on the brink. The department has taken the unusual step of writing letters to the families of victims, detailing the findings and explaining why the case cannot be pursued further — in many cases because the suspect is dead.

But critics say the numbers are misleading because instead of aggressively investigating the dozen or so cases that might still yield a viable prosecution, the department has taken the easier route of closing the ones that were long shots to begin with.

“If this whole effort goes through and there's no evidence of an aggressive manhunt and it results in no prosecutions, then there will not be a credible acceptance of the results by the American people,” said Alvin Sykes, the president of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign in Chicago and an instrumental force in the passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in 2008.

Federal officials bristled at the criticism, saying that it is premature and that they have an obligation to review every case and bring “closure” to families.

“We have always known that locating the subjects, witnesses and evidence for 40-year-old murder cases was going to be challenging, and that many of these matters would not be prosecutable,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department.

But families yearn for action. Over the years, relatives of Louis Allen, a civil rights worker who was ambushed at his front gate in Liberty, Miss., in 1964, have met with countless officials and offered a $20,000 reward.

“Everybody put me on the back burner for years and years,” said Mr. Allen's son, Henry C. Allen, 65. He had hoped the cold case initiative would change things, but said the response has been slow. He said the legwork had been done. “Here's the people you can contact, here's their phone number, here's their address,” he said. “I don't have the authority to go knock on their door, but you do — and it still don't get done.”

Special Agent Cynthia Deitle, chief of the F.B.I.'s civil rights division, said that agents were not permitted to share the progress of continuing investigations with families or the public. Witnesses, she said, might not always be forthcoming about having cooperated with the F.B.I. The Allen case remains open.

The Till bill authorized up to $13.5 million a year to solve racially motivated murders before 1970, but in fiscal year 2009 no money was allocated. In fiscal year 2010, the Justice Department received $1.6 million for civil rights cold cases. The F.B.I. received an $8 million increase for its civil rights division, which handles human trafficking, hate crimes, present-day civil rights violations and cold cases, a spokesman said.

Officials have repeatedly insisted that lack of money was not an obstacle. “There's never been a resource issue whether it was people or money on our end,” Agent Deitle said.

Agents have pored over thousands of documents, interviewed hundreds of people and hiked into the woods with GPS units to determine whether a killing fell under federal jurisdiction, she said.

More than 20 civil rights cases have been successfully prosecuted since 1994, including the 2005 conviction of Edgar Ray Killen, 85, one of the Klansmen responsible for the 1964 deaths of three civil rights workers, James Chaney , Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner .

Those prosecutions were driven by the persistence of surviving family members and the painstaking work of journalists and documentary filmmakers.

The cold case initiative was supposed to put the Justice Department in the lead. But reporters like Jerry Mitchell of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., one of the foremost experts on civil rights-era cases, say investigators are still lagging behind, and sometimes are even failing to follow up on leads that journalists, usually working from leaked copies of the F.B.I.'s own aging files, turn up.

After Mr. Killen was convicted, Mr. Mitchell continued to investigate. In 2007, after combing through thousands of pages of leaked F.B.I. files, he published interviews with two women who, hours before the killings, were in the car of a deputy sheriff for an unrelated reason. The women heard the deputy discuss the three civil rights workers with Billy Wayne Posey, a Klansman.

But the F.B.I. showed no sign that it, too, was pursuing an investigation until the summer of 2009, Mr. Mitchell said. It was only last fall, after Mr. Posey died, that the F.B.I. contacted the two women, one of them, Linda Johnson, said in a telephone interview.

Stanley Nelson, the editor of The Concordia Sentinel, a weekly in Ferriday, La., has been producing articles on a cluster of killings in that area that were connected to the Silver Dollar Group, a Klan organization that terrorized the area with impunity in the 1960s. He has worked with the Syracuse University College of Law's Cold Case Justice Initiative , where students have gone through thousands of F.B.I. documents, even finding files on a missing black hotel porter, Joseph Edwards, that a federal prosecutor had said the bureau did not have.

In another case, that of Frank Morris, a black cobbler who died from burns after his shop was set on fire, it was Mr. Nelson who found and interviewed a witness , a black teenager who worked at the store. At the time, his mother forbade him to speak to law enforcement officers.

“When we started the Frank Morris case,” said Janis McDonald, the co-director of the Syracuse project, “the F.B.I. said, ‘You know, just about everybody is dead.' ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/us/24rights.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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

Amid Furor on Islamic Center, Pleas for Orthodox Church Nearby

The furor over plans to build an Islamic center two blocks from ground zero had already been joined by several politicians. On Monday, two politicians were joined in turn by officials of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, who sought to use the controversy to focus attention on their long-stymied effort to rebuild a church destroyed on 9/11 at the foot of the World Trade Center.

At a news conference near the trade center site, church officials appeared with former Gov. George E. Pataki and a Greek-American Congressional candidate from Long Island — both opponents of the Islamic center — to make their case: Government officials who appear to be clearing the way for the center, which includes a mosque, are blocking the reconstruction of St. Nicholas Church, the only house of worship destroyed in the terrorist attacks.

And though church officials did not go quite as far, Mr. Pataki and the candidate, George Demos , drew a sharp line between the rightness of the Greek Orthodox project and the wrongness of the Muslim one.

Mr. Pataki cast doubt on the wisdom of city officials' allowing a community center and mosque near ground zero when “we don't know the funding, we don't know the view of the people behind it.” By contrast, he said, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey , which oversees the trade center reconstruction site, had failed to “reach out and engage in a dialogue” about rebuilding the church with Greek Orthodox officials, who, he suggested, were a known quantity.

Bishop Andonios of Phasiane, chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, stood beside Mr. Pataki and Mr. Demos, who is seeking the Republican nomination in New York's First Congressional District. Mr. Demos said, without offering evidence, that the Islamic center would be built with money from Saudi Arabia, “a nation that prohibits people from even wearing a cross or the Star of David.”

But the bishop said he did not intend to fan the bitter dispute over the Islamic Center with his presence at the news conference. “It's unfortunate that it took a controversy over a mosque to bring attention to the church,” he said. He described that attention as “a silver lining” of the increasingly bitter clash.

On Sunday, demonstrators for and against the mosque faced off across police barricades at ground zero.

Opponents of the proposed Islamic community center, planned as a 13-story building at 51 Park Place, have voiced an array of arguments against it. Some say it is insensitive to the families of those who died at ground zero; others see it as a symbol of triumph for the Muslim terrorists behind the attacks.

Organizers of the project, led by a Sufi imam and a group he founded, the Cordoba Initiative, say the center would help foster understanding among people of all faiths, and stand as a symbol of pluralism and tolerance. Calls to the organizers seeking comment were not returned.

Unlike some religious leaders who have spoken in favor of the Muslim center, including the pastor of Trinity Wall Street , the historic Episcopal church near ground zero, Bishop Andonios said he and other Greek Orthodox leaders remained neutral.

“We didn't want to say anything that might jeopardize the plans for rebuilding our church,” he said in a telephone interview. “That is our No. 1 concern: building our church.”

Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the Port Authority, said there was never any doubt that the church would be rebuilt. In 2008, the authority agreed to accommodate a 24,000-square-foot church building just east of St. Nicholas's original location on Cedar Street, and promised $20 million to subsidize construction. But the following year, he said, final negotiations broke down over the precise siting and size of the building.

Bishop Andonios said the issues were more complex than that, and he criticized the Port Authority as having “cut off all communications” with church officials. He expressed some discomfort at stepping into the dispute on the side of those who are adamantly opposed to the Cordoba project.

“To us, this is an opportunity for everyone — to see some progress in our negotiations with the Port Authority,” Bishop Andonios said. “But also, for the people involved in the mosque, this controversy is their opportunity to dialogue with the community; to reach a better understanding of people's sensitivities, perhaps.”

It was the news media, and then a number of political candidates, who first brought attention to the purported disparity in the official treatment of the developers of the Islamic center and of the Orthodox church, the bishop said.

“Some Greek-American newspaper reporters called me first,” Bishop Andonios said. “Then I heard from the candidates. Then it was Fox News .”

Mr. Sigmund, the Port Authority spokesman, said the authority has no oversight of any building outside the ground zero reconstruction zone, including the community and mosque.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/nyregion/24greek.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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

From the Chicago Sun Times

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

Kids displaced by Hurricane Katrina still have emotional problems

August 23, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS --- A startling number of Gulf coast area children displaced by Hurricane Katrina still have serious emotional or behavioral problems five years later, a new study found.

More than one in three children studied -- those forced to flee their homes because of the August 2005 storm -- have since been diagnosed with mental health problems. These are children who moved to trailer parks and other emergency housing.

Nearly half of families studied still report household instability, researchers said.

"If children are bellwethers of recovery, then the social systems supporting affected Gulf Coast populations are still far from having recovered from Hurricane Katrina," the researchers said.

The study was published online Monday in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

Lead author David Abramson of Columbia University said researchers were astonished by the level of distress.

Children are "a bit of canary in a coal mine in that they really represent a failure or a dysfunction of many, many other systems in the community," said Abramson, who is with Columbia's National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

About 500,000 people, including more than 160,000 children, weren't able to return to their homes for at least three months after the storm hit on Aug. 29, 2005.

At least 20,000 of those children still have serious emotional disorders or behavior problems, or don't have a permanent home, the report suggests.

"Five years after Katrina, there are still tens of thousands of children and their families who are still living in limbo with a significant toll on their psychological well-being," said co-author Irwin Redlener, also with the Columbia center. In addition, he is president of the Children's Health Fund, an advocacy group that paid for the study.

Without significant government help, Redlener said, these children are likely to have even greater problems as adults.

Psychologist Joy Osofsky of Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center agreed, but said it was important to note that children in general are much more resilient than those from the extremely poor families Redlener is studying.

Osofsky, who has been working with children at St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Orleans parish schools since the storm, said Redlener's study shows the effects of poverty, the trauma of Katrina trauma and what followed.

Redlener's group has been periodically studying 1,079 families in Louisiana and Mississippi since February 2006, six months after the storm struck. The latest interviews, from November 2009 through March, involved families with children between ages 5 and 18.

Over the five years, 38 percent out of 427 children have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression or a behavior disorder since Katrina. That's almost five times more likely than children from similar families evaluated before the hurricane.

The percentage of newly diagnosed children has declined in each round of interviews but the numbers are still almost double the national average, Abramson said.

Almost half of the households either were living in transient housing or had no guarantee that they'd be in their current quarters for more than a year.

In separate research, Osofsky has looked at about 5,000 fourth- through 12th-grade children screened last year in St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Orleans parish schools. Of that group, 31 percent showed some symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress, but only 12 to 15 percent asked for individual or group counseling. The school-based program doesn't diagnose children, she said.

Redlener wants more mental health services available to children, government action to get the families into safe and stable housing, and more support for the families. He also says governments need to quickly collect information about children and families hurt by disaster and to ensure they can be helped as long as they need it.

"We know governments, state and federal, are dealing with a very deep recession...," he said. On the other hand, he said, "It's pay now or pay later -- and the 'later' is extraordinarily expensive."

http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/2629030,katrina-kids-emotional-problems-082310.article

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

From the White House

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

Your Credit Card Bill of Rights Now in Full Effect

Today, the last reform provisions of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act – also known as the Credit Card Bill of Rights – took effect. The CARD Act of 2009 marked a turning point for American consumers, putting an end to the days of unfair rate hikes and hidden fees. The President released the following statement on the CARD Act implementation:

Last year, I signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act into law to put a stop to deceptive credit card practices and hold credit card companies accountable to their customers. Yesterday, the final reform provisions of the CARD Act took effect. As of today, consumers will be protected against unreasonable fees and penalties for late payments, as well as unfair practices involving gift cards. This law will also make the terms of credit cards more understandable and puts a stop to hidden over-the-limit fees and other practices designed to trap consumers. It restricts rate increases that apply retroactively to old balances. And the CARD Act prevents companies from increasing rates within the first year an account is opened.

In addition, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act I signed into law last month will empower a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with just one job: looking out for consumers in our financial system. This includes making sure that credit card reforms are implemented forcefully and that big banks and lenders are living up to their responsibilities under the law. And in the wake of a terrible recession, these reforms and this independent consumer watchdog will not only protect consumers, they'll strengthen our economy as a whole, leveling the playing field for responsible lenders and ensuring that families and small business owners are better able to make financial decisions that work for them.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/23/your-credit-card-bill-rights-now-full-effect

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

31,000 Homes Weatherized in June

EDITOR'S NOTE: Cross posted from the Energy Blog .

One of the best and most exciting parts of my job is helping make homes and businesses more efficient. Why? The places where we live and work consume 40% of the energy we use in the U.S. Through tune-ups to existing homes or new construction, doing more while using less energy is key to improving our buildings and energy future.

Last week, we announced that during the month of June, more than 31,000 low-income homes nationwide underwent retrofits to use less energy. This month represents the largest number of homes ever upgraded – or “weatherized” – in a single month. Through the Recovery Act, more than 80,000 homes will be weatherized across the country this summer. By March 2012, that total will grow to nearly 600,000 homes – each with upgrades like better furnaces, insulation, and caulking. They will use less energy, perform better, and save homeowners money.

These energy-efficient upgrades are important to the thousands of Americans who are paying less for utilities, and they are also important to the 13,000 American workers whose jobs are supported by our weatherization program.

But when you step back, there is an even bigger trend developing, driven by strong policy and initiatives. Community partnerships are coming up with creative ways to enable energy tune-ups for more and more homes. Places like Washington, New Hampshire, San Antonio, and many others are working with lenders to establish loan funds to help consumers pay the upfront costs of energy-saving improvements so they can upgrade their homes even in economic tough times.

Gene Brady – who has been helping communities in Pennsylvania save energy for 25 years – is leading the charge to install and test new in-home energy monitors to help homeowners make wise choices about energy use. Maine, a state that relies heavily on imported heating oil, has set a target to improve the energy efficiency of all residences and half of its businesses by 2030. Businesses across America are hiring experts to stop energy and money from escaping their buildings and bottom lines.

That is good for America, and that's what gets me excited.

Have questions about weatherization and saving energy in your home? Send them our way via Facebook , Twitter (#weatherization) or email and we'll have our experts follow-up with responses in the coming days. You can also find home energy saving tips by visiting EnergySavers.gov .

Cathy Zoi is the Assistant Secretary for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/23/31000-homes-weatherized-june

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

Celebrating Teen Driving Safety at the Illinois State Fair

EDITOR'S NOTE: Building on the President's commitment to address issues important to rural Americans, Administration officials are visiting state fairs all summer. Check out a map of where we've been so far and hear about the latest visit, cross-posted from the Department of Transportation's blog, Fast Lane.

Like hundreds of thousands of other Illinois households, the LaHood family circles the middle of August on our calendar each year for the Illinois State Fair.

From livestock, grains, and fruit to textiles, cooking, and other handiwork, the Illinois State Fair showcases the best our state has to offer. It's a pleasure to walk around the halls, stalls and booths to see what folks have proudly displayed. For farmers, artisans, and old friends, the state fair offers Illinoisans a way of saying "This is what we've been up to for the past year."

And I was happy to let fairgoers know what we've been up to for the past year in our fight against distracted driving. So, I joined Governor Pat Quinn, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, Illinois DOT Secretary Gary Hannig, and State Police Acting Director Jonathan Monken at the kickoff celebration of Illinois' kickoff celebration of Operation Teen Safe Driving.

Operation Teen Safe Driving encourages the creativity of Illinois teens to develop programs to reduce fatalities and injuries due to traffic crashes among their peers. They've got a lot to be proud of as they have helped reduce teen fatalities in Illinois by half since 2006.

In 2008, teens formed the largest proportion of distracted drivers in fatal crashes. Texting and talking on cell phones may feel like second nature to a tech-savvy generation, but the truth is, no one can talk or text while driving safely. I commend these young leaders and Operation Teen Safe Driving for helping to keep teens drivers safe.

There has been no shortage of distracted driving news from the Obama Administration this past year:

• President Obama issued an Executive Order banning texting behind the wheel for government employees on the job.
  
  
• DOT banned texting while driving for commercial truck and bus drivers.
  
  
• We provided state legislatures with sample legislation for banning texting while driving, and 30 states have now passed anti-distracted driving laws.
  
  
• We're holding our second Distracted Driving Summit this September to share new data and best practices.

Look, you see it every day: Drivers swerving in their lanes, stopping at green lights, running red ones, or narrowly missing a pedestrian because they have their eyes and minds on their phones and not on the road. Yet people consistently think they can text or talk on their cell phones while driving safely.

But you can't; you just can't.

So my message to the young people of Operation Teen Safe Driving was simple:

Your safety may boil down to that one decision--the decision you make to pay attention or not, to hang up and drive or not, or whether a text message is worth a trip to jail, the hospital, or worse. Believe me, no message is worth the consequences of this deadly behavior.

Yes, from prize pigs to popcorn, my home state of has a lot to celebrate at this year's Illinois State Fair. And engaging teen drivers and empowering them to make the right choices behind the wheel tops that list.

Ray LaHood is Secretary of Transportation

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/23/celebrating-teen-driving-safety-illinois-state-fair

.