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From the Los Angeles Times

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Measure would outlaw Islamic law in Oklahoma -- where it doesn't exist

Conservative supporters point to cases in Europe and a few in the U.S. that made reference to Sharia religious law. Muslims say it's a 'scare tactic' to further stigmatize them and whip up votes.

By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times

October 28, 2010

As the country grapples with its worst economic downturn in decades and persistent unemployment, voters in Oklahoma next week will take up another issue — whether they should pass a constitutional amendment outlawing Sharia, or Islamic law.

Supporters of the initiative acknowledge that they do not know of a single case of Sharia being used in Oklahoma, which has only 15,000 Muslims.

"Oklahoma does not have that problem yet," said Republican state Rep. Rex Duncan, the author of the ballot measure, who says supporters in more than a dozen states are ready to place similar initiatives before voters in 2012. "But why wait until it's in the courts?"

Some conservative activists contend that the U.S. is at risk of falling under Sharia law. They point to Europe, with its larger Muslim population and various accommodations to the Islamic religious law.

In England, Muslims can enter special Sharia courts to decide divorce and custody cases if both parties agree. Criminal and other civil cases are still heard in secular courts.

In the U.S., those who warn of the dangers of Sharia can point to only a handful of cases that merely allude to the centuries-old, complex tangle of Muslim religious law. And in none of the cases cited has any U.S. court held that Sharia law is the law of the land here.

Islamic groups say that the Oklahoma initiative, which was placed on the ballot by the Legislature, is nothing more than an effort to stigmatize their religion in order to whip up votes. "There's no threat of Sharia law coming to Oklahoma and America, period," said Saad Mohammed of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City. "It's just a scare tactic."

Until recently there was little campaigning over the measure, known as State Question 755. The only public poll conducted on the matter found it had the support of 49% of voters, with 24% opposed and 27% undecided. That was in July.

Last week a group called Act! for America, which says it exists to fight radical Islam, began airing radio ads and making automated calls to Oklahoma voters, urging approval of the amendment.

"The threat at this point is not that a country in Europe or the U.S. will formally adopt Sharia law, but that Sharia law will be accommodated alongside Western law," Guy Rodgers, the group's executive director, said via e-mail.

Backers of the amendment have cited only three cases that they contend show the threat of Sharia law. In each case, though, the courts gave no special dispensation for Sharia law. The activists say the judges erred by treating Muslims as they would other religious groups because Islamic law does not give women the same rights as men.

In the first case, a Maryland court upheld a custody order from a Pakistani court that was decided under Islamic law. Judges in the U.S. are required by federal law to uphold foreign custody orders if they comply with American legal values, but Rodgers argued that no Islamic court could ever meet this criteria.

In the second case, a Texas court allowed a couple to mediate a property dispute with a private arbitrator. That arbitration was conducted under Islamic law.

It is not unheard of to have religious law dictate private arbitrations in the United States — some observant Jews arbitrate disputes in a rabbinical court — but Rodgers contended that Muslims should be treated differently because their legal system is inherently flawed.

In the third case, a New Jersey judge ruled that a Muslim man could not be guilty of raping his wife because, due to his religion, he believed that a woman is required to have sex with her husband. An appellate court swiftly overturned the ruling, noting that it conflicted with long-established 1st Amendment jurisprudence that holds that religion does not excuse criminal conduct. The appellate court noted that the same rationale was used, erroneously, to justify polygamous Mormon marriages in the 19th century.

Duncan, an attorney, said that his amendment did not target Muslims. Instead, he said, it singles out "activist judges.... That's all I'm picking on."

The measure also would ban judges from relying on foreign laws in any way, a reaction to a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that cited other countries' legal norms in outlawing the execution of minors.

"When you have a justice on the United States Supreme Court who has stated publicly that the U.S. Supreme Court ought to be able to look to the laws of other countries, it isn't a stretch to think that some lower court state judge, be it in New Jersey or some other state, would come to the same conclusion," Duncan said.

Mohammed, of the Islamic Society, said that he feared that the measure could lead to politicians in other states trying to cash in on bashing Sharia law and Islam. "This garbage could really make things bad for Muslims," he said.

On the other hand, he added, since there is no Sharia in Oklahoma, the amendment is also largely harmless. "I think so little of it," Mohammed said. "Whether it passes or not, I don't think it's going to affect anyone."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sharia-oklahoma-20101029,0,3042359,print.story

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U.S. remains silent on Tarik Aziz sentence

As several Western nations and the U.N. appeal for clemency for the former Iraqi foreign minister sentenced to hang, Washington has not voiced an opinion. Experts says U.S. fears appearing to interfere or being hypocritical about the death penalty.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

October 28, 2010

Reporting from Washington

A growing number of countries and groups this week have urged Iraq to spare Saddam Hussein's former foreign minister from a death sentence, but there has been notable silence from one world capital: Washington.

The European Union, the Vatican, the United Nations, Russia, Greece and Amnesty International have asked Iraq to reconsider a court decision to execute Tarik Aziz. They have cited the 74-year-old's age, poor health and his secondary role in Hussein's inner circle and questions about the fairness of his trial.

But U.S. officials, who had a long and sometimes cooperative relationship with the diplomat, have not issued any such appeal.

"This is an Iraqi legal process," said a senior administration official who declined to be identified because he was speaking on a subject of diplomatic sensitivity. "We are staying out of it."

Aziz was convicted Tuesday of the torture and killing of Shiite Islamist party members. He has one month to appeal the sentence.

The U.S. government is in a difficult position for several reasons, say current and former officials and other analysts. The Obama administration, trying to reduce its role in Iraq, doesn't want to be seen as telling the government what to do.

U.S. pressure on the Iraqi government could backfire by stirring resentment in the government and making Iraqi leaders less likely to give Aziz clemency.

Moreover, it is difficult for Americans to criticize capital punishment in other countries when American courts order death sentences regularly, diplomats and analysts note.

"It's mildly awkward for the United States," said Steven Cook, a Middle East specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. "But it would be very awkward for the United States, after going to such lengths to try to stand up an independent government in Iraq, to take a position that would look like blatant interference."

Aziz, an Iraqi Christian, was known in the West as the courtly, cigar-smoking foreign minister who spoke for Hussein as the dictator faced off with world powers over suspected weapons programs. Aziz has been in prison and in poor health since the 2003 invasion.

He provided information to U.S. officials after the invasion, and there also are some hints that he had secret contacts with the United States even before Hussein's ouster.

David Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq who met often with Aziz, said Hussein had apparently forced Aziz to sign death decrees for some Iraqis. He said he knew of no violent side to Aziz.

But Wayne White, a former top official in the State Department's intelligence arm, said that after the invasion information came to light showing Aziz was directly involved in the regime's violent activity.

"There was a dark side," White said.

Newton speculated the U.S. may be privately urging the Iraqis not to carry out the execution.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-us-aziz-20101029,0,6611232,print.story

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Mexico's drug war: Massacres continue unabated

Four mass shootings have left 48 dead in a week across Mexico, signaling an unabated pace for drug-related violence in the country's four-year drug wars, which has claimed more than 28,000 lives overall.

The 28,000 figure was reported by federal authorities in August, and since then hundreds more have been slain, disappeared, or turned up dead. The carnage has extended from the southern state of Guerrero to the border city of Ciudad Juarez, by far the deadliest in Mexico and sometimes called the deadliest city in the world. More than 2,600 people have died in Ciudad Juarez this year alone, and "very close to 7,000" people have been killed since intense daily violence began there in January 2008, according to independent researcher Molly Molloy, who keeps a tally of deaths in Juarez.

Here is a breakdown of this week's worst killings, following the coverage of The Times, wire services, and Mexican news sources:

There are numerous cases in recent months of mass kidnappings or discoveries of mass graves, to say nothing of isolated killings or kidnappings in cities and towns up and down Mexico. Early this morning, four people outside Ciudad Juarez died after gunmen opened fire on a bus taking them home from work at a border factory.

In late August, the case of 72 migrants executed in the state of Tamaulipas shocked Mexico and left several Latin American nations in mourning. The discovery of mass graves -- called " narcofosas ," or "narco-graves" -- is now common in Mexico. Four bodies were found in a grave days ago in Oaxaca state and six to eight were found near the city of Monterrey earlier this month (links in Spanish).

Late last month, 20 Mexican tourists were kidnapped in a mass " levanton ," or "lifting," near the resort port of Acapulco. The men were traveling together from the state of Michoacan, and their whereabouts remain unknown. As the Times' Ken Ellingwood reported last week, the case is a complete mystery .

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/10/death-mexico-drug-war-cases.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaPlaza+%28La+Plaza%29

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Overall U.S. intelligence budget tops $80 billion

The government spent a total of $80.1 billion on intelligence gathering last year, three times as much as when it last disclosed the figure 12 years ago.

By Ken Dilanian, Tribune Washington Bureau

October 28, 2010

Reporting from Washington

The U.S. government on Thursday disclosed for the first time in more than a decade what it spent in total on intelligence gathering in the fiscal year that just ended: $80.1 billion.

That's more than the U.S. spent on the Department of Homeland Security ($53 billion) and the Justice Department ($30 billion), according to figures from the White House Office of Management and Budget. It represents about 12% of the nation's $664-billion defense budget.

The total intelligence budget has doubled since 2001, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

"It is clear that the overall spending on intelligence has blossomed to an unacceptable level in the past decade," said Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, which sets the budget and oversees policy.

Intelligence spending has long been classified, but in 2007 the government began revealing part of it — but only the amount not devoted purely to military operations. That figure, known as the National Intelligence Program, was $52.1 billion for fiscal year 2010, which ended Sept. 30, up 6.6% from the previous year.

The government revealed the total intelligence budget twice before, in 1997 and 1998, in response to a lawsuit. It was $26.6 billion and $26.7 billion, respectively, meaning the budget has tripled in 12 years.

James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told senators during his confirmation in July that he persuaded Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to disclose the Military Intelligence Program budget so that the public could see the full picture.

"I think the American people [are] entitled to know the totality of the investment we make each year in intelligence," Clapper said.

Disclosure is a good thing, said Steven Aftergood of the American Federation of Scientists, who closely watches the intelligence community.

"It helps make the intelligence budget a normal part of government, and it also makes it possible for officials to speak plainly and honestly about the level of intelligence spending," he said. "Those are both important things."

The spending pays for everything from janitors to bureaucrats to spies under deep cover. It funds satellites, computer systems and other expensive hardware. And it pays for a vast array of private contractors, a cost that has skyrocketed since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In addition to the CIA, the intelligence community includes the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on e-mail and telephone conversations; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which runs spy satellites; and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which serves the Pentagon. Each of the military services also has an intelligence component, as do several civilian government departments.

A breakdown of spending beyond the overall figure will not be released, officials said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel-budget-20101029,0,2875744,print.story

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L.A. County dismissed allegations of abuse involving boy later tortured in San Bernardino County

The 5-year-old was rescued from a closet last year. A recent internal case review by L.A. County's Department of Children and Family Services concluded the agency's original finding of no abuse to be wrong.

By Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times

October 29, 2010

By the time the 5-year-old boy was rescued from a dark closet in San Bernardino County last year, much of his body had been burned by a glue gun and hot spoons. Johnny had been starved and sodomized, taunted and punched, forced to eat soap and crouch motionless in corners.

Child welfare officials across the county line, in Los Angeles, might have spared him this. More than a year earlier, they had dismissed allegations that he had been abused as unfounded and determined that the "child [was] not at risk."

A recent internal review by the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services concluded the finding was wrong — the result of a shallow inquiry in which the agency misjudged what little information it collected, according to records reviewed by The Times.

The department's involvement in the case might never have come to light but for the decision by the supervising social worker on the case, Rocío La Voie, to appeal her 10-day suspension for mishandling it. In public records, she asserted that her conduct did not violate department procedures and disputed a finding that she exhibited poor judgment.

The case is one of many in recent years in which children have come to harm even after the department had looked into allegations of abuse or neglect. More than 65 children have died of abuse or neglect since the beginning of 2008 after being referred to the department, according to county statistics. The rate of such deaths has increased over that period, and county officials have acknowledged that many involved case management errors.

Based on a review of county data, a researcher hired by the state found that, since 2007, children left by the department in their homes after an investigation increasingly have experienced abuse again within a year.

Department Director Trish Ploehn declined to comment and did not respond to a request for public records related to Johnny's case. Los Angeles County Chief Executive William T Fujioka did not return a call for comment, and county supervisors declined to do so. Zev Yaroslavsky, who said he was unaware of the case before The Times called him about it, said he was still trying to gather information.

La Voie, 40, was assigned to the case in November 2007, nearly two years before San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies rescued Johnny, when he and his mother, Desiree Gonzales, lived near MacArthur Park. A caller to a child abuse hotline reported that Gonzales beat and underfed him, and that the abuse was aggravated by her drug abuse.

Although they leave many questions unanswered, documents filed as part of La Voie's pending appeal provide an outline of events:

La Voie's team reviewed the case history showing that Gonzales, 32, had nearly a decade of run-ins with the department. Gonzales' first two children had been removed from her care for abuse or neglect, which was not specified in the documents, and she had abandoned her third in the throes of methamphetamine addiction. Johnny, described by a San Bernardino County detective as remarkably precocious, was her fourth child.

Child welfare officials scheduled five drug tests for Gonzales. She missed or refused every one. They scheduled meetings to discuss the matter. She missed those too.

Without interviewing key witnesses, including the person Gonzales identified as the anonymous caller to the child abuse hotline, the social workers closed their inquiry in January 2008. The caseworkers did not appropriately assess safety risks, the county's internal review later found. Had they done so, they would have had to place Johnny under intense oversight or remove him from his mother's care, it found.

After the investigation was closed, Gonzales moved with Johnny to Apple Valley in San Bernardino County, settling into the home of her boyfriend and methamphetamine supplier Martin Morales, a gang member known by the moniker "Bullet," San Bernardino Sheriff's Det. Roxy Bessinger said in an interview. Also living in the home were Morales' wife, Chrystal Rodriguez, and the couple's nine children.

Morales dispatched his own children to steal mail as part of an identity theft scheme, Bessinger said. He pledged to toughen Johnny, she said, and make him a man.

In reality, Johnny was "systematically dehumanized" when his mother, her boyfriend and their associates malnourished, tortured and imprisoned him for months, according to Los Angeles County's internal review.

According to Bessinger and the Los Angeles County documents, Johnny was forced to eat food scraps and lap water from a bowl like a dog; he was denied access to the bathroom; he was made to eat his own feces, urine and vomit and drink soda mixed with soap. Johnny's tormenters made him sit in a corner, unable to lie down or move for extended stretches, sometimes taunting him with a plate of food they forbade him to eat, Bessinger said. His tongue was torn and one of Morales' gang associates forced him to perform oral sex, leaving extensive sores in his mouth.

In August 2009, another anonymous call led to Johnny's discovery by San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies. Both his mother and her boyfriend were charged with torture and willful cruelty to a child, among other things. Five others, including the boyfriend's wife, Rodriguez, were also charged in the case.

Morales and Rodriguez eluded authorities for a year, however, and had a 10th child before their arrest this summer. All 10 of their children were placed in protective custody.

Gonzales, Morales, Rodriguez and one of their associates have pleaded not guilty.

Two of Morales' associates have been convicted as accessories in the case, and charges have been dismissed for one other.

Johnny has been placed by San Bernardino County social workers in a foster home and is in the final stages of adoption.

He is making good progress in mental health therapy three times a week, and recently was enrolled in a school program for academically gifted students, Bessinger said.

Besides La Voie, one Los Angeles County social worker involved in the case received a five-day suspension and the other received a three-day suspension, according to a source familiar with the matter.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-child-abuse-20101029,0,1927114,print.story

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San Diego officer, 2 others killed in gun battle

The officer, a 17-year veteran, was the department's first to be fatally shot in the line of duty since 1991. Three people are arrested during the siege at an apartment in the city's Skyline neighborhood.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times

October 29, 2010

Reporting from San Diego

A veteran San Diego police officer was fatally shot and two other people were killed in a brief but furious gun battle that began with authorities trying to arrest a suspect in an assault case, officials said Thursday.

Officer Christopher Wilson, 50, a 17-year veteran of the Police Department and a Navy veteran who was divorced with two teenage children, was killed late Wednesday when gunfire broke out after people barricaded themselves in a bedroom in an apartment in the Skyline neighborhood of southeast San Diego. Wilson was shot in the head.

Eight hours later, a police SWAT team stormed the second-floor apartment after firing flash-bang grenades and up to 20 tear-gas canisters. Once inside, they found a man and a woman dead, firearms near their bodies.

In all, three people were arrested — one man before Wilson was shot and another man and a woman before the SWAT team entered the apartment and found the bodies.

Residents of other apartments were evacuated and spent the night standing outside stores in a nearby strip mall. The Red Cross brought blankets, but some residents begged police to be allowed back into their homes.

In the daylight, as police investigators entered the apartment to gather evidence, pools of blood could be seen outside the front door. Residents who had been evacuated from their homes recalled hearing a dozen or more shots.

Wilson was the first San Diego officer fatally shot in the line of duty since the 1991 killing of Officer Ronald Davis, who had responded to a domestic violence call. In 2003, Officer Terry Bennett was struck and killed in a case of vehicular homicide.

At an emotional news conference Thursday, Wilson was praised as a top-notch officer who spent his entire career in the city's Southeastern division, the most racially diverse section of the city.

"Every mayor and police chief dreads a day like today," said Mayor Jerry Sanders, a former police chief, his voice breaking.

Wilson routinely was given the highest compliments by fellow officers, who called him "good cover" when they needed help, Sanders said.

"He was popular, funny, extremely bright — a consummate professional," Sanders said, occasionally stopping to regain his composure.

Police Chief William Lansdowne praised the doctors at Scripps Mercy Hospital, who, while knowing that Wilson could not survive, kept him alive long enough so that his family and other officers could rush to the hospital to be with him. Dozens of officers also visited the hospital.

Lansdowne also praised Wilson: "He's the type of person you want in your city, you want as your neighbor."

Councilman Tony Young said: "The city has lost a dedicated protector." He added that Wilson had served his community with "dignity and respect." Wilson had served on the SWAT team and as a training officer.

Wilson and other officers had gone to the apartment to assist probation officers and U.S. marshals in finding a probationer considered to be harboring a suspect in a case involving an assault with a deadly weapon.

After the probationer was arrested, four other people barricaded themselves in a back bedroom and opened fire, striking Wilson. Police returned fire.

One of the people in the bedroom was the person wanted in the assault case, police said.

At the time the shots were fired, authorities said there were six San Diego officers inside the apartment. They declined to say how many shots were fired or how the two people in the bedroom were killed.

Acting Asst. Chief Jim Collins said a determination of how the two died probably will not be made until autopsies are performed.

After Wilson was shot and police returned fire, police left the apartment and the SWAT team was assembled.

Before the SWAT assault about 6:45 a.m., a man and a woman surrendered by calling 911, Collins said. They were arrested but later released, police said.

Once police entered the back bedroom, they found the dead man and woman.

In the gun battle, a San Diego police dog, a Belgian Malinois named Monty, was wounded but survived and is expected to return to duty, officials said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1029-sdcop-20101029,0,3329664,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Somali Islamists Kill Two Girls Branded Spies

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia 's most powerful Islamist insurgents, the Shabab , executed two teenage girls on Wednesday after deciding they were spies, setting off fears among residents, officials and witnesses said.

The two teenagers — one 18, the other 14 — were shot by firing squad in the center of the town of Beledweyne, near the border with Ethiopia , witnesses said.

Pickup trucks with big loudspeakers drove into the town, ordering the residents to watch the execution. Residents were also told to switch off their cellphones and were warned not to take pictures, a prohibition that has been enforced at some Islamist executions in the past.

“The teenage girls were executed in the regional headquarters at the center of the town. Some of the women who were watching fainted at the scene,” said Abukar Elmi, a witness. “This is a shocking event.”

The Shabab official in the town, Sheik Yusuf Ali Ugas, told local journalists that “the two girls were found guilty of spying for the Ethiopian government.”

Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement that had taken control of much of the country, including the capital, Mogadishu. Thousands of Ethiopian soldiers remained in Somalia for the next three years before withdrawing, and some of the Somali government forces fighting the Shabab in the Beledweyne area are supported by the Ethiopian government.

Mr. Ugas said the teenagers were not the only ones in Shabab custody, adding, “There are many people now in Shabab prisons in Beledweyne.”

He also sent a warning to Ethiopia, saying that the Shabab knew “all the informants serving for the Ethiopian government.”

Townspeople argued that the two teenage girls were innocent. The girls, they said, were traveling away from their families when they were caught in a cross-fire just outside Beledweyne, where both government forces and the Shabab are positioned. Many Somalis try to reach Yemen and Saudi Arabia to find better opportunities there and escape from the violence in this country.

“When the fighting started between the Shabab and the government forces just outside Beledweyne, the girls had to flee to the bush, where they were finally caught,” said a resident whose name was withheld for his safety. “I think they were executed because they were caught at the front line.”

The Somali transitional federal government strongly condemned the public execution, arguing that the two girls had not been given the right to a legal defense, nor had their parents even been informed.

“This execution is yet another human rights abuse committed by the criminals,” the Somali government said. “This act of killing innocent children does not have Islamic and humanitarian justifications.”

The Shabab have been responsible for many human rights violations in the areas they control. In 2008, for instance, they stoned to death a rape victim in the port town of Kismayo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/world/africa/29somalia.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Civilians Falling Victim to Mexico Drug War

MEXICO CITY — During its nearly four-year crackdown on major drug trafficking organizations, the Mexican government has repeated the mantra that most of the nearly 30,000 people killed have some association with the illicit trade.

But in the span of a week, a devastating wave of attacks has killed dozens of civilians, rattled a public not easily shocked anymore and forced the government to concede that innocents are being swept up in the violence.

In the latest attacks, gunmen killed four people early Thursday and injured 14 when they fired on three buses carrying workers home from a late shift at a manufacturing plant near Ciudad Juárez. The authorities said the assault — on workers from one of the large so-called maquiladoras, or factories, on and near the border that have fueled an economic and population boom there — had no precedent.

“This attack on the employees was a high-impact event that seeks to destabilize governments,” said Adrián Sánchez, spokesman for the Ciudad Juárez police. “They are fighting over their own interests, and only the bad guys know what it is about.”

The buses bore the name of the company where the employees worked, Eagle Ottawa, an automobile upholstery manufacturer based in Auburn Hills, Mich., that has two plants in Ciudad Juárez.

Jorge González Nicolás, an assistant prosecutor in Ciudad Juárez, told a radio interviewer that it appeared the attackers were searching for an unknown man and opened fire indiscriminately, similar to an attack at a birthday party last week that left 14 young people dead and the apparent target on the run.

Bus operators transporting workers have faced extortion demands recently, but it was not clear if the police were looking into that as a motive. Officials at Eagle Ottawa did not respond to requests for comment.

In a separate attack, seven young people were gunned down Thursday in a working-class neighborhood in Mexico City. The police had not determined a motive or whether it was linked to organized crime, but the city has long feared that mass violence would reach here.

The two attacks followed three massacres in different parts of the country since Friday, all in a year of brazen tactics, including car bombs and the assassination of several mayors.

Determining patterns in the drug war is difficult. At least seven major trafficking organizations, and their various splinter groups as they break apart and re-form, are vying for territory and supremacy.

“As the organized crime groups are pressured by the government and in a sense the military strategy, as people are arrested and drugs taken away, you are going to see internal strife and intergroup competition over the market,” said Allyson Benton, an analyst with Eurasia Group, which advises businesses on the political and security climate.

The recent loss of innocent lives has heightened the anxiety in the country and seemed to buttress statements by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the cartel violence was taking on shades of terrorism and teetering toward the strife of Colombia in the 1990s.

Her remarks initially ruffled diplomatic feathers, and government officials fired back with a barrage of figures they contended showed how much worse Colombia was then in terms of violence and political infiltration.

The administration of President Felipe Calderón has not shown signs of shifting tactics. Rather, his aides believe the problem is that his message — that the violence is a sign that progress is being made — has not been delivered well. There has been a shake-up in his communication staff to improve it.

One sign: Mr. Calderón struck a conciliatory tone this week toward the victims, including drug addicts — a large number of victims in two of the massacres — whom he commended for trying to improve their lives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/world/americas/29mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Hispanics Cite Bias in Survey

More than 6 in 10 Latinos in the United States say discrimination is a “major problem” for them, a significant increase in the last three years, according to a survey of Latino attitudes by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group.

In 2007, the center reported, 54 percent of Latinos said discrimination was a major problem. That year, nearly half of Latinos — 46 percent — cited language as the primary cause for that discrimination. In the new survey, 36 percent — the largest number — said that immigration status was the leading cause.

The Pew Hispanic Center report comes as Latino voters could play a decisive role in several close midterm races, including the Senate contests in California, Colorado and Nevada, and the governor's race in California.

The nation's largest minority (at 47 million) feels beleaguered by backlash from the polarized debate over immigration in the last year, the survey shows. While 29 percent said the impact of illegal immigration on Hispanics living here had been positive, 31 percent said it had been negative, a sharp increase since 2007.

That year, before the recession started, fully half of Latinos said illegal immigration had had a positive impact on those already in this country. Still, 86 percent of Latinos support legislation to open a path to citizenship for an estimated 11.1 million illegal immigrants if they pay fines, pass background checks and have jobs. About four in five illegal immigrants are Latino, the Pew center has estimated.

According to the report, 51 percent of Latinos have more confidence in the Democratic Party on immigration issues, while 19 percent trust the Republicans more. But the top issue for Latinos these days is education, with immigration their fourth priority.

The vast majority, 79 percent, oppose the law aimed at curbing illegal immigration passed in Arizona, while 78 percent oppose repealing the birthright citizenship clauses of the Constitution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/us/29pew.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

No Justification

Two years ago, when a splintered Supreme Court approved lethal injection as a means of execution in Baze v. Rees, Justice John Paul Stevens made a prophecy. Instead of ending the controversy, he said, the ruling would raise questions “about the justification for the death penalty itself.” Since then, evidence has continued to mount, showing the huge injustice of the death penalty — and the particular barbarism of this form of execution.

In the case of Jeffrey Landrigan, convicted of murder and executed by Arizona on Tuesday, the system failed him at almost every level, most disturbingly at the Supreme Court. In a 5-to-4 vote, the court's conservative majority allowed the execution to proceed based on a stark misrepresentation.

Of the 35 states that allow the death penalty, all now execute by lethal injection. Most use a sequence of drugs that is supposed to provide a painless death, but when it is administered incorrectly it causes agony that amounts to torture. Veterinarians say the method doesn't meet the standard for euthanizing animals.

Arizona's plan for Mr. Landrigan's execution was thrown off by a shortage of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used in standard lethal injections. The only maker approved by the Food and Drug Administration hasn't been able to get a critical ingredient for almost a year. The state obtained the drug from a foreign maker.

When Mr. Landrigan tried to ascertain its effectiveness for sedating him so he wouldn't feel the pain of the other drugs, Arizona refused to divulge the information. After the state defied four orders from a federal district judge to produce it, the judge stayed the execution.

When the case got to the Supreme Court, the majority overturned the stay, saying there was “no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe.” There was no evidence — either way — because Arizona defied orders to provide it.

The court's whitewash highlights the arbitrariness of Mr. Landrigan's execution. Cheryl Hendrix, the retired Arizona judge who presided over his trial, recently said, “Mr. Landrigan would not have been sentenced to death” if she had been given the medical evidence of the defendant's brain damage and other factors. Mr. Landrigan's inept trial lawyer didn't submit the evidence.

She no longer had the power to alter his fate, but, in an affidavit for the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, Ms. Hendrix supported his plea to have his death sentence commuted to life. “Since the courts have not corrected this injustice,” she stated, “I am compelled to submit this declaration on Mr. Landrigan's behalf.” The Supreme Court should have upheld the stay of execution and forced the state to deliver the information called for. It failed, shamefully.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/opinion/29fri1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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Minimum age for Chicago cops raised to 25, exam set for Dec. 11

Veterans can apply at 21, will get 20% of seats in recruit class

October 29, 2010

BY FRANK MAIN

The Chicago Police Department said it has raised the minimum age for applying to become an officer to attract more mature candidates and also is offering a new hiring preference for military veterans, officials said Thursday.

Police Supt. Jody Weis announced that the department will administer a written entrance exam on Dec. 11 -- the first test in four years. The department will accept applications online through Nov. 26 at chicagopolice.org. The maximum age is 40 at the time of hire. 

At least 20 percent of applicants picked for each class will be veterans -- as long as enough veterans apply, Weis said. Three makeup exams will be offered for returning veterans unable to take the regularly scheduled pre-employment exam.

Members of the armed forces with a minimum of three consecutive years of active duty -- or one year of military duty and 30 semester hours of college credit -- can apply even if they are as young as 21, Weis said.

All other applicants must be at least 25 and complete 60 semester hours of college.

Police officials said older applicants with more life experience could make better decisions on the streets. And they noted military veterans have already undergone substantial training.

Not everyone thinks raising the application age from 21 to 25 is a good idea. New York and Los Angeles have a minimum hiring age of 21 for officers.

"My thought is that you are excluding some very good candidates and possibly forcing them into a different profession," said Brad Woods, who ran the department's Personnel Division under former Chicago Police superintendents Phil Cline and Terry Hillard.

One pool of potential recruits is particularly upset at the increase in the minimum age for applicants.

The department's cadet program allows people between 17 and 21 to work in districts and learn how officers do their jobs. One cadet, who is 23, said he works in a North Side district and was shocked to see that he must wait two more years before he is eligible to apply.

"I get paid $9 an hour," he said. "I put my life on hold. I passed up better- paying jobs. Knowing how to write a report is not really useful in the outside world. I don't think it's fair."

But police officials said there's a long history of officers working for suburban agencies, then moving to the Chicago Police Department. Also, many people have been willing to wait years on hiring lists until they were called to join the police academy, officials said.

Others have criticized the college education requirement. Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the City Council's Police Committee, had unsuccessfully called for the department to drop the college requirement to open the door for more minorities to become recruits.

Chicago will hire as many as 200 more police officers next year -- in addition to a 120-member class that entered the police academy last month -- to ease a manpower shortage. The city budget includes funding for hiring two new classes of recruits. Each would include 75 to 100 recruits. On Sept. 1, a class of 117 recruits entered the police academy to begin six months of training, depleting a 2006 hiring list. None is under 25, records show.

A two-year hiring slowdown has left the department more than 2,300 officers a day short of authorized strength -- counting vacancies, medical leave and limited duty.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2845716,CST-NWS-policetest29.article

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7 charged with selling software to make IDs

LITTLE VILLAGE | Operation had gang protection

October 29, 2010

BY NATASHA KORECKI

For years, customers who wanted phony driver's licenses, permanent resident cards or Social Security cards could take their business to a Little Village operation protected by a West Side street gang, federal authorities say.

Lately, there has been a new item for sale: the computer software used to make the phony documents, federal prosecutors charged Thursday.

Seven people -- all of whom are suspected of being in the country illegally -- were the latest to be charged in an ongoing crackdown against the illegal sale and manufacture of phony documents. Five are thought to be members of the same family, officials said.

The new charges, which targeted a crew working at Avers and 26th, included accusations that they sold software to help manufacture phony documents.

The software, which sold for $3,000, could be used to make permanent resident cards, Social Security cards and driver's licenses for eight states, including Illinois, according to the charges. In the undercover sting, the sellers also allegedly handed over two uncut sheets of laminates with hologram seals of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Statute of Liberty and printing referring to the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, according to the charges.

Federal investigators for years have targeted illegal ID sales in Little Village. They say that sellers pay street gangs -- in this case the Two-Six Nation -- a tax that allows them to stand on corners and use hand gestures to sell the phony documents.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2845600,CST-NWS-fakeid29.article

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2 students withdraw after Rutgers suicide

October 29, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- Two Rutgers University freshmen, accused of secretly broadcasting a classmate's sexual encounter online, have withdrawn from the school. The classmate later committed suicide.

Attorney Steven Altman says that means Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei will not face university disciplinary hearings.

Altman, who represents Ravi, told The Home News Tribune of East Brunswick his client plans to attend school somewhere else.

Wei's attorney, Rubin Sinins, told The Star-Ledger of Newark his client feared for her safety.

Ravi and Wei have been charged with invasion of privacy.

Authorities say Ravi used a webcam to capture his roommate, Tyler Clementi, having a sexual encounter with another man.

Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge days later.

Prosecutors are considering hate crime charges.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2846414,rutgers-suicide-taping-102910.article

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School board member's post: Gay teens should kill themselves

October 29, 2010

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- More than two dozen protesters rallied outside of Midland High School Thursday to call for the resignation of school board member Clint McCance, who posted on Facebook he thinks gay youths should kill themselves.

McCance's posting scoffed at a campaign asking supporters to wear purple Oct. 20 to show solidarity after several gay and lesbian youths killed themselves.

"Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves," McCance wrote. "The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin."

In a follow-up response to Facebook users who criticized his comments, McCance wrote that he liked that gay people "can't procreate [and] I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other AIDS and die." AP

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2846022,CST-NWS-facebook29.article

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Hispanics divided on illegal immigration

October 29, 2010

BY ALAN GOMEZ

Hispanics are growing more divided about how they view illegal immigration, and native-born Hispanics aren't as convinced of the contributions of illegal immigrants as they used to be, according to a study released Thursday.

Hispanics are split when asked to assess the effect of illegal immigration on Hispanics living in the United States: 29 percent say they've had a positive impact, 31 percent negative and 30 percent believe it made no difference, according to the study from the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center. That is a sharp decline from a 2007 survey, when 50 percent of Hispanics said illegal immigrants were having a positive impact.

The study also finds a split between Hispanics who were born in the United States and those who came from another country. When asked if immigrants are a strength, 69 percent of native-born Hispanics agreed, compared with 85 percent of new arrivals.

A large majority of Hispanics, 79 percent, oppose Arizona's immigration law, which would require police officers to determine the immigration status of suspects stopped for another offense if there was "reasonable suspicion" they were in the country illegally. The law is on hold because of a legal challenge.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2846036,CST-NWS-pollhisp29.article

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Texans Favor Illegal Immigration Crackdown - Up to a Point

The results of a poll of Texans conducted recently by the Dallas Morning News  show that a majority favor a crackdown of some sort on illegal immigration, similar to what Arizona is trying to do. But the anti-immigration fervor in Texas doesn't appear to be as strong as in some other states. Here are excerpts from this interesting article:

Texans appear fed up with illegal immigration, with most backing an Arizona-type crackdown and many willing to change the U.S. Constitution to discourage women from entering the country to give birth.

But some experts said that Texas, while roiled by the issue, still isn't as captivated by it as other places – especially for a border state with a decidedly Republican tilt.

A statewide poll by The Dallas Morning News showed that 53 percent of registered voters say police should verify whether people they've stopped are in the country legally, even if it could lead to racial profiling. Thirty-eight percent oppose it.

Meanwhile, Texans were almost evenly divided on changing the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to those born in the U.S., with 45 percent favoring change and 43 percent opposing it, the poll found.

"If there's a surprise, it's that the margins are so narrow," said Jerry Polinard, University of Texas-Pan American political science professor. "Overall, immigration has been on the agenda of the state for the past six or seven years, but it hasn't lit the sparks that it has in some of the other states."

Texans' reluctance to change the Constitution mirrors national polls on the subject. But Texans are less enthusiastic than the nation at large about the Arizona law, which allowed law officers to ask people about their immigration status if officers suspect people are in the country illegally. The law largely is on hold while it is challenged in federal court.

Mark P. Jones, political science chairman at Rice University, said Texas voters might have peeled off because the poll raised the concern over racial profiling.

Also, Hispanic culture has long been a part of Texas history, he said.

"It's hard to argue that there is an overwhelming feeling by Texans that we need that law," Jones said.

Although some Republicans have vowed to push in next year's Legislature for a similar law, GOP Gov. Rick Perry has been lukewarm, saying it's not needed in Texas. His Democratic opponent, Bill White, has opposed it, saying it would distract police officers from protecting the public from crime.

The News' poll showed clear breaks between Republicans (78 percent favoring it) and Democrats (71 percent opposing it), and Hispanics (76 percent opposing) and whites (68 percent favoring).

Both Jones and Polinard said the immigration conflict eventually would hurt Republicans by alienating Latino voters, who within 10 years will have a large sway in Texas elections.

"The Republicans, if they take this up, are looking over a cliff. Demography is destiny," Polinard said.

"The Democrats fall on their knees every night and pray for immigration to be an issue because it's viewed as anti-Latino and it will only help them," he said.

Jones said efforts to pass a verification law would be a polarizing distraction, with no real legal benefit because the courts probably will overturn most of it. "It's not a winning political issue," he said.

The poll also looked at Texans' views of showing a photo ID to vote, and the vast majority favor such a law.

Opponents believe that the ID requirement would force many who are poor, elderly or disabled – those most likely not to have a driver's license – to be turned away from the polling places.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/blogentries/index.html?bbPostId=B5P6Flg68quZB6mTPUEO6wsfBC1nxrWTfBIDB4PcTsitg34r&bbParentWidgetId=B8k88rWwXopuz5STgLeVwBLu

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