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

From Los Angeles Times

IMF chief held on suspicion of sexual assault on N.Y. hotel worker

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, is taken off a plane about to leave JFK, arrested and charged in the attack on a chambermaid in his luxury suite.

by Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 15, 2011

Reporting from New York

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was hauled off a flight about to leave JFK airport for Paris on Saturday and arrested on allegations he sexually assaulted a maid in a Times Square-area hotel, a police spokesman said.

Strauss-Kahn, who is also an important figure in French politics, was taken to the Harlem headquarters of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, which investigates rape and other sex crimes. He was charged with committing a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment in connection with a sexual assault on a chambermaid in the luxury suite of a midtown Manhattan hotel, said Paul Browne, deputy New York City police commissioner.

"A 32-year-old chambermaid at a Sofitel on 44th Street said that at about 1 p.m., she entered Mr. Strauss-Kahn's room to clean when he came out of the bathroom naked, pushed her onto the bed and assaulted her," Browne said. The maid told police that before she could escape, Strauss-Kahn forced her to perform oral sex, Browne said.

She immediately told her supervisor, but before investigators could get to Strauss-Kahn's room, he had left the hotel, leaving behind his cellphone and other personal items, Browne said.

His $3,000-per-night luxury suite has a foyer, hallway, living room, bedroom, conference room and bathroom, Browne said.

Police learned the IMF official was booked on a 4:40 p.m. Air France flight bound for Paris and notified airport police to hold the plane, which was turned back as it taxied from the gate. Strauss-Kahn was in his seat when he was taken into custody, Browne said, noting he did not have diplomatic immunity.

The maid was treated for minor injuries at a Manhattan hospital.

A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said Saturday night that it had no comment; an official of the U.S. Justice Department said "at this time" the case was being handled by New York police and there was no federal jurisdiction.

For the last four years, Strauss-Kahn, 62, has been the managing director of the IMF, a lending institution with 186 member countries that helps oversee the global economy.

Within a year of assuming the job, Strauss-Kahn was investigated by the IMF board over whether he had an improper relationship with a former female employee. The board concluded his actions were "regrettable and reflected a serious error of judgment" but took no action against its top manager because the relationship was consensual and did not involve any abuse of authority.

A former corporate lawyer and an economics professor at several top French universities, Strauss-Kahn has long been a key player in the French Socialist Party and was considered a likely candidate to challenge French President Nicolas Sarkozy in next May's election.

Sarkozy backed Strauss-Kahn, a political opponent, for the IMF position, though there was speculation that he did so to deprive the Socialists of a popular leader.

Strauss-Kahn has run unsuccessfully to be his party's nominee for president; he has also served as a member of the French National Assembly and as a Cabinet minister in left-leaning governments.

He is married to Anne Sinclair, his third wife, who is a leading television journalist in Paris.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-imf-leader-20110516,0,1898311.story

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

In northeast India coal towns, many miners are children

Perhaps thousands of underage workers as young as 8, lured by the wages, leave school to work in coal mines under perilous conditions. The country officially upholds mining safety standards and forbids child labor, but loopholes in state laws allow widespread abuses.

by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

May 15, 2011

Reporting from Ladrymbai, India

The young miners descend on rickety ladders made of branches into the makeshift coal mines dotting the Jaintia Hills in northeast India, scrambling sideways into "rat hole" shafts so small that even kneeling becomes impossible. Lying horizontally, they hack away with picks and their bare hands: Human labor here is far cheaper than machines.

Many wear flip-flops and shorts, their faces and lungs blackened by coal. None have helmets. Two hours of grinding work fills a cart half the size of a coffin that they drag back, crouching, to the mouth where a clerk credits their work. Most earn a dollar or two an hour.

"A big stone fell on a friend at a nearby mine last year, and he died," said Sharan Rai, 16, taking a break near the entrance with his friend Late Boro, 14. Both started mining when they were 12. "The owners didn't pay the family anything. I try and check if the walls look strong before I go in."

Sharan may be leaving this hazardous work behind. He quit fourth grade years back, and an area civic group has persuaded him to return. Late, from Assam state, who's never attended school and is illiterate, is more typical.

"Let Sharan go off, play the big man," he said, fighting back tears. "I'll cut coal. That's my life."

Thousands of children, some as young as 8, are believed to toil alongside adults in the northeast mines; their small bodies are well suited to the narrow coal seams. Many migrated legally from from Nepal or illegally from neighboring Bangladesh, lured by the wages.

Deaths are undocumented but far from rare; medical care is almost nonexistent. Many of the older children spend their pay on alcohol, gambling and prostitutes. Some drift away; others keep working for decades.

India has a national mining law, plus a right-to-education bill, and it has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, minus a few key clauses on the speed of implementation. But tribal land rights in Meghalaya state trump some national laws, and other laws are largely ignored, creating loopholes big enough to drive a coal truck through, activists say. The rules are meant to protect cottage industries, but many mines are owned by state and national lawmakers or their relatives.

"We know a few owners control everything," said Hasina Kharbhih, founder of Impulse Network, a child rights group based in the Meghalaya town of Shillong. "They get away scot-free."

***

Navigating the narrow shafts requires a slithering, snake-like movement, and a foreigner's technique elicits laughter from miners, even as an explosion in a neighboring mine rocks the walls.

The miners are unalarmed; Sharan says claustrophobia, intense exhaustion and fear of collapsing walls ease after a few weeks. But the visitor reemerges into the sunlight feeling damp, bruised and lucky to have survived.

Commercial coal mining in India started in 1774 and has boomed in recent years with the economy. Officially, India had 81 accidental coal-mine deaths in 2009. But deaths in Meghalaya aren't recorded or investigated, with most hushed up to avoid mines being shuttered.

The number of children working in the state's 5,000 coal mines is a matter of dispute, with Impulse estimating tens of thousands and local politicians putting it in the hundreds. Few dispute, however, that the vast majority of India's underage coal miners work in Meghalaya.

Almost everyone knows someone who's died in the "death pits." Three died recently after a shaft collapsed, four when a hopper fell.

"Responsible" mine owners pay $200-$500 for funerals, others nothing.

"If you die, it's your fate," said Shyam Rai, 22, who is not related to Sharan and who's worked since he was 17. "I heard coal mines had diamonds, but I sure haven't found any."

The nearest medical dispensary, selling little more than aspirin, acne soap and herbal remedies, is a few miles away in Latyrke. "We don't have much medicine," said Pintu Roy, a clerk at the dispensary. "If it's serious, drive to Shillong," three hours away.

The miners are as careful as their limited resources and skills allow. Sharan checks the mine shaft for the risk of collapse by tapping the walls.

"If it goes 'dung-dung,' it's bad; 'tak-tak,' it's OK," he said. "Sure, you breathe in coal dust, but it doesn't hurt you."

State Mining Minister Bindo Lanong said reports of child labor are exaggerated, that most children are just helping their parents, and that a planned state law should curb excesses.

Mine owner Phillip Pala, whose brother serves in India's parliament, said accidents happen only occasionally. "There's a risk in everything," he said.

***

Jaintia Hills is India's Wild West. Merchants in shacks sell boots, potato chips, booze and little else. Coal trucks, hand painted with images of various gods, belch black smoke up the steep roads. "Life is Not Forever," reads a sign on one.

Adult miners can earn $150 a week, a good wage. But many squander the money.

"We try to convince people not to drink or meet strange women," said Nirom Basumatary, the Biateraim Presbyterian Church's secretary. "But we're not so successful."

Empty whiskey bottles litter the coal piles, line the roadside and languish under the beds at Mid Valley Hotel, Ladrymbai's best.

"We sell 10,000 bottles of beer and booze daily," said Rama Chandra, at one of 31 roadside liquor stores in a town of 8,000. "If I mined, I'd drink lots too."

Dice and card games operate openly. "A try only costs 25 cents," a dice-game hustler in the main market yelled at transfixed gamblers. "It's easy."

Sharan steers clear. "If you win, they beat you up to get their money back," he said.

Sharan, with a warm smile, a bandanna and a penchant for stylish clothes when he's not mining, lives in a 15-by-20-foot mud-floored hut beside the mine with seven family members. They cook on an open fire and sleep on a fly-infested platform.

"There's a lot of drinking around here," said Devika Rai, 39, Sharan's mother. "Men fight."

Late lives nearby with his sister-in-law. He hasn't seen his parents in years. "I don't really have a dream," he said when asked, affecting an uncaring air. "I just cut coal."

Parental ignorance, poverty and the money draw children to the mines, activists say. Most are boys, but Kala Rai, 13, also not related to Sharan, earned $25 a month dragging coal-laden carts after her father got sick, before school officials lured her back. "I wasn't good at it," she said. "I'm very happy to be back."

Mine-related aboveground jobs, cutting coal and unloading the hopper, are less dangerous but pay less. Chhai Lyngdoh, 14, earns about $5 a day to climb a slimy ladder and tip a 5,000-pound coal hopper repeatedly with his slight body.

Meghalaya's government, with only seven labor inspectors and no vehicle, all but ignores child labor and safety problems, keen to goose the economy, critics said. Recently it acknowledged that 222 children worked in 20 villages mining and hauling coal and doing related jobs, but it has done nothing to rescue them.

Sharan, meanwhile, looks forward to school, an opportunity others won't have.

"I want to be a doctor," he said. "Then if someone's sick, I can help them out."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-india-child-coal-20110515,0,7305596,print.story

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

In San Diego, not your typical police scandal

A cluster of misconduct allegations has the San Diego police chief fuming and officials scrambling for reform. But experts say these seem to be 'individual, unrelated acts' as opposed to a culture of corruption in the department.

by Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times

May 15, 2011

Reporting from San Diego

Police Chief William Lansdowne was on his way to work Wednesday morning when he got a call that one of his officers had just been accused of kidnapping and raping a 34-year-old woman while on duty.

The timing of such a serious allegation could not have been worse: The day before, Lansdowne had held a news conference to publicly apologize for a recent spate of misconduct allegations against his officers and to announce a crackdown against rogues in the ranks.

By Wednesday afternoon, when a visibly angry Lansdowne held his second news conference in two days, the officer in the latest case had been charged with committing felonies under color of authority and was no longer with the department.

The ex-officer, Daniel Dana, 26, a former Marine and four-year veteran of the San Diego Police Department, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he threatened to arrest the woman, a prostitute, unless she had sex with him.

The task of repairing the damage to the department's reputation in light of its recent troubles has only just begun, the chief said.

"It's going to take several years to win back the confidence of a large section of the community," said Lansdowne, who was hired in 2003 to lead the 1,800-officer department after serving as chief in the Northern California cities of San Jose and Richmond.

In some large cities with much bigger departments, 10 allegations of police misconduct might not cause as much of a stir.

But the clustering of these cases over a roughly two-month period has delivered a particularly heavy blow to the state's second-largest city, whose self-image is aligned with its official motto as America's Finest City.

"We recruit from the human race, and things are going to happen from time to time," said Bill Farrar, a San Diego police officer for most of four decades and former president of the police officers' union. "That said, this seems to be a grouping we've never seen before."

Of the 10 incidents — including allegations of drunk driving, spousal abuse, rape, stalking and excessive force — four allegedly occurred while the officers were on duty. Of the allegations involving excessive force, none involves gunfire.

One off-duty officer is accusing of punching a neighborhood teenager after finding him smoking marijuana in a car outside the officer's house. Another allegation is that an on-duty officer was unusually rough in arresting a fan at a soccer match at Qualcomm Stadium — a scuffle captured on a video phone and shown repeatedly on local television.

An officer accused of demanding sex from women after traffic stops has been fired; an officer being investigated by police in El Cajon for an alleged off-duty rape has resigned under pressure. It's unclear whether Daniel Dana quit or was fired.

Lansdowne announced that he is adding officers to the internal affairs unit, establishing a 24-hour hot line and ordering that supervisors receive "early intervention" training on how to spot troublesome officers. Also, he has ordered a review of the department's policy on the use of force.

The individual allegations and Lansdowne's back-to-back news conferences have dominated local news.

Still, the cases do not appear to have the elements that often lead to long-lasting controversy at big-city police departments. There are no accusations involving racial or ethnic bias; there is no evidence of a cover-up among police officials; the allegations do not seem to point to one particular station house or division.

"The L.A. brutality [cases], New Orleans theft and excessive force [cases], and NYPD corruption scandals are of a very different character and seriousness than the San Diego cases," said Paul Pfingst, who served two terms as San Diego County district attorney and is now in private practice, including criminal defense.

Pfingst said he sees the San Diego allegations as "individual, unrelated acts as opposed to a pattern of similar behavior engaged in and explicitly or tacitly approved by colleagues."

At City Hall, Mayor Jerry Sanders, a former police chief, told reporters that he approved of Lansdowne's handling of the allegations and that his job was not in jeopardy. Before being elected mayor, Sanders was an official with the local United Way and sat on the screening committee that recommended Lansdowne.

Under the City Charter, the police chief works for the mayor and can be fired with a simple phone call, although that decision could be overridden by a supermajority on the City Council. Lansdowne said he talked with Sanders at length before announcing his reform actions.

Among the chief's biggest supporters is Council President Tony Young, the council's only African American member, whose racially diverse district has historically been the scene of some of the most controversial police actions, often with racial overtones.

The days of routinely high tension between officers and community members are in the past, Young noted, pointing to the outpouring of grief in his district at the shooting death of a white police officer attempting to arrest a drug suspect.

"We have one of the finest police departments, if not the finest, in the country," Young said.

Councilwoman Marti Emerald, a former investigative reporter who chairs the council committee that oversees the Police Department, said she might call a hearing to discuss what "stressors" on officers may have contributed to the alleged misconduct.

"We need to have an honest talk about what's happening over there," she said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sandiego-police-20110515,0,1837441,print.story

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

From Google News

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

US Accuses Six of Aiding Pakistani Taliban

May 14, 2011

The United States has charged six people with helping to support and finance the Pakistani Taliban, a group the American government considers a terrorist organization.

The U.S. Justice Department said Saturday that three residents of the southern state of Florida, all naturalized American citizens of Pakistani descent, have been arrested and indicted by a grand jury, while three other people remain at large in Pakistan.

U.S. authorities allege that the six used an elaborate system of bank accounts and wire transfers to funnel $50,000 to Pakistan to support militants and their families and to buy weapons.

In addition, the U.S. said that one of the suspects, Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, the 76-year-old imam at the Flagler Mosque in Miami, Florida, operated a madrassa, or Islamic school in Swat, Pakistan that housed militants and taught children how to kill Americans in Afghanistan.

All six suspects have been accused of conspiring to murder, maim and kidnap people overseas and provide financial assistance to the Pakistani Taliban, a group that opposes the Pakistani government and has claimed responsibility for attacks against U.S. interests.

The Pakistani Taliban said it was behind Friday's suicide bombings that killed at least 80 people at a Pakistani military training facility, an attack the group said was revenge for the U.S. killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden two weeks ago at his Pakistani hideout.

Aside from Khan, the U.S. filed charges against two of his sons, Izhar Khan, an imam at another Florida mosque, and Irfan Khan, all of whom live in the United States.

The three accused who reside in Pakistan include the elder Khan's daughter, Amina Khan, and her son, Alam Zeb. Ali Rehman is the third Pakistani named in the indictment.

If convicted, all six face up to 15 years in prison.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/US-Accuses-Six-of-Aiding-Pakistani-Taliban-121832349.html

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

Members of Miami Mosque React to Arrests

Members of the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, reacted with dismay to the news of Hafiz Khan's arrest on Saturday morning.

"We were all really shocked," said Asad Ba-Yunus, spokesman for the Muslim Communities Association of South Florida, the parent organization of the Flagler Mosque. "This was something completely out of the blue for us."

Mr. Ba-Yunus said the mosque has suspended Mr. Khan indefinitely and has been in regular contact with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI.

If the accusations against the imam are true, "we unconditionally condemn" his actions, said Mr. Ba-Yunus. But he emphasized that "these are the alleged acts of a few people and one family" and not representative of the broader Muslim community.

He added that Mr. Khan "did not conduct any of the alleged activity in the mosque itself," and if mosque leaders had known of it, "we would have alerted law enforcement ourselves."

Mr. Khan—a U.S. citizen originally from the northwest province of Pakistan—was a "very gentle 76-year-old man, like a typical grandfather," said Mr. Ba-Yunus. "Everybody respects him and treats him nicely because of his demeanor and because of his Islamic knowledge."

He has been the mosque's imam for 14 years, said Mr. Ba-Yunus, and wasn't known for making extremist statements. Mr. Ba-Yunus has attended several of the imam's sermons and said they hewed to uncontroversial subject matter, like how to fast or pray.

"He never delved into political or geopolitical stuff," said Mr. Ba-Yunus.

Another area Muslim leader, Sofian Zakkout of the American Muslim Association of North America, said that the imam was frail and nearly blind.

"He is very, very low-profile," said Mr. Zakkout. "He is not like other imams going around South Florida giving lectures. I've never seen him. He's always in that Islamic center."

The Jamaat al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla., where Mr. Khan's son was the imam, has no affiliation to the Flagler Mosque. A message left at the Margate mosque on Saturday afternoon was not returned.

In the wider Islamic community of South Florida, many feared that the imams' arrests would trigger a backlash against Muslims.

"It's like a hurricane hit our communities," said Mr. Zakkout. Area Muslims are "very worried, they are upset, they are confused."

He said that the recent news of Osama Bin Laden's killing brought a sense of relief to the community. "We felt that it would be a change, that the black cloud has passed," said Mr. Zakkout. "Now the nightmare is coming back."

In his conversations with South Florida imams, he said, he's been urging them to be patient and to wait for more facts to emerge before deciding how to proceed.

But Mr. Zakkout said some Muslims are wary of law enforcement because of what they consider intrusive surveillance and scapegoating. "There is mistrust, unfortunately," he said.

Mr. Zakkout said he was pleased with the way authorities handled the arrests. He received a call on Saturday morning from John Gillies, special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami office, who assured him that law enforcement didn't enter the mosques to make their arrests.

"I told him we respect that," said Mr. Zakkout. "We really don't know exactly what's going on," he added, "but we will cooperate with the government."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576324071441122848.html

.