South Africa's health department has recalled millions of condoms given out under a program it funded

BBC News:

The company that produced the condoms, Zalatex, allegedly bribed a government official to certify almost four million faulty condoms as up to standard.

The government is now recalling all 20 million Choice brand condoms produced by the company.

Zalatex's attorney, James Ndebele, from Fluxmans Attorneys, said the company strongly denied the allegations.

He told the BBC News website that the allegations were "untrue... offensive and defamatory".

He said Zalatex was fully prepared to co-operate with the investigation.

About five million people in South Africa are believed to be infected with the HIV virus.

Every year, the South African government distributes hundreds of millions of condoms in a bid to control both birth rates and sexually transmitted diseases.

Department recalls more condoms

Some people with HIV/Aids in Papua New Guinea are being buried alive by their relatives

BBC News:

Margaret Marabe said families were taking the extreme action because they could no longer look after sufferers or feared catching the disease themselves.

Ms Marabe said she saw the "live burials" with her own eyes during a five-month trip to PNG's remote Southern Highlands.

PNG is in the grip of an HIV/Aids epidemic - the worst in the region.

Officials estimate that 2% of the six million population are infected, but campaigners believe the figure is much higher.

HIV diagnoses have been rising by around 30% each year since 1997, according to a UN Aids report.

Margaret Marabe, a known local activist in PNG, carried out an awareness campaign in the Tari area of the Southern Highlands earlier this year.

"I saw three people with my own eyes. When they got very sick and people could not look after them, they buried them," she told reporters.

She described how one person called out "mama, mama" as the soil was being shovelled over their head.

Villagers told her that such action was common, she said.

HIV/Aids is mostly spread in the country through heterosexual intercourse, and polygamy, rape and sexual violence are widespread.

Those caught up in the epidemic are often thought to be the victims of witchcraft.

Women accused of being witches have been tortured and murdered by mobs holding them responsible for the epidemic, according to officials and researchers.

Church leaders have described Aids patients being thrown off bridges or left to starve in back gardens in the past, the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney reports.

Ms Marabe, who works for the Igat Hope organisation in the capital, Port Moresby, said people in remote parts of the country remained ignorant about HIV/Aids and urged the government to take action.

"There are no voluntary counselling training centres in Tari. There are also no training programmes on HIV," she was quoted by PNG's Post-Courier newspaper as saying.

PNG's Secretary for Health Dr Nicholas Mann admitted to the BBC in an interview last year that the multitude of cultures and languages in the country made it difficult to get the HIV/Aids message across.

Papua New Guinea police to investigate claims AIDS patients buried alive

Families in Turkey accused of forcing young women to take their own lives

Helena Smith:

Nuran Uca never made it to 61 Aydin Arslan Street. If she had gone to the colourful two-storey building, climbed its narrow stairwell, walked down a corridor and sat in the plump brown armchair that so many other women had used, she might be alive today. There, with counsellors from the Kam-er support group, she could have talked about the "crime" of falling in love with a man she could never marry.

Instead, on June 14 the Kurdish woman succumbed to the phenomenon that is claiming lives in this Kurdish area of south-east Anatolia: she hanged herself in the bathroom of her home.

"She was just 25 but it was especially tragic because both were teachers, educated people," said Remziye Tural at Kam-er, the women's organisation that has become a lifeline in Turkey's poor south-east for those who face death because of a perception of dishonour. "She was modern and wore tight clothes - which is why his family rejected her. She was banned by her parents from seeing or speaking to him, and then they stopped her leaving the house. In the end the pressure was too much."

Despite the searing heat, Ms Tural is dressed for work in a pink T-shirt, combat trousers and boots.

On the streets of Batman, a city with a population of 250,000, an alarming number are harbouring suicidal thoughts, and acting on them.

Across Turkey, men are twice as likely as women to take their own lives, but, defying that trend, more than 300 women in Batman have attempted suicide since 2001. Seven women died in almost identical copy-cat deaths in one month alone.

The rising number of suicides has brought schoolgirls marching in protest to Batman's cemetery crying "stop the violence", a courageous act given the conservative mores in Batman.

"The numbers are increasing," said Ms Tural. "By June this year, 19 had tried to take their lives and most were successful. That's just in Batman. All over, in villages and towns, young girls are committing suicide."

There were those who had jumped into the River Tigris, others who had fallen off rooftops or cut their wrists, and some, like Nuran Uca, who had opted to end their lives abruptly as they were doing chores around the house.

Invariably, survivors said it was their kader, or destiny, to meet such an end.

But women's groups and human rights advocates believe the suicides are tantamount to murder. Stories have emerged of girls as young as 12 being locked in rooms for days with rope, poison or a pistol.

"There's a lot of evidence to suggest that these are, in fact, 'honour killings' passed off as suicides - that these girls are being forced to take their own lives," said Aytekin Sir, a psychiatrist who has studied the practice. There is no evidence that Nuran Uca's family forced their daughter to kill herself.

Last year, Yakin Erturk, a special UN envoy, arrived at the same conclusion, saying "honour suicides" had clearly begun to replace "honour killings", with the deaths increasingly being disguised as accidents.

It really sucks to be a woman in Turkey.

California High School Exit Exam: The number of LAUSD English-learners who passed the English portion of the exam on their first try dropped to 27%

Naush Boghossian:

Fewer English-language learners in Los Angeles schools are passing the California High School Exit Exam on the first try, even though the overall student passing rate remains relatively steady, according to results released Thursday.

The number of L.A. Unified School District English-learners who passed the English portion of the exam on their first try dropped to just 27 percent - down from 49 percent two years ago and 30 percent last year.

Just 32 percent passed the math portion of the test, down from 47percent in 2005 and 34 percent last year.

The drops reflect a statewide decline among English-learners, with just 36 percent of California's 10th-grade English-learners passing the English portion of the test - down from 42 percent in 2005.

About 47 percent statewide passed the math portion, down from 49 percent two years ago.

While a higher percentage of 10th-graders passed the CAHSEE, LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer III said he's disappointed at the rate of progress.

About 290,000 - or 41 percent - of the LAUSD's 708,000 students are categorized as English-learners.

Over the past two years, the district has set aside one hour of every six-hour classroom day to focus exclusively on building students' English skills.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said 10th-grade English-learners are the only group to experience such a drop, showing an urgent need to better prepare students.

O'Connell said he wants more analysis of the data, but suspects that the drop was because of more reclassification of students out of the English-learner program.

"This was one group that went in the wrong direction and it's something we need to address," he said. "We must be diligent and steadfast in our commitment to close the achievement gap not only for our students' future success, but also for California's future success."

The passing rate among all 10th-graders in the LAUSD remained flat compared with the past two years, with 66 percent passing the English portion and 61 percent passing math.

O'Connell said while he's encouraged by slight increases in the passing rate, the exam tests minimum competence.

"Their success at passing the test confirms they have acquired the fundamental skills and knowledge that every California high school graduate must have in order to compete in today's work force," O'Connell said.

"However, I continue to be troubled by the achievement gap, as indicated by our first-time test-takers, that continue to exist between students who are African-American or Hispanic/Latino and their peers who are white or Asian."

Thousands yet to pass high school exit exam

Test achievement gap persists in S.F.

Credit scores are good for auto insurance companies, but problematic for African-American and Hispanic consumers

Asa Aarons:

Those are the mixed findings from a Federal Trade Commission study on credit-based insurance scores and automobile insurance.

The study found credit scores effectively predict the number of claims consumers file and the total cost of those claims. However, it also found that black and Hispanic consumers tend to have lower scores than non-Hispanic whites and Asians. As a result, consumers in those demographic groups, on average, end up paying more for car insurance.

Credit-based insurance scores are tallied on information in a consumer's credit report. Insurance companies use them to predict the claims that consumers are likely to file, and set rates. Consumers with higher scores pay lower rates than consumers who have low credit scores.

Credit scores help insurance companies "better match the risk of loss that consumers pose" so higher-risk consumers pay higher premiums and lower-risk consumers pay lower premiums, the FTC explained. "Scores permit insurers to evaluate risk with greater accuracy, which may make them more willing to offer insurance to higher-risk consumers for whom they otherwise would not be able to determine an appropriate premium."

But credit scores are distributed differently among racial and ethnic groups. "These differences are likely to have an effect on the premiums that these groups pay, on average," the report noted.

The FTC could not suggest any alternative that would help insurance firms predict risk effectively but decrease price differences among racial and ethnic groups.

The bottom line: don't expect auto insurance carriers to stop using credit scores any time soon.

The best ways to boost your score: pay your bills consistently and on time, keep balances on your credit cards as low as possible and avoid opening a lot of new accounts in a short time, especially if you don't really need them.

FTC Study Confirms That Credit-Based Insurance Scores Mean African Americans and Hispanics Pay More for Auto Coverage

One in four babies born in Britain has a foreign mother or father

Philip Johnston:

Population data for the year to July 2006 showed the proportion of babies born to a foreign parent has risen to 25 per cent compared to under 20 per cent just six years ago.

The startling statistic reflected the impact of recent record levels of immigration on the population.

A spokesman for the Office for National Statistics said: "That reflects the cumulative effect of immigration over the last 40 years."

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said over the next 20 years one in three new households will be a result of immigration.

"It is clear from these figures that immigration is continuing unchecked and continues to break all previous records - despite the fact this is opposed by the vast majority of the public," he added.

Figures from the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) earlier this year showed about six million people living in Britain - one in 10 - was born overseas.

This was far higher than the official figures from the 2001 census, which predated the recent surge in immigration.

25% of UK babies have a foreign parent

Gwinnett officials placed a 17-year-old Mexican boy in jail after he refused treatment for tuberculosis

Associated Press:

When doctors told Francisco Santos he had tuberculosis, Santos said he was walking out of the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville and heading back to his home country of Mexico, officials said.

"I think he was scared," said David Will, attorney for the Gwinnett County Board of Health.

Will said Santos was detained because he is a public health threat.

"He has active, contagious TB," Will said Saturday. "He is at risk of communicating that with anybody he comes in contact with."

Gwinnett health officials say were aware of the recent incident involving Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker, who also has tuberculosis. After Speaker left for his wedding in Greece, a national news conference set off an international health scare.

Santos is the only inmate in a special medical isolation cell designed for inmates with contagious conditions. The cell, which measures about 15 feet by 20 feet, has a special ventilation system that keeps the air from reaching other inmates.

The teenager has a toilet, sink, bed and a mirror made of polished metal. Two deputies guard him and the other medical inmates.

Will said Santos will remain in jail until either he accepts treatment. Santos could be placed in a hospital with security at a Sept. 5 commitment hearing.

Gwinnett health officials are looking for family members and others who have been in contact with Santos, who lists his address as Norcross. He lives with at least one parent and several younger siblings. His jail records also indicate he is unemployed.

Santos said he was born in Mexico. The status of his citizenship was not known.

Gwinnett health officials expect to release more information about the case as early as Monday.

"Everybody's hoping he will undergo the treatment," Will said.

Teen With TB Agrees to Take Medicine

St. Paul: Somalis don't like to report crime - even rape

Anthony Lonetree:

The video shows what most witnesses in a St. Paul apartment building apparently didn't tell.

A man beat a woman, removed his pants and sexually assaulted her in a hall, and five to 10 people saw at least part of the attack but did nothing to intervene or help, according to investigators and court documents.

It was only after police were summoned on a report of two drunk people lying in the hall that they learned there had been a rape. Rage Ibrahim, 25, of St. Paul, was charged Thursday with first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct. He is in Ramsey County jail.

The criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court said the surveillance video showed the woman lying in the hall as early as 1:20 a.m. Tuesday. Police weren't dispatched until almost 90 minutes later.

Residents on the second floor of Afton View Apartments weren't talking much Thursday afternoon. One man wouldn't come to his door. A young woman, with children surrounding her, said: "I don't know anything."

Though the building's resident manager wouldn't provide demographic breakdowns, the tenant list in the entryway is dominated by Somali surnames -- a segment of St. Paul's population that police say is often reluctant to report crimes.

That reluctance is of such concern to police officials that Chief John Harrington has been meeting monthly with Somali elders to encourage community cooperation in criminal matters, police spokesman Tom Walsh said Thursday.

Through Wednesday night, the building in the 300 block of Winthrop Street had generated 63 police incident reports this year, with 19 involving various types of disturbances and 11 being 911 hangup calls.

Tuesday's rape was the first such offense at the building this year, reports show.

According to the complaint, officers found Ibrahim and the woman lying in the hall. Her clothes had been pushed above her waist. He wasn't wearing pants or underwear.

The woman told officers that she didn't know Ibrahim and that he had drugged her and raped her. She was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

Officers overheard the woman say she "just wanted to die," the complaint said.

An Immigration Explosion

CAIR Goes Back to School

Somalis in the Hallway

A troop of monkeys is giving Kenyan villagers long days and sleepless nights, destroying crops and causing a food crisis

Juliet Njeri:

Earlier this month, local MP Paul Muite urged the Kenya Wildlife Service to help contain their aggressive behaviour.

But Mr Muite caused laughter when he told parliament that the monkeys had taken to harassing and mocking women in a village.

But this is exactly what the women in the village of Nachu, just south-west of Kikuyu, are complaining about.

They estimate there are close to 300 monkeys invading the farms at dawn. They eat the village's maize, potatoes, beans and other crops.

And because women are primarily responsible for the farms, they have borne the brunt of the problem, as they try to guard their crops.

They say the monkeys are more afraid of young men than women and children, and the bolder ones throw stones and chase the women from their farms.

Nachu's women have tried wearing their husbands' clothes in an attempt to trick the monkeys into thinking they are men - but this has failed, they say.

"When we come to chase the monkeys away, we are dressed in trousers and hats, so that we look like men," resident Lucy Njeri told the BBC News website

"But the monkeys can tell the difference and they don't run away from us and point at our breasts. They just ignore us and continue to steal the crops."

In addition to stealing their crops, the monkeys also make sexually explicit gestures at the women, they claim.

"The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts. We are afraid that they will sexually harass us," said Mrs Njeri.

Kenyan village raided by vervet monkies

Monkey misery

Have racial preferences reduced the number of black lawyers?

Gail Heriot:

Specifically, Mr. Sander found that when black and white students with similar academic credentials compete against each other at the same school, they earn about the same grades. Similarly, when black and white students with similar grades from the same tier law school take the bar examination, they pass at about the same rate.

Yet, paradoxically, black students as a whole have dramatically lower bar passage rates than white students with similar credentials. Something is wrong.

The Sander study argued that the most plausible explanation is that, as a result of affirmative action, black and white students with similar credentials are not attending the same schools. The white students are more likely to be attending a school that takes things a little more slowly and spends more time on matters that are covered on the bar exam. They are learning, while their minority peers are struggling at more elite schools.

Mr. Sander calculated that if law schools were to use color-blind admissions policies, fewer black law students would be admitted to law schools (3,182 students instead of 3,706), but since those who were admitted would be attending schools where they have a substantial likelihood of doing well, fewer would fail or drop out (403 vs. 670). In the end, more would pass the bar on their first try (1,859 vs. 1,567) and more would eventually pass the bar (2,150 vs. 1,981) than under the current system of race preferences. Obviously, these figures are just approximations, but they are troubling nonetheless.

Mr. Sander has his critics--some thoughtful, some just strident--but so far none has offered a plausible alternative explanation for the data. Of course, Mr. Sander doesn't need to be proven 100% correct for his research to be devastating news for affirmative-action supporters.

Suppose the consequences of race-based admissions turn out to be a wash--neither increasing nor decreasing the number of minority attorneys. In that case, few people would think it worth the costs, not least among them the human costs that result from the failure of the supposed beneficiaries to graduate and pass the bar.

Under current practices, only 45% of blacks who enter law school pass the bar on their first attempt as opposed to over 78% of whites. Even after multiple tries, only 57% of blacks succeed. The rest are often saddled with student debt, routinely running as high as $160,000, not counting undergraduate debt. How great an increase in the number of black attorneys is needed to justify these costs?

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action Hurts Minorities

Law School Affirmative Action

Nelson Mandela is to urge black leaders in Britain to do more to beat the gang culture gripping inner cities

Metro:

The former South African president will tell an audience of black businessmen, sports stars, celebrities and politicians they have a duty to act as role models for the young.

He will urge the group, which will also include financiers and journalists, to help underachievers in their own communities.

A signed message will be handed to every guest, reading: “It is important for you as leaders to harness those responsibilities and ensure that you also empower those around you who scale the mountains with you.”

Mr Mandela's words come amid growing fears over the alienation of young people in inner cities and concern they may drift into violent gangs because they see no alternative future.

Britain's black communities have been caught up in a debate over how much help they should expect from government and the police and how much they should do themselves.

His message will underline recent government-backed research that found young black teenagers need a new generation of role models.

He is in Britain for the unveiling tomorrow of a 9ft bronze statue in his honour in Parliament Square opposite the House of Commons.

Let's hope the black leaders listen to him.

Norway: A Somali immigrant who wildly stabbed fellow passengers on board an Oslo tram 3 years ago is now seeking compensation from the state

Nina Berglund:

He claims he never should have been released from psychiatric care just days before he went amok, and his victim's own mother agrees.

The man, an immigrant from Somalia in his 40s, killed one of the passengers and wounded four others in the bloody attack on board the #17 tram as it rolled by Bislett Stadium on an August afternoon in 2004.

He had been sitting quietly on the tram when he suddenly pulled out a large knife, which he'd just bought in downtown Oslo, and started slashing at everyone around him. The shocked driver of the tram brought it to a halt and frantically called for assistance.

By the time it arrived, the man had fled, hijacking the car of a passing motorist. One of his victims, a 23-year-old man who didn't hear the uproar around him because he was deaf, was stabbed to death.

The assailant was eventually captured later that day and has been committed to psychiatric care ever since. Newspaper VG reported Friday that he now claims the state is liable for turning him into a killer because he didn't receive the care he needed at the time.

His attorney wouldn't elaborate on the case, nor would the organization that promotes patients' rights in Norway.

State health authorities earlier criticized a doctor at Ullevål University Hospital for releasing the man from acute care without having a plan to follow up his treatment. An intern on duty had actually handled the release, but the doctor was viewed as being responsible.

The victim's mother, Karin Mjåland, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) on Friday that she understands why her son's killer is seeking compensation.

"I understand that he needs a confirmation (that the stabbings weren't entirely his fault) to get on with his life," she told NRK. "Living with the knowledge that you’ve killed someone and injured four others, must be terrible."

She and her family have also blamed Ullevål Hospital for the death of her son. "We feel they're responsible for the loss of our son," she said.

The state's real mistake was allowing him into the country in the first place.

Three young Somali men convicted of committing street robberies in Helsinki will be allowed to remain in Finland for now

Helsingin Sanomat:

The Supreme Administrative Court ordered them not to be deported, until it has made a decision on their applications for the right to appeal their deportation order. A decision on the matter could take months.

A group of young men of Somali background were convicted of violently robbing people on the streets of Helsinki in 2005. Several of the group were given prison sentences at the end of that year.

The Directorate of Immigration decided to order the deportation of some of the members of the group. They appealed the decision to the Helsinki Administrative Court, which upheld the deportation orders. Two of the men are from Somaliland and one from Puntland, which the court found to be peaceful.

The men appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court to stop the implementation of the deportation order. The court decided on Monday that the deportation should not be take place while it deliberates a ruling.

Send the criminals back to Somalia.

Drug crimes of the brothers of the French justice minister from Morocco

Kerstin Gehmlich:

The legal troubles of two brothers of France's justice minister are embarrassing the former poor immigrant's child, whose ascent into government has fascinated the nation, but they are unlikely to tarnish her political star.

Rachida Dati's brother Omar is to face trial on drugs charges in November, a prosecutor said on Wednesday, a day after an appeals court sentenced another of her 11 siblings, Jamal, to a year in prison for consuming and selling heroin.

Analysts say this will not spoil the minister's success.

"It's not her. It's about people that might be close to her ... it should have no bearing on her ability to do her job," said Hall Gardner of the American University of Paris.

Dati, a trained judge, was hardly known to most French when President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed her after his May election, but she has since been labelled a showcase member of his ethnically diverse government.

Dati remains popular, with 53 percent of French wanting a more important role for her, a recent TNS Sofres poll showed. Analysts say she benefits from the immense popularity of her sponsor, Sarkozy.

"Her image is very much associated to that of Sarkozy. It's Sarkozy who has offered her a portfolio and visibility," said Francois Miquet-Marty from pollster LH2, adding Dati had even joined the president's family on a holiday in the United States.

Newspapers have savoured every detail of how the daughter of a Moroccan bricklayer and an illiterate Algerian housewife financed her studies by selling face creams door-to-door and by working as a night nurse.

Three books on the youthful 41-year old, who almost always carries a bright smile, are coming out in the next few weeks amid increasing French interest in politicians' private lives.

Justice minister's new law sees brother jailed

Middle-class Britons are beginning to move out of towns in southern England that are home to large numbers of immigrants

This is London:

This phenomenon - called 'churn' by Whitehall officials and 'middleclass flight' by other commentators - saw 240,000 people move out of London last year.

Independent experts said the high emigration figures showed that many Britons are fed up with life here and believe they will do better elsewhere.

Liam Clifford, of consultancy firm globalvisas.com, said his company had 50,000 inquiries from would-be emigrants last month alone.

"They do not believe that the services and the system can cope with the number of people coming into the UK at the moment," he said.

"Even fairly rural areas and villages seem to be coming under the threat of having an increased population and lack of services."

Dean Morgan, of the workpermit.com website, added: "Normally in July and August it is quite quiet but this year we have been inundated.

"People are worried about their children and they worry about their jobs and their future here and possibly the economy as well.

"Perception of crime is another of the main reasons for people wanting to leave."

A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank earlier this year said there are now 1.3 million British emigrants living in Australia.

Another 761,000 live in Spain, and 678,000 in the United States.

The ONS yesterday estimated that last year's emigration figures were the highest since 1991, when modern counting methods were adopted.

Immigration of foreigners causes emigration of the native population.

Big British Out Migration And White Flight From Cities

Why is acting white so bad?

Andrew Anthony:

One proof of this is the pejorative slang term “coconut”, meaning someone who is black on the outside but white on the inside — or put another way, someone who looks black but acts “white”. For in reality, almost all of us good liberal anti-racists carry around a set idea of what being “black” entails: physically strong, non-academic, in some way anti-authority and of course promiscuously heterosexual. And anyone, particularly a male, who does not adhere to these preconceived notions is by definition somehow less black.

I got thinking about this imprisoning idea of blackness when I visited a largely black school in South London and met a talented young poet. His teacher told me that the pupil was in constant risk of expulsion as he tried to conform to a group image of toughness and resistance to education.

It struck me that teachers like my friend had been trained in anti-racism and diversity awareness, that society at large had become progressively less racist in the past three or four decades, employment opportunities had considerably increased, and yet statistics showed that the academic achievement of Afro-Caribbean boys had either not improved or declined during that same period.

For the anti-racist ideologues the answer was simple: racism. It had not gone away, it had just become more subtle. And in a way they were right, I think, although not in the way they thought. First of all, a large part of the racism that I witnessed came from within black communities themselves, where low expectations and cultural stereotypes were often aggressively enforced. Then there was the kind of “well-meaning” racism, no less restricting, in which I had been complicit.

I recalled, by way of example, an interview I once did with an obscure political aspirant by the name of Derek Laud (later to achieve a greater profile as a contestant on Big Brother). When I met Laud in 1997 he was the prospective Tory candidate for Bernie Grant’s Labour stronghold of Tottenham.

Laud dressed like an Edwardian gentleman, spoke in a camply posh voice, was a member of the right-wing Monday Club, and an enthusiastic fox-hunter. In other words, he wasn’t very “black”. Naturally, as a good liberal, all I did was talk about his race.

After teasing out all the apparent contradictions of Laud’s existence as a black man, I put it to him that it must have taken a great deal of willpower to ignore his own racial identity in the homogeneous environment of the Reform Club, where we met.

“This is your problem,” replied Laud. “You clearly think of me as being black.”

At the time, I thought this was a tragicomic case of self-denial. And I quickly pointed out that he was indeed black. To which he said: “I never wake up in the morning and look at my face and think: ‘Gosh, I’m black.’ ” Of course, I never woke up and thought I was white, but that was different: I was white. I wasn’t fighting my own racial oppression. Had he never heard of black consciousness? It was agreed by every approved authority on the matter that the way to liberation from racial prejudice was to “get in touch” with your racial identity.

But what does that mean? Or rather, what has that turned out to mean?

There is little danger of urban black youths being unaware of their identity as young black men. Its ubiquitous imagery is sold back to them with all the crude repetition of a 50 Cent album. And this self-dramatising idea of blackness has helped to create a mental ghetto that is every bit as debilitating and limiting as the real ghettos taking shape in our cities.

One way of correcting this situation, which almost everyone in theory agrees upon, is to challenge racial stereotypes. In which case there can be few greater challenges to the Afro-Caribbean stereotype than Laud: gay, camp, sardonic and Tory.

I was wrong about Laud. I don’t mean to say that he should be held up as some kind of role model; only that if the black story is to evolve beyond a constraining identity of victimhood and oppression, it first needs to embrace people like Laud. And then, the real test, it needs to be big enough to let them go.

Instead, the British African pressure group Ligali dismissed the “gay pseudo intellectual”, after his Big Brother appearance, as a “prime example of cultural disinheritance”. Alas, this is an all too typical bitter reaction to anyone who doesn’t put their blackness first. The truth is, however, that until people with black skin can reject and select their own culture they will never truly be free.

National Review: Race Is “A Perceptual Category, Not A Biological One”

Infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever before, the World Health Organization annual report says

BBC News:

With about 2.1 billion airline passengers flying each year, there is a high risk of another major epidemic such as Aids, Sars or Ebola fever.

The WHO urges increased efforts to combat disease outbreaks, and sharing of virus data to help develop vaccines.

Without this, it says, there could be devastating impacts on the global economy and international security.

In the report, A Safer Future, the WHO says new diseases are emerging at the "historically unprecedented" rate of one per year.

Since the 1970s, 39 new diseases have developed, and in the last five years alone, the WHO has identified more than 1,100 epidemics including cholera, polio and bird flu.

"It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will not be another disease like Aids, another Ebola, or another Sars, sooner or later," the report says.

Diseases spreading with faster world travel

Cheap air travel 'is spreading deadly diseases'

WHO says more killer diseases like AIDS on their way

Infectious diseases spreading faster than ever: U.N.

Paralyzed five-year-old Gazan girl faces deportation battle in Israel

BBC News:

Five-year-old Maria Amin from Gaza is putting on a brave face in the hydrotherapy pool.

Two therapists at the Alyn Children's Hospital in Jerusalem are helping her.

Maria cannot kick her legs or even feel the water she's floating in. She is permanently attached to a ventilator.

Maria was paralysed from the neck down by an Israeli rocket attack in May 2006.

The missile was aimed at a leader of the armed Islamic Jihad movement, who was killed outright.

So were Maria's mother, her grandmother and seven-year-old brother, who were driving past at the time. Maria was blown through the car window, suffering severe injuries.

Israeli law denies compensation to victims of what it calls its "acts of war", but Maria's story was taken up by local as well as foreign press.

Under pressure, Israel's Defence Ministry has been paying for her rehabilitation treatment at the specialist hospital in Jerusalem.

But now it wants to deport Maria to a Palestinian clinic in the West Bank.

Staff at the hospital in Jerusalem are helping Maria to become as independent as she can be. They are teaching her to use her mouth to work a computer.

The head of the hospital, Shirley Meyer, doesn't want to let Maria go.

"Without going into politics - that's not my role and not my business - my first priority is to make sure my patients receive the care they need," she says.

"I don't care where that is, but as far as we know, this is the only hospital in the Middle East that can look after Maria properly.

"Her case is extremely complicated. So we will not agree to discharge her until we are satisfied she will be adequately cared for elsewhere."

Israel's Supreme Court will hear Maria's case at the end of September.

If the country's Defence Ministry gets its way, Maria will be sent to the Abu Raya Rehabilitation Centre in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

In a statement, the ministry said Maria would fare better in her "natural environment".

Her father Hamdi is fighting to keep her in Jerusalem.

"It's a matter of life and death for Maria. She can only survive 50 seconds without the ventilator and there are often complications. Here they are experts. In Ramallah they are not," he says.

"Israel's air strike killed my son and my wife. All I ask is that they look after my daughter."

Maria's lawyer, Adi Lustigman, has several objections to the Defence Ministry's plan: Maria is Gazan and has no family in Ramallah; Abu Raya has not got the experience or equipment to deal with complications such as hers; far less severe cases are sent to the Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem.

Frequent hold-ups at checkpoints between Ramallah and Jerusalem could cost Maria her life. She would not be the first Palestinian to die that way.

Israel's Defence Ministry has offered to send staff from Abu Raya to Jerusalem for training. It says it will pay for some of Maria's medical equipment and for her father's rent in Ramallah for a year.

"But then what?" asks her lawyer. Maria's paralysis, her frequent infections and fevers, her need for new medical equipment as she gets bigger, are all ongoing.

Everyone involved in Maria's case says they have her best interests at heart but, like so much else in this conflict, the fate of this Gazan child has become highly politicised.

Maria will turn six next week. She says she just wants to lead as normal a life as possible.

"I want them to give me a home for me and my father and my little brother where I can bathe by myself, get dressed by myself and everything," she says.

"I want them to make a kitchen so I can cook for my father and my brother whatever they want.

"I would love to go to school. But first I would have to shower, get dressed and have a school bag."

Maria's father is constantly by her side. He feeds her, cleans her ventilator and brushes her hair.

He even paints her nails, although he knows she will never use her hands again.

Palestinians: 11-year-old boy killed in Israeli West Bank raid

South Africa's military is needed to fight crime on Cape Town's Table Mountain, the city authorities say

BBC News:

The city's tourism head Simon Grindrod said there had been 15 muggings on the mountain, one of South Africa's most famous landmarks, in the past 14 days.

"Table Mountain is under attack. If the mountain is under attack, we are all under attack," he told the BBC.

Last month, the tourism minister warned that high crime could deter visitors coming to the 2010 football World Cup.

The mountain which looms above Cape Town is one of the most iconic symbols of South Africa.

It draws thousands of tourists who come to walk and climb along its flanks, and many more who catch the cable car to the top.

It has 52 rangers patrolling it daily, backed by 200 volunteers, but there is increasing concern that the level of crime will deter tourism.

He said criminals were already using guerilla tactics by hiding in the forbidding terrain and the military were trained and equipped to deal with it.

"The military use this vast national park for training so they could step up patrols and join in with game rangers and police," said Mr Grindrod, who is in charge of tourism for Cape Town's mayor.

He said police resources are being overwhelmed by the rise in crime.

South Africa and crime

Mauritius lures SA's rich

Dog-fighting and the African-American community

Dave Gibson:

While most of are sickened by the details of NFL star Michael Vick's brutal and cowardly treatment of his dogs, incredibly there is a large segment of this nation's black population (including the NAACP) which cannot understand the outrage.

Amid all of the coverage devoted to the Michael Vick case by the mainstream media, the one thing that is often right on the tip of the reporter's tongue, but which we will never hear is the fact that dog fighting is a common and accepted activity in every black inner city neighborhood across the United States. The pit bull has become the dog of choice by young black thugs, who see no wrong in placing their dog in mortal danger.

What was traditionally an activity participated in by poor whites in the rural South, dog fighting has now become as popular as football or basketball amongst a great many black Americans. To this element, the cruel act of pitting dogs against one another which often ends with one or both dogs being maimed or killed, is seen no differently than a boxing match.

One cannot be certain as to which is more appalling, the disgusting accounts of Vick enjoying watching his dogs rip off one another's face, then torturing them to death by drowning or electrocution when they lose or the nonchalant responses to his activities given by his fellow black millionaire athletes.

NBA thug Stephon Marbury who plays for the New York Knicks, recently defended Vick by saying: "They don't say anything about people shooting deer." He went on to declare: "Dog fighting is a sport!"

Former NFL celebrity Deion Sanders even wrote an article for NewsPress.com defending Vick's criminal behavior. Sanders justified the brutality by saying: "What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you." He went on to offer the following insights: "I believe Vick had a passion for dog fighting. I know many athletes who share his passion. The allure is the intensity and the challenge of a dog fighting to the death. It's like ultimate fighting, but the dog doesn't tap out when he knows he can't win."

Then this final gem from Sanders: "It reminds me of when I wore a lot of jewelry back in the day because I always wanted to have the biggest chain or the biggest, baddest car. It gives you status."

While we will hear the usual excuse from liberals as to why many poor blacks engage in dog fighting, that excuse does not hold water for Vick who of course is black, but who also is a millionaire. For that, the NAACP steps in.

President of the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP, R.L. White recently told CNN: "The way he (Vick) is being persecuted, he wouldn't have been persecuted that much had he killed somebody." White went on to condemn the NFL for suspending him and demanded that Vick eventually be reinstated and allowed to play.

While functional illiterates such as Michael Vick are idolized by poor black teenage boys, who also see a prison sentence as badge of honor, Vick's actions only be further encouragement to torture 'man's best friend.'

Foxx defends Vick over dog fighting charges

Poll: Americans want a strong federal policy that secures America's southwestern border and makes illegal immigration more difficult

Joe Murray:

According to the Aug. 18 poll, Americans, by a margin 56-31 percent, want the federal government to continue building a fence along the Mexican border. Last summer, Congress passed, and the president signed, a bill that required the federal government to construct an 854-mile-long security fence. To date, only 13.4 miles of that fence has been completed.

Americans also have disdain for sanctuary cities, which offer protection to immigrants in the U.S. illegally. By a margin of 58-29 percent, Americans favor cutting off federal funds to sanctuary cities.

The poll also discovered that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of a national identification card program "for all foreign workers and students in the United States." Seventy-one percent of Americans voiced support for the program, while only 16 percent responded that they oppose.

Support for such an identification card is not surprising, as an Aug. 12 Rasmussen poll found that 79 percent of American adults "favor a proposal requiring employers to fire workers who falsely identity documents," while only 9 percent oppose. Seventy-four percent believe that landlords should be allowed to require prospective tenants to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally. Seventeen percent feel no such documentation is necessary.

In response to the poll, Bob Dane, communications director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), noted, "The polls are now offering more specific questions with more reasonable solutions."

Dane noted that a few years back, the poll questions were "politically charged" and usually presented the immigration issues in the extreme, i.e., mass deportation or amnesty.

"Immigration used to be an issue that was in someone else's backyard, and now it has become one that is in my backyard, and people are responding to this crisis," Dane added.

Earlier this summer the Bush administration angered a number of conservatives when they actively supported the Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, a bill that granted instant legal status to the 12-15 million illegal aliens already in the United States. Rasmussen found that only 22 percent of Americans supported the bill. It died in the Senate.

Then in July, a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled that the town of Hazleton had violated the Constitution when the town passed measures that punished employers and landlords for employing/renting to illegal aliens.

The Aug. 18 poll showed that 75 percent of Republican voters want the federal government to build the fence along the Mexican border, while 73 percent favor cutting federal funds to sanctuary cities and 81 percent favor an identification card for foreigners. Such numbers have not been lost on the GOP presidential hopefuls and the immigration issue has dominated the headlines.

Earlier this week, GOP frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani traded barbs over immigration. Romney first attacked Giuliani by stating the former New York City mayor presided over one of America's largest sanctuary cities. As mayor, Giuliani continued the policy of his predecessor, Democratic Mayor Ed Koch, which prohibited city officials from sharing the immigration status of an illegal immigrant unless there was evidence of a crime.

Giuliani fired back by arguing that when Romney was governor of Massachusetts he permitted two cities, Cambridge and Somerville, to offer the same protection to illegal immigrants that New York City did.

While GOP frontrunners scatter to adjust their immigration policy to reflect the polling data, one candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain, stuck to his guns in regards to the Senate's amnesty bill, and such a decision caused the senator to plummet in the polls to single digits or the low teens.

But nowhere has the issue of immigration been more influential than in the second tier of Republican presidential candidates. Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo made a name for himself as a staunch defender of America's border and has taken the message on the road to the White House.

Tancredo's tough immigration message has caused the Congressman to explode from just 1 percent of the Iowa vote to 14 percent of the vote at the Aug. 11 Iowa Straw Poll. Tancredo now is polling between 5-7 percent and is seeing campaign growth.

Other candidates, such as California Congressman Duncan Hunter, have also been bringing the immigration message to the American people. Last week, Hunter told a Las Vegas, Nev., crowd that he does not understand why it is taking so long to build the border security fence the president signed into law.

"It is just a fence. ... You line it out and build it all concurrently," Hunter said. He also acknowledged that the people he meets on the campaign trail are frustrated by the government's inaction over illegal immigration.

The big issue that unifies America? The media won't believe it, but it's ....

Cut federal funding for sanctuary cities/states

Kelsey Grammer is to confront the man who raped and murdered his sister in an attempt to prevent the killer's release from prison

Daily Mail:

The star of TV's Frasier will come face to face with Freddie Glenn at a parole hearing in January.

Grammer will tell the parole board of the anguish he has suffered since his sister Karen was killed in 1975.

The 18-year-old student was abducted, raped and her throat was slashed.

Grammer, 20 at the time, had to identify the body.

The killing plunged Grammer, who plays quick-witted psychiatrist Dr Frasier Crane in the U.S. comedy series, into a spiral of drink and drug abuse.

The actor has only recently come to terms with the tragedy, which he has admitted changed his life.

Glenn has served 31 years of a life sentence in a Colorado jail but Grammer is determined he remain behind bars.

"Recently, I got news that the man who did this to Karen is now eligible for parole," he said.

"There is a hearing sometime later this year that I will attend. I am angry about him. "I never had the opportunity to speak for my sister before. I will now."

Grammer, 52, has rarely spoken about his sister other than to admit the devastating impact her death had on his life.

He was an aspiring actor living in New York when he had to identify her body.

Karen, a college student, had been abducted after leaving a fish restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she had gone to see her boyfriend.

Glenn, Michael Corbett and Larry Dann raped her and then Glenn slashed her throat with an army bayonet and tossed her into the street. She crawled away looking for help but bled to death.

The prosecutor in the case and lead detective appealed against Glenn's parole last year when he first became eligible for release.

Blood Trail

A sweep by federal immigration agents and local authorities has netted 60 Mexican immigrants with ties to violent street gangs

Greg Gross:

The two-week-long sweep is part of Operation Community Shield, an ongoing nationwide effort by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to dismantle transnational gangs.

“In general, it seems that gangs in San Diego are composed of about 20 percent foreign nationals, and the rest U.S. citizens,” said Serge Duarte, deputy ICE special agent-in-charge in San Diego.

“We think it's important to the gangs to maintain those (international) links to have access to narcotics, to weapons trafficking.”

All of the 60 gang members are expected to leave the country, either voluntarily or through deportation, which carries added penalties if they're caught in the United States again.

Of those 60, 11 of them first will be prosecuted on state and federal charges, including weapons charges.

“There's one who's being prosecuted for receiving stolen property, three counts of spousal battery and violating a court order,” Duarte said. Furthermore, most of the 11 who are being prosecuted were in the United States after having already been formally expelled from the country, he said.

In addition to the 60 gang members, law enforcement officers picked up another 68 Mexican nationals believed to be illegally in U.S. territory.

“They weren't gang members or associates, to our knowledge. They were just in the wrong place,” Duarte said.

Federal authorities will seek formal deportation hearings for all 60 gang members picked up during the sweep, Duarte said. A deportation, which requires a ruling from an immigration judge, carries more weight legally than a voluntary repatriation, in which illegal immigrants are allowed to leave the country by their own choice.

Those with a prior criminal history caught on U.S. soil again after having been deported could face up to 10 years in federal prison.

“Our intent is to have a formal deport process for every one of them,” he said, adding that ICE also is looking at using federal money-laundering statutes against the gangs.

“We're going to use every tool in the toolbox,” he said.

The raids focused on gang members in Escondido, Oceanside, San Marcos and Vista. The largest number of gang members was found in San Marcos, followed by Escondido, said ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack.

In addition to ICE agents, officers involved in the raids included sheriff's deputies, Escondido and Oceanside police officers, county probation officers and members of the North County Regional Gang Task Force.

Since it began in 2005, Community Shield has led to the arrest of more than 4,900 gang members and associates belonging to more than 500 street gangs around the country. Of those arrested, 272 were in the San Diego area.

The three gangs that produced the greatest number of arrestees in this latest sweep were Varrio San Marcos, South Los and the Vista Homeboys, Duarte said.

Feds Arrest 128 Mexicans In California Gang Sweep

Springdale : City to change tactics to fight crime by aliens

The Tide is Turning in the Criminal Illegal Alien Controversy

73-year-old woman raped by an illegal immigrant from Guatemala

Dan Uhlinger:

Resolute in her desire for justice, the 73-year-old woman steered her motorized wheelchair into the Hartford courtroom Wednesday to confront the man who broke into her East Hartford apartment while she was sleeping and raped her.

Fidgeting with the plastic tube from her portable oxygen tank, the woman, identified only as JD, took a breath and stared at Alejandro Cuy Xum as he was brought into Superior Court in Hartford for his sentencing.

The last time JD saw Cuy Xum, now a 23-year-old, was after midnight July 17, 2005, when he broke into the Willow Arms Apartments for the elderly on Main Street.

Cuy Xum walked down a hallway and found the wheelchair-bound woman's door unlocked. He walked in, found JD in her bedroom and punched her in the head before raping her. After the attack, Cuy Xum rifled the apartment and took some of her belongings. As he left, he grabbed JD's little dog and threw it against a wall.

"There is no sentence that is enough," Assistant State's Attorney Edward Narus told Judge Thomas Miano. "This was a victim who had no means to fight. She was not able to defend herself."

Calling it a heinous crime, Miano sentenced Cuy Xum to 20 years in prison for one count of first-degree sexual assault, one count of third-degree assault on an elderly person and two counts of burglary.

"No one can appreciate what this woman has gone through," Miano said. "This is such a devastating affront to humanity."

Miano said JD showed great courage in her willingness to testify in the case. Miano noted that many rape victims are afraid to become involved in the court system.

"This woman should be commended," he said.

Before Cuy Xum was sentenced, Miano asked him whether he wanted to speak.

Cuy Xum admitted his crime and said he was taking responsibility for his actions.

"I would like to let the victim know I am sorry," Cuy Xum said through an interpreter.

Cuy Xum said he read in the Bible that they are brother and sister in God's eyes.

"I would like her to forgive me. I wish everyone to forgive me for everything I did."

JD's eyes were fixed on Cuy Xum but she did not react.

Before Cuy Xum spoke, JD's daughter read a statement prepared by her mother.

The statement said, in part:

"I've lost the ability to live in my own home. I was living in a senior apartment complex when I was attacked. I no longer have the strength to live on my own. That part of my life ended.

"I've lost most social contacts. My lifelong best friend, Dot, and I lived at Willow Arms Senior Housing along with other friends and building neighbors. Dot and I would see one another several times a week. I seldom see them anymore. That part of my life ended. ...

"I've lost full use of my arm. ...

"I've lost the companionship of my little dog. Peaches was my constant companion."

Narus said JD's life will no longer be the same.

"We consider our home sacrosanct ... safe and secure," Narus said.

When a home is broken into the victim feels violated, he said.

Narus cited the "horrific" break-in last month of a doctor's home in Cheshire and the killing of his wife and daughters, one of whom was raped.

After an event like that, there is a public outcry for justice, Narus said. Narus said he could understand the outcry.

In the East Hartford case, Narus said, he tried to imagine the "sheer terror" the woman felt when she was "savagely attacked and sexually assaulted.

"She is a prisoner within her own walls now," he said.

Cuy Xum, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, is likely to be deported after serving his time in prison, Narus said.

73-year-old rape victim: Security, independence, privacy, pet all gone

Britain: The continuing problem of gang violence is due to the absence of fathers in black communities, Justice Secretary Jack Straw says

BBC News:

He said young black men needed their fathers as role models, otherwise their development suffered.

Black girls from similar backgrounds had different attitudes and succeeded more than black boys, he said.

He was responding to US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson who said inner city violence was an economic problem.

"Gang violence is rooted in the economics of desperation," said Rev Jackson, adding that some people were "profiting" from providing guns to deprived areas.

He called for more investment in pre-natal care and education, rather than building more jails.

But Mr Straw, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, said the problem was not due to economics.

"One of the striking things is the difference between the attitude and the success in life of black girls from exactly the same backgrounds compared to black boys."

Black girls perform around the average at Key Stage 4, aged 16, compared to the overall population, he said.

"Black boys go backwards when they get to secondary school.

"It's a cultural problem. It's the absence of fathers who are actively involved in parenting.

"And as we know - lads need dads. Of course they need their mums as well, but there is a particular point in teenagers' development, of young men, where fathers are very important and they are more likely to be absent in the case of the Afro-Caribbean," Mr Straw said.

Mr Straw said the government had put in place schemes to deter people from getting into gang violence, but admitted "there is a very great deal more to do".

"But this cannot just be a matter for the government.

"It has to be a matter for these communities because the problem for these communities is that not only are they - the black lads - much more likely to end up in prison, but they are also much more likely to be the victims of crime than the white or non-black sections of the community."

Straw blames absent dads for gang violence

An Alameda County judge has denied bail to an associate of Your Black Muslim Bakery who is charged with kidnapping a woman for ransom

Henry K. Lee:

Joshua Bey, 19, would be a danger to the community and to the woman if he is released on bail, said Judge Morris Beatus of Alameda County Superior Court. Bey himself could also be in danger, the judge said, though he did not specify from whom.

Bey shook his head in disagreement and relatives cried in the gallery of the Oakland courtroom as the judge announced his decision.

Bey's criminal case is one of several involving people associated with the Oakland bakery. A handyman with the group, Devaughndre Broussard, 19, has been charged with murdering Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey on Aug. 2, allegedly because he was upset that Bailey was reporting on the bakery's financial problems.

Bey, his half brother and bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, 21, and Tamon Halfin, 20, were arrested in the kidnapping the same day Broussard was arrested in Bailey's killing. The Bey brothers and Halfin have not been charged in the slaying, but could be sentenced to life in prison without parole if convicted of kidnapping the woman.

All three are being held without bail on three counts of kidnapping, two counts of false imprisonment and one count of torture. Joshua Bey has pleaded not guilty; the other defendants have not yet entered pleas.

According to authorities, the three men used a Ford Crown Victoria outfitted with emergency lights - the same type of car that police use - to pull the woman over on Interstate 580 near Seminary Avenue about 10:30 p.m. May 17.

They took her to an abandoned home on Avenal Avenue, put a bag over her head, and hit and stabbed her and told her that she would be tortured with a hot curling iron if she didn't reveal where an acquaintance kept his money, authorities said.

They asked her if she could "smell that gasoline, that's the next thing that's gonna happen," Oakland police Officer Jesse Grant wrote in a statement that outlined grounds for the three men's arrest.

The men fled when a police officer who had heard the woman's cries for help arrived at the home.

Joshua Bey's attorney, David Washington, sought unsuccessfully Tuesday for a "reasonable bail" for his client.

The attorney said Bey IV had directed Joshua Bey and Halfin to get money from the woman. He said the bakery leader had lied to the other men, telling them the cash would help the financially ailing group, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October.

In reality, Bey IV told police, the money was to be used to repay a personal debt, according to Grant. Bey IV "had to lie to get them to follow instructions," Washington told the judge.

The accusation is similar to one made Monday by Broussard's attorney, LeRue Grim, in the murder case. Grim said Bey IV had coerced Broussard to be a "good soldier" for Your Black Muslim Bakery and falsely confess to killing Bailey.

Deputy District Attorney Scott Patton said the kidnapping was an extremely serious case. Joshua Bey "may not be the mastermind, but the idea that he wasn't intricately involved in the commission of the crime is just not accurate," he said, arguing that the defendant was a flight risk.

Bey IV and Halfin are unlikely to make bail, as Bey is facing separate criminal charges relating to real estate fraud, the vandalizing of two Oakland liquor stores and assault on a bouncer outside a San Francisco strip club. Halfin pleaded no contest last year in the liquor store vandalism case from 2005.

The Color of Crime

Immigration, multiculturalism and Scottish independence

David Pryce-Jones:

Tony Blair has got out of Downing Street just in time, leaving a whole range of crises, any one of which might well scupper Gordon Brown, the new British prime minister. Scotland is one of the issues with potential for immediate and lasting harm. Blair initiated a process of devolution that gave the Scots limited powers of self-government. At the time he was warned that this threatened the integrity of the United Kingdom, and so it is proving. This summer, the Scottish National Party won elections to the Scottish parliament, though by a very thin margin. The SNP’s sole purpose is to break away from the United Kingdom so that Scotland becomes an independent and sovereign country. Its leader, Alex Salmond, has just completed his first 100 days in office, and with a mixture of ability and guile he is playing the independence card long. It so happens that Brown is himself a Scot, and it is the rawest of ironies that he has to confront the SNP. This duel of the two Scots will decide whether Britain continues to exist in its historic entity, or becomes as obsolete as the Soviet Union.

Opinion polls suggest that almost two-thirds approve of Salmond’s administration so far, and also that independence one day is inevitable although under a quarter of the respondents actually were in favour of it. I have just spent some time in Scotland, and pretty well everyone I spoke to there confirmed the broad outlines of these polls. However unenthusiastic they might be at the prospect, almost everyone considered that independence was the virtually certain outcome of devolution. And that would be Blair’s irreversible legacy.

One Scottish grandee, a Unionist, had an interesting angle. The Scots, he said to me, have a very strong sense of their own identity, and do not take kindly to others coming to live among them, or telling them what to do. This is tribalism, with its plusses and minuses, and it means that when they look at Britain they see that immigration is out of control, and there is a diminishing sense of identity, and even less national pride. The Scots hope to avoid such a fate. In a nutshell, then, repudiation of multi-culturalism is the motor driving Scottish independence and the ultimate break-up of Britain.

Immigration Driving Scottish Separatism?

Greek police have clashed with African immigrants protesting over the death of a Nigerian man in the northern city of Thessaloniki

BBC News:

Police fired tear gas at a stone-throwing crowd who had gathered outside the police station on Monday holding up photographs of the dead man.

The Nigerian in his 20s died after he jumped from a building where he was selling pirated DVDs in a cafe.

He had fled when he believed police in the cafe were trying to arrest him.

Police say no officers had been in the cafe at the time.

Protests first took place on Sunday when angry migrants gathered outside the cafe and threw stones and chairs at police, AP news agency reports.

For a second night, youths clash with police in Thessaloniki over immigrant's death

African Immigrants Clash with Police in Thessaloniki

Bad Headline From The BBC

Two members of the gang which murdered British policewoman Sharon Beshenivsky have been charged with stabbing a fellow prison inmate

BBC News:

Yusuf Abdillh Jamma, 20 and Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah, 25, were sentenced to life in prison following the shooting of the officer in Bradford in 2005.

Both are accused of stabbing a man, 22, who is also serving life for murder, at Durham's Frankland Prison in March.

They will appear before Peterlee magistrates on 30 August, charged with wounding with intent.

The prisoner was reported to have been stabbed in the stomach on 6 March.

Pc Beshenivsky was shot on 18 November 2005 at a travel agency in Bradford.

In December last year, Shah and Jamma were both told they must serve a minimum of 35 years in prison for her murder before being considered for release.

Frankland Prison, which houses some of the UK's most dangerous terrorist inmates, has seen several high-profile attacks in recent months.

In July, the jail cell of Hussain Osman, one of the 21/7 bomb plotters, was set alight.

It followed an attack on another al-Qaeda inmate, Dhiren Barot, who subsequently spent five days in Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary after being scalded with boiling water.

And earlier this month, three youngsters found a bag containing a sawn-off shotgun and balaclavas hidden in undergrowth near the jail.

I guess these morons want to spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Zimbabwe's annual rate of inflation jumped to 7,638% in July according to the first official figures to be published for three months

BBC News:

The Central Statistical Office said inflation had more than doubled since May - the last official data released.

Since then the government has ordered shopkeepers to slash their prices and arrested anyone who has failed to obey.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund warned annual inflation could reach 100,000% by the end of the year.

The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe has said the real year-on-year inflation is far higher than the official rate - claiming it was nearer 13,000% in June.

Zimbabwe's economic crisis has led to an estimated three million people fleeing the country for South Africa.

Unemployment stands at about 80% and there are mass shortages of fuel and foodstuffs.

Businesses were forced to freeze prices in June as President Robert Mugabe's government tried to stem inflation.

But some producers, fearing making a loss, cut production, meaning the move exacerbated shortages, leaving shop shelves empty.

Last month a new 200,000 Zimbabwe dollar note was launched, in a bid to tackle the country's inflation, the highest in the world.

The country's government has created a commission to find a way to control soaring living costs.

But correspondents say that as long as Zimbabwe has a shortage of staple foods, including maize, food shortages are likely to continue.

Critics have blamed President Mugabe's policies, especially the seizure of farms, for ordinary Zimbabweans' hardship.

Some 10,000 flee Congo to Uganda

Probe into Rwandan Darfur general

'Curse' of Liberia's resources

Zimbabwe Collapses By Christmas?

Indian Muslims are largely illiterate and poor

Soutik Biswas:

As historians tell it, during India's first election in 1952, Jawaharlal Nehru was already worrying about the feeble representation of Muslims in the country's positions of authority.

Many more Muslims had stayed back in India than the millions who migrated to newly-born Pakistan after the partition just five years before.

India's first prime minister's concerns about the country's second largest religious group and the largest religious minority were eminently justified.

"There were hardly any Muslims left in the defence service, and not many in the secretariat," says historian Ramachandra Guha.

Next year, in 1953, a group of intellectuals met to discuss forming a political party for the Muslims and spoke about the low representation of Muslims in political positions and bureaucracy.

More than half century later, on India's 60th anniversary of independence, very little has changed.

Today, at over 138 million, Muslims constitute over 13% of India 's billion-strong population, and in sheer numbers are exceeded only by Indonesia's and Pakistan's Muslim community.

[snip]

Muslims comprise only 5% of employees in India's big government, a recent study found. The figure for Indian Railways, the country's biggest employer, is only 4.5%.

The community continues to have a paltry representation in the bureaucracy and police - 3% in the powerful Indian Civil Service, 1.8% in foreign service and only 4% in the Indian Police Service. And Muslims account for only 7.8% of the people working in the judiciary.

Indian Muslims are also largely illiterate and poor.

At just under 60%, the community's literacy rate is lower than the national average of 65%. Only half of Muslim women can read and write. As many as a quarter of Muslim children in the age-group 6-14 have either never attended school or dropped out.

They are also poor - 31% of Muslims are below the country's poverty line, just a notch above the lowest castes and tribes who remain the poorest of the poor.

India's Muslims adopt Hindu names

Violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border is increasingly spilling northward into the cities of the American Southwest

Richard A. Serrano:

In Phoenix, deputies are working the unsolved case of 13 border crossers who were kidnapped and executed in the desert. In Dallas, nearly two dozen high school students have died in the last two years from overdoses of a $2-a-hit Mexican fad drug called "cheese heroin."

The crime surge, most acute in Texas and Arizona, is fueled by a gritty drug war in Mexico that includes hostages being held in stash houses, daylight gun battles claiming innocent lives, and teenage hit men for the Mexican cartels. Shipments of narcotics and vans carrying illegal workers on U.S. highways are being hijacked by rival cartels fighting over the lucrative smuggling routes. Fires are being set in national forests to divert police.

In Laredo, Texas, a teenager who had been driving around the United States in a $70,000 luxury sedan confessed to becoming a Mexican cartel hitman when he was just 13. In Nogales, Ariz., an 82-year-old man was caught with 79 kilograms of cocaine in his Chevrolet Impala. The youth was sentenced to 40 years in prison in one slaying case and is awaiting trial in another; the old man received 10 years.

In Southern California, Border Patrol agents routinely encounter smugglers driving immigrant-laden cars who try to escape by driving the wrong way on busy freeways. And stash houses packed with dozens of illegal immigrants have been discovered in Los Angeles.

But a huge U.S. law enforcement buildup along the border that started a decade ago has helped stabilize border-related crime rates on the California side; a recent wave of kidnappings in Tijuana has been largely contained south of the border.

The sprawling border has been crisscrossed for years by the poor seeking work and by drug dealers in the hunt for U.S. dollars. For decades neither the United States nor Mexico has managed to halt the immigrants and narcotics pushing north. But with the Mexican government's newly pledged war on the cartels, and an explosion of violence among rival networks, a new crime dynamic is emerging: The violence that has hit Mexican border towns is spreading deeper into the United States.

U.S. officials are promising more Border Patrol and federal firearms officers, more fences and more surveillance towers along the desert stretches where the two nations meet.

But law enforcement officials are wary of how this new burst in violence will play out, especially because the enemy is better armed and more sophisticated than ever. Among their concerns are budget cutbacks in some agencies -- including a hiring freeze in the Drug Enforcement Administration -- and community opposition to the surveillance towers.

Johnny Sutton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said he would need at least 20,000 new Border Patrol agents in El Paso alone to hold back the tide. But that is the total number of agents that Washington hopes to have along the whole border by the end of 2009.

In six years, Sutton's office has tried 33,000 defendants, about 90% of them on drug and immigration violations. "We're body-slamming them the best we can," he said.

In Phoenix, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said there were 10,000 inmates in his jail and overflow tents; 2,000 of them are "criminal aliens" from the border, he said. His deputies are investigating the deaths of 13 people executed in the desert.

Immigration Officials, Crime Stoppers Team Up to Nail Child Sex Offender

Mexico Propaganda and Crime Update

More than half the African-American and Hispanic applicants for teaching jobs in Massachusetts fail a state licensing exam

Tracy Jan:

More than half the black and Hispanic applicants for teaching jobs in Massachusetts fail a state licensing exam, a trend that has created a major obstacle to greater diversity among public school faculty and stirred controversy over the fairness of the test.

The minority failure rate has been demonstrably higher than among whites since the test's inception nearly a decade ago, according to state statistics, which show that 52 percent of Hispanic applicants and 54 percent of black applicants fail the writing portion of the exam. By comparison, 23 percent of whites fail. Black and Hispanic teachers also lag behind white teachers in major subject tests such as English, history, and math.

The problem has become so acute that a state task force of teachers, professors, hiring directors, and state education officials convened last week to begin examining why minorities fare so much worse on the tests.

"One of the fallouts which is particularly upsetting in our experience across the colleges is fewer and fewer students of color are even going into teaching because word has gotten out that these tests are very difficult for them," said Sally Dias, a vice president at Emmanuel College in Boston who is a member of the panel. "One test should really not be a determinant of someone's career."

Stiffer federal rules about teacher quality have increased educators' worries about the results of the teaching test, which more than 16,000 Massachusetts teachers take annually. States, under a 2001 federal law, must show teacher competency under a bar set by the state. In Massachusetts, school districts now risk losing federal money if they are not making progress toward licensing all teachers.

Education school deans in the last year began expressing concerns about the minority teachers' high failure rates to state officials and asked the state to evaluate the validity of the test and consider other ways of judging prospective teachers. They and others say the minority teachers' results raise questions about whether the design of the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure is culturally biased and whether the quality of education that minority teaching applicants receive is good enough.

The state's teachers have had to take a battery of tests to get their licenses since 1998, under rules set in the 1993 Education Reform Act. Before 1998, teachers qualified for licenses if they passed certain college courses and had completed student teaching.

Chris Anderson, chairman of the state Board of Education, said he is open to other ways of assessing teachers as long as standards are not lowered.

"There's no reason to have any barriers to quality teachers if we don't need them," he said. "But at the same time, we need to have accountability and assurance that there are basic abilities for any new teacher in Massachusetts."

It should not be surprising that black and Hispanic teachers don't do as well on exams as their white counterparts since we see the exact same situation amongst students. Pretending that blacks and Hispanics are as intelligent as whites will not change reality.

A controversial scholar claims modern culture was born in the foothills of the Alps

Andrew Curry:

The search for the origins of civilization has taken archaeologists to less pleasant places than Swabia. Nestled between France, Switzerland, and Bavaria, the German region is the heart of Baden-Wuerttemburg, a state that markets itself as a center for creativity and innovation. It's no idle boast. Hundreds of small high-tech firms dot the region. Giants such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Zeiss are all based in the gleaming, modern state capital, Stuttgart.

American archaeologist Nicholas Conard is convinced Swabia's tradition of innovation goes back a long way: 40,000 years, give or take a few thousand. Excavating in caves east of Tübingen, a medieval town 20 miles south of Stuttgart, Conard has unearthed expertly carved figurines and the oldest musical instruments in the world. The finds are among the earliest art ever discovered, and they're extremely sophisticated in terms of craftsmanship, suggesting a surprising degree of cultural complexity.

Conard claims his finds are evidence of an intense flowering of art and culture that began in southwestern Germany more than 35,000 years ago. Although older art and decorations have been found--including geometric patterns on stones and personal ornaments in South Africa, as well as drilled shell beads on the shores of the Mediterranean--the figurines and instruments in Conard's caves are symbolic representations that reflect a state of mind with which modern humans can easily identify. "Figurative art began in Swabia, music began in Swabia," he says. "It couldn't have developed elsewhere, because the dates are just later elsewhere."

35,000-Year-Old Mammoth Sculpture Found in Germany

Palaeolithic ivory sculptures from southwestern Germany and the origins of figurative art

Current Research on the Gravettian of the Swabian Jura

The color of your eyes could determine your achievements in life, say scientists

Ben Clerkin:

They claim those with blue eyes are more likely to sparkle academically than those with brown.

They are more intelligent and gain more qualifications because they study more effectively and perform better in exams.

The discovery might help explain the success of such disparate individuals as Stephen Hawking, Alexander Fleming, Marie Curie, Stephen Fry and Lily Cole.

In reaction time trials conducted by U.S. scientists, the brown-eyed performed better, making them more likely to succeed at activities such as football, hockey and rugby.

But the researchers concluded that those with lighter eyes appeared to be better strategic thinkers.

Blue-eyed boys and girls proved to be more successful in activities that required them to plan and structure their time, such as golf, cross-country running - and studying for exams.

Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History Of Time, is Britain's most eminent physicist.

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin while Marie Curie was the first twice-honoured Nobel laureate for her work on radioactivity.

Writer and actor Stephen Fry gained a scholarship to Cambridge while model Lily Cole secured a place at King's College, Cambridge, after achieving five As at A-level.

Joanna Rowe, professor emeritus at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, who conducted the tests, said the results suggested a hitherto unexplored link between eye colour and academic achievement.

"It is just observed, rather than explained," she said. "There's no scientific answer yet." Dr Tony Fallone, senior psychology lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire, who has also studied eye colour, believes it should be taken more seriously as an indicator of personality and ability.

Most babies have blue eyes but they usually darken as the pigment melanin builds up in the iris.

Less melanin produces green, grey, or light brown eyes. Eyes with very little melanin appear blue or grey.

Body parts that reveal your intelligence

Study: Blue-Eyed People 'Smarter' than Brown-Eyed

Israel will in future turn away all illegal entrants from Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur, a top official says

BBC News:

The policy applies to new arrivals only, while some 500 people from Darfur already in Israel will be permitted to stay for "humanitarian reasons".

Israel is struggling to stem the flow of Africans entering the country via its southern border with Egypt.

Overnight, Israel handed 48 Sudanese people back to Egypt, according to Egyptian security officials.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Egypt accepted the refugees for "very pressing humanitarian reasons" but such a move "would not be repeated again".

At least 200,000 people are believed to have died and more than two million displaced in Darfur since fighting broke out in 2003 between rebels and pro-government militias.

Israeli spokesman David Baker said on Sunday: "The policy of returning back anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur."

Last month, Israel's interior ministry said a limited number of Darfuris would be allowed to remain in Israel as it was "clear that they have suffered the most".

As many as 50 asylum seekers arrive in Israel each day, lured by the prospect of employment, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates.

Israel estimates that 2,800 people have entered the country illegally in recent years - nearly all were from Africa, including 1,160 from Sudan.

However, some critics have said that Israel, which was created after the Nazi persecution of the Jews during WWII, is morally obliged to offer sanctuary to people fleeing persecution.

Offer to help Christian asylum seekers facing deportation from Israel

More Swiss than Rwandans have a gene for unusually good emotional memory

The Economist:

PEOPLE remember emotionally charged events more easily than they recall the quotidian. A sexual encounter trumps doing the grocery shopping. A mugging trumps a journey to work. Witnessing a massacre trumps pretty well anything you can imagine.

That is hardly surprising. Rare events that might have an impact on an individual's survival or reproduction should have a special fast lane into the memory bank—and they do. It is called the α2b-adrenoceptor, and it is found in the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in processing strong emotions such as fear. The role of the α2b-adrenoceptor is to promote memory formation—but only if it is stimulated by adrenaline. Since emotionally charged events are often accompanied by adrenaline secretion, the α2b-adrenoceptor acts as a gatekeeper that decides what will be remembered and what discarded.

However, the gene that encodes this receptor comes in two varieties. That led Dominique de Quervain, of the University of Zurich, to wonder if people with one variant would have better emotional memories than those with the other. The short answer, just published in Nature Neuroscience, is that they do. Moreover, since the frequencies of the two variants are different in different groups of people, whole populations may have different mixtures of emotional memory.

The reason Dr de Quervain suspected the variants might work differently is that the rarer one looks like the commoner one when the latter has a memory-enhancing drug called yohimbine attached to it. His prediction, therefore, was that better emotional memory would be associated with the rarer version.

And that did, indeed, turn out to be the case in his first experiment. This involved showing students photographs of positive scenes such as families playing together, negative scenes such as car accidents, and neutral ones, such as people on the phone. Those students with at least one gene for the rarer version of the protein (everyone has two such genes, one from his father and one from his mother) were twice as good at remembering details of emotionally charged scenes than were those with only the common version. When phone-callers were the subject, there was no difference in the quality of recall.

That is an interesting result, but some of Dr de Quervain's colleagues at the University of Konstanz, in Germany, were able to take it further in a second experiment. In fact, they took it all the way along a dusty road in Uganda, to the Nakivale refugee camp. This camp is home to hundreds of refugees of the Rwandan civil war of 1994.

In this second experiment the researchers were not asking about photographs. With the help of specially trained interviewers, they recorded how often people in the camp suffered flashbacks and nightmares about their wartime experiences. They then compared those results with the α2b-adrenoceptor genes in their volunteers. As predicted, those with the rare version had significantly more flashbacks than those with only the common one.

Besides bolstering Dr de Quervain's original hypothesis, this result is interesting because only 12% of the refugees had the rarer gene. In Switzerland, by contrast, 30% of the population has the rare variety—and the Swiss are not normally regarded as an emotional people.

Whether that result has wider implications remains to be seen. Human genetics has a notorious history of jumping to extravagant conclusions from scant data, but that does not mean conclusions should be ducked if the data are good. In this case, the statistics suggest Rwanda may have been lucky: the long-term mental-health effects of the war may not be as widespread as they would have been in people with a different genetic mix. On the other hand, are those who easily forget the horrors of history condemned to repeat them?

A Gene to Better Remember Traumatic Events

Scientists Find Gene for Emotional Memory

All South Africans are settlers, regardless of their skin color, and their DNA carries the proof

Lynnette Johns:

So says Dr Wilmot James, head of the African Genome Project, a distinguished academic, sociologist and, more recently, honorary professor of human genetics at the University of Cape Town.

And he says South Africans will soon have a public genetic database which will show how the country became populated over thousands of years.

The African Genome project is supported by local genealogy website Ancestry24.com.

James aims to trace the origins of South Africans "no matter what their language, ethnic origins, or skin colour".

"No one group can lay claim to South Africa. Everyone is a settler, and we will show how people came here in waves of migration."

Next month he and his colleague, associate professor Himla Soodyall, will do mass genetic testing of Capetonians.

Soodyall is the principal medical scientist at the National Health Laboratory Service and is an associate professor in the Division of Human Genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand.

James says he expects about 300 people will come for free testing on September 9. The test simply involves swabbing the inside of a person's cheek.

"Normally it costs R1 000 a time but this is a public exercise in science and a journey through the history of South Africa," said James.

The results will be out early in 2008. The data will be used to map how people migrated here more than 100 000 years ago. They will do similar testing in Johannesburg.

The Africa Genome project aims to fill a gap in the current DNA databases available worldwide and establish the diversity of ancestry in the South African population.

The testing will offer another view of SA history since written history only goes back 400 years. It will also further confirm archaeological and palaeontological evidence.

"We do not understand our history well enough and the truth has been modified in many stories," says James.

"South Africa is not the site of human origins. The Sterkfontein caves have evidence of pre-modern humans, but modern man comes from East Africa where there is evidence of significant human presence dating back at least 100 000."

The Khoi/San moved from East Africa and, up until 2 000 years ago, people living in southern Africa were brown.

Africa's black people are originally from the Niger/ Congo region.

James says genetic testing will confirm the theory that there is a population in South Africa whose ancestors were from Niger/Congo.

Even though the test itself is easy, it is the lab work from where all the exciting details will come to light.

Looking at what is known as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which comes from mothers, and Y chromosome DNA which comes from fathers, scientists are able to reconstruct the hereditary lineage of individuals and their families as far back as 100 000 years.

The limitation of this approach is that those ancestors who did not pass on their genes by having surviving children are excluded from the studies.

"Still, we are able to enrich beyond measure our understanding of who we are and where it is we come from," said James.

"Some DNA mitochondria do not combine, they develop mutations which creep in and these are seen as fingerprints. They can be traced to where geographic concentrations of the same mutations occur."

James's own test results have revealed that he has Indian, Spanish, German and English forebears.

His mother's one line is Southern Pakistan/Northern Indian and German. Her father was a Hartel and James still has a title deed handed down from generation to generation for a piece of land along the Liesbeek River granted to German infantryman Wilhelm George Hartel by Cape Governor Simon van der Stel.

It is from Hartel that James inherited Factor V Leiden, a mutation in his genes which has resulted in him having a clotting disorder, making him susceptible to deep vein thrombosis.

His ancestors on his father's side are English; no surprise there, considering his surname. But he emphasises that ultimately everyone's ancestors were Africans, who migrated into Europe tens of thousands of years ago.

His next project will be to concentrate on groups like Italians, Muslims and Jews.

"Italian prisoners of war worked on many of the Cape farms and they had families here. Eventually the project would like to reunite those Italian descendants with their families in Italy. The same for those of Javanese descent.

"In fact, there are all types of settlers in South Africa, with successive waves of immigrants. The ultimate question for us to find an answer to is: what is an African?"

Scientific Proof: All South Africans are Colonisers

South Africa: A father who consulted a sangoma following a spate of bad luck was advised to have sex with his daughter in order to cleanse himself

Innocentia Ndlovu:

So the man went home and, for the next two years, raped his daughter until she fell pregnant at the age of 17.

Instead of bringing him luck, the incident has landed him in jail.

The man, who lives in KaNyamazane, pleaded guilty to rape when he appeared in Nelspruit Regional Court on Wednesday.

He testified that his life took a turn for the worse around June 2003, so he decided to consult a sangoma.

He said he thought he would be given muti. Instead, he said, he was instructed to sleep with his daughter.

He was arrested on December 18, 2005 when his daughter fell pregnant. The baby was born last year.

The man has been kept in custody and will reappear on September 19 when DNA tests will be presented in court. The tests are expected to confirm whether the child is his or not.

KaNyamazane police spokesperson, Constable Chicco Nkosi, the sangoma will not be arrested.

"We cannot arrest the sangoma as an accomplice because there is no evidence, other than the man's allegations. Police only work on evidence," he said.

According to Wikipedia, a sangoma "is a practitioner of herbal medicine, divination and counselling in traditional Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi) societies of Southern Africa (effectively an African shaman)".

Why do we help out our relatives when one of them needs a buck or a meal, and who gains the most from such acts of generosity?

David Brown:

It's a tough question to answer in human populations, where self-awareness and cultural expectation cloud the biological forces that underlie behavior. But there are hints of answers in other species.

Two studies of birds published this week report surprising insights into the evolution of altruistic behavior.

One study suggests that sometimes the greatest beneficiaries are neither those giving or receiving alms but those whose main job is the care and feeding of the neediest members of the population.

The second study provides evidence that living in unpredictable conditions is a big motivator for mutual assistance, that a kind of "we're all in it together here in the Jamestown Colony" consciousness drives selfless behavior.

It is believed that about 10 percent of bird species show "cooperative breeding" behavior, in which one or more mated pairs produce chicks that are then fed not only by the parents but by other birds sharing the territory.

The helpers are usually non-breeding males from the female's broods of the previous year -- in other words, the brothers of the hatchlings they are helping to feed.

In an Australian bird species called the superb fairy-wren, some breeding pairs have helpers and some do not. The baby birds of pairs with helpers get 20 percent more food than young fairy-wrens fed only by their parents, but curiously that gives them no long-term survival advantage.

"This has been a big mystery. The nestlings get a huge amount more food, but it doesn't translate into any tangible benefit," said Rebecca M. Kilner, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge in England. She helped lead a study that appears today in the journal Science.

To find an answer, Kilner and her colleagues looked at what happened before the baby birds hatched. They compared the eggs laid by females that had helpers with those laid by solo-breeding females.

They found that when helpers are at hand, female fairy-wrens produce eggs with 12 percent less fat, 13 percent less protein, and less carbohydrate, than eggs produced by females that do not have helpers. The hatchlings of those "lite" eggs are smaller than normal chicks, but their initial scrawniness is quickly overcome by the extra food brought by the non-breeding helpers.

The one who benefits is the mother.

Cooperatively breeding females have a 1-in-5 chance of dying over the next year, compared with a 1-in-3 chance for females without helpers. This is presumably because they are slightly healthier and stronger, having expended less energy to produce their eggs and feed their young. Their longer life span, in turn, gives them a chance to leave more offspring behind, the ultimate measure of evolutionary success.

"The mothers are stealing child care from their current young and spending it on their future young," Kilner said.

Scott Forbes, a biologist at the University of Winnipeg and author of the book "A Natural History of Families," says the study reveals a surprising and devious strategy for turning the help of relatives to the parents' advantage.

"We had overlooked one of the key elements in reproduction, the cost of manufacturing eggs. In the last decade or so, we've begun to appreciate that this is much more expensive to mothers than we had previously thought," he said.

In the second study, published yesterday in the online edition of Current Biology, Dustin R. Rubenstein of the University of California at Berkeley analyzed 45 species of African starling. He looked at the relationship between breeding behavior -- about 40 percent of the species use helpers -- and the environment.

Cooperative breeders were far more likely to live in savanna habitats -- grasslands with islands of trees or bushes -- than in forests or deserts. In the savanna, rainfall is highly seasonal and the amount of rain varies substantially from year to year. Rain brings insects, which are the starlings' chief food.

Rubenstein theorizes that in lean times, cooperative breeding increases the chance that baby birds will get enough food to survive. Although the helpers do not have their own offspring, they share some genes with the hatchlings, so natural selection would favor this behavior. In flush times, cooperative breeding allows mates to produce multiple clutches of eggs and ultimately more offspring overall.

"Having helpers may actually be able to help you in both the good years and the bad," he said.

So if it's such a good idea, why don't all birds do it?

The answer is that many variables push species toward or away from cooperative breeding.

Where there is a shortage of territory for young pairs to move into, cooperative breeding is favored.

But if mortality is very high, it may be worth it for birds to try to breed as soon as possible -- if they take a "postgraduate" year as a helper, they may not live long enough to become parents themselves.

Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption

Hundreds of illegal immigrants have been deported from Mexico after they became stranded when a train route through the country was closed down

BBC News:

Up to 7,000 people - mostly from Guatemala and Honduras - got stuck in southern Mexico when a rail link to the US ceased operating.

US train operators Genesee & Wyoming Inc (GWI) closed the line because of damage caused by a hurricane in 2005.

The authorities said that around 350 people had been deported so far.

More deportations are planned but some of those who were stranded began walking along the now disused railway to continue their journey.

However many of the migrants had begun to live in tents to the east of the Mexican city of Villahermosa.

Central American immigrants are known to cross Mexico's southern border illegally on their way to the US, often riding on train roofs or stowing away in carriages.

Hypocrisy Alert - Mexico Deports Stranded Illegal Immigrants

Seems Mexico Doesn't Like Illegal Aliens

Illegal Aliens Abused in Mexico

Newark: African-Americans don't want whites running the police department

Andrew Jacobs:

It was the kind of feel-good news conference that elected officials relish: Mayor Cory A. Booker told a room full of rapt reporters about the creation of new law enforcement posts, plans for dozens of surveillance cameras in the most crime-soaked neighborhoods and millions of dollars in private largess to help pay for what officials say will be the most high-tech gunshot detection system in the country.

But buried among the heady announcements on Tuesday was a personnel change that has the potential to create untold aggravation for City Hall. The mayor removed the word “acting” from the title of his police chief, Anthony Campos, a Portuguese-American who, along with Police Director Garry F. McCarthy, leads the city’s 1,300-member police force.

In a city like Newark, where the majority of the population is black and race issues bubble just below the surface, the decision to place two white men at the helm of the city’s Police Department could threaten the good will and unity that Mr. Booker has been enjoying of late. The racially diverse residents were drawn together after the shocking murder last week of three young friends.

In making Mr. Campos the city’s permanent police chief after a year, Mr. Booker has pleased the city’s powerful Portuguese population, but he risks angering those who had been hoping he would give the job to Niles Wilson, a popular black police captain who had been Mr. Campos’s chief of staff.

“Rightly or wrongly, perception is just as important as reality, and in a city that is largely African-American, there is not going to be a comfort level with two white guys running the Police Department,” said former Mayor Kenneth Gibson. “Quite frankly, this is going to be a problem he doesn’t need.”

During his news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Booker unveiled a host of leadership changes in Newark’s police force. Captain Wilson was made a deputy director of the department, a post that officials say will give him more responsibility and stature than the police chief. He gave the department’s other deputy director position to Sgt. Gustavo Medina, an internal affairs investigator who is president of the Hispanic Law Enforcement Society.

Keith Isaac, a police lieutenant and former Air Force sergeant who is black, was appointed emergency management director.

“I think residents of the city of Newark will look at our leadership team and see a very diverse, very representative group of people,” Mr. Booker said, standing on a dais with the newly appointed officials, all of whom, he pointed out, were born and raised in Newark. “I think you’ll see people who are competent and qualify fully for the positions they hold.”

But in a city that places great value on symbolism — and one that keeps a wary eye on its past — Mr. Booker has nevertheless violated a tradition, decades old, that split the jobs of police director and police chief along racial lines. “That’s just the way it’s always been,” Mr. Gibson said. “For African-Americans especially, it’s just a response to real and imagined police mistreatment.”

The sentiment has its roots in the riots of 1967, which were prompted by an episode of police brutality against a black cabdriver. In the years that followed, officials have worked hard to diversify the police force, which was once overwhelmingly white but is now almost equally divided among blacks, whites and Latinos; two of the city’s four precinct commanders are members of minority groups.

Despite the progress, many African-Americans — who make up 55 percent of Newark’s population — say that they deserve a greater share of power when it comes to law enforcement.

It also does not help that Mr. Booker is often accused of not being “authentically black” because of his suburban upbringing.

Donald M. Payne Jr., a City Council member who had been lobbying for Captain Wilson’s promotion to police chief, said he was disappointed by the decision to keep Mr. Campos in the position. “This just continues the pattern of denigrating African-Americans,” he said.

Mr. Booker said, however, that the decision to keep Mr. Campos was about public safety and principle. “At the end of the day,” he said, “Newarkers care about results.”

All American

These are the faces of five young men wanted by police in connection with a brutal robbery in which a teenage boy was stabbed repeatedly

Hackney Gazette:

Police have released the CCTV images taken in a kebab shop in the hope of finding witnesses to the robbery during which the 17-year-old was wounded in the abdomen and leg.

The robbery took place in Seven Sisters Road on Thursday, July 19.

The victim was surrounded by a five-strong gang, who tried to steal his bag at the 259 bus stop outside Costcutters at the Manor House junction at about 1am.

He pushed one of the group and ran off, but was pursued by the gang who caught up with him outside a number 29 bus stop on the way to Finsbury Park, where they attacked him and inflicted multiple stab wounds before running away with a dark Nike pouch-style bag.

The victim's injuries were not life-threatening and he is said to be making a good recovery in hospital.

The first suspect is in his late teens or early 20s and of thin build, with collar-length corn rows. He was wearing a black or dark blue baseball cap with a white logo on the front, a white baggy T-shirt, grey tracksuit bottoms and white trainers.

He was carrying a blue carrier bag with a takeaway in it.

The second suspect is in his late teens or 20s and of thin or athletic build.

He was wearing a dark blue baseball cap with a white NY logo on the front and a smaller one on the back and a dark blue T-shirt with ITALIA written across the front in white.

He also had shellsuit-style blue trousers with white piping down the sides and white trainers.

The third suspect is in his late teens or early 20s and is thought to be of thin build. He was wearing baggy clothes.

He had a short shaved afro haircut and was wearing a black jacket and grey tracksuit bottoms with a white logo on the left thigh.

He also had a white sling around his neck supporting his left arm.

The fourth suspect is described as in his late teens to early 20s and was wearing a blue hoody with white stripes down the arms and a white adidas logo on the left breast, a dark blue woolly hat and dark tracksuit bottoms.

The fifth suspect is n his late teens or early 20s and of athletic build. He was wearing a T-shirt with long sleeves and grey and white horizontal stripes with black borders around the cuffs and neck, black trousers turned up at the bottom, black trainers and a grey belt that was hanging down.

His haircut was either a very close corn rows style put into a zigzag pattern, or the pattern had been shaved into a short afro.

Anyone with any information should contact Det Con Tom Clarke at Stoke Newington police station on 020 7275 3228, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.

Thugs.

A 6-year-old boy was hacked to death with a meat cleaver as his mother fought to save his life

Gregory W. Griggs:

Sev'n Molina, age 6, was hacked to death with a meat cleaver Sunday night, as his mother fought to save his life, terrified neighbors called 911 and the bravest among them tried to intervene in the grisly struggle.

Sheriff's deputies arrested Calvin Sharp, 27, and took him to Ventura County Jail, said Senior Sheriff's Deputy Julie Novak. Sharp, a self-employed cab driver, is expected to be charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder -- rare violent crimes in what regularly ranks as one of nation's safest large cities.

The harrowing attack at the Hillcrest Park Apartments began about 9:30 p.m. in the first-floor unit where the boy lived with his mother, Sandra Ruiz, 33. Sharp and Ruiz had been arguing, at least in part, about whether Sev'n spent too much time playing video games, neighbors said.

After the boy burst from the apartment into the communal courtyard, witnesses said, Sharp followed him, wielding the cleaver, and began hacking at the child's head and shouting, "Die, die!"

Neighbors Patrick Bowman, 21, and his girlfriend, Christina Kindred, 18, heard screams and ran to the courtyard, where they stumbled on the frightening scene: Ruiz yelling for someone, anyone, to grab her son. Sev'n sitting beside Sharp, bleeding. Sharp brandishing the cleaver.

"When I tried to grab the kid, that's when [Sharp] grabbed him and pulled him closer and started flailing that knife like crazy," Bowman said. "He pulled the kid closer to him and started to beat and hack him with the knife."

Bowman narrowly missed being slashed. Terrified, he and Kindred ran back to her apartment, where they dialed 911, then returned to the courtyard.

"When we ran upstairs, the kid was alive. When we got back out, the kid was dead," Bowman said Monday. "I feel horrible."

Ruiz tried to save her son, but Sharp allegedly turned the cleaver on her, cutting the woman repeatedly and nearly severing one of her hands.

At that point, an older woman who also lived in the complex ran outside and tackled the assailant, knocking the bloody weapon away and getting cut in the face.

As they struggled, another man ran out to help, and the two pinned Sharp down until police arrived and subdued him with a Taser gun.

The older woman "was a hero," said one neighbor, who did not want to be identified. Ruiz was so badly wounded in the attack that "you couldn't even tell what color her hair was, it was so bloody. It was horrid."

By the time neighbor Brad Baker, 37, heard screams and ran to see what was happening, the courtyard was filled with paramedics and law enforcement officers.

"It was very gruesome," Baker said. "I couldn't believe somebody could do this to a child when it's so much easier to walk away."

By late Monday, the Ventura County medical examiner's office reported that Sev'n had died from "sharp-force head injuries." Ruiz was listed in critical condition after surgery at Los Robles Regional Medical Center, spokeswoman Kris Carraway-Bowman said.

Ruiz was breathing with the help of a ventilator in the intensive care unit.

There is no fast track for the death penalty

Israel eyes barring of land sale to non-Jews

Joshua Mitnick:

Israel's parliament is weighing a law that would reserve almost one-seventh of the nation's land area for Jewish ownership, touching off a heated debate over whether the plan undermines Israel's democracy or is essential to preserve its Jewish character.

The land, comprising almost 1,000 square miles scattered around Israel, is owned by the Jewish National Fund — a public trust set up by the Zionist movement a century ago to purchase tracts in Palestine for Jewish settlement.

For nearly five decades, JNF land has been made available for purchase through the government-run Israel Lands Authority, which has given the JNF nearly half the seats on its board and honored the fund's policy of selling only to Jews.

But early next month, Israel's Supreme Court will hear three petitions from civil rights groups challenging the government's compliance with that policy, arguing that it discriminates against the 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are not Jewish.

The bill moving through parliament is an attempt to pre-empt the court, which is expected to rule against the JNF policy.

Backers of the legislation say it is necessary to protect land purchased with money donated by the Jewish diaspora to foster Jewish settlement.

The JNF law "is urgently needed to stop the anti-Zionist wave that has spread over Israel," said lawmaker Aryeh Eldad, whose colleagues in the far-right National Union Party introduced the legislation.

"This is Jewish land that was bought with Jewish money that was collected for generations, to liberate and redeem a land that was occupied and captured by others.

"Now the anti-Zionist legal figures and the people in charge of the legal system say that in the name of equity or democracy, one isn't allowed to differentiate."

The parliament agreed by a 64-16 vote last month to consider the legislation, though it has not yet been referred to a committee. But critics from both sides of Israel's political spectrum say it is a discriminatory law that threatens to taint the image of the Jewish state abroad.

The law is "a blatant violation of the norms of democracy," wrote Moshe Arens, a former Likud Party foreign and defense minister, in an op-ed article in the Ha'aretz newspaper. "In a democratic state, one cannot condone laws that discriminate between citizens on ethnic grounds. That was certainly not part of Herzl's vision of the Jewish state."

Theodor Herzl is honored as the founder of Zionism.

The Supreme Court case, which is scheduled for a hearing on Sept. 10, challenges an Israel Lands Authority decision in 2004 forbidding a real estate transaction and a public land tender that would have transferred ownership of JNF land to Israeli Arabs.

The Israel Lands Authority said it was under an obligation to honor a commitment to the JNF not to sell its land to non-Jews.

But Yoav Loeff, a spokesman for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, argued that "the obligation of the Israel Lands Authority, as a governmental agency, to the principle of equality is absolute and much stronger than any other commitment to the JNF." Mr. Loeff's group is one of the parties to the court petition.

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has argued in a legal opinion that the Israel Lands Authority must give Israeli Arabs an equal opportunity to purchase land that is put up for auction, leading legal experts to believe the high court will rule against the practice of selling only to Jews.

Though the JNF bought up land in small tracts during the first half of the last century, after Israel was established, the government sold about 480 square miles of land — accounting for about half of its current holdings — that had been abandoned by Arabs displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Critics say that sale was illegal under international law.

In a response to the Supreme Court petition on its Web site, the JNF defends its practice protecting of Israeli land for Jewish use only: "One should not be ashamed of owning land that is designated for realizing the goals of Jewish settlement. ... If, in the Jewish state, there isn't a Zionist body to own land and designate it for Jewish settlement and development, what is the special value of its existence?"

The Arab civil rights group Adallah argued in a brief to the Supreme Court that the lands authority's policy encourages segregation between Jewish and Arab Israelis. Passage of the JNF bill would mark the first time Israel has ever enshrined anti-Arab discriminatory practices in law, argued Suhad Bishara, an Adallah legal advocate.

"This would be the first law in Israel that basically legalizes segregation," she said. "This would be really what prevailed in South Africa."

A racist Jewish state

Say goodbye to the JNF

Iraq: Yazidis are predominantly ethnic Kurds whose religion blends elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Daily Mail:

Small communities of Yazidis can be found in Syria, Turkey, Georgia and Armenia, but the majority of the estimated 100,000 believers live in Iraq. Most Yazidis, even young people, choose to live in these isolated communities, though they are often face extreme poverty.

Yazidis worship an angel figure, Malak Ta'us, or Peacock Angel, who is considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians. Yazidis - who don't believe in hell or evil - deny that.

Many Yazidi rituals center on Sheik Adi, a Sufi Arab who lived in northern Iraq in the 12th century and is considered the religion's chief saint. Pilgrims hold festivals near his tomb, north of Mosul.

Many Yazidi traditions are shrouded in such secrecy that most have never been witnessed by outsiders.

They believe that they were created quite separately from the rest of mankind, not even being descended from Adam, and they have kept themselves strictly segregated from the people among whom they live.

Yazidis are antidualists; they deny the existence of evil and therefore also reject sin, the devil, and hell.

The Yazidi relate that, when the devil repented of his sin of pride before God, he was pardoned and replaced in his previous position as chief of the angels; this has often resulted in Yazidis being described as devil worshippers.

Sheikh Adi, the chief Yazidi saint, was a 12th century Muslim mystic whom the Yazidi believe to have achieved divinity through metempsychosis.

Yazidis regard marriage outside their faith as a sin punishable by ostracism or even death to restore lost honor.

Iraqi Yazidis speak out

In Iraq, Shattering Villages and Illusions

Yazidi sect has long been a target of persecution

The Surge's Short Shelf Life

Senate candidate Pauline Hanson has urged Federal Parliament to hold a moratorium on the number of Muslims entering Australia

AAP:

The right-wing former One Nation leader is seeking to register Pauline's United Australia Party in her bid for a political comeback by winning a Queensland senate seat in the upcoming federal election.

The 53-year-old former fish and chip shop owner, who won international notoriety during her brief spell as the independent MP for Oxley in the late 1990s, says she will targeting Muslims in her campaign.

"I want a moratorium put on the number of Muslims coming into Australia," Ms Hanson told the Nine network.

"People have a right to be very concerned about this because of the terrorist attacks that have happened throughout the world.

"I'm sick of these people coming out here and saying that our girls are like the meat market and the bible that is urinated on ... am I supposed to be tolerant?"

But Ms Hanson said she would have the support of Muslim women if they knew how oppressed they were.

"I think that if Muslim women realise how they have been treated I probably would get a lot of support," she said.

"Maybe we should look at the female genital mutilation that happens to young girls in this country ... if people want to live by these ways then go back to the Muslim countries."

Good for Pauline Hanson!

Australian Politician Wants To Stop Muslim Immigration

Call to ban Islamic hardliners

Jews and Armenians are in disagreement over genocide

Bostonist:

Watertown has been the site of an intense debate over whether or not to halt its participation in the "No Place for Hate" program. The Anti-Defamation League is a sponsor of the program, which helps communities fight hate crimes. The "No Place for Hate" program sounds like a good thing – who doesn't want to stop hate crimes?

Unfortunately, to many Watertown residents, the Anti-Defamation League is indeed a place for hate. Many Armenian Americans live in Watertown, and the Armenian Library and Museum of America is right on Main Street. The fact that the Anti-Defamation League will not acknowledge the Armenian genocide, when Ottoman Turks slaughtered up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, was not going to go over well in Watertown.

The Watertown city council, including the infamous Marilyn Devaney, voted unanimously last night to get out of the No Place for Hate program. However, the town wants to keep fighting hate crimes – without the help of the Anti-Defamation League.

According to Chris Helms at the Watertown TAB, the city council meeting was "packed" with people. Andy Tarsy, the regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, tried to defend the group's position and met with "hisses and boos and cat calls."

The TAB notes that the "No Place for Hate" sign outside Town Hall has already been taken down. Some residents of other towns participating in the No Place for Hate program, like Arlington, want to follow in Watertown's footsteps.

As H20Town points out, the ADL's refusal to recognize the genocide is a "bizarre and disappointing stance for an organization formed to protect the rights of Jewish people from bigotry." The ADL clearly has a lot to work out, only they won't be doing it in Watertown.

Pressure mounting on ADL program

The ADL's curious indifference to the Armenian genocide

On Armenian Genocide, Politics Trumps Truth

A genocide not to be denied

Kick the ADL out of Watertown, Massachusetts

Exercise cannot reduce a sodium-retaining hormone in African Americans known to potentially cause hypertension

Anna Nguyen:

Exercise cannot reduce a sodium-retaining hormone in African Americans known to potentially cause hypertension, found Michael D. Brown, Ph.D., the senior author of a study in the September issue of Experimental Physiology. Brown is an associate professor of kinesiology at Temple University’s College of Health Professions.

The hormone, aldosterone, influences the kidney’s regulation of blood pressure, but too much of it can contribute to the development of hypertension because it causes the kidney to retain salt. Aldosterone, released by the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys, plays a role in the complex system used by the body to regulate blood pressure.

“Although the results are discouraging for African Americans and hypertension, it’ll point us in other directions that may have more potential and could be the key to reducing hypertension,” said Brown, who has a background in exercise physiology.

Many African Americans develop the salt-sensitive form of hypertension. Approximately 40 percent of African Americans have hypertension — the highest rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States — but there is little data about what makes them more susceptible to this condition, Brown said.


This study is based on the premise that the prevalence of blood pressure sensitivity to salt is extremely high is African Americans. Alterations in aldosterone regulation may play a role because aldosterone causes the kidney to retain salt. Brown said he wanted to find out if exercise could lower the levels.

In the study, he found that the level of aldosterone was related to how the two racial groups distributed body fat. Caucasians generally stored fat in the abdomen area, whereas African Americans had fat distributed throughout the body in a layer under the skin. The six-month study involving 35 Caucasians and African Americans with hypertension found that aerobic exercise training program reduced aldosterone levels in Caucasians by 32 percent, but levels for African Americans were reduced by only 8 percent. Total body fat was reduced only in Caucasians, which might be a clue to the drop in aldosterone.

“The kidneys help to regulate blood pressure by changing the levels of salt and water in our body. Sometimes the kidneys reset at a higher blood pressure level if it has retained too much salt,” Brown said.

While the study showed exercise did not lower aldosterone in African Americans, exercise still has many other benefits for this population, Brown said.

“Exercise has the capacity to affect so many things. It’s a way for the body to correct itself,” he added.

Brown will continue his research in this area with a $3.5 million National Institutes of Health grant awarded earlier this year. In September, Brown will recruit African Americans with hypertension for a study on how exercise can improve the blood vessel condition. The study will also take an in-depth look at how genes can contribute to hypertension.

“Solving the cause of hypertension is similar to solving a big puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle represents a contributing factor to hypertension. Each of these pieces, or possible causes of hypertension, needs to be studied in a systematic way,” Brown said.

Doctors seem to be slowly accepting the fact that racial differences are biological.

Backlash over book on U.S. foreign policy and Israel

Patricia Cohen:

In an article last spring about the pro-Israel lobby, two scholars set off a firestorm of charges of anti-Semitism. Their new book on the topic has re-ignited the fire and led many to question the wisdom of providing a forum to what some consider a "conspiracy issue."

"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors.

John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument - that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy - set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.

"Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States," they write. "Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public or even raise the possibility" because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful. They credit the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with moderates in Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian Zionists and the issue of dual loyalty.

Opponents are prepared. Also being released on Sept. 4 is "The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control" (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel groups "have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is simply wrong," George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the foreword. "This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it."

The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

The authors were particularly disturbed by the Chicago council's decision, since plans for that event were complete and both authors have frequently spoken there before. The two sent a four-page letter to 94 members of the council's board detailing what happened. "On July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us (Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was canceling the event," and that his decision "was based on the need 'to protect the institution.' He said that he had a serious 'political problem,' because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative consequences for the council. 'This one is so hot,' Marshall maintained."

Mr. Mearsheimer later said of Mr. Bouton, "I had the sense that this phone call pained him deeply."

Mr. Bouton was out of town, but Rachel Bronson, vice president for programs and studies at the council, said, "Whenever we have topics that are particularly controversial or sensitive, we try to make sure someone from another point of view is there." In this case, she said, there was not sufficient time to set up that sort of panel before the council calendar went out. There are no plans to have the authors speak at a later date, however.

"One of the points we make in the book is that this is a subject that's very hard to talk about," Mr. Walt said in an interview from his office in Cambridge. "Organizations, no matter how strong their commitment to free speech, don't want to schedule something that's likely to cause controversy."

After the cancellation Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall, a store in Winnetka, Ill., offered to help find a site for the authors. She said she tried a Jewish community center and two large downtown clubs but they all told her "they can't afford to bring in somebody 'too controversial.' " She added that even she was concerned about inviting authors who might offend customers.

Some of the planned sites, like the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a cultural center in Washington, would have been host of an event if Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt appeared with opponents, said Esther Foer, the executive director.

Mr. Walt said, "Part of the game is to portray us as so extreme that we have to be balanced by someone from the 'other side.' " Besides, he added, when you're promoting a book, you want to present your ideas without appearing with someone who is trying to discredit you.

As for City University, Aoibheann Sweeney, director of the Center for the Humanities, said, "I looked at the introduction, and I didn't feel that the book was saying things differently enough" from the original article. Ms. Sweeney, who said she had consulted with others at City University, acknowledged that they had begun planning for an event in September moderated by J. J. Goldberg, the editor of The Forward, a leading American Jewish weekly, but once he chose not to participate, she decided to pass. Mr. Goldberg, who was traveling in Israel, said in a telephone interview that "there should be more of an open debate." But appearing alone with the authors would have given the impression that The Forward was presenting the event and thereby endorsing the book, he said, and he did not want to do that. A discussion with other speakers of differing views would have been different, he added.

"I don't think the book is very good," said Mr. Goldberg, who said he read a copy of the manuscript about six weeks ago. "They haven't really done original research. They haven't talked to the people who are being lobbied or those doing the lobbying."

Overall Mr. Mearsheimer said he thinks the response to their views will be "less ferocious than last time, because it's becoming increasingly difficult to make the argument in a convincing way that anyone who criticizes the lobby or Israel is an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew." Both Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt pointed to the growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, criticism of Israel's war in Lebanon and the publication of former President Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" as making it somewhat easier to criticize Israel openly.

"This isn't a cabal; this isn't anything secretive," Mr. Walt said.

American Jews who lobby on Israel's behalf are not all that different from the National Rifle Association, the anti-tax movement, AARP or the American Petroleum Institute, he said, "They just happen to be really good at it."

"It's the way American politics work," he continued. "Sometimes powerful interest groups get what they want, and it's not good for the country as a whole. I would say that about the farm lobby and about the Cuba lobby."

To the authors, dual loyalty is as American as Presidents' Day sales and "Law & Order" reruns. As Mr. Mearsheimer explained: "People are allowed to have multiple loyalties. They have religious loyalties, loyalty to family, to an organization and you can have loyalty to other countries. Someone who is Irish can have a loyalty to Ireland."

"The problem," he said "is when you raise the subject of dual loyalty, many people tend to think of it in the context of the old anti-Semitic canard and making the argument that Jews are disloyal to the U.S."

In print and in interviews both authors have stressed that they hold no animus towards Israel or Jews. "We think Israeli policy is fundamentally flawed," Mr. Mearsheimer said, "just as we think American policy is fundamentally flawed."

The Israel Lobby

US offers Israel $30bn in military aid

An illegal immigrant from Guatemala has pled guilty to vehicular assault, leaving the scene of an accident and driving while intoxicated

Alfonso Castillo:

Alejandro Xuya-Sian did more than shred the skin on his victim's body -- he shredded his victim's dignity, making him feel "too embarrassed" by his appearance to face the drunken driver who nearly dragged him to his death, a judge said as he sentenced Xuya-Sian to 3 1/3 to 10 years in prison.

"You didn't just injure him physically. You shattered his life," Suffolk County Judge James Hudson told Xuya-Sian before he imposed his sentence. Hudson said Xuya-Sian treated his victim with less regard than he should "an injured animal."

Xuya-Sian, 27, pleaded guilty last month to vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated, leaving the scene of an accident and other charges.

Suffolk prosecutors said Xuya-Sian struck Anselmo Chin-Sabam, 21, with his 2002 GMC Envoy in the parking lot of a Riverhead bar in April. Chin-Sabam became lodged in the front left wheel of the SUV, and had his skin shredded as Xuya-Sian drove three-quarters of a mile before realizing he was there.

Assistant District Attorney Thalia Stavrides said Xuya-Sian "stopped the car, got out and undoubtedly dislodged him from the car," then kept driving, crashing into a tree about two miles away. Stavrides said Xuya-Sian was arrested with blood-alcohol level of .08 percent, right at the legal limit.

Chin-Sabam suffered first-degree burns on more than 40 percent of his body, multiple fractures and had some parts of his body torn to the muscle, Stavrides said. He is still recovering and was in no condition to be in court Thursday, she said.

Given the opportunity to make a statement before receiving his sentence, Xuya-Sian began speaking when his Legal Aid attorney, Bryan Browns, interrupted him. Browns took him to the side, and then said his client would remain silent.

Browns said Xuya-Sian, an illegal immigrant, had two children and a wife in his native Guatemala and had been working a $450-a week job to help support them.

"He regrets and he takes full responsibility for what happened," Browns said in court. "I think his time in prison is going to allow him to reflect and get on with his life."

Hudson said he would recommend that Xuya-Sian be deported after completing his sentence -- a sentence that Hudson said was "too lenient" because of limitations of law.

"[The sentence] is not enough to give consolation to your victim that this is how such a violation of his body was punished," Hudson said.

Man dragged by SUV on Long Island

Drunk and dangerous: DUI illegals behind the wheel

Man who killed a 15-year-old girl by stepping on her throat until she stopped breathing was not a U.S. citizen and was in the country illegally

Associated Press:

Less than nine months before he allegedly killed a 15-year-old girl by stepping on her throat until she stopped breathing, Alejandro Rivera Gamboa pleaded guilty to drunken driving and disclosed that he was not a U.S. citizen.

Rivera Gamboa, 24, signed a plea agreement that read, in part: "I understand that if I am not a citizen of the United States, a criminal conviction could cause me to be deported, denied United States citizenship, or refused the right to re-enter the United States."

The document, obtained by The Oregonian newspaper, provides evidence that authorities had reason to suspect that Rivera Gamboa was in the U.S. illegally. But Rivera Gamboa was released without anyone notifying immigration authorities.

He and his cousin, Gilberto Javier Arellano Gamboa, are charged with aggravated murder in the death of Dani Countryman, a Texas girl strangled during a visit to Oregon late last month. The two also face charges of attempted rape and attempted sex-abuse.

Arellano Gamboa is also in the country illegally, but does not have a previous criminal record.

Oregon law prohibits local police from actively searching out illegal immigrants, but the rules change when foreigners land in jail. If local authorities find reason to believe the person is deportable, they may notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But Mark Rasmussen, Clackamas County's top probation official, said his agency hasn't been referring misdemeanor offenders to immigration officials because they seem uninterested in low-level criminals.

"Our experience is that (ICE) doesn't do anything unless it's a felony and even then, it just depends," Rasmussen said.

Countryman's death, however, has some Oregon prosecutors taking another look at the way they handle suspects with questionable immigration status.

"There's been more illegal immigration and more illegal immigrants connected to crime," said Norm Frink, chief deputy district attorney in Multnomah County. "We're going to look at it and figure out if there's a different approach we could take."

In Clackamas County, where Countryman died, District Attorney John Foote said his prosecutors check immigration status on a case by case basis. He did not know how often such checks are done or how often federal authorities are notified, but said he is reassessing his office's policies and plans to have new guidelines in place this fall.

Lorie Dankers, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, said the agency's policy is to respond to calls from local law enforcement. Dankers said the immigration agency recently assigned agents to check jail rosters in southern Oregon and will eventually do routine checks in all of the state's county jails.

It's official: Our government is incapable of protecting its citizens from the criminal activities of illegal immigrants.

Culture of Drunk Driving

California: Whether they are poor or rich, white students are scoring higher than African Americans and Latinos on the state's standardized tests

Laurel Rosenhall:

And in some cases, the poorest white students are doing better than Latino and black students who come from middle class or wealthy families.

The so-called achievement gap -- the difference in performance between groups of students -- has long been chalked up to a difference in family income. It makes sense that -- regardless of race -- students whose parents have money and speak English would do better in school, on the whole, than students whose families struggle with employment, food and shelter.

But this year's test scores show that the difference in academic achievement between ethnic groups is more than an issue of poverty vs. wealth.

On the standardized math tests that public school students take every year from second to 11th grade, 38 percent of white students who qualify for subsidized lunch scored proficient or above, compared with 36 percent of Latino students and 30 percent of black students whose families made too much money to qualify for school meals. On standardized English tests, poor white students did about the same as non-poor Latino and African American students.

"These are not just economic achievement gaps," state Superintendent Jack O'Connell said in announcing the test scores from an elementary school in Inglewood.

"They are racial achievement gaps, and we cannot continue to excuse them."

It's a new twist on what has become a common theme for O'Connell -- the danger the achievement gap poses for California's economic future. About 56 percent of the state's public school students are Latino or black, so their academic performance now will have a big influence on the work force of the future.

"I've been pounding this drum and am going to continue to do so, not just for the moral imperative that we have, but for the economic imperative," O'Connell said.

"We're going to focus on (the achievement gap) like a heat-seeking missile during my last three years here as the state superintendent."

In general, test scores were flat compared with last year, but up from five years ago. Forty-one percent of students were proficient in math this year, while 43 percent were proficient in English. Even though students are doing better than five years ago -- when 35 percent were proficient in math and English -- the achievement gap between racial groups has remained a constant, with white and Asian American students scoring higher than their Latino and African American peers.

Schools and neighborhoods

Test scores differ greatly between racial groups

Tough new powers to make it easier to deport unwarranted immigrants and refugees deemed a risk to New Zealand have been unveiled by the government

TVNZ:

The proposed rules are aimed at stopping people deemed a security risk from entering the country and the controversial changes are being described as the biggest shake up of immigration law in 20 years.

New Zealanders returning home from overseas could soon have their picture taken by immigration officials in the wide range of reforms in the new Immigration Bill.

Immigration Minister David Cunliffe says it is the biggest rewrite of immigration law for two decades.

Under the proposed laws biometric information such as iris scans and fingerprints from foreigners will be able to collected from people as they cross our borders. In the case of New Zealand citizens it will be restricted to photographs for identity verification.

Cunliffe says the use of the technology is an extra security tool and brings NZ in line with practices used overseas.

Cunliffe also says the government will establish an independent appeals body and a detention system. The minister says there will be safeguards to ensure the use of secret information gathered isn't abused. He says the bill is consistent with the Bill of Rights.

"Changes in this Bill will clarify and strengthen border security, tighten the law against those who pose a risk to New Zealand's wellbeing, and facilitate the entry of those migrants we want," Cunliffe says.

"It allows Classified Information to be used in immigration, refugee, and protection decisions. We will have a robust new international protection regime, a world-class independent appeals system, and a model detention system that will uphold human rights and high standards of fairness."

Cunliffe says significant global changes have taken place since the present law was passed in 1987 with greater flows of people around the world, greater global competition for skills, talent, and labour and heightened risks and pressures on the border.

The new bill also makes it easier to hold people who may pose a security risk. Immigrants or refugees could be detained for four days without a warrant and officials will be given new powers.

"Designated immigration officers will also have powers of entry inspection and search. They will not have powers of arrest or seizure," says Cunliffe.

Green MP Keith Locke says instead of increasing fairness in the immigration system, the bill increases the power of immigration officials.

He says New Zealand seems to be competing with America to be the first to get to a surveillance state. Locke says he doubts most New Zealanders would want to have their biometric details on file, which could be sent around the world.

Prime Minister Helen Clark rejects claims by the Greens that the changes are akin to a big-brother society. She says it's important to keep a balance between protection of individual rights and the protection of society and she believes the bill reaches that balance.

The government is confident it will have the numbers in parliament for the bill to become law.

New immigrants to have faces, finger prints scanned at airports

About 50% of Europeans carry one copy of a genetic mutation which appears able to reduce the amount of HIV in the body by an average of 60%

Roxanne Khamsi:

A small genetic mutation in the section of human DNA that codes for immune proteins appears able to reduce the amount of HIV in the body by an average of 90%, new research suggests. Scientists say the finding points to new ways in which vaccines might one day help boost immune protection against the virus.

Jacques Fellay at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, US, and his teammates reviewed data collected from 30,000 HIV-infected individuals of European descent over a three-year period.

Within this group, the team identified almost 500 individuals who had a known date of infection and a stable amount of HIV in their system – a measure known as 'viral load'.

Working with the molecular biologist David Goldstein, Fellay sought to understand how genetic differences among these 500 people could influence how well their bodies kept HIV under control.

Using DNA sequences determined from patient blood samples, the team worked to link specific genetic mutations with differences in viral load. Their analysis revealed that one particular variant, in a part of the code that produces an immune protein called HLA-C, seems have a big impact on virus levels in the body.

People with this tiny sequence variation, dubbed rs9264942, appear to have up to 90% less virus in their systems than those who carry other polymorphisms.

Fellay says viral load is known to be the most important predictor for how quickly a person's infection will develop into full-blown AIDS. A patient whose virus levels initially settle at a lower number has a much better prognosis than someone whose infection stabilises at a higher amount, he explains.

The rs9264942mutation appears to help fight HIV infection by increasing the amount of HLA-C protein produced in the body. The protein helps alert the immune system to foreign particles, such as viruses, within cells. While HIV can disable similar proteins, known as HLA-A and HLA-B, it appears unable to do the same to HLA-C.

About 10% of Europeans appear to carry two copies of rs9264942, which leads to an average 90% viral load reduction. About 50% of Europeans carry one copy, which gives a 60% reduction. By comparison, less than 40% of people of African descent appear to carry a single copy of the polymorphism.

Fellay says that the new results from the study suggest that a vaccine to stimulate the action of HLA-C could help fight HIV.

Previous studies have found that certain genetic mutations, such the rare CCR5 mutation, can offer protection against the virus, but the new report is the first to show the impact of a variant affecting HLA-C.

The Geographic Spread of the CCR5 Δ32 HIV-Resistance Allele

Geneticists believe they know why humans are so different from chimps, although sharing most of the same genes: it's how the genes are used

UPI:

After studying the regulatory sequences adjacent to 6,280 genes in the DNA of chimps, humans and the rhesus macaque, Duke University scientists determined the differences center mainly on traits involving brains and diet -- or, as one researcher put it: "It's rather like the same set of notes being played in very different ways."

"Positive selection, the process by which genetic changes that aid survival and reproduction spread throughout a species, has targeted the regulation of many genes known to be involved in the brain and nervous system and in nutrition," said Ralph Haygood, a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Duke biology professor Gregory Wray.

Although many studies have looked for significant differences in the coding regions of genes relating to neural system development and failed to find any, the Duke team believes its study is the first to take a genome-wide look at the evolution of regulatory sequences in different organisms.

A Real Diamond: Michael Hart’s Understanding Human History

African-Americans are victims of nearly half the murders committed in the United States despite making up only 13% of the population

AFP:

Around 8,000 of nearly 16,500 murder victims in 2005, or 49 percent, were black Americans, according to the report released by the statistics bureau of the Department of Justice.

Broken down by gender, 6,800 black men were murdered in 2005, making up more than half the nearly 13,000 male murder victims.

Black women made up 35 percent, or 1,200, of the nearly 3,500 female homicide victims.

Young black men aged between 17 and 29 bore a disproportionately high burden in the grim statistics, making up 51 percent of African-American murder victims.

The percentage of white male murder victims in the same age group was 37 percent.

More than half the murders of blacks took place in densely populated urban areas.

Firearms were involved 77 percent of the time in homicides involving black people and around 60 percent of the time in murders of whites.

Most murder victims -- 93 percent of blacks and 85 percent of whites -- were killed by someone of their own race.

Gang violence was involved in around five percent of homicides with black victims against seven percent for white victims.

In percentage terms, whites were twice as likely to be killed by a current or former partner than blacks -- 12 percent of whites were murdered by a life partner against six percent of blacks.

Blacks were also at greater risk of rape or sexual assault than any other ethnic group except American Indians, the report showed.

Racial differences exist, with blacks disproportionately represented among homicide victims and offenders

Asian supremacist sentenced to therapy, gets year of mental health treatment for brandishing hammer

Associated Press:

A former columnist and self-described Asian supremacist who applauded the Virginia Tech slayings has been sentenced to a year of mental health treatment for waving a hammer at a neighbor's face and threatening to kill her and her family.

Kenneth Eng, 24, of Bayside, New York, pleaded guilty in Queens County Court on Thursday to an indictment charging him with attempted assault and harassment over the incident last April.

Eng was arrested May 9 for threatening the neighbor, Marissa Addison, 29, and her mother, Jane Rosovich, who were standing with their two dogs on their lawn in front of their Queens home.

Eng is accused of yelling at Addison, saying, "If your dog bites me, I will kill you and your family," and then swinging a hammer at her.

Last February, Eng was fired from the San Francisco-based weekly newspaper AsianWeek for writing a column titled "Why I Hate Blacks."

Three months later, in a Village Voice interview, Eng gloried in the slayings of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech and fancifully speculated that his own writings might have inspired the killer, Seung-Hui Cho.

Eng also told the New York weekly that his own plan for a similar killing spree at New York University was aborted only because he could not afford a weapon.

After his sentencing on Thursday, federal authorities produced an arrest warrant and took Eng into custody. The nature of that case was not immediately known.

His attorney, Joel Dranove, of Manhattan, said he expected Eng to appear in Brooklyn federal court on Friday, but had no further comment.

Queens County Judge Dorothy Chin-Brandt ordered Eng on Thursday to attend a 12-month outpatient mental health program. If Eng fails to comply with the program's requirements and fails to take his medication, or if he violates his neighbors' orders of protection, he can be resentenced to up to 4 years in prison.

Kenneth Eng Threatened a 'White Pussy' With Violence

With Two You Get Jail Time: Kenneth Eng Pleads Out, Gets Arrested Again

9 Guatemalans were indicted for their roles in a sex trafficking ring that lured young women to the US and then forced them into prostitution

Associated Press:

Four of the defendants pleaded not guilty in January to sex trafficking charges in the case. A superseding indictment, unsealed Thursday, includes more serious allegations that five of the 12 victims were minors.

According to the new 50-count indictment, the defendants at times sold Guatemalan women and girls to one another like slaves and allegedly brought the victims to witch doctors who threatened to put curses on them and their families if they ran away.

"These young women were enticed into coming to this country by promises of the American dream only to arrive and discover that what awaited was a nightmare," said Robert Schoch, a special agent in charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned the indictment against Gladys Vasquez Valenzuela, 36; her sisters, Mirna Jeanneth, 26, and Albertina, 49; and Albertina's daughter, Maria Vicente de los Angeles, 28.

The four face charges of sex trafficking of minors; sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; violating federal laws prohibiting interstate or foreign transport of minors for prostitution; and importing and harboring undocumented immigrants and harboring them for prostitution.

Five others also were charged in the indictment for their roles in the scheme, including guarding the women to prevent them from escaping, threatening their families in Guatemala, and beating and forcing the women to work, authorities said.

Four of the female defendants were arrested in December during raids in Los Angeles. One additional suspect, Flor Morales Sanchez, 33, was arrested Thursday. Six defendants remain in custody without bond. Another, Maribel Rodriguez Vasquez, is a fugitive.

A lawyer representing Luis Vicente Vasquez, 31, who faces counts of bringing women into the country illegally for prostitution, denies his client did anything wrong.

"We are going to court on this," attorney Philip Deitch said.

Attorney Errol Stambler, who represents Mirna Jeanneth Vasquez, said his client was a victim, not a trafficker. He said his own investigation revealed she had been forced into prostitution to repay smugglers who brought her to the U.S, and that her pimp forced her to house teenage prostitutes.

Messages left with two other attorneys representing defendants were not immediately returned.

The investigation began last year when two victims escaped with the help of a male customer and contacted authorities, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Two other victims were rescued by investigators in November. Ten women at the locations raided also were believed to have been working as prostitutes.

More evidence that immigration leads to an increase in crime.

Charging papers paint a disturbing picture of 3 African-American teens charged with murder

KING:

For anyone who watched the arraignment of Mount Tahoma High School students Daniel Harris, 18, Cyril Walrond, 17, and Jarrelle Marshall, 16, it’s hard to believe they are charged with first degree murder and first-degree burglary in two separate attacks.

[snip]

Prosecutors say on April 20 at Les Davis Pier, Waldron attacked Carl Schmidt from behind, striking him hard on his head with a sheet rock hammer. Marshall acted as a lookout, while Harris went through Schmidt’s car and stole several items.

Prosecutors say an hour later, the three targeted Dien Huynh when the 55-year-old walked outside his home. Walrond ran him down and repeatedly struck him in the head with a hammer.

The teens stole cash and credit cards.

A relative found Huynh about five hours later on the front porch. He died two nights later at Tacoma General Hospital.

The documents say the teens said they committed the crimes "because they wanted money."

Charging papers say in Waldronds' bedroom, police found newspaper articles about the crimes and an article describing the robbery and beating death of 69-year-old Darrel Johnson that occurred in Tacoma in January of 2005.

The documents also say Harris had Schmidt's baseball hat hanging on his wall "like a souvenir."

Tacoma schools spokeswoman Patti Holmgren said all three teens are well-known students at Mount Tahoma.

Holmgren said Harris and Walrond, both seniors, had earned Washington State Achievers scholarships. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offers the program to eligible students at 16 Achievers High Schools; the scholarships average about $5,000 each year for four years.

Holmgren said all three teens played football and ran track. She said Walrond planned to attend the University of Washington and was recently elected African American Pageant Prince for the student body's annual festivities.

Bail has been set for each of the teens at $1 million. They have all been charged as adults.

They Forgot Something

3 youths charged in man's beating death

Bill Gates gave scholarships to killers

Britain: Grooming of white girls for sex is exposed as two Asian men are jailed

Lucy Bannerman:

A hidden world in which Asian men “groom” young white girls for sex has been exposed with the jailing yesterday of two men for child-abuse offences.

Zulfqar Hussain, 46, and Qaiser Naveed, 32, from east Lancashire, were each jailed for five years and eight months after exploiting two girls aged under 16 by plying them with alcohol and drugs before having sex with them.

Both men pleaded guilty at Preston Crown Court to abduction, sexual activity with a child and the supply of a controlled drug.

Despite being told explicitly by police and social services that both girls were under-age and should be returned to care, the men picked up one girl from a children’s home in Blackburn and then drove on to collect her friend who was living in temporary foster care in North Wales.

Naveed, from Burnley, gave one girl the first of five Ecstasy tablets at a motorway service station before having sex with her on the back seat of the car while the group drove back to Lancashire. The court was told that the two men later took the girls to an address in Blackburn where Hussain, from Blackburn, had sex with the second girl and gave her a total of ten Ecstasy tablets.

Yesterday Judge Andrew Gilbart, QC, jailed the two Asian men under new sex laws designed to protect youngsters from being groomed for sexual activity. Judge Gilbart said: “This is a truly shocking offence. You knew them. They were exploited for sex by the two of you. No other description is possible. They were under-age girls who you knew it was your responsibility to protect and not exploit.”

The trial came amid growing concern at the attitudes of some Asian men towards white girls which campaigners for women claim few people wish to address.

Parents have complained that in parts of the country with large Asian communities white girls as young as 12 are being targeted for sex by older Asian men yet the authorities are unwilling to act because of fears of being labelled racist.

Ann Cryer, a Labour member of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, has been at the forefront of attempting to tackle the problem after receiving complaints from mothers in her constituency about young Asian men targeting their under-age daughters.

Although campaigners claim that hundreds of young girls are already being passed around men within the Asian community for sex, she said that attempts to raise the problem with community leaders had met with little success, with most of them being in a state of denial about it.

After the case, the mother of one of the girls, who cannot be named for legal reasons, welcomed the jail terms. “This will hopefully act as a warning to others,” the woman said. She had had to leave the court as details of the men’s sexual relations with the teenagers were read out. After the trial, Ms Cryer said that young Asian men were caught between two cultures having been brought up in a Western society in families while retaining the cultural values of the Asian sub-continent.

She said: “The family and cultural norms of their community means they are expected to marry a first cousin or other relative back in a village in Mirapur or wherever the family comes from. Therefore, until that marriage is arranged they look out for sex.

“At the point in their lives when they are ready for this sort of activity, Asians cannot go to Asian girls because it would be a terrible breach of the honour of the community and their family to have sex with an Asian girl before marriage.” She said that the reason Asian men targeted very young white girls was because older white girls knew that a relationship with an Asian youth was unlikely to last as the community would seek an arranged marriage with someone from the Asian sub- continent. Police and groups campaigning to protect women insisted that the grooming of youngsters is not segregated along race lines, though there is concern at the attitudes of some young Asian men towards white girls.

Parents claim that criminal networks are able to prey on young girls because the authorities are reluctant to tackle the issue for fear of upsetting race relations in areas of the North West with large ethnic minority communities.

However, Ms Cryer added: “I think there is a problem with the view Asian men generally have about white women. Their view about white women is generally fairly low. They do not seem to understand that there are white girls as moral and as good as Asian girls.”

Pair abducted girls (14) for sex

Zulfqar Hussain and Qaiser Naveed

BNP "lies" exposed...as truth!

Asian grooming of teenage English girls slips into the news

Grooming of white girls for sex is exposed as two Asian men jailed

Whodunnit?

A 12-year-old Indian girl was beaten and then hanged by her mother for demanding she be sent to school

Reuters:

The girl was beaten unconscious with a rolling pin by her mother in a village in Jodhpur district in the western desert state of Rajasthan this month.

"The mother thought she had killed the girl and, in panic, decided to make it appear like a suicide," a police officer was quoted as saying.

"She allegedly tied a rope around the girl's neck and hung her from the ceiling."

The woman has been arrested.

The girl's father, a labourer, said he and his wife could not afford a bicycle to send their daughter to school a few kilometres away.

Parents across large parts of rural India often prefer boys over girls because sons are seen as future breadwinners and expected to look after them in their old age.

Girls, on the other hand, are seen as a liability for whom parents will have to pay a huge dowry to get married.

The report from Rajasthan came a day after police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh said a man who yearned for a son killed his 11-year-old daughter, cut her into pieces and threw parts of her body into a fire.

Mother faces five years in jail for her daughter's murder

An illegal immigrant from Peru and African-American murder victims

Jeff McKay:

Funeral services were held over the weekend for three young people whose execution-style murders have galvanized crime-ridden Newark, N.J.

"Enough is enough!" Newark Mayor Cory Booker exclaimed at one of the three funerals on Saturday. He is urging community involvement as a means of reducing violence in the city.

Gov. Jon Corzine also spoke to the people of Newark. "As a human being, not just your governor, I am here with a broken heart, a sad heart, a heavy heart," Corzine said at one of the funerals. "These children deserved better."

The murders of Dashon Harvey and Iofemi Hightower, both 20 years old, and Terrance Aeriel, 18, were particularly brutal, many believe. Police said the three robbery victims (and a fourth who survived) were ordered to kneel in front of a wall, before being shot in the back of the head.

Police have arrested three suspects, two of them 15 years old. But outrage is particularly keen when it comes to the third suspect, a 28-year-old illegal immigrant from Peru, who was out on the streets despite two prior arrests this year, including one for the rape of a little girl.

In State Superior Court on Aug. 10, the day after his arrest, Carranza spoke in Spanish and had his comments translated for the judge. He pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder, attempted murder and robbery. He admitted that he did not have a valid Social Security card.

Relatives of the victims and many others are wondering how Carranza could have been allowed back on the streets after two prior felony arrests this year. Carranza had already been indicted on 31 counts involving the rape and sexual assault of a girl who had been in his care since she was four years old. He also faced aggravated assault and weapons charges stemming from a fight in a bar.

Despite those felony charges, the illegal immigrant had been released on bail twice -- $150,000 bail in the sexual abuse case and $50,000 bail in the weapons case.

Murder of three at New Jersey schoolyard stokes immigration debate

Dr. Putnam's Bunker-Buster

Sanctuary Cities, Illegal Alien Crime, And Clueless Journalists

Nicaraguan Invader With Rap Sheet Wanted In Killings

A city without fathers

The Latino vote fell from 6.0% in 2004 to 5.8% in 2006

Steve Sailer:

After the giant illegal alien marches in the spring of 2006, the mainstream media confidently predicted that Hispanics would turn out in vast numbers at the polls last November. Well, the Census Bureau's gold-standard estimate of the Hispanic share of the vote in the last election (based on its survey of 153,000 respondents) is now out, and the Latino fraction fell from 6.0% in 2004 to 5.8% in 2006.

As Peter Brimelow has been pointing out since 1997, simple arithmetic shows that the growth in Latino voters is bad for the GOP. (David Frum echoed Brimelow's point recently, and was called a Ku Klux Klanner for his troubles.)

As I've been pointing out since 2001, however, the widespread belief among Establishment Republicans like Karl Rove that the growth in the Latino vote is so rapid that they already constitute a decisive bloc whose views on illegal immigration can't be disobeyed is innumerate. There's still time when it remains politically feasible to do something about immigration.

For example, GOP pundit Michael Barone wrote that the Hispanic vote would reach 8 or 9 percent in the 2004 election. I publicly offered to bet him $1,000 that the Census survey of 50,000 households right after the voting would find a figure closer to 6.1%. The actual result was 6.0%, but Barone didn't take me up on my offer (which is too bad because I could use the money.)

Electing a New People

Too True for Journalism?

Don’t Worry, Democrats! This Hispanic Hype Is Hogwash

African-Americans, Hispanics and subprime mortgages

Steve Sailer:

Now that the long predicted dubious mortgage crash has finally arrived, I keep remembering that going back to the early 1990s, the government has been twisting the arms of private lenders to get them to lend more mortgage money to minorities than the private firms believed was justified by colorblind principles of creditworthiness.

This history seems to have disappeared down the memory hole because it's all in the sacred cause of fighting discrimination (real or imagined), but I recall it distinctly from when I was a daily reader of the Wall Street Journal in the 1990s.

For example, there was a celebrated 1993 study by the Boston Fed showing that minorities' mortgage applications were rejected at a higher rate. (Peter Brimelow pointed out in Forbes that minorities did not have lower default rates, suggesting that lenders were behaving in a rationally colorblind manner, but that was not a popular view at the time.)

Have the chickens finally come home to roost?

I'm sure the private financial markets were quite capable of blowing up a big bubble by themselves in the eternal see-saw struggle between greed and fear, but this political pressure for lending to minorities with doubtful credit must have exacerbated the problem. About half of all mortgages for blacks and Hispanics are subprime, versus about one-sixth for whites.

The Hidden Clue

Justice Dept. says it is investigating discrimination against minorities in home loans

Census shows that New York City's African-American population is in decline

Eliot Brown:

Elected officials and demographers say rising housing costs and changing immigration patterns are contributing to a decline in the city's black population, a trend fed in part by the growing number of families moving to the South.

As the city is seeing a huge influx of other racial and ethnic groups, estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau scheduled for release today show that the number of black residents fell by more than 40,000 between 2000 and 2006. The city's overall population was estimated to have grown by about 200,000, with the number of people identifying as Hispanic and Asian each increasing by more than 90,000.

African-American leaders say that especially for older residents, pastures can be greener outside of the city's boundaries, where the cost of living is significantly lower.

"I just see the U-Haul trucks, and people coming up to me and kissing goodbye," Council Member Letitia James said. "They just indicate to me that their dollar can go farther in the South."

The decline in the black population Â-- a number that includes both African Americans and many immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean Â-- occurred in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan.

Should the estimates be correct, the trend would represent something of a turnaround from patterns of the previous decade: Between 1990 and 2000, the city's black population grew by more than 25,000.

Council Member Leroy Comrie Jr., who said he attends a moving-South party at least once a month, also pointed to a noticeable decline in the number of young African Americans that are staying or moving into the area, perhaps due to housing costs.

"I'm always talking about the fact that our children are not being able to afford our homes anymore," Mr. Comrie said.

The pattern of out-migration for the New York City black population differs from that of many major cities in the country, according to a demographer at the Brookings Institution, William Frey. Whereas affordability issues are pushing many to move to nearby suburbs in cities such as Chicago, in New York, the movement tends to be much farther, he said.

"What struck me is that the blacks who left New York City weren't going to suburban New Jersey, they were going to Washington, D.C., or Virginia, or some place like that," Mr. Frey said. "For blacks, a lot of it is not just the unaffordability of the city itself, but of the metropolitan area."

The director of the Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center, John Mollenkopf, said the number of American-born blacks has been falling in the city for decades, but in the past foreign immigration had led to a net increase. "It's my sense that Afro- Caribbean migration to he city has slackened off to a degree in recent years," Mr. Mollenkopf said. "It was really the growth of the Afro- Caribbean population that did mask the slow decline of the African-American population."

The movement to the South by African Americans represents a generational shift, Mr. Mollenkopf said, as many of those moving tend to be older residents that moved to New York City from southern states decades ago.

Among all ethnic and groups, foreign immigration has been a strong, driving factor of population numbers. Of a single racial group, the Census Bureau estimated the Asians to have grown the most, increasing by more than 120,000 between 2000 and 2006.

The white population is estimated to have grown considerably as well, by more than 100,000. The figure includes Hispanics that identify as white Â-- the Census considered Hispanic as an ethnicity, and did not include it in its choices for race. When Hispanics are removed, the city's white population grew by only a few thousand.

For the past three years, the city has successfully challenged the estimates from the U.S. Census, saying they are too low. However in the case of the declining black population, even after the previous years' estimates were revised, the population has been shown to drop.

Hat tip, Gothamist.

As many as one in 11 Muslims in Britain agree with and proactively support terrorism

James Slack:

Haras Rafiq also told officers at Scotland Yard that up to 20 per cent of the Muslim population ' sympathise' with militants, while stopping short of being prepared to 'blow themselves up'.

His remarks underline the scale of the task facing Gordon Brown to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, only a week after he promised an extra £70million to councils and community groups to fight extremism.

Mr Rafiq, an adviser to the Government's preventing extremism taskforce, said: "A percentage of people actually agree and support proactively the people that are deciding to blow themselves up.

"It varies, it can be 7 per cent, 5 per cent, 9 per cent."

With 1.6million Muslims living in the UK, nine per cent is the equivalent of 144,000 people supporting terrorism.

'Proactively' supporting terrorism is understood to mean the people are vocal in their support for fanatics, rather than actively helping them to commit atrocities.

Mr Rafiq, filmed by Channel 4's Dispatches, went on: "Next we can have a percentage of people that can actually sympathise.

"These people at this stage ... won't go out and be operational and won't decide to blow themselves up but can sympathise with the people that can blow themselves up.

"Again this can be in double digits. Then we have a percentage of the population that actually empathises with the people that blow themselves up. It could be 15 to 20 per cent.

"It could be somebody who says, 'I don't agree that these guys are blowing themselves up but I can actually understand why'."

Mr Rafiq, a member of the Sufi Muslim Council, made his presentation to Scotland Yard earlier this year, after almost two years of Government attempts to combat extremism in the wake of the July 7 bombings.

Critics argue that working parties and an attempt to persuade Muslim leaders and groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain to speak out against extremism have not had the desired impact.

The documentary reveals that fanatics are continuing to peddle a message of hatred in the UK.

This centres on persuading Muslims that the covenant of security that in return for safety and freedom, Muslims do not attack the nation that is their home - has been broken by draconian anti-terror laws and the war in Iraq.

Dispatches discovered that Abu Mohammed, a fanatical preacher based in Europe, managed to make a series of visits to Britain, lecturing to young Muslims in houses in Luton, before being banned by the Home Office in March this year.

He continues to radicalise followers here via the Internet.

Mohammed is filmed by reporter Phil Rees declaring: "We are in a state of war and no covenant exists...British Muslims should know that the British Government will do everything to frighten them, to make them very uncomfortable and they have to be prepared to pay the price and fight back."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said yesterday that the Government is changing its approach to dealing with extremism.

She added: "It seems to me that what we should be doing is emphasising the values that we share which are under attack from terrorism-rather than trying to create a battle or war between those who oppose the terror and those who want to carry it out."

She suggested Muslim communities have not been best served by their leaders.

She backed moves, put in place by Ruth Kelly when she was Communities Secretary, to broaden the kinds of groups with which the Government engages.

Miss Smith told New Statesman magazine: "We've got to make serious attempts to go beyond those who have previously been seen as leaders of the community."

Channel 4 film aimed to expose extremism

UK: Almost 10% Of Muslims Support Suicide Attacks

Islamic Group In London Calls For Islamic Empire

A son of Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator, has been sentenced to five years in jail for his part in a murderous London gang attack

Nico Hines:

Faisal Wangita, 25, was one of a group of 40 that attacked and killed Mahir Osman, 18, in a busy north London street in January 2006.

The Somali teenager was stabbed 20 times, attacked with baseball bats, bottles, hammers and scaffold poles, punched and kicked. He died within a minute of the start of his assault, prosecutors told London’s Central Criminal Court.

The attack, outside Camden Town underground station, was part of a bitter turf war between the Centric Boys, of which Wangita was a member, and the North London Somalis gang.

“It was a premeditated attack using a level of violence I have rarely seen,” said Detective Chief Inspector Michael Broster.

The attack resulted in two criminal trials, in total 13 people have been convicted for the attack, including three men found guilty of murder.

Wangita was acquitted of murder but was jailed for five years in April for conspiracy to wound and violent disorder for kicking Osman when he was on the ground. Judge Stephen Kramer described him as a “serious risk to the public.”

The conviction could not be reported until today for fear of prejudicing an ongoing and related trial. The judge had ruled that Wangita’s parentage should be kept from the jury in case it proved prejudicial. His father, Idi Amin, was one of the most feared and brutal dictators in African history.

Between 1971, when Amin seized control of Uganda in a coup d’état, and 1979 when he was deposed, the dictator is estimated to have been responsible for the death of 300,000 people.

According to popular history, he had awarded himself the title: “His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadji Dr Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, King of Scotland, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”

The former ruler died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2003. He had numerous children with various wives and lovers.

Wangita arrived in England some time ago and was living here with his mother, staying at a number of addresses in London, the court heard.

He had previous criminal convictions for possessing an offensive weapon and fraud in November 2000. In May 2002, he was given community service for threatening behaviour and he was convicted for theft and carrying an offensive weapon in 2006.

Finally, the day of reckoning for mob who hunted down Mahir

‘This brutal killing has destroyed my family’

Idi Amin's Son Jailed in Britain

Son of Idi Amin jailed for part in gang murder

Asians in Britain are five times less likely to marry outside their race than the white population

BBC News:

The poll for the BBC's Asian Network found that 44% would not consider a partner who was not Asian too.

One mixed-race couple interviewed for the station's report were Nayyar and Waleed from west Manchester.

When Nayyar was growing up, her parents had a clear idea of who they wanted her to marry - someone Pakistani, Muslim

and from the same extended family back home.

But when she introduced them to the man she wanted to settle down with, he didn't tick any of their boxes.

He was a Jamaican called Vinnie Walters, or Waleed after he converted to her faith.

"When I first told them about him, I was a bit worried," Nayyar says. "Which is why I left the fact he was Jamaican to the last thing I told them.

"It was like, 'Oh, he's a high school teacher and he's really nice', I didn't want to say too much about where he was from."

After giving him the third degree, they did come round, but this poll found young Asians were half as likely to choose a black partner than the white population, so Nayyar broke a double taboo.

More Black Women Marrying Men of Other Races, Census Reveals

African-Americans and talk radio

Casey Lartigue Jr.:

For nearly three decades, the memo has been passed around by word of mouth, the Internet, on nth-generation photocopied fliers, making the rounds among African American activists, politicians and talk-show hosts.

In "Black Africa and the U.S. Black Movement," also known as Memorandum 46, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser outlines a sinister 1970s government strategy to undermine black leadership in the United States and sow discord with Africans abroad.

It's a fantastic story, and on June 23, we devoted an entire edition of "The Casey Lartigue Show," our weekly political talk show on an XM satellite radio channel aimed at black listeners, to debunking it and other urban legends.

Everywhere we looked, we found evidence that the document was fake: a 1980 news clipping in which the Carter administration denounced it as a forgery; a September 1980 National Security Council memo noting that the "scurrilous document" referred to nonexistent entities such as the "NSC Political Analysis Committee"; 1982 testimony by the deputy director of the CIA presenting Memorandum 46 as part of a dozen suspected forgeries by the Soviet Union; a 2002 article by Paul Lee, a consultant to the Malcolm X movie by Spike Lee, dismissing Memorandum 46 as a fraud; and the real Presidential Review Memorandum 46, a bland call for a bureaucratic review of U.S. policy toward Central American issues, which is available on the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum's Web site.

We also contacted Zbigniew Brzezinski, the liberal lion who supposedly authored the memo. Not only did he say he had nothing to do with it, but the former national security adviser pointed out that in one of the versions circulating on the Internet, "the idiot-forger could not even spell my name correctly."

But if you think that was the end of the story, you don't know the world of black talk radio. These are the airwaves in which the first president of the United States was a black man, in which AIDS was cooked up in a government laboratory to decimate the black population and in which major corporations lace their food with chemicals to make black men sterile.

Colleagues at the station accused us of performing "counter-intelligence." Stalwart callers cried that the station was being "infiltrated." Harsh words with a station manager were exchanged. And we found ourselves booted out of the talk-radio business.

Americans love conspiracy theories. We question official accounts about the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, as well as the (alleged) deaths of Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes, Tupac Shakur and Kenneth L. Lay. Some people have doubted whether Neil Armstrong really walked on the moon. But conspiracy theories take on a life of their own in the black community.

Often, just one word can silence those who doubt the conspiracy theory of the day: COINTELPRO, the FBI's notorious anticommunist program that was used against groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Council and the Ku Klux Klan. From the Scottsboro Boys to the Tuskegee syphilis study, our government has displayed a willingness to conspire against its citizens.

Likewise, truth-squadding becomes difficult when such theories are linked to hard data: Black Americans constitute about 12 percent of the U.S. population but about half of the nation's AIDS cases. That sets up the conditions in which, according to researchers Sheryl Thorburn Bird and Laura M. Bogart, more than 20 percent of black Americans think that HIV was created to restrict the black population.

A 1990 survey by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference found that one-third of black American churchgoers believed that AIDS was a form of genocide. One-third also believed that HIV was produced in a germ-warfare lab, and 40 percent of black college students in Washington, D.C., agreed. An even higher percentage of blacks polled said they thought that crack cocaine was custom-made to be planted in African American communities to keep them crime-ridden and poor and that the government deliberately targeted black elected officials to drive them from office.

These beliefs keep some black Americans from having their children vaccinated, from receiving AIDS tests and early medical treatment, and from practicing safe sex or using clean needles, as Patricia A. Turner and Gary Alan Fine note in their book, "Whispers on the Color Line." They also make seeking the truth an uphill battle.

Hat tip, Common Sense and Wonder.

Latino gang makes African-Americans its target in Canoga Park

Rick Coca:

Nickson Gilles came to Southern California last summer with dreams of carrying a football to stardom - first as a Pierce College running back, then maybe at USC or even the NFL.

Instead, he was carried out on a stretcher, his dream shattered by a shotgun blast that police say was leveled at him by an alleged member of the Canoga Park Alabama gang.

Gilles, an African-American from Florida, was shot in the neck, shoulder and left eye Sept. 3 after the Pierce Brahmas' first game of the season. It was just one of many attacks against blacks that landed Canoga Park Alabama on L.A.'s list of most dangerous gangs.

The Latino gang hasn't hidden the fact that it targets African-Americans in this community, which just two years ago earned the prestigious All-AmericaCity designation, largely due to its racial diversity.

The city's gang list and another that branded Gilles' accused assailant, Fernando Araujo, one of the city's most wanted gangsters offer little solace to Gilles, who has undergone three eye surgeries and hasn't played football since he was shot.

"That whole tragedy messed up my whole life right there," Gilles said in a phone interview from Florida.

Since July 2006 there have been 12 shootings targeting Canoga Park blacks. Following two recent attacks, police have stepped up warnings to African-Americans to be wary of Canoga Park Alabama.

Some blacks in the community, as well as educators working with African-American students, said they have felt the wrath of the gang's racist campaign of violence firsthand. But other blacks paint a more idyllic picture of Canoga Park, one that helped it become the first Los Angeles community to win the All-America honor in the award's 58-year history.

Once a predominately white community, today Canoga Park is about 50 percent Latino, 28 percent white, 15 percent Asian and 4 percent black, according to a 2005 American Community Survey listed in a California State University, Northridge, report.

Although police can't pinpoint why "CPA" has focused on blacks, one possibility is street culture emulating prison life, where black and Latino inmates have repeatedly clashed as they align themselves along racial lines.

"It could be a young guy trying to make his stripes (or) an order from somewhere else or random gang stuff," Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Tom Smart said. "Hopefully, it's a little flare-up and not a continuing trend, especially as the summer heats up."

With the last two attacks on blacks in and around Lanark Park separated by mere days and feet, police want African-Americans to be on alert for any trouble.

"I feel we have an obligation to let (black people) know that they could be targeted," Smart said. "I'd like to remind them to be mindful. It's random."

The most recent shooting occurred about 10:40 p.m. on June 13 when a 23-year-old African-American man drove into the parking lot of Lanark Park.

His attackers, believed to be several Latino males who remain at large, walked up to the car, asked where he was from - a common gang challenge - shouted racial slurs and shot him in the chest and shoulder.

Two days after that shooting, two 15-year-old black boys helping their uncle's girlfriend move out of a nearby apartment on Lanark Street were allegedly beaten in an unprovoked attack by several CPA members. At least one of the attackers shouted a racial epithet during the beating that was caught on an apartment surveillance camera, police said.

Gabriel Chavez, 18, Juan Carlos Sanchez, 20, and two Latino minors were arrested for allegedly taking part in the beating and face felony assault, hate crime and gang-crime enhancement charges.

13-YEAR OLD GIRL IN CANOGA PARK GANG RAPED

Race Wars Here and There

Where black and brown collide

Black boys need positive role models from within their own communities to help tackle underachievement, a report says

BBC News:

The Reach panel of experts, from fields including education and business, says too often role models for young black men include rappers who glamorise guns.

The report says this could cost the UK £24bn over the next 50 years through taxes and criminal justice costs.

The Men's Room charity said black youths need "a greater diversity of images and portrayals".

The report was commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The group wants a national programme to encourage lawyers, doctors, teachers and others to become mentors.

It says that, too often, celebrities and rappers who glamorise crime become the role models for young black men.

The report also calls for stronger relationships between schools and the parents of black boys and urges inspection body Ofsted to make sure all schools strive to close the academic gap between black and white pupils.

Since the academic achievement gap between black and white students is largely the result of racial differences in intelligence, there is little that the schools can do to close this gap.

Black boys 'need positive role models'

Black teenagers 'need a new generation of role models to divert them from world of gangs'

Winston Churchill expressed alarm about an influx of non-white immigrants to Britain in the 1950's

David Smith:

Sir Winston Churchill expressed alarm about an influx of 'coloured people' in Fifties' Britain and looked for a chance to restore punishment by flogging, newly released cabinet papers from the national archive reveal.

On 3 February 1954, under the agenda item 'Coloured Workers', Churchill is quoted, with abbreviations, by Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook as saying: 'Problems wh. will arise if many coloured people settle here. Are we to saddle ourselves with colour problems in UK? Attracted by Welfare State. Public opinion in UK won't tolerate it once it gets beyond certain limits.'

Florence Horsbrugh, the then Minister of Education and Conservative MP for Manchester Moss Side, is recorded as adding: 'Already becoming serious in Manchr.'
Then David Maxwell-Fyfe, the Home Secretary, gave a figure of 40,000 compared to 7,000 before the Second World War and raised the possibility of immigration control. He said: 'There is a case on merits for excludg. riff-raff. But politically it wd. be represented & discussed on basis of colour limitation. That wd. offend the floating vote viz., the old Liberals. We shd. be reversing age-long trad[ition] tht. B[ritish] S[ubjects] have right of entry to mother-country of Empire. We shd. offend Liberals, also sentimentalists.'

He added: 'The col[onial]. pop[ulations] are resented in L[iverpool], Paddington & other areas by those who come into contact with them. But those who don't are apt to take a more Liberal view.'

Churchill intervened: 'Ques. is wtr it is politically wise to allow public feeling to develop a little more before takg. action.'

Adding that it would be 'fatal' to let the situation develop too far, the Prime Minister is recorded as concluding: 'Wd lke also to study possibility of "quota" - no. not to be exceeded.'

The documents give an insight into attitudes of the time and echo modern concerns about border controls. Handwritten notebooks were kept as a record of cabinet meetings separate from the official minutes.

At another meeting, on 20 November 1952, the cabinet discussed corporal punishment, which had been abolished as a court sentence by the previous Attlee administration. Churchill is quoted saying: 'Shd we clutter ourselves up with enquiry when p.[ublic] opinion may give us chance to restore flogging for all crimes of violence & cruelty. Alternative is to devise much stiffer cond[itions] of imp[risonmen]t. What about a plebiscite on c.p. - a suitable subject. What of re-introducg. for 3 or 5 years, to see if it does reduce crime. If we can't act, I wd. sooner not have an enquiry.'

But Viscount Simonds, the Lord Chancellor, objected: 'Every civilised country, save Brazil & some States in US, has abandoned this penalty.'

Archives expose Churchill's true thoughts on immigrants

Churchill called for quotas on influx of 'coloured people'

Two thirds of all unemployed young people registered in the Austrian capital come from families with an immigrant background

DPA:

A study by Vienna's public employment office Thursday shattered glowing reports about successful integration policies, saying that two thirds of all unemployed young people registered in the Austrian capital came from families with a migrant background.

While only approximately 30 per per cent of Viennese aged between 15 and 21 had a migrant background, the rate of jobless second- generation Austrians was diproportionally high, AMS project managers told the Vienna daily "Der Standard".

Main reasons for the discrepancies were language problems and "cultural" issues, the survey said.

Despite having been in the country since early childhood and being for a large part naturalized citizens, children of guest workers have inferior language skills, often because speaking only their mother tongue at home, and rarely higher education levels than their parents.

Sinking general education levels added to the language problems, AMS workers said. And while their fathers could get away with speaking only basic German, prospective employers today often demand fluency in the language.

On the other hand, 44 per cent of the 600 teens interviewed for the study said they felt discriminated against because of wearing headscarves or their darker skin tones.

Progress in the job world for migrant youths was also hampered by extremely traditional families, project head Gerda Challupner said.

Male Turkish teenagers for example often put on a macho act when dealing with female advisors, while whole family clans accompanying girls at job counsel meetings argued against "unsuitable" jobs.

"Sometimes the parents talk their daughters into menial work or staying at home completely," Challupner said.

The study was intended to break taboos, the AMS stressed. "We cannot tell a whole group of society that they have to be content with the jobs that found no other takers."

Another failure of multiculturalism.

South Africa needs to do more to protect lesbians who have become targets for murder, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said

BBC News:

Three lesbians were brutally killed in July and non-governmental organisations suspect the victims were raped too.

HRW said a "climate of violent homophobia" existed in South Africa.

"Despite legal commitments to equality for all, lesbians in South Africa are still targeted for rape and murder," says HRW's Jessica Stern.

[snip]

HRW's comments were made in a letter to South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki as the country celebrated National Women's Day.

It asked the government to take action to "make its commitment to equality and tolerance a reality for the nation's gays and lesbians".

HRW detailed the cases of recent lesbian killings.

Last month, two lesbians in Soweto were attacked and shot dead, their bodies were found in a field.

Later in the month, the body of a naked lesbian in Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal was discovered in a field with multiple head wounds.

According to HRW, the police have refused to speculate on whether the victims' sexual orientation was a motive for their murders.

In an earlier case in March, a lesbian in a township near Cape Town was attacked and killed by a mob.

HRW says a friend walking with the woman said their attackers called them "tomboys" who "wanted to be raped".

Correspondents say despite laws that are favourable towards lesbians and gay men, discrimination remains common and black lesbians endure the worst abuse.

S Africa Aids sacking condemned

Women want men with feminine features

Reuters:

Forget the square jaw, rugged complexion and tough-guy macho attitude -- what women really want is a man with full lips and feminine features, according to a British study published on Wednesday.

The findings add to previous research about masculinity and offer further insight into what people look for in others when choosing potential partners, said evolutionary psychologist Lynda Boothroyd, who led the study.

"What I've shown is that when people look at masculine faces they see them as being associated with dominance -- which is a good thing in evolution but less good as a long-term partner," she said in a telephone interview.

In the study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the researchers asked more than 400 British men and women to judge digitally altered pictures of male faces made to look more masculine or feminine.

The participants were then asked to predict personality traits such as dominance, ambition, wealth and whether a person would be faithful or make a good parent, said Boothroyd, a researcher at Durham University.

But it wasn't the macho men who came out ahead. The study showed these masculine types with larger noses, smaller eyes and thicker eyebrows were viewed as less faithful and worse parents.

Instead it was the "feminine" faces with wide eyes, finer features and thinner, more curved eyebrows that were chosen as the best potential long-term mates, Boothroyd said.

And faces that also appeared healthier -- like those with better complexion -- were also seen as more desirable in all personality traits. This helps to counter claims that masculinity is best viewed as an indicator of genetic fitness and immunity to disease, Boothroyd said.

"Here what I'm showing is healthiness is really positive and masculinity isn't," Boothroyd said. "We shouldn't be thinking about masculinity in terms of health, which is a totally different thing in women's minds, but in terms of social dominance."

Girly men are perfect partners, say women

Macho men 'not seen as good bet'

Islamic terrorists are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East

Sara A. Carter:

Islamic extremists embedded in the United States — posing as Hispanic nationals — are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report.

"Since drug traffickers and terrorists operate in a clandestine environment, both groups utilize similar methodologies to function ... all lend themselves to facilitation and are among the essential elements that may contribute to the successful conclusion of a catastrophic event by terrorists," said the confidential report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The 2005 report outlines an ongoing scheme in which multiple Middle Eastern drug-trafficking and terrorist cells operating in the U.S. fund terror networks overseas, aided by established Mexican cartels with highly sophisticated trafficking routes.

These terrorist groups, or sleeper cells, include people who speak Arabic, Spanish and Hebrew and, for the most part, arouse no suspicion in their communities.

"It is very likely that any future 'September 11th' type of terrorist event in the United States may be facilitated, wittingly or unwittingly, by drug traffickers operating on both sides of the United States-Mexico border," the DEA report says.

Rep. Ed Royce of California, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee, said the DEA document substantiates information that his committee has been given in the past year.

"Hearings I held in Laredo [Texas] last year and this DEA report show that our southern border is a terrorist risk," Mr. Royce said. "Law enforcement has warned that people from Arab countries have crossed the border and adopted Hispanic surnames. The drug cartels have highly sophisticated smuggling and money-laundering networks, which terrorists could access."

Californian seeks hearing on Islamic, Mexican ties

Mexican Drug Lords Sneak Terrorists Into U.S.

Israeli public favors stated government policy of expelling majority of more than 1,500 African immigrants currently in Israel

Ynetnews:

Forty-seven percent of Israelis support the government's intention to expel the majority of infiltrators from Africa while only 39% oppose the policy. A poll conducted by the Kevoon Institute found that of those polled 14% percent were undecided.

The question posed to over 500 adult Jewish Israelis was: "Over the past year 1,500 refugees from the Sudan have illegally entered Israel. The government believes most of them have come here looking for work. While the refugees claim they are escaping persecution and genocide and returning would mean certain death. Recently the government of Israel adopted a policy to deport most of the refugees to Egypt soon. Do you support the government's policy of deporting the Sudanese refugees or do you think that they should be allowed to legally stay in Israel?"

A breakdown of the data found that 42% of women opposed the policy whereas only 36% of men said the same. A majority of men, 54%, were in favor of the government's policy compared to 40% of women.

Attitudes towards religion also seem to play a role, the study found that the more religious the individual, the more likely they were to support the government's policy.

Of those who identified themselves as strictly Orthodox, 67% were in favor of expulsion compared to 13% who opposed it. Among respondents who identified themselves as religious, 55% were in favor of expulsion compared to 35% who were opposed. Similar figures were noted for respondents who defined themselves as traditional – 52% favored expulsion compared to 31% who opposed it.

The only sector where support for the government's policy was the minority opinion was among secular respondents – 39% favored expulsion compared to 49% who opposed it.

Israeli minister in Ethiopian racism row

'We need a fence on border with Egypt'

Ethiopian advocacy groups outraged at Sheetrit's remarks on Falash Mura

Israel, UN tackle refugee problem

A teenage handyman for an African-American Muslim splinter group has confessed and will be charged with murder in the shooting death of a journalist

Michelle Locke:

Devaughndre Broussard, 19, was one of seven people arrested in Friday's raids on Your Black Muslim Bakery and nearby houses. He is expected to be charged this week in the death of Chauncey Bailey, an Oakland Post editor, Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan said.

The raids on the bakery organization, founded nearly 40 years ago with a mission to empower Oakland's poor, capped off a yearlong investigation into an alleged series of violent crimes police said were connected to the group.

Authorities had no information about an attorney for Broussard.

The group's 21-year-old chief executive officer, Yusuf Bey IV, son of the bakery's founder, also was arrested and held on a 2006 assault warrant accusing him of striking a bouncer with his BMW after being thrown out of a San Francisco strip club.

Charges are pending against him in a 2005 case in which he is accused of leading a Black Muslim group caught by surveillance cameras in November 2005 smashing up two Oakland corner stores. The men berated the stores' Muslim owners for selling alcohol to the black community even though alcohol is forbidden by Islam.

Bailey, 57, was a longtime reporter for the Oakland Tribune before becoming editor of the Post, a weekly newspaper geared toward the Bay Area black community, earlier this year.

Witnesses said he was ambushed Thursday morning in downtown Oakland by a man wearing a mask who shot Bailey multiple times and then fled.

Over the weekend, community leaders gathered to mourn Bailey, whose funeral is scheduled for Wednesday, and to call for an end to violence in the city. Seven homicides were reported in Oakland since Bailey's killing Thursday morning.

Police: Killer "stalked" Post editor Bailey

Muslims Silence Critics

Bakery Raid Latest of Group's Woes

Whites are now in the minority in almost one in 10 U.S. counties due to immigration and higher birth rates among African-Americans and Hispanics

Associated Press:

And that increased diversity, fueled by immigration and higher birth rates among blacks and Hispanics, is straining race relations and sparking a backlash against immigrants in many communities.

"There's some culture shock," said Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based research agency. "But I think there is a momentum building, and it is going to continue."

As of 2006, non-Hispanic whites made up less than half the population in 303 of the nation's 3,141 counties, according to figures the Census Bureau is releasing Thursday. Non-Hispanic whites were a minority in 262 counties in 2000, up from 183 in 1990.

The Census Bureau's report has population estimates by race and ethnicity for every county in the nation. They are the first such estimates since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, scattering hundreds of thousands of people.

The biggest changes in were in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, home to New Orleans. The share of non-Hispanic whites in Orleans Parish grew from 27 percent in 2005 to 34 percent in 2006, while the share of blacks dropped from about 68 percent to 59 percent.

Many of the nation's biggest counties have long had large minority populations. But that diversity is now spreading to the suburbs and beyond, causing resentment in some areas.

Many Latinos say they see it in the debate over illegal immigration.

In northern Virginia, Teresita Jacinto said she feels less welcome today than when she first arrived 30 years ago, when she was one of few Hispanics in the area.

"Not only are we feeling less welcome, we are feeling threatened," said Jacinto, a teacher in Woodbridge, Virginia, about 20 miles southwest of Washington.

Woodbridge is part of Prince William County, which recently passed a resolution seeking to deny public services to illegal immigrants. Similar measures have been approved or considered in dozens of communities across the nation.

In all, state lawmakers have introduced more than 1,400 measures related to immigration this year, the National Conference of State Legislatures says.

Supporters say local laws are necessary because Congress has failed to crack down on the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. But many Hispanics legally in the U.S. say they feel targeted, too.

"I think across the board all of us feel like we're not welcome," said Jacinto, who was born in the U.S. and volunteers for an advocacy group called Mexicans Without Borders.

Prince William County has seen its Hispanic population more than double since 2000, to nearly 70,000 last year. Non-Hispanic whites account for a little more than half the population, down from about two-thirds in 2000.

Greg Letiecq recently helped form a group to fight illegal immigration in northern Virginia, called Help Save Manassas. The group is named for a city surrounded by Prince William County.

"It's not about ethnicity; it's not about race. It's about lawful behavior versus unlawful behavior," Letiecq said.

Still, he complained that many newcomers eschew American culture in favor of their Latino heritage.

"It's the folks who come in and try to maintain the culture of the country they came from," Letiecq said. "They don't seem to embrace the American culture, the English language, the social norms of American culture."

Nationally, the number of minorities topped 100 million for the first time in 2006 -- about a third of the population. By 2050, minorities will account for half of U.S. residents, according to Census Bureau projections.

"I don't think Latinos or any other so-called minority group are seeking to make white people a minority," Jacinto said. "It's just a reality."

The Face of Local Counties Shifts With Surge in Minorities

Minorities fuel growth in region

Latino population surge increasingly female

Asians Make Broad Gains in New York Population

A Harvard political scientist finds that racial and ethnic diversity hurts civic life

Michael Jonas:

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

"The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.

The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation's social fabric. But with demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling social changes that Putnam's research predicts.

"We can't ignore the findings," says Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The big question we have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?"

[snip]

Putnam is the nation's premier guru of civic engagement. After studying civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in 1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling "Bowling Alone." The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the country's best known social scientists.

Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in "social capital," a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social networks -- whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood associations -- that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.

The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything from political engagement to the state of social ties.

Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick Moynihan's landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried as the bearer of "an inconvenient truth," says Putnam.

After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time "kicking the tires really hard" to be sure the study had it right. Putnam realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among their residents -- all factors that could depress social capital independent of any impact ethnic diversity might have.

"People would say, 'I bet you forgot about X,'" Putnam says of the string of suggestions from colleagues. "There were 20 or 30 X's."

But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to "distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television."

"People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to 'hunker down' -- that is, to pull in like a turtle," Putnam writes.

[snip]

"Diversity, at least in the short run," he writes, "seems to bring out the turtle in all of us."

The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it's become commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in the field say they shouldn't be.

"It's an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges created by diversity," says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.

In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and Europe -- Europe spends far more -- can be attributed to the greater ethnic diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare spending in the US is a "macro" version of the decreased civic engagement Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.

Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa's own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age, occupation, and birthplace.

Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also less likely to look out for one another. "Everyone is a little self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff," says Kahn.

Boston Globe and Steven Durlauf on Putnam's diversity research

A Fort Bragg soldier is charged with knowingly infecting a teenage boy with HIV

Christi Lowe:

Officers arrested Pfc. Johnny Lamar Dalton, 25, after a five-month-long investigation by Fort Bragg military police and the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office. Dalton is attached to the 82nd Airborne.

Dalton first met the unidentified boy, 17, in a gay online chatroom and then in person, said the boy's mother.

In November, Dalton's commander ordered him not to have sex without first telling partners of his illness, said a spokesperson for the 82nd Airborne. Dalton also signed a written order to that effect.

However, Dalton's encounters with the boy, who was in high school, continued, said a military spokesperson.

In February, doctors conducting routine blood tests found that the teen was HIV positive.

"To him, it was like a death sentence," said the boy's mother, who said she was with her son when the doctors told them the results.

"It obviously didn't mean anything for him (Dalton) to do it, because he knew he had it (HIV), and he willingly gave it to someone else," said the victim's mother, who said she keeps her identity hidden for fear of the stigma her family might suffer.

The boy, now 18, and his mother went to Fort Bragg military police and then to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office.

"My son received it (HIV) unwillingly," said the teen's mother. "If you willingly and knowingly ... and you purposefully do something, you should suffer the consequences."

After five months of investigation, officers arrested Dalton, who is married and has children, and charged him with crimes against nature, assault and assault with a deadly weapon.

Both the boy's mother and military investigators said they are worried that Dalton might have infected other people who have not come forward. The mother said she believes that the Army should have better control over soldiers known to have HIV or AIDS.

"Two families are now suffering because of an unfortunate set of circumstances, and all of us wish we could have prevented it," said Tom Earnhardt, an 82nd Airborne spokesperson.

The teen, who is now 18, is otherwise healthy and is not on medication.

Dalton is being held on $50,000 bond with a preliminary court hearing set for August 2. In addition to criminal charges, he could also be kicked out of the Army.

For the victim's mother, such charges do not erase the damage done to her son's life.

"When someone basically shortens your life, whether it's yours or your child's, you feel cheated," she said.

Soldier Faces Court-Martial in HIV Case

A former Tacoma middle school principal has been convicted of raping a woman at a party

KOMO Staff:

Harold Wright Jr., 36, of Puyallup will be sentenced on August 31st. He faces six months to one year in jail.

Wright was the principal of Baker Middle School until earlier this year, when he was put on administrative leave pending the outcome of the case. A woman accused him of raping her at an after-hours party on January 31st, 2004. The woman said she and two friends were at a bar where Wright, his brother and two other men invited them to one of their homes. She told investigators at least two of the men took her into a bathroom and took turns having sex work, but it was too dark for her to identify them. She was 19 at the time.

DNA evidence linked Wright and another man, Ritchie D. Carter to the crime. Back in February, Wright and Carter were both charged with one count of second-degree rape. Carter was also convicted on Thursday.

Wright is married with three children. He had worked for the Tacoma School District for seven years, the last five as a principal.

Wright's bail has been set at $10,000.

Tacoma principal quits job after rape conviction, but keeps pay

A computer scientist from the local Taiwanese community used a recipe he found on the Internet to drug the daughters of his friends and rape them

Joe Wessels:

A Hamilton County grand jury returned a 17-count indictment Wednesday against Chien Tai Wu of Symmes Township, charging the 50-year-old naturalized American citizen with rape, attempted rape, aggravated burglary, felonious assault, gross sexual imposition and illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.

Wu, who works for a Loveland company, is accused of raping three victims five times over a six-year period beginning in 2001. At the time, the victims - one was raped three times, the others once each - ranged in age from 15 to 17.

In the most recent attack on July 18, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Wu left evidence.

"There was a clear sign of sexual assault in the last girl," Deters said. "She said to investigators, 'I think I saw his face at some point. It might have been a dream, I'm not sure.'"

After that teen came forward, police and other members of the tight-knit Taiwanese community began to connect the dots. Police canvassed the neighborhood and "awesome" detective work by the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office tied the case together, leading to the two other victims, Deters said.

"They all know each other," he said.

After gaining the trust of the families of his victims - by playing poker together, offering to walk dogs and housesit while they were on vacation, thus gaining security and garage door codes - Wu learned his victims' routines and when they would be alone in their homes.

He admitted himself into their homes, used a stun gun to subdue the victims and chloroform - made from an easy recipe he found on the Internet - to sedate them.

Wu then undressed the girls, raped them using a condom, re-dressed them and left.

When victims came to, they had some sense they had been attacked, but thought maybe it had been a dream. Police were called in some of the cases, but with no physical evidence and victims doubting their own memories, no charges were ever filed.

"I really think this particular offender thought he was too smart to get caught," Deters said. "It's just so bizarre how they were attacked and the methods used and the fact that they knew the families."

Wu has a doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan, Deters said, adding that he is "pretty intelligent" and was "very challenging to the police."

All three victims were told what happened to them in the past few days, Deters said.

There could be more victims unaware that they had been attacked, he said.

"We think an offender who would offend in this type of situation would not stop for a couple of years," he said.

Deters said he has never seen another case like this one. "I've seen movies about this kind of stuff."

Wu is married and has two children, who are friends with the victims. Deters doubts that any family members were aware of Wu's actions.

"I'm sure they are in hell right now," he said.

Police confiscated more than 12 computers and are searching them for further evidence in the case. "Horrific" photos of Wu attacking a victim were already found on one computer, Deters said.

"It wouldn't surprise me if other charges arise out of this, and potentially other victims arise," Deters said.

Bond has been set at $2 million and the case has been assigned to Judge William Mallory Jr. Wu could get up to 137 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Deters said he will ask Mallory to increase Wu's bond next week. Deters plans to prosecute the case himself.

"If it goes to trial, I will," he said. "Having your daughter raped is bad enough. Knowing one of your best friends did it has to be horrific."

Police: Man Confesses To Breaking Into Home, Raping Juvenile

Laotian immigrant admits taking child-porn photos with phone

Michael Zeigler:

A Rochester man admitted today that he used his cellular phone to take two sexually explicit photos of a 6-year-old girl.

Vang Khammanivong, 60, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a felony of possession of child pornography. He faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of $250,000 when he’s sentenced Nov. 6.

Khammanivong, a native of Laos, emigrated to the United States in 1986, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard A. Resnick. He is not a naturalized U.S. citizen and faces the likelihood of deportation after he serves his prison term, Judge Charles J. Siragusa told him.

Khammanivong pleaded guilty to state charges of use of a child in a sexual performance in August 2006 and received 10 years probation. Federal prosecutors felt the crime was serious enough to warrant federal prosecution, which carries more severe penalties, Resnick said.

Child porn photos admitted

Africa: The Mozambican authorities say three people are under police detention for their alleged involvement in trafficking of human body parts

Jose Tembe:

The case involves this week's murder and mutilation of seven women and a child in Cabo Delgado province.

Murder, mutilation and exhuming human bones for witchcraft have become a common practice, particularly in the country's northern and central regions.

Items are sold in neighbouring Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Lazaro Mathe, governor of Cabo Delgado, says the criminals kill their victims and extract genital parts apparently for witchcraft.

He said three people suspected of involvement in the crime are under police custody.

The Cabo Delgado provincial boss has called on the people of Mocimboa de Praia to remain calm, adding that the situation would soon be under control.

This is not the first time that murder cases of people for the extraction of body parts has occurred in Mocimboa da Praia and elsewhere in the province.

The first case was reported last year and two people were detained for allegedly killing nine people. But the police later released one of them for unexplained reasons.

This infuriated the local people who caught and killed the suspect after his release.

The governor describes the phenomenon as worrisome and promises to wage a sustained battle to crack down on it.

Murder and trafficking of human beings and parts have been reported in many parts of Mozambique.

In a recent incident, two young men were detained in northern Niassa province in possession of huge quantities of human bones ready to sell in Malawi.

This has prompted the Mozambican cabinet to enact a bill against the trafficking of humans for body parts to be discussed and approved in the country's parliament this month.

Amazing that there are people in the world who still believe in witchcraft in the 21st century.

South Africa is struggling to cope with a rising tide of refugees from Zimbabwe

Paul Simao:

South Africa is struggling to cope with a rising tide of refugees from Zimbabwe and must take action to solve the growing crisis, Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said on Thursday.

In a briefing with reporters in the capital Pretoria, Pahad said there were clear signs that the numbers of Zimbabweans entering South Africa, both legally and illegally, had increased recently, posing a "serious problem" for authorities.

"We must do more to see what we can do to deal with this influx of refugees," Pahad said, adding that South Africa had both a moral and economic interest in helping its northern neighbour avert a total economic collapse.

Zimbabweans are struggling with official inflation of about 5,000 percent, soaring poverty, 80 percent unemployment and chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange amid an eight-year depression.

Thousands every day cross illegally into South Africa to look for food and work. The number, however, has jumped in recent weeks since Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government introduced a radical price freeze in a bid to stem inflation.

The move has led to panic buying and prompted some stores to stop stocking bread, milk and staple items. Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has accused Mugabe of driving the economy into the ground.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is trying to broker a political agreement between Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the MDC, will report on the talks this month at a Southern African Development Community summit in Lusaka, Pahad said.

Pahad also expressed concern about a deteriorating political situation in Burundi, where there are renewed fears of a return to the 12-year ethnic war that killed some 300,000 people in the central African nation.

Leaders of the rebel Hutu Forces for National Liberation (FLN) have disappeared from the capital Bujumbura after quitting a joint ceasefire monitoring team. Many Burundians believe the FLN has returned to the bush and will resume fighting.

South Africa played an instrumental role in bringing the Burundian government and rebel forces to the bargaining table, mediation that led to a peace deal last year. More than 1,000 South African troops are in Burundi to keep the shaky peace.

Pahad said South Africa would "respond very aggressively" if the FLN attacked its troops.

Zimbabwe launches $200,000 note

Martin Luther King and African-American crime

Gregory Kane:

“Our crime rate is far too high.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote those words in his 1958 book, “Stride Toward Freedom.” He was referring to the disproportionate amount of crime among black Americans, an issue King didn’t flinch from facing.

Nearly 50 years later, King might be inclined to follow that sentence with the words “and some of those crimes are unbelievably heinous.”

Indeed, you have to wonder what King would have made of this story from The New York Times on July 19 about one of the most horrendous and brutal cases of black-on-black crime I’ve ever heard of in my 55 years. The incident occurred at a public housing project called Dunbar Village in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“After dark on June 18, the police say, as many as 10 armed assailants repeatedly raped a Haitian immigrant in her apartment complex at Dunbar Village … They took cell phone pictures of their acts. They burned the woman’s skin and (her 12-year-old son’s) eyes with cleaning fluid, forced them to lie naked together in the bathtub, hit them with a broom and a gun and threatened to set them on fire.”

As despicable as that sounds, it wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was when these vermin, according to Times writer Amy Goodnough, “forc(ed) (the woman) to perform oral sex on her 12-year-old son.”

If you’re wondering why the traditional gaggle of black misleaders didn’t dash before the nearest television cameras to condemn what might well hold up as the worst black-on-black crime of the decade, don’t bother. You already know the answer.

They're otherwise engaged. Jesse Jackson has been on a crusade to close a gun shop on the outskirts of Chicago. NAACP board chairman Julian Bond has been doing what he does best: Bashing President Bush and acting as if W conjured up Hurricane Katrina out of thin air for the expressed purpose of oppressing black folks in New Orleans.

Al Sharpton’s probably waiting for the next white radio talk show host to call a bunch of black women nappy-headed ho's. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is no doubt planning another march. The reparations advocates are wondering why their movement has fizzled, and the diversity police are still smarting from the recent Supreme Court decision striking down “integration” plans in Seattle and Louisville.

There does not exist in the country one prominent black leader who has the guts to say “Our crime rate is too high” and make that the issue black Americans must face head on and deal with. Why?

Because that would take guts. It would take being the kind of leader King was, one who told black folks what we needed to hear, not what we wanted to hear. It would mean telling black people that it isn’t Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who are the main allies of white racists against us. It’s the black criminals.

Check the Web sites and blogs of white racists and supremacists, and see if they’re praising Thomas and Rice for being good house Negroes for white folks. No, the white supremacist/racist Web sites and blogs are talking about the disproportionate amount of crimes blacks commit. The racists have had a field day with the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a white Knoxville, Tenn., couple allegedly carjacked and murdered by five black suspects.

Black criminals are the number one propaganda tool white racists use against black people. Instead of recognizing that fact, our misleaders have made black criminals a new victim class. The misleaders fret that there are too many blacks in prison. They whine about black felons losing their voting rights and rail against the “racial disparity” on death row.

Our misleaders have no use for genuine black victims. You didn’t hear word one from those misleaders in 2002, when one of their beloved criminals set fire to the home of a family named the Dawsons and killed all seven members, including five children.

You haven’t heard from them about what happened to the Haitian immigrant and her son either. In fact, you couldn’t find our misleaders with the Hubble Space Telescope on this one. But if this incident doesn’t inspire a wake-up call among them to address the issue of crime in black America, Lord knows what will?

I’m still waiting for just one of them to look straight into a television camera and say to black America what King said 49 years ago:

“Our crime rate is too high.”

In Philadelphia, a 'disturbing' black murder rate

San Francisco: An Iranian surgeon has been charged with prescribing excessive drugs to a patient to hasten his death and harvest his organs

Alicia Chang:

Prosecutors in San Luis Obispo County said Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, 33, of San Francisco, gave a harmful drug and prescribed excessive doses of morphine and a sedative to 26-year-old Ruben Navarro, who died in 2006.

He was taken in a coma to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, in 2006 after suffering respiratory and cardiac arrest. Although Navarro was found to have irreversible brain damage and was kept on a respirator, he was not considered brain dead because he still had limited brain function.

The day before Navarro died, his family gave approval for a surgical team to recover his organs for donation, though the procedure never occurred because Navarro did not die within 30 minutes of being removed from life support. He died the next day.

Roozrokh, a surgeon at Kaiser Permanente's now-closed kidney transplant program, was working at the time on behalf of a group that procures and distributes organs. The prosecutor's office said in a statement that the drugs were prescribed ``to accelerate Mr. Navarro's death in order to recover his organs.''

State law prohibits transplant surgeons to be involved in the treatment of potential organ donors before they are declared dead.

It's the first such criminal case against a transplant doctor in the United States, the county district attorney's office said.

[snip]

The coroner's office this year determined that Navarro died of natural causes. Last month, his mother, Rosa, filed a wrongful-death and medical malpractice lawsuit against Roozrokh and others, claiming her son was removed from life support without her permission and given lethal doses of drugs.

Navarro, who weighed about 80 pounds, was born with a neurological disorder known as adrenoleukodystrophy. He also had celebral palsy and seizures. Navarro lived in a home for mentally and physically challenged adults in the year before his death.

A report from federal regulators said Roozrokh ordered Navarro to receive 200 milligrams of morphine and 80 milligrams of the sedative Ativan - far in excess of the usual doses.

Roozrokh was also accused of prescribing excessive morphine and administering the topical antiseptic Betadine into Navarro's stomach.

Roozrokh, a U.S. citizen, was born in Iran and emigrated with his family at age 2. He was charged with felony counts of dependent adult abuse, administering a harmful substance and unlawful controlled substance prescription. If convicted of all three counts, he faces up to eight years in state prison or up to one year in jail and a $20,000 fine as a condition of probation.

Sierra Vista hospital officials began investigating when nurses alerted their bosses after Navarro's death. A spokesman has said the hospital has since strengthened its organ donation procedures.

Transplant Case Could Affect Donations

Brave New World - Muslim Doctor Jihad in America Resumes: Muslim Doc Kills Patient for Organs

A Somali man accused of planning to blow up a shopping mall in Ohio has pleaded guilty to one terrorist charge ahead of his trial

BBC News:

Nuradin Abdi, 35, admitted conspiring to support terrorists as part of a plea-bargain deal.

Under the deal, Mr Abdi will face 10 years in prison but three other charges against him have been dropped.

Mr Abdi is said to have discussed bombing a shopping centre during an August 2002 meeting with two other men.

One of those at the meeting, Iyman Faris, is currently serving 20 years in prison for his role in an al-Qaeda-linked plot to sabotage New York's Brooklyn Bridge.

Mr Abdi was arrested in 2003, a day after Thanksgiving, because police feared that day would be chosen to launch an attack.

The prosecution claim that Mr Abdi provided details of various stolen credit cards to another man accused of purchasing material for al-Qaeda.

His lawyers say the cards were never used.

According to the US authorities, Mr Abdi also travelled to Ethiopia where he allegedly underwent military training in the use of guns and bombs.

Mr Abdi's trial is due to begin on 6 August.

Shopping Mall Plotter Pleads Guilty

Ally of al-Qaida terrorist pleads guilty to conspiracy in Ohio mall bomb plot

Somali Immigrant Pleads Guilty To Plotting Terrorism

Nearly 40% of Nepali women trafficked into India to work as sex workers there have been found to be HIV positive on their return home

BBC News:

Sex trafficking may be a major factor in the spread of HIV in India and the rest of South Asia, the report said.

Nepal has traditionally had low rates of HIV/Aids but thousands of Nepali women and girls are trafficked into India every year.

India has nearly 2.7 million people infected with the HIV virus.

The report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, studied medical records of 287 Nepali women who worked for years in Indian brothels.

The authors of the study said they found that 38% of the women and girls, repatriated to Nepal from India, had tested positive for HIV.

The study said the infection rate among the girls aged 14 or less was alarmingly higher at 60%.

It attributed the higher rate of infection among younger girls to a widespread myth that sex with virgins could cure HIV/Aids.

In many of India's big red light districts - like Sonagachi in Calcutta, GB Road in Delhi and Kamathipura in Mumbai (Bombay) - thousands of women and young girls work as sex workers to earn a living.

Many of their clients continue to insist on sex without condoms and the trafficked girls, mostly from rural villages and unaware of the HIV/Aids threat, are forced to oblige.

In the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Calcutta is the hub for the trafficking of girls where a large number of women and girls are smuggled in from Nepal, Bangladesh or Burma.

From Calcutta, they are sold to brothels in Mumbai and Delhi.

A US state department report last month said India had the world's largest human trafficking problem.

Sex slavery leads to increase in AIDS

Alcohol and stab victims in an Australian town

Sapa-DPA:

The central Australian tourist town of Alice Springs could claim the world record for stabbings, a doctor said on Tuesday.

Chief of surgery at Alice Springs Hospital Jacob Ollapallil said most stab victims were Aboriginal women and almost a third of them were drunk when they were brought in.

"We spend a lot of resources to treat these patients but we are not looking past the surgical department and the emergency department to see what's a cause for these trauma cases," Ollapallil said.

"In all health issues, traumatic injury and death are the most preventable."

Around 2 000 Aborigines live in shacks in Alice Springs, almost all of them relying on welfare.

Alice Springs mayor Fran Kilgariff is trying to restrict the sale of alcohol in one of Australia's heaviest-drinking towns.

"We're prepared to look at anything," she said. "We're prepared to put anything on the table in order to do something about this issue."

The federal government has proposed taking over the running of the squalid town camps, which are set up on Aboriginal-owned land, but local leaders have refused.

Alice Springs, the mid-point in the 3 000-kilometre train or road journey from Adelaide to Darwin, has an unofficial curfew on account of the violence that plagues its 50 000 people.

Alcohol ban for Australian town

Alice Springs sobers up with drinking ban

Subway thugs in New York City get knocked off of the rails

Peter Donohue:

Their rap sheets stretch longer than a 10-car train, with about 660 arrests among them.

The less time these 31 career criminals spend riding the subways, the less likely straphangers are to be robbed, assaulted or knifed.

The Daily News obtained exclusive details about the subway thugs whose recent arrests have helped cut crime in the city's underground to record lows.

One of them is Michael Richardson, 41, who was busted in February on a No. 6 train on the Lexington Ave. line after he dipped his hand into a woman's purse, police said.

It was his 12th arrest on pickpocket charges in the transit system.

A large man - 250 pounds piled onto a 5-foot-10-inch frame - Richardson is a pickpocket by trade, police said.

The specialty requires stealth, not brute strength.

After NYPD Officer Serafin Resto spotted Richardson slip his hand into a passenger's purse, cops discovered he was carrying a credit card and a cell phone he allegedly swiped from two other women on the subway.

Along with his 12 arrests in the transit system, Richardson has been busted a dozen times above ground.

He has been held at Rikers Island since February.

"Our transit officers have done outstanding work in apprehending repeat subway offenders. That's been key to making the transit system so safe," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told The News.

Other members of the rogues' gallery are:

Gilberto Beach, 42, a convicted pickpocket. He has been such a menace that his parole officer - at the request of the NYPD - once banned him from the subways while on parole.

But he couldn't stay above ground and was arrested by transit cops in March on a grand larceny charge - his 15th arrest in the subways and his 20th overall, police said.

Leroy Lawrence, 42. He already had 18 arrests on his rap sheet when busted in March for a series of purse snatchings, police said.

James Lee, 43, was arrested earlier this month for allegedly robbing subway riders at knifepoint.

He had nine arrests, including seven for robbery in the subways, records show.

Among the worst of the subway thugs is Michael Sanders, police said.

Sanders, 41, already had been booked for 50 arrests and five subway robberies when he struck again in February, police said.

The diminutive man, who stands just 4-feet-11 and weighs 130 pounds, allegedly attacked a 16-year-old girl on a staircase at the Queens Plaza subway station.

Sanders choked the girl until she lost consciousness, then ran off with her purse, according to a police complaint filed by Detective William Thomas of the Queens robbery squad.

After detectives circulated a description of the mugger, Sanders was picked up lurking near a subway stairwell in Queens, police said.

NYPD Transit Bureau Chief James Hall said arresting the career criminals makes the subways safer. The News revealed this month that serious subway crime has fallen so much that a rider's daily odds of being victimized are about equal to being struck by lightning any given year.

"If you can make such high-caliber arrests, you are going to reduce crime in the subways," Hall said.

Well done, NYPD!

A law school professor is suing over what he calls an improper punishment over comments he made comparing African-American and Jewish students

Abdon M. Pallasch:

John Marshall Law School professor John Gorby has filed a lawsuit against his employer, saying he was improperly punished for what he believes were innocuous comments to a student after class.

The student, who is Jewish, was doing well in class and Gorby pondered whether his religious training -- which from a young age encouraged critical analysis of written Scripture -- explained why Jews pass the bar at higher rates than African Americans.

Gorby opined that blacks were brought up in religions such as Baptist churches that "emphasize an emotional and spiritual religious experience rather than discussion and debate about the meaning of scriptural language."
Gorby is neither Jewish nor African-American.

The student shared some of Gorby's comments with classmates, resulting in an elevator confrontation in which an African-American student asked Gorby if it was true that he said blacks don't do well in his class.

She filed a complaint with an assistant dean. The Black Law Student Association demanded Gorby be suspended for 30 days without pay. Gorby addressed the student group trying to straighten things out.

The arguments have been going for five years. That first conversation took place in Gorby's office in 2002. The law school has gone through three deans since then.

The first one took no action on the complaints against Gorby and agreed to give him a 5 percent raise, the lawsuit states.

The second dean, Patricia Mell, killed the raise and put a letter of reprimand in Gorby's file which said, "Academic freedom does not excuse poor judgment. It does not excuse 'pondering' about racial or religious stereotypes to students who legitimately may fear that their law professor may see them through that prism and treat them accordingly in class."

Gorby appealed and the school's appellate board ruled for him, removing the reprimand from his file.

But he never got his raise. And he spent $25,000 on attorney's fees. He thinks the whole episode represents a stifling of the academic freedom that should allow him and other professors to have provocative discussions with students about subjects such as how to boost bar-passage rates that -- according to his lawsuit -- have ranged as low as 12 percent some years for African Americans at John Marshall compared with about 90 percent for Jews.

Gorby asks for about $1 million.

Chicago Professor Punished for Theorizing about Religious Differences

An illegal immigrant rapist from Honduras has been arrested on numerous occasions

Gary L. Wright:

While Charlotte-Mecklenburg police tried to put a name to DNA evidence linking three rapes, the man they now say attacked the women was in and out of police custody and once even deported.

Jose C. Rivera, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, has been arrested in Mecklenburg County eight times since the first rape was reported in April 2004. Immigration officials had taken him from the Mecklenburg jail to Atlanta on Thursday and were planning to deport him.

But Charlotte-Mecklenburg police got warrants Friday charging him with the rapes -- and to make sure he wasn't sent home before those warrants could be served, federal authorities charged him with illegally re-entering the country.

Rivera will now be brought back to Mecklenburg to face the immigration and rape charges.

Court records show the 26-year-old has been accused of several crimes in Mecklenburg County. He has breaking and entering charges pending, and has been convicted of possession of a stolen vehicle and driving with license revoked.

He was charged with carrying a concealed gun in August 2005. In September 2004, he was jailed in connection with a concealed knife charge.

One of the women Rivera is accused of attacking told police her rapist had a gun, another said he had a sharp instrument.

During a traffic stop in 2004, Rivera gave police a Honduras ID that had the name Jose Cristobal Zacarias, court records show. During a search of the vehicle, police found three other IDs -- each with Rivera's picture but a different name. One was from Mexico, another from Honduras.

Inside the vehicle, according to police, were pictures of Rivera posing nearly naked holding handguns and showing gang signs.

"Because of the various names, stolen tag and the pictures, it was the officer's opinion ... that this individual is involved in a gang or gang-related activity," a police officer wrote in an affidavit after Rivera was charged with giving a false name.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police spokeswoman Julie Hill said police used forensics to link Rivera to the rapes, but she would not go into more detail or say whether DNA connected him.

In October 2005, a month after the third rape, police said they had evidence linking the three rapes, but were unable to identify the attacker. They used DNA taken from the victims to connect the cases. Detectives submitted that DNA to the state's database of all convicted felons -- but at the time didn't find a match.

In July 2006, Rivera was ordered to provide a DNA sample after he pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen motor vehicle. Convicted felons are required to submit a DNA sample that is then put into the state's DNA database. North Carolina's database is linked to the nationwide DNA database.

Noelle Talley, the spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Justice, would not say Tuesday if Rivera's DNA is in the state database or when it was placed in the database. She said state and federal laws prohibit her from releasing that information.

Talley said the statewide database of convicted felons now has about 130,000 samples. She said the system keeps working to find matches even when the first attempts fail. The system searches for matches once a week as new DNA samples are added.

Searches of the database netted more matches that helped solve crimes last year than in the entire first decade of North Carolina's DNA program combined, and hits to the database so far this year are on pace to exceed last year's total.

There were 259 hits last year. This year, as of July 20, there had been 239.

Suspected Serial Rapist Was In And Out Of Mecklenburg County Jail

An illegal immigrant from Ecuador killed two people in a drunk-driving crash

Associated Press:

An illegal immigrant who was deported in 1997, sneaked back into the country and then killed two people in a drunken-driving crash was sentenced Tuesday to up to 15 years in prison.

Nilssen Torres Paredes had pleaded guilty in May to manslaughter. He was drunk and speeding the wrong way in a 30 mph zone when he struck a car, injuring the driver and killing the two passengers, Audra Kaczur and David Calogero, prosecutors said.

He was sentenced to five to 15 years behind bars.

He also received concurrent sentences on charges that he lied about his identity when he was pulled over by police months before the December accident. He admitted lying to hide the fact that he'd been deported to Ecuador in 1997 after being convicted on weapons charges but had sneaked back into the U.S.

He could face federal charges for unlawful re-entry after completing his sentence, Suffolk County prosecutors said.

Illegal immigrant in custody after crash

Drunk and dangerous: DUI illegals behind the wheel

An illegal immigrant from Zimbabwe who knocked down and killed a schoolboy after a drinking spree may never be kicked out of Britain

Express and Star:

An illegal immigrant who knocked down and killed a Wolverhampton schoolboy after a drinking spree may never be kicked out of Britain, despite being told he would be deported, it was revealed today.

There is still no sign of Aaron Chisango being given the boot two and a half years after he mowed down 12-year-old pedestrian Jamie Mason.

The trained nurse, who should have been deported in October 2004, is hiding behind a court ruling banning the forced deportation of anybody back to Zimbabwe because of the dangers they might face there.

The Government is battling to overturn the controversial judgement but the legal struggle has already lasted for months and shows no sign of ending soon.

Chisango, aged 28, was travelling on a passport from that country when he came to the UK and is understood to have joined the Zimbabwe opposition party after the death smash in a bid to add weight to the argument that he would be at risk if ordered back to the trouble-torn African nation.

The saga has heaped extra misery on the family of Jamie who was killed crossing a Wolverhampton road in January 2005.

His sister Tracy, 33, said today: “He killed Jamie in a car he was driving in a country he should never have been in in the first place. He committed the crime and yet it is us who have to suffer.”

Zambian-born Chisango came to the UK on a student visa to study as a nurse but overstayed the time limit and should have been sent home in October 2004 - three months before Jamie died.

Jamie’s mother Hayley was today too upset to comment.

The Home Office refused to discuss the case, but a spokesman added: “We expect all those with no right to remain in this country to return home voluntarily.”

An illegal immigrant from Zimbabwe who knocked down and killed a schoolboy has been rehoused at the British taxpayers’ expense

The Black Death and genetic diversity in England

Colin Barras:

The Black Death continues to cast a shadow across England. Although the modern English population is more cosmopolitan than ever, the plagues known as the Black Death killed so many people in the Middle Ages that, to this day, genetic diversity is lower in England than it was in the 11th century, according to a new analysis.

Rus Hoelzel at the University of Durham, UK and his colleagues looked at the mitochondrial DNA from human remains at 4th and 11th century archaeological sites in England, and compared them to samples from the modern population stored on DNA databases such as GenBank. They found there was more variation in the ancient mitochondrial DNA sequences than in modern sequences.

Hoelzel thinks random genetic drift may have lowered genetic diversity naturally. But the large unexpected drop in diversity was more likely to have been caused by population crashes following major outbreaks of the Black Death in England during the 1340s and the 1660s.

"The main factors in support of a role for plague are the timing and the fact that it affected different families [to a differing degree]," says Hoelzel.

The Black Death did not reach England until the mid-14th century. No-one knows exactly what caused it, with the bubonic plague bacterium Yersinia pestis, and various viruses all having been implicated at some point.

However, it is known that plague affected some families more than others, so their mitochondrial DNA would have been less common among survivors, Hoelzel says.

"I'm not at all surprised with the result," says Susan Scott at the University of Liverpool, UK. "We're talking about one of the worst disasters humans have faced. It destroyed about half the population of Medieval Europe in three years."

But the effects may have been most severe in northern Europe. Hoelzel and his team note that DNA sequences from modern Italians are just as variable as those from their 7th century ancestors.

According to Hoelzel, this finding may reflect migration patterns after the Black Death, rather than a less severe outbreak in southern Europe. "Throughout the recent past, there have been movements from the Middle East into southern Europe, and the Middle East population retains a great mix and diversity," he says.

Scott has a different theory. "We have to listen to the people who were suffering at the time," she says. "The disease came in from Sicily and seemed to settle in France where it was endemic for almost 200 years."

France was probably the source of the periodic epidemics elsewhere in Europe, and these were infrequent in Italy because of the vigilant actions of the Italian authorities, Scott thinks.

"They closed down ports and stopped people travelling at the first sign of infection," she says. "And they had a 40-day quarantine period. I think the Black Death was the result of a virus that probably had a 37-day incubation and infection period, so the Italian quarantine period was just right."

"In England, King Henry VIII reduced [the quarantine period] to 30 days at one point, and the country suffered," says Scott.

Ancient Europeans More Diverse, Genetically Speaking, than Modern Ones