Colleges embrace homeland security curriculum

Homeland security has become a hot topic in American culture, and higher education has been jumping on the bandwagon.

Hundreds of community colleges, four-year universities and postgraduate programs have begun offering degrees and certificates in emergency preparedness, counterterrorism and security. Students study topics from political science and psychology to engineering and biotechnology to prepare for possible disasters.

“Homeland security will be the biggest government employer in the next decade or so,” says Steven David, chair of the graduate certificate program in homeland security at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which also offers a master’s in government with a concentration in homeland security.

Now, many companies have added homeland security sectors, and those educated in the field are in demand, says Mel Bernstein, director of university programs for the Department of Homeland Security. (USA Today)

Ex-lawmaker says he helped Bush avoid draft

In a video posted on the Internet, Ben Barnes, a former Democratic speaker of the Texas House, said he is ashamed he helped President Bush and the sons of other wealthy families get into the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 so they could avoid serving in Vietnam.

“I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was lieutenant governor of Texas, and I’m not necessarily proud of that, but I did it,’’ Barnes said in the 45-second video, which was recorded May 27 before a group of John Kerry supporters in Austin. Barnes said he became ashamed after walking through the Vietnam Memorial and looking at the names of people who died.

It was the first time Barnes, a Kerry supporter, has discussed his role in getting Bush into the Guard. In 1999, he said he recommended Bush for a pilot’s position at the request of a Bush family friend.

Bush has denied that family influence got him into the Guard. (AP)

Protests, arrests grow over Sudan’s Darfur

A number of prominent activists were arrested in Washington, DC on Aug. 25 on the steps of the Sudanese embassy protesting the ongoing slaughter in the country’s Darfur region and the Bush administration’s lack of action in the matter. The activists joined a growing list of protesters arrested in acts of civil disobedience at the embassy in recent days.

Charged were Salih Booker, executive director of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Africa Action, Bill Fletcher Jr., president of the group TransAfrica Forum, Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus, Rev William G. Sinkford, president of the United Universalist Association of Congregations, and actor and activist Danny Glover.

Activist groups and humanitarian organizations have accused the Sudanese government of responsibility for the attacks by militias known as “janjaweed” (men on horseback) and are calling on the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and the African Union to seriously consider deploying peacekeeping forces to the region.

Demonstrations and arrests at the Sudanese embassy are becoming an increasingly common event.

To date, three members of the US Congress, a delegation of grandmothers, the two founders of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company and numerous other activists have been arrested.

The embassy issued a statement on its website on Aug. 30 announcing it will be closed until further notice.

Those arrested on Aug. 25 were charged with trespassing and unlawful assembly and released later in the afternoon. (IPS)

Carl Lewis accuses Bush of exploiting Olympics

On Aug. 28, the United States’ biggest Olympic hero accused George W. Bush of exploiting the Athens Games for his own political advantage in the run-up to the presidential election.

Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in athletics in a record-breaking career, condemned Bush for using the presence of Iraqi and Afghan teams in Athens in a television advertisement to boost his chances of re-election.

Criticizing Bush for linking his foreign policy with the two countries being allowed to compete, Lewis said: “I felt that was disingenuous. It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we’re bombing Afghanistan,” he told the Athens News.

“Of course, we’ve invaded Iraq and are in there and are using it for political gain. It bewilders me, and I understand why the Iraqi players are offended. To support the players or the community is fine, but for political gain I disagree.”

Iraq’s soccer players, who unexpectedly reached the semi-finals, made clear last week they disliked the advertisement and regarded American soldiers in Iraq as occupiers rather than liberators. (Observer (UK))

Judge: Partial-Birth Abortion Act unconstitutional

On Aug. 26, in a highly anticipated ruling, a federal judge found the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional because it does not include a health exception for what he called a “gruesome procedure.”

US District Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a law which prohibits the performance of a particular abortion procedure must include an exception to preserve a woman’s life and health.

“While Congress and lower courts may disagree with the Supreme Court’s constitutional decisions, that does not free them from their constitutional duty to obey the Supreme Court’s rulings,” Casey wrote.

The law, signed in November, represented the first substantial federal legislation limiting a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Abortion rights activists said it conflicted with three decades of Supreme Court precedent. (AP)