Record deaths along border

In Arizona the statewide migrant death toll has topped an all-time record with 164 bodies or remains recovered since the start of the fiscal year, US Border Patrol statistics show.

This summer, Border Patrol officials reported that deaths were down in the Arizona desert and particularly credited the multimillion-dollar Arizona Border Control Initiative, which added hundreds of agents, new equipment and updated technology.

On Sept. 16 Border Patrol officials defended the crackdown, saying that agents in Tucson have arrested more than 470,000 undocumented immigrants this year and fewer bodies have been found in the sector’s “west desert” area.

The Border Patrol says the discrepancies in the figures were the unintentional result of changes, specific to the initiative, in reporting the death toll.

The initiative costs an estimated minimum of $23 million, minus manpower costs. During this time Homeland Security officials sent 200 agents, two unmanned drones and four additional helicopters to the area. The sector has accounted for more than 40 percent of the 1.09 million undocumented-immigrant arrests so far this year along the 1,950-mile Southwestern border. (Arizona Republic)

Prison riot followed increase in inmates

The Sept. 14 inmate riot in a medium-security prison where three buildings were set on fire at a private Eastern Kentucky prison followed a dramatic increase in inmates and cutbacks in privileges such as free time outdoors, prison officials said. It also came after allegations of inmate abuse and mistreatment increased and visits from friends and family were cut back, an inmate advocate said.

The Lee Adjustment Center near Beattyville took in 400 new prisoners from Vermont about four months ago, raising the population to about 800 men, officials said Sept. 16.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), located in Nashville, Tennessee, which runs the prison for the Kentucky Corrections Department, does not believe those factors explain the riot, spokeswoman Louise Chickering said Sept. 17.

In July, inmates used sports equipment to destroy property and set a small fire in the recreation area of the Crowley County Correctional Facility near Olney Springs, Colorado, after 200 prisoners refused to return to their cells. CCA also runs that facility. (AP, The Courier-Journal)

Private prison operator expects business to grow

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison firm in the country, said severe overcrowding in the United States federal prison system is likely to help fatten the bottom line of corporate prison operators. Federal prisons are running at more than 130 percent of capacity, the company told investors. The majority of people incarcerated are male and between the ages of 18 and 24. With the overall population of this demographic increasing, the company assumes more people will be thrown into prison, also helping business.

The company said the Bush administration’s post-9/11 immigration policy of mass roundups and increased police presence in urban areas over the last four years has led to higher incarceration rates. CCA also noted that the national turn toward private prisons has been greatly helped by the Bush administration, which has reduced the construction of prisons in favor of contracting private companies and local governments.

Since 1975, the lockup rate has climbed to 400 out of every 100,000 citizens, compared with 100 out of 100,000 in the 50 years prior. (The NewStandard)

Federal panel redraws ‘food pyramid’

Washington is redrawing the food pyramid, an effort which includes some of the most powerful interests in Washington: the $500 billion food processing industry, the super-sized fast-food restaurant lobby, and an army of medical researchers, academics, and think tanks.

With nearly 1 in 3 adults considered “obese” and nearly 2 in 3 “overweight,” the Department of Health and Human Services this year upgraded obesity from a behavior to a disease.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans has been revised every five years since 1980. The revision is currently up for public comment. A final version will be released in January.

In the 2005 revision, sugar is dropped from the list of foods to avoid. So are some fats. Instead, people are urged to choose fats and carbohydrates “wisely for good health.” The 2005 draft urges US citizens to “choose and prepare foods with little salt.”

Critics say Congress needs to take a closer look at its own role in the nation’s obesity crisis. (The Christian Science Monitor)

ACLU testifies on Florida’s voting problems

In her Sept. 17 testimony before the US Commission on Civil Rights, a voting rights expert with the ACLU of Florida warned of serious voting problems that still plague the state.

ACLU of Florida Voting Rights Project Director Courtenay Strickland said some of the states most pressing election irregularities include the state’s provisional balloting scheme that discards ballots cast by eligible voters in certain instances as “illegal,” the state’s confusing voter identification requirements, and its inadequate poll worker training. In addition, Strickland cited four examples of state policies and procedures that suppress votes and wrongly strip eligible voters of their ability to cast ballots. She also discussed complaints received by the ACLU of Florida in the most recent Florida election.

The US Commission on Civil Rights is an independent, bipartisan agency charged with monitoring and protecting voting rights. (ACLU)

Amnesty condemns US use of racial profiling

Racial profiling by US law enforcement agencies has increased over the past three years and now affects one in nine US citizens, the Amnesty International (AI) rights group said in a report released Sept. 13.

According to its study, some 32 million US citizens have been subject to profiling — the targeting of people because of their ethnic or religious background.

AI said use of profiling has seen a major increase since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

According to AI, people of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and those of the Muslim and Sikh faiths are most at risk. (AFP)

Laura Bush speech disrupted

A woman wearing a T-shirt with the words “President Bush You Killed My Son” and a picture of a soldier killed in Iraq was detained Sept. 16 after she interrupted a campaign speech by first lady Laura Bush.

Police escorted Sue Niederer, of Hopewell, NJ, from a rally at a firehouse after she demanded to know why her son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, was killed in Iraq. Dvorin died in February while trying to disarm a bomb.

As shouts of “Four More Years” subsided, Niederer, standing in the middle of a crowd of some 700, continued to shout about the killing of her son.

Niederer was later charged with defiant trespass and released.

The first lady continued speaking, touting her husband’s record on the economy, health care and the war on terror to those attending the rally in the suburban community of 90,000 people near Trenton. (AP)

Violence breaks out at a rally for safety

Two adults and four juveniles were arrested as several hundred neighbors gathered for the third annual Hands Across the Neighborhood for District Safety — a community relations event sponsored by the Grand Crossing District in Chicago’s South Side.

As police tried to break up a fight involving several men, Norman Shipp, 29, began to shout “fuck the police,” police spokesman Pat Camden said. The officers took Shipp into custody, ran a background check and released him, Camden said, “which is when a crowd started throwing rocks at the police and their squad car.”

As police tried to make arrests, one officer was hit in the face with a rock, Camden said, leaving him with a bloody nose and broken glasses. Another officer discharged pepperspray before Shipp, Karine Manuel, 37, and four juveniles were arrested and charged with aggravated battery, mob action and obstructing justice. (Chicago Tribune)

House Republicans and Democrats link Iraq, 9/11

On the eve of the third anniversary of 9/11, the US House of Representatives -­ by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 406-16 -­ passed a resolution linking Iraq to the al-Qaida attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This comes despite conclusions reached by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission and the consensus of independent strategic analysis familiar with the region that no such links ever existed.

The resolution also contains language designed, despite the lack of any credible evidence, to associate the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein with the 9/11 attacks.

By contrast, despite efforts by the US government to find some kind of association between the Islamist al-Qaida and the secular Baathists, then in power in Iraq, no such links have been found. Relatively few countries have supported the US invasion and occupation of Iraq outside of poor debtor nations which received enormous pressure from the United States to do so. (CommonDreams.org)

FBI’s anti-terror ‘October Plan’

Convinced that al-Qaida is determined to disrupt the US fall elections by an attack on the homeland, FBI officials here are preparing a massive counter-offensive of interrogations, surveillance and possible detentions.

FBI field offices and Homeland Security agencies will be advised of “extraordinary measures” that will go into place “beginning the first week of October through the elections.”

Specifically, the plan calls for “aggressive — even obvious — surveillance” techniques to be used on a short list of people suspected of being terrorist sympathizers, but who have not committed a crime. Other “persons of interest,” including their family members, may also be brought in for questioning, one source said.

All recent truck thefts, chemical thefts and suspicious cargo truck rentals will also be reviewed as part of the plan. Mosques will be revisited and members asked whether or not they have observed any suspicious behavior. (CBS News)

Groups decry Muslim scholar’s visa denial

Scholars and critics worldwide are demanding that the US government explain why it revoked the work visa of a Muslim scholar hired at the University of Notre Dame, saying the action threatens academic freedoms.

Few answers are forthcoming from the Department of Homeland Security, which cited security concerns when it barred Tariq Ramadan from entering the country.

That silence has sparked protests from at least four US scholars’ groups, led a United Nations-sponsored institution to issue an academic freedom alert, and inspired appeals from Jewish organizations.

Robert O’Neil, who is chairman of an academic freedom committee for the American Association of University Professors, said Ramadan’s case could have a chilling effect on an academic community already facing security measures stemming from the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Many who have rallied in Ramadan’s support believe the scholar’s controversial profile, including sharp criticism of Israel, the war in Iraq and US policy in the Middle East, was the real reason for the revocation.

The Network for Education and Academic Rights issued an academic freedom alert for the United States over the case. It is the fifth alert the London-based, UN-sponsored group has issued for the United States since January 2002. (AP)

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