Racial Profiling Still a Problem in U.S., Group Tells U.N. Panel
Cable News Network - Date: 07/01/2009
Washington, D.C. -- Driving through Mississippi on his way from Texas to Georgia, Hiran Medina was pulled over, and he consented when a deputy asked to search his vehicle.
After the Hinds County deputy found $5,000, Medina said, he was handcuffed and told that the money was being seized, and that unless he took legal action against the county within 30 days, the money would be forfeited to the sheriff's department. Medina, a Latino man, was released, however.
While Medina's money was returned after he and the American Civil Liberties Union told the story to media outlets, the ACLU points to the incident in a report released Wednesday to demonstrate the kind of racial profiling by authorities that, it says, remains a problem nationwide.
The report, jointly released with the Rights Working Group, was submitted Wednesday to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In it, the organizations blame government policies for contributing to the issue.
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American Nations Condem Honduran Coup
Cable News Network - Date: 07/01/2009
Washington, D.C. -- The Organization of American States passed a resolution early Wednesday condemning a military-led coup that ousted Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya this week.
The resolution orders "diplomatic initiatives aimed at restoring democracy and the rule of law and the reinstatement" of the government, and calls for the suspension of Honduras' membership if Zelaya isn't restored to power within three days.
The military forced Zelaya out on Sunday morning. Troops entered the president's residence and sent him into exile, flying him to Costa Rica.
The day before the OAS' condemnation, the U.N. General Assembly, in a unanimous vote, also adopted a resolution stating that Zelaya should be restored to power.
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ATF, ICE Join Forces to Stop Border Gun Traffic
Terry Frieden, CNN - Date: 06/30/2009
Washington, D.C. -- The two federal agencies most responsible for stemming the flow of firearms to Mexico agreed Tuesday to improve cooperation after they were sharply criticized by a congressional report for lack of coordination.
The agreement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will result in a more effective fight against the flood of U.S. weapons that provide Mexican drug cartels with more than 90 percent of their firearms. Top federal law enforcement officials were in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to sign documents pledging to work together.
The agreement is expected to result in increased seizures of trafficked weapons and more prosecutions and convictions, said David Ogden, the deputy attorney general.
But "it's hard to say when we'll see results," he added.
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Argentina's First Couple Face Election Test
Cable News Network - Date: 06/27/2009
Buenos Aires, Argentina -- Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her husband -- who was her predecessor -- have held power since 2003, and Sunday's midterm elections will prove pivotal to her hold on the presidency.
Much depends on how Fernandez's husband -- and predecessor -- Nestor Kirchner fares in his race for a deputy's seat in the nation's lower house.
Even though he has not been in office since December 2007, some analysts say he remains the most influential political figure in the nation and the person who still makes most important policy decisions for his wife's government.
At stake Sunday are half of the seats in Argentina's lower house of Congress (127 of 257 seats) and one-third of the Senate posts (24 of 72).
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High Court Dismisses English-Deficient Students' Case
Bill Mears, CNN - Date: 06/25/2009
Washington, D.C. -- An English-language immersion class failed Miriam Flores, her mother contended.
After two years of instruction in her native Spanish, Miriam entered the Nogales, Arizona schools' English Language Learner program as a third-grader. However, she continued to lag behind her classmates and was cited as a disruptive influence in the classroom because she often had to ask a fellow student for help.
The girl's mother, also named Miram Flores, and other minority parents claimed school officials in Nogales, a border town about 70 miles south of Tucson, did not provide enough money to get English-deficient students up to speed in writing and reading comprehension.
In 2000, a federal judge agreed, concluding Arizona violated the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, and ordering the state to rework its plan and increase funding. The English Language Learner (ELL) program was then placed under federal oversight.
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Honduras President Challenges Government Over Referendum
Cable News Network - Date: 06/25/2009
Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- A political crisis in Honduras escalated Thursday as a defiant President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, followed by hundreds of supporters, led a loud but peaceful protest to a military base in order to personally take possession of thousands of ballots to be used in a contested referendum Sunday.
Zelaya, a leftist elected in 2005, suddenly found himself pitted against the other branches of government and military leaders over the issue of the referendum.
The referendum at the center of the storm asks voters to place a measure on November's ballot that would allow the formation of a constitutional assembly that could modify the nation's charter to allow the president to run for another term.
Zelaya, whose four-year term ends in January 2010, cannot run for re-election.
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Study: U.S. Lacks Strategy to Fight Arms Smuggling into Mexico
Cable News Network - Date: 06/18/2009
Washington, D.C. -- Most of the weapons that Mexican drug cartels use are smuggled from the United States, but the U.S. government lacks a cohesive strategy to combat the arms trafficking, according to a Government Accountability Office report to be released Thursday.
In Mexico last year, drug violence was blamed for the deaths of 78 soldiers and more than 6,000 others. This year, the drug violence has claimed more than 2,900 lives, according to the newspaper El Universal.
Much of the violence has affected the U.S.-Mexico border.
Over the last five years, about 87 percent of firearms seized and traced by Mexican authorities were purchased in the United States, a draft of the report says. Most of the weapons were acquired at gun shops and shows in border states, according to the report. Many of these are high-caliber and high-power weapons, including AK-47s and AR-15 semiautomatic rifles.
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Killing Shows Mexico Clergy No Longer Cloaked from Cartel's Aim
Mariano Castillo, CNN - Date: 06/16/2009
Arcelia, Mexico -- The killing last weekend of a Catholic priest and two seminary students in southwest Mexico marked the first time that drug cartel hit men have purposefully targeted a clergyman, said Manuel Corral, public relations secretary for Mexico's Council of Bishops.
The Rev. Habacuc Hernandez Benitez, 39, was gunned down as he traveled in a vehicle in the town of Arcelia in the state of Guerrero, together with two seminary students, Eduardo Oregon Benitez, 19, and Silvestre Gonzalez Cambron, 21.
"In this case the drug traffickers followed them and ambushed them," said Corral, who declined to name which cartel is suspected behind the incident.
Authorities have not stated a motive in the case, but Corral said one line of investigation is that one of the seminary students had a family member involved with a drug cartel, and that the three were killed as revenge for some cause.
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Senior Gives $40K Scholarship to Friend
KSBW.com - Date: 06/12/2009
Salinas, Calif. -- While most graduating high school seniors and their parents are consumed with the worry college costs bring, one student has decided to give away $40,000 in scholarship money.
Leticia Garcia-Romo, an Everett Alvarez High School senior, will be traveling across the county in the fall to attend Princeton University in New Jersey.
Unlike most of her classmates, Leticia isn't concerned with the price tag that an Ivy League education can bring. Princeton has given her a full-ride scholarship.
"My parents migrated from Mexico," Leticia said. "They don't know English, so they couldn't have a good job. "Seeing how hard my parents worked for so little, it made me want to get more, strive for more."
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The Disease That's Ravaging Latin America
Cable News Network - Date: 06/10/2009
Cochabamba, Bolivia -- A hundred years ago a Brazilian physician, Carlos Chagas, showed that monkeys were susceptible to a rare parasitic illness carried by a particular Latin American bug. Most people arriving in Bolivian clinics have never heard of Chagas.
Today an estimated 16 to 18 million people are infected with Chagas, as the disease is now known, and it claims some 50,000 lives each year. Yet most people have never heard of it.
Chagas disease is exclusive to Latin America, and kills more people there than any other parasitic illness, including malaria.
In Bolivia, an estimated one in five people are infected. So why is so little known about the disease?
To read more click here.
One Woman's Fear in the Fight Against Corruption in Guatemala
Hilary Whiteman, CNN - Date: 06/09/2009
London, England -- It was Anabella De León's frail 86-year-old mother who answered the door when the men came knocking. "They told her, 'say to Anabella that we are going to kill her very soon,'" De León told CNN. The visit left her mother crying, anxious and shocked.
That was four months ago. No attempt on her life has been made, De León said, but she still looks over her shoulder, takes alternative routes in her car, constantly checking that she's not being followed.
Anabella De León is not well known outside Guatemala. Within the Central American country though, she has made headlines as an outspoken critic of corruption. She's serving her fourth term in Congress as a member of the Patriotic Party, which last weekend elected her to one of its top posts of Third National Secretary.
The death threats are not new. Since 2002, she's been protected by at least one security guard on request from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Her 26-year-old son is also shadowed by a security guard; a precautionary move in response to earlier threats connected to De León's anti-corruption efforts.
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Agentine Soldiers Sue Officers, Alleging Torture
Cable News Network - Date: 06/09/2009
Buenos Aires, Argentina -- In 1982, they were young men serving their obligatory military service -- Argentine conscripts who fought against the British that year during the Falklands War. More than 25 years later, many of those former combatants are in a legal battle against their former officers, alleging torture, starvation and murder at the hands of their own military.
A federal judge in the southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego, which under Argentine law claims jurisdiction over the Falkland Islands, recently ruled that the officers were responsible for crimes against humanity and human rights abuses.
The testimony presented to Judge Lilian Herraez included accounts of a soldier who was shot to death by a corporal, four soldiers who starved to death, and 15 alleged cases of torture in which conscripts were staked to the ground as punishment, according to Argentine media reports.
The Falkland Islands are a British territory located 670 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the coast of Argentina. Argentina has claimed sovereignty over the islands since they were occupied by the British in 1833.
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Same-Sex Couples Fight for Immigration Rights
Mallory Simon, CNN - Date: 06/03/2009
CNN -- Jared was forced to choose between a dying father and the love of his life.
Judy Rickard had to quit her job and lose her full pension to be with the one she loved.
Martha McDevitt-Pugh packed up and moved to another country to be with her future spouse.
"Nobody should be in that position. Nobody should have to be an exile," Rickard said.
To read more click here.
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