What's Next for Arizona?

New York Times
July 30, 2010

One day before Arizona's new tough immigration law was supposed to go into effect, a federal judge temporarily blocked some of its controversial provisions.

Some aspects of the law will be carried out on schedule. But Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court in Phoenix issued a preliminary injunction against sections that required immigrants to carry papers with them at all times and that called for the police to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. She also delayed the part of the law that made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

Her decision will be appealed, and is only one step on a long road that may end up in the Supreme Court. What is the significance of the judge's decision, legally and politically?

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Our view on Arizona law: Myths mar efforts to solve nation's immigration woes

USA Today
Editorial
July 30, 2010

Federal Judge Susan Bolton's ruling this week blocking Arizona's new immigration law added fuel to the overheated debate that the law ignited. Now, the appeals process seems destined to push the argument into the fall campaigns, so perhaps it's worth taking a moment to separate fact from fiction about immigration more broadly. Two common assumptions just don't hold up.

Myth #1: Violence along the border is spiraling out of control.

Myth #2: Illegal immigration is surging to record numbers.

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Events in Turkey From 1915 Find Way to Los Angeles Federal Court

Wall Street Journal
July 30, 2010

In recent years, most of the debate in this country concerning the events that led to the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 has revolved around whether they should be classified as genocide on the part of Turkey.

But a lawsuit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles asks a different question: whether the heirs of the Armenians whose property was allegedly seized should be able to recover for their losses.

The suit was filed on behalf of two men of Armenian ancestry: Garbisn Davouyan of Los Angeles and Hrayr Turabian of Queens, NY, and seeks compensation for property allegedly seized by Armenians, along with bank deposits and property.

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Urge President Obama to help end violence against women

In her lifetime, approximately one in three women around the world will suffer violence simply because she is a woman. Sex trafficking, rape during times of war and domestic violence are destructive forces not just for women, but for entire communities. This cannot continue.

As an international leader, President Obama has the power to speak out against this systemic violence against women and rally support for innovative programs that decrease acts of violence. His leadership could play a vital role in supporting the work that Oxfam does in many places around the world.

Please ask President Obama to make women's safety an urgent priority. His leadership could mean the difference between life and death for a woman or girl.

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North Korean football team shamed in six-hour public inquiry over World Cup

Daily Telegraph
July 30, 2010

North Korea's football team has been shamed in a six-hour public inquisition and the team's coach has been accused of "betraying" the reclusive leader's heir apparent following their failure at the World Cup, according to reports.

The entire squad was forced onto a stage at the People's Palace of Culture and subjected to criticism from Pak Myong-chol, the sports minister, as 400 government officials, students and journalists watched.

The players were subjected to a "grand debate" on July 2 because they failed in their "ideological struggle" to succeed in South Africa, Radio Free Asia and South Korean media reported.

The team's coach, Kim Jong-hun, was reportedly forced to become a builder and has been expelled from the Workers' Party of Korea.

The coach was punished for "betraying" Kim Jong-un - one of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il's sons and heir apparent.

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The rising power of the Chinese worker

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Economist
July 29, 2010

Cheap labour has built China’s economic miracle. Its manufacturing workers toil for a small fraction of the cost of their American or German competitors. At the bottom of the heap, a “floating population” of about 130m migrants work in China’s boomtowns, taking home 1,348 yuan a month on average last year. That is a mere $197, little more than one-twentieth of the average monthly wage in America. But it is 17% more than the year before. As China’s economy has bounced back, wages have followed suit. On the coasts, where its exporting factories are clustered, bosses are short of workers, and workers short of patience. A spate of strikes has thrown a spanner into the workshop of the world.

The hands of China’s workers have been strengthened by a new labour law, introduced in 2008, and by the more fundamental laws of demand and supply. Workers are becoming harder to find and to keep. The country’s villages still contain perhaps 70m potential migrants. Other rural folk might be willing to work closer to home in the growing number of factories moving inland. But the supply of strong backs and nimble fingers is not infinite, even in China. The number of 15- to 29-year-olds will fall sharply from next year. And although their wages are increasing, their aspirations are rising even faster. They seem less willing to “eat bitterness”, as the Chinese put it, without complaint.

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See also "The Next China"

Cambodia's war-crimes trial Scarred, not healed

Economist
July 29, 2010

Slight, well-kempt in grey trousers and a powder-blue shirt, the man in the dock cut the image of an ageing schoolteacher. In fact he had taught maths in the years before the Khmers Rouges seized power in Cambodia. Then he assumed a far more terrifying role: as commandant of the S-21 detention centre, overseeing the torture of some 14,000 adults and children, before they were carted off to the “killing fields”. On July 26th the ex-teacher, Kaing Guek Eav, became the first Khmer Rouge official to pay for his part in the genocide of 1975-79, when some 2m people died: a UN-backed tribunal convicted him of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and jailed him for 35 years.

Comrade Duch, as he is better known, will serve only another 19 years because of time he has already spent behind bars and as compensation for a spell of illegal detention before he got to the tribunal. One of the five judges called his offences “shocking and heinous”, but also noted how the defendant had followed orders in a coercive climate, and had since co-operated with the tribunal and shown remorse.

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Arizona, rogue state

Economist
July 29, 2010

The United States has a GDP per head of $46,000. Mexico’s is $8,000. So it is not surprising that millions of Mexicans have entered America illegally in search of a better life. A common estimate of the total number of illegals in the United States is 11m—roughly the population of Ohio. In these circumstances, you would think, America needs an agreed policy on immigration and a set of laws to match, with both the policy and laws being written by Congress in Washington. But that would require some responsible behaviour by politicians. Many have instead either abdicated responsibility or gone out of their way to act irresponsibly, dumping the issue in the laps of the courts and the police.

All this came to a head this week over Arizona’s law SB1070. This law had divided the nation. Supporters saw it as a long-overdue bid by a state to arrest and drive out illegal immigrants, a job they believe the federal government has wilfully neglected. Liberal America portrayed it as a draconian measure that would lead to racial profiling and worse, passed by a state legislature which Harper’s magazine said recently was composed “almost entirely of dimwits, racists and cranks”. On July 28th, the day before 1070 came into effect, Susan Bolton, a federal judge, responded to a lawsuit brought by the federal Department of Justice by putting a block on the most controversial parts of the law. Better to stick with the status quo, she said, than risk putting “a distinct, unusual and extraordinary” burden on resident legal aliens in Arizona.

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Breaking a Promise on Surveillance

New York Times
Editorial
July 29, 2010

It is just a technical matter, the Obama administration says: We just need to make a slight change in a law to make clear that we have the right to see the names of anyone’s e-mail correspondents and their Web browsing history without the messy complication of asking a judge for permission.

It is just a technical matter, the Obama administration says: We just need to make a slight change in a law to make clear that we have the right to see the names of anyone’s e-mail correspondents and their Web browsing history without the messy complication of asking a judge for permission.

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From the Killing Fields, on a Mission of Truth

New York Times
July 29, 2010

“Some say that almost two million people died in the killing fields,” declares Thet Sambath, a polite, soft-spoken Cambodian journalist for The Phnom Penh Post, in the opening moments of the documentary “Enemies of the People.” He adds, “Nobody understands why so many people were killed at that time.”

Thus begins this intensely personal film, undertaken at some risk, in which Mr. Thet Sambath seeks the truth about the mass killings from 1975 to 1979 at the hands of Cambodia’s Communist Khmer Rouge government, which was responsible for the deaths of nearly a quarter of the country’s population.

The heart of the film, a collaboration by Mr. Thet Sambath and the British documentarian Rob Lemkin, consists of meticulously cataloged interviews conducted during nearly a decade with perpetrators of the mass execution, many of them rural farmers living in northwest Cambodia. As they open up and matter-of-factly describe horrific acts, the camera scours their weather-beaten faces.

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Turkey Softens Law That Jailed Young Kurds

New York Times
July 29, 2010

Berivan Sayaca, a vivacious 15-year-old Kurdish girl, dreamed of escaping her life as a seamstress and studying law. Instead, she was convicted of supporting terrorism by attending a protest rally and sentenced to nearly eight years behind bars.

This week, Berivan was released from prison about 10 months into her sentence. The move came after the Turkish Parliament, in an attempt to alleviate rising tensions with the Kurdish minority here in the southeast, passed a bill this month reducing the sentences of hundreds of youths, 18 and younger, who had been put on trial and nicknamed the “stone-throwing kids.”

An estimated 40,000 people have died during the decades of conflict over national identity and land between Turkey and the separatist guerrilla group known as the Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K. In recent years, many young Kurds have been accused of being terrorists, yet in some cases their only crime was to have attended a demonstration, chanted a slogan or thrown a stone.

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Let the Market Thrive, so the People Can, Too

by James A. Dorn

South China Morning Post
July 29, 2010

After US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's announcement that new economic sanctions would be placed on North Korea, one headline read: "US tightens the screws on North Korea's economy." Yet, Pyongyang has already tightened the screws on its own economy.

The chaos created by last year's currency "reform" and by the crackdown on market activities is evident in food shortages, spiraling prices and discontent.

Small traders had taken advantage of opportunities for profitable exchange following a relaxation of economic controls after the famine of the mid-1990s. Private markets developed and cross-border trade grew. The existence of private markets along with the "sunshine" policy of the South brought new opportunities, as workers moved into the non-state sector and consumers could purchase goods outside the state distribution system.

Not surprisingly, the communist elite feared the market. Moreover, the South, under domestic and US pressure, departed from a policy of engagement. By 2005, Pyongyang had begun to restrict small traders. The currency reform — and an end to the use of foreign currencies in the informal, dual economy — was a signal that further liberalization was anathema.

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Should Internet Gambling Be Legalized?

New York Times
July 29, 2010

The House Financial Services Committee approved a bill on Wednesday that would lift the ban on Internet gambling by authorizing the Treasury Department to license and regulate Web-based nonsports betting operators. A companion measure pending before the House Ways and Means Committee would let the Internal Revenue Service tax winnings from online wagers.

While the legislation is a long way from becoming law, the prospect of taxing the winnings that have been estimated at $42 billion over 10 years would be a huge source of revenue for the government. Should Internet gambling be legalized?

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High executioners (China and the death penalty)

Economist
July 28, 2010

China executes more of its own citizens than any other country, and more than all others in the world combined. “Thousands” of Chinese were executed in 2009 according to Amnesty International's annual study, which states that an exact number is impossible to determine because information on the death penalty is regarded as a state secret. But this gruesome record may yet change. The National People's Congress is reported to be reducing the number of offences that are punishable by execution. Among the crimes that currently carry the death penalty are bribing an official and stealing historical relics.

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A narrow rebuke of Arizona's immigration law

Washington Post
Editorial
July 29, 2010

The Decision by U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton to block the enforcement of several provisions of a controversial Arizona immigration law is a good first step toward reversing a discriminatory measure that should never have been adopted.

Most important, Judge Bolton was right to prevent state law enforcement officers from demanding immigration papers from those they "reasonably" believe are in the United States illegally. The judge noted that such stops would probably mean that legal residents and U.S. citizens would be "swept up" by this obnoxious and patently xenophobic requirement. She also put a hold on enforcement of a new provision that would have subjected immigrants to criminal penalties for failing to apply for or carry alien registration papers. These provisions were set to go into effect Thursday. The judge must decide in coming weeks whether the parts of the law she froze in place should be permanently struck down as unconstitutional.

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Showdown in Arizona

New York Times
Editorial
July 28, 2010

The federal judge who ruled on Arizona’s tragic, noxious new immigration law on Wednesday did not stop all of it from taking effect Thursday, but she preliminarily halted the worst of it. And although appeals are certain, Judge Susan Bolton offered clear and well-reasoned arguments affirming the federal government’s final authority over immigration enforcement. We hope this is the beginning of the end of the misbegotten Arizona rules and what they represent.

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Judge Blocks Arizona Law

Wall Street Journal
July 29, 2010

A federal judge Wednesday temporarily blocked key parts of Arizona's new immigration law on the eve of implementation, saying it was unlikely the state would prevail in legal challenges to such provisions as requiring police to question and detain suspected illegal immigrants following routine stops.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton granted the Obama administration's request for a preliminary injunction on the grounds that immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government, not states. Arizona said it would appeal the decision in what could be a protracted legal battle with Washington.

Since Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the legislation on April 23, the new law has sparked a national debate over illegal immigration and become a central issue in midterm elections across the U.S. Inspired by Arizona, legislators and candidates in states stretching from Florida to Colorado have said they would draft similar laws to tackle illegal immigration. All told, about two dozen states are considering such laws.

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Ruling Against Arizona Is a Warning for Other States

New York Times
July 28, 2010

A federal judge in Arizona on Wednesday broadly vindicated the Obama administration’s high-stakes move to challenge that state’s tough immigration law and to assert the primary authority of the federal government over state lawmakers in immigration matters.

The ruling by Judge Susan R. Bolton, in a lawsuit against Arizona brought on July 6 by the Justice Department, blocked central provisions of the law from taking effect while she finishes hearing the case.

But in taking the forceful step of holding up a statute even before it was put into practice, Judge Bolton previewed her opinions on the case, indicating that the federal government was likely to win in the end on the main points.

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Forced Returns from Guantanamo

by Joanne Mariner

FindLaw
July 28, 2010

Most prisoners held at Guantanamo are desperate to return home. But a small number are so fearful of what awaits them in their country of origin that they would choose indefinite custody at Guantanamo over repatriation.

This group of doubly unfortunate prisoners includes the Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority from western China, as well as a number of Tunisians, Libyans, and Algerians. The men claim that they would face torture or other serious abuse if sent back to their home countries.

Until recently, the Obama administration had not forcibly repatriated anyone from Guantanamo. Rather than carrying out involuntary returns, it had found safe third countries to resettle detainees who feared persecution at home. These included men from China, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, among others.

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Judge Blocks Key Parts of Immigration Law in Arizona

New York Times
July 28, 2010

A federal judge on Friday, weighing in a clash between the federal government and a state over immigration policy, blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law from going into effect.

In a ruling on a law that has rocked politics coast to coast and thrown a spotlight on a border state’s fierce debate over immigration, Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court here said that some aspects of the law can go into effect as scheduled on Thursday.

But Judge Bolton took aim at the parts of the law that have generated the most controversy, issuing a preliminary injunction against sections that called for police officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.

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Anti-Semitism in California on the rise, Anti-Defamation League says

Los Angeles Times
July 27, 2010

The Anti-Defamation League reported a sharp uptick in anti-Semitic incidents in California last year, many of them involving taunts, threats and insults by adolescents and teenagers.

In one typical example, a Jewish middle school teacher in Los Angeles found swastikas drawn on her classroom door and a note, also featuring swastikas, that read, "You're next."

"These are not necessarily kids who are filled with hatred in their hearts and mean to be malicious," said Amanda Susskind, regional director for the organization. But she said the trend was still troubling and may reflect the pervasiveness of hate speech on the Internet.

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Judgment on S-21

Economist
July 27, 2010

Slight, well-kempt and dressed in khakis and a powder-blue shirt, the man sitting in the dock cut the image of a schoolteacher. Indeed he once taught maths—in the years before he assumed control of a centre where more than 14,000 men, women and children were imprisoned, tortured and then transmitted to “the killing fields”. The defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, was the commandant of the Khmers Rouges’ infamous S-21 detention centre. On Monday, a UN-backed tribunal found him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Duch is now 67 years old. On July 26th he was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, effectively reduced to 19 years, against time already served and in compensation for a period of illegal detention by a military court. Reading a prepared statement, a judge told a courtroom packed with journalists and observers, including the hundreds of the regime’s surviving victims, that Duch’s offenses were “shocking and heinous”. But the judge also described considerations that he said argued against the maximum punishment of life in prison: that Duch had been following orders within a coercive climate, that he expressed some remorse, and that he co-operated with the tribunal and showed a potential for rehabilitation. The prosecutors had sought 40 years. Cambodia no longer uses the death penalty.

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China Pushes to End Public Shaming

New York Times
July 27, 2010

The Chinese government has called for an end to the public shaming of criminal suspects, a time-honored cudgel of Chinese law enforcement but one that has increasingly rattled the public.

According to the state-run media, the Ministry of Public Security has ordered the police to stop parading suspects in public and has called on local departments to enforce laws in a “rational, calm and civilized manner.”

The new regulations are thought to be a response to the public outcry over a recent spate of “shame parades,” in which those suspected of being prostitutes are shackled and forced to walk in public.

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Some Justice for Cambodia

New York Times
Editorial
July 27, 2010

Thirty years later, Cambodia’s “killing fields” are still haunting. A Buddhist memorial displays 5,000 haphazardly arranged human skulls — a tiny fraction of the 1.7 million Cambodians butchered by the Khmer Rouge.

While the world must never forget what happened, there is at least the beginning of justice. On Monday, a United Nations-backed tribunal convicted Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, of war crimes and crimes against humanity — the first major Khmer Rouge figure to be tried since the regime was overthrown. He has already spent 16 years in prison, and the tribunal sentenced him to another 19 years.

Duch oversaw a notorious prison where more than 14,000 people were tortured and killed. During an eight-month trial, he admitted to many of the charges against him. His defense — he was a “cog in a machine” — is no defense at all.

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Death to the Death Penalty

Amnesty International, "Death to the death penalty" (2010), directed by Pleix for TBWA Paris. Music: "Everyday" by Carly Comando

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Beyond the Veil: A Response

by Martha Nussbaum

New York Times
July 15, 2010

I’m extraordinarily grateful to the many people who posted comments on my piece, “Veiled Threats?” I note that many have come from educated and active Muslim women (in countries ranging from the U. S. to India), who have expressed a sense of “relief” at having their convictions and voices taken seriously.

I’ll begin my reply with a story. The day my article came out, I went to a White Sox game (the one in which my dear team took over first place!). I was there with two friends from Texas and my son-in-law, who was born in Germany and now has a green card. So, in Chicago terms, we were already a heterogeneous lot. Behind me was a suburban dad with shoulder-length gray hair (an educated, apparently affluent ex-hippie, like the “Bobos” of David Brooks’s book), who took pleasure in explaining the finer points of the game (like the suicide squeeze) to his daughter and two other preteen girls in fashionable sundresses. On our right was a sedate African-American couple, the woman holding a bag that marked her as working for the “U. S. Census Religion subcommittee” of her suburban county. In front of us were three Orthodox Jewish boys, ages around 6, 10, and 18, their tzizit (ritual fringes) showing underneath their Sox shirts, and cleverly double-hatted so that they could doff their Sox caps during the national anthem, while still retaining their kipot. Although this meant that they had not really bared their heads for the Anthem, not one person gave them an ugly stare or said, “Take off your hat!” — or, even worse, “Here we take off our hats.” Indeed, nobody apart from me seemed to notice them at all.

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Looking For A Country In Which To Store A Guantanamo Prisoner

by Martin Peretz

The New Republic
July 26, 2010

During his campaign and at the beginning of his presidency Barack Obama promised to shut Guantanamo and give (most of) its prisoners their freedom. Freedom is a difficult state to bestow on people, especially those who have lived in the circle or shadow of terror or terrorism.

In any case, the Congress won't allow the president to close the penitentiary at the southern tip of Cuba. And it certainly won't permit him to sprinkle the remaining inmates around America. This is another instance of Obama choking on his own words.

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Why Kosovo Still Matters The United States and Europe stood up to Serbia. Can they stand up to North Korea and Iran?

by Christopher Hitchens

Slate
July 26, 2010

The impressive decision last week by the International Court of Justice in The Hague—to reject the claim submitted by Serbia that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was unlawful—was mostly either ignored or reported in articles festooned with false alarmism about hypothetical future secessions. Allow this precedent, moaned many, and what is to stop, say, Catalonia from breaking away?

This line of thinking is wrong twice. To begin with, there is no actual or theoretical world in which Kosovo could possibly have continued to be ruled from Belgrade, let alone considered part of Serbia. In the first place, the international treaties that originally recognized Kosovo as a constituent of Yugoslavia did just that: It was a member of a wider post-1918 federation and not a segment of just one province of it. (For the legal details of this crucial distinction, see Noel Malcolm's Kosovo: A Short History) Even the old-style Yugoslav Communists granted Kosovo the status of an autonomous region in their 1974 constitution. It was the great crime—one of the many great crimes—of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to negate both these previous agreements. Almost as soon as he seized power in 1989, he repealed the autonomy of Kosovo. And he went on to destroy the entire Yugoslav federation in a mad and genocidal effort to put a conquering "Greater Serbia" in its place. The independence of Kosovo is the closing act in the defeat of that wicked and crazy scheme. The Albanian majority would no more agree to a restoration of Serbian sovereignty than Poland would seek to fuse itself with Russia or Germany.

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Arthur C. Brooks on the Battle Between Free Enterprise and Big Government

Reason TV
July 26, 2010

America faces a new culture war; a war between free enterprise and big government.

American Enterprise Institute President Arthur C. Brooks argues in his new book, The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future, that "most Americans don't see free enterprise as just an economic matter, they see it as kind of a lifestyle issue, they see it as the bedrock of American culture and that's about 70 percent of the population."

Brooks sat down with Reason.tv Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie to discuss the best way for free enterprise proponents to "stop losing arguments," as well as Brooks' career as a professional French horn player, and his love for Bach and Anton Bruckner.

The Cop on the Banks of the Nile

by Foud Ajami

Wall Street Journal
July 26, 2010

He was there on the reviewing stand on Oct. 6, 1981, when the assassins struck down his flamboyant predecessor, Anwar Sadat. Few thought that Hosni Mubarak, an unassuming military officer, would survive the tumult of Egypt's politics. The country was on the boil, the assassins who took Sadat's life had been brazen beyond imagination. They had stormed the reviewing stand on the eighth anniversary of the October War of 1973. Lt. Khalid Islambouli, the leader of this band of assassins, told Mr. Mubarak to get out of the way for they had come only after "that dog."

Mr. Mubarak was spared that day, and still, three decades later, he rules. Rumors of poor health swirl around him, and the Egypt he has dominated for so long is a crowded, broken country. "I shot the Pharaoh," Lt. Islambouli said, without doubt or remorse. He and his band of plotters had no coherent plan for the seizure of power. They would kill the defiant ruler, for them an apostate, make an example of him, and hope that his successors would heed his fate.

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Deportation of illegal immigrants increases under Obama administration

Washington Post
July 26, 2010

In a bid to remake the enforcement of federal immigration laws, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush's final year in office.

The effort is part of President Obama's larger project "to make our national laws actually work," as he put it in a speech this month at American University. Partly designed to entice Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform, the mission is proving difficult and politically perilous.

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Lutherans Offer Warm Welcome to Gay Pastors

New York Times
July 25, 2010

With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until recently been barred from the church’s ministry.

The ceremony at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church.

“Today the church is speaking with a clear voice,” the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news conference just before it began. “All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.”

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Migrants sell up and flee Arizona ahead of crackdown

Reuters Africa
July 25, 2010

Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block.

A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbour Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants.

"Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving," said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. "We have no alternative. They have us cornered."

The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix hauling the contents of their homes into the yard this weekend as they rush to sell up and get out before the state law takes effect on Thursday.

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Tears and disbelief at Duch verdict

BBC

July 26, 2010

The idea that a man who admitted overseeing the torture and murder of thousands of people might be free in 19 years was too much for some people who lived through the horrors of the Pol Pot era.

At least one man left the court in disgust on hearing the sentence.

Chum Mey has more reason than most to feel bitter. He was held in the S-21 detention centre which Comrade Duch ran, and suffered regular torture; his wife and children were killed.

Now he is one of only three confirmed living survivors of around 15,000 inmates.

On the steps outside the court, he vented his frustration.

"I ask if Cambodians are happy and the world is happy that millions of people died, a lot of money has been spent on the court - and the perpetrator is free [in 19 years]? I am not happy with that," he said.

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Immigrants and Crime: Time for a Sensible Debate

by Francis Fukuyama

Wall Street Journal
July 26, 2010

There is a widespread perception of a strong link between immigrants and crime. It is common to hear those who oppose immigration argue that the first act illegal immigrants commit on U.S. soil is to break the law—that is, our immigration laws—and that they are ipso facto criminals who will continue to disregard U.S. laws once in the country. Those making this argument are generally steadfastly opposed to any immigration reform that will provide the 10 million to 12 million illegals already in the country any path to citizenship, on the grounds that such an "amnesty" would reward law-breaking.

The association of immigrants with crime is strengthened by the weekly barrage of news about drug and gang violence in Mexico as the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderón seeks to crack down on that country's powerful drug mafias. And long before the Mexican drug war, Americans were threatened by Colombian cartels, Salvadoran street gangs, and other criminal groups from Latin America. Moreover, it is perfectly true that the simple fact of being an illegal immigrant induces one to break further laws: One is reluctant to buy mandated auto insurance, pay taxes, or register businesses for fear of deportation.

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Khmer Rouge Leader Convicted

Wall Street Journal
July 26, 2010

A U.N.-backed tribunal found a key leader of Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge regime guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. But court officials said he will be eligible for a reduced sentence in part due to time he has already served, meaning he could potentially be released before he dies.

The court found that Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was at least partly responsible for the deaths of some 14,000 or more Cambodians who were brought to the Tuol Sleng prison he ran in Phnom Penh during the brutal years of Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to 1979. The prisoners were brought there by Khmer Rouge officials who accused them of disloyalty to the regime; once inside, they were often electrocuted or beaten with metal bars before being hauled away to their deaths.

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Kosovo, Serbia React to ICJ Ruling

Reuters/Wall Street Journal
July 24, 2010

Kosovo and Serbia reacted differently to an opinion by the International Court of Justice ruling the Kosovo's independence from Serbia was legally valid.

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Θρησκευτικός φανατισμός - θρησκοληψία - θρησκομανία οδηγούν δικαστές σε άδικες κρίσεις

Ελληνικό Παρατηρητήριο των Συμφωνιών του Ελσίνκι (ΕΠΣΕ)
25 Ιουλίου 2010

Το Ελληνικό Παρατηρητήριο των Συμφωνιών του Ελσίνκι (ΕΠΣΕ) αναδημοσιεύει τα πλήρη κείμενα δύο συνεντεύξεων του μέχρι τον Ιούνιο 2010 Α’ Αντιπροέδρου του Αρείου Πάγου Ιωάννη Παπανικολάου στις οποίες εκθέτει τις απόψεις του για τα κακώς κείμενα στη δικαιοσύνη. Για το ΕΠΣΕ, που αγωνίζεται μεταξύ άλλων και για τα δικαιώματα των θρησκευτικών μειονοτήτων (περιλαμβανόμενων των άθεων) στην Ελλάδα, καίρια είναι η ακόλουθη επισήμανση:

«Συμφωνώντας με τον αείμνηστο πρόεδρο του Αρείου Πάγου Στ. Ματθία, έχω τονίσει σε επίσημα έγγραφά μου, ως προϊστάμενος της Επιθεώρησης των Δικαστηρίων, ότι ο κομματικός και θρησκευτικός φανατισμός, η θρησκοληψία, η θρησκομανία και οι ιδεοληψίες νοθεύουν σοβαρά τη δικανική κρίση και οδηγούν τον δικαστικό λειτουργό σε αυθαίρετες ή άδικες κρίσεις. Η Δικαιοσύνη θα απαλλαγεί από αυτές τις "στενές σχέσεις", όχι μόνο μέσω της δημιουργίας του κατάλληλου νομοθετικού πλαισίου, κατ' εφαρμογήν της Ευρωπαϊκής Σύμβασης των Δικαιωμάτων του Ανθρώπου (ΕΣΔΑ) και της νομολογίας του Ευρωπαϊκού Δικαστηρίου, αλλά και όταν όσοι δικαστικοί λειτουργοί διακατέχονται από τέτοια νοθευτικά της κρίσης τους στοιχεία αποβάλλουν αυτά. Διαφορετικά θα πρέπει να ελέγχονται από τους επιθεωρητές και τον προϊστάμενο της Επιθεώρησης για τυχόν κατάδηλα εσφαλμένες κρίσεις τους, από δόλο ή βαριά αμέλεια, κατά την άσκηση των καθηκόντων τους, οφειλόμενες στις άνω αιτίες».

Αναδημοσιεύεται επίσης απάντηση από την Ένωση Δικαστών και Εισαγγελέων.

Δελτίο Τύπου

Khmer Rouge Verdict Expected

Reuters (Wall Street Journal)
July 24, 2010

Cambodia waits for a U.N. -backed tribunal to announce its verdict of former Khmer Rouge prison chief, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch.

Fear of Freedom

New York Times
Editorial
July 24, 2010

A prisoner who begs to stay indefinitely at the Guantánamo Bay detention center rather than be sent back to Algeria probably has a strong reason to fear the welcoming reception at home.

Abdul Aziz Naji, who has been held at Guantánamo since 2002, told the Obama administration that he would be tortured if he was transferred to Algeria, by either the Algerian government or fundamentalist groups there. Though he offered to remain at the prison, the administration shipped him home last weekend and washed its hands of the man. Almost immediately upon arrival, he disappeared, and his family fears the worst.

It is an act of cruelty that seems to defy explanation.

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The Worst of the Worst

by George B.N. Ayittey

Foreign Policy
July/August 2010

A continent away from Kyrgyzstan, Africans like myself cheered this spring as a coalition of opposition groups ousted the country's dictator, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. "One coconut down, 39 more to harvest!" we shouted. There are at least 40 dictators around the world today, and approximately 1.9 billion people live under the grip of the 23 autocrats on this list alone. There are plenty of coconuts to go around.

The cost of all that despotism has been stultifying. Millions of lives have been lost, economies have collapsed, and whole states have failed under brutal repression. And what has made it worse is that the world is in denial. The end of the Cold War was also supposed to be the "End of History" -- when democracy swept the world and repression went the way of the dinosaurs. Instead, Freedom House reports that only 60 percent of the world's countries are democratic -- far more than the 28 percent in 1950, but still not much more than a majority. And many of those aren't real democracies at all, ruled instead by despots in disguise while the world takes their freedom for granted. As for the rest, they're just left to languish.

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The Road Ahead for Kosovo’s Independence

by Andrew Solomon

Brookings Institution
July 23, 2010

Momentum toward recognition of Kosovo as an independent state has in all likelihood taken a step forward now that the International Court of Justice has issued its much anticipated and narrowly tailored advisory opinion on Kosovo.

While the ICJ concluded that the unilateral declaration of independence was not adopted in violation of international law, the Court’s opinion does not necessarily signal an easy path for Kosovo in its move toward sovereignty and membership in the United Nations and the European Union, both stated goals of Kosovo’s leadership in Pristina. Only 69 countries currently recognize Kosovo as an independent state, a number far short of the 100 required for UN membership. Countries currently unwilling to recognize Kosovo include Russia, other major European powers, and Serbia.

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Police Train for Arizona's New Immigration Law

Wall Street Journal
July 23, 2010

Watch an excerpt from a video being used to teach Arizona police officers how to enforce a new state law to crack down on illegal immigration.

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China 'may review execution policy changes'

BBC
July 23, 2010

China is considering reviewing the number of crimes which attract the death penalty, a report suggests.

The country's highest law-making body will debate a draft amendment to the criminal law next month, a report in a liberal newspaper said.

There are currently 68 crimes which carry the death penalty in China.

The South Weekend newspaper quotes a law professor at Beijing University as saying this was unnecessary and hurt China's global image.

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Study: MTV leads in showing gay characters on TV

Washington Post
July 23, 2010

MTV held a solid lead among 15 networks for its representation of gay characters last season, according to a report released Friday.

In its fourth annual Network Responsibility Index, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation found that of MTV's 207.5 hours of original prime-time programming, 42 percent included content reflecting the lives of gay, bisexual and transgender people. This earned MTV the first-ever "Excellent" rating from GLAAD.

"MTV programs like 'The Real World' and 'America's Best Dance Crew' have offered richly diverse portrayals of gay and transgender people that help Americans better understand and accept our community," said GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios.

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GLAAD

Independence day

Economist
July 22, 2010

Serbia's foreign minister, looked ashen. He knew what was coming. Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia did not violate general international law, said Hisashi Owada, the president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, in a non-binding advisory opinion. Ten judges voted in favour of this ruling, with four against. Serbia's strategy of attempting to outmanoeuvre its former secessionist province through the international court lay in ruins. In Pristina, Kosovo's capital, cars began hooting in celebration. Cheers erupted from bars and cafes, where people had gathered to watch the judge deliver the court's opinion. Shkelzen Maliqi, a well-known intellectual and commentator, summed up what most Kosovars were thinking: "Perfect. Who would have expected such a clear answer?" In Belgrade there seemed no room for doubt either. "It was a classic knockout," said Braca Grubacic, an analyst. "I don't know how the government can get out of this."

To date 69 countries have recognised Kosovo's independence, including the US and 22 of the 27 EU member states. But Russia, China, Brazil, India and many other important countries have refused to follow suit. Whether a flood of new recognitions will follow today's ruling remains to be seen, but would not be surprising. It is, however, unlikely that China, with its eyes on Taiwan and Tibet, Russia, with its problems in Chechnya, and other countries in the world with secessionist movements will recognise Kosovo any time soon.

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Opinion: Court ruling on federal law advances same-sex marriage

by Robert A. Levy

San Jose Mercury News
July 22, 2010

Proponents of a right to gay marriage won a major victory this month in Massachusetts. At issue was a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as the union of a man and woman for purposes of federal law. That provision effectively barred the U.S. government from granting Social Security and certain other benefits to same-sex couples.

In Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, the judge held that the act's divergent treatment of same-sex and heterosexual couples violates the equal protection principles implicit in the Fifth Amendment. The court asked whether Congress had a legitimate basis for treating same-sex couples differently. The unambiguous answer was "No."

How about procreation? No. Infertile persons are permitted to marry even though they cannot procreate. Child rearing? No. Studies show that children do just as well when raised by same-sex parents. Promoting traditional marriage? No. Heterosexual marriages will not be affected by allowing gay marriages. Conserving government resources? No. The Congressional Budget Office found that recognizing same-sex marriages would save money. We would have fewer children in state institutions, lower divorce rates and promiscuity, and increased wealth.

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World Court Rules Kosovo Declaration Was Legal

New York Times
July 22, 2010

Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law, the United Nations’ highest court said Thursday in a ruling that Kosovo heralded as a victory but that legal experts warned could spur separatist movements around the world.

Legal experts said that while the International Court of Justice had ruled that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was legal, it had avoided saying that the state of Kosovo was legal under international law, a narrow and carefully calibrated compromise that they said could allow both sides to declare victory in a dispute that remains raw even 11 years after the war there.

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The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom

by Robert M. McDowell

Wall Street Journal
July 22, 2010

In 1988, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Melbourne, Australia, to negotiate an international treaty for the future of telecommunications regulation. Since then, representatives from nations as diverse as Ghana, China and the U.S. have reunited and agreed that the Internet—that amazing global network of networks—was different from traditional phone service, and was best kept free from international phone regulation. That could change soon.

At least 191 countries are gearing up for the next round of talks at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the fall. The ITU is a treaty-based organization under the auspices of the United Nations that regulates international telecom services by, for instance, administering international telephone numbers. To date, the ITU has had no jurisdiction over the Internet. But the U.S.'s own telecom regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), may spark a possible cascade of international regulation of the Web, led by the ITU. The timing couldn't be worse.

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A Victory for Writing

New York Times
Editorial
July 22, 2010

It is a rare achievement these days for the Senate to pass anything of real substance by a unanimous vote. But an important bill that protects Americans from the whims of foreign libel judgments was passed earlier this week by unanimous consent. Once it passes the House and is signed into law, it will provide a safeguard to authors and publishers threatened with ruinous foreign judgments.

In the United States, a plaintiff alleging libel must prove that a statement is false and defamatory, and public figures have to show that a writer acted with actual malice in making a false statement. But these protections, rooted in the First Amendment, do not exist in places like Britain, Australia and Singapore, where the burden is often on the author, once accused of libel, to show that a statement is true.

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Crime and punishment in America: Rough justice

Economist
July 22, 2010

In 2000 four Americans were charged with importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran regulation that Honduras no longer enforces. They had fallen foul of the Lacey Act, which bars Americans from breaking foreign rules when hunting or fishing. The original intent was to prevent Americans from, say, poaching elephants in Kenya. But it has been interpreted to mean that they must abide by every footling wildlife regulation on Earth. The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got eight years apiece. Two are still in jail.

America is different from the rest of the world in lots of ways, many of them good. One of the bad ones is its willingness to lock up its citizens. One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.

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Toleration: The Liberal Virtue

See also

ICJ to rule on legality of Kosovo's independence

BBC
July 22, 2010

The International Court of Justice has begun ruling on the legality of Kosovo's 2008 secession from Serbia.

Judges are issuing a non-binding ruling on Serbia's claim that Kosovo's declaration of independence was a violation of its territorial integrity.

If the ICJ sides with Serbia, Kosovo could be pushed into negotiating a settlement. The opposite could see more countries recognising its independence.

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(Gay) Life, on the Small and Big Screen

New York Times
July 22, 2010

It’s a long way from “Brokeback Mountain” to “The Kids Are All Right,” the critically praised film about a lesbian couple played by Julianne Moore and Annette Bening that is now being released nationwide. As A.O. Scott wrote in his New York Times review, the movie “starts from the premise that gay marriage, an issue of ideological contention and cultural strife, is also an established social fact.”

That premise has been embraced by television for almost a generation, with gay characters and couples and parents dating at least to the dads depicted on "The Tracey Ullman Show" in the late 80's. What effect have these portrayals played in gaining social acceptance for same-sex families? What role does a movie like "The Kids Are All Right" play in changing social perceptions?

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Ο οιονεί εμφύλιος πόλεμος

του Διονύση Γουσέτη

Καθημερινή
22 Ιουλίου 2010

Ενας μόνο μήνας πέρασε από τη δολοφονία με ταχυδρομική βόμβα του αστυνομικού Γιώργου Βασιλάκη και όμως το θέμα είχε περίπου ξεχαστεί. Μας το θύμισε η προχθεσινή δολοφονία του δημοσιογράφου Σωκράτη Γκιόλια. Αντίθετα, δεν έχει ξεχαστεί, δυόμισι χρόνια μετά, η δολοφονία του Αλ. Γρηγορόπουλου από αστυνομικό. Το θέμα απασχολεί ακόμα τον Τύπο. Οταν ο αστυνομικός είναι θύτης μιας δολοφονίας, παρακολουθούμε καταστάσεις οργής ή και βανδαλισμών. Οταν όμως οι θύτες είναι τρομοκράτες, τότε διακρίνουμε μια υπόκωφη χαρά, που εκδηλώνεται και δημόσια από τους πιο θαρραλέους. Ετσι, διαβάσαμε σε δημόσια ηλεκτρονική ιστοσελίδα «Ο μπάτσος που εξοντώθηκε είναι το δεξί χέρι του Χρυσοχοΐδη» και προχθές «Οι δημοσιογράφοι εξυπηρετούν συνειδητά και μαζικά τη χούντα». Μάλιστα, η ιστοσελίδα εξυπηρετείται, στο όνομα πάντα της ελευθερίας έκφρασης, από δημόσιο ίδρυμα: το ΕΜΠ, ένα πανεπιστήμιο που λειτουργεί προνομιακά σε σχέση με τα υπόλοιπα αφού για κάθε οικοδομική μας δραστηριότητα πληρώνουμε κρατήσεις υπέρ ΕΜΠ. Επίσης, όταν ο δολοφόνος δεν είναι αστυνομικός, κάποιοι υπαινίσσονται ότι είναι το... σύστημα! Το ΚΚΕ, για παράδειγμα, χαρακτήρισε τη δολοφονία του αστυνομικού «άκρως ύποπτη», ενώ αριστερός δημοσιογράφος έγραψε σιβυλλικά: «Ακόμη και αν οι τρομοκράτες (δολοφόνοι) δεν υπήρχαν, θα έπρεπε να τους είχε εφεύρει το σύστημα».

Περισσότερα

Cuba: Is It Different This Time?

by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

Independent Institute
July 21, 2010

You have to hand it to Fidel and Raul Castro. They are masterful tacticians. Whenever they have needed to diffuse pressure, they set tongues wagging with speculation about reform. By the time the ruse was exposed, another period of stability had set in. The recent announcement that 52 political prisoners will go free has spawned a whirlwind of conjecture. Are the brothers at it again?

The slow-motion release that began last week and will go on for months will liberate one-third of Cuba’s political prisoners, according to the Havana-based Cuban Commission for Human Rights. These men emerged some years ago as a group of independent journalists. Together with an organization of librarians and some bloggers, they later embarked on an effort to bring to life a Cuban civil society. Not since the emergence of illegal human rights organizations and political parties had anything more encouraging happened. No wonder the Castros incarcerated 75 of them. What they did not anticipate was that the wives and sisters of the prisoners would jump to fame. With a campaign that got louder and bolder with every pogrom that busted their marches, the incredible Ladies in White gained for these heroes the attention of the world.

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Ending the Gaza Blockade Might Help Israel as Much as Gaza

by Ivan Eland

Independent Institute
July 21, 2010

In the wake of Israel’s botched attack on a Turkish ship bringing relief to Gazans from Israel’s (and Egypt’s) economic blockade of Gaza, the Israelis have responded to intensely negative world opinion by relaxing the blockade. That move may help Israel as much as Gazans. Ending the counterproductive economic embargo and blockade would help both parties even more.

Israel is now letting more goods flow into Gaza, but the blockade was surprisingly porous to begin with. When economic sanctions (prohibitions on imports, exports, financial transactions, or movements of people) are imposed, the economic pain often dissipates over time because prices get bid up, thus creating big profits for smuggling. However, when such sanctions are enforced physically with a naval blockade and border closings (a land blockade), one would expect less attenuation of pain over time.

Yet even when the full Israeli and Egyptian blockade—imposed in 2007 to cause pain among the Gazan population to prompt them to turn against their government, run by the militant group Hamas—was enforced, many goods were still available in Gaza. They were somehow brought surreptitiously across borders or sent through underground smuggling tunnels across the Gazan-Egyptian frontier. Where there is a profit-induced will, there is a way.

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Planned Muslim center in NYC tests American values

USA Today
Editorial
July 21, 2010

Just the mention of the words "mosque" and "Ground Zero" in the same breath is enough to send some Americans around the bend.

And that's precisely what has happened since plans to build a Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site became public in May. Critics have launched demonstrations, protested at public hearings and called for an investigation into the finances of the center's promoters.

Among the most vehement opponents are families who lost loved ones on 9/11. Some say the center would defile sacred ground. Their anguish is almost palpable. But that doesn't make them right.

In fact, allowing the center to go forward honors the values that the terrorists sought to destroy. It also undermines al-Qaeda's attempts to convince Muslims that the United States is at war with Islam, when in fact the USA is the home of religious freedom, including freedom for peaceful Muslims to practice their faith.

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A Mosque Maligned

by Robert Wright

New York Times
July 20, 2010

Just to show you how naïve I am: When I first heard about the plan to build a mosque and community center two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks, I didn’t envision any real opposition to it.

Sure, I can understand how some people traumatized by 9/11 — firefighters who survived it, or people whose loved ones didn’t — might not like the idea. But I’d have thought that opinion leaders of all ideological stripes could reach consensus by applying a basic rule of thumb: Just ask, “What would Osama bin Laden want?” and then do the opposite.

Bin Laden would love to be able to say that in America you can build a church or synagogue anywhere you want, but not a mosque. That fits perfectly with his recruiting pitch — tha America has declared war on Islam. And bin Laden would thrill to the claim that a mosque near ground zero dishonors the victims of 9/11, because the unspoken premise is that the attacks really were, as he claims, a valid expression of Islam.

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True Libertarianism

by Walter Block

Mises Daily
July 21, 2010

It has gotten to the point, nowadays, that whenever I see a new book out with "libertarian" or "libertarianism" in the title, I cringe. It is not because I don't think that on net balance, they are not all forces for the good. They are. Given that they at least spell the name of this philosophy correctly, they do more good than harm. The more publications of this sort the better. If we are to promote libertarianism, it cannot be done without continually keeping the concept of liberty in the public mind, and there are few better ways to do this than by publishing more and more volumes on this topic. But, on the other hand — and, believe me, there is another hand, I still cringe when I peruse such titles.

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Debate on Gambling

Economist
July 21, 2010

Opening statements

Radley Balko
Senior editor, Reason magazine

Gambling is no different from any other consensual crime. Prohibiting it does not make it go away. It merely pushes it underground where it is impossible to monitor for cheating and fraud and where the stakes are likely to be higher.

Les Bernal
Executive director, Stop Predatory Gambling

Gambling operators attempt to hide under the cloak of "personal freedom" as if the issue was about social forms of gambling like playing cards at a neighbour's house on a Friday night. The issue is really about predatory gambling and broken government.

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