Arizona police officials warned officers not to use race or ethnicity when enforcing the state's new immigration law

PHOENIX Arizona police officials warned officers not to use race or ethnicity when enforcing the state’s new immigration law, saying that the country is watching their every move.In a new training video released Thursday, the officials said opponents of the law may secretly videotape officers making traffic stops, trying to ensnare them and prove that they’re racially profiling Hispanics.”Without a doubt, we’re going to be accused of racial profiling no matter what we do on this,” Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor tells officers on the video from Arizona’s police licensing board. The video is designed to teach officers how to determine when they can ask a person for proof they’re in the country legally.Officers can consider that someone doesn’t speak English well, is wearing several layers of clothing in a hot climate or is hanging out in an area where illegal immigrants are known to look for work, according to the video.

They can take into account that a person doesn’t have identification, tried to run away, is traveling in an overcrowded vehicle, or seems out of place and unfamiliar with the area.But the stakes for making a mistake are high: Officers can be fired if they start asking questions because of a person’s race, then lie about it later, the video warns.”It is also clear that the actions of Arizona officers will never come under this level of scrutiny again,” said Lyle Mann, executive director of the training agency. “Each and every one of you will now carry the reputation for the entire Arizona law enforcement community with you every day.

“Arizona’s law, sparked by anger over a surging population of illegal immigrants in the border state, generally requires officers enforcing another law to question a person’s immigration status if there’s a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.Officers are told that the law applies only to a stop, detention or arrest – not when a person flags down an officer. Police are not required to ask crime victims or witnesses about their status, and anyone who shows a valid Arizona driver’s license is presumed to be in the country legally.The law restricts the use of race, color or national origin as the basis for triggering immigration questions.

But civil rights groups and some police officials argue that officers will still assume that illegal immigrants look Hispanic.Arizona’s 460,000 illegal immigrants are almost all Hispanic. Yet Arizona also has nearly 2 million Hispanics who are U.S. citizens or legal residents, about 30 percent of the state’s population.In the training video, an expert advises officers to ask themselves whether they’d reach the same conclusion about a Hispanic person’s immigration status if the subject were white or black.”If any officer goes into a situation with a previous mindset that one race or one ethnicity is not equal to another’s, then they have no business being a law enforcement officer in this state,” Arizona Police Association president Brian Livingston says in the video.

The video and supporting paperwork will be sent to all 170 Arizona police agencies.Police bosses will decide the best way to teach their forces. There is no requirement that all 15,000 Arizona police officers complete the training before the law takes effect July 29.Gov. Jan Brewer ordered the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to develop the training when she signed the law April 23.Opponents have challenged the measure as unconstitutional and have asked that a federal court block it from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton plans to hear arguments on the request later this month.

President Barack Obama on Thursday called the law an understandable byproduct of public frustration with the government’s inability to tighten the system, but also said it is ill-conceived, divisive and would put undue pressure on local authorities.

The law was passed in part with the lobbying muscle of unions representing rank-and-file police officers who argued that they should be allowed to arrest illegal immigrants they come across.It was opposed by police bosses who worried it would be expensive to implement and would destroy the trust they’ve developed in Hispanic neighborhoods. (AP)

Az Promises of Fairness ''Ring Hollow to Many Latinos''

Randal Archibold, who has led the paper’s slanted, whitewashed coverage of Arizona’s fierce illegal immigration fight, again focused the feelings of the minority, not the majority of Americans, talking to Latinos in Phoenix for Friday’s “Arizona Law Is Stoking Unease Among Latinos.” His concluding verdict: “many Latinos remain unconvinced.”Among those Archibold interviewed was someone who “spray painted himself white and wrote on his body, ‘Am I reasonably suspicious?'” (Monica Almeida captured the image for the Times.) Who could fail to be swayed by such an argument?  When Gov. Jan Brewer signed Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law, giving police departments broad power to make immigration checks, she sought to allay concerns from Hispanic citizens and legal residents that they would be singled out for scrutiny.

“We have to trust our law enforcement,” Ms. Brewer said. “It’s simple reality. Police officers are going to be respectful. They understand what their jobs are. They’ve taken an oath, and racial profiling isn’t legal.”Those words ring hollow to many Latinos, including Jesus Ruiz, 25, a college student in Mesa, Ariz., who, like many Latinos here, believes that all too often the police view them suspiciously and single them out for what they consider questionable stops or harassment.

In one stop in 2004, Mr. Ruiz said, an officer pulled him over for speeding 10 miles over the limit and went on to question him on where he was going to school and whether he lived with his parents, and finally asked for his Social Security number.“I was thinking, is he supposed to be asking me for that and all these questions for a speeding ticket?” said Mr. Ruiz, who spray painted himself white and wrote on his body, “Am I reasonably suspicious?” at a recent protest against the new law, which goes into effect in late July.But it is not just young people.

Archibold then told an anecdote from a Phoenix judge who has been pulled over twice for traffic infractions, but not given a ticket, which somehow adds up to…something or other.Judge Jose Padilla of Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, says that twice since he became a judge in 2006, the police have pulled him over, alleging minor traffic infractions. Even though Judge Padilla, 60, did not disclose his occupation, he ended up not receiving a ticket. He said his complaints to the police department led to sensitivity training for the officers.

Though the law isn’t even being enforced yet, Archibold managed to collect reports of immigrant harassment:

Already, he said, there are anecdotal reports that some police departments in the state are asking people for their papers. He said his department had received a picture of a patrol car near a Border Patrol vehicle, as if proximity proved that officers were already collaborating to carry out the law.Between rehashing recent incidents showing “tensions between law enforcement and some Latinos” in Arizona, talk of lawsuits and “roundups” of illegals, and a cameo by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Archibold didn’t get to any supporters of the law (who are the clear majority both in Arizona and nationwide) until paragraph 31 out of 37).

Still, many Arizonans who support the law believe racial profiling concerns are overblown or a smokescreen to hide a belief that borders should be wide open.Archibold concluded with this less than shocking statement: “But many Latinos remain unconvinced.”A sidebar article by Larry Rohter (a fiercely pro-Obama reporter from the 2008 campaign) offered the less than earth-shattering news that some leftist musicians are boycotting Arizona in protest of the law, led by Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine.

Arizona's immigration law Is Unconstitutional, Class Claims

PHOENIX Arizona’s controversial immigration law “will cause widespread racial profiling and will subject many persons of color … to unlawful interrogations, searches, seizures and arrests,” according to a federal class action filed by the ACLU, the NAACP and other national civil rights groups.

The new law requires local police to enforce immigration laws and allows them to search vehicles without a warrant if an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the occupants don’t have immigration papers.

The groups want the court to block Arizona Senate Bill 1070, signed by Gov. Janice Brewer on April 23, from going into effect on July 28.They say the law is unconstitutional and “will create a legal regime regulating and restricting immigration and punishing those whom Arizona deems to be in violation of immigration laws.”

The law will also “cause widespread racial profiling and will subject many persons of color — including countless U.S. citizens, and non-citizens who have federal permission to remain in the United States — to unlawful interrogations, searches, seizures and arrests,” the groups claim.

The plaintiffs include the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Coalicíon De Derechos Humanos, the Muslim American Society, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International.

The Muslim American Society claims that its members, some of whom are immigrants, will be racially profiled “based on their foreign appearance and clothing, such as headscarves.” It also claims it won’t be able to educate the Muslim community in Arizona because its members “will be too afraid to attend meetings and organized activities and events.”
Jesus Cuauhtémoc Villa, a New Mexico resident and an Arizona State University anthropology student, claims that he may be subject to arrest because as a New Mexico resident he was not required to have proof of U.S. citizenship or immigration status to get a driver’s license. Villa claims he does not have a U.S. passport and does not want to risk losing his birth certificate by carrying it with him.

The plaintiffs say the Arizona immigration law “cannot be enforced without improperly singling out racial and ethnic minorities, including many U.S. citizens and persons authorized by the federal government to be present in the U.S., for stops, interrogations, arrests, and detentions.”

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio allegedly uses training materials stating that “the fact that an individual has no English skills or speaks English poorly is a factor indicating that an individual is not ‘lawfully present’ in the United States.”

The civil rights organizations demand a declaration that the Arizona immigration law is unconstitutional and an order blocking its enforcement. This is the fifth lawsuit filed against the Arizona immigration law in Federal Court.
The class is represented by Anne Lai of the ACLU Foundation of Arizona. (CN)

U.S. spy Aircraft Kill Seven People at Afghan border

Miranshah, Pakistan spy aircraft of the United States, Saturday, firing a missile into a complex three insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal regions near the Afghan border, killing seven militants, security officials said. The attack happened at 21 o’clock local time  in Marsikhel area, 20 km east of Miranshah, North Waziristan town of importance, known as a center of Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants.

Citizenship seven guerrillas were killed was not immediately clear, said a senior Pakistani security officer told AFP on condition of anonymity. Another officer confirmed the attack and killed it, and added: “We do not know whether high-value target present in the area at the time of the attack.” The attack came a day after seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and 16 wounded, when militants armed with rifles and rocket launchers attacked their convoy, a routine mission to the town of Miranshah dai Dattakhel

U.S. forces have launched a spy plane attack against the commander hidden Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants in tribal area in northwestern part of the country, where guerrillas build their hideouts in the mountainous areas outside the direct control of government. U.S. officials said spy plane attack is a very important weapon in the fight to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan to reverse, where Washington’s troops led the big waves.

Critics say high-tech attack is risky to make the local population into a radical, especially if the civilians were killed. The importance of North Waziristan in the spy plane attack was increased from a Jordanian al-Qaeda double agent blew himself up killing seven CIA staff in a province neighboring Afghanistan in December. More than 870 people have been killed in nearly 100 spy plane attack in Pakistan since August 2008.

Washington calls the Pakistani tribal areas, the global headquarters of Al Qaidda and most dangerous regions in the world. Guerrillas in the area believed to have helped nearly nine-year insurgency in Afghanistan. North Waziristan is a stronghold of Al Qaeda, Taliban and Pakistani and Afghan militants affiliated with the Haqqani network, which was established by Jalaluddin Haqqani commander of the Afghan war and now led by his son, Sirajuddin, are ambitious. Taliban and associated groups of Al Qaeda blamed for a wave of suicide attacks and bombings that have killed nearly 3300 people in Pakistan since 2007. (AFP)

5.9-magnitude earthquake hit near the Pacific island of Tonga on Thursday

WELLINGTON, New Zealand A 5.9-magnitude earthquake hit near the Pacific island of Tonga on Thursday, but no casualties or damage were reported and no tsunami warning was issued.The quake struck 65 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of Hihifo, Tonga, at a depth of 21 miles (35 kilometers).Many residents of American Samoa felt the quake and went out to look at the ocean while listening to radio broadcasts.

“Nothing is registered on our censors for tsunami waves,” according to Carol Baqui, a forecaster with the American Samoa weather service.No tsunami warning was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.

Police in the Samoan capital, Apia, said they had no reports on the temblor. “We didn’t feel any earthquake,” an officer, who declined to be named, said.Julie Dutton, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado, it was a relatively small quake.”Right now we don’t have any reports of it being felt. It’s pretty far off the coast so we’re not anticipating anything damaging,” Dutton said.Preliminary estimates put the quake at 6.2, but that was later downgraded to 5.9.

A magnitude 8.0 earthquake close to neighboring Samoa last Sept. 29 killed 34 people in American Samoa, 183 in Samoa and nine in Tonga, when tsunami waves up to 46 feet (14 meters) high crashed ashore. It also created a sea floor fault up to 190 miles (300 kilometers) long and 23 feet (7 meters) deep.About 90 percent of the world’s temblors occur in the so-called “Ring of Fire” – an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim.(AP)

Afghanistan played down on Wednesday recent anti-Western remarks by President Hamid Karzai

Afghanistan played down on Wednesday recent anti-Western remarks by President Hamid Karzai, saying they were not aimed at specific countries and would not affect relations between Kabul and the international community.A war of words between Karzai and the White House escalated on Monday following accusations by the Afghan president last week that the West carried out election fraud in Afghanistan.

Karzai has not backed down from his remarks and appeared to sharpen the criticism further by singling out the United Statesfor blame. Washington said it was frustrated by the comments and attempts to settle the feud had so far failed.On Wednesday, Karzai’s chief spokesman, Waheed Omer, said the statements were aimed at individuals who had made fraud allegations and were “not necessarily” directed at any specific country.

“When it comes to fraud in elections, you know, there (were) lots of discussions over the past six or seven months … one-sided views mainly made by certain figures that I will not name here,” Omer told a news conference in Kabul.Those figures “do not necessarily represent the country or represent any international organization,” he said.

Karzai made his remarks, Omer said, to avoid a repeat of these fraud allegations in the upcoming parliamentary election.”So that’s why the president did that, and that was not necessarily targeting any specific country or any specific group of countries,” Omer said.

NO EFFECT ON RELATIONS WITH WEST

In his speech last week, Karzai said foreigners had bribed and threatened election workers to carry out fraud in last year’s presidential election, and singled out the former deputy head of the U.N. mission in Kabul — U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith — as well as the French head of a European Union monitoring team.

Omer played down the effects Karzai’s remarks could have on relations with the West.”It did not have any effect on the strategic relations with the United States and the international community. Our stance and position are the same,” he said.

“Issues that create conflict should be discussed and we hope that these relations get strengthened and reinforced.”U.S. President Barack Obama met Karzai in Kabul last month during a brief night-time visit to Afghanistan but that visit has largely been overshadowed by Karzai’s remarks.On Tuesday, the White House suggested it might cancel a meeting between the two leaders in Washington next month.

Omer said Washington needed to clarify whether the trip would be canceled.”Regarding its cancellation, we don’t have anything specific. This (the visit) is the proposal made by the United States, they should give clarification,” he said.

ELECTION OFFICIALS STEP DOWN

In a development that could help placate Western concerns over fraud ahead of a parliamentary poll in September, Omer said the head of the country’s government-appointed election body and his deputy were to be replaced.Last year’s presidential election damaged Karzai’s standing among Western countries with troops in Afghanistan after allegations of widespread fraud, including that carried out by officials in the Independent Election Commission (IEC).

It led to months of political limbo, with the IEC declaring Karzai the winner but a separate U.N.-backed body rejecting enough ballots to lower Karzai’s total below 50 percent and force a second round.”The working period of Mr. Azizullah Ludin, director of the Independent Election Commission, has finished and will not be extended,” Omer said.

“Daoud Ali Najafi has also resigned from his position which has been approved by the president,” he added, referring to the body’s chief electoral officer.There have been several calls for Ludin to step down since last year’s August 20 vote, and Western diplomats have said the international community would not be pleased if Karzai reappointed him.

Opponents accuse Ludin, a presidential appointee, of favoring Karzai.Omer said both IEC officials would be replaced soon, adding they would be offered high-ranking positions elsewhere. He did not give more details.Holding a free and fair parliamentary election is seen as a crucial test for Afghanistan, which faces a resurgent Taliban, despite the presence of tens of thousands of Western troops, more than eight years since the militants’ removal from power.(Reuters)

E-2C Hawkeye aircraft crashes into Arabian Sea

One person is missing after a US navy radar plane supporting operations in Afghanistan ploughed into the Arabian Sea.The E-2C Hawkeye aircraft “was returning from conducting operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom” when it malfunctioned, the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said in a statement.The crew “performed a controlled bailout” from the plane when it went down in the northern Arabian Sea on its way to the USS Dwight D Eisenhower aircraft carrier.

The navy says three crew members were rescued and have returned to the carrier “alive and well”.”Search and rescue efforts are continuing for the missing aviator and are expected to continue through the night or until he or she is found,” said public affairs officer Lieutenant Matthew Allen.The crash is under investigation.The US navy says the E-2C is used to provide “all-weather airborne early warnings, battle management and command and control functions”.Based on US aircraft carriers, the E-2C is also used for “ground surveillance, strike coordination and communications relay”.According to the US navy website, an E-2C costs $US80 million.

Jordan Relatives and friends of the Jordanian suspected as a double agent who killed eight people on a CIA base in Afghanistan

ZARQA, Jordan  Relatives and friends of the Jordanian suspected as a double agent who killed eight people on a CIA base in Afghanistan say he wanted to die in a holy war, and wrote fiery Internet articles calling for jihad against the U.S. and Israel.Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 32-year-old physician, struck the base near the Pakistani border last week, killing seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer.His family and friends said Tuesday al-Balawi practiced medicine in a Palestinian refugee camp near Zarqa, also the hometown of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.High-school friend Mohammed Yousef said al-Balawi fooled family and friends, telling them in March he was going to Turkey to study.(AP)

COPENHAGEN Police shoot man attacking Muhammad cartoonist

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard

COPENHAGEN   Police shot a Somali man wielding an ax and a knife after he broke into the home of an artist whose cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban outraged the Muslim world, the head of Denmark’s intelligence agency said Saturday.Jakob Scharf said in a statement that a 28-year-old man with ties to al-Qaida entered Kurt Westergaard’s home in Aarhus Friday night. But Westergaard pressed an alarm and police arrived minutes later.The attack on the artist, whose rendering was among 12 that led to the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in predominantly Muslim countries in 2006, was “terror related,” Scharf said. He said the man would be charged with attempted murder.Westergaard, whose 5-year-old granddaughter was in the home on a sleepover, sought shelter in a specially made safe room when the suspect broke a window of the home, said Preben Nielsen of the Aarhus police.Officers arrived two minutes later and tried to arrest the assailant, who wielded an ax at a police officer. The officer then shot the man in a knee and a hand, authorities said. Nielsen said the suspect was hospitalized but his life was not in danger.The suspect’s name was not released in line with Danish privacy rules.

“The arrested man has, according to PET’s information, close relations to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab and al-Qaida leaders in eastern Africa,” Scharf said. PET is Denmark’s intelligence agency.Scharf said without elaborating that the man is suspected of having been involved in terror-related activities in east Africa. He had been under PET’s surveillance but not in connection with Westergaard, he saidThe man, who had a permit to stay in Denmark, was to be charged Saturday with attempted murder for trying to kill Westergaard and the police officer, Scharf said.

The suspect got inside the home of the 75-year-old cartoonist in Denmark’s second largest city, 125 miles (200 kilometers) northwest of Copenhagen.Westergaard could not be reached for comment. However, he told his employer, the Jyllands-Posten daily, that the assailant shouted “revenge” and “blood” as he tried to enter the bathroom where Westergaard and the child had sought shelter.”My grandchild did fine,” Westergaard said, according to the newspaper’s Web edition. “It was scary. It was close. Really close. But we did it.”Westergaard was “quite shocked” but was not injured, Nielsen said.An umbrella organization for moderate Muslims in Denmark condemned the attack.”The Danish Muslim Union strongly distances itself from the attack and any kind of extremism that leads to such acts,” the group said in a statement.

Westergaard remains a potential target for extremists nearly five years after he drew a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. The drawing was printed along with 11 others in Jyllands-Posten in 2005.The drawings triggered an uproar a few months later when Danish and other Western embassies in several Muslim countries were torched by angry protesters who felt the cartoons had profoundly insulted Islam.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.Westergaard has received death threats and is the subject of an alleged assassination plot.The case “again confirms the terror threat that is directed at Denmark and against the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in particular,” Scharf said.In October, terror charges were brought against two Chicago men whose initial plan called for attacks on Jyllands-Posten’s offices. The plan was later changed to just killing the paper’s former cultural editor and Westergaard.

In 2008, Danish police arrested two Tunisian men suspected of plotting to murder Westergaard. Neither suspect was prosecuted. One of them was deported and the other was released Monday after an immigration board rejected PET’s efforts to expel him from Denmark.Throughout the crisis, then-Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen distanced himself from the cartoons but resisted calls to apologize for them, citing freedom of speech and saying his government could not be held responsible for the actions of Denmark’s press.(AP)

BAGHDAD A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men

Shiite Muslim men

BAGHDAD  A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men and damaged the historic building Wednesday, a day before Christmas Eve services that will be heavily guarded for fear of more attacks on the country’s Christian minority.The bomb in the city of Mosul was hidden under sacks of baking flour in a handcart left 15 yards (meters) from the Mar Toma Church, or the Church of St. Thomas, a police officer said.

The officer said the two men killed were Muslims and that five other people were injured. A hospital official confirmed the casualties.Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to news media.

“Instead of performing Christmas Mass in this church, we will be busy removing rubble and debris,” Hazim Ragheed, a priest at the church, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.The blast damaged the wooden doors, windows, some furniture and one of the walls of the church, which is more than 1,200 years old, Ragheed said. Services will be moved out of the church, but Ragheed did not say where they would be held.

“We demand that the government put an end to these repeated attacks,” Ragheed said.The blast occurred in an area where streets have been closed to cars and trucks to protect Mosul’s dwindling Christian population.

Iraqi defense officials warned earlier in the week that intelligence reports pointed to attacks during Christmas, leading the government to step up security near churches and Christian neighborhoods.Most of the increased security will be in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, said Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari.

Christians have frequently been targeted since turmoil swept the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, although the attacks have ebbed with an overall drop in violence. Still, tens of thousands of Christians have fled; many who stayed were isolated in neighborhoods protected by barricades and checkpoints.A coordinated bombing campaign in 2004 targeted churches in the Iraqi capital and anti-Christian violence also flared in September 2007 after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be against Islam.

Churches, priests and businesses have been attacked by militants who denounce Christians as pro-American “crusaders.” Paulos Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, was found dead in March 2008 after being abducted by gunmen after a Mass.

Also Wednesday, Iraqi forces increased security around the Shiite religious observance of Ashoura, which coincides with Christmas.Insurgents have routinely targeted pilgrims on their way to the southern holy city of Karbala during Ashoura, which marks the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein.More than 25,000 Iraqi police and soldiers have been assigned to protect pilgrims, said Karbala police Capt. Alaa Abbas Jaafar, a media spokesman.

Elsewhere, gunmen stormed a checkpoint Wednesday in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, killing four Iraqi police officers, two police officials said.

A bomb planted on a minibus killed two people and injured five in a Shiite neighborhood in north Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Another bomb in Fallujah targeted an Anbar University professor but missed and killed the man’s brother, police said.