Dec
19
Mark Felt, Watergate’s `Deep Throat,’ dies at 95
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SAN FRANCISCO – W. Mark Felt, the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as “Deep Throat” 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president, has died. He was 95.
Felt died Thursday in Santa Rosa after suffering from congestive heart failure for several months, said family friend John D. O’Connor, who wrote the 2005 Vanity Fair article uncovering Felt’s secret.
The shadowy central figure in one of the most gripping political dramas of the 20th century, Felt insisted his alter ego be kept secret when he leaked damaging information about President Richard Nixon and his aides to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.
While some – including Nixon and his aides – speculated that Felt was the source who connected the White House to the June 1972 break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, he steadfastly denied the accusations until finally coming forward in May 2005.
“I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat,” Felt told O’Connor for the Vanity Fair article, creating a whirlwind of media attention.
Weakened by a stroke, the man who had kept his secret for decades wasn’t doing much talking – he merely waved to the media from the front door of his daughter’s Santa Rosa home.
Critics, including those who went to prison for the Watergate scandal, called him a traitor for betraying the commander in chief. Supporters hailed him as a hero for blowing the whistle on a corrupt administration trying to cover up attempts to sabotage opponents.
Felt grappled with his place in history, arguing with his children over whether to reveal his identity or to take his secret to the grave, O’Connor said. He agonized about what revealing his identity would do to his reputation. Would he be seen as a turncoat or a man of honor?
“People will debate for a long time whether I did the right thing by helping Woodward,” Felt wrote in his 2006 memoir, “A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, `Deep Throat’ and the Struggle for Honor in Washington.” “The bottom line is that we did get the whole truth out, and isn’t that what the FBI is supposed to do?”
Ultimately, his daughter, Joan, persuaded him to go public; after all, Woodward was sure to profit by revealing the secret after Felt died. “We could make at least enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I’ve run up for the kids’ education,” she told her father, according to the Vanity Fair article. “Let’s do it for the family.”
The revelation capped a Washington whodunnit that spanned more than three decades and seven presidents. It was the biggest mystery of Watergate, the subject of the best-selling book and hit movie “All the President’s Men,” which inspired a generation of college students to pursue journalism.
It was by chance that Felt came to play a pivotal role in the drama.
Back in 1970, Woodward struck up a conversation with Felt while both were waiting in a White House hallway. Felt apparently took a liking to the young Woodward, then a Navy courier, and Woodward kept the relationship going, treating Felt as a mentor as he tried to figure out the ways of Washington.
Later, while Woodward and partner Carl Bernstein relied on various unnamed sources in reporting on Watergate, the man their editor dubbed “Deep Throat” helped to keep them on track and confirm vital information. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its Watergate coverage.
Within days of the burglary at Watergate that launched the Post’s investigative series, Woodward phoned Felt.
“He reminded me how he disliked phone calls at the office but said that the Watergate burglary case was going to `heat up’ for reasons he could not explain,” Woodward wrote after Felt was named. “He then hung up abruptly.”
Felt helped Woodward link former CIA man Howard Hunt to the break-in. He said the reporter could accurately write that Hunt, whose name was found in the address book of one of the burglars, was a suspect. But Felt told him off the record, insisting that their relationship and Felt’s identity remain secret.
Worried that phones were being tapped, Felt arranged clandestine meetings worthy of a spy novel. Woodward would move a flower pot with a red flag on his balcony if he needed to meet Felt. The G-man would scrawl a time to meet on page 20 of Woodward’s copy of The New York Times and they would rendezvous in a suburban Virginia parking garage in the dead of night.
In the movie, the enduring image of Deep Throat – a name borrowed from a 1972 porn movie – is of a testy, chain-smoking Hal Holbrook telling Woodward, played by Robert Redford, to “follow the money.”
In a memoir published in April 2006, Felt said he saw himself as a “Lone Ranger” who could help derail a White House cover-up.
Felt wrote that he was upset by the slow pace of the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in and believed the press could pressure the administration to cooperate.
“From the start, it was clear that senior administration officials were up to their necks in this mess, and that they would stop at nothing to sabotage our investigation,” Felt wrote in his memoir.
Some critics said Felt, a J. Edgar Hoover loyalist, was bitter at being passed over when Nixon appointed an FBI outsider and confidante, L. Patrick Gray, to lead the FBI after Hoover’s death. Gray was later implicated in Watergate abuses.
“We had no idea of his motivations, and even now some of his motivations are unclear,” Bernstein said.
Felt wrote that he wasn’t motivated by anger. “It is true that I would have welcomed an appointment as FBI director when Hoover died. It is not true that I was jealous of Gray,” he wrote.
Felt was born in Twin Falls, Idaho, and worked for an Idaho senator during graduate school. After law school at George Washington University he spent a year at the Federal Trade Commission. Felt joined the FBI in 1942 and worked as a Nazi hunter during World War II.
Dec
4
Girl from iconic Great Depression photo: ‘We were ashamed’
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MODESTO, California (CNN) – The photograph became an icon of the Great Depression: a migrant mother with her children burying their faces in her shoulder. Katherine McIntosh was 4 years old when the photo was snapped. She said it brought shame — and determination — to her family.
Katherine McIntosh holds the photograph taken with her mother in 1936.
Katherine McIntosh holds the photograph taken with her mother in 1936.
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“I wanted to make sure I never lived like that again,” says McIntosh, who turns 77 on Saturday. “We all worked hard and we all had good jobs and we all stayed with it. When we got a home, we stayed with it.”
McIntosh is the girl to the left of her mother when you look at the photograph. The picture is best known as “Migrant Mother,” a black-and-white photo taken in February or March 1936 by Dorothea Lange of Florence Owens Thompson, then 32, and her children.
Lange was traveling through Nipomo, California, taking photographs of migrant farm workers for the Resettlement Administration. At the time, Thompson had seven children who worked with her in the fields.
“She asked my mother if she could take her picture — that … her name would never be published, but it was to help the people in the plight that we were all in, the hard times,” McIntosh says.
“So mother let her take the picture, because she thought it would help.” Video Watch “we would go home and cry” »
The next morning, the photo was printed in a local paper, but by then the family had already moved on to another farm, McIntosh says.
“The picture came out in the paper to show the people what hard times was. People was starving in that camp. There was no food,” she says. “We were ashamed of it. We didn’t want no one to know who we were.” Video Watch a Depression-era daughter’s recollections »
The photograph helped define the Great Depression, yet McIntosh says her mom didn’t let it define her, although the picture “was always talked about in our family.”
“It always stayed with her. She always wanted a better life, you know.”
Her mother, she says, was a “very strong lady” who liked to have a good time and listen to music, especially the yodeler named Montana Slim. She laughs when she recalls her brothers bringing home a skinny greyhound pooch. “Mom, Montana Slim is outside,” they said.
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Thompson rushed outside. The boys chuckled. They had named the dog after her favorite musician.
“She was the backbone of our family,” McIntosh says of her mom. “We never had a lot, but she always made sure we had something. She didn’t eat sometimes, but she made sure us children ate. That’s one thing she did do.”
Her memories of her youth are filled with about 50 percent good times, 50 percent hard times.
It was nearly impossible to get an education. Children worked the fields with their parents. As soon as they’d get settled at a school, it was time to pick up and move again.
Her mom would put newborns in cotton sacks and pull them along as she picked cotton. The older kids would stay in front, so mom could keep a close eye on them. “We would pick the cotton and pile it up in front of her, and she’d come along and pick it up and put it in her sack,” McIntosh says.
They lived in tents or in a car. Local kids would tease them, telling them to clean up and bathe. “They’d tell you, ‘Go home and take a bath.’ You couldn’t very well take a bath when you’re out in a car [with] nowhere to go.”
She adds, “We’d go home and cry.”
McIntosh now cleans homes in the Modesto, California, area. She’s proud of the living she’s been able to make — that she has a roof over her head and has been able to maintain a job all these years. She says her obsession to keep things clean started in her youth when her chore was to keep the family tent clean. There were two white sheets that she cleaned each day.
“Even today, when it comes to cleaning, I make sure things are clean. I can’t stand dirty things,” she says with a laugh.
Oct
29
Police: At least 70 killed in Pakistan quake
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — At least 70 people were killed Wednesday after a strong earthquake struck Pakistan, local police said.
Pakistani residents rest on a street following the earthquake in Quetta on Wednesday.
Pakistani residents rest on a street following the earthquake in Quetta on Wednesday.
The 6.4-magnitude quake struck western Pakistan at about 4 a.m. Wednesday (7 p.m. Tuesday ET), the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
Between 55 and 60 people were injured, police said.
The epicenter was 35 miles (60 km) north-northeast of Quetta, the agency said.
While the earthquake was felt in the provincial capital of Quetta, police say most damage and loss occurred outside the city. Video Watch a report on the deadly quake »
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Express News, a CNN affiliate, reported that emergency and rescue crews were rushing to quake-hit areas to help pull the dead and injured out of the rubble.
In the immediate aftermath, people in Quetta are said to have left their homes and spilled into the streets.
Oct
24
Suu Kyi marks 13 years of house arrest
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is calling on Myanmar’s military leaders to immediately release democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who marks a total of 13 years under house arrest on Friday.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement Thursday that Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi has “remained a steady beacon of hope and inspiration to those seeking a peaceful, democratic” Myanmar.
International human rights groups say the Myanmar military junta now holds more than 2,100 political prisoners, compared with nearly 1,200 in June 2007
Oct
24
Asian markets fall after Greenspan admission
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CNN) — Stock markets across Asia dropped sharply Friday, with the steepest declines in South Korea and Japan, a day after the former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve said the United States was “in the midst of a credit tsunami.”
Alan Greenspan, former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve at the House Oversight and Reform Committee Thursday.
Alan Greenspan, former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve at the House Oversight and Reform Committee Thursday.
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In South Korea, the KOSPI Composite Index closed down 10.6 percent Friday, while Japan’s Nikkei Exchange lost 9.6 percent on news that Sony had cut its profit forecast in half.
The Nikkei dropped below 8,000 for the first time in more than five years.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng had declined 4.6 percent. The Taiwan weighted went down 3.2 percent. Video Watch expectations for Asian markets »
Alan Greenspan, who chaired the U.S. Federal Reserve from 1987 through 2006, said Thursday that whatever regulatory changes were made to respond to the crisis, “they will pale in comparison to the change already evident in today’s markets.”
Greenspan, who some analysts say did not do enough to control financial institutions during his two-decade tenure, made his comments in prepared testimony to the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee.
He admitted he made a mistake during his time as chair by presuming that lenders were more capable than regulators of protecting their finances, adding he was “shocked” when the system “broke down.”
“I still do not understand exactly how it happened,” he said.
He backed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, approved by Congress, that allows the U.S. government to buy bad mortgage investments from finance firms or buy a stake in troubled companies, and said the U.S. would emerge from the crisis with a “far sounder financial system.”
U.S. stocks were mixed Thursday, with the Dow rallying back after two days of declines and the Nasdaq slipping to its lowest point in more than five years.
The U.S. Dow Jones industrial average gained 2 percent, or 172 points, to finish at 8,691, erasing a loss of as much as 275 points.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index gained 1.3 percent on Thursday. But the Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 0.7 percent, recovering a little after touching a new bear-market low around 1,533 during the session.
London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares ended Thursday up 1.16 percent, while Germany’s DAX 30 was down 1.12 percent and France’s CAC 40 up 0.38 percent. Watch how the markets progress
The economic turmoil will be the focus of the two-day, 43-nation Asia-Europe Meeting, which opens Friday in Beijing, according to European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso.
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Leaders hope this week’s summit in China will help bring agreement on a response to the crisis ahead of a November 15 meeting hosted by U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington.
“We need a coordinated global response to reform the global financial system. We are living in unprecedented times and we need unprecedented levels of global coordination,” The Associated Press reported Barroso as saying. “It’s very simple. We swim together or we sink together.”
Barroso outlined no specific proposals but said a solution needed to be based on transparency, responsibility, cross-border supervision and global governance. He also said the world’s financial system needed “major reform.” Do we really need to rebuild, asks Charles Hodson
The current financial turmoil was sparked by the U.S. housing market collapse and a credit freeze in the United States, and around the globe that is showing signs of affecting economic growth.
Amid the wild swings in both stocks and commodities over the last few weeks, “fundamentals matter very little right now” in the U.S. market, said Ned Riley, chief investment strategist at Riley Asset Management.
He said most of what is happening is being driven by traders with a short-term perspective.
On the upside, lending rates continue to improve, as the efforts of world governments to stabilize financial markets started to kick in. But any relief about the improvement in the credit market has been overshadowed by recession fears.
“Some of these programs are starting to work, but it’s going to take a while for borrowing to reach the consumer,” he said.
The market declines comes after the Dow Jones industrial average lost 514 points, or 5.7 percent, on Wednesday — the Dow’s seventh worst ever point loss.
“The credit crunch seems to be behind us, and we are shifting focus to corporate earnings and economic conditions, and clearly both are deteriorating,” Alex Tang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press.
Main Street bank Wachovia — which is due to merge with Wells Fargo — reported a heavier-than-expected third quarter loss of $23.9 billion. Will volatility continue, asks Todd Benjamin
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Internet company Yahoo said it would cut its workforce by 10 percent following net income decline of 51 percent, while pharmaceuticals company Merck said it will lose 12 percent of its staff.
Aircraft maker Boeing said its earnings had dropped 33 percent through a prolonged industrial dispute.
Oct
24
N. Korea’s human rights state ‘grave’
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- North Korea is using public executions to intimidate its citizens and has imposed restrictions on long distance calls to block the spread of news about rising food shortages, the U.N. investigator on human rights in the reclusive nation said.
Farmers work the fields near Pyongyang, North Korea, on Wednesday.
Farmers work the fields near Pyongyang, North Korea, on Wednesday.
Vitit Muntarbhorn told the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee that North Korea has also imposed more severe sanctions on people seeking to leave the country and those forcibly returned, and still detains “very large numbers” of people in camps.
“The human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea remains grave in a number of key areas,” Muntarbhorn said Thursday.
“Particularly disconcerting is the use of public executions to intimidate the public,” he said. “This is despite various law reforms in 2004 and 2005, which claim to have improved the criminal law framework and related sanctions.”
He cited the “great disparity” in the access to food by the country’s elite and the rest of the population, nonexistent political participation, rigid control over the media and those professing religious beliefs, and the persecution of dissidents.
His remarks coincided with a warning from the head of the U.N. food agency in North Korea that millions face a food crisis. Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the World Food Program’s country director, said some areas in the northeast are facing “a humanitarian emergency” and about 2.7 million people on the west coast will also run out of food in October.
Muntarbhorn said there is a “very, very serious problem this year with food,” and WFP is assisting some 6.5 million people.
“The immediate food needs are closely related to the need for fertilizers and fuel,” he said. “I’m all for a concrete development process that ensures, that nurtures, food security.”
Muntarbhorn, a Thai specialist in human rights law, said North Korean authorities have not allowed him to visit the country since he was appointed in 2004 by the former U.N. Human Rights Commission as an independent expert to monitor the situation. However, he still held out hope for an invitation. The Geneva-based Human Rights Council replaced the commission in June 2005.
On a more positive note, he told reporters the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program have created some space to discuss human rights concerns, which he welcomed.
Muntarbhorn also noted North Korea’s decision to give humanitarian agencies greater access to areas affected by devastating floods in August 2007 and indications that authorities “have cooperated relatively well” with U.N. and other agencies distributing food and aid to the needy.
On issues related to rights and freedoms, Muntarbhorn said there are reports of a crackdown on clandestine cell phones.
“Some inhabitants watch clandestinely video and TV programs from the south, but in 2008 there were reports of crackdowns on South Korean videos,” he said.
“From information received, the authorities have imposed restrictions on long distance telephone calls to block the spreading of news concerning the current food shortage,” Muntarbhorn added.
As for freedom of religion, Muntarbhorn said, “persecution of those profession their faith is pervasive, with families sent to prison for adhering to religious beliefs.”
In the short-term, he urged North Korea to provide access to food and other necessities for all people, end the punishment of asylum seekers, terminate public executions and resolve the issue of foreign abductions.
In the longer term, Muntarbhorn called on the North to promote more equitable development, overcome disparities in access to food, modernize the legal and prison systems and abide by the rule of law, and build an independent judiciary
Oct
22
James Marsden takes ’slow-burn’ approach to acting
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WEST HOLLYWOOD, California (AP) — Hollywood’s leading men are usually perfect physical specimens. Those who aren’t become character actors.
James Marsden wanted to do comedy, especially after his turn as Cyclops in the “X-Men” movies.
James Marsden wanted to do comedy, especially after his turn as Cyclops in the “X-Men” movies.
Except James Marsden. He’s pursued quirky characters despite his leading-man looks. Marsden is the guy on the sidelines, the goofy one who doesn’t get the girl. So his face is familiar but not immediately identifiable.
“Most people are like, `Didn’t we go to high school together?”‘ said the 35-year-old actor, whose screen credits include “Superman Returns,” “The Notebook” and three “X-Men” movies.
Marsden is taking a “slow-burn” approach; choosing roles that appeal to him in the hope that a gradual and meandering ascent will lead to a long and varied career.
“In going for the movie-star thing, the lead-guy thing, I’ve managed to have this whole sidetrack thing going where I’m playing these silly roles and doing great, offbeat, different things,” he said. “It was just to have fun being an actor, entertain yourself while you’re going for the gold. There was the career path and the work path. And now the work path has sort of become the career path.”
After his roles in big-budget movies such as “Hairspray” (he played Corny Collins), “Enchanted” (he was the prince who lost his princess to Patrick Dempsey) and “27 Dresses” (where he finally got the girl), Marsden plays a foul-mouthed bigot in the independent teen comedy “Sex Drive,” in theaters Friday.
He steals every scene as Rex, an overbearing tough guy who mercilessly teases his virginal younger brother.
Director Sean Anders had reservations about casting Marsden.
“I thought, `Oh no, this is some pretty-boy actor who wants to be in a comedy and thinks he’s funny but isn’t,”‘ Anders said.
Then he saw an audition tape that Marsden recorded for a different movie. Marsden was so ego-less and goofy, he used his computer Web cam to film himself reading lines for the role he wanted.
“By the end of it, I was like, `Can we really get this guy?”‘ Anders said.
Marsden wanted to do comedy, especially after his turn as Cyclops in the “X-Men” movies. Even after “Hairspray” and “Enchanted,” though, he longed for something edgier. With “Sex Drive,” he could see the character in his mind: the muscle shirts, the highlighted hair.
Marsden said he also hoped the part might catch the eye of Judd Apatow, director of “Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”
“This is completely over the top, and it’s so different from anything you’ve seen me do,” he said. “Now I feel like people will go, `OK, he’s funny. He can do comedy. But then I’ve got to put the brakes on a little bit and remind people I can do other things.”
Though he happily plays quirky roles, Marsden hasn’t taken his eye off the leading-man prize. “I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t aspire to that,” he said. “I want to be a version of that. … But I’m more like these weirdo, wacky, stupid characters I keep playing in these movies.”
The Oklahoma native began acting in junior high. After a brief stint in college, he headed to Los Angeles, California, where he had a string of small parts before landing a role in 2000’s “X-Men.” The following year, his wife, actress Lisa Linde, gave birth to their first child.
“I just sort of loosened up a little bit and stopped trying to navigate every little point, all of this career trajectory,” he said. “I just started having more fun with the roles and choosing more fun roles.”
He’s a bit daunted about being the leading man; to play, as he puts it, a nuance of himself rather than a caricature.
But Anders said it’s inevitable.
“He’s going to become more of a leading man as time goes by because everyone who works with him is so impressed with what he does,” he said. “He is great-looking, yet you can still laugh at him and laugh with him. He’s got such a real quality about him that guys aren’t put off by him. Everybody’s seen how great he is in other genres, and how he can be so funny in ‘Enchanted’ and ‘Sex Drive.’ The guy’s got range.”
The slow-burn approach suits Marsden just fine.
“I just want to stay in the game and keep working,” he said. “The ideal career for me is to be able to let whatever inspires you creatively dictate what you choose to do, then the financial stability and all that stuff follows.”
Oct
22
San Francisco may become safe for prostitutes
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SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest.
A sex worker who goes by the name of Violet stands at a San Francisco, California, bus stop.
A sex worker who goes by the name of Violet stands at a San Francisco, California, bus stop.
San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K, a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex.
The ballot question technically would not legalize prostitution, since state law still prohibits it, but the measure would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to go after prostitutes.
Proponents say the measure will free up $11 million the police spend each year arresting prostitutes and allow them to form collectives.
“It will allow workers to organize for our rights and for our safety,” said Patricia West, 22, who said she has been selling sex for about a year by placing ads on the Internet. She moved to San Francisco in May from Texas to work on Proposition K.
Even in tolerant San Francisco, where the sadomasochism fair draws thousands of tourists and a pornographic video company is housed in a former armory, the measure faces an uphill battle, with much of the political establishment opposing it.
Some form of prostitution is legal in two states. Brothels are allowed in rural counties in Nevada. And Rhode Island permits the sale of sex behind closed doors between consulting adults, but it prohibits street prostitution and brothels.
In 2004, almost two-thirds of voters in nearby Berkeley rejected decriminalization. But proponents of Proposition K say their proposal has a better shot in San Francisco, which they believe is more sexually liberal than the city across the bay.
After all, the world’s oldest profession has long been established here. During the Gold Rush, the neighborhood closest to the piers was a seedy pleasure center of sex, gambling and drinking known as the Barbary Coast.
These days, on certain corners, prostitutes sell their bodies day and night, ducking into doorways and alleys when police pass. One recent afternoon in the Mission District, six prostitutes were plying their trade on a single block.
Police made 1,583 prostitution arrests in 2007 and expect to make a similar number this year. But the district attorney’s office says most defendants are fined, placed in diversion programs or both. Fewer than 5 percent get prosecuted for solicitation, which is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.
Proposition K has been endorsed by the local Democratic Party. But the mayor, the district attorney, the police department and much of the business community oppose the idea. They contend that it would increase street prostitution, allow pimps the run of neighborhoods and hamper the fight against sex trafficking, which would remain illegal because it involves forcing people into the sex trade.
The San Francisco Chronicle editorialized against the measure, saying it could make the city a magnet for prostitution.
If the proposal passes, “we wouldn’t be able to investigate prostitution, and it’s going to be pretty difficult for us to locate these folks who are victims of trafficking otherwise,” said Capt. Al Pardini, head of the police department’s vice unit. “It’s pretty rare that we get a call that says, ‘I’m a victim of human trafficking’ or ‘I suspect human trafficking in my neighborhood.’ “
The proposition would also prohibit police from accepting federal or state funds for sex trafficking investigations that involve racial profiling. Such investigations often arise from raids on brothels that advertise as Asian massage parlors.
“We feel that repressive policies don’t help trafficking victims and that human rights-based approaches, including decriminalization, are actually more effective,” said Carol Leigh, co-founder of the Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network and a longtime advocate for prostitutes’ rights.
But San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said the ballot question mistakenly assumes that prostitution is a victimless crime.
“The crime of prostitution does not exist by itself,” Harris said. “Along with it come pimps, johns and other crimes that really impact the safety of neighborhoods.”
If the measure passes, supporters say, prostitutes would not feel the need for pimps as protection. But opponents insist that it would embolden pimps who trap drug addicts into prostitution by plying them with drugs.
“The proponents usually paint a fairly rosy picture of two consenting adults and a monetary exchange at the end,” Pardini said. “They don’t factor in the people that are being exploited and people that are being controlled, the ones manipulated both physically and chemically.”
Oct
22
Americans brutally attacked in Ecuador, officials say
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WASHINGTON (CNN) — An American couple who sold their belongings to finance a trip to Latin America returned home Tuesday after they were brutally attacked in Ecuador, according to the couple’s blog and U.S. officials.
A couple that was brutally attacked in Ecuador chronicled their travels in Latin America in a blog.
A couple that was brutally attacked in Ecuador chronicled their travels in Latin America in a blog.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood confirmed Tuesday that two Americans from Bend, Oregon, were attacked in the city of Esmeraldas, on Ecuador’s northern coast. But he said he could provide no further information because of privacy laws.
Two State Department officials, however, said that the man, named by his family in media reports as Britt Leis, was stabbed more than 24 times and that his fiancee was beaten and raped.
CNN does not name victims of sexual abuse.
The couple was evacuated to the United States on Tuesday for treatment, the officials said.
A relative told local media the attack happened Thursday as the couple was walking along a beach.
The couple wrote a blog throughout their trip. In the most recent post on Monday, Leis’ fiancee wrote that he was in intensive care after three surgeries.
“I was informed by the head surgeon there is no certainty he will survive,” she wrote.
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The earlier postings were happier reflections on their travels through Latin America, a year-long trip they planned after getting engaged and selling all their belongings.
In the blog, the couple did not mention safety concerns as they described their adventures hitchhiking, visiting the homes of strangers and exploring the countryside.
One senior official told CNN that the victims’ parents complained to U.S. consular officers in Ecuador that the embassy did not do enough to warn Americans that many people have been attacked in Esmeraldas.
The State Department’s Web site advises caution when traveling to the northern border region of Ecuador, including Esmeraldas.
“U.S. government personnel are under limitations with respect to traveling alone and over-nighting in these areas due to the spread of organized crime, drug trafficking, small arms trafficking, and incursions by various Colombian terrorist organizations,” the State Department’s travel advisory section notes.
The Web site says that since 1998, at least 10 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped and one killed near Ecuador’s border with Colombia.
Wood on Tuesday expressed the State Department’s “deep sympathy” for the attack and said the department worked with the victims’ families to provide assistance.
Oct
22
Palin discusses potential plans for America
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(CNN) — Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin vowed on Tuesday to use her executive experience to tackle government reform and energy independence if she and Sen. John McCain win this year’s presidential election.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks with CNN’s Drew Griffin Tuesday.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks with CNN’s Drew Griffin Tuesday.
“It’s going to be government reform because that, that is what I’ve been able to do as a mayor and as a governor, you, you take on the special interests and the self-dealings. Yep, you ruffle feathers and you have the scars to prove it,” Palin said Tuesday in an interview with CNN’s Drew Griffin.
“You have to take that on to give the American people that faith back in their own government. This is their government and we’ve got to put it back on their side,” she said.
Palin said she and McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, discussed the possibility of her working on the issue of energy independence if she becomes vice president. Video Watch Palin talk about potential plans for the vice-presidency »
“That’s been my forte as the governor of an energy producing state and as a former chair of the, of the energy regulator — entity up there in Alaska,” she said.
“[I] look forward to that and that’s a matter of national security and, and our economic prosperity opportunities.”
Palin also said helping families with special needs children and cleaning up Wall Street were among the other “missions” she and McCain had discussed.
Palin emphasized her executive credentials as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and governor of Alaska, contrasting them with what she said was Sen. Barack Obama’s lack of leadership experience.
Palin speaks to CNN
Sarah Palin gives her first interview to CNN
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“We don’t like to toot our own horn so we don’t,” Palin said. “But, I have, I do have more experience than Barack Obama does. You know, he had served for his 300 days before he became a presidential candidate and that wasn’t in, in executive office.” Video Watch Palin say she has more experience than Obama »
Palin also apologized Tuesday for any misunderstanding caused when she referred last week to the patriotic values of “the real America” and “pro-America areas of this great nation.”
Democrats and others criticized Palin for seeming to imply that some parts of the country are more patriotic than others.
Palin denied that was her intention in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
“I don’t want that misunderstood,” Palin said. “If that’s the way it came across, I apologize.”
The Alaska governor made the remarks at a fundraising event in North Carolina last week.
“We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation,” she told the crowd.
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On Tuesday, Palin also addressed Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden’s comment that Sen. Barack Obama would be tested from the very beginning of his time in office.
At a fundraiser Sunday night, Biden said that after taking office, “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. … We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
Palin said Griffin that the comment points to the dangers of electing a relatively inexperienced person
“We need to thank Joe [Biden] for the warning,” Palin said. Video Watch Palin say the media gave Biden a pass »
Biden’s point, according to a statement issued later, was that “we need steady leadership in tumultuous times, not … the stubborn ideology of John McCain.”
Palin stopped short of labeling Obama a socialist Tuesday, although she and others have previously called his tax policies socialist.
“I’m not going to call him a socialist, but as ‘Joe the Plumber’ has said, it looks like socialism to him,” she said of Joe “the plumber” Wurzelbacher.
The GOP ticket and their supporters have invoked Joe the Plumber numerous times ever since the Ohio man confronted Obama about his tax policy in an impromptu campaign moment.
Palin said Wurzelbacher is representative of “Jane the engineer and Molly the dental hygienist and Chuck the teacher.”
Obama defended his decision to raise taxes on couples earning more than $250,000 a year while cutting taxes for people with lower incomes, telling Wurzelbacher that “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Palin said the policy was “not good for the entrepreneurial spirit that has built this great country,” the economy or small businesses. Video