Prisoners convert to Islam for jail perks

Inmates are converting to Islam in order to gain perks and the protection of powerful Muslim gangs, the Chief Inspector of Prisons warns today.

Dame Anne Owers says that some convicted criminals are taking up the religion in jail to receive benefits only available to practising Muslims.

The number of Muslim prisoners has risen dramatically since the mid-1990s — from 2,513 in 1994, or 5 per cent of the population, to 9,795 in 2008, or 11 per cent. Staff at top-security prisons and youth jails have raised concerns about the intimidation of non-Muslims and possible forced conversions.

Dame Anne’s report, Muslim Prisoners’ Experiences, published today, says that, although several high-profile terrorists have been jailed recently, fewer than 1 in 100 Muslim inmates have been convicted of terrorism.

She says that prison staff are suspicious about those practising or converting to the faith and warns that treating Muslim inmates as potential or actual extremists risks radicalising them. The report says: “Many Muslim prisoners stressed the positive and rehabilitative role that Islam played in their lives, and the calm that religious observance could induce in a stressed prison environment. This was in marked contrast to the suspicion that religious observance, and particularly conversion or reversion, tended to produce among staff.”

All prisons offer a halal menu, which some inmates see as better than the usual choices. Muslims are excused from work and education while attending Friday prayers. Some converts, who are known as “convenience Muslims”, admitted that they had changed faith because they got more time out of the cells to go to Friday prayers. One quoted in the report said: “Food good too, initially this is what converted me.”

In some of the most secure jails, the size of the Muslim population is well above average. Two years ago, Muslim inmates accounted for a third of prisoners in Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire, and a quarter of inmates in Long Lartin in Worcestershire.

The report says that inmates converted after learning about Islam from other inmates or their family, to obtain support and protection in a group with a powerful identity and for material advantages. One inmate quoted in the report said: “I’ve got loads of close brothers here. They share with you, we look out for each other.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7145784.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2015164

In CIA's drone mission, who will protect the CIA?

CIA Director Leon Panetta made an unusual visit to the agency's Counterterrorism Center last year to buck up his troops. Morale had been devastated by the release of highly classified details of the CIA's interrogation program and the growing calls for prosecution of those involved. According to one top intelligence official, a senior officer involved in targeting terrorists asked Panetta what would happen to him in five years when the political winds shifted. Would he be hung out to dry like those in the interrogation program? Panetta said he could not promise the officer would not be hung out to dry -- only that it would not happen while President Obama was in office.

Only a year later, the wolves are already circling. Last week the CIA celebrated one of its biggest successes when al-Qaeda confirmed that a drone had killed its No. 3 leader, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, in Pakistan. Yet also last week, the United Nations issued a scathing report demanding that the CIA stop using drones and declaring that agency officials involved in targeted killings of terrorists such as Yazid may be in legal jeopardy. The U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions questioned whether the United States was engaged in an "armed conflict" outside of the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, and declared that, outside the "exceptional circumstance" of such an armed conflict, "killings by the CIA would constitute extrajudicial executions assuming that they do not comply with human rights law. If so, they must be investigated and prosecuted by the U.S. and the State in which the wrongful killing occurred."

The special rapporteur, Philip Alston, was joined in his condemnation by the American Civil Liberties Union, which in an April 28 letter to Obama, accused him of supporting a "program of long-premeditated and bureaucratized killing" and declared that the program "violates international law." The ACLU wrote that "financiers, and other non-combat 'supporters' of hostile groups cannot be lawfully targeted with lethal force." Yet that is precisely what Obama did in the case of Yazid.

On The Post's op-ed page Sunday, Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey called the killing of Yazid a "major blow" to al-Qaeda because "Yazid has essentially served as al-Qaeda's 'chief financial officer,' coordinating the group's fundraising and overseeing the distribution of money essential to its survival." By the ACLU's reasoning, this would make the strike that killed Yazid illegal. Does the ACLU want to see the Predator operator who took out al-Qaeda's third in command prosecuted for murder? The ACLU has already gone after CIA interrogators -- surreptitiously photographing these covert operatives and sharing the images with al-Qaeda terrorists in Guantanamo. CIA drone operators may soon be in for similar treatment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/07/AR2010060701986.html?sub=AR

Letting Israel hang

US undercuts ally

By JOHN BOLTON

Last Updated: 5:26 AM, June 8, 2010

Posted: 11:40 PM, June 6, 2010

In less than a week, the Obama adminis tration left Israel hanging out to dry three separate times.

Media coverage of the "flotilla" incident has ignored this critical shift in US policy. But it's a safe bet that America's adversaries, especially the terrorists, understand it all too well. Worse yet, President Obama's visible discomfort in defending hard-pressed US interests around the world is only growing -- with implications America hasn't experienced since Jimmy Carter's presidency.

Let's recap the Obama "defense" of Israel.

First, in the UN Security Council, the administration succumbed to the rush to criticize Israel in a statement that, albeit watered down, nonetheless greatly intensified international pressure on Jerusalem. The correct approach was to resist the diplomatic peer pressure and bar any council action until tempers cooled and more facts were available -- meaning at most a day or two's delay. This America could easily have done. Failure to withstand the short-term heat only feeds the impression of White House weakness, and will come back to haunt us.

Second, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, America, joined only by Italy and the Netherlands in dissent, overwhelmingly lost a vote to establish an international investigation of the Gaza incident. Even as the Obama administration touted its success preventing a Security Council investigation, it was losing precisely the same issue in Geneva -- demonstrating why concessions in New York did absolutely nothing to stem the anti-Israeli tide. So much for Obama's idea that he could reform the palpably illegitimate Human Rights Council by having the United States rejoin it.

Third, just a few days previously, at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, the United States joined the consensus on a statement condemning Israel (which is not even a party to the treaty) and its nuclear program, while failing to condemn Iran, an NPT signatory that has been happily violating its treaty obligations. After the vote, National Security Adviser James Jones condemned the reference to Israel, utterly overlooking the fact that the Obama administration could readily have blocked it.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/letting_israel_hang_F5zJfknQYINIa2q0tBMC1K

Gay Couples Get Equal Tax Treatment

By LAURA MECKLER

The Internal Revenue Service has ruled that same-sex couples must be treated the same as heterosexual couples under a feature of California tax law. Advocates for the change say it is the first time the agency has acknowledged gay couples as a unit for tax purposes.

The change reverses a 2006 IRS ruling and opens a tax benefit to many same-sex couples that wasn't available before. It may affect couples in Nevada and Washington state, as well.

"For the first time ever, I'm able to file federal taxes that, in a small way, acknowledges what's going on in my relationship," said Eric Rey of Berkeley, Calif. Mr. Rey and his partner requested the IRS ruling, first during the Bush administration and again this year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704080104575286931017169308.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

US places No. 85 -- behind Libya -- in Global Peace Index

The 2010 Global Peace Index is an attempt to quantify which countries are the most secure and the least violent. New Zealand is No. 1, Iraq is last, and the US is in the middle.

By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer / June 8, 2010

The world is slightly less peaceful than it was a year ago, in part as a consequence of the global recession. But falling military expenditures in the Middle East and shrinking access to small arms in sub-Saharan Africa are two bright spots in an assessment of the world’s broad trends in peace and violence.

Those are among the findings of the 2010 Global Peace Index, the fourth edition of an annual attempt to objectively quantify peace in a large majority of the world’s countries.

New Zealand ranks as the world’s most peaceful country, the survey finds, based on a list of factors ranging from military expenditures (high is bad) and participation in United Nations peacekeeping (high is good) to social unrest and incarceration rates (both are not good).

Iraq comes in last at 149 out of 149 countries assessed – the same ignominious placement it snagged last year.

And the United States ranks right in the middle at 85, achieving good marks for factors like respect for human rights and relations with neighbors and other countries, but low scores in areas like domestic homicides, military expenditures, and involvement in external conflicts. Given the criteria, the US not surprisingly comes up as “less peaceful” than countries like Austria and Costa Rica, but it also trails Libya, Cuba, and Equatorial Guinea.

Crist has already hinted he will veto the legislation, which also allows Florida to opt out of some of the abortion funding under the new national health care law President Barack Obama signed.

That he would potentially veto a pro-life bill with broad support from voters is another indication of his strategy to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent.

Knowing he may veto the bill, the campaign of pro-life Republican candidate Marco Rubio informed LifeNews.com today that Crist's campaign scrubbed his web site of a section touting Crist as a supposedly pro-life candidate.

"Now that he has left the Republican Party in order to win an election and is trying to attract liberal votes, the Crist campaign yesterday removed the 'pro-life/family' issue page of its website," Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos told LifeNews.com today. "In doing so, Charlie Crist eliminated any reference to being 'pro-life' in a transparent attempt to hide his position in order to win an election."

"Crist is flip-flopping again," Burgos continued. "When he was a Republican trying to win the Republican primary, Crist repeatedly stated he was pro-life and even said he would 'fight for pro-life legislation if he’s elected to the Senate.'"

"Will Charlie Crist flip-flop further, no longer call himself 'pro-life' and revert back to his 1998 pro-choice position?" he asks.

The Rubio campaign made a screen shot of the pro-life section formerly appearing on the Crist web site.

http://lifenews.com/state5164.html

Nancy Pelosi blames Republicans for nation’s ills

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking to a friendly audience of progressive activists, was ready to cast blame for the country’s troubles Tuesday morning.

She blamed the exploding national debt on the Bush administration and said Democrats’ push to invest in education, job creation and health care would bring America out of its financial troubles.

“President Obama and the Democratic Caucus have saved this country from a financial crisis created under the Bush administration,” Pelosi told the America’s Future Now gathering in Washington.

She blamed Republicans for deregulating big oil, assuring the receptive crowd that BP would be held accountable for its handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

And she had harsh words for Wall Street, as the House and Senate get set for a final conference committee on a financial reform bill.

“No longer will recklessness on Wall Street be able to cause joblessness on Main Street,” she said. “No longer will those on Wall Street be able to privatize the gain and nationalize the risk, send the bill to the taxpayer if things don’t go their way,” she said.

She said the oil spill crisis highlighted the difference between Republicans' and Democrats' approach to problem solving.

“It seems to me the choice is clear,” she said. “Democrats want to rein in Big Oil, the Republicans say no. Democrats wanted to rein in health insurance costs, the Republicans said no. The Democrats are reining in Big Banks and the Republicans are saying no.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38249.html

Democrats propose further tax hike on offshore oil

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats are moving to quintuple the tax that oil companies pay into an oil spill liability fund.

The move would raise $15 billion over the coming decade as Congress seeks to shore up the fund in the wake of the catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But it's also being used to ease a tax hike passed by the House on investment fund managers.

The new legislation would raise the tax on oil produced offshore from 8 cents to 41 cents per barrel. That's nine cents higher than legislation that passed the House last month.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100608/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_taxes_1

Health law could ban low-cost plans

By JENNIFER HABERKORN | 6/8/10 5:01 AM EDT

Part of the health care overhaul due to kick in this September could strip more than 1 million people of their insurance coverage, violating a key goal of President Barack Obama’s reforms. 

Under the provision, insurance companies will no longer be able to apply broad annual caps on the amount of money they pay out on health policies. Employer groups say the ban could essentially wipe out a niche insurance market that many part-time workers and retail and restaurant employees have come to rely on.

This market’s limited-benefit plans, also called mini-med plans, are priced low because they can, among other things, restrict the number of covered doctor visits or impose a maximum on insurance payouts in a year. The plans are commonly offered by retail or restaurant companies to low-wage workers who cannot afford more expensive, comprehensive coverage. 

Depending on how strictly the administration implements the provision, the ban could in effect outlaw the plans or make them so restrictive that insurance companies would raise rates to the point they become unaffordable. 

A cadre of employers and trade associations, including 7-Eleven, Lowe’s, the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have asked the administration to allow the plans — at least through 2014, when the insurance exchanges are set up and tax credits become available for low-wage workers. 

The struggle over the provision highlights the importance of the new law’s implementation timetable and the way its parts interlock with one another. The legislation was front-loaded with consumer-friendly reforms, such as the ban on most annual limits, in hopes the law would become more popular. Polls show the legislation is supported by about half the public. 

But many of the more comprehensive features of the overhaul, such as the insurance exchanges and tax credits that would help cover those who use limited-benefit plans, don’t come into play until 2014.

That means, for nearly three years, the effect of the ban on annual limits could be costly for the low-wage, seasonal or temporary workers who most often use limited-benefit plans. The full effect won’t be known until the administration releases regulations that detail how the provision will be implemented.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38219.html

Oil spill reveals the dangers of success

An intriguing aspect of the BP oil spill is that, before the accident, deepwater drilling seemed to be a technological triumph. About 80 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's recent oil production has come from deepwater operations, defined as water depths exceeding 1,000 feet. In 1996, that was 20 percent. Jack-up rigs, which are oil platforms on stilts in a few hundred feet of water, have given way to the "mobile offshore drilling unit" (MODU). It keeps its position through the interaction of global positioning satellites and on-board engines that activate directional propellers to offset ocean currents and wind.

Seismology and submersible robotic technology have also advanced. The Deepwater Horizon rig was not testing new limits. It was drilling in about 5,000 feet of water when others have approached 10,000 feet. The safety record was good. The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's main trade group, says that since 1947, oil companies have drilled more than 42,000 wells in the Gulf of Mexico and recovered about 16.5 billion barrels of oil. Against that, spills totaled about 176,000 barrels from 1969 to 2007. In a typical year, it was a few hundred barrels. By contrast, recent production is about 1.6 million barrels a day.

Cost-cutting by BP, careless rig operators and lax regulators have all been fingered as plausible culprits in the blowout. President Obama has appointed a commission to investigate the causes, and the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation. There will be extensive analyses. But the stark contrast between the disaster's magnitude and the previous safety record points to another perverse possibility: The success of deepwater drilling led to failure. It sowed overconfidence. Continuing achievements obscured the dangers.

This pattern applies to other national setbacks. Consider the financial crisis. It was not the inherent complexity of subprime mortgages or collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that caused the crisis. It was the willingness of presumably sophisticated investors to hold these securities while ignoring the complexity and underlying risks. But this behavior was understandable at the time.

The economy seemed to have become less risky. High inflation had been suppressed. Since 1982, there had been only two relatively mild recessions, those of 1990-91 and 2001. Economists talked of the "Great Moderation." The stock, bond and foreign exchange markets had become less volatile; day-to-day price movements were smaller and less erratic. One study of the 2004-06 period found that stock market volatility in seven advanced countries had dropped about a third from historical averages and that bond market volatility was down almost a fifth.

Well, if the economy and markets had become less risky, then traders and investors could take what once would have seemed greater risks to increase profits. They did -- and created new vulnerabilities for markets and the economy. The belief that past economic and financial instability had been quelled encouraged future instability.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/06/AR2010060602925.html?sub=AR

Eastern Europeans in embassies and communities around the capital region are upset today that Virginia's new D-Day memorial monument, unveiled in a ceremony this past week, contains a statue of the head of notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Residents of Bedford, VA, were equally appalled when they found out about the statue, but now the fallout has now reached official Washington. The Cable has heard from multiple embassy officials today that they are getting calls from their local communities complaining about the statue. It's especially disconcerting to European diplomats, whose countries have spent decades scrubbing all traces of communist paraphernalia from their parks and public areas.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/07/stalin_statue_in_virginia_a_huge_bust

June 8, 2010 4:00 A.M.