#1
Pooh. The complaints within the article are that the religious schools select against the non-moneyed and those students with learning disabilities. So, too, do the religious schools in the U.S. Their goal as a group is to give a religious education to normal to normal-bright students whose parents are invested in making sure they succeed. Sadly, there are more poor parents who, for what ever reason, are not capable, willing or prepared to ensure that their children succeed. Learning disabled students, regardless of their parents' willingness to push them, require more effort on the part of the school and the home to enable those students to succeed.
For that matter, religious schools rarely are prepared to deal with the 1-2% of students who qualify as intellectually gifted, either. In the U.S. intellectual giftedness is classified as a learning disability, because what those students need in order to be taught and learn successfully is so different from what normal and normal-bright students need that they are often enough struggle in the regular classroom.
Armenia's president imposed a state of emergency Saturday after police used tear gas and fired shots into the air to disperse demonstrators protesting alleged fraud in last month's presidential election. The announcement from the office of President Robert Kocharian came shortly after police broke up the rally of about 15,000 demonstrators. Earlier, police used batons to remove hundreds of protesters who had camped for more than a week in tents in a square near the city mayor's office.
Tensions remained high into the night. Groups of angry young people were prowling the streets of the capital, calling for others to join them, city residents told The Associated Press. An AP reporter saw cars overturned and the police department said some of its cars had been set on fire. Looters hit stores and kiosks, police said. "What's going on now is not a political process. It has gone over the edge," Kocharian said in a late-night news conference. "I appeal to the people of Armenia to show restraint and understanding."
Kocharian's office said the state of emergency would remain in effect for 20 days. The measure imposes severe restrictions, including banning all mass gatherings and ordering that news media reports on domestic political matters include only official information. The order also says police have the right to restrict movement and to search private and public vehicles.
Witnesses said they had seen people injured in the later rally, but there was no immediate official information on casualties. Kocharian said eight police officers were injured. Kocharian claimed some of the demonstrators were armed and that police said they had been shot at. The Armenian Health Ministry said 10 people were hospitalized from the earlier clash, but did not say how severe their injuries were nor how many of the injured were police.
The opposition has protested the results of the Feb. 19 presidential election results and tried to force a new vote. Rallies daily have drawn tens of thousands of people; a few hundred remained at the square each night in tents. Officials say Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian won the vote outright. But supporters of opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian have rejected the results, alleging fraud.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2008 00:00 ||
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The European Union voiced concern Saturday over the situation in Armenia, particularly over the use of force of Armenian authorities against demonstrators. Police in Yerevan used force today to break up 10-day protest over a presidential election which the opposition says was rigged.
The EU is also very troubled by the reports of physical injuries incurred to the demonstrators, said a statement issued by the EU Presidency held by Slovenia. It also expressed deep concern "about the curtailment of freedom of movement of the opposition leader and former presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian and about the detention of demonstrators". The EU called for their immediate release and also urged the authorities and the opposition to revert only to the use of peaceful and democratic measures and to reengage in political dialogue immediately in order to restore stability in the country.
Phone trees among tools used to thwart federal agents
By Michael Martinez
RESEDA, Calif. - When federal immigration officers visited over three days last October looking for an illegal Salvadoran immigrant, a neighborhood watch kicked into action each time.
Dozens of immigrants, legal and illegal, phoned one another, warning of a raid.
"I called my sister in the building next door and another sister in this building," said Maria, who said she is an illegal immigrant from Mexico and has two children who are U.S.-born citizens. She asked that her full name not be used. "They came and knocked on doors, but no one answered."
Angelita Pascacio, an organizer of Madres Contra Redadas (Mothers Against Raids) who has since moved from the 16-unit apartment building, described the surveillance by immigrants as clumsy at first, but effective. "Thanks to our being organized, they didn't take anyone away," she said.
As the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency beefs up home-visiting teams seeking illegal immigrants, doubling arrests in each of the past two years, migrants and advocates are initiating countermeasures to make legal and illegal immigrants aware of tactics such as not answering their door or remaining silent.
The grass-roots efforts try to help many immigrants who live in fear and ignorance of the law, but an ulterior goal is to stymie agents' door-to-door hunts and thwart "collateral" arrests--illegal immigrants who are discovered accidentally in a questioning for someone else who has absconded from a deportation order.
Immigrants and advocates say they are trying to save families from being cleaved when an illegal immigrant parent is caught and removed from the U.S., leaving behind children or a spouse who are legal residents or citizens.
Dual claims of success
Both sides claim success. While one Mothers Against Raids group in the Los Angeles area boasted of its effectiveness, federal officials say their arrests have finally reduced the population of "fugitive," or deportation-fleeing, immigrants for the first time since ICE was created in 2003.
In addition to block watches and telephone trees, neighbors and activists are videotaping ICE's "fugitive ops" to hold officers accountable; distributing "Know your rights" T-shirts and cards; holding classes in churches; operating hot lines on enforcement actions; and, in one California case, following ICE officers from their office to a community to advise immigrants to reveal only their names.
These street-level activities have increased in the past year because Congress has been unable to pass significant immigration legislation--and apparently won't do so again this year because of the presidential election, experts say.
"When that crashed and burned, I think many communities throughout the country began to focus their attention more on protecting the limited rights that immigrants do have," said Peter Schey, president of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a non-profit legal foundation for immigrants.
While federal officials don't object to free speech, they expressed reservations about efforts to thwart officers and agents. "One assumes they have something to hide," ICE spokeswoman Pat Reilly said.
"They're threatening us that they're going to hamper our ability to enforce the law," she said of the neighborhood watches in particular. "You know, one has to be careful not to aid, abet or harbor people who are illegally in this country, because that's a violation of immigration law. That can be criminal."
The immigration agency's 75 fugitive operations teams --the ones assigned to visit residences--arrested 30,408 illegal immigrants in the fiscal year ending last September, a figure expected to grow with 28 additional teams this year, officials said.
60% caught are fugitives
Almost 40 percent of those arrests were collateral, and the remainder were deportation-fleeing, or fugitive, immigrants, including criminals, Reilly said. For the first time, the backlog of fugitive immigrants fell last fiscal year, to fewer than 595,000, officials said.
The "home raids" have prompted activists in New York to hold more know-your-rights presentations in Mexican, Jamaican and Dominican immigrant communities, said Janis Rosheuvel, executive director of Families for Freedom. Illinois and Florida also have help programs for immigrants, some more aggressive than others.
In Santa Ana, Calif., Guillermo Zavala, 48, a construction worker, followed ICE officers in his car as they left their offices as early as 3:30 a.m. on 15 occasions last year, he said.
Zavala said he didn't interfere with their operations, but he did approach immigrants to advise them not to open their door unless a warrant is slipped under it.
"I go around and create a little bit of a hard time for those that are terrorizing my people--that's what the ICE agents do," said Zavala, who is of Mexican descent. "Once they split a family--because a kid is from here and they deport the mother and the father--that's a violation of human rights, especially when the family is working every day just to survive. That's not a crime."
Immigration officials say they won't be deterred.
"We can wait people out," said Reilly of ICE. "Our folks do this every day. They're very good at figuring out how to find people."
It seems to me that someone should be arrested for conspiracy to obstruct justice, and deported along with any "anchor babies" they may have. I think the law also needs to be changed to state that anyone here illegally who has a child, that child is NOT an American citizen, but the citizen of the country the mother (and father, if one's involved) came from. That would do a lot to stop the cross-border treks.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/02/2008 21:12 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
