Thursday, January 30,. 2014


News Clips For The Day



Super Bowl surge in sex trafficking? Maybe not, but issue grabs the spotlight – NBC

By Monica Alba, NBC News

The idea of helping sex-trafficking victims came to Theresa Flores when she was naked and freezing on the floor of a motel bathroom, after being gang-raped by at least 10 men, maybe more. She says she lost count when she passed out from the pain.  
Decades later, Flores, a sex-trafficking survivor, has made good on her promise to herself. The founder of SOAP, or Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution, is trying to make at least a small dent in a national problem this week with a modest act: distributing bars of soap with the National Human Trafficking Hotline number on the wrapping to hotels and motels in New York and New Jersey.

“There are three things in every motel: a Bible, toilet paper and soap,” said Flores. “Every girl cleans up after every man and it’s often the only time she’s allowed alone. Who knows? The soap could be the difference. I wish there had been one in that motel room all those years ago.”

Flores, 48, is making her rounds because the Super Bowl will be held on Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J., and many of the fans will stay in New York before and after the game. Her presence is just one indication of the unwelcome role football’s marquee event has assumed in the debate over sex trafficking and prostitution.
Some experts and organizations that advocate for sex-trafficking victims and/or prostitutes say that big sporting events like the Super Bowl provide a major boost to the illicit businesses by providing a ready-made customer base. That view gained ground after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott labeled the game the “single-largest human-trafficking incident in the United States” in 2011, when it was held in his state. 

Bars of soap, with the phone number for the national human trafficking hotline on them, are being distributed to hotels and motels in New York and New Jersey.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie indicated on Wednesday that the law enforcement is taking seriously the possibility of an influx of prostitution and sex trafficking surrounding the game.

"We are only a few days away from the Super Bowl. A time where sex trafficking is at a high risk," he said in the first of a series of tweets, shortly before appearing at an anti-sex-trafficking news conference in Bergen County, N.J., with Cindy McCain, wife of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, and others.

"So to anyone out there that is even thinking about it. Don't even try it. We have eyes and ears on the ground and on the web."
And finally: 
If you do try it, expect to be caught. And when you are caught, expect to be prosecuted.
— Governor Christie (@GovChristie) January 29, 2014

But other victim advocacy groups reject and resent this characterization. Among them is the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, which produced a 2011 report that concluded there is no evidence indicating that major sporting events result in increased sex trafficking. On the contrary, it speculated that anti-prostitution campaigners were actually promoting the connection to force authorities to crack down on the sex trade.

Many advocacy groups draw a sharp line between prostitution and sex-trafficking, referring to adult prostitutes working on their own as “sex workers” and contrasting them with those pushed to provide commercial sex through force, fraud or coercion.

Flores is among those who believe big sporting events do draw more sex-trafficking victims and that Sunday’s game provides an opportunity to reach at least a few who may find the soap she and others leave behind and call the hotline to be rescued.
Flores started SOAP decades after her ordeal in the motel room, which occurred when she was only 16 years old.

Flores tells a familiar story about her descent into the trade. She said it began when she was date raped at 15 by a classmate in an upscale suburb of Detroit, who drugged her and took illicit photos. He then blackmailed her by telling her she would have to have sex with other men to buy back the photos, she said. Flores said she never told her family or police during the two years she was forced to have sex for money, because she worried that she would get in trouble. By the time she did tell someone, the statute of limitations to prosecute her assailants had long since expired.

Toshia Kimbler, a SOAP volunteer and herself a sex-trafficking victim, said she understands Flores’ silence, since she, too, was trafficked by someone she knew and initially trusted. Later, though there were chances to escape or call the police, she thought her captor would kill her if she did.

“What many people don’t realize,” Kimbler said, “is that it’s not your body that’s enslaved. It’s your mind.”

Kimbler, who was trafficked for almost 10 years, said she also knows first-hand that the sports and sex-trafficking connection is real, as she was shuttled around to big events in cities such as Chicago, Boston and New York.
“For all I know, I could have been at a Super Bowl, but we were rarely told anything,” she recalls.

Now, Kimbler, a former SOAP employee who now volunteers while attending college full-time, and Flores travel all around the U.S., attending events like the Detroit Auto Show, the Final Four, NASCAR races and the national Democratic or Republican Conventions. Flores will also be traveling to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June for the World Cup, marking the organization’s first international outreach effort.  

On Sunday afternoon, Flores, Kimbler and hundreds of other volunteers gathered in the frigid cold in Paramus, N.J., before fanning out to distribute thousands of bars of soap to hotels and motels, along with missing children posters and pamphlets outlining the telltale signs of human trafficking.

That way, even if a sex-trafficking victim doesn’t call the hotline, a hotel or motel owner might call if they witness any suspicious activity when guests check in – like someone who doesn’t speak for themselves, isn’t in control of their own identification or has no luggage.

More soap and posters will be distributed in New York hotels and motels this week and by game time, Flores estimates, 100,000 bars of soap will have been handed out in the two states.

But if past Super Bowls are any indication, the dividends from their efforts at outreach will be small.
At the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis, SOAP distributed 40,000 bars of soap at 200 hotels.
Meantime, back-page ads for commercial sex in local alternative newspapers went from an average of 22 before the event to 269 the week of the game, it said. And only two trafficking victims were identified and recovered, according to the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.

But the increase in awareness that comes from efforts like SOAP’s is worthwhile, said Clemmie Greenlee, a sex-trafficking survivor who now works at Eden House in New Orleans, site of last year’s Super Bowl. 

“I don’t have anything against the Super Bowl. I’m a football fan myself but I need people to know this is one of the greatest activities going on at the Super Bowl,” said Greenlee, who says she also remembers being moved around for large events, including doctors and lawyers conferences.

And the awareness may also keep some traffickers at home, said Rachel Lloyd, who runs a New York nonprofit called GEMS.

“Pimps read the news and watch TV too,” said Lloyd, another sex-trafficking survivor. “When you start talking about thousands of law enforcement out there, pimps know there’s a lot of increased focus on the Super Bowl so can people then point to a lack of numbers as being prevention? Not really. They just didn’t come to your city.”
Bradley Myles, the CEO of the Polaris Project, a nonprofit founded to combat human trafficking and “modern-day slavery,” said better data is needed to establish the scope of the problem – both in the U.S. and around the world. But he said no one should think that human trafficking is only a problem at big events like the Super Bowl.

“I think that it’s important to strike a balance. On the one hand, it’s absolutely true that this is a 365-day-a-year issue and community preparedness and community mobilization needs to happen 365 days a year,” he said. “On the other hand, if people are more likely to get involved through the catalyst of some large rallying point like the Super Bowl, I think some good can come out of that.” 




I had heard of “white slavery” but I didn't realize the extent of it, nor the degree of business organization that is involved. Apparently, wherever large numbers of men are gathered together – even doctors and lawyers conferences, this article said – there is an uptick on ads offering sex and the women are brought in to the location to be available to men.

The number of those women who are captives rather than voluntary participants is also a shocker. In several of these stories girls started out in their teens and were afraid to break away and go to the police. In one case a classmate raped the girl and enmeshed her in the white slavery organization. Teenaged boys are advanced in the kinds of mischief they do these days, I see.

I'm very glad that this SOAP organization will actually come and rescue women upon request. That's even better than simply encouraging them to go to the police if there is any danger of being arrested on charges of prostitution. Of course if they go to the police they can be witnesses against the pimps, and Gov. Christie's NJ police are alert to the problem, giving aid to the women rather than arresting them. Hopefully the crime of being a pimp, or worse, a trafficker, is enough to put the criminals in prison for a number of years. It would be interesting to hear how many arrests are made at the Super Bowl this year. I'll look for articles about it.




92 nuclear missile officers implicated in cheating scandal, Air Force says – NBC
By Jim Miklaszewski, Courtney Kube and Elizabeth Chuck, NBC News

The number of nuclear missile launch officers under investigation for allegations of cheating has ballooned to 92, the Air Force said Thursday.

The new total is nearly three times the initial 34 officers who were implicated in the scandal and nearly one-fifth of the force. The officers have been taken off their missile wing duties during the investigation into the cheating, which happened during a key proficiency exam, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said at a Pentagon news briefing.

Of the 92, 40 are suspected of actually cheating by obtaining answers in advance of the test; the remaining 52 were allegedly aware of the cheating, but failed to report it to superiors.  

"The situation remains completely acceptable," James told reporters. 
Officials have stressed that there has been no change in the overall nuclear mission and no degradation of the U.S. nuclear capability.

"This is a failure of integrity, not a failure of the mission," James said Thursday.
The original officers in the probe, all assigned to the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, are accused of apparently texting answers to each other, or knew that the cheating was going on and didn't report it, according to officials.

The monthly exam tested the officers' knowledge of the missile launch systems. It was administered in August and September 2013.

Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh said earlier this month the officers shared the exam "electronically.” Text messages were involved, he said. He would not expand on the exact circumstances of the alleged cheating, citing an ongoing investigation.

The investigation into the cheating ring was announced on Jan. 15 by the Air Force.
The 341st Missile Wing provides security for 150 nuclear-armed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles, one third of the entire ICBM force. James said there is no evidence of similar cheating at the other two nuclear missile bases, F.E. Warren in Wyoming and Minot in North Dakota.

Just two days ago, a U.S. military official told NBC News the number of officers under allegations had nearly doubled.

James, who is the service's top civilian official, said Thursday that the systemic micromanagement in the nuclear force has created "undue stress and fear," and that situation at Malmstrom was "not a healthy environment." 

She has said that the alleged cheating at Malmstrom was discovered during a previously announced probe of drug possession by 11 officers at several bases. Initially, that probe only included 10 officers.




It is surprising that, though this is a monthly test, there are still enough men worried about their scores to cheat. They should know the information after awhile; if not, our nuclear readiness is indeed in danger. No other bases had problems, the article said, and the situation there is “not a healthy environment,” caused by “micromanaging.” Sounds like they should fire those managers and bring in some new ones. They probably will, since this has become such a big news story. I'm sure the Air Force is embarrassed enough to do that.





Female politician says victims' behavior plays role in India gang-rape attacks – NBC

By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor

A female Indian politician and member of the "women's commission" sparked fury by saying that gang-rape victims may have invited attacks with their clothes and behavior.

"Rapes take place also because of a woman's clothes, her behavior and her presence at inappropriate places," Asha Mirje, who is a member of the state women's commission, said at a Tuesday meeting, local media reported.

She also questioned whether a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, who died after being gang-raped on a bus in the capital New Delhi, really needed to go out to a movie at 11 p.m.

Thousands of people took to the streets in nationwide protests against rape and sexual assault after the attack, for which four men were sentenced to death last year. 
Mirje, the Nationalist Congres
s Party (NCP) leader in western Maharashtra state, also commented on the case of photojournalist who was gang-raped in Mumbai last year, asking, "Why did the victim go to such an isolated spot at 6 p.m.?"
Women, she explained, must be "careful" and must consider whether they are leaving themselves open to assault. 

Her comments prompted fury from both politicians and activists, who called for her resignation or removal from her post on the women’s commission.   
"Every time such a statement is made by a public figure it justifies rape," Kavita Krishnan, secretary of lobby group All India Progressive Women's Association, told Reuters. "It's unconscionable that people in public posts make such remarks."  

Rupa Kulkarni, leader of domestic workers in the state, told the Hindustan Times that Mirje had "no moral right to continue on the post as she is biased against women."

NCP spokesman Nawab Malik said Mirje had apologized for her comments, which did not represent the views of the party.
"As far as the party is concerned she has said sorry and the issued is closed," he said.   

Assaults have tarnished the reputation of the world's largest democracy, where police said last week that village elders ordered the gang rape of a 20-year-old woman after they found out she was in a relationship with a man from a different community. 
A Danish tourist also told police she was gang-raped, beaten and robbed after getting lost in the heart of New Delhi earlier this month. 



"As far as the party is concerned she has said sorry and the issued is closed," he said. These differences between societal groups in India and other highly conservative societies – “conservative” meaning resistant to rethinking and change – keep social issues involving second-class people from becoming fairly and legally adjudicated. Women, in this case, are still second-class, even in the US. Men in India who were not paid their bride price because the bride's family was too poor, physically assaulted the bride, especially burning them, not many years ago there. There was a rash of those events in the news, just like the recent gang-rapes. A rape is a crime, but a gang-rape is an organized assault of major proportions.

In the southern USA there were lynchings of black people not too long ago and attempts to disenfranchise them are still ongoing by Republicans in a cynical attempt to remove Democrats from the voting rosters. That's what I mean by “I hate conservative thinking.” It leads to severe injustice and is basically caused by a relatively rigid class and social system. We can go to the polls and vote and sometimes even demonstrate in the streets for a cause, but until these things stop happening we are not a free country.






Scarlett Johansson quits Oxfam over SodaStream criticism – NBC
Duncan Golestani NBC News


LONDON — Actress Scarlett Johansson has quit her role with the charity Oxfam after it criticized her promotion of drinks company SodaStream, which has a factory in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The star is due to appear in a commercial for SodaStream during the Super Bowl on Sunday. Oxfam said the actress’ role global ambassador was incompatible with her promotion of SodaStream. 

In a statement released on Wednesday, Johansson’s spokesman wrote, "She and Oxfam have a fundamental difference of opinion in regards to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement."

Oxfam on Thursday noted in a statement on its website that it has accepted the "Her" star's resignation, and said it is "grateful for her many contributions" during her eight years working with them.

Fox, which is airing the Super Bowl, has banned her uncensored ad because the commercial for the at-home soda maker takes a swipe at Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi is sponsoring the halftime show. SodaStream's CEO has said the line, "Sorry, Coke and Pepsi," will be removed from the ad.

Israel-based drinks company SodaStream has its largest factory in Maale Adumim, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law, and Oxfam has a policy of opposing trade with those areas. 
The West Bank factory employs both Palestinians and Israelis. SodaStream cites it as an example of the two peoples working side-by-side. "Approximately 500 Palestinians work at our Mishor Adumim facility, supporting several thousand people and their families," Yonah Lloyd, chief corporate development and communications officer for SodaStream, said in a statement to NBC News.

The issues of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is central to U.S.-brokered peace talks that have been ongoing since July. Around 350,000 Jews live in settlements which the Palestinians claim as part of a future state. 



I basically sympathize with the Israelis, because the Arabs of all stripes are hard set against their presence in the Middle East as a nation. However, they have persisted in opening more settlements in Palestine rather than being willing to negotiate the use of land there, and they should put a stop to that in order to attain a peaceful solution there. The whole world needs it. Even the Jews would be better off.






Quick new approach catches scary diseases, CDC says – NBC
Maggie Fox NBC News


In just six months, a pilot program to help Uganda watch out for deadly new health threats such as Ebola helped officials catch cases of West Nile virus, Zika virus, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus, hepatitis E virus, and a bacteria that causes dangerous meningitis, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

They say the results justify programs to help developing countries beef up their disease surveillance programs — to protect them and to protect people in the United States.

“We are all connected by the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe, and stopping outbreaks where they start is the most effective and the least costly way to save lives,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC News.

“And it’s the right thing to do.”
New diseases such as bird flu and Ebola popped up seemingly out of nowhere, and continue to flare up in unexpected places. In one of the most recent surprises, a Canadian traveler died of H5N1 after she returned home from a long trip to China. “It does just emphasize that we are all connected — that a virus anywhere in the world is just a plane ride away,” Frieden said.

It’s of constant concern with thousands expected to travel to the Olympics in Sochi, Russia next month and billions of people in east Asia traveling to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

West Nile virus likely hitched a ride on a jumbo jet, for instance. It quickly took hold in the New York City borough of Queens when it first appeared in 1999 and has now spread across the country to infect more than 37,000 people at last count, killing more than 1,500 of them. 

But it was SARS that got the attention of world leaders. Severe acute respiratory syndrome arose in China and spread around the world in the space of a few months in 2003, infecting close to 8,000 people and killing nearly 800 before it was stopped. Public health experts said catching new viruses like that more quickly would save lives, and a lot of money. “SARS cost over $30 billion in just two months,” Frieden said.

CDC experts, working with local governments and health officials, set up two demonstration projects to see if it would be possible to scale up an effective surveillance and response network quickly. They chose Uganda, where Ebola and AIDS are both threats, and Vietnam, where H5N1 bird flu, cholera and enterovirus 71, which causes hand, foot and mouth diseases, all circulate.

Frieden says he was especially impressed with what the project in Uganda was able to accomplish between March and September of last year, building on work being done by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

“The Uganda Ministry of Health and CDC implemented upgrades in three areas: 1) strengthening the public health laboratory system by increas­ing the capacity of diagnostic and specimen referral networks, 2) enhancing the existing communications and information systems for outbreak response, and 3) developing a public health emergency operations center,” the team reports in this week’s issue of CDC’s weekly report on illness and death.

“Analysis of samples has led to confirmation of cases of infection with West Nile virus, Zika virus (a relative of dengue virus) , Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, hepatitis E virus, Neisseria meningitides (which cases bacterial meningitis) and multidrug-resistant (including extensively drug-resistant) M. tuberculosis.”
It should be a model for other programs, CDC said. “In less than a year, they were able to transform the system,” Frieden said.

Right now, world health officials are keeping an eye on dozens of potentially dangerous new pathogens, from H7N9 bird flu in China, to the MERS virus in the Middle East. “For the Chinese New year there are more than 3 billion trips that will be taken in China,” Frieden said. “We are in the middle of a surge of H7N9 flu and we anticipate that there will be more cases as people travel in buses and have more exposure to poultry.” 

China has restricted poultry markets in some areas but more than 200 cases of H7N9 have been reported since October and more than 250 in total since H7N9 was first spotted around a year ago. Middle East respiratory virus, or MERS, has infected nearly 200 people since September of 2012 and killed at least 75. The worry is that either or both could acquire the ability to spread easily from person to person. Then they’d almost certainly spread quickly, causing a pandemic.

And there’s always something even newer, like a virus that killed two teenagers in Congo in 2009 that looked like rabies, but killed like Ebola. 




The CDC doctors are heroes by any measure. Even as our known antibiotics become ineffective, there are new diseases appearing. “Looks like rabies, but kills like Ebola.” That must be a very bad one. We think of these pandemics happening in third world countries, but of course they could happen here, especially in highly concentrated and often poor populations like New York City and Los Angeles. I pray that I don't live to see one of these here. Our hospitals can only handle so many patients at a time, and medicines would run out. I hope our congressmen don't decide to cut the funds to these necessary parts of the government. Surely they have too much intelligence to do that.





Obama touts manufacturing on road tour
By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

President Barack Obama talked up manufacturing jobs as a worthwhile pursuit for young people, even after the struggles weathered by U.S. industry in recent years.

President Barack Obama signs a memorandum on job training after speaking at the General Electric Waukesha Gas Engines facility on January 30, 2014 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Taking his State of the Union message on the road to Wisconsin, the president talked up skilled trades, and signed a directive to have Vice President Joe Biden lead a comprehensive review of federal job training programs.

"Not all of today’s good jobs need a four-year degree. But the ones that don’t need a college degree do need some specialized training," Obama said at a General Electric gas engine factory in Waukesha, Wis.

"A lot of parents, unfortunately, maybe when they saw a lot of manufacturing being offshored, told their kids you don’t want to go into the trades, you don’t want to go into manufacturing because you’ll lose your job," Obama further explained. "Well, the problem is that a lot of young people don’t see the skilled trades and manufacturing as a viable career. But I promise you, folks make a lot more – potentially – with the skilled trades and manufacturing than with an art history degree."

The president otherwise reiterated some of the highlights from his speech on Tuesday, speaking about education, equal pay for women and a higher minimum wage. The president will touch upon similar themes when he visits Tennessee later this afternoon. Thursday's trip marked the second day of Obama's post-State of the Union tour.



I'm glad to see him talking about manufacturing jobs, because in the past many or maybe most of the so-called “Middle Class” people in the US have not been doctors and lawyers, but plumbers, carpenters and assembly line workers. Especially in a Union Shop, it is a fine old tradition.

Besides, a kid who barely reads at grade level by the 12th grade is not going to succeed in college, where he will get 20 or more pages of reading assigned at each class, so he had better be prepared to study something else. Most people with that turn of mind are not really interested in Liberal Arts or scientific subjects, which require a theoretical turn of mind, anyway. They want to be a football player or a race car driver when they dream of a bright future. People are all different and, for the most part, if they find their niche they will be okay.