………………………….Issue 46
BORDER SECURITY MATTERS
June 2010
borderpol@borderpol.org scott.newark@borderpol.org
1
1. The Americas
NBC: Man held in Montreal is terror suspect
Sources say he was focus of terror warning for U.S.-Mexico border
NBC May 31, 2010
WASHINGTON - The man removed from an Aeromexico flight bound for Mexico City Sunday was
the subject of a terror warning issued for the U.S.-Mexico border last week, senior U.S.
counterterrorism officials told NBC News on Monday.
Homeland Security had asked law enforcement in Houston to be on the lookout for a suspected
member of al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida ally based in Somalia, early last week, the sources said.
The man was thought to be headed for the United States via Mexico.
On Sunday, an Aeromexico flight from Paris was diverted to Montreal, where the man was
detained.
Canadian authorities on Monday identified the man as Abdirahman Ali Gaall and that he would
have his first court hearing on Wednesday.
Gaall is a Somali national but holds resident status in the United States, the counterterrorism
sources said. His wife is an American citizen, said one official. He did not have the couple's
address in the United States.
The Canada Border Services Agency confirmed Monday that Gaall was on a U.S. no-fly list and
said the man was known to them.
Other passengers on Aeromexico Flight 006 from Charles De Gaulle Airport to Mexico City were
re-screened and allowed to re-board the flight.
'He was calm'
Passengers coming off the plane told The Associated Press that six Canadian police officers had
boarded in Montreal, handcuffed the man and led him off the aircraft. They said the man did not
resist.
"He was calm as if he knew what was going to happen," said Mauricio Oliver, a 36-year-old
Mexican passenger. "They handcuffed him and they took him."
Oliver said a flight attendant told him the man was from Somalia, but other passengers gave
conflicting information about his nationality.
French passenger Christian Collier, 63, said everyone aboard remained calm during the incident.
A spokesman for Canada Border Services, Dominque McNeely, said there was no incident on the
aircraft and that law-enforcement officials boarded the plane around 2:30 p.m. local time Sunday
and took the suspect into custody.
"The flight landed and we had excellent cooperation with everyone involved," he said.
2
NBC: Man held in Montreal is terror suspect
Sources say he was focus of terror warning for U.S.-Mexico border
NBC May 31, 2010
WASHINGTON - The man removed from an Aeromexico flight bound for Mexico City Sunday was
the subject of a terror warning issued for the U.S.-Mexico border last week, senior U.S.
counterterrorism officials told NBC News on Monday.
Homeland Security had asked law enforcement in Houston to be on the lookout for a suspected
member of al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida ally based in Somalia, early last week, the sources said.
The man was thought to be headed for the United States via Mexico.
On Sunday, an Aeromexico flight from Paris was diverted to Montreal, where the man was
detained.
Canadian authorities on Monday identified the man as Abdirahman Ali Gaall and that he would
have his first court hearing on Wednesday.
Gaall is a Somali national but holds resident status in the United States, the counterterrorism
sources said. His wife is an American citizen, said one official. He did not have the couple's
address in the United States.
The Canada Border Services Agency confirmed Monday that Gaall was on a U.S. no-fly list and
said the man was known to them.
Other passengers on Aeromexico Flight 006 from Charles De Gaulle Airport to Mexico City were
re-screened and allowed to re-board the flight.
'He was calm'
Passengers coming off the plane told The Associated Press that six Canadian police officers had
boarded in Montreal, handcuffed the man and led him off the aircraft. They said the man did not
resist.
"He was calm as if he knew what was going to happen," said Mauricio Oliver, a 36-year-old
Mexican passenger. "They handcuffed him and they took him."
Oliver said a flight attendant told him the man was from Somalia, but other passengers gave
conflicting information about his nationality.
French passenger Christian Collier, 63, said everyone aboard remained calm during the incident.
A spokesman for Canada Border Services, Dominque McNeely, said there was no incident on the
aircraft and that law-enforcement officials boarded the plane around 2:30 p.m. local time Sunday
and took the suspect into custody.
"The flight landed and we had excellent cooperation with everyone involved," he said.
3
Black-listed passenger driven to U.S., after plane rerouted to Canada
Two days after Somali‘s name on no-fly list forces flight change, he is mysteriously sent – by land
– to the United States for further questioning
Colin Freeze June 2, 2010
The notion that he might fly over the United States so distressed U.S. counterterrorism officials
that they had his transatlantic flight reroute to Canada, just to pull him off the 150-passenger jet.
Forty-eight hours later, he was driven by border guards to Champlain, N.Y., to enter his adopted
home by land. On Wednesday, U.S. agents will be picking up where Canadian agents left off,
questioning the mystery man.
The saga of Abdirahman Ali Gaal, a Somali-born U.S. resident believed to be in his 30s, is far
from over. The core allegations are unknown. But security officials point out that they are cracking
down on Somalia-based groups operating inside North America – especially fanatics recruiting
youth for an Islamist insurgency overseas.
Such considerations, it appears, are being brought to bear on the case of Mr. Gaal, whose
Aeromexico flight from France to Mexico was forced to divert to Montreal on Sunday.
Mr. Gaal had a secret notoriety: Some time in the past few years, U.S. officials placed him on
their no-fly list. This means he was deemed a significant threat if left to his own devices in U.S.
airspace.
After the plane was rerouted to Montreal, federal agents jailed him until his transfer could take
place.
―Today at 4:00 p.m., the Canada Border Services Agency turned over Abdirahman Ali Gaal to
U.S. authorities,‖ the CBSA said Tuesday evening in a statement.
One official said this was a rapid deportation, as Mr. Gaal had committed a past offence in
Canada – never defined – that rendered him forever inadmissible. This handover scuttled a
scheduled detention-review hearing in Montreal on Wednesday, which was to have delved into
some of the evidence.
The security jitters are based, at least in part, on the ascendancy of Somalia‘s al-Shabab
movement.
The Taliban-style guerrillas are recruiting youth from Europe and North America to join them in
Somalia. Counterterrorism officials fear young men will return from the insurgency bringing
notions of an armed anti-American jihad with them.
Believed to have been born in the 1970s, Mr. Gaal is a decade older than a typical al-Shabab
recruit. He is a legal U.S. resident who appears to have split his time between East Africa and
North America.
Sources say Mr. Gaal lived in Minneapolis and Seattle in the 1990s. Bankruptcy records filed in
Seattle suggest that he, or a man with a very similar name, worked for a technology company
before filing for bankruptcy in 2001.
One source said that just two years ago, Mr. Gaal applied for refugee status in Canada, under a
different name. He left before the application was processed.
4
In the United States, smuggling networks are being scrutinized for sending scores of Somali
asylum seekers across the Mexican border. Just last week, U.S. officials in Texas were warned to
be on the lookout for a particular al-Shabab suspect taking that route.
But this was not Mr. Gaal. No charges have been filed as the investigation continues.
―Mr. Gaal, a legal permanent resident, was returned to the United States, where he is currently
being questioned,‖ Matt Chandler, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
said in an e-mail.
CSIS was tracking me: Somali on no-fly list
Graeme Hamilton And Stewart Bell, National Post · Thursday, Jun. 3, 2010
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. and TORONTO -The Somali man whose flight was diverted to Montreal
this week because he is on the U.S. no-fly list said on Thursday the FBI questioned him about
possible links to a Canadian member of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group and the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service has been tracking his movements.
In an exclusive interview inside the Plattsburgh, N.Y., jail where he is being held, Abdirahman Ali
Gaal said he realized he was in trouble two weeks ago when FBI agents at an airport in
Mauritania informed him he was banned from flying back to the United States, where he was a
legal resident. They asked him about a number of suspected extremists, including a Canadian
allegedly involved in the al-Qaeda-linked Somali group Al-Shabab. Questioned by the FBI at the
U.S. embassy in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, he denied any connection to the suspects
but was told the only way he could return to the United States was by land or sea. He booked a
flight to Mexico City, via Paris, and it was that Aeromexico plane that was blocked from entering
U.S. airspace when U.S. authorities became aware of Mr. Gaal's presence on board.
Mr. Gaal, 33, was arrested at Montreal's Trudeau Airport on Sunday. On Tuesday, Canadian
officials drove him to the U.S. border and handed him over to the Department of Homeland
Security.
Neither the Canadian nor the U.S. government has explained why he triggered such drastic
measures, but in the interview Mr. Gaal provided some clues.
He said CSIS officers had questioned his wife in Calgary about his whereabouts and activities
several times over the past three months, while he was in Seattle and in Mauritania. He said he
called CSIS to let them know he had nothing to hide. When he tried to board a plane last month in
Mauritania, where he had been studying Arabic, FBI agents asked him about a several men,
including Somali-Canadian Mohamed Elmi Ibrahim.
Mr. Ibrahim, nicknamed Canlish, is a 22-year-old University of Toronto student who left Canada
last year and was reportedly killed in Somalia. A eulogy posted last month on a website linked to
Al-Shabab claimed he died while fighting in a "fierce battle."
He is one of six young Somali-Canadians who left Toronto last year, setting off an investigation
into whether they had travelled to Somalia to fight with Al-Shabab. Mr. Gaal said he did not know
the men and had only attended the Toronto mosque where they sometimes prayed, the Abu
Huraira Center, once.
A seventh Toronto man is being investigated for allegedly training with Al-Shabab. He has since
returned to Canada and has declined, through his father, to speak to a Post reporter. Former
Toronto resident, Omar Hammami, is now a senior commander of Al-Shabab.
5
Canada outlawed Al-Shabab as a terrorist organization in March because of its campaign of
suicide bombings and concerns it was attempting to radicalize and recruit Canadian youths.
Somali-Canadian parents are said to be so concerned they are hiding their children's passports.
Mr. Gaal said he talks frequently about the war in his homeland in Internet chat groups but has no
connection to Al-Shabab. "I'm not a member of any group. I'm not an extremist," he said. "I never
used violence.... That's against Islam."
He acknowledged that he had submitted a bogus refugee claim in Canada in 2008, claiming to be
fleeing strife in Somalia when in fact he was a legal resident of the United States. The deception
was motivated by his desire to stay with his Canadian wife and four children, he said. He said he
had a change of heart, told his lawyer the truth and asked him to withdraw the claim. He said he
returned to Seattle last August, relocating his wife and children in Calgary on the way.
In the interview, he was desperate for details about the government's case against him. The
Department of Homeland Security has said he is now inadmissible to the United States and has
begun proceedings to have him removed to Somalia. A major strike against him is his Canadian
refugee claim, which is considered an act of fraud.
"The problem I had with Canadian immigration, it happened by mistake," he said. "I called my
lawyer and told him to stop. Human beings make mistakes."
He said he had no trouble boarding a flight from New York's JFK airport on March 5, and flew
without incident to Mauritania, via Morocco. He said the purpose of his trip was to study Arabic
grammar, so he could improve his reading of the Koran. He had planned to return on May 20 but
was met at the airport by "two gentlemen from the FBI. They said they had bad news."
He then planned to return to the United States by flying to Mexico City and on to the border city of
Tijuana, but mid-flight the Aeromexico pilot announced they were diverting to Montreal to refuel. "I
was relaxed because I was not a criminal, and I didn't do anything wrong," Mr. Gaal said. But
then the stop took much longer than a simple refuelling, and he was arrested.
Mr. Gaal was born in Mogadishu in 1976 and lived for 10 years in Seattle. In addition to his
Canadian family, he has two children in Seattle from a previous marriage.
Al-Shabab, which means The Youth, has been fighting to impose Taliban-like rule in Somalia.
Several hundred Al-Shabab fighters are foreigners who have converged in the war-battered East
African country to participate in what they view as a jihad.
Among them are more than 20 Americans and a handful of Canadians. RCMP Commissioner
William Elliott said last October that he was concerned they might return to Canada "imbued with
both extremist ideology and the skills necessary to translate it into direct action."
CSIS called Somalia a "magnet for international terrorists" in its latest annual report to
Parliament. Those who travel to Somalia to fight "may be drawn into global jihad circles, where
they are subsequently recruited to carry out attacks against perceived enemies of Islam."
6
Bill gives U.S. control of flights from Canada
Kevin Dougherty, CanwestNews Service · Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2010
The Harper government has quietly presented a bill in the House of Commons
that would give U.S. officials final say over who can board aircraft in Canada if
they are to fly over the U.S. en route to a third country.
"Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window," Liberal transport critic
Joe Volpe told the Montreal Gazette in a recent interview. "You are going to be
subject to American law."
Bill C-42 amends Canada's Aeronautics Act to allow airlines to pass on passenger
information to "a foreign state" for flights over that country without landing.
At present, airlines are only required to give passenger information to the U.S.
government on flights landing in the United States.
Bill C-42 would comply with U.S. Homeland Security's Secure Flight program,
which requires airlines to submit personal information about passengers 72
hours before a flight's departure.
As Canwest News reported in March, Secure Flight has already been introduced
for U.S. airlines, and U.S. Homeland Security wants to implement it
internationally, including on Canadian airlines, by the end of 2010.
If Bill C-42 passes, then passengers leaving Canada on a flight to Cuba or France,
for example, while flying over the U.S. would have their name, birthdate and
gender subject to screening by U.S. Homeland Security, which involves running
that information through various government databases to determine whether
there is a terrorist threat.
If you have the same name as someone on a no-fly list, you may be questioned,
delayed or even barred from the flight. If your name does not match, Homeland
Security tells the airline that you may have a boarding pass.
Currently, Canadian airlines check names against no-fly lists provided by the U.S.
and Canadian governments. But the airlines decide who gets a boarding pass.
Mr. Volpe noted that Bill C-42 does not refer specifically to the United States,
adding that "with a stroke of the pen" the government is agreeing to give
information on Canadian passengers to any foreign government.
7
"They just opened the door to everybody without even so much as, 'Hello, why are
you doing this?'
"They can harass our airlines, harass our passengers, anything they want to."
Mr. Volpe said Bill C-42 was introduced with no warning and no discussion with
the three opposition parties. Together, the opposition parties could vote down the
legislation.
"The government doesn't feel very comfortable about what it is doing," he said.
"It is trying to put one over on the public away from the scrutiny of the press and
the opposition."
Dennis Bevington, the NDP transport critic, said Bill C-42 was presented at "the
very last moment" before the June 17 adjournment.
"We're doing this without understanding what the threat assessment is," Mr.
Bevington said from Hay River in his Western Arctic riding.
"There's no way that this is going to get an easy ride."
While Transport Minister John Baird presented Bill C-42 on June 17, his office
redirected questions to Public Security Minister Vic Toews.
In an email, Public Security official Sophie Bedard said: "this straightforward,
technical amendment to the Aeronautics Act would also ensure Canadians do not
face any undue delays in their travel plans."
RCMP seize more than $1 million worth of cigarettes in pair of
contraband busts
By: The Canadian Press 11/06/2010 4:04 PM
MONTREAL - The RCMP says it's dealt a major blow to cigarette smugglers with a pair of
seizures near the Ontario-Quebec border this week.
Today, the Mounties and Quebec provincial police arrested four people near Riviere-Beaudette,
Que., and seized 600,000 cigarettes in Ziploc bags.
Police nabbed three other people on Thursday along the shores of Lake St-Francois, and seized
$1.2 million worth of illegal cigarettes.
Police say they aren't sure where the cigarettes come from, but both communities are along the
St-Lawrence River with waterways that lead into both Ontario and New York.
Since the beginning of 2010, the RCMP has arrested 99 people for smuggling, seizing 39 million
cigarettes in the process.
8
The federal government announced a number of initiatives last month to combat illegal cigarettes,
including the formation of a specialized police unit led by the RCMP.
That specialized unit will start operating by next year.
Feds arrest Canadian gun dealer in Whatcom County
Posted by Cathy McLain
from The Associated Press
May 20, 2010 at 6:06 PM
Federal agents said Thursday they have arrested a Canadian gun dealer who kept a stash of
sniper rifles and ammunition at a Washington storage unit near the U.S. northern border.
Oliver King -- who also uses his given name, Hamid Malekpour -- was arrested Wednesday
in Ferndale, which is about 10 miles south of the Canadian border. He made an initial
appearance Thursday at U.S. District Court in Seattle on charges of making false statements to a
government agency and being an alien in possession of firearms.
A hearing was set for next Wednesday to determine whether he should continue to be detained
pending trial.
According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, he entered the U.S. at Blaine the
previous night and lied when he said he was going to pick up his wife at a Bellingham mall.
The Iranian native also lied about why he had a new Canadian passport just issued that morning,
the complaint said. He told border guards that his old one had gone through the wash, but agents
found it during a secondary inspection -- with no water damage.
The old one, which was not set to expire until 2013, had been canceled, but it was not
immediately clear why. It had three visas for Iran, two issued last year and one issued this year.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tailed King as he left the border crossing. He
drove to McMinnville, Ore., where he went to a gun shop and loaded his car with four guns and
480 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition.
Agents say he then drove north to the Ferndale storage unit, where he had $30,000 worth of
sniper rifles, handguns and ammo.
When asked about the weapons in his car, King said he was a hunter, according to the complaint.
Amir Zarandi, who owns the Oregon gun shop, McMinnville Hunting and Police Supplies, said
King is a consultant and has bought weapons there for years.
Zarandi said King also manufactures ammunition, is well-known in the business and "doesn't do
anything illegal."
"He's a good person," Zarandi said. "I'm sure this is just a technicality, sort of thing."
According to the complaint, King was a licensed firearms dealer in Canada under his other name.
The license was temporarily suspended when the Canadian government discovered he was
selling guns over the Internet, but apparently the license has been "recovered" and may be valid.
9
G20 protesters already being monitored by officials
By TOM GODFREY, QMI AGENCY
Last Updated: June 7, 2010
TORONTO - Hard-core protesters who plan to wreak havoc at the G20 summit will sneak into Canada
from the U.S. through remote border crossings, police say.
The protesters likely won‘t be boarding flights to Toronto for the G20 summit because of a ―no-fly‖ list,
to which custom officials have access.
Canadian and U.S. border police said professional agitators may not have passports or funds to
purchase airline tickets for the June 26-27 gathering at the Metro Convention Centre.
Officers believe some protesters already have arrived in Toronto and are working with local groups to
plan demonstrations and lure others here through the Internet, mostly using Facebook.
Sabrina Mehes of the Canada Border Services Agency said all persons seeking entry into Canada
must demonstrate they meet all requirements.
―All travellers seeking to enter or re-enter Canada are considered on a case-by-case basis,‖ Mehes
said by email.
Customs officials can tap into a ―no-fly‖ list of passengers who have criminal records and may pose a
threat to the public.
Mehes said several factors are used in determining admissibility into Canada, including involvement in
criminal activity, human rights violations or organized crime, as well as security, health or financial
reasons.
U.S. border officials are helping with security by stepping up searches for undesirables along the
Niagara River and remote areas. Chief Kevin Corsaro of Customs and Border Protection said his
officers are randomly examining vehicles as they leave the U.S.
―We will remain ever vigilant in our enforcement of the border,‖ Corsaro said Monday. ―Our officers are
conducting outbound checks among other measures.‖ John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty said protesters will be arriving from the U.S. and Europe during the next few weeks.
Clarke said organizers will erect a tent city for homeless men being forced to move from a security
zone around the convention centre.
―We will have support from countries internationally,‖ Clarke said. ―This is not your regular G20 summit
and the response from the community will be strong.‖ He said protesters are watching with interest at
the weapons police have displayed publicly, such as tear gas and long-range acoustic devices - often
called sound guns or sound cannons.
―We have to take reasonable precautions for the kind of heavy-handed approach that police have
shown,‖ Clarke said. ―The entire world will be watching Toronto.‖ Toronto police spokesman Const.
Wendy Drummond said a majority of the protesters are law abiding but police are ―ready for all
eventualities.‖
10
A call for a new kind of Canada: Report urges NORAD responsibility
for North John Ibbitson
Ottawa — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Jun. 08, 2010 6:00AM EDT Last
updated on Tuesday, Jun. 08, 2010 6:12AM EDT
How to manage the Northwest Passage: Give it to NORAD.
A new report from the next generation of Canadian foreign policy thinkers upends
conventional wisdom on how Canada should make its way in the world. A copy of the report,
which is to be released Tuesday, was obtained by The Globe and Mail.
Open Canada: A Global Positioning Strategy calls for deeper integration with the United
States, including jointly managed border posts and land swaps to accommodate them.
Open Canada: A Global Positioning Strategy for a Networked Age (PDF 6 MB)
Download this file (.pdf)
It urges the Canadian government to take advantage of its large Asian population to make
Canada the first country in the world that successfully negotiates a dual-citizenship agreement
with China .
It seeks a slowing of the oils sands development until new green technology is able to make
extraction environmentally friendlier.
Most provocatively, it would expand the mandate for the North American Aerospace Defence
Command, which protects American and Canadian airspace, to include maritime protection as
well.
Rather than arguing over whether the Northwest Passage is Canadian territory or international
waters, Canada and the United States would jointly assume responsibility for protecting Arctic
waters from vessels and crews not equipped to traverse them.
― Once in a century the world shifts. ‖— Edward Greenspon, panel chairman
―On the eve of the Canadian G8 and G20 summits, at a time when United States influence is
declining, we wanted to get us all to consider bold and innovative ways to seize the
opportunities offered by this historic shift,‖ Mr. Greenspon said in a release accompanying the
report. Mr. Greenspon is the former editor of The Globe and Mail.
While Mr. Greenspon is an old hand in analyzing Canadian foreign policy, most of the panel’s
members – who were largely drawn from the private sector, non-governmental organizations
and universities – came of age in the digital era that followed the end of the Cold War.
Mostly in their 30s and 40s, they appeared uninterested in the usual foreign-policy dichotomy
of either integrating more fully with the United States, despite its perceived relative decline, or
courting the rising Pacific powers.
If the federal government adopted their recommendations, Canada would filter much of its
overseas actions through an environmentally sustainable lens; greatly increase funding for
research and development, while aggressively courting foreign investment; deploy its
revitalized military to keep failing states from collapsing into anarchy; and co-ordinate foreign
policy with the Council of the Federation, which represents the provincial governments.
11
The report is funded by the Canadian International Council, a foreign-policy think tank, and its
more provocative passages are not so much a wakeup call as slap in the face of current
thinking, especially within the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.
It calls Norway, an oil-producing nation that is pursuing a green-energy future, social justice
and world peace, ―the new Canada.‖
―We think Canadians would like Canada to be the new Canada,‖ the report maintains.
New watchdog to regulate immigration
consultants
June 08, 2010 Nicholas Keung TORONTO STAR
Ottawa will replace the current governing body of immigration consultants with a new
regulator that has the ―respect and support‖ of its members, says Immigration
Minister Jason Kenney.
―The concerns about the status quo (of the existing regulator) have been very clear
in terms of accountability,‖ Kenney told the Star in an exclusive interview on the eve
of introducing a new law Tuesday to revamp the consultants’ regulatory regime.
―We want the regulatory body to be professional, transparent, accountable, focused
on enforcement and have the respect and support of legitimate practitioners . . . We
are going to require they share information on their books and their financial
situation.‖
The former Liberal government established the Canadian Society of Immigration
Consultants (CSIC) in 2004 as a self-governing body responsible for the professional
development of the consulting industry and as a disciplinary watchdog of the 6,000
consultants practising in Canada at the time. (Just 2,000 people joined initially and
the number is now down to 1,500.)
However, the regulator has been engulfed in controversy since it began, as revealed
in a 2007 Star investigative series that exposed how unregistered and unscrupulous
consultants continue to take advantage of vulnerable immigration applicants.
―People end up with these false promises of thinking that consultants, registered or
with no track record, can get them into Canada,‖ Kenney said. ―As the Toronto Star
has uncovered in a number of exposés and stories, this is an industry that is
operating in some respect like the Wild West. It is time to bring in some real
meaningful enforcement and regulations with teeth.‖
12
Through the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, as reported in the Monday
Star, Kenney said Ottawa will make it a criminal offence to offer immigration services
without being a registered consultant – a scheme to rein in so-called ―ghost
consultants,‖ who are paid to offer advice, sometimes fraudulent and undelivered.
He said the government will issue a ―notice of intent‖ in Friday’s Canada Gazette
asking interested groups to apply to take over the job of regulating immigration
consultants in an attempt to keep a closer watch on the conduct of licensed
consultants.
―What we are announcing is our intention to receive applications for organizations to
become the designated regulated body. To be consistent with our legal obligations
and administrative fairness, CSIC will be able to apply, but we are opening the
process to others,‖ said Kenney.
In 2008, a parliamentary standing committee conducted a national consultation on
the issue of consultants. The complaints it received against CSIC included:
The membership exam was prepared and marked in a ―questionable‖ way.
Its board decision-making lacked transparency and was not conducted
democratically.
The board of directors was not accountable to anyone.
Compensation of, and spending by, board members was extravagant, ill-
advised and unaccounted for.
Board members had a conflict in that they created and served on the board of
a related for-profit corporation that provided education credits to member
consultants.
Its rules of professional conduct were amended to make it a professional
offence to ―undermine‖ CSIC, effectively silencing dissent against the board.
Over the years, an industry advocacy group, the Canadian Association of
Professional Immigration Consultants and its members have filed three separate
lawsuits against CSIC on different issues from board elections to a ―gag order‖ that it
imposed on its members.
In a recent news release responding to criticisms against its governance, CSIC’s
current board chair Nigel Thomson said the public has been misinformed.
―Despite what other groups seem to think, CSIC is not the problem,‖ he maintained.
―Unaccredited ghost agents are the problem, and all this rhetoric only serves to
distract media, decision-makers and the public from this critical issue.‖
13
Human trafficking bill passes Senate
By TAMARA CHERRY, TORONTO SUN
Last Updated: June 17, 2010
A private members' bill calling for mandatory minimum sentences for child traffickers passed through
its final hurdle Thursday.
Bill C-268, which was introduced by Winnipeg MP Joy Smith, was in front of the Senate since passing
through third reading at the House of Commons in October.
After hearing from several human trafficking experts, including a handful of victims, and hours of
debate, the Senate passed the bill Thursday afternoon.
Introduced in January 2009, the bill called for mandatory five-year sentences for those convicted of
trafficking minors.
In a country that is several strides behind other first-world nations in addressing slavery, this was
Smith's effort to catch up.
"It's been a long, lonely journey and it's been one that's been along the way, kind of scary," said Smith,
who has worked relentlessly to bring awareness about human trafficking to the forefront in Canada. "I
found out that they (victims of trafficking) were the voiceless people.
They had nobody to go to. They were embarrassed. They were victimized. They were just treated in a
subhuman way," she said.
Smith, whose Mountie son first introduced her to Canada's world of sex trafficking, says her bill is just
one piece of the puzzle.
"It's been brought up to the forefront and now, there has to be an awareness both at the provincial and
federal level that this is happening right under the public eye," Smith said. "This coordination has to
happen to ensure that, number one, the laws are put in place to arrest and make sure that these
perpetrators stay away from their victims, and number two, there has to be, in my opinion, the
rehabilitation piece, where victims are counseled, where they're helped to get a new education, get
jobs and helped to get out of this horrific crime."
The "rehabilitation piece" would ideally come from a national strategy to combat human trafficking.
In February 2007, Smith tabled a motion in the House of Commons to create that strategy. It passed
by unanimous vote, but more than three years later, there is still no strategy.
"We need to connect the dots because when a victim is rescued, they need counseling, they need very
basic things like food, clothing, shelter, protection," Smith said. "These are Canadian rights and both
the provincial and federal levels need to work very, very hard to ensure this happens," Smith said.
The U.S. State Department agrees.
Among the recommendations it gave for Canada in its annual Trafficking in Persons report released
earlier this week was, "strengthen coordination among national and provincial governments on law
enforcement and victim services."
University of British Columbia-based human trafficking expert Benjamin Perrin, who helped draft Bill C-
268, agreed the bill is only part of the solution.
Also needed are more judges who understand the crime and police officers who are willing to
recommend human trafficking charges, Perrin said.
14
Although human trafficking has been in the Criminal Code since 2005, it is still rarely filed in cases.
"Some cases are like charging someone with assault when they murder someone," Perrin said. "We
should be charging someone with the most serious charge that their conduct warrants."
If Imani Nakpangi had been convicted of human trafficking in the United States, he would have faced
at least 20 years in jail. In Canada, as the firs person to be convicted of such an offence, he was
handed a five-year term, three for trafficking a teenager and two for living off the avails of a teenaged
prostitute.
By the time he is released, he will have spent less time behind bars than he did trafficking a 15-year-
old girl.
"Some people didn't know about human trafficking, didn't believe it happened in Canada," Smith said
of the struggles in getting her bill passed through the Senate. "They certainly believe it now. The
second thing is some people don't believe perpetrators who buy and sell children should be put behind
bars. They just think that there's something in their past that happens, that they need to be
counselled."
Hundreds of private members' bills are introduced every session of Parliament but few make it through
the Senate.
According to Smith's office, this was the first private members' bill to be passed by Parliament in two
years.
This is the 15th private members' bill containing Criminal Code amendments to ever be passed by
Parliament and the fifth such bill to be passed in the last decade, according to Smith's office.
Border Services plans further changes in response to Dziekanski death
Neal Hall, Canwest News Service · Monday, Jun. 21, 2010
VANCOUVER — The Canada Border Services Agency, which is responsible for
the secure area of the Vancouver International Airport where Polish traveller
Robert Dziekanski became lost for many hours in 2007 before he died, plans to
make further changes in response to the Braidwood inquiry report.
Commissioner Thomas Braidwood, in his 459-page report released last Friday,
found it “appalling” that Dziekanski became “lost” for more than five hours in the
customs hall at the airport, a secure area controlled by the CBSA.
While Braidwood found the Vancouver Airport Authority has taken “exceptional
steps” in the aftermath of Dziekanski’s death to identify and remedy the
inadequacies of its policies, practices and procedures, Braidwood said he could
not be as complimentary of the CBSA because the changes the federal agency
took were “minor and few.”
He urged the CBSA to provide enough resources to ensure an arriving
international passengers doesn’t get lost again. Braidwood said passengers need
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to know where to go, how to get there and officers should assist arriving
passengers in their own language if they appear confused or distressed.
CBSA issued a statement responding to Braidwood’s report, saying it had made a
number of changes, including making a list of employees who speak languages
that could assist foreign passengers, improving the availability of interpretation
services for customs officers and increasing the number of security cameras.
The CBSA says it now has 94 cameras that record 24-hours-a-day, but it admitted
there is no designated person to monitor the cameras at all times.
“Preliminary perusal of the report indicates that there may still be a number of
areas of improvement for the CBSA to implement,” the CBSA statement said.
“The CBSA will thoroughly review commissioner Braidwood’s report and give
each recommendation serious consideration.”
The two-year Braidwood inquiry probed the events surrounding the tragic death
of Dziekanski, 40, who died at the airport after he was jolted five times with a
stun gun and had his hands handcuffed behind his back by four RCMP officers.
The officers responded to a 911 call about a possibly drunk man throwing around
furniture — however, an autopsy determined Dziekanski had no drugs or alcohol
in his system.
He was unable to find his mother, who waited for more than seven hours at the
airport but finally returned to her Kamloops, B.C., home when told by officials
that her son could not be found.
Officials had paged Dziekanski but he spoke no English and CBSA officials did
not feel he needed an interpreter.
Dziekanski’s mother could not enter the Customs Hall to look for her son because
it is inaccessible to the public.
Dziekanski, who had never been on a plane before, appeared exhausted in the
airport.
Braidwood found the Polish man was compliant with police, who were not
justified in using a Taser. The four officers deliberately misrepresented what took
place to justify their actions, Braidwood concluded.
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A special prosecutor, Richard Peck, has been appointed to review the Crown’s
decision not to charge the four officers.
The province also announced plans to establish within a year a civilian agency to
investigate police-related deaths and serious incident. The agency, to be called
the Independent Investigation Office, will investigate municipal police and
RCMP.
Watchdog faults Ottawa’s handling of illegal cigarettes
Gloria Galloway Wednesday, May 26, 2010 2:15 PM The Globe and Mail
A coalition of groups representing retailers, tobacco companies, border security agents, tax
opponents and police says the federal government has turned a blind eye to the problem of illegal
cigarettes.
The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco says more mobile border security is needed
between regular crossings to cut the huge influx of smuggled cigarettes from the United States.
Of particular concern is the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ont., which is the source of much
of the problem.
In addition, a coalition spokesman told reporters on Wednesday, the government must persuade
aboriginal leaders to help put an end to the smuggling.
―We are advocating very strongly that we need an effective border patrol,‖ said Ron Moran,
president of the Customs and Immigration Union, one of the coalition members.
The coalition gave the Harper government an overall grade of D for its efforts to stop illegal
cigarettes, a problem that puts tobacco in the hands of children, cuts profits for corner stores and
reduces the amount of tax collected by the federal and provincial governments.
Smuggling was curtailed several years ago when tobacco taxes were significantly reduced. But
the taxes have crept back up, making it once again profitable to bring cigarettes to Canada
illegally and to produce them in illegal factories in this country.
The coalition does not advocate cutting taxes again – although the group says taxes should be
harmonized across provinces and should not be increased. Rather it wants better security at the
borders and new laws that would allow provincial and municipal police officers to get tough with
smugglers.
And they want the government to deal with the politically difficult issue that it is aboriginals who
are responsible for much of this crime.
―The fact is there is a great awareness of where this crime is located and who is conducting some
of the activities,‖ said Kevin Gaudet, the head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, one of the
coalition members. ―Hopefully they can work together with aboriginal leadership.‖
The coalition gave the government an F for failing to deliver on a promised education campaign,
an F for failing to deal with contraband, a D for providing law enforcement resources, a C for
border security to deal with smuggling, an F for fiscal responsibility to prevent tax losses and a C
for the penalties it imposes for smuggling.
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Electronic chip export attempt draws charges
May 28, 2010 CBC News
The Canada Border Services Agency says two Metro Vancouver residents have been
charged with trying to export technology that might have military applications.
The Canada Border Services Agency says two Metro Vancouver residents have been
charged with trying to export technology that might have military applications.
The charges against came after border agents at Vancouver International Airport checked
two packages destined for Hong Kong in 2008 and found 5,100 electronic chips worth
$200,000.
The border agency says the chips are commercial or civilian products that also have a
significant military application and they require an export permit, which was lacking.
The agency says Canada has a responsibility to ensure that exported goods don't pose any
threats to international peace and security.
Steven de Jaray, 53, and Perienne de Jaray, 26, both of West Vancouver, were each
charged with one count of exporting goods or technology subject to export controls without
an export permit under the Export and Import Permits Act.
They also each face one count of failing to report commercial goods for export under the
Customs Act.
The Export and Import Permits Act charge carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in
prison and a fine in an amount set by the court.
The Customs Act charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $500,000
fine.
U.S. Lacks Basic Security for e-Passport Manufacturing
Key Tool for Border Security Made in High-Risk Locations
By John Solomon | June 14, 2010
The Center for Public Integrity
Last month, a gunman opened fire on an insurance building in the ancient Thai city of Ayutthaya,
piercing the glass windows of the People‘s Alliance for Democracy headquarters with 11
millimeter caliber bullets.
A few weeks earlier, bombs made from powerful plastic explosives were detonated near
transmission towers in the same city in an unsuccessful effort by terrorists to darken the
manufacturing district.
The violent episodes hardly registered in the United States. Few Americans have heard of
Ayutthaya, after all, or know of a reason to pay attention to it.
But there is a reason, one directly connected to America‘s security. The key electronic
components for millions of American e-Passports, the crown jewel of a new U.S. border security
system, have been put together inside a little-known factory in Ayutthaya for the past four years.
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Thai workers there assemble inlays that embed wireless transmitters and sophisticated computer
chips that store biometric and other personal information used by customs officials and border
guards to verify the identities of those who enter the United States.
The U.S. Government Printing Office, the agency charged with producing the new e-Passports,
has been warned repeatedly since 2006 by its own security officer that the Thai manufacturing
site posed a ―potential long term risk to the USG (U.S. government‘s) interests,‖ according to
inspection reports obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and ABC News.
The sweeping concerns ranged from poor police protection and political instability in Thailand to
difficulty in obtaining security background checks for factory workers, according to documents
and interviews.
GPO officials told the Center and ABC News they have been shifting the Thai assembly work into
the United States for more than a year and hope to have all of it stateside by summer‘s end.
But the problems in Thailand are just one of several serious vulnerabilities to the e-Passport
production system that were flagged recently by the agency‘s internal watchdog, according to a
review by the Center and ABC News.
GPO‘s inspector general found the agency lacks security plans and procedures for ensuring that
blank e-Passports — and their highly sought technologies — remain safe from terrorists, foreign
spies, counterfeiters and other bad actors as they wind through an unwieldy manufacturing
process that spans the globe and includes 60 different suppliers.
Despite years of concerns about the risks of stolen e-Passports, GPO ―did not have a formal,
agency-wide policy and related processes that would ensure security for the e-Passport supply
chain,‖ the inspector general concluded in a March 31 investigative audit obtained by the Center.
Officials Promise Corrective Actions
GPO officials say they are trying to address the problems raised by investigators and to date
have no evidence that e-Passports components have been stolen or cloned.
―I believe the Government Printing Office along with the Department of State are doing everything
necessary to maintain and secure the passport supply chain,‖ outgoing Public Printer Robert
Tapella said during a brief interview last week.
Added GPO‘s spokesman Gary Somerset, ―There has been no security breach in the electronic
passport supply chain.‖
While GPO officials insist they are taking corrective actions, the inspector general has not
received word that even a single one of his recommendations from the March report have been
completed, officials said. And the agency‘s lone job for overseeing the foreign supply chain has
been vacant for six months, officials acknowledged.
―We are following the proper rules and procedures to fill the job,‖ Tapella said when asked about
the hiring delay.
The discovery that the e-Passport production chain lacked basic protection procedures only
magnifies concerns in the security community that e-Passports could be cloned by bad actors
who obtained blank components.
Clark Kent Ervin, the former Homeland Security watchdog, said the GPO‘s approach to e-
Passport security was ‖extremely troubling‖ on several fronts.
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―This is just another example of the government‘s dragging its feet, year after year, not taking
action that they know they should take, in order to make us as safe as we possibly can be,‖ Ervin
said.
Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, U.S. officials began efforts to foil terrorists‘ attempts to
enter the United States with false travel documents by creating an electronic passport to replace
the traditional paper version used for decades. By 2003, officials had decided the new e-Passport
would include a small contactless computer chip embedded in the back cover of the passport
book with an antenna to wirelessly transmit data to customs and border employees at U.S. ports
of entry.
The chip stores the same data visually displayed on the photo page of the passport, and
additionally includes a digital photograph that can be employed used for biometric comparison
using digital facial recognition technology. The government began distributing limited e-Passports
in 2006 and by August 2007 it had scrapped all paper passports in favor of the new electronic
versions. More than 55 million e-Passports have been made in the first four years.
Congress was recently warned that large numbers of U.S. ports of entry still aren‘t using readers
that can verify travelers‘ identities with the biometric information stored electronically on the e-
Passports.
The government ―does not have the capability to fully verify the digital signatures because it has
not deployed e-passport readers to all of its ports of entry and it has not implemented the system
functionality necessary to perform the verification,‖ the Government Accountability Office reported
in January.
The combination of weak manufacturing security and slow deployment of machine readers leaves
the United States with a false sense that the e-Passport is providing additional border security,
experts said.
―They certainly are not realizing their full potential. The system could be rather stronger than it is,‖
said Ari Juels, director of RSA Laboratories and an expert in electronic identity verification. ―It will
never be foolproof but it certainly can be quite a bit stronger.‖
Weak security in the manufacturing supply chain could allow a criminal or terrorist to get blank
parts and clone an e-Passport for nefarious reasons, Juels said.
―Getting a hold of an inlay might help someone create an authentic looking copy,‖ he explained.
―The ability to create an authentic looking passport makes it easier to game the system.‖
The State Department‘s own e-Passport website acknowledges the risks. ―It is possible to
substitute the chip of an e-Passport with a fake chip storing the data copied from the chip of
another e-Passport,‖ State warns.
Glaring Security Vulnerabilities
Despite the well-known concerns, GPO had only one full-time employee dedicated to the security
of the e-Passport supply chain, and the agency‘s inspector general concluded he was
overwhelmed by ―the resource constraints inherent with being a one-person operation.‖
The lack of management attention and resources for security left an ―informal‖ and ―ad hoc‖
approach to security with some gaping holes, the report said. For instance, the inspector general
found:
GPO‘s security officer has conducted security assessments for only 11 of the 16 most
critical suppliers of e-Passport materials.
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The agency lacked a ―direct contractual relationship with 6 of the 16 key suppliers‖ and
therefore had ―no specific legal rights to review, authorize the subcontracting of, and
inspect the operations of companies that provide critical components for the e‐Passport,
including two companies considered to be single points of failure in the supply chain.‖
Six of the 10 e‐Passport supplier contracts reviewed did not contain security plans or
security‐related requirements.
The inspector general was particularly concerned that the lack of supply chain security left the
United States vulnerable to potential interruptions of the e-Passport supply if even one of its key
players was disabled by an attack, political unrest or natural disaster.
He also found that GPO gave misleading assurances in the past to Congress that its
manufacturing process was fortified..
For instance, after lawmakers were surprised by a Washington Times report in early 2008 that
some suppliers and contractors for the e-Passports were located overseas, the GPO declared in
an April 9, 2008 letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the agency had
―taken all reasonable steps to assure that the production of and the supply chain for e‐Passports
is secure.‖ Specifically, the agency insisted it had conducted top-of-the-line security audits.
The inspector general found those assurances to be false. ―We were unable to find any
documented evidence of the formal e‐Passport supply chain audit (security assessment)
process noted by the Agency,‖ the inspector general stated flatly in the March report.
Somerset, the spokesman, said GPO and State Department officials were satisfied at the time of
the letter with their security auditing and did not intend to mislead lawmakers.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.)Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., the chairman of that House committee
back in 2008 when the assurances were given, said in an interview that the subsequent
revelations show GPO officials were ―not very truthful‖ and have allowed serious security
vulnerabilities to persist.
―This is enough to concern me about the truthfulness and integrity of the leadership at the
Government Printing Office,‖ Dingell said in an interview Monday.
―We have a situation where our e-passports can be subverted, where we cannot assure
ourselves of the security of those passports. We cannot assure ourselves that the personal and
private information of our citizens that was given to the government in connection with our
passports is secure. And we have no way of knowing whether these security devices in the
passports are of a character which properly protects our people in their travels, protects the
security of the United States, ― he said.
Officials say they have begun assembling as many as 80 percent of the chip/radio antenna inlays
at a factory in Minnesota. Demand for U.S. passports has slowed enough during the recession
that 100 percent of the inlays can finally be produced stateside — and not in Thailand — as early
as July or August, they said.
Otherwise, officials said they agreed with nearly all the findings in the inspector general‘s report
and are taking corrective actions.
―The IG made recommendations to help GPO further improve security of its electronic passport
supply chain,‖ Somerset said. ―GPO management concurred with the recommendations and has
either already implemented or planned corrective actions.‖
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The threat of counterfeiting became all too real recently when British authorities revealed that
passports held by some of their citizens were ―cloned‖ by assassins who killed a Hamas leader in
the United Arab Emirates. While the cloned passports were not as sophisticated as the U.S. e-
Passports, the incident heightened sensitivities about the potential for cloning at a more
sophisticated level in the future.
Downplaying The Risks
State Department documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom
of Information Act show U.S. officials have been aware of the threat that e-Passports could be
cloned and their data intercepted by a tactic known as ―skimming― since 2003 when they began
preparing for the new technology. But those officials often have downplayed the risks compared
to their global counterparts.
―Concerns over chip copying were raised and the probability of such an event discussed,‖ said a
State Department memo from September 2003 that summarized discussions U.S. officials had
with their international counterparts in London about creating a worldwide network of electronic
passports.
That memo showed that authorities in other countries were far more worried than their U.S.
counterparts about such threats as counterfeiting, alteration, imposters, data compromises, data
skimming, and compromising the security keys that protected information on the new passports.
U.S. officials also initially opted against adding technology to prevent the e-Passport digital signal
from being intercepted or skimmed.
―The U.S. position presented is that the risk is low enough that advanced anti-skimming
techniques are not warranted at this time,‖ State officials wrote in September 2003.
That memo noted there was disagreement with the U.S. security assessment. ―Other countries
(most notably Germany) maintain that they need to address skimming before moving forward.
UK, Canada and The Netherlands also presented concerns about skimming,‖ it said.
After a second international meeting in fall 2003, U.S. officials began to strengthen their position
on data security. By the time e-Passports were officially being made in early 2007, U.S. officials
had decided to insert a small piece of foil near the RFID transmitter to limit the distance in which
its signal can be intercepted.
A person directly involved in the launch of the program, who spoke only on condition of
anonymity, said time pressures and a desire to save money were initial security roadblocks in the
development of the e-Passport, but asserted the challenges were overcome.
The Thailand Story
GPO officials said they ultimately outsourced the production of key components for the U.S. e-
Passport because no American companies competed during the bidding process.
―Some of the very best components and technologies for the electronic passport do not reside in
the United States,‖ Somerset said.
In the end, a German company, Infineon Technologies AG, was selected to be the main supplier
of the embedded computer chip. The German company then selected SMARTRAC N.V. in The
Netherlands as its subcontractor to perform some of the work at its plant in Thailand.
After workers there assemble the inlays, the inlays are shipped to Germany. Eventually, the full e-
Passport is assembled in the United States at the main GPO headquarters in Washington or at a
backup plant in Mississippi, officials said.
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Security documents obtained by the Center show U.S. officials had immediate concerns about
the SMARTRAC location in Thailand, a frequent site of civil unrest, after the work began in 2006
and 2007.
―Corruption exists at all levels‖ of Thai police and political leaders, security officials warned in
internal documents, and the sprawling manufacturing complex where the factory is located has a
weak security perimeter. In addition, ―local police response is marginal at best‖ officials said in the
documents.
Security inspectors raised concerns that the United States was relying on a single factory in a
historically instable country to do the work. ―The situation is further exacerbated by not having a
direct contractual relationship with SMARTRAC,‖ GPO‘s security officer wrote in a ―risk
assessment‖ of the Thai plant after his team and State Department diplomatic security officials
visited the site in 2006 and 2007.
The GPO security office flagged the Thailand location as a ―medium to high‖ risk and urged that
GPO ―exert as much influence as possible … to have all of their subcontractor inlay production
moved to the U.S.‖
―Aside from being a single point of failure, much additional risk is at play because this company is
located in Thailand where the political environment could lead to a destabilization of the
government,‖ one security report warned.
Over the last several weeks, that prediction has come true as ―red shirt‖ protesters in Thailand
have violently clashed with soldiers and police, creating a climate of fear, chaos and instability in
Bangkok, as well as in Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya, which lies 50 miles north of Bangkok, has a
population of about 60,000.
The security assessments showed SMARTRAC made efforts to address all U.S. concerns and
tighten its physical security at the Thai plant over the years, but concerns remained.
―At present, this is a potential long-term risk to the USG interests,‖ one of the security reports
stated, noting that many of the employees who worked at the Ayutthaya plant were not subject to
full security clearances.
―Generally, the production personnel are not employees of the company,‖ the assessment
warned. ―The Thai culture is such that the interrogative nature of the clearance process would be
viewed as personally invasive.‖
A later report renewed that and other concerns while praising the company for making
―substantial‖ security upgrades elsewhere. Still, its location remained a major issue.
―The industrial park does not provide any perimeter security or access security and it is therefore
incumbent on each company to provide its own private security firm to control access and
respond to alarms during off hours. Local police response is marginal to nonexistent for this
location,‖ the risk assessment cautioned.
SMARTRAC said in a statement to the Center that its plant in Thailand passed a German security
review that is ―one of the strictest independent security certification processes‖ in the world and
that the plant‘s employees ―undergo a background check to assure that highest security
standards.‖
The company said it could not divulge the other security measures it took ―due to the sensitivity of
government projects and the manufacturing of high security products,‖ but said the recent
violence in Thailand did not affect the plant‘s operations.
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―Production and security standards in the security certified environment were running according
to the established standards,‖ it said.
An ABC News crew that traveled to Thailand found the SMARTRAC factory located in an open
industrial park whose entry lacks any security beyond a speed bump.
The e-Passport site is located at the end of a long cul-de sac and consists of two buildings. Each
facility has a perimeter fence roughly six feet in height, and guards manually open and close
gates for vehicles to enter.
Officials told ABC News that all e-Passport materials were moved in armored vehicles, but the
crew saw only small white pickup trucks loading and unloading materials from the facility, which
boasts several video cameras on the exterior of the building.
Two or three times a day, shift changes bring double-decker buses inside the gates. The buses
load and unload workers, who flash picture ID‘s to enter the grounds.
Robert Sheridan, a former investigator in the GPO inspector general‘s office and a retired
Customs Service agent, said the decision to allow e-Passport work inside Thailand was part of a
―continual lapse of tighter security.‖ The situation could easily have been avoided if U.S. officials
simply went to American manufacturers and asked them to make the parts even though they
didn‘t bid on the original contracts, he said.
The decision to let the work remain in Ayutthaya for four years was strikingly risky, he said,
especially given that al-Qaida and other extremist groups have operated inside Thailand amidst
its frequent political instability. For instance, the al-Qaida leader Hambali was captured in
Ayutthaya in 2003.
―If they can find a way to compromise this new e-Passport, they will,‖ Sheridan said.
After years of defending its foreign supply chain, the GPO‘s Tapella conceded in a speech in
February that the agency had learned some valuable lessons, including the need to ―reduce the
possibility of locating supply chain functions in politically unstable regions.‖
Obama to send troops to U.S.-Mexican border
By Stephen Dinan Washington Times Updated: 3:44 p.m. on Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The White House will send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and will
ask Congress for $500 million to boost border security, officials said Tuesday, as President
Obama tried to take control of the border security debate just as the Senate was about to take up
a much bigger deployment.
The president's decision left immigration rights groups furious and left those calling for better
border security unimpressed - "It's about one-fourth of what we need," said Sen. John McCain,
Arizona Republican - but it does refocus the national debate squarely on border security.
The troop deployment was announced by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona Democrat, and quickly
confirmed by senior Obama administration officials.
The president is seeking "a requirements-based, temporary utilization of up to 1,200 additional
National Guard troops to bridge longer-term enhancements in border protections and law
enforcement personnel," said National Security Advisor James L. Jones and Mr. Obama's
homeland security advisor, John O. Brennan, in a letter to Congress.
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Mr. Obama's decision was announced on the same day the president met with Senate
Republicans to beg them to work with him on a broader immigration bill that would legalize illegal
immigrants, giving them a path to citizenship. But senators said it was odd that Mr. Obama made
no mention of the troop deployment during the session, even though Mr. McCain and fellow
Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl have repeatedly called for National Guard troops and made the
case to him personally in the meeting.
Details of the deployment were sketchy, and it was unclear what the National Guard's specific
mission would be while on the border.
The decision puts Mr. Obama squarely in the footsteps of his predecessor, President George W.
Bush, who in 2006, just as the Senate was beginning an immigration overhaul debate,
announced his own deployment of National Guard forces to the border.
Mr. Bush sent National Guard troops to build fencing and other infrastructure and help the U.S.
Border Patrol with surveillance and support tasks, though they were not allowed to enforce
immigration laws. Mr. Bush called the troops a temporary measure to fill a gap while he boosted
the number of Border Patrol agents.
But the troops faced so many restrictions on their activities, including carrying weapons, that
some Border Patrol agents said they found themselves assigned to what they called "nanny
patrol," which amounted to protecting the National Guard troops.
The White House said Tuesday the new troops will "complement the strong security partnership
with Mexico."
In a statement Tuesday, the Mexican Embassy said it hopes the added force will stem southward
flows of firearms and funds as well.
"The government of Mexico trusts that this decision will help to channel additional U.S. resources
to enhance efforts to prevent the illegal flows of weapons and bulk cash into Mexico, which
provide organized crime with its firepower and its ability to corrupt," the embassy said.
The embassy also said it does not expect U.S. troops to be directly involved in immigration
enforcement.
Immigrant rights advocates said the deployment amounted to a one-upsmanship and called Mr.
Obama's move a mistake.
"Considering that crime and illegal border crossings in Arizona are both as low as they have been
in 30 years or so, it seems that the GOP Senate primary's escalating game of who is 'mas macho'
when it comes to immigrants is driving an inordinate amount of national policy," said Rep. Luis V.
Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat, who has taken a leadership role in trying to get a bill passed by
Congress.
Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a leading advocacy group, said Mr. Obama
went into his Capitol Hill meeting with Senate Republicans on Tuesday with a high ground appeal
for bipartisan cooperation, but ended up "giving in" to Mr. McCain and Mr. Kyl.
"Talk about one step forward and two steps back," Mr. Sharry said.
Immigration has proved to be an intractable issue for lawmakers in recent years. Efforts to pass
legalization bills failed in 2006 and 2007, despite backing from Mr. Bush. Some border security
measures also have passed, though they were later watered down.
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This year, Democratic leaders in the Senate have outlined a plan that would include a multistep
path to citizenship for noncriminal illegal immigrants now in the country, and rewrite the rules for
future immigrants. The plan also includes more funding for certain security functions, and would
bar illegal immigrants from gaining legal status until those benchmarks are met.
But Republicans said border security not legal reform must come first.
"How do you get 60 votes for a pathway to citizenship when the whole country is focused on
broken borders?" said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had been working
on a broad immigration bill with Senate Democrats but broke off those talks last month.
His colleagues have introduced several border security amendments to the emergency war-
spending bill now pending on the Senate floor, including the McCain-Kyl proposal to add 6,000
troops, with 3,000 of them going to Arizona.
"You don't need comprehensive reform to secure the border, but you do need to secure the
border to get comprehensive immigration reform," Mr. Kyl said on the Senate floor.
In their letter to Congress, Mr. Obama's advisers said there is no precedent for Congress
directing the president to deploy National Guard troops like that, and said such an extensive
deployment could hurt the Guard as it participates in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, will ask lawmakers to tack on $500 million to pay for his troop
deployment and to boost federal customs, drug and immigration authorities.
The decision to send National Guard troops to the border was announced less than a month after
Arizona enacted a law requiring police to check the legal status of those they encounter during
their duties who they have reasonable suspicion to be in the country illegally. Racial profiling is
specifically prohibited.
On Friday, a top federal immigration official warned that the federal government may not actually
collect and deport those caught under the new law.
In the closed-door meeting with Republicans on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said he had read the
Arizona law and still thought it has the potential to lead to civil rights violations.
But in Phoenix, Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer credited her signing of the controversial
new law for compelling Mr. Obama to act. Signing the law, Mrs. Brewer said in a statement,
"clearly ignited the talk of action in Washington for the people of Arizona and other border states."
Border Patrol union defends deadly force
Hits Mexico's 'grandstanding'
By Jerry Seper Washington Times 8:36 p.m., Sunday, June 13, 2010
The union that represents all 15,000 of the U.S. Border Patrol's non-supervisory personnel
accused the Mexican government of "grandstanding" and making "baseless accusations" against
a Border Patrol agent who fatally shot a 15-year-old illegal immigrant while under assault from
violent rock throwers.
The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), in a statement, said Mexican officials have wrongly
portrayed the unidentified agent as a racist and portrayed the "deceased criminal as an innocent
boy who had never done a thing wrong in his life."
26
"None of these statements have any merit," the NBPC said. "Mexico bears quite a bit of
responsibility whenever one of its citizens dies along the border due to its allowing criminal
organizations free rein and its refusal to police its northern border."
The NBPC said the incident occurred Tuesday, when Border Patrol agents were forced to defend
themselves and their fellow agents after they were assaulted at the U.S.-Mexico border by
several people armed with rocks.
The agent who shot the teenager was on foot along the Rio Grande when he came under attack
by rock throwers. He was a member of the agency's bike patrol.
"Border Patrol Agents are not trained, nor paid to withstand violent assaults without the ability to
defend themselves. Rocks are weapons and constitute deadly force," the NBPC said.
The statement said agents will respond in kind if confronted with deadly force.
"No agent wants to have to shoot another human being, but when an agent is assaulted and
fears for his life then his hand is forced," it said.
Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka, 15, was fatally shot near a railroad bridge along the Rio
Grande connecting Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. He was among a group of illegal
immigrants attempting to gain entry to the United States. Many in the group threw large rocks at
the agents attempting to stop them.
Just after the shooting, Mexican federal police arrived at the scene and, at gunpoint, ordered the
Border Patrol agents out of the area while onlookers on the Mexican side taunted the agents and
hurled rocks and firecrackers at them. An amateur video of the incident is now under review by
U.S. and Mexican authorities.
Under existing Department of Homeland Security policy, Border Patrol agents are allowed to use
lethal force against rock throwers.
More than 200 agents have been assaulted along the border since October, mostly with rocks,
and many of the agency's patrol vehicles have been fitted with steel bars and metal plates to
protect the agents. The vehicles are called "war wagons."
Violence against agents along the border, according to Homeland Security records, is up 31
percent this fiscal year.
The Mexican government condemned the shooting last week in a telephone call to Homeland
Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and some Mexican politicians have demanded that the
agent who fired the fatal shot be detained and extradited to Mexico to stand trial.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon said his government also was "worried" about what he called
"this surge of violence against Mexicans" along the border.
Several rank-and-file Border Patrol agents told The Washington Times that they were waiting to
see what support the agent involved in the El Paso shooting will get from the agency's leadership.
They noted that former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean were charged and
sentenced to lengthy prison terms for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he
fled back to Mexico.
Mr. Ramos, 37, received an 11-year prison sentence, and Mr. Compean, 28, a 12-year sentence
in October 2006 for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila in February 2005 when he was running from
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a van loaded with 743 pounds of marijuana near Fabens, Texas. The agents testified during their
trial that they thought Aldrete-Davila had a weapon.
Aldrete-Davila later pleaded guilty to smuggling a second load of marijuana into the United States
and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. On Jan. 19, 2008, President Bush commuted the
sentences of Mr. Ramos and Mr. Compean, ending their prison terms on March 20, 2009.
Former Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar, now deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, did nothing to publicly support Mr. Ramos or Mr. Compean — a lack of action
that earned him a unanimous 100-0 no-confidence vote by the NBPC national leadership.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called the shooting "extremely regrettable" and added that the
FBI had begun a preliminary investigation into the teenager's death.
The NBPC said that while the "loss of this teenager's life is regrettable, it is due solely to his
decision to pick up a rock and assault a United States Border Patrol Agent."
"We stand behind the actions of the agents who did their duty in El Paso, and are confident that
the investigation into his incident will justify their actions," it said.
Drug cartels smuggling illegals create security risk, officials say
By: Sara A. Carter National Security Correspondent The Washington Examiner June 8, 2010
Smuggling of potential terrorists across the border is evolving into a billion dollar industry for
Mexican drug cartels while posing a significant threat to the United States, according to federal
law enforcement officials.
That was echoed in a recent assessment by the U.S. military's Southern Command that found
drug cartels are taking advantage of a "largely unregulated" border to create security risk for the
United States.
"Of particular concern is the smuggling of criminal aliens and gang members who pose public
safety threats to communities throughout the border region and the country," said the Southern
Command report obtained by The Washington Examiner. "These individuals include hundreds of
undocumented aliens from special interest countries, primarily China, but also Afghanistan, Iran,
Iraq, and Pakistan."
Department of Homeland Security policy requires that many illegal immigrants from countries that
have been breeding grounds for anti-American sentiment, known as "special interest aliens," be
released unless there is specific evidence of threat. Most fail to appear for hearings.
"We don't always know who we have in custody," said a DHS official who asked not to be named.
"We still have a catch and release program, and we don't always know if those are good or bad
guys. It's difficult to coordinate with our Mexican counterparts, and many times we have no idea
who made it across with the aid of the cartels."
Rafael Lemaitre, senior spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection with DHS, said
"upon apprehension, DHS makes determinations on admissibility and custody of special interest
aliens on a case-by-case basis based on a variety of factors, including legal status, prior
criminality and intelligence."
In the first five years after Sept. 11, DHS reported a 41 percent increase in arrests of illegal
immigrants from countries known to have large populations of terrorists from al Qaeda or other
anti-U.S. groups. In 2008, the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics reported that federal law
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enforcement agencies detained 791,568 deportable aliens. According to the agency, 5,506 of
them were special interest aliens.
"Available reporting indicates that some alien smuggling organizations (ASOs) in Mexico
specialize in moving special-interest aliens into the United States," stated a February 2010
National Drug Threat Assessment by the Department of Justice.
The DOJ threat assessment said no known terrorists had been apprehended at the U.S. border in
the past five years. That did not surprise federal law enforcement agents and intelligence officers
interviewed by The Examiner. They pointed out that reports on foreign nationals with terrorist ties
caught at the border would not be made readily available to the public.
"As the cartels begin to realize the enormous amount of funding that's available in transporting
special interest aliens, they'll do more of it," said a military official with knowledge of cartel
operations. "We need to be mindful because this type of human smuggling is a definite threat to
security and human smuggling is a billion dollar industry."
The Examiner first reported in March on the apprehension of 23 Somali illegal aliens in Mexico
who were released in January by Mexican immigration officials. It was later discovered by U.S.
intelligence and Mexican authorities that one of the men was a member of the Somali terrorist
organization al Shabab, which has direct ties to al Qaeda. So far, the men have not been located.
In 2006, a federal report documented that a man who called himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was
apprehended by chance off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico. He
was just one of 165,000 persons from countries other than Mexico who were apprehended that
year. Of those, 650 were from special interest countries.
After a week of interrogations, the FBI discovered Salinas was really an Egyptian by the name of
Ayman Sulmane Kamal. He was taken into custody, and no further information about him has
been released by the federal government.
The Kamal case was an "example of getting lucky," a U.S. official said. "Just think, for every one
that is captured, maybe two or three people from special interest nations get through. We don't
know who they are or if they're planning anything -- we just keep hoping that we'll keep getting
lucky."
Homeland Security officials weigh more UAV border patrols
By Chris Strohm CongressDaily June 17, 2010
The Homeland Security Department is "seriously considering" expanding its arsenal of unmanned
drones to patrol the nation's borders and does not expect to have a comprehensive border
security assessment completed until the end of the year, a senior DHS official told lawmakers
Thursday.
The department is continuing to reassess the problem-plagued SBInet border security network of
computer-linked cameras, sensors and other technology after it experienced repeated technical
problems and schedule delays.
"We have frankly failed in delivering what was promised in the beginning," Mark Borkowski, the
program's executive director, told a joint hearing of two House Homeland Security panels on
Thursday. "So the question for us is, what do we do now?"
29
He said unmanned aerial vehicles were not included in the SBInet plans when they were
conceived but the department is now considering expanding its drone fleet to beef up border
security.
But a long-standing obstacle to deploying more aerial drones in U.S. civilian airspace has been
getting approval from the FAA, which must ensure the unmanned aircraft do not collide with
commercial aircraft and small private planes.
Last month, the FAA finally granted approval for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to begin
flying the Predator B drone from Arizona to west Texas along the southwest border with Mexico.
Drone flights had previously been limited to Arizona and some parts of New Mexico.
Customs and Border Protection now operates five Predator B drones, one of which is flying along
the northern border with Canada.
Borkowski did not offer a timeline for making a decision to buy more drones. Instead, he said the
department is conducting an assessment of two border areas where SBInet technology is being
used and expects it to be completed by the end of December.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano earlier this year froze funding for any expansion
of SBInet until the review is completed.
The government essentially does not know if it should be pursuing SBInet, even though more
than $1 billion has been spent on the program to date, said Randolph Hite, GAO's director of
information technology architecture and systems issues.
The department has shrunk its goals and requirements for SBInet, but GAO does not have
confidence that even those will be achieved, Hite said.
"As a result, it remains unclear whether the department's pursuit of SBInet is a cost effective
course of action, and if it is, that it will produce expected results on time and within budget," GAO
concluded in a report released Thursday.
The lack of a border security strategy also complicates efforts in Congress to pass an immigration
overhaul. Democrats and Republicans alike contend the nation's borders must be secured before
comprehensive immigration legislation can advance.
Homeland Security Management Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Christopher Carney, D-Pa., told
DHS officials during Thursday's hearing to give his panel its testing schedule for SBInet
technologies that remain in the scaled-back program and an assessment of best- and worst-case
timelines for achieving border security. Carney said he wants the information within a month.
Predator drone cleared to fly border in September
June 23, 2010 8:02 PM Jared Janes The Monitor (McAllen, TX)
An unmanned aerial vehicle will patrol the state‘s 1,200-mile border with Mexico and its coastal
areas beginning Sept. 1, members of the state‘s congressional delegation announced
Wednesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration cleared the surveillance aircraft to combat drug cartels and
human trafficking in Texas after determining the remotely operated aircraft posed no significant
safety concerns to heavy air traffic in the state, said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched the domestic UAV program in 2005 to support law
enforcement in policing illegal cross-border activity, but none of the six Predator B drones
conducted operations in Texas until earlier this month.
Because Texas accounts for most of the nation‘s 1,954-mile border with Mexico, Cuellar said,
getting the unmanned aircraft into the state‘s skies is critical to any border security strategy.
―These eyes in the skies will be able to find activity along the border and quickly divert personnel
to those areas,‖ Cuellar said. ―It‘s a smarter view of moving our resources around because you
can see it with a bird‘s-eye view of the sky.‖
CBP began flying a remotely piloted aircraft based in Arizona over a portion of West Texas earlier
this month after waiting since 2008 for approval.
The certificate of authorization approved by the FAA on Wednesday will allow CBP to proceed
with plans to start operating the unmanned aircraft in September from the Naval Air Station in
Corpus Christi.
The FAA‘s announcement comes only a month after Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Kay
Bailey Hutchison, Cuellar and other members of the state‘s border delegation asked FAA
Administrator Randolph Babbitt to expedite his agency‘s approval of the aircraft.
The FAA needs to implement a system that recognizes the growing significance of unmanned
aerial vehicles to homeland security and national defense, Cornyn said in a statement.
CBP officials say the Predator B drones, which can stay in the air for up to 20 hours, provide
critical intelligence information from attached cameras, sensors and radar systems to forces on
the ground.
Since 2005, Predator Bs supporting border security initiatives have assisted in the apprehension
of more than 4,000 undocumented immigrants and the seizure of more than 15,000 pounds of
marijuana. Only one Predator B drone will initially operate out of Corpus Christi, but Cuellar said
others could eventually be approved for flight.
More than $37 million to support two new UAVs was included in President Barack Obama‘s
request for $600 million to secure the Southwest border and fight drug trafficking.
The White House‘s request also includes $360 million to beef up the number of U.S. Border
Patrol and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents along the border, and an additional
$200 million for the U.S. Department of Justice to support Mexican law enforcement, grow the
number of federal attorneys and immigration judges and expand the ranks of federal law
enforcement officers in the region.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a speech Wednesday in Washington,
D.C., that her department has committed a mix of manpower, technology and infrastructure to
crack down on border-related smuggling and other crimes.
The UAVs are part of a comprehensive border security strategy, said Napolitano, who also called
for a ―Southwest Border Law Enforcement Compact‖ that allows police officers from across the
nation to be detailed to border law enforcement agencies.
―These types of flights aren‘t useful everywhere, but in some places they are part of the right mix
of infrastructure, manpower and technology that can improve border security,‖ she said. ―This is
the case for parts of the Texas border, and we plan to move forward with using this technology
there.‖
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Terrorists crossing AZ border into U.S.?
Posted: 06/21/2010 By: Steve Irvin
PINAL COUNTY, AZ - On a single day in April, in a special cell block deep inside the Pinal
County Jail, nearly 400 inmates sat awaiting trial or extradition after being detained trying to cross
the Arizona border from Mexico.
Only about half of them were actually from Mexico.
The cell block, owned by Pinal County, but contracted with the Department of Homeland Security,
is a way station in the immigration process, where inmates are held after they are detained by the
Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But it‘s where the inmates are from that causes concern for some critics and lawmakers. On that
one day in April, according to records obtained by ABC 15, Homeland Security officials were
holding inmates from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, and the Sudan.
―They‘re coming from all over,‖ Arizona Senator Jon Kyl said. ―And one wonders whether some of
them are coming in here to commit acts of terror.‖
Kyl has been tracking the problem since 2002, not long after the September 11 attacks. Since
that time, according to an investigation by the House Committee on Homeland Security,
intelligence officials have determined members of the terror group Hezbollah have already
infiltrated the U.S. by crossing at the southern border.
ICE officials told congressional investigators, undocumented immigrants were smuggled from the
Middle East to staging areas in Central and South America, before being smuggled into the U.S.
The report says officials are also concerned about Venezuela emerging as a terrorist ―hub,‖ with
the government there issuing travel documents that can be used to obtain a U.S. visa.
Border patrol agents have also recovered military-style patches on clothing near the border. One
patch contains the word ―martyr‖ in Arabic. Another depicts a plane appearing to fly into sky
scrapers.
In 2009, according to Homeland Security documents obtained by ABC 15, ICE officials detained
45,279 undocumented immigrants classified as OTM. While the vast majority were from other
Central American countries like El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, officials also arrested 10
undocumented immigrants from Iran, 10 from Iraq, six from Lebanon and 19 from Pakistan.
Through May of this year, officials had detained more than 25,000 OTM border crossers.
Officials interviewed for this story expressed frustration, because U.S. intelligence officials have
known for the better part of a decade about terror groups‘ willingness to smuggle people across
the southern border, yet little has been done to substantially increase border security.
Officials also note the nightmarish scenario involved with returning detainees to their home
countries. The Mexican government won‘t accept a border crosser if they aren‘t from Mexico, and
many countries lack any diplomatic mechanism for repatriating a detainee.
―There‘s a procedure which takes place, where, in effect, if we can‘t send them back, they‘re let
go,‖ Senator Kyl said. ―Obviously that creates an illegal immigration problem, but it could… create
a problem of terrorism as well.‖
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Man Gets Probation In Plot To Smuggle Somalis into
U.S.
By IPT News | June 15, 2010
Anthony Joseph Tracy, who confessed to helping 272 Somalis travel illegally to the
United States through Cuba last year, has been sentenced to 4 months in prison for his
role in the scheme. With credit for time served, Tracy, who is thought to be cooperating
with law enforcement, was released from jail June 4 and placed on probation.
Tracy said some of the individuals who approached him were associated with the terror
organization al-Shabaab. Prosecutors said Tracy, (who converted to Islam while in prison
during the 1990s) failed a lie-detector test when he denied helping members of that Al
Qaeda-linked group.
Much of the court record in the case has been sealed or redacted. According to an
affidavit filed in U.S. District Court February 5, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
by (ICE) Special Agent Thomas Eyre, "Tracy stated that he knew that the final
destination for the Somalis for whom he obtained visas was the United States, with the
visas fraudulently obtained in Kenya being the first step in the process."
Tracy, an informant for ICE and another unidentified federal agency, has admitted that
after fraudulently obtaining the Cuban visas some of the Somalis traveled from Kenya to
Dubai to Moscow to Cuba to South America with a goal of entering the United
States. American officials have been unable to locate most of the Somalis involved in the
fraud scheme and do not know if any have entered the country.
Tracy departed the United States for Nairobi, Kenya on April 9, 2009. He returned to the
United States at JFK International Airport in New York on January 18, 2010 "and
voluntarily consented to be interviewed" by the FBI and ICE special agents and an
NYPD detective, according to Eyre's affidavit.
Tracy "said that he helped approximately 272 Somalis travel illegally to the United
States, using his business, Noor Services Limited. Tracy admitted that he would help the
aliens by providing and manufacturing the fake documents that are required to obtain
Cuban visas, such as bank statements reflecting residency in Kenya for approximately 6
months, hotel accommodations in Cuba, and round trip airline tickets," the affidavit
stated.
Tracy said he would charge between $100 and $1,000 for fraudulent supporting
documents for the Somalis. He would take the documents to contacts at the Cuban
Embassy in Kenya who would grant visas to enter that communist state.
According to the affidavit, Tracy stated in a subsequent interview "that after he arrived in
Kenya in April 2009, it took him a couple of weeks to establish his visa fraud business.
Tracy further stated that he helped 272 Somalis obtain fraudulent visas in Kenya between
May 2009 and December 2009, at a rate of approximately five to ten Somalis a week."
33
When police searched Tracy's email account, they found a January 14, 2010 e-mail from
Tracy to an acquaintance stating that "…I will be back in Kenya at the end of February,
so contact me then and i will assist you inshallah. i helped alot of Somalis and most are
good but there are some who are bad and I leave them to ALLAH…."
Obama requests $600 million for border security
The president's emergency funding request would pay for more Border Patrol agents,
drones, National Guard troops and more.
By Peter Nicholas Los Angeles Times 10:24 PM PDT, June 22, 2010
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles - The Obama administration formally asked
Congress on Tuesday for $600 million in emergency funds to hire another 1,000 Border Patrol
agents, acquire two drones and enhance security along the Southwest border.
The money would also pay for an additional 160 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents
and extra Border Patrol canine teams, according to a senior White House official who spoke on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco), President Obama said his request
"responds to urgent and essential needs" and asked that it be considered an emergency.
"These amendments would support efforts to secure the Southwest border and enhance federal
border protection, law enforcement and counter-narcotics activities," Obama wrote.
The president's request also would provide money for extra FBI task forces, Drug Enforcement
Administration agents, prosecutors and immigration judges. The 1,000 extra Border Patrol agents
would amount to a 5% staffing increase. The patrol has doubled in size since 2004, to 20,000.
Some of the money would go to help Mexican authorities, such as with ballistic and DNA
analysis, the White House official said. Border states are concerned that violence from Mexico's
drug war will spill into the United States.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who met with Obama last month after signing a law making it a state
crime to be in the country illegally, has called her state "the gateway to America for drug
trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and crime." She has blamed the federal government for failing to
secure the border and has lobbied for stepped-up law enforcement resources and unmanned
aircraft.
In March, Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was shot to death on his property, a crime authorities
suspect happened in an encounter with a drug smuggling scout. The president's proposal
includes 1,200 National Guard troops to boost border security, which the administration
announced last month. He said then that he would ask for an additional $500 million.
Tuesday's formal funding request includes another $100 million that would be redirected from a
different Homeland Security Department program. That money would be used to repair fences
and improve infrastructure along the border, the official said.
Homeland Security Department officials refused to comment about the border initiative Tuesday
night.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is scheduled to discuss the new strategy
Wednesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. She is
to be joined by National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton and Customs and Border Protection Deputy
Commissioner David Aguilar.
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Muslim extremists have penetrated the southern border.
Deroy Murdock
June 28, 2010 12:00 A.M.
National Review Online
While Americans march against Arizona’s new restrictions on unlawful immigration,
hundreds of illegal aliens from countries awash in Muslim terrorists tiptoe across the
U.S.-Mexican frontier.
According to the federal Enforcement Integrated Database, among the deportable aliens
apprehended along that border from FY 2009 through April 20, 2010 were two Syrians,
seven Sudanese, and 17 Iranians, all nationals from the three Islamic countries that the
U.S. government officially classifies as state sponsors of terrorism.
Federal authorities also track ―Special Interest Countries‖ from which terrorism could be
directed against America. Over the aforementioned period, 99 of those nations’ citizens
were nabbed on the border. They were: two Afghans, five Algerians, 13 Iraqis, ten
Lebanese, 22 Nigerians, 28 Pakistanis, two Saudis, 14 Somalis, and three Yemenis.
During FY 2007 and FY 2008, federal officials seized 319 people from these same
countries traversing America’s southwest border.
Some such characters were confined in Arizona, which recently adopted a controversial
law that lets cops ask the citizenship status of those they suspect of other possible
violations. Atlanta’s WSB-TV recently publicized an April 15, 2010, ―population
breakdown‖ of immigrants detained at a Florence, Ariz., facility. While 198 of the 395
males behind bars there were Mexican, 18 hailed from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Perhaps these gentlemen simply want to pursue the American dream. Worrisome signs
suggest, however, that some may have arrived via blistering, cactus-adorned deserts so
that they could blow Americans to smithereens.
Besides Iranian currency and Islamic prayer rugs, Texas Border Patrol agents have
discovered among the possessions of illegal immigrants an Arabic clothing patch that
reads ―martyr‖ and ―way to immortality‖ and another clothing patch that shows a jet
flying into a skyscraper.
―Members of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization, have already entered
the United States across our southwest border,‖ declares A Line in the Sand, a 2006 report
by the House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee, then chaired by Rep.
Michael McCaul (R., Texas).
―The same disturbing problem we identified four years ago still exists today,‖
Representative McCaul tells me. ―The number of undocumented aliens coming across our
southwest border from special-interest countries that have ties to terrorism continues to
increase, and unless we get serious about securing our borders, the terrorists will exploit
35
this region as a way to slip into our country undetected so they can network, radicalize,
and plot against us.‖
Rep. Sue Myrick (R – North Carolina) wrote Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano on June 23 and urged her to launch a task force to focus on Hezbollah’s
activities in and around the US/Mexican border.
Myrick’s letter makes for rather chilling reading:
Across states in the Southwest, well trained officials are beginning to notice the tattoos of
gang members in prisons are being written in Farsi. We have typically seen tattoos in
Arabic, but Farsi implies a Persian influence that can likely be traced back to Iran and its
proxy army, Hezbollah. . . .
Former intelligence officials have pointed to the terrain that makes up our border,
especially in the San Diego border sector, as a reason why drug cartels have been
partnering with Hezbollah. This terrain is very much like the areas around Israel’s
borders. As we well know, Hezbollah is extremely skilled in the construction of tunnels.
Israel has time and again found Hezbollah tunnels leading into Israel, some of which are
large enough to accommodate trucks. Likewise, these intelligence officials say that the
drug cartels, in an effort to dig larger and more effective tunnels are employing the
expertise of Hezbollah. . . .
Experts believe Iranian agents and members of Hezbollah are going to Venezuela to learn
Spanish. When somewhat fluent, they obtain false documents in hopes of crossing the US
border as Hispanics. If stopped by border agents when trying to cross, they try to pass off
as Mexican. Only well trained border agents can detect that their Spanish accent is
Venezuelan, not Mexican. If this is not detected they are merely sent back into Mexico
where they try to cross into the US again, rather than being detained for more
questioning. . . .
One high ranking Mexican Army officer, who asked not to be named for security reasons,
states they believe Hezbollah may be training the Mexican drug cartels’ enforcers in the
art of bomb making. This might lead to Israel-like car bombings of Mexican/USA border
personnel or National Guard units in the border regions. This militant threat could be
exacerbated by the current tensions between the US and Iran, since Iran directs
Hezbollah.
Also disturbing are the uninvited terrorists and terror suspects who were arrested after
entering America through our permeable underbelly.
Mahmoud Youssef Kourani pleaded guilty in March 2005 to providing material support
to terrorists. First, Kourani secured a visa by bribing a Mexican diplomat in Beirut. He
and another Middle Easterner then hired a Mexican guide to escort them into America.
Finally, Kourani settled into the Lebanese-immigrant community in Dearborn, Mich., and
raised cash for Hezbollah.
Miguel Alfonso Salinas was picked up in New Mexico near the international border in
36
2006. As Sara A. Carter reported in the June 8 Washington Examiner, one week of FBI
interrogation exposed Salinas as an Egyptian named Ayman Sulmane Kamal. Evidently,
he remains in federal custody.
Then–national intelligence director Mike McConnell said that in FY 2006 and FY 2007,
at least 30 potentially dangerous Iraqis were found trying to penetrate America via
Mexico. As McConnell told the El Paso Times: ―There are numerous situations where
people are alive today because we caught them.‖
The Department of Homeland Security issued an April 14, 2010, ―Intelligence Alert‖
regarding a possible border-crossing attempt by a Somali named Mohamed Ali. He is a
suspected member of al-Shabaab, a Somali-based al-Qaeda ally tied to the deadly attack
on American GIs in 1993’s notorious ―Blackhawk Down‖ incident in Mogadishu.
Captured in Brownsville, Texas, Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane, 24, pleaded not guilty in
San Antonio on May 14 to federal charges that he ―ran a large-scale smuggling
enterprise‖ designed to sneak East Africans through Mexico into Texas, including
―several AIAI-affiliated Somalis into the United States.‖ Al-Ittihad al-Islami is yet
another Muslim-extremist organization.
Daniel Joseph Maldonado, a convert to Islam, also has Somali ties. Maldonado, a.k.a.
Daniel Aljughaifi, was picked up in Kenya in 2007 after fleeing a Somali camp where he
received terrorist training. According to a February 13, 2007, criminal complaint signed
by FBI special agent Jeremiah George, Maldonado — a.k.a. Abu Mohammed — had ―no
problem‖ with the September 11 attacks. Maldonado was returned to Houston for
prosecution and is serving a ten-year federal prison sentence. As Rice University’s Joan
Neuhas Schaan told KHOU-TV: ―They had plans for him to come back to the United
States and recruit female suicide bombers.‖
All this involves only the bad guys who the authorities nailed. Those who have remained
undetected after crossing the U.S.-Mexican border to murder Americans are still — by
definition — invisible.
Judge limits DHS laptop border searches
by Declan McCullagh June 10, 2010 4:00 AM PDT
A federal judge has ruled that border agents cannot seize a traveler's laptop, keep in locked up
for months, and examine it for contraband files without a warrant half a year later.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California rejected the Obama
administration's argument that no warrant was necessary to look through the electronic files of an
American citizen who was returning home from a trip to South Korea.
"The court concludes that June search required a warrant," White ruled on June 2, referring to a
search of Andrew Hanson's computer that took place a year ago. Hanson arrived San Francisco
International Airport in January 2009.
The Justice Department invoked a novel argument--which White dubbed "unpersuasive"--
claiming that while Hanson was able to enter the country, his laptop remained in a kind of legal
37
limbo where the Bill of Rights did not apply. (The Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant
for searches.)
"Until merchandise has cleared customs, it may not enter the United States," assistant U.S.
attorney Owen Martikan argued. "The laptop never cleared customs and was maintained in
government custody until it was searched..."
This is not exactly a new dispute: two years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's
Customs and Border Protection announced http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10004646-
38.html that it reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time any laptops that are taken
across the border.
Last year, the department reiterated http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320116-38.html that
claim, saying laptops and electronic gadgetry can still be seized and held indefinitely. There's no
requirement that they be returned to their owners after even six months or a year has passed,
though supervisory approval is required if they're held for more than 15 days. The complete
contents of a hard drive or memory card can be perused at length for evidence of lawbreaking of
any kind, even if it's underpaying taxes or not paying parking tickets.
In response, Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, introduced http://news.cnet.com/8301-
13578_3-10055020-38.html a bill that would require border agents to obtain a warrant or court
order to hold such a device for more than 24 hours.
Customs agents say that after Hanson was randomly selected for a secondary baggage
examination, he became nervous. That led Customs agent Sheryl Edwards to ask for an
examination of Hanson's laptop, a digital camera with memory card, two CD-ROMs, and two
DVDs.
That examination, customs agents say, showed one incriminating photograph: an adolescent girl
covered with mud, standing on a beach, and not wearing any clothes. Edwards concluded that
the image was illegal; Hanson was charged with transportation and possession of child
pornography in September 2009. He has pleaded not guilty.
For his part, Eric Chase, an attorney representing Hanson, acknowledged that an immediate
search conducted at the border without a warrant is permissible. But police perusal of a hard
drive six months later definitely is not, he said when asking the court to toss out the results of the
June 2009 search.
"As applied to border searches generally, agents, after taking their permissible look while at the
border crossing itself, would be free to 'detain' electronic devices and conduct further
examinations whenever and wherever they pleased as justified solely because their 'peek'
exposed the computer's contents to law enforcement," Chase wrote.
Customs agents also searched Hanson's laptop three times in February 2009, with the first
search taking place about a week after he entered the country and turning up no evidence of child
pornography. The second and third searches allegedly did. White allowed the results of those
searches to be used as evidence, saying they were "justified as an extended border search
supported by reasonable suspicion."
A 2006 Police Blotter article reported that the Ninth Circuit, which sets precedents that are
binding on San Francisco federal courts, ruled that random searches of laptops at the border
without a search warrant is permissible. But the Ninth Circuit did not address what happens if the
search takes place a month or half a year later.
Excerpt from court ruling:
38
The government argues that the February search was justified as an extended border search
supported by reasonable suspicion...In contrast to a search conducted at the border, or its
functional equivalent, an extended border search must be supported by "'reasonable suspicion'
that the subject of the search was involved in criminal activity, rather than simply mere suspicion
or no suspicion." In order to determine whether the search was supported by reasonable
suspicion, the court examines the totality of the circumstances, such as the time and distance
elapsed, whether there was a lapse in surveillance, and the diligence of law enforcement.
Because the agents did not find contraband while the laptop was located at the border and, in
light of the time and distance that elapsed before the search continued, the court concluded that
the search should be analyzed as an extended border search. Given the passage of time
between the January and February searches and the fact that the February search was not
conduct(ed) at the border, or its functional equivalent, the court concludes that the February
search should be analyzed under the extended border search doctrine and must be justified by
reasonable suspicion.
When the court examines the totality of the circumstances, including Officer Edwards' description
of the Image, her observations that Hanson appeared nervous, the discovery of the condoms and
the male-enhancement pills, and Hanson's statement that he had been working with children, the
court concludes that the government has met its burden to show the February search was
supported by reasonable suspicion. Accordingly, Hanson's motion is DENIED IN PART on this
basis...
The government also argues that because Officer Edwards properly seized the laptop, and
because the laptop remained in law enforcement custody, she was entitled to conduct a more
thorough search at a later time. However, the cases on which the government relies for this
argument address the right to conduct a more thorough search of a container as a search
incident to a valid arrest, another recognized exception to the warrant requirement... Hanson was
not arrested on January 27, 2009, and for that reason the court finds the government's reliance
on the "search incident to a valid arrest" line of cases to be inapposite. Accordingly, because the
court concludes that June search required a warrant, and because it is undisputed that the search
was conducted without a warrant, Hanson's motion is GRANTED IN PART on this basis.
Do You Take This Immigrant?
By NINA BERNSTEIN New York Times June 13, 2010
THE retired mechanic from Michigan looked shell-shocked beside his bride, a classical pianist
from Moscow who clutched the printed e-mail exchanges of their Internet romance. Young
newlyweds from Long Island, still recovering from their reception for 600 guests the previous
weekend, faltered as their lawyer quizzed them on the details of their City Hall ceremony four
months before. A Manhattan woman bickered with her Turkish spouse about the kinds of
questions they had been warned to expect.
Did they know the color of each other‘s toothbrush? The pattern of the bathroom tile? What had
they done last New Year‘s? And were they ready to answer far more intimate queries from a
government official hunting for signs their marriage was fake?
―Embarrassing questions,‖ explained the Manhattanite, Lindsay Garvy-Yeguf, 28, the butterfly
tattoo on her foot growing jittery, as her husband, Gunes Yeguf, 31, turned paler in his dark suit.
―They might ask you about your sex life.‖
These three were among dozens of couples inside federal immigration headquarters in
Manhattan one recent Tuesday, seated in a crowded waiting room where posters exhorted
everyone to ―Celebrate Citizenship, Celebrate America.‖
39
Having flunked their first interviews with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, they
had entered the mysterious world of the ―Stokes unit,‖ a uniquely New York variation on the
marriage interviews conducted nationwide whenever a citizen seeks a green card for a foreign
spouse. Named for a 1976 federal court settlement that gave couples, among other protections,
the right to bring a lawyer to a second, recorded interview if their first one raised suspicions of
fraud, the Stokes unit recently doubled its staff to 22 officers.
It is a story line familiar from pop culture: ―The Proposal‖ last year, ―Green Card‖ in 1990. And
while the authorities do not question the validity of the marriage of Faisal Shahzad, the failed
Times Square bomber, his arrest last month did renew questions about the process of
scrutinizing spousal green-card petitions. Nationwide, the number of such petitions denied for
fraud is tiny: 506 of the 241,154 filed by citizens in the last fiscal year, or two-tenths of 1 percent
(an additional 7 percent were denied on other grounds, like failing to show up for an interview).
Some critics contend that the low numbers simply show the system is easily fooled, while others
say that exaggerated estimates of marriage fraud over the years have created a bureaucratic
monster, thwarting legitimate, if unconventional, couples and spurring unconstitutional intrusion
into their lives.
In some parts of the country, the authorities stage dawn bed checks. ―Someone shows up at your
house with a badge and a gun, unannounced,‖ said Laura Lichter, an immigration lawyer in
Denver. ― ‗Hi, we‘re here from immigration. Do you mind if we come in to look and see if two
towels are wet?‘ ‖
While Stokes makes such home visits off-limits in New York State, lawyers and immigrant
advocates complain that, at its worst, the process is a Kafkaesque version of ―The Newlywed
Game,‖ with dire consequences: those who fail can be put on a path to deportation. Couples‘
futures together depend on proving separately to a skeptical bureaucrat that, as the law states,
they did not marry ―solely‖ for a green card. (Passing the interviews simply makes a foreign
spouse eligible for a green card; getting one requires a separate application and security
clearance.)
In the modern jambalaya of online dating, arranged weddings, bicoastal relationships, open
marriages and serial divorce, a bona fide union can be harder than ever to discern, leaving lovers
who are unable to produce a land-line telephone bill facing questions about birth control. That
Tuesday in the Stokes unit, one couple volunteered that the wife was eight weeks pregnant only
to have the husband be asked: ―Is it yours?‖
―The latitude that officers have is broad, and one that has to be exercised with a lot of care,‖ said
Andrea Quarantillo, the immigration agency‘s district director for New York. ―Is it perfect? No. It‘s
judgmental.‖
According to an agency worksheet that was recently leaked online, red flags include ―unusual
cultural differences,‖ a large age discrepancy, an ―unusual‖ number of children and a citizen with
meager means. Daniel Lundy, an immigration lawyer, said the boxes on the worksheet ―pretty
much invite racial profiling and other stereotypes.‖
―You could be married 50 years and still find it difficult to pass,‖ Mr. Lundy said of the Stokes
process.
The unit‘s lore is worthy of its own reality TV series — sham couples caught red-handed, yes, but
also quirky ones whose authenticity surprised everyone. The gay man who claimed he had
suddenly found his female soul mate (denied); the recovering alcoholic who had lost his memory
(approved); the man who volunteered that he had erectile dysfunction in an attempt to explain
why his mate did not know the location of his nine tattoos (unsuccessful); the elderly citizen who
lost an arm in a subway accident, but found happiness with a young Caribbean wife (successful).
40
―We can‘t impose our definition of marriage, especially being in New York,‖ said Maria Guerra, a
Stokes supervisor. ―We‘ve seen it all.‖
AN officer looked out on the waiting room, trying to read body language. Were some couples over
the top, snuggling and holding hands? Did some seem like strangers?
In one corner were the newlyweds from Long Island: Ersan Kahyaoglu, 25, a robustly built
electrician, American born of Turkish descent, his rumpled shirt hanging out; and Dilek
Kahyaoglu, 21, Turkish but having lived in America for a decade, slim in her fitted black suit.
―I think it‘s impossible to know all the answers,‖ Mr. Kahyaoglu complained. ―I don‘t remember
what color her dress was at the civil ceremony. It was, like, different colors.‖
His wife prompted him, gently: ―Black and white, flowery.‖
―Who cooks?‖ asked their lawyer, Raj Jadega, practicing. ―I cook,‖ she said proudly.
―When was the last time you made dinner?‖ She looked blank.
―Then you don‘t cook,‖ he said.
It would have been funny if the stakes were not so grave. The couple was an automatic Stokes
referral because the wife was in deportation proceedings. She had come with her family on a
tourist visa at 11 and was 13 when their applications for green cards derailed because their first
―lawyer‖ was not one.
―The questions can be arbitrary and very detailed, and they‘re on the firing line right now,‖ Mr.
Jadega said, as the couple discussed the fine points of each other‘s favorite music and food
(Techno? More like rock. Chicken parmigiana or stuffed peppers? Chicken.) ―If a certain number
of questions are answered incorrectly,‖ he said, ―they can stop the interview right there.‖
It was hours later when the nervous groom emerged from his interview. The officer had mainly
asked ―basic stuff,‖ he said: ―birth dates, the type of house we live in, how much rent we pay —
maybe 25 questions.‖
But then: was his wife on birth control?
―I said no,‖ Mr. Kahyaoglu said. ―He said that could mean using condoms. I said, ‗No sir, we‘re not
using anything.‘ ‖
Separately, his wife was pressed about condom use, and said, ―Once in a while.‖
―How am I supposed to explain it to him?‖ the groom asked later. ― ‗Well, sometimes I feel like
reaching into the drawer by the bed — ‘?‖
Despite the discrepancy, they passed, and left rosy-cheeked, elated.
THE idea of marriage as a gateway for terrorists, and prosecutions of scandalous fake-marriage
rings, have periodically stirred alarm. In 1986, an estimate by the immigration agency that one in
three marriages were counterfeit spurred Congressional preoccupation and tough laws, but
turned out to be a gross exaggeration — it was later revised to 8 percent.
An agency audit of marriage fraud, conducted in 2007, has never been released. When The New
York Times filed a request for such data under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency
41
identified 656 relevant pages, but blacked out 655, saying the information would disclose the
deliberative process or law enforcement techniques. The Times has appealed.
Agency officials said they could not provide New York statistics to compare with national
numbers, or even count what share of New York couples were referred to the Stokes unit,
because of a flawed computer system. Officials did agree to track results during two weeks in
April: 93 of the 114 couples interviewed were approved, or 81 percent. In addition to the 21
interviewed couples whose denial was pending, 2 other marriages were deemed invalid because
prior divorces were flawed, and 22 couples were no-shows denied out of hand.
On that Tuesday, 5 of the 25 couples in the Stokes waiting room were headed to rejection
because of discrepancies, though none were among those The Times had interviewed
beforehand, and none were classified as fraudulent.
―We‘re not mind readers,‖ Ms. Guerra, the Stokes supervisor, said. ―If we lived with them for a
month, we might see they have a marriage. But if they get everything wrong in the interview, we
have to deny the case.‖
Stokes supervisors said that officers were trained to avoid questions about sex, but they cannot
stop X-rated answers, like one from the citizen wife who was asked what she did for her spouse‘s
birthday and began recounting their night together in explicit detail. Some couples offer
photographic evidence in the mistaken belief that the government requires proof of a marriage‘s
consummation.
―It‘s not something a normal couple would do,‖ Ms. Guerra said. ―They‘re overcompensating.‖
Occasionally the cubicle turns into a confessional, with one spouse revealing infidelities — even
children — unknown to the other. And though the criminal penalties for marriage fraud are up to
five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, a few citizens risk prosecution, withdraw their petition
and exit by a back door, leaving officers to break the news to the immigrant spouse.
Barbara Felska, a star of the Stokes unit, said her message to couples was: ―Do not fear Stokes if
your marriage is real — all you need is love!‖ But her method is to seek evidence of three aspects
of a marriage: legality (like valid divorce decrees); the commingling of assets and other joint
documentation (which young or poor couples often lack); and ―mental and emotional connection
through shared life experience.‖
The last is the most subjective, and Ms. Felska, 38, a naturalized citizen from Poland who won
the green card lottery, likes to dream up creative questions while doing dishes. Like: ―What piece
of jewelry means the most to your wife?‖
On this Tuesday she was examining the three-year marriage of Yusuf Mohammed and Sally
Bines. Mr. Mohammed, 42, a twice-divorced and Muslim taxi driver, had not seen his sons in
Ghana for seven years; his first American wife had dropped her petition for his green card. Ms.
Bines, 41, a Christian divorcée of Puerto Rican descent, was studying to be a teacher at Hostos
Community College, where they met.
They were ushered past a cubicle where an officer could be heard demanding, ―But are you the
bill-payer?‖ and again, louder, after some Spanish translation, ―So you‘re the bill-payer, yes or
no?‖
Ms. Felska has a lighter touch. She tells couples: ―I should never know more after interviewing
your husband or your wife for 45 minutes as a federal officer than you know about her or him after
two years of marriage.‖ The key moment, she finds, is when couples try to explain mismatched
answers.
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Indeed, Ms. Bines left that afternoon in a huff over one of her husband‘s responses. ―Some
jewelry he said he bought me that he didn‘t buy, he‘s going to buy me right now!‖ she announced,
as he tried to explain that he had always meant to buy her that necklace.
The very real quarrel helped convince Ms. Felska that the marriage was real, too.
ANOTHER union approved that day was the Internet romance between the retired mechanic,
Larry Christiansen, 66, and his Russian bride, Alla, 53, who has a Ph.D. in music and a daughter
at Baruch College.
Theirs was the kind of international courtship that Congress moved to regulate in 2005, requiring
that the citizen disclose any criminal record to the foreigner —the first such law to cast the
American husband as potential villain. It was a striking shift from 1986, when Congress passed
the Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments after hearings that harped on ―the devious foreign
husband trying to dupe some poor American citizen into marrying him,‖ said Kerry Abrams, a
legal scholar at the University of Virginia.
Mr. Christiansen, a white-haired man with an arthritic gait who was divorced in 2001 after 35
years of marriage, called his new union ―the best thing that ever happened in my life,‖ and was
shocked when ―they even asked me if she paid me to marry her!‖
The couple‘s lawyer, Irina Matiychenko, was pleased to report that when the officer reunited them
and asked, ―Who‘s the boss?‖ there was instant disagreement.
―He said, ‗I‘m the boss.‘ And she said, ‗No, you‘re not‘ ‖ — a good sign that she was not playing
the part of docile mail-order bride vulnerable to an abusive husband, Ms. Matiychenko explained.
Yes, there was a cultural gulf. ―I‘m basically a redneck and she‘s very sophisticated,‖ Mr.
Christiansen said. ―The princess marrying the frog.
―She‘s a sweetheart,‖ he added. ―That‘s what drew me to her. When she smiles, it‘s real.‖
NO lawyer helped Miguelina Montalvo Diaz, a 32-year-old mother from Yonkers, show that she
and her Dominican husband of six months had a life together. The letter summoning them listed
documents to bring, including a letter from their bank about joint accounts. So they quickly
opened a joint account.
Red flag! Documents dated close to the interview immediately raise suspicion. A Stokes officer
asked Ms. Diaz to explain. ―I didn‘t want to have a joint account,‖ Ms. Diaz said she protested.
―You guys asked for that!‖
But the couple emerged later arm-in-arm, giddy. Their separate answers to questions like ―Where
do you keep the hamper?‖ and ―Where do you keep the shoes?‖ were ―100 percent on target,‖
said Ms. Diaz, who was recently laid off from a department store, and describes her husband,
Ramon Emilio Diaz, who has four sons in the Dominican Republic, as a wonderful father to her 3-
year-old boy. ―We did good.‖
Still, they were not home free. The immigration officer had noticed that Mr. Diaz still had a
separate account, in addition to their joint one. ―They said he needs to put me on that account,‖
Ms. Diaz said, adding, ―My mom has been married 25 years and they don‘t have a joint account.‖
She was not about to argue. In the balance was the green card that would let Mr. Diaz easily visit
the Dominican Republic and return. And because they had been married less than two years, Mr.
Diaz could be granted only a ―conditional‖ green card. In two years, they could be back in the
Stokes waiting room, facing another round of personal questions from another stranger.
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American Man in Limbo on No-Fly List
By SCOTT SHANE New York Times June 16, 2010
WASHINGTON — As a 26-year-old Muslim American man who spent 18 months in Yemen
before heading home to Virginia in early May, Yahya Wehelie caught the attention of the F.B.I.
Agents stopped him while he was changing planes in Cairo, told him he was on the no-fly list and
questioned him about his contacts with another American in Yemen, one accused of joining Al
Qaeda and fatally shooting a hospital guard.
For six weeks, Mr. Wehelie has been in limbo in the Egyptian capital. He and his parents say he
has no radical views, despises Al Qaeda and merely wants to get home to complete his
education and get a job.
But after many hours of questioning by F.B.I. agents, he remains on the no-fly list. When he
offered to fly home handcuffed and flanked by air marshals, Mr. Wehelie said, F.B.I. agents
turned him down.
―The lady told me that Columbus sailed the ocean blue a long time ago when there were no
planes,‖ Mr. Wehelie said in a telephone interview from Cairo. ―I‘m an innocent American in exile,
and I have no way to get home.‖
Mr. Wehelie‘s predicament reflects the aggressive response of American counterterrorism
officials to recent close calls with major terrorist plots: last year‘s foiled plan to blow up the New
York City subway; the failed attempt to take down an airliner headed for Detroit on Dec. 25; and
the fizzled car bombing in Times Square on May 1. The case also illustrates the daunting
challenge, both for people like Mr. Wehelie and for their F.B.I. questioners, of proving that they
pose no security threat.
Accused after the Dec. 25 near-miss of failing to keep the would-be bomber off the plane to
Detroit, the government‘s Terrorist Screening Center has since doubled the no-fly list to 8,000
names, according to a counterterrorism official who discussed the closely held numbers on the
condition that he not be identified.
Counterterrorism officials have focused especially on Yemen, where the Dec. 25 bomber was
trained. Traditionally, Yemen has been a popular and inexpensive place for Americans and others
to study Arabic.
At least three Americans have been detained in recent weeks by the Yemeni authorities on
suspicion of terrorist connections, and civil liberties advocates have identified a half-dozen
Americans or legal United States residents on the no-fly list who are stranded abroad, most of
them after visiting Yemen.
On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based group that has
been working with Mr. Wehelie‘s family, wrote to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to protest
what its executive director, Nihad Awad, called ―apparently illegal pressure tactics‖ against
Muslim American travelers.
―If the F.B.I. wishes to question American citizens, they should be allowed to return to the United
States, where they will be able to maintain their constitutional rights free of threats or
intimidation,‖ Mr. Awad wrote.
Mr. Awad noted that Yahya Wehelie‘s younger brother, Yusuf, 19, who was stopped with him in
Cairo, faced a shorter but even more harrowing time in Egypt. Questioned first by the F.B.I.,
Yusuf was later held for three days by Egyptian security officers, blindfolded, chained to a wall
and roughed up before being allowed to travel home May 12, he said in an interview.
44
The American Civil Liberties Union says it has been contacted by a dozen people who say they
have been improperly placed on the no-fly list since December, half of them Americans abroad.
―For many of these Americans, placement on the no-fly list effectively amounts to banishment
from their country,‖ said Ben Wizner, a senior staff attorney with the A.C.L.U. He called such
treatment ―both unfair and unconstitutional.‖
An F.B.I. spokesman, Michael P. Kortan, said that as a matter of policy, the bureau did not
comment on who was on a watch list. But he said the recent plots showed the need ―to remain
vigilant and thoroughly investigate every lead.‖
―In conducting such investigations,‖ Mr. Kortan said, ―the F.B.I. is always careful to protect the
civil rights and privacy concerns of all Americans, including individuals in minority and ethnic
communities.‖
Advocacy groups say they are trying to help Americans stranded in Yemen, Egypt, Colombia and
Croatia, among other countries. At least one American, Raymond Earl Knaeble IV, who studied in
Yemen and is now in Colombia, was returned to Colombia by the Mexican authorities after he
sought to cross the border into the United States, the groups say.
The no-fly list gives the American authorities greater leverage in assessing travelers who are
under suspicion, because to reverse the flying ban many are willing to undergo hours of
questioning.
But sometimes the questioning concludes neither with criminal charges nor with permission to fly.
The Transportation Security Administration has a procedure allowing people to challenge their
watch list status in cases of mistaken identity or name mix-up, but Mr. Wehelie does not fit those
categories.
Mr. Wehelie was born and raised in the Virginia suburbs of Washington with his five siblings by
Abdirizak Wehelie, 58, and Shamsa Noor, 54, Somali immigrants who met in the United States
and married in 1981.
He graduated from Lake Braddock High School in Burke, Va., and briefly attended Norfolk State
University. He worked in a medical lab and held other jobs, but he was arrested for marijuana
possession and reckless driving, and his parents felt he was adrift, he said from Cairo.
In 2008, they insisted that he travel to Yemen, where they thought he could study Arabic, expand
his horizons and perhaps find a wife. ―That‘s the crazy thing — I was the one who made him go,‖
said his mother, Ms. Noor.
Mr. Wehelie studied computer science at Lebanese International University in Sana, the Yemeni
capital, he said, and last year he married a Somali woman in Yemen. And in the small American
expatriate community, he said, he met Sharif Mobley, the New Jersey man who was later
accused of joining Al Qaeda and killing a Yemeni guard. Mr. Wehelie said their handful of
encounters were brief and casual, the innocent small talk of two expatriates.
―It was just, ‗Hey, how you doing?‘ ‖ Mr. Wehelie said. The F.B.I.‘s suspicions are misplaced, he
said: ―I‘m not even a religious person. I hate Al Qaeda. I don‘t like anything that jeopardizes my
country and my family.‖
Evidently the F.B.I. is not convinced. The American authorities in Cairo canceled his passport and
issued a new one Sunday with the notation, ―valid only for return to the United States before Sept.
12, 2010,‖ Mr. Wehelie said. That is his goal, he said, but he has no idea how to get home.
45
Border patrol has bear of time stopping terrorists from north
By Sean Lengell Washington Times 8:23 p.m., Sunday, June 6, 2010
As if fighting terrorism weren't complicated enough, the United States has a new national security
threat to worry about: grizzly bears.
Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee say that environmental laws protecting
grizzlies and other wild animals along rural portions of the U.S.-Canada border have handcuffed
U.S. Border Patrol and Department of Homeland Security agents, potentially making it easier for
would-be terrorists to slip into the country.
Trucks and off-road vehicles are prohibited along much of the border in order to protect bears
moving between the two countries. But such laws make it difficult for agents to patrol these areas,
the lawmakers say.
Border agents can request access permission from the Interior Department and other federal land
agencies that control much of the border. But agents often must act quickly to deal with security
threats, making the permission process unfeasible, the Republicans say.
"Unfortunately, restrictive policies created and enforced by the Interior Department and federal
land managers are preventing the U.S. Border Patrol from providing the maximum amount of
security on some of our most vulnerable border areas," said Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, the top
Republican on the House's national parks, forests and public lands subcommittee.
"Until these policies are reversed, the safety and security of this country remain in jeopardy."
Mr. Bishop has sponsored legislation to exempt border agents from certain environmental
restrictions and "to ensure that [federal] agencies do not impede or restrict Border Patrol from
effectively doing their job to secure both the southern and northern border on public lands."
The bill also pertains to the U.S. border with Mexico, where private landowners complain that
people crossing illegally into the U.S. have caused environmental damage by leaving trash and
trampling on wildlife habitats.
But with national concerns over illegal border crossings focused mostly on the southern border,
House Republicans say, more attention is needed for the U.S.-Canada border, the world's
longest between two countries.
"The national security threat from the North is real," said a statement released by the Republicans
last month.
More than 1,000 miles of the northern U.S. border sits on rural federal land, which in most places
is delineated by nothing more than a ditch or a clear-cut through a forest. The border touches 13
states (excluding Alaska), 12 national parks and four American Indian reservations.
People entering the U.S. illegally along the northern border present distinctively different and in
some cases more technologically advanced threats, the Republicans say.
Most illegal border crossings on the U.S.-Mexico border are on foot, truck or all-terrain vehicle.
But along the western U.S.-Canada border, where public lands generally are remote and isolated,
helicopters and planes are routinely used for illegal entry and exit, creating "ideal taking off and
landing areas for criminals."
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in an October letter to Rep. Doc Hastings of
Washington, the House Natural Resources Committee's top Republican, said that Border Patrol
46
"is most willing to work in a creative and careful manner" along the Canada-Washington state
border. But she added that the area "must occasionally have some motorized presence in those
areas."
The National Border Patrol Council, a professional union representing more than 17,000 agents,
supports the bill.
The measure has about 50 co-sponsors - all Republicans. Although it's unlikely the Democrat-
controlled House will take up the bill, a spokesman for the committee's Republicans said the
group is courting Democratic co-sponsors.
Several environmental groups contacted for this article said they were unaware of the bill and
therefore declined to comment.
But the legislation hasn't escaped the attention of the Canadian media. The Calgary Herald, in a
May 30 editorial, said the proposed legislation was based on "unnecessary fears."
"There is absolutely no excuse for American politicians to be speaking of Canada in tones that
even mildly evoke the way they speak of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts," the editorial says.
"America the beautiful has sadly morphed into America the paranoid."
U.S. unveils broad crackdown on piracy, counterfeit goods
The government-wide effort includes adding 50 FBI agents to focus on intellectual
property infringement.
By Jennifer Martinez, Tribune Washington Bureau Los Angeles Times June 23, 2010
Reporting from Washington
The Obama administration unveiled a government-wide strategy Tuesday to crack down on
piracy and counterfeit goods, adding more than 50 FBI agents this year to tackle intellectual
property abuses.
With the ubiquity of the Internet, online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods on the Web are
growing rapidly across a range of industries, including entertainment, software and
pharmaceutical markets.
Vice President Joe Biden, who announced the new program, said that the problem costs
Americans jobs and that counterfeit goods threaten lives.
"Whether we're talking about fake drugs that hurt ... or knock-off car tires that fall apart at 65
miles per hour causing injury and death, counterfeits kill," Biden said at a White House meeting
that included Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.
The Intellectual Property Enforcement agency, an arm of the Office of Management and Budget,
will review current efforts to curb intellectual property infringement of U.S. goods abroad,
especially in China, said Victoria A. Espinel, the unit's coordinator.
Last year, 79% of fake goods seized by authorities came from China, according to a U.S.
Customs and Border Protection report.
The enforcement strategy outlined in a 61-page report released Tuesday contains more than 30
recommendations, including the establishment of an interagency committee dedicated to curbing
fake drugs and medical products.
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The report also calls for agencies to encourage foreign law enforcement to go after rogue
websites and to "increase the number of criminal enforcement actions" against intellectual
property violators.
"There's not an industry that hasn't been affected," said Mark Esper, executive vice president of
the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Esper lauded the enforcement strategy and warned that the "next victim out there is probably
going to be the e-books and the publishing industry."
The unveiling of the enforcement strategy was cheered by numerous trade groups, including the
Motion Picture Assn. of America and the Recording Industry Assn. of America. The U.S.
entertainment industry has been battered by the sale of pirated movies and illegal downloading of
music.
"This plan is an important step forward in combating intellectual property theft and protecting the
millions of jobs and businesses that rely so heavily on copyrights, patents and trademarks and
help drive the American economy," said Bob Pisano, the MPAA's president.
Royal Navy launches anti-sub war against drug cartels
The Royal Navy is preparing to conduct anti-submarine warfare
against drug cartels smuggling cocaine under the sea.
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Published: 8:00AM BST 29 May 2010
HMS Manchester, a Type 42 destroyer equipped with powerful sonar and an anti-
submarine helicopter, has left this week for the Caribbean to carry out counter narcotics
patrol as well as hurricane relief.
Drug runners have resorted to using small submarines, roughly the size of a large
minibus, as a heavier military presence has led to increased drug seizures.
The boats are thought to have been mostly former tourist underwater viewing submarines
that have been adapted for smuggling able to carry up to five tonnes of cocaine worth £60
million on the streets of Britain.
Rear Admiral Mark Anderson, commander of Fleet operations, said: ―There’s clear
evidence, not just intelligence, that they are trying to use submarines and have
successfully used certain submersibles and we suspect submarines to transport drugs.‖
He added: ―This is a hugely profitable business so they can buy some hugely expensive
assets. What they are buying is extraordinary.‖
The submarines are thought to be currently used along the Pacific coast smuggling into
mainland United States and could soon transfer to the Caribbean.
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Manchester is equipped with a Lynx helicopter that can carry depth charges and anti-
submarine Stingray torpedo. But the aircraft is more likely to be used to track a
submarine waiting for it to surface when the crew require air or need to recharge its
batteries.
The warship will also be accompanied by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Wave Ruler that
can carry the advanced Merlin anti-submarine warfare helicopter.
As well as ―go fast‖ boats and light aircraft the traffickers have introduced radar-evading
boats that have a very low water profile with only the wheel house sticking above the
water.
―We are starting to see traffickers using increasingly more exotic mean to get drugs
through,‖ the officer said at an MoD briefing yesterday.
With the South American drug barons’ income equivalent to Britain’s defence budget,
about £36 billion, the cost of smuggling equipment ―is not an issue‖.
One any given day in the Caribbean it is estimated that there are up to 30 tonnes of
cocaine is being transported.
More than 1,400 tonnes of the drug is smuggled across the Atlantic every year but despite
a sixfold increase in interceptions only 3 per cent (43 tonnes) was seized last year.
It is estimated that 20 tonnes of cocaine is enough to ―kill every school child and
pensioner in the UK‖
But with counter-narcotics currently the third priority after hurricane relief and military
training Admiral Anderson admitted it could be ―in the national interest to run a ruler
over it again.‖
Cuts to the Navy have forced it to have a presence in the Caribbean for only six months
of the year.
―We need some presence to push the problem ever harder into Caribbean traffickers,‖ the
officer said.
Mexican Navy Seizes 6 Fishing Boats Used to Traffic Drugs
June 2/2010 MEXICO CITY – The Mexican Navy Secretariat seized six fishing boats at the
port of Mazatlan in northwestern Sinaloa state because they allegedly were being used
to transport illegal drugs, the navy office reported Monday.
Last Saturday, Mexican marines found the six boats at the JR dock in the port, one of
the most important in the country and which in recent years has been used by drug
cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel, to traffic cocaine, the navy said in a communique.
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According to the investigation, the six vessels ―are being used for illicit activities‖ but the
navy did not specify which criminal organization owned or operated them.
The boats were at the port to undergo maintenance and were not registered, and just
one of them had ever been officially registered, the navy said, adding that no arrests
were made in the operation.
The fishing boats are being held in the 4th Naval Zone in Mazatlan, where they will
remain until the investigation is concluded, the document added. EFE
Mexican port captain jailed for alleged drug ties
By ALEXANDRA OLSON (AP) – May 27, 2010
MEXICO CITY — Mexican marines have arrested the captain of a major Pacific coast
port that has become a hot spot for the smuggling of methamphetamine precursor
chemicals, accusing him of drug trafficking ties.
Manzanillo port Captain Jorge Arturo Castaneda was the second top official to be
arrested for alleged drug links this week. On Tuesday, federal police arrested Cancun
Mayor Gregorio Sanchez for allegedly protecting two violent drug cartels.
The Mexican Navy said Castaneda was arrested Wednesday in a joint operation with the
organized crime unit of the federal Attorney General's Office. The statement said he was
suspected of ties to organized crime but gave no details.
Navy officials said there would be no further comment, and the Attorney General's Office
had no immediate information.
As captain, Castaneda was in charge of authorizing the arrival and departure of ships in
Manzanillo.
Security forces have made several major seizures of methamphetamine precursors in
Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, the two biggest ports on Mexico's Pacific coast.
In April, nearly 4 tons (3.6 metric tons) of ephedrine were seized in Manzanillo. Last
week, authorities seized 88 tons (80 metric tons) of ethyl phenyl acetate, also known as
phenylacetic acid in five shipping containers sent from China to Manzanillo. It was the
second seizure of its type this month in the port.
Drug traffickers have turned to phenylacetic acid for making methamphetamine since
Mexico effectively banned imports of another precursor, pseudoephedrine.
Corruption is a major impediment in Mexico's efforts to combat drug trafficking. Since
President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006, hundreds of officials have been
fired or arrested for allegedly protecting drug gangs, from municipal police officers to top
federal officials.
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There have also been fears that drug cartels may try to influence the country's July 4 state
and local elections, concern that was heightened with the arrest of Cancun's mayor, who
had taken a leave of absence to run for governor in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana
Roo.
On Thursday, Ricardo Najera, the spokesman for the federal Attorney General's Office,
said Sanchez had denied the drug trafficking, organized crime and money laundering
charges against him at his arraignment Wednesday night. The judge in the case will
decide by Saturday whether the evidence warrants ordering Sanchez to stand trial.
Sanchez's party claims the charges are a politically motivated attempt to knock him out of
the race, an accusation the government has denied.
Speaking during a visit to Canada, Calderon said Sanchez's arrest "in no way had any
political motive. I even regret that it could generate political tension, a possible
confrontation between political parties. I really regret it."
In the northern city of Piedras Negras, meanwhile, a soldier was killed and another
wounded when gunmen ambushed army troops inspecting flood-risk zones, the Defense
Department said Thursday.
Three gunmen in a car opened fire on the military patrol Wednesday in the city across the
border from Eagle Pass, Texas. The soldiers had been inspecting neighborhoods to
prepare for floods after several days of heavy rains.
Officials said soldiers captured the gunmen and seized 12 guns, including 10 assault
rifles, ammunition and bulletproof vests from the assailants — an arsenal typical of
Mexico's brutal drug cartels.
The statement did not say if the gunmen were affiliated with any particular gang.
Soldiers have increasingly come under attack in northeastern Mexico, where the Gulf
cartel is battling its former ally, the Zetas gang of hit men.
Mexican and U.S. officials said the Gulf cartel has aligned itself with the Sinaloa and La
Familia gangs seeking to wipe out the Zetas in the region.
The Defense Department also said a member of the Arturo Beltran Leyva cartel was
killed in a gunbattle with soldiers Wednesday in the northern city of Monterrey.
The agency identified the man as Sergio Adrian Martinez, a former state police officer
who was allegedly the leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel's operations in San Pedro Garza
Garcia, a wealthy suburb of Monterrey.
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Drug Sub Found in Ecuador
QUITO – June 13/2010 Drug enforcement agents found a homemade semi-
submersible boat apparently used to smuggle drugs and arrested four people,
Ecuadorian media reported.
The 15-meter (49-foot) vessel was discovered at a shrimp farm in El Oro, a province
in southern Ecuador, during a joint operation by two elite police units, Ecuavisa said.
The sub has the capacity to carry at least four tons of drugs and may have been built
to smuggle cocaine into Mexico and the United States.
Police have not commented on whether any drugs were found at the shrimp farm or
provided any further details about the operation, Ecuavisa said.
The custom-built semi-submersibles, similar to a submarine, operate with a significant
portion of their hulls below the waterline, making it difficult to detect them.
Colombian drug traffickers started using semi-submersibles in 1993. In that year,
Colombia‘s navy seized one of the vessels off Providencia Island in the Caribbean.
The semi-submersibles cannot dive like a normal submarine, but they are equipped
with a valve that, when opened by the operators, quickly floods and scuttles the
vessel, causing it and any drugs on board to quickly sink to an unrecoverable depth.
The crew then jumps overboard and, since no drugs are discovered, they avoid
prosecution. EFE
American Allegedly Involved in Hizbullah Smuggling
Plot Arrested . . . in Paraguay
by Mark Hosenball
For years, counterterrorism officials have expressed concern that a lawless corner of
Paraguay, known as the Tri-Border Area, was becoming a haven for Islamic terrorist
groups. The Lebanese-based, Iranian-supported Hizbullah movement was alleged to have
established a strong presence in the area, which borders Argentina and Brazil. Only days
after 9/11, Pentagon hardliners suggested in a secret memo that the U.S. should consider
attacking targets in Paraguay, in the hope that ripple effects would disrupt terror plots
elsewhere in the world. While cooler heads prevailed and such an operation was never
launched, new evidence of a possible terrorist presence in South America emerged this
week: Paraguayan authorities in the Tri-Border Area arrested a defendant in a major U.S.
prosecution of alleged Hizbullah supporters.
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A news report from the region said that Moussa Ali Hamdan had been arrested on
Tuesday in Ciudad del Este by agents of the Paraguayan affiliate of Interpol, following a
request from the American government. The arrest was confirmed by a U.S. Justice
Department official, who asked for anonymity when discussing an ongoing investigation.
A second Justice official described Hamdan as a naturalized U.S. citizen. The French
news agency AFP quoted Interpol’s representative in Paraguay, Jose Chena, as saying
that local authorities will likely decide in a few weeks if they will extradite Hamdan to
the United States.
Court files and a Justice Department press release allege that Hamdan was one of four
individuals indicted by federal officials in Philadelphia last November for conspiring to
provide material support to Hizbullah. (Six others were charged in the same indictment
with related crimes, including transporting stolen goods, trafficking in counterfeit goods,
and making false statements to federal authorities.) The indictment specifically alleged
that Hamdan played a key role in schemes to help provide financial support to the
militant Shiite movement by trafficking in bogus passports, counterfeit money, and fake
brand-name goods, including counterfeit Nike shoes and Mitchell & Ness sports jerseys.
The indictment, which can be read in full here, alleges that in 2008 Hamdan bought
purportedly stolen goods from an unnamed "cooperating witness." The purchased items
included 1,500 cell phones, 100 Sony PlayStations, and 50 laptop computers. The
indictment also alleges that Hamdan caused the cooperating witness to export purportedly
stolen goods overseas, including Honda CR-V SUVs to Beirut. Other defendants in the
case—but not Hamdan—were accused by prosecutors of conspiring to provide Hizbullah
with 1,200 Colt M-4 machine guns.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Philadelphia said that several of the
defendants in the case had been arrested and pleaded guilty. However, until his reported
detention in Paraguay this week, Hamdan had not been arrested in the case and thus had
never entered a plea, two Justice Department officials said.
U.S. officials have been concerned for years that Islamic militants might use the Tri-
Border Area as a base for activities that could threaten the U.S. In particular, officials
have been worried that it could be used as a staging point from which personnel or goods
could be smuggled overland via Mexico into the United States. However, there has been
little if any proof that any such smuggling, particularly of suspected terrorists, has
occurred. Earlier this year federal prosecutors in Miami indicted seven men on charges
involving the alleged illegal export of consumer-electronics goods to what authorities
described as a ―designated terrorist entity‖ in Ciudad del Este. The arrest there of
Hamdan suggests that some movement of people between the U.S. and the Tri-Border
region has been occurring.
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2. THE EU
United States and France Establish Arrangement to Interdict High-Risk
Travelers
Release Date: June 3, 2010 Office of the Press Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security
Washington, D.C. - Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today
announced that the United States and France have established an arrangement to implement the
Immigration Advisory Program (IAP)--which allows for the identification of high-risk travelers at
foreign airports before they board aircraft bound for the United States--at Paris' Charles De
Gaulle International Airport.
"Terrorism is a global threat that requires an international response," said Secretary Napolitano.
"This collaboration will enhance both the United States' and France's capabilities to protect our
immigration systems as well as the global aviation network from abuse by terrorists and
transnational criminals."
IAP allows specialized U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel posted in foreign
airports to utilize current targeting and passenger analysis information and/or an assessment of
passengers' documentation to identify high-risk persons bound for the United States and make
"no board" recommendations to carriers and host governments.
The arrangement--formalized over the weekend by DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy David
Heyman and French Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Mutually-
Supportive Development Eric Besson--will help combat the use of fraudulent travel documents,
prevent terrorists and other criminals from entering the United States, disrupt human smuggling
and strengthen cooperation between CBP and French officials. A formal signing of the IAP
arrangement will follow in August.
Secretary Napolitano signed a similar arrangement with Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez
Rubalcaba on July 1, 2009--implementing IAP at Madrid Barajas International Airport. DHS
currently has IAP arrangements with seven countries and operates at nine locations.
In January, Secretary Napolitano traveled to Toledo, Spain, to meet with her European
counterparts regarding ways to bolster international aviation security measures and standards.
The U.S.-E.U. joint declaration on aviation security that resulted from these meetings committed
the U.S. and its participating partners to enhancing channels for information sharing--including
the utilization and exchange of liaison officers such as the CBP personnel stationed abroad
through IAP.
Italy Navy Launches EU Operations Command
Center
By TOM KINGTON
Published: 25 May 2010 14:13
ROME - The Italian Navy has launched a new land-based command facility that will be
offered for use controlling European Union naval operations.
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Established at the Navy's fleet command center at Santa Rosa, north of Rome, the new
center has reached initial operating capability and will be fully operational in the first half of
2011, officials said.
The first EU-coordinated naval operation, Operation Atalanta, combating piracy off the coast
of Somalia, is being run from Northwood in the United Kingdom.
Germany has also set up facilities to coordinate an EU naval operation.
"An operation like Atalanta could now be hosted by Italy," one official said.
Pending operations could justify multiple headquarters, a second official said.
Italian naval planners say the Italian facilities could host a core multinational staff within five
days of the headquarters being designated to run an EU operation. A full multinational
complement would be reached within 20 days.
Once fully manned for an operation, the headquarters would have a head count of 141,
including 41 non-Italian personnel.
Likely missions could include separation of parties by force, stabilization, reconstruction and
military advice to third countries, conflict prevention, evacuations and humanitarian
operations assistance, an Italian naval document said.
The new headquarters will reach full operational capability when it moves into a new building
at Santa Rosa, which is also set to host Italian fleet command functions hitherto hosted in a
World War II bunker at Santa Rosa.
Slovenia votes 'yes' to border referendum deal with Croatia
Mon, Jun 07 2010 13:09 CET byThe Sofia Echo
Most Slovenians have backed the arbitration deal over their country's long-standing border
dispute with Croatia, the BBC reported on June 7 2010.
In November 2009, the governments of Slovenia and Croatia mutually agreed on a deal to end an
18-year-long border dispute by allowing an arbitration panel to decide on which country could
legitimately lay claim to controversial segments of the Slovenian-Croatian border, both on land
and sea, the report said.
The agreement paved the way for international arbitrators to help end the problem between the
two countries. The dispute in question involves the relatively small area of the Bay of Piran in the
Adriatic Sea, and dates back to the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991.
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Once the deal was ratified, a referendum was launched to let people decide whether to accept
that deal or not, and Slovenians voted in favour. The decision was hailed as a great victory for
prime minister Borut Pahor, but a loss for Slovenia, according to opposition leader Janez Jansa
and his party, who believe Slovenia will lose too much of its sea. On the other hand, the prime
minister believes the dispute is finally over and will not undermine the integrity of Slovenia.
The dispute has strained relations between the two countries, with Slovenia eventually blocking
Croatia's bid to join the EU.
The BBC reported that just under 52 per cent of those who voted in the Slovenian referendum
backed the agreement with Croatia.
Parliaments in both Slovenia and Croatia had approved the deal, but the centre-right opposition in
Slovenia branded the agreement as a "capitulation" that favoured Croatia, the report said.
Previously, Croatia had insisted that the border be drawn down the middle of the bay, but
Slovenia, which has a much shorter coastline than its neighbour, had feared this would deny its
ships direct passage to the high seas.
Human Trafficking $3 Billion Business in Europe
By Jasper Fakkert Epoch Times Staff Jun 30, 2010
EU commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom gives a press conference on
Human trafficking and child pornography at the EU headquarters in Brussels. Criminal
groups make $3 billion per year in human trafficking in Europe. (Georges Gobet/Getty
Images)
Criminal groups make $3 billion per year in human trafficking in Europe, making it one
of the most lucrative and illicit businesses on the continent, according to a U.N. report
released Monday. The vast majority of the estimated 140,000 victims of sexual
exploitation and forced labor are young women.
―Europeans believe that slavery was abolished centuries ago. But look around—slaves
are in our midst," said Antonio Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime, in a press release.
Around the world, there are 2.4 million victims of human trafficking, of whom 80 percent
are women and girls.
Besides sexual and labor exploitation, other forms of exploitation include domestic
servitude, the removal of organs, and the exploitation of children, according to the U.N.
In Europe, over half of the victims are from the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
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3. AFRICA & THE MIDDLE EAST
Web of Shell Companies Veils Trade by Iran’s
Ships
NY Times June 7, 2010 By JO BECKER
On Jan. 24, 2009, a rusting freighter flying a Hong Kong flag dropped anchor in the
South African port of Durban. The stop was not on the ship’s customary route, and it
stayed only an hour, just long enough to pick up its clandestine cargo: a Bladerunner 51
speedboat that could be armed with torpedoes and used as a fast-attack craft in the
Persian Gulf.
The name painted on the ship’s side as it left Durban and made for the Iranian port of
Bandar Abbas was the Diplomat, and its papers showed that it was owned by a company
called Starry Shine Ltd. Both the name and provenance were of recent vintage. Six
months earlier, the Diplomat had been the Iran Mufateh, part of a fleet owned by the
state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, known as Irisl.
Within months of the Durban episode, the United States government put out word that
Irisl had renamed the ship and set up Starry Shine to evade American export controls
aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining military-use technology like the Bladerunner 51.
By that time, though, the freighter had yet another name: the Amplify. Last spotted by an
electronic tracking system this April in Karachi, Pakistan, the Amplify was under new
management and had a mysterious new owner.
But only on paper.
The Mufateh-Diplomat-Amplify is part of a great disappearing act, in which Irisl, under
pressure from American and other sanctions, has been obscuring the true ownership of
its vessels in a web of shell companies stretching across Europe and Asia, a New York
Times examination of Irisl’s actions shows.
Formed mostly after the United States blacklisted Irisl and all of its ships in 2008, as
confederates of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, the corporations often have
English names like System Wise and Great Method, which seem to mock American
resolve.
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Now, as Iran continues to defy international calls to rein in its nuclear ambitions, the
United Nations Security Council is poised to vote, as soon as this week, on sanctions of
its own. Several provisions focus on Irisl, which has been determined by the United
Nations to have been involved in a plot to smuggle weapons, in violation of an
international embargo that prohibits Iran from exporting arms.
But an examination shows how Iran has used a succession of stratagems — changing not
just ships’ flags and names but their owners, operators and managers, too — to stay one
step ahead of its pursuers. This cat-and-mouse game offers a case study in the difficulties
of enforcing sanctions.
“We are dealing with people who are as smart as we are, and of course they can read our
list,” said Stuart A. Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury who oversees the sanctions
effort and the blacklist of Irisl and its fleet.
That blacklist simply hasn’t kept up.
Of the 123 Irisl ships listed, only 46 are still clearly owned by Irisl or its United States-
listed subsidiaries, according to an analysis of data from IHS Fairplay, formerly Lloyd’s
Register-Fairplay, based in Britain, which issues large merchant vessels their unique
identifying numbers and tracks them over their lifetime. Four more were scuttled.
The rest — 73 — are now on record as owned and operated by companies that do not
appear on the blacklist. The companies are located far from Iran, in places like Malta,
Hong Kong, Cyprus, Germany and the Isle of Man. In all but 10 instances, however,
records and interviews established definitive links between the ships’ new registered
owners and Irisl.
The companies are either run by Irisl officials, set up at their behest or wholly owned by
Irisl, corporate records and interviews show. Most of the companies’ ships are now
operated and managed by three newfound Iranian companies that can be found not at
the addresses provided to IHS Fairplay, but at Irisl facilities in Tehran.
The Amplify’s registered owner, for instance, is a Hong Kong corporation called Smart
Day Holdings, which in turn lists as directors a company in Samoa and another on the
Isle of Man. The Isle of Man company, Shallon, is part of a network set up with the help
of Nigel Howard Malpass, a British shipping consultant who serves on the boards of
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Smart Day and companies connected to 43 other ships previously registered to Irisl,
records show.
And the shares of many of those companies are held by yet another Isle of Man company,
Woking Limited, which records show is wholly owned by none other than Irisl.
“I did used to be involved with Irisl,” Mr. Malpass said in a telephone interview, adding
that while he had set up companies at the company’s behest, he had since “disassociated”
himself.
Irisl, for its part, has repeatedly denied improperly aiding Iran’s military and nuclear
programs. Iran’s Ports and Shipping Organization declined requests for an interview
about the company and its transformations.
Trying to Keep Up
In recent months, advocacy groups like Iran Watch have raised questions about Irisl,
particularly its practice of changing ship names. But The Times’s findings offer a
considerably more extensive picture of the way Irisl has adapted to sanctions — one that
goes well beyond the knowledge of even the Treasury Department.
Mr. Levey, under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence,
acknowledged that his department had been challenged trying to keep up with Irisl.
Though the Treasury Department has accounted for some of the ship-name changes
since the sanctions were enacted, it has not added new shell companies controlled by
Irisl to the blacklist, or ships that have been launched since then.
But Mr. Levey said that no one should be surprised by what Irisl had done. The findings,
he said, “reinforce what we have told governments and the private sector — that the
Iranian government engages in deception, so they need to look beyond lists of sanctioned
entities to protect themselves from potential illicit transactions."
The United States sanctions forbid American banks and companies from entering into
transactions involving Irisl, its listed subsidiaries and its ships; they also seek to
influence other countries and their companies to shun the company. They are based on a
concept called “smart sanctions,” tightly focused campaigns that the White House and
the Treasury Department believe are more effective than broad trade embargos, which
do not single out bad actors.
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The proposed United Nations sanctions stop short of barring dealings with Irisl. But
American officials involved in drafting them say they take into account Irisl’s shell game.
For example, they expand upon a 2008 United Nations provision calling for Irisl ships to
be boarded and inspected at sea or in port if there are “reasonable grounds to believe”
they are carrying contraband forbidden by Security Council resolutions on Iran. The new
proposal calls for inspections of all such ships, whether Irisl is the listed owner or not.
From the beginning, though, Irisl has sought to outmaneuver its pursuers.
Just days after the United Nations enacted the 2008 inspection provision, for instance,
an Irisl cargo ship bound for Turkey suddenly made a high-speed, high-seas dash up the
Mediterranean to the port of Latakia, Syria. The chase came after a NATO ship, which
had been tipped off that the vessel might be carrying weapons, questioned its cargo,
according to an account by government officials of the episode, which was previously
unreported.
Next, Iran began using chartered ships from other countries, ones less likely to raise red
flags. But that tactic ultimately backfired when the non-Iranian crews cooperated with
requests to inspect the cargo. In three boardings, two by the United States Navy and one
by Israeli commandos, authorities said they had discovered a virtual arms bazaar,
including thousands of Katyusha rockets, grenades and mortar shells, believed to be
intended for Hezbollah.
New Flags and Names
By the time the United States placed Irisl’s fleet on its sanctions list, in the fall of 2008,
the company had already begun its corporate camouflage. The first step, records show,
was to replace the ships’ Iranian flags, primarily with those of Germany, Hong Kong and
Malta. Over time, almost all got new, innocuous-sounding English names, like the
Bluebell and the Angel. One simply became the Alias.
Then, with the sanctions in place, three new Iranian companies suddenly appeared on
the scene: Hafiz Darya Shipping Lines, Sapid Shipping and Soroush Sarzamin Asatir.
In January 2009, it was announced that Hafiz Darya had taken over Irisl’s container ship
business in what the shipping trade media reported as a murky deal. Irisl officials, while
providing no financial or other details of the deal, insisted that Hafiz Darya was an
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independent entity, and that the move had been part of a larger government
privatization effort.
Virtually overnight, Hafiz Darya took Irisl’s spot as the world’s 23rd largest container
shipper, while Irisl disappeared from the top 100. Sapid, for its part, took over the
operation of 39 blacklisted bulk carrier and general cargo ships, records show. In
paperwork they filed with IHS Fairplay, the ship-tracking group, Hafiz Darya and Sapid
listed separate addresses in Tehran.
Visits to both places yielded no sign of them, though the address provided by Hafiz
Darya was home to the “Irisl Club” — a closed-off compound of gardens, reception halls
and restaurants for Irisl company use. However, both Hafiz Darya and Sapid were
discovered to be working out of the third floor of Irisl’s Aseman Tower headquarters in
uptown Tehran. The address provided by Soroush, which manages the ships that Sapid
now operates, turned out to be the Irisl Maritime Institute, also in Tehran.
Location isn’t the only thing the new companies share with Irisl.
In a phone call to Sapid, the company identified Gholamhossein Golparvar as its
managing director. Mr. Golparvar was quoted as recently as this Jan. 17 in the Iranian
news media as Irisl’s commercial director.
Likewise, some of Hafiz Darya’s senior officials also came from Irisl. Akbar Malekfar, for
instance, was identified by the company as the head of its Asia Middle East division. He
is also one of Irisl’s general managers, according to the state-owned company’s Web site.
Together, Hafiz Darya, Sapid, and Soroush operate or manage 46 of the blacklisted ships
that have been transferred to new registered owners, records show. And as was the case
with the Diplomat-turned-Amplify, the corporate reports of those new owners always
lead back to Irisl.
The owners of two ships, the Acena and the Lancelin, for instance, are two companies in
Cyprus, where records show that Irisl is the sole shareholder. The companies’ directors
are Mohammad Hadi Pajand, who works for Irisl in London, and Ahmad Sarkandi, an
Irisl official implicated by the United States in the smuggling of the British-designed
powerboat, the Bladerunner 51.
Sanctions Fall Short
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Irisl’s maneuvering may help it with a continuing problem. Britain, home to some of the
world’s largest shipping insurers, placed its own sanctions on Irisl last fall. As a result,
policies were canceled for many Irisl-owned ships.
But the British sanctions, as well as a subsequent ban enacted by the ship insurance
center of Bermuda, only cover Irisl, not subsidiaries or related entities. And records show
that British and Bermudan companies still insure at least 10 ships owned by Irisl
subsidiaries that are on the American blacklist. (It is unclear who is insuring some of the
ships owned by less transparent Irisl-linked companies.)
As difficult as it is to keep track of ships that are on the blacklist, ships that have never
been listed present an even greater challenge. Irisl has taken great care to hide its
connections to vessels that have been launched since the blacklist was issued.
Early this year, for instance, five corporate transactions were recorded in Malta in which
the ownership of five ships changed hands.
All the ships — the Baani, Haami, Shaadi, Aali and Baaghi — had been completed and
inspected in either 2009 or 2010, with a building price of $29 million apiece, according
to IHS Fairplay. In each case, IHS Fairplay records show that the vessels came out of the
shipyards and into the ownership hands of Maltese shipping companies named
Petsworth, Quinns, Reigate, Oxted and New Haven.
Still, buried deep within Maltese corporate records was the fact that Irisl owned the stock
in those companies. In the five simultaneous transactions on Jan. 26, Irisl attempted to
sever even that link, transferring its shares in each company to three Iranians.
It turns out, though, that two of those Iranians, who together, records show, now own
the majority of stock, are Irisl officials. The records also offer an additional detail that
raises questions about whether these were truly arm’s-length transactions:
In each case, the price per share was 2.33 euros, or $3.28 at the time, meaning that Irisl
effectively sold companies that owned ships with a combined value of $145 million for a
total of $8,200.
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EA hosts most refugees outside the Middle East
Saturday, June 19 2010
East Africa now hosts over a million refugees from East, Central and Southern Africa,
the largest total figure in the world outside of the Middle East.
According to the latest Global Trends report released by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania alone host nearly 610,000
refugees with Kenya the most generous host in the region with nearly 360,000 refugees,
mostly from Somalia.
Kenya is now the fifth biggest host of refugees worldwide behind only Pakistan, Iran,
Syria and Germany but well ahead of the United States on 275,500 and the UK on nearly
270,000.
The new report (released on June 15) said that around 43.3 million people were forcibly
displaced worldwide at the end of 2009, the highest number of people uprooted by
conflict and persecution since the mid-1990s.
At the same time, the number of refugees voluntarily returning to their home countries
has fallen to its lowest level in 20 years.
The report indicates that overall refugee numbers remained relatively stable at 15.2
million, two thirds of whom come under UNHCR’s mandate while the other third fall
under the responsibility of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
―Major conflicts such as those in Afghanistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of
Congo show no signs of being resolved,‖ said UN High Commissioner for Refugees
António Guterres.
―Conflicts that had appeared to be ending or were on the way to being resolved, such as
in southern Sudan or in Iraq, are stagnating. As a result last year was not a good year for
voluntary repatriation. In fact, it was the worst in 20 years.‖
UNHCR’s report shows that only 251,000 refugees went home in 2009, the lowest since
1990. This compares badly to a norm over the past decade of around a million people
repatriated each year.
―Already a majority of the world’s refugees have been living as refugees for five years or
more. Inevitably, that proportion will grow — if fewer refugees are able to go home,‖ Mr
Guterres added, referring to the over 5.5 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate in a
protracted situation.
Persistent conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Somalia mainly
accounted for the increase in the overall figure.
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However one piece of good news is that in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of refugees
continued to decline for the ninth consecutive year. By the end of 2009, there were less
than 2.1 million refugees compared with more than 3.4 million in 2000.
The refugee population decreased by 1.5 per cent between the start and end of 2009,
primarily due to the naturalisation of 155,000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania and
successful voluntary repatriation operations to the DR Congo (44,300), Southern Sudan
(33,100), Burundi (32,400), and Rwanda (20,600).
Unfortunately, renewed armed conflict and human rights violations in the DR Congo and
Somalia led to new refugee outflows and the movement of 277,000 people primarily to
the Republic of the Congo (94,000) and Kenya (72,500).
The large influx of refugees to Kenya coupled with a dramatic decline in those declared
to be refugees in 2009 means that Nairobi has taken over from Dar es Salaam as being
the most generous African host to refugees at present.
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4. Asia Pacific
U.S. supplies radar for Indonesian navy
JAKARTA, June 28 (Xinhua) -- An Indonesian navy official said that the United States
will supply radar to the navy as part of U. S. contribution to help the country's navy fleet
to secure the busy Malacca strait from hijacking acts, local media reported on Monday.
According to Indonesian Navy West Region Fleet Commander Rear Admiral Ade
Supandi, the radar is included in the Integrated Maritime System aid that will be handed
over by U.S. Government representative to the Indonesian defence ministry. "The U.S.
system will eventually be used by navy's base in Batam, " Agus was quoted by the Antara
news agency as saying in Batam where the navy has set a base to oversee the Malacca
strait waters that accommodates 60 percent of world's trade ships.
Reports said that trade ship hijackings were frequently occurred in the strait that separates
Indonesia from Malaysia and Singapore territories.
Indonesia plans to establish independent coast guard fleet
JAKARTA, June 28 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Maritime and Fishery Minister Fadel
Muhammad said that the government is planning to set up a coast guard unit independent
of the military to ensure security fro international maritime traffic in the country's waters,
local media reported on Monday.
"We held two meetings to discuss the possibility of the setting up the body and the
president has appointed Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister
Djoko Suyanto to lead the execution of the plan," The minister said in a discussion
session recently.
Fadel said that the implementation of the plan would also involve the Transportation
Ministry, the National Police and the Navy.
Former coordinating economic minister Dorodjatun Kuntoro Jakti said that the country
needed to ensure security in its waters as 50 percent of the world's shipping tonnage
passed through them.
"According to an International Maritime Organization report, 3, 000 boats and ships
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passed through the Malacca Straits daily," he said.
He added that 60 percent of ships carrying energy supplies for developed countries in
East Asia, such a Japan, also passed through Indonesian waters.
Canada helps track mystery ship with possible terrorist links
Sun Sea, which may be carrying potential refugee claimants linked to Tamil Tigers, may
be headed for Australia
Colin Freeze
Globe and Mail Update Published on Tuesday, Jun. 08, 2010 9:46PM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Jun.
08, 2010 10:09PM EDT
A South Asian refugee ship that Canadian authorities have secretly tracked for months on
suspicion of links to terrorism appears to be bound for Australia.
The federal scrutiny of the ship, known as the Sun Sea, is a rare example of Canada's
―pushing-borders-out strategy,‖ a tactic that is meant to prevent a repeat of a massive asylum
claim that occurred last fall, sources say.
Last October, 77 Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka arrived on the shores of British
Columbia in a vessel alleged to have been controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
After being jailed for several weeks in Canada, the claimants were freed pending hearings.
They are still waiting, a process that could take years. In the interim, federal agents
dispatched to foreign shores have been on the lookout for a sister ship run by the same
alleged Tamil Tigers smuggling operation reputed to have up to 300 refugees aboard.
This is the Sun Sea, also known as the Harin Panich 19 (HP19), and details about its journey
are murky. What is known is that Canadian police and spies have formed partnerships with
counterparts in Australia and Southeast Asia to watch out for the ship, now believed to be in
the Gulf of Thailand.
The original fear was that the vessel could be bound for Canada, with Tamil asylum seekers
looking to take advantage of the country's refugee system.
As things stand, there are few more hospitable places in the world.
Sri Lanka has been cracking down on the Tamil Tigers and their sympathizers since a bloody
30-year civil war ended last year. This has prompted an exodus of refugee ships that led the
government of Australia – the nearest Western democracy – to seek a ban on future Tamil
asylum claims.
Several weeks ago, The Globe began investigating reports about the Sun Sea and its voyage.
On May 19, the Philippine coast guard circulated a general public warning for local agents to
be on the lookout for the Sun Sea.
On Wednesday, the Australian newspaper reported ―300 asylum seekers on the way.‖
Canadian officials speak guardedly about their role in the investigation.
66
―The government of Canada’s strategic approach with respect to migrant vessels includes
efforts abroad that involve stopping illegal migrant-smuggling ships that are destined for
Canada at their points of departure,‖ Lisa Monette, a spokeswoman for the Department of
Foreign Affairs, told The Globe last month.
―We will not comment on any specific operational matters.‖
However, one academic in Southeast Asia is publicly lauding Canada's work in the ongoing
investigation.
―The Canadian intelligence response has been very decisive,‖ Rohan Gunaratna, an
international-terrorism expert based in Singapore, told The Globe last month.
Having testified in Canada as a government witness against the passengers who arrived on
the earlier vessel, Mr. Gunaratna called the Sun Sea probe a sensitive and ongoing matter.
Last October, Canadian soldiers and police seized a ship off the coast of British Columbia and
brought it ashore. Intelligence reports suggested it was running guns for the Tamil Tigers.
After that ship – known as the Princess Easwary, or the Ocean Lady – was escorted ashore, all
76 passengers and crew claimed refugee status.
Authorities fear that Tamil Tiger guerrillas may be among the passengers, but once even
militants arrive, there might be no turning them back. ―The reality is that once they land in
Canada, there is not very much we can do,‖ said one federal source, who asked not to be
named.
―That’s why pushing out borders is so important.‖
It seems likely that the Tamil asylum seekers who arrived on the Ocean Lady will eventually
be found to be a mix of legitimate refugees, illegitimate economic migrants and some
militants.
Sri Lankan Tamils have, for years, been among Canada's top 10 refugee groups. They succeed
in their claims more often than not, but either way they can be difficult to deport given the
possibility they might face torture or death if sent home.
In Canada, asylum seekers who have credible fears of mistreatment can stymie deportation
efforts for years.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Cam Ranh Port set for $27.4 million expansion
Tuoi Tre
Cam Ranh Port in Vietnam’s central province of Khanh Hoa is set to
get a new, US$27.4 million wharf that can berth 50,000DWT ships as
part of a master plan to turn the port into a key regional container
entrepot.
The Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) began construction of
the 240m wharf Wednesday and hopes to complete it in 14 months.
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The new facility will almost double the port’s capacity to 3 million tons
of cargo a year.
Cam Ranh, a Russian naval base until 2002, is emerging as a busy
transport hub with an annual growth rate of over 10 percent.
Vietnam has terminated its 25-year deal with the Russian military
Migrants gaining residency via scam
NEW ZEALAND HERALD
By Lincoln Tan May 22, 2010
Immigrants are entering agreements with employers to pay their own taxes and wages in
order to obtain New Zealand permanent residence, and the "scheme" even has its own name
- PYO (pay your own).
Immigration New Zealand says it is investigating a case where such a scheme has allegedly
been used to help a migrant to gain residency, and the agency is asking others with
information about the scam to come forward.
Employment advocates say the practice is rampant and has been going on for years, with
possibly hundreds gaining residence by paying their own way to meet immigration
requirements for skilled migration.
The National Distribution Union, which has seen nine workers who had been in PYO
arrangements with their employers in 2008, says there could have been hundreds of cases
over the years.
"You just don't hear much because it is often kept within the migrant communities, with
employers who are often migrants themselves entering into such arrangements with migrant
employees from their own community," said Dennis Maga, the union's migrant workers
support co-ordinator.
This week, South African migrant worker Jacqueline Sydow lost her personal grievance case
in the Employment Relations Authority after alleging that her employer, Executive Recruiters
International, had asked her to pay her own taxes and wages to support her residency
application.
The Weekend Herald is aware of at least two other cases, which are in the mediation stages,
where migrant employees are claiming they were made to pay their own salaries, taxes and
fees to their employers in exchange for their support for residence applications.
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"It's hard to say how widespread the practice is because you only hear from just a few,
because many would not talk about it because they think it could jeopardise their
immigration status or applications," said Beven Chuang, the Department of Labour's
settlement support co-ordinator in Auckland.
"Some think such arrangements are an easy path to residency and are not aware that they are
breaking the law, but others clearly go in with their eyes wide open."
Immigration New Zealand chief Nigel Bickle said: "If people have information about these
types of cases, we need them to come forward ... for us to investigate."
Mr Bickle said this could be done either by calling 0508-558-855 or contacting the nearest
Immigration New Zealand office.
"If we find sufficient evidence of this occurring, we would consider a number of options,
including revocation of permit and prosecution."
An immigrant, who wanted to be known as Krystal, said she gained her residence only after
paying close to $50,000 to her employer for her own wages and tax over nearly two years.
"I was desperate because I couldn't find a job and my job search visa was near expiry, so I
went to a few businesses offering to pay them to employ me, and one accepted," said
Krystal, who is now unemployed.
David Soh, editor of the local Chinese newspaper Mandarin Pages, said Immigration New
Zealand's unrealistic expectations in its skilled migration requirements contributed to the
practice, because it made it "near impossible" for would-be migrants to find jobs that could
support their residency applications.
Employers were expected to pay the market rate - the same amount they would pay a local -
when employing migrant workers, or hire them at management level in order for them to
obtain residency.
"It is just not realistic for someone who is new to the country that is lacking in local
knowledge and experience to be commanding the same rate, or even be employed straight
into management."
An employer, who has supported a migrant worker's residency through the PYO method,
says he did not see anything wrong because "everyone does it".
He spoke on the condition that the Herald did not identify him.
HOW IT WORKS
69
* A migrant secretly pays an employer a large sum of money - say $50,000 - to cover the
cost of his or her annual wages, including tax.
* The employer returns the take-home pay to the worker and pays the tax portion to the
Government.
* The worker uses the fake wage payments as proof of employment to gain permanent
residency.
$24.9 million to stop terrorists and criminals flying into
Australia- June 22/2010
The Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O‘Connor today announced the start of work to
expand an airline passenger security system to better protect Australia from terrorists
and criminals.
At the Leadership 2010: Tourism and Transport Infrastructure Summit in Canberra
today, the Minister announced that design work will soon start on the second stage of
the Enhanced Passenger Assessment and Clearance program, or EPAC.
The first phase of EPAC is helping government agencies to better identify persons of
interest at the border.
―The next phase will see more data collected earlier from airline reservation and check-in
systems to achieve faster risk assessment of a greater number of passengers,‖ Mr.
O‘Connor said.
From 1 July, Customs and Border Protection will work with partner agencies to design a
system that better identifies risk indicators, trends and patterns that will be used to
assess whether travellers are who they say they are and are entering Australia for a
legitimate reason.
―Armed with more detailed information and smarter analysis tools, border protection, law
enforcement and intelligence agencies can work together to identify passengers of
concern and take swift action,‖ Mr. O‘Connor said.
―With the changes, suspect passengers can be intercepted before they leave their
country of origin and action can be taken earlier to protect Australia from any threat.
―This new level of information will improve our ability to track and stop suspected
terrorists and those involved in serious international crime from boarding planes to
Australia.
―And that means one thing – a safer Australia,‖ Mr. O‘Connor said.
The Minister said the new measures will also strengthen the partnerships between
agencies working to protect the Australians from terrorism and serious crime.
The $24.9 million dollar investment over four years was allocated in the 2010-11 Budget.
70
100,000 Uzbek refugees flee to border to escape
purge in Kyrgzystan; US, others send aid
June 14, 2010
Sasha Merkushev, The Associated Press
OSH, KYRGYZSTAN—Some 100,000 minority Uzbeks fleeing a purge by mobs of
Kygryz massed at the border Monday, an Uzbek leader said, as the deadliest ethnic
violence to hit this Central Asian nation in decades left entire blocks of a major city
burned to the ground.
As the southern city of Osh smouldered for a fourth day Monday, the official death
toll of 117 killed and 1,500 injured from the clashes that began Thursday appeared
way too low.
An Uzbek community leader claimed at least 200 Uzbeks alone had already been
buried, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has said its delegates saw
about 100 bodies being buried in just one cemetery.
The United States, Russia and the United Nations worked on humanitarian aid airlifts
while neighbouring Uzbekistan hastily set up refugee camps to handle the flood of
hungry, frightened refugees. Most of the refugees were women, children and the
elderly, and Uzbekistan said some had gunshot wounds from their harrowing
escape.
Jallahitdin Jalilatdinov, who heads the Uzbek National Center, told The Associated
Press on Monday that at least 100,000 Uzbeks had fled for the border and were
awaiting entry into Uzbekistan, while 80,000 had already crossed.
An Associated Press reporter saw at least hundreds of Uzbek refugees stuck in no-
man's-land between the boundaries of the two nations at a border crossing near
Jalal-Abad.
Kyrgyzstan's interim government, which took over after former President Kurmanbek
Bakiyev was ousted by a mass revolt in April, has been unable to stop the violence
and accused Bakiyev's family of instigating it to stop a June 27 vote. Uzbeks have
backed the interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south have supported the
toppled president.
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The government said Monday it had arrested a well-known politician suspected of
stoking the violence, but gave no further details.
Interim President Roza Otunbayeva's government had hoped to seal its democratic
credentials with a referendum to approve a new constitution on June 27, but the
likelihood of that vote taking place now looks slim.
From his self-imposed exile in Belarus, Bakiyev denied any role in the violence.
New fires raged Monday across Osh — the country's second-largest city — which is
only 3 miles (5 kilometres) from the border with Uzbekistan. Food and water were
scarce as armed looters smashed stores, stealing everything from televisions to
food. Cars stolen from ethnic Uzbeks raced around the city, most crowded with
young Kyrgyz wielding sharpened sticks, axes and metal rods.
In the mainly Uzbek district of Aravanskoe, an area formerly brimming with shops
and restaurants, entire streets have been burned to the ground. In one still
smouldering building, an Associated Press photographer saw the charred bodies of
three people burned to death.
No police or troops were seen on the streets, though the interim government said
some of the improvised checkpoints dotted around the city of 250,000 were theirs.
Violence spread to villages and towns around Osh, local residents said.
Mukaddas Jamolova, a 54-year old housewife from Kara-Su, near Osh, said she
saw looters burn down many houses of ethnic Uzbeks. She said her house was not
burned down, but the family can't flee to Uzbekistan as they fear armed attackers.
"We can't go anywhere, we have a curfew, nobody's letting us out," Jamolova told
The Associated Press on the phone.
In another city beset by violence, Jalal-Abad, about 25 miles (40 kilometres) from
Osh, armed Kyrgyz amassed at the central square to hunt down an Uzbek
community leader in the nearby village of Suzak who they blame for starting the
trouble.
As the clashes continued, desperately needed aid began trickling into the south.
Several planes arrived at Osh airport with tons of urgently needed medical supplies
from the World Health Organization. Trucks carried the supplies into the city centre,
protected by a tank and an armoured personnel carrier.
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The U.S. had a shipment of tens, cots and medical supplies ready to fly to Osh from
its Manas air base in the capital of Bishkek, the U.S. Embassy said.
The U.S. and Russia both have military bases in northern Kyrgyzstan, away from the
rioting. Russia sent in an extra battalion to protect its air base. The U.S. Manas air
base is a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Uzbeks make up 15 per cent of Kygryzstan's 5 million people, but in the south their
numbers rival ethnic Kyrgyz. The fertile Ferghana Valley where Osh and Jalal-Abad
are located once belonged to a single feudal lord, but it was split by Soviet dictator
Josef Stalin among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, rekindling old rivalries.
In 1990, hundreds were killed in a land dispute between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh,
and only quick deployment of Soviet troops quelled the fighting. Russia over the
weekend refused a request by the interim government to send troops into
Kyrgyzstan, so the government began a partial mobilization of military reservists up
to 50 years old.
"No one is rushing to help us, so we need to establish order ourselves," said
Talaaibek Adibayev, a 39-year-old army veteran who showed up at Bishkek's military
conscription office.
Russia, China concerned by growing Afghan drug threat
BEIJING, May 27
Russia's drug control chief, who is currently on a visit to Beijing, said on Thursday
his Chinese colleagues shared Russia's concerns about the growing drug threat from
Afghanistan.
Moscow has criticized U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan for failing to eradicate opium
production and warned over the weekend that drug trafficking was endangering
Russia's national security.
Viktor Ivanov said high-ranking Chinese officials, including Public Security Minister
Meng Jianzhu and Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping, had also expressed
"particular concern" about Afghan drug trafficking, which they say "escalates
tensions" in China's troubled Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous district.
"Both the Russian and the Chinese side note the extremely low efficiency of anti-drug
efforts by the international coalition forces in Afghanistan," he said.
A year ago, Russia provided the coalition forces with information on 175 drug labs in
Afghanistan, but "they continue to send heroin to our countries, and none of them
has been eliminated," Ivanov said.
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Russia says production of heroin in Afghanistan has increased almost tenfold since
the US-led invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001.
The Chinese public security minister said the amount of Afghan drugs is also on the
increase in China. It rose from 4.3 metric tons of heroin last year to six metric tons in
the first five months of 2010.
Rising drug abuse in Vietnam prompts int’l cooperation
5/28/2010 Reported by Thanh Nien staff
Alarmed by an ―unusual‖ increase in drug abuse in mountainous and border areas, Vietnam will
strive to strengthen international cooperation in tackling drug trafficking.
The government has said in a statement posted on its website this week that a campaign will be
also launched to increase people‘s awareness of the harmful consequences of drug abuse and to
curb smuggling in border areas.
―Cooperation will be strengthened with countries in the region, especially those on the border, to
detect, investigate and bust transnational drug smuggling rings,‖ according to a decision signed
by Prime Minister Nguyen
Tan Dung to launch a month of intensified efforts to fight drug crimes.
Drug smuggling has become more ―complicated‖ recently with serious cases and the criminals
have become more brutal and cunning, the government statement said.
In next month‘s anti-drug trafficking and abuse program, police will carry out raids on major
smuggling and drug trading hotspots in big cities. Residents will be encouraged to report drug
criminals and help improve the rehabilitation of drug addicts.
Investigators, prosecutors and courts have been asked to expedite work on cases relating to drug
crimes as a deterrent.
Recent cases
Border guards in the northern central province of Nghe An last week busted a drug trafficking ring
that was carrying 10.5 kilograms of heroin from Laos into Vietnam.
The guards said on May 20 that they had, together with the Laotian police, caught three drug
traffickers two days earlier. The arrested traffickers, one Vietnamese and two Laotian men, said
the heroin was meant for consumption in Vietnam.
One of the arrested, Vietnamese Lau Giong Xu, 42, was from Nghe An but had lived in a
neighboring Laotian province for a while. Two others Va Pha, 28, and Va Thong, 30, both come
from Laos‘ Xiengkhuang Province.
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In another case, the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security said on May 21 that they had
suggested to the country‘s top prosecutors that eight people including five Nigerians, one
Zimbabwean, and two Vietnamese, be charged with drug trafficking.
The group had begun operations in late 2008 and trafficked more than 11 kilograms of heroin
before being caught in June last year, police said in the documents sent to the Supreme People‘s
Procuracy, Vietnam‘s highest prosecutors‘ office.
Investigators said the drug was transported by air from India via Ho Chi Minh City to China.
In Vietnam, anyone found guilty of possessing more than 600 grams of heroin can face the death
penalty.
North Korean border guard 'shoots three Chinese dead'
8 June 2010 BBC
China says a North Korean border guard shot and killed three people near
the countries' border last week.
A fourth person was reportedly injured in the incident near the north-eastern
border town of Dandong.
China has made a formal complaint to North Korea, a spokesman for the
Chinese foreign ministry said.
The two countries are considered to be close allies and Beijing rarely makes
any public criticism of its isolated neighbour.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news conference in
Beijing that the four residents of Dandong, in Liaoning province, had been
shot "on suspicion of crossing the border for trade activities".
"China attaches great importance to that and has immediately raised a
solemn representation with the DPRK," he said, using North Korea's full name
(Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
Close ally
Mr Qin said the case was being investigated, but gave no further details.
Pyongyang has not commented on the accusations.
Illegal traders regularly cross the border between North Korea and China,
taking black market goods into the impoverished country.
China is North Korea's main trading partner and the country perceived to
have the most influence on the state.
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Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high since the sinking of a
South Korean warship in March with the loss of 46 lives.
An international investigation blamed North Korea for the sinking, but China
has resisted pressure to condemn its ally. Instead, it has urged both the
Koreas to show restraint.
Last month, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, was reported to have
visited China to seek economic and political support.
China is crucial to North Korea's fight for economic survival, providing
Pyongyang with food, fuel and much-needed investment.
Beijing is also a participant in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear
programme. The talks have been going on since 2003 without much
progress.
In 2009, North Korea detained two US journalists on the border with China,
accusing them of entering North Korea illegally.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who said they were detained on the Chinese side,
were sentenced to 12 years' hard labour but were freed in August after four
months in captivity, as part of a diplomatic mission spearheaded by former
US President Bill Clinton.
A US man, Robert Park, was also arrested in December last year, after
walking into North Korea across a frozen river. He was released in February.
China seeks Pak help to deal with separatists on border
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN, Jun 17, 2010, 08.42pm IST
BEIJING: China on Thursday made it clear it is banking heavily on Pakistan's support to
fight the Uighur separatists in the border region of Xingjian, who have posed on of the
biggest challenges to Chinese authorities.
The two countries have devised an anti-terrorism program under which Pakistani security
forces will push back Uighur fighters trying to cross the border to seek sanctuary in
terrorists camps in Pakistan.
"We should work together to deepen bilateral cooperation in defense security and other
sectors," Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress, the Chinese parliament, told the visiting Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq
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Parvez Kayani. The two neighbors are now trying to intensify their "strategic cooperative
partnership".
Pakistan has obtained huge benefits including nuclear assistance by utilizing China's fears
of Islamic fundamentalism spilling over to its border. But Wu's public statement will
prove to be an added help to Pakistani leaders in their quest to gain public support for the
operation against Uighur separatists who enjoy some support within Pakistan.
Both We and Chinese defense minister Liang Guanglie asking Kayani to enhance the
involvement of the armed forces from the two sides in the fight against what is called the
'East Turkistan Islamic movement' by Uighur seeking to split China to create an
independent nation. One of the things Beijing desperately wants is Pakistani help in
cutting off the links between Uighur separatists and Islamic fundamentalists groups
across the border in Pakistan.
China and Pakistan have held anti-terrorism exercises at the Xinjiang's Taxkorgan Tajik
Autonomous County bordering Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2004 and a
second such exercise in the hilly area of northern Pakistan's Abbottabad in 2006.
Preparations are on to launch another military exercise involving troops from both
countries to frighten the Xingjian separatists, sources said.
Wu said the "bilateral all-weather friendship" between the two countries in the
fundamental interests of the people in their respective countries besides promoting
regional peace and development. Kayani said Pakistan was ready to seek stronger
relationship with China, the official media reported in Beijing. "Cooperation between the
Chinese and Pakistani armed forces is exemplary and has been fruitful," Liang said.
Several Chinese leaders including Meng Jianzhu, Minister for Public Security and Guo
Boxiong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission met Kayani, who is on a five
day visit to China.
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