Current Events Thread

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Just wondering about the possibility of a News Forum -- or, alternatively, news stickies for each of the themes forums. Politics already seems to have at least one. It might already be covered; just curious.

Your wish has been granted. ~Dalton

[haas mark]

Just wondering about the possibility of a News Forum -- or, alternatively, news stickies for each of the themes forums. Politics already seems to have at least one. It might already be covered; just curious.

Your wish has been granted. ~Dalton

I'm going to assume that anything politics-related will be split and moved into the Politics forum?

[Vympel]

Well yeah.

[Dalton]

Just a reminder that this thread is here for the purpose of discussing and posting current news and events. Political news goes into Politics.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/storie ... TE=DEFAULT

House Approves Amber Alert Package

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Targeting child kidnappers, molesters and pornographers, the House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved protections including a national Amber Alert network and legislation to strengthen federal anti-pornography laws.

Approved by a 400-25 vote, the legislation was called "the most important and far-reaching child protection legislation in the past 20 years" by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner shepherded the stronger criminal penalties through the House by attaching them to the popular Amber Alert kidnapping-notification legislation. That measure was sought by the family of Elizabeth Smart, who was recovered in March after being taken from her bedroom in a Salt Lake City last year.

"The overarching goal of this comprehensive package is to stop those who prey on children before they can harm children," said Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

The national network would be named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl abducted in Arlington, Texas, and later found murdered.

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Senators started working on the legislation late Thursday. It was uncertain when final passage might come. Republicans hoped to send it to President Bush before leaving for their Easter break on Friday.

"We need to cast aside partisan disputes and quickly pass this measure and send it to the president for his signature as soon as possible," said the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

Some Democrats, who support the Amber Alert bill passed by the Senate, have objected to provisions in the compromise that they say would take away federal judges' discretion in sentencing criminals.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota accused Republicans of "kidnapping the Amber Alert bill in an attempt to achieve partisan and wholly unrelated goals gutting judicial sentencing guidelines."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said they would have gladly passed just the Amber Alert bill months ago. "But we question and wonder why it should carry with it such extraneous kinds of material which this legislation carries," he said.

A Republican-dominated negotiating committee took less than three hours Tuesday to pound out a compromise version of different bills that had passed the House and Senate.

Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, who also supported the stand-alone bill, said the compromise would be better than waiting even longer to get the national network in place. "It should not have been this hard, but we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

Republicans said the child protection measures were needed, too.

"Amber Alert is wonderful at attempting to retrieve children who are kidnapped and taken across state lines," said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla. "What we've tried to do is to deter and punish people and put them behind bars."

Democrats had threatened to use a procedural maneuver to block final approval of the legislation because of House language making it harder for federal judges to stray from official sentencing guidelines for criminals.

Republicans say the language would only apply to child sex crimes. Democrats say the language would affect almost all federal crimes, taking away judges' discretion on sentencing criminals.

Lawmakers rushed to get the Amber Alert legislation through after Elizabeth Smart was returned to her parents in March. "The family is grateful for passage in the House and they are very, very anxious to see the legislation pass in the Senate so it can be enacted into law," Smart family spokesman Chris Thomas said.

The legislation would provide matching grants to states and communities for equipment and training for the network, which will distribute information quickly, through radio and television broadcasts and electronic highway signs, about kidnapped children and their abductors.

Discussion:

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

This morning's news:

U.S. Won't Propose Resolution on China

By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a departure, the United States has decided against introducing a resolution criticizing rights abuses in China at the annual meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a State Department official said Friday.

The decision comes two weeks after the annual State Department human rights report had cited continuing abuses in China.

The official, asking not to be identified, said progress is being made on protection of human rights in China. The Bush administration will press for more progress despite setbacks, the official added.

Among them it mentioned "instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention and denial of due process."

At the same time, the report credited the Chinese government with some positive steps, including the release of a number of prominent dissidents and the granting of permission for senior representatives of the Dalai Lama to visit the country.

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Days after the report was released, China issued a harshly worded rebuttal, charging that Washington's criticism was aimed at undermining the country's stability and fragmenting its territory.

The State Council Information office dismissed the report as an amateurish collection of distortions and rumors and said it was driven by "anti-China forces who don't want to see the existence of an increasingly wealthy and developed socialist state."

The United States has routinely introduced China resolutions at the human rights meeting in Geneva, which is winding up a six-week session.

Because of effective Chinese diplomacy, no such resolution has ever been approved there.

Efforts to reach the Chinese Embassy spokesman for comment were not immediately successful.

Mike Jendrzejczyk, Asia expert at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the refusal of either the United States or the European Union to criticize China at the Geneva conference "undermines those trying to bring about change inside China."

William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said, "By failing to sponsor a resolution, the U.S. is aiding China's evasion of scrutiny of its human rights record,"

This is only the third year since 1990 that the United States has not introduced a China resolution in Geneva. Washington was not a commission member last year. In 1998, President Clinton, perhaps with his China trip in mind, backed away from a China resolution. The Geneva meeting was held just weeks before Clinton traveled to China.

Diplomatically, the United States has been seeking China's cooperation as part of a broad-based effort to pressure North Korea into dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

China has said it seeks a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula but has been less assertive in pursuing that goal than U.S. officials had hoped. With the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, North Korea has emerged as the administration's top security concern.

Not sure if this belongs in politics or not.

[Dalton]

This thread isn't going anywhere Sorry, Raoul. I have to desticky some threads to clean this forum up a bit.