Drug Dealer to US Jail

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's Foreign Relations Department ruled Friday that the extradition of convicted drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States can go forward.

The process can still be appealed, meaning it could be weeks or months before the Sinaloa cartel leader may be sent to the U.S., where he is wanted in multiple jurisdictions on charges related to drug trafficking and organized crime.

Guzman's lawyers now have 30 days to appeal the decision, and they have said they will.

The department said Friday in a statement that the United States has provided "adequate guarantees" that Guzman would not face the death penalty. 

Mexico has abolished capital punishment and does not extradite its citizens if they face possible execution.

Friday's ruling covered an extradition request from a Texas federal court related to charges of conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana, money-laundering, arms possession and murder, and another extradition request from a federal court in California.

In all, Guzman faces charges from seven U.S. federal prosecutors including in Chicago, New York, Miami and San Diego.

Jose Refugio Rodriguez, one of Guzman's lawyers, said Friday the legal team planned to appeal the decision all the way to Mexico's Supreme Court, and possibly to international tribunals. 

Rodriguez told the Milenio television station that any extradition would take "at least one to three years."

"We expected it," Rodriguez said of the foreign relations department decision. 

"It is no surprise."

Rodriguez said Guzman knew about the ruling and said he was "calm."

"He knows and is conscious that the real battle against extradition is going to be waged through the constitutional appeals process," Rodriguez said.

Guzman was arrested in January after almost six months on the run following his escape from a maximum-security prison through a mile-long tunnel that opened to the floor of his shower.

He had already escaped once before in 2001 and spent more than a decade as one of the world's most wanted fugitives until he was recaptured in 2014.

Guzman's lawyers have so far waged a public-relations offensive, speaking to the press and even organizing protests; but as extradition draws nearer, the battle could turn violent, like the one Colombian drug lords waged extradition in the 1980s, said Mike Vigil, a former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Just Another Donor

He was known as Donor 9623.

Parents were told he was healthy and well-educated. But he was a troubled man with multiple diagnoses of mental illness and a felony conviction. And his sperm is believed to have been used to conceive at least 36 children in Canada, the US and Britain.

Now three Canadian families have launched lawsuits against US sperm bank Xytex and its Ontario distributor, Outreach Health, alleging they were misinformed about their sperm donor.

Families learned the donor’s real identity in 2014, after Xytex, inadvertently and in a breach of confidentiality, included his email address in an email to them.

A Google search brought to light some shocking information about their donor.

They discovered that Donor 9623 was James Christian Aggeles of Georgia and that he was diagnosed as having schizophrenia, narcissistic personality disorder, drug-induced psychotic disorder and significant grandiose delusions.

Aggeles committed a residential burglary in 2005 and spent eight months in jail. He dropped out of college and just last year graduated with a bachelor’s degree.

However, the families had been told Donor 9623 had an IQ of 160, an undergraduate degree in neuroscience and a master's degree in artificial intelligence — and that he was pursuing a PhD in neuroscience engineering.

They allege that Xytex and Outreach Health continued to promote and sell the donor’s sperm even after the sperm bank had been informed he was nothing like the man advertised on his online profile.

One of the parents involved in the lawsuit is Angie Collins. She has sympathy for the donor.

“My heart goes out to him,” said Collins in an interview with CBC’s "As It Happens" earlier this week.

“This can't be easy to deal with. [It was a] poor choice, though, to knowingly donate sperm when you contain genetic material for debilitating illnesses, but he wasn't healthy at the time that he was making these decisions.”

In the US, sperm donors are paid for their services. But in Canada, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act — passed in 2004 — makes it illegal to pay donors.

Xytex’s President Kevin M. O’Brien posted this open letter on the company website. In it he disputes the claim that the company misrepresented the donor:

"In this case, the donor underwent a standard medical exam and provided extensive personal and health information. He reported a good health history and stated in his application that he had no physical or medical impairments," O’Brien states. This information was passed on to the couple, who were clearly informed the representations were reported by the donor and were not verified by Xytex.”

The families are seeking $12 million in damages.

American Justice is Rigged

WASHINGTON -- In a scorching speech from the Senate floor on recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the American criminal justice system is rigged in favor of the wealthy, and condemned new legislation that would make it harder to prosecute bank fraud.

"There are two legal systems," Warren said. "One for the rich and powerful, and one for everyone else." 

Warren's office issued a report earlier this week documenting 20 cases in which federal officials had enough evidence against corporate malfeasance to issue fines.

In most of the cases, companies were not even required to admit guilt. In only one case did a corporate offender go to jail -- Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who received a 3-month sentence over a mine disaster that killed 29 people.

"It's not equal justice when a kid gets thrown in jail for stealing a car, while a CEO gets a huge raise when his company steals billions," Warren said. "It's not equal justice when someone hooked on opioids gets locked up for buying pills on the street, but bank executives get off scot-free for laundering nearly a billion dollars of drug cartel money." 

Multiple banks have been busted for laundering drug money, though none of their executives have been charged with crimes.

"One legal system is for big companies, for the wealthy and the powerful. In this legal system, government officials fret about unintended consequences if they are too tough." But in the second legal system, Warren said, "government enforcement isn't timid."

"Just ask the families of Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray and Michael Brown about how aggressive [police and prosecutors] are," Warren said.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the intellectual cornerstone of the court’s modern conservative wing, whose elegant and acidic opinions inspired a movement of legal thinkers and ignited liberal critics, died Feb. 13 on a ranch near Marfa, Tex. He was 79. 

The cause of death was not immediately known. 

In a statement Saturday, Chief Justice John G. Roberts said: “On behalf of the Court and retired Justices, I am saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away. 

He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues. 

His passing is a great loss to the Court and the country he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his family.”

Justice Scalia, the first Italian American to serve on the court, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan. He took his seat Sept. 26, 1986, and quickly became the kind of champion to the conservative legal world that his benefactor was in the political realm.

So, will he be replaced by a LIBERAL?

Better Than USA???

"The greater concern is that America might not be reliable," she says. "There is a lot of conversation, for example, about whether America can be trusted to protect islands in the South China Sea. 

That's a reflection of America's domestic politics, that's a reflection of its will. Is Washington so dysfunctional that Republicans and Democrats can't come together to agree to act?" 

While most of the world sees the United States, China and Russia as the top three leaders when it comes to hard power, with soft power – the ability of a country to exert influence through culture, political values or foreign policy – it's another story. 

According to the Best Countries data, the U.S. outshines its major competitors in terms of variables such as human rights, trustworthiness, government transparency and being a place people would want to live in. 

While the U.S. is in the top 20 in those categories, China and Russia are in the middle or toward the end of the pack. 

"Soft power matters," says Steven W. Hook, professor and past chairman of political science at Kent State University. "The appeal that your country has overseas – freedoms of speech, freedom of religion, civil society – that matters. There is still that foundation of respect for the U.S. 

In terms of freedoms, personal freedoms, the U.S. is viewed quite positively overseas, and even in terms of leadership Obama is quite popular in most of the world." 

It's impossible to know for sure how the U.S. is perceived today versus 35 or 50 years ago, says Pew's Dimock. Reliable data don't stretch back that far. 

But if one considers America's global image in the recent past, he says, the U.S. is actually experiencing a public relations upswing. 

"From a foreign perspective, there was a real nadir of perceptions of the U.S. in 2006, 2007 and 2008," says Dimock, pointing to America's unilateralism and failure to achieve positive results in Iraq and Afghanistan, the negative fallout from Abu Ghraib, 

Guantanamo and other missteps. "It's hard to find a moment when America's image in the world was lower than at that point. So if that's your reference point, then America is doing much better."

So, how would you rate the US?  

He Needs a Legacy

WASHINGTON — At a joint news conference here Tuesday with President François Hollande of France, President Obama veered from his focus on the terrorist attacks in Paris to bring up the huge international gathering beginning in the French capital on Monday to hammer out a global response to climate change.

“What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children,” Mr. Obama said of the climate conference.

The segue brought mockery, even castigation, from the political right, but it was a reminder of the importance Mr. Obama places on climate change in shaping his legacy. 

During his 2012 re-election campaign, he barely mentioned global warming, but the issue has become a hallmark of his second term. 

And on Sunday night he arrives in Paris, hoping to make climate policy the signature environmental achievement of his, and perhaps any, presidency.

“He comes to Paris with a moral authority that no other president has had on the issue of climate change,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University who noted that Mr. Obama’s domestic climate efforts already stand alone in American history. “No other president has had a climate change policy. It makes him unique.”

In Paris, Mr. Obama will join more than 120 world leaders to kick off two weeks of negotiations aimed at forging a new climate change accord that would, for the first time, commit almost every country on Earth to lowering its greenhouse gas pollution. 

All year, Mr. Obama’s negotiators have worked behind the scenes to fashion a Paris deal.

Crucial to Mr. Obama’s leverage has been the release of his domestic climate change regulations, which he then pushed other countries to emulate. So far, at least 170 countries have put forth emission reduction plans.

But even as Mr. Obama presses for a deal in Paris, it faces steep obstacles, not least the legal and legislative assault on his own regulations at home. 

During the course of the Paris talks, Republicans in Congress are planning a series of votes to fight Mr. Obama’s climate agenda. 

More than half the states are suing the administration on the legality of his climate plan. 

And all the Republican presidential candidates have said that they would undo the regulations if elected.       Read more: 

China Claim US is Provoking

China said on Sunday that the United States was making political provocations with its patrols in the disputed South China Sea, as tensions around the strategic waterways mount.

China will continue to construct military facilities on artificial islands it is building, Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.

The facilities are needed to protect the islands, he said.

Washington was testing Beijing with its insistence on "freedom of navigation" in the strategic waterway, he said.

China, which claims almost the entire energy-rich South China Sea, has been transforming reefs into artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago and building airfields and other facilities on some of them.

That has prompted concerns in Washington and across the region that Beijing is trying to militarise its claims in the South China Sea.

Earlier this month, U.S. B-52 bombers flew near some of the artificial islands, signalling Washington's determination to challenge Beijing's claim.

At the end of October, the USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, challenged territorial limits around one of the islands.

"This time, in a very high profile manner, the U.S. sent military vessels within 12 nautical miles of China's islands and reefs," Liu said.

"This has gone beyond the scope of freedom of navigation. It is a political provocation and the purpose is to test China's response."

Obama on Saturday called on countries to stop building artificial islands and militarizing their claims and said the United States would continue to assert its freedom of navigation rights in the sea.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Heads of government from 18 countries including the United States, China, India, Russia, Japan and Southeast Asia are meeting for the annual East Asia Summit, this year hosted by Malaysia.

Many of them came from Manila for the annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The season of summitry has so far been dominated by calls for action over Islamic State's attacks in Paris and Mali, and bombings in Lebanon.      Read more: 

The US Pokes Its Nose In Again

Beijing said Wednesday US President Barack Obama should not get involved in disputes in the South China Sea, after he demanded an end to artificial island building in the hotly contested region.

"The United States should stop playing up the South China Sea issue, stop heightening tensions in the South China Sea and stop complicating disputes in the South China Sea," Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

"No country has the right to point fingers at" China's construction activities, he added.

The rebuke came after Obama met with Philippine President Benigno Aquino in Manila during the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) gathering. 

Beijing has turned a series of reefs and outcrops in disputed waters into artificial islands capable of hosting facilities with military purposes, alarming other claimants.

"We discussed the impact of China's land reclamation and construction activities on regional stability," Obama told reporters after meeting.

"We agree on the need for bold steps to lower tensions, including pledging to halt further reclamation, new construction, and militarisation of disputed areas in the South China Sea."

APEC members the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have rival claims to parts of the sea, which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas resources.

Beijing claims nearly all of the South China Sea, even waters approaching the coasts of its Asian neighbors.

The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres (1,400,000 sq mi). The area's importance largely results from one-third of the world's shipping sailing through its waters and that it is believed to hold huge oil and gas reserves beneath its seabed.
It is located:

• south of mainland China, including the island of Taiwan, in the east;
  
• east of Vietnam and Cambodia;
  
• west of the Philippines;
  
• east of the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, up to the Strait of Malacca in the west and
  
• north of the Bangka–Belitung Islands and Borneo
  

The minute South China Sea Islands, collectively an archipelago, number in the hundreds. The sea and its mostly uninhabited islands are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are also reflected in the variety of names used for the islands and the sea.

Putin Says US Support for Syria Illegal

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday branded U.S. support for rebel forces in Syria as illegal and ineffective, saying U.S.-trained rebels were leaving to join Islamic State with weapons supplied by Washington.

In an interview with U.S. networks recorded ahead of a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Putin said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad deserved international support as he was fighting terrorist organizations.

Obama and Putin are scheduled to talk on Monday after Putin addresses the United Nations, although White House and Kremlin officials have disagreed on what the two leaders will discuss and even who initiated the meeting.

"In my opinion, provision of military support to illegal structures runs counter to the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter," he said in an excerpt of an interview with U.S. television networks CBS and PBS released by the Kremlin.

Russia has stepped up its military involvement in Syria in recent weeks, with U.S. officials accusing Moscow of sending combat aircraft, tanks and other equipment to help the Syrian army.

Russia's sudden military build-up this month in support of Assad and a refugee crisis that has spilled over from the region into Europe have lent new urgency to attempts to resolve the Syria conflict.   Read More: 

A Nation Divided

Voters strongly believe the United States is a more divided nation these days, and they think both sides are to blame. Most are also ready to do something about it at the ballot box in November.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Likely U.S. Voters say America is a more divided nation than it was four years ago. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just seven percent (7%) think the country is less divided now, while 21% rate the level of division as about the same.

(To see survey question wording, click here.)

Among voters who see more division or about the same level of it, 35% believe President Obama is to blame. But 34% point the finger at Republicans in Congress instead. Twenty-three percent (23%) say they’re both to blame. Just five percent (5%) attribute the division to something else.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of all voters say they are more likely to vote this year than they have been in past elections. Only four percent (4%) say they are less likely to do so, while 38% rate their intention to vote as about the same as in past years.

Perhaps problematic for Democrats is that 65% of GOP voters and 55% of voters not affiliated with either major party are more likely to vote this year, compared to 53% of those in the president’s party. But that could change as the election gets nearer.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of voters nationwide are at least somewhat confident that the candidates they vote for will steer the country in the right direction, but that includes just 19% who are Very Confident. Thirty-three percent (33%) lack that confidence, with seven percent (7%) who are Not At All Confident that their candidates will make a difference.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 17-18, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters think Republicans are likely to win the Senate in November, putting them in charge of the entire Congress, while just 40% feel Democrats are likely to take control of the House of Representatives away from the GOP.

Forty-six percent (46%) say given the state of politics in America today, they are following political news more closely than they have in the past. Fifteen percent (15%) are following political news less these days, while 39% say their level of attention to that kind of news is about the same.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of all voters believe most of their fellow Americans are not informed voters.

Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans and 69% of unaffiliated voters think America is a more divided nation than it was four years ago, a view shared by 55% of Democrats.

Just 25% of voters nationwide now believe the country is headed in the right direction, the lowest finding since early December.  Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans and 73% of unaffiliated voters think the country is on the wrong track. Democrats are evenly divided.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of working Americans identify themselves as middle class, and more voters than ever (67%) think the U.S. economy is unfair to the middle class.

Critics have called for Obama’s impeachment and for lawsuits challenging his executive actions, but most voters nix both ideas. Better, they say, to elect an opposition Congress.

Russians Hate Americans Too

MOSCOW — Anti-American sentiment here is growing as Russia responds to Western sanctions over Ukraine, and that is worrying expats and foreigners in this country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a controversial law this week making it a criminal offense to fail to report dual citizenship. It's a bid to keep track of potential foreign agents. Russian citizens who also hold a U.S. passport or one from another country have 60 days to notify the Federal Migration Service of their status or face a fine of nearly $6,000.

A survey published Thursday by the Levada Center, an independent pollster, shows that 71% of Russians view the United States "badly" or "very badly" — the highest in more than 20 years, with more positive attitudes registered during the Soviet era.

While that hasn't translated into outright aggression, it is sparking some additional curiosity toward foreigners in the street.

"My husband ... recently had the experience of running into a man in a store who didn't like that our son was communicating in English," said Natalia Antonova, a Ukrainian-American journalist and playwright who lives in Moscow.

The man, Antonova said, told them that their son "shouldn't be" bilingual. " 'Just teach him Russian. It's for the best.' The man wasn't aggressive or anything. He just explained that he's a patriot, and it's important to encourage patriotic feelings."

Russia has highlighted the political motive of the new law, pointing to potential "enemies." It comes after Russia annexed Ukraine's breakaway republic of Crimea in March, prompting sanctions from the U.S. against Russian officials and businessmen close to Putin.

"This is part of a policy in which (Russia) is trying to reduce foreign influence on its citizens," said sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya, head of Kryshtanovskaya Laboratory. The dual-citizenship law, she said, is directed primarily at the elites, many of whom keep their money and take their vacations abroad."

At least 74,000 people in Russia have a second passport, the country's migration service said last month.

The new law — and the threat of a possible fine — has some Russian-Americans in Moscow fearful of what might come next.

THE WAY IT SHOULD BE EVERYWHERE

The Bay Area Rapid Transit district has become the nation's first transit agency to approve a "Buy America" policy, BART said.

The new Buy America Bid Preference policy, adopted unanimously by the BART board Thursday, "gives preferences to rail car manufacturers who create jobs in the U.S.A.," according to a BART news release Friday.