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13 bodies found bound, hands tied in Syria

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:37:06 +0400

(CNN) -- As world anger mounted toward the Syrian regime after the Houla massacre last week, Russia and China staunchly renewed their opposition to military intervention in the volatile nation.

"China opposes military intervention and does not support forced regime change," said Liu Weimin, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman. "The fundamental route to resolving the Syrian issue is still for all sides to fully support Annan's mediation efforts and push all the relevant parties to carry out diplomatic dialogue."

"One cannot take decisions on military operations in Syria by being guided by only emotions," Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported, quoting Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov.

More than 100 people, including many children, died in Houla on Friday, a suburb of the anti-government bastion of Homs in western Syria.

A small number of the victims in Houla were killed by shelling, artillery and tank fire, while the majority appeared to have been executed, said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights office. Government forces were involved in the massacre, he said Tuesday, but the regime blamed the violence on terrorists and pledged to conduct an investigation.

The carnage prompted worldwide anger at the Syrian regime, however. And, politicians in the West and the Arab world began to rethink the need for tougher action to confront the Bashar al-Assad regime..

Among the ideas are more aid to opposition politicians and fighters, and outside military help, such as airstrikes, safe zones and no-fly zones. Tougher sanctions and political settlements that would lead to al-Assad's departure are also on the table.

But Russia said the U.N. Security Council statement Sunday condemning the incident was for now "a strong enough signal to the Syria parties."

"We believe that considering any new measures to affect the situation would be premature for the Security Council," Gatilov said, according to Interfax news agency. He was commenting on German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle's call for a new Security Council session.

"It is necessary to provide a chance for the Kofi Annan plan's implementation, and it is important for all foreign players, including our Western partners, to have the necessary effect on the opposition. We deem it inappropriate when the opposition's leadership represented by the Syrian National Council openly calls for armed combat until the U.N. gives the green light to armed intervention."

Denisov, responding French President Francois Hollande's statement that a military option can't be ruled out, said, "the Russian position is not formed on the basis of emotions, which our respected French partners have unfortunately not escaped in the formulation of their position." He was quoted by the Russian news outlet RIA Novosti.

The "question of internal interference" is not being driven by "analysis and a calculated approach," Denisov said.

"The question that always arises in such situations is -- what next?"

China urged the warring sides in Syria to resume diplomatic dialogue and support a peace plan by international envoy Kofi Annan. China and Russia have vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning President Bashar al-Assad's regime for attacks on protesters.

The renewed support from Beijing and Moscow come as Syrian regime forces battled with rebels in various areas Wednesday, including the capital of Damascus and the provinces of Damascus countryside, Aleppo and Hama, and observers found more than a dozen corpses in Deir Ezzor.

Intense shelling destroyed homes in Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based opposition group. Shelling was also reported in the cities of Douma, Haish and Kafromah, the group said.

At least 13 people were killed Wednesday, including five in Douma, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said. The LCC also said regime forces launched tear-gas grenades at Aleppo University students and made arrests.

Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. observer mission said 13 bodies were discovered Tuesday night in the area of Assukar, 30 miles east of Deir Ezzor in the eastern part of the country.

"All the bodies had their hands tied behind their backs and some appear to have been shot in the head from a short distance," according to a statement from the office of Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, chief military observer and head of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria.

Mood called the act "appalling and inexcusable" and urged "all parties to exercise restraint and end the cycle of violence."

The Houla carnage prompted international outrage and assertions that the incident could lead to a new chapter or a "tipping point" in the Syrian crisis. As the killings mounted on Wednesday, diplomats continued their consultations.

U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Tuesday. Annan renewed his appeal for the regime to stop violence against its people. He expressed the international community's concerns about the Houla massacre and other attacks and urged adherence to his six-point peace plan to end the conflict.

The U.N. Security Council, the regime and opposition groups have backed Annan's peace plan, which called for a cease-fire on April 12. The observer mission was formed to monitor the cease-fire and the government's adherence to the plan. However, violence persists, with more than 12,000 dead since March 2011, according to the British Ambassador to the U.N. Mark Lyall Grant. Other estimates from the United Nations and opposition groups range from 9,000 to 14,000 dead.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, the deputy joint special envoy on Syria, will update the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday as international outrage over the massacre continues.

Also, Annan met with the prime minister and foreign minister of neighboring Jordan on Wednesday about the Syrian crisis, his spokesman said.

"It is important to find a solution that will lead to a democratic transition in Syria and find a way of ending the killings as soon as possible. And in that context, I am very grateful for the support I am receiving from the government of Jordan and other governments around the world. With goodwill and hard work, we can succeed," Annan said.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it placed sanctions on on the Syria International Islamic Bank Wednesday for acting on behalf of the Commercial Bank of Syria, Syria's largest commercial bank, and providing services to the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank -- both already under U.S. and international sanctions.

The department said the government of Qatar is taking similar actions against the Syrian International Islamic Bank.

"We commend the Government of Qatar for its important regional and international role in maintaining economic pressure on the Assad regime," the Treasury Department said.

About a dozen nations -- including the United States -- have said they are expelling Syrian envoys in a coordinated action over the killings, and the action spurred talk about options to deal with the al-Assad regime.

Turkey is the latest country to take action against Syrian diplomats.

It told envoys to leave the country within 72 hours, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. They include the charge d'affaires in the Turkish capital of Ankara and all the other diplomatic personnel at the embassy.

"It is out of the question to remain silent and unresponsive against this action that is in the character of a crime against humanity. This fatal crime against humanity that those who massacre civilian people ... cannot remain unpunished. It is the joint responsibility of the international community to show the necessary reactions as one voice, in unity against this shameful crime," the ministry said.

The Netherlands, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Bulgaria, Canada and the United States also announced that they are expelling some Syrian diplomats.

In retaliation, Syrian state television reported that Damascus has expelled the Dutch charge d'affaires in Damascus, giving her 72 hours to leave the country.

Russia called the expulsions of Syrian diplomats "counterproductive."

"The most important channels, along which it could be possible to share views and exert a constructive influence on the Syrian government for its encouragement to further steps to fulfill Kofi Annan's peace plan, turned out to be sealed off," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Wednesday, according to Itar-Tass news agency.

"We are doing our best to alleviate tensions between the Syrian warring parties and in this respectr we are maintaining intensive contacts not only with the Syrian government, but also with various opposition groups, including those who are not quite sympathetic to us."

CNN cannot confirm death tolls and reports of violence from Syria because the government limits access by foreign journalists.

CNN's Amir Ahmed, Faith Karimi and Joe Sterling contributed to this report.

Romney finally clinches GOP nomination

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:34:14 +0400

(CNN) -- Mitt Romney hit his party's "magic number" on Tuesday, unofficially clinching the Republican presidential nomination in a race he entered as the front-runner and has had to himself for weeks.

Romney led the pack when he announced his second run for the White House last June, and he has watched his rivals for the nomination slowly trickle out as their own wins looked increasingly unlikely.

The delegates to put him over the 1,144 necessary for the GOP nomination came in Texas, the lone state to vote this week. Romney entered the day 78 delegates away from the magic number, and on Tuesday CNN projected he would win the state's GOP presidential primary, where 152 of the state's 155 delegates were at stake.

On Tuesday, Romney said he was humbled to have secured the requisite delegates to become the GOP nominee.

"I am honored that Americans across the country have given their support to my candidacy and I am humbled to have won enough delegates to become the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nominee," Romney wrote. "Our party has come together with the goal of putting the failures of the last 3½ years behind us. I have no illusions about the difficulties of the task before us. But whatever challenges lie ahead, we will settle for nothing less than getting America back on the path to full employment and prosperity. On November 6, I am confident that we will unite as a country and begin the hard work of fulfilling the American promise and restoring our country to greatness."

The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, congratulated Romney on the milestone, saying Romney would "offer America the new direction we so desperately need."

Priebus' Democratic counterpart, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was less enthusiastic.

"Tonight, after six years of trying and millions of dollars spent, and after a year of tepid support against one of the weakest fields in history, Mitt Romney has finally secured enough delegates to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee," wrote Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. "Romney may have finally gained enough delegates to become the nominee, but what's been truly remarkable about his path to the nomination is how much damage he's left in his wake as he enters the general election."

Romney has been the presumptive nominee for weeks, but will not be the official party nominee until the Republican National Convention, set to be held the week of August 27 in Tampa, Florida.

Romney launched his campaign on a warm day last June, telling his supporters gathered at a New Hampshire farm that "Barack Obama has failed America."

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"From my first day in office my No. 1 job will be to see that America once again is No.1 in job creation," he said.

The early primary battleground state would play an important role in his campaign. He initially invested more in New Hampshire than the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa, which he eventually lost by a small margin to former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

New England voters have long been familiar with Romney, even before his 2008 presidential bid. He served as governor of Massachusetts between 2003 and 2007.

Texas figured into this presidential race long before the first votes cast on Tuesday. One of the three factors in Santorum's April decision to end his presidential bid was a decision by Texas Republicans not to change their proportional delegate model to a winner-take-all system, which -- if he had stayed in the race and won the state -- could have given him a boost and held back Romney's delegate accumulation.

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Two of Romney's rivals in the once-crowded field are from Texas. Texas Gov. Rick Perry exited the race two days before the mid-January primary in South Carolina after a disappointing fifth-place finish in Iowa and his decision to stop campaigning in the second state to vote, New Hampshire.

Earlier this month, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said he would no longer actively campaign for the Republican nomination, effectively ending his third run for the Oval Office with 122 delegates.

When Santorum, Paul and others were still in the race, talk of a contested convention swirled and it seemed to some a realistic possibility that Romney might not reach the magic number before the last state voted in June.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed to push his bid onward to the convention unless Romney were to clinch the nomination earlier. He told reporters in late March that if Romney "does not have a majority [of delegates], I think you'll then have one of the most interesting, open conventions in American history." He suspended his bid in early May, and on Tuesday was to appear with Romney at a fundraiser in Las Vegas.

The earliest contests weeded out Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who won the Iowa straw poll last summer but finished sixth in its January caucuses, and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who ended his bid before the South Carolina vote after falling short in New Hampshire.

Others dropped out before the voting began. Businessman Herman Cain's once-unlikely rise ended in December amid allegations of sexual misbehavior. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty dropped out months earlier, in August, after the high stakes Ames, Iowa, straw poll.

Romney, who becomes the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major party, previously sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. He dropped out after Super Tuesday, which allocated 1,020 delegates from 21 states. The Texas primary in early March of that year gave Sen. John McCain of Arizona the necessary delegates to seal up the GOP nomination.

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In his 2008 convention speech, Romney spoke about many of the same themes that are prominent in his campaign this cycle, including a call "to rein in government spending, lower taxes, take a weed wacker to excessive regulation and mandates ... pursue every source of energy security, from new efficiencies to renewables, from coal to non-CO2 producing nuclear and for the immediate drilling for more oil off our shores."

President Barack Obama faced no national competition for the Democratic presidential nomination, and CNN projected he accumulated the 2,778 necessary delegates on April 3.

'Death camp' words trouble for Obama

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:38:01 +0400

Washington (CNN) -- The Polish prime minister on Wednesday reacted strongly to what the White House said was a mistake by President Barack Obama during a Medal of Freedom ceremony.

The trouble came Tuesday when Obama paid tribute to Jan Karski, the former Polish officer who escaped Nazi imprisonment in World War II and provided firsthand accounts to the Western Allies of atrocities. Karski received the award posthumously.

"Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale, and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself. Jan took that information to President Franklin Roosevelt, giving one of the first accounts of the Holocaust and imploring to the world to take action," Obama said.

The president's use of the term "Polish death camp," rather than Nazi death camp sparked outrage in Poland.

Obama's words "touched all Poles," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a statement. "We always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, in a country which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II.

"We cannot accept such words even if they are spoken by the leader of a friendly power -- or perhaps especially in such situations -- since we expect diligence, care and respect from our friend on issues of such importance as World War II remembrance."

The White House issued a statement from National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor on the president's wrong word choice.

"The president misspoke -- he was referring to Nazi death camps in Poland," the statement said. "We regret this misstatement, which should not detract from the clear intention to honor Mr. Karski and those brave citizens who stood on the side of human dignity in the face of tyranny."

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted Tuesday night: "White House apologizes for outrageous blunder. PM Tusk will take his position in the morning. It's a shame that this important ceremony was overshadowed by ignorance and incompetence."

Tusk said Wednesday the incident could pose an opportunity for the United States "to support Poland in its efforts towards historical truth, towards the correct phrasings, the right assessment of what happened during World War II on Polish territory and throughout Europe. ... When someone says 'Polish death camps,' it is as if there were no Nazis, no German responsibility, as if there was no Hitler -- that is why our Polish sensitivity in these situations is so much more than just simply a feeling of national pride."

Tusk said he is convinced that "our American friends are capable of a stronger reaction ... than just the correction itself and the regret which we heard from the White House spokesperson.

"We take note of these words, but it seems that it would be even more important for the United States than for Poland to end this with class. This is how one acts with regard to tried-and-tested friends, but this is also how one acts in your own, well-defined interest."

Obama has spoken of the bravery of Poles during World War II in past speeches. Last year, he visited the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial honoring those who perished in the Holocaust.

According to the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, at least 1.5 million Polish citizens were sent into forced labor in German territory between 1939 and 1945.

"Hundreds of thousands were also imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps," it says in its Holocaust Encyclopedia.

"It is estimated that the Germans killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians during World War II. In addition, the Germans murdered at least 3 million Jewish citizens of Poland."

CNN's Bob Kovach contributed to this report.

Romney iPhone app misspells 'America'

Wed, 30 May 2012 20:09:14 +0400

(CNN) -- It's probably not the kind of thing voters will use to choose the leader of the free world.

But the Web was taking no shortage of presidential potshots Wednesday over Republican candidate Mitt Romney's new mobile app, which embarrassingly misspelled "America."

Yes, Internet. Welcome to AMERCIA.

"Sorry about the shaking California, that was just the rest of America laughing at Mitt Romney running for Pres. of #Amercia," wrote a person behind a parody President Obama account on Twitter (referencing a minor earthquake late Tuesday).

The gaffe, presumably by some poor developer hired by the campaign, appears on "With Mitt," the campaign's newly released iPhone app. The app invites users to photograph themselves with their choice of 14 pro-Romney slogans such as "I'm a Mom For Mitt," "Obama Isn't Working" and "The America We Love," and then share them on social media.

But one of the slogans reads, "A Better Amercia." Oops. Somebody didn't observe the "I-before-C" rule.

The "With Mitt" app was still available in Apple's App Store on Wednesday morning. The Romney campaign has submitted an update to the app and was waiting for Apple's approval Wednesday morning. No one with the campaign was speaking on the record about it, but staffers were downplaying its importance in the run-up to November.

Slips of the tongue by political candidates are, of course, not uncommon. In 2008, then-candidate Obama got grief for saying he'd visited "all 57 states." And Vice President Joe Biden's free-speaking nature has gotten him no shortage of headlines.

But the Web's politically minded (many of whom, presumably, don't consider Romney their top choice), were noting that when a mistake appears in writing, it shows a lack of attention to detail.

"If you're applying for a job, and you misspell the name of the company you want to work for, you won't get that job. #Amercia," wrote a Twitter user.

"#Amercia" was a trending topic (meaning it's one of the most discussed terms) on Twitter late Tuesday and again Wednesday morning.

The typo has already also inspired its own Tumblr blog, "Amercia Is With Mitt."

It features photos created with the app and, as of Wednesday morning, included a group of spelling bee champions, Beaker from "The Muppet Show" and Rich Uncle Moneybags, the Monopoly mascot, among its subjects.

And numerous images were popping up on Instagram -- one highlight being Bart Simpson having to write the correctly spelled "America" during his iconic chalkboard gag from the intro to "The Simpsons."

To be honest, the Romney camp is probably more pleased at winning enough delegates in the Texas primaries Tuesday to make him the unofficial GOP nominee than it is worried about a spelling gaffe.

And it's worth noting that lots of folks who support Romney probably only learned that the app exists because of talk about the typo.

Opinion: How to stop election insanity

Wed, 30 May 2012 16:08:37 +0400

Editor's note: Lewis Beale writes about film for the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the New York Daily News and other publications.

(CNN) -- I was watching yet another annoying political ad produced by some super PAC of which I've never heard, and all I could think was: "Sheesh, it's not even June, and I'm already sick of this stuff. With five months to go until the election, I think a steady diet of this junk will drive me into a mental institution."

Me and about 200 million other Americans.

Let's face it -- the way we elect our presidents is seriously dysfunctional. The seemingly endless campaign season. The hectoring TV ads, the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the system, the endless polling and pontificating. Contemplating this, all I can do is repeat the immortal words of Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes": "God damn you all to hell!"

But there are ways to make the system better. If, that is, we have the will (and this is highly questionable). I'm no pundit; heck, I'm not even Joe the Plumber (think of me as Lew the Disgusted), but I'd like to offer a few suggestions on how to restore sanity to the process.

1. Make the presidency a six-year, one-term-only gig. That gives anyone elected to the job plenty of time to actually accomplish something, while also guaranteeing that the second half of his or her term won't be spent running for re-election. What a concept.

2. Start the campaign season after Labor Day. Most industrialized countries run political campaigns that are three months in length or less. Do they know something we don't? Or should I say, have you ever heard the term "voter exhaustion?"

3. Publicly finance the election. Citizens United, up there with Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) as one of the worst decisions in Supreme Court history, only made a bad system even worse, allowing more millions to pour into an already corrupt process. So give each contender a fixed amount of money, and tell them they can spent it any way they want, but that's all they'll have -- no private, corporate or PAC contributions at all. Let 'em whine. Who cares?

4. Ban negative ads. Believe it or not, Mexico does this. They have an independent commission deciding when a political ad goes over the line into negativity and falsehood. If they can do it South of the Border, why can't we?

5. Limit polling. It seems there's a new poll every microsecond. What do they really tell us? That people's minds keep changing? Stop the presses on that one! Pass a law saying every news organization and polling organization can only do their thing, say, once a month. Eliminate the clutter.

That'll do for a start.

But I can hear some of you saying "this is a free country, yadda yadda, people can spend their money any way they want, yaddayadda, there's such a thing as free speech in a democracy, yadda yadda yadda." And besides, it's all settled law, you say; the court has ruled on Citizens United. Well, yes I know this. Things don't change overnight.

But here's what else I know: Sometimes liberty becomes license. And that's what's happening in America today.

Money has completely corrupted the system and helped create a situation where the U.S., the most powerful country on Earth, has one of the lowest voter turnouts (lower than any country in Western Europe or Latin America, lower than most countries in North America). You think disgust with the process has anything to do with this?

Think about that the next time the Rich Folks For Super PACs super PAC puts another misleading, demeaning and infuriating political ad on the tube.

How about you? What do you think we can do to improve the election process?

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Lewis Beale.

Latino vote is a 'sleeping giant'

Wed, 30 May 2012 16:58:47 +0400

Editor's note: As President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney court the Latino vote, CNN takes an in-depth look at this complex and diverse community, what matters most to Latino voters, and how their vote will influence the November elections.

Washington (CNN) -- The first Latino president of the United States already has been born.

Henry Cisneros, the former San Antonio mayor who was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration, made the suggestion three years ago in an interview with the Spanish-language news service EFE.

"I don't know if he or she's in elementary school or in law school or is already elected ... to public office, but I believe that that person is already alive, and we're 20 years or less away from having a Latino or Latina president," said Cisneros, whose own path to higher office may have been derailed by personal scandal and who today is executive chairman of CityView, an urban development investment firm.

When the day comes that Cisneros predicted, the man or woman behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office will represent an ever-increasing segment of the population. Latinos (or Hispanics, the official government term) made up 15.5% of the U.S. population in 2010, but by 2050 they're projected to approach 25% of the population.

The American, the online magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, calls the Hispanic electorate a "sleeping giant" yet to wake.

Whether or not Latinos' percentage in the electorate has kept pace with their growth in the population -- and the data indicates that at present it has not -- it may one day be enough to sway elections from the statehouse to the White House and stops in between.

Not one 'Latino vote'

Conventional wisdom lumps together "the Latino vote." But that community includes millions of people claiming dozens of countries of origin, speaking more than just Spanish. It is not now -- nor in the future -- likely to be anything so homogenous.

Juan Guillermo Tornoe, owner of Hispanic Trending Inc., a marketing and advertising firm in Austin, Texas, and author of the Hispanic Trending blog, is "counting the days" until he is eligible to become a U.S. citizen in a couple of years and vote in a presidential election.

For several years, Tornoe, a Guatemala native who came to the United States 10 years ago and now has permanent resident status, has talked about the nuances of the Latino community, the kinds of things companies marketing products (and political parties marketing candidates) need to know.

"There is not one Latino Vote; there is a multitude of Latino votes and candidates, society, and the media need to fully understand this if they are ever going to connect with the different parts of the Hispanic community," he advised.

Tornoe cringes "every time someone refers to Latinos as a unified voting bloc or as a homogeneous market segment. We are way too diverse for this."

"There are many differences between Hispanics, depending upon the person's country of origin or heritage: Food and music preferences as well as the holidays they celebrate are some of the most obvious," Tornoe says. "The actual words they use to describe persons, places, actions and things can vary immensely as well. There is also a lot of ideological baggage that comes along with one's country of origin/heritage."

Black beans vs. kidney beans

To illustrate the matter of food preferences, Frank Unanue Jr., an executive with one of the nation's largest Hispanic food companies, notes the differences within the ethnic population in his state of Florida: Black beans and rice are big with the Cuban community in Miami, "But up north, we sell more kidney beans, rice, fruit nectars and fruit juices. They all move well," said Unanue, president of Goya Foods Florida.

Gabriel Sanchez, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Mexico and research director for the group Latino Decisions, explains self-identification: "In short, although more Latinos prefer to use national origin to identify themselves, Latino pan-ethnic identity is highly relevant to the political behavior of the Latino population and will only increase in salience as long as the political debates surrounding immigration policy is perceived to be hostile to the Latino community among the Hispanic population."

As for generational differences, Tornoe said: "It is a completely different worldview depending how far away generationally Hispanics are from their country of origin/heritage.

"First-generation (foreign-born) Latinos have experienced life outside the U.S., have gone through the immigration experience, and to different degrees, have embraced or become acquainted with living in America. Second-generation Latinos encounter a mixed experience, being born and growing up in the United States, but brought up by immigrants and thus heavily exposed and influenced by their parents' culture.

"Finally, Latinos who are third generation and beyond are the sons and daughters of U.S.-born parents. They are very much influenced by the general market but still connect to their roots through the values, traditions and culture passed on by their parents and grandparents."

When it comes to citizenship, Tornoe, who hopes to be officially an American in three years, is clear.

"Being a U.S.-born citizen puts you in a completely different frame of mind than that of a naturalized U.S. citizen, someone who's a permanent resident (who could be counting the days to becoming a citizen or simply choosing to never become one), someone here on a temporary work visa or an undocumented alien," he said. "All of these are part of the Latino population, but only a percentage of them are able to vote.

"Then, among the latter, it is not the same to be able to vote, than to be a registered voter and actually cast your vote. Lack of participation in the democratic process is one of the major problems among the Hispanic community."

Population does not equal electoral influence -- not yet anyway. As a Houston Chronicle headline noted in April -- "Idea of Hispanic voter surge fading this year" -- Hispanic voter registration and turnout might fall below estimates.

Still, the fast-growing population should not be completely dismissed. An article from the AEI's The American looked at the lag between population and turnout.

"Hispanics have been the 'sleeping giant' of American politics for decades. Each election season, we see more and more articles about how important this group of Americans is, and how their impact will be outsized and ever-growing. Yet for some reason, the 'giant' never quite seems to wake up."

There are an estimated 31.8 million Hispanics of voting age (18 and older) in the United States, but only 10.9 million -- 51.6% -- are registered to vote, compared with 62.8% for eligible African-Americans and 68.2% for what the government calls non-Hispanic whites, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Voters not re-registering

"We believe that the recession and mortgage foreclosure crisis explains this decline," Antonio Gonzalez, director of the William C. Velasquez Institute, based in San Antonio, told the Houston Chronicle. "It hit blacks and Latinos and the lower middle-class people first.

"When people lose their jobs or homes, they usually have to move elsewhere. When you move, you have to re-register, and we suspect that didn't happen in 2009-10. ... The law of unintended consequences is at work here. This administration, like the last one, didn't have an answer for home foreclosures. The unintended consequence is a dampening of Latino voter turnout."

Academic experts and advocates agree that increasing registration is the key to taking advantage of the opportunities available to influence the outcome of the 2012 election, perhaps more on Capitol Hill than at the White House.

Gonzalez, who also heads the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said that while just 15% of the Latino vote is in so-called battleground states for the presidential race, this year offers numerous opportunities for Latinos to increase their ranks on Capitol Hill.

At the top of Gonzalez' list was the newly created 33rd Congressional District, near Dallas, a seat reflecting the rise in Texas' population, an increase due in large part to the state's growing Latino population.

The Houston Chronicle noted that while the Hispanic population in Texas grew by 2.8 million in the past decade, the number of registered Hispanic voters declined by 100,000 between 2008-2010.

The 33rd District reflects the changing demographics of the Dallas area, Gonzalez said. "Big D" is becoming more Latino, and the population in the 33rd is nearly two-thirds Latino.

The University of Washington's Matt Baretto calls the problem a "registration deficit," pointing to such states as North Carolina and Virginia, where the shortfall threatens or, at least, delays Latino impact from reaching its potential.

Baretto estimates that 70% of Latino voters back President Barack Obama despite disappointment over the failure to see immigration reform legislation enacted. But again, he said, the issue is turnout, which begins with registration.

As for immigration, which conventional wisdom often sees as the issue of greatest importance to Latinos, Baretto said that it falls behind the economy and jobs, not to mention education and health care, for most Latinos.

In the end, the issue comes down to what can be done to increase Latino registration and voter turnout.

Gustavo Razzetti, chief strategy and engagement officer at Grupo Gallegos, based in Los Angeles, said that fear and apathy may be dampening turnout.

"The most obvious answer is lack of information," said Razzetti, who has more than 20 years' experience in U.S. and Latin American markets. "Not understanding how the system works and the fear to take time off of work appear on top of the list. Yet when reviewing other reasons (legal residents who haven't become U.S. citizens or feel that their votes don't count), it seems that one of the most important factors is that Latinos don't care. And I'm not saying it in a negative way; it's simply that if they don't believe that their vote will impact their everyday life, why care to vote or to get the citizenship?"

Razzetti offers this advice: "Candidates and parties need to make a strong effort to engage Latinos. They need to understand that educating Latinos is important but only the first step."

Razzetti suggested such unlikely ideas as "voto trucks," modeled after food trucks, or "voting empanada/tamale stands outside markets" or working voting into the plots of Spanish-language telenovelas to spur interest, registration and, ultimately, voting.

"There's room for a true leader who can inspire Latinos to take a more active civic role as well as community support. Political participation needs to be encouraged at home, school and in the community in general," he said. "Family and friends play a critical role in encouraging other family and friends to vote. Organizations need to consider this as part of their outreach strategy."

Beryl strengthens over Carolina coast

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:50:20 +0400

(CNN) -- Two days after slamming into northeast Florida, Beryl -- slightly strengthened but still a tropical depression -- prepared to re-enter the Atlantic on Wednesday, spreading heavy rain and blustery winds along the coast of the Carolinas.

Beryl, which came ashore early Monday with 70 mph winds near Jacksonville Beach, Florida, increased its maximum sustained winds from 30 to 35 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

Track Beryl's progress

"On the forecast track, the center of Beryl is expected to move off the coast of southern South Carolina later today and move along or just off the coast of South and North Carolina through this evening," forecasters said.

Beryl swept through Charleston, South Carolina, early Wednesday, leaving more than 1,000 people out of power in several areas and spawning at least one tornado warning in an outlying county, according to CNN affiliate WCIV.

In the suburb of North Charleston, one family heard a loud noise during the night and found part of a tree had fallen on top of a car parked in the driveway.

"I was scared and shocked," Brittany Gadsden told WCIV. "I tried to climb over the trees to get to my mom's car, and I tried to back it out but I couldn't."

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Flood watches were posted along coastal North Carolina ahead of Beryl's arrival and heavy rain was forecast, CNN affiliates reported.

Beryl claimed the life of a teenager who ventured into the Atlantic Ocean, a Florida beach patrol official said Tuesday.

The 18-year-old and a friend were in 5 to 6 feet of water about 6 p.m. Monday when a wave knocked him off his feet and swept him away, Volusia County Beach Patrol Capt. Tammy Marris said.

The friend flagged down rescue workers, but a search late Monday was unsuccessful. The body of the man, whose name was not released, washed ashore about 6 a.m. Tuesday some 6 miles north of where he went under, Marris said.

Volusia County Beach Patrol workers rescued approximately 170 swimmers from the surf over the Memorial Day weekend, Marris said.

The National Weather Service had warned of dangerous rip currents along the coast from Florida to the Carolinas as Beryl passed. Rip currents are still a threat Wednesday along the coasts of South and North Carolina, forecasters said.

As of 5 a.m. Wednesday, Beryl's center was about 25 miles north-northeast of Charleston, South Carolina, and about 135 miles southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina. It was moving east-northeast at 14 mph.

Beryl is expected to produce 3 to 6 inches of rain in the eastern Carolinas, with isolated amounts up to 8 inches, the hurricane center said.

Through Tuesday morning, the town of Midway, Florida, about 12 miles west of Tallahassee, had received 12.65 inches of rain from Beryl, according to the National Weather Service.

Other notable rainfall totals as of Tuesday included more than 8 inches in Cooks Hammock, Florida, about 73 miles northwest of Gainesville, and 6 inches in Branford and Arlington, Florida.

Flash flood and flood watches were posted on the South Carolina and North Carolina coasts. Flood warnings, watches and advisories were dropped Tuesday afternoon for parts of Florida and Georgia.

However, the rain is much needed in the region. According to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which tracks drought nationwide, areas of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are under drought conditions ranging from "severe" to "exceptional."

"We welcome the rain," said Lisa Janak Newman, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.

CNN's Ed Payne contributed to this report.

Taylor gets 50 years for war crimes

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:54:31 +0400

(CNN) -- The first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes since World War II was sentenced to 50 years in prison Wednesday by an international court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted former Liberian president Charles Taylor last month of supplying and encouraging rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in a campaign of terror, involving murder, rape, sexual slavery and the conscription children younger than 15.

Who is Taylor, exactly?

He was also found guilty of using Sierra Leone's diamond deposits to help fuel its civil war with arms and guns while enriching himself with what have commonly come to be known as "blood diamonds."

For victims in Sierra Leone, Taylor's verdict brings relief

Taylor directed his gaze downward while Presiding Judge Richard Lussick read the sentencing statement, which began with a horror cabinet of carnage committed in Sierra Leone by rebels from the Revolutionary United Front, which the former president backed.

"The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting as well as planning some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history," said Lussick, who described one RUF military operation as the "indiscriminate killing of anything that moved."

He spoke of amputations with machetes -- some carried out by child soldiers forced to do so -- and read accounts by witnesses who suffered under the violence.

Opinion: Do war crimes trials really help victims?

"Witness TF1064 was forced to carry a bag containing human heads," Lussick said. "On the way, the rebels ordered her to laugh as she carried the bags dripping with blood."

Upon arrival, "the bag was emptied, and she saw the heads of her children."

A former child soldier, conscripted at age 12, in his testimony told of "having the letters RUF carved into his chest," Lussick said. "When ordered on a food-finding mission to rape an old woman they found at a farmhouse, the boy cried and refused, for which he was punished."

The prosecution had asked the Special Court for Sierra Leone to sentence Taylor, who was president of Liberia from 1997 to 2003, to 80 years behind bars, but the judges found the recommendation "excessive," citing the "limited scope" of the conviction in key attacks.

The prosecutors had failed to prove that Taylor assumed direct command over rebels who committed atrocities.

There is no death penalty in international criminal law, and Taylor, 64, will serve out his sentence in a British prison.

The former Liberian president is appealing his conviction and will receive credit for time already served since his apprehension in March 2006.

The atrocities he was convicted of supporting occurred over the course of five years -- almost his entire presidency -- and reached a peak in 1998 and 1999. Sierra Leone's civil war lasted from 1991 to 2002, ultimately leaving 50,000 dead or missing.

Although Taylor was not on the battlefield in Sierra Leone, the court saw his position of power as president of the neighboring country and the use of his own military's capabilities to stoke up RUF rebels as making him directly responsible for the bloodshed he encouraged.

Taylor does not see himself as a war criminal but as a victim -- a leader wronged by corruption and a hypocritical hand of justice with a political agenda.

"I never stood a chance," he said last week during his final courtroom stand. "Only time will tell how many other African heads of state will be destroyed."

Taylor accused the United States government of throwing the trial by paying prosecutors millions of dollars and claimed that witnesses had been bought.

He has expressed no remorse and insisted his intent was far from what had been portrayed by prosecutors. He has described himself as a peacemaker, saying he should be spared a harsh sentence.

His defense attorneys pointed to the former Liberian president's role in the peace process that ended the civil war as a mitigating factor in his sentencing.

But after lengthy consideration, the panel of judges -- which in addition to Lassick included Judge Teresa Doherty and Judge Julia Sebutinde -- did not buy it.

"While Mr. Taylor publicly played a substantial role in this process ... secretly, he was fuelling hostilities," Lassick said, supplying rebels with arms and ammunition.

Last month's landmark ruling by the Special Court for Sierra Leone against Taylor was the first war crimes conviction of a former head of state by an international court since the Nuremberg trials after World War II that convicted Adm. Karl Doenitz, who became president of Germany briefly after Adolf Hitler's suicide.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was tried by an international tribunal, but he died before a judgment was issued.

Taylor, 64, was found guilty of all 11 counts of aiding and abetting the deadly rebel campaign in Sierra Leone.

He was a pivotal figure in Liberian politics for decades and was forced out of office under international pressure in 2003. He fled to Nigeria, where border guards arrested him three years later as he was attempting to cross into Chad.

The United Nations and the Sierra Leone government jointly set up the special tribunal to try those who played the biggest role in the atrocities. The court was moved to the Netherlands from Sierra Leone, where emotions about the civil war still run high.

Ex-News of the World editor held

Wed, 30 May 2012 17:20:49 +0400

London (CNN) -- A former editor of Rupert Murdoch's disgraced News of the World tabloid was detained Wednesday on perjury charges over court testimony about phone hacking.

Andy Coulson, 44, was held in connection with a Scottish police investigation into phone hacking and perjury at the trial of politician Tommy Sheridan.

The case is potentially deeply embarrassing for British Prime Minister David Cameron, who hired Coulson to run his communications team after Coulson resigned from the News of the World.

Scotland's Glasgow-based Strathclyde Police announced Wednesday that they had detained a 44-year-old man in London on suspicion of perjury. They did not name him.

At the high court in Glasgow, Scotland, in December 2010, Coulson denied on the stand that he had ever met or spoken to a private detective employed by News of the World to hack phones, according to British press reports at the time.

Coulson quit when a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, and the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, were sent to prison in 2007 for hacking phones.

Coulson has always denied knowing about illegal activity at the paper he ran. He said he quit because he was responsible as editor for what his staff did. He was snapped up by Cameron shortly after he left the Murdoch paper.

Coulson was arrested separately by London police last year on suspicion of conspiracy to hack phones and to bribe officials. He is currently free on bail.

Phone hacking at News of the World has sparked three separate investigations by police in London, two parliamentary probes and a judge-led independent inquiry. The newspaper was closed down in July 2011.

CNN's Roger Clark contributed to this report.

Human foot mailed to Canada politicians

Wed, 30 May 2012 15:05:57 +0400

(CNN) -- Canadian police say they're looking for possible connections between the discovery of severed body parts in two cities, including what appears to be a human foot mailed to the headquarters of the ruling Conservative Party.

The grisly find in an office tower in Ottawa on Tuesday came the same day that a janitor found human remains -- but not a full human body -- behind an apartment building in Montreal, about 200 km (160 miles) away.

Police also confirmed late Tuesday the discovery of a second human body part in Ottawa. No other details were immediately available.

"It would be foolish for us to disregard what is going on in Montreal," Constable Marc Soucy, an Ottawa police spokesman, told CNN. But both Soucy and Constable Daniel Fortier, his counterpart in Montreal, said there was no known connection between the incidents Tuesday night.

"'It's too soon to make any links between those two events," Fortier said.

Soucy said a hazardous materials team was sent to the office tower that houses the Conservative offices in Ottawa shortly after 11 a.m. after workers reported a suspicious package. The officers who responded noticed what appeared to be bloodstains on the box, he said.

Ottawa police Sgt. Steve Hodgson told reporters outside the office that the package had been addressed to the Conservative Party. Staffers had begun to open the package before calling police, he said.

The party, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, had no comment on the incident Tuesday evening.

Police are still calling the foot "possibly" human as they await tests from medical examiners, Soucy said. He would not discuss the condition of the appendage, whether any note accompanied the package or where it had been postmarked.

Ottawa's major-crimes unit is checking with other police departments for similar cases and looking back through missing-persons files for any clues, Soucy said.

"We're going to look at every avenue," he said.

In Montreal, Fortier said investigators have no reports of missing people who might fit the description of the remains found Tuesday. He said a janitor made the discovery while looking into a report of "smelly garbage" Tuesday morning, and police don't know how long the remains might have been there.

CNN's Jake Carpenter, Paula Newton and Matt Smith contributed to this report.