Good Reads: gun laws, lottery winners, online education, and tech gets sensory

The Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut brought a deluge of media attention to gun control. One useful perspective came from the Lexington’s Notebook column in The Economist magazine. Britain’s gun-related homicide rate is drastically lower than that of the United States not only because guns are harder to purchase, but because ammunition is scarce, the writer points out. In one recent incident in a crime-plagued British neighborhood, for example, “the gang had had to make its own bullets, which did not work well....”
In one recent year England and Wales experienced 39 fatalities from crimes involving firearms; the US had 12,000. In Britain, “The firearms-ownership rules are onerous, involving hours of paperwork. You must provide a referee who has to answer nosy questions about the applicant’s mental state, home life (including family or domestic tensions) and their attitude towards guns. In addition to criminal-record checks, the police talk to applicants’ family doctors and ask about any histories of alcohol or drug abuse or personality disorders.”
Recommended: How well do you know global Christmas traditions? Take the quiz
Some US gun owners argue that they might need firearms to fight a tyrannical government. But “I don’t think America is remotely close to becoming a tyranny, and to suggest that it is is both irrational and a bit offensive to people who actually do live under tyrannical rule,” the writer responds.
LOTTERY BURDENS
Are you eager to win the next big lottery? BloombergBusinessWeek writer David Samuels offers the cautionary tale of Jack Whittaker, a contractor in Scott Depot, W. Va., who 10 years ago found that his $1 Powerball lottery ticket had won him a $93 million payout after taxes.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
Mr. Whittaker tried to do good with his bonanza, giving away a good portion to charitable groups, especially churches. But he still descended into alcohol addiction; was divorced by his wife; became tied up (by his own count) in some 460 legal actions; and lost his beloved granddaughter, on whom he had lavished piles of cash, to drug addiction. Before his lottery “win,” Whittaker’s contracting business had afforded him a comfortable life. “Nobody knew I had any money,” Whittaker said. “All they knew was my good works.” His life back then, he notes sadly, “was a lot easier.”
ONLINE COURSES VS. COLLEGE LIFE
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are the wave of the future, “the end of higher education as we know it,” as one university president has predicted.Or are they? Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“For Whom Is College Being Reinvented?”), Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk give Luddites their due. While it’s true that an online course conducted by a top teacher might trump a large lecture class offered by a second-rate live lecturer, those pushing MOOCs as inevitable should be heard with a skeptic’s ear.
“The idea that [students] can have better education and more access at lower cost through massive online courses is just preposterous,” says Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. “There is an awful lot of hype about ... the need for reinvention that is being fomented by people who are going to make out like bandits on it.”
Even David Stavens, a founder of the MOOC provider Udacity, concedes that “there’s a magic that goes on inside a university campus that, if you can afford to live inside that bubble, is wonderful.”
HIGH-TECH TOUCH AND TASTE
IBM forecasts that within the next five years technology will vastly improve the way humans experience the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch), according to a report in the Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence newsletter. Online shoppers, for example, will be able to “touch” a product using mobile devices, “using haptic, infrared and pressure-sensitive technologies to simulate touch – such as the texture and weave of a fabric as a shopper brushes their finger over the image of the item on a device screen.”
Clever sensors will also be able to detect sounds in the form of pressure, vibrations, and sound waves. This data will allow predictions of events such as when a tree might fall or when a landslide is about to happen. “Baby talk” will be decoded as a language, letting parents or other caregivers know what infants are trying to communicate. Computer systems will learn to detect emotions and sense a person’s mood by analyzing factors such as pitch, tone, and hesitancy in speech, allowing automated call centers to be more helpful and understanding between human cultures to improve.
Even the finest chefs will be challenged by technology. Computer programs “will break down ingredients to their molecular level and blend the chemistry of food compounds with the psychology behind what flavors and smells humans prefer,” IBM predicts.
Healthy foods will be made more palatable – and programming will pair up foods in ways that maximize taste and flavor. “A system like this can also be used to help us eat healthier,” IBM predicts, “creating novel flavor combinations that will make us crave a vegetable casserole instead of potato chips.

Read More..

Deep emotions run beneath Russia's adoption ban

You usually can judge Vladimir Putin’s dislike of a reporter's question by the intensity of his expression. Such was the case this week at his annual news conference, when he greeted with a hard scowl the subject of pending Russian legislation that would ban Americans from adopting orphaned children. Mr. Putin unleashed invective on the fact that consular representatives aren’t allowed to visit adopted Russian children in the United States.
“I believe that is unacceptable. Do you think this is normal? How can it be normal when you are humiliated? Do you like it? Are you a sadomasochist or something? They shouldn’t humiliate our country,” he told reporters in Moscow.
As is often the case in Russia, there is the issue of what is going on versus what is really going on. And as is often the case in Russia, it’s complicated.
Recommended: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.
There is very little doubt as to the goal of the legislation, which passed its third and final reading in the lower house of parliament Friday and must still be signed by Putin. The bill is named after Dima Yakovlev, the toddler who died of heat stroke in 2007 after his adopted father forgot him in a locked car in Virginia for nine hours. The father, Miles Harrison, was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Dima, whose adopted name was Chase. His acquittal in 2008 sparked banner newspaper headlines, incendiary TV news reports, and howls of outrage in Russia.
Lawmakers in the State Duma made it clear that today's legislation is a direct response to the US “Magnitsky Act,” a law designed to sanction a particular group of Russian officials connected to the death of a whistle-blowing lawyer in a Moscow prison.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
In other words, a law designed to punish people tied to a lawyer’s prison death has been answered with a law to prevent people from adopting orphaned children, many of whom have have developmental or other disabilities and will otherwise end up living much of their lives in orphanages that often resemble state mental hospitals of a bygone era.
Adoption is a searingly emotional issue for Russians, and one easily manipulated by the Kremlin. The institution of adoption is relatively uncommon in Russia, for cultural and other reasons. And judging by headlines in the Moscow tabloids, and the rhetoric of some state lawmakers, you’d think that Americans adopt Russian children to eat them.
Bolstering those who are suspicious of adoption is a smattering of abuse cases in Russian orphanages that have seized the public attention. In one notorious case, a nurse in a southern Russian children’s home was accused of taping pacifiers to the mouths of children to keep them from crying. And cases like that of Dima and of Artyem Savelyev, whose adoptive American mother sent the then-7-year-old boy home to Russia with a "to whom it may concern" note of rejection in 2010, give Russians fair reason for pause over foreign adoptions.
But for many Russians, the adoption of children by foreigners is a polite way of saying “foreigners are purchasing our children for export.” Some 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by Americans in the past two decades, and Russia trails only China and Ethiopia in popularity for Americans seeking to adopt foreign children, according to the US State Department.
Many also see it as ironic that Russia is being sanctioned for human rights violations by a country whose policies over the past decade have seared “Guantanamo” into the English language lexicon – an irony that Putin, who like many Russians has a nose for hypocrisy, clearly relished in pointing out.
“Not only are those prisoners detained without charge, they walk around shackled, like in the Middle Ages. They’ve legalized torture in their own country. Can you imagine if we had anything like this here? They would have eaten us alive a long time ago,” he said.
But regardless of the moralities involved, the fact of the matter is that there will be clear winners and losers from this ordeal.
The winners will be the middlemen, the orphanage directors, the bureaucrats, and the administrators all of whose signatures or stamps, essential to the adoption process, can yield a lucrative stream under-the-table revenues – revenues from well-meaning, would-be foreign parents with the means to pay thousands of dollars for the right to adopt a Russian orphan.
And the losers will be orphaned children who remain institutionalized. That was the point of US Ambassador Michael McFaul’s statement released Friday after the Duma vote: “The welfare of children is simply too important to be linked to others issues in our bilateral relationship.”
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a man not known for pulling his punches when it comes to US policy, has voiced his doubts, suggesting that more moderate voices might stop the bill's passage. Perhaps Putin, having made his point with his press conference performance and with the performance of the malleable State Duma, will relax his rhetoric and soften the bill to open the door to foreign adoptions again, thus portraying himself as doing the best for the children.

Read More..

Japanese firms set spending record in buying up foreign assets

In the late 1980s, when Mitsubishi Estate bought Rockefeller Center and Sony snapped up Columbia Pictures, the Western media were full of stories of Japan’s imminent global economic domination. "Japan as No. 1" was a best-seller, and US autoworkers dramatically took sledgehammers to Japanese imports.
But by the end of 2012, Japanese corporations will have bought more foreign companies, spending more in dollar terms, than they did at the height of the '80s bubble economy. No one, however, seems to be taking notice.
The silence speaks to how a country as well-known for cute pop culture as for cutting-edge technology – and which powerful corporations once feared as a foreign predator – is now seen as down on its luck, struggling to recover from disaster. This perception – along with the fact that foreign takeovers are far more frequent, there are more global powerhouses, and Japanese cars are built around the globe – has allowed Japanese firms to go on an unprecedented spending spree overseas without any of the backlash seen decades ago.
“Japan has gone from being the 'exotic' in the 1960s, to a 'threat' in the 1980s, to just being a part of a rich, cosmopolitan human existence,” says Devin Stewart, senior fellow at the Carnegie Council and former director of the Japan Society in New York. “People learn about Japan and its culture nowadays because it is an important part of the world as we know it. It's a place people relate to.”
Recommended: Think you know Japan? Take our quiz to find out.
In 1990, at the height of the asset bubble in Tokyo, "Japan Inc." made 463 acquisitions of foreign firms. This year, the total is set to top 500 for the first time, with a record total spend of more than 7 trillion yen ($83 billion). IT giant Softbank’s $20 billion takeover of Sprint Nextel Corp., announced in October, will be the biggest foreign takeover ever undertaken by a Japanese company.
The acquisitions this time around are spread across a wide range of industries, rather than the trophy buys of prime real estate that unnerved America during the days of Japan’s roaring bubble economy.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
“There was a slightly indiscriminate hue to Japanese buying in the late '80s, and companies have learned to be more sophisticated, rather than appearing to be carrying around large wads of cash in their back pockets,” says Yuuichiro Nakajima, head of Crimson Phoenix, a cross-border mergers and acquisitions advisory firm with offices in Tokyo and London.
OVERLOOKING A KEY POINT
Japan’s financial institutions, their fingers burned badly by the bursting of the bubble that left them with massive, unrecoverable loans, survived the worldwide crash of 2008 relatively unscathed, having taken a more cautious approach than their Western counterparts. Indeed, it was Japanese investment bank Nomura that bought large chunks of Lehman’s European and Asian businesses after the bankruptcy of the US institution in 2008 that triggered the global financial crisis.
Commentary on Japan often points disparagingly to its shrinking population and domestic market, the challenges of recovering from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and its enormous national debt, which at well over 200 percent of GDP is outranked globally only by Zimbabwe. However, it’s often overlooked that the country’s overseas assets exceed its foreign liabilities by around $3 trillion.
“It seems strange, but Japan is also the world’s biggest creditor nation and has acquired very large overseas assets over the past 30 years. It gets a very good return on these, providing income of 14 to 15 trillion yen ($166.5 to $178.5 billion) a year,” points out Masayuki Kichikawa, chief Japan economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) in Tokyo. “It is this which helps protect Japan from financial crisis, despite the huge government debt.”
And Japan's activity is often overshadowed as the world fixes its eyes on Japan's giant eastern neighbor. “In some ways China has taken the place of the Japan of yesteryear: It has huge firepower and is buying across multiple sectors,” suggests Mr. Nakajima. “And, with China, many of these buyers are state-owned, bringing into question whether the motivation behind acquisitions is strictly profit.”
Yet even China, which almost certainly will displace the US as the world’s economic powerhouse, doesn’t evoke the fear Japan once did.
“But despite the differences between Japan, which was and is a democratic ally, and China, which is not an ally and is nominally communist, the fear about China today seems tame compared with the hysteria about Japan in the 1980s,” says Mr. Stewart of the Carnegie Council. “Back then, Japan was 'taking over the world.' Perhaps people are just more sophisticated about the world and know China faces enormous challenges, as all countries do.

Read More..

PREVIEW-Soccer-Table-topping United face testing nine days

LONDON, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has presided over enough festive fixtures to know rotation is the key as he prepares for a busy period starting with the visit of Newcastle United in the Premier League on Wednesday.
A disappointing 1-1 draw at Swansea City on Sunday saw United's lead at the top cut to four points over Manchester City and maximum points at home to Newcastle and West Bromwich Albion and away to Wigan Athletic are on Ferguson's holiday menu.
He can take heart from the fact that Newcastle, who languish in 14th place, have not won at Old Trafford since a 2-0 victory in the old first division way back in 1972.
Ferguson has been cheered by the return of key defenders from injury including Serbia international Nemanja Vidic, who made his first start since September at Swansea, and Jonny Evans, who also started the match in Wales.
"We now have three games in the next nine days," said Vidic. "Obviously we have a few players who are coming back from injury and they will be important for that period."
Ferguson was true to his word about utilising his squad over the seasonal holidays by fielding his 26th different back-five combination this year at the Liberty Stadium.
United's problems in defence are reflected in the 25 goals they have conceded so far - the highest by a team topping the Premier League at Christmas since Norwich City, who had let in 34 goals by the same stage of the 1992-93 season.
That has not deterred Ferguson from making changes.
Asked in the build-up to the Swansea match if he would rotate his squad, the Scot told MUTV: "Absolutely. No doubt. It won't be the same team in any of these games. There will be changes each game."
MIXED BLESSING
All of England's top flight clubs play on Dec. 26 in the traditional Boxing Day programme except Arsenal and West Ham United, whose match at the Emirates Stadium has been postponed due to a planned London Underground strike.
Manchester United will be mindful that being top at this time of year has been a mixed blessing. In the 20 completed seasons since the formation of the Premier League in 1992, the leaders on Dec. 25 have only won the championship nine times.
Norwich City, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Arsenal (twice), Newcastle United (twice), Liverpool (twice) and Manchester United (twice) have all failed to lift the trophy after celebrating Christmas Day at the top of the tree.
Manchester City's title chase continues on Wednesday at Sunderland where they have only won twice in their last five visits. They went down 1-0 at the Stadium of Light last season after Ji Dong-won struck in injury time.
But City have acquired the knack of scoring late winners and Gareth Barry's strike against Reading on Saturday ensured they entered the Christmas period breathing down United's neck. They visit Norwich and host Stoke City after the Sunderland game.
Third-placed Chelsea are next up at Carrow Road and will be in high spirits after putting eight past Aston Villa, who had never conceded that many goals in a top-flight match.
The Blues have finally found their shooting boots under new manager Rafa Benitez, who has even found a way to get fellow Spaniard Fernando Torres scoring again.
The London side trail Manchester City by seven points but have a game in hand over the top two.
Captain Frank Lampard, who became Chelsea's highest scorer in the top flight with 130 goals after scoring in the 8-0 win over Villa, said the team were finding their rhythm.
"I think we showed a great appetite. The early goal helped. We are enjoying playing again," he said.
RELEGATION BATTLE
At the other end of the table, the battle to avoid the drop is heating up, with Queens Park Rangers hosting seventh-placed West Brom and bottom side Reading welcoming mid-table Swansea on Wednesday with the two sides desperate for home wins.
They both missed out on earning a point last Saturday and their respective managers vented their frustrations as the pressure of trying to avoid relegation mounts. QPR and Reading are five and six points away from the safety zone respectively.
Fifth-placed Everton, who have lost only twice in the league this season, continue their fight for a top four finish at home to Wigan, who are 18th and in the final relegation position.
Sixth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, level on 30 points with Arsenal, Everton and West Brom in the battle for a Champions League place, travel to Paul Lambert's Villa, who will be desperate to restore some pride after the debacle at Chelsea.
Liverpool visit Stoke City looking to build on Saturday's 4-0 home win over Fulham as they also chase European football.
Southampton could slip into the bottom three if they fail to get a positive result at struggling Fulham, who will themselves be looking to make amends for their poor display at Anfield.

Read More..

Marseille cling on with leaders after beating St Etienne

PARIS (Reuters) - Andre Ayew struck just before the break to give Olympique Marseille a 1-0 home win against St Etienne on Sunday and keep them level on points with leaders Paris St Germain.
As Ligue 1 goes into a three-week break, OM are third with 38 points, behind pacesetters PSG and second-placed Olympique Lyon on goal difference.
St Etienne, who last beat OM at the Velodrome in 1979, are 10th with 27 points from 19 matches.
The game got off to a rather dull start with neither team creating chances and Marseille looking cautious having lost their last two home games.
Marseille, however, went ahead on the stroke of halftime when Ghana striker Ayew, who will play in the African Nations Cup with the Black Stars from January 19 to February 10, headed home from a Rod Fanni cross.
Josuha Guilavogui was set up by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but Steve Mandanda dived into the midfielder's feet to deny St Etienne an early opportunity to equalise two minutes into the second half.
Fanni cleared Aubameyang's strike off the goal line 15 minutes from time to keep his team ahead.
Andre Ayew then came close to doubling the tally in the 85th minute after being set up by his younger brother Jordan, only for his low shot to be blocked by Stephane Ruffier.
Earlier, Valenciennes moved up to sixth on 29 points after goals by Gregory Pujol and Jose Saez gave the Northerners a 2-1 win against visiting Evian Thonon Gaillard.
Toulouse, who had bagged only four points from their last eight games, beat Sochaux 2-0 courtesy of goals by Adrien Regattin and Emmanuel Riviere.
On Saturday, PSG claimed a 3-0 win at Stade Brest and Lyon beat Nice 3-0 at home.

Read More..

Soccer-Liverpool eager to extend Gerrard contract

Dec 24 (Reuters) - Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has expressed his desire to extend Steven Gerrard's contract as soon as possible to ward off potential suitors for the inspirational Reds captain.
The 32-year-old, who has 18 months left on his current deal, capped a dynamic performance with a clinical goal in Liverpool's 4-0 home win over Fulham at the weekend.
Rodgers, who took over from Kenny Dalglish at the start of the season, asserted that Gerrard remained a pivotal part of his plans at Anfield.
"I don't think there's any question (we want to extend his contract," Rodgers told Liverpool's official website (http://www.liverpoolfc.com).
"It's vital. Steven has a real hunger to succeed. He's 32 years of age but he's still got so much left."
Liverpool's talismanic England midfielder had been linked with a move to Chelsea after the team's famous victory over AC Milan in the 2004-05 Champions League final in Istanbul.
Jose Mourinho, then Chelsea manager and now in charge of Real Madrid, remains an admirer, while even Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson speaks highly of Gerrard.
"He applies himself every day, he eats well, rests well, recovers well, works well," said Rodgers, who has begun to get Liverpool playing more consistently in recent weeks.
"This is a guy who has led his life focused purely on being a footballer. And that allows you to go on playing well into your 30s."
Gerrard provided two assists on top of his sharp finish against Fulham and has played in every minute of Liverpool's 18 Premier League games this season.
"The run that he made for the goal, he's been doing that all season but the ball has just never arrived," Rodgers added.
"He's still been making the runs and his influence within the team has been outstanding.
"His influence for me, especially once he's started to understand what I'm looking for, has been absolutely first class."
Rodgers added: "(Against Fulham) he had everything in his game, and he's been an inspirational captain for us. I want him to stay beyond his current contract. There is absolutely no question about that.

Read More..

Soccer-Lampard hails David Luiz's midfield display for Chelsea

LONDON, Dec 24 (Reuters) - David Luiz is sparkling like a diamond in his new playmaking role and vice-captain Frank Lampard believes the Chelsea number four can be equally valuable to the team in midfield and in his usual position in defence.
The mop-haired Brazilian bustled and chased around Stamford Bridge like an over-exuberant puppy in Sunday's 8-0 demolition of Aston Villa but he also showed the full range of his ball skills with some incisive passing and deadly accurate shooting.
"He has the ability to play either position and he's been a fantastic central defender," Lampard told the club's website (www.chelseafc.com) on Monday after the European champions climbed to third in the Premier League.
"People say that central midfield is also a role for him and I think they are right. You still have to have discipline and be in the right position, and you can't take liberties, and against Villa he showed he has the discipline and the ability to do that role."
Chelsea fans have been imploring the club to utilise Luiz's creative talents in midfield for a long time but new interim manager Rafael Benitez is the first coach to play him in that position.
The Brazilian occupied the role for the first time at the Club World Cup in Japan at the start of the month and he marked his second appearance as a playmaker by scoring with a dipping 20-metre free kick in the first half against Villa.
"You don't see the hours put in on the training pitch to work on that technique," Lampard said.
"David has done it and now you are seeing the rewards because every time we get a free kick in that area you fancy him to get it on target."
CROWD DARLING
It was Lampard, though, who was the darling of the crowd on Sunday.
The 34-year-old England international's contract ends this season and he said earlier this month that this could be his final campaign at the club he joined in 2001.
Lampard was given a standing ovation when he was substituted in the second half against Villa, with the supporters crying 'sign him up' over and over again.
"The fans have supported me from the first minute I arrived and I appreciate them doing that," the midfielder added. "I try to play well for them."
Lampard grabbed the fourth goal against Villa with a typically venomous long-range thunderbolt.
The former West Ham United player now has 190 Chelsea goals, three behind the club's second highest scorer Kerry Dixon and 12 adrift of Bobby Tambling.
"I am very pleased with our win," Lampard said. "We showed everything we are about when we are at our best and I am pleased to be a part of that and to contribute with a goal as well.
"We showed great appetite from the first minute with our desire to move the ball quickly and the early goal (by Fernando Torres) helped."
Chelsea, who are now seven points behind Manchester City and 11 adrift of leaders Manchester United with a game in hand on both clubs, next travel to Norwich City on Wednesday.

Read More..

Liverpool eager to extend Gerrard contract

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has expressed his desire to extend Steven Gerrard's contract as soon as possible to ward off potential suitors for the inspirational Reds captain.
The 32-year-old, who has 18 months left on his current deal, capped a dynamic performance with a clinical goal in Liverpool's 4-0 home win over Fulham at the weekend.
Rodgers, who took over from Kenny Dalglish at the start of the season, asserted that Gerrard remained a pivotal part of his plans at Anfield.
"I don't think there's any question (we want to extend his contract," Rodgers told Liverpool's official website (http://www.liverpoolfc.com).
"It's vital. Steven has a real hunger to succeed. He's 32 years of age but he's still got so much left."
Liverpool's talismanic England midfielder had been linked with a move to Chelsea after the team's famous victory over AC Milan in the 2004-05 Champions League final in Istanbul.
Jose Mourinho, then Chelsea manager and now in charge of Real Madrid, remains an admirer, while even Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson speaks highly of Gerrard.
"He applies himself every day, he eats well, rests well, recovers well, works well," said Rodgers, who has begun to get Liverpool playing more consistently in recent weeks.
"This is a guy who has led his life focused purely on being a footballer. And that allows you to go on playing well into your 30s."
Gerrard provided two assists on top of his sharp finish against Fulham and has played in every minute of Liverpool's 18 Premier League games this season.
"The run that he made for the goal, he's been doing that all season but the ball has just never arrived," Rodgers added.
"He's still been making the runs and his influence within the team has been outstanding.
"His influence for me, especially once he's started to understand what I'm looking for, has been absolutely first class."
Rodgers added: "(Against Fulham) he had everything in his game, and he's been an inspirational captain for us. I want him to stay beyond his current contract. There is absolutely no question about that."

Read More..

Mexico frees ex-Marine jailed for bringing in gun

A Marine veteran jailed for months in Mexico after trying to carry a family heirloom shotgun across the border has been freed, U.S. officials and his lawyer said late Friday.
The attorney for 27-year-old Jon Hammar tweeted Friday night that his client had been released from a detention center in Matamoros, Mexico.
"Jon is out, going home!" Eddie Varon Levy tweeted.
Patrick Ventrell, the acting deputy spokesman for the State Department, confirmed Hammer's release and return to the U.S. in a statement Friday night.
"Officials from the U.S. Consulate General in Matamoros met him at the prison and escorted him to the U.S. border, where he was reunited with members of his family," the statement said. "We sincerely appreciate the efforts on the part of Mexican authorities to ensure that an appropriate resolution was made in accordance with Mexican law, and that Mr. Hammar will be free to spend the holidays with his loved ones."
An aide to a legal representative of the Mexican attorney general's office had told U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson's staff about the pending release after the Florida Democrat's office got word from Hammar's mother, according to a press release from Nelson's office.
"No American should be in a Mexican jail for five months without being able to have his case in front of a judge," Nelson said in that statement. "We're grateful; this is a good Christmas present."
Earlier Friday, Varon Levy said he was flying from Mexico City to Matamoros to pick up his client. After that, the attorney said, they intended to cross the border at Brownsville, Texas. "I'm very happy. I feel that the Mexican legal system came out the way it should have," he said.
U.S. immigration and State Department officials had been at the Mexican detention center waiting for Hammar's release.
A defense lawyer said Mexican authorities determined there was no intent to commit a crime, Nelson's office said. The senator was among a handful of elected officials who urged the State Department to help get Hammar out of Mexico. His family had said he was being held in isolation after threats to his safety were received.
"These past few months have been an absolute nightmare for Jon and his family, and I am so relieved that this whole ordeal will soon be over," said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., in a statement. " I am overcome with joy knowing that Jon will be spending Christmas with his parents, family and friends."
The attorney, Varon Levy, said the path for Hammar's return was cleared when Mexican officials decided not to appeal the judge's ruling.
Civilian gun ownership is illegal under Mexican law unless the owner purchases the weapon from a special shop run by the country's Department of Defense.
"The Department of State warns all U.S. citizens against taking any type of firearm or ammunition into Mexico," the U.S. Embassy in Mexico writes on its website. "Entering Mexico with a firearm, certain types of knives, or even a single round of ammunition is illegal, even if the weapon or ammunition is taken into Mexico unintentionally."
Mexican law also bans shotguns with barrels of less than 25 inches. The family said Hammar's shotgun has a barrel of 24 inches.
Tourists are allowed to bring guns for hunting on rare occasions, but Mexican officials said all visitors must receive a special permit before entering the country. Mexican customs agents do not issue gun permits. As a result, anyone crossing the border with a firearm or ammunition without a previously issued government permit is in instant violation of Mexican law, which stipulates long jail terms for breaking weapons laws.
Hammar and his friend were on their way to Costa Rica in August and planned to drive across the Mexican border near Matamoros in a Winnebago filled with surfboards and camping gear. Hammar asked U.S. border agents what to do with the unloaded shotgun. His family said agents told them to fill out a form for the gun, which belonged to Hammar's great-grandfather.
But when the pair crossed the border and handed the paperwork to Mexican officials, they impounded the RV and jailed the men, saying it was illegal to carry that type of gun. Hammar's friend was later released because the gun did not belong to him.
Before Hammar's release, Varon Levy said he was not sure of his client's immediate plans upon being freed. "Probably some down time," he said.

Read More..

List of 1000s of missing raises doubts in Mexico

Federal police officer Luis Angel Leon Rodriguez disappeared in 2009 along with six fellow police as they headed to the western state of Michoacan to fight drug traffickers.
Since then, his mother, Araceli Rodriguez, has taken it into her own hands to investigate her son's disappearance and has publicized the case inside and outside Mexico. She's found some clues about what happened but still doesn't have any certainty about her son's whereabouts.
As Mexican troops and police cracked down on drug cartels, who also battled among themselves, Leon was just one of thousands of people who went missing amid a wave of violence that stunned the nation. A new report by a civic participation group has put a number for the first time on the human toll: 20,851 people disappeared over the past six years, although not every case on the list has been proven related to the drug war.
With at least another 70,000 deaths tied to drug violence, the numbers point to a brutal episode that ranks among Latin America's deadliest in decades. In Chile, nearly 3,100 people were killed, among them 1,200 considered disappeared, for political reasons during Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship, and at least 50,000 people disappeared during 40 years of internal conflict in Colombia.
The new database is shedding needed light on Mexico's unfolding tragedy. It's also sparking angry questions about why it doesn't include all of the disappeared.
Neither Rodriguez's son nor his six colleagues who went missing on Nov. 16, 2009, are in the database, which was allegedly leaked by the Attorney General's Office to a foreign journalist. The group Propuesta Civica, or Civic Proposal, released the data on Thursday.
Rodriguez's mother said she's been in touch with authorities investigating the case and has spoken about it in several public forums about the missing.
"I don't think any government entity has a complete database," she said.
A spokesman for federal prosecutors, who would not allow his name to be used under the agency's rules, said the Attorney General's Office had no knowledge of the document.
As compiled by Civic Proposal, the report reveals the sheer scope of human loss, with the missing including police officers, bricklayers, housewives, lawyers, students, businessmen and more than 1,200 children under age 11. The disappeared are listed one by one with such details as name, age, gender and the date and place where they disappeared.
Some media in Mexico have reported that the number of missing could be even greater, at more than 25,000, with their estimates reportedly based on official reports, although media accounts didn't make the reports public.
"We're worried because several of the people gone missing in the state of Coahuila, and that we have reported to authorities, don't appear on the database," said Blanca Martinez of the Fray Juan de Larios human rights center in that northern border state. She's also an adviser to the group Forces United for Our Disappeared in Coahuila, made up of relatives searching for loved ones.
Martinez said that between 2007 and 2012 the group registered 290 cases of missing people. The database released Thursday lists 272 cases in the state since 2006.
"We have no doubt that the authorities have done absolutely nothing" to solve them, she said.
Public attention to Mexico's disappeared has grown especially since 2011 when former President Felipe Calderon publicly met with members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, a human rights group led by poet Javier Sicilia. His son was allegedly killed by drug traffickers that same year.
Sicilia's movement demanded that the thousands of killed and missing should be treated as victims of the drug war, even if they were criminal suspects. Calderon's government responded that it would create a missing persons database, but authorities have not made it public so far. Calderon also ordered the creation of a special prosecutor in charge of assisting crime victims and supporting the search for the missing.
"There is nothing worse for me than having a missing relative. Not knowing where the person may be is very serious and so ... in every case that comes to us, we try to find a solution, to find the person," said Sara Herrerias, the head of Provictima, the office established by Calderon to help crime victims.
Herrerias, however, was cautious talking about the number of missing and said she could only discuss the cases that her office has dealt with.
In 14 months, she said, Provictima has handled the cases of 1,523 missing people, most of them allegedly taken by members of organized crime but with some cases also reportedly involving government authorities. Of the total number, 150 people have been located, 40 of them found dead.
Herrerias declined to talk about the possible magnitude of disappearances. "I don't like to talk when I don't have hard data," she said.
Estimates of the missing vary. The National Human Rights Commission, which operates independently from the government, has said that some 24,000 people were reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, in addition to some 16,000 bodies that have been found but remain unidentified.
The government of President Enrique Pena, who took office Dec. 1, estimates the number of unidentified bodies at about 9,000 during Calderon's previous six-year administration.
Civic Proposal director Pilar Talavera said that although her group saw inconsistencies in the database, they decided to disclose it not only to help the public understand the scale of the violence, but also to pressure authorities to disclose official information on disappearances.
While the numbers help, what the relatives of the missing need most, of course, is to just learn what happened to their loved ones.
Since the disappearance of Rodriguez's then-23-year-old son, a dozen alleged members of the La Familia drug cartel have been arrested as suspects in his case. Rodriguez said she has interviewed four of them, who have told her that her son and the other six officers were killed and their bodies "disintegrated."
She said that so far no one has given her any clues about where her son's remains are.
"If it's true what the criminals say ... even with that, my heart asks to find Luis Angel," Rodriguez said. "For me Luis Angel is still missing.

Read More..