Anger Grows at US Jail Population

BBC News

The jail population in the United States is expected to reach 2 million on Tuesday, prompting a wave of protests across America.

An explosion in inmate numbers in recent years means that although the US makes up 5% of the total global population, it now accounts for 25% of the world's prisoners.

About 1.3 million of the current jail population have been imprisoned for non-violent crimes, usually drug offences.

Studies have shown that in cities such as Baltimore and Washington at least half of all young black men are either in prison, on parole or on probation.

Jenny Gainsborough, of the research organisation, Sentencing Project, said she hoped Tuesday's protests would highlight the need for reform to stop the upward spiral in the prison population.

"We just want people to be aware of the huge numbers of people who are being locked up and the contrast between the US and other western industrialised democracies.

While the West is fighting imaginary ships and aircraft - Iran is building Real Bombs

U.S. warplanes serve to warn Iran

ABOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS - American warplanes screamed off two aircraft carriers Tuesday as the U.S. Navy staged its largest show of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, launching a mammoth exercise meant as a message to the Iranians.

Meanwhile, oil prices shot nearly 8 percent in a matter of minutes in after hours trading Tuesday, topping $68.

F/A-18 fighter jets roared off the Stennis' flight deck all day, mounting a dozen rapid-fire training sorties against imaginary enemy ships and aircraft.

I like the Bush and Blair's plans for fighting the enemy , lets show off our hardware and burn up some millions in oil by playing war games- then we can fight imaginary enemies.

Is anybody else impressed?


I don't know how the games are going to end, but the halftime score is :

• Iranians 15
• The West 0

Iran Gets in on the US and Brits 'War Games'

Iran takes prisioners while the U.S. and the Brits play war games, that should make the games a bit more realistic. I would say Iran 15 - West - 0- lets the games continue.

THE brave Royal Navy woman sailor being held hostage by Iran has a three-year-old daughter.

Leading Seaman Faye Turney, 26, was one of the drivers of the two boats swooped on by Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards on Friday.

Her little daughter Molly and husband Adam were at home last night desperately waiting for news of her plight.

Faye is being held with 14 other Navy hostages, including 21-year-old Paul Barton, snatched by Iranian gunboats from a patrol in the Shaat-al-Arab waterway off Basra, Iraq.
The diplomatic row escalated last night as Iran again refused the UK ambassador any access to them. All the Iranians would say was the British personnel were “fit and well”.

More than 10,000 US personnel, two aircraft carriers and 100 warplanes begin biggest simulated demonstration of force in Gulf since the 2003 invasion

DEBKAfile’s military sources note that the exercise was launched March 27 the day before the Arab League summit opens in Riyadh, to demonstrate the Bush administration’s determination not to let Iran block the Strait of Hormuz to oil exports from the Persian Gulf, or continue its nuclear program.

Taking part are the USS Stennis and USS Eisenhower strike forces.
With Iran’s Revolutionary Guards one week into their marine maneuvers, military tensions in the Gulf region are skyrocketing and boosting world oil prices.

Intelligence sources in Moscow claim to have information that a US strike against Iranian nuclear installations has been scheduled for April 6 at 0040 hours. The Russian sources say the US operation, code-named “Bite,” will last no more than 12 hours and consist of missile and aerial strikes devastating enough to set Tehran’s nuclear program several years back.
The maneuver also occurs four days after 14 British seamen and one crew-woman were seized by an Iranian Revolutionary Guards warship, with no sign that their release is imminent.
London insists its marines were on routine patrol on the Iraqi side of the Shatt al Arb on behalf of the Iraqi government. Tony Blair has threatened “a new phase” in the crisis if the captured personnel are not speedily released.

The warplanes are flying simulated attack maneuvers on enemy shipping with aircraft and ships, hunting enemy submarines and seeking mines, off the coast of Iran.

US Navy Cmdr Kevin Aandahl declined to say when the maneuver was planned or how long it would last. He said US warships would stay out of Iranian territorial waters up to 12 miles from the Iranian coast. Tehran does not recognize this limit and claims a deeper stretch of water.

Our military sources explain the presence of the French naval strike group led by the nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle which joined the two US carriers last Friday: The group will carry out security missions in the Arabian Sea and its warplanes fly in support of NATO in Afghanistan.