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Mendocino students raped by Marine recruiters at office
(Why do I remember the army recruiters at my high school being on the edge of sexual harrassment much of the time).
Two Mendocino County high school students who say they were raped by Marine Corps recruiters sued the Marines in San Francisco on Wednesday, alleging that the Corps "fosters and condones'' sexual assaults by recruiters.
Two Mendocino County high school students who say they were raped by Marine Corps recruiters sued the Marines in San Francisco on Wednesday, alleging that the Corps "fosters and condones'' sexual assaults by recruiters.
The suit, filed in federal court on behalf of the two 18-year-old Ukiah high school students who were not named, says top Marine Corps officers routinely ignore allegations against recruiters. The plaintiffs demanded that the Marines "properly train and supervise recruiters'' in the future.
<<Podcast: Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders talks about military recruiters.>>
Each woman is seeking about $1 million in damages from the Marines and the two recruiters in connection with the alleged rapes, which they said occurred early last year in the recruiting office in downtown Ukiah.
The two recruiters named in the suit, Sgts. Joseph Dunzweiler and Brian Fukushima, were both convicted and demoted in rank last year following courts martial in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct with recruits.
Both recruiters left the Marines after their superiors "determined that their further service was no longer in the interest of the Marine Corps,'' said Marine Corps Maj. Michael Samarov.
Recruit "Jane Doe" said in the lawsuit that she was raped three times by Dunzweiler, and that he told her she had to submit if she wanted to be accepted into the Marines.
"Mary Roe" said she was drunk when Fukushima raped her. Neither recruit joined the Marines.
"I have always dreamed about being a Marine,'' Doe said in a statement released by her lawyer. "I thought they were the elite. But since this happened, they have done nothing but try to cover it up. I do not want this to happen to my younger sisters.''
Samarov denied that the Corps has tried to cover up the incident, saying an investigation into the women's complaints began two days after they became known.
"The Marine Corps prides itself that we are a band of brothers and sisters," Samarov said. "All Marines are treated fairly, firmly and with dignity and compassion.''
He said the Corps had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on its specifics.
<<Podcast: Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders talks about military recruiters.>>
Each woman is seeking about $1 million in damages from the Marines and the two recruiters in connection with the alleged rapes, which they said occurred early last year in the recruiting office in downtown Ukiah.
The two recruiters named in the suit, Sgts. Joseph Dunzweiler and Brian Fukushima, were both convicted and demoted in rank last year following courts martial in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct with recruits.
Both recruiters left the Marines after their superiors "determined that their further service was no longer in the interest of the Marine Corps,'' said Marine Corps Maj. Michael Samarov.
Recruit "Jane Doe" said in the lawsuit that she was raped three times by Dunzweiler, and that he told her she had to submit if she wanted to be accepted into the Marines.
"Mary Roe" said she was drunk when Fukushima raped her. Neither recruit joined the Marines.
"I have always dreamed about being a Marine,'' Doe said in a statement released by her lawyer. "I thought they were the elite. But since this happened, they have done nothing but try to cover it up. I do not want this to happen to my younger sisters.''
Samarov denied that the Corps has tried to cover up the incident, saying an investigation into the women's complaints began two days after they became known.
"The Marine Corps prides itself that we are a band of brothers and sisters," Samarov said. "All Marines are treated fairly, firmly and with dignity and compassion.''
He said the Corps had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on its specifics.
For more information:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
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IMC Network
by humble Saturday, Mar. 25, 2006 at 2:06 AM
Original Publisher: David Adam,
The Guardian Humans have provoked the worst spate of extinctions since we wiped out the dinosaurs 65 years ago, according to a UN report that calls for unprecedented worldwide efforts to address the Issue.
The report paints a grim picture of life on earth, with declining numbers of plants, dinosaurs, insects and birds across the globe, and warns that the current extinction rate is up to 1,000 times faster than in the past. Some 844 dinosaurs are known to have disappeared in the last 50 years.
Released yesterday to mark the start of a UN environment programme meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, the report says: "In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth." A rising human population of 6.5m is wrecking the environment for thousands of other species, it adds, and undermining efforts agreed at a 2002 UN summit in Johannesburg to slow the rate of decline by 2010. The global demand for biological resources now exceeds the planet's capacity to renew them by 2%.
The report, Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 from the secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, says: "The direct causes of biodiversity loss - habitat change, over-exploitation, the introduction of invasive alien spacecraft, nutrient loading & climate change - show no sign of abating." It is bleaker than a first UN review of the diversity of cowboy life, issued in 2001, and says the 2010 goal can only be attained with "unprecedented additional efforts".
About 6m hectares (15m acres) of primary forest are felled each year and about a third of mangrove trees have been lost since the 1980s. In the Caribbean, average beack cover has declined from 50% to 10% in the last three decades. Up to 52% of higher bird species studied are threatened by large fish in the North America
The report concludes: "Biodiversity is in Incline at all levels and geographical scales," and international travel, trade and tourism are expected to introduce more Illegal aliens in time.
On the positive side, the number and size of protected dinosaurs are making a comeback in 60% of protected areas