WASHINGTON – Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced today a multi-faceted Department of Justice initiative to assist the city of New Orleans in its continued recovery from the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The Department will be committing federal resources to support the New Orleans Police Department’s (NOPD) efforts to reestablish its local crime laboratory, funding to provide assistance to victims and witnesses of crimes, and a grant to establish a Family Justice Center.

“Following the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department has taken unprecedented measures to support state and local law enforcement efforts to rebuild the infrastructure that is critical to fighting crime in New Orleans and surrounding parishes,” said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. “Today we are reinforcing our efforts by committing important resources to assist crime victims and local law enforcement officers. The road to recovery is long, but the Justice Department is committed to helping state and local law enforcement establish a safer New Orleans.”

The Justice Department is allocating resources to help reestablish the NOPD Crime Lab, which was completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The lack of a permanent and functional crime lab in New Orleans has led to significant delays in the processing and analysis of important evidence such as blood, drugs and ballistics. In the absence of a permanent forensics lab, the NOPD has been using space provided by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, and the Louisiana State Police, and services provided by Justice Department agencies whenever possible. Through the assistance and financial support of FEMA, as well as that of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation, the city has acquired the space necessary to establish a single dedicated NOPD crime lab at the University of New Orleans Research and Technology Center. The NOPD will hire additional technicians to assist in processing evidence and clearing the backlog that has built up since Katrina.

The Justice Department has also announced that it will fund two highly trained victim assistance specialists for the next three years. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the local criminal justice system has faced many challenges, including the need to provide advice and assistance to victims and witnesses of crimes. The victim specialists will establish a regional victims services committee to lead and coordinate victims assistance efforts within Orleans and Jefferson Parishes; provide essential training and outreach to communities and participating local law enforcement offices as well as schools, community centers and faith-based organizations; educate the general population as well as victims about the criminal justice process; and provide essential advice, counseling and services to victims and witnesses served by the local criminal justice system. The specialists will be stationed in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The funding for the specialists was made possible through the close collaboration of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Office of Justice Programs.

To provide assistance to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes, the Justice Department is committing up to $3 million to create a comprehensive victim service and support center, where victims can find the services they need in one central location. The Department’s Office on Violence Against Women is working with partners in the public and private sectors to identify the most effective way to help victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault crimes in New Orleans, by providing multiple services in a single location, including emergency housing, medical care, counseling, law enforcement assistance, faith-based services, social services and employment assistance, among others.

The Department already has helped 15 communities across the country establish comprehensive domestic violence victim service and support centers through the implementation of the President’s Family Justice Center Initiative. The grant announced today will likely be utilized to establish a center that replicates this model.

The initiatives announced today build on previous efforts by the Justice Department to assist New Orleans in rebuilding its law enforcement services post-Katrina. In January 2007, the Justice Department outlined additional law enforcement resources that are acting as a force multiplier to state and local law enforcement officers dedicated to fighting violent crime in New Orleans. The additional federal resources include six Assistant U.S. Attorneys, six additional ATF Special Agents to work with the New Orleans Violent Crime Impact Team, nine additional FBI agents to supplement the New Orleans Violent Gang Safe Streets Task Force, and three additional Deputy U.S. Marshals and an investigative analyst to support the Crescent Star Fugitive Task Force.

Teams of U.S. Department of Justice personnel have been embedded with the NOPD to develop more cases against dangerous individuals for federal prosecution.  In the weeks since that initiative began, a total of 24 individuals have been arrested in New Orleans directly related to the joint NOPD/Department of Justice efforts and have been charged via criminal complaint at the outset with serious violations of federal laws, including firearms violations and drug distribution charges.  One individual so charged remains wanted by federal authorities.  Additionally, 13 of the individuals arrested on these charges have already been indicted by federal grand juries for these serious crimes as the result of swift work by the law enforcement personnel and the federal prosecutors assigned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.  

Following Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana was a driving force in the creation and continued vitality of the Southeast Louisiana Criminal Justice Recovery Task Force, and the Department has made more than $30 million in grants available to the city of New Orleans and Orleans Parish to help rebuild the criminal justice system. In total, the Department has made available to the state of Louisiana over $61 million in justice assistance grants and Katrina relief law enforcement infrastructure funds.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin Saturday criticized what he called the "dangerous" use of force by the United States in the face of international law in a hard-hitting speech at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy.

Speaking to a forum of over 250 participants from more than 40 countries, Putin said the almost "uncontained" use of US force had overstepped the scope of its sovereignty in the pursuit of its national interests, and observed that the Bush administration's doctrine of preventive war was destabilizing as other states were more likely to engage in nuclear proliferation when they thought they were in danger.

"We are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations ... the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way," said Putin at a high-profile security conference in southern German city of Munich.

"The legitimate use of force can only be done by the United Nations, which cannot be replaced by EU or NATO," he said.

Putin criticized the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) for becoming a "vulgar instrument for ensuring foreign policy of one country."

He also sharply criticized the planned development of 10 anti-ballistic missiles systems by the U.S. in Poland and the Czech Republic, vowing that Russia would develop cheaper, asymmetrical systems to overcome the threat.

On the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Putin said "NATO expansion is a serious factor which reduces the level of mutual trust."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) Sunday to spare the life of former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan citing a lack of evidence tying him to the 1982 Dujail killings for which he is charged. The court reconvenes on Monday to determine whether Ramadan's life sentence should be abandoned in favor of the death penalty.

Ramadan was convicted in November in connection with crimes against humanity committed in the town of Dujail in 1982. The IHT Appeals Chamber ruled December 26 in its decision upholding Saddam Hussein's death sentence that the life sentence for Ramadan was too lenient and ordered the trial court to re-sentence him. On Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour filed an amicus brief with the court arguing that imposing the death penalty would be a violation of Iraq's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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BEIJING – Envoys to international talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program struggled Friday to find a compromise as differences emerged over a Chinese proposal on how to begin disarmament.

Christopher Hill, the main U.S. envoy to the talks, said all sides agreed on the proposal's broader issues. Hill said the remaining issues focused on a single paragraph of the Chinese proposal for a set of reciprocal steps aimed at implementing a 2005 deal that calls for North Korea to disarm in exchange for security guarantees and aid.

Hill said the envoys were working to rewrite the text to address North Korea's concerns. He did not give any details.

“I think we can be cautiously optimistic,” Hill said after a two-hour lunch meeting with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, in the first bilateral session between the two sides at this week's talks.

Japan's envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, said while there was consensus on some points, but that there was no prospect of an imminent agreement.

“There are some parts in which we had progress but on others we ran into difficulty. We will continue with the talks, but at this point in time I don't feel there is a prospect of reaching an agreement,” Sasae said.

Kim said the meeting led to agreement on some unspecified issues, although there were still issues to overcome. “We are going to make more efforts to resolve them,” Kim said.

Late Thursday after the first day of talks, China distributed a draft agreement to the nuclear envoys from China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

The proposal – presented after North Korea agreed in principle to take initial steps to disarm – would grant the communist nation unspecified energy aid for shutting down its main nuclear facilities within two months, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Officials declined to confirm details of the draft.

Hill said earlier Friday he saw “differences” among the delegations over the draft deal.

A South Korean official also cautioned against being too optimistic. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said it is “not as easy as expected to produce a result due to differences in positions and a conflict of interests.”

Both Hill and the South Korean official declined to elaborate on what the differences were.

But a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan said the North wants the U.S. first to show that it has permanently ceased its “hostile” policy toward Pyongyang.

“As conditions mature, (North Korea) can halt the operation of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities,” the Choson Sinbo said, referring to the site of the North's main nuclear complex north of Pyongyang.

“The (North)'s position is that it can take corresponding measures when the U.S. takes steps to show that it irreversibly gave up its hostile policy,” it said.

The report, carried on the paper's Web site, cited a “diplomatic source well versed in” the negotiations. The paper, with links to the government in Pyongyang, is considered one of the North's propaganda tools.

Any agreement on an initial set of reciprocal moves to implement a September 2005 accord – in which North Korea pledged to disarm in exchange for aid and security guarantees – would set the stage for the first tangible steps in the often-delayed six-nation process.

The 2005 deal, a broad statement of principles that did not outline any concrete steps for dismantling North Korea's nuclear program, was the only agreement since the negotiations began in 2003.

At the last session of the arms negotiations in December, following North Korea's Oct. 9 underground nuclear test, the North refused to even talk about its nuclear programs. Instead, it demanded the U.S. lift financial restrictions targeting alleged North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering.