US District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled in Washington, DC, Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) must reinstate certain housing payments for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Leon granted the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction against the payments stoppage, maintaining that FEMA had failed to provide evacuees with adequate explanations for their denials of housing assistance and their means of appeal under the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)  filed the lawsuit on behalf of displaced hurricane evacuees alleging violations of their due process rights.

FEMA responded Wednesday by defending its policies and saying it will consult with the US Department of Homeland Security and US Department of Justice to determine a formal response to the district court's ruling. FEMA still faces several other suits relating to its termination or withdrawal or housing benefits to Katrina victims.

WASHINGTON – Lynn Lakers, a Boulder City, Nev., tax-return preparer, has been permanently barred in connection with an alleged offshore-trust tax scam, the Justice Department announced today. It is alleged that Lakers, participating with three others, prepared false tax returns for phony trusts sold by her fellow defendants. She consented to the injunction order. According to the complaint, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates that this tax fraud scheme resulted in at least $31 million in lost revenue to the federal Treasury.

The other two defendants who consented to a permanent injunction earlier this year are Daniel Young of Las Vegas, who allegedly created phony domestic and foreign trusts to move customers’ assets from the United States to offshore banks located in the West Indies, and Stephen Nestor of Boise, Idaho, a former IRS revenue officer who allegedly signed false tax returns on behalf of customers’ bogus trusts. The case remains pending against a fourth defendant, Reinhold Sommerstedt.

Judge Brian E. Sandoval of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada entered injunctions against Nestor and Young in May 2006 and against Lakers on Nov. 20th. The injunctions prevent the three individuals from promoting the alleged tax-fraud scheme or preparing tax returns based on it. They must also give the government a list of their customers’ names, addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and Social Security numbers. Nestor and Young have already complied with this portion of the injunction order.

According to the government’s complaint, the scheme allegedly helped customers hide their income from the IRS in Caribbean bank accounts. The defendants’ customers allegedly used phony loans and gifts to repatriate their money while concealing it from the IRS. Customers allegedly paid as much as $14,500 to participate in the scheme.

North Korea will not unilaterally abandon its nuclear weapons programs, Kim Gye-gwan, Pyongyang’s nuclear envoy to the six-party talks, said on Thursday.
His remarks came right after he held a closed-door meeting with his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-woo at a restaurant in Beijing, the first meeting of its kind in seven months.

"There are many commitments in the Sept. 19 joint statement and at this stage we will not unilaterally give up the nuclear program," he said.

Kim’s attitude is still stubborn, but it does not necessarily mean that the chance is slim for the six-party talks to be resumed, diplomatic sources in Beijing said.

They said Kim’s U.S. counterpart, Christopher Hill presented the North Koreans a "new message," which is believed to have reflected U.S. President George W. Bush’s hope to resolve the nuclear standoff soon.

"Kim needed to come back to Pyongyang to consult with the leadership there," a source said, implying that the talks in Beijing between North Korea and the United States was "not fruitless."

Hill said the North was considering the U.S. proposals, which he described as "ideas that are designed to make rapid progress (toward denuclearization)."

The American envoy said he was "hopeful" that the talks would resume in December. "We hope to hear back from the North Koreans soon," he added.

He said the main issue in Beijing this time was how to get the North Koreans to make some "tough decisions"  to move out of the nuclear business.

Kim told reporters after the meeting with Chun that North Korea is ready to implement the joint statement, which was adopted in September last year, saying the denuclearization is the last instruction of Kim Il-sung, the late founding leader of North Korea.

Kim also said more time is needed to pin down the resumption date.

Chun underlined that there is no difference between North Korea and the United States on the idea the denuclearization talks should be held soon. But the South Korean said detailed coordination is still necessary. He declined to go into detail.

All head delegates to the six-way talks, except the official from Russia, gathered in Beijing this week to hold a flurry of diplomatic action aimed at restarting the disarmament negotiations that have been in limbo over the past year.

Pyongyang boycotted the multilateral forum in November last year in protest at the U.S.-imposed restrictions on its overseas bank accounts, starting with a bank in Macau.

Hill insisted that North Korea must abandon its nuclear programs first to get the benefits promised in the joint statements, including the security guarantee and diplomatic normalization with the United States, according to wire news reports

In a Tuesday ruling, Judge James Robertson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia declared that "the Treasury Department’s failure to design and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired individuals violates section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act." Section 504 provides that no disabled person shall be "subjected to discrimination . . . under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency." In support of its decision, the court noted that over half of all countries that print their currency vary its size or texture to aid the blind. The court rejected the government's arguments that the change would be cost prohibitive, increase counterfeiting, and disrupt international recognition of US currency.

Robertson wrote:

Plaintiffs have demonstrated that they lack meaningful access to US currency. They have put forth several potential accommodations that are reasonable on their face. The government has not sustained its burden of showing that any of them would be unduly burdensome to implement... I will grant plaintiffs’ prayer for a declaratory judgment.

The American Council of the Blind filed the action four years ago. Under 28 USC s.1292(b), the government has ten days to appeal the ruling.

The United States strongly protested South Korea’s decision not to accept the first shipment of its beef since it lifted a three-year import ban.

Korea's Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery told The Korea Times that it was not an official protest and declined to comment.

In Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns was quoted as saying, ``You can’t trade under these circumstances.’’

Johanns said the Korean government has applied a standard the U.S. did not agree to. ``It was a standard that they invented along the way.

They found a small piece of cartilage and rejected the whole shipment, notwithstanding the fact that this is not a threat to anyone.’’

He added that he hopes the U.S. Department of Agriculture can solve the situation and U.S. beef producers can get beef moving into Korea, which the two countries had agreed upon.

Last week the Korean government said it would not allow the first batch of beef shipped from the United States to be sold in the country after a bone fragment was detected in a package.

The detection of a bone fragment in the beef, which arrived at Incheon International Airport last month, is expected to trigger fresh concerns about the safety of U.S. beef.

The U.S. shipped 8.9 tons of beef in about 720 separate packages, the first shipment since the lifting of a three-year ban on U.S. beef following a case of mad cow disease there.

At a news briefing, the National Veterinary Research & Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said it has asked the government to destroy the beef or send it back to the U.S.

A ranking NVRQS official said the U.S. meat processing center that shipped the beef with a bone fragment will be barred from exporting to South Korea, reducing the number of export eligible plants from 36 to 35.

Last Thursday another shipment of U.S. beef, totaling 3.6 tons, arrived in Korea by airfreight.