From Kevin Flower
CNN
Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font

(CNN) -- The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session Thursday to reopen discussion of Israel's three-week offensive against the Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza.
In his speech Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report an "absurd claim."

In his speech Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report an "absurd claim."

According to a statement from the council, the meeting request came from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and is co-sponsored by 18 members of the 47-member body based in Geneva, Switzerland.

The council commissioned South African Judge Richard Goldstone to lead a fact-finding mission into the hostilities in Gaza that lasted from December 27, 2008, to January 18, 2009.

Goldstone's group issued a report last month which concluded that both Israel and Hamas had committed "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity."

The council received the report September 29, but took no action, after a request by the Palestinian Authority to defer discussion for six months.

The Palestinian Authority government of Mahmoud Abbas came under withering criticism by Gaza Palestinians for the move.

Abbas defended his request in a televised speech Sunday and vowed to work "to punish everyone who was responsible for the hideous crimes committed against our children, our men and women -- especially in our dear Gaza."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech Monday at the opening session of the Knesset, called the war crimes charge "an absurd claim."
Don't Miss

* Abbas cites lack of support, tables report slamming Israel
* Israel calls talks with U.S. Mideast envoy 'useful'

"We will not agree to a situation where the [Israel Defense Forces] commanders and soldiers will be treated as war criminals after valorously defending the citizens of Israel against a loathsome enemy," he said.

Netanyahu said that if the report ultimately is referred to the U.N. Security Council or the International Criminal Court, it would deliver "a mortal blow" to the peace process.

There is an ongoing dispute about the number of people killed in the three-week military offensive that Israel called Operation Cast Lead.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights put the death toll at 1,419 and said 1,167 of those were "non-combatants."

The Israeli military released its own figures earlier this year, claiming 1,166 people were killed, and 60 percent of those were "terror operatives."

Now begins another chapter in Schuett's 19-year quest for justice.

Standing in front of the television cameras, Jennifer Schuett blinked back tears.

"This is a huge day for me," she later told CNN over the phone. "And I want to see this through the end. The rest will come out during the trial."

Schuett, 27, joined a multi-agency team of investigators in her hometown of Dickinson, Texas, as they announced the arrest earlier in the day of Dennis Earl Bradford, a 40-year-old welder, in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The arrest came after new DNA testing and other evidence made it possible to identify Bradford as the suspect.

Schuett's boyfriend and two police investigators who kept the case alive stood beside her. Fighting tears, she thanked them for their support.

"Throughout this journey, I've had two main goals," she said. "And they were to find the man who kidnapped, sexually assaulted and attempted to murder me 19 years ago so that he could not hurt anyone else. And to use my voice in telling my story to as many people as I possibly could over the years in hopes that I may encourage other victims of violent crimes to stand up and speak out against criminals." Video Watch Schuett explain why she's speaking out »

She continued, "Today, I can say very proudly that I have accomplished both of these goals."

Schuett spoke with CNN two weeks ago about her 1990 ordeal. CNN normally does not identify victims of sexual assaults. But Schuett decided to go public with her story and her name to increase the chances of finding and prosecuting her attacker.

Schuett was in her bed when a man crept in through a window on August 10, 1990. She remembers waking up in a stranger's arms as he carried her across a dark parking lot. She said he told her he was an undercover cop and knew her family.

He drove her through the streets of Dickinson, pulling into an overgrown field where, she said, he sexually assaulted her.

She passed out. When she regained consciousness, she was lying on top of an ant hill with her throat slashed and her voice box torn. She spent about 14 hours in the field before she was found and rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

"Three days after the attack, I started giving a description. The doctors told me I would never be able to talk again, but I proved them all wrong," Schuett said. She believes she got her voice back so she could tell her story.

At the news conference, a driver's license photo of the suspect was shown next to the 1990 sketch based on her description. There was a clear resemblance.

Shauna Dunlap, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Houston office, said Bradford lived in North Little Rock, with his wife and two children -- a boy, 12, and a girl, 15. He also has three adult stepchildren.

Bradford worked as a welder for United Fence in North Little Rock. A company representative said Bradford had been working there for 10 years and was a "good guy" who had mended "his old ways" and "changed his life." He wouldn't go into specifics about what those "old ways" were. Court documents give some indication.

In 1996, Bradford was accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and cutting the throat of a female victim. He was initially charged with attempt to commit first-degree murder, but prosecutors amended the charges to rape and kidnapping.

A Garland County Circuit Court jury found him guilty of kidnapping but was not able reach a verdict on the rape charges. Arkansas corrections officials said he entered prison in March 1997, facing a 12-year-sentence, and was paroled in February 2000. Investigators also found Bradford lived slightly more than two miles from Schuett's residence and just a mile and a half from where she was found, according to an affidavit released Tuesday.

"It's truly a rare occasion when we have the opportunity to prosecute a case like this," said Galveston County District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk. His office is charging Bradford with attempted capital murder.

"Jennifer has been a tremendous asset to this investigation from the beginning, an inspiration to all of us, and we are going to be very proud to have Jennifer by our side as we continue with our efforts to seek justice for you in the courtroom," said Sistrunk.

The break in the case came after FBI agent Richard Rennison and Dickinson police Detective Tim Cromie persuaded the FBI's Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) team to get involved.

"The main reason the CARD team picked this case was because she was alive," Rennison said. "In cases of child abduction, it is rare that the child is recovered alive. Frequently, you recover a body. And most times, you never find them."

In March 2008, the investigators found evidence collected 19 years ago -- the underwear and pajamas Schuett was wearing, as well as a man's underwear and T-shirt, which were found in the field where Schuett was left for dead.

The clothes had been tested in 1990, but the sample wasn't large enough for conclusive results. But newer techniques allow DNA to be isolated from a single human cell.
advertisement

The FBI lab recently informed Rennison that the DNA in the man's underwear matched Bradford's DNA profile. He was entered into the database after the 1997 kidnapping conviction in Arkansas.

Bradford was arrested on Tuesday morning on his way to work. He awaits extradition to Texas.

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The economic might of India may bring to mind technological savvy and overseas call centers. But to understand the Indian economy, a visit to a roadside dentist like Raj Kishore is more illuminating.
The Indian economy is fueled by independent workers such as Radha Kumar.

The Indian economy is fueled by independent workers such as Radha Kumar.
Click to view previous image
1 of 2
Click to view next image

"I can extract, I can fill up, I can scale, I can make dentures, I can make bridge metal or non-metal." Kishore said as he fitted dentures for a customer.

One thing he can't do is show a license to practice -- like many roadside dentists sitting on sidewalks awaiting customers.

While information technology and outsourcing has earned India the nickname as "the world's back office," the sector employs a fraction of India's population -- only 2 million of India's more than 500 million workers, according to NASSCOM, an IT and business process outsourcing trade organization.

So where do the majority of people work in India? The International Labor Organization and economists say as many as 95 percent of the workforce makes a living in what is known as the informal or unorganized sector.

"Roughly today about 50 percent of the production is from the unorganized sector," says New Delhi-based economics professor Arun Kumar, referring to jobs and services that exist without a storefront, union to represent the workers, or corporate structure.

Although things are changing and the economy has boomed in recent years, Indians are still emerging from poverty. Finding employment can be tough so people have literally created jobs out of sheer necessity, such as roadside dentist Kishore.

Kishore says he learned his trade from a dentist and a dental course but he does not have a degree in dentistry. He and those around him provide a service to customers who couldn't dream of affording a licensed dentist in an office.

That is just one of thousands of jobs that make up India's informal economy.
Don't Miss

* Timely matters for Bombay Stock Exchange

Radha Kumari is a Mehandi artist. She uses henna to make intricate traditional designs on women's hands and feet. It's an old art that is steeped in tradition and is typically worn by brides the day before the wedding ceremony but is also popular during other Indian holidays and with tourists. She learned the trade from her sister at age 10 and started working as a teenager.

"I started doing this work because I was needy. I have no parents; my sister has done everything for me so it was very important for me to work," said Kumari, a mother of two, while she swirled henna on the hand of a customer.

She makes 25 to 50 rupees (50 cents to $1) per hand, she said. She and other henna artists are often "troubled" by city authorities or police who come to kick them off of the sidewalks or ask for bribes -- technically Kumari and others are breaking the law by setting up shop on government property.

City government authorities showed up while CNN was interviewing Kumari, causing the henna artists around her to pack up and run away.

It's a tough life. "If there can be anything better, I would definitely love to do it," she said. "Here there is no certainty. Today I'm allowed to sit here, tomorrow I may not be." But Kumari says it's better than nothing at all.

Experts say the informal economy helped keep India out of recession, since it is not tied to the global markets. While the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit has help the Indian economy growing, the largely unregulated workforce promises to have negative impacts on the Indian economy as well, as transactions are often in cash and difficult to trace and tax.
advertisement

But the working conditions and low pay leave millions living in poverty.

"Their conditions are very poor because they have no protective gear of any kind, they have no real social security of any kind," said Arun Kumar, an economics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. "They face a lot of hardship of all kinds in terms of their existence, where they stay, what do they do, their health conditions, et cetera."

The federal pay czar is trying to force the American International Group to reduce $198 million in bonuses promised to employees of its trading unit, where problems posed a threat to the global financial system last year.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Times Topics: Kenneth R. Feinberg | American International Group Inc.
Add to Portfolio

* American International Group

Go to your Portfolio »

But the Treasury’s special master for compensation, Kenneth Feinberg, is running into legal hurdles because those bonuses fall outside new rules against bonus payments at companies receiving government assistance. The bonus agreements at issue were struck before last year’s emergency rescues by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, and thus are not directly covered by the new rules.

The problem is a recurring one. A.I.G. payments early this year to the same employees elicited public outrage, though government officials said then that they had little legal authority to rescind pre-existing contracts.

To strengthen his hand, Mr. Feinberg is threatening to reduce the compensation packages he does control, according to a person close to the talks. That could mean shrinking the pay of other A.I.G. executives — including its new chief, Robert Benmosche — if the firm does not claw back part of the bonuses for the people in its trading unit, known as A.I.G. Financial Products.

At companies that received extraordinary government support, Mr. Feinberg’s task is to monitor and enforce rules governing new pay packages. He can approve or reject cash pay that exceeds $500,000 for top executives.

Mr. Benmosche, hired by A.I.G. late this summer, received a compensation package that includes $3 million initially and about $4 million in stock that he must hold for five years, as well as annual bonuses based on performance.

A.I.G. has a variety of employee bonus programs. The Financial Products group began a two-year retention program in January 2008, before its government rescue, designed to keep skilled employees from leaving and jeopardizing its derivatives portfolio .

After A.I.G. paid $165 million in retention bonuses to that group in March, it promised to try to recover much of the money to quell the uproar that ensued.

But the insurance company has recovered only $19 million of the $45 million it asked the recipients to repay, according to an audit of its compensation program and the government’s oversight.

A company spokeswoman, Christina Pretto, said in a statement that the people who had received that money had “until the end of the year to fulfill their commitments,” and that the company believed those people would honor them.

But the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Neil M. Barofsky, who conducted the audit, said some of the money appeared to be unrecoverable, because the employees had resigned rather than return the pay.

Other people are still weighing tax issues arising from those bonuses, and some have asked the insurer to dock their paychecks in the future, rather than make a single payment now.

The inspector general’s audit will be the subject of a hearing Wednesday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The report stated that Mr. Feinberg had “informally advised A.I.G. not to pay the full $198 million,” scheduled for payment next March, but did not reveal how sharply Mr. Feinberg hoped to pare the bonuses.

The amount of the bonuses at A.I.G. is quite small relative to the record amount of government assistance received by the firm over the last year, roughly $182 billion.

The $165 million in bonus pay made last March coincided with the news that A.I.G. had just posted the biggest loss in American history and would need a bigger rescue package. That led to stormy Congressional hearings and tours of the suburbs where some bonus recipients lived.

Company officials argued at the time that only a handful of the employees of financial products bore responsibility for the disastrous derivatives trading, and it was unfair to blame everybody for the harm caused by a few. The company also said it wanted to honor its commitments because skilled people might resign en masse if bonuses were rescinded.

The new audit pointed out that the bonus program for the Financial Products unit was unusual because it included payments to unessential people. It cited a $7,700 bonus for a kitchen assistant, a $7,000 bonus for a mailroom assistant and $700 for a file administrator.

The audit also described the lack of coordination between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury over A.I.G.’s compensation program. It said Fed officials had their own conversations with company officials about compensation last fall, and were further briefed over the winter by compensation specialists at Ernst & Young brought in to help.

But the Fed did not convey any of the information it had gathered to the Treasury until just before the bonuses were scheduled to be paid in March. Then, the Fed sent an e-mail message to the general counsel at the Treasury, the report stated, warning that the looming bonuses had “garnered press and congressional attention” and would “not be easy for Treasury and the Fed to defend.”

That message promised to supply more detail, but nothing followed for about a week.

“Despite the strong language” of the Fed’s messages, the audit found “that the e-mail did not raise any flags in Treasury.”

Stephen Labaton contributed reporting.