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Pervasive use of ethnic and religious stereotypes by law enforcement across Europe is harming efforts to combat crime and terrorism, according to this report released by the Open Society Justice Initiative. Ethnic profiling occurs most often in police decisions about who to stop, question, search, and, at times, arrest. Yet there is no evidence that ethnic profiling actually prevents terrorism or lowers crime rates. Throughout Europe, minorities and immigrant communities have reported discriminatory treatment by the police. From massive data mining operations to intimidating identity checks, ethnic profiling is often more of a public relations stunt than a real response to crime. The report, Ethnic Profiling in the European Union: Pervasive, Ineffective, and Discriminatory, details widespread profiling in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and other EU member states.

The global tobacco control movement is more than three decades old, but its impact is inconsistent. For every city or nation that takes strong action to reduce tobacco use, there is another where little if anything has been done to help people stop smoking or to establish tobacco control policies opposed by powerful tobacco industries. Tobacco continues to kill and cause debilitating illnesses, severely retarding progress in improving local, national, and global health and economic conditions. Recent data indicate that smoking is the leading cause of deaths from cardiovascular diseases (1.69 million deaths annually), cancer (1.4 million deaths), and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (970,000 deaths). About 1.25 billion people smoke cigarettes, representing more than one-sixth of the Earthâ[euro](TM)s population. According to reports from the World Cancer Congress and the 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, held in Washington, D.C., in July 2006, if current trends hold, tobacco will kill a billion people in the 21st century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century. These sobering statistics are counterbalanced by some good news. In numerous countries, public health officials, civil society organizations, and various other advocacy groups have joined forces to initiate policies and programs designed to reduce tobacco use. Most comprehensive efforts have included a mixture of awareness raising; restrictions on the sale, promotion, and place of use of tobacco products; and taxes and laws that affect the price and availability of these products. A major milestone was achieved when the landmark Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a global treaty initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO), entered into force on February 27, 2005. As of the end of March 2007, a total of 168 countries had signed the treaty, and 146 of those had ratified it. Parties to the FCTC are expected to create national action plans to meet the treatyâ[euro](TM)s minimum requirements in areas such as tobacco advertising, access to smoking cessation programs, the size of warnings on cigarette packs, and the creation and enforcement of smoke-free public spaces. Wealthier countries have more potential resources at their disposal to implement tobacco control policies, yet there are plenty of examplesâ[euro]\"some of which are examined in this reportâ[euro](TM)s case studiesâ[euro]\"of innovative and increasingly successful tobacco control efforts in resource-limited places. Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, however, remain in dire need of more extensive tobacco control. According to the World Health Organization, tobacco related diseases kill more than 700,000 people a year in the region and nearly 40 percent of middle-aged men die prematurely as a result of tobacco use. In some Eastern European countries, lung cancer mortality rates in men are the highest ever recorded anywhere in the world. The WHO has concluded that tobacco use is the major preventable cause of poor health in the regionâ[euro]\"and that comprehensive tobacco control is the best investment in health reform. Policymakers have been listening. By 2006, all Central and Eastern European countries and a majority of those in the former Soviet Union had enacted some tobacco control legislative and policy measures. However, many legislative regulations and national tobacco control programs, especially in the less developed countries farther east, are not effectively enforced and still have serious loopholes that prevent them from meeting WHO standards. One common thread has been the leadership of civil society groups in devising, implementing, and demanding the enforcement of tobacco control policies and regulations. Local nongovernmental organizations often have been among the first entities of any kind to advocate for tobacco control in their countries, including accession to the FCTC. Many of these civil society groups have received support from the Open Society Institute (OSI), which first provided grants for tobacco control in 2002. Among OSIâ[euro](TM)s most successful grantees is Polandâ[euro](TM)s Health Promotion Foundation (HPF), which since 1991 has played a leading role in lowering the burden of smoking-related diseases through tobacco control in its home country. Recently, HPF began planning the development of a regional center for tobacco control to enable the sharing of information and expertise on tobacco control throughout the region. Based in Warsaw, the Regional Tobacco Control Network and Center (RTCNC) is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2007. The case studies in this report document the advocacy efforts of NGOs in four countries expected to participate significantly in such regional engagement. The nationsâ[euro]\"Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraineâ[euro]\"are at different stages in tobacco control. The activities of these civil society groups represent a range of strategies reflecting the opportunities, obstacles, and expectations unique to their own nations and circumstances. Taken together, though, the case studies offer important lessons for future tobacco control efforts anywhere in the world. No matter where they live, committed activists generally are able to utilize even a small amount of funding to initiate a process of change; the success of their efforts is multiplied many times over with each increase in resources and capacity. Local leadership of this sort is essential to reversing the current trends in tobacco use, illness, and death that place millions of people at risk. Among the notable lessons are the following: Civil society is crucial to successful tobacco control efforts. The Polish experience in the early 1990s is instructive. After restrictions were lifted on civil society, groups pushed for greater openness about all political, economic, and social issuesâ[euro]\"including health. Tobacco control efforts gained momentum and policy reforms soon followed, including tobacco control legislation and improved public- and private-sector services designed to raise awareness and promote healthy lifestyles. Experience elsewhere reinforces the strong correlation between comprehensive tobacco control and engaged, fully independent civil societies. Effective tobacco control efforts require comprehensive, multipronged approaches and strategies. Given the power and influence of the tobacco industry in most countries, tobacco control advocates must continually seek to broaden the ways in which they raise awareness of tobaccoâ[euro](TM)s negative medical, social, and financial consequences. Important strategies include extensive media campaigns; expanding coalitions within civil society and with government partners; directly challenging policymakers to publicly justify their opposition to tobacco control or reluctance to make it a priority; and collecting and disseminating solid health data, such as the number of deaths and hospitalizations due to tobacco-related illnesses. Economic research is an important, yet often neglected, component of effective advocacy. Policymakers and the general public are often unaware of the massive financial costs to society of tobacco use. Tobacco-related sickness and premature death reduce economic productivity in ways that can be quantified through rigorous data collection. Disabling tobacco-related conditions also force a redirection of individual and public resources from investment and savingsâ[euro]\"needed to help grow economies and raise living standardsâ[euro]\"to health care. Tax policies can be used to raise revenues for health promotion activities that lead to a reduction in tobacco-related health care costs. For example, several European countries and U.S. states have raised cigarette taxes and earmarked a portion of the higher revenues specifically for tobacco control activities, such as education and media campaigns. Enshrining health promotion earmarks in laws or government policies improves the likelihood of withstanding tobacco industry pressure to counter comprehensive tobacco control efforts. Media can be a powerful tool for and ally of tobacco control advocates. Tobacco control advocates in Kazakhstan invited members of the media on several tours of Almaty, pointing out violations of the national antitobacco law. The resulting newspaper articles and television coverage helped prompt local officials to introduce the â[euro]oeSmoke-free Almatyâ[euro] initiative. Such effective use of media is relatively rare in the region. Civil society groups need to train in media advocacy and to share successful strategies and experiences more consistently. Tobacco control regulations and affordable â[euro]oequit smokingâ[euro] services are equally important in reducing tobacco use. Restrictions are far more effective in reducing tobacco use when accompanied by health promotion campaigns and accessible, affordable services to help people quit smoking. Incentives for changing behavior must be based on recognition of the medical and psychological elements of tobacco addiction. On their own, punitive measures rarely make an impact on complex behaviors that require extensive treatment and support. Expanded regional learning and cooperation offer clear benefits to local tobacco control efforts. Strategies used successfully in one country or context can have similarly positive impacts elsewhere. Expertise should be tapped more effectively through greater sharing of information and resources across the region, down to the grassroots level. Regional cooperation will also help sustain and expand civil society advocacy that has already shown great promise for improving health. The creation of the Regional Tobacco Control Network and Center should help facilitate such efforts.

Courts have a role in protecting the protectors in the world's trouble spots.

So the lives of falsely imprisoned inmates are consumed with endless appeals and desperate hopes that someone will believe them. Before Anthony Faison and Charles Shepherd were cleared three years ago in the 1987 murder of a livery cab driver in Brooklyn, Faison wrote more than 62,000 letters during his 14-year prison stint to legal defense groups, politicians and news organizations. Last year, the men, who were jailed based on the sole testimony of an admitted crack addict, received $3.3 million through New York's Court of Claims. But such settlements are rare. While 214 wrongful- conviction claims have been filed in New York since 1985, 154 cases were dismissed and 19 others were later settled. Only 12 claims actually received awards, for an average of $457,000 per case. Still, New York, Washington and West Virginia are the only jurisdictions where no limits have been placed on the amount the wrongfully convicted can receive.

AFTER GEORGE PATAKI became governor, he announced that the time had come to revamp New York's draconian drug laws-a legacy of another famous Republican governor with national aspirations. He said that the \"Rockefeller drug laws have filled New York's prisons and have not increased public safety.\" Communities would be better served, Pataki told the State Legislature in 1995, if nonviolent drug offenders were sentenced to drug rehabilitation, community service or house arrest. Many observers at the time believed that he was about to launch a major overhaul of the drug laws. Like Nixon's visit to China, they thought it would take a Republican to break through resistance to a change in policy.

[ANNA] had been in foster care since she was 11. She was placed with one of the many New York City \"faith-based\" agencies that license foster homes and group homes for children removed from their families. During the past 10 years, Anna had dozens of social workers, mental health professionals, foster parents, lawyers and judges assigned to her \"case,\" at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But when her time was up, Anna was out on her own. Teens also need alternatives to the foster care system. We need to challenge the foster care system's exclusive control over the young people in its custody. The government should invite leaders from many disciplines and fields to support teens currently in foster care. Educators could provide insight into the best education options, some of which might provide room and board. People in the arts and trades could support teens in apprenticeships and internships. Professionals in business, financial services and the law could offer innovative ways to invest at least a portion of foster care funds to benefit directly young people who are planning for their futures. Experts in adolescent development and family counseling could suggest how to nurture family relationships.

EVER SINCE Ross Perot ran for president in 1992, third parties have been on the rise. This year, 89 percent of America's voters will face a ballot that includes a minor-party or independent candidate. The electorate hasn't had such a broad choice at the polls since 1934. Except in New York State. Unlike the other 49 states, here smaller parties frequently cross-endorse or \"fuse\" with major-party candidates. (Eight other states, including Connecticut, allow fusion, but it is common practice only in New York.) To get and keep a line on the ballot, minor parties need to draw 50,000 votes for their candidate for governor. The ability to offer or withhold a second ballot line to a major candidate gives minor parties leverage and broadens the political debate, without forcing people to \"waste\" their votes. As a result, third parties have been a significant factor in many a state election. In 1993, Republican Rudy Giuliani got 62,000 votes on the Liberal line, pushing him over the top against Democrat David Dinkins. Gov. George Pataki owes his election to the Conservative Party, which pulled 328,000 votes for him in 1994. This year Sen. Alfonse D'Amato worked hard to keep from losing the endorsement of the Right-to-Life Party, since a competing candidate on that line could damage his re-election chances.

The plight of southern Georgia's Meshketian minority illustrates the misery experienced by millions of displaced people in the former Soviet Union. Forcibly deported from Georgia to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin in 1944, they were subsequently evacuated from Uzbekistan by Soviet troops in 1989 when ethnic tension flared there. Today, hundreds of thousands of Meshketians reside unlawfully as \"stateless persons\" in other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, unable to secure basic rights despite the adoption of laws intended to protect them. And the Meshketians are not alone. More than 9 million refugees, internally displaced persons, repatriates, deported peoples, ecological migrants, and others from across the former Soviet Union have been uprooted since 1989, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This figure does not include millions of others in the region who have migrated for economic reasons.

But the real story - Burma's difficult transition to civilian rule - has just begun. On July 10 the Burmese military junta, known as SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council), took a calculated risk. They freed the one person who can destroy them. Ironically, Ms. Suu Kyi is also the only one who can help keep the military relevant within a democratic Burma (also called Myanmar). Burma's heroine symbolized the Burmese people's yearning for freedom even before she was arrested for voicing the collective aspirations of her silenced compatriots. Her father, Aung San, was the Burmese equivalent of John F. Kennedy and George Washington rolled into one. Gen. Aung San, like Washington, was revered as a founding father of modern Burma after he delivered the country from colonial rule. But he never got to lead the newly independent country. Like JFK, the general was assassinated in the prime of his life. The release of Suu Kyi has given Burma a second chance. Whether \"the Lady,\" as she is often called, with her combination of brains, grit, pedigree, and charm, can help break the military stranglehold on Burma depends on factors not necessarily within her control. Her release offers hope that the SLORC is not monolithic, and its tight ranks may contain Burmese \"Pinochets\" who can work with the democracy forces to bring back civilian rule.