Sept. 8 Photo Brief: Festival of the Winds, Miss World 2013, Teej festival in Kathmandu
Festival of the Winds in Sydney, a look at Miss World 2013, the Teej festival in Kathmandu and more in today’s daily brief.
- Residents of Olympic bid city Tokyo celebrate after the announcement of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games host city at Komazawa Olympic Park on September 8, 2013 in Tokyo, Japan. (Adam Pretty/Getty Images)
- Belly boarders run into the sea to take part in the first heat of the annual World Belly Boarding Championships at Chapel Porth on September 8 2013 in Cornwall, England. ( Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
- This undated handout photograph released by the Taipei City Zoo on September 8, 2013 shows a panda cub at the Taipei City Zoo. The cub, the first panda born in Taiwan, was delivered on July 7 following a series of artificial insemination sessions after her parents — Yuan Yuan and her partner Tuan Tuan — failed to conceive naturally. (Taipei City Zoo via AFP/Getty Images)
- Rebel fighters prepare explosive devices to be used during fighting against Syrian government forces on September 7, 2013 in Syria’s eastern town of Deir Ezzor. The United States and France claimed growing international support for military strikes to punish the Syrian regime for an alleged chemical attack, after EU nations called for a “strong response”. (Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/AFP/Getty Images)
- People dressed up as “Guanches”, the aboriginal Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands, perform the apparition of the Virgin del Socorro to natives of Tenerife, on the beach of El Socorro, on the Spanish Canary island of Tenerife, on September 7, 2013. The pilgrimage of the Virgin of the Socorro is one of the oldest romerias of the Canary Islands and gather more than 70.000 people each year. (Desiree Martin/AFP/Getty Images)
- Women cry at a crime scene where eleven people were killed by alleged members of a gang in San Jose Nacauil municipality, 20 km north of Guatemala City, on September 8, 2013. Guatemala has been struggling with a wave of violence, related mainly to drug trafficking, that has seen an average of 16 people killed a day — one of the highest murder rates in Latin America. (Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images)
- Demonstrators wearing masks depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin kiss as they take part in a rally in front of the Russian embassy in Paris, on September 8, 2013, to protest against an “anti-gay” Russian law. (Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images)
- Miss World 2013 contestants pose after their parade during the opening ceremony in Nusa Dua, on the resort island of Bali on September 8, 2013. The Miss World beauty pageant opened on the resort island of Bali after a week of protests by Muslim hardliners calling for the contest to be scrapped. (Sonny Tumbel/AFP/Getty Images)
- Camera crew Tim Stevens, Gary Ramage, Dale Fletcher, Andrew Greaves, Howard Moffatt, Matt Roberts, Alan Porritt, Shaun Kingma, Sam Ingim and Owen Innes participate in ‘Camos For Kids’ as seen on September 6, 2013 in Sydney, Australia. Photographers and cameraman in Australia’s National Press Gallery have given up shaving for the length of the federal election campaign to raise over AUD$12,000 for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
- Protestors lie in the road during a demonstration against an arms fair at the ExCeL Centre in east London on September 8, 2013. (Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images)
- Afghan kochi nomad women carry water containers on their heads as they walk with a donkey outside of Maidan Shar, the capital of Wardak province, September 8, 2013. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)
- Large whale-shaped kites and others fly above a large crowd gathered for the Festival of the Winds on Sydney’s Bondi Beach September 8, 2013. The festival attracts hundreds of local and international kite-makers annually, and is one of the largest kite festivals in the nation, according to organizers. (David Gray/Reuters)
- A couple, who are anti-government demonstrators, kisses next to military police officers during a protest near Guanabara Palace in Rio de Janeiro September 7, 2013. Police used teargas to contain street protests on Saturday in several Brazilian cities, stopping demonstrators from disrupting Independence Day military parades and an international soccer game between Brazil and Australia. (Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)
- Sam Rainsy, leader of Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), addresses reporters at his party’s headquarters in Phnom Penh September 8, 2013. The opposition CNRP announced that they would stage a three-day protest starting next Sunday to continue with their demand for an independent probe into the July elections which they say were rigged to prolong the rule of the prime minister. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
- Women sing and dance at Pashupatinath Temple during the Teej festival in Kathmandu September 8, 2013. The three-day festival, commemorating the union of Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva, involves sumptuous feasts and rigid fasting. Hindu women pray for marital bliss, the well-being of their spouses and children, and the purification of their own bodies and souls during this period of religious fasting. (Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)
- Women in high heels stand on the runway before a presentation of the Victoria Beckham Spring/Summer 2014 collection during New York Fashion Week, September 8, 2013. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
- A border patrol agent opens the entrance to a temporary holding facility at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Forward Operating Base (FOB) Hedglen located southeast of Douglas, Arizona August 8, 2013. Modeled on the remote fire bases used by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, the 10-acre (four-hectare) fence-ringed facility in Arizona’s high desert is the U.S. government’s latest bid to plug the remaining gaps on the porous border with Mexico. (Samantha Sais/Reuters)
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Remote U.S. Border Patrol bases plug gaps on Mexico frontier
Tim Gaynor, Reuters
10:15 AM EDT, September 8, 2013
SAN BERNARDINO VALLEY, Arizona (Reuters) – For U.S. Border Patrol agent Frank Dixon, getting to work on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift is simple: He drives out of Hedglen Forward Operating Base and is already in the heart of the cactus-studded wilderness he is tasked with securing.
Modeled on the remote fire bases used by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, the 10-acre (four-hectare) fence-ringed facility in Arizona’s high desert is the U.S. government’s latest bid to plug the remaining gaps on the porous border with Mexico.
“We come in here, we get up our plan for the day and as soon as we drive out our gate, we are pretty much in our working area,” Dixon says of the sprawling, air-conditioned compound where agents are assigned for a week at a time.
The site, inaugurated in May, is the newest of seven forward operating bases in Arizona and New Mexico that aim to establish a permanent police presence in some of the most difficult-to-reach areas on the porous, nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border.
A landmark immigration overhaul passed by the Democratic-led U.S. Senate in June includes a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants currently living illegally in the United States and tighter borders, although it faces scant chance of passage in its current form in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The Senate bill also calls for increasing the number of forward operating bases and upgrading their facilities.
Bases like Hedglen that aim to plug gaps in the border are an example of the kinds of measures to increase border security demanded by Republicans in the House as part of the debate on immigration reform.
Each week, a dozen agents drive for an hour over dirt roads from sector headquarters in the border city of Douglas to the base where they spend the next seven days working to intercept smugglers and migrants trying to slip illegally over the border.
The Hedglen base, which is about 20 miles from the nearest town, consists of a spacious single-story building for offices and living space, as well as an adjacent stable and detention facility.
Agents assigned from sector headquarters in Douglas stock up on groceries for the week before heading out to the base, which is tucked discreetly behind a knoll a few minutes’ drive north of the rusted border fence with Mexico.
There is bed space for 32 agents in rooms with a bunk bed and a desk. They also have a fully equipped kitchen, a laundry, a gym with a treadmill and StairMaster, as well as a large living room with satellite television.
ACTIVE SMUGGLING CORRIDOR
It is not clear to what extent the bases have contributed to declining arrests on the border, which were down to about 360,000 last year from highs of over 1.6 million in 2000. However, it seems likely they could play a bigger role should Congress pass measures to further tighten border security.
Gary Widner, the agent in charge of the Douglas sector, said having the forward bases makes sense, and not just because agents don’t have to lose hours out of their working day driving out to the front lines.
“For any of the wilderness areas, this is ideal,” he said. “If you have people camped in those areas … they have a lot more opportunity to detect that traffic and interdict it.”
Despite concerns by the National Border Patrol Council, the agents’ union, over the cost-effectiveness of the bases, which have a price tag of around $3 million each, they are supported by residents in remote areas.
The valley the Hedglen agents patrol, stretching between the Perilla and Peloncillo mountains, is an active corridor for illegal immigrants and for drug smugglers spiriting bundles of marijuana north in backpacks, pickup trucks and even ultralight aircraft.
While stationed at the base, agents keep an ear on the Border Patrol’s radio traffic, which they say makes them more aware of movements through the valley’s patchwork of federal, state and private lands.
Agents say the remote bases also give them a time advantage over colleagues from town when they have to respond to the triggering of sensors that the U.S. government has placed near the border to detect illegal crossings.
“If a sensor hits … by the time you get out here, that’s an hour longer, you are behind that traffic,” agent Adrienne Crowley said.
Permanent forward operating bases trace their origins back to a more Spartan facility set up in Candelaria, in West Texas, in 1996, the Border Patrol said.
Hedglen was built after prominent Arizona rancher Rob Krentz was shot dead a few miles from the border in 2010 by a suspected smuggler – a crime that brought greater attention to security in remote areas.
Rancher Wendy Glenn, who lives in the area, said she was glad to have the base nearby, and wished the extra security could have come sooner, before Krentz was killed.
“Had they had the extra people … out here as heavily as they are now, that may not have happened,” she said.
(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Beech)