PHOENIX — A judge has blocked the most controversial sections of Arizona's new immigration law from taking effect Thursday, handing a major legal victory to opponents of the crackdown.

The law will still take effect Thursday, but without many of the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws. The judge also put on hold a part of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton put those controversial sections on hold until the courts resolve the issues.

Opponents say the law will lead to racial profiling and is trumped by federal immigration law.

Ahead of Thursday, police across the state, which borders Mexico, were scrambling to train officers how to avoid racial profiling.

The hardest-line approach is expected in the Phoenix area, where Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio plans his 17th crime and immigration sweep. He plans to hold the sweep, regardless of any ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton.

Arpaio, known for his tough stance against illegal immigration, plans to send about 200 deputies and volunteers out, looking for traffic violators, people wanted on criminal warrants and others. He's used that tactic before to arrest dozens of people, many of them illegal immigrants

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 28, 2010 (IPS) - When the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) back in December 1948, 58 member states voted for a historic document covering political, economic, social and cultural rights.

On Wednesday, nearly 62 years later, a widely-expanded 192- member General Assembly adopted another memorable resolution: this time recognising water and sanitation as a basic human right.

The resolution proved politically divisive, with 122 countries voting for it and 41 abstaining, but with no negative votes.

Still, it fell short of a North-South divide: a rich-versus- poor split, as originally expected.

The United States abstained, as did some of the European and industrialised countries, including Britain, Australia, Austria, Canada, Greece, Sweden, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Ireland.

But several developing nations, mostly from Africa, also abstained on the vote, siding with rich industrial countries. These included Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Zambia, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Ambassador Pablo Solon of Bolivia, representing a country that spearheaded the resolution, said human rights were not born as fully developed concepts, but are built on reality and experience.

The human rights to education and work, included in the UDHR, evolved over time with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

"The same will occur with the human right to water and sanitation," he predicted in a statement to the General Assembly Wednesday.

Speaking on behalf of the United States, John Sammis told delegates his country had hoped to negotiate and ultimately join consensus on a text that would uphold and support the international process on water and sanitation currently underway in the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"Instead, we have here a resolution that falls far short of enjoying the unanimous support of member states and may even undermine the work underway in Geneva," he cautioned.

"This resolution described the right to water and sanitation in a way that is not reflective of existing international law; as there is no 'right to water and sanitation' in an international legal sense as described by this resolution," he said.

In a statement released after the vote, Maude Barlow, board chair of Food and Water Watch, and Wenonah Hauter, the group's executive director, said: "Our network of allies have been fighting for over 10 years towards achieving a legally binding recognition of the human right to water at the United Nations."

While the resolution is non-binding, it is a crucial first step to providing clean water and sanitation to all, the statement added.

Barlow and Hauter described the final vote "as an amazing and surprising victory for water justice".

According to the United Nations, nearly two billion people live in water-stressed areas of the world and three billion have no running water within a kilometre of their homes.

Sahana Singh, editor of Asian Water, a leading monthly magazine on water and wastewater, told IPS: "I think the concept of water as a human right is enshrined within the right to life itself."

"We all know that there is no life without water. No more time should be wasted on drafting new laws and resolutions," Singh said.

In developing countries, where implementation of laws is already such a big problem, it makes little sense to push for more laws which will only be relegated to dusty files, said Singh, who has closely followed the water sector in the Asian region for the past 10 years.

An engineer turned editor, Singh pointed out that unless clearly specified upfront, the right to water could be taken to mean that water should be free or nearly free.

In fact, many argue that it is the improper pricing of water which has led to the whole problem of this life-giving liquid being under-valued, wasted and polluted.

"It has led to a situation where millions of litres of water are lost daily due to leakages from pipe networks. Would such a situation be allowed to exist with oil pipelines?" she asked.

The point to note is that the governmental authorities of Singapore, Manila, Phnom Penh and others, which understand the benefits of providing water and sanitation to all their citizens, are working hard to do so even without water being declared a human right.

On the other hand, the irresponsible governments which have done little for existing rights, such as the right to equality or the right against exploitation, are certainly not going to implement any more new rights, she warned.

"What we need to focus on is how to make the mostly public water utilities of the world function in an effective and transparent manner," Singh said.

The utilities need proper management, financial autonomy, training and support from peer groups, she argued. And they need to be allowed to charge appropriate tariffs in order to recover their costs and plow the money back into improving their services.

They need to have their performance benchmarked against other well-performing utilities so that they know where they need to improve. All this cannot happen just by declaring water as a human right, Singh declared.

Anil Naidoo, of the Canada-based Blue Planet Project, which was at the forefront of the campaign, told IPS Wednesday's resolution had the overwhelming support of a strong majority of countries, despite a handful of powerful opponents.

"It must now be followed up with a renewed push for water justice. We are calling for actions on the ground in communities around the world to ensure that the rights to water and sanitation are implemented," Naidoo said.

Governments, aid agencies and the United Nations must take their responsibilities seriously, he declared.

“The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions."
..........
"We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential ‘amens.’ All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your moldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a 'this year's fact'. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for 'truth and veracity' in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living this world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us foxhunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the church furnish at least one, or forever hold her peace.".........."The Gods" 1872