American children are susceptible to violence and poverty. According to a report published on November 28, 2001 by the U.S. Violent Policy Center, analysis of the murder data released by FBI shows that from 1995 to 1999, 3,971 infants and juveniles aged one to 17 years were murdered in handgun homicides. The firearm homicide rate for American children was 16 times the figure for children in 25 other industrialized countries. Black children have the highest rate of handgun homicide victimization, seven times higher than that for white children. In April 2000, the U.S. Fund for the Protection of the Child published a green paper on conditions of American children. It quotes the poverty statistics of the American government for 1999 as saying that more than 12 million children were living below the poverty line set by the federal government, accounting for one-sixth of the total number of children in the country. A report by the U.S. Health and Public Service Department released at the beginning of 2001 says that 10 percent of the American children have mental health problems and that one out of every ten children and children in adolescence suffered from mental illnesses that are serious enough to hurt. Nevertheless, those able to receive treatment could not exceed one-fifth.

The problem of missing children is serious. Figures published by FBI in 2001 showed that in 1999, 750,000 children went missing, accounting for 90 percent of the total number of people who went missing in the year. To put it another way, an average of 2,100 children at 17 or younger went missing every day. Since the Missing Children Act was enacted in 1982, the number of children registered by police as missing has increased by 468 percent.

American children often fall prey to sexual abuse. According to a report published in September 2001 by a group of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania after three years' investigation, about 400,000 American children are streetwalkers or engage in various obscene activities for money near their schools. Children who have fled their homes or are homeless suffer most severely from sexual abuse. Sexual harassment against children by clergymen in the United States is serious. According to Newsweek published on February 26, 2002, the Boston archdiocese of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church has over the past decade paid 1 billion U.S. dollars in compensation in lawsuits of sexual harassment by its clergymen against children. About 80 Boston clergymen are suspected of having molested children sexually. One has been accused of sexually molested more than 100 children. This, the greatest scandal in the United States following the Enron case, has aroused nationwide attention to the problem that is also common among clergymen elsewhere and, as a result, a string of similar cases have been brought to light.

V. Deep-Rooted Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination is the most serious human rights problem in the United States, a problem that the United States has never resolved since its founding. The United States, as a matter of fact, was notorious for genocide against aboriginal Indians, trade of African blacks and black slavery. In recent years, scandals of racial discrimination have occurred, one after another.

On April 7, 2001, a white police officer shot to death an unarmed black youth in Cincinnati, Ohio, as he was trying to run away after breaking traffic rules. Black people in the city staged mass protests following the death of Timothy Thomas, which culminated in a racial conflict. The incident once again aroused worldwide attention to the problem of racial discrimination in the United States. According to the Observer of Britain published on April 15, 2001, Cincinnati is one of the eight large cities in the United States where the problem of racial discrimination is most serious. Even though the world is already in the 21st century, racial segregation is still practiced by virtually all schools in the city. Timothy Thomas was the fourth black person killed by white police in succession from November 2000 to April 2001, and the 15th black suspect killed by white police in the same city since 1995. It is beyond people's comprehension that during the same period, killing of white suspects by the police never occurred. According to the Associated Press, the mass protests in Cincinnati matched those that broke out after the killing of Martin Luther King.

Racial discrimination is discernible everywhere in the United States. The proportion of federal government posts taken by ethnic minority Americans is much smaller than the proportion of their population in the national total. According to an article in the July-August issue of the bimonthly World Economic Review, of the 535 senators and Congress men and women, those of Latin-American origin with voting rights number only 19, or 3.5 percent of the total, even though ethnic Latin-Americans account for 12.5 percent of the country's total population.

Blacks account for 13 percent of the American population, but are able to win only 5 percent of the public posts through election. There are legal provisions to the effect that colored people must account for a certain percentage in the police force. The true fact, however, is that few black people are able to join the police force and even fewer serve as senior police officers. Take for example Cincinnati. Black people account for 43 percent of the local population but, of the 1,000 members of the local police force, only 250 are blacks. None of the CEOs and presidents of the top 500 companies in the Unites States are blacks. Blacks holding senior posts at Wall Street investment companies are rare, if any.

Social conditions are bad for ethnic minority Americans. According to the 2000 population census, blacks unable to enjoy medical insurance are twice as many as whites. Only 17 percent of the black population is able to finish higher education, in contrast to 28 percent for whites. The unemployment rate was twice as high for blacks as for whites. Meanwhile, blacks employed for menial service jobs are more than twice as many. Incomes for the average white family averaged 44,366 U.S. dollars in 1999. For an average black family, however, the figure was 25,000 U.S. dollars. According to statistics provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Committee, the number of employed ethnic minority Americans has increased by 36 percent since 1990, but the number of charges against racial or ethnical harassment at work-sites has doubled, averaging 9,000 a year. Of the five largest dumps of harmful wastes, three are in residential areas inhabited mainly by blacks and other ethnic minority Americans. Up to 60 percent of the blacks and ethnic Latin Americans are living in places where harmful wastes are dumped.

Racial discrimination is frequently seen in America's judicature. Half of the 2 million prison inmates are blacks, and ethnic Latin Americans account for 16 percent of the total. According to an investigative report published by the United Nations, for the same crime the penalty meted out against the colored can be twice or even thrice as severe as against the white. Blacks sentenced to death for killing whites are four times as many as whites given death penalty for killing blacks. The U.S. Department of Justice reported on March 12, 2001 that threats by the police with force against blacks and ethnic Latin Americans are twice as possible as against whites.

VI. Wantonly Infringing upon Human Rights of Other Countries

The United States ranks first in the world in terms of military spending and arms export. Its military expenditure accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world total, more than the combined military expenditure of the nine countries ranking next to it. Its arms exports account for 36 percent of the world total. U.S. defense budget for the 2003 fiscal year announced by the U.S. Defense Department on February 4, 2002 totaled 379 billion U.S. dollars, up 48 billion U.S. dollars, or 15 percent, over the previous year and representing the highest growth rate in the past two decades.

The United States ranks first in the world in wantonly infringing upon the sovereignty of, and human rights in, other countries. Since the 1990s, the United States has used force overseas on more than 40 occasions. On April 1, 2001, a U.S. military reconnaissance plane flew above waters off China's coast in violation of flight rules, causing the crash of a Chinese aircraft and the death of its pilot. It presumptuously entered China's territorial airspace without permission from the Chinese side and landed on a Chinese military airfield, seriously encroaching upon China's sovereignty and human rights. After the incident, the United States made all sorts of excuses to defend itself, refusing to make a public apology for the serious consequences of its intruding aircraft and trying to shirk its responsibilities. This aroused great indignation and strong protests from the Chinese people.

The United States has built many military bases all over the world, where it has stationed hundreds of thousands of troops, violating human rights everywhere in the world. Before the September 11 incident, the United States had stationed its troops in more than 140 countries. Today, the United States has expanded its so-called security interests to almost every corner of the world. In recent years, U.S. troops stationed in Japan have frequently committed crimes. In 1995, three American soldiers raped a Japanese schoolgirl in Okinawa, sparking massive protests by the Japanese people and arousing the alert of world public opinion. In fact, scandals like this happen almost every year. On January 11, 2001, an American soldier was arrested for molesting alocal schoolgirl in Okinawa. On January 19, the Okinawa parliament adopted a resolution of protest against frequent criminal activities by American soldiers, calling for reduction of U.S. troops in Japan. However, in an e-mail message to his subordinates, the U.S. commander in Okinawa insulted the Okinawa magistrate and parliament. On June 29, another soldier of the U.S. air force sexually assaulted a Japanese girl in Kyatan of Okinawa.

The NATO headed by the United States dropped a large number of depleted uranium bombs during the Kosovo war, subjecting peacekeeping soldiers as well as the local people to serious danger. The U.S. side claimed that one of the reasons for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Kosovo is that "it would not let radiation hurt our boys." Latest reports say that the United States knew the dangers of depleted uranium bombs and where they were dropped, and that, when dividing up peacekeeping zones, it allocated the most seriously contaminated areas to allied forces. After the U.S. army entered Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, it gave a boost to the sex industry in the two places. Over the past year, Bosnia-Herzegovina uncovered dozens of women trafficking cases, many of which were associated with the U.S. army. Most of the U.S. soldiers were involved in prostitution and some of them were even involved in selling women. In September 2000, the U.S. Army published a report of more than 600 pages, detailing all kinds of bad behaviors committed by the No.82 air-borne division of its First Army during their peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, admitting that the general atmosphere of the U.S. army in Kosovo is very inhumane.

Available data indicate that in the Gulf War the United States dropped more than 940,000 depleted uranium bombs with a total weight of 320 tons onto Iraqi land, causing serious destruction to the environment of Iraq and the health of its people. The Ministry of Health of Iraq pointed out in a report that the number of cancer patients in Iraq increased dramatically after the Gulf War, from 6,555 in 1989 and 4,341 in 1991 to 10,931 in 1997. In the ten years since the end of the Gulf War, the incidence rate of leukemia, malicious tumors and other difficult and complicated cases in areas hit by depleted uranium bombs in southern Iraq was 3.6 times higher than the national average and the proportion of women with miscarriage was ten times as high as in the past. On February 22, 2002, Emad Sa'doon, a medical expert with Basra University in southern Iraq, disclosed to the media that after many years of research the medical group led by him found that in the 1989-1999 period, the number of patients with blood cancer doubled and the number of women with breast cancer increased 102 percent.

The United States always flaunts the banner of "freedom of the press". Yet according to an Agence France-Presse report on February 21, 2002, the annual report of International Journalism Institute published on the same day pointed out that the way in which the U.S. government dealt with the media during the Afghan War and its attempt at suppressing freedom of speech by independent media were "the most amazing in 2001."

In the United States, close to 100 companies manufacture and export considerable quantities of instruments of torture that are banned in international trade. They have set up sales networks overseas. In its February 26, 2001 report, Amnesty International said some 80 American companies were involved in the manufacture, marketing and export of instruments of torture, including electric-shock tools, shackles and handcuffs with saw-teeth. Many instruments of torture and police tools are high-tech products, which can cause serious harms to the human body. For instance, handcuffs, which would tear apart the flesh of the tortured if the victim slightly exerts himself, are very cruel, and so is a high-pressure rope for tying up a person. Although categorically prohibited by U.S. law, the Commerce Department of the United States has given official export licenses for exporting such tools.

According to statistics, American companies have secured export licenses and sold tools of torture overseas valued at 97 million U.S. dollars since 1997 under the category of "crime control equipment." It is inconceivable that, while the U.S. State Department is talking about human rights, the U.S. Department of Commerce has given export licenses for products determined as instruments of torture in statutes of the U.S. government, said Dr. William Schulz, who conducted the investigation.

The United States has also conducted irradiation experiments with the dead bodies of babies from overseas. The Daily Telegraph and the Observer of the United Kingdom disclosed in June of 2001 that the United States has recently declassified some top-secret documents, which indicate that in the 1950s the United States carried out what was called "Project Sunshine" experiments. For these experiments, about 6,000 dead babies were obtained from overseas and cremated without permission of their parents. The ashes were sent to laboratories for irradiation studies.

The U.S. government has until this day refused to sign the Basel Convention, which restricts the transfer of waste materials. It often transfers dangerous waste materials by different methods to developing countries, damaging the health of the people of other countries. The Associated Press reported on February 25, 2002 that, according to an estimate by environmental protection organizations, as much as 50 percent to 80 percent of the electronic wastes collected by the United States in the name of recycling have been shipped to a number of countries in Asia for waste treatment, causing serious environmental and health problems to the local people.

The United States has announced its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, refusing to bear the responsibilities of improving the environment for human survival and bringing about negative impacts on environmental protection efforts in the world.

The Third UN Conference Against Racism held in Durban of South African in September 2001 was an important gathering in the area of international human rights at the beginning of the new century.

It attracted representatives from more than 190 countries, which reflected the burning desire of the international community to eliminate hatred accumulated over time and eradicate the remnants of racism through dialogue and cooperation. The United States, however, turned a deaf ear to the voices of the international community. Ignoring its international obligations, it asserted openly to boycott the conference before it was opened. Although the United States sent a low-level delegation to the conference as a result of prompting and persuasion by the United Nations, it took the lead in opposing discussing slave trade and colonial compensation, expressed opposition to putting Zionism on a par with racism, and walked out of the conference midway. Behaviors of the United States at the conference revealed its hypocrisy when it professes itself as "a world judge of human rights" and show how arrogant and isolated the hegemonic acts of the U.S. government are.

For many years, the U.S. government has year after year published reports on human rights conditions in other countries in disregard of the opposition of many countries in the world, cooking up charges, twisting facts and censoring all countries except itself. It also publishes a report every year to make a so-called appraisal of anti-drug trafficking campaigns of 24 countries including all Latin American countries. The United States deals with any country it deems "inefficient in cracking down on drug trafficking" with condemnation, sanctions, interference in the latter's internal affairs, or outright invasion.

In 2001, without support from the majority of member countries, the United States was voted out of the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the International Narcotics Committee. This shows, from one aspect, that it is extremely unpopular for the United States to push double standards and unilateralism on such issues as human rights, crackdowns on drug trafficking, arms control and environmental protection. We urge the United States to change its ways, give up its hegemonic practice of creating confrontation and interfering in the internal affairs of others by exploiting the human rights issue, go with the tide of the times characterized by cooperation and dialogue in the area of human rights, and do more useful things for the progress and development of the human society.