To address unemployment, Georgia governor proposes farm work

Are you out of work? Are you looking for a job? Do you live in Georgia?

If the answer to those questions is "yes," Gov. Nathan Deal has an idea for you: Become a farm worker.

"We still have an unemployment level here that is unacceptably high, whether or not we can provide some way of transitioning some of those individuals," Deal said last week.

"Perhaps it requires some relocation in some cases for them to be able to fill some of these jobs. We're going to explore all of those things."

Deal is looking for ways to fill a farm worker gap after some areas lost more than 50% of their laborers, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association said. Many workers left Georgia after the governor signed an Arizona-inspired immigration law allowing local police to identify and detain illegal immigrants, the group said.

Other countries have tried similar ideas to stimulate growth. Japan has a program to put young underemployed workers on farms during the summer. The program was moderately successful until a tsunami hit the country in March.

In Colorado, 1,799 U.S. citizens applied for farm jobs in 2009, according to the state's Department of Labor and Employment. That was up from 39 in 2008, although state officials say the number again fell in 2010 to the "low hundreds."

With a 9.6% unemployment rate in Georgia, University of Georgia Economist Jeff Humphries thinks the governor's plan could work.

"Employers have the upper hand, and people looking for jobs are more desperate than ever before," Humphries said. "Given that unemployment benefits are starting to run out for an increasing number of workers...this is the best time to try it out."

For some unemployed Georgians, however, the idea is not so appealing.

Marci Mosley, who lives in Atlanta, has been out of work for more than a year. She said she would only work on a farm as a last resort.

"I have a phobia of snakes," Mosley said. "I hate spiders...You have to get up early in the morning, and it's hot."

Mosley, an African-American, said she used to work on her grandfather's farm in Texas, where he stressed the importance of a good education to get off the farm. Mosley believes Deal's plan would be a tough sell for many other African Americans, who saw their older relatives struggle farming.

"It could be a setback for people," Mosley said. "The only people that would even think about doing that are people who have nothing else left...An educated black person does not have time for that. They didn't go to school to work on a farm, and they're not going to do it."

As for unemployed white Georgians, they're not showing up for agriculture jobs either, farm managers said.

In Peach County, more than half of residents are white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 26% are out of work, according to the Georgia Department of Labor. The county is kept afloat by agriculture jobs.

One of the biggest employers is Lane Packing, where workers there pick, package and ship peaches. It's hard, dirty work that few people will do, especially U.S. citizens, Lane Packing CEO Mark Sanchez said.

To find workers, Lane Packing has participated in a U.S. Department of Labor guest worker program. Sanchez explained the vast majority of the workers here are legal immigrants.

"We're required to pay a minimum wage of $9.12 an hour," Sanchez said. "Plus free housing, free transportation from their home and back. Also, most of the workers are paid on a piece rate production basis."

That adds up to a weekly paycheck of about $230, more than the average Georgia unemployment check.

While putting the unemployed to work on farms is a novel idea, the workers in Georgia who will benefit most from the farm shortage are legal immigrants, said Humphries, the University of Georgia economist.

"There's less competition for the kind of jobs legal immigrants are going after," Humphries said. "Legal immigrants are from the same countries as illegal immigrants, they are used to the same types of jobs, and the good news for the legal immigrant is they might be able to demand a little more pay."

Pakistan's parliament condemns U.S. raid, threatens sanctions

Islamabad, Pakistan -- Pakistan's parliament threatened Saturday to cut off access to a facility used by NATO forces to ferry troops into Afghanistan, signaling a growing rift that began when U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on a Pakistani compound.

A resolution adopted during a joint session of parliament condemned the U.S. action. It also called for a review of its working agreement with the U.S., demanded an independent investigation and ordered the immediate end of drone attacks along its border region.

Failure to end unilateral U.S. raids and drone attacks will force Pakistan to "to consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of (the) transit facility" used by the NATO's International Security Assistance Force, according to the resolution.

U.S. lawmakers have questioned how the world's most wanted terrorist managed to live in plain sight for years in Pakistan -- near the country's elite military academy -- without being detected.

Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no evidence that any active members of Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment knew about or actively protected the al Qaeda leader.

Publicly, leaders in both countries have downplayed a rift.

During a stop in Afghanistan Saturday, U.S. Sen. John Kerry stressed that Americans want Pakistan to be "a real ally" in combating terror. Still, he added, the United States is "not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart."

"We're trying to find a way to build it and to improve it and we need to work at that and that's part of what I'll be doing over the course of the next couple of days," said Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also planned to visit Pakistan.

The unanimous resolution made clear there was a growing dissatisfaction among Pakistani lawmakers.

The resolution also ordered a review of its counter-terrorism cooperation agreement with the United States.

The government is deeply "distress(ed) on the campaign to malign Pakistan, launched by certain quarters in other countries without appreciating Pakistan's determined efforts and immense sacrifices in combating terror," the resolution said.

It also said more than 30,000 Pakistani civilians and more than 5,000 military personnel had been killed in its fight against terror "and the blowback emanating from actions of the NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan."

Anger over U.S. drone strikes has mounted during the past year after it stepped up efforts along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

On Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike killed four suspected Islamic militants in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. They said an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a militant's vehicle on the border area.

The demands by the Pakistani civilian government come as new details emerge about the raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

Members of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that attacked the compound were wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission, a U.S. military official told CNN on Friday.

The official described the digital recording as hazy, fast-moving and subject to poor lighting in the rooms. The source also said it is hard to get clear images from the footage.

"This is not movie-quality stuff," the official said.

An official familiar with the material seized from the compound said Friday that Navy SEALs recovered a stash of pornography. The official would not discuss exactly where it was found, what it was or whether it is believed to belong to the al Qaeda leader or to someone else living at the site, such as bin Laden's couriers or his son.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Bin Laden's compound is also undergoing intense analysis, and U.S. officials say he apparently enjoyed a support network in Pakistan that allowed him to stay in one location for the past several years. He had no escape plan or means to destroy his reams and gigabytes of documents in the event of an enemy assault, according to the U.S. sources.

Two U.S. lawmakers joined a public chorus for the release of photos of bin Laden's body after seeing the images themselves.

"These are very graphic, gruesome pictures," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado. But seeing them "gave me a sense of finality and closure."

A conservative legal watchdog group has filed the first lawsuit seeking the public release of the video and photographs of the raid and its aftermath.

Judicial Watch is asking the Department of Defense to comply with a Freedom of Information request for the material, especially photos of bin Laden's body. The legal complaint to force compliance was made in federal court in Washington on Friday.