A hand grenade explosion has injured five people in Medellin’s Comuna 8 district, local media reported on Friday.
Newspaper El Tiempo reported that criminals launched the hand grenade at a passing public transport bus, leaving three children and two adults injured.
The 8th Commune, located in the east of Colombia’s second largest city, has suffered from high degrees of violence and forced displacement during 2012 due primarily to high levels of gang warfare.
Violence in Medellin's west forces 100s from school
Friday, 01 February 2013 04:42 Adriaan Alsema
A surge in violence in the west of Medellin is keeping hundreds of children from attending class because going to school simply has become too dangerous. Government officials are no longer allowed entry in the area, while the city's increasingly controversial mayor insists the situation is under control.
Some 200 children have stopped attending the Eduardo Santos school and other educational facilities in the Comuna 13 district after rival gangs imposed "invisible borders" that can not be crossed by locals and a 6PM curfew that disallows children taking the late shift to walk home.
"Some 200 minors have stopped attending the local educational facilities," a local who out of fear of repercussions refused to say his name told Colombia Reports. His claim was corroborated by a former teacher who also requested to remain anonymous.
Locals from the troubled zone have told this website stories about multiple cases of people being dragged from their houses by hooded men to never return, shootings with semi-automatic and automatic guns and increased pressure on taxi drivers to pay protection money. However, these stories are difficult to corroborate because the gangs have also begun intimidating journalists trying to report from the Comuna 13.
Juan Fernando Rojas of the Antioquia journalist association APA said colleagues from newspaper Q'hubo and state television stations Teleantioquia and Telemedellin have been intimidated by gang members while attempting to report on the increasingly alarming situation. The same thing has happened in the opposite side of town, the Comuna 8, a press release by the APA said.
According to an anonymous government official, the gangs also no longer allow municipal workers to enter the higher neighborhoods of the Comuna 13.
Over the past week, intense gang fighting has taken place in broad daylight. The police, say locals, failed to intervene.
"Before they waited until nightfall at least," said one of the locals. "Now they no longer wait. They don't care about firing shots at any hour of the day."
One of these battles lasted as long as four hours, during which police simply stayed away, several locals said.
A reporter from newspaper El Tiempo, specialized in Medellin's gang conflict, said the war is due to tensions between certain factions of local crime syndicate "Oficina de Envigado" and territorial gains in the city made by neo-paramilitary organization "Los Urabeños" who are taking advantage of the weakened Oficina. According to the journalist, the tensions in the city's underworld are also causing violence in the Comunas 1, 3, 6 and 8.
Despite the apparent security crisis in the neighborhood, Mayor Anibal Gaviria insisted the security situation in the neighborhood has improved.
"We do not disregard the violence that affects our citizens but we know that this situation is in decline," said Gaviria on Monday, contradicting the most recent figures from the coroner's office that indicated a 70% increase in homicides in the first ten months of his administration.
ISTANBUL, Turkey — A suicide bomber attacked the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara, killing one Turkish security guard along with the bomber, Ankara Govenor Aladdin Yuksel told Turkish news media.
The explosion went off at the entrance used by embassy personnel and their visitors, after a lone suicide bomber passed through the X-ray machine, Turkish news media reported. News reports said that there is no damage inside the embassy and that all personnel have been moved to safe rooms inside the building. Turkish television footage showed a door blown out and pieces of the wall around it scattered in front of the entrance.
The Turkish daily newspaper Sabah posted a shaky video that was taken at the scene shortly before the area was closed off, showing Turkish police officials angrily asking that filming be stopped. Police said they suspected a second bomb, which is why they blocked off the area.
There has been no claim of responsibility. VIDEO: U.S. Embassy in Turkey attacked
According to Turkish media, the suicide bomber was a middle-aged man of non-identified nationality. The Vatan newspaper, whose reporter witnessed the explosion, said it was severe and damaged the surrounding buildings and cars nearby.
Francis Ricciardone, the U.S. ambassador in Ankara, said Turkish and U.S. officials will work together to determine who carried out the attack. Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, expressed his sorrow.
"I am offering my condolences to the relatives of those who lost their lives, and my best wishes to everyone at the American Embassy and the foreign ministry," he said. "Our whole security apparatus is working full force on finding the ones responsible for this attack, and we are hoping to clarify the matter shortly."
Turkey, a member of NATO, has come under attack from a number of groups operating on its territory including Kurdish separatists, leftists and Islamist militants, with the last major attack in Ankara in 2007 blamed on a solo suicide bomber: It killed nine people and injured 120.
Aaron Stein, an analyst at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies at King's College in London, said: "This could be a lone wolf, it could be linked to groups in Syria, it could be al-Qaeda. My initial reaction is that this was similar to the 2003 attacks in Istanbul (against British targets which killed 58), which were linked to al-Qaeda."
At this point, it's difficult to even speculate who might have been behind the attack, said Marina Ottaway, a Middle East analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
There are multiple terrorist groups operating in the region. The PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, has launched the most violent attacks in Turkey, but it has no incentive to provoke the United States, Ottaway said.
The Kurds have generally good relations with the United States. It was largely the United States that maintained a no-fly zone over northern Iraq to protect the Kurds there from Saddam Hussein's murderous pogroms against them.
Al Nursra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, seems an unlikely suspect because it has used very few suicide attacks and its fighters have been focused on a ground war in Syria, taking military bases and cities, she said. "This would be a distraction," she said.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed and Syrian-allied Shiite militia in Lebanon, has launched suicide attacks against the United States in the past and it could be using the recent Israeli airstrike in Syria as a motive, Ottaway said.
“The brutal rape and murder of a 5-year old in Vashi seemed to be an open and shut case on Wednesday when APMC police arrested a man claiming they had sufficient evidence against him. However, on Friday, the Navi Mumbai Crime Branch arrested another man and said that he was the actual culprit,” reported Mumbai Mirror on Saturday.
The story is bizarre — and frightening. A 5 year old child was found raped and killed. The parents file a police complaint and the police, based on their sniffer dog leading them to the house of 37-year-old Arun Pawar. “He had taken the girl to his house, then raped and smothered her to death, APMC police had claimed,” says the Mirror. Then after “thorough investigation, they had nabbed Dattatray Rokde, 53,” for the same crime, and released Pawar.
One can only imagine what Pawar went through. To be thought of as both a rapist and a callous murderer of a 5-year old, and subsequently to be arrested, while having nothing to do with the crime in question, must have been terribly traumatic.
While quick investigation and justice is a just demand, care must be taken to ensure that those who are accused and punished are, indeed, guilty. File photo of Delhi gangrape protests. AFP
Ever since the horrific Delhi rape case, we are witnessing an increase in the media coverage of sexual assaults against women – and increase public anger against the police and other authorities. Citizens are demanding immediate justice, and the police are under pressure to deliver justice on the double.
This demand has led to the Justice Verma Committee’s report. The committee had invited suggestions from the public on what could be done to make women safe in India, many of whom had called for speedy investigation, a quick trial and firm punishment.
“I assure you that the recommendations of the Justice Verma committee will receive the highest priority of the government. The cabinet will deliberate and finalise the legal amendments that are required, which we will then introduce in the Budget session of Parliament. I see enough ground for specific changes in our penal laws that will be discussed on the floor of the house with all political parties before the law is made. The gross brutality of the Delhi incident has rightfully shocked the ethos and conscience of the country. The assertion of people’s anger is good for democracy. But republican democracy does not allow extremes, we have not given to ourselves a system (of) lamp-post justice,” Ashwani Kumar, union law minister, had told The Economic Times.
The Vashi incident seemed to deliver on the speedy investigation, but the tragedy is that the investigation was obviously shoddy and resulted in the arrest and embarrassment of an innocent man.
While quick investigation and justice is a just demand, care must be taken to ensure that those who are accused and punished are, indeed, guilty.
Or we will see more Arun Pawars languishing in jail, while the perpetrators like Dattatray Rokde will roam the streets as free men.
Colombian police working with the DEA captured a drug trafficker accused of providing cocaine to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, the world's largest drug trafficking organization.
After three months, "Operation Buenaventura" led to the arrest in Bogota of Pedro Luis Zamora, alias "Junior," who worked as a middleman between Colombian drug trafficking organizations and the Mexican cartel. Junior allegedly sent shipments of cocaine in "go fast" motor boats. The director of Colombia’s counter narcotics police unit, General Luis Alberto Perez, claimed that Junior was “directly financed by the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Junior was responsible for the acquisition in Colombia of hydrochlorate...and its subsequent shipping.” The Colombian drug trafficker is wanted by a New York court for a four ton shipment of cocaine to the United States. Interpol had placed a red notice arrest warrant on his name. He will stay in the custody of Colombian authorities while the U.S. government sends extradition papers.
Iran Human Rights, January 31: Five prisoners were executed in the prison of Kerman (Southeastern Iran) yesterday morning January 30., reported the state run Iranian media.
According to the Fars news agency, the five prisoners were identified as "Allahnazar Sh.", "Rahmatollah Sh.", "Abdollah Sh.", "Saleh H.", and "Nematollah Sh." convicted of participation in armed trafficking of 53 kilograms and 250 grams of opium, and sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court in Kerman. The charges have not been confirmed by independent sources.
These travelers aren't exactly packing lightly! We've investigated the slew of weird and wacky things to pass through (or be confiscated by!) customs at the NYC-area airports and beyond -- and you won't believe what we've found ... like this passenger arriving at JFK airport in New York City! Two Bronx women flying in from the Dominican Republic were arrested after allegedly attempting to smuggle in 6.5 kilos of cocaine hidden underneath makeshift diapers. See the other bizarre stuff people try to sneak past officials ...
