Mexico ( 6 Farmworkers found dead in truck- in the Town of Juan Jose Rios )

Police Find 6 Bodies Inside Vehicle in Northwest Mexico

CULIACAN, Mexico – The bodies of six men were found inside an SUV near the industrial zone in Ahome, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, police said.

The grisly discovery was made Saturday by municipal police.

The vehicle was taken in an armed robbery on April 8 in the town of Juan Jose Rios, officials said.

Army troops cordoned off the area while crime scene investigators from the prosecutor’s office gathered evidence.

The SUV was towed to a funeral home with the bodies still inside so they could be examined by specialists, officials said.

Sinaloa Attorney General Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez went to the funeral home to oversee the investigation.

The victims were stripped to the waist and wore only pants and sandals, police said.

“It is believed that the victims are farmworkers who were reported missing on Friday night after drinking at an agricultural camp,” a police spokesman said.

The motive for the massacre is not known, but Sinaloa has been plagued by drug-related violence for years.

Sinaloa is home to the powerful drug cartel led by Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman.

The Sinaloa cartel, sometimes referred to by officials as the Pacific cartel, is the oldest drug cartel in Mexico and Guzman, considered extremely violent, is one of the most-wanted criminals in Mexico and the United States, where the Drug Enforcement Administration has offered a reward of $5 million for him.

The rival Los Zetas cartel has been trying to grab control of some areas in the state from the Sinaloa organization.

The war on drugs launched by former President Felipe Calderon, who was in office from 2006 to 2012, left about 70,000 people dead, or an average of 32 per day, in Mexico, officials say.

Calderon, of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, deployed thousands of soldiers and Federal Police officers across the country to fight drug cartels.

Afghanistan ( 74 schoolgirls sick - possible poisoning from gas )

By Folad Hamdard

TALUQAN, Afghanistan, April 21 (Reuters) - As many as 74 schoolgirls in Afghanistan's far north fell sick after smelling gas and were being examined for possible poisoning, local officials said on Sunday.
 
While instances of poisoning are sometimes later found to be false alarms, there have been numerous substantiated cases of mass poisonings of schoolgirls by elements of Afghanistan's ultra-conservative society that are opposed to female education.

Local officials said the girls became ill after smelling gas at their school, Bibi Maryam, in Takhar province's capital, Taluqan. The city is about 250 kilometres north of the country's capital, Kabul.

The Takhar governor's spokesman, Sulaiman Moradi, blamed "enemies of the government and the country" for the mass illness and said the aim was to stop girls from going to school.

The girls were taken to the provincial hospital and most were released after being treated, though several remained in a critical condition on Sunday evening, the head of the hospital, Dr Jamil Frotan, said.

"We have already sent samples of their blood to the Ministry of Public Health and it will soon become clear what the reason for their illness was," Frotan said.

The apparent poisoning came three days after more than a dozen students fell ill in another girls' high school in Taluqan. No-one has claimed responsibility for either incident.

Between May and June last year there were four poisoning attacks on a girls' school in Takhar, prompting local officials to order principals to stay in school until late and staff to search the grounds for suspicious objects and to test the water for contaminants.

Takhar has been a hotbed of militancy and criminal activity since 2009, with groups such as the Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan active.

Since the 2001 ousting of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul.

But periodic attacks against female students, their teachers and their school buildings, continue.

Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and employment since 2001, but fears are growing that such gains could be traded away as Western forces prepare to leave and the Afghan government seeks peace talks with the Taliban. (Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Stephen Powell)

New Delhi ( Cop slaps girl over Rape case - Clash over video - big protest )

Iran News ( Student activist - back to prison for 6 months -For insulting Islamic Leader )

Amir Chamani, student activist, returned to Tabriz prison after a 4-day furlough

Keywords : Political Prisoners

فارسى

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Amir Chamani who is a sociology graduate student at Tabriz University, returned to Tabriz central prison after being allowed only 4 days of furlough.

According to CHRR, political and student activist Amir Chamani was granted temporary release from prison on April 15th after enduring 92 days behind bars. On April 19th, after only four days he returned to the Tabriz Central prison.

On January 14, 2013, Judge Hamlbar presiding over Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court handed Amir Chamani a 6-month prison sentence for “insulting the leader and founder of the Islamic Republic,” and a 3-month (100 days) prison sentence for “propaganda against the regime. On January 13th the activist also received a sentence of 40 lashes for “insulting the presidency.”

Libya ( Two british women raped by Libyan soldiers )

British women raped by Libyan soldiers

At least two British women have been raped by Libyan soldiers in the eastern city of Benghazi, officials confirmed on Friday.

A Benghazi residentsaid the perpetrators came from an armed group which forms part of the Libyan armed forces Photo: Getty Images

By Ruth Sherlock

7:30PM GMT 29 Mar 2013

The female British activists, two of whom are sisters, were taking part in an aid convoy bound for Gaza that intended to try to break the Israeli blockade.

Libyan deputy prime minister Awad al-Barassi, who visited the women in the hospital, said the victims were travelling with two male companions when they were kidnapped on Tuesday on their way to the Benghazi airport after deciding to return to Britain.

"Sadly [the perpetrators] belong to army, but they don't reflect the ethics of Libya army," Mr al-Barassi said in an interview with the national Libya al-Hurra television channel.

"I visited the rape victims. They are in a very bad psychological state. They were raped in front of others, in front of their father. This is a heinous crime," he added.

The 10-vehicle convoy had been carrying medical supplies and was named the "Mavi Marmara" in honour of a ship involved in a 2010 deadly flotilla incident, according to Huseyin Oruc of IHH, a Turkish humanitarian relief organisation.

He said the women, who are British of Pakistani origin, were attacked and robbed, and that their abductors included a taxi driver and a group of men in military uniforms.
A resident in the city of Benghazi told The Daily Telegraph that the perpetrators of the crime came from an armed group calling themselves "The First Unit", which forms part of the Libyan armed forces.
Less than two years on from the civil war, the government is struggling to bring militia groups under its control. Many have been incorporated into the country's new armed forces, but discipline is scant.
IHH mediated the release of the kidnapped women and men after they were contacted by the convoy's organisers and to help. By Friday three of the perpetrators were believed to have been caught and imprisoned.
The father and his daughters were scheduled to return to Britain.

DENVER ( Shots fired at pot smokers rally - Puff Puff ) Its a special high

DENVER (AP) — Gunfire erupted at a Denver park Saturday, injuring two people and sending tens of thousands gathered for an annual pot celebration fleeing the area, police said.
A crowd of marijuana smokers expected to swell to 80,000 had gathered at the park to mark the counterculture holiday known as 4/20 on the first celebration since Colorado and Washington made pot legal for recreational use. The shooting happened at about 5 p.m. and shortly after pot smokers shared hugs and joints in a mass 4:20 p.m. smoke-out.

Police spokesman Sonny Jackson confirmed two people had been shot and both were taken to a hospital with injuries that did not appear to be life-threating. The gunshots quickly dispelled the festive atmosphere, with police swarming the scene.
Witnesses said they heard three or more shots and crime tape was around the pavilion where the celebration was being held.
Aerial footage showed the massive crowd frantically running from the park.
A sizable police force on motorcycles and horses had been watching the celebration. But officers didn't arrest people for smoking in public, which is still illegal.
Ian Bay, who was skateboarding through Civic Center Park when shots erupted, said he was listening to music on his headphones when he looked to his right and saw a swarm of hundreds of people running at him.
"I sort of panicked. I thought I was going through an anxiety thing because so many people were coming after me," he said.
Before the shooting, reggae music filled the air, and so did the smell of marijuana, as celebrants gathered by mid-morning in the park just beside the state Capitol.
Authorities generally look the other way at public pot smoking here on April 20. Police said this week before the event that they were focused on crowd security in light of attacks that killed three at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
"We're aware of the events in Boston," said Denver police spokesman Aaron Kafer, who declined to give specifics about security measures being taken. "Our message to the public is that, if you see something, say something."
Nationwide, group smoke-outs were planned Saturday from New York to San Francisco. The origins of the number "420" as a code for pot are murky, but the drug's users have for decades marked the date 4/20 as a day to use pot together.
Colorado and Washington are still waiting for a federal response to the votes and are working on setting up commercial pot sales, which are still limited to people with certain medical conditions. In the meantime, pot users are free to share and use the drug in small amounts.
A citizen advocacy group that opposes marijuana legalization, Smart Colorado, warned in a statement that public 4/20 celebrations "send a clear message to the rest of the nation and the world about what Colorado looks like."
"Does the behavior of the participants in these events reflect well on our state?" asked the head of Smart Colorado, Henny Lasley.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LAREDO TX ( Illegal Immigrant Convicted of Assault of a Federal Agent )

Illegal Alien Convicted of Assault of a Federal Agent

LAREDO, TX – Jose Alberto Izquierdo-Gonzalez, 26, an undocumented Mexican alien living in Laredo, has pleaded guilty to using a motor vehicle to assault a Border Patrol agent and to smuggling aliens, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson announced.

According to court records and testimony presented this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Scott Hacker, Izquierdo was seen loading persons onto his Ford F-250 truck on January 8, 2013, near the Rancho Viejo Subdivision in Laredo. Agents observed the truck speed away from the riverbanks after the agents’ vehicles approached. After a short pursuit through a residential area which included the truck traveling on residential sidewalks and knocking down a stop sign, Izquierdo eventually lost control and stopped facing the agents’ vehicles.

With persons still in the bed of the pickup truck, Izquierdo rammed the Border Patrol vehicles, injuring one of the agents. He then sped away until he lost control again and crashed into a nearby ditch. Miraculously, the persons in the truck bed managed to remain in the truck but were treated for injuries. Izquierdo was apprehended almost immediately by the agents after abandoning his truck and the passengers. Two passengers were identified as aliens illegally in the United States who said they had paid smugglers to get a ride from Izquierdo.

At the hearing, Izquierdo denied knowing there were persons in the bed of his truck, claiming he had just picked up his girlfriend and one other person and was giving them a ride.

Izquierdo will remain in custody pending his sentencing to be set at a later date. At that time, he faces up to 20 years for using a dangerous weapon, a Ford F-250 in this case, to assault a federal officer. For smuggling an alien illegally in the United States, he also faces a maximum 10-year term of federal imprisonment. Both crimes also carry up to a possible $250,000 fine.

The matter was investigated by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations with the assistance of Border Patrol, Laredo Police Department, and the Webb County Sheriff’s Department. Assistant United States Attorney Homero Ramirez prosecuted the case.