TUCSON Az ( Pilot convicted of sexual assault- Moved to Tucson Air force base ) Where victim's family lives-protest

TUCSON - There's a push to stop the relocation of a fighter pilot to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
The officer was convicted in 2012 of sexual assault but an Air Force General later overturned the verdict claiming the evidence did not qualify as "beyond a reasonable doubt."
The victim is a longtime Tucsonan who still has family here.
On Thursday, a protest outside DM is scheduled.

Kim Hanks' family is upset both because her attacker's conviction was overturned and that he's been re-assigned to Tucson and Davis Monthan.
Lt. Col. James Wilkerson began his new post this week, as the Chief of Flight Safety on base.
Hanks' family says the air force failed to notify them where Wilkerson was being transferred until after the decision had been made.
Thursday at 4:30 the Hanks family and sexual assault survivor groups will gather outside DM in protest.
They'll also be collecting signatures.

FOX News Ann Coulter ( Trash talks immigrants "push cart people" and the FBI ) OMG

Ann Coulter: “Boston Muslim Bomber’s wife should be jailed for wearing a 

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h/t Susan K

Bangladesh ( 8 story building collapsed killing more than 70 workers )

 An eight-story building that housed four garment factories in the capital city of Bangladesh collapsed overnight, killing more than 70 workers, and adding to a rising death toll in a country where well-known American retailers pay dirt-poor wages to make clothing in factories with few of the basic safeguards that are standard in most of the developed world.

"It's a total disaster," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, who has a team on the ground in Dhaka interviewing survivors.

Kernaghan he has been told that some 2,500 workers who work at the four factories in the building refused to enter the building on Monday when they saw large cracks forming along the structure's exterior.
At 8 a.m. on Tuesday, factory owners allegedly told workers they would not be paid if they did not return to the factories and begin working, according to Kernaghan. The building collapsed about an hour later.

The death toll is still unclear. Kernaghan said he is aware that about 600 workers escaped the rubble unharmed.

The building collapse comes on the heels of a string of deadly factory fires in Bangladesh, including one that killed 112 garment workers five months ago. In December 2010, more than two dozen workers died in a Bangladesh factory that was making clothes for a range of U.S. brands, including Tommy Hilfiger.

In an ABC News investigative report on the fire that aired on World News and Nightline, Hilfiger and the CEO of parent company PVH, Emanuel Chirico, pledged to lead an effort to improve factory working conditions in Bangladesh.
Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, said his organization is now using shipping records and documents found at the scene to start identifying the Western retail brands that were customers of Ether Tex, the largest factory located in the building that collapsed on Tuesday.
"The death toll in today's factory building collapse in Bangladesh stands near 100, the latest in the endless parade of senseless deaths in garment factories producing for Western brands and retailers," Nova said.

Nova said he has reviewed production documents, which he provided to ABC News, that appear to show the retailer Benetton sourced clothing at the factory. The retailer has disputed this in a statement sent to ABC News.

"While we are working to verify the authenticity of the document you sent us, I am to confirm that these factories are not currently suppliers of Benetton Group or of any of his brands," the statement said.

Luca Biondolillo, head of Benetton Group Media and Communication Department, told ABC News he was "absolutely certain that none of these companies are currently suppliers of ours."
He said he has search through records of the last 10 years and so far they indicate no work with the factories since at least 2009.

Nova also said the Ether Tex web site listed Wal-Mart as a customer, though the web site was down Wednesday and that could not be confirmed.

Wal-Mart told ABC News it is still unsure if clothing made for its stores were made in the Bangladesh factory.
"We are sorry to learn of this tragic event," said Kevin Gardner, a Wal-Mart spokesman. "We are investigating across our global supply chain to see if a factory in this building was currently producing for Wal-Mart. We remain committed and are actively engaged in promoting stronger safety measures and that work continues."

Iran News ( Three Drug Dealers hanged in the city of Bam )

Iran: Three hanged in Bam in regime's spiralling execution tally

 

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Published on Wednesday, 24 April 2013 13:31

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NCRI - Three prisoners convicted of drug trafficking have been hanged at a prison in city of Bam,

reports from Iran have revealed.
Another 11 men have been transferred to another location in Qezelhesar Prison, in Karaj, for imminent execution and they have been deprived of all visits before the death sentences are carried out.
They are among thousands of prisoners on death row in Iran, where 30 inmates were hanged in the past two weeks alone, including six in public in Shiraz on April 16.
The soaring execution rate comes as panicking rulers try to suppress mounting public anger at poverty, unemployment and food shortages ahead of the June presidential election.

Mexico ( 6 bodies dumped by bus stop - 5 men and 1 woman - Cartel wars )

Six Bodies Found in Northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Six bodies were found by police Tuesday in a community outside General Enrique Estrada, a city in the north-central Mexican state of Zacatecas, state officials said.

“It was learned that members of a criminal organization left six dead bodies in the community of Felix Uresti Gomez,” the Zacatecas state government said.

State police heading to the city of Rio Grande, where a law enforcement operation was planned, made the grisly discovery.

The bodies were dumped by the bus stop in the community, which is on Federal Highway 45 on the way from Fresnillo to Zacatecas city.

The victims – five men and a woman – have not been identified, officials said.

“A message was left along with the bodies, noting the fight between two rival criminal groups with a presence in the state,” the state government said.

Zacatecas, like other states in northern Mexico, has been affected by a turf war between the Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels.

After several years on the payroll of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, considered Mexico’s most violent criminal organization, went into the drug business on their own account and now control several lucrative territories.

The criminal organizations have been fighting for control of smuggling routes into the United States since 2010.

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. EFE

CORPUS CHRISTI ( Illegal Immigrant charged with killing 7 smuggled aliens )

Previously Deported Mexican Charged in Deaths of 7 Smuggled Aliens

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A previously deported illegal alien from Mexico was charged with smuggling a group of 14 illegal aliens that resulted in seven being killed and one injured in critical condition.

These charges were announced last Thursday by U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson, Southern District of Texas, along with Brian M. Moskowitz, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Houston.

The indictment returned on April 18 charges Idelfonso Garcia-Benitez, 20, of Michoacan, Mexico, with one count of conspiring to transport aliens, 14 counts of transporting an alien, and one count of illegally re-entering the United States after previously being deported.

According to documents filed of record in the case, on March 20, 2013, at about 11 p.m., a Kingsville Police Department officer observed a pickup truck violate state traffic law by disregarding a stop sign. The officer attempted to conduct a traffic stop on this vehicle, but the vehicle fled, leading to a brief pursuit.

The driver crashed into a vehicle barrier on General Cavazos Avenue in Kleberg County that had been deployed by the Kingsville Naval Air Station. A total of 15 illegal aliens were discovered at the scene. Of those, Garcia-Benitez was identified as the driver. Seven were killed and one remains in critical condition.

“The tragic loss of life in this case shows the very real risks that people face when they put themselves in the hands of a smuggler,” said Moskowitz. “Those responsible for illegally moving people into and through our country place their personal profit above everything else. They are driven by greed with little regard for the health and well-being of their human cargo, which can be a deadly combination.”

Garcia-Benitez was arrested at the scene of the accident. He has been in custody since that time, where he will remain pending further criminal proceedings. He is expected to appear for an arraignment hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Owsley early next week.

If convicted, Garcia-Benitez faces up to 20 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.

This case is being investigated by HSI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Miller.

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence. A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.

French Embassy bombed in Libya ( Car bomb injured 2 french guards )

CAIRO (The New York Times) — The French Embassy in Libya was struck by what was reported to be a car bomb on Tuesday, injuring two French guards, according Libyan media accounts and French authorities who called the attack “odious.”
The assault was described as the first of its kind in the Libyan capital since the revolt beginning in 2011 that toppled Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, but it was not the first attack on a diplomatic building in Libya.

Last September in the eastern city of Benghazi, militants struck at two American facilities, killing the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans. Last month, Libyan security officials said they had arrested two men in the kidnapping near Benghazi of five British humanitarian activists, at least two of them women who had been sexually assaulted.
On Tuesday, Reuters quoted residents living near the French diplomatic compound in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, as saying they heard two explosions in the early morning.
“We think it was a booby trapped car,” a French Embassy official told Reuters. “There was a lot of damage and there are two guards wounded.”
The attack raised worries among Tripoli residents that the security situation there was unraveling further.
Since the fall of Colonel Qaddafi, Tripoli had generally been seen as safer than Benghazi, which many foreigners avoid. But the country as a whole is viewed by outsiders as potentially perilous with many weapons in the hands of citizens and militias beyond government control. Many foreigners in Tripoli take elaborate security precautions.
The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, was quick to issue a statement in Paris calling Tuesday’s attack odious. Mr. Fabius said he condemned the attack with the utmost vigor and said French and Libyan authorities would make every effort to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the attack.
The assault came a day after the French Parliament voted to extend the French military deployment in Mali, but there was no indication whether the attack was linked to that development. No group immediately took responsibility for the blast.