CUBA News ( Visa Request from Castro's daughter to the U.S turned Down ) LGBT Conference

U.S. Turns Down Visa Request from Cuban Leader’s Daughter

MIAMI – U.S. authorities have refused to issue a visa to Cuban President Raul Castro’s daughter to attend a May 2-5 forum on LGBT in Philadelphia that will be particularly dedicated to the situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Cuba.

The announcement was made by the Equality Forum, organizer of the conference, which said that Mariela Castro, director of Cuba’s Cenesex sex-education institute, did have a visa to travel to some meetings that will be held next month at U.N. headquarters in New York.

“Over the past 11 years, Equality Forum has invited leaders of the featured nation to attend. For those who needed a visa, all past visas have been approved,” the group’s executive director, Malcolm Lazin, said in a statement.

“It is shocking that our State Department would deny Ms. Castro travel to a civil rights summit – especially one held in the birthplace of our democracy that enshrines freedoms of speech and assembly,” Lazin said.

Several months ago Mariela Castro accepted the Equality Forum’s invitation to speak at next week’s event, as well as to receive a prize for her work in favor of the rights of LBGT people on the Communist-ruled island.

“Mariela Castro runs the leading Cuban LGBT organization that offers support and services to LGBT youth and seniors, provides HIV and STD education and prevention, and combats homophobia,” Lazin said. “These are shared values that deserve the right to be heard regardless of political systems.”

Last May, the State Department’s decision to allow Mariela Castro to travel to San Francisco for a conference of the Latin American Studies Association sparked criticism from some Cuban-American politicians. EFE

Iran News ( Women not veiled while driving - May have their car impounded ) Hmm

Iran: Cars of 'improperly veiled' women will be confiscated by regime police

 

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Published on Friday, 26 April 2013 11:09

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NCRI - Women in Iran have been warned they will have their cars confiscated for three weeks for driving while 'improperly veiled'.
They also face having their vehicles impounded for 'unchaste behaviour' or 'noise pollution' whilst behind the wheel, Tehran's chief of traffic police said.
Hossein Rahimi said the clampdown was part of a 'moral security plan' and at 'controlling and monitoring vehicles and the youth'.
He told the state-run INSA news agency: "In line with the moral security plan, the vehicles of violators will be taken away for three weeks.
"Cases involving driving by individuals who are improperly veiled and commit unchaste behavior or noise pollution inside their vehicles are also included in this plan."
The latest draconian measures against women come after the regime's State Security Forces chief Ahmadi Moqqadam announced earlier this month that: "A new round of moral and social security plans by the police will begin next month.
"These plans are not associated with election issues but will be executed during the election days.
"Their approach will be social and cultural and we are working ensure people do not hate us, but pay attention to us. For this reason, social and cultural measures have been included in this year's plan."
The Iranian regime is re-imposing its 'public security plan' - first launched in April 2007 - to suppress any dissent against the regime.
All the measures are being seen as an attempt to crush any anti-regime protests during the forthcoming June presidential election.

SNYDER Texas ( Sad news - Update on my article - Hailey Dunn was missing and her body was found in Texas )

SNYDER, Texas (AP) — Remains found in a remote West Texas location last month are those of a 13-year-old middle school cheerleader missing since December 2010, authorities announced Friday.

Hailey Darlene Dunn's remains were found near Lake J.B. Thomas in Scurry County on March 16, more than two years after her mother reported her missing.

The girl's disappearance and the cause of her death remain under investigation, Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson said at a news conference Friday. The Scurry County District Attorney's Office received written confirmation of the identity of the remains on Friday, he said.

Texas Rangers informed the girl's mother, Billie Jean Dunn, on Friday afternoon at her Austin home, said her attorney, John Young. Dunn will be driving to West Texas to arrange her daughter's funeral, he said.

The body was found about 20 miles northwest of the girl's hometown of Colorado City. The girl had been the subject of months of intensive searches in and around Colorado City and surrounding fields and landfills after her mother reported her missing on Dec. 28, 2010. More than 100 billboards featuring her picture and information about the case were set up along interstates in Texas and other states.

The mother's boyfriend, Shawn Adkins, has said he last saw Hailey a day before she was reported missing. He said the girl told him she was going to her father's home nearby and then on to spend the night at a friend's home. She did neither.

Authorities had named Adkins as a person of interest in the girl's disappearance, but he was never charged. At one point, authorities accused the girl's mother of lying about the whereabouts of Adkins, who was found at her home. Billie Dunn pleaded no contest in June 2011 to making a false report to law enforcement and received a suspended 90-day jail term with probation.

The mother and Adkins have denied involvement in Hailey's disappearance.
Hailey's paternal grandfather, Bill Dunn, died in 2011, six months after the girl went missing. His widow, Spicy Dunn of Ponca City, Okla., said her husband spent much of the last months of his life trying to learn what became of his granddaughter.
"He was very, very hurt, and was on the computer all the time looking and trying to find anything that had to do with Hailey," she said Friday. "Anything."
She said family members made a point not to change their phone numbers so that law enforcement officials could reach them in case of any developments, even years later.
"It is a relief to know that she's at peace," Spicy Dunn said. "She doesn't have any more suffering."
She later added, "I hope the family comes to a closure. I know it's very hard."

New Delhi ( 6- year-old girl found allegedly raped- with her neck cut ) Public toilet

6-year-old girl allegedly raped, left with slit throat near a public toilet in Delhi

Edited by Shamik Ghosh (with inputs from IANS) | Updated: April 27, 2013 01:35 IST

New Delhi: A six-year-old girl was found with her throat slit near a public toilet in the Badarpur area of south Delhi on Friday evening, according to reports. The police say they are awaiting a medical report to confirm if the child was raped.

The girl is currently in critical condition and underwent a three-hour long operation at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences' (AIIMS).

The police have detained 22 people for questioning and have arrested the contractor of the public toilet where the girl was found.

Morocco ( When you should leave " Dogs alone " ) See video

Morocco crowd in the street "Man trying to walk his dogs" ?

Can everyone say “Attack Dogs?”

Venezuela ( Arrests - U.S Agent training students to carry out acts of violence ) What ?

Venezuela Arrests U.S. “Agent”
Venezuelan authorities identified the U.S. citizen as Timothy Hallett Tracy and said that “all his behavior complies with training and instruction as an intelligence agent” but our investigation reveals he is just a documentary film-maker and actor...

CARACAS – Venezuela announced on Thursday the capture of a U.S. citizen who stands accused of being an intelligence agent linked with training Venezuelan students to carry out acts of violence.

“Parties of the extreme right want a civil war,” Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres said.

He identified the U.S. citizen as Timothy Hallett Tracy and said that “all his behavior complies with training and instruction as an intelligence agent.”

The minister said that, in addition, authorities seized more than 500 videos in a raid carried out on Wednesday in Caracas as part of an investigation initiated last October.

Those videos show evidence, he said, of a destabilization plan focused on the April 14 special election to choose a successor to leftist President Hugo Chavez, who died March 5 after a long battle with cancer.

“All (the evidence) collected shows that the day of the elections was going to arrive perfectly normally but once the results (were) issued by the CNE (Venezuela’s electoral commission) there was going to be non-recognition (of them) by the candidate of the right,” Rodriguez Torres said.

Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez last October, said he would not recognize the narrow victory of ruling-party candidate Nicolas Maduro until the CNE carried out a full audit of the results.

Post-election violence led to the deaths of nine people, most of them Maduro supporters.

While the CNE acceded to Capriles’ demand for a 100-percent vote audit, Maduro’s inauguration went forward last Friday as scheduled and no audit has been carried out.

Mexico City ( Photojournalist killed and dismembered - One month after hire date )

Photojournalist’s Mutilated Body Found in Northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – The mutilated body of Daniel Alejandro Martinez, a photographer for Mexico’s La Vanguardia newspaper, was found along with that of another young man in the northern city of Saltillo, the daily reported Thursday.

The dismembered bodies of the 22-year-old Martinez and 23-year-old Julian Alejandro Zamora Gracia were found Wednesday in Los Arcos, a neighborhood in the southern section of Saltillo, the Coahuila state Attorney General’s Office said.

The victims’ identification was missing when the bodies were discovered in Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila, the AG’s office said.

Martinez worked for the society pages of La Vanguardia and had been hired just a month ago, last reporting on Tuesday to get his assignments, the newspaper said.

The photojournalist failed to show up on Tuesday afternoon to cover a story he had been assigned, prompting “company personnel to try, unsuccessfully, to locate him with the assistance of relatives and friends,” La Vanguardia said in a front-page story.

The AG’s office identified the two young men “as members of an organized group” because it “irresponsibly” interpreted some messages left by the presumed killers with the bodies, La Vanguardia said.

An International Press Institute, or IPI, and World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, or WAN-IFRA, delegation visited Mexico in February and called for more protection for journalists.

Both the IPI and Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, ranked Mexico as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for journalists in 2012, trailing only Syria, Somalia and Pakistan.

More than 80 journalists have been murdered and 18 others have been reported missing since 2005 in Mexico, the Mexican National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, said in a report released in December.

Some 658 complaints were received from members of the news media from Jan. 1, 2005, to Nov. 30, 2012, the rights body said.

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. EFE