Iraq ( 18 Pipeline Workers Killed by Gunmen - 15 were Iranian )

BAGHDAD – Eighteen men – 15 of them Iranian – were slain Friday by an armed group while they were working on a gas pipeline that runs from Iranian territory to a power plant in eastern Iraq, a source in the Iraqi security forces told Efe.

The assailants wounded seven other Iraqi and Iranian workers in the attack, then quickly disappeared as security forces arrived on the scene.

In another incident, four civilians died and another 13 were wounded by the explosion of a car bomb parked near a popular market in the city of Madain, just south of Baghdad.

A total of seven people died Friday and another 20 were injured in other attacks in Iraq, while police prevented a jailbreak by a score of inmates at a Baghdad prison.

Iraq is going through a resurgence of sectarian violence and terrorist attacks. During the month of November, 948 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the attacks, according to Iraqi government figures

Honduras ( Four " Female Sex workers killed " drug related )

TEGUCIGALPA – Four women were fatally shot in separate incidents in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, Honduran police said Friday.

All four of the victims were sex workers and the killings are thought to be drug-related, a police spokesman told reporters.

Three of the women were killed in the Concepcion neighborhood, while the fourth was slain in the El Polvorin district of San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ second city.

The deadly shootings occurred around 3:00 a.m. Friday, the police spokesman said.

Honduras suffered 85.5 homicides for every 100,000 residents in 2012, compared with a global median rate of 8.8 murders per 100,000, the Violence Observatory

Colombia ( Human Rights Lawyer of Watchdog Agency Murdered in Colombia )

BOGOTA – An attorney working for the Colombian Public Ombud’s office in the central province of Meta was fatally shot in Villavicencio, the provincial capital, authorities said Friday.

Emigdio Conde Molina was with his wife Thursday night when two assailants on a motorcycle intercepted him and opened fire, police Col. Wilson Bravo told reporters.

Condemning the murder, Conde’s boss, Jorge Armando Otalora, called on Colombian Deputy Attorney General Jorge Fernando Perdomo to expedite the investigation.

Conde joined the Meta unit of the Public Ombud’s office in September 2012 and was recently posted to the municipality of La Macarena.

The attorney apparently had received death threats from guerrillas operating in the La Macarena area, Col. Bravo said.

Conde’s killing brings to five the number of lawyers murdered in Meta in the last three months, the Public Ombud’s office said.

Besides his wife, Conde is survived by two daughters ages 4 and 7.

Ukraine ( Ukrainians want the President to step down )

Ukraine ( Riot police " Beat on Protesters " ) See video

Syria ( Execution of two homosexual Syrian teenagers by Al-Nusra "rebels" ) 18 + video

Iran ( Execution gone wrong - Police get stoned )