Mexico ( The start of the week '" 23 killings " in mexico ) Cartel wars

MEXICO CITY-The start of the week saw an unprecedented spike in violence attributed to organized crime gangs in events that left at least 23 people dead in seven states of the country.


In Tabasco, authorities reported a shootout between criminal groups from Los Zetas and the Knights Templar, killing five people, including a woman.

The incident occurred around noon on Monday on the road from Villa La Venta to the county seat of Huimanguillo.

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VIETNAM ( 30 drug smugglers Men an women to be " Executed " )

HANOI: Vietnam on Monday sentenced 30 drug smugglers to death in the communist country’s largest ever narcotics case, involving scores of defendants and nearly two tons of heroin, a judge said.
The 30 men and women, all Vietnamese, were found guilty of drug trafficking and given the death penalty while a further 59 defendants were handed sentences ranging up to life in prison, presiding judge Ngo Duc said.
“This was Vietnam’s largest ever trial in terms of defendants, the number of death penalties given out and the amount of heroin involved,” Duc said after the verdict was read out in the northern province of Quang Ninh — which borders China.
“Because of the large number of defendants and the seriousness of the case, the trial was held at the prison,” Judge Duc added after the 17-day trial.


 Investigators said the defendants belonged to four international smuggling rings responsible for trafficking heroin and other drugs from neighboring Laos into Vietnam and China since 2006.
“All the defendants are Vietnamese and most of them came from Vietnam’s northwestern provinces,” court clerk Nguyen Trung Hieu said.
Vietnam’s remote northwestern region, which borders both China and Laos, is poor and populated by a patchwork of ethnic minority groups.
There have been previous smuggling cases in the area, which is far from the control of Hanoi.
According to a list of the defendants’ names seen by AFP, some of the 89 people were from ethnic minority groups but court officials could not confirm their status.
One of the leaders of the four smuggling rings broken up by the police remains at large, state media reported.
Police disrupted the rings in August 2013, making mass arrests and seizing large quantities of illegal drugs.
They also confiscated 20 luxury cars and dozens of guns and other weapons during the raid, state media reported.
Communist Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws. Anyone found guilty of possessing more than 600 grams (21 ounces) of heroin, or more than 20 kilograms of opium, can face the death penalty

Afghanistan ( Tucson Az - U of A Grad " Killed by Taliban " on Friday )

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) -
A woman killed in a Taliban attack in Afghanistan on Friday was a graduate student at the University of Arizona.


Lexie Kamerman, 27, was among 21 people killed in a suicide bomb and gun attack at a Kabul, Afghanistan restaurant popular with foreigners.
According to media reports, Kamerman was a grad student at UA studying higher learning.
She graduated in 2012.
Kamerman was dining at the Lebanese restaurant when officials say three terrorists carried out the ruthless and deadly attack.
One set off explosives in front of the restaurant, followed by two gunmen who stormed the building and opened fire.
Afghan police put an end to the attack by killing the gunmen.

Yemen ( Yemen battles ‘kill 22 in 48 hours’ )

SANAA: Two days of fighting between rebels and gunmen from the powerful Hashid tribes in north Yemen have killed nearly 22 people, a tribal source said on Monday.
A presidential commission had on Jan. 8 brokered a truce between the Huthi rebels and Hashid fighters, ending two days of clashes in Amran province.
The fighting first erupted when Huthis tried to seize the towns of Wadi Khaywan and Usaimat, both Hashid strongholds.


But battles resumed a week ago and intensified over the past two days, the tribal source said.
“There were 22 people killed on both sides during the last 48 hours,” the source said, adding that fighting was concentrated on Usaimat, 140 km north of Sanaa.
The Huthis launched the attacks in retaliation for the Hashid tribe’s support for hard-line Sunni groups fighting Huthis in Dammaj, a rebel stronghold in the north.
The town in Saada province has been besieged by the rebels for months.
Huthi rebels have been battling the Sanaa government for nearly a decade in Saada, but the clashes with Sunni militants have deepened the sectarian dimension of the unrest.
Yemeni troops began to deploy in Saada on January 11 to monitor a cease-fire between the Huthis and Salafis.

Russia ( Female Suicide bomber " At the Olympic Games " Security Alert ) See photo

Police in Sochi have launched an urgent search for a possible female suicide bomber who may have already made it past the ring of security set up for the Olympic Games.

Hotel employees in Sochi told ABC News that posters with pictures and descriptions of a 22-year-old woman from nearby Dagestan were distributed over the weekend by authorities and a similar flyer was also seen posted at Sochi's airport.

The woman is identified as Ruzanna Ibragimova, using the nickname Salima, the widow of a militant reportedly killed in a shoot-out with police last year in Dagestan.

She is described as being affiliated with the Caucasus Emirate, the terror group led by Doku Umarov that has threatened attacks against the Winter Games in Sochi.

Ibragimova is described as having a 10 centimeter scar across the left cheek, a pronounced limp, and a stiff left arm that doesn't bend at the elbow.

TEHRAN ( Iran starts implementing nuclear deal )

TEHRAN: Iran halted its most sensitive uranium enrichment work on Monday as part of a landmark deal struck with world powers, easing concerns over the country’s nuclear program and clearing the way for a partial lifting of sanctions, Tehran and the UN said.
An Iranian state TV broadcast said authorities halted enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, just steps away from bomb-making materials, by disconnecting the cascades of centrifuges enriching uranium in Natanz.


“Production of 20 percent enriched uranium has been halted by cutting the links feeding cascades in this facility,” it said. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear agency, confirmed that the centrifuges were disconnected.
The broadcast said international inspectors were present Monday when Iran began implementing its obligations under the historic deal reached in Geneva Nov. 24. They left to monitor the suspension at Fordo, another uranium enrichment site in central Iran.
The official IRNA news agency said Iran also started Monday to convert part of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide to produce nuclear fuel.
The landmark measures ease Western fears over Iran’s contested nuclear program, and are expected to lead to the lifting of some sanctions in return. Senior officials in US President Barack Obama’s administration have put the total relief figure at some $7 billion of an estimated $100 billion in Iranian assets in foreign banks. Iran is to receive the first $550 million installment of $4.2 billion of its assets blocked overseas on Feb. 1.
In Brussels, foreign ministers from the 28 European Union members, gathered for one of their periodic consultations, were poised to suspend some sanctions for six months if UN inspectors report that Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts have halted.
The ministers will hear a report from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who chaired the Geneva negotiations that led to the agreement with Tehran. Miroslav Lajcak, the Slovak foreign minister, told reporters as the meeting opened that “we are moving in a good direction. That means we are ready to lift sanctions.”
Under the historic deal, Iran agreed to halt its 20 percent enrichment program but will continue enrichment up to 5 percent. It also agreed to convert half of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide and dilute the remaining half to 5 percent over a period of six months.
In addition to the enrichment measures, the six-month interim deal also commits Iran to opening its nuclear program to greater UN inspections and providing more details on its nuclear activities and facilities. Iran will also refrain from commissioning its under-construction 40 megawatt heavy water reactor in Arak, central Iran.
In return, it receives a halt to new sanctions and easing of existing sanctions. Measures targeting petrochemical products, gold and other precious metals, the auto industry, passenger plane parts and services will be lifted immediately.
The Geneva deal allows Iran to continue exporting crude oil in its current level, which is reported to be about 1 million barrels a day.
Iran’s hard-liners have called the deal a “poisoned chalice,” highlighting the difficult task President Hasan Rouhani faces in selling the accord to skeptics.
Hard-line media denounced the planned halt. The Vatan-e-Emrooz daily printed in black Monday instead of its usual colors, a sign of sorrow and mourning. It declared the deal a “nuclear holocaust” and called it a gift to Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.
“Today, Netanyahu is the happiest person in the world,” it said. However, the Israeli prime minister has made the opposite argument as the hard-liners: He says the deal gives Iran too much for too few concessions.
The interim Geneva accord will last for six months as Iran and the world powers negotiate a final deal. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters Saturday that Tehran is ready to enter talks for a permanent accord as soon as the interim deal goes into force.
The USand some of its allies fear that Iran may finally be able to build an atomic weapon. Iran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes such as electricity and producing medical isotopes to treat cancer patients.

Hong Kong ( Thousands rally for Indonesian maid ill-treated in Hong Kong ) Video