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Sunday, February 16, 2014
Mexico ( Mexican Senator Robbed at Restaurant )
MEXICO CITY – Sen. David Penchyna, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said in a social media post that he was robbed this weekend by several armed subjects at a restaurant in Mineral del Monte, a city in the central state of Hidalgo.
“This morning, in the company of several friends, we were robbed in Mineral el Monte. Fortunately, we are all fine,” Penchyna, a member of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, said in a Twitter post on Saturday.
Penchyna and the businessmen he was dining with were robbed of more than 500,000 pesos ($37,758) at the El Galeron restaurant, media reports said.
The other victims were Cemex executive Mauricio Bremer and Jose Antonio Garcia, president of soccer team Atlante, the El Universal newspaper reported.
Police launched a search for the robbers but no arrests have been made, media reports said.
Mexico ( Yaqui Indians " End protest Over Aqueduct " )
MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s federal government has achieved a breakthrough in a dispute between the Yaqui Indians and the government of the northern state of Sonora, securing an agreement from the Yaquis to end to a nine-month road-blocking protest over construction of an aqueduct.
In a statement Friday, the Government Secretariat said President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration would ensure full compliance with court rulings pertaining to the Independence Aqueduct, which the Indians have opposed on the argument that it will leave them without water.
The Yaquis in 2009 began their struggle against the 152-kilometer (95-mile) aqueduct, which was built to transport water from the Yaqui River to the booming manufacturing hub of Hermosillo, Sonora’s capital, and began operating in April 2013.
The protest measures have included blocking a section of the Mexico City-Nogales federal highway since May, 28, 2013.
The Yaquis alleged the aqueduct, built at a cost of 4 billion pesos (some $300 million), would pose a serious threat to their way of life.
On Feb. 23, 2011, the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat authorized construction of the Independence Aqueduct without respecting indigenous peoples’ right to be consulted about projects affecting their resources, the Supreme Court ruled last year in ordering that the consultation process be held.
The roadblock is to be lifted before March 1 after the Indians received assurances during a meeting in Sonora that the federal government would respect an agreement that was signed on Jan. 21 at the Government Secretariat’s headquarters in Mexico City.
That pact guarantees that the water extracted from the Yaqui River will only be used for human consumption in Hermosillo and that the rights of the region’s Yaqui and peasant communities will be respected.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
YAVAPAI COUNTY ( Arizona K9 sniffs out $100k in drug cash )
YAVAPAI COUNTY - A Southern California man was arrested in Yavapai county with more than $100,000 in cash and drugs in his car.
It happened Monday on I17 south near Highway 260. A Deputy pulled 63-year-old Karl Harz over for allegedly speeding and a lane change violation.
The Deputy noticed it appeared Harz was under the influence of a stimulant and wasn't straightforward about his travel plans.
Due to suspicions Harz might be transporting contraband, deputies requested permission to search the vehicle and Harz declined. As a result, deputies deployed a YCSO certified narcotics detection K9 for an exterior sniff of the Taurus.
The K9 displayed an odor alert on the vehicle indicating the likelihood of narcotics inside. During a check of the vehicle interior, deputies found a stack of U.S. Currency, approximately $9000, by the front seat and a small quantity of methamphetamine in a cup holder.
When the trunk was examined, deputies located several stacks of U.S. Currency in a duffle bag and additional currency stacks hidden inside liquor bottle bags. The total exceeded $104,000.
Based on additional information developed at the scene, deputies determined the money was connected to drug transactions and the cash was seized. The K9 alerted to the currency during a controlled blind sniff test conducted as part of follow-up during evidence processing.
Harz was booked at the Camp Verde Detention Center on charges including Money Laundering, Possess Dangerous Drugs and DUI-Drugs. He remains in-custody on a $250,000 bond.
The K9 team has been very busy in recent weeks with drug associated cash seizures including $52,000 on February 5 and $10,000 on January 31, 2014
MANAMA ( A Bahraini policeman died on Saturday after being wounded in a bomb explosion )
MANAMA: A Bahraini policeman died on Saturday after being wounded in a bomb explosion during protests to mark the third anniversary of an uprising led by the opposition.
The Interior Ministry said the policeman was one of four wounded by “terrorist” blasts on Friday.
“Some villages saw rioting, vandalism and the targeting of policemen. This required police to respond to these criminal acts with legal means,” the ministry said, adding that 26 suspected rioters and vandals had been arrested the same day.
Dozens of protesters demonstrated in different parts of the island, throwing stones at police firing tear gas. “Three years since the start of the protests, we have seen no peace,” said a 34-year-old clerk in Saar village who gave his name only as Abu Ali. “Every day...youngsters go out and burn tires on the roads and the police attack them with teargas.”
Information Minister Samira Rajab said dialogue would go on, blaming “terrorists” for the clashes of the last few days.
Blocked Comments ( The U.S " Angels of Death " bunch of crap ) Arab Article
UNITED NATIONS: Western powers pushed forward Tuesday with a UN resolution threatening sanctions against Syria despite Russia’s veto threat, with President Barack Obama sharply criticizing Moscow’s opposition to a measure to help millions in desperate need of humanitarian aid.
The resolution, which expresses the Security Council’s intention to impose sanctions if the Syrian government does not allow unrestricted aid deliveries to civilians caught in the fighting, was circulated among the 15 council members. Western countries made clear they had no intention of dropping the proposal despite Russia’s vow to block it a day earlier.
Obama, speaking at a joint news conference in Washington with French President Francois Hollande, said there is “great unanimity among most of the Security Council” in favor of the resolution and “Russia is a holdout.”
Obama said Secretary of State John Kerry and others have “delivered a very direct message” pressuring the Russians to drop their opposition. He said “it is not just the Syrians that are responsible” for the plight of civilians but “the Russians, as well, if they are blocking this kind of resolution.”
Hollande made clear France was determined to move forward with the resolution.
“How you can object to humanitarian corridors? Why would you prevent the vote of a resolution if, in good faith, it is all about saving human lives?” he said.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the text is a “one-sided” effort to blame the Syrian government, which Moscow supports, for holding up aid.
Still, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin attended a Security Council meeting Tuesday to discuss the text and told reporters later that it was “a good exchange of the challenges of the humanitarian situation in Syria.”
A day earlier, both Churkin and China’s ambassador were no-shows at a meeting with supporters of the draft resolution, and the Russian ambassador made clear his country would veto it if it were put to a vote. China sent its deputy ambassador to Tuesday’s meeting.
Russia and China have blocked three previous Western-backed resolutions that would have pressured President Bashar Assad to end the now three-year-old civil war.
The divided Security Council did come together in October to approve a presidential statement appealing for immediate access to all areas of Syria to deliver aid. Western and Arab countries want to go a step further with a legally binding resolution.
Pressure mounted on Russia and China to consider the proposal, with UN spokesman Martin Nesirky saying Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos support the measure. Nesirky, however, said it was up to the Security Council to decide.
France’s UN Ambassador, Gerard Araud, said the text — which calls for pauses to allow humanitarian access and an end to sieges — is “very simple, not political. It’s balanced. There is no reason to oppose it.”
“We are facing the worst humanitarian tragedy since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994,” Araud said. “Starvation is used as a weapon by the regime, and the regime is bombing in an indiscriminate way the city of Aleppo.”
“I think we should move quickly,” he added.
___
Associated Press writer Alexandra Olson contributed to this story from New York
The resolution, which expresses the Security Council’s intention to impose sanctions if the Syrian government does not allow unrestricted aid deliveries to civilians caught in the fighting, was circulated among the 15 council members. Western countries made clear they had no intention of dropping the proposal despite Russia’s vow to block it a day earlier.
Obama, speaking at a joint news conference in Washington with French President Francois Hollande, said there is “great unanimity among most of the Security Council” in favor of the resolution and “Russia is a holdout.”
Obama said Secretary of State John Kerry and others have “delivered a very direct message” pressuring the Russians to drop their opposition. He said “it is not just the Syrians that are responsible” for the plight of civilians but “the Russians, as well, if they are blocking this kind of resolution.”
Hollande made clear France was determined to move forward with the resolution.
“How you can object to humanitarian corridors? Why would you prevent the vote of a resolution if, in good faith, it is all about saving human lives?” he said.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the text is a “one-sided” effort to blame the Syrian government, which Moscow supports, for holding up aid.
Still, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin attended a Security Council meeting Tuesday to discuss the text and told reporters later that it was “a good exchange of the challenges of the humanitarian situation in Syria.”
A day earlier, both Churkin and China’s ambassador were no-shows at a meeting with supporters of the draft resolution, and the Russian ambassador made clear his country would veto it if it were put to a vote. China sent its deputy ambassador to Tuesday’s meeting.
Russia and China have blocked three previous Western-backed resolutions that would have pressured President Bashar Assad to end the now three-year-old civil war.
The divided Security Council did come together in October to approve a presidential statement appealing for immediate access to all areas of Syria to deliver aid. Western and Arab countries want to go a step further with a legally binding resolution.
Pressure mounted on Russia and China to consider the proposal, with UN spokesman Martin Nesirky saying Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos support the measure. Nesirky, however, said it was up to the Security Council to decide.
France’s UN Ambassador, Gerard Araud, said the text — which calls for pauses to allow humanitarian access and an end to sieges — is “very simple, not political. It’s balanced. There is no reason to oppose it.”
“We are facing the worst humanitarian tragedy since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994,” Araud said. “Starvation is used as a weapon by the regime, and the regime is bombing in an indiscriminate way the city of Aleppo.”
“I think we should move quickly,” he added.
___
Associated Press writer Alexandra Olson contributed to this story from New York
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