Pakistan ( Taliban rejected an offer to swap their guns for cricket bats and play a match )

MIRANSHAH: The Pakistani Taleban on Monday rejected an offer to swap their guns for cricket bats and play a match for peace, saying the sport was responsible for turning youth away from jihad.
The militant group were responding to a call made earlier in the day by a top Pakistani minister who offered to host a match with the militants to revive stalled peace talks in comments which provoked derision on social media.


Pakistan’s government entered into a formal dialogue with the Taleban earlier this month, but the process faltered after the militants executed 23 kidnapped soldiers.
The military has retaliated with a series of airstrikes in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan and are home to the Taleban’s top leadership, killing dozens.
With talks on a sticky wicket, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said Monday that cricket could offer hope.
“I have information that the Taleban keep an interest in cricket. So if this message can go through to them, we can have a cricket match with them which can have a better result,” he told reporters in Islamabad following an exhibition game. “The Taleban follow the Pakistan cricket team with keen interest so this can be a platform.”
But speaking to AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location, Taleban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said his group would refuse to play ball. “These secular people want to distance our youth from jihad and Islamic teachings through cricket. We are strongly against cricket and dislike it,” he said.
Reaction to the minister’s suggestion that the Taleban could be tempted into talks through cricket was also overwhelmingly negative on Twitter, which is used mainly by the country’s English-speaking elite. In a reference to bloody toll inflicted by the Taleban on Pakistan’s forces over the years, one user called @MidhatZ, said: “Cricket on a red pitch and may be they could bowl with our soldiers heads?”
Another user, @kursed suggested the minister “should invite the families of those beheaded” by the Taleban to the match.
Meanwhile, unknown gunmen killed a senior commander of the Pakistani Taleban who had a government bounty on his head on Monday.
Asmatullah Shaheen, who was believed to be in his mid-40s and was a former interim chief of Pakistan’s Taleban, had a ($95,000) bounty payable for his death.
“Unknown attackers opened fire on Asmatullah Shaheen’s car. He along with three associates died on the spot,” a security official in Miranshah told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Morocco ( A Snake Charmer in Marrakech Dies from Snakebite )

Saturday 22 February 2014 - 13:30             

          

Casablanca- Snakes are bewitching creatures to watch, but they can also be the cause of unforeseen tragedies. A snake charmer in Marrakech lost his life on Friday after he was bitten by one of his snakes.

A Moroccan snake charmer lost his life last Friday in Marrakech at Mamounia Hospital after he was bitten by a snake he was charming in the red city’s famous Jama El Fna Square.

The snake charmer had reportedly attempted to save himself traditionally by just trying to suck the poison out of his vein using his mouth. That method did not work eventually.

As the snake charmer felt acute dizziness, he asked his friend to take him on his motorcycle to Mamounia Hospital, where he died afterwards.

Trusted sources from Jama El Fna told MWN that the performer’s body would be autopsied to verify the cause of his death.

The sad incident has stirred a debate among Marrakech residents, as well as Moroccans from other cities who visit Jamaa El Fna especially to enjoy the memorizing performances of snake charmers.

To what extent are safety standards respected by all performers in Jamaa El Fnaa? Can we still enjoy traditional performances there without recalling incidents like these?

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

India ( Pakistani prisoner arrested for trespassing found hanging in jail cell )

SRINAGAR, India: A Pakistani prisoner who was arrested by authorities in India for trespassing more than two years ago has been found hanging inside a jail in Indian Kashmir, an official said Saturday.


 Showkat Ali, 42, a resident of Sialkot in Pakistan, had been lodged in a jail in Amphala, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the region’s main city of Srinagar, since December 2011.
He was arrested on charges of illegally crossing the de facto border between the two rival countries.
“An inmate informed the jail authorities last (Friday) night that Showkat was hanging from the grill of a toilet in the barracks,” jail superintendent Harish Kotwal told AFP.
“He was hanging by a scarf and after he was brought down, the jail doctor declared him dead,” Kotwal said.
The incident will be investigated by a magistrate and formalities for handing over his body to Pakistani authorities have begun, another police officer said.
Last May, a Pakistani prisoner died of his injuries after he was savagely beaten by fellow convicts in another jail in Indian Kashmir, leading to calls for an international probe into his death.
His death followed a similar assault on Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail. A high profile convict, Singh had been on the death row for more than 21 years.
India and Pakistan frequently arrest rival citizens for trespassing and many of them languish in jail for years even after serving their term as poor diplomatic ties mean fulfilling official requirements can take a long time.

Mexico ( Photo of " El Chapo" Guzman who was captured on friday )

. Legislators of different parties confirmed and celebrated the capture of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman on Friday at a hotel in Mazatlan, Sinaloa through Twitter.

PAN senator Javier Lozano confirmed the information and sent a greeting to the national agencies that participated in his capture. Meanwhile PRD deputy Fernando Zárate be asked to confirm this information is find a way to protect the family of Guzman to a possible increase in violence against them.


Read more: http://www.elblogdelnarco.info/2014/02/fotos-exclusiva-de-el-chapo-guzman.html # ixzz2u6h5T7Hd
Follow us: @ MundoNarco on Twitter

Mexico ( 15 Bodies Found in Western Mexico )

MEXICO CITY – A clandestine grave near the western Mexican metropolis of Guadalajara holds at least 15 bodies, the Jalisco state Attorney General’s Office said Friday.

The grave lies 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the intersection of two highways in the Guadalajara suburb of Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, the AG’s office said in a statement.

Authorities found the clandestine burial site thanks to information that emerged following the arrest of Geronimo Ibarra Alcaraz, 23, a suspected drug trafficker.

The bodies were taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Guadalajara, Jalisco’s capital, for autopsies and identification.

The arrest of Ibarra also led police to a safe house in Tlajomulco where they found 1.5 tons of marijuana, 39 kilos of methamphetamine, weapons and bulletproof vests, the AG’s office said.

Ibarra is being held without bail while federal authorities seek to determine which criminal outfit he worked for, the statement said.

The Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel is currently battling a group known as La Resistencia for control of the illegal drug trade in the western state, authorities say.

La Resistencia is thought to be allied with Los Zetas, the most violent of Mexico’s cartels

TBILISI ( Former prime minister Vano Merabishvili gets five and a half years in prison )

TBILISI: A court in Georgia on Monday sentenced former prime minister Vano Merabishvili to five and a half years in prison for embezzlement in a case his lawyer and allies denounced as political persecution.
The court found Merabishvili, who headed the government of ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, guilty of giving fictitious jobs to activists who were involved in his party’s losing parliamentary election campaign in 2012.


Judge Natia Barbakadze also issued a $27,000 fine to Merabishvili’s co-defendant, former health minister Zurab Chiaberashvili.
Merabishvili, who has been in pretrial detention since May 2013, had served as secretary general of Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) party, which was defeated by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition.
“We will appeal the illegal verdict,” Merabishvili’s lawyer Otar Kakhidze told AFP, accusing the judge of acting under pressure from the prosecutor’s office.
“This is nothing but political persecution aimed at destroying the main opposition party in Georgia,” he said.
UNM’s foreign secretary and the former security adviser to Saakashvili, Giga Bokeria, said the verdict “destroys political culture in Georgia as political opponents, opposition leaders are being jailed for political reasons.”
“It’s a very bad day not only for justice, but also for democratic tradition in Georgia,” Bokeria told journalists.
“The current government — which ordered the verdict — will pay a high political price.”
Dozens of Saakashvili’s allies have been placed under investigation for corruption and abuse of office charges since the end of the former president’s 10-year stay in power, which included a politically damaging 2008 war with neighbor Russia.
Western officials have expressed concern over any investigations that could be perceived as being politically motivated, but the Georgian Dream government has repeatedly rejected any political motives behind the prosecutions.
Ivanishvili, whose net worth was valued at $5.3 billion by Forbes magazine last year, became Georgia’s prime minister after the 2012 parliamentary election, but stepped down in November in favor of his hand-picked ally, 31-year-old Irakli Garibashvili.
But Ivanishvili is still believed to wield massive influence over Georgia’s politics.
Russia has expressed hope that it can launch a political dialogue with the new Georgian government after breaking off all contacts with Saakashvili’s team in 2008.
Merabishvili, 45, is one of Saakashvili’s closest allies who served as his interior minister and was appointed as PM just ahead of October 2012 elections.
Accused by critics of using disproportionate force against mass anti-government rallies in 2007 and 2009, Saakashvili led all-out anti-graft and anti-crime campaigns that transformed Georgia’s once highly corrupt police force and saw a dramatic drop in crime rates.
After last year’s presidential election, Saakashvili left Georgia and now resides in the United States where he teaches at Tufts University.
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MANILA ( Internet Child porn operation " Based in a Philippine school " )

MANILA: Government agents raided an Internet child porn operation based in a Philippine school and arrested its president and eight other people, investigators said Tuesday.
The suspects used a room at the Mountaintop Christian Academy to post online images and video of children and adults for foreign consumption, said Ronald Aguto, cybercrime investigation head in the National Bureau of Investigation.


Authorities were still investigating, but Aguto said it didn’t appear that children at the school were being abused and that the operators were uploading pre-recorded images and video stored.
The school had 2,000 elementary and high school students, Aguto added. Its license was revoked in 2006 for unknown reasons but it had remained open.
Puring Martinez, the arrested president and owner of the private school, told GMA television network she rented out the room to the Internet site operators to augment the income of the school because fees paid by students were not enough to cover costs.
She said she was aware that the Internet links sold can only be opened by a foreigner who will use his card and that the links lead to “naughty” materials.
Martinez’ son, Tom, said the school had only 260 preschool, elementary and high school pupils, and that their permit to operate was valid. It was not clear why there was a discrepancy with the NBI information.
He said the Internet operation was owned by an American from Tennessee, who rented two rooms for 40,000 pesos ($900) in a bungalow separate from the classrooms but within the school compound. All of the suspects arrested are Filipino, and the American’s whereabouts were not clear.
The raid shows the extent of the task facing Philippine authorities in cracking down on child pornographers, who exploit weak law enforcement and increasing broadband Internet penetration to base operations in the country.
Gilbert Sosa, director of the national police’s Anti-Cybercrime Group, said last month the Philippines was one of the top 10 sources of child pornography in the world, and that police have been cooperating with other countries to crack down on it.
Two other Internet porn operations in Quezon city were raided Monday night. At least 22 people were arrested in those two raids and more than two dozen computers seized.
Aguto said they have yet to conduct a forensic investigation on the seized computers, but based on what they have gathered so far, the suspects will be charged with violating laws against child pornography and obscene publication of adult pornographic images.
More than 40 computers were seized as evidence during the raid late Monday at the school in Metropolitan Manila’s Muntinlupa city.
“It was like a computer lab inside the school,” Aguto said in a telephone interview. “Even during daytime, when the pupils were there, they were using it for this kind of offense.”
He said the site operators worked day and night, chatting online with clients and pretending to be women or girls depending on what the client wanted. They would then upload pictures and pre-recorded video of a nude girl or woman they claim to be.
Last month, Britain’s National Crime Agency said child abuse investigators in Britain, the US and Australia had dismantled an organized crime group that streamed footage of child sexual abuse. The ring abused impoverished children as young as 6, the agency said. Authorities made 29 arrests, including 11 people in the Philippines who had facilitated the crime. Some were members of the children’s families.