Arizona ( Activists Monitor Border Patrol Checkpoints in Arizona )

 

PHOENIX – A group of volunteers from communities in southern Arizona on Wednesday began monitoring Border Patrol checkpoints with the aim of documenting possible civil rights violations.

Leesa Jacobson, spokesperson for the volunteer group, told Efe on Wednesday that six people are taking photographs and videotaping near the Border Patrol’s Arivaca Road checkpoint, 25 miles north of the border with Mexico.

She said that about a third of the residents of Arivaca, as well as local business-owners, have signed a petition to have the checkpoint immediately removed using the argument that it is hurting the local economy.

The American Civil Liberties Union has documented cases and collected testimony from several U.S. citizens who have complained about the treatment they receive at Border Patrol checkpoints in Arizona.

The main complaints include unwarranted detentions, reviews that take a long time and verbal abuse.

The checkpoint is located near the town of Arivaca and is called “temporary,” but it has been in operation for seven years.

Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva sent a letter to the head of the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, Manuel Padilla, in which he expresses his support for the residents of Arivaca and asks that the checkpoint be dismantled.

Jacobson noted that each day Arivaca residents must pass through the Border Patrol checkpoint to go shopping, take their children to school or go to their jobs.

Meanwhile, the Border Patrol on several occasions has defended the establishment of checkpoints and has said that they are a “weapon” in the fight to keep undocumented immigrants from crossing the border and to prevent drug smuggling.

China ( 33 people killed in " Knife attack " at train station ) Video

Mexico ( Mexican Drug Lord Owns Nearly 300 Companies )

MEXICO CITY – Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who was arrested last weekend, used drug proceeds to assemble a conglomerate of 288 firms across more than a dozen countries, Mexico’s El Universal daily said Friday.

Guzman’s holdings include hotels, mines, gas stations and an ostrich ranch, the newspaper said, citing data from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control.

The other leading figure in the cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, owns a dairy and “even a daycare in Sinaloa,” according to El Universal.

Working through associates in Panama, El Chapo acquired at least two companies in the legal drug business, the newspaper said.

Investigators also found financial connections between Guzman and people close to Rafael Caro Quintero, founder of the now-defunct Guadalajara drug cartel, who was released from prison last August after a judge threw out charges against him for the 1985 murders of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena and pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar.

Guzman and Caro Quintero operatives share ownership of 37 companies in Sinaloa and Jalisco states, the newspaper said.

In partnership with Colombian national Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa, El Chapo controls a financial firm with offices in Mexico City, Miami, Madrid and Panama City, as well as an airline in Ecuador.

The 56-year-old drug lord also established two charitable foundations.

Mexican security forces captured the world’s most powerful drug trafficker in the resort city of Mazatlan without firing a shot.

Emma Coronel, a former Miss Sinaloa who married Guzman in 2007, was in the apartment raided by marines last Saturday.

Guzman was arrested in 1993 in Guatemala and sent back to Mexico, where he was convicted of bribery. He escaped from the Puente Grande penitentiary in the western state of Jalisco on Jan. 19, 2001.

El Chapo, a fixture on Forbes magazine’s annual list of global billionaires, faces a raft of charges in both Mexico and the United States.

Mexico ( " La Pantera " hitman and leader of Knights Templar Killed )

Strong images of death "La Pantera " hitmen leader of the TemplarsFriday, February 28, 2014  A chief of hitmen working for the Knights Templar drug cartel in a region plagued by drug violence shot dead Thursday in a showdown with the Federal Police, said a government official Mexican .

Francisco Galeana , alias "El Pantera" , was shot in the town of Arteaga in Michoacan state , said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to testify in the case.
Authorities say Galeana was an important leader of the cartel based in the region of Tierra Caliente, where groups of civilians took up arms last year to fight the Knights Templar. The Galeana official described as a " bloodthirsty assassin ."
The government of Mexico sent more troops to the region in January to curb violence

Read more: http://www.elblogdelnarco.info/2014/02/imagenes-fuerte-de-la-muerte-de-la.html # ixzz2uiwi7gP9Follow us : @ MundoNarco on Twitter

Ukraine ( Russian armored personnel carriers are on their way to Crimea )

Russian armored personnel carriers are on their way to Crimea, and Ukrainian officials are calling it a “military invasion and occupation.”


A convoy of nine Russian armored personnel carriers and a truck on a road between the port city of Sevastopol and the regional capital, Sinferopol, the Associated Press reported.

---

PHOTOS: Enemy at the gates: Ukraine under siege

---

“I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation,” Ukraine’s newly named interior minister, Arsen Avakov, wrote in an online statement.
Meanwhile, Russians armed with rifles and wearing military uniforms stormed into Crimea’s main airport and took up positions on Friday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said movements of armored vehicles belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet were prompted by the need to ensure security of its base and didn’t contradict the lease terms, Haartez reported.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/28/russia-invades-crimea-sends-armored-personnel-carr/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS#ixzz2ueJKQ4zT
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Somalia ( A car bomb exploded near a Cafe and kills 7 in the capital Mogadishu )

MOGADISHU: A car bomb exploded near a caf'e in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu Thursday in an area close to the intelligence headquarters, killing at least seven people, police said.
“We have counted seven civilians killed in the car bomb, but the toll could be higher as many people were also wounded,” police official Ahmed Mumin told AFP.


 The cafe, near the city’s Lido beach, was reportedly popular with security officials.
The blast is the latest in a string of attacks in the dangerous capital, where Al-Qaeda-linked Shabab insurgents are fighting to topple the internationally backed government.
There was no immediate claim of responsiblity, but the blast comes just a week after the militants carried out a major attack against the heavily fortified presidential palace, killing officials and guards in a fierce gun battle.
The attack comes amid an apparent upsurge of Shabab bombings in and around Mogadishu, with nighttime mortar rounds fired into the vast, heavily guarded airport complex, home to the 22,000-strong African Union force fighting the Shabab as well as foreign diplomats and aid workers.
The group, who also carried out last year’s attack at the Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital, in which gunmen killed at least 67 people, once controlled most of southern and central Somalia but withdrew from fixed positions in the war-ravaged coastal capital two years ago.
AU troops — including large contingents from Uganda, Kenya and Burundi — have since recaptured the insurgents’ main bases and tried to prop up Somalia’s fledgling government forces.

Ukraine ( Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych said " I was not overthrown " )

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia: Deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych insisted Friday in his first public appearance since fleeing to Russia that he had not been overthrown and would continue to fight for the future of Ukraine.
Yanukovych told reporters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don that he had been “compelled to leave” Ukraine after he received threats to his security.
“I have not been overthrown by anyone, I was compelled to leave Ukraine due to an immediate threat to my life and the life of those close to me,” he said, sitting at a desk alongside a senior editor from the ITAR-TASS news agency in front of three Ukrainian flags.
“I intend to continue the fight for the future of Ukraine against those who try to saddle it with fear and terror.”


Yanukovych, who fled after being impeached by parliament on Saturday, savaged the anti-Kremlin and pro-EU forces who have now taken power.
“Power in Ukraine has been taken by nationalist, pro-fascist young people who represent the absolute minority of people in Ukraine.”
“This is anarchy, terror and chaos,” he added.
But Yanukovych, 63, speaking in Russian, said he wanted to apologize for leaving Ukraine in its current state.
“I am ashamed. I want to say I apologize to the Ukrainian people for what happened in Ukraine and that I did not have the strength to keep stability.”
He blamed the “irresponsible policies” of the West for the crisis in the country and said he would not take part in “illegal” presidential election planned by Ukraine’s new leadership for May 25.
Yanukovych said he spoke by telephone to Russian President Vladimir Putin after arriving in the country but had not yet met with the Kremlin chief.
He said such a face-to-face meeting was planned in the future. Yanukovych said he was surprised that Putin had not yet spoken out on Ukraine since his flight.
Yanukovych said he had arrived in Russia “thanks to a patriotically-minded young officer” without giving further details. He said he would only return to Ukraine once his personal security was assured.
Yanukovych said he could understand the anger of citizens in Ukraine’s pro-Russian region of Crimea against the new Ukrainian authorities.
“I consider that what is happening in Crimea is an absolutely natural reaction to the bandit-like takeover that happened in Kiev.”
He said he still saw himself as the Ukrainian president and as such believed that Crimea must remain part of Ukraine.