SAN JUAN ( 37 million dollars worth of " Cocaine " Seized off boat )

1,280 Kilos of Cocaine Seized in Southern Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN – Two Dominican citizens were arrested on Puerto Rico’s southern coast in possession of 1,280 kilograms of cocaine, a shipment valued at $37 million, in one of the most significant blows against drug trafficking so far this year in the Caribbean, local authorities reported Tuesday.

The head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney General’s Office in Puerto Rico, Jose Ruiz Santiago, said at a press conference that the arrested men, identified as Santos Lantigua Nuñez and Efrain Cedano Diaz, were located on April 29 some 37 kilometers (23 miles) south of Ponce, a city on the island’s southern coast.

“We understood it was coming from Colombia,” said Ruiz Santiago about the shipment, adding that the operation began when a U.S. Coast Guard air patrol spotted a suspicious boat 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Ponce.

The two men began throwing bundles into the water when they noticed the approaching law enforcement authorities, although the entire shipment was recovered and the men were arrested, although they said they had been in the company of a third man, whom police did not locate.

The two men are being held in the jail in Guaynabo, a town near San Juan and are facing a minimum 10 years – but possibly as much as life – in prison, if found guilty.

About 18 percent of the drugs that pass through the Caribbean remain in Puerto Rico, the island’s police chief, Jose Caldero, told Efe in a recent interview, adding that 70 percent of the murders committed on the island are linked to drugs.

Mexico ( Vigilantes Kill Man Who Gunned Down 5 in Mexico ) Vigilante Justice

 

MORELIA, Mexico – Vigilantes in the western Mexican state of Michoacan killed a peasant over the weekend who had gunned down his wife, mother-in-law, a brother-in-law and two neighbors, prosecutors said.

The peasant, identified only as Prospero N., had been having problems with his wife’s family over land and started drinking on Saturday afternoon in the village of El Molinillo, the Michoacan Attorney General’s Office said.

The man returned home, where he found his wife, Nancy Guadalupe Guzman, 17, his mother-in-law, Esther Guzman Mora, and brother-in-law, Antonio Guzman, and opened fire on them with a pistol, the AG’s office said.

The peasant ran out of the house and fired shots at neighbors Rodolfo Cisneros Hernandez and Gabriel Rangel Torres, the AG’s office said.

Cisneros Hernandez died at the scene and Rangel Torres was pronounced dead while being transported to a clinic, prosecutors said.

The suspect encountered a group of vigilantes who were searching for drug traffickers in the village of Los Chirimoyos and fired shots at them.

The vigilantes killed the suspect and then learned that he had murdered five people, prosecutors said.

AG’s office investigators transported the six bodies to the coroner’s office, where autopsies were performed, officials said.

The first vigilante group was formed in Michoacan on Feb. 24, 2013, to fight the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel.

The federal government deployed soldiers and police in Michoacan on Jan. 13 in an effort to end the wave of drug-related violence in the state

Mexico ( Police Chief Dies in Shootout in Northeastern Mexico )

 

MEXICO CITY – The director of investigations of the Public Safety Secretariat in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas was one of five people killed in a shootout in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital, officials said Tuesday.

Salvador de Haro Muñoz and four armed civilians died in the shootout on Monday night, the Tamaulipas Coordination Group (GCT) said.

Officials reported Monday that the shootout occurred, but they did not say that the police chief was one of the victims.

Three marines and a soldier were wounded in the shootout, the GCT, a joint federal and state agency, said in a statement.

Five suspects, including two women, were arrested following the shootout, the GCT said.

The shootout started when state and federal law enforcement agents arrived at a house occupied by the gunmen, who opened fire on officers.

Army troops detained 15 suspected criminals in different operations across the state, the GCT said.

The Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels have been fighting for control of Tamaulipas and smuggling routes into the United States for years.

The violence has spiked in recent weeks, but federal officials have not taken any additional measures to deal with the situation in the border state.

Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo said recently that there were no plans to name a special commissioner for Tamaulipas as was done in the western state of Michoacan

Iran ( Large Fire At Iranian Oil Depot )

Wednesday, May 07 2014

  

A large fire has been reported at an oil depot in the northern Iranian city of Qazvin, some 130 kilometers west of Tehran.

Reports said firefighters had trouble controlling the fire, which was raging for hours without being contained.

There were conflicting reports about casualties with state television showing Governor Saeed Mibaha as saying there were no casualties while the semi-official Fars news agency reported some 50 people had been injured and many were in serious condition.

The Qazvin emergency department said one rescuer was suffering from smoke inhalation.

Officials have said they would provide more information after the fire is extinguished.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa

By RFE/RL

Ukraine ( 30 pro-Russian insurgents were killed during operations )

DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine’s interior minister said Tuesday that 30 pro-Russian insurgents were killed during operations to expunge anti-government forces in and near a city in the east, while the Kiev authorities attempted to reassert control over the southern region of Odessa by appointing a new governor there.

Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page Tuesday that four government troops also died and 20 were injured during fighting in Slovyansk.

Gunbattles took place at various positions around the city Monday in what has proven the most ambitious government effort to date to quell unrest in the mainly Russian-speaking east.

Avakov said Monday that pro-Russia forces in Slovyansk, a city of 125,000, were deploying large-caliber weapons and mortars in the region and there were injured on both sides. Government troops were facing about 800 insurgents, he said.

In Donetsk, a major city some 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Slovyansk, international flights from the local airport were suspended Tuesday. The airport said on its website that the cancellations followed a government order.

Ukraine is facing its worst crisis in decades as the polarized nation of 46 million tries to decide whether to look toward Europe, as its western regions want to do, or improve ties with Russia, which is favored by the many Russian-speakers in the east. Dozens of government offices have been seized, either by armed insurgents or anti-government crowds, over the past several weeks.

The central government attempted to re-establish control Tuesday over the predominantly Russian-speaking Black Sea region of Odessa, where 46 people died after fighting and a fire broke out between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian forces late on Friday.

In a statement published on the president’s website, the Kiev authorities announced they were firing the acting governor and replacing him with a member of parliament, Ihor Palytsya. On Saturday, the police chief of the city was fired, mere hours after he had called for calm.

While no reasons were given for the latest change, the interim Kiev government has previously wielded its authority to appoint regional governors as a way of reasserting control over rebellious regions in the country’s east. The concern that Odessa could be the next region to fall to pro-Russian forces — particularly after 67 people detained in the Friday fighting were released by the police under pressure from an angry crowd — has sparked concern in Kiev, which said it was sending an elite national guard force to the city on Monday.

The goals of the pro-Russian insurgency are ostensibly broader powers of autonomy for the region, but some insurgents do favor separatism.

Leaders of the anti-government movement say they plan to hold a referendum on autonomy for eastern regions on May 11, although visible preparations for the vote have to date been virtually negligible.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has put the blame for the unrest squarely on Kiev, which it says “stubbornly continues to wage war against the people of its own country.” The ministry has urged what it called the “Kiev organizers of the terror” to pull back their troops from the east and hold peaceful negotiations to resolve the crisis.

Westchester County ( Mommy blogger suspected of poisoning son )

By Sophia Rosenbaum

May 6, 2014 | 10:23am

Modal Trigger

Lacey Spears with her son, Garnett.Photo: Facebook

The mother of a sickly 5-year-old boy, who was poisoned by a lethal dose of sodium in his feeding tube last January, is now a suspect in his murder, sources close to theinvestigation told FoxNews.com.

Lacey Spears, 26, created an online following around her son, known as “Garnett the Great,” just after he was born and started having a feeding tube. Spears, a single mother, blogged about his many hospital stays, fun moments and even posted pictures of Garnett’s final hours at Westchester County Medical Center.

Garnett died Jan. 23 after a brief hospitalization following a bout of seizures. The Westchester County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide on April 30, citing a toxic level of sodium in his body, sources told Fox.

“He [Garnett] died at the hands of somebody else,” a source, who was not authorized to disclose his name, told Fox News.

The source claims that during that final hospitalization, Spears called a neighbor, asking her to destroy any evidence of feeding tubes at her Chestnut Ridge home.

“She wanted the neighbor to dispose of incriminating evidence,” the source said. “The neighbor never did get rid of it and police seized it.”

The Journal News was the first to report that, as well as the first news organization to launch a full-fledged investigation into what killed Garnett.

David Sachs, Spears’ attorney, denies that his client had anything to do with her son’s death.

“Lacey is completely devastated by the loss of her son and absolutely denies harming her son in any way,” Sachs said in an email to FoxNews.com.

But friends of Spears told the Journal News that she is expecting to be charged with murder.

Investigators are looking into whether Spears suffers from “Munchausen syndrome by proxy,” a psychiatric disorder in which a parent harms a child to seek attention and sympathy.

“These are people who are desperate for attention and seek it through creating a sensational scenario,” said Dr. Manny Alvarez, senior managing health editor of FoxNews.com.

Spears moved to Kentucky to be with family following her son’s death.

The story was first reported by The Journal News/lohud.com.

Nigeria ( officials "push for " the safe release of 223 schoolgirls

ABUJA: Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday ordered top security chiefs and '
abducted three weeks ago by suspected Islamists, his spokesman said.
Gunmen believed to be Boko Haram Islamists stormed the girls’ boarding school on April 14, forcing them from their dormitories onto trucks and driving them into the bush.
Anger at the government’s ineffectual response has fueled protests at home and abroad, including in New York where dozens of Nigerians staged a protest march on Saturday demanding action to free the children.
Jonathan held closed-door talks with military and security service chiefs as well as senior officials, Borno state’s governor and police chief, and the head of the school in Chibok where the girls were seized, Reuben Abati told reporters.
Under pressure over the mass abduction, it was the first time the Nigerian leader brought together all key players involved in the search.
“The president has given very clear directives that everything must be done to ensure that these girls must be brought back to safety,” Abati said.
Until now Jonathan had only conferred with his security chiefs.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, desperate parents on Saturday called for Nigeria to seek foreign help to secure the girls’ release.