Saudi Arabia ( Five more deaths from the MERS corona virus were announced on Saturday )

Five more deaths from the MERS coronavirus were announced on Saturday by the Health Ministry bringing the death toll to 168 since September 2012.
The ministry said nine more confirmed cases of MERS have been reported in last 24 hours, bringing the total number of infected cases to 629 since the outbreak of the chronic disease.
The latest fatalities are three patients from a government hospital in Jeddah, one from Riyadh and one from Madinah.
The three victims in Jeddah are a woman, aged 80, and two men, aged 55 and 67.
The two other casualties are a 71-year-old man in Riyadh and a 77-year-old man in Madinah.
The ministry said that one patient recovered and has been discharged.
Meanwhile, scientists leading the fight against the deadly virus say the next critical front will be understanding how the virus behaves in people with milder infections, who may be spreading the illness without being aware they have it.
Establishing that may be critical to stopping the spread of MERS. It kills about 30 percent of those who are infected.
It is becoming increasingly clear that people can be infected with MERS without developing severe respiratory disease, said Dr. David Swerdlow, who heads the MERS response team at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“You don’t have to be in the intensive care unit with pneumonia to have a case of MERS,” Swerdlow said. “We assume they are less infectious (to others), but we don’t know.”

VIENNA ( Iran nuclear talks round ends with huge setbacks )

VIENNA: Iran nuclear talks stalled Friday, casting a shadow on earlier advances and denting hopes that Tehran and six world powers will meet a July 20 target date for a deal meant to curb Iran’s atomic program while ending sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged the meeting made “no progress” in its ambitious goal of starting to draft an agreement meant to ease a decade of Western distrust about Tehran’s nuclear agenda in exchange for sanctions relief.
In that, “we failed,” he told reporters. But while saying he was disappointed, he insisted that the result of the three-day talks that ended Friday represented no more than a setback at this point in continuing attempts to reach a deal.
A senior US official — who demanded anonymity — said there was “great difficulty” in trying to move toward common positions and spoke of “significant” differences. Both Araghchi and the official said further meetings were planned in June, but no dates were announced.
Araghchi said that differences remained on more than a dozen issues and a Western official with detailed knowledge of the talks said that enrichment was among the most divisive topic.
The official declined to go into the specifics of what separated the two sides on enrichment and demanded anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the confidential talks.
Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, has said publicly that Tehran needs up to 100,000 centrifuges — the enriching machines — for a future nuclear network.

Brazil ( Protest of " World Cup " see video ) New

MANAGUA ( Judge Under Investigation for Dog Killings in Nicaragua )

MANAGUA – A Managua judge is under investigation for a series of killings of dogs with arrows last month in an upscale area in the southern section of Nicaragua’s, judicial documents obtained by Efe show.

Silvio Aguilera, a 31-year-old civil court judge, another adult, identified as 24-year-old Cristian Estrada Roman, and a 14-year-old minor are being investigated by police in connection with the killings of at least six dogs with crossbows and arrows.

Police searched Aguilera’s residence and found three crossbows, arrows, a rifle, more than 200 rounds of ammunition, two swords and hunting accessories, the documents said.

The judge has denied any involvement in the dogs’ killings.

The case, which dog owners have labeled a “rich kids’ game,” is also being investigated by the National Police’s drug enforcement unit.

The suspects could face animal harm and animal abuse charges, the police report said.

The case has received wide coverage in Nicaragua because the dogs were all shot with expensive arrows, the attacks happened at night, the animals were inside their homes when they were killed and the incidents occurred in an area that wealthy families, politicians and high-level government officials call home.

Fundacion Amarte, an animal protection group, warned that many murderers start out abusing animals and helped organize a march to demand that authorities enforce the Animal Welfare and Protection Law, which punishes the unjustified killing of animals.

Mexico ( Reputed Border Crime Boss Apprehended in Mexico )

 

MEXICO CITY – A man suspected of running an extensive criminal operation in the border city of Nuevo Laredo was arrested this week for the third time since 2011, Mexican authorities said.

Fernando Martinez Magaña was detained on Wednesday in Monterrey “as the result of investigations begun months ago and of surveillance work by the Mexican navy and other federal forces,” National Security Commission head Monte Alejandro Rubido said.

From his base in Nuevo Laredo – just across the border from Laredo, Texas, the 42-year-old Martinez managed operations for “one of the criminal groups dedicated to drug and weapons smuggling, and to the trafficking of undocumented migrants to the United States,” the official said.

While Rubido declined to identify the organization, media outlets say Martinez was a local boss for the ultraviolent Los Zetas outfit.

Martinez had relocated to Monterrey to avoid arrest, the security commissioner said.

Navy personnel picked up Martinez in Nuevo Laredo nearly three years ago on illegal weapons charges, but a Tamaulipas state court ordered his release, a source in Mexico’s Government Secretariat told Efe.

The same court allowed Martinez to walk again after a subsequent arrest for money laundering, the source said.

An alleged associate of Martinez, Ernesto Villegas, was apprehended Wednesday in the Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia.

Those arrests came a day after Mexico’s second-most-powerful official, Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio, unveiled a “new phase” of the federal security strategy for Tamaulipas state.

A recent surge in drug-related violence in the border state is due “to a large extent to the unraveling of criminal organizations as a result of the Mexican state’s actions,” he said.

Operations by federal and state security forces have led to a “weakening” of the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas, the two largest drug cartels operating in Tamaulipas, Osorio Chong said, while acknowledging that progress “has not been sufficient.”

Colombia ( Homeless Man Set on Fire, Killed in Colombian Capital )

 
BOGOTA – A homeless man was killed in Bogota by unknown attackers who doused him with gasoline while he was sleeping and then set him on fire, Colombian authorities said on Wednesday.

The attack occurred on May 2 and the victim, identified as Marco Tulio Sevillano, died a few days later in a hospital as a result of the serious burns he suffered.

Police are investigating the possibility that his killers were soccer hooligans or members of a neo-Nazi group.

Colombia’s national ombudsman, Jorge Armando Otalora, asked police and prosecutors to give priority to the investigation of “this atrocious act.”

“It is necessary to identify those responsible and bring them to justice so that there may be no impunity,” said Otalora in a communique, adding that in Colombia human rights must prevail without regard for the social, economic and cultural situation of the citizens.

Students at the Universidad Javeriana, near where the attack occurred, said that Sevillano was known in the area, where he had lived for years with a dog and two cats, who were also burned alive.

Some of the Javeriana students who knew Sevillano on Wednesday will hold a symbolic funeral for him and will demand that the authorities find those who are responsible for his horrific murder.

“We called him ‘Warm-hearted’ because he treated everyone with affection. He greeted us and even accompanied us while we took the transportation,” one university student told Efe.

Colombia ( 12 and 13 year old boys die throwing bomb at " police station" )

 

BOGOTA – Two boys – ages 12 and 13 – died in an explosion when they threw a bomb at a police facility in the rural part of the municipality of Tumaco, on Colombia’s Pacific coast, authorities reported Thursday.

Several police officers were wounded in the Wednesday attack.

The police commander in Nariño province, where Tumaco is located, Col. Hugo Henry Marquez, told the daily El Tiempo that the two boys staged the attack at the behest of the Daniel Aldana Mobile Column, a unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas that has been very active in recent months in the area.

The boys were identified as Luis Sebastian Preciado, who died in the explosion as a result of the blast wave and shrapnel wounds, and Angelo Cabezas Pierre, who – police said – actually threw the bomb and died on Wednesday night in Tumaco’s San Vicente Hospital.

Eight police officers were wounded in the attack, according to the force.

The conservative candidate for Colombia’s presidency, Marta Lucia Ramirez, criticized the government for not insisting in its ongoing peace talks with the FARC that the rebels end the recruitment of children.

Those talks are under way in Cuba, and Ramirez said that the guerrillas’ negotiators “are on a beach in Varadero” while sending children to “die as human bombs.”