Pakistan ( Woman heads police post in largest Pakistan city )

KARACHI, Pakistan: Just days into her job running a police station in Pakistan’s largest city, Syeda Ghazala had to put her training to the test: she opened fire with her .22-caliber pistol at a man who shot at police when they tried to pull him over during a routine traffic stop.
It’s not clear whether it was Ghazala’s shots that wounded the man before he was arrested, but as the first woman to run a police station in Pakistan’s often violent port city of Karachi, she’ll likely have many more chances to hit her mark.

When Ghazala joined the police force two decades ago, she never dreamed that one day she would head a police station staffed by roughly 100 police officers — all men. Her recent promotion is part of efforts by the local police to increase the number of women in the force and in positions of authority. Shortly after she assumed her new job the city appointed a second woman to head another police station.
In a country where women have traditionally not worked outside the home and face widespread discrimination, the appointments represent a significant step for women’s empowerment.
“The mindset of people is changing gradually, and now they (have) started to consider women in leading roles. My husband opposed my decision to join the police force 20 years ago,” said the 44-year-old mother of four. But by the time this job rolled around, he had come full circle and encouraged her to go for it. “It was a big challenge. I was a little bit hesitant to accept it.”
The station house is in Clifton, a posh area home to the elite of this sprawling metropolis of more than 18 million people. But in a city prone to family feuds, political unrest and jihadist violence — where 166 officers were killed in the line of duty last year — it’s by no means an easy assignment. Crimes ranging from petty theft and muggings to terrorism or murder are all part of a day’s work, Ghazala says.
Running a station is a high-profile job in the Pakistani police, one that requires the officer to constantly interact with the public and fellow officers. It’s also a key path to advancement. Senior police officer Abdul Khaliq Sheikh, said he and others in the top brass hope Ghazala’s appointment leads to more women joining the force.
“Our society accepts only stereotype roles for women. There is a perception that women are suitable only for particular professions like teaching,” he said.
The police force is also training the first batch of female commandos, a group of 44 women going through a physically intensive course involving rappelling from towers or helicopters and shooting an assortment of weapons.
Currently, the two in Karachi are the only women running police stations in Pakistan. In the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where women make up less than one percent of the roughly 75,000-member police force, women only run stations specifically designed to help female crime victims.
In the southeastern Baluchistan province, there are only 90 women on the police force and no women station heads. In Punjab province, only one woman has ever run a station house, back in 2005, but currently no women hold the position.
Ghazala said most people she has encountered in her new job have been supportive, and she’s become a bit of a celebrity in the neighborhood. She said during her career she’s only had a few instances where she’s felt discrimination. When she got the highest marks in a training course required for promotion, some of the men objected, saying that in Islam women couldn’t lead men.
But she said the commander simply told the men they should have gotten better grades.
“It was the only moment somebody objected to me as a woman,” she said. “Otherwise, all my career, fellow and senior officers encouraged me a lot.”
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Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Zaheer Babar in Lahore and Rebecca Santana in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Mexico ( Mexican Rights Body Investigating Attacks on Reporters During March )

MEXICO CITY – The attacks on five journalists by unidentified individuals during a march marking a massacre anniversary in Mexico City are under investigation, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said.

The incidents occurred last Tuesday, the CNDH said in a statement.

Young men attacked reporters covering a march to mark the 42nd anniversary of the “El Halconazo” massacre with stones and sticks, the CNDH said, citing media reports.

“The CNDH condemns such acts of violence, which violate the free practice of journalism and calls on authorities to investigate the incidents and impose the corresponding penalties on those responsible,” said the rights body, Mexico’s equivalent of an ombudsman’s office.

The reporters attacked during the protest were identified as Paris Martinez, of Animal Politico; Luis Castillo, who works for the daily Reforma; Leonardo Casas, who is with Agencia Quadratin; Nestor Negrete, a freelance journalist; and Marco Ugarte, of the Associated Press.

Ugarte “received a hard blow to the nose and left cheek for which he remains hospitalized,” the CNDH said.

Thousands of people, led by students and teachers, took to the streets of Mexico City last Tuesday to mark the 43rd anniversary of the “El Halconazo” massacre.

A group of self-proclaimed anarchists joined the march and threw fire bombs and stones at the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) headquarters.

National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) students took to the streets of Mexico City on June 10, 1971, to demand that President Luis Echeverria, who governed Mexico from 1970 to 1976, allow political freedom and democratize higher education.

The protest started peacefully but turned violent when “Los Halcones,” a paramilitary group, opened fire on demonstrators, killing at least 22 people and wounding around 50 others.

Several protesters were reported missing after the demonstration.

Riverside California ( 37 year old woman runs "Father over with car " drunk driving )

RIVERSIDE, California: Authorities in Southern California say a 69-year-old man who was trying to prevent his daughter from driving drunk was run over and killed by the woman in her driveway.
Riverside police Sgt. Dan Reeves said Saturday that 37-year-old Soukvilay Barton ignored her father’s pleas not to drive and backed her BMW convertible out of the garage, striking him.
Bounmy Rajsombath was rushed to a Riverside hospital, where he was pronounced dead Friday night.

Barton was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Police say they don’t know if Barton has a lawyer, and a listed number for her couldn’t be located.
Witnesses say Barton had been drinking and arguing with family members. She stopped the car after seeing that her father was injured and sat sobbing before being taken into custody.

JERUSALEM ( 3 Teens kidnapped 1 U.S citizen - west bank area )

JERUSALEM: Three Israeli teenagers, one of them also a US citizen, have been kidnapped in the occupied West Bank, presumably by Palestinians, the army said on Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held the Palestinian Authority responsible for their well-being, but Palestinians baulked at the idea they were to blame for the disappearance inside an Israeli-controlled area of the West Bank.
The abductions come as Israel piles pressure on a new Palestinian government, formed early last week under a reconciliation deal between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel foe Hamas.
The three, all students at a Jewish seminary, went missing late Thursday as they were hitchhiking between Bethlehem and Hebron.
“We believe that they have indeed been kidnapped by presumed Palestinians,” a senior officer told journalists, without giving further details on who was behind the abduction. He said the search is being carried out in coordination with security forces from the Palestinian Authority, and that “tens of Palestinians” have been arrested in the process.
He added that substantial reinforcements had been brought in, including special forces and an airborne brigade, to participate in the search around Hebron, in the southern West Bank.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon was also on his way to the site of the disappearance to discuss the situation, army radio said.
Troops closed the main crossings into the Gaza Strip to prevent the teenagers from being smuggled into the territory. A rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel early Saturday without causing any casualties or damage, the army said.
In response, Israel carried out airstrikes on southern Gaza “hitting a site of terrorist activity and a weapons depot,” an army statement said.
Hamas said Apache gunships had fired on a training camp of its armed wing in Khan Yunis and empty ground in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, without causing any casualties.
Meanwhile, a seven-year-old Gaza boy wounded in an air raid on the northern Gaza Strip died on Saturday, a spokesman for the Palestinian health services said.
Ali Al-Awour was wounded in Wednesday’s strike targeting his uncle, Mohammed Al-Awour, who was killed. Another Palestinian man was wounded. Awour, 30, and the wounded man were traveling on a motorbike when they were attacked. The boy had been passing by on foot.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry Friday, and said he holds Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas responsible for the teenagers’ safety.
Kerry also telephoned Abbas, a Palestinian source said.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security services, Gen. Adnan Al-Damiri, called Netanyahu’s suggestions “mad.”
Damiri said that the PA had no authority over the sprawling Gush Etzion settlement bloc, which is under full Israeli control.
“Even if there was an earthquake, Netanyahu would blame the Palestinian Authority,” he told AFP.
Another Palestinian official said the authority’s security services were “cooperating” with Israeli agencies to gather information on the teenagers’ disappearance.
A statement in Arabic attributed to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group claimed the kidnapping late on Friday.
The statement’s authenticity could not be verified, however, and it contained spelling errors.

BAGHDAD ( militant's post graphic photos of Iraqi soldiers being killed )

BAGHDAD: As the Iraqi government bolstered Baghdad’s defenses Sunday, the Islamic militant group that captured two major cities last week posted graphic photos that appeared to show its fighters massacring dozens of captured Iraqi soldiers.
The pictures on a militant website appear to show masked fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, loading the captives onto flatbed trucks before forcing them to lie face-down in a shallow ditch with their arms tied behind their backs. The final images show the bodies of the captives soaked in blood after being shot.

The grisly images could further sharpen sectarian tensions as hundreds of Shiites heed a call from their most revered spiritual leader to take up arms against the Sunni militants who have swept across the north. ISIL has vowed to take the battle to Baghdad and cities further south housing revered Shiite shrines.
A car bomb meanwhile exploded in central Baghdad, killing 10 and wounding 21, according to police and hospital officials. Baghdad has seen an escalation in suicide and car bombings in recent months, mostly targeting Shiite neighborhoods or security forces.

West Bank ( soldier searches for missing teens )

An Israeli soldier walks past Palestinians in the West Bank village of Tafoh, near Hebron on Sunday, as Israeli army searches for three teenagers who went missing near a West Bank settlement. Israel broadened the search for three teenagers believed kidnapped by militants, arresting 80 Palestinians overnight and imposing a tight closure on the southern West Bank city of Hebron. (AFP photo/ Hazem Bader)

West Bank ( Israel looks for 3 missing Jewish teens in West Bank )

JERUSALEM: Israeli forces are searching for three Jewish teenagers who went missing in the occupied West Bank late on Thursday, the military said on Friday.
As media speculated that the trio might have been abducted, large numbers of Israeli soldiers scoured the countryside around the flashpoint city of Hebron, carrying out house-to-house searches in neighboring villages and blocking roads.
Local media said the three youngsters had last been seen trying to hitch-hike home from a religious seminary in the Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion, to the north of Hebron.
“Forces are conducting a widespread operation to locate the individuals,” the military said in a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a special meeting of security ministers and said in a statement that Israel held President Mahmoud Abbas’s Western-backed Palestinian Authority responsible for the safety of the three.
The military did not name the teenagers, who were all males. The newspaper Haaretz said two were aged 16 and one was 19.
Palestinian militants have said in the past that they want to kidnap Israelis to win concessions from the Israeli government. Some 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were freed in 2011 in return for the release of an Israeli soldier held captive in the nearby Gaza Strip for more than five years.
Chief military spokesman Brig.-General Motti Almoz said security agencies were “making a very large intelligence effort to try to glean information on what happened to these three youths in the past hours.”