Missing Students Were Burned Alive, Mexican Activist Says

MEXICO CITY – One eyewitness to the Sept. 26 abduction of 43 students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero has recounted that at least some of the youths were burned alive, a prominent priest and human rights activist said Friday.

The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, known for his advocacy on behalf of undocumented Central American migrants, cited concerns for the witness’ safety in declining to provide any details about his source.

On the night of Sept. 26, police in the town of Iguala fired shots at a group of students from Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School, a nearby teacher-training facility.

Six people were killed and 25 others wounded, while 43 students remain missing.

Several people arrested for the 26 incident told investigators Iguala deputy police chief Francisco Salgado Valladares had his men intercept the Ayotzinapa students and that while a boss from the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel identified only as “Chucky” ordered the young people seized and killed.

Solalinde said at a press conference that he had the opportunity to talk to several people who “directly” witnessed the events in Iguala and that one of them told him that Ayotzinapa students were burned.

Asked whether the witness was referring to all 43 students, the priest replied, “the information is fragmented.”

“The person who told me that is very shaken and afraid,” Solalinde said.

“If the Ayotzinapa Normal students were alive, do you think they would let this entire problem go on and grow, knowing the national and international reaction we have,” the priest said to reporters. “That is the best evidence that they are no longer living.”

Criticizing the government’s “poor handling” of the tragedy, Solalinde that Mexico needs to be re-founded in the face of violence extending “from border to border and from coast to coast.”

“Bodies turn up everywhere,” the priest said.

Conflict among rival drug cartels and between the criminals and security forces has claimed more than 130,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006, when then-President Felipe Calderon decided to militarize the struggle against the drug trade.

Man films woman with secret camera

Worker stabs colleague to death in food dispute

In an apparent dispute over food, an expatriate worker killed a colleague and injured four others when he attacked them with a knife in Rabigh on Wednesday, according to the police.
“The police received information that a Sudanese worker attacked five others on Wednesday,” said Aati Al-Qurashi, spokesman for Makkah police. He said officers arrested the man and an investigation is under way.
The workers are all employees of a supermarket near Al-Naqeel Hospital in Rabigh, which is 100 km from Jeddah. They share accommodation and cook together.
According to a source, the Sudanese man came home from the supermarket late on Wednesday afternoon and discovered that the other workers had eaten up all the food.
A heated argument ensued, with the man taking a knife and stabbing his colleagues, the source said. The Indian man died and his Sudanese colleague is in a critical condition at a local hospital. The other three stab victims are two Sudanese and an Egyptian. The Indian expatriate was declared dead at Rabigh General Hospital, said Abdullah Shamrani, director of the hospital.
There are rumors that the Sudanese man who was critically injured also died on Thursday but this could not be verified. The victim worked with his father in the vegetable section of the market, sources said.
Abdul Mannan, a Bangladeshi shop worker, who has been working in Jeddah for the past 26 years, said fights are common among workers living together.

TUCSON AZ ( 13 year old Girl killed -Murder suspect wanted )

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32 minutes 41 seconds ago by Associated Press

Tucson teenager found dead in desert was murdered

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Authorities say a teenage Tucson girl found dead in the desert four months ago was murdered.

The Pima County Medical Examiner's Office didn't release the cause of death for 13-year-old Maribel Victoria Gonzales.

The autopsy report was released Friday and the cause of her death was redacted.

County Sheriff's officials say the case is still active and release of the information could be harmful to the investigation.

Gonzales' body was found June 6 in the desert northwest of Tucson.

She was last seen about 8 p.m. on June 3 when she told her mother she was going to a friend's house.

When Gonzales didn't return by morning, her mother called the friend and learned she never arrived.

Because of decomposition, DNA tests were done before Gonzales could be positively identified.

Ukrainian Army Reports New Clashes in East of the Country

KIEV – The Ukrainian military command Thursday reported new clashes in the east of the country and accused pro-Russian separatists of breaching the ceasefire agreement signed on September 5 in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.

A military statement said rebel militias Wednesday shelled army positions in the towns of Debaltsevo, Chernigov, Redkodub, Avdeyevka, and Granitne.

Government forces also repelled a rebel assault on the airport of Donetsk city, the main separatist stronghold in eastern Ukraine, the statement said.

Ukrainian forces did not suffer casualties during Wednesday’s fighting.

The pro-Russian separatists have violated the truce more than 1,400 times, causing the deaths of 68 soldiers and 52 civilians, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A total of 3,660 people have died in eastern Ukraine since the outbreak of the armed conflict between Kiev and the separatists, according to the latest report from the Office of Human Rights of the United Nations.

Protest to Demand Return of Missing Students in Mexico Turns Violent at AG's Office

MEXICO CITY – Mexican students wearing masks hurled objects at the headquarters of the federal Attorney General’s office in Mexico City in a protest against the disappearance of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero.

The protesters, most of them from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, began a march at the campus which ended late Wednesday in front of the Attorney General’s office, where they held a rally.

The protest turned violent when the students hurled blankets on fire, sticks, stones and other objects at the building, breaking glass on the façade.

The students carried banners with slogans like “they took them alive, we want them back alive,” and had placed the pictures of the missing students on blankets.

The 43 students of a teachers training college went missing after municipal police in Iguala, a city in the southern state of Guerrero, fired shots at a group of students who had commandeered a bus on September 26, in a night of violence that left six dead, including three of the youths. Twenty-five others were wounded.

The missing students were last seen being forced into police vans.

Federal prosecutors took over the investigation two weeks ago, but the students have not been found.

Twenty-eight bodies found recently in five clandestine graves near Iguala were not those of any of the missing students, the Attorney General’s office said.

It also said members of criminal groups were involved in the disappearances and announced the arrest of more than 50 people, including several police agents and alleged members of the Guerrero Unidos gang.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Wednesday said new lines of investigation have been opened and he hoped that it would help find the missing students.

Tribe seizes car after finding joint on driver

SCOTTSDALE, AZ - An ASU student says her car was seized by police after she admitted to having a joint in her pocket.

Experts say normally those kinds of forfeitures happen after big drug busts.

But Kayla was driving on Indian land.

She was on the 101 near Scottsdale Road when she got pulled over for speeding.

Technically she was on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land and their sovereign laws apply.

So Kayla started a legal battle to get her car back.

After Kayla got pulled over for speeding by Salt River police, officers were suspicious she was driving under the influence.

She says she admitted she had a joint in her pocket.

Kayla was arrested for DUI, but they also seized her SUV because of the joint.

“I was shocked, I didn't realize that my vehicle could be seized over such a miniscule amount of marijuana. I thought they seized vehicles from drug dealers,” she said.

Under tribal law, police can then turn around and sell that car.

Her attorney says such extreme measures are usually reserved for drug dealers or other felonies under state law.

“What's really unfair is how it's applied. Because most people don't realize by driving on the 101, they're subjecting themselves to the laws of a sovereign entity that has nothing to do with the state of Arizona,” said Craig Rosenstein.

But since the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is a sovereign nation, its own laws apply.

It's something Kayla wants to make sure other drivers understand.

She spent thousands of dollars and eventually got her SUV back after a few months.

“I don't want this to happen to anyone else. It wasn't fair what they did to me,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Salt River tells us cases like this are not out of the ordinary.

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community determines and initiates forfeiture once the Salt River Police Department determines that a crime has been committed according to Community law and Salt River Ordinance Article V Section 14-32. In this instance, the individual was stopped for a routine traffic violation – speeding.  Officers smelled marijuana within the vehicle.  The subject was found to have drug paraphernalia and several varieties of marijuana in their possession.  The subject’s vehicle was seized pursuant to Salt River Ordinance Article V Sect. 14-32 and was later released to the lien holder who was an innocent owner.

Candace Romero, media relations specialist

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community