Missing U.S. Tourist Found Dead in Mexico

MEXICO CITY – A U.S. man reported missing earlier this week in the central Mexican state of Morelos was found dead Friday, an official in the town of Tepoztlan told Efe.

The body of 25-year-old Hari Simran Singh Khalsa was discovered around 2:00 p.m. in a wooded area of the rugged mountains that surround the town, Gabriel Rivera said, adding that the cause of death remains unknown.

Khalsa and his wife came to Tepoztlan the day after Christmas for a yoga retreat.

On Tuesday, Khalsa decided to take a hike in the nearby mountains. He sent his wife several photos and texts, including one in which he spoke of being “half lost.”

The search got under way as soon as authorities were notified Khalsa was missing, according to Rivera, who said the town even hired a private company equipped with helicopters and infrared cameras.

“In the early hours of Dec. 31 the search had to be suspended for a few hours for questions of safety, as a member of the rescue team had an accident and almost fell into a ravine,” Rivera said. “The search resumed later with a brigade of 180 people from Morelos, Red Cross rescue workers from the Federal District (Mexico City) and two helicopters.

Iran: 14 including 4 women hanged on New Year’s Day

NCRI - The religious dictatorship ruling in Iran has hanged at least 14 prisoners on the New Year’s Day in several prisons in four cities in Iran.

A group of four women were hanged in Shahab prison in the city of Kerman (southern Iran). Two prisoners were hanged in city of Bandar Abbas.

Another group of seven prisoners were hanged in Shahab prison. In Qazvin, a 38-year-old prisoner sent to gallows in Boeen Zahra prison.

Meanwhile, the clerical regime’s henchmen amputated a hand of a 30-year-old man in a prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

The United Nations General Assembly last month slammed the violations of human rights by the Iranian regime.

The resolution criticized the Iranian regime's use of inhuman punishments, including flogging and amputations.

The UN’s 61st resolution also censured the mullahs’ dictatorship ruling Iran for the rise in executions, public executions and execution of juveniles.

In this resolution, the UNGA condemned the Iranian regime for cruel, inhumane and degrading punishments, especially the flogging and amputation of limbs and hands.

The Iranian regime unveiled a terrifying device in 2013 that they use to chop off fingers. The device that looks like something devised for a grisly horror movie operates as a circular saw that guillotines prisoners’ fingers.

Since Hassan Rouhani became president of the clerical regime, over 1,200 have been executed and hundreds more have been subjected to degrading and inhumane punishments such as amputation, flogging in public and being paraded in streets.

The Iranian Resistance has repeatedly condemned the carrying out of medieval punishments and executions by the clerical regime in Iran and has called for referral of the regime's violations of human rights record to the United Nations Security Council.

Iranian regime amputates a man’s hand ( for theft )

NCRI - In the latest series of brutal and inhuman punishments being carried out by the clerical regime in Iran, henchmen in a prison in the northwestern city of Mashhad amputated a man’s hand.

The victim, a 30-year man, whose identity has not been revealed, had been sentenced to the amputation of one hand for theft.

According to a report by state-run Mashreq News, the sentence was carried out early on the morning of December 30.

The amputation was carried after “the head of judiciary in Khorasan Razavi province had stressed on firmly executing verdicts by the judiciary”.

The United Nations General Assembly last month slammed the violations of human rights by the Iranian regime.

The resolution criticized the Iranian regime's use of inhuman punishments, including flogging and amputations.

The UN’s 61st resolution also censured the mullahs’ dictatorship ruling Iran for the rise in executions, public executions and execution of juveniles.

In this resolution, the UNGA condemned the Iranian regime for cruel, inhumane and degrading punishments, especially the flogging and amputation of limbs and hands.

The Iranian regime unveiled a terrifying device in 2013 that they use to chop off fingers. The device that looks like something devised for a grisly horror movie operates as a circular saw that guillotines prisoners’ fingers.

Since Hassan Rouhani became president of the clerical regime some 1,200 have been executed and hundreds more have been subjected to degrading and inhumane punishments such as amputation, flogging in public and being paraded in streets.

The Iranian Resistance has repeatedly condemned the carrying out of medieval punishments by the clerical regime in Iran and has called for referral of the regime's violations of human rights record to the United Nations Security Council.

Civil Rights Violation " Riot Software by Raytheon " ?

Iraq must lift inhumane Camp Liberty medical blockade: Iraq EU Association

Iraq must lift its 'merciless' medical blockade of Camp Liberty which has cost the lives of 22 Iranian dissidents, the European Iraqi Freedom Association has demanded.

The siege was put into place under former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in 2009, but is still in force today, the EIFA President Struan Stevenson said.

A press release released by the association said: "So far, this deadly medical siege has cost the lives of 22 residents; had they received free access to medical services, as was their basic right, all of them would have been saved.

"The residents are denied the right to choose their physician, hospital, time to refer to hospital, or to choose their nurse or interpreter, which are all fundamental human rights of any human being."

And four months after Maliki's removal, the management of Camp Liberty is still in the hands of those appointed by Maliki, who continue to impose the blockade, Mr Stevenson said.

He quoted an Iraqi physicians who had worked in the camp for several years, who wrote: "For approximately ten years I have been involved in the medical cases of Ashraf residents. Regrettably, in Iraq medical services have been politicized.

"Now a certain faction in Iraq has seized control of the medical system and has turned it into a political apparatus for implementing its objectives. After the residents were relocated to Camp Liberty, all their communications with the outside world were banned and stopped by the Iraqi security agencies; my visits to the camp were also banned. 

"After the government changed, the security forces nevertheless continue their deliberate pressure such as limiting the patients to visiting only one hospital, imposing long delays in taking the residents to the hospital and preventing the patients from having their interpreter or caregiver for those who need help; this way they continue the illegal persecution of the residents. Such restrictions are in blatant contradiction with all international medical covenants."

Mr Stevenson said that some Iraqi officials still believe Liberty residents are terrorists and should be denied medical care.

He added: "My attempts in convincing them that enjoying medical services is based on all legal, human rights and religious criteria regardless of political viewpoints and ideas, were to no avail. This matter raised my concern more than before regarding the future of the medical siege against the residents of this camp which is surrounded by Iraqi security forces.

"EIFA has found out that the process of transferring patients to the one hospital they are permitted to attend is quite slow and faces constant hurdles on the part of Iraqi forces.

"The list of patients waiting to go to the hospital has, as a result, grown longer and longer and it is now over 800. In the best cases, every day 4-5 people are permitted to go to the hospital and on many days even this number is not allowed to leave the camp.

"The residents have not been allowed to transfer their medical equipment from Ashraf to Camp Liberty, nor have they been allowed to invite Iraqi specialist physicians to Camp Liberty to visit the patients. These are steps that would drastically cut the need of residents to attend hospital."

EIFA is calling on the government of Prime Minister al-Abadi and the Minister of Health to bar any interference by the security agencies in the medical situation at Camp Liberty, and to recognize it as a refugee camp, Mr Stevenson said.

EIFA also called for firstly, residents be able to be taken to various hospitals in adequate numbers and be allowed to take their interpreter-nurse.

Secondly, for residents be allowed to transfer their medical equipment from Ashraf to Camp Liberty.

And thirdly, for residents be allowed to invite Iraqi specialist physicians to Camp Liberty at their own expense for specialist visits.

He added: "The international community is now closely watching Prime Minister al-Abadi to see if he accords basic protection and the observance of fundamental human rights for the residents of Camp Liberty.

"His reputation in the eyes of the international community will stand or fall on his response to these questions."

Camp Liberty in Iraq houses Iranian dissidents that include members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) who have been living in Iraq since over two decades ago.

Iran- Another rare feline struck dead by a vehicle

Wed, 12/31/2014 - 22:37

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Only two days after two rare Iranian cheetahs were killed in a road accident, another rare feline, a Persian Leopard, was struck and killed on Tuesday evening on the transit road in Golestan Forest.

This is the eighth leopard to be killed this year, and the species remains on the endangered list.

Forest rangers discovered the panther carcass, which had marks suggesting the impact from a moving vehicle.

The report indicates that the panther was still alive after the impact and was able to drag itself 300 metres away from the road.

The female leopard is estimated to have been three years old.

Environmental experts have often called for the closure of the Golestan Forest transit road, saying it is a serious hazard for wildlife. Cars traveling along the road have also caused an increase in the occurrence of forest fires in the region.

Palestinian shot dead in Gaza by Egypt border troops: medics

Friday, 2 January 2015

Egyptian soldiers firing from across the border shot dead a Palestinian man in the Gaza frontier town of Rafah on Friday, medics said, although the motive was not immediately known.

The border troops shot the 23-year-old man “in the back and the bullet settled in the heart. He died on the spot,” emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP.

The shooting was confirmed by the spokesman of the interior ministry in Gaza, Iyad al-Bazm, in a message on his Facebook page.

“A Palestinian citizen, aged 23, was killed by Egyptian army fire on the Egyptian-Palestinian border and the security agencies are investigating the incident to find out the motives,” it said.

The man, whose identity was not revealed, is the first Palestinian “to have been killed in a long time” along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, according to Qudra.

On Tuesday, Egypt announced that work to double the width of a buffer zone along the Gaza border would begin next week to prevent militants infiltrating from the Palestinian enclave.

Construction of the 500-metre (546-yard) buffer zone along 10 kilometers of the border follows an October 24 suicide bombing that killed 30 Egyptian soldiers. Some 800 homes are being demolished in the process.

After that incident, Egypt declared a three-month emergency in parts of North Sinai, a remote but strategic region bordering Israel and Gaza, and closed the Rafah border crossing for two months.

Egypt reopened the crossing for two days in November and again in December, for three days, to allow people stranded in Egypt to return to the Palestinian enclave and for Gazans to leave.

The Rafah crossing is Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world not controlled by Israel.

Egypt suspects Palestinian militants of aiding jihadist attacks against its security forces that have increased since the army ousted Islamist president Mohammad Mursi last year.

The Egyptian army has also stepped up the destruction of tunnels from Gaza it says are used to smuggle arms, food and money by Palestinian militant group Hamas which controls the territory.

Cairo says it has destroyed more than 1,600 tunnels since Mursi’s ouster.