Journalist Reported Missing in Mexico

XALAPA, Mexico – A journalist who works as a stringer for several newspapers in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz has been reported missing, state prosecutors said.

Moises Sanchez Cerezo’s whereabouts is not known since Friday, Veracruz Attorney General Luis Angel Bravo Contreras said.

Bravo Contreras said he was personally coordinating the search for the missing journalist.

Sanchez Cerezo covered the news and posted stories about local corruption and community issues on social networks, media reports said.

Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte, for his part, said investigators were trying to determine what happened to Sanchez Cerezo, who he described as a “taxi driver and neighborhood activist.”

“Our priority is to find him and reunite him with his family,” Duarte told Mexican media.

Sanchez Cerezo works as a reporter in the city of Medellin de Bravo, writing stories and taking photos for his small weekly, La Union, the Cronica de Xalapa newspaper reported.

He is also a community activist in several neighborhoods, where residents have banded together to fight crime, the newspaper said.

Sanchez Cerezo’s relatives contacted several Veracruz and national media outlets via e-mail and reported his disappearance.

The journalist had received “prior threats,” relatives said.

Veracruz, Mexico’s third most populous state, has been plagued by a turf war between rival drug cartels that has sent the murder rate skyrocketing in the past few years.

The Gulf, Los Zetas and Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartels, as well as breakaway members of the once-powerful Familia Michoacana criminal organization, are fueling the violence in the state.

Iranian regime denies agreement with US on transfer of uranium abroad

On Saturday Tehran denied that an agreement was made during negotiations with representatives of the P5+1 countries regarding the nuclear program.

Associated Press quoted diplomatic sources yesterday claiming that in some areas regarding Iran's nuclear program a general agreement was made. AP quoted two diplomats from Vienna who said that Iran and the US have agreed to the temporary transfer of a portion of the enriched uranium to Russia.

According to IRNA - official news agency in Iran - Marzieh Afkham, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said that "so far we have not reached any agreement on any of the topics discussed at the talks". According to Afkham, "this kind of media manipulation is done with political intentions and its main goal is the destruction of the negotiations' atmosphere and making the resolution of the issues more complex".

The Associated Press quoted two Western diplomats on Friday who said that in the nuclear negotiations held on December 17 negotiators were able to reach an agenda for the first time, while identifying possible areas of agreement and identifying different approaches for resolving the remaining disputes.

The Associated Press added that nuclear negotiators in the previous round of talks in December brought, for the first time, a list of possible areas of agreement as well as possible approaches to solve the remaining disputes, although the preparation of this list was not easy because of the extensive differences of two sides.

The P5+1 negotiations with Tehran to reach a comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear program hit an impasse in November after one year of concentrated negotiations and was extended for 7 months. The Western countries are strongly suspicious of the military objectives of the Tehran regime nuclear program. The Tehran regime has so far evaded answering questions regarding the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.

The next round of nuclear talks is supposed to resume in Geneva on January 15 at the level of deputy foreign ministers.

Rescued in Mexico: 2 Sisters Locked Up at Home for 30 Years

MEXICO CITY – An apparent combination of schizophrenia, marginalization and fear caused two Mexican sisters to be kept locked up for 30 years in a room of their house in the northern state of Chihuahua.

The inspector general of the State Human Rights Commission, or CEDH, in the Parral area, Amin Corral Shaar, told Efe on Friday that the two women are Francisca and Luz Ofelia Valles Campos, ages 35 and 38, respectively.

Both were rescued Tuesday from a room in their family’s home in the remote rural community of Bufalo, after Mayor Gilberto Garcia Mendoza of Allende, the state capital, contacted the CEDH.

As a result of the report, Corral traveled the 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Parral to Bufalo to investigate the case and found a surprising family scene in the home where the victims lived like prisoners.

Staying in the house were the father “who is growing old and doesn’t work” and the mother of the two daughters, as well as their three sons.

“Apparently the whole family suffers from mental disabilities” and cooperate on keeping the two women locked up. The only one who works is the eldest brother, who has a pig farm and provides them with food,” Corral said.

When they got to the house, the authorities had to force the door open to the room where the victims were hidden, supposedly “of their own free will,” according to the CEDH.

“The room smelled because they hadn’t washed in years” and the two women were “only covered with a blanket,” he said.

They were suffering from different infections and one of the sisters was taken to a public clinic in Allende to be treated for ulcerated injuries on different parts of her body.

“This is the strangest case we’ve seen in a long time, I never saw anything like it,” Corral said.

He said that at the time he stepped in with the aid of local police, several relatives and neighbors were present who refused to talk about the strange case.

In the remote area where the house stands, “ignorance prevails” and some 30 years ago the rumor was going around that local drug traffickers “were going to kidnap all the little boys and girls.”

Fear was also stirred up when one of the biggest shipments of marijuana in the history of Mexico was seized, nearly 10,000 tons, in an operation associated with the murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena.

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 " ?