Zoo in Peru Slaughters Some Animals to Feed Others

LIMA – Lima’s Legends Park zoo slaughtered some of its animals to feed others when food was scarce, Peruvian media reported Monday.

An internal zoo document, disclosed Sunday by the television news program “Cuarto Poder,” confirmed the slaughter of beasts in May and June to provide 433 kilos (953 pounds) of meat to feed other animals.

Sheep, goats, geese and deer were killed, along with a buffalo, according to documents cited in media accounts.

A previous report had raised the alarm about a food shortage at the zoo and requested assistance to prevent health problems among the animals.

The documents contradict Lima Mayor Luis Castañeda’s statement last week that the zoo’s residents “are fat and beautiful.”

Legends Park director Marco Villalobos denied on television that the zoo has any trouble with food and said the reports were aimed at discrediting him.

Early in July, however, Peru’s National Forest and Wildlife Service, known as Serfor, denounced shortages of food at the facility.

Serfor said that during a visit to the zoo in June, its personnel observed signs of malnutrition among sea lions and heard complaints from zoo employees about the underfeeding of penguins, seals and big cats.

Argentine Expert: Killer Washed His Hands in the Sink after Murdering Nisman

BUENOS AIRES – An expert hired by the family of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman to investigate his still-unsolved death says he is convinced the alleged killer used the sink to wash his hands, Clarin newspaper reported.

In his latest presentation to the lead prosecutor in the case, Viviana Fein, Daniel Salcedo said “the absence of certain blood stains” in the bathroom of Nisman’s apartment, where his body was found with a single shot to the temple on Jan. 18, shows that another person was with him at the time of his death.

Salcedo also presented Fein with a digital animation sequence to back his murder hypothesis, noting that the blood stains slanted downward and began at a height of 60 centimeters (23.5 inches), or almost 50 centimeters (20 inches) above the spot where the victim’s head was found, the daily said Tuesday.

The expert said the alleged killer was standing behind Nisman and to the right, while the prosecutor was down on one knee by his bathtub.

The blood stains could have occurred when the purported killer shook his hands before washing them, Salcedo said.

Salcedo’s latest hypotheses were presented a month after Fein received a report containing the analysis of Federal Police experts; an expert hired by the defense team of Diego Lagomarsino, an aide to Nisman who is accused of providing a firearm to the prosecutor; and Salcedo.

In that report, the different experts disagreed on the cause of death, with those from the Federal Police and Lagomarsino’s defense team ruling out the existence of another person inside Nisman’s apartment.

Nisman, the special prosecutor for a 1994 attack on a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires that left 85 people dead, was found dead four days after he brought charges against Argentine President Cristina Fernandez of trying to conceal Iranian involvement in the bombing.

Many in the Argentine Jewish community believe the attack on the AMIA Jewish organization was ordered by Iran and carried out by Tehran’s Hezbollah allies.

Both the Iranian government and the Lebanese militia group deny any involvement and say the accusation relies heavily on information provided by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Prosecutors have yet to secure a single conviction in the bombing case.

The Argentine courts have dismissed Nisman’s charges against the president as baseless.

Experts: Regime change in Iran ultimate solution to nuclear crisis

NCRI - Former officials and policy experts in the United States took part in an online conference on Tuesday, pointing out that the world community should not be forced to choose only between war with the regime in Iran or giving Tehran undue concessions in a deal to curb its nuclear projects in return for an end to sanctions.

The officials and experts argued that a better option would be for the Obama administration and its allies to support the Iranian people and their organized Resistance to bring about regime change.

If the regime in Iran gets a nuclear bomb, “there will be a nuclear race in the Middle East,” said Ambassador Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and U.S. ambassador to the UN human rights commission.

   

“The regime has not negotiated in good faith. They have broken every promise they have made. Giving them resources that help them prop up their regime and continue human rights abuses will allow them to push through with their hegemony in the Middle East and financing of terrorism,” he added.

“We should continue the sanctions which have brought the regime to its knees,” Amb. Blackwell said.

Ms. Linda Chavez, a former White House Director of Public Liaison, said: “The only reason that the mullahs' regime accepted to come to the negotiating table is because the regime was in desperate straits. The Iranian economy is struggling. The Iranian people are fed up and they are taking part in protests at great risks to themselves.”

“What we have now is a very bad deal,” Ms. Chavez said, adding that the regime in Iran is the “chief sponsor of terrorism” and would use the resources provided to it as part of the deal with the international community to fund terrorism in the Middle East.

“This has made the world a very, very dangerous place. It is extremely important that Congress says no to the [U.S.] President”, she said.

The U.S. Congress received the Iran nuclear agreement on Sunday. From Monday it has 60 days to decide whether to approve or reject the deal.

“This is not a partisan issue ... this is an issue of grave importance for the world,” Ms. Chavez said.

She pointed out Tehran would likely cheat in the nuclear deal, referring to past revelations of secret Iranian nuclear activity exposed by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

“The National Council of Resistance of Iran is exceedingly good at exposing the Iranian regime and the various secret facilities and the nuclear program in Iran. … We know that the Iranians do not intend to follow this agreement,” she said.

Professor Ivan Sascha Sheehan, director of the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Management Program at the University of Baltimore, told the online conference that the regime in Iran poses the “most significant security challenge of our time. Tehran is a major source of havoc in the region. They are the primary sponsor of Bashar Assad's murderous regime.”

Prof. Sheehan said that nuclear agreement last week by the world powers and the regime in Iran is full of "appeasement" of the regime.

“The Iranian regime is a weak and fragile state that is not in a position to demand concessions, but the U.S. has conceded too much.”

“What we see in this agreement is concession after concession after concession, and what we will have is a more dangerous Middle East.”

“The agreement put forth by Mr. Obama does not prevent the Iranian regime from having nuclear weapons capability.”

Prof. Sheehan said he was "astounded" that "anytime, anywhere" access to Iranian sites by UN weapons inspectors was not given as part of the deal. He pointed out that the world community knows about Tehran's secret nuclear sites "due to the revelations by the NCRI."

He added that US President Barack Obama is “creating a false choice of either war or concessions to the Iranian regime.”

“The regime will be ultimately brought down from within by the organized opposition. Regime change should be a third option to be considered,” he said.

“The discussion of the nuclear agreement should not be separate from simultaneous discussions on the regime’s human rights violations and sponsorship of terrorism.”

“Mr. Obama is ignoring the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom, liberty and human rights. But Congress need not make the same mistake”, he said. “We should reach out to the Iranian people and the organized resistance. Regime change from within is a possibility.”

The online panel, streamed live on NCR-Iran.org on Tuesday, was entitled “Iran: Nuclear Ambitions, the agreement, rights violations: Prospects & Challenges.”

Iran's opposition leader Maryam Rajavi said following last week's nuclear deal between world powers and the Iranian regime that the deal - which circumvents six UN Security Council resolutions - will not close the mullahs' path to deception and access to the nuclear bomb. Mrs. Rajavi added however that by retreating from his red lines, the mullahs' supreme leader Ali Khamenei had drank a ‘chalice of nuclear poison’ that would shatter his hegemony and undermine the entire regime.

Mrs. Rajavi is President-elect of the NCRI which was the first to expose the Iranian regime’s clandestine nuclear sites in 2002 that triggered the investigation by the UN atomic watchdog.

The NCRI’s revelations about the Iranian regime’s nuclear program have been based on information smuggled out of Iran by the main opposition group People’s Mojahedin, PMOI (or Mujahedin-e-Khalq, MEK).

Child, 2 Adults Wounded by Grenade in Colombia

BOGOTA – A child and two adults were wounded when a grenade went off during a military operation in Norte de Santander, a Colombian province on the border with Venezuela, the army said Sunday.

The explosion occurred in La Gabarra, a community in the city of Tibu, the army said in a statement.

“An investigation has been opened” to determine what happened, the army said.

The grenade went off during an operation on Saturday night to “stop an imminent threat” from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group, the army said.

The three wounded civilians were treated at the scene and later flown to Cucuta, the capital of Norte de Santander, so they could receive specialized medical care.

The government and the FARC have been holding peace talks in Havana since November 2012.

Earlier this month, the FARC declared a one-month cease-fire that takes effect on Monday.

7 yr old Nahua Indian boy "shot and killed by Mexican Soldiers", in Mexico

MORELIA, Mexico – A 7-year-old boy was killed and four other people, including two children, were wounded in a shootout on a highway in the western Mexican state of Michoacan following the arrest of a vigilante leader, security officials said.

The boy, identified as Heriberto Reyes Garcia, was shot in the head Sunday on the highway that links the Pacific coast cities of Aquila and Coahuayana, the Michoacan Coordination Group said.

Soldiers manning a checkpoint opened fire in the village of Ixtapilla on some Nahua Indians who were protesting the arrest a few hours earlier of vigilante leader Semei Verdia Zepeda, residents said.

Verdia is the main leader of the community self-defense group in Aquila, where residents took up arms in February 2013 to fight the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel.

The vigilante leader was arrested on Sunday morning for allegedly carrying two assault rifles and a pistol.

Members of an unidentified armed group opened fire on residents and soldiers, said the Michoacan Coordination Group, which is under the command of XII Military Region chief Gen. Pedro Felipe Gurrola Ramirez.

Residents in several towns and cities formed vigilante groups to fight the Caballeros Templarios in Michoacan, where the federal government has deployed police and army troops to restore order.

President Enrique Peña Nieto legalized the community self-defense groups, incorporating them into the Rural Force, a law enforcement agency overseen by the state Public Safety Secretariat.

Aquila, one of three cities in Michoacan that lie on the Pacific coast, is mainly inhabited by Nahua Indians who earn a living from mining in the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains.

The Caballeros Templarios cartel was created in 2010 by former members of the Familia Michoacana organization.

The cartel, which deals in both synthetic and natural drugs, commits murders, stages kidnappings and runs extortion rackets that target business owners and transport companies in Michoacan.

Watch: Surfer fights off shark attack mid-competition

Taliban & Hamas Warn ISIS: Don't Mess With Us