Media Owner Killed in Southeast Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Moises Dagdug, a media owner, journalist and former federal lawmaker, was stabbed to death at his home in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco in a suspected robbery, according to one of his associates, who told EFE that Dagdug had received threats.

The homicide occurred early Saturday at the 65-year-old Dagdug’s home in Villahermosa, Tabasco’s capital, with the assailants making off with the victim’s vehicle after killing him.

Dagdug was the owner of a radio station and a television news channel in Tabasco that was part of the Grupo VX media group, according to local media. He also hosted a show on that same radio station, XEVX La Grande de Tabasco, in which he was very critical of the current state governor, Arturo Nuñez Jimenez.

“The editorial line of Grupo VX ... was certainly critical, questioning the government’s bad actions,” the group’s news director, Angel Antonio Jimenez, told EFE.

He recalled that Dagdug had received threats and indeed had publicly denounced them on his show, titled “De frente Tabasco,” adding that Tabasco was suffering “a public safety crisis.”

“He wasn’t afraid to say that he’d been threatened, that he was receiving constant threats. In fact, the criminals had entered his private home on a couple of occasions. He changed his security system, and indeed his lifestyle had changed dramatically,” the news director said.

Dagdug represented Tabasco in the national legislature between 2006 and 2009 as a member of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries for the practice of journalism, with more than 100 members of the media having been killed since 2000, according to the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression.

Moscow calls on US to be responsible in choosing targets for air strikes

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. Moscow calls on the United States and other NATO countries to show responsibility in choosing targets for their air strikes to avoid casualties among civilians, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a comment posted on the ministry’s website on Saturday.

"We call on the United States and other NATO countries to be responsible and discriminate in choosing targets, like the Russian aerospace forces are doing in Syria. There have been numerous reports about innocent civilians killed in NATO air strikes. The United States and its allies obviously must be guided by international law in conducting such operation. They should not act unilaterally but instead they must coordinate their steps with all members of the international community concerned," the document says.

"We extend our deepest condolences to the families of the officers of the Serbian embassy in Libya, Jovica Stepic and Sladjana Stankovic, who were killed as a result of the US’s air strike at a facility where they were kept as Islamic State hostages. These people were abducted on November 28, 2015. Belgrade was aware of their whereabouts and was in talks on their release," the Russian foreign ministry said.

  

Japan Asks China for Convincing Explanation of Missile Deployment

TOKYO - Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani Friday asked China to give a "clearer and more convincing" explanation of its recent deployment of anti-aircraft missiles on an island in the disputed South China Sea.

Japan has confirmed the deployment, undertaken last week in Woody Island, through satellite images of the island and other sources, Nakatani told the press, public broadcaster NHK reported.

The minister also restated Tokyo's opposition to "unilateral actions to change the status quo" in the region, such as the construction of outposts and their use for military purposes, and stressed the unanimous concern of the international community about such actions.

Tokyo continues to collect information about Chinese activities in the South China Sea after the missile deployment, and feels the action will escalate tension in the region.

The defense minister also recalled Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks about not militarizing the South China Sea during his visit to Washington in September last year.

The Paracel archipelago is controlled by China, however Taiwan and Vietnam stake claims of sovereignty over it.

The South China Sea region has witnessed escalated tensions since last year after it was revealed that Beijing has built military installations in islets and reefs in the Spratly Islands, partially controlled by China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Mexican Who Tried to Smuggle Iguanas Out of Galapagos Gets 2 Years in Prison

QUITO – A Mexican man who tried to smuggle 11 iguanas out of Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands has been sentenced by a judge to serve two years in prison and pay a fine of $20,000, Galapagos National Park said in a Twitter post Sunday.

Gustavo Eduardo Toledo Albarran was arrested last year when he tried to smuggle the marine and land iguanas out of Santa Cruz Island.

“The judge from the multi-jurisdiction unit in the district of Santa Cruz sentenced the citizen of Mexican nationality, Gustavo Eduardo Toledo Albarran, to two years in prison at the Guayaquil-Varones Social Rehabilitation Center ... where he is being held,” the national park said.

Toledo was arrested on Sept. 6, 2015, in Puerto Ayora “while carrying 11 native iguanas, including nine marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) and two land iguanas (Conolophus subcristatus), unique species in the world, in a backpack that belonged to him,” the national park said.

The Mexican citizen was charged with wildlife trafficking under Article 247 of the Ecuadorian Criminal Code.

Wildlife trafficking is the third most profitable illegal activity in the world, trailing only drug and arms trafficking, the Ecuadorian Environment Ministry said last year.

The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison in Ecuador.

The Galapagos Islands are located about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) west of the coast of continental Ecuador and were declared a World Natural Heritage Site in 1978.

Some 95 percent of the territory’s 8,000 sq. kilometers (a little over 3,000 sq. miles) constitutes a protected area that is home to more than 50 species of animals and birds found nowhere else on the planet.

The islands were made famous by 19th-century British naturalist Charles Darwin, whose observations of life on the islands contributed greatly to his theory of the evolution of species.

Honor killing- After being gang raped by Syrian soldiers

BERLIN –  The alleged “honor killing” last month of a young pregnant woman who fled Syria after being gang raped is the latest case to leave Germans horrified by the crimes and customs of some of the refugees pouring in from the war-torn Middle East.

The woman, identified only as Rokstan M., fled Syria in 2011 after being gang-raped by Syrian soldiers and found work as an interpreter. After authorities in the small, eastern city of Dessau discovered her body, stabbed and buried behind a housing complex for Syrian refugees Friday, suspicion has focused on her father and brothers, who prosecutors believe may have killed her because the gang rape left her “unclean.”

“I don’t like the term ‘honor killing,’ Christian Preissner, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, told FoxNews.com on Thursday. But if the motive shows that it was an ‘honor killing,’ I will say it.”

The case has gripped much of the country, as details about Rokstan’s final days have emerged. Full names of crime victims are customarily withheld in German media to protect their privacy.

“I am awaiting death,” Rokstan wrote on her WhatsApp profile shorty before her death. “But I am too young to die.”

Iran regime purchases $8 billion worth of weapons from Russia in violation of UN resolutions

The Iranian regime’s defense minister who had been involved in hostage taking and terrorism is visiting Moscow for talks about closer military cooperation.

Officials in Iran announced Monday that the regime in Tehran would spend another $8 billion on the purchase of Russian arms.

The Iranian regime has already handed Moscow a shopping list and the visit by Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan should speed up a number of key arms deals, RT reported.

"Iran would like to buy Russia's latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missile system, developed by Almaz-Antey. And they make no secret of it. On the eve of his visit to Moscow Dehghan openly said to Iranian media they want to purchase the S-400s," the report said quoting sources of the business daily Kommersant.

Days after a preliminary nuclear agreement between the Iranian regime and six world powers, the United Nations adopted a resolution on July 20 forbidding Iran’s regime from purchasing conventional arms for the next five years.

According to Fox News: The ban explicitly forbids “battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, [and] warships…” from being purchased by Iran without prior approval from the U.N.

According to the Interfax news agency, the second important topic of the talks in Moscow is Tehran’s possible procurement, or even a licensed production of the new Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM multi-role fighter.

Dehghan's arrival in Moscow Monday comes a month after Iran’s regime received billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions relief when its nuclear deal with world powers went into effect.

Hossein Dehghan, Hassan Rouhani's defense minister, has been among the “student followers of the Imam [Khomeini]” who took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and took 52 American diplomats hostage. He also helped found Hezbollah in Lebanon.

He has been one of the architects of the 1983 terror bombing that killed 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service members in Beirut, Lebanon.

Iran regime’s new cultural center in Kirkuk stirs concerns

The opening of a cultural and sports center by the Iranian regime in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk has sparked fears that the clerical regime is trying to gain a foothold in a city already torn by ethnic-religious tensions.

The opening of the $400,000 center is sparking a wave of criticism in this mainly Kurdish area from people who oppose Tehran’s growing interference in the affairs of Iraq.

Iran has opened five cultural centers in Iraq since 2003, including one in Baghdad which opened in June 2015, according to analysts, VOA reported.

Kamaran Kirkuky, a member of Kirkuk’s Provincial Council, told VOA that he was concerned that the center was going to be used for “other purposes.”

“Iran can’t help Iraq and Kurdistan,” he said. “We have learned from experience that Iran’s projects don’t provide anything good.”

Kirkuky said he was afraid that the Iraqi Shi’ite militia, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), would increase their presence in Kirkuk by using the center.
“Some members of PMF would have an active role in the center. Shi’ites in general have become very active in Kirkuk recently,” Kirkuky told VOA.

Al-Arbiya TV reporting on the opening of ‘Khomeini center' said: “The center is considered to be a base for recruiting Kirkuk’s youth to join the militias affiliated with Tehran, and it is associated with the Iranian Quds Force, which is supervised by Gen. Qassem Soleimani.”

A recent report by European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA) said: “Iran-backed paramilitary forces which operate as criminal groups or in the guise of popular mobilization forces are today the main cause of sectarian conflicts, killing and murder, ethnic cleansing and population displacement in Iraq. They are driving the country towards internal conflict and ultimate collapse. In addition, these groups have turned into mafia-style murderers, kidnappers, robbers and drug-traffickers.”

The report added: “The popular mobilization forces are now a tool in the hands of criminal elements such as Nouri al-Maliki, Hadi Al-Ameri, and Abu-Mahdi Mohandess, who are in turn the most important agents coordinating the destruction of Iraq, fuelling sectarian war and facilitating the emergence of DAESH.”

Hasan Jumma, a writer inside Kirkuk, told VOA that opening the center was a ‘shameful’ act and was ‘rejected’ by majority of writers, intellectuals, and journalists.

Jumma said there was already a cultural and sports center in the city and there was no need for letting Iran open a center under Khomeini’s name.

“This is an act of invading Kurdistan by opening up centers, schools, and medical clinics which will increase the cultural and political influence of Iran,” Hasan said.