BAGHDAD ( Bombings in Baghdad on Friday killed 7 )

BAGHDAD: Bombings in and around Baghdad on Friday, including blasts near two markets, killed seven people, the latest in a year-long surge in violence that authorities have failed to quell.
The bloodshed, at its highest level since 2008, came a day after a suicide car bomb went off in the middle of a wedding party convoy in the western town of Rawa, killing 15 people, including women and children.


The unrest, which comes barely six weeks before parliamentary elections, is driven principally by widespread discontent among Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighboring Syria.
A car bomb Friday at a market in Baghdad’s Shuala killed three people, while another blast near a market in Rashid left one dead, security and medical officials said.
Bombings in Taji and Tarmiyah, just north of the capital, killed three others, including two soldiers. On Thursday evening, a suicide car bomb that went off in the middle of a wedding party convoy killed 15 people and wounded 17 others in the town of Rawa, desert province of Anbar.
Anbar has been roiled in recent months by unrest that has seen anti-government fighters take control of Fallujah, a city on Baghdad’s doorstep, as well as shifting areas of provincial capital Ramadi.
Violence in Iraq has reached a level not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal period of sectarian bloodshed in which tens of thousands of people died.
More than 200 people have been killed so far this month and upwards of 1,900 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

Flying Tiger 739 ( 93 Disappeared on March 16, 1962 ) Never found

 Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 was a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliner chartered by the United Statesmilitary that disappeared on March 16, 1962 over the Western Pacific Ocean. The aircraft was transporting 93 US soldiers and 3 South Vietnamese from Travis Air Force Base, California to Saigon, Vietnam. After refueling at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, the Super Constellation was en route to Clark Air Base in the Philippines when it disappeared. All 107 aboard were declared missing and presumed dead.

The airliner's disappearance prompted one of the largest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific. Aircraft and surface ships from four branches of the US military searched more than 200,000 square miles (520,000 km²) during the course of eight days. A civilian tanker observed what appeared to be an in-flight explosion believed to be the missing Super Constellation, though no trace of wreckage or debris was ever recovered. The Civil Aeronautics Boarddetermined that, based on the tanker's observations, Flight 739 probably exploded in-flight, though an exact cause could not be determined without examining the remnants of the aircraft.

To date, this remains the worst aviation accident involving the Lockheed Constellation series.

Malaysia ( Cell phones still ringing on " People on flight " ) Plane crash

Nuevo Leon ( Kidnapped woman found dead in Zuazua )

Nuevo León. - The body of a kidnapped woman was found mutilated in Zuazua yesterday, but learned today.

The deceased, according to reports, had been deprived of his liberty by a group of organized crime that demanded a sum of money to the families supposedly to release.

A police source said, however, after the kidnapping offenders killed the victim because she was supposedly related to another criminal of the same criminal group.

The woman, was deprived of her life about 15 days ago without specifying whether the event occurred in Zuazua or Marin.

After the capture of criminals, ministerial agents yesterday afternoon located the remains of the victim in three plastic bags in Zuazua.

The source said that according to the confession of the prisoners, the deceased was related to another member of the band, without specifying what caused the problem now the detainees were planning.

Phoenix ( Man kills his 12 yr old brother " he felt like killing " )

PHOENIX (AP) - A 27-year-old Arizona man charged with fatally stabbing his 12-year-old half brother reportedly told police he "just felt like killing."

Andrew Ward called 911 from a convenience store near the north Phoenix home where Austin Tapia suffered multiple stab wounds late Wednesday, police Sgt. Steve Martos said.

Ward told the dispatcher he had stabbed someone, and officers found Ward with blood on his hands and clothing and a knife in a pants pocket, Martos said.

Martos said detectives asked Ward why he killed the boy, and Ward said, "Honestly, I just felt like killing."

Other family members had gone to dinner, so Ward and the boy were the only ones home. The mother and two teenage sisters returned home to find police at what had become a crime scene.

Ward was booked into jail on suspicion of first-degree murder and child abuse, and bond was set at $1 million at his initial court appearance Thursday.

He doesn't have a lawyer yet and is facing a March 20 status conference and March 24 preliminary hearing in the case.

A Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spokesman said Ward was still being processed into the jail and was not available Thursday to be asked about a request for a jailhouse interview.

A clerk at the convenience store, Kristina Krasovich, said the man identified by police as Ward had blood on his shirt and an arm and that it looked like he had wiped his hands on his pants when he arrived at the store.

"He was real shaky and scared. I could see in his eyes something bad had happened," Krasovich told KNXV-TV (http://bit.ly/1ewfssn).

She saw him talking on the phone, Krasovich said.

"He had calmed down, but he still had this look of horror on his face," she said.

She asked if the man was OK and said he gave her a thumbs-up

A few minutes later, Krasovich said, the man started to walk toward the door where police officers waiting with guns drawn ordered him to the ground.

India ( India students face charges for 'cheering for Pakistani team ' )

LUCKNOW, India: Some 60 students from Indian-administered Kashmir may face sedition charges for cheering Pakistan's victory over India in a recent cricket match, police said.
Police were investigating the students following a complaint from university officials in the northern city of Meerut over celebrations following Pakistan's win on Sunday in an Asia Cup clash.
The students, all enrolled at the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University (SVSU), have been suspended and were escorted from campus following the match due to concerns about violence with other Indian students, university sources said.

"The SVSU administration on Wednesday submitted a written complaint against unknown persons for indulging in anti-national activities and creating a ruckus on the university campus," Meerut police chief Omkar Singh said.
"We have registered a case and the probe is on," Singh explained.
"If evidence is established against the accused, there is a set legal procedure to be followed in such cases. The law will take its own course," he said, adding that any charges would be ones of sedition.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but each claims it in full. They have fought two wars since 1947 over the northern Himalayan territory.
Since 1989 Indian forces have been fighting militant groups seeking independence or the merger of the territory with Pakistan, with repressive policing and human rights abuses feeding into local anti-India resentment.
Many Kashmiris associate more with Pakistan, a Muslim-majority Islamic republic, than with Hindu-majority India which is officially secular.
Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said any sedition charges would be "unacceptably harsh."
"Sedition charge against Kashmiri students is an unacceptably harsh punishment that will ruin their futures & will further alienate them," Abdullah said on Twitter.
"I believe what the students did was wrong & misguided but they certainly didn't deserve to have charges of sedition slapped against them."
Pakistan's foreign office spokesman said sedition charges against the students would be "very unfortunate".
"If the Kashmiri students want to come and pursue their education in Pakistan, our hearts and academic institutions are open to them," Tasnim Aslam said in Islamabad.
The trouble began when the students were watching the headline clash on television in the university's community hall.
Some of the students were accused of chanting "Pakistan Zindabad (hail Pakistan)" and damaging university property during celebrations after Pakistan won, a university official said on condition of anonymity.
In 2012, an anti-government cartoonist was arrested in another sedition case, raising concerns about limits on freedom of speech.
Prosecutors later dropped the charge against the cartoonist whose online drawings included the national parliament depicted as a huge toilet bowel in a comment against corruption.

Pakistan ( 16 killed in gang fight "4 women" )

KARACHI: Street battles between two rival gangs armed with RPGs and machine guns killed at least 16 people — including four women — in Pakistan’s Karachi on Wednesday, officials said.
The clash, which according to police also injured 39 people, mainly schoolchildren, was the worst outbreak of criminal-related violence to plague the troubled city in recent months.
It “erupted this morning when two gangs exchanged heavy gunfire” in the Lyari neighborhood, senior police official Faisal Bashir said, adding that school pupils had been hurt in the crossfire.
“Later they fired RPGs and lobbed hand grenades at each other,” he added, saying the death toll was expected to rise.

Major Sibtain Rizvi, a spokesman for paramilitary troops, added that two gangsters had been killed and one had been arrested.
Dr. Seemi Jamali of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, where some of the injured were taken, said three paramilitary rangers and two police were wounded.
Bashir, the police officer, said one of the gangs suspected the other of providing a tip to police that led to the killing of a top leader.
According to police the firing began around 4:00 a.m. (1100 GMT) while major blasts were heard at noon.
Din Muhammad, a 43-year-old resident who was being treated at Karachi Civil Hospital for a gun-shot wound in his right leg, said he was sitting at the shop when he heard explosions.
“There was a big bang and then people were shouting and crying, I closed the shutter of my shop to run home but I saw people fallen into the ground, bleeding and screaming,” he said.
“I was running toward a group of people lying on the ground a few yards away and then I fell to the ground,” after being shot, he added.
“My leg was bleeding and I could not stand up, I remained there for around twenty minutes and then local people came and brought us here,” he said.
An AFP reporter at the hospital said that some people, who were accompanying the wounded, started chanting slogans against security forces before briefly clashing with them.
By Wednesday afternoon, some 200 police commandos had arrived on the scene to conduct a search operation after the clash had ended, senior police official Shah Nawaz told AFP.
Lyari, one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods of Karachi, is known for frequent violence between rival gangs.
It is largely dominated by ethnic Baluch linked to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari which rules the southern Sindh province.
Local police said Wednesday’s fight was believed to involve two splinter organizations — the “Uzair Baloch” and “Ghaffar Zikri” gangs — which grew out of the once-dominant Baba Ladla group.
An operation launched by police and paramilitary government rangers in the city’s tangled maze of streets last September had appeared to be having a positive effect, until this latest incident.
But Tauseef Ahmed Khan, an analyst, said there was a nexus between the PPP and Lyari gangs which prevented authorities from arresting suspected criminals and confiscating their weapons.
“The current targeted operation has no effect on Lyari because the police and law enforcement agencies consider the gangsters of Layari as their assets.”
“No effort has ben made to cut the supply of illegal weapons to Lyari and that is why today we have gangsters holding RPGs and firing at school children,” he said.
“Today’s incident is the worst in the history of Layari,” he added.
Karachi, a city of 18 million people which contributes 42 percent of Pakistan’s GDP, has been plagued by sectarian, ethnic and political violence for years.
The city is also wracked by militants, especially the Taleban who last month claimed credit for a bomb blast that killed 12 policemen on a bus.
According to the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), 2,507 people were murdered in Karachi in 2013, the highest number since records began nearly 20 years ago.