The hotel maid who claims former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn raped her has been accused of working as a prostitute.

Allegations have emerged that the 32-year-old cleaner was was taking extra money from male guests at the hotel for sex.

'There is information... of her getting extraordinary tips, if you know what I mean. And it's not for bringing extra f**king towels,' a source close to the defence investigation told the New York Post.

The woman also had 'a lot of her expenses – hair braiding, salon expenses – paid for by men not related to her,' the source added.

As Strauss-Kahn was yesterday sensationally released from house arrest and had his security ankle tag removed, it emerged in a letter to court from Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon that the woman:

Lied in a U.S. asylum application that her husband was tortured in jail and died of injuries
Lied about having been gang raped by soldiers in Guinea to help her asylum application
Lied about waiting in the hall outside the suite of the 'attack' until Strauss-Kahn left
Lied by claiming a friend's child as her own for the last two years to get a higher tax refund
The Guinean hotel maid accused Strauss-Kahn of chasing her through his luxury New York suite, trying to pull down her pantihose and forcing her to perform oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers, who have insisted that the encounter was consensual, refused to comment on the allegations that the maid was working as a prostitute in the hotel.

The French citizen was enjoying freedom today as he emerged smiling from his Tribeca apartment to hand his wife into a town car.

The couple had no luggage with them as they drove off together this afternoon at around 2pm. They were followed by a second black sedan.

Looking relaxed and ahppy, they showed no ill effects from their celebrations last night, when they dined on a $700 four-course celebration dinner with red and white wines at an exclusive Upper East Side Italian eatery.


Strauss-Kahn partied with his wife Anne Sinclair and another couple at the Scalinatella Ristorante in Manhattan hours after being sensationally handed his freedom without bail as damaging details emerged on the credibility of the hotel maid accusing him of rape.

The one-time candidate for the French presidency enjoyed an antipasti dish of prosciutto and 'orange flesh melon' accompanied by Pinot Grigio, before dining on pappardella with truffles.

Strauss Kahn, 62, then had a main course of Mediterranean sea bass served with Italian red wine.

The charges against Strauss-Kahn, which include attempted rape, have not been reduced, but background investigations of the 'victim' have created 'serious credibility issues' for prosecutors.


Taste of freedom: Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn exits the kitchen of the Scalinatella restaurant on the Upper East Side after being released from house arrest




Experts said that prosecutors could still pursue case against Strauss-Kahn though as it has not been dismissed.

Wearing a jacket but no tie, Strauss Kahn emerged from his house smiling last night before driving to the expensive restaurant with his wife and an elderly couple.

The meal cost between between $600 and $700, according to Luigi Rosso, the restaurant's owner who said the party did not have a reservation.

Strauss-Kahn thanked the chef after the celebratory feast before returning to the Tribeca apartment where he is living.




The 32-year-old hotel maid accused the International Monetary Fund ex-chief of chasing her through his luxury suite in May and raping her.

Forensic tests have revealed the pair definitely had a sexual encounter, but defence lawyers have claimed it was consensual - and public opinion is stunningly starting to shift in his favour.

The move in court signals prosecutors do not see the accusations as ironclad aymore. Strauss-Kahn had been under house arrest for weeks in a Manhattan loft on $6million in cash and bond.

‘It is a great relief,’ said Strauss-Kahn's attorney, William Taylor, adding that the case underscores ‘how easy it is for people to be charged with serious crimes and for there to be a rush to judgement.’

Strauss-Kahn arrived at the courthouse on Friday morning in a Lexus SUV and strode confidently up the granite steps with his wife, French journalist Anne Sinclair, at his side.

After the hearing, he walked slowly out with his arm on her shoulder, smiling slightly at the throng of reporters and members of the public gathered outside.

His passport remained surrendered, and he will not yet be allowed to leave the country. His other attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said Strauss-Kahn would be free to travel within the U.S.

Investigators have come to believe that the accuser lied about some of her activities in the hours around the alleged attack and about her own background, a law enforcement official said.




Prosecutors think she lied about details on her application for asylum in the U.S., including saying she had been raped in her native Guinea, the official said under the condition of anonymity.

In a letter to the court Ms Illuzzi-Orbon laid out in detail the problems with the alleged victim.

SO IS IT ALL A BIG CONSPIRACY?
Many in France have always insisted that he has been the victim of rough American justice.

Some even believe the sex attack charges are a conspiracy cooked up by his political opponents.

'Those who know Dominique Strauss-Kahn will not be surprised by this evolution of events,' one of his French lawyers, Leon Lef Forster, said in Paris.

'What he was accused of has no relation to his personality. It was something that was not credible.'

In her application for asylum to the U.S. for herself and her daughter in 2004 she said that the home she shared with her husband in Guinea was burned down by soldiers for the country's regime.

He was then supposedly put in jail and tortured where he died of his injuries.

This was a lie she later admitted.

She also claimed she had been gang raped by soldiers in Guinea to help her asylum application and cried when recounting this to prosecutors, but later admitted this was a lie.

In addition, she admitted that she lied to a Grand Jury that she waited in the hallway outside the suite where she was attacked until Strauss-Kahn left.

The reality is that she 'proceeded to clean a nearby room' then returning to the suite where she was attacked before cleaning that too. Only then did she report it to her supervisor.

Read More

passenger plane crashed in heavy fog and burst into flames on a highway in north western Russia, killing 44 people

passenger plane crashed in heavy fog and burst into flames on a highway in north western Russia, killing 44 people, officials have said.


The Tupolev-134 aircraft, carrying 43 passengers and nine crew, crashed on its final approach to an airport in the city of Petrozavodsk.
The Emergencies Ministry said the RusAir plane came down on a highway around a mile short of the runway. It broke apart before bursting into flames.
Eight people including a 10-year-old boy are reported to have survived the crash and are in critical condition in hospital in Petrozavodsk.
There is no immediate explanation for the accident but the Interfax news agency quoted airport director Alexei Kuzmitsky as saying there were "unfavourable weather conditions".

This was compounding by the failure of the runway's high-intensity lighting, Alexei Morozov, deputy head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, told the ITAR-Tass news agency.
The jet was travelling from the Russian capital Moscow 400 miles away.
The Emergencies Ministry confirmed the incident on its website and posted a list of 43 passengers.

The plane was travelling from Moscow
The Karelia branch of the ministry said radio contact with the pilot was lost at 11:40pm local time (7:40pm GMT).
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said that the crash appeared to be the result of "pilot error in bad weather" and the crew tried to spot the runway visually and simply landed in the wrong place.
It happened on the eve of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's planned appearance at the Paris Air Show to support dozens of Russian firms seeking sales contracts.
Russian air safety has improved in recent years, particularly operations of Western-built aircraft.
But the safety of Russian-built aircraft remains an issue, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Read More

Far from protecting Europe, a second bail-out of Greece is likely to cost eurozone taxpayers three times the amount of the original by 2014

The debate over the Big Fat Greek Rescue has oscillated wildly between will-they, won’t they and can they can’t they. But now it’s beginning to shift into: should they, shouldn’t they?
The aim of the international mission has always been pretty clear, even if the method hasn’t: Athens must be shored up to protect Greece, the European Union, the euro, the European banking system, and the wider global economy.
Behind the first domino of default, the international authorities have mustered extraordinary support, including the €110bn bail-out agreed last May, plus two vast temporary loan guarantee schemes. Next up is the proposal for a second bail-out, expected to be a further €120bn.
Surely, reckon Europe’s directors, this will be enough to buy a happy ending to even the gloomiest Greek tragedy? But what if the vast support is funding, not the end, but another even more dramatic - and expensive - act of the play?
This is the conclusion of a report by Open Europe, although there’s no entertaining prose here: “This is a debt crisis and someone will have to take losses,” says the London-based think tank. In fact, a second bail-out will wind up costing European taxpayers three times the amount in the end.

 

 

Read More

The entire 2011 census database has been stolen by hackers and will be published online, it has been claimed

Ryan Cleary, an alleged member of the hacking group behind the claim, LulzSec, was arrested in Essex this morning by specialist cyber crime officers from Scotland Yard.
The 19-year-old was taken to a central London police station and remains in custody on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act offences.
A “significant amount of material” was also seized from an address in Wickford, Essex.
The “pre-planned intelligence-led operation” in collaboration with the FBI followed claims online that the 2011 census database had been stolen and would be published in full.
“We have blissfully obtained records of every single citizen who gave their records to the security-illiterate UK government for the 2011 census,” a posting purportedly by LulzSec said.

 

Read More

Foreign secretary William Hague has dismissed Tony Blair's vision for an elected head of the European Union by insisting that member states have more pressing priorities

Foreign secretary William Hague has dismissed Tony Blair's vision for an elected head of the European Union by insisting that member states have more pressing priorities than further "constitutional tinkering".

Hague made clear his view after Blair argued that a directly elected president of Europe, representing almost 400m people from 27 countries, would give the EU clear leadership and enormous authority.

In an interview with the Times, Blair set out the agenda that he thought a directly elected EU president should pursue, although he conceded there was "no chance" of such a post being created "at the present time".

Asked about the former prime minister's call for further European integration and the creation of an elected president, Hague suggested that Blair may have been thinking of the role for himself.

"I can't think who he had in mind," Hague joked.

Speaking at a Lancaster House press conference following talks with his South African counterpart, Hague added: "Elected presidents are for countries. The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.

"So the appropriate solution is not an elected president for a group of countries, it's for those countries each to promote economic growth in their countries, to bring their deficits under control. They are the immediate priorities for Europe, rather than further constitutional tinkering or change."

Blair, speaking to the Times to mark the publication of the his autobiography, A Journey, in paperback, warned that Europe should be ready to unify to avoid losing out to the economic and military power of China and other booming economies, such as Brazil and India.

"We won't have the weight and influence a country like Britain needs unless we're part of that European power as well," Blair said. "Europe has got a fantastic opportunity, but only if it's prepared to reform and change radically in the way it works."

He said the process of holding an election would give Europeans a greater affinity with the EU and would also change citizens' beliefs that unity was only about sustaining peace in Europe.

Blair said: "For Europe, the crucial thing is to understand that the only way you will get support today is not on the basis of a sort of postwar view that the EU is necessary for peace. For my children's generation, that is just a bizarre argument.

"They don't see that as a real threat, that European nations will go to war with each other. But they can understand that in a world in which China is going to become the dominant power of the 21st century, it is sensible for Europe to combine together, to use its collective weight in order to achieve influence. And the rationale for Europe today, therefore, is about power, not peace."

He set out five areas in which the EU should become closer: tax policy and "the social model"; completion of the single market; and in forging a common energy policy; a common defence policy; and a common immigration and organised crime policy.

Read More

EUROPE needs an elected president with a democratic mandate to drive sweeping reforms and give the EU leadership standing on the world stage, Tony Blair says.

THE former British prime minister warned yesterday that the European Union risked losing out to the economic and military might of China, Brazil and India.

The popular consent enjoyed by a directly elected president of Europe -- chosen by an electorate of more than 386 million from 27 countries -- would give the EU clear leadership and enormous authority on the world stage, Mr Blair said. The post would represent a seismic development in the 50-year history of the EU and pave the way for sweeping economic reforms, including collaboration over tax policies.

"The rationale for Europe today is about power, not peace," Mr Blair told The Times of London in an interview to mark the publication of the paperback edition of his autobiography.



Mr Blair set out five areas where the EU should forge closer links to "make us more powerful as a unit": tax policy and fundamental reform of the social model; completion of the single market; forging a common energy policy; a common defence policy; and a common immigration and organised crime policy.

The former Labour leader also said the success of the Arab Spring was hanging in the balance and the West should prepare a massive and enduring economic support package akin to the European Marshall Plan of 1948 for states that embraced democracy. The Gaddafi regime was crumbling, but the allies faced a big task to rebuild Libya.

He said Labour leader Ed Miliband should embrace entrepreneurs and enterprise, be sceptical of the "Blue Labour" embrace of nostalgia and avoid the temptation to move the party to the Left.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, "seems a perfectly nice guy", but there was a question about the durability of the ruling coalition with Conservatives, Mr Blair said.

"The problem (for the Lib Dems) is that it's very hard to fight three elections to the Left of Labour and then end up in a Tory government."

Mr Blair conceded a directly elected EU president had "no chance of being accepted at the present time". But the British and Europeans needed to wake up to the growing economic powers of countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and China. "We won't have the weight and influence a country like Britain needs unless we're part of that European power as well," he said. "Europe has a fantastic opportunity, but only if it's prepared to reform and change radically."

Mr Blair's proposal would give a European president the largest electoral mandate in the world. At present, there is the President of the European Council, the Belgian Herman Van Rompuy, who was chosen by member governments of the EU. Mr Blair, ironically, was for a long time seen as a candidate for the position.

Mr Blair said voters had little love for the European Parliament, the one democratically elected EU body. Electing a president would give European citizens more of an affinity with the EU, he said.

"For Europe, the crucial thing is to understand that the only way that you will get support for Europe today is not on the basis of a sort of post-war view that the EU is necessary for peace.

"For my children's generation, that is just a bizarre argument. They don't see that as a real threat, that European nations will go to war with each other.

"But what they can understand completely is that in a world in particular in which China is going to become the dominant power of the 21st century, it is sensible for Europe to combine together, to use its collective weight in order to achieve influence.

"And the rationale for Europe today therefore is about power, not peace."

Read More

Romania and Bulgaria face new delays in their aspirations to join the European Union's borderless travel zone after EU governments asked on Thursday for more evidence of their anti-corruption efforts.

Romania and Bulgaria face new delays in their aspirations to join the European Union's borderless travel zone after EU governments asked on Thursday for more evidence of their anti-corruption efforts.

EU interior ministers said at a meeting in Luxembourg both newcomers had met technical requirements for having their borders with older members brought down.

But they agreed to wait until at least September before deciding whether to admit Romania and Bulgaria into the Schengen zone, named after a village in Luxembourg where a deal to cut border checks in Europe was signed in 1985.

"We hope that in September we can take this (Romania's and Bulgaria's Schengen accession) to another stage," Hungary's interior minister Sandor Pinter, who chaired the discussions, told a news conference.

Reluctance among EU governments to expand the borderless zone comes at a time when hostility towards immigrants in Europe is fanning a debate over the limits of unrestricted travel.

France and Italy have asked in recent months to change the bloc's rules to allow for temporary restoration of internal borders, citing concerns over an influx of illegal immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to flee violence in North Africa and the Middle East.

Some EU governments say corruption in Romania and Bulgaria also poses a security risk and want to see a European Commission report on improving their justice systems, due around mid-year, before deciding on admitting them.

"Some member states, for example Germany, have made it very clear that they would not support Schengen expansion if the report is negative," one EU diplomat said.

Romania and Bulgaria have struggled to convince their EU partners that judicial reforms are bearing fruit since they joined the bloc in 2007. Monitoring reports by the EU executive have regularly contained strong criticism of the countries, which had hoped to join Schengen in March 2011.

"It is too early to take a decision now, and it may take some time before we are in a position to do so," Dutch minister for asylum and immigration, Gerd Leers, said in Luxembourg.

"The Schengen system is based on mutual trust. We are asking new countries to effectively guard our collective borders."

The two countries, both on the Black Sea, lie on important routes for human trafficking and trading in illegal drugs and arms. They say they are doing what they can to combat abuse.

"I would be calmer if the Mediterranean border of Schengen was guarded so well as Bulgaria and Romania guard their Black Sea border," said a Bulgarian member of the European Parliament from the ruling centre-right GERB party, Andrei Kovachev.

Read More

new system of European governance

the overriding message from the European Commission that runs through its recommendations for each of the 27 member states in the new, post-crisis system of radically centralised oversight and correction of national economic policies by the EU known as the 'European Semester'.



"We are now implementing the new system of European governance," commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, heralding the unveiling of 27 detailed - or 'granular', to use the adjective EU officials use - national prescriptions, telling member states what they are getting right and wrong with their fiscal policies and what they must do to 'fix' their economies.

It goes further than fresh call for austerity: it is a recipe for much deeper liberalisation of the European economy than has yet been seen.

From intervening in collective bargaining to cut wages, to making it easier to fire workers, to a shift away from progressive taxation, through the new system, the EU hopes to utterly transform its member-state economies to be more competitive with the likes of the US, China and emerging economies.

Under the new, six-month system repeated annually, the commission in January sketches out a rough idea of what it expects national economic policies to look like for the coming period, a document that is then endorsed by the European Council, representing the member states.

All 27 states then submit their budgets and broader economic plans to the commission - before they are submitted to national parliaments - to see if they are sufficiently rigorous.

Then in June, in the current and penultimate step in the process, the commission gives its appraisal of these plans, setting out what must be corrected, a series of recommendations that must also win endorsement from the European Council.

Over the following 12-18 months, governments must put in place all the changes ordered by the Council-Commission duo.

If countries are in the eurozone, this oversight is backed up by the imposition of stiff fines for delinquent governments up to a maximum of 0.5 percent of GDP. For an economy the size of Spain, such a fine would amount to €5.25 billion.

In announcing its recommendations, sensitive to accusations of a power grab, the EU executive denied that it was replacing national parliaments: "This is not about dictating policy ... National governments retain responsibility for economic policies implemented in member states."

"But the impact of those policies no longer stops at national borders," it continued, laying out its argument as to why such unprecedented centralisation is necessary: "The commission is the only EU institution with the political autonomy, the technical expertise and the pan-European perspective to be able to oversee this process."

The commission did however acknowledge the anger regular Europeans feel at the austerity and liberalisation that has already been imposed in response to the crisis, but argues there is no alternative and that these changes should have been made years ago.

"There is discontent among citizens in several member states," the EU executive concedes in its main document giving an overview of the changes that it says need to be made.

"However, under the pressure of events, many of the changes needed to remedy structural weaknesses, which have often been delayed for years, are now being considered or implemented."

A mantra - whose wording changes subtly here and there, but whose essence is the same - is repeated through all the documents: "Fiscal room for manoeuvre is very limited."

"We know that achieving the goals we have collectively set ourselves means sometimes hard choices. But these efforts, if made seriously and by all, will allow Europe to leave the crisis behind it and safeguard our future prosperity."

Indeed, with just five centre-left governments remaining in the EU after a series of electoral debacles (two of which, in Spain and Greece, are on their last legs), the right, which also controls the three European institutions, feels increasingly confident that the growing number of strikes and protests are an unrepresentative irrelevance. Most citizens approve of the strategy of austerity, they believe.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Barroso, a conservative himself, crowed how in his native Portugal that parties that rejected austerity had been trounced in the recent general election.

'Insufficient ambition, vague, lacking focus'

Overall, the commission's conclusion is that the economic programmes submitted by the member states "broadly reflect" the priorities it outlined in January, but that some countries, according to Barroso: "show an insufficient level of ambition, and others are lacking in specificity."

"Many member states need to show more ambition when it comes to fiscal consolidation," he said. The commission also described many of the proposed measures as "vague, lacking sufficient focus."

The general semester recommendations for all states call for a review of wage-setting systems to ensure that wages keep in line with productivity in order not to undermine competitiveness. They also look to increasing the statutory retirement age across Europe and then automatically linking regular adjustments to this age to changes in life-expectancy. Early retirement should also be phased out.

Such efforts will not be easy to implement in many places. Efforts to increase the French retirement age last year provoked widespread strikes and blockades that paralysed much of the country as critics argued that such changes would hit blue-collar workers hardest and increase youth unemployment.

Governments should make it easier to hire and fire workers, the commission also recommends, although the language deployed is a more technocratic call to "rebalance employment protection."

"Urgent action" should be taken to ease the regulation of companies while payroll taxes should be reduced.

Brussels has also called for taxation in general to be shifted away from labour, where the higher the income, the higher the rate paid, and onto consumption, where everyone pays the same rate, regardless of income levels.

It is not all dour news however: the recommendations in many cases also call for efforts to reduce school drop-out rates, increase the participation of women in the workforce, boost support for vocational training and life-long learning, and achieve greater energy efficiency.

However, the reality is that almost all countries apart from Britain will have to significantly up their game.

The thread running through almost all the recommendations is that the masochism must continue.

Highlights

COUNTRIES UNDER EU-IMF TUTELAGE

NB. Five governments, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal, and Romania, received only one recommendation: to follow through on the austerity and structural adjustment imposed in return for national bail-outs.

AUSTRIA

- Accelerate deficit reduction

- Consolidate the health-care sector

- Phase out early retirement

- Increase women's statutory retirement age

- Stricter conditions on invalid pensions

- Reduce labour taxation and social security contributions

- Further liberalise trades and professions

BELGIUM

- Increase effective retirement age

- More ambition in reducing deficit, further spending cuts

- Reform wage bargaining and wage indexation to match productivity gains

- Shift taxation from labour to VAT and green taxes

- Boost retail, energy sector competition

BULGARIA

- Speed up austerity

- Introduce 'debt brake'

- Speed up pension reform

- Keep older workers in employment longer

- Reform wage bargaining and wage indexation to match productivity gains

- Expand the temp agency market

- Abolish electricity and gas price controls

CYPRUS

- Use any extra revenues for faster debt and deficit reduction

- Strengthen supervision of banks and credit co-operatives

- Extend the years of pension contribution

- Increase water prices

- Link the statutory retirement age to life expectancy

- Reform wage bargaining and wage indexation to match productivity gains

CZECH REPUBLIC

- Further austerity in the event of 2011 revenue shortfalls

- Faster increase in the retirement age than planned

- Promote private pension savings

- Increase availability of part-time jobs

- Link university funding to performance reviews

DENMARK

- Speed up deficit reduction if economy improves

- Introduce debt brakes for local, regional and central government

- Phase out early retirement

- Reform disability pensions

- Review land-use legislation

- Liberalise municipal and regional public procurement

- Reform mortgage rules and property taxes

ESTONIA 

- Reduce taxation and social security contributions

FINLAND 

- Link the statutory retirement age to life expectancy

- Further liberalise the services sector, especially retail

- Use any windfall revenues to reduce the deficit faster

- Further measures to achieve cost savings in public sector

- Introduce structural changes to respond to an ageing population

FRANCE 

- Use any windfall revenues to accelerate debt and deficit reduction

- Further measures to reform the pensions system if needed

- Ease employment protections

- Limit minimum wage growth

- Shift taxation from labour to VAT and green taxes

- Further liberalise trades and professions and services and retail sectors

GERMANY 

- Restructure regional banks - the 'Landesbanken'

- Liberalise professional services and craft sector

- Extend debt brake to regional level

HUNGARY 

- Insufficient austerity

- Use any windfall revenues to reduce the deficit faster

- Ease regulation of business

- Expand the powers of the Fiscal Council, a body of economic experts independent of government that advises on budgets

- Lower labour taxation

ITALY 

- Speed up debt and deficit reduction

- Introduce 'debt brake'

- Reform employment protection

- Reform wage bargaining to match productivity gains

- Make it easier to dismiss employees

- Further liberalise services sector

LITHUANIA 

- Lower social assistance and eliminate "disincentives to work"

- Shift taxation toward energy use and increase energy taxation

- Liberalise "very strict labour regulations"

- Reform state enterprises "prone to inefficiencies"

- Speed up deficit reduction

- Introduce 'debt brake'

- Expand temp work sector

LUXEMBOURG

- Further reduce the deficit

- Discourage early retirement

- Link the statutory retirement age to life expectancy

- Reform wages setting system and link wages to productivity

MALTA

- Further austerity to prevent excessive 2011 deficit if necessary

- Introduce 'debt brake'

- Accelerate the increase in retirement age and link it to life expectancy

- Eliminate wage indexation

NETHERLANDS

- Increase the statutory retirement age and link it to life expectancy

- Raise the effective retirement age

- Prepare a blueprint for reform of long-term elderly care

- Introduce road tolls

POLAND

- Introduce 'debt brake'

- Eliminate early retirement for miners and armed forces

- Raise statutory retirement age for women

- Reform the farmers' social security fund to encourage them to leave the sector

- Streamline construction and zoning legislation

SLOVAKIA

- Introduce ‘debt brake' for central government and social security

- Create an independent ‘Fiscal Council' - a body composed of economic experts independent of government to advise on budgets

- Link retirement age to life expectancy

SLOVENIA

- Introduce incentives to retire later

- Reduce ‘asymmetries' between protections of permanent and temp workers

SPAIN

- Deeper budget cuts if revenues prove worse than projected

- Introduce ‘debt brake' for both national and regional governments

- Warns against the parliament introducing changes to law raising retirement age

- Further measures to raise the effective retirement age

- Warns over role of local authorities in governance of savings banks

- Overhaul the "unwieldy" collective bargaining system, going beyond the current labour market reforms

- Move away from sectoral bargaining to firm-by-firm bargaining

- End automatic extension of collective agreements

- End wage indexation

- Deliver greater wage flexibility

- Reduce employer social security contributions and replace lost revenues with increased or broadened VAT and increased energy taxes, especially fuel taxes

SWEDEN

- Reform mortgage rules

- Reform property taxes

- Reform rent controls and subsidies

UK

- Warns against "slippage" in spending cuts

- Further competition in the banking sector

Read More

It would appear the great global housing recovery of 2011 has been put on hold.

Sales and prices in developed countries are losing momentum after signs of recovery last year, Scotia Capital said Thursday. In some cases, the gains have been wiped out as “increasing nervousness over global economic prospects alongside rising food and fuel prices and persistently high unemployment are keeping potential buyers on the sidelines.”

While cheaper housing will eventually benefit those looking to wade into the market, the bank said that it could be some time before the market in countries such as Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom recover.

The process of repairing bloated public and household balance sheets points to a protracted period of subpar economic growth among debt-heavy developed nations that will restrain household borrowing and spending,” the bank said in a report. “A generally more cautious lending environment also will hold back the pace of recovery.

Highlights from the report, starting with the ugly:

Australia: “Australia’s seemingly impermeable housing boom has languished in recent months. While benefiting from strong economic growth and low unemployment, record high home prices alongside a series of interest rate increases by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) are eroding the nation’s already highly strained affordability. Average home prices in Q1 were unchanged from a year earlier, and down 3½ per cent adjusted for inflation. While the RBA has put further rate hikes on hold for now, the eventual resumption of monetary tightening will reinforce the more muted housing outlook.”

U.K.: “Real estate markets also took a step back in early 2011 following a shortlived recovery last year. Average inflation-adjusted home prices were down 4 per cent y/y in Q1. Notwithstanding ultra-low borrowing costs, recent tax breaks for home buyers and an easing in lending conditions, aggressive fiscal austerity measures and persistently high unemployment will continue to depress activity in the near-term.”

Spain: “Spain’s three-year and counting housing slump shows no sign of letting up. Following steep price declines from 2008-2010, average inflation-adjusted home prices were down more than 8 per cent y/y in Q1 (and a cumulative 20 per cent from their peak). Prices are likely to fall further in the coming year given a massive glut of unsold homes, soaring double-digit unemployment, the elimination of mortgage funding for low income families at the beginning of 2011 and a dearth of foreign vacation property buyers. Average home prices were also still declining in Italy as of the end of 2010.”

U.S.: “Real estate markets have softened again after some encouraging signs of bottoming last year. Average inflation-adjusted home prices were down 5 per cent y/y in Q1. High unemployment and tight credit availability are restraining demand, while a large volume of distressed properties is adding to the downward pressure on prices. The modest pickup in sales over the past six months has been primarily of investor-driven foreclosed properties, with little evidence of broader homebuyer activity since the expiry of purchase incentives in early 2010. Despite gradually improving job markets and near-record housing affordability, the expected addition of at least another 1 million foreclosed properties to the market this year suggests more downside price risk in 2011 after already falling almost 35 per cent (in real terms) from the peak.”

The better:

France: “Average real prices were up 7 per cent y/y in Q1, though weakening global growth expectations may limit further price gains in the near-term. In Germany, for which only annual price data are available, real home prices increased in 2010 for first time in over a decade. Demand and pricing have firmed alongside a strong economy, rising exports and the lowest unemployment rate in three decades. Nonetheless, Germany’s declining population will limit the extent of sustainable price appreciation in coming years.”

Canada: “Reported positive real price appreciation in the first quarter of 2011, with average inflation adjusted home prices up 5 per cent y/y in Q1. The national average, however, is skewed by strong sales, including by foreign buyers, of high-priced properties in the Greater Vancouver Area. Excluding Vancouver, average real prices were up less than 1 per cent y/y in Q1, consistent with a more balanced national market. Housing sales in Canada, while below the record-setting pace seen in at the height of the boom in 2005-2007, are being supported by steady job creation and still attractive borrowing costs. Relatively tight supply is adding to price pressures in several cities. Nonetheless, high home prices, the further tightening in mortgage insurance rules effective mid-March, and the upward drift in fixed mortgage rates this year appear to have slowed demand somewhat, most notably among first-time buyers. We anticipate relatively flat sales volumes and average prices through the latter half of the year.”

Others: “Switzerland reported steady real price increases averaging 4 per cent y/y through Q1, while prices in Sweden were unchanged from a year earlier. Irish property prices rebounded sharply -- and unexpectedly -- in the latter half of 2010, albeit following double-digit declines in both 2008 and 2009. With the Irish economy still marred in recession, and facing an oversupply of housing, the recent upturn will likely prove temporary despite the best housing affordability in a decade.”

Read More

Italy's foreign minister said Libya's uprising had approached a turning point with Col. Moammar Gadhafi's rule coming to an end,

Italy's foreign minister said Libya's uprising had approached a turning point with Col. Moammar Gadhafi's rule coming to an end, and that the country sought an immediate ceasefire in Libya after Gadhafi's fall.

"Four months after the uprising in Libya, we are coming to a turning point: Gadhafi's rule is coming to an end," Franco Frattini said in a speech at the third meeting of the so-called contact group on Libya.

"Our priority is an effective ceasefire following Gadhafi's exit,"

Frattini said at the meeting hosted in the U.A.E. capital of Abu Dhabi. Arab and Western leaders gathered at the meeting said they were committed to working out legal mechanisms to help Libya's National Transitional Council receive funds from frozen Libyan assets worldwide. They also said they waited to hear a political plan from Libya's rebel leaders for a "post conflict" future.

The Council is being represented at the Abu Dhabi meeting by the rebels' de facto foreign minister Mahmoud Jibril, among other officials including finance and oil minister Ali Tarhouni. Tarhouni earlier Thursday appealed for urgent financial commitments, and said the meeting would be a failure if none were secured.

A spokesperson for Italy's foreign minister, Maurizio Massari, separately said the meeting would focus on making sure funds flow to the Transitional Council in coming weeks.

Italy has committed between EUR300 million and EUR400 million in loan and fuel products to Libya, Massari said. Libya's rebel officials said they hoped to seal a deal to import fuel from Italy.

"The [Transitional Council] is telling us that if financial help from the international community doesn't come soon, they are facing severe problems, also [with] legitimacy vis-??-vis the people," he said.

Besides approving a way for individual nations to provide loans to the Council-under a mechanism announced at a meeting in Rome in May--the meeting sought to reach an agreement on unfreezing Libyan assets, he added.

Italy was also keen to discuss securing an "inclusive political process" for Libya as an alternative to Gadhafi's regime. "The alternative could only be a very inclusive political process of national reconciliation including all the components of Libyan society," Massari said.

"We expect the [Council] to come out with a more detailed roadmap on how they intend to manage this political transition for Libya after Gadhafi," he added.

Massari said the issue of sending ground troops into Libya wasn't on Thursday's agenda, and has not been on the international agenda more broadly.

Read More

European Central Bank (ECB) has signalled that it will raise interest rates next month, from 1.25%.

Earlier on Thursday, the ECB kept rates unchanged for the second month in a row, after increasing them in April for the first time in almost two years.

The central bank wants to raise rates again in July to curb inflation in some of the eurozone's 17 member states.

But it has to balance that against the need to leave rates low to boost growth in nations such as Greece and Portugal.

In his press conference, ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet pledged to exert "strong vigilance" on inflation, a signal to the markets that rates will be raised at the next meeting.

"I would say... that it means that we are in a mode where there might be in the next meeting an increase of rates," he said. "But we are never pre-committed," he added.


A July move may prove to be the last”


UK interest rates remain at 0.5%
However, Mr Trichet added that since the ECB's May meeting there has been "continued upward pressure on overall inflation mainly owing to commodity and energy prices".

Inflation in the eurozone was 2.7% in May. The ECB increased its forecast on inflation for 2011 to 2.6% from its previous prediction of 2.3%.

The bank also increased its economic growth forecast for 2011 to 1.9% from 1.7%.

Read More

tanker is believed to have exploded at the plant in Pembroke Dock.

Fire crews have been called from across the area to tackle the blaze.
A spokesman for Chevron said: "At 18:20 local time on June 2 2011 an incident occurred at the Pembroke refinery.
"Emergency services were called and responded immediately and remain on the scene.
"The fire has been extinguished.
"We are taking appropriate action to respond to the situation. We are still in the process of accounting for all personnel."
According to the company website, the Pembroke Dock refinery specialises in processing heavy, lower quality crudes.

Read More

Military officers and civilians detained in prostitution probe

Military officers and civilians detained in prostitution probe: "police yesterday detained about 40 suspects, including at least five military officers, in an investigation being conducted by the İstanbul Prosecutor's Office into a gang that allegedly documented the personal information of bureaucrats and military officers and recorded footage of them in compromising positions in order to blackmail them"

Read More

How Paul Stretford has made a fortune from Wayne Rooney and wife Coleen | The Sun |Sport|Football

How Paul Stretford has made a fortune from Wayne Rooney and wife Coleen | The Sun |Sport|Football: "ALEX FERGUSON had a target in his sights as he faced up to the prospect of losing Wayne Rooney this week.
He complained: 'We're dealing with agents who live in the pockets of players.'
And the agent negotiating Rooney's imminent exit from Manchester United stands to pocket at least £2.5million from the move.
Paul Stretford has already made a fortune off the back of his most famous client, since acquiring the player's services eight years ago.
But behind the sharp suits and lucrative deals lies an extraordinary tale of gangsters, threats, deceit, lies, dodgy lawyers and blackmail.
As top investigative journalist John Sweeney sets out in his book 'Rooney's Gold', the fight for access to the England star's bank balance reads more like an underworld crime thriller than a sports biography.
The dramatic full story was finally revealed in a bitter court battle, which ended with Stretford being dismissed as an unreliable witness and subsequently banned and fined by the FA."

Read More

Kent News - Blackmailers jailed after sending in 'Mad Jack'

Kent News - Blackmailers jailed after sending in 'Mad Jack': "blackmailer who sent a heavily-scarred bodybuilder nicknamed ‘Mad Jack' to collect £400,000 from a rival businessman has been jailed for two years and four months.

Lakhbir Bhana, 41, from Gravesend, ordered the henchman to obtain the cash from haulage boss Colin Basi.

Bhana, nicknamed ‘Lucky', co-conspirators Surjit Bhalla, 29, of Staines, and Ajmal Ellahi, 34, of Birmingham, and ‘Mad Jack', real name John Francis Phillips, 49, of Reading, were all found guilty of conspiracy to blackmail at Maidstone Crown Court on Monday, July 26.

They were all sentenced at the same court on Wednesday, October 20.

The court heard how the four men engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to obtain the six-figure sum from Mr Basi.

They were led by Bhana, the director of Dyneema, a Gravesend construction company that carried out works for Medway-based haulage firm KKB."

Read More

Celeb blackmailed over 'sensitive' pics | The Sun |News

Celeb blackmailed over 'sensitive' pics | The Sun |News: "MAN has been found guilty of blackmailing an international superstar with 'highly sensitive' photos stolen from her home.
The celebrity received threatening letters and emails from Stephen Bennett, 24, demanding tens of thousands of pounds in cash for the shots.
It was reported Bennett used Facebook and Google to get in touch with the star.
The musician — who has a house in London — cannot be named because of a strict court order banning publication of her personal details.
The crook threatened to go public with 27 potentially embarrassing photos taken from her laptop"

Read More

The Press Association: Tube death man 'was wearing women's clothes'

The Press Association: Tube death man 'was wearing women's clothes': "middle-aged man allegedly pushed to his death under a Tube train at King's Cross underground station was wearing women's clothes, sources have said.
He died after he was struck by a train at the station at 6.30pm on Monday, British Transport Police (BTP) said.
His companion was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder. She had to be restrained by a fellow passenger until police arrived, BTP said."

Read More

“instantly recognisable” celebrity received a series of threatening letters from the blackmailer demanding cash in exchange for 27 images

“instantly recognisable” celebrity received a series of threatening letters from the blackmailer demanding cash in exchange for 27 images stored on one of two Apple Mac laptops which were taken in a burglary at her London home.
The musician, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would have suffered enormous personal distress and humiliation if the photographs had been made public, a court heard.


She has taken out a court order banning the media from disclosing her name, age, nationality and whether she is in a relationship or has children. The exact nature of what appeared in the photographs has not been disclosed.
Sebastian Bennett, 24, was convicted of blackmail and handling stolen goods at Isleworth Crown Court on Monday following an investigation by Scotland Yard.
The unemployed fitness fanatic called himself Dave64 and Dave Smith during his blackmail campaign against the celebrity.
The ordeal began last November when the pop star lost her house keys, possibly during a trip to the local hairdresser’s salon.

Read More

Project Folkstone focused on a “criminal organization” involved in a cross-border gun smuggling operation that specialized in trafficking illegal guns

Project Folkstone focused on a “criminal organization” involved in a cross-border gun smuggling operation that specialized in trafficking illegal guns in the GTA. Police said that criminal organization was smuggling guns into Canada from the U.S., along with various drugs including cocaine, marijuana and heroin.David Barker, 39, of Windsor, is charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, weapons trafficking and commission of an offence for a criminal organization.
Jason Tompkins, 35, of Windsor, is charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, commission of an offence for a criminal organization, importing firearms and trafficking weapons.Police said Tompkins was a “main player” in the criminal operation who liaised with the gun sources in Kentucky and the buyers here.
“He was facilitating the transport and smuggling of the guns coming into the country,” said Corey.Police nabbed two other Windsor men, but their names haven’t been released. They were all shipped to Newmarket.

Read More

Russians are on trial in the United States in at least three separate cases involving gun crimes

Russians are on trial in the United States in at least three separate cases involving gun crimes, including a waiting-room murder, a Kalashnikov-armed gang of thieves and a repeat-offender bank robber.Oregon prosecutors are struggling to solve a mysterious murder in which a Russian-speaking unlicensed dentist is accused of shooting another Russian-speaking man believed to be his patient.
Viktor Gebauer, 79, has pleaded not guilty in the fatal shooting of Viktor Merezhnikov, 47, whose body was found in a chair in what prosecutors are calling a makeshift waiting room at Gebauer's home in Gresham, Oregon, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.Deputy district attorney Chris Ramras said a motive for the Feb. 18 shooting has not been established. "We may never know," he was quoted as saying.He said both men had immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union, but he did not know from which former republics. Gebauer, who speaks no English, became a U.S. citizen in 1998 and had practiced dentistry for years without a license, local media reported.
Ramras said the victim called his brother, Vladimir Merezhnikov, "to say he was being held at gunpoint by Gebauer, who was threatening to kill him," The Associated Press reported. When the brother arrived, Gebauer opened the door holding a gun and threatened to shoot him. Merezhnikov saw his brother slumped in a chair before Gebauer closed the door again, the report said.Gebauer later surrendered to police. He told them he had never seen Viktor Merezhnikov before and alleged the victim tried to rob him by using a knife, the AP said. Citing court documents, The Associated Press said the victim was found shot in the abdomen.The victim's wife, Raisa, told the police her husband had visited Gebauer's home in the past. She said her husband "did not own a knife like the one found in his left hand, and that he was right-handed," the AP said.
In an unrelated case, Pennsylvania police have accused three young men believed to be Russian of a series of armed robberies with Kalashnikov assault rifles, local media reported.Maksim Illarionov is suspected of masterminding a series of robberies over the past weeks, the Centre Daily Times reported on its web site Thursday.
Illarionov, 21, was arrested March 3, with Dmitriy Litvinov, 23, and Alexei Semionov, 28, local media reported. They were caught in possession of stolen goods and stolen weapons after they allegedly burglarized homes in the town State College. All three are awaiting trial in jail, local WJAC television reported on its web site.While being escorted by police, Illarionov said the charges against him were “Russian propaganda,” the Centre Daily Times reported. When searching the homes linked to the suspects, police said they found four guns, including two AK-47 rifles.In a comment posted on the paper's web site, a user under the name of LakeErie claimed that he was the guns' owner and that Litvinov "was swearing friendship to me not long ago." Police said one of the Kalashnikovs was discovered in Litvinov's mother's home."I am Russian myself and there is good and bad people among us, just like anywhere else. So please don't judge all of us on example of 3 retards," the entry reads.
In a third case, a former Soviet fighter pilot might face up to life in prison after robbing a bank in upstate New York for the second time in almost 20 years.Alexander Borisov, 46, pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery at a hearing in Dutchess County Court last week, the Poughkeepsiejournal.com reported.Borisov admitted to entering the First Niagara Bank in Millerton on Nov. 30, threatening a teller with a gun and fleeing with some cash. He was caught by police minutes later after abandoning a stolen car.He robbed the same bank in December 1991 and two banks in Connecticut during the following four weeks, Poughkeepsiejournal.com said.

Read More

Christopher Tres Cadejuste, of the 500 block Oak Hill Lane, allegedly fired the gun at the victim

Christopher Tres Cadejuste, of the 500 block Oak Hill Lane, allegedly fired the gun at the victim, the ex-boyfriend of Cadejuste's girlfriend, after the two men had a physical altercation in 700 block of Edgar Drive around 9:16 p.m., according to police.
The men were arguing about an previous altercation between the victim and Cadejuste's girlfriend, according to police.Cadejuste, 17, has been charged as an adult with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and malicious destruction of property, according to court records.His is being held without bond at the Wicomico County Detention Center and has a District Court hearing scheduled for March 22.

Read More

unnamed accused serial rapist demanded tougher gun control laws from his hospital bed in suburban Philadelphia

unnamed accused serial rapist demanded tougher gun control laws from his hospital bed in suburban Philadelphia earlier today, just hours after being admitted by police for a gun shot wound incurred while attempting to assault a local woman. Lawyers for the alleged rapist charged their client was “the real victim of this assault,” and warned that easy access to legal firearms was “[Making] committing a rape or other violent crime nearly impossible in many suburban areas.”
“She shot me in the privates,” bemoaned the wounded accused. “I was just trying to hold her down so I could have my way with her without her consent, and she just shoots me in the privates! How and I ever going to commit a rape again?”
In addition to a complete ban on private gun ownership, the accused lawyers demanded an investigation into hate crimes allegations against the shooter who, allegedly, uttered disparaging comments toward her attacker of a racially insensitive nature, and unfairly questioned his sexual orientation during the attempted assault. “Some guy’s trying to rape her, and she attacks his sexual orientation? What more proof do you need that she’s dangerous and insane,” asked the lawyer.
According to police reports, the gun shot victim was reported by the shooter to police for allegedly following her home from work, attempting to block her access into her apartment, and exposing himself to her through her bathroom window over a two week period beginning last month. Police sources said they “were getting around” to investigating the charges however were delayed due to excessively high workload caused by “[An] unprecedented wave of broken tail lights, people parking near fire lanes, and the maintenance of three new speed traps on local roads.”
“We just do not have the time to run out and follow up on every call made by someone who’s worried that something bad might happen to them. If the department was to go out and try to protect people from crimes before they happened, that’s all we’d do,” defended a police department spokesman. “Call us after you are the victim of a crime, then we can give it the proper lip service it deserves. Anything else is pretty much just a waste of our time.”
A prominent gun control advocate made additional charges against the shooter by claiming inside information that the firearm used in the shooting, “Was purchased just days before from a local gun shop after the mandatory three day waiting period.” “This vigilante just decided on her own to take the law into her own hands all because some poor man was pounding on her door at three in the morning shouting, ‘Let me in or I’m going to kill you.’ Well, a few days later he did break in, and you see the terrible consequences. As is always the case in these situations, it is not the home owner who gets hurt, but, the intruder who wants nothing more than to commit a little random violence who is the victim of gun crime. You know, just because you don’t want to get injured or killed does not give you the right to defend yourself.”
A close associate of the injured accused rapist warned that the attack on his friend was far from an isolated incident, “There are just too many guns on the street. This kind of thing happens day in and day out. I mean, I go through all the trouble of breaking into a house; I’m tense, I’m nervous, of course I’m going to want to attack the people inside like some kind of animal. What else do you expect me to do? I used to love home invasions… Now, I have to worry about getting shot every time I climb through a kitchen window naked. If this keeps up, there won’t be any more opportunities for violent psychopaths like myself to take my rage out on the innocent around me. They what will we do?

Read More

68-YEAR-OLD pensioner and her three grandchildren were gunned down while asleep

68-YEAR-OLD pensioner and her three grandchildren were gunned down while asleep at their home at Gonzales, Belmont shortly after midnight on Sunday.Four-year-old Zara Sylvester and her aunt Jehial Roberts, 22, were also shot and wounded. Those murdered were Carmen Mc Hutchinson, 68, and siblings Asha Roberts, 23, Javon Roberts, 18, and LL Roberts, 13. Up to late yesterday little Zara, who was shot in the chest, was warded in a critical condition at the Wendy Fitzwilliam Paediatric Hospital in Mount Hope. Asha was her mother. Jehial is warded at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) in a stable condition. She is under police guard. Mario Mc Hutchinson, 43, the father of Asha, Javon, LL and Jehial, was at home at the time and managed to escape by jumping through a window of the house. Carmen was his mother. Yesterday, he was counting his lucky stars for being alive, but was grieving the deaths of his mother and three of his four children. “I had to jump through the window to save myself and one of the other children. It was a horrific ordeal, one that I will never forget, and one I will not talk about,” Mc Hutchinson said.

Mc Hutchinson’s wife Eunalia Roberts, cried for justice for her mother-in-law and children yesterday. “My husband had to throw my daughter through the window and jump to get away. I work hard. I am building my home for my family. And this is what I get in return. I don’t do anybody anything. I know if I don’t get justice from the police, I will get it from God,” Eunalia said in a television interview last night.
Eunalia is a security guard and was stationed at WASA’s compound in Laventille on the night of the murders. She had to be consoled by relatives at the Forensic Science Centre in St James, where her sister Pamela Roberts-Glasgow blamed the killings on gang violence.

“Massacre, massacre, massacre. Oh God! They kill my niece and two nephews. They shoot the little child too, and she now fighting for her life. Oh God! This is just a massacre,” Roberts-Glasgow cried.

According to a police report, at about 12.30 am yesterday three gunmen broke down two doors of the house where the family lived at Hubert Lane, Gonzales and entered. The gunmen went into the bedrooms and opened fire on the sleeping occupants, killing four and wounding two. Up to 10.30 am yesterday, a team of officers led by Insp Sahadeo Singh was still on the crime scene carrying out investigations, while police and soldiers patrolled the area. Roberts-Glasgow told reporters she believed the murders occurred because two teenagers from Bath Street, East Dry River, Port-of-Spain went to Hubert Lane to have their hair braided by Jehial on Carnival Monday.
Roberts-Glasgow said members from the Gonzales gang on seeing the Bath Street boys, became angry and began threatening Jehial. “They felt she should not allow the boys from Bath Street to come into the area because they said the boys from Bath Street killed the father of one of them.

The Bath Street gang and the Gonzales gang always warring against each other, but this has nothing to do with them and that nonsense,” Roberts-Glasgow said.

“Imagine just because the two little boys came to get their hair done people want to get vex. We don’t meddle with anybody and if Jehial and them don’t have anything against people from Bath Street why they have to get threats, and even get shot and killed by other people who don’t like it? That is not their business who talks to who,” she added. Roberts-Glasgow said yesterday’s tragedy was the second to strike the family in the last five years. She said on August 5, 2005, her sister, Sherma Roberts, 30, and her neighbour Donna George, 47, were each shot once in the head at Sherma’s home at Carnelian Gardens, Diamond Vale. The trend of gangs killing entire families is reminiscent of the Dole Chadee murders, where members of the Baboolal family were massacred in Williamsville in 1994. The only survivors were two children, a boy Osmond and his sister Hematee, and they were spared by one of the killers, Levi Morris. Chadee and nine others were convicted and hanged by the State for these murders in 1996. More disturbingly, is the unrepentant killings of children under 18 in recent cases such as the murder of Quantia Hyndman, eight, who was shot dead at his home in Five Rivers, Arouca. His sister Dinesha Hyndman, 12, was also shot and survived. No one has been arrested for this brutal assault on the children which investigators said was an act of revenge for three drug-related murders.

Read More

judge in Peru who pulled a gun on a photojournalist

judge in Peru who pulled a gun on a photojournalist is now saying he confused him for a thief.Perhaps he thought Carlos Saavedra was going to steal his soul with the camera.Either way, the photo made the cover of Caretas this month, the leading newsweekly magazine in Peru.And the incident is now being addressed by the Committee to Protect Journalists.The incident occurred February 13 when Saavedra was attempting to photograph Judge Raul Rosales Mora over the appointment of a controversial judge to the country’s Constitutional Tribunal.Rosales was leaving home in his car in the Lima neighborhood of Lince when he asked Saavedra to come closer.When the Caretas photojournalist approached, the judge pointed a gun at him and told him to be careful, according to Caretas.Rosales later said he thought Saavedra was a thief. But nobody is buying that story.

Read More

gang-related shootout Monday afternoon.

Two Visalia schools were on lockdown, after a gang-related shootout Monday afternoon. It happened on Conyer and Tulare Avenue near Mount Whitney High School.Investigators said a van drove by an apartment complex -- and someone inside the van started shooting. At the same time, they said people at the apartment shot back at the van.
No injuries were reported -- but Mount Whitney High School and nearby Conyer School were on lockdown for about forty-five minutes.Police said they've recovered a gun believed to be involved in the shooting and expect to make arrests soon.

Read More

Aidan Byrne, undeterred by the threats against his life, Byrne had also agreed to act as a gun for hire on behalf of major gang bosses.

Aidan Byrne, undeterred by the threats against his life, Byrne had also agreed to act as a gun for hire on behalf of major gang bosses.The sordid life of the father of one, who was lured to his death, was revealed yesterday as gardai stepped up the hunt for his killer, who made off on foot after shooting him 10 times in the chest, stomach and upper body as he sat in the passenger seat of a parked car on the northside of Dublin city.Byrne (33) was aligned with one of the factions involved in the deadly north-inner-city feud, which had already claimed four lives. This feud was ignited after groups took sides when gang leader Christy Griffin was charged with the rape a young girl.Gardai believe the feud connection is the most likely motive for the cold-blooded murder on Saturday night.But they are also looking at a number of other possible theories. Byrne's most high profile "contract" was to carry out the murder of a notorious gang boss in Finglas and he was arrested along with another suspect after he was spotted with a firearm near his target's house last year.
According to intelligence, a "contract" was then put on his head and taken up by another criminal.Although he was said to have agreed to carry out a number of shootings for money, gardai have no convincing evidence that he ever followed through.But his behaviour as a hardened thug resulted in an accumulation of enemies and persistent underworld tip-offs led to gardai warning Byrne several times in the past couple of years that there was a "price" on his head and advised him to take security precautions.Last year he survived an attack on his life at Fairview Park on the northside of the city when shots were fired at him.He was in trouble again earlier this month in Cloverhill Prison, where he was on remand after being charged in connection with the theft of a large haul of electrical goods.He was slashed on the side of the face by another inmate and had to receive 60 stitches. That attack was thought to have been linked to a five-year jail sentence he had served previously for raping two prostitutes in a brothel.In the past fortnight he had successfully applied for bail and on his release had been regularly wearing a bullet-proof vest.
But he had decided to dispense with it on Saturday night after he arranged to meet an unknown associate to discuss a business deal.He contacted a friend, who agreed to drive him to the meeting and parked the grey Toyota Corolla car at Drumalee Avenue, off the North Circular Road, shortly after 8.30pm on Saturday.His friend jumped out of the car and walked into a nearby house. The gunman had apparently been lying in wait and ran towards the Corolla, where Byrne was sitting in the front passenger seat.He fired 10 shots from a semi- automatic pistol and then ran off down a laneway, either into Drumalee Park or Aughrim Street.Detectives arrested the driver of the car for questioning on Sunday afternoon and he was taken into custody at the Bridewell garda station.He was still being held there last night under the Criminal Justice Act 2007 and can be held without charge for a maximum of seven days.

Read More

Authorities are searching for a man who they say robbed the Anderson Township Sunoco and fired a gun at a witness

Authorities are searching for a man who they say robbed the Anderson Township Sunoco and fired a gun at a witness Sunday evening. No one was injured.According to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, the suspect entered the gas station, 6090 Sutton Road, around 7:40 p.m. He approached the counter with a bottle of Vodka and asked the clerk a question, then showed a handgun and demanded cash. He took an undisclosed amount of cash and several packs of cigarettes and ran south on Sutton Road, according to the sheriff’s office.
When a man who saw the robbery began to chase the suspect, the suspect turned and fired one gunshot at the man, according to the sheriff’s office. The witness was not hit. The suspect then got into a dark-colored vehicle and fled north on Interstate 275, according to the sheriff’s office.
The suspect is described as a white man, 18 to 25 years old. He is 5-feet, 5-inches to 5-feet, 8-inches tall and weighs around 160 pounds. He was wearing a gray long-sleeved shirt, dark jeans, a red hat and a black scarf over his face

Read More

man who they believe attacked a UW student on a downtown bike path over the weekend

Madison Police are searching for a man who they believe attacked a UW student on a downtown bike path over the weekend.The victim, a 20-year-old woman, told officers she was walking on the bike path in the 100 block of N. Mills St. Saturday around 7:40 p.m. when a man approached her with a gun and grabbed her purse.She says the robber fled west on the bike path.The suspect is described as a man possibly of Asian ethnicity between 20-25 years old, 5'6", 150 lbs. medium build with dark eyes and heavy dark eyebrows, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt with hood up, black knit mask covering his nose and mouth and dark pants.The gun was black with a long barrel. The victim's purse is dark brown with a light brown trim, rectangular with a peace sign decoration.

Read More

Heavily armed gunman has killed himself after an eight-hour siege in central Queensland.

Heavily armed gunman has killed himself after an eight-hour siege in central Queensland.Police have refused to confirm if the man opened fire on a marked police car while holed up in a house in the coal mining town of Moranbah.
Officers say the man broke into the home on Monday afternoon and while alone inside fired a weapon several times.Negotiators were unable to talk him out and he shot himself, reportedly in front of officers, about 10pm (AEST).The incident will be investigated by the Ethical Standards Command.A report is being prepared for the coroner.During the drama, police prevented some residents from returning home, while others were instructed to stay locked inside their houses.

Read More

Javaris Crittendon, the “other” player involved in the infamous Showdown at the OK Corral style standoff in the Verizon Center locker room

Guard Javaris Crittendon, the “other” player involved in the infamous Showdown at the OK Corral style standoff in the Verizon Center locker room, plead guilty to a misdemeanor gun charges Monday in D.C. Superior Court.Reports of the possibility of Crittendon being charged with a gun crime began to pop up on multiple websites early Monday morning, with the Washington Post first reporting confirmation that Crittendon would be charged Monday afternoon.The charges come on the heels of reports that have surfaced in the weeks following the incident and related charges for guard Gilbert Arenas that seemed to suggest that Crittendon may, in fact, not be charged with a crime at all after investigators interviews with teammates turned up contradictory reports and a search of his Arlington home failed to produce the weapon in question. It is unclear exactly how or when investigators decided to proceed with prosecution of Crittendon despite the absence of the weapon as evidence and the conflicting testimony from teammates.Crittendon plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of possession of an unregistered firearm after early reports suggested he might face a felony count of unlawful possession of a firearm and a misdemeanor count of attempting to carry a pistol without a license. Crittendon was able to work out a plea agreement with prosecutors to drop one of two misdemeanor charges and recommend no jail time for the infraction, which carries a maximum charge of one year in jail. Presiding Judge Bruce Beaudin fined Crittendon $1,250 and sentenced him to one year of unsupervised probation.Following Crittendon’s appearance in court, his attorney, Peter H. White, issued a statement suggesting that the 22 year old guard brought the gun to the Verizon Center “only because he legitimately feared for his life” and that the gun was not loaded, nor did Crittendon threaten anyone with the weapon, as some reports have suggested.
While Crittendon’s legal troubles are effectively placed in the past with his plea agreement, his troubles with the league and the Wizards could be just beginning.
Crittendon has not appeared in a game for the Wizards this season while nursing an injury sustained late in training camp during the offseason. While the team has been standoffish in its approach to disciplining Arenas, a possibility made difficult by the fact that Arenas has not yet been sentenced and by a “double jeopardy” clause in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement that would prohibit the team from disciplining Arenas for an infraction for which the league has already imposed punishment, there will likely be swift movement in disciplining Crittendon as the team looks to work past what has been a terribly embarrassing situation for the organization.This afternoon the Wizards’ organization released the following statement. "The charges filed today against Javaris Crittenton and his subsequent plea represent another disappointing development in what has already been a long and frustrating process for the team, the NBA and, most importantly, our fans. Javaris clearly used very bad judgment in this situation and will now face the consequences of his actions.”While Arenas’ contract and status as the face of the franchise make releasing him a near impossibility, Crittendon’s much smaller rookie deal isn’t quite as prohibitive. Washington could, conceivably, release Crittendon without taking a significant hit to the team’s salary cap – a possibility that, according to Internet chatter, could become reality. Kavanaugh said Crittenton voluntarily surrendered his gun to authorities. Police had searched his apartment Jan. 14 but didn't find it.Crittenton's lawyer, Peter H. White, said his client was scared of Arenas. He emphasized that Crittenton, in his third year in the NBA, did not have the stature on the team that Arenas enjoyed.
White said that after Crittenton tossed one of Arenas' guns on the floor, Arenas said: "If I'm giving you these three guns, imagine what I have in my car."
Arenas has said repeatedly that the situation was a misguided attempt at a joke and that he never intended to hurt anybody.White told reporters after the hearing that Crittenton wouldn't make any more statements because he is scheduled to meet with NBA officials Tuesday.Crittenton faces a suspension or fine from the NBA because possession of a gun at an NBA arena is a violation of the league's collective bargaining agreement.NBA spokesman Tim Frank said the league had no immediate comment on Crittenton's plea.The Wizards said in a statement Monday that Crittenton used "very bad judgment.""The charges filed today against Javaris Crittenton and his subsequent plea represent another disappointing development in what has already been a long and frustrating process for the team, the NBA and, most importantly, our fans," the team said.A spokeswoman for Arenas' lawyer declined to comment on Crittenton's plea. Arenas, who is in the second season of a six-year, $111 million contract and has been suspended indefinitely by the NBA, is scheduled to be sentenced March 26. Washington Wizards guard Javaris Crittenton pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge Monday, explaining he had a pistol because he feared teammate Gilbert Arenas would shoot him or blow up his car after the two argued over a card game.The hearing marked the first time authorities confirmed Crittenton was the other player involved in the confrontation with Arenas, who pleaded guilty Jan. 15 to a felony gun charge.D.C. Superior Court Senior Judge Bruce Beaudin sentenced Crittenton, 22, to a year of unsupervised probation after Crittenton pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of an unregistered firearm. Beaudin ordered Crittenton to mentor young people in Washington and to help with relief efforts for Haiti.Beaudin didn't order a specific amount of community service but said his lawyer must report regularly on the work.Crittenton must also pay a $1,000 fine and $250 into a victims' fund.
"I accept full responsibility for my bad judgment, my terrible mistake," Crittenton, who appeared in court wearing a gray suit and glasses, told the judge as he entered the plea. "I'm deeply sorry to the city of Washington, to the Wizards, to my family and to the NBA for this embarrassment."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Kavanaugh said the two players first clashed Dec. 19 over a card game on a team flight back from a game in Phoenix. Arenas said he was too old for a fistfight and threatened to shoot Crittenton in the face, and Crittenton replied he would shoot Arenas in his surgically repaired knee, Kavanaugh said.Later, Arenas said he would blow up or burn Crittenton's car, Kavanaugh said.
Two days later, Crittenton put his legally owned, unloaded handgun into his backpack before he left his apartment in Arlington, Va., for practice at the Verizon Center, Kavanaugh said.Crittenton put the backpack in his locker and went to see team trainers, Kavanaugh said. When he returned he saw several guns - Crittenton's lawyer said there were three, not four, as previously reported - on a chair in front of his locker with a sign saying, "Pick 1."Crittenton tossed one of the guns on the floor and told Arenas to get the weapons off the chair. Then, fearing for his safety, Crittenton took the handgun out of his backpack and showed it to Arenas, Kavanaugh said.However, Kavanaugh said there is no evidence Crittenton ever threatened anyone with the gun.Prosecutors said Arenas told Crittenton: "You are going to need more than that little gun."Kavanaugh said Crittenton voluntarily surrendered his gun to authorities. Police had searched his apartment Jan. 14 but didn't find it.Crittenton's lawyer, Peter H. White, said his client was scared of Arenas. He emphasized that Crittenton, in his third year in the NBA, did not have the stature on the team that Arenas enjoyed.White said that after Crittenton tossed one of Arenas' guns on the floor, Arenas said: "If I'm giving you these three guns, imagine what I have in my car."
Arenas has said repeatedly that the situation was a misguided attempt at a joke and that he never intended to hurt anybody.White told reporters after the hearing that Crittenton wouldn't make any more statements because he is scheduled to meet with NBA officials Tuesday.
Crittenton faces a suspension or fine from the NBA because possession of a gun at an NBA arena is a violation of the league's collective bargaining agreement.
NBA spokesman Tim Frank said the league had no immediate comment on Crittenton's plea.The Wizards said in a statement Monday that Crittenton used "very bad judgment."
"The charges filed today against Javaris Crittenton and his subsequent plea represent another disappointing development in what has already been a long and frustrating process for the team, the NBA and, most importantly, our fans," the team said.A spokeswoman for Arenas' lawyer declined to comment on Crittenton's plea. Arenas, who is in the second season of a six-year, $111 million contract and has been suspended indefinitely by the NBA, is scheduled to be sentenced March 26.

Read More

man suspected of attempting to rob the TwinStar Credit Union in Centralia on Monday morning escaped and should be considered armed

man suspected of attempting to rob the TwinStar Credit Union in Centralia on Monday morning escaped and should be considered armed, police said. “He went out the same window he came in,” Centralia Police Chief Bob Berg said. “We should assume he’s armed, because he presented a gun to the employee.”
The man was shot at by Centralia police officer Neil Hoium, but apparently was not hit. He might have been cut when climbing through a broken window, police said, because a small amount of blood was found inside.He did not get any money.
The credit union on Gold Street quickly became a major crime scene, with officers blocking Gold and Kresky streets until around noon.The discovery that the man had escaped came shortly after four explosions were heard at the credit union, which had been locked down after an attempted robbery shortly before 7 a.m.According to a witness at a nearby diner, police threw what appeared to be four flash grenades through the same open window into which they had earlier thrown a hostage negotiation telephone.Police thought the man was still inside the credit union based on remotely viewed video footage, but later discovered that what appeared to be legs under a desk in the video was not the suspect.Around 10 a.m., police broke out a window and threw in a “hostage rescue phone” that picks up all sound in the building. Sounds captured by its microphone revealed that KITI radio was playing in the building. Police went on the radio broadcast to ask the suspect to pick up the phone.Law enforcement originally responded to 1320 S. Gold St. at 6:42 a.m. after a report of suspicious circumstances. Centralia Police Department officer John Panco said that when an officer arrived he was met by an employee near the front door of the building. Part of her arm was hidden behind the door frame, and her position was awkward, as if someone were holding her.“She mouthed the words ‘he has a gun,’” Panco said.Officer Hoium then pulled the woman away from the door, at which point the suspect became visible, police said. The officer fired two shots, but wasn’t sure if he hit the man.The woman was not injured, but police say a knife was held to her neck and a gun “That employee saved our police officer’s life, and that officer in turn saved her life,” Berg said.TwinStar issued a statement via its Facebook page indicating that no employees were harmed during the attempted robbery.The incident has similarities to another bank robbery at the same credit union Jan. 2, 2009.In that robbery, a masked man confronted two employees and forced them into the vault approximately 6:45 a.m. The suspect stole an undisclosed amount of money and fled, leaving the female tellers in the vault.Police tracked the suspect a short distance in the snow before the tracks disappeared. No arrests were made.“It keeps escalating and escalating,” said Kelly Pennington, owner of Kelly’s Diner adjacent to the credit union.

Read More

Drug smuggler Shaheed Roger Khan was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment on charges of drug smuggling, witness tampering and gun possession

Drug smuggler Shaheed Roger Khan was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment on charges of drug smuggling, witness tampering and gun possession in Vermont at 3 pm today at the US Eastern District Court in Brooklyn.Justice Dora L. Irizarry, imposing the sentences after a one-hour summation, said that they would run concurrently, which means that Khan will only serve 15 years in prison.Prior to handing down the long-awaited sentence, Justice Irizarry read three letters from Sheila Waddell, Harry Rampersaud and an anonymous person, which pleaded with her to impose a longer sentence than the 15 years offered to Khan as part of his plea bargain deal, given the heinous crimes he had committed. However she said that while she considered their pain and that of others affected by his operations, it should be recognized that in Khan’s case an acquittal was also possible had it gone to trial.
Prosecutor Shannon Jones had earlier said the same thing, noting that it should not be viewed as 15 years as opposed to 25 or 40 years, but 15 years as opposed to an acquittal.Before imposing sentence, Justice Irizarry asked Khan to make a statement.
Standing, the cleanly-shaven convict smiled and waved to his family and relatives in the courtroom. Addressing the court, Khan apologized to the citizens of the United States of America for the pain his actions might have caused them. Turning to his family, he apologized to them as well for any pain he might have caused them. He did not as much as mention Guyana or Guyanese.He then thanked his attorneys John Bergendahl and Diarmuid White for “being men of integrity” and said the US should be proud of them.As he left the court, Khan waved to his wife who said “Rog, I love you.”

Read More

Police found a semi-automatic pistol in Titus Dawson’s bedroom

police found a semi-automatic pistol in Titus Dawson’s bedroom March 6, he initially claimed a burglar must have placed it there.That defense only went so far.
At his trial in Albany County Court this week, he took another route — that the weapon was being held for a friend to be returned to a gun buy-back program in Albany.Both Dawson, 26, and the friend are convicted drug dealers, the gun was found next to marijuana residue, as well as digital scales, $8,000 in cash and a ninth-month old newspaper article, but the defendant’s pal still took the stand and made his case.It was just not one a jury would believe .Dawson, 26, of Lark Drive, was convicted late Thursday of third-degree weapon possession, a felony carrying 3 1/2 to 7 years in prison.Police had noticed the gun while responding to a burglary alarm at Dawson’s home. When they arrived they spotted the pistol, as well as a large amount of marijuana in the bedroom.They returned and arrested Dawson after getting a search warrant. The gun and other belongings (which prosecutors say showed evidence of a homegrown marijuana operation) were discovered near a nine-month old Times Union newspaper article about gang shootings in Albany.The defense argued Dawson’s friend, a convicted crack dealer, stumbled upon the gun a day earlier while outdoors in Albany — and decided to leave it with Dawson. He said they planned to give it to the Rev. Charlie Muller of the Victory Christian Church in Albany, who runs the buy-back program.But Assistant District Attorney David Gonzalez, who prosecuted the case, noted no effort was ever made by either man to contact Muller.
“There is only so much that we can do with the legal system,” Gonzalez told jurors in closing arguments. “Use common sense.”Dawson, who has a past conviction for third-degree drug dealing, will be sentenced by acting Supreme Court Justice Dan Lamont on Dec. 11.

Read More

Weapons of choice for gangsters are the Russian-made 9mm Baikal pistol which is smuggled into the UK from illegal factories in Lithuania

Weapons of choice for gangsters are the Russian-made 9mm Baikal pistol which is smuggled into the UK from illegal factories in Lithuania and the Mac-10 sub-machine pistol.
A sub-machine gun is believed to have been used in the suspected gang war murder of 21-year-old Turkish shop worker Cem Duzgun two weeks ago.
There have also been warnings about girls and children carrying weapons for boyfriends or older gang members. Earlier this year a 14-year-old boy was convicted of possessing a gun, a silencer and ammunition. The weapon was found in his bedroom in Lewisham when he was just 13.
The number of guns being seized in London has risen steadily in recent years. In the whole of 2002 just 1,000, including imitation guns, were recovered. This year, up until the end of July 985 were seized. Police say that by this month the total will have reached more than 1,000.
Of the 985, 217 were 'live-firing' weapons - 136 handguns, 72 shotguns and nine sub-machineguns. The rest are believed to be BB guns, replicas or other 'non-live firing'

Read More

'respect' shootings where it seems the gunmen do not intend to kill.

Gun crime in London has soared due to a new wave of teenage 'respect' shootings, the Metropolitan Police said today.Crimes where teenagers choose to use firearms to settle disputes over slights to their reputation or other minor disagreements are becoming increasingly common.
The new phenomenon sees gunmen intending to injure their victims rather than kill. Criminals aim at a rival's legs and leave them with 'war wounds'.
Police figures say that there have been 72 such shootings, double the number for last year. Commander Martin Hewitt said the inclination to use 'extreme levels of violence for seemingly very little reason' was a new phenomenon.
He said that when Operation Trident began investigating gun crime in the black community most shootings were an 'offshoot' of criminal activity.
Police have seized more than 1,000 guns in London so far this year. While overall youth violence is falling, police say there is a rise in gun crime and, in particular, the number of non-fatal shootings involving turf wars.
Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson linked rising gun crime in the capital with feuding gangs. Met figures show a 14 per cent rise in gun crime in London over four months during the summer.
There has been a spate of 'drive-by' and other targeted shootings, apparently connected to gang and other criminal disputes. Many offences are said to be 'intimated' where someone claims or threatens to have a gun but a weapon is not seen.
However, police are highlighting a new trend of 'respect' shootings where it seems the gunmen do not intend to kill.

Read More

Bullets flying from the Morro dos Macacos ("Monkey Hill" in Portuguese) slum in northern Rio de Janeiro tore into the helicopter and hit the pilot

Bullets flying from the Morro dos Macacos ("Monkey Hill" in Portuguese) slum in northern Rio de Janeiro tore into the helicopter and hit the pilot in the leg as he hovered above the shootout, causing him to lose control and crash.
Two officers died, while the pilot and three other policemen escaped after the craft hit the ground on a football field and burst into flames. The pilot and a second officer suffered burns and bullet wounds. The other two officers also were burned, one gravely, said Mario Sergio Duarte, head of Rio state's military police.
Officials did not know whether the gangs targeted the helicopter or whether it was hit by stray bullets, but the event underscored security concerns that have dogged Brazil's second-largest city for decades.
Despite the mayhem, officials defended Rio's ability to control violence ahead of the Olympics as well as before 2014, when Brazil will host the World Cup soccer tournament with key games in Rio.
"In choosing the city, they already knew about the work that's being carried out and will continue in the area of (crime) prevention," Justice Minister Tarso Genro told the state-run Agencia Brasil news agency.
Rio state Gov. Sergio Cabral grimly told reporters that Rio's security challenges can't be cured "by magic in the short term," but he said money is being poured into programs to reduce crime and authorities are prepared to mount an overwhelming security presence at the sporting events to ensure safety.
"We told the International Olympic Committee that this won't be an easy thing, and they know that," Cabral said. "We can put 40,000 people on the streets — federal, state and municipal police — and pull off the event."
Duarte said it was unlikely that traffickers fired an anti-aircraft missile at the helicopter, though such weapons have been found in the hideouts of Rio's drug traffickers along with other heavy, military-grade arms such as grenade launchers and .50-caliber machine guns.
The pilot was able to make a somewhat controlled, though extremely rough landing, which would have been unlikely if the aircraft had been hit by a heavy weapon, Duarte said.
Police said 10 presumed traffickers were killed during the fighting in the slum, including three suspects found dead inside a vehicle. Officials gave no details on how the other seven died.
They said at least eight buses were set on fire in nearby slums as the shootouts raged. Television images showed motorists fleeing for cover as automatic-weapons fire crackled in broad daylight amid the worst violence the city has seen in months.
Images broadcast by Globo TV showed flames shooting from the helicopter wreckage, with little more than charred pieces and an intact tail remaining after the fire was doused.

Read More

Drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter during a gunbattle between rival gangs Saturday

Drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter during a gunbattle between rival gangs Saturday, killing two officers and injuring four in a burst of violence just two weeks after the city was chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games.
Ten suspected drug traffickers were also killed during the fighting in a shantytown, and two bystanders were injured, officials said.

Read More

Gunmen started shooting as they entered the bar in Toa Baja, near the capital San Juan,

Gunmen started shooting as they entered the bar in Toa Baja, near the capital San Juan, prompting several customers to pull out guns and return fire. Seven people were killed and some 20 injured, including a pregnant woman who lost her eight-month-old unborn child. It is one of the most violent single incidents in Puerto Rico in many years. Three people were found dead inside the nightclub and another three were killed just outside, prosecutor Wanda Vazquez said. The seventh victim died in hospital. Investigators suspect the killing was linked to a turf war between drug gangs. "We can't be certain that this was drug-related, but the way it played out appears that it was," Ms Vazquez said. Puerto Rico is a key shipment point in the Caribbean for illegal drugs being smuggled into the US, because as a US territory it is free from customs checks.

Read More

Jamaica handguns, rifles and bullets that stoke one of the world's highest murder rates.

Handguns, rifles and bullets that stoke one of the world's highest murder rates.
The volume is much less than the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico that end up in the hands of drug cartels -- Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year. But of those whose origin can be traced, 80 percent come from the U.S., Jamaican law enforcement officials have said in interviews with The Associated Press.
And as the Obama administration cracks down on smuggling into Mexico, Jamaicans fear even more firearms will reach the gangs whose turf wars plague the island of 2.8 million people.''It's going to push a lot of that trade back toward the Caribbean like it was back in the '80s,'' said Vance Callender, an attache at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).U.S. authorities are beginning to target the Jamaican gun-smuggling network as part of a broad effort to boost security in the Caribbean.But they have a long way to go. Jamaican authorities have confiscated only 100 guns coming into ports in the last five years, along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition. That in turn is just a fraction of the 700 or so weapons confiscated on the streets each year.Authorities know they're only seeing ''the tip of the iceberg,'' said Mark Shields, Jamaica's deputy police commissioner.With arsenals to rival police firepower, the gangs are blamed for 90 percent of the homicides in Jamaica -- 1,611 last year, about 10 times more than the U.S. rate, relative to population.Unlike in Mexico, the vast majority of Jamaican guns seized are submitted for tracing. Jamaica and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives find most of the seized weapons come from three Florida counties -- Orange, Dade and Broward -- all with large Jamaican populations, according to Shields.X-ray scanners were installed two years ago at Jamaican ports, but the gangs use bribery and intimidation to get their shipments past inspectors.In April, a newly hired customs supervisor had his tires slashed and days later was shot at on his way home from work, authorities say. The man was known for his strict scrutiny of cargo coming into a gang-infiltrated warehouse on the Kingston wharf.When the gangs apply pressure, ''no one says no,'' said Danville Walker, Jamaica's commissioner of customs.

Read More

Darren John Bridgeman, 37, from Malvern, Worcestershire sentenced to life in prison by a judge in Florida.

Darren John Bridgeman, 37, from Malvern, Worcestershire sentenced to life in prison by a judge in Florida.In June 2006, Darren John Bridgeman, 37, from Malvern, Worcestershire, killed Tracy Bennawit, 33, because he discovered that she had a new boyfriend. He then fled back to the UK and tried to join the French Foreign Legion to avoid being caught.Bridgeman, who said Bennawit "threw me out like garbage" when their relationship turned sour, eventually gave himself up after a manhunt across Europe. He was extradited to the US, where a jury took less than six hours to convict him of murder on Friday night after a week-long trial."It's the verdict he deserved," said Adam Strickland, Bennawit's boyfriend, who was shot in the chest and seriously wounded in the ambush. Bennawit's son, Caelin, 14, witnessed the attack but was not hurt.Lawyers for Bridgeman, who was also Bennawit's business partner in a failed video game shop, argued unsuccessfully that their client was guilty only of manslaughter because he acted in the heat of passion.

Read More

Oscar Segura, 23, of Santa Ana.shot to death Thursday afternoon

A man shot to death Thursday afternoon was identified today by police as Oscar Segura, 23, of Santa Ana.Police were called to South Standard Avenue and Beverly Place just before 3:30 p.m. with reports of a person shot. They didn't find anyone at that corner, but did find a wounded man in the 800 block of East Normandy Place, a block to the south.Segura was taken to Western Medical Center, where he died around 45 minutes later.Police are investigating the shooting as a gang-related attack.Norma Prado, who is Segura’s cousin once removed, said that Segura was going to the store to get ready to watch the Los Angeles Lakers game with friends and his uncle when he was hit by a bullet.One of the shots hit his liver and then pierced his heart, Prado said. “He was always very loving, a very likable person,” Prado said. “I don't think he had any enemies that I knew of.”“At the hospital, the doctors did everything they could, but he had lost a lot of blood and nothing could be done for him,” Prado said. “All I can say about him is that he was a wonderful person – never was disrespectful to any one of us, very polite.”Segura’s neighbor Amanda Gallegos was shocked to hear the news. She used to say hi when she’d see Segura taking a walk with his daughter.Segura was known for helping out senior citizens in the neighborhood, she said.“Everybody really liked him,” Gallegos said. “He’s not a person I’d say was in a gang. He wasn’t full of tattoos, and you’d never see him with that type of crowd. He was very helping to the neighborhood and never expected anything in return.”

Read More

17-year old suspect in the shooting deaths of two men during a running gun battle on Interstate 75 in March was arrested today

17-year old suspect in the shooting deaths of two men during a running gun battle on Interstate 75 in March was arrested today, Evendale police said.Details on where the teen was taken into custody were not immediately available. The teen's name has not been released by authorities. He lives in Springdale.The shootings occurred after a dispute early March 18 in Garage Sports Bar & Grill in Sharonville. The argument continued on the highway. Evendale police have said the teen was nearby and became involved in the highway chase and shootings.Two 25-year-old Westwood men, Keith Cobb and Scott Neblett Jr., were found dead inside a Chevrolet Blazer that had been riddled with bullets. Both had extensive criminal records, mostly involving drug offenses.The SUV flipped twice and landed upright. Marijuana and a 9 mm gun were found inside.When Evendale police announced charges against the teen last month, they said another arrest was expected. It was not clear today if that second suspect has been caught.

Read More

victim has not been named 28-year-old man with gunshot wounds who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police were called to Fulham Court, a block of flats on Fulham Road, Fulham, at around 7pm on Thursday night after reports of shots being fired.Armed police and ambulance crews found a 28-year-old man with gunshot wounds who was pronounced dead at the scene.No arrests have been made in connection with the death.
The victim has not been named.

Read More