sex scandals involving teachers have resulted in lawsuits against both school districts in Laurens County.

sex scandals involving teachers have resulted in lawsuits against both school districts in Laurens County. Greenville attorney Karl Allen filed lawsuits on behalf of victims in the Allenna Ward and Wendy Schweikert cases.
In February, former teacher Allenna Ward was sentenced to six years in prison after admitting to have sex with five students who attended Bell Street Middle School in Clinton. The victims were all under the age of sixteen.
In June of 2007, former teacher Wendy Schweikert was sentenced to ten years for having sex with one of her fifth grade students at E.B. Morse Elementary in Laurens.
The lawsuit alleges both Laurens County School Districts 55 and 56 were negligent in hiring quote, “unqualified and dangerous” teachers and failed to train teachers to recognize improper behavior.
Both suits were filed August 25, 2008.
So far, neither school district is commenting on the litigation.

Slawomir Plewa, who was stripped of his duties in the 25th District last month, plotted with 48-year-old Bogdan Mazur to search the woman’s Toyota

Slawomir Plewa, who was stripped of his duties in the 25th District last month, plotted with 48-year-old Bogdan Mazur to search the woman’s Toyota Highlander after Mazur and another uncharged defendant planted a blue steel pistol, 44.5 grams of cocaine and six plastic bags of cannabis in the vehicle’s spare tire, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Lynn McCarthy said at the men’s bond hearing today.Mazur had met with Plewa, 30, and other officers to let them know about the drugs before the April 1, 2007, arrest, but Mazur also had phone contact with Plewa, prosecutors said. Mazur had called his wife in front of the officers, told her he had car problems and asked to meet at a parking garage at Belmont and Central so she could pick up their two children. Once she arrived, Plewa stopped her and asked if he and other officers could search her vehicle, ultimately arresting her when he spotted the weapon and illegal drugs, McCarthy said.Plewa later gave false testimony before a grand jury and at the Mazur’s wife’s bench trial, according to prosecutors. She was found not guilty.Mazur admitted to authorities he was tiring of his wife’s spending habits and parenting style and had planned to have her arrested after meeting Plewa through a mutual friend, McCarthy said. Mazur had planned on splitting his corporation with the uncharged co-defendant, who was to help Mazur with his immigration problems once his wife was locked up, McCarthy said.Mazur was charged with conspiracy to commit possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver; conspiracy to commit possession of cannabis with intent to deliver; conspiracy to commit aggravated unlawful use of a weapon as well as obstructing justice and false reporting.Plewa was charged with official misconduct, perjury, obstructing justice, unlawful restraint and false reporting.
Circuit Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. ordered Mazur, a Polish citizen here illegally, and Plewa, a Poland-born U.S. citizen, to surrender their passports before setting a $250,000 bail. Plewa also ordered Plewa not to have any firearms, which automatically places him on no-pay status with the Police Department — a ruling which concerned Plewa’s attorney Dan Herbert.Herbert said Plewa, a seven-year police veteran who works in the narcotics and gang intelligence unit, did nothing wrong when he arrested Mazur’s wife. Mazur was one of Plewa’s confidential informants, and the two men never had a social relationship, according to Herbert, a Fraternal Order of Police lawyer.Mazur, Herbert said, was simply acting on a tip.

Bradford man has been arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm.

Bradford man has been arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm. The 22-year-old Frizinghall man is being held in police custody after the incident in Keighley Road today at about 4pm. A passing motorist reported to a Police Community Support Officer that he had passed a car which contained a group of Asian males, one of whom had been brandishing a handgun.

Tijuana battleground five bodies, four of them decapitated.

discoveries since Monday of five bodies, four of them decapitated, have shattered a period of relative calm and revived concerns that organized crime groups are escalating their battle to control this border city. Two bodies were found Monday morning on a hillside, one with its head placed on its upper back. Three bodies were discovered Tuesday morning in an illegal dump. Their heads, charred from gasoline burns, were placed at their feet, according to the Baja California state attorney general's office. Authorities have not identified the victims in the attacks, which recalled the decapitations two years ago of three Rosarito Beach police officers. Authorities believe that the recent victims might have been associates of the reputed head of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, Fernando Sanchez Arellano, nicknamed El Ingeniero — The Engineer. Printed on the shirtless victims' backs was a message: "We are people of the weakened engineer." Violence had declined significantly in recent months, and many considered the slayings just another round of gangland disputes turned bloody. Alberto Capella Ibarra, Tijuana's secretary of public security, diminished the significance of the killings, comparing them to Los Angeles-area gang murders that are barely noticed.
"The only difference here is how dramatic the deaths are," Capella said in an interview in his downtown office. But Capella and others conceded that the savage nature of the crimes could augur a deadlier phase in the drug war. Once among the most powerful such groups in Mexico, the Arellano Felix drug cartel has been weakened in recent years by arrests and killings of its top bosses. Sanchez Arellano is said to have assumed control when his uncle, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, was captured in 2006. In April, a gun battle between groups headed by Sanchez Arellano and a rival faction left 13 dead and appears to have split the cartel into two camps.
The head of the rival group, Teodoro Garcia Simental, moved to Sinaloa, where he might have forged ties with a Sinaloa-based cartel, according to Mexican law enforcement sources who were not authorized to speak publicly on the subject. The recent deaths could be a sign that Garcia or one of his underlings might have launched an offensive to push out Sanchez Arellano with the help of powerful allies from Sinaloa. Such a scenario, some fear, could turn Tijuana into a battleground on a par with the northern state of Chihuahua, where more than 800 deaths have been tied to drugs this year, the most of any Mexican state, according to a report by the Trans Border Institute at the University of San Diego. The Chihuahua death toll grew higher Tuesday when gunmen killed five people at a family gathering at a ranch. Earlier this month, cartel gunmen killed 13 people at a party in the tourist town of Creel and eight people during a prayer service at a Ciudad Juarez drug rehabilitation center.

Three masked men, two armed with hand guns, forced their way into the house shortly before 12.30am and shot the 40-year-old victim who sustained wound

Three masked men, two armed with hand guns, forced their way into the house shortly before 12.30am and shot the 40-year-old victim who sustained wounds to his elbow, ankle and both knees.He was taken to hospital but his injuries are not thought to be life threatening.Police said there was no evidence of paramilitary involvement.An eight-year-old girl narrowly escaped injury when gunmen targeted the same home 18 months ago.The child had just left an upstairs room when a shot was fired through the window.At the time police said there was no paramilitary link to that incident either.It is understood that young children were again in the home when today’s attack took place.SDLP North Belfast Assembly member Alban Maginness condemned the incident.“This was a brutal and cowardly attack and there can be no excuse or justification for it,” he said.“It is deeply concerning that those responsible carried out this assault in the presence of young children.“The damage that they may have suffered, both physically and mentally, was obviously of no concern to the thugs responsible for this heartless act. The local community is clear in its abhorrence and disgust at this attack.”North Belfast Sinn Féin councillor Margaret McClenaghan also hit out at those responsible.“This shooting was wrong and should not have happened,” she said.

Manuel Cervin was convicted July 31 in the shooting death of Marc Grimes

Delayed sentencing on a gang member convicted of second-degree murder in the December 2006 slaying of an Elk Grove man in front of the victim's house.Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael W. Sweet continued the sentencing of Manuel Cervin to Nov. 7 on a motion filed by the defendant's new lawyer, John Feiner.Feiner said he intends to file a motion for a new trial based on what he viewed as the insufficiency of the evidence the jury used to convict the 25-year-old Cervin.Cervin was convicted July 31 in the shooting death of Marc Grimes, 21.Grimes was shot and killed following a traffic dispute with Cervin, who was driving a car with three passengers at the time of the 11:45 p.m. slaying.According to evidence at the trial, Cervin, following the traffic incident, positioned his car in a manner that blocked a vehicle that was being driven by Grimes' girlfriend. Cervin then rolled down his driver's side window and exchanged words with Grimes. Another passenger in the car then fired a gun that killed Grimes, who was about to leave town to attend Navy boot camp

busted well-knitted gang of ‘Sapphire smugglers’ and recovered three idols made of sapphire and gold worth Rs 15 crore from their possession

Crime Branch today busted well-knitted gang of ‘Sapphire smugglers’ and recovered three idols made of sapphire and gold worth Rs 15 crore from their possession in Janipura area this afternoon. Highly placed sources informed News Agency of Kashmir that based on specific information regarding the presence of sapphire smugglers in Jammu city; Crime Branch constituted a team and raided a house of Zaffar Iqbal in Janipura locality this afternoon. “During raid, the team arrested two persons identified as Subash Chand Jain son of Payare Lal Jain and Subash Saraf, resident of Anantnag, presently residing at Chandigarh. The team also recovered three idols including idol of Lord Ganesh, Shivlingam and idol of Radha Krishan from the house. The two idols were made of Sapphire and gold weighing 500 Gms and 400 Gms respectively,” disclosed sources, adding that the market value of these idols is expected to be Rs 15 crore. Sources said that Subash Saraf had come to Jammu for a deal with Subash Chand. The team also arrested the owner of the house and a case Under Sapphire and Antique Act has been registered against the arrested persons. However, investigation is on to ascertain more facts about the smuggling of Sapphire.

Holiday fraudsters netted £6million from bogus budget sites.

Holiday fraudsters netted £6million from bogus budget sites.A gang of fraudulent travel agents who scammed more than 20,000 sun seekers out of their holidays have been jailed for up to seven years each. fraudsters advertising budget breaks on teletext and the internet. Sixty-four-year-old Christakis Philippou was the ring leader. His mistress Evangelia Liogka oversaw the agencies and call centres, bankrupt accountant Timothy Entwistle masterminded the gang’s finances, while Peter Kemp managed the day to day running of their 26 front firms. Together, prosecutors say they made the perfect team. The scam was simple - set up bogus budget holiday sites advertising bargain breaks in Greece, Spain and Cyprus, take holidaymakers’ money then close the firm down. Between 2003 and 2006 such sites made £6million for the gang funding a luxury lifestyle of plush homes, fast cars and of course exotic holidays. Today the gang were brought to justice for defrauding an estimated 20,000 people. At Southwark Crown Court the gang were jailed for up to seven years each.
It was credit card companies and travel industry body ABTA that were left to pick up the tab for the gang’s crime. The victims of this scam say long term lessons must be learned. Mr Reynolds thought because he booked with an ABTA approved company he would be safe, now he wants them to be more careful about whom they approve.

six Somalis charged with taking a French luxury yacht’s crew hostage

Paris court has charged six Somalis with taking a French luxury yacht’s crew hostage off Africa this month, officials say.The six were flown to Paris after being detained on Friday by French commandos in a helicopter raid, soon after the 30 hostages were released.The hostages - 22 French citizens, six Filipinos, a Cameroonian and a Ukrainian - were seized a week earlier.No passengers were aboard the Ponant at the time of the abduction. A senior legal source said Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed had given his consent for the suspects to be taken out of the country.

Douglas Fleming was the subject of a two-year undercover police operation, during which he was trailed to the West Indies.

Douglas Fleming was the subject of a two-year undercover police operation, during which he was trailed to the West Indies.Yesterday, a jury at the High Court in Glasgow found the case against him not proven. It is the second time the Crown has failed to secure a conviction against Mr Fleming, 43, for alleged involvement with a global cocaine-smuggling operation. On the first occasion, in September 2004, the case against him collapsed after it emerged that police officers involved in the trial were watching the proceedings from a remote viewing room, which the defence counsel argued could be prejudicial to the case.It had been alleged he was involved in the attempted transfer of as much as 200 kilos of cocaine from Colombia through the Belgian port of Antwerp.The court heard Mr Fleming, from Langbank, Renfrewshire, who is believed to have served as a police officer in Scotland in the late 1980s, had been followed to Antigua, where he met up with Martin Toner.
An alleged drug smuggler, Mr Toner was murdered and his body dumped in a field in Langbank in July 2004. He had been due to appear at the High Court accused of being involved in the importation of cocaine. Throughout his trial, Mr Fleming, who owned a construction firm and a property development company, said he knew Mr Toner, and that their common interest was property. He denied having anything to do with drugs.
At Mr Fleming's trial, an undercover Belgian policeman, known only as "Mike", told the jury he had infiltrated a multimillion-pound drugs operation. The court heard he had been recommended to Colombian drug barons as a fixer in Antwerp by a source they trusted. "Mike" claimed Mr Fleming, whom he said he knew as "Ben", contacted him by telephone to talk about importing a container of drugs from Colombia.
The court heard evidence from a Colombian drug dealer who said he witnessed 200 kilos of cocaine being loaded into a container allegedly intended for transport to "Ben" and others. "Mike" alleged Mr Fleming arrived in Antwerp on 29 October, 2001, to meet him to discuss how the drug could be removed from the container, and how to bring in further loads. "Mike" was part of Operation Backslider, which targeted Mr Fleming and others, including Mr Toner. "Mike" said he knew the latter as "Tom".
Mr Fleming, thought to be originally from Inverness, was cleared yesterday of smuggling cocaine, along with Mr Toner, on various occasions in 2001 and 2002. A second charge, of being concerned in the supply of cocaine between 23 February and 11 May, 2002, was also found not proven. His co-accused, James Cameron, 49, from Springburn, Glasgow, was found not guilty of being concerned in the supply of cocaine in Glasgow in 2002.

Katelyn Triolo,Sue E. Farrell,Adam Lang are scheduled to be arraigned Friday in First District Court, Hempstead.

Canonico, 23, of 2051 Paddock Road, Seaford, told them he arranged to meet two women - identified by police as Katelyn Triolo, 20, of 1081 Carukin Street, Franklin Square, and Sue E. Farrell, 25, of 243 Roslyn Road, Mineola - at the Gulf gas station at 2201 New Hyde Park Road.The meeting, police said Canonico later told them, was to sell the women heroin.
Police said Canonico met the women—and they got into his car. It was then, police said, that a man, identified as Adam Lang, 27, of 22 Eldridge Place, Glen Cove, approached the vehicle, produced a handgun, pointed it at Canonico and the trio stole his cell phone and wallet, as well as $340 from him.But as the trio fled from the scene, Canonico decided to call 911—to report the robbery.The subsequent investigation led to the arrest of all four: Canonico, Triolo, Farrell and Lang, police said.Canonico was charged with third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance; Triolo and Farrell were each charged with first-degree robbery and second-degree robbery. Lang was charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery, seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and four counts of fourth-degree possession of a dangerous weapon.All four are scheduled to be arraigned Friday in First District Court, Hempstead.

Scott Rush was arrested at the island’s international airport with heroin strapped to his body face the death penalty.

Scott Rush was arrested at the island’s international airport with heroin strapped to his body faces the death penalty. The death sentence for Rush is seen here as particularly harsh, given that three other couriers -- known as drug mules -- arrested with him on Apr. 17, 2005, were sentenced to 20 years and to life in prison. Originally awarded a life sentence, Rush’s appeal only resulted in his sentence being increased to death.
"It’s anyone’s guess (as to) why Scott’s penalty was upgraded to death when anyone looking at the case could see that it’s pretty obvious that he was just a mule," says Martin Hodgson from the prisoner advocacy group, Foreign Prisoner Support Service (FPSS). But this latest development has provided the impetus for further scrutiny of the role played by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in the arrests of the Bali Nine by the Indonesian authorities.



The Indonesian Supreme Court’s decision in early March to commute the death sentences of Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman and Si Yi Chen to life imprisonment was described by Stephen Smith, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, as "very welcome news", a sentiment also expressed by human and civil rights organisations around the country.
The three’s initial life sentences were reduced to 20 years on appeal but then upgraded to death following prosecutors’ counter-appeals. The three men were arrested -- along with the condemned ringleader Myuruan Sukumaran -- with 350 grams of heroin in a suitcase at a Bali hotel in 2005.
They can hope that with good behaviour their life sentences will be further reduced and they will be allowed to serve out part of their prison terms in Australia. But Sukumaran, his co-ringleader Andrew Chan, and Scott Rush, one of the drug couriers -- "I think it’s unfortunate whenever the AFP assists in arrests of Australians overseas knowing that the penalty is the death penalty," Hodgson told IPS.
After initiating the investigation into the group in Feb 2005, the AFP tipped-off Indonesian police regarding the expected activities of the Bali Nine. In letters dated Apr 8 and 12 of that same year -- written in Indonesian and titled ‘Heroin Couriers From Bali To Australia’ and ‘Currently in Bali’ -- AFP officers provided their Indonesian counterparts with detailed information about members of the group and how they expected the heroin to be transported.
In a 2006 interview with the Australian Broadcast Commission (ABC) television programme ‘Australian Story’, Mike Phelan -- the AFP officer ultimately responsible for the decision to provide the Indonesians with the intelligence about the group -- explained that the letters alerted Indonesian authorities about the group for the first time. The letters advised Indonesian police to take "whatever action you deem necessary". The AFP defends its action as a success. AFP commissioner Mick Keelty has refused to apologise, saying that police acted lawfully and in accordance with government policy. The AFP says that the arrests stopped more than eight kilograms of heroin -- at an estimated value of 4 million Australian dollars -- from hitting Australian streets. Additionally, the AFP is confident that the syndicate behind the Bali Nine’s actions -- which they say was responsible for previous drug smuggling -- was closed down with the help of Indonesian surveillance and subsequent arrests.
But Hodgson from FPSS says that while the AFP is obliged to work with law enforcement agencies in other countries, the arrests could have been made in Australia, where the death penalty has been abolished. Hodgson argues that prior to the group’s departure from Australia, the AFP "could have, at the very least, arrested those they knew to be leaving". Phelan, however, said that this was not an option at the time. "There was just simply not enough evidence" to charge members of the group with conspiracy to commit a crime, he told the ABC. The AFP officer also rejected the option of arresting the Bali Nine when they arrived back in Australia -- another course of action open to the AFP, according to Hodgson -- as the decision to arrest the group was made under Indonesia’s "own laws and own jurisdiction".
The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) has also spoken out against the AFP’s actions. AFP documents obtained by the NSWCCL under freedom of information laws show that Australia’s federal police are still lawfully allowed to cooperate with foreign law enforcement agencies on a police-to-police basis prior to a person being charged with an offence that may lead to the death penalty. The AFP is only barred for cooperating once a death penalty charge has been filed. However, the ‘Practical Guide on International Police-to-Police Assistance in Death Penalty Charge Situations’ indicates that the AFP can still continue providing assistance following such a charge if the attorney-general or minister for home affairs give their approval. The AFP "needs to re-address their protocols when it comes to assisting in cases that will ultimately lead to the death penalty," Hodgson says. Australia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights -- which aims to abolish the death penalty -- in 1990, but it has not been adopted into domestic law and is therefore not legally binding. Hodgson says that Australia has an obligation to "not only oppose the death penalty but to ensure that we don’t facilitate it in any way".
"If the AFP is conducting practices that result in the death penalty, even if indirectly, then they need to review those procedures," he argues.

Police have seized a fleet of luxury limos

Sydney police have seized a fleet of luxury limos including a stretch Hummer, a house, and a Harley Davidson as part of an ongoing investigation into a major cocaine smuggling syndicate.As well as the stretch Hummer the hire cars include two stretch Chrysler limos, another two Chryslers, a Range Rover and a Corvette.
They've also seized a house at Ryde.Police say in the last 12 months they've arrested 14 people and seized about 20 million in cash, five million in assets, large quantities of high-grade cocaine and guns including gold plated 357 magnum.
Two men were arrested yesterday over the drug ring police say imported hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Los Angeles, and they say there's more to come.

Mark Cadogan . bought a high-performance BMW M3 for £50,000, a luxury Aston Martin for £130,000 and two Audi convertibles for more than £100,000

Mark Cadogan, described as the ringleader of a major Newcastle cannabis distribution network, was jailed for 10 years at Newcastle Crown Court.
admitted charges of conspiracy to supply the Class C drug and money laundering.
Jailing him Judge Beatrice Bolton said: "You have been described as a Mr Big - a big time dealer of cannabis."You made a considerable amount of money out of it and employed others to do your dirty work, while living a lavish lifestyle as a result."
The court was told Cadogan and his partner Melanie McElderry, 29, spent around £350,000 in cash during the three years of their conspiracy.
Between 2003 and 2007 they bought a high-performance BMW M3 for £50,000, a luxury Aston Martin for £130,000 and two Audi convertibles for more than £100,000.
They also enjoyed 24 trips to Spain in just 19 months, a trip to the FIFA World Cup in 2006 and a holiday to the luxury Gleneagles hotel in Scotland.
They invested the drugs money into a string of properties in the north east, including homes in Newcastle and North Shields, as well as investing in business and property ventures in the East European country of Armenia, in an attempt to launder the cash.Christopher Knox, prosecuting, said: "Had it not been for this defendant's arrest, and the seizure of his assets, he would have been a very rich man.
"He was not a man with his hands actually on the drugs which he conspired to supply.
"He got others to do that."On one occasion police officers seized a lorry with over a tonne of cannabis hidden in a batch of tiles, destined to be distributed into Cadogan's underground network.Cadogan boasted he could afford to lose more than a million pounds in bad debts and police seizures, as he "hadplenty", said Mr Knox.
"Clearly, this loss did not have such a devastating effect on his business, as he could still afford to buy an Aston Martin for £130,000 a few days later," said Mr Knox.Jonathan Goldberg QC, defending Cadogan, said his lavish lifestyle led to his downfall."He was perhaps a prisoner of his own success," he said."Short of placing a neon sign above his head in the city of Newcastle and saying 'I'm a flash drug dealer', one wonders how much else he could have done to alert the police to what he was up to."This may be the top of division two, but the first division players would not be very impressed with him."Cadogan made a total of £1.351,008 from his drug dealing. He must forfeit his realisable assets of £923,757 to the police's asset recovery team.He will also be banned from travelling abroad for eight years from his release from custody.

Guy Philippe again denied any involvement in drug trafficking, adding, "I will not allow those who are plotting to eliminate me to humiliate me."

Guy Philippe, who led an armed revolt in 2004 against then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, told a radio talk show he was peacefully going about his business in the small seaside town of Pestel."They came here to terrorize the population. They said they were looking for me, but I am right here in Pestel now," Philippe, a former district police chief, ex-army officer and failed presidential candidate, told Signal FM radio by cellphone.
"I am here at home and I am staying here," he said, also announcing he planned to run for a seat in the Haitian Senate.
Dozens of U.S. anti-narcotics agents and federal police, backed by Haitian counter-narcotics police, descended on Pestel in darkness early on Tuesday, hunting Philippe, according to local officials and witnesses. The force searched for Philippe house to house but failed to find him.Philippe, who stayed on the line for over an hour with the radio show fielding questions from the host and callers, said he would not allow U.S. agents to arrest him.
"I can give you the guarantee that this is not going to happen," he said.
Philippe said about 100 foreign anti-drug and FBI agents participated in the raid. U.S. officials in Port-au-Prince declined to provide any figures, and U.S. federal prosecutors in Miami, where drug charges have been brought against Philippe -- according to media reports -- said they had no comment.
Philippe again denied any involvement in drug trafficking, adding, "I will not allow those who are plotting to eliminate me to humiliate me."
He said he planned to compete in elections expected to take place over the coming months to fill some Senate seats.
"I am going to run for senator, because I am a citizen of this country," he said.

John Faba Jr a serial killer who was just getting started in his career

John Faba Jr., 30, is currently serving a 40-year sentence for the 2000 murder of high school student Angela Durling. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the teen's death.Last week, Faba Jr. was charged in the slaying of his former girlfriend, 25-year-old Alicia Eakins. Eakins had been missing for eight years before her body was found in the Ocala National Forest in Southern Putnam County, where Faba Jr. led detectives. According to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office, interviews with a critical witness implicated the convicted killer in his father’s death.Ralph Faba Sr. died in October 1999. Deputies found him hanging in the woods. At the time, the death was ruled a suicide. The younger Faba told deputies at that time that he arrived at his home, in the 700 block of Stokes Landing Road at 2:20 p.m. Deputies said Faba Jr. told them that he noticed a gate leading to the back of the property was open and he proceeded to the rear of the property and observed his father hanging from a tree. He stated that he cut the rope, began CPR and called 911.
Based on the evidence and information gathered at the time of Faba Sr.'s death, the Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide.However, the father’s case was reopened in conjunction with the Eakins' disappearance. With new information, investigators recently classified Faba Sr.'s death as a homicide.
Faba Jr. was interviewed in reference to his father’s death and as a result of the information gained during the interview, he was charged with murder in his father's slaying."This man was, in our opinion, a serial killer who was just getting started in his career," said prosecutor John Tanner. "He will never see the light of day outside of prison again."Faba Jr. is expected to have a first appearance hearing Wednesday morning.

hijacker D.B. Cooper, who leapt from a commercial jet in 1971 after collecting a $US200,000 ransom.

Tattered, half-buried parachute found in a rugged region in the north-west of the United States state may yield clues to the fate of the robber behind a daring high-altitude hijacking 36 years ago.
The FBI is examing the find to see if it belonged to hijacker D.B. Cooper, who leapt from a commercial jet in 1971 after collecting a $US200,000 ransom.
FBI investigators have for years said Cooper most likely did not survive the jump from 3000 metres, but the hijacker's body has never been found.
FBI agent Larry Carr said that earlier this month, children playing outside their home near the town of Amboy in Oregon state recently found fabric sticking up from the ground where their father had been grading a road.The children, responding to a publicity campaign, urged their father to call the FBI, Carr said, and when their find became public this week, it reignited talk of the region's favourite folk hero.
The FBI doesn't want to excavate the property until it confirms, either through an expert's examination or scientific analysis of the fabric, whether the chute is the right kind.In November 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper, later mistakenly identified as D.B. Cooper, hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, claiming he had a bomb.When the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $US200,000 and asked to be flown to Mexico.On the flight to Mexico City, he apparently took the cash and parachuted from the plane's back stairs somewhere near the Oregon border.Cooper asked for four chutes in all. He jumped with two and used the cord from one of the remaining parachutes to tie the stolen money bag shut.Carr spoke with the children's father, whom he declined to identify, and learned the chute was white, the same colour as Cooper's.And when Carr overlaid the family's address onto a map investigators made in the early days of the investigation, he learned another encouraging fact: They lived right in Cooper's most probable landing zone.
If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery - where he apparently landed - but it will raise another, Carr said.In 1980, a family on a picnic found $US5880 of Cooper's money in a bag on a Columbia River beach, near Vancouver.
Some investigators believed it might have been washed down to the beach by the Washougal River. But if Cooper landed near Amboy and stashed the money bag there, there's no way it could have naturally reached the Washougal.
"If this is D.B. Cooper's parachute, the money could not have arrived at its discovery location by natural means," Carr said. "That whole theory is out the window."Retired FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach who worked the Cooper case, said on Wednesday he doubts the remnant found near Amboy could be the nylon parachute Cooper carried when he jumped into poor conditions over rough terrain.
"Lying in the mud, mostly wet, would not be the kind of environment that would be good for a parachute," he said, though he conceded he could offer few alternate explanations for how the chute got there.Himmelsbach said his theory of the case hasn't changed."The night it happened, I thought he had a 50 percent chance," he said. "... It has gone down since then."
Locals prefer to think he made it.
"I think he's out there enjoying his money," said Dona Gilbert, owner of store near the town of Amboy. "Most people here say they think he made it. We may never know."

Canadian Mohamed Kohail a Saudi court sentenced Kohail and his friend, Muhanna Masoud, to execution.

Case of Mohamed Kohail was an important item on the minister’s agenda. “Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier has already written to his Saudi counterpart to review the sentence,” Day said.
Kohail was convicted of killing a teenager, Munzer Hiraki, in a schoolyard brawl in Jeddah. On March 3, a Saudi court sentenced Kohail and his friend, Muhanna Masoud, to execution.There have been media reports, however, that Hiraki’s death was due to a heart condition. Kohail has 80 days to appeal from the date of the ruling. He was arrested, along with his brother Sultan last spring, and imprisoned in Jeddah. Sultan’s fate remains unclear. There has been a demand that Ottawa investigate allegations that confessions were obtained under duress. Kohail’s family spent several years in Montreal before returning to Saudi Arabia for a cousin’s wedding. The two boys were involved in a fight that broke out after a young man accused Sultan of insulting his female cousin.The brother demanded an apology, but Sultan refused and called for help from Kohail. He was then confronted by several boys over the insult. According to the account of the Kohail brothers, Kohail arrived at the school with a friend to face about a dozen of the girl’s male relatives and friends. Some were allegedly armed with clubs and knives. A large number of Kohail’s supporters staged a rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa last Sunday, demanding the Canadian government exert pressure on the Kingdom to spare the man’s life.

Riyadh Thirty criminal suspects of various nationalities have been arrested

Authorities raided 19 homes in a predawn operation in the capital’s Al-Faisaliyah district, netting over 30 suspected drug traffickers.
“The element of surprise was a crucial factor in the raid,” a spokesperson for Riyadh police said.
The police said the order to conduct the raids was given by Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman after authorities received information that dozens of homes there were used as shelters for covered up drug smuggling operations. “Thirty criminal suspects of various nationalities have been arrested,” the spokesperson said. “In addition, the raid netted a number of (other) suspects wanted for various crimes and drug offenses.”
Police seized a large number of narcotic pills (probably Captagon) and hashish in the raid.

Leonard Trujillo extradited to face charges of conspiring to kill convicted Greenwich real estate developer Kissel

Leonard Trujillo, 21, of 63-13 Outlook Drive, Worcester, did not enter a plea at his brief arraignment yesterday in state Superior Court in Stamford, where he was represented by Public Defender Benjamin Aponte. In requesting a $1 million bond, Assistant State Attorney Paul Ferencek told Judge Robin Pavia that Trujillo was a U.S. Army veteran who had served 10 months in a military prison on a unrelated crime and is unemployed. "He has no connection to the state of Connecticut, and we feel the level of bond is appropriate," Ferencek said. Aponte did not object to the bond but reserved the right to seek a reduction at a later date. Trujillo and his cousin, Carlos Trujillo, 47, Kissel's longtime personal assistant, were arrested last weekend and charged with conspiring to kill Kissel, whose body was discovered in his Greenwich mansion April 3, 2006. Pavia has sealed warrants for both men, and police have not revealed a motive for the killing. Yesterday, Leonard Trujillo's relatives walked briskly out of the courthouse, shielding their faces as they were trailed by a crowd of reporters and cameramen.
"We just want to deal with this right now," one of them said. "Please respect
us enough to stay away from us right now."
Trujillo was arrested at about 8 a.m. Saturday in his Worcester home.
Police charged Leonard Trujillo with murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Carlos Trujillo, of Bridgeport, was arrested Friday night in Stratford and has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder. He is being held on $1 million bond and is scheduled to appear again today in state Superior Court, according to the criminal clerk. Lindy Urso, the Stamford-based attorney for Carlos Trujillo, yesterday said he had reviewed the warrant for his client, but declined to comment.
"I'll just say Carlos remains adamant that he is innocent and had nothing to do with this," Urso said. During the hearing yesterday, Pavia said she will unseal Carlos Trujillo's arrest warrant at his appearance April 3, and Leonard Trujillo's at his court appearance scheduled for the next day.
Kissel was facing up to eight years in federal prison for mortgage fraud, and his sentencing was set three days after his body was discovered.
Kissel admitted using false documents to get millions in loan from banks and other institutions, presenting himself as the owner of the properties used to secure the loans. Yesterday, Chief David Ridberg said that police continue to investigate the murder, with more arrests possible.Andrew Kissel's brother died in the infamous “Milkshake Murder”, when his wife served him a strawberry drink laced with sedatives before bludgeoning him with a statuette in their flat in Hong Kong.
A year later Andrew Kissel himself was found, bound to a chair and gagged, in a pool of blood in his Connecticut mansion. Now police have arrested his chauffeur and the chauffeur's cousin for a killing that could prove even more bizarre than the Milkshake Murder: detectives are considering the possibility that this was a case of “suicide-for-hire”, in which Mr Kissel, 46, arranged his own death so that relatives could benefit from an insurance payout. Mr Kissel, whose body was found in April 2006, was once a property tycoon who owned a $3 million (£1.5 million) yacht, a jet, a ski chalet in Vermont and a fleet of classic sports cars. But his life had been ruined by charges that he embezzled $3.9 million from the Park Avenue building where he lived and served as treasurer. His wife, Hayley, a stock analyst and former mogul skiing world champion, had left him and he was about to plead guilty to multimillion-dollar fraud charges that could have sent him to jail for a decade. With creditors circling, his main asset was a $15 million life insurance policy benefiting his children, Ruth, then 8, and Dara, 6. In making the arrests, police offered no motive for Mr Kissel's murder. But investigators refused to rule out an extraordinary “suicide-for-hire”. “If it ends up being the case, that's fine,” David Ridberg, the Greenwich police chief, told a press conference. “If it doesn't end up being the case, that's fine, too.” He said that the suspects would face murder charges and could not use “suicide-for-hire” as a defence. Carlos Trujillo, 47, who served as Mr Kissel's personal assistant and chauffeur for six years until the day of his death, was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in nearby Stratford, Connecticut. His cousin, Leonard Trujillo, 21, was arrested at his home in Massachusetts. Police said that Carlos Trujillo, a Colombian immigrant, had been top of their list of suspects from the start. “The information we had in the beginning was that he was the last one to see him alive so that seemed a natural place to start,” Mr Ridberg said.
The Hartford Courant reported that Mr Kissel had used the Trujillo family in financial transactions to hide his dwindling assets from creditors and his estranged wife. As he was led out of police headquarters in handcuffs, Carlos Trujillo was asked if he had killed his former boss. “No, I didn't,” he replied.
“I think Carlos is here because he is the easiest suspect,” Lindy Urso, his lawyer, told reporters. The 2003 killing of Mr Kissel's younger brother, Robert, a Hong Kong-based investment banker, mesmerised the former British colony with revelations of his cocaine use and online searches for gay sex and bondage. His wife, Nancy, was jailed for life. Andrew Kissel and his wife took in the couple's three children until their marriage also collapsed.

Finnish man stabbed to death in Pattaya, Thailand

A 64-year-old Finnish man was stabbed to death in Pattaya, Thailand, late on Monday night. As reported in the local daily Pattaya Daily News, the man was found assaulted in his room in the Grand Condotel Hotel near Jomtien Beach. The man had been stabbed over fifty times. He died of his injuries in hospital. According to the Finnish late-edition tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, the Thai police suspect two local Thai men of the attack. The men had forced their way into the Finnish man’s room. According to the Pattaya Daily News, the man had managed to drag himself onto his balcony to call for help. As a leg amputee, the man suffered from restricted mobility.A woman living in the next-door room heard the man’s cries and called for assistance.There were plenty of signs of struggle in the man's room, and a 30-centimetre-long knife was found. According to an eyewitness, a young woman had stayed over in the room and then left.The Finnish man lived in Pattaya with his Thai wife. At the time of the stabbing the wife was in Bangkok.The Finnish Ambassador to Bangkok Lars Backström verifies the information of the Finnish man’s death. The Thai police are looking into the case as manslaughter.
"As far as I know, the police have not arrested anyone yet", Backström reported on Tuesday. The Embassy has informed the man’s next of kin of the tragedy.
According to Backström, around half a dozen foreigners have been killed in Thailand since the beginning of the year. The latest incident took place just over a week ago in Phuket, where a 27-year-old Swedish female tourist was stabbed to death on the beach.Prior to Monday's case, the most recent violent death of a Finnish tourist in Thailand happened in 2003, when a 31-year-old man was knifed at the conclusion of an attempted mugging.

Danny Ware just broke your car window

Danny Ware, 39, of Winkelman, Ariz., was being held without bond Sunday in Lake County Jail. He was arrested Friday on preliminary charges of auto theft, fleeing, resisting law enforcement, driving with a suspended license and criminal mischief.
Ware walked into a Gary police station Friday and said he was afraid gang-bangers had followed him from a bus station in Chicago to the Gary bus terminal, said Gary police Cmdr. Samuel Roberts. Ware asked for a police escort back to the bus station, and Cpl. Jeffery Patrick prepared to give him a ride.
Roberts said there was no evidence Ware was being pursued by anyone, and officers were concerned about his mental stability.
While Patrick left his car running and locked outside the police station and went inside to talk to desk workers, Ware broke out a car window with a fire extinguisher and drove away, Roberts said.''One of the desk workers yelled, 'He just broke your car window,' '' Roberts said.Ware surrendered and was arrested in LaPorte County about 40 minutes after he took the car, when he saw police had put stop sticks out that would have burst the squad car's tires, police said.
Roberts said department officials will investigate why the squad car was left locked and running, which he said is against procedure even though some officers have two sets of keys.''Vehicles are not allowed to be left running and unattended,'' he said. ''The patrol commander will be looking into the matter as to why this occurred.''

Yair Klein Israeli merc wanted by Colombian government

The lawyer of an Israeli mercenary wanted by Colombian authorities for allegedly training guerrillas has appealed against a Moscow court decision to extradite him to Colombia.The appeal against the court's decision has been sent to the Russian Supreme Court. "In the appeal, the defense is asking to overrule the Moscow City Court's decision," the court's spokesperson said on Friday.
Earlier this month the Moscow City Court approved a decision by the Russian prosecutor general's office to extradite Yair Klein to Colombia.
Klein, a former Israeli army officer, was convicted in 2001 in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison for training far-right paramilitary groups in the South American country. He was also accused of working as a mercenary for Pablo Escobar's Medellin drug cartel in the 1980s.
The Israeli mercenary was detained after a tip-off from Interpol at a Moscow airport as he was about to fly to Israel last August. Russia's Interior Ministry said Klein changed his passport data to get through passport control in many countries without difficulty.

The Colombian government, which had made unsuccessful attempts to obtain his extradition from Israel, asked Russian authorities to detain and extradite Klein.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had met her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov two months prior to his arrest and asked him to hand Klein over to Israel.

Sebastian Horsley denied entry to the U.S.My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish

British writer and self-styled dandy Sebastian Horsley has been denied entry to the U.S. after arriving to promote his memoir of sex, drugs and flamboyant fashion.Horsley said Thursday that he was questioned for eight hours Tuesday by border officials at Newark airport in New Jersey before being denied entry on grounds of "moral turpitude."Horsley, 45, was travelling to New York for the U.S. launch of "Dandy in the Underworld," his account of a life dedicated to sex, drugs and finely tailored clothes."They knew more about me than I did," Horsley said Thursday from his London home. "They said, 'We know you're a heroin addict, we know you're a crack addict, we know you're involved in prostitution.' "Lucille Cirillo, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, confirmed Horsley had been refused entry."We interviewed the individual extensively and the CBP officers decided he was not admissible under the visa waiver program" which entitles citizens of some countries - mostly in the European Union - to enter the country for business or leisure without applying for a visa.Travellers can be refused entry if they admit on a customs form to being convicted of a crime or to being addicted to narcotics, Cirillo said. She declined to specify what responses Horsley listed on the form.
Horsley's book - billed as an "unauthorized autobiography" - vividly recounts years of heavy drug use and frequent visits to prostitutes. He says he has been drug-free for three years.He said his only conviction stemmed from an arrest 25 years ago for possession of amphetamine sulfate, for which he was given a conditional discharge. He said he has visited the U.S. seven or eight times without incident.
"Dandy in the Underworld" was released in Britain last year to good reviews. The Independent newspaper said the book "entertains as much as it revolts, is as tender as it is shocking."Carrie Kania, of the book's U.S. publisher Harper Perennial, said the book was "a cautionary tale of a life lived vividly."
"It is unfortunate that his voice, in person, is being stifled. But the book will live on," Kania said.Horsley achieved his greatest notoriety in 2000 when he had himself crucified in the Philippines as part of an art project.
His agent's website calls Horsley an "English eccentric" in the tradition of Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde. He thinks U.S. attitudes to eccentricity may have hardened since Wilde went there on a triumphant lecture tour in 1882, famously telling customs officials he had "nothing to declare but my genius."
"I was dressed flamboyantly - top hat, long velvet coat, gloves," Horsley said. "My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish. I thought that would get me through."

William MacAllistYou can't be a little pregnant and you also can't be a little involved in criminality. You're either in it all the way or you're not.

William MacAllister said as much this morning during a National Parole Board hearing at a federal corrections institution in Laval where he was questioned about why he has spent much of his 65 years behind bars. The panel of two parole board members, Odette Gravel-Dunberry and Gilles Roussel, granted MacAllister full parole, a freedom he hasn't experienced in 15 years. Gravel-Dunberry, the NPB's regional vice-chairman in Quebec, described it as "a major decision." This is in part because MacAllister, who received a life sentence for his role in the September 1973 holdup of a Brink's armoured truck, violated his parole twice before.
Claude Vienneau, 35, a Brink's guard, was shot and killed during the $270,000 robbery. Another Brink's guard was wounded. MacAllister was convicted by a jury who found him guilty of attempted murder. During the late 1970s, MacAllister was at the forefront of several protests for inmates' rights. He also let the parole board down twice. He was paroled in 1981 but was convicted of drug smuggling in 1987. In 1994, he was deported to the U.S. for conspiring to smuggle 5,000 kilograms of cocaine into Canada through Florida, all while he was out on parole for a second time.
"We believe there are some changes," Gravel-Dunberry said today. "We believe you are motivated to change your life and stay out of prison."
While MacAllister went over the long history of his criminal ways he said he no longer recognized Montreal's organized crime scene. Before the fatal bank robbery MacAllister's criminal associates were a tight-knit group of like-minded people. He had grown up hoping to be a professional hockey player but admired the gangsters from his neighbourhood.
"Back then, they were your friends, people you could trust," MacAllister said of the robbers he committed crimes with.
Tougher sentencing made the prospect of robbing banks very unattractive by the time MacAllister was first released in 1981. By then organized crime in the city changed its focus towards drug trafficking.
"Now it's all about backstabbing. It's cut-throat and full of liars. It's garbage," said MacAllister who still insists he was roped into his last conviction by a Quebec lawyer he claims was working as a police informant.
In that case he was extradited to the U.S. for conspiring to smuggle 5,000 kilograms of cocaine into Canada through Florida and served eight years behind bars in U.S. penitentiaries, which he describes as much tougher than those in Canada.
He returned to Canada in 2002 but was immediately arrested when he arrived because of his life sentence.Since then he has been granted leave privileges and was released on day parole last year. According to Correctional Service Canada, MacAllister no longer associates with known criminals and he recently married. But before granting MacAllister full parole Roussel asked him how he will do things differently this time around.
"I will be straight up with you. If I wanted to return to criminality I would have been long gone four or five years ago," MacAllister said in an apparent reference to how he could have easily escaped while at a minimum-security institution.
"You can't be a little pregnant and you also can't be a little involved in criminality. You're either in it all the way or you're not. I am no longer involved in criminality."

custom built terminator model vehicle complete with gadgets designed to deter arrest.

Police in Mexico have come across a new weapon being used by the country's drug cartels - a custom built terminator model vehicle complete with gadgets designed to deter arrest.
The car was abandoned by the gang members after a shoot-out. The police and army sent to fight Mexico's drug cartels have seen most things - sophisticated rocket launchers, powerful assault rifles and gold-plated pistols. But in the northern state of Tamaulipas even they were shocked to come across a Jeep Grande Cherokee kitted out with its own anti-police gadgets. Inside was a smoke machine and a device to spray spikes onto the road behind - the purpose to make a getaway easier and stop the car from being followed. Mexico is plagued by drug-related gang violence
It is not known if the gadgets were ever used. The vehicle was abandoned after being rammed into a military truck. Those in the Jeep threw a hand grenade before making their escape.

Nai Yin Xue arrived in New Zealand under US guard

Nai Yin Xue, 53, appeared in the Auckland District Court yesterday almost six months after sparking an international manhunt.He fled to the United States after abandoning his three-year-old daughter, Qian Xun Xue — nicknamed Pumpkin — at Melbourne's Southern Cross Station in September. A few days later the body of his wife, Anan Liu, 27, was found in the boot of his car outside their Auckland home.Xue was captured in the US late last month. He arrived in New Zealand under US guard early yesterday and was charged with his wife's murder.
Looking tired, he stood impassively in the dock. He was not required to enter a plea but occasionally nodded during the short hearing.
Prosecutors dropped a charge of unlawful removal of Qian Xun from her mother.
Judge Eddie Paul remanded Xue and adjourned proceedings to Wednesday next week to give defence lawyer Chris Comesky time to consult with his client. Mr Comesky said the impact of the wide media interest on Xue's right to a fair trial might need to be taken into account."There are obviously going to be difficulties," he said.
Detective Senior Sergeant Simon Scott, who led the investigation of Ms Liu's death, said further charges against Xue would be considered.

Organised criminal gangs are policing parts of the internet

Organised criminal gangs are policing parts of the internet to stop hackers interrupting lucrative global scams, it has been claimed.Hi-tech fraudsters are shutting down electronic troublemakers before they can hamper their illegal trade, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) said.Sharon Lemon, who is deputy director responsible for e-crime, said the vast majority of criminals operating on the internet are motivated by money.A previous generation of "show-offs" who created programmes aimed at simply causing widespread damage to networks are dying out.
One of the best known examples was the "I Love You" worm, a type of self-replicating computer programme, which caused huge damage worldwide in 2000.Mrs Lemon said some cheats act as online enforcers in ways that mirror territorial criminal gangs.In an interview ahead of a London cyber-crime conference next week, she said: "Almost everything to do with online crime now is to do with money. Criminals, in a way, are policing the environment from the people who used to spread worms because they need the internet to be working."Mrs Lemon said there is anecdotal evidence that some criminals are paying for computer boffins to go through university to keep a step ahead of their competitors.She said her staff and colleagues in police forces worldwide are monitoring secretive online chatrooms where criminals meet to exchange information.Police specialists, government officials and businesses from 35 countries will meet in London next week to discuss the latest efforts to combat online crime.

Attack on the toddler in Valhalla Park has shocked Capetonians

Police have arrested a neighbour of two-year-old Randolene Fortune who died last week after being raped, allegedly by a 30-year-old family friend.Police spokesperson Superintendent Billy Jones said the man was arrested by Bishop Lavis police on Saturday at 11.30am in the Airport Industria area.He said the suspect would appear in the Bishop Lavis Magistrate's Court on Monday where he would face charges of murder and rape.The attack on the toddler in Valhalla Park on Thursday has shocked Capetonians.Jones said police had managed to speak to the suspect who told them he was too frightened to hand himself over. But he agreed to meet them in Airport Industria, where he was arrested.

13 to 17-year-olds sold sexual services for money

Police are investigating cases where 13 to 17-year-olds sold sexual services for money - although they say that alcohol, drugs, CD's, jeans and clothes are an even more common form of payment. Around one in three underage prostitutes are boys, but as far as police know, all of the customers have been men.More and more men are buying sex from minors, reports the Helsingin Sanomat's web edition. The paper says that 178 such cases have come to the police's attention just in the past year - but that this is believed to be just the tip of the iceberg. The crime is difficult to track, as both buyer and seller are keen to keep the transaction secret. While prostitution is legal in Finland, buying sex from minors is not. Prevention or investigation of child prostitution is extremely difficult, as the deals are usually struck over the Internet, or in places where teens hang out.

tele-justice India Style

The Government of India has taken nation-wide project to connect jails and district courts across the country via a tele-justice or video conferencing system. With the help of tele-justice, the accused can now be present in a court through a video link, established on ISDN lines, between the prison and the court.

Indian States like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Bihar have already introduced tele-justice. In Maharashtra, more than 40 jails in and around Mumbai are connected to district level courts through video conferencing. The government is planning to connect 300 jails 2,000 courts through video-conferencing. Polycom, a global player in unified collaborative communications, is to deploy video conferencing equipment across various judiciaries and prisons in India. Andhra Pradesh was one of the first Indian states to introduce these electronic trails, connecting 15 district courts with prisons and installing 31 video endpoints. The tele-conferencing systems allow judges, legal professionals, court officials, inmates and witnesses to seamlessly communicate face-to-face in real-time. Video-conferencing also help to connect more than one courtroom during a trial, and enables the use of more than one application. The system provides a simple user interface, which allows non-technical users such as judges and court staff, to easily operate and maintain the judicial video conferencing system.

e-mail explaining that the sender was hired and already paid by someone to kill them

Fairfax County Police said officers have received several complaints of extortion attempts over the last few months. The e-mails are a scam, police said.
In many cases, a person opens an e-mail explaining that the sender was hired and already paid by someone to kill them. The e-mail further states that the person could pay a fee to spare their life. The sender requests an e-mail reply to discuss the money transfer.Police say recipients should not reply to these e-mails. The investigation into these e-mails revealed they are not legitimate, but instead a ploy to obtain financial or personal information. Giving this type of information could lead to identity theft. Police are urging anyone who receives this type of e-mail to report them to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at www.ic3.gov. The IC3 is a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.

computer engineer Fouad Mourtada accused of posing as a member of the Moroccan royal family on the social networking Web site

A computer engineer accused of posing as a member of the Moroccan royal family on the social networking Web site, Facebook, has been sentenced to three years in prison. A court in Casablanca imposed the sentence on Fouad Mourtada, 26, on Friday, the state news agency said.
Mourtada was charged with stealing the identity of Prince Moulay Rachid, the younger brother of the Moroccan king, and of forging computer documents.
Lawyers for Mourtada, who said he created the profile as "a joke, a gag," said they would appeal the sentence.
Since Mourtada's arrest this month, bloggers in Morocco and across Europe have rallied behind him. At least seven fake profiles for the prince popped up on Facebook.
In a Web site that his family started, www.helpfouad.com, Mourtada is quoted as saying the following to relatives who visited him in jail: "I never thought that by creating a profile of his Highness Prince Moulay Rachid I am harming him in any way.
"I, as a matter of fact, did not send any message from that account to anyone. It was just a joke, a gag. ... I am not an evil doer; my ambition in the life was simply to have a stable job and a normal life."
Facebook, like Myspace.com, is a social networking site that allows users to create personal profiles. They can then connect with one another, upload photos and share links. The Web site boasts more than 60 million active users.
There are fake profiles galore on Facebook, with dozens for U.S. President George W. Bush and a handful for Mother Teresa.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court fined Mourtada 10,000 Dirhams ($1,304), Maghreb Arabe Presse reported.

copycat killer targeting prostitutes in Edmonton

copycat killer targeting prostitutes in Edmonton. It's one way to explain the discovery Thursday of another slain prostitute in Strathcona County, a top serial killer expert told Sun Media. It came just days after the start of the Thomas Svekla murder trial. Charged with the second-degree murder of local prostitutes Theresa Innes and Rachel Quinney, Svekla told police he found Quinney's body near Fort Saskatchewan in 2004, not far from where cops found Innes's body in Svekla's sister's garage in 2006. Jack Levin, one of the foremost experts on serial killers and author and co-director of the Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence at Northeastern University in Massachusetts, said the case of the most recent victim, Brianna Torvalson, is intriguing. Unlike most of the other 15 women found slain around the city in recent years, her body was left where it could be found quickly. Levin said that's a hallmark of a copycat killer in search of their own 15 minutes of fame. "I wouldn't be surprised to find more than one serial killer (working around Edmonton), but it's somewhat more likely that this is a copycat phenomenon, especially with (Torvalson's) killing coming so early in the (Svekla) trial.
"It's the ideal time to strike, when people are thinking about (slain prostitutes). The attraction is this element of irony, where the alleged killer is being tried yet new killings are being committed on the streets. "It's almost a taunting of law enforcement," he said. University of Alberta criminologist Kevin Haggerty said the publicity could encourage killers to use Strathcona County as a body dump. "Once an area gets a reputation as a safe dumping ground I don't think it's unusual that a new body should be found there. "Southeast Edmonton and Strathcona County have a reputation as a private place to take prostitutes. Continuing reputations like that generate their own outcomes." Haggerty expects police will continue to be overwhelmed by prostitute killings in Canada until laws governing the practice are changed. "What creates the problem is the law itself, which pushes it out into unsafe areas." Meanwhile, Torvalson's parents and sister issued a brief media statement yesterday saying she was a "loving, caring, beautiful, irreplaceable soul ... who struggled with many demons and a drug addiction that drew her to street life. "Brianna's murder has created a hole in all her family's life that can never be filled ..." the statement continues.
The family said they hope her death "serves as a reminder to all parents to never miss an opportunity to let their children know that they are loved and to never give up on those that are struggling." The statement did not include the names of the family members. Torvalson's former roommate, Patrick Wight, said he lost contact with her after she became "heavily involved with drugs."
"I would hear about her periodically, and every time worse than the last ... even her family had not heard from her in some time," he said.
"I knew her as a bright young girl with a (promising) future. It is a tragic ending that didn't need to be."

Speaks with a Jamaican accent

The victim, a 17-year old girl was in her car in the area of SW 161st Terrace and 145th Avenue when the suspect drove past her car and stopped directly in front of her.
Police say he got out, walked to her car, forced her out of her car and into his vehicle, where the assault took place.
"She was able to obtain a very good description of the subject and the vehicle that we can use and we can ask the community to help us in hopes of solving this case," Detective Juan Villalba of Miami-Dade Police told CBS4's Gary Nelson.
Police have released a composite sketch of the suspect. He's between 30 to 35 years old. He's described as being about 5 feet 8 inches tall, between 185 -190 lbs. He has brown eyes, long, black dreadlocks with a black headband; muscular build; and speaks with a Jamaican accent.
Police also describe his vehicle as an older model, 4 door Toyota Corolla, dark green in color, with dark tinted windows. It is missing the wheel cover from the rear driver's side, tire, and has a large Jamaican flag with "Jamaica" printed at the bottom hanging from the rear view mirror.
People in the neighborhood said they are unaccustomed to robberies in their homes.
"Is outrageous, people are just getting worse and worse everyday," said Odalys Madina, who lives in the neighborhood. "Crimes are becoming heinous and people are very callous to what they are doing."

Kenneth Robinson

Kenneth Robinson, 54, of 163-11 Foch Blvd. in Jamaica, was previously convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced by Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter to 25 years to life in prison, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said

In March 2004, Robinson voluntarily allowed forensic experts to take a swab of his saliva for a DNA sample when he was being questioned by police on an unrelated matter, the DA said.
According to trial testimony, Robinson went to the apartment of his grandmother, Pauline Henninghan, at 14-01 36th Ave. in Astoria sometime between 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 4, 1989, and 9:15 a.m. the next day, and manually strangled her, the DA said. Henninghan's body was later discovered in the hallway of the apartment with an electrical cord tied around her neck and fastened to a doorknob, blood on her clothes, and marks and abrasions on her scalp and nose, Brown said.
When NYPD Crime Scene Unit officers arrived at Henninghan's apartment, they placed paper bags over her hands and taped them closed before taking her body to the morgue, the DA said. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner kept fingernail clippings taken from both Henninghan's hands during the autopsy, the DA said.
When Robinson gave the saliva sample, the Chief Medical Examiner's Office analyzed human cells recovered from under his grandmother's fingernails in 1989, and found that the DNA in those cells matched that in the sample from Robinson, Brown said. Robinson was further linked to the crime by a photo taken Nov. 5, 1989, during an interview with police about his grandmother's murder, and admitted as evidence at trial, showed him with a scratch mark on his neck, the DA said.

Every Jamaican resident in Jamaica to be registered

"It will require every Jamaican resident in Jamaica to be registered, to have a unique number assigned to him or her from the date of birth, and a number around which will be built the identification data," he explained.
The move, he said, will "ensure that this country becomes more manageable.more governable, and that the security of the country can be better ensured."
The national identification system is among a raft of crime reduction measures, which came out of five-day Cabinet retreat held from January 17 to 21.
"There are a number of issues that are going to be tackled very vigorously this year," the Prime Minister told journalists, noting that focus will be placed on the management of the police force, and its effectiveness and accountability.
He informed that certain legislative changes are being prepared to give support to that objective and "it is going to involve conferring greater authority on the Commissioner of Police and holding (him) more accountable for the exercise of that authority."
The Cabinet retreat, the Prime Minister said, also addressed the "critical importance of addressing urgent resource needs within the police force and we are going to have to prioritize again. those (resources) that we feel can have the greatest impact on (the) reduction in crime."
In the meantime, the Prime Minister said that Cabinet has signed off on a "multi-faceted and integrated approach" to crime fighting, which will seek to facilitate the integration of policing efforts with social intervention measures, and involve the relevant Government agencies with responsibility for critical services.
According to the Prime Minister, "we have learnt by now that simply going into communities with a show of force, in search of criminals or people suspected to be involved in criminal activity, that by itself has never produced, and is not likely to produce any sustained reduction in crime," citing social and economic conditions as factors "causing so many of our young people, especially our young males, to be conscripted into criminal activity".
"We have to be talking about transforming the community while enforcing the law," Mr. Golding stated.
To that extent, the Prime Minister advised that a new programme is being developed, which will integrate some past initiatives with new ones, adding that an announcement to this effect will be made in due course.
"We have a coordinating committee that has started to meet already. It is going to involve interfacing with non-governmental organizations, with community-based organizations, (and) with the private sector. It is going to require a holistic approach if any of the elements of those initiatives is to be effected," Mr. Golding said.

Darwin man arrested for having Heroin

Bali police deputy spokeswoman Sri Harmiti said the 46-year-old would likely be charged with drug possession, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a substantial fine.
About 0.4 of a gram of heroin was allegedly found inside his motorcycle helmet when he was arrested in Kuta a week ago.
"He was arrested while he was driving a rental motorbike," Ms Harmiti said.
She said the man had admitted buying the drugs from a woman.
Ms Harmiti said the man, identified only by his initials FBM, said he'd been a regular user of heroin.
"He said that as a fisherman he needed to consume heroin to increase his stamina and self-confidence," she said.
Several Australians caught with drugs in Bali have used the defence that they were addicts in order to escape with more lenient jail terms.
Ms Harmiti said the man had been on a two-week holiday to Bali, his first to the resort island.
His arrest comes just weeks after a Perth man was arrested on the island, allegedly for hashish possession. He's yet to face court.

Jacqueline Tennant

Jacqueline Tennant sister, the British woman missing in Majorca since October 8, is back on the island leading another search of the Victoria Mountain in Alcudia
Monique Tennant, along with members of the Guardia Civil, the Civil Proteccion and local British volunteers, including those with hiking experience, is spending today and tomorrow searching four possible routes she believes her sister may have taken when she went missing while hiking on the mountain last October.
The team of 10 or 12 members was due to begin searching at 10am.
This latest search of the area where Monique was last seen is based on information provided by two British tourists who contacted the BBC after seeing an item on television about her disappearance.
The couple said they had seen a black woman walking up the mountain while they were coming down it on the day that Jacqueline went missing.
Monique Tennant has been aided in her efforts to find her sister by her local MP, Andrew Pelling.
The Croydon MP has briefed the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, is on the case.
Jacqueline Tennant (45), a keen hiking enthusiast, went missing just days before she was due to return home to the UK.
She had spent the summer working as a swimming instructor for the First Choice Holidays company in Alcudia.
A trip the two sisters were planning to see their father, Everard, in Jamaica had to be cancelled when Jacqueline went missing. Sadly, Everard died in Jamaica on New Year’s Eve.
Monique is also hoping that information contained in Jacqueline’s email account may provide further information about her sister’s movements on the day she went missing.
Microsoft has released the information to the courts here but, as yet, Monique has not been able to see it, and is looking at obtaining legal authorisation in order to do so.
This is the latest of several trips Monique has made to Majorca in search of her sister. This latest trip coincides with the funeral of her father but she is determined to carry on looking until

Two British men were arrested in Tenerife

Two British men were arrested in Tenerife this weekend, in connection with the fatal stabbing of a 25 year old Moroccan man who died after a brawl in the Américas Shopping Centre in the Playa de Las Américas resort on the South of the island. It happened in the early hours of Saturday and was reported by a security guard.
The victim was still alive when emergency services arrived on the scene and was admitted to hospital in a critical condition. Doctors at the Hospital Sur pronounced him dead shortly afterwards.
It’s understood the two suspects were arrested some hours later and were taken to the National Police station for questioning.

Irish suspects from Dublin

Police believe a British broker offered them money to intimidate a Norwegian man into dropping legal action, and were asked to kill him if they failed
There has been news of a number of arrests on Gran Canaria in police investigations into extortion and fraud which allegedly involve a British investment broker who lives on the island. The Irish Independent said two Irish suspects, who have now been released on bail with charges, were said to have been offered 28,000 € by the broker to get a Norwegian man to drop legal action taken out against him in relation to a 200,000 € investment. They were said to have been asked to kill the Norwegian and his partner if they failed in making him withdraw the charges.
The only information on the Irish suspects is that the contact was made some months ago, and they may be from Dublin. The charges against the two are attempted perversion of the course of justice and intimidation.
They were arrested along with another man from Ireland on Tuesday last week at a meeting in a bar with the Norwegian and his lawyer, the paper said. The third suspect was released without charges.

It’s understood the British man was arrested on board a plane which was about to take off from the airport, and has appeared in court for extortion and conspiracy to murder.

Daniel Hastelow

The two British men arrested for the murder of a countryman in the Mallorca resort of Magaluf on Sunday appeared in court on Tuesday and have been remanded to custody by the judge. It’s understood they are both from Merseyside, and they’ve been named by the Liverpool Daily Post as Richard Roberts, aged 35, and Anthony Griffiths, 22. The paper gives the victim’s name as Daniel Hastelow.
The Diario de Mallorca reports this morning that the suspects could face a possible 20 years in prison for breaking and entering and murder. They are to be tried by jury.
26 year old Daniel Hastelow was stabbed as he was sleeping in his apartment in Magaluf in the early hours of Sunday. The Mallorca newspaper reports that Mr Roberts declined to declare in court on Tuesday, but admitted to the Civil Guard on Monday that it was he who stabbed Mr Hastelow who, according to the UK newspaper, was stabbed three times as he lay sleeping after a night out to celebrate his 26th birthday. They said he suffered wounds to his liver and a lung.
Mr Roberts reportedly told the Civil Guard that he had had a number of arguments with the victim in the past, and had been threatened by him on each occasion. He said Mr Griffiths had no part in the crime, who himself said the two were in the apartment looking for another man who lived there and they thought Mr Hastelow would still be out. He said neither of them went there with the intention of killing him.
The two suspects were arrested at Palma Airport as they were trying to buy tickets to the UK.

Corey Worthington for Big Brother contract

Police have taken Melbourne's party boy and global media star Corey Worthington into custody.
A police spokeswoman said the 16-year-old had been taken to the Narre Warren police station in relation to the wild party at his parents house on Saturday night.
The latest development comes after Corey fled the studios of an FM radio station this morning during a sometimes hostile interview on live radio.
The 16-year-old from Narre Warren bolted out of the studio and fled down a fire escape after Fox FM's radio host Matt Tilley tried to remove his plastic yellow sunglasses, which he had kept on throughout the interview.
He was chased by several news camera operators and an anxious radio producer but disappeared.
Corey later returned to the studio and completed the on-air interview.
Before making his escape, Corey was asked if he had anything to say to his parents who might be listening.
"Sorry," he said.
Asked if he was planning to return to home, he said: "To get my clothes and stuff".
Asked if he ever wanted to go home again, he said: "I do sort of, but don't know right now".
Corey also said he had been approached by DJ Lako to run an underage club in Melbourne.
The hosts asked Corey if he was merely a brat who couldn't handle the truth, to which he replied, "Nuh".
Listeners who called the studio to speak with Corey were overwhelmingly hostile, with one woman telling him he had no respect for anyone else and a man calling him a "knob" and warning him to "watch out".
Corey, dressed in a white cap, fluoro yellow T-shirt and white high-top sneakers, appeared tense while being interviewed.
The teenager threw a house party on Saturday night while his parents were interstate, at which 500 teenagers spilled on to the streets, damaging property and throwing projectiles at police cars.
The out-of-control party and its aftermath have attracted media attention worldwide and drawn speculation that the teenager could earn big money by appearing on TV and promoting parties.
Victoria Police has also threatened to bill the boy's family $20,000 in damages.
The story was among the most-read on the BBC's news website last night. It was more popular than a report on the Taliban attacking a Kabul hotel.
Corey's farcical interview with Channel Nine's A Current Affair on Monday, during which he comprehensively steam-rolled host Leila McKinnon (wife of Channel Nine chief David Gyngell), was uploaded to the YouTube website yesterday afternoon, further expanding his notoriety.
Within minutes of going online, McKinnon's tabloid TV tut-tutting had backfired, transforming Corey, who was interviewed shirtless with his pierced nipple on show, from naughty schoolboy to international hero.
The boy's neighbours and Victorian Police would not have been amused, and nor would his mother and stepfather, Jo and Steve Delaney, who were on the Channel Seven show Today Tonight expressing their shame over his antics and their concern over the potential $20,000 fine.
Pursed-lipped McKinnon, clearly frustrated when Corey refused her repeated requests to remove his huge sunglasses and offer an apology on the show, went in for the kill, adopting a school ma'am tone to suggest the boy: "Go away and take a good long hard look at yourself."
But before she could cut the link, the boy shot back: "I have, everyone has and they love it."
In a rare moment of restraint, celebrity agents contacted by the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday said they would not be approaching the teenager with any lucrative contracts, despite his new found notoriety.
A spokeswoman from Harry M Miller's office, which already handles the dubious "talent" from the Big Brother reality TV series, said they were not interested in the teenager.
However, by last night rival agent Max Markson had changed his mind and admitted the boy's story was marketable, worth between $30,000 and $40,000 now it had gone international, but that he would only represent him "if they contact me".

AAP reported that the teenager was relaxing on the beach with girls yesterday, refusing to answer calls from his parents.

"I am not going home if they are going to go all crazy on me," he told the Nine Network. "It was pretty funny and I would do it all again. I have always had a bit of an attitude towards older [people] like my parents. That's just me. I would rather stay young and have fun and am not gonna change for anyone really."

Corey's parents returned to a home they say was disgusting.

"We've got our home back to some semblance of order," Mr Delaney told Channel Seven.

"There's been no respect, no regard. You can't chain them down.

"His arrogance that he's demonstrated is blase and obviously been hyped up because he's got all his mates onside egging him on … He just has to stop what he's doing, just stop it."

They said they did not know where he was.

"Obviously, we're keen to get him back home," Mrs Delaney said. "We need to work this through with him and the police. We need to sort everything out."

Ian Pieter van Wieringen

Ian Pieter van Wieringen appeared in Gianyar District Court today charged with possession of hashish. Mr. van Wieringen is a painter who has lived in Ubud for 35 years. Ubud is in Gianyar district hence that court being used.
The maximum penalty is 10 years, but if he can prove he is an addict it can be just 3 months. Kind of sad when you see someone who is probably pretty cool get into hot water. According to The Age, the hash was found amongst orchids in his garden.
Mr. van Wieringen was arrested after police raided his house,

Piracy

Last year, there were 269 attacks on ships, up from 239 in 2006 and reversing a downtrend seen since 2003, the International Maritime Bureau said in its annual report released by its piracy reporting center in Malaysia.
"The significant increase in the (2007) numbers can be directly attributed to the increase in the incidents in Nigeria and Somalia," IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said in a statement.
Global pirate attacks rose by 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years as sea robbers made a strong comeback in Nigeria and Somalia, an international maritime watchdog said Wednesday.
Attacks in Nigeria surged to 42 from 12 cases in 2006, he said. Somalia reported a threefold increase of 31 cases, from 10 in 2006.
The IMB report said pirates were better armed and more violent in 2007, with 18 vessels hijacked worldwide, 292 crew members taken hostage, five killed and three still missing.
Guns were used in 72 attacks, up 35 percent from 2006. It said 64 crew members were assaulted and injured, compared to only 17 in 2006, with majority of the incidents occurring off Somalia's coast.
The report said pirates used rocket propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons as well as mother vessels to launch smaller craft to attack ships further away from Somali's coast.
Somalia's 1,880-mile coastline is the longest in Africa and near to key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. Wracked by 16 years of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy and the transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control.
The IMB urged ships to stay as far away as possible from the Somali coastline.
In Nigeria — Africa's oil producer — attacks were focused in hotspots like Lagos, and some were linked to so-called militants claiming to pursue political goals, the report said.

Indonesia remained the world's hottest piracy hotspot with 43 attacks last year, but this was down from 50 cases in 2006 and were mainly low-level crimes, the report said.

The IMB also applauded authorities in Bangladesh for curbing attacks to 15 last year, down from 47 in 2006.

Cases in the Malacca Strait, a bustling shipping route that carries half the world's oil and more than a third of its commerce, also fell for a third successive year to seven, from 11 in 2006, it said.

Bay of Islands Canterbury Trust

The Bay of Islands Canterbury Trust has admitted that the frigate is sitting 6m deeper than planned.
Julia Riddle, trust secretary and director of Northland Dive, said that was because delays during the scuttling ceremony had caused the ship to move from its original mark. She said the trust was ordered to sink it by the harbour master before they were able to move it back.
Phil Andrews, manager of Paihia's Dive HQ, said it was important to appreciate the dangers of any dive site and the Canterbury was no different.
Anyone who wanted to dive the wreck was encouraged to do so as part of an organised dive where there were supervisors in the water at all times.
"It's not a dive that many people would try to do off their own bat unless they were very experienced," Mr Andrews said.
He said divers who wished to dive the Canterbury on a Dive HQ excursion had to first prove they had enough experience beyond having their dive ticket.
If they weren't experienced enough they could only dive the wreck with an instructor.
Ms Riddle said there was an element of risk with any dive site and warned that people should not dive deeper than they were qualified to go. Divers who had an open water certificate could only dive to 18m and only those with an advanced diving certificate could descend to 30m.
"It's about diving to your ability and not exceeding your certification levels," she said.
Bay of Islands Canterbury Trust spokesperson Kelly Weeds said despite being deeper then the other wrecks he didn't believe the Canterbury was any more dangerous, provided divers were sensible.

Norman's Cay

Norman's Cay is a small Bahamian island (a few hundred acres) in the Exumas, a chain of islands south and east of Nassau, that served as the headquarters for Carlos Lehder's drug-smuggling operation from 1978 to around 1982.
When Lehder arrived in Norman's Cay in 1978 he started purchasing large pieces of property, including a home for himself, a hotel and an airstrip. Shortly after Lehder began pushing the native population and vacationers off of Norman's Cay and gained full control of the island. Following Lehder's arrival air traffic over the small island began to increase and armed guards began patrolling the beaches. In July 1980 a yacht belonging to a retired couple was found drifting off Norman's Cay- blood stains were found when the boat was searched, and a corpse recovered.
As part of the Medellín Cartel, he used the island as a transshipment base for smuggling cocaine into the United States. Lehder, through Norman's Cay, is often attributed with revolutionizing drug smuggling. The typical method of transporting small shipments often carried by human drug mules, either through digestion or in their luggage, onto commercial airlines, was surpassed by the use of small aircraft shipping entire loads of cocaine.
Lehder eventually constructed a 3,300-foot long runway for his fleet of aircraft. In order to protect the island, armed guards patrolled the beaches and runway, radar was employed and attack dogs. Any pilot silly enough to land there was quickly warned off by heavily armed guards. The island served a strategic point as stop for Colombian drug flights to refuel and rest before proceeding to the United States.
With the Bahamian authorities looking the other way and the local inhabitants scared off, the island became a haven of debauchery for Lehder and his associates. Carlos Toro remembers, "Norman's Cay was a playground. I have a vivid picture of being picked up in a Land Rover with the top down and naked women driving to come and welcome me from my airplane... And there we partied. And it was a Sodom and Gomorrah... drugs, sex, no police... you made the rules... and it was fun."
In 1982, under pressure from US law enforcement, and despite years of turning a blind eye, the Bahamian government began to crack down on the activities on Norman's Cay, ultimately confiscating Lehder's land. It is now a tourist destination that can be reached by charter flight.
The island was again a subject of (minor) controversy when the newly-elected Progressive Liberal government honoured a pre-election in-principle agreement to sell the government-owned portion of the island valued at $60 million, despite the objections of the local MP. The government believes it may encourage further foreign investment.

The island's consortium of local and foreign buyers are thought to include resort chain Aman Resorts, a proudly small company that started in Phuket and specialises in five-star service amidst natural beauty environments.

79 Sub Saharan immigrants were rescued

A total of 79 Sub Saharan immigrants were rescued in the Waters off the Canary Islands on Friday evening after being spotted adrift by a coastguard plane. All the travellers were adult males and all are in good health.
They were escorted into the port of Arguineguín on the SE of Gran Canaria after being picked up by the Coastguard vessel ‘Menkalinan’ supported by the naval vessel ‘Vencedora’.
The hospital ship ‘Esperanza del Mar’ docked in Arguineguín, on the South of Gran Canaria, shortly after 2 o’clock on Sunday afternoon, with 117 migrants rescued from a cayuco 200 miles off the island’s southern shore in the early hours of Sunday. They were initially spotted on Saturday, when they were 250 miles off the Canaries coast.
The Canary Islands belong to Spain. Under their liberal immigration rules, migrants can be detained for 40 days. If officials are unable to establish their nationality, they are freed to live in Spain. shortest sea route from the African coast to the Canaries is 60 miles but since Morocco has stepped up patrols, more migrants are forced to take a 500 mile trip from Mauritania.
The journey, in open boats, can take a week. An estimated one in three vessels do not make it, resulting in thousands of deaths each year.
number of illegal immigrants killed while attempting the perilous 2,000km sea crossing from north Africa during 2006 could be as high as 6,000, although only 600 bodies have been recovered.
The number of illegal immigrants arriving in the archipelago has risen to 31,000, six times as many as 2005. "We're talking about a dramatic figure," said deputy Immigration councillor, Froilan Rodriguez, during an interview on Cadena Ser radio.
During 2006, around 20,000 illegal immigrants have been transferred to the Spanish mainland. Once there, the local authorities have a maximum period of 40 days to repatriate those that can be identified, or release onto the streets -with no means of supporting themselves- those whose identities cannot be confirmed.
Meanwhile, according to a report in a December issue of El Pais, the government has given the immediate go-ahead for 180,000 immigrant workers to be contracted in their countries of origin to work in Spain next year, and it is possible that more may be contracted before the start of 2008.

William P. Archer III

William P. Archer III, 32, was plucked from his life raft in choppy seas on Thursday, 42 days after he set sail from Spain's Canary Islands on a solo voyage to the Caribbean island of Antigua.
His 39-foot (12-meter) vessel, the Alchemy, listed Newport, Rhode Island, as its home port, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Archer could not immediately be reached for comment.
The tanker, the Omega Lady Sarah, had been carrying oil products from New Orleans to Gibraltar when crew members spotted Archer's red parachute distress signal, and then saw him waving for help from a life raft tethered to the sinking yacht.
"His boat sank 25 minutes after our crew dragged him up to the ship," Gregory McGrath, chief financial officer for Athens-based Omega Navigation Enterprises, said in a telephone interview. He did not know how or when the yacht had been crippled.
Archer told rescuers he had not eaten in four days and had pain in his back. He was taken ashore in Nassau, Bahamas, and evaluated at a hospital before his release.

Ibiza end of an Era

Last summer's season in Ibiza saw 720 arrests for drugs-related offences.
drug dealers swamped the major clubs, authorities took the unprecedented decision last summer to close three of the biggest venues. Amnesia, which attracts clubbers from across Europe, was shut for a month and fined ¿6,000 (£4,000) for its "lax attitude" towards the problem. Bora Bora and DC-10 were forced to close their doors for one and two months respectively. Both operate after-hours clubs.
In 2006, police launched a crackdown after becoming worried that a new, more violent, breed of British gangster was operating on the island. It followed a shooting in which two holidaymakers from Northern Ireland, Gareth Richardson and Niall Hamilton, were wounded in crossfire between British drug gangs.
The resort town of San Antonio, a mecca for clubbers at night, banned after-hours clubs some time ago. And now Sant Josep, home to clubs such as Space, DC10 and Bora Bora, is to do the same.
Spokesperson for Space, said: "The new rules mean some of our morning sessions will have to be moved to afternoons. But it also opens the door to more illegal parties in houses and on the beaches."
Last year, 4.5 million tourists spent their holidays in Ibiza, a 6.6 per cent rise on 2006.

39 year old Gibraltarian, E.J.S

The Spanish National Police made several arrests last week on the Gibraltar border. One of these was a 37 year old Portuguese citizen, L.F.D.O., who was wanted by a court in Estella. Another, 44 year old J. L.C., was wanted by an Algeciras court, as was a 39 year old Gibraltarian, E.J.S. These arrests were a result of the documentation controls carried out by police at the border.

125,000 weapons were destroyed

More than 125,000 weapons were destroyed in a smelting operation at the Caribbean Cement Company Ltd. yesterday, as the Government intensified its efforts to rid the country of illegal weapons.
The weapons, weighing half a tonne, comprised an assortment of pistols, rifles and high-powered guns.
According to Deputy Commis-sioner of Police Jevene Bent, the weapons included those that have been in storage from as far back as the 1950s, illegal guns seized by the police and defective police firearms that cannot be repaired.
"We've seized guns and we would have taken these before the courts. We also have guns that belonged to citizens but were left with the police for safekeeping and have not been collected," she said. "We would have done advertisements in the paper for them to be collected and, if they aren't after a period of time, then we dispose of them."
Minister of National Security Derrick Smith said yesterday's operation was the first of a series to be carried out.
"The capacity here couldn't take all (weapons) that we currently have in storage so there will be other occasions like this in the near future."
He said defective MP5 submachine guns were not among the lot that was burned.
"A representative from the constabulary force went to Pakistan to reorder, and sending back those 1,000 defective MP5s will take place once the new ones have arrived here."
According to information from the Constabulary Communication Network, 70 guns were seized in March, 61 in August and 61 as at the 30th of December.
In total, the police seized more than 630 guns in 2007.

Second Lieutenant D.M.S.K. Dissanayake

Slave Island bomb blast on January 02 has risen to five as an army personnel succumbed to injuries while being treated at the National Hospital Colombo this morning, January 04.
Second Lieutenant D.M.S.K. Dissanayake of Sri Lanka National Guard (SLNG), one of the victims who received severe injuries due to the explosion, was admitted to the National Hospital and being treated at Intensive Care Unit. Hospital sources said the victim succumbed to his injuries around 3.05 a.m this morning, January 04.
Earlier, Four people including two schoolchildren, a 15 year old student of Ananda College and a 16 year old student of Asoka Vidyalaya-Colombo, and a mother were killed when LTTE terrorists carried out a cowardly bomb blast targeting civilians and an army bus in Colombo on January 2.
The targeted army bus was carrying disabled and sick soldiers to the Army hospital at Narahenpita. LTTE terrorists triggered off the claymore bomb right opposite the Infant Jesus Roman Catholic church at Slave Island around 9.30.a.m, defence sources said.
According to the sources in the National Hospital Colombo, 24 people including 14 civilians and 10 soldiers suffered injuries in the incident. Four of the injured are in serious conditions, the sources added.

Alex.& Jumpa swim to Nevis

“Alex” and “Jumpa”, were reportedly fishing and diving for conchs off the coast of Nevis. However, the two men could not be found by their boat pilot because of heavy rains at sea.
The boat pilot journeyed to Nevis in the vessel and contacted the St. Kitts Nevis Coast Guard Base and informed them of what had transpired. A search team was deployed to look for the men but was later called off as night had fallen making it virtually impossible to locate the men in the water.
The men, as SKNVibes understands, escaped the ordeal unharmed as they managed to swim to Nevis.

Basseterre, St. Kitts:

The Security Forces were able to end 2007 on a positive note in relation to the recovery of illegal firearms as officers from the Defence Force recovered two guns- a 9mm pistol and a .380 pistol- and some ammunition on December 31st, on Princes Street, Basseterre.
The 9mm pistol had 10 rounds of ammunition while the .380 had two rounds.
According to a Police Press release, the soldiers were making a routine patrol along the above mentioned street, when they came upon some unidentified men who threw an object under a car and fled the scene once they sighted the soldiers.
A thorough search under the car revealed the two pistols and ammunition.
The identity of the young men is still unknown.
The recovery of the two weapons means that 21 weapons were recovered from the streets in 2007, compared to 8 in 2006.
.380 with two rounds ammunition
The discovery of the weapons was quite significant as the Carnival celebrations were at their peak and Princes Street is right in the midst of the celebration areas.

identified a suspect for the gruesome killing of the mother of five

homicide detectives are in the Philippines as the hunt for the killer of a woman found dead in the front yard of a Springvale house intensifies.
They have been talking to the family of Luvina Dayang as they search for clues as to why she was found bashed and wrapped in two garbage bags on December 12 in View Rd.
Officers have also travelled to Sydney.
It is believed investigators have identified a suspect for the gruesome killing of the mother of five, who had been badly beaten.
Ms Dayang, 50, was last seen alive by friends in Sydney after telling them she was travelling to Melbourne.
She journeyed south by bus after saying she wanted to find work here.
Ms Dayang has since been informally identified as the murder victim found by the owners of a property under renovation.
Detectives who have travelled to the Philippines have identified a number of "persons of interest" in the case.
They have collected DNA samples from people they believe are family members of Ms Dayang and her dental records to help confirm her identity.
Australian Federal Police agents have helped with the Filipino investigation.
Det Sen-Sgt Jeff Maher, of the homicide squad, said Ms Dayang's family were rocked by the news of her death.
"They've been devastated but very enthusiastic to help us," he said.
Other detectives in Sydney have been interviewing associates of Ms Dayang to try to piece together her movements before she left.
Ms Dayang has three sons and two daughters who live in the Philippines.

11,000 illegals landed

11,000 illegals landed in the Canaries during 2007, a significant reduction compared to the previous year thanks to the effectiveness of sea patrols off the coast of Africa, which have prevented many would-be migrants from departing. However, the drop has been accompanied by an increase in the number of deaths at sea of Africans who have failed to survive the crossings.Latest news: The migrants, who include a small number of under-18s, were spotted in difficulty in their large wooden boat 200 miles off the coast of Gran Canaria and the ship was sent out to assist them. They were met in harbour by the local Red Cross, who provided food and medical treatment, and were then transferred by coaches to the main police station in Las Palmas to begin the formalities to return them to their countries of origin.