Thursday, 20 January 2011

Hong Kong in huge cocaine seizure

Slabs of the cocaine concealed inside wooden planks seized in Hong Kong Wrapped slabs of cocaine were concealed inside hollowed-out planks

Customs officials in Hong Kong have seized a huge haul of cocaine worth $33.4m (£20.8m) bound for China.

The 290kg (639 pounds) of cocaine were found in 88 hollowed-out planks imported from Bolivia.

Officials said it was the second-largest drugs haul ever in the territory.

The discovery highlights the concerns of the authorities about growing recreational drug use in mainland China.

The drugs were hidden in a "sophisticated" and "well thought out" way, Hong Kong customs officials said.

"They hollowed out some of the wood planks and put it inside some of the genuine ones. And then inside those wood planks, hollowed out ones, they put the three pieces or three slabs of cocaine," said John Lee, head of the Customs Drug Investigation Bureau.

Plastic wrap and glue had been used to try to confuse sniffer dogs, and carbon paper was used to try to dull the perception of X-ray machines.

The shipment left Bolivia on 29 December 2010, was trucked to Chile and then shipped in containers to Taiwan, from where it was flown to Hong Kong.

Officials had delayed revealing the discovery in the hope that someone would come to collect the cargo. No arrests have yet been made.

Experts have said that China's growing wealth is spurring recreational use of drugs.

The scale of the latest haul highlights the growth of party culture in Beijing and in China's large coastal cities.

Hong Kong's largest ever cocaine haul was made in April last year, when 372kg (820 pounds) of the drug were found in a village.

Chimpanzee and gorilla heads seized in Gabon

Part of the animal parts seized in Gabon in January 2011 Those arrested for the possession of illegal animal body parts are expected to appear in court this week

One of the biggest hauls of illegal ape parts in Central Africa has been seized by officials in Gabon, the global campaign group WWF says.

Five people were arrested for the cache which included the head and hands of an endangered gorilla, 12 chimpanzee heads and 30 chimpanzee hands.

WWF called for a tough judicial approach to act as a deterrent.

Africa's wildlife is often poached for the profitable bushmeat trade or for use in traditional good luck charms.

Gabon's rainforests teem with wildlife, including lowland gorillas and forest elephants - and national parks make up around one tenth of the country.

'Highly disturbing'

The raids were conducted by Gabon's water and forestry and defence ministries with the help of various environmental aid groups.

Conservation Justice, one of the environmental groups involved, said the crackdown is significant.

"The problem of illegal wildlife poaching and trade is not specific to Gabon; such specialised dealers exist throughout Western and Central Africa. But these arrests demonstrate that stopping them is possible with effective law enforcement," Luc Mathot, from Conservation Justice, said in a statement.

Other confiscated items include 12 leopard skins, a portion of lion skin, snake skins and five elephant tails.

"The massive collection of protected species confiscated in this operation is highly disturbing," WWF's Africa great ape manager David Greer said.

"To my knowledge, there has not been a seizure of great ape body parts of this magnitude in Central Africa in the last 10 years."

According to WWF, the suspects are expected to appear in court this week.

Experts say in rural areas of Central Africa, bushmeat provides up to 80% of protein in peoples' diets.

There are also markets in Central and West Africa where animal parts are sold for use in juju (black magic) and traditional remedies.

Web images to get expiration date

Man in fancy dress Many people come to regret the images they post to Facebook

Help is at hand for anyone who has ever forgotten about embarrassing images they posted to a social network or website.

German researchers have created software called X-Pire that gives images an expiration date by tagging them with an encrypted key.

Once this date has passed the key stops the images being viewed and copied.

Creators plan to levy a small charge to use the tagging system and put a digital lock on digital pictures.

Naked online

"More and more people are publishing private data to the internet and it's clear that some things can go wrong if it stays there too long," said Professor Michael Backes of the Information Security and Cryptography department at Saarland University, who led development of X-Pire.

Dr Backes said development work began about 18 months ago as potentially risky patterns of activity on social networks, such as Facebook, showed a pressing need for such a system.

"Many people join social networks because of social pressure," said Prof Backes. "They tend to post everything on the first day and make themselves naked on the internet."

"Only a small fraction of people are active every day," he said. "The majority are passive users, they do not contribute apart from their initial phase and afterwards they do not seem to care or perhaps they just forget."

However, he said, social networks never forget and images posted to sites, be they embarrassing or not, were visible forever.

Date stamp

To help solve this problem, the X-Pire software creates encrypted copies of images and asks those uploading them to give each one an expiration date.

Diary page, BBC The software lets people give a fixed life to the pics they post online

Viewing these images requires the free X-Pire browser add-on. Currently only a version that works with Firefox is available. Those without the viewer will be unable to see any protected image.

When the viewer encounters an encrypted image it sends off a request for a key to unlock it. This key will only be sent, and the image become viewable, if the expiration date has not been passed.

Images given an expiration date with X-Pire have been successfully uploaded to Flickr, Facebook and many other websites, said Prof Backes.

This testing was essential because the different ways that sites treat uploaded images added lots of complications.

"Facebook, for instance, does a huge amount of post-processing and whatever protection you deploy has to cope with that treatment," he said.

The X-Pire program should be available in late January and will cost 2 euros (£1.68) a month. Those who stop paying will not see their images suddenly become viewable, he said, instead they will just not be able to put expiration dates on new images.

More than 100 alleged mobsters arrested in northeast US

breaking news

US federal agents have arrested more than 100 suspected mobsters in multiple investigations into New York's organised crime families.

The majority of the arrests were made on Thursday morning throughout New York City, New Jersey and other areas in the north-eastern US, FBI officials said.

The arrests are tied to charges of murder, extortion and narcotics.

Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to discuss details of the case at a news conference later on Thursday.

"Early this morning, FBI agents along with our law enforcement partners began arresting over 100 organised crime members for various criminal charges," FBI investigator Diego Rodriguez told a local NBC News affiliate in New York City.

Officials said alleged leaders of the Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno, Colombo and DeCavalcante families were among those who had been arrested.

"It was very broad scope," New York FBI spokesman Robert Nardoza told the AFP news agency.

Early morning arrests

Some of the arrests were made as the result of information obtained through federal probes and informants, local media reported.

The sweep began before dawn on Thursday with federal agents arresting a range of individuals being investigated, from suspected small-time bookers to senior leaders, the New York Times newspaper said.

The arrests are reportedly part of one of the largest mafia crackdowns conducted by federal authorities in the US.

Mafia families in the US have seen a sharp decline in fortunes in the the past 10 years as the result of court testimony from informants, who have begun breaking their code of silence in recent years.

South Korea agrees military talks with North

A North Korean soldier, centre watches southern soldiers at the border village of Panmunjom, 19/01 Relations between North and South Korea nosedived during 2010

South Korea has agreed to high-level military talks with the North, after months of tension on the peninsula.

The South said it would join the talks only if the agenda included the two events that have soured relations - the sinking of a southern warship in March, and the shelling of a southern island.

Pyongyang denies torpedoing the Cheonan warship, and says it was provoked into shelling Yeonpyeong island in November.

On Wednesday, the US and China urged the two sides to reopen talks.

The North had made several offers of talks earlier this month, but they were all dismissed by Seoul.

Officials at the South's defence ministry said the North made its latest offer of talks in a telegram sent to southern Defence Minister Kim Kwan-jin, signed by the North's Armed Forces Minister Kim Young-chun.

The South's Unification Ministry said the offer included a commitment to "exchange views" about the shelling of Yeonpyeong and the sinking of the Cheonan.

The ministry said the offer had been accepted, but that the North must give assurances that it would "take responsible measures" over the two incidents.

'Fence-mending'

On Wednesday, China's President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama released a joint statement urging Korean dialogue after a meeting in Washington.

Analysis

South Korea has rejected previous calls from the North for talks. So what has changed?

It is suggested that the North has finally agreed to "exchange views" with the South on the sunken warship and the island which was bombarded. That falls short of the apology demanded by Seoul, though it is movement.

In the coming weeks, preparatory talks are expected about discussions between more senior figures, whether military or ministerial. Seoul may walk away if it feels that Pyongyang is still "insincere".

There is likely to be significance in the timing of this latest move, with the American and Chinese presidents recently calling for measures that would allow the early resumption of multilateral talks on North Korea's denuclearisation.

"The United States and China emphasised the importance of an improvement in North-South relations, and agreed that sincere and constructive inter-Korean dialogue is an essential step," the two leaders said.

And the North's state-run news agency KCNA called for the US to reopen talks with Pyongyang.

"The US would be well advised to re-examine its hostile policy towards the DPRK [North Korea] and make a U-turn towards dialogue and fence-mending," its report said.

The US is among the countries involved in talks over the North's nuclear programme.

Pyongyang pulled out of the talks in April 2009, shortly before conducting a nuclear test.

Southern defence officials said on Thursday that they would propose to Pyongyang reopening dialogue on denuclearisation.

Relations between the two Koreas plunged to new lows after the South's Cheonan warship was sunk in March, with the loss of 46 lives.

An international report later blamed the North for the sinking - allegations denied by Pyongyang.

On 23 November, the North killed four people when it shelled Yeonpyeong island - its first attack on a civilian area since the 1950-53 war ended.

The South responded with a series of military exercises close to the border.

Michaela Harte McAreavey: Fifth hotel worker held over honeymoon bride murder

Thursday, 20 January 2011


John and Michaela McAreavey at the Giant's Causeway in North Antrim

John and Michaela McAreavey at the Giant's Causeway in North Antrim


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Police investigating the murder of honeymooner Michaela Harte McAreavey on the idyllic island of Mauritius have arrested another security worker at the hotel where she was killed.

The fifth member of staff at Legends Hotel to be arrested is Seenarain Mungoo (39), with an address at Petit-Raffray, Mauritius.

He was last night being questioned by investigators in relation to the death of Michaela (27), who was found dead in the bathroom of their hotel room by her new husband John McAreavey (26).

Police are probing Mr Mungoo's involvement with the key card used to access her room.

He was initially quizzed during the investigation earlier last week but was released without charge. A police source said: "We believe he could be the last missing link in the puzzle."

If charged, he is expected to be brought into court tomorrow as today is a public holiday.

The revelation came after a fourth man -- Dassen Narainen (26), a security worker at the hotel -- appeared in the District Court of Mapou provisionally charged with conspiracy to commit the murder of the daughter of Mickey Harte.

The suspect was refused bail on police objections and he will have to appear at the same court on January 26.

Mr Narainen was questioned about how the key to Michaela's room was "stolen or substituted" from the control room of the security department on January 7, three days before Michaela was killed.

Raj Theekoy (33), who is also charged with conspiracy, was remanded in custody until his next court appearance, also scheduled for January 26.

Earlier in the day, prime murder suspects Sandip Moneea (41) and Abinash Treebhoowoon (29) were told that police objected to their release on bail.

Legal counsels Sanjeev Teeluckdharee and Ravi Rutnah, for Mr Treebhoowoon, lodged a motion yesterday requesting permission for their client to make a statement regarding the conditions of detention and his rights as a suspect.

In her ruling, Magistrate Bonomally said: "The court has already delivered its ruling last week concerning police brutality and clear instructions were given to prosecution to look into the matter."

The magistrate added that the statement was "inappropriate" at this "provisional stage" and that the defence could put forward the motion when the case was taken up for argument.

When detectives have completed their inquiry, they will hand over any evidence to the director of public prosecutions, who will decide which charges the suspects should face. The case will then go before a magistrate before it proceeds to a higher court, according to police. This process is likely to take some time.

Meanwhile, Tyrone's first match since Michaela's death was postponed last night following a pitch inspection.

Large crowds were expected at Healy Park in Omagh last night to watch Mickey Harte's side play Jordanstown in the Dr McKenna Cup.

The game had been postponed last week, as a mark of respect to the Harte and McAreavey families, but a frozen pitch last night led to its postponement for a second time.

In what was likely to have been a poignant evening, team members were to wear black armbands and lead spectators in a minute's silence.

On Monday, around 3,000 people attended the funeral of the Irish language teacher and mourners continued to pay their respects yesterday, leaving flowers at her graveside.

The newlywed, from near Ballygawley, Co Tyrone, is thought to have been killed as she disturbed a burglary in her hotel room.

She was buried in her wedding dress at St Malachy's Church outside the Northern Ireland village.


2010 sets global temperature record

Snow-covered bear statue Unusually cold December weather in some places distracted attention from warmth elsewhere

2010 was the warmest year since global temperature records began in 1850.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) concludes 2010 was 0.53C warmer than the average for the period 1961-90 - a period commonly used as a baseline.

It comes in just ahead of 1998 and 2005 - but the margins of uncertainty in measurements means the three years are statistically identical.

The WMO analysis combines data from three leading research agencies, and is regarded as the most authoritative.

The three records are maintained by the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), and jointly in the UK by the Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

They use broadly the same data from weather stations, ocean buoys and satellites across the world; but each analyses that data in different ways, leading to slight differences in their conclusions.

The University of Alabama at Huntsville team, which runs the satellite temperature record, has already called 2010 as the second warmest year in its 41-year series, just behind 1998.

"The 2010 data confirm the Earth's significant long-term warming trend," said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud.

"The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998."

Other indications of 2010 warmth flagged up by the WMO include the lowest extent of sea-ice cover in the Arctic since the satellite record began.

Regions of the world experiencing particularly warm conditions during 2010 included Africa, southern and western Asia, and the northern extremities of North America, including Greenland.

The possibility that 2010 would emerge as the warmest year on record was raised by scientists after the year began with a period of El Nino conditions - unusually warm waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which transfer heat from the ocean to the atmosphere.

However, a switch to the opposing La Nina conditions halfway through the year cast doubt on whether the record would be broken.

Although December was exceptionally cold in some places - the coldest for 100 years across the UK - other regions, such as Greenland and eastern Canada, saw unseasonably warm weather.

The WMO notes a number of extreme weather events ocurring during 2010, including:

Agencies including the UK Met Office suggest 2011 is likely to be cooler on average than 2010, as La Nina conditions dominate.

The variation between El Nino and La Nina can alter the global temperature by half a degree or so.

But the variations it produces sit on top of a slow, steady warming trend dating back half a century, ascribed to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from industry, agriculture, deforestation and other human activities.