IGIHE

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  • ‘Pink Panther’ escapes in armed Swiss prison break with fellow inmate

    {{Police in Switzerland hunted Friday for two inmates who escaped in a prison break staged by a pair of armed accomplices.}}

    The two prisoners who escaped from Orbe prison Thursday evening were named by the Vaud canton’s police department as serial criminal Adrian Albrecht, 53, and Milan Poparic, 34, a Bosnian national.

    Poparic was jailed for robbery of a jewelry store in Neuchatel and is part of the “Pink Panthers” group, the police statement said.

    According to the Interpol website, the Pink Panthers are behind armed robberies targeting high-end jewelry stores in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States.

    The loosely associated network of criminals has hundreds of members and is believed to have stolen jewelry worth more than €300 million ($396 million) since 1999, it said.

    Several inmates were exercising in an outside area under the supervision of prison officers and private security guards when the two accomplices used vehicles to breach a gate and barbed wire barriers around the prison grounds.

    They brought two ladders to help Poparic and Albrecht escape over the barbed-wire of the prison yard, police said.

    At the same time, the accomplices directed bursts of automatic weapon fire toward the prison officers and security guards to keep them at bay.

    The security personnel were able to take cover and no one was hurt, police said. The four men then torched one of the two vehicles and drove off in the other, a gray-colored vehicle.

    Police patrols, canine teams and security officers are combing the area for clues to their whereabouts. The border guards and French police are also involved in the hunt for the four men, police said.

    Orbe, a town in Switzerland’s western Vaud canton, or state, is not far from the French border.

    {agencies}

  • US Warns one brand of Vitamin B Supplement Contains Dangerous Steroids

    {{Federal regulators warned consumers to avoid one brand of vitamin B dietary supplement because it contains potentially harmful anabolic steroids.}}

    Preliminary lab tests showed the product, Healthy Life Chemistry By Purity First B-50, contains methasterone, a controlled substance, and dimethazine, the Food and Drug Administration said.

    “Products marketed as a vitamin but which contain undisclosed steroids pose a real danger to consumers and are illegal,” said Howard Sklamberg, director of the FDA’s compliance office.

    Regulators received 29 complaints associated with the product, including fatigue, muscle pain and cramps, and liver and thyroid problems, the FDA said.

    Women also reported unusual hair growth and missed menstruation, and men reported impotence and low testosterone.

    Some patients were hospitalized, the FDA said in a statement, but no deaths were reported.

    Anyone who used the product and has symptoms should seek medical care and report the case to the FDA, regulators said.

    The product manufactured by New-York based Mira Health Products Ltd is sold online and in stores. The company has not issued a response to the warning.

    {agencies}

  • Cat-and-mouse in Zimbabwe’s election cyber war

    {{Zimbabwe’s government has blocked mass SMS bursts ahead of next week’s election, hobbling a powerful source of non-official information in the tightly controlled southern African state, activists and a phone company source said on Friday.}}

    With the clock ticking to the July 31 poll in which President Robert Mugabe is looking to add to his 33 years in power, web portal Kubatana.net said it had noticed this week that its mass text messages were mysteriously getting lost.

    Its provider, Econet Wireless – Zimbabwe’s largest mobile phone firm with 8 million subscribers out of a population of 13 million – declined to comment.

    However, a senior company source confirmed the firm had bowed to government pressure to block mass SMS services around the election “in the interest of peace, national security and stability”.

    “We have just been told we cannot be facilitating bulk SMSs during the elections, roughly for the next two or so weeks,” the source said. “Our understanding is that they will take our network down or cancel our license if there is any violation.”

    A spokeswoman for the regulator, part of the telecoms ministry, declined to comment.

    Although Internet penetration rates have soared since the end of a long economic meltdown in 2008, many Zimbabweans only have simple phone handsets, making the plain old SMS a more effective way to disseminate news and views to a mass audience.

    Kubatana, whose messages contained headlines, quotations, proverbs and political questions, said the shutdown was an infringement of the freedom of expression enshrined in a constitution only ratified in May.

    “Kubatana.net views the interference in our work as obstructive, repressive and hostile,” it said in a statement.

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  • EU, China Reach Deal to Resolve Solar Panel Trade Dispute

    {{China and the European Union reached a deal on Saturday to defuse a multi-billion euro dispute over Chinese solar panels that threatened a wider trade war.}}

    After six weeks of talks, the EU’s trade chief and his Chinese counterpart sealed the deal over the telephone, setting a minimum price for panels from China near spot market prices.

    European solar panel manufacturers had accused China of dumping about 21 billion euros ($28 billion) worth of solar panels in Europe last year at below the cost of production, putting European businesses out of business.

    Europe planned to impose hefty tariffs from August 6.

    But, wary of offending China’s leaders and losing business in the world’s No. 2 economy, a majority of EU governments – led by Germany – opposed the plan, which led to the compromise deal.

    “We found an amicable solution,” EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said.

    “I am satisfied with the offer of a price undertaking submitted by China’s solar panel exporters,” he said, referring to an agreement for a minimum price for China’s imports.

    Chinese Commerce Ministry Spokesman Shen Danyang welcomed the deal, hailing a “positive and highly constructive outcome”.

    An EU diplomatic source said the agreed price was 0.56 euro cents per watt, near the spot price for Chinese solar panels in July in Europe, according to solar exchange pvXchange.

    That may not satisfy EU solar manufacturers who say the price still constitutes dumping, but China has sold solar panels at as low as 0.38 cents per watt in Europe, according to the European Commission, which handles trade issues for EU states.

    Under the terms of the deal, China will also be allowed to meet about half Europe’s solar panel demand, if taken at last year’s levels.

    EU consumption was about 15 gigawatts in 2012, and China will be able to provide 7 gigawatts without being subject to tariffs under the deal, the EU source said.

    {agencies}

  • Bananas Thrown at Black Italian Minister During Speech

    {{ Italy’s first black minister, a target of racist slurs since her appointment in April, has condemned a spectator who threw bananas towards her while she was making a speech at a party rally.}}

    Integration minister Cecile Kyenge, who was born in Democratic Republic of Congo, has angered far-right groups with her campaign to make it easier for immigrants to gain Italian citizenship.

    Shortly before the incident on Friday, members of the right-wing Forza Nuova group left mannequins covered in fake blood at the site of the rally in Cervia, central Italy, in protest against Kyenge’s proposal to make anyone born on Italian soil a citizen.

    “Immigration kills,” was written on leaflets accompanying the dummies – a slogan Forza Nuova has previously used when referring to murders committed by immigrants in Italy.

    Although the bananas missed the stage where Kyenge was speaking, she responded to the gesture on Twitter, calling it “sad” and a waste of food, considering the economic crisis.

    “The courage and optimism to change things has to come above all from the bottom up to reach the institutions,” she added.

    Kyenge has faced regular insults since becoming minister, often from other politicians. Earlier this month a senior parliamentarian in the anti-immigration Northern League party likened her to an orangutan and only apologized after a storm of criticism.

    {wirestory}

  • Murdered Tunisia MP given State Funeral

    {{A state funeral is being held for Tunisian opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi who was killed on Thursday by gunmen in the capital, Tunis.}}

    His death has sparked widespread unrest. One protester died in overnight clashes in the southern town of Gafsa.

    The interior minister said Mr Brahmi, 58, was killed with the same gun as a fellow left-wing politician, Chokri Belaid, who was shot dead in February.

    A Salafist is one of the main suspects involved the murder, officials said.

    Gunmen on a motorbike shot Mr Brahmi, who led the nationalist Movement of the People party, in his car on Thursday.

    On Saturday thousands of people lined the streets of Tunis as the coffin wrapped in the national flag passed by under military escort.

    Mr Brahmi’s supporters have turned their grief and anger on governing Islamist party Ennahda, with relatives accusing it of complicity in the killing.

    The government has rejected the allegations, instead naming a Salafist radical, Boubaker Hakim, as the main suspect.

    Hours before the funeral, a policeman was injured when a bomb on a car exploded outside a police station in the capital’s La Goulette district.

    On Friday thousands of people took part in a protests after the the biggest trade union, UGTT, called a general strike to denounce general “terrorism, violence and murders”.

    In Gafsa, one demonstrator was killed in clashes with police. The circumstances of his death remain unclear.

    Earlier, demonstrators attacked Ennahda’s headquarters in Sidi Bouzid, Mr Brahmi’s hometown and the birthplace of the Arab Spring revolutions which have swept the Middle East.

    In February, the murder of prominent secular figure Chokri Belaid sparked mass protests and forced then-Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali to resign.

    Six opposition parties have now withdrawn from the national assembly and called for the Islamist-led government to be replaced by a national unity administration.

    Mr Brahmi was a socialist and practising Muslim with a pan-Arab ideology, correspondents say.

    He was less prominent than Chokri Belaid and not as critical of Ennahda, which came to power in elections following the January 2011 uprising.

    The party has faced growing popular unrest over a faltering economy and a rising radical Islamist movement.

    Correspondents say many Tunisians, particularly the young, complain that their quest for secular democracy has been hijacked by intolerant Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood which forms part of the current government.

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  • Rwanda to Block Cars with Emissions

    {{Cars emiting dangerous gases will not be allowed on Rwandan roads.}}

    The Minister for Natural Resources (Minirena), Stanislas Kamanzi said, “Every car owner should be careful as to when their car is due for servicing because not doing this not only affects the vehicle, but also our environment.”

    He also explained that government would have preffered importation of only new cars with very low levels of gas emission, “we know it is not cheap and, therefore, many people will always rely on second hand cars in Rwanda, just like in other developing economies.”

    However Traffic Police has not seized cars with such emissions because of lack of equipment to monitor and measure car emissions on the road.

    The Police Commissioner for Traffic and Road Safety, Felly Bahizi says, “We have impounded about 40 cars with terrible mechanical conditions but not on the grounds of emitting toxic gases. We are, however, working with Minirena and RBS on acquiring machines that our traffic officers can use; so soon, we shall be able to impound such cars.”

  • 3 Killed in Grenade Blast at Nyabugogo

    {{Two more suspects have been arrested in connection with the grenade blast that went off in Nyabugogo yesterday.}}

    Meanwhile another victim is reported dead, making it three.

    Six victims are admited at Kigali Health Center (CHK) while four are admited at Kanombe Military Hospital.

    Police is calling upon the public to remain calm, and continue with routine business.

    Police is also requesting the public to cooperate with security organs.

    The grenade went off on Friday evening in Gitega Sector of Kigali’s Nyarugenge District near Nyabugogo abattoir commonly known as “marathon.”

    Two people died on the spot.

    RNP

  • South African chef ‘too fat’ to live in New Zealand

    {{Authorities in New Zealand have told a South African chef he is too fat to be allowed to live in the country.}}

    Immigration officials said Albert Buitenhuis, who weighs 130kg (286 pounds), did not have “an acceptable standard of health”.

    He now faces expulsion despite shedding 30kg since he moved to the city of Christchurch six years ago

    New Zealand has one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world, with nearly 30% of people overweight.

    Mr Buitenhuis and his wife, Marthie, moved from South Africa to Christchurch in 2007. At the time, the chef weighed 160kg.

    Until now, their annual work visas had been renewed with “very little problem”, his wife said.

    “We applied year after year and there were no issues,” she said.

    “They never mentioned Albert’s weight or his health once and he was a lot heavier then.”

    But in early May, the couple was told their work visas had been declined because of Mr Buitenhuis’s weight.

    “The irony is that at the moment he weighs less than when we first arrived in New Zealand and also less than in his first medical, which was accepted by [immigration authorities],” his wife said.

    The couple has appealed to New Zealand’s immigration minister, citing the chef’s recent weight loss.

    An immigration spokesman said Mr Buitenhuis’s application had been rejected because his obesity put him at “significant risk” of complications including diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

    “It is important that all migrants have an acceptable standard of health to minimise costs and demands on New Zealand’s health services,” he said.

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  • Axed South Sudan VP Plans to Run for Presidency

    South Sudan’s former Vice President Riek Machar said on Friday he planned to become the frontrunner for the ruling SPLM party in elections in 2015, throwing down the gauntlet to President Salva Kiir who dismissed him three days ago.

    Kiir touched off a power struggle in the African oil-producing country by firing Machar and his cabinet and placing under investigation his top Sudan negotiator, Pagan Amum, in the biggest shakeup since the South gained independence in 2011.

    Analysts say the struggle risks undermining a consensus among tribes and militias leaders holding together the unruly country at a time of heightened tensions with Sudan over crucial oil flows.

    In his first comments since his dismissal, Machar said he planned to head the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which led the country to secession from Khartoum after fighting one of Africa’s longest civil wars.

    “I have told my colleagues in the politburo that come the next elections in 2015, I would contest those elections,” Machar told reporters in the capital Juba.

    He said he wanted to run for the sake of democracy. “I believe that this country must go democratic. If it is going to be united, it cannot tolerate one man’s rule. It cannot tolerate dictatorship. It cannot tolerate tyranny.”

    His spokesman James Gatdet Dak clarified Machar would run for the SPLM chairmanship before the vote to pave his way to the presidency of the one-party state.

    Machar said he accepted his sacking as vice president but accused Kiir of creating a political vacuum for not immediately appointing a new cabinet.

    “We now have a vacuum and this has created apprehension,” added Machar, who said he was “telling people to remain calm”.

    A government officials said Kiir was still consulting the party on a new cabinet probably to be formed by early next week.

    Stability in South Sudan is key for crude producers from China, India and Malaysia operating in the country and east African neighbors Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda which got swamped with refugees during the civil war.

    wirestory