Tag: InternationalNews

An Italian judge has ordered 49 suspected Latin American gang members to stand trial for allegedly using dogs to smuggle cocaine into the country.

A vet in Mexico forced large dogs to swallow drug packages before they were flown into Milan, police say.

On arrival, they were killed and dismembered to retrieve the cocaine in a case which has outraged animal rights activists.

The Ecuadorean, Peruvian and Salvadoran nationals will face trial in Italy.

The suspected gang members, between 19 and 37 years old, are thought to be part of youth drug gangs known as “pandillas”.

The gangs go under the names Trebol, Neta, Latin King Luzbel and Latin King Chicago, according to the investigative judge Fabrizio D’Arcangelo.

Mr D’Arcangelo told reporters the armed gangs were involved in several crimes in and around Milan.

The drug trafficking operation was first uncovered in March, when 75 suspects were arrested.

BBC

{{North and South Korea have started in-depth talks on reopening a jointly-run industrial zone in Kaesong.}}

The two sides agreed in principle to restart operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex after marathon negotiations over the weekend.

South Korea says it wants assurances that Pyongyang will not unilaterally close the factory zone again.

Work at the Kaesong zone has been suspended since mid-April, when North Korea withdrew its workers.

The move came amid high tensions after Pyongyang’s 12 February nuclear test.

The Kaesong complex, which is located just inside North Korea, is home to more than 120 South Korean factories which employ some 53,000 North Korean workers.

The joint project is both a symbol of inter-Korean co-operation and a key source of revenue for Pyongyang.

Sun Ho, a director-general in South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said the delegation would strive to accomplish “developmental normalisation” of the complex “in accordance with common sense and international rules”.

Another official at the Unification Ministry said: “The weekend marked the first step, but the difficult part starts now.”

BBC

The United Nations chief has said that the grounding of the Bolivian president’s plane in Vienna on suspicion that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was aboard was “unfortunate”.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said on Tuesday that “it was important to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.”

“A head of state and his or her aircraft enjoy immunity and inviolability.”

Snowden is believed to be still at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport where he landed on June 23 after fleeing Hong Kong.

Some European countries refused to allow Bolivian President Evo Morales to fly through their airspace on his way home from Moscow on July 2 because of suspicions that Snowden had boarded his plane.

Ban spoke after meeting the ambassadors of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela to hear their concerns.

Bolivia has accused Spain, France, Portugal and Italy of closing their skies to President Evo Morales’ plane last week after being told it was carrying the former US spy agency contractor from Moscow to Bolivia, and demanded to know who gave them that information.

Spain has acknowledged on Tuesday that a US request had led it to delay approving an overflight by Bolivia’s president, but said it had given the go-ahead after receiving an assurance from Bolivia that US fugitive Edward Snowden was not on the plane.

{agencies}

{{Russia has presented evidence to the UN it says shows Syrian rebels attacked regime forces with sarin gas that was produced in “cottage industry” conditions.}}

Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russian experts had been to the scene of the attack at Khan al-Assal near Aleppo and gathered firsthand evidence.

Churkin said the attack killed 26 people, including 16 military personnel, and injured 86 others. Rebels have blamed government forces for the attack.

The samples taken from the impact site of the gas-laden projectile were analysed at a Russian laboratory certified by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Churkin said.

He said the analysis showed that the unguided Basha’ir-3 rocket that hit Khan al-Assal was not a military-standard chemical weapon. He said the samples indicated the sarin and the projectile were produced in makeshift “cottage industry” conditions, and the projectile was “not a standard one for chemical use”.

He added that, according to information gathered by Russia, production of the projectiles started in February by the “Basha’ir al-Nasr’ brigade”, which is affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.

The Russian action risks reigniting an international dispute over the use of chemical weapons in the 26-month-old war, in which the United Nations says up to 100,000 people have been killed.

aljazeera

{{NSA leaker Edward Snowden accepted Venezuela’s offer of political asylum, according to a posting Tuesday on the Twitter account of a Russian lawmaker with close ties to the Kremlin. However, the tweet disappeared a few minutes later.}}

It was not possible to immediately reach Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee who has acted as an unofficial point-man for the Kremlin on the Snowden affair.

Snowden, who revealed details of a U.S. intelligence program to monitor Internet activity, came to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on June 23 and was believed to be headed for Cuba.

But he did not board that flight and has not seen publicly since. He is widely believed to still be in the airport’s transit zone.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Saturday his country hadn’t yet been in contact with Snowden, who has been unable to travel further because the U.S. annulled his passport.

For Snowden to leave for South America, he would need for Venezuela to issue him travel documents and he would need to find a way to get there. The only direct commercial flight from Moscow goes to Havana, Cuba.

The Moscow-Havana flight goes over Europe and the U.S., which could cause complications.

Some European countries refused to allow Bolivian President Evo Morales to fly through their airspace on his way home from Moscow last week because of suspicions that Snowden was on his plane.

The presidents of Bolivia and Nicaragua also said over the weekend that Snowden was welcome in their countries.

{wirestory}

{{Right on schedule, singer Lauryn Hill reported to federal prison on Monday to begin a three-month sentence for failing to pay federal income taxes.}}

The musician and mother of six pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million from 2005 to 2007.

The Grammy winning artist was sentenced to three months in federal prison, which she’ll serve at a low security female facility in Danbury, Connecticut.

Hill has sold millions of albums — 16, to be exact — but when she appeared before a judge in May, she said that she lives modestly considering the amount of money her music has earned for others.

“Someone did the math, and it came to around $600 million,” she said at the time. “And I sit here before you trying to figure out how to pay a tax debt? If that’s not like enough to slavery, I don’t know.”

The U.S. attorney’s office said that the income in question was earned mainly from music and film royalties that were paid to companies she owned from 2005 to 2008.

According to the prosecutor, the sentence handed down “also takes into account additional income and tax losses for 2008 and 2009 — when she also failed to file federal returns — along with her outstanding tax liability to the state of New Jersey, for a total income of approximately $2.3 million and total tax loss of approximately $1,006,517.”

After her three-month prison stint, Hill was also sentenced to three months of home confinement and a year of supervised probation. She’ll also have to pay penalties, the taxes still owed and a $60,000 fine.

{wirestory}