Tag: InternationalNews

{{The United states is shocked at the news of setting free the only prime suspect in the Benghazi Consulate attack.}}

The only suspect to be held over the attack on the US embassy in the Libyan city of Benghazi has been released due to lack of evidence, his lawyer says.

Ali Harzi, who was being held by authorities in Tunisia, was conditionally released on Monday night, the lawyer said.

The attack on 11 September killed the US envoy to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other American officials.

The case has created political shockwaves in the US.

BBC

{{Hundreds of rescuers searched for a fourth day in planes, helicopters and boats off Venezuela on Monday, looking for a missing plane carrying Italian fashion executive Vittorio Missoni and five other people.}}

Italian Ambassador Paolo Serpi flew over the area and met in Los Roques with officials who are coordinating the search.

Speaking on television, he thanked the Venezuelan government for “a great effort” so far by the military, civil aviation and disaster management officials.

Serpi expressed confidence in the search operation despite windy weather, which made for choppy seas.

A plane and two helicopters were searching along with four civilian planes, the Venezuelan government said in a statement on Sunday.

Two Coast Guard ships and five patrol boats were also participating. The government said that nearly 400 people were involved in the search, including about 30 divers.

{{Journalists at a major Chinese paper, Southern Weekly, have gone on strike in a rare protest against censorship.}}

The row was sparked last week when the paper’s New Year message calling for reform was changed by propaganda officials.

Staff wrote two letters calling for the provincial propaganda chief to step down. Another row then erupted over control of the paper’s microblog.

Supporters of the paper have gathered outside its office, reports say.

Some of the protesters carried banners that read: “We want press freedom, constitutionalism and democracy”.

Police did not interfere with the protesters outside the paper’s offices, according to reports.

“The Nanfang [Southern] Media Group is relatively willing to speak the truth in China so we need to stand up for its courage and support it now,” Ao Jiayang, one of the protesters, told Reuters.

Southern Weekly is perhaps the country’s most respected newspaper, known for its hard-hitting investigations and for testing the limits of freedom of speech, says the BBC’s Martin Patience in Beijing.

Chinese media are supervised by so-called propaganda departments that often change content to align it with party thinking.

BBC

{{In Denmark, police has killed one man and another suspect wounded in a shootout after police attempted to search a boat that they said was carrying a large haul of marijuana.}}

Police spokesman Thomas Kristensen says one policeman was also wounded in the operation in Aalbaek harbor, located in northern Denmark, and one other suspect was apprehended.

Kristensen said Monday that police found 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of marijuana on the boat.

The nationality of three suspects was not immediately clear, although Norwegian media were reporting that the three were from Norway.

Such shootouts are extremely rare in Denmark. Kristensen said a special bureau will take over the investigation to determine whether police were justified in using their firearms.

AP

{Above: Rev. Arthur Burton Schirmer, 62, right, is led into district court by Pennsylvania State Trooper Bill Skotleski in Tannersville, Pa., Sept. 13, 2010.}

{{In US’s Pennsylvania State , Jury selection is scheduled to begin today (Monday) for Pastor Arthur Schirmer, who is accused of killing his second wife and then staging a car accident to hide it.}}

Schirmer, 64, also faces a second trial at a later date for the death of his first wife. He has said he is innocent of all charges.

In 2008, the pastor and his wife, Betty, were involved in what appeared at the time to be a car crash.

Schirmer told police at the time that he had been driving 55 mph and swerved to miss a deer, causing him to drive off the road, according to a police affidavit.

Schirmer also said at the time that his wife’s head had come forward and struck the windshield, according to the affidavit.

Betty died a day later and her body was cremated at the request of Schirmer.

It wasn’t until a grisly suicide in 2010 inside Schirmer’s office that authorities decided to revisit the case of Betty Schirmer’s death and arrest the pastor.

The man who broke in and shot himself at the desk in Schirmer’s office at the Reeders United Methodist Church, Joseph Mustante, was the husband of the pastor’s secretary, Cynthia Mustante, Poconos Township Police Detective James Wagner said.

Mustante’s suicide was prompted by the discovery that his wife and the pastor had apparently been having an affair, Wagner said. He was alone at the time of his death.

Investigators looking into the suicide say that several church parishioners had concerns about the deaths of Schirmer’s two wives.

“That suicide eventually exposed the affair publicly and subsequent to that, questions arose about the loss of [Schirmer’s] wives and his character became questionable,” Wagner said.

Relaunching the investigation into the two deaths, Wagner said he quickly suspected that “foul play existed, and the car crash was staged,” allegedly, by Schirmer.

Wagner said investigators also believed there was something “suspicious” about the first wife’s death, a marriage that investigators had not known about prior to the suicide.

{{Investigators Look Into Deaths of Rev. Arthur Schirmer’s Wives}}

Schirmer’s first wife, Jewel, died in April 1999 from a traumatic brain injury after she purportedly fell down a flight of stairs in Lebanon, Pa., Wagner said.

Lebanon is about 100 miles southwest of Reeders, where Schrimer later moved with his second wife.

At the time of Jewel’s death, Wagner said, a relative told police that he suspected Schirmer may have had a hand in his wife’s death but that the investigation was “never completed.”

On Dec. 11, 2012 — more than 13 years after Jewel died, a Lebanon County judge ruled Schirmer would be tried for her murder.

When investigators looked at the death of Betty Schirmer, they saw inconsistencies, Wagner said.

“There was no airbag deployment and it simply looked like a car that had driven off the road at a very low speed,” Wagner said. “It didn’t match the injuries to [Betty’s head].

“I know there are people out there who probably know him and feel like there is absolutely no way he would be capable of doing this,” Wagner of Schirmer. “But they clearly don’t know him.”

{ABCnews}

{{The Palestinian president has ordered his government to officially change the name of the Palestinian Authority to “State of Palestine.”}}

The move follows the November decision by the United Nations to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to that of a “non-member observer state.”

President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that all official Palestinian stamps, stationery and documents will now bear the new name.

A statement from his office said the move was aimed at enhancing Palestinian “sovereignty on the ground” and was a step on the way to “real independence.” Israel still controls most of the West Bank.

Israel objected to the Palestinian statehood bid at the U.N., calling it a unilateral step aimed at bypassing direct peace negotiations. Abbas denied that.

{Agencies}
Israel had no comment Sunday.