Millions of dollars in drugs seized, 70 arrested in Arizona

At least 70 suspected drug smugglers with alleged ties to the powerful Sinaloa cartel have been arrested in Arizona, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
The massive take-down of the drug trafficking network in Arizona included arrests of Mexican and U.S. suspects who allegedly smuggled more than 330 tons of illegal narcotics a year through Arizona.
More than 20 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies were involved in the 17-month multiagency investigation called Operation Pipeline Express. Speaking at a news conference Monday in Phoenix, law enforcement officials said the organization was responsible for smuggling more than $33 million worth of drugs a month.
"Today, we have dealt a significant blow to a Mexican criminal enterprise that has been responsible for poisoning our communities with the distribution of millions of dollars' worth of marijuana, cocaine and heroin," Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said. "I find it completely unacceptable that Arizona neighborhoods are treated as a trading floor for narcotics."
Officials say the ring, organized around cells based in the Arizona communities of Chandler, Stanfield and Maricopa, used backpackers and vehicles to move loads of marijuana and other drugs from the Arizona-Mexico border to a network of "stash" houses in the Phoenix area. After arriving in Phoenix, the contraband was sold to distributors from multiple states nationwide.
Law enforcement officials seized thousands of pounds of marijuana, cocaine and heroin in a series of raids. They also seized more than 100 weapons, including multiple assault rifles and ammunition.
Authorities say the organization has been around for at least five years. According to a news release, officials say they "conservatively estimate the ring has smuggled more than 3.3 million pounds of marijuana, 20,000 pounds of cocaine and 10,000 pounds of heroin into to the United States, generating almost $2 billion in illicit proceeds."
for more detail visit cnn.news.com

Read More

Various '7 billionth' babies celebrated worldwide

MANILA, Philippines Countries around the world marked the world’s population reaching 7 billion Monday with lavish ceremonies for newborn infants symbolizing the milestone and warnings that there may be too many humans for the planet’s resources.
While demographers are unsure exactly when the world’s population will reach the 7 billion mark, the U.N. is using Monday to symbolically mark the day. A string of festivities are being held worldwide, with a series of symbolic 7-billionth babies being born.
The celebrations began in the Philippines, where baby Danica May Camacho was greeted with cheers and an explosion of photographers’ flashbulbs at Manila’s Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital. She arrived two minutes before midnight Sunday, but doctors say that was close enough to count for a Monday birthday.
The baby received a shower of gifts, from a chocolate cake marked “7B Philippines” to a gift certificate for shoes.
source:taiwannews.com.tw

Read More

3 young men killed in Kansas grain elevator blast

Unstable concrete, hanging steel beams and other damage caused by a powerful explosion that ripped through a Kansas grain elevator are complicating efforts to find three more people likely killed in the blast.

Crews were hoping to stabilize the debris and resume their search Monday in the Bartlett Grain Co. facility in Atchison, about 50 miles northwest of Kansas City. The bodies of three other workers were recovered after the Saturday blast, and two people are hospitalized with severe burns.

The explosion was a harrowing reminder of the dangers workers face inside elevators brimming with highly combustible grain dust at the end of harvest season. The blast fired an orange fireball into the night sky, shot off a chunk of the grain distribution building directly above the elevator and blew a large hole in the side of a concrete silo.

The search for three people presumed dead — another worker and two grain inspectors — was temporarily halted Sunday because of fears that the building could fall on rescuers. Local officials met with victims' families to explain why crews pulled back, but understood they wanted their loved ones found, Atchison City Manager Trey Cocking said.

"Uncertainty is always the worst for folks," he said late Sunday, as candlelight vigils were held near the still smoldering building.

The three Bartlett workers whose bodies have been recovered were identified as Chad Roberts, 20; Ryan Federinko, 21; and John Burke, 24. Bartlett officials said the three others are presumed dead and search crews have a good idea where they were at the time of the explosion.

Among the missing was Travis Keil, a war veteran who had served as a site inspector for 16 years. His parents, Gary and Ramona Keil, drove from Salina to Atchison to wait with his three children — ages 8, 12 and 15 — as crews searched.

"We have all our prayers working for him," Gary Keil said. "It's a parent's worst nightmare to go through this."

for more detail visit usatoday.com

Read More

Tanker explodes near U.S. base in Afghanistan, killing 10

At least 10 people died and 35 others were injured Wednesday when a tanker filled with tons of fuel and strapped with a mine exploded near a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan, a government official said.
"The tanker driver wanted to detonate the explosive device inside Bagram Air Base, but before reaching his goal, the explosive device was detonated," said Roshan Khalid, spokeswoman for the governor of Parwan province.
"In a first small explosion, the tanker fuel poured in the street. When the local people gathered to collect the fuel, the second explosion happened."
The tanker was carrying 18 tons of fuel, according to Khalid.
"In the past, Afghan security forces were able to discover and dismantle explosive devices in three tankers which had planned to enter into Bagram Air Base and detonate their explosives there," she said.
The base is the nerve center of American military operations in Afghanistan and is frequently targeted by militants.
for more detail visit cnn.news.com

Read More

Gaddafi buried in unknown location

The Libyan government buried Muammar Gaddafi in an unknown location at dawn on Tuesday, al-Jazeera television reported, citing a source in the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC).
Officials from the interim government had said earlier that the ousted Libyan leader would be buried in a secret desert grave, ending a wrangle over his rotting corpse that led many to fear for the country's governability.
Government forces had put the body on show in a cold store in Misrata while they argued over what to do with it, until its decay forced them to end the display on Monday.
The killing of the 69-year-old in his hometown of Sirte brought to a close eight months of war, finally ending a nervous two-month hiatus since anti-Gaddafi fighters overran the capital, Tripoli.
But it also threatened to lay bare the regional and tribal rivalries that present the NTC with its biggest challenge.
NTC officials had said negotiations were going on with Gaddafi's tribal kinsmen from Sirte and within the interim leadership over where and how to dispose of bodies – Gaddafi's son Mutassim was also on display in Misrata – and over what rebel leaders in possession of corpses might receive in return for co-operation.
"No agreement was reached for his tribe to take him," an NTC official told Reuters.
With the decay of the body forcing the NTC leadership's hand, it appeared to have decided that an anonymous grave would at least ensure the plot did not become a shrine.
An NTC official told Reuters several days ago that there would be only four witnesses to the burial, and all would swear on the Qur'an never to reveal the location.
NTC fears that Gaddafi's sons might mount an insurgency have largely been allayed by the death of two of those who wielded the most power, military commander Khamis and Mutassim, the former national security adviser.
Mutassim was captured along with his father in Sirte and killed in similarly unclear circumstances. The NTC official said he would be buried in the same ceremony on Tuesday. Khamis was killed in fighting earlier in the civil war.
But the official said Gaddafi's long-time heir apparent Saif al-Islam was in the remote southern desert and set to flee Libya, with the NTC powerless to stop him.
"He's on the triangle of Niger and Algeria. He's south of Ghat, the Ghat area. He was given a false Libyan passport from the area of Murzuq," the official added.
He said Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi who, like Saif al-Islam, is wanted by the international criminal court, was involved.
"The region is very, very difficult to monitor and encircle," he said. "The region is a desert region and it has … many, many exit routes."
for more detail visit guardian.co.uk

Read More

Gadhafi killed in crossfire after capture, Libyan PM says

Libyans cheered the fate of ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi into the early hours of Friday after his death in what Libya's transitional prime minister described as a crossfire that followed his arrest by revolutionary forces.
"This is a time to start a new Libya, with a new economy, with a new education and with a new health system -- with one future," Mahmoud Jibril, Libya's transitional prime minister, said after proclaiming Gadhafi's death.
Gadhafi was captured alive and unharmed as troops from the National Transitional Council overran his hometown of Sirte on Thursday, Jibril said. But a gunbattle erupted between transitional council fighters and Gadhafi's supporters as his captors attempted to load him into a vehicle, Jibril said, leaving Gadhafi with a wound to his right arm.
More shooting erupted as the vehicle drove away, and Gadhafi -- who ruled Libya for nearly 42 years before rebel forces overthrew him in August -- was hit in the head, Jibril said, Gadhafi died moments before arriving at a hospital in Misrata, Jibril said, citing the city's coroner.
Grainy video broadcast on Arabic satellite networks captured some of the onetime Libyan strongman's last moments, as the bloodied but still-alive Gadhafi was being hauled onto a truck. Another video showed a dead Gadhafi with what appeared to be a head wound.
According to Ali Aujali, Libya's ambassador to the United States, troops found Gadhafi in a large drainage pipe. Daily Telegraph reporter Ben Farmer in Sirte old CNN's Anderson Cooper the pipe is about 3 feet wide and filled with trash and sand.
The phrases "The place of the rat Gadhafi" and "You scum" were painted around its exterior, apparently after the capture.
Jibril said Gadhafi was carrying a gun but did not resist his captors. Jibril said DNA samples confirmed Gadhafi's identity, and the International Criminal Court -- which had issued an arrest warrant for the ousted dictator on war-crimes charges -- has agreed to allow Gadhafi's burial.
Aujali said the National Transitional Council and the Libyan people wanted Gadhafi to be taken alive to answer for his crimes. In one video from the scene, a voice can be heard shouting, "No, no, we want him alive, we want him alive."
for more detail visit cnn.news.com

Read More