Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Six In The Morning


CIA rendition: more than a quarter of countries 'offered covert support'

Report finds at least 54 countries co-operated with global kidnap, detention and torture operation mounted after 9/11 attacks

The full extent of the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme has been laid bare with the publication of a report showing there is evidence that more than a quarter of the world's governments covertly offered support.
A 213-page report compiled by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a New York-based human rights organisation, says that at least 54 countries co-operated with the global kidnap, detention and tortureoperation that was mounted after 9/11, many of them in Europe.
So widespread and extensive was the participation of governments across the world that it is now clear the CIA could not have operated its programme without their support, according to the OSJI.

CORRUPTION

Europol exposes major football 'match-fixing' network


Europol says it has exposed a criminal network suspected of fixing hundreds of soccer matches involving some of the game’s biggest series. A leading expert on match-fixing told DW the probe was a "superb start."
The head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, told reporters in The Hague on Monday that a wide-ranging investigation had uncovered evidence that pointed to match-fixing in more than 380 matches, including Champions League and World Cup qualifiers, played between 2008 and 2011.
"This is a sad day for European football," Wainwright said, describing it as "match-fixing activity on a scale we have not seen before."
Also affected were games played in German, Turkish, and Swiss leagues.

In the Lion's Den: The Fight for Survival in Damascus


Damascus has become one of the most intense battlefields in the fight for Syria, even as those loyal to President Bashar Assad insist that much of the capital remains under their control. Those who haven't left care only about survival.

"We're almost finished with them," says the general. He has a broad jaw, and his gray hair encircles his head like a thick garland.
From the roof of a military building behind Umayyad Square in Damascus, the general would be able to see columns of smoke rising above the suburb of Daraya, where rebels are battling his soldiers. But he is sitting in his office on the third floor, behind a monstrous wooden desk, under portraits of the founder of the Assad dynasty, Hafez Assad, and his son Bashar.
The infantry general, in his early fifties, wears the Syrian army emblem, a hawk above crossed swords, on his shoulder. He is a member of the military elite and has spent his life serving the Assad regime.


Henry Okah's prison sentencing postponed

The sentencing process of Nigerian terrorist Henry Okah has been postponed until February 28 by the High Court in Johannesburg.

Okah's attorney Lucky Maunatlala asked for the postponement to give witnesses from Nigeria and the United States time to get to South Africa to testify.
Okah was found guilty last month of 13 counts of terrorism, including engaging in terrorist activities, conspiracy to engage in terrorist activity, and delivering, placing, and detonating an explosive device.
The charges related to two car bombs in Abuja, Nigeria, in which 12 people died and 36 were injured on October 1, 2010, the anniversary of the country's independence.
They also involved two explosions in March 2010 in the southern Nigerian city of Warri.

El Salvador's military to withdraw from 'peace zones'


The Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs agreed to hand over weapons and stop homicides, kidnapping, and extortion in four 'peace zone' municipalities as part of El Salvador's national gang truce.

By Elyssa Pachico, InSight Crime / February 4, 2013

El Salvador's Defense Minister confirmed that the military will withdraw from the areas designated "peace zones," where Mara gangs have pledged to end all criminal activity.
Defense Minister Atilio Benitez told La Prensa Graficathat the military will withdraw from the peace zones, as crime is expected to drop significantly in these areas, and the troops need to focus their attention on regions with higher crime rates. 
Four municipalities have been inaugurated as crime-free sanctuaries so far, and another ten are expected to follow. The Defense Minister said that as a first step, the military would stop conducting joint patrols with police in the current peace zones, which include Sonsonate, Quezaltepeque, Ilopango, and Santa Tecla.

5 February 2013 Last updated at 00:01 GMT

TV's white spaces connecting rural Africa


"This is the greatest achievement I can say for this school. [The students] are finding it a great favour that they should be the first school in Africa to have this kind of a project. It is very exciting. They wonder how they got there."

Beatrice Nderango is the headmistress of Gakawa Secondary School, which lies about 10km from Nanyuki, a market town in Kenya's rift valley, not far from the Mount Kenya national park.
The school is situated in a village that has no phone line and no electricity. The people that live here are mostly subsistence farmers.

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