Frontline Blog

Sunday 30 October 2011

Boy, 17, shot in back in Poplar, east London

Posted On 14:30 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

teenager has been shot in the back in east London. The 17-year-old boy was wounded in East India Dock Road, Poplar, in the early hours of the morning. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "A 17-year-old male had a gunshot wound to the back and is in hospital in a serious condition." The attack happened just before 01:00 GMT, police said. Any witnesses to the shooting should call the Metropolitan Police.


Saturday 29 October 2011

Qantas grounds all flights

Posted On 14:40 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

Australia’s Qantas Airways grounded its entire fleet on Saturday over a bitter labour dispute in an unprecedented move that prompted the government to warn it feared for the airline’s future and would seek action to end the dispute. EDITOR’S CHOICE Strikes cost A$15m-a week in lost sales - Oct-28 US airlines earnings hit by fuel costs - Oct-27 Lufthansa scales back passenger forecasts - Oct-27 Virgin eyes tie-up with Etihad on BMI - Oct-14 Qantas overhauls lossmaking international operations - Aug-16 Qantas said it would lock out all employees from Monday night in a dispute affecting 70,000 passengers and 600 flights on one of the country’s biggest travel weekends. The grounding does not affect Qantas’ budget airline Jetstar or code-share flights on other airlines. Passengers will get a full refund for flights cancelled due to the industrial action, Qantas said on its website. Customers can also rebook their flights for a later date. The announcement took passengers and the government by surprise, embarrassing Prime Minister Julia Gillard who was hosting a Commonwealth leaders summit in Perth. Some of those leaders are booked to fly home on Sunday with Qantas. Unions, from pilots to caterers, have taken strike action since September over pay and opposing Qantas plans to cut its soaring costs, as it looks at setting up two new airlines in Asia and cutting back financially draining long-haul flights. “They are trashing our strategy and our brand. They are deliberately destabilising the company. Customers are now fleeing from us,” Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce said.


Monday 24 October 2011

Hells Angel biker rammed intentionally, dragged a mile by East Bay Paratransit bus in San Leandro

Posted On 00:24 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

A paratransit bus driver intentionally rammed a Hells Angels biker on Interstate 580, and then dragged him about a mile, killing him, a CHP spokesman said. The biker, who has not been identified, was traveling eastbound on I-580 in San Leandro near Grand Avenue with a small group of Hells Angels members before 4 p.m. when an altercation began, said CHP Sgt. Trent Cross. After being hit, the motorcyclist and his bike were dragged for about a mile, said San Leandro police Lt. Greg Lemmon. Eventually, the biker was released from under the East Bay Paratransit bus, but the driver kept dragging the motorcycle, which was wedged underneath the front grill, until the vehicle stopped on the shoulder just east of the 150th Avenue onramp. The Hells Angels biker was flown to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, where he was pronounced dead, Lemmon said. The bus driver has been arrested, Lemmon said. Police are interviewing four witnesses who saw the incident. "The preliminary information they are providing was that it wasn't an accident, it was an intentional ramming," Lemmon said. All eastbound lanes were closed from Grand Avenue to 150th Avenue so police could conduct a homicide investigation over a large swath of freeway, Cross said. The lanes were expected to remain closed until 10 or 11 p.m., he said, and there were significant traffic delays in the area. An East Bay Paratransit manager referred calls to First Transit, a Advertisement contract agency that operates the bus. The First Transit representative did not return calls. No passengers were on board the bus during the collision, said San Leandro police Sgt. Doug Calcagno. The paratransit bus provides door-to-door service for people unable to ride regular public transit because of disabilities. It has been a tragic autumn for the Hells Angels motorcycle club. San Jose chapter President Jeffrey "Jethro" Pettigrew was killed outside a Nevada casino last month. At his packed funeral Oct. 15, Steve Tausan, a 52-year-old Hells Angels enforcer and friend of Pettigrew's, was shot dead.


Stockton search for Hells Angels slaying suspect comes up empty

Posted On 00:18 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

A man suspected of fatally shooting a member of the Hells Angels at a recent funeral in San Jose was not holed up in a Stockton home Saturday as police had believed. Steve Ruiz, 38, of San Jose is being sought for allegedly shooting and killing fellow Hells Angels member Steve Tausan, 52, after the two fought Oct. 15 at a funeral for a slain motorcycle club member, according to police. Police had received information that Ruiz had been hiding out at the three-bedroom home on the 3700 block of McDougald Boulevard in Stockton, said San Jose police Sgt Jason Dwyer. Investigators asked Stockton police and the San Joaquin County sheriff's office to serve a search warrant for the home, but both agencies were unavailable, Dwyer said. As a result, San Jose police drove tactical vehicles to the scene. Neighbors said they had seen San Jose police at the scene, calling out to someone in the home to surrender. But after storming the home and firing tear gas at about 8 p.m. Saturday, police came up empty-handed and left. The occupants of the home "are new to the area or they're new to the house" after moving in several months ago, said Noelia Trelles, whose sister-in-law lives next door. "I think we live in a pretty crazy world, but it's still crazy that it's happening in the neighborhood," Trelles said. Ruiz and Tausan were among thousands of Hells Angels members who attended a funeral for Jeffrey Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the motorcycle club, at the Oak Hill Funeral Home and Memorial Park on Curtner Avenue. After the shooting, Ruiz, 38, of San Jose disappeared and one or more people tampered with the crime scene, washing away bloodstains and removing evidence of the shooting, police said. Police found Ruiz's motorcycle at the funeral, Lt. Alan Cavallo said. Ruiz has not come to claim it. Authorities initially speculated that it was possible Ruiz had been killed and possibly buried along with Pettigrew. Investigators obtained a search warrant to dig up Pettigrew's grave, but Ruiz's remains were not found, Cavallo said. But now investigators say they have proof that Ruiz is alive and "actively evading law enforcement," Dwyer said. Ruiz is believed to have two black eyes "and other facial injuries consistent with being in a fight," Dwyer said. Police said Ruiz is in the company of Christel Renee Trujillo, 42, also known as Christel Renee Ferguson, and that her life "is now in danger." The two are possibly traveling in a gold or pewter Chevrolet Suburban. No year of the vehicle or license plate number was available. Ruiz has family and associates in Arizona and New York and may try to contact them, Dwyer said. Police said Pettigrew was shot and killed Sept. 23 by Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez, an alleged member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang, at John Ascuaga's Nugget casino in Sparks, Nev. Gonzalez, 53, of San Jose was arrested by a UCSF police officer in San Francisco six days later. Tausan and the manager of the Pink Poodle, a strip club west of San Jose, were tried for murder in 1999 in the beating death of a club customer two years earlier. They were acquitted on grounds of self-defense.


Saturday 22 October 2011

The slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi secretly spirited out of Libya and invested overseas more than $200 billion

Posted On 07:37 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

The slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi secretly spirited out of Libya and invested overseas more than $200 billion -- double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, The Los Angeles Times reported late Friday. Citing unnamed senior Libyan officials, the newspaper said US administration officials were stunned last spring when they found $37 billion in Libyan regime accounts and investments in the United States. They quickly froze the assets before Kadhafi or his aides could move them, the report said. Governments in France, Italy, England and Germany seized control of another $30 billion or so. Earlier, investigators estimated that Kadhafi had stashed perhaps another $30 billion elsewhere in the world, for a total of about $100 billion, the paper noted. But subsequent investigations by US, European and Libyan authorities determined that Kadhafi secretly sent tens of billions more abroad over the years and made sometimes lucrative investments in nearly every major country, including much of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, The Times said. Most of the money was under the name of government institutions such as the Central Bank of Libya, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan Foreign Bank, the Libyan National Oil Corporation and the Libya African Investment Portfolio, the paper pointed out. But investigators said Kadhafi and his family members could access any of the money if they chose to, the report said. The new $200 billion figure is about double the prewar annual economic output of Libya, The Times noted. Kadhafi, who lorded over the oil-rich North African nation for 42 years, met a violent end on Thursday after a NATO air attack hit a convoy, in which he was trying to escape from his hometown of Sirte. He survived the air strike but was apparently captured and killed after a shootout between his supporters and new regime fighters.


Thursday 20 October 2011

Qaddafi Is Dead, Libyan Officials Say

Posted On 15:17 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan strongman who fled into hiding after rebels toppled his regime two months ago in the Arab Spring’s most tumultuous uprising, was killed Thursday as fighters battling the vestiges of his loyalist forces wrested control of his hometown of Surt, the interim government announced. Multimedia Slide Show Muammar el-Qaddafi: 42 Years as the Face of Libya Photographs Battle for Libya Interactive Feature Timeline: Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi Related Battle for a Holdout City Stalls Healing in Libya (October 19, 2011) Times Topic: Libya — Revolution (2011) Related in Opinion  Nicholas D. Kristof, a Columnist for The New York Times, on the Implications of Muammar el-Qaddafi's Death in Libya and Beyond on The Takeaway Radio Program Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. The New York Times More Photos » Al Jazeera television showed what it said was Colonel Qaddafi’s corpse as jubilant fighters in Surt fired automatic weapons in the air, punctuating an emphatic and violent ending to his four decades as a ruthless and bombastic autocrat who basked in his reputation as the self-styled king of kings of Africa. Libyans rejoiced as news of his death spread. Car horns blared in Tripoli as residents poured into the streets to celebrate. Mahmoud Shammam, the chief spokesman of the Transitional National Council, the interim government that replaced Colonel Qaddafi’s regime after he fled Tripoli in late August, confirmed that Colonel Qaddafi was killed, though he did not provide other details. "A new Libya is born today," he said.  "This is the day of real liberation. We were serious about giving him a fair trial.  It seems God has some other wish."   Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the leader of the Tripoli military council, said on Al Jazeera that anti-Qaddafi forces had Colonel Qaddafi’s body. It was not clear precisely how he died. Mohamed Benrasali, a member of the national council’s Tripoli Stabilization Committee, said fighters from Misurata who were deployed in Surt told him that Colonel Qaddafi was captured alive in a car leaving Surt.  He was badly injured, with wounds in his head and both legs, Mr. Benrasali said, and died soon after.   . Colonel Qaddafi had defied repeated attempts to corner and capture him, taunting his enemies with audio broadcasts denouncing the rebel forces that felled him as stooges of NATO, which conducted a bombing campaign against his military during the uprising under the auspices of a Security Council mandate to protect Libyan civilians. Libya’s interim leaders had said they believed that some Qaddafi family members including the colonel himself and some of his sons had been hiding in Surt or in Bani Walid, another loyalist bastion that the anti-Qaddafi forces captured earlier this week. There was no immediate comment on the news of his death from American officials. . Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Afghanistan, said the department was aware of the reports “on the capture or killing of Muammar Qaddafi.” There was also no immediate comment from Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the interim government’s top official. But he had said that the death or capture of Colonel Qaddafi would allow him to declare the country liberated and in control of its borders, and to start a process that would lead to a general election for a national council within eight months. Libyan fighters said earlier on Thursday that they had routed the last remaining forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi from Surt, ending weeks of fierce fighting in that Mediterranean enclave east of Tripoli. A military spokesman for the interim government, Abdel Rahman Busin, said, “Surt is fully liberated.” The battle for Surt was supposed to have been a postscript to the Libyan conflict, but for weeks soldiers loyal to Colonel Qaddafi, fiercely defended the city, first weathering NATO airstrikes and then repeated assaults by anti-Qaddafi fighters. Former rebel leaders were caught off guard by the depth of the divisions in western Libya, where the colonel’s policy of playing favorites and stoking rivalries has resulted in a series of violent confrontations. Surt emerged as the stage for one of the war’s bloodiest fights, killing and injuring scores on both sides, decimating the city and leading to fears that the weak transitional leaders would not be able to unify the country. The battle turned nearly two weeks ago, when the anti-Qaddafi fighters laid siege to an enormous convention center that the pro-Qaddafi troops had used as a base. The interim leaders had claimed that the ongoing fighting had prevented them from focusing on other pressing concerns, including the proliferation of armed militias that answered to no central authority.


Libya: 'Gaddafi dies from wounds' suffered in Sirte capture

Posted On 15:13 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta said that Gaddafi was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which Nato warplanes attacked. Gaddafi was shot in both legs and "also hit in his head", the official said. "There was a lot of firing against his group and he died." There was no independent confirmation of his remarks. In the early hours of the morning, at least five cars carrying loyalist fighters attempted to escape the city. Libyan rebels then moved into the city's Number Two residential neighbourhood, which was the last pocket of pro-Gaddafi resistance left in the war-torn country. "Sirte has been liberated. There are no Gaddafi forces any more," said Col Yunus Al Abdali, head of operations in the eastern half of the city. "We are now chasing his fighters who are trying to run away." However, there were reports that Gaddafi loyalists had ditched their military uniforms and were firing indiscriminately at civilians. The final assault on the remaining pro-Gaddafi positions began around 8am (7am GMT) on Thursday and was over after about 90 minutes. Civilians, whose city has been under siege since Gaddafi was removed from power at the end of August, were making their way to the centre to celebrate. The Telegraph, witnessing scenes in the centre of the city said there were scenes of relief, jubilation and intense celebratory gunfire among National Transitional Council (NTC) forces. The new national flag was raised above a large utilities building in the Mediterranean city, which had been under siege for nearly two months. A rebel commander confirmed that loyalist fighters in the city had been rounded up. "This is the last day of the fight," Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Abdel Salam of the Misurata Brigade told AFP. The fate of the city has become entwined with the immediate political future of Libya after the National Transitional Council said a full interim government could not be named until Sirte had fallen.


Tuesday 18 October 2011

Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit has been moved from the Gaza Strip to Egyp

Posted On 08:16 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit has been moved from the Gaza Strip to Egypt, Palestinian officials in Gaza said. The move begins an elaborate prisoner swap deal in which hundreds of Palestinian inmates are to be freed in return for the captured tank crewman. The officials said buses of Palestinian prisoners are now moving from Israel into Egypt en route to Gaza. Israel's Army Radio station, citing anonymous Israeli officials, confirmed the report. In all, Israel is slated to release 1,027 prisoners for Schalit, now 25, who had been held in Gaza since he was captured more than five years ago by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid. Before dawn, convoys of white vans and trucks transported hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to the locations in the West Bank and on the Israel-Egypt border where they were to be freed. In Gaza, the Red Cross confirmed that the prisoners slated for release had arrived at the nearby border crossing. The exchange, negotiated through Egyptian mediators because Israel and Hamas will not talk directly to each other, is going ahead despite criticism and court appeals in Israel against the release of the prisoners. Nearly 300 of them were serving lengthy sentences for involvement in deadly attacks. The exchange involves a delicate series of staged releases, each one triggering the next. The Red Cross and Egyptian officials are involved in facilitating the movement of prisoners. A Gaza militant leader said the Palestinians were waiting until all 477 prisoners were moved into Palestinian territory before turning Schalit over to the Egyptians. In the meantime, he said armed men would remain with him in Egypt. When Tuesday's exchange is complete, 477 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including 27 women, will have been released, several of them after decades behind bars. The other 550 are set to be released in two months. Schalit will be brought to an Israeli military base along the Egypt border, where he will be issued a new military uniform and given another medical examination, according to the Israeli military. Schalit will then be flown by helicopter to an air force base in central Israel, where he will meet his parents, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defence minister and military chief of staff.


Wednesday 12 October 2011

FSA broke its own rules in Keydata probe, judge rules

Posted On 09:40 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

High Court judge found that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) had wrongfully used privileged emails to bring its case against Keydata. A further "relief hearing" will now determine the impact of the ruling, which could de-rail the case altogether. It is the latest in a line of setbacks for the regulator, which has been investigating regulatory breaches at Keydata and millions of pounds of missing retail funds for two years. Keydata invested in "life settlement funds", which buy and sell US life insurance and generate high returns. In June 2009 the FSA applied for Keydata's closure "to protect investors", saying it was concerned about "potentially missing assets". The business was fast-tracked into administration and referred to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). It emerged that £103m of life insurance policies managed by a Luxembourg business, SLS Capital, and sold to Keydata investors as low-risk bonds might have been "misappropriated".


US to pressure Iran over 'plot to kill Saudi envoy'

Posted On 09:23 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

US Attorney General Eric Holder says the alleged conspiracy was "conceived, sponsored and directed from Iran" Continue reading the main story Related Stories Clinton hails break-up of 'plot' Middle East rivalries play out in US The US secretary of state has called for a "very strong message" to be sent to Iran, after allegations of a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US. Hillary Clinton said Washington was preparing new penalties against Iran, which is already subject to a variety of international sanctions. Two Iranians were charged over the plot which US officials said implicated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. Meanwhile the US issued a worldwide alert about possible anti-US actions. "The US government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States," the alert said. It urged Americans residing and travelling abroad to review the information available when making travel plans. Iran has dismissed the allegations as false and baseless. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?” Hillary Clinton US secretary of state 'Well-grounded suspicions' Mrs Clinton praised those involved in the operation to uncover the plot. "It was a terrific achievement by our law enforcement and intelligence communities, and we will be consulting with our friends and partners around the world about how we can send a very strong message that this kind of action, which violates international norms, must be ended," she said at a news conference. "This case will, I think, reinforce the well-grounded suspicions of many countries about what they're up to." Mrs Clinton said the suspected plotters had been trying to involve hired killers from Mexican drug cartels. "The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?" she said. US Attorney General Eric Holder said Iran's involvement in the plot was "a flagrant violation of US and international law". Continue reading the main story Analysis Mohammad Manzarpour BBC Persian There is a long history of animosity between Iran and Saudi Arabia which stretches back to before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Religiously, the Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Shia clerics of Iran reject each other's interpretation of Islam. Geopolitically, the two are staunch rivals, engaged in a seemingly never-ending battle for greater regional influence. They have also been engaged in proxy wars for decades, taking different sides in the Iran-Iraq war, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. But it is the Saudis' military intervention in Bahrain which may have prompted the alleged plot. It was little criticised in the West but was seen in Iran as a blatant assault on the Shia majority in Bahrain. In a statement, UK Prime Minister David Cameron's office said: "Indications that this plot was directed by elements of the Iranian regime are shocking... We will support measures to hold Iran accountable for its actions." US officials have said military action was not being considered. The US Treasury Department placed five Iranians, including the two men charged, under sanctions on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in the plot. The two accused were named as Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalised US citizen with dual Iranian and US passports, and Gholam Shakuri, based in Iran and said to be a member of Iran's Quds Force, a unit of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The other three were described as high-ranking members of the Quds force. Mr Arbabsiar, who was arrested at New York's John F Kennedy airport on 29 September, has confessed to his involvement in the alleged plot, Mr Holder said. A lawyer for Mr Arbabsiar said he would plead not guilty when he was officially indicted. 'Shocking' Mr Shakuri was said to be in Iran. US officials said that on 24 May 2011, Mr Arbabsiar made contact with an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Agency, who was posing as a Mexican drug cartel member. Manssor Arbabsiar appeared at a court in New York City on Tuesday Over a series of meetings, it is said that details emerged of a conspiracy involving members of the Iranian government paying $1.5m (£960,000) for the assassination of Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir on US soil. Justice department officials said the initial envisaged target was the Saudi embassy. But in conversations secretly recorded for the US authorities, Mr Arbabsiar also allegedly considered having the ambassador killed at a purported favourite restaurant, despite the possibility of mass casualties. The plot would have been carried out with explosives, Mr Holder said. But he added that no explosives were ever put in place and the public was not in danger. Mr Holder said Mr Arbabsiar, with approval from Mr Shakuri, wired $100,000 to a US bank account for the informant as a downpayment. Mr Arbabsiar and Mr Shakuri have been charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official, weapons conspiracy, and conspiracy to commit international terrorism charges. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote The choice of ambassadorial target is a direct expression of the acerbic tensions in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia, a key US ally, and Iran” Kim Ghattas BBC News, Washington Alleged plot reflects Middle East rivalries Unnamed US officials also told journalists that the Israeli embassy in Washington was also to have been attacked. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency called the charges a "propaganda campaign" by the US government against Tehran. The allegations were "a comedy show fabricated by America", Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told the semi-official Iranian news agency, Fars. Mr Arbabsiar appeared briefly at a New York City court on Tuesday. He did not enter a plea and was held without bail. He could face a life prison sentence if convicted on all charges, the Department of Justice said.


US issues travel alert linked to Iran plot

Posted On 08:56 by El NACHO 0 comments

 

The US State Department late on Tuesday issued a worldwide travel alert for US citizens, warning of the potential for anti-US action after the United States accused Iran of backing a plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington.   Murder Plot Iranians charged over assassination plot / Reuters American authorities uncover plot to bomb Israeli, Saudi embassies in Washington, assassinate Saudi ambassador Full story "The US government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States," it said in a statement on its website.   The alert expires January 11, 2012, it said.


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...