The family of murdered British student Meredith Kercher have welcomed the convictions of her killers, saying they agree with the guilty verdicts.Meredith's brother, Lyle Kercher, said they were "pleased with the decision" to convict Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito."Ultimately we are pleased with the decision, pleased that we've got a decision, but it's not a time for celebration," he told a press conference in Perugia, Italy.His mother, Arline, said: "If the evidence has been presented, then yes, you have to agree with that verdict."Knox, 22, and Sollecito, 25, killed Kercher in an attack that ended with Sollecito taunting Kercher with one knife while Knox plunged another into her throat, the trial heard.
The family of murdered British student Meredith Kercher have welcomed the convictions of her killers, saying they agree with the guilty verdicts.
Meredith's brother, Lyle Kercher, said they were "pleased with the decision" to convict Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
"Ultimately we are pleased with the decision, pleased that we've got a decision, but it's not a time for celebration," he told a press conference in Perugia, Italy.
His mother, Arline, said: "If the evidence has been presented, then yes, you have to agree with that verdict."
Knox, 22, and Sollecito, 25, killed Kercher in an attack that ended with Sollecito taunting Kercher with one knife while Knox plunged another into her throat, the trial heard.
Amanda Knox was last night found guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher and sentenced to serve 26 years in prison.
The family of murdered British student Meredith Kercher have said they are pleased with the conviction of her killers but there was "no celebration".American Amanda Knox, 22, was jailed for 26 years on Friday after being found guilty of Miss Kercher's murder and sexual violence. Her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, was given 25 years. Miss Kercher, 21, a Leeds University student from Surrey, was found with her throat slit in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.
The family of murdered British student Meredith Kercher have said they are pleased with the conviction of her killers but there was "no celebration".
American Amanda Knox, 22, was jailed for 26 years on Friday after being found guilty of Miss Kercher's murder and sexual violence.
Her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, was given 25 years.
Miss Kercher, 21, a Leeds University student from Surrey, was found with her throat slit in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.
PERUGIA, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian court sentenced American student Amanda Knox to 26 years in prison and jailed her ex-boyfriend for 25 years after they were found guilty of murdering Knox's British roommate during a drunken sex game. Lawyers for Knox, 22 and Raffaele Sollecito, 25, said they would appeal the sentences and Knox's family denounced the verdict as a "failure of the Italian judicial system."
PERUGIA, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian court sentenced American student Amanda Knox to 26 years in prison and jailed her ex-boyfriend for 25 years after they were found guilty of murdering Knox's British roommate during a drunken sex game.
Lawyers for Knox, 22 and Raffaele Sollecito, 25, said they would appeal the sentences and Knox's family denounced the verdict as a "failure of the Italian judicial system."
The concensus seems to be that, whatever happened, the investigation was not just unlikely to discover it but seemed more concerned to provide that evidence which implicated the suspects to hand rather than with a dispassionate analysis of the sequence of events. keep to the Fen Causeway
Iran's vice-president said today his country needs 20 industrial-scale uranium enrichment facilities, a potentially dramatic expansion of its nuclear program in defiance of UN demands. Ali Akbar Salehi, who also heads the nuclear program, told the official IRNA news agency that Iran needs the sites to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power plants over the next 20 years. The statement comes at a time of heightened Western concerns over Iran's nuclear intentions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran is considering whether to scale back cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after it approved a resolution censuring Iran over its nuclear program.
Iran's vice-president said today his country needs 20 industrial-scale uranium enrichment facilities, a potentially dramatic expansion of its nuclear program in defiance of UN demands.
Ali Akbar Salehi, who also heads the nuclear program, told the official IRNA news agency that Iran needs the sites to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power plants over the next 20 years.
The statement comes at a time of heightened Western concerns over Iran's nuclear intentions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran is considering whether to scale back cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after it approved a resolution censuring Iran over its nuclear program.
Guinea's military leader Moussa "Dadis" Camara was last night being treated at an army hospital in Morocco after being shot following an argument with one of his aides. Soldiers were out in force on the streets of Conakry, the capital of the West African country, amid fears of a counter-coup to topple the army major who came to power one year ago.
AFP - Guinea's wounded junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara underwent a "minor operation" in Morocco and his life is not in danger, a spokesman said Saturday, after he was shot by an aide. "He is very well," Idrissa Cherif told AFP in Dakar by telephone from Conakry. "We have spoken on the telephone, there are no problems and his condition is stable." 04/12/2009 - GUINEA How a peaceful coup turned into a bloodbath 04/12/2009 - GUINEA Shot by his own aide 04/12/2009 - GUINEA R. Callimachi, correspondent in Conakry Cherif added, "It was not a big operation but a minor intervention." Camara was airlifted to Morocco Friday from Conakry after being wounded in an alleged assassination attempt by his aide de camp.
AFP - Guinea's wounded junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara underwent a "minor operation" in Morocco and his life is not in danger, a spokesman said Saturday, after he was shot by an aide. "He is very well," Idrissa Cherif told AFP in Dakar by telephone from Conakry. "We have spoken on the telephone, there are no problems and his condition is stable."
Camara was airlifted to Morocco Friday from Conakry after being wounded in an alleged assassination attempt by his aide de camp.
Senior Pakistani army officers were targeted yesterday in a bloody militant suicide bomb attack that killed at least 40 people. In the most high-profile assault on the army since it launched a major ground offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan two months ago, suicide bombers and gunmen laid siege to a two-storey mosque in Rawalpindi's garrison quarter. They opened indiscriminate fire on a group of worshippers and hurling grenades at the crowd before two bombers detonated their explosives. At least six military officers were among the dead, as well as three regular soldiers. Some 17 children were also killed.
Senior Pakistani army officers were targeted yesterday in a bloody militant suicide bomb attack that killed at least 40 people. In the most high-profile assault on the army since it launched a major ground offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan two months ago, suicide bombers and gunmen laid siege to a two-storey mosque in Rawalpindi's garrison quarter.
They opened indiscriminate fire on a group of worshippers and hurling grenades at the crowd before two bombers detonated their explosives. At least six military officers were among the dead, as well as three regular soldiers. Some 17 children were also killed.
An accidental explosion ripped through a store in northwestern Pakistan today, killing at least three people and trapping others in a separate building that caught fire, police said -- rattling nerves in a city repeatedly pounded with militant attacks. Officials initially said the blast in a commercial district of Peshawar was caused by a car bomb, but investigators found no trace of explosives at the scene. Police Chief Liaquat Ali Khan said it was an accidental explosion that went off in a shop with paint stored inside. The exact cause was still unclear.
An accidental explosion ripped through a store in northwestern Pakistan today, killing at least three people and trapping others in a separate building that caught fire, police said -- rattling nerves in a city repeatedly pounded with militant attacks.
Officials initially said the blast in a commercial district of Peshawar was caused by a car bomb, but investigators found no trace of explosives at the scene. Police Chief Liaquat Ali Khan said it was an accidental explosion that went off in a shop with paint stored inside. The exact cause was still unclear.
AFP - The Philippines on Saturday announced the imposition of martial law in a southern province to quell a rebellion by a powerful clan accused of being behind the massacre of 57 people. President Gloria Arroyo placed Maguindanao province under military control late on Friday in an effort to contain heavily armed militias belonging to the provincial governor and other members of his Muslim clan, authorities said. "There's a rebellion in the area," Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera said. "It was practically an overthrow of government." Arroyo's controversial move is the first time martial law has been declared in the Philippines since the reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had the whole of the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981. Authorities insisted martial law was necessary to rein in swarms of heavily armed gunmen loyal to the Ampatuan clan who had threatened violence if their leaders were taken into custody.
AFP - The Philippines on Saturday announced the imposition of martial law in a southern province to quell a rebellion by a powerful clan accused of being behind the massacre of 57 people.
President Gloria Arroyo placed Maguindanao province under military control late on Friday in an effort to contain heavily armed militias belonging to the provincial governor and other members of his Muslim clan, authorities said.
"There's a rebellion in the area," Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera said. "It was practically an overthrow of government."
Arroyo's controversial move is the first time martial law has been declared in the Philippines since the reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had the whole of the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981.
Authorities insisted martial law was necessary to rein in swarms of heavily armed gunmen loyal to the Ampatuan clan who had threatened violence if their leaders were taken into custody.
AFP - Bolivian President Evo Morales is preparing to turn an expected easy re-election victory in weekend polls into a legal club to crush his distant conservative rival. Morales, 50, has accused Manfred Reyes Villa, a former governor and candidate in Sunday's election, of corruption and links to the murders of at least 12 pro-Morales supporters during 2007 unrest. Early this week, Morales charged that Reyes Villa, 54, and his running mate were "thieves" who would be jailed under a new law he intends to introduce once the election was out of the way. On Thursday, Morales's government also claimed Reyes Villa had bought an airline ticket to leave Bolivia the day after the election in violation of a travel ban pending his trial.
In the government's version, a group of five mercenaries paid by the opposition was preparing to assassinate Morales, and resisted when police tried to arrest them in a hotel, with 3 terrorists dying in the shootout. The two survivors were put on trial. To prevent the opposition from foiling the trial, the case had to be taken away from the judges in the city where the attack happened.
In the opposition's version, there was no shootout and the group was liquidated in their sleep, and the government is trying to keep control of the legal process to conceal that the Flores group was tricked by its own agents, as evidenced by a 2007 photo showing Flores and the leader of the special unit that stormed them.
In Flores's version, according to an interview made before he left for Bolivia but aired only after his death in the police attack, he is an international revolutionary (he was indeed a colorful personality: got into political activism as comunist youth in Allende's Chile, then got to meet Carlos the Jackal as member of a special group of communist Hungary's border police, then worked as reporter covering all the crises erupting after 1989, then was a volunteer in Croatia's army in the Yugoslav War, then settled down and worked as poet, actor playing himself in a film on his own life, became a Jewish anti-Israel activist taking up Islam, which made him good friends with one faction of the Hungarian far-right...). He told he went to Western Bolivia to organise self-defense units against Morales's police, army, and indio militias from East Bolivia, relying on his experience from Croatia.
Now, Eduardo Rózsa-Flores was a Bolivian-Hungarian, two of his team (one of them among the killed) were nationalist ethnic-Hungarians from Romania; the two others, an Irishman and a Bolivian-Croatian were Flores's former comrades from the foreign volunteers' legion in Croatia. Thus, in the Hungarian and Irish governments' version, we don't know enough about the circumstances and Bolivia is not cooperative enough. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Michael Dwyer (1984-2009) was from Ballinderry, County Tipperary. Ireland. He was shot dead on April 16th 2009. by Police Special Forces, in the Los Americas Hotel, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia....The Irish State Pathologist Marie Cassidy told the inquest into his death that the 24-year-old died from a single gunshot wound to the heart. She said that the Tipperary man had been shot once, and that the post mortem carried out in Bolivia was incomplete.[9] The Bolivian Autopsy by Antonio Torres Bulanza and Rafael Vargas Peña, of the Instituto de Investigaciones Forenses, showed he had six bullet entrace wounds with three exit wounds and the trajectory was from the back to the front, slightly from below to above. That his heart was intact and the cause of death was Hypovolaemic shock (acute blood loss) from multiple thoracic injuries by bullets.
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The Irish State Pathologist Marie Cassidy told the inquest into his death that the 24-year-old died from a single gunshot wound to the heart. She said that the Tipperary man had been shot once, and that the post mortem carried out in Bolivia was incomplete.[9]
The Bolivian Autopsy by Antonio Torres Bulanza and Rafael Vargas Peña, of the Instituto de Investigaciones Forenses, showed he had six bullet entrace wounds with three exit wounds and the trajectory was from the back to the front, slightly from below to above. That his heart was intact and the cause of death was Hypovolaemic shock (acute blood loss) from multiple thoracic injuries by bullets.
Two more Rwandan peacekeepers have been killed and one injured in Sudan's Darfur region - the second deadly attack on the contingent in two days.The soldiers were distributing water at a camp for the displaced when at least one man approached them and opened fire, officials say. On Friday, three Rwandan peacekeepers were killed and two injured after an attack on a convoy.
Two more Rwandan peacekeepers have been killed and one injured in Sudan's Darfur region - the second deadly attack on the contingent in two days.
The soldiers were distributing water at a camp for the displaced when at least one man approached them and opened fire, officials say.
On Friday, three Rwandan peacekeepers were killed and two injured after an attack on a convoy.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's ageing monarch addressed the nation on Saturday for the first time since hospitalisation more than two months ago, marking his 82nd birthday with a call for "calm" in the politically turbulent country. The world's longest-reigning monarch, regarded as semi-divine by many of Thailand's 67 million people, has been hospitalised since September 19 and made a one-hour trip to Bangkok's Grand Palace for a ceremony attended by top royal officials and politicians.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's ageing monarch addressed the nation on Saturday for the first time since hospitalisation more than two months ago, marking his 82nd birthday with a call for "calm" in the politically turbulent country.
The world's longest-reigning monarch, regarded as semi-divine by many of Thailand's 67 million people, has been hospitalised since September 19 and made a one-hour trip to Bangkok's Grand Palace for a ceremony attended by top royal officials and politicians.
NEW YORK -- His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It warned the 29-year-old engineering student that his relatives in Tehran would be harmed if he didn't stop criticizing Iran on Facebook. Two days later, his mom called. Security agents had arrested his father in his home in Tehran and threatened him by saying his son could no longer safely return to Iran. "When they arrested my father, I realized the email was no joke," said Koosha, who asked that his full name not be used.
Two days later, his mom called. Security agents had arrested his father in his home in Tehran and threatened him by saying his son could no longer safely return to Iran.
"When they arrested my father, I realized the email was no joke," said Koosha, who asked that his full name not be used.
One 28-year-old physician who lives in Dubai said that in July he was asked to log on to his Facebook account by a security guard upon arrival in Tehran's airport. At first, he says, he lied and said he didn't have one. So the guard took him to a small room with a laptop and did a Google search for his name. His Facebook account turned up, he says, and his passport was confiscated. After a month and several rounds of interrogations, he says, he was allowed to exit the country. <...> To cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed Internet speeds so that accessing an online email account could take close to a half-hour. It blocked access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. For a while, an automated message warned people making international phone calls not to give information to outsiders.
One 28-year-old physician who lives in Dubai said that in July he was asked to log on to his Facebook account by a security guard upon arrival in Tehran's airport. At first, he says, he lied and said he didn't have one. So the guard took him to a small room with a laptop and did a Google search for his name. His Facebook account turned up, he says, and his passport was confiscated.
After a month and several rounds of interrogations, he says, he was allowed to exit the country.
<...>
To cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed Internet speeds so that accessing an online email account could take close to a half-hour. It blocked access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. For a while, an automated message warned people making international phone calls not to give information to outsiders.
