People-smuggling ring..[ 1997 ]

Italy smashes Afghan people-smuggling ring

 
BBC,.12 January 2011 Last updated at 23:35 GMT

A gang which smuggled mainly Afghan migrants into Europe has been broken, European police force Europol has said.

It said 26 alleged gang members had been arrested in Italy with further arrests in Germany and France.

It said the gang was responsible for smuggling about 200 illegal migrants into Europe every month, a fifth of them children.

The migrants are thought to have paid up to 5,000 euros (£4,000) to be smuggled across Europe.

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The arrests on Tuesday were the result of a two-year Europol investigation which included house searches during which some of the smuggled children were found.

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Most of the migrants began their journey in Afghanistan before travelling through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey to Greece, from where they were moved on into western Europe.

Europol said those behind the gang used false EU identity documents and transferred funds using the popular Hawala transfer system.

Piero Saviotti, a prosecutor in Rome, said some of those arrested were "suspected of involvement in international terrorism", AFP news agency reports.

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Turkey: alleged human organ smuggling ..[ 1996 ]

Turkish doctor suspected of human organ trafficking arrested

By the CNN Wire Staff

January 12, 2011 10:19 a.m. EST

Yusuf Ercin Sonmez was arrested on suspicion of involvement in an international human organ smuggling ring.

RELATED TOPICS

• Turkey
• Israel
• Kosovo
• Organ Transplantation and Donation

Istanbul (CNN) --  
A Turkish doctor arrested in an investigation into an alleged human organ smuggling ring protested his innocence Wednesday.

"There is no such crime. There is no organ trade," Yusuf Ercin Sonmez told reporters outside a courthouse, according to Turkey's semiofficial Anatolian news agency. "There can't be evidence for something that doesn't exist," he added.

He was arrested Tuesday in Istanbul's Kartal district, an officer with the financial crimes department of Istanbul Police told CNN.

Sonmez, 53, was the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant issued by the District Court of Pristina in Kosovo. The offenses listed by Interpol: crimes against life and health, people smuggling, trafficking and illegal immigration.

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Sonmez was questioned by a prosecutor for about two hours Wednesday, then sent to a criminal court "with the prosecutor's demand for his arrest for 'organized organ trading,' " the Anatolian news agency said. Sonmez was then released by the court pending trial.

Last month, European authorities charged in a report that executives who control Kosovo may have stolen organs when the Kosovo Liberation Army was fighting Serbian forces in the late 1990s.

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci called it "a political accusation based on no facts or proof" and "pure fabrication."

The report said Thaci, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, was the "boss" of a prominent faction in the militia that "apparently wrested control" of "illicit criminal enterprises" from rivals across the border in Albania.

"Numerous indications seem to confirm that ... organs were removed from some prisoners ... to be taken abroad for transplantation," read the report. It suggested that illegal organ trafficking continued after the war ended.

Thaci said in December that he was looking into all legal and political possibilities to correct what he saw as the report's inaccuracies.

Dick Marty of the Council of Europe, author of the draft report, said nearly 1,900 people who disappeared during the conflict still have not been found, and another 500 disappeared after NATO troops arrived in June 1999.

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The report is based partially on investigations by European Union officials and was written for the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.

European Union officials in Kosovo have said that anyone with concrete evidence of war crimes or organized crime should come forward.

Kosovo was a province of Serbia but declared independence in 2008. About 70 countries have recognized the declaration, but Serbia does not, and international organizations including the United Nations and the European Union continue to have administrators in Kosovo.

The Council of Europe, an organization with 47 member countries, seeks to promote democracy and human rights.

CNN's Yesim Comert in Istanbul and Journalist Vlora Rustemi contributed to this report.

NASA image of the Jan 12th..[ 1995 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

The Triangulum Galaxy

The Triangulum Galaxy is located nearly 3 million light years from Earth. And, in a study that pushes the limits of observations currently possible from Earth, a team of NASA and European scientists recorded the "fingerprints" of mystery molecules in the Triangulum Galaxy, as well as the Andromeda Galaxy. 

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Figuring out exactly which molecules are leaving these clues, known as "diffuse interstellar bands" (DIBs), is a puzzle that initially seemed straightforward but has gone unsolved for nearly a hundred years. 

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The answer is expected to help explain how stars, planets and life form.

 

 

Image Credit: NASA/Swift Science Team/Stefan Immler

Τετάρτη, 12 Ιανουάριος 2011 7:00:00 πμ

Russia : Spy Anna Chapman's show..[ 1994 ]

Russian glamour spy Anna Chapman gets own television show

12.01.2011 17:41

 

The Russian woman who became a media sensation last summer after being part of a major spy swap between Washington and Moscow is to host her own television show, the Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday.

Secrets of the World with Anna Chapman is to air every Friday on the private Russian channel Ren-TV, starting on January 21, DPA reported.

The show starring the 28-year-old redhead, who came to be known as Agent 90-60-90 and the Venus of the Volga, will be about "mysterious modern phenomena," a Ren-TV spokesman was quoted as saying.

He did not provide further details.

Chapman had been detained in the United States in June along with several other people on charges of spying for Russia. The spy swap followed shortly after in the Austrian capital, Vienna.

Since returning to Russia, Chapman has become a media darling. She has posed scantily clad for a men's magazine, has been hired by a bank as a consultant and has taken steps into the political arena, recently joining a youth organisation with ties to the Kremlin.

Chapman has also been rumored to be a possible candidate for Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma.

Goodwill should be respected..[ 1993 ]

Anonymous goodwill should be respected

The director of a child welfare office in Gifu Prefecture displays the school backpack and letter left by an anonymous donor on Jan. 9. (Mainichi)

(Mainichi Japan) January 12, 2011

The name, Naoto Date, undoubtedly sounds nostalgic to those in their late 40s or older. He is the main character of the manga work, "Tiger Mask." After spending his childhood as an orphan, Date becomes a star wrestler called Tiger Mask. The work was made into an anime, which was aired on television from 1969 to 1971. In the story, Date uses part of his earnings from wrestling to anonymously extend donations to the orphanage where he grew up.

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On Dec. 25 last year, 10 school backpacks were found at the front gate to a child consultation center in Gunma Prefecture, and a letter from "Naoto Date" was attached to them. After it was reported by news organizations, backpacks, cash and toys were sent to child consultation centers and foster homes in Kanagawa, Okinawa, Gifu and other prefectures one after another by people calling themselves Naoto Date.

The movement may indicate that those of the Tiger Mask generation are sharing empathy with the anonymous goodwill.

Unlike those at the time of Tiger Mask, foster homes are now full of not only orphans but also victims of child abuse and children suffering from developmental disorders. Such facilities are required to offer better care and a family-like education environment for children.

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Nevertheless, the government has still maintained its old standards for foster homes, which stipulate that one worker can look after a maximum of six children and that one child is provided with at least 3.3 square meters of space. In comparison, special nursing homes for the aged in Japan provide at least 10.65 square meters of space per resident. 

Therefore, the quality of foster homes in Japan is far worse than that for their counterparts in other developed countries.

Because of poverty and insufficient support for their studies, the ratio of those children at such facilities who go to university stands at a mere 10 percent, as compared with the national average of 54 percent.

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Currently, 88 children live in the Nihon Jido Ikuseien foster home in Gifu that received five school backpacks from "Naoto Date." If relatives of children who enter elementary schools cannot buy school backpacks for them, the facility uses reserve funds to prepare for their entrance to schools (about 30,000 yen per child). However, it is difficult for the facility to buy school supplies, backpacks and other necessary goods for them only with the reserve funds because a backpack alone costs from several thousand yen to over 80,000 yen.

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One cannot help but wonder whether those who call themselves Naoto Date donated the backpacks and other items to facilities for children because they were no longer able to stand by and watch these children in such distress. Some of them may have done it merely with a light heart. Still, we would like to support their actions.

Family and social bonds have loosened, and isolation and apathy are prevailing in society. Under these circumstances, better public social welfare services are needed. However, the government's debts have snowballed to over 900 trillion yen as its social security spending continues to grow. An increasing number of people are feeling that their livelihoods are being endangered.

As is shown by citizens' volunteer activities in disaster-hit areas, however, warm-heartedness is generated among people when their neighborhoods face crises. If gifts by those calling themselves "Naoto Date" are an indication of such a move, it should be used as an opportunity to nurture a spirit of mutual assistance.

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We can no longer rely solely on families, regional communities or public social security programs. The introduction of tax breaks for those who extend donations to nonprofit organizations has been incorporated in a tax system reform plan for fiscal 2011.

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This opportunity should be fully utilized to ensure that a newly generated culture and spirit of charity will take root in Japan.

Click here for the original Japanese story