World News Thread & Breaking News!!

[PanAsian]

At issue in the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman incident is not racism nor gun rights, but whether a person who knowingly stalks and against professional advice initiates a potentially deadly encounter (as at least the stalker and initiator is armed) with another person, neither of whom committed any crimes, with no witnesses of the complete encounter except for the lone survivor, initiator, and killer of the other, bears any responsibility for the encounter turning out the way it did.

The trial did not address this issue, which I believe is the real lesson and take away from this incident.

The trial addressed the particular charges that it did, and arrived at the rightful conclusion that George Zimmerman is not guilty of those particular charges as demanded by the burden of proof, not necessarily that George Zimmerman is innocent of everything.

Perhaps the relevant laws should be reviewed as to whether they are capable of addressing the real lesson of this tragedy.

Do not respond to this post or continue any discussion about the Zimmerman trail or any after effects of that trail.

bd popeye super moderator

 

[bd popeye]

NO POLITICS!

No more chit chat about the Zimmerman trail. That's political. Find another forum to discuss that trail.. in fact mp.net has an extensive thread about the trail & after effects of said trail. Try that.

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Do not respond to this post or continue any discussion about the Zimmerman trail or any after effects of that trail.

bd popeye super moderator

 

[delft]

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15 July
PANAMA (NORTH KOREA)
Panama at the Panama Canal stopped a North Korean vessel coming from Cuba … carrying illegal suspected sophisticated missile material … crew “resisted arrest”; captain during struggle “tried to commit suicide”.

Is Cuba exporting "sophisticated missile material" to North Korea?
Dutch radio said the "sophisticated missile material" was loaded beneath a load of sugar so I suppose the ship is to be unloaded and that it will take a long time. What is happening?

 

[SampanViking]

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Is Cuba exporting "sophisticated missile material" to North Korea?
Dutch radio said the "sophisticated missile material" was loaded beneath a load of sugar so I suppose the ship is to be unloaded and that it will take a long time. What is happening?

What's happening? HKND Group Shares will have be having a very good day, that's what's happening

 

[MwRYum]

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Is Cuba exporting "sophisticated missile material" to North Korea?
Dutch radio said the "sophisticated missile material" was loaded beneath a load of sugar so I suppose the ship is to be unloaded and that it will take a long time. What is happening?

That aside, I can understand the captain and crews' reaction...they know they're now good as dead when they get back to N.Korea.

 

[bd popeye]

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BEIJING (AP) — A man in a wheelchair set off a homemade bomb in Terminal 3 of the Beijing International Airport on Saturday evening, injuring himself but no one else, Chinese state media reported.

Order was quickly restored and no flights were affected by the explosion, state-run China Central Television said on its microblog.

The official Xinhua News Agency said a wheel-chaired Chinese man set off the device outside the arrivals exit of Terminal 3 at around 6:24 p.m. It said the man was being treated for injuries, but that no one else was injured in the explosion.

CCTV, which also reported that no one else was hurt, identified the man as Ji Zhongxing, born in 1979 and from the eastern province of Shandong.

It was not immediately clear why the man set off the bomb. Police are investigating the incident, Xinhua said.

Photos posted by CCTV on its microblog showed the area outside the arrivals exit empty and filled with smoke. One photo showed medical staff and police officers hovering over a person, with a wheelchair sitting on its side a few steps away.

Reached over the phone, the airport's news office said it was not aware of the explosion, and airport police declined to answer questions.

 

[no_name]

That aside, I can understand the captain and crews' reaction...they know they're now good as dead when they get back to N.Korea.

Maybe he is trying save his family/relatives back home from persecution by making a desparate show of loyalty and trying to avoid being captured alive.

 

[MwRYum]

Maybe he is trying save his family/relatives back home from persecution by making a desparate show of loyalty and trying to avoid being captured alive.

In N.Korea, if you fall out of the line your family will be condamned to the same fate alongside you, so it won't be just them being good as dead, their families are also good as dead now.

 

[Franklin]

Panama finds MiG fighter jets on North Korean arms ship

Panamanian investigators unloading the cargo of a seized North Korean ship that carried arms from Cuba have found the two MiG-21 fighter jets the Cuban government had said were on board, the government said on Sunday.

Alongside the two supersonic planes, originally produced by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, officials found two missile radar systems on board the Chong Chon Gang, President Ricardo Martinelli told reporters in the Atlantic port of Colon.

The discovery, which included cables and electrical equipment, was made inside containers on the ship Panama had feared might contain explosive material. None was found.

After stopping the vessel bound for North Korea last week, Panama revealed it had found weapons in the cargo hold late on Monday. In response, Cuba said the shipment contained a range of "obsolete" arms being sent to North Korea for repair.

Panama has asked the U.N. Security Council to investigate the ship and its contents amid suspicion that the vessel is in breach of a wide-ranging arms embargo on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile program.

"One can't take undeclared weapons through the Panama Canal below other cargo," Martinelli said, adding that he had not spoken personally to any Cuban officials since they first asked for the ship to be released last Saturday.

Javier Caraballo, Panama's top anti-drugs prosecutor, said the planes gave off a strong odor of gasoline, indicating that they had likely been used recently. So far, Panama has not found anything not on the Cubans' list of ordnance, he added.

The U.N. team is expected to arrive in early August once Panama has finished unloading the 155 meter (510 foot) ship.

The weapons were hidden under thousands of sacks of sugar on the freighter. Before the arms were discovered, Cuba told Panama the cargo was a donation of sugar for the people of North Korea.

The isolated Asian nation has asked Panama to release the ship and its 35 member crew, who were arrested and charged with attempting to smuggle undeclared weapons through the canal.

Panama has so far dismissed North Korea's requests.

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[TerraN_EmpirE]

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Prince William's wife Kate gives birth to baby boy
By Michael Holden
LONDON | Mon Jul 22, 2013 4:33pm EDT
(Reuters) - Prince William's wife Kate gave birth to a baby boy on Monday, their first child who will be third in line to the British throne, ending hours of fevered anticipation outside the London hospital where the child was delivered.

The baby was born with William at Kate's side at 4:24 p.m. (11:24 ET) and weighed 8lbs 6oz (3.8 kg).

"The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families have been informed and are delighted with the news," Clarence House, Prince William's office, said in a statement.

"Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well and will remain in hospital overnight."

The boy's name will be announced in due course, the statement said but bookmakers make George the favorite name, followed by James.

As the birth was announced, a loud cheer went up from the well-wishers and media gathered outside St. Mary's Hospital in west London, where William was born to the late Princess Diana in 1982.

"Both my wife and I are overjoyed at the arrival of my first grandchild," Prince Charles, William's father and heir to the throne, in a statement.

"It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy."

He said he was enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time.

"We are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future," he added.

The statement from Clarence House preceded the traditional announcement which saw an envelope containing the baby's details taken from the hospital to Queen Elizabeth's London residence, Buckingham Palace.

Aides then posted the information on a gold-colored easel outside the main gates.

The royal couple, officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, had arrived at the hospital shortly before 6 a.m. and entered through a back door to avoid media camped outside the main entrance.

Kate and William, both aged 31, met when they were students at St. Andrews University and were married in April 2011 in a spectacular wedding broadcast around the world.

The royal birth has provoked a similar frenzy, with national and international media keeping up a deluge of speculative reports throughout Monday from outside the hospital.

Crowds gathered outside the hospital and Buckingham Palace, eager to hear news of the birth.

"Right across the country and indeed right across the Commonwealth people will be celebrating and wishing the royal couple well," Prime Minister David Cameron told waiting reporters in Downing Street.

"It is an important moment in the life of our nation but I suppose above all it's a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who got a brand new baby boy. It's been a remarkable few years for our royal family."

The baby arrives at a time when the royal family is riding a wave of popularity. An Ipsos Mori poll last week showed 77 percent of Britons were in favor of remaining a monarchy over a republic, close to its best-ever level of support.

(Additional reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, Sarah Young, Limei Hoang, and Mark Anderson,; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Michael Roddy)

Okay Good news over.

Palestinians, Israelis play down chances of imminent talks
Photo
3:15pm EDT
By Ali Sawafta and Allyn Fisher-Ilan
RAMALLAH, West Bank/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israelis and Palestinians played down on Monday the prospects of their envoys meeting in Washington any time soon, and the White House said getting the two sides to agree a peace deal remained an "enormous challenge".
Palestinians said negotiations could not begin unless it was clear in advance that they would be about a future state based on pre-1967 borders, while an Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would seek the approval of his cabinet before going ahead.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, winding up months of intensive mediation, said on Friday that Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and his Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, would join him in Washington "to begin initial talks within the next week or so".
The talks would be aimed at resuming negotiations stalled since 2010 in a dispute over Jewish settlement building on land Palestinians seek for a state.
But an Israeli official said "it looks like negotiations will begin only next week, not this week."
In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "We are working on a date for the parties to come to Washington in the coming weeks to move that process along."
Speaking of the prospects of a peace deal, he said: "This is an enormous challenge and has been an enormous challenge for Israelis and Palestinians, and for successive administrations here in Washington."
Netanyahu, some of whose ministers oppose negotiations that may yield land to the Palestinians, will seek their support for talks, either at the next full cabinet meeting on July 28, or from a session of the smaller security cabinet.
An official said Netanyahu hoped to persuade ministers to back the effort as "a strategic process to tighten relations with the United States," emphasizing the importance of close U.S. ties to cope with threats posed by Iran's nuclear program and by strife in Syria and Egypt.
REFERENDUM
Netanyahu also vowed he would seek a public referendum before signing any peace deal, saying on Monday such a plebiscite "could prevent a rift among the people."
"Any settlement that isn't approved by the public should not be signed," Netanyahu told reporters, adding: "Achieving peace is a crucial goal for Israel."
Nabil Abu Rdaineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said chief negotiator Saeb Erekat had yet to be invited to Washington. When he does go, it would be firstly to determine the framework of negotiations, rather than to dive into more substantive talks, he said.
"If they reach an agreement over the details, in accordance with the Palestinian demands, then the launch of negotiations will be announced," Abu Rdaineh told Reuters on Monday.
Those demands, relayed by Abbas to Kerry, include Israel's recognition that a two-state solution would be predicated on pre-1967 borders, before the war in which Israel seized control of territories Palestinians seek for a state, and clarifications about a prisoner release Israel has agreed to as a goodwill gesture.
Israel said that, starting in September, it would free 82 Palestinians jailed before 1993, when the sides signed interim peace accords. But Qadoura Fares of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, an organization that works for the interests of inmates and their families, said Abbas wanted 103 people released.
In an interview with Jordan's Al-Rai newspaper, Abbas held out the possibility that, should diplomacy remain stalled, Palestinians - defying pressure by Israel and the Obama administration - would appeal to the United Nations at its annual assembly in September to support their borders claim.
Denouncing the West Bank settlements as illegal - a view shared by most world powers - Abbas said Israel should "get out of Palestinian land completely" though he voiced willingness to find a formula addressing its security concerns.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and by Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
(This story was refiled to correct the lead to clarify that it is a peace deal that White House considers "enormous challenge")

China quake death toll more than doubles to 54, hundreds hurt
Photo
1:22pm EDT
By Megha Rajagopalan
BEIJING (Reuters) - The death toll from a 6.6 magnitude earthquake in China's western Gansu province on Monday more than doubled to 54 people, the municipal government said, with hundreds injured as many homes in affected areas collapsed.
The quake hit Minxian and Zhangxian counties, about 170 km (105 miles) southeast of the provincial capital of Lanzhou, at 7.45 on Monday morning (7.45 p.m. ET Sunday), the official Xinhua news agency said.
It put the number of people seriously injured at 296. Earlier reports by the official Xinhua news agency said 22 people had died.
Eight towns in the remote, mountainous area sustained serious damage in the quake and subsequent flooding and mudslides, state media said.
There were also power outages, while cell phone and Internet coverage was disrupted, residents and state media reported. The Red Cross Society of China said it had sent relief supplies to the affected areas, including jackets and tents.
"Many have been injured by collapsed houses," said a Minxian county doctor surnamed Du. "Many villagers have gone to local hospitals along the roads."
Photos posted on Chinese social media showed roads on the sides of riverbanks that had subsided and farmhouses reduced to piles of red bricks.
About 380 buildings had collapsed and 5,600 sustained damaged in Zhangxian county, the Dingxi municipal government said in a microblog post.
A school building in Minxian county was also damaged, a teacher in the area said, although he said he didn't believe any students were injured because they were away on summer holidays.
Heavy rain is also forecast for the areas hit by the quake, which officials fear would compound the damage by causing more landslides and flooding.
A second 5.6 earthquake struck the same region about 90 minutes after the first, Xinhua said, the most significant of several aftershocks. The United States Geological Survey said the first quake had a magnitude of 5.9.
Gansu abuts Sichuan province, where a 6.6 quake in April killed 164 people and injured more than 6,700, China's worst quake in three years.
That quake hit close to where a devastating 7.9 temblor killed some 70,000 people in May 2008.
Among those killed in the 2008 quake were thousands of children, raising suspicions that the schools that had collapsed on them had been poorly constructed, in part due to corruption.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina, Ben Blanchard and the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Paul Tait)

Al Qaeda militants flee Iraq jail in violent mass break-out
3:06pm EDT
By Kareem Raheem and Ziad al-Sinjary
BAGHDAD/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of convicts, including senior members of al Qaeda, broke out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail as comrades launched a military-style assault to free them, authorities said on Monday.
The deadly raid on the high-security jail happened as Sunni Muslim militants are gaining momentum in their insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government that came to power after the U.S. invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.
Suicide bombers drove cars packed with explosives to the gates of the prison on the outskirts of Baghdad on Sunday night and blasted their way into the compound, while gunmen attacked guards with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
Other militants took up positions near the main road, fighting off security reinforcements sent from Baghdad as several militants wearing suicide vests entered the prison on foot to help free the inmates.
Ten policemen and four militants were killed in the ensuing clashes, which continued until Monday morning, when military helicopters arrived, helping to regain control.
By that time, hundreds of inmates had succeeded in fleeing Abu Ghraib, the prison made notorious a decade ago by photographs showing abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers.
"The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al Qaeda and had received death sentences," Hakim Al-Zamili, a senior member of the security and defense committee in parliament, told Reuters.
"The security forces arrested some of them, but the rest are still free."
One security official told Reuters on condition of anonymity: "It's obviously a terrorist attack carried out by al Qaeda to free convicted terrorists with al Qaeda."
A simultaneous attack on another prison, in Taji, around 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, followed a similar pattern, but guards managed to prevent any inmates escaping. Sixteen soldiers and six militants were killed.
CONVOY ATTACK
Sunni insurgents, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, have been regaining strength in recent months and striking on an almost daily basis against Shi'ite Muslims and security forces amongst other targets.
The violence has raised fears of a return to full-blown conflict in a country where Kurds, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable way of sharing power.
Recent attacks have targeted mosques, amateur football matches, shopping areas and cafes where people gather to socialize after breaking their daily fast for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
Relations between Islam's two main denominations have been put under further strain from the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in Shi'ite and Sunni fighters from Iraq and beyond to fight against each other.
In the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives behind a military convoy in the eastern Kokchali district, killing at least 22 soldiers and three passers-by, police said.
Following the attack, leaflets were found near mosques in Mosul signed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed earlier this year through a merger between Syrian and Iraqi affiliates of al Qaeda.
"After receiving information from our precious nation's sons about the arrival of a convoy of the Safavid Raafidi Army... the lions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have confronted them," read the leaflets, using derogatory terms to refer to Shi'ites.
Four other policemen, were killed in a separate attack in western Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city and capital of the Sunni-dominated Nineveh province.
Nearly 600 people have been killed in militant attacks across Iraq so far this month, according to violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.
That is still well below the height of bloodletting in 2006-07, when the monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000.
(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Suadad al-Salhy in Baghdad; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and David Evans)