World News Thread & Breaking News!!

[bd popeye]

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Associated Press/Agencia RBS - A man carries an injured man, victim of a fire at the Kiss club in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, early Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Firefighters say that the death toll from a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil has risen to 180. Officials say the fire broke out while a band was performing. At least 200 people have been injured. (AP Photo/Agencia RBS)

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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A fire swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing at least 245 people and leaving at least 200 injured, police and firefighters said.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida told local news media that the 245 bodies were brought for identification to a gymnasium in the city of Santa Maria.

That toll apparently would make it the deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Braida said the club had only one working exit, and the majority of victims died trampled in an attempt to flee.

The cause of the blaze was still under investigation but authorities told local reporters that fireworks, perhaps shot off by the band, erupted in the midst of the performance and one hit the roof.

Michele Schneid, a 22-year-old cashier, told local news media that people began to shout "Fire!," setting off the stampede.

"Many people ran for the bathrooms and wound up dying suffocated," he said.

The newspaper Diario de Santa Maria reported that the fire started at around 2 a.m. at the Kiss nightclub in the city at the southern tip of Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.

Ezekiel Corte Real, 23, was quoted by the paper as saying that he helped people to escape. "I just got out because I'm very strong," he said.

Police estimated 900 people were in the club when the fire broke out.

The fire led President Dilma Roussef to cancel a series of meetings she had scheduled at a summit of Latin American and European leaders in Chile's capital of Santiago, and was headed to Santa Maria, according to the Brazilian foreign ministry.

"It is a tragedy for all of us. I am not going to continue in the meeting (in Chile) for very clear reasons," she said.

"Sad Sunday", tweeted Tarso Genro, the governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. He said all possible action was being taken and that he would be in the city later in the day.

Santa Maria is a university city with a population of around a quarter of a million.

A welding accident reportedly set off a Dec. 25, 2000, fire at a club in Luoyang, China, killing 309.

At least 194 people died at an overcrowded working-class nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2004.

A blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, broke out on Dec. 5, 2009, when an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches, killing 152

A nightclub fire in the U.S. state of Rhode Island in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling.

 

[bd popeye]

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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan authorities on Sunday finished evacuating inmates from a prison where 61 were reported killed in one of the deadliest prison clashes in the nation's history.

Penitentiary Service Minister Iris Varela said in a message on Twitter that the evacuation of Uribana prison in the city of Barquisimeto was completed on Sunday morning. Inmates were loaded aboard buses and driven to other prisons.

Varela posted photos of inmates filing out led by authorities, and said that what will come next for the prison is "now the reconstruction!"

Two days after the violence, government officials had yet to provide an official death toll from the fierce gunbattles, which pitted armed inmates against National Guard troops.

Dr. Ruy Medina, director of Central Hospital in the city, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the death toll had risen to 61, while about 120 were wounded in the violence.

Medina said that nearly all of the injuries were from gunshots and that 45 of the estimated 120 people who were wounded remained hospitalized.

Relatives wept outside the prison during the violence, and cried at the morgue Saturday as they waited to identify bodies.

The riot was the latest in a series of deadly clashes in Venezuela's overcrowded and often anarchical prisons, where inmates typically obtain weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt guards. Critics called it proof that the government is failing to get a grip on a worsening national crisis in its penitentiaries.

The gunbattles seized attention amid uncertainty about President Hugo Chavez's future, while he remained in Cuba recovering and undergoing treatment more than six weeks after his latest cancer surgery.

Government officials pledged a thorough investigation, while some critics said there should have been ways for the authorities to prevent such bloodshed.

The riot was the deadliest in nearly two decades. In 1994, more than 100 inmates died in the country's bloodiest prison on record, at a prison in the western city of Maracaibo. In 1994, about 60 inmates were killed in a riot in a Caracas prison.

Varela said that the violence erupted on Friday when groups of inmates attacked National Guard troops who were attempting to carry out an inspection. She said the government decided to send troops to search the prison after reports of clashes between groups of inmates during the past two days.

"No one doubts that inspections are necessary procedures to guarantee prison conditions in line with international standards, but they can't be carried out with the warlike attitude as (authorities) have done it," said Humberto Prado, an activist who leads the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, a watchdog group.

"It's clear that the inspection wasn't coordinated or put into practice as it should have been. It was evidently a disproportionate use of force," Prado said.

 

[Equation]

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OMG I felt sorry for all the victims families and love ones. Again some of this night clubs have little or no fire exit at all.

 

[plawolf]

OMG I felt sorry for all the victims families and love ones. Again some of this night clubs have little or no fire exit at all.

Terrible news. Looking at the shockingly high number of fatalities, I strongly suspect the nightclub was vastly overcrowded as well, probably with poor ventilation, which would have accounted for the vast majority of deaths as people are overcome by the fumes before they can get through the press of bodies.

 

[bd popeye]

The night club fire in Brasil is terrible news. My condolences to the families & friends that lost loved ones.

I would not be surprised if it is discovered that;

1) The club was over it's capacity as plawolf stated.

2) The exits were locked to prevent folks from entering without paying the cover charge.

 

[bd popeye]

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KYZYL TU, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A passenger plane crashed in thick fog near Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty on Tuesday and broke into pieces when it hit the ground, killing all 21 people on board.

After several hours, rescue teams recovered the plane's flight recorder, the central communications service for Kazakhstan's president said on its Twitter page.

A list published by the prosecutor-general's office showed there had been 16 passengers and five crew members on board.

The Canadian-built Bombardier Challenger CRJ-200 belonged to private Kazakh airline SCAT. It came down near the village of Kyzyl Tu about 5 km (3 miles) from Almaty's airport.

"There was no fire, no explosion. The plane just plunged to the earth," Yuri Ilyin, deputy head of the city's emergencies department, told Reuters near the scene.

Parts of the plane could be seen in the thick snow. Tractors and other heavy vehicles were being used cut paths through the snow to the wreckage but journalists were kept at a distance from the crash site.

It was the second fatal plane crash in the former Soviet republic in just a over a month.

Visibility at Kyzyl Tu was only about 20 to 30 meters (yards), and much of the area around Almaty was veiled in fog when the plane crashed at around 1 p.m. (2 a.m. ET).

"The preliminary cause of the accident is bad weather," Deputy Almaty Mayor Maulen Mukashev told reporters. "Not a single part of the plane was left intact after it came down."

The plane had been on its way from the city of Kokshetau in northern Kazakhstan to Almaty in the southeast, Mukashev said.

SCAT, which has been operating since 1997, runs an extensive domestic service and has some international flights.

Alexander Gordeyev, deputy head of Almaty's airport, said the weather had been bad but planes were being allowed to land.

A military transport airplane crashed in bad weather on December 25 near the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent, killing all 27 on board. Prosecutors have said a combination of technical problems, bad weather and human error caused that accident.

(Additional reporting and writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Louise Ireland and Timothy Heritage)

 

[bd popeye]

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Dutch Queen Beatrix is to abdicate in April, clearing the way for her eldest son to become the country's first king in more than a century.

She made her announcement that she was stepping down after 33 years as head of state on national television, confirming an end to the reign of one of Europe's longest-serving monarchs.

Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, 45, is in line to take her place after she leaves the throne on April 30.

The move had been widely expected, but the queen's announcement is expected to bring an outpouring of emotion from the Dutch, most of whom adore their queen and refer to her as "Bea".

"Responsibility for our country must now lie in the hands of a new generation," Beatrix said in the speech delivered from her Huis ten Bosch palace just days before she was to turn 75.

"I am deeply grateful for the great faith you have shown in me in the many years that I could be your Queen."

Beatrix's role has been largely ceremonial but she won many hearts by giving the monarchy a modern, hard-working image.

She is already the oldest ever Dutch monarch.

Observers believe she has stayed on the throne for so long partly out of an eagerness to hold the country together. Dutch society has seen years of unrest linked to immigration and a shifting away from its traditional reputation as one of the world's most tolerant nations.

In her Christmas Day speech in 2010, Beatrix made a heartfelt plea for unity, saying: "With each other we all make up one society."

Beatrix, who has said in the past that the best years of her life were as a mother before taking the throne in 1980, was also thought to be giving time for her son to enjoy fatherhood.

The future King Willem-Alexander has three young daughters with Argentine investment banker Maxima Zorreguieta.

The queen has been widely respected for her unpretentious style, but it took Beatrix much of her reign to attain the popularity of her late mother, Queen Juliana, who was more openly loving toward her people.

But in recent years, personal tragedies exposed a softer side to the queen and brought her closer to her sympathetic subjects.

Her German husband Claus died in 2002. In another blow, a deranged loner tried to slam a car into an open-topped bus carrying members of the royal family as they celebrated the Queen's Day national holiday in 2010, killing seven spectators.

Then, in 2012, her second son Prince Friso was engulfed by an avalanche as he skied, plunging him into a coma from which he has yet to wake.

Beatrix went back to her busy official schedule soon after the accident, but it again spurred speculation that she would step down.

The Netherlands celebrates the 200th anniversary of its monarchy, the House of Orange, at the end of this year.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

How did the Seattle buyback turn into a flea market for guns?
Posted by Jonathan Martin

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The Seattle Police's gun buyback event yesterday turned into an ad hoc, unregulated flea market for weapons, with a Stinger missile launcher as the headliner.

The event, paid for by private donations, drew such a crowd that the buyback line stretched for hours. That made the private gun buyers, hanging out at the edges, a more attractive option for some, including the guy who sold the non-functioning missile launcher to a private collector.

That's not explicitly illegal. Washington state law does not require background checks for private sales, a provision commonly known as the "gun-show loophole." No background checks mean anyone - felons, the severely mentally ill - could saunter up, cash in hand, and buy a gun they'd be prohibited from buying from a federally licensed dealer.

It was clearly a failure of design for the event. Holding it in a parking lot, under the I-5 overpass, allowed the SPD to lose control.

It also spotlights the absurdity of exemptions for private sales. Dave Workman, senior editor The Gun Mag, said most buyers appeared to have concealed-weapons permits, which require a background check.

I hope so, but laws are written with the worst scenario in mind. It also brings to mind a case brought by U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan in which an unlicensed dealer sold the rifle used to kill Seattle Police Officer Tim Brenton. The seller, David Devenny, literally exploited the gun-show loophole, selling the rifle at a Puyallup gun show.

Background checks are required for a damn good reason. Extending them to private sales is logistically and politically tricky. The state Legislature could consider requiring private sales go through licensed firearms dealer, adding some to the cost, but assuring background checks are done.

Another buyback is already being planned. As I noted a few weeks ago, these aren't very effective at reducing gun violence.

But at least let's not let it turn into another flea market.

by KING 5 News
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 11:22 AM
Related:
Seattle police collect 716 guns at first buyback event
Seattle Police have provided more information about a missile launcher that turned up at the gun buyback on Saturday.

Police say a man was standing outside the buyback event showing his recently purchased launch tube assembly for a Stinger portable surface-to-air missile.

He told officers that he had just purchased it for $100 from another person at the event.

Officers then asked the man if they could take a closer look at the launcher.
Police say the launch tube assembly for the Stinger is what holds the missile and is designed to be disposable after it is fired. Officers checked the tube and confirmed that there was no missile inside.
However, police say, even an expended launch tube is still a controlled military item. It is not available to civilians through any surplus or disposal program offered by the government.
Items such as this are required to be accounted for until they are ultimately destroyed.
Detectives from the Arson/Bomb Squad will notify the Army Criminal Investigation Division on Monday and see if they can determine through the serial number the status of the launch tube.
The man said he would like to keep the launch tube if he is legally able to do so, and he agreed to accept a gift card as compensation if the launch tube is not returned to him.
Police say most likely, the launch tube was previously obtained from the military illegally. If that’s case, SPD will likely return the item to Joint Base Lewis McChord, as is the case with other recovered military explosives and ordinance, where it will be properly accounted for and destroyed.

Like Wait It had been Fired? The only Stinger Tube I can think of that should be in Civy hands was the one given too as a Gift form the Mujihadeen too Charlie Wilson. Despite What you might think, the US does have Laws And this is a very very very FREAKEN BIG VIOLATION OF THEM!!!!!!!!
even if it's just the tube with out the missile.

 

[ManilaBoy45]

Philippines Deploys More Troops in Disputed Spratlys

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MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines has increased the number of troops deployed on five islets, two sand bars and two reefs that it claims in the disputed Spratly islands to bolster its military presence in the contested South China Sea, a senior military intelligence official told Kyodo News on Tuesday.

 

[bd popeye]

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BEIRUT (AP) — Israel conducted a rare airstrike inside Syria near the border with Lebanon, hitting a convoy of trucks, foreign officials said Wednesday, amid fears President Bashar Assad's regime is providing weapons to the Islamic militant group Hezbollah.

Regional security officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful military force. Among Israeli officials' chief fears is that Assad will pass chemical weapons or sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah — something that could change the balance of power in the region and greatly hinder Israel's ability to conduct air sorties in Lebanon.

The regional officials said the shipment Israel was planning to strike included Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically "game-changing" in the hands of Hezbollah by enabling the group to carry out fiercer attacks on Israel and shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters and surveillance drones.

Hezbollah has committed to Israel's destruction and has gone to war against the Jewish state in the past.

A U.S. official confirmed the strike, saying it hit a convoy of trucks.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the strike.

The Israeli military declined to comment, and Syrian officials and state media were silent on the issue.

Top Israeli officials have recently expressed worries that if desperate, Assad's regime could pass chemical weapons to Hezbollah or other militant groups.

President Barack Obama has called Syria's use of chemical weapons a "red line" whose crossing could prompt a tougher U.S. response, but U.S. officials say they are tracking Syria's chemical weapons and that they still appear to be solidly under regime control.

The strike, carried out either late Tuesday or early Wednesday, appears to be the latest move in a long running race by Hezbollah to increase its military power while Israel seeks to limit it.

Syria has long been among the militant group's most significant backers and is suspected of supplying with funding and arms, as well as a land corridor to Iran.

This strike, however, comes as Assad is enmeshed in a civil war with rebels trying to oust him. The rebels have seized a large swath of territory in the country's north and established footholds in a number of suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, though Assad's forces still control the city and much of the rest of the country.

While Assad's fall does not appear imminent, analysts worry he could grow desperate as his power wanes and seek to cause trouble elsewhere in the region through proxy groups like Hezbollah.

Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.

Earlier this week, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The Israeli army called that move "routine."

If confirmed, the airstrike would be the first inside Syria in more than five years. In September 2007, Israeli warplanes destroyed a site in Syria that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a secretly built nuclear reactor. Syria has refuted the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.

Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008 but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and later build over it.

Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in 2006 after Syrian-backed militants in Gaza captured an Israeli soldier.

And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic JIhad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.

Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks, but never did.

The military in Lebanon, which shares borders with both Israel and Syria, said Wednesday that Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity over Lebanon in the past week, including at least 12 sorties in less than 24 hours in the country's south.

A senior Lebanese security official said no Israeli airstrikes occurred inside Lebanese territory. Asked whether it could have been along the border on the Syrian side, he said that that could not be confirmed as it was out of his area of operations.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A Lebanese army statement said the last of the sorties took place at 2 a.m. local time Wednesday. It said four warplanes which flew in over the southernmost coastal town of Naqoura hovered for several hours over villages in southern Lebanon before leaving Lebanese airspace.

It said similar flights by eight other warplanes were conducted Tuesday.

A Lebanese security official said the flights were part of "increased activity" in the past week but did not elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The U.N. Agency tasked with monitoring the Lebanon-Israeli border said in a statement Wednesday it had no information on any strikes near the Syria-Lebanon border. It did note, however, a "high number of Israeli overflights" on Tuesday.

"These air violations have continued on an almost daily basis," it said.

The area of Lebanon where the flights took place borders southern Syria.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon and Lebanese authorities routinely lodge complaints at the U.N. against the flights.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war, and Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal. Despite hostility between the two countries, Syria has been careful to keep the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated to Israeli attacks since.

In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime, to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home.

___

Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.