More World News
LebanonSeven Estonians riding bicycles in the Bekaa valley were kidnapped by masked gunmen, security sources said. Such incidents are a rarity since the Lebanese civil war. Security sources said masked gunmen in a black Mercedes and two white vans kidnapped the foreigners on a road between Zahle, a mostly Christian town, and Kfar Zabed, a mixed Sunni-Christian town. the cyclists had apparently crossed into Lebanon from Syria, a source said. Security forces recovered their identity papers and mobile phones. Photographs showed security forces at the scene holding the bicycles laden with yellow water bottles and the cyclists' backpacks.
Intrepid adventurers; naively unaware; bicycling, perhaps they felt, in a bucolic backwater. Syria and Lebanon? Don't these people read the news?
United States
A package found by a security guard at a federal office building in Detroit sat for three weeks before someone thought to screen it and found it was a bomb, an official who represents unionized guards said. A private contract guard, since suspended, apparently found the package outside in late February, said David Wright. The guard brought the package into the building and put it in "lost and found" without having it screened. It sat until March 18, when someone decided to X-ray the package and found it might contain a bomb. The FBI is investigating the incident.
Can you adequately investigate someone who is permanently 'out to lunch'? Good idea to have guards around, isn't it, to forestall any potential problems...
Argentina
A retired general nicknamed "the Hyena" active during the 1976-1983 military junta period, was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity on Wednesday. It was the sixth life sentence for Luciano Menendez, 83. On May 20, 1976, soldiers and provincial police under Menendez's command broke into a home in the northern city of Tucuman and killed five alleged members of the Montonero guerrilla group. the bodies were then buried in a common grave. Some 30,000 people were killed under the dictatorship, according to rights groups.
And long may he live.
Britain
A gang leader is facing a life sentence for the murder of his brother-in-law, whose severed thumb dropped out of the sky into a parking lot from a bird's beak. Mohammed Riaz was convicted Wednesday of murdering Mahmood Ahmad, whose body has never been found. Riaz waged a campaign of terror against Ahmad after his wife, Nahid, the dead man's younger sister, walked out on him with their children, claiming he had raped her. Ahmad was kidnapped a year ago, tortured and killed. Detectives believe the thumb, cut off cleanly with a bandsaw, was found by a bird that flew off with it in its beak. Forensic officers were later able to link bloodstains found at Riaz's home, where the killing occurred, with DNA from the thumb.
Might this bird have been in the employ of investigative agents? Could someone write a credible plot for a mystery novel around this theme? The brutally nefarious slaughterer turned in by a bird.
United States
An air traffic controller who fell asleep on the job, leaving two jetliners to land in Washington without any airport guidance, has told the National Transportation Safety Board it was his fourth-straight overnight shift and he was alone in the tower. Radio contact was lost for more than 20 minutes, the NTSB said. The unidentified 20-year veteran has been suspended. "As a former airline pilot, I am personally outraged that this controller did not meet his responsibility to help land these two airplanes", Randy Babbitt, the Federal Aviation Administration administrator said in a statement. The two flights landed without incident at Ronald Reagan National Airport. Flight crews could not raise the airport tower on the radio for runway and landing instructions shortly after midnight but were in contact with another nearby FAA facility.
Howcum the FAA administrator was not outraged that a air traffic controller had to work four straight overnight shifts and was alone, to boot? Is Randy Babbitt a fervent admirer of Ronald Reagan's standoff with the air traffic controller union?
Canada
A British Columbia lamb farmer has a field of ewes that won't stop bleating, calling out to their lambs, after someone stole more than a dozen of their babies. Overnight, someone broke the fence and stole 14 lambs, ranging in age from five days to one month old. The ewes are very vocal about their missing lambs and will be for several days, the Langley farmer said. "The [baby] lambs will be making at least as much noise as the ewes", she noted. The farmer is hoping somebody will hear the missing lambs and contact police. She said the missing lambs will starve to death within a few days. It's likely the thieves don't know about lambs and might not be able to care for them, she said.
Human stupidity and gross neglect of the fine details continue to astonish.
Labels: World News
posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 25, 2011
<< Home