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Showing posts from October 29, 2017

Italian police seize €50 million stash of 'Isis drugs'

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Customs officials discovered more than 24 million pills of a powerful opiate at Italy’s largest container port, south-western Gioia Tauro,  according to prosecutors  in the nearby city of Reggio Calabria. The drugs, prescription painkillers called Tramadol, had arrived from India and were destined for Libya, where authorities believe Isis planned to sell them to its own fighters as a fix for pain and exhaustion. With a price tag of around €2 per pill, the consignment would likely have made the group some €50 million, prosecutors said. As well as being a money-spinner, Tramadol helps to numb Isis recruits as they wage terror. The group is believed to supply its foot soldiers with painkillers and amphetamines to suppress their fear, pain, hunger and fatigue. Italian police intercepted an even bigger shipment of Tramadol in May at the port of Genoa, when traffickers attempted to smuggle 36 million pills hidden in bottles of shampoo. What’s significant in this latest case,

Organized crime casts long shadow over Sicily election, says anti-mafia prosecutor

Sunday will see the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) challenge the incumbent centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and a resurgent centre-right for leadership of one of the oldest parliaments in the world.   The days of shootouts and car bombs may be gone, but Cosa Nostra has been growing fat instead on political deals. "We have greatly weakened the military apparatus of the mafia, the massacres are over, murders are rare. But the mafia has undergone a genetic modification," Cartosio told AFP. "The political sector has lent itself greatly to... [organised crime's] infiltration of the social fabric" and, as a consequence, "the mafia presence in the political sphere is much greater than before," he said. With so-called "unpresentables" across the political spectrum – candidates who are under investigation for corruption, charged with ties to the mafia, or standing trial for vote buying – fears of vote-buying are rife. 'A whol

ISIS Jihadist Publicly Executes His Own Mother

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If you want proof that ISIS is pure evil and that Islam has some explaining to do if it claims to be the “religion of peace,” look no further. Not only did this guy publicly execute his own mother, he was celebrated by fellow jihadists for doing so! Titles like “religion of peace” need to be earned. And Islam by-and-large has failed to do so. The Washington Post  reported : Even by Islamic State standards, the accusation seems shocking. Earlier this week, Syrian activists say, a militant from the notoriously brutal group stood in front of a crowd, condemned his own mother and then shot her in the head. The execution took place in Raqqa, a city in eastern Syria that is the Islamic State’s self-declared capital, according to two prominent groups that monitor the Syrian civil war. One of the groups – the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – said in a report Friday that the 20-year-old man murdered his mother, who was in her 40s, “in front of hundreds of people near the

Popular Front of India member exposed as 'ISIS sympathiser'

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Last week the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took suspected  ISIS  sympathiser into five-day custody after he was deported from Turkey following his third alleged attempt to cross into ISIS territory. Shahjahan Velluva Kandy, a native of Kerala's Kannur district, has also used  Facebook  to call Islamic State fighters 'role models' alongside posts on al- Qaeda 'poetry'. A senior NIA official told Mail Today that Kandy's social media accounts were scanned showing his links to people who are involved in creating fake travel documents and sending people to join the jihad. Shahjahan Velluva Kandy, a native of Kerala's Kannur district, allegedly used Facebook to post celebrate Islamic State fighters as 'role models' Many ISIS sympathisers connect to each other through social networking sites and encrypted chats, say sources. Mail Today accessed Kandy's Facebook account through which he was in touch with several Islamic State sup

Savitri Devi: The mystical fascist being resurrected by the alt-right

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Savitri Devi Archive Savitri Devi, a mystical admirer of Hitler and a cat-loving devotee of the Aryan myth, seemed destined to fade into obscurity after her death 25 years ago. But thanks to the rise of the extreme right, her name and her image now crop up online more and more, writes Maria Margaronis. In 2012, browsing the website of Greece's Golden Dawn party for an article I was writing, I stumbled on a picture of a woman in a blue silk sari gazing at a bust of Hitler against a blazing sunset sky.  What was this apparently Hindu woman doing on the site of an openly racist party devoted to expelling all foreigners from Greece? I filed her as a curiosity at the back of my mind, until the rising tide of extreme-right politics in Europe and America threw up the name "Savitri Devi" once again. It isn't hard these days to find discussions of Savitri Devi's books on neo-Nazi web forums, especially The Lightning and the Sun, which expounds the theory that Hitl

ICC prosecutor seeks Afghanistan war crimes investigation

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The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking a formal investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan. In a statement,  Fatou Bensouda said "there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed". The actions of the Taliban, the Afghan government and US troops since May 2003 are expected to be examined. It follows a preliminary investigation that has lasted more than a decade. That investigation has examined crimes including intentional attacks against civilians, imprisonment and extra-judicial executions. "Following a meticulous preliminary examination of the situation, I have come to the conclusion that all legal criteria required to commence an investigation have been met", Ms Bensouda said. What does the International Criminal Court do? Is this the end for the International Criminal Court? Fatou Bensouda: ICC's chief prosecutor She has asked the Internat

Sex trafficking bill gets tech firms' backing

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Getty Images The bill seeks to prosecute websites that encourage ads selling sex The internet’s most powerful companies say they will support new measures that seek to prevent online sex trafficking. The Internet Association, which counts Facebook, Google and Amazon among its members, had at first said the proposed US law could hurt innovation.  But in a statement released on Friday the group said it was satisfied with “important changes” made to the bill.  US senators are expected to hold an initial vote on the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (Sesta) next week.  "This important bill will hold online sex traffickers accountable and help give trafficking survivors the justice they deserve,” said Senator Robert Portman of Ohio, one of the bill’s authors.  “I’m pleased we’ve reached an agreement to further clarify the intent of the bill and advance this important legislation.”  Technology companies had been opposed to the bill because of changes it would have made to

Colombia signs $300m UN deal to fight cocaine production

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AFP Farmers will be compensated if they switch from growing coca (shown) to safer crops Colombia has signed a $300m (£230m) agreement with the United Nations aimed at reducing the production of cocaine. Farmers who switch from growing coca - the raw material used to make cocaine - to safer crops will be compensated. The head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said it was an "opportunity to turn the tide against Colombia's coca cultivation". Colombia is ranked as one of the main drug-growing nations in the world by the UNODC. Speaking in Vienna, the head of the UNODC, Yury Fedotov, said: "This historic agreement is a unique opportunity to turn the tide against Colombia's coca cultivation and help farmers embrace alternative development. "The pursuit of peace requires tangible solutions to the crimes that fuel and feed conflict." Ian Pannell was allowed to look around one raided cocaine lab before the authorities blew it up C

Daesh Defeat 'Very Close,' But Ideological Threat Lingers, Syria Analyst Warns

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On Friday, the Syrian army announced it had  retaken Deir ez-Zor  from the  Daesh  terrorist group, depriving it of its last urban stronghold in Syria. Beirut-based scholar and journalist Dr. Lorenzo Trombetta, an independent consultant for The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told Radio Sputnik that the group will persist in "rural" and "deprived" areas unless there is a sustained effort to support local communities. What is the significance of this particular victory for Syria? We should remind ourselves that Deir ez-Zor is not only the last urban stronghold of the Islamic State (Daesh) organization in Syria but is also the last urban stronghold of the entire Islamic State organization in the Middle East. So, after the fall of Raqqa,  Mosul  and now Deir ez-Zor, we can say that the Islamic State organization does not have any more presence in an urban context while the Islamic State perhaps would remain present in the rural