Guatemala Bus Crash: Babies Among 44 Killed

An overcrowded bus has plunged into a deep river canyon in northwestern Guatemala, killing at least 44 people who had been travelling to the capital.

Grieving families gathered outside a recreation centre near the accident site where authorities set up an improvised morgue to identify the bodies of the passengers, including children and at least three babies.

The spokesman for the volunteer fire department, Mario Cruz, said 46 people were taken to regional hospitals for treatment of injuries.

Marcos Rene Zet, 17, was crying outside the centre as medical personnel performed post-mortems on the corpses. He said he couldn't believe he had lost his mother, two sisters and three nephews.

"My mother told me she was going to the capital to buy food. She sells food outside schools," Marcos said as he waited for news.

Bodies are marked up as evidence at the site of the crash

The fire department spokesman said approximately 90 people were aboard the Guatemala City-bound bus, which had an official capacity of 54 passengers.

The bus driver, Yony Cumar Cana, died in the accident.

"Some of the people were rescued with hydraulic equipment, and others were thrown (from the bus) at the time of the accident," Mr Cruz said.

People from the nearby town of San Martín Jilotepeque gathered at the scene and were shocked when they saw rescue workers carrying out the bodies of three babies wrapped in pastel-coloured blankets.

Boys and girls were brought out of the canyon on stretchers.

The bus ended up in the river at the bottom of the 600ft (200m) canyon at around 8.15am, apparently after the driver lost control on a bend.

Twisted metal from the bus was scattered in the ravine.

"From what we see, the bus crashed against a wall of rocks first and then fell over the cliff," said mayor Otto Vielman.

The area has mostly dirt roads that wind through steep mountains without guardrails or other safety measures.

The mayor said a similar bus accident in 2000 on the same road killed 40 people.

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Syria: Rebels Give US Targets To Defeat Regime

'Unorthodox' Attacks Point To Militia

Updated: 9:09am UK, Tuesday 10 September 2013

By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent

Not a single person I have met in northern Syria has even the slightest doubt that Bashar al Assad's military has used chemical weapons against them on multiple occasions.

Many now in the border areas are there exactly because they witnessed the attacks and decided not to stick about for another.

The Damascus incident last month and who did it can be argued about of course, but chemical weapons experts working with Sky News are in no doubt that chemicals were used and have been on multiple occasions in the past.

The experts, using evidence available to them, advise that the delivery of these weapons was unorthodox; the Syrian regime has proper delivery systems for chemicals.

But, setting aside the Damascus incident, they conclude that someone was "freelancing" their use in other attacks.

They suspect it was militia working in tandem with the government.

Part of their reasoning is that the purchasing, handling and preparation of chemical weapons is extremely difficult and dangerous.

In one incident that they have specific knowledge of, Syrian soldiers and chemical experts working with them were all killed when a chemical bearing warhead was accidentally dropped.

One can conclude from this that the Syrian government, at the very least, is actively involved in preparation of chemical weapon use.

It is reported in Turkish media that jihadists have been arrested either in possession of chemicals or attempting to buy them.

One can conclude from that, if it is true, that some extreme elements of the rebel movement would like chemical weapons as well.

But there is not a single piece of evidence indicating that rebels have used chemicals or practised using them.

Nobody from Sky News or any other broadcaster or journalist, as far as I am aware, has witnessed chemical weapons or their use by the rebels throughout this war.

But is this really the point here? Few Syrians really draw a distinction between 100,000 dead from conventional fighting and between 400 and 1,000 dead from chemicals.

They are all dead and most because of Mr Assad's determination to ignore calls for change and the end of his dictatorship.

Right now Assad's planes are attacking villages across the north of the country. I saw the jets and heard the explosions.

The Free Syrian Army, the civilian leadership of northern Syria and the vast numbers of internally displaced and refugees want the United States to bomb the Syrian military.

The FSA says 13 brigades in northern Aleppo will become one and will lead the fight to Damascus.

They are confident that the myriad of Jihadi groupings will set aside differences and join them.

All accept that the regime will retaliate and probably at a terrible cost to those who have stayed behind.

But as the governor of Aleppo said to me: "We fight on."

While Moscow plots to undermine action against its ally and Washington decides to plot or not against its President, there is one absolute fact beyond all sceptical analysis: the Syrian government continues to kill its own people. Every day.

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Breivik-Linked Party To Join Norway Government

An anti-immigration party with past links to mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik looks set to help form Norway's next government.

The populist Progress Party is likely to become the junior partner in a coalition with the Conservative Party following national elections.

Breivik, 34, was a member of Progress in his youth, but later left the organisation because he believed it was not militant enough.

The party's popularity nose-dived in the aftermath of his massacres, but it has since toned down its anti-Islamic rhetoric and tried to present itself as a party of government.

Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg - nicknamed "Iron Erna" - will become Norway's new prime minister after her party got 26.8% of votes.

Jens Stoltenberg has conceded defeat

It is the party's best result for 28 years.

"The voters had the choice between 12 years of red-green government or a new government with new ideas and new solutions," Ms Solberg said.

The current prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, who has led Norway for eight years, conceded defeat, saying his Labour Party tried "to do what almost no one has done, to win three elections in a row, but it turned out to be tough".

Labour appeared set to remain the biggest single party though, with 30.8% of the vote.

The Conservative Party managed to attract votes with pledges to increase the availability of private health care and cut taxes on assets over £89,000.

Erna Solberg will become Norway's prime minister

Frank Aarebrot, professor of comparative politics at the University of Bergen, said the election campaign was dominated by classical welfare issues, such as better care for the elderly, improved hospitals and better schools.

The Conservative Party has said for the first time that it is prepared to form a coalition government with the Progress Party, which was the third biggest party in the election.

Ms Solberg will now likely begin negotiations with them, as well as with the Liberal Party and the Christian Democrats.

According to preliminary results, she needs the support of all three parties to get a majority government, but could end up running a minority government with the Progress Party with support from the two others, if they refuse to share power with the Progress Party.

This was the first parliamentary election since Breivik killed 77 people in 2011.

Some 33 survivors of the massacre were seeking national office in the election.

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Delhi Gang Rape: Four Men Guilty Of Attack

Four men have been convicted of the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman as she travelled on a bus in Delhi.

Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh lured the woman and her male friend onto the bus as they returned home from watching a movie last December.

The physiotherapy student was raped and assaulted with an iron bar before she was dumped on the roadside with her friend.

She suffered serious internal injuries and died in a Singapore hospital 13 days after the attack.

The brutality of the assault triggered waves of protests across India, with new laws introduced and existing ones amended to give women greater protection.

The rape led to nationwide protests which forced the government to act

Fast-track courts were also set up to try men accused of sexual crimes.

The conviction of the four men follows an eight-month trial, during which more than 100 people gave evidence.

The case had been expected to finish sooner, with defence lawyers accused of using delaying tactics.

The men, who were found guilty of all charges against them, including rape and murder, are expected to be sentenced on Wednesday, when they could be given the death penalty.

A woman lights a candle during a vigil for the 23-year-old victim

Defence lawyers for Thakur, Sharma and Singh, who occasionally drove the bus and cleaned it, said they will appeal the verdict.

A fifth defendant, Ram Singh, was found hanged in his cell in Delhi's Tihar prison in March. His family and defence lawyers believe he was murdered.

A sixth person, who was a juvenile at the time of the attack, has already been found guilty of murder, rape and kidnapping.

He was sentenced to three years in a correction facility - the maximum penalty he could be given.

The parents of the victim, who argue the punishment is too lenient, called for him to be tried as an adult and to be hanged.

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Pakistan: Afghan Taliban Leader To Be Freed

Pakistan is to free the former Taliban second-in-command to help the peace process in neighbouring Afghanistan, a senior official has said.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, also known as Mullah Brother, is likely to be freed as soon as this month but will not be returned home, Pakistan's foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz revealed.

"In principle, we have agreed to release him. The timing is being discussed. It should be very soon ... I think within this month," he said.

"He will not be handed over to Afghanistan."

Baradar, who was captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010, is believed to be more open than other senior Taliban to talks but it is not clear how much the release would help initiate a peace process with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"Obviously Karzai wanted him to go to Afghanistan, but we feel that if they are to play a positive role in the reconciliation process then they must do it according to what their own shura (council), their own leadership, wants them to do," he said.

"That they can't do unless they are released. ... I think he (Karzai) accepted this point that they should play a constructive role in the peace process."

Much of the Taliban leadership forced out of Afghanistan by the US-led coalition is believed to be living in Pakistan.

Seven other Taliban prisoners were released over the weekend following a visit to Pakistan by Mr Karzai.

Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai met Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif in August

Pakistani politicians have also calls from President Nawaz Sharif to begin peace talks with the country's own Taliban militants after more than a decade of hostility.

Representatives from the main coalition and opposition parties at a conference to discuss the issue asked the government to "initiate the dialogue" with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Shahidullah Shahid, the main spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban, welcomed the move and said that a Taliban shura (council) would meet in next two days to discuss the issue.

"Our shura will meet in next two days and will discuss this offer," he said. "We will chalk out a strategy for the talks and will later announce it."

Pakistan has initiated peace talks with militants in the past.

But previous deals have failed and come under sharp criticism both domestically and by the US for allowing the extremists space to regroup before launching a new wave of attacks.

Pakistani politicians also expressed their dissatisfaction over the US's continuing drone strikes and asked the government to raise the issue internationally.

The Pakistani government considers the strikes by unmanned US aircraft as a violation of its sovereignty, but Washington views them as a vital tool in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

 

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Turkey: Mother Dead After British Family Shot

A gunman reportedly shot a British woman dead and injured her son and mother during a family holiday in Turkey.

The woman killed was named locally as Catherine Anne Bury, aged 56, from Swainby, North Yorkshire.

Also shot and now recovering in hospital were her son Alex, who is in his early 20s and who lived with her, and her mother Celia Bury, in her 80s from Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough.

A police officer at the family's holiday home

Vanessa Altin, a journalist in Turkey, said the family were shot while celebrating a birthday party at the villa in the small fishing village Dalyan, on Turkey's south coast.

The gardener is thought to have argued with the family, who reported him to Turkish police.

He was detained, but headed back to the villa on his release and opened fire with a pump-action shotgun.

Alex was reportedly shot in the leg, while his grandmother Celia was shot in the back. His mother is said to have been shot four times after attempting to hide from the gunman and died at the scene.

The family had reportedly been celebrating a birthday at the property

He is thought to have given himself up after the shooting and is due in court.

Stephen Garbutt, 72, who lives in the adjoining bungalow to the dead woman in Swainby, said: "I never ever heard a bad word, or a cross word or anything like that from any of them.

"How on earth they got into this situation I cannot imagine. I have never known Anne, for want of a better word, in trouble."

The Foreign Office confirmed in a statement: "We are aware of the death of a British national in Turkey on September 9.

"We are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time."

The statement added: "We can confirm the hospitalisation of two British nationals in Turkey on September 9."

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Germany: 'Neo-Nazi Model Plane Plot' Uncovered

Police in Germany have detained two men over an alleged neo-Nazi plot to attack political opponents using a bomb mounted on a model airplane.

One of the suspects - a 23-year-old with known links to far-right extremists - was arrested in Freiburg on suspicion of commissioning the flying bomb, said prosecutors.

He allegedly incited a 42-year-old man to build the "functional" bomb. The second man was detained and later released on bail.

His home was searched and police said they found a working explosive device, chemicals, several model airplanes, a data storage device and a video camera.

Prosecutors' office spokesman Wolfgang Maier said the bomb "could have caused damaged in a 20-30m (65-100ft) radius".

Police were also investigating two other suspects, men aged 22 and 24, over the alleged plan.

Officers raided their homes in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Authorities said the bomb's targets were "political enemies" of the neo-Nazis, but gave no further details.

In June, German authorities carried out raids after uncovering an alleged Islamist plot to carry out bomb attacks against state targets using model airplanes.

According to official figures, Neo-Nazis committed over 800 violent crimes in Germany last year.

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Apple Expected To Launch New iPhones At Event

Apple Launch Could Open New Market

Updated: 3:41pm UK, Tuesday 10 September 2013

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent, in Beijing

In China, Apple has two problems: price and reach.

Let's take 'reach' first. In China there are three mobile phone networks: China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom Corporation.

To date, Apple has only managed to establish a deal with two of them: China Unicom and China Telecom Corporation.

Given that the other carrier, China Mobile, is the world's largest network with an estimated 745 million subscribers, Apple is missing out on a huge chunk of the Chinese consumer base.

To put it simply, 745 million people are, at the moment, unable to buy an iPhone because it's not available on their network.

There have been plenty of rumours about a deal finally being signed between Apple and China Mobile. It hasn't happened yet.

The second problem for Apple in China is price. The iPhone is significantly more expensive than every other smartphone available on the Chinese market and there are many to choose from, Samsung being the biggest. 

Sales of Android phones are far outstripping the sale of Apple's iPhone, making up about 90% of the Chinese market.

This is partly down to the fact that most Android phones are available on all three of the Chinese networks but it's also because they are cheaper.

Apple's share price has fallen from $700 (£446) a year ago to about $500 (£319). The problems in China are thought to be largely to blame.

A deal with China Mobile will help considerably. But a cheaper handset seems vital too.

That's where the conveniently named iPhone 5C comes in. It's not clear if the 'C' stands for 'China' (or perhaps 'cheap') but there's no doubt that it's aimed at the Chinese market.

Rumours suggest it will be plastic and available in multiple colours. That will certainly appeal to the young and upwardly mobile Chinese consumer who seems to buy increasingly gaudy phone covers.

The balance for Apple is tricky though. It likes to be seen as a premium brand - a cut above the rest perhaps.

Introducing a cheaper phone may well diminish that brand but to crack the Chinese market properly, that might be a price worth paying.

There is a strange irony here though. iPhones may be proudly "Designed in California" but they are "Made in China" to keep costs down.

Now the company finds itself having to produce a cut-price model to win over the very people who make the phones.

The Chinese, after all, seem to be the key to its future.

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Syria: Britain And US Table UN Resolution

Weapons Handover 'Is Unrealistic'

Updated: 1:31pm UK, Tuesday 10 September 2013

By Tim Marshall, Foreign Affairs Editor

The Russian proposal for Syria to voluntarily give up its chemical weapons is logistically unrealistic but diplomatically clever.

US Secretary of State John Kerry either blundered into a Russian trap, or disguised an offer as an off-the-cuff remark when he suggested Syria could avoid air strikes by handing over its chemical weapons within a week. Most analysts believe it to be the latter.

Either way, it took about an hour for his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to seize the moment and make his proposal.

A giant smokescreen quickly enveloped the international stage, but behind it you could hear a large ladder being dragged on to give everyone an opportunity to climb down from their current positions, especially Barack Obama.

The UN quickly embraced the proposal, the British and French gave it a cautious welcome, the Americans said they would look at it, the Syrians did what they will continue to do - they prevaricated.

Everyone spoke with a straight face. They either don't know the complexities behind the reality of the Russian idea, or they felt it better to ignore them until the smoke clears and the route down the ladder becomes apparent.

Who would actually go to Syria and secure the weapons under the auspices of the UN is unclear. It would take hundreds of scientists and others, and it could take months.

Syria is thought to have 1,000 tons of chemical weapons spread across dozens of sites.

In the event of full co-operation by the government, which has yet to even admit it has such weapons, the UN would have to beg, borrow and steal the experts from a variety of countries prepared to put their top scientists at risk.

It would also have to assemble a support team.

In the meantime Syria would have to sign and ratify the Convention on Chemical Weapons.

When the UN teams arrived they could venture to some of the relatively safe areas under government control, but getting to sites in contested areas would be problematic.

To put that into English, the UN inspectors would risk being shelled by the Syrian army as it attacked other targets, shot at by rebels for being part of the process which stopped US air strikes, blown up by roadside bombs, and kidnapped by whichever local gang wanted to get themselves into trouble.

This is not the type of job the world's top chemical weapons scientists are best suited for even with a UN security force alongside them.

In a controlled environment the Russian proposal can work. Syria is not a controlled environment.

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Ireland: Homes Raided Over Rhino Horn Thefts

Dozens of homes have been raided in an international police investigation into the theft of valuable rhino horns.

An organised crime gang, reportedly linked to a large traveller family originally from the west of Ireland, is believed to have netted goods and artefacts worth 40m euro (£34m) in a string of robberies.

Armed police from the Republic's Criminal Asset Bureau (Cab) raided homes in the Rathkeale and Raheen areas of Limerick and in Newmarket in Cork.

One of the gangs suspected of involvement in the thefts has been nicknamed the Rathkeale Rovers.

A large amount of documentation, a small amount of cash, some artefacts and paintings were recovered and confiscated during the operation.

No arrests were made.

The raids were in the west of Ireland

Police said the raids were part of the ongoing investigation into the assets and financial affairs of a gang suspected of extensive criminality including labour exploitation, counterfeiting, tarmac scams, tobacco smuggling and the theft of rhino horns and rare Chinese cultural artefacts.

There have been more than 60 recorded thefts of rhino horns and Asian art from museums and private collections across Europe over the past three years.

For the past two years, Europol has been tracking a suspected Irish organised crime gang which, it warned, is one of the most significant players in the illegal global trade in rhino horns.

The gang, which is believed to have links to North and South America, China and Australia and is said to use "intimidation and violence" in its activities, is wanted over robberies in Italy, Germany and the UK.

The latest rhino horn theft hit museum bosses in Ireland in April this year, despite them being put into storage for safekeeping.

Due to the level of the robberies, some European museums have replaced the real rhino horns with copies and some of these were stolen, one in Germany.

Rhino horn, which consists only of keratin, is sold in Chinese traditional medicine and claimed to be anything from an aphrodisiac to a cure for a hangover or cancer or even just a decoration.

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