Fresh al Qaeda warning to France as Charlie Hebdo set to release Prophet cartoon again

Paris: Even as France is struggling to come to terms with the deadly attacks carried out on the office of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the terror-stricken country on Tuesday received a fresh terrorist threat – this time from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

According to a tweet by SITE monitoring group, Al Qaeda's branch in North Africa (AQIM), commended the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine and urged Muslims to follow the example of Kouachi brothers who killed 12 people last Wednesday.

Blaming France for attacking Muslim countries, the AQIM threatened that the country will continue to remain exposed to terror attacks as long as it bombarded people in Iraq and Syria, the CNN quoted the terror group's statement.

The AQIM also threatened French media against publishing Prophet cartoons.

"France pays the cost of its violence on Muslim countries and the violation of their sanctity," AQIM said in a statement.

"As long as its soldiers occupy countries such as Mali and Central Africa and bombard our people in Syria and Iraq, and as long as its lame media continues to undermine our Prophet (Mohammed), France will expose itself to the worst and more," the CNN cited the AQIM statement.

It can be noted that the commando-style attack perpetrated on Charlie Hebdo's office by Kouachi brothers was claimed by Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The SITE Intelligence group quoted a sharia official of AQAP as threatening France with more operations if it does not stop "fighting" Islam and its symbols, and Muslims.

The warning comes just a day before the Charlie Hebdo magazine's fresh issue is due to hit the newsstands on Wednesday. After a brazen assault on Charlie Hebdo's office killed eight cartoonists, the magazine has decided to come back with defiance and its fresh print will feature a caricature of Prophet Muhammad, with tears in his eyes, holding “JE SUIS CHARLIE” (”I am Charlie”) sign below the headline “TOUT EST PARDONNE” ("All is forgiven”).

Usually, the magazine used to print 60,000 copies of the weekly, however in light of humongous demand from across the country and the world, a whopping 3 million copies of Charlie Hebdo's fresh issue will be published in a total of 16 different languages.

Meanwhile, the country is still reeling under the shock generated by three blood-soaked days that killed 17 people and France has turned into a fortress with 10, 000 troops deployed to protect sensitive areas.

In what is an unprecedented security measure taken in the aftermath of deadly three-day attacks in France, 10,000 troops will be mobilised across the country's sensitive areas to protect the people as "threats remain," Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said yesterday.

Also, nearly 5,000 security forces and police will be roped in to protect over 700 Jewish schools in the country.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/

Divers retrieve second AirAsia black box

A day after recovering the data recorder, divers Tuesday retrieved the cockpit voice black box from the AirAsia flight that crashed into the Java Sea two weeks ago with 162 people aboard.

The cockpit recorder was aboard an Indonesian navy vessel headed for Jakarta, where both devices will be analyzed, said Tonny Budiono, sea navigation director at the Transportation Ministry.

"Thank God," Budiono said. "This is good news for investigators to reveal the cause of the plane crash."

Divers found the cockpit voice recorder, which holds two hours of conversations between the pilot, co-pilot, crew and air traffic control, just hours after the retrieval of the flight data recorder from under a wing Monday, said Suryadi Supriyadi, operation coordinator at the national search and rescue agency. The voice recorder was wedged under heavy pieces of wreckage nearby.

Supriyadi said that initial findings suggest the jet may have exploded on impact with the water after plummeting more than 30,000 feet.

The recovery of the black boxes is key to determining what caused the Dec. 28 crash of the Airbus A320 less than an hour into its scheduled two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Authorities have said it could take weeks to download all the information the boxes provide.

"There's like 200-plus parameters they record," said aviation safety expert John Goglia, a former U.S. National Transportation Safety Board member. "It's going to provide us an ocean of material."

Indonesian weather service officials have tentatively blamed storms for the crash of Flight 8501. Minutes before the jet disappeared from radar, the pilot had sought permission to increase altitude because of poor weather conditions. Air-traffic controllers rejected the request because of the high volume of traffic.

The search for the plane, bodies and black boxes were hamstrung by chronic storms, high winds and cloudy seas. Underwater searchers began to hone in on the black boxes after hearing pings from the devices Sunday, but their efforts 100 feet beneath the surface were thwarted by murky conditions and heavy currents.

On Sunday divers confirmed a large piece of debris detected by sonar was a wing and pieces from the engine.

On Saturday, the tail of the plane was lifted from the seafloor and taken to Pangkalan Bun, the nearest town, to be handed over to Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee for investigation, the airline said in a statement.

Rescue officials said 48 bodies have been recovered as of Monday. AirAsia said 32 of the remains have been identified.

The Indonesian Transport Ministry has said AirAsia did not have a license to fly the route on the day of the crash, a claim AirAsia has vigorously disputed. The airline has been banned from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route. The Transport Ministry has suspended scores of routes from other domestic airlines for similar alleged violations.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/

Vanderbilt class uses philosophy to examine Ferguson

"The students have been very well organized and thoughtful about their response to Ferguson," she said. "I wanted to respond to this historical moment in the class."

Students will pair philosophers such as John Locke with contemporary blog posts discussing issues of how police use deadly force.

But the course, titled "Police Violence and Mass Incarceration," drew the ire of the blog Daily Roll Call earlier this month, which called it an "anti-police course."

Nashville's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police took notice of the blog post and called Vanderbilt to investigate. Sgt. Mark Woodfin, vice president of Nashville's FOP, said he wanted to ensure students in the course would include police-friendly perspectives in their studies.

Community members, including police officers, will be brought in for class discussions, Guenther said.

"I don't think it is just a simple issue with two sides," she said. "It's a complex issue with a history. We will explore that history in class from multiple perspectives."

In a statement, the university stood by Guenther and her course.

"Universities have historically been places where the most troubling issues facing society can be discussed and where many points of view are respected," Vanderbilt's statement read. "This elective course is an example of that sort of discussion, in which students will be exposed to many perspectives, including those of police. Our support of intellectual freedom exists to encourage reasoned dialogue and debate of the issues facing us all."

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/

NTSB investigating after smoke at Washington Metro station kills 1, injures 84

The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating what caused one of Washington's busiest subway stations to fill with smoke Monday afternoon, resulting in the death of 1 person and injuries to 84 others.

Officials said the woman who died and many of the injured were riders aboard a Virginia-bound Yellow Line train that had just departed the L'Enfant Plaza station shortly before 3:30 p.m. local time when it suddenly came to a halt 800 yards beyond the platform and began to fill with smoke.

The smoke did not appear to have been the result of a fire. Power to the third rail was shut down and riders were forced to self-evacuate. Passengers told the Washington Post that as much as an hour went by before firefighters were able to lead them out of the cars. Witnesses told the paper that some riders began to choke as the smoke filled the cars, while others lost consciousness. 

DC Interim Fire Chief Eugene Jones told the Post that firefighters did not immediately enter the tunnel to help the riders because they want to ensure that power to the third rail had been shut off. He also took issue with passengers' claims, saying that the delay was "nothing like" the length of time described. 

NTSB officials said the investigation would continue Tuesday morning. Rail service into the city was expected to be affected. 

At least two of those hospitalized were in critical condition Monday night. 

Jonathan Rogers told The Post that he was aboard a Yellow Line train as it headed to Pentagon Station, which is one station away from L'Enfant Plaza. He said smoke quickly came through the subway car's doors.

"It started to get scary pretty quick," he told the paper. The subway's driver tried moving the train backwards, but smoke continued to enter.

“People started praying,” he said. “Smoke was coming in pretty steadily. Some people were fine and some people were just hurting pretty quickly.”

Passenger Saleh Damiger was quoted by the newspaper as saying that people were choking and yelling aboard the train. "It was a lot of smoke," she said. "We couldn't see each other. ... We felt like we were almost going to die."

Fellow passenger Sirwan Kajjo told the paper that the train operator told them to get low to the ground to avoid being affected by the smoke. 

Eighteen people from the station were taken to Medstar Washington Hospital Center, most of them for smoke inhalation, spokeswoman So Young Pak told the Associated Press. She said 11 were treated and released. Of the seven still in the hospital Monday night, one was in critical condition and one was in serious condition, she said.

George Washington University Hospital spokesman Matt Brock said in an email that 34 patients suffering from smoke inhalation had been brought there. He said their conditions varied.The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating what caused one of Washington's busiest subway stations to fill with smoke Monday afternoon, resulting in the death of 1 person and injuries to 84 others.

Officials said the woman who died and many of the injured were riders aboard a Virginia-bound Yellow Line train that had just departed the L'Enfant Plaza station shortly before 3:30 p.m. local time when it suddenly came to a halt 800 yards beyond the platform and began to fill with smoke.

The smoke did not appear to have been the result of a fire. Power to the third rail was shut down and riders were forced to self-evacuate. Passengers told the Washington Post that as much as an hour went by before firefighters were able to lead them out of the cars. Witnesses told the paper that some riders began to choke as the smoke filled the cars, while others lost consciousness. 

DC Interim Fire Chief Eugene Jones told the Post that firefighters did not immediately enter the tunnel to help the riders because they want to ensure that power to the third rail had been shut off. He also took issue with passengers' claims, saying that the delay was "nothing like" the length of time described. 

NTSB officials said the investigation would continue Tuesday morning. Rail service into the city was expected to be affected. 

At least two of those hospitalized were in critical condition Monday night. 

Jonathan Rogers told The Post that he was aboard a Yellow Line train as it headed to Pentagon Station, which is one station away from L'Enfant Plaza. He said smoke quickly came through the subway car's doors.

"It started to get scary pretty quick," he told the paper. The subway's driver tried moving the train backwards, but smoke continued to enter.

“People started praying,” he said. “Smoke was coming in pretty steadily. Some people were fine and some people were just hurting pretty quickly.”

Passenger Saleh Damiger was quoted by the newspaper as saying that people were choking and yelling aboard the train. "It was a lot of smoke," she said. "We couldn't see each other. ... We felt like we were almost going to die."

Fellow passenger Sirwan Kajjo told the paper that the train operator told them to get low to the ground to avoid being affected by the smoke. 

Eighteen people from the station were taken to Medstar Washington Hospital Center, most of them for smoke inhalation, spokeswoman So Young Pak told the Associated Press. She said 11 were treated and released. Of the seven still in the hospital Monday night, one was in critical condition and one was in serious condition, she said.

George Washington University Hospital spokesman Matt Brock said in an email that 34 patients suffering from smoke inhalation had been brought there. He said their conditions varied.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/

Judge declares mistrial in case of SC police chief who killed black man

A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial early Tuesday in the case of a white ex-police chief charged with murder in the shooting death an unarmed black man.

The jury deliberated for 12 hours before telling Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson early in the morning they were deadlocked.

Prosecutor David Pascoe said he will evaluate his case but plans to try Combs again.

"I'm going to take a little time, but we're going forward," Pascoe said.

Pascoe said nine jurors had voted to convict Combs.

"We just had three jurors we couldn't convince," he said.

Defense attorney Wally Fayssoux, who maintains that Combs is innocent, said it had been a long week.

"We're disappointed we didn't get a result, but I think both sides feel that way," Fayssoux said.

The shooting happened after Combs was trying to arrest Bailey on an obstruction of justice warrant prosecutors contended was trumped up.

The defense said the shooting had nothing to do with race and argued Combs fired in self-defense when he was caught in the door of Bailey's moving truck.

During closing arguments, Pascoe said Combs frequently changed his story to match the evidence and was confident he would never be held responsible for killing Bailey because he was a police officer.

"He thought he got away with it because he wears a badge. Prove him wrong," Pascoe said in a passionate, hour-long argument during which he slammed the gun used in the killing on a table and had an assistant sit in the witness chair so he could carefully recreate the shooting.

Fayssoux said the case hinges on the three seconds in which Combs was trapped in the door of Bailey's pickup as it rolled in reverse, not the seven weeks it took Combs to serve a warrant on Bailey.

"Does he want to go home to his family?" Fayssoux said of Combs. "Or does he hope the truck doesn't roll over the top of him?"

Jurors had the choice between murder and voluntary manslaughter. Murder carries 30 years to life in prison without parole. Voluntary manslaughter carries two to 30 years in prison, and would have meant Bailey's killing was illegal but happened in the heat of the moment.

Judge Dickson authorized the voluntary manslaughter option Monday.

The seeds of the fatal confrontation were sown seven weeks earlier when Combs stopped Bailey's daughter for a broken taillight. The daughter called her father and Bailey came to the side of the road.

Sometime later, the chief secured a warrant for obstruction of justice, but waited several weeks to serve it until Bailey came to Town Hall the day before his daughter's trial. Pascoe asserted that Combs wanted to make a display of arresting Bailey, when he could have instead asked for help from sheriff's deputies.

After Combs told Bailey he was being arrested for obstruction of justice, witnesses said Bailey left Combs' office and went for his truck. Combs followed.

Pascoe said Combs could have stepped away from the truck door, but instead stood there and fired three shots into Bailey. The prosecutor said several things made it clear the truck was stopped and Bailey was trying to give up: The victim's foot was on the brake, and three shell casings were found close together along with Combs' dropped handcuffs.

But Combs' lawyer said all that mattered was that the chief feared for his life during the three seconds it took to shoot. He said Combs had no pepper spray or Taser and had no option but his gun.

Eutawville suspended Combs after the shooting and dismissed him several months later. The town reached a $400,000 wrongful death settlement with Bailey's family.

Although Combs was white and Bailey was black, race hasn't been front and center of the case. Pascoe contends Combs was angry at Bailey for just trying to show him up.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/

Infant trafficking gangs busted, rescuing 37

Shandong Police have rescued 37 infants after busting seven human trafficking gangs in the past two months, according to a CCTV report.

A total 103 suspects have been detained, said Xie Xinxi, director of Jinan railway police department.

"The gangs immediately sold the infants after they were born in underground delivery wards. A girl was sold for about 60,000 yuan ($9,677.42) while a boy went for 80,000 yuan," Xie was quoted as saying.

The gangs were also said to buy infants from rural areas in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces and sell them in Shandong and other coastal provinces in past months, Xie said.

"Only one infant girl has been reunited with her own parent in the wake of a DNA test. The remaining 36 may not be able to return to their parents as their mothers, who mainly come from rural areas, sold the infants of their own accord," Xie said.

All victims are now in local children's welfare houses or foster homes, he said.

According to Xie, most of the infants are in poor health because they were not been well looked after and even maltreated by the traffickers.

Seven have been identified as being HIV positive or diagnosed with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, as infected mothers passed on diseases to their fetuses while pregnant, Xie said. Many of the infants, living in a poor hygienic environment, were only fed instant noodles, he added.

In another operation, police detained seven suspects and rescued an infant after swooping on a delivery room hidden in a derelict factory on the outskirts of Yanzhou earlier this month. Several pregnant women were found in the underground facility.

Liu Yang, a local railway police officer, said the underground ward might have been operating for six months. Many pregnant women were found to have been picked up at Yanzhou railway station and sent to the hidden room since July.

Chen Shiqu, director of the human trafficking task force under the Ministry of Public Security, said traffickers have used new tricks to kidnap and sell children to avoid police crackdowns in recent months.

"Directly abducting and selling newborns is one of the new methods that help the traffickers to avoid the police crackdown," he told media.

Chen urged police across the country to redouble efforts to fight the crime.

Read more on: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/