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/

Bombings stopped in Xinjiang

Police shot and killed six suspected terrorists, including one who threatened them with an ax while trying unsuccessfully to detonate bombs in a commercial area of Shule county in the southern part of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region at about 10 am on Monday.

No civilians or police officers were injured in the incident.

The police prevented the bombings after responding to reports from residents about suspicious individuals. It was not clear how many bombs were involved, or whether the attackers were male or female.

Residents reported that one of the suspects carried the explosives to the commercial area, the statement said.

Shule, in southwest Xinjiang, is about 7 kilometers from Kashgar, capital of the Kashgar prefecture, which saw a bloody attack in its Shache county on July 28, when a gang armed with knives and axes attacked a township's police station and government offices. Officers shot 59 attackers and arrested 215 other people.

On Nov 28, the officers responded to another case in the same county. A group of knife-wielding terrorists set off explosives on a main street, killing four and injuring 14. Eleven terrorists in that incident were shot dead by police.

Hit by frequent terrorist attacks in the past year, the regional authorities are carrying out a campaign to eliminate religious extremism, which is regarded as the source of the violence.

A regulation banning full-face veils, called niqab, and full-body coverings in public in Urumqi was approved by the legislature on Saturday. Xinjiang officials said such clothing is associated with religious extremism.

Outward appearances, such as the niqab and distinctive male beards, are not small matters, said Nurmemet Turson, deputy director of the religious research institute of the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, "They are favored by ultraconservative Muslims and can be symbols of religious extremism."

Several prefectures, including Aksu, Turpan and Ili, have made efforts to mitigate the influence of religious extremism by introducing various constructive activities for the public.

Wang Yiwen, Party chief of Qapqal Xibe autonomous county, said: "If the farmers, especially the youth, are interested in sports, cultural activities and even the films we play every week in the village, they might stay away from the extremism."

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Intercity train connects Beijing and 'city of beds'

Commuters living in Yanjiao, a town about 35 km east to Beijing, now have more options to go to work in Beijing after an intercity bullet train started operating on Monday.

Train D9022 left Yanjiao at 6:46 am and arrived at Beijing Station at 7:17 am on Monday. All the 706 tickets of the train were sold out, a railway official said.

Zhou Hongyu, one of the first passengers on the maiden trip of Yanjiao-Beijing bullet train, said that the new train almost halved the daily two-hour-long journey to her office.

"I used to take bus before transferring to subway to my office. The bus is extremely crowded and it's always a struggle to get on it."

For some others, punctuality is the top concern.

Peng, 37 year old, said ideally it takes an hour to reach his office. But that is not often the case on the congested roads of Beijing.

"Sometimes the commuting time can stretch to two hours or more. Now the bullet train can take me to Beijing in half an hour," said Peng.

But the timing and cost of the train deter some commuters.

"A second-class seat on the bullet train sells at 10 yuan ($1.6), which will nearly double the cost of bus journey," veteran commuter Wu Zejian told reporter ahead of the operation of Yanjiao-Beijing bullet train. "Besides, my home is quite a distance away from the railway station, so it is not a bargain for me to take the train," added Wu.

"Although the train is punctual and fast, but I can only take the morning train because the evening train leaves Beijing at 5:50 pm and I will not be able to catch it. I hope more shuttle services will be added between Beijing and Yanjiao in the future," said Zhou Hongyu.

Whether Zhou's wish will be fulfilled is in doubt because of limited transport capacity on the line, according to the head of Yanjiao railway station.

Yanjiao, which literally means the suburb of Beijing, is home to over half a million residents, many of them moved to the small town in recent years after the house prices in Beijing skyrocketed.

Despite the low house price and rents, commuters have to take the cost of excruciating journey to their work place in Beijing. After a long day on the road, they have no extra energy to do anything other than go to bed, thus earning the town the name "city of beds".

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Peshawar school reopens after Taliban massacre of students

PESHAWAR: Pakistani children and their parents returned on Monday to the school where Taliban gunmen killed 150 of their classmates and teachers, their green school blazers, Superman lunchboxes and hands clutched tightly to their parents a symbol of perseverance despite the horrors they had endured.

Pakistan has been reeling from the December 16 terrorist attack in Peshawar one of the worst the country has experienced. The violence carried out by seven Taliban militants has put a spotlight on whether the country can end the stubborn insurgency that kills and maims thousands every year. The violence also horrified parents across the nation and prompted officials to implement tighter security at schools.

For parents like Abid Ali Shah, getting ready for school Monday morning was horrifically painful. Shah's wife was a teacher at the school and was killed in the violence. Both of his sons attended the school. The youngest was shot in the head but survived after the militants thought he was dead. Monday morning they were late as they struggled with preparations previously done by Shah's wife.

"A hollowness in my life is getting greater. I am missing my wife," Shah said.

His older son, Sitwat Ali Shah, said he had managed to control his emotions. It wasn't until he saw his brother break down in tears that he did as well.

A ceremony was expected to be held at the school, but classes were not expected to be held until later this week.

Security was tight, part of a countrywide effort to boost safety measures at schools in the wake of the attack. Media and vehicles were kept hundreds of meters (yards) away from the school. The chief of Pakistan's army, Gen. Raheel Sharif, was on hand inside the school to greet students, a military spokesman said on Twitter.

For many, attending school Monday morning was an act of defiance and proof that they would not be cowed in the face of Taliban threats to attack again.

Andleeb Aftab, a teacher at the Army Public School, lost her 10th grade son, Huzaifa, in the attack. She arrived Monday wearing a black dress and black head scarf and walked briskly toward the school, where she had last seen her son alive.

"I have come here because the other kids are also my kids," she said. "I will complete the dreams of my son, the dreams I had about my son, by teaching other students. I have chosen to get back to school instead of sitting at home and keep mourning."

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Fourth ship to join search for missing Malaysian airliner

CANBERRA, Australia – A fourth ship with specialized underwater sonar equipment will join the search for a Malaysia Airlines jet 10 months after it vanished under mysterious circumstances, an Australian official said Monday.

The ship Fugro Supporter was on its way to the search area after conducting trials off the Indonesian island of Bali, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said in a statement.

“Fugro Supporter has been equipped with a Kongsberg HUGIN 4500 autonomous underwater vehicle,” the statement said. “The AUV will be used to scan those portions of the search area that cannot be searched effectively by the equipment on other vessels.”

Not a single trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been found since the Boeing 777 vanished with 239 people aboard on March 8 last year during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The jetliner veered sharply off course and flew for hours with its communications systems disabled before disappearing.

Three ships – two provided by a Dutch contractor and one from Malaysia – have already been scouring 60,000-square-kilometre (23,000-square-mile) area of the Indian Ocean about 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) west of Australia.

Since October, the ships have searched more than 12,000 square kilometres (4,600 square miles) of the seafloor with towed sonar equipment – or one-fifth of the highest-priority search zone.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the agency leading the search, said the unmanned submarine equipment would be used to take a second, closer look at difficult seabed terrain where towed sonar was less thorough.

“Because the terrain remains complex, there’s a possibility that there’ll be some areas that we can’t do with the towed sonar, and so we’re getting an autonomous underwater vehicle as the alternative option,” Dolan said. “We think we’ve got pretty good coverage already, but this will give us a 100 per cent guarantee.”

The underwater drone moves slower than the towed sonar equipment and will not hasten the search, which is expected to end around May if nothing is found earlier, Dolan said.

No additional equipment will be needed to ensure a thorough search of the mountainous terrain, which ranges from 600 metres (2,000 feet) to 6.5 kilometres (4 miles) deep, he said.

The Fugro Supporter is jointly funded by the Australian and Malaysian governments. It is expected to join the search in late January, Truss said.

Source: http://globalnews.ca/