Latin Kings charged in Texas slaying

 Fifteen members of the Almighty Latin Kings have been indicted for alleged roles in 19 murders, including slayings of juveniles and a pregnant woman. One of the murders was in Big Spring, Texas, according to the indictment, made public Friday. The murders were done to control gang territory and further their illegal activities, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The indictment also alleges that two Chicago police officers robbed people for the gang, sometimes while in uniform, the Sun-Times reported. Several Latin King members already had been convicted in connection with a 2008 drive-by shooting in Big Spring where six people were shot with an AK-47.  The victims included a woman who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time. She and another victim died of their wounds, the department...

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Devastating report into the failures of police and care agencies to protect teenage girls who have been groomed, raped and sold by male gangs, most of whom are Asian.

The mother of one teenager from Leeds, who attempted suicide after a gang rape, said her daughter was the victim of a 'broken system.''Everyone failed her,' she told The Times. 'There was no sharing of information. 'They (police) had the names and knew where they (abusers) worked yet the men who did this have never once been arrested or spoken to by the police.'West Yorkshire Police vowed to look again at the case to see if 'there is evidence that can help bring evil men to book'.Growing worry: CCTV footage shows now jailed gang members Mohammed Romaan Liaqat and Abid Mohammed Saddique meeting girls as they cruise the streets of Derby in...

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Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you

 Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you? Here's interim (that's reassuring) chief executive Sam Weihagen doing his safe-as-houses routine: "It's business as usual. We are trading within all our covenants. We have all the protection in place like any other travel company, and customers should not worry at all." Well, not quite like any other travel company. Thomas Cook of course holds an Air Travel Organisers' Licence from the Civil Aviation Authority which means customers should get their money back in the event of calamity. But the simple fear of being stranded a week after passengers of Austria's Comtel Air had to bribe pilots with £20,000 just to return to Birmingham is bound to unsettle would-be customers. There's a circle at work here and it is vicious....

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Police were in dark over foreign axe killer living in UK

 COPS did not know an East European axe murderer was living in the UK until he caused a killer car crash, a court heard yesterday. Intars Pless, 34, hacked through a friend's throat in his native Latvia, then moved to Britain after he got out of jail. But Lincoln Crown Court heard police can only check a foreign national's record if they break the law here. So Pless's horrific crime came to light only after he drove into moped rider Valentina Planciunene, 37, while over twice the limit. Stuart Lody, prosecuting, told the court: "On the night of Valentine's Day he decided it would be a perfectly good idea to drink a very large quantity of whisky. Surprised "He and a friend spent a considerable period of time drinking whisky and driving around. "During the driving he was possibly...

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Four police officers stabbed in north London

 Four police officers were stabbed as they tried to detain a man after a disturbance in north London, Scotland Yard said on Saturday. Police said officers were called to an incident shortly before 9 a.m. on the main road in Kingsbury where they had tried to speak to a man before he ran into a butcher's shop and grabbed a knife. "Officers followed the man in an attempt to detain him and were subsequently assaulted," Chief Superintendent Dal Babu told reporters. "Four male police constables suffered stab injuries during the incident and have been taken by the London Ambulance Service to hospital." One was stabbed in the stomach, a second suffered head injuries and stab wound to his arm, the third was stabbed in the leg, and the last sustained stab wounds to a hand and also suffered a...

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SIX people have been arrested for their involvement with a gang which stole jewellery from elderly people

 SIX people have been arrested for their involvement with a gang which stole jewellery from elderly people. They are believed to be responsible for more than 120 robberies in 19 provinces throughout Spain, including Almeria, where some of the members were based. Around 450 pieces of jewellery have been recovered and will be exhibited at the Almeria Guardia Civil station for owners to identify. The way they operated was by one of them asking people over the age of 65 for directions to distract them while taking their belongings, or in other cases, they would offer to sell them cheap jewellery which they put on them while removing the valuable items they were wearing. They travelled in high-range vehicles all over Spain and chose small towns, isolated areas, and locations surrounding...

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ONE of Europe’s most powerful hashish smugglers was arrested in Estepona

 ONE of Europe’s most powerful hashish smugglers was arrested in Estepona, National Police said. The arrest of the 33-year-old man was part of an operation against drug traffickers based in Huelva in which more than 3,620 kilos of hashish were seized from a pneumatic boat at a shipyard in Isla Christina, Huelva. The two men on board were dressed as Guardia Civil officers so as not to arouse suspicion. They were arrested along with eight others. The criminal organization smuggled drugs to Spain via Malaga and Huelva from Morocco. Two days later, National Police the leader of the organization, who had a prison order against him from 2010 for drug-related crimes, was arrested in Estepona. He is considered by police to be one of Europe’s most powerful...

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The World Bank today approved $297 million in loans to Morocco to help finance the Ouarzazate Concentrated Solar Power Plant Project

The World Bank today approved $297 million in loans to Morocco to help finance the Ouarzazate Concentrated Solar Power Plant Project, taking a historic step toward realizing one of the first large-scale plants of this kind in North Africa to exploit the region's vast solar energy resources. With this approval from the Bank's Board of Executive Directors, Morocco takes the lead with the first project in the low-carbon development plan under the ambitious Middle East and North Africa Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Scale-up Program. A $200 million loan will be provided by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the part of the Bank that lends to developing country governments, and another $97 million loan will come from the Clean Technology Fund. "The World Bank is proud...

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FIVE members of a British family have been arrested for stealing 156,700 litres of diesel oil from a Malaga pipeline.

 FIVE members of a British family have been arrested for stealing 156,700 litres of diesel oil from a Malaga pipeline. The highly-organised team are alleged to have used their plumbing knowledge to puncture the pipe and set up hidden hoses leading to their rented finca in nearby Campanillas. In early October oil company CLH noticed a drop in pressure in the pipe supplying Malaga airport and filed a complaint with the Guardia Civil, who immediately launched operation ‘Rudolf 2011’ to catch the thieves. Police located the leak and discovered a hut hiding the extracting devices. They traced the pipes to the Campanillas house where they arrested a man who was controlling the device. They also discovered a 500-litre capacity van connected to the supply with a hose. Later they...

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Gas gang, which stands for Guns and Shanks,Five convicted of killing gang rival aged 15

 Five teenagers were convicted today of chasing a 15-year-old boy from his school gates and stabbing him to death in a gang-related attack. Zac Olumegbon was knifed in the heart and also had wounds to his chest, neck and buttocks. His hands and arms were scarred showing that he had tried to ward off the blows. He was cornered by the youths wearing hoodies in a back garden 100 yards from the Park Campus school in West Norwood. Another schoolboy was also stabbed but Zac was the prime target in the attack in July last year. At the Old Bailey four of the youths were found guilty of murder and a fifth convicted of manslaughter. They can be named for the first time today after Judge Giles Forrester QC lifted an anonymity order. The murderers are Helder Demorais, now 17, Kyle Kinghorn, who...

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Phone hacking: the names of nearly 30 News International staff appear in Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks

Phone hacking: the names of nearly 30 News International staff appear in Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks, the Leveson inquiry has heard. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesThe names of 28 News International employees appear in notebooks belonging to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for theNews of the World, the Leveson inquiry into press standards heard on its first day at London's high court. Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry also heard that Mulcaire wrote the words "Daily Mirror" in his notepad, which suggests he may have carried out work for the paper. Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, told the high...

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UK border checks are 'a bad joke', whistleblower claims

 Under-pressure staff are said to be relying on false data and "massaging" official figures to mask the full extent of the immigration chaos at Britain's borders. The whistleblower, a middle manager who does not want to be identified, said UKBA staff lack the resources to track down asylum seekers. As a result, it is claimed, complicated immigration cases are being abandoned to save time, while detention centres employ a "one in, one out" policy that sees low-risk detainees released to allow more dangerous foreigners to be locked up. The whistleblower said British border checks had become "haphazard" and "a bad joke". "The whole place is a basket case," he told The Sunday Times (£). "Asylum seekers run rings around us and we are virtually powerless to do anything about it. It is depr...

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ARRESTED 60-year-old, who is originally from Blackpool, but has been living in the Marbella area of Spain

Armed Naval and Gardai personnel with cocaine which was seized from a yacht off the west coast of Ireland A BLACKPOOL man has been arrested for allegedly being part of a £250m international cocaine smuggling racket. Police, acting under orders from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) – dubbed Britain’s FBI –swooped in the town to capture John Alan Brooks.The 60-year-old, who is originally from Blackpool, but has been living in the Marbella area of Spain, was found at an address in Marton.His arrest comes as part of a major investigation which was launched in 2008 when a 1.5 tonnes shipment of cocaine was seized off the coast of...

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Robert Dawes was finally arrested in Dubai on an international warrant but is now living free on the Costa del Sol.

 For five years a man named in a British court as "the general" has been pursued by detectives in a multimillion-pound operation.Over the past decade Robert Dawes has moved from a two-up, two-down terraced house on an estate outside Nottingham to a base in Dubai and finally to a villa on the Costa del Sol.Police believe he has left a trail of destruction as one of the heads of acrime syndicate that flooded the UK with millions of pounds of cocaine, heroin and cannabis. He has been identified in nine UK investigations involving large scale shipments.Dawes is wanted in the Netherlands in connection with the murder of a teacher, Gerard...

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