a bump and a ping
Russia defends sale of missiles to Iran
Snip: "I wish to underline that these systems cannot be used in offensive operations," Sergei Ivanov told Russia Today television. "Secondly, they have a limited use as they are capable of protecting a small part of the Iranian territory."
Moscow has refused to bow to Western pressure and cancel its $US700 mln ($A905.5 mln) contract to sell 29 Tor-M1 air defence missile systems to Iran which was signed last December.
Snip: Honduran-American relations have been rocked by scandal over the past month as three high-profile Hondurans, among them one ex-president and two government ministers, have had their visas revoked. Despite the frenzy created among local media, the government of Manuel Zelaya has reacted calmly to the incident, deciding not to jump to any immediate conclusions. However, as the dust settles it appears that at least one of the ex-government ministers may be up for indictment very soon.
In each case the men were detained upon trying to enter the U.S. and later deported back to Honduras.
Snip: Shortly after midnight in late September, a Texas National Guard soldier with night-vision equipment spied four figures slipping through the brush and alerted Border Patrol agents. The men were arrested, and one in particular stood out for the extensive tattoos across his face, body and arms. Wilmer Matamoros, 23, a Mara Salvatrucha gang leader, was imprisoned earlier this year in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. A fingerprint check showed Santos Chileno-Gomez, a 23-year-old Salvadoran, had been deported for an assault on a Long Island, N.Y., police officer. His lengthy criminal record -- and the tattoos -- labeled him as a member of Mara Salvatrucha 13, a vicious international street gang that federal authorities call one of the most violent in the U.S. Mr. Chileno-Gomez is among 76 MS-13 members apprehended by the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley during the just-ended fiscal year.