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WASHINGTON – Some 103 suspected members of a violent criminal street gang that has been linked to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups have been arrested in seven U.S. cities, the government announced today. The target of the massive sting operation was Mara Salvatruchas gang – also known as MS-13 – whose members have been known to behead victims and attack with grenades and machetes. The raids, which began in January, are part of the first nationwide crackdown on the Central America-based gang that boasts members throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada. The group specializes in cross-border drug-dealing, arms-running and...

ICE, FBI AND MECKLENBURG PD ARREST DANGEROUS GANG MEMBER IN CHARLOTTE CHARLOTTE-An 18-year-old dangerous gang member of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) was arrested here Monday by special agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and officers of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Edison Andre Carrasco-Molina is a citizen of Chile who is in the country illegally. Carrasco-Molina has a criminal history that includes convictions for assault, trespass, unlawful concealment and disorderly conduct. Carrasco-Molina was in possession of a rifle at the time of his arrest. The U.S. Attorney's Office has accepted the case for federal...

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes. The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese authorities decided to form the strategic alliance for defense, trade and energy. Russia will deliver oil to China and China will collaborate with Russia in Geopolitical strategic defense of Euresia. Russia's Security Council and the Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo will form a forum and will work closely to make sure both countries can create and maintain the necessary military and political infrastructure as well as coordination. According to some international think tanks, sources close to Russia's Security Council say recommending countermeasures to check the U.S. geopolitical "offensive" in Eurasia...

Plans, tapes diaries seized at Pearson airport Zaynab Khadr denies they belong to her OTTAWA—The RCMP and Canadian military believe they've discovered a vital cache of information on Al Qaeda that includes the whereabouts of wanted members and details of attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan. The information is allegedly contained in a laptop, dozens of DVDs, audiocassettes and the pages of diaries, seized by the RCMP officers who met Zaynab Khadr at Pearson airport with a search warrant as she arrived back in Canada in February, court documents state. Khadr is the eldest daughter of a family that has...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Yonhap) -- The United States will take issue with the kidnapping of a Korean-American pastor by North Korean agents at future six-party talks over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, a South Korean interpreter close to the case said Tuesday. "U.S. State Department officials said they will raise the issue of the abduction of Rev. Kim Dong-shik with the North through various channels, including the six-way talks," said Chang Hak-keun, a South Korean interpreter who assisted Rev. Kim's wife during her visit to the State Department on Tuesday afternoon. Rev. Kim's wife, Chung Young-hwa, met State Department officials...

The Iraqi Survey Group also found that supposed "humanitarian" imports under Oil-for-Food gave Saddam the ability to restart his biological and chemical warfare programs at a moment's notice. Spertzel said what scared him the most in Iraq was the discovery of secret labs to make deadly weapons like the nerve agent, sarin, and the biological poison, ricin, in spray form. "If that were released in a closed [area], such as Madison Square Garden or, even some, some of your smaller closed malls, shopping malls, it would have a devastating effect … killing hundreds or thousands," Spertzel said. But Spertzel believes...

John Kerry attends Thompson's blowing-up.

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - Hunter S. Thompson's body was found in a chair in the kitchen in front of his typewriter with the word "counselor" typed in the center of the page, according to sheriff's reports. The word was typed on stationery from the Fourth Amendment Foundation, which was started to defend victims of unwarranted search and seizure, according to reports released Tuesday. It was not immediately known what, if any, significance the word had to the founder of "gonzo" journalism or to his family. Juan Thompson found his father dead Feb. 20 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the...

Irish rock star and campaigner Bob Geldof, a driving force behind the 1985 Live Aid appeal for Ethiopia, urged Tuesday that Africa's debt problems stay a priority despite the Asian tsunami disaster. "The tsunami must be dealt with, it is an act of God, an act of nature," he told BBC radio, voicing concern the disaster would sideline chronic issues elsewhere. "Africa's an act of man. Millions die each year completely unnecessarily and that can be adjusted ... The issue is one of poverty and debt and it need not be," Geldof added. He said the government should seize the...

BASRA, Iraq, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Masked gunmen assassinated a senior judge in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, a Reuters witness and doctors said. Video footage showed the body of the judge, Taha al-Amiri, lying in a hospital mortuary following the attack. Witnesses said his vehicle was stopped by four masked gunmen as he drove through the centre of Basra, Iraq's second largest city, in the far south of the country. Two of the gunmen got out and opened fire, killing the judge instantly. His driver was wounded in the attack. It is the second assassination...

On the fringe of the headlines It is not very often that I can say this, but over the past few days I have been on the fringe of a news story that was being reported around the world. A few days ago, on 27th September, the Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji published a story speculating that Kim Jong Il’s grandson, Kim Han Sol, had enrolled in the United World College in Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina). The story was quickly picked up by news media around the world, including AsiaOne in Singapore, Chosunilbo (South Korea), The Washington Post, the Huffington Post, Associated Press...

The Justice Department has backed away from a court battle over its authority to classify and restrict the discussion of information it has already released, handing a local advocacy group a victory by granting it explicit permission to publish letters written by two senators that contain the contested information. The case was considered a potential test of limits to the government's power to restrict access to information in the public domain on national security grounds. Former attorney general John D. Ashcroft had strongly defended the practice in this case by likening it to putting "spilt milk" back in a jar...

ON the morning of Saturday, Feb. 26, a day before the Academy Awards, the actress Carrie Fisher woke up in her Beverly Hills home next to the lifeless body of a gay Republican political operative named R. Gregory Stevens. Thus ended one of the more improbable friendships that Hollywood and Washington have known - and a globe-trotting, adventurous, but ultimately debilitating existence that might be fodder for a Tinseltown thriller, if it only had a satisfying resolution. Before its abrupt end, Mr. Stevens's journey had taken him from the beaches of San Clemente, Calif., and the slopes of Sun Valley,...

1. Ahmad Abu Adass In 2005, the last year of his life, Ahmad Abu Adass was 22 and still living with his parents in Beirut, Lebanon. He was kind and liked people, his friends later told investigators, but none of them thought he was very sophisticated. The best way to describe him was simple, one said. He was generous and a little naïve. He was very weak, physically. A Sunni Muslim of Palestinian descent, Adass had become interested in religion and now spent many hours at the Arab University Mosque near his home. It was there, after a prayer session,...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Authorities found two bodies at the home of a federal judge Monday night, and Chicago police and the FBI were investigating. The bodies were found at the home of U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, but the judge was uninjured, police spokesman Patrick Camden said. He declined to elaborate. FBI agents were assisting police but would provide no details.

Former State Dept. employee Lawrence C. Yontz, 48, pled guilty before a U.S. magistrate to illegally accessing hundreds of passport files, including those of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. He didn’t access Sarah Palin’s passport file, presumably because she obtained a passport for the first time last year. According to the Justice Dept.: In pleading guilty, Yontz admitted that between February 2005 and March 2008, he logged onto the PIERS database and viewed the passport applications of approximately 200 celebrities, athletes, actors, politicians and their immediate families, musicians, game show contestants, members of the media corps, prominent business...

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 6:47 a.m. ESTHillary Rebuked by Iraqi Leader New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has caused an international incident after she criticized Iraq's leading candidate to become prime minister as a result of last month's historic election, prompting a sharp rebuke. "Hillary Clinton, as far as I know, does not represent any political decision or the American administration, and I don't know why she said this," Dr. Ibrahim Jafari, who is expected to become prime minister, told the Times of London on Thursday. "She knows nothing about the Iraqi situation," he added. During an interview last Sunday,...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An upstate New York doctor was found guilty on Thursday of illegally sending millions of dollars to Iraq, in violation of U.S. sanctions, authorities said. Rafil Dhafir was convicted of 59 out of 60 charges ranging from conspiracy to money laundering to Medicare fraud after a 15-week federal trial in Syracuse, N.Y., prosecutors said. Dhafir, an oncologist, used an unregistered charity named "Help the Needy" to solicit some $4 million in contributions in the United States and then launder much of it to Iraq through bank accounts in Jordan, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said he began sending...