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الأربعاء، 26 أكتوبر 2011

Lincoln Tribune

Eight New York police officers arrested in gun trafficking bust
Series of bomb blasts hit southern Thailand, killing 3
Exhibit Could Be King Tut’s Last Tour, For a While
US, North Korea ‘Narrow Differences’ in Geneva Talks
Indiana Town’s Economy Benefits from Canadian Oil Boom

Eight New York police officers arrested in gun trafficking bust

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:53 AM PDT

NEW YORK (BNO NEWS) -- Eight current and retired officers with the New York Police Department were among twelve people arrested on Tuesday for their alleged participation in gun trafficking operations, prosecutors said.

The twelve people arrested, which included five active New York Police Department officers and three who are retired, were charged for allegedly accepting thousands of dollars to transport firearms and stolen merchandise into the state.

According to Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the transported merchandise included stolen slot machines, firearms, stolen cigarettes and counterfeit goods. The firearms included three M-16 rifles, one shotgun and 16 handguns, the majority of which had been defaced to remove or alter the serial numbers on them.

In total, according to the complaint, the goods the defendants illegally transported between October 2010 and March of this year carried a street value of over $1 million. The arrests were the result of a long-term undercover investigation that began in 2009.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and agents from the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau arrested all of the suspects in their homes on Tuesday morning. Among them is a New Jersey corrections officer and a former New York City Sanitation Department police officer.

"The complaint describes how a group of crime fighters took to moonlighting as criminals; how a gang of police officers who should have been keeping guns off the street instead smuggled 20 firearms into the City," Bharara said, adding that a number of men once charged with enforcing the law are now charged with breaking it.

"An officer who betrays his badge betrays every honorable officer, as well as every member of the public," he added. "The NYPD is the finest police force in the world, and has done more to protect our city and keep us safe than any comparable force in any city, anywhere."

The active-duty NYPD officers who were charged were identified as Wiliam Masso, Eddie Goris, John Mahoney, Ali Oklu and Gary Ortiz. Oklu works as a member of the Brooklyn South Task Force, Ortiz works in Brooklyn's 71st precinct while the others work in Brooklyn's 68th precinct.

The retired NYPD officers who were charged are Joseph Trischitta, Marco Venezia and Richard Melnik who also worked in Brooklyn's 68th precinct. Trischitta and Venezia were active-duty officers for a part of the period they allegedly committed the charged offenses.

Also charged are former NYC Department of Sanitation Police Officer Anthony Santiago, active-duty New Jersey Corrections Officer David Kanwisher and associates Michael Ge and Eric Gomer.

"These crimes are without question, reprehensible - particularly conspiring to import untraceable guns and assault rifles into New York. The public trusts the police not only to enforce the law, but to obey it," said Janice K. Fedarcyk, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's New York Field Office. "These crimes, as alleged in the complaint, do nothing but undermine public trust and confidence in law enforcement. We are committed to continuing to work with the Internal Affairs Bureau of the NYPD to root out corruption, wherever it may be."

Series of bomb blasts hit southern Thailand, killing 3

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:24 AM PDT

YALA, THAILAND (BNO NEWS) -- A series of bomb explosions killed at least three people and injured around twenty others in the southern region of Thailand on Tuesday, officials said on Wednesday.

The bomb explosions occurred on Tuesday evening in the restive city of Yala, which is located in the southern province which carries the same name. It happened on the seventh anniversary of the Tak Bai massacre, local authorities told the Nation.

One of the bombs detonated prematurely while suspected insurgents transported the explosive through the Old Market section of Yala's Muang district, killing two insurgents. Police believe the insurgents were taking the bomb to the city's commercial area.

Several explosive devices later detonated in the New Market area of the city. According to reports, the last of eight bombs detonated at around 10 p.m. local time. However, bomb squads were able to defuse a total of ten explosives.

The bombs were targeting mostly public areas such as restaurants and karaoke bars in the predominantly Buddhist section of Yala, which also suffered a blackout for around an hour. Local officials believe the attacks were carried out to mark the Tak Bai massacre anniversary.

On October 25, 2004, a total of 86 people were killed when police used tear gas and gunfire to ward off hundreds of protesters who began hurling stones and tried to storm a police station. It is known as the Tak Bai incident.

The attacks on Tuesday also happened about 24 hours after two bomb blasts struck Narathiwat's Muang district, killing five people including a pregnant woman and her three-year-old child.

Exhibit Could Be King Tut’s Last Tour, For a While

Posted: 25 Oct 2011 05:01 PM PDT

As Egypt goes through fundamental political change, people fascinated by the country's ancient civilization worry that a new government might restrict loans to museums overseas. Among the most successful commercial ventures involving Egyptian antiquities have been traveling exhibits of treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, Tut as he is better known.

One of those exhibits is now drawing crowds at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Many people visiting the museum fear this could be their last chance to see such magnicient and important antiquities.

This exhibit is called "Tutankhamun, the Golden King and the Great Pharaohs." It shows the splendor of ancient Egypt through art works and jewelry as well as ordinary objects, like this bed.

Visitors like Ayanna feel drawn to the world of these ancient people. "Three thousand years ago, and I am still able to see things that they touched and felt and interacted with. It's just amazing," she said.

King Tut rested in obscurity until British archaeologist Howard Carter found his tomb in 1922, more than three thousand years after his death. But since then, he has become an international superstar, thanks in part to films of the National Geographic Society, which was a sponsor of this exhibit.

Kathryn Keane, the society's Director of Traveling Exhibitions, says the world knows Tut because his tomb was mostly intact when Carter found it. "There are much, much larger tombs and burial sites and much more prominent pharaohs than King Tut, but all of those tombs had been looted or otherwise disturbed over time," she said.

Keane says the National Geographic Society has been following Tut ever since. "And new discoveries are constantly being made in Egypt, so we will be there as long as there are stories to tell," she said.

The stories in this exhibit include recent DNA samples from Tut's mummy, genetically linking him to Egyptian royals who preceded him, and tests showing an infection in a broken leg that might have caused his death, at the age of 19.

Egypt is building a huge new museum to house its ancient treasures, and some observers fear a new government may be less willing to allow treasures like these to leave the country again.

Mark Lach is a vice president with Arts and Exhibitions International, the company that organized this exhibit. He's more optimistic. "My sense is that Egypt will always want to share their history with the world and through exhibitions they will do that," he said.

This show is also raking in money for Egypt, something the country needs to maintain its treasures at home. Abd El Hamid Marouf is an official with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. "We use the exhibitions everywhere in the world to gain the money for the conservation and preservation of our monuments," he said.

What exhibitions have also done is bring this ancient culture to the US heartland, where people might not otherwise have been able to see such treasures.

"Some of those cities... it has been spectacular, not only the reception of the exhibition, but how people have been affected and that has been a joy of ours to be a part of that," said Lach.

After it leaves Houston next April, the exhibition moves to its final US stop in Seattle.

US, North Korea ‘Narrow Differences’ in Geneva Talks

Posted: 25 Oct 2011 04:25 PM PDT

The State Department said Tuesday U.S. and North Korean officials narrowed their differences on resuming Chinese-sponsored six-party negotiations on Pyongyang's nuclear program in a two-day set of talks in Geneva. But, U.S. officials say there were no breakthroughs and that the process will take some time.

Officials are expressing cautious optimism about the results of the Geneva meetings, but say it could take months to find out if North Korea is willing to take the "concrete" steps needed to re-start the nuclear talks.

In the latest sign of an improved atmosphere between North Korea and other parties in the stalled six-way negotiations, senior U.S. and North Korean diplomats met behind closed doors for two days of meetings in Geneva.

U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth said the sides narrowed some differences and that the tone was positive and generally constructive.

His North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan sounded more upbeat, citing "big improvements" in some areas and saying remaining differences will be solved when the sides meet again.

Briefing reporters, State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said there were no breakthroughs and that it might take some time to learn if North Korea is prepared to do what is needed to revive the six-party talks.

"We've narrowed the differences but there is quite a bit of work still to do," she said. "I think you know where we have been on the six-party talks. First, that the north-south dialogue needs to continue and second that we need to see real concrete steps, concrete commitments by the North Koreans on their nuclear obligations."

A senior U.S. official said the North Korean team was given detailed proposals to take back to the leadership in Pyongyang and that given its track record on such issues, it will probably be a matter of weeks if not months before a decision is made.

North Korea agreed in principle in 2005 to scrap its nuclear program including a presumed small stockpile of weapons in return for aid and diplomatic incentives from other members of the six-party talks-Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United States and host China.

But Pyongyang walked out of the talks in 2009 and later conducted a second nuclear test.

North-South Korean relations went into a tail-spin last year with the sinking of a South Korean navy ship blamed on the north and the North Korean shelling of a southern coastal island.

John Park, senior program officer for Northeast Asia of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the USIP, says efforts to get North Korea back into the negotiating process are aimed in part at preventing a return to aggressive behavior by Pyongyang.

"One of the big motivations now is to try to engage North Korea in some kind of talks as a way to prevent future provocations," he said. "That thesis, I think, is being implemented right now to a certain degree. Certainly there are other factors involved as well. But in terms of taking a pro-active stance in terms of trying to prevent a recurrence of provocation like last year, this type of negotiating or engaging with North Korea is seen as an important element of that."

The USIP's Park says North Korea is being heavily "courted" amid a sense of urgency by China and others that the longer the six-party process is stalemated, the less chance there is of getting it going again.

U.S. spokeswoman Nuland said the Geneva meetings included North Korea's request for international food aid to cope with shortages attributed to floods and mismanagement.

She said whether the United States, the largest single food donor to North Korea since the 1990s, provides new aid depends on a U.S. needs assessment and competing demand for famine relief elsewhere including the Horn of Africa.

Nuland said Washington also wants terms assuring that any aid reaches North Koreans truly in need, and she dismissed charges by some aid groups that a U.S. decision is being held up for political reasons.

"We reject those assertions. We do not connect these issues," she said. "And were we to go forward, we would have to have significant and detailed discussions about monitoring, which we have not yet had."

Nuland said U.S. North Korea envoy Bosworth will step down and return full-time to his academic post at Tufts University near Boston after returning to Washington and briefing administration officials on the Geneva meetings.

Bosworth was accompanied there by veteran diplomat Glyn Davies, outgoing U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, who has been named to the North Korea post.

Indiana Town’s Economy Benefits from Canadian Oil Boom

Posted: 25 Oct 2011 04:22 PM PDT

The town of Whiting, Indiana, is home to the largest inland oil refinery in the United States. The energy company BP operates the Whiting Refinery, which originally was built by the Standard Oil Company in 1889. Now with heavier crude oil piped into the facility from Canadian tar sands, the facility is getting a multi-billion dollar upgrade. BP's investment in the refinery is an economic windfall for the small town, but environmentalists say the improvements bring increased pollution.

It's hard to find signs of high unemployment and a struggling economy along the streets of Whiting, Indiana.

Local resident Brian Lowry of the Whiting Development Commission says that is because Whiting is the beneficiary of one of BP's biggest investment projects in North America, the upgrade of the Whiting Refinery.

"Thanks to that investment, which is the largest in the state of Indiana's history, yes, we've been sheltered from the [economic] storm," he said.

BP is spending an estimated $3.8 billion to increase the refinery's capacity to process heavy crude oil, brought by pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.

"So the $4 billion modernization is really providing a huge economic shot in the arm to northwest Indiana, in general," Lowry said.

"Right now we have roughly 8,000 folks on site, about 6,000 contractors and roughly 2,000 full-time employees," said Brad Etlin, BP's local Director of Government and Public Affairs. "There are thousands of people on site each and every day that are out there visiting local stores and local restaurants. There are significant indirect benefits for local towns, local communities. When the modernization project is complete, there will be a significant increase in the tax base for some of the local municipalities."

Although most people who live in the shadow of the refinery will enjoy lower property taxes and newly constructed public facilities, not everyone is happy that more oil will pass through the refinery.

"Is there going to be a price reduction for gasoline? I don't think so," said Steve Kozel, President of the Calumet Project, a citizens group he says that promotes social, economic and environmental justice. The organization has opposed some of BP's environmental permits with the state of Indiana, citing concerns about the amount of pollution increased refining will create near the facility and along Lake Michigan.

"Our concern is what exactly is it going to be doing to the air," said Kozel. "They're going to be increasing the sulfur by 20 percent, the particulate matter by 21 percent, and increasing lead by 25 percent into the air, so this is a big increase. You're talking almost 20 percent, once the refinery is manufactured."

BP's Brad Etlin says some of the money for the modernization project is targeted at reducing the amount of pollution the plant produces.

"We're investing more than $1 billion in environmental improvements - both in our waste water treatment plants as well as other parts of the refinery," he said.

Local resident Brian Lowry says that so far, he has seen no ill effects.

"My children swim safely in the water here. Certainly we breathe the air here with no issues," he said. "So as far as environmental concerns go, I don't have any."

The upgrade to the Whiting facility, which produces about 405,000 barrels of oil a day, is about two-thirds completed. BP says the modernization project, which began in 2008, should be finished by 2013.

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الأربعاء، 26 أكتوبر 2011

Lincoln Tribune

Lincoln Tribune

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