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Seven charged over ‘Taliban plot’

A poppy field in AfghanistanAfghanistan is dotted with poppy fields, which are used to produce opium and heroin
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Seven people, including two Americans, have been charged with conspiring to aid the Afghan Taliban by selling the militant group weapons and moving drugs through West Africa, US officials say.

The two US citizens were charged with conspiring to sell missiles to protect Taliban-run heroin laboratories against US attacks in Afghanistan.

They were arrested in Romania and are being held for extradition to the US.

Other defendants allegedly plotted to sell heroin to the US for the Taliban.

‘Aiding Taliban efforts’

The two Americans, identified as Alwar Pouryan and Oded Orbach, were indicted in connection to a scheme to sell surface-to-air missiles, automatic rifles and other weapons to the Taliban to help the rebel group protect their narcotics operations, the US justice department said in a statement.

Five other defendants, who allegedly operated drug trafficking rings in Africa, were charged in a plot “to receive, store, and move ton-quantities of Taliban-owned heroin through West Africa, portions of which they understood would then be sent to the United States”, the statement said.

The five, named as Maroun Saade, Walid Nasr, Francis Sourou Ahissou, Corneille Dato and Martin Raouf Bouraima, were taken into custody in Liberia earlier this month by Liberian authorities and transferred to US custody, officials said.

Once extradited, all seven are expected to be tried in New York.

The defendants had communicated with confidential sources working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the justice department statement said.

“As alleged, the defendants charged today, including two US citizens, were prepared to provide millions of dollars in dangerous narcotics and lethal weapons to men they believed represented the Taliban,” US Attorney Preet Bharara said.

He added: “This alleged effort to arm and enrich the Taliban is the latest example of the dangers of an interconnected world in which terrorists and drug runners can link up across continents to harm Americans.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Protesters in Tehran tear-gassed

A man waves an Iranian flag from the top of a crane in Abbas-Abad St, central Tehran An activist calls people to rally from the top of a crane
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Iranian police have placed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi under house arrest, his official website says.

It says the move is intended to block him from attending a rally in Tehran in support of the protests in Egypt.

It is the latest in a series of arrests of people linked to Mr Mousavi and fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, also under house arrest.

Several opposition groups have vowed to take part in the protest, although officials have banned the gathering.

Although Iran’s establishment officially supports the Egyptian popular protests, it says the rallies are a “political move” by the two opposition leaders.

The authorities have stepped up security in the capital, blocked access to internet sites, and started jamming satellite news channels.

Activist being pulled off the craneEmergency responders later pulled him off the crane

Analysts say Tehran is trying to stop opposition groups from using the Egypt rally as a means to re-ignite anti-government protests – last seen in 2009 – against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In an unusual move, a man climbed a tall crane in central Tehran on Monday morning and began inviting people to attend today’s rally, the BBC’s Mohsen Asgari reports from the Iranian capital.

He threatened to kill himself if officials tried to approach him, but was later arrested by the police, our correspondent says. The activist was earlier mistaken for a young woman.

Also on Monday morning, Iranian police vans blocked the lane leading to the house of Mr Mousavi and disconnected his mobile phones and land lines, his website Kaleme.com said.

Last week, almost a dozen people close to Mr Mousavi were detained.

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

UK soldier dies in Helmand blast

UK soldier in AfghanistanA total of 357 UK soldiers have died in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001

A soldier from 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment has been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The MoD said he was killed by an improvised explosive device on Monday while on an operation in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province.

The soldier’s next of kin have been informed.

Earlier, the MoD announced that two British soldiers had died in a fire at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

The latest death to be announced brings the total number of UK fatalities since operations began in Afghanistan in 2001 to 357.

Lt Col David Eastman, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said the soldier, who was based in Colchester, in Essex, was on a patrol aimed at reassuring the local population when he was killed.

“Sadly the insurgents have resorted to planting explosives that target innocent civilians and soldiers indiscriminately, without care for the impact that they have or the destruction they cause,” he said.

“The soldier gave his life trying to defend against such senseless inhumanity.

“His courage and sacrifice will not be forgotten, and we offer heartfelt condolences to his family and friends. We will remember him.”

The MoD said earlier that two soldiers from the Royal Logistic Corps had died in a “domestic” fire at Camp Bastion.

An investigation is now under way into what happened, but the fire is not thought to have been the result of enemy action.

Wing Cdr Martin Tinworth, spokesman for Camp Bastion, said: “Both soldiers were involved in vital support work for the UK forces who continue to bring hope and stability across Afghanistan.”

The deaths came after the head of UK forces in Helmand said momentum in Helmand was “shifting”.

Brigadier James Chiswell told the BBC: “There’s certainly a sense over this winter period that the insurgency is under a lot of pressure, but perhaps more importantly there’s certainly a sense of growing local confidence to shake off the insurgency, and indeed to put their trust in the state.”

But he said it was too early to judge how successful the past few months had been until fighting during the summer had taken place

Defence Secretary Liam Fox also warned that casualty numbers were “likely to rise” in the spring as insurgent activity increased.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Italy alert over Tunisia migrants

Migrants from Tunisia arrive on Lampedusa on crowded boat, 13 Feb 11The influx from Tunisia is putting tiny Lampedusa’s resources under severe strain
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Italian authorities are struggling to cope with a crisis on the tiny island of Lampedusa after thousands of migrants arrived from Tunisia.

A holding centre designed for 850 people is reported to be overflowing.

Tunisia is refusing to let Italy deploy police on its territory.

More than 4,000 migrants are reported to have arrived on Lampedusa in the past few days. EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton is now in Tunis to discuss the issue.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini is also expected in Tunis later on Monday.

He discussed the influx by phone with Lady Ashton and called for the EU border agency Frontex to get involved, to help patrol the waters off Lampedusa, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reports.

On Saturday Italy declared a humanitarian emergency and called for EU assistance.

Map

A spokeswoman for the International Organisation of Migration, Simona Moscarelli, said Italy must fly migrants from Lampedusa to the Italian mainland as soon as possible.

“It’s quite a critical situation. That’s why we are asking the government to organise as many trips, as many flights as possible,” she told the BBC’s World Today programme, by phone from Lampedusa.

She described the migrants as “a mixed flow” – some were fleeing insecurity in Tunisia, following last month’s uprising there, while others were seizing the chance to get to Europe to find work.

Tunisia’s long-time President, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, quit amid a popular uprising later dubbed the Jasmine Revolution.

Frontex says it has not yet received an Italian request for help.

Analysis

The fear being shared from Rome to Brussels is that the influx of migrants into Italy becomes a tidal wave of people flowing into the EU.

Many of the French-speaking Tunisian migrants have already said they see Italy as a stepping stone to get them into France.

Italy’s Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, is trying to get the Tunisians to restore the sea patrols that existed before the revolution.

Italy has a similar arrangement with Libya, a deal which has drastically cut the numbers crossing from there in the past year or so.

But the policy has been criticised by human rights groups, who say it is unjust and even illegal.

Immigration has long been a divisive issue in Italy and the government wants to cut the numbers arriving from Tunisia quickly, before it becomes a broader problem.

In the past Frontex has helped Spain to stem a flow of African migrants to the Canary Islands and Frontex currently has a police team in Greece, to stop illegal migrants entering the EU from Turkey.

A Frontex spokeswoman told the BBC that “we are following the situation in Italy very closely and two staff members have gone to Italy over the weekend”.

“We’ve run many joint operations in Italy in the past. The procedure depends on what type of request we have,” she said.

Any Frontex deployment to Lampedusa would require days if not weeks of planning, as the EU member states would have to agree on their contributions to the mission, in terms of personnel and equipment.

Italian officials said another 1,000 migrants arrived on Lampedusa on Sunday, bringing the total to more than 4,000. Most of the migrants are from Tunisia.

The small Sicilian island, which normally has a population of about 5,000 people, is closer to North Africa than the Italian mainland.

The migrants have arrived in small and overcrowded boats.

In Tunisia there have been strikes and clashes on the streets since the uprising, and many police officers have abandoned their posts, leaving what some describe as a state of lawlessness.

Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said on Sunday that Europe was not doing anything to help stop the flow of migrants and that he would request permission from Tunisia for Italian authorities to intervene.

A Tunisian government spokesperson, Tayeb Baccouche, dismissed the statement as “unacceptable”, AFP news agency said.

In 2006-09 Frontex conducted patrols in the central Mediterranean, before Italy signed an agreement with Libya to block illegal migration to Europe.

In another operation, called Hermes, Frontex has conducted patrols south of Sardinia, to intercept Algerians and Tunisians trying to reach Europe.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Politician dies in Honduras crash

A view of the Central American Airways plane crash in Las Mesitas The plane crashed in a heavily wooded area outside the capital
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A deputy minister, Rodolfo Robelo, is among 14 people reported dead in a plane crash in Honduras.

The small commercial plane was on a routine scheduled flight from the coastal city of San Pedro Sula to the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Also among those killed was former finance minister Carlos Chain and a trade union leader, Israel Salinas Jorge Castellanos.

An ambulance and helicopters have been dispatched to the site of the crash.

But it is said to be a heavily wooded area which may be difficult to reach.

The commander of the Air Force, Ruis Landa, said the plane – a Let 410 twin-engine, operated by Central American Airlines – had lost contact with air traffic control in a region south of Tegucigalpa.

MapThe plane was on its way from San Pedro Sula to Tegucigalpa

Local residents heard the explosion as the aircraft hit the ground and raced to the scene to try to help any survivors, reported local newspaper El Heraldo. But when they reached the area, they found a chilling scene of scattered bodies, the local mayor told the newspaper.

Two crew were among the 14 who died.

One of the pilots is reported to have survived the initial crash, but died before he could be taken to hospital.

The accident happened in the same area where a SAHSA airlines plane crashed in 1989, killing 131 people.

An investigation into the cause of the crash is under way.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Reaction ‘degrades van Gogh work’

Banks of the SeineThe van Gogh paintings examined include Banks of the Seine
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Scientists have identified why the bright yellows in some of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings have turned brown.

A complex chemical reaction is behind the deterioration of the works.

The finding is a first step to understanding how to stop some of the Dutch master’s most famous paintings from fading over time.

The results, published in the journal Analytical Chemistry, suggest shielding the affected paintings as much as possible from UV and sunlight.

Uncovering the secrets of the chemical reaction required the scientists to use an array of analytical tools.

These included the intense X-ray beams produced at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), a world-leading centre for the study of the structure of materials in Grenoble, France.

ESRFThe intense X-rays produced at the ESRF were used to analyse the samples

Sunlight can penetrate only a few micrometres into the paint, but over this short distance, the researchers found it could trigger a hitherto unknown chemical reaction turning chrome yellow into brown pigments, altering the original composition.

The scientists employed a microscopic X-ray beam to reveal a complex chemical reaction taking place in the incredibly thin layer where the paint meets the varnish.

The vibrancy of new industrial pigments such as chrome yellow allowed van Gogh to achieve the intensity of, for example, his series of Sunflowers paintings.

He started to paint in these bright colours after leaving his native Holland for France where he became friends with artists who shared his new ideas about the use of colours.

The researchers found that a change in the oxidation state of the element chromium (from chromium 6 to chromium 3) was linked to the darkening of chrome yellow paint.

The X-ray beam research carried out at ESRF also showed that chromium 3 was especially prominent in the presence of chemical compounds which contained barium and sulphur.

Based on this observation, the scientists speculate that van Gogh’s technique of blending white and yellow paint might be the cause of the darkening of his yellow paint.

Co-author Koen Janssens commented: “Our next experiments are already in the pipeline.

“Obviously, we want to understand which conditions favour the reduction of chromium, and whether there is any hope to revert pigments to the original state in paintings where it is already taking place.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Man arrested over Nintendo hack

Wii controllerDetails of 4,000 Nintendo users were stolen, according to Spanish Police
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Police in Spain have arrested a man who allegedly stole details on thousands of Nintendo users and tried to blackmail the company.

The unnamed individual obtained data on 4,000 gamers, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry.

It is claimed he threatened to contact the country’s data protection agency, accusing the firm of negligence.

When Nintendo did not respond, he began leaking some of the information online, said police.

The man was arrested in the southern province of Malaga.

Authorities say he had been planning to release the full contents of the user database onto the internet.

It is unclear if the alleged theft was from Nintendo’s own computer system or that of a third party.

Nintendo said it was unable to comment on the case as is was the subject of of an active investigation by the Spanish authorities.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Cambridge backs £9,000 fees plan

Cambridge UniversityCambridge University plans to offer poorer students support worth up to £4,600 per year

Cambridge University has moved a step closer to introducing tuition fees at the maximum level of £9,000 per year.

The university’s council has accepted a recommendation for £9,000 fees – with plans for a support package of £4,600 for low-income students.

There will now be a vote among the university’s academics on the fees and bursary package.

Last week Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg warned universities would have to widen access before charging £9,000.

A meeting by the university’s council on Monday accepted proposals for the maximum fee level, as recommended by the university’s working group on fees.

This includes a package of support for low-income students of £4,600 per year, in bursaries and fee-waivers.

The university says there will be a further debate of the proposals this week among colleges and then a vote among academics in the Regent House, the university’s governing body.

The proposals will then have to be put to the Office for Fair Access, which will scrutinise how access will be protected for poorer students.

Each step is moving the university towards adopting the highest level of tuition from 2012.

A final announcement on fees is expected in the summer.

The Cambridge University Students’ Union says students are “outraged and disappointed that this government has forced us, through savage cuts, into a position where their maximum fees are unavoidable”.

The students’ union says it has “secured an increase in the total spend on bursaries and fee waivers to at least £4,600 per eligible student”.

It wants poorer students to have bursaries rather than a subsidy in fees.

“This is an improvement, but is only the beginning: students rightly expect this figure to be pushed up further still, especially in the context of the disastrous introduction of £9,000 fees,” said students’ union president Rahul Mansigani.

The government, which pushed through the controversial plan to raise fees to £9,000, has been warning universities that they should not assume that they will be able to charge the maximum amount.

Mr Clegg told students last week that it would be up to the Office for Fair Access to decide on whether universities could charge above £6,000 per year.

Oxford University has warned that it will need to charge at least £8,000 per year to replace budget cuts.

There have also been concerns that there will be insufficient funding for student loans if most universities charge at the upper end of the fees range.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Mother jailed over ‘missing’ son

Edirin Onogeta-IdogunEdirin Onogeta-Idogun moved to London seven years ago

A London woman who sent her teenage son to their native Nigeria because she disapproved of his lifestyle has been jailed for eight months.

Edirin Onogeta-Idogun, 17, from Newham, flew from the UK to Nigeria last July.

His parents Lydia Erhire and John Idogun were issued with a court order to return the boy, who is believed to be with his father in Lagos.

When they failed to do so, Mrs Erhire was convicted at the Old Bailey of being in contempt of court.

Edirin was born in Nigeria but moved to London with his mother seven years ago.

He had been studying for his GCSEs and had been due to transfer to a college in Hackney to study business and media.

Last year he feared he may be taken to Nigeria and forced to marry against his will, his solicitors said, and a Forced Marriage Protection Order was issued on 8 July.

He attended school for the final time on 12 July and it is thought he flew to the African country about four days later.

The High Court ruled Edirin was a resident of England and was entitled to continue to live there.

His removal from England was contrary to the protection order and he was at “significant risk” while in Nigeria, it decided.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.