CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Police say a body with both arms cut off was found dumped on a street in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.
Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for a regional prosecutor's office, says the victim was found late Tuesday with his severed arms crossed and placed on top of a cardboard sign on his chest. Soldiers immediately removed the sign and police have not released what it said.
Drug cartels often leave messages next to the victims they kill.
Sandoval says assailants stuffed plastic bags into the man's mouth and taped his eyes.
He says police were still trying to confirm the identification of the victim.
Ciudad Juarez is Mexico's deadliest city with more than 1,300 drug-related killings this year.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (AP) — Two rural journalists have been arrested for allegedly working as informants for a violent drug trafficking cartel, according to courts in the southern Mexico state of Tabasco.
Newspaper correspondents Roberto Juarez and Lazaro Abreu Tejero Sanchez are being held on charges that they accepted thousands of dollars from the Zetas, a fierce drug gang aligned with the Gulf cartel, the state court system said in a news release.
The two reporters signed confessions while being question by police and prosecutors, according to the court statement on Tuesday, but later retracted them when brought before a judge.
Prosecutors say the two kept some of the money in exchange for withholding stories and sharing police information, and distributed some of it to other journalists, who may also face arrest.
Police said they learned about the payoffs, which amounted to about $4,500 a month, from a Zetas lieutenant.
The reporters work at towns near the Guatemalan border for the Villahermosa newspaper Presente, where spokespeople said no one was available to comment about the arrests.
Gaza's ruling Islamist movement Hamas has resisted suggestions that Palestinian children should be taught about the Holocaust in UN-run schools.
The head of its education committee in Gaza, Abdul Rahman el-Jamal, told the BBC that the Holocaust was a "big lie".
He said that to teach it would be to "grant a big favour" to Israel, which has been fighting Hamas for years.
The UN, which runs most Gazan schools, recently asked local groups whether the Holocaust should be taught.
It uses local textbooks and, in Gaza, that means using material from neighbouring Egypt, the BBC's Tim Franks reports.
But over the past seven years the UN has added its own coursework about human rights.
Mr Jamal told the BBC that the UN should, instead, teach about the Naqba, the term Palestinians use to describe the establishment of the state of Israel and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
A spokesman for the UN said that no final decision on this year's curriculum had yet been made. Some 200,000 children are taught in schools run through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
During the Holocaust, Nazi Germany murdered some six million Jews.
However, the event's significance is often disputed in parts of the Middle East where Israel is seen as the enemy and the Holocaust is seen as a tool used by Israel to justify its actions.
Akron police investigate teen mob attack on family
By Phil Trexler Beacon Journal staff writer
Akron police say they aren't ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation.
But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear.
It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend's home in South Akron.
Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ''This is our world'' and ''This is a black world'' as they confronted Marshall and his family.
The Marshalls, who are white, say the crowd of teens who attacked them and two friends June 27 on Girard Street numbered close to 50. The teens were all black.
''This was almost like being a terrorist act,'' Marshall said. ''And we allow this to go on in our neighborhoods?''
They said it started when one teen, without any words or warning, blindsided and assaulted Marshall's friend as he stood outside with the others.
When Marshall, 39, jumped in, he found himself being attacked by the growing group of teens.
His daughter, Rachel, 15, who weighs about 90 pounds, tried to come to his rescue. The teens pushed her to the ground.
His wife, Yvonne, pushed their son, Donald, 14, into bushes to keep him protected.
''My thing is,'' Marshall said, ''I didn't want this, but I was in fear for my wife, my kids and my friends. I felt I had to stay out there to protect them, because those guys were just jumping, swinging fists and everything.
''I'm lucky. They didn't break my ribs or bruise my ribs. I thank God, they concentrated on my thick head because I do have one. They were trying to take my head off my spine, basically.''
After several minutes of punches and kicks, the attack ended and the group ran off. The Marshalls' two adult male friends were not seriously hurt.
''I don't think I thought at that moment when I tried to jump in,'' Rachel Marshall said. ''But when I was laying on the ground, I was just scared.''
Marshall was the most seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and multiple bruises to his head and eye. He said he spent five nights in the critical care unit at Akron General Medical Center.
The construction worker said he now fears for his family's safety, and the thousands of dollars in medical bills he faces without insurance.
''I knew I was going to get beat, but not as bad as I did,'' Marshall said. ''But I did it to protect my family. I didn't have a choice. There was no need for this. We should be all getting along. But to me, it seems to be racist.''
Akron police are investigating. Right now, the case is not being classified as a racial hate crime. There were no other reports of victims assaulted by the group that night.
The department's gang unit is involved in the investigation, police said.
''We don't know if it's a known gang, or just a group of kids,'' police Lt. Rick Edwards said.
The Marshalls say they fear retaliation at home or when they go outside. They are considering arming themselves, but they're concerned about the possible problems that come with guns.
For now, they are hoping police can bring them suspects. They believe they can identify several of the attackers.
''This makes you think about your freedom,'' Marshall said. ''In all reality, where is your freedom when you have this going on?''
After opening the door to a truth commission to investigate torture by the CIA of al-Qaida subjects, and leaving the door open to prosecution of higher-ups, President Obama walked the cat back.
He is now opposed to a truth commission. That means it is dead. He is no longer interested in prosecutions. That means no independent counsel — for now.
Sen. Harry Reid does not want any new “commissions, boards, tribunals, until we find out what the facts are.” Thus, there will be none. The place to find out the facts, says the majority leader, is the intelligence committee of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Though belated, White House recognition that high-profile public hearings on the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the CIA in the Bush-Cheney years could divide the nation and rip this city apart is politically wise.
For any such investigation must move up the food chain from CIA interrogators, to White House lawyers, to the Cabinet officers who sit on the National Security Council, to Dick Cheney, to The Decider himself.
And what is the need to re-air America’s dirty linen before a hostile world, when the facts are already known.
The CIA did use harsh treatment on al-Qaida. That treatment was sanctioned by White House and Justice Department lawyers. The NSC, Cheney, and President Bush did sign off. And Obama has ordered all such practices discontinued.
This is not a question of “What did the president know and when did he know it?” It is a question of the legality and morality of what is already known. And on this, the country is rancorously split.
Many contend that torture is inherently evil, morally outrageous and legally impermissible under both existing U.S. law and the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war.
Moreover, they argue, torture does not work.
Its harvest is hatred, deceptions, and lies. And because it is cowardly and cruel, torture degrades those who do it, as well as those to whom it is done. It instills a spirit of revenge in its victims.
When the knowledge of torture is made public, as invariably it is, it besmirches America’s good name and serves as a recruiting poster for our enemies and a justification to use the same degrading methods on our men and women.
And it makes us no better than the Chinese communist brain-washers of the Korean War, the Japanese war criminals who tortured U.S. POWs, and the jailers at the Hanoi Hilton who tortured Sen. John McCain.
Moreover, even if done in a few monitored cases, where it seems to be the only way to get immediate intelligence to save hundreds or thousands from imminent terror attack, down the chain of command they know it is being done. Thus, we get sadistic copycat conduct at Abu Ghraib by enlisted personnel to amuse themselves at midnight.
While the legal and moral case against torture is compelling, there is another side.
Let us put aside briefly the explosive and toxic term.
Is it ever moral to kill? Of course. We give guns to police and soldiers, and honor them as heroes when they use their guns to save lives.
Is it ever moral to inflict excruciating pain? Of course. Civil War doctors who cut off arms and legs in battlefield hospitals saved many soldiers from death by gangrene.
The morality of killing or inflicting severe pain depends, then, not only on the nature of the act, but on the circumstances and motive.
The Beltway Snipers deserved death sentences. The Navy Seal snipers who killed those three Somali pirates and saved Captain Richard Phillips deserve medals.
Consider now Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of 9-11, which sent 3,000 Americans to horrible deaths, and who was behind, if he did not do it himself, the beheading of Danny Pearl.
Even many opponents against torture will concede we have the same right to execute Khalid Mohammed as we did Timothy McVeigh. But if we have a right to kill him, do we have no moral right to waterboard him for 20 minutes to force him to reveal plans and al-Qaida accomplices to save thousands of American lives?
Americans are divided.
“Rendition,” a film based on a true story, where an innocent man suspected of belonging to a terrorist cell is sent to an Arab country and tortured, won rave reviews.
But more popular was “Taken,” a film in which Liam Neeson, an ex-spy, has a daughter kidnapped by white slavers in Paris, whom he tortures for information to rescue her and bring her home.
Certainly, Cheney and Bush, who make no apologies for what they authorized to keep America safe for seven and a half years, should be held to account. But so, too, should Barack Obama, if U.S. citizens die in a terror attack the CIA might have prevented, had its interrogators not been tied to an Army Field Manual written for dealing with soldiers, not al-Qaida killers who favor “soft targets” such as subways, airliners and office buildings.
IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi spoke at a NATO conference in Brussels on Thursday morning on the subject of terrorism. In an address to his counterparts in foreign armies, Ashkenazi said Israel's goal is to defeat global terrorism and bring stability to the world.
"At this time, our primary goal is to defeat global terror and to bring stability and calm to the citizens of the world,” he said. The task is not simple, he explained: “Our enemies — the terrorists — are becoming more and more sophisticated, and they use every available resource in order to reach their despicable goals.”
Terrorists worldwide have much in common, Ashkenazi said: “Their activities are characterized by threats that know no bounds, attacks on the homefront and a lack of moral inhibitions.” They are also hard to spot, as "the enemy no longer wears a uniform. He's evasive, and harder to reach.”
The battlefield is now ideological and not only physical, he continued. Terrorists are “ready to kill and be killed,” Ashkenazi said. He slammed countries that sponsor terrorism, saying, “These violent states have no morality: they do not respect human rights, international law, or the life of innocents.” He called on “moderate states” to unify in the face of extremism.
Despite the difficulties ahead, there is room for hope, Ashkenazi said: “The fact that all of you are taking part in this meeting today shows that we all understand the importance of unity and that we all have the will to deal together with the threats facing the world.”
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