The Star Online: World Updates

Ten killed in battles between armed groups in Mexico - reports
Five rescued, two missing in balloon crash off Peruvian coast
Millions in CIA "ghost money" paid to Afghan president's office - NYT

Ten killed in battles between armed groups in Mexico - reports

Posted: 28 Apr 2013 07:26 PM PDT

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Ten people were reported killed in clashes on Sunday between armed groups in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, which is plagued by battles between rival drug gangs.

Skirmishes broke out in two communities near the town of Apatzingan, a drug gang stronghold, according to local media. State officials could not be immediately reached by Reuters and a federal official could not confirm details of the battles.

The dead were reportedly members of vigilante groups that have recently sprung up in the region, claiming that state and federal police are not protecting them from criminal gangs.

Media reports said groups armed with high-powered rifles and grenades attacked vigilante checkpoints early Sunday.

Michoacan is a major centre for methamphetamine production. Rival gangs are fighting over turf as they produce the drug in labs nestled among the poor state's rugged mountains, where marijuana and opium crops are also grown.

The state has been hit by civil unrest this month. Protesters blocked major streets and highways about a week ago in the capital and others cities. The state's governor stepped down this month for health reasons, leaving an interim governor in place.

President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in December, has vowed to reduce the violence that has exploded in Mexico in the last decade.

Nearly 70,000 died in gang violence during the last six-year administration and more than 4,200 have died in the first four months of Pena Nieto's term, a slower pace than early 2012.

This year, vigilante groups have popped up in communities across Michoacan, the neighbouring state of Guerrero and southern Oaxaca state, saying they are outraged by extortion, kidnapping, theft and violence caused by drug gangs.

A leader of Michoacan's Knights Templar cartel, known for its pseudo-religious rituals and gang rules, surfaced in a video on Saturday, local media reported, accusing vigilante groups in the state of working for a rival drug trafficking group.

In the video, whose authenticity could not be verified by Reuters, a man identified as Knights Templar leader Servando Gomez, known as "La Tuta," accused the armed vigilantes of working for the Jalisco New Generation gang, which is linked to drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa cartel.

(Reporting by Michael O'Boyle; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

Five rescued, two missing in balloon crash off Peruvian coast

Posted: 28 Apr 2013 07:13 PM PDT

LIMA (Reuters) - Five people were rescued and two were missing on Sunday after a hot air balloon plunged into the chilly waters off the coast of Peru, officials said.

A police helicopter and navy boats helped pull five women out of the Pacific Ocean after searching for them for eight hours. They were taken to a hospital for treatment.

Two men were still missing, Interior Minister Wilfredo Pedraza told local media.

"I hope we can find them as soon as possible. The two are still missing. We only know that one of them tried to swim ashore. The search will continue, even through the night, until they are found," he told RPP radio without saying what caused the mishap.

The red-and-white balloon, carrying six passengers and a pilot, crashed near Canete, about 60 miles (101 km) south of Lima, the capital. Local media indicated all those aboard were Peruvians.

(Reporting By Terry Wade; Editing by Paul Simao)

Millions in CIA "ghost money" paid to Afghan president's office - NYT

Posted: 28 Apr 2013 07:02 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Tens of millions of U.S. dollars in cash were delivered by the CIA in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, according to the New York Times, citing current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

The so-called "ghost money" was meant to buy influence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but instead fuelled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington's exit strategy from Afghanistan, the newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai speaks during the opening ceremony of the third year of the Afghanistan parliament in Kabul March 6, 2013. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

"The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan", one American official said, "was the United States."

The CIA declined to comment on the report and the U.S. State Department did not immediately comment. The New York Times did not publish any comment from Karzai or his office.

"We called it â€˜ghost money'," Khalil Roman, who served as Karzai's chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, told the New York Times. "It came in secret and it left in secret."

For more than a decade the cash was dropped off every month or so at the Afghan president's office, the newspaper said.

Handing out cash has been standard procedure for the CIA in Afghanistan since the start of the war.

The cash payments to the president's office do not appear to be subject to oversight and restrictions placed on official American aid to the country or the CIA's formal assistance programmes, like financing Afghan intelligence agencies, and do not appear to violate U.S. laws, said the New York Times.

There was no evidence that Karzai personally received any of the money, Afghan officials told the newspaper. The cash was handled by his National Security Council, it added.

U.S. and Afghan officials familiar with the payments were quoted as saying that the main goal in providing the cash was to maintain access to Karzai and his inner circle and to guarantee the CIA's influence at the presidential palace, which wields tremendous power in Afghanistan's highly centralized government.

Much of the money went to warlords and politicians, many with ties to the drug trade and in some cases the Taliban, the New York Times said. U.S. and Afghan officials were quoted as saying the CIA supported the same patronage networks that U.S. diplomats and law enforcement agents struggled to dismantle, leaving the government in the grip of organised crime.

In 2010, Karzai said his office received cash in bags from Iran, but that it was a transparent form of aid that helped cover expenses at the presidential palace. He said at the time that the United States made similar payments.

The latest New York Times report said much of the Iranian cash, like the CIA money, went to pay warlords and politicians.

For most of Karzai's 11-year reign, there has been little interest in anti-corruption in the army or police. The country's two most powerful institutions receive billions of dollars from donors annually but struggle just to recruit and maintain a force bled by high rates of desertion.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell and Sarah Lynch in Washington; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Ahad, 28 April 2013

The Star Online: World Updates

The Star Online: World Updates

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