FOX23: World News

Brazilian police arrest 9 for abusing Indian girls

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:28:25 -0500

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil's Federal Police said on Thursday that nine people have been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing Indians girls in the northern state of Amazonas.

The force says two women and seven men in the city of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira are in custody for the alleged sexual exploitation and abuse of Indian girls between the ages of 11 and 15.

Federal police inspector Fabio Pessoa says investigators have identified 16 girls who were exploited by the group but adds that more girls may have been victimized.

Pessoa says the girls were offered money and food in exchange for sex. He says the amount of money each girl received depended on her age and whether or not she was a virgin.

The arrests were announced Thursday.

Guilty plea in shooting of ICE agents in Mexico

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:26:41 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — An accused Mexican drug cartel member has pleaded guilty in the killing and wounding of two U.S. agents in Mexico.

Julian Zapata Espinoza pleaded guilty Thursday to the February 2011 shootings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He faces up to life in prison.

Agent Jaime Zapata was killed and his colleague Victor Avila was wounded in the highway shooting.

Several family members of the victims were in the courtroom, including Jaime Zapata's parents.

Judge Royce Lamberth said the U.S. agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange for Mexico's extradition of Zapata Espinoza.

The Mexican army has said Zapata Espinoza mistakenly believed Jaime Zapata was part of a rival gang.

US criticized over response to Indonesia attacks

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:24:50 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is expressing concern over increased attacks on religious minorities in Indonesia, but human rights groups accuse Washington of downplaying the problem as it looks to forge stronger relations with Jakarta.

Muslim-majority Indonesia has emerged as Southeast Asia's most robust democracy since the fall of longtime dictator Suharto 15 years ago. But recent years have seen increased reports of violence and discrimination against Christians, minority Shiite Muslims and the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect.

Senior State Department official Dan Baer voiced concern Thursday over such attacks, and ineffective Indonesian government responses, saying they threaten to tarnish the nation's reputation for religious tolerance.

But Human Rights Watch criticized the Obama administration's moderate response, saying it was refusing to acknowledge in public what officials admit in private — that religious persecution is worsening.

Yemen welcomes Obama decision on Gitmo transfers

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:26:26 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — Yemen is welcoming President Barack Obama's decision to lift his ban on the transfer of Yemeni prisoners from the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In a statement released Thursday shortly after Obama announced the step, the Yemeni Embassy said it appreciated the switch. It said Yemen would work with the U.S. to ensure the safe return of Yemeni detainees to Yemen and continue efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society.

In a speech, Obama said prisoner transfers to Yemen would now be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. The president halted transfers to Yemen after the failed Christmas Day 2009 bombing of an airliner bound for Detroit carried out by a man who trained in Yemen. About 90 of the 166 detainees currently at Guantanamo are Yemeni.

Greeks to see no tax relief until budget improves

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:17:24 -0500

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's conservative-led government can't lower taxes before the public deficit falls further, the prime minister said Thursday, but he pledged to eventually slash the corporate tax rate to a flat 15 percent.

Antonis Samaras made the promise at a meeting in Athens with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency.

Greece has imposed a series of emergency taxes and spending cuts in exchange for international bailout loans, but the measures hurt economic growth and caused a surge in unemployment and poverty.

Samaras described Ireland as a model for Greece in repairing its public finances.

"We will follow the exactly the same successful example set by Ireland — both for the EU presidency and an exit from the crisis," Samaras said.

"It has been my stated aim for years now that I want a unified rate, a flat-rate tax of 15 percent. As we reach our targets that moment draws closer."

Corporate profits are currently taxed at a minimum of 26 percent.

Kenny called his fellow conservative as "a voice of reality and a voice of progress" in Europe, and repeated his assurance that Ireland would complete its bailout program by the end of the year.

Greece's program end in 2016.

Later Thursday, about 10,000 people joined a peaceful protest march in central Athens to demand the renewal of collective labor agreements that expire this year. Rescue lenders want the government to set a minimum wage across labor categories — effectively canceling the existing practice of negotiated collective pay agreements between unions and employers for different sectors of the economy.

Greece's minimum wage was cut last year to 684 euros ($880) per month, according to figures kept by the EU statistics agency, Eurostat.

Toronto mayor fires chief of staff amid drug scandal

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:16:49 -0500

TORONTO (AP) — City officials say Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has fired his chief of staff.

While the firing comes amid a scandal involving a video purportedly showing the mayor smoking crack cocaine, City Councillor Jaye Robinson said it had to do with football. Ford was fired as coach of a Catholic high school football team on Wednesday.

Former chief of staff Mark Towhey gave no reason for his dismissal Thursday other than to say that he did not resign.

The alleged crack smoking video has not been released publicly and there is no way to verify whether it is authentic. Ford has called reports of the video "ridiculous."

A spokesman for the mayor said more details would be released later Thursday.

Sweden's riots raise questions about inequality

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:14:22 -0500

HUSBY, Sweden (AP) — Sweden has long been a bastion of generous social welfare and an egalitarian political culture. So many people were shocked when scores of youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze during rioting in several largely immigrant areas near Stockholm this week.

Few dispute that the violence was probably touched off by the fatal police shooting of an elderly man who had locked himself in an apartment wielding a knife. But some residents in the area accused police who responded to the violence of racism.

For some, the real reason for the unrest is the high unemployment and isolation of youths in the southern and western Stockholm suburbs where the violence occurred — ones who see little future for themselves or access to Sweden's prosperity.

"The segregation in Stockholm increases all the time, and it's happening fast," said Nina Edstrom, a social anthropologist who promotes integration at a center for multiculturalism in Fittja, where some of the violence occurred. "There are very large social differences. There are many unemployed, frustrated young people. I'm not surprised something like this happens," she said.

Still, Edstrom added, it would be a mistake to see the youths involved in the riots as political activists.

Overall, about 15 percent of Sweden's 9.5 million people were born abroad, compared to 10 percent 10 years ago. The influx has mostly come from war-torn countries such as Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Syria.

In 2012 alone, Sweden accepted 44,000 asylum seekers, up by nearly 50 percent from a year earlier.

During the rioting, 15-year-old Sebastian Horniak said he saw police firing warning shots in the air and calling a woman a "monkey."

Quena Soruco, a representative for Megafonen, an organization that represents citizens in Stockholm's suburbs, said she heard police say "rats, hobos, Negroes."

The unrest in Fittja and the Husby area is a challenge for the center-right government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, which after seven years in power is trailing in polls and has come under fire for failing to address social problems.

The rioting also has added fuel to arguments from the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which polls now show as Sweden's fourth biggest party.

Some say that one reason such immigrant areas can feel isolating is the growing disparity between the haves and have nots in Sweden, as in many other Western countries.

Despite Sweden's high living standards and its egalitarian ways, the country has seen the biggest surge in inequality of any Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country over the past 25 years, according to a recent OECD report.

The difference is striking between native Swedes and the fast-growing immigrant population.

In Husby, the neighborhood west of Stockholm where the violence started Sunday, around 80 percent of the 11,000 residents are either first or second generation immigrants. Still, the area appears well kept and nothing like a slum.

"We have such wonderful things. We have a mixture of cultures. You go out on the streets and you know your neighbors," said Soruco, 26, who lives in Husby.

However, she also said youth unemployment is high there and that nearly 50 percent of the kids in Husby finish junior high school with grades too low to get into high school.

"I do not think that Sweden is as equal as some people try to paint it to be. We see it every day: people trying to get jobs and get rejected because of their last name, because of how they look, or even because of where they live," she said.

Outside a grocery store, local soccer coach Shain Akbari, 30, stood talking to a group of youths. He is upset that youths hurled rocks at police and firefighters, burned down buildings and set nearly 100 cars ablaze.

"It is tragic ... it's wrong," he said. But Akbari, a Swede of Iranian background who grew up in Husby, said the neighborhood has changed drastically in the past 10 years.

"Before it wasn't like this. Before we had Swedish friends who played on the same football team. We went to school together and they helped us integrate into society. You got a job through friends. But it isn't like that now. Now they are locked in here. They don't leave the area. ... They have no possibilities."

Camilla Salazar, who works at the youth center Fryshuset, agreed.

"I speak to young people in certain suburbs who say, 'It would have been fun to get to know a Swede,'" she said. She also noted that as the violence began in Husby, many Swedes in more prosperous areas were preoccupied celebrating their country's World Cup ice hockey victory.

Prime Minister Reinfeldt has acknowledged that Sweden's income disparities increased, but said it primarily occurred before he came to power in 2006, and that he remains proud of his country's liberal immigration policies.

Reinfeldt said the transition can be trying, but he added: "We are more open than other countries. Long term, as a society, we win on this. It will lead to more people getting jobs. It will contribute to a more exciting and open society."

He urged citizens to come together to stop the violence, and on Wednesday night hundreds of Husby residents took to the streets to oppose the violence.

British soldier killed in brutal attack identified

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:12:06 -0500

LONDON (AP) — Britain's military said Thursday the soldier brutally murdered in a suspected terrorist attack was a popular drummer and machine gunner, a father, and a passionate fan of Manchester United.

The Ministry of Defense identified him Thursday as 25-year-old Lee Rigby, of 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

It says he joined the army in 2006, and was posted in Cyprus, Afghanistan and Germany before becoming a recruiter, assisting with duties in the Tower of London.

Capt. Alan Williamson, the adjutant of the 2nd Fusiliers, calls Rigby "a cheeky and humorous man, always there with a joke to brighten the mood."

He said the loss of Rigby "will be felt across the battalion, but this is nothing compared to how his family must be feeling."

Rigby was the father of a 2-year-old son, Jack.

Israeli officials may end military exemptions for students

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:10:26 -0500

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli committee has handed the government its proposal for ending a system granting Jewish ultra-Orthodox seminary students automatic exemptions from military service.

These exemptions have generated widespread resentment in a country where military service is compulsory for Jewish citizens. Public anger over the exemptions was a central issue in January elections and helped propel the centrist Yesh Atid party to a strong showing.

The party promised to end the preferential treatment given to the seminary students. But the committee's proposal, led by Yesh Atid Cabinet Minister Yaakov Peri, is full of compromises.

It says religious students do not have to begin serving until age 21, instead of 18, and the new system won't go into effect for three years.

The Cabinet is to discuss the proposal on Sunday.

Canada terror suspect says attorney must use 'holy book'

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:08:08 -0500

TORONTO (AP) — A man accused of plotting to derail a train in Canada with support from al-Qaida is asking to be represented by a defense attorney willing to use the "holy book" as a reference in his case.

During a hearing Thursday Chiheb Esseghaier requested a court-appointed lawyer who will use the "holy book" as a reference. The Tunisian-born Muslim was apparently referring to the Quran.

At a previous hearing, Esseghaier declined court-appointed legal representation. He said he did not recognize the court's authority, saying Canada's criminal code is "not a holy book."

The 30-year-old was arrested last month along with suspected accomplice Raed Jaser on charges of conspiring to carry out an attack and murder people in association with a terrorist group.

Esseghaier has not entered a plea.