Naomi Campbell testifies at Liberian’s war crimes trial
Posted in Crime, News, what on August 5th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal Thursday that she had received some “dirty-looking stones” after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Still, the supermodel said she didn’t know if the stones were actually diamonds or if the gift came from Taylor himself.
Campbell, an extremely reluctant witness at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, was being questioned in Taylor’s war crimes trial about claims made by actress Mia Farrow. Farrow had said Taylor gave the model an uncut diamond or diamonds after an event hosted by then-South African President Nelson Mandela at his presidential mansion in Pretoria.
Prosecutors had hoped Campbell would provide evidence that Taylor traded guns to neighboring Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for uncut diamonds — sometimes known as “blood diamonds” for their role in financing conflicts — during Sierra Leone’s 1992-2002 civil war.
‘It was a terrifying time’
Posted in Celeb, Crime, Health, News on August 4th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffOn a Monday morning in the spring of 2007, a prosecutor named Truc Do stood to tell a jury about the world in which Chester Turner had killed — and to offer a requiem for a dark chapter in the heart of Los Angeles.
Turner lived with his mom on Century Boulevard, drank fortified wine and made a sporadic living delivering pizzas and selling crack. His murderous binge, which took the lives of 10 women, began in 1987, a perilous time in South Los Angeles.
Jobs had vanished. Crack cocaine, a new drug so powerful and profitable it was worth dying over, ravaged the neighborhood. Gangs carved up the streets. The LAPD recorded a violent crime every eight minutes. It was a world, the prosecutor told the jury, in which “life itself is degraded.”
Israel to deport hundreds of migrant workers’ children
Posted in Crime, Education, Health, News on August 1st, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
Israel moved Sunday to deport the offspring of hundreds of migrant workers, mostly small children who were born in Israel, speak Hebrew and have never seen their parents’ native countries.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new policy was intended to stem a flood of illegal aliens, whose children receive state-funded education and healthcare benefits, and to defend Israel’s Jewish identity.
“On the one hand, this problem is a humanitarian problem,” Netanyahu said during a meeting Sunday of the Cabinet, which had debated the move for nearly a year. “We all feel and understand the hearts of children. But on the other hand, there are Zionist considerations and ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel.”
Bell’s neighbors no strangers to public corruption
Posted in Crime, News, what on July 22nd, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThey flooded Bell City Hall with requests for public records and packed a council meeting with an overflow crowd.
They collected signatures demanding an audit of city officials’ salaries and vowed to boot their handsomely paid politicians out of office. They even created a website and posted documents that the city refused to put on its official site.
In the week since residents in this working-class suburb discovered that their city manager makes nearly $800,000 a year, Bell has experienced a sudden jolt of civic engagement. It’s an anger-fueled form of participatory democracy that’s relatively new for an immigrant-heavy town of about 40,000 not known for high voter turnout.
Hijack victims’ 24-year ordeal continues
Posted in Crime, News, economy, what on July 21st, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThe sisters slumped against the bulkhead of the Boeing 747, pretending they were dead.
As five terrorists sprayed the darkened cabin with gunfire and lobbed grenades, someone opened an over-wing exit two rows ahead. Gargi and Giatri Dave, 10- and 13-year-olds traveling home to California alone after visiting family in India, clambered over the seat backs to the open portal.
Gargi stopped, daunted by the two-story drop to the tarmac. Giatri pushed her through, then jumped herself, injuring both feet. Gargi had landed on her head, and as she slipped in and out of consciousness, her hobbled sister dragged her under the plane, clear of the fusillade fired by the gunmen angry that their hijacking had gone awry.
Oakland could go to pot in a big way with four proposed factory farms
Posted in Crime, Health, News, economy, what on July 20th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffOakland could approve a plan Tuesday to set up four marijuana factory farms, a step that could usher in the era of Big Pot.
The proposal is a testament to just how fast the marijuana counterculture is transforming into a corporate culture. And it has ignited a contentious debate in Oakland that could spread as cities face pressure to regulate marijuana cultivation and find ways to tax it.
“Everybody knows it’s going bigger and big money is moving in,” said Dale Gieringer, an Oakland resident and prominent marijuana activist. As the state edges toward legalization, he said, more businessmen will seek to capitalize on a fast-growing market in a recession-hindered economy, forcing cities to make difficult choices on how to exert control.
L.A. County sheriff says budget cuts have slowed agency’s analysis of drug evidence
Posted in Crime, News, Politics on July 18th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffLos Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says budget cuts have significantly slowed his agency’s analysis of narcotics evidence.
The average backlog in 2009, before the cuts, was 256 cases. That number has more than tripled, swelling to 920 unanalyzed cases, according to department records.
Baca recently reduced overtime expenses in an effort to compensate for a $128-million budget cut. News of the narcotics backlog comes weeks after The Times detailed significant delays in the department’s collection and analysis of fingerprint evidence. The department also recently drew attention when it released some 200 inmates from the L.A. County jail system early as part of an attempt to reduce costs.
The narcotics testing backlog was disclosed in a report Baca submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last week. The report did not provide a detailed accounting of the backlog, but a sheriff’s spokesman said that cases investigated by the department have not been affected by the cuts. Instead, the brunt of the problem seems to have been push onto other law enforcement agencies in the county that outsource their narcotics analysis to the Sheriff’s Department, authorities said.
Italy arrests 300 in crackdown on crime organization
Posted in Crime, News on July 13th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffItalian police launched one of their biggest operations ever against the powerful ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate on Tuesday, arresting 300 people including top bosses and seizing millions worth of property in pre-dawn raids.
The man believed to be the ‘ndrangheta’s top boss, Domenico Oppedisano, was picked up in Rosarno, a small coastal town in Calabria, the southern region where the organization is based, police said.
Also arrested was the man in charge of the gang’s businesses in Milan, where the ‘ndrangheta has been making major inroads.
Switzerland rejects extradition of Roman Polanski in sex case
Posted in Celeb, Crime, News, Tech, what on July 12th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffOscar-winning film director Roman Polanski will not be extradited to the United States to face sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl more than 30 years ago, Swiss authorities announced Monday.
The Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police said the U.S. had failed to turn over certain documents requested by the Swiss. The department also said Polanski, who maintains a vacation home in Switzerland, could reliably expect not to be arrested and deported because the U.S. knew of his frequent presence there over the last few years but never acted on it.
Polanski, 76, has already been released from house arrest, the justice department said.
