Big-rig driver in fatal crash pleads not guilty

By Calvin Palmer

The Brazilian driver whose big-rig car transporter went out of control in La Canada Flintridge, California, leaving a young girl and her father dead, pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter charges today.

Marcos Costa, 43, appeared before Superior Court Judge Terry Smerling in Pasadena, California, and was released on $200,000 bail after entering his plea through a Portuguese interpreter.

He was ordered to surrender his passport before returning to his home state of Massachusetts and barred from driving “any motorized vehicle” until his case is resolved.

Investigators say Costa ignored posted weight restrictions that barred big rigs from a foothill highway. They said the vehicle lost its brakes and smashed into cars then plowed through a bookstore in a row of businesses in the retail district of La Canada Flintridge.

One of the cars was pushed 150 feet through an intersection and crushed. Its occupants, 12-year-old Angelina Posca and her father Angel Jorge Posca, 58, of Palmdale, died at the scene.

Another dozen people were hurt, three of them critically.

Costa’s attorney, Los Angeles-based Steve Meister, defended his client’s innocence.

“This was a tragic accident but it was an accident,” Meister said outside the courtroom. “He’s got to live with the pain and the sadness and the horror of what happened every day.”

Meister said that the truck Costa was driving the day of the crash, April 1, was carrying fewer cars than it was legally allowed to.

[Based on reports by the Associated Press and Pasadena Star-News.]

Passenger lands aircraft safely after pilot dies

By Calvin Palmer

A passenger took over the controls of a twin-engine plane in mid-air when the pilot died and landed the other passengers safely at a Florida airport yesterday.

The passenger was licensed for single-engine planes and was talked down by three air traffic controllers and a pilot relaying cockpit instructions from Connecticut, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.

The Beechcraft King Air 200 twin-engine plane had taken off from Marco Island Executive Airport, Naples, and was climbing towards 10,000 feet on auto pilot when the pilot passed out.

Steven Wallace, a representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Miami, said the pilot never responded after being given climbing instructions.

Eventually another a voice came on the radio, saying that the pilot had passed out. The passenger took control of the aircraft and few minutes later said the pilot had died.

One of the air traffic controllers contacted a friend in Connecticut who knows the King Air plane and relayed instructions to the passenger.

The plane, which had been headed to Jackson, Mississippi, eventually landed safely at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers.

The names of the pilot and four passengers have not been released.

Media sources appear to disagree on the number of people aboard the aircraft, with the Associated Press citing six people.

[Based on reports by the Naples Daily News and AFP.]

Police arrest 114 to foil “serious threat” to power station’s safety

By Calvin Palmer

More than 100 people were arrested in the early hours of today in connection with an alleged attack on a coal-fired power station.

Environmental protesters are thought to have been planning to move on Ratcliffe-on-Soar power-station, Nottinghamshire.

Score of officers from Nottinghamshire police swooped on the independent Iona School in Sneinton, Nottinghamshire.

Officers from the neighboring Derbyshire and Leicestershire forces were drafted in to help with the raid and provide custody spaces for those arrested.

Detectives later revealed they recovered specialist equipment that suggested the group represented a “serious threat” to the power station’s safety.

Superintendent  Mike Manley, of Nottinghamshire Police, said 114 men and women from across the UK were detained.

They were being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass and criminal damage at Ratcliffe-on-Soar.

Manley said: “In view of specialist equipment recovered by police, those arrested posed a serious threat to the safe running of the site.

“This was a significant operation, with large-scale arrests. There were no injuries during the arrests, and the police investigation is ongoing.”

Witnesses told how officers in more than 20 police vans descended on the plotters’ apparent rendezvous point in the early hours.

Tess Rearden, who lives near the scene, said: “We were woken up by the sound of doors slamming and saw all these police vans and riot vans.

“My son came out of his bedroom and said: ‘Have you seen what’s going on?’ They were all up and down the roads. It was bedlam — real bedlam.”

Another resident added: “I was leaving my house when I saw a line of traffic approaching me, which seemed strange for the time of night.

“It was only when the vehicles got closer and started to pass me that I noticed every single one was either a police car or a police van.

“I counted 20-plus vans, all one after the other, with police cars at the rear. Then they blocked off all the roads around the community center.”

One resident told how the protesters signaled their defiance as they were being led away.

She said: “The people brought out were singing: ‘We’ll be back again.'”

It is thought detectives had prior knowledge of the plot but chose to wait till the demonstrators were together in one place before moving in.

A spokeswoman for E.on, which runs the power station, said: “We can confirm that Ratcliffe power station was the planned target of an organized protest during the early hours of this morning.

“While we understand that everyone has a right to protest peacefully and lawfully, this was clearly neither of those things so we will be assisting the police with their investigations into what could have been a very dangerous and irresponsible attempt to disrupt an operational power plant.”

Today, the power station, located eight miles south west of Nottingham, was being protected by police patrols. It has been targeted by protesters before.

Eleven people from the Nottingham-based Eastside Climate Action were arrested in April 2007 after chaining themselves to buildings and equipment on the site.

[Based on reports by The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.]

Somali mortars target plane carrying U.S. politician

By Calvin Palmer

Mortar shells fired at a plane carrying a U.S. congressman landed in residential areas of Somalia’s capital city today, injuring 19 civilians.

The plane carrying New Jersey Democrat Donald Payne took off safely from Mogadishu airport, said Col Mohamed Idi, a police officer at the airport. None of the six mortar shells fired landed in the airport.

Medina Hospital Administrator Ali Adde said 19 civilians, mostly women and children, were injured.

Payne, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, met with Somalia’s president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, during his one-day visit to Mogadishu to discuss piracy, security and cooperation between Somalia and the United States.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood confirmed Payne was all right. The U.S. Embassy in Kenya said he had arrived safely in Nairobi.

“He’s safe, unharmed,” Wood said. He added that U.S. officials had given Payne a security briefing about Somalia before he went to Mogadishu and that the congressman had chosen to go anyway.

“We provided the congressman with a briefing and gave him a very frank and straightforward assessment of the security situation on the ground,” he said.

Payne’s  visit came the day after U.S. Navy snipers shot dead three Somali pirates who had held Captain Richard Phillips hostage in a lifeboat for five days, rescuing him unharmed.

Bruno Schiemsky, a military analyst who monitors Somalia, said that an American politician such as Payne would have been seen as a prize for hardline Islamists, such as the Shabaab movement, regardless of the clash with the pirates.

“I’m pretty sure they would have targeted him anyway,” he said. “That said, the Shabaab and the other bad guys will spin this in such a way to make it look like they are protecting ordinary Somalis against a common enemy.”

President Obama said today that the US was determined to confront the pirates.

“We are going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks,” he said. “We have to continue to be prepared to confront them when they arise and we have to ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes.”

[Based on reports by the Associated Press and The Times.]

Mel Gibson’s wife files for divorce

By Calvin Palmer

Mel Gibson’s wife has filed a petition for divorce in Los Angeles, according to court records.

Robyn Gibson, who has been married to the movie star for 28 years, cited irreconcilable differences.

The petition contains scant details about the split. Robyn is seeking jewelry and some other property. She has suggested joint custody for the nine-year-old son, Thomas.

The couple married on June 7, 1980, in a Catholic Church in Forestville, New South Wales.

They issued a joint statement today, saying they have “always strived to maintain the privacy and integrity of our family and will continue to do so”.

The 53-year-old actor, director and producer is one of Hollywood’s biggest names, with Oscars for best director and best picture with his film Braveheart (1995).

In 2006, his reputation was tarnished when anti-Semitic remarks made to a police officer who arrested him for drunk driving were made public.

[Based on a report by the Associated Press.]

Couple caught having sex while driving speeding car

By Calvin Palmer

A Norwegian man faces a driving ban and fine after police caught him having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on a freeway.

Traffic police clocked a silver Mazda 323 doing 133kph (83 mph) in a 100 kph (60 mph) zone on E18 some 25 miles west of Oslo late yesterday.

Officers soon realized the couple were doing more than just breaking the speed limit.

“The car was veering from one side to the other because the woman was sitting on the man’s lap while he was driving and doing the act, shall we say,” said Tor Stein Hagen, a superintendent with Soendre Buskerund district police.

“The driver couldn’t see much because her back was in the way,” he added.”Why they did it on a highway with such a high risk we don’t know.”

Officers pulled the car over at a rest area.

The 28-year-old man had his driver’s license taken away but his 22-year-old girl-friend was allowed to drive him home. Police did not release the couple’s names.

Prosecutors will decide within the next week what the man’s punishment will be.

Hagen said he expected the driver to face a fine of “several thousand Norwegian kroner” and a lengthy driving ban.

[Based on reports by AFP and BBC News.]

Daughter’s mini-skirts drove Muslim father to hire her killers

By Calvin Palmer

An Azerbaijani immigrant in St Petersburg, Russia, hired three men to kill his daughter because she wore mini-skirts, police reported today.

Police detained Gafar Kerimov, 46, after he reported that his daughter went missing and then confessed that she was already dead.

His arrest followed the detention of two of the hired killers last week.

“They admitted to being paid 100,000 rubles ($4140) by the girl’s father,” a police source said today. “They said he wanted to punish his daughter for flouting national traditions and wearing a mini-skirt.”

Rashida Kirimova, 21, studied medicine at a St. Petersburg school. Her clothing and behavior  were the source of frequent family arguments.

She dismissed her father’s criticism when he said her clothes were unfit for a Muslim girl. 

Her father was reproached by his Muslim friends for being negligent and allowing his daughter to walk around dressed like a prostitute. They said the insult could only be washed away by blood and introduced him to a killer.

Kadyr Suleymanov agreed to kill Rashida. He seized her on March 8 and with two accomplices drove her to a suburban dump, shot her twice in the head and covered her body with garbage.

The body was found by the police after the father confessed he had ordered the killing.

[Based on reports by MosNews.com and the Melbourne Herald Sun.]

Protesters rally for final stand after troops clear key points in Bangkok

By Calvin Palmer

Thai troops in full combat gear fired automatic weapons in the air and sprayed tear gas to break up anti-government protests on the streets of Bangkok during the second day of mass demonstrations.

Exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra claimed in a television interview that “many” people had been killed in the confrontations that began before dawn and continued into the evening.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the prime minister, appealed to protesters to return home, claiming the security forces were using the “softest means possible” to clear the streets. But in the afternoon, Gen Songkitti Jaggabatara, the head of the army, appeared on television and said that “all possible means” would be employed.

Two people died in clashes between protesters and city residents enraged at their violent tactics. More than 100 people were injured during a day of running street battles.

Tonight the “Red Shirts” had been dislodged from several of the roads and junctions which they had occupied and were falling back to barricades in front of Bangkok’s Government House, the central focus of the protest.

Organizers were mustering about 4,000 protesters for what they called a “last stand” against a build up of soldiers and riot police.

As the trucks carrying hundreds of troops moved to a position less than half a mile from Government House, gunfire could be heard and clouds of tear-gas lingered in the air.

“We are narrowing the area of unrest,” army spokesman Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd said. “It’s going to take time, and we are trying to do cause as little loss as possible.”

He said that the troops had fired live rounds into the air, but only used blank rounds when aiming directly at the crowds.

The Emergency Medical Institute of Thailand said that 94 people, including some soldiers, had been injured in today’s clashes, and that 24 were in hospital.

But Thaksin insisted that there had been a massacre. “Many people are dying,” he told CNN. “They even take the bodies on the military trucks and take them away. . . .They’re trying to confuse everything.”

After Britain warned visitors to Bangkok to stay indoors, other governments issued their own travel warnings.

Japan urged its citizens to avoid wearing clothes in red and yellow, the colours of the two antagonistic factions in Thai politics. Spain advised travellers to avoid Bangkok’s airport, even as a point of transit. Australia told visitors to stay off the streets and advised people to reconsider travel plans to Thailand.

During the day Thai military chased protesters from key points in the city, leaving the rally near Government House, where thousands of protesters including women and children have gathered behind barricades, as the center of resistance.

“This will be our final stand,” the Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Phromphan told the crowd from a makeshift stage erected close to Government House. “I beg that you return here and face them together. We will use peaceful means and stay right here to end their violence.”

The protesters are supporters of Thaksin who was toppled by a military coup in 2006. They are demanding the end of a government that they regard as illegitimate. They take the view that two elected governments have been toppled by the country’s traditional ruling elite in the royal palace, army and bureaucracy in less than three years.

The current government came to power with the backing of the army following street protests by Thaksin’s opponents at the end of last year.

The prime minister, whose authority has been severely weakened by the chaos of the last three days, has said that he needs four days to bring the situation back to normal.

[Based on reports by The Times and The Daily Telegraph.]

Five killed as pleasure boat crashes into docked tug

By Calvin Palmer

A 22-foot pleasure boat with 14 people aboard crashed into a docked tug boat on a waterway in northeast Florida yesterday evening, killing five people and seriously injuring the other nine.

The crash happened around 7:00 p.m. on the Intracoastal Waterway near Palm Valley Bridge, St Johns County, about 20 miles northwest of St Augustine.

Three of the injured were airlifted to Shands Hospital in Jacksonsville and are in critical condition, said Jeremy Robshaw of the St Johns County Fire and Rescue. Six others were taken to area hospitals by ambulance.

The victims have not been named.

Robshaw said rescue crews had to borrow plywood sheets from a nearby home to place over a dock under construction to get to the scene.

“It was a very difficult to access,” he said.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Joy Hill said the 22-foot 2000 Crownline struck the right side rear of a 25-foot tug moored at the dock.

She said no one was aboard the tug boat, which is registered to F&A Enterprises in St Augustine.

Herb Davis watched the rescue effort from the dock of his home down the street.

 “There was a lot of moaning,” he said, adding he could hear distressed cries despite being several homes away. “It was very clear, this lady was screaming so loud.”

Lt Steve Zukowsky, of the commission’s law enforcement division, said witnesses were being questioned.

The speed of the boat, the number of occupants, and the potential for weather or alcohol to have influenced events all remained unanswered, he said.

He was not sure how many of the boaters were wearing life vests or whether the boat was overloaded.

[Based on reports by the Associated Press, The St Augustine Record and The Florida Times-Union.]

Pirates threaten revenge on U.S. and France

By Calvin Palmer

Somali pirates today threatened revenge on the United States and France for the deaths of fellow pirates after security forces from those two nations mounted rescue operations to free hostages.

“The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing,” Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters. “We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now on.”

Hussein referred to the three pirates killed in the rescue today of Capt Richard Phillips who was kept hostage on a lifeboat from his vessel the Maersk Alabama.

“We cannot know how or whether our friends on the lifeboat died, but this will not stop us from hijacking,” he said.

The gangs of pirates generally treat their captives well in the hope of gaining ransom money.

“We shall revenge,” said another pirate, Aden, in Eyl village, a pirate lair on Somalia’s eastern coast.

Some fear the hostage rescues will increase the likelihood of violence in the future hijacking of ships.

“The pirates will know from now on that anything can happen,” said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program. “The French are doing this, the Americans are doing it. Things will be more violent from now on.

“This is a big wake-up to the pirates. It raises the stakes.”

Piracy is lucrative business in Somalia, where gangs have earned millions of dollars in ransoms, splashing it on wives, houses, cars and luxury goods.

After an apparent lull in activity earlier this year, the pirates have struck back and hold more than a dozen vessels with about 260 hostages.

Eyl, Haradheere ,and other pirate havens along the Indian Ocean coastline have sprung back to life in a country plagued by anarchy.

“Killing three out of thousands of pirates will only escalate piracy,” said Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf, spokesman of the moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca.

Meanwhile the father of the yacht skipper killed in a gun battle between Somali pirates and French commandos thanked the French government for trying to rescue his son.

Francis Lemaçon said that he was “paralysed by grief” at the death of his “pacifist and idealist” son but he wanted to thank the French state and the “courageous” commandos for their efforts.

France has ordered a judicial investigation into the death of Florent Lemaçon. French Defense Minister Hervé Morin has said that Lemaçon may have been struck accidentally by a French bullet.

The captain of the French frigate which led the operation said intercepted radio messages suggested the pirates were ready to execute the hostages and blow up the yacht.

Capt Guillaume Goutay said that his men were torn between “grief” at the death of Florent Lemaçon and “relief” that four other hostages had been rescued.

The hostages returned to French soil today, arriving at a military airfield near Paris where they were greeted by Morin.

Officials refused to say whether the body of Lemaçon was on board the plane from Djibouti.

Defence ministry officials said yesterday the 28-year-old owner of the yacht Tarin, from Vannes, Brittany, had been trying to shield his wife and son behind a mattress when he was shot dead during an exchange of fire between the French commandos and his Somali captors.

[Based on reports by Reuters, The Independent and The Guardian.]