Mexican mayors targeted by assassins
Five Mexican mayors have been killed in the last six weeks, the targets of armed assassins likely involved in the country’s ongoing drug war. The latest, Mayor of TancÃtaro Gustavo Sánchez, was found in the back of a pickup truck with his hands bound and face hacked with a machete. Just over a week earlier Prisciliano RodrÃguez Salinas, mayor of Doctor Gonzalez, Nuevo León, was killed at his ranch home. He lived in the Monterrey region of Mexico, an area once deemed safe, but has this past year become a sought-after region by rival drug cartels, and consequently an area plagued by violence. The gunmen waited outside the house in a white car and ambushed the mayor when an employee arrived to pick up equipment, shooting him seven times. On his Twitter feed, Mexican President Felipe Calderón called the assassinations cowardly, adding “We must redouble our fight against these criminals.”
Iranian activist gets 6 years for BBC interview
Iranian human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi has been sentenced to six years in prison for an interview he conducted for the BBC, according to various media sources in the country. Baghi performed an interview with now-deceased reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri. The interview was broadcast on BBC’s Persian channel in December of 2009, after the Ayatollah’s death and subsequent anti-government demonstrations, prompting Baghi’s arrest days later. The official charge against Baghi, who is free on bail while an appeal is pending, was reportedly engaging in or spreading propaganda against the Islamic state. He has already spent over four years in jail over the last decade. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in New York for a UN meeting last week where he told reporters that the country’s judiciary was being unjustly criticized over arrests and sentencing of journalists and activists.
UK facing increasing threat from Irish terrorists
British security officials warned last week that an Irish terrorist attack is a “strong possibility” and the UK has raised the perceived threat level from “moderate” to “substantial.” The announcement was made by Home Secretary Theresa May and reinforced by director-general of MI5, Britain’s Secret Service, Jonathan Evans who said that terrorist activity from Republican dissidents in Northern Ireland has steadily risen as of late. There have been at least 30 attempted attacks by Republicans so far this year, ten more than the whole of 2009, prompting security officials to accept that an attack on British soil could be coming, and that the 2012 London Olympic Games will likely be a target. In the UK the threat level is ranked from low to moderate, substantial, severe and finally critical.
Museum noose nearly claims a tourist
A man from Arkansas got more than he opted for from a photo op at a wild west-themed museum in Kansas last week when he went unconscious with his head in a display noose. The 69-year-old museum visitor reportedly put his head in the “Hanging Tree” noose at Boot Hill Museum in Dodge City to take a picture when the pose got a little too real. The rope cut off the man’s oxygen supply, knocking him out cold. Nearby visitors helped lift him out of the noose, which should normally have been hanging 15 feet in the air, out of the reach of those in attendance. The man was taken to hospital where he was listed as stable, while the noose, which had been hanging in the museum since it opened 63 years ago, has been taken down.
