Woman, 73, Accused of Operating Drug Tunnel Uncovered Under Mexican Border

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Tucked inside one of a string of warehouses, hidden behind boxes of televisions and plastic three-wheel toys, under a concrete slab and down a 70-foot shaft, is a tunnel Mexican drug dealers hoped to use to move hundreds of pounds of marijuana and cocaine into the U.S.

But on Friday, agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday’s discovery of the tunnel and arrested the woman accused of overseeing its construction, 73-year-old Glennys “Gladys” Rodriguez, of Chula Vista, Calif. Authorities had been watching the warehouse for months.

“Here we are again, foiling cartel plans to sneak millions of dollars of illegal drugs through secret passageways that cost millions of dollars to build,” said U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy. “Going underground is not a good business plan. We have promised to locate these super tunnels and keep powerful drug cartels from taking their business underground and out of sight, and once again, we have delivered on that promise.”

This was the sixth cross-border passageway discovered in the San Diego area in less than four years. A seventh was found Thursday nearby. If laid end-to-end, the seven tunnels would extend a distance of nearly two miles.

Agents from the San Diego Tunnel Task Force uncovered the two sophisticated smuggling tunnels in an area known as Otay Mesa, an industrial park surrounded by rolling hills, desert and several major freeways connecting the U.S. to Tijuana and large manufacturing plants south of the border.

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Japan Orders Military to Strike Any New North Korea Missile Launches

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Issei Kato

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Issei Kato

Japan has ordered a destroyer in the Sea of Japan to strike any ballistic missiles that may be launched by North Korea in the coming weeks after Pyongyang fired a Rodong medium-range missile over the sea, a government source said on Saturday.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera issued the order on Thursday, but did not make it public in order to avoid putting a chill on renewed talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang, the first in more than a year, local media reported earlier.

“The defense minister made the order from April 3rd through to the 25th to prepare for any additional missile launches,” the source said.

Onodera, the source said, did not deploy Patriot missile batteries that would be the last line of defense against incoming warheads.

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Young Christian Woman Brutally Murdered By Egyptian Islamists

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

A young Coptic Christian woman was dragged out of her car, then brutally beaten and stabbed to death by an Egyptian Islamist mob on Friday.

According to a report in CNS News by Patrick Goodenough, eyewitnesses said 25 year-old Mary Sameh George was apparently targeted by the Islamists because of a cross that hung from her car’s rear-view mirror.

The murder occurred in the Cairo suburb of Ain Shams after mosque prayer services on Friday when police fought with Muslim Brotherhood supporters opposed to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s decision to run for president.

An eyewitness reportedly said that George was attacked in her car near a church, where she had planned to deliver medicine to an elderly, infirm woman.

According to the report, the Islamist protestors climbed onto George’s car, collapsing the roof, then dragged her from her car, beating and battering her to such an extent that parts of her scalp were torn off her head. George was then stabbed multiple times and her throat was slit. When she was dead, the Islamist mob set fire to her car.

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How To Kill Six Terrorists With One Shot

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Photo Credit: Western Journalism

Photo Credit: Western Journalism

By B. Christopher Agee.

With the price of ammunition skyrocketing, it has become necessary for marksmen to conserve bullets. Apparently, this idea has also infiltrated the British military.

One 20-year-old soldier stationed in Afghanistan defined such conservation when he successfully rid the world of six Taliban insurgents with just one bullet. From nearly 1,000 yards away, the unidentified lance corporal fired the fateful shot, hitting a suicide bomber’s device and causing an explosion that killed him and five others in the vicinity.

The effective sniper also reportedly killed a Taliban terrorist with the very first shot on his initial tour – from a distance of nearly 1,500 yards.

According to commanding officer Lt. Col. Richard Slack, the sniper’s recent success on the battlefield neutralized a significant threat. The bomb detonated by his shot was just one of two at the location, he explained, noting a 44 pound vest filled with explosives was found in the vicinity.

Though this attack happened late last year, news of the incident is just being released as the U.K. continues to withdraw troops from the region. Slack offered some intriguing details surrounding the case of the exploding jihadists.

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Photo Credit; Heathcliff

Photo Credit; Heathcliff

British sniper in Afghanistan kills six Taliban with one bullet

By Holly Watt.

A British sniper in Afghanistan killed six insurgents with a single bullet after hitting the trigger switch of a suicide bomber whose device then exploded, The Telegraph has learnt.

The 20-year-old marksman, a Lance Corporal in the Coldstream Guards, hit his target from 930 yards (850 metres) away, killing the suicide bomber and five others around him caught in the blast.

The incident in Kakaran in southern Afghanistan happened in December but has only now been disclosed as Britain moves towards the withdrawal of all combat soldiers by the end of the year.

Lt Col Richard Slack, commanding officer of 9/12 Royal Lancers, said the unnamed sharpshooter prevented a major attack by the Taliban, as a second suicide vest packed with 20kg (44lbs) of explosives was found nearby.

The same sniper, with his first shot on the tour of duty, killed a Taliban machine-gunner from 1,465 yards (1,340m).

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Massive Quake Off Chile Triggers Tsunami Warning

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Photo Credit: alobos Life / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: alobos Life / Creative Commons

A massive 8.2 earthquake struck just off the coast of Iquique in northern Chile Tuesday night, triggering a tsunami warning.

The United States Geological Survey said the epicenter was about 62 miles northwest of Iquique.

Chile’s Office of National Emergencies ordered an evacuation of all its coastal areas, saying that kind of earthquake carries a risk of a tsunami.

This is a breaking news story; we’ll update as we get more.

Update at 11:09 p.m. ET. Two Dead, Three Injured

Chilean authorities are reporting two dead three seriously injured in Iquique, the city closest to the offshore quake. Reuters said Iquique Mayor Gonzalo Prieto reported the casualties to local radio station Cooperativa.

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North Korea Sending Message to U.S. with Missile Barrage

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Photo Credit: Jung Yeon-Je, AFP/Getty

Photo Credit: Jung Yeon-Je, AFP/Getty

By Donna Leinwand Leger.

A barrage of artillery fire between North and South Korea across disputed maritime borders on Monday marked an annual show of force by North Korea intent on sending a message to the U.S. as it conducts military exercises nearby.

North Korea’s missile launches into the Yellow (West) Sea followed by a threat of live-fire drills along the border “was really aimed at our policymakers, Republic of Korea policymakers and Japan,” said Bruce Bechtol, a Korea specialist and professor of political science at Angelo State University in Texas.

“North Korea is saying, ‘You can do all the exercises you want and we have the ability to hit you at a moment’s notice,'” Bechtol said.

The U.S. and South Korea routinely conduct joint military exercises in the border areas, usually each year in February and March. The most recent exercise began March 27.

The North Koreans said they believe the exercises are meant to intimidate them and often react with some show of force, Bechtol said.

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N. Korea fires on South during North’s military drills; South responds

By Euan McKirdy and Stella Kim.

North and South Korean artillery batteries exchanged hundreds of shells across their western sea border Monday, a day after North Korea warned it was preparing to test another nuclear device.

About 100 of the 500 shells North Korea fired into the Yellow Sea strayed across the line separating the two rivals’ territorial waters, the semiofficial South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. Yonhap quoted the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying the South responded by firing about 300 shells into North Korean waters and dispatching fighter jets to the boundary, known as the Northern Limit Line.

North Korean offshore firing appeared to have resumed after a lull, Yonhap reported, citing a resident of Baekryong Island, which is close to the Northern Limit Line.

“Some (North Korean) artillery fire landed in (the) southern part of Northern Limit Line but in the water,” a South Korean Ministry of Defense spokesman said. “We counter-fired over the Northern Limit Line.”

When asked what South Korea fired back at, the defense spokesman said, “We are not shooting at North Korea, just shooting into the sea.”

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Japan Must Halt Whaling Program In Antarctic, Court Says

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Photo Credit: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

Photo Credit: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

The country’s government had argued that hunting whales was part of a research program, but the International Court of Justice ruled Monday that Japan hasn’t generated enough scientific research to justify killing hundreds of whales. Critics said the hunts were instead a way to justify commercial hunting.

Under the whaling program, Japan had set annual “lethal sample size” limits of 50 per species for fin whales and humpback whales, in addition to approximately 850 Antarctic minke whales. But the court said the research program had generated only two peer-reviewed papers that together refer to nine whales.

“In light of the fact that [Japan’s program] has been going on since 2005 and has involved the killing of about 3,600 minke whales, the scientific output to date appears limited,” the court wrote in its judgment.

By a 12-4 vote, the court based in The Hague decided Japan must “revoke any extant authorization, permit or license granted in relation to” its whaling program, “and refrain from granting any further permits” related to it.

The court’s ruling stems from a complaint filed by Australia in May 2010, when it accused Japan of being in breach of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling by operating a system that produced whale meat for sale in Japan, rather than creating scientific data.

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China Plans to Take Over the World with Global Network of Surveillance Satellites

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

If it went ahead the plan could see more than 50 observation satellites in orbit within two years, The South China Morning Post reported. This would put the country’s satellite surveillance capabilities on a par, or greater than, the US.

The paper said support for the massive upscale was fuelled by China’s frustration over the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

After a three-week search satellites have been unable to locate for certain debris from the disappeared plane, which was carrying mainly Chinese passengers on a scheduled flight to Beijing.

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Women in Revealing Clothes Deserve to Be Raped, Say Brazilians in New Poll

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Photo Credit: Douglas / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Douglas / Creative Commons

You want to talk about the real war on women? Look no further than Brazil, where a recent government-sanctioned poll revealed that Brazilian men — and women — believe that if a woman shows off her body she deserves to be raped.

Brazil’s Institute of Applied Economic Research asked 3,810 men and women the question, with 65 percent of respondents saying women who wear “clothing that shows off the body” deserve to be raped.

Keep in mind, 66.5 percent of the respondents were women.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff took to twitter to say the poll results show that “Brazilian society still has a long way to go to fight violence against women.”

“The results make clear the burden on law and public policy to fight violence against women,” she added.

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Obama Talked to Saudi King For More Than Two Hours – But Not About Human Rights

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Photo Credit: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Photo Credit: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

President Obama did not raise human rights concerns during his meeting with Saudi King Abdullah, an administration official confirmed after the two leaders talked for more than two hours.

“The focus of the meeting was strategic and regional topics,” said the official, briefing reporters on background about Friday’s talks at the king’s desert encampment north-west of Riyadh. Asked again specifically whether human rights had come up, the official replied, “No.”

Asked further whether Obama had raised the Saudis’ decision to deny a visa to a Jewish member of the White House press corps wanting to cover the visit, the official, said “I don’t believe it came up in the meeting.”

The official pointed out that national security advisor Susan Rice had brought up the visa denial issue with Saudi officials earlier, and “they certainly know our views and our objection to the way in which that situation was handled.”

Obama’s meeting with Abdullah came a day after the president said he told Pope Francis that “it is central to U.S. foreign policy that we protect the interests of religious minorities around the world.”

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