NYT: Russia Withheld Information on Boston Bomber

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Photo Credit: Ninian Reid

Photo Credit: Ninian Reid

Russia withheld critical information from the FBI on one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects’ ties to radical Islam two years before the attacks that killed three Americans and injured more than 260 others — and those disclosures most likely would have triggered more investigation by authorities, The New York Times reports.

Russian officials told the FBI in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police after the attacks, “was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer,” the Times says, citing a new report on how U.S. agencies could have stopped the bombings.

Moscow also told the agency that Tsarnaev “had changed drastically” as he met up with “unspecified underground groups,” during travels to the Dagestan region of Russia, according to the report.

But Moscow refused to provide any further information to the FBI despite the agency making “several” requests for more data, the Times reports.

“They found that the Russians did not provide all the information that they had on him back then, and based on everything that was available, the FBI did all that it could,” a top U.S. official briefed on the report told the Times.

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Rumor: Russian Newspaper Claims Flight MH 370 Hijacked by Terrorists, Located in Pakistan

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Photo Credit: AP / Australian Defense Force, LSIS Bradley Darvill

Photo Credit: AP / Australian Defense Force, LSIS Bradley Darvill

A Russian newspaper is saying that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 is in Kandahar Province, located in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border, but it offers anonymous, dubious sources.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets paper says “an anonymous source in the intelligence agencies” in Russia said that the missing plane’s “pilots are not guilty.”

“Flight MH 370 Malaysia Airlines missing on March 8th with 239 passengers was hijacked. Pilots are not guilty, the plane was hijacked by unknown terrorists. We know that the name of the terrorist who gave instructions to pilots is ‘Hitch’. The plane is in Afghanistan not far from Kandahar near the border with Pakistan,” claims the newspaper–which has a circulation of about 1.1 million.

It added: “Plane is on the road near the mountain range, he has a broken wing. Maybe he made a hard landing. All passengers survived, they live in shacks almost without food.”

The sources or the “intelligence agencies” in the article were not named.

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Christians in Pakistan Sentenced to Death Over a Text

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Photo Credit: Alamy

Photo Credit: Alamy

A Christian couple in Pakistan have become the latest to be sentenced to death for blasphemy, after they were accused of sending a text message deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.

Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, from the eastern town of Gojra, were sentenced after what the couple’s lawyer said was a case motivated by a personal grudge.

Maulvi Mohammed Hussain, a Muslim leader from a mosque in Gojra, lodged the complaint last year, claiming that Mr Emmanuel had used his wife’s mobile phone to send the offending message. Nadeem Hassan, the couple’s lawyer, said that the couple denied the offence and that the text message originated from a mobile phone that had been lost beforehand.

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Doubts About Recent Ukraine Referendum: ‘Legitimate Concerns’

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Photo Credit: NEWSCOM

Photo Credit: NEWSCOM

A new Gallup poll of Ukrainians undermines the main rationale for Russia’s aggression towards its neighbor and calls into question the U.S. approach to diplomacy with the Russians, which treats some of the Russian claims as legitimate. The findings of the national survey also cast further doubt on the results of the recent referendum on Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Ukrainians of all backgrounds and from every corner of the country reject Vladimir Putin’s decision to send Russian troops to Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians, with 81 percent of those surveyed expressing opposition to the move and 13 percent in favor. The skepticism is largely explained by the fact that Ukrainians don’t buy Putin’s claim that ethnic Russians need protection at all. Eighty-five percent of Ukrainians said that Russian-speaking citizens are not threatened, an opinion shared by 66 percent of ethnic Russians themselves. Seventy-four percent of Ukrainians living in both the south and the east, regions where Russians claim protection is most needed, responded that Russian-speaking Ukrainians were not under threat because of their language.

The survey of 1,200 Ukrainians from all regions of the country, including Crimea, was conducted March 14-26 by Gallup and Baltic Surveys for the International Republican Institute. IRI—which describes itself as a “nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide”—has extensive experience polling overseas, and U.S. policymakers often rely on its findings. The interviews were conducted in person at respondents’ homes.

“These results show that east and west Ukraine are not as divided as Moscow would like you to think,” says Ambassador Mark Green, president and CEO of IRI. “Ukrainians across the country, including Russian speakers, believe in democracy and want closer ties to Europe.”

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Christians Form 24 Hour-a-Day Human Shield Around Church after Demolition Threat

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Photo Credit: Telegraph

Photo Credit: Telegraph

Thousands of Chinese Christians have mounted an extraordinary, round-the-clock defence of a church in a city known as the ‘Jerusalem of the East’ after Communist Party officials threatened to bulldoze their place of worship.

In an episode that underlines the fierce and long-standing friction between China’s officially atheist Communist Party and its rapidly growing Christian congregation, Bible-carrying believers this week flocked to the Sanjiang church in Wenzhou hoping to protect it from the bulldozers.

Their 24-hour guard began earlier this week when a demolition notice was plastered onto the newly-constructed church which worshippers say cost around 30 million yuan (£2.91 million) and almost six years to build.

Officials claimed the church had been built illegally and used red paint to daub the words: “Demolish” and “Illegal construction” onto its towering facade.

The threat triggered a furious reaction in Wenzhou, a booming port city known for its vibrant Christian community, said to be China’s largest.

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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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