A Russian criminal syndicate has been trying to hack into Warwick Valley Telephone's Internet service for weeks, resulting in several service interruptions and, for some users, the complete destruction of their e-mail accounts. "For three weeks, on an hourly basis, Russians were trying to hack into our e-mails," WVT President Duane Albro said Tuesday. "They were successful five times and we had to shut them down."
It might sound fantastical, but Internet security experts said the Russian criminal element is constantly attacking companies in an effort to extort them. The idea is to take control of a network and demand payment to give it back.
"For smaller companies it can be especially damaging," said Don Jackson, director of threat intelligence for SecureWorks in Atlanta. He said smaller companies, with limited defenses, tend to be more vulnerable.
For now, WVT's system is safe, but in the process of boosting security, WVT technicians inadvertently erased the contents of some users' accounts. There was so much data to corral, the company's backup server couldn't handle it all. Albro said about 100 people lost everything over the weekend.
#1
Time to issue marks of reprisal for these people. One can not win a purely defensive war. How about an X Prize for script kiddies and our hackers who are able to fry any and all machines in the ru root. An executive pardon for anyone caught.
#2
It might sound fantastical, but Internet security experts said the Russian criminal element is constantly attacking companies in an effort to extort them.
Anyone reimbursing the Russians for their efforts should be considered guilty of aiding and abetting the criminality.
DHAKA (AFP) - A baby boy born with two heads in southwestern Bangladesh died after his parents decided to take him home because they could not afford adequate medical care, a doctor said Thursday.
The boy, named Kiron, was born Monday by Cesarean section and died at home late Wednesday after developing a fever and breathing difficulties, paediatrician KS Alam told AFP.
Kiron had attracted such attention that 150,000 people gathered at the clinic where he was cared for after his birth in Keshobpur, 135 kilometres (85 miles) from the capital Dhaka. Police were called in to control the crowds and Kiron was transferred to a hospital in nearby Jessore city. But his parents decided, against doctors' advice, to take him home, Alam said.
"We wanted to refer him to a hospital in Dhaka but the family was so poor that they could not afford to take him there, so they took him home where he died," Alam said."It was a very unusual case. The boy had one body but two complete heads." He weighed 5.5 kilogrammes (12 pounds 1 ounce) at birth.
A university student has been strangled to death by a captive 3-meter python at a park in Venezuela where the young man was working as an intern.
Park manager Javier Hernandez says the 29-year-old violated park rules when he took the snake out and held it on his own while working the night shift. Hernandez said Monday that the biology student's body was found with a bite from the Asian python on his left wrist. He said the intern, Erick Arrieta, was strangled to death by the python early Saturday and that the snake was found elsewhere in a hallway at the Caracas park's terrarium.
He said the young man didn't have permission to take the snake out and that it's the first time such an incident has occurred at the park.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
If you're going to be stupid, you've got to be TOUGH!
#4
I know grad students are cheap, but using them for snake food?
Posted by: ed ||
08/28/2008 8:24 Comments ||
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#5
A python would have to be an import. Local snake would be a boa. Now, a 3 meter boa would be heavy enough to overwhelm most adults. But a 3 meter python is not really that big. Pythons generally have much thinner bodies than boas. It could happen, though, if the student was slight of build.
Our Columbian (red tail) boa is about 7 feet, and my 13 year old daughter handles it, but only under my supervision.
#7
It seems to me that anyone who handles pythons should bring a knife along. But this kid probably figured that pythons behave exactly like the critters in cartoon programs.
The family of a British paratrooper has moved out of their home after a dangerous spider hitched a lift back from Afghanistan with him.
Days after Rodney Griffiths returned home from a four-month tour of Helmand province with 16 Air Assault Brigade, the family's pet dog Bella mysteriously died. Son Ricky, 16, then spotted the giant spider, prompting the soldier's wife Lorraine to move the family out of their four-bedroom army home in Colchester, Essex.
Mother-of-four Mrs Griffiths, 37, said: "Ricky saw a huge spider and screamed to his sister Cassie. They tried to put a pint-glass over it but it was too big, they poked it with a coat hanger and the spider bit it. The dog came in, jumped on the bed and barked at it. The spider hissed and Bella went running out whimpering."
Days later the family took Bella to the vet with a high temperature and swollen stomach. She had to be put down. Mrs Griffiths said she thought her death "too much of a coincidence" although the vet could not say why the dog died. After scouring the internet for spider descriptions they decided the culprit was a camel spider.
She said: "I think it must have hitched a lift back with my husband in June."
The spider has now taken up residence in her 18-year-old daughter Cassie's bedroom. Mrs Griffiths, who admitted to being "petrified of spiders", has now taken her children to live at her mother's.
A camel spider is type of arachnid known as a solpugid, that can grow up to five inches long and run at up to 10mph. Iain Newby of Essex's Dangerous and Wild Animals Rescue Facility said: "It is venomous but would not kill you."
Posted by: john frum ||
08/28/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
And if they bring in an exterminator to kill the spider, PETA will start picketing them and calling them names
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
08/28/2008 0:12 Comments ||
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#4
...I remember these charming critters from my time in Saudi Arabia. Five inches is the AVERAGE size - many of the ones I saw could stretch from side to side on a dinner plate - and they could cheerfully take on and kill scorpions.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/28/2008 6:11 Comments ||
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#5
There is no spider problem you can't solve with an M16.
#11
Our family Marine has videos and pictures of "Spider Fights" they held out in Anbar and at the Kabals down in Kuwait (yes, there may have been gambling involved). No one got hurt, including the spiders (they were released at some distance from the camp at the conclusion of the 'festivities').
Ugly creatures, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/28/2008 22:31 Comments ||
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A British court found a devout Muslim guilty of cruelty Wednesday for forcing two teenagers to flog themselves until their backs bled during a Shiite religious ceremony. A jury at Manchester Crown Court convicted Syed Mustafa Zaidi, 44, on two counts of child cruelty over the incidents, during a ceremony in January to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein.
The victims, who were 13 and 15 at the time, were forced to beat themselves with a zanjeer zani, which has a wooden handle with chains and five blades attached. Zaidi, who denied cruelty, also beat himself during the ceremony.
A prosecution lawyer stressed that the case was not an attack on Islamic traditions. "The Crown Prosecution Service wishes to make it clear that this prosecution was not an attack upon the practices or ceremonies of Shiite Muslims," said Carol Jackson of the Greater Manchester CPS.
She noted that the prosecution relied in part on the evidence of the president of the local Shiite community centre. "The law exists to protect the young from harm or being exposed to harm. In this case, both boys were made to take part in the ritual flagellation and suffered injuries to their backs.
"We are satisfied that, given the age of the children involved, the coercion employed by Syed Mustafa Zaidi, who did not accept that he was wrong, and the possibility of such an incident occurring again, the decision to prosecute... was the correct one."
The two victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted they wanted to beat themselves, but not to be forced to do so, and not with Zaidi's zanjeer zani. They also acknowledged they had flogged themselves with a similar implement from the age of six, in Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
the coercion employed by Syed Mustafa Zaidi, who did not accept that he was wrong
No, it's you British who are wrong. Just wait until sharia is de jure law, then you'll be sorry.
#2
well, why should this be a problem for the Brits since their top judge declared that domestic issues should be adjudicated by sharia law? Sleep tight in the parallel society bed you established.
Posted by: hammer head ||
08/28/2008 7:04 Comments ||
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#3
When is Ashura this year? I have to get my cards.
Over a hundred asylum-seekers are being held tonight after a British student was gang-raped by illegal immigrants in Calais.
The woman was writing a story on asylum seekers for her journalism course when she was attacked, police said. Up to 100 men have been rounded up as potential witnesses to the crime, which is alleged to have taken place in a notorious squatter camp nicknamed 'The Jungle'.
Police said the attack was of a particularly 'brutal nature'. The victim is still in Calais. The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was described as 'a London student who had travelled to France to highlight problems surrounding clandestine immigration'. Police confirmed tonight she was born in Vancouver and also carried a Canadian passport.
A police spokesman added: 'She appeared to be working alone, which was clearly a very dangerous thing to do. We fear that the men she was reporting on attacked her in the wood where they were staying.'
The woman, who is thought to be in her twenties or early thirties, told locals she wanted to spend time with would-be illegal immigrants who were attempting to reach Britain by stowing away on lorries. The squatter camp is part of a disused an industrial zone called 'The Dunes' and is a short walk from the ferry port. Up to 500 men live there, supported by local charities.
Father Jean-Pierre Boutoille, of the refugee charity C'Sur, said: 'There are lots of journalists, including students, who come here to get to the heart of what's going on, to write reports and produce films. When reporters contact us, we always ask to accompany them. We know the refugees as we see them everyday.
'We would never allow a young female adventurer in this wood, especially not at night.
'On Tuesday we did not receive any requests for assistance, and nor did any other charities.'
Yesterday some 100 would-be immigrants to Britain were rounded up by a force of French riot police. Most of the men claimed to be from Iraq, Afghanistan or the Middle East, although police believe many were from eastern Europe and the Balkans.
One, who asked not to be named, said: 'Yes, I saw a young journalist with a camera. Lots come this way. I don't know who she was exactly, but she was young, perhaps 30, and a student from London.
'The word is that something happened to her in the woods.'
In 2005 a gang of immigrants was implicated in the rape of a resident of Oye-Plage, near Calais.
Calais became a magnet for immigrants in the late 90s following the opening of the Sangatte Cross Centre, which housed 67000 immigrants over three years. Before its closure in 2002 following an agreement between the French and British governments many tried to jump on to slow-moving trains at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, or hide inside lorries crossing to Britain on ferries.
The election of a new Right Wing council in Calais saw plans to open a Sangatte II abandoned, but would-be immigrants to Britain still arrive by the day. The Home Office said the number of refugees caught entering Britain illegally from Calais has fallen to around 1,500 a year from 10,000 in 2002, when Sangatte closed.
#2
Actually, closing the Sangatte center has found the illegals wandering about the local areas, creating a Feeling of Insecurity, sometime fighting pitch battles pitting smugglers faction against faction, kurds vs iraqis, chechens vs everybody else,... so, IIUC, having the 'jungle' is a way to fixate the problem somewhere and not have them go through the countryside stealing and assaulting people; in many regards, this is a makeshift, tacit re-opening of Sangatte.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/28/2008 15:05 Comments ||
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#4
Actually, closing the Sangatte center has found the illegals wandering about the local areas, creating a Feeling of Insecurityâ¢, sometime fighting pitch battles pitting smugglers faction against faction, kurds vs iraqis, chechens vs everybody else,... so, IIUC, having the 'jungle' is a way to fixate the problem somewhere and not have them go through the countryside stealing and assaulting people; in many regards, this is a makeshift, tacit re-opening of Sangatte.
Why does this sound just like south of the border here from Tijuana to Nuevo Laredo? [rhetorical question]
#5
Looks like this journalism student has been schooled in the wonders of "asylum-seeking immigrants." Wonder if their actions will have any impact on their immigration status in No-Longer-Great Britain.
Posted by: regular joe ||
08/28/2008 18:12 Comments ||
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#6
Sounds like what happened to her is, in microcosm, what is currently happening to Britain due to immigration. If she survives, she'll have learned a very valuable lesson. If.
Troops helped evacuate more than 120,000 people from floods in Bihar, but more bad weather raised fears that rivers would continue to overflow, officials said on Thursday. The flooding, which officials say are the worst in 50 years, was caused after the Kosi river broke a dam in Nepal where it originates, unleashing huge waves of water that smashed mud embankments downstream in Bihar.
Many villagers offered prayers and slaughtered goats to appease the Kosi, known as Bihar's "river of sorrow" for its regular floods and ability to change course. "We are praying to the river goddess and offering her blood since only she can help us", a village woman in the worst affected Supaul district told a local newspaper.
At least two million people have been forced from their homes and a quarter of a million houses destroyed. So far 55 deaths have been officially reported in Bihar, but activists and local media put the toll many times higher. Stranded villagers complained of an unbearable stench from rotting carcasses and the United Nations warned of the spread of water-borne disease.
TV stations showed swirling flood waters pouring into homes through windows, submerging hundreds of villages and roads and railway tracks. Telephone and power lines snapped.
Torrential rains have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where 725 people have lost their lives. Other deaths were reported from Nepal and Bangladesh.
Some experts blame the floods on heavier monsoon rains caused by global warming, while others say authorities have failed to take preventive measures and improve infrastructure.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, flew over devastated areas by helicopter on Thursday.
State officials said that more than 120,000 had been evacuated and kept in more than 100 temporary camps, but bad weather was hampering rescue and relief operations. "We have the army, disaster management teams, police and other groups of rescuers making every effort to save the population," said R.K. Singh, a top disaster management official.
Officials said floods had destroyed more than 227,000 homes and damaged about 100,000 hectares of vegetables, wheat and paddy crops.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/28/2008 16:39 ||
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Sounds like an "illegal" immigrant raid to me. Funny how that word's always left out...
LAUREL, Miss. The largest single-workplace illegal immigration raid in U.S. history has caused panic among Hispanic families in this small southern Mississippi town, where federal agents rounded up nearly 600 plant workers suspected of being in the country illegally.
One worker caught in Monday's sweep at the Howard Industries transformer plant said fellow workers applauded as illegal immigrants were taken into custody. Federal officials said a tip from a union member prompted them to start investigating several years ago.
Fabiola Pena, 21, cradled her 2-year-old daughter as she described a chaotic scene at the plant as the raid began, followed by clapping."I was crying the whole time. I didn't know what to do," Pena said. "We didn't know what was happening because everyone started running. Some people thought it was a bomb but then we figured out it was immigration."
About 100 of the 595 detained workers were released for humanitarian reasons, many of them mothers who were fitted with electronic monitoring bracelets and allowed to go home to their children, officials said. About 475 other workers were transferred to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Jena, La. Nine who were under 18 were transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
John Foxworth, an attorney representing some of the illegal immigrants, said eight appeared in federal court in Hattiesburg on Tuesday because they face criminal charges for allegedly using false Social Security and residency identification. He said the raid was traumatic for families. I wonder how traumatic getting your social security number stolen is?
"There was no communication, an immediate loss of any kind of news and a lack of understanding of what's happening to their loved ones," he said. "A complete and utter feeling of helplessness." Yeah. Next time, have ICE let em know they're coming, ya mean spirited bastards.
The superintendent of the county school district said about half of approximately 160 Hispanic students were absent Tuesday. It looks like Laurel residents will be getting a tax cut...
Roberto Velez, pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Peniel, where an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the 200 parishioners were caught up in the raid, said parents were afraid immigration officials would take them. "They didn't send their kids to school today," he said. "How scared is that?"
Those detained were from Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, said Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman.
Elizabeth Alegria, 26, a Mexican illegal immigrant, was working at the plant Monday when ICE agents stormed in. When they found out she has two sons, ages 4 and 9, she was fitted with a bracelet and told to appear in federal court next month. Her husband, Andres, was not so lucky. "I'm very traumatized because I don't know if they are going to let my husband go and when I will see him," Elizabeth Alegria said through a translator Tuesday as she returned to the Howard Industries parking lot to retrieve her sport utility vehicle.
"We have kids without dads and pregnant mothers who got their husbands taken away," said Velez's son, Robert, youth pastor at the church. "It was like a horror story. They got handled like they were criminals." Illegals are always amazed when they get treated like criminals...
It a felony for an illegal immigrant to accept a job in Mississippi. A message was left with the district attorney's office after hours seeking comment on whether he would use the law to bring state charges against Howard Industries or the workers. Enforce the law? In Mississippi? I would think so. It ain't San Francisco down there.
#1
Very nice work. Pity it took us so long to begin to enforce the immigration laws we have on the books. We can thank George Bush for doing the obvious.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/28/2008 9:57 Comments ||
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#2
But you can count on union-affiliated democrats.
#3
About 100 of the 595 detained workers were released for humanitarian reasons,
The One, ACLU, NAACP, Nation of Islam, Hollywood creeps, leftest donks, all lawyers, US held "political prisoners aka thieves, rapists, gang-bangers, drug dealers, and murders... take note of the buzz phrase for future use.
#4
Funny you should mention unions. Guess the the illegals wouldn't join up. So...
Factory had tension between union, immigrants
LAUREL, Miss. (AP) Union bosses in this region of rural Mississippi have long grumbled that the largest factories here hire illegal immigrants, and that the immigrants were starting to get more overtime and supervisory positions.,Friction between the union and immigrant workers, along with a tipoff at an electrical manufacturing plant, boiled over this week into the biggest workplace immigration raid in the nation's history.
When the first of the 595 suspected illegal immigrants was taken into custody Monday, some fellow workers broke into applause. A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the investigation started three years ago after agents received a tip from a union member.
In interviews with The Associated Press, both union members and immigrants spoke of a simmering tension. At least one immigrant said scare tactics were used to pressure people to join the union. Union members said they resented immigrants, who were often allowed to work as much as 40 hours of overtime a week when other workers were discouraged from doing so. All declined to give their names, saying they feared for their jobs.
Howard Industries, which makes dozens of products from electrical transformers to medical supplies, is in Mississippi's Pine Belt region, an area known for commercial timber and chicken-processing plants.
Robert Shaffer, head of the Mississippi AFL-CIO, said Wednesday that members have long complained that companies in southern Mississippi hire illegal immigrants. "Jackson, Hattiesburg, Laurel and all areas along the coast, it's a little Mexico," Shaffer said. "I'm not against people trying to make living. I have a compassion for those folks. But at the same time, the taxpayers of Mississippi shouldn't be subsidizing a plant that won't even hire their own workers."
In 2002, Mississippi lawmakers approved a $31.5 million, taxpayer-backed incentive plan for Howard Industries to expand. The company, with 4,000 workers, is the largest employer in Jones County, which includes Laurel.
About 2,600 of Howard Industries' workers are in the union. Shaffer said he did not know whether any of those picked up in the raid were union members, or if nonunion workers were offered overtime while union workers were not. Shaffer said offering immigrant workers union membership would depend on the situation, but he doubted it could be done if immigrants were in the country illegally.
Yeah. Right...
Those detained in the raid came from Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru.
Contacted Wednesday, Howard Industries referred reporters to the statement it issued Monday, which said the company "runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for its jobs. It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants." No executives were detained in Monday's raid, but a spokeswoman said the raid was just the first part of an ongoing investigation.
A 30-year-old immigrant from Mexico who has worked at the transformer plant for three years said union representatives pressured immigrants to join the union, sometimes visiting their homes, offering gifts such as shirts and indicating that if they joined the union they would make more money. The immigrant, who was not caught in the raid because he works the night shift, spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name, Jose, because he was concerned about being detained. "The union uses the tactic of saying immigration was coming and the members of the union would not be taken," he said through a translator. Jose said he did not join the union because he wasn't convinced it would come to his side if he were detained, and he felt his dues would not be returned.
At least eight of the workers caught in the raid face criminal charges for allegedly using false Social Security and residency identification.
On Wednesday, hundreds of people lined up outside the plant to apply for jobs as news of the raid spread. A billboard had gone up last week, before the raid, saying the company was hiring. "I need a job and got kids. I heard that they need some help now," said Willie Keys, 20, who applied Wednesday. "All them Mexicans got fired because they didn't have a pass ... All these businesses have been taking Americans' jobs."
The unemployment rate in Jones County was 6.5 percent in July, slightly higher than the national rate of 6 percent but below the state's 8.5 percent rate.
William Gunther, an economics professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, said Mississippi has a labor shortage because people aren't moving there, which could explain why companies might hire illegal immigrants. "That leaves businesses with a serious problem," he said. "That doesn't justify, but it certainly explains why they might be hiring individuals who show up and say, 'I'll work for you.'"
He said businesses could face higher wage costs and consumers could face higher costs for products and services if immigrants are taken out of the economy.
Ruben Castro, who owns La Fiesta Brava Mexican restaurant, is already seeing the effects. He had to bring in workers from a store in another town because he was so busy after the raid, when five other Mexican restaurants in Laurel closed because employees were afraid to come to work. "It hurts the community," he said, because the town will lose 600 people who frequented stores like Wal-Mart and paid sales taxes.
#5
Ship 'em back, but first make sure you get all necessary biometric ID, including DNA, to make certain that if they ever show up again, they'll do hard time for breaking the law. Plus, with the DNA, you can cross-check a lot of localities for crime matches. Illegals commit a heck of a lot more crime than most people think, mainly because the MSM open borders traitors often refuse to publicize it.
It's a good start. Now do more of it--a LOT more, and soon!
#7
Contacted Wednesday, Howard Industries referred reporters to the statement it issued Monday, which said the company "runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for its jobs.
I have no doubt that is a true statement. At the few manufacturing facilities here in East Tennessee employers are not allowed to do any checks other than a social security number. Thay can't ask for proof that the social security number actually belongs to the person using it.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/28/2008 11:07 Comments ||
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#8
the same arguments for continuing slavery were the same arguments for allowing illegal immigration: The economy will collapse, the crops will rot in the fields, they do the work that no one else will do, they are better off being abused here than they would be back home.
Illegal immigration is organized oppression of the world's poor. It should be discontinued because it is immoral.
#9
Taking a page from Cesar Chavez's playbook, eh? (He was an informant for La Migra, after all...)
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
08/28/2008 12:07 Comments ||
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#10
Can someone explain to me the statement that the factories have to hire illegal immigrants because there are no workers available, while at the same time the unemployment rate is 6.5%?
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
08/28/2008 12:23 Comments ||
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#11
Not to mention that hundreds lined up to apply for the vacant jobs, Rambler. What I want to know is why there were Germans among the illegal workers.
#15
The largest single-workplace illegal immigration raid in U.S. history...
I'll bet that if the authorities were doing their job, they could break that record daily. It appears they need the unions to drop a dime before they act.
Posted by: regular joe ||
08/28/2008 18:03 Comments ||
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#16
Cerebellar implants. Set off massive neuromuscular spasms if they try to cross the border without deactivation.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A university student has been strangled to death by a captive 3-meter python at a park in Venezuela where the young man was working as an intern.
