Mystery Blonde Girl: Greece Charity In Appeal

An international search is under way to identify the parents of a blonde girl found in the care of a couple on a Roma camp in Greece.

DNA tests have shown the four-year-old is not related to the pair - and their accounts of how she came to be living with them differ.

Police found the girl, who recognises the name Maria, during a raid on the camp, in Farsala, central Greece, on Wednesday.
She has now been taken into the care of a Greek charity called The Smile Of The Child , which has put out a Europe-wide alert.

A statement from the charity said: "The features of the girl and the controversial claims of the persons who claimed to be the parents of the child led the authorities to collect a DNA sample test.

"The results of DNA testing proved that these people are not the biological parents of the child.
"The Smile of the Child in co-operation with national police authorities is taking all necessary steps to inform the competent actors at national and international level."
The director of The Smile Of The Child praised an observant prosecutor who went on the camp raid along with dozens of police.
Costas Giannopoulos told Greece's Skai TV: "She saw a little blonde head poking out from under the bedclothes. It struck her as odd, and that's how it all started."
Vassilis Halatsis, the police chief handling the case, told Sky News that despite a flood of local and international calls to domestic media and social groups, no parent has come forward to claim the child.
"That makes the case so much more difficult for us," he said.
He said authorities will release pictures of the arrested gypsy couple on Monday and hope it will unravel the mystery surrounding Maria.
Another reason detectives suspect the case could be part of an international trafficking ring is that Greek police records show a related kidnapping case in 2009, the year Maria was born.
Apparently, the couple's various excuses included that the girl was found in a blanket and that she was handed to them by strangers. They later claimed she had a foreign father.
Maria is described as: born around 2009, white, with blue eyes, long blonde hair, 100cm tall and weighing 17kg.
The couple - a 39-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman - have been arrested and are now under investigation for abduction and falsifying identity and family certificates.
They claimed to have 14 children, police said, and had registered different numbers with authorities in three different parts of Greece. Including Maria, the couple only actually had four.
The woman is also said to have claimed to have given birth to six children within a space of less than 10 months.
Police say they also found drugs and unregistered firearms in other parts of the camp, which is about 170 miles (280km) north of Athens.

Officers are now working on the theory that, because of her appearance, Maria may be northern or eastern European.

Her discovery has given hope to the family of Ben Needham - one of the longest-running missing persons cases in British history.
The boy disappeared from outside his grandparent's farmhouse on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.
Ben's sister Leighanna told Sky News: "I believe that the camp the little girl was found in was looked at (during the investigation into her brother's disappearance).
"But 22 years ago, the Greek police were scared of the gypsies and pretty much point-blank refused to go into the camps...so our inquiries into these camps never fully got covered."
The case, which some people have likened to the Madeleine McCann disappearance, has raised concerns about how easy it appeared to be for people to get official documents for children who are not their own.
A spokesman for Madeleine's family said: "This gives Kate and Gerry great hope that Madeleine could be found alive."
The Smile Of The Child director Costas Giannopoulos said Maria was being examined by doctors.
"We are shocked by how easy it is for people to register children as their own," he told the Greek TV station Skai.
"There is much more to investigate ... and I believe police will unravel a thread that doesn't just have to do with the girl."
Greece has only acquired a central system of registration for births in the last five months.

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5-month-old baby killed by airport baggage carousel in Spain

Madrid.....Spanish investigators are trying to figure out how a 5-month-old baby died on a baggage carousel at an airport in Alicante.

A spokeswoman for Spain's airport authority, AENA, said Thursday it's not clear how the baby ended up on the baggage belt for oversized luggage.

"The baby was on the baggage carousel, but could not have gotten there alone. Someone had to put the baby there. I don't know how the baby got there," said the airport spokeswoman, who by custom is not identified.

The infant's mother, an American woman, arrived at the airport late Wednesday on a flight from London's Gatwick airport with her baby and another young child, the spokeswoman said. The father, who is Canadian, was already there waiting at the Alicante airport, she added.

The baggage carousel is a flat, black rubber-type belt that moves only in one direction and is only activated when oversized bags are sent out on it for pickup. It's several feet long and passengers can stand on either side of it or at the receiving end, the spokeswoman said.

She said it was not immediately known if the infant was placed on the belt while it was stopped, or once it had started moving.

An unidentified security officer at the airport told CNN affiliate Atlas she didn't see the incident, but was told that "the mother apparently put (the baby) down on the conveyer belt when she went to reach for something. He was crushed by the conveyer belt and it killed him."

Airport medical personnel rushed to the scene but were unable to revive the infant, the spokeswoman said.

The Spanish Civil Guard said the baby's death appears to be an accident, but an investigation is under way.

After the baby was pronounced dead, the family had to wait for a judge to arrive, by Spanish law, so that the body could be moved. Civil Guards took statements from the parents at the airport, the airport spokeswoman said.

The baggage belt for oversized luggage -- which includes infant car seats and baby strollers -- is at one end of a large baggage claims hall at the Alicante airport, which handles 9 million passengers a year, the spokeswoman said.

The baggage carousel is in a secure area, and passengers go through it to claim their bags before they exit into the public arrivals hall. The father of the baby would not have had access to that area, the airport spokeswoman said.

Civil Guard and National Police spokesmen confirmed the nationalities of the mother and father as American and Canadian, respectively.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Madrid said that U.S. Consular officials are aware of the incident and are providing assistance.

A spokeswoman for the Canadian Embassy in Madrid said she could not comment and referred inquiries to the Canadian government's Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa.

Insurance Agent Buys Anti-Sagging Pants Billboard

Alot of black boys/men sags their pants for the sake of being cool, but the truth of the matter is that there is nothing cool in showing off you behind.

A businessman in Tennessee has a message for young African American men: Pull up your pants.

Insurance agent Fred Davis shelled out $6,000 of his own money to buy this billboard.
It says "Show your mind. Not your behind."

Davis believes men who sag their pants portray an image of crime and poor education.
"If you want to be upwardly mobile, you can't present that image to people who are qualified to make a decision about you."

Davis is also a civil rights activist who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..

He says they fought for future generations to move up a little higher, not for "thuggish mentality."

At least 78 dead after Pakistan bomb attack.

 A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a 130-year-old church in Pakistan after Sunday Mass killing at least 78 people.
This is the deadliest attack on Christians in the predominantly Muslim South Asian country.
Violence has been on the rise in Pakistan in past months,undermining Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's efforts to tame the insurgency by launching peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban.
An assault of this scale is certain to give ammunition to Sharif's critics who are against his peace initiative and believe militants have to be tackled by tough military action.
Explosions struck the historic white-stone All Saints Church in the city of Peshawar as hundreds of parishioners, many of them women and children, streamed out of the building.
Her voice breaking with emotion, she said she had not seen her sister since the explosions ripped through the gate area outside the Anglican church.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the death toll of 78 included 34 women and seven children, in remarks televised live from Peshawar.
More than 100 were injured.
The Taliban-linked militant group TTP Jundullah claimed responsibility within hours of the attack. Christians make up about 4% of Pakistan's population of 180m.
They tend to keep a low profile in a country where Sunni Muslim militants frequently bomb targets they see as heretical, including Christians, Sufis and Shias.
Today's attacks could complicate efforts by Sharif to engage militants in meaningful peace negotiations at a time when roadside bombs, targeted killings and suicide attacks continue unabated.
Attacks on Christian areas occur sporadically around the country but today's assault, in a densely populated Christian residential area in the old walled city in Peshawar, was the most violent in recent history.
In 2009, 40 houses and a church were set ablaze by a mob of 1,000 Muslims in the town of Gojra in Punjab province.
At least seven Christians were burnt to death. Seventeen Christians were killed in an attack on a church in Bahawalpur in 2001.
Some residents, enraged at the lack of adequate security at the church, took to the streets immediately after the attack,burning tyres and shouting slogans.
Shops were closed in the Kohati Gate area where severalother churches are located.
Protests by Christians were also reported in other cities including the violent port city of Karachi and Multan.
A bomb disposal security source said there were two explosions carried out by a pair of attackers. More than 600 parishioners were inside the church for the service.
Pope Francis condemned the blast at a church in Pakistan that killed at least 78 people as an act of "hatred and war".
"Today, in Pakistan, because of a wrong choice, a decision of hatred, of war, there was an attack in which 70 people died."
He said: "This choice cannot stand. It serves nothing. Only the path of peace can build a better world."
The Pope said in unprepared remarks at the end of a one-day trip to the city of Cagliari on the Italian island of Sardinia

Bo Xilai sentenced to life in prison in Chinese corruption case.

A Chinese court has sentenced ousted senior politician Bo Xilai to life in jail after finding him guilty of corruption and abuse of power.
Mr Bo was a rising star in China's leadership circles and cultivated a loyal following through his charisma and populist, quasi-Maoist policies.
He was especially liked among those left out in the cold by China's anything-for-growth economic policies.

But his career was stopped short last year by a murder scandal in which his wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of poisoning a British businessman, Neil Heywood, who had been a family friend.
Mr Bo has the right to appeal within 10 days from tomorrow.

The court in the eastern city of Jinan, where Mr Bo was tried, ordered that all his personal assets be seized.
The court deprived him of his political rights for life, according to a transcript released by the court's official microblog.
"Bo Xilai was a servant of the state, he abused his power, causing huge damage to the country and its people...The circumstances were especially serious," the court said in its judgment.
State media said he would probably appeal, in which case the supreme court in Shandong province, where Jinan is located, would have to hear the case within two months.
The court showed a picture of a handcuffed Mr Bo, with clenched fists in an apparent show of defiance.
He was flanked by two policemen who held him by his shoulders and forearms.
Two more policemen stood by.
Heavy security and roadblocks around the courthouse kept bystanders at bay, with no signs of any Bo sympathisers present.
At the start of the trial a handful showed up to express their support for him.
At the close of Mr Bo's trial last month, prosecutors demanded a heavy sentence, saying his "whimsical" challenge to charges flew in the face of the evidence.
The court rejected Mr Bo's defence almost entirely, aside from one small section of the bribery charge related to travel expenses for Mr Bo's wife and their son Guagua paid for by businessman Xu Ming, for which it said the prosecution's case was flawed.
It also rejected Mr Bo's claims of coming "under psychological pressure" when he said he initially admitted to Communist Party anti-corruption investigators that he had received bribes.
"The pressure Bo Xilai said he came under does not count as being illegal under the rules about forced confession," it said.

Man in serious condition after Dublin stabbing

A man is in a serious condition in hospital having been stabbed in Dublin yesterday evening.
A fight broke out between a number of men on Aungier Street around 7.45pm and one man later received stab wounds to the upper leg on nearby Cuffe Street.
The man, who is in his late teens, was taken to St James’s Hospital where he is described as being in a serious condition.

Gardaí are appealing for witnesses to contact them at Pearse Street Garda station on 01 6669000.

Missing for 15 years: Deirdre Jacob’s parents wait and hope.

Michael and Bernie Jacob, whose daughter disappeared in 1998, say the discovery of Elaine O’Hara’s remains has challenged theories about women who went missing in the 1990s.

 Last Saturday morning in Michael and Bernie Jacob’s house the map came out, as it has done at regular intervals since the couple’s daughter Deirdre, then 18, vanished without trace, a decade and a half ago.Last weekend the couple had just heard the news that skeletal remains had been found on Killakee Mountain, in Rathfarnham in south Dublin. They wanted to identify the spot on the map for themselves, to look at the distance between it and their house in Newbridge, Co Kildare, where Jacob was last seen by a passing motorist as she reached the gate on a July afternoon in 1998.They looked at the map and made an unspoken calculation. How likely was it for someone to have abducted their daughter from under their noses, killed her and brought her body to that mountainside?

This time the map, and gardaí, told them quickly that the remains were not those of their daughter. They were identified as those of 37-year-old Elaine O’Hara, from Killiney, in south Co Dublin.“The spot was more the Dublin side of things from where we live, and the gardaí quickly felt the death was much more recent,” says Bernie.Michael appears relieved that he has come out of this week still able to hope that his daughter could be alive. “At all times you would always hold out the chance that Deirdre took herself off, took herself out of the way for some reason, and that she may decide to return again or make contact. You always hold out for that,” he says.If those bones were his daughter’s, his hope would have been dead with her. “There’s hope, there’s fear; it’s all there. At different times your thoughts carry you in all directions. When that news came first you would say, ‘Maybe it’s not her.’ Maybe then you feel it could be. Then the news from the gardaí starts to go in one direction . . . It’s a roller coaster of emotions. You’re up and down.”Both believe the events of the past week cast their daughter’s disappearance in a new light. They clash with the public perception of Jacob’s case and those of other women whose disappearances were probed for links by the Garda’s Operation Trace in 1998.

“People assumed this lady Elaine O’Hara maybe was depressed, and that was the main element informing people’s theories on what happened to her, how she may have died. But now it turns out that’s not the case,” says Michael.

He believes it proves people shouldn’t believe that the convicted rapist Larry Murphy killed all, or indeed any, of the missing women. Michael says repeated reports promoting one theory, usually based around Murphy’s being a “serial killer”, harm the chances of his daughter’s case being solved.

He believes that when people who might have useful information read these stories they surrender the possibility of having an open mind, that they no longer believe that someone else might have been involved and that their information might be relevant after all.

Military says most hostages are free Troops launch ‘final assault’ on Nairobi mall where 30 hostages are held.

Kenya’s military said last night it had freed most hostages at a shopping mall in Nairobi, where at least 68 people were killed in an attack claimed by Somalia’s Islamist militant group al Shabaab.

“Most of the hostages have been released, and the Kenya Defence Forces has taken control of most parts of the building,” Kenyan military spokesman Colonel Cyrus Oguna told the television station KTN. He did say how many hostages had been held or freed.

The carnage in and around the four-storey building, where heavily-armed fighters opened fire on weekend shoppers on Saturday lunchtime, claimed at least 68 lives with 175 people injured. That toll, which rose steadily throughout yesterday, was expected to climb higher.

Security forces search for gunmen at Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya, at the weekend. Photograph: Tyler Hicks/New York Times service.

US support

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, who lost a nephew in the attack, promised to punish those behind it “swiftly and painfully,” and said Kenya “would not relent on the war on terror”.

US president Barack Obama last night called Kenyatta to offer condolences, and US support in bringing the perpetrators to justice .

The attackers have so far refused any attempts at negotiation, but an al-Shabaab spokesman demanded that Kenya withdraw its troops from Somalia, where they have been fighting Islamist militants since 2011.

“If Uhuru wants peace from us, he should withdraw his troops from Somalia,” spokesman Abu Musab said.

The likely reason why the attackers chose Westgate became apparent yesterday as one embassy after another confirmed some of its citizens had died in the assault.

Three BritonsDavid Cameron confirmed three Britons had died, and said: “We should prepare ourselves for further bad news.”

France said two of its citizens, both women, had died. Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper said two Canadians had died, one of them a diplomat.

The US government said the wife of one of its citizens working for the US Agency for International Development had been killed.

Security sources said there were at least 10 attackers, including one woman, but there could have been as many as 15. There was mounting concern that some of the attackers may have escaped the scene on Saturday when as many as 1,000 people were evacuated or escaped amid chaotic scenes.

Yesterday began with a barrage of gunfire at 7am local time as Kenyan soldiers attempted to storm their way into the ground-floor entrance to the mall’s largest shop, the Nakumatt supermarket.

One of the soldiers who took part in the attack said that two of Kenyan soldiers had been killed.

Suicide bombers kill at least 78 people outside Pakistani church

 Christian women mourn next to coffins of their relatives, who were killed in a suicide attack on a church, in Peshawar yesterday. A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a 130-year-old church in Pakistan after Mass.

 

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a 130-year-old church in Pakistan after Mass yesterday, killing at least 78 people in the deadliest attack on Christians in the predominantly Muslim south Asian country.

Violence has been on the rise in Pakistan in past months, undermining efforts by Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif to tame the insurgency by launching peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban.

An assault of this scale is certain to give ammunition to Mr Sharif’s critics who are against his peace initiative and believe militants have to be tackled by tough military action.

Historic churchExplosions struck the historic white-stone All Saints Church in the city of Peshawar as hundreds of parishioners, many of them women and children, streamed out of the building.

“I heard two explosions. People started to run. Human remains were strewn all over the church,” said a parishioner who gave only her first name, Margrette.

Her voice breaking with emotion, she said she had not seen her sister since the explosions ripped through the gate area outside the Anglican church.

In remarks televised live from Peshawar, Pakistani interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the death toll included 34 women and seven children. More than 100 were wounded.

“Who are these terrorists killing women and children?” he said.

The Taliban-linked militant group TTP Jundullah claimed responsibility within hours of the attack.

“They are the enemies of Islam, therefore we target them,” said the group’s spokesman, Ahmed Marwat.

“We will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistani land,” he added.

Christians make up about 4 per cent of Pakistan’s population of 180 million and tend to keep a low profile in a country where Sunni Muslim militants frequently bomb targets they see as heretical, including Christians, Sufis and Shias.

Yesterday’s attacks could complicate efforts by Mr Sharif to engage militants in meaningful peace negotiations at a time when roadside bombs, targeted killings and suicide attacks continue unabated.

“The prime minister said that terrorists have no religion and targeting innocent people is against the teachings of Islam and all religions,” his office said in a statement.

“He added that such cruel acts of terrorism reflect the brutality and inhumane mind set of the terrorists.”

Attacks on Christian areas occur sporadically around the country but yesterday’s assault, in a densely populated Christian residential area in the old walled city in Peshawar, was the most violent in recent history.

Forty houses and a church were set ablaze in 2009 by a mob of 1,000 Muslims in the town of Gojra in Punjab province. At least seven Christians were burned to death.

Seventeen Christians were killed in an attack on a church in Bahawalpur in 2001.

Lack of securitySome residents, enraged at the lack of adequate security at the church, took to the streets immediately after the attack, burning tyres and shouting slogans. Shops were closed in the Kohati Gate area where several other churches are located.

Protests by Christians were also reported in other cities including the violent port city of Karachi and Multan.

A bomb-disposal security source said two explosions were carried out by a pair of attackers. More than 600 parishioners were in the church for Mass. – (Reuters)