Worlds Craziest People Smuggling Pics
December 31, 2007 | 6 Comments
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These astonishing pictures show the lengths desperate immigrants go to in order to reach Europe.In one image, two men have managed to hide themselves inside the front seats of a Mercedes, with their heads jammed into the plastic head rests.
With a pair of human-traffickers sitting right on top of them, on the hollowed out seats, the immigrants had hoped to be smuggled into Europe.
Their plan failed however and the men were all caught at a border crossing in the Balkans.
A second image shows a man hidden under the bonnet of a car with his body curled dangerously around the engine.
In a third, an illegal immigrant has had himself buried within a car’s dashboard.
Border guards have also come across immigrants wedged inside suitcases or hidden in other secret compartments in the back-seat areas of cars.
The pictures show the methods used by human-trafficking gangs who control a trade estimated by the United Nations to be worth more than £4billion a year.
All the photographs are understood to have been taken at frontiers in and around the Balkans during the past year.
They were sent to UN investigators and circulated in a package marked “No Visa Required”.
Kosovo and Bosnia - which have many unmanned border crossing points - are two of the main land transit routes for people traffickers.
Massive efforts have been made in both territories to tighten the borders but officials admit they remain gateways to the West. Britain and Germany are the destinations of choice for the immigrants.
Illegals pay up to £10,000 to be smuggled into Europe, leaving them and their families in debt for years to come.
It is thought that 50,000 illegal immigrants passed through the Balkans last year alone. Border checks are becoming increasingly effective, however, and guards can call on machines that will detect a human presence anywhere in a vehicle.
This has forced the people-smugglers to take greater risks with their clients’ safety or even abandon them once they have received payment.
In Bosnia, one group of illegals was shown a lake, given a boat and told Italy was a two-hour row away. They were arrested by police waitingat the far side of the lake.
“The racketeers are exploiting what is a huge market and they treat human life as a commodity,” one senior investigator told the Mail yesterday.
“This is illustrated by these pictures. There is little regard for human life or dignity. These people should be seen as victims. If they don’t go into the hiding places, they are told they will simply be abandoned and never make it.
“They have no choice and the traffickers know that.” Officials say the hiding places in these photographs would have been used by immigrants at borders and police checkpoints only.
Investigators say that reports of “amnesties” for 100,000 asylum seekers in Britain are being used by people-smugglers to drum up business.
In a controversial move, the Home Office is to allow a further 165,000 aslyum seekers whose files have been forgotten to allow to stay in Britain.
Benazir Bhutto shooting footage
December 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
A Pakistani television station has released footage which it says shows a gunman firing at opposition leader Benazir Bhutto before an accomplice detonates a suicide bomb.
The new, exclusive images from the Pakistani-based DawnNews TV show a young gunman, wearing sunglasses and dressed in a light-brown sports jacket, firing at Ms Bhutto as she stands out of the sunroof of her Range Rover after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday.
The footage, posted on Sky News, shows Ms Bhutto shortly before the shooting, and prior to the suicide blast, contradicting official claims that she ducked to avoid the shots and cracked her skull on the sunroof, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.
The Government’s version, which included only partial footage of the attack, has been met with widespread derision.
Ms Bhutto’s senior aides inside the vehicle are adamant she was shot.
Last night, Pakistan Interior Ministry officials again insisted Ms Bhutto died after cracking her skull off a lever of the vehicle’s sunroof.
Obama Girl, Britney boy and more top YouTube videos in 2007
December 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Videos by a self-styled Obama Girl, a fan’s tearful defence of Britney Spears and an attack by a herd of buffaloes on a pride of lions were among the most popular clips on YouTube.com in 2007.
But the videos were not just popular because of the millions of times they were seen on the YouTube website, which allows users to post their homemade videos.
The rankings, released by YouTube today, took into account the most shared, most discussed, top rated and general popularity of clips to determine which ones people were thinking and talking about most.
Among the year’s favourites were the Obama Girl video, created by Barely Political, featuring an attractive young singer professing her love for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. It has been viewed more than four million times and many more times on television after being featured on news and talk shows.
While it was clear Barely Political was producing political satire in the name of entertainment, internet surfers might initially have been less certain what Chris Crocker was trying to do in his Leave Britney Alone clip in September.The clip is a close-up of Crocker breaking down in tears as he berates the media and paparazzi for hounding pop singer Spears as she lurched from one tabloid scandal to another.
YouTube said the melodramatic two-minute clip made Crocker an instant YouTube star, has been watched more than 14 million times and is the fourth most-commented-on video in YouTube’s history.
In terms of sheer viewer numbers it was an unlikely combination of amateur production values, patience and timing that made an eight-minute video titled Battle at Kruger so compelling it has been watched more than 21 million times on YouTube.The video captured the battle between a herd of water buffaloes, a pride of lions and a crocodile over a young calf.
The clip, filmed by Jason Schlosberg on safari in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, has been featured on TV news bulletins and in Time magazine. Mr Schlosberg has a documentary coming on the National Geographic Channel next year based around his original film.
Other popular videos included performances by up and coming singers in their bedrooms, including Esmee Denters from the Netherlands singing Justin Timberlake’s What Goes Around and Tay Zonday singing an original composition Chocolate Rain.A piano playing cat named Nora and otters holding hands also were among the favourites on YouTube.
Couple charged with Christmas murders
December 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Michele Anderson and Joseph McEnroe, both 29, stand accused of shooting to death three generations of Anderson’s family, including her parents, at their remote rural home in Carnation, 34km east of Seattle.
If eventually found guilty, Anderson and McEnroe could face the death penalty, prosecutor Dan Satterberg told reporters at a press conference to confirm the charges.
“Given the magnitude of the crime, we will give serious consideration for the state’s ultimate penalty,” said Satterberg.
Local media reports citing court documents have said Anderson and McEnroe, who lived in a mobile home on the victims’ property, had attacked Anderson’s parents on Monday.
The Seattle Times reported Anderson and her partner then shot dead her brother and his wife and their two young children, aged six and three.
The couple have admitted carrying out the shootings, according to a police report cited by the newspaper.
No motive has been revealed but sources familiar with the investigation have told local media a family financial dispute could have triggered the killings.
Mischa Barton jailed on DUI charge
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Actress Mischa Barton was arrested and briefly jailed on Thursday on suspicion of drunken driving, marijuana possession and driving without a license, Los Angeles police said.
Barton, 21, best known for her role as Marissa Cooper on the hit Fox television drama “The O.C.,” was pulled over while driving over in West Hollywood around 3 a.m.
Police said her vehicle was straddling two lanes of traffic and said she failed to signal when making a turn.
“During Ms. Barton’s detention, it was determined that she was an unlicensed driver and was driving while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage,” the official report said.
She was also suspected to be in possession of marijuana and an unidentified controlled substance, said Sgt. John Hocking.
Barton was jailed in lieu of $10,000 bail and spent about seven hours behind bars before being released, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Barton’s publicist did not return calls for comment.
The English-born actress made her movie debut in the 1997 Sundance Film Festival favorite “Lawn Dogs” and appeared in such films as “The Sixth Sense” and “Notting Hill.”
Barton is the latest in a string of young Hollywood celebrities to be arrested this year, including Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan.
