1. border guards ‘key to trafficking in N. Koreans’

North Korean and Chinese border guards play a vital part in the trafficking of North Korean women to China, the Asahi Shimbun reported on Thursday.  In a feature report, the Japanese daily quoted a Chinese border guard as testifying he caught a few female North Korean defectors in their teens and 20s crossing the Duman (or Tumen) River and handed them over to a Korean-Chinese human trafficker.

The Chinese border guard said he gets requests from a trafficker in China and informs his North Korean counterparts, who then ask a trafficker in the North to find suitable women. The North Korean guards then let the women pass in the area on the Chinese guard’s watch. This particular Chinese border guard alone had sold some 40 to 50 women per year this way.

Traffickers reportedly pay about 6,000 to 7, 000 yuan (approximately W1.02 million to W1.19 million) a head. Of the money, 4,000 yuan go to the Chinese border guard, who hands 1,000 yuan over to a North Korean guard. The Chinese guard added, “If they are told they can eat to their hearts’ content [in China], many North Korean women are happy to be on their way.” An estimated 150 human traffickers work in the border area.

source: chosun ilbo

2. Sweden: rape suspicions mount against ex-police chief — possible tie in to sex ring involving “well-known men in high positions”

The allegations directed at a former Swedish police chief suspected of rape continued to grow on Friday with at least five women and girls now thought to be involved in the case. Göran Lindberg, a respected law enforcement official who recently retired after a career spanning more than 20 years, is now suspected of rape and plotting to rape at least five women and girls.

On Friday Södertorn District Court appointed Caroline Rainer as the plaintiff assistant for the seventh woman or girl involved in the police investigation against Lindberg.

…Göran Lindberg, who as an active police officer developed an international reputation for giving talks on the importance of gender equality and the perils of sexual harassment, was arrested on January 25th on suspicion of raping a woman and attempting to rape several children. He was arrested at a hotel in Falun in northern Sweden, where he is suspected of having been in the course of plotting to rape a girl.

…The case against Lindberg has its origin in the investigation into a suspicious death in the suburb of Bredäng, in southern Stockholm, in July 2009 when a 60-year-old man mysteriously fell to his death from a balcony.  Lindberg’s name unexpectedly turned up after police launched a preliminary investigation into the suspected murder. During the investigation police confiscated a computer and a mobile phone which belonged to the deceased 60-year-old. When investigators examined the contents of the machines and found the names of several men, their suspicions were aroused and they handed the matter over to the Stockholm County police force.

After intense media speculation into Lindberg’s links to a purported sex ring, police leading the investigation issued a denial that there were further suspects under investigation. “There are no other suspects at the moment,” said Jonas Trolle, who is leading the 25-person police team investigating the case.  ”All the speculation about well-known men in high positions has nothing to do with our investigation,” said Trolle in a statement on January 31st, adding that it was important that the media exercises some restraint.

more @ the local

3. Germany: documents in Kunduz affair may have been destroyed

Military documents detailing the events surrounding a deadly bombardment in Afghanistan now under investigation by the German parliament have reportedly been destroyed.

The news came a day after Colonel Georg Klein, the German commander who ordered the controversial air strike that killed more than 140 Afghans last year, appeared before a parliamentary inquiry to defend his actions. Daily Bild reportedly has obtained documents that prove special forces were involved reading: “Clearance to destroy and liquidate under terms of ZDv 2/30 hereby issued.” This number 2/30 central service command, abbreviated as “ZDv,” indicates that files are to be “shredded or cut up with the shredder so that the contents are neither recognisable nor could be made recognisable,” the paper said.  An inside source on the parliamentary investigative committee told the paper that they believed the documents had been destroyed.

more @ the local

4. and MI5 didn’t do anything wrong either

The head of MI5 has issued a strong defence of the security service, denying that his staff had withheld documents relating to Binyam Mohamed from the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) or sought to cover up its involvement in the torture of detainees.

The director general, Jonathan Evans, said claims by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, that there was a “culture of suppression” within the service were “the precise opposite of the truth”. He also contacted the ISC to deny that the service had withheld documents relating to Mohamed, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, the ISC’s chairman, Kim Howells, said last night.

more @ guardian

also see aangirfan: MI5 and Shaker Aamer; deaths in Guantanamo

5. the modern day versions of Stella Capes, Mandy Rice Davies, Christine Keeler, etc. (see aangirfan: the classic sex scandal)

…When I move on to Boujis - Princes William and Harry’s favourite club - I find girls who are still pretty ordinary looking. Their particular targets are the wealthy men from landed families and the financial traders who flock to the club, and the only suggestion that these girls are classier than the Movida girls is that they wear tights with their six-inch skirts.

But wherever I go, whatever the club - famous, aristocratic, fashionable or discrete - one thing is the same: it’s shocking how shameless the girls are….They know they’re trading sex for drinks, and the chance of a footballer or a celebrity or a rich boy - depending on the club - taking them back to a hotel for a liaison which, if they’re lucky, that man might actually remember.  Because for these girls, with so many of them literally flinging themselves at the men with money, it’s all about being memorable.

more @ daily  mail

6. Philippines: military exec accuses top cop of complicity in Maguindanao massacre

MANILA, Philippines—A senior police commander of Maguindanao tried to cover up the abduction and brutal slay of 57 people in the province last November 23, a top military official told the court Friday. Taking the witness stand at the hearing of the rebellion case against the Ampatuans, Lieutenant General Raymundo Ferrer said Chief Inspector Sukarno Dicay denied seeing the convoy of vehicles carrying the victims moments before they were held at gunpoint and executed by armed men allegedly led by Andal Ampatuan Jr.

Dicay, then the acting chief of the Maguindanao police office, had previously admitted in a sworn affidavit that he headed the setting up of a checkpoint near the massacre site in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town. Ferrer, the commander of the Eastern Mindanao Command, said Dicay’s attempt to hide the crime proved that there was a “breakdown of loyalty” of state forces in Maguindanao which later led to a “breakdown of law and order” in the province.

more @ inquirer

7. and just so you know, the only people who ever conduct child sacrifices are impoverished people from the deep back woods of third world countries. capice?

KATHMANDU - NEPALI police said on Thursday they had arrested four people in connection with the death of an eight-year-old girl believed to have been killed in a human sacrifice. Police said the child’s throat had been slit and her body pierced with a sharp weapon. Local media reported her blood was found inside a brick kiln along with religious offerings of money and food.

‘The circumstances of the killing in early December suggest the girl was sacrificed,’ local police official Narhari Adhikari told AFP from Rupandehi district in the south of Nepal. ‘We have arrested four people including the owner of the brick kiln on charges of murder. Two of those arrested confessed they killed the girl as an offering to the gods to bring good fortune to the business,’ he added.

Mainly Hindu Nepal is deeply traditional and religious rituals are a part of everyday life in the impoverished country. Around 80 percent of the 27 million-strong population are Hindu.

Nepal outlawed human sacrifices in 1780 but experts say it is still practised by some communities in poor rural areas. ‘Some people still believe sacrificing human beings will appease the gods, improve their fortunes and raise their social status,’ said Chunda Bajracharya, professor of cultural studies at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University. ‘Such beliefs are the outcome of extreme ignorance.’ – AFP

source: straits times