Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 13 Desember 2014 | 23.18
By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent, in Mexico City
A Mexican hitman, who claims to have killed as many as 900 people, has told Sky News how the police and the military are often involved in the planning and execution of his murders.
"Carlos" has been a paid killer for more than 25 years - working for drug cartels, politicians and the military.
We met the hitman in Tepito market - one of the most dangerous places in the whole of Mexico City, despite being at the heart of its smartest district.
The assassin said the network of cartel power is so entrenched in society and powered by so much money that it is unstoppable.
"On some occasions, we have to go to places where weapons are not allowed and then they (police) meet us.
Video:Narco State: Mexico's Drugs War
"They take us to a hotel and they provide all the weapons that we may need, money and everything so that one can do the job one has to do."
The abduction of 43 students last September has forced Mexico into confronting its crime problems.
Carlos believes that the students are already dead, and uses a chilling example from his own experience to explain why he is so certain.
Video:Sky News Talks To A Mexican Hitman
"Let me tell you a story. Some protestors came. We let them in and then we closed the road, we closed the entrance, we closed the exit. When they were stuck in the middle we killed them all," he recounted.
"Then a (rubbish) truck from the army came and collected them all. Then street sweeper machines went past. They opened the road again, as if nothing had happened.
"The students are dead, it is more convenient. For kidnapping you get 160 years, for killing its 35. It's a huge difference, don't you think?"
Video:Where The Cartels Get Their Guns
Mexico is described by many as a "Narco State", where government and civil society appear powerless against drug money, cartels, corruption and terrible violence - committed on an almost daily basis.
This country bordering the United States and Central America has become a transit point for drugs across the world.
The revenues are mind-blowing - tens of billions of dollars a year.
Video:Mexico City's Tepito Market
The demand for what it can deliver to affluent societies is insatiable.
It is the root of the problem of course, and widespread poverty, combined with the need to make a living, are the crumbling foundations of a state teetering on the edge of disaster.
Mexico is in trouble. It is failing. A black market culture where anything can be bought is all-pervading. Nobody is above this. Absolutely nobody.
A Palestinian has thrown acid at an Israeli family, including children, after being given a lift in their car in the West Bank, the army has said.
The man attacked them near a checkpoint outside Bethlehem and close to the Gush Etzion settlement, the military said in a statement to AFP news agency.
A man and four children were hurt, Israeli police and the military told Reuters.
The suspect was shot in the leg by a civilian after getting out of the car and he has since been arrested, AFP reported.
The family was attacked near the Gush Etzion settlement
"A vehicle carrying a family with four girls picked up a hitchhiker," the statement from the army said.
"The hitchhiker threw acid on the passengers, injuring them lightly."
Video:10 Dec: Palestinian Minister Killed
The attack comes after Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein died in a confrontation with Israeli troops in the West Bank on Wednesday.
He was taking part in a tree-planting demonstration in Turmus Aya when he was confronted by Israeli soldiers and tear gas was fired.
Witnesses also said the cabinet member was involved in a scuffle with an Israeli soldier and there were claims he was hit on the chest by an Israeli soldier's helmet and a rifle butt.
He then began to experience breathing problems, and died while he was being taken to hospital by ambulance.
Video:Soldier Row: What Footage Shows
The Palestinian leadership blamed Israel for Ziad Abu Ein's death and threatened to retaliate.
"We are open to taking up any option against the other side," Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said.
Israeli ministers called for calm and US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday as part of attempts to defuse tensions.
Mexico's drug trade is worth between $19 and $29bn (£12.1 and £18.5bn) a year in cash - but takes an immeasurably greater toll in human lives and misery.
Some 90% of the cocaine bound for the US goes through the country, which shares a long border with its northern neighbour.
The narcotics industry makes up between 3-4% of the country's GDP, and employs half a million people.
Murder - even mass murder - is relatively commonplace. On average, someone dies a drugs-related death every half an hour.
There have been more than 132,000 kidnappings since 2006, and the government lists a total of 22,322 people as missing.
Video:Where The Gangs Get Their Guns
There are 10 firearms deaths per 100,000 people - more than twice the rate of the US - despite the fact there is just one legal firearms dealer in the entire country.
Even amid this carnage, the recent abduction of 43 college students made headlines not just nationwide but around the world.
The victims were attacked by officers in the southern city of Iguala after demonstrations there.
Prosecutors say they were handed over by corrupt police officers to a drugs gang that killed them and burnt their bodies.
Police believe a mobile phone belonging to a Mississippi teenager who was burned to death is the "key to everything".
A Facebook campaign to find Jessica Chambers' killer has now been supported by more than 108,000 people - as police trawl through phone records.
It is understood that Miss Chambers received a call on her phone shortly before leaving to buy fuel in Courtland, Mississippi, on Saturday.
Investigators also say the 19-year-old was spotted at a party on the night before her death.
Miss Chambers graduated from South Panola High School
She had returned home and her mother said she had slept for most of Saturday.
When she left the house in the evening she was dressed in pyjama bottoms and so was not expected to stay out long.
Video:Mississippi Teen Burned Alive
CCTV images show Miss Chambers at a petrol station two hours before she was doused in flammable liquid and set alight by the roadside.
She was barely alive when she was found with severe burns and died in hospital shortly afterwards.
Reports suggested her attacker even poured flammable liquid down her throat and nose.
The US Marshals Service is offering a reward of up to $10,000 (£6,360) for information leading to an arrest.
Police have obtained warrants to search Miss Chambers' phone and social media network records, John Champion, district attorney for Mississippi's 17th Circuit, said.
Mr Champion said officers were "following up on leads" and that her phone records were "the key to everything".
The prosecutor said that when firefighters arrived at the scene, Miss Chambers approached one of them and spoke.
She was not on fire, as has been widely reported, the prosecutor said.
Mr Champion did not divulge the teenager's words but said: "It has certainly given us a lead we're following up on."
Amanda Prince said her younger sister Jessica had called their mother from the petrol station and told her she would be home after cleaning her car.
Miss Chambers graduated from South Panola High School last year and recently started a job at a nearby department store, her sister said.
The CIA's spymaster has disavowed abusive techniques used by his agency in interrogating suspects after 9/11, while staunchly defending his officers.
During a rare news conference at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, John Brennan said: "In a limited number of cases, agency officers used interrogation techniques that had not been authorised, were abhorrent and rightly should be repudiated by all.
"And we fell short when it came to holding some officers accountable for their mistakes."
But he said the "overwhelming majority" of his interrogators acted appropriately and "did what they were asked to do in the service of our nation".
Mr Brennan was addressing a Senate report that detailed the US intelligence agency's "brutal" treatment of al Qaeda suspects in a network of secret prisons around the world.
Video:Dick Cheney Slams Torture Report
He told Thursday's news conference the programme was ordered at a time when the US feared more terrorist attacks.
"There were no easy answers," he said.
"And whatever your views are on EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques)… the agency did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country safe and secure."
Sky News' Dominic Waghorn in Washington says the spymaster chose his words carefully, but they will sound mealy-mouthed and disingenuous to CIA critics.
For instance, Mr Brennan said it was "unknowable" whether EITs managed to extract useful intelligence from terrorism suspects.
But he also said the interrogations did help locate Osama bin Laden, while arguing it was unclear if such intelligence could have been gleaned without such methods.
Mr Brennan said that as far as he was aware only three detainees were waterboarded, though the Senate report asserted the number could have been higher.
As he spoke, Senator Dianne Feinstein went online to issue a point-by-point rebuttal of his arguments.
Video:Torture Produces Bad Intelligence
"No evidence that terror attacks were stopped, terrorists captured or lives saved through use of EITs. #ReadTheReport," she tweeted.
Under the programme, detainees were beaten, repeatedly waterboarded and subjected to medically unnecessary "rectal feeding" and "rectal rehydration". One detainee froze to death.
President Barack Obama, who halted his predecessor George W Bush's programme when he came to office, has said the practices were contrary to US values.
But Mr Bush's Vice President Dick Cheney robustly defended the programme on Wednesday night.
"The report's full of crap," he told Fox News, while conceding he had not read it.
The Senate intelligence committee concluded in Tuesday's report that the CIA deliberately misled Congress and the White House about the value of the information its interrogators were gathering.
China and Iran, whose own human rights records have often been criticised by Washington, denounced the abuses, but so did some close US friends like Germany.
The mother of a feared gang leader has survived an apparent murder attempt after she was shot through the front door of her home.
Paramedics treated Lola Hamzy for stomach wounds at the house before taking her to hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery.
The 57-year-old is the mother of Brothers 4 Life gang founder and al Qaeda devotee Bassam Hamzy, who was jailed for life in 2002 for shooting dead an 18-year-old following a nightclub row.
He was also convicted for conspiring to kill a witness due to give evidence against him.
Since being imprisoned he has found himself targeted by criminals from rival gangs.
Mother-of-five Mrs Hamzy, whose home is in Sydney's Auburn suburb, is the second female in the family to be shot through their front door in the last two years.
Another member of the family, Maha Hamzy, Bassam Hamzy's aunt, is now wheelchair-bound after being shot in the legs at her house in March.
Bassam Hamzy's cousin Mahmoud was shot and killed in October last year in an attack thought to have been carried out by gangland rivals.
Inspector Alan Janson from New South Wales Police said: "The family and the home is known to us and all those lines of inquiries we will look at and explore those.
"But until we speak to the victim and obtain some further information, we don't have a lot to go on."
He could not say what type of gun was used in the shooting.
Mrs Hamzy lived at the home alone, but it was unclear whether she was the intended target.
A US Senate report examining the CIA's use of torture on suspected terrorists has caused a political storm on both sides of the Atlantic. Here's what you need to know.
What do we learn from the report?
The US Senate report details the CIA's use of torture on suspected terrorists captured after the September 11 attacks and makes for grisly reading.
Prisoners were subjected to waterboarding and "rectal feeding". They were forced to stand on broken limbs, kept in darkness and made to go without sleep for prolonged periods.
One prisoner died of hypothermia after being forced to sit on a bare concrete floor without pants.
Video:Brennan Admits 'Abhorrent' Actions
Even the head of the CIA, John Brennan, was forced to admit that torture methods used on detainees were "abhorrent".
Who is criticised in the report?
The report concluded that the CIA had deceived the White House, Congress and the public about its interrogation programme and that the information gathered from torture had not helped to thwart terrorist plots.
The executive summary recognises the context of public fear and outrage post 9/11, but it states: "Such pressure, fear, and expectation of further terrorist plots do not justify, temper, or excuse improper actions taken by individuals or organisations in the name of national security.
"The major lesson of this report is that regardless of the pressures and the need to act, the Intelligence Community's actions must always reflect who we are as a nation, and adhere to our laws and standards."
How reliable and balanced is the Senate report?
It is a Democrat-led report that has been criticised by Republicans who were in administration at the time.
There is no doubt the bare facts about torture is reliable, as it has not been contested, but the conclusions about the effectiveness of torture and whether the administration was kept in the dark, have been challenged.
What objections have been raised to its findings?
Former vice president Dick Cheney said it was "full of crap" and a "terrible piece of work" that was "deeply flawed", although he didn't deny some of the techniques were used.
Video:Dick Cheney Slams Torture Report
Mr Brennan, head of the CIA, insisted the interrogation programme as a whole produced "useful intelligence that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives". He said it was "unknowable" whether the specific torture techniques had been key to this.
How significant are the political ramifications in the US?
Clearly many Democrats feel this shows the Bush administration lost control of the CIA and brought the US into disrepute for its techniques.
Bush allies say the president "knew everything he wanted and needed to know". They also argue what happened was necessary.
The Republicans are under fire but it was also a political risk for current President Barack Obama to allow this information to be released. Many Americans will not find themselves conflicted about the use of torture against terrorists and worry the report could lead to a backlash against the US.
How significant are the political ramifications in the UK?
MI5 and MI6 are not implicated in the report, although it has emerged British agencies asked for some redactions; not to cover up involvement in torture but "on national security grounds".
However, in the past the UK has been accused of helping to fly people to countries where they would be put at risk of torture.
The two main cases involving alleged co-operation between British security agencies and the CIA include that of Binyam Mohamed, a UK citizen, who was tortured and secretly flown to Guantanamo Bay and the abduction of two prominent Libyan dissidents - Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Sami al Saadi - who were flown in secret to Tripoli in 2004.
Other considerations are whether the British asked for certain questions to be put to detainees who were subjected to torture, or whether British personnel were present during "enhanced interrogation".
Video:UK Wanted CIA Report Changes
Because of the timeframe (2001-2009), it is Tony Blair's Labour administration that would most likely face questions.
An investigation is being conducted by the Intelligence and Security Committee, led by Conservative Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP.
However, several back-bench MPs led by another Conservative, Andrew Tyrie MP, have called for a judge-led inquiry.
How have allies/enemies of Western powers reacted to the report?
The condemnation of CIA practices has been universal.
Is there any evidence that terror attacks were stopped as a result of enhanced interrogation techniques(EITs)?
Aside from public feeling about the use of torture, this is the big contentious issue. The report says there is not.
At a news conference at the agency's Virginia headquarters, Mr Brennan said: "Let me be clear. We have not concluded that it was the use of EITs within that programme that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them."
But he added: "The cause-and-effect relationship between the use of EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable."
In a contentious footnote the Senate report says that while in custody in Guantanamo Bay British citizen Moazzam Begg provided background information and descriptions of a number of his past associates that have helped shed light on the extent of the Islamic extremist network in the United Kingdom and its ties to al Qaeda.
Video:Experts In CIA Torture Debate
This information helped thwart a notorious bomb plotter called Dhiren Barot.
Mr Begg's lawyers refute suggestions that he "volunteered" information. He insists his treatment amounted to torture. If true, that would mean torture did potentially help thwart a plot in the UK.
What happens next?
Human rights groups and some MPs would like to see a judge-led inquiry into the UK's involvement.
There is, however, an ongoing Intelligence and Security Committee investigation.
Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have indicated that a judge-led inquiry would only happen if the first investigation proved unsatisfactory.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, leading that investigation, says he has full access to MI5 and MI6 files and is confident he will get to the truth.
It's uncertain when this will be complete; one Downing Street spokesperson told Sky News they expected it by "the end of 2015".
A rare Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin has been caught on infrared camera eating a domestic dog in China.
Kuzya, seen wearing a GPS tracking device around his neck, was filmed for two hours devouring the dog on Heixiazi island linking China and Russia.
After eating his fill, the animal disappeared from the camera's view at dawn on Wednesday, according to China Central Television.
Mr Putin tagging a Siberian tiger in 2010
He is now believed to have crossed back into his homeland.
Kuzya has also been blamed for killing goats and other livestock during night-time raids on farms in China.
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Gallery: Putin Meets Big Wigs And Big Cats (February 2014)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Sochi ahead of the Winter Games, kicking off his presence on the Olympic stage by taking top officials to a leopard sanctuary.
Russia is working to reintroduce the Persian leopard to the nearby mountains as part of measures aimed at showing that the Olympic Games will benefit and not hurt the environment.
A remote village in Indonesia has been destroyed in a landslide which has left 17 people confirmed dead and scores more missing.
Rescuers searched through mud with their bare hands to try and find the lost villagers until light faded.
Jemblung village, which had 46 houses, was destroyed when a flood of orange coloured mud and water cascaded down a wooded mountainside.
Hundreds of people have been evacuated from around the village in the Banjarnegara regency of central Java, about 280 miles (450 km) from the capital, Jakarta.
Large swathes of forest land, power lines and houses were buried in the disaster which struck on Friday night.
"There was a roaring sound like thunder," Imam, who lives in a neighbouring village, told television crews. "Then I saw trees were flying and then the landslides. People here also panicked and fled."
Rescuers work to remove bodies from the scene of the landslide
A second resident said there had been no warnings of the likelihood of a landslide.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said 17 people had been killed, 15 rescued, 91 were missing and 423 people from the surrounding areas had been taken to temporary shelters.
Eleven of the 15 rescued were receiving hospital treatment, he said.
"Jemblung village was the most affected," Mr Nugroho said. "The challenge is that the evacuation route is also damaged by the landslide."
A government agency official added that the rescue effort had been suspended as light faded and would resume on Sunday.
A trapped cow is rescued from the mud.
Local reports said five of the dead were found in one car. Rescuers were pictured using bamboo stretchers to carry bodies away.
A rescue team of about 400 people, which included police, military and local volunteers, used their bare hands and makeshift tools to search for people and clear the area.
A lack of a telephone signal and heavy-lifting equipment had hampered the rescue effort along with crowds of onlookers, Mr Nugroho added.
Jemblung had a history of similar disasters, he added.
Mudslides are common in Indonesia during the monsoon season, which usually runs from October until April.
Two US soldiers were killed by Taliban forces in Afghanistan on Friday, an American military official said.
They died during a bomb attack on a Nato convoy near America's Bagram Airfield base in the east of the country.
Meanwhile, at least six Afghan troops were killed after a suicide bomber destroyed a bus in the capital Kabul on Saturday.
A senior court official was also assassinated and 12 Afghan workers were gunned down in the south.
Taliban fighters claimed responsibility for all the attacks and vowed more bloodshed ahead of the official end of Nato's combat mission on December 31.
The scene of the bus bombing in Kabul
It has wrecked claims the insurgency is weakening and highlighted fears Afghanistan could descend into a spiral of violence as the US-led military presence declines.
Nato's force will change at the end of the month from a combat mission to a support role, with troop numbers cut to about 12,500 - down from a peak of 130,000 in 2010.
Earlier on Saturday, Taliban gunmen shot dead a senior Supreme Court official as he left his home in the capital.
Taliban fighters also killed 12 workers clearing mines in southern Helmand province.
Soldiers at the site of the suicide bomb attack
"Taliban gunmen suddenly attacked the deminers with machinegun fire and rockets as they were busy clearing a minefield," said Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial government.
Afghan troops fought with the attackers, killing two insurgents and capturing four others.
