At Least 12 Killed After Islamist Gunmen Attack Office of French Magazine, Assailants Still At Large

Editors of a popular French magazine and three local police officers were killed when masked gunmen stormed the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Wednesday and opened fire. The magazine was firebombed a few years ago after they had published cartoon images of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and chief editor Stéphane Charbonnier was assigned a police bodyguard. Both Charbonnier and his police bodyguard were killed after shortly after the gunmen had forced their way into the building. Eyewitnesses and survivors said that the attack inside the Charlie Hebdo office lasted five minutes and that the three masked gunmen spoke French fluently but also called out "Allah Akhbar!". As local police responded to reports of gunfire in the area and the gunmen opened fire on two officers [both reportedly unarmed- NANESB!]- one of the attackers was videotaped walking up to a wounded policeman laying on the sidewalk and shooting him point blank before getting in a car and driving off with his accomplices. By Wednesday night, the youngest suspect in the attacks had turned himself in to authorities in suburban Paris.

The two suspects still at large have been identified as two brothers- Said Kourachi, 34, and his younger brother Cherif Kourachi, 32. Both suspects were known to both US and French officials- both of them were placed on Homeland Security's No-Fly list while Cherif was jailed for 18 months for attempting travel to Syria in order to aid Islamist fighters fighting US troops in Iraq. More recently, both brothers are said to have travelled to Yemen in 2011 and received training with Al Qaeda affiliates in the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula.

Malaysian Airliner Shot Down Over Eastern Ukraine

At least 298 people are dead after a surface to air missile brought down a Kuala Lumpur-bound Malaysian Airlines flight over Eastern Ukraine on Thursday. The flight- Malaysia Airlines Flight 17- had originated in Amsterdam and was flying more than 32,000 feet over the strife-torn Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

In recent weeks, that part of the Ukraine has seen fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatist militias that are essentially Kremlin proxies along Ukraine's border with Russia. Earlier in the week, separatists boasted that they had shot down a Ukrainian military An-26 transport plane over the eastern city of Lugansk.

After the Ukrainian 'Maidan' uprising ousted Kremlin allied president Viktor Yanukovych earlier this year, Russia responded by annexing the strategically important Crimea peninsula- part of the Ukraine, but home to a number of strategic Russian naval facilities. After a hastily put together 'referendum' in which Moscow claimed the populace of the Crimea wanted to become part of Russia, masked fighters claiming to be pro-Russian separatists began seizing public buildings in key cities in the eastern Ukraine. However, it's widely believed these 'separatists' are acting on direct orders from the Kremlin. In May, shortly after candy tycoon Petro Poroshenko won a special election called after Yanukovych fled the country, the Ukrainian military launched a series of counterattacks culminating in a raid on Donetsk's international airport in late May that killed dozens of pro-Russian separatists who were using the buildings as headquarters.

The 'rebels' retaliated by shooting down Ukrainian military aircraft over eastern Ukraine- the deadliest of which was when a Ukrainian Defense Ministry Il-76 transport was shot down while on approach over the eastern city of Lugansk on June 14th, killing all 49 on board. Just days prior to the downing of Flight MH17, two Ukrainian military aircraft were shot down over the restive eastern part of the country.

An hour before news broke of Flight MH17 going down, pro Russian separatist leader Igor Strelkov boasted of shooting down an aircraft on Russian social media site Vkontakte [similar to Facebook- NANESB!] complete with the ominous line 'We warned them not to fly in our skies'. Although it was quickly deleted after news of MH17 being shot down broke internationally, several online observers were able to obtain screencaps of the damning message. In addition to the Russian government caught editing the Wikipedia entry on Flight MH17 on Friday, Ukraine's SBU intelligence agency released what they claim is a telephone conversation between separatist commanders and Russian officers, with the separatists notifying them they had just shot down a civilian airliner.

It appears to capture the chaotic moments after the plane was shot down — and the realization that it was a passenger plane rather than a Ukrainian transport plane, which had been targeted in recent days by the Russia-backed separatists.

"We have just shot down a plane," says a man the SBU identified as Igor Bezler, a Russian military intelligence officer and leading commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

That call came just 20 minutes after the crash and was placed to a person identified by Ukraine’s SBU as a colonel in the main intelligence department of the general headquarters of the armed forces of the Russian Federation Vasili Geranin, according to Ukraine security officials.

But in a second tape released by the agency, two men identified as "The Greek" and "Major" discuss the debris field and the fact the the plane was a civilian aircraft.


“It’s 100 percent a passenger [civilian] aircraft,” Major is recorded as saying, as he admitted to seeing no weapons on site. “Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper.”

The Boeing 777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down by what U.S. intelligence sources confirm was a surface-to-air missile near the village of Chornukhine, Luhansk Oblast, some 30 miles inside the the border with Russia.

The second conversation, if verified as authentic, could dispel Russian separatist claims that it was the Ukrainian military that shot the plane down. According to the transpcript:

Major: "These are Chernukhin folks who shot down the plane. From the Chernukhin check point. Those cossacks who are based in Chernukhino."

Grek: "Yes, Major."

Major: "The plane fell apart in the air. In the area of Petropavlovskaya mine. The first '200' [code word for dead person]. We have found the first '200.' A Civilian."

Greek: "Well, what do you have there?"

Major: "In short, it was 100 percent a passenger [civilian] aircraft."

Greek: "Are many people there?"

Major: "Holy [expletive]! The debris fell right into the yards [of homes]."

In a third intercepted conversation released by the SBU — which the agency says took place about 40 minutes after insurgents seemed to realize they had shot down a civilian plane — Cossack commander Nikolay Kozitsin tells an unidentified separatist that the fact the Malaysia Airlines plane was flying over the combat zone likely meant it was carrying spies.

"That means they were carrying spies," Kozitsin allegedly says. "They shouldn’t be [expletive] flying. There is a war going on."

At this point, the most likely scenario is that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by pro-Russian separatists who misidentified the aircraft as a Ukrainian ministry of Defense transport plane and opened fire with a surface to air missile system known as the 'Buk' SA-11 or an updated variant. The 'Buk' is a complex, crew serviced weapons platform that is mounted on a tracked or wheeled vehicle. Both Russia and the Ukraine militaries have the SA-11 Buk in their inventory, but pro-Russian separatists from the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic boasted of seizing heavy weapons- including an SA-11 launcher- from a Ukrainian air defense facility in late June. On Friday, the Ukrainian government released a brief video of a Buk missile system with at least one missile missing on a flatbed trailer purportedly heading towards Russian territory. For its part, Russia has lobbed accusations that Kiev downed the airliner [a civilian aircraft that was within moments of leaving it's airspace at an altitude of 32,000 feet, no less- NANESB], prompting one English-language RT correspondent to abruptly resign.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the flight data recorder for MH17 is almost certainly in territory controlled by the pro-Russian Donetsk militia. Should it be recovered and sent to Moscow, international aviation experts claim it will most likely be doctored and anything that incriminates Russia or their proxies in Donetsk will be removed. There is also the likelihood that MH17's descent was so abrupt and catastrophic that they black box flight recorders may yield little in the way of data. Even so, heavily armed militiamen had prevented international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from examining the crash scene on Friday. 193 of Flight MH17's passengers were Dutch- including an American who held dual citizenship with Holland and 22 schoolchildren from the town of Roosendaal, and amid reports of militiamen compromising the crash site, pickpocketing the scattered bodies and dumping dozens of bodies from the crash site by the side of a road, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said Putin has one 'last chance' to show he's serious about helping recover the bodies and personal effects

Despite the ongoing conflict on the ground, the skies above the eastern Ukraine weren't off-limits to commercial airliners. According to online aviation tracking website FlightAware.com, other commercial carriers such as Lufthansa and Air India were routinely flying through eastern Ukraine airspace prior to the downing of Flight MH17.

70 Years Ago Today

On June 6th, 1944, the Allied forces from the USA, Great Britain and Canada turned the tide against the occupying German Wehrmacht along the coast of Normandy.

Deposed Ukrainian President Yunukovych Reportedly Flees Ukraine as Masked Gunmen Take Parliament, Airport in Crimean Region

Less than a week after the closing ceremony of the Sochi winter games and Ukrainian president Yanukovych's exodus from Kiev, Russian news agency RIA Novosti is reporting that the deposed Ukrainian leader has fled the volatile Crimean peninsula to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Thursday night. Yanukovych's flight reportedly received fighter escort to the southern Russian city once inside of Russian airspace.

Meanwhile, the nominally autonomous Crimean peninsula has become the new flashpoint in the Ukraine as ethnic Russians clashed with Ukrainian nationalists in Simferopol. The strategically situated peninsula is majority Russian but still considered part of the Ukraine since the 1992 breakup of the Soviet Union. During the breakup, Russia and the newly-independent Ukraine reached an agreement to partition the Soviet Navy's Black Sea Fleet in exchange for ongoing use of the Crimean port of Simferopol.

Shortly after the 2008 Russian incursion into the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Yanukovych's predecessor- Viktor Yushchenko- announced that the lease on the Sevastopol naval base would not be leased past 2017. However, Yanukovych reversed course on Yushchenko's decision and agreed to extend to lease on the Sevastopol facility in exchange for discounted natural gas from Russia in 2010.

In the early morning hours on Thursday, dozens of masked, heavily armed gunmen seized the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol and raised a Russian flag on the roof. Later in the day, masked men in fatigues but with no insignias took up positions in Simferopol's airport- the main air hub in the region. Eyewitnesses say the men arrived in trucks adorned with the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet insignia and the road leading to the airport was now ringed with checkpoints manned by armed men in plainclothes with a Russian flag raised at each one. The takeovers come shortly after Russian President Vladmir Putin ordered troops to mobilize on the Ukraine's doorstep. Ukraine's interim president- who the Kremlin does not recognize as the Ukraine's legitimate government- has called the 'mystery troops' occupying the parliament building and airport in Simferopol a 'Russian incursion'.

Crimea's parliament had voted to oust the region's premier on Thursday and a referendum on greater autonomy from Kiev is set to take place on May, around the same time as the rescheduled Ukrainian presidential elections are slated to take place.

Meanwhile, Israel has expressed concerns that the makeup of the opposition groups and demonstrators that ousted Yanukovych includes ultranationalist, anti-Semitic and pro-fascist parties such as Svoboda. Op-ed pieces in Israeli media are calling for the Ukraine's 65,000 or so Jews to 'come home' to Israel amid concerns that racist and anti-Semitic groups could take advantage of the turmoil on the Ukraine to step up attacks on Jews and other minority groups. On Monday, a newly built Chabad facility in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Zaporozheye was firebombed- although Chabad officials say the damage was 'mostly cosmetic and the arsonists were caught on camera.

Anti-Semitism is nothing new in the Ukraine- there have been vicious pogroms and purges directed at the Jews in Kiev since medieval times. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union shut down Jewish groups and synagogues, exiling many Jews in other Soviet republics thousands of miles away. During World War II, the occupying Nazis exterminated Jews and other Ukrainians- the most infamous incident was the Babi Yar massacre in which SS Officers- aided by Ukrainian collaborators- massacred more than 30,000 Ukrainian Jews in a ravine outside of Kiev over two days in September 1941.

Towards later years of the Soviet Union, many Jews in the Ukraine and elsewhere in the USSR began to take advantage of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glastnost and peristroika to move overseas to the USA or Israel.

UPDATE 2/28- Moscow has admitted the troops with no insignia that took up positions at the Simferopol Airport are in fact Russian. The troops that initially set up positions in Crimea's parliament and the airport came from the Russian naval base on the Crimea while additional troops from Russia were flown in.

Ukrainian President Yanukovych Flees Kiev as Demonstrators Overrun Presidential Compound, Topple Lenin Statues

As anti-government Maidan protestors gained increasing control over parts of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, President Yanukovych fled his presidential compound to the majority-Russian Crimean port of Sevastopol on Friday.

While Russia denounced the ousters of Kremlin-allied Yanukovych as 'Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks', Ukraine's parliament voted to strip Yanukovych of office and issue a warrant for his arrest in the death of dozens of Maidan protestors in clashes with police last week.

Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchinov was named the interim president of the Ukraine while former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison and flown to Kiev to address the victorious pro-Western Maidan demonstrators.

Tymoshenko, 53, was freed from prison Saturday after two-and-a-half years, most of them spent in a detention hospital.

Dressed in black, she later emerged at Kiev's Independence Square in a wheel chair. Cheers erupted.

Tearfully, she hailed the sea of protesters, who listened and occasionally waved.

"Today, Ukraine has finished with this terrible dictator," she said, referring to ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

She then passed on a not-so-subtle message.

"There'll be no Ukraine but the Ukraine you want," she said. "And I'm the guarantor of that Ukraine."

The polarizing former Prime Minister has a complicated relationship with Yanukovych

Both have dominated the nation's politics for years. Both have a rivalry that dates years.

Her international popularity soared a decade ago as a result of her ardent speeches that helped overturn Yanukovych's presidential win in 2004. She's considered a hero of the country's 2004 Orange Revolution, a wave of peaceful protests that swept her and Viktor Yushchenko into power as Prime Minister and President, respectively.

The same revolution successfully overturned what many believed was a largely false presidential win by Yanukovych.

But the promise of the revolution soon turned sour. The two feuded publicly, prompting Yushchenko to fire her a few months into her term.

In 2007, Tymoshenko was back as Prime Minister. But she was dogged by accusations of irregularities and overlooking the nation's economic problems.

Her tense working relation with Yushchenko did not help their case. Analysts say it was one of the reasons she lost to Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential elections.

After Yanukovych won that election, Tymoshenko, was forced out of office and into the courtroom. In 2011, she was on trial over a costly natural gas agreement that she signed with Russia while she was Prime Minister.

In October of that year, a Ukrainian court found her guilty of abuse of authority for signing overpriced gas contracts with Russia and sentenced her to seven years in prison.

The prosecutor said the gas deals inflicted damage to the country amounting to more than 1.5 billion hryvnias (almost $190 million at the exchange rate at the time). In addition to the sentence, the court ruled she must repay the money.

Amnesty International slammed the verdict as "politically motivated" and called for the release of Tymoshenko, who was Prime Minister from January to September 2005, and December 2007 to March 2010.

The case against her was widely considered politically motivated, and the United States and other Western nations called her "a political prisoner."

Both Tymoshenko and Yankukovych have been accused of being oligarchs who have consolidated their power and used the presidential office for personal gain. On Saturday, Maidan demonstrators made their way to Yanukovych's hastily-abandoned presidential mansion. According to watchdog website opendemocracy.net, Yanukovych's presidential salary as the equivalent of US $25,000 per year- yet Yanukovych's mansion in Mezhyhirya is worth an estimated US $75 million and features a private zoo, antique car collection and life-size mock galleon and marina.



Meanwhile, the nationalist Svoboda Party used the collapse of the government to start tearing down statues built to honor Vladmir Lenin that date back to the Cold War- some statues in the eastern and central part of the Ukraine were never torn down with the collapse of the USSR either due to the high Russian population or lingering nostalgia for the old Soviet union by die-hard communists.

Meanwhile, Luxembourg-based steelmaker Arcelor-Mittal [NYSE- MT] announced that they would be removing a Lenin statue and temporarily relocating foreign workers on the grounds of their facility in the Ukraine.

The next round of presidential elections were scheduled to take place in February 2014, but with the ousting of Yanukovych the parliament has now moved election day up to May 25th, 2014.

Russia has said they do not recognize the interim government and there are concerns that the turmoil in the Ukraine will provide Russia with the pretext to change previously negotiated prices for natural gas imported from Russia. Although the Ukraine has sought to diversify its imports of natural gas- as well as exploit their own shale reserves- due to previous disputes with Russia- by early 2014 Energy and Coal minister Eduard Stavytsky said that the Ukraine was importing natural gas almost exclusively from Russia due to a clear price advantage.

Death Toll Climbs as Police and Protestors Clash in Ukrainian Capital

At least 77 people were killed in Kiev on Thursday after Ukrainian officials claimed that riot police opened fire on antigovernment demonstrators advanced on their positions around government buildings.

Ambulances ferried dead and wounded to hospitals after a truce that had been declared Wednesday night fell apart hours later. At a makeshift medical center inside a cathedral, some two dozen doctors from across the country treated those they could as a steady stream of cars delivered medicine, food and other supplies.

Medics working with the opposition said that most of the casualties were civilians, clad in motorcycle helmets and carrying homemade shields fashioned from wood and metal, apparently shot by snipers.

Several corpses, some covered in sheets, others in Ukrainian flags, were laid out on Kiev's main street and in the lobby of a downtown hotel, which served as a first-aid station and a morgue.

The death toll for the week climbed to 77, according to the government; opposition representatives put it at more than 100. Ukraine's Interior Ministry said 16 police officers were among the dead.

Independence Square in Kiev in April 2009, left, when a Ukrainian student group formed a smiley face, and on Thursday, as protesters inspected damage from recent clashes with government forces. .

Both sides braced themselves for more fighting. On Kiev's Independence Square, protesters buttressed their defenses and their chants against the president turned from "Get the criminal out" to "Death to the criminal."

In addition to the 16 police officers the Ukrainian Interior Ministry claimed were killed in clashes with demonstrators while the antigovernment protestors who had been camped out in Kiev's Independence Square to demonstrate against President Yanukovytch's vote against closer ties with the European Union claimed that police snipers shot and killed 20 in the demonstrator's camp. The EU decision by Yanukovytch's cabinet prompted fears that the Ukraine would fall back into the Kremlin's sphere of influence barely 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Protestors also seized the central Post Office in Kiev and the interior ministry claimed that they had also overrun a police station in suburban Kiev and were able to loot the armory. Ukrainian television networks showed video of some of the protestors being cut down by police gunfire while demonstrators claimed to have hindered reinforcements from arriving by blocking streets and captured 67 police officers amid clashes.

Ukrainian Leader Takes Leave of Office Amid Escalating Clashes Between Police and Demonstrators in Kiev

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych announced on Thursday that he was taking 'indefinite' sick leave on Thursday amid ongoing clashes between riot police and antigovernment demonstrators- the biggest domestic turmoil in the former Soviet republic since the 2005 'Orange Revolution'.

The official line is that the 63-year-old Yanukovych has an acute respiratory illness and a high fever.

But the opposition isn’t buying it. Some say he is looking for an excuse to avoid further discussions with opposition leaders, which have done nothing to resolve the tensions.

Vitali Klitschko, a leading opposition figure, has a more ominous theory — the president could be pretending to take himself out of action in preparation for imposing a state of emergency. That has been a persistent worry of the opposition since violent clashes two weeks ago killed three protesters.

‘‘I remember from the Soviet Union it’s a bad sign — a bad sign because always if some Soviet Union leaders have to make an unpopular decision, they go to the hospital,’’ Klitschko said.

Yanukovych has faced two months of major protests that sometimes paralyze central Kiev and have spread to other cities. The protests started after he backed out of a long-awaited agreement to deepen ties with the European Union in favor of Russia, but quickly came to encompass a wide array of discontent over corruption, heavy-handed police and dubious courts.

The protests escalated in mid-January when Yanukovych signed a series of strict anti-protest measures into law, but the president agreed to scrap the anti-protest laws of Jan 16th earlier this week.


The antigovernment demonstrators see the current government's rebuff of closer ties to the European Union as a sign that the Ukraine is falling back under the Kremlin's sphere of influence. During Soviet times, millions of Ukrainian were killed in an engineered famine under Josef Stalin and the northernmost part of the nation was irradiated with the 1986 explosion and meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The protests aren't limited to the capital of Kiev- protestors are occupying regional government office buildings in the western part of the Ukraine and have even forced the resignation of Lviv's governor Oleg Salo.

At least four demonstrators have been killed in the ongoing protests in Kiev this month. Reports are circulating that riot police have been firing lethal munitions at some demonstrators, including buckshot and a sabot round designed to stop vehicles. European officials fear that the ongoing clashes could escalate to a full blown civil war within the Ukraine.

At Least 38 Killed in Southern Italy Bus Crash

Officials in Italy are trying to determine the cause of a deadly bus crash in the hills of Naples that killed 38 people this week. According to eyewitnesses, the bus plowed through a number of vehicles before crashing through a guardrail and plunging nearly 100 feet down an embankment.

The coach was taking about 50 people, including children, back to Naples following a pilgrimage.

The cause of the accident is not yet known. Some reports say the vehicle was travelling at speed.

The head of the local fire brigade division, Alessio Barbarulo, said barriers on bridges would normally prevent such accidents but "evidently it seems the impact was so strong that even the barrier gave way".

A survivor said the driver, who was among the dead, appeared to have lost control of the bus, possibly after a tyre punctured.

Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said the vehicle had passed its annual inspection in March, and there was no indication of technical problems.

Tests are being carried out on the driver's body as part of the investigation into what caused the accident.

The crash took place in the mountains some 50km east of Naples along the Autostrada A16- a toll highway linking Naples with Canosa di Puglia on Italy's Adriatic coast. Some of the hospitalized include occupants of the cars that the bus struck before crashing into the guard rail and going over the embankment.

This week's crash is even deadlier than last year's Costa Concordia shipwreck off of the Isloa de Giglio off the coast of Tuscany. The captain of the vessel is currently undergoing trial in Grosseto, Tuscany on multiple charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

Dozens Killed in Spanish High Speed Derailment

At least 80 people are feared dead after an express train derailed at high speeds in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia on Wednesday. Dramatic images from a trackside security camera show cars beginning to lift off the rails as the train enters a curve on outside of Santiago de Compostela at a high rate of speed before the locomotive plows into the camera sideways.

The train derailed shortly before 9pm local time as it sped along a curve in the tracks approaching the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia.

Even several hours after the accident rescue crews were still trying to reach passengers trapped in the wreckage. Photographs of the scene showed rows of corpses covered in blankets on the ground next to derailment site.

The accident occurred on the eve of the feast of St James, a regional bank holiday in Galicia, and a festival which attracts hordes of pilgrims to the ancient city.

The train and track were operated by Spain's state-run RENFE rail network. While the train in Wednesday's derailment is not part of Spain's high-speed AVE [Alta Velocidad Española- NANESB!] fleet, the conventional trainset is capable of reaching speeds of 155 MPH.

Investigators combing through the wreckage have found the train's black box/event recorder and the Guardia Civil is also questioning the driver, who escaped the train wreck with relatively minor injuries. Pope Francis extended his condolences and Spain's King Juan Carlos visited some of the survivors who were being treated at a hospital in Santiago de Compostela on Thursday.

This week's derailment is the worst rail disaster in Spain since a 1945 collision between a passenger train and a freight train in Las Acubillas, south of Madrid.

Nuts! Truckload of Nutella Stolen in Germany

Why stop at maple syrup? Thieves in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld made off with more than five tons of Nutella earlier this week. The popular chocolate-hazelnut spread was stolen from a tractor-trailer on Monday by an unknown number of thieves.

Police said Monday an unknown number of culprits made off with 5 metric tons (5.5 tons) of "Nutella" chocolate-hazelnut spread from a parked trailer in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld over the weekend.

The gooey loot is worth an estimated 16,000 euros ($20,710).

Officials declined to speculate whether this was a well-orchestrated theft or simple joyriding, although a truckload of energy drinks was stolen from a truck in the same town in the last month.

UPDATE- 4/11 - Seemingly determined to prove that Nutella isn't the only yummy contraband sought after by cargo thieves, the Florida Highway Patrol arrested a man who is accused of stealing a truck hauling $75,000 worth of Campbell's Soup from a central Florida truckstop that was destined for a Publix supermarket distribution facility.

That's right- the soup flew the coop and the split pea and ham was on the lam. The fact that the big rig was equipped with GPS enabled officers to track down the purloined broth with relative ease after following it for about 30 miles.

With food prices on the rise internationally, food being shipped to market is becoming as equally popular as electronics, consumer goods and pharmaceuticals but it can be harder to trace. Worldwide cargo theft is becoming a widespread problem [and also the premise for the reality show Big Rig Bounty Hunters on the History Channel- NANESB!]. Even before the July 2012 theft of C$20 million worth of maple syrup at a Quebec warehouse launched a thousand groan-worthy, breakfast-centered puns, cargo theft was on the increase in Canada's Maritime provinces, with the trailers or loads eventually resurfacing in Montreal.

On the US side of the border, the FBI suspects Armenian gangs based in southern California of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of meat and dairy products by showing up at warehouses throughout the west with fake manifests and affixing the names of other trucking companies to their vehicles. Aside from electronics, cigarettes or pharmaceuticals, other targets for cargo thieves and organized crime throughout the USA apparently include tomatoes, Alaskan King Crab and walnuts.

Banks in Cyprus Re-Open For the First Time in Two Weeks

After a shutdown of nearly two weeks, banks on the Mediterranian island of Cyprus re-opened on Thursday after the Cypriot parliament agreed to terms of a bailout from thr European Central Bank.

Branches were replenished with cash overnight and police were deployed amid fears of a run on the banks.

Some queues did form but the mood was calm, and the country's president thanked Cypriots for their "maturity".

The restrictions on the free movement of capital represent a profound breach of an EU principle, correspondents say.

However, the European Commission on Thursday justified the move, saying the "stability of financial markets and the banking system in Cyprus constitutes a matter of overriding public interest".

Information from the Central Bank of Cyprus released on Thursday showed that foreign depositors had already withdrawn 18% of their cash from the nation's banks during February, before the current crisis hit home.

The deal effectively wipes out Cyprus’s appeal as an international banking haven but saves Europe from cutting off support to one of the 17 nations that use the euro currency.

The deal reached with creditors makes Cyprus the first Eurozone nation to have capital controls imposed on depositors. The restrictions include prohibiting Cypriot nationals from travelling abroad with more than €1000, limits of €300 on daily withdrawls and a €5000 per-day limit on transactions by businesses. Experts say these capital controls could be in place for several months before being phased out.

Cyprus Popular Bank, which is also known as Laiki, will be shut down and assets transferred to the Bank of Cyprus. Losses on accounts with a balance €100,000 or more will reportedly be converted into shares of the Bank of Cyprus. Larger depositors have found ways around the nearly 2-week long bank closure by withdrawing funds from foreign branches of Laiki and Bank of Cyprus. Financial experts believe that most of the Russian funds in Cypriot banks when banks were closed across the island have since been repatriated.

One unusual outcome of the Cypriot financial crisis is the increased interest in bitcoin by depositors with money in Cypriot banks. The three year old virtual pseudo-currency was created by hackers three years ago and has increased in value some 87% since the EU and Cyprus began negotiating over the terms of the latest bailout.

Cyprus Banks Remain Closed As Island's Economy Teeters on Brink of Collapse

Finance Ministers and Central Banks throughout Europe are keeping a close eye on developments in Cyprus this week as the Mediterranean Island nation's financial institutions have been closed down amidst a financial emergency and increasing protests from the public.

Cyprus’s central bank said lenders would remain closed until at least Tuesday amid growing speculation the Meditterranean island could become the eurozone member to exit the currency bloc.

Officials at the ECB were reported on Wednesday to be considering pulling the plug on Cypriot banks unless the country agreed to a new bailout package.

Jörge Asmussen, the ECB’s chief negotiator, warned that Cyprus’s decision to reject the terms of an €10bn (£8.6bn) bailout meant it could not guarantee support to domestic lenders for much longer.

“We can provide emergency liquidity only to solvent banks and... the solvency of Cypriot banks cannot be assumed if an aid programme is not agreed on soon, which would allow for a quick recapitalisation of the banking sector,” said Mr Asmussen in an interview with a German newspaper.

The European Central Bank's statement came after the Cypriot parliament unanimously rejected an European Union bailout that would have required a tax on depositor's savings accounts. Reportedly the initial terms of the bailout would've taxed accounts of €100,000 or less at around 5%, accounts between €100,000 and €500,000 in the neighborhood of 10% and accounts of €500,000 and more at 13%.

Cyprus has been a popular offshore venue for wealthy Russians to deposit their money in recent years, and the Cypriot finance minister is in Moscow negotiating with his Russian counterparts on a new deal that would see greater Russian involvement in the Cypriot banking and offshore energy sectors on Wednesday. Russia had earlier threatened to withhold any aid from Cyprus after being left out of the talks between the island nation and European Central Bank.

There are also an estimated 3500 British military personnel stationed in Cyprus- the UK dispatched a military transport loaded with €1 Million in cash in the event that cash ran out at the ATMs or debit cards stopped working on the island. The Ministry of Defense also stated that the personnel stationed in Cyprus will not have the option of their wages deposited in a British or Cypriot bank.

Cyprus- also a former British colony- is home to a number of retirees from the UK. The island nation also has historically close ties to Greece and the Cypriot economy took a massive hit when a significant portion of the Greek soverign debt held by Cyprus and others was written off last year

Pope Benedict Makes it Official- Resigns Papacy

Pope Benedict XVI made it official on Thursday and became the first Pope to resign the papcy in more than 600 years, leaving the Swiss Guards with the extremely rare dilemma of having no sitting Pope to guard.

The audience inside the Apostolic Palace was as unique as Benedict's decision to quit, with the 85-year-old pope, wearing his crimson velvet cape and using a cane, bidding farewell to his closest advisers and the cardinals themselves bowing to kiss his fisherman's ring for the last time.

Some seemed to choke up at that moment, and a few lingered on to chat with the pope for as long as they could. But the scene seemed otherwise almost normal, with cardinals chatting on the sidelines waiting their turn to say goodbye.

Benedict said he would pray for the cardinals in coming days as they discuss the issues facing the church, the qualities needed in a new pope, and prepare to enter into the secret conclave to elect him.

"Among you is also the future pope, whom I today promise my unconditional reverence and obedience," Benedict told the cardinals.

Benedict's decision to live at the Vatican in retirement, be called "emeritus pope" and "Your Holiness" and wear the white cassock associated with the papacy has deepened concerns about the shadow he might cast over the next papacy.

But Benedict has tried to address those worries over the past two weeks, saying that once retired he would be "hidden from the world" and living a life of prayer.

In his final speech in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, he said he wasn't returning to private life exactly, but rather to a new form of service to the church through prayer.

And on Thursday he went even further with his own public pledge of obedience to the new pontiff.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope's pledge was in keeping with this effort to "explain how he intends to live this unprecedented situation of an emeritus pope."

"He has no intention of interfering in the position or the decisions or the activity of his successor," Lombardi said. "But as every member of the church, he says fully that he recognizes the authority of the supreme pastor of the church who will be elected to succeed him."

The issue of papal obedience is important for Benedict. In his last legal document, he made new provisions for cardinals to make a formal, public pledge of obedience to the new pope at his installation Mass, in addition to the private one they traditionally make inside the Sistine Chapel immediately after he is elected.

After Benedict's Thursday Mass, he was whisked away by helicopter to the Castel Gandolfo, a summer residence for the Pope some 15km southeast of Rome. Benedict said he plans on living as a pilgrim and dedicating his life to prayer.

With Benedict out as Pope, the Vatican has begun the process whittling down the list of potential papal candidates. Also, with the benefit of hindsight, a number of news outlets calimed to have picked up on subtle hints that Benedict was considering retirement well before the Pope's surprise announcement last month.

Robbers Pull Off Brazen $50 Million Diamond Heist At Brussels Airport

Heavily armed robbers disguised as police officers breached the perimiter fence at Brussels International Airport this month and stole an estimated $50 million worth of diamonds as it was being transferred from an armored truck to the cargo hold of an airliner bound for Switzerland earlier this month.

The raid at Zaventem international airport is one of the biggest diamond robberies in history. It took a highly-trained professional gang just three minutes to hold up a Swiss passenger jet before escaping into the night.

Belgian police were baffled by a robbery that took place with precision, military timing and apparent insider knowledge, allowing the gang to aim for the delivery of a diamond consignment within a 15-minute time window.

Wearing masks, hooded police anoraks and armed with machine guns equipped with laser sights, the robbers struck at 7.47pm local time on Monday night, just before the aircraft they sought was cleared for take-off.

The gang’s target was a Brink’s diamond and jewellery services truck that had just finished loading the 8.05pm Helvetic Airways flight 2L789 bound for Zurich.

For security reasons, the valuable cargo is loaded on the runway just minutes before the plane takes off.

After cutting through a security perimeter fence near the Swiss Fokker 100 airliner, the robbers used two black vehicles, a Mercedes van and an Audi car both equipped with blue flashing police lights, to race across the airport tarmac.

Coming to a halt alongside the Brink’s van and the passenger jet, four armed men left each vehicle and held up the aircraft’s pilot, co-pilot and security guards.

The robbers then forced open its cargo bay doors and took out about 120 packages containing mostly diamonds, which only represented a portion of the cargo, thought to be worth more than £60 million.

After loading the valuables, the eight men fled as security and police alarms were triggered.

The robbers drove at high speed through the same gap in the security cordon that they had opened in front of the aircraft on the runway. The raid took place without a shot being fired. The robbery was so fast that the passengers on board the plane “saw nothing”.

One vehicle, the Mercedes van, was later recovered burnt out nearby. The Audi and the eight men have vanished, triggering a manhunt in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The final destination for the diamonds was Surat, India for cutting and processing by way of Zurich. The phony cops reportedly spoke French and the heist took place so quckily that the passengers on board the flight that was robbed were unaware of what had happened until the flight was cancelled a few minutes later. Despite the fact that the heist was caught by security cameras, investigators say that the footage yielded no substantial clues.

Belgian investigators say that the heist was "so perfect" that it would've been impossible to pull off without inside help.

The robbery comes almost 10 years to the day after a massive and complex diamond heist in Antwerp, where an estimated $100 Million in loose jewelry and diamonds were stolen from a secure vault in the city's diamond district. An Italian safecracker named Leonardo Notarbartolo was the only person in custody for the Feb 16, 2003 heist. Notarbartolo claims he acted with inside information but the heist's take was considerably less than advertised and some of his sources moved valuables out of the vault ahead of the heist but filed insurance claims on them anyway.

Brinks, which is responsible for the handling the diamonds at the Zaventem airport, announced that the robbery would affect their first quarter results. While the diamond district in Antwerp in one of the most secure locales in Europe, the heist at the airport comes as an embarassment to Brinks [NYSE- BCO].

Spanish Moms: Mothers of Spanish Schoolchildren Attempt to Counter Austerity Measures with Sultry Calendars

Apologies to The Clash, of course.

I realize it's a touch late [or REALLY early- NANESB!] for another 'amateur women strip for calendar to raise funds' blog entry replete with some gratuitous eye candy, but I came across this story from December lurking in a sidebar during an unrelated search for an article about Russia's partially privatized GAZPROM of all things and since the fruits of these women's labor is apparently still available I figured it would be worth a mention.

With an unemployment rate topping 26% and austerity measures in place thanks in to the ongoing Eurozone crisis, some women in rural Spain are getting creative when it comes to ideas for raising funds to restore services that were cut.

In the eastern village of Montserrat, regional authorities decided to suspend school bus services to children that lived within 1.8 miles of the school. But due to the mountainous terrain and twisting roads in the area, some children end up having to walk more than twice that distance from school to home even if they only lived a mile and a half from the school as the crow flies.



After some brainstorming, Maria Gilabert and other local moms came up with the same idea that certain out-of-work stewardesses in Mexico came up with- take off their clothes for a sexy calendar.

The calendar, which shows the mothers in various states of undress posing along the bus route, has already sold thousands of copies and raised awareness of the cuts to the education system across Spain.

In September authorities cut public school bus services for students living within a 1.8 mile radius of the school but parents argue that has left many students having to walk almost four miles over unpaved roads to get to class.

The project aims to raise some of the 43,000 euros (£35,000) needed to restore the bus service and has already raised enough to pay for three months of daily buses.

This isn't strictly a Latina or Iberian phenomenon, as there are a number of fundraising calendars featuring amateur pinups in the UK designed to raise funds for everything from cancer research to the Royal Marines Charitable Trust.

The women decided to incorporate some of the terrain that their children had to negotiate on the walk to school with the bus services slashed. Included with some of the images of the saucy, lingerie clad Iberian cougars are spanish-language slogans such as "Scale the mountains of Montserrat to go to school".

The calendar emulates earlier fundraising calendars that feature amateur models posing nude or topless, such as the laid off stewardesses at Mexicana airlines or University Equestrian clubs in England. However, similar efforts have backfired- in 2008, a group of housewives in the rural Spanish village of Seradilla del Arroyo embarked on a similar effort as the moms of Montserrat. However, the women in the mountainous region along the border with Portugal quickly found themselves owing a printer roughly €10,000 and stuck with 5000 unsold copies after sales of the calendar quickly dried up.

7 Killed, At Least 30 Wounded in Tour Bus Bombing In Bulgarian Coastal City

A bomb targeting Israeli tourists in the eastern Bulgarian city of Burgas detonated on a tour bus, killing at least 7 people and injuring 32 on Wednesday.

The bus was carrying 42 Israeli tourists who landed in Bulgaria at 4:45 p.m for a vacation in Sunny Beach. Two adjacent buses were also damaged in the blast.

Six of the victims died on the spot, and the seventh in the hospital following the attack, Bulgarian officials confirmed. Two of the victims were said to be Bulgarian -- the bus driver and tour guide

As recently as January, Bulgarian police had stepped up security measures for Israeli tour groups after a suspicious package was discovered on a bus carrying tourists from Turkey to Bulgaria.

Local officials belive the device was detonated via remote control, although witnesses at the airport told Israeli TV they had seen an unidentified man get on immediately before the bus exploded.

Citing recent Iranian-backed terror plots targetting Israeli and western interests in Thailand, India and Azerbaijan, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran and the Lebanese-based Shi'ite terrorist group Hezbollah. For its part, Iran has accused Israeli agents of carrying out assassinations of scientists working with their nuclear program.

Over the weekend, police in Cyprus arrested a Lebanese man holding a Swedish passport in the city of Limasol. While in custody, the man admitted to being a member of Hezbollah and had detailed information on flights arrivign from Israel and photos of possible Israeli tagerts.

Carrying out attacks on Israeli tagets on foreign soil is nothing new for Hezbollah. The Bulgarian attacks come on the 18th anniversary of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association bombings in Buenos Aires that killed 84. There are reports that Argentine prosecutors have recently discovered that some of those involved in the 1994 bombing were using Iranian diplomatic credentials to travel and plan out the details of the attack.

The resort town of Burgas has become popular with Israeli visitors in recent years, particularly recent high school grads seeking out a 'spring break' type getaway before beginning their compulsory military service.

UPDATE- 7/19: Bulgaria's Interior Ministry said the attack was most likely a suicide bombing. The suspected bomber was caught on survaillence video in the terminal at the Bargas airport.

Interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that investigators have found a Michigan ID at the scene thought to belong to the suspected bomber. The Interior Ministry is sending the identification to the FBI for authentication.

UPDATE #2- Bulgarian officials are now saying the Michigan identification card in fake, but some reports also claim a US Passport belonging to the suspected bomber was also found at the scene but has yet to be authenticated.

Italian Police Seize Mafia-Run Wind Farm in Calabria

In the most shocking development since the sun set in the west last night, it turns out that unsavory groups like the mafia are attracted to free money, even when various governments are handing it out under the guise of 'renewable energy'.

Investigators in Italy have seized one of Europe's largest wind farms- reportedly worth €350 million- as part of an ongoing probe of 55 year old 'Ndrangheta underboss Pasquale Arena.

Arena is suspected of having had a wind farm built on behalf of the clan through shell companies based in Germany, San Marino and Switzerland.

The wind farm has 48 generators and is considered one of the biggest in Europe in surface area and output, investigators said in a statement.

Arena himself has not been arrested and was present at the raids. A total of 31 people including two German nationals are under investigation.

In 2010, the BBC reported that organized crime in southern Italy was using renewable energy subsidies and development grants from Rome and Brussels to launder money from other criminal enterprises and using arson and extortion to obtain operating licenses or the land on which the wind farms were built.

In Italy, the power generated from the wind farms is sold at a guaranteed rate of €180 per kwh, one of the highest rates in the world. Similar cases of fraud involving wind and renewable energy grants across Europe have surfaced.

Scandals have emerged in Spain, Romania, Bulgaria and Corsica, among others. In one alleged scam on the Canary Islands, a mayor, five officials and two developers are fighting criminal charges that include abuse of office, bribery and misappropriation of land in an attempt to secure EU subsidies.

One case in Spain, meanwhile, involved a solar energy plant which claimed, miraculously, to be generating electricity at night. Investigators found that that the power was in fact being produced by diesel generators - the "green" subsidies paid for the plant were so generous that the owners still made a handsome profit.

As well as the prospect of fraudulent grant money, wind farms are also attractive to criminals seeking to invest money from illegal activities such as drug dealing, prostitution and illegal waste dumping. Some Mafia clans have illicitly secured licenses to build a wind farm and then sold them on to legitimate firms who have invested in good faith.

Based in southern Italy [the toe of Italy's 'boot'- NANESB!], the 'Ndrangheta is active throughout Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and Argentina and is involved in drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion, arms trafficking as well as dumping toxic or radioactive waste off the coast of Italy and Africa. Italy's four distinct mafia groups- the Ndrangheta, Sicily's Cosa Nostra, Naples' Camorra and Puglia's Sacra Corona- have profited to the tune of an estimated €16 billion annually from crimes such as illegal development, trafficking endangered species and illegally dumping waste throughout Italy.

In recent years, the 'Ndrangheta- sometimes known as 'the Honoured Society'- has eclipsed the more infamous Cosa Nostra in terms of power and influence. Drug trafficking remains the Ndrangheta's most lucrative pursuit and in recent years they've aligned themselves with Mexico's Zetas to export cocaine to Europe and Australia.

Denmark Trial Begins For Men Plotting Mumbai-Style Terrorist Attack Targeting Danish Crown Prince and Mohammed Cartoons Newspaper

One of the dozen cartoons dating back to 2005 from Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Four men pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in a Copenhagen court on Friday after prosecutors accused them of plotting to carry out an attack on the offices of Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten while the crown prince was scheduled to visit. Three of the men were mid-eastern immigrants residing in Sweden who were arrested by police in that country in late 2010- a few days before they were scheduled to carry out their attack in Copenhagen.

Prosecutors have charged the three men along with an accomplice originally from Tunisia with terrorism and weapons charges. One defendant pleaded guilty to weapons charges but not guilty to the terrorism charges. Although Prosecutor Henrik Plaehn said there was no apparent indication that Crown Prince Frederik was specifically targeted for attack, he was scheduled to attend an event at the Jyllands Posten headquarters when the attack was supposed to take place. Speak

ing to the court on the first day of the trial, prosecutor Henrik Plaehn said the four men — three Swedish citizens and one Swedish resident — had been arrested hours before an appearance by Crown Prince Frederik at the Politiken newspaper in Copenhagen.

The heir to the Danish throne was to distribute an annual sports award and Plaehn said prosecutors believed that terrorists had intended to launch a violent attack on the ceremony, which eventually took place as scheduled.

Plaehn also said the alleged terrorists were linked with Pakistan, a point he would try to prove during the trial.

The 2005 Jyllands Posten Mohammed cartoons caused an uproar throughout the Islamic world, resulting in widespread protests and sporadic attacks against Danish embassies. In January 2010, a Somali man with ties to that Islamic Al Shabaab militia was shot in the leg and wrist by police as he broke into the Copenhagen home of Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonists. Although Westgaard was unarmed, he had time to grab his 5 year old granddaughter before the two of them locked themselves in a panic room.

Although Islam supposedly prohibits any kind of depiction of Mohammed, there are a number of depictions of Mohammed ranging from 13th century Persian manuscripts to a 2001 episode of South Park. None of these representations became controversial until after the 2005 Jyllands Posten backlash.

France Arrests More Islamists in Aftermath of Jewish School Shooting and Murder of Partroopers

French counterterrorism police launched a series of predawn raids throughout the country on Friday, taking into custody 19 suspected Islamists who reportedly had training in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

President Sarkozy had promised a crackdown and he explained today the raids were 'in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism.

'There will be other operations that will continue and that will allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people who have no reason to be here.'

A police investigator said that the anti-terrorist unit of the Criminal Brigade detained five men before dawn in Paris who had suspected links to an Islamist movement. Weapons were also seized, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the department's rules.

The other arrests took place in Toulouse, Marseilles, Nantes and Lyon, the official said.

In Nantes, Mohammed Achamlane, the head of Forsane Alizza (Knights Of Pride), a radical Muslim group that formed two years ago, was among the detained. French officials had banned the group in February. President Sarkozy had promised a crackdown and he explained today the raids were 'in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism.

In addition to the raids, French officials barred radical Islamic clerics from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Territories from entering the country for an Islamic group's conference.

On Monday, French officials announced that some of the detained Islamists were suspected of planning to carry out the kidnapping a Jewish magistrate in Lyon.

Last week, Al-Jazeera's Paris bureau received a USB drive from Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah showing footage of him carrying out the murders in front of the Ozar Hetorah school.

The Qatar-based network declined to air it or share with other networks, but investigators were reviewing the footage to see if Merah had any accomplices that are shown in the video. It was initially thought that Merah might've sent the video to Al Jazeera, but French investigators believe that Merah didn't mail the video himself, raising the likelihood of an accomplice.

After the school shootings, police were led to Merah's brother due to an bogus internet ad about a scooter for sale meant to lure one of the earlier known victims into an ambush being traced back to his computer. He was taken into custody around the same time as the standoff at Mohammed's apartment began.

Toulouse Massacre Update- Neo-Nazi Former Soldiers Cleared; French Authorities Corner Algerian al Qaeda Operative

In the hours after yesterday's killing spree in front of a Jewish school in southwestern French city of Toulouse, investigators had focused their attention on three former soldiers in the French Army who were neo-Nazis and had also served in the same unit as the three soldiers who were gunned down at an ATM earlier this month.

According to reports published Monday, French police investigating the fatal shootings of a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse were searching for the three soldiers, who were dismissed from the army a few years ago after being photographed while giving Nazi salutes in front of a Swastika flag.

Monday's deadly shooting came just days after three soldiers — from the same 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment with which the dismissed trio served — were shot dead in broad daylight in Montauban 30 miles away last Thursday. Two of the murdered soldiers were Muslim.

But France Info's report, published Tuesday, said the three neo-Nazis were located by police and cleared of any suspicion. A police official told the website that two of the former troops were interrogated after the shooting attack on the Jewish school, while the third was questioned after the attack in Montauban.

Ynet's correspondent in Toulouse added that according to reports in France, one of the three neo-Nazis voluntarily reported to a police station to be interrogated.

Investigators from the DRCI (Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence) were focusing on 24 year old Mohammed Mera, a French national of Algerian descent who had reportedly travelled to the tribal area in Pakistan's North West Frontier province to fight alongside the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Merah was reportedly arrested by authorities in Afghanistan for planting bombs and sentenced to 3 years in prison, but was part of a massive April 2011 jailbreak that freed hundreds of inmates and captured Taliban fighters.

The DRCI had reportedly found Mera after checking e-mail correspondence from the first known victim. Mera was reportedly exchanging e-mails under a false account with a French soldier who was gunned down in a residential area of Toulouse earlier this month. Investigators traced the e-mails to a computer using the IP address of Mera's brother. Ballistics experts also conclusively matched bullets used in the school shooting as coming from the same one used to shoot the paratroopers.

On Wednesday morning, Mera exchanged gunfire with heavily armed police officers as they moved in to raid his Toulouse home- which was near the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school. Three officers were wounded and Mera barricaded himself inside his residence as he attempted to negotiate his surrender as the neighborhood was cordoned off.

CCTV footage from the schoolyard massacre also showed the shooter appeared to have some sort of digital camera around his neck to film the attack as it took place. DRCI investigators believe that Mera was ultimately going to post the footage of his attacks online at a jihad website.

Also on Wednesday morning, funeral services were held in Jerusalem for the four victims slain at the school. Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his sons Arieh, 5, and Gabriel, 4, and 7 year old Miriam Monsonego were laid to rest with at least 2000 mourners present at the massive Gavit Shaul cemetary west of Jerusalem.