Monthly Archives: February 2013

Congo peace and security framework signed in Addis Ababa

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A new peace and security framework for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), signed on Sunday, is expected to bring stability to the country’s war-torn eastern region.(from bdlive.co.za )

President Jacob Zuma represented South Africa at the signing in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The leaders of the DRC, Rwanda, South Africa, Mozambique, the Republic of Congo and South Sudan were also present.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had been scheduled to attend but remained in Kampala following the death of his father on Friday, sending his vice-president in his place. Zambia, Burundi and the Central African Republic were represented by senior ministers and Angola also by its vice-president.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairwoman of the African Union Commission, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon witnessed the signing and, together with the representatives of Uganda and Mozambique — chairs of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), respectively — will act as guarantors of the accord.

The agreement was to have been signed on January 28, on the sidelines of the AU summit, but it was cancelled at the last minute. At the time, Mr Ban said: “There were no fundamental differences over the content of the framework. Some procedural issues, however, did arise and we have agreed to postpone the signing.”

The Peace, Security and Co-operation Framework for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Region aims to address two of the root causes of the conflict in the eastern DRC: the country’s weak and dysfunctional security, justice and governance systems, and the continued interference from neighbouring countries. A UN report is

sued late last year accused Rwanda and Uganda of providing support to the M23 militia, a rebel group accused of murder, rape and recruiting child soldiers.

It also proposes oversight mechanisms — including the appointment of a UN special envoy and the establishment of a group consisting of the 11 signatory countries, the UN, the AU Commission, the ICGLR and Sadc — to ensure adherence to the framework’s commitments.

Mr Ban told the meeting that he would present a special report to the UN Security Council, which would include a proposal for a “strengthened political and security role for Monusco” — the UN’s peacekeeping operation in the DRC, which was widely criticised for failing to prevent M23 rebels from capturing the city of Goma in November last year.

The agreement does not, however, refer to the proposed deployment of a regional intervention force in the eastern DRC, a topic on which discussions are separate and continuing.

Mindful Motion: Miguel Nicolelis and Mind-Powered Robots; and Creating Science Cities in Brazil and Beyond

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In this episode, Scientific American editor Christine Soares talks with Duke University neuroengineer Miguel Nicolelis about his groundbreaking work in controlling robot movement using only thoughts, as well as efforts to create science cities in Brazil and national development through education, especially in science and technology. Plus we’ll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. (transcript)  (from scientificamerican.com)

Steve: Welcome to Science Talk, the weekly podcast of Scientific American for the seven days starting January 16th, 2008. I’m Steve Mirsky. Last week, the mind of a monkey in North Carolina controlled a walking robot in Japan. The mind that created interfaces between intelligent beings and robotic limbs belongs to Miguel Nicolelis. Scientific American editor Christine Soares recently sat down for a conversation with Nicolelis in his office at Duke University, where he is the codirector of the Center for Neuroengineering. They talked about the organic, robotic neural interface research and its implications for prosthetics; as well as some exciting plans for a grand sociological experiment in Brazil, the creation of an entire science city.

Soares: In 2004 you gave [a] really impressive demonstration of how your work could lead to prosthetics controlled by the brain. Your star monkey, Aurora, learned to play a simple videogame with a joystick, but you were also essentially downloading the neural signals from her brain to control the robot arm.

Nicolelis: Yeah! In that sense what we were doing was to record the brain activity that Aurora was producing to generate arm movements and after a little bit of training, both Aurora and I, we were able to basically get these signals to be decoded in real time and translated into digital commands that could be used by a robotic arm to generate movements that Aurora was imagining. So at a certain point, Aurora realized that she didn’t need to move anymore, she could just imagine the movements and this interface that we created, this brain-machine interface that we created was able to enact her will and generate the movements that she needed to produce to win the video game.

Soares: So this could really be an example of how the language of the brain can be translated to move a prosthetic for a person who is a paralyzed?

Nicolelis: Yeah, that was one of the ideas. First we were interested in understanding how this language of the brain is produced and what is the code and that’s what we were doing at that time; and we learnt that by using the simple algorithms we could read these signals and control a mechanical device, so there opened the possibility in the future for patients who are paralyzed to use their brain activity to directly control a variety of devices.

Soares: So it’s some very fundamental neuroscience questions that you are answering, but also some very practical applications?

Nicolelis: Yes. The idea was to design a prototype that could handle both issues, how do you address fundamental questions about how brain signals operate and how can you actually use this knowledge and this information in technology developed to address this issue to generate some practical application.

Soares: And how’ve you been following up on the Aurora performance?

Nicolelis: Yeah! Well, we have now used the same idea to study other types of behaviors. For instance, locomotion and we’ve learned that we can do the same. We can read signals from motor and sensory areas in the brain that are involved in the generation of the motor program to walk, and we’re able to read this [these] signals, decode them and send them to a device—a robot, a bipedal robot that actually starts walking like the monkey. And we are planning to do now a series of experiments that will demonstrate the power of this interface by getting the monkey not only to control in real time this robot—that is not going to be here in the United States, it’s going to be in Japan, in Kyoto, the ATR Robotics Lab—but also get feedback signals from the robot back to the monkey, to see how the monkey interpret[s] the fact that she is now or he is now controlling a device about 10,000 miles away in real time.

Soares: That’s pretty impressive. I think with Aurora, the robot arm was in the next room.

Nicolelis: Yes. The Aurora’s arm was in the next room. We had done experiments before Aurora with [a] couple of other monkeys in which one robotic device was at M.I.T., while the monkeys were in Durham, so we learned a little bit about how to do that. The challenge here we discovered in Kyoto is much larger because we are talking about a lot more information being transmitted; and is [it’s] different from the experiments we did in 2000 with M.I.T. This is now going to be a bidirectional connection. So, it will be really a blend of the monkey’s brain with this robotic device.

Soares: Great—you are going to be feeding sensory information back to the monkey.

Nicolelis: Yes. We are going to get sensors that are located in [the] feet of this robot to send feedback information back to the monkey, and we are going to give the monkey an opportunity to experience what it is to control a device that is in a different continent.

Soares: That’s incredible! We look forward to seeing those results and that video (laughs).

Nicolelis: Sure; it’s going to be fun.

Soares: You’re also working on counteracting the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, or at least understanding them.

Nicolelis: Yes, we—in collaboration with the lab of a good friend of ours, Marc Caron here at Duke—we have actually looked into the brain of transgenic animals that Marc created that can do, you know, to certain manipulations that it can [be] induce[d] by first genetic and then pharmacological [means]; you can actually produce symptoms that are similar—some of them are similar—to what you’re seeing in Parkinsonian patients, and you can treat these mice and actually get these mice everyday to express these symptoms and recover. By recording the brains, you know, since they are normal until the moment in which they become Parkinsonian, we actually learned what happens in that transition; and since the transition happens in 45 minutes, you know, everyday, we actually accumulate a lot of information [on]and how a normal brain evolves to become Parkinsonian or at least Parkinsonian-like. And now we realize that there are ways to measure this brain activity, for instance, in a motor cortex and find that these cells are becoming more synchronous, they are fighting more together than they used to be, almost like a mild seizure, a mild epileptic seizure; it is not a seizure, but the synchronous fighting resembles that. So we started testing a lot of ideas now on how to treat that, and we are just finding that we may have an opportunity to desynchronize these neurons and get these animals to improve. And that’s what we’re studying right now, we’re trying to come up with methods that to some degree link this research to the prosthetic research to desynchronize this [these] neurons and get the mice, you know, to be able to move and to get rid of this [these] Parkinson symptoms by doing so.

Soares: So, is there a common thread in all the different things you’re working on?

Nicolelis: Yeah, I think the common thread of all these stories is the attempt to understand how the brain works by looking at the population level and the neuronal circuit level. I mean, of course, neuroscientists have been devoting almost a century of work to understand how single neurons operate, the physiology of single cells; but what we realized lately in the last couple of decades is that to obtain behaviors, to generate behaviors, the brain basically needs to recruit populations of neurons, this [that] stood across many structures that come together for a moment in time to generate an output. And actually the game seems to be there, you know, so what we have been doing in all these lines of research is to focus on the operation, the physiological operation of circuits, not single neurons, and try to understand what the emergent properties [are] that come from a combination of hundred of cells at once.

Soares: The whole system!

Nicolelis: The whole system. Yeah, instead of just looking piecemeal one at a time or each structure of the brain at a time, we want to basically measure and quantify the operation of the whole brain or most of it, as it happens, you know, that (unclear 8:32) in the case of the motor control, in those 300 to 500 milliseconds that precede the onset of movement. And we really wanted to see how the circuit comes together and generates the signals that are required for movement to emerge.

Soares: And you’re not just doing this at Duke; you actually have several labs around the world, right?

Nicolelis: Yeah! Right now, we have like a network of laboratories that we have established to work on these projects. We have laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne—E.P.F.L.—in Switzerland that is doing some work like that in locomotion in rodents. And we have two major laboratories in Brazil, one in São Paulo and Sírio-Libanês Hospital that is participating in a collaboration with us; and, of course, two laboratories in Natal in the northeastern Brazil where we are creating an institute, an international neuroscience institute.

Soares: Great! And that’s happened pretty quickly just in the past few years?

Nicolelis: Yeah, basically this idea of creating this global network of collaborators and labs is basically unfolding in the last three to four years, particularly to[the] Brazil effort in the last four years.

Soares: Yes. You just inaugurated earlier this year a school and a health clinic and the institute itself, the research labs.

Nicolelis: Yeah! So, because the institute in Brazil—the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute—is basically, it’s not only about neuroscience and not only about doing research like we do here at Duke or in other institutes around the world; it’s about using science as an agent to social transformation of a community. And so in addition to creating a neuroscience institute that is linked to the best neuroscience institutes in the world, we created the first science education school in Brazil for children; that [which] is now enrolling 800 kids from the worst school district in Brazil, or one of the worst, and hopefully by the end of the year we’ll have around thousand kids participating[in] this after-school science education program. We just completed the construction of [a] women’s and child[ren’s] clinic that is next to that school to basically also act on translating all sorts of ideas in medicine and in neurology to healthcare services to the community. And now we are starting the construction of what we would like to call “the campus of the brain” that we consolidate all these activities and create the whole mission of the institute.

Soares: Talk about the area where you’re building this. It’s a very poor region in northeastern Brazil. Why did you choose that area?

Nicolelis: Yeah! That is a very important part of the whole project is the idea that by taking science or a big scientific project to a part of Brazil that was underdeveloped and that had not received the attention that other regions of the country had in terms of scientific investments, we could actually test this notion that science can be a driving agent of transformation; not only economic transformation like we know here in the United States and Europe, but also social transformation—that the values, the ethical, the ludic values that scientists apply to their daily life could actually be used to drive a whole educational program, a whole healthcare program and even a self-sustainable economic model that has science at the core. And the values of science [are in] the philosophy and that will, you know, help to find the scaffolding of a development plan. So it is in experiment, it is almost like a sociological experiment: How could science go there, get roots, and in working with the community, help develop series of fundamental issues like education and healthcare to a community that had not been in the radar screen, you know, of science in Brazil?

Soares: So, not just a self-contained institute where science is going on, but where it really actually affects the community and benefits the community.

Nicolelis: Yes, the idea is an open institute, an institute that has porous walls where the knowledge that is being generating [generated] inside can easily migrate to the outside world and reach the public education system, the healthcare system and the economic development planning of the region; and transform the region in[to] a magnet for knowledge-based initiatives and that involves everything. You know, for instance we’re going to have the first school in Brazil—and probably one of the first in the world—where kids go to school before they are born. Their mothers go to school, they return to school and when their kids are born, they enroll automatically in a fellowship that we’re calling fellowship for life. They get a fellowship to be in that school from the early age all the way to the end of high school; we’ve a very empirical science-based curriculum guiding the whole education process of these children.

Soares: And the goal is not just to, maybe, train some future scientists, but also to have that way of thinking that basically benefit them, no matter what they do in life.

Nicolelis: Absolutely. The ambition is not to create a factory of scientists. Actually the goal is to allow these children to become critical thinkers and to develop their potential [in] and whatever [their] potential is. In fact, we are creating a school where kids they have, you know, normal health and kids that are disabled in anyway study together, they are in the same classroom and they’re basically developing at their own pace to reach whatever potential and dreams they have, whatever they are. So we just want to instill in them this idea that you can touch the impossible, you know, you can really pursue it, you may not even get there, but you’re actually the pursuer of it; is [it’s] a great adventure, whatever you want to do in life.

Soares: You’re just giving them the opportunities.

Nicolelis: Yes, giving [them] the tools and the opportunity to flourish.

Soares: The next stage in the process: You want to see a biotechnology park built around this area.

Nicolelis: Yeah, in our attempts to develop a self-sustainable business plan for this project, we thought that the first major step after the construction of the institute and the establishment of social programs was the elaboration of a plan in which science, not only the science that is produced in the institute, but high[-end] in science could be used as a way to generate wealth that could sustain all these activities, the basic research and the social programs. So, we are working in close collaboration with the Brazilian government in the state Rio Grande do Norte, where Natal is located, to elaborate a whole set of bills that will create a free enterprise only in that area, which is strategically located; you know, Natal is on northeast, close to the equator, at the tip of Brazil, [the] northeast tip of Brazil. So, it’s the closest point to Europe, [the] United States and Africa, so [the] federal government of Brazil is investing, creating a huge cargo airport and a harbor there. So, what we want is to create really a serious science park, [a] free-enterprise zone, in which you can bring companies, both big and small, to produce scientific products for exploring. And surrounding this, you can create a service park that can allow a bidirectional interaction between the free enterprise zone and the City of the Brain of Natal in a way that you actually allow the community to benefit from the creation of such a mega-industrial structure. So, it’s almost like a research triangle park here in North Carolina, but with a social mission, something that is rare to see in and around the world.

Soares: That is the difference. There are quite a few cities or, you know, communities that have been built by governments based on technology and science. But that is the difference in this one, — is the connection to the community, building a community at the same time.

Nicolelis: Yes. And basically allowing the community around, you know, Natal and the outskirts of the city to take advantage of that both economically and socially; you know, as I said, a bilateral interaction, where we can show to society that science has many more benefits than IP in creating a business. You know, you really can use science for many other things. One of our goals once Natal is built is to clone it, to clone [it] among other areas of Brazil, and hopefully if the experiment works, to take it to other places in the world.

Soares: Now pretty soon, you’re going to be addressing some very prominent audiences: the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

Nicolelis: At Davos, I think I’m going to talk primarily about the model of doing science—how you can today really have a global lab and not only one lab, but how institutes in countries can belong to networks that can maximize tremendously the resources available to produce science; and basically connect the best minds in a field or in a discipline almost instantaneously to work together in projects that can really transform a society. And I think that’s the future of science— — isa global science, is a science without frontiers. This is already part of the history of science, of course scientists perhaps would first want to propose the globalization as a good thing, but now we can see clearly that this may be the best business model to do science. So I want Davos to present the idea of the network of institutes in Brazil and how they could be translated into a network of institutes around the world, which we are already starting in neuroscience; but [it] could be much bigger than that.

Soares: Good luck with all of it.

Nicolelis: Thank you; thank you very much.

U.S. troops arrive in Niger to set up drone base

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President Obama announced Friday that about 100 U.S. troops have been deployed to the West African country of Niger, where defense officials said they are setting up a drone base to spy on al-Qaeda fighters in the Sahara.
(from washingtonpost.com )

It was the latest step by the Pentagon to increase its intelligence-gathering across Africa in response to what officials see as a rising threat from militant groups.

In a letter to Congress, Obama said about 40 U.S. service members arrived in Niger on Wednesday, bringing the total number of troops based there to “approximately” 100. He said the troops, which are armed for self-protection, would support a French-led military operation in neighboring Mali, where al-Qaeda fighters and other militants have carved out a refuge in a remote territory the size of Texas.
The base in Niger marks the opening of another U.S. military front against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, in addition to drone combat missions in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. The CIA is also conducting drone airstrikes against al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan and Yemen.

Senior U.S. officials have said for months that they would not put U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Mali, an impoverished nation that has been mired in chaos since March, when a U.S.-trained Malian army captain took power in a coup. But U.S. troops are becoming increasingly involved in the conflict from the skies and the rear echelons, where they are supporting French and African forces seeking to stabilize the region.

Obama did not explicitly reveal the drone base in his letter to Congress, but he said the U.S. troops in Niger would “provide support for intelligence collection” and share the intelligence with French forces in Mali.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide details about military operations, said that the 40 troops who arrived in Niger on Wednesday were almost all Air Force personnel and that their mission was to support drone flights.

The official said drone flights were “imminent” but declined to say whether unarmed, unmanned Predator aircraft had arrived in Niger or how many would be deployed there.

The drones will be based at first in the capital, Niamey. But military officials would like to eventually move them north to the city of Agadez, which is closer to parts of Mali where al-Qaeda cells have taken root.

“That’s a better location for the mission, but it’s not feasible at this point,” the official said, describing Agadez as a frontier city “with logistical challenges.”

The introduction of Predators to Niger fills a gap in U.S. military capabilities over the Sahara, most of which remains beyond the reach of its drone bases in East Africa and southern Europe.

The Pentagon also operates drones from a permanent base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, and from a civilian airport in Ethi­o­pia.

The U.S. military has been flying small turboprop surveillance planes over northern Mali and West Africa for years, but the PC-12 spy aircraft have limited range and lack the sophisticated sensors that Predators carry.

Cecil Womack

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…,  brother of famed R&B great Bobby Womack has died on the 1.2.2013 in South Africa. Womack was part of the famed group Womack and Womack. Cecil, 65  was married to Sam Cook’s daughter Linda. They moved to Africa in the 90s.  Cecil and Linda released a successful album, Love Wars, and continued to make albums until 1993. The duo continued to work with their seven children as The House of Zekkariyas, releasing   the album Sub Conscience in 2002.

Marc Dutroux

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born 6 November 1956 is a Belgian serial killer and child molester, convicted of having kidnapped, tortured and sexually abused six girls during 1995 to 1996, ranging in age from 8 to 19, four of whom he murdered. He was also convicted of having killed a suspected former accomplice, Bernard Weinstein, later proved insane. He was arrested in 1996, four years after the disappearance of his victims had begun, and has been in prison ever since, though he briefly escaped in April 1998.

Dutroux’s widely publicised trial took place in 2004. A number of shortcomings in the Dutroux investigation caused widespread discontent in Belgium with the country’s criminal justice system, and the ensuing scandal was one of the reasons for the reorganisation of Belgium’s law enforcement agencies.

Early life and anti-social tendencies

Born in Ixelles, Belgium on 6 November 1956, Dutroux was the oldest of five children. His parents, both teachers, emigrated to the Belgian Congo, but returned to Belgium when Dutroux was four. They separated in 1971 and Dutroux stayed with his mother. He married at the age of 19 and fathered two children; the marriage ended in divorce in 1983. By then he already had had an affair with Michelle Martin. They would eventually have three children together, and married in 1989 while both were in prison. They divorced in 2003, also while in prison.

An unemployed electrician, Dutroux had a long criminal history including convictions for car theft, muggings and drug dealing. Dutroux’s criminal career, involving the trade of stolen cars to Czechoslovakia and Hungary, drug dealing and also violent crimes such as mugging, gained him enough money to live in relative comfort in Charleroi, a city that had at the time high unemployment. He has been described by experts as a psychopath.

He owned seven small houses, most of them vacant, and used three of them for the torture of the girls he kidnapped. He lived mainly in his house in Marcinelle near Charleroi (Hainaut), where he constructed a concealed dungeon in the basement. Hidden behind a massive concrete door disguised as a shelf, the cell was 2.15 metres (7 ft) long, less than 1 metre (3 ft) wide and 1.64 metres (5 ft) high.

First arrest and failure of the system

In February 1986, Dutroux and Martin were arrested for abducting and raping five young girls. In April 1989, he was sentenced to thirteen and a half years in prison. Martin received a sentence of five years. Showing good behaviour in prison, Dutroux was released on parole in April 1992, having served only three years, by Justice Minister Melchior Wathelet. Upon his release the parole board received a letter from Dutroux’s own mother to the prison director, in which she stressed concern that he was keeping young girls captive in his house – which was essentially ignored.

Following his release from prison, Dutroux was able to convince a psychiatrist that he was psychiatrically disabled, resulting in a government pension. He also received prescriptions of sleeping pills and sedatives, which he would later use on his victims.

Abductions and arrest

Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo (both aged eight) were kidnapped together from Grâce-Hollogne on 24 June 1995, probably by Dutroux, and imprisoned in Dutroux’s cellar. Dutroux repeatedly sexually abused the girls and produced pornographic videos.

On 22 August 1995, Dutroux kidnapped 17-year-old An Marchal and 19-year-old Eefje Lambrecks who were on a camping trip in Ostend. He was probably assisted by his accomplice Michel Lelièvre, who was paid with drugs. Since the dungeon already contained Lejeune and Russo, Dutroux chained the girls to a bed in a room of his house. His wife was aware of all these activities. Dutroux killed Marchal and Lambrecks several weeks later by drugging them and burying them alive at one of his properties in Jumet.

Second arrest and failure of the system

In late 1995, Dutroux was arrested by police for involvement in a stolen luxury car racket. He was held in custody for three months between 6 December 1995 and 20 March 1996. During this period, Lejeune and Russo starved to death in the dungeon. Michelle Martin allegedly fed her husband’s German shepherd dogs but not the girls, who were later buried in bin bags in the back garden.

There are documented reports that police searched Dutroux’s house on 13 December 1995 and again six days later in relation to his car theft charge. During this time, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo were still alive in the basement dungeon, but the police failed to discover them. Since the search was unrelated to kidnapping charges, police searching the house had no dogs or specialised equipment that might have discovered the girls’ presence, and they failed to notice the significance of the freshly plastered and painted wall that concealed the dungeon, in an otherwise decrepit and dirty basement. While in the basement, officers heard children’s cries, which they decided had come from the street outside.

Two months after his release, Dutroux, with help from Lelièvre, kidnapped 12-year-old Sabine Dardenne who was on her way to school on 28 May 1996. She was imprisoned by him, once again, in the dungeon where he had kept his previous victims.

Third arrest and discovery of the crimes

On 9 August 1996, Dutroux and Lelièvre kidnapped 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez when she was walking home, from a public swimming pool. But an eyewitness identified part of a license plate which matched a vehicle registered to Dutroux. He, his wife and Lelièvre were all arrested on 13 August 1996. An initial search of his houses proved inconclusive. But two days later, Dutroux and Lelièvre both made confessions. Dutroux led the police to the basement dungeon where Dardenne and Delhez were found alive on 15 August 1996. In an interview conducted several years later, Dardenne revealed that Dutroux had told her that she had been kidnapped by a gang but her parents did not want to pay the ransom and the gang was planning to kill her. Dutroux said he saved her, and that he wasn’t one of the gang members she should fear. He let her write letters to her family, which he read but never posted.

On 17 August 1996, Dutroux led police to another of his houses in Sars-la-Buissière (Hainaut). The bodies of Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo as well as another accomplice Bernard Weinstein were found in the garden. An autopsy found that the two girls had died from starvation. Dutroux said he had crushed Weinstein’s testicles until he gave him money, he then drugged him and buried him alive. Later Dutroux told the police where to find the bodies of An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks. They were located on 3 September 1996 in Jumet (Hainaut), buried under a shack next to a house owned by Dutroux. Weinstein had lived in that house for three years.

Hundreds of commercial adult pornographic videos, along with a large number of home-made sex films that Dutroux had made with his wife Michelle Martin were recovered from his properties.

Shortcomings of initial investigations

Authorities were criticised for various aspects of the case. Perhaps most notably, police searched Dutroux’s house on 13 December 1995 and again six days later in relation to his car theft charge. During this time, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo were still alive in the basement dungeon, but they were not found.

Several incidents suggested that Dutroux’s intentions were not properly followed-up. Dutroux had offered money to a police informer for providing girls, and told him that he was constructing a cell in his basement. His mother also wrote a second letter to the police, claiming that he held girls captive in his houses.

Allegations of massive cover-up

There was widespread anger and frustration among Belgians due to police errors, the general slowness of the investigation and Dutroux’s claims that he was part of a sex ring that included high-ranking members of the police force and government. This anger culminated when the popular investigative judge in charge of investigating the claims was dismissed on the grounds of having participated in a fund-raising dinner for the girls’ parents. The investigation itself was wound up. His dismissal and end of the investigation resulted in a massive protest march (the “White March”) of 300,000 people on the capital, Brussels, in October 1996, two months after Dutroux’s arrest, in which demands were made for reforms of Belgium’s police and justice system.

On the witness stand, Jean-Marc Connerotte, the original judge of the case, broke down in tears when he described “the bullet-proof vehicles and armed guards needed to protect him against the shadowy figures determined to stop the full truth coming out. Never before in Belgium has an investigating judge at the service of the king been subjected to such pressure. We were told by police that [murder] contracts had been taken out against the magistrates.” Connerotte testified that the investigation was seriously hampered by protection of suspects by people in the government. “Rarely has so much energy been spent opposing an inquiry,” he said. He believed that the Mafia had taken control of the case.

Parliamentary investigation and continued anti-social behavior

A 17-month investigation by a parliamentary commission into the Dutroux affair produced a report in February 1998, which concluded that while Dutroux did not have accomplices in high positions in the police and justice systems, as he continued to claim, he profited from corruption, sloppiness and incompetence.

Public indignation flared up again in April 1998. While being transferred to a court house without handcuffs, Dutroux overpowered one of his guards, took his gun and escaped. Police in his native Belgium, France, Luxemborg and Germany placed their police forces on an “all-borders alert” along with a major manhunt. He was caught a few hours later. The Minister of Justice Stefaan De Clerck, the Minister of the Interior Johan Vande Lanotte, and the police chief resigned as a result. In 2000, Dutroux received a five-year sentence for threatening a police officer during his escape. In 2002, he received another five-year sentence for unrelated crimes.

The trial

Dutroux’s trial began on 1 March 2004, some seven and a half years after his initial arrest. It was a trial by jury and up to 450 people were called upon to testify. The trial took place in Arlon, the capital of the Belgian province of Luxembourg, where investigations had started. Dutroux was tried for the murder of An Marchal, Eefje Lambrecks and Bernard Weinstein, a suspected accomplice. While admitting the abductions, he denied all three killings, although he had earlier confessed to killing Weinstein. Dutroux was also charged with a host of other crimes: auto theft, abduction, attempted murder and attempted abduction, molestation, and three unrelated rapes of women from Slovakia.

Martin was tried as an accomplice, as were Lelièvre and Michel Nihoul. To protect the accused, they were made to sit in a glass cage during the trial. In the first week of the trial, photos of Dutroux’s face were not allowed to be printed in Belgian newspapers, for privacy reasons but this ban remained in force until March 9. Throughout the trial, Dutroux continued to insist that he was part of a Europe-wide pedophile ring with accomplices among police officers, businessmen, doctors, and even high-level Belgian politicians.

In a rare move, the jury at the assize trial publicly protested the presiding judge Stéphane Goux’s handling of the debates and the victims’ testimonies.

On 14 June 2004, after three months of trial, the jury went into seclusion to reach their verdicts on Dutroux and the three other accused. Verdicts were returned on 17 June 2004 after three days of deliberation. Dutroux, Martin and Lelièvre were found guilty on all charges; the jury were unable to reach a verdict on Michel Nihoul’s role.

Sentencing

On 22 June, Dutroux received the maximum sentence of life imprisonment, while Martin received 30 years and Lelièvre 25 years. Michel Nihoul was later acquitted from the charge of being an offender on kidnapping and murder of the girls by the court. The jury was asked to go back into seclusion to give answer to the question whether Michel Nihoul was an accomplice or not. On June 23, Dutroux lodged an appeal against his sentence. Dutroux is currently being held in solitary confinement at Nivelles Prison.

Although Michel Nihoul was acquitted of kidnapping and conspiracy charges, he was convicted on drug-related charges and received five years.

On Sunday, Aug. 19, 2012, about 2,000 demonstrators in Brussels, Belgium demonstrated against Michelle Martin’s possible early release from prison. She has since been released, 13 years into her sentence.

Meteorite hits central Russia, more than 500 people hurt

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More than 500 people were injured when a meteorite shot across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, sending fireballs crashing to Earth, shattering windows and damaging buildings. (from yahoo.com)

People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.

A fireball blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 200 km (125 miles) away in Yekaterinburg. Car alarms went off, windows shattered and mobile phone networks were interrupted.

“I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day,” said Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.

“I felt like I was blinded by headlights,” he said.

No fatalities were reported but President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host Finance Ministry officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were informed.

A local ministry official said such incidents were extremely rare and Friday’s events might have been linked to an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool due to pass Earth at a distance of 27,520 km (17,100 miles) but this was not confirmed.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said the meteorite was travelling at a speed of 30 km (19 miles) per second and that such events were hard to predict. The Interior Ministry said the meteorite explosion had caused a sonic boom.

Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said 514 people had sought medical help, mainly for light injuries caused by flying glass, and that 112 of those were kept in hospital. Search groups were set up to look for the remains of the meteorite.

“There have never been any cases of meteorites breaking up at such a low level over Russia before,” said Yuri Burenko, head of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Emergencies Ministry.

Windows were shattered on Chelyabinsk’s central Lenin Street and some of the frames of shop fronts buckled.

A loud noise, resembling an explosion, rang out at around 9.20 a.m. (12:20 a.m. ET). The shockwave could be felt in apartment buildings in the industrial city’s center.

“I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend,” said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. “Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows.”

A wall was damaged at the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but a spokeswoman said there was no environmental threat.

Although such events are rare, a meteorite is thought to have devastated an area of more than 2,000 sq km (1,250 miles) in Siberia in 1908, smashing windows as far as 200 km (125 miles) from the point of impact.

The Emergencies Ministry described Friday’s events as a “meteor shower in the form of fireballs” and said background radiation levels were normal. It urged residents not to panic.

Chelyabinsk city authorities urged people to stay indoors unless they needed to pick up their children from schools and kindergartens. They said what sounded like a blast had been heard at an altitude of 10,000 meters (32,800 feet).

The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 46 meters in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.

Television, weather and communications satellites fly about 500 miles higher. The moon is 14 times farther away.