26 arrests in night of NI riots

13 July 2011 Last updated at 11:01 GMT There were 26 arrests following violence in Northern Ireland on Tuesday night

Twenty-six people were arrested during rioting in nationalist areas of north and south Belfast and Londonderry after Tuesday's Orange Order parades.

Sixteen police were injured and officers fired 55 plastic baton rounds - all of them in north Belfast's Ardoyne area.

Police said children as young as 10 were involved in the rioting in Derry.

Rioters threw petrol bombs, bricks, stones, fireworks and bottles at officers during the trouble.

Twelve arrests were made in Derry, nine in Belfast's Ardoyne - including a 12-year-old by and five in the Markets area of south Belfast.

In Armagh, there were reports of public disorder in the Friary Road and Killylea Road areas, while in Ballymena a car was burnt out in Dunclug estate.

Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said those involved in the violence were mindless thugs and there was no evidence that it had been orchestrated.

He said an officer whose helmet was set on fire by a petrol bomb was already back on duty - a testament to his bravery and also the quality of the riot equipment the police use.

Water cannon

The trouble in north Belfast broke out after police in riot gear took up position ahead of an Orange parade walking past Ardoyne shops on Tuesday evening.

A crowd of about 200 people threw petrol bombs and other missiles at police who responded with a water cannon and by firing a number of plastic baton rounds - one of which hit a photographer.

Police said a number of officers were injured.

ACC Finlay said the scale of the violence had been "intense".

"The vast area of Northern Ireland was extremely peaceful, yet for these few streets we get headlines of violence, of people injured, of communities and relationships being broken, and infrastructure and property damaged," he said.

"There will be a follow up operation like last year and people will be brought before the courts."

In 2010, there were several days of rioting after the parade was allowed to walk past the shops.

The Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (GARC), which opposes the Orange parade passing the nationalist Ardoyne, held a protest in response to the Parades Commission decision to allow the march to pass the shops.

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The return Orange Order feeder parade through Ardoyne has been treated as 'contentious' by the Parades Commission for years.

Objections from residents on the nationalist part of the Crumlin Road through which it passes have led to serious rioting in the past. Where mainstream republicans were once able to use their influence to calm trouble, there are now two distinct nationalist groups. Those that subscribe to Sinn Fein's peace strategy, and those who do not.

The difference was plain to see this evening as former senior members of the IRA effectively marshalled one group of protesters, while another threw petrol bombs and bricks at the police. Sinn Fein's influence over this group is limited.

Some are involved because they genuinely object to the parade, others are there because they simply enjoy rioting with the police.

'Unwanted' Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly said a parade in the area would continue to be a problem.

"The difficulty was that there was an Orange parade," he said.

"People have made great efforts, but a parade coming through a Catholic area is a problem.

The DUP MP for North Belfast Nigel Dodds said people had to realise that the Crumlin Road was a "shared space and not just a nationalist road".

"The people engaged in the violence didn't even see the parade go past," he said.

Arrests

The trouble in Derry broke out in the Bogside and Fahan Street areas and in Gobnascale and Ardmore in the Waterside, while there was also violence in nearby Strabane and Castlederg.

Among those arrested was a 14-year-old boy. A crate of petrol bombs was also recovered in the Fahan Street area of the city.

A group of Spanish tourists, who had just left their hotel, narrowly escaped injury when petrol bombers attacked police.

In the Markets area of Belfast, a number of youths threw stones and missiles at police in Stewart Street and a car was set on fire.

On Monday night, 22 police officers were injured during serious rioting in several nationalist areas of west and north Belfast.

On the Twelfth of July, the Protestant Orange Order takes part in demonstrations across Northern Ireland, commemorating King William of Orange's 1690 Battle of the Boyne victory over Catholic King James II.

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There were 26 arrests following violence in Northern Ireland on Tuesday night

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Greece arrests Gaza ship captain

3 July 2011 Last updated at 01:42 GMT The Audacity of Hope was prevented from setting sail from the port of Perama on Friday night The Greek authorities have arrested the captain of a boat that was due to carry activists to the Gaza Strip.

John Klusmire, a US citizen, is being held in custody at police headquarters in the port of Piraeus, near Athens.

He faces charges of trying to leave port without permission and of endangering the lives of passengers.

His vessel, the Audacity of Hope, was part of a flotilla planning to take humanitarian aid to Gaza in order to challenge the Israeli blockade.

It was prevented from setting sail from the port of Perama on Friday night by the Greek coastguard, in accordance with a ban announced the same day which the Greek government said was intended to protect activists.

The Audacity of Hope, which is currently moored at a naval base, was carrying 36 passengers, four crew and about 10 members of the media.

A spokeswoman for the boat, Jane Hirschmann, told the Associated Press that the conditions of Mr Klusmire's detention were "terrible".

"There is no bed. He is sitting on a bench," she added.

'Unsustainable conditions'

The Israeli government has meanwhile denied claims it sabotaged two ships docked in Turkey and Greece which were to join the flotilla.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor dismissed the accusations as "ridiculous," calling them "sad conspiracy theories".

The Turkish authorities have also said there is no evidence that the Irish vessel docked at the Aegean port of Gocek was sabotaged.

Nine activists on a Turkish aid ship were killed last year in a raid by Israeli commandos as it tried to reach Gaza.

Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on the coastal territory since the Islamist militant group, Hamas, seized control of it in 2007.

The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators - the UN, US, EU and Russia - said on Saturday that it remained concerned about the unsustainable conditions facing Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but noted "a marked increase in the range and scope of goods and materials" allowed in.

"The Quartet strongly urges all those wishing to deliver goods to the people of Gaza to do so through established channels so that their cargo can be inspected and transferred via established land crossings."

"The Quartet regrets the injury and deaths caused by the 2010 flotilla, urges restraint and calls on all governments concerned to use their influence to discourage additional flotillas, which risk the safety of their participants and carry the potential for escalation," it added.

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China arrests 36 in Alibaba fraud

1 July 2011 Last updated at 06:47 GMT Alibaba's reputation took a hit as a result of the online fraud on its e-commerce website Chinese police have arrested 36 people connected with operating an online fraud on Alibaba.com and other websites, the company has said.

Those arrested stand accused of duping overseas buyers of more than $6m (?3.7m) by posing as suppliers on the Chinese e-commerce websites.

The fraud resulted in the chief executive and chief operating officer of Alibaba quitting earlier this year.

Alibaba is China's largest e-commerce group.

"The arrest of the suspects hits online scammers hard," said Alibaba.com boss Jonathan Lu.

The company said the arrests were made following a 40-day investigation earlier this year.

Reduced complaints

Alibaba said it had introduced strict procedures in an attempt to prevent a repeat of such cases.

As a result, the number of fraud complaints received monthly by the website declined by 70% between February and June, Alibaba officials said.

The company said it would keep up its efforts to ensure the safety of its consumers.

"We will continue to co-operate with defrauded buyers and police to pursue the investigation, arrest and sentencing of those who commit crimes using our platform," said Linda Kozlowski of Alibaba.com.

"If scammers think they can hide on the internet and that no-one will go after them, they are wrong," she added.

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Pakistan 'arrests CIA informants'

15 June 2011 Last updated at 10:38 GMT The raid on Bin Laden's compound has strained relations between the US and Pakistan Pakistan has arrested five alleged informants for the CIA who helped in the US raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in northern Pakistan in May, US media report.

Among those held by the intelligence agency, the ISI, was the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to watch Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, the New York Times reported.

The raid strained US-Pakistan ties.

US President Barack Obama said "someone" was protecting Bin Laden.

Pakistan has denied knowing Bin Laden's whereabouts and denied the New York Times report, in particular its claim that an army major was among those arrested.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on a recent visit to Pakistan that there was "absolutely no evidence that anyone at the highest level of the Pakistani government" knew where Bin Laden was.

'Interrogated'

"No Pakistani soldier is under arrest, but we are interrogating several people whom we suspect of having been working for American intelligence services," Inter Services Public Relations spokesman Brigadier Azmat Abbas told the BBC.

He said that among those arrested were people "captured during a raid at a house located close to the Bin Laden compound".

"We suspect them of having been working for CIA," he said.

"Others being interrogated include people who used to visit the compound."

Brig Abbas said that two categories of people were among those arrested - those who threw flares into the Bin Laden compound to guide approaching US helicopters and those who helped the helicopters refuel within Pakistani territory.

In the wake of Bin Laden's death many American agents have been forced to leave Pakistan, while Pakistani officials and civilians suspected of helping the CIA may soon appear in court.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says dozens of people have been arrested and released by the security agencies since the death of the al-Qaeda leader - and at least five of them have not yet been released.

Our correspondent says that the Pakistani authorities appear to be making every effort to unearth CIA informants while showing little interest in arresting Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathisers.

Soon after the killing on 2 May, witnesses told the BBC that two brothers - both cousins of Bin Laden's courier - were picked up from their village in the north-western Shangla district.

A member of the security forces was also picked up from the Ilyasi Masjid area near the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, according to witnesses. It is not known whether he belonged to the intelligence wing of the police or the army. He remains unaccounted for to date.

The contractor who built the Bin Laden compound, Noor Mohammad alias Gul Madah, a property dealer identified by witnesses as Kaleem, Bin Laden's neighbour Shamrez and his father Zain Mohammad were arrested in the weeks following the killing.

All of them - apart from Kaleem - were later released although they have subsequently gone missing, our correspondent adds.

It is not clear whether these men were among the alleged CIA informants arrested.

The New York Times said those held included a major believed to have logged the number plates of cars visiting Bin Laden's compound in the weeks before the raid.

The US has sharply reduced its troop presence in Pakistan at Islamabad's request.

Washington has provided Pakistan with billions of dollars of aid in recent years, much of it military assistance.

Islamabad has also been angered by US drone raids on tribal regions bordering Afghanistan in which civilians, as well as militants, have been killed.

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Spain arrests Anonymous suspects

10 June 2011 Last updated at 14:29 GMT Anonymous has carried out web attacks to help Wikileaks Three suspected members of the Anonymous hacking group have been arrested in Spain.

The trio are said to have been involved in co-ordinating the group's activity in that country.

The arrests were made simultaneously in three Spanish cities - Barcelona, Valencia and Almeria.

Anonymous has claimed responsibility for attacks on Sony, Spanish banks and co-ordinated action in defence of whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.

A statement from the Spanish national police force said that a computer seized in the home of one person it arrested was used in the hacks.

The arrests were the culmination of an investigation that began in October 2010.

It involved Spanish cyber police combing through millions of lines of chat logs to identify who was behind the group's activities.

Some of the attacks made by Anonymous members used a web-based tool called Loic to bombard target sites with data. The websites of PayPal, Mastercard and Amazon were all targeted using this tool.

It seems that Loic did a poor job of hiding the identity of the people using it. It is believed that some police forces have already moved against the group based on this information.

Arrests have been made in the US, UK and Holland of Anonymous members, prior to the raids in Spain.

Anonymous grew out of the online picture sharing site 4Chan and describes itself as a group of concerned internet citizens.

As well as attacking sites that it perceives as not supporting Wikileaks, the loosely organised collective has also attacked government sites in Tunisia and Egypt to aid popular protest movements.

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