Amid a soaring number of murders connected to escalating drug gang conflicts, Mexico on Monday launched a system of “virtual” judges who are to respond online and within 24 hours to requests for search warrants, preventive arrests or telephone tapping of organized crime suspects.
The six new “control” judges — five men and one woman — are intended to speed up efforts against crime and work under a cloak of anonymity, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said.
They will have their headquarters in a high-technology, top-security building in southern Mexico City and the whole country will be under their jurisdiction. They are to respond quickly in favor of or against requests by public prosecutors in relation to organized crime and national security issues,” he said.
The judges are set to each work for 24 hours followed by 48 hours off. Requests, documents and decisions are to be managed online and will go through few hands.
As he launched the program, Medina Mora said it was “indispensable” that requests from public prosecutors and judges’ decisions in the fight against organized crime be kept absolutely confidential.
“[Information leaks] not only endanger the respective investigations, but also put at risk the life and the physical integrity of honest public servants who are committed to the consolidation of the rule of law and the security of all Mexicans,” Medina Mora said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
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