Security News

Obama in Robben Island jail

juillet 3, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

US President Barack Obama has toured Robben Island – the jail in which Nelson Mandela was kept for 18 years.

He said he and his family were « deeply humbled » to visit the prison once inhabited by Mr Mandela – who remains critically ill in hospital.

Mr Obama went on to give a speech at the University of Cape Town and launch a multi-billion-dollar electricity initiative.

The US leader did not visit Mr Mandela, but met the Mandela family in private.

Security was stepped up during this final Cape Town leg of his time in South Africa, following clashes on Saturday between riot police and anti-Obama protesters in Soweto.

Mexico candidate wounded in attack

juillet 3, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

A candidate in next week’s regional elections in Mexico has been critically injured in a gun attack in the south of the country.

Rosalia Palma, a candidate of the governing PRI party for the Oaxaca state assembly, was hit when her vehicle was fired on, officials said.

Her husband and an aide were killed.

Violence has marred the election campaign, the first since President Enrique Pena Nieto came to power last December.

He has promised to review Mexico’s « war on drugs » policy.

More than 70,000 people are estimated to have died in drug-related violence under the presidency of Felipe Calderon between 2006 and 2012.

Mark Carney new head of Bank of England

juillet 3, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Mark Carney has officially become head of the UK’s central bank, replacing Sir Mervyn King as governor of the Bank of England.

Mr Carney, who was head of Canada’s central bank, is the first foreigner to run the 319-year-old institution.

He takes over with interest rates at an all-time low and with several stimulus programmes in place to revive the economy following the financial crisis.

Mr Carney is likely to oversee the Bank’s exit from these measures.

Financial markets are already braced for an end to the era of cheap money as central banks such as the US Federal Reserve signal a rise to more normal levels of interest rates over time.

Since the economic crisis began in 2008, the Bank has kept interest rates at historic lows and implemented quantitative easing to inject £375bn of liquidity into the financial markets.

Three members of the rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, including Sir Mervyn, have voted for an extra £25bn of QE at the past few meetings.

UN says Syria conflict has reached new levels of brutality

juin 11, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Syria’s war has reached « new levels of brutality », the UN says, with evidence of fresh suspected massacres, sieges and violations of children’s rights.

Children have been taken hostage, forced to watch torture and even participate in beheadings, it says; others have been killed while fighting.

It says it suspects there are « reasonable grounds » to believe chemical weapons have been deployed.

It urges foreign powers not to increase the availability of arms in Syria.

The issue of arms has been high on the international agenda of late, with the EU lifting an embargo on the sale of arms to Syria while Russia has insisted it is going ahead with the sale of an advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system to Syria.

Powerful Russian mayor of Dagestan charged over murder

juin 11, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Prosecutors in Moscow have charged a powerful local politician from the restive North Caucasus region over the murder of an investigator.

Said Amirov, mayor of the city of Makhachkala in Dagestan, was arrested in a dramatic operation involving a helicopter and armoured vehicles.

He was flown to Moscow and charged along with two other men over the murder of an investigator in 2011.

He insisted he was innocent and said the case was politically motivated.

Mr Amirov and the two other suspects were formally charged with « encroachment on the life » of a law enforcement official, a crime for which they could be jailed for life.