Italian police are investigating the murder of a German woman whose body was found next to a motorway in the Calabria region on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman had been stabbed to death, Italian newspapers reported on Sunday, but they also said that the woman had been dead for two days before her body was found. She was not killed on the motorway, but her body had been dumped next to the road not far from the town of Cosenza.
Detectives have told Turin-based newspaper La Stampa that the woman, named only as Petra S., had a surprising amount of personal documentation with her.
The handbag found with her body contained not only a purse with money in it, but also bank documents, savings books, credit cards and a number of letters written to people in Germany.
The Italian police have released a photograph of the woman in an appeal for information.
source: the local
2. missing Irishman found dead in Rotterdam
The Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that the body of missing Irishman Noel Gill was found in the Dutch city of Rotterdam yesterday.
Mr Gill (31) was last seen by a Dutch friend crossing a bridge in the city as he walked home on November 19th between 4am and 4.30am. Originally from Westport, he had been living and working in Rotterdam. A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs told The Irish Times this afternoon that Mr Gill's body was recovered from a canal in Rotterdam yesterday.
The Irish embassy in The Hague was immediately notified. The embassy is providing consular assistance to Mr Gill's family and is assisting with the arrangements for his repatriation.
source: Irish Times3. rash of car accidents in Ukraine
Ten people have been killed in a car accident in western Ukraine's Vinnitsa Region, Ukrainian television reported Sunday. Two people were injured in the accident that occurred Saturday on the Lvov-Znamenka highway. A trailer disconnected from a MAN truck and swerved to the oncoming lane, crashing into a Volkswagen van with 11 passengers inside. It was not immediately clear what happened to the van driver. An investigation is underway.
A total of 106 traffic accidents have occurred in Ukraine in the past 24 hours, killing 22 people and leaving 137 injured.
KIEV, December 6 (RIA Novosti)
4. Italian police seize 19 priceless artworks
BEIJING, Dec. 7 -- Italian tax authorities have found 19 works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet and other famous artists, hidden away by the founder of the collapsed dairy company Parmalat.
Authorities have estimated the value of the masterpieces at around 150 million US dollars. Local Prosecutor, Gerardo Laguardia, said that officials believed at least one of the paintings was about to be sold.
Parma Prosecutor Gerardo Laguardia said, "We suspected some people, we followed them and we got lucky. We learned that there were negotiations under way to sell a painting by Monet. We followed the lead until we found the person who was hiding the masterpieces."
The dairy conglomerate Parmalat collapsed in 2003 under 14 billion euros of debt. It is Europe's largest corporate bankruptcy to date. Small investors who lost their entire life savings were among the 40,000 defrauded bondholders.
Italian courts have already ruled that Calisto Tanzi bore the brunt of the responsibility for the company's collapse. He is currently on trial for alleged fraud.
Ever since the collapse, Tanzi was rumored to have a hidden collection of priceless artworks from some of Europe's most well-known painters. But Tanzi denied the rumors, saying he did not have a secret cache of paintings.
(Source: english.cctv.com) via chinaview
5. Knox trial escalating to involve Hillary Clinton, Maria Cantwell, US senate -- all in righteous indignation at the 'Italian justice system' ???
Hillary Clinton has been drawn into the battle to overturn Amanda Knox's conviction. Amid a growing U.S. backlash against the verdict, the American Secretary of State has agreed to meet a senator from 22-year-old Knox's home state of Washington.
On Friday night, Knox was found guilty of the drug-fuelled sex murder of British student Meredith Kercher and jailed for 26 years. Her conviction, alongside her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, came in tense late-night scenes in the Italian town of Perugia at the end of a year-long trial. Sollecito, 25, was jailed for 25 years....After the verdicts, Knox's furious father Curt Knox vowed to fight to clear his daughter's name and spoke of his 'anger and disbelief' at the Italian justice system.
His campaign seems to be gaining support on Capitol Hill. Senator Maria Cantwell, from Washington state, declared there were 'serious questions about the Italian justice system'.
She said she was concerned there had been an 'anti-American' feeling at the trial and said she would be raising her concerns with Mrs Clinton.
6. 1.8 tonnes of cocaine seized in Venezuela
Venezuelan authorities seized 1.8 tonnes of cocaine hidden in two containers bound for Spain, Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said Sunday.
...The cocaine was found to be distributed in packets hidden in boxes mixed in with others containing the cleaning products, including detergents and disinfectants, El Aissami said.
Authorities are investigating 'six people, fully identified, who are not under arrest but are being questioned, and five companies directly involved in the customs procedures' for the containers' shipment to Europe, El Aissami said....The shipment bore 'an identification logo of the criminal organization' to which the drug belongs, which is 'one more element for the investigation,' El Aissami said.
7. CDC heartened by initial safety reports of H1N1 vaccine
Dec 4, 2009 (CIDRAP News) – Preliminary studies indicate that the pandemic H1N1 vaccine is just as safe as seasonal flu vaccines and is very unlikely to increase the risk of the paralytic condition that derailed the 1976 swine flu vaccination campaign, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.
...Data from two separate H1N1 vaccine safety monitoring systems have shown no increased risk for serious adverse events, compared with seasonal flu vaccination, the CDC said in a special report. And no cases of Guillian-Barre syndrome (GBS), the paralytic condition, have been linked to 438,000 vaccinations given to members of a network of eight managed care organizations.
read more @ CIDRAP
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