Drug submarine seized in Colombia

25 September 2011 Last updated at 03:15 GMT The submarine cost about $2m and could hold a crew of five, officials say Police in Colombia have seized a submarine belonging to Farc rebels which had the capacity to carry at least seven tonnes of drugs.

The 16m-long (52ft) vessel - equipped with a sophisticated navigation system - was captured near the Pacific port city of Buenaventura.

The police said the submersible was about to be used for the first time to deliver its load.

The vessel would have been able to travel as far as Central America.

"It was going to be used by the narco-terrorist 29th front of the Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in alliance with organisations of drug traffickers who operate in this southern area of the country," drugs police chief Gen Luis Alberto Perez told Efe news agency.

He added that it was "probably one of the biggest" drug ships seized in Colombia in recent years.

The authorities believe it cost about $2m (£1.3m) and could hold a crew of five.

Many cocaine traffickers are based in Buenaventura, where poverty and unemployment are high.

Colombia is the centre of the world's cocaine trade, and traffickers are increasingly seeking new ways to avoid detection - including going underwater.

The drugs are mostly smuggled to Mexico or Central America by sea and onward by land to the US and Canada.

Colombia is also the source of most European cocaine.

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Airstrikes hit Yemeni province seized by militants

SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni warplanes launched airstrikes in a southern province overrun by Islamic militants, killing at least seven civilians and a dozen militants Monday in attacks on hideouts, including a mosque and a hospital, a witness and officials said.

A military official said at least 12 militants were killed in airstrikes in eastern Abyan province. Another local official said dozens of militants were killed in the north of the province.

Fighters with suspected links to Yemen's al-Qaida offshoot took over towns in Abyan, including the provincial capital and another major town, Jaar, in April, taking advantage of turmoil that grew out of massive demonstrations demanding the resignation of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

In June, Saleh was wounded in a bomb attack on his palace and departed for Saudi Arabia for treatment. He is still there, but he insists he will return home, defying international demands that he step down. The anti-Saleh protests and growing political disarray have created a security vacuum in southern Yemen, where al-Qaida-linked militants are battling the military for control. Western nations view al-Qaida's branch in Yemen as one of the group's most violent and dangerous.

A witness said Jaar's main hospital was taken over by militants who started treating wounded fighters there and preventing civilians and residents from being admitted. The hospital was hit three times and destroyed, witness Walid Mohammed told The Associated Press.

"The third airstrike that targeted the hospital totally demolished it," he said.

Al-Qaida-linked militants also took over the Hamza mosque in Jaar. In an apparently mistaken strike, at least one warplane hit a mosque about half a mile (one kilometer) away, shattering one of its walls and killing seven civilians, Mohammed said.

Mohammed Hussein Nasser, a local government official, said dozens of people had been killed and wounded in the strikes on the town. He did not provide exact figures.

A secondary school that was used as a field hospital by militants was also hit by airstrike, he said.

The Yemeni air force also bombed the security headquarters but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

In separate air raids in eastern Abyan, warplanes and helicopters struck at three suspected militant hideouts between the coastal city of Shaqra and the nearby al-Arqoub region, killing at least 12 militants, a defense ministry official said. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

On Sunday, Yemen's Defense Ministry said 17 al-Qaida militants had been killed in airstrikes elsewhere in the south.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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2 tons of elephant ivory seized in Hong Kong

HONG KONG — Hong Kong customs officers have seized a large shipment of African ivory hidden in a container that arrived by sea from Malaysia.

Hong Kong government officials said Tuesday that officers found 794 pieces of ivory tusks estimated to be worth $1.6 million.

The officers found the tusks, which were hidden by stones, on Monday after deciding to examine the shipment, which the officials said was labeled "nonferrous products for factory use."

The container arrived from Malaysia, but the officials did not say where it originated from. A 66-year-old man was arrested and officials are investigating.

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Headed to China?
The wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC said the shipment appeared destined for mainland China, which the group considers the leading driver of African poaching. Ground-up ivory is often used in traditional medicine in China.

"The authorities in Hong Kong are to be congratulated on this important seizure, but it is now vital to ensure that all leads are followed to track down those responsible along the entire smuggling chain," said Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC’s elephant and rhino program coordinator, in a statement on its website.

The statement said the ivory tusks, which weighed a total of about 2 tons, were from elephants.

Story: US art dealer busted in huge illegal ivory haul

Traffic said that since 1989, more than 17 tons of elephant ivory had been seized by authorities in Hong Kong.

The group said illicit trade in ivory had been increasing across the world since 2004, citing a number of examples:

Last week, more than 1000 ivory tusks were seized in Zanzibar, Tanzania, apparently en route to Malaysia. In Hong Kong in December 2009, 186 pieces of ivory from Nigeria were found inside a container shipped from Malaysia labeled as containing "White Wood."In 2003, Hong Kong authorities seized 275 tusks, weighing about 2 tons, transiting from Malaysia after being illegally exported from Tanzania.

Milliken said the latest seizure showed the importance of Malaysia as an intermediary country in the "illicit flow of African ivory to Asia."

Story: Ivory burned to make point about elephant killings

"It's time for Malaysia to get tough on international ivory smugglers, who are tarnishing the country's reputation," he said in the statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Serbs: Last war crimes fugitive seized

Goran Hadzic pictured in a wanted poster.NEW: The prosecutor calls the capture an "important milestone"Serbia's president announces that Goran Hadzic is seized Hadzic is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanityThe announcement comes less than two months after the capture of Ratko Mladic

(CNN) -- Goran Hadzic, the last Yugoslav war crimes suspect still at large, was captured in Serbia Wednesday, a war crimes tribunal announced.

An ex-Croatian Serb rebel leader who has been a fugitive for seven years, Hadzic was wanted for crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

The former president of a self-proclaimed Serbian republic in Croatia, Hadzic is accused of trying to remove Croats and other non-Serbs from the territory and the "extermination or murder of hundreds of Croat or other non-Serb civilians," among many other crimes, according to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

He was the last fugitive of the 161 people indicted by the tribunal.

The announcement, also made by Serbian President Boris Tadic, comes less than two months after the capture of the highest-profile war crimes suspect still at large, former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic.

Plans were being made for Hadzic's transfer into the Tribunal's custody after the completion of legal proceedings in Serbia. Authorities hope he'll soon be in custody at The Hague in the Netherlands, where the court is based.

"I welcome the arrest today of Goran Hadzic, the war-time Croatian Serb political leader of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina," Tribunal Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said.

"Hadzic's transfer into the Tribunal's custody is a long awaited development for the victims of the crimes charged against him. It is also an important milestone in the Tribunal's history. Eighteen years after the Tribunal's creation, we can now say that no indicted person has successfully evaded the Tribunal's judicial process. This is a precedent of enduring significance, not only for this Tribunal, but also for international criminal justice more generally."

The European Union and NATO welcomed the capture of Hadzic, with the EU saying it would help clear the way to Serbian membership in the club of nations.

"This arrest sends a positive signal to the European Union and to Serbia's neighbors, but most of all on the rule of law in Serbia itself," EU leaders said in a joint statement, saying Serbia was "confronting the past and turning the page to a better European future."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Twitter that the arrest was "an historic moment for international justice & the victims of war crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s."

Ratko Mladic was seized May 26 after more than 15 years in hiding and extradited to the Netherlands to face trial at the criminal tribunal five days later.

He has proved an obstructive defendant, arguing with judges about who should represent him, and in a recent appearance, a judge ordered him removed from the chamber.

His superiors during the wars that saw thousands massacred were Radovan Karadzic, who was captured earlier and is now on trial, and Slobodan Milosevic, who died in jail while on trial at The Hague.

Brammertz said the apprehension of both Hadzic and Mladic "mark a long-awaited step forward in Serbia's cooperation with the Tribunal. Serbia has now produced visible evidence that cooperation with the Tribunal is not an empty promise but a genuine commitment and we look forward to Serbia's assistance with our ongoing work."

The prosecutor touched on the "prosecution of war crimes" in Balkan nations, saying they pose "a critical challenge for the region and its people."

"The Office of the Prosecutor will continue to use its best efforts to assist the fight against impunity in the former Yugoslavia, by providing national prosecutors with information, evidence and expertise. The international community also has a key role to play in ensuring that national prosecutions can successfully take over the Tribunal's work in establishing accountability for the atrocities committed."

Hadzic is the former president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina and was indicted in 2004 for crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in the eastern Slavonia region of Croatia in the early 1990s.

The indictment against Hadzic said he was "a co-perpetrator in a joint criminal enterprise" -- the permanent and forcible removal of a "majority of the Croat and other non-Serb population from approximately one-third of the territory of the Republic of Croatia" to make the land part of a "new Serb-dominated state."

Under the indictment, Hadzic is charged on the basis of individual criminal responsibility for having participated in the following actions:

"Exterminating or murdering hundreds of Croat and other non-Serb civilians, including women and elderly persons, in Dalj, Dalj Planina, Erdut, Erdut Planina, Klisa, Lovas, Grabovac and Vukovar.

"Imprisoning and confining hundreds of Croat and other non-Serb civilians in detention facilities within and outside of Croatia, and establishing and perpetuating inhumane living conditions, including repeatedly torturing, beating and killing detainees in these detention facilities.

"Forcing Croat and other non-Serb civilians to perform labour when detained or under house arrest in Vukovar, Dalj, Lovas, Erdut and Tovarnik."

He is also accused of other crimes against the Croat and other non-Serb civilian population.

They are "imposing restrictive and discriminatory measures," beatings, robberies and arbitrary arrests, deportations and forcible transfer of thousands, and the deliberate destruction of "homes, other public and private property, cultural institutions, historic monuments and sacred sites.

CNN's Claudia Rebaza and Richard Allen Greene contributed to this report.

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