Vancouver
Bomb prank: Two members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police bomb squad are being sued for injuring one of their colleagues with a booby-trapped plastic doll. Cpl. Tyrone Hempston kept “Dirty Bertie,” which simulates masturbation, on his desk at work. Two of his squad mates wired explosives into it while he was away over Christmas, and when he turned it on, it blew up in his hands. The lawsuit contends that he suffered nerve damage, hearing loss, anxiety, and “loss of faith in his colleagues.” The case adds to a growing list of Mounties claiming workplace abuse, including numerous allegations of sexual harassment.
Guadalajara, Mexico
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Massive meth bust: Mexican authorities have seized the largest haul of methamphetamine ever. Acting on an anonymous tip, authorities raided a ranch outside Guadalajara and found 15 tons of pure powder, worth some $4 billion. That’s twice as much as the entire amount of meth seized last year at the Mexican border. The stash is believed to belong to the Sinaloa cartel. “The big thing it shows is the sheer capacity that these superlabs have in Mexico,” said Rusty Payne of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “When we see one lab with the capability to produce such a mass tonnage of meth, it begs a question: What else is out there?”
Comayagua, Honduras
Burned alive: A huge fire swept through an overcrowded Honduran prison this week, incinerating hundreds of trapped inmates. Dozens suffocated or were burned alive, locked in their cells. “We couldn’t get them out because we didn’t have the keys and couldn’t find the guards who had them,” a fire official said. Authorities said that, out of 852 prisoners, 356 were missing and presumed dead, although a few may have escaped. “This is desperate. They won’t tell us anything, and I think my husband is dead,” one woman, waiting in the crowd of worried relatives outside the prison, told Canal 5 TV. Officials weren’t sure whether the fire was caused by rioting prisoners or an electrical failure. Honduras, a major drug-trafficking transit point, has the highest murder rate in the world, and riots and gang wars frequently play out in its prisons.
Buenos Aires
Nukes alleged near Falklands: Argentina has accused Britain of sending a submarine armed with nuclear weapons to the waters around the Falkland Islands, a British territory near Argentina. Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman said his country’s intelligence service had evidence that the Brits had sent nuclear weapons to the South Atlantic, in violation of a treaty that created a nuclear-free zone there. Tensions have been growing with the approach of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War, when Britain retook the islands after an Argentine invasion. Britain refused to confirm or deny the accusation. “The whole point of nuclear submarines is that they go all around the world and you don’t know where they are,” said Mark Lyall Grant, Britain’s ambassador to the U.N. “That’s why they’re a deterrent.”
