Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem flag row

Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem flag row - Soldiers on Monday violated the status quo on the esplanade of the mosques in east Jerusalem by raising Israel's flag, the head of the Islamic Waqf organisation that oversees the compound charged.

"More than 180 soldiers from a special Israeli army unit today raised a large Israeli flag opposite the mosque of the Rock, which is a grave provocation," Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib told AFP.

The sprawling esplanade containing the Al-Aqsa mosque and the adjacent Dome of the Rock in the historic Old City is the third-holiest site in Islam after Saudi Arabia's Mecca and Medina.

Israeli policemen stand guard near the Dome of the Rock at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's old city in February 2012. Soldiers on Monday violated the status quo on the esplanade of the mosques in east Jerusalem by raising Israel's flag, the head of the Islamic Waqf organisation that oversees the compound charged. (AFP Photo/)

It is also the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

Sheikh Khatib said the soldiers entered the esplanade during a visit approved and organised by Israeli police.

He said he had made a complaint both to the Israeli police and to the Jordanian authorities. Jordan, which has a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, is the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri confirmed to AFP that there had been an incident but said it concerned "a small flag," and said that a senior officer at the scene quickly intervened to expel the soldiers from the compound.

She said they would later face disciplinary measures.

Israel occupied the eastern sector of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War in a move never recognised by the international community, and later annexed it.

For Israelis, Jerusalem is their "eternal and undivided capital," but Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.

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Vatican in chaos after butler arrested for leaks

Vatican in chaos after butler arrested for leaks - The Vatican's investigation into the source of leaked documents has yielded its first target with the arrest of the pope's butler, but the investigation is continuing into a scandal that has embarrassed the Holy See by revealing evidence of internal power struggles, intrigue and corruption in the highest levels of the Catholic Church governance.

The detention of butler Paolo Gabriele, one of the few members of the papal household, capped one of the most convulsive weeks in recent Vatican history and threw the Holy See into chaos as it enters a critical phase in its efforts to show the world it's serious about complying with international norms on financial transparency.

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Pentecost Mass inside St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

The tumult began with the publication last weekend of a book of leaked Vatican documents including correspondence, notes and memos to the pope and his private secretary. It peaked with the inglorious ouster on Thursday of the president of the Vatican bank. And it concluded with confirmation Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's own butler was the alleged mole feeding documents to Italian journalists in an apparent bid to discredit the pontiff's No. 2.

"If you wrote this in fiction you wouldn't believe it," said Carl Anderson, a member of the board of the Vatican bank which contributed to the whirlwind with its no-confidence vote in its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. "No editor would let you put it in a novel."

The bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, issued a scathing denunciation of Gotti Tedeschi in a memorandum obtained Saturday by The Associated Press. In it the bank, or IOR by its Italian initials, explained its reasons for ousting Gotti Tedeschi: he routinely missed board meetings, failed to do his job, failed to defend the bank, polarized its personnel and displayed "progressively erratic personal behavior."

Gotti Tedeschi was also accused by the board of leaking documents himself: The IOR memorandum said he "failed to provide any formal explanation for the dissemination of documents last known" to be in his possession. In an interview with the AP, Anderson said the latter accusation was independent of the broader "Vatileaks" scandal that has rocked the Vatican for months. But he stressed: "It is not an insignificant issue."

Gotti Tedeschi hasn't commented publicly about his ouster or the reasons behind it, saying he has too much admiration for the pope to do so. He also hasn't been arrested, avoiding the fate that befell Gabriele.

The 46-year-old father of three has been in Vatican detention since Wednesday after Vatican investigators discovered Holy See documents in his apartment. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Gabriele had met with his lawyers and that the investigation was taking its course through the Vatican's judicial system.

Gabriele, the pope's personal butler since 2006, has often been seen by Benedict's side in public, riding in the front seat of the pope's open-air jeep during Wednesday general audiences or shielding the pontiff from the rain. In private, he is a member of the small papal household that also includes the pontiff's private secretaries and four consecrated women who care for the papal apartment.

Lombardi said Gabriele's detention marked a sad development for all Vatican staff. "Everyone knows him in the Vatican, and there's certainly surprise and pain, and great affection for his beloved family," the spokesman said.

The "Vatileaks" scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican at a time when it is trying to show the world financial community that it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal plagued tax haven.

Vatican documents leaked to the media in recent months have undermined that effort, alleging corruption in Vatican finance as well as internal bickering over the Holy See's efforts to comply with international norms to fight money laundering and terror financing.

The Vatican in July will learn if it has complied with the financial transparency criteria of a Council of Europe committee, Moneyval — a key step in its efforts to get on the so-called "white list" of countries that share financial information to fight tax evasion.

Anderson acknowleged that the events of the last week certainly haven't cast the Holy See in the best light. And he said the bank's board appreciated that the ouster of its president just weeks before the expected Moneyval decision could give the committee pause.

"The board considered that concern and decided that all things considered it was best to take the action at this time," Anderson said. "These steps were taken to increase the IOR's position vis-a-vis Moneyval."

The Vatileaks scandal began in January when Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast letters from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator to the pope in which he begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican's U.S. ambassador.

Nuzzi, author of "Vatican SpA," a 2009 volume laying out shady dealings of the Vatican bank based on leaked documents, last weekend published "His Holiness," which presented a trove of other documents including personal correspondence to the pope and his secretary, many of them painting Benedict's No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a negative light.

Nuzzi has said he was offered the documents by multiple Vatican sources and insisted he didn't pay a cent to any of them.

Gabriele was in Vatican custody and unavailable for comment. No known motive has come to light as to why Gabriele, if he is found to be the key mole, might have passed on the documents. Nuzzi declined to comment Saturday on whether Gabriele was among his sources.

Bertone, 77, has been blamed for a series of gaffes and management problems that have plagued Benedict's papacy and, according to the leaked documents, generated a not inconsiderable amount of ill will directed at him from other Vatican officials.

"For some time and in various parts of the church, criticism even by the faithful has been growing about the lack of coordination and confusion that reign at its center," Cardinal Paolo Sardi, the former No. 2 official in the Vatican secretariat of state, wrote to the pope in 2009, according to the letter cited in "His Holiness."

Anderson, who heads the Knights of Columbus, a major U.S. lay Catholic organization, said he was certain the Holy See would weather the storm and that the Vatican bank, at least, could move forward under a new leader with solid banking credentials as well as a desire to show off the bank's transparency. ( Associated Press )

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Metro bus driver fatally shot by passenger in LA

Metro bus driver fatally shot by passenger in LA — A bus driver was shot to death in West Hollywood Sunday, allegedly by a passenger who jumped out a vehicle window and fled down a street before being captured, authorities said.

The driver, whose name was not released, was hit in the torso and died at a local hospital, said sheriff's Deputy Jeff Gordon.

Witnesses told police they saw the shooter climb out a window and run down the street. A suspect was arrested nearby, and Gordon said the man surrendered without incident.

He was held Sunday night at the West Hollywood sheriff's station while homicide detectives continued to investigate. His name was not immediately released.

Gordon said authorities believe the gunman and the driver were the only people on the bus at the time of the shooting.

He said the vehicle, which was on its regular run through the neighborhood, appeared to have stopped alongside a curb just before the driver was attacked.

Authorities didn't immediately give a motive for the 9 a.m. PDT shooting.

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials were stunned by the shooting, which occurred just blocks from the route of Sunday's Amgen Tour of California bicycle race.

"It's the first time I've ever known this to happen in my career here," the MTA's chief executive officer, Art Leahy, told the Los Angeles Times.

The street where the shooting occurred, busy Santa Monica Boulevard, was closed for hours as TV news video showed police searching the bus.

Two firearms were recovered. ( Associated Press )

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Vatican mystery intensifies, bones found in grave

Vatican mystery intensifies, bones found in grave — Forensic police swarmed the crypt of a Roman basilica on Monday to exhume the body of a reputed mobster as part of an investigation into one of the Vatican's most enduring mysteries: the 1983 disappearance of the teenage daughter of one of its employees.

Medical experts took samples from the remains of Enrico De Pedis and also took boxes of old bones from the nearby ossuary, according to a De Pedis family lawyer, as part of the investigation into whether Emanuela Orlandi may have been buried alongside him.

Orlandi was 15 when she disappeared in 1983 after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

Forensic police unload equipment in the courtyard of Sant' Apollinare Basilica, in Rome, Monday, May 14, 2012. Indications mounted Monday that the tomb of reputed mobster Enrico De Pedis was to be opened inside the basilica as part of an investigation into one of the Vatican's enduring mysteries: the 1983 disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee, Emanuela Orlandi. (AP Photo/Roberto Monaldo, Lapresse) ITALY OUT

De Pedis, a member of Rome's Magliana mob, was killed in 1990. His one-time girlfriend has reportedly told prosecutors that De Pedis kidnapped Orlandi, and an anonymous caller in 2005 told a call-in television show that the answer to Orlandi's disappearance lay in his tomb.

Amid a new push to resolve the case, the Vatican said last month it had no objections to opening the tomb. On Monday, Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the inspection of the De Pedis tomb was "certainly a positive fact" aimed at carrying out "all possible steps so the investigation could be completed.

"The prosecutors' office can continue to count on the full collaboration of the church authorities," Lombardi said in comments to reporters.

The scene Monday outside the Sant'Apollinare basilica was hectic, with television cameras jostling for views inside the chapel and the adjacent courtyard of the Opus Dei-run Pontifical Holy Cross University, where forensic vans came and went.

An overwhelming stench filled the air as medical personnel in white pantsuits and masks mingled with priests in black clerical garb and ducked into a blue tent where samples of De Pedis' remains were believed to have been brought.

Lorenzo Radogna, a De Pedis family attorney, told reporters outside that investigators had found some 200 containers with bones near De Pedis' tomb in the ossuary, and that they would be tested in the coming days and weeks. Initially, the ANSA news agency reported the boxes had been discovered in De Pedis' casket itself but later said they were found in the nearby ossuary.

Orlandi's brother, Pietro, who was at the scene, said samples from De Pedis' body had been taken for further tests and the tomb re-closed. He said the corpse was in relatively good condition, but there was only one body — that of a male — inside the casket.

There had initially been speculation that Emanuela Orlandi's kidnapping was linked in some way to an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, which had occurred two years earlier, and the jailing of the gunman, Ali Agca.

Doubts have also been cast on whether the Vatican itself had cooperated fully with the investigation.

In 2008, Italian news reports quoted De Pedis' ex-girlfriend as telling prosecutors that Orlandi had been kidnapped by the Magliana gang on the orders of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the late U.S. prelate who had headed the Vatican bank and was linked to a huge Italian banking scandal in the 1980s. Marcinkus had always asserted his innocence in the scandal and the Vatican at the time of the allegation said the woman's claims had "extremely doubtful value."

In a lengthy statement last month, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi insisted the Holy See had done everything possible to try to resolve the case.

Pietro Orlandi said the move to exhume the tomb was a step forward in the investigation, and he hoped it showed a new willingness on the part of the Vatican to cooperate fully and show full transparency about what it knows.

"I think it's something very positive, both from the point of view of the Vatican and the prosecutors," he told reporters.

Speculation has long swirled around the location of De Pedis' tomb, since it is buried in a prominent church alongside important Catholics — an unusual final resting place for a reputed local mobster. Sant'Apollinare is right next to the elegant Piazza Navona in Rome's historic center. As the exhumation went on in the crypt a priest was solemnly celebrating Mass upstairs in Latin.

Among those in the adjacent courtyard speaking with medical personnel was the rector of the basilica, Msgr. Pedro Huidobro, who oddly enough was a coroner before being ordained a priest.

De Pedis' casket is expected to be moved to another location for reburial in the near future, Radogna said. ( Associated Press )

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Russian Cyber Criminals Rake in Billions

Russian Cyber Criminals Rake in Billions -- They say crime doesn't pay, but for Russian-speaking cybercriminals it has paid very, very well.

According to a new report they raked in over $4 billion in 2011, nearly a third of the $12.5 billion global cybercrime market. About half of that took place in Russia itself, nearly double the previous year's total.

The report, released Tuesday by the Russian cybercrime investigation company Group-IB, found that cybercrime in Russia and in neighboring countries is also getting more sophisticated as traditional mafia rings have begun operating in the digital world.

Previously, the company noted, the market was comprised of individual hackers, but they have now consolidated their efforts and traditional organized crime groups are clamoring for a piece of the action.

The most lucrative form of Russian cybercrime last year was online fraud, which brought in nearly a billion dollars, followed by spam which topped $830 million.

The Group-IB report blamed lax Russian laws for the expansion of cybercrime. While the Russian government has tried to tighten legislation aimed at preventing and punishing such activity, the company said more was needed.

"The cybercrime market originating from Russia costs the global economy billions of dollars every year," Ilya Sachkov, Group-IB's CEO, said in a statement on the company's website. "Although the Russian government has taken some very positive steps, we think it needs to go further by changing existing law enforcement practices, establishing proper international cooperation and ultimately improving the number of solved computer crimes." ( ABC News)

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