NORTH KOREA LOSES AMERICAN TOURISTS (US TRAVEL BAN FINALLY ENFORCED)

NORTH KOREA LOSES AMERICAN TOURISTS (US TRAVEL BAN FINALLY ENFORCED):

OTTO WARMBIER'S MURDER RE-AWAKENED WORLD TO KIM JONG UN'S BRUTAL REGIME (STARVING CHILDREN & PRISON CAMPS).

"YOUNG PIONEERS TOURS" NO LONGER BE ABLE TO RECRUIT ADVENTOUROUS AMERICANS TO VISIT N. KOREA.


Sources: AFP, Fox News, The Guardian, Youtube


**** US to ban citizens from travel to North Korea, tour operators say


Two agencies including Young Pioneer Tours, which took Otto Warmbier to North Korea, say ban will be announced on 27 July.

Two travel companies that operate tours to North Korea have said the US government will soon ban its citizens from travelling to the North.

It follows the death of Otto Warmbier, a US student who was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour while visiting North Korea. He was released in June in a coma and died in hospital in Cincinnati days after being medically evacuated.

Koryo Tours said on Friday the ban would be announced on 27 July and would go into effect 30 days later. It did not say how long the ban would last.

Another tour operator, Young Pioneer Tours, said in a tweet that it had also been informed of the ban, citing the same date.

Young Pioneer Tours was the agency that took Warmbier to North Korea.

His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, said his death was a result of “the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans”.

Warmbier was arrested at Pyongyang airport in January 2016 for allegedly taking a propaganda poster from his hotel room, where he had been staying as part of an organised tour.

The University of Virginia student wept at his sentencing, saying: “I have made the worst mistake of my life.” The trial reportedly lasted less than an hour.

Thailand Fights To Keep Child Raping Tourists Out

Thailand Fights To Stem Tide Of Child Sex Tourists


He seemed a little confused and unsure of his surroundings. Karl Kraus sat alone in a cell, his blue, watery eyes following me as I entered the holding area of a Chiang Mai courthouse. Karl Kraus is 90 years old, hard of hearing, frail and, according to the police, a dangerous pedophile.

I'd wandered into the cells sure I would be rebuffed. Instead, the Second World War veteran seemed keen to talk to me. He explained how the allegations against him are motivated by greedy neighbors. He claimed they are trying to blackmail him. It's an argument he will make to judges in the coming weeks. Karl Kraus is thought to be the oldest person ever accused of child molestation in Thailand's over-burdened penal system.

Last year, 2,888 people were charged with having sex with children under 15 in Thailand. Thailand has become the destination of choice for sex tourists looking to prey on children. But now the police are raising their game, determined to turn the tide.

Police Lt. Col. Apichart Hattasin leads a small but very determined unit of officers in Chiang Mai, all dedicated to tracking down pedophiles.

The workload is going up each month; officers here aren't sure whether that is because they are simply uncovering more cases, or whether more and more pedophiles are choosing to relocate to Thailand.

But Col. Apichart is on a mission to catch them and that's not easy. He opened his files to CNN, showing us dozens of surveillance videos, photos and cases histories of suspected pedophiles. While he and his men may be convinced someone may be sexually molesting children, proving it in court is another matter. Often a case pivots on the testimonies of the young victims and that means defendants are often tempted to buy off families.

"Money can change a lot, it can change even the mind of the victims." he said.

"The suspect might try to approach the victim or the family of the victims, to convince them or give bribery to make them change their statement. And if they change their statement, it could be different or totally different I would say. That is the most challenge."

And Col.Apichart is clear the law needs reform.

"There is no specific law about having child pornography in possession," he said. "Thailand should issue the new law about child pornography specifically."

Ronnasit Proeksayajiva is with a small NGO called the Counter Human Trafficking Unit. He works closely with Col. Apichart, often accompanying officers on raids. His assessment is frank -- and bleak.

"Honestly right now I don't think it is getting better, I think it is getting worse, because I don't know, maybe they believe that Thailand is the best place for them to come to have sex with the children."

Karl Kraus is alleged to have lured girls into his modest rundown bungalow in Doi Saket near Chiang Mai. Just a few houses away, I met the mother of the four girls Karl Kraus is accused of abusing. She denied his claim that she is trying to extort money from him. Instead she breaks down and weeps as she goes into harrowing detail about the ordeal her daughters endured. The youngest girl Kraus is accused of abusing is just seven years old.

Kraus' case has received media attention because of his age, but there are many thousands of other cases in Thailand, which largely go unreported. Like Swiss banker Cornel Wietlisbach, who pleaded guilty to abusing young boys in Chiang Mai -- he was facing a four year sentence, but this was halved because he cooperated with the police. In the end, he was granted parole immediately and was deported back to Switzerland after he'd paid a 4,000 baht fine (about $125).

Such cases do little to discourage pedophiles from coming to Thailand. Col. Apichart says online forums are abuzz with talk about Thailand being a child molesters' paradise.

"There is a group of the pedophiles online, it is a community, they talk with each other and they like to come to a third world country where the criminal justice system is not strong enough to deal with them."

Another case working its way through the penal system is that of Robert Cutler, a U.S. Fulbright Scholar teaching biology at a Chiang Mai University. The police accuse him of sexually abusing young boys, something Cutler denies. Col. Apichart had him under surveillance for weeks. The photos show Cutler talking to groups of young boys on the street and taking other boys swimming at a local pool. A video of a police search of his apartment revealed semi-clothed youths in his bedroom. All this will form part of the case against him, which is due to start later this month.

Col. Apichart has this message to pedophiles thinking of coming to Thailand: "I would welcome them to come here, I'm looking for them and if they think they can escape let's try. I will get them one way or another. I will make sure they get punished."


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

Times Square Bomb Possible Suspect Caught On Tape

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NYC Cops Hunt Man Caught On Film In Bombing


Investigators combed through security video and other evidence on Monday in the hunt for suspects in a failed car bombing in New York's Times Square.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said a white man in his 40s was spotted in security video footage about half a block from where the vehicle was left on Saturday evening with its engine running and hazard lights flashing.

In a video released by police, the man, who appears to be thin, is seen removing a dark shirt, stuffing it into some sort of bag and walking away down the sidewalk, carrying the bag and glancing at least twice over his shoulder.

Kelly said officers were on their way to a Pennsylvania town to talk to a tourist who also might have recorded the suspect on his video camera.

Police found the "amateurish" but potentially powerful bomb in a smoking sport utility vehicle in the busy theater district Saturday night after being alerted by two street vendors, then cleared the streets of thousands of tourists so they could dismantle it.

Mayhem

The SUV contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, police said. Timers were connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks that were apparently intended to set the gas cans afire, then ignite the three barbecue-grill-sized propane tanks.

Kelly said it was "the intent of whoever did this to cause mayhem, create casualties."

Police also found eight bags weighing more than 100 pounds of a substance that turned out to be fertilizer that was incapable of exploding.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said that unlike the ammonium nitrate grade fertilizer that has been used in terror attacks including the Oklahoma City bombing, this fertilizer would not have caused a massive explosion.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there was no evidence of a link to al-Qaida or any other militant organization in the failed bomb attack that prompted the evacuation of the teeming entertainment and shopping district.

"It's unfortunate that this happened. I'm confident that we will find out who did it," Bloomberg told reporters outside a Times Square restaurant.

Officials were treating the incident as a potential terrorist attack, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on NBC's "Meet the Press," though it was too soon to tell who is responsible. She added that investigators had no suspects but that they had recovered forensic evidence, including fingerprints, from the vehicle.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. In a one-minute video, the group said the attack ws in revenge for the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud and the recent killings of the top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Kelly said there was no evidence to support the Pakistani Taliban's claim.

In another video released early Monday and apparently dated early April, Pakistan's Taliban chief promised attacks on major U.S. cities, a monitoring group said.

"We avoided what we could have been a very deadly event," Bloomberg said in a press conference earlier Sunday. "It certainly could have exploded and had a pretty big fire and a decent amount of explosive impact."

A T-shirt vendor and a handbag vendor alerted police at about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, the height of dinner hour before theatergoers head to Saturday night shows.

Duane Jackson, a 58-year-old handbag vendor from Buchanan, N.Y., said he noticed the car and wondered who had left it there.

"That was my first thought: Who sat this car here?" Jackson said Sunday.

Jackson said he looked in the car and saw keys in the ignition with 19 or 20 keys on a ring. He said he alerted a passing mounted police officer.

They were looking in the car "when the smoke started coming out and then we heard the little pop pop pop like firecrackers going out and that's when everybody scattered and ran back," he said.

"Now that I saw the propane tanks and the gasoline, what if that would have ignited?" Jackson said. "I'm less than 8 feet away from the car. We dodged a bullet here."

After the vendors noticed the SUV, police cleared buildings and streets at the so-called "Crossroads of the World." Officers were deployed around the area with heavy weapons on empty streets in the heart of busy midtown Manhattan.

A white robotic police arm then broke the windows of the dark Nissan Pathfinder to remove any explosive devices.

While he called the device "amateurish," Bloomberg said it could have been deadly.

"We are very lucky," he said.

A Connecticut license plate on the vehicle did not match the SUV, according to authorities, who did not know a motive. Police interviewed the Connecticut car owner, who told police he had sent the plates to a nearby junkyard, Bloomberg said.

Act of Terrorism

New York Gov. David Paterson called the incident an "act of terrorism."

"Luckily, no one is hurt, and now the full attention of city, state and federal law enforcement will be turned to bringing the guilty party to justice in this act of terrorism," Paterson said in a statement.

Shelly Carlisle of Portland, Ore., said police crowded into the Booth Theatre after the curtain closed on "Next to Normal," a show on the same block where the SUV was found.

"At the end of the show, the police came in. We were told we had to leave," Carlisle said. "They said there was a bomb scare."

The car was parked on 45th Street, and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution, police said.

Times Square lies about four traffic-choked miles north of where terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then laid waste to it on Sept. 11, 2001.

The block that was closed is one of the prime blocks for Broadway shows, with seven theaters housing such big shows as "Billy Elliot" and "Lend Me a Tenor."

The curtain at "God of Carnage" and "Red" opened a half-hour later than usual, but the shows were not canceled, said spokesman Adrian Bryan-Brown.

Katy Neubauer, 46, and Becca Saunders, 39, of Milwaukee were shopping for souvenirs two blocks south of the SUV when they saw panicked crowds.

"It was a mass of people running away from the scene," Neubauer said. "There were too many people, too many cops. I've never seen anything like it," she said.

Bloomberg left early from the White House correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night. President Barack Obama, who attended the annual gala, praised the quick response by the New York Police Department, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

He has also directed his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to advise New York officials that the federal government is prepared to provide support.

Brennan and others will keep Obama up to date on the investigation, Shapiro said.

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York responded along with the NYPD, said agent Richard Kolko.

A New York City firefighter who said he arrived early on the scene confirmed the vehicle was smoking and also said he saw "a flash" from the back of the SUV between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

"The SUV was smoking. There was a flash, and we put two and two together" and an evacuation was ordered, he said.

The square itself was mostly evacuated by 8 p.m., according to Reuters reporters on the scene. Police had evacuated an area stretching from about 42nd Street up to 47th Street and including Seventh Avenue and Broadway.

Islamic militants have used propane and compressed gas for years to enhance the force of explosives. Those instances include the 1983 suicide attack on the U.S. Marines barracks at the Beirut airport that killed 241 U.S. service members, and the 2007 attack on the international airport in Glasgow, Scotland.

In 2007 the U.S. military announced that an al-Qaida front group was using propane to rig car bombs in Iraq.

London's theater district was also the target of a propane bomb attack in 2007, which may provide clues to American investigators.

In both cases, "the intention was to create a fireball" that would incinerate passers-by, Andy Hayman, former assistant commissioner in charge of counterterrorism at New Scotland Yard, told msnbc.com.

No one was injured when police discovered two Mercedeses loaded with nails packed around canisters of propane and gasoline outside of Tiger Tiger, a popular nightclub, on June 29, 2007.

"The big advantage (in New York City) is that because the car hasn't been destroyed, the forensic opportunities are immense," Hayman said.

"Police will be keen to mobilize the public — tourists might inadvertently have recorded the perpetrator leaving the car. There could be some very good images there," he added.

Hayman also predicted that New Yorkers might be jumpy in the coming days.

"With a perpetrator at large, there will always be the worry that, being frustrated, he'll try again," he said.

In the London incident, police traced suspects two days later.


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Sources: MSNBC, NYPD, Google Maps

Times Square Saved From Death & Disaster By NYPD (New York's Finest)

3 NYPD Cops & Street Vendor Stop Times Square Car Bomb From Detonating


Three heroic cops and a quick-thinking street vendor stopped a madman from detonating a car bomb in the heart of Times Square Saturday night, law enforcement officials told the Daily News.

The T-shirt vendor - a Vietnam vet - told Officer Wayne Rhatigan there was smoke coming from a Nissan SUV on the southwest corner of 45th St. and Broadway about 7 p.m., sources said.

Rhatigan approached the car, saw the smoke, and sprang into action.

"I did a lap around the vehicle. The inside was smoking," Rhatigan told the Daily News Saturday night. "I smelled gunpowder and knew it might blow. I thought it might blow any second."

He grabbed two rookie female cops patrolling the area. Together, they pushed hundreds of people away from the scene as they called for backup, he said.

The Fire Department and bomb squad rushed to the scene.

What they found was stunning: a running SUV packed with three propane tanks, two red 5-gallon plastic jugs of gasoline, a clock, electrical components and a canister of gunpowder, police sources said.

"We are very lucky," Mayor Bloomberg said at an early morning press conference at the scene, still wearing a tuxedo and red bow tie. "Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers we avoided what could have been a very deadly event."

The two rookie cops reported seeing a man running away from the scene as they approached the car.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said cops were investigating a report that someone was seen running from the vehicle at some point and are reviewing security videotapes.

"It looks as if the perp was trying to light it up, and was interrupted by the cops, panicked and took off," a law enforcement source said.

"It looked like someone tried to detonate it and we got to it in time," a police source said. "This is a big deal. It has the makings of a real car bomb."

Cops began evacuating the Crossroads of the World as the bomb squad used a robot to get inside the car.

Tourists rushed out of the Marriott Marquis hotel and several Broadway shows.

Seven big shows went dark, including "Billy Elliot" and "The Lion King," which is located directly behind the would-be car bomb.

The curtain at "God of Carnage" and "Red" went up a half hour later than usual, but those shows were not canceled, said spokesman Adrian Bryan-Brown. Restaurants like Sardi's and TGI Friday's were also evacuated, witnesses said.

Police said the blue Pathfinder appeared to be stolen and had Connecticut license plates belonging to another car.

The man seen fumbling with the device vanished into the crowd and had not been found as of early this morning.

Cops closed a huge chunk of Times Square from 43rd St. to 49th Sts. on Seventh Ave. and all of 45th St. from Seventh Ave. to Eighth Ave.

They were pulling video footage from a number of security cameras in the area.

Times Square had been jammed with pedestrians all day.

Celebrities Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba and thousands of women ran through Times Square in the afternoon for the EIF Revlon Run/Walk, which raises money for research to fight Ovarian cancer.

"The death toll could have been enormous," a police source said. "It was a nice day and the Times Square area was completely packed."

Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly were in Washington, D.C., for the White House Correspondents dinner, but rushed back to the city when they learned what was going on.

Police precincts all over New York City were put on high alert and ordered to patrol sensitive areas, officials said.

The Homeland Security Department was aware of the situation, but the NYPD was the lead agency involved in the investigation, sources said.

"The matter is being taken seriously," said Paul Bresson, head of the FBI's public affairs office at bureau headquarters in Washington.

President Obama was notified at 10:45 p.m. of the situation in Times Square and commended the "excellent work by the NYPD," White House officials said.

"The federal government is prepared to provide support," a spokesman said. "\[We\] will continue to keep the President up to date on the investigation."

For his part, Rhatigan, 47, said he still plans to retire this year after 19 years of service.

"Of all the idiots in New York, I find this thing," he said. "I was almost a fireball.

"It's upsetting that someone tried to pull this off."


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, NY Daily News, Google Maps

President Obama and First Lady Michelle To Spend Weekend In NYC...."First Tourists"

NBC New York-----

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are heading to New York City as first tourists.

The couple will arrive in the Big Apple Saturday for what has been described as a personal visit by White House officials. It will mark the first time the President has traveled to New York since taking office.

"The President and First Lady will make a personal visit to New York City tomorrow," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told the New York Daily News Friday.

Sources told the Daily News that the president's schedule will remain private "for security reasons" but the couple is expected to check out the city's night life.

Michelle Obama visited New York twice earlier this month where she attended cultural events and spoke at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and visited "Sesame Street" and Time Magazine's annual Time 100 gala.

The Obamas' arrival comes a day after Prince Harry of England touched down in the city on his first official visit.


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Sources: NBC New York, Google Maps