Headlines from around the world: 4/22/13

Greek police were searching for three farmers on Thursday. They are suspects in the shooting and wounding of more than 20 migrant workers at a strawberry farm. The three farmers opened fire on Wednesday at a crowd of about 200 Bangladeshi immigrants who were demanding their overdue wages. Luckily, there were no deaths, but numerous injuries were reported. This shooting could have occurred due to anti-foreigner sentiment in Greece where one worker in four is unemployed after five years of recession. Police arrested the owner of the farm but were still searching for the foremen.

President Francois Hollande of France asked all ministers of France to reveal their personal wealth on government websites by 11 pm on monday. This was due to a scandal involving Jerome Cahuzac, the former budget minister. He was responsible for clamping down on tax evasion but was found to have a secret bank account in Switzerland containing upwards of $780,000. He is now facing charges of tax evasion and tax fraud.

Seven people were killed in protests over Venezuela’s presidential election on Tuesday. According to president-elect Nicolas Maduro opposition leaders that called for protests were seeking a coup against his government. The deaths occurred on monday when hundreds of protesters blocked streets, burned tires, and fought with security forces in parts of Caracas and other cities. According to officials, 135 people were arrested in the post-election violence.

Six people were strangled to death and one decapitated in Cancun, Mexico. Police found the bodies of five men and two women in a shack on the outskirts of Cancun. According to the police report, the victims were independent drug dealers without any links to any specific cartel. Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto has promised to put an end to the violence that took hold of Mexico when the former president, Felipe Calderon, launched a military attack on the warring cartels. According to reports, more than 70,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2007.

A fertilizer-plant explosion killed 15 or more people and injured more than 160 others, in West, Texas. The small town has only 2,700 residents but the affected area was densely populated. The explosion destroyed a five block radius around the plant where two tanks held highly pressurized anhydrous ammonia. The cause of the fire remained undetermined but there was no indication of criminal activity.

Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was charged by the Justice Department for sending a letter to President Obama that tested positive for the poison ricin. Curtis was arrested Wednesday as a suspect in mailing of poisoned letters to the president and U.S. senator Roger Wicker. Roger Wicker told reporters that he had once hired Curtis to perform as Elvis Presley at a party. The letters were found to have the same closing statement. They were postmarked April 8, 2013 out of Memphis, Tennessee, and ended with the phrase, “to see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance.”

The FBI apprehended Boston marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who lay hospitalized in serious condition after an escape attempt. The explosion killed three and injured more than 180 at the finish line. During the night of violence leading up to the capture, the Tsarnaev brothers killed an MIT police officer, took part in a gun battle and car chase in which they threw explosives at police from a large homemade arsenal. Dzhokhar’s older brother, Tamerlan, died in the desperate getaway attempt.



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