McAfee's Dogs Could Be Key To Murder Riddle

Police hunting the anti-virus pioneer John McAfee think the millionaire's dogs could hold the key to solving the murder of his neighbour.

Mr McAfee shot dead his pets after they were poisoned two days before Gregory Faull, a retired American builder, was killed.

Officers have dug up the animals' remains, which were buried in the grounds of Mr McAfee's home in Belize, to examine the bullets used to kill them.

Forensic officers are now comparing the bullets to the single casing found by the body of Mr Faull to determine if there is a match.

Police spokesman Raphael Martinez said: "The dogs were exhumed and the slugs were taken out indeed and basically it's just to match the slug that was found in Mr Faull."

The 52-year-old was found dead in his home on the island of Ambergris Cave on November 11. He had a gunshot wound to the head.

Police officers carrying the corpse of Gregory Faull

Mr McAfee has denied he was responsible for the murder and says he went into hiding only because the Belize authorities have a vendetta against him. He believes he was the intended victim of the shooting, not Mr Faull.

Since going on the run he has started a blog, which he promotes on Twitter, and regularly updates.

In it he has given details of how he has disguised himself as a beggar, a salesman and a drunken German tourist to watch police search his home seven times.

In a post about the exhumation of his dogs, Mr McAfee wrote: "Then I watched the police dig up my four dogs that had been poisoned and buried. They cut off the heads and re-buried the bodies. I found this curious""

Mr McAfee amassed a $100m (£63m) fortune from his software business but said he lost all but $4m of it in the financial crisis. He moved to Belize in 2008.

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Boxer Hector Camacho Taken Off Life Support

Boxer Hector "Macho" Camacho has died after being taken off life support, doctors have confirmed.

The 50-year-old was declared clinically brain dead on Thursday after being shot in his hometown of Bayamon in Puerto Rico earlier in the week.

Dr Ernesto Torres said Camacho went into cardiac arrest in the early hours of Saturday. He was then taken off life support and died shortly after.

His mother Maria Matias had indicated he would be allowed to die after three of his sons had arrived in Puerto Rico to see him for a final time.

"I lost my son three days ago. He's alive only because of a machine. My son is not alive. My son is only alive for the people who love him," she had said.

However, his eldest son, Hector Jr, said he wanted to keep his father alive.

The former world champion was shot as he sat in a car with a friend, 49-year-old Adrian Mojica Moreno, who was also killed in the attack.

Police spokesman Alex Diaz said officers found nine small bags of cocaine in the friend's pocket and a 10th bag open inside the car.

Police reported no arrests and investigators continue to interview potential witnesses.

Camacho fought some of boxing's biggest stars

Preparations have already begun for a memorial and a funeral Mass.

Camacho fought professionally for three decades, from his humble debut against David Brown at New York's Felt Forum in 1980 to an equally forgettable swansong against Sal Duran in Kissimmee, Florida, in 2010.

In between, he fought some of the sport's biggest stars, including Sugar Ray Leonard, Felix Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya and Roberto Duran.

After his career reached its prime, Camacho was plagued by drug, alcohol and other problems.

In 2007 he was sentenced to seven years in prison for the burglary of a computer store in Mississippi. While arresting him on the burglary charge in January 2005, police also found the drug ecstasy.

A judge eventually suspended all but one year of the sentence and gave Camacho probation but he ended up serving two weeks in jail after violating that probation.

Camacho's ex-wife Amy obtained a restraining order against him in 1998, alleging he threatened her and one of their children.

The couple, who had two children at the time, later divorced.

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Egypt Judges Condemn President's 'Attack'

Egyptian judges have condemned a decree granting President Mohamed Morsi sweeping new powers, as angry protesters clashed with police for a second day.

A handful of rock-throwing activists battled riot police in the streets near Tahrir Square, where several thousand protesters massed on Friday to demonstrate against the decree, which effectively prevents Mr Morsi's decisions from being challenged.

The move also removed powers from the judiciary and allows the president to take any measures to protect national security.

The Supreme Judicial Council, the country's highest judicial authority, said the decree was an "unprecedented attack" on their independence, the state news agency reported.

Judges in the coastal city of Alexandria said all work at courts and prosecution offices would be suspended until the measures were reversed.

Some protesters are staging a sit-in in Tahrir Square

A number of opposition parties have called for an open-ended sit-in with the aim of "toppling" the decree, which has also drawn criticism from the US, the UN and the European Union.

A mass protest has also been called for Tuesday.

"We are facing a historic moment in which we either complete our revolution or we abandon it to become prey for a group that has put its narrow party interests above the national interest," the liberal Dustour Party said in a statement.

Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party also called its supporters out onto the streets of Cairo on Tuesday for a counter-demonstration to show support for the move.

On Friday, the president addressed his supporters at a rally outside the presidential palace, telling them he would press forward and that he was on the path to "freedom and democracy".

He said that the new powers were designed to stop "weevils" from the regime of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak blocking progress.

The decree reflects the concerns in the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that sections of the judiciary remain unreformed following the overthrown of Mubarak.

"It aims to sideline Morsi's enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution," said Elijah Zarwan, a Fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations.

"We are in a situation now where both sides are escalating and it's getting harder and harder to see how either side can gracefully climb down."

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Greek Undercover Sting Nets Artefact Suspects

Greek police have solved a museum robbery that took place in February after a sting operation netted three suspects and recovered dozens of archaeological artefacts.

The three Greek men were arrested at a hotel in the city of Patras after one of them tried to sell a Bronze Age gold ring for 300,000 euros (£243,000) to an undercover officer posing as a potential buyer.

Officers were then dispatched to a village near Olympia, where they found the remaining artefacts buried inside a sack in a field.

"The discovery and arrest of the perpetrators of the robbery and the recovery of the stolen items are a great success," Culture Minister Costas Tzavaras said in a statement.

The stolen treasures included a 3,300-year-old gold ring, a bronze statuette of a victorious athlete, a 2,400-year-old oil jar, clay lamps, bronze tripods and miniature chariot wheels, as well as dozens of idols of charioteers, horses and bulls.

A gold ring seized during the operation and believed to be 3,000 years old

In February, two armed robbers made off with nearly 80 artefacts from a museum dedicated to the ancient Olympic Games. Police  had described them as "amateurs" who had turned up at the wrong museum.

A female guard who confronted them said they had been looking for a pair of golden wreaths, which were not kept in that particular collection.

Greece is rich in archaeological heritage, which has led to museums being targeted by antiquity smugglers for decades.

But the financial crisis rocking the country has led to hundreds of staff layoffs among archaeologists and guards, leaving museums vulnerable to theft.

The Olympia robbery badly embarrassed Greece at the time. The then culture minister offered to resign but was allowed to keep his post.

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Seven Robbers Shot Dead By S Africa Police

An elite South African police unit has shot dead seven men who tried to rob a cash depot in Johannesburg.

Nine others were injured and under police guard in hospital, a spokesman for the unit said.

Police also confiscated 11 vehicles and four firearms.

"We believe we got the kingpin down. We are convinced that we got all the robbers - dead or arrested," said Captain Paul Ramaloko, of the South African Police Service.

The depot belonged to Protea Coin, a security company which runs a cash-in-transit business in the west of the capital city.

Crime is a chronic problem for South Africa. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world outside a war zone.

About 40% of the adult population is jobless - a percentage expected to rise substantially in the coming years - and this is seen driving crime and widening economic inequality.

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Catalonia Holds Vote That Could Reshape Spain

Polls have opened in Spain's wealthy region of Catalonia for an election that could determine whether it eventually breaks away from the rest of the country.

The region must choose a new assembly, after a campaign dominated by the issue of independence from Spain and financial woes.

Opinion polls show that most voters will cast ballots for pro-independence parties, with Catalan President Artur Mas expected to win re-election.

Mr Mas has advocated independence despite strong resistance from Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has been fighting deep recession in his country.

"I hope to be the last president of a Catalonia that the Spanish state is trying to destroy," Mr Mas told a recent campaign rally for his conservative Convergence and Union Party.

"The next one will not depend on the Spanish state and they will no longer be able to destroy it," he told supporters, who chanted back to him: "Independence! Independence!"

If the vote today goes his way, he has promised to call a referendum on statehood within four years.

Like the Basque Country, Catalonia - a northeastern region of 7.5 million people - has its own language and sees itself as different from the rest of Spain.

Until recently, Catalans were content just pushing for greater autonomy, and stopped short of seeking independence.

But Spain's economic woes, including a 25% unemployment rate, and tough austerity measures imposed by Madrid have added to the Catalans' discontent and persuaded many they would be better off on their own.

Catalonia has a significant weight in Spain's economy, accounting for one-fifth of its total output, and a greater share of its exports.

It features one of the world's greatest football teams, FC Barcelona, which contributes many players to Spain's World Cup winning national squad.

However, the region has also suffered from Europe's financial crisis and has a 44bn euro debt.

In the voting for the regional assembly, called by Mr Mas two years ahead of schedule, 135 seats are up for grabs, with Mr Mas' alliance expected to take 60-64, according to recent surveys.

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First Jet Lands On New Chinese Aircraft Carrier

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent in Beijing

A Chinese fighter jet has made a successful landing on the country's first aircraft carrier.

Footage released by China's State Television shows the Chinese made J-15 jet touching down on the Liaoning sometime over the past week.

The successful landing will be seen as a further attempt by Beijing to project its military might beyond its borders.

China has been locked in a series of territorial disputes with almost all its neighbours in the region including Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

According to local media reports, the successful landing was completed by pilot Dai Mingmeng from the Sea Eagle Regiment of the East China Sea Fleet.

His jet, the J-15, is still in its trial stages. Nicknamed the 'Flying Shark' it is based on a similar Russian plane and is said to carry anti-ship, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles.

Chinese State media claim that it is comparable to the US F-18, but given the secrecy surrounding Chinese military hardware, those claims cannot be verified.

The Liaoning was unveiled to the world in a lavish ceremony in September attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Named after the province where it was refitted, the ship is a former Soviet aircraft carrier. It was built in Ukraine but mothballed after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Tensions are rising over the future of the Diaoyu Islands

In 1998 a Chinese tour operator bought the ship in an auction with plans to convert it into a Macao casino.

But on arrival in Chinese waters, after a lengthy and problematic journey around the world, the plans changed and an extensive military refit began.

Traditionally, China had what is known as a 'green water navy' whose sole objective is to provide coastal defences.

The acquisition of the aircraft carrier is a sign of Beijing's desire to become a 'blue-water' navy: projecting its might far from its shores.

China has a longstanding but historically dormant claim to a large swathe of the South China Sea and a number of small islands in the East China Sea.

But recently China has been much more vocal with its claim. This has caused significant diplomatic and military tensions with Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Japan. 

Islands in the disputed waters are important to each of the nations involved because of what might be beneath them but also because of the domestic fallout that losing or capturing them could provoke.

Nationalism has played a significant role in stoking tensions particularly between China and Japan.

Japanese elections next month could once again escalate the tensions over a series of rocky outcrops known in China as the Diaoyu Islands and in Japan as the Senkaku Islands.

Posters have been erected in Beijing telling people that the islands 'Belong to China'.

China, Japan and South East Asia are all have vital import and export markets for Europe and the West. Any escalation of the maritime dispute could have broad consequences.

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More Than 100 Die In Bangladesh Factory Fire

At least 112 people have been killed in a fire which tore through a clothes factory in Bangladesh, an official has said.

The blaze broke out in the seven-storey building operated by Tazreen Fashions on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, late on Saturday.

By this morning, firefighters had recovered 100 bodies, fire department operations director Mohammad Mahbub said.

Mr Mahbub said another 12 people, who had suffered injuries after jumping from the building to escape the fire, later died at several hospitals.

The death toll could rise as the search for victims is continuing, he added.

Army soldiers and border guards had been deployed to help police keep the situation under control as thousands of anxious relatives of the factory workers gathered at the scene.

It is not yet known what caused the blaze.

Firefighters at the scene of the blaze

Bangladesh has some 4,000 clothes factories, many without proper safety measures.

The country annually earns about $20bn from exports of garment products, mainly to the US and Europe.

Meanwhile, in Bangladesh's southeastern port city of Chittagong, military rescue teams were drafted in to help when a flyover collapsed just shortly before the factory fire.

"So far 13 dead bodies have been recovered," sub-inspector Mohammad Alauddin said.

The number of missing could not immediately be confirmed but police constable Shakakhawat Hossain said that dozens could be trapped under the debris.

Mr Hossain said about 20 people were injured, including some during clashes between police and an angry crowd that attacked the site offices of the construction company after the flyover collapse.

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Dallas Star Larry Hagman Dies

Larry Hagman, who starred in the hit TV series Dallas as the scheming oil baron J R Ewing, has died.

His family said in a statement that the 81-year-old died in a Dallas hospital following complications from his battle with cancer.

He had suffered from liver cancer and cirrhosis of the liver in the 1990s after decades of drinking.

Dallas, which made its premiere on the CBS network in 1978, made Hagman a superstar.

The show quickly became one of the network's top-rated programmes, built an international following and inspired a spin-off, imitators and a revival in 2012.

"Larry was back in his beloved hometown of Dallas, re-enacting the iconic role he loved the most," his family said in a statement. "Larry's family and closest friends had joined him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving holiday."

Hagman with his co-stars Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray

The popularity of Dallas made Hagman one of the best-paid actors in television and earned him a fortune. He lost some of it, however, in bad oil investments before turning to real estate.

Fans and celebrities took to Twitter to pay tribute to him.

Linda Gray, who played J R's wife, Sue Ellen, and was at his bedside when he died, said: "Larry Hagman was my best friend for 35 years. He was the Pied Piper of life and brought joy to everyone he knew. He was creative, funny, loving and talented, and I will miss him enormously."

Larry King said: "Larry Hagman was a dear man who had an incredible career. He helped me to stop smoking. He was a very special person."

Actor William Shatner said: "My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Larry Hagman. My best, Bill".

Hagman with Barbara Eden at the I Dream Of Jeannie DVD launch

In July 1995, he was diagnosed with liver cancer, which led him to quit smoking, and a month later he underwent a liver transplant.

Hagman said he quit drinking the moment doctors told him he had cirrhosis of the liver and could die within six months.

Hagman was born in Weatherford, Texas, and his father was a lawyer who dealt with the Texas oil barons Hagman would later come to portray.

His mother was stage and movie star Mary Martin and he became a star himself in 1965 on I Dream of Jeannie, a popular television sitcom.

Barbara Eden, who starred alongside him in I Dream of Jeannie, tweeted: "Larry Hagman not just a great actor, not just a television icon, but an element of pure Americana. I'll miss him."

Hagman and his wife Maj

Hagman started his acting career in theatre in New York where he married Maj Axelsson in 1954 while they were in a production of South Pacific. They have two children, Heidi and Preston.

He served in the Air Force, spending five years in Europe as the director of USO shows.

In his later years, Hagman became an advocate for organ transplants and an anti-smoking campaigner.

He also was devoted to solar energy, telling the New York Times he had a $750,000 solar panel system at his Ojai estate, and made a commercial in which he portrayed a J R Ewing who had forsaken oil for solar power.

He was also a longtime member of the Peace and Freedom Party, a minor leftist organisation in California.

Hagman had a eccentric streak. When he first met actress Lauren Bacall, he licked her arm because he had been told she did not like to be touched and he was known for leading parades on the Malibu beach and showing up at a grocery store in a gorilla suit.

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Dangling Truck Hangs From Overpass After Crash

An Oregon man dangled several feet above a highway for nearly an hour after his truck crashed through an overpass guard rail.

Matthew Alan Hamilton was hospitalised on Saturday after firefighters plucked him from his pickup truck using a ladder with a basket.

The 38-year-old was arrested for driving under the influence after his release from hospital. 

Matthew Hamilton

His blood alcohol content was 0.50, according to Beaverton Police spokesman Mike Rowe. Oregon's legal limit is 0.08.

The crash occurred on the Southwest Danny Road overpass above Highway 217 in Beaverton, near Portland.

Emergency crews secured the truck from falling with a fire engine, and used another to bring Hamilton to safety.

The highway was closed for nearly six hours in both directions until the stranded vehicle was removed with a large crane, according to Officer Rowe.

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