Protesters use 16,000 coconuts as symbols of violence

Antiviolence protesters stretched out 16,000 coconuts on Brazil's world-famous Copacabana beach Saturday, each one representing a victim of urban violence.

Activists from ONG Rio de Paz led a protest march Saturday morning that included residents and tourists who usually can be found on the beach on weekends.
The protesters strung up a sign on the sand that said "Shame" in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French.
They finished with a minute of silence for the victims of violence.
Rio de Paz said the coconuts represent victims of violence, homicides, dead police officers and those who have been shot in gunfights between authorities and gangs of narcotics traffickers.
The figure itself was obtained from official information from the Rio de Janeiro governmental Institute of Public Security.
It was the second protest staged this week on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach by the group Rio de Paz.
On Tuesday, the group created a mock cemetery in the sand with mannequins representing 9,000 people who Rio de Paz says have been slain and secretly buried since January 2007.

170 arrested in global child porn investigation

More than 170 people around the globe, including at least 61 in the United States, have been arrested in a major operation targeting international child pornographers, officials said Friday.

Operation Joint Hammer has rescued 11 girls in the United States, ages 3 to 13, who were sexually abused by child pornography producers, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and representatives of the European Union said at the Justice Department.
Dozens more were located in Europe, including several young female victims in Ukraine.
Authorities found connections between producers, distributors and customers in nearly 30 countries as a single investigation grew to a global inquiry into the dark corners of brutality and child abuse.
The investigation, code-named Operation Koala in Europe, was developed when investigators determined that a pornographic video found in Australia had been produced in Belgium.
"This joint EU-U.S. coordinated effort began with the discovery in Europe of a father who was sexually abusing his young daughters and producing images of that abuse," Mukasey said.
Further investigation showed a number of online child porn rings. Some included dangerous offenders who not only traded child pornography but also sexually abused children, the officials said.
Agents are still attempting to locate child victims whose images have appeared in photos and videos, and more arrests are expected as the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Postal Inspection Service continue the investigation.
A Postal Service official said ringleaders primarily targeted prepubescent female victims to satisfy their customers but noted that other groups produce photos and videos of boys and girls of all ages -- or even infants.
"For this subset, that's what turns them on," the official said.

Officer killed, police chief injured in Oregon bank explosion

A bomb exploded at a Woodburn, Oregon, bank branch early Friday evening, killing a police officer and injuring the town's police chief and a state bomb technician, Oregon State Police said.

Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was listed in critical condition at Oregon Health and Science University Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Christine Decker.
The name of the slain police officer has not yet been released. There was no immediate word on the bomb tech's identity or condition.
The three were investigating a suspicious device at a West Coast Bank branch when the bomb went off, police said. Police had brought the device inside after it was discovered outside, bank president Bob Sznewajs told CNN.
Sznewajs said that two bank employees who were in another part of the bank when the bomb exploded suffered very minor injuries, one who may have been hit by some flying debris and another who was "bothered by the sound."
"I know that all of our employees are fine," Sznewajs said, adding that none of his employees had been allowed back into the front portion of the building, where the bomb exploded, "so we don't know what it's like in there."
"I heard a loud kaboom," Robert Currie, who was across the street, told CNN affiliate KATU. "Well, I'm a Vietnam veteran and that was no gunshot -- that was definitely a bomb. So I come running outside to see what was going on and the interior lights of the bank are all out. And the next thing, it's just swarming with police cars, two fire trucks and three or four ambulances."

Britain to help develop democracy in Afghanistan

Britain will help Afghanistan with upcoming elections and has offered to set up a task force to fight corruption, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday in Afghanistan.

Brown, who arrived in southern Afghanistan to visit British troops, appeared at a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The prime minister said Karzai had accepted Britain's offers.
Britain will give Afghanistan $10 million to help register voters for next year's election, he said, adding it's in everyone's interest for it to be "free and fair." A presidential election is scheduled for May, 2009.
"We will not allow the Taliban or terrorists to defy the democratic rule of the Afghan people and we will not allow the Taliban to use Afghanistan," Brown said.

"And so our troops are a front line against the Taliban. There is a chain of terror that comes from the Pakistani and Afghan mountains right across Europe, and could end up very easily on the streets of Britain," he said.
The Taliban and its supporters have been attempting a resurgence in the country they ruled until U.S.-led forces routed them after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. Al Qaeda had set up training camps in Afghanistan.

23 suspected pirates captured, Indian navy says

The Indian navy captured 23 piracy suspects who tried to take over a merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden, between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, Indian officials said.

In addition to the 12 Somali and 11 Yemeni suspects, the Indian navy seized two small boats and "a substantial cache of arms and equipment," the military said in a statement.
Among the seized items were seven AK-47 automatic rifles, three other automatic weapons and 13 loaded magazines; a rocket-propelled grenade launcher along with rockets, cartridges and grenades; up to three outboard motors and a global positioning system receiver.
Pirate attacks in the waters off Somalia have increased this year, with armed men staging increasingly bold attacks on ever-larger targets. This year, pirates have attacked nearly 100 vessels off Somalia's coast and hijacked nearly 40, the International Maritime Bureau said.

The Indian warship Mysore, which carried out Saturday's operation, is on anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden, the release said. The Mysore received a distress call Saturday morning from the MV Gibe, a merchant vessel sailing under an Ethiopian flag.
The Gibe reported that two boats were firing small arms at it. The merchant ship, which was 13 nautical miles from the Mysore, fired back with small arms onboard the vessel.