World news today

A Canadian public inquiry concluded today that authorities should have known an Air India flight in 1985, which was blown up killing 329 people, was a likely terrorist target. The bombing of Air India flight 182 remains one of the world’s deadliest terrorist strikes. It is the largest case of mass murder in Canadian history.

Former supreme court justice John Major said today that a cascading series of errors contributed to the failure of Canada’s police and security forces to prevent the atrocity. “The level of error, incompetence, and inattention which took place before the flight was sadly mirrored in many ways for many years, in how authorities, governments, and institutions dealt with the aftermath of the murder of so many innocents,” Major said in a five-volume report.

The Air India flight from Montreal to London, originating in Vancouver, exploded and crashed off Ireland on 23 June, 1985. An hour earlier, a bomb in baggage intended for another Air India flight exploded in Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers. The attacks were blamed on Sikh militants based in British Columbia who, prosecutors said, sought revenge for a 1984 raid by Indian forces on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Sikh’s holiest site. About 800 Sikhs, including militants taking refuge, lost their lives.

Canadian intelligence officials had apparently learned of the plot by Sikh separatists in Canada and India to launch an attack. “There were individuals in the Sikh community who claimed to have knowledge about the bombing and its perpetrators,” said Major.

“The agencies failed to obtain that information, to preserve its use as evidence or to offer adequate protection to those individuals. Instead they engaged in turf wars,” Major said.

Inderit Singh Reyat, who was convicted of manslaughter for the bombings, remains the only suspect ever convicted. Two other accused were brought to trial, but never convicted.

Testimony from current and former members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service painted a picture of strained relations between the two agencies in the 1980s, with vital wiretap tapes erased, leads left to grow cold, investigators quitting in frustration and crucial witnesses reluctant to co-operate because they feared for their lives. Air transport experts told of security lapses by Air India and Canadian airport authorities and regulators.

Major said holes in the country’s security systems still need to be fixed. He recommended greater powers for the national security adviser to set security policies and priorities, and to oversee communication between agencies. He called for improved police work, intelligence operations, airline security and the conduct of anti-terrorist trials.

The inquiry did not have a mandate to identify the perpetrators of the crime, but its job was to determine what went wrong and what can be done to prevent a similar tragedy in the future.

Major’s report also recommended compensation for the families who, he said, were often treated as adversaries.

“I stress this is a Canadian atrocity,” Major said. “For too long, the greatest loss of Canadian lives at the hands of terrorists has somehow been relegated outside the Canadian consciousness.”

A surfer in South Carolina has spoken of the harrowing moment a suspected shark suddenly attacked his face.

Mark Summerset, 38, was suddenly attacked in a rapid assault by a sea creature on September 12. To this day, Mark says he can still feel pain face in his face where the beast sunk its teeth into his flesh.

“I felt this pressure on my face,” he told NBC News. “It felt like a bear trap. I think he just ripped down a little bit. But sharks have five rows of teeth, so he tore me up pretty bad, and he let go.”

Mark was surfing in the early morning the day the attack occurred and jumped off his board. He said he saw a sea creature under the waves that then bit his face, but he wasn’t sure what it was at the time.

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He was left with a two-inch cut on his right cheek and was taken to AdventHealth hospital in New Smyrna Beach, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal. Helicopter footage from the area after the attack on Mike showed sharks swimming in the water.

Mark told Today a DNA swab had been taken from his cut to determine what type of creature bit him. He said he saw around 10 sharks in the area the day before he was bitten.

A total of 32 shark bites have been recorded so far this year, including seven in Florida’s Volusia County. Mark is convinced the shark thought his necklace confused the creature that bit him.

“It thought I was a fish, the scales on the fish,” he said. “And he grabbed my face because of that, I believe. I’m almost 100% certain of that.”

He continued: “If I die surfing, I die a happy man. That’s something that I will do and I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and I will never stop surfing.”

It comes after a Connecticut couple rescued a baby shark caught in a work glove last week. Deb and Steve Dauphinais, spotted the 16-inch juvenile shark with its head stuck inside a work glove at the bottom of about 35 feet (10 metres) of water.

Deb Dauphinais, a dive instructor, said she thought the shark was dead, but when it twitched she motioned for her husband to come over and help. “He came over and did his own little double-take,” she said.

Thankfully, she said her husband tugged on the glove, which seemed to be suctioned to the shark’s head, but it eventually popped free.

Mexico’s most wanted drug lord has furnished a school with brand new computers. And the tech came with a message from him to the kids.

Videos emerged on social media this week showing a row of new computers at a school in the Mexican state of Jalisco. They were a gift from Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, who is the elusive leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

The gang is considered to be the most dangerous in Mexico and the second-most powerful (behind the Sinaloa Cartel ).

READ MORE: Cartel boss ‘Commander Fatso’ has eyes ripped from his head after rivals kidnap him

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Their propensity for extreme violence has landed El Mencho at the top of both America and Mexico’s most wanted lists. US authorities are offering $10million (£8.2m) for information leading to his capture.

It would appear El Mencho’s fugitive status hasn’t put a stop to his philanthropic endeavours. Giving to the less fortunate is a tactic cartels often deploy in order to win favour with the masses.

The desktop display on each of the computers features a CJNG logo alongside the following message: “These computers are donated by Mr Mencho in support of the students of this school so that they have better and greater learning.”

It comes after CJNG hitmen were seen handing out toys to children at Christmas last year. A convoy of trucks, one of which had a huge decorative Father Christmas attached, rode through the streets of Guadalajara dispensing gifts to huge crowds.

In May last year the same cartel handed out footballs and Gucci bags with their logo stuck on to mark Mexico’s Children’s Day. A message on the gifts read: “Happy Children’s Day from your friends at the CJNG.”

And during the early Covid-19 lockdowns, gangs across the country travelled into local communities with boxes of supplies. Again, the boxes were often emblazoned with cartel logos.

Despite the CJNG’s goodwill propaganda drive, today it emerged their hitmen kidnapped a rival before ripping his eyes from his face.

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A paedophile allegedly ran his “house of horrors” like a “concentration camp” where he locked food away in the fridge while saving better conditions for his favourite daughter who he had incestuous relations with.

Piotr Gierasik, 54, and his eldest daughter, Paulina, 20, have been charged with murder and incest after three dead babies were found in holes dotted around the walls of their cellar Czerniki, northeast Poland. Investigators say that at least two of the children came from Piotr and Paulina’s incestuous relationship. The third infant victim was fathered by Piotr from his abuse of his other daughter.

A third daughter has revealed further grim details of what it was like living in the nightmare home. She claimed that her sick dad locked the fridge, deciding when she and the others would eat. He would only give them cold grains and rice while he and Paulina ate better food.

Katarzyna said that her father had also assaulted her. Polish outlet o2 reported: “In the care centre they were given bread, which they grabbed by the handful. The situation of Kasia and Damian, Piotr’s disabled son, was terrible.”

Fr. Czesław Marchewicz, who runs the Burego Misia Settlement where the children went, said: “It was a concentration camp where girls, especially disabled and intellectually disabled people, were his earnings. They provided him with a living. That’s why he did everything not to let Kasia and Damian leave the house. As far as I know, he didn’t work himself.”

Katarzyna herself said in an interview with a Uwaga: “I’m worried about my two sisters who slept with my father.” She added that Paulina was treated better by Piotr than the other children. He bought her clothes, cosmetics, better food, she said. The Uwaga reporter asked what Katarzyna would say to her father today. “You monster, what did you do? The end. He’s a monster, not a human,” she said.

Heaping further misery on the case, earlier this week it was reported that the monster even abused the family’s elderly dog Bethowen, who was seen barely able to walk last Friday after the raid. An animal charity is now looking after the hound and they believe he was deliberately starved and spent his entire life chained up.

Staff at the Animalsi shelter which looks after 230 dogs and more than 50 homeless cats posted pictures of Bethowen showing his upsetting condition on their Facebook page. The post said: “The whole of Poland is reeling from the drama that took place in one of the towns in the Stara Kiszewa commune. We are receiving more and more blood-curdling information from everywhere. We were there to secure the animals staying there – Bethowen and two cats are already here in the shelter. But we are shocked that the big St Bernard weighs only 28kg and has spent his entire life on a chain.”