Spotlight News 2/4/2015

Throughout 2014, Honduran officials reported a major reduction in the amount of cocaine trafficked through the country, citing the success of counter-narcotics program aimed at halting the use of ‘narco-flights.' Authorities stated that overall trafficking of finished cocaine through Honduras dropped 30 percent in 2014, but indicated that traffickers were more frequently attempting to smuggle cocaine through the country's seaports in operations that involved corrupt customs officials. The narco-flight technique involves sending cocaine, typically less than one tonne, to the country via personal aircraft, often departing from Colombia or Venezuela

Eight members of a cargo theft gang, armed with machine guns and rifles, assaulted the cargo terminal at Viracopos International Airport in Campinas, located in Sao Paulo State, Brazil, and stole four boxes of smartphone processors, all in approximately four minutes. The thieves arrived at the facility in two passenger vehicles, subdued the onsite guards without shooting or injuring anyone, loaded the boxes of processors into their vehicles, and successfully escaped before local authorities could be mobilized. Police are reviewing the cargo terminal's CCTV cameras in an attempt to identify some of the thieves, but the criminals wore masks during the assault.

Citizens from the Myanma town of Tengnoupal continue to impose a general protest, known locally as a bandh, targeting the Imphal-Moreh section of National Highway 102 in northeastern India. The demonstrators have reportedly blocked cross-border trade in an effort to pressure government officials to remove the Assam Rifles, an Indian security force, from the area. According to reports, trucking associations in the area are lending their support to the demonstrators by asking all members to halt operations for the time being. Meeting between government officials and demonstrators have failed to reach an agreement. The bandh began on January 28

Bangladeshi officials confirmed that at least 13 workers have died as a result of a fire that engulfed a five-story factory building in the nation's capital, Dhaka. According to reports, the victims' bodies were sent to the morgue badly burnt from the blaze. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire, but believe that a gas cylinder could be the culprit. Firefighters on the scene added that the blaze spread quickly with the help of flammable liquids being stored in the facility. It is currently unclear how many workers the factory employed, and search efforts are underway to locate additional victims.