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Six people, including four U.N. staff working for the anti-narcotics department in Bolivia, have been killed in a plane crash in a remote area in the west of the country. Two Bolivian military pilots are also among those killed in the accident, which happened in the Los Yungas area, northeast of the capital city, La Paz. The aircraft had been missing since Thursday and was found on Saturday morning according to a general in the Bolivian Air Force, who added the light Cessna aircraft hit a tall tree and then impacted the ground. Robert Brockm

A group of students at London Metropolitan University (LMU) who had been occupying the graduate centre at their university since the afternoon of Wednesday May 4 were evicted just before midnight on Monday by police, university security and private bailiffs. Wikinews, in contact with the occupiers, obtained a first-hand interview with one of the occupiers less than two hours after the occupation ended. The students staged the occupation in protest against cutbacks to courses at the university which, if enacted, would close 70% of the courses t

State officials in Queensland, Australia, have begun working on a draft protocol to use security cameras to record conversations in taxis. The new draft proposes to change a current policy which allows for cameras in taxis which do not record sound for privacy reasons, in the hope that audio recordings will make some investigations easier. The paper, which says audio recordings would "provide greater certainty with regard to investigations, particularly in situation of conflicting statements," is currently at the Transport and Main Roads depar

Forces loyal to besieged Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have entered into the rebel stronghold of Misrata, Libya, in helicopters bearing Red Cross markings to drop naval bombs on the port city, continuing a two-month long attack. Gaddafi forces are attempting to cut off humanitarian aid that the rebels are receiving, which primarily comes from ships which dock in Misrata's port from humanitarian organisations. The helicopters reportedly flew over Misrata, the third largest city in the country and located on the northwest coast of Libya, on Thu

U.S. President Barack Obama decided on Wednesday not to release graphic images of Osama bin Laden’s corpse after a debate with his war council. Obama feared the photographs could spur on retaliatory attacks and reprisals against the United States and its allies. In an interview to be aired on CBS News, Obama will say: "The risks of release outweigh the benefits." Skeptics have demanded the U.S. release the photographs of the corpse, and officials in the White House have been debating whether to do so for the past several days. But Obama is to

__NOTOC__ Al-Qaeda has said it will continue to launch more terrorist attacks on the U.S. and warned the death of their leader Osama bin Laden, would "not be wasted". The statement from the organization, posted on jihadist internet forums, came as the Pentagon released videos filmed inside the terrorist leader's compound which was raided last weekend. Intelligence officials said at a briefing in Washington, D.C. that the videos showed that bin Laden was still playing an active role in al-Qaeda plotting. Although the video tapes have no audio,

Officials say 27 people are dead after a plane crashed into the sea off east Indonesia today. Fifteen bodies have been recovered and it is thought the others on board have sunk with the wreckage. "I can confirm that all the passengers were killed when the plane exploded as it crashed into the sea," an Indonesian navy official told local radio station ElShinta. He said around ten navy divers were sent to the Papua crash site 400 metres off-shore in six kilometres of water but "had difficulties locating them [trapped passengers] due to strong cu

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is undergoing the final stages of an AU$292 million bilateral agreement with Malaysian counterpart Dato Sri Najib Tun Razak to relocate 800 asylum seekers who arrive illegally by boat away from the Australian mainland for detention and processing. In exchange Gillard will expand Australia’s humanitarian efforts by assisting in the resettling of 4,000 persons of genuine refugee status, currently living in Malaysia, over a period of 4 years. This move by the Gillard Government stems from a meeting held by

The United Kingdom electorate took to the polls yesterday to vote in both local elections and a UK-wide referendum regarding the system used to elect its members of parliament to the House of Commons. The polls opened at 07:00 BST (0600 UTC) yesterday morning and closed at 22:00 BST (2100 UTC) last night. Alongside the normal local elections for seats on 279 councils, and elections for seats in the devolved Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies, the country saw the first nation-wide referendum since 1975, regarding po

__NOTOC__ The U.S. did not inform Pakistan of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden because of fears they were harboring the leader of al-Qaeda and would warn him of the mission, a senior American intelligence official has said. Pakistan has defended itself against allegations it was protecting the world's most wanted man, and expressed embarrassment after it emerged bin Laden may have been living in the compound in Abbottabad for as many as six years without being intercepted by Pakistan intelligence. Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, s

Officials from France's aviation accident investigation agency, the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), announced on Tuesday that they had recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of Air France Flight 447. It was located and brought to the surface by a Remora 6000 unmanned submarine, then taken aboard the Île de Sein, one of the vessels taking part in the recovery and salvage efforts. This came two days after an announcement on Sunday that the crash-survivable memory unit of the flight data recorder (FDR) of the a

Four officers from London's Metropolitan Police went on trial today accused of repeatedly beating a Muslim arrested on suspicion of helping "terrorist organisations operating abroad." The men deny assaulting Babar Ahmad, 36, in his home, in a police van and in a police station. The assault charges stem from the December 2003 arrest in the city's south-west. Less than a year earlier a similar operation in Manchester had seen an officer stabbed to death by a suspect now serving life in prison. Jonathan Laidlaw, prosecuting, told the jury in Sout