WELLINGTON: New Zealand's Fonterra, the world's largest dairy exporter, said Monday that its milk was "100 percent" safe to drink despite tests finding trace elements of an agricultural chemical in milk powder.
Fonterra, which reported revenues of NZ$19.8 billion (US$16.6 billion) in the 2012 financial year, said tests had revealed low levels of dicyandiamide (DCD) in some milk samples.
Chief executive Theo Spierings said the DCD levels were 100 times lower than those permitted under European standards and the company was taking steps to reassure international consumers that there were no safety issues.
"Everything that has been exported out of New Zealand is 100 percent safe for consumption," he told Radio New Zealand.
He said suppliers of DCD, which is used to reduce greenhouse gases from dairy herds, had voluntarily agreed to suspend sales of the chemical last week.
Fonterra is sensitive about milk contamination after a partially owned Chinese subsidiary, Sanlu Group, was embroiled in a scandal involving melamine-tainted baby formula in 2008 that killed at least six infants and made 300,000 more ill.
Spierings said Fonterra was in touch with authorities in key markets in Asia about the latest findings.
"We are in contact with Chinese authorities, with Taiwanese authorities and these authorities are adopting the same standard as what we are talking about for these products," he said.
"We will do testing and they will do testing."
With the dairy industry contributing about 25 percent of New Zealand's exports, Prime Minister John Key was keen to stress that the country's milk was safe in order to avoid an overreaction by consumers.
"You'd have to drink the equivalent of a swimming pool full of milk to have any issues whatsoever," he told commercial radio.
"Of course in international markets, which are fragile, there's always concern (about consumer fears)."
A new fourth-generation iPad with Retina display -- and perhaps as much as 128 gigabytes of memory -- is being readied for release, sources tell 9to5Mac. The upcoming slate would not be a new design but rather an addition to the current fourth-generation line, with the same color and wireless combinations as the iPad 4, these unnamed sources say.
Pricing is unknown, but the new model is described as a "premium SKU" (stock keeping unity) that would join the current lineup of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB iPads. A source at a large U.S. retailer provided 9to5Mac with what is purportedly a new SKU listing for iPads that includes a fourth model labeled as "Ultimate" to join its current lineup
CNET has contacted Apple for comment and will update this report when we learn more.
9to5Mac suspects the new model will have 128GB thanks to code found in the iOS 6.1 beta 5 that references a compatibility with 128GB iOS devices. The discovery was first noted yesterday by @iNeal on Twitter.
That tweet led Jeff Benjamin at iDownloadBlog to extract the iOS 6.1 and compare the System Partition Padding values found in old iOS 6.x firmware. What he found was an additional field for 128:
9to5Mac notes that if this purported iPad is in the works, it might be not be intended for the general consumer but rather perhaps for government or even retail use.
SANTA MARIA, Brazil A fast-moving fire roared through a crowded, windowless nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, filling the air in seconds with flames and a thick, toxic smoke that killed more than 230 panicked partygoers, many of whom were caught in a stampede to escape.
Inspectors believe the blaze began when a band's small pyrotechnics show ignited foam sound insulating material on the ceiling, releasing a putrid haze that caused scores of university students to choke to death. Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns in what appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.
The Federal University of Santa Maria confirmed to CBS News that 101 of its students were among the dead.
Survivors and a police inspector, Marcelo Arigony, said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.
But Arigony said the guards didn't appear to block fleeing patrons for long. "It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith, because several security guards also died," he told The Associated Press.
Later, firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble getting inside the Kiss nightclub because of "a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance," Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper.
Authorities said band members who were on the stage when the fire broke out later talked with police and confirmed they used pyrotechnics during their show.
Police inspector Sandro Meinerz, who coordinated the investigation at the nightclub, said one band member died after escaping because he returned inside the burning building to save his accordion. The other band members escaped alive because they were the first to notice the fire.
17 Photos
More than 200 die in Brazil nightclub fire
"It was terrible inside -- it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another," said Meinerz. "We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away."
Television images from Santa Maria, a university city of about 260,000 people, showed black smoke billowing out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who attended the university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at the hot-pink exterior walls, trying to reach those trapped inside.
Bodies of the dead and injured were strewn in the street and panicked screams filled the air as medics tried to help. There was little to be done; officials said most of those who died were suffocated by smoke within minutes.
Within hours, a community gym was a horror scene, with body after body lined up on the floor, partially covered with black plastic as family members identified kin.
Outside the gym, police held up personal objects -- a black purse, a blue high-heeled shoe -- as people seeking information on loved ones crowded around, hoping not to recognize anything being shown them.
Teenagers sprinted from the scene after the fire began, desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors. About half of those killed were men, about half women.
The party was organized by students from several academic departments from the Federal University of Santa Maria. Such organized university parties are common throughout Brazil.
"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.
The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.
Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit some sort of flare that started the conflagration.
"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."
Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning."
"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it," he said. "When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working."
He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.
Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had risen to 233 with the death of a hospitalized victim. He said earlier that the death toll was likely made worse because the nightclub appeared to have just one exit through which patrons could exit.
Officials earlier counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a gymnasium in Santa Maria, which is located at the southern tip of Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.
Federal Health Minister Alexandre Padhilha told a news conference that most of the 117 people treated in hospitals had been poisoned by gases they breathed during the fire. Only a few suffered serious burns, he said.
Brazil President Dilma Rousseff arrived to visit the injured after cutting short her trip to a Latin American-European summit in Chile.
"It is a tragedy for all of us," Rousseff said.
Most of the dead apparently were asphyxiated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who went to the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.
Beltrame said he was told the club had been filled far beyond its capacity.
Survivors, police and firefighters gave the same account of a band member setting the ceiling's soundproofing ablaze, he said.
"Large amounts of toxic smoke quickly filled the room, and I would say that at least 90 percent of the victims died of asphyxiation," Beltrame told the AP.
"The toxic smoke made people lose their sense of direction so they were unable to find their way to the exit. At least 50 bodies were found inside a bathroom. Apparently they confused the bathroom door with the exit door."
In the hospital, the doctor "saw desperate friends and relatives walking and running down the corridors looking for information," he said, calling it "one of the saddest scenes I have ever witnessed."
Rodrigo Moura, identified by the newspaper Diario de Santa Maria as a security guard at the club, said it was at its maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 2,000, and partygoers were pushing and shoving to escape.
Santa Maria Mayor Cezar Schirmer declared a 30-day mourning period, and Tarso Genro, the governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, said officials were investigating the cause of the disaster.
The blaze was the deadliest in Brazil since at least 1961, when a fire that swept through a circus killed 503 people in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro.
Sunday's fire also appeared to be the worst at a nightclub since December 2000, when a welding accident reportedly set off a fire at a club in Luoyang, China, killing 309.
In 2004, at least 194 people died in a fire at an overcrowded nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Seven members of a band were sentenced to prison for starting the flames.
A blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, killed 152 people in December 2009 after an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches.
Similar circumstances led to a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people in the United States. Pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling of a Rhode Island music venue.
The band performing in Santa Maria, Gurizada Fandangueira, plays a driving mixture of local Brazilian country music styles. Guitarist Martin told Radio Gaucha the musicians are already seeing hostile messages.
"People on the social networks are saying we have to pay for what happened," he said. "I'm afraid there could be retaliation."
The bodies of the young college students were found piled up just inside the entrance of the Kiss nightclub, among more than 230 people who died in a cloud of toxic smoke after a blaze enveloped the crowded locale within seconds and set off a panic.
Hours later, the horrific chaos had transformed into a scene of tragic order, with row upon row of polished caskets of the dead lined up in the community gymnasium in the university city of Santa Maria. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors.
As the city in southern Brazil prepared to bury the 233 people killed in the conflagration caused by a band's pyrotechnic display, an early investigation into the tragedy revealed that security guards briefly prevented partygoers from leaving through the sole exit. And the bodies later heaped inside that doorway slowed firefighters trying to get in.
"It was terrible inside — it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another," said police inspector Sandro Meinerz. "We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away."
Survivors and another police inspector, Marcelo Arigony, said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.
Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images
Brazil Nightclub Fire: Nearly 200 People Killed Watch Video
"It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died," he told The Associated Press.
Later, firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble entering the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance," Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper.
Police inspectors said they think the source of the blaze was a band's small pyrotechnics show. The fire broke out sometime before 3 a.m. Sunday and the fast-moving fire and toxic smoke created by burning foam sound insulation material on the ceiling engulfed the club within seconds.
Authorities said band members who were on the stage when the fire broke out later talked with police and confirmed they used pyrotechnics during their show.
Meinerz, who coordinated the investigation at the nightclub, said one band member died after escaping because he returned inside the burning building to save his accordion. The other band members escaped alive because they were the first to notice the fire.
The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.
"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," she said.
Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns. Many of the dead, about equally split between young men and women, were also found in the club's two bathrooms, where they fled apparently because the blinding smoke caused them to believe the doors were exits.
There were questions about the club's operating license. Police said it was in the process of being renewed, but it was not clear if it was illegal for the business to be open. A single entrance area about the size of five door spaces was used both as an entrance and an exit.
SANTA MARIA, Brazil (Reuters) - A nightclub fire killed at least 233 people in southern Brazil on Sunday when a band's pyrotechnics show set the building ablaze and fleeing partygoers stampeded toward blocked exits in the ensuing panic.
Most of those who died were suffocated by toxic fumes that rapidly filled the crowded club after sparks from pyrotechnics used by the band for visual effects set fire to soundproofing on the ceiling, local fire officials said.
"Smoke filled the place instantly, the heat became unbearable," survivor Murilo Tiescher, a medical student, told GloboNews TV. "People could not find the only exit. They went to the toilet thinking it was the exit and many died there."
Firemen said one exit was locked and that club bouncers, who at first thought those fleeing were trying to skip out on bar tabs, initially blocked patrons from leaving. The security staff relented only when they saw flames engulfing the ceiling.
The tragedy in the university town of Santa Maria in one of Brazil's most prosperous states comes as the country scrambles to improve safety, security and logistical shortfalls before the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics, both intended to showcase the economic advances and first-world ambitions of Latin America's largest nation.
In Santa Maria, a city of more than 275,000 people, rescue workers and weary officials wept alongside family and friends of the victims at a gymnasium being used as a makeshift morgue.
"It's the saddest, saddest day of my life," said Neusa Soares, the mother of one of those killed, 22-year-old Viviane Tolio Soares. "I never thought I would have to live to see my girl go away."
President Dilma Rousseff cut short an official visit to Chile and flew to Santa Maria, where she wept as she spoke to relatives of the victims, most of whom were university students.
"All I can say at the moment is that my feelings are of deep sorrow," said Rousseff, who began her political career in Rio Grande do Sul, the state where the fire occurred.
It was the deadliest nightclub fire since 309 people died in a discotheque blaze in China in 2000 and Brazil's worst fire at an entertainment venue since a disgruntled employee set fire to a circus in 1961, killing well over 300 people.
'BARRIER OF THE DEAD'
Local authorities said 120 men and 113 women died in the fire, and 92 people are still being treated in hospitals.
News of the fire broke on Sunday morning, when local news broadcast images of shocked people outside the nightclub called Boate Kiss. Gradually, grisly details emerged.
"We ran into a barrier of the dead at the exit," Colonel Guido Pedroso de Melo, commander of the fire brigade in Rio Grande do Sul, said of the scene that firefighters found on arrival. "We had to clear a path to get to the rest of those that were inside."
Pedroso de Melo said the popular nightclub was overcrowded with 1,500 people packed inside and they could not exit fast.
"Security guards blocked their exit and did not allow them to leave quickly. That caused panic," he said.
The fire chief said the club was authorized to be open, though its permit was in the process of being renewed. But he pointed to several egregious safety violations - from the flare that went off during the show to the locked door that kept people from getting out.
"The problem was the use of pyrotechnics, which is not permitted," Pedroso de Melo said.
The club's management said in a statement that its staff was trained and prepared to deal with any emergency. It said it would help authorities with their investigation.
One of the club's owners has surrendered to police for questioning, GloboNews TV reported.
When the fire began at about 2:30 a.m., many revelers were unable to find their way out in the chaos.
"It all happened so fast," survivor Taynne Vendrusculo told GloboNews TV. "Both the panic and the fire spread rapidly, in seconds."
Once security guards realized the building was on fire, they tried in vain to control the blaze with a fire extinguisher, according to a televised interview with one of the guards, Rodrigo Moura. He said patrons were trampled as they rushed for the doors, describing it as "a horror film."
Band member Rodrigo Martins said the fire started after the fourth or fifth song and the extinguisher did not work.
"It could have been a short circuit, there were many cables there," Martins told Porto Alegre's Radio Gaucha station. He said there was only one door and it was locked. A band member died in the fire.
CELL PHONES STILL RINGING
TV footage showed people sobbing outside the club before dawn, while shirtless firefighters used sledge hammers and axes to knock down an exterior wall to open up an exit.
Rescue officials moved the bodies to the local gym and separated them by gender. Male victims were easier to identify because most had identification on them, unlike the women, whose purses were left scattered in the devastated nightclub.
Piles of shoes remained in the burnt-out club, along with tufts of hair pulled out by people fleeing desperately. Firemen who removed bodies said victims' cell phones were still ringing.
The disaster recalls other incidents including a 2003 fire at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed 100 people, and a Buenos Aires nightclub blaze in 2004 that killed nearly 200. In both incidents, a band or members of the audience ignited fires that set the establishment ablaze.
The Rhode Island fire shocked local and federal officials because of the rarity of such incidents in the United States, where enforcement of safety codes is considered relatively strict. After the Buenos Aires blaze, Argentine officials closed many nightclubs and other venues and ultimately forced the city's mayor from office because of poor oversight of municipal codes.
The fire early on Sunday occurred in one of the wealthiest, most industrious and culturally distinct regions of Brazil. Santa Maria is about 186 miles west of Porto Alegre, the capital of a state settled by Germans and other immigrants from northern Europe.
Local clichés paint the region as stricter and more organized than the rest of Brazil, where most residents are a mix descended from native tribes, Portuguese colonists, African slaves, and later influxes of immigrants from southern Europe.
Rio Grande do Sul state's health secretary, Ciro Simoni, said emergency medical supplies from all over the state were being sent to the scene. States from all over Brazil offered support, and messages of sympathy poured in from foreign leaders.
(Additional reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal, Gustavo Bonato, Jeferson Ribeiro, Eduardo Simões, Brian Winter and Guido Nejamkis.; Writing by Paulo Prada and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Todd Benson, Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)
MADRID: Anger over a long list of corruption scandals implicating bankers, politicians and even members of the royal family is on the rise in recession-hit Spain, putting the spotlight on the failure of the country's democracy to tackle the issue.
At demonstrations against government austerity measures, chants against alleged shady deals by Spain's elite are as common as those venting anger at tax hikes and spending cuts to social services and public workers' pay.
Around 200-300 elected officials out of more than 50,000 in the country are currently implicated in corruption cases in regions governed both by both the left and the right, said the head of the Spanish branch of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, Jesus Lizcano.
"While small, it is a significant percentage and is a bit alarming and calls for an urgent response on the part of political parties," he said.
With taxpayers reeling under austerity measures and a record unemployment rate of 26 percent, many feel that "the political class is not able to resolve the economic crisis, that it is useless, and that they protect each other", said University of Santiago de Compostela political science professor Anton Losada.
The latest corruption scandal to make headlines involves Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's centre-right Popular Party, whose popularity has plunged since it won a November 2011 election in a landslide.
Daily newspaper El Mundo reported on January 18 that former Popular Party treasurer Luis Barcenas distributed envelopes containing thousands of euros to party officials on top of their declared salaries.
It said the money came from commissions collected from construction firms, insurance companies and anonymous donors.
Top Popular Party officials have strongly denied any involvement in the affair and have kept their distance from Barcenas, who reportedly had up to 22 million euros ($29 million) in Swiss bank accounts until 2009.
Hundreds of people protested, chanting "thieves" and "shame", near the headquarters of the Popular Party in central Madrid on the day El Mundo published its allegations against Barcenas.
Corruption scandals have even hurt the popularity of King Juan Carlos after one implicated a member of his family.
His son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin was accused last year of embezzling public money paid by regional governments to a charitable organisation based in Mallorca which he chaired from 2004 to 2006.
"During the past three weeks people have been very, very, very angry, there has been a growing social alarm and it is very important that politicians take this issue seriously," said Lizcano.
The corruption scandals have shaken Spaniards' faith in politicians nearly four decades after the death of dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975 paved the way for the country's return to democracy.
Three in four Spaniards think political corruption is rising in the country and that politicians get better treatment in the courts than regular citizens, according to a poll published in conservative newspaper ABC on January 20.
Rajoy has ordered an internal investigation into the finances of the party and has vowed to take action if any wrongdoing is uncovered.
Last year, his government vowed to table a law on political transparency and earlier this month it proposed an anti-corruption pact with other parties.
After Franco's death the country's 17 autonomous communities were given broad powers with little oversight over their finances, which are largely blamed for the country's bloated public deficit.
"There is an urgent need for parties to publish their accounts and their sources of financing," as in other European nations, said Lizcano.
He said there is too much involvement by politicians in institutions such as the courts and regional savings banks.
Popular anger was fuelled this month when Spanish telecom giant Telefonica hired Rodrigo Rato, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, as an advisor just weeks after he appeared in court in a fraud case involving bailout-out bank Bankia, which he once headed.
Lizcano has little faith that the government will follow through on its vow to step up the fight against corruption.
And yet, just once or twice, both manage to collide with a deliciousness that moves the soul.
Here is the tale of a teenage girl who had her iPhone stolen.
As The New York Times composes it, the girl had her iPhone 4S ripped from her by a teenage boy in Brooklyn's notoriously difficult Prospect Park.
iPhone theft is rather popular in New York. Indeed, Mayor Bloomberg recently suggested that it's responsible for an increase in crime in the city.
Anyway, the iPhone-less girl collared a couple of policemen, but the miscreant was not to be found.
However, the thief then decided that he'd try to get some money for the phone. So he met a man on a Flatbush street -- as you do.
The man asked to take a look at the phone. Perhaps he wanted to see whether Siri was still inside.
Then, he ran off with it.
Yes, this is slightly poetic. But we've only just begun.
You see, the boy thief was not very happy. After all, he'd had his recently acquired property stolen. So he went off in search of a policeman to report the crime.
I pause for your sound effects.
Thank you.
More Technically Incorrect
The police reacted with unusual efficiency. They corralled both the boy and the man who had taken Siri from him. But they still assumed the boy was the victim.
Are you ready for verse three?
The phone rang. It was the girl trying to do a deal to get her phone back. The police realized something might be amiss here. This seemed to be a miss who actually owned the phone.
So they waited for her to arrive in Flatbush. She recognized the boy's sneakers. They were pink.
I pause for your further sound effects.
The police decided it was time to play Solomon. They would slice the phone in two if one party didn't renounce their claim to the phone.
No, wait. They asked both the girl and the pink-sneakered boy to unlock the phone with the PIN code.
You're already there, aren't you? Both the actual thieves were brought to justice -- the actual kind. And the girl got her phone back.
There are several morals to this story.
One, don't steal iPhones if you're wearing pink sneakers.
Two, if someone does unto you as you have done unto someone else, take it onto the chin. It will help you understand the feelings of others.
Three, if you're the kind of New Yorker who thinks they can always get away with it, well, you can't. Not always.
CHICAGO Authorities are investigating the shooting deaths of five people in a single day of bloodshed in Chicago.
Police Officer Daniel O'Brien says Saturday's first killing occurred at around 2:15 a.m. on the city's west side when a gunman opened fire on two men who were sitting in a parked car, killing one and wounding the other.
Investigators say a few hours later, someone opened fire on three men near a South Side eatery, killing two of them and wounding the third.
Detectives were called to the scene of another shooting Saturday afternoon in which a man in his 30s and a teenager were shot to death. There had been no arrests.
Chicago's homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008.
Bank of America is taking a Florida man to court after he attempted to use an antiquated state law to legally take possession of a $2.5 million mansion that is currently owned by the bank.
Andre "Loki" Barbosa has lived in a five-bedroom Boca Raton, Fla., waterside property since July, and police have reportedly been unable to remove him.
The Brazilian national, 23, who reportedly refers to himself as "Loki Boy," cites Florida's "adverse possession" law, in which a party may acquire title from another by openly occupying their land and paying real property tax for at least seven years.
The house is listed as being owned by Bank of America as of July 2012, and that an adverse possession was filed in July. After Bank of America foreclosed on the property last year, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office was notified that Barbosa would be moving in, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
The Sun-Sentinel reported that he posted a notice in the front window of the house naming him as a "living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury." On Facebook, a man named Andre Barbosa calls the property "Templo de Kamisamar."
After Barbosa gained national attention for his brazen attempt, Bank of America filed an injunction on Jan. 23 to evict Barbosa and eight unidentified occupants.
In the civil complaint, Bank of America said Barbosa and other tenants "unlawfully entered the property" and "refused to permit the Plaintiff agents entry, use, and possession of its property." In addition to eviction, Bank of America is asking for $15,000 in damages to be paid to cover attorney's expenses.
Police were called Dec. 26 to the home but did not remove Barbosa, according to the Sentinel. Barbosa reportedly presented authorities with the adverse possession paperwork at the time.
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Povery Law Center, says police officers may be disinclined to take action even if they are presented with paperwork that is invalid.
"A police officer walks up to someone who is claiming a house now belongs to him, without any basis at all, is handed a big sheaf of documents, which are incomprehensible," Potok said. "I think very often the officers ultimately feel that they're forced to go back to headquarters and try to figure out what's going on before they can actually toss someone in the slammer."
A neighbor of the Boca property, who asked not be named, told ABCNews.com that he entered the empty home just before Christmas to find four people inside, one of whom said the group is establishing an embassy for their mission, and that families would be moving in and out of the property. Barbosa was also among them.
The neighbor said he believes that Barbosa is a "patsy."
"This young guy is caught up in this thing," the neighbor said. "I think it's going on on a bigger scale."
Barbosa could not be reached for comment.
The neighbor said that although the lights have been turned on at the house, the water has not, adding that this makes it clear it is not a permanent residence. The neighbor also said the form posted in the window is "total gibberish," which indicated that the house is an embassy, and that those who enter must present two forms of identification, and respect the rights of its indigenous people.
"I think it's a group of people that see an opportunity to get some money from the bank," the neighbor said. "If they're going to hold the house ransom, then the bank is going to have to go through an eviction process.
"They're taking advantage of banks, where the right hand doesn't know where the left hand is," the neighbor said. "They can't clap."
PORT SAID, Egypt/CAIRO (Reuters) - At least 32 people were killed on Saturday when Egyptians rampaged in protest at the sentencing of 21 people to death over a soccer stadium disaster, violence that compounds a political crisis facing Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
Armored vehicles and military police fanned through the streets of Port Said, where gunshots rang out and protesters burned tires in anger that people from their city had been blamed for the deaths of 74 people at a match last year.
The rioting in Port Said, one of the most deadly spasms of violence since Hosni Mubarak's ouster two years ago, followed a day of anti-Mursi demonstrations on Friday, when nine people were killed. The toll over the past two days stands at 41.
The flare-ups make it even tougher for Mursi, who drew fire last year for expanding his powers and pushing through an Islamist-tinged constitution, to fix the creaking economy and cool tempers enough to ensure a smooth parliamentary election.
That vote is expected in the next few months and is meant to cement a democratic transition that has been blighted from the outset by political rows and street clashes.
The National Defense Council, which is led by Mursi and includes the defense minister who commands the army, called for "a broad national dialogue that would be attended by independent national characters" to discuss political differences and ensure a "fair and transparent" parliamentary poll.
The National Salvation Front of liberal-minded groups and other Mursi opponents cautiously welcomed the call.
THREATS OF VIOLENCE
Clashes in Port Said erupted after a judge sentenced 21 men to die for involvement in the deaths at the soccer match on February 1, 2012. Many were fans of the visiting team, Cairo's Al Ahly.
Al Ahly fans had threatened violence if the court had not meted out the death penalty. They cheered outside their Cairo club when the verdict was announced. But in Port Said, residents were furious that people from their city were held responsible.
Protesters ran wildly through the streets of the Mediterranean port, lighting tires in the street and storming two police stations, witnesses said. Gunshots were reported near the prison where most of the defendants were being held.
A security source in Port Said said 32 people were killed there, many dying from gunshot wounds. He said 312 were wounded and the ministry of defense had allocated a military plane to transfer the injured to military hospitals.
Inside the court in Cairo, families of victims danced, applauded and some broke down in tears of joy when they heard Judge Sobhy Abdel Maguid declare that the 21 men would be "referred to the Mufti", a phrase used to denote execution, as all death sentences must be reviewed by Egypt's top religious authority.
There were 73 defendants on trial. Those not sentenced on Saturday would face a verdict on March 9, the judge said.
At the Port Said soccer stadium a year ago, many spectators were crushed and witnesses saw some thrown off balconies after the match between Al Ahly and local team al-Masri. Al Ahly fans accused the police of being complicit in the deaths.
Among those killed on Saturday were a former player for al-Masri and a soccer player in another Port Said team, the website of the state broadcaster reported.
TEARGAS FIRED
On Friday, protesters angry at Mursi's rule had taken to the streets for the second anniversary of the uprising that erupted on January 25, 2011 and brought Mubarak down 18 days later.
Police fired teargas and protesters hurled stones and petrol bombs. Nine people were killed, mainly in the port city of Suez, and hundreds more were injured across the nation.
Reflecting international concern at the two days of clashes, British Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt said: "This cannot help the process of dialogue which we encourage as vital for Egypt today, and we must condemn the violence in the strongest terms."
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged the Egyptian authorities to restore calm and order and called on all sides to show restraint, her spokesperson said.
On Saturday, some protesters again clashed and scuffled with police in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities. In the capital, youths pelted police lines with rocks near Tahrir Square.
In Suez, police fired teargas when protesters angry at Friday's deaths hurled petrol bombs and stormed a police post and other governmental buildings including the agriculture and social solidarity units.
Around 18 prisoners in Suez police stations managed to escape during the violence, a security source there said, and some 30 police weapons were stolen.
"We want to change the president and the government. We are tired of this regime. Nothing has changed," said Mahmoud Suleiman, 22, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cauldron of the 2011 anti-Mubarak revolt.
Mursi's opponents say he has failed to deliver on economic pledges or to be a president representing the full political and communal diversity of Egyptians, as he promised.
"Egypt will not regain its balance except by a political solution that is transparent and credible, by a government of national salvation to restore order and heal the economy and with a constitution for all Egyptians," prominent opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on Twitter.
The opposition National Salvation Front, responding to the Defense Council's call for dialogue, said there must be a clear agenda and guarantees that any deal would be implemented, spokesman Khaled Dawoud told Reuters.
The Front earlier on Saturday threatened an election boycott and to call for more protests on Friday if demands were not met. Its demands included picking a national unity government to restore order and holding an early presidential poll.
Mursi's supporters say the opposition does not respect the democracy that has given Egypt its first freely elected leader.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to office, said in a statement that "corrupt people" and media who were biased against the president had stirred up fury on the streets.
The frequent violence and political schism between Islamists and secular Egyptians have hurt Mursi's efforts to revive an economy in crisis as investors and tourists have stayed away, taking a heavy toll on Egypt's currency.
(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Peter Griffiths in London and Claire Davenport in Brussels; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
