The United States has charged six people with conspiring to provide Iran with satellite surveillance equipment in defiance of an American trade embargo in place since 1995. The charges alleged that the six had created a network of front companies to disguise the involvement of the Iranian government in the purchase of high-tech equipment which allegedly enabled Iran to launch a surveillance satellite five years ago.
Police in Britain have raided offices and homes linked to three companies selling suspected fake bomb detectors abroad. The raids follow the arrest in January of the head of a British firm who sold large quantities of the supposed bomb detectors to Iraq. Police say tests have shown they can't detect explosives or anything else. The head of the investigation is Detective Superintendent Colin Cowan.
"Concern about these devices is that they've been deliberately manufactured and sold globally in the knowledge that they actually don't work, and that the people have been purchasing them and distributing them to people in their own countries, that there is overseas corruption in the middle of those exchanges."
Detective Superintendent Colin Cowan.
World News from the BBC.
The United Nations refugee agency says it's been ordered to leave Libya where it cares for thousands of migrants every year. A UN spokeswoman says the Libyan government didn't give any explanation for the decision. Tens of thousands of migrants from across Africa arrive in Libya each year, many hoping to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Libya has no national asylum system of its own, so the UN assesses asylum claims.