LAZARO CARDENAS, Mexico (AP) — Soldiers trying to seize control of one Mexico’s top drug-producing regions found the countryside teeming with a new hybrid marijuana plant that can be cultivated year-round and cannot be killed with pesticides.

The new plants, known as “Colombians,” mature in about two months and can be planted at any time of year, meaning authorities will no longer be able to time raids to coincide with twice-yearly harvests.

The hybrid first appeared in Mexico two years ago but has become the plant of choice for drug traffickers Michoacan, a remote mountainous region that lends to itself to drug production.

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PARIS (Reuters) – A documentary says French special forces had Osama bin Laden in their sights twice about three years ago but their U.S. superiors never ordered them to fire.  The French military, however, said that the incidents never happened and the report was “erroneous information.”

“In 2003 and 2004 we had bin Laden in our sights. The sniper said ‘I have bin Laden’,” an anonymous French soldier is quoted as saying.

 

…the soldier told them it took roughly two hours for the request to reach the U.S. officers who could authorize it but the anonymous man is also quoted in the documentary as saying: “There was a hesitation in command.”

Story via Yahoo!News

BAGHDAD — A once-prominent Iraqi American, jailed on corruption charges, was sprung from a Green Zone prison this weekend by U.S. security contractors he had hired, several Iraqi officials said. A Sunni Arab who claimed ties to the insurgency, Sameraei was arrested in August of this year and charged with a dozen counts of misallocating millions of dollars in Iraqi government money. He was sentenced in October to two years’ imprisonment.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed Monday that Sameraei was no longer in prison. He said U.S. officials scrambled into the evening to locate him.

Story via LATimes