Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

U.N. report: Nearly 3,000 wild great apes killed or 'stolen' each year

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© AFP Photo
Almost 3,000 great apes are killed or captured in the wild each year because of rampant illegal trade, according to a new UN report released Monday that voiced fears for their survival.

More than 22,000 great apes are estimated to have been lost to the illicit trade between 2005 and 2011, according to the study by the UN Environment Programme, which oversees the Great Apes Survival Partnership (Grasp).

"This trade is thriving and extremely dangerous to the long term survival of great apes," said Grasp coordinator Doug Cress, describing the illegal trade as "sophisticated, ingenious, well financed, well armed".

"At this rate, apes will disappear very quickly," he said.

Capturing a single chimpanzee alive can require killing 10 others, said Cress.

Bizarro Earth

CEO: 'Automated process' led to misogynistic rape shirts on Amazon

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The founder and CEO of an online t-shirt company found himself profusely apologizing this weekend after Twitter erupted with anger on Saturday over a line of clothing offered on Amazon that carried slogans promoting rape.

The shirts all featured a combination of words made to parody the slogan, "Keep Calm and Carry On." But instead of something silly or smarmy, t-shirt maker Solid Gold Bomb was offering shirts with slogans like, "Keep Calm and Rape Her," "Keep Calm and Hit Her," and "Keep Calm and Grope On." One, in pink, offered the slogan: "Keep Calm and Rape A Lot."

Michael Fowler, founder and CEO of Solid Gold Bomb, explained on the company's website that it had no intention of producing such offensive shirts, revealing they were actually created by an "automated process" that "relied on both computer based dictionaries and online educational resources ie. verb lists" to generate a parody of "Keep Calm."

Heart - Black

Kids aged 5 among UK sexual offenders

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Children as young as five have been listed among the under-18s who have been accused of sexual offences in Britain, police statistics show.

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said it has figures from the police showing they dealt with 5,000 cases of under-18 children harassing other kids between 2009 and 2012.

NSPCC said the offences included accusations of rape and sexual assault and 98 percent of the accused were boys.

The charity blamed open access to explicit online material for the shocking figures saying the situation requires urgent treatment.

"We are treating an increasing number of children who have carried out online grooming, harassment in chatrooms and 'sexting'. We hope our findings will ring alarm bells with the authorities that this is a problem which needs urgent attention," Claire Lilley, a policy adviser at the NSPCC said.

Ambulance

Six Russian teenagers buried under 5 meters of snow in Siberia, 1 escapes avalanche

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© RIA Novosti / Albina Olisaeva
Rescuers are searching for six teenagers who have been buried under five meters of snow after an avalanche hit them on a mountain slope in East Siberia. Their classmate who managed to escape the snow trap is currently in hospital.

The group was heading to the summit of Mount Ak-Bashtyg in the republic of Tyva, East Siberia, when the avalanche hit.

The teens wanted to place flags on top of the mountain which is believed by the locals to bring luck, said Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov on his Twitter page @RFdeti.

The avalanche as high as 5-6 meters was about 200 meters in width and 600 meters in length according to the Emergencies Ministry's information. The threat of further avalanches in the area remains high.

Eye 2

Cop said cannibalism interest hurt his life: FBI agent

Gilberto Valle
Gilberto Valle
New York - An FBI agent says a New York police officer accused of conspiring with others on the Internet to kill and eat women was cooperative and willing to help the agency catch dangerous people on the Internet when he was arrested in October.

Agent Anthony Foto told a Manhattan federal court jury Friday that Officer Gilberto Valle said he was willing to help the FBI distinguish between those individuals on a sexual fetish web site who were real threats and those only involved in role play.

Valle, who has been jailed without bail since his arrest, has maintained throughout that he was only engaging in kinky Internet fantasies and was not going to act on them.

Foto said the officer admitted that his online passion had consumed him, ruining his personal life.

Valle "claimed he did not enjoy it and he did not know why he was doing it," the agent said.

Under interrogation, Valle lamented that his chats and emails with others on the Internet about cannibalism were leaving him exhausted and uninterested in sex with his wife.

Foto testified Valle acknowledged that his fetish of kidnapping, killing and eating women wasn't satisfying and he "claimed he would not have gone through with it."

The testimony came as the government winds down its case against the 28-year-old officer.

The trial's first week concluded on Friday afternoon. Jurors were due back on Monday.

Ambulance

12 schoolchildren die in collision as India's road woes continue

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© Prakash Singh/Getty ImagesIndia has an appalling record when it comes to road deaths, according to government figures.
Delhi, India - At least 12 schoolchildren were killed when their bus collided head-on with a truck in northern India Monday.

The wreck, which left 10 others injured, occurred in Jalandhar district, Punjab state, police superintendent Yurinder Singh Hayer told CNN.

The driver of the school bus was also killed in the crash, which happened at around 8 a.m. local time, according to police.

Hayer said the bus had some two dozen schoolchildren on board.

Police have launched an investigation into the incident.

India has an appalling record when it comes to road traffic deaths. In 2011, more than 142,000 people were killed in about 490,000 road crashes, according to the country's transport and highways ministry.

Bizarro Earth

At least 15 killed on Kenya coast on election day

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© Reuters / Marko DjuricaA woman with a child casts her ballot inside a polling station in Kenya's town of Gatundu March 4, 2013.
Nairobi/Mombasa, Kenya - At least 15 people were killed in attacks by machete-wielding gangs on Monday as Kenyans queued to vote in a presidential election they hope will rebuild the country's image after a disputed 2007 poll unleashed weeks of tribal bloodshed.

A few hours before the 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) start of voting and with long queues across the nation, at least nine security officers in Kenya's restive coastal region were hacked to death, and six attackers were also killed, a regional police chief Aggrey Adoli said. The total toll had earlier been put at 17.

There were two separate attacks and senior police officers blamed one of them on a separatist movement - which, if confirmed, would suggest different motives to those that caused the post-2007 vote ethnic killings and could limit their impact.

Officials and candidates have made impassioned appeals to avoid a repeat of the tribal rampages that erupted five years ago when disputes over the poll result fuelled clashes between tribal loyalists of rival candidates.

More than 1,200 people were killed, shattering Kenya's reputation as one of Africa's most stable democracies and bringing its economy to a standstill.

As in 2007, the race has come down to a high-stakes head-to-head between two candidates, this time between Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta. Both will depend heavily on votes from tribal loyalists.

Rose

Female Iranian communists organize topless protest against hijabs in Swedish capital

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© femen.org
The Iranian female activists have followed the footsteps of the scandalous Ukrainian FEMEN movement, flashing their breasts in protest against the hijab headscarf, women wear in the Islamic world.

The action performed by members of the Iranian Communist Party and the Organization Against Violence on Women in Iran took place in the center of the Swedish capital, Stockholm on Sunday, and was dedicated to International Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8.

The women painted their bodies with slogans such as "My nudity is my protest" and "No to hijab" and displayed pictures from anti-Islamic demonstrations by FEMEN.

The topless photos from Stockholm first appeared on FEMEN's official website, with members of the "sextremist" movement expressing their confidence that "in the historical battle 'woman v. Islam' women will win!"

Padlock

Hysterical USA: Fresh Prince rap triggers school lockdown

Will Smith, Fresh Prince
Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Now this is a story all about how a high school student's life got turned upside down. But it was all just a bad rap.

The teen's voicemail greeting triggered a lockdown at his Pennsylvania school after a receptionist misheard his rendition of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song.

While trying to confirm an appointment with 19-year-old Travis Clawson the receptionist thought the message said "shooting people outside of the school". The line is actually "shooting some b-ball," a reference to basketball.

The receptionist called 911 and Economy police arrested Clawson a short time later at Ambridge Area High School, but released him once he explained the message.

Acting police Chief James Mann says police acted "appropriately" out of concern for students' welfare.

Clawson's family has contacted an attorney.

Source: The Associated Press

Ambulance

New York State trooper stabbed in neck inside of Empire State Plaza, part of state Capitol complex

Suspect in Sunday attack at large, officials say
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© The Associated PressState Police investigate the scene in the Empire State Plaza concourse where a trooper was reportedly stabbed in the neck on Sunday, March 3, 2013. Police closed the concourse and searched the area for the suspect.
A New York State trooper was stabbed in the neck inside of the state Capitol complex Sunday afternoon by an assailant who fled the scene and is still at large, officials told the Daily News.

The trooper was in surgery Sunday evening and is expected to survive, one source said. The circumstances surrounding the incident were not immediately known.