Society's Child

Egypt: Suzanne Mubarak 'Recovering' from Sudden Illness

BBC News
Sat, 14 May 2011 09:04 UTC

The wife of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is recovering in hospital after falling ill when told she was being detained in a corruption probe.

Initial reports said Suzanne Mubarak, 70, suffered a heart attack but some officials say it was a "panic attack".

Mrs Mubarak's condition has improved to stable in Sharm el-Sheikh hospital.

The Mubaraks face allegations of "illegally acquiring wealth". Mr Mubarak had a suspected heart attack when first questioned in April.

The former president, who held power for 30 years but stepped down in February after weeks of protests, is currently receiving treatment in Sharm el-Sheikh hospital while under arrest.

Mr Mubarak has been detained by Egypt's Illicit Gains Authority, on charges he abused his position to illegally acquire wealth.

He is also accused of involvement in the killings of anti-regime protesters.

The 83-year-old has been held under arrest in the hospital in the Red Sea resort since suffering heart problems. His detention was extended by 15 days early on Friday morning.

Canada: Three B.C. Mounties, Jail Guard Charged After Women Watched Having Sex in Cell

The Canadian Press
Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00 UTC

Breach of trust charges were laid Friday against three British Columbia Mounties and one jail guard accused of watching two intoxicated female inmates having sex in a jail cell last summer.

That brings to eight the number of B.C. RCMP officers charged in the past week.

Also Friday, an RCMP officer was charged in a shooting during a traffic stop on Vancouver Island and a week ago, justice officials announced perjury charges against the four officers involved in the October 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport. The charges relate to their testimony at a public inquiry.

B.C.'s criminal justice branch announced Friday that Cpl. Kenneth Peter Rick Brown, Const. Evan Neil Larry Elgee, Const. Stephen Richard James Zaharia and guard David John Tompkins are accused of watching two women having sex on a closed-circuit video at the jail in Kamloops B.C. last August without intervening.

They are scheduled to make their first court appearance July 18. The branch declined any further comment, saying the matter is now before the court.

Propaganda Alert! US: Florida Imams Arrested for Aiding Pakistani Taliban

Kevin Gray
Reuters
Sat, 14 May 2011 00:00 UTC

© The Associated Press / Jeffrey M. Boan
A pedestrian walks past the Jamat Al-Mummineen Mosque in Margate, Fla., where imam Izhar Khan has been charged with providing financial support to the Pakistani Taliban Saturday, May 14, 2011.

The imam of a Florida mosque and his two sons, one also a Muslim spiritual leader, were arrested on Saturday on charges of financing and supporting the Pakistani Taliban, U.S. officials said.

The three Pakistan-born U.S. citizens were among six charged in a U.S. indictment that accused them of "supporting acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming in Pakistan and elsewhere" carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, which Washington calls a terrorist organization.

The indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Wifredo Ferrer and the FBI, charged the six with creating a network that transferred funds from the United States to Pakistani Taliban supporters and fighters in Pakistan, including for the purpose of buying arms.

If convicted, each faces up to 15 years in prison for each count of the indictment.

The charges were revealed at a time when U.S. relations with Pakistan are strained over the U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

US: Cop Violently Attacks Teenage Girl in Arizona

Jessica Hopper
ABC News
Fri, 06 May 2011 20:38 UTC

Phoenix Police are investigating the arrest of a 15-year-old girl who was seen on tape being slammed to the ground by the arresting officer.

Officer Patrick Larrison has been placed on administrative leave while police carry out both an internal and criminal investigation into the arrest.

A YouTube video captured the Jan. 25 arrest on camera, but police didn't become aware of the video until this Tuesday. Someone in the police department saw the video and reported it.

US: "Why Did Police Kill My Dad?"

William N. Grigg
Pro Libertate
Sat, 14 May 2011 20:15 UTC

Jose Guerena's murders lock down the scene of their crime.

"Mom, was my dad a bad guy?" four-year-old Joel Guerena plaintively asked his mother Vanessa after her husband, 26-year-old Jose, was killed in a withering barrage of gunfire during a SWAT invasion of their home. "They killed my dad! Police killed my dad! Why? What did my dad do?"

To the extent the question posed by that traumatized child dealt with a moral justification for the killing, a good and sufficient answer would be: "Nothing." Jose Guerena was killed because he had the temerity to defend his family from a criminal assault carried out by armed strangers.

When the stormtroopers arrived shortly after 9:00 a.m. on May 5, Jose had just surrendered to well-earned slumber after working the graveyard shift at the nearby Asarco Mine.

Jose, a former Marine who served two combat tours abroad, had taken that job to provide for his young family after mustering out of the Corps. Jose had devoted the last hours of his life to producing wealth. Meanwhile, his killers were planning to lay siege to several homes in the neighborhood as part of the Regime's Narcotics Price Support Program, the murderous charade sometimes called the "War on Drugs."

Study: It's not teacher, but method that matters

New Zealand Herald
Fri, 13 May 2011 19:36 UTC

© Unknown
A Canadian study found college students learned more from teaching assistants using interactive tools than they did from a veteran professor giving a traditional lecture.

Who is better at teaching difficult physics to a class of more than 250 college students: the highly rated veteran professor using time-tested lecturing, or the inexperienced graduate students interacting with students via devices that look like TV remotes? The answer could rattle ivy on college walls.

A study by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, now a science adviser to President Barack Obama, suggests that how you teach is more important than who does the teaching.

He found that in nearly identical classes, Canadian college students learned a lot more from teaching assistants using interactive tools than they did from a veteran professor giving a traditional lecture. The students who had to engage interactively using the TV remote-like devices scored about twice as high on a test compared to those who heard the normal lecture, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

The interactive method had almost no lecturing. It involved short, small-group discussions, in-class "clicker" quizzes, demonstrations and question-answer sessions. The teachers got real-time graphic feedback on what the students were learning and what they weren't getting.

"It's really what's going on in the students' minds rather than who is instructing them," said lead researcher Carl Wieman of the University of British Columbia, who shared a Nobel physics prize in 2001. "This is clearly more effective learning. Everybody should be doing this. ... You're practising bad teaching if you are not doing this."

Former Pop Star Sworn In As Haiti's New President

wsoctv
Sat, 14 May 2011 19:03 UTC

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNN) -- With expectations of change running high, former bad-boy pop star Michel Martelly was sworn in Saturday as the president of impoverished Haiti, still reeling from last year's devastating earthquake.

In a sign of the nation's troubles, the electricity went out moments before the inauguration, prompting formally dressed dignitaries and guests -- including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe -- to fan themselves to stave off rising May heat.

Immediately, Twitter lit up with posts calling the blackout a "bad sign." Despite the outage, the ceremony proceeded before parliament and Martelly took his oath of office amid the lights of media cameras.

Martelly, savvy in social media, tweeted his own inauguration as Haiti's 56th president minutes after it happened along with a flurry of messages expressing hope that change would now come to Haiti.

US: Police accused of 'murder' after shooting man with Tasers EIGHT times... for running a stop sign

The Daily Mail
Fri, 13 May 2011 11:47 UTC

A Californian man died after being Tasered eight times by Police, according to witnesses.

Allen Kephart, 43, was pulled over by police in San Bernardino after running a stop sign, where officers say he became 'combative'.

The Party DJ and teacher's assistant was slammed on the ground and repeatedly shocked with Tasers, according to witnesses. He was then rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Mr Kephart's father, Jack, himself a 20-year volunteer for the sheriff's department, said officers used excessive force on his son.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times he said: 'To me, it's not just a traffic stop. It's murder.

'You don't kill a person for running a stop sign.'