Society's ChildS


Satellite

Evidence points to 3 Sudan mass graves


Associated Press
Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:20 UTC
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© UnknownKenya Africa(Red)
Nairobi, Kenya - A U.S. group says new satellite imagery and eyewitness reports point to evidence of three new mass graves in a contested area of Sudan.

The Satellite Sentinel Project on Wednesday released images of what it says are two piles of corpses wrapped in body bags or tarps in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, where Sudan's Arab military has been fighting black tribesmen loyal to the new state of South Sudan.

The group said an analysis of satellite images concluded that pro-government forces are trying to cover up a third mass grave beneath a water tank.

Activist John Prendergast says evidence is mounting of war crimes by Sudan's government.

The Khartoum government has denied carrying out atrocities.
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Info

US: Air Force Discharging Sergeant Who Doubts Obama

Josh Junk
The Associated Press
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 07:45 UTC
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© birtherreport.comSgt. Daryn Moran
The Air Force said Wednesday it is discharging a hero of the so-called birther movement who refused to report to duty in Germany for a few days earlier this month because he doubts President Barack Obama's citizenship.

Staff Sgt. Daryn Moran expects to be discharged within the next week. Although the 41-year-old Nebraska man refused to report to duty and had called for Obama's arrest in statements on websites, several other things contributed to his discharge, including his opposition to Obama's decision to allow gays to serve openly in the military.

Moran, who has served nine years in the Air Force, drew the attention of the birther movement when he shared his views on Obama's citizenship on websites of groups that believe Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore is not eligible to serve as president or commander in chief.

Obama released a copy of his detailed birth certificate from Hawaii in April in an attempt to quell the questions about whether he was born outside the U.S. But many birthers contend Obama's birth certificate must be a fake.
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Stop

US, Massachusetts: Woman's Yard Sale to Pay Medical Bills Gets Shut Down

Emily Sinovic
Salem KATU
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:12 UTC

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Jan Cline
A woman fighting a terminal form of bone cancer is trying to raise money to help pay bills with a few weekend garage sales, but the city of Salem says she's breaking the law and is shutting her down.

Jan Cline had no idea, but the city of Salem has a clear law that states a person can only have three yard sales a year.

Cline has been selling her stuff in the backyard for a few weekends and said she thought she'd be fine by keeping the sale out of everyone's way.

"It's a struggle," Cline says. "It's a struggle for me because I'm very independent, used to taking care of myself."

She's run businesses and supported herself for years but this summer she was diagnosed with bone cancer.

"It's a bone marrow cancer that eats through the bones and causes holes in the bones so that just by walking I can break a bone," she says.
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Gear

Black Scientists Have Lower Odds of Winning Grants, NIH Study Finds

Jocelyn Kaiser
Science Insider
Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:00 UTC
A study published today in Science may shed new light on why African American scientists are so rare in biomedical research - and raises troubling questions about possible bias during grant reviews conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The in-depth analysis of NIH grant data finds that black Ph.D. scientists - and not other minorities - were far less likely to receive NIH funding for a research idea than a white scientist from a similar institution with the same research record. The gap was large: A black scientist's chance of winning NIH funding was 10 percentage points lower than that of a white scientist.

The NIH-commissioned analysis, which lifts the lid on confidential grant data, may reflect a series of slight advantages white scientists accumulate over the course of a career, the authors suggest. But the gap could also result from "insidious" bias favoring whites in a peer-review system that supposedly ranks applications only on scientific merit, NIH officials say.
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Stop

What is Going On? Florida, US: Ex-Student Jared Cano Held for Tampa 'School Bomb Plot'


BBC News
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:29 UTC
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© ReutersJared Cano had previously been arrested multiple times on various charges
A "potentially catastrophic" bomb plot hatched by an expelled high-school student has been thwarted in the US city of Tampa, Florida, say police.

Jared Cano, 17, is accused of planning to plant a device at Freedom High School in north Tampa and detonate it as students returned on Tuesday.

Fuel, shrapnel and plastic tubing, along with timing and fusing devices were found at his home, police said.

The teenager had previously been arrested on several juvenile charges.

Mr Cano, who had been expelled from the school, was hoping to kill or injure more people than the 1999 shooting by two students at Columbine High School in Colorado, police chief June Castor said. That shooting killed 12 students and a teacher.

Comment: Interestingly enough, only a week ago there was another news report about a teen from South Carolina, US, who also planned a Columbine-style attack, and who also had a "hit list".

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Fish

US: Bogalusa paper mill admits fault as dead fish flow to Lake Pontchartrain


Nola.com
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:04 UTC
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© Scott Threlkeld, The Times-Picayune

The paper mill lnked to a substantial fish kill in the Pearl River system cautiously admitted responsibility Wednesday, as the trail of dead fish reached Lake Pontchartrain and a reservoir near Jackson, Miss., was opened in an attempt to flush the pollutants out.

Officials from the Temple-Inland plant in Bogalusa acknowledged that a mixture of pulp from the paper-manufacturing process and unspecified chemicals poured into the Pearl River late last week at levels exceeding the plant's environmental permits and might have depleted oxygen levels in the Pearl and its tributaries.

Numerous species of fish and shellfish, in large numbers, have turned up dead in the Pearl River system since the weekend as a result.
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Cult

US: Barbershop closed amid suspected animal sacrifice

Brian Fraga
South Coast Today
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:48 UTC
aminal control
© Peter PereiraAn animal control officer looks at a chicken that was taken away from a property on Purchase Street in New Bedford.

New Bedford, Massachusetts - William Camacho has practiced Palo Mayombe, a syncretic Afro-Caribbean religion similar to Santeria, since he was a child.

Camacho, 41, said his religious practices, which include animal sacrificing, have gotten him into trouble with the city, which is considering filing animal cruelty charges against him.

"They violated my moral rights," said Camacho, owner of Bad Boyz Cutz, a downtown barbershop that was closed Tuesday after city inspectors found evidence of ritualistic animal sacrifice there, officials said.
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Bizarro Earth

Bridgend, Wales: British Paralympic cyclist injured in hit-and-run

Peter Walker
The Guardian
Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:31 UTC
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© PABritish Paralympic cyclist Simon Richardson, who is in a critical condition after an alleged hit-and-run incident, with one of the two gold medals he won in Beijing.
Simon Richardson, the triple medal-winning Paralympic cyclist struck by a van in an alleged hit-and-run incident while training in Wales, remains in a critical condition in hospital although his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, a friend has said.

The collision involving the 44-year-old, who won two gold medals and a silver at the Beijing 2008 games, took place near Bridgend on Wednesday morning. It is a particularly cruel blow for Richardson given that his participation in Paralympic events came about after another cycling accident in 2001, when lost the use of his left leg after colliding with a car.

"It's like a worst nightmare being repeated 10 years on," said Phil Jones, a company director who sponsors Richardson and has become a friend. "If you think of what he has fought back from, what he has achieved, to be almost back to zero will require immense mental toughness."

Police said Richardson, of Porthcawl, was apparently struck by a small white van travelling in the same direction along the A48, causing injuries to his spine, legs and a lung as well as a broken pelvis and breast bone. The van did not stop at the scene. A 59-year-old man has been arrested concerning the incident.

Comment: What is going on in Bridgend, Wales? Another case in the string of weirdness: Schoolgirl battered to death with brick

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Arrow Down

World stock markets plunge further

Julia Kollewe
The Guardian
Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:22 UTC
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© APIt's all over bar the crying - we hope you're canning and storing food.
FTSE, Dow Jones, Dax and Cac all fall as investors flee to gilts and gold

Global stock markets crashed and gold soared to a new record high on Thursday, amid growing fears that the world is sliding into a double-dip recession.

Dire manufacturing figures from the US prompted a sell-off on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones plunged more than 500 points at one stage. It later traded down 445 points at 10965, a fall of nearly 4%.

The FTSE index in London plummeted 220 points, or 4.1%, to 5110 with all 100 stocks on the index down - banking and mining stocks were among the biggest fallers, led by Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Germany's Dax fell 6.3% and France's Cac lost 5.7%, while markets in highly indebted Spain, Italy and Portugal dropped by 5.8%, 6.1% and 4.8% respectively. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei closed down 1.25% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled 1.2% and the Shanghai Composite ended the day 1.6% lower.
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Wine

France: Depardieu Outrages Passengers by Urinating in Plane

Cyril Altmeyer and Daniel Flynn
Reuters
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
Gerard Depardieu
© The Associated Press / Roberto PfeilIn this Sept 12, 2010 file picture, French actor Gerard Depardieu tests a glass of wine during a gastronomy fair in Duesseldorf, Germany. French actor Gerard Depardieu was unable to control his bladder ahead of a Paris-Dublin flight and urinated on himself aboard the plane, a passenger on the flight told French radio Wednesday Aug. 17, 2011.
French actor Gerard Depardieu outraged fellow passengers by urinating in the aisle of an Air France flight as it prepared to take off on Tuesday, forcing the plane to turn back to its parking spot.

A passenger on the flight said Depardieu, 62, the star of movies such as Jean de Florette and Green Card, appeared to be drunk and insisted he be allowed to use the bathroom during takeoff, when passengers must remain seated.

When he was asked by a hostess to return to his seat, Depardieu urinated in the aisle, the passenger told French radio station Europe 1 on Wednesday.

"You could see that he had been drinking, but there were no comments. The hostess was shocked but there was no argument, nothing," said the passenger.

"I was outraged. When you are an actor, you are not like other people, you do not have to abide by the rules. He could have waited, all the same."
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