Society's ChildS


Brain

Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients' - UK Professor laments over state of schooling

surgeon operate
© Getty Images
A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients.

Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical.

"It is important and an increasingly urgent issue," says Prof Kneebone, who warns medical students might have high academic grades but cannot cut or sew.

"It is a concern of mine and my scientific colleagues that whereas in the past you could make the assumption that students would leave school able to do certain practical things - cutting things out, making things - that is no longer the case," says Prof Kneebone.

Comment: Except for in the very early days, a complete education was only really reserved for those attending elite schools, schools open to the public served a variety of other agendas, and it worked out quite well, for a while. But as Western society and its values have become increasingly distorted, and this is reflected in our education system, an increasing number of young adults are leaving school unable to function in the real world: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: Public schools: Where creativity, freedom and critical thinking go to die


Cut

Twitter suspends account of radical Pakistani cleric for threats against government after blasphemy acquittal of Asia Bibi

Pakistani cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi
Pakistani cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi
Pakistan's government says Twitter has suspended the account of a radical Pakistani cleric for posting inflammatory statements against the Supreme Court, prime minister, and military after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said it requested that Twitter suspend the account of cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi after his Tehrik-e Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party blocked roads for three days last week and threatened Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi on October 31.

PTA officials said they'd complained that Rizvi incited "hate and violence" by urging the cooks and servants of the Supreme Court judges to kill them.

There was no immediate comment from U.S.-based Twitter.

Rizvi has said that "there will be a war" if the Pakistani authorities allow Bibi out of the country.

Bad Guys

Nearly 80 children kidnapped by Ambazonia separatists in northwest Cameroon

Anti-government protesters Bamenda Cameroon
© ReutersAnti-government protesters in Bamenda
Dozens of people, most of them children, have been kidnapped from a school in the city of Bamenda in Cameroon's northwestern Anglophone region, which is struggling with a separatist insurgency.

Armed men kidnapped 78 students from a Presbyterian school in the Nkwen village, Northwest Region Governor Deben Tchoffo said.

A video uploaded to social media showed the kidnapped children and the alleged kidnappers, calling themselves "Amba boys" in reference to the breakaway Ambazonia state that the separatists have been trying to create. The footage could not be immediately verified, but parents have reportedly been reacting to images of their children on social media, according to AP.

Comment: Some background on the growing tensions between separatists and the Cameroon government:
France and the US are supporting Cameroon's state-sanctioned reign of terror

In anglophone Cameroon, BIR troops allegedly set fire to homes and neighborhoods, routinely torture as a mode of interrogation and summarily execute suspected supporters of Ambazonia, the breakaway nation that, on October 1, 2017 symbolically declared its independence from the Republic of Cameroon after more than 20 years of seeking political and legal strategies to counter its progressive marginalization since decolonization.

Perhaps in the eyes of some their respective adherents, Ambazonia's struggle for economic, political and linguistic autonomy has little in common with Boko Haram more than 1,000km away. Yet in the eyes of the Cameroonian state, they are equivalent. Both have resulted in state security force's unbridled collective punishment of entire communities, displacing populations from the north and from the southwest on an increasing scale.

Days after viewers worldwide watched Cameroon's BIR soldiers summarily execute a baby, a child and their mothers, Paul Biya, now the second longest serving president in the entire world, tweeted his intent to run for reelection in October 2018. Before the announcement, Biya set his house in order. In early July, the Cameroonian president announced the cancellation of the concurrent legislative and municipal elections.



Bulb

German Jews demand extra integration classes for Muslim migrants to avoid anti-Semitism attacks

jews
© Global Look Press
With anti-Semitic attacks on the rise in Germany, the country's federation of Jews has suggested tailoring extra integration classes for migrants, who may still be influenced by their home countries' anti-Jewish sentiments.

Though the migrant flow is not pouring into Europe with the force of previous years, Vice President of Germany's Central Council of Jews Abraham Lehrer still believes that the "problem of immigrant Arab-Islamic anti-Semitism" still lies ahead. He was speaking days before the grim 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht - the Night of Broken Glass which marked the start of the violent assault on Jews by the Nazis.

According to Lehrer, many asylum seekers who arrive in his country are mainly influenced "by regimes" where anti-Semitism is "a part of [their] rationale" and where "the Jewish state is denied the right to existence."

As soon as the quest for job and housing is over for these people, they may re-experience this influence from their home countries and "will express their opinions openly," he says. "In order to prevent this scenario, we need to tailor integration courses more closely to these people, preferably by country of origin."


Comment: And everyone knows it's a bad thing to express certain opinions openly in Western democracies.


Lehrer suggested organizing additional hours in integration classes in which "fundamental values" such as democracy and treatment of women in the European society "are intensively taught."

Comment: This will probably have about as much success as sex education for migrants with the goal of combatting the string of rape cases currently plaguing Germany: Genius idea: Freiburg gang rape spurs Berlin to call for refugee sex education. Ideological 're-education' will probably only have the effect of reinforcing existing stereotypes, and breed additional resentment. Here's a better strategy: 1) send as many of the migrants home as possible, 2) force Israel to clean up its act and start behaving in a way that doesn't encourage anti-Semitism.


No Entry

Three girl scouts and adult volunteer killed in hit and run while picking up roadside trash

accident scene
Three girls and a woman were killed Saturday morning when a truck driven by a Wisconsin man struck them as their Girl Scout troop was picking up trash along a roadway.

Another girl was injured and is in critical condition, the Lake Hallie Police Department said.

The driver of a black Ford F-150 "crossed over a lane of traffic and into the ditch, striking the Girl Scout troop," Sgt. Dan Sokup of the Lake Hallie Police Department told CNN affiliate WEAU.

The driver fled, but turned himself in later. Police identified him as Colton Treu, 21, of Chippewa Falls.

Mr. Potato

Parody and charity: E-shop profiting from Macron quotes & controversies is helping homeless migrants

Enlysee boutique Macron parody
© enlyseeboutique.fr
A T-shirt featuring 'champion' Emmanuel Macron and a poster depicting his protester-beating bodyguard as president - this satirical e-shop knows how to profit from catchphrases and controversies involving the French leader.

The e-platform dubbed 'Enlysee' differs by just one letter from the official site of the French presidency online souvenir shop, but its content is far more diverse. Unlike its official counterpart, which offers a pen with a French tricolor and posters of Emmanuel Macron, the parody website uses its wit at full volume.

On it, you can buy a T-shirt with Macron depicted as "a champion of the Earth". Braver customers can purchase a T-shirt about the 'Breton mafia' or a poster showing Macron's scandalous ex-bodyguard Alexandre Benalla as the president of the French Republic.

Comment: It's unlikely they will run out of ideas anytime soon as Macron so generously provides an endless stream of 'witticisms' and scandals. A few recent examples:


Attention

11 y.o. boy kills his grandma then himself after being asked to clean his room

crime scene
© Reuters / Nancy Wiechec
An 11-year-old boy is believed to have fatally shot his 65-year-old grandmother and then himself after he was asked to clean his room, according to Arizona police.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said they received a call from a man in Litchfield Park claiming his grandson killed his wife before turning the gun on himself just after 5pm on Saturday, reports the Arizona Daily Independent.

Doyle Hebert said the couple had full custody of the boy and claims he snapped after the child's grandmother, Yvonne Woodard, repeatedly asked him to clean his room and pick up after himself throughout the day.

Hebert alleges that his grandson shot Woodard in the back of the head after they had sat down to watch TV. He claims that after his wife was shot, he chased his grandson briefly before returning to help her, which is when he heard the second gunshot and watched his grandson take a few steps before falling to the ground.

No Entry

Egypt looking to ban wearing of Niqabs in public places, used to conceal identities of criminals, terrorists

niqabs egypt
© AP Photo / Boris Roessler
The debate over a full-face veil ban has ongoing in Egypt for some time already, ever since the Egyptian government took strong, decisive action against political Islam in the wake of the ouster of Islamist President Muhammad Morsi back in 2013.

Egyptian lawmaker Ghada Ajami told Egyptian Streets in a phone interview on Sunday that she had introduced to the country's parliament a bill that would ban the face veil in public places, citing her concerns over a high percentage of crimes being committed in niqabs.

In the event of non-abidance, the bill stipulates 1,000 EGP ($55) in fines being slapped on women who continue to wear the niqab in public places like restaurants, parks or social and educational institutions. Repeated offenses will carry even higher fines, if the bill becomes law.

Red Flag

Brazilian businessman kills soccer star, cuts off genitals for raping his wife

Daniel Correa Freitas
© EPADaniel Correa Freitas
The businessman who allegedly killed Brazilian soccer player Daniel Correa Freitas says he did so after finding the midfielder in his underwear trying to rape his wife.

The Sao Paulo star's body was discovered in Sao Jose dos Pinhais, a city in Brazil's southern state of Parana, with his genitals cut off and almost decapitated.

The suspects have been named as Edison Brittes Junior, 38, his wife, Cristiana Brittes, and their 18-year-old daughter, Allana Brittes.

Edison has given his version of events, telling the Brasil Urgente program on TV Bandeirantes that he found the midfielder, 24, at his daughter's birthday party.

Heart - Black

Khashoggi's fiancé: Trump administration 'devoid of morals,' not doing enough about husband's murder

Hatice Cengiz Jamal Khashoggi
© John Stillwell/PAHatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a memorial event for her fiance at the Insitution of Mechanical Engineers in London
The fiancé of Jamal Khashoggi has launched a scathing attack on the US government over its handling of her partner's killing by Saudi Arabian officials, branding the Trump administration "devoid of moral foundation".

Hatice Cengiz, in a column for the Washington Post, called on the international community to bring her partner's killers to justice and to find his missing body, which Turkish authorities say was dissolved in acid.

Ms Cengiz's op-ed was published exactly a month after Mr Khashoggi failed to reappear from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. Turkey alleges he was murdered by a hit squad authorised by the "highest levels" of the Saudi government.