Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Metropolitan police strip searched more than 4,500 children in five years

Joe Sandler Clarke
The Guardian
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 15:22 UTC
the metropolitan police
© Oli Scarff/Getty ImagesThe Met said the force's use of strip search was found by the police watchdog to be “proportionate and appropriate”.
Data obtained under freedom of information reveals thousands of 10 - 16-year-olds faced procedure from April 2008

More than 4,500 children as young as 10 have been strip searched by the Metropolitan police over the past five years, data released under the Freedom of Information Act shows.

The figures obtained by the Guardian show 4,638 children aged between 10 and 16 were asked to remove their clothes and then searched by police between April 2008 and the end of last year. Just over a third were released by police without charge.

During a strip search suspects are required to take off all their clothes and can be asked to bend over and spread their legs. The police are allowed to do this only if they suspect the person is hiding class A drugs or an object that could cause harm. Under law, a strip search can be carried out only on those under arrest and must take place in a police cell or at a detention centre and must be approved by an inspector.
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Eye 1

Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps is finally dying


CBS News
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 18:43 UTC
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© Charlie Riedel/APPastor Fred Phelps preaching at his Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.
The estranged son of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church said his father is "on the edge of death."

Fred Phelps Sr. became famous for organizing picket lines of brightly-colored signs carrying hateful messages against tolerance during the funerals of military personnel and famous figures. His actions led to at least two federal and several state laws restricting protests during military funerals.

In a statement on his Facebook page, Nathan Phelps, who has been estranged from his father for 30 years, said the senior Phelps was dying in hospice care in Topeka, Kan., and that he had been ex-communicated from his own church in August of 2013.

"I'm not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made," Nathan Phelps wrote.

"I feel sad for all the hurt he's caused so many," he continued. "I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I'm bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes."
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Bell

People Power! 95.7% of Crimeans vote to join Russia in preliminary results


RT
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 17:15 UTC
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© Reuters / Thomas PeterPeople celebrate as they wait for the announcement of preliminary results of today's referendum on Lenin Square in the Crimean capital of Simferopol March 16, 2014
Over 95 percent of voters in the Crimean referendum have answered 'yes' to the autonomous republic joining Russia and less than 4 percent of the vote participants want the region to remain part of Ukraine, according to preliminary results.

With over 75 percent of the votes already counted, preliminary result show that 95.7 percent of voters said 'yes' to the reunion of the republic with Russia as a constituent unit of the Russian Federation.

The overall voter turnout in the referendum on the status of Crimea is 81,37%, according to the head of the Crimean parliament's commission on the referendum, Mikhail Malyshev.

The preliminary results of the popular vote were announced during a meeting in the center of Sevastopol, the city that hosts Russia's Black Sea fleet.

Over a half of the Tatars living in the port city took part in the referendum, with the majority of them voting in favor of joining Russia, reports Itar-Tass citing a representative of the Tatar community Lenur Usmanov. About 40% of Crimean Tatars went to polling stations on Sunday, the republic's prime minister Sergey Aksyonov said.

In Simferopol, the capital of the republic, at least 15,000 have gathered to celebrate the referendum in central Lenin square and people reportedly keep arriving. Demonstrators, waving Russian and Crimean flags, were watching a live concert while waiting for the announcement of preliminary results of the voting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the citizens of the peninsula have been given an opportunity to freely express their will and exercise their right to self-determination.
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Airplane

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane may have sent last signal while on ground, official said


News Sky
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 18:30 UTC
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The two red arcs show the possible routes after the jet went missing
The missing Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people could have been on the ground when it sent its last satellite signal, an official has said.

US intelligence is focusing on the pilot and co-pilot's possible role in the plane's disappearance and are worried it may have landed somewhere to be used later as a weapon.

The Boeing 777-200's final 'ping' was picked up nearly seven hours after the flight vanished from air traffic control screens.

At first it was thought contact was lost less than an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

But now investigators say a 'ping' was detected from one of two air corridors going north and south from the sea off Malaysia.

One is a northern route stretching thousands of square miles from northern Thailand to Kazakhstan and the other is a southern zone from Indonesia towards the southern Indian Ocean.
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Arrow Down

Canadian hospitals stretched as self-harming teens seek help


CBC News
Sat, 15 Mar 2014 18:44 UTC
Emergency
© CBC NewsEmergency rooms across the country are producing alarming statistics on teens being hospitalized for self-inflicted wounds and suicidal thoughts.

Mental health services are strained as a growing number of teens show up at emergency rooms across Canada with self-inflicted injuries and suicidal thoughts, say pediatric psychiatrists.

"We're seeing twice as many kids as we were 10 years ago," said Dr. Hazen Gandy, division chief of community-based psychiatry at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.

"Commonly it's cutting," he said of kids typically aged 12 to 17 who slash their arms, thighs or bellies with everything from razor blades to the sharp edges of protractors.

"It could be burning themselves. It could be bruising themselves by repeatedly banging their fist against the wall. It's a way of kind of giving the body a whole different set of inputs that allows them not to feel so awful inside."

Self-harming is a symptom of deeper issues such as anxiety or depression that stem from complex causes, Gandy said. But what's clear is how climbing caseloads are affecting the health system, he said.

"One of my greatest concerns is that as these services are stressed, greater numbers of mental health providers are now themselves showing wear and tear and are on the verge of burnout," said Gandy. He has practised in Ottawa for 20 years and says he has seen wait times grow to eight to 10 months for outpatient services.

"This is an issue across the country."
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Boat

Italian region votes on declaring independence, just like Crimea


RT.com
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 15:00 UTC
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© Reuters / Manuel Silvestri
As Crimeans make their way to the polls this Sunday, another region further in the heart of Europe is also deciding its fate in a referendum: the Italian region of Veneto, which is voting on whether to break with Rome.

The independence movement insists the industrial northern region's wealth is being drained by Rome's mismanagement of the financial crisis.

Following in the footsteps of Scotland and Catalonia, Venice - the capital of the Italian region of Veneto - will be holding a referendum to form an independent republic. About 3.8 million people in the region are eligible to vote in the referendum, which runs through Friday.

Leaders of the independence movement say they are not going to wait for Rome's approval, and if the population votes in favor they will begin the separation process. The latest polls carried out by the independence movement show that over 60 percent of the population is in favor of becoming independent.
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Arrow Down

Wounded veteran denied ride at Texas Six Flags, then was refused a refund

Oliver Darcy
The Blaze
Sat, 15 Mar 2014 12:10 UTC
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© Screen grab via KMOV-TVStephen Jackel says a Texas Six Flags treated him so poorly he broke down in tears in front of his 14-year-old daughter.
A military veteran who lost both of his legs in Afghanistan says he was reduced to tears when a Texas Six Flags refused to allow him to accompany his 14-year-old daughter on a ride.

Sgt. Stephen Jackel told KMOV-TV that he was told by the amusement park he was not permitted to go on the ride because their policy states individuals must have one functional leg and arm.

Six Flags insists the policy is in place for safety reasons.

However, Jackel - who uses two prosthetic legs - insists park personnel never informed him of the policy when he purchased his tickets.
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X

Gaza power plant shuts down due to fuel shortage


Reuters
Sat, 15 Mar 2014 08:52 UTC
Lack of fuel causes Gaza Strip's sole power station to stop operating, leading to numerous blackouts throughout the territory.

The Gaza Strip's sole power station stopped generating electricity on Saturday, causing blackouts throughout the territory after it ran out of fuel, officials said.

The power plant is one of the main sources of electricity for Gaza's 1.8 million people and without it, daily blackouts of around 12 hours are expected. Electricity is also received directly from Israel and Egypt.

Gaza lacks much basic civil infrastructure and lives under an Egyptian-Israeli blockade meant to cut off arms flows but which also curbs imports of fuel and building supplies.

A few months ago the plant was switched off for 43 days due to a fuel shortage that arose after neighboring Egypt closed off smuggling tunnels. Israel eventually allowed in fuel paid for by Qatar when a storm swept the region.
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Light Sabers

Indian diplomat in US strip search saga: U.S. prosecutors again indict Indian diplomat Khobragade

Joseph Ax
Yahoo! News
Sat, 15 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
A grand jury in New York has returned a new indictment against Indian diplomat Devyani
Devyani Khobragade
© REUTERS/Stringer Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade (C) leaves with her father Uttam Khobragade (L) from the Maharashtra Sadan state guesthouse to meet India's Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid in New Delhi January 11, 2014.
Khobragade for visa fraud, two days after a U.S. judge dismissed a similar indictment because she had diplomatic immunity.

Khobragade's arrest in December and a subsequent strip search drew outrage in India, causing a major diplomatic rift between the United States and India.

The United States granted her immunity and then essentially had her expelled from the country in a flurry of diplomatic maneuvers on January 9, the same day she was indicted for the first time.

"Unfortunately, I can have no comment at this stage," Khobragade's lawyer, Daniel Arshack, said in an email. "The government of India will respond in due course."

The new indictment effectively returns the case to where it was before Wednesday's dismissal.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled on Wednesday that Khobragade, who was India's deputy consul-general in New York, had diplomatic immunity when she sought on January 9 to dismiss the indictment, and thus could not be prosecuted for alleged underpayment of her nanny.
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Laptop

Cyber games continue as Ukrainian hacktivists take down NATO websites


RT
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 03:42 UTC
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© www.cyber-berkut.org
The hacktivist group calling itself CyberBerkut has claimed responsibility for taking down 3 NATO websites in a series of DDoS attacks. The group criticizes NATO for stirring up turmoil in Ukraine and helping the "Kiev junta" suppress freedom of speech.

CyberBerkut claims it brought down NATO's main website (nato.int), as well as the sites of the alliance's cyber defense center (ccdcoe.org) and NATO's Parliamentary Assembly (nato-pa.int).
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