Society's ChildS


Health

Gaza's Water Could Be Undrinkable by 2016


Palestine Chronicle
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 02:33 UTC
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Polluted water in the Gaza Strip is seriously affecting people's health and the situation looks set to get worse, the UN warns in a new report.

Gaza's rapidly growing population of about 1.64 million - expected to increase by 500,000 by 2020 - could soon lose its main source of fresh water, the underground coastal aquifer, which could become unusable by 2016, with the damage irreversible by 2020, it says.

Clean water is limited for most Gazans to an average of 70-90 litres per person per day, compared to the minimum global World Health Organization (WHO) standard of 100 litres a day, according to Mahmud Daher, officer-in-charge of the WHO in Gaza.

"We have respiratory diseases, skin diseases, eye diseases, gastroenteritis, which can all be linked to polluted water," said Mohamed al-Kashef, general director of the international cooperation department in the Gaza health ministry.

According to a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) 2010 update, diseases associated with water account for about 26 percent of diseases in Gaza. However, Daher is more careful to make the link. "There is no evidence that the current water situation is a major public health problem. But what we know for sure is that viral diseases and parasites are connected to polluted water."
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Sheriff

Ex-Police Chief charged in China Political Scandal

Christopher Bodeen
Google
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Wang Lijun
© The Associated Press/China OutIn this Oct. 21, 2008 file photo, then Chonqing city police chief Wang Lijun speaks during a press conference in Chongqing, southwestern China.
Beijing - A former police chief whose flight to a U.S. consulate set off China's biggest political scandal in years has been charged with crimes including defection and bribe taking, possibly indicating the turbulent affair is moving closer to a resolution before a key national leadership transition this fall.

Wednesday evening's announcement by state media of the charges against Wang Lijun did not mention Bo Xilai, his one-time boss, who has fallen from power as one of China's top leaders as a result of the scandal.

Wang, the former police chief and vice mayor of the southwestern city of Chongqing, was also charged with "bending the law for selfish ends" and abuse of power, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Wang set off the scandal by fleeing to the U.S. consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu in early February after being demoted by Bo, the city's powerful Communist Party boss. Xinhua said the Chengdu City Intermediate People's Court had accepted the case, although it did not give a trial date.

During his overnight stay at the U.S. consulate, Wang expressed to the Americans his concerns about the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in Chongqing last November. That prompted the British embassy to request a new investigation, which uncovered that he had been murdered. The case resulted in Bo's dismissal in March and the conviction last month of Bo's wife Gu Kailai for poisoning Heywood, a former family associate with whom Gu had reportedly feuded about money.
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Palette

Feds Seek Prison Time For Obama "Hope" Artist


The Smoking Gun
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Obama, Hope
Federal prosecutors want Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the Barack Obama Hope poster, to serve time in prison following his misdemeanor conviction for destroying and fabricating documents in connection with a civil lawsuit over the iconic campaign image. In advance of Friday's scheduled sentencing of Fairey in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Department of Justice has filed a memorandum arguing that a prison term for the 42-year-old artist would be "appropriate."

However, prosecutors did not specify how long Fairey should be incarcerated (though, statutorily, his punishment would not exceed six months). Additionally, government lawyers have contended that Judge Frank Maas could fine Fairey up to $3.2 million.

"A sentence without any term of imprisonment sends a terrible message to those who might commit the same sort of criminal conduct," wrote prosecutor Daniel Levy in a September 2 memo. "Encouraging parties to game the civil litigation system...creates terrible incentives and subverts the truth-finding function of civil litigation."

Fairey, seen in the above mug shot, has admitted destroying electronic records and creating fake documents in an effort to thwart a copyright lawsuit brought by the Associated Press, which contended that Fairey had based the Hope image on a photo taken by an AP lensman.
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Cut

Berlin Declares Circumcision Legal, but Only if Performed by a Doctor - Not as a Ritual


The Times of Israel
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
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© Serge Attal/Flash90An 8-day-old baby is prepared for his circumcision
State does not authorize mohels, requires that parents be informed of the procedure's medical risks before consenting.

One of Germany's 16 states has declared circumcision legal, but only if performed by doctors - not, as required by Jewish law, by mohels.

Berlin, Germany's capital and itself a state, is the first to declare the practice legal following a Cologne court ruling in June that non-medical circumcisions on children amounted to a criminal offense, according to DPA, a German news wire. National legislation is pending to legalize circumcision.

State Justice Minister Thomas Heilmann made the announcement Wednesday, saying he felt it necessary to allay fears in this "difficult transitional period," the Associated Press reported.

The Berlin state has authorized only doctors, and not mohels, to perform circumcisions. National legislation could authorize mohels. The state also required that parents be informed of the procedure's medical risks before consenting, and that doctors do everything possible during the procedure to reduce pain and limit bleeding.

June's court ruling led many doctors to stop performing circumcisions in order to avoid being prosecuted. So far, complaints based on the ruling have been filed against two rabbis, although one complaint was dropped last week.

Comment:
Circumcision - Conditioning the Adult by Torturing the Child
Naomi Wolf: The Male Circumcision Question

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Handcuffs

Man Dressed as the Joker Arrested at Florida Movie Theater, Held on Bond


wftv.com
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:29 UTC

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© wftv screenshot
Brevard, Florida - WFTV found out a man who was arrested Wednesday after he walked into a Melbourne movie theater dressed as the infamous Batman villain, the Joker, is being held in the jail's mental health ward.

Police said Christoper Sides, 21, of Cocoa, was arrested on a warrant for a previous felony charge. He's being held on bond at the Brevard County Jail.

WFTV learned Sides has been involuntarily committed for mental health issues three times in the last three years.

Sides was arrested Wednesday morning after theater-goers reported a man wearing Joker-like makeup at the Premiere Theater on West Hibiscus Boulevard. The caller said the man was pacing outside the theater before entering the building.

Police said they confronted Sides as he was leaving through the front doors of the theater. According to police, Sides had purchased a ticket to see The Expendables 2.

Police said they learned Sides, who had bright pink hair and white and black face paint, had a warrant for his arrest for failure to appear on a previous misdemeanor charge. He was taken into custody for the warrant and transported to the Brevard County Jail.
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Briefcase

Torso Found in Suitcase off Toronto's Bluffer's Park


The Globe and Mail
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:42 UTC
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© The Canadian PressToronto police say a suitcase found floating in Lake Ontario contained a badly decomposed torso.
A human torso placed in a suitcase and found drifting on Lake Ontario is the latest in a string of body parts discovered in and around Toronto over the past month.

The grisly discovery was made on Wednesday morning by a man and a woman on personal watercrafts, according to area residents. They found the suitcase some two and a half kilometres off Bluffer's Park in Scarborough, pulled it back to land and called police.

The coroner confirmed the remains were human but, so far, police don't know to whom the torso belongs, or whether it is of a man or a woman - questions they hope a postmortem examination on Thursday morning will answer. They are investigating whether the remains are linked to the case of Liu Guahuang, a Scarborough woman whose head and limbs were found in the Credit River in Mississauga and a creek near her home last month.

"We've been in touch with Peel Region police and, until we get the results of the postmortem examination, we can't determine if it's one in the same," Detective Leslie Dunkley said.
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Heart - Black

St. Louis Man Stabbed to Death Over Bag of Chips

Valerie Schremp
St.Louis Today
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 04:10 UTC
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David L. Scott
St. Louis - A man was charged late Wednesday in the fatal stabbing of another man in a fight over a bag of Cheetos on Tuesday night in downtown St. Louis, police say.

David L. Scott, 49, was charged today with second-degree murder and armed criminal action. Authorities say he argued with 42-year-old Roger Wilkes over the Cheetos and stabbed him once in the chest with a knife about 8:50 p.m. Tuesday in the 500 block of Washington Avenue.

Wilkes died later at a hospital.

Police had said they believed both men were homeless, but gave an address for Wilkes in the 4000 block of Delmar Boulevard and an address for Scott in the 200 block of North Ninth Street.
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Bomb

'Bomb' strapped to bank manager in Los Angeles robbery


The Guardian
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Woman was abducted from home, fitted with device and sent into Bank of America branch to get cash, say police.
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© The Associated Press/Damian DovarganesA Los Angeles bomb squad officer and robot with the device that was attached to a Bank of America manager, who was then made to rob the store.
A Los Angeles bank manager was strapped to what appeared to be a bomb and sent into her branch to take out money for two thieves who escaped with the cash, authorities said.

The two suspects confronted the manager at her home on Tuesday night and forced her to participate in the robbery, said the Los Angeles county sheriff's office. "The two men took her to her bank on Wednesday morning, telling her that she had to wear this explosive device," said spokesman Steve Whitmore. "They strapped on what appeared to be pipe bomb."

Following the robbery a sheriff's arson and explosives team removed the device from the woman and rendered it safe, Whitmore said. Officials did not identify the bank manager.

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Handcuffs

Northern California Politician and Estranged Wife of State Treasurer Charged with Meth Possession


The Washington Post
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 07:30 UTC
Nadia Lockyer
© Orange County District Attornye's office/The Associated PressNadia Lockyer
Orange, California - Nadia Lockyer, the estranged wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and a former Alameda County supervisor, was charged with drug possession and child abuse after police found her with methamphetamine in an Orange County house where she was staying with her 9-year-old son, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The charges are the latest in a series of public substance abuse and relationship struggles faced by Lockyer, 41, who until recently was considered a rising star in Northern California government.

Bill Lockyer, 71, the state's former attorney general and current treasurer who helped his wife with campaign funding when she won her supervisor seat in 2010, has filed for divorce and is seeking joint custody of their son. She resigned from the seat in April following a string of bizarre public incidents that she blamed on chemical dependency.

Police in Orange received a tip last week that led them to a house where Nadia Lockyer was staying with relatives, district attorney's spokeswoman Farrah Emami said.

Lockyer wasn't home, but officers found methamphetamine and paraphernalia used for smoking it. Later, when they found Lockyer, she showed "objective signs" of meth intoxication and she was arrested, Emami said.
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Info

New York Judge: Dinosaur Might be More Like Frankenstein


The Wall Street Journal
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:11 UTC
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© ReutersAn eight-foot tall, 24-foot long Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton is seen in this photo from Heritage Auctions in New York.
New York - A federal judge expressed surprise Wednesday that a dinosaur skeleton seized by the U.S. government is a composite of several ancient creatures, calling it a "kind of Frankenstein model of a dinosaur."

U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel said it seemed much more needs to be learned about the 70 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton, known as Ty, before it can be carted off to Mongolia, where the U.S. government says it originated and belongs.

With the judge's approval, U.S. agents swooped into a storage facility in June and snatched the fossil after the government insisted it was a rare specimen that could only have originated in Mongolia. The fossil's seizure seemed urgent after it was sold by Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions for $1.05 million.

Attorney Michael McCullough argued the skeleton should be returned to Gainesville, Fla., fossils dealer Eric Prokopi, who says he assembled dinosaur pieces that were worth only tens of thousands of dollars into a nearly intact skeleton worth much more.

The judge said he thought the skeleton represented one dinosaur. McCullough told him only 37 percent of the skeleton came from one specimen, with an equal amount of the finished product coming from at least one other dinosaur and possibly many.
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