Society's ChildS


Attention

Poor Woman in Bihar Sells Child for Rs 62 (Approx US$ 1.12)


Indo-Asian News Service
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 13:53 UTC
Woman Sold Child
© Bellevision.com
Police have began an inquiry into a poverty-stricken woman in Bihar's Araria district selling her four-month-old son for just Rs 62 to a Nepalese couple, sources Sunday said.

"I was informed that a poor woman sold her child to a Nepalese couple. Police have now begun investigation into it," Araria police chief Shivdeep W. Lande told IANS on the telephone.

Shannu Khatun, in her mid-30s, who is struggling for survival, sold her son to a Nepalese couple at Forbesganj railway station, near the Indo-Nepal border in Araria, about 350 km from here, Saturday.

Khatun, along with her children, had left her village a few days ago and taken shelter at the Forbesganj railway station. She refuted that she had sold her child but admitted to giving away her child for his own sake.

But her eight-year-old elder daughter Sabina told some local residents that her mother sold her younger brother for a mere Nepalese Rs 100 (Indian Rs 62).

Syed Ahsan Ali, of the Railway Protection Force said Khatun had donated her child to a Nepalese couple. "She told us that she had not received any money for it."
Read More...
Attention

Young Unemployed Spanish Graduates Living in Caves

vic labadie
Demotix
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 13:32 UTC
Cave Living
© vic labadieAnto Nito sits on his bed, inside his Cave-House.
Several young people, many of them graduates, move to tourist areas to find a seasonal job that helps them cope with the economic crisis that affects Spain. After months of unemployment they find themselves unable to pay a rent and decided to live in caves.

Ibiza Island is one of the favorite's destinations for those who desperately look for a season job. Many of them omit they graduates studies in their curriculums 'they recommend us to do so in the government job agency'. For them to be overqualified is one of the most normal disadvantages. You easily could find engineers, architects and philologist working on restaurants kitchens, hotels, or as bartenders.

Anto Nito, an agronomist engineer accepted to show his cave to this reporter. He ended his studies recently and found himself with no work opportunities and returning to his parent's home with empty pockets. His mother had suffered a reduction on her working hours and salary; his father lost most of his clients and is close to be unemployed. Anto Nito, who speaks three languages fluently and two more in medium level, went to Ibiza to find a job. He found there too many people from the Spanish peninsula with the same purpose and not enough work and accommodation for all.
Read More...
USA

Best of the Web: MOST Honest three and a half minutes of television EVER!


You Tube
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
Read More...
Family

Euroscience Open Forum 2012: DNA gene testing 'will screen out lovers'

Author
The Telegraph
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:16 UTC
Couples will soon be able to choose their life partner solely based on the compatibility of their genes instead of through love, a scientific conference has heard.
Image
Due to the falling cost of DNA testing Britain is on the cusp of a new era of eugenics, according to a leading British scientist.

Prof Armand Leroi, of Imperial College London, said that within five to ten years it will be common for young people to pay to access their entire genetic code.

He told the Euroscience Open Forum 2012, in Dublin, that a desire to have a healthy baby will lead more to request access to the view the genes of any prospective partner.

Armed with this information, the couple could then use IVF to screen babies with incurable diseases.

While it was unlikely people will have the "luxury" of using the technology to design babies, by their intellect or eye colour, they would instead focus on stopping genetic diseases.

Addressing a session titled "I human: are new scientific discoveries challenging our identity as a species", he said the cost of genetic sequencing was falling so quickly that "it is going to become very, very accessible, very, very soon".

The cost of doing a complete genetic map of a person has fallen from $1 billion (£648m) more than a decade ago to about $4,000 (£2593).

He said eugenics were already available, with tens of thousands of unborn babies with Down's syndrome and other illnesses being aborted every year.

Comment: see also: DNA as Predictor of Disease is Over-hyped

Read More...
Arrow Down

Clearwater Poised to Institute More Laws that Target the Homeless

Drew Harwell
Tampa Bay Times
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:00 UTC
Clearwater, Florida - This city could soon outlaw a harrowing crime: sitting.

Sitting or lying down on sidewalks or other public rights of way on Clearwater Beach, downtown or in the East Gateway neighborhood could mean a $500 fine, 60 days in jail or both.
Image
© Janny Castillo“Stand Up For the Right to Sit Down.” Young people have created many outspoken protest signs to protest the sitting ban.
The sitting ban is among a flurry of new ordinances the City Council will consider Monday as part of its crackdown on homeless people.

The council also could drop the hammer on sleeping outside, panhandling and bathing in public sinks. Like public sitting, each crime would be an arrestable offense.

The sitting ban is one of the most extreme proposals in a city already known for welding shut public bathrooms, turning off access to water in public areas and discouraging donations to a long-running soup kitchen.

But city leaders say the proposed ordinances, similar to bans enforced in St. Petersburg, San Francisco and Seattle, will give police more authority to clean up areas known for attracting the down-and-out.

"We do have challenges on the street, and the public wants us to respond to those in a humane way," City Manager Bill Horne said. "Our residents support us having a little more influence and teeth in our rules."
Read More...
Info

Thugs Mug 3-Year-Old Boy Sitting in His Stroller in New York

Amie Schram and Douglas Montero
New York Post
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 01:50 UTC
Image
© Paul MartinkaOutrage: Three-year-old Harvey Hernandez is taken for a stroll near his Bed-Stuy home yesterday. Days earlier, two punks actually mugged him for his gold christening chain.
Things are getting so rough in the Big Apple that even toddlers are getting mugged.

A cruel thug ripped a $400 gold chain off the neck of a 3-year-old boy who was sitting in his stroller and being pushed by his mom in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn on Tuesday, law-enforcement sources said.

The crook and an accomplice attacked tot Harvey Hernandez in the lobby of his family's Malcolm X Boulevard apartment building at 11:45 p.m. after following him, his teenage brother and mom Riyana Guerrero home from a Laundromat.

"I was screaming 'Let go of my baby! Let go of my baby!'" the mom told The Post in Spanish yesterday.

"[The man] didn't say anything - he just looked at us and laughed, almost mocking us.

"How could he do this to a helpless little baby!"

Guerrero believes that the thieves might have even kidnapped the boy if neighbors, alerted by her screams, didn't scare them away.
Read More...
Handcuffs

Teen Gets Removed While asking Immigration Minister a Question During Tory BBQ

Rob Drinkwater
The Canadian Press
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:00 UTC
Jason Kenney
© unknownJason Kenney
Canada, Edmonton - A protester who made it into a Conservative party barbecue in Edmonton says he was dragged out of the event and arrested by police when he tried to ask Immigration Minister Jason Kenney a question.

Bashir Mohamed, 17, planned to confront Kenney about the federal government's cuts to refugee health care.

Mohamed says he was born in a refugee camp in Kenya and came to Canada with his parents when he was three.

He said he stood up and began to ask a question while Kenney was speaking, but was quickly grabbed by four men who pulled him outside.

He says police arrested him, but he was later released without charges.

"The police were very nice. They just wanted to figure out what was going on. I have nothing against the police," Bashir said shortly after he was released.

Steven Dollansky, the president of the Edmonton Centre Conservative Association and a member of the group that organized the barbecue, explained that the protester was removed because he interrupted the minister in the middle of his speech.

"He stood up and screamed at the minister during his speech. That was not the appropriate time to speak and he was asked to leave," Dollansky said.
Read More...
Info

Whale Starved to Death on British Columbia Beach after Fishing Gear Caught in Mouth: Expert


The Canadian Press
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Emily Elias/CBC NewsPeople look at a young humpback whale that was found on White Rock Beach on Tuesday morning.
Canada, Vancouver - A Fisheries Department spokesman says a humpback whale that washed up on the beach in White Rock, B.C., had fishing gear caught in its mouth before it starved to death.

Paul Cottrell says it's tough to pin down where the longline fishing gear came from or whether it was being used or abandoned.

He says more and more young humpbacks are getting entangled in fishing gear and other items as they move into in-shore waters.
Read More...
Arrow Down

Parents Deny Daughter Life-Saving Transplant


Fairfax
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 18:19 UTC
Operation
© ONE News
An Auckland girl suffering a rare kidney disease has been put into the guardianship of the High Court because her Jehovah's Witness parents will not consent to her receiving a life-saving kidney and liver transplant.

The 2-year-old girl, whose name and identifying details are suppressed, has had her kidneys removed and is being kept alive by dialysis. Because of her precarious health, she is at risk of infection and doctors believed she needed to have an urgent kidney and liver transplant or she would die from infection.

Jehovah's Witnesses allow transplants but the faith is strict in rejecting the inevitable blood transfusions that would accompany such an operation. They believe blood that leaves the body must be disposed of and not consumed or transfused.

The Auckland District Health Board went to the High Court last month and sought urgent orders placing the girl under the care of the court. A team of doctors including renal, blood, liver and gastroenterology specialists care for the girl.

Justice Helen Winkelmann, who heard the application, said the team agreed the day before the court hearing that "without a liver and kidney transplant M will most likely die from infection within weeks to a couple of months.

"She will most certainly become so unwell within a few weeks that it will not be possible to consider her for a transplant.

"Dr K says that at the moment M is relatively well and a transplant is viable."
Read More...
Arrow Up

Black and White Cat Saves Diabetic Owner


Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 18:01 UTC
Charley The Cat
© North News & Pictures LtdLife-saver: Charley alerted Susan's husband after Susan collapsed on the bathroom floor.
A cat called Charley could scoop a national award after saving the life of her diabetic owner.

The three-year-old black and white moggy sprang into action when Susan March-Armstrong had a potentially fatal hypoglycaemic attack in the middle of the night.

Susan, 47, had collapsed unconscious on the bathroom floor of the family home in Haltwhistle, Northumberland, as her husband Kevin, 49, slept on the room next door.

Sensing something was wrong, Charley pounced on the bed and continuously licked Kevin's face and pawed at his hand until he woke up, then led him to the bathroom.

Kevin was able to give his wife a life-saving glucose injection.

The little cat has now been nominated for the Cat Protection League's Hero Cat award and her owner Susan will attend the ceremony at London's Savoy hotel on her behalf in August.

Mrs March-Armstrong, who suffers from emphysema as well as diabetes, said: 'She is absolutely amazing. You hear of dogs who do things like this, but not cats.'

The mother-of-one added: 'I have no recollection of what happened after I went to the bathroom, but when I came round Charley and Kevin were both next to me and she was purring away.
Read More...