Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Egyptian football protests: death toll reaches 11

David Batty
The Guardian
Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:37 UTC
Image
© Suhaib Salem/ReutersA wounded Egyptian protester is carried during clashes with security forces in Cairo.
Ten protesters and one security officer killed in Cairo and Suez in aftermath of deadly football violence

At least 11 people have been killed in clashes with Egyptian security forces amid ongoing fallout from the 74 deaths at a football match in Port Said earlier this week.

Five people were killed when hundreds of demonstrators in Cairo clashed with police near the interior ministry on Saturday morning. The protesters are demanding an end to military rule and retribution for those killed in the riots after Wednesday's match.

Abdolheliem Mahmoud, a doctor at a field hospital in Tahrir Square, said Saturday's victims died birdshot to the head or chest during overnight clashes. Another protester was in critical condition.

Demonstrators claimed that police fired rounds of teargas into the crowds and field hospitals were set up in streets near the interior ministry to help hundreds of cases of suffocation.
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Attention

Crime soars in Brazil's Bahia state as police strike


BBC News
Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:56 UTC
Brazil soldiers
© ReutersArmy soldiers on patrol in Salvador on 5 February 2012 Soldiers are trying to stem the wave of violence in Salvador
The Brazilian government has deployed the army in the northeastern state of Bahia where a police strike has sparked a wave of violence.

Official figures suggest the murder rate has more than doubled in the state capital, Salvador, since police stopped work there on Tuesday.

The number of assaults and thefts has also risen compared to previous weeks.
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Bizarro Earth

Is Obama's Peace Prize About To Be Confiscated? Nobel Peace Prize Jury Under Investigation

Karl Ritter
Associated Press
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:29 UTC
Obama's Peace Prize
© Odd Andersen
Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize's original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday.

The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.

If the Stockholm County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations in Sweden's capital, finds that prize founder Alfred Nobel's will is not being honored, it has the authority to suspend award decisions going back three years - though that would be unlikely and unprecedented, said Mikael Wiman, a legal expert working for the county.

Obama won in 2009, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won in 2010, and last year the award was split between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.
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V

Rallies Held in America Against Iran War


Press TV
Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:23 UTC
anti-Iran war rally
© CBS News
Anti-war activists across the United States and Canada have held rallies to protest at US and Israeli warmongering policies against Iran, Press TV reports.

The demonstrations were staged on Saturday in 60 cities across the US, including Washington DC, New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. In Canada, protests were held in Calgary and Vancouver.

The protests were organized by a coalition of about 60 pacifist and human rights groups.

The demonstrators censured any possible military action against Iran, saying that any such measure could result in dire consequences including escalated war in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

The activists also demanded an end to sanctions against Tehran, referring to the embargoes as a war against the Iranian people.
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Stormtrooper

US, Wisconsin: She Dialed 911. The Cop Who Came to Help Raped Her

Michael Daly
Daily Beast
Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:44 UTC
Image
© Newscom/, Jonathan A. Meyers
Milwaukee police officer Lamarald Cates is charged with rape.
A young woman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin called the cops when someone threw a brick through her window. One of the cops who came to help raped her.

When the brick crashed through her bathroom window and somebody began kicking in her front door, the 19-year-old single mother of two in Milwaukee dialed what are supposed to be the most trustworthy three numbers.

"I called 911 for help," she later said in court. "I didn't call 911 to be the victim."

Within minutes, two police officers responded. One took her 15-year-old brother outside to speak to him. The other cop, Police Officer Ladmarald Cates, gave her boyfriend $10 and told him to go the store and get some water. She told him that he was welcome to chilled water from her refrigerator.

"I only drink bottled water," Cates said.

Her boyfriend has a pronounced limp and set off with no promise of returning soon. Cates asked to see the broken window and she led him down a narrow hallway to a bathroom in the back. She felt sure that jealous neighbors had attacked her happy home because she dared to defy what seemed surely to be her fate as an inner-city teenage single mom.

"I wanted to be a good example to my kids," she would later say. "I wanted to learn something, be somebody."

She had returned to high school as a mother of two and after graduation she had continued on to the University of Wisconsin, where she was studying criminal justice with the thought of becoming police officer or a lawyer.

"I thought I was going pretty good," she would recall.

She now stood on a floor littered with broken glass and pointed to the brick. The cop she had summoned to protect her instead chose this moment to grab the back of her head by her hair and sodomize her. Then he raped her.
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Palette

US, Nevada: Controversial Artist Depicts Obama Trampling The Constitution

Peter V. Milo
CBS News, Las Vegas
Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:08 UTC
Image
© Jon McNaughton
In front of the White House a man is sitting on a park bench in the throes of depression. He is surrounded by all 43 presidents. In the forefront, purposefully ignoring the depressed man is President Obama, whose right foot is stepping on the Constitution. James Madison is next to Obama, pleading with him to stop.

This tableau is called The Forgotten Man, a painting by Jon McNaughton, an artist who is known for his politically-charged work.

The painting, which uses objects such as discarded dollar bills as symbols and scraps of paper with individual constitutional amendments scrawled onto them, has been making the rounds across the Internet.

The painting was initially released in 2010 and has resurfaced, causing a stir when it appeared for a caption contest on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's blog.

The responses have ranged from sarcastic - "We'll trade you this peasant for that constitution. We'll even throw in the bench." - to Photoshop works of art.
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Evil Rays

Full-Body Scans Rolled Out at All Australian International Airports

Linda Silmalis
News.com.au
Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:14 UTC
scanned by a TSA full body scanner.
© n/aAn airport employee in the US raises her hands as she is scanned by a TSA full body scanner.
Passengers at airports across Australia will be forced to undergo full-body scans or be banned from flying under new laws to be introduced into Federal Parliament this week.

In a radical $28 million security overhaul, the scanners will be installed at all international airports from July and follows trials at Sydney and Melbourne in August and September last year.

The Government is touting the technology as the most advanced available, with the equipment able to detect metallic and non-metallic items beneath clothing.

It's also keen to allay concerns raised on travel online forums that passengers would appear nude on security screens as they had when similar scanners were introduced at US airports.

The technology will show passengers on a screen as stick figures of neither sex.
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Heart - Black

US: Neil Steinberg: Rape Victims Get Short Shrift in Illinois


Chicago Sun Times
Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:58 UTC
Image
© Al Podgorski/Chicago Sun-Times Advocate Condell Medical Center staff members are trained through the SANE ­— Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner — program (from left): Jennifer Slominski, Jody Jesse, Karen Stramich, Khyati Yazdani and Patti Sliozis
After Katie Feifer was raped at knifepoint by a man who pushed his way into her Oak Park home, her assailant tied her up in the basement and left.

She freed herself and called police, who took her to the emergency room at West Suburban Hospital.

"It's funny how vivid the memories are, even after all these years," Feifer says of her treatment after the 1988 attack. "A resident came in, and had this rape kit, and started opening envelopes and vials. He was fumbling around and he was very, very nervous. He did a pelvic exam, and kept apologizing. 'I'm sorry I have to do this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'

"I remember feeling I had to comfort him and make him feel OK. This guy was supposed to be examining me and helping me, and he didn't know what he was doing."

There is no shortage of jarring rape statistics.

Illinois State Police data reported 5,300 rapes statewide last year - more than 14 a day - though experts believe the actual number is triple that. Most go unreported, in part because the majority of rape victims are children - 54 percent, according to the Illinois Attorney General's office.
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Che Guevara

Russia: Tens of Thousands Brave Moscow Cold to Protest Against Putin

Khristina Narizhnaya
Los Angeles Times
Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:57 UTC
The third mass protest in Moscow in two months against Russia leader Vladimir Putin and demanding fair elections appeared to have been the largest yet.


Undeterred by subzero temperatures that froze their breath and left icicles adorning many men's mustaches and beards, tens of thousands of Russians marched through the streets of Moscow on Saturday demanding fair elections just a month before they are to go to the polls to choose a new president.

Despite fear that the frigid weather and bickering among the opposition would curb the turnout, the third mass protest in two months against the rule of Russian leader Vladimir Putin appeared to have been the largest Moscow has seen in a generation.

Authorities clocked the turnout at 36,000, bigger than either of the December demonstrations. Opposition leaders estimated that 120,000 demonstrators swarmed Moscow's Bolotnaya Square, while demonstrators said they believed they numbered 50,000 to 100,000.

After passing through a row of metal detectors, a throng of protesters marched about a mile to reach Bolotnaya Square, on an island in the center of the Moscow River.
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Nuke

US, California: San Onofre plant worker falls in reactor pool

Lillian Rizzo
Global Post
Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:58 UTC
Image
© Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty ImagesA plant worker fell in a San Onofre reactor pool, but suffered no significant exposure to radiation.
A veteran at the San Onofre nuclear plant fell into a reactor pool, but suffered no major radiation exposure.

A plant worker at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego fell inside a reactor pool last week, but he didn't suffer any major radiation exposure, the North County Times reported.

According to Southern California Edison spokesman Gil Alexander, the man was leaning over to pick up a flashlight he had dropped when he lost his balance and fell into the Unit 2 reactor pool, the Associated Press reported. The pool, 20 feet deep, was filled with water that circulates through the reactor core.

"He was wearing all of the appropriate safety equipment, including a life preserver vest. We immediately began a thorough medical screening to determine if there had been any injury," Alexander said, the North County Times reported.
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