Seoul - A pastor and his wife are in custody accused of killing three of their children by starving them to ward off evil spirits, police in South Korea said Wednesday.
The couple told police the children -- aged nine, seven and three -- had been ill, which they believed was a sign they were invaded by evil spirits after eating too much on Lunar New Year.
They then cut the children's hair to chase the spirits out and starved them from January 24 until February 2, only allowing them to drink water. Local media reports said the parents had beaten the children with a belt and a fly swatter numerous times.
The pastor, named only by his surname Park, and his wife, Cho, told police they tied the children's arms and legs with stockings. All three died on February 2, the first around 2am, the second at 5am and the third at 7am, according to police in the town of Boseong, more than 186 miles (300 kilometers) south of Seoul.
Society's Child
© Unknown
Authorities have yet to determine the source of the substance causing the red color.
Authorities have yet to determine the source of the substance causing the red color.
Government and local officials rushed to the scene at the Chevrolet crossing of Furn al-Shubbak Wednesday morning in an attempt to locate the sewage canal that was dumping the red-colored water but they were unable to locate the source. Accusations were traded among officials from the municipalities of Hadath, Hazmieh, Sin al-Fil, Furn al-Shubbak and Shiyah.
Eyewitnesses working in the area told The Daily Star this was not the first time the river had turned a different color. Several business owners around the Chevrolet crossing said that colored water pours into the river roughly every two months but no one pays attention to it.It was the quantity and brightness of the red liquid that grabbed the attention of many passersby and commuters on different bridges in the city Wednesday.
Riots have ramped up again in Athens. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the other shoe to drop...
Unfortunately, no debt bubble can last forever. When this current debt bubble finally bursts, faith in the financial system is going to disappear, credit is going to freeze up and there is going to be a massive wave of bank failures.
Right now, Greece is a warning sign for the world. Nobody wants to lend money to Greece, the Greek banking system is dying, one out of every four businesses has already shut down, unemployment is soaring and the Greek economy has now been in recession for five years in a row.
Sadly, the economic implosion in Greece is rapidly accelerating.
© Corbis
The findings could affect calculations that determine Social Security payments, life insurance premiums, retirement savings strategies and more.
The findings could affect calculations that determine Social Security payments, life insurance premiums, retirement savings strategies and more.
Despite great medical advances that have lengthened human life spans, your chances of living a very long life may be lower than you'd hoped.
That's the conclusion of a study by two longevity experts who reviewed the standard models that predict mortality rates and turned up a major error. Instead of confirming that death rates drop once people reach their 80s or 90s - as experts have assumed for many decades -- results showed that the risk of dying continues to increase each year, no matter how old people are.
The findings, if confirmed, could affect calculations that determine Social Security payments, life insurance premiums, retirement savings strategies and more.
"It all started as routine work on validation of previous studies, with more reliable data and methods. No discoveries were expected," said Leonid Gavrilov, who studies aging, mortality and longevity at the University of Chicago. "We were very much surprised [by the results], and for this reason, we delayed our scientific publication for almost seven years, trying to find mistakes and flaws in our approach."
In 1825, British actuary and mathematician Benjamin Gompertz made an interesting discovery: Starting at age 30, a person's chances of dying doubles every eight years. In 1939, economists revised Gompertz's law to accommodate people older than 80, whose rate of mortality seemed to level off. Ever since, actuarial tables and calculations have depended on that assumption.
The translation of this report is a positive step because many people outside France and French-speaking countries will have access to first-hand material showing how social panic can be artificially created in a European democracy. The latest attempt is to instrumentalize a prediction based on the Maya calendar that the end of the world would take place in December 2012.
Let's watch the Israeli spin doctors work.
At about 8am PST, a google search of "Israelis Celebrate Death of Palestinian Children Killed in Accident" (no quotes) returned "497 related articles" in the "News" category.
However, clicking on the "497 related articles" link yielded this message:
At about 8am PST, a google search of "Israelis Celebrate Death of Palestinian Children Killed in Accident" (no quotes) returned "497 related articles" in the "News" category.
No articles related to Israelis Celebrate Death of Palestinian Children Killed in Accident were found.
Nat'l Defense Authorization Act "unconstitutional"
Massachusetts - The city of Northampton is once again taking a bold stance against a controversial federal law. It became the first city in New England to pass a resolution rejecting the National Defense Authorization Act Thursday night.
President Obama signed the NDAA back in December. Two particular sections of the Act ignited a firestorm of controversy. Sections 1021 and 1022 allow the indefinite military detention of any person, including a U.S. citizen, without a trial. That applies to any person "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," or anyone who commits a "belligerent act" against the United States or its allies.
At a city council meeting Thursday night, city leaders and advocacy groups came together to demand a "restoration of due process and the right to trial."
The American Civil Liberties Union maintains that the NDAA flies in the face of Constitutional rights.
Massachusetts - The city of Northampton is once again taking a bold stance against a controversial federal law. It became the first city in New England to pass a resolution rejecting the National Defense Authorization Act Thursday night.
President Obama signed the NDAA back in December. Two particular sections of the Act ignited a firestorm of controversy. Sections 1021 and 1022 allow the indefinite military detention of any person, including a U.S. citizen, without a trial. That applies to any person "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," or anyone who commits a "belligerent act" against the United States or its allies.
At a city council meeting Thursday night, city leaders and advocacy groups came together to demand a "restoration of due process and the right to trial."
The American Civil Liberties Union maintains that the NDAA flies in the face of Constitutional rights.
© Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
A woman walks into a Citi Bank branch in New York Jan. 17, 2012.
A woman walks into a Citi Bank branch in New York Jan. 17, 2012.
But by March 2011, as it became apparent to her that the problems were getting worse and not being addressed, the Missouri quality assurance manager decided enough was enough.
"I set up an appointment with human resources and ethics and told them everything," Hunt recalled in a telephone interview. "They did some cursory investigation. The sad part is, they never ever told me, 'Sherry, you were right,' or 'Sherry, you're looking at this wrong.' There were no assurances."
Instead, Hunt, who got her start in the mortgage industry in 1975 at age 18, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Citigroup, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets.
The United States joined the civil fraud case, which raised claims under the False Claims Act, a federal law designed to recover money taken from the government by fraud, and discourage further wrongdoing. Whistleblowers can receive up to 25 percent of settlement amounts in such cases.
Wednesday, Citigroup agreed to pay $158.3 million to settle. Hunt said her share will be $31 million, before taxes and attorney fees. Her lawyer declined to disclose those fees.
© Jeff Bachner/New York Daily News
A load of steel fell at the WTC construction site Thursday morning after a crane cable snapped.
A load of steel fell at the WTC construction site Thursday morning after a crane cable snapped.
The metal beams demolished the vehicle and just missed crushing the crane operator, who was rattled by his near-death experience but otherwise unhurt.
"It's a miracle" nobody was killed, said steamfitter Mark Sherank, 45, who was in the middle of a safety meeting in nearby Building 4 when the steel fell.
"I looked outside I saw the truck t's a pancake now," he said. "A noise like that, you know something's wrong."
Another steamfitter, 43-year-old Erid Redd, said "the whole building shook."
The impact sent up a cloud of dust and "the scene was chaos," added an ironworker in Building 4.
Photo courtesy of 'bloowitt' under the Creative Commons license
A World Health Organisation (WHO) report published in the US last week signalled French people as the most likely to suffer from a "major depressive episode" in their lifetimes, provoking sensational headlines among the more neurotically-inclined members of the Gallic press.
The study, which was conducted by researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook as part of the WHO's World Mental Health Survey Initiative, was published on July 26 by esteemed American journal BMC Medicine. Some 90,000 people were probed on their mental health histories in 18 low- and high-income countries. It has been touted as the first international survey of its kind.
The results are impressive - while participants from low-income countries appeared less likely to suffer from depression at some point in their life, those from high-income nations seemed far more likely to suffer. France topped the list by one percentage point.
Comment: The 2010 MIVILUDES report states that 'natural' treatments with no side effects, which are inexpensive compared to conventional treatments and heavily criticized by the pharmaceutical industry, are often "implemented by cults and their doctors and practitioners," deriding natural practitioners who point out the obvious ties between government and pharmaceutical companies hawking their products as "deluded and dangerous". You see, suggesting ties to Big Pharma is a 'conspiracy theory' resulting from delusions ... and is also evidence of being in a cult!
It appears that France is a country where millions suffer and not only are their sufferings created by their government, they are discouraged from the simplest things that could help them become fully well, physically and psychologically: eating the foods or undertaking the therapies and stress-relieving methods that would ease their lives. French people are afraid to think for themselves because of a parasite that has been eating its way through the fabric of society, quietly subduing the population into depression.
French government encourages doctors to report suspicious and cultish behaviour of alternative and traditional therapists
France: Deviations of MIVILUDES: Raid of 70 policemen on a biodynamism centre
MIVILUDES: The most dangerous 'sect' in France
Comment: Obviously steel does not evaporate..