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North Koreans reportedly turn to cannibalism due to 'hidden famine'

North Korea Famine
© New York SunThe North Korean famine remains one of the most muffled horrors of modern times.
News out of North Korean in notorious unreliable, but food shortages in the country have gotten so bad and people so desperate that there are now reports of men murdering their own children for food. These startling reports were compiled by independent reporters commissioned by Asia Press, a independent press agency focusing on Asia, and were published by the Sunday Times. And here's one of the most disturbing thing you'll read this morning:
The source said: "While his wife was away on business he killed his eldest daughter and, because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home, he offered her food, saying: 'We have meat.'

"But his wife, suspicious, notified the Ministry of Public Security, which led to the discovery of part of their children's bodies under the eaves."
And another from Gu Gwang-ho, one of the Asia Press's citizen journalists said:
"There was an incident when a man was arrested for digging up the grave of his grandchild and eating the remains."
The big question here is whether this is all true or new urban legends. Considering this is North Korea and taking into account the country's propensity to keep secrets and publish propaganda pieces - we'll likely never get real confirmation from their end. But Asia Press has worked with citizen reporters in the famine-struck regions of North and South Hwanghae for the past year, and The Independent considers their reports credible.

Health

U.S. polluting water it may someday drink

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Regulators have long deemed deep aquifers too expensive to tap, but what happens if traditional reservoirs dry up?

Mexico City plans to draw drinking water from a mile-deep aquifer, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The Mexican effort challenges a key tenet of U.S. clean water policy: that water far underground can be intentionally polluted because it will never be used.

U.S. environmental regulators have long assumed that reservoirs located thousands of feet underground will be too expensive to tap. So even as population increases, temperatures rise, and traditional water supplies dry up, American scientists and policy-makers often exempt these deep aquifers from clean water protections and allow energy and mining companies to inject pollutants directly into them.

As ProPublica has reported in an ongoing investigation about America's management of its underground water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued more than 1,500 permits for companies to pollute such aquifers in some of the driest regions. Frequently, the reason was that the water lies too deep to be worth protecting.

Compass

Teen found after 9 weeks in the bush

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An Australian teen missing for nine weeks and feared dead was finally found by two hikers Saturday outside the town of Westleigh, near Sydney. Matthew Allen, 18, was discovered covered in leeches and other insect bites, and suffering from gangrene in his feet and lower legs. He had lost half his body weight and has been rendered partially blind by malnourishment. Matthew was taken immediately by helicopter to a nearby hospital where he is recovering.

No explanation has been given for why Matthew entered the bushland in late November, but survival experts are in awe of his ability to subsist with virtually no food during a record heat wave. "He was not living under any shelter and was exposed to the full conditions," said Glyn Baker of the Hornsby police. "Anyone who is missing for that length of time in those kind of conditions ... you wouldn't expect to see them again." Some reports have suggested that Matthew may have survived by eating small animals from a nearby urban runoff creek.

Alarm Clock

Boy Scouts may soon welcome gay youths, leaders

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© Photo: Courtesy GLAAD/Change.org
Local troops could decide for themselves whether to change their membership policy or continue to exclude gays

As early as next week, the Boy Scouts of America may announce it will allow gay Scouts and troop leaders, a spokesman for the group has told USA TODAY.

If this policy shift is approved by the national board meeting next week, it will be a sharp reversal of the Scouts' decades' old national policy banning homosexuals.

"The policy change under discussion would allow the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address this issue," BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Heart - Black

Men who hate women: Punishing rape victims with jail time

If you're looking for evidence that the differences between men and women are greatly exaggerated, the fact that women are equally capable as men of mind-blowing misogyny should erase all doubt. New Mexico state Rep.
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© UnknownCathrynn Brown
Cathrynn Brown proved that this week by introducing a bill aimed at throwing rape victims in jail if they refuse to honor their rapist's right to control their body by carrying his child. This sort of insult to rapists will not stand, so Brown, standing up bravely for rapists who want the suffering they've inflicted to carry on and on for their victims, has proposed banning abortion for rape victims on the phony grounds that it's "tampering with evidence".

Of course, the entire idea that having a rapist's baby would somehow be treated as proof of a rape is beyond silly. After all, the defense against the charge of rape is rarely to claim that the penis didn't go into the vagina, but to accuse the victim of consenting and then, due to the unique viciousness of women, claiming it was rape for the lulz. Or to conceal her epic sluttiness by having the police grill her about her sex life, the defense attorney question her about it for the public record, and the entire community gossip about what a big slut she must be to press rape charges. I suspect Brown knows this, coming from the same anti-choice circles as Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, where the belief is that women are deceitful creatures who will lie and kill to conceal how much fun sex they're having.

Brick Wall

Saudi authorities order shops to erect sex-segregation walls

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© AFP Photo
Saudi authorities have ordered shops employing both men and women to build separation walls to enforce the strict segregation laws of the ultra-conservative kingdom, local press reported Monday.

The order that was issued by labour minister Adel Faqih also had the stamp of Abdullatif al-Sheikh, the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, commonly known as Mutawa and religious police, several dailies reported.

It stipulated that a separation barrier, not shorter than 1.6 metres (over five feet), should be erected to divide working men and women.

Bizarro Earth

Listeners and employees quit Georgia public broadcasting as mind-control conspiracy theorist takes over

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Georgia residents have begun canceling their donations to Georgia Public Broadcasting after a recent report revealed that a former Republican state senator - who believes the United Nations is planning to turn the U.S. into a communist dictatorship using mind control - is receiving a salary of $150,000 to run part of the network.

GPB announced last month that then-State Sen. Chip Rogers (R) would be heading a new initiative to tell the story of Georgia businesses on public radio, but it wasn't until the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that his salary would be higher than Gov. Nathan Deal's (R) that employees and Georgia residents began to express outrage.

GPB member Sandy Wood recently cut off her $20-a-month donation and received a letter from GPB Vice President Yvette Cook, who claimed that Rogers' position would be funded with taxpayer money instead of listener contributions.

Pistol

Loophole allows dealers to hijack Seattle's gun buyback with makeshift gun show

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The so-called gun show loophole which allows guns to be sold without a background check allowed private dealers to effectively hijack a weekend effort by Seattle police to get guns off the street.

Following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut last month, Seattle raised $120,000 to hold the first gun buyback effort in 20 years at a downtown parking lot on Saturday.

The plan was to trade gift cards for guns that would later be destroyed, but a number of dealers set up a mini-gun show just a block away in a effort to buy up the guns and keep them in circulation.

"I pay cash, I don't give Amazon gift cards," one dealer told a gun seller in video captured by KING.

Sheriff

Chicago trauma center protesters accuse cops of roughing them up

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Protesters accused University of Chicago police of excessive force during a demonstration against the school's medical center on Sunday.

According to The Chicago Tribune, authorities arrested four protesters but also allegedly attacked others, including the woman whose family tragedy inspired the campaign against the University of Chicago's youth trauma center.

Sheila Rush said campus police shoved her to the ground during the protest, an attempt to stage a sit-in at a $700 million addition to the facility, which only serves patients 16 years of age or younger. She said the age restriction leaves the city's south side without a similar treatment option for adults.

Cow Skull

Texas public schools: Still teaching creationism

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© Williac/Flickr
In Texas public schools, children learn that the Bible provides scientific proof that Earth is 6,000 years old, that the origins of racial diversity trace back to a curse placed on Noah's son, and that astronauts have discovered "a day missing in space" that corroborates biblical stories of the sun standing still.

These are some of the findings detailed in Reading, Writing & Religion II, a new report by the Texas Freedom Network that investigates how public schools in the Lone Star State promote religious fundamentalism under the guise of offering academic courses about the Bible. The report, written by Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University, found that more than half of the state's public-school Bible courses taught students to read the book from a specifically Christian theological perspective - a clear violation of rules governing the seperation of church and state.