Society's ChildS


Nuke

Fukushima cleanup suspended after subcontracted worker's death

TEPCO pit under a storage house
© AFPThis handout picture taken by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on March 28, 2014 shows a pit under a storage house where a worker was burried in earth and rubble while digging a hole at the site at TEPCO's Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear plant in Okuma in Fukushima prefecture.
The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, TEPCO, suspended the cleanup at the facility after one of the workers died while digging a ditch Friday.

A man in his fifties was buried under gravel as he was digging near the nuclear plant's storage area, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The worker was dug out and rushed to hospital, but failed to regain consciousness and was pronounced dead three hours after the incident.

"In the three years since the disaster, we had not had any worker deaths caused by work [inside the plant]. The fact that such a serious accident has occurred is deeply regrettable," s
aid Masayuki Ono, a spokesperson for TEPCO in Tokyo, Reuters reported.

All cleanup operations at the plant have been suspended for an immediate safety inspection, Kyodo News reports.

Like most of the laborers at the disaster-hit nuclear plant, the worker was hired by TEPCO through a subcontractor.

Arrow Down

'Unemployed EU citizens can be expelled'

Unemployed
© The Local, Germany
Germany has raised the prospect of expelling EU citizens who fail to find work and have no job prospects in the country.

A draft report from a government panel, which was released on Wednesday, said that even if they were EU citizens, unemployed foreigners did not have a right to stay under EU law after three months if their job search had no chance of success.

But it added that receiving benefits alone was not reason enough to expel someone.

In discussing the limitations on residency, the draft proposal points to an EU court ruling which said six months was an appropriate period to reassess whether someone should be allowed to stay.

It also stressed that member states are allowed to limit the time that citizens from other EU countries can look for work.

The panel was formed by Chancellor Angela Merkel in January this year amid fears that EU citizens from poorer countries such as Romania and Bulgaria would flock to Germany to claim benefits.

USA

Massachusetts cancer patient jailed for late payment on $5 dog license renewal

Ann
© Mass LiveAnn Musser was arrested at her home for allegedly not paying a $5 dog license.

Holyoke - A sick woman found herself shackled and locked in a cage - all stemming back to a $5 late fee to the government.

In Massachusetts, freedom is so abridged that even simple things like owning a pet require paid permission from the government. Its so onerous that in some municipalities, there are multiple licenses required. Such is the case in Holyoke, where dog owners must pay for permission from both the state and the city - every year.

But asking for permission to own her 14-year-old dog, Pumpkin, for another year was not exactly a high priority for Ann Musser, 41. Musser had been "fighting death" ever since she developed cancer. She recently underwent massive abdominal surgery for ovarian cancer and been trying to survive a regimen of harsh drugs.

She admits that she forgot about the license fee, according to The Republican. In her bouts with sickness, she went for a prolonged period without opening her mail. Musser also failed to see any additional notices of her unpaid renewal application.

As a policy, the licensing bureaucrats wait 21 days, and then turn the un-permitted pet owners over to the District Court. Musser became one of them.

Afterwards, Ann and her husband got caught up on their mail, and paid the extortionists the $5 they demanded plus a $25 late fee.

But it didn't matter. There was an outstanding warrant hanging over her head. She attempted to see a judge to clear it. She was forced to wait in a long line among many other people in a crowded courthouse, receiving no special treatment for being gravely ill. She felt that her frail health was actually being put in jeopardy due to the stress and germs. Musser has a weakened immune system caused by the toxic chemotherapeutic drugs, and has been directed by doctors to avoid crowds. She decided that 3 hours of waiting was all she could handle.

Bizarro Earth

'We're all some kind of native now': Greg Palast on the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster‏

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© James Macalpine/Palast Investigative Fund.Chugach children play near drying salmon and the church of New Chenega village.
It was Good Friday, 50 years ago on March 27, 1964, that according to seismologists, the snow peaks of Prince William Sound jumped 33 feet into the air and fell back down. Emergency warnings about an earthquake-spurred tsunami went out to towns from Valdez, Alaska, to Malibu, Calif., but no one thought to send a message to the Chugach Natives in Chenega, Alaska.

Chenega chief Nikolas Kompkoff watched the mountains leap and the waters around his island disappear over the horizon.

Knowing the water would return with a vengeance, he ran his four daughters up a hill toward high ground. But the nine-story-tall tsunami was moving too fast for their little legs. Kompkoff made a decision: He grabbed the two girls closest to him, tucked them under his arms and ran up the slope, leaving the other two to be seized by the wave.

Question

Book released guiding readers on how to be discreet about going to the toilet

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'How To Poo On a Date' has become an Amazon sensation by tackling the toughest lavatory-related dating questions
When navigating the dating terrain, the potential minefields are endless. When do you make the first move? Is it too early to meet the parents?

But judging by the popularity of a new book, we're often preoccupied with explosive issues of a different kind. 'How to Poo on a First Date', has become an Amazon sensation, and is dedicated solely to issues of the heart and bowels.

The £5 dating bible, published by Prion, promises to solve all your toilet conundrums, from what to do if the urge arises at an awkward moment to how best to cover up any unromantic odours.

The authors, credited only as Mats and Enzo, spent five years researching this work of lavatory-related genius.

'One of the secrets of seduction (and this goes as much for a first date as for the rest of the relationship) is to stay faultless at all times,' the relationship scholars write in the book's intro.

'However, you are made of flesh and bone and this means that yes, sometimes you have to go to the loo.

Ambulance

Hidden camera captures two psychopathic 'carers' slapping brain-damaged patient while he groans in pain

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Facing jail: Rita Page (left) and Lynette Crook (right) were secretly filmed smacking the victim's legs.
  • Worried family hid secret surveillance cameras around the man's room
  • Rita Page and Lynette Crook were filmed in Bury, Greater Manchester
  • Crook jabbed patient in torso and head with a pen whilst he was asleep
  • Page slapped victim during struggle when she put pillow between legs
  • Relatives launch petition for cameras in care homes for vulnerable people
  • Page pleads guilty to two abuse charges and Crook pleads guilty to three
Two carers secretly filmed slapping, jabbing and humiliating a brain-damaged patient as he lay groaning in bed have been warned they face jail.

Shocking footage shows Rita Page, 68, and Lynette Crook, 33, smacking the young victim's legs and swearing at him as they changed his bedding at a £3,000-a-week Priory care home.

On the recording, made after relatives became concerned about his treatment at the private hospital, Page can be heard insulting the helpless patient as a 'b*****d' and a 'dirty scummy boy'.

She also tells her colleague 'there's this very fine line between abuse and neglect'.

Crook is captured telling the patient: 'I don't do sick, so stop it, scummy lad.'

Comment:
First do no harm? UK nursing home staff tried for abuse of residents
Elder abuse and neglect: Warning signs, risk factors, prevention, and reporting abuse
370,000 elderly people were abused in UK last year


Whistle

Why we need whistleblowers like Edward Snowden‏

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© Joe Magee'I realise why any organisation spits whistleblowers out like poison. They break the glue of discipline.'
A lawyer working for HMRC found that his boss, David Hartnett, was having "sweetheart" sessions with Goldman Sachs allowing the bank to avoid £10m in interest on tax. He thought this out of order and did what the rulebook said. Under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (Pida) he wrote privately to the national audit office and to a committee of parliament. When HMRC found out, it went berserk. Using the anti-terrorist Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), it had his belongings, emails and phone calls searched. He was suspended and left "a broken man". He lost his job.

On Monday the public accounts committee chairman, Margaret Hodge, asked HMRC's boss, Lin Homer, to promise to never again use anti-terror laws against whistleblowers. Homer refused. She will have known she had ministers on her side. Jack Straw's Ripa has been an all-purpose state cosh against dissent ever since Tony Blair capitulated to the securocrats in 2000.

Eye 2

Oregon woman beat 4-year-old son to death because she thought he was gay

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Jessica Dutro
Prosecutors said an Oregon woman beat her 4-year-old son to death because she feared he was gay.

Zachary Dutro-Boggess was hospitalized Aug. 14, 2012, the day after his fourth birthday, with trauma to his abdomen that caused tears to his bowel, and urine and fecal matter seeped into his body cavity and damaged his vital organs.

He had collapsed at the homeless shelter where his family was living, reported The Oregonian.

He was removed from life support two days later, and his mother, Jessica Dutro, was charged with murder, murder by abuse, and second-degree assault.

Her boyfriend, Brian Canady, initially confessed to kicking the boy in the stomach because he would not sit down and watch television, like he was told, and instead took off his shoes first.

But the 24-year-old Canady later changed his story and took a plea deal earlier this month, admitting to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault.

Heart - Black

Girl with "tomboy looks" removed from private Christian school because of "restroom concerns"

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The conservative Liberty Counsel made vague allusions to "sensitive" restroom use issues to defend a Christian school's decision to bar an 8-year-old girl over her tomboy looks.

Timberlake Christian School notified Sunnie Kahle and her great-grandparents that she cannot return because her boyish appearance contradicts a "biblical lifestyle."

"We believe that unless Sunnie and her family clearly understand that God has made her female and her dress and behavior need to follow suit with her God-ordained identity, that TCS is not the best place for her future education," the school's principal wrote in a letter.

Sunnie wears her hair short, collects baseballs and knives, and prefers to wear jeans and T-shirts, said her great-grandmother and legal guardian.

But the nonprofit legal organization defended the Forest, Virginia, private school, claiming media accounts had inaccurately described administrators' decision to refuse the girl enrollment next year.

Arrow Down

Tigers slaughtered in show of social stature for Guangdong businessmen

Dead Tiger
© China Daily/ReutersA dead tiger found during a police raid in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, last January. Trafficking and habitat destruction have cut tiger populations from about 100,000 a century ago to about 3,000 today.
More than 10 tigers have been killed as "visual feasts" in China to entertain officials and rich business people, state media reported.

Police in the port city of Zhanjiang, in the southern province of Guangdong, seized a freshly slaughtered tiger and multiple tiger products in a raid this month, said the Nanfang Daily, the mouthpiece of the provincial Communist Party.

Local officials and prominent businesspeople gathered to watch the tigers being killed as "eye-openers" to show off their social stature, it said. Video footage of a killing two years ago showed the tiger, kept in an iron cage, having an electrified iron mass prodded into its mouth with a wooden stick and passing out after being electrocuted for more than 10 seconds, the paper said.

An experienced cattle or pig slaughterer is normally hired to butcher the carcass, it said, adding that tiger bones sold for an average of 14,000 yuan (£1,360) a kilo while the meat fetched 1,000 yuan a kilo.