Society's ChildS


Light Saber

Israeli woman fined $140 per day for refusing to circumcise her son

Rabbi , a
© Reuters / Ronen ZvulunRabbi , a "mohel", or ritual circumciser holds a scalpel as he performs a circumcision in Neve Ilan near Jerusalem September 24, 2012.
An Israeli woman has been sentenced to paying $140 per day for refusing to circumcise her one year old son until the boy undergoes the procedure as required by Jewish law.

"The baby was born with a medical problem, so we couldn't circumcise him on the eighth day as is customary," Haaretz has quoted the boy's mother Elinor as saying.

The boy is now over one year old.

"As time went on, I started reading about what actually happens in circumcision, and I realized that I couldn't do that to my son. He's perfect just as he is," the mother said.

Question

The internet mystery that has the world baffled

For the past two years, a mysterious online organisation has been setting the world's finest code-breakers a series of seemingly unsolveable problems. But to what end? Welcome to the world of Cicada 3301.

Cicada 3301
© The Telegraph, UK
One evening in January last year, Joel Eriksson, a 34-year-old computer analyst from Uppsala in Sweden, was trawling the web, looking for distraction, when he came across a message on an internet forum. The message was in stark white type, against a black background.

"Hello," it said. "We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck."

The message was signed: "3301".

A self-confessed IT security "freak" and a skilled cryptographer, Eriksson's interest was immediately piqued. This was - he knew - an example of digital steganography: the concealment of secret information within a digital file. Most often seen in conjunction with image files, a recipient who can work out the code - for example, to alter the colour of every 100th pixel - can retrieve an entirely different image from the randomised background "noise".

It's a technique more commonly associated with nefarious ends, such as concealing child pornography. In 2002 it was suggested that al-Qaeda operatives had planned the September 11 attacks via the auction site eBay, by encrypting messages inside digital photographs.

Eye 2

Psychopath Alert: Former Pennsylvania GOP official charged for drugging and raping woman multiple times

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A former chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee in Pennsylvania who resigned last week after being accused of sexual assault was arrested on Tuesday on 19 counts, including rape and drug charges.

Sources told several news outlets last week that Robert Kerns had gotten drunk and assaulted a woman following a GOP dinner in October.

On Tuesday, Kerns was taken into police custody and charged with rape of an unconscious victim, rape of a substantially impaired person, sexual assault, aggravated assault without consent, aggravated assault of a person unaware penetration was occurring and 8 other forms of assault.

Eye 2

Woman finds snake head in frozen bag of green beans, Gladstone, Oregon


A woman was left shocked after finding what appeared to be a snake's head in a bag of frozen green beans.

Misty Moser made the gruesome discovery after pouring the green beans into a bowl at her home in Oregon.

She initially thought the body part was just a collection of beans but quickly realised it was something more sinister.

'I noticed it had a mouth, nostrils, and little tiny eyes. Not what I thought I was buying,' she said.

The store where she purchased the green beans, Fred Meyer, said it planned to investigate the incident once Moser had returned the vegetables with the snake head.

Star of David

Israeli soldier admits killing Palestinian children

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© Ma'an Images Zakusilo pictured on the television show
An Israeli soldier admitted that she shot and killed unknown numbers of Palestinian people, including children, on a Ukrainian television program that aired in early November.

Elena Zakusilo, a Ukrainian Jewish woman who moved to Israel in order to serve in the Israeli army, revealed on the Nov. 4 episode of the program "Lie Detector" that she had killed Palestinians and had shot at Palestinian children, but was unsure how many she managed to kill.

Zakusilo, who goes by the name Elena Gluzman in Israel, also explained that she trained army dogs to raid Palestinian villages and conduct video surveillance that she monitored from up to 10 kilometers away.

People

Steubenville case: Four more charged, including superintendent, volunteer coach

Mike DeWine
© Larry Roberts/Post-GazetteOhio Attorney General Mike DeWine announces that a grand jury has indicted Steubenville's school superintendent, an elementary school principal, a wrestling coach and a volunteer football coach on charges related to the rape of a 16-year-old girl in 2012
Four school employees, including the superintendent and an assistant football coach, were indicted by a grand jury investigating a possible coverup in the Steubenville rape case.

The charges were announced Monday by the state's top prosecutor, who decried "blurred, stretched and distorted boundaries of right and wrong" by students and grown-ups alike.

"How do you hold kids accountable if you don't hold the adults accountable?" Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine asked.

Superintendent Michael McVey, 50, was charged with tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice in the aftermath of the incident at the center of the case: the sexual assault of a drunken 16-year-old girl by two high school football players after a booze-fueled party in August 2012.

Comment: See also:

Steubenville football players found guilty of rape

I am the blogger who allegedly "complicated" The Steubenville Gang rape case - and I wouldn't change a thing

Date-rape in Ohio: Tale of rampant corruption, cronyism and cover-up


Smoking

World gone mad: Nashville bar owner shoots country singer Wayne Mills dead... for smoking

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Jerald Wayne Mills, shot dead for smoking a cigarette
A Nashville bar owner claimed self defense over the weekend after fatally shooting country music singer Jerald Wayne Mills, 44, in connection with an argument over smoking.

Witnesses told WSMV that 44-year-old Chris Michael Ferrell shot Mills at the Pit & Barrel bar at around 5 a.m. Saturday morning following an argument that started when the singer began smoking in a non-smoking area. The suspect and the victim were reportedly friends.

Mills was later pronounced dead after being taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

"We're investigating Chris Ferrell's claims of self-defense," Nashville police spokesperson Kris Mumford told the Tennessean.

Ferrell had a valid permit to carry a handgun, according to WSMV.

In 2010, both the Tennessee state House and Senate overrode Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen's veto on a bill to allow handguns in bars.


Arrow Down

Italian man hides father's body in the wall to collect pension

Subiaco, Lazio
© taymtaym/FlickrThe pensioner's body was found in the town of Subiaco, Lazio.
Subiaco - A gruesome discovery was made recently in an isolated house in Subiaco, Italy. A man's elderly father had died in August 2011 and he hid the body in a sealed room in his house in order to continue collecting his father's pension.

Giampiero Di Tullion, the man's unemployed, 44 year-old-son has now been arrested by the police.

His father, Domenico Di Tullio was a former typesetter working at the Vatican. He passed away on August 4, 2011 at the age of 85. His son wished to continue collecting his pension of between 1300 and 1400 euros per month, as they both used to live on the money. He walled his father's corpse up in his small bedroom off the living room of the house, and sealed the doorway with silicon.

Son Giampiero was a former drug addict and was involved in drug dealing. Due to his history, and the fact that his father owned weapons, police were making a routine check of the house.

When they arrived at the house, they asked to speak to the father, and at first the son told them that his father was seriously ill and was under the care of his brother in Rome.

Roma Today (Italian) reported that the police became suspicious, however, and officers, led by Captain Alessio Falzone, entered the house. When they got no answer at the bedroom door in the living room, they broke in through the sealed door. Not finding anything initially in there, they continued investigating, and discovered a double wall, a kind of niche made of bricks and cement, behind which he had concealed the body of his dead father.

According to police, the body was wrapped in tape, similar to a mummy. On investigating further, police found blood stains and they did not, at first, exclude the possibility that the man could have been murdered.

Giampiero was arrested on the charge of concealing a corpse, along with aggravated fraud. He did, however, manage to escape the charge of voluntary manslaughter, as the autopsy showed that his father died of natural causes.

Handcuffs

London 'slavery' case: Suspect was cult-communist activist in 1970s

Peckford Place
© Velar Grant/Demotix/CorbisAravindan and Chanda Balakrishnan were arrested on suspicion of holding three women captive at addresses in south London, including Peckford Place (above).
Aravindan Balakrishnan, aka Comrade Bala, ran separatist party-cum-commune from bookshop in Brixton, south London

The 73-year-old man arrested on suspicion of holding three women captive in a south London flat for 30 years is a one-time Communist party activist who was well known within far-left circles in London during the mid- and late 1970s as the leader of a separatist party-cum-commune.

Aravindan Balakrishnan, known as Comrade Bala, had been a senior member of the Communist party of England (Marxist-Leninist) - a member of the party's central committee - but according to a history of the movement he split from the party in 1974.

His new organisation, described as "characterised by the ultra-left posturing and Mao worship", was called the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. But the group is not thought to have been active since the 1970s - before one of the women, now aged 30, was born.

Arrow Down

Angola 'bans' Islam, Muslims, becomes first country to do so

Islam
© Wikimedia Commons

According to several newspapers, the tiny African country of Angola has become the first country in the world to ban Islam and Muslims.

The Angolan Minister of Culture, Rosa Cruz e Silva was quoted by news agencies and Angola newspapers as saying, "The process of legalisation of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human rights, their mosques would be closed until further notice."

As part of the ban, the Angolan government ordered the demolition of the mosques in the country.

According to Silva, the decision was the latest in a series of efforts to ban "illegal" religious sects in the country. Silva's statement was made during her appearance last week at the 6th Commission of the National Assembly.