Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

US: American soldier gets life sentence for conviction in thrill-killings of Afghan civilians

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© Polaris / EyevineOn trial: Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, accused of killing three unarmed Afghan civilians, walks through a field on his way into a village in Kandahar province
A U.S. military jury sentenced an Afghan war veteran to life in prison after the Army staff sergeant was convicted of murder, conspiracy and other charges in the deaths of civilians, in one of the most gruesome cases to emerge from the conflict.

Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, of Billings, Montanta, was accused of exhorting his bored underlings to slaughter three Afghan civilians for sport.

The jury for the court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle sentenced Gibbs Thursday to life in prison, but he will be eligible for parole in less than nine years.

The 26-year-old soldier was the highest ranking of five soldiers charged in the deaths of the unarmed men during patrols in Kandahar province early last year.

At his seven-day court martial, he acknowledged cutting fingers off corpses and yanking out a victim's tooth to keep as war trophies, "like keeping the antlers off a deer you'd shoot." But he insisted he wasn't involved in the first or third killings, and in the second he merely returned fire.

Prosecutors said Gibbs and his co-defendants knew the victims posed no danger but dropped weapons by their dead bodies to make them appear to have been combatants.

Pistol

US, California: Man dies after being shot on plaza near Occupy Oakland protest encampment

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© The Associated Press / The Canadian Press / Ben MargotAn Occupy Oakland protestor sits beside candles at the scene if a shooting Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, in Oakland, Calif. A man was shot and killed Thursday outside the Oakland encampment that anti-Wall Street protesters have occupied for the last month, but an organizer for Occupy Oakland said the attack was unrelated to the ongoing protest of U.S. financial institutions.
A man was shot and killed Thursday just outside the Oakland encampment that anti-Wall Street protesters have occupied for the last month, causing a scream-filled commotion in the City Hall plaza where the camp stands and turning a planned anniversary celebration into a sombre, candlelit memorial.

With opinions about Occupy Oakland and its effect on the city having become more divided in recent days, supporters and opponents immediately reacted to the homicide - the city's 101st this year.

Camp organizers said the attack was unrelated to their activities, while city and business leaders, cited the death as proof that the camp itself either bred crime or drained law enforcement resources from other parts of the Oakland.

Mayor Jean Quan, who has been criticized by residents on both sides for issuing mixed signals about the local government's willingness to tolerate the camp, issued a statement Thursday providing a clear eviction notice.

"Tonight's incident underscores the reason why the encampment must end. The risks are too great," Quan said. "We need to return (police) resources to addressing violence throughout the city. It's time for the encampment to end. Camping is a tactic, not a solution."

Arrow Up

US: Occupy Harvard - Students Set Up Tents In Harvard Yard

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© Marc LevyA sign at the Occupy Harvard protest Wednesday presents a challenge to the 375-year-old elite Cambridge university.
The "Occupy Wall Street" movement has come to Harvard University.

The gates around the main campus are now either locked or manned by several guards after hundreds of students set up an "Occupy Harvard" encampment Wednesday night.

There were about 20 tents in front of the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard Thursday afternoon, but there wasn't much activity because of the rain.

Reporters weren't allowed in because they don't have Harvard identification, which is the only way guards will let people in now.

Ambulance

US Georgia: Homeless Residents at Occupy Atlanta's Base Confirmed with Tuberculosis

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© Spencer Platt/Getty Images The homeless shelter that Occupy Atlanta protesters have been camping out in has been confirmed for housing two cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
The home base for Occupy Atlanta has tested positive for tuberculosis.

The Fulton County Health Department confirmed Wednesday that residents at the homeless shelter where protesters have been occupying have contracted the drug-resistant disease. WGCL reports that a health department spokeswoman said there is a possibility that both Occupy Atlanta protesters and the homeless people in the shelter may still be at risk since tuberculosis is contracted through air contact.

Vader

US: Jerry Sandusky Rumored to Have Been 'Pimping Out Young Boys to Rich Donors'


In April, Pittsburgh radio host Mark Madden wrote a story revealing Penn State for much of the cover-up of Jerry Sandusky's alleged child rape that has been exposed in the past week. While it didn't raise many eyebrows back then, six months later it looks to be incredibly accurate.

On Thursday morning, just hours after legendary head coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier were fired by the school's board of trustees, Madden was asked on WEEI's The Dennis and Callahan Show what he believes the next piece of news will be.

What he said was twice as shocking as anything that's been released thus far.

"I can give you a rumor and I can give you something I think might happen," Madden told John Dennis and Gerry Callahan. "I hear there's a rumor that there will be a more shocking development from the Second Mile Foundation -- and hold on to your stomachs, boys, this is gross, I will use the only language I can -- that Jerry Sandusky and Second Mile were pimping out young boys to rich donors. That was being investigated by two prominent columnists even as I speak."

Monkey Wrench

U.S. Tourism's 'Lost Decade' Cost Some 500,000 Jobs

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The travel industry today became the latest to slam federal rules and bureaucracy, charging that tough visa rules for potential tourists have robbed the nation of $600 billion and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Two grim facts: More Chinese now visit France than the United States, in part because it's hard to get a U.S. visitors visa. And while the U.S. used to be the destination for 17 percent of the world's tourists in 2000, that's dropped to 12.4 percent and shows no sign of changing.

USA

US: Top One-Word Reaction to Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain Is a Number: 9-9-9

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More Negative than Positive Words for Perry - Even Among Republicans

When Americans are asked to describe Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain in a single word, they most frequently offer a series of numbers: "9-9-9." Cain's tax proposal is mentioned more often than his background as a businessman.

For Mitt Romney, the most frequently used single word is his religion - "Mormon." And the most frequently offered word for Rick Perry is his home state - "Texas."

The latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and The Washington Post, conducted Oct. 13-16 among 1,007 adults, finds that many Americans are unable to come up with words to describe the three GOP candidates. Nearly half (46%) did not offer a one-word description of Cain, 44% did not offer a word to describe Perry and 37% did not have a one-word description of Romney.

Heart - Black

Tear gas used on protesters after second Turkey earthquake

Riot police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse protesters angry at the state's relief efforts after the second earthquake in eastern Turkey in three weeks killed at least 10 people in the city of Van.

Rescue teams searched for survivors after the 5.7 magnitude tremor on Wednesday night heaped misery on the predominantly Kurdish region where more than 600 people died following a major quake on October 23.

"How can you fire pepper spray on people who have already suffered so much?" said Abdulrahim Kaplan, 32. He had gone to the crisis center for a tent when police began firing tear gas, he said.

"Our people are freezing. We are sleeping outside -- all seven of my family," he said, complaining bitterly over the alleged unfair distribution of tents. "Some people take five tents, some 10 and others get nothing. This is wrong."

Thousands of families are living in makeshift camps with temperatures falling to freezing with the onset of winter. The latest tremor cut power to the area.

Heart - Black

Investigating Britain's 'sex gangs'

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© UnknownTazeen Ahmad talks to Shakeel Aziz, right, a youth worker in the north of England who uses religion to deter men from getting involved with gangs that groom young girls for sex.
London - Abby sat in the back of the car twisting her fingers nervously. She pushed her bangs out of her eyes but her hands quickly returned to her lap, clasped tightly together. Her chipped pink nail polish served as a reminder that these are the hands of a schoolgirl - a schoolgirl living a nightmare.

For the last two years, Abby had been repeatedly raped by men far older than she is. She was 13 years old the first time it happened.

"It went on from 7 o'clock, when it started getting dark, to roughly 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning," she said.

Abby smiled, but the smile never reached her pretty hazel eyes. On this drizzly Friday afternoon, she showed us the places in the northern English city of Leeds her rapists had taken her: fast-food restaurants, hotels, alleyways.

We pulled up outside a children's playground. Abby was brought here by someone she thought was her friend and then was raped by 20 different men. It was the same park she played in with her sisters. She said being here again made her feel sick.

Abby isn't alone. The British government estimates that as many as 10,000 children in the U.K. may be victims of sexual exploitation by gangs, and fears the number could be much higher.

Family

Palestinian Freedom Riders to Challenge Segregation By Riding Settler Buses to Jerusalem: 11.15.11

Palestinian activists will reenact the US Civil Rights Movement's Freedom Rides to the American South by boarding segregated Israeli public transportation in the West Bank to travel to occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli public transportation headed from inside the West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 60′s.


Fifty years after the U.S. Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience.

The Freedom Riders seek to highlight Israel's attempts to illegally sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and the apartheid system that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Several Israeli companies, among them Egged and Veolia, operate dozens of lines that run through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. They run between different Israeli settlements, connecting them to each other and cities inside Israel. Some lines connecting Jerusalem to other cities inside Israel, such as Eilat and Beit She'an, are also routed to pass through the West Bank.