Society's ChildS


Boat

3 dead, 37 rescued in Antarctic fishing boat fire

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© AP Photo/CCAMLR, NatashaUndated photo provided by Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the South Korean fishing boat Jung Woo 2 is moored in an unknown harbor. Three crew members aboard the fishing boat are believed to have died when a fire raged through their quarters early Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, while fishing near Antarctica.
Wellington, New Zealand - Fire raged out of control on a fishing ship near Antarctica as the crew tried to fight back the flames early Wednesday. Three fishermen died, and two of the 37 rescued had severe burns.

Rescue coordinators said help given by a nearby sister ship and another fishing vessel likely prevented a worse outcome. Two unconscious, severely burned men were hoisted off the flaming ship by crane, and five crew members suffered moderate burns.

The South Korean ship was continuing to burn and appeared to be sinking, said Mike Roberts, the senior search and rescue officer with the Rescue Coordination Centre of New Zealand.

The Jung Woo 2, got into trouble in the Ross Sea about 370 miles (595 kilometers) north of the U.S. McMurdo Station Antarctic base.

The fire appears to have started in the living quarters of the 167-foot (51-meter) ship and spread quickly to the engine room and fish-processing plant, Roberts said. It raged out of control, with the crew's firefighting teams unable to halt its progress.

Handcuffs

My Guantánamo Nightmare

Inmates gather for prayers at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in October 2007.
© Todd Heisler/The New York TimesInmates gather for prayers at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in October 2007.
On Wednesday, America's detention camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for 10 years. For seven of them, I was held there without explanation or charge. During that time my daughters grew up without me. They were toddlers when I was imprisoned, and were never allowed to visit or speak to me by phone. Most of their letters were returned as "undeliverable," and the few that I received were so thoroughly and thoughtlessly censored that their messages of love and support were lost.

Some American politicians say that people at Guantánamo are terrorists, but I have never been a terrorist. Had I been brought before a court when I was seized, my children's lives would not have been torn apart, and my family would not have been thrown into poverty. It was only after the United States Supreme Court ordered the government to defend its actions before a federal judge that I was finally able to clear my name and be with them again.

I left Algeria in 1990 to work abroad. In 1997 my family and I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of my employer, the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. I served in the Sarajevo office as director of humanitarian aid for children who had lost relatives to violence during the Balkan conflicts. In 1998, I became a Bosnian citizen. We had a good life, but all of that changed after 9/11.

When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily - but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never - for a second - considered this.

Pistol

Polish Prosecutor Cuts Short News Conference, Shoots Self


A polish military prosecutor shot himself in the head today while news cameras were rolling. Col. Mikolaj Przybyl made a statement defending a military investigation into the plane crash that killed the Polish president in 2010, then calmly told reporters, "I want to ask you to leave for a minute. I need a break."

The journalists left the room and closed the door, but the cameras were still taping, and recorded the sound of a gun being cocked, then fired. Przybyl was just out of frame when he apparently pulled the trigger. His feet can be seen on the floor after the gunshot.

Pirates

Somali Pirates Hijack Iranian Ship in Gulf of Aden

Pirates in the Gulf of Aden have hijacked an Iranian ship carrying 30,000 tonnes of petrochemical products to a North African country, Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday.

Somali sea gangs have seized vessels and crews across the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, extracting millions of dollars in ransoms.

Mehr did not say where the information on the latest reported attack came from.

Separately on Tuesday, the Pentagon said American forces had rescued six Iranian mariners who said their ship was taking in water off the coast off Iraq.

The announcement came less than a week after U.S. naval forces rescued 13 Iranian fishermen who were taken hostage by pirates in the Arabian Sea for more than a month.

Pistol

US: Food Dispute Led to Ohio Murder-Suicide

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© Hocking County Sheriff's Office/The Associated PressPaul Gilkey (top left) shot and killed sister-in-laws Dorothy Cherry (top right) and Barbara Mohler (bottom right) and his son Leroy Gilkey (bottom left) before killing himself, the sheriff says.
A dispute over whether a terminally ill woman should have been given tea and toast or an orange apparently upset her husband so much that he shot and killed two of her sisters and his son before killing himself, a sheriff said Tuesday.

The sick woman, 59-year-old Darlene Gilkey, who's dying of cancer, witnessed the shootings from a hospital bed in her living room but was uninjured, Hocking County Sheriff Lanny North said.

The woman's son, Ralph Sowers III, told a 911 dispatcher he survived when his stepfather, Paul Gilkey, said he was sparing him because he had kids. Sowers said his stepfather repeatedly warned him to get out of the way before putting the gun above his head and shooting his brother, who was hiding behind him.

After the shootings Monday, Paul Gilkey, 63, stepped out onto his front porch, sat down in a chair and shot himself to death, the sheriff said.

Killed inside the home were Darlene Gilkey's sisters, Barbara Mohler, 70, of New Straitsville, and Dorothy Cherry, 63, of New Plymouth. Also killed was Paul Gilkey's son, Leroy Gilkey, 38, of Columbus.

Pistol

Thieves Pile Rocks into Containers to Hide Theft from Canadian Forces Containers

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© The Associated Press//Rafiq MaqboolIn this Saturday, July 16, 2011 file photo Canadians soldiers load baggage on the back of a truck at Kandahar airbase in Afghanistan. Canada withdrew 2,850 combat forces from Afghanistan this summer
A new report says Canadian military equipment has been stolen from containers being shipped back from Afghanistan and replaced by sand and rocks to mask the larceny.

CBC News says the elaborate theft of Canadian Forces materiel was discovered when the shipping containers were opened in Montreal.

The Department of National Defence is confirming that various military hardware and gear is missing while insisting that none of the breached containers were carrying weapons, munitions or uniforms.

A full investigation into the theft is underway.

Montreal company A.J. Maritime is responsible for shipping goods back to Canada following the shutdown of the Canadian base in Kandahar last November.

Cookie

British Celebrity Chef Apologizes After Being Caught Shoplifting Food

Antony Worrall Thompson
© unknownAntony Worrall Thompson
A celebrity chef apologized on his website Monday after he was caught shoplifting from a supermarket.

Antony Worrall Thompson was arrested Friday after reportedly stealing cheese and wine from a Tesco store in the posh riverside town of Henley-on-Thames, west of London.

A Thames Valley Police spokesman who asked not to be identified because of force policy said there had been five separate offences over the Christmas holidays, leading to an arrest Friday.

In a statement on his website, the 60-year-old Worrall Thompson, who has appeared on daytime cookery show Ready Steady Cook, said he was sorry for his misdeeds.

Question

US, California: What's in That OJ? Tropicana is Sued

Tropicana
© unknown
A California woman is suing the maker of Tropicana claiming it is squeezing consumers by touting the best-selling U.S. orange juice as "100% pure and natural" when it is not.

In her federal lawsuit, plaintiff Angelena Lewis said Tropicana Products Inc, knowing consumers "want and demand natural products," deceives them in its advertising and packaging for its Pure Premium juice, including cartons featuring an orange with a straw stuck into it.

Lewis said the unit of PepsiCo Inc actually puts the juice through extensive processing, adding aromas and flavors that change its "essential nature" and give it a longer shelf life.

This deception lets Tropicana charge more than rivals and helps fuel more than $5 billion of annual sales worldwide, according to Lewis, who lives in Vacaville, about 55 miles northeast of San Francisco.

"While Tropicana claims that 'making Tropicana orange juice is truly an art' it is far more a science," said the complaint filed on Friday in Sacramento, California. "The resulting product does not taste like fresh squeezed orange juice."

Bizarro Earth

Hundreds Threaten Suicide At Microsoft Supplier Plant In China

A Chinese worker
© STR/AFP/Getty ImagesA Chinese worker is seen walking through the dormitory area of a Foxconn factory in an industrial district of Foshan City, southern China’s Guangdong province on June 17, 2010.
Some 300 Chinese Foxconn employees who manufacture X-box 360 machines said they would throw themselves from their Wuhan, China, plant if demands for lost wages were not met.

China Jasmine Revolution, an activist revolutionary organization with a name borrowed from the Tunisian revolt that set off the Middle East unrest, reported that employees made their demands for a wage increase for 100 employees on Jan. 2.

Management at Foxconn - the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and a crucial link in the supply chains of Apple, Dell, Nintendo and Song - responded with an ultimatum. Employees could quit with one month's compensation awarded for each year with the plant or go back to working.

Many employees quit, but Foxconn allegedly dishonored the agreement and awarded former employees nothing.

Around 300 workers returned to the plant in an uproar, and staged their protest on the plant's roof on Jan. 3.

Clock

Best of the Web: Ready for Doomsday: Families Convinced Ancient Calendar Predicts the World Will End in 2012

Aztec Mayan calendar
© AlamyThe end? The Aztec Mayan calendar
Deep inside a secret room buried for eons within an ancient stone temple in Mexico, something dark and terrible has finally stirred.

Or so the doomsayers, with their vivid imaginations, would have you believe.

The sands of time are running out for the world and not even Indiana Jones can save us now.

The astrological alignments and numerological formulae cannot be wrong: on December 21 this year, the apocalypse foretold 5,125 years ago by the ancient Mayans will come to pass and the world will end.

Of course, it's fair to say predictions of Armageddon are two a penny.

Harold Camping, an American radio preacher, got thousands of followers worked up when he predicted the Second Coming of Jesus Christ on May 21 last year.

When that didn't happen, he said the world would end on October 21. And then he quietly retired from his radio show.

But the '2012 phenomenon' - as it is commonly known to its legions of internet followers - is different.

Comment: If more of these people who are worrying about the end of the world would give their attention, time and energy to current events, we wouldn't be facing the End of the World as we know it in political terms. But the same New Agers that are pushing this 2012 nonsense are also keeping people inactive with the "you create your own reality by what you think about" crap. They are aided and abetted by the Fundies who think Jesus will come and haul their buns out of the fire so they don't have to do anything either except maybe help the violence along by agitating for Armageddon. Meanwhile, the PTB are moving ahead with their plans for Total Domination and enslavement of humanity in social/political terms. So, yeah, the world we know is ending, but nobody's gonna ascend or go to heaven like they hope and believe and when the trap slams shut, they'll have no one but themselves to blame for being stupid and credulous.